#for anyone curious about the other henry i was referring to in my last post. i did not post about him at all anywhere LOL and he is very old

[sleepygaymerdisease]

i just really like the name henry. i have no reason for it or anything. im bad at picking names so id be like "ummm how about henry as a placeholder haha ^_^" and leave it at that because i just wanted a placeholder to easily think of a character concept. but it turns out that using placeholder names means that its gonna fuckin stick unless you replace it. this is how i have 2 guys named henry.

[ruby-whistler]

Alright curious anon here. All this is /dsmp /rp from here on out unless otherwise specified and is refering to characters. If i make any mistakes or am misinformed please let me know! So by the cat was nothing compared to mushroom henry i was meaning more toward the fact that the cow was killed as a punishment for something not worth or ok for it to be killed for at all and the fact that it belonged to tommy, wheareas the cat was killed more to annoy dream and belonged to tommy. (1/?)

alright then another lengthy reply, here i come! /lh /dsmp /rp

Dream also did not seem to mourn the cat much, shrugging it off with a "just more motivation to break out".

it was killed to hurt dream, not to "annoy him". it doesn't matter who it belonged to, c!dream was attached to it and it died, which had an effect on him and also further proved his point about attachments being weakness and caring getting you hurt, and it's still very sad.

you say that it was not ok at all to kill mooshroom henry, but the cat's death wasn't ok either, so i really don't see your point.

again, i disagree it was "nothing compared to" either way. i never meant to compare them in the first place, i was simply talking about the cat and c!dream so i don't see why it is in any way necessary to drag c!tommy and other dead pets into this. /nm

also, it isn't true he didn't mourn it. he is a very reserved person who doesn't show his feelings much, that's true, but the cat death still changed the way he acted afterwards, as well as the attempts he made to prevent it. he didn't "shrug it off", he yelled about it because he was understandably upset.

You mentioned that propganda was used to make dream seem like a tyrant, could you specify a bjt? Cus im a little confused srry /gen. Because the most i can remember from the lmanburg era at least is him being called a b'tch or other similar insults. You also mentioned how trauma responses can be differet which is true! I agree! Do you have any ideas to what caused dream the trauma?

wilbur would continuously make him out to be some sort of oppressive, tyrannical force, in front of his troops - a prime example of this being the lyrics of the l'manberg anthem itself and the l'manberg declaration of independence.

actually! here's a nice thread about l'manberg's establishment complete with links, timestamps and evidence :]

i also said in my previous post what could've possibly caused it, but since the character intentionally hides his emotions from the public, it would be difficult to see how things really affected him - which is why the way his spiral went is the majority of the evidence that would imply it, however it does make sense within the story as well with what i mentioned last time.

I would like to note that for sapnap at least had reason to leave dream. Some examples off the top of my head are dream leading an angry fundy to sapnap's pets on purpose, resulting in some deaths, dream assisting tommy in burning down sapnap's effiel tower where he got engaged to karl, and dream giving tommy either mars or the other fish at the battle of the lake. Idk about george tho other then the whole mexican lmanburg/el rapids thing and decrowning him

c!sapnap was actually at fault for most of this, and it wasn't really ever betrayal on c!dream's part.

c!dream is a mediator and he wants to stop everyone's conflict - c!fundy was angry because of c!sapnap's actions, and hence it made more sense for c!dream to centre him on c!sapnap's animals instead of running around killing everyone's pets (at that time, all c!dream knew was c!sapnap did something really bad and c!fundy wanted beckerson / mars from him, which were also his and c!george's fish).

c!sapnap was an instigator, and in multiple conflicts during the time as well as before he'd align himself against c!dream. he isn't "loyal" per se, he causes chaos and the reason c!dream helped c!tommy was because, c!sapnap, again, killed his pet. the first l'manberg war and then the 16th are signs of the fact that c!dream and c!sapnap were willing to fight together in actual war, but these small conflicts where c!sapnap continuously picked fights weren't about personal loyalty, nor did they seem to affect their relationship at all.

c!george was never really hurt by c!dream either. the dethronement was him very obviously being a guilt-trippy drama queen, but, well, that's just the character. he had stolen the l'mantree while he was supposed to be the diplomatic figure of the greater smp, which is why c!dream was justified in - very politely, may i mention - taking the duties off of him (seeing as he was also trying to keep him safe and c!techno had already assassinated him once).

Im pretty sure i remember cc!sam stating that his character never canonically physically tortured dream during his subathon but take this with a grain of salt as i am looking for the clip currently. So to the best of my knowledge dream did not have a physical contact trigger during tommy's visit which! I rewatched the vod and dream actually was first to hit tommy and i can give you my full writing downs but 10/12 of the phy-

you never finished this point because you had to go do something, but i'll reply to what is here at the moment (i suggest writing these down before sending next time, or even writing them out wholly before sending a single one could help avoid stuff like this).

i am 95% sure that the reason cc!sam stated this was because people were suspicious he had already been doing what c!quackity was doing after - torture within the storyline itself is associated pretty much only with what c!quackity is doing, so that's what he meant, just to clear up confusion - the starvation or terrible conditions haven't been retconned, but it was direct torture (like c!quackity is doing) people were asking him about.

i never said c!dream had a physical contact trigger at all, i don't think he had that, though he probably will after the torture.

huh, ok, i'm gonna have to rewatch then, but i remember c!tommy punching c!dream a lot and him just telling him to stop and only punching back to get him to stop. trigger or not, getting hit isn't very pleasant, if you know what i mean.

You mentioned tommy stealing dream's armor unprovoked. Do you have the vod or a general idea of the time so i can find it? Like before lmanburg after another event so and so because if you do not have it i can find it but any help is appreciated.

i am pretty sure you can find the video on cc!tommy's channel! there are also recaps of the disc war on youtube :]

I wanna talk a little on why the Final Control Room was so messed up. For starters, with the way the room was designed. It was small, and had labeled, empty chests with each person's name on them as a mockery. The next reason is that its bascially a kill box.

It's fairly inescapble with the stairs being ones you have to jump up, slowing anyone who climbs them down. The final reason it is messed up is that it is shown to have caused every person who died in it trauma. With tommy there are several examples, the time he saw it with techno, the way he refuses to go near it, the exposure trauma, etc. Fundy also appears to have trauma, as when the Red Banquet executions began, it can be seen as him being afraid of dying last again.

It can Be thought as tubbo having trauma because he buries most of his issues and pretends to be ok. Moreover this event took at least one of each person's canon lives, making it the most canon lives lost EVER in a dream smp event. (This is not hate on any of the ccs btw i loved this scene and its one of my personal favorites). Plus the fact Eret's betrayal just literally happened, giving at least Tommy and Wilbur canonic trust issues.

i wouldn't call the chests mockery? it was a trap. people had traps on the smp before. it was a trap in the middle of war, supposed to end said war by killing them all at once rather than individually which would be a lot more bloody and difficult.

i agree c!tommy and other people might have post-war trauma, especially if they were young during the time, but i think that's because the final control room was "messed up", moreso because the war itself was. it all happened fairly instantly as well? i don't think c!fundy would be able to realize he was the last one standing within the two second before he wasn't.

it "can be thought" and it can be interpreted like that but besides c!tommy there isn't much evidence for them "all" being traumatized by the final control room. of course betrayal would spark trust issues, i understand that.

The probation was humiliating in my opinion because dream was Sending tommy anatgonizing messages through out the whole meeting, plus he had to write a review of his day every single day, which fundy mocked him for.

i mean, it was definitely a strike to his pride, but he was being extremely uncooperative so i don't really blame the other members of new l'manberg trying to teach him to listen for once? of course i know c!dream was riling him up, and that should definitely be considered. i don't think it would be as humiliating if c!tommy didn't make it, is what i'm saying.

for the tommy being toxic to fundy? At least for the examples you gave, to me personally they come acoross as either in a meta way being the cc's bantering or in canon being the characters having banter. If you can send the post with the clips so i can read the tone better that would be cool but if not i will try and find em.

no, these were all in canon. canon isn't only when c!tommy is being nice, it's also when he's being a jerk. /lh

the first one was him threatening c!fundy about kicking him out of l'manberg and undermining his self-worth, and the second one was him trying to get c!sapnap to vote for them via bullying c!fundy.

i found these from a transcript focusing on c!fundy's character, so i don't know exactly where the first one is from, but the second one i am pretty sure is from when the elections were starting with the whole cabinet battle deal and all of that.

there are other instances, and all of them are canon. his personality was never being nice or compassionate, so i'm not really surprised? he still cares about the people he cares about and is very brave, y'know. but this part of his personality is definitely a valid reason for people to dislike him.

I hope the exam went well :). Hope u have a great day! (Ps i think theres something called a submission box to send in pictures? Am not entirely sure sry)

it would've gone well but my work-speed is a tad too slow for the schooling system (considering i'm three years younger than my classmates,,, probably that's also a factor) so probably not despite the fact i knew everything and would've aced it if i only had more time. i did as well as i could so i'm not worried about it, but thanks!

i think you're thinking submissions. sadly, i tested it and it doesn't work on anons, so idk how you'd solve that, maybe make a burner account?

Curious anon here one point you may wanna include in the redemption essay is that c!tubbo or c!tommy do not necessarily have to forgive him. What's important is that he recognizes what he did was wrong (exile, beating tommy to death, manipulating them both, etc) and does his best to make amends. Hope this helps! Can't wait to see your essay

it's out, idk if you've seen it yet, and i think i included enough of that so hope it's all good! :)

the mcc update video is out if you are an mcc enjoyer. It's very neat, if you wanna check it out

yeah! i am a fellow mcc enjoyer, saw it already, thanks for telling me though, i'm really hype for today.

Allo curious anon here sorry if the lots of asks bother you. I was just curious if i could share an interesting post i saw today about c!dream :0 (not necessarily negative i think? More of a statement of an often-confused canon)

sure thing! i don't know what you mean by often-confused since, the entire fanbase is very confused always, and often selection bias plays into the perception from both sides, but sure :]

you also sent in a thing for the other anon who said they didn't know what c!dream did that bad; pretty sure they couldn't really be alerted since, not sure if they watch my blog that closely, but i'll summarize your points just in case and add some notes;

the repeated blowing up of l'manberg (in my mind that's largely a positive since i,, despise that country, but fair enough), revealed c!ranboo as a traitor (they seem to be friends so i also,, think that might've been planned between him and enderboo), sent ghostbur away (i don't think c!dream knew it was dangerous for him and wanted to actually hurt him, but idk), participated in fighting against c!sapnap when he killed people's pets (that's only negative against c!sapnap and didn't seem to hurt him much at all), and then the whole vault scene where he was allegedly planning to steal people's things (though saying he would & being stopped beforehand and doing it are two different things, frankly).

so i still agree with the other anon that a lot of the hurt he did "to the entire server" (he only negatively interacted with like,, a half of them) is exaggerated both by the characters and the fandom, but i guess that's a consequence of most people seeing him as a threat to everyone's happiness rather than a complex personality.

Also he was aware of the butcher army going to kill techno but only got involved because he saw an opportunity to get a favor. (As he knew in advance due to him telling techno to get a totem, watching from afar instead of interveing or manipulating tubbo out of it)

i don't understand this at all, i'm sorry. how do you know he only helped techno in order to get a favor? last i remember he was only doing it to protect and strengthen his alliance, and techno came up with the whole favor thing entirely on his own. you might've not watched techno's perspective or their prior interactions, idk, but this really is a misinterpretation in my eyes. /nm

sorry if that is overly dream negative i just wanted to let yall know cus you seemed unaware -curious anon

nah dw, i watch the smp and i watched all of these things happen so, wouldn't say unaware, but thanks.

[mageofseven]

Hey, I just read your post about MC's pregnancy with Satan (which is amazing, by the way) and it got me wondering... What if MC felt pain during the pregnancy and the only way to make it go away would be with the brothers talking to their children? Like, Satan was so soft and cute, it got me curious about how the others would be and say to their babies. Hope you have a nice day! 💫

Aww. Okay, this is a cute ask. Of course~ time to give the other brothers time to calm their babies with loving words while they're in their mommy 🥰

Oh! And for reference to those who either haven't read it or don't remember, this is what Nonnie is referring to with Satan.

Also, I only included Lucifer, Mammon, and Leviathan in this, but will do the last three brothers (Satan is excluded from this since this prompt is based off one of his posts) in another post. I decided to do this since Next Gen posts tend to take me a while to do, despite the fact that they are my favorite to answer, and since I haven't posted much lately and wanna give ya guys more content.

So please enjoy!

Part 2

~

Lucifer:

Finding out that his daughter inherited demonic strength while she was still in her mother was a quite a terrifying thing for him, not that he'd admit it to most since he feels like he always needs to seem collected and on top of things.

Luckily, Lucifer truly is the type to keep his emotions in check when he needs to act

So when MC hit 5 months and had her first episode of pain, it only took a moment for the oldest to spring into action in order to help his Love.

Watching the human's belly get bruised from each quick kick and jab was difficult for him, but as some one skilled in magic, more so than all of his brothers combined, he knew a spell to use.

Hand hovering over her belly, a pale blue light extended from his finger tips and was absorbed into her skin.

The spell calmed his distressed child and stopped his Love's pain, but he didn't find out the reason for the episode till later that evening.

Discovering that MC's body wasn't absorbing the dark energy needed for their daughter's soul fast enough, causing the baby to become upset and lash out in fear...well, it wasn't an easy truth to handle.

Still, he didn't hesitate to push past his worry and look into a solution.

After consulting various experts he had connections with and looking through books, he discovered that most potions and spells that could help weren't human-safe in the long term, not even the calming spell he had been using so far.

When he discovered a non magical method, one that literally just required his time and his voice, he was genuinely surprised. Was it truly as easy as talking to his daughter?

When MC had her next episode, the two were preparing for bed. The human had finished slipping into her pjs just for the pain to hit her and cause her to lower to the ground as she hugged her stomach.

Lucifer quickly stopped changing and let his shirt fall to the floor, helping his Love over to the bed.

He felt somewhat awkward, even a little embarrassed to speak to his unborn child, but barely paused at all.

Leaning in close to MC's belly, he spoke softly to his daughter. Without really knowing what to say, he essentially started lecturing the baby on her behavior, though he really didn't realize it. He just knew he needed to speak and spoke what was currently on his mind. Lucifer was worried about MC, worried about his daughter, so though it was a lecture, it was a lecture filled with love and concern.

It's not as if their daughter has developed anywhere near enough to know what her daddy was saying though; all their baby recognized was her daddy's soft, loving tone and that was enough calm her and make her feel safe.

Overall, it was successful, taking not quite six minutes to make the pain completely cease.

Still kneeling in front of her, the demon took his girlfriend's hand and kissed it before giving it a gently squeezed and looking up at the sniffling human.

"Are you alright, Love?"

From then on, the demon never strayed far from his Love in case such an episode would spring up again.

Whenever possible though, Lucifer would always carry her off somewhere they could be alone when an episode started; he didn't want to have to try to calm his child while his brothers were freaking out around him and in truth, he found the situation a bit embarrassing. To be more specific, he was uncomfortable letting his brothers hear him speak so tenderly against MC's belly. Occasionally it was unavoidable though and the oldest had to deal with some of his brothers teasing him about it afterwards, especially Mammon.

Overall, such a method is a private, but meaningful thing to him. Even as the episodes lose their frequency, he still finds himself talking to his daughter. Essentially starts the lecturing while Ksenia is too young to realize she is being lectured, but it comes from a very loving place and that's what his daughter responds to.

Mammon:

Oh man, did this dude freak out when the first episode happened.

He tried very hard to keep calm, but it was obvious to anyone who saw him that he was panicking.

He managed to help MC over to the couch and had enough of his brain functioning to realize that he should go get Lucifer from help.

Honestly terrified and thought something was wrong. Well, scratch that. Something was very wrong, but more specifically, both he and MC were scared that she was losing their baby because the pain was so bad.

Luckily, after Mammon bursted into Lucifer's study and had the oldest come out to help, they find out that's not the issue at all. The Avatar of Pride didn't know exactly what the problem was yet, but it wasn't that. He used a calming spell on the human's belly that lightly sedated the child and ended the pain, though they all knew that it was just a temporary solution.

The two older brothers manage to rope Satan into things, having the blonde look through all of his books and do whatever magical tests he needs to in order for them to understand just what's happening with MC and the baby.

Mammon hovered around MC constantly at this point and kept bugging Satan for answers. The second brother didn't mean to seem impatient or ungrateful or anything like that; he was simply worried, even if he tried to pretend otherwise. It didn't stop the blonde from getting frustrated though.

When he found out about the slow energy absorption and how it was essentially scarying his baby girl into hurting her mama, Mammon felt guilty as hell. I mean, of course this would happen; MC is human. Of course her body can't absorb it fast enough. And yet...he still had to be a dumbass and knock her up. Now both his Human and his little girl were suffering 'cause of him.

While Satan searched for methods to stop the episodes and potentially help speed up the absorption process, Mammon kept buying stuff.

Yep. Boy had a guilted heart that pushed him to buy MC stuff. Technically, most of it was for their daughter, but seeing MC's face light up at the cute outfits and toys he got for their kid was exactly what the Avatar of Greed needed.

Mammon...he needed to feel like her was doing something right. For years. His brothers have treated him like he was nothing but a screw up and this situation...it really made all of their words ring in his head, made him feel like they just might be true.

Finding out that all he had to do to stop the pain was talk to his daughter? Easy peasy! Honestly, the dude was just glad there was something he could do.

