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whiskey-bumblebee · 10 months

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Hey, hope you're doing good today 🤠 dbf!Hotch who notices reader "having trouble with her car" and he helps her? She's more than capable of doing it herself, but she just wanted a reason for Hotch to come over while her parents were away. She may or may not have self sabotaged it to get him over there shirtless in the blazing sun, offering a dip in the pool as repayment, but hinting at more 👁️🫦👁️ i hope that makes sense lol

I LOVE THIS IDEA! thank you bestie <3 get ready to meet the smartest bimbo ever

Uptown Girl

Pairing: dbf!Aaron Hotchner/Reader (gender neutral!)

Word Count: 1695

Warnings: Innuendo, dbf!hotch (reader is an adult), brief mention of reader's parents (vague but they are Rich).

Tagging: @ssamorganhotchner @hotchsdoormat i think you two will like this <3

You can't hold back a smile as you dial Aaron's number from your parent's house phone. You twirl the cable around your finger as you glance around the freshly cleaned kitchen. There's a chilled bottle of San Pellegrino on the counter, the glass sweating from the heat. It's so quiet that you can hear birds outside, no doubt eating some fallen fruit from the trees outside the kitchen.

"Hello, Aaron Hotchner speaking."

"Hey Aaron Hotchner speaking," you tease. "My car won't start. I know it's your first weekend off for a while, but is there any chance you could come over and help me fix it?"

"Hmm," He says playfully. "And how do I know this isn't some elaborate ploy to spend time with me?"

"Come see for yourself," You reply, smiling. "It just won't start."

"Mhm," He agrees, and you can hear the humour in his tone. "And I suppose you can't just use daddy's Bentley?"

"Daddy doesn't drive a Bentley," You reply seamlessly.

Aaron's stumped for a second, and the line goes silent. "I thought he just bought a new one? A silver Continental?"

"Daddy drives a black Chevy Suburban," You say. (A/N: non-car besties: this is hotch's car <3)

Hotch clears his throat. "Baby, you can't just call me that."

"Aaron, please?" The playfulness has dropped out of your voice. "My car really won't start, and I'm supposed to meet my friend for tennis this afternoon."

"Of course," He replies. "Sorry, I thought you were just trying to convince me to come over."

"Would it be so terrible if I was?"

You feel a pat of guilt seep into your stomach, wondering if Aaron really did have more important things to do than attend to your car trouble.

"No," He adds, quickly. "I'd love to see you. Are you home alone?"

"My parents are in the Seychelles."

"Ah. So not home for dinner, I take it?"

You shake your head out of habit, then say no.

_______

When Aaron's black Chevy pulls up into your driveway, you come out onto the balcony and wave, then rush down the stairs to meet him. Sure enough, he sees your Corvette parked next to your dad's silver Continental.

"So you do have the Bentley," He teases, wrapping his arms loosely around your waist.

You kiss both his cheeks. "It's so good to see you."

"Well, you know why it's been so long," He sighs, caressing your cheek.

You look him over, his casual outfit throwing you off a little: dark blue Lacoste polo, straight-leg jeans, New Balance 574s. It was so different from his typical suit and tie, more dangerous somehow. Where you normally saw yourself as a paramour, sneaking in moments after work with your suit-clad lover, this felt more... ordinary. Like he was picking you up for a day of shopping, or to travel down to the yacht club. Like he might join you for tennis later. You tried to push the thought out of your mind, and to quell the fondness blooming in your chest.

"New York called, and I had to answer," You reply airily. "And you've been busy on cases, so it's not all my fault." You poke him squarely in the chest, and he smiles at the gesture.

"Alright, where's this car trouble you were telling me about?"

You lead him over to the spacious garage.

You slip into the driver's seat and turn the key. The car gives a few revs, then falls back into silence. You do it again for good measure.

"Let me try," Aaron says, leaning through the window.

He reaches into the car, turning the key himself. Sure enough, it doesn't start.

"Does your dad keep a set of car tools around in here somewhere?" He looks around.

You roll your eyes. "I have a set. I might be young and beautiful and wealthy, and young, and wealthy, and beautiful," You emphasize the repeated words, giving him a pointed look. "-but I'm not completely incompetent."

"Of course not, honey," He coos soothingly. "Are they in the back?"

You nod.

He walks around your car, and you watch him go in the side mirror, enjoying your view of his cute little ass in those jeans.

You hear his typical high laughter as he finds the tool set. When he walks around to the driver's side again, you smile innocently.

"What?"

He nods for you to get out, and holds up your tool set.

"The Swarovski crystals are a nice touch," He laughs. "And the pink."

"What? I can't have a cute little tool set to go with my cute little car?"

He rolls his eyes at you, but his grin tells you it's not with any real menace.

You hop out of the car and open the hood, leaning in just enough that you know your shorts will be showing off your assets.

"It's hot," You mention innocuously, and pull off your tank top, tossing it aside without looking back at him.

You hear Hotch take a deep inhale from directly behind you. "It is," he replies.

When you turn around, he's taken his own shirt off. There's just a small patch of chest hair, but the droplets of sweat are just glowing. He's as fit as ever, and you can't help yourself, you reach out and touch his chest.

"What are you doing?" He murmurs. "What about the neighbours?"

You pull away then, and look from side to side. "Aaron, do you seriously think we're close enough to any other houses that anyone will be able to see anything? It's like your place," You say, starting to run your hands down his abdomen. "And I'm sure you remember all of the mischief we..."

"4th of July weekend," He finishes. "I remember."

"You normally don't need much convincing," You say softly. "Is everything okay?"

He nods. "I'm just focused on trying to fix your car so you can go to tennis later. I promise, if we had a bit more time, I'd be all over you."

You smile at that. "Do you have time?"

Aaron leans in and nips at your earlobe. "I would've invited you over today to catch up. I was trying to come up with an excuse," He kisses your neck, "-when you called."

You catch his jaw in your hand and glance at his lips until you're sure he's caught you looking. His lips part, and his breathing turns slow and deep. That's all the encouragement you need, and you kiss him.

Your lips are soft and slow against his own. Immediately, his hands settle on your hips, ever the gentleman, not wanting to go straight for your ass. He does, however, nudge your legs apart so he can slot his thigh between them.

Whining softly, you rub yourself against his thigh.

"Can I be honest?" You gasp as he angles his knee just right, sending hot pleasure through your veins.

"Go ahead," He says coolly.

"I broke the car just so I could watch you come and fix it," You whisper.

Aaron smiles at the fact that you were also trying to come up with some excuse to see him, then his expression lapses into one of sympathy. "Oh, baby. You could've just called. You know I'll come running."

You press your face into his neck, embarrassed by how desperate you were to see him. It wasn't the fact that you wanted him that worried you. Any reasonable person would want him. He was tall, handsome, and had a dick the size of Saturn. No, it was your need that worried you. The deep-seated longing that settled onto you like dust whenever you didn't see him. Sure, you'd been having a great time in New York, meeting people, buying art, hanging out with your best friends, but it was hollow without him. More than once you'd thought of calling him on the hotel phone, letting his deep, calm voice lull you to sleep. You always felt your best when you were around him, like he drew out your best attributes in the same way that a perfect wine would match the meal, note for note.

"You smell so good," You breathe. "I want you all over me."

"We should fix your car first, or call a tow truck. I don't want you to be stranded," He said, stroking your hair.

You shake your head, a small laugh passing your lips.

"It's not that serious. Watch."

You turn your attention to the hood, and after a few minutes, you're in the driver's seat, starting your car as normal.

Aaron quirked his brow at you. "How did you do that?"

"I disconnected the starter relay earlier," You call, then walk back over to Aaron so you can show him. You open the hood again, then show him the plastic box where you can remove the relay from.

"It even has a little diagram showing you how to take it out," You point out, laughing to yourself.

"Right," Aaron replies. "And where exactly would someone like you learn how to do that?"

"Someone like me goes to a lot of parties. Nothing convinces a bunch of wasted rich kids not to drive quite like not being able to start their Lambos."

You can tell the way that Aaron's looking at you, so you don't look over at him.

"Don't do that," You mumble.

"Do what?"

"Look at me like that. Don't give me brownie points just for not being a total asshole."

Aaron sighs lightly. "Okay. But for the record, I think saving lives like that is commendable. Even if they're just 'wasted rich kids'."

"Alright," You say, closing the hood, trying to lighten the mood. "Do you want anything? Lemonade, coke?"

"I'm never sure if you're offering soda or something I could get in trouble for," He teases, catching your hand in his own as he follows you up the stairs to the house.

"Well, I'm sure my dad does have coke in the study, but if you're only looking for trouble," You pause in front of the door, turning around with a wide smile and your arms raised. "I'm right here."

"What about the tennis?" Aaron's already running his hands over your chest, nudging you through the doorway, towards the pool.

You grin. "She'll just have to play singles."

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner/reader #criminal minds #fanfic #reader insert #dbf!aaron hotchner #dbf!hotch #my writing #hotch x reader #hotch/reader

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tightwadspoonies · 5 months

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Dumpster Diving and Salvage Shopping

If you asked me what my role in the ecosystem is, I'd say I'm a scavenger. I hate confrontation and I hate spending money when there are other options. I will gladly just take whatever you don't want in order to avoid such unsavory obligations.

So dumpster diving, salvage stores, and incidental meat registries and I get along pretty well save for the anxiety. This post, hopefully, takes some of that away for my fellow scavengers who would love to dumpster dive but just don't know how yet, or are afraid of getting in trouble.

Dumpster Diving:

First of all, dumpster diving is legal in all 50 states of the US, but check local ordinances because rich people get fussy about people digging through trash to the point of some cities condemning the practice. It's on a bunch of other posts but it's worth saying.

Cops, of course, will lie or imply otherwise on this. A good way around that is to look like someone who is "not breaking the law". AKA: look like a suburbanite: Wear some khakis and a polo shirt, carry a Starbucks cup, and act as white as you can possibly get away with. If approached, smile, call the cop "officer" or some such referential title, and explain that you thought it was legal. Not that you know it's legal- that you thought it was legal. If they tell you to scram, do so. No argument with law enforcement is worth what is in that dumpster.

Note that it is illegal in many places to put stuff into dumpsters that aren't yours, though, so if the cops are having a slow night, be careful about them asking you to put stuff back.

You also don't want to be the reason dumpster diving gets banned in your community. Do this primarily by never getting into a dumpster. I know the container of perfect strawberries is just out of reach, but if you fall or are unable to get out you are not only up a creek yourself but potentially causing an anti-dumpster-diving frenzy that your town's grocery stores will never recover from. Also, people have legitimately died from getting into a trash compactor.

