#trade school in los angeles | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

callsign-dexter · 6 months ago

Text

Family Under Fire

Request: Tim’s daughter works a part time job (yknow like to earn a little extra money while in high school) and while she’s working one day someone attempts to rob the place…And Tim and Lucy are the closest to the robbery and Tim recognises the name of the shop way too quickly

Pairings: Tim Bradford x Daughter!Reader

Warnings: fluff, angst, cussing, inaccurate police talk, inaccurate hospital talk, robbery, guns, blood, caring Tim Bradford, Dad!Tim Bradford

Masterlist

A/N: Thank you @justabigassnerd for requesting it and also this is payback for sending angst TikTok videos.

Summer. You always liked summer but it could become unbearable in Los Angeles but it was 2 months away from school work, which you did not miss. You 18 which meant that you were in the last of high school and you couldn’t be more excited. Sure, you loved seeing your friends and most teachers but you could care less for the cliques, bullies, jocks, etc. During the summer you had gotten a part time job at Cozy Corner Café, a cute little place for people to hang out, meet up with friends, do school work, eat, and drink. Everyone there was so nice and it was refreshing. It was a fairly big café and it did really well so well it became popular fast. The café also was a 24-hour café which meant that sometimes you worked well into the night, that part sucked but it paid well and you loved it so you stuck with it. You had your driver’s license which helped with giving you freedom during the summer. You drove a Ford Bronco but recently it was acting up and when you told your father, Tim Bradford, about it the night before he said to bring it down to the station and he would trade vehicles out with you and he would get it looked at either have the mechanics at work look at it or take it down to a mechanic shop after work and get a ride from someone.

Monday morning rolled around and your alarm clock started to go off abruptly waking you up with a groan. You opened your eyes and turned it off and looked at the time which was 7:00 AM. It was the first official day of summer break and the first day of work for you. You sighed and rolled out of bed and walked into the bathroom while grabbing a towel from the hall closest, you needed a shower before you switched cars with your dad and headed off to work. You turned on the shower and got it to the right temperature before shedding your clothes and hopping into the warm water. The water cascaded over you, you quickly did what you needed and then turned off the shower and grabbed your towel drying off and then started to get dressed in jeans and your work shirt. You then brushed your teeth and brushed your hair leaving it to air dry. Once you were done there you grabbed your phone and shut the lights off and walked downstairs to drop your dirty clothes and towel in the washer. Kojo happily greeted you and you smiled petting the dog “Hey there boy. Are you gonna be good while we are gone?” You asked, smiling and not expecting a response but he barked and wagged his tail. “You’re always a good boy, aren’t you?” You asked and he barked and put a paw on your hand making you chuckle. You filled his food bowl and water bowl and then grabbed your backpack and keys. “I gotta get going. Be a good boy.” You said he barked again and then you were heading out of the house and to your Ford Bronco. You got in and put the key into the ignition and turned it “Come on please don’t do this now.” You said as it sputtered for a few seconds before turning over. “Thank you.” You said and then reversed and headed to the station. It didn’t take long before you got there and parked beside your dad’s truck and as soon as you did it died. “Right on time.” You said and got out grabbing your things and throwing on the jacket you would have throughout the night. You walked into the station and literally ran into Wesley Evers, aka your Godfather. “Oof.” You said stumbling back.

“Woah, are you ok?” He asked catching you before you fell backwards.

“I’m good. I promise.” You said looking up at him and then going to hug him.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be getting to work?” He asked and you nodded as you pulled away from him. He knew you started work today because you had excitedly texted him and Angela about it.

“Yes, I left the house a little bit early to drop The Bronco off.” You said

“Is it acting up again?” He asked and you nodded.

“Yes unfortunately.” You replied

“Why don’t you trade it in and get a different vehicle?” He asked

“It’s my baby, I can’t just get rid of her.” You said and he shook his head.

“I get it. I get it.” He said smiling.

“Dad is letting me take his truck while he figures out what is going on with it.” You said and he nodded. “You know where he is so I don’t have to do a scavenger hunt for him?” You asked, chuckling and so did Wesely.

“Last I checked everyone was in the briefing room.” He said and you nodded.

“Hey, you should stop by later.” You said and he smiled.

“I will make sure to do that. I have to go but I will see you later Y/N.” He said and he hugged you again and kissed your head.

“Sounds good. Bye Wesely.” You said and he smiled and then you both started to walk your separate ways. You nodded and smiled at the front desk and they smiled back, everyone knew who you were so you got a free pass. You got on the elevator and pressed the button and when it dinged signaling that you were on your floor you got out and instantly spotted everyone in the briefing room it looked like they had just finished as you walked onto the floor. Angela was the first one to spot you and she smiled, which was rare for her, and nudged Tim who looked your way and smiled, something rare that only few people have seen. They both walked out.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Angela asked walking up to you with Tim.

“I’m dropping The Bronco off for dad to get looked at and getting the keys to his truck.” You said and she smiled as you handed Tim your keys.

“Right, I’ll be right back. Let me go and get the keys.” He said and you nodded.

“Why don’t you trade it in and get a different vehicle?” She asked and you laughed.

“That is the same thing your husband said. I’ll tell you what I told him. It’s my baby, I can’t just get rid of her.” You said and she chuckled.

“I remember my first car. I had it until he upped and died on me on the interstate. Had to let it go then. It was truly a sad day.” She said

“Dad got me The Bronco when I got my permit when I was 15 ½. I learned everything in that car. I can’t let her go.” You said

“When do you start work?” She asked

“8. I left the house early to switch out vehicles with dad.” You said as Tim walked back up and held out the keys to you.

“Be careful and remember it is very sensitive with the gas and breaks.” He said and you nodded.

“I remember. Oh, and the engine died as soon as I parked it.” You said and he nodded.

“I’ll get Seth to look at it while we are gone.” He said

“Thank you.” You said and he smiled and hugged.

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you later. Call or text if something doesn’t sit right with you.” He said and you nodded.

“I will.” You said as Lucy came up.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” She asked with a smile.

“My car started to act up and dad said he would get it checked out so I’m switching vehicles with him.” You said and looked down at your watch and saw it was 7:20 AM. “I gotta go. I’ll see you guys later. I love you dad.” You said and he smiled.

“I love you too.” He said and hugged you and kissed your head and then you were heading to the elevators. When you got down to the main level you waved at the front desk and walked out of the building to your dad’s truck. You got in and put your stuff in the passenger side seat and turned the ignition. You reversed and headed to the café ready to start your long shift for the day/part of the night. When you reached the café, you parked in the back where the employees parked and killed the engine. As you were getting out, leaving your bag in the truck, your friend and coworker, Valencia, got out of her car as well.

“You’re in a different vehicle.” She said and you chuckled and smiled.

“Yea, The Bronco was acting up.” You said as you locked the truck and the both of you headed into the back.

“Oh man you love that thing.” She said and you nodded.

“I do and I’ll be heartbroken when it has to go.” You said as the both of you began putting your stuff in the lockers. “Damn, I left my bag in the truck. I’ll just get it later.” You said as Mark walked in overhearing the conversation.

“You sure? We still have some time before we start.” Mark said, your other friend said.

“Yea, I’m sure. I’ll get it on break.” You confirmed and they both nodded and the three of you clocked in and walked to the front and the shift began. The beginning of the shift nothing exciting happened and not a lot of people came in. Some college students came in to grab coffee and maybe something to eat and then they were on their way to class and then the customers died down. You spent the down time by cleaning up and making sure everything was stocked and swept while Remi, Amelia, and Carlyn came and greeted you three, they were also your friends.

“So, you have any plans for the days you’re not working?” Valencia asked and you shrugged as you wiped down the counter as she tended to the cash register along with Amelia.

“No, not really. Might take Kojo out for a run one day and work on some college applications.” You said shrugging.

“Are you really serious about getting into the police academy?” Remi asked as he restocked the higher up things.

“I am. My dad went through it and I love helping people so why not? It runs in our family.” You said not bothering to say anything about your mom since she wasn’t in your life for most of it.

“That would be so cool when you get in and graduate. You’re badass now but you’ll be even more badass.” Mark said, leaning against the counter. You rolled your eyes and smiled and then playfully shoved him off of it.

“Hey I just cleaned there.” You said and wiped the counter down again.

“He’s right, you know. Y/N Bradford certified Badass.” Amelia said and you rolled your eyes and shook your head.

“It is only the truth.” Carlyn said and everyone nodded and you blushed but smiled.

“Stop you guys.” You said as the door chimed and a flood of people came in and when you looked down at your watch you knew why, it was already noon and this was the lunch rush. Mark, Remi, and Valencia took to the cash registers and getting the food and you, Amelia, and Carlyn started to make the coffee and whatever drinks were ordered, you took this role because you were fast at it and everyone agreed. You three really worked in harmony and got people out quickly. Your boss said when you six were out of school and either going to college and needed work or just needed work in the summer you all had a job, you six were that good. Mark, Remi and Valencia were fast at making coffee too but you and Amelia were a tad faster but they could get the job done just as well and it tasted just as good. You had finished serving the last customer and they were out the door when you sighed in relief. “What a rush.” You said and the other two nodded.

“You got that right.” Mark said turning to you as did Valencia and now it was time to wait. While you waited you wiped down the equipment and cleaned it with the help from Mark. “What time is it?” He asked and you looked down at your watch.

“It is 2:00.” You said

“Damn time flies by when you’re having fun.” Valencia said and everyone chuckled. As the afternoon went on you served customers and talked. Around 5:00 PM the college crowd started to come in. Mark took the coffee making and you took one of the registers. You were taking orders when a familiar face popped and you smiled.

“Wesley! You came!” You exclaimed and he smiled and nodded.

“I sure did. This is actually one of my favorite spots to hang out and get coffee. I got excited when I knew you were starting to work here.” He said and the two of you talked and he gave you his order and he got it and went to sit down.

“Y/N take your break.” Mark said and you nodded and clocked out for your 15-minute break. Just as soon as your boss Jason Alderman walked in.

“Taking your break?” He asked and you smiled and nodded.

“Yes, Sir.” You said

“Good. Can’t have one of my best baristas breaking down on me.” He said and then walked to the front as you did and Mark handed you your favorite drink and food.

“You know me so well.” You said and he smiled.

“Of course I do. You’re my best friend.” He said and you rolled your eyes and went and sat down with Wesley while you texted your dad.

You: Hey, I’m on break and Wesley was here as well.

Tim: You two have fun. I love you

You: I love you too.

“So, how have things been with you?” You asked as you took a sip of coffee and looked up at Wesely.

“I’ve been good. A lot of cases have been happening.” He said

“How are you and Angela?” You asked

“Good. We’re good. Actually, we are trying for a baby.” He said and your eyes got wide.

“Seriously? That is amazing. I can already see a mini-Angela and Wesley running around.” You said and he chuckled.

“Yea, we are pretty excited about it too.” Wesley said

“Sir, I can’t do that.” You heard Amelia say which made you and Wesley look up and him over to the counter and the both of you froze. The man was tall and slim, he had light brown hair and from the looks of it brown eyes. You got up and made your way to the counter to protect your friend and coworker kicking in.

“Y/N no.” Wesley said but you ignored him.

“Is there a problem, Sir?” You asked

“Yes, there is, this little bitch won’t give me the money.” He said

“Sir, she cannot do that.” You said voice going into a commanding tone.

“I tried being nice but you made me do this.” He said and pulled out a gun and everything stopped.

“Give me the money now.” He growled out. Jason was quick to come out of the back.

“She is not going to do that.” He said and got in front of him and Amelia. As someone called 911.

“Fine.” He said and turned the gun on you and pulled the trigger. White hot pain is all you felt and then you were falling to your knees as someone was catching you and calling your name.

“Y/N!” Wesley said as he caught you and gently laid you down head in his lap as he applied pressure to the wound. It made you cry out. “It’s ok. I got you. Your dad is on the way.” He said.

“It hurts.” You said tears escaping your eyes.

“I know it does. Just hang on for me. Ok?” He asked and you nodded. There was commotion and Mark and Remi had tackled the man but not before more gunshots went off but thankfully nobody else was hurt as bad as you. They may have some scratches from glass and graze wounds but that is about it.

“Ok.” You said through gritted teeth. You just wanted your dad.

-----------------------------------------‐-------------

After you had left the station everyone else had gone and got ready and they started to do the same and as they were at war bag station and they grabbed their cameras Tim turned to Lucy “Get the shop ready. I need to go down to the garage.” He said and she nodded.

“You got it.” She said as she grabbed the bags as Tim made his way down to the garage and straight to Seth, the main mechanic, to ask for him look at your Bronco and they agreed, he knew that Grey would allow it since Tim was a sergeant too, before they even left, they were already giving him an update.

“So, the engine blew up and the transmission is bad as well.” Seth said.

“How is it possible that it was running fine for months?” He asked as they stood outside by your Bronco and hood up.

“Driving on a blown engine and a bad transmission is possible. Is it good? No.” Seth said

“It never showed any signs of going out or being a bad transmission.” He said and Seth nodded

“That is not out of the norm. Most people don’t know about it until something happens. Has the light ever come on?” He asked

“No never.” Tim said and Seth nodded.

“There could be a loose wire or connection. Don’t worry. We will get it up and working. It’ll be good to go by the end of your shift.” Seth said

“Thank you so much.” Tim said and gave him the keys.

“Not a problem. Have a good shift.” Seth said and Tim nodded and he was on his way to Lucy.

“So, what is the news?” She asked

“Blown engine and a bad transmission.” He said

“Oh man. That’s not good.” She said and he shook his head.

“What is even worse is that it didn’t even give warning that it was blown or had a bad transmission. No light ever came on.” He said

“Damn.” She said as they got in the shop and they started their shift. “So, are you going to have to take it somewhere to get fixed?” She asked and he shook his head.

“No, Seth said they would get it fixed by the end of our shift.” Tim said

“Well, that’s good.” She said and he nodded. Their shift consisted of several noise complaints and several arrests. He drove by Cozy Corner Café and smiled seeing all the cars there and knew you were busy and thankfully Lucy didn’t pick up on what he was doing.

Around 5:00 PM Tim and Lucy were driving back from the station after having just booked someone when he got a text from you. He quickly pulled out his phone before starting to drive.

You: Hey, I’m on break and Wesley was here as well.

Tim: You two have fun. I love you

You: I love you too.

As they got back out on the road the radio went off “7-Adam-100 respond to a 10-66 at Cozy Corner Café. One GSW reported. Multiple injuries. RA requested.” Dispatch sounded and Tim’s heart dropped and he had gone somewhat pale. He was quick to grab the radio.

“7-Adam-100 responding.” He said before Lucy could even make a move towards the radio. He turned on the lights and sped off towards where you worked.

“10--66 is an armed robbery. Tim, what is going on?” Lucy asked

“Y/N works there.” Is all he said and Lucy got a sinking feeling that something wasn’t right.

“7-Adam-07 responding.” Angela came over the radio.

“7-Adam-19 also responding.” Harper’s voice came through and Tim was grateful for that.

Tim and Lucy were the first to get there and parked in a hurry and they quickly got their guns drawn and went in. “We have him held down over there.” Jason said and pointed to where Mark and Remi were keeping him at bay.

“Officer Chen, you go and take care of him. Where is the gunshot-” Time started but was cut off by Wesley.

“Tim over here. It’s Y/N.” He said and Tim was over there in a hurry.

“Holy shit.” He murmured. “Y/N, Sweetheart, can you hear me? If you can hear me, open your eyes.” He said and so you did.

“Daddy?” You asked, he nodded.

“I’m here, what happened?” He asked kneeling beside you not caring if he was getting blood on his uniform.

“He came in demanding money and A-Ameila said we couldn’t give it to him and I got up and went over to him, asked him what he wanted and he repeated himself and I told him that. He got mad then pulled out a gun and and pointed it at me and pulled the trigger. I was just trying to protect my friend, I’m sorry. It hurts, Daddy.” You said and and he put a hand on your face and you leaned into it.

“I’m not mad at you I promise, mad at him yes. I know it hurts, Sweetheart.” He said “Just hold on.” He said as the others arrived and Angela came straight over to you, Tim, and Wesley.

“Fuck. Is she ok?” She asked

“I think she will be.” Wesley said

“Are you hurt?” Tim asked and he shook his head.

“No. I’m fine. She didn’t hit anything as she went down. I caught her.” He said Jackson came over.

“Suspect is secured and the RA should be here any second.” He said and then walked away to help Nolan and Lucy and Tim nodded as he helped put pressure on your wound and you groaned in pain.

“RA is coming through.” Harper said. Lucy, Jackson and Nolan were checking in on everyone else and getting statements. The EMTs came through and quickly started to take your vitals and pack the wound as best as they could and then they were putting you on a gurney and ushering you out of the building.

“I’m going with her.” Tim said and body stopped him. They got you in and he followed and they were off to the hospital. His hand never left yours and it would stay like that as long as they didn’t need it and thankfully, they didn’t. Everything was blocked out for Tim all he could hear was the rhythmic sound of your heartbeat and your unconscious form, when you passed out, he didn’t even know. He couldn’t lose you not now, not ever. Finally, the ambulance arrived at the hospital and you were ushered in and taken to surgery immediately and left Tim out in the waiting room. Not even 10 minutes later here came Jackson, Angela, Nolan, Harper, Lucy, Wesley, and even Grey. They spotted him immediately.

“How is she?” Nolan asked

“Don’t know yet. They rushed her back to surgery. Wesely, I have to thank you for being there and keeping pressure on her wound.” Tim said, looking at Wesley at the end.

“She asked me to stop by and I’m glad I did. I hope she’s going to be ok.” He spoke

“She will be. Have you not seen who her dad is? Also, she is a Bradford.” Angela said and everyone chuckled and Tim smiled. Finally, the doctor came out and Tim was quick to get up and walk to him.

“She is going to be ok. The bullet didn’t do major damage but just one more centimeter and it would’ve hit her kidney. All intestines were spared. We repaired everything and got the bullet out and I’m happy to say she’ll make a full recovery.” He said and Tim sighed in relief “You can see her now. She may be a little groggy but that is to be expected.” He said and Tim nodded.

“Give me a second.” Tim said and the doctor nodded. Tim walked over and told them what he was told and everyone sighed in relief.

“You go and be with your daughter. Someone will bring your bag by and your truck from the café. I’ll let the garage know that you won’t be picking up The Bronco tonight.” Grey said and Tim nodded.

