#they have big goldies there sometimes but these ones struck something in me and i keep feeling so stressed about it

[skippygoldfish]

went back to petco today cuz there's things wrong with me. only 2 ryukin remain of the quarantine goldfish. i was told they'd been there about a week and their last round of treatment is next tuesday. so might stop by then and see if they're still there + how much they want for them since they got bad ammonia poisoning.

being personally opposed to buying fish from a store and supporting more to take their place, vs HIGH EMPATHY ATTACK. seeing them made me instantly love them and want to help them, plus i like ryukin. if they're highly discounted then I'll consider it ig. no fancies in need in my area anyway (only lots of commons, and some chunky ranchu far away that r just getting rehomed for space).

also I'm not gonna set up the stock tank til the weekend even tho i want to immediately right now so bad. I'm in GO mode but i must WAIT. stares intensely at it. and stares at Skippy my love forever.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

you know what i’m curious about? jason reacting to dick after red hood.

and by “after red hood,” i mean after he’s become a more of an anti-hero, teaming up with the bats when it fits his convenience, looking out for the underprivileged and lower class of gotham specifically, not turning to killing as his first thought but not shying away from it if required either.

and that’s roughly how the bats are pulling him back into their little universe: it’s not their first priority anymore now that jason’s established himself as someone who uses lethal violence but has still managed to gain the trust of gotham’s people, but they aren’t shying away from how they clearly want him back either. so jason isn’t plugged into the bat’s central mainframe, but oracle passes on knowledge whenever it’s deemed important. and tim made jason a couple of fake ids as an olive branch, he returned it with the keys to a safehouse he never uses but tim may find useful. steph doesn’t seem too terrified of him, cass doesn’t seem to hesitate talking to him. and bruce is awkward and fumbling and manages to completely screw up almost every interaction the two of them have, but goddamnit he’s trying, jason can see that bruce is really, really trying. so he backs off bruce’s neck, knowing that he won’t ever be accepted into the family again, knowing that bruce has made it clear he won’t ever see jason as his son again, but maybe he can establish himself as an ally. someone they don’t trust with their hearts, but they trust with their lives. 

(and jason’s okay with that. he really is.)

the one person that doesn’t sit right with jason is dick.

because the dick that jason remembered from his scattered, ash-blown mind was nothing like the dick he saw parading around the manor.

for one. he was in the manor. jason’s formative years as robin were filled with the most agonizing screams he could ever think of. his father’s drunken yells, the gang boys that busted up far too near jason’s dilapidated little home, the yowls and howls of a thousand voices in gotham city screaming in pain, all of that had nothing on what jason heard. because sure, he’d heard from the people bruce and dick took him to meet that dick was so kindhearted, so good, so passionate. and,,,,passionate certainly seemed to be a word for it. there was nothing more terrifying, thirteen-year-old jason decided, then the harrowing, angry screams of a sober man screaming at someone he loved. because bruce and dick loved each other. loved each other so much that love turned to hate, rolled around until it became black and blue like an ugly bruise, except dick decided to take that black and blue and smear it across his chest so the whole world could see his pain. 

now? now, dick smiled at bruce like a mischievous little boy, corrected his form during spars, pointed out things he missed in the field. and bruce,,,,,acquiesced. he rolled his eyes longsufferingly at dick’s antics when previously, a hint of that humor would have bruce sneering at dick’s childishness that he should have outgrown. bruce corrected his posture on the mat, then struck again calmly. bruce nodded his head at the correction, thanking dick for his insight with a glance and a nod, then carried on with the investigation. that easy trust the two of them fell back on, previously only seen during a combat situation when jason was robin where action was instinctive, was now present in almost every interaction the two of them had. seemingly overnight, bruce had learned to respect dick as an adult, and dick had grown around bruce’s paranoia and obsessiveness instead of rushing straight into it. 

for another thing. he wasn’t joking when he called dick the “golden child.” he’d joked when he was a kid, calling him every iteration of the nickname his team had given him, because in his mind it was ridiculous. over time, dick had warmed to him, though it had taken a while for the man to stop seeing robin every time he looked at jason and started seeing jason. the death and the resurrection and the impromptu swimming lesson in the world’s most dangerous indoor pool had mixed up jason’s memories, but he was slowly getting back flashes of a laugh, a hand on his shoulder. dick teaching him how to train surf, dick taking him out for ethiopian and scoffing at how americanized it was, dick stitching up a nasty gash on his calf. but those incidents were rare, few and far between, and dick knew it. the two of them knew dick wasn’t as perfect as the world made him out to be, and dick shot jason a rueful smile every time he called him “goldie,” because jason seemed to be one of the very few people in the world that got to see how imperfect dick really was. 

when jason was younger, he used to think that made him special.

now, jason couldn’t decide if dick had stopped thinking of him as one of the select few that actually saw dick grayson and not a picture-perfect mask he presented, or if dick had taken a dive in his own personal lazarus pit, only this time instead of anger issues and trauma, he got a fat ass and brilliant big brother skills. the guy managed to connect to cass on a level no one else could, the two of them using their bodies as a language few others could read. he coaxed laughs out of steph even though the two of them didn’t see each other that often. but the biggest change? timothy goddamn drake. his replacement, only you can’t replace a position that never existed in the first place, can you? to dick, jason was only ever a kid he babysat sometimes, someone whose hair he ruffled on occasion and bought hot chocolate for, but nothing more. dick tugged tim into hugs so naturally, jason almost believed they’d been doing it all their lives. dick’s teachings were evident in every fluid line of the kids arms twirling a staff, dick’s influence in his not-as-beautiful-and-smooth yet practiced acrobatics, dick’s mark on the kid showing up even in his ice cream order. tim was dick’s brother, someone that looked up to him with stars in his eyes, someone that dick actively strived to be perfect for. 

the stars in jason’s eyes had burnt up into a supernova of tears the first time he’d met dick, that tiny flame of hope snuffing out immediately as he curled under dick’s harsh gaze and spiteful words.

the thing is, people don’t just change like that. jason liked to convince himself that he’d become someone new, someone different once he came back to gotham, but he knew deep down he was that same scrappy, street-smart kid. jury was still out on whether that little kid had the same inky darkness drenching his soul that jason was covered with now, or if robin’s wholehearted goodness still shone through in the cracks of red hood’s armour. 

dick sure as hell hadn’t been the perfect big brother back then that he was now. he wasn’t the family mediator, translating bruce’s gregorian knot of emotions to something the others would understand. he wasn’t the calm, cool, collected crimefighter with a powerful name stretching out in front of him and the biggest legacy ever created behind him. 

dick was human. he screamed and raged cried and hated and made mistakes and broke like a dying star. this glossy, picture-perfect mask he seemed to have drilled to his face wouldn’t stay on forever. and jason wanted to be there when it cracked.

who even knows what the fuck this was. certainly not me. i was just having some robin!jason feels. 

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @screennamealreadyused @subtleappreciation @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @bikoncon @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @iwhumpyou 

[lettheladylead]

My heart kinda hurts not seeing goldie can we get a fic where goldie is in the last house? Also it gets a little spicy in the middle👀👄👀

(ok so this fic DEFINITELY got away from me. also there’s no spiciness) [ao3 link]

As the sleigh pulled up to what Webby excitedly referred to as “the last house!”, Scrooge couldn’t help but feel a faint familiarity. The snow was much too thick to really tell where they’d landed, but he could just make out a small wooden cabin a few hundred feet away.

He glanced left and right before looking up at Santa. “Someone lives here?”

The jolly bear chuckled and shrugged. “They’re living here tonight, at least.”

Webby and Scrooge shared a confused glance at that comment, but still - he had a job to do. Webby handed Scrooge the box that Santa handed her and Scrooge made his way towards the building.