Now, "legal" does not mean "pro-store-policy". One of the main reasons for this is that is dumpster diving can be somewhat dangerous and no store wants to be the store that's known for letting people break legs on their slippery dumpster juice or what have you.

Avoid too many store policy issues by waiting until the store closes, doing a pass-by to ensure no one is waiting to see if anyone is picking out of their dumpsters, and (again) looking like someone who wouldn't be diving in dumpsters.

Store management tends to worry that they will be sued for letting you eat expired or unsafe food. If you do get approached by a manager who isn't excited to see someone picking over their dumpster selections, it is a good idea to impress upon them how very many dumpsters you pick from and how you wouldn't possibly be able to prove it was their dumpster that gave you food poisoning. Also, if you're feeling particularly bold, let them know that you are saving their store money by decreasing the weight of their waste. Probably not by a lot, but hey, you're on their side here. If told to scram, once again, do so with haste.

On that note, there are safe and unsafe foods to pick:

Generally Safe:

Packaged shelf-stable foods even with damaged outer packaging

Milk if still cold

Cheese

Eggs

Bread (including frozen bread if still cold)

Whole Veggies and Fruits, even with bad spots

Fermented anything

Non-Food Items like dry pet food, hand sanitizer, soap, cleaning products (except bleach), etc...

Generally NOT Safe:

Sliced lunch meats

Cheese touching meat

Cut salads or veggie trays

Prepared hot foods (even if still hot)

Pre-cooked refrigerated meals

Frozen veggies (unless still mostly frozen)

You want to make sure you have some time the next day to process your haul. Everything needs to be carefully sorted, cleaned, peeled, and in the case of perishable food like eggs and veggies, cooked prior to eating.

One final thing:

Be considerate. Leave everything how you found it and make sure you're not making more work for employees. Also, if you know others in your area dive, leave some stuff there for the next person.

Salvage Shopping:

Perhaps you aren't completely up for dumpster diving but still like living your lil raccoon life? Thats fine!

Salvage groceries are a great option. Essentially, instead of throwing food away that they can't sell to traditional consumers, grocery stores sell near-dated or damaged products to salvage grocery stores for pennies on the dollar, and that savings is passed along to the consumer.

Most salvage stores are smaller than traditional grocery stores, and some are cash-only. Some have fresh or frozen sections, but the smaller ones are pretty much all packaged goods. If you are living exclusively on salvage stores, you may want to supplement with some dumpster diving, foraging, or gardening (or even maybe going to a grocery store, but that's hella expensive).

Salvage groceries are not necessarily going to be perfectly food safe. There will be expired goods (doesn't mean bad). That just means you will have to do some due diligence. For example:

Make sure that an item you want to purchase is still in a sealed container

If there are more than one of an item, make sure they are the same color

Prioritize un-dented cans

If you must buy a dented can, make sure the dent isn't on an edge or seam

Don't buy expired canned tomato products

If you open a food and it smells bad, looks like it thawed and re-froze, hisses or bubbles- THROW IT AWAY

Generally be more cautious than you would normally be at a grocery store.

In my area these are pretty much always run by the Amish and Mennonite communities, but check around in your area. They are becoming more and more common outside these communities.

Not all of them will be listed on google maps. Look for a shop called "Bend and Dent" or "Salvage Groceries" or a small store advertising "Discount Groceries". Once you find one, it's easy to find others by asking at the checkout, since they tend to cluster together.

A drawback is that, because they do tend to cluster, they may be farther away than other grocery options. If you are far away, I highly recommend getting a few friends together and making a day of it. I can't say this about most things, but the extra cost in gas is well worth the savings, even if you are driving over an hour.

#free food #food #dumpster diving #USA #homesteading #tightwadery #adulting #reference

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dragonydreams · 9 days

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Fic: I choose you as my man - BuckTommy

Title: I choose you as my man Fandom: 9-1-1 Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Pairings/Characters: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Tommy Kinnard Summary: Buck wants another date with Tommy before the wedding. Timeline: post 7x05 Word Count: 1,382 Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Reamworks, Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, Ryan Murphy Television, and 20th Century Fox Television. Betas: Thank you to @medieshanachie for looking this over for me. Author's Note: Title from "Take Me As I Am" by Wyclef Jean from Love, Actually soundtrack

Read on AO3

Buck couldn't believe he had as many butterflies in his stomach as he did as he adjusted the placement of the popcorn bowl on the coffee table. He glanced up at the television to where the movie was waiting to be started.

He grabbed a couple of coasters and set one on either side of the popcorn bowl because he was an adult and didn't want rings on his table from when the beers that were still in the fridge inevitably began to sweat.

He didn't know why he was so nervous. It wasn't like this was the first time that Tommy had been to his loft. Then again, this was the first time he was coming over for a date.

He felt the smile begin to grow as he thought back to the last time Tommy had been here. To when he'd turned Buck's world upside down with that kiss. The kiss he hasn't been able to stop thinking about since it happened.

He really hoped that they would kiss again tonight. And boy, did he feel fourteen years old again, just hoping for a kiss.

Before he could get too lost in his thoughts, there was a knock at the door. Buck smoothed down his polo shirt and hurried to the door.

"You're here," Buck said, holding the door open for Tommy. A thrill raced down his spine as Tommy gave him an appreciative once over. One he couldn't stop himself from returning.

"I'm not too early, am I?" Tommy asked, stepping inside.

"N-No, you're right on time," Buck answered, closing the door. "Go ahead and sit on the couch and I'll grab a couple of beers."

Tommy's rich laughter boomed when he saw the TV. Buck grinned to himself as he hurriedly opened the beers and joined him.

"You've been talking to Howie about me?" Tommy guessed as he accepted the beer Buck held out for him.

Buck dipped his head and looked up at Tommy through his lashes. He heard Tommy's quick intake of breath at the gesture but ignored it. "Well, he has known you the longest."

Tommy's bright eyes dimmed a bit. "Yeah, I was a different man back then," he said.

"Don't worry, he told me that, too," Buck assured him, reaching out to squeeze his - very muscular - arm.

"How'd that conversation go?" Tommy asked, somewhat nervously.

Buck gestured towards the couch and they sat, both turned to face the other.

"I pulled him aside during a slow period at work and told him that I was bringing you as my date for the wedding," Buck said.

"I wish I could have seen his expression to that announcement," Tommy said. "I wasn't out to anyone when I was with the 118."

"This was also how he found out that I'm bi, since I'd never been on a date with anyone who wasn't a woman before you," Buck admitted.

"And you chose a fire station as the place to come out to him?" Tommy asked, eyebrows raised. "Howie can't keep a secret to save his life."

"Which is why he was the last one on my team that I told," Buck said. "Not on purpose, but it just kinda ended up happening that way. I was kinda almost hoping that Maddie would let it slip, but unlike her fiance, she can keep a secret." Buck paused, then rushed to say, "Not that I'm keeping us a secret. I'm not ashamed that I'm bi, or to be going out with you. After all, I'm bringing you to my sister's wedding. To Chimney!"

Tommy reached out and rested a hand on Buck's knee and squeezed. "Relax, I didn't think you were."

Buck took a deep breath. Not just because of how good it felt to have Tommy's hand on his leg, but also to release some of his nervous tension.

"Anyway, once that news sunk in he was so excited that we're going out and couldn't wait to share with me some of your favorite things," Buck said, glancing at the TV. "And I figured that since we missed the movie last time, that we should start with one of your favorites."

"Have you seen it?" Tommy asked, resituating himself on the couch to better face the TV.

Buck grabbed the popcorn and remote and did the same, scooting closer to Tommy, but with a couple of inches still between them.

"I used to watch it with Maddie," Buck said. "She loves it, too."

"But you don't? We can watch something else if you don't. I'll have lost some respect for you, though," Tommy teased.

"I do," Buck confirmed. "Who doesn't love a movie about people falling in love and the hope that being in love inspires?"

"Exactly," Tommy agreed, stretching an arm out behind Buck on the couch as he settled more comfortably.

Buck eyed the arm behind him and just grinned to himself, having pulled that move himself way too often, pleased to be on the receiving end of it. He felt the heat rise on his cheeks.

He raised the remote and pressed play before setting it on the coffee table.

As he sat back, he spread his legs just a bit so his knee was lightly pressing against Tommy's. The other man didn't say anything, but Buck felt him press his knee a little more into Buck's in acknowledgement. A pleasant shiver ran down Buck's spine as Tommy brushed a thumb against Buck's shoulder.

Buck glanced at Tommy from the corner of his eye and he was smiling. Whether that was because of Buck's reaction or the movie, Buck wasn't entirely sure.

He grabbed a small handful of popcorn and tossed it in his mouth. As he automatically began to lick the lingering butter and salt from the palm of his hand, he suddenly realized that he'd forgotten napkins. He leapt to his feet to find Tommy staring hungrily at him.

"I-I forgot napkins. For the popcorn," Buck stuttered.

Tommy looked from Buck's buttery lips to his fingers. "I think I can help with that," Tommy suggested, reaching out for Buck's right hand; the left still holding the popcorn bowl.

Buck blindly set the popcorn on the table as Tommy pulled Buck back down next to him, much closer than before.

Keeping his eyes on Buck's, Tommy sucked one of Buck's fingers into his mouth, swirling his tongue around each one until it was cleaned of butter and salt.

Buck could barely catch his breath as he watched Tommy suck each of his fingers clean. His dick took an interest as well, suddenly wishing for Tommy to suck that appendage as well. It took all of Buck's effort to not glance down to see if Tommy was enjoying this as much as Buck was.

"That was so hot," Buck breathed when Tommy finished.

"Oh, I'm not done yet," Tommy promised.

He reached out with the same two fingers as last time and pulled Buck into a kiss.

Buck whined with relief to be kissing Tommy again, letting himself rest the hand that had just been in Tommy's mouth in his shoulder, his fingers digging in as Tommy's tongue flicked against his lips. He parted his lips and they both moaned as Tommy's tongue brushed against Buck's.

When they pulled apart a few minutes later, Buck panted, "This isn't why I invited you over tonight."

"You sure about that?" Tommy teased.

"Well, not the only reason," Buck admitted. "I hoped. I really hoped. But I also just want to spend more time with you."

"You don't hear me complaining, do you?" Tommy asked, running his fingertips along Buck's shoulders and upper back.

"N-n-noo," Buck said with a shuddering breath. "How do you do that to me?" he muttered quietly.

Tommy chuckled. "I remember what it was like when I first admitted that I was attracted to men."

Buck's wide eyes met Tommy's smiling ones, his fingers running down Tommy's arm. "Is it like this for everyone?"

"I can only speak for myself," Tommy said. "But in my experience, when you click with the right person, yes."