“Thank you.” He said

“Now go. Tell her we say hi, we love her and are proud of her.” Wesley said everyone nodded in agreement and he nodded and headed in the direction of the doctor who took him to your room.

“Remember she will be groggy and may be in some pain. If you need anything or if something goes wrong just press the button.” He said and Tim once again nodded and then was left with you. He walked over and sat down. You must’ve sensed that he was there because you started to wake up.

“Daddy?” You asked and looked over at him.

“I’m here, Sweetheart.” He said

“I’m sorry.” You said and he looked at you confused.

“For what?” He asked

“For trying to stop the robbery.” You said

“Sweetheart, it is ok. You did stop it. Even though you got shot it gave Mark and Remi enough time to tackle him.” He said

“I did good?” You asked and he nodded.

“You did excellent. I’m so proud of you.” He said and leaned up and kissed your forehead. You could barely keep your eyes open due to the anesthesia left in your body.

“Get some sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up. Oh, and everybody says hi and that they love you and are so proud of you.” He said and you nodded with a smile as you closed your eyes and got comfortable.

“I love you, Dad.” You said and he smiled and cradled your face with one hand and you leaned into it.

“I love you too, Sweetheart. Get some sleep.” He repeated the last part and he waited until your breath evened out before taking his hand away slowly and leaned up and kissed your forehead. He sat back down and let the tears fall. He could’ve lost you today but he didn’t and he was so glad about that. He doesn’t know what would’ve happened if he had lost you but he doesn’t have to think about that because he could hear your steady heartbeat projected by the monitor and he could see your chest rising and falling. He held your hand and stroked your knuckles. “You did excellent, Sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.” He said again but softly and quietly and then sat back just watching. You were going to be ok.

Tag list:

@callsigns-haze

@kmc1989

@els-marvelvsp

@atarmychick007

@nyx2021

@grandstrangerphantom

@angenu01-blog

@talesofreading

@callsign-revenge

#tim bradford x daughter!reader #tim bradford x daughter!reader imagines #tim bradford x daughter!reader fandom #tim bradford x daughter!reader fanfiction #tim bradford x daughter!reader fanfic #the rookie x daughter!reader #the rookie x daughter!reader imagines #the rookie x daughter!reader fandom #the rookie x daughter!reader fanfiction #the rookie x daughter!reader fanfic #the rookie imagine #the rookie imagines #the rookie fanfic #the rookie fandom #the rookie fanfiction

243 notes · View notes

dorothylarouge · 1 month ago

Text

Comic Book Review: Runaways by Rainbow Rowell

Hello, all. Today I will be taking some time to discuss a comic book I enjoy. This is the first in what will hopefully become a series of long-form comic book reviews I'll be writing for this blog as I continue working through my backlog of unread comics as well as ones I'm rereading, both on my own and through me and @bimboficationblues' book club.

I first read the original run of Runaways in digest trade paperback format at my local library when I was in middle school, and the book hit me at the exact right time, since I was pretty firmly the book's target demographic - young, restless, and beginning to grow resentful of the adult authorities in my life. I never read the 2017 revival, as I was not reading comics when I was in high school and college, but I was at my local library - a different one, I don't live in Texas anymore - while waiting for the power in my apartment to come back on due to an outage, and discovered that they carried the full series in trade paperback. I decided to check it out and see how it held up to the original run, and found myself pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it - enough, clearly, to make this post. I'll get into more detail about the 2017 book later in this post, but I'd like to first give an overview of the original series to provide some context for how this book came to be, since it's quite a niche, cult-classic book as far as Marvel titles go.

Part One: Born to Run

At the turn of the century, comic books faced a number of problems. The bottom had fallen out of the industry in the early 1990s due to the burst of the speculator bubble, sending shockwaves that continued to reverberate into the early 2000s. Marvel Comics had nearly been bankrupted and stripped for parts, surviving only by the skin of its teeth, and was only just getting back on its feet. But now, another threat was looming: anime and manga. Imported comics from Japan were beginning to capture a larger and larger market share of comics sold in the United States, fueled by the popularity of Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, and others on television. Marvel sought to fight back by producing books which would appeal to young fans of these Japanese imports and act as gateway drugs into more standard Marvel fare. Their first effort came in 2000 with the utterly embarrassing Marvel Mangaverse, a group of books which copied superficial and stereotypical aesthetics of manga, without any of the substance.

Just look at this shit, man. Anyway, in 2003, Marvel tried a different approach with their Tsunami imprint. The books in this imprint would also employ art styles that reflected the influence of anime and manga, but would feature character-driven, in-continuity storylines aimed at a variety of age ranges. Among the titles Tsunami would publish was a book written by Brian K. Vaughn (known at the time mainly for his work at DC's Vertigo imprint, including a run on Swamp Thing and his own Y: The Last Man) and illustrated by Adrian Alphona (who would go on to co-develop Kamala Khan with G. Willow Wilson) titled Runaways.

The initial premise of Runaways was really quite brilliant in its simplicity: Alex Wilder, Nico Minoru, Chase Stein, Gertrude Yorkes, Molly Hayes, and Karolina Dean are casual friends bound together mainly because their parents are all friends - actors, engineers, lawyers, and influential people in the Los Angeles area - who gather once a year for a charity event.

As the kids are left bored and alone while their parents meet at Alex's house in Malibu, they find a secret passage and are able to observe their parents at the meeting, learning that, in truth, their parents are a group of supervillains known as the Pride, who control crime and vice in Los Angeles, and who conduct human sacrifices in arcane rituals.

As the kids attempt to discover more about their parents in order to find evidence to bring to the police, they each begin to discover unique powers and abilities: Gertrude has a psychic link with a genetically-engineered deinonychus, Karolina is a light-powered alien with the ability to fly, Molly is a super-strong, super-tough mutant, Chase gains access to powerful technology created by his parents, and Nico is able to summon a magical focus known as the Staff of One when she bleeds, which she can use to cast powerful magical spells, with the catch that she can never cast the same spell twice. Alex, with a genius strategic mind, becomes the group's leader, and with the group learning that the police in LA belong to the Pride, they run away from home and drop off the grid in order to find a way to put a stop to them.

The first volume of Runaways chronicles the kids' conflict with their parents, as well as run-ins with a vampire named Topher and Marvel's original runaway teen superheroes, Cloak and Dagger. Eventually, they learn that their parents were gathered to serve godlike giants called the Gibborim and conduct a ritual which would wipe out all life on Earth, save for six of the Pride - or more specifically, their heirs, the children. The volume ends with the team's climactic confrontation with their parents, as they begin the ritual to end the world, with Alex revealing himself to be a mole in the group and having secretly been on the side of the Pride all along. After Molly disrupts the ritual, the Gibborim arrive and vaporize Alex and kill the Pride, with the kids barely managing to escape. In the aftermath, the kids are placed into foster care, which they promptly run away from, becoming teenage fugitives once again.

The first volume of Runaways lasted only 18 issues, but sales of the digest format trade paperbacks (another thing copied from how manga is distributed in the US) proved so strong that a second volume began publication in 2005, featuring the same creative team. This volume saw the kids continue to evade the police, adult superheroes, and social services. Along the way, they recruit a few new runaways, including Victor Mancha, a cyborg built by the Avengers villain Ultron, and Xavin, a shapeshifting, genderfluid Skrull who imposes themself upon the group as Karolina's fiancee due to a marriage arranged by her parents. They also take a trip to New York City to help clear Cloak's name when he's accused of attempting to murder Dagger. There, they come into conflict with the Avengers, and get sushi with Spider-Man.

Over the course of the second volume, Gertrude is killed in a fight with a reformed Pride made up of a time-displaced version of Alex's father and his MMO friends, and Vaughn's run on the title ends with a story in which Chase, who is grief-stricken after her death, makes a deal with the Gibborim in order to bring her back in exchange for a sacrifice. The deal falls through, and the kids are forced to fight the gods that their parents once served, ultimately managing to defeat and erase the Gibborim from existence.

After Vaughn left the book, unfortunately, Runaways started a long period of decline. He was replaced as writer on the book by Joss Whedon, who penned a couple middling stories, including one where the kids fight the Punisher and the Kingpin, and another where they're flung back in time to 1907 New York, where they recruit the final member of the team, a young mutant and child bride named Klara Prast who can make the flowers grow. Yawn. Volume 2 of Runaways ended with issue 30, and the book was relaunched with a new #1 in 2008, this time with the creative team of Terry Moore (best known for his indie book Strangers in Paradise) and Humberto Ramos (a veritable workhorse whose portfolio speaks for itself, particularly his work on Spider-Man). This brief, forgettable run was followed by a fill-in issue or two by Christopher Yost, and then a final, mediocre arc by Kathryn Immonen which ended the series abruptly on a cliffhanger.

After this, the wilderness years. Characters from Runaways appeared with some regularity - Nico, Chase, and Victor all played major roles in various Avengers spinoff books, none of which suited them particularly well - although in the pages of Avengers AI, Victor would forge a friendship with a reprogrammed Doombot which would play a role later. Mostly, though, it became clear over the years that these characters did not work in normal superhero books, because they were not normal superheroes - they were Runaways. Part of the problem the book had come to face in the later years was a failure to understand that point. The Vaughn run had proven the potential of the characters and concept of the Runaways - they needed a writer who understood that potential, and how to bring it out - and they could have a renaissance.

Then, in 2017, a Runaways TV show premiered on Hulu, to tie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Marvel, for the most cynical and synergistic of reasons, decided to give them that renaissance.

Part Two: It's Only Teenage Wasteland

Runaways volume 5 (volume 4 was an unrelated Secret Wars tie-in) is written throughought by Rainbow Rowell. Rowell's background is in contemporary young adult fiction, which isn't usually my cup of tea, but translates very well to this comic. Runaways, at its core, is not a superhero book- a point which will be made more explicitly later in the series - it is a teen drama with superpowers. Angst, sexual tension, and resentment of authority are all key elements of the series, which Rowell employs effectively throughout. Joining her on art for the initial run of the volume is Kris Anka, who would later go on to be the lead character designer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Anka's art is colorful and expressive and complements the tone of the series brilliantly. It's probably the best Runaways has ever looked. Of particular note are the outfits Anka designs for the characters, which change from issue to issue and help to characterize each Runaway visually.

The book picks up with the Runaways having split up, with Molly living with her grandmother, Victor having been reduced to an inert, deactivated head following his apparent death in Avengers AI, Karolina in college and dating Julie Power of Power Pack, Klara in foster care, Xavin in space, and Nico in a shitty LA apartment after a brief stint with the all-female A-Force. The inciting incident of the book occurs when Chase appears with a time machine, having recovered the dying Gert from the events of volume 2. Nico is able to use her magic to save Gert's life, and she wastes little time pushing to get the rest of the gang back together.

Of course, two years have passed since Gert died in-universe. Karolina, Nico, and Chase are all adults now, and Molly is a teenager now, happily living with her grandmother. Things changed while Gert was away, and there's no way to go back to the way things used to be.

The first arc of the book establishes some core themes which will continue to be relevant for the rest of its run: change, growing up, and family bonds. Gert is the heart of the book, despite her vociferous denials of that being her role. She is the driving force behind reuniting the Runaways, and her character is explored in this book more than it ever was in the Vaughn run - her negative self-image, which she hides behind an acid tongue, is a recurring focus. Of note is a scene where she discovers that her purple hair, which had previously set her apart and helped her to feel as if there was something special about her, has become a common fashion statement in the time she spent being dead. Her relationship with Chase is also examined - the age gap that now exists between them precludes any resumption of dating, and she eventually gets together with Victor - but Chase still loves her despite himself, and holds out hope that things can change when Gert gets older and the age gap is less of an issue. It's a little creepy, but psychologically understandable, as is his giving into temptation when a future version of Gert appears and practically throws herself at him.

Rowell's focus on character is central to what makes the book work. There are few titanic threats and fewer supervillains; the drama in Rowell's Runaways is driven by the characters and their relationships to one another, which are given a fresh perspective due to the characters having aged and grown since the previous volume of the series. Molly struggles with the idea of growing up and having to face adult fears and responsibilities, especially when her best friend in middle school offers her a way to stay young forever. Nico struggles with the feelings she's realized for Karolina - picking back up a plot thread from Xavin's introductory arc - as Karolina struggles balancing university, supporting the Runaways, and being a good girlfriend, failing at the latter as Julie breaks up with her - but in the process allowing her and Nico to finally have the right timing.

Also complicating matters are Victor's Doombot friend, who becomes a recurring character and joins the main cast in the back half of the series, and Alex Wilder, who has returned as a living corpse, with the children of the Gibborim on his heels. Rowell's portrayal of Alex is one of the series' most interesting aspects, as a young man burdened by his past mistakes and whose inability to acknowledge or account for them prevents any reconciliation with his one-time friends, and leads him to continue making the same mistakes over again. The only bond with the group he is able to maintain is with Molly, the only other Runaway who still misses her parents, and they have some very sweet interactions in a spotlight issue which serves as a look at what things could be like if Alex was willing to own up and atone for how he's hurt the others. His arc is left unresolved, though, for reasons we'll get more into in a bit. Doombot, meanwhile, has a brief storyline in which he comes to grips with his sense of individuality separate from the programming he was given by Doctor Doom, but other than that his primary role in the series is to serve as a caretaker, of sorts, to the kids, as well as a source of consistent comic relief.

That's another thing about this series: it's very funny! Much of the humor is character- and interaction-based, which is very much my style of humor in comics, but there's also some really nice sight gags and creative use of lettering and sound effects to create jokes. A lot of the humor in the original series can be hit-or-miss, in particular a lot of the more dated references, so the humor in this volume is a refreshing change of pace.

Following the fight with the children of the Gibborim - one of whom, Gib, sides with the group and becomes their newest member - the series enters its midpoint, in which Karolina drops out of college and begins moonlighting as a superhero as an unhealthy outlet for her anxiety, which ultimately ends up dragging the other Runaways into the orbit of Doc Justice, one of Los Angeles' premier superheroes, who outfits and equips the group as his new J-Team. I'm conflicted on this arc for a few reasons. The first is that it interrupts what I felt was an interesting arc for Karolina using superheroics as a coping mechanism, which I felt wasn't explored fully before Doc Justice showed up. On the other hand, though, the arc really gives Gert the spotlight after some time of having it off of her, and she's really able to shine as the one Runaway excluded by Doc Justice due to her weight and lack of powers, both key elements of her own negative self-image which haven't gotten a lot of focus since the early arcs of the series. Further, the arc serves to drive home the point that the Runaways are not superheroes and that Runaways is not a superhero book in the traditional sense. Seeing everyone in spandex and responding to distress calls just feels wrong. And Doc Justice is a great villain for the series: a conceited superhero obsessed with fame and media attention, who has systematically arranged the deaths of various teammates over the years in order to maximize sympathy and publicity. It's all very Hollywood. The ultimate downside of the Doc Justice arc, I think, is that after it's done, the series only has seven issues left. The eternal curse of Runaways, to have each volume cut too short, rears its head once again, and in using one of its final arcs to make a meta-commentary on the series as a whole, it sacrifices some opportunities for the character interactions and interpersonal drama that really make the book shine.

The final arc makes an effort to pivot back to that interpersonal drama, including a delightfully fucked-up romance between Chase and a future version of Gert who has traveled back in time to supposedly save him from himself, which blows up as you might it imagine it would once present Gert and Victor stumble across them. There's also a plot thread of Molly, Chase, and Nico helping a visiting Wolverine and Pixie track down a mutant who sent a distress message, in which Nico very nearly kisses Pixie due to her established character flaw of getting caught up in the moment, and it seems like she and Karolina are going to have an honest conversation about it - only for the conversation to instead be about the frankly much less interesting conflict Nico has been facing about the evil sorcerer whose spirit is housed in the Staff of One, and who is taking a piece of her soul every time she casts a spell. It's a conflict that could be interesting if more focus was placed upon it, but it's the subject of one issue prior to this and the end of the series means that it ends up going nowhere beyond Nico entrusting Karolina with the staff in the end. That's a major flaw in this run, though one that isn't entirely its own fault - its abrupt end means plot threads, like future Gert's abduction of Chase, Nico's conflict with the spirit of the Staff of One, and Alex's usurpation of the Doc Justice mantle, are left hanging.

It really is unfortunate, and makes the time spent on the Doc Justice arc, which probably could have taken four issues instead of a frankly indulgent seven, feel even more egregious and unnecessary with hindsight. This series has a leisurely pace, which is good when it allows character interactions and dynamics to stretch out and have maximum impact, but it also means that at the end, when everything has to wrap up relatively quickly due to the amount of time taken in previous arcs, there's a disorienting and frantic energy, like trying to get your room cleaned five minutes before your parents get home. In particular, the last issue crams a ton of stuff in, to an exhausting degree - Karolina summons her people to take her into space and treat her for injuries she sustained in Doc Justice's efforts to martyr her, future Gert enacts her plan to kidnap Chase into the timestream, Gert's time traveling parents show up for some reason, Alex is surveilling the team for reasons unknown, Xavin is now a general of Karolina's people... it's a lot to leave on a cliffhanger.

Rowell's Runaways is a good book, and I do recommend it, either on its own or, preferably, after reading the original 2000s run. It does a great job of moving the characters forward, maturing them, and giving them more adult problems to deal with, while maintaining the series' core themes of identity, questioning authority, and anxiety towards adulthood. It simply doesn't have enough issues left at the end to resolve all of its plot threads, and that is what ultimately holds it back from being great. 38 issues is a good run, better than any volume of Runaways before it was able to achieve, but its pacing choices and the number of plates it attempts to keep in the air leave the reader wanting more.

But, to its credit, it succeeds in making me really care about what that "more" could be.

Part Three: Run Away With Me

Volume 5 of Runaways ended with issue 38, cover date October 2021. It outlasted the TV show it was meant to tie in with by two years - a TV show that was eventually pulled from streaming as a cost-cutting measure. In the years since the series concluded, not much has been happening in that corner of the Marvel Universe. The characters have made few, if any, appearances, and there's been no talk of a sixth volume, despite the plot threads left hanging.

Well, that sucks, you know? Runaways is such a unique series with such a special voice and perspective in superhero comics, and it deserves a place in Marvel's publication roster as much as the millionth Spider-Man or X-Men spinoff does. It has never sold spectacularly, but it has an audience and, crucially, has always been good for its originally intended purpose: giving Marvel a backdoor into the teen and young adult market that has for decades now largely eschewed comic books. Manga sales now account for nearly half of all comics sold in the United States, and while Marvel now mainly serves as an IP farm for adaptation into the much more lucrative MCU, I think there's value in a series like Runaways that's able to tap into that YA market in a way Marvel's other books aren't able to.

