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achoonihaachu · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! Can I request a fic where F!Mc was brought into the exchange programme at the age of 11-13 the brothers loved her (platonic) and cared deeply about her but then the exchange programme comes to an end and F!Mc goes back to the human world but then around 5/6 years later the brothers go to the human world and they see F!Mc but this time she was around 17 and they all got quiet emotional and they were all proud of how much she had grown?

You doing have to do this if you don’t feel comfortable! 😅

See U Later

a/n: it's been a while >_< school has literally been so rough and i'm pretty sure my soul's 45% up the stairs of heaven by now. anyways! i've had this request sitting in my messages for a little while and i've found it to be such an interesting storyline so i couldn't help myself soooo i decided to make it into a series! :>> it'll be a lot shorter than my god must hate me series but i hope you still enjoy :D i missed writing so this was nice ilya <33 (ALSO PLEASE SHOW LUKE'S VA ALL THE LOVE WHEN THE SONG AND THE AUDIO DRAMA DROP!!) (i wasn't able to do this for dia and barb so im starting now >:(()

warnings: none as of this part!, oh and not proof read (again)

pairings: ALL THE SHIPS IN THIS FIC ARE PLATONIC! the boys are all brotherly (even fatherly at some points lmao)

“Do you promise to visit?”

“We’ll never be too far, sweetheart.”

Figures out of focus dance around in your memories; Shadows– mere wisps of the essence of someone you used to hold dear in your heart. They plague every dream and soothe every nightmare but you could never make out a face.

Seven faces you used to caress in hopes of burning the very image of them into your mind. You’d memorize every curve and sharp angle on their faces, every curl in their hair, every crinkle by their eyes when they smiled. It’s a shame, really.

They were your hearth and home.

The locket around your neck was the only thing you had left of them, whoever they were. It felt like they were merely just a part of a grand fever dream you desperately tried revisiting every single night..

It started 6 years ago.

A tall building was lit up by corridor torches that each held an ethereal fire. The night sky seemed painted on; the stars gleamed silently, their light peering down on the people below curiously. You’d expect silence yet the buzz of demonic cicadas filled the otherwise dead quiet of the night. These stars were special, for they gleamed white one moment, then blood red the next. An enchanting sight, it looked like a scene you’d rip straight out of a fairytale. Every column lit the walls up, shadows of people that weren’t there painted in contrast to the old cobblestone, they told of the tales that have long occurred since. Rumors went that if you stayed in the gardens at the Devil’s Hour, you’d be lulled into a sense of peace so otherworldly, you’d be turned to stone by day break.

Of course, no one but the younglings believed such a tale. Why, in the land of the demonic, would you believe something so silly?

The otherwise peaceful building shook as hushed figures held their late meeting in one of the many, many offices.

It was an awkward meeting; the crowned demon Prince had plans. Great plans, honestly. He was to bring in a human to live in their realm for a year. To solidify relations between the three realms— it was quite ironic to see that the one regarded as the highest form of evil personified, was also the one to suggest something so… kind.

Diavolo was used to pushing the boundaries, though.

Now, you see, he was supposed to find an older exchange student but for some reason, paperwork got mixed up, his contacts were an absolute mess on Earth, scrambling around to collect as much information on eligible exchange students but nothing went his way and now, he was stuck in a three-hour argument with Lucifer about the fact that the originally 19-year-old exchange student had been replaced with a 12-year-old child.

In truth, the issue wasn’t difficult to remedy; He could’ve postponed the exchange program by a week or two, he could’ve found a new human to bring down to the Devildom… had he not found out that you were an orphan.

Your profile was bleak and contained but a single page that could be summarized in about 7 sentences. Your parents left you on the doorstep of a church, a note attached to your tiny bonnet that basically said that your young mother was not yet ready to take care of a child and your father was still in school. They left you in a small wicker basket and you’d been a child in the foster system since.

You were nothing short of a troublemaker. An angel in the light, sure, but your shadow had little devil horns. You never meant any harm, obviously, but you were deemed the “handful” and you were passed around on an almost monthly basis. House after house, family after family, their faces blurred and blended and they soon all just became familiar strangers when they got fed up.

You had nothing to your name, you lived for the day but there was something about you– perhaps it was the defiant light that shone in your eyes, perhaps it was the simple fact that Diavolo wanted to give you a taste of love–

He couldn’t stand in the sidelines when your file fell on his desk.

After bargaining with the devil himself, Diavolo and Lucifer finally came to an agreement. You had 1 year in the Devildom. No more, no less. The fallen Morningstar was sure that you’d be nothing but another mess he had to clean up after and he didn’t want to deal with you for longer than he had to.

If it isn’t obvious, he’s a man who loves to talk big and act like if not obeyed, the world would be obliterated with a single flick of his wrist. When you peel back the layers of faux intimidation though, he’s more like a clingy little house cat who adores his family.

That fateful night was like every other night; Your foster parents at the time hugged you and patted your back, albeit a tad forced and pretentiously, before they made you march off to your room by the back of the house. Your pajamas were worn out old things; you donned on a once nice pair of blue and white striped bottoms, what once was silky smooth had small tears and the stitching was stretched out due to years of usage. Your top was a ratty old baseball tee, there were stains of unidentifiable condiments at the bottom but you never complained.

You were just glad that they still fit after 4 years.

The night swallowed your tiny room whole, leaving no corner or spot lit up and for some strange reason, you couldn’t fall asleep. Your heart beat wildly against your ribcage as you felt the room grow smaller and smaller and smaller.

You screwed your eyes shut tight, your knuckles ghostly white as you fisted the thin blanket that covered your body.

“Little one… Breathe.”

Fear, anxiety, absolute dread filled you to the brim, your eyes watering with tears like salty sea brine and you held your breath. A beat passes, then two, then your body is lifted ever so casually. You couldn’t remember a time before then when you felt comfort so pure; In the arms of… someone… A blank slate of a face that was being drawn in with watercolor of the highest quality as each feature is touched by a magnificent light. He coddles you in your flimsy blanket as he walks through an arched doorway.

He looked so pretty.

Dual colored hair, an ombre of black to green and a calm smile that made you feel secure. You crack an eye open wider, your hands still balled up in defense as you look around secretly. Who was this man and where did he take you? A gloved hand holds you from under your knees while another hand gently holds you by the small of your back. You felt like a newborn— so delicately held.

His eyes were like sharp emeralds; they held a power beyond your own comprehension. They fluttered close every so often but upon closer inspection, he looked to have small dark circles under his pretty gem-like eyes. He was tired.

His eyes dart down to stare at your petite frame and before you could even react, you two make eye contact. It was too late to go back to pretending. He stops walking for a moment, standing in the middle of an open, well-lit corridor.

“I see that you’re finally awake, Miss.”

You slowly blink and look up at him— he was mighty pretty. A strong jaw, sharp features and cat-like eyes. Was he your guardian angel? This all is definitely just some sort of stupid dream, right?

“Who are you?” Your voice was hoarse, crying has never been your favorite activity. You coughed awkwardly into your blanket before you eyed him ,”Why did you bring me here?”

The strange man simply smiled and shook his head, “I’m afraid I’m not the one you must ask this question to. I am just here to take you to my Master.”

You nod and squirm a little against his chest. “I’d much rather meet him on my feet than in your arms.”

He shot you a serene smile before crouching down to let you place your feet on the speckless marble floor. Squinting, you glare at the bright light fixture before waddling off after the primly dressed man.

You found yourself winding through corridors and ancient looking hallways, it looked like that one school in the popular teen novel series that revolved around wizards and witches. You shiver as your feet beat against the flooring, you knew you should’ve worn socks to bed. Not to worry though, you’d wake up from your dream soon enough.

A door or two later, the stranger stops in front of a gorgeous double doorway, the wood had etchings in a language you had no understanding of and the handle seemed to have been made from pure gold. His fist raps against the door, the sound crisp yet gentle, before he reaches for the handle and twists it.

“If you ever need me, I’ll be around to aid you in your journey here.”

He pushes the door open and motions for you to walk in. The air in the room was different, previously humid like dewy petrichor now felt like soft, newly pressed linen on your nose. It was fresh and invigorating but the shift in the air wasn’t what had you stopping mid-step through the door.

Your small toes curl as the marble flooring is replaced with plush carpet. From where you stood, you got a good look of the space and to your left there was a platform, a small rise in the flooring more like, and on it were seven throne-like chairs lined up side by side. Banners hung from the roof with intricate paintings detailing different creatures and you couldn’t help but gawk. Too caught up in marveling, you fail to notice the small group stood a little ways beyond the chairs.

“Welcome to the Devildom!”

The voice was loud, bellowing yet in some ways held this charisma that had you tense up in anticipation. Your eyes dart towards the source of the noise and they grow wide at the sight of a man in all red, posed in a way a politician would stand for photo ops. Hands raised high, palms facing outwards with a bright, confident smile plastered on his face.

Stood behind the loud redhead were a group of 5 other males.

Introductions were exchanged, obviously, and that was when you realized that this was, in fact, not a dream. You were told that the man who brought you here was Barbatos, the Devil Prince’s butler. You timidly shook hands with Lord Diavolo, the aforementioned Prince of all Hell, and for a moment, you cowered in fear as Lucifer eyed you down.

Lucifer Morningstar, what an aura he held.

When you stare at him, you’re reminded of your current foster father. You purse your lips as you recall how he managed the house with an iron fist and how he’d always smell of coffee and your backyard garden. The man that stood before you was kind of scary but you couldn’t even focus on his intimidation.

You had just been taken from your foster home. By a bunch of strange… creatures.

A part of you felt that it would only be logical to start crying and screaming, demanding that they take you back home, but as they introduced themselves one by one, you couldn’t help but feel intrigued. Their names were a little heavy on the tongue, perhaps it was the fact that it sounded like you were reciting an incantation when you mentioned them, but your head spun when you were told that the 5 brothers were still incomplete.

The eldest of the Avatars told you that you were only to stay with them for a year for a program they had implemented.

You had a small scowl on your lips for a moment and Diavolo, being ever the keen one, noted how you’d nod and furrow your brows whenever Lucifer asked you to recite their names one by one to ensure that you could remember.

You’d glance at them slowly and say back what they told you. Lucifer, Mammon, Satan, Asmodeus, Beelzebub. Five out of the seven. A miniscule part of you was already upset that you’d have to forget them one day… You were only there for their own little experiment.

You put your feelings aside and blinked up at the Prince,

“I like your coat.”

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natasha-romanoff-deserved-better · 3 years ago

Text

The Day The Music Died

Summary:

“This’ll be the day that I die,” Yelena had sung those exact words in the car that day, and no lies were told.

Natasha never wanted to hear that song again.