Even as he got closer, the snow was still too thick for him to really get a look at the cabin, but it seemed very old and barely used. If he didn’t know any better, Scrooge would think Santa was trying to trick him by sending him to an empty home with nothing but a lesson in humility inside. But Scrooge held onto his hat with his free hand and smirked, thinking about how if there was a child in there, they’d be overjoyed to get some coal and some warmth in the middle of this freezing storm.

Scrooge shoved the door open as quietly as possible, hoping that the rush of cold air wouldn’t wake anyone up. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room in front of him, Scrooge froze.

This was his cabin.

Why in the world were they here? His brow furrowed and he looked all around him, taking in the memories of White Agony Creek and his first big gold nugget and Goldie and being King of the Klondike and -

His thoughts were cut off by a noise coming from the bedroom. There weren’t any lights on, but he was sure he heard something. Was he delivering a present to some straggler who’d taken claim of his cabin when they had nowhere else to go? Some homeless child with no one to turn to? A squatter that wouldn’t leave even if they could?

With an agitated inhale, Scrooge took a few quiet steps towards the door and slowly pushed it open - knowing just how to prevent any loud creaks or squeaks. No matter how many decades ago he lived in that cabin, he could never forget the small details.

His eyes had to adjust again - a little bit of light coming from the full moon outside the window gave him a better view than before - and Scrooge was caught by the most unexpected sight in front of him. In fact, if someone had told him he would see such a thing, he would’ve called them insane.

But instead...there was Goldie. Right there, laying on his old bed. Her back was to the door, she was bundled up in a bunch of blankets she’d clearly brought herself, and she had headphones on that - if his hearing was still working right - was playing some very old Christmas music.

And even with all of that in front of him, the thing that struck Scrooge the most was the neatly wrapped present sitting on the mattress next to her. It even had a little bow on top...and a tag that had his name in clear, bold letters.

In all the shock and awe of the magical image in front of him, Scrooge lost his grip of the present he’d brought and it fell to the floor with a loud thump! He jumped an inch, but Goldie practically leaped into the air while simultaneously trying to detangle herself from the blanket bundle and get her headphones off so she could figure out what was going on.

When they finally locked eyes, she had her headphone cord wrapped around her neck and through her hair, two of the blankets were still covering half her arms, and her hair was sticking up in every other direction.

He thought she looked absolutely beautiful and gave her a simple smile.

“S…” she started with a stutter that he didn’t expect. “...are...are you really here? Or am I hallucinating from the cold?”

Scrooge smiled even wider. “I’m here.”

“Ah.”

He thought she was going to continue her thought, but instead Goldie’s face just turned a bright red and she kicked her leg back, knocking the present off of the bed and out of Scrooge’s view. Then she stood up with a surprising amount of grace (all things considered), shimmied her way out of the blankets, and ripped the headphones off of herself and threw them behind her. She then started to retie her hair, flattening the top of it without saying a word.

“So…” Scrooge finally broke the silence, realizing she didn’t want to talk about what he just walked in on. “...what’re you doin’ here, Goldie?”

She was still tying her hair back into her favorite ponytail when he spoke, but his words made her lose concentration and her scrunchie slid down her hand - shooting off towards Scrooge like a rogue rubber band. He caught it with ease and closed his fist around it.

Goldie sighed and let her hair fall down along her back. “...just...celebrating Christmas. What else?”

He finally moved from his spot at the door and took one of her hands in his, gently placing the hair scrunchie back into her palm. “You celebrate Christmas here?”

She turned to him and stared down at the fabric in her hand. “...sometimes.”

“Why?” he asked quietly, leaning his face closer to hers.

Goldie still wasn’t looking at him. “...where else would I go?”

Scrooge lifted up a hand and placed it against her cheek. “How long have you been coming here? You could’ve told me. I...I would’ve -”

She shook her head and shoved him away from her. “It’s not-! I...I didn’t want you to be here! It’s just that I don’t have any family so it’s...it’s comfortable for me!”

He rolled his eyes at her obvious lying and took a moment before suddenly shoving her - with Goldie caught so off-guard, she fell back onto the bed with a loud oomf! and Scrooge crawled past her without any trouble. He ignored the creaking of his old bones as he grabbed the present she’d kicked off the bed before and quickly stood up and looked at it.

“Hey!” Goldie shouted, the deep blush on her cheeks growing darker by the minute. She followed him and tried to grab the gift out of his hands, but Scrooge held it high above his head so she couldn’t get to it. She practically growled as she tried to reach it and Scrooge responded by placing his free hand on the side of her face and pulling her in for a kiss.

Goldie quieted down immediately and melted into it, letting her hands rest on his shoulders.

Scrooge felt a small bit of sympathy for how embarrassed she was...very small. It wasn’t like she hadn’t teased him for his sentimentality a million times over the years, and he was going to enjoy this moment for decades and decades to come.

As soon as the kiss ended, Scrooge shoved her again - letting Goldie fall back onto the bed once more so he could focus on the present. This time she took the hint and stayed seated, huffing out a shaky breath and crossing her arms over her chest. She almost looked like she was going to leave right then and there.

He walked back to the mattress and took a seat next to her, still holding the wrapped box in his hand. It was small and there wasn’t much weight to it at all. He noticed her staring down at her lap and put the box down on the bed between them. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think she was tearing up.

“I won’t open it if it’d really bother you that much.”

Goldie let out a short, harsh chuckle and wiped the back of her hand against her eyes. Scrooge had seen her cry before - very few times, and it was usually followed by her walking out of the room - but this felt different somehow.

“...no,” Goldie finally said with a scoff. “You should.”

His curiosity got the better of him and Scrooge grabbed it again, quickly tugging off the bow and placing the ribbon beside him. He tore the paper neatly and lifted the lid of the box, raising an eyebrow in confusion when he saw what was inside.

He reached two fingers into the box and grabbed it, holding it in front of his face. “...a key?”

“Mmhmm,” Goldie hummed, staring at the object in his hand.

Scrooge frowned and continued inspecting it. It looked very old, and worn...it was an unusual shape and seemed to be made of brass. “A key to where?”

She shuffled around a bit and nervously tugged at some of her hair. Scrooge thought she looked adorable, but the shyness was definitely leaving him more confused.

“...to me.”

“To...you,” Scrooge repeated, not sure he heard right.

Goldie shrugged her shoulders and spun one of her hands around while she spoke. “Stick the key into any door and when you open it, it’ll lead to wherever I am. So if you need my help with something or you...just want to see me...or whatever. You don’t have to ever use it. But it’s yours if you want it.”

There was a tinge of pink on Scrooge’s own cheeks - though it didn’t compare to Goldie’s - and he looked down at the key again. “That’s...is this...one of the Lemurian Anomaly Keys?”

She nodded and hummed in confirmation.

“And you’re givin’ it to me? Just like that?” Scrooge sounded shocked, but he had the biggest smile on his face and was one hundred percent ready to kiss her again.

Goldie shrugged. “It only works with the matching key…” She pointed at a bag on the floor that Scrooge hadn’t noticed before. “...so it’s not much use just for me.”

He reached over and grabbed her face again, tugging her to him for another quick kiss. “Goldie, dear, when did you find this? It’s amazin’.”

She laid her forehead down on his shoulder and sighed. “...1977.”

Scrooge froze for a second before grabbing her shoulders and shoving her upright in front of him. “Did I hear you right? 1977? Why are you only just giving it to me now?”

“It’s...I just…” Goldie swatted his hands and turned around. “I...I don’t know, Scrooge. I just...I didn’t want to just give it to you. I wanted you to...come get it.”