As if to prove his point, Tommy leaned back in and captured Buck's mouth again.

It was a good thing that they'd both seen the movie before.

The End

#bucktommy #evan buck buckley #tommy kinard #911 fic #911 #Fic: I choose you as my man

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novuit · 2 years

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I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABT THIS SCHOOL AU 👁👁

You have no idea how delighted I am that you've asked!! Writing this ask took so long because I hadn't thought about it too much until you asked and I'm terrible at explaining things lmao

It doesn't really have a plot but it's set in the 2020s (post-Queen era) in Southwest England. Arthur and Feliciano are both in year 10 and knew eachother briefly for quite a long time - mainly through Lloyd (Wales) - but never really got to know eachother until they joined the music club, which it was mandatory to join a club.

They started off as friendly rivals at first but quickly fell inlove after finding out about some common interests (cough cough Queen, old films and those shows like ofmd and good omens cough). They now meet up in the sensory room almost every break and do all sorts of things: snogging, watching the bubble tubes, playing music and reenacting fanfics.

Feliciano is seen as a very bubbly character who lives with his brother Lovino and his wealthy grandfather and gets along with pretty much everyone. Though he gets along with people easily, he is also pretty two-faced and can ruin your life if you snap him bad enough. He is often described as unpredictable, gifted, rich and terryifying/sweet (depending who you ask). He really takes pride in certain subjects which is why he sometimes skips certain classes: because it makes him feel stupid and it's so limited that he feels like he can't be the upmost creative. He is a good friend of one of Arthur's brothers who is also his brother's best friend.

Arthur is seen as either quite reserved or emotional. He is currently in foster care along with his five brothers and it wasn't until he finished primary school that he, Lloyd and Oisin (N.Ireland) were taken into custody of his two eldest brothers, Scott (canon scotland) and Alistair - I'll get to Ciaran in a moment. He loves talking about his fixations: mainly 70/80s bands, history and anything vintage and which also means he gets along with the older people way more easily than people his own age; i'd like to think he's an old soul. Arthur can get quite irritable and reclusive but other times hes awfully polite and sweet; he even gives nicknames to everyone he likes :)

Lloyd is in year 11 and is always busy with gcses and usually hangs out with his Lovino (they're in this weird best friend/situationship thing) after school. Oisin and Ciaran (Ireland) is at college. Oisin comes home late and raids the fridge and usually eats the left overs and they don't see Ciaran as he was placed in a different home but he does see them from time to time and usually tag along whenever theyre going to a restaurant or on holidays abroad. Alistair works at home as a programmer and does most of the house chores since his bedroom is literally the laundry room and when he's doing neither, you'll find him watching twilight or riverdale while drinking irnbru. Scott works with the wealthy which means hes with celebrities half the time and is out for many hours (especially if he has to drive across the country).

Romulus is Feliciano's grandfather and he has been in handful of careers:a musician, a model and currently an actor in alot of popular movies. He's a really sexy silver fox (for a grandpa obviously) but he's also that kind of rich guy who would make awful puns and have the loudest laughs while wearing either pink/blue polo shirts and khaki trousers or black trousers with an unbuttoned shirt, showing his chest hair and golden tanned skin... Lovino is his older brother, and like Lloyd, he's in year 11 and always busy with gcses and hanging out with him after school. He would usually host game nights and house parties with his friends and always introduces them to Feli. Outside parties, friend gatherings and events though, they never really talk or hang out.

Ludwig and Kiku are Feliciano's friend group and they've been really good friends since primary school. Feli loves them to bits and always talk about them to everyone he knows like a proud mother and they all always bring treats they made which they would always eat at lunch times while studying or talking about alot of wholesome, easy topics most of the time. They mainly cook together and talk about anime and shows they've watched but they dont really do anything else since the county is so car dependent and his friends aren't keen on adventure anyway and he gets lonely easily and ends up tagging along with Lovino and Lloyd (even if they don't want him with them).

Alfred and Francis are Arthur's. They're like one of the very few people who manages to get him out of rooms and actually drag him places lol. They have super different tastes but the one thing they all have in common is movies and drama. He used to have a much bigger friend group in year 7 but most of them either moved to college or drifted to other, smaller friend groups so it's just him, Alfie and Franny (just like every year 7 friend group). They all agreed to go to film club so they could just chill out but Arthur changed his choice last minute to music club which they think was out of character but a huge step for him because he's literally a disoriented, paranoid old man in a 15 year old's body who locks himself in empty rooms and needs constant help finding things that are right infront of him (he's not blind btw).

I think that's all I have to say about it! I have alot of weird stories from school so you might see some true stories dhbjkfjih. This is as modern as any of my AUs get and I hope I explained enough! X)

#hetalia #hws england #hws italy #hws wales #engita #itaeng #hws uk bros #There are barely any AUs set in the southwest :(#they specifically read maylor fanfics on wattpad or crackships on ao3

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angelamontoo · 1 year

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which of the peter characters/peter parodies are most likeliest to fight? We know which ones would get along but I want to know which ones would hate each other with a burning passion.

Knife fight in front of a grocery store in broad daylight type of hatred ya kno?

Hmm good question. Starting with characters:

•I've thought and mentioned before about Abbott and Cairo meeting and not liking eachother and I see Abbott especially as a very good contender for someone who'd throw knives at his adversaries

•I can see Dr Lorentz hating Polo for being stupid, hating Petes beggar character from Du haut en baus for being poor and hating Louie for being stupid and poor, although he probably wouldn't physically assault any them of them unless they got too close to him or hung around too often in places he liked to go, being an eyesore for him(although polo would get revenge by stealing pocket kitten from him and Louie would pull a pretty woman by showing up to a fancy rich person party in nicer clothes than him)

•the general and gimpy are probably the most likely characters to throw knives at someone infront of a grocery store in Broad daylight and I can kind of see them both hating the other for creeping them out. That said, I think they'd each be funnier having an inexplicable hatred for a character who's likely to be minding their own business, not bothering them at all and only running in fear from them when they start throwing knives. Gimpys enemy can be Herman(who obviously isn't exactly innocent, but Gimpy doesn't know that) and THMs can be Editer Stix

As for caricatures. Its kinda hard to say since I see most fighting between the parodies as either just them being creepy and it being nothing personal or like, a predator/pray thing where some of the characters are genuinely just food in the eyes of others(Maggot would live in fear of any of them that eat bugs):

•I see Ren as being among the most likely to hold an actual grudge. Hed definitely throw knives in Broad daylight, although you might have to rile him up a bit first. I can see him hating any and all of the caricatures, but if he had to hate one in particular I'd go with Slappy. He has some traits in common with Stimpy and Rens cousin Sven that would really get under his skin and since he's already dead, Ren would frustratingly be unable to kill him

•J.P ghastly is another one who I can see feeling some real contempt. He'd hate anyone who was poor like Arthur and I can see him hiring yetch and constantly throwing knives at him for fun. Really I can see most of the parodies throwing knives at yetch, but for most of them it would just be out of amusement at the fact that he won't die. For JP it would be more personal

•Booberry is the opposite where most violence towards him is out of the other parodies despising him with a passion for being too kind. The only exception is Duckman Joel, who wants to eat him and he'd tear him up with his bare hands anyway

•Dr lorre-specifically the version of him from Birth of a notion, would hire Hugo as a lab assistant just to abuse him when he was in a bad mood, much like how he used to treat Leapold

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viviennevermillion · 3 years

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What casual clothes the Twisted Wonderland cast would wear

@ferny-bread made a post asking what kind of modern clothes the Twisted Wonderland boys would wear. So here's my 2 cents on the topic

Ace Trappola: Ace buys a bunch of affordable clothes in good quality that falsely make him look like a rich person. A lot of shirts but without a tie, he always leaves a few buttons open. Suit pants. Casual blazers. Polo shirts with the logos of famous brands but they're fake. The only expensive thing he buys are fancy watches.

Deuce Spade: Deuce buys very basic, single-colored t-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies and usually wears a leather jacket on top of it. Always wears jeans and some type of sports shoe. But since we know of the pink leopard print outfit there's def some weird stuff in his wardrobe.

Trey Clover: Trey's outfit of the day is either "normal" or "Vil would teleport me to the 9th circle of hell if he saw me like this". There's a 50/50 chance he'll show up in regular pants and simple t-shirts and outdoor jackets but there's also the possibility you'll see him walking around in a cardigan his grandma, who can't knit, knitted for him and it has the largest threads and patterns mankind has ever seen and you close it by tying a knot into it. Or he'd wear those v-neck shirts for men that have this terrible white piece of cloth in the v-neck for no particular reason and it has stripes in colors that don't fit together at all. His shoes are cool 9/10 of times though

Cater Diamond: Lots and lots of college jackets and bomber jackets. Lots and lots of simple white t-shirts under said jackets. A ton of trendy, colored sunglasses with cool gradient colors. And a shit ton of cool baseball caps. Something like this:

Riddle Rosehearts: Riddle's mum is a Karen and a control freak and his clothes radiate exactly that, after all she buys them for him. Sweater vests. Polo shirts. Neat shirts with a perfectly done tie. If he's feeling dangerous today he dresses like Nick Wilde.

Leona Kingscholar: As a Leona simp I'd like to fulfill all of our dreams and say he dresses like a biker because it'd look absolutely gorgeous on him (I mean he already slays in the Savanaclaw dorm uniform) but we all know Leona has a terrible fashion sense so I gotta say he'd dress in a bunch of colors that hurt to look at, don't fit together and have patterns that people haven't worn in years. Basically his outdoor wear. He also always wears accessories. The rest of his outfit may suck but his necklaces, bracelets and rings sure don't. He manages to look like he buys all his clothes in a thrift shop but they're all expensive from famous brands. Also Leona might never be king of the Afterglow Savannah but he'd sure as hell be king of ugly sandals. I'm not even talking about his school uniform shoes, literally imagine the ugliest sandals you can think of; Leona would wear them unless they're colorful and tacky. Half the time he runs around in these tho:

Ruggie Bucchi: Three words - Vargas Camp Ruggie. If you ever went to a public school when you were like 12 or 13, chances are there was this one kid who dressed like Vargas Camp Ruggie. And if Ruggie wears casual clothes that is exactly what he looks like. He wears this type of scarf all the way from autumn to early spring and he has a bunch of hiking boots and owns jackets and bags that scream "ugly but practical". He'd wear everything the Jack Wolfskin online store has to offer except that he's too poor to afford brands like this so they're all fakes from beyond the border of the Afterglow Savannah that he found (or stole) on tourist street markets.