Word Count: 3437

Also on Ao3 here

~~~

Natasha stares at the bandages wrapped tightly around Clint’s left wrist, eyes locked in on the red spots where extra blood had been soaked up by the gauze. Clint’s tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, softly drumming along to the song playing from the radio as he maneuvers the car around a bend in the old back road.

“I can feel you staring.” He says, snapping Natasha out of her trance. Clint takes his eyes off the road for a second to catch her gaze. “Nat, I’m fine. I promise.” It’s not going to change what happened, but he still tries. These types of missions were always hard on Natasha, and it’d only been made that much worse when one of the target’s bodyguards had managed to catch Clint’s forearm with a knife, dangerously close to critical veins. There had been a lot of blood and although Nat was easily able to stitch his skin back together, the close call had scared her - even if she refused to admit it out loud.

“I know you’re fine, idiot. It’s impossible to get rid of you.” She snorts and sends him a small smile. The radio cuts into a commercial, advertising their station and morning talk show before launching into another song.

A long, long time ago

I can still remember how that music

Used to make me smile

Natasha frowns at the song as an alarm bell begins to blare in the back of her head at the notes that drift out of the speakers. She furrows her eyebrows at it, a sinking feeling coming over her. Images from another time threaten to overtake her, and she’s too weak to stop them.

And I knew if I had my chance

That I could make those people dance

And maybe they'd be happy for a while

A blonde little girl, only five years old, prances around the front yard. She’s barefoot and wearing her pink sparkly sundress, hair pulled up into pigtails as she tries to catch a ladybug. Natasha watches from her perch among the tree branches. Mom Melina is kneeled on the ground as she works on the garden in front of the house, planting new flowers to replace the dead ones. She’s brought her portable stereo out, sitting it on the porch and playing at full volume. Natasha isn’t even aware of what song is playing until Yelena is running up to the porch, begging her to play it again. Mom Melina does. And then plays it again with an amused smile and quirked eyebrow when Yelena asks for a third time. Yelena cheers with joy as it starts again and rises to her tip toes as she begins to twirl and dance to the music.

Nobody knows what it is about the song that Yelena likes so much, but she loves it. She constantly asks for it, so much so that Melina loads it onto a cassette tape and keeps it in the car just for her. Natasha doesn’t quite understand what most of the lyrics are talking about, but she decides she doesn’t mind the song for Yelena. In a way, it fits- Yelena is the picture perfect little all american girl, apple pie personified.

Natasha’s frozen in her seat. She pleads with herself to move, to turn off the radio. She doesn’t want to hear this. She knows what verses are coming next, and her breathing catches in her throat as they start. These words hold no comfort for her anymore.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry

And them good ol boys were drinking whiskey and rye

Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die

Her sister’s high-pitched voice singing the words, a beat behind as she moves her hands cheerfully, lost in the rhythm of the song. She’s buzzing with excitement- ready for her promised big adventure, too young and oblivious to notice their parent’s anxiety or her sister’s internal crisis happening in the seat next to her. Natasha can’t look at her sister, she doesn’t want her to see the panic she knows is written over her face. Instead, she keeps her eyes locked out the window, trying desperately to commit everything to memory. The red, white, and blue lights that light up the night, the football game where a band plays and people cheer, the abundance of restaurants where families are sat enjoying dinner. The normalness of it all makes her angry - how can all these people be so casual when her world is falling apart at the seams? Yelena begins to sing the verse about dying, and it takes everything within Natasha to not snap at her. She can’t bear to listen to her little sister singing about dying, so blissfully unaware of the possibility of the verse becoming true at any moment now. Natasha should say something to her, tell her to stop, tell her what was happening. But the lure of pretending one last time is too great for her to give away. She doesn’t say anything.

Did you write the book of love

A photo album, thick with pictures of them all sit on the shelf. It’s Natasha’s favorite thing in the house, and she often sneaks out of bed to stare at the photos. Realistically, she knows they’re all fake. But if she tries hard enough, thinks long enough, she swears she can recall the events. Thanksgiving had been fun; the food had been the best she’d ever tasted. Their summer vacation had been at the beach, and she swears she can feel the sun warming her face and the sand between her toes.

And do you have faith in God above

If the bible tells you so?

She and Clint had gone to a church once, as part of an undercover mission. She’d ended up having to walk out in the middle of the service. It had been too much. She could never believe in it, even if she wanted to. No loving God would ever create the horrors she had seen before her 13th birthday or give her a family purely to steal it all away so violently.

Can music save your mortal soul

And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Natasha’s feet hit the ground, still en pointe, as she lands the perfect Grand Jete. She tosses her arms out in the landing pose and holds it for a second before excited clapping breaks her concentration. Yelena sits there, smiling wide as possible, clad in her own black leotard and pink tights. She’s in the younger classes, not as advanced as Natasha yet, but it doesn’t stop her from trying. Yelena scrambles to her feet, crossing the floor to stand next to her sister.

“Teach me, teach me!”

It’s a complicated step, and Natasha knows she’s not ready for it just yet. She doesn’t want her to get hurt.

“I’ll teach you when you’re older, okay?” Yelena nods, and turns to the mirror, copying Natasha’s arm positions.

Natasha tries to force another breath into her lungs, but it’s harder now, her throat and chest constricted. She squeezes her eyes closed, trying to block out the flashbacks that continue to assault her.

Now for ten years we’ve been on our own

And moss grows fat on a rolling stone

But that’s not how it used to be.

Fifteen years. It had been fifteen goddamn years since Natasha had seen her sister for the last time. She refuses to let herself think of what might have happened to her. It pains her to think of her baby sister, who had once been so full of life, in such a horrid place.

Natasha wraps her arms around herself, arms holding each other tightly. She digs her fingernails into her skin, attempting to give herself something else to focus on and ground her. It doesn’t work.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the Levee but the Levee was dry

Them good ol boys were drinking whiskey and rye

And signing this will be the day that I die

This’ll be the day that I die

Natasha doesn’t know how long they’ve been stuffed into this shipping container, crowded against a hundred other little girls. They’re all dirty, all starving, all terrified. The scent of sweat and urine threatens to suffocate them, the air hot and heavy.

She has tugged Yelena into her lap, arms protectively crossed over her torso to hold her close- hasn’t let go of her since the second they were put into here for fear of losing her amongst the other girls. She’s so tiny, and Natasha doesn’t trust any of the others.

Yelena stirs, a small whimper falling from her lips. Natasha tries to shush her gently, but it doesn’t work, and her sister keeps squirming. Her cries are starting to grow in volume, and one of the girls next to them sends them a dirty look.

“Yelena, Yelena. I’m here. You’re with me.” It’s the only words of comfort Natasha can offer her. She wishes she could tell her they were okay, that she was safe, that they were going to be fine. Instead, all she can do is assure her that her older sister had her. Yelena had stopped calling out for her mom a while ago, after her calls went unanswered and she finally realized no one was coming to rescue them. Natasha shifts them around, turning her back towards the others and away from prying eyes. Natasha turns Yelena on her lap, so that Yelena is facing her. “Yelena, look at me.”

Yelena shakes her head, so Natasha gently cups both sides of her face, titling her face up so that she has no choice. Yelena doesn’t resist, just locks her tear-filled eyes onto Natasha.

“I’m scared,” Yelena sobs through hitching breaths as her body trembles.

Natasha clutches her tighter and brings her closer, so close their noses are almost touching. “Don’t cry, Lena. Just sing with me.” Yelena frowns at her in confusion, and Natasha starts to sing under her breath, quietly, so that Yelena is forced to quite herself down and focus to hear the words.

She starts with the chorus, the part that Yelena knows and likes the best. “Bye, Bye, Miss American pie,” Natasha sings. The corner of Yelena’s lips quirks up in recognition. Nat pauses, prompting Yelena to sing the next line herself.

Her voice quivers, but she sings it anyways. “Drove my chevy to the levee…” Natasha nods in encouragement and joins her for the next verse. “But the levee was dry.” They sing the next few lines together. They near the last two lines of the chorus though, and this time, Natasha can’t allow her to sister to sing the last line. They hurt too much, they’re too real.

So she interrupts Yelena, skipping forward past the “Day that I die” line and jumping right into the next verse. Yelena doesn’t even question it, just follows her sister’s lead and allows herself to be completely absorbed in the whispered song.

Natasha sings almost the entire song to her sister, doing her best to remember as many lyrics as she could, and then starts over. She keeps singing, over and over again, until her voice starts to crack, and Yelena’s eyes are slipping closed in exhaustion.

“Tasha?” Clint calls, picking up the tension in his partner. She doesn’t respond, just stays frozen in her seat, locked in her own little world. “Hey,” He calls, a bit louder this time. He takes one hand off the wheel and places it on her shoulder gently. “Nat. What’s going on?” She’s shaking.

Instead of answering, Natasha claps her hands over her ears and leans forward, bending at the waist so she can rest her head atop her knees. She’s shaking her head, muttering something under her breath.

We all got up to dance

Oh, but we never got the chance

“Teach me, teach me!”

“…When you’re older.”

Natasha never got the chance to teach Yelena that ballet move. She wonders just how many other promises to her baby sister she’s broken.

“I’m going to pull over, Nat, okay?” A male’s voice comes from somewhere close by. His hand moves from her shoulder onto her back, to rub small circles on it.

Do you recall what was revealed

The day the music died?

She had never felt so stupid. Standing on that airway strip, holding a gun out in front of her, blocking Yelena. She had let her fall into the lie, childishly believe that maybe, just maybe Dad Alexei loved them like he said he did. As Alexei kneels before them, showing no sympathy to his daughters tears, she realizes that had never been the case.

The chorus starts again, and she feels bile rise in her stomach. “Bye Bye Miss American Pie” Natasha remembers how she had stolen that gun from a solider, shoved her sister behind her and threatened to kill numerous grown men for touching her. How desperately she had clung to Yelena when they’d been ripped apart. She hadn’t been ready to give up her sister, not ready to say goodbye to the American dream lie they had built side by side. “Drove my Chevy to the Levee but the levee was dry” The memory of Yelena’s face during those few days had haunted Natasha’s dreams for years. It had frightened her- even more so than the men with oversized guns. She had never seen her sister, who laughed at everything and loved the world with everything in her, look so despondent. She had tried telling her jokes to pry some kind of smile out of her. It didn't work. “This’ll be the day that I die” Yelena had sung those exact words in the car that day, and no lies were told. That day, when dad Alexei handed them back to Russians soldiers, they had both died. Died only to be remade and ruthlessly forged into something new, nothing more than weapons of mass destruction and trained killers.

There’s cussing to her left that pulls her back halfway to the present. She’s in a car, and she’s covered in vomit that runs down her front and onto her chest and lap. Clint has a hand on her, and he’s telling her just a second, Nat.

“Clint?” She asks, still slightly confused. She can still feel the weight of a smaller body on top of her, feel the soft blonde curls against her chin.

“I’m here, Tasha. Hold on.”

Oh, and there we were all in one place

A generation lost in space

With no time to start again

Countless little girls standing in a straight line, blank expressions, awaiting their next commands. They’re all mirrors of each other, no identity left for any of them to cling onto. Natasha scans over each girl, searching for the blonde waves she knows so well. She can’t find her.

The song drags on as Clint navigates the car off the road, coming to stop. He jumps out and jogs around, flinging Natasha's door open. She doesn’t move, so he reaches in and unbuckles her before slipping his hands into her armpits and pulling her out of the car. She tumbles to the ground, falling onto her knees.

And as I watched him on the stage

My hands clenched in fists of rage

No angel born in hell

Could break that Satan’s spell

Natasha catches Dreykov’s eyes on them, and she tightens her hold on Yelena’s hand. Her sister makes a small noise - she’s going to have bruises with how tight Nat is holding her- but doesn’t pull her hand away. Natasha curls her free hand into a tight fist, ready to swing if need be.

Dreykov says something to the men with guns next to him and points a finger at them. The soldiers start moving forward, and Natasha backtracks, tries to back up but Yelena stumbles at the sudden change in direction.

I saw Satan laughing with delight

The day the music died

Natasha screams her sister's name, gripping onto her as tightly as she can. Soldiers have hands on them both, ripping them away from each other. Dreykov is standing several feet away, a tiny smile on his face. Yelena is shrieking, hands desperately trying to keep her grasp on Natasha with all the strength in her six-year-old frame.

They lose their grip on each other and are dragged apart. Yelena’s voice dies out as they carry away the only thing Natasha had left.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie -

“Turn it off!” Natasha pleads, before promptly vomiting even more onto the ground. Clint’s hands support her head, keeping her from falling. “Off, please. I can’t. Turn it--” Clint’s hands leave her for a second as he scrambles over her, reaching through the open passenger door and slamming the power button on the radio.

Natasha lets out a breath, thankful for the silence. With the song no longer playing, her head is beginning to clear, the painful images retreating somewhere she could lock them away again.

“All done?” Clint asks her. She spits out one last string of bile and nods her head, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as Clint helps her sit up and lean against his leg. He doesn’t rush her, just allows her to sit and try to regain control of her breathing as he combs his fingers through her hair.

When Natasha can finally think again, she frowns at herself in disgust. “Sorry,” She apologizes.

“You don’t need to apologize to me,” he tells her. Clint reaches over and opens the backdoor, grabbing his go bag and digging around until his fingers find one of his clean T-shirts. He yanks it out, closes the door. “Can I help you change, or do you want to do it yourself?”

He’s honestly not even sure if she could change herself right now, with how much she was still shaking, but he gives her the choice anyways. She shrugs her shoulders, her way of accepting help without actually having to accept. “Okay, arms up.” Natasha raises her arms, and Clint carefully tugs her shift off her by the collar, making sure the filthy outside never touched any of her skin. He crumples up the shirt into a ball and tucks it in a bag. He bunches up his shirt at the neck hole and slides it over her head before gently guiding her arms through. It takes a lot for his partner to get to this state, and his concern grows with every passing second that goes by and Natasha is still out of it. He fixes the shirt over her torso, making sure she’s completely covered and then sinks down to the ground, leaning his back against the wheel of the car. There’s a soft breeze in the air, the slight chill nipping at their skin a welcome distraction. “C’mere,” he says, and guides Natasha into his side. She tenses for a moment, but then lets her head drop onto his shoulder, allowing Clint to take her weight. He wraps an arm around her to hold her close.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha repeats, and this time Clint doesn’t say anything. He knows she’s not apologizing to him, but someone not in their presence. He doesn’t push it. She’ll tell him when she’s ready, on her own time. He has guesses though. Clint had an older brother, and he knows what a protective but burnt-out older sibling looks like. He’s seen the way her eyes linger on certain little girls in public before snapping back, caught the way she had once brushed her fingers over a fabric doll with pink hair on a store shelf, heard the way she is able to understand children’s speech without any effort. She’s never mentioned a younger sibling before, but sometimes in her sleep, she mumbles a girl’s name, her hands clenched in fists as if trying to hold on to her.

He presses a kiss to her temple, a silent promise. He won’t push her- He doesn’t need to know exactly what happened. He knows how to support her and how to take care of her when she needs it and for now, that’s enough.

Years later, Natasha will press her forehead to an adult Yelena’s, both panting from the fight, Yelena upside down and laying in the wreckage of the red room. Dreykov is finally dead, by Yelena’s hand. Yelena cracks a joke, and Natasha smiles. They’ll never again be those little girls they once were, but they’ve finally found each other.

#natasha romanoff #yelena belova #kid natasha romanoff #kid yelena belova #songfic #black widow 2021 #black widow fic #angst #natasha centric #marvel liho #mcu #mcu fanfic #Clint barton #he's here too #look i actually wrote something

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p-redux · 3 years ago

Note

Gloating about being an insider during a time of sadness is DISGUSTING

I'm not gloating, I'm posting INFO and FACTS like I always do...and showing restraint and discretion in not posting it sooner, and not posting the details, which I haven’t and won’t.

But you know what IS disgusting? Here’s a LONG list, and by no means, a comprehensive one, of what Extreme Shippers, Former Extreme Shippers, and Assorted Haters have done that is VERY DISGUSTING. I’ll write it stream of consciousness-like and not in order. Put your feet up and grab a tall drink. Here we go...

Click on Keep Reading

Extreme Shippers found Cait’s condo when she used to live in Los Angeles and sat outside for hours waiting to see if they saw her with Sam. ES blackmailed and coerced a minor, a 14 year old girl who was a super fan of Abbie’s sister, Charlotte Salt, into giving them info regarding Abbie and Sam. The girl was following Abbie’s locked Instagram account and could see the Sam related stuff Abbie was posting. ES won her trust, she gave them info about Abbie and Sam, they then told her if she didn’t screencap and give them the Sam related pics on Abbie’s IG account, they would tell Abbie and Charlotte that she had been giving them info. Sick doesn’t begin to describe it. ES tried to dox and did dox anyone and everyone who got in the way of their SamCait ship. Doxed, as in PUBLICLY posted, the names, addresses, pictures of their houses, professions, husbands’ and children’s names, employer names of ANYONE and EVERYONE who posted something to contradict the ship. They even posted pictures of their children. Again, messing with minors is a big no no, and usually a crime. ES created fake Ashley Madison accounts (that’s the website for married people who want to meet people to cheat on their spouses with) and pretended to be non-shippers’ husbands to try to make it seem like the husband was cheating. It got so bad, that in some cases, non-shippers had to get restraining orders, cease and desist orders, get the police, lawyers, and in TWO cases, the F B I involved. Yes, the F B I has come a knocking on a couple of Extreme Shipper’s doors because of their ILLEGAL actions. ES lured some of Sam’s girlfriends into believing they had their best interest at heart, gained their trust, and they PUBLICLY posted their PRIVATE messages. Luckily, in the case of one Sam’s ex, Abbie Salt, she later did confirm she and Sam dated, which totally negated everything that shipper had said Abbie told her. ES directly BULLIED and HARASSED fans, Outlander cast, crew, journalists, reporters, family and friends of Sam and Cait. ES contacted people’s employers to try to get them fired...literally messed with people’s livelihoods. They tried to get the Outlander drivers fired because they started posting stuff against shippers AFTER shippers turned on them. ES waited outside Sam and Cait’s residences in whatever location they were in to try to “catch them together.” Taking pics at someone’s private residence is very different than getting pics or video in PUBLIC places. For years, ES have manipulated pictures, gifs, video to sell the SamCait LIE to their gullible shipper friends. They’ve made money off selling these lies. ES have ostracized and banished any shipper friends who acknowledged the ship wasn’t real. They sent their best friend to Tony’s bar in London to try to prove he and Cait weren’t together, and when she unwittingly found out they were, they then bullied her and kicked her out of shipperville. ES created multiple hate sock accounts for the SOLE purpose of CYBERBULLYING Sam’s girlfriends and dates. Any time Sam dates a woman, ES follow the same pattern. They contact the women’s employers, parents, siblings, other family members, friends, ex-boyfriends trying to malign the women. Some examples: They pretended to have gone to high school with Mackenzie Mauzy and spread lies that she had a bad reputation in high school. They spread lies that Gia was a paid escort. ES contacted social media outlets to spread LIES about Sam and Cait and their significant others. Contacted anyone associated with Cait and Tony’s wedding trying to intimidate them into saying there was no wedding. They posted the picture of a waiter at one of the Outlander premieres and tried to pass him off as Tony to prove Tony didn’t go with Cait. ES have continuously posted pics of Cait with her naturally poochy belly trying to prove that she’s been pregnant with Sam’s children for the last 7 years. ES publicly questioned her if she was pregnant. Sam haters and disgruntled ex-shippers have spread rumors that Sam is gay. Nothing wrong with being gay, but what is wrong is spreading LIES. ES have badmouthed Cait’s HUSBAND, Tony McGill saying he was: her assistant, gay, her gay assistant, a loser, broke, boring, ugly, her purse holder, etc. And trust me, what I’ve posted above is the SHORT list.

And that’s not even mentioning what they’ve done to ME. Ever since I committed the unforgivable sin of posting source info CONFIRMING Sam and Cait were never a couple, and Cait was dating Tony, way back in 2014, this is what SamCait Extreme Shippers have done to me. Tagged me endlessly when I had my Twitter account telling me things like “Die, b*tch,” “Die, c*nt,” “You should be gang rap*d,” “Drop a house on her,” “You’re worse than AIDS,” and those are the “nice” comments. They literally BULLIED me every day, all day for YEARS. They also created hate accounts on Twitter and Instagram to mock me, parody me, and post lies about me. They were convinced they’d found my real identity (based on circumstantial evidence, which I’ve countered and can counter with the actual truth), and proceeded to post THAT woman’s FULL NAME, city where she lived, profession, reported her to her licensing board, and created a fake Twitter account pretending to be her. She got a lawyer and was able to get everything taken down, but they basically tried to ruin her life. They’ve spread LIES about me being the one harassing THEM and managed to convince over 60 dopes with disposable incomes to give them money for a GoFundMe campaign where they hired a Private Investigator to try to find me. They started a witchhunt letter writing campaign, hashtagged it on Twitter, #takebackourfandom, or some such bullsh*t, tagged everyone in Outlander cast and crew “telling” on me and even sent letters and e-mails to Starz and Sony executives trying to...I don’t know what. Hahahaha. It’s so ridiculous, my brain is scrambling as I write this. They told their followers not to believe anything I say and that I’m evil personified. ALL of that and more because they couldn’t face the FACT that their SamCait ship NEVER EXISTED and I was the one that confirmed it. When I think about it, I can’t believe I lived through all that. But I stayed because I knew I had the TRUTH on my side and that eventually it would all come out, which of course it did. And because I’m a bad bitch who doesn’t scare easily. EVERYTHING I’m referring to here is well DOCUMENTED with screencap proof. Or just ask anyone who’s been in the fandom long enough, they’ll attest that what I’m saying did actually happen, and that Extreme Shippers, Former Shippers, and Haters did do all of that.

So, Anon, when you come at me with “disgusting” things in this fandom, please refer to the above before you start pointing fingers at me.

PS. “Anon,” I’ve got your Los Angeles/Anaheim Samsung Galaxy S10e IP address tagged. So, send me another hate Ask and you’ll get blocked. And don’t bother using a VPN...once the tag is on, it follows the user no matter what IP they use. Now you know.

#extremeshippers #haters #samheughan #caitrionabalfe #disgusting #trolls #bullies #cybercrimes #abbiesalt #mackenziemauzy #missgiamarie #witchhunt #tonymcgill #charlottesalt

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princeanxious · 5 years ago

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The Royal Librarian- Chapter 1

Chapter 1- “The Road to Perfection is Destructive.”

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ships: Future analogical, future sidelines royality, sidelines established dukeceit, background remile

Word Count: a little over 3k

Warnings For This Chapter: Virgil’s got anxiety and is a bit self depricating, brief mentions of panic attacks, Virgil stays up and works himself for so much longer and harder than is healthy for a normal person in one session, boi highkey overthinks a ton when he’s not occupied. Don’t work yourself for 24 hours straight like Virge does, it’s not good for you.