I think with the right creative team, Runaways could easily become a solid seller that is able to have a respectable run of issues. Volume 3, as well as the original Vaughn run, prove that this is possible. I would seek out a writer like Mark Waid, whose bread and butter is character work and who was able to revitalize Archie's comic line to appeal to YA readers, or Ryan North, whose Fantastic Four is one of Marvel's best titles right now primarily on the strength of its character dynamics, or David Willis of Dumbing of Age, whose work for the past decade has entirely centered on young adults finding themselves, to take over the reins of a revival, someone with established chops in the genre. Pair them with a quality artist - think Chris Samnee or Todd Nauck, and I think there's a recipe there for a hit.

I hope we see Runaways come back again, sooner rather than later. Another eight year hiatus would be unbearable.

G-d help me, I wanna see these crazy kids again, and see where the road takes them.

FINAL SCORE: 3.5/5. A good comic.

#comics #runaways #marvel #marvel comics #comic review

120 notes · View notes

yeehawllywood · 11 days ago

Text

INTRO POST

Hey I’m AP, I’m a stone butch from California & I work in TV & film as a Comedy Storyboard Artist, Director, and (part time) On Set Horse Wrangler. I rejoined tumblr for the first time since high school because it’s the only strong butch/femme community I’ve seen actually get it. I make content on social media and didn’t want another page for posting my reels and art, so I’m just here for the dyke-posting & reblogging cool shit.

ABOUT ME

Name : AP

Nickname: “Pinkie”

Late 20s, Extrovert, Trade Unionist, Gemini, Any Pronouns but masculine terms only (ex sir, bro, handsome as opposed to ma’am, girl, pretty). But I won’t be offended.

Old school stone butch by all means.

California born & raised but been about everywhere in the US. From NorCal, in SoCal now.

INTERESTS

Hardcore/post hardcore, metal, elder emo nostalgia, labor unions & labor history, real cowboy shit, outdoors, comedy, Butchfemme history, NFL (LA Rams), theater, my job.

HOBBIES

Outside of work I do volunteer large animal rescue & fire evacuations across Southern California, cow sports, rodeo, and long distance riding.

I am very involved in my union and do a lot of volunteer work. Ive served as a delegate & on our negotiations committee this past year.

I work my Jack Russell Terrier (Beetlejuice) as a ratter. I go to shows and pit. I like exploring Los Angeles. I collect dead critters & bones (Im a “vulture”) mostly sourced firsthand or from friend’s livestock.

CRITTERS

Jeepers- American Quarter Horse, animal actor, 13 years old

Beetlejuice-Jack Russell, >1 years old

those are legally my sons but I have many more in my life that I work & care for.

BOUNDARIES/TRIGGERS

I don’t like to be perceived as feminine, have to hear “Shake It Off”, or see The Dallas Cowboys. I am single but not actively looking & just enjoying life with the homies. Say what you want. Do what you want.

#intro post #stone butch #butch4femme #cowboy #butch cowboy #horses #trade unionism #me

95 notes · View notes

rafeskai · 2 months ago

Text

Violets for Roses - Rafe Cameron

One-shot inspired by Lana Del Rey's "Violet for Roses"

Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with me

And God knows the only mistake that a man can make is tryna make a woman change and trade her violets for roses

Summary: The reader, an aspiring actress, faces a heartbreaking confrontation with Rafe Cameron, who believes her dreams of moving to Los Angeles are unrealistic and wants her to stay in Kildare to build a simpler life with him. Despite her love for him, the reader realizes that sacrificing her ambitions for his vision would mean losing herself.

Pairings: Rafe Cameron x AspiringActress!Reader

Warnings: Angst & just Rafe being really toxic lol.

The fight with Rafe was brewing long before you even knew it. It was in every dismissive scoff when you mentioned auditions, in every time he’d change the subject whenever you’d dream out loud about Los Angeles. It was in every eye roll when you brought up your favorite actresses or directors, the people you’d studied obsessively since high school. And now, it’s spilling over—weeks, maybe even months of resentment unraveling in his bedroom.

“You’re really just gonna throw us away for some… fantasy?” Rafe’s voice is thick with frustration, every syllable weighted. “You’re not some actress, Y/N. You’re just… you. You’re never gonna be one of those people.”

The words sting like a slap. You’ve heard him doubt your dreams before, subtly, gently, but tonight it’s different. Tonight, he doesn’t hold back. “Why do you care so much about this? About some fake Hollywood life?”

You clench your fists, fighting to keep your voice steady. “It’s not fake, Rafe. This is real to me. It’s everything I’ve worked for, everything I want to be.”

“And that means more to you than us?” His question hangs heavy in the air, a trap you can see coming from miles away but can’t avoid. His blue eyes, usually so warm, are cold now, scrutinizing you.

The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. “I don’t want a simple life,” you finally admit, and it feels like exhaling after holding your breath too long. “I don’t want to stay in Kildare and pretend that’s enough for me when it’s not.”

“Why?” he says, his voice low, like he’s afraid of the answer.

“Because I can’t trade my dreams for yours.” The words spill out, your voice cracking under the weight of it all. “I love you, Rafe, but I also love myself. And that means going after this. I’m not going to stay just to keep you happy.”

Rafe’s face softens for a moment, vulnerability breaking through the anger, but it fades quickly, replaced by a steely resolve. “If you leave, don’t expect me to be waiting for you.”

A lump forms in your throat, and you know this is it. If you stay, it’ll be for him, not for you. If you go, it’s a leap into the unknown, one where Rafe might not be in the picture. “Then I guess this is goodbye.”

And with that, you turn and walk away, leaving behind the life he tried to shape for you, the one that never quite fit.

━

Two months later, you’re in Los Angeles, breathing in the open-air scent of Larchmont Village. The warm breeze sweeps across your skin, carrying with it the smell of flowers and freshly brewed coffee. The sun beats down, casting everything in a golden glow, and for the first time, you feel truly free.

It’s a Saturday afternoon, and the girls around you are dressed in sundresses, laughing without a care, exposing bare faces and wide smiles. You smile too, feeling that same joy seep into your bones, like the city itself is welcoming you home. This life, this city—it’s vibrant, messy, electric. It’s everything Kildare wasn’t, everything you were missing.

The Paramount sign sparkles in the distance, a beacon you once only saw in magazines and movie credits, and now, it feels like it’s lighting up just for you. Your heart swells as you look at it, thinking of all the dreams you had, the ones Rafe wanted you to set aside. This city, it doesn’t just allow you to dream; it demands it.

“Ever since I fell out of love with you, I fell back in love with me,” you whisper to yourself, feeling the words settle into your heart. Each syllable is a quiet reminder that loving yourself isn’t selfish; it’s necessary. When you loved Rafe, you’d sacrificed so much of yourself, convincing yourself that his simple dreams were enough. But here, in the warmth of Los Angeles, you’re reclaiming everything you let slip away.

━

You’d never noticed it before, but Rafe’s love had come with conditions. He loved you, yes, but only the parts of you that fit into his life. He was drawn to your fire, but he wanted to tame it, to keep it small and safe so it wouldn’t consume him.

He made you trade your violets for roses, wanted you to choose tradition over the ambition that set your heart ablaze. When you’d talk about acting, he’d say, “That’s great, babe, but don’t you want something real?” As if your dreams weren’t valid, as if they were just fantasies, things to let go of for a white-picket fence, a life that fit his mold. The truck you dreamed of owning, the freedom you craved—he wanted to exchange it for horses and stables, for the steady routine of a life rooted in one place.

And for a while, you let him.

But now, each step you take in L.A. feels like reclaiming a part of yourself. Every coffee shop, every bookstore you stumble into, feels like a universe waiting for you to write your own story. Your days are filled with auditions, with scripts spread across your apartment floor, with nights spent memorizing lines and dreaming of roles you could bring to life.

It’s hard, and you’re not always sure you’ll make it, but it’s your life, and for the first time, it feels entirely yours.

One evening, as you walk down a quiet street, the air still and warm, you think of Rafe. You wonder if he’s missing you, if he’s trying to imagine you in this new world, a world that’s as foreign to him as the one he tried to push you into was to you.

You don’t miss him, though. You miss the girl you were before you let him dim your spark, the girl who once believed she could conquer Hollywood, whose dreams were as boundless as the California sky. And as you walk, the shadows stretch and the quiet settles, you realize that girl is back.

━

One morning, you stand outside a casting agency, the sun warming your face. You close your eyes, inhaling the scent of lilies mixed with the hint of exhaust and coffee from the nearby café. You feel the city’s pulse, its rhythm, and it beats in time with yours.

Rafe had never understood why you’d wanted this life, but that doesn’t matter anymore. The city, with its flashing lights and dusty sidewalks, with its blend of elegance and grit, it understands you. It’s a love that’s pure, that asks for nothing but your own ambition, and it’s a love that feels like freedom.

And so you walk into the building, your heart pounding with nerves and excitement, knowing this is only the beginning.

#rafecameron #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron smau #obx x reader #obx smau #drew starkey x reader #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron fanfiction

57 notes · View notes

userautumn · 18 days ago

Note

i've never considered that au even though it's so obvious now that you've pointed it out. rotating this in my brain for a while.

It's so gentle. I love the 118, I love Madney, but part of me does wish they'd left together. Ditched their names, their identities back in Pennsylvania and spent a couple years traveling and becoming different people everywhere they went. Laura and Max, John and Lilian, Noah and Kathryn, just changing their names and their stories so their past doesn't catch up with them, so they can feel like they're doing something other than escaping, building a story within a story within a story just for the hell of it. Both of them working odd jobs to pay for shitty motel rooms until they decide to stop running, decide that Evan and Maddie can't grow, can't move on from their pasts until they become Evan and Maddie again. So they settle down in Maine where no one knows their names, and they build something real. Evan takes trips to the farmer's market every weekend and establishes a rapport with the locals, Maddie starts working at a clinic, Evan goes to trade school so he can get a proper, good paying job. They never think of their parents again. They never know who or what they lost because they never make it to Los Angeles. But they're happy. They're together. That's all that matters.

#This AU is so dear to me #It's been rotating in my brain for over a year #I just love them #jack answers mail #tv: 911 #buckmaddie

21 notes · View notes

ratatatastic · 5 months ago

Text

"Local kid makes good. Matthew Tkachuk, Stanley Cup Champion. So how does that sound? Stanley Cup Champion?" "I think it sounds better and better each time I'm hearin' it. It's been—I think—almost 2 months, I don't even know? Time has been flyin' but it just—each day is more and more incredible thinkin' about it." "So you're here to throw out the first pitch with Jayson Tatum, you're both Chaminade proud, like, you knew each other back then, you were friends in high school, and you're still friends—tell me about that relationship." "Yeah, it's been really incredible watching him—I think we both started out in the league very similar years. I might've been a year before when he was at College but it's been absolutely incredible to follow along his journey, and his career. I still keep in touch every now and then. I know we've played Boston the last few playoffs and he's been to a few of the playoff games for me. I went to one of his playoff games last year when we were in Boston. So really, really cool just to watch him, it was really cool to see him play in person. I'm excited to see him, and throw out that pitch with him today."

los angeles dodgers @ st louis cardinals pregame | 8.18.24 (x)

"When you guys were younger—both obviously stand-out athletes—did you ever imagine you would be a Stanley Cup Champion one day? And he would win a NBA Championship with the Celtics? Did that ever cross your minds?" "No, I mean, he was way better at his sport than I was at my sport when we were that young... I think I had a pretty good idea that he was gonna be a star basketball player. I guess you don't really think about Championships at that time of your life. You always dream about it but do you really think its gonna happen? And for us to do it, you know, within a week or however long apart from each other, it just—what a great time for all of our friends and family, and people that are just supporting us in St. Louis. I feel like St. Louis with not having teams to—you know, in their city to root for, I feel like they really kind-of hopped on and rooted for us and the Celtics. That made us, especially being from here, made us feel really special." "City was behind ya, one hundred percent! Let's talk about the final. You guys were up three-zip, it goes to a Game 7. What's that like?" "It's not supposed to be easy! I feel like it wouldn't have made sense or worked if it, you know—wasn't that scenario. It was always gonna be a long series. For us to win the first 3 and then lose the next 3—I mean, that wasn't ideal but at the end of the day we were comin' back to our incredible fans in Florida for a Game 7 Stanley Cup Final. What an incredible environment! That is a dream game! You always talk about the Game 7s when you're younger, and those are the moments you dream of, and I got to live out a dream this year." "What was it like sharing it with your pop? You know in the postgame coverage, I see your dad all over the place, your brother, your sister, your mom—what was it like sharing it with them?" "It was amazin'! Just handin' the Cup to my dad on the ice afterwards was super special there—the moment where he was actually in the locker room after the game when, you know, friends and family were startin' to come down, and I got to hand it to him, we got to beer-shower him, he got to lift it up in front of all my teammates, they were all goin' nuts for him too! Because they know that he played such a long time, and unfortunately wasn't able to win one in his playing career but I think he would've, you know, traded that all and done it exactly the way it happened for one of his boys to win it. It was such a family—It was such an incredible time for our whole family and I'm so lucky to have such great support from them." "Fun to watch too! Last thing before we let you go. You look good in the Cardinals red, Cardinals cap—there was a time where your dad, Big Walt, liked the Red Sox... please tell me you're a Cardinal fan..." "I am a Cardinal fan! Yeah, that time is—I was a big David Ortiz fan so when he was on the team like he was...him and Albert [Pujols] were my two favourites so it's actually pretty cool I got to hang out with Albert over summer in a golf tournament—the ACC tournament out in Lake Tahoe. He was one of my sports heroes! Yeah, I've been a Cardinals fan ever since I can remember with Albert." "Congratulations on getting the Cup, thanks for the chat!" "Yep, thank you!"

#matthew tkachuk #florida panthers #two boys attending each others playoff games how romantic #hey man is it chill if i watch you while youre at your job and cheer you on?#i also think a lot about matthews tendency to always downplay his own abilities #him getting so increasingly huffy about game 7 questions #like guys you aren't seeing the grand narrative he contrived before the series even began!!! come on people pick it up!!!!#to him game 7 was always destined to go like that thats fucking wild #also fambily #maffhews is such a big fambily guy he loves them all so much #fambily man :(((#also did you catch matthew referring to pujols on a first name basis?#yeah before he met him he fullnamed him now its first name!!#first name basis with your sports idol 👀👀#also a big papi fan now this is my type of guy!!#please someone get them on the same panel big papi would love maffhew so much you dont understand #THEYD RIFF OFF EACH OTHER SO WELL #I NEED IT!!!!

50 notes · View notes

hsslilly-blog · 14 days ago

Note

hello yes i am back with another ask.

do you have any ideas about how claire’s mother was raised? i assume something would’ve had to normalized being a terrible human being

Hi, yes, I do! Sorry for taking long to reply, I wanted to write this properly. This ended up a bit long, I think.

Before writing anything, I feel like I should preface with: I don't want to villainize Claire's parents (esp. her mother) to the point of them being cartoonishly evil because 1. that's not how humans work; and 2. it's boring, from a writing standpoint. I'm interested in exploring them as people + their relationship with Claire. A child doesn't attach to a parent (or any figure) just by them being, well, bad. This is true of Blair's mother, too.

Christine Murray, Claire's mother, was born in June 15th, 1966. Her parents, Ava (née Ballantine) and Blair Murray, had immigrated from Scotland to the United States a couple of years prior and had settled around the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County; which Christine would call home for most of her life. The SFV saw a postwar boom, with a huge population increase + job offers; lots of empty acres for people to build homes, too. I mention this for contextualisation: the Murrays (in Scotland) had been a working class family for many years and in the U.S. Christine's father worked himself to death for better opportunities for his wife + daughter.

Christine had an okay relationship with both her parents, if only distant. They were not in bad terms and she would say her mother was a caring woman and her father was a hardworking man; they just weren't close, and they worked all the time. They were very stuck in their ways, and were rather strict. Her mom was a midwife, her father landed a job as an insurance agent.

From a very early age, Christine developed an interest in the arts, especially acting + dancing. She was particularly drawn to Shakespeare (she fell in love with Orson Welles' Macbeth) and she would take part in her school's low-budget productions of whatever play they were putting on during that season. Her father would give her some spare money sometimes, and she used it to watch whichever film was screening in Panorama City. She was very... free. Her parents let her roam around unsupervised a lot. Not good for a 16 year old girl.

Growing up in the 70s and then the 80s, I think she watched some pretty good films. Her biggest dream was to be in the silver screen. The Red Shoes and The Way We Were were some of her favourite movies back then. I think she still likes Cabaret (which is a love she shared with Claire). Paris, Texas, too.

Christine also liked rollerblading and magazine collecting (like, teen magazines; she would trade them with her friends and cut out her favourite parts/pictures/articles and glue them to her bedroom wall and/or store it in a folder). She loooved the Carpenters. She loved thrifting clothes too.

Christine's passions were not supported by her parents, though. I don't think they did it out of malice, they just didn't "get" why their daughter was so interested in acting and movies instead of "planning her future". For them, Christine should get a good job and make her own money and be financially independent. What was she going to do when they were gone? There is no time for art. So, Christine didn't get the chance to pursue her acting career seriously and by senior year of high school she had given up on the idea. Her father dies three months after her 18th birthday. She settles with being a nurse. She gets an associate's degree.

She meets Claire's father, Werner Swanson Jr., by the end of 1987. She was a nurse in his office (he was/is a psychiatrist), so she worked under him. They get married in 1988. They were 13 years apart, not to mention the huge class + academic disparity between them. Claire is born in February 14th, 1990, when Christine is 23. She had to adapt to a new life, very quickly, while very young.

I think this is a good picture of Claire's mother. I don't want to dissect every bit because I think when put in context it all makes a lot of sense. Her unhealthy work/performance mindset, the weird relationship to food, detachment to/insufficiency with Claire, etc. When Claire shows an interest in acting, Christine decides she Must support her (whose?) dreams. She didn't get that chance, so Claire should get. But, well, life is more complicated than that. And baby Claire is, like, a person, too.

That's it... this is very long. But if you have any follow-up questions I'm happy to answer!!!