Yes, his face was red the first time he had to do it. Plus, it was kinda hard to focus on his words since MC was crying in pain and he just wanted to focus on comforting her, but he couldn't.

Tells his baby girl to listen up because her Great Papa Mammon is here and she doesn't have to be scared anymore. One of the more blunt brothers with his kid and just out and tells Cassia that she'll get the dark energy she needs, no worries!

"So no worryin' and go easier on ya Ma, got that Babygirl?"

It was a slow start, but the episode ended in only 12 minutes, much better than the hour the pain would normally last.

Feels much less guilty here on out and when he does, the tsundere will snuggle up to MC and get all blushy, asking if he can have some belly time to talk to their baby.

Definitely the type of the dad to ask his girlfriend to let him have a 'private' talk with their unborn baby just to level with her belly and tell their daughter what a beautiful, sweet, and strong woman her mama is, ultimately smirking the entire time.

Leviathan:

Oh boy, did this man panic. Not sure whether he could have calmed down enough to help or at least get help for MC's first episode because he didn't really get the chance-- Asmo was passing by in the hall when he heard the couple screaming (MC in pain, Levi in panic) and ran to get help for them after poking his head in and seeing the scene.

First one the fifth brother ran into? Satan. The blonde kinda froze at the situation he was dragged into at first, but he remained calm for the most part and tried spell after spell, searching for a remedy to whatever was happening to the human and her child.

The blonde was just as surprised and relieved when the calming spell worked and the human's pain died down.

At some point during the episode, MC had clung and pressed herself against her boyfriend, crying into his chest and in turn, Levi held her tightly, as if he'd lose her if he let go. Even after her pain stopped, the two never let go of each other.

From there, Satan left to get some books from his room to do some tests to see if he could figure out what had transpired.

Levi couldn't even bring himself to look at MC's belly, which was covered in black and blue. He actively avoided lowering his gaze as he anxiously kept asking his Henry if could do something for her, which the human only shook her head. All MC wanted was answers and for Levi to not let go of her yet.

Hearing from Satan later about the issue with MC's absorption rate and his son's fear, the man immediately fell into himself, calling himself selfish and horrible and utterly worthless. Like Mammon, he blamed himself for this, but unlike the second brother, he didn't try to pretend he was okay.

It took a lot of comfort from MC as well as his brothers constantly telling him that he can't be falling apart now, for the man to break out of it a bit. They were right; Levi knew this. He wanted to be there for MC and help her with whatever she needs him to so instead of just knocking himself down, he needs to do the very things she needs him to do.

What did he need to do specifically though? He wasn't really sure till Satan came to him the talking strategy he discovered.

Talking to MC's belly? Talking to their son during an episode? The otaku found it embarrassing... I mean not a bad embarrassing, but still.

When the next episode occurred, the man almost forgot the method, if he's honest. Just like the first time, he panicked and just held his Henry close for a bit before he realized what he should be doing.

Accidentally shoved her away in his panic and quickly apologized before kneeling down in front of her belly.

Goes from apologizing to MC to beginning his little talk with his son with an apology for him. Tells Kai that he's sorry that he's so scared, sorry that things ended up like this, but that even Levi sees now that things will be okay. Gives a lot of reassurance to his son that he'll be okay.

Levi... it's no secret that he has a lot of anxiety problems; he's such a big worrier. This whole situation kinda puts a thought at the back of him; what if his son is like him in that regard? Will Kai become just as scared of people's judgements and whatever troubles could come in the future, just like him? The Avatar of Envy didn't want that for his son.

Promises to his son that he'll never have to be afraid of the things that Levi himself is. He leans in closer to the human's belly and tells his son that he'll do anything and everything to make sure that his son will live a safe, but unrestrained life; a life better than the one Levi has been living himself by hiding away from the world in his room.

It was at that promise where his son finally calmed down and the episode ended. He watched MC wipe the tears from her face for a minute before rising up and pulling his Henry in for a hug.

"I'm sorry." The demon murmured. "I'm sorry this kind of thing is gonna keep happening, but I'll always stop it for you. I'll keep fixing it and it'll be okay."

Overall, the episode only lasted about eight minutes, though two of those minutes was Levi panicking and forgetting he had to talk to his son.

Blushes each and every time he has to talk to his son during an episode without fail.

Not the type to do it outside of the episodes. Instead, he gotten a bit more cuddly around MC's belly. Often asks if the two of them can go lay down together so he can lay close to her belly and hug it. Especially feels the need to do that on his more anxious days.

[lyesander]

I'm g2b soon so I might not see your answer until tomorrow but since you want to talk Mash and I'm curious: who's your favourite character and why? And what would you say is your favourite season overall?

Incidentally we seem to have a few similar slightly niche opinions lol, I was just saying the other day that I don't take the 11 years of actors aging as diegetic canon and I have a few posts about how frustrating The Price and Your Retention Please are too (though I didn't realize the Korean war hero was in a Japanese uniform in The Price, oof). So I'm looking forward to seeing more of your takes on the show.

I'll admit, I didn't know what a Japanese cavalry uniform looked like until I watched that episode, but it seemed a little off, so I did a bit of digging and yeah, Japanese, not Korean. Which isn't too surprising for M*A*S*H, but it definitely helped shift my general ambivalence towards the episode to outright dislike. It's one of the few that really can't be redeemed for me, even though the concept of Hawkeye trying (and failing) to keep a draft dodger out of the ROK is interesting.

I'm far more indifferent to "Your Retention Please." It's not a great episode, I don’t plan on rewatching it, but that’s just because it doesn’t really do much for me. It reads as a really washed out commentary on military retention (re-enlisting Klinger while he was down on his luck about his ex was kind of laughable to me; predatory enlistment has way more to do with socioeconomics than it does, uh, boohoo my ex-wife is still shitty), but that's it's biggest sin.

The calvary stuff is definitely my biggest costuming gripe, but I do remember at one point Mulcahy comes on screen wearing a collegiate hoodie and I had to restrain myself from yelling "THEY DIDN'T START PUTTING COLLEGE LOGOS ON HOODIES UNTIL THE 60S!" As though that matters to anyone except me, haha.

If you want, DM me the posts you're referring to and I'll send you my thoughts. I've been binging the series for the first time over the past week, and just wrapped up the finale yesterday, so right now I'm still kind of processing.

As for my favorite characters, I usually gravitate towards the leads. Hawkeye's definitely my favorite. I appreciate how overtly anti-military he and Trapper are, while both still retaining a lot of period typical flaws you'd see in most mid-century, white American males. It’s particularly apparent Hawkeye's misogyny, the cognitive dissonance he seems to face when he’s confronted with the fact that no matter how much he hates it, he’s still part of the war effort, etc. But his character development remains fairly consistent for being a non-chronological show.

I really like characters who desperately try to be good people, but still fail in many ways, whether it be through their own, unconscious biases, egos, or faulty coping mechanisms. Putting them in a high stress situation, like war, makes those idiosyncrasies stand out all the more. Hawkeye is full of idiosyncrasies. The episodes that explore his more manic moments are some of my favorites. There are a couple of particularly underrated scenes in "Stars and Stripes" where he's desperately cramming a scrabble board under the noses of anyone who looks at him for more than two seconds. By Depressing News, we see ten seasons worth of trauma start getting to him, but like Sidney said, he'd be crazy if it didn't.

He's also just a very charming, funny person. He holds a lot of love for his friends. Henry wasn’t wrong in saying "Hawkeye's kind of the heartbeat of the 4077th." Which is another interesting side to Hawkeye's character - while he likes attention, he obviously doesn't like people regarding him as someone worth looking up to. It’s why he thrives on goofy antics in post-OP and around camp, but gets viscerally uncomfortable when he’s, say, swarmed by reporters like in “Heroes” or put on a pedestal like in “Fallen Idol.”

Second favorite is probably Charles. Despite being the last of the main crew to become a regular cast member, I think he has the most character growth of anyone in the show. His episodes were definitely some of the most emotional for me, even beyond Hawkeye's breakdown eps. There's something just very poignant about watching Charles be quietly humbled. "Actually no, that thought hadn't occurred to me. That would be interesting, wouldn't it?" and "Those men weren't soldiers, they were musicians" are two of the most haunting lines of the show.

I do like Frank, but my appreciation for him is more as a narrative foil for Hawkeye and Trapper than it is as a character or person. He's very funny, he does a good job portraying what he's supposed to, and he has absolutely no redeeming qualities. At best, you pity him.

Margaret and Klinger tie for third. Margaret’s another character who exhibits a lot of growth over the course of the series. She’s still a bootlicker, but seeing her develop into her own person outside of Frank or any of the shitty men she finds herself tied to is extremely satisfying. I like it when she’s able to pal around with the others. Klinger would have beaten Margaret but I don’t really enjoy his character arc. I understand it, but his gradual acceptance and indoctrination into the military reads as a tragedy to me.

Henry and Trapper tie for forth. Henry takes a very, very slight lead just because he's such an endearing little doormat to me, but had Wayne Rogers gotten his wish and had Trapper become a more fully rounded character, he'd probably win out.

Third and fourth places are very close. I actually struggled with which ones I wanted to put first.

I have surprisingly few thoughts on BJ, for someone who typically enjoys musing about characters with issues. He’s fine, I guess. I like that he’s got a manipulative streak. Sometimes watching the girls fight is enjoyable, sometimes it isn’t. He clearly cares for his friends, but he’s terrible at showing it. He expresses himself through concrete actions, not vulnerability. I really wish Farrell had been more open to letting BJ be the fall guy every now and then, like Hawkeye and Charles. I think I’d have liked him more if there had been any sort of acknowledgment by the narrative that BJ struggles with his own internal biases, because he totally does; it’s just never talked about. I prefer thinking up meta on BJ, but I prefer watching Trapper.

Favorite side character is Flagg. He’s one dimensional, but also a total riot.

Least favorite character is Potter. I went from liking him, to feeling conflicted, to actively disliking him over the span of a day. Go figure.

As for my favorite season, I’m not sure I have one. I pick and choose my favorite episodes. I think the only season I struggled to pull three solid eps from was season eleven, but I honestly enjoyed the finale and that’s like four episodes rolled into one, so I dunno. I wasn’t huge on season ten, either. 

If I had to pick a favorite.. prooobably season three? You start getting glimmers of the more dramatic, character driven episodes, but Trapper and Henry are still there and you have a lot of the really fun, early season antics. Because it’s still, you know, the early seasons. 

I actually do appreciate the tone shift from a thematic perspective. Something, something, losing your innocence, blah blah blah. Not that the early episodes were particularly innocent, but M*A*S*H does a hard swing from satirical comedy to character driven tragedy (with comedic elements) as the reality of the crew’s situation really starts sinking in.

[qqueenofhades]

I want to hear about gay knights. Please.

Ahaha. So this is me finally getting, post-holiday, to the subject that was immediately clamoured for, when I volunteered to discuss the historical accuracy of gay knights if someone requested it. It reminds me somewhat of when my venerable colleague @oldshrewsburyian​ volunteered to discuss lesbian nuns, and was immediately deluged by requests to do just that. In my opinion, gay knights and lesbian nuns are the mlm/wlw solidarity of the Middle Ages, even if the tedious constructionists would like to remind us that we can’t exactly use those terms for them. It also forces us to consider the construction of modern heterosexuality, our erroneous notions of it as hegemonically transhistorical, and the fact that behaviour we would consider “queer” (and therefore implicitly outside mainstream society) was not just mainstream, but central, valorized, and crucial to constructions of medieval manhood, if not without existential anxieties of its own. Because medieval societies were often organized around the chivalric class, i.e. the king and his knights, his ability to make war, and the cultural prestige and homosocial bonds of his retinue, if you were a knight, you were (increasingly as the medieval era went on) probably a person of some status. You had a consequential role to play in this world, and your identity was the subject of legal, literary, cultural, social, religious, and other influences. And a lot of that was also, let’s face it, what the 21st century would consider Kinda Gay.

The central bond in society, the glue that made it work, was the relationships between soldiers, battlefield brotherhoods, and the intense, self-sacrifical love for the other that is familiar to anyone who has ever watched a war movie, and dates back (in explicitly gay form, at least) to the Sacred Band of Thebes. Medieval society had a careful and contested interaction with this ideal and this kind of relationship between men. Because they needed it for the successful prosecution of military ventures, they held it up as the best kind of love, to which the love of a woman could never entirely aspire, but that also ran the risk of the possibility of it turning (homo)sexual. Same-sex sexual activity was well-known in the Middle Ages, the end, full stop. The use of penitentials, or confessors’ handbooks, as sources for views or practices of queer sexual behaviour has been criticised (you will swiftly find that almost EVERYTHING used as a source for queer history is criticised, shockingly), but there remains the fact that Burchard of Worms’ 11th-century Decretum, a vast compilation of canon law, mentions same-sex behaviour among its list of sins, but assigns it a comparatively light penance. (I don’t have the actual passage handy, but it’s a certain amount of days of fasting on bread and water.) It assigns much heavier penalties for Burchard’s main concern, which was sorcery and the practice of un-Christian beliefs, rituals, or other persistent holdovers from paganism. This is not to say that homosexuality was accepted, per se, but it was known about, it must have happened enough for priests to list in their handbooks of sins, and it wasn’t The End of The World. Frankly, I am tired of having to argue that queer people existed and engaged in queer activity in the Middle Ages (not directed at you, but in general). Of course they did. Obviously they did. Moving on!

Anyway. Returning to gay knights specifically, the fact remained that if you encouraged two dudes to love each other beyond all other bonds, they might, you know, actually bang. This was worrisome, especially in the twelfth century, as explored by Matthew Kuefler, ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’ and Ruth Mazo Karras, ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179-214 and 273-86. I have written a couple papers (in the ever-tedious process of one day being turned into journal articles) on the subject of the Extremely Queer Richard the Lionheart, some material of which can be found in my tag for him. Richard’s queerness has been argued over for a long time, we all throw rotten banana peels at John Gillingham who took it upon himself to deny, ignore, or minimize all the evidence, but anyway. Richard was a very masculine and powerful man and formidably talented soldier who could not be reduced to the stereotype of the effeminate, weak, or impotent sodomite, and the fact that he was a prince, a duke, and a king was probably why he was repeatedly able to get away with it. But he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t the only one. He was very much part of his culture and time, even if he kept running into ecclesiastical reprisals for it. It happened. If you want a published discussion that covers some of my points (though not all of them), there is William E. Burgwinkle, ‘The Curious Case of Richard the Lionheart’, in Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature: France and England, 1050-1230 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 73–85. Also on the overall topic, Robert Mills, Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 

Peter the Chanter, a Parisian cleric, also wrote De vitio sodomitico, a chapter of his Verbum abbreviatum, fulminating against “men with men, women with women [masculi cum masculis […] mulieres cum mulieribus]” which apparently happened far too often for his liking in twelfth-century Paris (along with cross-dressing and other genderqueer behaviour; the Latin version of this can be found in ‘Verbum Abbreviatum: De vitio sodomitico’ in Patrologia Latina, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: 1855), vol. 205, pp. 333–35). Moving into the thirteenth and especially fourteenth centuries, this bond only grew in importance, and involved a new kind of anxiety. Richard Zeikowitz’s book, Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Male Same-Sex Desire in the 14th Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), explores this discourse in detail, and points out that the intensely homoerotic element of chivalry was deeply embedded in medieval culture – and that this was something that was not queer, i.e. unusual, to them. It is modern audiences who see this behaviour as somehow contravening our expected stereotypes of medieval knights as Ultra Manly No Homo Men. When we label this “medieval queerness,” we are also making a judgment about our own expectations, and the way in which we ourselves have normalized one narrow and rigid view of masculinity.

England then had two queer kings in the 14th century, Edward II and Richard II, both of whom ended up deposed. These were for other political reasons, but their queerness was not irrelevant to assessments of their character and the reactions of their contemporaries. Sylvia Federico (‘Queer Times: Richard II in the Poems and Chronicles of Late Fourteenth-Century England’, Medium Aevum 79 (2010), 25–46) has studied the corpus of queer-coded historical writing around Richard, and noted that while the Lancastrian propaganda postdating the usurpation of Henry IV in 1399 obviously had an intent to cast his predecessor in as unfit a light as possible, the accusations of queerness started during Richard’s reign, “well before any real practical design on the throne […] and well before the famous lapse into tyranny that characterized the reign’s last few years. In poems and chronicles produced from the mid-1380s to the early 1390s, and in language that is highly charged with homophobic references, Richard II is marked as unfit to rule”. E. Amanda McVitty (‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77) examined how the treason trials of high-status individuals centred on a symbolic deconstruction of his chivalric manhood, demoting and exiling him from the intricate homosocial networks that governed the creation and performance of medieval masculinity.

This appears to have been a fairly extensive phenomenon, and one not confined to the geopolitical space of England. Henric Bagerius and Christine Ekholst (‘Kings and Favourites: Politics and Sexuality in Late Medieval Europe’, Journal of Medieval History 43 (2017), 298–319) traced the use of ‘discursive sodomy’ as a rhetorical tool employed against five late medieval monarchs, including Richard II and his great-grandfather Edward II, John II and Henry IV of Castile, and Magnus Eriksson of Sweden. In all cases, the ruler in question was viewed as emotionally and possibly sexually dependent on another man, subject to his evil counsels and treacherous wiles, and this reflected a communal anxiety that the body of the king himself – and thus the body politic – had been unacceptably queered. Nonetheless, as a divinely anointed figure and the head of state, the accusations of gender displacement or suspected sodomy could not be placed directly on the king, and were instead deflected onto the favourites themselves, generally characterised as greedy, grasping men of ignoble birth, who subverted both social and sexual order by their domination of the supposedly passive king. 

