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sourwormsaresour · 3 years

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La Squadra Names

Based on this naming convention post I responded to and a few headcanons about the members sprinkled here and there added in.

Risotto Nero ➡️ Dante di Nero

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Named after biological mother and aunt’s biological father, Dante Ferraro I.

Last name came from adoptive uncle’s side.

Family Background:

Most of the biological mother’s side of the family originated from the Piedmont region. Biological father’s side came from Sicily.

Family traces back to Sicily and Armenia, although there is no more connection to the latter.

Biological parents currently live in Sicily. Risotto and his immediate family resided in Turin.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Name chosen by Sorbet and Gelato when initiated. Was given a list of names and picked the first one that caught his eye.

Became Risotto Nero after being promoted to leader of La Squadra.

Immediate Family Info:

Grew up with his adoptive aunt, uncle, and younger cousin.

Cousin’s name was Alberto di Nero. RIsotto picked it out himself when he was five.

Sorbet ➡️ Alessandro Versace II

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Named after his father and hoped to carry the family name.

Preferred to be called Sandro by his closest peers and teammates. Most still call him Sorbet out of respect.

Family Background:

Family came from Calabria, Italy but have long history of family members being from Sicily.

Part Greek and Sicilian on his father’s side by descent.

Immediate family lived in Calabria until they had to move to Sicily when they became poor.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Name was chosen by the mafioso that recruited him to Passione.

Original code name was Granite di Versache before stepping down as senior member of La Squadra.

Immediate Family Info:

Grew up with a father and mother. Was an only child.

Had a dog name Dolce as a child but gave it away when his mother became too sick to care for it.

Gelato ➡️ Fabrizio Rosso

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Named after his mother’s late half-brother, Fabriano “Rico” Cavallaro.

Was nicknamed “Pazzo Rico” as a kid for how crazy he was willing to go to get what he wants.

Unknown whether the surname comes from his mother’s side or father’s side.

Family Background:

Both parents claim their respective families came from Sicily, Italy, but there are no historical record to confirm or deny it.

All surviving family members had in Sicily all their life and no one ever thought about leaving their region alive.

Majority reside in some run-down neighborhood sprinkled around the region.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Name was chosen by Polpo when he was inducted into Passione.

Original name was Affogato Rosso before stepping down as senior member of La Squadra.

Immediate Family Info:

Grew up with a father, mother, and 12 younger siblings. Only 7 of them would be alive or not missing by the time Gelato was 18.

Remaining siblings are named Stefano, Leone, Noemi, Oscar, Carina, and Carlo. Carina and Carlo are twins and Noemi was part of a set of triplets.

Stefano and Noemi are Gelato’s full siblings while the rest are half-siblings. He still regards all as his full blood.

Ghiaccio ➡️ Ghiaccio Francescon

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Originally went by Ariana Bianchi before transition. Named after his mother’s favorite opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue.

Never got a chance to choose a new name as a male so he stuck with his code name instead.

Last name was mother’s maiden name. Original last name came from his step-father.

Family Background:

Part Venetian on his mother’s side. Biological father’s side is unknown, though rumored to be of French origin as well as Italian.

Step-father came from Florence but grew up in Venice before meeting Ghiaccio’s mother.

Family mostly lived all around the world, depending on what they needed to train for, but their home is based in Rome.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Name given to him by Risotto when he joined La Squadra.

Ghiaccio personally asked Risotto for one and immediately took the name to heart ever since.

Immediate Family:

Had a biological mother but raised by step-father after she passed away. Biological father was ex-husband that his mother divorced before Ghiaccio was born.

Grew up with step-father and older half-brother. Half brother’s name is Amadeo Müller. Last named belong to previous ex-husband before Ghiaccio’s biological father.

He later became known as Secco under Cioccolata’s control.

Illuso ➡️ Isidoro de Spagnola Fernández

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Simply goes by Isidoro by his friends or just Illuso to his teammates.

As a designer, he went by the moniker ISI, due to it’s seemly symmetrical appearance, and signed his work as such.

Follows naming convention where both surnames are used as part of his name. de Spagnola is his father’s surname and Fernández is his mother’s surname.

Family Background:

Immediate family immigrated from Spain so parents can pursue their art careers.

Overall family history goes as far as a noble family of Castille that started marrying into the royal family before eventually off-shooting from the Habsburgs in the 1500s.

Only a few distant family members have remained in Spain. Others, like Illuso’s immediate family, have moved to other places around the world.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Moniker was eventually used for his mercenary alias and eventually evolved to become the name Illuso.

Wanted to stand out from the other “food-based” code names.

Immediate Family:

Grew up with a mother and father as well as two older siblings. Mostly raised by older siblings due to parents’ negligence.

Older sister and brother are named Catalina and Hugo respectively.

Prosciutto ➡️ Francesco di Aiello

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Given by his mother because it sounded regal and “Hollywood” enough to possibly make it big as an actor.

No one knows his real name is Francesco except for Pesci during a night of excessive drinking. The latter was sworn into secrecy afterwards.

Takes on mother’s surname but has considered changing it for various reasons.

Family Background:

Mother’s family came from Campania and history goes as far as that. Biological father is unknown but rumored to be from Rome or Sardinia.

Moved around a lot in Rome to avoid getting evicted.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Name given by Ghiaccio after noticing how the Stand’s abilities resembles the moisture being sucked out of pork when making Prosciutto.

Initially was skeptical about the name reasoning but went with it anyways.

Immediate Family:

Grew up with a single mother and half younger brother. Younger half brother’s name is Cassio Montagna.

Biological father left the family after Prosciutto’s birth, despite promising to help raise him.

Cassio left home shortly after witnessing Prosciutto kill their mother and became his biological father’s legitimate son soon after.

Neither brothers have seen each other since. Cassio refuses to acknowledge Prosciutto, despite the other trying to reach out whenever he can.

Formaggio ➡️ Massimo Umbro

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Named after actor Massimo Serato, who his father was a fan of.

Grew up struggling to pronounce his name and ended up earning the nickname Mo for a while. Absolutely hates that nickname now and will beat you up if you call him that out of nowhere.

Was nicknamed “Il Surcieddu” as a kid by an old visiting Sicilian man that he tried to pickpocket.

Family Background:

Both sides of the family come from the Umbria region, father was from Perugia and mother from Terni.

Family history goes back to the 1000s from farmers residing in the area. No one in the family does farm work anymore.

Family is full of cousins and distant relatives that either live in Umbria or Sicily.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Came up with the name Formaggio as a joke but stuck with it. Was actually eating cheese when he came up with it.

Tried to get his teammates to call him Gio as his nickname instead but it never happened.

Immediate Family:

Grew up with a mother and father, alongside 6 other siblings as a middle child.

Older brothers are Mattia, Gabriele, Lorenzo, and Tommaso. All of them passed away right before Formaggio decided to change his life around and become a line-worker at a factory.

Younger sisters are Guilia La Porta and Sofia Orsatti. Both have already married and taken their husbands’ names by the time Formaggio first met La Squadra

Pesci ➡️ Luca Passalacqua

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Named by his grandparents. Parents wanted to name him Andrea but were ordered not to.

Pesci has debated on whether to be called Andrea instead ever since he joined La Squadra.

Nicknamed Lulu by Sorbet and Gelato.

Last name dates back to an old merchant family known for foreign imports during the Renaissance.

Family Background:

Both families come from Portofino, though they have some family history of being from Venice and Milan. However, his grandparents’ controlling nature makes it hard to confirm or deny facts beyond what they’re willing to say or fabricate.

His father’s side has established a successful fishing business for years, even centuries, under that name.

Mother’s side is mostly unknown to Pesci, since she was adopted as a child and grew up in Portofino.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Given the name Pesci after a member commented about his background in the fishing industry.

Stuck with it after Prosciutto mentioned it was a good name to have.

Immediate Family:

Grew up with his father, mother, and paternal grandparents. Was an only child

Parents struggled to conceive him and pressured to so by grandparents. Pesci always asked for a sibling and never understood why he never had one until he joined La Squadra.

Melone ➡️ Ezio Romana

Reasoning Behind Real Name:

Parents literally chose a random name that would be simple yet memorable in an academic setting.

Considered changing his last name to his late wife’s in memory of her.

Family Background:

Family history is unknown beyond being Italian. No one on both sides really bothered to track their heritage. Most members live around the world in various countries.

Only knew that parents used to live in France and Germany before moving to Italy in order to pursue their education and careers, and may be French or German too.

Lived in Rome his whole life until he moved alone to study at Polytechnic University of Milan.

Moved to Turin briefly for work before going back to Milan to pursue his doctorate and new job.

Reasoning Behind Code Name:

Had a habit of signing his letter E sideways, making it resemble the letter M.

Illuso suggested choosing a name that started with an M and the name Melone stuck ever since.

Immediate Family:

Grew up with a mother and father as an only child.

Had a late wife named Vittoria “Tori” Ann Shelly, a student from England he met during a work event and eventually was a classmate of his during their doctorate program.

Melone refuses to talk about ever since she passed and will get terrifyingly angry if pushed to do so.

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skarsgard-daydreams · 3 years

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Rules of Engagement

Description: In the adult section of a video store in Shreveport, Louisiana, Eric and Pam are baffled by the merchandise.

Note: Mild spoilers for Eric and Pam’s backstory. HUGE thanks to @stevesharrlngtons for helping me brainstorm. And to @grandpa-sweaters. Also, if you want to be tagged in my historical Eric and Pam stories and drabbles, do let me know. I am compiling a list.

Warnings: 18+, lots of sexual implications

Shreveport, 1986

The fluorescent lights flickered to life overhead as Eric and Pam paused at the bottom of the stairs to survey their new business. Rows of VHS tapes lined the walls just as they did in the room upstairs, except these ones seemed... off-brand. Pam's eyes, rimmed with thick black liner, landed on a case depicting a topless redhead who seemed to gasp as Freddy Krueger's bladed hand reached for her tits.

"Wet Dream on Elm Street," she read aloud.

Eric's footfalls echoed on the concrete floor while he circled the room. The pink light from the neon sign reading CLASSY CO-EDS threw strange shadows on his face.

"This is..." he began, but he couldn't find a word in any language glum enough to finish the sentence.

"Depressing?" Pam offered.

"Mm."

Sandwiched in the gap between Ghost Thrusters and The Sperminator was a display of cheap plastic sex toys of all shapes and sizes. Each one seemed stranger than the next.

Eric arched a skeptical brow. "What is all of this?" he asked. Whenever the vagaries of the modern world eluded him, he relied on his younger companion to explain.

She pressed her frosted lips together into an expression of disgust. “Cheap sex toys for lonely housewives and men who have never seen a real pair of tits,” she said, flicking a pair of rubber breasts that were attached to a dismembered torso with a hole in the bottom of it where a man could pleasure himself.

It was Eric’s turn to look repulsed. What kind of a man needed a contraption like that? He was pondering the question when Pam switched on a vibrator and glanced at him over her padded shoulders. “We had these in my time,” she said in a dry voice. “Doctors used them to cure women of hysteria.” A small smile played at her lips. “I had hysteria a lot.”

Eric tsked in mock disapproval, but he grinned a little as though secretly proud of his progeny’s deviousness. He picked up a red riding crop with a little silicone heart at the end of it and furrowed his brows. “What’s this supposed to be?” he asked, slapping the tip of it against his open palm. “A fly swatter?”

Pam took the crop from his hand and examined it herself. It made a satisfying whoosh as she swung it experimentally, smacking Eric’s arm just below where his black sleeve cut off to reveal his bicep. He didn’t even blink.

“That feels like nothing,” he said. “Hit me as hard as you can.”

The cold smile on Pam’s lips turned deadly. She drew her hand back and whipped him with the riding crop with all her might. There was a loud cracking sound, and the flimsy handle bent in half upon impact. Eric glanced down at his bicep, which bore no marks. “It’s like getting kissed by a mosquito,” he observed.

