#one of his friends was John stones and we also got along!

[anytimebitchess]

I had a dream, and I’m still recovering from it so I need someone to write a fic about it.

[melanieph321]

Request 1: “It's the first time I'm asking for something here but can you do Ruben x y/n  when your y/n is going to his first game and she's pregnant you can add the rest of the details as you like”

Request 2:  Could you please do an imagine where man city have just won the premier league and Rubens boys come charging on the pitch to celebrate with him (just pure chaos) and reader has just given up trying to keep them under control and is trailing behind with their youngest and only daughter

Request 3: Ruben + readers gender reveal. Their finally having a girl after like 3/4 boys, Ruben + the man city boys are so overjoyed Ruben runs to them instead of his wife

The result...

Ruben Dias x Reader - The celebration

Enjoy!

"Wait for mommy!"

Three years and four kids later, you finally came to watch Rubens game. It was against Chelsea and the 1-0 victory against them was post celebratory, considering Manchester City had already won the league. Either way,  your sons were overjoyed by the experience, wanting to invade the pitch with the other players families. You had to trail your steps behind them with your pregnant belly slowing you down.

"There is Daddy!"

You had one boy, Matteo, wait up for you, grabbing your hand so the two of you could cross the pitch together. He was your youngest and also your sweetest. He would grow up to break many hearts, you thought.

"Mommy look."

Your other three boys had gone down to the pitch without hesitation, charging towards Ruben who collected them in his arms, one by one. They were taking turns putting on the premier leauge golden medal by the time you and Matteo got to them.

Ruben smiled seeing you and Matteo crossing the pitch together. He put down the three heathens and waved for Matteo to give him a hug. He did so running towards Rubens embrace, jumping into his arms.

"Did you enjoy the match?" He asked, kissing Matteo's temple.

"But dad you weren't playing."

Ruben chuckled. "No, not as much as I usually do. But there'll be more games next season. Then you can come see daddy play from the start.

Matteo nodded his head. "Can I also try on the medal?"

"Of course." Ruben put him down, letting him run to his brothers.

"You know..." You smiled, as it was your turn to congratulate Ruben. "...They'll be fighting over that medal all night."

Ruben railed you in for a long kiss. "What's new." He smiled against your lips.

It was a lovely scene at the Ethiad, with all the players friends, families and kids on the pitch, taking photos with the trophy and what not. Most kids were running around tossing blue confetti at each other. Your boys were no different, as soon as they lost interest in the golden medal they were off chasing one another around the green field.

"I'm glad you came." Ruben said, kissing your cheek, watching you keep a slight eye out for the boys.

You turned your head to look up at him. "Me too."

"I'm glad all of you came."

Rubens hand went to your stomach. You smiled.

"Get a room you two!"

Ruben sighed at the interruption. It was John Stones with a smeared grin on his face.

"Or perhas don't get a room. We all know what happens whenever you and Y/N get ten minutes alone."

Ruben let his arms around you go but grabbed a hold of your hand instead. "Don't you have selfies to take with the trophy John?"

He shrugged. "Ilkay has it. And I want to say hello to Y/N."

You shook your head and smiled. "Hello John."

"Hello gorgeous." He kissed your cheek and gave you a hug. "Pregnant again, I see."

"Is there anything better to do?"

"Apparently not." He chuckled.

"Eyy, the baby makers!"

Somthing big and shiney approached in the corner of your eye, Ilkay gündoğan along with Riyad Mahrez, carrying the Premier leauge trophy.

"Y/N!" They cheered. "Where are the boys?"

"Around, probably up to no good" You shifted your head in search for them.

"Yes my nieces are the same." Marhez laughed. "I have confetti in my pants because of them."

"Eyy, Y/N!"

Rubens teammates were popping up left and right, perhaps suprised to finally see you at a game, this time it was Kyle Walker.

"I thought that was your son's playing with mine. Why aren't they in the youth team with my boy?"

"I think Ruben rather make a team of his own." John Stones snorted.

Ruben slapped the back of his head.

"Ouch."

"When is the due date?" Ilkay asked.

"September." You said.

The guys shared Oo's and ahh's, mostly directed at Ruben who rolled his eyes at them.

"Do you know the sex?" Marhez asked.

"Not yet." Ruben said, throwing his arm around your shoulder.

"Actually..."

Ruben turned to you, eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

You shrugged. "I was gonna tell you about it after my appointment last week but that's when the game against Nottingham happened and you became champions."

Ruben batted his lashes, dumbfounded.

"Go on, tell us then." Said Kyle.

The other guys looked to Ruben who still had his eyes on you. You smiled. "It's a girl!"

His face lit up. "A girl?"

You nodded. "A girl."

He turned to his teammates. "We're having a girl!"

Overjoyed was the least words to describe their reaction. They were jumping around like chipmunks on ecstasy. You'd think it was Ruben carrying the child by the way his teammates embrace him and marked his face with wet kisses. John Stones was the happiest of them all. " I told you about the lemon juice, didn't I?"

"You did." Ruben chuckled.

"Lemon juice?" You frowned.

"I told your hubby here that if he wanted to make a girl  he better start drinking at least a gallon of lemon. He as done so ever since."

"You have?"

Ruben blushed.

You thought of the times when you kissed his lips and tasted the sourness from the lemon juice. Back then you didn't think much of it, perhaps it had been a wierd part of his diet. Never did you think that Ruben cared so much for the two of you to finally have a girl.

"Ruben." You shook your head. "You didn't have to do that for me."

"It worked didn't it?" John Stones was over the moon. He, Ruben, Ilkay and Kyle ran to tell the rest if their teammates news, leaving you alone with the Premier League trophy.

"Boys." You sighed, with a smile on your face.

[snikt111]

hi hi hi hi I found out about Hal Jordan TODAY and am going so autistic over him it’s insane can you please give me a rundown on what his deal is I think you’re the Tumblr Green Lantern guy

omg hi, insane compliment btw, tysm! i'm glad to give you a rundown!! also definitely check out @katmaatui for more hal info, red is SUPER knowledgable abt him. @rillette, @catboyollie, @halcarols, @starsapphire and @yellowcorps (along with so many others that i cant think to tag off the top of my head) have some great hal takes too! (edited the post just to tag more ppl)

apologies if this is a bit rushed/messy, i'm doing this while i smelt stone in minecraft LMAO

that being said... i think this will be a long one, so more below the cut :3

(cw for light mentions of pedophilia, abuse, canon typical violence)

okay, so hal jordan is the first human green lantern of the GREEN LANTERN CORPS. it's important to note that there was technically a human green lantern before him (alan scott, originally from earth two/the justice society, but integrated into main DC canon after crisis), but his power comes from a different source- which is a whole different ballpark that would take ages to explain, lol, so i'll move on from that.

hal was originally introduced in a showcase issue in 1959, but ended up getting a solo run in the mid 60s because of his showcase issues doing well. he's been a test pilot, middle brother, compassionate, rule follower (although being surprisingly liberal for the time) with an interesting relationship with star sapphire carol ferris since those first appearances. for the first 20 odd years of his appearances we had no information on his parents, but we got a lot from other family members, such as uncle titus, cousin hal jr (aka airwave), younger brother jim jordan and older brother jack jordan. through the 60s and 70s those members of his family were developed along with him; with the audience learning that jim's wife sue thought jim was green lantern, rather than hal, and hal himself training his cousin, hal jr.

the most known version of how hal got the ring in the first place is probably based off of geoff john's rewrite in the mid 00s, reiterating the original story of abin sur crashing onto earth and dying, leaving hal with his ring to be trained by sinestro and the rest of the glc, while also changing miniscule details that had been developed in emerald dawn 1 & 2 (which was released in the 90s, more on that later). the main premise of abin sur's crash has stayed the same, but the story around hal's current life, job, family and stability keep changing. for instance, the original comic with abin sur in showcase only showed hal getting the ring, the guardians choosing him. the first rewrite i can think of was emerald dawn volume 1, published in 1989 and continued in emerald dawn v2 (1991). here we get the classic hal watches his father die in a plane crash with carol ferris beside him as a pre adolescent, and some of the biggest implications of the mistreatment from his father. we also get introduced to hal, despite his stick to the rules, straight edge attitude, making some serious mistakes and putting people in danger and even death- with the implication of alcohol abuse. the audience HAS known hal used to be in the air force since sometime in the late 60s or early 70s (sorry, i don't remember the exact issue!), but emerald dawn shows us that hal's moved on from the air force and into test piloting, and that his mother keeps having to bail him out for making mistakes. emerald dawn vol 1 shows the abin sur moment, followed by fights that cost hal's friends life, and is followed up by sinestro training hal in emerald dawn vol 2, where we get to see the iconic scenes of hal finding out about sinestro and his... dictatorship.

along with that; how the guardians and rings are treated and hal and the glc's perception of them is vastly changed over time. in the early days of gl in the 60s, the guardians were really never to be seen. hal was repeatedly summoned to them and then had his memory almost fully wiped- only leaving a vague notion of his orders. the guardian's called hal to them at seemingly the worst times, ending up with him almost getting injured, getting in trouble at work, and even ending up jobless and homeless. the chaos of being a green lantern has been around the WHOLE time, but originally, the green lanterns didnt really... fight it. the guardian's were their masters (and even father figures, to hal) and not to be questioned. the rings in the 60s were also much more powerful, despite the yellow weakness (the yellow weakness is the notion that from about the 60s to the mid 90s the green lantern rings were completely unable to be used against anything yellow). time travel, phasing, teleporting, etc were all very viable and common things- as well as forceful shapeshifting, invisibility, mind control, mind reading, etc etc. these days, writers have dampened these powers down to mostly shooting light and constructs.

okay, it's parallax time. the emerald twilight arc from the mid 90s wasn't an arc that was as thoroughly planned out over a long period of time as it probably should have been. a lot of fans at the time (and even now) hated what happened there, and claimed it ruined hal's character entirely. i can understand why! but, at it's core, the parallax arc is a story about a broken man pushed to the limit, fully grieving his home and family (originally, he lost his brother jim in the destruction of coast city, along with a lot of other family members) and being goddamn fed up with how his "masters" treated him and the rest of the corps. the so called "perfect lantern" (no, he wasn't that much of a rebel, despite what johns wants you to think) snapped and essentially tried to gain as much power as he could to bring back coast city. when the guardians stripped him of his powers so he couldn't, hal became enraged and took down every lantern in his path, just to get to the guardians and that power. long story short, he kills the guardians and absorbs all the energy from the central power battery on oa, becoming parallax- essentially a god. this marks the start of zero hour, an event made by dc to restructure and reset; giving the comics a new generation of heroes. hal destroys the world and remakes it, but is ultimately taken down by kyle rayner, the new green lantern, with the help of the jla, jsa and associates. there are a few more run ins with parallax after this, before kyle convinces parallax/hal that he can make up for all of this by reigniting the sun after it went out- aka killing himself. hal does it, is stuck in limbo for awhile and then becomes the spectre to continue to make up for the horrible things he did as parallax. the spectre is the spirit of god's wrath and vengeance, a weapon used to drag sinners to their very own, self made hells, and scare the shit out of people. the spectre, from it's very first appearance, is a ghost like spirit that takes on a host, and is primarily described using christian terms and is used in a very... christian ideology. HOWEVER, the spectre 2001 confirms that hal is jewish (jewish mom, catholic dad) and that belief system, plus his personality as a whole, literally makes him change the spirit of vengeance into the spirit of redemption, for at least as long as they are bonded. the whole parallax to spectre arc is about grief, pain, cycles of abuse and terror, redemption and guilt. it is NOT about a fear bug that possess hal. (im so serious though, the spectre 2001 is one of the best comics ive ever read. amazing. changed my world view) but... geoff johns changed all of it, decanonized the spectre, and ruined the legacy of parallax and hal's growth as a person by releasing green lantern: rebirth in 2004/2005. this retcons hal's breakdown and journey through grief into him BEING POSSESSED BY AN ENTITY CONTROLLED BY SINESTRO THAT FULLY CHANGES PREVIOUS GREEN LANTERN CANON AND IMPLICATIONS. also, fucks up the importance of kyle becoming ion, but whatever. geoff johns writes hal (and even more so, carol) so very wrong, and change their stories so vastly in ways that go against the stories very meanings.

SIGH.

now... time to get started on some rougher stuff. hal jordan misconceptions. i'm saving that arc for last.

- hal jordan wasn't much of a rule breaker or rebel until the 70s/80s, where he BEGAN (very slowly, mind you) to be radicalized by oliver queen during denny o'neil's green lantern/green arrow. hal was painted as more of a conservative during this period (which, admittedly, kind of goes against previous canon... he's always been relatively central to liberal, not to any extremes like ollie though, lol) but gets more and more understanding of how power structures work and how lower classes are mistreated during this time- which ends up opening his eyes a bit to how shitty the guardians are. (this is helped by the guardians literally just. leaving. the green lanterns and kind of disbanding them so they can go fuck the zamarons, lmao). geoff johns tried to change this narrative into making hal a very... maverick-from-top-gun type of character, who punched his way out of the military (when, in reality, the original story during emerald knights in the late 90s was that hal had been framed for stealing a jet and was dishonorably discharged, which he took the punishment for because he knew someone had to) and hits on women constantly and gets ladies and allat (which, funnily enough hal was awful at getting carol to like him for a long time, since carol fell for green lantern rather than hal. not to mention the awkwardness of carol's proposals or hal's many, many failed relationships). hal has always been insecure and lowkey boyfailure, he is NOT a top gun maverick tom cruise sorta guy! fuck you jeremy adams!

- hes not that much of an idiot asshole. hal can be a real dick, he's had that going for him since the beginning, but he isn't what you read in batfam fics. he's not stupid and shouldn't be the laughingstock of the justice league. i assume this idea started from the obsession with batfam and the fact that the jla has quite the history of ignoring hal and his issues (as well as. all of their issues. theyre not so great at work life balance), but it's gone too far. hal isn't making fun of the robins and pissing bruce off bc of that. hal isnt fooling around on the job 24/7 (he takes being a gl and pilot VERY seriously, although he does enjoy some danger and high stakes) or slacking off to get girls. again. not top gun maverick.