None of this polemic produced by hostile sources can be read as direct confirmation of the private and physical actions of the kings behind closed doors, but in a sense, this is immaterial. The intimate lives of presumably heterosexual individuals are constructed on the same standards of evidence and to much greater certainty.  In other words, queerness and queer/gay favourites could not have functioned as a textual metaphor or charged accusation if there was not some understanding of it as a lived behaviour. After all, if the practice did not physically exist or was not considered as a potential reality, there could have been no anxieties around the possibility of its improper prosecution.

This leads us nicely into the deeply vexed question of adelphopoiesis, or the “brother-making” ceremony argued by some, including John Boswell, as a medieval form of gay marriage. (Boswell, who died of AIDS in 1994, published the landmark Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality in 1980, and among other things, controversially argued that the medieval Catholic church was a vehicle for social acceptance of gay people.) Boswell’s critics have fiercely attacked this stance, claiming that the ceremony was only intended to join two men together in a celibate sibling-like relationship. A Straight Historian who participated in a modern version of the ceremony in 1985 actually argued that since she had no sexual inclinations or motives in taking part, clearly it was never used for that purpose by medieval men either. (Pause for sighing.) 

The problem is: we can’t argue intentions or private actions either way. We can understand what the idealized and legal designation for the ceremony was intended to be, but we cannot then outrageously claim that every historical individual who took part in it did so for the party line reason. Maybe medieval men who joined together in brother-making ceremonies did live a celibate and saintly life (this would not be surprising). It seems ludicrous to argue, however, that none of them were romantically in love with each other, or that they never ever ever had sex, because surprise, formulaic documents and institutional guidelines cannot tell us anything about the actions of real individuals making complex choices. Even if this was not always a homosexual institution (and once again with the dangerous practice of equivocating queerness with explicitly practiced and “provable” sexual behaviour), it was beyond all reasonable doubt a homoromantic one, and one sanctioned and organised according to well-known medieval conventions, desires (for two men to live together and love each other above all) and anxieties (that they might then have sex).

The medieval men who took a ‘brother’ would probably not have seen it as a marriage, or as the kind of household formation or social contract implied in a heterosexual union, but as we have also discussed, the definition of marriage in the Middle Ages was under constant contestation anyway.  The church was constantly anxious about knights: their violence, their (oftentimes) lack of religiosity, their proclivity for tournaments, swearing, drinking, and other immoral behaviour, the possibility of them having sexual affairs with each other and/or with women (though Andreas Capellanus, in De amore, wrote an entire spectacularly misogynistic handbook about how to have the right kind of love affair with a woman and dismissed same-sex relationships in one sentence as gross and unworthy, so he was clearly the No Homo Bro Knight of his day). So, as this has gotten long: gay knights were basically one of the central social, religious, and cultural concerns of the entire Middle Ages, due to their position in society, their necessity in a warlike culture, the social influence of chivalry and their tendency to bad behaviour, their perceived influence over the king (who they may also have given their Gay Cooties), their disregard of the church’s teachings, and the ever-present possibility that their love wasn’t celibate. So yes. Gay knights: Hella Historically Accurate.

The end.

[sailingintothenight]

“WANNABE.” T.H. Imagine.

And what if after years of chasing each other like a cat and mouse, you and Tom started to wonder if you wanna be something else in each other's life?

A/N: I am posting a one shot after weeks of writer's block. I hope you like it. It's 9:30 pm in Peru and it's still April 28, so it's still my birthday! Give it a try. Pleaseeeeee! And yes, I borrowed a scene from Mean Girls (Because I loveeee that movie)

“Hello God, it's me again, (y/n). What's up? I know we haven't talked much lately, but, hey, listen, I have a favor to ask you- I have behaved well, I haven’t gotten drunk at any crazy party of any Hollywood star and I haven't accepted drugs, ever: I'm afraid my grandmother will appear in my room as a ghost and pull my blankets in the middle of the night, plus, I haven't make out with any Stone-cold Hollywood hottie, and trust me, I've had more than one chance. Anyway, about the favor–”

"Yes, but (y/n)'s grandfather invited us to his birthday party..."

Tom's voice startles you and cuts off your internal dialogue, turning you back to the reality.

It’s 6 am. The sun shines in the clear sky, and you are on a flight back to England in a luxury privet jet that is about to arrive at the airport, while Haz, Harry, Tom and you are sitting in comfortable velvety seats, with the view of morning sky on your left side. 

The exciting memory of your last recording still seemed to run through your veins, too exciting to let you sleep. Because that was the end, the goodbye after incredible months. All your efforts from the past months were hidden behind that last performance that looked like a fantasy, except for the kiss, ugh, you had to erase it from your mind. But now, you're going back home, ready to take a break away from the set-up bridge and blue and green backgrounds, away from the makeup artists who gave your face the final touches of the magic of Hollywood, far from the suit of a superhero who had just won her last battle and who got the cute boy, Peter Parker.

But not far away from Tom Holland.

Because evil takes a human form in Tom Holland, your lifelong neighbor.

How do you even begin to explain Tom Ho– Stop, people say that if you pronounce his name 3 times a curse falls on you.

But fans say Tom Holland is flawless, you heard his curly hair is insured for 10,000 dollars, his favorite movie is “Spider-man Homecoming”, duh, and very soon, “far from home”. One time he met Robert Downey Jr. in his own village and he started hyperventilating, and once he threw a fan's phone on the floor and she said it was awesome.

"Please don't tell me you're going to his birthday party." You complain, because you can't help it.

"Would that bother you that much, darling?" Tom smiles, tilting his head back so that his tender smile fits perfectly with his tender face. “Then of course I will go. Also, your grandfather still has the hope his granddaughter would get a man like me.”

"Ew. Why would my dear grandfather want me to be with someone who enjoys keeping a frog in his mouth?" You ask, earning yourself an Oscar for best actress with the innocence you exude and the seriousness you manage to put on your face, even when Tom's eyes narrow from the attack you just launched, while, enjoying the show, his friend and his younger brother laughs, shaking heads with a familiar expression on their faces because of the familiar discussion between you and him that happens, every two or three days. "Seriously, Tom, give the poor Henry a break."

"Henry?" Tom asks with real confusion, his accent thick, while the other male voices ask it in a collective whisper too.

"I named your frog Henry, hope it doesn't bother you." And you laugh, victorious to feel how Tom exhales the air through his nose.

“Seriously, (y/n), when will you confess that you are in love with me? You don't have to be so shy, darling.” Tom laughs too, using his finger to tap your nose, because he knows perfectly well that you don't like that, just as you don't like being called darling anymore. “Ray is a wise man, you should listen to your grandfather."

"Yes, if you like skinny ones."

"I'm not skinny. I have the perfect body.” Tom defends himself.

"For now, but in a couple of years you will named your big belly as your dad does after drinking with mine." You laugh like a little girl because you love Dom, because he's warm and funny, because he loves his wife and children, and because of how funny he is when he and your dad have had too much alcohol, like the time they started a cartwheel contest in the middle of the street. "Who's there? It's Dom Junior.”

"Shut up! My dad is still sexy!” A heavy silence falls over the small place as everyone looks at Tom with furrowed brows and true confusion, but that's when he realizes the choice of words he used to refer to his dad. "That's not what I meant!"

You raise your hands in a sign of peace, your gaze avoiding his as you stop yourself from laughing and mocking him.

"That's so wrong, Tom." Harry says, with a certain bittersweet taste on the tip of his tongue. "Now because of you I won't be able to see dad's belly the same way."

Harry and Haz chuckle at Dom's expense.

But when the jet landed smoothly on the headlight-lit runway in the early hours of the morning, the heavy hours from the past months feels now as if they weighed the same as a feather, pain and exhausting sleepless nights disappeared in the blink of an eye, and now, there is no oceans that could make you feel far away, because in the end, you always came back home.

"Besides..." You say to finish that conversation, your backpack on your shoulder before making the victory path towards the stairs to get off the plane. "I would like a boyfriend who can grow a mustache, not like the failed attempt on your face. Thank you very much."

"Hey!" Tom frowns as you pass him by, and his voice rises even higher than it already is. "My doctor says it's just a hormone problem."

"Damn, bro..." Harry laughs as he puts an arm around Tom's shoulder, giving him a brotherly hug before walking out to the car waiting outside. “(Y/n) will be hard to catch, you know? But try it, maybe you will make it in this century."

Harry laughs, and then, walks out of the plane.

"What does that mean?" Tom asks Harrison, who is still waiting by his side.

"I think he meant that you are in love with (y/n), but you haven't noticed it yet."

Harrison chuckles, but after patting Tom on the back, he rushes to place a hand on his best friend's shoulder to stop him.

“Hey, mate… you, uh…” Tom's eyes soften, almost to the point where his brown eyes resembled the gaze of a little 5-year-old boy, sad, and lost. “You haven't told anyone why we came back, right?”

“Of course not.” Harrison says, and his gaze smiles just like his lips. “Don’t worry about anything, okay? We are home, you are home. You can take the time you need to rest.”

Tom nods, unsure, but tries to be strong as they both get off the plane. 

The gray autumn clouds hang with invisible strings in the sky as Tom Holland, actor, handsome, wealthy, and the loneliest person in the world, releases a deep breath that is lost among the sounds of the world, because his world is no longer sparkling or velvety thanks to the cameras or a red carpet, and while his new movie is a box office hit that never in his best dreams he would have imagined, something wasn't right for him.

That’s why he is back home.

The car ride is silent as some sleep, except you and Tom, because your eyes seem to recognize the streets you grew up in, because your hearts recognize your home. But for Tom, he recalls tilting his body to the left and a camera captured his best actor pose a week ago, but since then, his body has felt null, as if floating in the air and no longer responding to his orders. He was crystal clear, but a few people seemed to see clearly through him. Tom tries to convince himself that the tickling in his hands is his body's response to tiredness and not his anxiety, because he suffers it too, but he feels that something is eating his soul.

"Are you okay, Tom?"

Among a sea of ​​people, Tom Holland has always pretended to be an interesting person, but now, he takes a deep breath and looks at you, nervous, lost in the middle of that huge world, but you, looking back at him gives him peace, because he doesn’t feel alone anymore. 

What did you think? That someone is interested in knowing if you are really okay? Of course they care, right?

“Of course, darling.” Tom smiles, as if in a snap of fingers, everything is fine.

But there, he catches a movement of yours.

You tilt your head to the side, like his beloved Tessa when she is curious about something, but he doesn't say it out loud because you would take it the wrong way, but the movement in slow motion worthy of a Hollywood scene and the serenity of your gaze makes Tom hold his breath, that breath that previously didn't fit his chest with so many problems that he carried inside.

But suddenly he can breathe again, finally.

“Okay.”

The minutes pass until the car stops on a street that you two recognize perfectly. When everyone is out, the car leaves, but because your favorite boys are about to leave, too, you hug everyone as the promise to celebrate Harrison's birthday next week hangs in the air. You love them so much, because they are beautiful people who helped you to save yourself from the storms of doubts and fears, each of them in their own charming way, and for that, you were grateful.

"My friend Danielle is coming so I would like you to meet her, Haz." You chuckle adorably before leaving, noting that Harrison's smile is as real as his desire to meet her.

"I'm looking forward to it, darling."

"Wait, why he can call you darling?" Tom says, and for a second, you see a sparkle in the brightness of his eyes, but as the door of his house opens and his beloved Tessa runs to receive him, the confusion disperses like the morning haze.

"There she is the only darling you will ever get, Thomas."

And the moment you turn around, because the door of your house opens too, you lose sight of Tom's honest smile and the question that he hides behind his sweet eyes. Was he in love with you all this time without realizing it? And what if he wanna be your boyfriend? 

Oh, right. The favor that you were going to ask God for? To get you a boyfriend, a cute one, a hot one... maybe like Tom. Weird, isn't it?

Tag list: @galaxies-of-the-heart​

[imnotwolverine]

The marriage pact - Seedlings

Henry Cavill x OC Alice - multi-chapter

< Part 23 | Part 24 Seedlings | Part 25 >

Disclaimer: Bit of angst

Author’s note: It’s 6 AM and I’m posting this story live from a submarine ship. I kid you not. This is one crazy Sunday. A photographer friend had an assignment to make a photo report for a newspaper special and she needed someone to model for her. So, here I am. Here we are. Submarine ship Sundays. 😂

Word count: 1.840

(Link to my Masterlist)

Dear readers,

We are back on the island! And just in time. Winter is coming to an end and oh how incredibly happy I am to feel sun rays on my skin as I am working in my garden. Your garden? Oh yes, dear readers. I have, as of now, a garden. A house, a garden, a man. Ain’t life funny? Anyways. With spring soon coming our way it is time to get cracking. Or better yet; shovelling.

In other good news; I am pleased to announce that my book ‘The Tea Party’ will soon hit book shelves near you. The Tea Party is a collection of smaller adult stories which are just long enough to read before bed and exciting enough to spruce up your boring lunch break. Meet a number of mysterious and comedic characters as they go about their daily business, their lives intermixed with a sprinkling of magic and English frivolity. And if you happen to stop by my garden, I’ll be sure to autograph it for you, too.

With her hands in the dirt,

Ali

‘Ali Ali Ali!’ An excited voice bounced behind me and Henry as we strolled through the interior design shop, our hands interlinked. Both looking over our shoulders we didn’t see much, until we looked down. Little Alice! With a smile I turned and greeted her. ‘Hello dear princess! How do you do?’

‘And Swupermann!’ She squealed, looking up at Henry. He chuckled and winked at the little girl. ‘Don’t tell anyone! I’m in disguise!’

The girl stopped bouncing up and down and blinked, then asked: ‘What’s a disbois?’

‘Disguise.’ I sniffled, then reached down to pick her up and settle her on my hip like I always did, my eyes tracing around the shop, but not seeing her parents anywhere - which was understandable as the shop was absolutely PACKED with furniture. ..Oh cheeky..princess.. ‘A disguise is something you wear to hide who you really are. Like..’ I pulled a strip of hair before my nose. ‘See..such wonderful moustache I have! You cannot recognise me now..HON HON!’

The little girl chuckled and pulled away the lock of hair from my nose, scrunching hers in turn. ‘Noooo!!’ She shook her head. ‘That’s superman!’ She pointed at Henry, then nodded as if it was decided. Henry shrugged. ‘Well, guess I am Superman then.’ - ‘AND you are going to have bwabies with Ali.’ She nodded with the same decisive tone. Henry blinked and I near choked.

‘Oh..why do you think that?’

‘Mommy told me.’ She looked back at me and smiled, pleased with herself. I felt a little uneasy diving into this topic, so I remained silent and just raised my eyebrows. ‘Hmmm..’ I hummed, looking at Henry in hope that he would help. Unfortunately, though, he was equally surprised. And then little Alice continued: ‘You have to love like..THIS!’ And then she smooched her hand like there was no tomorrow.

Henry and I both started to grow red with embarrassment, both our mouths falling slightly agape as the little girl explained how you had to kiss. ‘And then you cuddle…’ She looked me dead in the eye. ‘A LOT.’ - ‘Did your mom tell you that?’ - YES! And then..’ She clapped her hands as if finalising her magic spell. ‘You get babies.’

‘Ali! Hey!…HEY you cheeky monkey! What are you doing here?’ Another voice behind us introduced an exasperated looking Maddie. I chuckled and hoisted up Alice a little higher - darn she really was getting heavy now. ‘Hey Mads. Lost something?’ I laughed, being welcomed in a warm hug from Maddie. ‘Oh you are back! It’s so good to see you. And thanks for catching our little princess.’

Next to us Henry was waving at someone and it became clear only moments later that he had waved at Frank, the dad carrying a large box with, by the looks of it, a new lamp. ‘Hey y’all.’ He cheered, putting down the lamp and giving a warning look at little Alice, who quickly folded her hands over her eyes, as if by that act alone she could disappear from her dad’s warning gaze.

‘Yep. We got a house, like you know. And, well, need a bit of furniture. So..you know..buying chairs and catching baby monkeys.’

‘BABIES!!!’ Alice cheered.

‘Yes..and ..babies.’

Maddie widened her eyes. ‘Oh…she did not just tell you the..-’ - ‘She just explained in fine detail how babies are made.’ I laughed, making Maddie run red with embarrassment. ‘Alice..’ Maddie warned.

The little girl shrugged again, folding her arms around my neck as if wishing me to protect her from her father’s and mother’s exasperated gazes. And then, from the crook of my neck she retorted to her mother: ‘But they pacties a lot.’

Henry near choked on his breath, making everyone laugh even louder, the first one to calm down being Maddie as she gave me a curious glance. All I could do was nod. ‘Yep.’ I bit my lip, making Maddie turn her questioning eyes towards Henry, who shrugged. ‘And perhaps with Alice’s good advice..who knows…’ He winked again at the little girl who squealed with excitement, her legs kicking out a bit.

‘Really? You mean..?’ Maddie looked back at me. I sighed and smiled, honestly this time. ‘Yes. Really really.’ - ‘OHHH ALI!!!’ Maddie flew back into my arms, the toddler in between us laughing giddily. ‘Ohhhhh…’ Maddie kissed my cheek, then gave Henry an equally big hug. ‘Oh I’m so happy. OH Oh ohhhh.’

