#He's also like...a door-to-door bible salesman or something

[bumblingbabooshka]

Christina is the main character of Moral Orel...to Me

#Bloberta is also the main character #I drew these while dissociating BIG time -peace sign as I vanish- #moral orel #Christina Posabule #Bloberta #Shapey Puppington #Orel Puppington #Poppit Posabule #That's everyone! #moral orel art #bee doodles #thinking about Christina's brother going missing and no one around her caring #Shapey grows up to be an incredibly irritable and fastidious person due to wanting to be close to Bloberta #He gets into fights with Orel literally everytime they meet but Orel keeps trying #He's also like...a door-to-door bible salesman or something #Christina's arm gets hurt...parallel to Orel's leg #and yes her mom did it v_v #I didn't draw Block here but I think he'd calm down as he got older...not as attatched to any of his family (Posabule or Puppington) #Still close with Shapey but also close to Christina and Orel

[writers-craft]

The Pit of Love

story i wrote for my creative writing class, not gonna re-read it, just gonna post it here because why not

Judith French looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. She looked a mess. Her eyes were red and puffy, for she had been crying just moments prior, and her mascara was smeared down to her cheeks, but her hair still looked nice. A few strands were poking out here and there, and it was damp from the water, but her bun stayed intact, despite all that occurred. And crying only emphasized the blueness in her eyes. It was like looking into the ocean, Len always told her. Blood was leaking from her leg—the one that met with the glass—and the inside of her once blue dress was now stained with blood while the outside had darkened with mud. Her bare feet, one on top of the other, had specks of the lake’s bottoms stuck to them. Heavens, she looked a mess. Evelyn Johnson would surely have a mouthful to say if she saw Judith’s appearance, or maybe this would be the one thing to make her go silent. Keith once said the woman would die talking.

“Where are we going?” she asked the driver, but it was not the driver who looked at her. It was his passenger, the man with the gun, but he spoke no words.

It was a Tuesday, Judith French knew, when she realized she utterly despised her husband. Leonard French worked as a travelling salesman. And he enjoyed buying and selling so much, he did it during his free time too. He often came home to Stony Point with a completely different vehicle from the one he left with. Upon her crash, Judith French briefly wondered what his reaction might be when he learned his precious Volkswagen Sedan was currently sinking to the bottom of the lake. He wanted to sell it to Thomas Richfield, a neighbor two houses over.

Neither the driver nor his friend seemed eager to speak to her, so she opted to look out the window instead. They were going so fast it was difficult to see anything but the blur of the grass. It had gotten so long and green this past month, due to all the rain. She could see cows, too, which meant they were nearing Maxwell’s farm. Evelyn Johnson tried to convince everyone last Christmas that Rey Maxwell killed his wife, who coincidentally was also named Judith, but the people of Stony Point knew Judith Maxwell had been sick for years. It was her time.

Judith French looked to the man who sat between her and Keith and glanced down at his watch. Out of the three of them, the driver, the man with the gun, and the one beside her, the one beside her was the biggest and the nicest of them all. He had been the one who helped her out of the lake. He noticed she was looking at his watch and twisted his arm to give her a better view. His watch told her it was a quarter till six. Len would be expecting his dinner on the kitchen table, but his dinner was at the bottom of the lake with his precious Volkswagen.

She nodded her thanks to the man and went back to looking out the window. They were about to drive past the covered bridge. That awful covered bridge. It was red, or at least it had been before the paint had chipped off. It was mostly brown now, and really quite broken. Most of the wood had been broken apart, leaving gaps all around the bridge. The gaps had mostly been boarded up, though, except for the ones too high to fall from. The roof had gaps in it too, but Stony Point did not bother repairing the holes on the roof. Evelyn Johnson claimed her father was mugged as a boy, but it was during a time when Indians and bandits ran wild. She told Judith French the story the night they met, then several other times after, but assured her that the bridge was safe now.

The children at Stony Point High School called the pit beneath the bridge the Pit of Love. Teens would spend most weekends hanging out underneath it. Len said he and Patty Lesley kissed several times under the bridge senior year. Patty Lesley was now Patty Brown and she worked as a middle school teacher. He assured his wife they only kissed in the pit, and nothing more.

Three men had recently died in the Pit of Love. The first was a stranger. Like Len, he was a traveling salesman. It happened while it was raining, no one saw him.  They found his car a few miles from the bridge with its gas tank on empty and his keys still in the ignition with a few empty liquor bottles in the passenger’s seat. Keith said he must have lost his footing stumbling drunk and fell through one of the gaps. A young couple visiting the pit found him early the next morning.

It certainly was the topic of discussion for a while in Stony Point. Evelyn Johnson enjoyed talking about it, at least. She said the man committed suicide. She claimed his wife wanted to divorce him and he was so distraught he flung himself off the bridge. But people soon got bored of talking about the dead man. They moved on to the next craze, which was the high school’s undefeated football team.

And then Patrick Walter Mathews Jr., high school senior and football champ, was found dead at the bottom of the pit shortly after. She remembered the day exactly, because she and Keith were at a motel the afternoon the boy’s body was found. It was the day when she accidentally smeared lipstick on Keith’s jacket, and Harriett soon after insisted Keith eat lunch at home.

Keith again labeled the death as an unfortunate accident. The whole town followed the Mathews’ to town hall and demanded they repair the gaps in the bridge. And the next day Rey Maxwell and his boys hammred in thick pieces of wood over all the gaps, the ones they could reach. Evelyn Johnson, of course, praised Rey Maxwell’s actions, claiming she always knew he was a good man, and who would ever think such a man could murder his own wife?

Len had been away when all the chaos occurred, even with the salesman. He said he met the travelling salesman at a conference once. At parties he spoke of him as if it were his brother. Judith French knew his real brother died in Normandy in ’44. He raised his glass to the dead man, and everyone followed suit. For the young football star, he offered his condolences for the boy— “Kid had a damn good arm,” he said to Patrick Walter Mathews Sr.—and then Evelyn Johnson pulled out her bible and said a prayer for both man and boy. Everyone bowed their heads and listened to her prayer, except for Judith French. She looked out the window and watched a little blue car speed pass her home.

“Where are we going?” Judith French repeated her words when they drove over the bridge. They rumbled a bit as the tires hit the wooden bridge surface.

The driver, the boy, glanced briefly at her through the mirror. She saw all of them fully after she escaped the sinking Volkswagen and had made it onto dry land. They were all dressed in nice suits. The driver, the boy, was leaning against his vehicle, shiny, black and long—Len would be able to recognize the type, but Judith French did not bother memorizing vehicle like her husband. He was a boy of about seventeen and small for his age. The man who sat beside him now stood in front of him then like he was his guard. The boy whispered something to him and the man with the gun handed him a cigarette from his inside pocket and lit it for him. The man who was currently seated beside Judith French was beside her; he had helped her reach dry land after the crash.

No one said anything again. Keith attempted to, but the dirty handkerchief around his mouth prevented him from saying anything audible. She took a good look at him. He still had not buttoned his shirt since they last parted, half an hour ago. His white undershirt was now stained with his blood. He was sweaty too. He seemed to have a desperation in his eyes, and she wondered if she would die with him, but more importantly she wondered if she wanted to die with him.

She cleared her throat and turned back to the boy: “You’re quite popular here at Stony Point, you know,” she began. The boy did not look up, but she noticed his ears twitch. She heard Keith mumble something again. “You had us all believing those two men were to blame for their own deaths. I’m astonished, really. None of us ever thought anyone here at Stony Point could murdered.” Keith mumbled something again; she suspected he wanted her stop. “But, then there’s the third man in question. You got sloppy with him, didn’t you?”

The man in the passenger’s seat pulled out his gun and pointed it at her. Keith, at that point, was frantic. The man in between Judith French and Keith had to forcibly hold him down to prevent him from tackling the man with the gun. But the bullet in his stomach soon wore him out and he rested his head on the window and shut his eyes.

The boy chuckled and urged the man to lower his gun. “It’s refreshing to be around someone like you again,” said the boy. It was the first time she had heard him speak. His voice was deeper than she expected it to be, and a lot warmer.

“Someone like me?”

“You know, someone who tries to get to the bottom of things. Someone who cares. Someone good.”

She shook her head. “I’m… I’m not good.”

And he glanced up at her again, lingering a bit longer than last time. His eyes were blue, like hers, but his were lighter.

The third man was found dead in the Pit of Love three weeks ago with a bloodied bullet in his head. Like the salesman, a group of teens found him. She was with Keith when he got the call. Harriett and the boys were at her mothers and Len would not be back until that Tuesday, so they had the weekend to be together. He was not planning on working that night, but Judith urged him to take the call, in case it was Harriett.

She had a strange feeling that Harriett, or Len, would burst through the bedroom door at see them. Keith assured her they were safe, but the presence of Harriett or Len did not scare her; it thrilled her. She wanted them to see. She wanted to get caught.

Keith left quickly, and Judith French did not see him again until the following week. Harriett and the boys delayed their return a week, at Keith’s insistence, and Len arrived home the next day. Evelyn Johnson said there was a serial killer on the loose, and everyone believed her. The police blocked the Pit of Love with yellow tape and had a few officers on guard night and day.

No one knew who the third man was, like the salesman at the beginning. He had no identification on him, nor did his killer leave enough of his face to identify it with, but a woman one town over reported her husband missing shortly after the body was found. She identified the clothing on the corpse to be what she last saw her husband wearing.

The whole town was hysterical, including Len. He cancelled his next two business trips to stay and protect his helpless housewife. Harriett and the boys arrived again soon too. Keith said Harriett was growing suspicious. Judith French had mistakenly left her lipstick in one of her drawers. Keith tried to convince Harriett French it was her lipstick, but Harriet and Judith French did not wear the same colored lipstick.

She met Keith each time it was his shift at the Pit of Love. The officers with him would often give them space, turn their heads and pretend their superior was not with the local travel salesman’s wife. Most of the men on the force knew, but during dinner parties and other town functions, they would act oblivious. Judith French wondered if Keith kept their love affairs quiet, too; an unspoken rule between men and the women they betray their wives with. Judith always wondered if Evelyn Johnson was faithful to Rodger. Rodger Johnson went on business trips into Hughes every few months. Keith later told her that he went there to be with prostitutes. He got in trouble with the Hughes police once and Keith had to go bail him out.

She parked the Volkswagen out of sight, hidden behind bushes and a large ad for Chesterfield cigarettes and met Keith under the bridge. The pit was full of old cigarette butts and broken beer bottles, among other things. There was a sitting area made of old tires and boards of wood painted a faded red, most likely the wood from the bridge. Keith laid his jacket down on it to prevent splinters. And they were quiet, like always. The only sound was the occasional car driving over them. When Keith finished, Judith French fixed up her dress and smoothed out her hair, which was hardly disheveled. Then Keith kissed her goodbye and then she drove to the market.

She saw Mrs. Mathews there. Her hair was down, and she had no lipstick, but she seemed in pleasant spirits, despite everything. Judith French talked to her about her youngest, Carol, who would be singing at some recital later in the month, and her middle, Peter, her last boy, who was thinking about trying out for the high school baseball team. They talked as if her eldest had not been murdered a few months ago. And then Mrs. Mathews asked when she and Len were planning on starting their family, and she laughed and told her hopefully soon, like she always did.

It was on her way home when a sudden burst of emotion filled her, and she had to stop and pull over to collect herself. She sat, her forehead against the steering wheel, bawling her eyes out for no other reason than to get the emotion out. She let the tears fall freely, before drying her eyes and continuing her route home. She imagined Len probably listening to the radio or on the phone talking his way into a new sale, whether it be for business or for pleasure. She took a few deep breaths before continuing her drive home.

The boy’s vehicle appeared so quickly; she hardly saw it at first. She kept taking quick peaks at her rearview mirror, attempting to wipe away the smeared mascara. It was on the fourth or fifth wipe when she looked up and noticed the vehicle about to crash into her. She honked, then swerved quickly and drove into the lake. Her car door would not open, so she had to break the window glass with her heel and crawl out. She cut her leg on shuttered glass on her way out. The boy’s vehicle had stopped and reversed as she was climbing out, and the man in the back hurried to her before the vehicle had gone into a complete stop. She wondered if he was the one who persuaded the boy to stop, or if the boy had stopped on his own account.

She remembered yelling at the boy for his reckless driving. The man beside him grabbed his gun, but the boy stopped him from using it. She fell silent at the sight of it and dropped to her knees, her leg stinging as it collided with rocks and dirt, but she did not stay in that position for long. The man who helped her out of the lake, gently guided her back on her feet.

She caught sight of Keith, gagged and bloodied, as he walked her to the vehicle. Keith was leaning on the window, a bloodied handprint beside him, clutching the open wound on his stomach. For a moment she thought him dead until he turned his head to look at her. His eyes popped open and he tried to mutter something. The man with the gun, who had taken his seat in the passenger’s side by then, reached in the back to hit him. The force of the blow made Keith’s head it against the window hard.

The boy did not stop the car again until the sun, now an assortment of reds and yellows, was merging in with the mountains in the distance. They were in a field far away from Stony Point. No cars were in sight. Judith French watched as boy and his guard exited the vehicle and rummaged around the back trunk. They removed a few items, then the man with the gun opened the door on Keith’s side. Keith, too weak to sit up on his own, fell onto the man. The man kicked him away. The boy opened Judith’s side. He held a larger gun than the other man, but instead of pointing it at her, he held it to his side and offered her his hand. She took it.

There was chill in the air. She stepped onto grass that prickled the bottoms of her bare feet. The other man managed to lift Keith up off the ground. He stood as tall as he could, but the wound on his stomach forced him in a hunching position.

The boy let go of Judith French’s hand and lifted up his gun—Len showed her a similar gun in a photograph before they were married. He had called it a Tom gun, she thought. She felt strong hands on her shoulder and she turned to see the larger man holding her steady. The boy aimed the gun at Keith, and he shuffled a few inches backwards, then started mumbling something underneath his mask but he was quickly silence by the bullets passing through his head. He was now on the ground, no longer murmuring. She felt her heart sink as the boy shifted his focus onto her. The man holding her gently guided her next to Keith’s corpse. The boy again lifted his Tom gun.

“How did you kill the first two?” she asked.

The boy did not answer.

“Poison, wasn’t it? I’d use poison,” she said, “or something else to make it seem like an accident. But I think you’re like me.”

He lowered the Tom gun slightly and smiled. “How so?”

“You want to get caught,” she said.

#story #writing #creative writing #short story #fiction #fictional writing #oc #own characters #this was a year ago so I’d just cringe at the writing

[gnfkitten]

hi ginger, im in socials class, and do you know anything about jesus? i remember you and someone talking about him in the discord

Boy do I love Jesus I am actually Christian! You guys can figure out for yourselves if that is a joke or not! Here’s the best I can do (from the Christian pov not the Jewish one sorry I have not studied any of that LMAO)

he was born in the manger when the villagers refused to house Joseph (dilf) and Mary (milf)

When he was born the angels said he was a incarnation of God and also somehow his son, so either works because you really can’t accurately translate something that old

Three kings, shepards, angles yallve seen the play

He lived a mostly normal life and became a carpenter like his father

It’s very very unclear and I have not read the Bible in a long time but he eventually gained a lot of followers for being an outstanding dude and performed miracles

The romens didn’t like whatever he was doing and tried him for treason (this is historically accurate the romens were dicks about religion and very anti Semitic)

Last dinner the feet thing the romen dudes he converted etc

They killed him and put him on the cross after marching him around

He was buried and this is where it starts to get more religious and less ph pog ancient history

I can’t really remember anything after that but he was revived by God/himself/the Holy Spirit and continued to preach and gain a following.

Christianity continued to spread via some very good door to door salesman and the romens generally just not being very nice to their citizens

#I have not read the Bible in years I tried my best #christianity

[cullxtheherd]

Dirty headcannon game: J, A, C, O, B for Jacob

thank u for this ask anon - it gets a little rambly but in my defense i haven’t had coffee or sleep so ksjndksf we maaake doooo with what we haaave hebjhdfrdesfkjn

Dirty A-Z headcanon game!

J - Jelly (what kind of lube are they using? is it flavored? have they tasted it? do they prefer to use something other than real lube during sex?)

anon i think, personally, that if Jacob Seed has access to any kind of personal lubricant it’ll come in a sour flavor- green/apple, lemon, etc. i just don’t see him as a sweets type of person? maybe you feel differently idk. but to be honest with you i doubt lube is in massive stock or quantity at saint francis. and without being... Too Dark™: i’m pretty sure if Jacob Seed is making use of any form of lubricant (even spit) he likely has some type of feeling for his partner- other than convenience, that is.

A - Alone time (how do they get off when they’re all by themselves? do they watch porn, is it all in their imagination, do they jerk off, do they use toys?)

hoo babey i think Jake is definitely a guy that masturbates, but i think he is the type of guy that has that?? ingrained Religious Guilt™ about it. which lanskjndjkfns it’s funny to me because he has zero to little guilt at all about anything else he does i just think that?? based on my own interpretation of his childhood: he likely spent whatever years that weren’t clouded by abuse and addiction on his parents part, under the thumb of the Bible. i have theorized in his timeline [x] that the Seeds were likely Baptists due to the majority Religion in Rome, Georgia at the time of Jacob’s birth. i personally headcanon that his father was likely a Preacher before being overcome with alcoholism and after i believe he was likely a bible salesman who dragged his eldest son along. i believe that being ruled by a heavily religious iron fist, especially with strict doctrines about repentance and sinning??? y e a h. i think if he is rubbing one out it’s probably a quick, base needs experience: no toys, etc and probably followed by feeling Super Wrong About It Because God (even though he doubts the fuckers existence at all®). anyone who is catholic can confirm ksjndkjnfdjdnf

C - Crying (is it a turn on? a turn off? do they cry during sex? have they cried during sex? what was the reason?)

oof that is a grim thought to be honest and?? i doubt Jacob Seed cries during or has in the past cried during sex. now i’m not sure on the turn on/turn off situation because honestly i think it depends on the circumstances. i could certainly see during an unhinged and violent episode it being a turn on (in the sense that it is something incensing to an attacker, generally), but!! i just don’t write him as meanly in the bedroom as most people do, so: in a sane mind state no i really do not think it is a turn on for him. i think although he was raised roughly and rudely that ultimately he was/is a Southern Boy; as in: he loves his Mama despite her massive faults, he holds doors open for women (these days mostly in the PEG unless out of town), he is sweet on his sweetheart, he knows the lyrics to every Elvis song and Southern Nights by Glenn Campbell, he eats peaches (no not Staci, yes sExUaLlY), he likes his grits tacky not RUNNY, he haS A STNRNFSDJ SOUTHERN ACCENT???!?!?!?! UBISOFT HELLOOO??

you know what im done with this question my friend :)

O - Outdoor sex (have they ever done it in public? would they? where?)

yes very much yes. i think any sex that jacob seed is having these days is likely a spur of the moment act of convenience and is probably subject to back alley bangin’ more than he would ever admit. the game and the devs have told us a lot that the boys don’t really follow their own core doctrines and since Jake tells us plainly that he’s not so sure about God?? i’m certain he abuses his power as Herald to bend the rules for himself and often. but same applies here i think he likely suffers a big heap of Religious Guilt afterwards, even despite his doubt in religion and faith.

