#sally la pointe

[the-clumsywitch]

So, you just realized you're a witch...

Well here's a guide to some things you might find helpful.

If it's something tangible, chances are you might already own some of these things, if not please don't stress about getting them. For some items I will include stores that you can find them as well as price points using the dollar symbol.

Candles

These can be in the form of chime candles, pillar, taper, glass, votive, tea light, etc.

You can get them in various colors but if you are trying to save money you can get white candles. And add your intention and herbs (or just your intention) to achieve your desired outcome.

They can be found at:

The Dollar Tree ($)- Best for votive, pillar, taper, tea light, jar, floating, and glass candles. They can often be found in multiple colors and scents.

Michael's craft store ($-$$) - Best for tall/large pillar and taper candles.

JoAnn Craft store ($-$$)- Best for the same candles as Michael's craft store.

Metaphysical shops ($-$$) - Chime candles and speciality candles such as glass candles with writing on them (exp: love, Orisha, justice candles) and figure candles.

Stores that sell scented candles ($$) - Examples of stores like this are Bath & Body Works and Yankee Candles. These are best for looking for candles that have scents that correspond with your particular spell. For instance, if you're doing a peace spell you may want to look for a candle that smells of lavender or a candle that puts you in a peaceful state of mind regardless of the scent name or ingredients.

Incense

Incense are excellent for air magick and you can often find them rather cheaply in most stores. I personally try to find them as toxin free as possible but you purchase what incense makes the most sense for you. Just as with candle scents, look for incense that either corresponds with your spell by the herb they are supposed to smell like or by feeling.

The Dollar Tree ($) - The ones I've been too have mainly been good for chakra incense.

Etsy ($) - There are multiple sellers with a lot of different scents and quite a few with free shipping!

Magick.com ($)

Amazon ($)

Metaphysical store ($)

Herbs

If you decide that you want to work with herbs you can usually get away with the ones you already have. However, I would caution against burning herbs that aren't organic but of course that is your decision to make. Some places to get herbs are:

The Dollar Tree (they don't have organic but they have a decent selection)

Your local grocery store

Target

Walmart

Metaphysical store

Note: If you can't find the herb you may want to consider using the essential oil instead. Only use a drip of the essential oil. You can also get a tea bag with the herb you need, rip it open, and use that.

Nail Polish

Color magick is the main thing here, but I have come across some scented nail polishes as well. Either way, you can choose a color and/or scent that corresponds to your spell. Here are some affordable brands (by that I mean the polishes from their main collection are not over $10.)

Wet n' Wild

Esssie

LA Colors

Revlon

Sally Hansen

L'Oreal

CoverGirl

L.A. Girl

Cosmetics

I know a lot of people typically include nail polish in this group but I tend to save this category for things such as lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and blush. Once again, the main purpose of this category is color magick but it can also be used for glamour magick. Some brands are:

elf cosmetics ($)

Wet n' Wild ($)

Revlon ($) - Mainly their lipsticks

Rimmel ($) - Lipstick and Blush

Nyx ($)

Revolution Beauty ($)

Essence Cosmetics ($)

Divination

If you are interested in divination there are so many types that you can easily find one that you connect with. Some forms of divination are:

Bibliomancy

Pyromancy

Tarot, oracle, and playing cards

Osteomancy

Water scrying

Crystal scrying

Mirror scrying

Automatic Writing

Tasseomancy

Pendulums

Types of Magick/Witches

It is not necessarily important that you pick a particular type of magick but I think some witches take being able to study multiple types of magick at once for granted. Not everyone is able to maintain focus while looking at magick as a whole, that's why I think separating magick and witches into types can be helpful. This is by no means a complete list but it's a start.

Celestial/cosmic magick

Elemental magick

Green witch

Hedge witch

Water magick

Earth magick

Air magick

Fire magick

Draconic witch

Eclectic witch

Lunar magick

Solar magick

Fairy magick

Kitchen magick

Sea witch

Candle magick

Ceremonial magick

This is by no means a comprehensive list and I will likely add more things to it over time or create more lists similar to this one. But I hope this was at least somewhat helpful!

-Erika, The Clumsy Witch

[saccharinescorpion]

4 Things You Can Try Now That You’ve Read THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR

(technically 5 things)

Mabel - a podcast by Becca De La Rosa and Maybell Marten.

Anna Limón is a home help worker currently looking after the elderly Sally Martin. When Sally has a bizarre and frightening reaction to a box of letters Anna finds in her attic one day, Anna attempts to seek answers by contacting Sally’s only known living relative: Mabel Martin.

“A podcast about ghosts, family secrets, strange houses, and missed connections,” Mabel is a story that is difficult to describe, but one of the most important points is that the vast majority of it is an epistolary narrative between Anna and Mabel, just like how This Is How You Lose The Time War is an epistolary narrative between Red and Blue. It also has a very distinct writing style- dramatic, flowery, and a little bit intimidating. However, if you loved the writing style of TIHYLTTW, I personally think that Mabel is a perfect match for you.

And I’m not just saying that because Mabel is a story about two extremely overdramatic women who are somehow both frighteningly caustic yet almost adorably useless.

The Honey Month - a book by Amal El-Mohtar 

I certainly hope I don’t have to tell you this, but Amal El-Mohtar is one of the authors of This Is How You Lose The Time War, and The Honey Month is a short book she wrote several years ago.

The Honey Month is almost more of an experiment than a book- in its introduction, a friend of El-Mohtar explains how she sent her several small samples of honey, leading El-Mohtar to use the gift as in a unique way. For one February, every day she used a different vial of honey as inspiration for a small piece of writing.

The Honey Month contains 28 short pieces of writing, poetry, prose, and some things in between. It’s a small book full of things with big impact, and contains the lyrical yet meaty writing I enjoyed from El-Mohtar in TIHYLTTW.

Otherside Picnic (裏世界ピクニック) - A series of novels by Iori Miyazawa (illustrated by Shirakaba)

College sophomore Sorawo Kamikoshi longs to find an escape from other people, and in trying to find it discovers the Otherside, a strangely beautiful yet unfathomably dangerous parallel world inhabited by the-once-fictional creatures she knows from net lore. She also meets Toriko Nishina, another young woman with a knowledge of firearms and a desire to find her missing mentor. Together, these two girls explore the Otherside and find themselves changing little by little, both due to their adventures, but also due to their relationship with each other.

If you know me you probably aren’t surprised at this reccomendation. Otherside Picnic is a truly odd beast- it’s sci-fi, it’s horror, it’s comedy, it’s yuri. It’s about trauma, it’s about Japanese creepypasta, it’s about useless lesbians, and it’s about how the scariest thing of all is being vulnerable with another human being. I think fans of  This Is How You Lose The Time War  will enjoy it- Otherside Picnic’s writing style will likely feel almost spartan compared to TIHYLTTW, but in my opinion there’s a similar level of poetry in it. There’s also a similar level of women who are “badass” yet kind of messes. You’ve heard of “Enemies to Lovers,” get ready for “Accomplices to Lovers”!

(there’s also a manga adaptation by Eita Mizuno, as well as an anime adaptation directed by Takuya Sato)

The Handmaiden (아가씨) - a movie directed by Park Chan-wook (written by Park and Chung Seo-kyung, based on the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters)

In Japan-occupied Korea, the pickpocket Sook-hee is recruited by a con-man to aide him in his scam of a Japanese heiress, Lady Hideko. While the con-man poses as “Count Fujiwara” and woos Hideko, Sook-hee will play the part of her maid and subtly push the heiress towards him. But as time passes, Sook-hee begins to realize there are things occuring in the mansion that are even more sinister than her and the Count’s scheme, and there is much, much more to Hideko than meets the eye.

This is a list of recommendations for “people who have finished “This Is How You Lose The Time War,” but I try to recommend The Handmaiden to as many people as I possibly can. I’ve described it in the past as the cinematic equivalent of running a marathon: with a 144 minute runtime full of gorgeous direction and set design, dark machinations, twisted yet romantic writing, often troubling themes, and so, so many plot twists, it’s a movie that nearly feels like too much of a good thing. But for fans of TIHYLTTW, I’m sure what will intrigue you most is the relationship between the two main characters, one so complicated that “Enemies to Lovers” can’t hope to capture the roiling feelings of pity, guilt, hatred, desire, annoyance, sympathy, and everything in between. 

It’s also just really hot.

The Handmaiden is a movie that is best enjoyed going in knowing as little as possible. That said, it is also a story with dark and often upsetting themes that are absolutely crucial to its narrative. If you are concerned about that statement,  I reccomend looking at the movies’ entry on DoesTheDogDie, which I have looked at and found to be a pretty comprehesive list of content warnings that can be examined in a way that doesn’t spoil the twists of the story.

Fingersmith - a novel by Sarah Waters

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I swear I’m going to get around to it!! I can’t technically recommend the book that inspired The Handmaiden since I haven’t read it yet, but I have at least one friend whose opinion I trust who sings its praises, so it’s good enough for me. Besides, if the recent popularity of This Is How You Lose The Time War has showed us anything, it’s that people constantly crave stories about complicated women, so it certainly can’t hurt, right?

[theteapotofdoom]

Still thinking about the masterclass that was Barry and its final episode. I’m especially thinking about that line in season 2 when Gene told Barry “I pray that human beings can change their nature, because if they can’t then you and I are in deep trouble.” Because like FUCK this is what the show was all about, wasn’t it? This was about Barry, Gene, Sally, Fuchs, Hank ...

But I’m mostly thinking about what this line means for Barry and Gene specifically and in the light of the final episode. I’m thinking about the parallels that this line established between them until the very end. 

They went on a reversed journey. After the time jump, Gene had changed and Barry hadn’t. Gene came back to LA to stop the movie because he no longer cared about fame and wanted to protect Janice’s memory. Barry lived a fake life as a midwestern christian far away from everything while being the same man he always was. But then, just for a few minutes at the very end, it reversed and it doomed them.

Gene had changed until he hadn’t. He was coming back with a real desire to be different and to stop the movie, but for just a few hours he was tempted by the spotlight once more and went back to his old ways and it doomed him. It doesn’t matter how honest and true his change of nature had been in the past 8 years because he slipped back for a bit and it was enough to ruin him.

Barry had not changed until he had. Barry spent the entire show incapable of changing. We saw him trying times and times again, sometimes with good intentions and he came pretty close a few times, but he never truly did. He always slipped back into his violent ways easily. When his back was against the wall he was always deeply selfish. And yet in the end, in the last few minutes of the show and the last few minutes of his life, he DID change. For the very first time in his life, he was ready to be selfless and to take a step in the right direction. To help Gene he was ready to turn himself, which is something that he never ever considered doing at any point in the entire show. In fact, it was the initial incident that ruined him because he could have let Janice arrest him back in season 1. He could have taken responsibility do his time and start over. But he was never willing to do that UNTIL THAT FINAL MOMENT. 

But it was too late. His one moment of actual growth in the entire show got him killed.

Barry is a show asking if people can change their nature or not and I find it fascinating that Gene was doomed by the one moment when he couldn’t change and Barry was doomed by the one moment when he could. 

What an absolute CHAD of a series finale. Barry will be studied in movie schools and Bill Hader will always be famous.

[chengxiansbaby]

MY FAVE PARTS FROM THE PJO SHOW EP. 1 and 2

(IM NOT SORRY ABOUT THIS) CLARISSE LA RUE.....SO GOOD.

The "I'm sally Jackson's son" BITCH I CRIED.

"You drool when you sleep"....This needs no explanation.

The casting and visual effects for this show are so so fucking good.