We all laughed and made quick plans for a shared dinner to get Maddie and Frank up to speed - it had been months since I had last actually seen them after all. And Henry? Henry couldn’t be more happy, his face practically beaming as we drove home, having ordered a huge amount of furniture to somewhat fill up the empty house that we now called our home.

And home it was.

—

‘ALI? You up there?’ Henry’s voice sounded from the bottom of the stairs and I quickly swallowed a sniffle. ‘Yes. Here.’ I took a shivery breath and wiped away some tears.

It felt so stupid to cry. I was happy, right? I was probably the happiest I had ever been in my life. I had found someone who was not only my best friend, my buddy, my fellow cook during large dinner parties, my personal coach when I didn’t feel like exercising. No, he was Henry. A sweet, caring, gentleman with a tinge of dorky cheekiness thrown in the mix. He was perfect.

So why, oh why, was I crying?

‘Hey.’ Henry moved through the door way and stepped in beside me, his eyes trailing down the reddened skin beneath my lashes. ‘Are you okay baby?’

‘Yea..yea..it’s nothing. It’s..’ I sighed and sniffled back another tear, my eyes looking around the final and last room to be decorated. We both knew what could come here. What hopefully would come here. But it wasn’t here now. And I couldn’t help but feel the impending doom that it would never come. That this ship had sailed. That we had failed. That we would never fill..the nursery.

Strong arms wrapped around me and soft pillowy lips pressed away the two languid tears that rolled down my cheek. ‘What’s the matter, dear?’ He asked quietly. A question he full well knew the answer to, but he asked it all the same, his fingers tangling more tightly around the weft of my sweater. Locking me in, keeping me safe and leaving no way to run. I couldn’t keep up any walls even if I wished to. Henry knew my every worry. As he knew this one right now.

‘I’m just scared that it won’t..that we won’t..’ I slowly shook my head and held my breath. He pressed his forehead against mine and sighed. ’Time will tell. And if you want, we can get help. You know I don’t care about that. I don’t care about anything. I just want to be with you, okay?’ - ‘I know.’ I muttered, looking down on his day-old scruff, his neck, the slow rise and fall of his chest with every calming breath.

Breathe in. Puff, puff, puff.

The fun little memory of our plane ride here bubbled back up to the surface and I giggled quietly. Henry nuzzled my nose, silently asking me to share the fun. And so I did; I took a deep breath in, then looked him dead in the eye and puff-puff-puffed out. He got the reference and shook his head slightly, laughing. ‘You know what they say; practise makes perfect.’

I nodded and sniffled back another tear, closing in the last of the distance between us and moulding myself to his large chest, feeling his strong arms envelop me like a warm heavy blanket. ‘I love you so much. I just..pray and pray and pray that it will happen. I want the pitter patter of children’s feet in the hallway. I want to have them jump up on our bed and beg us for pancakes, even though it’s only like 5.30 in the morning.’ Henry laughed and I continued: ‘I want the tantrums, the pouting faces, the big fat crocodile tears, the scabbed knees, the cute little drawings that look like absolute shit. I want that.’ I said softly into the crook of his neck, his head slowly nodding, hands drawing slow circles over my back.

‘Marry me.’ He whispered. And then my heart dropped. In a good way and a bad way at once. I choked and grasped onto his long sleeve shirt more tightly, my tears now making place for a new expression. A mix of hope and worry lacing my features.

Not hearing or feeling any response from me, Henry slowly leaned back, studying my dumbfounded face. He rubbed a thumb over my cheek and I looked back up in those stormy blue eyes of his, full of longing, promises, desire. ‘Marry me, please Ali. We can take on any storm. Any challenge. And heck..if we have to adopt, we’ll adopt.’ He picked up my hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss there without losing eye contact. ‘I just want you to know that you are all what truly matters to me. The rest will come.’

I struggled for air and my throat went dry.

Did I want to marry him? Yes. Now? I didn’t know. Why? I wanted to tackle this dream first. Kids couldn’t wait, the clock was ticking. And marriage? We could always get married at a later point.

‘P-please ask me again after..after..’ I rubbed my tummy and swallowed. ‘Let’s..let’s first see if I can even ..get..’ I broke into a new storm of tears and the silent question that was afloat in the air remained unanswered, Henry’s arms pulling me back tightly into him, his face also breaking into one of agony.

‘I’ve got you Ali. I’ve got you. It’s okay.’ He whispered into my hair and long minutes went by as we just stood there.

In our home. The nursery echoing our desperate desire to become a mom and dad. To have a baby of our own.

--

General tagsquad: @harrysthiccthighss​ @tumblnewby @magdelen69​ @thereisa8ella​ @mary-ann84​ @darkbooksarwin​ @summersong69​ @madbaddic7ed​ @luclittlepond​

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[teenytinyapprentice]

(same headcanons anon) honestly i'd die for that kind of long post sdhfbsjhgbjfd but how about the main cast? layton, luke, flora, and emmy (and perhaps others you'd consider as part of the main cast), i'd really love to hear your thoughts!

GhKdjsfhds UH sure I’m not even sure how to go about organizing any of my thoughts so how about I just give you a whole bunch of random thoughts about the puzzle family + co  in jot note form (sorta)  and you can take from it what you will … disclaimer: Im sure some of these contradict canon and I’ll forget I even came up with them/said them in this and contradict myself but also I am just having fun here and don’t care sfdhkjfhskjglgf

Hershel has an unusually small appetite and prefers lighter dishes to anything heavy or too rich

Emmy and Desmond are both pretty artistic. Emmy mostly focuses on her photography but also enjoys drawing while Desmond actually enjoys painting (mostly water colour) although he’d loathe to let anyone but Raymond know about his hobby until he’s much older - Hershel on the other hand can’t draw For SHIT.

Desmond hair turns totally grey pretty much overnight when he hits his mid 60s while Hershel’s hair doesn’t turn white (slowly but surely) until he’s almost 80. It’s a sore spot.

Luke has his picture on walls of restaurants pretty much everywhere he goes from winning those “eat this giant meal and get it for free” competitions - he wins them on accident most of the time and has forgotten about a lot of them

The Puzzle family will spend at least one major holiday in Monte d’Or with Randall, Angela and Henry - it’s always a huge event and they all look forward to it

Emmy reunites with Layton and the rest of the puzzle family shortly after the events in Unwound Future having heard about the attack on London and realizing delaying seeing the Professor again might mean she just /never/ sees him again (considering his preoccupation for danger) - she just misses Luke leaving but does get to meet Flora and is a huge influence on her becoming more independent and standing up to the Professor

Desmond reunites with the Puzzle family partially on accident after Diabolical Box. He sort of planned to drop in on Hershel and give his little brother a heart attack but it ends up being less smooth and more awkward and difficult than expected… he drops in on occasion but doesn’t make a habit of sticking around too long until much later (influenced by rebuilding some kind of fragile relationship with Lucille and Roland)

Alfendi grew up in orphanages - he’s aware of his biological mother but has no relationship with her. He meets Layton and Flora as part of an investigation (no I haven’t put much thought into exactly what) - he and Flora strike up a funny friendship and when Layton hesitates to have Flora really join in on the investigation Alfendi and Flora do a mini-investigation of their own. They both end up proving to be formidable investigators, but mostly really befriend one another… which in turn strongly influences Hershel to ask Alfendi’s permission to foster and eventually adopt him

Flora does learn to cook later in life but excels more in baking - Katrielle helped her often in the kitchen growing up which is why she loves sweets so much

Flora has a growing interest in robotics that really kicks off when Gizmo (the robot dog from Curious Village) first breaks down when she’s home alone and she has to repair him - Desmond specifically encourages this and helps teach her, Hershel signs her up for a robotics camp upon her request realizing how much she enjoys it

Hershel thinks it’s HILARIOUS that Lucy calls Alfendi “Prof” and literally never stops giving him a hard time over it 

Flora and Alfendi learn to fence, Flora is the better of the two of them. Luke takes up karate inspired by Emmy’s fighting style (and is a terrible, terrible fencer. Just plain awful). Katrielle tried a variety of sports growing up (acrobatics, track and field teams, soccer, floor hockey, variety of dance classes etc.) but never really stuck to anything

Alfendi used to smoke but quit after Forbodium and was never able to get back into it

Emmy used to sneak Alfendi and Flora into horror movies against Hershel’s wishes before Flora was old enough to sneak Alfendi in herself

Flora hit a major growth spurt bout a year after UF and towers over Hershel (and most of the family) at 6”0 tall. Alfendi is a bastard and stole her thunder by matching her height by the time he was 15

Hershel and Flora are both autistic

Flora still visits St. Mystere on occasion - more so when Bruno passes to keep an eye on the residents of her hometown. Her and Lady Dahlia have a complicated but still loving relationship

Luke writes a LOT of letters when he first moves to America to keep up with his friends in England (and all over) - this dwindles down over time but he sends monthly letters to Hershel, Flora, Arianna and Crow until he eventually moves back

Alfendi used to dye his hair black as a teenager but had terrible upkeep and lots of roots showing so he grew out of it in a year or so

Alfendi suffers from chronic migraines and pain exacerbated by Forbodium, which is why he really hates leaving the house/office unless absolutely necessary (he also just isn’t a people person) 

The amount of people the Layton’s refer to as their aunt/uncle is confusing as hell. Lots of the Professor’s old friends get aunt/uncle status (for example Uncle Randall, Uncle Henry, Aunt Angela, Uncle Desmond, Aunt Emmy, Uncle Wright, Aunt Maya, Uncle Andrew, etc.) - specifically confusing around Luke who’s referred to as both brother and uncle

Raymond and Alfendi are actually very close

Luke moves back to London to officially work as Layton’s assistant after he graduates high school in America but also travels independently more often

Raymond has been Desmond’s primary caretaker since his pre-teens. He’s the closest thing he has to a father-figure but they’d never call it that, but it certainly a strong familial love and loyalty - and Des did end up adopting Raymond’s last name “Sycamore” and keeps it post canon when he officially hangs up his persona Descole for good

Flora works a variety of odd jobs before she follows through on her passion of robotics and electronic design

Hershel and Alfendi both have terrible fashion sense

Hershel eventually does tell all of his children (and Desmond, Emmy, Randall) about Claire. It doesn’t get much easier to talk about, but he’s always relieved when he says it

Hershel still has some kind of relationship with Dimitri and Clive. It’s… complicated. Real complicated. But present.

Emmy doesn’t have a relationship with Bronev after the events of AL - she does try but ends up needing to cut it off for her own sake

Luke writes stories inspired by his and the Professor’s adventures - but he tries to keep it a secret while he’s writing, too self-conscious to think of letting anyone let alone Layton read them just quite yet

Desmond actually really likes working with children, finds their presence refreshingly honest (even when they’re little shits) - and really only remembers this when he’s surrounded by Layton’s children in the future

Flora calls Hershel “Dad” or “Professor”, Luke alternates between “Professor” “Hershel” (occasionally “Dad”), Alfendi calls him “Father” or “Hershel” (occasionally “Dad” as well) while Katrielle almost exclusively calls him “Papa” 

Hershel actually once genuinely almost forgot his name was Hershel because of how many people in his day to day just call him “Professor” or “Layton” and its a little jarring hearing his first name sometimes 

Flora was homeschooled while Alfendi and Katrielle attended classes at public school - Alfendi and Katrielle were both notorious trouble makers but for very different reasons

All of the Puzzle kids (Luke, Flora, Alfendi and Katrielle) are trans and are like the perfect sliding scale of The Type of Name You Choose For Yourself When You’re Trans from exceedingly normal to obscure

Luke’s full name is Lucas but literally no one calls him that 

Alfendi’s two personalities go by “Al” and “Fendi” (the latter being the post-Forbodium personality) respectively, but will respond to “Alfendi” regardless of who’s fronting 

Hershel, Emmy and Katrielle have lovely singing voices. Alfendi cannot sing at all.

Luke and Flora both learn to drive while Alfendi and Katrielle never do - Luke learns to ride motorcycles but will still scream the whole time if Emmy takes the wheel of ANY vehicle

Luke in all sincerity owns hiking heels and its the worst thing he owns probably

AND OK. thats all I feel like writing right now but sure take that hopefully some of these are at least a bit funny or interesting to read fhdskjghsd

[trickkombowerskru]

The Locker Next To Mine-Patrick Hockstetter Imagine

Request: No here is the 14th day of the 25 days of trickkombowerskru! (yes I know I’m late I apologize, but I have been swamped with catching up with things plus finals, and it is now past Christmas  meaning I didn’t catch up when I wanted to, but I do have all the hcs I have to post for this event after this written, I just have 4 more imagines to do) which goes to the amazing @pattycake-hockstetter and she wanted a oneshot with something like where the reader and Patrick Hockstetter have lockers next to each other and they progress to friends through a handful of interactions

Warnings: None

Well that was some of the worst news you could possibly receive. You had just been told, or rather warned,  that this year your locker would be located next to the infamous Patrick Hockstetter's.

You had managed to avoid him this long and the last thing you wanted to do was get onto his radar. You heard the stories of all the girls he ended up there, how he would stalk them, flirt with them, get handsy, and how the ones he finally wore down he would fuck and throw away.

Your locker being next to his was unfortunately a way to paint a big red target on your back for him to see. You manage to stay hidden for about two weeks , maybe catching a glance from Patrick here or there, but overall succeeding in your goal. But of course everything had to come to a halt and today was time for your luck to run out. Taking a deep breath you get to your locker opening it and quickly throwing in your books, grabbing your supplies you would need.

You noticed Patrick was at his as well, doing god knows what, and you'd definitely didn't want to look over and see. You close the door and make your way out of there as painlessly as you possibly can, sliding into your seat in math beside your friend Kelsey.

"Hey girl."

"Hey. Let me just say I am so sorry you got stuck next to that."

"I know it sucks."

"What kind of stuff do you think he has in there? Have you seen it?"

"No and I'd really rather not."

"Oh what if you broke in? It'll be a good way to see."

"Yeah it'll be a good way to see my body in a casket when he kills me for looking through his stuff," you warn her.

"Awww come on dude. Aren't you at least a little curious what he hordes in there?"

"Not really. I am trying to stay off his radar. And breaking into his locker would do everything to put me in the center of it."

"Just think about it."

You roll your eyes, but give her a "Fine" to get her to drop the subject.

The class ends and you get to your locker, and to your unfortunate surprise Patrick is leaning against his, looking in your direction. As if he's waiting for you.

You try to ignore him grabbing all you need, but as soon as you finish he shut the door closed, making you jump a bit at the noise.

"Ya know next time you plan to go through my stuff, maybe don't do it in a class you have with my buddy," he says ending in a chuckle making you curse at yourself that Kelsey had to open her big mouth in a class you forgot you shared with Victor Criss.

"I was never actually going t-"

"Oh believe me Sweetheart I know. You were too scared I would kill you," he cuts in adding another horrible nasally laugh making you on edge.

"Because you believe all that shit about me. You don't even know what I have and haven't done. So how would you know if I bite or not?"

"I-"

You know Patrick could practically smell your fear.

"Relax I'm not pissed."

"Y-You're  not."

"Well I won't be....if you tell me your name."

"Y-Y/N," you say and curse at yourself yet again for still stuttering.

“Y/N.....I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” you agree, saying anything you need to to get him to leave.

He walks away over to his fellow assholes and you breath in relief, hoping that it was just a one time exchange , but you figured it wasn’t.

You now always felt his eyes on you, even if he was’t speaking, it never lessened the uneasiness. A week later he spoke again turning to you, with that creepy smile of his.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“You got pen?”

“Oh....Uh yeah.....,” you say rummaging through your bag.

“Here,” you say giving one to him.

“Thanks,” he ends with a wink to you.

He takes it and walks away heading down the hall to whatever class he had,

A few days later you two speak again.

“Did you do the homework for Snoresinger’s class?,” he asks referring to  Miss Moresinger’s math, the only class you two actually shared

“Yeah. I mean I fell asleep before finishing and sped through the second half this morning before I  left, but I did it.”

“Good enough. What did you get for 7 and 12 ?”

You look through your locker seeing the paper,”

“7 I  got X=36 and 12 I got ab=124″

“Cool. Thanks,”

“I didn’t think you actually did homework,” you joke

“Yeah like I said the first time, there’s a lot of shit you don’t know about me Princess,” he tells you after scribbling down the answer, making you cringe.

“You don’t like being called Princess, do ya Princess?”

“Even if I answer to that question, either way, I know you’ll still call me Princess.”

“Well maybe you know some things about me after all. Thanks for the answers Princess,” he smirks.

You roll your eyes as he walks off, well at least he was being friendly. well as friendly as Patrick could be anyway. You didn’t question it, but thanked God you didn’t end up on his “hump em and dump em” list.

Over the next few weeks small conversations take place here and there, gradually lowering the levels of anxiety being around him used to bring you. Your next full conversation however doesn’t happen until almost the end of the month.

“Hey Princess, I saw you and your little friends out on the field a few days ago, never took you for a stoner.”

“I’m not I only smoke after a big test and sometimes at parties.”

“Well it looked like good shit. Would ya help me and the boys out and tell me your dealer?”

“It’s Jesse,” you say with a slight smile.

“No shit?” he asks kinda shocked since Jesse seemed like the last person who would be a dealer.

“Yeah, you gotta show him the money up front for him to hook you up, but he does work in tandem so if he’s too busy you can also get it from Ellie or Riley, same shit for the same price.”