“How could I come get it if I didn’t even know you were here?” Scrooge asked genuinely, feeling a little frustrated thinking of the number of times he could’ve used her gift to get out of sticky situations or bring her on adventures with him. “We havenae spent Christmas Eve together since 1897! I couldnae have…”

He stopped talking as she stood up and walked towards the window, hugging herself.

“...Goldie?”

“I knew you didn’t remember. I knew it and I still came here anyway,” Goldie spit out with a bitter, cold laugh. She turned around and glared at him, feeling an indignant heat in her chest. “You told me...you told me on December 18th, 1966 that you wanted to spend Christmas with me, in this cabin - just the two of us. That’s what you said to me!”

Scrooge gulped. She was right, he didn’t remember that.

She glared down at the floor. “And I was dumb enough to think you really meant it. So I came here.”

Guilt washed over him. “...you’ve been comin’ here every year since 1966?”

Goldie huffed and ground her teeth for a moment before reaching down and grabbing her bag from earlier and throwing it right at Scrooge’s head. “Yes, alright?! And I’ve felt like an idiot every Christmas for over fifty years and now you’ve made it even worse!”

He dodged the bag and let out a frustrated sigh, knowing the signs of an inconsolable Goldie and deciding that, for once, he was going to stay and see what he could do. As she was reaching around for another thing to throw at him, Scrooge took one of her blankets from earlier and attacked her with it - wrapping the thick fabric around her and holding it in place with a bear hug, then bringing her back down onto the bed with him.

She struggled against his arms, but Scrooge just held her in place and thought about ways to calm her down.

“Goldie, I’m sorry,” Scrooge said quietly, the apology feeling foreign on his tongue. “I didnae know! You never said anythin’! Even when you came to my Christmas party you didnae say anythin’…”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, blinking so rapidly it almost seemed like she was trying to stop herself from tearing up again.

“Cause I knew you weren’t serious about it!” she yelled out, her voice muffled by the blanket. “The only thing more humiliating than you finding out that I’d already spent twenty Christmases waiting up for you...is this nightmare I’m currently trapped in.”

Scrooge felt her struggling stop and loosened his grip around her. “Goldie…” He moved away, watching the blanket crumple around her as she laid back down on her back and splayed her arms around herself. “...I’m here now. Isn’t that worth somethin’?”

She scoffed again. “Not particularly.”

He leaned down and hovered over her, his beak not even an inch away from her’s. “I’d like to make it worth somethin’...” he whispered as he leaned down to kiss her again.

Before he could, however, Goldie shoved him back again. “Wait...why are you here?” she finally asked.

Scrooge frowned and leaned back so he was sitting upright again. “I, uh...Claus recruited me to help deliver presents.”

The attention coming off of her shame brought Goldie back to life a bit and she sat back up to stare at him. “Excuse me? Claus, like...Santa Claus? Your so-called nemesis?”

“The one and the same.”

“...wait, but there’s no one here on the Nice List,” Goldie said with a smirk and a sniff. “So why’d you come here?”

“To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure,” Scrooge said with a frown, hoping that wouldn’t upset Goldie even more than she already was. “I suppose Claus thought it’d be a good idea to meddle in my affairs. But he told me to bring the last gift in here, so I did.”

Goldie didn’t react to his confession, seemingly over it already, and looked over towards the door. “Is that my gift?” she asked, pointing at the sad-looking box laying on the ground.

Scrooge followed her line of sight and smiled sheepishly. “Y-yes, well...it’s not exactly…”

She hopped over the bed and quickly grabbed it, tearing off the bow and paper without hesitation and ripping off the lid, leaving a mess of paper all over the room. Scrooge had an unshakeable urge to clean up the mess before remembering that he didn’t live there anymore.

Goldie pulled the small chunk of coal out of her box and stared at it for a second before letting out another laugh - this time it was more genuine and less terrifying. “Yeah, of course. This makes sense.”

Scrooge rubbed the back of his neck. “I, um...that may not be the present he meant for me to give you.”

She looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. “What do you mean? Did you swap out all the real gifts for coal so you could prove some dumb point about heat being better than toys?”

“Um…” Scrooge tapped his fingers against the cold blanket on his lap. “...yes?”

“Of course you did,” Goldie said with a sigh, dropping the coal back into the box. She took a moment to let out one last short, breathy laugh and then turned to the duck in front of her. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

Scrooge scoffed and held his new key up in front of him. “And yet, you want me to come see you anytime and anywhere, hm?”

Goldie didn’t respond for a few moments as she walked back over to the bed, taking a seat next to him again. “...yeah, I guess I do.”

Overwhelmed with happiness, Scrooge placed a hand under her beak and tugged her face upwards so they could lock eyes once again. Goldie responded in kind, leaning forward to kiss him and quickly wrapping her arms around his neck.

They stayed like that for a minute, just enjoying one another’s company, when Goldie finally pulled away and patted him on the cheek. “So...if this was your last stop, any chance you’d stay the night?”

He smiled and put one of his hands on top of hers. “Eh...Claus and Webbigail have probably figured out my coal plan by now...I should go take care of that.”

“Hmm…” Goldie hummed, thinking about kissing him again. “Come back when you’re done?”

Scrooge thought about that for a moment before reaching down with both hands and lifting her into his arms, bridal-style. Goldie squeaked and squeezed his shoulders. “I think it’d make more sense for you to just come with us!”

Goldie laughed. “You’re going to hurt yourself, hun.”

“Oh, I know.” Scrooge’s back cracked as he turned them around and took a step away from the bed. “But it’s worth it.”

His arms started to shake a bit and Goldie forced him to put her down, smiling as he struggled. She looked from the bed to her bag and back to Scrooge’s eager face.

“...alright,” Goldie answered finally. “But don’t expect me to stay for breakfast, I am not dealing with a bunch of excited kids that early in the morning.”

Scrooge kissed her again and squeezed her hand. “And I’d never expect you to.”

[cyberaxolotl]

Tricks Over Treats

two versions woo hee

and then the writing piece to go along with it

“An Alternate Desire”

For an all popular DJ, he had a lot more to know about him than what was known to the public, some of which stayed shrouded in mystery to even his boyfriend and closest friends. One of the things he did make very clear to anyone who saw him around that time of year was that he was a HUGE fan of Halloween. Spooky jack-o-lanterns, sweets, costumes, he still thoroughly enjoyed it, even as an adult. He loved remixing classic Halloween tunes to add a more techno vibe to them, and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. And finally, he loved the scares; he was willing to be a bit sick around that time of year with his jokes, as anything scary was widely accepted and usually expected.

Especially not now, when there’s a Halloween party for all the musicians in Rhythm Heaven to attend, as well as any plus 1’s they might wish to have with them. Hosted by the rap men (obviously) and having as many different types of music as you could think of playing one after the other in the main hall, it was going to be a great party to have a good laugh. And for everyone to see any friends they had made since the Battle Of The Bands.

DJ Yellow, of course, had Blue with him. While his boyfriend wasn’t the biggest fan of that scary time of year, he still enjoyed talking to some of the others and seeing them all happy.

“I need to put my costume on in the car, but I’ll be inside in just a moment!” DJ Yellow said, nudging his partner while they were in the entrance hall.

“…Why didn’t you just put it on while we were at the apartment?” Blue asked, turning around. His costume itself was rather plain, he was just dressed as a vampire with a little bit of fake blood on his chin, but he was perfectly happy with that. It was one of the few times of year when he’d go out with his dreadlocks down, too.

“Cause! I wanted it to be a surprise for you too!” Deej gave a quick finger gun, before slipping out the door. His boyfriend sighed, feeling only mildly inconvenienced that he’d need to be alone at a party for a few minutes, and moreover very anxious. He never was one for direct social interaction.