BUT THE CASTING...OMFG. Idc what the fuck anyone says...THe CASTING WAS ON POINT BABY.

DIONYSUS THO.....SOOO GOOD.

FINAL THOUGHTS:.............................I LOVE THIS SHOW. BABY I WAS GAGGED AND GOOPED. ITS SO SO SOOSOSOOOOSOOSO AMAZING. My new obsession (the tv show pjo not pjo in general...my blog has been a pjo blog for a hot minute baby....)<3333 WHAT DID YOU THINK???????!!!!!?????

[walli3darl1ng]

Hello!! This just popped into my head when I was re-reading the enderman reader for the 9th time-..

Okay.... Mexican reader! X Wally.

Okay like one day there's a picnic or a party whichever one you want and Julie requested reader to make some of their traditional Mexican food and they did but they messed up one in the kitchen and everybody else in the other room just starts hearing reader cussing/yelling at them self in Mexican. When they bring out the food everybody just staring in the questioningly cuz they don't understand Mexican. I'm so they decided to teach Wally how to speak Mexican at least a little bit and minus the cussing I don't know why I wanted that also if this ask is too difficult ignore it I don't want to overwork you!

From: a new friend 🌜/ _.Moon._

To: you💝

Moon…I am Mexican 🧍🏻this is gonna hit me too!

But I love it! I can imagine them teaching him without reader knowing and Wally just full on talks in Spanish and they’re like 😳

Okay! Enjoy…hopefully 🫠

Everyone was at your house since Julie decided a few days ago to have a small get-together. Just everyone hanging out and trying food and desserts from you. Everything is good, everyone is happy and laughing what can possibly go wron—

“¡Puta madre! ¡Se me olvidó la pinche sal!”

Everyone snaps their heads over to the kitchen door as they hear you cussing in your mother language; Spanish.

Julie immediately looks at Wally, who was sitting on the couch holding his cup of tea. He feels the stare and glances up as sees everyone is looking at him, he turns behind him and turns back when he sees no one behind him and then point at himself. “Me?”

“Yes! What was that?” Sally question and glances back at the door when she heard crashing and thuds. “It sound like they’re taking the kitchen apart.”

“Oh, yeah, they do that. It’s okay.” Wally waves it off and sets his cup down. Before anyone could question his careless and nonchalant response you come out of the kitchen with a tray filled with plates of food and bowls of some type of soup.

“Okay, I have el arroz y la carne.” You say as you set the tray down on the table with a smile. “Ah, si! Tambien las albóndigas. Enjoy!”

“Are you okay, Y/n?” Barnady asks as he looks at you.

You turn to him and smile, nodding your head as you walk back to the kitchen. “Oh si, I’m fine I just messed up, no worry. We don’t have salt though.”

Let’s say everyone was a bit confused but enjoyed the delicious and spicy food. But Wally was still a bit worried? He’s been your partner for a while now and still haven’t gotten use to the language you’ll sometimes talk to him with. He wants to learn it, and learn a lot of it.

And that he did, everyday he would practice some phrases, learn new words, translate, write, practice speaking and writing. Anything and everything to her it drilled into his head.

A few weeks later You’re back in the kitchen making some dulce gorditas when you heard the front door and hears Wally’s voice. You beam and walked out the kitchen to greet him. “¡Hola, mi amor!”

Wally grins at you with a blush and waves. “Hola, Mi vida.”

You froze. Did you hear right? Did Wally just spoke Spanish to you? It was clear and you can clearly hear it coming from his mouth. “..what?”

“Hola, mi amor. ¿como estás?” He giggles at your frozen and shocked state and holds your hand giving you a sweet kiss on your knuckles.

“Uh…I’m good. How—how did you learn?”

“I got help from Eddie. Did I do a good job?” Wally smiles at you and it only seems to grow when you nod. “¡Que bien! Te amó tanto.”

You blush and then smile, this effort on his part to lean the language warms your heart. You always proud of your language and are very patient when Wally doesn’t understand and you would teach him but other things will come up and you didn’t have the time to properly teach him so seeing that he did on his own account made you love him even more.

“Ay, cariño, yo también te amo.” You give Wally a kiss on the cheek and pull him closer to which he returns without hesitation.