“Awesome, I’ll be sure to have Vic look into that for us.”

You nod as you head off to your next class of the day. 

Patrick is waiting for you about a week later leaning on your locker door.

“Holy shit Princess,” he says chuckling at the end.

“What?”

“That weed....God Damn.”

You laugh at this as he moves off your locker door.

“Just for that tip off I think you should come hang with us later, you already got in good with the boys,”

You laugh again assuming he’s kidding.

“”Oh you’re serious?”

“Sure am Princess what do ya say?”

“You want me to hang out with you and your gang?”

“Why not?”

“Well for one thing look at me,” you say gesturing to yourself and your seemingly “wouldn’t hurt a fly” appearance. 

“Two I’d really really rather not get hit on by Henry, and three could you imagine the shit that would get spread around?” 

“Oh please since when do you give a shit what people say?”

“I’d rather not get labeled as a gang slut,” you tell him honestly

“You won’t.”

“Only girl hanging out with the 4 of you? I totally would.”

“Oh come on Princess, if it makes you feel any better no one would say it to your face,”

“If I say yes will you stop?”

He just laughs.

“I don’t have to kick the shit out of anyone do I?,” you joke.

“Nah we were just gonna drive out to the quarry and fuck around, maybe get drunk, or smoke the last of our stash.”

“I have been under a lot of stress lately, and that does sound pretty nice.....fine “

And you did, you had an awesome time surprisingly, finding out that you could drink both Henry and Vic under the table. 

Not knowing that that day would be that start of an odd, yet beautiful friendship between you and the 4 toughest guys in school, basically becoming a 5th member of the gang.

[hiei1300]

An Avenger’s Secret

Chapter 13: Getting Back Into Action

Pairing: Loki x Female Reader

Summary: Being the epitome of professionalism, you have one rule that must be followed to the T; Never mix business and personal. But how will your integrity fair against meeting the Avengers, or better yet, a certain Avenger’s brother?

A/N: I know I haven’t posted anything in some time, but hopefully you guys are still eager to read. This story is still going and I’m trying to catch up on the time I’ve missed. Thank you all for your support so here’s the next chapter. (Please let me know if I missed anyone in the tags. TY)

Word Count: 2516

Warnings: None (That I can see anyway)

Chapter 12

The day continued with seldom tension than it had started with. The biggest difference came from you actively avoiding Henry to the best of your ability, even if it meant sharing the company of the ones that held the most contempt toward you.

When you were unfortunate enough to be stuck with your living headache, the conversations were something in of themselves. With the day already packed with excitement, those in the vicinity would look on in curious wonder at the spectacle you made in the presence of the newest guests in the building.

Your interactions with the smaller female was nothing but sweet and caring, as if you were around a toddler almost, or a walking teddy bear. Your eyes softened in her direction, your smile was genuine and sweet, and you were always ready to help in a moments’ notice. The interaction was quite different than what you would show to anyone else, though you were more relaxed around Tony, you were never quite as attentive with him than you were with E. And they could see why, Elli was as sweet and friendly as any one person could be. Laughing and smiling with everyone and at nearly everything. There was this aura about her that seemed to make everyone happier and calmer, it was really quite welcoming.

Then, there was the other guest, Henry. If looks could kill, he’d be done in well over a dozen times by now. Every interaction with him was filled with silent bitterness and an eerily calm demeaner. Where E was met with a motherlike response, Henry’s was the complete opposite.

Elli asked for tea? Coming right up, even brought over a plate of cookies, careful, they’re hot. Henry asked the same? Oops, the boiling water just so happen to spill on his lap, the cookies fell on his head, or, “You have legs, get it yourself.”

Honestly, from an outer perspective, you’d think there was a case of a split personality happening here.

And in every instance, Henry’s smile never left. Should he get the opportunity to be next to you, he’d take it in a heartbeat.

Washing the dishes? He was leaning against the counter.

“Why do you always think so poorly of me?”

“Henry, I’d have to care about you to thinking poorly of you. Go die in a ditch for all it concerns me.”  

Washing the clothes? He blocked the only exit.  

“If you need help with anything you know you can ask. I’m a great asset.”

“You’re off by two letters.”  

And in every moment, he almost never seemed to stop talking.

The guy had a set of lungs like no one else, seldom anything would get him to stop for five seconds. And if he wasn’t preoccupied with you or E, he would attempt to share the space with one of the others.

Steve and Banner would humor him and hold the conversations well. Bucky wasn’t so eager and understood your distain for the guy. Same went for Clint and Sam. Nat didn’t get the full blunt of his presence, as whenever he even attempted to approach the assassin, you came about and generously escorted him away from her.

Elli had asked for a blanket to snuggle with as she watched TV with Nat and Clint. You graciously brought over a soft fluffy one straight from the dryer. Placing sandwich squares for the three to snack on while they sat.

“Thank you (Y/n).” the two said in union.

“What about me?” Glaring at Henry, “I’m cold too.”

“Want me to set you on fire?” Very flat, blunt responses. It was amusing to a few of the Avengers, mainly Sam and Bucky would get a good chuckle from anything that came from your mouth. Though you didn’t make it obvious, it was a little funny when you could get someone to laugh from all of this, even a little smile would form on your lips when you were sure no one was looking.

Every interaction continued in the same manner. You were sweet with E, nasty toward Henry, but what really got noticed was your attitude toward everyone else.

You were going back to normal as the day came to an end, even your demeaner to Rogers was shifting back to its first moments of professionalism and indifference.

Right now, as everyone was settling in for the night, Tony offered Elli and Henry to stay the night but they graciously declined. E still had to go home to her pets and you really didn’t care where Henry went so long as it was away from you.

“I never thought I’d ever see you like this.” Looking over at your boss, he sat at the kitchen island with an empty mug in hand. You were hovering next to the kettle on the stove waiting for the water to boil for your tea.

“In what manner are you referring to, Mr. Stark?”

“The way you were acting around your friends, it was quite something.” his smile was amusing at best and his eyes still held that worrying notion. You saw how they would shift ever so slightly at your marks; his brows would twitch and again you were reminded of your personal rule.

“Friend,” you corrected, “only one of them is my friend. The other was a nuisance at best.” just as the pot began to sound, you poured the water into your cup and shut off the heat. “But...”

Feeling his focus sharpen, with a shaky exhale, donning your professionalism once more before retiring for the evening, you turned your attention to the only man that shared your space.

“I do wish to apologize for how I’ve been behaving as of late-”

“(Y/n), you don’t-”

Holding a hand up to stop his protest, you continued,” Please, Mr. Stark, it was out of line and I do feel the need to redeem myself. Be sure that I will do everything in my power to make up the trouble I placed you and your company in. But I do need to set my own boundaries.

I am your maid first and foremost, I cannot stress enough how grateful for the opportunity you have given me, and I will do my job. But when I am here, I am not your guest, I am your employee. As such I feel as though it needs to be clarified that what I do in my own time, in my own life...that it is not for you to meddle in...”

The look on his face was heartbreaking. He knew what you were asking, he didn’t want to lose you, even if it was never said out right, it was evident that he needed you just as much as he needed the others. He wanted to protest, he wanted to lay out ever reason why that was a bad idea, ever reason why you should see him as someone more than just your employer.

Elli told him that you had a hard time letting people into your life, you were afraid. Of what, she never said, but he needed you to know that you didn’t need to be afraid of him. He trusted you, he also knew that you were growing to trust him as well. Whatever it was that was stopping you from relying on him, he needed to be patient.

Over the course of you being there, he came to find that as stubborn as he was at times, you were always set on keeping your word. And one way or another, there would be no way to change your mind once it was set.

“Then I won’t,” getting up from his spot, with a firm look he spoke, “but know this if nothing else, nothing will ever stop me from protecting the people I care about.”

It was an agreement neither of you wanted to yield to. As stoic as you tried, your chest still clenched uncomfortably.

“The moment you are healed, you may begin on making good on your word. No sooner...”

Walking to his room, just before he left, Tony had one more thing to add.

“It’s good having you back...(Y/n).”

And just like that, you were alone. This feeling should be familiar, it shouldn’t feel like this, yet, it feels like the weight only doubled.

Staring into the transparent liquid before you, it wasn’t until you saw something drop into it that you realized the tears forming.

You weren’t shaking, your breathing was even, and your body wasn’t hot. Even with all the control you were showing, nothing could stop the water from falling.

Dumping the cup, you left it there, hurrying away to your room.

The moment the door shut you away from the rest of the tower, everything came out. The crying hurt your throat. The tears blurred and burned your eyes. Every inhale set fire to your lungs and every fiber of your being collapsed right there. You weren’t supposed to get attached, weren’t supposed to care. Just do your job and go home, that was it, that was the deal. That's what you were supposed to do, all of the hard work you put in, to keep everything separate, all of it was gone.

And it hurt.

Crawling into bed, the room felt too cold, too empty, and too isolated.

“I’ll fix this...” you sobbed into the pillow, “I-I-”

-knock-knock-knock-

The sound startled you, pulling the blankets off, you hurried to the door. Wiping the tears away, you were grateful that you kept the lights off, it won’t be easy to notice the state you were in.

With a bit of hesitance, taking a deep breath to even your tone.

“Who is it?”

“I-It’s me...Bucky...”

Confused, you opened the door slightly.

“Mr. Barnes, was there something I could do for you?”

He looked uncomfortable standing there, even with his size, though it might not have been obvious to anyone else, it was clear that he had something on his mind.

“(Y/n), I uh I came to check in on you.”

As simple as the words were, a small sense of dread crept up on you. Please don’t say he heard you crying, please.

“I’m probably one of the last people you want to see right now, but I did want to say how sorry we are, how sorry I am, about everything.”

So that’s what it was, he wanted to make amends.

That fact alone had you releasing a shaky breath you didn’t mean for him to hear. In that moment, he became more aware of your state, even in the dark, the puffiness you dawned became clear as light to him.

“(Y/n), what’s wrong? Are you alright? What happened? Are you hurting?”

You didn’t mean for him to know, didn’t mean to show yourself. But just those question, had you spilling all over again.

Letting himself in, Barnes closed the door as he led you over to sit on the bed. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to help. Here you were, this woman that was set on showing nothing more than a tough and professional demeaner, crying and vulnerable.

You sat on the side of his metal arm, not wanting you to feel more uncomfortable than what you probably already were, making an attempt to get up he was stopped when you held him still.

Even when crying, not a sound left your throat. This was a bad idea; your mind was screaming that this shouldn’t be happening. But you didn’t care, having someone there with you, right now, it was comforting and you wanted to hold on to that comfort for as long as you could.

Bucky still was unsure how to help, but he didn’t know what he could say to make it any better. With a bit of caution, he wrapped his arm around you and held you close. His heart was racing a mile a minute as your arms clung to his torso.

There was no clear time for how long the two of you sat like that, but the moment he felt you dozing off, no doubt from emotional exhaustion, Bucky carefully ushered you into bed.

Before he could even attempt to leave, your grip tightened.

“please...”

It was so subtle, so quiet, Barnes thought he was hearing things. But when you didn’t relent and while cursing himself in the process, he got in bed with you. Pulling the covers over, he hugged you close as you snuggled against his warmth. As wrong as this was, it was comfortable, and if just for one night, you were going to be selfish.

‘Guess I should be happy this arm won’t fall asleep.’

Looking at you lying on the thing he didn’t exactly like about himself, Bucky was going to relish in this moment while he could. Knowing that this won’t happen again, this moment would forever be burned into his mind.

Relaxing his body from the tension, Barnes soon took slumber with you asleep in his arms.

The commotion didn’t go completely unnoticed however. In all that had aspired, you had completely forgotten that the three rooms beside your own were occupied.

Nat and Clint sat against the door in Natasha’s room listening to you cry and James attempting to comfort you.

“Guess she’s not as cold hearted as she’d like us to think.” Clint commented, both of them felt bad. They were able to hear your first round of crying before Barnes came to your room. Being directly across the hall, it wasn’t very difficult.

“Should we get James or leave them?”

“It’s late, let them sleep.”

Next door to your own, Loki heard it all as well. However, he wasn’t quite as keen on leaving you with the soldier. It irked him something fierce knowing that you were in another’s arms. Yet, there was really nothing he could do at that moment that wouldn’t upset you further.

He seethed in his room quietly. He was the one that found you, the one that brought you back to the tower. You had confided in him as he had with you and yet you were sharing your bed with another that was not him.

He remembered that hopeless look in your eyes when he first saw you in that miserable state. It was he who you had leaned your cheek against, he who had seen exactly what it was that you so helplessly wished to hide. And it should be he whose arms that would hold you tight right now and yet it was not so.

The moment he heard you crying, he knew that he should have gone to you, the same moment that the soldier knocked on your door should it have been he to deter him from your chambers. But it was too late. In your vulnerability, another man made way to steal away your company.

Another held you tight, and it only angered him further the more that thought, that fact, repeated in him mind.

Loki, for the worse of it, will not be getting any sleep tonight.

Chapter 14

@harrymewmew @themes87 @pieceofhamiltrash @trashyemonerd @haven-in-writing @jj-trickster @southside-serpent-princess @craftersdust @gravity-9-8 @blazefire2012 @alina-barnes @jayyx3oxo @for-my-mind @spac3unic0rn @manyimaginekay @bim-trimmer-protection-squad @bojabee@imarockstar45 @littlenugget8544 @fallen-imagine-angel @hiddlestoner3059 @sungkimgyu @phanficblr @holland-imagines @bbcsassdeadass @wickedlewicked @nikkalick @i-am-a-mes @anise-d-castle6 @independentgirl

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Worst of 2019 (So Far)

And now we get to the opposite of yesterday’s post: the worst of what we’ve seen so far. Time to give them a proper thrashing before they (hopefully) fade into obscurity. Disappointingly, there's a general lack of films that were bad but in an interesting way. Mostly, it’s either been the same sorta dreck we usually get with a couple of unusually offensive stories and a couple of soul-crushingly bad superhero flicks. Curious? Read on.

10. Serenity

I like to save my #10 spot on the “Worst of” list for a movie that has a chance of becoming a favorite among those who love bad movies. Serenity is competently enough made that it does not belong in the same category as The Identical or Runaway. It’s another kind of bad movie, the kind that baffles anyone who sees it and who will have film historians scratching their heads in the future. It’s not quite on the same level as 2017’s “The Book of Henry” but close. Top-notch actors at the top of their career in a story so poorly conceived it would’ve been brilliant if it weren’t awful and utterly absurd.

The revelation that everything we've been seeing is actually part of a video game programmed by an angry teen who hates his abusive father, and that his actions are tied to those of Matthew McConaughey's character is the kind of nutty decision someone at some point should've questioned. My advice? Surprise some unsuspecting friends with it. Periodically pause the movie so they can write down how they think it'll all fit together and then watch their faces as they're proved wrong.

9. After

I’m not going to remember After down the line so this is my opportunity to give it another flogging. I can’t believe fan-fictions of real people is a real thing and that one of them was deemed legitimate and popular enough to be turned into a movie. It plays out like the clone of a clone of a clone of Twilight. At least that movie had danger in the form of vampires and werewolves. This has nothing to offer except embarrassing drama and a prepubescent’s idea of what romance and love look like. I saw it in the theater with a friend and thank goodness she was there; it made what would've been a chore... slightly more bearable.

8. Dumbo

I’ve already gone on about how I feel about Disney’s string of live-action remakes. For the most part, they fail to validate their own existences; they’re just copies of the original but with “real” actors dancing around animated backgrounds, objects and locations instead of everything being traditionally animated. Dumbo isn’t like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. It does try new things. It diverges from the source material significantly in the worst way. The titular character winds up playing second banana to a bunch of circus performers no one cares about and in the end didn’t contain an inkling of the emotion the 1941 version did.

7. Dark Phoenix

This one’s a triple-whammy. Not only was it a deeply disappointing way for Fox’s X-Men series to end, it retreaded old material in a way that was worse than X-Men 3: The Last Stand AND it was a box office bomb. By the time the story finally comes alive… it’s just about over. The whole thing feels like a mistake, bringing in aliens and asking us to invest in characters we just haven’t had enough time to fall in love with. Makes me wonder what the future of the characters is going to be like. Yes there are a number of heroes and heroines we haven’t yet seen, but are people going to care, even when the brand gets a new coat of paint from Marvel Studios?

6. Men in Black: International

Was anyone asking for the Men in Black series to return? Maybe if they'd had a dynamite story this could’ve overcome the public’s general disinterest, but this was an extremely generic plot you could figure out easily minutes in and lost touch with what endeared us to the first. Even with the combined forces of Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth failed, it to generate many laughs. Worse, to make sure I got any references or Easter egg it might drop, I re-watched all of the previous Men in Black movies, including the horrific Men in Black 2.

5. Replicas

This movie goes about itself in such a convoluted way. First, Keanu Reeves plays a scientist working for a company that wants to transplant the mind of dead soldiers into androids. Then, his family is killed in a car crash, prompting him to use the mind transfer tech to put their memories into new clone bodies of themselves. Problem is, he only has the means to clone three out of four family members. This means he has to erase all memories of his youngest daughter from the others’ brains. Following me so far? Good because it keeps going from there. Actually, that’s just the start of it. It’s a classic case of TMSGO - too much sh*t goin’ on. Even with all that, it STILLL managed to have gaping plot holes. No surprise it came and went as quietly as possible.