As he walked into the main hall, he was immediately addressed. “Heeey, Blue!” A happy sounding, higher pitched voice called out to him, and he immediately knew who it was. “Where’s Yellow?” B.B. Rocker asked him, standing shorter than him and only around his chest height.

“Yellow’s in the car putting his costume on. Chances are, he just forgot to put it on at home.” He replied, looking down at his friend. They wore a costume that was… on the stranger side, but not out of character for them. It was an orange-white tabby cat suit with a denim dress put on over it, a pair of matching cat ears sitting in their ginger hair. They looked rather cute, if Blue’s bisexual ass could say so himself.

“Ah, so did J.J. He’s getting changed in the bathroom.” They turned away, looking down another hallway in the back of that room.

Blue sighed. “Oh boy…”

“What?”

“J.J.’s here, Yellow’s gonna be here soon. Chances are sometime in the night that is not going to end well.” He folded his arms, glancing away. There were certainly a lot of people there, like MC Adore and her love posse all in matching costumes, the Pop Singer Yui in a cutesy zombie outfit, and apparently even the rap women had managed to slip in, as Rosebud and Sapphie were happily talking to a trio of ghosts. What stood out to him, though, was the fact that the rap men were nowhere to be seen. If they were hosting that gig, they should’ve either been in the entrance hall greeting people, or in the main hall talking.

“Oh, you’re right. Guess we’ll just have to hope they don’t directly cross paths and say something shitty to each other, huh?” B.B. sighed as well, holding the back of their neck.

“You know it’s more likely for J.J. to say something shitty than for Yellow to. Yellow’s not an asshole, he’s just a…” Blue went quiet as he lost his words.

“…A snarky asshole?”

“That.” He motioned in confirmation to them. He looked back over at the rap women, noticing that the Big Rock Finish ghosts were leaving. “I’m gonna go ask the rap women where their brothers are, if Yellow comes in, tell him I’ll be right back.”

“Alrighty!” With that, he walked away, leaving B.B. by the entrance.

As he got closer to the snack table, he was able to tell what Rosebud and Sapphie were wearing as costumes. They were matching, as expected from the two of them, and had gone for a western theme. Rosebud was dressed as a saloon dancer, a crimson skirt falling to the back of her ankles and a corset tied around her waist. It also seemed that she had taken the opportunity to wear something only a bit more revealing than her usual outfits. Sapphie was dressed as a cowgirl, hiding her eyes in the shadow of a ten gallon hat, and wearing open bottom pants. The two certainly matched, but had their own ways of doing it, the mutual color palette between their costumes tying it together.

“Excuse me, girls?” He asked, and the two turned over to face him.

“Oh, hi Blue.” Sapphie humbly waved at him, smiling. “Do you need something?”

“I don’t, but I want to ask- where are your brothers?” The two ladies' expressions tensed.

“Jasper and Goldie? Uh…” Rosebud’s eyebrows furrowed. “…I don’t know, actually. Sapphire?” She looked up at her girlfriend.

The taller woman shrugged. “I haven’t seen either of them since they left the recording studio, but they’re probably somewhere around here. Sorry, Blue.”

“Hm.” Blue looked skeptical, glancing behind him. “Alright then. I need to go back to B.B., you two have fun.” He turned around, his dreadlocks nearly whipping him in the face.

“Bye-bye!” Rosebud said as he walked away.

When he got back over to his rock student friend, they looked confused. “Is something wrong, B.B?” He asked, and they turned to him.

“No, no, nothing. Just… JJ is taking an awful long while to put his costume on. He went in just before you arrived.” They put a hand behind their head, “We’re supposed to be a cat and a dog, so he might be struggling with the suit or something.”

“Now that you mention it, if Yellow is taking this long to put it on, then he really should’ve put it on at the apartment-“

As if on cue, the door opened, and DJ Yellow slid in overdramatically. Since nobody noticed him except BB and Blue, he got up in one quick motion, turning over to them. “Hey guys!” He said happily, walking over. His costume was made of… really dark colors, something completely out of character for him. It was all black with a dark red cape that made his neck completely covered, looking completely out of place while paired with his unaltered hair and headphones. For reasons neither of them could decipher, he also carried a lit jack-o-lantern.

“Hey Yellow..?” BB raised an eyebrow, giving a short wave.

“…” Blue spent several seconds trying to decipher what his lover was wearing, before sighing. “Yellow, what are you supposed to be?”

The DJ walked over and leaned against his taller counterpart’s arm as though he was trying to lean against his shoulder but was just too short to do so. “A surprise.”

“That’s what you said when you were putting ON the costume.” The sarcastic remark made Yellow chuckle.

“Yes, but what I’m gonna do in this costume is also a surprise.”

“Just tell us what the costume is, Deej!” The rockstar leaned in, and mysterious refusal after cryptic refusal soon descended into laughter and casual conversation. It was rare for Yellow to oblige to interact with BB, but Blue was glad that they could get along on a night like that.

But… he still couldn’t downplay it.

Something was wrong.

Or off.

Yellow didn’t sound like himself, nor did his mouth follow his words. His mouth had a delay compared to his words, as though his head and his voice box were working as two separate parts rather than as the same body. His voice sounded less like his smug and casual self was talking and more like some kind of modulation, as though a robot with his voice was reading from a script and trying to sound like a person.

Blue chalked it up to one of two things. One idea was that the tragedy striking Heaven World had hailed itself down to Earth World and struck the man right before him- they were called Alternates, and they took the places of people, making themselves look completely like them- except they had the ability to do things that were biologically impossible, like rip their head off and live, or be engulfed in flames and come out without a scar. Both of those things were examples that Heaven World had given out across the entire land, as they were things they had tried to do to kill Alternates. So far, though, the only way discovered to kill an Alternate was to stab it in the third eye, which appeared somewhere on the body and was usually a spot like the arm, neck, or leg.

What Alternates did with people was unknown, but all that was figured out was the disappearances of many, many real people, and the replacement and spreading of fake versions.

DJ Yellow was either an alternate… or pulling a sick joke and pretending to be one. It wasn’t far fetched to expect him to pull a downright awful joke like that at a Halloween party, so Blue shrugged it off like nothing, knowing that he was probably the only one at that party who paid attention to news from Heaven World. Considering that the DJ hadn’t started acting weird like that until they HAD reached the party, it seemed more logical than just immediately assuming the person before him was fake.

A few hours passed. Music played, fatty and sweet food was eaten, and musicians and their plus 1’s spoke to one another. Only a few minutes after their conversation had happened, the rap men entered the main hall from the back, dressed in matching costumes that looked like zombies. It depended on the person whether or not watching them question how the fuck their sisters had gotten in was entertaining or not, but the girls weren’t kicked out either way.

Everything seemed to be pulling together finely, until…

JJ and Yellow hadn’t seen each other at all that night, until at one point, the DJ was asked to get an alcoholic drink from the kitchen. The alcohol wasn’t out freely at the snack tables, just to make sure nobody accidentally drank liquor or beer over dyed punch, so people would usually ask their partner to get a drink for them from the back.

JJ was returning from the back hall just as Yellow was descending down it, and it seemed the rockstar couldn’t resist a small remark. “And what are you supposed to be?” He said as the two were about to cross paths.

DJ Yellow stopped in his place, a cocky smirk on his face. “The headless horseman, obviously.” He held up the jack-o-lantern, holding it in front of his head.

“You have a head, DJ.” The other musician glared, raising an eyebrow.

There was a sudden tension in the air as the two realized they were alone in that hallway, and the door to the main hall was completely shut. “You think so?” Yellow turned his head and raised an eyebrow. Before JJ could even say anything-

He thrust the jack-o-lantern backwards.

