#that it's still set in 1897

[kindlythevoid]

(Here is the link to the recipe:)

Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

[rivilu]

Oh I can't take this seriously in the slightest 😭

[clit-a-cola]

Back to reading Blood of the Vampire!

I'm about a third of the way in so I can't say for certain what views/lessons the author may express by the end of it all, but there is a very fun passage where resident hater Miss Leyton starts saying some based wisdoms

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Main Masterlist || Navigation || All works are F!Reader || All images sourced from Pinterest ||

SONGS THAT SOUND LIKE SEA-FOAM || Mini-Series || Completed

PAIRING: Fisherman!John Price x F!Mermaid!Reader

SYNOPSIS: In which a lone mermaid finds good company with a handsome fisherman who trespasses in her cove. But the word isn't what it used to be...hunting ships patrol the waters.

CHAPTERS: Part I, Part II, Part III

FANART: “You’re somethin’ beautiful, y’know that?” & "Mermaid Interpretation" by @thedevillovesflowers

2. RUN AWAY TO ME || Mini-Series || Completed

PAIRING: Blacksmith!Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x F!Runaway Bride!Reader

SYNOPSIS: The night started with wine and ended with blood. Racing through the woods after having escaped your wedding, you find a lone homestead in the middle of a rainstorm. Alone, wounded, and bordering on unconsciousness, you have no option but to knock.

CHAPTERS: Part I, Part II, Part III

3. BLOOD-STAINED WOOL SPUN AT MIDNIGHT || 18 + Mini-Series || Completed

PAIRING: Werewolf!Ghost x F!Tailor!Reader (Set in Van Helsing Era/Aesthetic)

SYNOPSIS: When you left the town in the year of our Lord, 1897, to buy more wool from the local farmer, the cobblestone streets had come up to meet the hooves of your neighbor's horse.

Along this trip of false hope, the open fields at your sides had led to the backdrop of a brimstone forest; an old shadow seems to loom there. A black thing. A devil with eyes like a burial mound. You were told to fear the Ghost of the Forest, but never had you known you'd be caught in his blackened claws.

CHAPTERS: Part I, Part II, Part III

4. BLACK METAL AND BOURBON || 18+ Mini-Series || Completed

PAIRING: Biker/Mechanic!Ghost x F!Bartender!Reader

SYNOPSIS: You've been in this small town for your entire existence, giving up dreams and aspirations to carry on life as a simple bartender despite your hatred of two things: the smell of cigarette smoke and the disrespect from regulars, namely, your ex and his buddies. But on a still-air Sunday, almost overnight, a mechanics shop pops up right across the street - giving sight to new faces and a fresh group of men with a love of motorcycles. One, in particular, seems to only like Bourbon.

CHAPTERS: Part I, Part II, Part III

5. TO HUNT A SILVER STAG || Mini-Series || Completed

PAIRING: Knight!Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x Fae!Princess!Reader

SYNOPSIS: Promised to a greedy king to try and preserve the magic of the land, a princess instead finds herself drawn to a chivalrous knight and his gentle words. But everyone knows magic has a mind of its own.

CHAPTERS: Part I, Part II, Part III

6. HOW TO ADAPT TO FIRE || Mini-Series || Completed

PAIRING: Fireman!John 'Soap' MacTavish x F!Journalist!Reader

SYNOPSIS: There is an arsonist in your city, and you're going to catch him. As one of the most prolific investigative journalists in the city, you make a lot of enemies the second your papers are released to the public. Your informant - and perhaps something more - in the local fire department makes a point to tell you to be careful.

But everyone knows he's right beside you when the fires start sparking.

CHAPTERS: Part I, Part II, Part III

7. MOSS, BONE, AND A FALLING STAR || Mini-Series || Not Started

PAIRING: Witch Hunter!Price x F!Witch!Reader

SYNOPSIS: Humans have not been kind to you, but they usually are to things that they don't understand. You're offered a deal when a rugged-looking Witch Hunter shows up at your secluded hut. Make him see you for what you truly are in three stories or less. You oblige and give him the limit - a story of moss, of bone, and of a falling star.

CHAPTERS: Part I, Part II, Part III

8. VIVAMUS, MORIENDUM EST || Undetermined || Not Started

PAIRING: Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Reader (Reincarnation AU)

SYNOPSIS: In every lifetime you made a promise to one another: even if you must die, you will find a way to live together for all of eternity, be that five or a hundred years from now. You'd not broken your promise yet.

CHAPTERS: Undetermined

[the-moral-of-the-rose]

If anybody wanted to write a crossover between L.M. Montgomery's books, here is a little help with the ages of the characters (@no-where-near-hero maybe it will be a tiny help for your fanfic):

Anne Shirley - born on 5th of March 1865

Gilbert Blythe - born in 1862 or 1863

James Matthew "Jem" Blythe - born in July 1893

Walter Cuthbert Blythe - born in 1894

Anne "Nan" and Diana "Di" Blythe - born in 1896

Shirley Blythe - born in 1888*

Bertha Marilla "Rilla" Blythe - born in 1900*

Gerald "Jerry" Meredith - born 1894

Faith Meredith - born 1895

Una Meredith - born 1896

Thomas Carlyle "Carl" Meredith - born 1897

Jims Anderson - born in August of 1914

Emily Byrd Starr - born on 19th of May 1888

Ilse Burnley - born in 1888 (probably)

Perry Miller - born in 1887

Frederick "Teddy" Kent - 1887 or 1888

Dean Priest - born in 1865

Patricia "Pat" Gardiner - born in 1913

Rachel "Rue" Gardiner - born in 1919

Winnifred "Winnie" Gardiner - born in 1910

Sidney "Sid" Gardiner - born in 1912

Joseph"Joe" Gardiner - born in 1908

Hilary Gordon - born in 1911

Elizabeth "Bets" Wilcox - born in 1913

David Kirk - born around 1893

Jane Stuart - born in May 1918 or 1919

Valancy Stirling* - born 1883**

Barney Snaith - born 1877**

Cecilia "Cissy" - born 1886**

Olive Stirling - born 1884**

Gay Penhallow - born in 1904***

Nan Penhallow - born in 1904***

Roger Dark - born in 1890***

Donna Dark - born between 1894 and 1896***

Virginia Powell - born between 1894 and 1896***

Peter Penhallow - born between 1888 and 1890***

Margaret Penhallow - born 1872***

Brian Dark - born 1916***

Hugh Dark - born in 1887***

Joscelyn Penhallow: born between 1889-1892***

*In both Anne of Ingleside and Rainbow Valley Shirley is two years older than Rilla. But in Rilla of Ingleside, he turns eighteen few months before Rilla... it is pure chaos. Rilla was supposed to be nearly fourteen, according to the RV, in 1914, but she is nearly fifteen in RoI. So I apologize, but I had a lot of trouble here...

**The Blue Castle is the most difficult to place in time. It is set several years before it was published, and in my own opinion: before Tangled Web and Pat of Silver Bush. Why? Because of this reference: "This was before the day of bobs and was regarded as a wild, unheard-of proceeding—unless you had typhoid." (The Blue Castle). Bobs were already "in fashion" at the beginning of Pat of Silver Bush (so, in 1919, when Pat was six years old: it was said that Winnie wanted to have her hair bobbed) and in Tangled Web (which is set in 1922). Yet, the cars, motorboats and movie theaters were a rather common occurence in The Blue Castle's times. But... there might be an explanation. Valancy doesn't live on PEI, which might have been a little "behind" the rest of Canada, as far as modern technology went. It is my own personal opinion, but I think that it might be set just before the war, at the same time as the end Emily's Quest. I know that the clothes seem more "modern" in TBC, but Emily wore "a little sport suit" and dress that was described as followed "there was so little of it". Teddy and Perry both had cars, as sone of Ilse's cousins. I would say that the Blue Castle book might be set around 1912-1913. Still, the timeline is extremely elusive. Please, let me know, dear Blue Castle Book Club's members, what is your opinion? I think I have read some amazing discussion about TBC's timeline a long time ago, but if I remember correctly, everyone was certain that this novel was set post WWI (me included, until this very moment when I tried to place Pat and Tangled Web and remembered the "bob" quote). So I choose 1912 as the beginning of TBC, when Valancy was twenty-nine.

*** the ages of characters in Tangled Web:

"They were first cousins, who were born the same day and married the same day,--Donna to her own second cousin, Barry Dark, and Virginia to Edmond Powell--two weeks before they had left for Valcartier. Edmond Powell had died of pneumonia in the training camp, but Barry Dark had his crowded hour of glorious life somewhere in France." (Tangled Web).

"Virginia Powell, whose husband had been dead eight years and who was young and tolerably beautiful" (Tangled Web).

"Valcartier, Quebec was the primary training base for the First Canadian Contingent in 1914."

- from: https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/going-to-war/canada-enters-the-war/training-at-valcartier/

So, from this I assumed that Virginia's husband died in 1914 (so Tangled Web is set in 1922-23). Gay is 18 at the beginning, so she would be born in 1904. If Donna and Virginia were 18-20 when they got married, they would be 26-28 (so still "young"). at the beginning. Peter was 14 when Donna was 8, so he'd be 32-34 at the beginning of the book (same age or a bit older than Roger). Hugh was 35 at the beginning. I guess Joscelyn was a bit younger- most of LMM's heroines are at least two years younger than their love interest. I'd say she might have been 20-23 when she got married, so she'd be around 30-33 at the beginning of the book. I would say Brian is about six years old - he doesn't seem to attend school yet, but is big enough to be sent to the harbour. Margaret Penhallow was about fifty at the beginning of the book.