#ask box #oc: christine murray #oc: claire swanson

17 notes · View notes

augustvandyne · 10 months ago

Note

Lucy Chen x reader

Reader is somehow involved in 5 calls Lucy gets and finally they’re actually in danger at the last call and Lucy decides to ask them out at the end

yesss i love all the lucy asks! she’s adorable, especially in this season. her smileeeee

god is not on my side

God was just not on your side today, or this whole week, if you were being honest.

You were a nurse at a local hospital here in Los Angeles, and of course you were late getting out today - again.

Yesterday you’d gotten out thirty minutes late. Which wasn’t so bad, because you lived 15 away from the hospital, and 15 away from the school. So you had enough time to run home, pick your sister up and run her to the game. She got there just in time for warmups.

But today.. you hadn’t gotten out for an hour. You were an hour late. You were all but running out of the hospital when you were finally able to go.

You rushed as quickly as you could to the house, and you were scolded by your sister, Avery, when she hopped into the car.

“Just freaking drive!” She said as she hung halfway out the door.

“I don’t want to get pulled over,” You try to remain calm, but on the inside you’re freaking out just as hard. You know how important soccer was to Avery. Especially because she’s in her senior year, which means she’s being watched every second of her playing time.

“I don’t even care. I will pay if you get a ticket. Just get me to the field!” She all but yelled at you.

You glance over at your sister. Her hair was already up and she had your guys’ moms favorite color pre-wrap around her head - it was her signature trade mark - along with her shin guards and her dirty cleats that are messing up your clean car.

You press on the gas slightly and you see red and blue flashing lights.

“Shit!” You curse, pulling over to the side of the road.

“Seriously..” Avery sits back in her seat.

“You take point Chen,” You hear out your window as a beautiful woman approaches the side of your car.

“Are you aware that you were speeding?” The officer - Chen - holds her hands in front of her confidently.

“Yes. I’m so, so, so sorry. I normally wouldn’t speed but my sister here is very late to her soccer game because I didn’t get out of work at the time I should have— which is all my fault by the way,” You spare a glance at your sister who is fuming by now. “You see, she’s a senior now and there are scouts all over the place and this is not a good look for her if she’s going to be even more late so if you could please just do whatever you’re going to do, and let me go, I will pay or do whatever you want. Just please let me get her to the high school.”

Lucy’s eyes are a bit wider than they were two minutes ago.

“Oh— well— um, I’ll let you off on a warning this time,” Lucy nods and you let out a relieved breath.

“Thank you. You are a goddess. I could kiss you.”

“Oh—“

“But I won’t,” You chuckle.

“I hope I do not see you again,” Lucy points. “Wait, that sounded rude. Just— I just hope I don’t see you again because I don’t want you to be a criminal—“

“No, I understand,” You smiled widely at the adorable woman.

“Chen,” Tim says sternly.

“Y/n!” Avery says at the same time.

“Right, we’re going. I hope not to see you again, either.”

With that, you’re off.

You guess someone on the side of the road called the cops, you weren’t really sure.

All you knew was you were walking towards the store to get a few groceries for you and your sister before your night shift, when you got punched in the face.

You were slouched down against the side of a brick building when you see two sets of feet appear in front of you.

“Chen-“

“Hey,” Lucy places a gentle hand on your shoulder, ignoring Tim’s protests. She knows all you need right now is a comforting shoulder to lean on. She would know. “What happened?”

“I—“

“It’s okay. Does your throat hurt?” Lucy rubs your shoulder soothingly with her thumb, her hand still resting there.

You nod.

“I see you have a bad bruise there on your eye, did the attacker hit you anywhere else?”

Tim is impressed by Lucy’s ease and strength throughout this process. He makes a mental note to praise her later for being so supportive to you.

“My—“ Your voice is raspy. “Ribs. There’s probably one or two broken.”

Lucy looks down at your shirt, “Do you mind if I take a look?”

You nod again, letting her know it’s okay that she looks.

She’s not surprised to see the bruising on your abdomen, and is glad to see it was only one or two like you said.

“You should go to the hospital to get checked out,” Lucy looks down at you with concerned eyes. “Did he steal anything from you?”

“My— my wallet,” You swallow, and your throat contracts painfully.

“We’ll locate that for you,” Tim promises, his eyes almost matching Lucy’s.

“Thank you,” You sniff.

“Now let’s get you to the hospital.. Y/N, right?”

You didn’t even have to tell her your name.

You were nearing the end of your shift, and to be honest, you couldn’t be any happier if you tried. Partly because you were already as excited as you could get due to you finally getting to leave after an overly long day. But you were also too tired to get even more excited.

But as of late God hasn’t been in your favor. Which really explains why the second you’re about to pack up to change, the hospital is hit with a bunch of traumas - all hands on deck.

You guessed it might have been some kind of mass casualty. Maybe a multiple car pile up or a shooting.

Your suspicions only grew when one of the officers you’ve come to be familiar with - Officer Bradford - and another officer came strolling in. They had concerned looks on their faces.

You couldn’t help but notice Officer Chen (still no first name) wasn’t with him.

Officer Bradford spots you and almost immediately is by your side, hounding you for information.

“Do you know where she is?” You can see the fear in his eyes. He’s terrified for whoever he may be looking for. “She was hit- and- and- Jackson too. I- I should’ve seen it coming.”

“It’s okay Tim,” The woman that stands beside Tim shares a similar expression to him. You were guessing this woman was Jackson’s partner. The officer says in a much calmer voice, “Have you seen any officers be brought in?”

“No,” You swallow thickly and watch as their faces fall. “But I’ll find out right now.”

You see relief flash through Tim’s eyes as you back up and speed through the doors that lead into the emergency room.

Lucy locks her eyes on you, and you are at her side in a second. Another nurse is helping her but you tell her, “I got this one. Help the other officer over there.”

“Tim sent you,” Lucy says through her teeth, in an obvious amount of pain. She was tough and when in pain she didn’t show it. You admired that.

“He did,” You admit, lifting the gauze to see the wound on her cheek. “What happened?”

“We were hit by another car. We were chasing- I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Lucy looks down.

“It’s okay,” You smile down at her. “You were caught in a traumatic situation, it causes a little shock- which is what you are experiencing.”

She hisses in pain when you tap at her wound with a disinfectant.

“Thank you,” Lucy locks her gorgeous brown eyes on yours.

“Of course.”

You loved Avery, you really, really did, but you hated soccer games.

Not because of the game itself, because you loved to see Avery play. There was nothing you loved more than seeing Avery happy. But you hated the parents.

They are downright rude. They call out at the other kids who are doing just fine, and then praise their own.

“Come on Avery! That was a clear shot!” One of the girls’ fathers stands to shout from the sideline.

You are fuming by now, because that was at least the tenth time this man has shouted at Avery.

“There were three girls in her way,” You point your hand in the direction of the goal.

“She could have shot over them,” The man shrugs. “She’s done it before.”

“Yeah maybe when it wasn’t twenty degrees outside,” You roll your eyes.

“Oh, so now you’re blaming the weather on her poor shooting skills?” The man is still standing as he crossing his arms.

“Well I’m just saying it is pretty windy as well,” You stand too. “You weren’t opposed to blaming weather twenty minutes ago when your daughter missed her shot.”

“That’s—“

“Oh, yeah?” You raise your brows.

“You—“ The man begins to get in your face.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Tim shouts from the side, coming into your view. “Get away from the woman.”

“Or what?”

“I think you know,” Lucy stands confidently, and you have to admit that you’re attracted to her confidence in that moment.

A look flashes over the man’s face but he does back off from your face.

You let out a relieved breath, shooting a thankful smile in Lucy’s direction, Lucy smiling back. And oh my, was it breathtaking.

Lucy nods at you in understanding and as a goodbye.

“I hope I won’t be seeing you again,” Lucy tells the man, trying her best to not pose it as a threat.

As if you didn’t have enough on your plate already, someone was now stealing your mail and packages.

You’d ordered new chargers for your car and for the house at least three times now, and they have all been stolen.

“Again?” Avery asked with a concerned face as you searched the porch for something - anything.

“Yes!” You threw your arms up. “This is the third time. I don’t have the money to just keep spending.”

“I know,” Avery’s face holds a frown. “Maybe you should call that hot cop so she can help you figure it out.”

Your face turns a faint shade of pink at her comment.

Avery smirks, “That’s my dose of humor for the day. I’m off to school. I won’t be home until later, one of the girls with drop me off here. But seriously, get this figured out. Maybe actually go to the police about it.”

“I’ll try.”

And you did.

You really weren’t trying to run into Lucy, or make up reasons to talk to her, but you could see that’s not what it looked like here.

As you think this, it feels as if someone is listening to you. Or it’s just Avery.

Because when you enter the station, there is the cute cop you haven’t been able to get enough of.

You watch Lucy for a second.

She was standing up, but leaning on the counter, her head resting on her folded arms. Her eyes were closed as if she was sleeping, but when you stepped closer she says, “Nolan, if you have a can of silly string, I will kick you in the—“

“I don’t know who Nolan is, but he seems like a piece of work,” You joke, and Lucy is snapped up-right.

“Y/n,” Lucy smiles, grabbing at her coffee tumbler to fidget with. “What are you doing here? I thought I said I didn’t want to see you again? Although, I’m not going to complain. Anyway, uh, what can I do for you?”

You smile nervously, in a good way, and say, “I think someone is stealing my packages.. I’ve ordered phone chargers at least three different times, and they’ve all been stolen.”

Lucy nods attentively, watching you closely, her hands still wrapped around the cup.

“Okay. Let’s just fill out a form, and I will make sure our best detective, Angela Lopez, you’ve actually met her— anyway,” Lucy closes her eyes, pushing a hand into her forehead. “I’ll make sure she gets on it right away.”

“Thank you,” You smile, the two of you locking eyes. “You like coffee?”

“What?”

“The tumbler,” You point. “You like coffee? I’m more of a tea girl myself.”

“Oh— yeah, I like coffee.”

“Good to know,” You tilt your head and turn to walk out.

You just wanted to go to the bank. You really did. Everything you do lately seems to be done with a run in with police and with God on your bad side.

You freeze when you hear the shooting start. Someone has to pull you down to be stopped from getting shot.

Time flies by as he begins making threats and as the cops show up - them trying to compromise with the man.

“No! No!” The man shouted at himself. He had obvious injuries from days leading up to this. You could see infection blooming.

He stares right at you, catching your eye. He grabs your arm and lifts you with a grunt.

You choke back a sob as he says into the phone, “I have someone— her name is—“

“Y/n— Y/n,” You stutter into the phone.

“I’ll shoot her. I will.”

And then he hangs up.

“You’re too close to this Chen,” Tim shakes his head, watching her as she stirs up ideas.

“Lucy?” Nyla and Angela ask at the same time.

“That might be useful,” John says, receiving a few questioning looks. “Well, I’m just saying. She might be able to trip him up.”

“That’s a good idea,” Wade points. “Lucy, how well do you know with woman?”

Lucy doesn’t know how to answer that. She just picks the phone back up and begins to get the man on the line.

“You need to let her go,” Lucy says in a stern voice, stunning everyone. Even you.

“What for?”

“Because I like her. She’s so sweet and so kind. The kindest I’ve ever meet. I don’t know her well, but I hope to over dinner because I would love to get to know her on a personal level, rather than a police and civilian level. She has a sister to take care of, and you can’t take a life of another one of her loved ones. She’s a nurse at the hospital— one of the best. You can’t take her life away just because you’re too insecure to do anything about yourself.”

The man stays quiet, and for a second you really think he’s going to kill you.

“I’ll let her go,” The man begins, and you can hear Lucy let out a shaky but relieved breath. “On one condition.”

“And what might that be?” Lucy’s confident voice was back, and if she was being serious about the date, you already knew what your answer was going to be.

“I walk out of here free. With 250K.”

“Fine,” Lucy agrees.

“That’s a quarter of a million dollars—“ You hear Tim shriek before Lucy hangs the phone up.

You’re pushed to the ground back where you were before when the LAPD comes rushing into the bank.

Lucy was at your side in an instant, ushering you to your feet, trying to take you towards the ambulance so you could get checked.

“I’m okay,” You promise Lucy.

“I can’t be so sure,” Lucy chuckles.

You nod awkwardly.

“Okay, well,” Lucy turns to go, but you stop her.

“Did you.. mean what you said?”

Lucy turns back to you and looks at the ground for a second.

“If you didn’t, it’s okay. I mean, I would love to go out if you—“

Next thing you know, Lucy’s lips are on yours. Her lips are soft and kissable and everything you’ve imagined, but better.

“I meant everything I said,” She holds your face in her hands. “And, would you like to?”

“Like I was saying,” You touch your nose to hers. “I would love to.”

#the rookie #the rookie x reader #wlw post #lucy chen #lucy chen x reader #tim bradford #angela lopez #nyla harper #wade grey #john nolan #lovaaaa #i’m obsessed with her!!!!

110 notes · View notes

equallyshaw · 1 year ago

Text

𝓼𝓮𝓮𝓲𝓷 𝓻𝓮𝓭 | 𝓶𝓪𝓽 𝓫𝓪𝓻𝔃𝓪𝓵 𝓪𝓾 ↠ love at first sight! ↠ au masterlist!

↠ warnings: none? ↠ word count: 2.3K +

when sydney told olivia that they'd be hosting the team's new years party that year, olivia was not too thrilled. she was looking rather forward to spending the night out on the town, but once sydney demanded her sister's presence that evening; she'd be getting it come hell or highwater. it was around 7 pm when she heard music beginning to play, throughout the house and sighed. she had just finished her makeup and hair for the evening, and quickly sent a few texts out to her best friends naomi and nastia, who were in california and chicago that evening. sydney propped open her door just a bit, "can you watch the girls for a few minutes?" and with that olivia turned around with a huge grin on her face with her hands open wide for her two nieces for them to run towards her. she picked both of them up and pretended to eat them, causing them to shriek loudly bringing a smile to sydney's face.

⋆｡ °✩

it was two hours later, and after many many rounds of playing barbies with the two girls- she was relieved by another wag for a bit to grab a drink. she sighed loudly and playfully, once she reached the kitchen counter where matt and sydney were talking with another player. "god! they are so mini you's." she teased while opening up a seltzer, to which matt laughed loudly. "they are a mini syd." he joked, causing sydney to slap his arm playfully. "you are off babysitting duty for the night, i promise." sydney mused passing a small plate snacks,f from the charcuterie board. "good. i could use the night off every once in awhile." she joked, causing the two parents to laugh and tease her relentlessly. "oh! you need a night off?" both sydney and matt joked, causing her to giggle. "why yes!" she hummed, before taking her plate and drink towards the living room. she quickly made her way over towards grace - anders lee's wife and holly, bo horvat's wife. "hey!" grace beemed, pulling the red head into a small hug. "hi holls!" grace said hugging holly as well, "what have i missed?" she grinned sipping some of her drink. "oh lets fill you in!" grace joked, and the three went into catching up mode.

this was the first time in a few years that olivia had made it home for the holidays, her father and mother had been visiting her for the past four plus years while she had been at school in los angeles. she hadn't come back for much of her breaks, besides the off-season, because she was a sucker for new england summers.

she was engrossed in a long conversation when mat had shown up at the party. he greeted some teammates, and their partners before he saw the infamous red head that was never to be found. since matt had been traded from toronto, he had yet to see olivia in the flesh.

oh, how he could not bare to look away.

⋆｡ °✩

it was around 11 when mat had finally worked up the courage to say hi and introduce himself. the two found themselves in the kitchen grabbing some refreshment replacements, and snacking on some more appetizers. "you're olivia right?" mat asked as the two hadn't said anything to each other for a few minutes. she looked up from her phone, and nodded. "yes. and you are?" she questioned looking at mat. she had never seen him before, and she could see the somewhat arrogance oozing off of him. he looked at her, taking in her blue eyes. god, mat knew he was officially gone - even if she hadn't spoken more than a few words to him.

"im mat." he said not moving from where he stood, a few feet away from her. she nodded giving him a small nod, "nice to meet you mat." she said respectfully. he nodded, continuing to look at her as he sipped his amber looking drink. "this is the first time I've see you before, what got you over to the east coast?" he said somewhat teasing, somewhat seriously. she sipped her drink before responding, "well, I've been in los angeles at ucla for the past four years. i graduated in 2022, but haven't had a chance to come back since the summertime. which meant you weren't here." she mirroring his tone. he tsked his tongue, "such a shame. I've heard a lot about you, and how fun you are." he said grinning. "oh really? i am just enough fun, thankyou." she hummed, "a respectable amount." she teased cocking her head to the side just a bit. "interesting. but seriously, syd and matt always said that you're welcome but that you never take up their offer?" he questioned, sipping more of his drink.

the fucking nerve of this dude, she thought.

"well, thats not really your business is it?" she questioned slyly. he chuckled as she sighed, knowing he was not giving up. "since my parents moved to california full time, i really don't have a huge reason to come back here. besides, long island is their home. not mine." she said truthfully, "besides, its not like i can leave los angeles whenever i feel like it. i have work there, that i have to tend to." she said shifting her feet. "oh really? what kind of work, anything interesting?" he questioned, actually interested. she nodded, "i have a boutique jewelry shop that i run with my mom. im actually here on business, we are interested in opening up another shop in the hamptons actually." she said feeling the shift in the conversation. the tense conversation turning to genuine. "oh really? that's actually really cool." he said and she nodded, "yep." she said a bit too short, than she had anticipated. "whats it called, like the name?" he questioned. she smiled, "it's called greenwich jewels." she said. "i think that's the first smile you've had since this conversation started." she rolled her eyes. "there you go, ruining the vibe." she said chuckling just a bit. "me?" he teased, "yes! just when i thought that you were actually being nice and interested, you go and ruin it with your demeanor and your sarcastic tone." she said shaking her head, and mat was eating this interaction all up.

when he didn't respond, and all but continued to stare at her, she scoffed. "you're unbearable, guess all the rumors i've heard have been true." she chastised, before turning to leave. "oh? you have heard of me, huh?" he questioned, trying to get her to not leave. she froze, turning towards him just a bit, "unfortunately." she grimaced before leaving the kitchen.

