#a lot of the beauces i see are not... what they should be. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

margridarnauds · 4 years

Note

for the otp meme: number 6 for d'aramis, peyronan and any character you wish richard to be with please~ 💕

So.........guess who just discovered this in my drafts, uncompleted. Also I’m tagging you @odachans just in case Tumblr is predictable and bungles the notification process.

1. Who cuddles up to the other when they are cold?

D’Artagnan is a natural cuddler. This sent Aramis into multiple Gay Panics (or, rather, bi/pan panics) before they actually got together. 2. What do they depend on each other for?

2. What do they depend on each other for?

I feel like Aramis depends on D’Artagnan for motivation and inspiration. Aramis is a brilliant Musketeer in his own right, he’s obviously successful as a priest, but the second D’Artagnan comes, he gets onboard. Why? Because even if D’Artagnan isn’t his lover (yet), he’s a genuinely good, charismatic leader, and THAT is enough to get Aramis back in the game. I feel like he might become a little....complacent, over time, but D’Artagnan would make it very hard for someone to be complacent while also not going TOO hard down their throats.

D’Artagnan relies on Aramis for loyalty. Not necessarily blind loyalty; he doesn’t WANT anyone to, say, risk their lives for him. He doesn’t leverage loyalty like, say, Artois would. But he knows that, if he shows up to Aramis, Aramis would be the first one to hear him out, and he WANTS his right hand man back anyway, because it probably doesn’t feel RIGHT without him there anyway.

3. Who forgets everything so the other leaves notes all around the house?

D’Artagnan forgets, Aramis leaves notes, as the Confirmed Moronsexual™ in their relationship.

4. Who tells the other they look beautiful everyday?

D’Artagnan. Aramis thought that it wouldn’t matter, given how often he’s been complimented on his looks, but with D’Artagnan it’s….different. It means more.

5. Who gets stressed out and the other has to calm them down?

I feel like D’Artagnan, even though in general he’s very easy going, might get a little too caught up in his Gascon pride and wanting to do right, which subsequently makes any failure CRUSHING. (Though I also think that Aramis might not be quite as cool as he projects, which means that by the time he cracks, he CRACKS.)

6. What makes them a good couple?

They mutually respect and admire one another; they would be fine either as friends or as lovers, and, tbh, even if they were to split up, I don’t see a huge DRAMA over it. It would just be like….okay. Yeah, it would hurt them and there might be a tiny bit of tension for a little while, but I think that, in the end, they would still be friends who had one another’s backs.

7. Who takes pictures of random dogs and sends them to the other person?

GENERALLY D’Artagnan, but Aramis has, at least on one occasion, seen a golden retriever, taken a picture of it, and put in a caption that just said, “This reminded me of you.” And then D’Artagnan responded with a heart emoji and he nearly felt himself die from how much he loved him.

8. Who laughs at the lamest of jokes?

D’Artagnan. Aramis thinks that he’s faking at first, but no, D’Artagnan considers them genuinely hilarious.

9. Who likes to drive at night?

D’Artagnan, particularly if it’s along old country roads. (Aramis would never say that he’s mildly freaked out by the deers’ eyes glinting along the sides of the road, in the woods.)

10. What does their bedroom look like?

Aramis is used to slightly more lavish arrangements, but he can settle for a golden cross above the bed and a few nice pillows. After all, he was a musketeer before he became a wildly successful priest/love expert, so like. He has to have roughed it at least a LITTLE. D’Artagnan isn’t quite at “hurricane” levels of organization, but you do have the occasional bit of training equipment scattered around the floor, with the notable exception of the sword, which he treats like his actual CHILD. There isn’t all that much in the way of furniture, you have a bed, you have two night tables, Aramis’ tends to be stocked with a copy of the Bible, which D’Artagnan routinely tries to distract him from reading from, usually causing Aramis to actually FREEZE out of sheer bi panic. (Yes, they’re basically married. No, that doesn’t mean that he still doesn’t occasionally just freeze at something D’Artagnan does because HOW is he so attractive? HOW?)

Peyronan

1. Who cuddles up to the other when they are cold?

Ronan. He’s used to living in a situation where he shares a bed with Solène and his father anyway, and, since he moved away, he’s really missed having that added warmth. I think that it was actually one of the harder adjustments he had to make when he abandoned Solène went to Paris. So, actually SHARING a bed with someone again, he’s going to want that connection, he’s going to want that warmth, and it’s kind of instinctual to him. Lazare isn’t used to having contact AT ALL, he’s never really had to share a bed to the same degree (he might have when he was still a young officer/possibly aide de campe to one of The Big Boys because space was limited, especially if we accept that he MIGHT have been the right age to fight in the American Revolution, but, now, as at LEAST a colonel of a regiment? He isn’t going to go for it.) So….it just isn’t INSTINCTUAL for him. He isn’t really used to being touched or having any degree of warmth, and he’s genuinely shocked when he finds himself leaning into Ronan when he cuddles with him.

2. What do they depend on each other for?

They both depend on one another for stability as the tension in the streets escalates. Had Ronan survived, they would have relied on one another increasingly for that. (Especially if both had survived past 1794 and the downfall of Danton, Desmoulins, and Robespierre. Ronan would have needed SOMEONE to cling to, and Lazare would have been mourning the Ancien Régime.

Lazare relies on Ronan for affection and emotional intelligence, Ronan relies on Lazare for having someone to pull him back when he threatens to go overboard.

3. Who forgets everything so the other leaves notes all around the house?

Ronan forgets, Lazare leaves notes, though they don’t really do any good.

4. Who tells the other they look beautiful everyday?

Both of them routinely go “…whoa,” at times when they see each other. Neither one of them has really LOST that novelty, and there’s very much this sense of “This is my person, I am with them, HOW?” That being said, Lazare tends to keep his admiration for Ronan to quiet moments, generally when he wakes up before Ronan or Ronan falls asleep before him (which is often), and he gets to stroke Ronan’s hair and back while he sleeps, or when he catches Ronan in another rare quiet moment (he would think, years later, how stunning he had been on the Bastille, that last day, sun-glinting off his rifle). He doesn’t outwardly EXPRESS it, not in words or really in any way that is tangible, though Ronan still knows. Ronan’s stupid, yes, but emotionally, of the two of them, he’s smarter, and in some ways, I think he knows Lazare’s emotions better than Lazare does. (And in other ways, he doesn’t, especially relating to Lazare’s complex relationship with the Army/Royal Family.)

Ronan, though….he KNOWS he married up. Not just in terms of a peasant being with a count (that…doesn’t really compute to Ronan in terms of their relationship. Not that it doesn’t IMPACT them, but in the sense that Ronan doesn’t feel unequal or like he should necessarily be grateful to The Count de Peyrol for “choosing” him. Other people would be flattering, fawning over Lazare and doing everything to stay in his good graces. Ronan doesn’t. Which is exactly why Laz chose him in the first place), but in terms of “Holy *Hell* he’s hot. And smart. And capable. HOW?” It’s like…he thinks of everyone that he could have been with, had he stayed in the Beauce or if he’d gone for someone Camille in Paris, and Lazare is just…several steps above, even if he’s stuffy and formal and emotionally constipated and anal about everything being in order. And he has no restraint telling Lazare what a handsome officer he nabbed for a lover. (Lazare is kind of ???? because…it isn’t necessarily that he has low self esteem, re: his looks, just that they’ve literally never mattered to him before. His main concern has always been “How intimidating can I be?”)

5. Who get stressed out and the other has to calm them down?

Lazare doesn’t SHOW his stress, in the sense that he doesn’t have a paper bag that he huffs into, but he gets much more disturbed when things move outside of what he considers normal. He gets very irritable and stressed if things don’t fit into his special place for them, and he has the tendency to become absorbed in his job. Ronan tends to be the one to bring him down. Generally via what he considers “subtle” seduction. (It is not subtle. At all.) Though a lot of the time, really, that seduction is just wandering over to Lazare’s desk, putting his arms around his midsection, burying his face in his neck, and groaning “Come to bed” like a recently re-animated zombie. After which, barring a national emergency, Lazare will eventually put down his pen and dutifully cuddle with Ronan until he goes to sleep. Ronan’s actually picked up the habit of playing with Lazare’s hair/scratching his head when he’s stressed, which generally does wonders for relaxing him.