B - Bondage (do they like it? do they not? do they prefer to be the one being tied or the one doing the tying?)

ebhjgdfdfjdgk okay so if you go to the several places (grandview, surrounding cabins, etc) where Jacob “trains” people you will find that most, if not all, of the beds/couches/etc have leg and/or ankle cuffs affixed to them and some even have a chain and leash bolted into the floor. i think Jake is big time into control in all aspects of his life, especially the bedroom. i do think that the confinements in the training rooms are more used as a system of degradation, though and not solely nsfw purposes. i have said in the past that in my interpretation this man absolutely hates being nude in any form in front of others due to his extensive scarring/rashes and i just don’t think his object is to absolutely rail the shit out of the poor souls coming through his doors- although, don’t get me wrong i’m sure on occasion it happens, but also skjkdfj let’s not forget that when Jake has left his men/soldiers to do things in the past (THE COOK IM LOOKING AT YOU) they often go? over the edge and get way out of control  aND honestly if you haven’t read the notes where the cook is: they say jake needs more bodies/soldiers but that the cook decides to burn these sinners anyways; it’s a direct avoidance of orders- this likely happens all over the whitetails and it is likely something Jacob doesn’t take kindly to. why? well when you’ve trained your flock on a cocktail of abuse and torture you don’t exactly instill absolute trust in your soldiers- some will, eventually, disobey and i’m sure with a bunch of half crazed, militarized guards around....sexual assault is going to happen, unfortunately. i do think that if there is some kind of? consensual/sexual relationship going on that restraints can and likely will be a part of the bedroom - maybe not always because Jacob strikes me as the kind of guy that prefers to? work with his hands. annnddd now for the part we aren’t ready for: i think if Jake really trusts his partner that he will allow himself to be bound in certain ways (he’s going to need a quick way out of any PTSD inducing scenes for everyone’s safety). just imagine this man has his partner in the cowgirl position and he says:

“𝑷𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒚 𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒌 .”

bye im leaving 

#hbasdhjfdg goTTA GOOOO #&: character alphabet (J is for Jacob)

[etherealwaifgoddess]

Maybe I Am? - Chpt.2

Characters: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Summary: Steve takes a risk and the guys go out on a “date”. Master list HERE

Content Warning: first “date” cuteness, making out 

Word Count: 2.5k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! Today is one of those days where I am eternally grateful for having a “draft” option. Because honestly, ya girl is exhausted. So yay for drafts! Enjoy chapter two. I’m honestly too tired to give ya’ll a better note right now. :-\   XOXO - Ash

Chapter Two

Steeeeve [9:32:08PM]: Hey, it’s Steve.

Bucky Barnes [9:32:47PM]: hi steve

Steeeeve [9:33:15PM]: I had a lot of fun meeting up today.

Bucky Barnes [9:33:39PM]: me 2

Steve huffed staring at Bucky’s second generic response. He was usually so much more lively. Steve took a long sigh and started texting what he needed to get off his chest.

Steeeeve [9:35:21PM]: I’m sorry if I came off as confused or misleading. 

Steeeeve [9:35:26PM]: I didn’t mean to do that. But I am kind of confused right now. 

Steeeeve [9:35:35PM]: I spent so much time liking the idea of you, and you in real life was even more amazing than I could have expected. But I’ve never dated a guy before and I never expected to want to. And now I think I do. 

Steeeeve [9:35:49PM]: I’m sorry. This probably isn’t any less confusing. I’m apparently really bad at this lol. I guess what I’m trying to say is, will you go out on a maybe-date with me? I want to try and see how I feel. I don’t want to string you on, but I want to try.

Bucky stared at the flurry of texts coming into his phone. Damn, serial texter much? He read and re-read Steve texts a few times, chewing nervously his bottom lip, trying to find a response. He wasn’t willing to let his heart get trample on again, not after Brock. But he really liked Steve and if there was a chance Steve might like him too, it was too good to pass up. He had a distinct feeling he was going to regret it, but he tapped out the only honest response he could think of.

Bucky Barnes [9:44:13PM]: i like u 2 steve. i get that ur confused. lets try ur maybe-date and see how it goes? if it goes well cool, if not no hard feelings. k?

Steeeeve [9:45:20PM]: Thank you. Really, thank you for being so great about this. Can we get dinner one night this week? 

Bucky Barnes [9:45:55PM]: im free any nite but tues

Steeeeve [9:46:10PM]: I can do Friday night around 7. There’s a really great Mexican place a few blocks over from the gym if you’re willing to schelp all the way over to Park Slope. 

Bucky Barnes [9:46:31PM]: sounds good. see u then

Bucky sighed, putting his phone away into the pocket of his favorite old hoodie. He had a date. A maybe-date, but for some reason that felt good enough for him at the moment.

xxXxx

Steve discovered the best part of being able to text Bucky wasn’t just that their chatting was no longer limited to when they were both near a computer, but that they now had a full range of emojis, memes, and GIFs at their disposal. He could now send Bucky random funny things he found during the day and he felt a little proud when Bucky would send back a string of laughing emojis, knowing he had brightened the other man’s day a little. He had worried with their maybe-date looming things might be a little awkward but if anything they were going even better. By the time Friday came Steve was genuinely looking forward to their maybe-date. He had even gone out on Wednesday before his shift at the gym to pick up a set of clothes that were distinctly not gym wear. He couldn’t remember the last time he bought a button up shirt but he had to admit the blue and white checked shirt looked nice on him. He was trying not to stress over the maybe-date but he felt this gnawing need to know, definitively, if he was truly interested in Bucky, or just the fantasy of WinterBae. 

Steve raced home Friday to shower and change, hoping he’d left himself enough time to do all that and still make it over to Los Aztecas in time. Taking the time to slick back his hair and do a quick shave, Steve was hustling out the door only to realize he’d forgotten the bottle of wine once he got outside. After a fast double back for the wine he was on his way, making it to the tiny authentic Mexican restaurant with three minutes to spare. He had barely stopped walking when he saw Bucky hopping out of an uber. Steve felt a little flutter at the sight of Bucky and he took it as a good sign. 

Bucky looked amazing in his dark skinny jeans and a silky looking black shirt. A minimalist necklace was around his throat, the simple bar resting just below the wings of his collarbones. Steve noticed Bucky had swapped out the cheery beaded bracelets he’d worn on Sunday for a set of sleek silver and leather ones. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine and Steve felt ridiculous in what Sam had teased was his bible salesman outfit. 

“Heya.” Bucky greeted warmly, extending an arm for a half hug.

“Hey,” Steve echoed, hugging back with his free hand. “Ready for the best Mexican food of your life?” 

“Definitely, let’s go.” 

Steve led Bucky inside the little restaurant, its cozy decor making the place feel intimate instead of cramped. Steve had called ahead for reservations so they were whisked off to a table as soon as he gave the concierge his name. Bucky was looking around fascinated, taking in all the colorful decorations. 

“It’s really something, huh?” Steve prompted with a smile.

Bucky nodded in agreement, “Yeah, it’s beautiful. So much art packed into so little space. Thanks for bringing me here, Steve.” 

“It’s one of my favorite places in the area, mostly for the tacos but also for the art. I got my degree in fine art before I switched gears and went back to get certified in exercise science.” 

“That’s quite a switch.” Bucky laughed.

“Art will always be my first love, but it’s not exactly profitable. And once I got healthier I knew I wanted to help other people do the same. I was really sick as a kid and didn’t hit any major growth spurts until I was almost 21. After that, I worked out a lot getting used to my new body and fell in love with the gym.” 

“Wow. I’m glad you were able to get healthier, and it’s sweet you’re trying to give back to others with that.” 

“Do you go to a gym? I won’t be offended that it’s a competitor, I swear.”  

Bucky barked out a laugh, “No. God, no. I am perfectly happy with not having abs or a totally flat stomach as long as waffles exist.” 

Steve couldn’t help his eyes dropping to Bucky’s stomach which honestly couldn’t have had more than the smallest layer of padding across it. “That’s okay too. Waffles are pretty great.” 

The waitress stopped by to uncork their wine and drop off a basket of fresh tortilla chips and salsa verde. 

“What did you bring?” Bucky asked as he took the glass of white wine Steve had poured him.

“Albariño. A waitress here recommended it a few years ago and now it’s my go to. It’s light and crisp, and kinda citrusy? I’m not a wine snob but it’s damn good and goes really well with tacos. I hope you like white wine, I forgot to ask.” 

“I’ve yet to meet a white wine I didn’t like, so you’re safe.” Bucky sipped the wine and his eyes lit up, “Oh yeah, this is good. I’ll be hunting this down next time I go shopping.” 

“You can get it over at the little wine boutique near the farmers market in Sunset Park. They always have this kind.”

“Nice, I’ll have to check it out. My sister will love this the next time she visits.” 

The conversation flowed as the basket of tortilla chips disappeared, only ebbing when their platters arrived and they tucked into their food. Steve had ordered his usual taco platter while Bucky opted for the taquitos platter, an assortment of slow roasted meats wrapped in thin crispy shells. He let out a groan at his first bite that had Steve’s heart stuttering in his chest. The maybe-date had mostly felt like a friend-date up until that point, though Steve had to admit there was a tiny flutter of like there too. But the noise Bucky made and the expression on his face had Steve thinking anything but friends only thoughts. 

Bucky caught Steve staring at him as he licked a dribble of sauce off his bottom lip. He hadn’t gotten a distinct date-date vibe from Steve but the look on the blonde’s face was priceless. Bucky thought he probably had made a similar one the first time he saw Devon Sawa in Wild America when he was 12. He had never stood a chance of being straight after that. Testing the waters a little bit, Bucky smirked at Steve, making it abundantly clear he’d been caught staring. Steve flushed and Bucky’s smile widened. There might be hope after all.

Steve wasn’t sure if it was the wine or too many tacos but by the time dinner was over he felt glued to his seat. He hated knowing the evening was coming to an end and wanted to do something, anything, to prolong it. The waitress dropped off the sales receipt with a pen and Steve tried to steady his hand as he signed his name. He knew he needed to muster up his courage or he would be saying goodbye to Bucky in mere minutes.

“Thanks again for paying.” Bucky said after draining the last of his wine, “This was really nice.” 

“It was.” Steve agreed, seeing his chance, “You know, I have another bottle of this wine back at my place if you wanna come over for a bit. Maybe you could help me find that movie app you were telling me about for the Fire Stick?”

“Sure, I’m happy to help. I won’t say no to more of that wine either.” Bucky stamped down the hopeful cheering in his chest that Steve was inviting him over. The poor guy probably didn’t mean that anything would happen other than wine and tech help but Bucky could always dream. He would be respectful though, he resolved to himself. He’d never dated a guy who was questioning his sexuality before and Bucky didn’t want to push too far too soon. Bucky figured it was best to let Steve set the pace and just hope his heart didn’t get run over in the process. 

Steve’s apartment was only four blocks from the restaurant, a second floor walk up in an old converted brownstone. It was nicer than Bucky’s little hole in the wall apartment and even had a small second bedroom that Steve had set up as a home office. After giving Bucky a quick tour, he led them to the kitchen to pull another bottle of Albariño out of his cabinet. Passing a stemless glass to Bucky, he poured them both a generous amount of wine which they carried out to the living room so Bucky could show Steve the app he’d mentioned during dinner. A few clicks and a quick download later, Steve had access to a ridiculous amount of free movies. 

“This is so great.” Steve praised, clicking through the different options. “Oh I love this one!”

“Hm?” Bucky looked up from his glass to see Steve hovering over 10 Things I Hate About You. “Oh that one is great. I remember wanting to be Patrick Verona when I grew up after seeing that.” 

Steve gave an amused side eyed look at Bucky. “I think you did a decent job.” he teased, throwing on the movie out of sheer impulse.

Bucky laughed, “You’re sweet. But god knows I’ll never be that smooth.” 

“You’re better off than me. I’ve been told I’m hopeless on more than one occasion.” 

“You hold your own, Rogers.” Bucky assured him, reaching over to take Steve’s hand in his, stroking the pad of his thumb over the ridges of Steve’s knuckles. 

Steve blinked slowly, looking from their joined hands up to Bucky’s face. It felt good, that fluttery feeling stirring in his gut at the contact. He gave Bucky a smile and squeezed his hand gently, making sure his consent was clear.

The movie rolled and they sipped their wine as Patrick did his best to woo Kat. Bucky slowly nudged closer to Steve until he was pressed against his side, his head leaning against Steve’s shoulder. He was warm and comfortable and completely unwilling to move by the time Letters to Cleo played into the credits. 

“I can’t believe it’s after eleven already.” Steve yawned. 

Bucky yawned next, set off by Steve’s. “Same. I had a really good night, Steve.” He looked up curiously, wondering if Steve had found any new revelations on their maybe-date. 

“Me too. This was… really nice. Hey, um, I know this was a maybe-date, but maybe um…”

Bucky shifted so he could sit up taller and face Steve while he fumbled for words.

“I, um, I’d really like to kiss you right now.” Steve blurted out, looking equal parts excited and terrified. 

Bucky’s smile was like the sun. “Okay, yeah.” Bucky reached out to cup Steve’s cheek, going agonizingly slow to give Steve a chance to bolt if he needed it. He leaned up a little and Steve craned his neck down, tentatively meeting Bucky’s lips with his own. 

A soft press, a pause, another soft press, and then the kiss deepened, Bucky’s lips parting to slot Steve’s with his. Steve let out a choked off moan, unable to believe what he was doing and how good it felt. He let a hand rake through Bucky’s hair and it only made him want to feel more of the silky locks. The scent of cedar and teak from his cologne filled Steve’s nose and though it was very distinctly male, Steve couldn’t get enough of it. It was so much more than he could have expected but also not nearly enough. He was breathing raggedly when he finally pulled back, repressing a shudder at the well kissed expression on Bucky’s face. His full bottom lip was shining and red, his eyes heavy lidded and his chest heaving just as much as Steve’s. 

“Whoa.” Steve finally breathed out in amazement.

“Yeah, whoa.” Bucky agreed. “So does this help in sorting out if this was a date-date?”

“I think it was definitely a date-date.” 

“I’m glad. And do you think you’d want to try another date sometime?”

“When are you free next?” Steve chuckled, only half kidding. 

“Easy there, pal.” Bucky warned lightly, patting Steve’s ridiculously broad chest. “We’ll find a day again soon.” 

Steve nodded, knowing Bucky was right for wanting to take things slow. He led Bucky over to the door, giving him one last quick kiss goodbye before the brunette headed out into the early summer night. Steve was still floored by his own reactions to Bucky but it felt so right that he couldn’t agonize over it for long. 

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky #stucky fanfic #stucky fanfiction #idiots in love #confused steve rogers #gay bucky barnes #modern day au #no powers

[tpaigeme]

Fauci’s Prayer: America in the Crosshairs

of “Brilliant Psychopaths”. Or, Why you’re probably not praying enough. OK so people feel helpless right now — what can I do about this corruption this cancer that plagues our country? Even in this last election. You know the answer, you’ve been told that “prayer is good” all your life. To “ask and you shall receive”. So if you haven’t already started and taken your prayer life up a notch, I would like to encourage you to do so. It seems like a pretty obvious announcement and you’ve probably told yourself the same thing before. If there ever was a time in your life when you needed to kick it up a notch, to get right to it, instead of just thinking about it, to put time aside or pray in those spaces in your day when you’re more or less idle, for example when you’re in the grocery store standing in line, even for just a few minutes. But there’s also something else that will help. Guaranteed to take your prayer life up more than just a notch. But you do have to be dedicated to this prayer. You have to understand how important it is. This particular Prayer. It may not have occurred to you but I’ll give you a scripture to back it up. Soon as I think of it. As a matter of fact our Faith rests on this prayer so much it can hardly be measured in human terms. Because it is above and beyond human invention or creative ability, thought, mental ability or even the human heart. There are no human fingerprints on it. It is of divine origin. From the heart and mind of God. So what happens when you begin to say the Lords prayer? First to worst, our father some say even the first word hour. You begin to feel relief. Like a weight has been taken off your shoulders. You’re no longer struggling. All of that mental turmoil starts to fade to disappear. For one thing you know longer feel pressure to say the right prayer, to be so careful with your words, to pray from your heart whatever that means. Fortunately most people seem to know what that means. This phrase is never used in the Bible. It’s not scripture. Jesus said all kinds of things can come from your heart and not all of them good. But that is how we have been told we must pray. You’ve probably never heard words like this said about the Lord’s Prayer. In fact you’re liable to be tuning out right now. Could the Lord’s Prayer actually be a turn off? How? *** When they locked the doors of the churches guess what happened? You see how easily we are led astray by “brilliant psychopaths” let’s call them. Even the churches. These people are brilliant. Somehow they hold the key to manipulating our consciousness by convincing us that the absurd makes all the sense in the world, that right is wrong and wrong is right and night is day and day is night. I don’t know how they do it. But that is one thing we need to pray about for sure. #DeliverUSfromEvil And how is the Lord’s Prayer a safeguard against falling prey to these brilliant sociopaths and politicians and manipulators and liars...children of the father of lies. They seem to have great power over us through the father of lies. These “faucipatsies” #fauciopaths These brilliant salesman seem to be born not made. They have talents and gifts that they have cultivated in their minds hearts and that guide their every move and their success depends upon how cunning they are and hue expertly they deceive you. So they work at it. Every waking moment. It is their ultimate goal in life, their lives seem to depend on it. Now are you beginning to understand why the Lord’s prayer the LORD’S Prayer is so important? It’s not of human origin. It is God’s prayer for you. For US actually, and even the least among us can see that it is a good prayer. Even the most brilliant among us the most educated, can see. Despite all their years of learning, of watering down their religion, of accepting dogma ‘instead of truth, religion instead of faith, they can’t find a thing wrong with this prayer though they have tried. But here’s what they do instead: they presume to say, “he didn’t mean it. He did not mean what he said. Not “literally”. The literalists are literally telling you, do not take it, his words: “pray this wa, literally. Even the literalists those who get up and preach that the king James version is the only version and every word is true and every word is literal will tell you that instead of praying the Lord’s Prayer exactly as it is written, EXACTLY as it is written, you must embellish and improvise summarize add your own two cents. Because though the Lord’s Prayer is a good prayer it just needs a little help...us human beings! to really SELL IT! Because, “we know better, God. Trust me. We know what sells. Don’t get me wrong God it’s a great prayer! Good job! Fist pump!” “But. BUT! It just needs a little more oomph! How about a nice little doxology at the end. About a size 9? Looks great on you. No really those shoes make all the difference. Sandals? Not so much” “How about...this little number. Uh oh yeah got it! Now visualize: The Power! The Glory! The Kingdom. ForEVER!! See what I mean? Now just add, “Thine”. Gotta have a “Thine” in there somewhere. People love it! Befitting Someone of your position and status. Trust me Lord, it’s you! Thy will be done!“ It wasn’t meant to be taken literally. These people are literally telling you not to take the literal words of Jesus, literally. (Did I just literally say literally 6 times). But who's counting? Me! I’m literally counting....7. Here’s another thing they say. They don’t come right out and say it but it’s what they’re thinking really. You’ve heard the phrase, “vain repetitions”? Because Jesus talked about vain repetition. The Pharisees apparently were great at vain repetition. Platitudes. So what does the devil do?what is he good at? He takes your words and uses them against you. In the desert, talking to Jesus, he’s quoting scripture! And using God’s words against God! “Hath God said?” So people will tell you that in fact the Lord’s Prayer, they will argue, is not meant to be repeated Word for Word because that would be vain repetition. Instead of taking you INTO the Lord’s Prayer what do they do? What have they always done? They take you around the Lord’s Prayer. Away from it. It’s like an obstacle to them. It is. A GREAT obstacle. And they are wrong. Jesus is right. Jesus meant what he said. Can anything Jesus said be “in vain”? He says “my word will not return to me void“. What more can I say what more valid proof do you need. Just ask yourself, haven’t you heard these objections somewhere before? If you look up the Lord’s Prayer right now you’ll find them plainly stated right there in your duck duck go. There is even a book or two written on the subject of “not believing what Jesus plainly stated,” that he meant something else instead of what he was plainly saying! Of course you would have to write a book to be able to explain that! You would need a whole library of books to explain that one. That’s a whopper. And I don’t mean a sandwich. And guess where that whopper comes from? No not a hamburger joint. Though it may as well have.

#DeliverUSfromEvil #ThyKingdomCome

#Good prayer TLP777 Pagiel777 DeliverUSfromEvil ThyKingdomCome

[cordellarecords-blog]

REYNA GRACE HART ☆ TWENTY-FOUR☆ BACKGROUND SINGER

Also Known As: Rey Grace

Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

Gender: Cisfemale

Sexuality: Bisexual

DOB: July 21st

Job on Tour: Background Vocalist for Due Hesitation

Voiceclaim: Vanessa Hudgens

A LITTLE ABOUT...