⋆｡ °✩

she was on facetime with kappy, around 11:50 while she was in the office on the first floor. she needed a few minutes by herself and then kappy called, and it was good timing. "yeah barzal is an animal, definitely a jerk." he said and that made olivia laughed loudly. "are you sure you didn't describe yourself?" she teased, and he flipped her off in the process. "but seriously, when are you coming to st louis red?" he questioned and she shrugged. "do i seriously have to wait until the off-season?" he questioned, and she shrugged again. "ill let you know." she said truthfully. he nodded, "but you're the CEO you make your own schedule i thought?" he said causing her to laugh loudly again. "alrighty kap, hush." she said rubbing her face softly, holding back a giggle. " ill call you in a few days?" she questioned and kappy nodded, "happy new years red." he smiled, to which she mirroed. "happy new years kappy." she hummed, before ending the facetime. she plopped her phone onto the white desk in front of her, as she stretched her body out. she was ready to go to bed, and knew she'd be taking the two little ones to bed shortly at 12; and give their parents some time without the little ones.

her head whipped to the door, as it squeked open. she rolled her eyes as she scowled. mat smirked, stepping into the room. "if you wanted privacy for our new years kiss, you should have just said so. i had to search the whole house like a sleuth." he said amused. she scoffed, turning back towards him. "what is your problem?" she demanded, as her phone began to go off. the both of them looked towards her phone that was still on the desk, and 'zeeeegrass' flashed on the screen. she gave mat a glare, as she picked up her phone. she swiped to accept, and saw the lovely dirty blonde fill her screen. "hi z." she said looking up at mat who only leaned against the door, still staring at her. "yo! when are you back home again?" he questioned and olivia tore her glare from mat to trevor. "seriously z? i've told you how many times?" she said a tad bit annoyed, "oh woah, who pissed you off?" he asked animated. she giggled, "you'd never guess." she said monotoned. trevor grinned, "let me guess, matty said some bad jokes." and that made olivia laughed. "no, but i wish it had been that." she said truthfully, "but ill be back on the 7th." she followed up. "cool cool well happy new years ginger, but i gotta go. jacks calling me." and she felt the blood drain from her face. "oh. nice. well happy new years z." she said, now desperately trying to get off the phone. "alsooooo, my new years resolution is to figure out what happened between the two of you in the hamptons, will i have that resolution granted?" he teased, and she shook her head no before hanging up. she stood up now, feeling somewhat nauseous, and wanted to desperately hide her face from the world.

"please let me go mat." she said looking at the ground, as mat had not moved from the door. she looked up at him now, and crossed her arms. "id like to leave, without making a scene." she said unenthused. he grinned, "now i gotta know...what did happen between the two of you, huh?" he teased taking his arm off the door, and took a step closer towards the redhead. she shook her head, "none of your business- again." she chastised. he chuckled a bit, "if you tell me, ill tell you a secret." he said enticingly but she gave him a disgusted look. "you're actually crazy, mat. wild." she said as she heard the group outside beginning to count down from 12. he stepped right in front of her, invading her space. she could feel the heat and arrogance radiating off of him, making her shiver with a chill. "mat.." she trailed off as he leaned in, pausing just before his lips would have met hers. he smirked, staring straight into her blue eyes.

she swallowed harshly, as she looked down at his lips. as soon as they heard 'one' from the other room, mat swiftly took hold of her by placing his hands on her lower back while simultaneously kissing her. her hands instinctively went to his face, to hold on to him in some way. his hand began to move down further before she realized that she had been kissing him back. she pulled back, not meeting his eye. without saying a word or looking at him, she moved past him and out of the room. as soon as she was halfway down the hallway, she placed a soft finger on her rosy lips. she cursed herself on how vulnerable she had been, and how much she liked the kiss. but she hated the guy. she quickly filtered herself into the living room seeing sydney and matt with the two girls, and olivia kneeled down to them to hug the two. "who's ready for bed?!" she said and the girls shook their heads, and jumped up and down. "i thought we said no sugar past 9:30?" she questioned looking up at sydney, and then the both of them looked at matt. he put his hands up in innocence, causing the two sisters to laugh. "you guys enjoy the rest of the evening, im gonna head up with these two." she said grabbing ahold of their hands, and the three of them headed upstairs. as she picked up the youngest one at the base of the stars, she saw mat coming back into the living room. the two froze momentarily before olivia broke eye contact, and headed upstairs.

while she headed upstairs, mat went to go say by the hostess'. "mat! happy new years, darling." sydney said pulling the younger hockey player in for a hug. she left an arm on his shoulder, as they turned towards matt. "thanks for the hospitality, but im gonna head out. a bit more tired than i had anticipated." he said and the couple nodded. "lets walk you out. but first, take some desserts!" sydney said pulling mat towards the kitchen, along with matt.

matt for the rest of the night, could not shake the red head and even acknowledged that he may have gone too far. he realized that that he might have been a jerk, at some points. though the girl would argue, it was the whole time. even as he drove towards his apartment where his ex was waiting for him, he couldn't shake the girl. he cursed himself, once he realized he wanted to see her again. even if in the capacity he did not totally want.

but he knew one thing, he was smitten.

back upstairs a little while later, as the two girls were tucked in and read to sleep; olivia headed towards her room that the two young ones had dubbed 'tie tie's room', because it was right across from theirs. she laid down on her back, looking up at the white ceiling that was straight out of the gilded age. her thoughts were running a mile a minute, she hated mat and wished she would have slapped him. slap that stupid but attractive smirk off of his face. no, she despised that arrogant and cunning canadian. she turned over on her stomach and screamed into the comforter. she needed to get back to california without seeing him, or else she might hurt his feelings.

no, she'd kill him.

hope you all enjoyed! please like and reblog if you did (:

tags: @toasttt11 @cillianthinker

68 notes · View notes

littlequeenies · 2 months ago

Text

RINGO STARR’S DAUGHTER LEE

1991, November 2nd - HELLO! Magazine

Spotlight on the children of the stars

RINGO STARR’S DAUGHTER LEE

Sixties Fashion – not The Beatles – is what this young tycoon is into

Just look at Ringo Starr’s little girl now!

The ex-Beatle’s daughter, Lee Starkey, now 21 (“People look at me and still think I’m 13”), has become Hollywood’s latest fashion tycoon, selling dazzling sequined hot pants, microscopic mini skirts and psychedelic kaftans like hot-cakes from her very own boutique, slap in the middle of Los Angeles' trendiest district, Melrose Avenue.

“Daddy didn’t help at all with money,” says Lee, giving a delighted spin as she proudly models a selection of her favourite gear, all designed by herself and her partner, Christian Paris, 30.

“Daddy has given me plenty of moral support though – he brought all his friends to our grand opening. Sometimes he just walks in unexpectedly and drags people in off the street to see our clothes!

“He’s thrilled that at last I’ve found something I love to do.”

Lee Starkey was five when her mother Maureen and famous father Ringo divorced in 1975. And although her parents have since remarried (her mother to Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett, and Ringo to actress Barbara Bach) the extended family are all fast friends.

And when their little girl opened her very own boutique in Hollywood, both parents turned up along with brothers Zak, 25, and Jason, 23, to cheer her on.

“I’m by no means an expert on the Beatles,” admits Lee with a pretty smile. “If I want to know something about the Beatles, I simply ask my dad. But what I am drawn to is the fashions of the Sixties. That’s where I get my inspiration. I’ve tried to bring the vibrancy and colour and freedom of those fashions into the Nineties.”

And Lee’s splashily painted shop, dubbed Planet Alice, is doing a roaring trade, proving her ideas have hit the jackpot.

Lee tried acting, make-up school and even the drums before she finally hooked up with partner Christian Paris of whom she says: “We’re very fond of each other, but it’s just platonic.”

Christian already owned a Planet Alice store in London’s Portobello Road, a business he operated along with the London disco Alice in Wonderland.

He still owns his disco, but under Lee’s urging he’s now relocated his clothing boutique to Hollywood.

“We’ve only been open a month, but already I can see Lee’s idea was sound – sales are blistering,” says Christian happily, as he rings up a $1,000 sale to a group of visiting Miami Latinos who were dressed in clothes bought at Planet Alice only the previous day.

“Lee has so much energy, such wonderful ideas. And when she starts modelling like today – the cash register fairly clangs!”

REPORT: RODERICK BARRAND

PHOTOS: MARTA VANEGAS FOR KEYSTONE-NEMES.

11 notes · View notes

niucollege1 · 1 year ago

Text

Unlock Opportunities with Trade School in Los Angeles: Elevate Your Career Path Today

In the vibrant and competitive landscape of Los Angeles, where innovation meets industry, finding the right avenue to propel your career forward can be a game-changer. If you're seeking a dynamic and practical approach to learning, the trade school in Los Angeles emerges as the key to unlocking a world of opportunities and elevating your career path.

Bridging the Gap Between Education and Employment

Traditional education paths often leave graduates grappling with the challenge of transitioning into the professional world. Our trade school in Los Angeles is designed to bridge this gap, providing students with the practical skills and knowledge necessary to seamlessly integrate into their chosen industries. We understand that success is not just about what you learn but how you apply that knowledge in the real world.

Industry-Relevant Programs for In-Demand Careers

Los Angeles is a city of diverse industries, and our trade school caters to this diversity with a range of programs tailored to meet the demands of the job market. Whether you're interested in honing technical skills, mastering a trade, or diving into the world of healthcare, our comprehensive programs are crafted to align with the needs of employers, ensuring you graduate with skills that are in high demand.

Hands-On Learning in Cutting-Edge Facilities

Education should be an immersive experience, and our trade school takes this to heart. Our state-of-the-art facilities provide students with hands-on learning opportunities using the latest industry-standard equipment. From simulated work environments to practical workshops, we ensure that every student gains the practical experience needed to excel in their chosen field.

Career Services and Support

Your journey doesn't end with graduation; it's just the beginning. Our trade school is committed to supporting students throughout their career paths. From resume building to interview preparation, our career services aim to empower you with the tools necessary to secure your dream job. We believe in your potential and are dedicated to helping you unlock the opportunities that await.

Enroll Today and Shape Your Future

Ready to take the next step toward a brighter future? Elevate your career path today by enrolling in the trade school in Los Angeles. Our commitment to your success is unwavering, and we're here to guide you as you unlock the doors to countless opportunities.

Trade School Los Angeles Contact us today at +1 818-960-6685 to learn more about our programs, admission process, and how we can help you shape a successful career. Don't just dream about a better future; make it a reality with the trade school in Los Angeles. Your journey towards professional excellence begins here.

#trade school los angeles #trade school in los angeles

0 notes

justforbooks · 1 year ago

Text

David Soul, who has died aged 80, stormed to fame in the 1970s as half of the television “buddies” detective duo Starsky and Hutch, who careered across Los Angeles in their red and white Ford Gran Torino, over the roofs and bonnets of other cars, and through piles of cardboard boxes.

“When the Starsky and Hutch series was showing, police on patrol duty were adopting sunglasses and wearing their gloves with the cuffs turned down,” claimed Kenneth Oxford, a British chief constable. “They also started driving like bloody maniacs.” In south London, a council lowered a wall after fans of the tyre-squealing screen action used it as a launchpad to jump on to parked vehicles.

While Paul Michael Glaser played the streetwise, cardigan-wearing, junk food-eating Dave Starsky, Soul’s character, Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson, was the quieter, yoga-loving, healthy-eating one – two cool cops looking after each other as if they were brothers.

Over five series (1975-79), they patrolled a rough area populated by muggers, drug dealers, sex workers and pimps. They also fraternised with Huggy Bear (played by Antonio Fargas), a snazzily dressed, “jive-talking” informant with his own bar.

Soul traded on his newfound stardom to return to his first love, music. He recorded the ballads Don’t Give Up on Us (1976), a No 1 in the US and UK, and Silver Lady (1977), another British chart-topper.

His television career continued, but the starring roles rarely resonated beyond his homeland. An exception was the miniseries World War III (1982), in which he played an American cold war colonel trying to avert a nuclear holocaust. It also chimed with his political and social campaigning, which included supporting the anti-nuclear movement.

He took up the tempting offer to play Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1983), a five-part TV prequel to the film classic, in the role originally played by Humphrey Bogart, but it proved a flop.

Soul found renewed success – particularly on the West End stage – after moving to Britain in the 90s. He even hit the headlines beyond the review pages in the title role of Jerry Springer the Opera (Cambridge theatre, 2004-05), taking over from another American actor, Michael Brandon, as the “shock” talkshow host.

The BBC’s decision to screen Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee’s musical, complete with thousands of swear words, transvestites, tap-dancers dressed as Ku Klux Klan members and a nappy-wearing Jesus, received more than 60,000 complaints from viewers.

Soul simply relished the chance to fulfil his “dream to play in the birthplace of English-speaking theatre” after failing to “cut the mustard” when auditioning on Broadway.

He was born David Solberg in Chicago to June (nee Nelson), a teacher who had also performed as a singer, and Richard Solberg, a Lutheran minister of Norwegian descent. His father’s work as a representative of the Lutheran World Relief organisation during the reconstruction of Germany after the second world war meant the family moved to Berlin in 1949, returning to the US seven years later to live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where David attended Washington high school.

He then acted in plays while studying at Augustana College, before moving to Mexico with his family. Influenced by his father’s work, he initially had plans to join the diplomatic service, and learned Spanish and studied Latin American history. He was also taught to play the guitar by Mexican students.

After a year, he hitchhiked to the US, landed a job singing Mexican folk songs at a coffee shop in Minneapolis and set his sights on a career in music. He also gained some acting experience with the city’s Firehouse theatre company.

While talking with friends about the metaphorical masks people wear, he came up with the idea of wearing a real one while performing so that the music stood on its own merits, and billed himself “David Soul, the Covered Man”. The William Morris Agency signed him up after hearing a demo tape, and he soon had bookings. One was in The Merv Griffin Show on TV between 1966 and 1968, when he eventually dispensed with the mask. More significantly, a talent agent spotted his acting potential.

He had a regular role in Here Come the Brides (1968-70), a comedy western series set after the civil war, as Joshua Bolt, one of the brothers running a logging company in a male-dominated Seattle frontier town and importing marriageable women.

A guest star, Karen Carlson, became Soul’s second wife (1968-77), following the dissolution of his first marriage, to Mirriam “Mim” Russeth, in 1966, three years after their wedding.

Soul was then popping up all over American TV in guest roles himself, and had a short run in 1974 as Ted Warrick, the defence lawyer’s assistant, in Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, before wider fame came in Starsky and Hutch. By then, he was living in an “open” relationship with another actor, Lynne Marta. When he moved on to his third marriage, to Patti (nee Carnel, 1980-86), former wife of the 60s pop idol Bobby Sherman, he hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In 1982, having already struck Patti several times, he returned home drunk one night following a day’s filming on Casablanca – which he correctly feared would bomb – and hit her repeatedly. He was arrested on a charge of misdemeanour battery, but a judge spared him jail on condition that he underwent therapy. Soul admitted to having a violent streak and, although he and Patti were reunited, the marriage was soon over.

He kept working, landing starring roles as Roy Champion in the cattle ranch soap-style drama The Yellow Rose (1983-84), the private eye of the title in the TV movie Harry’s Hong Kong (1987), and “Wes” Grayson, leading an FBI forensics team, in Unsub (1989), but his star was on the wane. Another marriage, to Julia Nickson (1987-1993), also failed, before he had a relationship with the actor-singer Alexa Hamilton.

Soul’s career was revived when in 1995 the theatre producer Bill Kenwright was looking for an American to star in the comedy thriller Catch Me If You Can on tour in Britain. He played Corban, a newlywed whose wife goes missing. There were other tours and Soul was in the West End as Hank in The Dead Monkey (Whitehall, now Trafalgar, theatre, 1998), Chandler Tate in Alan Ayckbourn’s Comic Potential (Lyric, 1999-2000) and Mack in Mack & Mabel (Criterion, 2006).

In between, he had one-off roles on British television, including as a locum surgeon in two episodes of Holby City (2001 and 2002), a Boston detective helping to investigate his wife’s murder in Dalziel and Pascoe (2004) and a criminology lecturer in Inspector Lewis (2012). Soul and Glaser had cameos in the 2004 film spoof Starsky & Hutch, alongside Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch. In the same year, Soul was granted British citizenship.

He is survived by his fifth wife, Helen (nee Snell), whom he married in 2010, and five sons and a daughter.

🔔 David Soul (David Richard Solberg), actor and singer, born 28 August 1943; died 4 January 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #david soul #in memoriam

30 notes · View notes

butterflyhiptattoo · 7 months ago

Text

Emerging From the Magazines: Bob Mizer's Athletic Models Guild

When twenty-four-year-old Bob Mizer began marketing photographs of men in posing straps in 1946, he was already on a crusade.

He was tired of police harassment in Pershing Square – a well-known meeting spot for gay men in downtown Los Angeles where he socialized with friends nearly every day during high school. They gossiped about their fellow Pershing Square regulars – the effeminate belles, the butch trade, and some in between. But in 1940 he wrote in his diary of a crackdown: "vice clean up is tightening Lillie is really serious about cleaning up the city," using a slang term common in gay circles for the police.

He also made weekly visits to the nearby Los Angeles Central Library and was tired of reading psychology books on the danger posed by "sexual variants" such as himself and his friends. "Anything you could read anywhere showed how pernicious a thing this was... [how] you would deteriorate into a mass of trembling flesh if you did these things," he later complained.

He was also tired of arguing with his Mormon mother, who vociferously objected to his transgender friend Rodney-later known as Daisy -who was bullied at school for wearing pink girls' slacks and having plucked eyebrows. Delia Mizer called Rodney a "pansy" and labeled his sexual proclivities "against all the laws of nature." Her son responded angrily, using a very different vocabulary, one that drew on notions of legal equality and civil rights: "Most people are just obeying their impulses," he retorted. "Should they be denied the right to fulfill their instincts?"

As a young man, Mizer had already identified the many ways society looked down on "temperamental people" like him and his circle of Pershing Square friends. More important, he was also clearly determined to do something about it to confront the legal, medical, and religious prejudices that so viscerally affected his life.

One Sunday night in March 1940 he was on the telephone listening to Rodney describe his sexual exploits from the night before. Someone else on his party line was also listening in a common occurrence at a time when only the rich had private telephone lines. Using vulgar lan-guage, the eavesdropper expressed his contempt for such people. Mizer had had enough. He channeled his anger into his diary that night: "My aim in life will be to create tolerance among mankind and especially to vindicate the decent, spiritual Urning," using a nineteenth-century term for men attracted to other men. He was beginning to articulate the sense of defiance that had been building up inside him. Soon his rudimentary efforts to create tolerance made it into print. "This week I made my column risqué," he noted of his writing in the Polytechnic High School newspaper. "All of my gay friends are included." Even as an eighteen-year-old high school student, Mizer demonstrated a willingness to defy convention and assert his desires. He had also developed the ability to publicly affirm his gay friends if in a coded way that perhaps only they would understand.