Jack Howl: Jack's fashion sense radiates "I'm young, athletic and in the military". Owns a lot of clothes with camo print. Lots of Cargo pants. And tank tops. He always runs around in tank tops except for when it's really hot which is the days where he won't wear a shirt at all. He also wears those metal necklaces you always see soldiers wear in movies idk if they have a specific name. Apart from that he wears typical sport clothes.

Azul Ashengrotto: It's Azul. Like, what do you expect, of course he dresses exclusively in suits. He also owns so many different fedoras it's insane.

Jade Leech: Nothing special, lots of basic black pants and single-colored cashmere sweaters. A bunch of turtlenecks too. But the fabric of his shirts always ends up being soft as hell.

Floyd Leech: See, Floyd is a wild card. You cannot possibly pinpoint a style for him because you'll never know what he shows up in today. It could be something perfectly fine like his outdoor wear but he could also greet you in platform crocs and a fur coat.

Kalim Al-Asim: Kalim is the type of guy who combines traditional with modern clothes. You'll always see him wear something traditional from the Land of Hot Sands, be it a shirt or an accessory etc. but he usually combines it with typical modern clothes. Kalim has a fairly good fashion sense so it always fits together well.

Jamil Viper: Same as in canon. Several variations of school uniform Jamil and PE Jamil. Ton of accessories. Sometimes single-colored shirts and bomber jackets. A lot of outfits that radiate "crying in the skatepark at 3am"

Vil Schoenheit: Another one you can't pinpoint but in a good way. Not only is Vil always up to date with the newest fashion trends, but he's a trendsetter himself. He casually wears so many different styles and he loves fashion in general so he doesn't settle for one specific style. Fact is he always slays. He usually wears heels though.

Rook Hunt: Hats. Rook wears pretty basic outfits which just draw more attention to his large variety of extraordinary hats (he does this on purpose). He owns anything from cowboy hats to Bavarian hats to baseball caps. And of course berets.

Epel Felmier: Ever since Chapter 5, Epel's wardrobe only has two types of clothing - "cute and frilly" and "dangerous person with knife who'd sell you drugs in a shady alleyway". He either dresses like the most adorable person you will ever meet or like a total delinquent.

Idia Shroud: Gamer and weeb merch. Large hoodies. Shirts with uncomfortable close-up shots of the faces of anime characters. Otherwise pretty much what he wears in canon.

Silver: Lots of denim stuff. Simple white t-shirts with colorful symbols and print on it. Nothing special but he's pretty fashionable.

Sebek Zigvolt: Idk why but lots of suit pants. Also Sebek owns so many comfortable hoodies istg. He loves sitting down in one of these and read a book. He also has a lot of turtleneck shirts. In winter he wears long trenchcoats and scarves out of wool. He also owns fake glasses for fashion purposes (and to look smart)

Lilia Vanrouge: Lilias fashion sense is about as good as his cooking skill. He will legit just go to a thrift shop and throw a bunch of things he likes together, no matter if they fit or not. You know how the people in the music video to Thrift Shop dress? This is what Lilia wears.

Malleus Draconia: You'd expect a guy who has no idea about trends or modern human society and who spent most of his long life locked up in a castle to be an absolute disaster when it comes to fashion but the thing is, Malleus is a strategic buyer. He knows he already struggles to blend in with humans and he's perfectly aware he has no idea what modern fashion trends are so he buys stuff he's already seen people wear at school. Simple t-shirts. Hoodies. Blazers. Suit pants. Shirts & ties. Sneakers. Cardigans. But as he's used to from Valley of Thorns traditions he buys all of this in all black so he definitely looks like an emo while being unaware of what an emo is. He does look fashionable though. He also loves long af big scarves (wrap them around him he'd be so happy)

I also made a tier-list of my judgements of their fashion

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ashf1 · 2 years

Text

Only For Him pt. 1

warnings: fluff, minor obsession (if you squint), jealousy, mention of a slap, drug usage, aggressive kissing, nonconsensual touching, toxic rafe

please reblog, comment and heart if you enjoy

Her head laid on his lap as her boyfriend was upstairs getting dressed for the dinner they were having at the club. She looked at her blonde friend while he was watching the television in front of him. He got bored and decided to turn on the television and look down at the girl lying on his lap. The way his blue eyes sparkled in the light made her breath get caught in her throat. He gave her his infamous smile and she could tell he had a bad idea in mind. Before anything could happen a loud shut of a door rang through the house and that made her sit up. She took one look at his lips before pressing a chaste kiss to his lips and then walking away swinging her hips. She had no intention to cheat on her boyfriend but his best friend was definitely still something she wanted to have.

Walking downstairs dressed in a salmon polo, white khaki shorts and gucci oxfords was her loving boyfriend of a year and half, Rafe Cameron. Yep thee Rafe Cameron, king kook and psychopath. He took his lovely girlfriend by the arm as he called out for Topper. Topper, still confused and slightly aroused by what just happened, followed the couple to Rafes jeep. The couple sat in the front while Topper made himself comfortable in the backseat. Topper watched as Rafe placed his hand under the hem of her very short black dress. He watched as her head leaned back.

Topper Thornton. The man she had a crush on since she first met him 6 years ago. Every year she went to visit the Cameron's she could tell the boy would never be hers but she never let that get to her. As soon as she got home she wrote a letter to Sarah telling how she had the biggest crush on the 12 year old. Once she got the letter back promising her she could have him, she cherished that letter forever until 2 years when the girl broke said promise.

It was karaoke night which was her favorite night of the month. She always signed up to sing with Sarah but this year was different. This year she signed up by herself even though she had a couple of her friends he offered to join her but this year she wanted to prove something. This year she had picked the perfect song for her predicament.

Everyone was gathered around tables. Tonight everyone shared the stage; it did not matter if you were rich or poor or just visiting everyone. She sat in Rafes lap while Topper sat across and Kelce sat next to him. Everyone was enjoying themselves until the announcer called up Aria Abrams. She hopped off his lap, fixed her dress and walked to the stage grabbing the microphone on her way up. She looked through the crowd to find the one girl she wanted there and she found walking towards Topper and taking a seat on his lap. She watched as he placed a protective arm around her waist and placed a quick kiss to her cheek.

“Whenever you are ready Miss Abrams”, the announcer spoke to me in a hushed tone. As soon as he walked off the stage the music started to play and her heart started to beat out of her chest. She practiced this song and this scene for too long to mess up on what was going to happen.

I kinda wanna throw my phone across the room

'Cause all I see are girls too good to be true

With paper-white teeth and perfect bodies

Wish I didn't care

I know their beauty's not my lack

But it feels like that weight is on my back

And I can't let it go

The words sang softly from her voice as she closed now afraid to see the look in front of her. The boys knew she has self image issues but they weren’t quite sure why she would pick this song.

Com-comparison is killin' me slowly

I think I think too much

'Bout kids who don't know me

I'm so sick of myself

I'd rather be, rather be

Anyone, anyone else

My jealousy, jealousy started followin' me (He-he-he, he)

Started followin' me (He-he-he, he)

And I see everyone gettin' all the things I want

I'm happy for them, but then again, I'm not

Just cool vintage clothes and vacation photos

I can't stand it

Oh God, I sound crazy

She felt like she wanted to cry and throw up at the same time but for now she had to stomach her feelings and get through the song before anything could happen. The lines that killed her to sing were “And I see everyone gettin' all the things I want . . . I'm happy for them, but then again, I'm not” . She let a tear drip down her cheek while signing but everyone was far enough to not notice the wetness of her face.

Their win is not my loss

I know it's true, but

I can't help gettin' caught up in it all

Com-comparison is killin' me slowly

I think I think too much

'Bout kids who don't know me

I'm so sick of myself

Rather be, rather be

Anyone, anyone else

My jealousy, jealousy (Yeah)

The chorus rang through her throat again but this time even more emotional than last time. She did not know how and if she was going to be able to finish this song without making a scene.

All your friends are so cool, you go out every night

In your daddy's nice car, yeah, you're livin' the life

Got a pretty face, a pretty boyfriend, too

I wanna be you so bad and I don't even know you

All I see is what I should be

Happier, prettier, jealousy, jealousy

All I see is what I should be

I'm losin' it, all I get's jealousy, jealousy

While singing this pointed to her so-called best friend Sarah Cameron. By this time her voice was cracking as she tried to get her voice across to the people listening. Deciding to not finish the song and make a speech might not have been the smartest part of her plan but what the hell else was she supposed to do.

“Give it up to Sarah Cameron everyone, the biggest backstabbing, promising breaking person you will ever meet. Never trust her wraith a secret cause she will either take it from you or just ruin you with it.”, the girl spoke with spite and disgust in her voice.

She watched as Topper took Sarah off his lap and by now the boys are up along with Sarah. Everyone shares a confused look on their faces as they watch Sarah try to approach the girl on the stage.

“Ladies, gents, and everyone else look who it is. It is the Kook Princess. My lady, how are you doing this fine evening?” The girl on the stage gives Sarah a sarcastic smile and then does a small curtsy.

Then in the next moment all Aria could see was red. All she could feel was the stinging of the palm and the collective noises of people yelling. She wanted to run and hide but the adrenaline was to much for her so she grab who she assumed was Rafe once she got off the stage.

Sarah still standing of the stage could not believe what just happened. Her best friend of many years just decided to slap her across the face for no apparent reason. She did not know what to say or do so when Topper got on the stage and dragged her away was when she thought she figured out what was going. Still in shock himself Topper cupped Sarah’s made sure to check that there was no broken skin or blood drawn. The only thing to note was the redness of check from the slap.

Rafe grabbing onto his girlfriend dragged her away from the scene and into his Jeep. He was fuming and just utterly bewildered but the scene she had just cause. Not caring to notice if she had buckled herself or not her speed away towards his house. The whites of his knuckles were evident by how hard he was gripping the steering wheel. He opened his mouth just to close it not sure what to say. For once Rafe Cameron was at lost for words. He was furious and wanted to punch a wall. She had just humiliated herself and their relationship in-front of half the island. He put the car in, got out of his seat and slammed the car door making Aria jump.

Aria hops out of the car and cradles her right hand in her left. Falling Rafe into the house she heads for the kitchen to get an ice pack. Pulling it out of freezer and placing it on her right hand she finally makes eye contact with her boyfriend. She could practically see the smoke coming out of ear and the way his hands balled of real tight like he was going to punch something.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? ARE YOU TRY TO EMBARRASS ME AND US? AND THEN YOU SLAP MY SISTER, MY SISTER?, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” Rafe screams at the small girl. He raises his hand to run his hand through his hair and that makes the petite girl take a step back and close her eyes. She knew Rafe could get violent but he never hit her. He would scream, yell and get aggressive with her but never abused her in anyway unless she asked.

Rafe grabbed her waist and hoisted her onto the kitchen counter. He kept his left had digging into her waist and roughly grabbed her chin.