Reyna Grace was adopted by the Harts when she was three. She came from a single parent household, who couldn’t give her the life she deserved and was placed in the foster system at the age of one.  Some say that her dad should’ve let a family that he knew adopt her, but he knew that she deserved a better family than the ones that he already knew.  Donald & JC Hart were having a hard time having another child after Joe, when they looked into adoption. When they saw Reyna, they knew that they wanted to adopt her. That’s what they did. Shortly before her third birthday, the Harts filed for adoption and prayed that they would get to able to Reyna. While she grew up, Reyna struggled to fit in with everyone else but she sought comfort whenever she went to the tracks and rode her motorbike. She would often been seen with dirt on her jeans, mud in her hair and a few bruises but she felt like home there. Growing up in the Hart family was tough, since Donald & JC wanted to homeschool her, since her father was a door-to-door Bible salesman and their mom was Joe’s best friend. Reyna didn’t want that life, so when she was older, she had her mom enroll her into public school and started to make friends. When she was sixteen, she gotten her first tattoo with a fake ID that one of the kids at school gave her. Afterwards when she came home, her parents were sitting on the couch and with a disapproving look across their faces and told her that they could’ve gotten her first tattoo. Since they helped with Joe’s tattoos. A weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Reyna started to let her hair down when she got into drawing, painting and basically the arts. She found solitude in it, something that she can do and was introduced to music that wasn’t Christian, which she loved.  She had a serious boyfriend, but never slept with him and shortly after that, she had found out that she’s bisexual. When she reached college, she had lost her virginity to this guy named Nick and from there; they created something that she hadn’t had with her ex-boyfriend from high school.  Things were going great with them, until she woke up with him leaving a note for her and explained that he had to leave, for a reason that she doesn’t know till this day and knew that she wouldn’t get an explanation. So she packed up her bags, put in a transfer to UCLA. Reyna ended up getting a job at Moonlight, a burlesque club in LA, where she was a waiter until she tried out for a spot that was open and she practiced every night when she wasn’t studying or doing homework. She ended getting a spot in the show, which she showed them that they should just sing instead of lip sync. When one night, she was performing in a group number with a solo, when the manager of Due Hesitation had spotted her and knew that she would be perfect for the band. Rey ended up signing with Due Hesitation as a backup singer, whom still writes her own original songs and is waiting for her big break. Her manager told her that she should keep up her burlesque persona, despite being a backup singer. When she’s not performing or in the public eye, she’s seen  with glasses on and wearing her Spider man hoodie with a pair of sweats. She’s currently looking for her biological father, hoping that she can find him.

#taken #all #takenfemale

[destanee22-blog1]

Good Country People?

What would you define as “Good Country People”? I would consider “good country people” to be people that live in the backwoods and sit on their front porch waving to all the people as they walk and drive by. I would also consider them to be people that participate in events and help out the other people in their community by opening their doors for them. I recently read “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor and I absolutely enjoyed every bit of it. This story was by far my favorite out of everything we’ve read in this class. When I tell you I was on the edge of my seat when the story got to its climax. First of all, I just don’t understand how in the world Joy, Hulga, whatever she wants to be called allowed herself to be fooled the way she did. This is a woman that holds herself in such high regards. She gloats about the fact that she is an educated woman and all these good things but she let herself get played by a fake salesman. I mean come on; this man shows up that you guys have never seen before wanting to sell bibles and the next day you’re plotting to seduce him in a barn. How in the world does that even make sense to Hulga? Especially when she would normally refuse to even entertain men. There is no way I would have been showing a guy how to take my leg on and off on the first date and I'm also not understanding how she thought that was romantic! I mean, Hulga is a thirty-year-old woman with a doctorate and she finds it romantic when a man takes off her leg and puts it back on, I guess she really is as simple as Mrs. Freeman stated at the end of the story. While reading this story, I found myself wishing that Hulga was a real person because I have so many questions, the first one being, WHY WOULD YOU TAKE YOUR LEG OFF ON THE FIRST DATE? Let’s face it, that wasn’t even a date it was a casual hangout with a little bit of making out involved. I also would like to know what made her decide to go to a barn alone with this man on the first date. You don’t know him from a can of paint but here you are letting him kiss you on the walk and to top it off, YOU’RE NOT EVEN ENJOYING IT! I wanted so badly to tell her to get it together. Now, I know it sounds unfair to say but deep, deep, deep down inside, I’m a tad bit glad that Hulga had her leg stolen. That sounds so weird, “had her leg stolen” but I slightly enjoyed that part because this entire time Hulga walked around as if she were so much better than everyone including her own mother. It’s almost as if she felt that she was untouchable because she had a doctorate but little did she know, Manly was about to show her a thing or two. When Manly stole Hulga’s leg I felt that it humbled her. It allowed her to realize that she was definitely not beyond reproach but what I most importantly enjoyed about this was the fact that she spent her night dreaming of seducing him and getting to him but in the end, she got, got. What I mean by that is she thought he would be the victim and the whole time he already had a plan to take her down and he did just that. I would LOVE to know what in the world was Manly doing going around stealing people’s false body parts! Like Sir, what are you getting out of this and most importantly what in the world are you doing with these things? I wonder if he went around stealing these for a collection or was he super weird and making his own humans or something. I have no clue what his intentions were with obtaining these items but I do know it’s very creepy and he clearly needs help. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this story and its underlying messages of, all people are not who they claim to be and the devil comes in many forms and you must always be on guard and ready to take on anything that comes your way and you can first do that by not being naive. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

[roastyoualive-archive]

@elskett sent an ask that wouldn’t publish for some reason so, here you go, Kai~! Send a 🙌 and I’ll introduce you to an NPC related to my Muse. || Accepting

This means any minor ‘background character’ in my Muse’s life, such as a relative, coworker, friend, rival, etc. that they interact with in their personal canon.

NAME: Baron Battle

ALIAS(ES): Barry Jules Burnham (Alter ego, before marrying Penelope Peace/Monsoon), Barry Jules Peace (Alter ego, after marrying Penelope Peace), Matteo Julius Marcantonio (Birth name, informally changed during high school, legally changed at age 18), Mattie (Childhood nickname, by Danielle Marcantonio), M&M (Childhood nickname, by Claire/Bloodhound), ‘B’ (By Saul/Scout), Boss (By Lester/Leech, among others), Boss-man (By Niles/Memento, among others), Dear (By Constance/Demonita), Baron Barbecue (By Penelope Peace, in her freshman year; Later by Lyn/Viper), [Teddy] Bear (by Penelope Peace, after entering into their relationship), Dad (By Warren Peace), #164209-S (Confinement number, by various researchers, jailers, and psychologists), [the] Bloody Red Baron (the Maxville Star Tribune), The Baron (by many people), Baron Fucking Battle (by many people, including himself), ‘Barron Battle’ (Sky High yearbook, on certain photos), “Brandon K” (Used by psychologist Dr. Marnie McDougal, M.D., as an alias in There Is No Wonderland Here: Understanding the Criminally Insane, Broadriver University Publishing, Inc., Maxville, CA, 2003), Ashton ‘Ash’ Nobles (Used as an alias while in Europe).

PORTRAYED BY: Daniel di Tomasso (Singing voice performed by Ramin Karimloo)

POWER(S) AND ABILITIES (IF ANY): Pyrokinesis/Pyromancy (largely regarded as the most powerful pyrokinetic in modern history, if not all time), invulnerability, enhanced strength; Fluent in English, Italian, ASL, and French. Speaks conversational Spanish and Cantonese. Following incarceration, knows a handful of assorted insults and a few basic phrases in Russian. Skilled engineer and inventor. Photographic memory. Highly skilled in unarmed combat. Talented and very much interested in musical theater. Highly manipulative, seen by many as charismatic. Owns at least one mug which proclaims him the world’s #1 dad. Can, in fact, drive a standard transmission (but not an automatic). Makes a good omelette.

AGE: 35

D/O/B: December 20th

ETHNICITY: Italian

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis male; He/him/his

ORIENTATION: He’s never put much thought into it. Considers himself straight, but might be somewhere on the ace/aro spectrum. He’s not sure. Doesn’t care enough to do the required introspection.

EMPLOYMENT STATUS: Currently incarcerated; Formerly, salesman at AutoWorld North; Prior to that, intern at Hermes Corp. Unofficially, infamous supervillain, founder and leader of the Battalion, smuggler, arms dealer.

CURRENTLY LIVES: Northern Alaska Penitentiary for the Supernaturally Enabled, Solitary confinement wing, floor 6, cell 6-382 C.

PAST RESIDENCE(S): Maxville, California.

ALLEGIANCE: Penny and Warren Peace, himself, the Battalion (in order from most to least prioritized)

ALIGNMENT: A healthy mix of chaotic and neutral evil, with a splash of chaotic neutral for flavour. Nobody really has it figured out.

RELATION TO WARREN: Father.

DESCRIPTION: Matteo Julius Marcantonio (known later in life as ‘Baron Battle’) is the only child of businessman Mercurio Raffael “Mercury” Marcantonio/”Heatwave” and Danielle Gisella Marcantonio (nee Damiani). Mercury sat at the head of Hermes Corp., a massive shipping company started by his grandfather (Baron’s great grandfather) Luciano Marcantonio. This meant that Matteo/Baron grew up wealthy, and wanted for nothing, materially. ‘Too expensive’ didn’t appear to be a phrase in his family’s vocabulary. It wasn’t a terrible childhood. People assume that, to turn out the way he did, he must have been beaten, but he wasn’t. They think his parents must have somehow mistreated him, but they didn’t. If forced to describe them, Baron would to refer to his parents as ‘relatively decent, and terribly boring’. None of them (Baron/Matteo, Mercury, and Danielle) were surprised when his powers came in (roughly at around age 5-6). Mercury was a pyrokinetic, too, and a superhero. Great-grandfather Luciano had been a pyro, as well. It ran in the family. Matteo was, of course, fascinated by this. All of his free time was henceforth devoted to experimenting with his powers, focusing on them to see what he could do. And he had a lot of free time. School was fairly easy for him; he attended a private school called the Simon Blackford Academy for Boys (’the Blackford Academy’, for short). He didn’t really have an established ‘group’ there. Sure, he had people who considered him a friend, he would be invited to birthday parties, or to hang out sometimes, and he could move between circles easily enough, but there was nobody that he really considered a friend. They were all just people, and they were all just there. And at home, there were even fewer distractions. Danielle and Mercury were running a business, after all. It wasn’t that they were terribly neglectful on purpose, they were just busy. They made an effort to speak with him when they had a moment, and let him know he could always come find them if he needed anything. He had the numbers for their office phones if he needed them and they were out. He generally didn’t call. The only other presence in the house came in the form of hired help, most of whom were quite happy to leave their young charge to his own devices, as long as he didn’t get hurt and they got paid. And, if he sits in his room quietly the whole time? That makes their job easier. He would occasionally be checked on by a woman named Claire Abatescianni. A super herself, which was why Mercury trusted her to watch his son without ousting Matteo/Baron’s powers. Claire’s power was a superhuman sense of smell. If you couldn’t guess, she’d had a hard time finding employment as a sidekick. Though Claire never said anything, Baron was pretty sure she only took the job of his ‘babysitter’ to get in good with his father in hopes of getting hired for something more exciting. She always seemed far too cheery to be there. Yes, yay, he’s still in his room, gosh, how thrilling. The older he got, the more irritating it got. He was quite glad when his parents decided he was old enough for a lock on his door (age 12). Aside from the help, his only companion was the radio in his room. He found that he very much did like music. It filled the silence, and the radio hadn’t been paid to like him. He found himself singing along to it while he went about his day. Reading, scribbling in his notebook, straightening out his things, honing and experimenting with his powers… Even walking the halls of the family home, he’d probably be humming to himself. It was something to do, at least, and he did enjoy it. Again, he didn’t resent his parents for being busy. He didn’t resent the help for doing their jobs. He, frankly, didn’t care enough for resentment. He also didn’t know any different. As far as he’d ever known, the day you spent time with your family was Sunday, and the place you spent time with them was in church. Yes, the infamous Baron Battle was raised Catholic. Most people are surprised by that. Mercury was the most devout of all of them, but Danielle was close behind. So, Baron went to church at least once a week, every week, and listened to preachers and priests lecture him about an all-powerful god. This got him thinking. According to the priests and the bible, God made all things. God was, supposedly, infallible. If these two things were true, it meant that God had intended to give Baron and all other supers their powers, which, by extension, meant that God intended them to be above ‘normal’ people, to be better than them. The very term ‘super human’ meant ‘above or beyond human’, and most people, Baron knew, could not shoot fire out of their hands at will. So, that, by definition and by will of God, meant that the average person was beneath Baron in the same way average people were beneath saints and angels and the Lord Himself. On the other hand, if it wasn’t true? If God wasn’t an all-powerful creator, wasn’t infallible, or maybe didn’t even exist? Well, then, why should Baron be beholden to His rules? He should be able to do whatever he wants. He did mention this to his parents, once, and never made that mistake again. Mercury told his son that thinking he was better than most of the planet was Pride and therefore a sin, and thinking about God in such a way was heresy and even worse, and you had better be in confessional next time they stopped by the church to talk to a priest, Matteo, before it gets any worse. Baron, who had just turned fourteen at the time, decided three things in that moment. Firstly, he decided that God was clearly not infallible, as He had definitely made some mistakes when He was making Mercury. Secondly, Baron realized that he had no intention of changing his way of thinking, priest or no, without a tangible reason to do so. Lastly, if God really was powerful enough to send souls to Hell, and if these thoughts would condemn him on their own, what reason did Baron have to try and earn salvation? He’d burn anyways, why not have fun with it? (And the irony of Hell supposedly being a place of fire and brimstone, and himself being able to conjure fire from nothing, was not lost on him.) But again, he didn’t say anything to his parents. He had better things to do than listen to lectures from them. -> Baron had discovered his love of theatrics while he was going to Blackford. There were school plays, and there were readings of classics the students would have to do out loud. Baron thought it was great fun, and his parents were thrilled. Finally, something that caught his interest. Finally, something got him out of the house and socializing without it being like some kind of chore. The drama department at the academy definitely saw a generous donation or two from Hermes Corp. Baron made himself involved with every production the school hosted during his tenure there. Like most, he started out with minor or supporting roles. Towards his later years in the academy, he gradually became used to landing the lead. There were a number of cast and crew photos and handmade commemorative t-shirts stored away in his childhood bedroom. He loved everything about it. Dressing up differently, stepping into another persona, being on stage… It was fun.And, in a way, it helped him connect with people. Or, rather, it helped people connect with him. He decided that he liked the other theater kids, well enough. He couldn’t put on the productions without them. And the drama teacher (Mr. Daryl Gunn) was quite pleased with his star students, and, as many teachers are known to do, tended to let them get away with more than he should. So Baron liked the drama part of school. And yet, as flashy as some productions might be, Baron couldn’t really show off. No powers in public. That was something Mercury always said. Baron argued against it, of course. Don’t show off his powers, dad? Why not? What, are the unpowered masses going to call the fire department on him? Ooh, he’s so scared. … Still, Baron understood the logic. He didn’t like it, but he understood. So, he played along, for the most part. No powers in public. It was stifling, though. Suffocating. Fire is a hungry, chaotic, screaming element to keep contained. It doesn’t belong in a cage. Not being able to use his powers outside was one of the reasons he stayed home so often. So, when he got the letter to attend Sky High, he was actually glad to go. Not surprised, though. Mercury had gone to Sky High, and he’d always said that Matteo would go to his alma matter, too. His son was going to be just like him. Baron took one look at his father, who he thought was boring, simple-minded, and quite frankly uninspired, and decided that, no, he wasn’t going to be like his dad. He wasn’t going to sit in an office all day signing business deals; He wasn’t going to be content living what was to him an ordinary life; And he certainly wasn’t going to be a hero. … But, more on that particular hangup as we go. 