Minor notes on Virgil’s mental state in this fic: Virgil has ADHD(as reflected by my own life experience) that shows up in different ways here and there, and he suffers from RSD(Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria) which drives Virgil’s need to be perfect or fail till he damn near collapses from exhaustion, which also just feeds into his chronic anxiety. Thats all for now!

Chapter one(you are here!)|Chapter two(coming soon!)

Bonus stuff:

-the Rough Library Layout

[[MORE]]

Quiet. Such a word was practically synonymous with Virgil’s existence. The young adult practically grew up in silence, sought quiet spaces out like a moth drawn to a flame. And like a deer spooked by a snapping branch, he often fled from loud groups larger than three. He had been a quiet child, content to lose himself in any book he could get his hands on, reading for hours in any quiet atmosphere he could find. Alone, and content because of it.

So it was really no surprise he picked up a local library apprenticeship when he’d turned fifteen, and was a well-versed and well-read librarian by age nineteen. He had his lifelong friend Patton to thank for making him apply alongside hundreds of others to the opening position of the Royal Astra Family’s castle Librarian position, a year later. And, to be fair? He’d only applied because he’d been sure his resume would never have been seen, let alone selected, if only to simply placate his best friend’s excited begging.

He didn’t account for Patton’s connections as the Royal Head Cook to shift that margine of possibility to reach at least being seen. Though Patton chalked it up to the fact that he’d always talked about Virgil around the royal family anyway, long before the position had needed a replacement. It seemed to be just Virgil’s luck that ‘Virgil’ just happened to be a very uncommon name.

The panic attack that followed after he received a letter that his resume had been selected alongside a select few others for further evaluation had been a rough one. Still, he held out hope that his perceived inexperienced youth would save him, the stress and responsibility of such a serious job couldn’t be trusted with some ambitious kid like him, could it?

And, besides, it’s not like Patton’s constant praises carried that much weight, right? That's just how Patton was, a personified ball of sunshine! It was why Virgil was never surprised to hear Patton mention the royal family and staff by name on accident, or mention a silly story involving them in private, he’d clearly become close to them as the Head Cook. Though, the more he thought about it, he realized that.. Well, it’s not like the royal family had known Patton as long as Virgil had. Patton could be too trusting, and tried to see good in everyone, and well, perhaps the royal family trusted his judge of character over just simple skills. And wasn’t it just peachy that Virgil was lifelong best friends with said ball of personified sunshine? (Not that he’d ever trade their friendship for the world, never. It was just Virgil’s problem that he could never seem to tell Patton no, huh?)

Eventually, a nerve wracking week passed before Virgil finally had his answer in the form of an acceptance letter hand-delivered and an accompanying uniform and granted permissions to traverse and move into the castle grounds, all ordered and signed by King Thomas himself.

Apparently, his suspicions over Patton’s influence had indeed won out.

Three days later, Virgil finds himself silently saying goodbye to the home he’d made on his own, not as terribly forlorn over the loss as he thought he’d be. The small cottage he’d been renting didn’t feel much like home to him, anyway, not like a library did. Still, there was a longing to hide from the large change crashing into his life, and thrice he’d hid under his covers and cursed his weak will against Patton’s puppy eye’d pout. Eventually though, he’d talked himself out of his panicked haze, just in time for his first shift the following day.

“I can’t believe I let Pat talk me into this.” The ravenette grumbled as he leaned to the side. Using his weight and momentum to shift the sliding ladder he was perched on, he slid closer to the next book he’d been reaching for.

“Become the castle’s new Librarian! It’ll be fun, he said! It’ll help sooth my anxiety to work with even more books and even less people, he said, the head cook who works with at least 20 other staff each hour to maintain a steady meal plan for the entire castle staff daily!” The little librarian huffed to himself, resignation seeping out with each controlled breath.

His first day hadn’t been an easy one, and though he hadn’t expected it to go smoothly, he certainly hadn’t expected it to become such a mess. It wasn’t his first time working as a librarian, but leave it to good ol’ Virgil to let life make his days as eventful as possible!

From the moment he woke to the time he had his lunch break, not that he would actually willingly take a break nor need one yet, the day had been.. busy, to put it lightly.

It’d been storming when he woke, and though he was on time to get ready and leave, he’d only realized that his umbrella had broken the month prior. It had left him to make a twenty minute dash in the pouring rain when he found no other options.

He was plenty grateful for a bathroom stationed just inside of the library building entrance, where he hurriedly rushed inside to change out of his soaked attire. He’d been smart enough to pack away his official Royal Librarian uniform into a water resistant bag with a few additional dry essentials, and let his common clothes get soaked instead.

In a short six and a half minutes, Virgil was changed and mostly dry, though there was little he could do about his damp hair aside from comb his fingers through it. With his wet clothes packed away, he made it into the library on time to begin his first very long shift.

He’d already been sworn into secrecy when it came to occasionally dealing with the royal family’s history and artifacts in the future, and with his first and hopefully one of very few ever meetings with King Thomas out of the way, he was officially the new Royal Librarian. And now, also the only. As he was told in no certain terms that the last had retired and fucked off into obscurity before anyone had realized that the library had been left in disorganized chaos.

The old coot had apparently made his own system for everything, and hadn't bothered to write any of it down. From sorting sections to assigning books to genres, none if it clear and often very, very unorganized.

Virgil’s first big task was to comb through the entire damn building and use a new system, one that made sense. He was to reorganize every book and every section, using the appropriate genres and sorting. This way the royal family could actually functionally use the library and not waste time sorting through chaos.

This was where Virgil found himself three hours later, on the verge of a minor mental breakdown as he’d just barely sorted an eighth of the books on the main library floor into the Dewey Decimal system.

He’d had plenty of empty tables at the beginning of his journey, and right now every single one had some few stacks of books on each, labeled accordingly. Aside from his muffled ranting and the pattering of rain, the library was relatively silent.

It was odd, being alone in such a gigantic library. It almost reminded him of home.

He paused for a brief moment, having set down the final few books taken from the bookshelf he’d been working on. He’d gone through just one row of 6 bookshelves, and had 7 rows left to go, and that was just barely counting putting books back in the previous shelves as he went. A whine left him as he realized just how long this project was going to take.

“Fucking fuck.”

Somewhere between the second row and the third, Patton had stopped by to check in on Virgil. He found him hard at work sorting the fiction section on the left side of the building, tables half forgotten as Virgil attached unobtrusive non-damaging number labels to each and every book. Stacks of books lay carefully placed on the floor against each shelf, seperated by label and lack of label.

“You already look so at home, Virge!” The head cook whisper-shouted, though the sentiment was not necessary as the only other being in the library was the librarian himself.

“Yeah yeah, hush you. I’m a bit too swamped for ‘I told you so’s at the moment. So, what's up?” Glancing up at the taller man, Virgil briefly noted a small package wrapped in cloth was held in his hands.

“Can you spare a minute to eat?” Patton giggled, but Virgil knew better. He’d known Patton since they were kids, it wasn’t a question. Or a decision to be made. With a sigh, he placed the book he was holding in its place before turning to the cheery cook. “Yeah, I can.”

“How’s the kitchen today?” He asked lightly, having eaten the light meal quickly in order to get back to sorting. Patton hadn’t commented, nor had he been shooed away when Virgil began sorting again. He contently sat out of the way to finish his own lunch, his original goal having been accomplished.

“Oh! It’s going great today, honestly. Not too many mishaps from the newbies today either, so that's a bonus! And well, you know, making mistakes is in human nature but, they’re learning so quickly, I’m so proud of them! They’ll be taking my place by fall, just you wait and see! And, well, Roman stopped by earlier to swipe some snacks for Prince Logan, his brother, and himself. You know, the usual.” Patton chuckled, and if Virgil had looked, he’d seen the besotted look Patton always had when he talked about the head knight of the prince, he’d seen it a hundred times and was bound to see it a hundred or so more.

“Oh, speaking of,” Virgil butted in playfully, “I’ll finally get a chance to meet this knight and shining armor you’ve been swooning over for over a year now, huh?”

He watched Patton’s freckled face flush bright red, sputtering and then coughing on his mouthful of food. Virgil just cackled delightedly, stepping over to give Patton a few hard pats on the back to be sure his friend didn’t choke.

He laughed again when Patton gave him a pout and a soft “You’re so mean to me, Virge!” Eventually Virgil was able to placate Patton with a gentle hug, and the cook was sunshine and smiles again.

A finished lunch break later had Virgil finally sending Patton off, back to the warm bustling kitchens in the main castle building while he moved on to the next portion of his task.

He quickly found the steady back and forth rythme soothing. Pick a few books up, put them away. Pull a few books out, sort it by number as per their section of genre, set it in the right place. It was a blessing to find that there was just enough of a consistency to the previous plan that he could find up to five to six books in the same category in a row, and each set of books could be similar in subject, usually ending up just one section away. Often was the wayward book that found itself out of place, though he had assumed that these were often books just placed back haphazardly considering their subject patterns.

Often the most scattered and random books had ended up being of a few select categories. Without fail, he found that it would end up being a book on Space and Astronomy and/or Mathematics, in-depth Anatomy of Plants and Animals, young adult Fantasy Adventure novels, or Horror novels. It was.. Sort of odd, how there had been no section for each and all of these books, and yet there were so many evenly scattered. Perhaps that had been on purpose then, not haphazardly placed. But why?

Too busy to think deeply about it, he designated spots fitting each book type, and decided he’d figure out what he’d do with the puzzle later.

It was 6 pm by the time he’d finished the fourth row, and Patton had stopped by briefly to check on his best friend. He watched Patton’s merry expression drop some, concern seeping in as he took in his best friend’s progress.

“It’s almost 6:30, Virgil. Have you had another break yet?” He asked, watching his best friend continue moving back and forth. “Aren’t you tired? It’s been a little under 12 hours at this point, kiddo.. dontcha think it’s time to call it for the day? I mean, you’re already halfway there!”

“Library hours, at least Librarian work hours, don’t end till 9. And yeah, I guess I’m a little tired? But I’m in the zone, Pat. You know how I get when I’m in The Zone. If I stop now, who knows how long it’ll take me to finish sorting the other half?” Virgil rambled, half distracted and still trying to keep a vice grip on his concentration. “And besides, King Thomas said he’d be checking in on me tomorrow.”

“But Virge, you know he doesn’t expect you to have it done in one day. Thomas isn’t like that! That’s why he gave you a whole week to settle in, so you could move into the Library’s living quarters-which you haven’t done yet, might I add!- and get the library situated.” Patton stood stiffly, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. Virgil was as stubborn as he himself was when his mind was made up.

“Look, Pat.. just, I’m sorry. You know I hate to worry you. I’ll try to stop at 10, go home and get some rest, and tomorrow i’ll move my stuff into my new home here. And, i’ll take a break from sorting for a few hours. Okay?” Virgil reached out, taking Patton’s hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. He let Patton pull him into a tight hug, and didn’t resist when Patton briefly rubbed at his tense shoulders.

“Okay. Just, take care of yourself, Virge, okay? If I find out you stayed out an hour later than 11 pm, you’re gonna be in big trouble mister!” Patton giggled, lightening the mood the way he knew how.

“Yeah, yeah, hear ya loud and clear, Dad.” He watched Patton beam at the nickname, and moments later he watched Patton disappear behind the library’s main entrance door as his friend left him be, reassured. Virgil gave a heavy sigh, looking down guiltily at the stray book clutched in his hands.

“Let’s just hope ‘trouble’ just means a week of disappointed reprimands like last time…”

Hours later, Virgil’s head jerked up from his sorting as a father clock somewhere in the library dinged, signalling 10 o'clock. Biting his lip, he walked to the front doors and examined his options. He found he could lock the library from the inside, and pulled down the shutters. Briskly, he moved to cover each large window with their thick drapery, finding the adorning cloth thick enough to keep the low artificial light from seeping out. He dimmed the inner library lights so the library looked closed, but otherwise the building was still functioning from within.

Unless someone else had keys to the doors of the library, no one would know that the librarian was still stationed and working within. No one could see out, and more importantly, no one could see in. Which meant that Virgil was safe from Patton’s wrath if the Cook came to check on him, temporarily at least.

“Fuck, Patton’s gonna be so mad..” He muttered to himself, leaning against the librarian’s desk with a deep sigh. He’d briefly admired the beautiful desk earlier in the day, from the intricate carving to the beautiful dark mahogany. It would serve him well in the future, he hoped, after the thorough ‘grounding’ he knew he was going to get from Patton.

He shook his head to free his thoughts. There was no sense in getting in trouble and feeling guilty about it if he didn’t do anything to learn from in the first place. It was time to get back to work, and if he was lucky, he’d finish the main body of the library by the time his next shift started. Then, he could try and play it off, like nothing had ever happened, he’d just keep Patton out of the library till tomorrow to hide his finished work.

11 pm came and passed as he worked, and when he looked next at the clock, he found it was nearly 4 am. Tired but determined with only one row left, Virgil trekked on with a new vigor. All-nighters weren’t anything new to Virgil, not in the slightest. He was a creature of the night who rarely got a full night's rest to begin with. And sure, it was rare he worked his body so hard and for so long, but fixations were hard to break once in The Zone, it’s not like he could feel it past the hyperfixation haze.

Patton had often told him off for it when they were young, but as time passed they’d come to realize that’s just how Virgil was. Laying down did nothing to lure his mind to sleep on even the tiredest of nights if his insomnia had something to say about it. Better that he used the extra time to be productive, rather than spend 6 hours tossing and turning in bed, numbers and thoughts crowding in his head, and only getting up more restless than before. Patton often just tried to ease the aftermath if he could help it.

Sliding the last book into place was like sliding a final puzzle piece into a massive puzzle. The triumph of accomplishment had never felt so good, not like this.

Though, he quickly found himself aimless not 10 minutes later, seeking errors to fix and lost books to give a home. His brain wasn’t ready to let go of it’s fixation just yet, but as each second crawled by, he found himself recentering into the real world.

His body ached, and he was exhausted. His stomach gnawed at him weakly in hunger and his eyes watered from staring unblinkingly for so long. He eyed the chair behind the librarian’s desk, his desk now, he reminded himself.

“Screw it.. The Library’s sorted enough, I've got the rest of the week to make it perfect. A ten minute nap won’t hurt, right..?” He huffed to himself as he pulled the window curtains open one by one. Shuffling over to the main library doors, he unlocked them and raised the shutters. Soft morning sun rays fluttered into the connected windowed hallway just beyond the doors. He smiled at the tiny beauty of life, spotting the main library windows letting in the same comforting, dappled light.

Pulling his cloak tighter around himself, he plopped into the chair at his desk, finding it soft and comforting. Leaning forward, he rested his head on his arms, and under the fluttering morning light, succumbed to sleep’s gentle embrace.

Unknowing of the rude awakening that was soon to come.

Chapter two

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my-mt-heart · 4 years ago

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I dared to ask if those who ship Carol and Daryl should also support both characters individually, and the response was overwhelmingly negative. My inbox is flooded with messages assigning blame to either character for "destroying" the relationship because of "x" and "y" reasons, and not gonna lie, it's making me really sad. Instead of responding to each one individually which is bound to have everyone up in arms, I'm just going to address bits and pieces here.

Some of my fellow bloggers have put on their intersectional feminist glasses and tweed jackets to weigh in on these two lovely characters, which is fucking amazing. Internalized misogyny needs to stop. Psychological trauma needs to be taken into account. It's great that we can personify characters to make them feel more relatable, but at the end of the day, their mental and moral qualities are still being controlled by outside forces, aka the writers. So. For my purposes, I am going to focus on the writing because it's important.

It is [insert Daryl's or Carol's name here] fault that Caryl hasn't happened yet because [insert bad decision made here].

Good writers let their characters' emotions drive the plot, not the other way around. Not once throughout the entire series have Daryl and Carol simultaneously been in the right state of mind to organically spark a romance. What happens when you try to force it when neither character is ready? I’m pretty sure you end up with something resembling Daryl and Leah.

I'm not going to get into the weeds of "but if only this had happened instead of that, then maybe--" It's just not productive. In my opinion, everything Daryl and Carol have experienced thus far -- trauma, loss, etc. -- have been vital to their journeys, together and apart.

Daryl already told Carol in 10x16 that he'll never hate her and that she's still got him and now suddenly he's mad at her again!?

The reason it feels like backtracking is because it is in a way. In order to give Daryl and Carol a proper story in these "not supposed to exist" episodes, the writers had to carve out an emotional journey that could believably still get them to wherever they initially wanted them to start off with each other in S11. Will the progression feel a little unnatural? Yes, but dipping into the valley of their relationship to try to get to the root of their issues is a hell of a lot better than putting their story on pause with barely any interaction (a la S6-S8).

Carol can do no wrong. She can be with as many men as she wants and it’s ok because it’s Queen Carol. I wish these people would just admit they hate Daryl and be done with it.

Yikes. A lot to unpack there, but again, I'm going to try to analyze the writing.

Carol has been established as a character who puts on masks, and getting into relationships with other men, though she genuinely does have love for at least one of them, is one way she accomplishes that. So supplemental to the obvious reason why no one gives Carol flack for this, that "slut shaming" is super not okay, her relationships are also believable for her character. Meanwhile, Daryl getting into a relationship with Leah raises many questions about his character, which validates people's frustration. It's not about him. It's about the way he's potentially being written. Of course, we still need to watch the episode to fairly judge.

I get the frustration about carol getting yelled at again, but guys, I think we underappreciated just how patient Daryl was with her in 10a. She wasn’t honest with him, she misled him, and she broke her promise to him, w/o push back of any kind from Daryl. Her reasons for why she did those things are understandable. But Daryl is human too and her actions hurt him. Relationships should be equal, where both partners pain is acknowledged

Certainly. And it is not a bad thing for them to land in this position.

Just because Daryl and Carol make bad decisions and get mad at each other does not automatically make them bad people/bad characters. It's not just about creating drama, tension, and stakes either although those are of course factors. Characters grow from their mistakes and emotional lows. Thanks to Carol losing Henry, which led to her reckless behavior, which sparked Daryl's hurt and frustration, which caused their fight, they are finally at a point where they have to confront what they mean to each other, which will get them thinking about what they want out of life, which will eventually lead to them running away together. See what I mean about emotions driving the plot?

FYI, this post is not a "fuck you" to anyone or a campaign to make anyone feel a certain way. I'm just sharing my thoughts. You can agree, disagree, or ignore me completely.

Now. Time to rest for a couple hours before the release of the 10x18 promo inevitably throws us all into overdrive again.

#caryl #carol and daryl #caryl positivity #twd

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nabrizoya · 4 years ago

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A month and half ago, I remember being unable to sleep, wondering about how to write for prompts if I did start accepting them. This was an idea I had come up then, something heartwarming and satisfying. Also, @princesslucretia remember I told you about how I’d already written something akin to your ideas?

Ballroom Introductions.

It was in the ballroom perhaps, Lucie thought now, lost in the progress that every month endured, of all the days that had slowly gone by in the year. Could she particularly pinpoint?

She sat with little Alexander, keeping him company at the farthest corner of the room. Lucie had danced quite a bit with Matthew and a few other gentlemen who had asked; except one, though she chided herself for even thinking about it. The evening was satisfactory—all happy faces everywhere, though if she looked deeper, she would be able make out the lines of loss and mourning under them. A lifetime too was short to grieve for all those everybody had lost in the Shadow War.

Lucie engaged Alex in a gripping story, encapsulating wonder, terror and excitement in an impulsive story she had conjured out of thin air. Alex was amused, especially at the involvement of the soft circus ball, his new and most treasured toy. She personified the ball’s abilities, describing its magical properties and how it went on to become a hero when a pirate ship had begun to attack its island of toys. Her heart swelled with joy when he laughed at the bits she narrated with mirth.

At one point, Alex just stared at her in wonder and confusion until she realised he had been staring at a point behind her. Perplexed, she turned to face her intruder, her heart stopping for a moment at the piercing green gaze. She regained her composure and smiled. “Hello, Jesse.”

She looked back at Alexander who was now eyeing Jesse skeptically. She waved in his face, just as Jesse bent down on his knee next to her, facing his cousin. Alex’s gaze trailed from him to her, his hands outstretched towards her. She pulled him into her lap and introduced him to Jesse.

“Jesse?”

She ruffled his soft hair, hair akin to his cousin’s. “Yes, Alexander. Will you introduce yourself to your cousin?”

Alex remained silent. She watched him frown, still gaping at Jesse. Jesse met her eyes, all fear and apprehension. She noticed how his hair was longer now, completely covering his ears unlike before. His face wasn’t as pale but there were still shadows under his eyes, combed with his want to be introduced to his youngest cousin yet unsure of how.

“Cousin?” Alex said finally. She gave Jesse a reassuring smile and bent to her side to face Alexander.

“Correct. Thomas? Thomas is your cousin. Eugenia? Barbara-” her throat ached, “just how they are your cousins, Jesse too is one, Alex.”

“Tom,” he said sullenly, his face sour. She recalled Thomas taking his licorice away stating it had been his fifth for the day. Lucie nodded.

“Tom, Euvy and Babbara,” he narrated. Lucie hugged him tighter. Looking at Jesse, she added, “Jesse.”

Jesse glanced at her, momentarily fazed. He smiled then, confidence in his posture and he gestured his gloved hand forth. “Jesse Blackthorn, sir,” he said, and took off his beret, bowing in a flourish. “Pleased to meet you.”

Lucie found herself smiling at that. Alexander gaped at him and looked at her, confused. “Go on, Alex. He’s very glad to have met you finally!”

“Not Pirate?”

She laughed. “No, you silly. Definitely not. Go on, now. It is impolite to keep a gentleman waiting.”

It was with some hesitation that Alex put his hand forth. “Alexandwer,” he said solemnly. Jesse took it confidently and shook his cousin’s small yet firm hand, contained ecstasy breaking out on his face. Alex hopped off Lucie’s lap, disconcerting Lucie momentarily from thinking how well Jesse had managed his introductions. People from the Enclave and around the world had flocked the London Institute to celebrate the victory in the Shadow War. They had all looked at him warily yet he was so confident and firm when he spoke, the air of surety in his walk and posture. He looked dapper in his new clothes, a wonderful frock coat adorning over his white shirt and a regal earthen waistcoat. It was subtle and simple, yet Jesse looked breathtaking.

“Alex-” but Alexander was standing well on his feet, his posture mirroring his cousin’s. He titled his chin higher, much to both of their amusement. In that moment she could see how much the two of them resembled one another. They had the same stance as that of Gabriel, though the eyes gave their secrets away. “Alexandwer Lightwood,” he announced and mimicked Jesse’s bow. Lucie gave a startled laugh at that but Jesse only smiled wider. She felt her heart flutter at his radiant smile that seemed to light up an already bright room. Alex turned to face her, his cheeks now bright red and rushed into the crowd.