If he can make you happy like this, he wouldn’t mind learning absolutely everything to do so.

~~~

Y’all miss me!! No? That’s okay I missed you! Writers block is a real pain I’ll tell you🫠🧍🏻

[pendragonsclotpole]

i’ve been keeping up with dominic noble’s lost in adaptation series for pjo, and i just finished watching his review of episode 8. he made a point of saying that he didn’t consider the tv series an offense to the book, and i’m glad he did because i think a lot of show fans hear the criticism that some books fans have of the show and misunderstand why we’re so upset.

i think the tv series is a good, decent adaptation that attempts to appeal to a younger audience/an audience as young as the book series first readers when it was published. it modernizes a few things (shoutout to that completely unnecessary scene of sally listening to olivia rodrigo), expands on a bit of the central characters, updates the relationships the gods have with their children, and keeps the spirit of the original series, if not always the execution.

i think if the tv show had come out in 50+ years, long after a book accurate and beloved adaptation had come out, the show would be a fresh take on a classic children’s story a la lotr. but the issue is that the last adaptation came out close to 15 years ago and while it was good and entertaining for a blockbuster movie, it wasn’t percy jackson.

it wasn’t the story we got to see and get to know: a complex tale of parental neglect, greek gods and mythology, and most importantly—a young, misunderstood boy trying to navigate the complexities that arose from the circumstances and consequences of multiple sets of beings, far more powerful and older than him, trying to control him and take away his agency, all because of the circumstances of his birth, which were not his fault and which he didn’t ask for. sure there was magic, sure there a suspension of disbelief, but at the heart of the story there was enough darkness and realness for the story of the book to mean something.

we spent years listening to rick riordan promise us that he would find a place to create a faithful adaptation of the book. but he didn’t. and that’s okay, because at the heart of it all, he wrote pjo to appeal to a set of kids younger than i am now and closer to the age i was when i first met percy jackson. i understand the dozens of fans that love the show, even the book fans that enjoy it as an adaptation, but to me, the girl who admired the brutality of sally jackson turning the man who abused her to stone, who loved the emotional complexity of a dad who could never quite say the right thing to his own child and always left them feeling so disappointed and like a mistake and alone, who never quite fit in with the other kids and felt unwanted, who wished she had some sort of powers and the capacity to rebel against the forces older and more powerful that controlled her, i just can’t love the show as much as i love the books.

i know what i just wrote sounds weird. no, i don’t want to essentially kill and turn any men that may harm or abuse me to stone (tho people if you get the chance, godspeed). but i do love the idea that sally when given the choice, had the power to petrify a man who likely petrified her. she made her choice to get rid of him. she made a choice many women or victims of abuse in general don’t often get a chance to make, and it was presented in such an unrealistic way, in the guise of a medusa’s head, that it felt even more real. i love that a man that is meant to be from an idolized and integral part of your mother’s past, who in many ways is a god, can be a horrible father and partner, and say the wrong things and never be enough. i love the idea that we can all be tempted by the wrong things but eventually make the right choice and be the hero we needed all along.

i think i’ve rambled long enough, and i hope you all can understand what i mean. obviously some of the points i mentioned have yet to be adapted. i hope the show gets to bring to life all 5 books and potentially even beyond. i think the tv show is good, funny, entertaining, a little slow at times, and not enough action or tension. i love leah, walker, and aryan as annabeth, percy, and grover. i think the designs are beautiful. i think it is a good adaptation and i think with a rewatch it’ll grow on me, but it just isn’t the percy jackson i grew up with. maybe that’s on me. maybe i’ve grown up idolizing a book series and appreciating what it meant to me, instead of reading it and appreciating it for what it is: a children’s series. maybe the tv show and book series are mediums meant for other kids and new audiences to enjoy. in which case, enjoy them. i’ll still watch along to see some iteration of the books i love be brought to life, and to appreciate a good show but a part of my heart will always yearn for a faithful book adaptation.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Percabeth would never happen with afrolatino Percy.In tlt he'd tell Annabeth 'Ayo,Point Dexter Girl,since you love talking about how smart you are,figure this one out:Why don't you got friends like the slow loser?' and by boo he would've completely cut her out of his life because he was sick of her ass.Percy's from the carribean so he don't do snow and he also hates conquistadores so he'd kill Luke as reperations for Chris and Beckendorf.The gods?Sorry but he's not a hotep either so he don't fuck with them.He's too busy still living with Sally to be close to his Mamí even as an adult and running La Familia Jackson Beach Shack as a family bussiness with her and Nico,who's also black,and Hazel,who isn't an oreo,and living an afropunk lifestyle the rest of the time.He's dating a black woman too but i ain't saying who

[thirdtidemouse]

hilda characters in taskmaster, if this means anything to anyone:

for context, taskmaster is a show hosted by greg davies and pathetic assistant (/creator) alex horne. each series five comedians are made to do pointless and difficult tasks and are awarded points. it ends up being very very funny and very amicably argumentative.

for now, i'll do my classic 5 faves, but i would love to do more like edmund + some ocs!

hilda - starting with the kids, likely winner. i mean she is the main character, but she has those problem-solving skills and unbeatable enthusiastic spirit (which would definitely take a beating in this godawful game). i considered how different the competition might be given that they're kids? but lenny rush recently competed at 14 and he did awesome. hilda would definitely stand up for herself if she thought her score or the task was unfair but she is a good sport all round. most likely to miss the huge hidden-in-plain-sight clues. here to have fun but not fuck around. all the cheerful demeanor of rob beckett. likes to very gently make fun of alex. would never ever give up.

"what you can't take away from me is that i had an absolutely lovely day."

"people say my ADHD means i have shit problem solving skills. no sir!"

frida - nerdiness to rival josh widdicombe. knows the taskmaster's tricks and snoops all around for clues/hidden solutions. genuine competence and competitiveness of someone like sarah kendall, as indignant and argumentative as ed gamble. the one time she doesn't find the hidden alternative answer is when the main pathway is just 'do a really long maths sum to get the code for the lock' and she just gets on with it because she can. tries not to act overly proud of herself but after a particular stressful win she definitely gets up and cheers. argues with other contestants. gets very annoyed by alex and sometimes tells him to shut up.

"the only way i get out of this with any dignity is if i die right now."

[to a small plush vole] "you've got no chutzpah! your organizational skills are lacklustre, and your timekeeping is abysmal."

david - the awkward swagger of james acaster but absolutely 0 of his winning spirit. definitely a fan-favourite pathetic contestant. the show would wear his psyche down so much he would snap and end up begging for points in a total breakdown à la joe wilkinson. gets genuinely cocky after a rare win. gets very stressed out by alex and is very scared of greg. like mae martin, is initially very nonchalant about the tasks, but can become freaked out quickly. not very good at getting points. ashamed of his failures and overjoyed with his successes. most likely to be given a humiliating solo task.

"please don't take it away from me."

"well well well! looks like last in P.E., first in being a legend!"

johanna - total sweetheart, smiling all the time even when she fucks up and loses, much like charlotte ritchie. although she does fuck up and lose considerably less. less nervous though, here to have fun AND fuck around. a sally phillips approach to tasks, meaning chill as fuck, inconspicuously normal contestant, that consistently produces either the most terribly planned OR the most creatively out of pocket and deranged 'solutions', of which back in the studio she has zero explanation for and can only laugh uncontrollably as if it wasn't entirely her idea. this will inevitably win her a lot of points but she will fall short on something like charlotte ritchie's first prize task, in which she brings in all of her bedding, is told 'you can't just pick up stuff from around your house,' and is given last place. this also makes her place her head in her hands and giggle. her attitude carries charlotte's consistent likeness to a children's tv show host. zaniness and well-spoken ramblings of mike wozniak.

"when you have no other ideas, you stick to your bad idea."

"i was excited, there was fire, i'd been told to undermine a vole and i let him have it."

kaisa - will not embarrass herself for love nor money. could not give a fuck about any of you people and simultaneously is incredibly determined to win. would get increasingly distraught with the incompetence of any teammates in an ed gamble outburst. despite this, is a cooperative and hardworking teammate. would spend long periods of time in silent thought before carrying out her plan with no explanation along the way. like james acaster, does not ever say hello to alex, just because she 'doesn't have to.' generally does not like alex. to quote jamali maddix, 'he's a punk. i don't like him.' acts like a rebellious teen in the presence of greg. i have no solid outfit headcanons right now but she would wear what bridget christie wore:

"i've got three sensitivity levels! and i'll be honest, i'm on my top fucking one right now!"

"i knew we were against the clock, and i didn't give a fuck" 

and here is my final test of character - one of the most simple and most telling tasks, from the very first episode:

"eat as much of this watermelon as you can in one minute."

hilda - romesh ranganathan. upon entry of the lab, she wields the watermelon above her head and smashes it into the floor, devouring as much of it as she can. total tunnel vision. she throws up a little at the end. wins the task.

frida - josh widdicombe. enters prepared with a knife, manages to hurriedly cut and eat a portion of the watermelon, with not nearly as much vigor as hilda. is not giving up any dignity for this. 3rd place.

david - frank skinner. was not expecting a whole watermelon. manages to quickly get into the melon but falls short at his eating speed. is clearly trying not to choke. 4th place.

johanna - tim key. no utensils required. cracks it open right there on the table, eating as fast as possible, almost to the same wild and untamed degree as her daughter. is docked points because she sneaks a final bite of watermelon after the minute is up, just because she enjoys it. 2nd place.

kaisa - roisin conarty. was also not expecting a whole watermelon. total lack of urgency in comparison. leaves the room and spends 50 of her 60 seconds retrieving a knife, which she totally could have done beforehand, manages to crack open and eat a total of 9 grams of the watermelon before her time is immediately up. last place. couldnt give a fuck though

thanks for reading guys. if you have anything to add or ask then please do. peace and love

[time-and-the-waves]

𝐀𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐈'𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟎'𝐬 𝐈𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞!

NAME: Circe Achilles Jackson.

ALIAS: Cee, Ceecee, Soda-addict, Jackson, CJ. NATIONALITY: American.

AGE: 15/16 years old.

WEAPONS: A standard issue CHB sword, small intricately decorated daggers.

RELATIONS: Sally Jackson (Mother); Perseus Jackson (Brother); Poseidon (Father); Gabe Ugliano (Ex-stepfather.); Paul Blofis (Step-Father); Estelle Jackson-Blofis (Step-Sister).

PERSONALITY: She's stand-offish, stubborn and sarcastic. There used to be a time when she was loud and liked giving people nicknames, now, she's more of a tired teenager.

FATAL FLAWS: Inferiority complex, Hard time forgiving others.

FEARS: Heights, Loud sounds, abandonment issues

HOBBIES: playing guitar, skate-boarding, annoying her brother, playing Skee-Ball and other arcade games.

SEXUALITY: Bisexual. and Painstakingly single. Come flirt with me, I'll flirt back <33

APPEARANCE: curly, messy, black hair. heterochromic eyes (one sea-green, one brown.). lanky and lean. BACKGROUND: Circe is Percy's twin sister. Biologically. She went with Percy, Annabeth and Grover on the quest to find their mother and get the lightning bolt back, even though Chiron had warned them taking 4 people on a quest was bad luck. Well, bad luck it was. The group made their way to Lotus Casino, and Circe got sidetracked, attracted by the games and the food. They lost her. While searching, Ares demands one of the staff there tell Percy she's dead, so that he'll back off the quest. They tell him, and heartbroken, they leave. Once realising she couldn't find her brother anywhere, panic seized her and the staff told her he'd left. She felt betrayed. Had he not wanted her? Everyday, she waited, hoping he'd come back, but he never did. In the process, she meets two other kids, one obsessed with mythomagic and his older sister. They leave at some point too. She makes out 3 years before right now, and starts aging pretty quick, turning up at around 16 while her twin brother is 40. Talk about weird. PEOPLE I KNOW:

@ghost-king-and-thebones Nico Di Angelo. Son of Hades.

@doctor-sunshine-andcarebears William Solace-Di Angelo. Son of Apollo.

@olivernothere Oliver Solace-Di Aneglo. Son of Nico di-angelo/

@chasing-that-jackson Praetor Jackson. Daughter Of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. (technically my niece..sigh.)

@sincerely-anniejackson Annabeth Chase. Daughter of Athena.

@ineedtoescapefromreality echo and rosalyn mclean. Children of Piper and Shel Mclean.

@leo-repairguy-valdez Leo Valdez. Son of Hephaestus.

@iggy-mini-miny-moe Ignis Grace. Son of Leo Valdez and Jason Grace.