-> So, Baron attended Sky High. He had to admit, he’d never had a bus ride quite like that, before. He’d nearly thought he’d discover whether or not God was real much sooner than he’d anticipated. But, no, he was fine. According to power placement, he was more than fine. He was a hero. Or- Hero class, at least. (He learned very early on that the school didn’t really care whether you used your powers for ‘good’ or not.) At first, he was satisfied by this. Yes, he was wonderful, thanks for noticing. But then he got to thinking. On one hand, the social system of the school was laughably easy to exploit, when you were a Hero. On the other, there was so much potential going to waste. Sure, other powers weren’t quite as destructive or immense or- Powerful, for lack of a better word, as his own, but they were still powers. Everyone in the school was still ‘super human’, and we all know how Baron interpreted that word. And there were so many applications for how the powers of his fellow classmates could be used. The fact that there even was a ‘Most Useless Superpower’ award in the yearbook only went to show him that the administration at Sky High was useless. As you’ve probably figured out, Baron always had a problem with authority. This did not help. He could be quoted later as saying “There is no such thing as useless superpowers; only a superhuman lack of creativity”. This is a philosophy he would abide by for the rest of his life. It helped him accomplish two things. First, it increased his motivations to analyze and study superpowers, though no longer limited just to his own. Secondly, it helped him realize that sidekicks - especially upper years, who’d been beaten down by years of being told how worthless they were, or graduates, like Claire - were very easy to persuade to do things. This would later help him in founding the Battalion, but, for now, was just a useful little tidbit to know. Not like Baron had any trouble finding his place in the school, mind. He was smart, he was rich, he was descended from another well-known super, he was a Hero student. He wasn’t a jock, but he was pretty high up on the food chain all the same - especially for the arts kids. He had a decent group of people he usually hung around with. He wasn’t particularly attached to any of them, but, it was all well and good. They filled his lunch table and gave him people to talk to. It gave him an excuse to get out of the house, too. He didn’t mind it. It was better than hanging out with the radio, at least. And, since a good amount of his friends were other theater kids, they at least got his references, and he got theirs.  And, whenever it came time to get ready for school plays, they could do line readings together to get ready for auditions and performances. When not in school or at home, you could usually find him at some cafe or another with members of his entourage. Or, you could find him at work. In order to teach their son responsibility, Mercury and Danielle had given ‘Mattie’ an internship at Hermes Corp. It was pretty standard faire. A way to get spending money, at least. A way to learn how a business was run. Useful skills, to be sure, but not very interesting, and it took time away from his research. Back when he was in Blackford, one of the science teachers - Mr. Trent Connery - impressed upon his class that the key to any proper experiment was to write things down. So Baron had taken to writing down his work on his powers. He had to admit, it made a difference. And he would much rather be doing that than sorting files for his parents. With his school now populated exclusively by supers, and home being- Well, home, work was the only place he couldn’t use his powers. It was like a prison. A very dull prison. Mercury didn’t seem to notice. He told his son that, one day, he’d be the one sitting at this desk. Mercury understood it as saying ‘one day, you’ll be wealthy and successful, too’. Baron saw it as ‘one day, you’ll be stuck at this desk, slaving away over paperwork and forced to act as an average human being for the rest of your life, too’. So he decided it was about time to work on distancing himself from the whole thing. It was little things, at first. Flirting with the other interns, growing his hair out, staying out late. That irked his father. But what really got to Mercury was when, after speaking to some of his old friends who had stuck around to teach at Sky High, he had learned that his son almost exclusively played the role of the villain in Save the Citizen. That infuriated Mercury. His son, a villain? No, no, that wasn’t happening. What was so appealing about it, anyways? Baron’s answer was that being a villain was more fun. He had better reasons than that. Heroes had rules they had to follow, villains did not. Heroes had to answer to the public, villains did not. Above all, heroes had to wait for villains to show up before they could do anything, whereas villains could act at any time they felt like. He’d thought through it, of course, as he thought through most things, but he didn’t tell his father. ‘It’s more fun’ would get a better reaction. Mercury was very upset about this. He couldn’t raise a villain! Matteo, that’s not what our powers are for! Baron responded to this by switching from almost always requesting to play on the Villains team to exclusively playing as a villain. It really was fun, and he found his powers were quite well suited for it. The rule book had to be changed a few times because of him, but that was something he was proud of. It was during one of these rule-changing matches where he met his future wife, and one of the only positive influences he ever took to heart: Penelope Anne Peace. ‘Penny’, to her friends, of which Baron didn’t initially consider himself to be one. -> He didn’t know her at all, in fact. She was a freshman, he was a junior. (And yes, if you’re wondering, this was after he got The Perm. It was a hassle to maintain and got in the way of things, but the looks on his parents’ faces made it worth it.) More importantly, she was what society would consider a good person, and he was not. She hadn’t been at Sky High for very long - it was the start of the year - and, being in different years, they had no classes together aside from the very much mixed Phys Ed, so he’d never really had any reason to notice her, nor she him. Baron had been called up to the ring, along with Lyn “The Lioness” van Rueben (later, Lynda Shale/’Viper’), a fellow villain who generated and manipulated various poisons and toxins. Baron had met and befriended Saul within their first year of high school (you can read more of that in Saul’s bio, linked way up at the top), and they’d been sitting together in the bleachers. When the two of them realized that Lyn and Baron had been chosen by Coach Pacer to phase in some freshies, the boys thought it would be hilarious. Baron had even muttered a ‘this’ll be good’ to Saul as he left. He and Lyn weren’t friends, not exactly. They each essentially headed off two different groups. But, they had devastated the STC ring enough times together that they knew how the other operated, and knew how to work with it to make the most damage. A wink from Lyn. A smirk from Baron. The freshies looking very excited and determined. The buzzer sounded. The citizen went up in flames. The rope broke instantly. Lyn thought this was funny, and Baron was proud of himself. Penny called a foul as soon as she processed what had just happened. Pacer had to stop the match and climb down to deal with a group of bickering super-teens. Penny’s argument was that that was unfair, and gave them no chance to react. Baron’s counterpoints were that villains weren’t supposed to play fair, and that if he’d gone through all this trouble to let the citizen die, he wanted to see them die, and wouldn’t bother with a timer in the first place. Lyn took his side, for once. Penny, who was still learning to control her powers and was very frustrated with ‘Baron Barbecue’, made a sweeping gesture with one hand, and accidentally sicked a massive gust of wind and torrent of water on Baron that not only lifted him off his feet, but hurled him through one of the walls. Lyn thought this was hysterical. Penny, for her part, freaked out, thinking she had just killed one of her classmates on her first time participating in gym class. Baron, being invulnerable, was fine, though he was still blinking dust out of his eyes when Saul hauled him to his feet and asked if he was okay. Baron wasn’t really listening, though. He wouldn’t be able to say why, exactly, though he would later be able to write paragraphs on the subject, but he was relatively certain he had just fallen in love with Penny Peace. He said as much, too, quietly and somewhat dazedly. Nobody heard him but Saul, who assumed Baron must have a concussion, and dragged him off to the nurse. Baron snapped out of his stupor and insisted he was fine, flung a few threats around, but ultimately let himself be carted off. He didn’t feel like rejoining gym class, and this was the perfect excuse. -> Of course, the nurses didn’t find anything wrong with him. Though, when Penny came in to check on him, and Baron actually apologized, they were certain they had to have missed something. It was just hugely out of character. He offered to buy her lunch, she apologized and explained she brought one form home, but did say she’d see him later. He considered the fact that she left with a smile on her face a victory. He left before the nurse could look him over again. He liked science class too much to want to miss it. -> Courting her was an effort in and of itself, but one he considered worth it. A lot of running into her in the hall or the cafeteria and making idle small talk working up to the point where she’d approach him first, and then where they’d eat at each others’ tables with increasing frequency. Eventually, it became a daily thing. More often than not, he’d be eating at ‘her’ table rather than his, since he didn’t really care about spending time with the people there. Penny was the one he was interested in, and was quite literally the first person he had ever genuinely cared about, outside of himself. Saul went where Baron went, and since he was decent enough and went along with Baron’s antics, Barry didn’t mind. So Saul and Baron became a part of Penny’s friend group. It took him until nearly the end of her first year to convince her to go out with him, but convince her, he did. It was a fairly simple date. They went out on a Sunday (Baron had stopped going to church with his parents) and went to a park for a walk and to feed ducks. He took her for lunch at a small local restaurant, and she showed him her favourite arcade. They played skeeball and Space Invaders and Baron pooled their tickets together to get Penny one of those over-priced stuffed animals that always seem to be behind prize counters. He walked her home, and carried her the last few steps to her door when he noticed her limping from a blister; She teased him about how gentlemanly it was. He put her down right as Nicholas, Penny’s older brother, opened the door. Penny kissed Baron on the cheek and went inside. It was only as he was walking away, and glanced over his shoulder at the Peace house that Baron realized something that struck him as odd. ... He’d never been happy before. Sure, there were things that he derived satisfaction or pleasure from - getting a good role in a play, good music, fresh coffee, Save the Citizen, attention, burning things, the simple joys - but he’d never been HAPPY. He was fairly certain that that’s what this was. It sounded cliche and corny, even to him, but he wasn’t going to question it. Just enjoy it while it lasted. And last it did. The interesting thing about not really forming emotional attachments is, if you ever actually do make one, you don’t tend to have many commitments to get in the way. As mentioned earlier, Baron had stopped going to church entirely. He’d been thinking for a while about the relationship of God and supers. If God did exist, at any point in time, Baron thought, and if He really could do half the things people said that He could, then, perhaps He was simply a very powerful super, Himself. As Baron grew more powerful, through natural aging and through his own training and experiments, he found it a waste of time to devote his life to worshiping someone who was very quickly becoming his equal (his own thoughts, nearly verbatim). Mercury was very much considering hiring either a therapist or an exorcist to pay his son a visit. Something had to be done about ‘Matteo’. It wasn’t like Mercury got much of a chance to talk to him about it, though. When Baron was home, he locked himself in his room. More and more often, he would be out with his school friends, or spending time with Penny. Danielle said they should be grateful that he was socializing of his own volition; Mercury wasn’t so sure. But, yes, for better or worse, Baron was socializing. He and Penny spent a lot of time together, enjoying the high that comes with a new relationship. It was towards September (before they went back to school) that she finally confided in him about the problems she had with her father. Though he did conceal it well at the time, Baron was furious. Here was this wonderful, lovely, and as far as he was concerned, perfect girl, and she was being hurt. Hurt by someone who by societal decree was meant to take care of her. And the man hurting her was going unpunished. More than that, he was wealthy and well-known, revered by his colleagues in the medical field. Where were all the self-righteous heroes? Why was nothing being done about this? What, they can take down giant monsters, but not monsters who looked like model citizens? ... Before this, Baron had wanted to be a villain because heroes were boring and too bound by rules to be worthwhile. Those reasons still applied, but now, heroes were also inefficient. The more he looked into it, the more he saw the problems with the world that went largely ignored by ‘superheroes’. The government was corrupt. So many crimes went unpunished. The world was broken and cancerous and needed to be fixed. Heroes either couldn’t or wouldn’t fix it. What kind of boyfriend (and later, husband and father) would he be if he let his girlfriend (and later, wife and son) live in a world that was so cruel to her? To everyone? No, he had to change things. Like an overgrown forest, burn down the old to make way for the new. He wasn’t a villain for kicks, any more. He was a villain who thought his cause righteous, and that is a dangerous thing. -> He was also a villain who was still in high school. Even if he had his delusions of grandeur set, he did want to graduate. So, he attended classes. Still spent time with his school group, and, of course, Penny. He joined her closest friends in convincing her to move out of her parents’ house and live with her grandfather, instead. Baron had personally met Penny’s father only once, and did not like him at all; Penny’s grandfather, Peter, was- Passable. Nothing special, but nothing bad. And she seemed happier with him, which was all that mattered to Baron. He studied for exams, just like everyone else. He’d have a table at the library with a few of his crowd, where they’d compare notes or otherwise sit in silence, reading. He and Penny went to Homecoming together. When the drama department announced the school musical, Oklahoma, Baron, of course, jumped on the chance to act in it. He’d always be a theater kid at heart. He went up against a few people for the lead, but none of them would ever prove to be nearly as impactful on his life as one Steve Stronghold. Neither of them really knew it at the time. All Baron knew was that Steve looked especially miffed at not getting the lead, and Baron himself felt quite smug to be the star. He found out relatively quickly he could get a smile out of Penny with renditions of ‘Oh What A Beautiful Mornin’’, and he absolutely abused this fact whenever he could. Out of a mix of spite and pride, Baron began referring to Steve by the nickname ‘Understudy’, which never really went away. He thought the play went well. Another cast photo to go on his wall. His parents went to the opening night, and though he basked in their praise it didn’t do anything to change his opinions of them. Penny went on the first and last nights, Saul went on the first and second (it ran for five days, standard school week), and the theater kids Baron had often surrounded himself went to at least one performance, assuming they weren’t in the play already. Baron quite enjoyed the full-page feature in the yearbook, and the interview for it. Attention was always something he loved. When friends asked him to sign their yearbooks at the end, instead of signing on the back page like everyone else, he’d sign on the shot of himself in costume. Flourish the letters and everything. Nobody was all that surprised. He invited Penny to his year’s prom. She agreed... On the condition that he finally get a hair cut. He would admit to being taken aback by this; He’d had the perm for so long, he’d gotten used to it. So, he said nothing, only thought about it for a moment, nodded, and climbed on the bus to go home. He wouldn’t know until later that Penny had been sure he was upset with her. He hadn’t really been thinking about that, at the time (and he’d kick himself for it later). He was only thinking about what style to try this time. He went out, got his hair cut much shorter and straightened. His parents were very pleased; They thought he might finally be growing up. Until, that is, Baron looked them dead in the face and told them that he’d done it ‘to impress girls’. Mercury didn’t know why he was surprised, but- At least that was a ‘normal teenage boy’ reason for doing things, so he didn’t complain much. And it was a nice haircut. Penny also thought it was nice. Most people who’d been standing next to her at the time would tell you she looked about ready to faint. Baron was satisfied with this reaction, and considered it a victory when she finally agreed to let him take her to prom. He and Saul borrowed Saul’s uncle’s plane for the trip, and were quite pleased with themselves for it. Though it was the first one he’d been to, Baron thought it was a good prom. He and Penny were practically joined at the hip for the entire event. There was decent enough music, decent food, and some joking toasts made to their time at Sky High. At some point, as usually happens at proms, someone spiked the punch, and Baron was fortunate to notice the taste before he’d had more than a sip or two; He joined the rest of the student body in trying to speculate who was the most likely culprit. The top contenders were Troy Barker, Madison Terry, and Coach Pacer. Baron never found out who did it, but he didn’t really care. He got Penny home safely at the end of the night, and then went home while Saul returned the plane to its original location. They got in trouble for the stunt the next day. They were too pleased to worry about the consequences. Besides, they were graduating by the end of the week! What could the school even do to them, anyways? (The answer, of course, was nothing. Which is precisely why Saul and Baron did the exact same thing when Penny invited them to her year’s prom, two years later.) -> Following graduation, Baron moved into the newest student residence at the University of California, Berkely (UCB), where he studied mechanical, aeronatuical, and manufacturing engineering. He’d gotten a decent scholarship to help him out, but his parents were more than happy to cover the finances. It was a good school, he’d worked hard to get there, and, hey. An engineer would do well in the company, so, even if ‘Matteo’ didn’t have any interest in running the family business, they could at least get him a position (and convince him to change his mind later on, perhaps?). Engineering was interesting. Very different from Mad Science class, though - nobody got shot by lasers at UCB. At least, not intentionally, and not the same kind of lasers. He’d still go back to Maxville when he could. Weekends, usually, to visit Penny and some of the high school friends he kept around. He preferred them to people from UCB because his high school friends were all fellow supers, so he could use powers around them. He preferred his university classmates because they could talk about engineering as much as they wanted without causing confusion. As soon as he’d finished moving into his dorm and got settled in, he set about getting his name legally changed. A lot of people he’d gone to school with didn’t actually know his birth name, and he hadn’t introduced himself to anyone at the university as ‘Matteo Marcantonio’, so it wasn’t very difficult. He never really told his parents, either. Part of the whole thing was to distance himself from them, but, also, he just didn’t think it was any of their business. He was an adult. He could make his own choices. -> University kept him pretty busy. As in all of his endeavors, he was determined to succeed. Moreover, he was determined to surpass as many people as he could. If you asked about it, he’d tell you it was, in part, a pride thing. (Most things with him were a pride thing.) So, most of his early ventures into real-world villainy took place over holiday. Small things, at first. Robberies in banks out of Maxville, forging a few documents here and there, that sort of thing. Done outside of his eventually trademark armour, because although Baron lives for attention and acclaim, he’d decided he wasn’t quite ready for the world to know his name. ... That, and he didn’t want it to interfere with his proposal. -> He and Penny had been dating for about four years by this point. She was finishing high school and debating future plans, he was getting ready for his third year of study. While Baron had left most religious ceremonies - and societal laws and customs as a whole - by the wayside, he did think marriage was important. Moreover, he worried if he didn’t ask, somebody else would. So, he called Saul and told him at, if Penny were to call looking where he is, to say he was studying for an assignment, because he wouldn’t be around to answer the phone, since he was going ring shopping. Okay, Saul said, he understood. Barry’s ‘studying’. What neither of them knew was that Penny had found out that she was pregnant a day or so before, and had been working up the courage to call Baron and let him know. So, she called his dorm a few times, then Saul, when she didn’t get an answer (Saul wasn’t in university at the time, but most people who knew the two of them knew that Saul was usually an accessory to Baron’s schemes). Saul, for his part, stuck to the story. Barry’s got a project due, and you know how focused he is, Pen. Hasn’t been answering my calls, either. Okay, she said, she’d try again later. (Baron, of course, was not studying; he was at the second or third jewelry store he’d been to so far. He was being very particular about the ring. It had to be perfect.) So, she called again later (she was getting increasingly nervous) and caught Saul right as he was heading out to pick Baron up (he was going to drive him back down to Maxville to surprise is soon-to-be fiancee). As he wasn’t really paying attention, he’d mentioned off-handedly that he’d let Barry know Penny called when he ‘pulled up’. Why did he need a car if he was studying, Penny asked. Shit, Saul thought. He flubbed something about Baron having gone to a library for a study guide and hung up pretty quickly after that. He decided not to mention this to Baron. Saul drove them back to Maxville that night, and Baron crashed on his couch (as they had both been too tired after the drive to bother getting proper accommodations). He showed up on Penny’s doorstep the next morning, asked her grandfather to speak with her, and simply explained that classes had been cancelled that morning when she asked what he was doing there (they had been, and he refuses to take the blame for it, though it may have been entirely his fault). She was, as he’d hoped, very surprised to see him. He took her out for the day. They went to a park, then out to lunch, then to the arcade they went to on their first date. They spent all of the tickets they won on candy and a handful of cheap plastic rings. They were walking along the coast on the edge of town, and Baron was just about to say that he’d gotten another ring for her when she blurted that she had something she needed to tell him. He said that he needed to tell her something, too. She told him to go first, so he did, and of course she said yes. He was thrilled, though the moment was admittedly sullied when she exclaimed “so THAT’S what Saul was picking you up from!”. But, she was too happy and the moment was too important for him to care about it for too long. After the (initial) high had died down, he asked what her news was. That’s when he found out he was going to be a father. It took him a moment or two to process it, and, yes, he was surprised. He’d always known it was a possibility, sure, but still. He wasn’t used to being caught off-guard. It took a moment for his brain to reboot, and after that, he was excited. Flustered and excited. A father! Him! They were going to have a family! And he- He... He had no idea how to raise a child. But, he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He dropped out of university the next day, and Saul once again helped him move furniture - out of his dorm, this time. His parents weren’t happy. They thought he was throwing his life away. He thought it was bold of them to assume he gave a damn what they thought and promptly cut all ties with the two of them. He had a new family, now, and one he liked so much better than the old one. He got a job at a local used car dealership, and, though he hated it, he had to admit that he was decent at it, it brought in money, let him be much closer to home, and left plenty of free time for other activities. But what really brought in the money was his- Personal endeavors. It was about this time that he really started developing and finalizing his eventually trademark armor. He and Saul also worked on upgrading their hideout to be a bit bigger. He had plans. As overconfident as Baron may have been, he was well aware those plans would require help. Even Alexander the Great had an army, after all. There would be many ‘lesser’ villains and even some non-supers who would join the Battalion (as they grew to call themselves), but most weren’t all that important, in the grand scheme of things. Some of them would end up dying. They came and went. He didn’t start seriously recruiting until after Warren was born. -> Baron was, of course, present when his son came to the world. He was thankful for his invulnerability, as, otherwise, he thought Penny might’ve broken his hand. He didn’t complain, though. He knew he had it easy by comparison. He’d be lying, though, if he said he wasn’t internally panicking - it was a grueling few hours. On August 18, 1990, at 3:42 in the afternoon, Warren Edward Peace was born. The doctors held him first, of course, then Penny, and then Baron. To see him at that moment, you’d have no idea he’d become one of the most ruthless and feared villains in recent history. (”One of the worst,” as the Commander would later describe him.) There was no visible trace of ‘that’ Baron in the hospital room. You’d only have seen a tiny, squirmy new baby, an exhausted new mother, and a new father who was visibly enamored with the both of them. He had his family, now. And he was going to give them the world. -> It’s not easy balancing supering with parenthood. Especially not when your significant other is also a super. Baron had his self-assigned purpose, and he was determined to see it through, so he had to do some serious scheduling. A lot of passing off jobs to the best-suited underlings. By comparison, acting, engineering, and everything else he’d done in his life was simple. But this was his son. He wouldn’t give him up for anything. After a while, Penny went back to work (her aunt had helped her get a job in a psychologist’s office) and Warren was old enough for a sitter while his parents were away. That made things easier. Warren was about three years old - Baron was 23 - when Baron and Saul forcibly took over one of the smaller smuggling rings they’d caught wind of. ‘The Corneli Syndicate’, they’d called themselves. Most of them weren’t too happy with these newcomers, so it was a pretty bloody skirmish. Baron didn’t kill all of them, though. He left a few alive. The most important of the survivors was a young man named Thomas Wilfred Monroe - ‘Tom’, ‘Tommy’, or ‘Monroe’ to his friends. He’d originally been brought into the gang as a drug mule, until his superpowers were brought to light. Tom is a walking pocket dimension. He was invaluable to their operation. To prevent him from squealing, his former bosses had mutilated his tongue. (Later, people would assume Baron had done this. Tom would always scoff at this with a “Barry? Yeah, righ’ ”.) He could still say some things, but ‘S’, ‘T’, ‘N’, ‘TH’, ‘Z’, ‘D’, ‘CH’, ‘SH’, ‘X’ - those were off the table for him. To combat this, he usually carried around a pad and pen. Yes, he knew ASL (had gone out of his way to learn it), but not many other people did. Baron quickly decided the method of writing everything down took way too long and was frustrating, so he dragged Saul off to the first sign language course he could find. From that point on, it became a well-known rule that if you’re in Baron’s personal vanguard - one of his ‘favourites’ - you have to know how to sign. No ifs, ands, or buts. Baron found Tom’s presence made so many things so much easier. Metal detectors no longer mattered. Security searches were a joke. Even the size and weight of things he wanted to steal no longer mattered (to an extent). This meant that the Battalion quickly got a lot of money through nefarious means, but nobody could figure out how they did it. With the increase of success and wealth, word spread quickly in the network of villains, and Baron became even more of a cult figure than he’d originally been. It soon became a trend for those hoping to earn his respect or prove their loyalty to burn the letter ‘B’ somewhere onto their body - usually the back of the neck, behind their ear, on their chest, or the inside of their wrist. Baron, for the record, hated this. Not because he was worried for their well-being; he didn’t care about that. No, he hated it because, if one of those idiots got killed, or worse, caught, it could link them directly back to him. There was a difference between his deliberately showing off or making an appearance during a crime, and someone screwing up and blowing his cover. He did what he could to put a stop to this. Incinerated a few of the more vocal supporters. But, he was never able to get people to stop entirely. The act of ‘branding’ oneself rose to prominence again, oddly enough, after Baron was arrested. Rumors still survive that Baron himself would do the branding, once you passed the Battalion’s initiation, but this is, of course, false. -> With the increased notoriety came an increase in people trying to put a stop to him. There were many would-be heroes going up against Baron, but one of particular note was a young man named Anthony Atwood. Officially, he’d been known as Surge. He’d been graced with supernatural reflexes and agility, as well as the ability to channel kinetic energy. ... He had not been graced with supernatural fire resistance. A fun fact about this fight is that, prior to it, Baron’s armor did not feature a cape. The singed, tattered, and torn cape Baron would later be seen sporting was a trophy from his victory against Surge, which he kept due to a self-proclaimed ‘mixture of sentiment and vanity’. He had to admit, it did look great, and it had such wonderful memories attached to it. -> On the opposite end of Baron’s life were Warren and Penny. Warren, by this time, had already begun to show his powers. Baron was beyond proud. A pyro, just like him - and developing his abilities so early on! He was over the moon. Yes, it did complicate things to have a toddler who could spontaneously combust. Fortunately, both Baron and Penny’s powers were suited to deal with this before it became too dangerous of a problem (though it did make finding sitters a bit difficult). Baron was already looking forwards to sharing all he’d learned about pyrokinesis/pyromancy with his boy. He arranged to have the garage lined with concrete, and have some proper ventilation installed, so they could have a safe place to explore what Warren could do. Penny thought this was a great idea. She wasn’t surprised, f course, but she was glad Baron took to Warren’s powers so well. There was no way she’d let her little boy grow up the way she had. Also, a place for Warren to let off steam without singing the new carpet? Yes, please. She and Baron had been married for about three years, now. (It had been a small ceremony, at a local church. A handful of close friends. Penny’s grandfather and great aunt, and nobody from Baron’s family, though Mercury and Danielle did send a wedding gift which arrived a day late.) Some people had their doubts about the relationship. Baron knew this - a lot of them weren’t very subtle. He didn’t care, though. As far as he was aware, they were happy. Warren was getting ready to start pre-school. He was a bit nervous about school. Baron and Penny were a bit nervous about sending their flammable child out into the world. Baron was sure he could get a man or two into the school system to mitigate any potential damages that may arise. Penny told him this was kind of extreme, and she was sure things would be fine (though she may have considered taking him up on the offer). Instead, they had a series of talks with little War about the right time to use his powers, and how it was a big secret and he couldn’t tell anyone at school. They drilled it into his head like they drilled in stranger danger. Baron had, by this point in his life, memorized the Mr. Rogers theme song, and could probably recite a number of children’s stories by rote from all of the nights spent reading Warren to sleep. He knew about how low he had to stoop down to catch Warren when he tackled Baron after work (the height changed based on jumping variables). He knew Penny’s favourite baseball team (the Maxville Meteors), and bought her tickets to one of their games for their anniversary. He’d never understood the sport, himself - he was more of a soccer fan - but she enjoyed herself, and that made it worth it, to him. Warren was left at home for the game, with Saul, and Penny’s sidekick, Millie, keeping a close eye on him. Baron didn’t mention this to Penny, but he absolutely had some of his more doggedly loyal henchmen wandering the neighborhood on standby, just in case. He was sure she’d say it was ‘excessive’, but, he was allowed to be worried about their son, right? That’s what good parents did. And every moment spent being a parent, being a husband, stirred conflict in his chest. If he would ever meet his match, what would happen to them? What would happen to him if he lost them? It wasn’t that he had lost sight of his cause. He knew exactly what he was fighting for. He was fighting for mornings spent singing along to the radio with Penny while they made breakfasts, for summers spent at the city fair with Warren on his shoulders, for nights spent with his wife in his arms and his son against his chest and winters spent building snowmen and warming up with cocoa and crackling fires, and he was fighting for a world that deserved his family. It wasn’t that he’d suddenly grown a more functional conscience, either. He didn’t regret killing Surge or any of the other heroes who stood in his way. He didn’t regret wiping out other villains who had challenged his authority or posed a threat to him and his. He didn’t regret any count of theft, or smuggling, or arson, or any of the other countless charges he could’ve accumulated, if he got caught. Why should he? But there were doubts beginning to form. At the time, he thought the solution was simple. Become the most powerful superbeing the world has ever known. Powerful politically, powerful financially, powerful martially, powerful in terms of his own abilities. If he could do that, then, what would he have to worry about? What would his family have to worry about? That would solve everything. (Right?) -> He didn’t let on about any of these doubts, though. That would be weakness, which was intolerable in the villain community. He would be lax around Saul, since they’d known each other since high school. And, of course, the higher in the ranks you were in the Battalion, the nicer a boss he seemed. Sure, they all knew he’d kill them if it fit his purposes, but so would any villain, and at least he wasn’t a jerk while you were alive. And he paid well. But being superficially charming wasn’t weakness. Winning loyalty amicably wasn’t vulnerability. And giving people a reason to follow your every beck and call wasn’t airing your anxieties. Hell, he didn’t even know that’s what they were, at first. He’d never had much reason for introspection, before, and especially not since high school. He was Baron Battle, after all. Undefeated, widely feared, already terrifically powerful, basically a cult icon in and of himself, and he had been unwavering and sure in his goal to burn the world to the ground ever since that summer night when Penny had sobbed into his chest that she was afraid to go home at the end of the day. The world was still broken, still corrupt, and he still had work to do. And, hell, it was fun and it was liberating to be his villain self. A persona bound by no rules but his own, beholden to no gods nor kings nor laws of nature. And he was good at it. So, what was this, all of a sudden? He didn’t know, and, as stated before, he kept it to himself, but it always stayed in the back of his mind. Perhaps, then, that’s why he decided to launch his first major foray into politics across the ocean, far away from Maxville, just in case. He’d told his underlings that he was taking a ‘select few’ of them (read: Saul and Thomas, mostly) to England because there was someone there he’d ‘had his eye on’ for a while. While not a complete lie, this would hardly have been a good enough reason for Baron to leave all on its own. He could find patsies and proxies anywhere; they were a dime a dozen. But, this was an experiment, so he wanted to conduct it away from home, to be safe. Why England? He’d just watched 101 Dalmatians with Warren the night before he decided to do this. That, and a while back he’d seen a documentary about some Italian artifacts that were being held in a British museum. Why not be a bit patriotic, bring them back home? ... Or, back to the Barracks, if he liked them enough? Besides, the England election was sooner than the American one, and he didn’t want to wait for too much longer. So, it just made sense to him. So, he packed up some equipment and his men, told his family it was a ‘business trip’ (he’d worked his way up the corporate chain of the dealership, so this wasn't too far-fetched) and that he’d be back soon, and packed off to England. A few noteworthy things happened there. Firstly, he did end of raiding a museum or two. Most of the things he stole did find their way back to Italy (with help from Thomas Monroe, of course), though he did take back a few vases and an old sword or two for the Barracks (also with Thomas’ help). He was challenged by a handful of local supers, too. The first was a flier, Courtnie Smith/Peregrine (KIA). Then came Declan O’Dare/Anvil, who controlled metal (KIA). Travis Porter/Warpdrive, who could teleport (KIA). Ava Hart/Lady Luck, an empath (KIA). Jack Miller/Top Dog, super strength and the ability to eat literally anything (KIA). Most of these fights occurred during his ‘trips’ to the museum, but, once word spread that there was a supervillain afoot, superheroes would flock to try and put him down. The very last one, Kevin Masters/Mr. Amazing (KIA; from what Baron could tell, his power seemed to involve being very good at jumping) had actually managed to tack Baron down to where he was staying, and picked a fight in the middle of Baron packing to go home. That had been annoying. Of course, they weren’t the only supers Baron met during his trip. He just so happened to run into Lester ‘Les’ Lowinski (’Leech’, later on; a siphon who could absorb and redistribute pain and injury) while prowling the darker parts of Liverpool to meet with a contact. Lester was a down-and-out former factory worker who’d found himself rendered obsolete by the ‘miracle’ of innovation, and, y’know what? Tearing the country apart sounded like a damn good time. So he joined the Battalion - rather informally, but nobody cared. Saul didn’t like him at first, but Thomas, with a bit of translation help, seemed to get along with Lester fine, and set about helping him with the whole ‘learning sign language’ rule. Lester would go on to become one of Baron’s chief interrogators. He earned his stripes during the political sabotage Baron engaged in. While Baron’s chosen candidate didn’t technically win, enough politicians and people of interest had been compelled to ‘see things his way’ that he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, he’d still gotten control of the government, and that’s what he’d set out to do. He’d learned a thing or two which he thought could help, should he decide to replicate the experiment elsewhere. Having felt he’d spent enough time away from home, Baron returned to Maxville, joined by Saul, Thomas, and Lester. It was good to be home. -> Warren was six years old when Baron finally figured out what the nagging doubts were. More and more often, he found his mind wandering away from the war table. It was hard to focus on taking over the world when he kept wondering how Warren was doing at school, or whether Penny was having a good day at work. Perhaps it was that villainy was no longer as much of a challenge as it had once been, that he was growing bored, or perhaps it was that he’d simply come to terms with the fact that he valued his family more than his infamy. Either way, he decided that he was ready to retire. Not completely, of course; he’d always want to operate from the shadows. Kept things interesting, and kept money coming in (And Penny had been talking about going back to school to get a degree, so he wanted to make sure that stayed a possibility). But he thought he was done with all the flashy, take-over-the-world business. He had more than enough power to protect his family, and it had gotten boring. He’d much rather be spending time at home. Perhaps he’d go back to it, someday, but for now, he was done. He told as much to Saul, Lester, and Thomas, who still remained his three favourite subordinates. He also told them what he planned to do about it. Just saying he was retiring and stepping down would be dangerous. He didn’t want people to come looking for him. No, it would be much more effective - not to mention more fun - to oh, say, fake his own death on national television. (He’d always had a flare for the dramatic, after all.) So, he worked out a plan to stage a public assassination attempt on the president, have a small-time hero show up (they had a few in mind), fake his downfall, and escape. Maybe take Warren and Penny on a vacation after, to be safe with the illusion. (Besides, Warren’s birthday was coming up, so he could play the vacation off as a present for his son. And his retirement, well- That’d be a present for all three of them.) It had all been going flawlessly. Baron briefly toyed with the idea of actually killing the president and instating himself, and whether or not he could convince Penny to go along with that-- -> And then the Commander appeared. -> He hadn’t planned for that. He’d been planning on someone... Lower on the ranking list. But he could make this work.He could figure it out. Tar Steve’s flawless moral reputation with a murder in the process. That’d be fun, right? ... It didn’t work out that way. The exhaustion in his voice was just as alien to him as the concept of actually losing when he spoke. He was Baron Battle. He didn’t lose. He just didn’t. Except, apparently, he had. He told Steve not to take off his mask (’Don’t do that to my son, Stronghold’), and in the same breath swore to kill him. (He might not have known how, at the time, but he was sure he could figure it out, given enough time. And soon, time would be the only thing he had.) The day before his son’s seventh birthday, Baron Battle was sentenced to a quadruple life sentence at the Northern Alaska Penitentiary for the Supernaturally Enabled. No chance of parole until his third life. In short, he was never getting out. But if he ever did, he thought to himself, he was going to reduce the Commander to a pile of ash. Steve had taken EVERYTHING from him. His power. His fame. His freedom. Most importantly of all, his family. As far as Baron was concerned, Steve Stronghold was the reason he would never see Warren or Penny again. Steve Stronghold was the reason his son would grow up without a father. If not for the power-negating properties of the room he was in, that thought alone would have made the entire courthouse burn to the ground. -> It’s been eight years since that day. Eight years of solitary confinement. Eight years of having been deemed criminally insane, and too dangerous to mix even with the other inmates. His only contact, outside of the letters he’s been permitted to exchange with Warren and Penny, has been with jailers (particularly, one Warden Maxim Stanislav Magnus, a former super known as ‘Ghostwall’ with a personal grudge against Baron) and the facility’s psychologists. Antisocial Personality Disorder, they say. An extreme case. So textbook and so painfully stereotypical they’d almost think he was faking it, if he wasn’t who he was. The one thing that they can’t explain away in that diagnosis is his relationship with his family. Long-term, committed, and by all accounts, mutually happy and beneficial. That didn’t fit the bill for APD. Baron disagrees with the diagnosis, but of course nobody cares. It’s this discrepancy that’s made him such a fascinating subject for so many psychologists in the know. It’s also what’s stopped him from trying to break out. Does he think he could do it? Oh, probably. It might even be fun. But he worries what his freedom might mean for his family. ... Even so, it’s been eight years. The urge to see his son growing up, hear his wife’s voice, hold his family in his arms and melt Steve’s eyes from their sockets has been growing every day, and it’s getting hard to ignore. And he swears, if he has to put up with one more chunk of ‘bread’ so stale you need to drown it just so it’s edible, he’s going to kill a man. -> Maybe a few of them.