4. Hellboy

This one hurt. I wanted to see a superhero horror film badly. The early interviews I read about them wanting to adapt Mike Mignola’s books more closely than the Del Toro films got me excited. I was a little apprehensive when the trailers showed some goofy stuff but I figured these were included to draw people in. I should've listened to that sinking feeling. The actual film is awful, one giant mistake after another. Without a doubt, this featured the year’s worst special effects and even this I could've forgiven but the would-be humorous tone was badly misjudged and the story bloated with way too many elements that might've worked... if we weren't also trying to tell the character's origin at the same time. Hellboy ends with a teaser promising more and there’s no way we would’ve seen a sequel even if this had made money at the box office. Cool demons though, for what it’s worth.

3. Shaft

Looking back, I’m struggling to think of anything worth seeing in Shaft. I hated the film’s approach at comedy, particularly when it reverted Samuel L. Jackson’s John Shaft into the kind of man who proudly doesn’t understand modern sensibilities and spews out one homophobic joke after another. The plot was uninspired and uninteresting - not to mention generic - and none of it felt like it belonged on the big screen. On the upside, it prompted me to view the original trilogy with Richard Roundtree and those were enjoyable.

2. Simmba

Simmba is unlikely to be on the “Worst of 2019” list next January. It probably won’t be at the #2 spot. The film mixes two wildly different tones but not well. It begins as a romantic crime comedy, a dated one, sure. Simmba staging a phoney crime in order for the woman he’s attracted to to call him for help and then use the call as an excuse to stay with her through the night is creepy but I guess it might’ve passed like 20 years ago in North America. What makes this a bad film is the way it then introduces a character’s gang rape and murder as a way to prompt the anti-hero onto a righteous path. From there, it turns into this vigilante revenge film that has disturbing implications. You probably haven’t heard of it before now, much less seen it. I don’t recommend you check it out.

Runner Ups:

Aladdin

A controversial choice, as many casual filmgoers seem to have fallen madly in love with it (similar to the way they ate up 2017’s Beauty and the Beast) but honestly, what does this film do better than 1992’s Aladdin? Add an unmemorable song for Princess Jasmine to sing? Reduce the number of talking animals in order to give us more… nothing? Pile on the CGI to the point you wonder why it was made with live-actors in the first place? Like the innumerable direct-to-video sequels of classic films who've been all but forgotten, I tell you this Arabbian adventure won't endure.

Tolkien

So much potential squandered on a boring story. It didn’t take an astute viewer to recognize the film was crippled by the studio failing to obtain the rights to Tolkien’s actual work. I get the feeling we'll see another shot at a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien in a couple of years and this will be the Christopher Robin to the much superior Goodbye Christopher Robin.

The Hustle

It’s an unfunny comedy, what more is there to say? Rebel Wilson makes yet another bad career choice playing the same character she always plays. I only realized it was a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels while writing my review, which is unfortunate. Hopefully I can expunge this film from my memory soon enough and forget anything it might’ve spoiled about the original Bedtime Story or the 1988 remake.

1. Unplanned

The numerous instances of technical incompetence - mostly coming from the performers who are given lackluster material - would be enough to condemn Unplanned to this list. What made me hate the film is the way it blatantly lies and attempts to manipulate the audience into further entrenching themselves in a certain point of view through cheap, manipulative means. I can respect that genuine passion was poured into the project but the way it goes about it is shameful. Do not go see it, even if you're curious.

Yuck. That last one really left a bad taste in my mouth so I'm going to talk about a movie I did enjoy and am enthusiastic to direct you towards Alita: Battle Angel. Rosa Salazar as the titular Alita impressed me and I really dug the action scenes. I'll also right a wrong from last year by reminding you to find and watch Paddington and Paddington 2, both movies I should've put on my "Best of" lists the years they came out. I don't know what I was thinking but I keep coming back to these in my head. They're excellent for kids and adults.

And with that said, the list is over. Back to our regularly-scheduled film reviews until something big comes up. Thoughts or comments on the list are welcome and I hope you enjoyed reading.

[wicked-storybrooke]

Trying to Make Sense of OUAT Season 7’s Timeline Part II- An Unsolvable Puzzle: The Coronation & Everyone’s Ages

Hey folks! Here I go again trying to explain things I will never fully comprehend! Please read part one (wicked-storybrooke.tumblr.com/post/177430184596/trying-to-make-sense-of-ouat-season-7s-timeline) to understand what the heck I’m on about a bit better.  Again, please feel free to add to this or to correct me if there’s something I’ve missed!

Now, for the coronation!

So first of all, I don’t know what’s going on with Pinocchio over here, since the last time we saw any version of him, he was adult August. I cannot try to explain this without my head exploding, so I’ll leave that part for now.

So the coronation can’t have happened too long after the events in Storybrooke (with Curious Archer and the town folk) in 7x22, given the fact that young Robin was 5 years old at the time and young Neal is around a year older than her (I’m not sure if we were ever given an official age gap between the two). This means the Hyperion Heights characters cannot be in their own original timeline during this coronation. So after defeating Wish!Rumple they either: traveled back to the future xD so they could live out their lives in their own timeline and grabbed another time-hopping-bean and took a ride straight to the United Realms around 19-years-in the past just to have the coronation at that exact time; They time traveled around 3 years into the future from the time Robin meets her 5 year old self in 7x22, in which case they basically skipped time up until Hope is born, so that the coronation could be held at that exact time; alternatively they were trapped around 22 years in the past for 3 years at least or they just wanted to remain around 22 years in the past as compared to their original timeline? I think the option that arguably hurts the story least is the one where they returned to their own timeline after Rumple dies and defeats Wish!Rumple and just took a trip (22 minus 3 years, which would be) 19 years into the past for them or they waited 3 years in their own timeline and visited the UR for the coronation 22 years in the past. Sounds convoluted, I know and the biggest problem is why would Regina unite the realms in the past only to return to her own timeline. If that did happen I imagine she left the leadership of the United realms up to a bunch of other queens, kings, princes and princesses such as Snow and Charming for a hot minute up until her return in what would be around 3 years for them.

One thing’s almost certain, they must have definitely grabbed Tiana from Hyperion Heights and Zelena from San Francisco (both would likely be from the same timeline as the Hyperion Heights folk in Storybrooke’s). This is definitely the Zelena who was cursed to be Kelly, since this Zelena has magic and storybrooke!Zelena doesn’t regain magic until Robin’s 18.

If the S7 Characters were stuck in the past or chose to remain there, how did Robin and Zelena not mess up the time-space-continuum??? This is assuming Kelly!Zelena didn’t hitch a ride straight back to San Francisco after her sister’s coronation. If we still put the coronation 3-5 years after the townsfolk chased Alice & Robin with axes & crossbows, then we can say past!Regina has already left to help past!Henry at this point. In fact, she’s definitely left because on the day she chooses to stay in the New Enchanted Forest, Emma is still pregnant.

Now assuming every event occurs in a single timeline, the events in what was assumed to be Stoybrooke in 7x11, with 18-year-old Robin and Zelena had to have actually occurred in the Storybrooke section of the United realms. So why did neither of them or Regina mentioned that they already knew the future, that everyone would be absolutely fine, that the HH curse would break and that the Regina they just reunited with would eventually cast a curse to bring all the realms together?- Well, because of the space-time-continuum of course!! They’ve seen the movies, they know what’s up. No but seriously, there has to be some kind of memory potion involved (if it happens in a single timeline!). Maybe Regina took one before she left to help Henry and maybe Robin had one hell of an 18th birthday party with her mum and they mistook glasses of memory potion for party cocktails before they left (pssst….if anyone wants to write this crazy party, I’ll love u forever!) or Regina just gave them some when they arrived, knowing that the consequences could be severe if any of the Mills women already knew their future.

Unless of course, by being in the past they created a whole new timeline or when the Coven of the Eight’s curse was cast, it didn’t only take them back in time and to another realm; It could also have taken them to an alternative timeline! A timeline where an alternative-timeline-version of Robin grows up in the United Realms (as opposed to the Hyperion Heights!Robin we know, who could have grown up in plain ol’ Storybrooke). I’m not sure if the second theory works without other giant plot holes though but I think it aligns with what we’ve seen of time travel in this show in the past.

I was originally gonna say the coronation happened just after an almost 19-year-old Henry left to find his own story (Jack said Henry spent his 19th birthday with him at the Crimson Crow) but if what I’ve worked out i my previous post is correct, it has to be at least around 3 to 5 years after Henry leaves, when Hook is looking for a cure for his heart so that he can return to 10~ year old (plus or minus a few years) Alice. As previously mentioned, the coronation also has to have occurred months after pregnant Emma visits Henry in the New EF. Neal doesn’t look 11 at the coronation but it wouldn’t be the first time the writers have chosen a younger actor to play the role by mistake. I think Josh dallas said he was suppose to be about 7 but idk it’s kinda close. If we say Neal was 7 during the coronation, that would make Henry 19 during the event. That would mean he met Ella and Wish Hook when he was 19. But that doesn’t work because, as mentioned in my previous post, we know Ella is 14+ years older than Alice and around the same age as Henry. We also know that Ella meets a 17+ year old Alice in ‘Pretty In Blue’ when the older woman is at least 31. And we also know that Hook is looking for a cure when he meets Henry. Alice has to be about 5 or 6 when Henry is 19. I don’t think young Alice is 5 or 6 in ‘Knightfall’ and we know Hook meets Henry after he’s separated from his daughter, so the coronation has to have occurred at least 3 years after the Bayou Rolls into Storybrooke in 7x22. That would make Alice 8 or 9 when Wish Hook meets Henry (which is more plausible!).

So that would mean Henry actually met Ella and Wish Hook when he was between 22 and 24 and so he’d be about that much older than Hope. 8 or 9 years later, he’d be between 31 and 33 when he meets 17+year old Alice. 30 makes the most sense, since Ella would be at least 31 and is likely a bit older than Henry, which would make Alice 8 when Hook is poisoned if we put past!Neal at 9 during the coronation. So, if we put Henry at 22 years older than Hope and if we say Henry is then 41-22=19 years, that would make Hope 19 in the present day, which would mean they are 19 to 20 years in the past during the coronation (depending on baby Hope’s age at the time). They were almost definitely 22 years into the past when 27-year-old Robin met 5-year-old Robin in 7x22, so it would make the most sense that around 3 years have past since 7x22′s Storybrooke shenanigans. Booyah!

Henry Meets Ella whilst Regina, Hook & Emma visit Henry and they meet Wish Hook

Henry is 22~

Ella is 23~

Emma is 40~

Hook is physically 40~

Wish Hook is de-aged to appear like OG Hook, so is likely physically 40~ (I’m gonna say Wish Hook originally appeared older because he aged during his time-travelling adventure(s) as he searched for a cure (refer to part I) it’s quite a stretch, I know but it’s the only way I can make sense of it since these events had to have occured around 9 years before the events of 7x11 due to Robin & Hope’s ages at the coronation)

Alice is 8/9~

Robin is 8/9~

Wish Hook is briefly reunited with Alice and Ella & Henry visit wonderland & eventually Lucy is Born and Drizella is turned to stone

Henry is 31~

Ella is 32~

Alice is 17~

Wish Hook doesn’t seem to age from here (probably because of the de-aging spell) so is still physically 40~

Drizella is 28~

Zelena & Robin travel to the EF2

Robin is 18

Henry is 32~

Ella is 33~

Alice is 18~ and off on her travels

Lucy is 1~

Alice & Robin meet

Alice 19~

Robin 18/19~

The curse is cast

Henry is 39~

Ella is 40~

Wish Hook is physically 40~

Drizella is physically 28~ because she didn’t age when she was turned to stone but her actual age is 36~

Alice is 25~

Robin is 24/25~

Lucy is 8

The curse breaks (assuming 2 years past and they aged during this time)

Henry is 41~

Ella is 42~

Wish Hook is physically 42~ (if the de-aging spell’s magic wore off in the LWM)

Drizella is physically 30~ but is actually 38~

Alice is 27~

Robin is 26/27~

Lucy is 10~

The present day Storybrooke folk when the HH curse breaks

Emma is 59~ (18 years older than henry at this time)

OG Hook is physically 59~

Hope is 19~

Prince Neal is 28~

The coronation

Henry is 44~

Ella is 45~

Wish Hook is physically 45~ (if the de-aging spell’s magic wore off in the LWM, if not he’s still physically 40~)

Alice is 30~

Robin is 29-30~

Lucy is 13~

Wish!Henry is 19-21~ (refer to part I to understand why I think this)

Neal is 8-9~

Little!Robin is 8~

Pinnochio is ??!??!??

The Season 7 characters’ past selfs during the coronation (just after pregnant emma visits Henry)

Henry is 22~

Ella is 23~

Wish Hook is physically 40~

Alice is 8/9~

Robin is 8/9~ (given past!Neal and past Hope’s ages at the coronation. Meaning there had to have been around a 9 or 10 year gap between the events of 7x02 and the moment Lucy was born since Robin was 18 when Lucy was still a baby in 7x11)

[missanthropicprinciple]

Super-long rant-review post about Werewolf of London (1935) with images and spoilers...

I love Werewolf of London, this 83-year-old film. It’s got some problems typical of 1930s Hollywood, but I still find a lot of value in it. 

The setting, the moonlit hills of Tibet. Accuracy? not so much. 

Apparently the “Tibetans” are actually speaking Cantonese...and the white actors are clearly not speaking anything. 30 years before Star Wars and it honestly sounds like they’re speaking Ewok...but it’s just gibberish. I think the only realistic part of this scene is the fact that there actually are bactrian camels in Tibet. At least it’s quite well filmed. 

The sequence where Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull) is attacked by the werewolf is really eerie and holds up well.

The actual bite is so quick but if you screencap that second it’s creepy AF.

Despite the attack, Dr. Glendon gets his coveted “Mariphasa Lupina Lumina” flower (sadly, completely fictitious) and heads back to England.

In his lab, Dr. Glendon lives out his mad-scientist aesthetic surrounded by some high tech equipment. He even gets buzzed by his wife on what is basically an old-timey FaceTime device that lacks audio. Even though we know it’s superimposed footage it’s fairly seamless. 

Next we get a little portrait of a marriage. He’s working on an experiment with flowering and artificial light and his wife Lisa (Valerie Hobson) wants to know what the hell he’s up to. He’s secretive and she’s understandably annoyed. But she calls him “dear old bear” which is quite sweet but ironically hints at the animalistic transformation to follow. He says that after the experiment he will try to be more “human” but we know that ain’t gonna happen. 

Henry Hull’s accent. It needs its own paragraph. It’s not bad for someone from Louisville, Kentucky, and in fact sometimes it’s really amazing, but other moments it crosses your mind that the dialect coach was out sick that day of shooting. He enunciates very strongly. His jaws much have hurt him a bit. He’s fun to listen to though and you gotta give the guy credit because he doesn’t shy away from being über-Brit. 

Enter Lisa’s old childhood sweetheart Paul, played by the adorkable yet suave Lester Matthews. He and Lisa, whom he refers to as “Lee”, reminisce about their joint childhood exploits. 

Cue Dr. Glendon’s jealousy:

Understandably, Dr. Glendon is quietly dying inside because he hates all the socializing that comes with being a world-renowned botanist. Seeing another man making his wife smile does not help his mood.  

Lookit ‘em; holding hands for heaven’s sake. Aunt Ettie also likes to stir up trouble and add to Glendon’s jealously which isn’t very nice of her. 

Side note, Dr. Glendon has some tricked-out plants: 

Now we meet Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland).

Warner Oland, who was often cast as Asian characters because he “looked Asian”, was actually Swedish. (One would think that 80 years later this casting of white actors in non-white roles would have come to an end but we’re still dealing with this crap.) While Oland is a fairly good actor, he’s still NOT Asian and it would have been so much better if they had cast Sessue Hayakawa as Yogami as he was not only gorgeous but a better actor. 

However, Yogami is implied to be Chinese or Tibetan and Hayakawa is Japanese. Still, if the character was stated as Japanese it would have been perfect. Ironically, later on in the film Aunt Ettie keeps calling him Yokohama which is the second largest city in Japan. And I can’t find the surname Yogami anywhere. I can find Yagami and that’s a Japanese surname, not Chinese or Tibetan as far as I can tell. Oh, Old Hollywood and your stomach-churning whitewashing. 

Dr. Yogami says that they met before in Tibet...in the dark. He’s giving him a really big hint that he’s the one who bit him (...either that or he’s implying they met for an evening liaison). Dr. Glendon is trying to piece it together. 

Dr. Yogami says, “The medical term is ‘lycanthrophobia’.” WRONG. The medical term is lycanthropy, if being a werewolf was actually real. (The uncommon thing were people grow all the excess facial hair is hypertrichosis.) Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychological condition that is linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and/or clinical depression. (More on that later.) 

Here’s a cap of Dr. Yogami intimately stroking Dr. Glendon’s injured arm while making hella awkward eye contact. As modern viewers we may or may not have a strong impulse to read this as somewhat sexual, or maybe as an identification of repressed homosexual desire. Lycanthropy in literature and film mythology has occasionally been used or identified as a metaphor for homosexuality. 

In a world where stabbing yourself with a plant gets rid of monthly hair growth. I’m curious to know why it looks like his stabbing it into a dorsal metacarpal vein and not the palmar (inside) side of wrist....medical side of Tumblr help me out here. Maybe they just wanted to feature the hairy hand. 