“What a shame,” Pam said, her flat tone masking her sincerity. “I liked having it in my hand.”

“I could tell.”

Above a glass case full of plastic dildos hung a movie poster for Little Shop of Whores. Pam was searching for the key to the cabinet on the keyring the Magister had thrown at her yesterday. She heard the ratcheting of handcuffs behind her and glanced back to see Eric tear a fuzzy pink pair in half like tissue paper. “You’re ruining the merchandise,” she remarked. The madam within her was always concerned with profit.

“It’s all so flimsy,” Eric said, tossing the ruined handcuffs aside. He glanced around the room, frowning at the low-quality of the items on display. “I know a blacksmith who can make real shackles.”

“I don’t think our human clientele would be interested in the real thing.” Pam’s heels clicked on the floor as she stooped to pick up after him. “They like the illusion of danger.”

Eric sighed. “How boring.”

Pam found the key to the cabinet and took out one of the plastic dildos, turning it over in her hands. Her maker looked at her as if she was handling dog excrement. “Do you remember that craftsman on Crete who made those exquisite hand-carved phalluses?” she asked wistfully.

“Hmm,” Eric hummed in approval. “We could sell those.”

“Somehow I doubt there’s anyone in Shreveport, Louisiana who would pay the asking price for one of his masterpieces.”

“I would not have expected anyone to pay good money for this—” Eric paused to hold up an inflatable doll with a suspicious looking hole in her mouth. “—yet here we are.”

Pam’s long eyelashes fluttered as she blinked several times in stunned silence. “Well...” she said, gathering herself. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

Eric discarded the doll and ran his fingers through his hair. He was amused, but tension pulled at the corner of his mouth, and Pam was suddenly acutely aware of the events that had brought them to this swampy hellhole. She knew he blamed himself both for their circumstances and the loss of his lover. She needed to keep him distracted.

“Can you guess what this is?” she asked, tossing a strap-on harness at him. He caught it instinctively and furrowed his brows as he studied it.

“I have a theory,” he offered with a chuckle. “I can see you’ve used one before, with your girlfriends.”

Pam’s lips curled into a smirk. “And with men,” she said. She took a step closer to him and raised her chin to look him in the eye. Eric lifted both brows in surprise, but the tension in his face melted away with his astonishment.

“Pamela, you surprise me,” he said. He sounded almost proud of her.

“Maybe we could try it sometime,” she added as calmly as if she were asking him to test out a new restaurant.

Eric scoffed. “What, with you wearing this?”

“You certainly don’t need it,” she said evenly.

Several expressions passed over his face before it settled into a mixture of confusion and arrogance. She folded her arms and considered him, puzzled by his reaction. In all the time they had been together, there had been many nights when he’d gone off with a man rather than a woman. Why did he balk now? A few tense moments passed before the realization hit her.

“You’ve never experienced the wonder of the male prostate, have you?” she asked, her voice devoid of judgement. Eric said nothing in reply, but the expression on his face told her that she was right. “Does it go against your Viking code,” Pam continued, “to be on the receiving end?"

"It was not..." Eric paused, searching for the right word. "...seemly."

"Since when do you care if something is 'seemly' or not?" Pam asked. It was the kind of question that could sound insolent, but her tone was mild and her eyes shined with encouragement, as if to say, come on, live a little.

Eric considered her words silently, his blue eyes calculating. "And this is something you would enjoy?"

"Oh, yes," Pam said with a deadly smile, her fangs suddenly appearing. "I would enjoy it very, very much. Almost as much as you."

A long pause stretched between them. Eric passed the harness back to her and cleared his throat. "Anything to make you happy."

@stevesharrlngtons @scxrsgxrd @skrsgardspam @lihikainanea @hausofobsession @dreamtherapy @grandpa-sweaters @castiellawolfkissed

#eric northman #pam de beaufort #historical eric #historical pam #true blood #my writing

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albertserra · 3 years

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All of this negativity is not meant to clear ground for a recuperation of The Sergeant. Not exactly. This is no neglected gem, because a) its historical importance means it has gotten more attention than most films of comparable subtlety, coherence, and wit; and b) it has almost no subtlety, coherence, or wit. What then does it have, and why think about it?

It has, simply, a core of power, a nagging substance that even its own foolishness cannot quite erase. Most of that power and substance (and not a little of the foolishness) radiate from Rod Steiger, who manages some masterly effects while giving the overall impression of bulldozing his character into the ground. As Callan, he is alternately ferocious and bagged out, either wound up or depleted; his fury is unproblematically convincing, but his show of soldierly bonhomie is demented, and his heartbreak as stylized as a ballerina’s swoon. Yet for everything that seems misjudged, for all the too-muchness of the performance, not for an instant is it less than fascinating, less than alive. Kael suggested that Steiger was cast only because his renown as a gifted actor-impersonator would assure the public that he (and hence the character) wasn’t “really” gay. While that may indeed have been the moviemakers’ intent, it ignores what had always been Steiger’s latently pansexual talent: no actor of his generation combined such stout male physicality with such delicacies of expression, voice, and movement. The outrageously epicene Mr. Joyboy in The Loved One (1965) saw Steiger playing freely with feints and flickers of body and voice that had been visible since the fifties, not only in the (implicitly gay) Hollywood studio boss of The Big Knife (1955), but also in roughneck characters like Jud in Oklahoma! (1955) and the title gangster in Al Capone (1959).

[...]

In the late sixties, [...] he worked at developing, or merely pushing, his worst tendencies: mannered virtuosity, battering-ram intensity, a wasteful worrying over every picayune mental or emotional process. (“He gives you too much for your five cents,” Sidney Lumet said of Steiger, who he directed in 1965’s The Pawnbroker.) But these performances have interest as a study in a great actor’s unapologetic defiance of good taste and rational proportion to make a style out of objectionable traits.

[...]

But it may be that Steiger’s lack of restraint takes us closer to “the farthest extreme of wretchedness” than we’re accustomed to in acting; that what makes us squirm is the unusual empathy we are being asked to summon in order to see this man as a human being; and that when we ask an actor to delineate pathos and pain with exquisite degrees of control, we may in fact be asking for a seemly, aestheticized distance from the very emotional truth we claim to be seeking.

[...]

At the sound of the gunshot, he sighs in resignation; another doomed faggot has bitten the dust.” Actually, the ending is somewhat different (as opposed to the novel’s ending, which more closely conforms to Russo’s description, but is complicated by the open-endedness of all that has preceded it). It’s true that Swanson doesn’t try to stop Callan from carrying out the inevitable. But instead of resignation, his face shows a dawning torment not remotely like any expression it has carried thus far. Hearing the rifle’s report, Swanson stares in its direction for a few seconds; then looks down and takes a step or two away; then stops, turns, and stares again at the woods. Law’s face looks blasted, flayed, as if somehow the gun has gone off inside his head. Far from shrugging off the demise of “another doomed faggot,” Swanson seems caught in a moment of life-changing realization.

— Devin McKinney, Looking Back: The Sergeant (1968)

#the sergeant #rod steiger #the whole article is a really really really good writeup if anyone is interested

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espressotw · 4 years

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The Need for Ethical Brainwashing

Historically we've seen dramatic changes in thought, culture, and politics that shaped the word and the future of humanity relatively quickly. Events like the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and even the psychedelic movement of the 60's demonstrated society's ability to pick up new systems and new worldviews and in doing so, designing a new way of life for our species around them. But none of that comes close to what humanity faces now. Change of that level is simply incomparable to the change on our horizon. With the exponential growth of computing power and various technologies, ranging from biotech to deep learning to quantum processing, we find ourselves faced with the potential to wake up in a world damn near incomprehensible.

At the same time, we are seeing many relics of the old system beginning to fail us. American democratic processes are being called into question, threatening the 150 year streak of relative domestic peace that the country boasts. While China and the US grapple for global economic dominion, India and Brazil threaten to displace the global balance of power. The year 2020 has been a roller coaster of international events that make the stomach churn.

The more interconnected our world becomes, and the more connected we become as individuals, the more our stories must be able to line up. It is no longer feasible for us to fight a battle between American democracy and Chinese communism; clearly neither is creating a widely healthy and successful populace. Both have severe pitfalls, as well as distinct advantages over the other. Beyond that, neither has had any real success in tackling the impending ecological crises that threaten our very existence, they being only a portion of the existential threats that we face as a species.

In such a fragile state we find ourselves on the cusp of discovering and inventing technologies and systems that could change life in such profound ways that it's really difficult to even imagine. AI and machine learning alone could (and already has) drastically change the way society operates. Combine that with DNA sequencing technologies. Combine that with nanotechnologies. Combine that with a deep understanding of fundamental physics and chemistry; the very building blocks of matter. The possibilities only multiply with every step we take. How much could we really change life as we know it?

With this massive influx of information and capability, we must redesign our own nature to be able to discern and to act in a responsible manner, or any one of these new technologies could end up where the older ones- like nuclear power -nearly brought us: mass extinction. We need to take our discussions of ethics and accountability to a much deeper level, and fast. Thus we have a need for what Hanzi Freinacht terms meta-narratives. In his own words:

"When a multiplicity of things explode all at once, in a multidimensional crisis-revolution, our linear models of the world rarely work out – they cannot take on so many different variables (and variables with qualitatively different properties) and their mutual interactions. But that does not mean we should refrain from attempting to understand the times we live in; au contraire, we have even greater reason to analyze society and to try to see the deeper patterns that connect in the chaos.

We need directions, but these directions must necessarily be of an abstract, open-ended nature. We don’t need cookbooks; we need general ideas on how to create good cookbooks, so to speak. We need stories about stories. Meta-narratives.

In circumstances such as these, it is only seemly to anticipate corresponding changes of the political system and how society functions in daily life. Indeed, to ignore the necessary adaptations of political, cultural and psychological development in the face of a multidimensional crisis-revolution would be highly irresponsible. In order to take responsibility we must use an intricate understanding of psychology – the science of the human soul and the behavior of the human organism – to develop social technologies that address the deeper issues at hand." (The Listening Society)

I argue, and Hanzi would undoubtedly agree, that public education has already established a large-scale and surprisingly reliable brainwashing program. We can argue about the truth of that statement in another essay, because it's really not worth my time to prove what should be obvious right now. But the fact that we have yet to acknowledge this as a society means that the ethicality of it is questionable at best, and more likely horrifically lacking. So instead of arguing about weather or not our education system is brainwashing our children (it is), we ought to get on with discussing how we ought to be brainwashing our kids. And we must use every resource in our grasp to do so, because they are growing up in a world where their adulthood is not guaranteed, and if it is, it will be a world unlike any of us have ever experienced. To brainwash them into a dead system is what it sounds like: grooming them to die.

As a last word, I want to clarify that I do not hold a grim view of the future. Actually I'm quite excited. I dream of the amazing things that I and my posterity will be able to experience. The potential of DNA technology, AI, and space travel are exhilarating and frighteningly realistic. But life has exactly one most fundamental function: to solve problems. And right now, that might demand all of our collective will to accomplish.

Written 17 Nov. 2020

Hanzi Freinacht is a philosopher and the author of several books including The Listening Society and Nordic Ideology. He is a leading voice in the realm of Metamodernism.

#Metamodernism #Ethics #Society #Hanzi #Philosophy

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elanorpam · 4 years

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#spam mail #hilarity #bookoo effectiveness imbibe #i mean it's the same text twice with slightly different engrish #but who cares it's twice the trip

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chiseler · 5 years

Text

The Long, Sad Death of the NYC Newsstand

Up until 2003, New York’s newsstands—those charmingly ramshackle wood-and-aluminum sidewalk constructs where scurrying commuters could grab a morning paper, a pack of smokes and the new issue of Leg Show on their way to the train—were all privately owned and operated by the scruffy characters who inhabited them. All a would-be news dealer had to do was fill out some forms, give the city a check for $1000, and in return they’d receive a two-year license. The license gave them rights to a location, but the costs of building the stand and operating the business was the responsibility of the new owner. That said, within zoning regulations, they could do what they wanted with their stand: paint it whatever garish color they liked, design it after the Taj Mahal, sell Ju-Ju powders along with The Irish Times and racing forms, and keep all the profits at the end of the day. They even, under certain circumstances, maintained the right to sell the newsstand and the license if they so chose. All that changed in 2003, but I’ll get back to that. It was hardly the beginning or the end of the city’s war on newsstands, a war which began soon after newsstands became such an iconic part of New York’s sidewalk landscape.