It slammed into his head and he fell backwards, the lit candle squishing against his face and setting his hair on fire, hot wax falling onto his skin. JJ was stunned silent as he watched DJ Yellow’s body stand up without his head, leaving the smoldering wax and flesh on the floor. “Isn’t this a funny costume, JJ?” All of the remnants of his original voice were replaced by the whispering, fake voice of an alternate person.

“Wh- wha- what the fuck-?!” The rockstar couldn’t scream, he could only let out hushed curses. What he saw didn’t feel real in the slightest. As the other man stood up, he could see that the place where his head and his neck had separated held no arteries or bones, but only one bloodshot yellow eye. Blood leaked down his neck as his head smoldered in flames, melting as though it in itself was made of wax.

DJ Yellow stood back up. He turned around and picked up the pile of wax, human flesh, and pumpkin flesh, shaping it back together with his hands. “The look on your face- I don’t think I’ve ever been more entertained!” He laughed, “You’d never believe how long I’ve been waiting to pull that trick. I love being in the body of someone who finds jokes funny!” With that, he put his head back on his neck, tying his cape carefully so that the blood of his neck was veiled.

He walked right up to the rockstar’s face, leaning close.

“Be lucky this isn’t Heaven World.”

so yeah there’s your “yellow becomes a fucking cryptid” writing piece lmao

[eveningcatcher]

Julian/Lucio when MC has the same fashion taste as them

Julian

MC was walking in the red market, looking for some potions. The merchants didn't give them much attention, they would just tell MC off, continuing with their day. It seemed that wherever they looked, they just couldn't find what they looked for. As they moved, trying to get through a crowd, they noticed a familiar merchant, with a stool filled with herbs, potions and whatnot. They went up to him, asking whether or not he had any of the potions.

"But you had the potion last week," MC said, disappointed.

"Sorry buddy," the merchant said, "It sold way too quickly."

"Then, can I at least get the ingredients for it?" MC asked, persistent.

At their words, he chuckled, "Look kiddo, I can give you the ingredients, but making that potion drains a lot of energy," he started explaining as he played with a silver knife, "That's why it's so rare."

"I don't care," MC said, getting annoyed, "Just give me the ingredients," they said, dropping a pouch filled with coins in front of him.

Merchant shut his mouth at the sight of the pouch, quickly going over all of the herbs and powders that were needed for making the potion, trying his best to calculate the amount he should give them for all of the money's worth.

MC happily took the ingredients, putting them all in their bag. Just before they were to leave the red market, they noticed a tall figure wearing the same coat as them.

"Looking good," MC said, snickering.

At that comment the guy turned, noticing what MC meant, then added, with a smile, "You look better, though."

"Really now," MC said, laughing, as they looked at the man a bit better.

'He's kinda cute' they thought.

"Yes, really," he took a glance at MC's clothes, adding, "Say, where did you get that shirt?"

"I sewed it," MC admitted, a bit embarrassed.

"You sewed it?" Julian asked, surprised, touching the fabric, "No way! It looks like it was made in Nevivon! I knew a pirate who had a similar one."

"A pirate?" MC asked, interested, "How would you know a pirate?"

"It's a long story that's best to be told with a round of salty bitters," h said, chuckling, "What do you say? I'll pay."

"Count me in," MC said as they followed him to the Rowdy Raven.

They spent the time listening to many stories, both from his childhood and from his pirate days. Overall, MC had a great time.

"I used to have a pet goldfish named Goldie," he started another story, "Once it accidentally ate a whole gold coin!"

"No way," MC said in disbelief, "How big was that goldfish?"

Julian finished his 5th glass of salty bitters, then continued, "As big as my palm," he explained, raising his hand, "Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, it swallowed the whole gold coin."

MC listened carefully, chugging down their 3rd glass of alcohol, "Then what happened?"

"At first, I was so worried, then," he leaned towards MC, excited to continue his story, "After 7 whole days it gave birth to two gold coins!"

"What?" MC burst into laughter, "It gave birth to coins?"

He laughed along with MC, "I know, I couldn't believe my eyes!" he stopped laughing, brushing off a tear from his eye, "However, right after she gave birth, she died," he said, dramatically covering his eyes, pretending to cry.

"May she rest in peace!" MC shouted, a bit drunk.

"She'll be in our hearts," he said as he put salty bitters away from MC.

"Guess I should go home," they tried their best to stand up and go, however, it seemed that even standing on their two legs proved to be a difficult task.

"Let me help you," he stood up as well, taking MC's hand and bag, "I'll carry it for you."

"Thanks."

"So, where do you live?" he asked, opening the door for MC.

"I live..." they thought for a moment, "I... can't remember," they raised their head, looking at him, "Do you know?"

"Um, no," he responded quickly, trying to think what he'll do. After a moment, he decided that taking MC to his home was the best idea.

"My place is not that far-" before he could finish his thought, MC fainted.

~*~

It was a rainy morning, making MC enjoy their slumber even more. Their head hurt and the only thing they needed right now is sleep. They shifted in the bedsheets, trying to find their favourite, fluffiest pillow. However, it just seemed that the pillow was nowhere to be found. They brushed the thought off, thinking it must have fallen on the floor. They rolled to the side, looking at the floor. The pillow was nowhere in sight.

'Wait a minute,' they thought as they got out of bed, 'Where am I?'

They looked at their surroundings, realizing they're not at home. What happened last night? Their memory is hazy, but they remember a ginger guy talking about something. Then, the realization struck them - they're in his home! They walked out of the room they were sleeping in, trying to find him.

"Oh, you woke up," he smiled, "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, but I can't remember what happened yesterday," MC said, frowning, "I remember we had a drink-"

"If only it was one drink," he joked, then started explaining, "When we left Rowdy Raven I asked you where you lived, but you couldn't remember, so I decided to bring you to my place," he stopped for a moment, trying to think if he forgot something, "Also, you fainted on the way."

MC blushed at the thought of him carrying them, "Thank you, I owe you one. Say, how about we get a drink sometime, I'll pay."

"Sure," he gave them a pat on the back, "Just-"

"I know, I know. I won't get drunk this time," they laughed, then stopped midway.

"What's wrong?" he asked worried, "Are you feeling bad? Do you want to throw up?"

"No, no," they reassured him, "Other than a headache, I'm fine. It's just that I," they stopped for a moment, trying to not sound rude, "I kinda forgot your name."

He thought for a moment, trying to remember their name. When he couldn't, he chuckled awkwardly, "Guess we never introduced each other, I'm Julian, and you are?"

"MC," they smiled, "Pleasure to meet you."

Lucio

It was another one of Lucio's birthday parties and he decided to dress a bit extra for the occasion. A new tailor opened her shop in Vesuvia and so Lucio decided to get his new outfit from her. Now, as he put on the clothes, he realised that this won't be the only outfit she'll make for him. The gold was so well combined with the finest red and white silks, making it a masterpiece for such a cheap price.

He would have taken more time to admire the suit, however, the loud chatter could be heard on the other side. People have already started flooding in. Knowing damn well he looks amazing, at least to his tastes, he walked out, right into the group of people, starting little chatters, talking about his journeys during war and whatnot. The night was going splendidly until Lucio heard some strange comments. It wasn't odd that they complimented the suit in red and white, accompanied by a ridiculous amount of gold, the problem is that those compliments weren't meant for him. His eyes went over every person in the crowd until they saw them. They stood out of the crowd, wearing a ridiculous amount of gold on their shirt, suit, pants,shoes.

Lucio stared at them in disbelief. How is it possible? How could anyone wear more gold than him?!? Their eyes met and Lucio couldn't seem to be able to hide his frustration. The person only gave him a smug smile, going somewhere else, enjoying the party to the fullest.

Lucio spent the rest of the party salty, not able to even enjoy the dance. Once all of the guests left, he stopped hiding his anger, trying to think about how he could give it back to them. Then, he remembered, he'll hold another party next week! That is the perfect opportunity to show off. It seemed that he immediately forgot the embarrassment he felt today, preparing to look as extravagant as possible.

