#remember we don't support rainbow corporates

[yoikami]

I can't be super masc but there's some things I can do 🥰

[nerdygaymormon]

Happy Pride

I want to wish a Happy Pride to:

Green Carnations

In 1892, Oscar Wilde had some of his friends wear a green carnation on their left lapels to the opening night of his show. An elegant and witty character in the play—who paralleled real-life Oscar Wilde—wore a carnation as part of his costume. Why green? It was an unnatural color for a carnation, Wilde chose this since it was said that homosexuality was unnatural. The green carnation became associated with Wilde and his flamboyant friends, and spread as a secret code to show others that you're gay.

"Be Gay, Do Crime"

The slogan "Be gay, do crime" has existed since at least 2011. The slogan suggests that crime and incivility may be necessary to earn equal rights given the criminalization of homosexuality around the world and a reminder that the Stonewall uprising was a riot. The slogan stands in contrast to the polished, corporate version of contemporary Pride, and shows that queerness has always been transgressive, regardless of its legal status. Part of being queer is being willing to push boundaries and protect one's self from the law since we have traditionally been attacked by it.

Peppermint Patty and Marcie

Peppermint Patty defied traditional gender norms. She played all sorts of sports at a time when it wasn't common for girls to do so. All the other female characters wore dresses, but Patty wears a t-shirt, shorts and sandals and the only other female character not to wear dresses is Marcie.

Peppermint Patty regularly flirts with Charlie Brown and has a strong bond with Marcie. While we don't know for sure, it certainly seems that Peppermint Patty is bi and her best friend Marcie is a lesbian.

I can imagine Peppermint Patty organizing the school's GSA or an all-inclusive dance, and loudly calling out any queerphobia. I like thinking of Patty getting a man's suit from a thrift store and going to Prom where she dances with both Marcie and Charlie Brown

Absolut Vodka

In 1979, Absolut entered the American market, but sales were slow. In 1981, Absolut starting targeting the LGBTQ consumer with the idea this group are trendsetters. Since 1981, Absolut has had print ads in queer magazines, sponsored events in gay bars, donated more than $40 million to queer charities and causes, sponsors the GLAAD Media Awards, and numerous major LGBTQ events in the US annually. Absolut has commissioned many openly gay artists to create ads, such as Andy Warhol, Nereyda Garcia Ferraz, David Spada, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf. Supporting the queer community in 1981 was risky, but they have invested in the community and earned loyalty in return.

Pink Triangle

In the 1930s and 40s, just as Nazi Germany required Jews in the concentration camps to wear a yellow star of David, gay men, bi men, and trans women had to wear a downward-pointing triangle on their chest. The symbol was reclaimed in the 1970's by the queer liberation movement as a symbol against homophobia, and then was adopted widely by the LGBTQ community. The community took this symbol from the holocaust to show we are stronger than the worst done to us.

The pink triangle has largely been replaced by the rainbow Pride flag, and a reason for this is explaining why a pink triangle is the symbol of the community required an explanation of its dark past and therefore was about what others did to us rather than a symbol representing who we are and our hopes & aspirations. Although it isn't used much anymore, it's important to remember the pink triangle as the first widely-adopted visual symbol of the queer community

Ace & Aro Rings

Beginning in 2005, wearing a black ring on the middle finger of your right hand became a way for people to signify their asexuality. The material and design of the ring are not important as long as it is primarily black. It’s about carrying a reminder on our hands that there are others like us, and it's a way to identify each other. A white ring on the left hand of the middle finger is the aro equivalent.

Eyebrow Slits

Eyebrow slits was a trend in the hip hop community in the 1990's and called "eyebrow cuts." The trend fell out of style, but was brought back in the 2010's by some male artists and models as an edgy fashion statement. Lesbians quickly adopted this trend, perhaps as a way of showing they aren't beholden to gendered fashion rules, and it quickly grew in popularity on social media as a way for members of the queer community to express themselves and signal to each other. It seems natural that a fashion style containing an underlying rebelliousness appeals to a group who are marginalized by society. The eyebrow slit trend largely has faded except among the LGBTQ+ community, and so has become associated with us.

Nautical Star Tattoos

For centuries, sailors would get tattoos, often of images with symbolic meanings, such as the nautical star (which represents the North Star) which was believed to ensure a sailor’s safe return home. In the 1940s and 50s, lesbians were navigating the choppy waters of societal norms and expectations, and this five-pointed star tattoo became their compass, helping them find others like themselves. They'd get this tattoo on the inner wrist because it could be covered by a watch strap during the day, allowing women to hide their identity when necessary for their safety or professional lives, but could reveal it in safe spaces. This symbol was revived in the 1970's and is still used by some to this day.

Online "Am I Gay?" Quizzes

A common experience of people who are gay, bi, and pan, is they find an online quiz that will ask a few questions and then determine whether you are gay, or will reveal how gay you are (as though this can be graded like a school test). Sometimes the questions are lighthearted, while others try to be more serious. Here's the thing, more than any quiz results, searching for this type of quiz is probably the biggest indicator that a person experiences attraction to people of their same gender. It can be helpful for someone to have a "confirmation" of how they're feeling, and thus these "am I gay" quizzes will remain a rite of passage many.

Subaru

In the early 1990's, Subaru was struggling. Sales of their dependable but plain cars were in decline. Subaru knew teachers, healthcare professionals, IT professionals, and the outdoorsy types bought 1/2 their cars in America, and they targeted advertisements at those groups. Soon they realized there was yet another core group, lesbians were 4 times more likely than the average American to purchase a Subaru.

Subaru began printing advertisements that made subtle nods to lesbians in a way that slipped past the notice of other Americans, such as having the license plate "XENA LVR" on a car. Many ads had taglines with double meanings. "Get Out. And Stay Out" could refer to exploring the outdoors in a Subaru—or coming out as gay. "It’s Not a Choice. It’s the Way We’re Built" could refer to all Subarus coming with all-wheel-drive—or an LGBTQ identity.

Subaru noticed a group of customers and created ads for them, a group which often felt unwelcome and invisible. The campaign was so successful that it became a stereotype that lesbians drive Subarus, even leading to the word "Lesbaru." Polls show that the queer community views Subaru as the most queer-friendly brand.

[gryficowa]

If people boycotted companies that support Israel like they do when they change their logo to a rainbow…

It's fucking devastating the world we currently live in, a rainbow on a corporation's profile is worse than supporting genocide, yes, I also don't like companies that pretend to be pro-LGBT and then give money to anti-LGBT+ organizations, which doesn't change the fact that how to boycott it for everything that is bad, not just for what we bring to the fore

Remember the queer Palestinians who are murdered in cold blood by Israel, which does not kill them for being queer, but for being Palestinians, although Israel itself constantly lies that it supports LGBT+, when the truth is that it murders them because of their ethnicity or persecutes people. trans (What Eden showed at Eurovision towards Nemo)

Stop pinkwashing!

[cripplemagics]

idk if i'm in different circles now or what but i'm seeing a lot of negativity about pride as like. . . a month? mainly because people either 1. don't like rainbow capitalism or 2. just find it plain annoying because they're 'not THAT kind of gay.'

i get not liking rainbow capitalism. however if we keep tearing it down and getting mad at it it'll become easier for corporations to listen to bigots. and besides: for people who can't necessarily hide a package from a queer business but can hide shit in a target bag or whatever, rainbow capitalism is a way for them to still get pride goods. YES CORPORATIONS SHOULD OPENLY SUPPORT THE QUEER COMMUNITY ALL YEAR AROUND. but they're not gonna do that if we boo people about it.

on the 'i'm not THAT kind of gay' statement: i'm not sorry you feel uncomfortable around queer people who are happy and proud to be happy and queer. yes flamboyant people can be hard to be around if you're an introverted person (i am introverted so i get i really do) but like. . . why drag the concept of pride down just because you don't like people being loud about shit? we're celebrating the fact that our community has been torn down and torn apart and yet despite it all we're still here. its celebrating our history and what it took for us to get here where we have made progress.

and its a month to remember that there are other countries where queer people are still heavily oppressed to the point of being killed for being who they are and loving who they love. it's so much more than blasting gay anthems and twerking and waving flags. its still a time to protest against bigotry. and if we gotta riot again, so be it.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

When did it even become cool to be alternative in the first place?