Mizer's ambition was to be an author. He was not just a columnist but an editor of his high school's award-winning newspaper – considered one of the top ten in the country by the Columbia University School of Journalism. He had begun creative writing in grammar school and published several short stories. He was also a voracious reader, checking out popular psychology and sexology books like Out-witting Our Nerves and Sexual Power on his weekly runs to the Los Angeles Public Library. He so identified with Boris Barisol's biography of writer Oscar Wilde, subtitled The Man, the Artist, the Martyr, that he labeled his own 1940 diary "Bob Mizer: The Man, the Thinker, the ?" One of his teachers suggested that his skills at writing, shorthand, and typing would easily land him a steady job as a court reporter. But Mizer wanted to write his own book. He would call it "How You Can Help the Homosexualists" and would target younger gay men whose worldview had not yet formed.

Although he never published such a book, writing would occupy much of his life, as he penned hundreds of feisty editorials denouncing censorship, puritanism, and prejudice for his magazine Physique Pictorial, which he published for over twenty years. Not unlike the book he hoped to write, Physique Pictorial offered help and comfort to tens of thousands of gay men in Cold War America. As the editor of the first large-circulation American magazine targeting gay men, Mizer found a way to help the community he had found at Pershing Square. In the pages of his path-breaking magazine, Mizer honed the skills he first tried out in his high school newspaper-thumbing his nose at the authorities while speaking up for his friends.

In postwar America, a commercial network of gay physique photographers and magazine publishers emerged from the contests and magazines surrounding the physical culture movement. Bob Mizer was neither the first nor the only gay man to capitalize on his community's interest in physique photography. But he became the center of a network that served to connect, inspire, and politicize that subculture. He drew on an older tradition of gay photographers marketing their products through an underground market or in the back pages of mainstream fitness magazines. But with the founding of Physique Pictorial in 1951, he opened this tradition to public scrutiny and a new level of visual and discursive engagement. He was joined by Irv Johnson, the owner of a gym in Chicago, who began publishing Tomorrow's Man in 1952, and by Randolph Benson and John Bullock, a gay couple who met at the University of Virginia, who began publishing Grecian Guild Pictorial in 1955. Together they created a new genre of small magazines that would help serve and unite gay men throughout the country.

The social world Mizer constructed with his gay high school friends at Pershing Square was central to his budding role as a pioneering gay entrepreneur. "The number of faggots cruising around here is legion," remembered the writer Hart Crane. But the number of available sexual partners was only part of the appeal. "Here are little fairies who can quote Rimbaud before they are eighteen," he observed, suggesting how the space also offered an education in gay cultural codes. It was through connections made there that Mizer not only discovered a sense of community and a sense of oppression but also learned about a central feature of gay male culture: photography of the nude male.

While still in high school, Mizer went to a party at his friend Sydney Phillip's place, where three gay friends posed in the nude for "artistic studies" that the host photographed. "It was terribly cute to see them rush to hide in the bathroom whenever a knock was heard at the door," Mizer noted of the models' skittishness. Featured in one of the first entries in his 1940 diary, the night clearly made an impression. A few months later Mizer himself posed for another gay photographer and became "enthused about barbell exercising."3

Weightlifting led Mizer to another formative influence: Strength & Health, the preeminent physical culture magazine published by Bob Hoffman in York, Pennsylvania. Mizer began reading the magazine in high school when he started lifting weights – he purchased his barbells through its back pages. He enjoyed the bodybuilding photos and articles but was particularly intrigued by the monthly "S & H Leaguers' Page," a pen-pal service for those who wanted to exchange letters and photographs. Members often described their hobbies and interests, which included not only bodybuilding and physique photographs but often music, ballet, and theater. In April 1945 Mizer placed the following notice, hoping to connect with other leaguers; he included his home address, which would become the legendary home of his physique studio: "Bob Mizer, 1834 West 11th St., Los Angeles, Cal. is interested in photography and creative writing, and promises an immediate answer and exchange of photos to all who write. He uses a York barbell and other training appliances and hopes that we will allot more space to the league notes, as he enjoys reading this department and writing to other leaguers. "

The response was overwhelming – Mizer received over three hundred letters from fellow S & H Leaguers, some of whom remained life-long friends. Other leaguers reported similar responses from their no- tices. One received such a flood of mail-but to the wrong address – that the Post Office requested he issue a correction immediately. Mizer later praised this service for allowing "lonely bodybuilders and others" not only to correspond but also to form "long-lasting and fruitful" friendships. His positive experience with the S & H Leaguers' Page offered a pivotal lesson, demonstrating to Mizer the desire of men who enjoyed physique photography to connect with each other.

After high school graduation he worked as an office clerk and typist for the Texas & Fort Worth Railroad, but in his spare time he also began to help out at various Los Angeles photography studios, learning how to pose models, position lighting, and develop film. In the summer of 1945, during the final days of World War II, Mizer was full of excitement as he made plans over the establishment of what he was already calling "my business." He was honing his craft by apprenticing at Fred- erick Kovert's Hollywood studio. "I am helping him in my spare time in order to decide whether or not to come into the studio to work." Kovert was a former silent movie actor who had become one of the more daring and well-known photographers of nude men. Mizer was one of numerous young men working for Kovert, doing much of the photography that bore his name. Mizer often brought models there, used his darkroom, and even posed himself. He could do none of this at home, since his mother, who ran a rooming house, did not approve of his interest in photographing nearly naked men. Still, he found Kovert to be controlling and difficult to work with.

Soon he bought his own camera and started to frequent Muscle Beach and bodybuilding competitions to find models. Muscle Beach in Santa Monica-not far from the home he shared with his mother near downtown Los Angeles was the center of the postwar interest in bodybuilding and beefcake. It was the perfect place to meet bodybuilders who were anxious to be photographed. "I modeled for Bob Mizer in 1947, '48," Ben Sorensen remembered. "Bob came down to Muscle Beach and just talked to people, you know? He invites us up. Of course everybody's interested, when they're bodybuilding, in getting some free pictures." It was Bob McCune, another bodybuilding champion Mizer photographed, who convinced Mizer to submit his photos to Strength & Health. Editor John Grimek, himself a well-known bodybuilding champion, encouraged Mizer to submit more work. "Yours are as good as others," Grimek told the budding photographer when they met at one of the bodybuilding competitions in Los Angeles.

Mizer called his business the Athletic Model Guild (AMG) and offered his first advertisements in Strength & Health in 1946, where they competed for attention with similar advertisements from other gay photographers, such as Alfonso Hanagan, known as "Lon of New York." Hanagan had first become interested in physique photography when he became enthralled with images of bodybuilder Tony Sansone, who marketed his own photographs. After moving to New York in 1936 to pursue a career in music, he met Sansone and began to socialize with and photograph him and his friends. By the 1940s his physique photographs were being featured on the cover of Strength & Health and bodybuilders began seeking him out, hoping to appear on magazine cover. As payment, the magazine gave him free ad space in the back of the magazine. It was this mutually profitable world of photographers, bodybuilders, and magazine publishers that Mizer would enter, then help to transform.

When Mizer began marketing physique photography to a gay audience, he joined a field with deep roots in gay culture. The taking, sharing, and selling of such images had been central to gay culture for well over a half century by the time Mizer discovered it. Wilhelm von Gloeden began selling photographs of nude young men he posed in classical staging in Taormina, Sicily, in the 1890s. He developed a large following in cosmopolitan circles, especially among cultivated gay men. Some of his more restrained images appeared in European journals that were popular within the Aesthetic movement, while his nudes circulated through an underground market. Oscar Wilde and other gay notables made pilgrimages to his studio.

In addition to such high art, images of nearly nude men circulated in the context of the physical culture movement, starting with images of Eugene Sandow in the 1890s. By the 1920s nude photos were widely marketed in the back of both art and physical culture magazines. Physical culturist John Hernic offered nude photos in the back of Art Magazine in the 1920s and Strength & Health in the 1930s. "These photos will be a source of inspiration to you in your training for a well developed body," Hernic's ad promised, providing a small image of a muscled and oiled young man with a prominent posing strap a pouch hanging off a string that covered only the genitals, the most revealing item of clothing a model could wear.

Collector Robert Mainardi identifies Hernic as a "mail-order pioneer," but his Apollo Art Studios was soon joined by others. To earn a living during the Depression, brothers Fred and William Ritter photographed themselves and their fellow physical culturists who trained at a New York City YMCA. They developed their own photos and sold high-quality images for $1 apiece. Film historian Thomas Waugh labels them "the first gay generation of physique photographers. "10

Nude figure studies were only one of the many items available for sale in the back pages of these magazines. There were advertisements for barbells, food supplements, clothing, figure studies, and more. Indeed, most magazines were simply vehicles to sell products. Bob Hoffman founded the York Barbell Company a year before he founded his magazine Strength & Health and admitted the periodical was really a means to sell equipment. Both Hoffman and his main competitor Joe Weider distributed their fitness magazines at a loss, seeing them as a way to sell more barbells. Some of the first famous bodybuilders were similarly engaged in marketing products. Eugene Sandow – considered the world's most perfect man – performed on the vaudeville circuit, published books on physical culture techniques, and marketed postcards of his own image. As much a brand name as a bodybuilder, Sandow opened a chain of vegetarian restaurants, sanatoriums, and hotels that by the 1920s made him a millionaire. Bodybuilding promoter Bernarr Macfadden also constructed a commercial empire around the sport that included health retreats, restaurants, beauty contests, book sales, lectures, and mail-order fitness courses. Right from the start, bodybuilding was a lucrative business, the centerpiece of a network of consumer items.

A legend has developed that Mizer's first business plan was to serve as a referral service between models and the studios that required their services. According to this legend, the talent agency model failed, but Mizer díscovered, as if by accident, that the photographs were more lucrative than the modeling connections. This unsubstantiated story implies that his idea of marketing photos to gay men was sui generis. It cuts Mizer off from the long tradition of gay men taking, exchanging, and purchasing such photographs, beginning in the late nineteenth century. One of the sources of the legend was Wayne Stanley, a Mizer protégé who inherited Mizer's business and who self-servingly asserted that AMG was "the first photographic studio of the young male physique, ignoring Von Gloeden, Hernic, the Ritter Brothers, Lon of New York, Kovert, and many others. Mizer's diaries suggest that photography was key from the beginning and that he considered himself to be part of a field of physique photographers from at least 1946. While a pioneer in many ways, Mizer did not create the genre.

Although the selling of physique-type photographs was not new, in the post-World War II era such imagery was becoming a much more visible component of American culture. Men had only recently started appearing shirtless in public. While European men had begun going topless on beaches soon after World War I, one-piece men's bathing suits emerged in the United States only in the 1930s. Some called them "Depression suits," suggesting that the shirt disappeared owing to lack of funds. As more and more proud male bathers defied convention by exposing their chests, the media began to talk of a "no shirt movement." Some beach communities such as Atlantic City, New Jersey, pushed back and banned topless male bathing. Responding to the changing beach regulations, clothing manufacturers offered detachable tops for their swimsuits. Representing the shifting cultural sands, their advertisements often featured one shirtless male and another with trunks and a tank top. According to David Chapman, by 1937 the controversy was settled, as most of the nation's beaches allowed men to appear shirtless.

World War II brought images of shirtless sailors and soldiers into American homes and theaters. In covering the war, New York magazines and Hollywood films soon reflected the trend toward displays of the male chest. A cover of Look magazine in 1942 featured a shirtless image of Muscle Beach denizen John Kornoff, the U.S. Army's first physical trainer. Cannon Towel advertisements in Life featured soldiers bathing in the South Pacific wearing nothing but one of its products. Within a year of the war's end, as Mizer started marketing his photo albums, Sidney Skolsky, sitting across town in Swab's drugstore writing his nationally syndicated gossip column, coined "beefcake" to refer to Hollywood's liberal use of Guy Madison's physique. Madison had been discovered by gay Hollywood agent Henry Willson, who also named and popularized gay actors Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson. Skolsky dubbed the bevy of male actors posing in bathing suits a "beefcake brigade," and this new term for displays of young, pulchritudinous male flesh took hold. Willson was a frequent client of physique photographer Lon of New York but was now bringing that same look to Hollywood. So the popularization of "beefcake" imagery and terminology, from their very origins, had a gay inflection.

But if male torsos could increasingly be seen on American beaches and in popular periodicals after World War II, they were still considered taboo in town. Men would continue to be subject to arrest for appearing shirtless on many city streets and in parks into the early 1960s. They were particularly vulnerable to such arrest if they did so in a known gay cruising area, reflecting the tensions in American culture over male nudity and its homoerotic implications. A seventeen year-old Harvey Milk remembered being charged with indecent exposure in the summer of 1947 for baring his chest in a secluded gay cruising area of Central Park, even as men with families did exactly the same on the more public grassy lawns. Being grouped among "the men without their shirts" was one of Milk's first visceral experiences of antigay oppression.

As interest in the male physique increased during the postwar period, Mizer's Physique Pictorial would catch the beginnings of a cultural wave. Yet he would also feel the wrath of law enforcement that tried to shut his business down, even before it was formally on its feet. He and his magazine would be caught up in legal disputes over the sexual meaning of such displays of male flesh. For the next two decades, Mizer would place himself at the center of this battle.

POSTAL INSPECTOR VISIT

On July 23, 1945, Mizer had his first of many encounters with federal law enforcement authorities. After leaving work as usual at the Texas & Fort Worth Railroad and bicycling by the library on Pershing Square to exchange some books, Mizer arrived home to find postal inspectors waiting for him. They searched his room, found "dirty pictures," and took him to their offices for questioning. Mizer somehow escaped arrest, but a few months later Kovert's studio was also raided, resulting in headlines in the Los Angeles Examiner. Intimately involved in the resulting legal drama, Mizer attended court with Kovert, who pleaded guilty to possession of obscene materials, and drafted a letter for Kovert's customers seeking their support. Not even the intimidating tactics of the Post Office and the court system seem to have deterred the twenty-three-year-old Mizer. "Spent evening on [Athletic Model] Guild calls and letters," he wrote in his diary, just two days after being what he described as "probed" by postal inspectors. Rather than serve as a deterrent, Mizer's encounter with federal postal authorities seemed to increase his resolve and suggests how his struggle with the forces of censorship formed a central component of his business. Mizer would face arrest again in 1947 and 1954 in connection with his business, each encounter with the authorities sharpening his sense of outrage.

Mizer began his business in 1946 by producing and distributing mimeographed "albums" to sell his beefcake photographs, copying the standard operating procedure followed by Kovert of Hollywood, Lon of New York, and many other such photographers.17 He would send customers who responded to his advertisements in Strength & Health a one-page sample of photo albums, from which they could select the models and images they wanted to purchase. However, Mizer's early albums went beyond providing the necessary marketing information. Mizer peppered his albums with news and commentary on the physique world-biographies of models, bodybuilding contest results, and warnings about Post Office crackdowns. As with his earlier writings in high school and his later editorials in Physique Pictorial, Mizer constructed a narrative that drew customers and models into the same enlightened circle of upstanding physique enthusiasts and supporters of free speech, while casting public censors and moralists into the darkness.

Starting with Forrester Millard in 1946 -- the first featured model in his premier "Album A" – Mizer constructed a fantasy narrative about his models that encouraged a sense of identification between them and his target audience of middle-class gay men. At the same time, he cleaned up the description of his interactions to avoid any hint of illegality. Although Mizer would print on almost every mailing and magazine he produced that he neither took nor sold nude photographs, he took nudes of Millard and of most every subsequent model. A native of New Mexico, Millard was only sixteen at the time Mizer photographed him, though Mizer fudged his date of birth to make him seventeen.

Publicly, Mizer lauded Millard as the ideal model who had control of every muscle due to hours posing before a circle of mirrors. Privately, Mizer complained that Millard was narcissistic to the point of being "completely entranced with his own physical beauty." Vanity had led Millard to quit school and be supported by his mother and a girlfriend. "In the album bulletins I try to be truthful – but naturally I must show jurisprudence in what truth I tell," Mizer wrote a correspondent at the time. "I would doom a model's popularity if I announced he was married with two kids.... Most of my models over 23 are married or are permanently shacking up with their common-law wives."

So the biography Mizer constructed for Millard centered on discipline, Horatio Alger upward mobility, and a hint of homosexual camaraderie. "Laughed at because he was skinny, Forrester rapidly developed a magnificently defined body which became the envy of his former tormentors," Mizer wrote. Mizer replaced mention of his real-life girlfriend with "training companion" John Miller, who had won top honors at a recent AAU contest. They posed for Mizer's first duos, a homoerotic format that set Mizer and other gay physique photographers apart from their mainstream colleagues. Dark-featured Millard and blonde Miller looked like the perfect gay couple. They hoped to open a gym together, Mizer told his clients suggestively. The image of Millard and Miller on a settee with overlapping arms, hands touching, appeared in Strength & Health and became a signature AMG photo. Millard was later called "almost the touchtone for AMG's fame".

To counter the perception of both gay men and bodybuilders as degenerates, Mizer's biographical notes gave his models middle-class respectability, highlighting not only their physical attributes but also their alleged intellectual and professional ambitions. Not only was model Johnny Murphy tops in the "muscle game," but his business courses at Woodbury College were preparing him to become a business executive. "In anything he does, he will not content himself with being just average, he must be the best," Mizer gushed.

From the feedback he received to his many customer questionnaires, Mizer had a keen sense of what his audience liked and the "psychological effect" of his photos. As he told a colleague, "A picture is rarely unpopular if the model looks directly into the lens (and hence seems to be looking at the person observing the picture) as naturally they feel identification with him." Not only in his lighting and posing but also in his editorial content, Mizer made sure that his largely middle-class audience could identify with the models he was offering them, assuring them that they were "from upper-level homes." While seeking to bond models and customers in a circle of mutual camaraderie and respectability – what he called "the few... who demand freedom of expression" – Mizer also used his albums to make a detailed and careful analysis of censorship efforts by people he derided as "philistines," "moralists," and "unaesthetic law enforcement officers. " Mizer had gotten nowhere in his attempts to reason with censorship authorities. He and his fellow Los Angeles area physique photographers petitioned the Post Office to allow the use of the mail for nude photography. Postal authorities responded that they were forced to forbid such mail by local civic organizations and church groups that feared such products would fall into the hands of children. Mizer offered a clever countersuggestion: photographers could send nude photographs care of the local postmaster in every city, where they could then be claimed by the recipient with proper proof of age. His proposal went unheeded.