So sorry that this post was rather long, but it was a great fun to write (even if it took me A LOT of time). Thank you for reading. Please, let me know if you agree. Any feedback will be very welcome!

[ltwilliammowett]

Today in the 13th door a little beauty that is often forgotten. Once built in India, she is now the oldest English frigate still afloat. We are talking about HMS Trincomalee

HMS Trincomalee

More infos about her here:

Laid down in Honourable East India Company's shipyard in Bombay in 1816, together with her sister ship HMS AMPHIRITE and launched on 12 October 1817, TRINCOMALEE was one of 47, 38-gun Leda class frigates built between 1800 and 1830. Nearly all of them were of oak, but the two Bombay ships were made of Malabar teak.

Her building had been delayed by the plans being lost on HMS JAVA which was sunk by USS CONSTITUTION, a second set of plans not arriving in India until two years later.

When TRINCOMLAEE reached Britain in 1819, she went straight into 'ordinary' for 26 years in Portsmouth harbour. In 1845 she was commissioned for service in areas which lacked adequate coaling stations for the new steam vessels. Her stern was modified to an elliptical style, and she was reclassified as a 26-gun Corvette. In 1847 she served in the West Indies and then in the Eastern Campaign of the Crimean War. After patrols in the Pacific she was again paid off into ordinary in 1857. Three years later she became a Drill Ship for Royal Naval Volunteers. Between 1860 and 1897 she was moored, mast-less and with deckhouses in Sunderland then West Hartlepool and finally in Southampton. She was sold to shipbreakers in 1897.

The philanthropist G Wheatly Cobb bought HMS TRINCOMLAEE to replace the training ship FOUDROYANT which had foundered two years earlier on its way to take up a similar role, and renamed the ship FOUDROYANT. She was moored in Falmouth and later at Milford Haven and finally at Portsmouth. On Cobb's death on 1932 she was managed by the IMPLACABLE Committee of the Society for Nautical Research.

During the war the vessel was taken over for the training of Sea Cadets. In 1947 she was given back to her owners and became an adventure training base for Sea Cadets, Sea rangers, Sea Scouts and other youth groups. From 1957 to 1987 she was moored at the entrance to Haslar Creek, Portsmouth. The Foudroyant Trust later moved her further north to avoid her being rammed by submarines. Training was discontinued due to the poor state of the ship and insufficient trainees. In 1987 the Foudroyant Trust transferred the ship to Hartlepool where a private yard had just paid off after restoring HMS WARRIOR 1860. In 1990 the Trincomalee was restored under the Trincomalee Trust. In 2016 the National Museum of the Royal Navy took responsibility for oversight of Trincomalee.

[fibula-rasa]

Cosplay the Classics: Natacha Rambova

My closet cosplay of Natacha Rambova’s signature look from the 1920s

It’s unbearably common for people who have written  about Natacha Rambova to emphasize that her “real” name was “Winifred Hudnut.” In reality, Rambova had about a half dozen names she went by (or could have gone by). Natacha Rambova was the name she took when she began her working life as a teenager with Theodore Kosloff’s ballet company—hence the Russophone name. And, as Rambova was a person who first and foremost lived to work, sticking with her professional name seems true to her character, Slav or not. You see, the primary reason Rambova was (and is) subjected to this passive-aggressiveness is part of a lingering effort to delegitimize her and her work. Sometimes that takes the form of calling her Winifred Hudnut and sometimes “Mrs. Valentino.” While there are valid reasons to criticize Rambova and her work, the aspersions typically lobbed at her fully miss their mark because they’re motivated by the desire to belittle a woman who knew the value of her work and her art and had the necessary privilege to fight for it.

"Natacha Rambova seems to belong most to me, the individual I think I am, but of course, I wasn’t born that way."

—“Wedded and Parted” by Ruth Waterbury, Photoplay, December 1922

Collage of portraits of Rambova from the 1920s

READ ON below the JUMP!

To begin at the beginning, Rambova was born as Winifred “Wink” Shaughnessy in Utah in 1897. Her father, who was significantly older than her mother, was found lacking as a parent and a spouse, and the Shaughnessy’s divorced when Rambova was young. Her youth was spent bouncing between her mother’s home in San Francisco, boarding school in England, and her aunt’s villa in France. Early on Rambova discovered two of the great passions of her life, ballet and mythology. The latter became an enduring fascination that guided Rambova’s varied pursuits throughout her life.

At first, her family encouraged Rambova’s interest in ballet. However, around 1914, when Rambova was 17, the shady nature of Rambova’s relationship with Kosloff was discovered by her mother, who tried to have Kosloff deported. At the time, Kosloff was supporting a wife and child back in England while keeping house with Rambova and another of his dancers, Vera Fredova (who was also legally named Winifred and also a teenager btw). Mom called off the lawsuit, and for years Kosloff, Rambova, and Fredova ran the ballet company together.

The company relocated to Los Angeles where Kosloff entered into a contract with Cecil B. DeMille. The company would provide art and costume designs for DeMille’s films and Kosloff himself would appear in the films. While Kosloff’s name is found in the credits for most of these films, it’s now widely accepted that Rambova was doing most, if not all, of the research and design work.

Theodore Kosloff in his costume from The Woman God Forgot (1917) on the left with Rambova (who does not appear in the film)

In this creatively productive period, Rambova shifted her focus away from dance toward historical research and costume and set design as her primary endeavor. For DeMille, Rambova contributed designs for The Woman God Forgot (1917), Why Change Your Wife? (1920), Something to Think About (1920), and also designed the Cinderella fantasy sequence of Forbidden Fruit (1921).

from the Cinderella sequence of Forbidden Fruit [more gifs here]

The work caught the eye of Nazimova, who was still working at Metro at the time. Once Nazimova realized that Rambova was the one doing the work, she engaged her directly to work on her now lost film Billions (1920). Rambova would receive on-screen credit for her art direction on Nazimova’s final film for Metro, the deco-bonanza Camille (1921).

from Camille [more gifs here]

Camille features designs verging on the bizarre, using circles and half-circles as a consistent symbolic motif throughout the film. One of my personal favorite touches however, is the sequence taking place at Armand’s country cottage. Where the Paris sets are oversized and characterized by rounded edges, the cottage is excessively square and feels almost claustrophobic. At this point in the story, Marguerite is conflicted, she feels happier and freer than ever before in her love with Armand, but is also haunted by the notion that she’s dooming him given her past and her illness. The interior of the cottage feels more artificial because of its realism, almost like a doll house, in comparison to the more heavily designed Paris settings. This highlights the feeling in Marguerite that she’s just playing pretend at a happy, heteronormative fantasy.

country house setting from Camille

Influenced by the highly stylized visuals of ballet but also preoccupied with historical research and symbology, Rambova’s designs stand out from anything else produced in this period, especially in the US. The more I study her designs and think about how young she was when she created them, the more impressed I am by them. Faced with challenging assignments, Rambova balanced accuracy and perceived authenticity with her penchant for larger-than-life symbolism. On top of all that, they photograph beautifully! Being able to create interesting and appropriate costume and set designs with a demonstrated understanding of how they would register on film is a sophisticated skill set which Rambova deserves significant credit for.

When Nazimova went independent following Camille, she brought Rambova with her. The first two projects Rambova would work on for Nazimova’s company were A Doll’s House (now a lost film, which I profiled on my Lost, but Not Forgotten series) and Salomé (1922). The latter has become regarded as Nazimova’s magnum opus on film and often referred to as America’s first art film. For Salomé, Rambova translated illustrations made by Aubrey Beardsley into three-dimensional sets and costumes and character designs for film. If you’ve seen Beardsley’s illustrations and you’ve seen the film, you know this was no simple task and that Rambova did a phenomenal job of re-working the illustrations into wearable costumes and weaving elements of Beardsley’s illustrations into the set design.

from Salomé [more gifs here]

Taking a second to emphasize Rambova’s range, her work on Why Change Your Wife?, Something to Think About, and A Doll’s House (which we can only judge by surviving stills) are contemporary settings with more realistic, grounded set and costume designs. Rambova executes the designs for these films with just as much skill, although as she admitted herself, with less gusto because they didn’t scratch the historical-research/symbology itch.

production still from A Doll’s House

It was in this same period of creative growth that Rambova split from Kosloff (and he shot her in the leg on the way out) and she started seeing her future husband, Rudolph Valentino. Valentino, however, was still legally married to another woman. This would lead to significant trouble for the couple in the first few years of their relationship. 

Perhaps too much time has been spent picking apart the nature of the Valentino-Rambova pairing—most of it spent trying to characterize her as a Svengali type and Valentino as too immature or unintelligent to have any opinions of his own. Now, having read most of what Rambova has written about Valentino, both before and after their divorce, she often takes a paternalistic attitude toward Valentino, but one tempered by real affection. And, given how close Valentino became with her family (and remained close after the divorce, even leaving a significant part of his estate to her aunt), to doubt the legitimacy of their partnership feels willfully disingenuous. Valentino shared Rambova’s desires to elevate the artistic qualities of film, oftentimes beyond their means. Together they crafted the romantic idol of Valentino. Together they challenged the studios for underpaying him.

“Some producers find an unusual personality. They use up thousands of dollars to exploit it. They put that personality into a picture and the picture goes over and makes a million. Then, instead of letting the actor who does fine work go on doing it, they give him cheap material, cheap sets, cheap casts, cheap everything. The idea then is to make just as much money from that personality as possible with the least outlay. “Isn’t it short-sighted? Isn’t it unwise? Yet they do it again and again. But they can’t keep it up forever. The fans are beginning to wake up. They refuse to take second rate products even when a big personality is exploited. They are doing the one thing that will affect the producer—when poor pictures are offered them, they are staying home.”