2010s I'm gonna say. Corresponds with the rise of Marvel and Big Bang Theory making it cool to be "nerdy". You also gotta remember that, unlike original punk and metal subcultures, the 2000s emo/alt scene didn't really have any underlining political or social meaning. They were just sad teens who didn't fit in and liked the same music. Once you get out of high school, most people don't care what you wear or what music you listen to, so they were always more susceptible to becoming "mainstream". As for wider society, pretty much every mainstream group, from corporations to entertainers to artists made the same mistake Obama did when he was elected and assumed there was a massive cultural shift to the left happening. They eagerly adopted all the social justice slogans and threw their verbal support behind the right causes, and once that happened, the so-called counterculture became the mainstream. It absorbed those "alternative" adults because they never really had a cause. They identify with "marginalized" groups because they built their teen and young adult identities around being the outsider. So when all the groups they used to view with distrust--corporations, media, politicians--started saying "all these groups are oppressed" they ate it up and identified with them. Even when they didn't actually belong to any of those groups (which is also largely responsible for the rise of trenders and "non-binary" shit, because that's the easiest way to larp as an oppressed minority). But now that no one is going to call them out, suddenly the outcasts are the ones being pandered to from all sides. Bam. Instant coolness.

But that shift to the left never really happened, just like it didn't when Obama won his first term. At least not to the degree it was assumed. You can already see the tidal wave receding and the pendulum starting to swing back in the other direction. Last year during this time, we were celebrating "Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month". I don't think I saw a single bit of corporate virtue signaling that didn't use Latinx. This year, it's mostly been just Hispanic Heritage Month, with some adding on "where we celebrate hispanic, latino, and latina culture". Same with the pride flag. I think this was the first there wasn't a new pride flag that got picked up by the mainstream. Most went back to the usual rainbow flag when they did their corporate virtue signaling.

[quickdeaths]

(This post is scheduled and I am not here until later tonight, if at all, since today is my move-in day at my new apartment. Still, I couldn't let the first day of Pride pass without observation since Queer Content is one of the load-bearing pillars of this entire blog. General Pride content in two parts underneath the cut.)

Firstly, every character on this blog is queer in some way. Please acknowledge them, and feel free to send them whatever gay little asks you'd like.

Rio, Izumi, and Anzu are bisexual trans women. Shinobu is a trans lesbian. Tsubasa is a nonbinary lesbian. Maki is a cis lesbian. Yi-Chun, Hana, and Kiyomi are bisexual cis women. Maxi is a bisexual trans man. Kousuke is a gay cis man. Juste is a transfeminine pansexual. Persephone is a trans woman who is still figuring things out. Jason and Amour are bisexual cis men. Hela... look I don't know what her deal is but it isn't cishet probably.

Secondly, I know it might come off like a platitude, but I wish everyone a nice month and want you all to remember that you're valid. If you're worried that you're not enough or that you don't belong in the community because you don't go to parades or own tons of rainbow stuff, or because you're in a relationship or situation that doesn't seem queer right away, or because you lack the money or stability to express yourself as you want, or just because you're still trying to figure out who you are, I want you to know that you're loved, supported, and valid.

I know the world is scary right now, and I know that internet drama makes it seem like we should all be at each other's throats, but my hope for this month is that we don't let it become about which corporation feels like we're a marketable demographic, or what niche discourse dominates the internet, or which politician or influencer says some heinous, inflammatory shit, but rather the love and support that we can give each other. I'm very proud of all of you.

[roguesynapses]

Pink/Rainbow capitalism.

I support the liberation of queer people from oppression, abuse, heteronormativity, etc. For far too long all over the world, hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of queer people have been shunned, forced into suppressing themselves, arrested, killed, and all other manner of horrible things. It's a good thing that today we are finally and shakily heading towards acceptance.

But in some ways I think this movement of emancipation is being co-opted by those seeking greater profit. New markets to exploit. New people to pander to. New cultures to appropriate in order to sell more goods and services.

I think it's unfair to say we are only being accepted because the capitalist need for new markets/infinite growth in a finite space. It took centuries of blood, sweat, and tears for any queer people to be accepted at all by Western society, let alone as equals. The organization efforts of those before us and those who continue to work should be applauded, commended, and studied so we can learn from them.

With that being said, it's increasingly apparent that corporations and other capitalist firms are trying to co-opt (and in my opinion undermine) the queer liberation movement to attract a "new market". It can be something as innocent and innocuous a rainbow on a Starbucks cup, or it could be something as horrible as offering tools for gender-affirming care for absolutely ludicrous prices. From ad campaigns and logo changes to socks from a company which makes machines which kill children and civilians.

If you want to wear pride buttons and fly flags, that it valid and fine. It's okay to have pride. But we must remember, these firms see us as nothing but numbers, commodities to be fulfilled. They don't care about us as individuals, no large organization does. They care about how much we can raise their bottom line.

Remember, a few decades ago, they were just as complicit in the oppression of queer people as any other government. If we want our liberation, it will never come from them. It will only come from us and our own solidarity.

[mothaqie]

This pride month,and all year,to be frank,instead of posting little stuff like "trans 👏🏻 women 👏🏻 are 👏🏻 women 👏🏻 " thinking you said something revolutionary (that is,quite honestly,the bare minimum) post/say/scream "Trans liberation now" .

Usually when we open conversations around transness and gender with people that "don't believe in that trans thing" on a philosophical level we are usually met with the questions "so then what is a woman/man/whatever anyway if it's not x-y-z " in an attempt to fall into little intellectual traps. But when we say we want trans liberation now it prompts the question "what do you mean by liberation? Aren't you already free to be trans?" and then we can actually open a sociopolitical conversation around the unfortunate truths of trans oppression that stand strong to this day,the inequality in finding a job,having decent and affordable or even accessible healthcare and gender affirming health care,the mental health issues that come from being trans in a society that makes it quite clear that it doesn't want you to exist,the suicide rates,the murder rates on trans people and especially trans sex workers and so on. Now we are talking on a reality level instead of a philosophical level of gender theory and that's how we prompt change.

And remember,true allyship and support are much more than a cool slogan posted on social media or printed on a shirt by a corporation using rainbow capitalism to make money off of our struggles.

Thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

[ckret2]

Chocolate Pudding

Venom accidentally loses the symbiote’s newest spawn and turns NYC upside down trying to find it.

Meanwhile, a four-year-old girl prods a pile of chocolate pudding.

This fic was written for Day 1 of @symbruary, prompt: "symbisona/symbiOC". Due to the fact that I am not a four-year-old girl, this is an OC, not a sona. This fic is not yet proofed due to the fact that I wrote it on my phone in a five-hour haze of symbiote-loving hyperfocus.

You: "Hey, where does this fic fit into Venom's comic continuity?" Me: *makes a wiggly hand motion*

###

"That should hold Spider-Man for a little bit," Venom said to themselves as they swung away from the collapsing parking garage. "If it doesn't outright squash him like the bug he is! Ha! But no—fate has never been so kind as to smile upon us that way. This is but a short reprieve, during which we can—"

There was a sensation inside their brain like a sticker peeling off of its backing as symbiote and host's consciousnesses separated. Uh-oh. Eddie.

"Hm?" Eddie tilted his head, as though to better hear the voice in his head. "What's wrong, my love?"

Think I dropped a baby.

"What?!" Venom nearly crashed into a skyscraper. They cracked a window and then clung to it as Eddie's heart leaped into his throat. For them to drop a poor innocent baby, especially at these heights, because that accursed Spider-Man had been hounding them—When had they been holding a baby—?

Not human, the symbiote quickly clarified. One of mine. Ours.

"Oh!" The panic drained out of Eddie; and then immediately returned. "We had a baby?! Where? When?"

Don't know; wasn't paying attention. Near Times Square?

"We'll have to hurry. Any kind of miscreant could pick it up there!" Venom kicked off the building, swinging back in the direction they'd come from.

###

Faye leaned over as far as she could with the teacher's vice grip on her hand, stretching her chubby brown fingers toward what looked to her like a pile of iridescent chocolate pudding sitting in the street just next to the curb. She couldn't quite reach it with how tightly the teacher was holding her hand.

The pudding reached back toward her.