Mizer had been in business less than a year when he was first arrested, but it was not for sending nudes through the mail. Mindful of postal inspectors, he had sold nudes only to walk-in customers at his studio near downtown Los Angeles-what amounted to just 10 percent of his business. But when one of those customers, thirty six-year-old Mexican-born Texan Pasquel Barron, became embroiled in a Post Office obscenity investigation, he admitted to obtaining nudes from Mizer, and the Post Office quickly forwarded the information to the local district attorney. Mizer was arrested in 1947 for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, James Maynor, one of his first models, a seventeen-year-old. The district attorney uncovered a network of teenage bodybuilders centered on Muscle Beach, many of whom had been brought to Mizer's studio by William Petty, a physical education instructor employed by the city of Santa Monica to organize athletic activities and performances. Petty and another photographer were also arrested.

Unable to afford an attorney, Mizer was convinced by a public defender to plead guilty to the misdemeanor charge he admitted to photographing Maynor in the nude. But in his plea to avoid prison and receive probation, Mizer insisted that he operated a legitimate business. He stipulated that he had consulted with attorneys and obtained signed release statements from his models or their parents. To distinguish his from previous such enterprises that operated underground, Mizer granted the court access to his meticulous records concerning both customers and models. He freely admitted to being a homosexual and to "attend[ing] several meetings of other types of such individuals in Lafayette Park" a possible reference to gay social or fraternal organizations. Friends and neighbors testified to his good conduct and character – they described him as a photographer and artist who never smoked, drank, or got entangled in the law. The district attorney countered that Mizer's business was "pandering only to the tastes of lustful homosexuals." Several of his models, including John Miller, featured in AMG's early advertisements, confessed to engaging in oral sex with Mizer.

In denying his request, the probation officer emphasized that Mizer showed no remorse for his activities and was an admitted homosexual. He labeled his business of photographing teenage boys in the nude "a vicious and deliberate crime." Mizer was sentenced to six months at a work farm in Saugus, California. As with his interrogation by postal inspectors in 1945, the time he spent in Saugus seemed to steel his will. He felt abused by a legal system that was persecuting him for his lack of shame in being gay and operating a business that catered to his fellow homosexuals. He would later caution his readers to remain silent if arrested and never admit to any guilt, lest they find themselves "rail-roaded to prison" like he felt he was. As he wrote to his mother from Saugus, "I feel more strength now than ever before, but this strength, this driving energy, shall be carefully bridled and directed with wisdom.... ambition is everything." Mizer's tone and focus on the forces of censorship turned darker after his 1947 arrest. By 1950 he reported on a "witch hunt" at Muscle Beach, where one Sunday all the photographers were arrested and further photography forbidden. "Los Angeles and California is in a stage of sex hysteria," he warned, with the state legislature passing sex laws "which only stop short of outlawing the double bed." He chastised "those too stupid and prurient-minded" to understand and appreciate the need for nude art. "These same philistines are mischievously at work to undermine other basic rights of the individual," he wrote. He recommended that readers join the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or the American Sunbathing and Health Association, a nudist organization. "The only successful way to fight these frustrated reactionaries is through national organization." Fighting the forces of censorship through collective action was clearly on Mizer's mind.

Mizer closely followed and reported on the legal struggles of other physique photographers, even though raising such issues threaten to scare away more timid customers. Whenever possible, he noted what he saw as rays of hope, such as a "progressive Federal Judge" in Chicago who ruled in 1947 that photographs of nude males by Al Urban were not obscene. He noted that most magazines and photographers "in the field" had almost always beaten their prosecutions, but "only at damaging expense." These small victories failed to establish a clear national legal precedent, nor did they silence the local churches, parent teacher organizations, and other "moralist groups" behind censorship efforts. Mizer quickly identified the pattern of obscenity prosecution that would continue for the next twenty years: censors won at the local or lower-level courts but then lost on appeal. Physique photographers would have to work together to establish a large war chest to fight the censors and establish a national precedent.

PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL

So when Mizer began publishing Physique Pictorial in 1951, he envisioned it as a collective effort – a catalog of merchandise from a variety of gay photographers and other vendors facing exclusion from mainstream fitness magazines. The first few issues were "advertising booklets," offered to subscribers for free – a "gift" underwritten by participating businesses. Like the mainstream fitness magazines, Mizer figured that photograph sales would more than pay for the magazine, as barbell sales financed mainstream fitness magazines. He wanted to bring gay physique photographers into closer alliance and thereby more effectively fight the forces of censorship. First called Physique Photo News, it would take advertisements from the back of Strength & Health and give them a new, safer, and more prominent home of their own.

Under pressure from postal authorities, mainstream fitness magazines were beginning to refuse ads for undraped nudes. Warning that "queers" had "obtained a particularly vicious hold on our bodybuilding game," Iron Man instituted a policy refusing ads with models wearing anything less than swim trunks and threatened even stricter rules in the future. Strength & Health had faced censorship efforts over a cover image that had been taken in the nude and later retouched with a posing strap. The managing editor of Strength & Health warned Mizer that his advertisement photos were becoming "less athletic and more risqué" and threatened to bar him from the magazine. While Mizer pledged to cooperate, he saw the writing on the wall. "We are anxious to get our own magazine strong enough that in a few years time we can thumb our noses at the physique magazines," he wrote to a trusted adviser.

The first issue represented the combined effort of six physique photography studios, but most of the others soon opted out. "Bruce [Bellas] was so frightened that he decided not to be represented in the next issue," Mizer recalled. To avoid postal inspectors, Bellas preferred to travel from city to city selling his images in person to select clients. Russ Warner also demurred, having already been summoned to Washington for an arduous hearing before postal inspectors over his nude photos with inked-in pouches. "The only people who would want photos of men were gay people," the postal inspectors confided to him, and their threat to "get every one of them" left him skittish. Even Mizer feared repercussions since "it will look dangerously like an organization which might effectively resist the postal distaste for physique work." Postal authorities may not have viewed it as a threat, but such organizational power was clearly at the forefront of Mizer's thinking.

Mizer's efforts at consolidation drew inspiration from the most prominent scholar and writer on the subject of sex in America. Like other early activists for gay rights, Mizer had read Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and considered it pivotal for his understanding of homosexuality as a naturally and frequently occurring variation of human activity. "Dr. Kinsey's first book was the most important one in my whole life," Mizer wrote to a colleague, "and for it I owe him a debt I could probably never repay. "

As an avid collector of materials to document American sexual culture, Kinsey became a regular Mizer customer, and the two quickly established an active correspondence that lasted nearly until Kinsey's death in 1956. On his many visits to Los Angeles, Kinsey met with Mizer and conducted sexual histories of his fellow physique photographers and models. Mizer even forwarded his frequent customer questionnaires to Kinsey for tabulation, thereby offering him indirect access to his customer base. In return, Kinsey offered strategic advice about how best to combat postal authorities.

Because of his own struggles with postal and customs authorities over shipments of erotic materials to his institute at Indiana University, Kinsey had developed relationships with prestigious law firms specializing in the First Amendment. It was he who suggested that physique publishers could win at the appellate level if they could find a way to sustain and finance their legal cases. "I have suggested before that all of you photographers should band together and employ the very best attorney that you can in the L.A. area to advise you and to handle individual cases," Kinsey wrote to Mizer in 1951, just as Mizer was establishing Physique Pictorial. Kinsey suggested that photographers of female nudes had tried to do this but never succeeded at forming a united group. While Mizer never formally organized his fellow physique photographers, he and his magazine served as a de facto central bureau of information, connecting customers, photographers, and publishers.

Tapping into an underserved gay market, Mizer's business flourished. As Mizer later remembered, "there was not such a thing at the time as a magazine that showed a variety of young, youthful models – not supermen – which is what most people wanted." Through his customer questionnaires, Mizer knew what his clients wanted: less information on weightlifting and exercise and more models. One twenty- two-year-old customer from Winchester, Massachusetts, remarked how Mizer's models were becoming "more youthful, slimmer and more suggestively posed" and encouraged him to be upfront about it – not to "hide all this under the general category of art photography," a common claim of photographers offering undraped nudes. As he wrote to Mizer, "It appears to me that by the constant polls you all seem to be taking so that you may satisfy your customers, you are catering more and more to the homosexual trade." Models, too, knew what Mizer was up to. "I think Bob was, um, interested more in the gay magazines than the bodybuilding ones," remembered model Ben Sorensen. "I'm straight, but that didn't bother me at all. Everybody at the gym knew what they were doing with the photos."

Within a year of establishing AMG, Mizer reported a gross monthly income of $700-annualized, this amounted to nearly three times the average family income of 1947. Mizer had hired his brother as a full-time employee and had nearly $2,000 in savings. His mailing list already contained customers from "practically every country in the world," according to the district attorney who prosecuted his case. "It grew like Topsy – a little bit each time," Mizer remembered.33 He soon began offering a "Nickle Plan," similar to a monthly book club, where customers would regularly receive photographs from each new AMG album. Wishing to respond to the particular desires of his customers, he allowed them to specify what types of models and photographs they preferred not to receive: "models over or under ages, races, slender or very heavy weights, poses with girls, models in clothing or part clothing such as Levis, models in trunks, portraits." Mizer was already engaging in specialization, acknowledging the particular sexual desires, fetishes, and prejudices of his customers.

Although Physique Pictorial could increasingly be found on select newsstands, Mizer's initial sense of it as a catalog of merchandise for subscribers endured. He recalled that although magazine wholesaler Lou Elson began to distribute it in New York after a year or two on the market, newsstand sales did not substantially increase total circulation. "Its circulation was horrible. It was very hard to get. Most newsstands didn't carry it," remembered Chuck Renslow, then a fellow physique photographer in Chicago. Mizer himself called his newsstand circulation "quiet select." Continually struggling to find a newsstand distribution network, he mostly sold Physique Pictorial by subscription. But he was proud of his independence – unwilling to bow and scrape to distributors or advertisers. In addition to working with a few wholesalers, Mizer sent copies himself to select newsstands. "Tell your dealer about this and give him our address," he suggested to readers, trying to get them actively involved in increasing circulation. When Physique Pictorial did manage to appear on newsstands, it sold out almost immediately.

In 1963 AMG tried to diversify and modernize by offering a large format, color magazine called Young Adonis to supplement the black-and-white Physique Pictorial. It was a sell-out wherever it was sold, but again Mizer had trouble getting it on newsstands. The distributor wrote Mizer a two-page letter describing the magazine's "sins." Although Mizer promised future issues would feature new offerings, including a fashion section handled by model Mark Nixon, it was the only issue Mizer offered.

FROM GUILD TO NETWORK

Mizer's choice of the term "guild" to refer to his business started a trend among physique photography studios. Don Whitman founded the Western Photography Guild in Colorado in 1947 and soon had advertisements next to AMG's in the back of Strength & Health. In Metairie, Louisiana, a group of physique photographers and artists launched the Southern Guild. And in Portsmouth, Virginia, George U. Lyon and Charles E. Smith started Underwood Photographic Guild. The word "guild" could refer to any association of people with a common goal but historically referred to a group of craftsmen or merchants who exerted some control over their trade. As an avid reader, Mizer was probably well aware that medieval guilds were famous for regulating entry into a profession and often exerted considerable power in city government. His choice of words suggests his aspirations to unite, protect, and empower those involved in the physique field. It was the same term Harry Hay would use as he began organizing the Mattachine Society as a gay political group across town a few years later.

In keeping with the spirit of a guild, Mizer cooperated with and promoted the work of other photographers. He would share or sell mailing lists to competitors and alert readers when new physique magazines were launched or studios opened. "Physique Pictorial is not a closed enterprise and any legitimate studio can be represented in it," he promised. By 1954 he regularly included a directory of photographers, artists, and models selling merchandise, a custom followed by many later physique magazines. He was happy to note when individual models offered their own photos directly to readers. When he had a disagreement with a physique artist, he let readers know that the artist's work could now be found in a competing magazine.

As the number of physique studios catering to gay men proliferated, Mizer's magazine functioned like a Better Business Bureau. Mizer barred advertisements from studios who were known to be unreliable, gave bad service, or sold illegal material (although he included photos with "inked" pouches, indicating the original photograph was in the nude.) He threatened to publicly denounce photographers who were territorial and unwelcoming to new talent in their area, and he was quick to publicly reprimand photographers who did not reciprocate his courtesies. Mizer also warned readers of offers from the "get-rich- quick boys" promising special pictures available only to a few "intimate friends." Given the Post Office's vigilance, he knew that studios selling nudes would not last long. "Every mailing list is peppered with postal inspectors and their collaborators," he cautioned. After sending in an exorbitant fee, the customer might receive nothing. He encouraged readers to confess their stories of being victimized by such schemes.40 Envisioning a constantly widening network of producers and consumers, Mizer sought to place himself at its fulcrum. Soon he was offering a host of consumer items – artwork, slides, viewers, and "garments for athletes" including jeans, T-shirts, bathing suits, and the ubiquitous posing straps. Physique Pictorial functioned as a nexus for finding, producing, selling, and admiring male photos. Other studios described AMG as a one-stop shopping experience: "one of the largest photo guilds in the country and supplies about everything a photo collector or bodybuilder wants: movies, garments, thousands of all sizes of photos, color slides, and many other works of art."

The network grew increasingly international as Mizer featured photographs by Arax of Paris and models wearing trunks from Vince of London. He soon had agents in Belgium, France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Japan. By 1962 Mizer sponsored European tours for physique enthusiasts, "to photograph local athletes, and to visit famous clubs of special interest."

Mizer encouraged not only other physique photographers but a new and growing group of physique artists in his magazine. AMG became a generative center that showcased the work of talented young painters and sketch artists who then developed their own followings that often eclipsed Mizer's own popularity. In 1957 he introduced an unknown artist who "depicts the healthy robust youth of the forests of Finland," who would later reach international renown as "Tom of Finland." But it was an artist from Virginia, George Quaintance, who created what Mizer called a "vogue" that was widely imitated.

Quaintance had begun taking photographs and drawing sketches of male nudes under the tutelage of Lon of New York. He had worked drawing bodybuilding champions for the cover of Joe Weider's Your Physique, but it was when he started painting for Bob Mizer's new magazine that his career took off. Set either at a dude ranch in Arizona, where he lived, or at a bath in ancient Greece, Quaintance's paintings created the kind of playful environment of easy male camaraderie that Mizer sought to foster through his magazine. And like Mizer, Quaintance considered his homoerotic artwork to be "a crusade for the rights of the feelings" of his customers. "I too feel that I crusade in my attempt to supply, or satisfy, a deep emotional hunger in the inner lives of my customers," he explained to a homophile leader. Soon his mailing list of ten thousand active buyers around the world surpassed that of Mizer. He offered not only physique paintings but prints, photographs, and sculptures, expanding his business to a four-man operation. "It grew too fast.... I'm trying to adjust myself to all the confusion," he wrote at the time. Those who met him as he toured the country selling his artwork describe a flamboyant artist who loved wearing western gear, turquoise jewelry, and showing off his young Mexican American lover and frequent model, Eduardo.

What distinguished Quaintance's artwork was not just the invitation to view nearly naked men but the excitement of seeing them looking at each other, as Michael Bronski has argued. One of Quaintance's first cover images for Physique Pictorial demonstrates how groundbreaking those gazes were. "Morning in the Desert" featured four ranch hands around an outdoor bath dressing and preparing for work. One naked bather is standing, his genitals covered only by soapsuds. Another naked man lies below him in a tub of water, looking directly up at the other's body. But for the cover of the magazine, to pass postal censors, Quaintance shifted the man's head to the left, so his gaze no longer fell longingly on his fellow naked male bather. Like his better-known successor, Tom of Finland, Quaintance constructed a "network of looks" that included and invited those of the viewer, furthering the sense of homoerotic identification.

Mizer's growing network of photographers, artists, and other physique-related businesses used a language of friendship and camaraderie that further encouraged a sense of community. Seattle physique artist William MacLean set up a studio and invited new and emerging physique artists to market their work through him. This offer featured a photograph of the very handsome artist hanging images in his exhibit space, noting suggestively that he was "a very eligible bachelor" and therefore "his studio is a gathering place for the young social set and many a party is hosted there." London model Clive Jones sold his images directly and promised to handle orders personally. "Clive would like to hear from his many friends in America" and promised to send a catalog of images of himself and his "buddies" in London.

Mizer offered slides of physique models intended to be projected on a wall or screen for group viewing. One of MacLean's more reproduced drawings showed a group of men admiring AMG slides and imitating the poses of the models. When Mizer began making physique film shorts, he called for readers to submit script ideas, giving members yet another way to participate. He offered suggestions on where to buy a good, inexpensive projector and soon began renting the films at a quarter of the price of purchasing one. In words and images, he encouraged readers to share the experience of watching physique films. "Imagine what a hit these films would be at your next party or gathering of friends who are physical culture enthusiasts!" Indeed, much of the allure of participating in this network, whether as a producer or as a consumer, was the sense of community it offered.

Mizer's own rhetoric helped to solidify that sense of community. Boasting that his magazine lacked "mass appeal," he explicitly signaled his targeting of a minority population, what he called "the limited aesthetic group" who appreciated the male body. Mizer was borrowing a gay discourse developed in the late nineteenth century, a period he knew well from his reading of Boris Brasol's biography of Oscar Wilde. As art historian Christopher Reed argues, "The Wilde trials seemed to reveal homosexuality as the secret behind the enigmatic passions of the Aesthetes, tainting the entire movement, all of its products, and even the idea of aesthetic sensitivity."

Indeed, the modern identities of "the homosexual" and "the artist" – both considered manifestations of innate predispositions – developed nearly simultaneously in the nineteenth century, as both creating art and committing sodomy moved from activities to ways of being. "Artistic" quickly became euphemistic slang for "queer." Painter Paul Cadmus remembered how the association had transferred to the American scene by the 1930s. "The word homosexual was never used," he remembered. "They just said, 'He's an artist." American psychiatrists, too, described men suspected of homosexuality as "aesthetic in temperament." Thus when Mizer adopted this language, praising Quaintance for his "neo-aestheticism" and imagining his audience as "the limited aesthetic group," he was signaling to and helping to construct a distinct gay identity among his readers.