6. What makes them a good couple?

In some core areas, they actually are very compatible. Both of them are in a relationship for the long run. The initial execution might be brief, but when it comes to “Do we actually want a relationship? Or are we going to change our minds a month in?” the answer is yes for both of them (and a “no” to the last question). They’re both committed, like that. Regardless of their arguments, at the end of the day, they are each other’s significant other. Ronan gets into a fight with Lazare, yeah, he might scowl, get drunk, and sleep in a drain somewhere, but he isn’t going to cheat on him out of revenge, and Lazare, at an absolute low, might bluster about how it was a mistake to go for a peasant who couldn’t understand, but he isn’t going to bring someone new in, either. After they’ve both slept on it, they’ll be back in the same room, patch things up, and they’ll be fine. (And Lazare will spend some time making up for the mistake comment.)

Lazare is high intelligence, in terms of things like common sense and caution, along with more conventional markers like math, geometry, history, etc. (though he isn’t as well education as people, especially Ronan, tend to assume). That being said, he’s stunted in terms of his socialization and has never really LIVED outside of his career. He’s numbed emotionally, and sometimes, I think he doesn’t really know what he’s feeling. I think he knew he felt SOMETHING for Ronan from the beginning, but I’m not sure that he was really, concretely aware that it was attraction and then love until Ronan more or less jumped on him. Ronan is….well, low intelligence in just about…everything, he’s impulsive, but he gets Lazare out of his shell, and he is, generally speaking, more emotionally intelligent than most people give him credit for, and he’s quick at making connections. (Remember how he was able to guess that Olympe worked for the Queen and that the guy he dueled was Fersen, even after about a week of torture? Yeah, he’s not smart, but he’s QUICK.) And Ronan is very, very affectionate, which…for someone as touch starved as Lazare…on one hand, it can definitely be overwhelming and Ronan doesn’t always know his boundaries, but on the other hand…it can be exactly what he needs. He has, basically, a lifetime of touch to make up for.

Ronan livens Lazare up and can make him act when he would have otherwise been cautious (for better or worse), while Lazare can hold Ronan back; they balance one another out.

7. Who takes pictures of random dogs and sends them to the other person?

Ronan sends them to Lazare, probably in a not-so subtle attempt to get Laz to adopt one for the two of them. (In the end, he does, and despite claiming that it’s “Your dog,” guess who the dog insists on sleeping with every night? And who can be found stroking it in his lap as he does his morning coffee + newspaper reading. It ain’t Ronan.)

8. Who laughs at the lamest of jokes?

Ronan. RonanRonanRonanRonan. He both tells the bad jokes and laughs at them. Sometimes, he gets Lazare to quirk a smile, and every single time, it feels like his heart’s going to explode. (It’s an ongoing quest of his: Make Lazare smile.)

9. Who likes to drive at night?

Lazare. It’s calm at night, less traffic, less noise. It’s easier to concentrate, and it’s easy to simply exist when it’s just him and his meticulously chosen driving playlist. (Depending on whether or not Ronan’s collapsed in his seat yet. Ronan has two modes: “Off” and “On.”)

10. What does their bedroom look like?

Lazare’s own style is naturally very austere and dark. He can survive with a bed, endtable, writing desk, and some place to store his (very limited, for an aristocrat) clothes, and his color scheme tends towards dark blues and silvers, very cold colors. But, once Ronan moves in, things start changing, since Ronan’s style starts coming into play. So, you get that odd mix of those austere colors and then BOOM a vibrant orange chair by the fireplace. Lazare actually had to buy a new bed when he moved Ronan in, since before that, he’d been perfectly content to sleep in a single bed, so they ended up with a four poster, canopy style bed (Laz does like the canopy, because it gives him some privacy).

Ronan, of course, wanted one like this:

He was, tragically, vetoed, though the lining to the bed IS a vibrant yellow, and the blue is much, much brighter than you’d generally expect from Laz, even if it still looks like something you’d find in Elsa’s ice castle.

Also, even though they’re very little used, they do both have their own beds. Lazare’s experience of domesticity, as much as he’s ever known it, has been that aristocratic model of the married couple having their own rooms, and it isn’t something he’s REALLY given up for Ronan. Lazare loves Ronan very, very much, but sometimes, he needs his own space.

Ronan doesn’t really understand it, himself, since…again, he’s used to being with his family CONSTANTLY in their old home, but…there is Something in knowing that his relationship with Lazare doesn’t just depend on him being ready and available every night. Like, I think that his worst nightmare, relationship wise, would be turning out to be an expendable toy that Lazare only spends time and money on for a little while after everything Ronan’s kind of put in and sacrificed to be with him (namely, his ongoing guilt at being with the man who killed his father + betraying the revolution by being with him), and this is very clear evidence that, regardless of whether Ronan wants to sleep with him on a given night, they’re together. It isn’t Lazare playing with him, he isn’t a momentary distraction that’s only good for a few nights, they’re living together, and he has this space that’s His that’s totally separate from his relationship with Laz. It’s also where, had Ronan lived, he would have gone every July 24th, when he felt the anniversary of his father’s death hit him head on. For a week or two leading up to that…he loves Lazare, he DOES, he’s utterly devoted to him, but he can’t be around him constantly when his father’s so heavily on his mind, when there will always be those thoughts of “If it hadn’t happened, he would have been 45-50-55-60, he would have been happy” and the loss hits him square in the chest. When he has to reconcile the man he adores with the man he left for Paris to take his revenge on.

Richard/Emma

Because motherfucking Tango Korrupti

1. Who cuddles up to the other when they are cold?

My mind says Emma, because it seems like it’s been ages since her last relationship and she’s probably starved for any real, genuine touch she can get, but my heart says Richard, even if he’d deny it. He just....moves towards her while he’s sleeping until his head is tucked into her neck.

2. What do they depend on each other for?

Emma does need Richard to make the cut throat career decisions that she normally wouldn’t make but that are necessary to survive in Hollywood. Also, you can bet that when she’s sick, when she’s on her period, when she’s just in one of those moods that are less than glamorous, less than Star-Like™, Richard’s right there to cover up any tiny smudges and make it seem like everything’s normal. And Richard, for better or worse, is FIERCELY protective of her. And yes, this often goes to extremes, but he does protect her from some of her more adrenaline seeker tendencies, and in an ideal world, that would be toned down to him making her rethink it without necessarily trying to control her. And if a director ever tried to use the casting couch on her or, for example, DO a Quentin Tarantino and force her into an unsafe working condition, I do think Richard would go down their throats. Yes, he wants the money and the prestige, but he can’t get that if Emma’s hurt or traumatized. (Or, at least, that might be what he tells himself at first.)

In short, Richard can use his innate Karen powers for the cause of good.

I discuss it a little below, but, Richard can naturally get carried away and become....well, a miniature, American Napoleon. And when he does, Emma’s there to bring him down. He needs her for her star power and her glamor, yes, but he does need her to keep him in line as well. And, it’s odd, but I do feel like Richard himself might need a little bit of a break from Hollywood himself. And he wouldn’t REALIZE it like Emma would, because he’s normalized it. I don’t necessarily want Emma saving him, and I’m not sure that there IS a way to “save” Richard without utterly destroying him as a character, or whether I would be interested in Fully Normal Richard. I do suspect that he could do with some loosening up, if he was willing to take it, and if, while Emma’s trying to find that compromise between Emma Carter™ and Adele Waldvogel, she drags Richard into eating pizza on the living room floor cross-legged, that’s fine with me.

3. Who forgets everything so the other leaves notes all around the house?

They both leave notes. When they’re having an argument, they can get VERY passive aggressive.

4. Who tells the other they look beautiful everyday?

Richard. At first, Emma thinks it’s professional (Hell, RICHARD thinks it’s professional, because Richard is an utter MASTER at self deception, see: Macho Macho’s entire existence.) But then as time goes on, it’s like “....Oh, he actually. Does.” Rochard gets PERSONALLY offended if anyone suggests that Emma’s lost it as a star or that there’s anyone else that can take a role. Emma has actually gotten him to change his mind a few times by saying “Yeah, and they said that if they couldn’t get me, they would go for Florence Pugh or Charlize Theron” and Richard just goes into “How DARE they?” mode.

5. Who gets stressed out and the other has to calm them down?

They both have various ways of getting stressed out, but Richard is canonically always around one step away from an outright panic attack. She keeps a stock of paper bags on hand.

If they ever have a child....Richard outside the waiting room would be...

6. What makes them a good couple?

This is actually I struggled with, because in canon, as they’re presented, they distinctly WOULDN’T be. Or, rather, at least, not necessarily a healthy one, which doesn’t mean they can’t be entertaining to watch. Richard’s too controlling, while Emma is feeling increasingly disconnected from HER, which Richard has every interest in destroying in favor of her embracing a superficial life, even to the extent of hurting her to do it.