@notwillingtobefound Will Grace. Son of Leo Valdez and Jason Grace.

@violent-cinnamonroll Aria La Rue. Daughter of Clarisse La Rue and Silena Beauregard.

@daredevil-larue Lucine La Rue. Daughter of Clarisse La Rue and Silena Beauregard.

@hey-guys-its-sam Samantha Zhang. Daughter of Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque

@yourfavoriteadoptedkid Eloise Zhang. Daughter of Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque

@not-a-panda Pandora Stoll. Daughter of Travis Stoll and Kaite Gardener.

@crimes-girlfriend Andrea Lilith. Daughter of Hades

@praetor-ambrose-asher Ambrose Asher. Praetor of Rome. @the-poison-and-the-sky Belladonna Chase-Jackson.

Tags: Circe is here! - ic Don't listen to the witch's advice - asks Circe in the Casino - Lore Lotus Casino staff cleans up - Ooc

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

[dantakeyoman]

𝐉𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐘 | 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐨𝐧𝐞

♡ 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦! 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

♡ * 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈, 𝒔𝒆𝒙𝒚, 𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒍𝒆, 𝒛𝒐𝒎𝒃𝒊𝒆-𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏. 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒔. *

♡ 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐳𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦 (𝐳𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐬), 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐞, 𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 (𝐨𝐟 𝐳𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐬), 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐬, 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐞𝐱, 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬, 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐞𝐭𝐜.

♡ * 𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒇𝒚: 𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒇𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒊𝒏 𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒍 *

𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑

"Looks like anyone who's ever been in a movie lives on this block," Columbus stated, reading the map he picked up as Tally drove you through the Hollywood Hills.

"What exactly you think we're doin' in the 90210, Sally?" Tallahassee smirked.

"I pictured Tom Cruise living somewhere nicer," Wichita stated as you passed his house.

"Definitely," you agreed, watching it go by.

After driving through Arizona and into California, the five of you agreed to keep your little troupe going until you reached Pacific Playland.

Though, Tallahassee had an idea of somewhere you all could crash for some R 'n R.

So that was where you were going first.

"He's a B-lister compared to who I got in mind, folks. We're goin' to the tippy top of the A-list," he assured

"Who?" Little Rock asked.

"You'll see," he cheesed.

Turning the corner, he rode up the driveway of a house with a golden BM on its gates.

"It's a big BM?" Columbus asked.

"And it ain't Bob Marley," Tal quipped.

He pulled over and the lot of you got out, heading in through the ornate front doors.

The place was beyond fancy with golden in nearly every corner, and big, beautiful archways.

It was a gorgeous house.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to La Mancion de Murray," Tal proudly introduced, walking the four of you into a room where a large painting of the famous comedian stood.

"You've gotta be jokin'," you smiled.

"No way. This guy has a direct line to my funny bone," Wichita gasped.

"Whoa, whoa, wait. Who's Bill Murray?" Little Rock asked, confused.

"Hey, I've never hit a kid before," Tal shook his head, disappointed.

"I blame you," you turned to Wichita, "Poor girl wasn't educated."

"I mean, that's like asking who Gandhi is," Tal waved off.

"Who's Gandhi?" The little girl asked again.

You cocked a brow at Wichita, and she scoffed, "She's twelve."

"And you're failing as a parental figure," you shrugged, heading towards the kitchen.

"There's no Twinkies in here," Columbus reported, already having checked every cabinet.

"Shit fuck!" Tally cursed, walking in and kicking a low cabinet.

"Told ya we shoulda gone to Russell Crowe's," you cooed, sitting yourself down on the counter in front of him, "But you don't listen."

"Excuse me for makin' mistake, Miss Perfect," he taunted, rolling his eyes and leaning against the side of the counter.

"Hello? Inside voices," Columbus reminded, picking up his gun, "At least until we know we're alone. Tallahassee, Jersey, take that way. Little Rock, Wichita, come with me."

"Why do I get stuck with her?" Tal complained.

Fakely, of course.

"I'm not jumpin' to be put with you, either, cowboy," you scoffed with a smile, hopping off the counter and bumping him with your hip, heading off in the direction Columbus pointed.

Before he followed you, shut his eyes and took a deep breath, regaining his composure.

You had to be doing this shit on purpose.

No way you weren't.

𝒛 𝒐 𝒎 𝒃 𝒊 𝒆 𝒍 𝒂 𝒏 𝒅

Walking into one of the bedrooms, the two of you shared a look, glancing at the bed, before looking at each other again.

You booked it, but Tal, already guessing your plan, grabbed you by your waist and tossed you back, running for the bed himself.

"Fuckin' cheat!" You exclaimed, recovering and chasing him.

"You snooze, you lose, sweetheart," he smirked, flopping belly first onto the bed.

But you walked over and grabbed him by his ankles, flipping him over the side.

He landed on the floor with a groan, and you happily crawled on the bed, leaning over the edge to look at him.

You grabbed his hat off his head, carefully placing it on your head.

"Guess you could say I gotchu floored, huh?" You smirked.

He looked up at you with a smile, caught off-guard by the horrible pun.

God, you looked so pretty with his hat on your head.

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that," he denied.

"Oh, c'mon, you've said way worse," you scoffed, crawling over and putting down your feet.

"I just add that charm to it," he smirked, standing up and dusting himself off, "S'a me thing, y'know."

"All right, then. Let me try," you cleared your throat, prepping your voice for his country accent, "Guess you could say I gotchu floored, huh?"

He shook his head, throwing an arm around your shoulder, "Needs work."

"I think the hat should give me extra points," you adjusted it as you two walked into the next room.

It sounded like the other three were watching Ghostbusters somewhere, 'cause the theme song could be heard crystal clear in this room.

Tally threw off his jacket as he shimmied, throwing himself onto the couch and holding up his feet.

"Help me with the boots. C'mon," he bicycled to the music, clapping.

You rolled your eyes and grabbed the things, yanking them off and tossing them somewhere.

"Thanks, doll," he smiled, sitting up.

"Sure," you blushed, quickly covering by picking up the golf club and balls you found in the corner of the room.

You set up shop were you found them, picking out a ball and winding up your swing, smacking it into the fireplace.

Tally was back up again, horribly dancing to the music still playing, humming along here and there.

You wound up another swing, hitting the ball into the wall, making it roll off somewhere.

Behind the music, you could've sworn you heard the sounds of footsteps, but you paid it no mind.

Probably just one of the others.

Or maybe some sort of creaking.

This place was abandoned, after all.

You didn't really care either way.

It was the one time you could finally let your guard down, finally let loose and live life past the nightmare outside.

You already had enough to worry about.

You wound up again, a little anger fueling your swing as the ball smacked into the window sill, ricocheting off a whole bunch of things until it hit Tallahassee in the face.

He groaned, and dropped to his knees, before allowing himself to fully flop on the ground.

"Shit!" You winced, quickly running over, and kneeling down in front to him "Tally, I am so sorry. It was an accident."

The footsteps had gotten louder but you still ignored it, more focused on making sure your cowboy was all right.

You lifted his chin, checking his eyes to make sure he didn't have a concussion, and they looked fine until they went wide, landing on something behind you.

"Bill Murray, you're a zombie?" He winced.

You quickly whipped around and grabbed your club in one motion, using it to hit Murray in the knees and make him fall.

"Auugh! Ow! I'm on fire!" He shouted in pain, rolling over and clutching his ass, "Ouch!"

"You're not a zombie, you're talkin'....you're okay?" Tal asked, confused, as the two of you stood up.

"The hell I am!" He exclaimed, slowly and painfully, pulling himself up.

'Coulda fooled me.'

"I'm sorry. I didn't know that it was you you," you apologized.

"Are you...? What's with the get up?" Tal asked, referring to the zombie makeup the actor had on for some reason.

"Oh, I do it to blend in. Zombies don't mess with other zombies," he panted, breathing himself through the pain, "Buddy of mine showed me how to do this. Cornstarch. You know, some berries, a little licorice for the ladies."

You nodded, not understanding a single word of what this man was saying.

'Maybe he hit his head, too.'

"Suits my lifestyle, y'know. I like to get out and do stuff. Just played nine holes on the Riviera. Just walked on. Nobody there."

Tal smiled his shouting smile, and you took a deep sigh, prepping your ears.

"Goddamn it, Bill fuckin' Murray!" He exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air, "I had to get that out. I don't mean to gush. This is so surreal. I mean, you probably get this all the time. ....Well, maybe not lately, but I'm such a huge fan of yours."

Bill smiled, bowing a humble thanks.

"I've seen every one of your movies a million times. I even love your dramatic roles and just everything," he continued, "Seven people left in the world, one of them is Bill fuckin' Murray. I know that's not your middle name but I just...I been watching your movies since I was...er...since I could masturbate. Not that the two were connected."

You could tell he was going off the rails a little, so you rested a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Tal, hon, I think he understands," you snickered, hopefully reeling him in a little bit.

"It's all right. That's why we do it," Bill smiled.

"I love you, Bill. I love you," Tal finished, giving him a quick bow.

"Thank you," he turned to you, noticing that your eyes had set sights on his unruly hair.

"You are staring at me. It's a hairpiece," he assured, lifting it and putting it back down.

"Sorry, no, it was just that you look remarkably like Eddie Van Halen," you laughed.

"I just saw Eddie Van Halen" he nodded.

"No way," you gasped.

"Where?" Tal asked.

"At the Hollywood Bowl."

"How was that?"

"Well, he's a zombie."

You sucked your teeth, "That's a tough break."

The three of you stood there for a moment, awkwardly, until Bill broke the silence.

"Well, how about a little West Coast hospitality. Can I get you something? What would you like?"

You and Tally turned to each other at the same time, sharing the same devilish smirk.

𝒛 𝒐 𝒎 𝒃 𝒊 𝒆 𝒍 𝒂 𝒏 𝒅

A bunch of weed and couple reenactments later, and the three of you were now right outside the home theater, getting ready to send in Bill.

Wichita, Little Rock, and Columbus were in there, watching Ghostbusters, and you and Tal planned to have Bill walk in and scare the shit out of them.

Everyone will scream, everyone will laugh, it was gonna be a grand ol' time.

"Wait, wait, wait," you stopped them, "I saw a Polaroid in the other room. I wanna get a pic of Doofus' face."

The two men nodded and you quickly scurried off to find the camera, excited.

They both were warmed at how giddy and relaxed you looked, but Bill could tell that Tal was enjoying it a great deal more than him.

"Your wife's lovely. A very kind woman," Bill complimented, leaning against the wall.

"Oh, you're seein' her happy. Wait 'til you piss 'er off," Tally scoffed with a smile.

After a moment's delay, he finally processed the sentence, snapping his head over to the actor, "Wait, wife?"

"Yeah," Bill nodded, cocking a brow, "You guys are married, right?"

"Oh, no, no, no, we're not like that," Tal assured, "Just very good friends."

Bill's eyebrows flattened almost immediately, and he gave the man a very sarcastic look.

People were still doing this shit at the end of the world?

"You're joking, right?" He asked, wondering if this was all a big joke.

Tal shook his head.

Bill sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "That's impossible. You two are very obviously in love."

"Nah," Tal shook his head again, crossing his arms, "I mean, don't get me wrong, I may be sweet on the gal, but she's too good for me. She deserves someone better."

"Don't know if you took a look outside lately, but last I checked, there is no one better," Bill corrected.

"And even if there was, that woman is still blatantly in love with y-." "Sorry for the wait, I got lost," you came back, camera in hand.

The two men quickly clammed up, covering any sort of hint as to what they were talking about before.

"So Columbus is the scared one?" Bill asked, slipping on his wig as if nothing happened.

Must be all the acting.

"Yeah. He's like a little mouse," you nodded, holding the camera at the ready.

Tal was still lost in deep thought, replaying his conversation with Bill.

Him being in love with you? ....Possibility

You being in love with him? No way in hell.

Bill had to be pulling his leg. It was impossible.

If it was true, surely he would've seen some sort of sign from you.

But you'd done nothing out of the ordinary....to his recollection.

"I'll get him," Bill assured, holding up his arms like a zombie, "Watch this.

He skulked into the theater, loudly groaning and grunting like a zombie.

And Columbus yelped in fright.

But just as you popped in the door to snap the picture, Columbus picked up his gun and shot Bill square in the chest, your camera catching the whole thing.

He let out a loud shout of pain and dropped into the closest chair.

"Holy shit!" You exclaimed, everyone quickly rushing to his aid.

"No, no, it's okay, it's okay. I got him," Columbus assured.

"Is that.... how you say hello.... where you're from?" Bill asked, weakly.

Columbus' eyes went wide in realization, and he raked a nervous hand through his hair, "Oh my God. I can't believe I just shot Bill Murray."

Tal shook his head sadly, turning to the poor man, "Mr. Murray?"

"I'm just Bill, I think, now," he sighed.

"Bill...I don't think we're gonna be able to stitch this," Tal admitted.

You rested a soft hand on Bill's shoulder, "You think you can pull through?"

He turned to you, and shook his head, "No."