The week flew by and it was time for another party. Ignoring Valerius' comments on how this isn't the best idea, the Count ordered another suit, this time with expensive white fur with traces of gold at the end of each hair. Of course, that was not the only place where gold could be seen, no no, he learned from his mistakes. This time, you could barely see red fabrics from the golden brooches and jewellery.

They walked into the crowd, feeling better than ever, ignoring the rude comments about how this is too much gold for any sane person to wear. It didn't take him long before he noticed the same person from the last party, wearing just as much, if not even more gold than before. Their eyes met and this time, the person decided to confront Lucio.

"Good evening, Count," they bowed, "I must admit it, you look even better today than last week," they mocked him, plastering a smile on their face.

He saw through their facade, giving them the same treatment, "Why thank you, I must admit it that your costume is quite remarkable as well," he continued, with the same sarcastic tone, "But, I have one note," he said, holding a piece of their costume with his metal arm, "Don't you think that this is a ridiculously small amount of gold?"

"Excuse me," they asked him, confused.

"I mean," he continued, feeling his confidence boost up, "When I saw you last week, you had more gold, so," he shrugged, raising his left brow as he looked to the side, " You know, I expected more this time."

He left after that, going to take some champagne, enjoying the night, knowing that his outfit was better than theirs. However, this childish battle between the two of them didn't stop there. It took them many, many parties throughout the rest of the year until they calmed down. During that time, a lot of money was wasted on the ridiculously expensive suits that in the end had so much gold that both of them got tired of. It was only on another Lucio's birthday party that they reconciled.

"Look, let's just stop with this," they walked on Lucio's birthday party to him, "I hate to say it out loud, but I just can't afford another golden costume."

"As much as I hate to admit it," he started, looking to the side, remembering Valerius' remarks on how the price of one outfit could feed 13 people for a month, "I can't afford more, neither," he looked at his costume, frowning, "It's not even that good!"

To that comment, they only nodded, taking some of the brooches off their outfit, "I think I've seen enough gold for my entire life."

"No you didn't," Lucio cut them off, "Nobody can just get bored with gold."

"True," they added, "But I don't think I'll wear anything with gold any time soon," they sighed, looking back at the count, "Say, wanna dance?" they offered him their hand with a smirk.

He took their hand, putting their metal hand over their shoulder, giving them the most idiotic smile, "You know I want to," he slowly led them at the centre stage, leaning down until his nose could barely brush their ear, whispering: "I can dance better than you."

They jerked their head away from him, quickly adding: "No, you can't."

He gave them a toothy grin, pulling them closer, "We'll see."

[chiseler]

JEAN HARLOW: Bombshell

Her mother Mama Jean called her “The Baby” during her short life, and Jean Harlow did exhibit a babyish sense of delight when she smiled in her films and in stills, but the men who looked at her on the movie screen saw not a baby but a babe that they wanted in their arms. She was the successor to Clara Bow and a kind of bridge to Marilyn Monroe, and she was more good fun than both of them combined. Very few film stars made such an impression in such a brief time as Harlow, or grew as a performer so quickly.

Notoriously, Harlow didn’t wear underwear, and when James Cagney asked her on the set of The Public Enemy (1931) how she kept her breasts up and at ‘em, she good-naturedly replied, “I ice ‘em!” Harlow had hair so bleached blond that it was nearly white, and her legs were Dietrich-level beautiful and shapely. When she died unexpectedly at age 26, rumors ran rampant and ugly about why and how this had happened to her, culminating in the 1960s with a nasty and inaccurate biography by Irving Schulman and two equally inaccurate movie biopics, one with Carroll Baker and one with Carol Lynley. Thankfully, David Stenn’s biography of Harlow in the early 1990s set the record straight just as Stenn’s 1989 Clara Bow book gave the It Girl a fair shake.

Harlow was born Harlean Carpenter in 1911, and she married at 16 to a society boy, but she worked for a while as an extra at star-struck Mama Jean’s urging, getting her skirt caught in the door of a car and walking away with her black underwear showing in Double Whoopee (1928), a Laurel and Hardy short where childlike Ollie seems genuinely hot and bothered by this cotton candy blond looker. She posed for beautiful semi-nude shots for Edwin Bower Hesser in Griffith Park with her body covered only by a wet piece of fabric, showing off her curves for him with joy and abandon, but Harlow was still stiff in front of a moving picture camera. Bit parts proliferated, including one with Bow in The Saturday Night Kid (1929), where Harlow had one line of dialogue that she delivered in an amateurish way as she looked at her watch.

Harlow fell under contract to breast-obsessed Howard Hughes, who put her in his aerial epic Hell’s Angels (1930) as sexpot relief. He had a party scene shot in two-strip Technicolor in order to show off the pearly beauty of his new star’s skin, her breasts barely covered by her backless dress, and though Harlow delivers dialogue in a very stilted way in Hell’s Angels, she already had a way of looking at men that was unmistakably carnal.

“Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?” she asks Ben Lyon in Hell’s Angels, taking joy and pride in the way she makes his temperature rise. The distinctive thing about Harlow is her total lack of shame about sex on screen, her sheer anticipatory enjoyment of it as an idea, and an ideal of pleasure, a force that totally loosens her up. Harlow’s relation to sex in her movies makes Bow seem slightly jittery and insecure about it in comparison, and makes Monroe look like a sexual basket case.

“I want to be free, I want to be gay and have fun!” Harlow says in Hell’s Angels, leaning back happily on a couch to be admired. “Life’s short, and I want to live while I’m alive.” No bra, no panties, no problem! Her smile is so open, so inviting, as if to say, “Come on, let’s enjoy ourselves,” and she wants to take that enjoyment to the limit, and beyond that limit. Harlow in Hell’s Angels is the kind of person who will make out with you in a bar and won’t care how many people are watching. In fact, she obviously gets a kick out of being watched, in the bar on screen and from the dark of the movie theater, because that attention adds to her pleasure.

Luscious and so gracefully knowing, with her fantasy hair and her freely moving and nearly exposed body, Harlow tries to sound ritzy and classy in her first few talkies but she has a nasal, funny voice that keeps betraying her sense of humor. Hughes loaned her out and kept her working, paying her little and pocketing the rest of her salaries. Expected to play disparate roles in her 1931 movies, Harlow became mainly chastened and inhibited, though she has a brief moment of connected wisecracking with Clark Gable in The Secret Six.

Harlow is embarrassing in The Public Enemy with Cagney, descending to an Ed Wood level of wooden dialogue delivery, and she tentatively played Louise Brooks’s part in a remake of A Girl in Every Port (1928) that was renamed Goldie for her hair. “Men don’t marry carnival girls,” she earnestly tells Warren Hymer in that movie. “They think we’re all bad.” Harlow had trouble seeming like a manipulative society girl in Frank Capra’s Platinum Blonde, even though she had moved in society circles herself during her first marriage. She knew she wasn’t cutting it as an actress and even told her agent that she would try to get work in a department store if her acting didn’t improve soon.

MGM producer Paul Bern, who had been instrumental in shaping many careers for women at his studio, got Harlow a very good part in The Beast of the City (1932), and she’s much improved in that due to the gentle Bern’s coaching, closer to the magnetic tough-girl style of her star period (seen in a line-up, she gives a raspberry to the cops who are grilling her). When a tough guy grabs her hard and she says it hurts her, he asks, “You don’t like to be hurt, do you?” She looks at him steadily and says, in her “ritzy” voice, “Oh, I don’t know…it’s kinda fun sometimes if it’s done in the right spirit.” Harlow on screen knows or senses that sex is partly theater, and theater is best, or “kinda fun,” when it’s boldly rough and dramatized in terms of fluctuating power dynamics.