Now, I’m not saying this in order to ravage it, because I chose this ship for this ask BECAUSE I love it. Simply laying out why it’s difficult to pinpoint why I think that they could actually work, if you rearrange a few things.

In a world where Emma accepted the Tango Korrupti, where she didn’t get warm and fuzzy feelings awakened by the promise of brown bread and an alps skiing trip, it would be the kind of relationship where they both WORK with one another and what they want.

Maybe Emma would still fall in love with Josi in this timeline, but they would simply be incompatible, because Emma likes Hollywood, the glitz and the glam, and she can’t manage a long distance relationship with Josi at the same time. So, it comes to her career or him. And she loves him, yeah, but she doesn’t love Adele Waldvogel, or the situation that she left behind, and even though her relationship with Hollywood is complicated, that doesn’t mean she inherently wants to leave it ALL behind.

Richard’s controlling, and that’s something that would need to be discussed as far as “If I take you back on, I do my own thing. I’ll listen to your advice, but I’m my own person. Take it or leave it.” And there would be quarrels over it, when Emma wants to do something risky (Disneyland nearly gives Richard a HEART ATTACK), but they could reach an agreement. And, in that scenario, it would work, because Richard is cut-throat, he can be ruthless, and he would look out for Emma’s best interests. It would be a case of “us against the world” or, at least “us against Hollywood.” Sure, Emma could become engaged to Pablo, maybe even have a few more relationships on page after the inevitable divorce (though they remain good friends), but in the end, the one who she could really trust would be Richard. Emma herself has a sardonic edge to her, as shown in “Bussi, bussi,” where she freely takes the piss out of LA society, so I can see her and Richard standing on the sidelines to some party, making catty comments.

And Richard....I actually don’t see that he would necessarily WANT to fall in love with Emma, because she’s a client. That’s bad for business, especially when he needs to advise her on the best relationships to bring in the cash. And Richard’s top priority has always been his money. (Also, I feel like before this, Richard 100% believed he was gay and then it was like “......Bisexuality is an OPTION?”) But Emma’s smart, she’s funny, she’s stunning, and she puts up with no bullshit, and on some level, he HAS to know her better than anyone else does. (He was obviously there for her first breakup, and even though I’m not going to sanctify Richard, because he’s, canonically, a prick...I do like to think that at least a PART of his concern over her being with someone new wasn’t just jealousy or a concern over his money, but him genuinely seeing how much she was hurt.) And Richard probably has seen Emma at some of her least glamorous as well, because his job is really to invent the glamor when it’s not naturally there.

7. Who takes pictures of random dogs and sends them to the other person?

Emma sends them to Richard, who at first is concerned because what if she’s allergic? What if she wants to get one now? Where would they GET one? What about the mess? And who will let the dog out? After all, if she goes out walking with it, that gives the paparazzi a chance to swarm. Emma points out that dogs are EXCELLENT publicity.

It’s an Austrian Pinscher, though Richard would SWEAR it bore an uncanny resemblance to Josi. Emma’s thrilled because it’s just like one she used to have as a child.

8. Who laughs at the lamest of jokes?

I started off leaning towards Richard and ended up on Emma. I feel that when Emma is more relaxed, she has a much, much dorkier sense of humor, it’s just that Emma Carter™ the brand can’t really be seen laughing at lame jokes, she has to laugh at the right ones, usually said by powerful people, and not too long or too hard. I think that the sound of her own, genuine laugh actually surprises her because it’s been so long since she’s heard it.

9. Who likes to drive at night?

Richard gets very antsy when Emma drives at the best of times, though Emma will point out that people have gotten into car crashes with chauffeurs just as easily as if they’d been driving themselves. LA is hypnotic at night, lit up by all the billboards and late night places still open, palm trees dotting the roads, and it’s easy to think about how far she’s come. When SOMEONE isn’t being a backseat driver.

10. What does their bedroom look like?

For some reason, judging from what I’ve seen of Emma’s design choices as far as her clothing in the musical, I kind of like the thought of her going for black and white designs, with the black serving as a lining to the white. A FEW geometric designs, but nothing over the top.

Basically, like this, but I do see Emma having a few pink accents in there, possibly swapping out those white pillows for something in hot pink. (The poster would, obviously, be a Quentin Tarantino one.)

#odachans #1789 les amants de la bastille #afo #iafa #long post #bold of you to assume you were just getting one

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ultrahotpotato · 7 years

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I cant stress enough how much i look forward to starting on T, and getting top surgery.

I cant wait to hear my voice crack for the first time.

I cant wait to start shaving

I cant wait to look down at my chest and be happy with what i see

I cant wait to pass as a male

I cant wait to get that jawline i hope i get

I cant wait to stop getting my period. (You have no idea how wrong it feels, every freaking month!)

I cant wait to be called a boy by everyone around me

I cant wait to be a proud trans boy, who isnt afraid.

I cant wait to people making fun of my voice cracking, even if im 21 when i start on T.

I cant wait to go topless at the beach, and no one staring at me weirdly.

I cant wait to be ‘one of the boys’

I cant wait to be able to go into the mens section in stores, and not get weird stares.

I cant wait to go into a mens bathroom, and no one looking at me weirdly.

I cant wait till i find a name that i think suits me, and then having people calling me that

I cant wait to teach people about lgbt+

I cant wait to meet other people like myself

I cant wait to hear somone call me their BOYfriend

I cant wait to be refferd to as a boy, even when im not around.

I cant wait to hear my mom and dad call me their son

I cant wait to tell my story to other trans people, and hearing other stories

I cant wait to wear a dress, even after i have transitioned fully, and then rock it!

I cant wait to stop being scared

I cant wait to stop crying

I cant wait to stop hating my self

I cant wait to not feeling like this anymore

I cant wait to be happy with my self

I cant wait to be a better person

I cant wait to be more happy, so much more happy

I cant wait to get the people out of my life who arent okay with me being trans

I cant wait to set and X with male on tests

I cant wait to start growing a beard

I cant wait to then shaving it off

I cant wait to when people dont have to be scared to come out as trans, or anything else

I cant wait to all parents are accepting and supportive of their kids

I cant wait to all people re accepting and supportive of their friends and family.

I cant wait to being trans isn't something you should hide, becouse you are scared of others reactions.

I know i can do many of these things already when i havnt gotten the surgery nor started on T. But when i do get the surgery, and start on T, i know im gonna be much more confedint. Im gonna move away from where i am now, and start again, as the boy i truly am, and not someone i pretend to be.

I am so lucky that i have suportive parents and suportive friends, and im so happy. I am so freaking lucky to have them, even though im not fully out at all to everyone i know, just this little start means so much. And i cant imagine how it would be for somone without the suport. So please, if you know somone who is trans, agender, bigender, or something else, pleasure suport them. They might ask you to use a diffrent pronounce, or name, and if they do that, please use the name/pronounce they want, it means so much. And even if its a bit hard for you to remmber it, please try your best, and if you use the wrong name/pronounce, just quickly change it and move on, no need to make a big deal out of it. But just things as that can help so much, it can really mean a lot.

Being trans isnt always easy, some people have it worse than others.But i know just the smallest things, can make someone that much happier.

I my self is a 17 year old trans guy, i havnt always known that, but im glad i have figured it out. There are still a lot of things i dont know yet about my self, But for now, i know im a trans guy, i am pansexual, though leaning towards guys, so i would say im quite gay.

People figure out who they are at diffrent times, some when they are young, others when they are older. ANd that is okay, you should never force anything, and you dont have to label yourself, some people like labels, others dont. Just do what you feel comfortable doing, and dont judge others for doing the same thing.

I know i dont have a big following, and most of my folowers are porn blogs, but i just really nedded to say these things, and i will probrly reblog this post later, and probrbly also write one more or two. Happines is something that comes and goes, right now im okay, but i know that i will meet people who wont agree with who i am, and tell me that who i am is wrong, and tell me all kind of negative things, and i know i will cry, a lot more, happy tears and sad tears, beauce there is gonna be hard times and good times, and that is never gonna change, i hope it will though.

Anyways, im Ollie for the time being, a little gay trans guy just passing by. My inbox is always open, and i would love to talk to people, and learn about their experiences.