- hal has not been a creep since the beginnings. hal was not weird with carol in the 60s. things were weird between them, yeah, but that's based off circumstance and the craziness of star sapphire and green lantern. he was NOT being horribly sleazy! i hate that i even need to say this, but i see this take too much not to

- going off of what was said above, lets discuss the arisia arc. if you want to be a real hal fan, this is unfortunately something you need to know about. in action comics, after crisis and the guardians left to go fuck the zamarons, most of the green lanterns fell apart and seperated. a small group went to earth- led by hal and consisting of hal, john stewart, katma tui, kilowog, salaakk, ch'p and arisia rrab. (also sometimes guy gardner, but that's complicated) previously to this arc, hal treated 14 year old arisia like a beloved little sister, welcoming her and leading her into the corps just like everyone else. things started to change once the timeline gets closer and closer to crisis, where arisia starts showing that she has a crush on hal (who is roughly 30s at this point). any advances made by arisia are shut down by hal at the beginning, because she's a child. now, it's unfortunately a common thing to just call hal a "pedophile" because of what happens in this arc- but it really isn't that simple. still weird and icky, but definitely not to the degree of which some fans like to act like it is- esp to attack hal fans for, which is... an odd choice regarding how many fucked up things every character (esp male characters) did back in the day. arisia ends up using her power ring to artifically age herself up, making her body AND MIND into that of a young adult (the comic makes this very clear). once this happens... hal stops rejecting her. they get together, they kiss. the only person in the group of green latnerns who actually has an issue with it is john (salaakk is meh about it, but he just doesn't like human-esque romance no matter what), and katma even directly encourages their relationship. kilowog ends up crushing on arisia as well, and guy gardner hits on her repeatedly throughout the whole period. eventually, hal and arisia break up, but this legacy (thank so much englehart, for wrtiting this. /sarc) is a big controversy among the comics crowd. "is hal jordan a predator?" personally, and i know a lot of friends/mutuals/other gl fans choose to erase the arisia arc entirely (versus how canon ended up retconning it to be 14 earth years is equal to that of an adult and she didn't really get super ages up, or whatever) and go with the familial relationship between hal and her. that's my preferred version! i know red (@katmaatui) has explored that version as well as an alternate version where the arisia arc did happen, and how it affects arisia in particular, which is really depressing but super interesting. anyway, it's complicated and weird and nuanced, but that whole occurence doesn't mean hal's a bad character or person (cause yk. retcons) and it's certainly not bad to like his character. (definitely ignore any guy gardner fans who try to bitch about this arc. cough cough. guy was ALSO into her and hit on her repeatedly. smfh) most people who bring this up to demonize fans didn't even read the arc, and don't know the nuance or the other weird shit that happens in it. (hal is not a horse, sigh)

OVERALL NOTES!

hal jordan is a super complicated character with an extensive history spanning from the 60s to his worse written appearances in modern age. it's okay to like any version of the character, but it is important to note the changes that have been made, the storylines butchered and lost, and more. he has quite the legacy, and he's particularly interesting as from a moral standpoint. hal's a real sweetie though, when it gets down to it! he's neurodivergent coded (imo at least.. his dad very much gets onto him for being disrtracted, hes kinda shit at social interaction (and then amazing at it the other half of the time) etc etc. "spacecase") and his dad is an abusive asshole, who he desperately doesnt want to be like but thinks he NEEDS to be like!

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

On a more serious note, now that I’m halfway into Farscape season 1, I can’t help but think about Peter Quill/Star-Lord from “Guardians of the Galaxy” being a lesser John Crichton. Because, as I’ve written before, James Gunn was so obviously inspired by Farscape:

1) John and Peter are the good ole American protagonists who were taken to deep space against their will. They connect with people through pop culture references and their good heart.

2) Aeryn Sun and Gamora are the stone cold warriors who used to fight for the bad guys but are now on the side of good. They also have a romance with John/Peter.

3) Ka D’Argo and Drax are the proud warriors who are seeking to redeem themselves. They also are so stiff that references and simple sayings go over their heads.

4) Rygel is sorta kinda like Rocket Raccoon in that they’re the scheming loudmouths who look out for themselves.

5) Pilot and Groot fulfill the role of the lovable support character who helps everyone in the crew.

6) Zotoh Zhaan doesn’t have a perfect GOTG counterpart, but I really do feel that James Gunn split her traits between Nebula (who got the rage and tragic backstory) and Mantis (who got the mind powers).

Anyways, back to the main point. While Peter Quill does come off as a John clone, I think the way John’s arc was handled was superior to the way Peter was written. I think the main reason is that I can see why John would be his crew’s leader (or, at least, the crewmate keeping everything together) while Peter feels like he’s the leader because the plot says he should be.

John starts off as the goofball who can’t do anything right. No one trusts him and they think of him as the idiot who they just keep around. But as season 1 goes on, you can tell that he’s the glue who’s keeping the crew together. He’s the crewmate who got everyone to open up, especially Aeryn (who was trained to be cold and emotionless) and D’Argo (who distrusts everyone because of his traumatic past). He’s like that one friend who you feel like you can talk to about anything, especially since everyone else in the crew is dealing with their own problems.

So when we get to the episode where John is ready to leave, it makes sense that everyone feels hesitant to see him go. Aeryn is starting to fall for him, he was one of the few people who D’Argo would consider a friend, he helped Zhaan through some of her toughest times, and he generally got along with Rygel.

As for Peter Quill, I’m not saying he was badly written. It’s just him being treated as the team’s leader is not as believable. It’s like, imagine if John Crichton was written to be as emotionally closed off and standoffish as everyone else in the crew. While this does make Peter stand out as his own character separate from John, it also makes you wonder why Quill was written as the team’s leader. I’m sure that’s why it was a recurring gag that Quill was always struggling to be seen as the leader, whether it was from Rocket or Thor. The writers knew that wasn’t 100% believable, so they wrote it into the story.

I don’t get that with John. He might be the resident goofball, but he’s also why the crew hasn’t fallen apart.

TL;DR Peter Quill/Star-Lord was obviously modeled after John Crichton. But the MCU character who feels more in line with John as a character is Clint Barton/Hawkeye.

[alakeeffectgirl]

do we need a cruisequarries primer? yes

Welcome to the old men and their wife fandom, these are the old men (pictured here on the press tour for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One [a title I never want to type out fully again])

Yes, that's Tom Cruise. The guy in the John Hammond Jurassic Park cosplay is Chris McQuarrie, aka McQ, who directed MI:DR and also directed the previous two MI movies and Jack Reacher. You might also know Chris McQuarrie as the guy who won an Oscar for writing The Usual Suspects and got nominated for another two Oscars writing/producing Top Gun: Maverick.

McQ willed their friendship into being in 2006, when he was about to quit Hollywood because he was sick of it (McQ's grand dream has been to make a big bisexual Alexander the Great movie but Oliver Stone beat him to it, and after his first directorial endeavor was basically a flop, no one wanted to give him the money to make a huge epic - but you can't blame him for thinking it could work like that, because he watched Bryan Singer make The Usual Suspects and then get handed X-Men), but while out to lunch one day he overheard someone talking about how Tom's career was over because of all his recent shenanigans, and he thought, "I need to meet this guy, because he also sounds like Hollywood's shitting on him at the moment". So he got a couple meetings that got him through to Tom - and for their first meeting he drove over to Tom's house in his bachelor convertible. (No lie. Easily source-able.)

So they hit it off - in the way where they talked about movies for several hours and Tom invited him back again the next day to talk about movies some more. In this same timeline, McQ was shopping the Valkyrie script to United Artists, and when Tom expressed interest, the first thought was that Tom might produce. But then he was like, no, I actually want to play the lead. (Bryan Singer was attached to direct, and I know Bryan Singer sucks, but the backstory here is that McQ and Singer went to high school together, along with Ethan Hawke.) So everyone went to Germany to make the movie in the summer of 2007 - Tom and his family, and McQuarrie and his family.

This is Chris and Heather in 2000 at the premiere of The Way of the Gun, so before they met Tom. I include because they're adorable and also because the glow-up is fantastic. (The story of how they got together is like Jeopardy trivia and I would tell you to google Stephen Chbosky and McQ together to find it except what the fuck, it no longer comes up quickly: anyway, they did a Sundance Labs together and Chbosky gave McQ the Perks of Being a Wallflower manuscript and McQ got to the "we accept the love we think we deserve" line and thought about the woman he'd met a few times before [when they'd flirt at parties? apparently?] but thought was out of his league - Heather - and decided to go for it.)

I should mention that McQ was going to take the producing credit on Valkyrie just in name, for sort of bringing the project together, but then Paula Wagner was like, "I can't go to Germany with Tom, and he needs A Guy on scene, and I think you could be That Guy," so Chris said yes to being an actual producer - and ended up basically being the go-between guy between Tom and Singer on set.

Here's Tom & the McQs at the Valkyrie premiere in Rome:

After spending months together in Germany, the McQuarries end up becoming fast friends with the Cruises. Heather runs around NYC/LA with Katie a lot and works on Holmes & Yang, the fashion line. Here they are looking cute together:

(They're all good enough friends that the McQuarries go to Tom's surprise birthday bash in July of 2011.)

In the interests of saving just a SMALL amount of time here, I will speedrun: McQ gets brought in (by Tom) to help fix Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and learns a bunch of stuff about how he doesn't ever want to direct a MI movie. (Lies.) He turns in the Jack Reacher script, which originally wasn't intended for Tom to be in, but when Tom wants to be in your movie, you don't really say no. Reacher films in Pennsylvania in the fall/winter of 2011, and then Tom has to go to promo for MI:GP before he starts work on Oblivion. It's now summer of 2012, and the divorce happens. Tom basically moves to London - and the McQuarries move to London - to work on Edge of Tomorrow. Tom takes Chris with him to Croatia.

Lake, you might be thinking. Is McQ now just Tom's emotional support man? Yeah, probably. They get papped going out to dinner together a lot that fall. A gossip website refers to Tom and Heather walking out of a restaurant together as Tom's "cougar date", which will be funny forever.

Tom got Heather in the divorce, clearly. MOVING ON, McQ does splinter unit work on Edge of Tomorrow and then Tom's like, hey you should direct the next Mission movie, and McQ laughs like Tom is kidding but Tom is not. Tom has gone into the other room to call Brad Grey at Paramount and tell him McQ should be the director on Rogue. (This is how McQ ends up doing all this stuff - he's like, "haha, Tom, you kid" but Tom's not kidding and then suddenly people are strapped to the outsides of airplanes and shit.) In the midst of EoT filming, it's time for Reacher promo, so Tom and the McQuarrries fly all around the world together yet again. And holy shit, am I only up to 2013? Still ten years to cover. (I have about 500 more pictures than I am including here, in case anyone wondered.) More ffwd: They make Rogue Nation. Here's everyone - including Heather - in the Vienna subway:

And here's the three of them at an art gallery in London towards the end of the filming period:

The experience of making Rogue is such that McQ attempts to swear he won't do it again. LIES. Tom goes off to make American Made, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, and The Mummy all in the space of about two years. McQ officially works on two of those, and from the way they talk about American Made, I wouldn't be surprised if he did some script work there, too.

In August of 2016, pre-production on Fallout pauses because Tom is in a pay dispute with the studio, and McQ decides maybe he doesn't want to do the movie and moves his family back to Los Angeles. SURPRISE, Tom calls him up a week or so later and asks him to come to London to talk about it. Guess what, he ends up doing the movie. (For that full story, which is great and includes Tom saying he loves Heather, please find Jeff Goldsmith's Q&A podcast for Fallout.)

Work on Fallout takes up basically the next two years. At the Tokyo premiere, Tom makes Heather cry when he says she takes care of McQ, and takes care of him, too. (Let me know if you want the video.)

Trying to speedrun this is NOT working, and I need to go stare at the ceiling for a while to process today's Sydney premiere kiss happenings. Part two coming eventually?!!? PART TWO PART THREE

[skayafair]

John, Lies and Trust, and the Dark World Pt.4

Part 3

After the Dark World

First and foremost I'll note one thing.

The way Kayne put it, one could think John rolled all the way back to how he used to be as the King completely.

Except we KNOW for a fact that it couldn't be farther from the truth. John didn't argue because he was drowning in guilt as is, both for the deal and all that happened because of them coming to NY (Oscar and Noel included).

But the way he appeared in s3. Gods. He was SHAKEN to his core. By the fact that Arthur was in danger and in the process of being thrown into another fucking pit again, by how happy Arthur was to meet him, but also - how Arthur seemed to abandon his own moral principles and had no problems with committing everything he used to berate John for.

I said the fact that John kept his promise to never forget Arthur was important. That's one of the reasons why and how. I believe he kept the memory of his friend, how Arthur strived to be a better man and help those in need whenever he could. Arthur's image was his moral compass and his lighthouse in the Dark World yes this is the "Faroe is Arthur's guiding light and is reminiscent of "pharos", the lighthouse" reference, the only blueprint of how to be human and not fall back into being a monster completely.

How should it have felt to see this very lighthouse to crumble to pieces the moment they met again.

What makes me think John didn't fall back to his old ways as much as Kayne wanted to paint it is the fact that initially John was shocked at everything going on with Arthur and around them. All the deaths, the violence... everything he hoped he escaped returning to his guiding light was right there, before his eys again.

And if Arthur was only a vessel to deliver to the Stone and John didn't care about Arthur himself, John would have approved of all he saw, actually. Arthur was in survival mode. He could have succeded in killing Larson, John knew as much, they dealt with worse. And he wouldn't have risked his life saving others. Arthur didn't intend to. It was the easiest thing to convince him to just follow Larson to New York after they got out of the mines, and just like that the deal would have been fulfilled.

But no.

John couldn't help not only being shocked and disgusted with what he witnessed, but also telling Arthur all he thought about it. He couldn't help it. Excuse me if I'm wrong, but one can't genuinely be this way one moment and a totally different, say, a few hours or even days before. It's involuntary, inherent to the personality. Fuck you, Kayne, you failed at bringing John down as far as you wanted to.

Later John recollects himself and what he did by all the lecturing catches up to him, so he tries to correct the situation as much as possible to keep Arthur from throwing himself into another extreme (still fully suicidal and feral but for the sake of others this time). But the first reaction is more important here.

Besides, even later he theoretically (since we know John's shit at this) could have tried to manipulate Arthur into not risking their lives by dealing with the mines monster, buuuut... he chose not to. Several times there were high chances they would simply die, but he went along with it. Because that's the way they both are, and abandoning these principles would have meant abandoning himself as well, which makes the idea of living meaningless by the definition.