If we can accept Hollywood films as providing an accurate historical record, ad-hoc open-fronted newsstands had been a familiar and welcome part of daily life in New York since at least the first half of the nineteenth century. Most, again if we accept the Hollywood myth, were owned and operated by gruff but lovable cigar-chomping midgets or preternaturally wise blindos, colorful outsiders who inevitably knew far more about what was going on than what was reported in any of the periodicals they sold. Newsstand operators were the eyes and ears of the community, knew everyone, and acted as invaluable sources for cops and reporters in search of tips. Especially the blind ones.

We may have no choice but to accept the mainstream studio version, as historians seem flummoxed when it comes to pinpointing exactly when or where the first of New York’s newsstands appeared. All they can say for certain is that the hundreds of newsstands that dotted street corners and subway stations across the five boroughs were modeled in function if not form after similar news outlets which had been commonplace in England, France and Italy since the late eighteenth century. But there is at least a small kernel of truth to the mainstream studio version, if you’ll allow me an aside.

For over half a century, thanks to a program spearheaded by the NY State Commission for the Blind, a handful of the city’s newsstands—in City Hall, the King’s County Courthouse, and a select few subway stations—were designated to be run by blind operators exclusively. It seemed a more humane alternative to forcing the blind to sell pencils out of a tin cup. Whether or not these blind news vendors acted as infallible informants for newspapermen and the cops is unknown, but the program was an extremely popular and desirable one within the blind community, allowing those lucky enough to take over a newsstand to earn a living wage. Unfortunately the program was so popular that in the early ’90s I was told the waiting list was so long it would likely be twenty years or more before I was set up in my own operation. Now I have to imagine the wait is even longer, but more about that later, too.

By the late nineteenth century New York’s stand alone sidewalk newsstands had evolved into their iconic form: a shack, usually painted green, constructed of wood and metal, with a low shelf along the front to hold bundles of newspapers, another shelf above that to hold candy and other snacks, and open window through which the proprietor conducted business, with cigarettes and magazines displayed on the wall behind him.

As beloved and essential as the newsstands became among New Yorkers, they’d always had a rough go of it. During the newspaper wars of the 1880s and ’90s, when competing papers quite literally battled each other in pursuit of higher circulation numbers, it was often the newsstand operators who caught the brunt of the violence. If, thanks to personal political leanings or, more often, a little monthly handout, a news vendor opted to carry The World, say, and not The Herald-Tribune, he might find himself beaten bloody by Herald-Tribune deliverymen, his newsstand torched or bombed. A similar fate often also awaited those vendors who, out of respect for the First Amendment or a sense of egalitarianism, refused to play favorites by foolishly carrying all the city dailies.

Not long after the Newspaper Wars were resolved, the city took up the fight to make your average news vendor’s life miserable. In 1911, the city prepared legislation to get rid of newsstands altogether by revoking the owners’ licenses, arguing the stands blocked foot traffic. Newsstand operators banded together against the threat. In a public hearing, the Newsdealers Association President William Merican told members of city council, “Why, there are some men who cannot eat their breakfast without a newspaper. Think of the women in the crush of the subway and elevated. They are exposed to every kind of indignity and hardship. They buy newspapers to make them forget their misery. If the public cannot get their newspapers on the street, they will find the inconvenience intolerable.”

The mayor was swayed by the argument, and the proposed legislation was shelved, at least for a little while.

A decade later in the early Twenties the NY Times took up the fight to do something about what the city’s wealthy and powerful considered an eyesore. Citing the Municipal Art Society’s plans to design polished modernist newsstands that would blend organically with their surroundings, the Times wrote “Why should the sidewalk news stand remain in the architectural class of the squatter’s shanty and the chicken coop? Why shouldn’t it be beautiful or at least not offensive to the eye?”

What the Times clearly didn’t realize was that by then, and over the decades to come, news vendors were not only designing and decorating their stands to reflect the personalities of the owner and the community, but selling things catering specifically to the neighborhood. You can’t get more organic than that. A Financial District newsstand served a different clientele and purpose than one in the East Village, and one in Park Slope served a different clientele and purpose than one in Flushing. (Well, at least that was the case in the twentieth century, even if it isn’t anymore.)

A number of newsstands, especially in the outer boroughs, evolved into mini community centers, with folks from the neighborhood hanging out with the owner to catch up with the news and each other. Some vendors gave their stands unique paint jobs (in some instances adorning the sides with murals), others hung Chinese lanterns or installed awnings, while still others abandoned the standard shack format altogether for more architecturally interesting designs. Despite the general perception, virtually no two stands were identical.

Ignoring (or more likely unaware of) this, the city pushed ahead with their efforts to beautify the stands,. In the ’50s and ’60s the city began once again drafting plans and sponsoring contests with an eye toward replacing the glorified chicken coops with sleek and uniform metal and glass designs, but none of their efforts went anywhere. Beyond that, there were the seemingly bi-annual efforts mounted by city council and various morality watchdog groups to ban the sale of porn. Every time the city pushed on this issue, the newsstand operators once again pushed back, arguing that porn sales represented a huge percentage of their annual profits, and by taking that away, the city would be putting them out of business.

In 1987, Hudson News was founded. Hudson News was an international chain operation, essentially the Taco Bell of storefront newsstands, whose slick and jazzy neon logo quickly became a familiar sight in airports and train stations across the country. It seems Hudson News represented exactly what New York officials had been looking for since the turn of the century. After grabbing spots in Penn Station, Grand Central, JFK and LaGuardia in the early ’90s, Hudson News and the city both took aim at the newsstands in the subway. Suddenly it was argued that the newsstands which had been there forever were not only obstructions to commuter movement, but blocked police sight lines on the platforms as well, preventing them from stopping crime. It was an insane argument no one had brought up before, but it worked. Before long, a number of the old subway newsstands were replaced with stand-alone Hudson News kiosks. The ironic thing of course, is that the Hudson News stands were much bigger and brighter, presenting even more of an obstacle to commuters and cops alike. But they were much nicer looking and covered with neon piping, so that was okay.

For the moment anyway, the sidewalk newsstands were safe.

Then along came Rudy Giuliani, The new Law and Order mayor who made his own bid to get rid of New York’s newsstands. Along with his efforts to scrub the city clean of porn, Giuliani argued the newspapers sold at these stands sometimes blew away, adding to New York’s litter problem. The only solution, as part of his Quality of Life campaign, was to get rid of the newsstands altogether. Once again the vendors and their customers alike pushed back.

Although Giuiliani was able to clean up Times Square and Coney Island, by the time he left office those sloppy newsstands remained steadfast, and New Yorkers were still wandering knee-deep in scattered fluttering pages of The Financial Times and The Guardian.

It took his successor, Michael Bloomberg, to do what Giuliani couldn’t. Always with a mind toward the tidy and seemly and sterile, Bloomberg had long found the city’s newsstands an eyesore. In 2003 he signed what was called The Street Furniture Bill. As he put it, the aim of the bill was “to rationalize the streets of the city, where right now it's a hodgepodge of unattractive things.” The quote says a lot about Bloomberg, how he perceived New York, as well as how and why NYC turned into Des Moines.

With an eye toward faceless uniformity, the city cut a deal with the Spanish company Cemusa to design not only clean and pleasant newsstands, but matching public toilets and other bits of street furniture as well. Soon, it seemed, Bloomberg would have his dream, and wherever you went in New York, it would look just like every other part of New York.

Four years later, the city began seizing those ugly hodge-podge newsstands away from their longtime independent owners, people who had in some cases owned and operated their own newsstands for forty years or more, replacing them with identical steel and glass boxes decorated with enormous digital ads. In a blink, those faces you saw behind the newsstand windows were now mere employees, and all profits from those digital ads went straight to the Cemusa company.

By 2009, over 200 old newsstands had been removed, replaced by 300 sleek and shiny boxes with those goddamn digital ads all over them. But by then it was a moot point. With the internet killing off newspapers and magazines, and with everyone staring dead-eyed into phones instead of picking up a copy of the Daily News on the fly, newsstands themselves became all but irrelevant. As quickly as those slick and flashy boxes appeared, they began to vanish. Nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find a sidewalk newsstand anywhere in New York, though there are still a few in the subways and train stations, where Hudson News is still king.

In a final and ironic insult, in 2013, long after most of New York’s newsstands were nothing but a grubby and fading memory, every last one of them operated by Angelo Rossitto in a newsboys cap, the city spent an estimated $90,000 on a new newsstand design to replace the one which had been in the lobby of the Brooklyn criminal courts building for over forty years. As that had always been one of the stands set aside for blind operators, the primary goal of the new design was that it be blind accessible.

Once completed, it was discovered this fancy new newsstand, which had been designed with absolutely no input from a single blindo, let alone the one who would be working there, was not in the least accessible, and so had to be scrapped. The city then dumped even more money into yet another design, but by then it was too late. No matter how popular and valuable that State Commission for the Blind program was, the New York newsstand had gone the way of the dodo, making the hubbub over the blind-friendly design for the Brooklyn courthouse irrelevant.

I can’t help but suspect the city’s alleged good-hearted move to do something decent for the disabled community (one member of it, anyway) in fact cloaked a deeply cynical effort to deal out one last fatal blow in the century-old effort to do away with newsstands altogether, making the city that much less interesting.

Well, they got what they wanted, though aesthetics aside, the more conspiratorial sections of my brain still wonders what was really behind the push.

.by Jim Knipfel

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olicity-fanwork-exchange · 5 years

Photo

For: @mel-loves-all

Hi Mel, I hope I do this justice. I see you like the supernatural world with magical historical love. I took inspiration from the Underworld movie without the vampires. Not much of a dabbler in soulmates/empathy stories; I wouldn’t know where to begin. So, I mixed some werewolf love, wolf-like pups, Oliver and Felicity around their last moments of their pregnancy with Mia. Hope you like.

- @cruzrogue

For everyone else: General Rating. Here is the synopsis:

Oliver comes home from a jog while also preforming a perimeter sweep. He finds that Felicity while due to have their daughter has befriended two large stray wild dogs that could pass off as wolves. The female is also pregnant which makes the whole ordeal crazy. Felicity shrugs at the dangerous factors as she’s been reading a supernatural love story about a werewolf pack where the Alpha male seemly is in love with a human.

The werewolf series stars: Jonah – Meglaine – Lorrelle(human)

Dogs names: Fido and Frida

Typos/grammar are my own! Hope you enjoy!

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Heavy breathing. Cutting through the thick woods.

A foot imprint left against the soften mudded side off a small creek behind the wooden cabin as the runner in sweatpants looks around to not see the large wolf like creature tracking him since he first started his daily early morning jogs. The dated paw prints telling him that it hasn’t been around this section of the land since their introduction. Maybe seeing a human had it scurry off and it makes the man inspecting those tracks sigh in some relief.

Hearing the swirl of leaves scrapping against the rugged terrain until some become airborne Oliver looks at the scene as nature shows the power it holds with just a gust of wind. Taking another glance at the old paw print almost the size of his hand he starts his jog back to the cabin. Time to make a healthy breakfast even though it will accompany fruit loops or lucky charms or some other sugary cereal that his bedmate will require other than the egg whites he plans on making anyways.

Cutting through the woods back onto the small path he makes it back quickly just to stop in his tracks as he sees the approaching view. The beating of his heart increasing tenfold as he takes in the scene that could come out of a horror film. Two large wolf-like-dogs surround Felicity. He’s planning on running at them. Maybe even being lucky to tackling one of them giving his wife time to get to safety. As long as his wife is safe, he’d do anything.