I hope you have a great day

#ftm transgender #ftm help #ftm transition #ftm #ftm advice #lgbt #lgbtq #transgender #ftm transman #transguy #help #hopes #love #top surgery #testosterone #ftm top surgery #ftm testosterone #ftm teen

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gabrielfallstonight · 7 years

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The Final Chapter

Summary: Dean vents to a bartender with some life advice, then visits an old friend for a final goodbye.

Word Count: 800

Warnings: Character death

A/N: This is just something short to prove I can actually write, lol. Look forward for more to come. :)

“Okay,” the bartender said, “what’s your story?”

“Huh?” Dean asked, the bourbon slurring his words.

She leaned over the bar, then pointed to the three - almost four - empty shot glasses. “Everyone in here has a story. Usually they’ll be in so often, I can read ‘em like a book. Or they drink enough until they end up spilling their whole life. But you… you’ve come in every day for the past week and haven’t said a word past your order.” She paused, looking Dean top to bottom. “So what’s your story.”

“Long,” he said, nursing his drink, “too long.”

“Well, I’ve got another half hour before the bar closes and we’re not exactly packed.”

He looked around. Much like the last couple nights, the bar was quiet, Dean being the first and last in.

“I’ll answer your question, if you answer mine,” he finally said.

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Fair.”

“Why do you want to know? Countless men come in on the daily, all more than happy to have a beautiful woman such as yourself give two shits about their life. So why give any shits about mine?”

“Well, beauce you’re a mystery. Like I said, I can read most anyone like the open book they are. And they’re boring- all the same story. You’ve got something more, and I’m curious.”

He thought for a moment. “Fine, okay.” Dean tilted his head back, and took his shot, the sting a familiar comfort. “I work in a very dangerous occupation. A lot of people get hurt. It’s hard to do alone, so… well sometimes I need help. I got someone very important to me involved and…”

“They got hurt?” she asked.

He slowly nodded. “You can say that. And now… I don’t think I can forgive myself.”

“Well shit.” She turned, grabbing the Jack and two shot glasses.

“Aren’t you on the clock?”

She poured the dark liquor. “You’re an exception.”

They both grabbed the glass, maybe hoping for something a little stronger, but settling for anything to numb.

A little after the glasses landed back on the table, the girl looked back at Dean. “Ever consider a different occupation?”

“Not in my cards, sweetheart. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried, but it’s like this diseases I was born with. It’s the family business, and there’s not much family left to carry it on.”

“Lemme guess, they got hurt too?”

He nodded. “More like killed.”

“Well shit.”

“But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that everyone dies. Doesn’t matter much how.”

“No, not really,” she sighed, “but it does matter how you live, and dying young kinda puts a cease to that.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, until she finally said, “You know, I used to be in the business.”

“Different business,” Dean scoffed.

She tilted her head. “Hunting. You’re a hunter, aren’t you?”

He paused. “How did you-”

“I read people, remember?” She took a breath. “My family brought me into it too, and I thought it was over. I thought I had no other life… But look at me now. Been clean almost five years.”

She used ‘clean,’ as if hunting was some kind of drug one would get hooked on. Maybe she had a point.

“I’m glad,” he said, sorrow in his tone. “But I’ve tired. Don’t work for everyone.”

And silence took the room once more.

“I should probably get goin’,” Dean said. “I’ve got one more thing to do tonight.”

“Hey, I never caught your name.”

“Dean,” he said, setting enough cash on the table to pay for double his tab.

“Sammy,” she added. “Well, will I see you tomorrow, Dean?”

He closed his eyes, trying to hide his emotion. “No, Sammy, I don’t think so. I think it’s time I moved on.”

Sammy nodded. “Just remember, it’s not too late for you.”

But Dean didn’t reply. He just walked out.

~~~

The grass was still moist from the evening’s rain, and the crisp air send shivers down Dean’s spine. But he barely even noticed, his focus was set on walking forward and not collapsing onto the ground.

After what seemed like hours, Dean finally stood ahead in front of the headstone.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I’m sorry I failed you.”

He fell to the ground, tears falling from his eyes. “I shouldn’t have brought you into this, I shouldn’t have. You could have had a life, and now… You had a chance, more of a chance than any other of us.”

He stared at the dates engraved in the stone. “It should have been me, god dammit it.” He spoke softly, regret flowing out of his mouth.

“I'm done,” Dean stated, “I'm getting out. I'm gonna go find Lisa, I'm gonna beg her to take me back, and I'm gonna live- just like you wanted…”

He laid the little bronze amulet just under the head stand. While walking away, he whispered, “I'm sorry… Sammy.”

#adam rachel #spn #supernatural #dean #dean winchester #sam #sam wincester #angst #spn angst

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grumpy-kittycas · 7 years

Text

The Final Chapter

Summary: Dean vents to a bartender with some life advice, then visits an old friend for a final goodbye.

Word Count: 800

Warnings: Character death

A/N: This is just something short to prove I can actually write, lol. Look forward for more to come. :)

“Okay,” the bartender said, “what’s your story?”

“Huh?” Dean asked, the bourbon slurring his words.

“Long,” he said, nursing his drink, “too long.”

“Well, I’ve got another half hour before the bar closes and we’re not exactly packed.”

He looked around. Much like the last couple nights, the bar was quiet, Dean being the first and last in.

“I’ll answer your question, if you answer mine,” he finally said.

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Fair.”

“Why do you want to know? Countless men come in on the daily, all more than happy to have a beautiful woman such as yourself give two shits about their life. So why give any shits about mine?”

“Well, beauce you’re a mystery. Like I said, I can read most anyone like the open book they are. And they’re boring- all the same story. You’ve got something more, and I’m curious.”

“They got hurt?” she asked.

He slowly nodded. “You can say that. And now… I don’t think I can forgive myself.”

“Well shit.” She turned, grabbing the Jack and two shot glasses.

“Aren’t you on the clock?”

She poured the dark liquor. “You’re an exception.”

They both grabbed the glass, maybe hoping for something a little stronger, but settling for anything to numb.

A little after the glasses landed back on the table, the girl looked back at Dean. “Ever consider a different occupation?”

“Lemme guess, they got hurt too?”

He nodded. “More like killed.”

“Well shit.”

“But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that everyone dies. Doesn’t matter much how.”

“No, not really,” she sighed, “but it does matter how you live, and dying young kinda puts a cease to that.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, until she finally said, “You know, I used to be in the business.”

“Different business,” Dean scoffed.

She tilted her head. “Hunting. You’re a hunter, aren’t you?”

He paused. “How did you-”

“I read people, remember?” She took a breath. “My family brought me into it too, and I thought it was over. I thought I had no other life… But look at me now. Been clean almost five years.”

She used ‘clean,’ as if hunting was some kind of drug one would get hooked on. Maybe she had a point.

“I’m glad,” he said, sorrow in his tone. “But I’ve tired. Don’t work for everyone.”

And silence took the room once more.

“I should probably get goin’,” Dean said. “I’ve got one more thing to do tonight.”

“Hey, I never caught your name.”

“Dean,” he said, setting enough cash on the table to pay for double his tab.

“Sammy,” she added. “Well, will I see you tomorrow, Dean?”

He closed his eyes, trying to hide his emotion. “No, Sammy, I don’t think so. I think it’s time I moved on.”

Sammy nodded. “Just remember, it’s not too late for you.”

But Dean didn’t reply. He just walked out.

~~~

After what seemed like hours, Dean finally stood ahead in front of the headstone.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I’m sorry I failed you.”

He stared at the dates engraved in the stone. “It should have been me, god dammit it.” He spoke softly, regret flowing out of his mouth.

“I'm done,” Dean stated, “I'm getting out. I'm gonna go find Lisa, I'm gonna beg her to take me back, and I'm gonna live- just like you wanted…”

He laid the little bronze amulet just under the head stand. While walking away, he whispered, “I'm sorry… Sammy.”

#spn #angst #dean #dean winchester #supernatural #spn angst

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fanfiction-writers · 7 years

Text

The Final Chapter

Summary: Dean vents to a bartender with some life advice, then visits an old friend for a final goodbye.

Word Count: 800

Warnings: Character death

A/N: This is just something short to prove I can actually write, lol. Look forward for more to come. :)

“Okay,” the bartender said, “what’s your story?”

“Huh?” Dean asked, the bourbon slurring his words.

“Long,” he said, nursing his drink, “too long.”

“Well, I’ve got another half hour before the bar closes and we’re not exactly packed.”

He looked around. Much like the last couple nights, the bar was quiet, Dean being the first and last in.

“I’ll answer your question, if you answer mine,” he finally said.

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Fair.”