—from “Wedded and Parted” by Ruth Waterbury, Photoplay, December 1922

Something I mentioned in the last installment of “Lost, but Not Forgotten” was that in this period,  a number of film artists in Hollywood were recognizing the true value of their work and going independent of the emergent studio system. Studio heads saw no problem in curtailing the creative freedom of their artists to further pad their overflowing wallets. For the founders of United Artists, the system was usually able to be bent in their favor, with their films getting wide releases with decent promotion budgets. For a number of other independent artists, the road was rockier as distributors and exhibitors were reluctant to offend the increasingly powerful studios. Nazimova was one of those who eventually ran out of funds to produce their own work. Valentino’s star rose precipitously after The Sheik (1921) and Blood and Sand (1922) was a massive box-office hit, but Valentino’s salary did not match that bankability. This financial dispute, complicated by negative press around his relationship with Rambova, left Valentino out of work in film for a year. In turn, Valentino and Rambova went on a dancing tour of the country, which raised her profile as a public figure while bolstering his star image despite not appearing in any new films.

Valentino and Rambova in a promotional photo for their dance tour

Unfortunately, crossing the studio system as they did resulted in a coordinated campaign to take them down a notch. Reading film magazines from the period will give you whiplash. Many of these magazines had established relationships with studios and ran news items in keeping with whatever narratives the studios wished to push. However, the stars and their managers (if they had them) had their own relationships with the magazines. So, occasionally, you’ll find items deriding Rambova as some kind of artsy-fartsy manipulative phony and then a profile piece of her or Valentino that’s sympathetic to their business woes. This is the period where the narrative emerges of Rambova as a calculating climber, using Valentino to build her own career. This talking point is often repeated today, despite the fact that Rambova had already been working on big productions for DeMille and Nazimova for years before meeting Valentino. While Rambova was certainly a key figure in developing Valentino’s star image, the plain facts make it apparent that they were working as a team—hardly abnormal. Unfortunately, neither member of said team had much in the way of business sense.

As I mentioned earlier, Rambova fashioned her life around her work. Something I didn’t mention earlier is that she was an heiress. At this point in her life, Rambova was determined to live off her own labour and not touch her inheritance. When they were battling the studios, the couple continued to not touch Rambova’s inheritance. And, both desperate to return to filmmaking, they were subject to the studio’s will. While their split is often framed as Rambova abandoning Valentino when she was denied the ability to control his career, a slightly different scenario emerges upon closer inspection. Both Valentino and Rambova were highly dedicated to their work and their work was intertwined with their relationship, a similar dynamic to Rambova’s relationship with Kosloff and later with her second husband Álvaro de Urzáiz, with whom she restored villas. With Urzáiz, their relationship degraded when they no longer had a shared project to work on. (In this case due to the Spanish Civil War.) It’s neither sensational nor romantic, but following Valentino’s reconciliation with Hollywood, after a few films, the pair was intentionally separated creatively. (This was at least partly due to the machinations of their new business manager, George Ullman, who we now know was manipulating Valentino’s finances after litigation regarding the disposition of Valentino’s estate.)

“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.” 

—“Natacha Rambova Emerges” by Edwin Schallert, Picture Play Magazine, August 1925

Rambova worked on one film independently from Valentino before their divorce, What Price Beauty? (1925), starring mutual friend (for the moment) Nita Naldi. The film is now lost and its production and release seems awfully sus, so I hope to cover that for “Lost, but Not Forgotten” soon. Regardless of the film’s success or failure, the whole endeavor soured Rambova on Hollywood.

Nita Naldi in a promotional photo from What Price Beauty?

In her book about her life with Valentino, Rambova opined:

“Hollywood—all the joys of the petty community life of ‘Main Street’ with an additional coating of gold dust thrown in for good measure!… it is merely an imitation gilded hell of a make-believe realm. Nothing but sham—sham—and more sham. “Hollywood—one continuous struggle of nobodies to become somebodies, all pretending to be what they are not.”

Through their divorce and Valentino’s untimely death the year following, Rambova never stopped working. Rambova operated boutiques selling her original designs in New York and then in France. Around this same time Rambova also got more deeply involved in spiritualism. In an odd move, she published Rudy with the final third of the book “dictated” by Valentino’s spirit. I won’t say that I don’t find that pretty distasteful, but having read the book, it reveals two key things: Rambova’s genuine affection for Valentino, patronizing as it may be, and a sincere belief in the spiritualism movement that she and her mother had been drawn into. There have been critics who have framed the book as some sort of cash-in or vengeful act against Valentino for excluding her from his will, but the facts do not support that. Rambova, to reiterate, was an heiress who did not need to work for a living. She also states directly that it is Rambova’s spiritual leader who encouraged her to publish the book as a way to promote spiritualism. That’s not necessarily any better than the false narrative, but the truth has value (and is more interesting in this case!)

In the 1930s, Rambova relocated to Spain where she finally began using that inheritance to develop rental properties on Mallorca with her aristocrat husband. If you know anything about 20th century European history, you may know what happened next. Urzáiz joined the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and despite her abiding fear of Communists, Rambova stuck around in Spain for as long as she could before fleeing to France. Of course, it wasn’t long before the Nazi Germany invaded France, so Rambova relocated back to the United States.

During her time abroad, Rambova’s preoccupation with symbology was reignited by a trip to Egypt. This sparked the next big passion of her life, which she would pursue for over two decades: Egyptology. 

Rambova in Egypt

Rambova became a writer, researcher, and lecturer on symbolism and cosmology in Ancient Egypt (as well as spiritualism). Much of Rambova’s work was done in collaboration with Alexandre Piankoff and the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo (IFAO). With various grants, Rambova travelled to Egypt to document important sites, via photography and illustration. Rambova also used much of her inheritance to source objects from Egypt, which she donated to museums and universities in the US. (There’s a huge discussion about that to be had, which, as an archivist myself, I am drawn to explore. But, it falls outside the purview of this blog, so it’ll have to stay a discussion for another time and place.) These collections are still accessible to researchers and the public today. Rambova continued this work until her death in the 1960s.

Without doubt there are meaningful reasons to criticise Rambova and her work. Some of her design work is appropriative at best, overtly racist at worst. She had ignorant and arrogant attitudes toward class politics bred from her uber-privileged upbringing, which occasionally bled into her work and interfered with her ability to collaborate with other artists. She definitely lacked the social skills and business sense that were very necessary for artists working in a mass-media format like film. It’s typical, but disappointing still, that so much effort has been put into demonizing Rambova for reasons that were either completely fabricated, or rooted solely in the fact that she was a woman who knew her value, but by society’s standards, didn’t know her place. All that said, maybe we are due to spend a bit more time as film enthusiasts genuinely engaging with the art Rambova created and recognizing how much of a force she was in standing up for artistry in the American film industry.

☕Appreciate my work? Buy me a coffee! ☕

Postscript: This piece was a monster, so excuse me for not diving into rumours about Rambova’s potential queerness, as it eventually fell out of the scope of the essay. But, for those in the know: my personal take is that she likely was queer, though probably not romantically entwined with Nazimova, but maybe with Fredova. I also think her marriage with Valentino was not lavender. And, even if Rambova wasn’t queer, I appreciate what a keen collaborator she was with queer colleagues and what a good friend she apparently was to queer people in her social circles and her family, despite how often her detractors would try to use accusations of lesbianism as a weapon against her. IMO if someone were of weaker character, those types of aspersions would have driven a wedge between the object and their friends and colleagues.

Bibliography/Further Reading:

Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova by Michael Morris

Rudy: An Intimate Portrait of Rudolph Valentino by His Wife Natacha Rambova

Valentino As I Knew Him by George Ullman

Picture Play Magazine, August 1925

Photoplay Magazine, December 1922

Mythological Papyri – Texts by Alexandre Piankoff & Natacha Rambova

[see-arcane]

Lucy Undying came out a few days ago and

"It's a feminist retelling, giving Lucy the agency she so lacked in Dracula."

I am putting feminist retellings on the top shelf unit we all consider if sometimes lack of agency of a character in a story was the point

In fairness, I get the 'why' behind stuff like this.

Lucy's story is painful. It is scary and tragic and ends cruelly for her, just like so many tales of female victims before and after her. Though her death(s) have a real narrative and an emotional point, whereas your average damsel is nothing but an extra pound of meat for the grinder to help add more woe to Hero Man's story. It hurts more with her.

She stands apart from the common fridged woman by being someone we know, someone loved, someone killed and remade into a bloodstained caricature of herself to be her attacker's eternal slave. Ending her existence in that second iteration is mercy, practicality, and the setting of the stakes for Mina when Dracula targets her. If the monster doesn't kill you, the heroes will put you down for becoming a monster too. Which itself ripples out into new moral conundrums when we see how staunchly Jonathan refuses to risk destroying Mina in any form; making us question in turn whether there really was hope for Lucy the Bloofer Lady--who had killed no one yet!--if only Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad had tried another angle. It makes you chew on the implications.

So, I get it. We all want to save the character we love and who got crushed underfoot by the plot.

The problem comes in when to do that literary rescue, you completely obliterate everything about that character which makes them themselves and not Generic Strong Spunky Female #1897. And the book's summary doesn't give me much hope for this not being the case.

Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims. But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants. Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power. Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl once more. Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?