The teacher's attention was split between watching traffic for a safe point to herd her charges across the street and scanning the sky to make sure the super villain that had crashed the children's home van wasn't looping back with Spidey to terrorize the square again. She glanced down once to make sure Faye wasn't about to fall off the curb, looked back at traffic, belatedly registered that she'd seen the fidgeting four-year-old reaching toward some nasty gutter gunk, and looked down again. "Faye! Don't touch—"

But there was no gunk. Just Faye, standing straight up, looking around in a startled daze like someone had just dragged her out of a daydream by setting off a party popper in her face.

The teacher didn't have time to worry about it—Faye was probably just stunned from the recent super fight—and the light had just changed. The teacher hustled her charges across the street.

Faye saw a woman passing the other way with bright neon green cornrows. She reached up and patted her own cloud of bouncy black hair, then twisted around in her teacher's grip to look back over her shoulder at the woman with the colorful hair, seeing how the braids zigzagged like lightning down the back of her head.

Little patches of bright green bloomed in Faye's hair, thread-thin tendrils mixing in with her natural hair. They wrapped around her hair like ivy weaving through a trellis, then wove the strands together, starting from her hairline and moving back. By the time they reached the other side of the street, five wide black-and-green braids inexpertly meandered back and forth over her head and dangled down to her shoulders.

It took the teacher two blocks to notice.

###

"We've turned the whole city upside-down," Venom lamented, sitting morosely atop an office building with their chin in a hand. "A whole week, and no sign of our youngest progeny! Where could it be? Hiding in the sewers, cold and alone with only rats and strays to meet its needs for sustenance and symbiosis?"

The dinosaur-people would know if so, the symbiote pointed out. They would say. Yes?

"That's true," Eddie said, relaxing slightly. "They know your scent, they'd know your child's too. Still, we should let them know to be on the lookout for one and to let us know if they find it." He tried to remember the nearest sewer entrance that wouldn't require them to pry up a manhole cover in the middle of a city street, and shot out a tendril to a taller building to swing them in that direction. "I just hope someone far fouler hasn't seized our innocent offspring," he said. "A criminal, a corporation, or, worse—an agent of the government."

###

The children's home's top social worker—certified agent of the government—watched through a partially cracked window as the four-to-six-year-olds played outside. She held her phone to her ear with her shoulder, listening to the hold music.

Faye tripped while running around between the faded playground equipment. The social worker saw her push herself up, rub her cheek vigorously, and inspect her scratched up bloody knee. Faye scrubbed the dirt off the scratch, and when she pulled her hand away the scratch was gone.

The social worker let out a low whistle.

The hold music stopped and the social worker sat up straighter. "Hi! Yes, this is... oh, hi, I think I spoke to you a couple of days ago." She laughed politely. "Yes, this is about the—Yes. Faye Fletcher. I was wondering about the uh, the procedures to enroll a child at Xavier's Institute if the child doesn't have legal guardians? I understand sometimes legal parents give up guardianship of their children to your institute, I don't know if the procedure is different if she's already a ward of the state—" The social worker fell silent a moment. "Four years old." She listened, then nodded. "Uh-huh. I see. See, our concern is—we don't have anyone on staff trained to help with, uh, gifted children, and since our grant doesn't allow us to hand gifted children to potential foster homes or adoptive parents unless they've passed a certification course—uh-huh. Oh, no no, I think it's great to make sure the parents are prepared, but it's—yes. It's going to make it harder to place her."

She listened a moment, watching the children outside play—a couple of the kids were pretending to be dogs, running around on all four and chasing after sticks other kids threw. The teacher on duty rushed over to stop them from putting the sticks in their mouths. Faye chucked a couple of sticks, but by this point there were more stick-throwers than pretend dogs to chase them, and hers were ignored.

"Oh, uh..." She checked her legal pad. "Nothing dangerous, so far. Shapeshifting. She keeps dying her hair, braiding and unbraiding it, and changing her clothes. I—yeah, the clothes shape-shift. They look like real clothing until they start shifting. And I just saw her patch up a wound, so self-healing. Mhm—no, while I was on the line with you, just in the last couple of minutes. I'm watching the kids play outside. Did you see the video attachment on my email? Of her braiding and unbraiding her hair?" She nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, kind of like Medusa. That's what I was thinking."

She listened to another question. "No, the children aren't afraid of her—I think they're jealous of how she can 'play dress-up,' they call it. They—Oh! I should mention, she picked up an imaginary friend around the same time her powers developed. She calls it Chocolate Pudding. Some of the other kids say they've seen Chocolate Pudding, they think it's a ghost. That scared them."

The menagerie outside was expanding beyond dogs. One girl had started running around flapping her arms, cawing like an eagle; the teacher on duty had her hands full trying to keep the girl from climbing on the play equipment and jumping off. One boy yelled "I'm a dinosaur!" and started stomping across the playground with exaggeratedly large steps; a couple more joined in.

The social worker shrugged. "I don't—Chocolate Pudding could be anything, as far as we can tell. None of the staff has seen any such beast. We don't know if it's some sort of... of shared psychic hallucination? Or a shape-shifting trick she hasn't shown us yet, or just the kids being imaginative, or..." She trailed off. "Mhm. We don't know what to make of it."

Another kid yelled "I'm a dragon!" and charged at the first dinosaur, hissing loudly. Another cried, "We're a unicorn!"

"If she's not a fit for the Institute yet, then are you connected with any children's homes in the NYC area qualified to deal with gifted children? We don't want to foist her off on another home, but if she develops something that we don't have the support system to—" The social worker dropped her phone.

Faye was covered head to toe in a bubblegum pink second skin with a long mane of curly rainbow hair stretching down her back. Her eyes had been replaced by some cross between oversized anime eyes, multifaceted insect eyes, and sparkly rainbow-refracting diamonds. From the center of her forehead protruded a six-inch wicked-looking pearlescent horn.

They playground anarchy screeched to a halt as every child stared at her.

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Faye grinned at them with wicked-looking pearlescent teeth.

Without breaking her gaze from the window, the social worker groped on the floor for her phone. "I've, uh, got something else you'll want to know."

The other children started screaming.

###

Peter Parker was awoken in the dead of night by a set of glowing white eyes. "What in the—!"

"Don't scream. We're not here to f—" Venom blocked Peter's foot. "We said we're not here to fight!"

"You're in my apartment!"

"You say that like we haven't been here before!"

"Yeah—usually to fight!"

They considered that, and shrugged. "Not this time. We're here—against our better judgment—to begrudgingly ask you to help us protect an innocent."

"At—" Peter looked for his clock, realized he'd knocked it off his bedside table in his flailing, and finished, "at whatever-it-is in the morning?!"

Venom shrugged again. "We couldn't sleep."

"You couldn't sleep, oy..." Peter rubbed his face. "Okay. Okay, just—is this going to require me to get out of bed?"

"No. Just to be vigilant."

"Yeah, yeah, all right. Vigilant's my middle name. Ol' Spider-Vigilant-Man." He rubbed his eyes. "What is it?"

Venom's face peeled back, exposing Eddie's shadowed face. "We lost a child."

"Oh." Peter spent a couple of seconds trying to muster up as much basic human empathy as he could after being dragged out of an extremely peaceful sleep. "I'm, uh... I'm so sorry. Was it—sorry, I'm trying to figure out how this works—was it a miscarriage, or...?"

"No! I mean we lost it. We dropped it somewhere around Times Square a month ago." With great indignation, he added, "While defending ourselves from you."

"Defending, you're the one who—" He flopped back and rubbed his eyes again. "Ugh. Okay. So are we—are we talking about another Carnage here? Please say no."

"That depends on the human with whom it's bonded. Assuming it found a human at all."

"Well—wow—in Times Square? It could've landed in a tourist group and be in China by now."

"That's why we need your help!" Eddie said, jabbing a finger uncomfortably close to Peter's chest. "You move in circles we don't. The Fantastic Four, the Avengers—we can search for our child in New York's underbelly, but your web reaches much higher. We need you to be on the lookout for it. And if you find it, find us. We are qualified to deal with it—whether it can still be raised as a hero, or is already corrupt and needs to be put down."

"Rrright." Peter pushed Eddie's hand away. The symbiote stretching over Eddie's knuckles briefly clung to the ridges of Peter's fingerprints. Yuck. "You sure you don't just want me to—y'know—turn a flamethrower on it and let you know when the problem's solved?"