“Why do you want to know? Countless men come in on the daily, all more than happy to have a beautiful woman such as yourself give two shits about their life. So why give any shits about mine?”

“Well, beauce you’re a mystery. Like I said, I can read most anyone like the open book they are. And they’re boring- all the same story. You’ve got something more, and I’m curious.”

“They got hurt?” she asked.

He slowly nodded. “You can say that. And now… I don’t think I can forgive myself.”

“Well shit.” She turned, grabbing the Jack and two shot glasses.

“Aren’t you on the clock?”

She poured the dark liquor. “You’re an exception.”

They both grabbed the glass, maybe hoping for something a little stronger, but settling for anything to numb.

A little after the glasses landed back on the table, the girl looked back at Dean. “Ever consider a different occupation?”

“Lemme guess, they got hurt too?”

He nodded. “More like killed.”

“Well shit.”

“But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that everyone dies. Doesn’t matter much how.”

“No, not really,” she sighed, “but it does matter how you live, and dying young kinda puts a cease to that.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, until she finally said, “You know, I used to be in the business.”

“Different business,” Dean scoffed.

She tilted her head. “Hunting. You’re a hunter, aren’t you?”

He paused. “How did you-”

“I read people, remember?” She took a breath. “My family brought me into it too, and I thought it was over. I thought I had no other life… But look at me now. Been clean almost five years.”

She used ‘clean,’ as if hunting was some kind of drug one would get hooked on. Maybe she had a point.

“I’m glad,” he said, sorrow in his tone. “But I’ve tired. Don’t work for everyone.”

And silence took the room once more.

“I should probably get goin’,” Dean said. “I’ve got one more thing to do tonight.”

“Hey, I never caught your name.”

“Dean,” he said, setting enough cash on the table to pay for double his tab.

“Sammy,” she added. “Well, will I see you tomorrow, Dean?”

He closed his eyes, trying to hide his emotion. “No, Sammy, I don’t think so. I think it’s time I moved on.”

Sammy nodded. “Just remember, it’s not too late for you.”