"If it's worth anything now, I am so sorry. It was just instinctive," Columbus quickly apologized.

"It was my bad," Bill assured, "I was never a very good practical joker."

Little Rock crouched down to his eye level, "So, do you have any regrets?"

He paused for a moment, thinking.

"Garfield, maybe."

'Very fair.'

And with a final, incredibly long breath, Bill Murray, the zombie-impersonating actor, was dead.

Wichita let out a snicker, and everyone turned to her with disbelief.

"I'm sorry. He just gets me," she apologized, her smile quickly falling, "But it still is sad."

You nodded, "Even worse to have a polaroid of it."

You somberly held up the photo, which showed the flash of the gun and Columbus' terrified face, along with Bill's body falling into the chair.

𝒛 𝒐 𝒎 𝒃 𝒊 𝒆 𝒍 𝒂 𝒏 𝒅

After giving Bill a proper send off, and disposing the body, the crew decided the best way to cancel out the depressing end of the day was to play some late night Monopoly.

So here you were, curled up next to Tallahassee as you did your best to stay awake through the painfully boring game

"Ooo, free parking," Wichita commended Little Rock as she landed on the space, "Which is the best thing about Zombieland."

"No, best thing about Z-land, no Facebook status updates," Columbus chimed, "You know, Rob Curtis is gearin' up for Friday. Who cares?"

"The best thing is no more flushing," Tal corrected, taking a bite of his Ding Dong, "Epic."

"And the worst thing about Z-land?" Wichita asked.

"You mean, other than the fact that I shot Bill Murray?" Columbus hung his head.

"That's easy," Tal nodded, "Losin' Buck."

The girls looked confused

"S'his puppy," you yawned, trying to stay awake and present in the conversation.

"I'm gonna tell you, I never thought I could love anything like Buck," he sighed, "He was just...the day he was born, I just lost my mind."

Wichita looked down, guilty, "Sorry."

"We were two peas. He had my personality, my laugh, my appetite."

...

'Laugh?'

And that's when it hit you.

Buck wasn't a puppy.

Buck was a boy.

Buck was his son.

'Holy shit.'

You felt like shit. Pure, bonefide shit.

How had you not noticed the signs?

How had you not noticed that outside your own selfish pool of despair, there were others circling the drain, too?

Tal had gotten choked up, his eyes glassy as he fished something out his pocket.

"We made this wallet together out of duct tape," he sniffled, handing it to you.

You carefully took it, tearing up at the pictures of the little, blonde boy, who was nothing but smiles.

It was adorably homemade, the tape not uniform at all and still a little sticky. But it was clear that it was well loved and held a multitude of memories for Tal.

'Fuckin' hell.'

You handed it back to him, giving his shoulder a comforting rub and shooting a sincere look.

He gave you a small nod of thanks, and started to pull himself together, sniffling for the last time.

"I haven't cried like that since Titantic," he sighed, dabbing away a couple tears with some cash.

𝒛 𝒐 𝒎 𝒃 𝒊 𝒆 𝒍 𝒂 𝒏 𝒅

[whositmcwhatsit]

Chapter 3

AN: Well, this whole writing thing got away from me for a bit, sorry everyone! Thank you to my alpha @thatbanditqueen, who decodes my gibberish, and a big thank you to @vintageshanny, @ellie-24 and @be-my-ally for keeping me sane without even knowing it.

Here are the previous chapters since you'll definitely need to be remind yourself what it's all about!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

There was a sharp rapping at the door after lunch the next day. Sally had gone back to the room to change into her bikini and robe, deciding to brave the poolside because she was tired of looking like the washed-out spirit of some pioneer girl haunting the hotel.

Thinking it was Laura checking on why she was taking so long, Sally threw open the door as she went to the mirror and adjusted the bikini top beneath her loose peasant blouse.

“Do you think I should untie the straps on this thing? I don’t want to have white lines on my shoulders.”

The tall man standing in the doorway raised his eyebrows behind his sunglasses and flashed a wide smile.

“Uh, I don’t know that I’m qualified to answer that one, Miss,” he replied amiably with a shrug.

Sally whirled round, feeling her mortified blush tingle as it hit her hairline.

“Oh gosh, I thought you were someone else,” she mumbled lamely. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, my name’s Sonny. I work for-“ He pointed a finger up and Sally frowned.

“God?” Utah wasn’t a million miles away but surely they didn’t send missionaries to the Las Vegas casino hotels. That just seemed unfair on both sides.

“What?” He gave a sharp laugh. “No!” He shot her a look like he thought she was either dumb or crazy, maybe a mixture of both. But she wasn’t the one who cased the corridor like a secret agent before murmuring: “Elvis. I work for Elvis.”

“Oh.” She thought that he was maybe waiting for more of a reaction, but after worrying that he was a Mormon missionary, the fact that he was one of Elvis’ guys was a relief.

“Uh, anyway, my boss wanted me to bring you these-“ He whipped out the tickets for that night’s show. “And, uh, this.” He held out a small, dark green velvet case in his other hand. She took both and frowned again at his look of expectation.

“Do you… Oh, I don’t really have any cash on me right now. Hang on a second, I can check-”

“God, no.” He wiped his face with a big meaty hand and yanked off his sunglasses, fixing her with a look that she thought was supposed to be intimidating but just looked exhausted. “Can you open it please? I’m s’posed to let him know how you… acted.”

“No pressure,” she muttered, lifting the lid.

Inside was a gold bracelet interlaced around emeralds circled by little diamonds. It looked like something the Queen of England might wear to a soiree, not a teller from a bank in the middle of nowhere. Not without being accused of embezzlement.

All of that ran through her head as she stared open-mouthed. Finally, she remembered her audience and she glanced back up.

“Can you tell him that I was overjoyed and jumped up and down and was grateful?” she asked, worrying that she hadn’t accrued enough goodwill to get him to lie for her. “I am very grateful, really grateful, but this is… I’ve never even seen anything like this before, let alone touched it.” She tentatively put a finger to the metal; it felt cool against her fingertip.

“Yeah, I’ll tell him.” He slid his sunglasses back on and gave her a small smile and a nod. “I’ll see ya.”

Sally nodded back and closed the door, clutching the tickets and bracelet to her chest. “Well, that was weird.”

At the pool, Laura huddled over the bracelet, pulling Sally’s wrist close to her near-sighted eyes like she was a jeweler, appraising gems.

“You think they’re real?” she asked, tilting Sally’s arm to see the stones caught the sun. Sally looked around at the other people on the sun loungers, feeling slightly too conspicuous thrusting precious stones in the air.

“I don’t know.”

“And you didn’t even have to sleep with him.”

“Keep your voice down!” Sally hissed, snatching her arm away.

“I’m just saying, you’ve got to be careful playing hard to get, you know, Sal, they can get tired of it real suddenly.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. I wouldn’t do that.”

Sally could imagine that he would be able to see through that pretty quickly too. He seemed to do that, to see deeper than people thought he did, or at least it felt like he did when his eyes were on you.

Almost as if she was afraid of being caught, she glanced up at the towering white façade of the hotel. It rose up and disappeared into the shimmering heat of the endless blue sky. Somewhere, right at the very top, which she couldn’t make out from the bottom, he was there. She wondered if he was thinking about her. Maybe he was looking down at the pool… She felt her cheeks heat up and she had to look away just in case.

That evening, she and Laura were standing in line for the dinner show. At the front were the devoted fans who had probably started queuing while they were still at the pool.

“Imagine if they knew you what you got up to last night,” Laura remarked, wiggling her eyebrows. She seemed more excited by the cachet of Sally’s relationship, such as it was, with Elvis, than Sally herself was. “What? It’s okay to enjoy things, Sal, Jesus!”

Sally opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Emilio the maître de who had somehow picked them out of the crowd of heavily made-up glamorously dressed women.

“The Beatles fan… Sally, is it not?” He pecked both her cheeks and then grabbed her fingers, wrapping them around his crooked arm. “We have been told to take extra special care of you.”

Sally glanced back at Laura, who had snatched hold of her other arm, and pulled a face. They giggled as they were escorted past all the baleful looking people in front of them in the queue.

“It’s like being a movie star!” she whispered to Laura.

“Now you’re getting it.”

Sitting in the central booth again, they felt highly visible as the room rapidly filled and staff served dinner. Sally watched the tables beside the stage fill up, the biggest tippers sitting central, women only closest to the stage.

“You know, some people come all the way from Japan and England and Australia just to watch these shows. Not even on vacation, just to see Elvis. The other night, I was talking to some people from South Africa!”

“Well, older folks have more money I guess,” Laura murmured, sipping her champagne.

“It’s not just older people,” she murmured, hearing how defensive she sounded. Laura shrugged, but didn’t reply as the lights started to go down.

The show passed in a blur of lights, sounds and, of course, music. Sally could tell that Elvis was getting more comfortable on the stage with each show, the patter between each song was becoming longer, sometimes surreal, usually funny, and he was cutting up during the songs more, swapping lyrics, usually for something dirty. The audiences seemed to enjoy it, and he certainly seemed to thrive on that.

Joe appeared during the piano intro for ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love.’ This time, he didn’t ask them to come backstage, he just gave them a smirk and gestured for them to go ahead of him.

In the wood panelled outer dressing room, Sally recognised some of the stars in the crowd, there were the actors from the Mod Squad, over there was Glen Campbell, but there was only one face she was looking for. She stayed back as the inner dressing room door opened, there was a glimpse of fleur-de-lis wallpaper, and Elvis came out.

Sally thought he looked anxious as he emerged, but even as her brain was registering it, his face relaxed into his usual charismatic smirk and he scanned the room. She averted her eyes, her stomach fluttering manically, and tried to look casual. She twitched a nervous smile at a stranger across the room and looked around for Laura, finding her beaming up at a tall, tanned older man.

Shaking her head, Sally turned back and almost banged her nose on Elvis’ chest.

“Oh!”

“Snuck up on ya, didn’t I!” He looked pretty pleased with himself even as he grabbed her forearm so that she didn’t stumble back. He pulled on her arm a little harder, tugging her towards him so that he could lean down and give her a lingering kiss on the cheek. She felt a wave of goosebumps ripple up her spine as her hand brushed against his suit jacket and his cologne tickled her nose.

“You did, I almost pulled out my pepper spray.”

“Pepper spray?! Hell, that ain’t no good, honey, that’s just seasoning. We oughta see about getting you a gun.”

“Oh, no thank you,” she replied, pulling a face.

“Not a big one,” he reassured her, like that was the problem. “You know, they make ‘em small enough that you can just put it in your purse.”

She envisioned fishing around for a mint or lipstick and shooting herself instead.

“I think I’m more comfortable with the pepper spray.”

Elvis pulled a face that told her that he wasn’t, but luckily they were interrupted by one of his famous guests, who leant right across her to shake Elvis’ hand and pat him on the shoulder. Sally moved back before she was elbowed. She almost stepped on the foot of a man behind her who was wearing a jacket covered in Elvis pins. It was a comedy of errors as she shuffled and circled and edged out of everyone’s way. She found herself pressed up against a decorative carpet that hung against the wall, overshadowed by a dark wood cabinet. It didn’t feel that different from the showroom, standing at a distance, watching him say his lines and his audience beaming at him. Even off stage he was still always giving a performance.

After about half an hour, the tall man who had delivered her bracelet- Sonny- gave her a pleasant smile and asked her to come with him. She glanced over at where Elvis was explaining something with animated hand gestures to a rapt group of men and women. The group let out a loud collective laugh as Sally grabbed Laura and they followed Sonny from the room.

“Where’s Elvis?” Laura asked as they walked along the bland tiled corridor towards the elevators.

“He’ll be coming along,” Sonny replied, pausing to introduce himself. Laura’s eyes lingered on him a little longer and Sally looked down to hide her knowing smile.

The elevator ride felt like an interrogation as Laura questioned Sonny on himself, on Elvis, on Hollywood, and anything else that caught her attention. Laura’s enthusiasm was unphased by Sonny’s stoicism, even after he mentioned his fiancée. Sally envied her friend’s confidence and self-assurance. Laura was the top saleswoman back home every month because she had a knack of dragging customers into conversations and building rapport with them so that when she mentioned that she was worried that they were not sufficiently covered by insurance, or that they could get that home renovation done now if they just signed up for a little, low-interest home loan, they felt they were being advised by a friend. If anyone had told Sally that one of them would get noticed by Elvis while on vacation, she would have bet all her cash on Laura.

Up in the Imperial suite, Sonny brought the women a drink and settled them in the den like they were his house guests. He seemed to have succumbed to Laura’s charms, sitting beside her on the couch and stretching out his arm behind her. Sally clutched her drink and surveyed the room, pretending to be intensely interested in the chandelier as Laura giggled quietly off to her right.

Finally, the door of the suite burst open and half a dozen guys strode in together. They all seemed to be talking at once, laughing at some in-joke. Elvis appeared amidst the group and the corner of his mouth twitched up as he caught sight of her. He made a beeline for her as his entourage peeled off and headed in different directions. Joe handed him a bottle of water, still talking to him, but it didn’t slow Elvis’ stride as he came and stood in front of her.