Before he is able to put his thoughts into action, he hears his wife’s laugh. He stops to reassess the situation and notices that both animals are now heeding to his wife’s command. Maybe these large what might be dogs aren’t so wild after all? Still being cautious he keeps his distance not wanting to spook them while Felicity’s hand is quite close as the smaller of the two canines sniffs her hand.

When the opportunity comes, he calls out to Felicity. Felicity looking up from the two fluffy four-legged grey-white crossbreed dogs as she holds her smile seeing that her husband has come back from his morning run.

“Morning Oliver.” He makes small calculated movements towards them not knowing anything other than meeting the larger one since his first jog around the perimeter of the property.

“Felicity, why don’t you go back inside.”

“Why? I want to introduce you to Fido and Frida.”

Oliver looks at the hounds as they seem to be as startled to his presence as he is to theirs.

“Felicity! Please its dangerous to be out here.”

Felicity gives him a weird look but does do as he asks. She begins her ascent up the stairs to the back deck of the cabin. The female dog is right behind her as Frida nudges her human companion up the stairs.

“Okay, okay. I know I’m wobbling but unlike you I’m using my two legs.”

Oliver doesn’t know what to make of that conversation she is having with the dog. He has another set of eyes that are locked onto him. Needing to pass Fido safely and then Frida to get inside. He has many questions regarding how she met them and he’s trying to keep his emotions in check as he moves away from these larger dogs once he knows Felicity is safe with a closed door between her and her newly acquired friends it seems.

As he enters through the front door placing the keys onto a dish. He walks hurriedly to find his wife rummaging around a cabinet for her breakfast cereal.

“Do I want to know how…”

Felicity stops him midsentence as she turns her head slightly from the cabinet, she feels like having chocolate flavored cereal today. “Before you start. Met them when you went out for supplies that day it was raining.”

“That was almost a week ago.”

“I know.” She shrugs as she finally turns towards him with the chosen box. “I saw how you handled that raccoon in the garbage. Knew you’d be way to overprotective.”

“You’re nine months pregnant Felicity. Keeping rabid animals away from you seems like a good idea.”

“Oliver, I’ve been cooped up in this place like Rapunzel. No WIFI. Barely a working TV station and I only have the small selection of books the previous owner of this place found alluring.”

“I thought you were enjoying that werewolf series you found.” Oliver gives her a sweet smile, “We will be getting the whole technological hook up just putting together the blueprints and what we will need.”

“I am. But I hate this damsel situation very much so.”

“Fine. I can understand your frustration. Look you have pointed out I’m not the one carrying a soccer field around with me. But eating healthy…”

She moans and gives him her famous pout she wants chocolate cereal to whatever else he’ll make for her. “Well she is a kicker, and let’s add gymnast.”

“Fine.” He can’t argue with her when she keeps using the magic pout with him. “I’m making some add-ons to that measured bowl of sugar you seem to live on.”

Felicity shrugs as she knows she’ll have to eat some of that fruit and protein he’ll push on her.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Days later, Felicity has her head against one of the plush pillows her husband made sure for her to have. She’s sitting out on the deck with Fido by her feet. Oliver just finished building a little pen for Frida to place near the fireplace where they are expecting Frida to have her pups.

His reluctance to have these wild animals around is short lived as his wife would find ways to spend time with the pregnant dog. The moment he sensed it is a losing battle he took them both to a local veterinarian place to have them checked out. Indeed, Frida is also at the last stretch of her pregnancy.

Learning how daring his wife is in befriending these dogs had his blood pressure rise up at how crazy the whole thing is and how she didn’t even think twice about her and their baby girl’s safety. It drives him mad that she can reason things like her welfare and good nutrition off like secondary concerns.

Felicity replaying her story to her husband a little differently than actual events as he finds himself sitting, pacing, looking at her with trepidation, and finally just back to sitting and allowing her to finish the tale. He tries his hardest to not interrupt her story.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

-Flashback

The day started relatively normal like most days so far…

It starts with him leaving her cozy in bed as he heads into town to get supplies. Oliver went out to stock up their pantry.

Felicity can’t wait to meet her baby. If not only to get more mobility. She aches sitting down, standing up, and even when laying down. Luckily, she’s had a relatively easy pregnancy but she can’t wait to see her feet again.

Oliver left her in bed to read another chapter or two of a love-story between a handsome werewolf and a human doctor who is figuring out slowly that the mysterious stranger she met is different. The description of the woman named Lorrelle fits all the facts of what is considered attractive but Felicity just doesn’t connect with this character as she seems dull and impressive but she is the destined love of the handsome Jonah Wilde the male protagonist of the book. As Lorrelle keeps finding herself in his world and danger seems to follow this female she meets a young quirky female that is written to support both of these characters in having it lead to an epic romance. Jonah using his friendship with Meglaine to help hide from his love interest what they are for who could love a werewolf. Putting the book down, Felicity slowly frees herself from the bedcovers as she feels an appetite for yesterday’s leftovers. Hopefully the yummy food hits the right spot so she can head back to bed and read some more.

Now standing before the fridge looking at the remnants of last night’s meal. Oliver and his MasterChef production the man decided to make meatloaf and being she’s been talking about chicken cacciatore he seemly added it to the menu. She knows he has been as bored as her but the excitement of meeting little Mia is an overwhelming feeling that practically drums out all the other things in their lives.

Taking out the rest of the meatloaf because as much as she enjoyed the chicken yesterday the smell of the meatloaf has held her senses since seeing it just sitting on the third shelf in the fridge since grabbing the milk for her Lucky Charms hours before.

Grabbing a plate and placing a generous portion to be nuked in the microwave she smiles while rubbing her round belly.

“Mia we are so lucky daddy is such a great cook.”

Just as she places it into the microwave oven, she hears scratches against the outer door and pauses. It’s quiet for about a minute until the scratching happens again and she knows she shouldn’t but her curiosity always gets the best of her and she looks out the cabin door window and sees an enormous fluffy white dog she assumes is a dog scratching the exterior door. The levity of how the rain isn’t as heavy as it was merely when Oliver left her in the cabin. The drizzle light pinging of water as it hits against the wood on the deck while glimpsing the poor animal’s wet fur her heart constricts.

Not thinking much of it she takes a piece of the meatloaf and cuts it into pieces. She isn’t crazy to just open the door. Oliver would kill her if the enormous white dog hurts her or their baby metaphorically, she thinks. In actuality he would most likely read her the riot act of crazy things we don’t do. He wouldn’t understand seeing an animal in need truly pulls at her heartstrings and how could she just turn away from helping another soul that is suffering. No. It would be outrageous not to help. Isn’t that the basis of how they fell in love. Helping others while becoming friends, partners and eventually into lovers. Besides she doesn’t think the dog is dangerous or rabid he or she just might be hungry and here she is bound for gluttony is about to eat more than what she really needs.

Speaking at the door knowing the dog is hearing her. “Hi, are you hungry?” She only hears more rapid scratching against the frame. “Okay, I’ll take that as a yes.” As if on cue the dog barks.

She opens the top part of the high Dutch door and slowly gives a piece of the meatloaf. “Are you a girl?” No movement as the fur ball happily sits waiting for another piece she has in her hand. “Okay. Boy?” and when it barks, she lets out with a laugh. “Boy it is.”

Letting another handful fall she sees he doesn’t catch it into his mouth bet lets it drop onto the deck. He isn’t eating it and Felicity raises an eyebrow wondering what he is doing. With its nose he drags the meat to the edge of the deck and allows for it to fall. “Okay.” She mutters to herself knowing that asking the dog why he did that would give her no answers.

Observing him tears fill her eyes suddenly catching the collar on him, it looks like he’s outgrown it. “Poor boy. You don’t have a home.” She realizes she doesn’t have a home too as she also ran away with Oliver. Unable to be safe in Star City. Tears fall freely and she just looks at the poor dog that probably needs affection to.

Hearing a sudden howl that matches her cry that is not coming from the white bundle that sitting on the deck observing her. Becoming alert to there being at least another dog outside. Maybe she should close the door and wait for her husband. All this could be more than she can handle. Though the little whines coming from under the deck make it hard to do just that. She can’t be a cold-hearted woman to potentially another wet, cold, hungry doggie. She waits a little longer and she feels she made the right choice as she sees the smaller of the two damp dogs limping making itself known to her as the bigger dog runs down the steps towards his friend.

Felicity can hear the little whiny sounds from the smaller dog and without thinking she grabs the plate of food and the kitchen towel and goes outside. At first the bigger dog growls at the human who is up on the deck looking down. Felicity can see how much the larger dog cares for its companion as he’s nudging the smaller dog back under the covering of the stairs that is keeping it semi-dry.

Grabbing a small handful of food, she drops it. “Here sweetie.” The smaller one chomps it down. She alternates between throws as each dog has a piece. When she runs out of food she wonders if she should get more but decides against it. Heading to the door she hears a bark and looks down the stairs as the smaller one starts hopping slowly towards her.

He stops just a stair away and Felicity can see it too has a snug collar. Letting out praise “Good boy.” It gives the weary dog courage to climb up one more step to sniff her shoes. Slowly she brings out her palm and lets him sniff it.

Seeing the most beautiful grey-blue eyes looking at her. She decides that maybe a few more edible treats are what these two needs. She pets the top of the head and tells him she’ll be right back. Opening the door and knowing that there are a few meaty meals in the fridge she makes short work of getting it ready for the two sweet pups that are now sitting on the deck.

She finds out the smaller one isn’t a boy after all as she cuts the tightened collar that probably hurt this sweet girl. Looking at the little name tag as she reads, “Frida” she looks at into those mesmerizing eyes looking back at her. “Hi Frida.” The dog licks her face.

It takes a bit longer to convince Fido that taking the collar is a good idea. His is starting to embed itself into the poor dog’s neck. “Oh, poor Fido. But now you’re free.” As she stands up slowly from her position, she feels fatigued so she wishes them well and goes inside. Shortly after the rain starts picking up again and she hopes they are somewhere safe.

She changes into what she can and lays back onto the bed. Oliver is due back soon. Closing her tired eyes, she dreams of two happy fluffy white fur-balls.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Coming home Oliver places the supplies on the counter and wants to check on his wife. He misses her and seeing that she is okay will make him feel better. He knows he’s been mother hen and hoovering around her making sure she gets all the needed bed rest. Basically, keeping her off her feet. She grumbles and is always telling him she can handle it but it’s so cute how she tries to even get off the bed without his help. Her large belly betrayers her as she tries to prove her point and he keeps his wit constantly trying hard to keep a smile for gracing his face so she doesn’t get grouchy.

Moving around the bedroom as he tidies up, he checks her forehead to see if it’s warm. He wasn’t expecting her to have damp clothes sprawled around the floor. With her still sleeping soundly he just gives her a light kiss and goes back to the kitchen to unpack.

Taking the cold items from the bag and pulling the fridge door handle he begins moving items to make room when he sees the two platters, he made last night that are almost empty. “What?” He doesn’t expect both the chicken and the meat dish to be almost empty. He moves to open the dish washer and sees the newer dirty plates. He can’t believe she’d eat that much. “Okay.” Though he has caught her eating junk food in alarming rates so it isn’t impossible he thinks. Shrugging he continues putting the products away.

She wakes to catching him talking to their unborn child. It is the purest of moments when he does this. The words he says are full of hope and she can hear a longing in his voice to hold, to love, to protect fiercely. She is truly lucky to have this journey with a man who has such a deep rich heart. She knows that he knows she is awake but he makes no movement while he is still in a whisper-like moment with his daughter sharing a secret that only he can hear. As his lips lightly kiss her belly where his daughter is making her presence known he finally rises up enough to reach Felicity’s lips for a sweet peck.

“Hi.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay. How was your trip into town?”