“You will look at me when I speak to you Aria Abrams. Now I am serious you will only be seen and not heard. You pathetic little bitch,” Rafe spoke in almost a too calm of a voice. He then placed his lips against her and started to make out with her. She pushed against his chest but the hand on waist only became tighter. It was not until he felt a sharp coldness against his skin did he finally let up. Aria rubbing her side where Rafe grabbed her hopped off the counter and started to walk away.

Pointing the knife she grabbed from the kitchens knife block did she finally have enough courage to scream back at the taller man.

“HOW DARE YOU FUCKING TALK TO ME LIKE THAT YOU PSYCHOPATHIC, DRUGED UP COCANE ADDICT! YOU ONLY EVER FUCKING CARE ABOUT YOURSELF AND THEN WHEN SOMETHING STRAYS OUT OF LINE YOU FREAK OUT LIKES ITS THE END OF THE WORLD. YOU WANNA KNOW SOMETHING I ACTUALLY HAD TO WORK TO GET WHERE I AM TODAY YOU HAD EVERYTHING HANDED TO YOU.”

The room feel silent over the two of two them. She dropped the knife on the counter table and walked out of the room not caring about the man she left in the other. She needed to get out of the house and fast. She felt like she was suffocating inside the giant mansion.

As her left hand touched the doorknob to leave did she start to hear commotion from kitchen. She opened the door as fast as she could; running out of the house like a bat out of hell.

But because she chose not to stay and listen she never got to hear the conversation between Topper and Rafe.

taglist: @tianotfound

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lesbianrobin · 4 years

Note

hello em i have a request. can u please rate mr harrington's looks/outfits i just feel like u have the best takes and i'd LOVE to know how you'd rank his choices 👀

this is the single greatest ask i’ve ever received. i will be ranking the outfits, not steve’s moral alignment or actions in each scene. in order of appearance:

The Introduction

4/10

hair is tragic

steve copied this entire fit from a mannequin in the ralph lauren polo outlet store

would honestly be a 0/10 except for the obvious valiant effort being put forth by his lower half to resist the sexless curse of khaki pants. the devil (st costuming department) works hard but by god steve harrington (joe keery’s body) works harder

nice brown watch that certainly came from a department store

also gains points for being next to nancy’s anemic librarian fit, thus looking better by comparison

The Rich Bitch

8/10

thank god he ditched the khakis

hair looks much less demonic

it’s a simple look but the sweatshirt rides up when he shotguns the beer

he also gets wet

solid 8 for sluttiness alone

The Whore

10/10

wet

please note that his chest is waxed. keep this in mind.

The Heterosexual

2/10

hair looks like he dipped his head in glue

bold choice with the grey pants. unfortunately that choice was wrong

matching outfits with your comphet girlfriend isn’t as cute as you think it is stevie

you only get points because despite that ungodly pastel stripe pattern the polo’s decently fitted and makes your arm look kinda nice

The Dickhead

3/10

glue head pt. 2

at least the stripes aren’t pastel this time

The Cuck

6/10

hair slightly less glue-y

yet another striped polo is peeking out unfortunately

but! it’s green and green looks good on him

finally wearing jeans like a normal fucking human instead of weird slacks

pivotal moment in steve’s fashion evolution from preppy male model to sexy morally upright king

his morals are stored in the denim

The Final Girl

9/10

an outfit with a character arc to rival steve’s own

pretty fucking good hair if i do say so myself!!

it’s fluffy!

that shit looks like if you touched it it’d be soft... no glue here!

finally not copying from the goddamn l.l. bean catalog

iconic green slut sweatshirt? check! jacket and nikes? check! fucked-up gorgeous face and baseball bat full of rusty nails? check, baby!

looks good on its own OR with some blood on top

overall a very solid look

The Darling Little Drummer Boy

7/10

babe no... please don’t go back to the khakis... they won’t treat you like jeans do...

not quite glue head but not his best

apparently steve owns a single green sweatshirt, a thousand striped polos, and one very precious christmas sweater

almost makes up for prep-related khaki crimes by being really fucking cute

The Simp

8/10

glue head is DEAD

further evidence that steve harrington’s entire closet is just striped polos

this is his fifth unique striped polo

most of these points are for the sunglasses and the hair

actually all of these points are for the sunglasses and the hair

he’s finally let go of the fucking pastels thank jesus

and you can’t see it but he did wear jeans with this fit i just forgot to make sure they were pictured and it’s 4:15 am so i don’t feel like going back to remake this collage

cannot tell if this is a lighter blue version of the jacket he wore three times in s1 or if it IS the jacket he wore three times in s1 and the color grading is just that different

either way he loves jackets and i think that’s very sexy of him

The Intellectual

9/10

i’ve been waiting for this one... turn it up!

literally invented vests

excellent hair

loses a point for unfortunately introducing steve’s SIXTH unique striped fucking polo

i can’t see the collar but i know it’s there i know you’re wearing another fucking polo steve you can’t hide from me

can’t decide if he looks gay or just really preppy but either way he’s got some repression going on

still a very solid look

The Oh No Oh God It Hurts I’m Looking Away I Can’t Watch This

10/10

yes that middle picture is absolutely to show off the texture of his blazer and not at all me making sure that if i have to see his heartbroken little face then you all do too

anyways i Know that blazer cost at least $100 like i Know that shit’s expensive

excellent gorgeous soft-looking hair that someone ought to run their hands through but only people who haven’t dated him for a year while pining after someone else

emotional devastation... but make it unbelievably fucking sexy

stevie baby i know you’re a colorful guy but please wear more black

The Meathead Jock

9/10

aw christ whatever happened to standards?

introduction of the blue nikes <3

god his hair looked fucking good here

could have gained that final point by using tube socks with blue and GREEN stripes to tie together the shoes and the gym uniform :/

shorts could be shorter but are an altogether appropriate and enjoyable length

fun sweatstain to customize the look <3

The (is there a word for victim of bullying?) Serious Athlete

8/10

the yellow stripe was more fun

still cute though

The Sudsy Boy

11/10

wet

suds indicate that he’s washing his hair, presumably with faberge organics. is this why he’s being bullied?

steve brings his faberge organics shampoo and conditioner and his farrah fawcett spray to school with him whenever he has basketball practice

steve either has shampoo, conditioner, and hairspray in his backpack at all times, or he has a separate gym bag that’s mostly haircare products

just need to make sure we all know that

excellent freckle showcase

his chest is still waxed. please, i beg, keep this in mind

one of his strongest looks

The Babysitter

10/10

his most versatile look to date

a different jacket than the one(s) he’s worn before but it still has the same kind of collar. steve found a jacket he liked and bought it in at least three colors

the whole thing fits So fucking nicely! shirt, jacket, jeans... baby boy is TAILORED

return of the white nikes with the red check indicate that they are his fashion nikes, while the blue nikes with the white check are his sport nikes. interesting.

this fit lasts like 48 hours and steve simply looks sexier as time goes on which is a testament to its quality as well as his inherent power

every new accessory elevates his appearance. roses, nail bat, rubber gloves, blood, sweat, band-aids, bandana, goggles... each element complements the look in its own way!

an overall win

The Chauffeur

8/10

we can’t really see the whole fit but he’s not wearing a striped polo so i’m calling it a win regardless of what’s on his bottom half

cannot give him a 10/10 though because he might be wearing khakis

red is such a nice color on him when it’s not just from his blood

i lied when i said he should wear more black he should wear more colors

that plain sweater absolutely cost $85 or more

hair looks very nice and soft

excellent look!

The Sailor Man

9/10

very precious

absolutely the best hair i’ve ever seen

baby boy got highlights for his hot girl summer!

bright colors make his very red lips pop

shorts could be shorter

love the little accents! especially the white pockets and belt

excellent color coordination on steve’s part with the blue sneakers (notably different than his s2 blue basketball nikes) and the red bruising/blood

i hope you remembered that steve’s chest was waxed. as you can see his chest is now unwaxed. some change between s2 and s3 drove this decision, presumably either his breakup with nancy or the fact that he no longer showers in front of other guys at school. up to your interpretation

shock blanket at the very end is a nice touch so we don’t forget he’s traumatized

The Drowned Rat/The Man Overboard

10/10

wet

shorts could be shorter

the decision to purchase and wear a hoodless raincoat is absolutely ridiculous and stupid

however it is also very steve harrington and i value self-expression

The Chick Magnet/The Flaming Homosexual

100/10

what can i even say about this fit?

the absolute best pants he’s worn thus far. amazing fit, excellent classic wash. i say this as a former american eagle outfitters associate and the winner of my freshman year dorm’s “best at folding jeans” award

manages to make blue jeans with a half-blue denim vest work effortlessly

bold primary colors make him stand out without being too gaudy

excellent pairing of t-shirt with simple stripes and vest with simple color blocking to create a complex yet cohesive and flattering look

simple brown belt gives the look a put-together yet down-to-earth vibe

hair has only gotten better

still wearing that same brown watch that he’s had since the introduction

this man looks like he waxes his chest

this is steve in his final form

thank you for your time

#em talks #asks #long post #steve harrington #stranger things #battleonthedeathstar

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cloudedinlavender · 3 years

Text

The Lost Child at Stellis - Starting Point

// A/N: It took me the whole day to write the beginning partly because Artem and Vyn are characters that are complex in dialogue. Also, this is spoiler-free because it doesn’t connect to the game, just a wholesome story. //

It felt like a surprise when one day, Marius had the greatest idea he ever thought. Even Luke had to sit down to process this correctly.

"So you're saying that we should take a day off by going to...the amusement park?" Luke asked.

Marius laughed softly and said, "Exactly! Seeing as we all serious men had probably little to no experience of fun, I'd thought it'd be an opportunity to spend that time on Saturday, at 10 a.m."

"Excuse you! I'm Clairemont's childhood friend, and we had tons of fun that I can remember!" Luke rebutted.

"We know, Luke. But, can you remember one memory that you enjoyed the most?" Marius stared intently.

Luke was about to add more, but he went silent. Marius smirked again and faced the other two.

"Well, I don't mind taking a break. It seems that I have a free weekend," Vyn smiled.

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to visit one ourselves. My last memories of the amusement park were my elementary days." Artem held the papers firmly.

“Seriously? You guys are boring. Except for you, Teach, you’re more interesting,” Marius said, leaning on the couch. As Vyn returns the compliment with a small smile, Luke feels defeated.

“Why does Marius feel the need to call me boring?” he mumbled.

“So, Luke, what’s your answer?” Marius looked to the brunet, who sighed and agreed with no choice.

“Excellent! I’m texting Clairemont to see if she's going with us. It's not perfect without her," Marius winked.