Without a word, he took the drink from her and placed it on the side table, then grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her to her feet.

“C’mon, honey, let’s go hide.”

Sally bit down on her lips to stop herself grinning like a cartoon as he tugged her along behind him. He took big strides so she had to half jog in her heels to keep up and she kept her eyes on the floor to make sure she didn’t trip on the thick carpet or any hidden steps.

In the bedroom, he slowed down as he purposefully closed the door, leaning on it for a moment before he turned round and smiled at her. She shivered involuntarily at the light twinkling in his eyes.

“Hi.”

“Hello,” she giggled and he bit his lip as he moved toward her, his eyes taking her in with an almost predatory hunger. His lips pressed softly against hers even as she felt him gathering her up, his hand around the back of her head, the other on the small of her back, sliding up as he pressed her into him.

Sally almost sagged in his arms as the anticipation and tension she had felt since leaving him passed liked waves from her body. She didn’t realise he was moving the both of them backwards until the side of the bed hit her calves and she made a squeaking noise against his mouth as she wobbled. Elvis’ grip of her tightened even as her arms tensed around his athletic frame, trying to keep herself upright.

Elvis pulled back from the waist up, his eyes opening slowly, thick black lashes flickering against his cheeks, as if he didn’t want to quite let go of the kiss. It only made her want to launch herself back at him, but she suspected he knew that.

“Man, I been thinking about this ever since I saw you in that dress,” he murmured, his hand dragging around her waist from her back and his long fingers tickling underneath the short hem.

Sally had already worn all of her good outfits to his shows, so she had borrowed a green mini dress from Laura and had spent most of the evening tugging it down.

“You wear this for me, honey?” His warm breath tickled her neck as he leant in to pepper her jaw and throat with soft butterfly kisses. “You ain’t trying to get me in trouble now, are you.”

At the same time, her thighs tingled with goosebumps at the feel of his callused fingers trailing up to the edge of her underwear beneath her skirt.

Part of her was protesting that this was too fast, that he was too much of everything: too experienced, too rich, too famous, too handsome, too Elvis for her. She was so far out of her depth that drowning was inevitable. The problem was that he made drowning look both exciting and pleasurable.

“I wore it because it matched my new bracelet,” she said, slipping her fingers through the opening of his jacket, warmed by his skin and the feel of the coarse chest hair against her fingertips. She could feel the thudding of his heart reverberating through his rib cage and sternum.

His chin dimpled as he peered down, grabbing her hand and pulling her wrist up for examination. She gazed at his face as he inspected her wrist, his left eyebrow twitching with self-satisfaction. She loved the creases at the corners of his mouth, how they made his full lips look sullen even as she knew he was suppressing a smile. It felt like a secret between them.

“You like it, baby?”

Sally shot him a look of disbelief. “Of course, it’s beautiful, Elvis, so beautiful, but you shouldn’t have. It looks expensive.”

“That don’t matter,” he murmured, frowning. “It looks pretty on your little wrist here.” He dipped forward and pressed his lips to the bony part of her wrist. Sally’s whole arm twitched at the heat and velvety softness of his mouth and her stomach fluttered as his pout continued its path round to her pulse point. His hair brushed against her jaw and throat as he leant over pressing kisses up the delicate skin on the inside of her forearm.

“I -uh..” She dropped down onto the bed, even as she was thinking that she was starting to feel a little lightheaded from holding her breath.

He looked like he was holding back a laugh as he asked, ‘You okay, honey?”

“I meant to do that.” She frowned, daring him to contradict her.

“Uh huh.” He nudged her legs open with his knee so that he could step closer and she could feel her skirt sliding to the top of her thighs as he drew in, his thumbs on her jaw tipping her head back so that he could kiss her as he slowly and gently lowered her back onto the bed, his tongue teasing its way into her mouth.

“Well,” he said, pressing his knee into the mattress right at the apex of her thighs, the pressure of him answering the ache beginning to throb there, “I might not get around to the next show, but-” He lifted a mischievous eyebrow. “It’ll be worth it.”

It took every drop of restraint in Sally’s being not to grind down on his thigh, but her self-discipline was almost immediately undermined by Elvis pressing down on her, and she let out a sigh mixed with a moan, catching a glimpse of his smirk before he kissed her again. Yet again, he was performing exactly the show he knew his audience enjoyed.

Trying to find some sense of balance, she let her hands glide down from his shoulder blades, feeling the mechanics of his lean muscles working beneath his suit jacket, and cupped his perfectly round ass. She felt him pause for a second, before he tried to cover his surprise by moving with even more authority, rolling his hips and driving a moan from her that had her turning her face into his neck and hiding in embarrassment. He didn’t seem to realise this was what she was doing as he shuddered and showered kisses on her throat and shoulder, pulling back her neckline as far as it could go so he could taste her pink, sun-kissed skin.

Sally felt his teeth clamp down lightly on the muscle in her shoulder before he drew back, depriving her of his spicy warmth, so that he could shrug off his suit jacket. As usual, he wasn’t wearing anything underneath and she couldn’t stop herself reaching out to touch his skin, running her fingertips up his sides and making him twitch and hiccup a laugh before he grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. Her bracelet bit into her skin from the pressure, but she didn’t fight it or protest.

“This okay?” he asked softly, his face looking suddenly very boyish and vulnerable. It was unexpected and helped ease some of her nerves as she gazed up at him and nodded. Her lips were swollen and tingly, seemingly a side effect of being in close proximity to him, and she bit down on her bottom lip, trying to stop herself from panting too needily. He groaned, mumbling about how she was going to be the end of him, and sank back down into kissing and rubbing and pressing against her as she shivered and writhed and pressed right back.

Sally’s skirt was now somewhere around her waist and her restraint was buried somewhere in the sand outside of Las Vegas along with everything else that people from this city found themselves forsaking. She hooked her fingers into the tight waistband of his pants and tugged impatiently even as her tongue was sliding against his.

“Hey, whoa whoa, easy, baby,” he mumbled into her mouth. “We got plenty of time. I got you to myself all night, right?” She nodded dumbly. “That’s right, we made a deal.”

Despite his words, he walked his fingers up her thigh and her breath stuttered in her throat as he slipped his thumb into the warmest, wettest part of her. His eyes crinkled slightly and his mouth fell slightly open as he studied her face, which she was desperately trying not to screw up into unflattering expressions as he circled and dragged the pad of his thumb over her slippery skin, flooding her with sensation, before slowing and ebbing back, letting her breathe and float for moment. He seemed to take her efforts to be quiet and composed as a personal challenge, shifting his hips to get more comfortable and pressing himself against her thigh, before pulling out his thumb from the leg of her underwear and insert his whole hand into the front.

“S’okay,” he whispered, panting softly, as he played her like an instrument with his delicate fingers and she bit down on a whine. She could see where his mascara was beginning to smudge below his eyes as they both lost their cool both figuratively and literally.

Sally felt sweat trickle from her hairline down behind her neck and she shifted slightly. Elvis glanced up from where he was watching the movement of his hand and his heavy-lidded eyes seemed to assess her. In one smooth movement, he rolled onto his back, his hand still working in her underwear, and reached over to grab a pillow from the top of the bed.

The next thing she knew she was being thwacked lightly in the face with it.

“No, wait, that ain’t right,” he remarked dryly, picking it up again and smirking at her disgruntled expression beneath. “Lift your head, honey.” She clasped her hair in one hand and raised her head so that he could tug the pillow into place with his free hand, grunting slightly as he tried to keep himself up at the same time.

As soon as he was satisfied she was comfortable, he leant back over to kiss the air from her, increasing the pressure of his fingers as they began to sink into her while his thumb strummed at the bundle of nerves, making her twitch and writhe.

“Oh God,” Sally breathed, clasping at his neck and the damp tendrils of his hair. She couldn’t decide where to touch him, still not able to believe that she could. Her hands moved from his neck to his shoulders to his back, brushing his narrow waist, kneading his perfect ass and squeezing his thighs.

As the knot tightened in her belly, her muscles tensed and she began to moan freely, losing her inhibitions, she palmed at the firm bulge in his pants. He growled softly, pressing his face to her chest and resting his warm, sweaty cheek against her decolletage, scratching her with his sideburn. It felt like he was everywhere, leaving nowhere for her to retreat and hide, making it impossible to stay calm and demure, giving her no way to hold it together.

His fingers prodded deeper, causing the swell of the waves of pleasure in her gut to break and ripple through her body. She whimpered into his damp hair as stimulation so intense that it was almost painful rolled over her, making her thighs clench and her toes curl. The aftershocks made her twitch and he huffed a laugh into her temple, giving her pussy a scritch like it was actually his pet.

Sally shot him a disapproving look, a little embarrassed at how completely he had taken her apart with just his hand. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged as if he wasn’t responsible for what he did.

While she slowed her breathing and felt the unwelcome return of her inhibitions, Elvis hovered over her, straightening her underwear and diligently pulling down her skirt. He moved up, adjusting her neckline and pulling the shoulder of her dress back into place. Sally hoped they hadn’t stretched it, because she knew Laura would make her pay for another and she suspected it wasn’t from a catalogue like Sally’s own dresses.

“All better,” he pronounced in a soft, babyish voice, looking down at her body. When his eyes returned to her face however, he snorted softly. “Up here’s a different story though, baby, up here you’s a mess!”

“Noooo!” she protested, her hands going up to her hair, feeling the damp frizz and knots as he gave a cartoonish cackle and nodded. She pouted and reached up, vigorously ruffling his hair and pushing it in his face. “There, now we match!”

There was a pause and her stomach dropped as she thought that maybe she had crossed a line, but then he laughed and shook his head, swiping his black hair out of his eyes before he swiftly straddled her and obliterated any hope she had that her hairdo was salvageable. She wrinkled her nose and blew a lock of hair off her face.

“You made me do that!” he informed her. “I didn’t have no choice.” He did one of his patented sullen smirks as he picked up a long lock of her hair and laid it across her forehead like a monobrow. His laughter vibrated through her and his thighs tightly clamped her hips as she batted at her face and knocked her hair away.

“You are a public menace,” she informed him.

“You ain’t the first person to say that,” he nodded. “First person with a bird’s nest on their head to say it though maybe…”

In spite of his playful tone and the calming endorphins flooding her body, she was starting to feel self-conscious and she tried to roll over and escape his grip.

“Okay, let me up.”

“Honey, I’m just teasing. It ain’t that bad.” The expression on his face contradicted his words. She shoved at his thighs, trying to push herself free, and quickly discovered when her hand slid up that she might have been a mess, but she was apparently an exciting mess.

It was another twenty minutes of rolling around on the bed before she made it to the bathroom to examine the damage to her hair. It was as bad as she had feared, and she rooted around in the drawers and cabinets looking for a brush or comb to attempt triage. During her search, she found three pistols, some amber bottles of medication with a range of names printed on them, and a photo of a cute blond-haired baby, before she finally found what she was looking for.

Two hours of curlers and teasing and half a can of hairspray wasted, she vigorously brushed her abused hair into long brown curtains on either side of her face and wet some tissue to wipe away her smudged and smeared eye make-up.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Elvis was laying on the bed and he did a double take as she came out.

“What?” she asked, pausing nervously.

“Nothing… Nothing, honey.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You just look different with your hair all down like that.”

“I didn’t have much choice now, did I?”

“No, I guess not.” He rolled off the bed and somehow made it onto his feet before he hit the floor, striding over to clasp her head in his hands and kiss her almost chastely. “It looked so pretty before though, honey.”

“Thank you?”

He shook his head sharply. “I mean, you’re still pretty. I don’t even know what I’m saying, man. Sorry, baby.” He kissed her again, this time with more force. “Every time I get up on that stage I think I must shake something loose up there, losing my damn mind. You’re pretty, you’re beautiful, honey.”

Before either of them could speak again, there was a gentle tap on the door.

“E, it’s time.” The guy’s voice was no louder than speaking volume and clearly audible through the door. Sally was horrified, thinking about what they might have heard on the other side of that door. Elvis didn’t seem bothered though, just annoyed that their time together had to end, but then he was probably used to all of this.