Now, if the name here was different? If this was, I don't know, 'Lorelei Wilder' thwarting her monstrous master 'Count Lord Duke Dracattackula,' that'd be fine. But the fact that it's trying to convince me that the central character is Lucy Westenra, the girl we know through others' words and her own as a human, and through the lens of others' witness accounts as an apparently merrily content monster as the distorted Bloofer Lady, makes me fear the worst: That our girl's been girlbossed out of recognition.

I won't pass immediate judgment. Maybe it's a hidden gem. Maybe a century's worth of character development has altered Bloofer Lucy into this form believably and the author hasn't just retroactively taken an eraser to everything she was pre and post-vampirism in order to make Standard Rebellious Hero Girl (now with public domain name!). I'll cross my fingers for it.

But I won't hold my breath.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Do you remember this post of McDonald’s takeover of a former Art Deco hotel in Australia? Disappointingly, the interior was reno’d to look like a typical McDonalds. Well, here are some other buildings that McD’s should have left alone.

McDonald’s Paris. The building dates back to 1892 and is a listed historic monument.

They took over this old steamboat on the Mississippi river in St. Louis, Missouri. It closed after flooding.

They opened the McBarge, that they built for the World Expo in Vancouver, Canada.

It was abandoned after the Expo. 

This one, in an old theater on 42nd St. in New York City also closed down.  McDonald’s did not respond to questions about the fate of the 7,000 light bulbs that comprise the restaurant’s sign.  

This one in Independence, Ohio looks like a McMansion, but it must’ve been a mall or some sort of industrial building.

This one’s more elegant inside.

The one in the spectacular Galleria Emanuelle Vittori, Milan, Italy’s oldest shopping mall, built in 1861, was there  20 yrs., when the mall finally refused to renew its lease- they were the only tenants that were denied. McDonald’s has sued the city of Milan (their landlord) for €24 million in damages and were replaced by the mall’s 2nd Prada store.

When they bought the Denton House, in New Hyde Park, New York, the 1795 Georgian mansion, a former farmhouse and funeral home, was on the verge of collapse. They had planned to knock it down, but the locals complained, so it’s been made an historic site and they can’t demolish it.

Yangshuo, province of Guangxi, China, famous for its amazing karst landscape and a haven for rock-climbers and backpackers from all over the world.

An 1850s Greek Revival colonial and former sea captain’s house in Freeport, Maine. They were going to knock to this one down, but residents complained.

Kristiansand, Norway. It dates back to 1897 and looks like it probably used to be a bank.

In Landau, Germany, McDonald’s set up shop in one of the finest examples of handsome Bavarian historic architecture. The 15th century historic building still has its original stepped gables and colorful facades.

A New York townhouse on Canal Street, New York. Is this McDonald’s trying to be hipster? What makes them choose these buildings? Who knows. 

https://www.messynessychic.com/  and others

[fictionadventurer]

A Crazy Tale

By G.K. Chesterton (1897)

"Hey, diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon."

It is incredible, but true, that a young man sat opposite me in a restaurant and spoke as is hereafter set down.

He was a tall, spare man, carefully dressed in a formal frock-coat and silk hat. His tone was low and casual, his manner simple and very slow, and his bleak blue eyes never changed. Anyone just out of earshot of the words would have supposed that he was describing, in a rather leisurely way, an opera or a cycling tour. I alone heard the words; and ever since that day I have gone about ready for the Apocalypse, expecting the news of some incalculable revolution in human affairs. For I know that we have reached a new era in the history of our planet: the creation of a second Adam.

He spoke as follows, between the puffs of a cigar:

"I do not ask anyone to believe this story. Only in some wild hour of a windy night, when we could believe anything, when the craziest of a knot of old wives is wiser than all the schools of reason, when the blood is lawless and the brain dethroned, when we could see the windmills grind the wind, and the sea drag the moon, the apple-tree grow lemons, and the cow lay eggs, as in a wild half-holiday of nature; then, in the ear and coarsely, let this tale be told.

"When my story begins, I was walking in a still green place. The words sound strange and abrupt even in my own ears; but there is a reason for their abruptness.

"At that point the record of my life breaks off. The day, hour, or second before some stunning blow, some tremendous event befell me, and I awoke without a memory.

"Of the lost knowledge thus sealed within me I have a kind of half-witted fear. I move trembling in the close proximity of something huge, yet hidden in the darkness of my brain. Only of two things I am convinced. The first is, that this event, which I cannot recall, was the greatest of my life; that after all my adventures, wild as they were, were dwarfed in its unapproachable presence. The second comes of a certain hour, when suddenly, and for a second, the veil was lifted and I knew all. It had gone in a flash, but I am profoundly convinced that if I tell to another all the circumstances that led up to that instantaneous revelation, to him also, as he studies them, the words will suddenly give up their meaning, and their simplicity strike him with an awful laughter.

"This then, is the story.

"The greenness, that I walked like one in a dream, stretched away on all sides to the edges of the sky. Sleepily, I let my eyes fall and woke, with a stunning thrill, to clearness. I stood shrunken with the shock, clutching myself in the smallest compass.

"Every inch of the green place was a living thing, a spire or tongue, rooted in the ground for those fantastic armies. The silence deafened me with a sense of busy eating, working, and breeding. I thought of that multitudinous life, and my brain reeled.

"Treading fearfully amid the growing fingers of the earth, I raised my eyes, and at the next moment shut them, as at a blow. High in the empty air blazed and streamed a great fire, which burnt and blinded me every time I raised my eyes to it. I have lived many years under this meteor of a fixed Apocalypse, but I have never survived the feelings of that moment. Men eat and drink, buy and sell, marry, are given in marriage, and all the time there is something in the sky at which they cannot look. They must be very brave.

"Again, a little while after, as in one of the changes in a dream, I found myself looking at something standing in the fields, something which looked at first like a man, and then like two men, and then like two men joined, till, after dizzy turning and tramping round it like the searching of a maze, I found it was some great abortion of nature with two legs at each end, calmly cropping the grass under the staring sun. I have said that I ask no one to believe this story.

"So I travelled along a road of portents, like undeciphered parables. There was no twilight as in a dream; everything was clear cut in the sunlight, standing out in defiant plainness and infantile absurdity. All was in simple colours, like the landscape of a child's alphabet, but to a child who had not learnt the meaning.

"At one time, I seemed to come to the end of the earth; to a place where it fell into space. A little beyond, the land re-commenced, but between the two I looked down into the sky. As I bent over I saw another bending over under me, hanging head downwards in those fallen heavens, a little child with round eyes. It was some strange mercy of God assuredly that the child did not fall far into hopeless eternity."

The young man paused reflectively. I tried to say "a pool," but the words would not come. I seemed to have forgotten it. I seemed to have forgotten everything except his terrible blue eyes, big with unsupportable significance. Then I realised that he was speaking again. "I heard a great noise out of the sky, and I turned and saw a giant. Stories and legends there are of those who, in the morning of the world, strayed also into the borders of the land of giants. But it is impossible for any tongue to utter the overpowering sense of anarchy and portent felt in seeing so much of the landscape moving upon two legs, of looking up and seeing a face like my own, colossal, filling the heavens.

"He lifted me like a flying bird through space and set me upon his shoulder. I shall never forget the sight of his huge bare features growing larger as I came nearer to them; the sun shining on them as they smiled and smiled; a sight to give one dreams."

The young man paused again. I seemed to feel the whole sane universe of custom and experience slipping from me, and with an effort like a drowning man's I cried out desperately. "But it was a man--it was your father."

He raised his eyebrows, as at a coincidence. "So they said," he observed. "Do you know what it means?"

I found myself broken and breathless, as Job might have been, battered with the earthquake question of Omniscience.

He went on, smoking slowly.

"With the giant was a woman. When I saw her something stirred within me like the memory of a previous existence. And after I had lived some little while with them, I began to have an idea of what the truth must be. Instead of killing me, the giant and giantess fed and tended me like servants. I began to understand that in that lost epic of adventures which led up to the greatest event of my life, I must have done some great service for these good people. What it was, I had, by a quaint irony, myself forgotten. But I loved to see it shining with inscrutable affection in the woman's eyes like the secret of the stars. There are few things more beautiful than gratitude.

"One day, as I stood beside her knee, she spoke to me; but I was speechless. A new and dreadful fancy had me by the throat. The woman was smaller than before. The house was smaller: the ceiling was nearer. Heaven and earth, even to the remotest star, were closing in to crush me.

"The next moment I had realize the truth, fled from the house, and plunged into the thickets like a thing possessed. A disease of transformation too monstrous for nightmare had quickened within me. I was growing larger whether I would or no.

"I rolled in the gravel, revolving wild guesses as to whether I should grow to fill the sky, a giant with my head in heaven, bewildered among the golden plumage of Cherubim. This, as a matter of fact, I never did.

"It will always fill me with awe to think that no sign or premonition gave me warning of what I saw next. I merely raised my eyes--and saw it.

"Within a few feet of me was kneeling one of my own size, a little girl with big blue eyes and hair as black as crows.

"The landscape behind her was the same in every hedge and tree that I had left; yet I felt sure I had come into a new world.

"I had got to my feet and made her a kind of bow, looking a fantastic figure enough; but a red star came into her cheek.

" 'Why, you are quite nice,' she said.

"I looked at her enquiringly.

" 'They say you are the mad boy,' she said, 'who stares at everything. But I think I like them mad.'