THEME SONG: From Now On - Ramin Karimloo | Confrontation - Anthony Warlow | Let ‘Em Burn - Nothing More

QUOTE:

Barry: I’ve raised armies to my beck and call. I’ve killed people who were supposed to be invincible. I almost took over the world on a whim, people the world over fainted at the sound of my name. But nothing I’ve ever done has made me as proud as being your father. Warren: (Avoiding eye contact) Even if I’m not a villain like you? Barry: What? No- You don’t have to be a villain. I’m not making that choice for you. Warren: I don’t? Barry: Of course, not. You’re old enough to figure out what you want for yourself. If you want to be a villain, great, wonderful. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. If you want to be a hero, I’m sure your mom will be happy to teach you the ropes. Or, hell, you could do neither if you wanted. Be a chef, be a psychologist, be whatever you want. But no matter what you do- I know you’ll be wonderful. Warren: ... Barry: You’re something special, Warren. Really special. And, I know- I’m your dad, I’m supposed to say that. But I mean it. You’re going to make a mark on this world, son, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see you start off on it. But I’m here to watch you burn, now, and I promise you right now, that’s not going to change again. I’m not leaving. Warren: (sniff) Yeah. Barry: ... Alright, come here. Before you make me cry. Warren: .. Barry: ... When did you get so tall? I guess we-- I, have a lot of time to make up for. Eight years really does make all the difference. Warren: Yeah. I- ... Yeah. Barry: It’s okay, Warren. Everything’s going to be okay, now. Saul: What’s the plan, Baron? Baron: Well, call me old-fashioned... Thomas: Yeah? Baron: I’m just going to kill him, and make him watch. Has the security been disabled? Saul: Locks and alarms, yeah. Vault and I are just finishing up on the cameras. Baron: Leave them on. Let Ms. LaFrance see this, too. She needs to learn what happens when people make things difficult.

#long post // #;r: miss you more than I should (Ｂａｒｏｎ Ｂａｔｔｌｅ) #;extinguished (ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒ) #;student record (ｈｅａｄｃａｎｏｎｓ) #death mention // #violence mention // #body horror mention // #face horror mention // #mouth horror mention // #mouth trauma mention // #face trauma mention // #eye trauma mention // #eye horror mention // #prison mention // #abuse mention // #cussing // #ask to tag #w h oo boy this took forever #baron heckin battle ladies and gentlemen

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 3: The End is Now

Day 3, Post Apocalyptic or Dystopia: Did the world end with a whimper? Is it a dying human race on a flourishing planet? A nuclear winter? A dystopic regime? It doesn’t have to be bleak! The End is Now

Someone was banging on my door. More than one someone.

“Hold on, y’all,” I cried out in the direction of the living room. I shook out a wrinkled pair of slacks from the floor and pulled them on, followed by an old t-shirt, “JESUS LOVES YOU” emblazoned on the front, “JESUS LOVES YOU” emblazoned on the back (just in case). The knocking grew more frantic.

“I’m coming!” I yelled, losing my patience.

I lost my patience a lot. It was something I was told I needed to work on, but I kept forgetting to work on it. Or, more truthfully, it was something I had no idea how to work on. God made me this way. I am not proud of my outbursts but it’s just a part of who I am. I opened the door aggressively to show that I was not pleased to be interrupted like this.

A crowd of seven or eight people stood on my front porch. Some looked like they had been crying. One man had a bloody nose, just letting it bleed freely onto his dress shirt. Several more people were walking up my gravel driveway toward the house, pointing at me. I smelled something burning.

“You’re the guy with the signs!” one woman said. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and yoga pants and her hands were shaking. “You’re the End of the World guy!”

“I am a preacher,” I said proudly. “And my church is the streets of this sinful city, and my parishioners are anyone with the bravery to hear His word and be saved.”

I did have a church once (a real one, not some dingy street corner) but I lost my patience one day, and then I didn’t have a church any more. I was a preacher at Sunshine Baptist Church for fifteen years, before they asked me to kindly resign. I had called a deacon’s wife a whore and told her she would rot and Hell. I stand by this, but perhaps saying so in my Sunday sermon with her family in attendance was crossing the line, at least that’s what I was told when I was relieved from my position as shepard of that particular flock.

So, I set off on my own.

The whole street corner thing was a temporary solution, you see, just until I could save enough money to start my own church, one that focused on what really mattered: being saved; making sure that when The End of Days comes, you’re on the right side of the battlefield, because it will be a battle. It won’t end with a whimper. I believe that.

“That’s the guy!” someone yelled. “He told me I was going to hell when Doomsday comes!”

“Me too!” yelled someone else.

Now, listen. Like I said, I lose my patience a lot, sure, but I also feel like it does everyone a disservice when you sugar-coat things. Sugar-coating makes things go down easy, sure, but then people don’t even know what they’re swallowing, and next time they get sick, they can’t even help themselves. I tell it like it is because when your pulpit is a street corner, you get one shot. These people aren’t coming back every Sunday. Our lives intersect at one precise moment, and that’s all we have. If I don’t tell you right then that you’re going to burn in hell, you might never hear it. You might never be saved. I take my this responsibility very seriously.

I was used to being yelled at, typically all day long, in small outbursts or with the occasional college student who felt it worth his time to really psychoanalyze me, usually concluding that I was a closet homosexual, while I concluded the same about him. It was a useless exercise. Usually when I got home at night, I would remember that I had promised myself I would be more patient, and I would feel disappointed in myself, but ultimately blame the aggressive, sinful world surrounding me for my outbursts. Someone had to bring tough love to these people. If no one tells you that you’re on a path straight to hell, how will you know to change direction?

The crowd at my doorstep was growing, and behind them the sky was turning an ominous shade of grey that looked ready to open up on them at any second. I heard what might have been a thunder clap or an explosion, and everyone ducked instinctively. It was around 9 AM but getting so dark it could have been the middle of the night.

“Listen, man.” One kid pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He looked college-aged, with thick glasses and skinny jeans. “I don’t like you, but I have to know: How did you know this was going to happen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, feeling outnumbered and a little worried about the growing group of panicked faces in my yard. “Repent and be saved. I can’t forgive you your sins, only God can. Leave me alone, sinners!”

I tried to take an authoritarian tone, but the sky was so unsettlingly dark, and something was burning, or something was rotting and burning at the same time. It was hard to pin down the stench.

“We’re talking about that!” a woman said, pointing to the sign I would often carry with me when I preached. It was tall and narrow, containing on it a list of the many sins that would need to be repented if you wished to be with God when the End of Days came (e.g. sodomy, playing violent video games, drinking, swearing, etc.). I had hand-painted the entire thing, something I was very proud of.

“Yesterday you told me I was going to hell,” she said. She wore a business suit and carried a briefcase which had fallen open, her papers scattered all over my lawn. She didn’t seem to notice.