Alarmed, Jesse got up to follow him but Lucie stopped him, standing up too. “He’s shy,” she said. “New introductions do tire him but you shouldn’t be worried.” At his look of confusion, she elaborated. “You seem to have made a fascinating first impression on him, Mr. Blackthorn,” she said, blushing at the awkwardness of addressing him differently.

“I should hope so,” he gazed after Alexander, who was now tugging at the tail of his father’s coat. Gabriel picked him up with the ease of a father, his gaze confused until he retracted his son’s tracks and saw Jesse and Lucie. He smiled at them and turned away.

“You have. I promise.”

They gazed collectively at the faces in the ballroom. The night was coming to a close yet nobody made any sign of farewell. When she finally looked at Jesse, she found him already looking at her. “I, uh, I’ve been looking for you.”

Lucie felt her stomach drop. “What for? I’ve been here this whole time.”

Jesse continued to stare at her, his lips pursed. He finally said, this time looking away, his cheeks red. “I wondered if you could do me the honour of this dance, Miss Herondale.” He met her gaze, sharp yet uncertain. Lucie could see the tension in his shoulders, the way the vein throbbed against his throat in apprehension.

She blushed this time, though she didn’t look away. “You’re nervous,” she pointed, reverting to their constant innocuous bickering ways. Jesse’s shoulders slumped in relief at that, a smile overpowering his face.

“Of course I am!” He gestured around the room, at the faces covering up the traces of pain, sheathed under the dimness of the light. “It is exhausting, akin to your observation about Alexander earlier, to make introductions.”

“Not to forget that you are quite literally a revived corpse.”

“My sources tell me you are not going to stop throwing that in my face until I die again,” he commented dryly. “Not that I mind, but I think repetitive gets bland.”

Lucie laughed at that. “Well, I can assure you that you shall not be hearing the end of it, certainly. Though I believe there are more pressing matters to attend at the moment.”

“Such as?”

She put her hand forth, the way gentlemen did when they asked their partners or any agreeable stranger for a dance. “May I have this dance, Jesse Blackthorn? Former dead-ee, Current living person?”

Jesse’s laughter, lively and rich, was a sound unlike any melody in the room. She puffed out her cheeks in an attempt to conceal her smile until Jesse put his hand in hers. “I believe in no form of formality, you see,” she added as they made their way over to the dance floor. Lucie noticed how their hands shifted- it would seem as though Jesse had been the one to outstretch his hand to ask her out, and Lucie pondered briefly about that. It felt intimate in every slight bit.

“Though perhaps it is better you say that you assume that no bureaucratic formality remains between us, given that society works on norms,” he said, turning her around. “And I know you would disagree with me here.”

“Perhaps I’ll let you have the agency this time of being right; I do think so.”

Jesse almost did a double take. “You do?”

“Oh yes, I’m surprised too,” she laughed at Jesse’s wariness. “Who knows, you could possibly be my voice of reason sometimes.”

“I’m humbled, Miss Herondale. The utmost honour,” he bowed with a smile.

“Let me do you another honour, if that be the case,” she grinned, mirroring his. “If we still- no, if you still put up with the formalities.”

Lucie was right, Jesse thought; the air of formality between them as though they were strangers was not a particularly welcoming idea. They knew each other a little too well, he assumed. One could not pin it on an exact moment, but it felt like a lot to reverse or start from scratch. It was lost in the progress that every month endured, of all the days that had slowly gone by in the year of spending time with each other. He didn’t mind, though quickly added, knowing what she had meant. “Don’t step on my toes,” he warned.

"And here I thought I could be discreet,” she grumbled good-naturedly, leaving them to each other’s silent laughter. The world faded to the shadows around them. For once, Lucie didn’t mind the darkness, if it brought light with it. And from enough stories she’s read, she knew it did.

#jesse blackthorn #lucie herondale #jesse x lucie #lucie x jesse #blackdale #the last hours #aaaah #mine*#i'm just emptying my google docs at this point tbh #i'll probably post something for jordelia next because i have a couple in there lmao #and i edited this instead of sleeping so eh #or a thomastair?#hmm tough decisions to make

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ethelphantom · 5 years ago

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The Rose Speaks of Love Silently

So yeah. Back again. This is the second part of the Soul Rose story, the first being Crimson as a Rose. I hope you enjoy this! And like, I don’t know what happened, but this turned out to be like 3k. Oops and all that I guess.

This will not be the last of this series, so like, don’t worry about that. I just have exactly no ideas for it. If you have anything you’d like to see in this verse, hit me up. Heaven knows I need help with ideas.

This is Maribat, ship being Jasonette. Don’t like, don’t read.

Ao3 || Part 1 || Part 3

______

As long as she could remember, her head had been filled with noise. Loud, loud noise. It didn’t matter that everything else around her was quiet — the voices in her head never left her alone. At least they weren’t malevolent but rather kind. It didn’t help with her life though.

The more she could find fallen soft petals around her, the louder the voices inside her head grew.

She had once been told it was because she carried the rose and the creation miraculous — the single existing miraculous that could only be wielded by someone with a Soul Rose. Few people with one existed these days, and even fewer were suitable for one since over half of the living Rose Souls were corrupted due to their lack of empathy and love.

Of the few Rose Souls that were alive, she was the only one capable of love even after having lost most of her petals. No empathy left, that was sure, but somehow all of her love was stored in that one petal still hanging tight.

Or, perhaps, that petal was still hanging tight for she refused to give into her wrath.

She cradled her rose closely to her chest, tears falling down her cheeks and staining the dry ground. She wished for her capability of empathy to be back, but nothing she could think of could heal her.

“It’s not that you were broken from the very beginning — no, dear, they broke you.”

Those were the words that her master had told her before he had been murdered. Her own partner had murdered her master, their master. He had been the only one that knew about her Soul Rose aside from her parents who rejected her once they found out she had been fighting the evil that controlled their city, their lives, and because of that, she now had no one left.

There was no one left that she could go to.

Her only friends had forgotten about her. Perhaps that was for the better. As far as they were aware, she was a liar, a jealous bitch, someone who only wanted to manipulate all of them. All of them had told her they could not survive without her, that she was what kept them all glued together, but now it seemed like it didn’t matter to any of them.

They had accepted the new girl in without a blink, without a second thought, and then they had given her — the one some of them had known for most their lives — spot to the new girl, the stranger none of them knew anything about.

In class, in life, in their hearts, in their souls.

Because Marinette could see their souls...

...She knew that was exactly what they had done.

And so, there was now another everyday Ladybug sitting next to them, laughing alongside them; they ate her words from her palm like it was the sweetest nectar. It wasn’t like any of her words even held any truth to them, but somehow all of the people following her didn’t mind, didn’t care that she would never give them anything like Marinette had. Her replacement seemed to mean more to everyone than she ever did even though all of her words were just beautiful lies, but even so Marinette stayed. She decided she couldn’t go anywhere else — she still needed to be there to save them from the evil each new day.

She didn’t want to stay. She hated— no, she loathed being there for there were memories everywhere in the city. But, while that was true, she could understand why it was important she had them. Marinette knew that she could learn from her past. She knew that she needed to stop trusting people so blindly. While being able to trust was beautiful, she knew she was not supposed to let her trust destroy her.

And so she slowly learnt to value herself. She deserved better than them.

And she would find something better than them, there was no question about that.

At least she had all the kwamii with her. The kwamii, and the ever-present voices in her head. At least they loved her and cared about her when no one else could bother.

Freak!, the people she once considered her friends screamed at her when they saw her speaking with someone when they could see no one.

It’s alright, love, they don’t deserve you, the voices in her head said. Tikki said they were the ghosts of the previous Ladybugs. Marinette smiled through the hate she got.

You’re just jealous of Lila and all her achievements, they justified their actions and themselves as they denied her her right to defend herself and drove her away from everyone she could have once considered her friend.

Don’t worry, there will one day come a person that sees you for you and your worth and they’ll love you more than anything in this world. On that day those people will regret ever letting go of you, the kwamii told her as she cried, wiping her tears away and cuddling up to her.

But, even as the voices were kind to her, and even as the kwamii tried to love and comfort her, Marinette fell. She fell to her sadness and pain, she fell to her need of someone else. As the days passed by, she finally let go of her hope to find someone else, someone that could accept her and love her for her and not for what she could give them.

Or, so it was until that day anyway.

Marinette was wandering around, her small bag filled with different kinds of snacks she had made in case she found someone upset so she could make sure Papillon couldn’t get to them. She would rather not fight anyone today, thank you very much.

Once she went home — a small cottage at the border of the forest — to get a refill of her snack stocks, she spotted a rose with no petals near it. It was clear to her from the very second she saw it that this was a Soul Rose. It screamed crimson to her, and she was sure that one day long ago its petals had been a beautiful crimson, just like blood was.

And, for it indeed was a Soul Rose, it was clear that the Rose Soul it belonged to needed it. Badly. The Rose wasn’t dead, so that meant its Soul was still alive as well. Rose Souls were never supposed to be apart from their Roses, and definitely not for as long as this Rose and its Soul had been.

Thankfully, being a Rose Soul and the Soul of Creation meant that she was allowed to speak to Roses, even those that weren’t her own. Marinette asked the Rose where its Soul lived and how long they had been apart, and she got her answer as soon as she picked up the Rose for it could sense she was a safe Soul to talk to. As soon as it sensed that she was going to help, that she wanted to help its Soul and return it to them.

Marinette followed the Rose’s instructions and walked always deeper and deeper into the forest until she finally saw a hut there. A man hit its wall and pressed his head against it, clearly frustrated. Marinette lifted the Rose to her heart, listening as the Rose got excited when it could sense its Soul near, and she smiled. She had finally found a Rose Soul, the Rose Soul that needed its Rose back.

She walked closer. A stick cracked under her feet, and the man whipped around to see her, staring as though he had seen a ghost.

Marinette held the Rose close to her chest tightly but was careful to not harm it, and against her white dress, the rose with no petals stained in blood created quite the contrast.

The man glared at her, looking like she was the filthiest scum of the earth, like he was somewhere between punching her, taking the flower from her and murdering her. She stretched her hand out to him and handed him the Rose gently, knowing he must have been anxious to find it.

She still had to admit, he was gorgeous — and that was a lot to say considering she had once known Adrien, the man Parisians called the sex appeal personified. She would have felt bad for him, but she couldn’t bring herself to care — after all, they weren’t friends. But perhaps… Perhaps this man in front of her with black locks, some of it dyed white, and the most icy blue eyes she had ever seen could be someone she could call a friend one day.

She was allowed to hope even if the past seemed to say it was a bad idea.

“Excuse me, I believe this belongs to you,” she said with a quiet voice, putting on a smile to make herself look less threatening. She couldn’t afford to have herself look like she was a threat to him, not what with her holding his Rose, his greatest weakness, his soul in her hands.

The man yanked it from her hands, causing the flower’s thorns scratch her and draw blood. She said nothing about it, only pressed her other hand against it in hopes she could stop the bleeding. She didn’t want to anger him by mentioning he had hurt her when he had only been protective of his Rose. It was understandable anyway.

“How did you find it or this place, and how did you know it was mine?” he snapped, clutching the flower in his hands like it was his lifeline. Maybe it was.

She stood up proud and looked him straight in the eye even as he seemed to be trying to intimidate her. It was kind of working. Marinette was not about to let it stop her. So what if he was much bigger than her, so what if he looked like he could snap her in half without even trying? She was Ladybug, she wasn’t that easily driven away. She’d seen much scarier opponents in her life.

Besides…

He was lonely.

His Rose had talked about him to her. It had told her a little of his life, of him being abandoned and left behind, of his family not caring about him. How people drove him away and called him a freak. He had no one. He couldn’t even talk to his Rose. She wasn’t sure whether it was because he didn’t know how to, or if he didn’t even know it was possible if he learnt the right technique.

Besides, Marinette needed the presence of another human in her life. He had a Rose, and his Rose — while corrupted and sorrowful — was not evil. He was not necessarily a good person in the sense everyone thought of it, but he most certainly was also not a bad person.

“Great. Now, get out of my sight, girl.”

She was not about to give up this easily.

Marinette reached her hand out and grabbed him by his hand. “Wait, what’s your name?” she asked, giving his hand a light squeeze. She wanted to know at least this one thing before letting go.

He froze in the place and slowly turned around, staring at her.

Marinette watched as words formed on his lips but no sound came out. Why do you care? He seemed to ask.

Because no one else does, she wanted to reply.

She didn’t have any time to react before he had already grabbed her wrist and lifted it above her head so high that she had to stand on her toes to touch the ground. She refused to let out a sound. He scowled at her, but she kept the eye contact.

“The hell it concerns you. Go away, now. Shoo,” he said and let go of her wrist. She fell down, her Rose falling out of her bag. Marinette watched as the man stormed inside and slammed the door behind him shut so hard the walls shook and the forest echoed. She left a few snacks next to the door, safe for even animals to eat so even if it wasn’t him that took it, an animal could get a meal.

Then she left, hoping to meet him again. As she rubbed her wrist, trying to ease the aching in it, she quietly swore to herself that she would befriend him and not let him be lonely anymore.

It took a few days before she saw him again. She was sitting in a park watching the children play and run around when a man came and started harassing one of the mothers there. She waited a little, wanting to see if the woman would defend herself, but when she didn’t, Marinette stood up and started making her way to them.

Only, the Rose Soul she had met earlier came in between and told the man to fuck off (to put it kindly, anyway). He helped the mother and asked if she was alright, but all she did was call her children to her and scream at him before leaving. Tell him that she didn’t need his help, that she didn’t need help from some creature that came from hell — a freak, a monster.

Marinette was seething. This woman had no right to call him that no matter what he had done before (unless he had directly hurt her, then possibly) because right now he was helping.

People were despicable.

But, as much as she would have liked to go tell the woman just what she thought about it, the Rose Soul mattered more. That was precisely why she instead went to the Rose Soul, addressing him.

“Are you alright?”, she asked, smiling at him with gentle eyes as he turned around. He seemed shocked to see her, and Marinette wasn’t sure whether that was because she was there or because she had asked how he was doing. The latter option sounded horrible. Had no one truly asked him that in such a long time? Had it truly been that long since another living human being had cared about him?

“None of your business, kid. Leave me alone.”

“I’m not a girl though, I’m an adult. And yes, it is very much my business — I saw your Rose. You’ve been hurt so much you’ve lost yourself.”

He seemed to be fighting himself, trying to decide whether he should tell her everything or leave right that second.

“Why are you so damn persistent about this?”

“Because I want to be your friend. Now, what’s your name? I’m Marinette.”

“That… that’s such a horrible decision, wanting to get close to me.”

“Oh well, would not be my first horrible decision,” she told him sneering quietly as she remembered how she had decided to be friends with untrustworthy people. Then she dug out a small box of colourful cookies, offering them to the man. “Do you want a macaron?”

The man reached out his hand before jerking it back, unsure of whether he should take one or not. Marinette shook the box lightly, still in front of him, urging him to just pick one. It took him a while to actually take one and even longer before he took a bite, but when he did, she could just almost see his Rose glow with warmth and joy it had not gotten to experience in a long time.

Marinette beamed as he ate the rest of the macaron, happy to see him enjoy it.

“Do you like it?” she asked, tilting her head and kept her smile on her face. Marinette wanted to step closer to him and touch him, maybe hug him as it seemed he had not gotten positive human contact in a long while, but consciously forced herself to stay back. She needed to respect his boundaries that she didn’t even really know yet, she didn’t know where he set them. That’s why it was all the more important for her to make sure she didn’t disrespect him.

“Yes… It was good,” he responded, eyeing her closely. She hoped that whatever it was that he was looking for in her turned out to be positive. Heaven knows both of them needed another human being near them.

Marinette felt Tikki nudging her leg from inside her bag. Yes… Tikki was there for her. No matter what happened here, Tikki would still be there and Marinette wouldn’t be left alone.

Unlike this Soul.

She clapped her hands and squealed. “I’m so glad you liked it! I was afraid you wouldn’t, but it seems my worries were unfounded.”

And finally, finally Marinette could see a smile forming on his face. It was small, barely there, but she counted it as a victory. And besides, he looked absolutely gorgeous when he smiled. It was much better than she could have ever even hoped for.

“So, what’s your name?” she asked once more, looking deep into his icy blue eyes, looking at the corruption that was his beautiful soul. She took a rose with only few crimson petals, all of them looking like she had dipped them in the blue of the sky and presented it to him. She knew he recognised it immediately as one of the few roses that held someone’s soul on this earth.

Because indeed, she too was one of the very few souls that were personifications of roses, and she decided the best course of action was to trust him with her secret without really even knowing him. She trusted him with her greatest weakness.

After a long, silent while, the man took his eyes off the rose in her hand and looked at her instead, eyes wide. “Jason,” the hesitating, broken voice said. How long had it already been since he last time told someone his name…? How long had it already been since someone last time asked for his name?

But regardless, Marinette already loved his name.

Marinette reached out her hand to him, waiting for him to take it. When he hesitatingly placed his hand in her own, his Rose appeared in the air in front of them, and she watched in wonder as a crimson petal took from and reattached itself to the petalless Rose.

A tear rolled down Jason’s cheek as Marinette smiled. He repeated his words, told her his name with the barest hint of a faint smile on his face, and at that moment, Marinette was sure she couldn’t have been happier.

“My name is Jason.”

____

@18-fandoms-unite-08 @todaylillypads @kris-pines04 @thethirdwheelfriend @daminett4life @dur55

#jasonette #jason x marinette #Jason Todd #marinette dupain cheng #maribat #miraculous ladybug #ml x dc #ml #fanfic #fanfiction #ethel's writing

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silent-era-of-cinema · 4 years ago

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Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent film during the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.

Bow appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927), and Wings (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost two-to-one, a "safe return". At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month (January 1929).

Two years after marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933. In September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60.

Bow was born in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn at 697 Bergen Street,[9] in a "bleak, sparsely furnished room above [a] dilapidated Baptist Church". Her birth year, according to the US Censuses of 1910 and 1920, was 1905. The 1930 census indicates 1906 and on her gravestone of 1965, the inscription says 1907, but 1905 is the accepted year by a majority of sources.

Bow was her parents' third child, but her two older sisters, born in 1903 and 1904, had died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Frances Bow (née Gordon, 1880–1923), was told by a doctor not to become pregnant again, for fear the next baby might die as well. Despite the warning, Sarah became pregnant with Clara in late 1904. In addition to the risky pregnancy, a heat wave besieged New York in July 1905, and temperatures peaked around 100 °F (38 °C). Years later, Clara said: "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life."

Bow's parents were descended from English, Irish and Scottish immigrants who had come to America the generation before. Bow said that her father, Robert Walter Bow (1874–1959), "had a quick, keen mind ... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't...everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling". By the time Clara was four and a half, her father was out of work, and between 1905 and 1923, the family lived at 14 different addresses, but seldom outside Prospect Heights, with Clara's father often absent. "I do not think my mother ever loved my father", she said. "He knew it. And it made him very unhappy, for he worshiped her, always."

When Bow's mother, Sarah, was 16, she fell from a second-story window and suffered a severe head injury. She was later diagnosed with "psychosis due to epilepsy". From her earliest years, Bow had learned how to care for her mother during the seizures, as well as how to deal with her psychotic and hostile episodes. She said her mother could be "mean" to her, but "didn't mean to ... she couldn't help it". Still, Bow felt deprived of her childhood; "As a kid I took care of my mother, she didn't take care of me". Sarah worsened gradually, and when she realized her daughter was set for a movie career, Bow's mother told her she "would be much better off dead". One night in February 1922, Bow awoke to a butcher knife held against her throat by her mother. Clara was able to fend off the attack, and locked her mother up. In the morning, Bow's mother had no recollection of the episode, and later she was committed to a sanatorium by Robert Bow.

Clara spoke about the incident later:

It was snowing. My mother and I were cold and hungry. We had been cold and hungry for days. We lay in each other's arms and cried and tried to keep warm. It grew worse and worse. So that night my mother—but I can't tell you about it. Only when I remember it, it seems to me I can't live.

According to Bow's biographer, David Stenn, Bow was raped by her father at age sixteen while her mother was institutionalized. On January 5, 1923, Sarah died at the age of 43 from her epilepsy. When relatives gathered for the funeral, Bow accused them of being "hypocrites", and became so angry that she even tried to jump into the grave.

Bow attended P.S. 111, P.S. 9, and P.S. 98.[13] As she grew up, she felt shy among other girls, who teased her for her worn-out clothes and "carrot-top" hair. She said about her childhood, "I never had any clothes. ... And lots of time didn't have anything to eat. We just lived, that's about all. Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed."

From first grade, Bow preferred the company of boys, stating, "I could lick any boy my size. My right arm was quite famous. My right arm was developed from pitching so much ... Once I hopped a ride on behind a big fire engine. I got a lot of credit from the gang for that."[15] A close friend, a younger boy who lived in her building, burned to death in her presence after an accident. In 1919, Bow enrolled in Bay Ridge High School for Girls. "I wore sweaters and old skirts...didn't want to be treated like a girl...there was one boy who had always been my pal... he kissed me... I wasn't sore. I didn't get indignant. I was horrified and hurt."

Bow's interest in sports and her physical abilities led her to plan for a career as an athletics instructor. She won five medals "at the cinder tracks" and credited her cousin Homer Baker – the national half-mile (c.800 m) champion (1913 and 1914) and 660-yard (c. 600 m) world-record holder – for being her trainer. The Bows and Bakers shared a house – still standing – at 33 Prospect Place in 1920.