Dr. Yogami essentially asks Dr. Glendon for a blossom of the glow-in-the-dark flower to save his soul (and his fellow botanist as well), albeit in a cryptic way. He says “But remember this Dr. Glendon, the werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.” Sadly, Dr. Glendon thinks he’s full of crap and ignores his warnings despite knowing that stabbing himself with this rare flower magically makes his moon-grown hand-hair disappear. Dumb or in denial? 

So of course Dr. Yogami steals not one, but two flowers. For two of the four nights of the full moon. Technically there is only one night of full moon at any given time but I’m going to give this a pass. Maybe during the time that the moon is still almost full, though waning, it still have the power to change man into the “satanic creature.”

Meanwhile, skeptical Dr. Glendon does a little lycanthropic research: 

Lisa drops by and asks him to join her and Paul at a society party but he pegs out or course, and then adds a jibe about not wanting to hear anymore childhood memories. Is the werewolf infection making him bitchy or is he just like that? Hard to tell. 

Lisa is hurt. But he says she should go out and enjoy herself. She tries to show him this brocade he bought her but he flips out when she turns on the lights. Presumably being a werewolf makes you sensitive to light. 

He responds with the “I put some medicine in my eyes” routine and they clearly don’t buy it. 

Seems fake, but ok. 

I feel like this is one of many allusions to depression in this film: sensitive to light, wanting to be alone, disliking small-talk and society parties, general introversion and distrust of others. We get a sense that he’s kind of this way anyway at the core of his personality but the werewolf contamination has made that all worse. 

Dr. Glendon may be a jerk but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him. He really does love her. She’s still too annoyed to reciprocate. 

Even his cat’s pissed at him.

When animals start rejecting you, ya know you got problems. 

And lo, he thought, “oh shit.” 

The moonlight transformation sequence is quite simple by today’s standards of physical and special effects, but it’s still effective. Using the shadows to break up the footage isn’t fooling anyone, especially nowadays, yet it has a kind of fluidity that makes it oddly very evocative. 

A word about Jack Pierce’s makeup. Believe it or not it was originally going to look like this: 

Oink oink. Thank heavens someone talked Jack into a more minimalist look. Jack Pierce, known for his incredible work on films like Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and The Wolf Man (1941), to name but a few, appears to have been a tad stubborn depending on the actor he worked with. He had a great relationship with Boris Karloff as far as I’m aware but the harmony working with Hull didn’t last long. There was a rumor going around that Hull was super vain and didn’t want the makeup to obscure his face. The truth of it was there are a couple scenes when Lisa and Paul both recognize him and if the werewolf makeup was applied too heavily, this part of the plot just wouldn’t work. Apparently Hull went over Pierce’s stubborn head straight to Carl Laemmle to fix the problem. The book Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931–1946 by Tom Weaver and John Brunas has more on this. (And in the Svengoolie intro to the film featured on ME TV.) The incident paid off because the final makeup was stellar. 

That awkward moment when someone steals your flowers: 

Suddenly filled with jealous rage...

...but wait lemme just put my hat and coat on first. If he does that when he’s full-on werewolf can you imagine how much time it takes for him to get ready normally? Diva. 

The obligatory party scene...

...with a comic interlude from Aunt Ettie who drunkenly says to “Dr. Yokohama” as she calls him, pointing to a dodgy district visible from her flat, that people there would “knife you for a shilling.” But then they hear the howl of a “lost soul” which is the chilling call of Dr. Glendon and it’s time to go inside. 

Drunk lady trope scene. No point in rescuing her she already made a fool out of herself but off they run: 

There is a ring of sadness to Aunt Ettie’s drunk scene because she says “she gets so nervous.” Hello social anxiety. She is a tad obnoxious as a character but this part makes her seem so much more sympathetic. 

“A-woooooooooooo!” 

Ok, that’s not a dog. 

Dr. Yogami is quaking in his spats at this point. 

Even though you know that this is Dr. Glendon, this remains creepy. Who hasn’t thought of a monster clawing their way into your bedroom late at night? They really milk the suspense in this scene. 

Lisa is offended by Dr. Yogami’s seemingly sexist and controlling behavior but in reality he’s trying to save her life. He knows that Dr. Glendon is on the loose and can probably smell her and will likely kill her. But she goes up to comfort her friend anyway. 

Cue the “you just had a bad dream” scene. For once Ettie isn’t full of hogwash. 

Poor Ettie. Seeing a werewolf will sober you up pretty quick. 

Mr. Hyde? Oh wait, wrong movie. 

Apparently all young women of a lower class looked like Hollywood starlets back then. Pretty stylish. 

This is why I don’t have a Tinder. 

Dr. Yogami executes an A+ facepalm. His wrist-leaning skills are classic. 10/10:

I mean, what did he think was going to happen? You can’t blackmail a guy who’s in denial about being a werewolf, it doesn’t work. But then, if he left one flower there you wouldn’t have a second act. 

Paul says that it might be a werewolf attack. He’s almost joking but he makes the suggestion anyway. His uncle, head of Scotland Yard no less (now that’s convenient) thinks this is ridiculous.

Meanwhile Dr. Glendon reads about how he accidentally murdered a woman last night: 

“You’re being utterly hateful, Wilfred.” She sees that he’s not happy and we all know that he’s past the point of no return. Someone has already died. His bitterness at her relationship with Paul is exacerbated by this revelation. But he doesn’t storm from the room or hurt her. He actually acts like an adult, says he’s sorry, and says that he will go out horseback riding with her after all. A lot of reviewers don’t like his character but I find him continually sympathetic. 

Again, it’s a realistic portrayal of a marriage. Dr. Glendon “forbids” his wife to go out on a midnight horseback ride with her ex. As sexist as his I’m-the-man-putting-my-foot-down-with-the-wife routine is, he has a couple genuine reasons for acting this way. He’s worried about her safety cause he knows the moon is gonna make him crazy and he could unintentionally kill her in a fit of jealous rage. And of course he’s ticked off that Lisa is galavanting around with another man. She in turn is appropriately angry with his controlling remarks without having good reason for his concern...plus she wants to prove a point that he’s not making enough time for her in their marriage. 

Mrs. Moncaster explains how decking her “dearest friend” Mrs. Whack was an appropriate action to take in the sake of business.

Dr. Glendon calls himself “Singularly single, madam. More single than I ever realised it was possible for a human being to be...” Which seems to evoke qualities of his situation and depression. He feels so isolated. 

He prays that this transformation won’t happen again but it does.

“If I ran the zoo I'd let all the animals go”  - Dr. Seuss. This is Glendon’s way of causing a distraction so that he can attack another woman but it’s also symbolic of him releasing his inner animalistic nature. 

Ya gotta appreciate the special effects: 

Dr. Yogmai hails from the University of Carpathia. Here to represent.....an institution that I’m fairly certain doesn’t exist. Unless they mean Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University but that wasn’t established until 1940. Still, he’s a professor of botany so that’s cool. Kind of like Professor Lupin. 

Presumably, Dr. Yogami goes to Paul because he’s well connected and he wants to prevent Dr. Glendon from doing anymore damage. 

A+ usage of the scary uplighting effect. 

Dr. Glendon instructs a servant to lock him in until sunrise. Oh the upper-classes and their odd demands.

Paul still loves her. Duh. She can’t reciprocate because she’s married. 

Those bars are toast.

Henry Hull does a great job of prowling with just the right balance between animal and man.

Now that’s a scream:

Paul to the rescue. 

Paul recognizes Dr. Glendon. (Thanks, Mr. Hull.)

Dr. Yogami’s rooms “smelled like a kennel" when they found the mutilated maid. Yuck. Did he pee all over the room? Not something anyone likes to think about for too long. Especially the head of Scotland Yard. Just look at his face. 

Paul digs through the trash and finds the discarded flowers. 

Maybe Paul should work for Scotland Yard instead of his uncle. 

Hey how was your trip? So, Hawkins (J.M. Kerrigan) doesn’t think it’s odd that Dr. Glendon is hiding from the police? Does he even know why? Did Glendon tell him “hey I’m a werewolf and I accidentally killed people?” or does Hawkins just give him a pass like “it’s his life and none of my business.”? Well, as the scene suggests, Hawkins clearly does not know because he’s confused by how important this damn flower is to Dr. G.

I have to say, I get this excited about my sweet peas every year so I totally identify with his reaction. #humor

How does he even get into the lab?! Dr. Glendon needs better security or just, ya know, locks.

Somehow Glendon doesn’t see Yogami tip-toeing down the steps. How bad does your peripheral vision have to be?!

"You brought this on me that night in Tibet!” (You don’t say.)

The problem with stealing a plant that only blooms as the moon emerges is that the werewolf might kill you mid-transformation. Exhibit A:

They were both doomed anyway. 

Dr. Glendon goes looking for Lisa. 

Lycanthropy makes Dr. Glendon strong. Those chintz curtains and flimsy doors are no match for him.

Paul also lacks clear peripheral vision, apparently. Funny how ya don’t see a werewolf perched above a door you’re about to go into.

With all that jumping off buildings, werewolves must be prime candidates for knee replacement surgery. 

More great uplighting to do justice to some remarkable makeup:

“It’s Lisa!”

Who the hell is Lisa?

Maybe he remembers at this point. Hard to tell. 

A regular bullet does the job. The myth that a werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet most likely dates back to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, in which a humungous wolf is killed by a hunter named "Argent" which is Latin for silver, who uses a gun loaded with silver bullets. The filmmakers clearly don’t feel that this is a necessary part of this movie’s mythology. And in a way, this is a good decision because it makes the werewolf more pitiable and certainly less mythological. If a werewolf has most of the same vulnerabilities as a human, most of the same human rules of existence apply because werewolves are not semi-indestructible. It also just makes werewolves more human and more sympathetic. Werewolf!Glendon is basically afflicted with a kind of disease that could hypothetically be explained by medical science; he isn’t some mythological beast.

We can presume his soul is saved. “Thanks...thanks for the bullet. It was the only way. In a few moments now, I shall know why all of this had to be.” 

“Good-bye, Lisa. Lisa – good-bye...I’m sorry...I couldn’t have made you...happier...” 

(This is immediately followed by the sound of my heart breaking.) Seriously, this isn’t a guilt trip like he thinks Lisa is some overly-needy wife. He knows that he’s not always equip to give Lisa what she needs out of a relationship. He genuinely feels bad. It isn’t because of the lycanthropy, he was like this before, as a scientist. Did he have depression anyway? He might have. He really does love her and they have an understanding. This is probably some of the best acting in the film, the way that Hull delivers his lines and the look on Valerie Hobson’s face tells you so much. 

Thankfully, his death means that he is free of lycanthropy. 

The sun comes up. 

A plane is in the air, presumably Paul and Lisa are off to California. 

And then we get a nice transition into the Universal Studios plane. 

What a trip. Hope you enjoyed my rambling. Until next time. 

[vampireadamooc]

1888 Sept 30 CDT Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton

Chicago Daily Tribune September 30th 1888 Page 7 Author Unknown / No Author Given

Long Post

-------------------------------------

THE LAKE VIEW VAMPIRE

SAMUEL PATTON TELLS HOW THE DEMON VISITS HIM.

It Has Followed Him for Many Years. He Has Invented a Glass to Enable Other People to See the Spirit. The Residents of Chicago's Northern Suburb Greatly Excited. Judge Thalstrom Tells How the Evil May Be Averted.

That a Vampire is at large in Lake View there seems no reasonable room to doubt. Mr. Samuel Patton, a reputable mechanic, living at No. 1297 North Paulina street, has indisputable proofs that the Vampire has visited him. Almost everybody in the neighborhood has purchased the glasses which Mr. Patton has specially prepared for watching the vampire during its nightly wanderings.

Judge Thalstrom has investigated the matter of Vampires. The judge deals in books and newspapers on Clyborn, near Fullerton avenue, and is regarded as an authority on supernatural subjects. Judge Thalstrom, then, announced to a wondering crowd of Lake View citizens gathered the other night in the sanctum behind his store that the case of Mr. Patton found a curious parallel in the year 1846. The death of Mr. Horace Ray Griswold was reported in the Norwich Courier at that epoch. He died of consumption. Two of his children soon died of the same complaint. in 1854 a third child died. The neighbors, having exhumed the bodies of the first two children and burned them under the supposition that the dead had been feeding on the living. The burning took place at Griswold, June 8 1854.

"But what,' asked a citizen-- 'what is a Vampire?"

"There appears,' said the erudite Judge Thalstrom, after consulting the authorities, 'to be no essential difference between the European Vampire and the Asiatic ghoul - a sort of demon delighting to animate the bodies of dead persons and feed on the blood of the living and bury them."

A MURDERED PEASANT.

Silence fell on the little gathering in the Judge's inner room. It was broken at last by the blacksmith, who’s forge lies over the way.

"Are there authentic instances of Vampires?" he asked.

"Many,' said the Judge, referring again to his books and magazine articles. 'In 1701 a peasant was murdered at Mycone, in Greece. Two days later after his burial it was noised abroad that he had been seen to walk in the night with great haste, overturning people's goods, putting out their lights, pinching them, and playing strange pranks with them. Masses were said in the chapels to drive out the Vampire which inhabited the dead man. Then the body was disinterred and the heart taken out. Frankincense was burned to ward off infection. But the inhabitants were panic-stricken. They debated, fasted, sprinkled their houses with holy water, and finally burned the body of the dead man. After this the Vampire was seen no more."

The citizens of Lake View exchanged looks of alarm. But a workman from the lumber-yard thumped his fist on the table and said "It's all bumbug!"

"Bumbug?' cried Judge Thalstrom; 'Well, here's another instance. In 1725, at Madveiga, on the borders of Hungary and Transylvania, a peasant named Arnold Paul was crushed to death by the fall of a wagon-load of hay. Thirty days afterward four persons died with all the symptoms of having had their their blood sucked by Vampires. Some of the neighbors remembered having heard Arnold say that he had often been tormented by a Vampire. So they exhumed his body, drove a stake through his heart, cut off his head, and burned his body. Nevertheless, seven years later seventeen people died in the village died in the village near about one time. The Vampire theory was revived. The seventeen were exhumed. Their bodies were burned. King Louis XV. directed his Ambassador at Vienna to make inquiries into the matter, which has puzzled science to the present day."

MR. PATTON’S GLASS.

“Stories for children,’ said the man from the lumber-yard.

The rest took the matter more to heart. They appointed a committee of investigation. Mr. Patton, as the principle witness, testified that the Vampire could not be seen with the naked eye. He thereupon handed a piece of glass to each member of the committee and also a card with the inscription:

PATTON’S CLAIRVOYIC VARNISH FOR GLASS

Develops a finer sight, that enables a person, when looking though it, to see objects which are invisible to the naked eye. There is a thin covering of the eye which is thrown outward when we look steadily for an object. When this covering strikes the varnish on the glass it becomes clear, and people in spirit life may be seen dimly moving about.

Try persistently and you will succeed. The glass must be kept dry. Specimens sent by mail on receipt of 10 cents. Address SAMUEL PATTON 1297 N. Paulina Street, Chicago, Ill.

Armed with these pieces of glass the committee made strenuous endeavors to see the Vampire. Mr. Patton is a mild-mannered, middle aged gentleman, with a high forehead and a bushy brown beard. He followed the movements of the committee with the keenest interest. “There,’ he would cry. ‘do you not see it now? Surely you can dimly catch sight of it. The Vampire is flying up and down Paulina street at this moment.”

The scene of the Vampire’s operations is one of those desolate spots which fringe the outskirts of Chicago. Through nominally a continuation of Paulina street, it is really a bit of desert secluded from the bustling avenues in the vicinity. Mr. Patton has a room in a small frame house at the end of the street. It is here that he makes his clairvoyic varnish; here that the Vampire visits him.

A MYSTERIOUS SIGHT. “I was born in Brooke County, Virginia, Sep. 3, 1833,’ he says. ‘When I was about 10 years old I saw what looked like a lantern in the fields. As soon as I called my sister’s attention to it, it began to rise in the air until it looked like a star of the first magnitude. I watched it about two hours.”

“How did you explain it?”

“It was a premonition. I served three years in the war. In the field I dreamed of strangers whom I found at home on my return.”

“What were these dreams?”

“More premonitions. At the close of the war I had five children. One by one I saw them go. Willie was the last to go. He died Jan 19, 1876, aged 8 years. I am told that came out of his grave a week after he was buried. At any rate, I attended a circle held for the purpose of obtaining spirit manifestations. I had seen evidence that there was something in the mind which we have not fathomed. Spirit photography staggered me. If they could give us human faces on the plates, why could not friends come to us in this way? I had no faith in the holy books. I wanted facts. I could found belief on nothing else. One night I felt a stinging sensation on my forehead. The letter W was imprinted there as if with a needle. The name “Willie Patton” was then formed in about the style of letters that Willie had learned to make before he died.

After that, the spirits wrote messages on my forehead. I procured a covering of thick silk to wear on my forehead. I understood that the spirits had killed Willie and tortured my other children. I did not know to what race they belonged, but afterwards found that they were made from cones and bubbles. One of them use to sing as he thrust a sharp instrument through the silk covering on my head. His song ran like this:

“Over there “Where all is prayer “I’ll sit and swear. “Whoora for me, “Whoora for me, “Whoora for me.”

“Gentle persecution followed. My spirit cap was torn from my head. My naked brain was gored with instruments. When they had exhausted their ingenuity they put a Vampire on me.”

“What was the Vampire like?”

“It had a human shape.”

“Not like a bat?”