But Dean didn’t reply. He just walked out.

~~~

After what seemed like hours, Dean finally stood ahead in front of the headstone.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “I’m sorry I failed you.”

He stared at the dates engraved in the stone. “It should have been me, god dammit it.” He spoke softly, regret flowing out of his mouth.

“I'm done,” Dean stated, “I'm getting out. I'm gonna go find Lisa, I'm gonna beg her to take me back, and I'm gonna live- just like you wanted…”

He laid the little bronze amulet just under the head stand. While walking away, he whispered, “I'm sorry… Sammy.”

#admin rachel #spn #supernatural #dean #sam #dean winchester #sam winchester #angst #spn angst #rachel is back

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kivablog3 · 7 years

Text

The Last Elves to Leave Middle Earth

Our friends Brenda, Geleni, and Lissette have found a new apartment. It’s in the area around Third Root (http://thirdroot.org) and the Cortelyou Road train stop, which is Ditmas Park or Flatbush depending on who you ask. When I lived there in the early 90s it was the D line, now it’s the Q, which may be a good portent. It’s becoming hip, now, which may be a mixed portent.

They’re not the first people to move out of the Neighborhood Formerly Known as Slope (it needs a symbol, like Prince), and the human tendency always seems to be to go farther out along the same direction as the path to the previous homeland. For the same reason, the New England Division of the Park Slope Lesbian Diaspora runs mostly along either side of I-91, from Holyoke up through Northampton and Amherst, then through Greenfield and over the Vermont line and on up. Some Vermont villages are more hippieish than others; I used to look for yoga lesson flyers on the community bulletin boards outside groceries and so on, if I was trying to get a feel for a place. I guess now I’d just look at the local returns for the last election and compare it to the number of same-sex couples getting hitched.

There’s a train, the Vermonter, with new stops at Northampton and Holyoke and Greenfield. It goes from New York through Connecticut and Massachusetts up to St. Albans, Vermont, on the Canadian border. Not many people come that far, except Vermonters going to shop in Montréal because it’s the closest large city, and they drive. They built a shiny new international customs station for motor traffic after 2001. They all have them now. Even the odd little crossing in Maine mostly used by timber trucks, through the weird level mountain pass and into le Beauce et le Québec, that one had a shiny new customs station the US helped pay for. It’s where we had our best border-crossing adventure, just because they kept us for a little while: “Why are you attempting to bring a sewing machine into Canada?”

______

Happy Valley, they call it. In the same place as the Pioneer Valley, only bigger, like most states of mind. For years I’ve been calling it the Undying Western Mass., like the place in the Undying West where elves go in LOTR when they grow weary of Middle Earth (and Frodo, eventually; special case). The Slope, of course, is Middle Earth. The elves from the 1990s who made the Slope such a special place have been leaving for years. And our friends are the last elves to go.

Up, up, and away. If not to another state or province, then to another neighborhood in Brooklyn, some place that seems theoretically within reach of the old one but which in fact you never seem to visit if you don’t move there too. This is more or less what is happening to our three friends now, who lived on 8th Street in the Slope for a long, long time, in a rent-controlled apartment, for not a lot of money. Geleni grew up there, and thus inherited the right to the rent-control. It’s close to Prospect Park. People spend a goddamn fortune now to live on this block.

Finally, someone bought their building who wanted them out badly enough to be a total asshole and force the issue, so they finally lost their case with a bad payoff and a short move-out window. The economics of the Slope have changed to the point where their continued existence in their rent-controlled apartment has become in practice impossible. Market forces and all that shit. The landlord went to court, and at length he won.

The landlord always wins. Nobody likes the landlord. It’s one of three or four reasons that now I just say, “I’m a writer,” when people ask what I do. If they press me beyond that, I say, “I have a trans lesbian blog,” which just kind of makes most people go, “Oh,” since the concept itself has just overloaded their processor — even now, a lot of people are unaware that trans dykes exist. It has simply never occurred to them. When they think of transgender women, they probably think of what they’ve seen on TV, and we’re barely there yet at all as visible queer trans women who love other queer women (is that so much to ask for?) — then if necessary I’ll go on to, “I’m working on the outline for a vast four-dimensional translesbian memoir, parts of which could also morph into several short stories or a few long ones, I’m still not sure, really.” That should be enough to deter them. If not, I’ll reveal my property-owning identity and start talking about our plumbing problems. _____

“So, are they the last? No one will be left? No one we know lives in Park Slope, not from the Before-Time. Well, we still live here.”

“We don’t live in Park Slope,” Kathleen replied.

“Well, it’s in the 11215 zip code, it’s not quite Green-Wood Heights or Sunset Park, it’s certainly not Gowanus, not this far up…. Okay, yeah, we don’t live in Park Slope. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

They’re moving to a nice apartment in a huge building. The area was kind of awful when I lived there briefly against my will, in 1990, but now the neighborhood is in real danger of becoming trendy. At their new location, Geleni is within walking distance to her job at Third Root, Brenda’s bus route is right there for her new counseling job, and Lissette can get to work in the city easily. Emily lives near there too, she also works at Third Root, and a bunch of her friends live in her building, we are told. There are the requisite Victorian houses to renovate, and some cute restaurants now, and a food coöp, too, but one where anyone can shop, as I recall. And of course there’s Third Root to help anchor the leftish-queer-trans vibe.

It’s not quite Ditmas Park Slope yet, but we’ll see.

#trans #lesbian #trans lesbian #gentrification #happy valley #northampton #amherst #greenfield #holyoke #park slope #ditmas park #elves #middle earth

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mikemortgage · 6 years

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Bernier may be all talk, but Tories offer little more

TORONTO — The day-after consensus is that we shouldn’t take Maxime Bernier seriously.

“If you actually sit down and talk to the man, you see that other than putting on a nice suit there’s not much there,” James Bezan, an MP from Manitoba, told the National Post. “So his ability to lead a new party is, I think, slim and none.”

Bernier, a disgraced former cabinet minister from the Beauce who struggles in English, very nearly won the Conservative leadership last year. I would have thought that overcoming those odds would have required some talent and effort. However, I’ve never run for office, so let’s stick with the notion that any eastern dilettante could come within a few hundred votes of becoming the leader of the Opposition. Here’s something naysayers such as Bezan should consider: Bernier won’t have to work that hard if Conservatives keep proving his point that they are no different than Liberals.

“Proud to stand with Andrew Scheer for lower taxes, balanced budgets and free enterprise,” Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative finance critic, tweeted on Aug. 23 as the rank-and-file circled around their leader. “Justin Trudeau is the most socialist Prime Minister in a generation. We can’t afford another four years.”

Strip away the partisan hyperbole, and you are left with something that Bill Morneau, the finance minister, could have said.

Trudeau and Morneau have cut taxes. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported in July that current policies would result in a balanced budget in a decade; in other words, the government will have little difficulty keeping its promise to erase the deficit eventually. And I’m pretty sure Niki Ashton or another of the New Democratic Party’s more avowedly socialist MPs would vouch for the Liberals’ capitalist credentials.

Poilievre and so many other federal Conservatives have got in the habit of using tone and rhetoric as substitutes for policy. Given the political upheaval of the past few years, you’d think they would know better. The thread that runs through votes in Britain, the United States, France, Germany and Italy is a broad frustration with politics as usual. That frustration is expressed differently, but politicians in all of those places have channeled it successfully.

Scheer and his MPs are only alienating such voters. Arguing there is choice on the centre-right of Canada’s political spectrum is like saying there is competition in banking because one or two stay open on Saturdays.

Conservatives say they dislike the carbon tax but, until they offer a better way to confront climate change, they surely know they will struggle to be taken seriously by the majority of the electorate. Same with business competitiveness: Conservatives have a good argument when they say Trudeau is doing too little to counter U.S. corporate tax cuts, but they haven’t said what they would do differently. By the time they decide, Morneau will have tabled his autumn fiscal update, which quite likely will include various measures aimed at stoking investment — maybe even another tax cut. On trade, Scheer killed any chance for a proper debate about NAFTA by agreeing to stand with the government against the assault from Donald Trump.

No one in the Conservative establishment wants to acknowledge the federal party has become boring, of course. Stephen Harper tweeted that Bernier “never accepted” the results of the leadership vote. Harper is showing his autocratic side. Why would Bernier and his followers “accept” defeat if none of what the second-place finisher brought to the table was reflected in the opposition’s policy stance? That defies everything we know about human nature. Scheer lost Bernier and his voters by lacking the courage to offer something he might have to defend.

All this matters because the current Conservative approach contributes to policy stagnation at a moment when the opposite is required. Trudeau and Morneau can write a budget that barely mentions competitiveness and defers hundreds of millions in infrastructure spending because they aren’t required to take the Conservatives seriously. They can justifiably say they alone are qualified to confront climate change, economic inequality, and a changing international order because there are no good ideas on the table except their own.

The Liberals did it again this week, when they released a poverty-reduction strategy that amounts to things they already have done, such as the overhaul of the Canada Child Benefit. If the opposition parties had anything significant to say about this announcement, I missed it. Scheer’s big announcement was that he plans to visit India in October to “repair” Canada’s relationship, even though there is no evidence that Trudeau’s star-crossed visit caused any real damage.

And this brings me back to Poilievre. Until a few weeks ago, I considered him nothing more than a pot-shot artist. Then I read his Aug. 9 op-ed in the Financial Post. Poilievre dismissed concern over Premier Doug Ford’s decision to cancel his province’s experiment with a guaranteed basic income. “The Ontario Liberal scheme was a disaster,” he wrote. Yet he suggested he was open to talking about a basic income. “With a bad idea behind us, let’s work to find a good one.”

If Poilievre is serious, he will do more than write an op-ed. He could insist on a federal pilot project on basic income as part of a broad review of the tax code. It would allow Conservatives to say they had something to offer voters who aren’t partisans: basic income has a lot of support among academics, but is rarely mentioned by Trudeau’s Liberals.

•Email:[email protected] | Twitter: CarmichaelKevin

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2OZMGcO via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

#IFTTT #Financial Post

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usnewsaggregator-blog · 6 years

Text

New York Today: New York Today: Finding the Perfect Tree

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/new-york-today-new-york-today-finding-the-perfect-tree/

New York Today: New York Today: Finding the Perfect Tree

Photo

The holiday season is here. Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Good morning on this seasonable Friday.