"I said nothing. I only stood up straight, and thanked God for every turn of my rambling path through that elvish topsey-turveydom, which had led at length to this. Although I had not asked for a miracle in answer, two or three drops of clear water fell out of the open sky.

" 'There will be a storm,' cried the girl hastily.

"She seemed quite frightened of the dark that had come over the wood, and the shocks of sound that shook the sky now and again. This fear surprised me, for she had not seemed afraid of the grass.

"She seemed so broken with the noise and dark and driving rain that I put my arm round her. As I did so, something new came over me: a feeling less alien, and disturbed, more responsible and strangely strong; as if I had inherited a trust and privilege. For the first time I felt a kinship with the monstrous landscape; I knew that I had been sent to the right place.

" 'You are very brave,' she said, as the deafening skies seemed bowed about us and shouting in our ears; 'Do you not hear it?'

" 'I hear the daisies growing,' I said.

"Her answer was lost in the thunder.

"We were miles further on before she said, 'But are you not mad?'

"I spoke; but it seemed as if another spoke in my ear.

" 'I am the first that ever saw in the world. Prophets and sages there have been, out of whose great hearts came schools and churches. But I am the first that ever saw a dandelion as it is.'

"Wind and dark rain swept round, swathing in a cloud the place of that awful proclamation."

The young man paused once more. Some one near me moved his chair against mine. I remember with what a start I realised that I was in a crowded room; not in a desert with an insane hermit.

"But you have not told me," I said, "of the great moment: when you seemed to have discovered all."

"It is soon told," he said. "Ten years afterwards the girl and I stood in one room together: we were man and wife. Other men and women went in and out, all of my own stature. There were no more giants; it was as though I had dreamed of them. I seemed to have come back among my own people.

"Just then my wife, who was bending over a kind of couch, lifted a coverlet, and I saw that for which, haply, I have been sent to this fantastic borderland of things.

"It was a little human creature hardly bigger than a bird. And when I saw it, I--knew everything. I knew what was the greatest event of my life: the event I had forgotten."

I said "Being born" in a low voice.

I did not dare to look at his face.

The next consciousness I had was that he had risen to his feet, and was putting on his gloves very carefully.

I sprang erect also and spoke quickly.

"What does it mean? Are you a man? What thing are you? Are you a savage, or a spirit, or a child? You wear the dress and speak the language of a cultivated pupil of this over-cultivated time: yet you see everything as if you saw it for the first time. What does it mean?"

After a silence he spoke in his quiet way.

"Have you ever said some simple word over and over till it became unmeaning, a scrap of an unknown tongue, till you seem to be opening and shutting your mouth with a cry like an animal's? So it is with the great world in which we live: it begins familiar: it ends unfamiliar. When first men began to think and talk and theorise and work the world over and over with phrases and associations, then it was involved and fated, as a psychological necessity, that some day a creature should be produced, corresponding to the twentieth pronunciation of the word, a new animal with eyes to see and ears to hear; with an intellect capable of performing a new function never before conceived truly; thanking God for his creation. I tell you religion is in its infancy; dervish and anchorite, Crusader and Ironside, were not fanatical enough, or frantic enough, in their adoration. A new type has arrived. You have seen it."

He moved towards the door. Then I noticed he had come to a stand-still again, and was gazing at the floor apparently in deep thought.

"I have never understood them," he said. "Those two creatures I see everywhere, stumping along the ground, first one and then the other. I have never been content with the current explanation that they were my feet."

And he passed out, still carefully buttoning his gloves.

I went back to the table and sat down. About four minutes after he was gone I felt a kind of mental shock, like something resuming its place in my brain.

It occurred to me that the man was mad. I am almost ashamed to admit with what suddenness it came. For so long as I was in his presence, I had believed him and his whole attitude to be sane, normal, complete, and that it was the rest, the whole human race, that were half-witted, since the making of the world.

[yanderepuck]

You didn't know the prompt but you voted Arthur for some angst.

Hope you're ready for some feels

Sitting at his desk, staring out the window. It's the beginning of spring. Flowers are sprouting. Trees are beginning to regrow their leaves. But even with how beautiful it is outside, he can't seem to enjoy it.

For being a man who is never left speechless, he couldn't tell you exactly how he feels. His vocabulary is wide, and in more than just one language. He knew English, French, and German while he was alive, and now he's begun to learn Dutch and Japanese. You would think he would be able to tell you how he feels.

It's 1897. He could go back to being happy he could go back and see her before she dies. Tell her how much he loves her. Maybe he still had time to stop it from falling apart.

Louisa was his first love. She's still alive. She's suffering with tuberculosis, but she still has many years left to live. Too many actually, considering what happened.

He taps his pen against his desk. The tip leaves small dots of ink on his paper. The pen is dropped and he takes his glasses off to rub his face.

He could go see her. Go see his kids. Tell them how much he loves them. He always loved them. But he didn't show it enough.

It's not that long of a trip. Plus he knows they are all back in England. Which means any day now she will come into his life.

Arthur takes a deep breath and forces himself from his desk. Stretching and trying to think about anything else. Literally anything else.

"Maybe I could go to England... Just for a bit."

He was in the kitchen now making a cup of coffee. What he needed was sleep, not to keep himself up.

He gripped the counter, his knuckles turning white. "I could make sure we all stay happy. I could..."

He seems to finish the sentence in his head, or even starts to have a little argument with himself. "But...I love Jean."

He quickly got snapped out of his thoughts.

"You love Jean?"

It was Theo. As much as he loved Theo, he wasn't the person he needed right now.

"It's nothing. Just a woman I knew from England," he sighs and grabs his mug wanting to hurry back to his room.

"Not so fast, straathond," Theo grabbed his arm to stop him from going anywhere. "Who is she? It's not like you to get hung up on a woman."

He was right. But Jean was different. It was love at first sight. Only, he was already married.

Arthur shakes him off. He wasn't going to understand. How could he? "It's not my issue any longer," he goes back to his room and sits back at his desk.

He zones out for a few minutes before opening a drawer and pulling out a wooden box. Inside were photos and papers from when he was still alive. Oddly enough some of the dates hadn't even passed yet. Some of these photos hadn't even been taken yet.

"If we had stayed in Switzerland for just a little longer..."

He was looking at a photo of Lousia and their two kids. Did his kids even come to his funeral after the way he treated them?

The sight of a single tear landing on the photo snapped him out of it. He turned the picture over and set it on down.

"I need to make things right," he wipes his hand across his face to make the tears go away.

But how? He can't just go to England and walk into their house. The real Arthur is almost 38, and vampire him? Well he looks to be at least a decade younger. Even he can tell he won't be able to pass as himself right now. But he also suspiciously looks too much like himself

"I could...," he pauses to think. "No. But I could-! No." So many thoughts are racing through his head. Should he make sure he never meets Jean? Maybe he should find her first. Maybe slap himself and tell him that he has a wife that he lives at home, and how she loves him.

"That would be a weird interaction, now wouldn't it?"

He sips his coffee and looks down at his paper and pen. It's now covered in ink splotches.

She has so much time left. Not nearly as little as the doctors anticipated. Almost a whole other decade.

Comte would kill him if he went to England and messed with history. He's a famous writer after all. It's not messing with the life of a nobody.

His kids hate him. It's not like he blames them. He chose Jean over his own kids, sent them to boarding school and didn't even want to see them on holidays. Told them they would have to find their own way home for the holiday rather than lending them money.

With his elbows on the desk, and his hands in his hair, his feelings start pouring out of his eyes. He wants to go back and change it. He wants to spend time with his kids. Spend time with Louisa. Tell them all how much he loves them. Tell them that he messed up and he regrets it. That he would do anything for them now.

But ..does he?

Does he regret it?

That's where the feelings are really coming from. Because as much as he wishes he had treated his kids better, he loved Jean. No. He loves Jean. He still has feelings for her to this day.

But what about Louisa? Yes he loves her. But is it stronger? For nine years while she was sick in bed, assuming she could pass any day, he was out with Jean. Going out to dinner with her. Meeting her in hotels.

Would it be fair to stop himself from meeting Jean?

He tries to straighten himself out. He uses the cuff of his shirt to soak up the tears. There's too many this time. The paper beneath him is ruined but he doesn't care. He picks up his pen and starts writing, being careful of all the wet spots.

For once since he's been revived he pours his heart out. The tears don't stop rolling down his cheeks, but he doesn't stop writing.

He writes a few pages, not quite sure of when to stop. But after what felt like hours he finally puts his own down. He's not even going to reread what he wrote. He can't.

He searches through his desk for envelopes. He needs three. The same address goes on each of them, but the names are different. After putting each letter where it goes he hesitates closing them.

When should he send them? They don't even know what he's apologizing for. The affair hasn't even started yet. But should he wait until Louisa has mere days left? Weeks? Months? Would they think it is some kind of prank?

He finishes off his coffee and gets up, taking the letters with him. Another debate is in his head.

Comte knows about his life and everything that happened. He doesn't know how, but he does. But Theo is his best friend, even though he doesn't know a fraction of his life.

He lets his feet lead him where he needs to go. He doesn't even realize how dark the mansion is. How the sun has gone down. He is looking down at the envelopes as he walks. No clue where he is going until he stops.

He looks up and it's Theo's door. His best friend. He would trust him with his life. He takes a deep breath and wipes his eyes again before knocking on his door.

"Theo?" he finally realized how late it is. He could be asleep.

Just as he is about to walk away from the door, it opens. "This better be good stra-" he stops when he sees how red Arthur's eyes are. How his cheeks are a little wet. "Arthur, what's wrong?"