"I'm sure she would say that she has work. It's rare that she gets a break and hangs out with her office friends," Artem recalled.

"How about you? She told me a week ago that all you can talk about is work and nothing about your life. Isn't that crazy?" Luke laughed.

Artem sighed, "I guess that applies to me too. Celestine tried to invite me with some officemates for dinner yet I still said no because of work. Such a shame."

"I recommend joining a few hangouts with friends if you want to liven up your life. As one proverb says, ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ I am not going to imagine an Artem Wing who is boring," Vyn plainly said.

As his name was mentioned, Artem arched his brow in disapproval. “Such a bold statement, Vyn. As if I’m the boring one, you look and act like the most complex person I can’t translate in simple terms,” he scoffed.

“Okay, can we just stop arguing and go back to the main topic? Clairemont just texted that she would try to join alongside us if work doesn’t overtake her,” Marius called out.

Artem and Vyn went silent as they kept glaring through their tables. Luke and Marius looked at each other, shaking their heads in disappointment.

A regular day at the NXX Headquarters. Clairemont left earlier to focus on another important task, which settled the boys for a trip to the amusement park.

By the end of the day, it looks like there is going to be a challenge awaiting ahead.

Saturday. Families usually spend their days Saturday. Families usually spend their days outside of their homes, enjoying the activities with their children.

One of the most famous amusement parks is Stellis Wonderland Park, where it owns the legendary Fantasy House. Inside the house contains a treasure that only the lucky people can find.

Of course, the park has the usual stuff like roller coasters or the Ferris Wheel and the food. Luke can't wait to eat cotton candy or kettle corn.

Marius was the first guy to arrive there, wearing a black polo shirt and matching jeans with sneakers. Although his life screams rich, he prefers not to flaunt his rich status.

"Where are those guys? It's almost 10 a.m.!" he thought.

Then, Artem and Vyn entered the scene. Marius almost burst into laughter as they were not wearing formal clothes for once. He could give them brownie points for coming on time, and not standing out from the crowd.

“Finally! It’s great that you’re wearing sweaters and coats and not ties or suits. Looking at you, Artem,” Marius complimented, then gave a stare to the latter.

“Ah, so you think I have poor taste in fashion. This is the best-looking turtleneck I could find in my closet," Artem glanced at his clothes.

"Look at Vyn, he prefers to wear a button-up shirt with his slacks and you never called him out," he bluntly stated.

"Let's not talk about my fashion. Besides, I look casual enough to blend in," he calmly responded.

Artem looked away with an irritated look. Marius laughed then said, "Anyway, where's Luke?"

Suddenly, Luke rushed to the group, placing his hands on his hips. "There you are! Artem, you promised that you would wait for me," he pouted.

"You just said that I would go ahead. You were too busy looking at some puppies by the window. Be glad that I sent you the location," Artem explained.

Marius looked up from his phone, saying, "Guys, I think we have bad news. Clairemont isn't coming with us because she is babysitting her neighbor's kids. She said that we can enjoy the park without her."

"How sad. I was looking forward to meeting her," Artem sighed sadly. The others looked to him, in small jealousy as he huffed.

"Well, looks like we're all here! Let's get our tickets and enjoy the amusement park!" Marius declared. As they went to the entrance, Marius paid for their tickets and started their day at the amusement park.

Meanwhile, you were also at the amusement park with your little brother and your dad. This is your first experience at nine years old, after convincing your parents to visit the park.

Your reason? Everyone already had a chance to go to the famous park, except you.

As you munched on your snow cone, you held onto your brother's hands as your father guarded you two on the bench. Then, your father became a bit frantic as he couldn't find what he was looking for.

You planned for the next part of the trip when you saw a lost wallet in the middle of the bricked road. As you picked it up, your first instinct was to go to the “Lost and Found” office.

Without knowing, you looked at the nearest map and followed its directions. When you arrived there, someone was asking the employee if anyone saw their wallet.

"Excuse me, Ma'am. I found a wallet on the ground. Does this belong to you?" you politely asked them.

The person turned around and gasped as they saw the wallet in your hand. "Oh, you found it!" they exclaimed.

"It's yours? I haven't checked what's inside yet," you said.

Then, the person introduced, "My name is Chelsea Scott. It's on my ID."

You took a quick look on the inside and it's the accurate person. Returning the wallet, she thanked you for your honesty and rewarded you with a small token.

It's wrapped neatly so you thanked her back and said your goodbyes. It was unfortunate by the time you came back, your father and your brother weren't there.

Normally, your first reaction is to cry in tears. But, you remained calm and tried to find a way.

You started by calling from your phone, but this part of the area has poor reception. You couldn't even retrace your steps as it would be worse than now.

Having no other decisions, you sat on the same bench. Your thoughts started to race until you were approached by a stranger and a small group.

"Are you lost? Where is your family?"

Who was the stranger that approached you first?

// REBLOGS AND LIKES ARE ENCOURAGED AND APPRECIATED :) //

// I don't all the pictures I used. I grabbed a few pictures from Google lol //

Notes: link

Starting Point: YOU ARE HERE!

Luke Pearce: link

Artem Wing: link

Vyn Ritcher: link

Marius von Hagen: link

#tears of themis #artem wing #luke pearce #marius von hagen #vyn richter #fanfiction #tot fanfic #the lost child at stellis #child reader #tumblr fanfic

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tettatonin · 2 years

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ㅤㅤ︻┻┳═一ㅤMR. & MRS. KISAKIㅤﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ❝ IF I HAD IT IN MY POWER, I'D ARRANGE FOR ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤEVERY GIRL TO HAVE YOUR CHARM. ❞

THE COUPLE : TETTA and HAN

THE SOUNDTRACK : FEVER by ENHYPEN ; EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY by DEAN MARTIN ; LOVER by TAYLOR SWIFT

THE DYNAMIC : RIVALS TO LOVERS — ❝ listen, i didn't even try like you that way, it just happened. ❞ ; ❝ oh, now that's rich. ❞

𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 ㅤㅤ↪ black coffee. chanel n°5 and polo green. red bottoms. dark chocolate. white button ups with lipstick stains. silver wedding bands. a small collection of vinyl records that softly plays throughout the living room on rainy days. bourbon and red wine. a lighter that's always there to light my cigarettes. a matching necklace and watch with our initials and anniversary date engraved onto the back. a bookshelf filled with our favorite novels and volumes we've kept from our high school days.

𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀 ㅤㅤ↪ a husband that everyone's scared of and a wife that just fans the flames a little too much. catching up on game of thrones. dissing people on 90 day fiancé. talking about my day and watching him cook dinner, taste testing whatever it is as he goes along. he mixes chocolate into my morning coffee after he makes me mad. being literal partners in crime. sleeping in for too long on days off. slow dancing on rainy days. tying and retying his tie if it looks askew. him keeping his hand on my waist or lower back so i can match his walking pace if we're in a hurry. people around us never being able to tell the difference between petty and real arguments. he makes me feel like i'm better than everyone and because of that, we talk shit a lot.

𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐒 ㅤㅤ↪ ENCOUNTERS [ how we met ] — met through work and at the time, it'd be the only time we'd see each other and it wasn't often either. simple, passive aggressive exchanges of 'good work' and light banter during meetings would slowly evolve into full on arguing if we ever had a disagreement but in the rare times we found common ground, we brought out the best in each other. i thought he was impractical while he thought i was incompetent. from then on, it was a slow, five year long slope into getting used to each other's company since both our positions in tenjiku had us working together most of the time. ㅤㅤ↪ CONFESSIONS [ when he told me ] — kisaki's not a fan of things just spilling out. he's calm, calculated, and was so sure that his secret would die with him if hanma hadn't haphazardly poured him that final glass of bourbon that pushed his sobriety out of the way. i almost didn't believe him at first but even as he was drunk out of his mind, he still had his charm. it was funny to see him act so loose, wanting to see more of it was what made me say yes that night (and the morning after when he remembered everything and properly asked me out). ㅤㅤ↪ OCCASSIONS [ a day in our lives ] — work days start off with him leaving the penthouse first with a little kiss goodbye for me while i'm having breakfast before leaving and meeting somewhere in the middle of the day to brief each other on current events. tetta works the early mornings while i work the late nights. but when we have days off, they're genuinely are his favorites. its quiet, no one from work will call him, and he gets to sleep in before spending the day doing whatever he wants at his own pace, all while being with me. he's a sucker for domesticity, so things like movie nights and home dinner dates with food he cooks himself while we act like a normal suburban husband and wife relaxes him more than it should.

#[♡] — selfships . . . mr. & mrs. kisaki

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chronicbatfictioner · 3 years

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Exchanges & Compromises - Chapter 14

The ride to the Wayne Manor the other day was uneventful. That is unless one counted the times where Damian had peeked at Tim's tablet and saw the financial report, and suggested that Tim let the Algol Enterprises acquire Drake Industries.

"No thanks, I'd rather have full control of it," Tim said.

"It will be more beneficial for a good size of masses if you have larger capital." Damian reasoned.

Tim glared at him. "But then I won't have full control, will I? So no. I'll keep your offer in mind, but not now, thanks," he replied.

"Am I the only one feeling strangely inadequate here?" Dick quipped. "I mean, we have two minors discussing business, and we, two adult men, looked on not even understanding what they're talking about."

Jason had to stifle a laugh at that.

"Do not worry, Grayson. Once I get into the WE books, Jason or I shall explain to you the intricacies of running a multi-national and multi-faceted business." Damian remarked. Jason bit the inside of his lower lip at Dick's nearly imperceptible eye-roll.

Dick glared at Jason with a betrayed look, "You understood what they were talking about??" he demanded.

Jason shrugged slowly, "I'm his legal guardian, dude. I didn't get hired just because I looked pretty!"

"While I am certain Drake would not mind to hire you just to look pretty, Grayson, I do not understand why you must insist on presenting yourself as a dumb oaf..." Damian commented.

"That's part of his charm," Tim replied, snickering. "That, and his ass. For the record, I didn't hire him for his brain."

"I'm a security guard at the Drake Industries' owner's home," Dick replied haughtily.

"Technically, he's the receptionist of my apartment building. But everybody else thought of him as my bodyguard because he's ripped." Tim explained.

"Ripped?"

"Muscled," Jason explained. Damian was not one for slang just yet. "Most people who got hired as security guards would be fat ex-cops or really skinny juvenile halls graduates, yeah? Does it still work that way here?"

"Unfortunately. That's why most people thought he's like, an 'ex-special forces' security guard for me to keep me from getting kidnapped like my parents." Tim elaborated.

"That would've been a hoot." Dick quipped. "Even without me present, I'd really like to see people trying to kidnap you."