“You told me I would burn in hell for being a slut,” she continued, “which is so problematic for so many reasons but I’m not even going to get into it now because then you said something super ominous like ‘The end is nigh’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, when is nigh?’ and you pointed to THAT stupid sign.”

Everyone turned toward the sign, which was over eight feet tall and contained, in addition to the list of applicable sins for admittance to hell, a section along the bottom that read as follows:

REPENT FOR THE END IS NIGH

JUNE 03, 2018 YEAR OF OUR LORD

DOOMSDAY, JUDGEMENT DAY

SINNERS GO TO HELL

I glanced down at my Casio digital watch, though I already knew what it would say: 9:03 AM 06/03/2018.

Let me explain.

Any good salesman knows that nothing makes a sales pitch more convincing than a sense of urgency. I can yell all day and night about sin and being saved, but who’s really going to listen if they feel like they have all the time in the world to repent? So I picked up my bible one night, crunched some numbers, and settled on June 3rd, 2018. Was I sure the world was going to end on June 3rd, 2018? No. But I was sure that it wouldn’t hurt anybody if I were wrong. What’s the worst that could happen? I couple people turn their sinful lives around faster than they would have otherwise? It felt harmless to me. In the spirit of full disclosure, I had not considered what it would mean if I were right.

Now, here they all were: The gays, the fornicators, the gluttons, the thieves, all right on my doorstep. I suppose in many ways this situation was ideal: I preached, I was heard, I was proven right, and my flock came to me in their hour of need. I had grown so used to being ignored and spat on, I hadn’t stopped to consider what I would even do if someone actually agreed with me, wanted to follow me. The grey clouds above us had begun a slow spiral, like a twister could drop from it at any moment. In the distance, screams could be heard.

I must have looked confused because the man with the bloody nose spoke up.

“A crack opened in the streets,” he said, his voice shaking. “It’s swallowing people up. There are...there are...”

“Demons,” a woman finished for him. “Literal demons. They’re eating people, tearing them limb from limb.”

“How did you know it would come today?” someone cried up at me. “And how do we get saved? Please, help us!”

A chorus of others echoed the plea.

“Hang on a second,” I said. I retreated inside and closed the door behind me, twisting the deadbolt.

I inhaled slowly through my nose, exhaled slowly from my mouth. I learned this technique from a woman at Sunshine Baptist who worked with children who suffered from anxiety. She told me it might help me with losing my patience. Only this time, I wasn’t losing my patience. My heart raced, but with joy, with excitement. My flock was here, they needed me, at last. I pulled my bible from the side table beside my couch and took another deep breath before turning around and undoing the deadbolt.

“Showtime,” I whispered to myself, a smile creeping across my face. I pulled open the door and faced my new parishioners, their faces screwed up with fear. This was my moment. I cleared my throat.

“Repent, sinners!” I boomed. “For The End is...um, Now!”

[fanfic-scribbles]

O Christmas Tree

A/N: Because the idea of Chuck being reluctantly dragged into Christmas celebrations amuses me. Set somewhat nebulously into the apocalypse period of S4/5. I did not consult a timeline so we’re just…gonna pretend there’s a Christmas somewhere in there even if there isn’t. /hand wavium

Summary: Christmas can be an emotional season. In the case of you and Chuck, that ends up being a good thing.

Quick facts: Fluff – Romance – Christmas – Chuck/Reader

Warnings: Fluffy fluff romance with just a pinch of angst.

Words: 2432

     You shake out the last of the glitter and admire your handiwork. You have all sorts of colorful, messily drawn trees and snow and Santa hats, and a reindeer you blotched so spectacularly that it’s so much your favorite you’re considering keeping it. Handmade cards are a pain but also a truly lost art and your holiday greetings are always going to be a lot more interesting than whatever anyone else sends.

“Uhhhh…”

You glance back to see Chuck, perfectly disheveled as always. No matter how much or how little sleep he gets he always looks like he’s rolled out of bed right down the stairs before realizing he has legs and must figure out how to walk on them. He’s standing pretty steadily right now, seemingly forgetting to act like a shuffling zombie as he stares at his kitchen table in confusion.

“Good morning Chuck!” you say brightly and knock off some excess glitter from your current card onto the piece of paper meant to catch the shining fallout. Some of it falls onto the table, as with every card before it. “Sleep well?”

“What are you doing?”

“Making Christmas cards.” You take one of the misplaced sequins, add some extra glue, and hold it in place.

“Why are you doing that in my house?”

“I came over to clean anyways, so what’s a little mess beforehand?” You point at the coffeepot with one hand while the other sifts through your pile of markers. “Go get caffeinated, Prophet Crankypants.”

He snorts but it sounds like he’s following your instructions. Ah yes, there’s the telltale slurping. Sometimes you wonder if he was born in a barn, or if he just abandoned all pretenses at manners over the years.

“Seriously though; it had to be glitter?”

You glance up to see him leaning against the counter, visibly judging your art space from a sparkle-safe distance. You blow a raspberry at him and go back to work. He is so not getting the reindeer. “Keep it up and it’ll be glitter in your hair tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll sic my archangel on you.”

“Pretty sure ‘throwing glitter on God’s smartass mouthpiece’ isn’t in the Bible as a smite-able offense.”

“It could be,” he said and we both laughed at that.

I shook my head and carefully set out the last of my cards to dry and set. “You have a strange life, my friend.”

“You're telling me,” he huffed. “I’m still surprised you actually believe me.”

You shrug, trying not to stiffen up at the unpleasant remembrance of that balding piece of–… “Yeah well, angels don’t fuck around.”

“Oh.” Chuck puts the mug to his lips. “Right.”

You push away the memory of the night the angels had ‘warned’ you away from Chuck. How, despite the suits and sleaze, their very presence had almost made you collapse in terror. But, you reason with yourself as you start to pick up, you haven’t been smote yet, and they haven’t come back to otherwise put you in the dirt. That’s good enough for you.

Chuck has migrated over to a chair at the table to get out of your way. He morosely sips at his coffee and you pull out the cleaning supplies. “So,” you say and he jumps at the sound. Scared-y Chuck, you think and stifle a laugh. “Where are we going to put the tree?”

He looks suspiciously at you. “What tree?”

“The one I’m using to start an indoor forest.” Chuck is both one of the smartest men you’ve ever met and also so incredibly dense sometimes. You give him a look that, hopefully, gets that message across. “The Christmas tree, silly.”

He crinkles his nose in that way that is not cute, no sirree. And if you keep telling yourself that, maybe one day it will be true. “You’re doing that again?” he says. “Wait– why do I have to have a Christmas tree?”

“I do it every year. Also, you having a Christmas tree is my best idea ever. It’s basically an air freshener big enough to chase out the stale booze smell.” You shrug like it’s nothing but you’re actually feeling into this. Maybe Chuck just needs a little holiday cheer to perk up. “Also, I can’t have a decent-sized tree in my place so I never get to use all my ornaments. It’s a win-win.”

“Trees shed,” Chuck says sullenly.

“The day you pull out a vacuum is the day I…well, I don’t know. But I want video proof if it ever happens,” you say and scrub at a crusted-on you-don’t-even-want-to-know-what. Still, if that’s his only argument then you’re in pretty good shape. You finish sanitizing this half of the counter and turn to look at him. “I’m not gonna force you to celebrate, of course, but you seemed all right around my stuff last year and…I dunno, it just seems like a nice way to spruce the place up, y’know?”

He snorts and hides laughter into his cup. When you give him a look he pulls up to say, “‘Spruce.’”

“Oh.” You laugh a little. “That was totally unintentional.”

“Yeah, sure.” He puts his cup down and claps his hands together. “All right. I’ll uh…I’ll get dressed and we’ll go.”

“Go where?”

“To get the Christmas tree,” he says, like it’s obvious. He frowns and gives you a look that is so ‘oh honey’ that he doesn’t even have to say it. “If the tree’s going in my house then I’m going to help pick it out.”

You want to rag on him for being a smartass again. As you always do. But a smile grows on your face without your control, and when he smiles too you have no hope of containing it. He’s in, and for some reason you feel incredibly good about this season. “Okay. Okay! I’ll, um…I’ll just wait here then.”

   ~~

 For being so ‘blah humbug’ before, Chuck is surprisingly picky about his tree. Your own small tree is already loaded into the back of your truck and you’re standing here, helping him look over almost every branch of his current pick.

“Chuck, I’m telling you, I know a good Christmas tree when I see one and this? This is perfect,” you say and tug on a full, healthy branch. He’s getting this one if it’s the last thing you do, if only because that rude bitch that almost crashed into you (and had the nerve to honk!) is eyeing it up and down.

“Yeah…yeah, this is a good one,” Chuck says and you and the salesman sag equally with relief. You show your smug smile to the lady and when she flips you off you just grin. As you’re walking out Chuck nudges you and says, “Is it really the best tree ever or did you just not want that woman to win?”

“Both. Bitch can’t drive but she knows how to pick a tree,” you say and flash him a smile over your shoulder. “Definitely a win-win!”

Chuck laughs and you both hop in the car. You immediately get the heater going and you freeze (figuratively) when he leans closer to you. You wonder if he’s really that cold, or if he’s going to–

His door slams shut and when he leans back in his seat you relax. The relief is expected but the disappointment is…annoying. You take said annoyance out on the car as you shift into drive and pull out onto the road.

“Speaking of trees,” Chuck says. “The, uh…the tree-lighting ceremony is tonight. Do you want to go?”

You glance at him in surprise. You practically had to drag him out by his ankles last year to get him to go. “You sure you want to?”

He raises his eyebrows at you. “Last year you threatened to cut my arms off if I didn’t let go of the doorway.”

Oh yeah. ‘Practically’ was more ‘literally’, as he had desperately grabbed at anything not to have to go. “My point exactly. You couldn’t stand the thought of going last year. What gives now?”

He shrugs and looks out the window. “Well if I’m doing Christmas this year I might as well do it right, right?” He looks at you and smiles. The expression stirs something in you and you focus on the road. “Besides…the hot chocolate was okay, and it was funny when they knocked over that giant Santa.”

“Half the fun is watching the inevitable disaster,” you agree. “But…are you sure you wanna spend that much time with me?”

“Definitely,” he says, and you spend the rest of the drive trying not to read much into that.

   ~~

 It’s getting really hard not to read into things. Or, more accurately, inappropriately fantasize about things. You dressed warm but nice and Chuck– Chuck has showered and smells like cologne and it’s driving you a little crazy because he had clammed up when you asked about it and now all you can think of is that this is what a date with Chuck would be like. Complete with fumbling to pay for the hot chocolate and stonewalled awkward silence.

It’s a little less awkward now. You’re both sitting on a bench, with a couple respectable inches between you, and you’re playing a game of ‘how many city council members does it take to plug in some Christmas lights?’ The crew that set up the tree is even helping try to figure it out and the crowd is milling about and talking amongst themselves. This is a return to familiarity for you, and you begin to relax for the first time tonight.

“This is nice,” Chuck says. His sincere tone makes you feel like you’re fumbling again. Chuck has a way of pulling the rug out from under you, though you doubt he knows it.

“I like the tree too but it always looks better when they’re done fumbling around,” you say.

“No. I mean, this. Sitting here with you. Sometimes I wonder why you…”

You’re burning with curiosity but you don’t take the bait. But then he says your name in a way that completely grabs your attention and he looks at you like he’s just figuring something out. “Why…” He looks down but quickly forces himself to look back up at you. “Why are you always so good to me?”

Sipping your drink is a good way to hide the lump you have to swallow. “What kind of question is that?” you ask as normally, as calmly as you can. “You’re my best friend.”

“Is that really it?” His stare is more intense than you remember it ever being. Now is time to panic. He knows. He knows.

Shit shit shit. “Why? Why ask? You– you already know, don’t you?” you ask. This is…something. You feel sick, like this is leading up to the rejection of the century. This is why you never wanted to say anything. You want things to stay as they are; you want to keep your friend in whatever way you can.

When the angels had come to you with their ‘message’ Chuck had tried to push you out of his life, for your safety. Both of you had been terrified, saying and shouting things neither of you meant, but you had fought tooth and nail until he accepted you weren’t going anywhere. You had realized then that you didn’t want to lose him, no matter what happened, because this –sitting in a cold park, sipping watered-down hot cocoa, occasionally looking over and seeing Chuck laugh at a joke you made– this is all you’ve ever really wanted. Unambitious, most likely, probably even a little pathetic, but it’s enough for you.

“I want to hear you say it. So…why?” he repeats, not letting up on his stare. It’s almost like he can see right through you and you turn your face away as your mind races.

“Because…” Your throat feels thick and you look at him again. He’s waiting, and you swallow. “Because the day the angels told me to get lost was the most terrifying day of my life,” you say. Chuck opens his mouth and you put a hand on it. “Not because they threatened to turn me into paste but because they almost took you away from me.”

He pulls your hand down. “(Y/n)–”

“Shut up. You wanted to hear this? You’re going to hear this,” you say and wait. He’s quiet. And looking at you with enough sincerity to almost make your stomach turn inside out. “Why? Because. Because I like you so much that watching you slowly destroy yourself makes me want to throw up. Because I hate to see you hurting. Ever. Because…sometimes you give me a reason to get up when going through the motions isn’t enough anymore. Because I like being around you, I like being able to help you. Because you help me without even knowing it. Because if I could have kept this to myself forever I would have. Because even being just your friend is better than not having you at all.”

Chuck moves closer to you and puts his gloved hands to your cold cheeks. You’re confused momentarily until the meaning comes across, and you try to jerk back. He holds your face though and you say, “Chuck, you– you don’t have to–”

“Shut up,” he breathes and pulls you in and proceeds to kiss you senseless. Not that it’s hard– just feeling his hands cup your face has your hands flailing between pushing him away or figuring out where to settle. You eventually rest them on his sides and Chuck takes that as encouragement, by the way he slides closer to you. You give in, then, your mind whiting out heavenly warnings and your own fears and nightmare ‘but what if’s so that you can give in to the moment. It’s just you, and him, togeth–

A cheer breaks out and you and Chuck pull away simultaneously. The tree is lit and one of the councilwomen is looking quite proud of herself as the mayor finally takes the podium. You and Chuck share a smile as he begins to talk into a microphone that isn’t working.

“I changed my mind. I can make better hot cocoa than this,” Chuck says and dumps his cup in the trash. “You…wanna come over?”

“Is tinsel the most aggravating Christmas decoration in existence?” you say and hop up. As you walk off, arm in arm, you lean into him, heart fit to burst. “Merry Christmas, Chuck.”

He leans into you. “Merry Christmas, (y/n).”

#chuck x reader #chuck shurley x reader #chuck x you #chuck shurley x you #spn fanfic #spn reader insert #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #christmas #fluff #romance

[quadrophenicc]

Alice Glass and Lydia Lunch on Why Pleasure is the Ultimate Feminist Rebellion            

Alice Glass ran away from home for the first time when she was 14 years old. She moved into a dilapidated house in downtown Toronto, split the rent with 20 other teenagers, and, one year later, ran into Ethan Kath high out of her mind in the streets. The two went on to form Crystal Castles, the witchy, bleakly aggressive electronic Toronto outfit that came to define a certain sound of the mid-aughts. The band’s front woman, she was so much more than just a figurehead—she was a magnetic force to be reckoned with. Crystal Castles toured for six years straight, and in October of 2014, she broke out on her own. Now Glass is preparing to release her debut solo album. The new offering is dark—she has compared its sound to “kittens eating their hoarding owners after they die”—and its first single, “Stillbirth,” is an anthem for domestic violence survivors, a screaming, visceral cry. This music is personal—her most intimate offering yet—representing a move toward a style that reaches outside electronica. Lydia Lunch, the legendary No Wave poet, writer, speaker, and musician, called Glass from her home in Park Slope. The two spoke about crawling out of bedroom windows, how the nuclear family is the ultimate fascist society, and just how art has saved them, time and again.  

Alice Glass—Thanks so much for agreeing to talk with me, Lydia! This is an honor.

Lydia Lunch—I wish I was out in L.A. driving around with you through Echo Park right now, but we’ll have to do this on the psychic and verbal plane for now.

Alice—I’d like to imagine that. I can’t drive, so I’m going to imagine you driving.

Lydia—I was reading up on you, and it seems that we’ve had a quite similar background as teenage runaways and upstarts. We knew what we had to do.

Alice—I moved [away] from home when I was about 15. I just couldn’t live there anymore and the community I was in, it just seemed like the natural thing to do.

Lydia—Yeah, the microcosm of a fascist society: the nuclear family. Get the fuck out! I ran away for the first time when I was about 13. I snuck out my basement window. I came to New York and I went, “Oh my God, I know what I might possibly have to do and I’m going to go find some money so I don’t have to be forced into that.” So, I went back and got money. I lied about my age and got a job as a maid in a hotel, which was quite convenient if you like to steal and fuck the engineers, which I did. You have to do what you have to do, which is not only escape but create.

Alice—I remember sneaking out a window as well, but we lived in a Victorian house so my room was on the third floor. It was really difficult; I had hoses connected to all the nooks and crevices. It’s pretty fucking dangerous to think about now, but I felt pretty good about it then.

Lydia—I just went back to my hometown for the first time in 30 years and toured a lot of my old stomping grounds. I grew up in a black ghetto in Rochester, New York, and I kind of traced some of the paths of memorable, horrific moments. I had my first storytelling experiences under someone’s shotgun to my head—paid storytelling at 13. I think that set me on my path.

Alice—It’s weird, the only time that I can really get nostalgic is seeing the alley that my friends and I used to hang out in. It’s always used in movie sets, because it’s cheaper to film in Canada, but they to try and make it look like New York. They always use the exact same alley.

Lydia—When did you start writing, Alice?

Alice—I always kept journals and wrote little bits of poetry. When I was a kid, my parents worked in the city and I was left to my own devices a lot, so I’d just wander around singing melodies. I was in the school choir—I went to Catholic school.

Lydia—Me too! Look at how much good that did us. The devil goes to Catholic school.

Alice—[Laughing.] Yeah, my grandparents were definitely really religious, and my grandmother gave me a lot of Catholic guilt, even when I was going to church.

Lydia—I’ve never had a moment of guilt in my life. My father was a door-to-door Bible salesman at one point and, trust me, he was not at all religious. He was just trying to get into women’s houses. At nine, I was reading this really beautiful, highly illustrated, full-color 10-pound bible, and that’s when I just said, “God is a Marvel comic.” I didn’t have the God-haul that some people have.

Alice—Yeah. When I was nine years old I had a lot of friends that were boys, and I’d make up stories for us to play that involved being Power Rangers or whatever. One of the most prominent Catholic school stay-at-home moms started a rumor that I was actually friends with them because I was giving them hand jobs. I had no idea what that was!

Lydia—You know, I don’t have a lot of the normal, what I consider “cancer-causing” emotions, and I think it’s because, unlike a lot of traumatized people, I never turned the knife inward. I turned it outward. I started writing really violent poetry and I never felt any guilt. There were a lot of emotions, because I came out of such hatred and anger. But I flat-lined and built emotion. The stuff I do is very heavy and aggressive, and people think it’s negative, but I have so much empathy. I’m angry at the fucking world, but I’m not angry with anybody specifically.

Alice—I definitely can relate to that sentiment. I think that trying to channel that energy through art and performance and turning that anger into something creative and positive saved my life. I was someone that did internalize the events that happened to me, and I had a really hard time overcoming depression and feelings of worthlessness. I self-harmed from a really young age thinking it was something that I needed to do. [Music] felt like a relief, like I finally had control over myself. That’s something that I’ve been able to get now creatively.

Lydia—Because all of those emotions are things that people put upon you, they’re not how you ever were. I realized at a pretty early age that whatever the individual circumstances of our traumas were, I should never feel that my experience is unique. I felt that they were universal traumas for women, children, and the nuclear family—I had to come out and tell them. I’m trying to speak for and about those that have a mouth but don’t know how to scream yet or can’t find the words. That’s why so many sensitive, weird, outside “freaks”—and I say that with the highest of compliments—come to both of us. They need the mouth that can scream, that can whisper, that can sing, that can detail and find a way to express the existential horror of existence. Fuck you if you think I’m going to hate shit just because you made me hate you. Oh no, I’m very rebellious. It’s the individual duty as a rebel who will not be forced into the cycle of abuse to find, like what you do in music, beauty through the horror.