He's clearly had gotten out of bed to answer the door.

"I need you to do something important for me," he holds out the letters. "These need to go to England," he pauses for a moment, nearly choking on his tears. "To Louisa and my kids."

"Arthur what are you -" he gets cut off.

"I need you to send them when the time is right. Louisa only has nine years left."

Theo wanted to ask so many questions. He's never seen Arthur like this. What happened? Theo slowly reaches out and takes the envelopes, noticing that they aren't shut.

"I don't-"

"Please, Theo," he's doing his best to keep his cool. It's not going well. "Don't tell me when you send them. I want to leave it in the past."

Looking up from the letters, he looks at Arthur and nods. "Okay. I will."

He didn't know how else to reply to taking on this task. He doesn't even know the situation to know when would be a good time. They aren't shut, does he read them? Is that why he didn't shut them?

"Thank you," Arthur says nothing else and walks back down the hall to his room. He closes his door and falls into the couch in his room, not even thinking about turning his desk lamp off.

"There's nothing else you can do, ol' chap."

~~~

~~~

Writer notes: I started this in March when I was doing a bunch of polls. For this one I had you chose the guy, and kept the prompt a secret.

I did a DEEEP dive into Arthur and I didn't realize the affair was THAT long so then I wasn't too sure how to write this. I knew he was married twice but I didn't realize how the second came to be, or that Louisa was dying the whole time.

I wasn't sure how to make him feel regret bc he really did love Jean, but he also really loved Louisa.

ANYWAY I HOPE YOU ALL ENOYED.

The other options for this prompt were Vincent, Mozart and Dazai. I might do one with Vincent because I already used this prompt neither Theo.

[traintrainingmontage]

@astro-tram This one's for you, since I saw your kind words and figured "you know what? If someone's interested, I won't say no!"

CW: mentions of blood, injury

TTTE White Witch AU

-White witches have existed on Sodor for a very long time. It's said that they get their power from the land itself, a blessing upon those who care for it. Witches live in many, many more areas of the world, of course, but for our purposes, we will not further discuss them.

-The witch families live all over the island, and they form a coven with a long and storied history. Their individual family histories have been recorded in ancient documents. The Thin Clergyman doesn't like talking about that particular aspect of Sodor's history.

-It's said that the ancient goddess of fire and travel, who loved humans, especially favored the white witches and took pains to assist them in various ways. One such way was gold dust, which could be used to travel across great distances, and call one's familiar to their side.

-White witches have always specialized in matters of warding, protection, luck, and healing.

-Witches have always had familiars. This is to protect them from those who would covet their power. Originally, only certain animals (those who had enough intelligence that an Awakening ritual could be done to make them sapient) were used as familiars, but once humans wrought from the earth unliving creatures of fire and iron, the goddess decided, with the consent of all the lands of the world, that such creatures could also be familiars, and thus, they as a whole were Awakened.

-Skarloey was requested to be a familiar in about 1912. The Sam family had been working on the railway since 1897, and were thus quite familiar with engines by this point. With tensions high elsewhere in Europe, there was much concern over both the human and non-human threats to Sodor.

-One night, while being chased by an undead intent on getting her power, Beatrice Sam, Robert Sam's sister, ran to Skarloey and asked for his help. Creatures of fire and iron are inherently strong against those of an undead persuasion, so Beatrice hoped with all her heart that her instinct saying this sapient vehicle could be a familiar was correct. Skarloey agreed to her plea and they formed a pact.

-Beatrice gave some of her blood to the engine, cutting her palm and letting a few drops sizzle in his firebox, pleading in Old Sudric that he become her protector. With her power, Skarloey began to take on a more bipedal, humanoid appearance, although he was still very much a machine. Metal creaked and parts shifted as he stood, his frames moving to accomodate the will of his contractor, as he quickly pulled Beatrice out of where his cab suddenly wasn't and cradled her in his arm like she were a doll. At 549 cm tall, he towered above the trees. Steam began to pour from his funnel, pure and white, and with his own power, the engine began to move of his own accord. He set Beatrice down, and headed toward his foe.

-The engine pummeled the pursuer into submission. It was not a battle; it was a beating. Skarloey didn't know how to fight; he could only flail and hit aimlessly. It was enough, however; engine and witch could only stare helplessly at each other as the undead collapsed into dust, suddenly all too mindful of what this all meant. As the effect wore off and Skarloey took his engine form once again, Beatrice wordlessly got into his cab and sobbed until morning.

-It was later on that Rheneas would be enlisted as a familiar associated with the Brown family. After Sir Handel acquired the Skarloey Railway, it was thought that Jane Brown (the eventual Lady Hatt) might make the request, but she already had a familiar, and a familiar's pact cannot be broken unless it is transferred to another witch, or the previous witch dies.

-However, it would actually be Sir Handel Brown's daughter-in-law, Rachel Qualtrough Brown, who would first request Rheneas' protection.

-As it happened, the first one to approach Edward to be her familiar was Barbara Jane Hatt, Jane Hatt's daughter. She had heard tell of Skarloey and Rheneas' exploits, and felt that Edward was a good, kind, reliable engine, unlike Thomas others. With Sodor being as supernaturally-inclined as it was, and her whole family being railway enthusiasts, it really only made sense.

-Presently, the year is 1970. Nancy Rushen, Beatrice Sam's great-granddaughter, is 17, and would trust nobody but Skarloey to see her through all the troubles and tribulations she senses on the horizon. She's still quite a serious soul, but she's also loosened up quite a bit over the years.

-The same can be said of 16-year-old Rebecca Dorothy Brown, Rheneas' contractor and Nancy's best friend, who is quite good at math and hates to leave a phenomenon unexplored or unexplained. She can't shake the feeling that something very strange is happening over at Ward Fell.

-27-year-old Bridget Hatt, who thinks of Nancy and Rebecca like little sisters, would only trust Edward with her well-being as she patrols the NWR's railways. They've had a lot of strange incidents over the years, and although their magic has held, Bridget wants to try and get to the bottom of just what's trying to undermine her beloved railway.

[lettheladylead]

i love outlaw mcduck (cuz its a goldie ep) and its also very very funny but it does make me crazy 'cause timeline-wise it just...doesnt make any sense. based on the setting and fenton's ancestor sheriff we're definitely in southern california/arizona/wild west/somewhere in that region.

goldie and scrooge met in 1897 in dawson, goldie confirms that in the ep and its mentioned in the rewriting history book. goldie says she came from dawson and talks about it like its still a town thats up 'n running and she can return to, so it cant be any later than 1902ish.

there was no gold rush or gold boom in the southern american states in that time period..............that episode couldve taken place anywhere in alaska and itd make perfect sense, but taking place in the wild west is like. hello, this gold was mined in the 1840s and by 1900 the claims were already bought and mined to hell. oil? yes. silver? sure. but gold??? its fine. the history of this childrens cartoon doesnt have to match up with real life history. scrooge just discovered the one town that wasnt mined for whatever reason its fine. its fiiiiiiiiine.

but anyway...it does make goldie seem extra boycrazy cuz the writers said shes gonna follow him at least 2600 miles. mostly on foot. thats at least a months journey. she crazy

[b4mpyre-k1zz3s]

Johnny dating a country girl maybe? Or a girl that's just from the south, idk I randomly thought of this I think it'd be neat 😭

All Over Again

Hot summers and hot love in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Johnny Knoxville X Fem!Reader

(Fluff)

2.4k Words

Warnings: Highly suggestive content, alcohol, flirting, guns, hangovers, erotic fishing

An: Thank you so much for this request!! Believe it or not, I actually was pondering this idea for a while! XD A good chunk of this is based off of where I grew up (in the middle of nowhere), so most of this definitely comes from experience! That, and I was inspired by these two amazing fics by one of my favorite writers on here, @thedreamydemon !! You all should ABSLOUTELY check her out!! The first scene specificly takes inspiration from this clip of Knox from the Big Brother video that I still just can’t get enough of!! This is maybe the filthiest thing I have ever written. Hope you enjoy! :D

Pop! One beer can fell off where it was propped up on an old piece of furniture in Johnny’s front yard, landing on the half dead grass with a clink before he started on the next one. There was no way in hell you would ever own a gun, but there was just something so sexy about how he handled that thing. Maybe it was how, when he aimed, he’d raise his shoulder just enough to make those too short t-shirts he always wore ride up about an inch above his belt, giving you a peek at the contoured lines of his stomach. Pop! Clink. Maybe it was the way he handled that pump action so skilfully and how muscular his biceps looked when he did, the sun golden against his skin as his sleeves stretched around them. Pop! Clink.

He didn’t seem to notice you until went to take a seat in the lawn chair he had set up on the dirt road few cars ever traversed, cracking open a beer and leaning his Winchester 1897 against one of the metal arms. Sun glinted off of the silver frame of his sunglasses, sweat making his skin just barely glisten as he brought the sweating can to his lips, glancing up at you, “Hey, mama.” Smiling that crooked way he always did, Johnny passed you a beer, “What brings you ‘round here?” The heat wasn't the only thing that had you sweating bullets, but you tried to play cool, “Well…” The liquid soothed your burning throat as you took a swig, “I was thinkin’ maybe we could go down by the creek- cool off a little…” The last part of your sentence lingered in the air, as if to suggest something else that Johnny immediately picked up on. He pretended not to get it just to tease you a little, “Sure thing. In fact , I gotta idea…” Standing up, he dusted his hands off in his dickies, “Why don’t we do a little fishin’?”