Tim threw him a feigned-hurt look. "How cruel. I've been nothing but facetious and kind to all. Why would they want to kidnap me?" he deadpanned. "Plus, they'll have their respective faces shredded to bits by Mama. Right, ma?" Tim added, calling out to the front of the limo.

Catwoman - without her costume, turned out to be a woman named Selina Kyle - was driving them there, clad in an official suit and jacket and hat of a limo driver. How and why Jason did not know. But given the fact that Tim's parents were kidnapped while in a private jet, he reckoned that Tim would have had rather more rigorous security set up for himself. While Jason was yet to be sure what kind of relationship Tim has with Catwoman - similar costume notwithstanding; he was quite certain that said relationship would have been pretty close and public.

"Nobody gets to mess with my kitten and get away with nary a scar," she replied through the opened divider. "Now, we're half a mile out, because you pretentious rich folks have to make things difficult and far, far away from anything logical. You boys better are on your best behavior, yeah?" she added, referring to the fact that although they had come from Drake House right next door, 'next door' consisted of a few miles of long and winding road between each properties' gates.

She sounded like a mother preparing her sons to meet the Sunday school teacher, and something ached in Jason's heart. A flashback of his own mother, came to fore - Catherine Todd. She might have died succumbing to her own heroin addiction, but she was not a bad mother to start with. She tried to raise him with good values - values often mocked by their own neighborhood. Good manners that didn't matter much around the block, at least until Talia found him and brought Jason to her home. Also, the unshakable faith that there were still good people in the world, and there were people trying to make it better for them.

He wondered how is it that Tim could be so lucky with having two 'mother' figures like Catwoman and Oracle, complete with a biological mother who nearly had it all - especially when it comes to funds. He briefly wondered what it would have been like if his mother was rich.

Then he looked at Damian, sitting up straight in his seat, pretending not to notice the gates opening in front of them. He inhaled slowly, realizing that if his mother had been rich or had lived, things would have been much different - and much worse - for Damian. He mentally braced himself, running all of Tim's schemes briefly through his mind, until the car stopped in front of the Wayne Manor's front door.

The door was opened by a butler, a tall old man with a pencil-thin mustache and grey hair. For an untrained eye, Dick seemed to be the only one out of place, as he looked around and gawked over the extensive driveway and majestic fountain, the regal oak door, and the as-regal butler right in front of it.

For Jason, he knew that Dick was scoping the area, remembering the layout and/or cross-checking it with images that Tim had shown them.

"We are here to see Mr. Bruce Wayne," Tim introduced, formally handing a business card to the valet.

"The formality is quite unnecessary, Master Drake," the butler replied. Jason thought he could see a hint of amusement in the butler's otherwise stoic expression. "I know who you are quite well."

"Ah, but this is not just for me, Alfred," Tim replied, smiling. "The card is his," he presented Damian. "the other two are his minders. I'm just here to introduce them." While Damian, Jason, and Tim knew that to enter a 'high society' family home one cannot simply just walk in through the gates; Barbara was a little surprised at this, and Dick had snickered unabashedly.

'Alfred' accepted the card and read it, and now Jason was sure that there was a slight uptick on the man's eyebrows. "Mr. Damian Al Ghul. I see. Kindly enter, gentlemen, I shall consult the Waynes." Alfred intoned, stepping aside to allow them in.

They were ushered to the foyer, and left to wait there as the butler went to fetch whichever Wayne might be at home. So far, so good; Jason thought. Tim already ascertained that Bruce, the walking-disaster who was said to have broken his leg a few days ago while playing polo, would be home. So would Bane. Dr. and Mrs. Wayne were in the Alps, somewhere. As a common societal norm, Alfred should call for the master of the house - and that should be Bruce Wayne.

It took a few minutes, but Bruce Wayne came hobbling down on a cane - followed by Bane.

"Bruce," Tim greeted him because of course, Tim would be on a first-name basis with him; that 'high-society' boy.

"Tim Drake, in the flesh. To what do I owe this pleasure?" Bruce Wayne chirped, shaking Tim's hand as if it was a pump-handle. Tim's face didn't even change, but Jason could see a scowl beginning to form on Damian's face.

"Well, I reckon this should be a blood-family issue. They came to me because, as you might have heard, I have had some dealings with Algol Enterprises." Tim said. "There has been a tragedy, apparently."

"Oh yes, I've heard. Ra's and Talia... who would have expected them to be in such tragedy... I am sorry for your loss, son," Bruce leaned a little toward Damian with an expression of most-sincerity. Yet Jason observed the scowl on Bane's face, followed by Tim's stealthy, nearly imperceptible eye-roll.

"My thanks for your condolence, and am as sorry for your loss, father." Damian retorted, cutting straight to the case.

Jason would swear that he could hear a single surprised chirp of a bird somewhere in the vast area of the manor in the silence that followed. Broken only by a guttural roar.

#Tim Drake #Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Damian Al-Ghul #Selina Kyle #Alfred Pennyworth #Bruce Wayne #Bane #JayTim #batless!au

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watching-pictures-move · 3 years

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Put On Your Raincoats #15 | Rainbows in the Dark

To the extent that a porn director crossed over to the mainstream, Gregory Dark would be it. Certainly, there have been directors who did one or two porn features early in their careers, like Abel Ferrara, William Lustig and Wes Craven, but they're known almost entirely for their mainstream work. There are also porn directors who did maybe one mainstream movie, like Gerard Damiano, but their careers were relegated to porn for the most part. Dark is the rare director who was prolific on both sides, so to speak, starting with massive hardcore hits like New Wave Hookers, moving on to directing softcore, thrillers and softcore thrillers with some regularity and eventually becoming a popular music video director. My initial plan was to explore the full gamut of Dark's career. I wanted to get a sense of each phase of his work and to see what elements of his style translated across them. Essentially I wanted to understand Dark as an auteur. But then something miraculous happened. I got lazy. (Also I had a muted reaction to some of his movies and became more interested in another director in the meantime.) So I decided to limit my exploration to a few of his early movies and call it a day.

The first one I watched was New Wave Hookers, his best known hardcore title and considered a classic in the genre. What I expected going in and what worked for me can be deduced from the title. Dark's visual style very much brings to mind the "new wave" in the title: big hair, fog machines and neon lighting, all of which are first seen in the opening credits, in which the female talent almost ritualistically present themselves to the camera. There's some stylistic precedent in the work of Rinse Dream AKA Stephen Sayadian (the artist I got more interested in as I delved into Dark's work), but Sayadian's aesthetic feels culled from the art underground. (Dark reuses a few of Sayadian's actors in some of his films.) Dark's style feels more commercial, almost packaged for MTV. (Dark intended his film as a reaction to hardcore porn features of his era, although I'd argue that his choice of camera angles still feels in line with other films of the era.) This is a movie that looks good and, thanks to some choice music courtesy of the Plugz (whose song "Electrify Me" accompanies the opening credits) and the Sockets (who provide the theme song), sounds good too.

What I gelled to much less was the sense of humour. The movie opens with two buddies played by Jamie Gillis (wearing a tie over a t-shirt) and Dark regular Jack Baker shooting the shit and watching another Dark production. ("That fuckin' guy looks exactly like you. Is that you?") Baker starts expounding on his thoughts about pimping and "programming" women to fuck with music. Baker also notes, "a pimp calls a chick a bitch". They doze off, and when they wake up they find themselves inexplicably in an office. Baker is wearing a yellow tracksuit, Gillis is sporting an East Asian accent, and there's a guy on the floor substituting for their phone. (Gillis asks: "Why do we not have a regular telephone?" Baker explains: "He got the power, the second sight.") As the movie proceeds to make good on its premise, wherein women have sex after listening to new wave music, we're treated to a steady stream of racial taunting. Baker grouses about black music being ineffective for their purposes, dropping the N-bomb. Gillis continues with his accent. The two get into racially charged arguments. A middle eastern client is served in a tent and barks like a dog after he's finished. At one point, Gillis wants sushi and is served by Kristara Barrington while East Asian style music plays on the soundtrack. I recognize that a lot of humour from the era is extremely politically incorrect and has aged poorly, but there's something about Dark's use of racist and misogynist humour that feels especially confrontational. I admit I was a bit bothered by all of this.

Still, there are moments of humour that did work for me. One of the headsets that the characters use has dildos protruding from both earpieces (pointing outwards, of course), and the production design, while not always stylish, is at least endearing in its blatant cheapness. To their credit, Baker and Gillis have undeniable chemistry and do sell the material as well as they can. (I laughed when Gillis, when confronted by the vice squad, drops his accent and exclaims "I used to work in your fuckin' office, and now I'm rich, I'm satisfied, and I'm Chinese, you assholes." Am I a bad person? Probably.) And in terms of how it meets genre expectations, I do think Ginger Lynn and Kristara Barrington have a real magnetism in their scenes.

Given the racial content in New Wave Hookers, it probably won't surprise anybody that Dark was a pioneer in interracial pornography. I am not a sensitive enough writer to begin unpacking all the implications of the concept, but I did watch one of his movies in the subgenre, Black Throat. This was a shot-on-video effort and looks considerably cheaper and uglier than New Wave Hookers, but shares some other qualities. It opens and closes with a punk song that references that film as well as Let Me Tell Ya Bout White Chicks, Dark's first interracial feature, and to be honest, the song is pretty fucking catchy. The movie follows Roscoe, a man who wears yellow sunglasses and both a polo and a Hawaiian shirt and his friend Mr. Bob, a talking rubber rat. He's searching through the garbage while arguring with Mr. Bob over what to eat when he finds a business card. "Madame Mambo's House of Divine Inspiration Thru Fellatio!" (All of the characters pronounce fellatio differently. Mr. Bob says "fell-uh-tee-oh" and calls Roscoe a "fuckin' honky", to which he responds "Fuck you, Mr. Bob!")

Roscoe insists he has to find her. "If I don't find her, I'm gonna die!" (When asked why, he responds, "I dunno, it sounded kinda dramatic, I guess.") Mr. Bob enlists the help of a "young urban professional pimp" named Jamal, played by Jack Baker. (He prefers the term "flesh broker" and describes upgrading his diet, clothes and investments.) Roscoe, Mr. Bob and Jamal go from scene to scene, watching other characters having sex in different racial combinations, asking them where they can find Madame Mambo. (Sometimes they ask the characters directly, other times they talk to their private parts.) The best of these scenes, in my humble opinion, is a light domination flavoured sex scene featuring Christy Canyon. Perhaps because of the dynamic, there's an element of actual acting involved here, and because Canyon is, uh, pleasingly proportioned and has a certain magnetism, I found this scene more engaging than the others, at least until it turns into a regular sex scene.