“I gotta go to work, honey. Sold my soul to Kirk Kevorkian for a hundred thousand a week and I’m starting to think I’m the one that got snowed.” One side of his mouth twitched up into a half smile as he rose, but she didn’t quite understand what his expression was trying to convey. And in in an instant, it was gone.

“You coming to the show?” he asked with a bashful smile.

“If that’s okay with you?”

At this, he cupped her face in his large hands and kissed her, nipping her bottom lip between his teeth before pressing his forehead against hers.

“You ain’t real,” he told her, to her confusion. “There ain’t no way you’re real.”

“Funny,” she replied, “I think the same about you.”

As he walked her to the main door of the suite like they were on a surreal date, he told her not to bother coming down to the stage for a kiss at the midnight show.

“Oh,” she murmured, a little deflated. “I did exceed my allocation after all then?” He gave her an amused little frown.

“The way you talk, honey! Naw, I just got something else in mind. Don’t go messing with my plans, now, okay?” He gave her a peck, motioning to someone behind her. Laura reappeared, straightening her dress slightly and looking sheepish. Sally looked from her to Sonny wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

The midnight show, her fifth now in three days, confirmed that the tummy flip when Elvis appeared on stage was a permanent thing. Meeting him, talking to him, hadn’t lessened her wonder and awe at his talent and energy. If anything, seeing him up close in the flesh and learning more about him only made that huge presence he projected seem that much more impressive.

“Does it bother you?” Laura asked curiously, pouring herself a glass of champagne from the magnum resting in an ice bucket. They hadn’t ordered it, it had just been presented to them with the assurance that there was no charge.

“What?” Sally asked. Laura nodded towards the stage where Elvis was crouched down in front of a couple of women who were giving him a gift. He gave them both deep, effusive kisses, going back for seconds from one of them.

“Why would it bother me?” she laughed. “if he didn’t do it, I wouldn’t have got to kiss him.”

“Exactly,” Laura said cryptically, raising her eyebrows. Sally rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the show.

Elvis didn’t introduce Love Me Tender until later in the set, leaving Sally wondering what he was talking about when he said he had a plan. When he finally started the introduction, she suddenly became vigilant, like she was waiting for an ambush.

At first, nothing seemed much different, Elvis sang a little, kissed a lot and the band persevered, playing verse after verse. Then, after walking to the wings, he just… didn’t stop. She watched his dark head drop down into the crowd and pandemonium broke out. People- women- were charging down from the back of the showroom, the audience were laughing and whooping as girls called Elvis’ name and begged to be able to touch him.

“God, they’re going to eat him alive!” Laura laughed, as they both craned their necks to follow the knot of people moving through the crowd.

Sally watched as people tried to climb over tables just to reach out and touch his arm as he passed by. He was being jostled by the press of his own bodyguards and then the fans begging for kisses. Her eyes widened as she realised the procession and growing mob were heading toward their booth; blue uniformed security guards were already appearing behind her, ready to marshal him through safely.

A beautiful blond managed to step into Elvis’ path as he almost reached the back of their booth. Sally and Laura had turned in their seats and were kneeling up on the red velvet cushions, watching the circus. He clasped the blonde’s face, just as he had done Sally’s only an hour earlier, and kissed her on the lips. Sally wondered if maybe she should be feeling jealous, but the truth was that she really just felt empathy with the woman, understanding how exciting and delicious it was to be kissed by him.

Despite the pressing and the chaos, he managed to pause at their booth, his tanned hand replete in gold rings gripping the white scrollwork to fight the momentum pushing him on. He gave her a lopsided grin as he leant in.

“How’d you like my plan? Seemed a good idea at the time.” He almost stumbled as he was jostled from behind.

“Not bad for a public menace,” she grinned, wrapping her fingers around his sweaty neck and almost sighing against his soft lips. A security guard stepped closer as if she was an overexcited fan that he was going to have to drag away, but she drew away before he could reach out and grab her.

“See ya later!” Elvis called over his shoulder, taken by the current. As he was swept on, she only heard the word ‘deal’ float back through the screams and whooping and laughter.

Turning round and smiling at Laura, Sally licked her lips and savoured the salt there. 

Tag list:

@itsnotthatserious03 @everythingelvispresley @bigromansgirl-blog, @sillybookmarks, @returntopresley

As always, shout out to the Elvis harem: @thatbanditqueen, @be-my-ally, @vintageshanny, @ellie-24, @from-memphis-with-love, @missmaywemeetagain, @peskybedtime

[fibula-rasa]

Lost, but Not Forgotten: What Price Beauty? (1925)

Direction: Thomas Buckingham

Scenario & Story: Natacha Rambova

Titles: Malcolm Stuart Boylan

Production Manager: S. George Ullman

Camera: J. D. Jennings

Art Direction: Natacha Rambova 

Production Design: William Cameron Menzies

Costume Design: Adrian

Studio: Circle Films (Production) & Pathé Exchange (Distribution)

Performers: Nita Naldi, Pierre Gendron, Virginia Pearson, Dolores Johnson, Myrna Loy, Sally Winters, La Supervia, Marilyn Newkirk, Victor Potel, Spike Rankin, Rosalind Byrne, Templar Saxe, Leo White Maybe: John Steppling, Paulette Duval, Dorothy Dwan, and Sally Long

Premiere: None, general release: January 22, 1928

Status: Presumed entirely lost.

Length: Variously reported as 5000 and 4000 feet (more commonly listed as 4000) or 5 reels

Synopsis (synthesized from magazine summaries of the plot):

Mary, a.k.a. “Miss Simplicity” (Dolores Johnson) is a starry-eyed, country-to-city transplant. She works at a beauty shop operated by a glamorous matron (Virginia Pearson) and owned by the young and handsome Clay (Pierre Gendron). 

Mary is in love with Clay, but doesn’t have the nerve or feminine wiles to woo him. The uber-sophisticated Rita (Nita Naldi), however, is chock full of nerves and wile. Rita’s fancy clothes and perfumes and advanced flirting skills leave Mary feeling destined to fail at winning Clay’s amorous attention. 

These feelings sublimate into an expressionistic dream for Mary, where she finds herself transformed into a sophisticate like Rita. Her boss is seen as a magnificent wizard, converting her clients into archetypes of glamour: exotic types, flappers, and sirens. Her competition, Rita, is seen as a bewitching spider.

In the end, surprising Mary, it turns out that her fresh-faced, unassuming charm is more appealing to Clay than Rita’s more practiced charm.

Additional sequence(s) featured in the film (but I’m not sure where they fit in the continuity):

Scene of the trials and tribulations of a fat woman trying to “reduce”

Points of Interest:

Only one quarter of Nita Naldi’s Hollywood films have survived (7 extant titles/21 lost or mostly lost titles).

——— ——— ———

What Price Beauty? was the first and only film produced under Natacha Rambova’s own company. Coordinating production for the film was the business manager for Rambova and her husband Rudolph Valentino, S. George Ullman. The couple met Ullman when he was working for Mineralava beauty products, the sponsor of their 1922-3 dancing tour. 

When Rudolph Valentino entered into a contract with United Artists, said contract reportedly stipulated that Valentino-Rambova were not a package deal. Therefore, Rambova could not collaborate with Valentino on his productions for United. Possibly as consolation, Ullman funded a production for Rambova while Valentino worked on The Eagle (1925, extant).

For Rambova, What Price Beauty? was meant to be a proving ground for her idea that an artistic film could be made on a modest budget. She also wished to remind people that she was a skilled artist in her own right.

In an interview in Picture Play Magazine from August 1925, Rambova asserts:

“…I do not want the production in any sense to be referred to as high-brow or ‘arty’. My reputation for being ‘arty’ is one of the things that I have to live down, and I hope by this picture, which is a comedy—even to the extent of gags and hokum—to overcome that idea. “A woman who marries a celebrity is bound to find herself in a more or less equivocal position, it seems, and her difficulties are only increased when she happens to have had some artistic ambitions of her own before her marriage. I am afraid that those who have accused me of meddling in my husband’s affairs forget that I enjoyed a certain reputation and a very good remuneration for my work as well before I became Mrs. Valentino.”

“What I desire personally is simply to be known for the work which I have always done, and that has brought me a reputation entirely independent of my marriage.”

There isn’t a vast amount of information on what exactly prevented WPB from gaining release in a timely fashion. If the film was truly nothing more than a ploy to separate Rambova from Valentino, that would be an absurd waste of time, money (~$80,000 in 1925 USD), and talent—Rambova employed soon-to-be famous designer Adrian for costumes and William Cameron Menzies for set decoration. Not to mention that, in front of the camera, Nita Naldi was still a popular star and the Rambova discovery, Myrna Loy, made her quickly hyped debut. 

When Pathé finally purchased WPB for distribution in 1928, they did very little to promote the film. Naldi had moved on from the film industry—as had Rambova. And, while Loy hadn’t become the huge star we know today by January of 1928, Warner Brothers had already given her top billing in a number of films. Pathé barely mentions Loy’s role in the little promotion they did do.

To put WPB’s release in the context of Rambova’s personal/professional biography (which you can read more about here):

June/July 1925 – WPB is completed, Rambova and Valentino separate (in July according to Rambova’s mother as quoted in Rambova’s book Rudy)

August 1925 – Rambova leaves Hollywood for New York City, reportedly to negotiate distribution for WPB. She and Valentino would see each other in person for the last time. Rambova leaves NYC for Europe.

September 1925 – Valentino draws up a new will disinheriting Rambova

November 1925 – Rambova returns to the US to act in a film, When Love Grows Cold (1926, presumed lost), a title which Rambova objected to

December 1925 – Rambova files for divorce

August 1926 – Valentino dies 

January 1928 – WPB is finally released with no fanfare by Pathé

In my research for my Rambova cosplay, the suspicious production/release history for this film stood out to me. I hoped that I might find some reliable evidence of whether WPB was a consolation prize and/or a scheme to keep Rambova and Valentino apart. Honestly and unfortunately, circumstantial evidence does support it!

After poring over what few contemporary sources cover WPB, there seemed to be no plan in place for distribution as the film was in production. United Artists, at whose lot the film was shot, claimed to have nothing to do with its release. Ullman had a news item placed about negotiating the distribution rights in the East. However, in Ullman’s own memoir, he admits that when he travelled to New York with Rambova, it was in a personal, not professional capacity—navigating the couple’s separation. (Ullman’s book contains many disprovable claims and misrepresentations, so anything cited from it should be taken with a grain of salt.) That said, Ullman’s failure to secure even a modest distribution deal for WPB in a reasonable timeframe speaks to how ill-founded Valentino’s and Rambova’s trust in his business acumen was.

WPB cost $80,000 to produce, which converts to $1.4 million in 2023 USD. While that wasn’t an outrageous budget for a Hollywood feature film at the time, especially one with such advanced production value, it’s certainly an absurd cost if the goal was only to separate a bankable star from his wife and collaborator.

A close friend and employee of Valentino and Rambova, Lou Mahoney, recalled in Michael Morris’ Madam Valentino:

“The picture was previewed at a theater on the east side of Pasadena, and Mahoney remembered the audience reaction as positive, but, thereafter, What Price Beauty? was consigned to oblivion. Mahoney knew why: ‘No help came from anyone, no thoughts of trying to get this picture properly released. No help came from Ullman, Schenck, or anybody else. Their whole thought was that if the picture were a success, Mrs. Valentino would be a success. She would then start producing under the Rudolph Valentino Production Company. But this nobody wanted—except herself, and Mr. Valentino.’”

——— ——— ———

The few reviews from 1928 that I was able to find are not very complimentary of WPB. The critics seem thrown by the film’s tone or genre—reading it as a drama. (Part of that is Pathé’s fault as they listed it as one.) But, according to sources contemporary to WPB’s production, it was intended to be a farcical satire of the beauty industry and social expectations of feminine beauty. Given the simple story, the intentional typage of characters (“The Sport,” “The Sissy,” and “Miss Simplicity”), and the over-the-top-but-on-a-budget art design of WPB, all signs point to high camp. In 1925 as well as 1928, the stodgier side of the critical spectrum would likely fail to see its appeal.

It’s a true shame we can’t find out for ourselves how good, bad, or campy WPB was as of yet, but here’s hoping the film resurfaces!

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Transcribed Sources & Annotations over on the WMM Blog!

[april]

if i could do a sonic universe reboot i would make the sonic satam stuff and the sonic adventure stuff happen in the same timeline. hear me out: all we gotta do is pull a donkey kong junior. we need there to be two sonics without any time travel.

first half ("classic"/SatAM part)

Gerald Robotnik is an esteemed human scientist from Earth in his 60s, working on creating the ultimate lifeform ostensibly for the US government as a weapon but really to save his granddaughter Maria's life.

Gerald's son Julian, father of a child Maria and infant Ivo, is absent from Earth, having inherited Gerald's intelligence but, after living in his father's shadow, has turned mega evil in his 30s and has somehow given himself a one-way trip to Mobius - a planet that has solved all its social problems and has no need for military technology, making it an easy target to be conquered. he turns Mobius into an autocratic dystopia where only he and his robotic army holds any power. desperate to cosmically one-up his father, he keeps his given name a secret in order to be known simply as "Doctor Robotnik" to his subjugated citizens.