By the way, I'm not trying to whitewash any of John's actions during s3 and 4. He did manipulate Arthur quite a lot and that's bad in on itself. Yet... he lied only when he would have had to tell about the deal otherwise - and when it came to Oscar. Wow this whole Oscar situation really got to John didn't it. THAT'S when he sank really low, worse than any other time actually, since I don't recall him trying to trick Arthur into killing anyone before.

And the manupulation itself... I'm sorry, it was even worse than in the very beginning. It was so easy to tell when he was earnest and when he tried to push Arthur's buttons, like calling to his ideals with following the Order to NY to save its potential future victims, or "killing Larson would mean we won't know how to find the stone" in the finale. So obvious. I'm not sure if it was on purpose, to give Arthur more hints that "hey friend I'm not happy about doing this but the choice is scarce, I can't be direct about it but be cautious", or he's genuinely this bad at it because he doesn't like it. Let's agree it's 50/50, I guess :'D

Also about his uneasiness with killing Larson and Yellow along with him. I'm sad to tell it was only out of John's wish to survive, not because he was sympathetic with Yellow :') He was postponing the explanation for sooo long. I guess the weight of his guilt because of the deal (which was stricken to save himself) was too much already to admit this one more thing. Was John ashamed of this? Is that why he saved a perfectly sensible reason not to kill Larson&Yellow Arthur would have totally taken into consideration? Why he had to invent another explanation? Poor John </3

[kulturrgroupie]

Discover Jimmy Page pt. 3

The Mighty Zeppelin

from pageysartgallery

How to start writing about something that was bigger than anyone involved, even bigger than its own creator?

In the Zeppelin realm, myth and real happenings merge together to form a bittersweet reality, that first made its leader a man of godlike status and then slowly killed its own divinity.

From its creation to the very end, Led Zeppelin has been a colossal, thunderous force that changed the world of rock and roll forever, architect of a sound considered underground at first, that proceeded to take over the world with its infectious groove.

All thanks to the ambitious mind of one gifted 24 year old.

After plans of an alleged band featuring himself, his longtime friend Jeff Beck, Keith Moon and John Entwistle got cancelled, Jimmy Page, then 22, decided to continue the path he was on with his current band, the Yardbirds, which quickly enriched him with brand new experiences around the world, for the first time as a member of a well-known rock and roll band.

He started being praised for his unique playing style, as well as the countless revolutionary ideas he was applying to live performances and slowly collecting for an upcoming album.

While in Los Angeles with the Yardbirds in May 1968, Jimmy visited a palm-reader and brought tour manager Richard Cole along with him.

“It was on Sunset Boulevard, not far from the hotel. Richard was with me so I’ve got a witness. The key phrase was, ‘You're going to make a decision in a very short period of time that's going to change your life.’ Within 48 hours the other Yardbirds said they didn't want to continue. I was disappointed – what we had going I was willing to do with them, whatever it was. I can understand how disillusioned they were, but I could see the trajectory. FM radio was happening. I knew what that meant to underground bands. I wanted an underground band, but one that would come through and make a difference.”

— Jimmy Page, Rolling Stone

What would follow is a long, almost obsessive search for musicians available around his area, but after two weeks nothing had changed yet. Page then reached out to Terry Reid, a vocalist and guitarist whose work he had become interested in. Reid turned down the offer, explaining that he had already committed to go on the road for two tours with the Rolling Stones and another with Cream. He suggested to Page that if he were compensated for the gig fees he would lose and if Page would call Keith Richards to explain why Reid had to pull out of the US tours, Reid would try some things out with Page. It never happened and Reid told Page to consider a young Birmingham-based singer, Robert Plant, instead, having previously seen Plant's Band of Joy as a support act at one of his concerts. Reid also suggested Page check out their drummer John Bonham.

The New Yardbirds - soon to be Led Zeppelin* following a cease and desist letter issued by Chris Dreja - became one of the best-selling acts of all time, with strong musical morals and an eagerness to expand and explore their individual and collective abilities as much as they could.

*Why the name Led Zeppelin? Because it brought “the perfect combination of heavy and light, combustibility and grace” to Page's mind.

They broke records and earned a reputation for excess, but most importantly, they gained a steady place in the hearts of countless musicians and/or fans, a place that would endure the passage of time and still be here, today, after more than half a century.

What's curious about this 12 year period is that Jimmy continued his career as a session musician, too. Collaborators around this time include Joe Cocker, Chris Farlowe, P.J. Proby, Screaming Lord Sutch and Roy Harper.

My favourite tracks from this time period are the ones he recorded with Maggie Bell! She has a voice easily comparable to Janis Joplin's, and Jimmy's solos on these two songs are absolutely flawless and full of page-isms:

(Released March 31, 1975)

Another song I'm fond of is "Male Chauvinist Pig Blues", where Jimmy's electric guitar can be heard throughout the entire track:

(Released February 14, 1974)

And of course the live version of the song (part of Roy's Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion live album), in which a stunning slide guitar performance is delivered by Page:

(Released 1974)

As for Led Zeppelin, a remarkable piece of their early history is the first studio track all four members ever recorded together on August 25, 1968. Part of the P.J. Proby album Three Week Hero, the name of the track is "Jim's Blues" (featuring Robert Plant on harmonica):

Also worthy of notice is the first Zeppelin bootleg ever recorded, from their December 30, 1968 show in Spokane, Washington.

I really recommend checking out the bootlegs because a big part of what separated Led Zeppelin from other bands were their outstanding live performances and on-stage improvisations! If you may need a guide to the best bootlegs in order to get started, here's a really helpful one.

One song from the earlier years that was to be recorded as part of their first album - but probably got discarded to make place for other tracks - is my beloved As Long As I Have You:

(This version was performed at the Fillmore West on April 27, 1969)

Personally I will never forgive them for not including it as it's one of my favourite Zep songs ever.

As we all know, after many years and quotes of Robert Plant swearing that the band may as well “go on forever”, the tragic death of John Bonham on September 25, 1980 at Jimmy Page's then recently acquired Old Mill House, after a long day of alcohol binges, is what finally put an end to the giant that was, and forever will be, Led Zeppelin.

“Led Zeppelin wasn't a corporate entity. Led Zeppelin was an affair of the heart. Each of the members was important to the sum total of what we were. I like to think that if it had been me that wasn't there, the others would have made the same decision. What were we going to do? Create a role for somebody? Say, ‘You have to do this, this way?’ That wouldn't be honest.”

— Jimmy Page, 2014

Live performance:

There are quite a few professionally filmed concerts included as part of the 2003 Led Zeppelin DVD that you can watch on YouTube:

1970.01.09 London, Royal Albert Hall

1973.07.27, 28, 29, New York City, Madison Square Garden

1975.05.24 London, Earl's Court

1975.05.25 London, Earl's Court Arena

1979.08.04 Stevenage, Knebworth Festival

1979.08.11 Stevenage, Knebworth Festival

However, there is one more fully filmed concert that was not included in the DVD. It's the July 17, 1977 concert in Seattle:

Interview:

There is only one available filmed Jimmy interview on YouTube from the Zeppelin years that everyone and their mum has seen lol (the Sept. 18th 1970 one), so instead I want to include this other one, only recorded - not filmed, but a very precious piece of musical history nonetheless:

He addresses many topics and is quite talkative for 1977, a time when he would just stand up from his chair and say “I'm really not sorry to say the interview has ended” when the interviewer seemed to get on his nerves.

Gallery:

[ljblueteak]

Paul McCartney on Sgt. Pepper. Photos by Michael Cooper

(transcribed below)

I came up with the title and went to Robert with some drawings for the idea of the cover. I had come to the conclusion that The Beatles were getting a little bit safe, and we were a little intimidated by the idea of making 'the new Beatles album.' It was quite a big thing: "Wow, follow that!" So to relieve the pressure I got the idea, maybe from some from friends or something I'd read, that we shouldn't record it as The Beatles.

Mentally we should approach it as another group of people and totally give ourselves alter egos. So I came up with the idea of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the song 'It was Twenty Years Ago Today', and I started mentioning this to Robert in our late-night talks.

The original concept was actually a little bit different from how it turned out. I'd always liked those floral clocks that they have at seaside towns; they have a little green bank and put flowers in the shape of a clock. The original idea was that it was going to be a presentation from the Mayor of Middlesbrough or somewhere. There'd be this floral bank and there'd be us there and then at other parts of the cover we were going to have all the band's heroes--they were going to be on a photo, maybe behind the wall or something.

So there were these two ideas that eventually got pushed into one and then I said to everyone, 'OK, who are your favourites?" Marlon Brando was one of the first choices, and James Dean, Monroe--all those obvious ones and then other suggestions started to come in. George came up with all the Hindus, Babaji was his, and then there were things like footballers from our youth, you know, we had little joke things--Albert Stubbins--he's a footballer and so he was in and then it kind of snowballed.

I took all these ideas, the floral clock, the kind of presentation by a mayor, these heroes of ours, and Robert and I went with them to Peter Blake. Peter had all these sculptures of little people around, because he was married to Jann Haworth at the time and Jann was doing all those surfers and things like John Betjeman as a teddy bear and all that, so they crept in there.

The famous flowers that started off as the floral clock then became a guitar and the word 'Beatles'--they weren't marijuana leaves, they just looked like them--and so the Americans thought "Wow, well, this is it, it's all happening." We started shooting the cover and people would say, "Oh, can I come, can I come?" and we let more or less everyone come along, but eventually it got to the point where we had to say, "That's enough!"

So Robert would get all this and he'd show all the Indian stuff to George; and there'd be H.G. Wells and Johnny Weissmuller, Issy Bonn and all those people, and Burroughs would have been a suggestion probably from Robert, and there were a few kind of LA guys that Robert had slipped in. He'd slip in people that we didn't even know but we didn't mind, it was the spirit of the thing.

I don't know how many nights Michael spent on it but we were only there for that one night, the last night. They did all this without us. It was very nice when we turned up and it was all done, but not as impressive as when I saw the cover; just actually looking at the set wasn't as impressive as seeing the finished cover.

Jesus and Hitler were on John's favourites list but they had to be taken off. John was that kind of guy but you couldn't very well have Hitler and so he had to go. Gandhi also had to go because the head of EMI, Sir Joe Lockwood, said that in India they wouldn't allow the record to be printed. We said "You're kidding, they'll love it," but he said no, so that was something the lawyers made us take off. There were a few people who just went by the wayside.

We went to Burman's, the theatrical costumiers, to have all our outfits made up and the Stones did the same for the Satanic Majesties album.

It was great. The main centrefold was originally going to be a drawing by The Fool--Simon Posthuma and Marijke Koger, Dutch artists who'd produced some surrealistic work. They depicted us all up in the clouds and it was all very very acid, everything everywhere, lots of colours--but Robert didn't like it as art and so he vetoed it. We said "No man, it's really good. We love it, we love it."

The shoes were made by Anello and David, which was the first place we came into contact with, and we got our lovely handmade Beatle boots there.

Robert and I went down to Peter's house and Peter developed it all from there. The lists were his idea, and all the cut-outs instead of using real people, and then the floral clock got changed around; but basically it was the original theme.

The 'Welcome The Rolling Stones' was something they put in. They sort of asked us if we minded and we said, "No, no, not at all." Peter organized a fairground painter to paint the drum as that was someone that he used to hang out with.

From Blinds & Shutters

[sjsmith56]

Reap What You Sow - Chapter 40, Lord Buchanan

Summary: Quin squares off against Duke John Walker to finally determine who will control of the kingdom.

Length: 4.2 K

Warning: Violence causing death, reveal of incest and forced breeding, treachery, slurs against one’s heritage.

Author’s notes: When I originally wrote this chapter in the spring of 2022, I had just received a cancer diagnosis. I was scheduled for imminent surgery and because of my own health at the time there was a risk I wouldn’t wake up from the surgery. I went on a writing binge before the surgery to complete the story for publication on its original platform, Wattpad. In a way, the sword fight in this chapter became my way to fight the betrayal I felt about my body allowing a cancerous tumour to grow. That’s where my head was at the time of this chapter, Chapters 41 and 42.

<<Chapter 39

🗡️ 🏰

Edward's eyes were closed, his pale skin cold under Quin's fingertips. His body, wrapped in a shroud, except for his face, was ready for internment in the King's chapel. It was Quin's only way to honour his friend, who had been a new recruit just like him in Lord Buchanan's garrison. Liam, positioned on the other side of the body also traced his fingertips along Edward's brow. Together the three of them had bonded, playing harmless pranks on each other, throwing insults in each other's faces in the way all young men do. They laughed, cried, got drunk together, and the two of them proudly watched Quin get married to a Baroness.

"You taught him to dance," said Liam, gently. "Or rather, you convinced your beloved to teach him. He danced with princesses."

"It's my fault he's dead," said Quin, fighting back the tears. "I was too loud. It drew the sniper to our position."

"No, it's not your fault," replied Liam. "Both of us committed to fighting for you and that meant we committed to dying for you. Edward proved that. He had no family, did you know that? He was found alone in the wilds 5 years ago by Rhodes, who brought him in to work in the kitchen because he knew Cook would be kind to him. Didn't even know his last name so he decided to make it Forest because that's where he lived, in a broken down hut with no door. Although I guess Rhodes loved him like a son. I know he was proud when Edward chose to be a recruit in the garrison."

"He never told me of his past," said Quin. "But then I never asked.  He was noble, Liam. Now I have to bury him. Sleep well, my brother."

He kissed Edward on his brow as did Liam and the two young soldiers stood up. Quin nodded to the detail who would lower Edward into his crypt and cover it with a stone slab. When things returned to normal he would have it engraved, the words already permanently etched in his own mind but written down and left with the mason who would do the carving.

Here lies Edward Forest, soldier of Lord Buchanan, aged 18.

True friend of the last King.

Mourned by those who loved him.

He danced with princesses.

Standing up he saw Bren, Coulson, Heimdall, and Waya standing just inside the chapel door. All bowed their heads to him and he offered his hand to each of them in turn.

"The hostages are here?" he asked Waya.

"They are," said Waya, with a curl to his lip. "The family of Walker are actually happy to be here as there was no love for him in their home. They have requested asylum with you. The man was a monster; impregnating his own daughters with his seed."