As you figure out what to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers, it’s time for many New Yorkers to begin preparing for the next holiday season.

Buying the perfect Christmas tree for a tiny studio apartment or a spacious living room can feel overwhelming. So we sat down with veterans in the business to collect the best tree-hunting tips.

What tree should you buy?

The most popular tree you’ll see being sold on New York sidewalks is the Frasier Fir. This bushy evergreen has a mild, aromatic scent. “It has the least amount of needle fall, which people appreciate,” Scott Lechner, the manager of SoHo Trees, said.

The Balsam Fir is well known for its strong and spacious branches, which makes it a perfect tree for ornamentations. It’s also one of the most aromatic species. “They’re more Rockwellian, more traditional, more Americana,” Mr. Lechner said.

Continue reading the main story

The Noble Fir is the “Cadillac of Christmas trees,” according to Greg Walsh, owner of Greg’s Trees. These regal evergreens are mostly shipped from the Northwest, which makes them pricier than other trees.

Continue reading the main story

The Nordmann Fir, vendors said, is the rarest and most expensive of all Christmas trees. Originally from the Caucus Mountains, the Nordmann Fir is known for its attractive foliage and silver hue. “It’s the most elegant of Christmas trees,” Mr. Lechner said.

What’s a good price for a Christmas tree?

Average prices range from about $35 to $200.

Prices primarily vary according to the size of the tree. (The most common size for New York apartments is 5 to 6 feet tall.)

Trees shipped from the Northwest Pacific states and Canada tend to be more expensive because of high shipping costs.

And like city real estate, location matters. Sellers adjust their prices for the neighborhood they’re selling in — places like SoHo and Williamsburg tend to have pricier trees.

But you can negotiate. Vendors said it’s part of the tradition, and they’ll help you find a tree that fits your budget.

Where can you buy a Christmas tree?

Garden stores, sidewalk vendors, and supermarkets and big-box stores, like Whole Foods and Home Depot.

There are also 18 designated parks and playgrounds with vendors — like Washington Market Park in Manhattan and McCarren Park in Brooklyn.

Continue reading the main story

And you can buy trees online.

Where do Christmas trees come from?

Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania harvest the most Christmas trees in the nation. Frasier Firs sold in New York are mostly shipped from North Carolina, while Douglas Firs are largely from Pennsylvania, sellers said. High-quality sellers in New York said they also ship their trees from Canada, especially from the Beauce region near Quebec.

Here’s what else is happening:

Weather

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= temp °= temp_unit = c_high ° = c_low °

With a high near 50, it’s like the weather knows it’s time for sidewalk shopping. Now all you need is some hot cider.

Be sure to look up from your phone or shopping bags this Black Friday and appreciate the clear skies and crisp fall temperature. Saturday is looking to be even nicer, with a high in the mid-50s. Then things will cool a bit on Sunday.

In the News

• Security was prominent at this years Thanksgiving Day parade, but paradegoers seemed to mostly focus on the balloons and floats passing by. [New York Times]

Photo

The singing Christmas tree float, a new addition to this year’s parade. Credit Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

• Despite losing their homes to a fire that ripped through an apartment building in Upper Manhattan, dozens of families joined together for a Thanksgiving dinner. [New York Times]

• The Trump SoHo hotel, struggling financially, is dropping the president’s name. On a recent night, some guests embraced the brand, while others were simply there for a cheap room. [New York Times]

• A man from Sudan’s dream to move to the United States came true when he obtained a visa and settled into Brooklyn. Now he dreams of one day reuniting with the wife he left behind. [New York Times]

• After spending 28 years in prison, a Connecticut man was freed the day before Thanksgiving when he entered an Alford plea: pleading guilty to lesser charges without admitting guilt. [New York Times]

Photo

Leroy Harris, left, greeted his sister and niece outside New Haven Correctional Facility. Credit Jessica Hill for The New York Times

• The former congressman Maurice D. Hinchey, who built a reputation as a champion of environmental advocacy and blue-collar workers, died at 79. [New York Times]

Continue reading the main story

• Meet the two men who are competing for what may be the most coveted job on Wall Street: running Goldman Sachs. [New York Times]

• Nickelodeon’s relentlessly cheerful animated character, SpongeBob SquarePants, has made his Broadway debut with a $20 million musical that “explodes off the stage.” [New York Times]

• The New York Police Department named Terence Monahan the new chief of department. [New York Post]

• In a class-action suit filed against the city, a family living in New York City Housing Authority units claim their child’s health was damaged as a result of lead-poisoned water. [NBC New York]

• Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “The Cranky Fishmonger”

• For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Morning Briefing.

Coming Up Today

• Burn off that turkey with guided hikes through Alley Pond Park in Queens, Central Park in Manhattan, Willowbrook Park on Staten Island, Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Times vary. [Free]

• Join the National Park Service and Lower Manhattan Historical Association to celebrate the end of the American Revolution, with a parade, performances and more at Federal Hall and Evacuation Plaza. 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. [Free]

• George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker” returns for the season with performances by the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center, through Dec. 31. 8 p.m. [Ticket prices vary]

Continue reading the main story

• Laugh off your Thanksgiving leftovers at “Decorative Soap: The Truth is in the Turkey,” a soap opera-themed comedy show at the Peoples Improv Theater Loft in Chelsea. 9 p.m. [$7]

• Nets host Trail Blazers, noon. (YES). Islanders at Flyers, 4 p.m. (MSG+). Devils host Canucks, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Rangers host Red Wings, 7 p.m. (MSG 2). Knicks at Hawks, 7:30 p.m. (MSG).

• Alternate-side parking remains in effect until Dec. 8.

• Weekend travel hassles: Check subway disruptions and a list of street closings.

The Weekend

Saturday

• Check out the Holiday Train Show, a display of model locomotives zipping through famous city landmarks, at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. [Prices vary]

• The Brooklyn Holiday Bazaar brings local vendors, food and drink, live music and activities to 501 Union and the Green Building in Gowanus, Brooklyn. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., through Sunday. [Free admission]

• Take a Thanksgiving kitchen tour, where you can learn about colonial cuisine while tasting some old-world recipes, at Historic Richmond Town on Staten Island. 1 to 5 p.m., through Sunday. [$8]

• See the musician and singer Oscar D’León, “El Gigante De La Salsa,” in a concert at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx. 8 p.m. [Tickets start at $50]

• Islanders at Senators, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Devils at Red Wings, 7 p.m. (MSG+2). Knicks at Rockets, 8 p.m. (MSG).

Continue reading the main story

Sunday

• Children can jam out to the music of Bob Marley during a family-friendly concert at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg. 11:30 a.m. [$12]

• A choir and symphony orchestra perform “Messiah…Refreshed,” a modern take on Handel’s “Messiah,” at Carnegie Hall in Midtown Manhattan. 2 p.m. [Ticket prices vary]

• … And the New York Eastern Symphonic Orchestra plays a concert celebrating Albanian Independence Day at St. George Theatre on Staten Island. 7 p.m. [Tickets start at $50]

• Looking ahead: On Wednesday, TimesTalks hosts an advance screening of “I, Tonya,” a film about the scandalous American figure skater Tonya Harding, followed by a conversation with the actor Margot Robbie and director Craig Gillespie.

• Jets host Panthers, 1 p.m. (FOX). Rangers host Canucks, 2 p.m. (MSG). Nets at Grizzlies, 6 p.m. (YES).

• For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.

And Finally…

Photo

A Manhattan tree market in 1903. Credit via Library of Congress

How did Christmas trees first pop-up on New York City sidewalks?

It is long believed that a woodsman from the Catskills by the name of Mark Carr was the first to sell Christmas trees in New York — in 1851. A couple of weeks before Christmas Day that year, Mr. Carr loaded two ox sleds with “thrifty young firs and spruces” and headed for the city, according to an 1878 New York Daily Tribune article.

He paid a silver dollar for the right to sell his lot of trees on a strip of sidewalk at Vesey and Greenwich Streets in TriBeCa. His evergreens quickly sold out. He returned the next year and other peddlers followed his lead, establishing the prosperous holiday sidewalk tree industry.

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By 1880, more than 200,000 trees were being shipped to New York each year.

In the 1930s, the former Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, seeking to reduce street peddling, established regulations that would require vendors to apply for selling permits. After much public outcry, the City Council in 1938 adopted what has been called the “coniferous tree exception,” which allows vendors to sell and display Christmas trees on a sidewalk without a permit in December as long as they have the permission of owners fronting the sidewalk and keep a corridor open for pedestrians.

The rule has brought flocks of vendors from across the country and the pleasant smell of pine trees to New York City ever since.

New York Today is a morning roundup that is published weekdays at 6 a.m. If you don’t get it in your inbox already, you can sign up to receive it by email here.

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What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at [email protected], or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

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You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com.

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margridarnauds · 5 years

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A, F, G, M, S, T, V

THANKS AVERY.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Yakety Sax for Goosefic.

Alright, seriously? It’s totally not like I have a playlist or something stored anywhere, because that would be insane, right?

Illuminated by Hurts - Ah, Ça Ira. “Time waits for no one/So do you want to waste some time/Oh, oh, oh, oh/Tonight?” AKA “Ronan realizing that he might not make it back the next day and trying to get Laz to come to bed and reconcile with him, not necessarily because he wants to SLEEP with him, but because he wants his boyfriend there with him. “Swim with your sorrows/And try delusion for a while/It’s such a beautiful lie” Lazare frantically scribbling out his justifications on the paper, even though he has to KNOW that Artois’ going to abandon him and it’s going to be worthless. “Suddenly my eyes are open/Everything comes into focus/Blinding” GENERALLY I get Laz vibes from this line, with him gradually realizing how important Ronan is to him and that some part of him WANTS the new world that Ronan was, but the last few lines also work for Ronan’s (unstated, in-text, but there in canon) decision to charge in front of du Puget, realizing that he HAS to save Olympe from being orphaned like he was.

Either Dream of Sky (Dancing Line OST) or Forbidden Friendship (HTTYD OST) - Le Cri. Both of them have that sort of tentative, new feeling where things start out so soft and with that kind of innocence but as time goes on, it becomes so much MORE.

I’ve Seen Hell (North and South OST)/Ashes (Celine Dion) - Pour la Peine. I’ve Seen Hell is one of my go-to Period Drama songs, but I LOVE how it has that bleak feel while also not being COMPLETELY bleak and miserable, there’s that idea of PUSHING through in spite of it. And Ashes also kind of has a similar vibe, as far as openly asking how...there can be any GOOD after that kind of devastating tragedy (even though a part of me will always seen Ryan Reynolds doing interpretive dancing to it, tbh). Ashes is much more...RELIGIOUS in bent than Solène generally goes with, but I think it WORKS as far as that general feeling of despair and abandonment that she starts off with “Every word shot down in flames/What’s left to do/With these broken pieces on the floor?/I’m losing my voice/Calling on you”