In the early 1920s, roughly 50 million Americans—half the population at that time—attended the movies every week. As Bow grew into womanhood, her stature as a "boy" in her old gang became "impossible". She did not have any girlfriends, and school was a "heartache" and her home was "miserable." On the silver screen, however, she found consolation; "For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility, glamor". And further; "I always had a queer feeling about actors and actresses on the screen ... I knew I would have done it differently. I couldn't analyze it, but I could always feel it.". "I'd go home and be a one girl circus, taking the parts of everyone I'd seen, living them before the glass." At 16, Bow says she "knew" she wanted to be a motion pictures actress, even if she was a "square, awkward, funny-faced kid."

Against her mother's wishes but with her father's support, Bow competed in Brewster publications' magazine's annual nationwide acting contest, "Fame and Fortune", in fall 1921. In previous years, other contest winners had found work in the movies. In the contest's final screen test, Bow was up against an already scene-experienced woman who did "a beautiful piece of acting". A set member later stated that when Bow did the scene, she actually became her character and "lived it". In the January issues 1922 of Motion Picture Classics, the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa McMein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded:

She is very young, only 16. But she is full of confidence, determination and ambition. She is endowed with a mentality far beyond her years. She has a genuine spark of divine fire. The five different screen tests she had, showed this very plainly, her emotional range of expression provoking a fine enthusiasm from every contest judge who saw the tests. She screens perfectly. Her personal appearance is almost enough to carry her to success without the aid of the brains she indubitably possesses.

Bow won an evening gown and a silver trophy, and the publisher committed to help her "gain a role in films", but nothing happened. Bow's father told her to "haunt" Brewster's office (located in Brooklyn) until they came up with something. "To get rid of me, or maybe they really meant to (give me) all the time and were just busy", Bow was introduced to director Christy Cabanne, who cast her in Beyond the Rainbow, produced late 1921 in New York City and released February 19, 1922. Bow did five scenes and impressed Cabanne with true theatrical tears, but was cut from the final print. "I was sick to my stomach," she recalled and thought her mother was right about the movie business.

Bow, who dropped out of school (senior year) after she was notified about winning the contest, possibly in October 1921, got an ordinary office job. However, movie ads and newspaper editorial comments from 1922 to 1923 suggest that Bow was not cut from Beyond the Rainbow. Her name is on the cast list among the other stars, usually tagged "Brewster magazine beauty contest winner" and sometimes even with a picture.

Encouraged by her father, Bow continued to visit studio agencies asking for parts. "But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually I was too fat." Eventually, director Elmer Clifton needed a tomboy for his movie Down to the Sea in Ships, saw Bow in Motion Picture Classic magazine, and sent for her. In an attempt to overcome her youthful looks, Bow put her hair up and arrived in a dress she "sneaked" from her mother. Clifton said she was too old, but broke into laughter as the stammering Bow made him believe she was the girl in the magazine. Clifton decided to bring Bow with him and offered her $35 a week. Bow held out for $50 and Clifton agreed, but he could not say whether she would "fit the part". Bow later learned that one of Brewsters' subeditors had urged Clifton to give her a chance.

Down to the Sea in Ships, shot on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts and produced by independent "The Whaling Film Corporation", documented life, love, and work in the whale-hunter community. The production relied on a few less-known actors and local talents. It premiered at the Olympia Theater in New Bedford, on September 25, and went on general distribution on March 4, 1923. Bow was billed 10th in the film, but shone through:

"Miss Bow will undoubtedly gain fame as a screen comedienne".

"She scored a tremendous hit in Down to the Sea in Ships..(and).. has reached the front rank of motion picture principal players".

"With her beauty, her brains, her personality and her genuine acting ability it should not be many moons before she enjoys stardom in the fullest sense of the word. You must see 'Down to the Sea in Ships'".

"In movie parlance, she 'stole' the picture ... ".

By mid-December 1923, primarily due to her merits in Down to the Sea in Ships, Bow was chosen the most successful of the 1924 WAMPAS Baby Stars. Three months before Down to the Sea in Ships was released, Bow danced half nude, on a table, uncredited in Enemies of Women (1923). In spring she got a part in The Daring Years (1923), where she befriended actress Mary Carr, who taught her how to use make-up.

In the summer, she got a "tomboy" part in Grit, a story that dealt with juvenile crime and was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bow met her first boyfriend, cameraman Arthur Jacobson, and she got to know director Frank Tuttle, with whom she worked in five later productions. Tuttle remembered:

Her emotions were close to the surface. She could cry on demand, opening the floodgate of tears almost as soon as I asked her to weep. She was dynamite, full of nervous energy and vitality and pitifully eager to please everyone.

Grit was released on January 7, 1924. The Variety review said "... Clara Bow lingers in the eye, long after the picture has gone."

While shooting Grit at Pyramid Studios, in Astoria, New York, Bow was approached by Jack Bachman of independent Hollywood studio Preferred Pictures. He wanted to contract her for a three-month trial, fare paid, and $50 a week. "It can't do any harm,"[15] he tried. "Why can't I stay in New York and make movies?" Bow asked her father, but he told her not to worry.

On July 21, 1923, she befriended Louella Parsons, who interviewed her for The New York Morning Telegraph. In 1931, when Bow came under tabloid scrutiny, Parsons defended her and stuck to her first opinion on Bow:

She is as refreshingly unaffected as if she had never faced a means to pretend. She hasn't any secrets from the world, she trusts everyone ... she is almost too good to be true ... (I) only wish some reformer who believes the screen contaminates all who associate with it could meet this child. Still, on second thought it might not be safe: Clara uses a dangerous pair of eyes.

The interview also revealed that Bow already was cast in Maytime and in great favor of Chinese cuisine.

On July 22, 1923, Bow left New York, her father, and her boyfriend behind for Hollywood. As chaperone for the journey and her subsequent southern California stay, the studio appointed writer/agent Maxine Alton, whom Bow later branded a liar. In late July, Bow entered studio chief B. P. Schulberg's office wearing a simple high-school uniform in which she "had won several gold medals on the cinder track". She was tested and a press release from early August says Bow had become a member of Preferred Picture's "permanent stock". Alton and she rented an apartment at The Hillview near Hollywood Boulevard. Preferred Pictures was run by Schulberg, who had started as a publicity manager at Famous Players-Lasky, but in the aftermath of the power struggle around the formation of United Artists, ended up on the losing side and lost his job. As a result, he founded Preferred in 1919, at the age of 27.

Maytime was Bow's first Hollywood picture, an adaptation of the popular operetta Maytime in which she essayed "Alice Tremaine". Before Maytime was finished, Schulberg announced that Bow was given the lead in the studio's biggest seasonal assessment, Poisoned Paradise,[51] but first she was lent to First National Pictures to co-star in the adaptation of Gertrude Atherton's 1923 best seller Black Oxen, shot in October, and to co-star with Colleen Moore in Painted People, shot in November.

Director Frank Lloyd was casting for the part of high-society flapper Janet Oglethorpe, and more than 50 women, most with previous screen experience, auditioned. Bow reminisced: "He had not found exactly what he wanted and finally somebody suggested me to him. When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Lloyd told the press, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental." It was released on January 4, 1924.

The New York Times said, "The flapper, impersonated by a young actress, Clara Bow, had five speaking titles, and every one of them was so entirely in accord with the character and the mood of the scene that it drew a laugh from what, in film circles, is termed a "hard-boiled" audience", while the Los Angeles Times commented that "Clara Bow, the prize vulgarian of the lot ... was amusing and spirited ... but didn't belong in the picture", and Variety said that "... the horrid little flapper is adorably played ..."

Colleen Moore made her flapper debut in a successful adaptation of the daring novel Flaming Youth, released November 12, 1923, six weeks before Black Oxen. Both films were produced by First National Pictures, and while Black Oxen was still being edited and Flaming Youth not yet released, Bow was requested to co-star with Moore as her kid sister in Painted People (The Swamp Angel). Moore essayed the baseball-playing tomboy and Bow, according to Moore, said "I don't like my part, I wanna play yours." Moore, a well-established star earning $1200 a week—Bow got $200—took offense and blocked the director from shooting close-ups of Bow. Moore was married to the film's producer and Bow's protests were futile. "I'll get that bitch", she told her boyfriend Jacobson, who had arrived from New York. Bow had sinus problems and decided to have them attended to that very evening. With Bow's face now in bandages, the studio had no choice but to recast her part.

During 1924, Bow's "horrid" flapper raced against Moore's "whimsical". In May, Moore renewed her efforts in The Perfect Flapper, produced by her husband. However, despite good reviews, she suddenly withdrew. "No more flappers ... they have served their purpose ... people are tired of soda-pop love affairs", she told the Los Angeles Times, which had commented a month earlier, "Clara Bow is the one outstanding type. She has almost immediately been elected for all the recent flapper parts". In November 1933, looking back to this period of her career, Bow described the atmosphere in Hollywood as like a scene from a movie about the French Revolution, where "women are hollering and waving pitchforks twice as violently as any of the guys ... the only ladies in sight are the ones getting their heads cut off."

By New Year 1924, Bow defied the possessive Maxine Alton and brought her father to Hollywood. Bow remembered their reunion: "I didn't care a rap, for (Maxine Alton), or B. P. Schulberg, or my motion picture career, or Clara Bow, I just threw myself into his arms and kissed and kissed him, and we both cried like a couple of fool kids. Oh, it was wonderful." Bow felt Alton had misused her trust: "She wanted to keep a hold on me so she made me think I wasn't getting over and that nothing but her clever management kept me going." Bow and her father moved in at 1714 North Kingsley Drive in Hollywood, together with Jacobson, who by then also worked for Preferred. When Schulberg learned of this arrangement, he fired Jacobson for potentially getting "his big star" into a scandal. When Bow found out, "She tore up her contract and threw it in his face and told him he couldn't run her private life." Jacobson concluded, "[Clara] was the sweetest girl in the world, but you didn't cross her and you didn't do her wrong." On September 7, 1924, The Los Angeles Times, in a significant article "A dangerous little devil is Clara, impish, appealing, but oh, how she can act!", her father is titled "business manager" and Jacobson referred to as her brother.

Bow appeared in eight releases in 1924.

In Poisoned Paradise, released on February 29, 1924, Bow got her first lead. "... the clever little newcomer whose work wins fresh recommendations with every new picture in which she appears". In a scene described as "original", Bow adds "devices" to "the modern flapper": she fights a villain using her fists, and significantly, does not "shrink back in fear".

In Daughters of Pleasure, also released on February 29, 1924, Bow and Marie Prevost "flapped unhampered as flappers De luxe ... I wish somebody could star Clara Bow. I'm sure her 'infinite variety' would keep her from wearying us no matter how many scenes she was in."

Loaned out to Universal, Bow top-starred, for the first time, in the prohibition, bootleg drama/comedy Wine, released on August 20, 1924. The picture exposes the widespread liquor traffic in the upper classes, and Bow portrays an innocent girl who develops into a wild "red-hot mama".

"If not taken as information, it is cracking good entertainment," Carl Sandburg reviewed September 29.

"Don't miss Wine. It's a thoroughly refreshing draught ... there are only about five actresses who give me a real thrill on the screen—and Clara is nearly five of them".

Alma Whitaker of The Los Angeles Times observed on September 7, 1924:

She radiates sex appeal tempered with an impish sense of humor ... She hennas her blond hair so that it will photograph dark in the pictures ... Her social decorum is of that natural, good-natured, pleasantly informal kind ... She can act on or off the screen—takes a joyous delight in accepting a challenge to vamp any selected male—the more unpromising specimen the better. When the hapless victim is scared into speechlessness, she gurgles with naughty delight and tries another.

Bow remembered: "All this time I was 'running wild', I guess, in the sense of trying to have a good time ... maybe this was a good thing, because I suppose a lot of that excitement, that joy of life, got onto the screen."

In 1925, Bow appeared in 14 productions: six for her contract owner, Preferred Pictures, and eight as an "out-loan".

"Clara Bow ... shows alarming symptoms of becoming the sensation of the year ... ", Motion Picture Classic Magazine wrote in June, and featured her on the cover.

I'm almost never satisfied with myself or my work or anything...by the time I'm ready to be a great star I'll have been on the screen such a long time that everybody will be tired of seeing me...(Tears filled her big round eyes and threatened to fall).

I worked in two and even three pictures at once. I played all sorts of parts in all sorts of pictures ... It was very hard at the time and I used to be worn out and cry myself to sleep from sheer fatigue after 18 hours a day on different sets, but now [late 1927] I am glad of it.

Preferred Pictures loaned Bow to producers "for sums ranging from $1500 to $2000 a week" while paying Bow a salary of $200 to $750 a week. The studio, like any other independent studio or theater at that time, was under attack from "The Big Three", MPAA, which had formed a trust to block out Independents and enforce the monopolistic studio system. On October 21, 1925, Schulberg filed Preferred Pictures for bankruptcy, with debts at $820,774 and assets $1,420. Three days later, it was announced that Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor to become associate producer of Paramount Pictures, "catapulted into this position because he had Clara Bow under personal contract".

Adolph Zukor, Paramount Picture CEO, wrote in his memoirs: "All the skill of directors and all the booming of press-agent drums will not make a star. Only the audiences can do it. We study audience reactions with great care." Adela Rogers St. Johns had a different take: in 1950, she wrote, "If ever a star was made by public demand, it was Clara Bow." And Louise Brooks (from 1980): "(Bow) became a star without nobody's help ..."

The Plastic Age was Bow's final effort for Preferred Pictures and her biggest hit up to that time. Bow starred as the good-bad college girl, Cynthia Day, against Donald Keith. It was shot on location at Pomona College in the summer of 1925, and released on December 15, but due to block booking, it was not shown in New York until July 21, 1926.

Photoplay was displeased: "The college atmosphere is implausible and Clara Bow is not our idea of a college girl."

Theater owners, however, were happy: "The picture is the biggest sensation we ever had in our theater ... It is 100 per cent at the box-office."

Some critics felt Bow had conquered new territory: "(Bow) presents a whimsical touch to her work that adds greater laurels to her fast ascending star of screen popularity."

Time singled out Bow: "Only the amusing and facile acting of Clara Bow rescues the picture from the limbo of the impossible."

Bow began to date her co-star Gilbert Roland, who became her first fiancé. In June 1925, Bow was credited for being the first to wear hand-painted legs in public, and was reported to have many followers at the Californian beaches.

Throughout the 1920s, Bow played with gender conventions and sexuality in her public image. Along with her tomboy and flapper roles, she starred in boxing films and posed for promotional photographs as a boxer. By appropriating traditionally androgynous or masculine traits, Bow presented herself as a confident, modern woman.

"Rehearsals sap my pep," Bow explained in November 1929, and from the beginning of her career, she relied on immediate direction: "Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it." Bow was keen on poetry and music, but according to Rogers St. Johns, her attention span did not allow her to appreciate novels. Bow's focal point was the scene, and her creativity made directors call in extra cameras to cover her spontaneous actions, rather than holding her down.

Years after Bow left Hollywood, director Victor Fleming compared Bow to a Stradivarius violin: "Touch her, and she responded with genius." Director William Wellman was less poetic: "Movie stardom isn't acting ability—it's personality and temperament ... I once directed Clara Bow (Wings). She was mad and crazy, but WHAT a personality!". And in 1981, Budd Schulberg described Bow as "an easy winner of the dumbbell award" who "couldn't act," and compared her to a puppy that his father B. P. Schulberg "trained to become Lassie."

In 1926, Bow appeared in eight releases: five for Paramount, including the film version of the musical Kid Boots with Eddie Cantor, and three loan-outs that had been filmed in 1925.

In late 1925, Bow returned to New York to co-star in the Ibsenesque drama Dancing Mothers, as the good/bad "flapperish" upper-class daughter Kittens. Alice Joyce starred as her dancing mother, with Conway Tearle as "bad-boy" Naughton. The picture was released on March 1, 1926.

"Clara Bow, known as the screen's perfect flapper, does her stuff as the child, and does it well."

"... her remarkable performance in Dancing Mothers ... ".

Louise Brooks remembered: "She was absolutely sensational in the United States ... in Dancing Mothers ... she just swept the country ... I know I saw her ... and I thought ... wonderful."

On April 12, 1926, Bow signed her first contract with Paramount: "...to retain your services as an actress for the period of six months from June 6, 1926 to December 6, 1926, at a salary of $750.00 per week...".

In Victor Fleming's comedy-triangle, Mantrap, Bow, as Alverna the manicurist, cures lonely hearts Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence), of the great northern, as well as pill-popping New York divorce attorney runaway Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont). Bow commented: "(Alverna)...was bad in the book, but—darn it!—of course, they couldn't make her that way in the picture. So I played her as a flirt." The film was released on July 24, 1926.

Variety: "Clara Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she walks into camera range."

Photoplay: "When she is on the screen nothing else matters. When she is off, the same is true."

Carl Sandburg: "The smartest and swiftest work as yet seen from Miss Clara Bow."

The Reel Journal: "Clara Bow is taking the place of Gloria Swanson...(and)...filling a long need for a popular taste movie actress."

On August 16, 1926, Bow's agreement with Paramount was renewed into a five-year deal: "Her salary will start at $1700 a week and advance yearly to $4000 a week for the last year."[78] Bow added that she intended to leave the motion picture business at the expiration of the contract, i.e., in 1931.

In 1927, Bow appeared in six Paramount releases: It, Children of Divorce, Rough House Rosie, Wings, Hula and Get Your Man. In the Cinderella story It, the poor shop-girl Betty Lou Spence (Bow) conquers the heart of her employer Cyrus Waltham (Antonio Moreno). The personal quality —"It"— provides the magic to make it happen. The film gave Bow her nickname, "The 'It' Girl."

The New York Times: "(Bow)...is vivacious and, as Betty Lou, saucy, which perhaps is one of the ingredients of It."

The Film Daily: "Clara Bow gets a real chance and carries it off with honors...(and)...she is really the whole show."

Carl Sandburg: "'It' is smart, funny and real. It makes a full-sized star of Clara Bow."

Variety: "You can't get away from this Clara Bow girl. She certainly has that certain 'It'...and she just runs away with the film."

Dorothy Parker is often said to have referred to Bow when she wrote, "It, hell; she had Those."[109] Parker in actuality was not referring to Bow or to Bow's character in the film It, but to a different character, Ava Cleveland, in the novel of the same name.

In 1927, Bow starred in Wings, a war picture rewritten to accommodate her, as she was Paramount's biggest star, but was not happy about her part: "[Wings is]...a man's picture and I'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie." The film went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1928, Bow appeared in four Paramount releases: Red Hair, Ladies of the Mob, The Fleet's In, and Three Weekends, all of which are lost.

Adela Rogers St. Johns, a noted screenwriter who had done a number of pictures with Bow, wrote about her:

There seems to be no pattern, no purpose to her life. She swings from one emotion to another, but she gains nothing, stores up nothing for the future. She lives entirely in the present, not even for today, but in the moment. Clara is the total nonconformist. What she wants she gets, if she can. What she desires to do she does. She has a big heart, a remarkable brain, and the most utter contempt for the world in general. Time doesn't exist for her, except that she thinks it will stop tomorrow. She has real courage, because she lives boldly. Who are we, after all, to say she is wrong?

Bow's bohemian lifestyle and "dreadful" manners were considered reminders of the Hollywood elite's uneasy position in high society. Bow fumed: "They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples for me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs ... I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!"

MGM executive Paul Bern said Bow was "the greatest emotional actress on the screen", "sentimental, simple, childish and sweet," and considered her "hard-boiled attitude" a "defense mechanism".

With "talkies" The Wild Party, Dangerous Curves, and The Saturday Night Kid, all released in 1929, Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood.

Neither the quality of Bow's voice nor her Brooklyn accent was an issue to Bow, her fans, or Paramount. However, Bow, like Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks, and most other silent film stars, did not embrace the novelty: "I hate talkies ... they're stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there's no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me." A visibly nervous Bow had to do a number of retakes in The Wild Party because her eyes kept wandering up to the microphone overhead. "I can't buck progress .. I have to do the best I can," she said. In October 1929, Bow described her nerves as "all shot", saying that she had reached "the breaking point", and Photoplay cited reports of "rows of bottles of sedatives" by her bed.

According to the 1930 census, Bow lived at 512 Bedford Drive, together with her secretary and hairdresser, Daisy DeBoe (later DeVoe), in a house valued $25,000 with neighbors titled "Horse-keeper", "Physician", "Builder". Bow stated she was 23 years old, i.e., born 1906, contradicting the censuses of 1910 and 1920.

"Now they're having me sing. I sort of half-sing, half-talk, with hips-and-eye stuff. You know what I mean—like Maurice Chevalier. I used to sing at home and people would say, 'Pipe down! You're terrible!' But the studio thinks my voice is great."

With Paramount on Parade, True to the Navy, Love Among the Millionaires, and Her Wedding Night, Bow was second at the box-office only to Joan Crawford in 1930. With No Limit and Kick In, Bow held the position as fifth at box-office in 1931, but the pressures of fame, public scandals, overwork, and a damaging court trial charging her secretary Daisy DeVoe with financial mismanagement, took their toll on Bow's fragile emotional health. As she slipped closer to a major breakdown, her manager, B.P. Schulberg, began referring to her as "Crisis-a-day-Clara". In April, Bow was brought to a sanatorium, and at her request, Paramount released her from her final undertaking: City Streets (1931). At 25, her career was essentially over.

B.P. Schulberg tried to replace Bow with his girlfriend Sylvia Sidney, but Paramount went into receivership, lost its position as the biggest studio (to MGM), and fired Schulberg. David Selznick explained:

...[when] Bow was at her height in pictures we could make a story with her in it and gross a million and a half, where another actress would gross half a million in the same picture and with the same cast.

Bow left Hollywood for Rex Bell's ranch in Nevada, her "desert paradise", in June[120] and married him in then small-town Las Vegas in December. In an interview on December 17, Bow detailed her way back to health: sleep, exercise, and food, and the day after[122] she returned to Hollywood "for the sole purpose of making enough money to be able to stay out of it."

Soon, every studio in Hollywood (except Paramount) and even overseas wanted her services. Mary Pickford stated that Bow "was a very great actress" and wanted her to play her sister in Secrets (1933), Howard Hughes offered her a three-picture deal, and MGM wanted her to star in Red-Headed Woman (1932). Bow agreed to the script, but eventually rejected the offer since Irving Thalberg required her to sign a long-term contract.

On April 28, 1932, Bow signed a two-picture deal with Fox Film Corporation, for Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933). Both were successful; Variety favored the latter. The October 1934, Family Circle Film Guide rated the film as "pretty good entertainment", and of Miss Bow said: "This is the most acceptable bit of talkie acting Miss Bow has done." However, they noted, "Miss Bow is presented in her dancing duds as often as possible, and her dancing duds wouldn't weigh two pounds soaking wet." Bow commented on her revealing costume in Hoop-La: "Rex accused me of enjoying showing myself off. Then I got a little sore. He knew darn well I was doing it because we could use a little money these days. Who can't?"

Bow reflected on her career:

My life in Hollywood contained plenty of uproar. I'm sorry for a lot of it but not awfully sorry. I never did anything to hurt anyone else. I made a place for myself on the screen and you can't do that by being Mrs. Alcott's idea of a Little Woman.