“Uneventful. Mrs. Baker says hi.”

“That’s nice.”

“Just nice? Maybe I should take back the freshly made mint chocolate ice cream she made for you.”

Felicity’s eyes widen with excitement. “She made me ice cream?”

“Yes! She also told me her daughter will be back in town tomorrow to check up on you.”

Felicity nods she likes the midwife enough and her mother Mrs. Baker is a sweet older lady that has been helping out since they arrived here.

“I want Mint chip.”

Oliver grins as he thinks to himself how lucky he got to have such a precious woman in his life. “Okay, a scoop of ice cream it is.”

“Ah…”

“Just one scoop before I make dinner and you’ve already had a feast this afternoon.” She gives him that puzzled look. “Half the chicken is gone and only a small portion of the meatloaf is left. I know you can eat but that was a lot of food. We don’t want a tummy ache, right?”

She waves her head no but she’s hungry. She barely ate any of that meatloaf or chicken as she entertained her guests. “Umm… about that?” She thinks maybe telling him would be a bad idea especially after the whole raccoon debacle of her husband chasing a raccoon away with a broom. Oliver seriously thought about getting his bow if Felicity didn’t talk him out of how ridiculous he was being. He moved the outside garbage barrel away from the house as a happy medium. “Umm… sure one scoop be fine. What do you plan on making for dinner?”

“A pot roast, do you have any requests?”

“No that sounds good so how about that ice cream?” Giving her another kiss before he goes on his way.

-End Flashback

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

As she finishes the story Oliver is by her on the extra chair on the deck.

“I now know why you were disappointed that there wasn’t going to be enough leftovers. I honestly thought you didn’t like the dish.”

“I’m sorry you went into overdrive to make another meal. Even when I said that dinner was delicious.”

“Felicity, baby we can’t omit things to each other just so one of us doesn’t get riled up.” Oliver moves to her oversized lounge chair making sure she comfortable in his arms. “There is going to be a million and one things that could set us both off just in raising Mia. We need to be a united front. I’m all in with you. We are a team, right?”

“Right. But…” She can hear him hold his breath waiting for her to go on. “But, it’s just hard to disappoint you. You’ve been this strong rock for me and making you worry is the last thing I want to do.”

“Felicity, I know the feeling.” He takes her hand into his squeezing it lightly. “Though right now you’re very passionate and yes a little careless for my tastes.”

“See even when you’re scolding me you keep from saying I’m a hormonal mess.” He shakes his head at that but is happy she didn’t add the weight portion of her deprecating mumbles.

“I love you so very much.”

“Love you too.”

“Now let’s get you back in the house. I think Frida will have her pups tonight.” Looking at the female dog who hasn’t left the box he’s made as she is licking her backside.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

After the third and final puppy is born. Oliver pets Frida. Frida’s has been accommodating to the humans cleaning her babies. Even with Frida being smaller than Fido, she is a very large Czechoslovakian Wolfdog and Oliver took the time to read as much about this breed. Having such large prey animals near his pregnant wife made him nervous. Learning their temperaments because Mia is his primary concern. He knows Felicity trusts his word and if he thought these two wolfdogs pose any dangers at any time that he’ll have no problem sending them all to the pound. Felicity jokes that once they’ve assimilated into his everyday life and he falls in love with them he’d do his hardest to protect any newcomer into his family. She may be right. He is a big softy when it comes to family.

Felicity hands him the last cleaned puppy to be placed back into the litter of greyish-white cuteness. “Wow! They’re so big already.” Making a face. “Ouch.” Thinking of when she’ll be at this stage giving birth to her own daughter she asks, “Do you think Mia’s head will be huge?”

Oliver looks from Frida now licking her babies to his wife. “I think she’ll be proportional to a normal baby her size.” He takes the now extremely dirty towel from her as she begins to pull the gloves off, he had her wear. “And no. She won’t be a puppy or some hybrid werewolf she’ll be a good mix of us.” He looks at her giving him that dubious look. “Felicity, neither of us are canines no matter what that weird site says.”

“Yea, yes I know. I just been reading way too much into that world.”

“Maybe when I go to town tomorrow, I’ll get some non-supernatural books for you to read. Maybe a fair maiden and her hunky mate in some historical romance series.”

“That’s sweet but I need to continue reading about Jonah Wilde. I’m half way in and fully invested. Though I’m not really feeling why he is in love with that doctor. She’s so one-dimensional.” She gives the gloves to him to toss out being that she’s having a hard time trying to rise from the comfy armed chair.

“Let me just get rid of these and make sure there is plenty of water for Frida and make sure Fido isn’t going to barge in and disturb us all.”

“He’s been quiet since he became a father. Maybe you should have a talk with him.” She looks at him shaking his head in bewilderment but nods knowing doing this will make her happy.

“Okay, but before I handle Fido, I want to make sure you’re comfy in bed. You’ve had an adventurous evening and I know you must be exhausted.” Filling a water bowl, he brings it close to where Frida can get to it with ease. He isn’t tired but he can’t wait to just wrap his arms around his wife but that is usually after she falls asleep. He’s found that going to bed together Felicity has a harder time finding the right position to sleep. She places to much emphasis on making sure he has some room that it’s just easier for her if he isn’t in bed and just sitting there listening to her babbles before tucking her in.

“Okay.” She struggles a little before his strong grip helps her up as they move slowly to their room. “Mia’s also been quiet tonight. I guess maybe my excitement for the new pups exhausted her.”

“Maybe.” He makes sure she is steady on her feet before letting her go. “I do hope she’ll be a good girl tonight and let her mom sleep throughout the night.” He hears Felicity make a ‘pfft’ sound indicating the moment she gets into a nice sleeping rhythm her daughter will make sure that her existence is known.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

An enchanting amber color of the flames radiating from the fireplace casts the only light in the large room where Frida sleeps alongside her pups. With the occasion cries of her babies they feed and sleep an ongoing process since being born a few hours ago.

Just a few feet away Oliver finds himself moving his hand to stop the soft caress against his face. Moving his head slightly as the pillow he used to sleep on slides further away. He came here when he just didn’t want to disturb his wife from a fitful sleep. No matter how much the term bedrest is used it seems his wife just couldn’t find tranquility to fully get the rest she deserves. Seeing her finally looking peaceful he couldn’t disturb her. That may be due to all the excitement of Frida having her litter and how much the dog allowed her human companions to clean and welcome each new pup to the world. Seeing his wife so happy put him at peace.

Sharing a few words with Fido last night as the dog decided to hang with him and not keep Felicity company. The dog watched his human host throw a blanket and one pillow near a wall that observed the new instant family of five. Oliver’s face meets with a cold hardwood floor. Groaning as he makes an unintelligent noise while waking up to a furry tail brushing his head every once in a while.

“Okay boy.” Oliver swats the furry tail from hitting him again. “We need to learn boundaries.”

“Does that mean we are keeping them?” Felicity’s voice is heard coming from the hallway. Fido excitedly already leaves Oliver’s side to the human he seems to prefer. “Hey boy.” Oliver is right behind Fido as he stops the dog from leaping to lick Felicity in the face.

“No! Down!” sighing loudly. “Felicity what are you doing out of bed?”

“I noticed my husband wasn’t in our bed.” Felicity looks at Oliver controlling Fido before he is able to look back at her.

“You finally were having a good night’s sleep I couldn’t wake you up.”

“So, literally sleeping with the dogs is…?”

He just shrugs but keeps a strong hold on Fido. “You should still be in bed.”

“I’m pregnant not sick.” Felicity holds out her hand so Fido can lick it. “How’s Frida?” Just as the name is uttered Frida comes around and Oliver groans. “Hey momma.”

“Felicity, please go back into the room before one of these pooches gets overexcited.”

“You can be so grumpy. Okay fine.”

Oliver commands them to sit and both obediently do so as they watch their mistress walk back into her room. He has to give credit where its due whomever trained them did a great job. Though abandoning or neglecting such wonderful dogs makes him want to knock some sense into the irresponsible pet owner. Bloomfield is a small town but it has a veterinarian shop which posted a flyer of Fido and Frida. Now they wait to see if anyone comes forward.

He walks into their room and sees Felicity sitting on a stool he uses to plop his feet. She’s trying to grab the book on the floor to no avail. “Honey, let me get that.”

She makes a disgruntled noise as she tries one more time.

“You don’t need to prove that you’re not helpless. Last time I checked you are carrying our perfect child one more thing you can do that I can’t.”

“Oh please!”

“There is no contest. I wish you could see yourself like the way I see you.”

“Oh my.” A small grin forms before she sports a larger one. “It seems we went full circle.” She looks at him kneel down and grab the supernatural romance book.

“Full circle?”

“Yes, my beloved pupil whom has become the master. I am so happy you’ve come to see yourself like the hero I always knew you were.”

He lets out a huff an amusement as his wife is always surprising him with words. “I am the lucky one it seems but we need to get you back in bed. Do you need to relieve yourself?”

“Oliver, honestly?”

“I know. I know I can be a little much but helping you is my everything right now. Beside I’m going to be heading out for my morning run with Fido and I want to make sure the ladies of the house are all good.”

“Just make sure to feed me some granola I’d be fine until the main breakfast.”

“Of course, which sugary substance are you craving?”

“I might go with Fruit Loops.”

“So how is the story coming along?” He hands her the book as she’s finished sliding back into the bed and replaces the blankets back on herself. “Did the doctor find out that Jonah is a werewolf?”

Felicity rolls her eyes as she moves to the pages and she begins to read, “The darkness clouded where her eyes tried to get a good look at the beast. He was huge. A part of her scared but she held her stance feeling it wouldn’t harm her even though it tore two men apart coming to her rescue.” Oliver sits on the bed as Felicity’s facial features animatedly help tell the story. “She needed to touch his coarse muscles. Muscles she has never seen on a mere man before. The medic in her saying it was for practical medical knowledge. The red-blooded woman knowing it was for her own cardinal desires.”

“Well at least she likes a side of him enough.” Oliver states.

“Oliver, she isn’t describing Jonah at all.”

“Huh?” Now he is lost. “Okay then who is she describing?”

Felicity flips the page and reads out loud again, “Within the darken walls as the raging werewolf hiding in the shadows from the doctor are both alerted to the authorities heading their way the beast makes a brave jump to escape. Fleeing as fast as it could run until the beast grew tired and the mortal flesh began to overwhelm and make the creature lure in stillness as its frame became petite and a woman emerged. Yet again, protecting Lorrelle from a vicious attack.”

“Oh! Why did Lorrelle think that Meglaine was Jonah? I mean she still doesn’t know Jonah is a werewolf?”

“No, she doesn’t think he is a werewolf. She thinks he is to conceited to be the wolf even if she likes him and she’s seen the werewolf and Jonah at the same time. She doesn’t like Meglaine. Thinking that she is a threat to her growing relationship with him.”

“Yet it is the woman she dislikes who saved her this time.”

“Exactly, she does that because she cares for Jonah a lot you know in that platonic way.”

“Platonic huh?”

“Yes.” She gives Oliver a look. “Lorrelle is the heroine of the story, it’s her he will fall in love with.”

“Come on you can’t really believe that.” Oliver shakes his head at the woman who could play that once upon platonic friend but in reality, the course of their lives was meant to be more, become more. “I’m reading it all differently but I’ll let you continue reading and you can tell me when it shows the true path.”

“Oh, really and what do you think will happen?”

“Jonah will realize it is Meglaine that he is in love with.”

“Sure! Like the author would setup an elaborate story for Lorrelle and Jonah to becoming lovers only for him to realize a woman he barely has any significant care for is the one he really loves.”

“Yep.”

“Oh, go get me my granola and be on your merry way.”

“Yes, ma’am. But don’t count the heroine off so soon. It seems Meglaine will do whatever it takes to protect the people she loves. If Jonah presumably loves Lorrelle the woman who truly loves him doesn’t want to see him hurt. Evening protecting someone who brings pain to her heart.”