Johnny looked at you like you were crazy when you told him you never learned how, “You’re kidding.” Gazing up at him as he stood just a little too close to you, you raised your hands in appeal, “No- completely serious here.” You didn’t have The fainted clue what was so important about knowing how to fish or what your boyfriend found absolutely hilarious about the fact that you didn't. He cooed teasingly, trying to get under your skin a little just to bug you, “Aww, what’s the matter? Daddy never taught you how?” You couldn’t tell if it was the sun or your blush that made your face feel hot. Something in you wanted to wipe that shit eating grin off of his face, but you played civil, rolling your eyes and saying nothing, he responded to your silence, “Well,” One of his hands came to rest heavy on your shoulder, “Not to worry, doll, ‘cause I’m gonna teach you everything you need’t know.”

☆彡

The shade of the towering Blue Ash trees that flanked the rocky bed of the river provided relief from the blistering heat as Johnny held your hand in his, helping you traverse the uneven terrain like the good boyfriend he was even though you insisted you were perfectly capable of it yourself. His palm still felt cool from his beer as you squeezed it. the decline evened out as you neared the edge of the water, crouching by the bubbling water. Sun streamed through the leaves overhead, dappling patterns on your skin as you peered into the lazy current while your boyfriend sat down near you on the rocks, setting everything up.

“Now, what I want you to do,” Johnny threaded a wriggling pink worm onto the hook, “S’just hold this for me till you feel a little tug, alright?” He snickered saying the last part. You only half listened to him as he explained, nodding to make it seem like you got it, “Mmhm…” Distracted, you could barely prepare yourself before you felt a strong pair of hands grip your hips and pull you back, landing on the lap of your boyfriend. That was definitely one way to get your attention. Handing you the rod stiffly, he positioned your hands around it with his significantly larger, more skilled ones, holding them there for a second as he tilted his head to the side, bringing it right behind your ear, his voice low and soft against the skin of your neck, “That easy enough for you?” Not sure whether you were more turned on or ticked off by his petty behavior, you aired on the former, “Yeah...”

“Good, now…” His hands released from around yours, “the most important part of fishing is payin’ attention.” You could feel him smile against the shell of your ear, the calloused pads of his fingers slipping down your wrists, then your forearms, the only sound for maybe a mile being the woods arround you. “If you can’t pay attention, then…well, you won’t be able’t catch anything worthwhile.” Little tickling touches made you squirm as his hands made their way to your waist, his thumbs slinking down to your lower back as he played with the hem of your tank top, a few of his fingers skillfully grazing the skin underneath it. Ohh, he knew what he was doing. Johnny chuckled at your inability to sit still as you squirmed in his lap, his breath hot against your ear as he whispered, mockingly, “Easy, easy…” Gently, like you wouldn’t even have noticed if your nerves weren’t on fire, his lips found your neck, sucking just barely. You felt Johnny grin at the noise you made when his mouth made contact with your pulse point, feeling the flutter of your heartbeat under your skin. It was twisted, but god, it was hot. He was fucking with you

Your hands began to tremor a little from how fervent he was and you practically snapped, albeit softer than you would’ve wanted, “What- what do you know about fishing anyway?” Johnny’s hands came back up to wrap around yours, steadying them as he pulled himself away from the swollen, pink skin of your neck, murmuring against you, “I know more than you do.” Well, he was right.

Just then, you felt a tug at the end of the line. Thinking quick, you scrambled for the reel, spinning it faster than you thought you physically could. Johnny’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates when he saw the flopping, wet monster of a catfish you reeled in, almost jumping at the sight with you still in his lap, “Holy shit!” He seemed more surprised than you, even though you were the one who caught the damn thing, “What’d you mean, holy shit’? I thought you were gonna take me fishing!” He chuckled in surprise, jaw still a little slack, “Well, I mean- I wasn't thinking about that kinda fish!” It took you a second to realize the stupid dirty joke he made, facepalming. Although that prospect wasn’t entirely awful in your mind, you feigned disgust, “Come on! Y’can’t believe I’m that easy, do you?” Johnny shrugged, “Well, a guy can hope…”

★彡

It was rare that Johnny wasn’t outside on a day like this. Usually, he’d be sitting in front of his single wide, drinking his beer on the ‘porch’ he fashioned out of stolen scrap lumber that you never really trusted enough to step foot on. But he wasn’t today, so you decided to be a good girlfriend and pop by. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well. Maybe he needed a little company.

The semi rotted wood creaked unsteadily under your feet as you opened up the screen, knocking gently on the white plywood door that was covered in mildew, as was the siding and just about anything on the outside of that house. Leaning against the door to listen, almost pressing your cheek to it, you called, “Johnny…?” A beat passed before you got a short, groggy response from inside, “S’unlocked.”

The living room was cloaked in darkness from the drawn lacy valance curtains, little slivers of light where they didn’t fully cover the windows stretching over the floor, like a peephole to the mess they hid. A low groan from the couch alerted you to your boyfriend’s presence in the dark. Shutting the door behind you, it took a few seconds for your eyes to get adjusted.

Johnny’s long legs stretched out on the couch, his head propped up on one side and his feet on the other, clad in nothing but his white boxers. Your eyes trailed down from his bare, toned chest, rising and falling with each breath, down his stomach to the trail of hair that led below his waistband that made you practically salivate at the mere sight of. A pink and purple tie-dye bruise the size of your fist sat just to the left of it, drawing your attention to the myriad of smaller bruises and scratches that dappled his body. He didn’t look too hot but god, did he look good. Practically drooling, you tried your best to hide it, “Can I, uh- get you some coffee?” Johnny’s voice was low and hoarse as he nodded, “Yeah…that’d be great, honey.” He laid all sprawled out like that as you gingerly stepped over the crinkling empty beer cans that littered the ground as you prepared a cup for him and yourself.

Returning, you found him sitting up, the arm that was haphazardly thrown over his eyes having been removed as he took the cup, looking up at you. He was sporting a nasty shiner and a busted lip, but besides that the only thing that was really awry was the absence of his sunglasses. Even indoors and at night, he usually wore them to hide his drunk circles, but you always told him they were cute, especially with the dead look he always kinda had behind his eyes. Leaning down, you gave him a gentle kiss on his purple, bruised cheekbone and he winced. You scoffed at his reaction, smiling, “Don't be a baby.”

Sitting down next to him on the couch, Johnny took that as his cue to get comfortable, laying back with his head on your lap. You ran a hand through his hair, his thick locks tickling the spaces between your fingers. The soothing motion elicited a groan from deep in his throat as he stared up at you adoringly. Johnny snickered, his crows feet crinkling up, “Nice view here.” Yep, he was feeling better. “Oh? Y’like the twins?” You giggled, and so did he, still somewhat inebriated, “Mmhm. Love ‘em.”

“Y’know, Rodge’s playin’ the bar tonight.” Johnny cracked a wry smile, “Wanna go?” You weren’t one to turn him down, even if he couldn’t dance sober, much less drunk. Nonetheless, you probably had all of Rodger’s CD’s in your pick up, and he always put on a great show at the kind of honky tonk bars you and Johnny frequented, so it was hard to say no. “Okay, well…” You stroked one of Johnny’s temples with your thumb, tracing an old scar, “If I can get you feelin’ better by tonight, then sure.” He took the hand that was resting on his face and planted a gentle kiss on one of your knuckles, “I’ll make sure of it, doll.”

☆彡

Johnny always had the fellas over- that is, on nights he wasn't taking you out. They’d build a bonfire on the burnt patch of his lawn and drink and sing Marshall Tucker songs until the sun came up. But on those other nights, when you were out fooling around somewhere far too late- those were your favorite nights- like tonight, nestled snugly under Johnny’s arm in a bar that stank like sweat and booze. Romantic.

He learned how to dance slow from movies, and you could tell from how Johnny stumbled over your feet a little as Rodge started up on a real sappy number about whoring. The lights were all low and his hand sat loosely on your waist, holding you close enough that you could taste the beer on his breath. Leaning down, you felt his forehead rest gently against yours like he was just about to kiss you, but before he could close the distance between your mouths, the song faded out, and applause erupted in the crowd as he wordlessly slipped away from you.

But before you could start panickedly scouring the bar for him, poof! Your boyfriend reappeared on stage, stumbling up to the mic to applause from the crowd. He was somewhat of a local celebrity due to his usual antics and held up to his gutsy reputation with little stunts like this. “Hey, cuz.” Rodger shot him a nod and Johnny grabbed the mic, leaning closer with a grin that could tempt a nun, “I gotta song for a special lady out there tonight. Think y’could help me out?” He shot you a grin as the beginning plucky notes of the next song began. Inside, you felt like one of those teen girls that would scream at Beatles shows, watching your boyfriend drunkenly crooning Johnny Cash to you up on that shitty plywood stage. Well, he was singing it to about a hundred people, all dancing and hollering themselves, but you knew he had his eye on you behind those sunglasses.

The song ended to much applause and excitement, the crowd really fired up from his performance as you stood there, lovesick. All of a sudden you were hoisted off of your feet and into the air! You panicked for a moment before you recognized the familiar cackle of the man who was holding you. “Knoxville!” You wrapped your arms around his neck, giving him a kiss on the cheek, “That was amazing!” He chuckled, cracking a goofy smile, “Thanks, sweetheart. Now, what’d you say we get outta here?”

“That’d be great.”

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Sunday, September 1st

Willy: What are you gonna do with him anyway? Spike: I'm thinkin' maybe dinner and a movie. I don't want to rush into anything. I've been hurt, you know.