Quin felt bile rising in his throat and forced it down, as he felt his anger build. "They are my cousins," he answered finally. "Their welfare is my responsibility now. The others?"

"A few bloody noses but no lasting harm," replied Waya. "The small children were fearful but I believe we assured them they will not be harmed. They had been told the Oklahoma tribes were cannibals."

"I am sorry for that," said Quin. "You have treated us with honour and respect, and I will spend my life making sure everyone knows that your people are honourable."

"Your Majesty," said Bren reluctantly, "I mean no disrespect but I still have concerns about Lord Fury's plan. I believe every man has the right to die in battle, regardless if they are honourable or not. Massacring them in a trap is not my idea of fair or honourable."

Quin swallowed hard. "At the time of Edward's death I wished only to pay it back to Walker fourscore," said the young king. "Since then I have been reflecting on what Buchanan's counsel would be and I agree with you. We will still draw them in, show them their families are hostage and give them the opportunity to surrender. But instead of unleashing hell upon them if they refuse I will call Walker out and challenge him to a duel. If he wins then you may avenge my death and take as many of them as you can. If I win you seize the leaders and bind them to face trial. Their men may then choose to surrender, promising never to raise arms against me again, or to be sent into exile to the southern islands." He started to walk away then turned back and cleared his throat. "Thank you Bren and Coulson for helping me to be a good man. Coulson, if I survive I would like you to consider staying to be an advisor to me. I will not fault you if you choose to return to your home. Heimdall, what a warrior you are. Surely, they broke the mold when you were cast. Waya, thank you for helping me to be proud of my heritage. Now, let's go end this war. Return to your men in the wash. Once Walker and his allied lords are assembled the flare will go up."

Liam followed Quin out the door already deciding his place was with his friend. Bren and the other four commanders went to the entrance to the secret tunnels, their horses waiting for them and returned to the wash where their company was assembled.

Fury was waiting in the command centre where Quin told him of the changed plans. To his credit, the only reaction Fury had was a raised eyebrow. He accepted the change and sent out runners to advise the commanders of it. Just before the sun rose Quin, Liam, and Fury went out on the battlements where the bowmen, bow-women and sharpshooters were arrayed. Stopping beside Sir Archer, Quin thanked him for his support. Then he faced the rising sun and waited. At first there was no response then a delegation from Walker appeared on horseback and faced the castle walls.

"Quin Torres!" yelled the negotiator. "You have lost most of your forces. Surrender and Duke Walker will allow you to leave here unmolested to return to the Kingdom of Broken Lands."

"First of all it's King Arthur!" yelled Lord Fury. "As to allowing him to leave, we call bullshit. You surrender."

The man laughed. "You have no soldiers left, except what is in your own garrison," he called. "Surrender now, or suffer the consequences. We have you surrounded."

From beyond the tree line, Walker's forces appeared and they appeared formidable. Quin smiled at Fury, who had already asked for confirmation of the enemy force at the rear of the castle. He looked at Quin when he got the signal from a runner who came through the tunnels.

"A single line to the rear and the flanks of the castle," he said. "Most of his force is in front of us and he has them spread out so they look even larger than they are."

"Call Walker out," said Quin, "and his lords."

Fury called out in his battle voice. "Duke Walker, come forward with your allies! Let us see the traitors in the flesh, for you are traitors, all of you."

The negotiator looked behind him and the force opened allowing half a dozen men on horseback through. The Duke, a tall blonde man with a haughty look on his face led them, riding with the others to where the negotiators were. As he advanced all of their force advanced with him. They passed over the trenches that had been built the night before then covered over with boards and sod. Fury glanced at Quin whose eyes never left those of his father's cousin, and his mother's two uncles.

"I see you escaped death last night," called Walker. "It doesn't matter for you will die when we take this castle."

"I see you are without honour," responded Quin. "My father knew it since you were children together and you never changed. Even with your own family. Tell me, did you enjoy forcing yourself on your own daughters and planting your own seed into them. Is that how you planned on keeping your bloodline pure?"

"Liar!" screamed the Duke, his face shaking with fury. "How dare you make such an accusation! You mixed blood bastard."

"I only repeat what I was told," yelled Quin, then reached out and pointed to a window in the castle. "Your own daughters have made the accusation."

Walker's wife and daughters stood in the windows and faced him. "It's true!" yelled his wife. "He kept us as captives, forcing himself on them at his will. He is a monster, he is a beast and he has tricked you all."

Two of Walker's allies pulled their horses away from him, looking at him in horror.

"Surrender," yelled Fury. "Submit yourselves for trial on the charge of treason. All of your families are safe with us and will not be harmed. Your men can surrender, promising never to rise against the King again, or they can be sent into exile in a new land. You have one minute to decide."

The wives of the allied lords appeared on the battlements to the surprise of their husbands.  The two lords who had pulled away from the others commanded their men to surrender then began racing for the castle gates but were shot down by snipers in Walker's forces. Before they could even react their men were surrounded, disarmed, then had guns put to their heads by Walker's men.

"Did you think I would let them surrender so easily?" shouted Walker. "I mean to have this kingdom and by God's might I will."

Quin looked at Fury who nodded. "Well then, cousin," yelled Quin. "You won't object if I challenge you to a duel. You killed my father, and my friend, and you injured my general. I think I have sufficient grounds to challenge you to fight me, one on one. If God is on your side you will win easily."

"Very well," sneered Walker. "Come down, boy, and meet your maker."

Fury nodded to the master bowman who shot an arrow into the air with a flare attached. It lit up at the apex and flared on it's journey back down.

"The challenge has been issued and accepted," called Fury. "If King Arthur is victorious it means you all surrender and lay down your arms."

"If Duke Walker is victorious then you will be slaughtered," called back the negotiator.

Quin undid his scabbard but kept his sword and a single knife. He came off the battlements followed by Fury and Liam. At the bottom of the stair was Donald Cooper, the man who said he would stand with Quin. Quin stopped and offered Cooper his hand. When Quin strode out the gate towards Walker with Fury, Liam, and Cooper, he saw the man had removed his jacket, vest, and shirt so he did the same as he walked.  Liam stepped forward to take them.

"Remember, he likely has poisoned blades," said Fury as they approached. "Ask him to switch blades with you. If he refuses then demand the blades of a random soldier."

Quin nodded and stood in front of his father's cousin. Walker was taller than him by a couple of inches and heavier by about 20 lbs but Quin had trained against much bigger veterans and had held his own. He was confident of his chances.

"Before we start I want you to scratch yourself with your blades," said Quin. "It's not that I normally don't trust an adversary.  But you have repeatedly shown you have no honour.  Lord Fury, check his breeches and boots for hidden blades."

"Then I demand the same," said Walker, as Fury quickly checked him and pulled a small blade out of his boot, showing it to all.

Walker's negotiator searched Quin and found nothing. Then both men scratched themselves on the arms with their blades, observed by both Fury and the negotiator.

"Now, switch blades with me," said Quin.

"No, we have already established the blades are clean," protested Walker.

"But is the tip clean?" asked Quin. "If it is then switch blades."

"I will not!" snarled Walker and he went on the attack forcing Quin into a defensive positions.

Fury punched his own hand in disgust. Walker was treacherous but to be openly dishonourable was unthinkable. He could see disgust on the faces of several of Walker's men. Fury and the two others withdrew, giving space to Quin and Walker.  As the duel progressed Liam touched Fury's arm, indicating that Buchanan's force had silently arrayed themselves behind the main force. They both saw their swords were already dripping with blood and nodded at each other with satisfaction. The battleground to the rear of the castle had been defended and secured. The two Walkers continued in their deadly dance against each other with the advantage alternating between the Duke and the young king. So far Quin had eluded the poisonous tip of Walker's blade. Suddenly he stumbled on an exposed root and fell onto his back. As Walker advanced to sink the tip of his sword into Quin the young man kicked out with his foot at Walker's knee. A crack of breaking bone was heard as Walker sank down from the pain. At the same time Quin forced his blade into Walker's chest and thrust it in pushing the older man backwards until he fell. Quin rose and continued pushing it in as far as it could go while standing on Walker's sword arm with one foot. Wildly Walker waved his knife blade around but Quin eluded its touch then let go of his sword to grasp Walker's hand and force the knife from it. He stood looking over Walker and roared before speaking.

"You are finished," he said. "May you be banned from the Gates of Hell as unworthy to pass even there. May your soul be in limbo forever."

Blood poured from Walker's chest and mouth as his life drained out of him. Then he looked up and saw his mother's uncles draw their swords and quickly motioned towards them. Fury yelled a command and all the blinds and trenches opened showing a multitude of soldiers ready to take on the remaining forces of Walker's. Donald Cooper and Liam were quicker, drawing their swords and holding them to the necks of Quin's uncles. Even those soldiers of the Lords who had attempted to surrender before being shot down took the arms of Walker's men before surrendering themselves again.

As the uncles were taken into custody, Liam approached and checked Quin's skin for scratches or nicks finding only those that the young king had inflicted on himself before the fight. He smiled at Quin, hugged him, then handed him his shirt, vest and jacket from where he had dropped them on the ground. Soldiers led by Cooper brought the two uncles of Quin's mother and the remaining lord who still supported Walker to face the young king. Quin spat on his relatives.

"You are no family of mine," he said. "Your soldiers get no chance to surrender and return to their homes. They accept exile or they face trial beside you. You arranged the marriage of my mother to my father, yet you believe that I am an abomination. You disgust me."

The one uncle spoke. "At the time it was seen as a way to get our family into the palace," he said. "We didn't know Camila would actually fall in love with him. Never trust a woman."

Quin punched him, bloodying his nose. He raised his hand to his other relative then stepped back in disgust and ordered they be taken to the dungeons. Bren and the other commanders appeared, wiping their blades. Fury looked at Bren with appreciation.

"A much more honourable plan, Commander," said Fury. "Thank you for maintaining my King's honour."

"I could have been wrong," replied Bren. "This time I was fortunate."

Fury patted him on the back, covering Bren's shoulders with his arm, and the two old warriors walked together back to the palace. Quin and Liam followed.

"Will you stay?" asked Quin as they walked. "I need a friend to stay and you are my best friend."

"I will follow you forever, my King," said Liam earnestly. "Just don't fart at night when we have to share a tent."

Quin playfully shoved him then put his arm around Liam's shoulder. Later, after washing the dirt from his face and body, Quin went to the radio room where the ham radio operator was waiting.

"CQ CQ CQ KWP2 to KBL1 CQ CQ CQ" he said into the microphone.

Immediately the response came.

"KBL1 receiving, Banner here," said the voice. "Go ahead KWP2. Over."

"Hello Doctor," replied Quin, speaking into the microphone. "Quin Torres ... I mean King Arthur here. The war is over. Duke John Walker is dead by my hands. If Commander Rhodes is there tell him we lost Edward, as well as 300 of our original force. I have interred him in my family's chapel. The others will be buried in a special cemetery honouring their sacrifice. Over."

There was a pause then Bruce's voice came back on. "That is unfortunate," said Banner. "He was a good kid. Do you wish me to tell your mother and sisters it is safe to return now? And your wife, of course. Over."

"Negative, no," said Quin. "There is something I must do and I have to return to the Broken Lands to do it. It will be a couple of days before we set out but I will return with the force and reunite with my wife and family there. Then we will return here together by ship. Doctor ... Bruce ... tell everyone there that I owe them so much. Not just for the soldiers but for my honour. I will forever be in your debt. Over and out."

Bruce acknowledged then both he and the radio operator said the closing codes. Quin returned to the command centre where Fury was busy folding up maps and directing people to return tables to their original locations. He looked at Quin with an appraising eye.

"Your Majesty," he said. "You plan on returning the horse, don't you?"

"I feel it is appropriate," Quin replied. "I stole him and his master took me under his wing. It is my duty to ride Magnus back to his home. By the time we get there perhaps Buchanan will have already arrived and transformed. Then I can thank him personally for teaching the brat that I was to become a man. I have asked Coulson to stay as a counsellor as I trust both him and you to speak true to me. I have also asked Liam to stay, as my friend. We can find something for him to do, can't we?"

"Court jester perhaps," joked Fury. "I am sure he will fit in well. The two Lords who were killed ... their families have requested mercy for themselves, claiming they were duped by Walker. Their sons have pledged fealty to you but I have made it clear that when you abdicate their positions will become elected ones and not inherited ones. They are considering their options. Their soldiers have been freed from their responsibilities. Many were conscripts or owed money to their lords. All have pledged not to rise against you and I have chosen to take them at their word."

"My family that were on Walker's side?" asked Quin, "and their soldiers?"

"Your mother's uncles will be tried," replied Fury. "About a third of their soldiers have also chosen trial. The others have chosen exile and wish to send for their families to join them. Which leaves the southern frontier open. May I suggest you offer the lands to Hilda, the Queen's Guard warrior? We will need her to teach our women how to fight. She might be able to talk her people into coming here. You could offer control of it to her in perpetuity.  Her people should have lands to call their own."

Quin smiled but was unsure if she would accept. "Perhaps some of the Oklahoman warriors might be willing to stay for a time to help her," Quin suggested. "I will talk to Waya as well. Jose Flores, he has family also, doesn't he, still trapped in the lawless lands?"

"Yes, he does," said Fury. "I will offer him lands as well. He has worked miracles on the coffee plantation and has shown he can be a good steward."

The young king and his trusted advisor spoke for several hours about the changes that would be implemented right away and those that would happen over time. They set a timeline of one year, two at the latest to bring about the changes that would see the kingdom change to a republic with elections. In a sense Quin was relieved. It had taken much personal change for him to accept the mantle of responsibility to be king. It wasn't quite as difficult to give it up to begin true and meaningful change in the kingdom. With Isabella at his side he thought he could do just about anything with his life, including running for office.

The next day, Quin went to the stables to see Magnus. He had been kept there ever since Buchanan fell. Bringing an apple with him, Quin approached the black stallion inside his stall, despite the misgivings of the stable master, who had exercised him somewhat but was still intimidated by the beast.

"Magnus," said Quin gently, holding out half the apple. "I'm sorry I wasn't with you before, old friend. There was much I needed to take care of before I came to you." The great horse slowly approached him and took the half apple. "You miss him, I know. I miss him, too. Would you like to go home?" Magnus murmured and Quin nodded. "I thought so. Will you let me ride you for the journey? I could not trust anyone else to care for you."