“Sure. You are such a sap sometimes.”

“For you always.” He gives her a kiss and heads to get her a small snack to begin their daily routine once again.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Days later…

Felicity wakes up to an abundance of little squeals from Oliver’s side of the bed as her eyes adjust to the little light coming into the room, she notices Frida’s head just over her belly. Oliver always leaves the hallway light on when he leaves for his morning run enough that it won’t disturb her sleep but enough so she doesn’t need to reach for the lamp to see her footing.

“What do we have here?” She doesn’t need to move much to know that all the puppies are on the bed with her. “You’ve been a busy mama this morning.” She pets Frida’s head as the girl happily makes a low-pitch content moan.

They found out last night the previous dog owner passed away and the dogs were with him on his unfortunate accident. They became strays shortly after laying with their dead master for as long as they could. Wandering off into the seclusion of part of the regional woods near their home. The son of the deceased wants his dad’s dogs or a nice payout. Their prized possessions he intends to sell them. The man is not privy to the puppies’ existence nor will he ever be. Oliver has offered the man a decent bid for them both. He can’t see Fido and Frida split up and he really wants to change their names. As of this morning, they are proud dog owners.

Felicity did tell her husband once they wormed themselves into his heart, he would never be able to let them go. They will have to decide on the puppies’ perfect names later in the meantime they get all these fluffy balls to play with. At least the canine family is intact and no selling is in the immediate future Frida and the mistress of the house can have their young in peace.

They’ve talked about dog names and as simple as it was to both agree easily on human names like Lucas or Mia for their own child it has been the opposite for the little pups. Oliver calls out different names for Fido trying to see what name fits but nothing has stuck so far. Felicity thinks as they’re out running her husband is probably trying once again. She shrugs and is quite fine for now having a blast calling them all different cutesy names until maybe some stick.

Turning the bedside lamp on she squints a little and Frida moves to lay beside her and make time for her little ones to feed. Grabbing the book, she still has to finish. Her investment in time has been to the pups they are so adorable. With only a few more chapters left she wants to see how Lorrelle will take to finding out the man she’s been seeing is actually a werewolf.

Flipping to the bookmarked page she starts to read.

“Oh.” Felicity says as she reads the line that Meglaine gets shot saving the doctor once again. “Why does that doctor always have to put herself in dire situations? Jonah told her to stay away. Sheesh.” Annoyingly flipping the page to see Lorrelle run into Jonah’s arms weeping. He seems lost a little stunned that his friend most likely will die when he purposely pushed her away thinking she was jealous of his happiness.

Felicity closes the book with tears in her eyes. She didn’t think Meglaine dying would hit her so hard. It is just a fictional character but Felicity wants to know more about this endearing werewolf who captured her heart. She knows the backstory of the lead characters of the story but this wonderful bright woman she needed more of. How could the author of this story short change the reader? Now fulling crying making Frida howl in mock pain to.

“Felicity!” Her name shouted as Oliver runs through the living room to check up on his wife. His breathing heavy expecting the worst but as he comes to a halt, he sees Frida anxiously rubbing herself on his wife. “What is going on?” He looks at the three puppies and back at his wife who is still crying and wiping at her face. “Let me get the tissues.” He’s out of the room for a mere moment as he gets back with a box and hands her a few. “What happened?” Sitting by the edge of the bed near her waiting for an answer.

“Meglaine is probably dead.”

“What? Who?” It dawns on him quickly as all the conversations they’ve had about these werewolves. “Hey, hey. It’s just a story. Are you sure?” He wants to sound comforting at least.

“She was shot with a silver bullet.”

“I’ve been shot a few times myself and I’m still here.” He knows he shouldn’t joke but it slipped from his lips anyhow.

“That’s not funny Oliver!” She sniffling trying to control her tears.

“So, the story is over? She died?”

“Um… No! I closed the book and broke down I don’t think I can read any more.”

“Felicity, honey. If you don’t finish, you’ll never know.”

“Better than knowing she dies; she was my favorite and I didn’t know much about her.” She lets out a sniffle. “Jonah never apologized for telling her she’s basically a pest. How can he be so dense?”

“I don’t know honey.” He kisses her forehead. “Are you okay? If you need me to sit here with you for a while…”

“No. Go take your shower, I’ll be okay. You know how easily I cry nowadays I’ll be fine.”

“Okay then, after I’ll make us some breakfast. Sound good?”

“When doesn’t food sound good?” She is almost always famished. He pecks her lips and looks at the family on the bed. “I’ll come and collect these three shortly.” She nods as she turns to give them her attention. Surely these fur balls will help her dreary mood after having her heart torn out from reading.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Frida makes a whiny sound not wanting Felicity to get out of bed. “Okay, I know my belly is a nice pillow but I need to pee.” Finding herself rolling slower off the bed than usual just to be mindful of the three little squirming babies on the bed. Oliver let them stay a little while longer as she begged him while being overrun by yapping balls of delight. He rolled his eyes at the antics but left her to play as he went to make breakfast.

Once her two feet are planted on the rugged floor, she makes small slow strides towards the bathroom wishing that soon she’ll have her daughter in her arms. Just as that thought enters her mind, she feels a popping sensation with some fluid running down her legs.

His voice just a few feet but with a wall between them. “Felicity, you better not have left the bed unescorted.”

He stops in the hallways as an unrecognizable look on her face practically has him start the slow-motions of processing what he thought he was ready for. Everything they have been taught the whole process foreign yet very familiar because he has practiced this moment over and over even to the point where his wife gave him an ultimatum to stop or she’d smother him in his sleep. He didn’t take her threats serious enough with her hormonal dismay of how much his hoovering faux labor drills could annoy her and landed up with some bruises, she wallops a good fisted grip. Yep he learned personal boundaries quick while still remaining the doting husband while making sure everything was set for this moment.

“I think we are having a baby.”

This is it. He’s already on the phone calling the certified midwife as he’s helping Felicity back into their room. Leaving the phone on speaker as he grabs the special sheets to place on the bed just under the comforter as his wife places each puppy onto the box Oliver brought into the room to collect them before making breakfast.

Everything is on autopilot. Locking the excited dogs in a special room that has the door reinforced just for such occasions as he makes sure everything is sanitized as he follows a list of things that is recommended. The contractions are mild but he knows it can be a long labor just as easy a short one.

He is a mess of nervous it ranges from excitement to all these crazy what-ifs that just keep dawning on him. He just can’t wait to meet Mia. Making himself breathe in and out before joining his wife. He doesn’t need her to feel his all over the place energy so he tries to calm down and lucky for him he hears a set of tires coming down the private drive and he heads to meet the woman after he calls out to Felicity telling her that their helper is here.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Felicity knows that soon she’ll be meeting her baby girl and excitement washes over her. They… She planned a natural birth due to keeping a low profile and she doesn’t think using an epidural would be wise with how her chip in her back is situated. Dr. Schwartz did recommend their midwife if that is the route they were taking so here she is now pacing in her room when Oliver would rather have her off her feet. Being stuck on the bed isn’t what she needs so she’ll continue pacing until Abigail tells her it is time to lay down.

Insistent on wearing a sweater even with how both Oliver and Abigail tell her that she’ll be uncomfortable Felicity is insistent on wearing the red comfy shirt keeping the autumn chill from her bones.

Being fully dilated in such a short time span a joke’s made that Mia Smoak Queen is as impatient as her parents.

Felicity is to wrapped up in breathing and listening to Abigail as they work to have little Mia join them. Oliver is right there holding her hand and leaving small kisses on his wife’s head as she’s miraculously having his baby. He loves her so much and being here is the only place in the universe he wants or needs to be. His heart is full of such happiness that a part of him wants to burst and maybe when his daughter is finally here tears may soon follow as his world is complete. A dream of his fulfilled.

“I love you so much.”

“I love you so much. I’ll love you even more when this baby’s out of me.”

With that he can’t hold his impassive face from showing happiness at how she can pull a smile from him on a moment’s notice.

Moments more of breathing and pushing has them welcoming their baby girl. He is holding his squirming child as the rest of birthing practice is happening and when he gives the child back he gets to cut the umbilical cord right after the baby is weighed and cleaned. Oliver is back at his wife’s side as Abigail finally gives the beautiful baby to her mother. He can’t contain his happiness as he watches how Felicity looks down at their blessing.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Days later when things are calmer, Oliver doesn’t know how much Fido and Frida will take to Mia but he’s prepared as both are leashed and ready to leave the room. These two have been scratching at the door with intermediate howls that it has been a miracle that Mia hasn’t cried because of them.

The little swaddled princess comfortably in her crib as the two dogs sniff her scent. Felicity is observing from the wooden bench by the window smiling wildly at the scene. She’d never thought the sight of Oliver Jonas Queen a man whose reputation proceeds him is in total serenity showing his daughter to their pets. Two wolf-hybrids that will most likely be overprotective of this precious child and in helping ease Oliver’s mind of the ground’s security. Who would have thought the Queens would find themselves in a town having a beautiful daughter and being surrounded by fluffy greyish white balls of energy? Not her in a million years if you asked her seven, five, or even three years ago she’d call you crazy.

Now she is married to the love of her life and has two large breed of dogs that already wormed themselves into her own heart. Snow and Luna both named by Oliver and his wife couldn’t be happier with the names. ‘A blanket of snow and how the moonlight hits across Luna’s eyes making it magical.’ Those were his words as he’d been appreciating all the little things once again. For now, cut off from the world and he’s like a little kid with them at times and it’s almost like a dreamlike moment.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

With Oliver busy with the dogs and installing cables to give his wife the technological setup she desires. It has been a struggle being without reliable connection and soon she’ll be able to setup something that if Oliver does leave to help with Team Arrow business again she’ll be able to completely be in her element and help them stay safe.

Now with her family busy it gives Felicity a moment to finish the book. Her lower back bothering her since Mia’s delivery she been basically bed bound still busy working on her company with her trusty notepad, Oliver doesn’t even bat an eyelid on her technical stubbornness as long as she allows herself healing time and doing those physical therapy sessions by his side he’s okay.

Placing the book on her lap, she’s been dreading to finish but her husband is right that she’d be bothered if she doesn’t see the journey of Jonah, Lorrelle, and Meglaine through. Bringing a big box of tissues this time she is ready as she flips to the last page she read. “Okay. Here goes.”

‘Meglaine lies prone as the bullet is withdrawn from her upper chest cavity. Whispers in the hallway outside the makeshift surgery room seem sullen as one of their own may die tonight. No one knows why she saved the doctor. As Lorrelle became more ingrained into Jonah Wilde’s life his friendship with Meglaine dwindled he still leaned on his friends help in his endeavor but things weren’t serene. Some within their circle mused that she was madly in love with him and would do anything to make him happy others saw that the quirky girl just kept her oath to protect the clan from outsiders doing her best to keep humans from finding out of their existence.’

Felicity just moved the pages along it was clear the author was dragging Meglaine’s death to push Jonah to understand that he needs to tell Lorrelle who he is. Needing her to save one of his clansmen. Sighing audibly at the likely outcome she partly jumps when she hears Oliver’s voice.

“Hey honey, I brought you a snack. How’s the reading coming along?” Looking at her disappointed face. “That good huh?”

“My girl’s death is being dragged out and its really bumming me out.”

“Well Mia’s still asleep and the dogs are basically sun bathing so how about I read to you?”

“You’d do that?”

“For you, you must know by now I’d do anything for.” He moves the plate to sit comfortably on her lap and takes the book after she points to where she left off. Reading a few paragraphs, he can see where the story is heading and its nothing like what Felicity has painted. Jonah is truly in conflict there is a reason he hasn’t told Lorrelle his secret and it’s because not even he realized it until holding Meglaine’s limp hand in his. The woman dying needs more than the healer in his clan who isn’t really a professional medic. Oliver sits on a side chair by the window letting his wife enjoy the snack while he reads.