~~What's My Line? Part 2~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Never Too Safe by veronyxk84 (Spike & Dawn, PG-13)

Late Night in the Lab by Anonymous (Fred & Wesley, G)

Creature Comforts by evesock (Darla/Drusilla, E)

ya got a way about ya by Skyson (Buffy/Giles, T)

Reasons to be Respectful by spikesgirl58 (Spike, Doctor Who crossover, G)

Teenagers by TheMarti (OC & Willow, T, in Italian)

Scarborough, 1897 by esskay123 (Fanged Four, T)

Surrendering To Desire by badly_knitted (Buffy/Angel, E)

Curses by MadeInGold (Angel/Spike, E)

Podfic: The Mayor by ChokolatteJedi, read by pieces0fstars (Buffy& Giles, T)

[Chaptered Fiction]

get under my skin (i'll fall to pieces), Chapter 1 by ameliakepner (Buffy/Faith, M)

Stab in the back, Chapter 25 by MelG_2005 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Love Lives Here, Chapter 98 by Passion4Spike (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Lost in Desolation, Chapter 6 by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Great Escape from Oz, Chapter 5 by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

A Tumble in Time, Chapter 4 by thedoppleganger (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Stupid Thing, Chapter 4 by Misti (Buffy/Spike, R)

The Magic of Sunnydale, Chapter 10 by Buffyworldbuilder (Ensemble, Harry Potter crossover, FR15)

The Watcher, Chapter 28 by In Mortal (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Viral, Chapter 1 by Harlow Turner (Buffy/Spike, R)

Getaway Gang, Chapter 1 by violettathepiratequeen (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Next to me, Chapter 1 by Lilacsandorangeblossoms (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Enchanted Dawn, Chapter 1 by VeroNyxK84 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

The Reaping, Chapter 1 by ClowniestLivEver (Buffy/Spike, R)

[Images, Audio & Video]

🎨 Banner Art #20 — For “Legend Has it” event [2 banners] by veronyxk84 (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

Manip: The Jersey Devil by Harmony99 (Buffy & Spike, worksafe)

Manip: Sleeping Beauty by Harmony99 (Buffy & Spike, worksafe)

Manip: Lords of the Dragons by VeroNyxK84 (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

Manip: A Fairy Tale by Claire (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

Artwork: Buffy in Helpless by isevery0nehereverystoned (worksafe)

Artwork: Spike by snottiesnot (worksafe)

Artwork: Buffy and Willow pixel art by v-thinks (worksafe)

Sketches: episode screenshot redraws so far by bugscribbles (Buffy, Darla, Jenny, Willow, Xander, Teacher's Pet praying mantis, worksafe)

Collage: Buffy and Willow by sunflower1109 (worksafe)

Collage: Buffy and Giles by sunflower1109 (worksafe)

Gifset: 1880's outfits by clarkgriffon (Drusilla, Cecily, William, Anne Pratt, worksafe)

Gifset: Willow/Tara by lovebvffys (worksafe)

Merchandise: barq’s 1999 btvs cans by justsomeguycore (worksafe)

Cosplay: Spike (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) by Leon QueerAF

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lookbook (goth/alt/punk) by Rattus Rattus

Fanvid: Buffy & Angel - I'll still love you the same by Dacy Toxic

Fanvid: Buffy the vampire slayer BOYS 12!!! by MelonTango

Fanvid: SPUFFY in 2 minutes or less (part 2) by Love Bites

Fanvid: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1 Opening Credits (Charmed Style) by Rotten Lemonade

Fanvid: Buffy & Spike - Destiny of Souls | The Full Story by Buffy & Spike Channel

Fanvid: Enchanted [Spike] by True Hunter

Fanvid: like a prayer [btvs season finales] by Aurora Edits

Fanvid: my tears ricochet [buffy and giles] by Aurora Edits

Fanvid: Illicit Affairs [spike + buffy] by Aurora Edits

Fanvid: Buffy vs Faith - All My H8 by juliaroxs241

Fanvid: Buffy the Vampire slayer - Bend by juliaroxs241

Fanvid: Buffy Summers - What's Up by juliaroxs241

Fanvid: [Buffy, set to teenage dream by Olivia Rodrigo] by Danica

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike - I Luv This Shit By August Alsina by Naki-a Littlejohn

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike - We Not Humpin By Flo Milli by Naki-a Littlejohn

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike - Crazy In Love by Naki-a Littlejohn

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike - War of Hearts by Naki-a Littlejohn

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike - Hit The Road Jack by Naki-a Littlejohn

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike - Just that Girl By Drew Seeley by Naki-a Littlejohn

Fanvid: Buffy and Spike - Haunted By Beyoncé by Naki-a Littlejohn

Resource: Buffy The Vampire Slayer | Buffy and Angel ~ Scene Pack by DeanxSalv (also posted several other scenepacks)

[Reviews & Recaps]

hannahlibbie's BtVS rewatch: S01E01 Welcome to the Hellmouth​ by hannahlibbie

Video: Up The Buff! Ep 1 'What is your childhood trauma?!' 90s Nostalgia Alert: Belfast Boys Buffy Binge by BigBadLlama

Video: Him-Slayer Sunday by Jane Talks Buffy

Video: Buffy the Unaired (and for good reason) Pilot : Toxic Rewatch by Lord Toxic

Video: We finished Season 3, let's talk about it! Buffy the Vampire Slayer by The Buff Summer

Video: S4E02: Living Conditions by One Girl in All the World

Video: Buffy 2.13 & 2.14 Surprise and Innocence by Jan Katz and Ryan Something

Podcast: If The Apocalypse Comes, Beep Me - TRAILER by The Final Pod TV

Podcast: Buffy the Vampire Slayer [movie] and What We Do In the Shadows with Angel Krause by Creepy and Geeky Presents

Podcast: BwB 102 - Arazmadus the Vampire by Beer with Buffy (also posted several other reviews)

Podcast: Bring on the Night S7 E10 (Buffy and the Art of Story Podcast) by Lisa M. Lilly

[Recs]

Fic rec: The Closing Distance by fluffernutter8 (buffy/Angel, T) recced by iwillrememberyoumarathon

[Fandom Discussions]

Nightmares Fashion Part One by theoverlookedoneedits1997

You ever stop to think about the fact that B is Faith's nickname for Buffy, like exclusively? by annieofhearts

Vampire Xander was just some guy by aphony-cree

Xander Harris Was The Worst Part Of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' by trealtox

Actually the craziest thing about buffy angel cordelia and spike is that they all choose the mission over each other every single time by watchriverdale

Spike a little gay ? continued by multiple posters

Rewatch thoughts and questions [Unleashed, Hellbound] continued by multiple posters

So let's talk about Rack.... continued by StateOfSiege97

Why Stakes? continued by multiple posters

"The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco" invitation by gimmesomespace

Angel and Cordelia's Love by Samravenclaw21

In 7X4 "Help" Buffy mocks the jock cult & misnames Blue Öyster Cult but in 7X6 "Him" she has their album Fire of Unknown Origin on the CD pile in her house by KneeHighMischief

Tara is top 5 characters in Buffy to this day by Senior-Leave779

Did you guys read Buffy as Bi in the show? by Valuable-Judgment602

Favourite character who suits this [bad guy / not bad guy] by Lady_borg

[Dark] Willow appreciation post by lexifer999

The new Bronze sign by BudHaven10

What was Buffy referring to? ["Killing people changes you"] by brwitch

spike could have saved dawn in 'the gift' if dawn hadn't wrecked it by Prestigious-Ear-3337

Jonathan by anthonycaruana

Did the Monk's implanted memories help humanize soulless Spike? by Flyestgit

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[scotianostra]

The brewer William McEwan was born in July 16th 1827.

Born in Alloa, the son of a ship-owner, McEwan began his career as a commercial clerk and book-keeper, before joining his uncle's brewery in Edinburgh in 1851, to learn the business of beer-making.

Five years later he set up his own company, the Fountain Brewery, in Edinburgh in 1856,. He made his fortune by successfully developing a local market while achieving a significant export trade to the world by the 1860s.

In 1886 he entered parliament as MP for central Edinburgh with the brewery managed by his nephew. McEwan gave £115,000 to the University of Edinburgh to erect a graduation hall, upon opening he was presented with an honorary doctorate and the freedom of the city of Edinburgh. The hall is a beautiful legacy to him , it was ompleted in 1897 and today is a category A listed building.

Through mergers and acquisitions, McEwan's company grew to become Scottish Brewers Ltd. , and then Scottish & Newcastle Plc, still based in Edinburgh, and finally by a consortium involving Danish multi-national Carlsberg and Dutch giant Heineken. In 2017 Marstons PLC purchased Wells & Young's Ltd as it had become known, and it now owns the McEwan's brands. Eight McEwans branded beers are still on sale.

McEwan is perhaps best remembered today for McEwan's Export beer, now brewed in England, the brewery, just a shortwalk from where I live closed 20 years ago in 2004 and the vast majority of the land it sat on now houses thousands of students.

Wiiliam McEwan became a member of parliament for Edinburgh Central after the 1886 general election, representing the Liberal Party. He was returned unopposed in 1895 and continued to serve until 1900. He became a Privy Counsellor in 1907 but declined a title.

McEwan's final home was at Polesden Lacey in Surrey, which was purchased in 1906 for his daughter Margaret and her husband Ronald Greville. She bequeathed the house and estate to the National Trust in 1942 in memory of her father.

William McEwan died in 1913 in Mayfair and was buried in the village of Great Bookham in Surrey. His estate was valued at £1.5 million.