Wicked Game - Personally, I favor it for A Pressing Matter, though it really works for Peyronan in general. “What a wicked game/To make me feel this way/What a wicked thing to do/To make me dream of you” AKA “Peyrol’s ENTIRE thought process when he realizes that, against his own judgement, he’s gotten attached to Ronan and that that’s a MAJOR weakness.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I have. So many WIPS that I’m DYING to release soon. One is very obviously the Fairy Tale AU, which I’m very pumped about. There’s the one that’s just called “Madame Roland is a Lesbian” that I’m excited for. At some point, I’m going to have to expand the Abomination and the Verse it encompasses, stretching from where we start off in the Beauce in 1777 to at LEAST the early 19th century, possibly into the 1840s.

Between the Waves is going to get a LOT more added to its Verse, hopefully. I already have at least two WIPS that are partially finished and give a little bit more context to things that are happening in the next few chapters, one from Olympe’s perspective on the pre-canon events that stretches to the post, one from Artois’ on some of the events of PLP, and I either have an Afterlife AU, a Reincarnation AU, or both to wrap it up, possibly with us ending up where we began. (No, not on Marat’s printing press.) I’ve also toyed with fleshing out a little more about how Peyronan got to where we see them in A Pressing Matter, to round out the series. Either way, though, I do intend for this to end up being a VERSE, not necessarily just one or two stand-alones. There’s a lot that’s...going to pop up here or there that I INTEND at least to expand on. I rarely like to leave things HANGING like that.

There’s also the Peasant Lazare AU which, even though it’s basically a laughing stock among my friends IRL at this point, is still very important to me and I’ve never fully given it up.

I’m definitely going to expand the Ripples in the Rockpool Verse, HOPEFULLY dipping more into the historical events that are happening around this time and a little more on how the OT3 ended up where they get to be in Back on the Shore.

There’s a Vampire AU that I’ve been toying with back and forth, and I STILL haven’t given up on The Zombie Apocalypse AU, though I’d like to focus on that one more when I have a fewer WIP count and I can more thoroughly outline it. Also @lehetsz-kiraly and I have toyed around with a Superhero AU that I would 100% like to see get off the ground, and I also am totally planning on toying with the TN crossover as time goes on. I obviously have no idea....WHEN or HOW, but it’s somewhere nebulously on my To-Do list.

And, of course, the Disneyworld AU. One day, I will finish it.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Honestly, I think the drabble challenge was a GREAT opportunity to throw myself into a variety of things that I NEVER would have considered before. I’ve gone from EXCLUSIVELY writing 1789 and Irish Mythology stuff to really working with anything that really vibes with me, which has been VERY exciting. And, between Le Cri, A Pressing Matter, and Back on the Shore, I’ve gotten several things that I’ve been talking about and tossing around for YEARS on the page and out there in some form or another. I’m still going to stick around 1789, of course, that’s still my BABY, but I really got the chance to work with a lot of things I’d have never normally have thrown myself into and had the chance to toy with my style in a way that I normally wouldn’t.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Oh God, there’s ONE THING that I WANT to write the meta for but SPOILERS. That I don’t even know if it’s SPOILERS anymore. (I should honestly get into the habit of asking people “SO WHAT DO YOU THINK’S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW” like a thirteen year old who’s just uploaded their first Wattpad fic, but alas). But, since I’m working on PLP at the moment, have this:

No, she gets no sleep tonight, her eyes locked on the bayonets as they gleam in the moonlight. She lays and waits and thinks.

Several hours later, a shot rings out in the dark. All the demons of Hell break loose, the only thought on Solène’s mind being that of another night, another volley of shots.

They mean to massacre them all.

The Queen has changed the King’s mind again and they will all be killed.

Every part of her knows it, screaming in her mind as they make their way for the Queen’s quarters, all else, all other thoughts disappearing.

A panicked voice asks them what they think they’re doing and another voice, she doesn’t know if it’s hers or one of the women with her, replies, “We’ll cut off her head, rip out her heart, fry her liver, and that won’t be the end of it!”

They are done with this, done with the queen, and they will take whatever they can get.

They have endured too much pain at this point to just curl up and die.

This wasn’t a fight they wanted to begin, but if it was a fight they needed to survive the night, they could give it to them.

They could give and give and give as they had always done, all of their lives.

A few guardsmen try to stop them, but they disappear beneath the wave of bodies flooding the palace. One of them breaks free, runs and pounds on the door, his bloodied hand staining the expensive, gilt wood as it slams against it before he’s tossed aside. “Save the Queen!”

A door slams ahead of them as they reach the room, the room itself is deserted, except for one woman who rushes in front of them all.

“I am the Queen!”

Solène recognizes the voice even before she can see her in the light of the torches, still wearing the clothing that she’d worn the night before, and she freezes.

So, for this section, I ripped a LOT from the historical record, as far as the threats the women made on the life of Marie Antoinette, the guard slamming on the door, the shot in the dark panicking the mob, BUT I also actually did look up at least one article on mob mentality to try to understand HOW someone would get involved with something like this. And the first thing I focused on was the INDIVIDUAL getting pushed aside in favor of the group. And the main way I ended up TRYING to get that to show through was in Solène’s reaction.

At first, she starts off as a singular: “She lays and waits and thinks” “The only thought on Solène’s mind,” etc. But then, immediately AFTER that, as the panic sets in, she becomes a PLURAL, “They mean to massacre them all” “They will all be killed,” “they are done with this” “they have endured too much.” And it really reaches its height when they enter MA’s chambers, as she doesn’t even know WHO is speaking. It could’ve been her, it could’ve been the woman by her side, likewise with the guard who’s severely hurt (also, the “wave” of bodies, going back to the overall theme of water that’s there in PLP). She doesn’t know, because at this point, they’re one whole body acting out at the same time. (There’s one brief point where Solène becomes a “her” again, but it’s only to say that her brain is NOT necessarily...its usual self, “all other thoughts disappearing,” which repeats what she’d also said when the shot first went off; she’s very much acting on INSTINCT here.)

When does she become Solène again? When Olympe runs in front of her. She and Olympe are not a Thing per se, not at this point, even though Solène’s recognizing that she’s “a little bit in love with her,” but Solène does care enough for Olympe that she was able to be snapped out of it. In the chapter that I currently have sitting in my drafts and that SHOULD be published in the next day or so, there’s a bit where Olympe questions whether Solène would have continued on if she hadn’t been there. Solène says that she doesn’t know, because to HER this unlocked a part of herself that she didn’t really know was THERE, the kind of radicalism that she tends to associate with Ronan and the other revolutionaries (ESPECIALLY Maillard, who is kind of Ronan-By-Proxy here as a vanqueur of the Bastille who is ultimately ineffective when it comes to Solène’s complaints.) Personally? Even though I fully leave it up to interpretation, and everyone’s free to say “No, you’re wrong,” I wrote it with the idea that Solène probably would have done a Hell of a lot more harm had Olympe not been there.

This is also fully intended as a parallel to Peyronan. (”NO, RACHEL, PEYRONAN ARE A THING? I HAD NO IDEA! THE SPOILERS!”) Both Peyrol and Solène had the same choice in this chapter, at its core: Their goal at hand, or the person they love. Peyrol let the army and his loyalty to the Monarchy get the better of him, Ronan ended up paying the price for it, and, as we see both at the funeral and at the trial at the beginning of the chapter...Laz is BROKEN by it. Solène doesn’t realize why he’s broken and even doubts that he is, because she doesn’t have the perspective, but...LOOK at him. He is not doing Well. He didn’t gain anything from what he did. In a snap-second decision, he chose his career and decades of indoctrination over Ronan, and he ended up losing both. Solène chose to break out of it and save Olympe, even if she was personally endangered by it. It doesn’t mean that one loved their person more than the other one, but it DOES mean that they get very different results. There’s a climb to the light for Laz as well, I’m not going to just...LEAVE him, but it’s going to be much, much longer than Solène’s.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

I’ll be honest: I know I have (2) Official Smut Fics to my name now, but I honestly don’t FEEL like anything I’ve written’s particularly SEXY so much as Describing Sex. This isn’t me being a Pretentious Literary Author who Does Not Write Porn, oh no; it’s that I genuinely don’t believe that what I write...qualifies as “sexy”. That being said, despite being only 100 words, “Honey Plunged Into Water” is probably the sexehiest. Which is hilarious because it’s also the kind of thing I would NEVER have written otherwise. There is one...unpublished fic for A Passage Through the Light that features Madame Roland/Marie-Anne that is....very, very gay and is probably honestly the sexiest thing I’ve ever written even without them actually doing the do.

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

Earn Your Happy Ending, the question as far as the difference between society and what someone’s been conditioned to be like VS the individual, uncertainty, unease, that question of how much you really CAN know someone else, that general feeling of the calm before (or even during) the storm and how people can find intimacy then. There’s a lot of the gothic element there as far as the past, and the people who were THERE in the past, never really being...GONE from the narrative. Like, one way or another, they have the tendency to come back, whether it’s as a literal ghost or whether it’s just their skeleton buried underneath a tree somewhere.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

This is painfully predictable, but I THOROUGHLY enjoyed every second of writing Forgiveness. To this day, it’s probably the ONE piece of Peyronan stuff (besides Fowl Play!) that I’ve written where I’m, like, 95% happy with the final result, which is REMARKABLE for me. I really, really loved getting to WORK with their relationship and what makes it WORK at the heart of everything, the progression of it, the gradual increase in intimacy, the way they come to have that moment of “We’re in this one TOGETHER,” and an ending that’s HOPEFUL even though there’s still the ever-present promise of the Revolution in the background. All of that is a LOT of what I tend to like in my Peyronan to begin with, so it was really fantastic to just get that all out on the page. It’s one of those moments where I just want to gesture all over the page and go “THESE TWO LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH” even though they still have their bickering and their petty little moments.

Another one that’s a WIP but that I feel’s far enough along to actually TALK about is the Fairy Tale AU (It has a name, but I tend to feel like announcing its name is jinxing it and I DO desperately want to get it out soon) and...it’s not my usual writing style, it’s not my usual way of doing things. There are some things that I do there that I wouldn’t necessarily do in a usual, realistic fic because it’s a FAIRY TALE that’s being given the 1789 treatment. It was really, really interesting to get to work with some of my favorite fairy tales, see some of the ways they’ve been told and retold throughout the years, especially looking for the ones that focus on commoner protagonists, elements of the gothic and dark fantasy mixed in there with the light. I’m not really that USED to getting to go wild, so it’s been a lot of fun to have one project where the research is less on the minutiae of 18th century life and more on...like....the similarities between the Italian and the Breton versions of The Travelling Companion folkstory.

#janetcarter

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