Eventually they go back to Roscoe's place and find a voodoo ritual taking place where a black woman with multicoloured hair (think the George H.W. Bush rainbow wig from the Simpsons, but straight, not curly) is jumping on their bed while a bunch of white dudes in hats, capes and sunglasses jack off around her. This of course is Madame Mambo and at this point the movie makes good on the title while drumbeats and funk play on the soundtrack. Given the premise, this movie proved (thankfully) lighter on racial humour than I expected going in. There is an element of racial critique in Baker's character, and Madame Mambo is certainly exoticized, but the racial content otherwise is limited to the interracial couplings and doesn't overload the dialogue. However, this is a fairly ugly looking movie, shot on video, featuring unimpressive camerawork and lighting as well as extremely cheap looking production design (although the movie does mine this for laughs). I also found the sex scenes overlong and the music a bit repetitive. I imagine if you were jerking off to this back in the '80s it was easier to get through, but trying to watch it now as an actual movie, despite some decent humour throughout, proved a bit of a challenge.

The next one I watched was White Bunbusters, which despite the first half of the title is not particularly racially charged. The theme song here, crooned in the style of early '60s rock'n'roll, explains that the movie is about anal sex, as the second half of the title suggests. We begin with Tom Byron thrusting into his wife Shanna McCullough (while wearing his glasses) only to be disappointed by her refusal to take it in the butt. The next day at the office (decorated by construction paper all over the walls, drawers sketched in magic marker and a crude sign with their business' name "Acme Proctology"), he hears an ad for the "A-Busters", an enterprising duo who will convince your wife or partner to let you put it in their butt. We cut to the A-Busters office and see them in yellow shorts, lime green suspenders and orange baseball caps, fiddling with their hi-tech instruments (which include an "anal listening device"). Soon we see them go to work on Jack Baker's girlfriend, taking a cash payment after the fact.

Meanwhile, Byron's friend Greg Rome hears about his woes and offers to let him fuck his wife Keli Richards (Rome is named Bob and Richards is named Bobette). Of course Byron takes advantage of Rome's generous offer, but later gets annoyed when Rome insists it was a "one time deal". They're interrupted by Jennifer Noxt, who asks about a secretarial position for the law office next door. Rather than correcting her, which would be the right thing to do, they have sex with her, which is absolutely not the right thing to do. ("So do I get the job?" "We'll call you later, baby.") We go back to the A-Busters, who go to work on a pornstar warming up for her first anal scene (the movie is called Hershey Highway to Hell). Eventually, Byron decides to make use of their services, and in the climax, when he's having a nice dinner with his wife (complete with plastic cups and paper plates), they crash the party and get to work. After it's all over, Byron thanks the A-Busters and shakes one of their hands, only to promptly wipe it off on his suit.

This is as lo-fi as Black Throat, and features a lot of raunchy humour, but thankfully no real racial content outside of the title. Perhaps because the focus is on a specific set of acts (threesomes, anal sex, double penetration), the execution seems more consistently energetic. The ratio of the threesomes is a little off from what I prefer, but I was not unmoved by the scenes involving Keli Richards, Jennifer Noxt and Shanna McCullough. I realize there are more dignified ways to spend one's time than watching in its entirety and singing the praises of a movie called White Bunbusters, but sometimes the lizard brain takes over. I feel compelled to report the facts, and the facts are that this is good at what it does. As an actual movie, there isn't a whole lot to this, but were I to rate this on the Peter-Meter as the filmmakers intended, it would fare respectably.

Where Gregory Dark's style and the sum of his provocations really worked for me was in The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning and The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage, a two-part odyssey through hell. (Attentive viewers may note that the original Devil in Miss Jones takes place before the heroine is sentenced to hell, but this is not a direct sequel. There is also a second part by Henri Pachard and later sequels directed by Dark that I did not see. The narrative in the third and fourth entries feels pretty self contained.) The movie begins with close-ups of our heroine, played by Lois Ayres, taking a shower while "A Christian Girl's Problems" by the Gleaming Spires plays over the soundtrack, her interiority hinted at with an astute song choice. (It's worth noting that this was not an original song made for the movie.) The structure intersperses her story with a series of interviews with those who knew her: an ex-boyfriend who "had a disagreement about the relationship" (he slept around); a woman speculates that Ayres was "a closet lesbian" and that "she probably went to live in one of those lesbian islands in the Caribbean"; a girl who knew her as a prude back in high school, a priest with a thick accent who offers a eulogy; her brother, who speaks in new age euphemisms and resents that she was the favourite growing up; and a blind ex-boyfriend who claims she was the loveliest person he knew "after Helen Keller". (This last character describes his sex life as very "normal": no peeing or dogs, wouldn't fuck pizzas, etc.) All these people knew her, but they didn't really know her.

The actual story follows her after she breaks up with her boyfriend (over the phone, as he shaves another woman's pubic hair while feigning innocence). She heads for a bar, brushing off a stereotypical black pimp played by Jack Baker who mistakes her for a prostitute, and promptly orders a "taco" (a draught beer, a Bloody Mary, and a draught beer in three separate glasses). Beside her is a man asleep on bar in tuxedo, who turns out to have been stood up at his own wedding. They hook up, leading to a sex scene scored by a blaring saxophone that I assume was practice for Dark's softcore work. The scene ends when the heroine knocks her head against the headboard and wakes up in a pitch black space near a grave. In comes Jack Baker, riding atop a woman, to tell her what the situation is. "You are dead, you got no clothes, and this is hell!"

The rest of the movie follows them going through different rooms, the heroine being unable to comprehend her fate, as they watch the different punishments endured by the denizens of hell. There's the room full of "peepers", virgins doomed to only watch sex for all eternity. (One of them explains: "I showed my tits to a guy to get a Gucci purse. He went off an overpass.") There are characters doomed to fuck until their genitals wear out or are ravaged by venereal disease. Baker gives Ayres a raincoat "to keep the come off", but the moment she forgets about it she finds herself getting gangbanged and promptly has to be rescued by Baker (okay, not that promptly, we get to enjoy this for a few minutes). Along the way we're led to believe from the interviews that the heroine might have a fetish for black men, and the conversation between Ayres and Baker grows increasingly heated and racially charged. This idea culminates in a trip to the "racist room", where a white man with a swastika armband is having a threesome with two women of colour while a white woman is sucking off two black men in tribal makeup. Ayres and Baker have a final confrontation on the subject.

"What about all the black racists?"

"Look bitch, when a black man hits a white man, we don't call it racist!"

"What do you call it then?"

"Smart!"

"That's ridiculous, there are plenty of black racists!"

"No dig, you stupid ass white bitch!"

"Look, you're even one of them, calling me a stupid bitch and a white bitch!"

"We'll you're stupid, you're white and a bitch, so what is your motherfucking problem?"

"You're crazy, negro, and you're one of the sickest people in here!"

"That's right, I'm a crazy negro! I'm so crazy I'll eat my own arm!"

This is a deeply uncomfortable scene, and what follows is even more disturbing, as we learn the true nature of the heroine's relationship with her father, a reveal that Dark plays for maximum shock value in depicting "The Ordeal of the Taboo Breakers".

In some ways this isn't all that different from New Wave Hookers, but Dark's direction seems more purposeful here. The stylized depiction of hell, with its black backgrounds and harsh neon lighting, imbue a real sense of menace into the proceedings. With the exception of two scenes, the sex isn't all that outrageous, but Dark's mise-en-scene has a way of rendering it almost as horror. It's not exactly scary and probably still "does the trick" if you're watching this for those reasons, but there's an undeniable charge here. Likewise, the dark humour and the racial content seem to work in tandem here, and Ayres and Baker really sell their adversarial chemistry. (It's worth noting that even by the standards of the video vixens that appear in Dark's movies, Ayres has an amazing hairdo.) Dark may not have entirely thought out his thesis along these lines, but the movie is provocative in its handling of this content, and unlike New Wave Hookers, not in a way that hurts it. At a combined 2+ hours, this probably runs a bit too long, but it does shape the usual procession of sex scenes into a structure that carries an uneasy momentum that matches the heroine's trepidation. We might not like what we're seeing, but we also can't help but keep looking.

#film #put on your raincoats #movie review #gregory dark #new wave hookers #black throat #white bunbusters #the devil in miss jones 3: a new beginning #the devil in miss jones 4: the final outrage

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galaxierowls · 3 years

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The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;

If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,

Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,

I must have you!"

—THOMAS PARKE D'INVILLIERS

Chapter 1

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.

I never saw this great-uncle but I'm supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father's office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said, "Why—ye-es" with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

"How do you get to West Egg village?" he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the "Yale News"—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn't just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he'd left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it—I had no sight into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are." We were in the same Senior Society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

"I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.

"It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness."

She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

"Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically.

"The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night along the North Shore."

"How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she added irrelevantly, "You ought to see the baby."

"I'd like to."

"She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"

"Never."

"Well, you ought to see her. She's—"

Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

"What you doing, Nick?"

"I'm a bond man."

"Who with?"

I told him.

"Never heard of them," he remarked decisively.

This annoyed me.

"You will," I answered shortly. "You will if you stay in the East."

"Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry," he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. "I'd be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else."

At this point Miss Baker said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

"I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember."

"Don't look at me," Daisy retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon."

"No, thanks," said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, "I'm absolutely in training."

Her host looked at her incredulously.

"You are!" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me."

I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done." I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

"You live in West Egg," she remarked contemptuously. "I know somebody there."

"I don't know a single—"

"You must know Gatsby."

"Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?"

Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

"Why candles?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

"We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

"All right," said Daisy. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly. "What do people plan?"

Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

"Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."

We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.

"You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a—"

"I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding."

"Hulking," insisted Daisy.

Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here—and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

"You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. "Can't you talk about crops or something?"

I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way.

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—"

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California—" began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and—" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. "—and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

"I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"

"That's why I came over tonight."

"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night until finally it began to affect his nose—"

"Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker.

"Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up his position."

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

"I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he?" She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation. "An absolute rose?"

This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.

Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said "Sh!" in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.

"This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—" I said.

"Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

"Is something happening?" I inquired innocently.

"You mean to say you don't know?" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. "I thought everybody knew."

"I don't."

"Why—" she said hesitantly, "Tom's got some woman in New York."

"Got some woman?" I repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

"She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't you think?"

Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.

"It couldn't be helped!" cried Daisy with tense gayety.

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued: "I looked outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away—" her voice sang "—It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"

"Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables."

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

"We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said suddenly. "Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding."

"I wasn't back from the war."

"That's true." She hesitated. "Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything."

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.

"I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything."

"Oh, yes." She looked at me absently. "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?"

"Very much."

Thank you.

#she speaks #ria ur so funny

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