"No!" And Eddie was gone, hidden again behind a mass of snarling fangs. "We don't know yet that it's another Carnage! We will judge it. If there's any innocence left in it, we want to—to try to save it."

At another time, Peter might have argued against the wisdom of "saving" a parasite for any reason—but it was half past can't-see-his-clock a.m. and he was tired. "Okay," he said. "All right, you got it. If I find a bundle of bouncing baby bile, I'll—uh—track you down, I guess—"

"Leave us a message," Venom insisted. "At the bell tower. Where you were divorced and we were wed. We'll check there nightly."

Divorced. Peter let that word echo nightmarishly in his head a few times. "Got it. Bell tower."

"We'll be waiting." With that, Venom climbed off Peter's bed and vanished into the night.

They'd been gone for half a minute before Peter asked, "Did you break in through my window?"

###

The workers at the children's home just didn't know what to do with Faye.

They'd made what adjustments they could. They'd switched out the alarm clock for a radio alarm in her room when its shrill buzzing made her scream in pain and caused strange neon colors to ripple across her skin, and later they hurried her outside under a jacket when an older kid pulled a fire alarm to the same effect. The door buzzer from the entrance that prospective parents used—which played through speakers along the whole length of the main hall and was audible from nearly the whole building—had the same effect, but they didn't have the budget to replace it with a different bell. They'd had to turn off the buzzer completely and tape a note to the door telling visitors that the buzzer was broken and asking them to knock, with a number underneath to text if nobody heard the knock. They were doing the best they could to help Faye.

But they didn't know how to handle biting. Bad enough when the normal kids did it—normal kids didn't have inch long daggers in their mouths.

"Faye, sweetie," her teacher said gently, "you hurt Martin very badly. You know that, don't you?"

Arms crossed tightly, staring at her lap, kicking her feet, Fay nodded sullenly. She'd hidden her face behind a layer of tie-dye rainbow skin without a mouth, which she'd taken to doing (colors subject to change) when she didn't want to talk.

"I'm not mad," said the teacher, who was more terrified than anything, "but I need to to understand why."

"We're hungry." Her voice was muffled behind the mask.

That was the worst possible answer. "Faye, you can't—you can't eat your friends."

"Yes we can."

"You shouldn't," the teacher said quickly. "I saw you pushing your lunch around instead of eating it today. Wouldn't you be less hungry if you ate your lunch? Then you won't want to hurt your friends?"

"It was mac and cheese! We don't want mac and cheese!" She kicked her feet more agitatedly.

In danger of getting kicked in the knees, the teacher scooted slightly back. "What do you want for lunch?"

Faye slammed her hands down on the edge of her seat and her mouth peeled open like a zipper, revealing three rows of fangs, and roared, "Chocolate Pudding wants chocolate!"

The teacher stared at her, mouth open. Already knowing this was a fight she was going to lose, she said, "Faye, honey, a growing girl can't live on dessert—"

She started wailing.

###

"Are you good with kids, Peter?" J. Jonah Jameson asked.

"Oh, yeah, kids think I'm pretty cool," said Peter, thinking of all the little Spider-Mans he'd seen wandering around last Halloween.

"Great. Got a human interest story we need a couple of pictures for," Jameson said. He passed over a piece of paper with an address and several names. "Underfunded orphanage stuck with a mutant girl."

"'Stuck with'? Hey, now—"

"Not like that. Their funding isn't good enough to let them add a specialist to their staff, and the only two places in the state that are qualified to take mutant kids are overcrowded. I'm hoping if we whip up some public furor over this poor kid we can get 'em some donations—maybe shame legislature into increasing funding all around." He pointed at Peter. "So I want you to make Miss Fletcher look cute as hell, got it?"

"Yessir." Relieved Jameson wasn't asking him to vilify an orphaned child, Peter looked over the address.

"And see if you can get her to uh... 'play dress-up' for the camera." Jameson waved a hand vaguely. "They said it's some sort of shapeshifting? We won't use 'em if they're weird enough to rile up the anti-mutant crowd, but if it's cute maybe it'll tug a few heartstrings and film's cheap. Just get some normal shots as well."

"Will do!" Peter headed out the door, plotting his subway route to the children's home.

An hour later, Peter was standing alone in the children's home playground, wondering if he should leave a tip with the FBI for the Anti-Symbiote Task Force... or leave a note for Eddie Brock.

Which one did he trust to treat a preschooler better?

###

The teachers were practically crawling up the walls.

Faye was literally crawling up the walls.

And camouflaging with the wallpaper.

And tipping over bunk beds.

And kicking through wood doors.

And tearing up furniture with her unicorn horn.

Most incidents were the result of normal four-year-old rambunctious play, or the expected tantrums that came from being tired, hungry, or overwhelmed. But normal play and tantrums attached to super strength and a fluctuating array of sharp spikes were disasters waiting to happen. It was a miracle they hadn't had any more incidents as bad as Martin's hospital stay.

Half of Faye's diet was chocolate bars now. They didn't know if that was making things better or worse.

The last thing the head social worker needed was to open the door to her office and be greeted by the sight of Venom—whose muscles looked even bigger in person—sitting in one of the chairs usually reserved for prospective parents, one foot hooked over the other knee, grinning like the world's happiest shark. "Hello," he said.

The head social worker gaped. Venom stared expectantly at her. She whispered, "Hi."

"My other and I are looking to adopt," Venom said cheerfully. "Or, more precisely, to reclaim custody. We have reason to believe one of our children was mistakenly put up for adoption. A terrible error—we've been searching frantically for our darling child for weeks!"

The social worker mentally ran over the various manifestations of Faye's "mutation," working back to the day she's come home with green hair—and her teacher had shakily recounted the close encounter between their van and a super fight. "Oh."

Venom's smile twitched wider. "I see you know who it is! Is it our family resemblance?" His teeth gleamed hideously white as he gestured toward her seat behind her desk, as though commanding her to be seated so they could begin negotiations.

She didn't budge. "Please," she said, "don't hurt anyone here. All we have here are children, and they've already been through so much—"

"Madam, we would never!" Venom placed a hand on his chest, over the head of his white spider symbol. "We are a protector of the innocent! And who could be more innocent than poor, sweet children longing for a family, and the kind-hearted staff that care for them?" He paused. "But we're not leaving without our child." He gestured again toward her chair.

This time, she thought maybe she should take it.

As she sat, Venom asked, "What have you been calling our child?"

"Her name is Faye Fletcher."

For a moment, this answer seemed to puzzle Venom; but then he said, as though talking to himself, "Ah, yes; quite right. She must mean..." He leaned forward slightly, fixing the social worker with what she could tell even with Venom's blank white eyes must have been a piercing stare. "And what has Faye been calling her other?"

###

It was the fastest and most wildly illegal adoption in the history of the NYC Administration for Children's Services. The terrified social worker informed Venom of the thirty hour parenting class most parents were required to take before adopting a child, as well as the five hour supplement for parents taking in mutants—although at this point she no longer had any idea whether that information would be at all helpful for Faye—and Venom reassured her so sincerely that he would attend the first class he could find that she actually believed him.

Even if he didn't go, she was sure he'd have a better idea of how to care for Faye than any of them did. And that instinct was only reinforced when he suddenly lifted his head and turned toward the door as though he'd picked up a familiar scent a full fifteen seconds before Faye came barreling into the office.

With reflexes so fast he almost looked like a blur, he dropped to one knee and spread his arms just in time to catch Faye in a great bear hug, the both of them wearing identical fangy grins. "We knew you'd still be an innocent," he said, holding her out by the shoulders to take a good look at her, taking her in from horn tip down to pink feet. "Unicorns are always innocent. Isn't that what you are, a sweet little unicorn?"

Faye giggled, sounding like a girl her age should for the first time in days.

When they left, Venom carrying Faye Fletcher Brock (and Chocolate Pudding) in his arms, he'd grown a gleaming white unicorn horn to match hers.

###

Fic also available on AO3, link in my description. If you enjoyed the fic, I’d appreciate a reblog or comment!

[silent-era-of-cinema]

Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent film during the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.

Bow appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927), and Wings (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost two-to-one, a "safe return". At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month (January 1929).

Two years after marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933. In September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60.