Bow and actor Rex Bell (later a lieutenant governor of Nevada) had two sons, Tony Beldam (born 1934, changed name to Rex Anthony Bell, Jr., died July 8, 2011) and George Beldam, Jr. (born 1938). Bow retired from acting in 1933. In September 1937, she and Bell opened The 'It' Cafe in the Hollywood Plaza Hotel at 1637 N Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. It closed in 1943. Her last public performance, albeit fleeting, came in 1947 on the radio show Truth or Consequences. Bow was the mystery voice in the show's "Mrs. Hush" contest.

Bow eventually began showing symptoms of psychiatric illness. She became socially withdrawn, and although she refused to socialize with her husband, she also refused to let him leave the house alone. In 1944, while Bell was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Bow tried to commit suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life.

In 1949, she checked into the Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains. Shock treatment was tried and numerous psychological tests performed. Bow's IQ was measured "bright normal", while others claimed she was unable to reason, had poor judgment and displayed inappropriate or even bizarre behavior. Her pains were considered delusional and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia; however, she experienced neither auditory nor visual hallucinations. Analysts tied the onset of the illness, as well as her insomnia, to the "butcher knife episode" back in 1922, but Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the Institute. She did not return to her family. After leaving the institution, Bow lived alone in a bungalow, which she rarely left, until her death.

Bow spent her last years in Culver City, under the constant care of a nurse, Estalla Smith, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. In 1965, at age 60, she died of a heart attack, which was attributed to atherosclerosis discovered in an autopsy. She was interred in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her pallbearers were Harry Richman, Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dempsey, and Buddy Rogers.

#clara bow #silent movie stars #silent era #silent hollywood #silent cinema #golden age of hollywood

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ckret2 · 5 years ago

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7, 8, 19

God I can’t believe you asked the two questions on a writing meme that require me to actually go through my writing. You want me to just CHOOSE some of my FAVORITE WRITING? Unbelievable.

Okay I’m going to grab a couple of scenes based on “what fics do I have recent reviews for on AO3 and thus links on the front page that I can easily click?”

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

(This is from “Self-Portraits from Elonia”)

She'd never been to a dance before—or a party of any kind. She'd never been invited to any, as a Transformer among organics. When the Solstar Knights were asked to provide security at big interplanetary events, she was told to stay in the ship as backup. Even as a child, she'd been politely but firmly discouraged from coming to school dances with the other students, for fear of their safety if a giant war machine started cutting up the dance floor. And yet, despite her total inexperience, driven by some instinct that transcended time, space, culture, and species, she did exactly what every shy soul does upon entering a party.

She hugged the nearest wall and started looking around for people she knew.

(I like a lot of my prose in “Self-Portraits from Elonia,” tbh. Possibly TOO MUCH since you are, apparently, not supposed to spend a whole long time describing things like art displays because that’s not as interesting to the reader as it is to the writer. But like what if I want you to know about the unique art styles of a dozen different planets with a shared parent culture, I ask you? What then.)

(Anyway this isn’t one of the art displays. But I like the prose in this bit too because it’s, like, a whole lot of little character details that touch on a lot of different aspects of Stardrive’s background in a way that actively contributes to the scene because it simultaneously tells you something about her place in her culture and also about her childhood and also about her relationship with/interaction with things like parties and social events.)

(I also like building up to things that are Big And Grand And Significant and then undercutting them with something small and goofy.)

(Bonus line:)

The first theater was showing three movies (fiction), the first pieces of joint Cybertronian/Earthling cinema; one was identified as an Academy Award winner, which she assumed meant it must be some student film at an art school. Cross-planet collaboration had to start small, she supposed.

(I just like having “outsider” characters, of other species/cultures, wildly misunderstanding something that’s familiar to us, BUT misunderstanding it in a way that makes TOTAL SENSE and is completely logical. A lot of times I see people try to do the Alien Misunderstanding trope but the gist of the joke always seems to be “haha isn’t it so weird how the aliens make a totally off-base assumption, look at how weird and inexplicable they are” and that just annoys me. Like, if you can’t make your aliens make sense, you haven’t written your aliens well enough yet. The joke isn’t good until you're going “lmao well of course the alien thinks that, why wouldn’t they?” and, for bonus points, made the humans look like the strange/unfamiliar ones.)

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

(This is from “No Tongue, No Teeth” w/ names changed for simplicity’s sake.)

"And no tongue," Rodan stuck his out demonstratively, "and no teeth." He didn't really have teeth to demonstrate that with, so he clacked his beak a couple of times and hoped Ghidorah would figure it out from context.

"After courting?"

"No! Not before or after. No tongue, no teeth."

Middle and right immediately looked at left head. Lefty reared up, looked at Rodan with the deepest of offense, and said, "Tongue tastes you."

Rodan hopped up to Ghidorah, made deep, soulful eye contact with each head, and said, calmly but passionately, "I want you to not taste me."

Lefty made a displeased noise.

"Do you understand?"

They considered the question. "What is 'want'?" the right one asked. The other two, sensing an opportunity, immediately piped up: "What is 'not'?" "What 'taste'?"

Oh, they were comedians now. Rodan fluttered up, brandishing his talons at their faces. They backed off with only one stray snap at his feet, making a rumbling noise low in their throats that was probably either a death threat or a sound of amusement.

(Context for folks that haven’t been reading my Godzilla fics: Rodan and Ghidorah are two different species from two different planets, and over the course of tens of thousands of words worth of fic Rodan has been slowly teaching Ghidorah his language. Which I actually keep track of, in a word file, listing every single shared vocab word they have between the two of them and which fics they learned it in. At the point of this scene, they’re operating on, probably, about a hundred shared words.)

(One of the downsides of going for Extreme Realism in language barriers is that they both have to communicate in very simple sentences and have a very limited range of topics—just about everyone here had to study a second language at some point, yeah? Either out of necessity/practicality or for school? Think about how much you could communicate and how well you could do it after your first month learning the language. And you probably didn’t sound very bright while doing it.)

(This scene is one of the first points where Ghidorah actually gets to express some personality in their new language: indignation at being banned from licking, and then joking around by pretending not to understand an instruction that they’d rather not follow. I’m pleased whenever I get to put in moments like that with highly limited vocab. It’s a lot less common now that they’re moving on to full sentences tho.)

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Sometimes I talk/joke about having a discussion/argument with my muse, like so, but I don’t really personify it and/or have a specific figure-character-image-person-whatever that I consider my “muse.”

Short story time! When I was in like 2nd or 3rd grade I went on a field trip to the local city park and some park people presented some animals for us, including a tarantula that the park person held in his hand to show us little kids, and when he was done telling us about it he said “does anyone have any questions?” and I shot up my hand and said “CAN I HOLD IT??” and he said “... okay but you’re the only one.”

Years later I discovered a photo from that field trip of me, this tiny little kid who looks as uninteresting as possible—like, I look like that little kid from the Babadook when he’s not screaming except with the world’s most boring banged bob—except said kid is holding a spider so big she needs both hands for it and is giving this astounding Jim Carrey-level villain grin.

For a while, I referred to the image of that kid with the spider as my muse. Kinda lost interest in doing that though.

#about my writing #meme #soundwavereporting #ask

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forlornmelody · 5 years ago

Text

Through The Night

Rating: Mature (some sexy times, but it’s not the focus of the story. Proceed at your own comfort level.)

Ship: Shrios (Female Shepard x Thane Krios)

AO3 Link: Here

Summary: Neither Thane Krios nor Jane Shepard want to spent their last night alone. But even the most tender of touches can't keep the ghosts at bay.

-*-*-

“And what do your gods think of this?” Jane Shepard says it with tongue in cheek, grinding up against his hips.

Thane grins wickedly against her lips. Jane wonders if her next high will be as amazing as the first. She darts her tongue out only for Thane to pull back out of her reach in a sort of pout. “You do realize Arashu was originally a fertility goddess?”

“Wait. Does this mean you get to have sacred orgies? Cause I’m in.” She licks her own lips, running a hand down his chest. “For the fucking. Just the fucking.”

Other people would turn up their noses at her sacrilegious jokes, but Thane chuckles as he pulls her close again. His cheek rests against hers as he slips into memory.

“We thought we were doing what the gods wanted--using all our power to drain Rakhana of every bit of life it had. We thought Arashu would reward us with more, and that Amonkira would continue to send us animals to hunt. But we were wrong. Many of the drell stayed behind on Rakhana, seeing our death as a punishment for our actions. Others saw them as our redemption. We believed rain was a heavenly gift, you see.”

It’s easy to get lost with Thane as she listens to his words and his breathing. “Kahje must have seemed like heaven.”

“Oh, it did, for a time.” His next breath is jagged. “Until we realized heaven destroyed our lungs.”

“Is that why so few believe?”

Thane doesn’t really frown, not in a human way, but his face hardens, and his eyes focus on something beyond her. “Perhaps.”

Shepard was never much for religion. Sure, she’d listen to Ash back on the SRI talk about God like He was her old friend. Or Liara talk about Athame, or even the Siari philosophy. Or Garrus and his Spirits. Or Tali and her Ancestors. “Then why do you believe?” Chewing her lip, Shepard looks away. It’s probably rude to ask, but she can’t help her curiosity.

His scaled hand cradles the back of her head as Thane looks into her eyes, or perhaps someone else's. “There are two things death cannot take away--memory, and belief.”

Shepard hasn’t been to church in a long time, not since she was living on the streets of Vancouver, but something about Thane’s breath on her skin feels like benediction--his hands on her body like prayer. She’s never considered herself very spiritual, but if there’s a heaven--Shepard imagines it feels like this.

“Like martyrs, you mean?”

Thane rolls over her, gazing down at her like midnight and noon caught in an intimate embrace. “Like saints,” he murmurs, before claiming her mouth with his.

------

“Are you sure about this, Siha?” Thane looks up at her, scrutinizing her face, reading every line. He told her once that reading behavior was the second most important skill in taking down a target. The first was remaining undetected.

“Thane.” Shepard squeezes his hands. “If I die, I want to die having known you.” It’s mostly true. Or partly true. Jane Shepard can’t stand the thought of spending her last night alone. “Please.” Maybe the only truth coming out of her mouth is the desperation in her voice.

“I need to be certain you want this. Before we do anything.” His inner eyelids close and reopen as he takes a breath. Thane’s chin ducks down slightly as he continues. “Mordin told you about Drell venom?”

Shepard nods. “Hallucinogenic. What about it?” She needs to be held, to hold in turn, to taste him and forget the world. If she gets high in the process then so be it.

“Once you taste it...taste me, you’ll want nothing else.” It’s a warning, but it sends warm shivers down her spine, nonetheless. “I need you to say it. Before you taste me.” He squeezes her side, his fingers trailing up and down her skin despite himself.

“I want you.” Shepard says without hesitation, resting her forehead against his. “Do you want me?”

“Yes, Siha. With every breath inside my lungs.” He kisses her, and her whole world narrows to him.

His skin, normally so cool to the touch, flares with heat. Jane itches to feel every inch of it, tracing her fingers down the opening of his shirt, she pushes off his jacket so she can feel how the size of his scales change as they move past his shoulders. Thane’s mouth tastes like salt on watermelon. The stripes on his sides don’t make him more alien, they make him more Thane. She draws her lips across them, feeling his breath hitch. No belly button interrupts her journey to the top of his waistband, and Shepard pulls back to look up at him.

Thane cradles her chin with his thumb, and Jane closes her eyes, humming at how smooth it feels against her skin. The soft hands of an assassin--not the callused hands of a soldier. “What is it, Siha?”

“Just thinking how this isn’t the first time I’ve stared Death in the face.”

This man doesn’t really snort, maybe Drell never do, but he lets out a huff of air that must approximate one. “I’m not Death personified. I’m just its instrument.”

“Do not go telling me I’m unsheething your “sword.” Do not.” With that, Shepard yanks down his pants, and her breath catches in her throat. She isn’t sure what she was expecting--not that she really cared or minded. Thane could have had a mess of tentacles down there and Jane Shepard would still find a way to bring him past the brink. Honestly the shape isn’t that foreign--phallic and ahem, long, not too thick either. Shepard’s mouth dries as she imagines how it will feel with Thane inside her. The various shades of green--the patterns which she traces with her fingertip--are not ones she’d find on a human dick, but that’s not really what catches her attention. It’s the slight bumps on either side.

“Like what you see?”

Shepard answers by taking him into her mouth.

-------

Thane doesn't kid around. Every nerve inside her veins floats, tingling as the world shifts in color. His fused fingers thrusting in and out of her arching body, leaves her a whimpering, boneless mess. The first time, when his mouth explores her vulva, she’s cognizant enough to say his name as her insides tighten and pulse. They’re not so lucky the second time.

It sobers her to hear Kaidan’s name out loud, even when it just slipped from her lips. “Thane, I….”

Pressing a finger to her lips, Thane runs his other hand through her hair. “I don’t mind, Siha.” His sigh rumbles through her bones. Even now it’s hard to tell where she ends and he begins. “May I tell you something?” He says it so quietly she almost doesn’t hear him.

“What is it?”

“I was also thinking of someone else.”

“Irikah?”

Thane nods against her head, his frills brushing her ear. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re one sad mess of a couple.”

Shepard half expects him to laugh. Instead he pulls her closer. “I’m glad you’re here, Shepard.”

“I’m glad you’re here, too.”

-----

Sometime during the sleep cycle, Jane Shepard wakes to find Thane watching her.

“I’m being unfair to you.” The scales on Thane’s hand trail up and down Jane Shepard’s bare arm.

She rolls over, letting his breath stir the hairs that have fallen in front of her face. “What makes you say that?” Truth be told, he’s the only fair thing in her very unfair life. Maybe she’s the one being unfair to him. But letting go of him right now would be like letting go of her will to breathe.

“You know I’m dying, but you give yourself to me anyway.”

“We’re all dying, Thane.” Shepard wills herself to say it, though the thought of perishing again in Cerberus hands fills her mouth with bile. “You signed on for a suicide mission, remember?”

“You have so little faith in your future.” “Is it because of you d--”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Jane cuts him off, holding him tighter.

“Siha--it’s okay to be afraid.”

“Thane, stop. I don’t”

“Shepard.” He tries to pull her back. She twists out of his grip.

“I already told you.”

“Jane.” He says it so sharply that it makes her skin bleed. Jane Shepard freezes in his grasp, staring up at him. “I mean what I said.” The heel of his hand grazes the edge of her jaw, rough and smooth at the same time. “Fearing death will keep you, and everyone else alive.”

Her breath rattles within her chest, and she breathes in his scent. Maybe it’s her imagination, but he smells like a seashore. “How are you not afraid?”

Thane kisses her soothingly, then cradles her head against his chest. Shepard can hear the rasp as he breathes in and out. “I don’t believe death is the end. It’s only a rest after a long journey.”

“But how do you know you’re going to wake up in the ocean and swim to the shore?”

“Why are you asking me?” Thane looks down at her, frowning. You’re the expert on dying, Shepard. “Did you see anything?”

Shepard wants to lie to him--better to lie than break his heart, but she can’t. Shaking her head, she answers softly, “I wish I could believe like you do.”

“Then I shall have faith for both of us, Siha.” Thane kisses the top of her head. “And you’ll make sure we won’t need it.”

#mass effect #shrios #femshep #thane krios #yes Jane Shep romances both Kaidan and Thane #bite me

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must-be-brooklyn · 6 years ago

Note

could you do something angsty with Spot proposing to Race modern au?

Angsty proposal - not something I’ve ever really thought about, but I did my best! I hope it’s at least half decent hahaha

Ship: Sprace

Words: 1.9k

Era: Modern au

Also — it is actually just angst. Well, angst and then a follow-up bit. I also have the obligatory, sappy, extra, make-up bit and ehhh I might post that later if anyone wants it - for now I decided to just stick to the ask and fulfil the ask as an interpretation of what was requested!

The //angst// stops as “His eyes stung with unshed tears that were finally beginning to bead as he realised what had just happened.” After that it becomes more ~~discussiony/leading-into-the-pt-2-that-I-may-or-may-not-post~~ lol

And we’ve got some very ooc characters probably because I still don’t know how to personify them lmao. At this point, I have given up on the accent so much that I’m barely even writing it — so use your imagination!!

Warnings: cursing? tell me if you want me to flag anything else

“Will you marry me?” Spot looked at him expectantly, twisting a plastic ring that could not possibly have cost more than two dollars between his fingers.

Race stared at him, horrified. It was like his heart had suddenly started seizing and he could not breathe properly. “What?” he said, fully aware of how his voice broke as if he was going through puberty again. By his sides, his hands clenched into tight fists, but he could barely feel his nails digging into his palms. “You’re joking?”

Spot shrugged. “No? We’re living together, neither of us have proper health care arrangements, taxes are risin’ and it would grant you automatic citizenship, and I know you’re applying for it at the moment.”

“That’s so low.” Race took a step away from Spot as his face became even grimmer. “That’s so fucking low, Spot.”

For his part, Spot genuinely looked confused about what he had said that was so wrong. His fingers were curling around the ring, though, and he pulled it out of Race’s sight. “I don’t understand…” he started, “You’ve been talkin’ about gettin’ citizenship for ages. And, tax benefits would be good for both of us. It’s a win-win situation.”

Shaking his head, Race took a few more steps away from Spot. His stomach was curling as he thought about what Spot was saying. “A marriage of convenience is not a win-win,” he spat. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest that.”

“You said you don’t believe in marriage, though,” Spot said. He sounded a little strained, now, and deep frown lines marred his forehead, disfiguring the normally smooth skin. “It’s not like I’m asking you to wear a ring or anything. You could still date whoever you want” – he swallowed heavily before continuing – “And we could get divorced if one of us actually did want to get married. But, it’s thirty-five dollars to get a licence and we’d both benefit from it.”

Race laughed hysterically. “Benefit?” The more worked up he got, the more his Italian accent began to work its way through. Since he had moved to New York on a full ballet scholarship for college four years ago, he had worked hard to assimilate. He sounded almost completely fluent in English now, but there were still times when his Italian vowels showed loud and clear. “What the hell kind of benefit is that?”

Spot looked distinctly uncomfortable. He gave a meek shrug and leaned against the kitchen counter, hands slowly moving into the pockets on his jeans.

“I’m going somewhere else tonight,” Race said, whipping around on his heel and storming out of the kitchen.

Spot rushed after him. “I’m sayin’ we have to kiss or anythin’. We don’t even have to tell people. It’d just benefit both of us, you know?” He stood adamantly in the doorway of Race’s bedroom, but Race refused to look at him as he threw a change of clothes into a rucksack and grabbed his dance bag with his other hand.

“Get out of the way,” Race said, scowling. He pulled bags onto his shoulders. The little patience and self-control he had left were rapidly disappearing. He could feel a wildfire that was only growing in his chest, and it was on the edge of spiralling out of control. “Spot, toglietevi di mezzo.” He hissed the words and the venom in them was palatable.

Finally, Race shoved past him and rushed out of the apartment with nothing in his mind but getting as far away from Spot as possible. His eyes stung with unshed tears that were finally beginning to bead as he realised what had just happened.

He stumbled blindly down the streets until he finally found himself in a different building, standing outside a door that was much too familiar. Resigned and exhausted, he knocked on the door and waited for someone to let him in.

It took only a few seconds for David to appear at the door, looking pleasantly surprised. “Race, hey. Do you want to come in?” he said, not even hesitating. It was times like this when Race truly appreciated how much David had acted as his surrogate parent since he had moved from Italy. He never questioned things until he knew the whole story, always had time to listen to other people’s problems and never held any (visible) prejudice, no matter what Race told him. And over the years, Race had told him some pretty dodgy stuff.

David took Race’s bags from him and dropped them in the entranceway. Race stepped in, not having realised until that second that he was shaking and his hands had gone numb.

“Race is here!” David called into the small flat as he guided Race into the sitting room with an arm around his shoulders. He sat Race down on the couch.

There was a thundering from somewhere deeper within the apartment and suddenly, Jack appeared in the room. The grin he wore slid off his face like mud as he took in Race’s appearance. “What happened?” His voice was low and vaguely threatening. “Who do I need to kill?”

Race shook his head. “I overreacted,” he said very slowly and even more quietly. Now that he was out of the flat, his head was slowly clearing as he did his best to rationalise everything that had happened. “I argued with Spot.”

“Spot,” Jack said, tone unreadable. “What did my stupid brother say this time?”

Stumbling over his words a little and with Jack and David on one side each, Race recounted exactly what had gone down just over an hour previously. The whole time, Jack made little noises of exasperation under his breath, moaning and rubbing his temples. David’s lips were pursed tightly.

“Spot’s an idiot,” Jack said immediately after Race finished talking. “And I’m going to knock some sense into him because he’s a stubborn ass who ain’t going to admit he’s wrong otherwise.”

Race shook his head. “No, please don’t.” He wrung his hands together and then shook them out. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

Jack hesitated for a second and his eyes flickered toward David. He seemed conflicted, as though he could not decide what exactly the best course of action was when there were so many things that he wanted to say to Spot. Race tore his eyes away from them and stared at his hands, twisting them into knots on his lap and then undoing them.

“Of course, you can stay. You know the spare room is always made up,” David said softly, “But you know that you’ll have to talk to Spot at some point, right?”

Race swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, sure. Can I just go… Lie down?” They gave him a small sign of agreement and Race took himself to the small bedroom. It was not late, but for once in his life, he just wanted to be alone for a bit.

Originally, Jack and David had bought the apartment under the pretence of being friends and therefore needing two rooms, even though they had been dating for two years when they first moved in. They had never used that second bedroom, but they were enough like the honourary parents of their group that there seemed to be a constant stream of people who needed a place to spend a few nights.

Alone in the room, Race was left to his thoughts. The whole situation just felt mindboggling. Objectively, Race had absolutely no problem with marrying Spot. Except for the facts that they were not dating, and he was already having enough trouble suppressing his feelings as two friends living together. Spot’s proposal seemed a cruel joke.

By the time morning came, Race still felt slightly sick in the bottom of his stomach, but he pulled himself out of the bed and stumbled into the kitchen. Jack was standing by the counter, pouring coffee. A mug of tea was already steeping next to it. He greeted Race without looking up.

“D’you want any coffee?” Jack asked, reaching for another mug in the cupboard.

Race shook his head. He had ballet this morning, and his coach was making him, and everyone else in the cast of their newest production, avoid caffeine. “Do you have any eggs?” Those were one of the foods that the coach had been actively encouraging people to eat before coming in for rehearsal.

Jack put the coffee pot on the bench and found a teaspoon and the milk in the fridge. “Uh, yeah, a few… They’re kosher ones, but Dave won’t mind if you have them.”

“Kosher?” Race repeated. “I thought Davey didn’t do kosher.”