"THE TV SHOW THAT MADE AMERICA GASP!"

Physique Pictorial's increasing circulation came with its own risks. Its presence on Los Angeles newsstands soon caught the attention of Paul Coates, a conservative columnist for the afternoon tabloid the Los Ange- les Mirror, known for exposing what he considered to be the seamier side of life in Southern California – prostitutes, repo men, drug addicts, and shoplifters. In 1954 Coates used his local television program Confidential File on KTTV to alert his audience to the "unpleasant fact" of homosexuality in Los Angeles. It was the first prime-time television program to broach the topic and helped propel Coates's show into national syndication. Coates featured footage of a Mattachine Society meeting with well-dressed men and women drinking coffee and eating cookies. He also gave his audience a glimpse inside a gay bar. But he ended the show by holding up a copy of Physique Pictorial as a shocking example on city newsstands of the publications catering to homosexuals. According to one tabloid, it was "the TV show that made America gasp!" Working closely with the local Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Coates couched his programming as a crusade to warn families of the dangers homosexuals posed to children. He followed up with three newspaper columns devoted exclusively to the presence of gay maga-zines on the city's newsstands. Although concerned about the homophile magazine ONE, which billed itself as "The Homosexual Magazine," he noted that its editors at least made an effort to avoid the lurid. Physique Pictorial, however, was "thinly veiled pornography" that appealed to sex criminals and sadists. Coates claimed that this "Esquire for men who wish they weren't" featured images of men in chains being beaten and stabbed – a sensational reading of Mizer's photographs with swords and chains as props. He highlighted the case of one of Mizer's teenage models from Muscle Beach-an active church member engaged to be married, he noted-who complained of unwanted homosexual solicitations after his photo appeared in Physique Pictorial. There were dozens of such dangerous photographers, Coates warned. "It's big business in our town."

Leveraging his connections to the powerful Chandler media family, Coates orchestrated an all-out assault on Mizer's business. After Coates's columns appeared, a phalanx of local government officials descended on Mizer's business. Police began to intimidate newsstands where his magazine appeared. City regulators inspected his home, and health officials tested his pet monkeys for diseases. The former model featured in Coates's column sued Mizer for invasion of privacy.

Most ominously, the story brought a plainclothes Los Angeles Police Department vice officer to his door asking to buy nudes. Mizer demurred, offering him only his usual catalogs of men in posing straps. Undeterred, Detective Philip Barnes asked who of the many other photographers featured in his magazine might offer nudes. Mizer again demurred, but Barnes had already visited the studio of Lyle Frisby, a young, up-and-coming Mizer protégé whose images Mizer often included in his magazine. More accommodating, Frisby sold him "inked" nude photos, where the posing straps could be easily rubbed off.

Coates proudly covered the sting operation in a subsequent column. To again sensationalize the threat posed to children, he noted ominously that Frisby's Los Angeles studio was located just 250 yards from an elementary school. Both Frisby and Mizer were promptly arrested for possessing and distributing lewd photographs – a violation of the Los Angeles municipal code allowing Coates's newspaper series to end on a note of civic triumph.

Frisby was easily convicted and spent time in prison. The prosecution of Mizer, however, was more complicated, since the focus of the charge was "aiding and abetting" the sale of lewd pictures. Detective Barnes testified that Mizer told him he could obtain nudes from any of his advertisers, but he failed to note this in his initial report. Mizer denied the claim, testifying that he told detective Barnes that nudes were illegal and unavailable in Los Angeles and that he personally advised all photographers not to deal in nudes. Either way, there was little evidence to link Mizer directly with Frisby's nude photos. Seeing the weakness of the "aiding and abetting" argument, the prosecutor argued that Mizer's own photos were obscene because they displayed both "scenes of brutality and torture" and "the uncovered rump." Mizer's lawyer, Herbert Selwyn from the ACLU, argued that Mizer's posing-strap images were no more lewd than those in classical statuary or in movies such as Garden of Eden, a film set in a nudist colony then screening in area theaters. He called it "the first uncovered rump case" in memory.

But as in almost all trials of physique photographers, the real issue was less the explicitness of the photos than the sexual orientation of their audience. Displaying his real concern, the judge told Selwyn, "These are nothing but pin-up pictures for homosexuals." To feed the judge's suspicions, the prosecutor displayed a copy of Confidential mag- azine at trial with the blaring headline "America on Guard! Homosexuals, Inc." Trying to further associate Mizer with the homosexual cause, he concluded his cross-examination by asking, "Do you also publish the magazine known as ONE?" The judge sustained Selwyn's objection but enjoyed a "hearty chuckle." He found Mizer guilty and sentenced him to ninety days in prison.

Mizer appealed his conviction, telling Kinsey he was willing to put a substantial dent in his bank account and solicit help from nudist and other groups. He convinced a British magazine to publicize the case. "It is odd that when I am one of the few physique photographers who does not deal in nudes that I should be picked out as the one who must fight for their legality," he complained to Kinsey, who thought he was singled out because of the size of his business. Mizer was the aggressive entrepreneur who took the physique business from the back pages of fitness magazines to the cover of his own magazine, openly challenging postal inspectors. Predictably, Mizer's conviction was overturned on appeal. "You have done very well to stand up for your legal rights," Kinsey congratulated him. But Mizer, concerned about the effect such news might have on the field of physique photography, did not gloat. "I am keeping news of our victory quiet because I think some of the photographers in our field need a bit of a deterrent to keep them in line."

Mizer and Barnes squared off again a year later, this time in a televised congressional hearing. Mizer and Frisby became fodder for Senator Estes Kefauver's traveling hearings on the alleged problem of juvenile delinquency in America, part of his bid to enhance his presidential aspirations. Kefauver got Benjamin Karpman, the chief psychotherapist at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., to testify that exposure to pornography at an early age could turn someone gay. Barnes described how he had confiscated pornographic materials from major national distributors Edward Mishkin and Irving Klaw. Some of the material was on display in posters lining the walls of the hearing room.

"Have you had any occasion to investigate cases wherein the use of male models might be used?" Kefauver asked, a delicate way to invoke homosexual erotica. Barnes outlined the case of Frisby and Mizer, pointing out that Mizer happened to be in the audience. Exaggerating the success of his efforts, he claimed he had confiscated $10,000 worth of materials from Frisby, that both men had been convicted of obscenity, and that Mizer's sentence had been overturned only because of a technicality. He highlighted the danger they posed to the public by noting the proximity of the school and the youth of the models.

Kefauver commended Barnes's efforts and noted what a difficult job he had, given how the courts and the legislatures continually failed to provide the tools he needed. Barnes impressed on the committee the need for a national agency to coordinate the efforts of local law enforcement to stamp out pornography. At the conclusion of the hearing, Senator Kefauver offered anyone who had been named the opportunity to correct inaccuracies. Detective Barnes looked squarely at Mizer, egging him on. Mizer contemplated speaking up but, aware of the presence of journalists and television cameras, decided instead to offer a written statement, his preferred form of communication.

In the pages of Physique Pictorial, Mizer denounced the hearings as "the grossest obscenity of public trust" he had ever witnessed. He accused Barnes of perjuring himself in his claims about Mizer's case. Within a year, however, Mizer enjoyed some schadenfreude when he revealed that Barnes was sent to prison for molesting his stepdaughter. He was also delighted to tell readers that Kefauver's chief counsel, James Bobo, was forced to resign after admitting to hosting private screenings of stag films for a Memphis fraternity. It all reinforced Mizer's conviction that the legal system was corrupt and that those who were most obsessed with fighting prurience were hypocrites.

Like many self-appointed guardians of American morality, Coates viewed both the Mattachine Society and the Athletic Model Guild as threats. But the reactions of the two organizations differed markedly. In 1953 Coates gave the Mattachine Society its first negative press coverage by suggesting that it had ties to communism. Coates's accusation caused a crisis in the organization, which led to the resignation of the original founders, many of whom had been members of the Communist Party USA. The organization was restructured and membership fell off. Historian John D'Emilio called it a "retreat to respectability," a turn away from political activism toward internal self-help tactics.

Coates's assault on Mizer was even more aggressive – involving the Los Angeles Police Department, a powerful U.S. senator, and backstage efforts to influence his obscenity trial – yet Mizer changed his operating procedures only slightly. He decided to tone down the "brutality" aspect of his images, eliminating props such as whips or chains. But on the issue of the "uncovered rump," Mizer stood his ground. "Bob has defied them," Kinsey noted of Mizer's refusal to succumb to a Post Office ultimatum barring nudes seen from behind. He also continued his feisty editorials, despite Kinsey's suggestion that he tone them down. "Certain principles I will not back down on," Mizer defiantly told Kinsey.

Each of Mizer's encounters with law enforcement politicized him, and he, in turn, sought to politicize his readers. To supplement his personal experience, he read widely in popular and scholarly texts on censorship and sought to convey that knowledge to his readers. He noted that those who were opposed to physique magazines were organized into groups such as the National Organization for Decent Literature and had the ear of local and national politicians. He pointed out how local newspapers pressured newsstands and magazine distributors to discontinue all physique magazines. He urged readers to organize. When one reader suggested ignoring the censors, Mizer compared him to the Jews in Germany who "ignored the menace of Hitler."

Putting the issue in the context of human rights, Mizer called for a collective and activist opposition. "The censor is a bully and will back down if we all stand up to him." It was a theme he returned to frequently, asserting that putting one's head in the sand would not make the problem go away. He repeatedly implored customers to join the ACLU. "It's Your America," he reminded readers, and politicians and police were "your servants." He implored readers to write their representatives and local newspapers to defend freedom of expression. Otherwise, he warned, a state-controlled media will emerge that would be the envy of Hitler. According to his alarmist rhetoric, the ACLU was the only thing standing between the status quo and totalitarianism.

Mizer's editorials on censorship even seeped into model descriptions. He described Sonny Star, a lean model lounging by the pool, as being from Fargo, North Dakota, where a federal censorship trial was taking place. He railed against police corruption and governmental injustice so often that readers tired of his many editorials – one counted eight in a thirty-two-page issue and complained of all this "doomsday talk." Many just wanted information on where to purchase forbidden materials.

IRON MAN BETRAYAL

As Physique Pictorial and other physique magazines that emphasized the "aesthetic approach" flourished, they increasingly came into conflict with what Mizer called " 'hard-core' muscle magazines" or "old-school muscle books" that had fallen on hard times. He knew that their harsh critique of new magazines like his had alienated "the great bulk" of their readership. But he still encouraged readers to support these magazines and their veteran writers. "We cannot afford to lose them from the field," he generously noted.60 Mizer had gotten his start through the support of these editors and was not prone to burn bridges.

Mizer had an especially close relationship with Iron Man, founded by weightlifter Peary Rader in Nebraska in 1933. Mizer had contributed enough photographs to be listed as one of Iron Man's "staff photographers" in 1949. Some of Mizer's first catalog advertisements appeared in its back pages, and Rader had even printed the first issue of Physique Pictorial. But under pressure from the Post Office, Rader refused to print subsequent issues. Fearing the loss of his second-class mailing privileges, he then stopped running physique photography advertisements. And in 1956 he published a scathing editorial denouncing the "homosexual element" that had infiltrated bodybuilding and ruined its reputation. He called for a comprehensive "crusade" to clean up the sport, including a ban on nude or G-string photographs, fewer body-building contests, and more manly poses. He attributed the immorality that had seeped into bodybuilding to increasing "commercialism," emphasizing that his concerns were not only moral but also financial. Mizer felt sorry for Iron Man. "I doubt if many copies would be sold to those solely interested in the weightlifting results."

This attack from his former supporter and printer caused Mizer to pen his first editorial on "Homosexuality and Bodybuilding." Claiming to have less familiarity with the subject than the editors of Iron Man and others who seemed so preoccupied with it, Mizer first resorted to a version of the schoolyard taunt, "It takes one to know one." He did so by quoting one of the most famous closeted homosexuals in 1950s America. A London reporter had recently asked Liberace in the midst of a legal struggle with a tabloid that had outed him "Is your sex life normal?" Fully composed, Liberace hastily replied, "Yes, is yours?"

In many ways, Liberace and Mizer were in parallel situations. Both offered the public fairly open representations of gay life, but without the label. But because of their popularity, they had caught the attention of the media and were being tarred with the sin of homosexuality. But Mizer went beyond Liberace's taunt to frame the question in terms of civil rights. "We wonder if really good people show prejudice against any minority group," he wrote, comparing such prejudice to that against a particular religion, race, or political party. This effectively made Peary Rader the one guilty of immorality and repositioned the debate on homosexuality within the realm of minority rights. Most important, he referred readers to the homophile groups Mattachine Society and ONE for more factual information.

Mizer's mailbox must have been full after this unusually frank editorial. He noted that readers clamored for him to reprint letters, demonstrating their desire to connect to each other, to see who else was out there reading Physique Pictorial. Mizer printed only four responses. One called Mizer "naïve" for not realizing that all bodybuilders are in some way homosexual, since they are so obsessed with the male body. Another expressed the opposite view, that such "he-men" could not possibly be sissies. But the most unusual letter came from the mother of four male bodybuilders-three of them married with children, the youngest openly gay. She described his difficult coming-out process, psychiatric consultations, and much anguish. But she then painted the picture of a happy, healthy gay domesticity. "John lives with another young man who shares his interests, both are highly successful in films, are 'accepted' everywhere." She thanked Mizer for his sympathetic attitude.

Mizer could not print any letters from openly gay readers for fear of confirming the concerns of censors. But he gave readers clues that he received many such letters. He noted that many had written in anonymously to "unburden [their] frustrations" and "project [their] own motives to us." Although such personal, confessional letters could not be shared, Mizer assured readers that he would send them to a "psychological research group for study," a probable reference to the Kinsey Institute. While Mizer had to be cautious about the content of his magazine to appease censors, his readers were often more explicit. Mizer considered many of the letters he received to be so salacious or incriminating that he did not want to keep them in his home in the event of a "purge" by authorities.

Art historians have documented the lasting impact that Bob Mizer's physique photography had on Western visual culture, influencing the work of such artists as Francis Bacon, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol. British painter David Hockney famously said, "I came to Los Angeles for two reasons: The first was a photo by Julius Shulman of Case Study House #21, and the other was AMG's Physique Pictorial." Dozens of high-end coffee table books attest to the lasting appeal of the artistic vision of Bob Mizer and his fellow gay physique photographers. But Mizer's business model was as generative as his photography. His business acted as a key catalyst for a gay consumer culture network, encouraging and popularizing many other gay mail-order businesses.

Although often portrayed as something of a bumbling loner, Mizer was at the center of an increasingly sophisticated gay network and came to be a leader of an effort to unite and defend the rights of gay men. It was a dream shared with early gay activist Manuel boy Frank, who, through his involvement in an early underground gay pen-pal club, had seen the potential power in gay men's interest in physique photography. Mizer, too, had an early sense of the depth of a gay market, through his work with Kovert's studio and his classified advertising in Strength & Health. He also had a great sense of the dangers involved. Each time Mizer had come under attack, he had come back more determined and open about his intentions. Neither the Post Office, nor the local vice police, nor vigilante journalists, nor mainstream muscle magazines deterred him. Over the course of his career he tried various tactics: reasoning with authorities, cautioning his fellow photographers, fanning the flames of outrage, and encouraging collective action. He had been on a crusade since high school to stand up and make the world a better place for his fellow homosexualists, and Physique Pictorial was his vehicle.

Mizer saw Alfred Kinsey as a hero and collaborator in this crusade because he saw Kinsey's scientific work as a vehicle for increasing tolerance. "One of the greatest values of your present work will be to allow at least the ones who read it to realize they are not uniquely perverse because of either their overt or desired behavior," he wrote to Kinsey. "Many a man will be able to hold his head a little higher and square back his shoulders and know he is not disgustingly 'abnormal' merely because he is gifted with more healthy, vital sex powers than his sanctimonious moral condemner." But what Mizer wrote so admiringly of Kinsey also applied to his own life's work. Mizer took inspiration from his academic friend and advisor, offering the same message of healthy normality in a more visually accessible format, reaching a much wider audience. He provided images to substantiate Kinsey's scientific treatise.

Like his mentor, Mizer was something of a workaholic, shooting still or moving film nearly every day of his life. But his ambitions were not monetary. Although by the end of his life he had expanded his home-studio property in Los Angeles to include several adjoining homes and a pool, it was never lavish. It became a sort of dormitory or homeless shelter for wayward models. Friends remember him in later years wearing glasses held together with tape and string. After his death in 1992, friends found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed in film cans-proceeds never invested, or given much thought. Mizer's ambitions had not changed from the time he was in high school. He took pride in knowing his readers considered the arrival of his magazine like "a visit from an old friend." And since that old friend "always brings new friends with him," he hoped it offered his readers the sense that they were part of a large, welcoming community similar to the one he had discovered in Pershing Square. As he told his readers, he hoped all who read his magazine carefully – who "take the trouble to study" it – would take away a message of "hope and inspiration."

Hope was the message that Noel Gillespie found in Physique Pictorial when he discovered it as a teenager. He remembered it as "a gay-oriented oasis" in a Cold War desert of prudery and macho conformity. He considered Mizer less a salesman than "an old friend and confidante" because of all his "chatty remarks" among the model images. Gillespie praised Mizer's editorials on the "anti-nudity, anti-gay, anti-free speech attitudes" of the period. He recalls how he eagerly antici- pated each new issue for both Mizer's "latest fresh-faced discoveries and his candid and for the period, courageous commentaries." Beyond this special bond with Mizer, he also felt linked to his fellow subscribers through their occasional letters to the editor, which he thought made Physique Pictorial "more a friendly resource than a mere sales catalogue."

Hope was exactly the message that a young David Hurles understood when he encountered Physique Pictorial on newsstands in Cincinnati in 1957. "I came face to face with the awesome and wonderful knowledge of a place somewhere different from any place I yet knew," Hurles later wrote. He remembered following Mizer's exploits closely, noticing when he put in a swimming pool in 1956. "His pictures, magazines and films turned us on. But more than that, they gave us hope," Hurles eulogized at the time of Mizer's death in 1992. Hurles later became a Mizer protégé and went on to produce his own magazine. "Bob revealed the evidence which made us certain that what we desired and needed did, in fact, exist."

-- from David K. Johnson's Buying Gay.

#bob mizer #long post

13 notes · View notes