Bow was born in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn at 697 Bergen Street,[9] in a "bleak, sparsely furnished room above [a] dilapidated Baptist Church". Her birth year, according to the US Censuses of 1910 and 1920, was 1905. The 1930 census indicates 1906 and on her gravestone of 1965, the inscription says 1907, but 1905 is the accepted year by a majority of sources.

Bow was her parents' third child, but her two older sisters, born in 1903 and 1904, had died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Frances Bow (née Gordon, 1880–1923), was told by a doctor not to become pregnant again, for fear the next baby might die as well. Despite the warning, Sarah became pregnant with Clara in late 1904. In addition to the risky pregnancy, a heat wave besieged New York in July 1905, and temperatures peaked around 100 °F (38 °C). Years later, Clara said: "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life."

Bow's parents were descended from English, Irish and Scottish immigrants who had come to America the generation before. Bow said that her father, Robert Walter Bow (1874–1959), "had a quick, keen mind ... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't...everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling". By the time Clara was four and a half, her father was out of work, and between 1905 and 1923, the family lived at 14 different addresses, but seldom outside Prospect Heights, with Clara's father often absent. "I do not think my mother ever loved my father", she said. "He knew it. And it made him very unhappy, for he worshiped her, always."

When Bow's mother, Sarah, was 16, she fell from a second-story window and suffered a severe head injury. She was later diagnosed with "psychosis due to epilepsy". From her earliest years, Bow had learned how to care for her mother during the seizures, as well as how to deal with her psychotic and hostile episodes. She said her mother could be "mean" to her, but "didn't mean to ... she couldn't help it". Still, Bow felt deprived of her childhood; "As a kid I took care of my mother, she didn't take care of me". Sarah worsened gradually, and when she realized her daughter was set for a movie career, Bow's mother told her she "would be much better off dead". One night in February 1922, Bow awoke to a butcher knife held against her throat by her mother. Clara was able to fend off the attack, and locked her mother up. In the morning, Bow's mother had no recollection of the episode, and later she was committed to a sanatorium by Robert Bow.

Clara spoke about the incident later:

It was snowing. My mother and I were cold and hungry. We had been cold and hungry for days. We lay in each other's arms and cried and tried to keep warm. It grew worse and worse. So that night my mother—but I can't tell you about it. Only when I remember it, it seems to me I can't live.

According to Bow's biographer, David Stenn, Bow was raped by her father at age sixteen while her mother was institutionalized. On January 5, 1923, Sarah died at the age of 43 from her epilepsy. When relatives gathered for the funeral, Bow accused them of being "hypocrites", and became so angry that she even tried to jump into the grave.

Bow attended P.S. 111, P.S. 9, and P.S. 98.[13] As she grew up, she felt shy among other girls, who teased her for her worn-out clothes and "carrot-top" hair. She said about her childhood, "I never had any clothes. ... And lots of time didn't have anything to eat. We just lived, that's about all. Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed."

From first grade, Bow preferred the company of boys, stating, "I could lick any boy my size. My right arm was quite famous. My right arm was developed from pitching so much ... Once I hopped a ride on behind a big fire engine. I got a lot of credit from the gang for that."[15] A close friend, a younger boy who lived in her building, burned to death in her presence after an accident. In 1919, Bow enrolled in Bay Ridge High School for Girls. "I wore sweaters and old skirts...didn't want to be treated like a girl...there was one boy who had always been my pal... he kissed me... I wasn't sore. I didn't get indignant. I was horrified and hurt."

Bow's interest in sports and her physical abilities led her to plan for a career as an athletics instructor. She won five medals "at the cinder tracks" and credited her cousin Homer Baker – the national half-mile (c.800 m) champion (1913 and 1914) and 660-yard (c. 600 m) world-record holder – for being her trainer. The Bows and Bakers shared a house – still standing – at 33 Prospect Place in 1920.

In the early 1920s, roughly 50 million Americans—half the population at that time—attended the movies every week. As Bow grew into womanhood, her stature as a "boy" in her old gang became "impossible". She did not have any girlfriends, and school was a "heartache" and her home was "miserable." On the silver screen, however, she found consolation; "For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility, glamor". And further; "I always had a queer feeling about actors and actresses on the screen ... I knew I would have done it differently. I couldn't analyze it, but I could always feel it.". "I'd go home and be a one girl circus, taking the parts of everyone I'd seen, living them before the glass." At 16, Bow says she "knew" she wanted to be a motion pictures actress, even if she was a "square, awkward, funny-faced kid."

Against her mother's wishes but with her father's support, Bow competed in Brewster publications' magazine's annual nationwide acting contest, "Fame and Fortune", in fall 1921. In previous years, other contest winners had found work in the movies. In the contest's final screen test, Bow was up against an already scene-experienced woman who did "a beautiful piece of acting". A set member later stated that when Bow did the scene, she actually became her character and "lived it". In the January issues 1922 of Motion Picture Classics, the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa McMein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded:

She is very young, only 16. But she is full of confidence, determination and ambition. She is endowed with a mentality far beyond her years. She has a genuine spark of divine fire. The five different screen tests she had, showed this very plainly, her emotional range of expression provoking a fine enthusiasm from every contest judge who saw the tests. She screens perfectly. Her personal appearance is almost enough to carry her to success without the aid of the brains she indubitably possesses.

Bow won an evening gown and a silver trophy, and the publisher committed to help her "gain a role in films", but nothing happened. Bow's father told her to "haunt" Brewster's office (located in Brooklyn) until they came up with something. "To get rid of me, or maybe they really meant to (give me) all the time and were just busy", Bow was introduced to director Christy Cabanne, who cast her in Beyond the Rainbow, produced late 1921 in New York City and released February 19, 1922. Bow did five scenes and impressed Cabanne with true theatrical tears, but was cut from the final print. "I was sick to my stomach," she recalled and thought her mother was right about the movie business.

Bow, who dropped out of school (senior year) after she was notified about winning the contest, possibly in October 1921, got an ordinary office job. However, movie ads and newspaper editorial comments from 1922 to 1923 suggest that Bow was not cut from Beyond the Rainbow. Her name is on the cast list among the other stars, usually tagged "Brewster magazine beauty contest winner" and sometimes even with a picture.

Encouraged by her father, Bow continued to visit studio agencies asking for parts. "But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually I was too fat." Eventually, director Elmer Clifton needed a tomboy for his movie Down to the Sea in Ships, saw Bow in Motion Picture Classic magazine, and sent for her. In an attempt to overcome her youthful looks, Bow put her hair up and arrived in a dress she "sneaked" from her mother. Clifton said she was too old, but broke into laughter as the stammering Bow made him believe she was the girl in the magazine. Clifton decided to bring Bow with him and offered her $35 a week. Bow held out for $50 and Clifton agreed, but he could not say whether she would "fit the part". Bow later learned that one of Brewsters' subeditors had urged Clifton to give her a chance.

Down to the Sea in Ships, shot on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts and produced by independent "The Whaling Film Corporation", documented life, love, and work in the whale-hunter community. The production relied on a few less-known actors and local talents. It premiered at the Olympia Theater in New Bedford, on September 25, and went on general distribution on March 4, 1923. Bow was billed 10th in the film, but shone through:

"Miss Bow will undoubtedly gain fame as a screen comedienne".

"She scored a tremendous hit in Down to the Sea in Ships..(and).. has reached the front rank of motion picture principal players".

"With her beauty, her brains, her personality and her genuine acting ability it should not be many moons before she enjoys stardom in the fullest sense of the word. You must see 'Down to the Sea in Ships'".

"In movie parlance, she 'stole' the picture ... ".

By mid-December 1923, primarily due to her merits in Down to the Sea in Ships, Bow was chosen the most successful of the 1924 WAMPAS Baby Stars. Three months before Down to the Sea in Ships was released, Bow danced half nude, on a table, uncredited in Enemies of Women (1923). In spring she got a part in The Daring Years (1923), where she befriended actress Mary Carr, who taught her how to use make-up.

In the summer, she got a "tomboy" part in Grit, a story that dealt with juvenile crime and was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bow met her first boyfriend, cameraman Arthur Jacobson, and she got to know director Frank Tuttle, with whom she worked in five later productions. Tuttle remembered:

Her emotions were close to the surface. She could cry on demand, opening the floodgate of tears almost as soon as I asked her to weep. She was dynamite, full of nervous energy and vitality and pitifully eager to please everyone.