“It’s the…” Jack paused and screwed up his face, obviously doing his best to remember something, “Ten Days of Repentance?” He trailed off, before shaking his head and muttering under his breath, “Dave mostly calls it by the Hebrew name.”

Race looked at him questioningly.

“He only observes kosher durin’ the big holidays. Or at least observes it more strictly – there’s other stuff he doesn’t do and some stuff he does all year ‘round, anyway. But, whatever, yeah, he won’t mind you eatin’ the eggs.” Jack walked to the fridge and rummaged around until he found the eggs he had been talking about and a carton of milk.

Jack hummed under his breath as he moved around the kitchen, putting things in their various places and pulling a saucepan out for Race. “Where is Davey, anyway?” Race asked as he watched the scene.

Jack put the milk back in the fridge with a completely unnecessary flourish. “He had a bad night,” said Jack, his tone a touch more clipped. Race tried to ignore the roll in his stomach. “Anyway,” Jack continued, “About Spot. Seein’ as he’s my brother and all, can I please have permission to go and knock some sense into him. As your friend and his brother, it’s my duty.”

Suddenly, Race did not feel so hungry. He put the eggs down on the bench as he gave Jack a non-committal shrug. He could take what he liked from that; Race wanted no further part in anything to do with Spot until he had worked out a satisfactory way to apologise for the way he had acted and found a way to permanently remove his feelings.

Jack grinned at him. “Great.” He wrapped a hand around each mug on the bench and picked them up. “I’m goin’ back to Dave, now. But you know where stuff is, so I’m sure you can figure out how to boil an egg.”

“I’m sure,” Race agreed.

Nodding, Jack carried on as if he had not heard Race speak. “Yeah, and you can stay here again tonight if you need it. Also, just close the door behind yourself when you go to dance.” He walked towards the bedroom, but Race held him back for just a second longer.

“Really, Jack, thanks for everything,” he said, voice low.

Jack grinned at him and the liquid in the mugs slopped precariously up the sides. “It’s never a problem, Race.” His voice was oddly rough but his face doubled in warmth. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

part 2 (it’s hyperlinked!)

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 5 years ago

Text

CSUAVS prt 5... update

Lance didn't answer his first call. He didn't answer Keith's second or third call. Keith's hands were hovering over the control of his ship, torn between vanishing from the Atlas which would lead to upsetting Shiro, and, his need to fly back across the universe to make sure Lance hadn't overdosed and wasn't dead in his bathroom. Kosmo was already pacing the small cockpit space, emanating enough nervous energy for the both of them. Krolia had told Keith to stay out of whatever drug deals were happening on Erathus as they didn't have the manpower to bring down what was sure to be a multi-sector criminal organisation. While she highly doubted Guile would have been swept in such an incident, the lack of leads was just what could be expected from the cartels. But above all was her concern for him, telling him she was reassigning the assignment and pissing him off royally by doing so. She was his mother, who seemed to think it perfectly fine to throw her own life away. There was no way he was giving up on Lance, even if it meant a few small lies he'd be forced to deal with at a later time. Taking a deep breath, Keith closed his eyes. Without a wormhole, it'd take at least a full quintant to reach Erathus, possibly a quintant and a half. Opening his eyes again, he pulled up Lance's name. If he didn't answer this time, he was leaving. He was going to find his pert Cuban arse and drag him home to Daibazaal. Tapping his name, one tick passed into two, then into three, before finally Lance answered, his face popping up on the tiny screen of Keith's communicator "Keith?!" Looking from the screen to whatever was in front of him, Lance seemed to jolt sideways as he swore softly, yelling something then to someone else in the background "Lance?!" "Shit. Sorry man... Quiznak!" "Lance?! What's happening?! Are you ok?" "Sorry, Keith... yeah. Yeah, just... shit" Lance wasn't ok. His vague attempting at seeming reassuring wasn't working. He needed to get there, the bangs in the background now sounding suspiciously like explosions "Where are you?! Are you still on Erathus?! I can have Shiro..." "No! No. It's fine. We're fine..." "Lance, you're not fine. What's going on there?" "It's nothing... or rather, it'll soon be nothing" "Lance..." "Stop saying my name like that. We're fine. We don't need Shiro and his magical ship showing up and making things worse!" Frowning at Lance, Lance slumped back in his seat with a sigh "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap. I asked about your missing Galra agent, the police don't know anything" He couldn't give two quiznaks about Guile when Lance was obviously not ok "Lance. What's going on? Is something happening on Erathus? You keep saying it's work, but you look like shit" Blinking at him, Lance gave him a half smile that sent Keith's stupid heart fluttering "That right there is why you're still single. Look. Things are happening here. My team's fine. Our mission just went a little sideways, but we're fine. I'm sorry I can't be more help with your agent" Looking away from the camera, Lance seemed to be begging him not to question him further "You know you can talk to me, don't you? All of us? Shiro and Curtis are dating now, it's only a matter of time before they get married... probably right here on the At..." Lance's eyes widened, shaking his head as he leaned forward in his chair, a light tapping in the background "Don't. It's fine. I'm sorry your agent's missing. But like I said, we're all fine here" Keith's communicator vibrated softly, an unknown com had sent him a message. Ignoring it, he looked to Lance who was giving him a strange look, looking from Keith down to the corner of the screen and back again "Keith. We're all fine. Now that you've got the message, I'm going to sign off" Emphasising message slightly, Keith remembered Lance had a secondary communicator. Opening the message, the first three words were "All calls recorded". Right. No wonder Lance didn't want to talk to him... forcing himself to ignore the rest of the message, he smiled the best he could, trying to appear normal "Yeah. Alright. It's your shout for drinks, right?" "Totally. I've got your back man. Good luck" "You too" Ending the call, Keith slumped back in his chair as he moved his arm up to read Lance's message "All calls recorded. Police said they don't know anything. Don't believe them. Don't bring the Atlas. Meet one movement. Don't tell V" The rest of the message was a set of coordinates. Punching them in, Keith was sure he'd never passed through that quadrant before, or even the sector the quadrant was located in. As for "V" it could only be Veronica. Lance was clearly lying to Veronica and his family, but maybe she could give me some answers on just how Lance ended up on Erathus... with his own team? Having Kosmo teleport him back into the main ship, Keith felt like he'd walked the entire length and every single damn deck before finding Veronica in the weights room Griffin and Kinkade. Kinkade he could handle, Griffin not to so much. It may have been a decade since their initial feud had begun, there may have been apologies issued on both sides, but Keith simply didn't wish to deal with Jame's know it all attitude. The man managed to rub him all the wrong ways, and still seemed to think Keith had stiffed him on some amazing adventure by being there when Blue had been discovered. It was tempting to walk away, but Veronica was right there... "Keith!" Fucking James. For a full moment, Keith stood there like a quiznakking idiot "Hey man. Uh, Veronica, can we talk?" If awkward could be personified into the very example of the word, it was Keith. His mouth part open as he waved stupidly, then wished he could take it all back. Pushing herself off the floor mats, Veronica saved him from making a future fool of himself. Taking him by the arm, she led him from the training room and back into the corridor. Pulling him to a stop, Veronica pushed him up against the wall, staring him straight in the eyes "Spill" "Wha..." "I know you've seen that idiot brother of mine. Now he says he's fine, but I've known him since he was born. He might think he's lying to all of us successfully, but we're not idiots. What's going on with him?" "I... what?" Fuck she was intimidating. He'd forgotten how fierce Veronica was. She looked far too much like Lance, and unintentionally he'd let his guard drop "Spill it. What's going on with Lance?" "I don't know?" "Keith. I don't know what happened between you and Lance, but you were the only one who could get through to him after Allura died. Please, tell me how my brother really is" Yeah. He took him out, got him drunk, then... yeah... on top of abandoning him for phoebs. Some amazing friend he was "I didn't even know he was back in space" Veronica frowned at him, before letting out sigh and pinching the bridge of her nose. She'd definitely been spending far too much time with Shiro "I didn't know about it either at first. Our mother called me up the day before Lance left Earth to let me know. Apparently he had a fight with Rachel... None of us have really been there for him. Our parents were just happy to have him back home... She really messed him up" "Lance loved her from day one. Yet it wasn't until after Lotor that she finally gave him the time of day... He was so happy to finally have her, only for her to throw her life away right in front of him" "Wow, Keith. Tell me what you really think? Lance made it sound like you were all one big family" "We both know it was far from that. Lance was the one who kept everyone together, even after I left, he continued to try his hardest" "That's because he's an idiot. That's why I need to know how he really is. He's always more concerned with everyone else's feelings, yet he wears his heart on his sleeve like the idiot he is" Veronica was lucky he could hear the fondness in her voice, as he certainly didn't appreciate Lance being called an "idiot" repeatedly "He missed you the most. Out of everyone, you were the only one he actually said he missed. I guess I was hoping you knew what was going on with him. That he'd chosen to finally let someone in. Heavens knows we all tried..." "Look, Veronica. I don't know what's going on with him. He said he's fine. He seems to be enjoying his job, and we're planning on catching up soon. Now that I know he's in space, I can look out for him" God. Please let Veronica believe his lies... It wasn't like he was lying to be vindictive, he simply needed more information. Lance had lasted this long on his own, he only needed to last one more movement with his team. Then Keith would be there... just one more movement then he'd be taking Lance away from whatever he was trapped in. Letting out a breath, Veronica smiled at him "Thanks, Keith. I have no real idea what he's been through before Allura, but he's still my baby brother. I still love the lanky idiot to death" "Whatever's going on, I'll talk to him when I see him" "I've been thinking about requesting some down time, heading to Erathus to check things out myself, but every time I tell Lance, he tells me not to come" "His apartment is pretty nice..." Nice sounded strained but Veronica didn't seem to pick up on it "Is it clean? He can be such a slob" Lance was hardly ever a slob when they lived on the castle. His self care routine was in a whole other universe "From what I saw. He's got friends too" And customers that ended up drugged before being dragged out by the police... who weren't to be trusted "Yeah? I mean, he said he had a team, but I've never met them" "He had a friend over while I was there. He seemed pretty happy" "That's good... Thanks, Keith. I better go call my mother before she worries herself into an early grave. And sorry for the big sister act, he's the only idiot little brother I have" "He's not an idiot. He doesn't always think things through, but he's one of the smartest people I know" Snorting in a very Lance way, Veronica nodded quickly "You're right. It's hard to think of him as anything other than my little brother who was always so far behind at the Garrison. Sometimes it hard to remember he's grown into a man. If you hear from him again, let me know? I don't need to know everything, but I do need to know he's ok" "Yeah. I will" Watching his future sister in law walk away, he supposed that wasn't the best way to cement his relationship with the woman. She was very likely to shoot him for each of his lies, than once more all over again because she felt like it. Honestly, he was feeling slightly more scared of Veronica than he was confronting Lance over his drug problems. Maybe he didn't even know what he was taking was as bad as it was? Maybe he simply thought them painkillers? Lance was trusting enough to believe a lie like that... but what could have hurt him so badly he needed daily doses? * Keith was never a patient person. Sitting and waiting around for a movement to pass didn't agree with him. Not when Lance was back to ignoring his messages again, and not when he didn't know what Lance was up to. There were only so many hours he could pass working out without the castle's training system to keep him busy. It was by some small miracle that he managed to keep himself busy for the next three quintants before the lies and the weight of worry became too much for him. Shiro's constant pestering hadn't helped either. His adoptive brother repeatedly assuring him that both Lance and Guile were alright, and that he didn't need to stalk the Atlas with a perpetual scowl upon his face. So finally as the fourth quintant began, he found himself overloaded with baked goods from Hunk all of which were used to hide the stolen blankets, medical supplies and water rations he'd squirrelled away in case Lance was hurt. His dreams deciding that he needed to relive every conceivable way for him to be too late to save his crush. Setting course for the coordinates Lance had supplied, he hoped Lance wouldn't mind his being early. He also hoped that Shiro wouldn't pry any further into his crush on the fellow ex-paladin because honestly he knew he was at the stage where he needed a firm answer one way or the other. He knew he'd long since passed the stage where fantasy was simply fantasy, and that his recent behaviour hadn't exactly been within character. He'd skipped concerned friend, hit obsessed stalker and now was finding it hard to remember that Lance wasn't going to rush into his arms and admit his addiction like it was no big deal. Lance was probably going to go straight onto the defensive, throwing up all his walls and denying anything was wrong simply because he hated feeling like he was burdening anyone. It wasn't going to be a fun conversation, no matter how he approached it, leaving him praying that they could come through it and still at least be friends. He couldn't lose Lance from his life. Lance was his stability. He didn't need to look over his shoulder to know Lance had his back, no matter how crazy shit got. The kid he'd once thought a total flake was now the one person he longed to spend every single day doing flaky things with. He wanted a true and proper relationship with Lance, through all the bad shit as well as the good. He wanted to wake up every morning beside him. To sit by him when he wasn't having a good night. To talk about all the random crap Lance loved to talk about back when they were teenagers on the castle. He wanted all that pathetic loved up stuff that he'd gagged at in his youth. The loving home he'd had ripped away from him when his father had died. Shiro had been his family, but Lance was what had made Voltron his family and his home. He was doing the best he could based on Diabaazal, but it wasn't enough to fill the hollowness that the breaking apart of Voltron had caused. The lions leaving ripping every ounce of abandonment he'd ever felt right back up to the surface and leaving his whole world of kilter without the constant presence of Black in the corner of his mind. With the course set, his navigation system informed him it'd take the better part of two quintants to reach his destination, even with Shiro opening a wormhole on the pretence that Keith was heading out to meet up with a Galra rebel group. It was kind of true. Lance had once been part of a rebellion against the Galra. But the burden of all the lies he'd told in the past few quintants was now at the point where he was feeling constantly jumpy and queasy. One lie lead to another, than another to cover the previous one in a chain that seemed to have no end. It was exhausting. He was exhausted, even with the feeling that the worse was still yet to come, before the truth could finally be revealed. It wasn't even his truth to reveal. Admitting to being a drug addict was something most people would shy away from, especially with a best friend like Hunk who'd be horrified that he'd missed all the signs. Lance would most probably wish to keep the secret to his grave rather than see his families faces when they found out. If that was what he wanted, Keith would have to find a way to make that happen. Withdrawal wasn't easy. He'd seen that too. The mood swings. The nausea and vomiting. Picking at the skin, even screaming for help when nothing could be done. It wasn't something he was anxious to see again, but he wasn't going to walk away. It was them all walking away which had probably caused this all along. How he wished he could go back in time and do everything over. Tell Lance he loved him. Begged him not to go on that date with Allura. Watched the sunset with him, then gone to dinner in her place. All of it pointless dreams now. Two quintants was more than enough time for him to chew his nails down to stumps as the same thoughts played on repeat. Going stir crazy, they'd stopped on a small planet overnight where Kosmo had gone crazy for the planets variant of a firefly. His poor wolf coming out of the battle with a swollen nose and new phobia of glowing flying bugs. He knew he really shouldn't have laughed, but when Kosmo looked up at him with his swollen mouth and nose, looking completely dopey and miserable, he couldn't help but laugh over how adorable his mutt was. Lance already loved Kosmo, but maybe he'd want to get another dog? Or a wolf? He was definitely an animal person so they'd probably end up with a whole farm full. Maybe Kalternecker had had a calf by now? They could rear her offspring... Or maybe he was completely wrong and Lance would want to adopt a dozen kittens. He'd seemed to get a kick out the fur and ears of the Galra... Keith was pained to admit that head rubs did feel especially good, but that might just have been thanks to years of being touch starved when it came to affection... or it might be from his heightened senses that had only grown more acute as he'd aged. It was yet another question that set its self up to fester during the flight. All of that failed to matter as the planet that Lance had designated their rendezvous point came into view. It was surprisingly uninhabited according to the ship's scanners, with the only thing being picked up being another ship of a similar size to his own. Locking onto the coordinates, his heart was racing with a sickening kind of exhilaration. He couldn't wait to see Lance. He couldn't wait to see him whole and in one piece. But the conversation they needed to have... that's what dropped his heart and stomach down somewhere into his boots. Guiding his ship down through the atmosphere and thick clouds, he wasn't prepared for the sight waiting for him. Black smoke rose from the impact site, debris strewn along the sides of the long trench dug by the crashes ship. Its body twisted and mangled as if chewed by some kind of giant animal then spat free in time to crash. Landing his ship with shaking hands, Keith didn't wait to scream at Kosmo to get them down there, lucky that air was breathable as his wolf teleported him down beside the wreck. Stumbling and cutting himself on the molten glass that had formed from the ship crashing, the sound of his racing heart was deafening. Up close to the ship he could see various blast sites, the crumpling not so bad up close but bad enough that he couldn't remember how to calm down. With the cockpit buried, he threw himself down to scrape armfuls of sand away until finally the glass became visible. If he'd known what kind of condition Lance was in, he could have sent Kosmo straight in to get him, but that lead to Kosmo teleporting him out and for all he knew Lance could impaled, suffering from neck or spine damage, or even worse... which he didn't want to think about. He hadn't even considered the fact that there could be anyone but Lance in the ship. His cold Blade training was gone, leaving behind a youth shitting himself in fear that he'd lost Lance forever.

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frickengreenfrickyeah · 6 years ago

Text

An Irreverent Intro to the Iliad

A/N:I’ve taken the introduction to the Lombardo translation and condensed it. Any time I says something to the effect of “don’t quote me on this” that means I’ve added my own analysis or thoughts that I cannot back up in any way, so don’t, like, put it in an essay if you don’t plan on doing your own research.

Anyway, you don’t care about that stuff, you came here to read about the Iliad.

It’s really fricken long, so, for the sake of mobile users, everything’s under the cut except for this:

“Rage. Bitch, lemme tell you about the time that Achilles fucked over the entire Greek army by Rage-quitting.”

Timeline for the Noobs

Ten years ago:

Aphrodite bribes Paris so she can win a beauty contest between herself, Athena, and Hera. Paris’ reward for his ‘heroics’ is Helen

(There’s probably an essay’s worth of symbolism you could dig into here, what with the goddesses all representing different priorities: erotic love, wisdom/justice, and familial duty. I wonder what Paris’ choice reveals about his character?)

There’s some disagreement about whether or not Helen when with Paris willingly

Seeing as literally no other woman in the Iliad (and maybe the entire Cycle? Don’t quote me on that) willingly went with her kidnapper, I’m calling bull on that. Do with that what you will.

Menelaus gets really mad that Paris stole his wife, so he rounds up the Greek army, and they go to war. (It’s worth noting that Athena and Hera are both on his side here.)

Present day:

Agamemnon(Boo), Menelaus’ brother kidnaps a girl. Then he has the balls to get upset that the girl’s father called Apollo’s plague down upon the Greeks until she’s returned

Achilles points out that Agamemnon’s being a dick and people are literally dying because he won’t let go of one girl. Agamemnon says, “Fine. If I have to give up my lady-war-prize, I’m taking yours as recompense.”

Achilles allows Agamemnon to take his girl, then Rage-quits. As consequence, people die.

Hypocrites. Hypocrites everywhere. If you wanna analyze that for an essay, I think there’s plenty to talk about.

The Theme Worth Giving a Shit About (Because it Drives the Narrative)

Heroes risk their lives on the battlefield in exchange for Prizes

Ie. riches, bitches, and clout

Honor <--> Shame is how they judge the value of others and themselves. Honor wins Prizes, Shame loses Prizes

3 Characters Worth Giving a Shit About (Because They Explore the Aforementioned Theme)

Achilles: Main character. Rage is his thing. Also, pouting.

His honor is insulted by Agamemnon(Boo) taking away Briseis, his lady war prize. Since war prizes are how their society rewards heroes for risking their lives, Agamemnon is basically saying he doesn’t care of Achilles dies or not.

And that hurts Achilles’ feelings because he knows he’s gonna die. There’s a prophecy about it.

The only reason he’s fighting is because society conditioned him to believe that Prizes and eternal glory were worth dying for.

Now that he doubts everything he knows, he refuses to fight for the Greeks.

The entire poem is the consequences of his Rage-quit

Agamemnon: fuck this guy

He loses his lady war prize, so he takes Achilles’. Because short-sighted spite is the best motivator.

He and Achilles start the poem in the same place, believing that material goods should equally compensate a loss. Achilles is the one who learns that that’s not how that works.

Agamemnon starts as a dick and ends as a dick. Google Iphigenia if you want to learn more. And that shit he pulls with Cassandra? Major dickbag. Fuck this guy.

Hector: The Trojan hero, and honestly the only likable guy here.

He is Achilles’ foil.

Just like Achilles, he’s separated from society - but, unlike Achilles, it’s not because he rejects their values. It’s because he never questions them.

He’s basically the perfect hero, and he suffers for it:

His son is scared of his war helmet

He can’t stay closer to home to fight defensively because that’s ‘shameful’

And he can’t even stay in the city that long on his breaks because wine and women are too tempting.

Side Characters to Maybe Give a Fuck About

Patroclus: The most important of the supporting cast, and he’s only in it for, like, maybe a book

Achilles’ BFF and probably more

(Read: Definitely more. If you listen carefully, you can hear me chanting OTP OTP OTP every time you open your book.)

He is Achilles’ double

He never doubts society but supports his bestie’s midlife crisis anyway

His death at the hands of Hector symbolizes Achilles’ death because he was wearing Achilles’ armor at the time

Achilles causes Patroclus’ death btw

When he Rage-quits, he asks Zeus to help the Trojans (because short-sighted spite is the best motivator). Patroclus goes to help the Greeks wearing Achilles’ very recognizable armor, causing Hector to target and kill him

His death redirects Achilles’ Rage at the Trojans instead of the Greeks

Diomedes: a badass fighter

Greater Ajax: a badass fighter

and (I think) the guy who talks sense into Achilles at some point

Ajax the Lesser: a badass fighter (are you sensing a theme in these characters?)

Odysseus: the only smart guy here

The Odyssey is about him btw

The Trojan horse was his idea, according to the Aeneid (and maybe other places? But definitely the Aeneid.)

WTF is an Epic Poem Anyway?

Epic Poem: recounts events with far-reaching historical consequences, sums up the values and achievements of an entire culture, and documents the full variety of the war

Basically, if “’Murica, Fuck Yeah” sums up America, then the Iliad sums up Ancient Greece

(Actually, Hamilton is a better comparison, but I needed to make a joke. Fite me.)

That “full variety” thing is why Book 2 and a couple other places just list off a bunch of ships or leaders and their dads. That shit is boring. Skip it.

But also, that ‘full variety’ thing is what makes other parts of the story so interesting. Homer will sum up a dude’s life story right before he kills them or some shit. It magnifies the scale of the narrative by showing how insignificant one person’s experience is - no one person can stop the war.

That’s what makes Achilles’ story even more powerful --> because his impact on the war is significant. His Rage controls the ebb and flow of it.

He can’t stop the war though. No one can.

The Gods are Petty as Fuck

Homeric gods look/act like humans, but they’re different mainly because of two things:

1. They can’t die.

That means they treat the events of the war less seriously than the mortals do.

2. The gods know about fate

To the modern reader, it seems like the humans have no agency, but that’s not really the case