‘Dr. Byrde slowly enters the makeshift medical room slowly a little horrified that the patient isn’t in a hospital. Realizing now that it was… no is this woman that saved her from the evil man’s clutches witnessing the bullet meant to silence her take out her savior.

“Alright let’s get to work. I’ll need some assistance, anyone who has medical knowledge. I also need you out of here.” She looks at Jonah pained expression of wanting to be here. “Jonah, please step outside. Let us do the best we can, please!”

He nods and backups slowly but before leaving begs. “Please save her. Please save my friend’s life.” In that moment Lorrelle knew that the leader of these people had a soft spot for this woman.

“I’ll do my best.”

It felt like a lifetime as Jonah paced the packed hallways of catacombs under the city. Many who care for her are praying as others hold their stance waiting and hoping she pulls through. Meglaine has reached so many of her clan with grace, humility, hope, and strength that brought a togetherness that the possibility of her no longer being among them holds a certain sadness.’

“You do see where this is heading?”

“Alright she probably doesn’t die.”

“Probably? Hmm Hmm.”

“Jonah doesn’t love her.”

“Jonah doesn’t fully realize he loves her. There is a difference.”

“Like what? Like you and I difference?”

“Well…” Oliver let’s out. “That isn’t entirely true with us. I like to say I knew for sure by the moment with the Count but I tried so hard to fight it for some silly notion of protecting you from me.”

“How did that go?” Felicity moves the finished snack plate to the side as Oliver slides onto the bed.

“Is that your way of rubbing it in? That we could have all this sooner?”

“Nope. We weren’t ready than. As much as it pains me we had a few more bumps in our road before we got here.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Gosh I love you so much.”

He sighs happily as the get comfortable and he moves the book to a good spot to continue reading. Meglaine pulls through and as Oliver thought Jonah realizes his love for his friend. Boasting to his wife that he was right and Felicity just rolls her eyes. Just typical the man found love and with such knowledge that everything in his world just makes sense.

With the happy ending in the first edition of the book series Felicity can’t wait to read how Jonah and Meglaine relationship blossoms. Oliver even spoiled it by sneak peaking at the third and final book that their love produces some pups. Yes, she can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

As for their own love. They know their hearts belong to each other and whatever life hands them they know love can conquer all.

The end!

Thanks for reading! :)

#ofae #ofae fanfic #ofae fanart #submission

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fymagnificentwomcn · 6 years

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So there is a high chance that suleyman and hurrem 's relationship wasn't monogamous right ? But if he really slept with other concubines then why and how didn't they give birth to children just like hurrem who gave him 5 or 6 children in a short period of time ? Also do you think that hurrem didn't sleep with suleyman after giving birth to her youngest sehzade since they didn't have another child for like 25 years+ ?

For this system and this culture I think we may safely call it monogamous. There’s nothing to indicate that he had any longer, even purely sexual, relationship with another woman. However, we obviously weren’t under his bed and since he had a harem full of women, we can’t be certain whether e.g. he didn’t quarrell with Hürrem once or twice and then had a one-night stand with one of the concubines for consolation… Even though Hürrem became his legal wife, there wasn’t a concept of marital fidelity there… And if he had any sexual encounters with any other women, he obviously most likely never produced any more children.

Here’s a quote from The Empress of the East by Leslie Peirce discussing the issue: (long, so under Read More)

Cihangir would be the last of Suleyman’s children. The sultan turned forty inAugust 1533, five months after he placed Mustafa in the field. The timing of the prince’s political inauguration was not coincidental. Forty was a number replete with religious, mythical, and historical significance for the Ottomans. For men, it was universally thought to be the threshold of full maturity. In Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad was forty when he received the first of the revelations brought to him by the archangel Gabriel. In premodern times, the realities of the average person’s life span meant that a forty-year-old man was probably head of an extended family in which he and his wife were counting their own children’s children. Suleyman’s age was easy for his subjects to calculate if they remembered the year of his birth, 900, in the Islamic calendar. The beginning of a new Islamic century was thought to be a moment when a great leader might emerge.

Roxelana herself was still relatively young in 1533, probably in her late twenties at Cihangir’s birth two years earlier, almost certainly no more than thirty. But it would not be seemly to make a man who could now anticipate his first grandchild a father all over again. If decorum brought an end to her childbearing career, Roxelana may not have regretted leaving behind a phase of her life during almost half of which she had been pregnant. With five royal children to prepare for adulthood, she had her hands more than full. The end of childbearing did not spell the end of a sexual relationship between Roxelana and Suleyman, however. The sultan had apparently been unable to stay away from his favorite, and nothing suggests that their intimacy did not continue. And now it would be freed of the physical encumbrance of pregnancy.

But how did the couple keep from conceiving more children? It is fair to say that without the practice of birth control, the Ottoman sultanate could not have evolved the highly engineered politics of reproduction that it sustained. In the opinion of the majority of Muslim jurists, abortion in the first trimester was acceptable if the birth of a child would bring physical harm to the mother or hardship to the family. The Old Palace midwives and female doctors were doubtless experts not only in conception and childbirth but also in forms of birth control that were compatible with the needs of the imperial household.

A variety of abortifacients and contraceptive techniques were known and had been catalogued already in medieval times. Use of suppositories and tampons by females predominated. Among the prescriptions of Al-Razi were five for intravaginal suppositories that used oil from cabbage flowers, pepper, juice of peppermint, leaves of pennyroyal, and dill. Known to western tradition as Rhazes, the great Persian philosopher was also head of the Baghdad hospital, cutting-edge for its time, and a practicing physician. Roxelana herself was by now probably familiar with the palace’s recommended techniques, or so her slower rate of childbirth from 1526 on suggests.

Dynastic family planning was political planning. The personal decision of how many children to have and when was fraught with political consequence in the Ottoman dynastic family. Too many sons was a liability, as Suleyman had observed all too closely in the bitter rivalry between his uncles and his father. Even before their deadly showdown, he had watched Selim chafing at his confinement in Trabzon while his seven brothers and then their sons gained princely posts closer to the capital.

In 1533, Suleyman had four sons eligible to succeed him: Mustafa, Mehmed,Selim, and Bayezid. We can safely presume that Suleyman and Roxelanadeliberated the question of whether or not to have more children. Both wouldrecognize that the birth of yet another boy would only add more grief to thespectacle of their sons combating one another, let alone Mustafa. Four healthy sons was sufficient dynastic insurance, one more than Mehmed the Conqueror had provided. The public introduction of the three eldest princes at the 1530 circumcision celebration may have been intended in part to signal that the sultan considered his reproductive obligation to the empire fulfilled. A late baby, Cihangir was perhaps unanticipated or an afterthought — the result of a decision by Roxelana and Suleyman to have one last child.

- Joanna

It seems that Suleiman made a conscious decision not to have ANY more children, even with Hürrem. Still, judging by sources, I don’t think he had any long-term sexual relationship with any other woman.

#hurrem sultan #suleiman the magnficent #ottoman history #history #answered #anonymous #darlings I'm trying to be back #I closed inbox bc I need to finally answer all questions in inbox #it's for around a week #any urgent matters you may direct to our personal blogs or DMs or any other social media #it's just me wanting to start with a clean slate #have that comfort of mindset :)

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moodyvisualart · 6 years

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An essay debating how effectively Basquiat comments and explores American history and culture within his artworks and why his work is as prominent as ever in 2019.

1970’s New York acted as a backdrop to Basquiat’s work, producing organic and often elementary observations of the world surrounding him. Initially he was spraying painting graffiti over the streets of Manhattan, determined to catch the attention from the art scene that was so inaccessible, especially to a young homeless black man like himself. This cultural divide is what would be a staple in his carrier. Basquiat’s early work undeniably reveals his anti-establishment and anti-political stance as well as his sense of rage and displacement in society; the artists defining feature is his critique on American society. Both America’s past and its present issues are depicted, especially it’s treatment of people of colour. In this essay I am going to debate how effective he was in portraying these ideas in his artworks as well as exploring why these works are more popular than ever, 30 year after his premature death in 1988.

Basquiat’s ‘Irony of Negro Policeman’ (1981) is a very personal piece that reveals the artists own individual opinions on American culture and its deep imbedded, institutionalised racism that would have effected Basquiat and the way he lived his life on the streets of New York. The painting is a direct critique of Basquiat’s own race in a very unsubtle and confrontational manner. The painting depicts a black police officer with the words “PAWN” and “IRONY” scribbled quite violently onto the canvas. Basquiat effectively was able to use his individual way of working to portray these ideas and meanings visually to his audience. One way in which he excels in doing this is using line. The mass of scribbles outlining and overlapping the figure create a skeletal overlay, observing the subject as someone who is now dead or inhuman. It seems that by doing this the artist sees black police officers as ‘dead behind the eyes’, no longer feeling or understanding their role in American society. Moreover, the visual cage trapping the figures head quite unsubtly refers to these officers being controlled and manipulated. Basquiat saw black officers as ironic, the idea that black men were enforcing laws that were made to enslave themselves. The background is a harsh white, seemly to make the black figure seem threatened and out of place. The artist is referring to the white majority in America that seems to hold the power. The sad irony is that this work is just as socially important in 2019 as it was in 1981. The anger and resentment that he wanted to capture is still as present and helps to add more significance to this painting. This piece captures an emotion, an individuals anger rather than an event or a commentary on history. I view it more as a one sided opinion than a fleshed out debate on American culture, like some of this other slightly later works seem to be. However, it is undeniable that Basquiat managed to capture and document the African American community’s feelings of anger and fear towards law enforcement.

Whereas, ‘Obnoxious Liberals’ (1982) was more of a reflection of American history and the horrors that people of colour had to endure. As well as Basquiat’s own personal struggles with still feeling ‘enslaved’ within his own life. As well as social issues, this painting depicts a seres of characters that represent the system of capitalism and it's victims. A figure that has great significance is the black figure chained to a chapel with “SAMSON” written above his head. “SAMSON” is a biblical figure from the old testament who was shorn of his dreadlocks and as a consequence lost his strength. The Philistines took him and chained him to their temple. He regained his strength, pulling down the temple killing the army but also himself. I do believe that Basquiat painted himself as Samson, referring to his fight for black culture, black artists and black rights. However, throughout his career he struggled with his place or seemly no place in society and in 1988 was found dead as a result of a cocaine overdose. Basquiat’s story is strikingly similar to that of Samson. This chained figure is a reflection on his place in the art world, often being underpaid and under appreciated by rich white art dealers who saw him as a way to make money and not to make political statements or push the inclusion of black voices into art history.

The painting also depicts an American cowboy, a staple in American culture and capitalism. The figure has feathers placed in his hat, referencing to the genocide of the native Americans. To the left there is a figure that resembles Lincoln with the phrase “OBNOXIOUS LIBERALS” and a crown above. Basquiat used the crown to show respect for the late president and his role in abolishing slavery while still confronting the fact that he was apart of the system that still oppressed people of colour for years to come. The ‘NOT FOR SALE” could refer to both the slavery of black people as well as his own artistic integrity that was constantly undermined by mainstream white culture. Text and typography is a staple of his work, often creating aggressive delivery in his message. Basquiat believed that the messages he was conveying had to be understood that the meaning was just as important as the art itself. This is what makes his work so effective in relation to retelling the history of America from a person of colour’s point of view. Basquiat as an artist is unforgiving and unmistakable, seeming to ‘force’ the voice of a young black man into a world that still wasn’t ready to hear it.

‘Obnoxious Liberals’ is undeniably inspired by Picasso’s ‘Guernica’. Picasso’s masterpiece was created as a response to the Nazi's bombing practice on Guernica during Spanish Civil War. The painting depicts the atrocities of war and the suffering of innocent civilians. Like Basquiat, Picasso in this piece uses figures to represent a group of people. The bull is said to represent the onslaught and oncoming wave of fascism into Western Europe. This painting is significantly important as it’s tour around the world brought the horrors of the Spanish Civil War into the public eye. This painting is effective in commenting on the bombing of Guernica as it undeniably creates an emotive response from the viewer. It feels like you can almost hear the screams of the people within the painting, the chaos and the destruction. Picasso will not let you escape the message of the horrors that were committed and the people who lost their lives.