Grit was released on January 7, 1924. The Variety review said "... Clara Bow lingers in the eye, long after the picture has gone."

While shooting Grit at Pyramid Studios, in Astoria, New York, Bow was approached by Jack Bachman of independent Hollywood studio Preferred Pictures. He wanted to contract her for a three-month trial, fare paid, and $50 a week. "It can't do any harm,"[15] he tried. "Why can't I stay in New York and make movies?" Bow asked her father, but he told her not to worry.

On July 21, 1923, she befriended Louella Parsons, who interviewed her for The New York Morning Telegraph. In 1931, when Bow came under tabloid scrutiny, Parsons defended her and stuck to her first opinion on Bow:

She is as refreshingly unaffected as if she had never faced a means to pretend. She hasn't any secrets from the world, she trusts everyone ... she is almost too good to be true ... (I) only wish some reformer who believes the screen contaminates all who associate with it could meet this child. Still, on second thought it might not be safe: Clara uses a dangerous pair of eyes.

The interview also revealed that Bow already was cast in Maytime and in great favor of Chinese cuisine.

On July 22, 1923, Bow left New York, her father, and her boyfriend behind for Hollywood. As chaperone for the journey and her subsequent southern California stay, the studio appointed writer/agent Maxine Alton, whom Bow later branded a liar. In late July, Bow entered studio chief B. P. Schulberg's office wearing a simple high-school uniform in which she "had won several gold medals on the cinder track". She was tested and a press release from early August says Bow had become a member of Preferred Picture's "permanent stock". Alton and she rented an apartment at The Hillview near Hollywood Boulevard. Preferred Pictures was run by Schulberg, who had started as a publicity manager at Famous Players-Lasky, but in the aftermath of the power struggle around the formation of United Artists, ended up on the losing side and lost his job. As a result, he founded Preferred in 1919, at the age of 27.

Maytime was Bow's first Hollywood picture, an adaptation of the popular operetta Maytime in which she essayed "Alice Tremaine". Before Maytime was finished, Schulberg announced that Bow was given the lead in the studio's biggest seasonal assessment, Poisoned Paradise,[51] but first she was lent to First National Pictures to co-star in the adaptation of Gertrude Atherton's 1923 best seller Black Oxen, shot in October, and to co-star with Colleen Moore in Painted People, shot in November.

Director Frank Lloyd was casting for the part of high-society flapper Janet Oglethorpe, and more than 50 women, most with previous screen experience, auditioned. Bow reminisced: "He had not found exactly what he wanted and finally somebody suggested me to him. When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Lloyd told the press, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental." It was released on January 4, 1924.

The New York Times said, "The flapper, impersonated by a young actress, Clara Bow, had five speaking titles, and every one of them was so entirely in accord with the character and the mood of the scene that it drew a laugh from what, in film circles, is termed a "hard-boiled" audience", while the Los Angeles Times commented that "Clara Bow, the prize vulgarian of the lot ... was amusing and spirited ... but didn't belong in the picture", and Variety said that "... the horrid little flapper is adorably played ..."

Colleen Moore made her flapper debut in a successful adaptation of the daring novel Flaming Youth, released November 12, 1923, six weeks before Black Oxen. Both films were produced by First National Pictures, and while Black Oxen was still being edited and Flaming Youth not yet released, Bow was requested to co-star with Moore as her kid sister in Painted People (The Swamp Angel). Moore essayed the baseball-playing tomboy and Bow, according to Moore, said "I don't like my part, I wanna play yours." Moore, a well-established star earning $1200 a week—Bow got $200—took offense and blocked the director from shooting close-ups of Bow. Moore was married to the film's producer and Bow's protests were futile. "I'll get that bitch", she told her boyfriend Jacobson, who had arrived from New York. Bow had sinus problems and decided to have them attended to that very evening. With Bow's face now in bandages, the studio had no choice but to recast her part.

During 1924, Bow's "horrid" flapper raced against Moore's "whimsical". In May, Moore renewed her efforts in The Perfect Flapper, produced by her husband. However, despite good reviews, she suddenly withdrew. "No more flappers ... they have served their purpose ... people are tired of soda-pop love affairs", she told the Los Angeles Times, which had commented a month earlier, "Clara Bow is the one outstanding type. She has almost immediately been elected for all the recent flapper parts". In November 1933, looking back to this period of her career, Bow described the atmosphere in Hollywood as like a scene from a movie about the French Revolution, where "women are hollering and waving pitchforks twice as violently as any of the guys ... the only ladies in sight are the ones getting their heads cut off."

By New Year 1924, Bow defied the possessive Maxine Alton and brought her father to Hollywood. Bow remembered their reunion: "I didn't care a rap, for (Maxine Alton), or B. P. Schulberg, or my motion picture career, or Clara Bow, I just threw myself into his arms and kissed and kissed him, and we both cried like a couple of fool kids. Oh, it was wonderful." Bow felt Alton had misused her trust: "She wanted to keep a hold on me so she made me think I wasn't getting over and that nothing but her clever management kept me going." Bow and her father moved in at 1714 North Kingsley Drive in Hollywood, together with Jacobson, who by then also worked for Preferred. When Schulberg learned of this arrangement, he fired Jacobson for potentially getting "his big star" into a scandal. When Bow found out, "She tore up her contract and threw it in his face and told him he couldn't run her private life." Jacobson concluded, "[Clara] was the sweetest girl in the world, but you didn't cross her and you didn't do her wrong." On September 7, 1924, The Los Angeles Times, in a significant article "A dangerous little devil is Clara, impish, appealing, but oh, how she can act!", her father is titled "business manager" and Jacobson referred to as her brother.

Bow appeared in eight releases in 1924.

In Poisoned Paradise, released on February 29, 1924, Bow got her first lead. "... the clever little newcomer whose work wins fresh recommendations with every new picture in which she appears". In a scene described as "original", Bow adds "devices" to "the modern flapper": she fights a villain using her fists, and significantly, does not "shrink back in fear".

In Daughters of Pleasure, also released on February 29, 1924, Bow and Marie Prevost "flapped unhampered as flappers De luxe ... I wish somebody could star Clara Bow. I'm sure her 'infinite variety' would keep her from wearying us no matter how many scenes she was in."

Loaned out to Universal, Bow top-starred, for the first time, in the prohibition, bootleg drama/comedy Wine, released on August 20, 1924. The picture exposes the widespread liquor traffic in the upper classes, and Bow portrays an innocent girl who develops into a wild "red-hot mama".

"If not taken as information, it is cracking good entertainment," Carl Sandburg reviewed September 29.

"Don't miss Wine. It's a thoroughly refreshing draught ... there are only about five actresses who give me a real thrill on the screen—and Clara is nearly five of them".

Alma Whitaker of The Los Angeles Times observed on September 7, 1924:

She radiates sex appeal tempered with an impish sense of humor ... She hennas her blond hair so that it will photograph dark in the pictures ... Her social decorum is of that natural, good-natured, pleasantly informal kind ... She can act on or off the screen—takes a joyous delight in accepting a challenge to vamp any selected male—the more unpromising specimen the better. When the hapless victim is scared into speechlessness, she gurgles with naughty delight and tries another.

Bow remembered: "All this time I was 'running wild', I guess, in the sense of trying to have a good time ... maybe this was a good thing, because I suppose a lot of that excitement, that joy of life, got onto the screen."

In 1925, Bow appeared in 14 productions: six for her contract owner, Preferred Pictures, and eight as an "out-loan".

"Clara Bow ... shows alarming symptoms of becoming the sensation of the year ... ", Motion Picture Classic Magazine wrote in June, and featured her on the cover.

I'm almost never satisfied with myself or my work or anything...by the time I'm ready to be a great star I'll have been on the screen such a long time that everybody will be tired of seeing me...(Tears filled her big round eyes and threatened to fall).

I worked in two and even three pictures at once. I played all sorts of parts in all sorts of pictures ... It was very hard at the time and I used to be worn out and cry myself to sleep from sheer fatigue after 18 hours a day on different sets, but now [late 1927] I am glad of it.