The great horse took the second half of the apple and put his head over Quin's shoulder. Fighting the tears Quin stroked the horse's neck. Then he stepped back and looked at him, the glossy black coat, long beautiful mane, and the proud stance that had enticed him when he saw Magnus for the first time 7 months before. So much had happened in that time. So much had changed. But one thing was certain. Magnus  would never be his horse as his heart belonged to another. For the final journey the horse had consented to carrying him and that would have to do.

"Tomorrow, Magnus," said Quin. "We will begin the journey home tomorrow."

Magnus nickered and pushed Quin, bringing up a smile. Then he left the stable and began to prepare the saddle bags to carry Buchanan's clothing and his own.

Before sunrise Quin rose, washed and put his travel leathers on, picking up the heavy saddlebags and carrying them down to the mess, which was still open to feed all the soldiers. Liam hailed him and he dropped the bags off at that table to line up for his meal. He ate the same food as the soldiers, in the same metal or wooden bowls, and, in the only display of his influence, reminded the cook that the leftovers were to go to the poor, even while he was gone. Then he sat with Liam, Hilda, Coulson, Bren, Heimdall and Waya on their final meal that wouldn't be rations and talked about the journey to come. Waya had asked for volunteers amongst his force who would stay with Hilda to secure the southern frontier against any lawless ones who still attempted to wreak havoc by crossing into these lands. She sent out messenger falcons to her people about the granting of lands to their tribe in perpetuity. If all went well they would begin arriving within a couple of weeks. When they finished eating and went outside there was a sizeable number of the garrison soldiers present, as well as Garcia, Fury, and Duke Walker's family, his second cousins. He had already informed them his home was their home.

"Your Majesty," said Fury. "Please radio us when you arrive and before you leave. The kingdom will be safe until you return home in a month. Go, fulfill your last promise."

Quin mounted Magnus and looked out over those who were also mounted on their horses. "Let's get you home," he said. "Move out."

As one, with Quin and the commanders at the head, the great force began to ride for the Oklahoma wilderness, almost a two day's ride from there. After the force left Hilda looked at Fury and commented that it seemed quite lonely around the castle. He nodded sagely and returned to the palace to send the message over the ham radio that the soldiers of the Broken Lands were on their way home.

Chapter 41>>

Series Masterlist

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[commsroom]

okay, so. eiffel likes music. i like to make lists about eiffel. i wanted to make a list of (at least most of) the songs/bands he references, particularly the ones he directly says he likes. there aren't really a whole lot of surprising revelations here, but if you would also like an overview of eiffel's music taste, well. here it is.

- ep 2: "... while humming 'mercedes benz' by the immortal janis joplin!"

- ep 4: "everything's gimme shelter out here." ↳ song by the rolling stones

- ep 6: "unless you leave out 'anarchy in the UK', that would be mathematically unsound." ↳ song by the sex pistols

- ep 9: "riders on the storm, man. riders on the storm." ↳ song by the doors

- ep 11: "ground control to major tom, is your circuit dead, there's something wrong. here i am, floating in a tin can..." ↳ space oddity, song by david bowie

- ep 20: MINKOWSKI: “because you are you and he is he and i am me and we are all together. / EIFFEL: “goo goo g'joob?” ↳ i am the walrus, song by the beatles

-  ep 27: “yo, copernicus! look out the window and smell the joni mitchell” ↳ referencing her album, blue

- ep 27: “yeah, yeah, we’re tangled up in blue. we get the picture.” ↳ song by bob dylan

- ep 30: “i’ve got my entire mental john williams discography to get through.” ↳ well, if there was going to be a composer eiffel really liked, i guess that would be the one. does suggest he has a good ear/memory for music, though.

- ep 37, 42, 61: “and let us analyze the real slim shady without a dozen french horns in the way.” / “which slim shady is the living, breathing, human version of your friend!” / “in the immortal words of slim shady: guess who’s back!” ↳ what can i even say about this. three times. i guess these songs are enough of a recognizable pop culture thing to be arguably distinct from the rest of eminem’s music, but like. three times.

- ep 47: “FOR YOU TO GET TOGETHER AND FEEL ALL RIGHT.” ↳ one love, song by bob marley. referenced by the dear listeners, but they got it from eiffel.

- ep 49: “because it’s like radiohead says: you do it to yourself, and that’s what really hurts.” ↳ lyrics from ‘just’

- ep 54: “all along the watchtower, princes kept the view, while wild women came and went, barefoot servants too” ↳ originally written by bob dylan, but the jimi hendrix version is the one most people will think of first

- ep 54: “in the immortal words of marvin gaye: let’s get it on!”

- ep 54: “you gotta check out some of the latest advancements. otis redding. zeppelin. taylor. sir mix-a-lot. i think he’s been doing some of the best scientific work of the last fifty years.” ↳ i would like to be able to give you an alternative explanation. i would like to be able to be like, well, clearly he means singer-songwriter james taylor. he means guitarist mick taylor. he doesn’t. he means taylor swift. you can feel free to suggest another artist who it would make sense to only call ‘taylor’ in this context, but first keep in mind he’s a millennial in a show written by millennials and the writers do, in fact, listen to taylor swift. i’m resigned to it.

- ep 61: pryce mentions “the first two queen albums” as an item in eiffel’s memory

he also agrees with hera that “yeah, this is nice” about the transmission in bach to the future, but doesn’t recognize the piece. further confirmed by a little night music that eiffel’s familiarity with classical music is ‘yeah, i’ve heard this somewhere’ at best. he can’t name any of it.

of the songs and artists listed here, the ones that he is directly saying he likes and/or doesn’t have some clear contextual reason to reference are: ‘mercedes benz’ (and janis joplin in general), ‘anarchy in the uk’, john williams, ‘all along the watchtower’, otis redding, led zeppelin, taylor (swift? i guess?), sir mix-a-lot.

that said, i think you can safely assume he likes pretty much all of these things. they occupy some space in his mind, anyway. so what conclusions can you draw from that? uhh. well. he mostly likes classic rock? he’s a guy who still listens to the radio? he has, all things considered, incredibly normal taste?

none of that is really news, but there you go.

[sshbpodcast]

Bottom Five Star Trek VOY Episodes

by Ames

Star Trek: Voyager gets a lot of flak for not always capitalizing on its unique circumstance, as a show about a cumulative journey meant to take a lot of time. Some of that is the episodic nature of the show: audiences needed to be able to tune in randomly and not feel as lost as the crew were. But some bad episodes just had no excuse. And you’ll see a lot of that in A Star to Steer Her By’s picks for worst episodes of the show. 

We’ll miss all our Delta Quadrant friends, enemies, and alien races, sure. We’ll miss the ship and the crew. But there’s also a lot that we won’t miss, as there were a good deal of missed opportunities, clunkers, and just plain offensive episodes along the way. Good riddance to those! Scroll on to see what we mean in our bottom five episodes of Voyager below, and/or listen to our coverage over on the podcast (series review starts at 1:29:20) with some audio-exclusive picks from guest star Liz! It’s finally time to self destruct this ship.

[images © CBS/Paramount]

“The Fight”: Ames I’m pretty clear on my stance on dream sequence episodes, but for those of you sitting in the back: I hate them. They’re contrived, they’re convenient, they’re too literal. Just ugh all around. Which is a shame because there’s something in this episode that could have been interesting for Chakotay to do for a change, but it got lost somewhere in boxing metaphors and some Native American spiritualism. Talk about a bad dream!

“Tattoo”: Chris Speaking of Native American spiritualism, this episode is just plain uncomfortable and it all comes down to the one line of dialogue that goes too far: “Forty five thousand years ago, on our first visit to your world, we met a small group of nomadic hunters. They had no spoken language, no culture, except the use of fire and stone weapons.” Oh writers, you done screwed up to imply that the only reason Native Americans have culture is because aliens. A-koo-chee-moh-no.

“Alice”: Caitlin Caitlin surprised us a couple times in her series picks by opting for episodes she hadn’t even included in her season-by-season lists! So welcome, “Alice,” to the bottoms list. The femme fatale ship was just too tropey and icky and really brought Tom’s character down a few pegs. It’s episodes like this that make us wonder how on earth Torres stayed with him throughout the show.

“Ex Post Facto”: Jake Tom did some more suffering in this early-seasons dud of an episode. We’ve seen Star Trek do film noir to a slightly better effect in something like DS9’s “Necessary Evil,” but this one just whiffs hard at the style. It doesn’t help that the Baneans’ hair feathers are distracting as hell and that the conclusion that the damn dog helps solve stretches credulity to its very limits. Have the writers never met a dog before?

“Concerning Flight”: Caitlin You’d think John Rhys-Davies playing Leonardo da Vinci would elevate an episode to something greater, but somehow this baffling episode proved to be a waste of time. We spent most of it confused by pretty much everyone’s motivations. Why did Tau keep da Vinci around? How did da Vinci not notice anything was out of the ordinary on this planet? Does the sun always set in the same place on this planet? Who knows!

“Body and Soul”: Ames I’ve clumped a bunch of really gross, sexist episodes together if only to rile myself up because I hate these kinds of episodes so much. But how can one not get riled up when Seven tells the Doctor that he violated her and his response is to blame her? What should be a fun romp watching Jeri Ryan get to pretend to be another character is horribly tainted by that “she was asking for it” attitude. And then for Seven to be the one to apologize while the Doctor never sees what he did was wrong: VOMIT!

“Retrospect”: Chris Oh look, more violating Seven of Nine! This show really couldn’t help itself sometimes. What else was there to do when you had an attractive woman on the cast but to exploit her? If this episode was trying to debunk false memories, it failed hard by making it about a violation of a woman character because then the only thing you can see is the allegory for fake rape allegations, and that is not the message you want to send. Plus the doctor suddenly peddling pseudoscience is just nonsense.

“Blood Fever”: Ames Here’s another gross sexual act that I’ve never been quite okay with. Pon farr as a plot device was fine enough in “Amok Time.” Weird and kind of illogical, but fine. But when Vorik goes and sexually assaults Torres and everyone tries to sweep it under the rug because it’s some weird Vulcan bullshit, that’s not fine. And when Tom makes it clear that it would not be consensual for him and Torres to bang it out but Tuvok insists they do, I am all the more disgusted. No means no, Vulcans!

“Sacred Ground”: Ames, Jake We’ve got some overlap in our remaining bottom picks, starting with this absolutely nonsensical debate between science and faith that just boils down to: believe everything you’re told without questioning it and maybe magic is real. There’s a reason this franchise usually shies away from addressing religion in this kind of way. It’s one thing for a character (or a person in real life!) to have faith; it’s quite another for miracles to just happen for plot convenience (unless you’re part wormhole alien or something).

“11:59”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake The hatred for Henry Janeway is strong in this room (though that might be because Chris skews the curve a bit). But he’s just a wet blanket of a character who’s just taking his son and his whole damn town down to his level through sheer obstinance. Add to that the fact that he seriously has no chemistry with Shannon – like really, he could be her father – and you’ve got a massive clunker of an episode on your hands.

“Fury”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake The series as a whole wasted Kes as a character, which was quite the shame to watch, but the one thing it did do was give her a poignant and powerful farewell in “The Gift.” But Voyager can giveth and Voyager can taketh away, and this return of Jennifer Lien as the hardened, hellbent, furious Kes basically attempts to ruin her character. This was not the Kes we knew and loved, and damned if we even understand how she got there. How dare they do this to our sweeting!

“Elogium”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Finally, the one we all agree on is some other weird sex claptrap. The Vulcans may have their pon farr (which I hate enough on its own), but the Ocampa have elogium, which somehow makes even less sense! Biology aside (blegh), the rest of the episode is confused in its messaging: these are people who are not ready for a baby, but instead of really exploring what that means for them, we’re stuck with this weird Ocampan heat thing. This whole episode has lost its sex appeal!

—

See also: our Top Five Star Trek VOY Episodes list! And why not: here’re all the seasonal tops and bottoms from seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7!

We’ll still miss the Voyager and her plucky crew of misfits… just not when they were being racist or misogynist for no reason. And while I’d love to say we’re glad all those bad episodes are over, there’s always more bad ideas to go around. Let’s see how our next show in the rotation compares as we prepare ourselves for our next watchthrough: Star Trek: Enterprise! We’d love for you to watch along with us on SoundCloud or whatever podcast platform is your favorite, to hang out with us on Facebook and Twitter, and to really brace yourself because we know more pon farr action is on the way. Ew.

[starsinshadows]

continued from here with @masterwcrk.

there’s a long pause as she looks over to the other & really studies him. on some level she knows he’s right - she’s long since learned that when someone tells you who they are, you believe them & yet it’s... surprisingly difficult with him because she sees the shadows & differences that he seems blind to. maybe it’s the last embers of her hope & optimism that hadn’t died on the Burren, maybe it’s foolishness. she hasn’t decided & it doesn’t feel important enough yet for her to truly make the distinction.

the tang of gin has permeated the entire room - that’s definitely enhanced because of her runes playing with all of her senses. she fights the urge to fling a window open because everything feels like poking a bear & she’d rather not antagonize him further tonight. ‘ they more than deserve it, but don’t drop down to their level and be sloppy. ’ people are getting caught in the crosshairs on this one, & she’d told herself she wouldn’t get involved but--

she has to learn to stop getting attached.

‘ make them feel it. ’

He couldn't have said what he honestly expected her to do when his anger sat heavy in the air between them along with the reek of gin and a flat that had seen better days. That part wasn't his fault this time - he'd been out of country and a friend had apparently decided to squat in his shitty little place while he was gone. It wasn't like he had many of those left, so who was he to throw stones? Well, he was John Constantine and throwing stones was a specialty of his sometimes, so perhaps that wasn't the best turn of phrase. There was something about glass houses, as well, but there was also an argument for how he had a rough enough go of it without someone else grabbing onto his ankles and dragging him under right with them. That was the crux of it, though, wasn't it? He was always drowning or in some feral fit for survival, and sloppy was just how it went - she could warn him off of it, but when was the last time anyone had picked a fair fight with him? When had he last been flung into a situation that didn't have a body count and a promise of more collateral damage? He didn't care if she opened the window or told him off because nobody who got caught in the crosshairs because of him was necessarily intentional and certainly nobody he liked without damn good reason, but he could understand why his foul mood might put someone off. "Hate to be the one to tell you, but it's all sloppy," he offered up, head tipping back, but she'd made progress if she'd been looking to take some of the force from his anger with that. His tone had gone a little quieter, less vitriolic, and perhaps a little... sadness had slipped in there? "Best we can hope is we wade through the muck and come out with our heads still stickin' out our collars."