cue the Knothole freedom fighters ensemble of Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine Depardieu, Rotor the Walrus, and a young Charles "Sonic" the Hedgehog. a miracle occurs when the freedom fighters find a Chaos Emerald by chance, and "Sonic" uses its power to remove Robotnik from power, but not kill him - in a show of idealism, he shows mercy to Julian and decides that the Mobians should get the chance to put him on trial. this backfires when Julian gets ahold of some Chaos energy for himself, which he uses to flee back to Earth. given the urgency of his escape, the process by which he flees actually swaps him with his son, stranding a very young Ivo on Mobius.

interlude/timeskip

now back on Earth, Julian Robotnik goes crawling back to his father. the residual Chaos energy surrounding him (shaped by its last natural user, "Sonic") is scanned and partially replicated by Gerald, resulting in the creation of Shadow the Hedgehog. Gerald doesn't actually want to make a bioweapon and secretly puts power limiters on Shadow. when Julian learns of this, he blows the whistle to the government, resulting in the deaths of Gerald and Maria, and Shadow being placed into stasis. Julian is put in charge of the Space Colony ARK and turns it into a Chaos Emerald-powered superweapon, but has no method of returning to Mobius to actually obtain the Emeralds.

on Mobius, society is rebuilt basically as it was pre-Robotnik. the freedom fighters grow into adults and go their separate ways. Charles' younger sister gives birth to a baby blue hoglet, who is named Sonic after Charles' freedom fighter nickname. Charles and Sally adopt an orphaned two-tailed fox, who becomes very good friends with his nephew as the two grow up into their teenage years.

Ivo grows up too, learning of Robotnik's infamy and legacy as the most powerful force on Mobius since its ancient times.

second half ("modern" part)

you saw this bit coming. Ivo has grown up into Doctor Eggman and wishes to turn Mobius (either in full or in part) into his "Eggman Empire", but is constantly foiled by our good friend Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower, who are joined by friends Amy and Cream, and additional cast Knuckles and Rouge. though not seeing any of the action directly at this point, another major supporting character is our old (and now visibly aged) friend Charles, or "Uncle Chuck" as he's known now.

eventually learning of exactly how his father's downfall occurred, Eggman gathers the Chaos Emeralds himself to ensure his victory against Sonic and his friends, but even then is foiled... sort of. the machine meant to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds transports everyone to Earth, a la the beginning of Sonic X. with our Mobian heroes now stranded on Earth and with Eggman beginning to learn of his family's earthly legacy, the events of Sonic Adventure occur.

once resolved, the cast returns to Mobius, including Shadow (wanting to leave his traumatic past of Earth and the ARK behind) and Eggman (what? that sneaky fucker).

the schemes of Eggman continue solely on Mobius as they did before. goodbye Earth forever, Eggman and his Sol Dimension counterpart Eggman Nega are the only humans Mobius ever sees again. the closest Eggman gets to his goal is building "Eggmanland" during the events of Sonic Colours.

...

aaaand scene. that's how i'd put it together. i almost hate to remove Uncle Chuck and Tails from SatAM and but i think it's the only way to reconcile the events of SatAM and the events of X/Adventure without making Eggman just like, Doctor Robotnik but after six years, which i really don't like because actual dictator Robotnik and cheesy villain Eggman are just way too different as characters.

also - and this part is vital - i wouldn't give the aged Charles lanky Modern Sonic proportions in his modern appearance. he's the Classic Sonic and he stays roundie and grows a grey moustache. one must imagine a short old Uncle Chuck at a lanky teenage Sonic's birthday party with the two of them enjoying chilli dogs together.

[evaiskindaweird]

Inspired by @locution-youngster-enjoyeras cuz their awesome so I'm doing it w Tim n Sally (They're married but it still counts)

(Some suggestive stuff)

BOTH 🗣🗣🗣

they don't argue. Their Tim and Sally 😤💅 (if they did, it'd be smth silly like what's the best ice cream flavor)

Tim, he wouldn't go 15 minutes without crying (Sally would be crying she'd just hide it more lol)

They sew together :] Tim makes lovey lovey messages and Sally makes clothes for Tim to try on

Sally usually drives, they do rock paper scissors for the front

Sally. Girlboss and malewife duo

Darling, Love, Honey, every nickname imaginable

they proposed at the same time!!

Tim. He knows any and ALL radio songs. Nobody knows why lol, but sometimes Sally joins him if she knows the song

Tim worries about what people think too much

Sally and Tim take turns taking pictures :]

Tim! He's a silly jokester, Sally always laughs at his jokes even if they suck pure ass 😭😭

Tim. Like I said, he knows all songs for some reason. He's a music lover 🎵💖

Sally! Sometimes she orders for him without him even deciding yet lmao

Tim lol

Sally. like tell me this queen wouldn't top (on rare occasions Tim does)

Sally :]👩🏾‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏾

Tim :] 👫🏾

Sally. Like this queen will start a make out w her husband in like half a second

Tim is basically ticklish everywhere lmao

Tim will find a racoon near the trash and try and name it Rachel

they hold it TOGETHER RAHHH

they would never 😤😤

they both love bugs they wouldn't hurt a fly

Tim will wake up and wonder what a dream meant lmao

Sally, shes constantly cold

Sally has to go to work, so she wakes up at like 5am to get ready

Also Sally. Girl is NOT an early bird like her husband

If Tim is up earlier enough or Sally doesn't have work, they both make each other coffee

Tim will cry over anything

He got scared over an ARTICHOKE. That's all i need to explain.

They give each other haircuts! That they occasionally butcher but it's ok

Tim, this man will buy an entire bouquet and a poem too 😤😤💖

Tim. When they first started dating he immediately told everyone he knew like a girl writing in her diary

they are like the perfect couple everyone loves them

Sally, and occasionally Tim

For the both of them, they either make the best tasting meal ever (the way Sally was looking at Tim making the dinner in "dinner or consequences" lmao), or they make something like beans a la botsford or sum shit 😭😭😭

Sally! she knows like 20 ways to style it too

Tim. he has a whole ass book on pickup lines

Sally. No comment

Tim's jokes and pickup lines (like in "road rage, anger, and fury" when he said the ice skating would be "cool") make Sally giggle so much

Tim. He has sum sad issues but Sally always manages to cheer him up :] I also headcanon Sally can't function without her job is cuz she feels she needs to earn approval, so Tim makes sure to shower her w compliments so she knows she's important no matter what

"I am willing to trade all this cool stuff for my wife back" -Tim in The rise of miss power

Also from TROMP: "Do do do do do, Tim Botsford!"

Sally. She has an angels voice when she actually tries

Tim gardens, doodles, anything, really. Sally works, and sometimes does arts and crafts

I headcanon Tim's mom died (😔), so every year on her death anniversary he takes it really hard. To the point he can't function sometimes and just lays in bed.

Sally always tries and cheers him up, and helps him mourn by comforting him if he isn't in a cheering up mood

[whipplefilter]

Hey Whipple! It’s nice to see you back! I really hope you’re doing well!!

Here’s an ask , if you don’t mind.

How do you think the RS townsfolk helped Sally after having dealt what she dealt with in LA?

I actually hadn't gone anywhere until you sent this ask, at which point I was sitting in an airport, haha. I would not expect this blog to be particularly active; my primary focus on Tumblr is actually my sideblog.

I'm not sure what you're imagining in terms of "what she dealt with" in LA, but my headcanon for her is that she was a corporate environmental lawyer. It was her job to make sure companies complied with NEPA and did all their required environmental assessments and, on the other end, handled tort law when it came to getting sued for damages. But with environmental law comes deep knowledge of history--of the highways that built LA, for example, and the communities destroyed by them--as well as frustration about the fact that NEPA doesn't require altered actions in light of the required assessment--just proof that the assessment was done. That kind of thing.

So she drives and drives and eventually she breaks down and the rest, of course, is history.

They say there are no secrets in small towns, but even if there was no anonymity of the sort you might find as one car in a big city, there wasn't a nosyness in Radiator Springs. Maybe this is an effect of having dealt with Doc in prior years. But the residents of RS never really pressed Sally about where she came from or why, just took her as she was. It's not that they weren't interested--they'd listen if she mentioned something, would ask questions. But never the sort that would require Sally to justify anything.

That's what was refreshing to her. Not having to justify every act, or thought, or want. Not feeling as though she were the one on trial, not in the courtroom but at work, everyone around her assessing or trying to measure themselves against her--the expectation that she, too, would be embroiled in the calculus of what clients might help her make partner and when.

She doesn't stop being ambitious in RS, even if that's what it would look like if she had anyone in LA she wanted to get back in touch with. She's still interested in history, and environmental justice, and throws a whole lot of ambition into the Cone, the town. We see this from the start of Cars 1, and we see RS let her do her thing, and take her as she is.

(When Lightning first careens into town, that's the last thing she wants to do, or that she thinks someone like Lightning needs. But it turns out watching him and Mater together--maybe it was, after all. Lightning needed to someone to take him as he was before he could become someone else.)

[soratsuart]

QSMP Day 36 Lore Summary

Guys. If you've seen clips you know what's coming, so I apologize beforehand for whatever the hell is what you're about to read 💀💀💀

The day started decently normal, with few people in to do the daily quests. Things start getting interesting when the Theory Trio logs in. By now, Maxo has his night club ready so they + Roier go over the plan to interrogate Quackity. They eventually get Fit and Vegetta to join in the plan.

When Quackity joins, they invite him to come to Las Casualonas, where they make him lower his guard by having him enjoy music and get drunk and, after a while, Vegetta and Roier disguised as "La Mamada" and Melissa respectively take Quackity to another room. They start talking about hating the eggs and wanting to kill them all, and while Quackity is initially taken aback, he ends up rambling about his supposed plan to kill the eggs starting with Chayanne. This would turn out to be a lie to impress the girl, but it turned against Quackity as the other were watching everything through the cameras.

After a while the entire group comes in and reveal to Quackity that this was all a trap to get evidence against him, which Quackity is shocked to hear. They tell him they are going to hold a trial against him and execute him afterwards, and Quackity panics, trying to defend himself and begging them to let him go, which they eventually do.

Quackity runs to hide inside a random building and starts crying, lamenting everything that had happened because now everyone in the island is against him. I would also like to point out that Roier knows Quackity is innocent, but this is his revenge for when Quackity sided with Spreen and let him kill both Roier and his dog. After a while Slime arrives and tries to console him, as he had been in the club and saw everything happen, but he got mad when he saw Quackity had a photo of Mariana in a dress and I believe Quackity logged off before they could clear things up, so now Slime is sad Quackity thinks he is also against him.

After that Slime went with Wilbur, who has been hired by Bad to be an impartial judge on the day of the trial, and they along with Bad and Foolish wrote a Constitution...? For rainbow people since they all ended up looking like rainbow. After that they all went their separate ways with Wilbur and Slime going to Wilbur's place, while the others tried to complete their quests. Foolish met with Roier and they decided to meet up later, but then the worst happened.

Foolish had the great idea to leave to go to the bathroom in real life and leave the boat he and Leo were traveling in keep moving in automatic, telling Leo to protect the boat. Leo started shooting at something off scream which according to her was a shark and then... A fucking cachalot whale she accidentally hit killed Leo before Foolish could come back. Leo is now in hardcore mode fellas. And Foolish had Bad roleplay as Vegetta to practice how to tell him about Leo loosing a life. That was fun at least.

While all of this was happening Wilbur and Slime were talking about Flippa and Tilín's deaths, and Slime had to tell Wilbur what happened to them and also that he still wants to revive Flippa because of the deal he had with Angel!Rubius. This is also how Wilbur finds out there's an angel because he still hasn't met Rubius btw.

On his part Roier went to check on Spreen since he was dying a lot, and he showed him the night club since Spreen wanted to see it. He also disguised himself as Melissa to talk to Spreen and flirt with him, but Spreen pretty much didn't like it and when Roier "came back" he told him he didn't want to come back to the club ever again. According to him he is "uncomfortable with woman" and "already engaged to Sally from Cars".

They left after that, and met with Gegg, since Slime had decided to transform after Wilbur left, eventually following Roier home. I think he and Wilbur had just had a conversation about Slime being himself so others like him instead of being Gegg, but I honestly am too tired to search that right now. The point is, Gegg and Bobby have a conversation about Slime himself, and eventually Bobby decides to forgive Slime for killing Tilín as he understands it was an accident and he doesn't want to be angry when he knows he'll be leaving soon. (Pain)

I think (big emphasis on think) that's all that happened. I've been writing this for the past two hours so if anything else happened... I'm sorry I couldn't find it? Anyway, yeah, enjoy the summary!