Harlow keeps her hands on her hips and does one helluva seductive dance for a copper in The Beast of the City, filling her undulations with that distinctive “sex is fun!” spirit she had, rubbing her hands down her gyrating body and fluffing her hair. She harnessed all of her sexual energy and put it on screen without any inhibitions, and it still makes for a hackle-raising spectacle. “Are you gonna try and reform me?” she asks the copper breathlessly, after they kiss.

Bern convinced her to go titian for Red-Headed Woman (1932), where we see her hair being dyed in the first scene. “So gentlemen prefer blondes, do they?” she asks, in that pinched voice, before looking at herself in the mirror. “Yes they do,” she drawls, smiling and giving a pure 1930s sock-it-to-‘em nod. “Can you see through this?” she asks a saleswoman, striking a pose against a window in a new dress. “I’m afraid you can, miss,” the prim saleswoman informs her. “I’ll wear it,” Harlow cheerfully replies.

Her ruthless and hotheaded Lil goes through five men in Red-Headed Woman, and Harlow gets away with it because she is so funny and so good-humored about her man-eating. Bern told her that if she made the part funny that the audience would forgive her anything, and he was right about that. And she gets away with a lot in this movie. When Chester Morris smacks her, Harlow lets out a growly little noise of excitement and approval and says, “Do it again, I like it! Do it again!” and then kisses him, which goes shockingly further with her “kinda fun” rough sex formulation from The Beast of the City. Her growl of S&M excitement is not to be forgotten once heard, once she has let it out of its box, so to speak.

There is no part of sex or the sexual instinct that Harlow doesn’t openly enjoy on screen, and that’s what made her such a radical presence in the early 1930s, and that sexual radicalism hasn’t dated; it would still cause an uproar today if done in the swaggering way she does it in Red-Headed Woman. And she is not made to be redeemed or reformed or even punished at the end of that movie, where her designing woman winds up with a rich older protector and still gets to keep her handsome chauffeur lover (a young Charles Boyer). Screenwriter Anita Loos gives Red-Headed Woman the essentially French and Colette-like morality and frankness that went into her classic novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and you can see why moralists in America at the time were outraged and alarmed by Lil, who is a truly amoral, even homicidal wretch but so filled with Harlow’s saucy pep that she still winds up being somehow attractive.

Yet this brazen woman on screen was living with her mother off screen, obediently following Mama Jean’s wishes. (Mama Jean had wanted to be an actress herself, and she lived vicariously through Harlow’s success.) Compliant in some ways but also rebellious, Mama Jean’s “Baby” got into big trouble off the set. Harlow married the gentlemanly Bern, and shortly after that marriage Bern shot himself, leaving behind a cryptic suicide note. Their marriage had not been consummated, and Bern had in his past a mentally unstable common law wife named Dorothy Millette, a woman who was still obsessively attached to him. Millette confronted Harlow and Bern one night, and whatever transpired between them led to his suicide. Millette killed herself a few days after his death. This was a rare mess, and it was feared that it might ruin Harlow’s career.

She was midway through shooting Red Dust (1932) with Clark Gable at that point, and she returned to work under duress. To the studio’s surprise, public sympathy was on her side during the Bern suicide scandal, and it helped that she was at her very best in Red Dust, with all her sexuality and humor at her command but a new shading of vulnerability, too, just enough to make her irresistible to just about everyone. Look at the pained way she stares after Clark Gable and Mary Astor as he carries Astor out of a storm, which reveals the strength of her feelings for him underneath all the other slangy “I like it!” sexual fun she still offered us. This scene proved that Harlow’s on screen persona could handle a show of hurt feelings, and it also showed that she could be appealingly stoic about them, too, and toughly gallant and magnanimous. In the scene where she good-naturedly pours a drink for her love rival Astor and gives her a little advice, Harlow is one of the most appealing of all American screen women.

Red Dust was perhaps Harlow’s zenith, but she advanced even further in three more films the following year. She turned to rat-a-tat-tat verbal comedy in the very knowing, often scathing Bombshell as movie star Lola Burns, who is “born for men,” according to salacious studio advertising, but mainly born, it seems, to support a family and retinue, just as Harlow herself was. “You’re a boon to re-population in a world thinned out by war and famine!” cries Lee Tracy’s publicity man, and that’s certainly one way of looking at it.

Role and star get deliberately confused in Bombshell, for Lola is called back to shoot retakes of Gable catching her nude in a rain barrel in Red Dust, as if she and Harlow were the same person. “You can get another ‘It’ girl or ‘But’ girl or a ‘how, when and where’ girl, I’m moving out!” Harlow’s Lola cries toward the end, saying that she wants to retire to domestic life, but Bombshell knows that some people are just more charismatic than others, and some women would be imprisoned by the threat of home and babies. Harlow was certainly one of those women, at least on screen.

Cleverly, shortly after filming, Harlow married her much older cameraman, Harold Rossen, who did much to shape her visual image (Mama Jean put the kibosh on that one after only eight months). And then, for director George Cukor, who egged her on to just the right degree, she was Kitty Packard, a gutsy trophy wife putting Wallace Beery in his place in Dinner at Eight, a monument to the enriching vitality in unabashed sexual vulgarity.

Sitting up in her absurdly billowing white bed, taking bites out of chocolates and then throwing them back, ringing out her powder puff, Harlow gets laugh after laugh in Dinner at Eight, one after another, like she’s ringing gongs. She throws herself into her scenes with both abandon and accuracy of expression and timing, a very different style from Clara Bow or Marilyn Monroe, much brassier, more self-sufficient; if she talked baby talk, as Monroe did, it was in a very knowing, parodic way.

Harlow is the only big female movie sex symbol who never seems dazed, never seems really out-of-control. “I’m gonna be a lady if it kills me!” she tells Beery in Dinner at Eight, standing up to him all the way down the line and applying more lipstick in between. (She was sown into her gowns, so that she couldn’t even sit down on set but had to resort to a slant board.) Harlow throws some left hooks and gets caught in her bath again by Gable in Hold Your Man. “Yes sir, that baby’s got rhythm,” Gable says appreciatively as he watches her walk away from him at one point, after she visits him in prison. She is at her toughest in Hold Your Man until a redemptive ending, a harbinger of worse to come.

“The vulgar, cheap, and the tawdry is out!” promised Joseph Breen, the new chief of the Production Code censorship bureau, in a newsreel from 1934, and that meant that proudly vulgar, cheap, and tawdry Harlow was hardest hit by the new Code. Her first film under the Code was supposed to be called Born to Be Kissed, but the title was changed to The Girl from Missouri (1934), and it made Harlow stuffy and bent only on matrimony in a way that feels very constricted and depressing.

They even began to darken her platinum hair to a light shade of brown in Riffraff (1935), where she played another virgin holding out for marriage and sparred with Spencer Tracy. Harlow was at least somewhat brassy again as good-time girl China Doll in China Seas (1936) with Gable, but in Wife vs. Secretary (1936) she played a true-blue stenographer who wouldn’t dream of putting the moves on Gable’s boss, a far cry from the rapacious Lil of Red-Headed Woman. Even her car horn voice got tamped-down and refined back to the level it had ludicrously sought in her first awkward years in movies, as if speaking quietly were some sort of triumph for the “good taste” that now reigned on film.

In Reckless (1935), Harlow was asked to talk her way through a risible song and act out a suicide drama that was exploitatively close to her own ordeal with Bern. She is made to defend herself from a stage, confessing to an audience her dead husband’s unhappiness and how she tried to make him happy, and the result on screen feels very punishing and unfair, so that there was no star who was so humiliated and ruined by censorship as Harlow, not even Mae West. She got one more chance at rapid-fire comedy in Libeled Lady (1936), where all she wants to do is marry Spencer Tracy, and she has her moments in that, but the great sexual thrill of Harlow is confined to Hell’s Angels and her movies from 1932 and 1933 only.