I do think Picasso was possibly was more effective in commenting on a historical moment, through removing colour to suggest a photographic recording of the bombing but also still retaining the emotional and narrative through abstract forms. Whereas, Basquiat focused more racism as an accumulation of stories and events in America, past and present and commented on the culture surrounding it, less focused on presenting an individual incident.

Being able to view Basquiat’s exhibition in the Foundation Louie Vuitton was an incredible experience. To see the large and powerful works in person makes the message he conveys inescapable as well as the dark and often violent history of America. What Baquiat does best is making the often white viewers in ‘white main-stream’ galleries view history from a complete different view point, one that they may not fully understand. As a caucasian, while I have never experienced racism and discrimination, I felt not only the pain and anger radiating from the body of work but also the celebration of culture. So I can imagine how important this artist is to people of colour. As a result his work is as prominent as ever in present day and has cemented ‘Black America’ and their heritage into the Art History world forever.

#writtenwork #essay #analysis

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avani008 · 6 years

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Four Seasons Meme:Ambika Baahubali

For the anon who wanted the Four Seasons Meme for Ambika Baahubali!

Spring

the circumstances of his/her birth | favorite (or least favorite) family member | first word | happiest birthday | genderswap au

Her mother died giving birth to her; “Would not so much as look at you,” her uncle sneers, “only turned her face to the wall.”

Ambika knows this, has always known this, just as she knows that Sivagami, who she calls Mother, had not been told of the baby’s gender when it was brought to her, leading to Ambika’s curious double name. But just as much she knows, has always known that it cannot be all the truth.

If she had been a boy, perhaps she would be able to dismiss the woman who’d born her so easily; but she is, and cannot—there is a bond between them even now. So instead she believes: her mother died, yes, but all so Ambika might live in turn—the greatest gift her mother could grant, and one Ambika ought not to squander.

Summer

fantasy | love language of choice | a pet or other animal companion| the decoration of their bedroom| fusion au

In her fantasies, the moment when Ambika Baahubali reveals herself is perfect: her hair tumbles down, her eyes sparkle bright, and all are awestruck at her beauty. Mother’s eyes are wet with pride and wonder, Uncle’s head held high, and Ambika’s heart is full.

In reality, her hair has been hacked off long before, a sacrifice to her disguise; and however bright her eyes might be, they are obscured by the bruises that not even a heavy helmet can shield against. Beauty, most of all, is not something to be found on the battlefield; more often it is to be only grime and blood.

But Mother’s eyes widen with more than surprise, and Uncle’s face alight with satisfaction, and Ambika finds her heart full nevertheless.

Fall

the one person/cause/ideal they would sacrifice everything for| storms| nightmare | the lie(s) he/she has told | hero/villain reversal au

Ambika had expected some arguments when she’d announced her intention to choose Devasena above all, but never such storms.

“This is not seemly!” bluster the ministers. “It is not done.” Ambika thinks, wistful, of Kuntala where such news had elicited surprise not scandal, and replies levelly: “Then this shall have to be the first.”

“Think of the throne!” pleads—or as close as she ever comes to pleading—Mother. Ambika hardly needs to consider before replying: “I don’t want it if it will cost me my soul.”

“I hope she’s worth it,” says Bala,seemingly unconcerned, and at last Ambika smiles. “She is.”

Winter

haunting | tarot | then and now | gods and mortals | reincarnation au/historical era swap

When they were children, Ambika and her sister had pledged to live as close together as possible. A court did nothing to shield children from danger, after all, and they knew even then that safety could be found in familiarity.

This was only one of the promises they broke to each other, Ambika living on her quiet estate with her beloved, and Bala upon her throne with her silent and weak-willed King. Despite it all, Ambika cannot shake the conviction that they are happier thus than they would have been in any other world.

That promise, at least, they kept.

#baahubali #ambika baahubali #four seasons meme #fic by me #this....might be the last four seasons fill for a bit #i have all the open ones written down to remind me!#but i think I need a bit of a break to make sure they are not as same-y as i fear they are

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timespakistan · 4 years

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Beyond the horizon | Art & Culture | thenews.com.pk “I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.” Henri Cartier-Bresson Arif Mehmood’s photographs, a multiple portrait of the humankind, invite us to celebrate the dignity of it. These images of solitude and devotion are brutally frank yet respectful and seemly. Having no relation to the tourism of poverty, they do not violate but penetrate the human spirit in order to reveal it. His is not a macabre, obscene exhibitionism of poverty. It is a poetry of horror because there is a sense of honour. Light is a buried secret, and Mehmood’s photographs tell us that secret. The emergence of the image from the waters of the developer, when the light becomes forever fixed in shadow, is a unique moment that detaches itself from time and is transformed forever. These photographs will live on after their subjects and their author, bearing testimony to the world’s naked truth and hidden splendour, are no more. Mehmood’s camera moves about the violent darkness, seeking light, stalking light. Does the light descend from the sky or rise out of us? That instant of trapped light – that gleam – in the photographs reveals to us what is unseen, what is seen but unnoticed; an unperceived presence, a powerful absence. It shows that concealed within the pain of living and the tragedy of dying there is a potent magic, a luminous mystery that redeems the human adventure in the world. Yet photographers are caught in a curious bind. Cartier-Bresson, who at various times derided the documentary impulse in favour of the visual drama, the pursuit of an unfolding choreography, was well aware of the reality/unreality that one is constantly coming up with, the intermix of fiction and non-fiction. Mehmood’s more consistently documentary approach also has its highly interpretive, imaginary aspects, which, despite the apparent matter-of-factness of photography, give the imagery much of its depth. One might say that, while respecting the facts of a situation, Mehmood attempts to recreate, through visual metaphors, what he sees as its essential human drama – the invisible made visible. Mehmood’s work, while confined to the moment by the mechanics of the camera, is drawn less to celebrating and taming an instant’s arbitrariness, its material manifestations, and more to articulating its eternity, its ephemeral profundity, and to locating a mythic, entwining presence. This aspect of his approach is something he has in common with Latin Americans drawn to what has been called a ‘magical realism’. Similarly, while recognising the individual’s singular importance in his images, he is also quick to draw relationships to the universal. There is, enmeshed in his document of the moment, a resonating lyric, a sense of the epic, an iconic landscape. The former ‘pilot’ invokes a poetic sense of struggles so profound that in his prints, the forces of light and darkness are summoned in scenes reminiscent at times of the most dramatic chiaroscuro. In the history of photography, it has often been debated whether the pictorial photograph can be termed art at all. Indeed, analogue photographs as well as digital are by their very nature traces, not unlike fingerprints. What then does a photographer contribute? The answer also lies in the very nature of what is photographed. It is his frozen view; his orientation to the things in the world that appear significant to him, and equally importantly, the manner in which he represents what he perceives. In fact, no photograph is ever truly objective. Rather, it always constitutes both an abstraction and a subjective perspective, a conscious effort. Until you come of age, photographs that you care to see are often those that other people take of you. Looking at paper copies of anything else is not exciting. Your world is small, and like other children, you live out your days in utter abandon in pursuit of what you need and want. Thought and indecision creep into your life much later. This comfortable equation between oneself and one’s world is imperiled (read shaken) at the age when you get your first camera, suddenly saddled with the obligation to think and to observe. The first major crisis is to make the intractable decision: what should I photograph. It is almost like choosing between my dog and my best friend. The very act of taking that photograph would somehow determine what you hold as most precious: what you ignore would, in future, always be second best.

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Camera is the devil’s own tool: every time you pick it up you become someone else. Just holding his Leica makes Arif Mehmood dissect his universe. It drives him to measure the relative merits of things and people close to his heart, and makes him place value on his most priceless possessions, introducing guilt into his life. Not including someone or something in that foot and a half of celluloid somehow amounts to the betrayal of a relationship. The only members of his inner sanctum to which he wants to accord immortality – without being traumatised – have been his constant companions – ones that he has had the most comfortable and least complex relationships with: PS Pestonjee – the last of the Mohicans; and the ‘friends of God’ – sufi saints, dervishes and devotees. The photographs on display comprised two separate bodies of work: PS Pestonjee – a paean to senility and solitude, and Silver Linings – journeys to sites of mystical Islam taken between 1998 and 2020. Arif Mehmood recalls that his father fell ill in 2016 and passed away in 2019. That inspired him to look at the agile and nimble figure of Pestonjee – only a year older than Mehmood’s father – in comparison. Living in a derelict mansion in Soldier Bazaar, the old Zoroastrian appears to be a sentinel of the dwindling community. With their warm colours, Arif Mehmood’s photographs enchant the artistically sensitive observer. These are works of art with a truly aural character. They allow insights into the everyday culture of the Punjab and Sindh, which is permeated by the Sufi tradition, and as a rule, is concealed from the superficial eye. They reflect the peaceful, almost paradisiacal atmosphere of the saints’ shrines. With these impressions, Mehmood also opens up an alternative to academic verbosity – to the ‘narrative textual paradigm’, in other words, to a distinct predominance of the text over image and object. Veneration of sufi saints can be witnessed in all social strata and permits the individual believer to experience personal, concrete contact with what he deems holy. This is exactly what the photographs exhibited here attempt to do: they aim to initiate a dialogue, also with people familiar with the presented and interpreted cultural environment. They strive to provide aesthetic access beyond the appeal of the exotic observers in order to offer a new understanding of those people and their hopes, ideals and values whose home is interpreted in these photographs. Dedicated to his mother, Mehmood recounts in Silver Linings – the book of photography that accompanied the show – that he first visited Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s mausoleum in 1998. His work focuses in on the sacred spaces and the people who visit them in search of healing and religious experience. Thus, these photographs are also historical/ethnographic documents of the life of mystic seekers of God. Mehmood’s work invites the observer to experience imaginary, atmospheric wanderings. These are pictures that reveal quietude and contemplation. Through such photographs of a light mystique, he can create a feeling for conditions in which the sufis, pilgrims, mendicants find themselves in the respective situation: meditation, introversion, renunciation and commonality. Some photographs highlight the sufi ideals of simplicity and contentment. The photographs on display in Silver Linings are not necessarily shot to illustrate a theme. They were taken as individual photographs of separate lives. If there is a common thread that runs through them, it is the manner of their making and the period in the photographer’s life that they represent. These images were exposed both on negative film and digitally, when in 1998 Mehmood picked up his camera again after a year-long sabbatical from the medium. The abstinence was self-ordained, provoked by an internalised process of deliberation that had begun to question “what do I photograph, how do I photograph it, and even why do I photograph at all.” He paused in an effort to distance himself from his personal work, to pull the photographic idiom decisively away from the compulsion to speak a universally cogent language, and instead, bring his own grammar as close as he could to the common detail in his life and to the lives of others. This episode is yet another example of the power that photography wields in constructing one’s own personal equations. More than to show, Arif Mehmood shoots to see. If anything, his photographs heighten the banality of their detail. Vulnerability is just another element that determines the choices individuals make in their lives as they willingly shoulder the burden of their own minds. What Pestonjee chooses to allow into his inner sanctum; what he chooses to lock himself into or out of; how long he subjects himself to the vision of a lingering past; whether memories will come alive to the geometry and colour about them; whether they will enter the green windows along their way or pass them by; whether they will step out of the shade to accept their right; whether they are willing to upturn their ‘wheelbarrows’. It is the making of these choices that Mehmood waits to see in his frames. These photographs are a ‘temporary’ record of fleeting insights into the lives of others. Like reality, like himself, like the subjects, like PS Pestonjee, they too, in time, will fade. The writer is an art critic based in Islamabad https://timespakistan.com/beyond-the-horizon-art-culture-thenews-com-pk/13070/?wpwautoposter=1615698021

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