[quinntamsin]

She held the helmet under her arm as the droid behind her rolled along without even paying attention to the destruction around it. A loud whistling sound informed the Mandalorian what she was waiting for. "Are you sure H21?" she asked, only to receive a longseries of droid language whistles. After listening and discerning theirmeaning the Mandalorian sighed. "Fine, I will speak to the Duchess once this job is over."

Greetings everyone, it's been a long hiatus, but I am hopefully going to be getting back soon. Depression got real bad lately and even cannabis only can do so much. I've been able write a bit more on my next OC riddled fanfic Poisoned Heart. Anyway let's do Andor! Andor S1E1 "Kassa", the opening to Andor is a black screen seemingly zooming into to reveal the title. A stylized version of the Rebellion's symbol, the Starbird, is above it. Dark rain files into view as we watch Cassian walk a dark industrial walkway back to the city where he's living. Morlana One, a massive corp zone on the planet is where he's hiding. This place s reams blade runner and I like how they embedded a bunch of random weird ads. I like seeing this alien city and hearing the various languages in the background. The music here is very synth and I love the dancing twi'lek holo. I wonder what species the fucking bartender is. Almost utapaun, something with an elongated head and more. The proprieteress of the club pops up and we hear Cassian call the place a company town. Pretty damn accurate, Morlana's Corp Zone represents the worst of the Empire. She getting suspicious before Cassian mentions he's looking for his sister. The darkness punctuated by the blue light really sells a seediness to the place with it being broken by random gold lights. It makes me think we're in a strange almost iPhone owned industrial complex. A guard confronts, well a pair of idiot guards, Both using heavy Corscanti accents. Diego's voice has a short of desperate measure to it that sells his spy infused violence. I wonder if he watched some John Wick with how he carries his head as he kills the two me. That sort of tired, bedraggled expression of "here we go again." One guard dies and the other can sense his time to end., and gets his face blasted out. This is not your clean Star Wars, this is the Rebellion and one where you cannot afford loose ends. Yeah, if you want clear cut good and evil, do not watch this series. It's a james bond or mission impossible series with a grittier take. The filters on the vfx remind me heavily of Altered Carbon. WE come to Ferrix, a dust covered dirty city in the early morning. A droid is our main focus, one that easily heads out into a massive junk and scrap pile outside. I like his four little traction points for transportation. We switch to Cassian on Kenari his home where his sister wakes him up. B2EMO his droid has a pretty interesting stutter, which makes me wonder why it occurs. Maybe a damage to his voice processor? "That's two lies." The droid has to put a lot of energy into lying and just seems to want to spend time with "Kassa". Seems Ferrix is another mining or industrial town of sorts. I'm seeing a lot of bright yellow colors in the pallet along with drab oranges and reds. The usage of stone for a lot of the exterior definitely makes me think of some sort of mineral-based processing. Not to mention a lot of the clothes have padded bits insert into them making me thinking defense. Also more people are wearing ear plugs, definitely a job requiring large machinery. This is a great scene, it tells so much just in its costuming and colors. THe way that Cassina's friend has a cleanish face. WE switch back to the Pre-Mor where an investigator is talking about the seats of the guards. I like how he updated his "uniform" because he wants to act the proper Imperial. The man in charge decides to cover it up since the men in question would all make them look back. The DI just wants to ignore it, the Preox-Moralana company wants shit to look good which means less Imperial Oversight. Heh, love it. We switch back to Ferrix where Cassian has come to visit a friend who does repairs. I wonder is this part of his quest to find his sister? Bix is his connection and he pushes more. She asks Cassian what he did and she stole a fucking Starpath unity. He apparently stole it from his friend's bids. Damn, not the best decision. This episode has already established that Cassian is out for Cassian. He has some connections but they aren't exactly "friends". Flashing back to Kenari, we see that the camp is alive with curiosity. The various colonists have strung together a village mixing technology and various stuff near their home. We see them placing on some sort of paint for something the lines have a meaning for the older kids. I notice a distinct lack of adults in their camp. Back to the DI we see him in the security HQ where he berates a man for ignoring a obvious shi launch. Cassian continues his walk around the story as Nurchi, a loan shark, who wrangles another acquaintance into a discussion. I like vetch, big kind of dinosauroid dude with a cockney accent. Bix leaves work and her love interest follows her. What a fool, the man is going to get himself in a lot of trouble. The music hear continues to give us a sort of casual, but thriller quiet. All of the actions of many here are in the underworld. So my guess is she has to maintain a lot of secrets to keep herself solvent in credits. The Imperial Security folks have a nice level of chatter to make themselves appear like normal employees dealing with their uptight boss. Pegla who is a yardbull watching the various ships warns Cassian, and yet again, Cassian has burned another bridge. In the past we see the Kenari older kids head off somewhere. Strange, are they after that ship that crashed? Moving onto Andor S1E2 "That Would Be Me" we continue our take on the opening triad of Andor series. With quick reminder of what happened at the Industrial Site and the death of the two guards. We get the subtle simple opening of Andor with its string theme, which slowly fades into the jungles of Kenar.  The Kenari are heading off to investigate the crash our band of children are decked out in various weapons as they pass what seems to be an abandoned colony site. Overgrown pieces of machinery come to view as we then see a massive open face mine. The kids seem to be descendants of maybe colonial miners that once dwelt on the planet. Changing scenes we see a man entering a tower to adjust his ear plugs. He drums away on the chime which appears to be a large industrial way of alerting the workers of the town. In the shipyard Pegla is turning down the lights and everyone is heading back to put away their equipment. Another day working in the town has come as everyone cools down for the night. Meanwhile, Kassa is seemingly skulking about as Ferrix falls asleep. We see Bix friend reading her console and the Arabesh is translated as he sees the message for a Kenari male wanted. As he enters who appears to be an adoptive mother of sorts. THey discuss the fact that the Pre-Mor Sec know about him being Kenari. Our friendly droid tells him that Bix wants to meet. She asks what he did and he relays a simplified version of him murdering two shitty Sec Guards. The Sec Commander is intent on hunting down and as Bix goes to have some fun we switch to Syril Karn. The Seargent he brings in is pretty hardcore in ow he sees the Order of the Empire. The talk about how they need have a stronger hand to deal with the "Formenting" as he says. This man is what appears to be a failed or wannabe stormtrooper. His eyes got all beetle-like as he talked about dealing with the "Formenting" Back to the Andor Household we see Maarva (yes I had to look up a list of names because I'm reviewing so many shows) is holding something tight. Cassian meanwhile is in his crash ship room. Going through whatever is on his mind. This makes me think the flashbacks to Kenari are about the trauma of losing his sister I mean that is an obvious point, but there is definitely more to the story. The kids zone in on the crashed ship and we see the oldest heading in to investigate alone. The sizzling of electricity fills the air as she uses a tongue click to summon the kids. As the music intensifies we switch to a ship flying over a planet, this appears to be Ferrix again. Whoever this guy is he's definitely a tad sketch. LIkely a Rebel with how the droid tells him about "Safe Places" to land. And as he heads into the city our drummer dude opens the day to waken everyone. Bix wakes up with Perrin watching her from a seat. Bix and Perrin have a somewhat awkward short conversation over a cup of Caf. In his ship Cassian and B2EMO who seems to be somewhat depressed droid. Maarva pops into what I think is Cassian's room to see an old Kenari fighting staff covered in bits and bobs. Was she the one who the kids ran into? We are again in Kenari, the leader of the group is drawing closer as Cassian notices the bodies of the pilots. They are definitely humanoid, but have yellowish skin as one of them gets up and shoots the Kenari leader. The children take him out with their blow guns (how the hell did I not notice they were blow guns). The kids realize their leader is dead, killed by the invaders. THey pick her up, leaving her blow gun as they watch for more invaders. Cassian watches the dropped ship with an intense hatred as we once again switch to Ferrix. He runs into someone and we learn that yes, the mining venture on the actual planet fell apart. SO yeah, my theory was right, the kids were the survivors of a mining disaster. He pays for what seems to be a ticket somewhere. And as Pre-Mor people are coming in their strange blue and orange Imperial inspired uniforms (including those silly little hats). Mosk who is acting like a rent-a-cop wanting to be an Imperial Stormtrooper speaks to his people. Reminding them that the folk of Ferrix can go complain about Pre-Mor at the Territorial Forum. Karn meanwhile seems a bit unsure what to say as he gives a haphazard speech. I wanna say, their ship is clunking as fuck and I love it. Really shows how these guys mostly work as Industrial SEcurity. Why have a flashy ship when a company carrier does the same? So Skarsgard, is Luthen, our old seeming rebel, is on a sort of floating anti-grav bus. He ends up dealing with a man who just can't stop talking and moves to insert himself into a conversation Luthen doesn't want. The carrier draws closer to the primary town in Ferrix as the dump below shows us Cassian on a Mission. It's interesting how unlike the rest of the cast he's always in dark browns and reds. Everyone else is either in blue, orange, green or yellow.

Episode 3 "Reckoning" opens with the children slowly making their way into the downed ship on Kenari. The kid is Cassian, and we see more of the strangely yellow-skinned figures inside wearing suits with the Imperial Emblem on it. The ship itself appears pretty industrial with a central command bridge filled with various oscillating monitors. A central bank of consoles surrounded by clean mirror-like black surface. We switch back to the dusty mining yards after young Kassa bashes the side of the console. He's waiting for someone. So, quickly I looked it up, the people with the yellowed skin are Republic soldiers which makes their death all the more strange. The man from early, Luthen exists from his transport and meets up with Bix. This is interesting, as we switch to the Pre-Mor fucks coming in out of hyperspace. We switch to Maarva and CLem Andor preparing to salvage the frigate. The kid they find is Kassa, and as we switch back to the weird LAAT like ships coming into the space above the town on Ferrix. This scene as the Pre-Mor Sec goons start looking switches places with Clem and Maarva. She's able to sedate the kid as the Republic Frigate is close to appearing. The Security goons appear at Maarva's place of residence and push after announcing they have a warrant. Bix pops back up at work where her friend Timm stalks off a bit sus. Mosk is going off the deep in with his bully-boys. They detect where Cassian is hiding just as Luthen arrives in the warehouse. The pretty orange and teal blue outfits of the Pre-Mor sec teams stands outa gainst the duller browns and yellows of the people of Ferrix. The darker browns and reds of the buildings also makes them stand out more than a sore thumb. A friend of Bix alerts her that the Corpos are there for Cassian as the rat reveals himself. Kerabast, Timm, you damn fool. Luthen asks cassian where he got his gadget, and Kassa being the foolish impatient bastard just pushes for more money. He wants to know how Cassian got the box, he's either a fucking spy or he's too good for his own good.  Cassian scoffs at how easy it is to fool the damn Imperials. Luthen points out that his life isn't going to stay the same and he mentions how Clem was hanged. Again, Kerabast. Luthen invites Cassian to join his little OPA, I MEAN REBEL cell, and suddenly we are in the town center. Several citizens begin to bang on things to warn rest of the town that the Corpos are there. Mosk calls it intimidation, but the fool likely knows its a warning. If they can get to the bell ringer to sound out a warning everyone on Ferrix including the rebels will know. Corpos have them surrounded as Bix runs ahead of them to find Cassian and is stopped by a Corpo officer. In the old factory Luthe is working out an exit plan as he explodes some slap charges. This start a minor chain reaction with corpo team going down as the team enters with what's left and starts firing. Parts keep falling as Cassian hyperfixates on the box. Dodging bits of metal as men are being harmed and killed. Another corpo goes down as the last one shoots from above. The scene itself is well acted and timed. The falling debris adds a great level of tension as the entire factory comes down around them. They escape out of the factory as the last of the team is likely dead. Luthe and Cassian make their getaway as the younger man asks why they don't go for the box. Timm heads in to free Bix and one of the corpos shoots him. As the shooter is set away by the CO Bix is left with Timm's corpse on the steps. You can really see how Mosk is just a damn weekend milita-goer with his actions. Meanwhile, Karn pops into a room and scares off its inhabitants as we switch back and forth between all of the team. Maarva warns the corpo about what the banging actually means. "When its stops." All of the clanging ends, as all of the town goes quiet. The Sec corpos rush around taking up positions as you cans ee they aren't use to actual combat. Syril finds Cassian with a blaster pointed at his behind him. Luthen calls for Karn's life and Cassian grabs him as soon as he's able to make a call. The corpo who shot Timm is killed when he tries to launch the od and finds it weighed down. The Clanging was a way for the locals to work together to end the corpos. One comes upon Karn whose been tied up, as one of the speeders has been rigged with explosives. An old Ford-looking piece acting as a decoy and drawing the fire of the Pre-Mor Sec. They surround it after it crashes, with Mosk laughing and three of the men getting caught in another blast. Cass and Luthe speed off on a swoopbike leaving the corpos realizing their actions were all foolish and gungho. Switching back to t memories of Maarva we see her crying as she thinks of how she found Kassa and rescued him from Kenari. He himself just trying to find his sister. Bix meanwhile saved from being handcuffed and reaches for Timm only to be dragged off. We see the people of Ferrix in pain and the swoop darts off into the sunset. Karn stares into nothing realizing his foolish actions at listening to Mosk got his loyal men killed. That his actions while maybe correct were just the actions of a mall cop at playing tin soldier. We enter Luthe's snhip as starts to lift off and see the old ANdor ship doing the same. Cassian awakes on it to see the last visage of his planet. We get a swell of the music as Maarva watches them and suddenly we are back in the present and Cassian watches as they leave Ferrix. Hottakes:

The Twi'lek dancer holo in the pleasure house is a good example of how the galaxy sexualizes them.

I like  the style of the blue light and strange usage of triangular walk ways.

The fact this story seems to hinge on him finding his sister is a good lead into his reasons for being a Rebellion Spy.

The two men who followed him were the same kind of fools to start this story.

Bix is a nice addition to SW's growing scrappy technician cast.

I do like that they are translating the Arabesh for us.

Cassian is definitely a desperate motherfucker.

Damn the security fucks are definitely a bit too MAGA for my tastes.