Surviving and existing a lot of the time is like a ‘fuck you’ to all the energy that’s put into trying to destroy us.

Alice—Yes, wow. I mean that’s my goal. Music is cathartic and I do feel like it’s something that I’m still kind of dealing with. I’ve only been able to get out and realize it now, because I was taking so many things internally and putting the guilt and blame on myself. There are things I’m doing on this new record that I would never have felt confident enough to do before. It’s very emotional music. There’s a personal message behind every song, but what I’m singing about is more than just personal. These past couple years have just been about recognizing that—I think that most people are fundamentally good—but that there are just people out there that take advantage of the optimism that others have for life.

Lydia—Well, there’s also a magnetism to victimology. I guess that’s why I became a predator at a very early age. I used sex as—I wouldn’t necessarily say a weapon—but kind of as a battery charger, and I was always the predator, because I needed an accelerated state of existence.

Alice—I love that. I do think I can relate to that. I think that finding other women in the punk scene that share that kind of sentiment is important, and I really don’t think that you can be punk without being a feminist and without being empathetic towards all walks of life. It’s kind of a little bit like being a hippie but being more aggressive instead of being passive. All of my female friends felt the same way—banding together is kind of what propelled me to not give in and get had, at least not immediately.

Lydia—I came up in a very different time. The late 70s. The scene that you came out of had a much more—or tried to have a much more—positive community spirit. There was a huge community of various types of artists, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, etc., but we were highly negative in the sense that we were completely disappointed by the failure of the 60s. Some of the biggest influences on my reactionary behavior were the failure of the Summer of Love bookended by the summer of hate by Charles Manson—very impressive—the Vietnam War, Kennedy’s assassination, and Kent State. These were things that really defined that attitude of my generation to come out and make music that was so incredibly violent. As opposed to, I’m not going to say punk rock, because I’m No Wave—No Wave, to me, means not audience friendly. I always felt outside of every collective I was in. Although I’ve collaborated with a lot of people, I’ve always felt kind of outside it.

Alice—I definitely romanticize the scene you came up in, the late 70s and early 80s, because it did feel more individual-based. By my time, it’s kind of like you have a sincere idea of something that can be razor sharp, and then after a while it trickles down and it turns into something that doesn’t even resemble the original. The climate that I was in was completely male-driven, almost like sports or something, where all the local men could sort of come together in the community. I wasn’t so much part of a scene as I was around one.

Lydia—Exactly. That’s what was so interesting about No Wave: there were so many women in bands, doing films, doing photography, doing art, and it wasn’t so much of an issue at that point. It wasn’t a gender issue. We were in a city that was bankrupt, that looked like Beirut on the Hudson, which was so criminal in all aspects, from the government, to the police, to the purposeful burnout of the Lower East Side and the Bronx. Gender was the least of our issues and it wasn’t such a big deal at that point.

Alice—It seemed like, growing up, that women’s liberation wasn’t so much of an issue. It wasn’t something that was really talked about, it was just kind of assumed, but to a dangerous degree where I was idealistic about people that I was surrounding myself with. Me and my friends were all 14 or 15 going to shows, and it was kind of a way for men in their 40s to prey on that idealism. There is one band that’s been [playing] since the 80s, and in Toronto you had to give respect to them even though they fucking suck. The lead singer guy was in his 40s and would prey on 14-year-old girls—sleep with them in a bathroom at an all-ages punk show. He just kept getting away with it. That was the climate.

I really don’t think that you can be punk without being a feminist and without being empathetic towards all walks of life.

Lydia—I was trying to readdress the imbalance of sexual power when I was 13 to probably 24. It felt like it was my duty to go out and be the predator. I felt that I was not just avenging myself, but kind of avenging women in general.  I never had any personal animosity against the individual male. My animosity has always been against the greater cabal of the “cock-ocracy” and the kleptocracy and the patriarchy. The problem with society is that it’s not about the rights of the individual, which is what it was supposed to be. It’s not even about the rights of the collective or the majority. It’s about the wants, the greed, the desires of the minority, which is 1 percent of the population. What the fuck is the solution? I don’t have it. But in the meantime, I’m going to continue to fucking complain about it, because all I can do is try and articulate the frustrations and point out that in the last election there was no fucking option. Because they threw the only option under the bus.

Alice—Bernie.

Lydia—Bernie Sanders. The last person I voted for was Larry Flynt because, actually, not only does he believe in freedom and liberty for all, but he actually pays to have political sex scandals in the public eye. Yeah, “Hustler” magazine. Chew on that one for a while.

Alice—It’s great to talk to someone who I feel has a great grasp on the situation, more than anyone else that I’ve really talked to. I went to the Women’s March in Los Angeles, and it was really powerful to see so many people take a stance for humanity and everything, but it’s like, what do we do next?

Lydia—I think every woman needs to know self-defense and needs to be mentally armed if not physically armed. You need to at least feel safe in your own home. When I moved to New Orleans from New York in 1990, 17 cops were arrested. I decided to take gun training because I wasn’t going to be the victim of a fucking road cop. So now I have more gun training than the New York City police force. It’s always been “Apocalypse Now” for me, that’s the state of mind I live in. Numbers mean nothing: one death may be a tragedy, but one million is a fucking statistic—you can’t comprehend it. You can’t comprehend three quarters of a million Iraqis dead. Agent Orange, for what? Because our pawn in the game decided not to fucking play by the rules anymore. Happens over and over again. Welcome to America, asshole. Oh yeah, we’re supposed to be talking about your new album!

I was trying to readdress the imbalance of sexual power when I was 13 to probably 24. It felt like it was my duty to go out and be the predator.

Alice—[Laughing.] Whatever. I mean, music is kind of a lot less interesting to talk about right now.

Lydia—Well no, because it’s what saves you. It’s the only way we have to rebel, with music, art, literature, spoken word. Even at my most quote-unquote negative, I still think there is beauty in the “brutarian” poetry. They will not steal my sense of wonder; they will not kill my love of hedonistic pleasure. I always close my solo shows with this: Pleasure is the ultimate rebellion. The first thing they steal from us as women is pleasure at the brink of the apocalypse, pleasure at the mouth of the volcano. Pleasure. And that’s why we create.

Alice—As an individual, I think that just surviving and existing a lot of the time is like a “fuck you” to all the energy that’s put into trying to destroy us.

Lydia—And let’s not only say “Fuck you, and fuck you again,” but, “Hey, you know what? I’m gonna fuck you and I’m gonna like it. There you go motherfucker, how ’bout that?” Can I get an oh yeah, oh yeah?

#Alice Glass #Lydia Lunch #documentjournal #crystal castles

[tearyeye-private-i]

 Sun Records Breakdown: “Based on Million Dollar Quartet.“ / [⒈] “First impressions of the characters.“ /   [Full ver.⒉] [Index ver.⒉] “Sun Records and how everyone was color blind.“ / [⒊]   

● Jerry Lee: and literally no one cares about Jimmy Swaggart.

I don’t think Colin Escott & Floyd Mutrux even knew what to do with him. In the musical, Jerry Lee was a one-dimensional character, who was wild, crazy, comic relief, and his performances were the highlight of the show. Usually, the guy portraying him would do an over the top version of him, that was similar to Dennis Quaid's portrayal of Jerry Lee in Great Balls of Fire, and rarely any of the real Jerry Lee's actual stage moves. (To be fair, the tv show version is using a few of his real stage moves, it looks like Lees or whoever is helping him did his/their research)

In the musical, there's no room for character development, let alone looking into Jerry Lee's psyche and examining his emotions, or what caused him to become who he is. With the tv show, there’s too much room to develop his character, in fact, you can tell they’re trying too hard to show different dimensions of him, he’s all over the place. If they’re not careful it’ll turn into a mess, kind of like the redirection of the series being about the Million Dollar Quartet to Sam Phillips. So far, he’s the wild, arrogant-20 something cuss, we expect him to be. 

However, Escott and Mutrux are attempting to do something different, showing signs of a being human, not so confident, teenage Jerry Lee. This is strange since it seems everyone who talks about him is determined to say he was perfect, always sure, a wild rocker, who could never-ever-do-wrong, pretty much, God’s gift to earth. So, to see a depiction of him, a little frazzled and unsure, is strange -- I gotta admit, I like it because it’s honest to who he was, especially at that age. 

To keep the focus, on an awkward and arrogant teenage Jerry Lee, wouldn’t be hard to do, but Escott and Mutrux took it upon themselves to go further, to show him as promiscuous and scoring with a housewife, even though there’s no proof that ever happened, all while being a God fearing, aspiring preacher. Which the ladder part is true, but if not handled carefully with the man hoein’ they added, it won’t flow well.

Although I feel hypocritical for writing this, since I've been guilty of doing this in my own fictional writings; I seriously don't like how they're over sexualizing Jerry Lee. If I remember correctly, wasn't he was 15 when he got married to his first wife Dorothy? Then he was around 16 when he married Jane, after having met her at bible college -- that he was sent to sorta unwillingly after he tried tricking his Uncle Calhoun and failed?

In the scene, where his head’s up a girls dress kissing on her leg, who is that? When he says, what seems to be right after that he "found his calling," how old is he? If he’s 15, that’s messed up. The series takes place in 1950-1956, he’d be underage through the first part of it, also this is where the majority of sex scenes takes place. When he has sex with the housewife, it’s 1952 while he was a door-to-door salesman, he’d be 17 maybe 18. I mean, are they implying an underage Jerry Lee just scored with every woman he met?

I’m only asking for two reasons, it seems inappropriate to sexualize a 15-year-old boy, and if he were a girl, I feel like this wouldn’t have happened. I mean, we as an audience don’t have to see what he’s doing to know what he’s doing, just imply it, that’s all that needs to be done. On a story telling note, this seems like a perfect setup for Jerry Lee’s marriage to Dorothy and leading up to his bible college years.

Though as writing this, it occurred to me, what if the series doesn’t have that important character arch in his story? (After two hours of ranting and dwelling on this question, I’m not prepared to write how foolish they’d be to not include this into Sun Records.) That being said, he’s seen getting married to a blonde girl, which neither of his ex-wives were. He also get’s beaten up by, who I’m assuming are Jane’s brothers, so he’ll marry their sister, who he got pregnant, which happened--but I can’t recall reading if they hit him. I assumed when he saw the log chains and baseball bats they had, he was submissive like: "You got it." 

Also, if it’s not in the show, I want to share it here, the important arch in his story should’ve been showing his character. How he tricked his first wife into marrying him, by becoming a good-christian-boy because when he stalked her that’s what he thought she wanted, and this was all so he could have sex with her, then after he regretted it. How he tried tricking his uncle and aunt Calhoun by talking insincerely about going to school, and they thought he meant it so they shipped him to Bible college. How he tricked his second wife into doing his homework for him, getting her pregant and having to marry her, all while still being married to the first wife. How at 16-years-old, he was a father to Jerry Lee Lewis Jr, which made him happy, but it seems like he didn’t know what to make of it, other than “a man should have a family, something to be proud of.” His life then, without knowing he’d go to Sun Records, was pretty much done, married twice, Bible college drop out, with a kid he didn’t know how to raise, all while being a kid himself. 

There’s something sad about that, but it sums him up: He responsible for getting himself in trouble since he thought he could trick some body, but for the most part, he fumbles into situations, good or bad, and it shows that as much as he’d like to let on that he knows what he’s doing, he doesn’t. He’s like a leaf blowing in the wind, he’s Forrest Gump, but not nice.

Anyway, moving on.

The only scene that makes sense, is where he’s looking at some woman’s boobs, while his girl is sitting right across him, it gets the point across. (like we get it he’s girl crazy) While the other scenes are too much, unnecessary, and the housewife scene just seemed like it was added in as comic relief. Which isn’t cool, it’s condescending and rude to reduce him to a joke and it’s cheap to revert back to a character they wrote for their musical.

I don't understand why Jimmy's even there, I'm guessing Escott and Mutrux liked the dynamic Jerry Lee had with his cousin Jimmy Swaggart in Great Balls of Fire, so much, they needed it in Sun Records. To add to the drama since this thing has to follow Nashville.

They did the same thing with Walk the Line, by stealing the fictitious tension John had with his father. Personally, I've been wary of Jimmy ever since I read about his scandal, and pretty much since I wrote a post on him, piecing together the odd stories of him as a kid and how his father Sonny Swaggart sexually abused him. I can't look at him the same, and I can't imagine not talking about those things if a story of him is to be told.

I get how Escott and Mutrux wanted him to be Jerry Lee's antagonist so he could tell him to stop playing "the devil’s music," and try to save his soul, as he tried in real life. Though, both versions of Jimmy are completely unnecessary to Jerry Lee's story. 

It's like people think, Jerry Lee would ever forget, about where he believes he's gonna go. He was a preacher in his younger years and always had a deep rooted fear of going to Hell. He talked about it all the time when he joined Sun Records, he'd remind everyone on tour they were playing the devil’s music and were going to Hell.

John even witnessed Jerry Lee and Carl fight about it, to which Carl said to him during a tagent: "Maybe you are, but we ain't." He even brought it up to Elvis, freaking him out with the question, if Elvis thought he was going to Hell for the music he was playing, causing him to yell: "Jerry Lee, don't you EVER ask me that again." Jerry Lee in fanboy mode was like "You got it." 

The thought of going to Hell has always bothered him and he still lives with that fear today, I think he will for as long as he lives. So no. He doesn't need to be reminded of Hell, he already knows. In fact, after learning it freaks him out, I started disliking how much Jimmy would bother him with it. As if he'd forget.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how he's portrayed in Sun Records, though that's not to say Christian Lees won't do a good job, in my opinion he already has, he's great as Jerry Lee. It’s refreshing to see someone that’s actually close to his age, playing that period of his life. But regardless of how good he does, or a poorly written script and poor character development, people will see Jerry Lee how they want, just like they've always done. 

In itself, it’s harmful, for some reason him being human is ignored. Still, I can’t ignore the thought I had while writing this, who cares and why should they? He’s done plenty of to be remembered for, but not all of it good. To put bluntly, he’s a jerk who’s done a ton of bad things, to a point where people believe he’s a real killer.Then, his first bad boy of rock and roll image overshadows everything he does. It’s like people expect the worse or craziest thing from him, and he’s not expected to grow, change, or be a better person. He’s not looked at objectively by the people who admire him and some pretend he’s never made a mistake or had a bad day, and through all outcomes, his feelings get ignored. Why should they care? I understand people see what they wanna see.

For myself, I like Jerry Lee, I acknowledge he’s an ugly dude from the inside out. I wish I didn’t have to learn certain things about him because it’s cumbersome to know them, but they should be known because it’s the truth. I don’t think it’s right to make him likable in a forced narrative since he’s done a lot to make him unlikeable, the best that can be done is to make his story and his choices, understandable. Which this series won’t do. So, I can’t help feeling sad for him, which is a rare thing when it comes to Jerry Lee, I’m reminded of what he said about himself in an interview about Great Balls of Fire, in an issue of "SPIN," in June of 1989.   

Q. So why has he now decided to cooperate with the filmmakers? "The move has been off and on for years. If I didn't, I was concerned about the music more than anything else, and that's right, I made sure of that. But the rest of it is blown out of all proportion. It's not about Jerry Lee's deep feelings, what was in his heart at the time, why he did the things he did. He wasn't too smart, he was just a kid. We all make mistakes in life and I made a big one real early. I had to learn to live with it and Myra had to learn to live without it."

I agree with how he wished to be represented, but I can't help asking, "would you really want that, Jerry Lee?" As good as it'd be to see a story that looks into his feelings, his reasons behind his actions and acknowledging his flaws and the mistakes he made, I wonder if Jerry Lee would be prepared for people to know those things? Maybe not, I don’t know if he’d ever be ready for that, still, I believe his story should be told, the good and the bad.

Concluding the Jerry Lee rant...Out of curiosity, why is there a scene of Jerry Lee in the shower pulling in, who I’m assuming is one of his ex-wives, in the shower with him?

Is this some type of fan service? Then why not save a scene like this for Elvis? (then again there’s already shower scenes of him in his movies.) Who even asked for this scene? Why is it important to anything? (It’d make sense if it were with John and Vivian or Carl and Valda ) Do Escott and Mutrux have a crush on Jerry Lee? Either way, it was unnecessary, it’s like, we get it, they’re in love, and if he’s under age, it’s extremely inappropriate.

Then there’s something Lees said about Jerry Lee, “Jerry is the best at everything. He’s the Killer, you won’t beat him at anything, if you’re a boxer, he’ll still beat you in a fight. You know, that’s his mentality.” I agree, that’s exactly his mentality! The truth is though, it’s just hot air, Jerry Lee can’t fight no one unless he has a guaranteed advantage.

Oh, there’s a scene of Jimmy Swaggart pushing Jerry Lee, and the two fight at what looks to be a church gathering, while I can’t say if that ever took place. What Lees said about Jerry Lee, made me laugh, because it’s true and Jerry Lee fighting his preacher cousin doesn’t make him the world’s strongest fighter, especially when he’s getting whupped by him.

Though they seem to have made this up for viewing purposes, like Elvis and John fighting with their dads. I have no hope for Sun Records’ take on Jerry Lee, especially so if this thing gets a season 2 and the story follows him through 1956-1958 when he meets Myra. Like, yeah, no. (If anyone wants to see that, they already did it with Great Balls of Fire) No need to open up old wounds with their sexually perverted Jerry Lee, and an underage girl.

INDEX: “Elvis Presley and his fictionally abusive father.” / [x] “Johnny Cash and his emotionally abusive father.” / [x] “Jerry Lee Lewis and literally no one cares about Jimmy Swaggart.” / [x] “Carl Perkins and – this show don’t care about him.” / [x]

#Sun Records #Jerry Lee Lewis #Rockabilly #Jimmy Swaggart #1950s #1956 #Million Dollar Quartet #Colin Escott #Floyd Mutrux #//MyPosts #Sun//JLL #Essays//Analyses #JLL//50s #JLL//GBOF #JLL//Great Balls of Fire #Great Balls of Fire #Gifs #//MyGifs

[storytimewithtara-blog]

Redecorating

Kevin headed to the living room, desperate to catch the highlights from the games missed today. There were only so many days in a row he could stand being out of the loop with the guys at the office. He saw Marie shifting the TV farther to the left on the entertainment stand. She angled the TV to face the majority of the room, but this gave his leather recliner an awful position. There would be a horrible sun glare all day and Marie's mother's reading lamp would do the same all night.

“Babe, what are you doing?” he asked, hoping it was simply a bit of random cleaning.

“Just need a few more inches of space for the painting I bought today,” she said as she stepped back to get a full view of the TV's position. Marie seemed happy with it. She must have been ignoring the obvious cons this had for his chair and moved to line up the canvas to the wall.

“Does it have to go there?”

“Why not?

“Don't you think it throws off the room a bit?” He thought that was something he'd heard drifting out from the home renovation shows Sadie watched any time she was in the living room, which was most of the time.

Kevin had taken the opportunity of her taking a shower to claim the space, for awhile at least. Once she came down, Sadie would settle into her chair quietly and take up knitting while casually mentioning how sports moved too fast and made her dizzy. He'd be able to ignore the clipping sounds of needles and occasional sighs until the highlights were over. Then he would stand, smile, and ask what channel Sadie would like. She'd fuss and say he could watch whatever he wanted, but after one more insistence on his part a show would quickly come to mind. The phrase started with “Well, I suppose” and ended “if you really don't mind, Kevin”. Every time. He'd taken to mouthing the words as she spoke when he was turned away from her to change the channel.

Marie dropped the canvas back to the floor. “You don't like it. I thought you would like it.”