Preferred Pictures loaned Bow to producers "for sums ranging from $1500 to $2000 a week" while paying Bow a salary of $200 to $750 a week. The studio, like any other independent studio or theater at that time, was under attack from "The Big Three", MPAA, which had formed a trust to block out Independents and enforce the monopolistic studio system. On October 21, 1925, Schulberg filed Preferred Pictures for bankruptcy, with debts at $820,774 and assets $1,420. Three days later, it was announced that Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor to become associate producer of Paramount Pictures, "catapulted into this position because he had Clara Bow under personal contract".

Adolph Zukor, Paramount Picture CEO, wrote in his memoirs: "All the skill of directors and all the booming of press-agent drums will not make a star. Only the audiences can do it. We study audience reactions with great care." Adela Rogers St. Johns had a different take: in 1950, she wrote, "If ever a star was made by public demand, it was Clara Bow." And Louise Brooks (from 1980): "(Bow) became a star without nobody's help ..."

The Plastic Age was Bow's final effort for Preferred Pictures and her biggest hit up to that time. Bow starred as the good-bad college girl, Cynthia Day, against Donald Keith. It was shot on location at Pomona College in the summer of 1925, and released on December 15, but due to block booking, it was not shown in New York until July 21, 1926.

Photoplay was displeased: "The college atmosphere is implausible and Clara Bow is not our idea of a college girl."

Theater owners, however, were happy: "The picture is the biggest sensation we ever had in our theater ... It is 100 per cent at the box-office."

Some critics felt Bow had conquered new territory: "(Bow) presents a whimsical touch to her work that adds greater laurels to her fast ascending star of screen popularity."

Time singled out Bow: "Only the amusing and facile acting of Clara Bow rescues the picture from the limbo of the impossible."

Bow began to date her co-star Gilbert Roland, who became her first fiancé. In June 1925, Bow was credited for being the first to wear hand-painted legs in public, and was reported to have many followers at the Californian beaches.

Throughout the 1920s, Bow played with gender conventions and sexuality in her public image. Along with her tomboy and flapper roles, she starred in boxing films and posed for promotional photographs as a boxer. By appropriating traditionally androgynous or masculine traits, Bow presented herself as a confident, modern woman.

"Rehearsals sap my pep," Bow explained in November 1929, and from the beginning of her career, she relied on immediate direction: "Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it." Bow was keen on poetry and music, but according to Rogers St. Johns, her attention span did not allow her to appreciate novels. Bow's focal point was the scene, and her creativity made directors call in extra cameras to cover her spontaneous actions, rather than holding her down.

Years after Bow left Hollywood, director Victor Fleming compared Bow to a Stradivarius violin: "Touch her, and she responded with genius." Director William Wellman was less poetic: "Movie stardom isn't acting ability—it's personality and temperament ... I once directed Clara Bow (Wings). She was mad and crazy, but WHAT a personality!". And in 1981, Budd Schulberg described Bow as "an easy winner of the dumbbell award" who "couldn't act," and compared her to a puppy that his father B. P. Schulberg "trained to become Lassie."

In 1926, Bow appeared in eight releases: five for Paramount, including the film version of the musical Kid Boots with Eddie Cantor, and three loan-outs that had been filmed in 1925.

In late 1925, Bow returned to New York to co-star in the Ibsenesque drama Dancing Mothers, as the good/bad "flapperish" upper-class daughter Kittens. Alice Joyce starred as her dancing mother, with Conway Tearle as "bad-boy" Naughton. The picture was released on March 1, 1926.

"Clara Bow, known as the screen's perfect flapper, does her stuff as the child, and does it well."

"... her remarkable performance in Dancing Mothers ... ".

Louise Brooks remembered: "She was absolutely sensational in the United States ... in Dancing Mothers ... she just swept the country ... I know I saw her ... and I thought ... wonderful."

On April 12, 1926, Bow signed her first contract with Paramount: "...to retain your services as an actress for the period of six months from June 6, 1926 to December 6, 1926, at a salary of $750.00 per week...".

In Victor Fleming's comedy-triangle, Mantrap, Bow, as Alverna the manicurist, cures lonely hearts Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence), of the great northern, as well as pill-popping New York divorce attorney runaway Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont). Bow commented: "(Alverna)...was bad in the book, but—darn it!—of course, they couldn't make her that way in the picture. So I played her as a flirt." The film was released on July 24, 1926.

Variety: "Clara Bow just walks away with the picture from the moment she walks into camera range."

Photoplay: "When she is on the screen nothing else matters. When she is off, the same is true."

Carl Sandburg: "The smartest and swiftest work as yet seen from Miss Clara Bow."

The Reel Journal: "Clara Bow is taking the place of Gloria Swanson...(and)...filling a long need for a popular taste movie actress."

On August 16, 1926, Bow's agreement with Paramount was renewed into a five-year deal: "Her salary will start at $1700 a week and advance yearly to $4000 a week for the last year."[78] Bow added that she intended to leave the motion picture business at the expiration of the contract, i.e., in 1931.

In 1927, Bow appeared in six Paramount releases: It, Children of Divorce, Rough House Rosie, Wings, Hula and Get Your Man. In the Cinderella story It, the poor shop-girl Betty Lou Spence (Bow) conquers the heart of her employer Cyrus Waltham (Antonio Moreno). The personal quality —"It"— provides the magic to make it happen. The film gave Bow her nickname, "The 'It' Girl."

The New York Times: "(Bow)...is vivacious and, as Betty Lou, saucy, which perhaps is one of the ingredients of It."

The Film Daily: "Clara Bow gets a real chance and carries it off with honors...(and)...she is really the whole show."

Carl Sandburg: "'It' is smart, funny and real. It makes a full-sized star of Clara Bow."

Variety: "You can't get away from this Clara Bow girl. She certainly has that certain 'It'...and she just runs away with the film."

Dorothy Parker is often said to have referred to Bow when she wrote, "It, hell; she had Those."[109] Parker in actuality was not referring to Bow or to Bow's character in the film It, but to a different character, Ava Cleveland, in the novel of the same name.

In 1927, Bow starred in Wings, a war picture rewritten to accommodate her, as she was Paramount's biggest star, but was not happy about her part: "[Wings is]...a man's picture and I'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie." The film went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1928, Bow appeared in four Paramount releases: Red Hair, Ladies of the Mob, The Fleet's In, and Three Weekends, all of which are lost.

Adela Rogers St. Johns, a noted screenwriter who had done a number of pictures with Bow, wrote about her:

There seems to be no pattern, no purpose to her life. She swings from one emotion to another, but she gains nothing, stores up nothing for the future. She lives entirely in the present, not even for today, but in the moment. Clara is the total nonconformist. What she wants she gets, if she can. What she desires to do she does. She has a big heart, a remarkable brain, and the most utter contempt for the world in general. Time doesn't exist for her, except that she thinks it will stop tomorrow. She has real courage, because she lives boldly. Who are we, after all, to say she is wrong?

Bow's bohemian lifestyle and "dreadful" manners were considered reminders of the Hollywood elite's uneasy position in high society. Bow fumed: "They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples for me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs ... I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!"

MGM executive Paul Bern said Bow was "the greatest emotional actress on the screen", "sentimental, simple, childish and sweet," and considered her "hard-boiled attitude" a "defense mechanism".

With "talkies" The Wild Party, Dangerous Curves, and The Saturday Night Kid, all released in 1929, Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood.

Neither the quality of Bow's voice nor her Brooklyn accent was an issue to Bow, her fans, or Paramount. However, Bow, like Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks, and most other silent film stars, did not embrace the novelty: "I hate talkies ... they're stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there's no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me." A visibly nervous Bow had to do a number of retakes in The Wild Party because her eyes kept wandering up to the microphone overhead. "I can't buck progress .. I have to do the best I can," she said. In October 1929, Bow described her nerves as "all shot", saying that she had reached "the breaking point", and Photoplay cited reports of "rows of bottles of sedatives" by her bed.

According to the 1930 census, Bow lived at 512 Bedford Drive, together with her secretary and hairdresser, Daisy DeBoe (later DeVoe), in a house valued $25,000 with neighbors titled "Horse-keeper", "Physician", "Builder". Bow stated she was 23 years old, i.e., born 1906, contradicting the censuses of 1910 and 1920.

"Now they're having me sing. I sort of half-sing, half-talk, with hips-and-eye stuff. You know what I mean—like Maurice Chevalier. I used to sing at home and people would say, 'Pipe down! You're terrible!' But the studio thinks my voice is great."