She really did want to marry her Libeled Lady co-star William Powell, but he kept putting that off. Harlow looks and seems ill and low energy in Personal Property (1937) and in her last film, Saratoga (1937), which was finished with a stand-in after her death at 26 from kidney disease. She collapsed on the set and was attended by physicians for eight days before she died, contrary to the stories about her never seeing a doctor because of Mama Jean’s Christian Science leanings. MGM chief Louis B. Mayer had Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy sing “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life” at her funeral, which certainly would have made the screen Harlow guffaw. It was a short career, but her initial impact is still fresh, and it can still be felt as liberating, sexually and otherwise.

by Dan Callahan

[fountainpenguin]

M and Z

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

One mini-series I haven’t mentioned is my little collection of “Spellementary School kids spend holidays with extended family” one-shots, aptly titled “House Tours With Plot.” One chapter focuses on Poof staying with Big Daddy and trying to socialize with his Lialia-speaking cousins (magical parallel of Italian), one where Foop stays with Anti-Mama Cosma for a week or two and she pushes him to train his physical body as much as he trains his intellect, one with Sammy in Muckledunk, one with Finley in Pixie World, and one with Goldie and the will o’ the wisps. I’ll probably be working on these over the next few weeks since I’m in a holiday mood… I love magical holidays.

I also have a Timmy-centric piece (“See That Dust Fly") about Timmy visiting his Ustinkistan grandparents for the holidays and hanging out with his mom’s extended family. Apparently there’s a real thing called turnip lanterns (precursor to the more common jack o’ lanterns of today?) which are said to keep supernatural beings away. You literally could not have a more perfect excuse for weakening Cosmo and Wanda around Timmy’s family than that.

I’ve been playing with the idea that Kimmy (Timmy’s female lookalike from “Stupid Cupid”) is actually his cousin, so I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of including her in this story. I probably will, with the idea that her family recently moved to the area in “Stupid Cupid” and she was trying to introduce herself to her cousin by citing “I have three goldfish” as something they have in common. And then Timmy straight-up walks away.

Another story I’ve been working on that I off-hand mentioned the other day is a Cosmo-centric piece that looks at aspects of a godparent’s life that are more work than play. In this case, it’s the personal self-care routine Cosmo goes through after a long evening spent helping Chloe through anxiety attacks. Watching him unwind has helped me tap into his calm, gentle attitude and connect with him as a character. I never knew I wanted a story about Cosmo and coloring books, but I’m really enjoying it. The working title for this piece is “Hyggekrog,” but I’m expecting to change it before I’m done.

Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?

I love major character death as long as it makes sense for the story, but I HATE having it spoiled, which means the only way it crosses my path is if it’s in a novel, an untagged ‘fic, or someone sent me a ‘fic with the tags removed to hide the fact there’s major character death in it. I love AO3s tagging system, but I wish there was a way I could toggle certain spoilers off.

Since I usually write backstory ‘fics, my hands are tied when it comes to most major character death. The first two drafts of Frayed Knots called for me to kill Mona/Anti-Saffron in the end. I convinced myself it was fine because she dies thousands of years after Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda get together (ergo, I didn’t kill her to remove her from the relationship), but… it still never struck me as the appropriate end to her character arc.

In Riddleverse canon, Anti-Saffron is alive and involved in politics (you don’t just fade out of the public eye when you’re no longer queen!) Anti-Cosmo visits her sometimes out of a consuming need to repent for all he’s put her through. Since Cosmo’s pregnancy was hidden from the public and no witnesses were present when Foop was born, some of the Anti-Fairy population suspect Anti-Saffron is Foop’s biological mother. Anti-Saffron is an awkward addition to the anti-family tree, and I’m enjoying this way more than killing her off.

Death, coping, and political succession are major themes of my endgame FOP ‘fic Devil’s Backbone, so there will be major character death in that story. I have a one-shot about the funeral of a sort-of major character. I like telling stories at different points in characters’ lives and dealing with death is part of that.

I think only one 130 Prompt references major character death… I cried. Not because I can’t write that character any further in the timeline, but at another character’s raw emotion when they found out. That got me.

As for deaths I can’t stand, I talked about my feelings on Youngblood’s deaths in ‘fics HERE.

I’d be more okay with Youngblood dying in so many ‘fics if he was actually a major character in them, but to the best of my memory things would just happen to him in the background, like getting kidnapped with all the other ghost kids, but he gets 0 screentime and is the only one who gets tortured to death. Also his skeletal assistant didn’t mourn him. That’s what I don’t like.

His assistant was traveling with Danny at the time iirc, so they never got to say good-bye and this poor child didn’t have any loved ones with him, which would have been an awesome angst scene if it was shown. But it wasn’t. If the first time in a massive ‘fic Youngblood gets screentime is the final chapter and he shows up dead… Ooh, don’t like that.

This kid’s a master of psychological warfare and the plot of his debut episode literally revolves around him commending respect from everybody because he’s an absolute mastermind despite being like eight years old. The only thing stopping him from climbing higher up the ladder is that his ship can’t fly without Ember’s help. He’s really the only ghost happy to hang out with skeletons (the implied mortal enemies of ghosts since they’re really only seen in Pariah Dark’s evil army). Canon heavily implies Jasmine killed his shapeshifting assistant in “The Fenton Menace” because Youngblood’s eerily without him every episode after that. If you like bonus material, there’s an official comic revealing his Ghost Zone parents are dragons. How is that a character you want to shove to the background?

If you want to kill him, please give him a death he deserves… I crave more Youngblood content and will accept his death as long as you treat him right. I am currently accepting Danny Phantom ‘fic recommendations… but please don’t send them unless Youngblood gets more screentime “alive” than “dead.”

Fanfic Ask Meme

[ritusmiles]

A few years back, we used to have a fish tank. Two actually.

A cold water tank with goldfish and a tropical tank which we actually inherited from Hubby Dearest’s cousins.

It was so soothing to sit and watch them swimming around, but slowly, the work of looking after two tanks, a furbaby and the family took its toll.

The goldfish died and I secreted the tank in the shed.

The tropical tank became like a ghost tank, as, rather than replace each tragedy that was inevitable in fish tanks, we let it run down until it was finally empty…

But we missed the fish.

Hubby Dearest would love to get his parents more involved in looking after Sonu Singh or even getting a cat or dog themselves, but they are so not interested!

So one day he picked up the old goldfish tank, and set it up in their house, complete with two ornamental goldfish. One white and one golden.

Mum in Law was not best pleased, but she took to the looking after routine and was happy to have something little to look after, and the kids loved to feed the fish and watch them swimming around.

They have never been given names, though!

Today, it struck me how much Mum actually loves those fish.

We spent the evening with them, and after a time mum asked me to check the fish. The big one, the white one, was spending increasing time laying at the bottom of the tank, and the gold one would apparently go and check on it after a while, sometimes even laying on it.

I hate to say it but it looks like time is running out for Big White… It looks like old age, and possibly too much food has finally caught up with him…

When we first got him, he would chase the other fish, and eat all the food before Goldy got a chance. Now, three years later, that same Goldy is checking up on his old friend…

It seems to me that we will have to find a replacement for Big White… Mum is so concerned, it is touching to see.

But I don’t think that she has been convinced to get another baby of the four-legged furry kind!

Poor Lil (Big) Fishy! A few years back, we used to have a fish tank. Two actually. A cold water tank with goldfish and a tropical tank which we actually inherited from Hubby Dearest's cousins.