“O, nothing like a bat. It sucked at my mouth and nostrils. It followed me to my children’s graves. It dogged me to the only place on earth that I felt was sacred. I knew of a method of self-defense. A poisonous vapor exhaled from my forehead. I threw it therefrom like spray. A drop of it was to be feared as a plague spot. People whom it has touched have committed murder. It is the poison of the Vampire.”

“Does the Vampire trouble you now?”

“Constantly. I have invented this clairvoyic varnish to enable everybody to see it.”

EFFECTS OF THE GLASS

“Do they succeed {illegible}”

“Hundred of people have succeeded! Or if they have not seen the Vampire, they have seen spirits. If you fail to see anything at first, try again. But mind, the glass must be kept dry.”

The glass is in general use in this corner of Lake View. Most of he men in the Harvester Works bought a sample or two. Their wives have made continual efforts to see the Vampire; and if the husbands stay out at night they generally come home with the story that the Vampire has been seen at last. Young Henry Davis is a youth of jocose disposition nd is improperly disposed to make fun of Mr. Patton. So there is no authentic evidence that the Vampire has yet appeared in person to anybody but Mr. Patterson himself.

“I see nothing improbable about vampires,” says Judge Thalstrom. ‘The great thing is to be ready if they come. I have read of one who would only suck blood from the soles of the feet. Two cunning fellows lay down to sleep with the feet of the one under the head of the other. In the night the vampire came, felt the bed-clothe, and found a head. Then he felt at the other end and found a head there also. ‘Well’ he cried. ‘I have gone a blood-sucking through ll these mountains, but never yet did I find anyone with two heads and no feet.’ So saying he ran away and was never seen again.”

“Do you advise everybody in Lake View to sleep at opposite ends of the bed?”

“I recommend suitable precautions.” said Judge Thalstrom, magisterially.

------------------------------------- Citations

MLA: Unknown, No author given. “Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 30 Sept. 1888, p. 7.

APA: Unknown, N. (1888, September 30). Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton. Chicago Daily Tribune, p. 7.

Chicago: Unknown, No Author given. "Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton." Chicago Daily Tribune (Chicago, Illinois), September 30, 1888.

[breoffficially]

What have Jackson, Shannon and Henry done?? I'm not biased towards any of them I'm just curious.

*cracks fingers* ok, lets do this. (p.s. im on my mobile phone, so I have to upload links later)Jackson Wang: This isnt the only time that he has been problematic. You have the infamous BamBam/Mark/Yugyeom pool party incident, the blackface CF, the blackface instagram post, but recently, he did a Pespi CF in his home country, which involves his hair attire, DREADS, aka ge was appropriating culture, black culture, specifically. “And this is controversial…how?” well, the appearance of dreads are a protective hairstyle by black people, whom have received negative backlash when wearing them, with words like "ghetto", "ratchet", "nasty", etc. When confronted, predominately through Instagram (IG), he respinded with:"I dont think im the only one doing this and if people are gonna point fingers as this, so be it ... haters gon hate. I have all my respect and love for all RACE. But if you think the whole this is disrepecting or mocking a race , im really sorry but you are on the wrong page"Henry Lau: His fellow SuJu member, Yesung, not too long ago, posted an old video on IG, of himself as Nick Fury, and it involved a wig and of course, blackface. The video soon got around, sparking controversy, and Henry took into action. Not only did he told netizens to delete it, but posted in the post's comments:"If this is racist, then Thor wearing the blonde wig is also racist. c o s p l a y"I believe the video was later taken down by Yesung, but cant forget the Indian man accent. (I believe he has done it twice, I am not for sure, bit I believe the Problematic Idols tumblr blog will give you links to most of the info I am giving you.)And last, but not least...Shannon Williams: I had just returned from camp when this controversy broke out. During a VLive broadcast, which featured her, Dani Kim, and an underground rapper named Jay, she was seen and heard singing "negro" during Beyonce's "Formation", (Dani and Jay knew not to say the word and paused before the word was even heard.), during a game of Heads Up, she referred to Dani's "sheep" as "special needs", when Jay was asked to make a heart by a fan, in return he did, she replies "thats so gay", and when asked about her relationships with SVT, she spoke of DK and Vernon with "ew" and "he's not normal". She later responded the same night, again, through IG, with:"Hey guys woke up to a storm today and wanted to clear things up. I have only found out by reading your comments from you guys other than reading articles because i wanted to know how you guys felt which is very important to me. I didn't intend to seem homophobic and racist which i am NOT. I think the thing with the N word is a misunderstanding i was singing along to Beyonce's Formation and there is a Lyric that did include "Negro" and i did sing along to it. I sincerely apologise to the people who got offended. I am not homophobic i was joking around like i usually do but i guess as a "public figure" i would need to think and speak more carefully. To just clear things with Dani and J and Dk And Vernon we are all good friends there was no hate thrown at another at all just sarcasm so no ones feelings were hurt. Especially knowing dani since i was 12 we are the closest anyone can ever be she knows me down to the core. I am not going to use my age as an excuse because i am and should be old enough to know what to say and what not to say especially publicly. Especially with the special needs joke was immature whether it be a joke or not. I really wanted to just be more open and myself and not be as shy and quiet as how my image was portrayed. I apologise to anyone who were offended and upset with my V app i wanted it to be a fun and casual time with me to you but it went in the exact opposite of what I intended it to be. I hope you find it in your hearts to forgive me - Shannon ❤"How can you be "sacrastic" about one's history, one's culture, one's self-esteem? It shouldnt really matter if they're your friends or not. Til this day, many people do not forgive her, but yet her fanbase is still strong.

[peppermintwrasseler]

my thougths on thelostspecial.com please, feel free to add, correct, etc. to any of my ramblings...

List of relevant pages i’ve found thus far:

1. /solveme -Dancing man cipher (Henry V, act 3 scene 1) -V=5. There are 5 acts in the play. -600 x 136

2. /Murderousmary -5-ton Asian elephant -FIVE ton. FIVE. FIVE YALL. -625 x 420

3./teatime -1200 x 737

4./coffee -WRONG WAY! -1920 x 1080

5./Mary -492 x 318

6./elephant -WHICH ONE? -623 x 358

7. /tljc -404 ERROR -578 x 432

8. /johnlock -404 ERROR -578 x 432

9. /ireneadler -??????? -425 x 321

10. /marymorstan -Mary, 2 thumbs up -that bull skull that's in 221B? The one with the headphones? Mary is standing in front of it...the horns line up with her head...didn't notice that from the episode...great foreshadowing...but why THIS screenshot for THIS puzzle? -i left this and then i came back after writing the end of this ramble...so like...mary and moriarty were workin together...the horns are pretty symbolic here if thats the heckin case. which i would love for it to be. -572 x 379

11. /marymoran -WHO? -who is mary moran? ah, yes...well...who do we know that's named mary, and is a great shot? oh yeah...mary watson aka mary morstan... -1000 x 643

12. /sherlock -hat-man and Robin: the Web detectives newspaper article screenshot -paragraph gives Johns blog: johnwatsonblog.co.uk -1280 x 720

13. /johnwatson -*see /sherlock*

14./sherlockholmes -*see sherlock*

15. /Mycroftholmes -fat mycroft from the abominable bride...which was a special, yes? -838 x 613

16. /mycroft - *see /mycroftholmes*

17./mollyhooper -814 x 476

18./molly -*see /mollyhooper*

19./lestrade -842 x 561

20./greglestrade -*see /lestrade*

21./moriarty -809 x 606

22./thefinalproblem -how many problems were there/are there in total yall? -if it was 3..."people always stop after 3"...so is he comin back orrrrrr?? -*see /moriarty*

23./hislastvow -696 x 582

24./thegreatgame -600 x 300

25. /eurus -902 x 667

26./eurosholmes -*see /euros*

27. /thereichenbachfall -john's on the phone, looking up at sherlock on the ledge... -s2e3 -1280 x 720

28. /tiehell -500 x 278

29. /Januscars -896 x 504

30. /norbury -mrs. norbury killed mary... -792 x 525

31./new -*?*  bath tub? Hotel? Wat? -someone let me know if this is from an episode or nah? i dont remember, and i'm going to post this before rewatching all of the episodes... -589 x 438

32. /old -is this a shot of the mantle from before or after euros's bomb blew up the apartment? .-. does this have something/anything to do with the /new page and the /new page's picture??? -868 x 638

33./dymm -moriarty, pink cab... -i saw the pink cab in the episode, its pretty noticeable, wasn't sure if it was like, foreshadowing or a nod to the first epiosde or what...lemme kno if yall have some theories... -852 x 478

34. /cluedo -CLEVER BUT NO! -1000 x 676

35./ineedaclue -Stumped by 40? Go back to the source. The real source. -852 x 478

36./ineedahint -*see /ineedaclue*

37./ineedhelp -*see /ineedaclue*

38. /XXX -You'll be hearing from me -moriarty pool -700 x 396 -last image...is this a screenshot from one specific episode? i'll be posting this before going back to rewatch all of the episodes, so if yall know, plz let me know? -also, the mary's ring/coloring book thing that's later on this rambling...THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS HOLY WOW YALL. HOLY WOW. -so...moriarty's in the other pool picture...but he's not in this one, why? well...we never found out who the sniper was for that episode...so perhaps this is alluding to finding out who that was? also, the ring thing again y'all...connect them dots...

I'll leave this here a well: I believe this is a masterpost for all of the images/pages...i was lazy, and this post is long AF, so i didn't include pictures...but here's the link for a running post that has them all... http://infinitelyromantic.tumblr.com/post/156831246164/infinitelyromantic-infinitelyromantic?is_related_post=1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *HERE COMES THE RAMBLING *puts on tinfoil hat**

The dancing men cipher from 1./solveme: According to wikipedia, "This is one of only two Sherlock Holmes short stories where Holmes' client dies after seeking his help. The other is "The Five Orange Pips", part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The themes of this story are love, trust and pride." Now, i seriously encourage you to go to this link and read the synopsis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Dancing_Men

curious thing: /black is the page that has the comment box...but now when i visit that page, it says the page cannot be found, and instead shows me a search box? i wonder why?

40: i got nothin...haven't delved into it too much tho...i'll let yall know if i find something...

the picture sizes: -the picture sizes are listed, but i am not sure why...this IS a wordpress website, so perhaps its part of the formatting??? maybe it’s another code? maybe its literally nothing? but i'm not sure so...if anyone has anything on this, please let me know???

the view-source pages: -if you right-click and then hit "view-source" on any of the pages from thelostspecial.com then scroll down, you'll see this message: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You see but you do not observe. 13.9.16 /solveme/ XXX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-this is how you’re originally supposed to find the rest of the pages, because if you go to “thelostspecial.com” it’s just the header image that’s on all of the other pages...

-the /solveme/ page is the page with the dancing man cipher...

-the dancing man cipher is also the only page with a different date, as mentioned above...but why is september 13th 2016 meaningful???

the XXX thing: is tripping me up... -in the show, everyone signs their texts with their initials...but maybe i've missed something...again, i'll be rewatchinga all of the episodes. -if y'all know something about "XXX" that i don't...plz let me know <3 -also, why 3 x's? if the signature "xxx" is not significant (idk if its a signature yet), is the number 3 significant? i mean... the message from the cipher IS from the 3rd act tho...perhaps that is significant...

the dates: -all the dates on all the pictures (except one) are 05/02/2017 -the dancing man cipher is 04/02/2017...but it's the start, the beginning...series 4 just ended...maybe they're hinting at series 5 here? Or the lost specials air date??? -also, being in america, we write our dates mm/dd/yyyy but because people in other countries write dates dd/mm/yy and we don’t know if this is fan-made or sherlock-made, we know that 05/02 and 04/02 could mean either feb. 5/feb. 4 OR april 2/may 2... HOWEVER we can *deduce* that these dates are written mm/dd/yyyy because of that date in the view-source message, which is "13.9.16". this date is written dd/mm/yyyy (because we all know there are only 12 months) so the dates 05/02/2017 and 04/02/2017 are for feb. 4th and 5th. which is this weekend?!? -also there's a theory about the scheduling for a new series called Apple Tree Yard (see reddi theoryt: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sherlock/comments/5orufn/clues_about_a_fourth_hidden_sherlock_episode/ ) and the third episode airs on bbc tomorrow (feb. 5) at 9pm supposedly...

13.9.16: -at first i thought that perhaps this date IS significant, but i can’t think of anything off the top of my head, i’ll update if i find something about the air dates of any of the series/episodes or anything pertaining to this dates in the series/episodes later on.. -my second thought was that this website was created on sep 13 2016, and so the creator just used that date since that was the day the website was created, HOWEVER, according to this source: http://whois.domaintools.com/thelostspecial.com the website was created on 1/31/2017...so that theory is a nope, but also, in the episode “the sign of three” this quote:   Mycroft: What do we say about coincidence? Sherlock:The universe is rarely so lazy. sidenote: i just realized that its from the sign of THREE and that episode aired on january FIFTH 2014...it’s also the episode the watsons got married in, and it’s also where we found out there were THREE watsons...also, sherlock found FIVE women in his mindpalace while searching for the mayfly man...just another thought...maybe i’m digging too far into this number stuff??? well...i am wearing my tinfoil hat so...its whatevs i guess lol the website’s title: -the only title we can see on the tab in our web browser for thelostspecial.com is “xxx”...but according to http://whois.domaintools.com/thelostspecial.com the website title is “By the pricking of my thumbs...” -THIS SEEMS EXTRA SIGNIFICANT... -me: *does a google: “by the pricking of my thumbs”* google: *does a reply* “By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes.Open, locks,Whoever knocks.” -Macbeth Act 4, scene 1 -the picture of mary with her thumbs up on the /marymorstan page has the bull skull horns behind her head...and what do we say about coincidences? -also agatha christie has book entited “by the pricking of my thumbs” and if this is the significance rather than the macbeth reference directly (the book’s title is taken from macbeth), then perhaps this whole thing is that s4 was the last series? refering to the wiki page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_the_Pricking_of_My_Thumbs we read that there were FOUR books, and if you read the synopsis of each book on the wiki page (they’re rly short), then there are probably some parallels between that and the sherlock series/episodes. -also this: “the novel is dedicated "to the many readers in this and other countries who write to me asking: 'What has happened to Tommy and Tuppence? What are they doing now?'". in this case, tommy and tuppence perhaps parallel sherlock and john, and seeing as how s4 scene ended in the middle of sherlock and john rushing off and in the middle of the case, it could seem applicable...so perhaps this is hinting that we won’t be getting a s5 since s4 wrapped things up, but that we will probably get to see The Lost Special as an update on john and sherlock (and rosie) and as an encore of sorts... -also there’s this ‘marple’ thing and i’m not entirely sure what it has to do with sherlock? someone explain?

seasons/moriarty train of thought/ramblings: s1e3: moriarty introduced s2e1: more moriarty s2e3: moriarty dead... s4: DID YOU MISS ME? IN THE MAIN PICTURE IT SPELLS OUT RIGHT IN FRONT OF SHERLOCK'S MOUTH IN BLACK TEXT "DID YOU MISS ME?" also, that red smiley on the chair is from the original image (i think?) let me know if that's also added... there's also a page called /dymm...

s5 or the lost special: moriarty back? -they always stop after 3...he was playing with sherlock in 3 episodes...there were only 3 episodes in each season... -perhaps season 5 or the lost special will be about moriarty?? -but what about mrs. norbury and the whole shooting mary thing... -and then there's the murderous mary the elephant (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant) ) -then there's /marymoran and /marymorstan and /mary but NOT /marywatson. why is that when there’s a /johnwatson??? -plus, there's the dancing man cipher from the sir arthur conan doyle story... and if y'all read the wiki for the dancing man cipher then there's some parallels to mary watson, who has a husband. But if mary watson = mary morstan = mary moran, then that means ties with moriarty, and moriarty died, then there's a parallel there too?? there's probably more parallels, lemme know what yall find pls...i'd love to hear more theories...

the ring and the coloringbook: -see article here: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-11-06/does-this-clue-from-the-sherlock-colouring-book-reveal-the-true-identity-of-mary-morstan -refer to "/marymorstan" SAME PICTURE AS THE ONE IN THE ARTICLE. WTF. -HI. YES. HELLO. THE WEDDING RING. AND THE LAST PICTURE IS OF THE SWIMMING POOL AND THE EPISODE /[EPISODE TITLE HERE] PAGES (THE GREAT GAME, THE REICHENBACH FALL, HIS LAST VOW, THE FINAL PROBLEM) LIKE THEY HAVE TO DO WITH THE COLORING BOOK AND THE SWIMMING POOL AND THE SWIMMING POOL SCENES AND MORIARTY AND MARY WATSON (AKA MARY MORSTAN AKA MARY MORAN???) AND HOLY SHIT ARE THEY BOTH ALIVE??? I'M SCREAMING. I'M CONFUSED AND ITS 2AM AND IM SCREAMING.

-also "You see but you do not observe." is in the coloring book but also in the view-source page comment: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You see but you do not observe. 13.9.16 /solveme/ XXX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -also the main picture on all the pages...is from the reichenbach fall (s2e3)

OH MY GOODNESS WE NEVER SAW WHO THE GUNMAN WAS AT THE POOL. HOLY HELL. AND MARY IS ONE HELL OF A SHOT YALL...

HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK IF MARY WATSON IS NOT MARY MORSTAN IS NOT MARY MORSTAN I WILL DIE. HOLY SHIT. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. THE FUCKING RING. HOLY SHIT.