With Paramount on Parade, True to the Navy, Love Among the Millionaires, and Her Wedding Night, Bow was second at the box-office only to Joan Crawford in 1930. With No Limit and Kick In, Bow held the position as fifth at box-office in 1931, but the pressures of fame, public scandals, overwork, and a damaging court trial charging her secretary Daisy DeVoe with financial mismanagement, took their toll on Bow's fragile emotional health. As she slipped closer to a major breakdown, her manager, B.P. Schulberg, began referring to her as "Crisis-a-day-Clara". In April, Bow was brought to a sanatorium, and at her request, Paramount released her from her final undertaking: City Streets (1931). At 25, her career was essentially over.

B.P. Schulberg tried to replace Bow with his girlfriend Sylvia Sidney, but Paramount went into receivership, lost its position as the biggest studio (to MGM), and fired Schulberg. David Selznick explained:

...[when] Bow was at her height in pictures we could make a story with her in it and gross a million and a half, where another actress would gross half a million in the same picture and with the same cast.

Bow left Hollywood for Rex Bell's ranch in Nevada, her "desert paradise", in June[120] and married him in then small-town Las Vegas in December. In an interview on December 17, Bow detailed her way back to health: sleep, exercise, and food, and the day after[122] she returned to Hollywood "for the sole purpose of making enough money to be able to stay out of it."

Soon, every studio in Hollywood (except Paramount) and even overseas wanted her services. Mary Pickford stated that Bow "was a very great actress" and wanted her to play her sister in Secrets (1933), Howard Hughes offered her a three-picture deal, and MGM wanted her to star in Red-Headed Woman (1932). Bow agreed to the script, but eventually rejected the offer since Irving Thalberg required her to sign a long-term contract.

On April 28, 1932, Bow signed a two-picture deal with Fox Film Corporation, for Call Her Savage (1932) and Hoop-La (1933). Both were successful; Variety favored the latter. The October 1934, Family Circle Film Guide rated the film as "pretty good entertainment", and of Miss Bow said: "This is the most acceptable bit of talkie acting Miss Bow has done." However, they noted, "Miss Bow is presented in her dancing duds as often as possible, and her dancing duds wouldn't weigh two pounds soaking wet." Bow commented on her revealing costume in Hoop-La: "Rex accused me of enjoying showing myself off. Then I got a little sore. He knew darn well I was doing it because we could use a little money these days. Who can't?"

Bow reflected on her career:

My life in Hollywood contained plenty of uproar. I'm sorry for a lot of it but not awfully sorry. I never did anything to hurt anyone else. I made a place for myself on the screen and you can't do that by being Mrs. Alcott's idea of a Little Woman.

Bow and actor Rex Bell (later a lieutenant governor of Nevada) had two sons, Tony Beldam (born 1934, changed name to Rex Anthony Bell, Jr., died July 8, 2011) and George Beldam, Jr. (born 1938). Bow retired from acting in 1933. In September 1937, she and Bell opened The 'It' Cafe in the Hollywood Plaza Hotel at 1637 N Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. It closed in 1943. Her last public performance, albeit fleeting, came in 1947 on the radio show Truth or Consequences. Bow was the mystery voice in the show's "Mrs. Hush" contest.

Bow eventually began showing symptoms of psychiatric illness. She became socially withdrawn, and although she refused to socialize with her husband, she also refused to let him leave the house alone. In 1944, while Bell was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Bow tried to commit suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life.

In 1949, she checked into the Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains. Shock treatment was tried and numerous psychological tests performed. Bow's IQ was measured "bright normal", while others claimed she was unable to reason, had poor judgment and displayed inappropriate or even bizarre behavior. Her pains were considered delusional and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia; however, she experienced neither auditory nor visual hallucinations. Analysts tied the onset of the illness, as well as her insomnia, to the "butcher knife episode" back in 1922, but Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the Institute. She did not return to her family. After leaving the institution, Bow lived alone in a bungalow, which she rarely left, until her death.

Bow spent her last years in Culver City, under the constant care of a nurse, Estalla Smith, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. In 1965, at age 60, she died of a heart attack, which was attributed to atherosclerosis discovered in an autopsy. She was interred in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Heritage at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her pallbearers were Harry Richman, Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dempsey, and Buddy Rogers.

[kfdesr]

Thanks to my privilege I can spend this summer without a binder on, a luxury that oh so many people do not have right now. Such a privilege too to not be questioned daily regarding my gender, to not have to pass at all costs, to be white and young.

While most Countries turn rainbow in this summery pink washing mess, while corporations appropriate merits for the fights other organizations and dedicated people have bled for, please remember the fighters who came before us and made our life so easy now. Remeber as well that this is just not the end, yes we might have same sex marriage but we still don't have equality and we won't have won until every single person around the world will be recognized as valid, until every single person will be able to full fill a happy, joyful life without any compromise.

Same sex marriage is a first class world problem; if you think we are fine now because we got that, you're living an illusion.

Support your local LGBTQ+ organization or charity, get involved, go help, and if you can not for whatever reason, if you are not safe, just stay informed. Knowledge is perhaps the most powerful tool we have.

[awed-frog]

I don't know the bridge story!

Well, it’s just a tiny thing, but - you know, when I arrived in the UK I thought it was a normal country? I’d read some books and seen some movies and knew about the queuing (which is reasonable, btw, don’t know why people are so shocked by it) and also the importance of discussing the weather and even that ‘tea’ actually means having an actual big-ass, roast-and-two-veg dinner depending on who’s talking, but then stuff started to happen and I realized just how mistaken I’d been. 

The first ‘stuff’ that happened were two lines in a local newspaper on how there was finally a bridge connecting The Big Tesco to Local Town because an agreement had been reached with Sir Kenneth James Addington Esq. over costs and fees. After thorough investigation, I discovered that

most of the land around Local Town had been gifted to the Addington family by King Rotting Teeth in 1075 and

that included the right to demand a fee to anyone crossing Local River and

over time, Local River had become Local Trickle but

you still needed to get across somehow so the Addingtons kept getting richer and richer without even doing anything

(for instance, they never built a bridge or ford or a darling little hot-air balloon) 

until

Local Town basically got to the edge of Local Trickle so

it made sense for Tesco, Asda and similar to consider building on the other bank

which they did, and

they also built a no-nonsense, car-friendly bridge over Local Trickle because corporations are nice like that but

when they were about to open their new shop of wonders (“These Italian tomatoes are so good, you don’t even need to put mayo on them,” a bewildered cashier whispered to me in awe) they suddenly realized that

every customer would have to pay one (1) golden sovereign to Sir Kenneth James Addington, Esq. for the privilege of getting to The Big Tesco and

obviously no one in their right mind wants to pay money to some sheep-faced lordling just to get cheddar and frozen peas so

they started long & complex legal negotiations with His Lordship’s wigged solicitors on how to solve this problem

(I wonder if ‘stuff a carrot up his nose until he chokes then donate his estate to the National Trust’ ever came up)

(probably not because touch one of them, you touch them all aaaand that’s very risky, my good sir, very risky indeed, don’t want the riff raff to get any dangerous ideas)

until finally

Tesco agreed to pay its customers’ tolls una tantum et ad infinitum for the exorbitant sum of three-and-umpteen squillions pounds 

(I honestly don’t remember, but it was a lot)

so

Sir Kenneth James Addington still has the legal right to extort a toll from anyone foolish enough to cross Local Trickle, except for

those using the Tesco Rainbow Bridge of Miracles, which only leads to the Big Tesco,

the end.

So I don’t know about you, but when I read this I was horrified. Like, well done on Granddaddy Addington for threatening his 200 serfs into joining King Rotting Teeth’s army and thus having a hand in his prodigious victory, but really? How is half of Europe still in the hands of the aristocracy, and how are they earning money while contributing absolutely nothing to society and scoffing and spitting at ‘lazy people’ who need benefits to live? 

Sadly, this is not a uniquely British situation, but the UK has elevated it to an art form and basically no one I ever chatted with could see anything wrong or weird about it (and honestly, dafuq). Even the House of Lords - people occasionally roll their eyes at it, but I’m not sure rolling your eyes is enough. I don’t feel sorry for Tesco and the money they wasted to support Lord Addington’s pheasant-flavoured cocaine habit, but come on. It’s fucking 2019. We can do better than that. Please let’s.