Luthen has a definitely interesting vibe to him.

The Pre-Mor guys are all definitely similar to fucking Imperials with their corporate outfits and armor being straight out of Imperial Naval uniform design.

Their ship and shuttles even mimic the old LAAT gunships from the CLone Wars.

Timm's death was so fucking bittersweet, he ratted out Cassian and was shot for doing the right thing.

Watching the guy who killed Timm crash was cathartic.

[johnhardinsawyer]

"We Didn't Know At the Time. . ."

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

3 / 24 / 24 – Palm/Passion Sunday

Psalm 118:19-29

John 12:12-19

“We Didn’t Know At the Time. . .”

(Wandering Heart – Week 6)

“His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.” (John 12:16)

We didn’t know at the time. . . how it was all going to go. . .  We had been traveling with Jesus for a while – some of us for several years.  We had been up North, hundreds of miles away from the city of Jerusalem, and Jesus had told us that he was going to end up going to Jerusalem.  He also told us that when he got there, he was going to suffer, and die, and be raised again.[1]  We sure didn’t like the “suffer and die” part and we sure didn’t know what the “raised again” part meant.  We didn’t know at the time how it was all going to go when Jesus rode into the city. . . but now we know.

We didn’t know at the time. . . who would be there. . .  We were used to people following Jesus.  I mean, we followed Jesus.  But we were used to crowds of people following him.  

Just a few days before we got to the outskirts of the city, we had been down in the ancient town of Jericho.  Jesus had met a man named Zacchaeus – a little fellow, a Tax Collector – and Jesus invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ house.  Everyone else was scandalized.  Here was this great teacher and rabbi, going to the house of a sinner!  We were used to things like this happening.  Jesus was always spending time with “the wrong people,” but somehow, when he went on his way, all of the “wrong people” had been made right with God and their neighbors.  The same thing happened to Zacchaeus.  “Today, salvation has come to the home of Zacchaeus. . .” Jesus said, “for the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:9-10)  

On the way out of Jericho, there were two blind men crying out, “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!” (Matthew 20:30)  They kept yelling it out and Jesus was moved by compassion and healed them.  They joined the crowd and followed Jesus up the mountain to Jerusalem, along with the rest of us.  

When we got up the mountain, we arrived at the village of Bethany.  This is where our friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived.  Now, we had gotten word that Lazarus was sick, but by the time we got to the village, we learned that Lazarus had died.  Everyone was so sad, but Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” (John 11:25) and then he went to the tomb.  Everyone was crying and even Jesus began to weep when he saw everyone else crying.[2]  Jesus loved Lazarus – we all still do.  But when he said, “Roll away the stone!” (11:39) and “Lazarus, come out!” (11:43) Lazarus – who had been dead – came out, alive.  

We didn’t know at the time who would be there when Jesus rode into the city, but now we know that it was everyone who had heard about Lazarus[3], plus two formerly-blind men from Jericho, plus people who had been tax collectors and people who had been sick, and untouchable, and even dead. . .  We didn’t know at the time who would be there when Jesus rode into the city. . . but now we know.  

We didn’t know at the time. . . how it would happen. . .  When we were in Bethany, Jesus sent a couple of us to go and borrow a donkey – a colt that had never been ridden.[4]  “If anyone tries to stop you,” Jesus said, “just say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”  (Luke 19:31-34)  And sure enough, here they came with the donkey – the colt that no one had ever ridden. Most of us didn’t know at the time what the prophet Zechariah had said long ago, 

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!   Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!   Your king is coming!   A good king who makes things right,  a humble king riding a donkey, a  mere colt of a donkey.’[5]” 

Long ago, back in the time of King David, kings didn’t ride horses.  Nobody rode horses at the time.  Instead, the king of Israel would ride a mule – a donkey.[6]  

And, when Jesus began riding down the hill – down from Bethany on the Mount of Olives into the valley below, he could see the whole city, laid out before him:  there was the huge Temple with the Roman fortress right beside it.  There were the crowded streets, already filled with people who were there for the festival.  The hill, there, is steep.  Walking down the Mount of Olives into the valley below caused our legs to burn and our sandals to slap the cobblestones – but Jesus rode like the king he is.  

Partway down the hill, he stopped – the whole procession stopped.  And Jesus looked at the city.  And he began to cry.  And he said, “If you, O Jerusalem, even you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!  But now they are hidden from your eyes. . .” (Luke 19:42). Alas, times have not changed. . . 

We didn’t know at the time what Jesus meant. . . We didn’t know how it would all go. . . But now we know. . . 

We didn’t know at the time. . . what would happen that week. . .  Jesus rode into the city with crowds of people chanting, and singing, and waving palm branches[7] and throwing their cloaks on the ground[8] to keep the hooves of his borrowed donkey from touching the dirt.  “Hosanna!” they shouted.  “Lord, help!  Lord, save!  Help us – save us – we pray!”[9]  “We did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then we remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.” (John 12:16)[10]  

Jesus rode up – out of the valley – and into the city and went straight to the Temple where he cleared out the money-changers.  “My Father’s house is supposed to be a house of prayer, but you have made it a place where robbers and thieves feel at home,” (Luke 19:46)[11] Jesus shouted.  He then spent time teaching in the Temple under the angry and watchful gaze of the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people.  These were the very people, he had told us, who would cause him to suffer and die.  They were looking for a way to kill him but all the other people were spellbound by what they heard.  Jesus was just that good.  

The chief priests and scribes tried to trap Jesus with arguments about the law and the prophets, but Jesus was just too smart for them and he side-stepped their verbal traps.  So, they decided to spring a physical trap.  

Somehow, they got one of our own – a man named Judas – to betray Jesus.  It happened on Thursday night – after we had eaten the Passover meal and after Jesus had washed our feet and told us to serve others in a similar way.  Jesus went to pray in a garden – outside the city walls, not far from where he had stopped to weep over the city – and that’s where they came to get him.  Judas led the Temple Guards and he kissed Jesus, giving him away, and Jesus was arrested.  The very thought that Judas would use a physical act of love to deceive and betray. . . it makes my blood boil.  At first, some of us wanted to fight – I even drew a sword – but then we all ran away. . .  When our friend Mark tells the story of that awful night, he mentions one of us, who ran right out of his clothes, trying to get away.[12]  Most of us had left everything behind to follow Jesus, but on that awful night, we left everything behind to get away from him.[13]

We didn’t know at the time. . . what would happen that week, but now we know.  And most of us are not too proud of how we acted.

We didn’t know at the time. . . how we would feel. . .  When Jesus rode into the city, we expected great things:  liberation, healing, justice, righteousness, power, and glory.  Everyone was excited, or so we thought.  When things took a bad turn and it didn’t turn out how we thought, we felt so confused.  We did not know that Jesus’ liberation and healing, justice and righteousness, power and glory would not come through some triumphant overthrow of earthly authorities.  

We didn’t know at the time that there could be any other way. . . but now we know that Jesus – in love, through love, by love – would humbly offer himself for the life of the world. . .  for all of us, no matter who we are.  Jesus liberates us from sin and death.  Jesus heals our broken spirits.  Jesus makes things just and right – between us and God, and between us and one another.  Jesus shows us that the greatest power we have is to serve others in loving self-sacrifice and any glory we may receive in this life comes from and belongs to God.  

We aren’t always going to get things right, but Jesus has already gotten it right and is at work on us and in us and through us through the Holy Spirit.  We won’t always know at the time that this Holy work is taking place right before our eyes, but all will be revealed.  We will know, in full, just as we are fully known by the One whose love for us knows no end.  

We didn’t know it at the time, on that day when Jesus rode into the city to cries of “Hosanna!” and palm branches being waved. . . but now we know. . . 

Now we know. . .

Thanks be to God!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

-------

[1] See Matthew 16:21 and 20:18-19.

[2] See John 11:35.

[3] See John 12:17.

[4] See Luke 19:30, ff.

[5] Eugene Peters, The Message: Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002) 1312. Zechariah 9:9.

[6] See 1 Kings 1:33, 2 Samuel 13:29, 18:9.

[7] The Gospel of John is the only version of the Palm Sunday story that mentions palms (see John 12:13).  

[8] See Matthew 21:8, Mark 11:8, and Luke 19:36.

[9] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 899.

[10] Paraphrased, JHS.

[11] Paraphrased, JHS.

[12] See Mark 14:51.

[13] An interesting perspective from Abraham Kuruvilla, someone I might not normally read: https://voice.dts.edu/article/who-was-that-young-man-kuruvilla-abraham/

[beaujagr]

life paths I couldn't take

it's wild sometimes the way things go

I traveled to Rhode Island with my spouse, where he grew up when very young, and we stopped by Brown and RISD. As a pre-teen and teen, I'd planned for years to try to attend Brown for archaeology. I even knew the neighborhood I'd like to look for an apartment at, I'd mapped my way through the whole college. John, had he not moved here, would likely have attended RISD if he had the chance.

Neither of us ended up having those paths - I had to give up archaeology because of health and money, and getting married early when John was going to deploy changed a lot of plans. Even though I applied to Brown and a few other colleges, most rejected me, and the letters I did get back about interviews went to my parents' house, and my mom kept them until I was in my 30s and never told me about them. It was a dream, and had different things happened, maybe my life would have been different, but I also know I could never have afforded to go to school there, and I would have failed out of archaeology just like everything else.

Weeks before, I'd attended my other partner's dad's wedding in Vermont. They live in this super rural, private place with a big house connected to the garage with a deck, surrounded by trees, and it's quiet as hell - definitely along the lines of the kind of living space I would prefer, tho I like desert quiet most. But the wedding was the hardest part.

When John and I got married, I originally wanted an outside wedding, nonreligious, no kids in attendance, with a nice open space. We got married in March with a month to plan, so it snowed and his dad (a Baptist minister) performed the ceremony, we had it in a church with a VFW for the reception, and my mom still was basically running the show since I was 18 and we were broke so they decided there would be kids, that religion was a part of it no matter what, and there wasn't any pretty field or landscape for me to be married in. I was happy to marry John, but many of the guests are people who had already been hurtful toward me, and were hurtful to me afterwards.

When Thomas and I had our commitment ceremony, it was just the two of us at standing stones in Burlington, VT. It was very beautiful, but we didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have anyone there to witness, and it was brief. My photos are super dark from it and no one else even really knows about it, even though I wrote a little ritual game about it.

In both of these cases, I was still not really presenting as myself, either, because I hadn't come out before the first one and hadn't started T for the second one.

Thomas's dad's wedding was almost all adults, mostly nonreligious in the presentation (no church, no sermon, etc.), and on a beautiful alpaca farm in Vermont with all their family and friends there to support them and be happy with them. Behind the ceremony, you could see the mountains and clouds with god rays shining down, fields of wildflowers, and the big building for the reception was lit up with beautiful lights and had animals running around outside before it stormed just as we all got inside to have dinner.

I would have done anything to have a wedding like that. I think if I'd had more time, maybe some of it would be possible. But I don't even know who I would invite anymore, and I know neither of my partners is big on the whole redoing the ceremony thing, and it's not like we could ever afford something that nice.

It's hard to express that I am not regretful of who I chose to be with or of the choices I made to keep being with them, nor do I regret making the choices when I did, but that I wish sometimes that I could have fulfilled my dreams and still been able to be with them. the reality is tho, I likely would never have achieved those dreams. No perfect wedding would have happened, my chances at a career and an education that I wanted ended up failing even when I realigned anyway.

It hurts a lot sometimes. I cried at the wedding because I knew I'd never have that experience. I cried after going to Brown because it's just another thing I never got to experience and do, another thing I failed to succeed at and achieve. That hurts, even if I love my partners and want to be with them more than I wanted those things, and still more than I want those things now. I just want to get to have dreams that are possible, and that can happen.

[angryschnauzer]

He’s A Keeper

Summary: Working as an artist hired by Durrell Zoo, you spend your days sketching the day to day life of the animals and the keepers. One keeper in particular catches your eye.

Pairing: AU Zookeeper Henry Cavill x Female Reader (no race or size mentioned)

Fandom: Henry Cavill

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Friends to Lovers, Oral Sex (Female Receiving), Fingering, Safe Sex/Use of Condoms, Realistic Sex/Relationship discussion, Vaginal Sex.

Typo’s are allowed to run wild and free, only the finest organic free range fuck ups for me.

I do not operate a tag list, but if you follow @angryschnauzerwrites​ and hit ‘notifications’, you’ll get an alert every time i post something new. Back catalogue/masterlist can be found there and also on AO3

He’s A Keeper

Working the pencils over the sketchpad you quietly captured the beauty of the animals the zookeepers had nursed back to full health, the Ruffed Lemur currently hanging off the keepers arm as he spoke through the headset to the group of excited school children watching through the glass. 

You’d been hired by the zoo to capture day to day life at the zoo throughout the summer season, drawing the animals and the humans, however there was one particular human you had found yourself drawn to numerous times, and that was the rather tasty zookeeper by the name of Henry. He also had one of the sexiest voices you’d ever had the pleasure to listen to, so as he explained about the Lemur’s your mind wandered, as did your gaze;

“... originally from Madagascar, and have been part of Durrell zoo since 1982 where they have been essential to the breeding program…”

Your mind fell even further into the gutter at the word ‘breeding’, your eyes raking down Henry’s body, taking in how the branded t-shirt clung to his chest before tapering down to a narrow waist where it was neatly tucked into cargo pants that did little to hide how thick his thighs were and a pert arse you could bounce a satsuma off of. Biting the end of the pencil you had all but given up drawing, only realising that the talk was over when the group of school children were being herded onto the next exhibit by their tour guide and teachers.

When the kids had disappeared you finally got back to drawing, watching as Henry finished up feeding the Lemur’s before he met your gaze and smiled at you. Tapping your pencil on the glass he frowned and shook his head, before smiling and pointing to the sign in the corner of the window that said ‘do not tap the glass’, getting closer you tried to mouth your words to him, but was surprised when his eyes went wide in almost shock, before looking down and realising you had pressed your chest to the glass, your low cut cami top helping to accentuate your cleavage. When you looked up again he was gone and you let out a sigh of disappointment, before he appeared through a door to the side of the viewing area;

“Hi” he had a smile that could charm the panties off a nun; “Did you want me?”

“God yes…” Oh fuck, did you say that out loud?; “Sorry, i mean, you’ve dropped the foam bit off your headset...”