Knowing fate is a bit like knowing the plot of a movie. It gives insight into a character’s actions that would otherwise seem random.

By reading this poem, you’re basically a god. Don’t let it go to your head. (But, hey, there’s a reason I’m majoring in this shit)

Bards like Homer would more directly be gods because they changed and adapted the story as they told it, just like the gods influence human actions in the story.

Don't quote me on that tho

Character choices are usually doubly motivated - by the human, and by the gods

Ex: Achilles chooses not to kill Agamemnon because Athena tells him not to.

This is personifying the literal thought process he had so that the reader understands what’s going through his head.

Fate doesn’t force anyone to act out of character --> fate is the consequence of their life choices

The gods not caring about death and his own lack of foresight is what Achilles messes up on

He asks Zeus to help him get revenge on the Greeks because he assumes Zeus cares about that sort of thing, but Zeus is bigger than that.

That leads Patroclus’ death, btw.

The “Enduring Heart” Shit

Achilles is really butthurt that Agamemnon wronged him

The lesson he has to learn is that even if material goods can’t make up for losses, there’s no other option --> you can’t bring people back from the dead, so you have to move on

That’s the Enduring Heart shit

also, if you abstract that concept it sounds kinda like entropy to me (Don’t quote me on that tho)

He learns that lesson by feeling pity for Priam (Hector’s dad) instead of perpetuating the Rage Train

And, hey, that Enduring Heart shit is a lesson that all of us could take to heart. None of us want to die, but it’s gonna happen. Maybe that’s not fair, but throwing a temper tantrum isn’t going to change anything. Really, the only way to avoid being miserable is to embrace our mortality so we can appreciate life while we have it

don’t quote me on that tho

In a nutshell, Achilles has to accept his mortal-ness. Otherwise there’s a lot of unnecessary suffering.

That’s why we don’t need to see him die in the Iliad even though everyone makes such a big deal about the prophecy about his death. His journey was completed as soon as he found pity in himself instead of Rage - essentially rejecting the godly side of himself (oh yeah, I forgot to mention. His mom is a goddess) and embracing his mortality.

because gods don’t have to deal with death, they can Rage all they want, remember?

Also, if he never dies, he can’t be reunited with Patroclus.

OTP OTP OTP

You could probably write an essay about how Achilles died as soon as Patroclus did.

Honestly Boring Historical Context (That might be interesting if you’re a nerd like me?

The poem was basically historical fantasy even when it was first written. There are gods and super strength and shit

Greek History Over-Simplified: The Mycanaean Period was prosperous but ended suddenly. The Dark Ages of Greece followed, and we don’t know much about what happened during that because they forgot the written word was a thin.

The events of the poem probably take place during the Mycanaean Period because they use bronze weapons.

But warfare is described from more of a Dark Ages perspective. Like, they don’t use chariots the right way

Which suggests that chariots were part of the source material, then the Dark Ages made people forget how they were supposed to be sued, so the bards just kinda made shit up to explain their presence. (Don’t quote me on that tho)

The Oral Tradition of the poem means that this story was told thousands of times over hundreds (thousands?) of years. So the narrative is hones at shit.

it has the sculpted body of an Olympic athlete. Each muscle toned to do a specific job and everything works perfectly together to accomplish the sporty feat of interest. Every verse is packed with character, setting, plot, and cultural significance

Except for that Catologue of Ships shit. Boooo boring ships.

There were probably lots of other versions of the poem, but Homer told it best. His version was written down as soon as the written word was (re)invented

Side Note that wasn’t in Lombardo’s Intro

The Iliad and Odyssey are both parts of a larger body of work known as the Epic Cycle

(The Aeneid is basically Caesar Augustus-insert fanfiction at that, btw. Virgil was a satirical fanboy and I’m living for it.)

Characters and events are introduced with the assumptions that the reader already knows their importance

But we only have fragments of the rest of the Cycle today because it was either never written down or the manuscripts were lost

I’m looking at you, Burned Library of Alexandria

*sad fiddle music plays in the background

Videos That I Learned Shit From (Only, like, the first two links are relevant to the topic at hand, btw)

Basic Plot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faSrRHw6eZ8

More about the Epic Cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bn0eKt4Rw

Iphigenia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifFsKCrH3GM

Oresteia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kpGhivh05k

The Odyssey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-3rHQ70Pag&index=4&list=PLDb22nlVXGgfwG1qbOtNgu897E_ky_8To (Also, this story is my favorite of the Epic Cycle)

The Aeneid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRruBVFXjnY&list=PLDb22nlVXGgfwG1qbOtNgu897E_ky_8To&index=5

Ancient Greek History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzGVpkYiJ9w&index=2&list=PLDb22nlVXGgexsbafIwirG6Tk9uww9dSW

And, yeah, these videos are all from the same channel. I’m a basic bitch and a ho for not leaving my comfort zone. Fite me.

Honestly, if anyone has other sources, let me know. Youtube history/video essays are my shit.

I hope this was helpful.

#iliad #literature #irreverent synopsis #i really like green but thats not the topic at hand #epic cycle #Achilles #Achilles and Patroclus forever #intro to the iliad

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seriouslyhooked · 6 years ago

Text

Call My Own

Available on FF Here and AO3 Here

A/N: This chapter is a very old prompt I have had on my to-write list for over a year, brought to you by the many many Ed Sheeran fans we seem to have in the fandom. ‘Nancy Mulligan’ is not the first Ed Sheeran song in the mixtape series, and it will hardly be the last, but this fic also came with an added request. It wanted Emma as a princess and Killian as a pirate in an EF AU where the two of them have to run away to get married since her parents don’t approve. I have twisted that just a little bit, but what has resulted is just a ball of fluff that I think we could all use after saying our final farewell to the show yesterday. Hope you guys enjoy, hope that you are all doing well, and thanks so much for reading!

Captain Killian Jones of the Jolly Roger had never been one for patience. Since an early age he’d known it was a flaw in his personal design. His need to keep going, to keep moving, and to seek instant gratification was more often than not a burden. But never had his patience been tested like it was tonight as he waited with a lantern in the woods just beyond the castle walls.

Getting to this moment had been a long and winding road, one filled with hardship and loss that used to haunt Killian without reprieve. The deaths of his mother and of his elder brother Liam had prompted the worst kinds of pain, even worse than the enslavement he and Liam faced as children. But then a miracle stumbled along his path, a woman – nay, a princess – who with just a simple smile and a ‘how do you do’ turned his world completely upside down. Where once there had only been darkness now there was light again, and the heedless rebellion that had long stirred in Killian’s soul was quieted by the love of a remarkable woman who he was waiting for now.

Princess Emma of Misthaven was a rare gem, a beauty who was incomparable and who was beloved the realm over, but there was more to Emma than mere looks. The wit she had, the sense of self, the unshakeable sense of right in wrong, and the headstrong stubbornness when she felt herself justified all tied together made one perfectly imperfect person who he couldn’t help but adore. She was beyond comprehension and at their first meeting Killian had known just how ill suited they were for each other. He was bloody pirate for Gods’ sake, and she… well she was goodness personified.

It was that goodness that had brought them together so many months ago, but Killian remembered that first meeting like it had only just happened. He could see Emma in his mind’s eye, dressed down from the splendors of royal wear into something more modest and comfortable. She was out and about, having slipped away from the castle and her guards to help care for some children in this small town by the sea, and at first Killian had no idea who she was. To him she was simply the most gorgeous maiden he’d ever cast eyes on, and he’d felt compelled to seek her out even if he knew he shouldn’t.

“Excuse me, lass,” he’d begun, trying to catch up to his actions as he spoke aloud. Truth be told he had no plan, no words that he could say to her, and at first he thought to ask for directions or pretend to be lost, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie, even if it was of small consequence. Instead he lapsed into silence, prompting a smile from this strange, beautiful creature.

“I would excuse you,” she replied with a fair bit of sass, “but I don’t know what you’ve done that needs excusing.”

“Right – sorry.” Killian’s bumbling about was the most mortifying experience, but then it prompted a laugh from his new companion and he couldn’t seem to regret it.

“Did you need something?” she asked, the light of her laughter still twinkling in her eyes and Killian moved forward, wanting to bask in the aura around her. At his movements her gaze shifted from something that was merely friendly and curious to another expression entirely. In her eyes he finally saw an interest that mirrored his own, and that interest seemed to return his instincts to him once more.

“Just a name, love, so I might know what to call the most beautiful woman the realms over.”

The words hadn’t in any way been contrived, for he felt them most acutely, but Killian waited a beat, feeling her breath catch and watching a shiver go through her before she shook her head and smiled again, another giggle falling from her lips. She covered her mouth, and Killian wished to take her hand to keep her from shielding her smile, but she did so on her own soon enough.

“Do lines that usually work for you?” she queried, clearly believing him a flatterer instead of a man of any substance.

“That wasn’t a line,” Killian said somewhat defensively. “You are that beautiful.”

Now it was her turn to be a little off balance. “Oh, well, uh thank you.”

“So… your name?” he asked, stepping just a fraction of an inch closer but putting them in a distance to each other that was hardly proper.

“You really don’t know?” she asked and Killian shook his head.

“Should I, love?” Killian prompted and she looked torn about telling him, glancing back to the children who were still playing about. Then Killian acted on instinct, reaching out to her and turning her cheek back to him. He felt the rush of touching her the first time, the flare of heat as his skin met hers, and he watched as a blush kissed her cheeks, but he pressed on. “If you don’t give me a name, you know I’ll have to choose my own for you.”

“And what would you choose?” she asked, her voice a bit breathless as the wind picked up slightly and moved a bit of her golden hair around in the breeze.

“Swan,” he confessed, watching as her eyes grew wide with curiosity. “They are the most beautiful of birds, both fierce and brilliant. They’re also stubborn as I recall, and they’ve a will of their own that can’t be denied.”

“I’m not stubborn,” she protested and Killian grinned.

“Aren’t you? You won’t even give me your name.”

“It’s Emma,” she replied.

“Killian,” he’d offered in turn, taking her hand in his, and just as he was about to push for more the children had returned in full force, bringing with them more than exuberance but another revelation – for none of them referred to her as Emma, instead they all called her ‘Princess’ alerting Killian to the fact that he’d just begun to fall for not just any woman, but the most sought after one in the Enchanted Forest.

In the time since that meeting, however, Killian and Emma had found their way back to each other often. It started slowly and with set expectations. She was a princess, and he was a pirate. There was surely no way they could be together, but when Emma confessed that the feeling of love and that sensation that life could never be as sweet without them together was mutual, Killian began to hope for more. He was determined to be a better man that was more worthy of her, and the inspiration he held close in trying to pursue such a life came from Emma and her abundant love for all the people in the realm, good, bad, and in between.

A slow spike of remorse rose in Killian’s gut at the thought of that love and how their running away together now would jeopardize her future interactions with the kingdom. Emma deserved the life she’d been born to, a life where someday she would rule as Queen and protect the people she’d been safeguarding all her life, but the sad fact was he couldn’t give such a life to her. Her parents, kind and benevolent as stories and legend made them out to be, had been clear on this: their daughter was not to marry a pirate.

“I just can’t understand them,” Emma had said the night after he’d gone to seek their approval a few days ago, when she’d stolen away from the castle to meet him aboard his ship. There were tears in her eyes, and emotion holding like a vice to her voice that cut Killian down to his soul.

“Can’t you, love?” Killian asked, a bitter attempt at humor etched inside the words. “I’m a pirate, a rogue, hardly the kind of man suited for a princess, never mind a princess as wonderful as you.”

“Stop that,” Emma scolded as she looked into his eyes and her hands came to his chest. “You know that’s not true Killian. You’re so much more than the pirate you imagine. You’re the best man I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t love you as I do if you were any less.”

“And I will love you every day of my life, and every day there after, Emma. But sometimes, I suppose, love isn’t enough.”

The words had tasted like acid on his tongue and the reality that not receiving a blessing from her parents would put a stop to this nearly killed him, but it was Emma who rallied and who put his fears mostly to rest. She pulled him to her for a kiss, one that was forceful and full of feeling, daring him to doubt what existed between them. Then when they pulled away from each other, their foreheads rested together and she spoke a simple truth he would cling to all the rest of his life.

“Love will always be enough, and a true love like ours always finds a way.”

That was what they were doing tonight – finding a way, a way to be together and to tie two hearts who loved so fully together as one. They were going to elope, to marry in secret and then reveal to her parents the truth. From there the Queen and King could make the decision to either accept Killian and Emma or to turn them away. Killian prayed every night for the former, for disownment from her parents would bring Emma a pain he would wish on no one, certainly not the woman he loved.

A rustling of branches not so far off drew Killian’s mind from his wayward thoughts, and he awaited whatever approached, poised for the worst but hoping for the best. When he saw Emma standing there, he hardly knew what to say. She was so beautiful, so utterly breathtaking out here in the moonlight with just the glow of his lantern shining on her that he could barely speak. Underneath a cloak of blue he could see she was wearing white. It wasn’t the kind of gown a princess wore on her wedding day, but it was beautiful, pure, and gave his bride to be an almost fairy-like look he’d remember forever.

“Emma,” he said, her name a single utterance that brought her running forward. She threw herself into his arms, and he tossed the lantern with little care, knowing it was safe, but not truly having a care. All that mattered was holding her, and comforting whatever sadness she was feeling.

“Oh Killian… I thought I’d die from waiting. But we’re really doing this. We’re really going to be married,” she said and Killian swallowed harshly as he pulled back to look at her, letting her come back softly to her feet.

“That we are, love. As soon as you tell me that this is what you want we’ll go. I’ve everything ready, but I need you to tell me one last time.”

“The only thing I’ll ever truly need is you by my side,” Emma murmured as her hand grazed his cheek, her fingertips brushing at the spot where beard met flesh as she tried her hand at a bit of teasing to lighten the mood. “You still love me, don’t you, Captain?”

“More than anything the realms over. And you know I’d give you the whole world if I could, Emma, but in the life I can offer you, there are no palaces or castle. No crowns, and no kingdoms. There’s just my ship, the sea, and a heart so full of love for you I can promise it will never fade away.”

“It sounds perfect,” she assured him with a whisper. “As long as I’m your wife and you’re my husband, as long as we walk through life together, make a family together, and grow old together, as long as you keep your promise and love me every day, then that will be enough.”

“You have my word, Emma. If those are your dreams, I will see to it that every last one of them comes true.”

“And we’ll see to the rest,” a voice said from just beyond the tree line. Emma and Killian turned and discovered that despite their beliefs they were not alone, for there, standing before them were the King and Queen. “Won’t we Charming?”

The question from Queen Snow came charged with emotion, her wide eyes glistening with tears as she held her husband’s hand. Emma’s father, meanwhile, was not so stricken with emotion, but his focus lingered on his daughter before turning to Killian. This time the look Killian received was very different from the last. There was still the feeling that Killian would never be good enough for Emma (a fact to which Killian would readily agree), but the harshness and disdain was gone. Instead it was replaced with understanding and a new sort of respect. It was a look that gave Killian hope, as he stood there with Emma still in his arms.

“Mom? Dad?” Emma asked, pulling back as she kept Killian’s hand in hers. “If you came here to stop me -,”

“We didn’t,” her father promised. “We came to make things right.”

“We should never have stood in the way of true love, Emma,” her mother said thoughtfully, stepping forward to cross the space between them until her hand came to rest on Emma’s arm. “And it’s clear from your actions and your words that you two do love each other. You’re old enough to know your own heart, and if you want him so much that you would run away to be married, he must be truly worthy man.”

“He is,” Emma said with a smile before looking back at Killian and whispering, “You are.”

“Right then,” Emma’s father said briskly, stepping forward to shake Killian’s hand. “Please accept our apologies, Captain. But also remember that if you hurt her there’s not a place in any world you could go where I wouldn’t find you.”

“Dad!” Emma yelled at the same time that her mother scolded, “Charming!” but then Emma and Queen Snow laughed together.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Your Highnesses. And believe me, if I were ever to cause any harm to Emma, I would not run. I’d willingly surrender to whatever punishment you deemed fit. It could be no worse than the pain I’d feel at having inflicted any suffering on my swan.”

“Swan?” Queen Snow asked and Emma shook her head.

“A story for another time. Right now we have to go, we’re late.”

“Late?” the King asked. “But Emma, now that we’ve settled things surely you can come home. Killian will come too and we’ll plan a wedding befitting a princess. There’s no need to run anymore.”

“You two can still plan the party of your dreams. If you want we’ll even stand up in front of the whole kingdom and say our vows all over again,” Emma said looking to Killian for agreement as he gave a nod, perfectly happy to do anything she wanted. “But I’m not waking up another morning not married to the man I love. I can’t wait anymore. I won’t.”

“I see,” her father said with an even tone as her mother looked shocked. Then he surprised them all with a response no one saw coming. “Well I can’t say I’ve ever been on a pirate ship before, but there’s a first time for everything as they say.”

“You’re kidding,” Emma said with rush of air and then a giggle when she realized he wasn’t. “You’re serious?! You’ll both come?”

Her parents agreed that they would, and Killian could feel the happiness Emma carried in her heart because of it. They made their way to the ship, and despite the slight awkwardness of introducing the few crew members he’d kept for the night to not only his bride to be but her royal parents, things went smoothly from there. The chapel was found, the ceremony presided over, and the love that was bound together grew only stronger as they promised to have and to hold each other all the days of their lives. Killian knew the rush and the thrill that could only come from the woman he cherished taking his name as hers, and he felt his heart open all the more at promising Emma eternity. It would never be enough, but it was a start, a start he was more than excited to undertake.

As the early morning light began to rise above the world, Killian and Emma stood at the side of the Jolly Roger, watching the sun make it’s way through the heavens, bringing warmth and illumination as it did. Her parents had decided to retire to a cabin for this last short leg of the trip, but Killian suspected it was more to give them privacy than because of any real need for rest. He appreciated it too, for the only thing that could sate the need to claim his bride in this moment was holding her in his arms, watching the early morning sun cast golden hints through her hair and light up her jade colored eyes. In this moment Emma looked blissfully happy, and then she turned to him and smiled, taking his breath away.

“Promise me this really happened,” she said, her hand coming to rest above his chest, right where his heart lay beating. “Promise me it’s real, and that I won’t wake up from some perfect dream any minute now.”

Killian brought her hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss before returning her smile. Then he ran his fingertips against her cheek, gazing in her eyes and seeing the next sixty-odd years they’d spend together. There was a beautiful life to be led, a life filled with far more joy than sorrow, with hopes and dreams, with love and faith, and he found himself also grappling with the worry that somehow this was all a grand illusion. Then he grounded himself in Emma, the realest thing he’d ever known, and he took comfort in the fact that he couldn’t imagine such a treasure or such a blessing as her.

“This is real, my love. As real as real can be.”

“Good,” Emma replied before kissing him, teasing him with the taste of passion he knew lurked just beneath the surface. The kiss burned hotter, edging onto something that couldn’t be excused, especially when her parents were just below decks, but at the last minute Emma pulled back, grinning mirthfully at him before supplying one last thought. “And don’t worry – we can still run away together.”

“Come again?” the confusion that must have been etched on his face made her laugh, soothing his disorientation as he awaited her reply.

“Not forever,” Emma said with conviction. “Just for a little while. I think three weeks will be long enough for a decent honeymoon, don’t you?”

“Aye, my swan. As you wish.”

And with that agreement between them, Killian and Emma settled into the happily ever after they’d been fighting so hard for, finding it just as wonderful and magical as fairytales and happy stories made them out to be.

…………..

I was twenty-four years old When I met the woman I would call my own Twenty-two grand kids now growing old In that house that your brother bought ya On the summer day when I proposed I made that wedding ring from dentist gold And I asked her father, but her daddy said, "No You can't marry my daughter" She and I went on the run Don't care about religion I'm gonna marry the woman I love Down by the Wexford border She was Nancy Mulligan And I was William Sheeran She took my name and then we were one Down by the Wexford border Well, met her at Guy's in the second world war And she was working on a soldier's ward Never had I seen such beauty before The moment that I saw her Nancy was my yellow rose And we got married wearing borrowed clothes We got eight children now growing old Five sons and three daughters She and I went on the run Don't care about religion I'm gonna marry the woman I love Down by the Wexford border She was Nancy Mulligan And I was William Sheeran She took my name and then we were one Down by the Wexford border From her snow white streak in her jet black hair Over sixty years I've been loving her Now we're sat by the fire in our old armchairs You know Nancy, I adore ya From a farm boy born near Belfast town I never worried about the king and crown 'Cause I found my heart upon the southern ground There's no difference, I assure ya She and I went on the run Don't care about religion I'm gonna marry the woman I love Down by the Wexford border She was Nancy Mulligan And I was William Sheeran She took my name and then we were one Down by the Wexford border

Post-Note: I always love a good EF AU, and writing this little oneshot was no different. It offered all the same chance for fluff and feel-good moments, and I hope that you guys all enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. Thank you to my reader who suggested this song and this story idea, and to all of you who have shared other ideas with me. More to come in the weeks ahead, and until then I hope you all have a lovely rest of your weekend!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9,Part 10,Part 11, Part 12,Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24,Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31,Part 32, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38,Part 39,Part 40, Part 41, Part 42, Part 43, Part 44, Part 45,Part 46,Part 47, Part 48, Part 49, Part 50, Part 51, Part 52, Part 53,Part 54,Part 55, Part 56, Part 57, Part 58, Part 59, Part 60,Part 61,Part 62, Part 63, Part 64, Part 65, Part 66, Part 67, Part 68,Part 69,Part 70, Part 71, Part 72, Part 73, Part 74, Part 75,Part 76,Part 77, Part 78, Part 79, Part 80, Part 81, Part 82, Part 83,Part 84,Part 85, Part 86, Part 87, Part 88, Part 89, Part 90,Part 91,Part 92, Part 93, Part 94, Part 95, Part 96, Part 97, Part 98,Part 99,Part 100, Part 101, Part 102, Part 103,Part 104, Part 105,Part 106, Part 107,Part 108, Part 109, Part 110,Part 111, Part 112,Part 113, Part 114, Part 115,Part 116, Part 117, Part 118,Part 119,Part 120, Part 121, Part 122, Part 123,Part 124, Part 125,Part 126, Part 127, Part 128,Part 129,Part 130, Part 131,Part 132,Part 133, Part 134, Part 135, Part 136, Part 137, Part 138,Part 139,Part 140, Part 141, Part 142, Part 143, Part 144, Part 145,Part 146, Part 147, Part 148,Part 149, Part 150, Part 151,Part 152, Part 153, Part 154, Part 155, Part 156, Part 157, Part 158,Part 159, Part 160, Part 161, Part 162, Part 163, Part 164,Part 165, Part 166, Part 167, Part 168, Part 169, Part 170,Part 171,Part 172, Part 173, Part 174, Part 175, Part 176,Part 177, Part 178

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