He glanced into the enclosure just at the moment one of the larger Lemur’s picked up the small round piece of foam and staring straight at Henry, proceeded to rip it into tiny pieces.

“Furry little fucker…” he cursed under his breath before turning back to you, but before he could say anything a group of other keepers came walking in and soon you were hanging onto the periphery of their conversation where they were discussing going for drinks after work. Moving to pack your stuff up as you presumed they weren’t including you, but a call of your nickname drew your attention;

“Hey Da Vinci, you up for a few beers after work?”

You hesitated to answer, glancing at Henry who had a smile across his face and a hopeful look in his eye;

“We’re all going…”

“Ok, yeah sure, that’d be great” you agreed. 

-

An hour later you were sitting on the wall outside the main entrance waiting for the rest of the keepers to finish their shifts, smiling as you saw them coming out of the doors, and the ensuing 10 minutes that followed as people sorted out who was driving and how many people could fit into just a couple of small cars. As spaces were allocated Henry laughed and shook his head;

“I am NOT riding five up in a Renault Clio, i’m too tall, i’ll have to fold myself in half! Where are we going anyway, i can take my bike and just walk home after”

Waiting as everyone discussed location and finished off seat allocation, they’d finally decided when Henry turned to you;

“Hey, i think the last seats are in the stoner wagon…”

“Oh…” you didn’t have anything against anyone smoking pot, but didn’t fancy being in a car you could barely see out of the windows of.

“But you can ride with me on my bike?”

Looking to where Henry was pointing, you saw a fairly large trails bike, the kind that could go 50mph over rough land and through forests;

“I… I don’t have a helmet…”

“Wait here, let me run into the locker room and grab the spare i keep here”

Everyone else pulled away as Henry ran into the zoo, and you glanced at the bike. You’d never been on a motorbike before, so this would be a first. Stowing everything loose in your backpack, you hooked it over both shoulders just as Henry reemerged from the building, swinging his keys from one finger as he came to stand in front of you;

“Hey, thanks for waiting”

“No worries! So, where are we going again?”

“The pub in Rozel does good food and pulls a great pint” he nodded to his left and you saw a row of motorbikes; “You ever ridden?”

Shaking your head you laughed; “No, never”

He carefully helped you put the helmet on, his nimble fingers helping to secure the strap beneath your chin before putting his own on and climbing onto the bike, pushing it off the kick stand and nodding for you to climb on. You tried to sit back, but he wrapped his arm behind his back and pulled you flush to his body;

“Gotta hold on tight, otherwise you’ll throw the balance off. Lean when i lean and just squeeze a bit harder if you’re scared, the ride won’t take long” he shouted over the thrum of the noisy engine idling.

The ride down to the small village of Rozel had been exhilarating, from the vibration of the motorbike between your legs to the way you were able to wrap your arms around Henry’s waist and cling to him as he hurtled around the country roads at what seemed like warp speed, when in fact it was little more than 30mph. By the time you arrived in the small fishing cove your heart was racing and you actually let out a reluctant moan at the thought of removing your arms from around Henry’s waist.

“C’mon” he grinned as he helped you off the bike; “I’ll buy you a vodka and coke to calm your nerves”

“It wasn’t nerves” you muttered to yourself, smirking as you know he heard you.

-

The group had managed to find a cluster of small tables chairs and benches in the corner of the pub beer garden, and as the sun had set behind the hills to the rear of the pub, the cold Atlantic sea had glowed in pale blues and pinks. You were squashed into a bench with Henry on one side and another enormous hulk of a keeper on the other, and as the temperature had dropped you’d found yourself thankful that Henry had casually rested his arm behind you so you could leech some of his warmth, but it didn’t stop a violent shiver involuntarily running up your spine.

“Cold?” Henry asked quietly, before gently wrapping his arm around your shoulder and pulling you close; “Any better?”

You nodded and let out a very quiet whine as you smiled at him, completely surrounded by his scent and warmth. It made your stomach do a flip and you clenched your thighs together, something that didn’t get past Henry as your leg twitched against his thigh. Before either of you could say anything an enormous bowl of cheesy fries was set down between you, your stomach growling at the aroma’s that wafted around you as it turned out someone had ordered sharing bowls for the whole table.

With the meal mostly devoured as you’d sat side by side on a small wooden bench in the pub garden, laughing as you fed each other and strings of cheese hung from your fingers. As the giggles of a joke faded away you glanced at Henry’s almost finished pint;

“Hey, you aren’t planning on riding that bike home are you?”

“Nah, i’d never drive after a pint, let alone three… my place is just behind The Navigator restaurant…” he paused; “Oh god, where are you staying, do i need to call you a taxi?”

“No no, i’m renting a studio up the hill, on the hairpin bend”

“Oh…” 

It wasn’t a bad ‘oh’ and there was definitely something loaded in the subtext, so when people had started to leave and arrange ride’s back to St Helier and St Johns it felt natural for Henry to stand with his arm around your shoulders as you both waved everyone off.

“Can i walk you home?” he asked, his voice low and full of promise, and you nodded as he slid his hand into yours, leading you along the low coast road that skirted the harbour.

-

You hadn’t gotten far before the evening turned even better, a brief suggestion of a walk along the beach as the tide was out soon had your feet in soft sand as you were pressed to the weathered stone of the sea wall, Henry’s lips on your neck as your fingers dug into his back, his teeth nipping and biting at whatever exposed flesh he could find. You hadn’t even realised he was going lower until he was on his knees in front of you, those sea blue irises staring up at you as he pressed kisses to your legs where your shorts ended. His fingers softly rested on the button and he finally spoke, his voice low and thick with lust;

“May i?”

Nodding fervently you bit your lip as you watched him slowly unbutton you, pulling the garment down your legs until you were able to step out. Never breaking eye contact he lifted your leg and gently rested it on his shoulder, pressing open mouthed kisses up your inner thigh until his face was pressed against your panties and his wide tongue worked against the soaked cotton and lace. His finger crooked beneath them and tugged the scrap of fabric to the side, seeking out your clit before tracing down to your cunt and tenderly teasing the entrance.

“Henry… please…” you whined, desperate for more

“Don’t you worry, i’m gonna make you see stars…”

Pushing his head forwards his lips caught your clit as he slowly slid two fingers into your soaked channel. You let out a long groan at the feel of his lips and fingers finding the right spot immediately, his other hand cupping the back of your thigh before he ran it around your hip and caught your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours as he quickly drove you closer and closer to the edge with that added touch of intimacy. Suddenly he hummed against your clit and the world exploded, making you cum so hard you truly did see stars as a white heat bloomed in your belly and you rode Henry’s fingers until you were spent.

As you rested against the wall behind you he carefully withdrew his fingers, licking them clean as he tugged your shorts up your legs. You couldn’t help but to notice the obscene bulge in the front of his cargo pants, your hand rubbing over the smooth curve of it;

“You keep doing that and i’ll cum in my boxers… “ he panted out, his lips inches from yours; “What’s your room like?”

“Its a little summer cabin studio right at the end of the garden, away from the other holiday rentals and the main house… what about you…”

“Shared flat with two other guys from the zoo. They’re probably drinking in the lounge right now… so, your place?”

-

Unlocking the door you stepped inside and turned on a small lamp, standing aside so Henry could come into your small summer living space.

“Mmm nice” he nodded and looked around; “Wanna give me the tour?”

You snorted out a laugh at the formality, and held your arm out;

“Well this is the kitchen area, right next door we have the smallest shower room in Jersey, and here’s the bed” you didn’t need to take a single step for the ‘tour’, the room seeming even smaller as Henry took a single stride and wrapped his arm around your back, pulling you flush with his chest. Never breaking eye contact he gently trailed a single finger over your cheek, his thumb brushing your plump bottom lip;

“Are you going to be good for me?”

Your legs almost buckled at the deep baritone of his voice, igniting something within you that you hadn’t even known existed, eagerly nodding;

“Yes Sir”

Lowering his lips to yours he kissed you, his tongue pushing past your lips as he took control, walking the pair of you back until your legs hit the bed and you fell back onto the soft unmade covers. Covering your body with his, he quickly stripped you of your clothing, his mouth trailing behind his hands so every inch of you was gifted with a kiss. 

Standing between your legs he pulled his t-shirt over his head and you couldn’t help but to moan at the sight of his body; toned and just the right amount of hair on his chest and a treasure trail on his abdomen that surely led to untold riches. Quickly sitting up your hands joined his on his button to his cargo pants;

“May i?”

Henry released his hands and nodded, watching as you carefully plucked the button before lowering the zipper painfully slowly, his boxers tented obscenely and you couldn’t help but to cup him in your palm, the searing heat of his engorged cock a welcome feel in your hands, the wide mushroom head clearly visible through the stretched fabric. Unceremoniously tugging the rest of his clothing down, you felt yourself getting wetter as his beautiful cock was finally revealed; big, thick and uncut, you had to taste him and quickly ducked your head forwards, swallowing his head between your lips as his hands flew to your hair to steady himself.

Now it was your turn to drive him crazy with your mouth, taking him as deep as you could even though it was barely half of his length, you wrapped both hands around what was left, the thick root of his shaft filling both palms. A few more pumps and he pulled his hips back with a gasp, a trail of spittle hanging from your lips to his bulbous tip;

“If you keep doing that i’m gonna cum far too soon…” he said, his voice shaking; “Lay back and let me treat you right…”

Scooting up the bed you settled against the pillows as you watched Henry shed himself of the rest of his clothing, his boots and socks hooked off, cargo pants and underwear all left in a messy pile at the side of the bed, before he crawled up the mattress like a Panther stalking its prey.

Capturing your lips for another searing kiss, you felt his hot shaft against your belly, burning against your skin and you so desperately wanted to feel him inside you. Pulling away just slightly you were already breathless;

“Just a second…” reaching for the small drawer at side of the bed you pulled out an unopened box of condoms, Henry sitting back on his knees as you ripped the box’s cellophane open with your teeth and pulled out a small foil packet, tearing it open before smoothing the latex over Henry’s shaft. Looking up to his face he wore a rather sheepish smile;

“Sorry, shoulda’ thought of that”

“S’ok, a girl’s gotta keep sharp these days…”

“Right…” he met your gaze; “But you know, if you had gotten pregnant, i would have stood by you”

“Umm thanks? But its for STD’s. I’m on the pill”

“Oh… good thinking…”

A tense pause hung over the pair of you, before you reached up and rested your hand on his chest;

“Shall we continue?”

At your words the tension in the room suddenly dissipated, Henry kissing you as he slid a hand between your bodies so he could position himself at your entrance, groaning as he pushed in slowly breaching your body. Your tight channel hugged him tight, unfamiliar with such a size splitting your walls so he paused, pressing light kisses to your face as your body grew accustomed with his size and the heavy weight of his dick in your pillowy soft embrace. Finally you moaned out his name;

“Henry… please…”

“What do you need?”

“Move… please move. Fuck me, please”

Pushing up on his forearms he started to fluidly move his hips, slow and steady, each thrust was gentle but firm, your body yielding to him as he started to increase the pace, the sound of hot bodies meeting filling the small wooden cabin as the gentle sounds of the sea not far away filled the rest of the night. Soft moans spilled from your lips at the feel of his body playing yours like a delicate instrument, waiting for the chorus and the inevitable crescendo. But he was going to play the entire symphony first, knowing how to get you to sing the high notes as the thrum of your bodies were in tune with each other completely.

With the stretch of his girth and the way the curve of it meant he was able to find your g-spot with every thrust you were fast approaching your orgasm, your body trembling as your lips found a life of their own;

“Henry… please, so good… keep doing that… oh god, i’m gonna cum…”

“That’s it, my good girl, cum on my cock, let me feel you squeezing me so tight… feel so amazing right now… that’s it, you can do it…”

With a cry you came, your legs wrapped around his waist as you pulled him deep whilst your body shook with a fierce orgasm, triggering his own as he pumped a heavy load into the condom.

Finally spent, Henry settled on top of you, his weight a heavy comfort as your sweaty bodies lay skin to skin, the gentle roughness of his chest hair against your naked breasts a tender reminder of his virility. When he started to soften he finally shifted, holding the condom at the base as he pulled out and staggered the few steps to your small bathroom;

“I’ll be back in a second, gotta sort this out…”

The door closed and you shifted on the bed, pulling the duvet back and sliding between the sheets, listening as you heard the tell tale sound of a man urinating and the high pitched, double barrelled squeak of a fart. The flush of the toilet and water running soon after meant you knew the second he would reappear, a flannel in his hand and he stopped dead, his cheeks suddenly bright crimson;

“You heard that didn’t you?”

“It's a small wooden cabin… yes i did”

“Sorry” he approached the bed and with a warm flannel he carefully cleaned between your thighs, pressing a kiss to your lips as he did. When finished he sat on the side of the bed; “Can i stay the night, or did you want me to go?”

“Have you got work tomorrow?”

“Nope. You?”

“Nope. Please, stay”

He quickly threw the flannel into the sink in the bathroom, before with a giggle climbed under the duvet and pulled you into his arms;

“So, how many more condom’s you got?”

-

The morning light broke softly through the trees that surrounded your cabin, your body sore but sated, knowing every bruise and ache came from soft lips, sharp teeth, or skilled fingers, apart from that one ache deep inside that you knew exactly what had caused that delicious soreness, and the owner and cause of all of it still softly slept in your bed. Climbing out you quickly used the bathroom, and as you came back into the room the artist in you couldn’t help but to admire how the dappled morning light cascaded over Henry’s body. Slipping his work t-shirt over your head you pulled your sketchbook from your backpack and settled onto the only chair in the room, quietly working carbon to paper.

Henry woke 45 minutes later, the gentle scratching of your art making him squint at the bright daylight, before laying back on the pillows with his arms spread;

“Still life class?”

Setting your sketchbook down you padded across the room and climbed onto the bed;

“Sorry, i couldn’t help myself… the way the sun was hitting the muscles of your back and shoulders, you were like an anatomy masterpiece”

With a laugh and moving much quicker than you thought he was possible of, he grabbed you by the waist and turned you, his body atop of yours;

“Well that’s enough of that, i would like to become better acquainted with your anatomy… and as we’ve both got the day off i suggest we make the most of it”

Laughing you fell into his embrace, sighing with happiness. Henry really was a keeper, as you were for sure not going to let him go.