The painting was possibly a city sidewalk lined with streetlamps, New York City or such. Everything looked sort of melted, maybe it was raining. There had been rain on their trip to New York, they had huddling under an umbrella from the restaurant to the theater for their show. That's what the content side of him saw anyway. The grouchy side saw a night on fire, burning away the structure and beauty of the city life. Kevin didn't understand the painting either way, but that did not mean he hated it. This wasn't about the painting.

“Babe, it's great. I just don't think it fits there. Why mess up the TV? It would fit on the back wall.”

“I finally hung some of our pictures back there. Mom finally decided on a few that weren't too distracting.”

He could hear in her voice that he should have noticed the frames on the wall. Most of those had been on the bedroom floor. Kevin turned to the second recliner that was pulled back to sit more snugly in the corner of the room and saw their smiling faces from the Virgin Islands, Eiffel Tower, and a couple different European churches. If the chair were in its original space, there would have been room for pictures and painting alike, but Sadie like the view out the bay window back there. The reading lamp that would put a glare in the center of his TV was to the chair's right and a bag of yarn and a half finished hat were on its left.

“Why can't she do that upstairs?” he asked for what was the twentieth time since Sadie had arrived.

“She likes to knit while she watches TV.”

“There is a TV in her room.” He knew she used it, at night he could hear reruns of I Love Lucy coming from her room because Sadie turned the volume up for her hearing and then fall asleep with the TV on. Kevin was often pulled out of a light sleep by a particularly loud laugh track.

“I'm not just going to shut her into one room, Kevin. She wants to be around us,” Marie said.

“How about next to the corner stand,” he said flinging a hand out to the opposite back corner of the room.

“The painting doesn't fit with Mom's figures.”

Marie looked over the Precious Moments that lined the shelves. Dozens of doe eyed boys and girls frozen in romantic scenes or lifetime highlights. He spotted a couple kissing on a bench, a young girl holding a drawing, a newlywed couple that was stamped with their wedding date, and an angel boy stamped with the date of her father's passing. That one creeped him out the most. There seemed to be one for anything notable Marie had done in her life. Few of their own belongings remained on the shelves: a bottle of sand from Mexico, another with ash from Pompeii, and a new book on Spain that Marie had been talking about reading for weeks. There was no point in researching a trip they couldn't set a date for. Marie wouldn't leave Sadie alone and Sadie didn't find Spain all that appealing. Kevin almost laughed at the image of a frustrated Sadie arguing in slow English to a market salesman over what was a lemon and what was a lime. Was there a Precious Moment for culture shock?

“And why can't those go in her room?” Kevin asked.

“Spreading out her things makes this feel more like home for her, which it is. Keeping it all locked in a room would be mean.”

Marie was counting the figures with a subtle tap of her finger on her arm, to see if Sadie had added any more. They had started on just one shelf and slowly infected the rest of the stand.

Kevin thought of the bookcases shoved into their bedroom. Both had been crowded with books, but now held a cluster of decorative items that had lost their positions. One item was the Day of the Dead mask that once hung in the kitchen, after Sadie had been shocked into prayer three days in a row the mask was taken down and hidden away. Large prints of Bible verses replaced their photographs of Mardi Gras, those pictures now laid flat on top of books.

“How about our bedroom?” he asked.

“I want people to see it, Kevin. I can't just drag people into our room. Especially the way it looks now.”

The room Sadie claimed upstairs had been a sort of office/den space for them. Her arrival not only moved the bookshelves to their room, but the small desk they had shared. Laptops rested precariously on nightstands, waiting for the morning Kevin or Marie caught the corner as they rolled out of bed. The loveseat and chair were squished into what had been a small workout room downstairs, but now was the Sadie overflow room. This room now held boxes of home décor she hadn't yet been able to force on their walls, boxes of picture albums and scrapbooks, and Kevin had spied boxes of Marie's school papers as they'd moved it all in.

Kevin mentally ran through the house. He couldn't find a spot that wasn't Sadie filled, or filled to make room for Sadie, unless she wanted to just plaster the new painting to the front door. No, the echo of bells in his mind reminded him that a golden angel, that had been assumed a Christmas decoration but they were now in March, still hung from the knocker. As he gave his hair a toss, Kevin sank into his chair and watched the fading sunlight throw beams across his TV.

“She doesn't fit,” he said.

Marie tilted her head, but her eyes glanced to the figurines. “What are you talking about?”

“She doesn't fit in this house, Marie. There isn't enough room for your mother and us.”

“It is far too late to be having this conversation again.' “We never had this conversation in the first place.”

Marie's father died and she couldn't stand the thought of her mother living alone. As an only child, the only solution she'd found was for Sadie to move in with them. She'd been so upset about the passing, and so sure of the impending depression Sadie was bound for, Kevin only wanted to sooth her and never saw 'no' as an option. They'd had to struggle with Sadie on giving away her late husbands possessions, but a good amount that neither mother or daughter could part with were still stacked on top of his treadmill. Their arrangement was going on seven months and Sadie seemed to be adjusted just fine. The woman wasn't completely dependent on them, but seemed to enjoy having them at beck and call.

A flash of light cut across the room, Kevin hadn't thought about headlights also being a problem for his TV. He heard the shower turn off upstairs. There was no chance of watching his highlights now. Sadie would slip into a cheetah print pajama set and come down with towel dried hair in just a bit. Resigning to spending another night catching up on news from his twelve inch computer while his sixty-five inch TV was used for some HGTV show, Kevin pushed out of his chair. The guys at work would tell him anything he missed tomorrow.

“Put it on the wall, I don't care,” he said.

He heard the bathroom door open, a squeaky voice drifted down. Kevin couldn't make out the words, but he would put money on it being some country song about God, that was her favorite.

“Maybe, maybe it would fit by the corner stand,” Marie said.

Kevin looked between the two walls being discussed. “Might be a tight fit back there.”

Marie walked over to the stand and her fingers landed on top of a figurine, a mother and daughter picking flowers. She balanced the Precious Moment on the edge of the shelf. When Sadie's voice was cut off by the snap of her door, Marie let the figure fall. Bits of porcelain skidded across the wood floor to land at Kevin's feet.

“No,” she said, “there is much more room here now.”

#writing shortstory couple argument story fiction

[captainexplody]

Cat Whistles

Knock knock knock! Bobert Armitage knocks on the front door of a house, knocking three times as he has been officially trained to do. Well not really, nobody really trained him at all, he just figured his profession out himself. And he thinks that knocking on a door three times is a good idea, it sounds good. Looks good. Looks and sounds good, that’s what he always says. I mean obviously he doesn’t ALWAYS say that, that’d be a really weird thing to say all the time. Although that’s Bobert Armitage in a nutshell, a kinda weird guy. That’s probably the best way to describe him. A weird guy.

Anyway so Bobert Armitage knocks the door of this house three times. Knock knock knock! That’s the sound of a man knocking on a front door with his fist. Bobert waits patiently outside the door, calmly waiting for somebody to open it for him, so he can converse with the person who has opened the door. That is part one of his plan. He grins to himself as he looks down at the big bag he is carrying with him. Step one: get a guy inside a house to open the door of the house. Step two: engage in dialogue with said person. Step three: Sell that person some wares. Bobert Armitage’s wares are contained in the bag, y’see. Now it’s all starting to make sense.

Bobert Armitage rings the doorbell of this house, pressing on the button three times sharply. He then knocks on the front door three times, and sets his big bag of wares down on the ground beside him as he straightens his tie, getting ready for the big presentation he is about to deliver to whoever finally ends up opening that door. Bobert Armitage is not at all put off by the long time it takes people to answer their doors these days, he’s well used to it. He does this a lot, this is his job, bothering people until they open their doors to him. He knows how to wait. He always heard people say ‘good things come to those who wait’ and so Bobert Armitage is adept at waiting things out. He’s waiting for those good things to come to him, and he can wait all day if he has to.

Knock knock knock! Bobert Armitage knocks on the door three times once again, brushing some dust off of the shoulders of his jacket, his big smile never once waining. He’s full of enthusiasm, that Bobert Armitage. Always prepared for a sale, always finding the fun in everything. Some people would lose their enthusiasm quickly enough, would tire of this repetitive and rarely satisfying job, but Bobert Armitage relishes it, perhaps because it’s all he has left. Eventually Bobert Armitage can hear some movement behind the big wooden door, and he knocks sharply three times again. Knock knock knock!

He puts his biggest, cheeriest grin on as he waits patiently for the door to open. A clickity clack of locks being turned can be heard, and then the big door swings open slowly, revealing a very angry looking man standing behind it, glaring at Bobert Armitage angrily.

Angry Man: What?

Bobert Armitage: Hello sir! How are you today?

Angry Man: What do you want?

Bobert Armitage: I want to know how you are today?

Angry Man: I’m fine. What do you really want?

Bobert Armitage: Why sir, I am here to revolutionise your entire life!

Angry Man: I doubt that very much.

Bobert Armitage: There is no need for doubts, my friend! I can help you, if you will only grant me but one moment of your time.

Angry Man: ... How long exactly is a moment?

Bobert Armitage: Why we could quibble over the various quantities of time, but instead of that I would like to spend a small portion of our precious time on what I have in my bag!

Bobert Armitage waggles his index finger around the way a salesman does inexplicably, and then he reaches down to the bag on the ground, popping it open as the angry man watches on patiently.

Angry Man: You better not be selling me Bibles, boy. I’ve had my fill of Bibles, I have too many as it is. And I’ve only read half of one of them, I don’t have time to read any more Bibles. Also its so bloody boring! You’d think if this was the straight word of God, he’d get to the point better.

Bobert Armitage: What I have in this bag is no Bible, sir. What I have in this bag is an incredible, practical invention that everybody on your street will want!

Angry Man: I doubt that very much.

Bobert Armitage: Well my good friend, let me show you my wares!

Bobert Armitage eagerly reaches into the bag and pulls out a big handful of his wares, which he then holds up in front of the angry man. In Bobert Armitage‘s hands are a large collection of small plastic pipes with a hole drilled into one end. The pipes are multicoloured, all around the same size. Bobert Armitage holds his hands out a little closer to the angry mans face. Angry man does not look amused.

Angry Man: ... What are these supposed to be?

Bobert Armitage: Why my good sir, these are cat whistles!

Angry Man: ... What is a cat whistle?

Bobert Armitage: These! These are cat whistles!

Angry Man: What am I supposed to do with a cat whistle?

Bobert Armitage: Why my friend, what CAN’T you do with a cat whistle?

Angry Man: Ok, tell me what I CAN do with one first.

Bobert Armitage: Certainly! 

Bobert Armitage drops most of the cat whistles back into his bag, picking out one specific one which he holds in between his fingers, the way a magician would hold up a card that he wants the mark to focus on, a card which is no more special than the others, and not special at all unless in the hands of a skilled man.

Bobert Armitage: You can blow on it like a whistle!

Bobert Armitage shows off exactly what a whistle is supposed to do, by putting it in between his lips and then blowing on it relatively hard. A strange, ethereal whistling noise comes out of the little whistle, it sounds nothing like the kind of sound you would imagine a little whistle like that would make. After a few painful seconds of listening to this odd whistling sound, Bobert Armitage ceases blowing and pulls the whistle out from between his lips again. He grins at the angry man in the doorway, pleased that his whistle worked. The angry man does not look any less angry.

Angry Man: Is that it? It’s a whistle?

Bobert Armitage: Yes sir!

Angry Man: What’s that got to do with cats? Can cats hear it?

Bobert Armitage: I don’t know, I’ve never asked a cat if it could hear it before.

The angry man continues to look angry.

Angry Man: What is this, a joke? I don’t understand. You’re wasting my time here, I don’t appreciate that.

Bobert Armitage: I’m just trying to sell you some cat whistles.

Angry Man: Ok first of all, it’s really bad at being a whistle. I mean that is a terrible noise for a whistle to make. Second of all, why are they called cat whistles if they don’t have anything to do with cats?

Bobert Armitage shrugs his shoulders calmly.

Bobert Armitage: I just like the name.

Angry Man: Ok well thats false advertising right there. You come around here bothering people like this, eventually you’re going to get your head kicked in, know what I mean?

Bobert Armitage: Not really. I’m just a travelling salesman trying to peddle his wares to make an honest living. I hand crafted these cat whistles myself, this is all one hundred percent unique and special.

Angry Man: It’s one hundred percent bullshit if you ask me. Your crappy whistles won’t sell, nobody around here wants any of that garbage. Have you been to other people’s houses in this street?

Bobert Armitage: Yessir.

Angry Man: And how many of my neighbours liked your crappy whistles?

Bobert Armitage: Well one family looked interested in buying some soon...

Angry Man: They pretended to look interested because they felt sad for you and your stupid crappy whistles that you’ve wasted your life on making. Just go home and give this crap up. You’re annoying people around here trying to sell them something nobody wants or likes.

Bobert Armitage: Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean that everybody won’t like it. 

Angry Man: Yeah, but nobody is going to want something as crappy as this. Alright, I’ve wasted enough time talking to you. SOME of us have things to do today!

Bobert Armitage: I’d just like to point out I have something to do today.

Angry Man: And what’s that?

Bobert Armitage: Selling cat whistles! Would you like one? I’m doing a deal, you can get all 45 colours for a low low price of £12! Now THAT’S a good deal!

The angry man glares at Bobert Armitage angrily (as you would imagine an angry man to do) and then he slams the door shut. Bobert Armitage sighs to himself, before he perks himself up again and grabs his bag full of cat whistles. He pokes one of the whistles in between his lips again and starts whistling a very strange sounding tune as he skips down the path away from the angry mans house. He strolls down the street until he gets to the next house in line, and then he happily strolls down that garden path. He made these cat whistles himself, he’s very proud of them. Sure, they might not make sense to everybody, but there’s got to be somebody out there who appreciates his craftsmanship and originality, somebody who appreciates what he has to offer to the world, even if it isn’t the most useful thing. Bobert Armitage stands in front of another front door, eagerly awaiting the challenge in front of him, the challenge of trying to persuade some people that his cat whistles are a cool idea. There’s only so many houses in the world, if he keeps trying he’s going to stumble into the right one eventually. Knock knock knock.

#scribbles #short story #cat whistles #captain explody

[papermoonloveslucy]

Lucy Meets Sheldon Leonard

S5;E22 ~ March 6, 1967

Synopsis

Mr. Mooney allows TV producer Sheldon Leonard to film a hold-up scene at the bank. Lucy, trying earn a raise, thinks he is really a gangster and is determined to foil his robbery.

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Gale Gordon (Theodore J. Mooney), Mary Jane Croft (Mary Jane Lewis)

Roy Roberts (Mr. Cheever) does not appear in this episode, although Mr. Mooney does have two phone conversations with him.  

Guest Cast

Sheldon Leonard (Himself) was born Leonard Sheldon Bershad in New York City in 1907. In 1953 he played fast-talking salesman Harry Martin, who sells Lucy Ricardo the Handy Dandy vacuum cleaner in “Sales Resistance” (ILL S2;E17). Leonard was an integral part of the Desilu family off-screen as well, directing “Make Room for Daddy” including an episode that featured Lucy and Ricky Ricardo in 1959. He was one of the creators of “The Andy Griffith Show,” also filmed at Desilu. Leonard may be best remembered as the Nick, the bartender in the classic film It's a Wonderful Life (1945). He died in 1997. His name served as a namesake for the characters Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” as the writers are fans of his work.

Sheldon Leonard is a very important client of Westland Bank.

Fred Stromsoe (Louie) was an actor and stunt man who later appeared in a 1968 episode of “Gomer Pyle: USMC” produced by Sheldon Leonard. This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.

Stromsoe does not have any dialogue.

Harvey Parry (Harry, above right) played one of the Keystone Cops in “Lucy Meets Mickey Rooney” (S4;E18). He was an experienced Hollywood stunt man and actor who appeared with Lucille Ball in The Bowery (1933) and There Goes My Girl (1937). He acted opposite Sheldon Leonard in To Have and Have Not (1944) and Guys and Dolls (1955).

George Sawaya (Pete) had a small role in the 1967 film A Guide for the Married Man along with Lucille Ball. Sawaya appeared in “I Spy,” “Gomer Pyle: USMC,” and “The Andy Griffith Show,” all produced by Sheldon Leonard.  

George DeNormand (Bank extra, uncredited) appeared in three films with Lucille Ball from 1937 to 1963. This is the just one of his many appearances on “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy.”

Judith Woodbury (Bank extra, uncredited) makes one of her many background appearances on “The Lucy Show.” She also appeared in one episode of “Here’s Lucy.”

Characters such as the voice on the intercom, Maggie the teller, and the bank customers go uncredited. Off-screen characters Frankie and Charlie are referred to but never seen or heard.

This is the final episode of Season 5 to be broadcast, although the previous week's episode “Lucy and Tennessee Ernie Ford” (S5;E21) was actually the last filmed. “Lucy Meets the Berles” (S6;E1) was filmed before the break but held over to the next season. At just 22 episodes, Season 5 was the shortest of all Lucille Ball's sitcoms with the exception of “Life With Lucy,” which was canceled after 8 episodes. Season 5 ended in fourth place in the Nielsen ratings (26.2 share), the same as Season 1 but down one place from Season 4. 

This is one of 30 episodes to have fallen into public domain, the results being it has been reproduced on low-cost, low-quality home video. 

This episode was filmed on Friday January 20, 1967, one day later than the show's usual filming day. The day after this episode was filmed, actress Ann Sheridan died at age 51. Sheridan starred in Murder at the Vanities with Lucille Ball in 1934.  

The day this episode first aired (March 6, 1967) singer and actor Nelson Eddy died at age 65. Eddy starred in a 1956 episode of “Make Room for Daddy” produced and directed by Sheldon Leonard and shot at Desilu Studios.  In 1956, Eddy, Lucille Ball and Desi Aranz were all part of “MGM Parade” saluting romance. Eddy was mentioned by Rudy Vallee on the very first “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in 1957. In 1971, Richard Deacon played Nelson Eddy to Carol Burnett’s Jeanette McDonald in “The Hollywood Unemployment Follies.” There’s no doubt that Ricky Ricardo’s Prince Lancelot in “The Pleasant Peasant” was heavily influenced by Nelson Eddy. 

Lucy's excuse for being late to work is that the smog was so thick she couldn't find the bus. This is the second episode in a row to mention Los Angeles' smog problem. A week after this episode was filmed, Time Magazine ran a cover story about it.  

Lucy jokingly says the last time she got a raise was on Flag Day – but when the flag still had 48 stars. If this were factual, it would be prior to July 3, 1959. The next day the official flag of the United States went to 49 stars to include Alaska, which last only one year until the most recent iteration of the flag with 50 stars to represent Hawaii. We also know this is a joke because Lucy did not meet Mr. Mooney until October 1963 and didn't start working for him until 1965.  

Lucille Ball gets applause on her entrance into the third scene, indicating the episode may have been shot out of sequence.

Sheldon Leonard also gets a round of applause from the studio audience when he finally enters nearly 11 minutes into the action. Up until then, the episode has been about Lucy wanting a raise.

Mr. Mooney quotes the Bible when he says “The laborer is worthy of his hire.” The adage was also spoken by Chaucer and Gandhi.  

We learn that Westland Bank is the third largest financial institution in the city of Los Angeles with assets of 31 million dollars and 31 branches. We also hear that Mr. Mooney got his job with the bank by marrying the boss's niece. This means that Irma Mooney’s uncle was president of Westland Bank! 

Over the telephone, Mr. Cheever tells Mr. Mooney that Sheldon Leonard produced “The Danny Thomas Show,” “Dick Van Dyke” and “I Spy.” Leonard himself adds “Andy Griffith” (which followed “The Lucy Show” on the CBS Monday schedule) and “Gomer Pyle” to his credits. Mr. Mooney and Leonard discuss his history of playing gangsters as well as his transition to behind the camera. This exposition also helps “Lucy Show” home viewers realize that Leonard is more than just an actor, but a successful Hollywood producer as well. Leonard introduces the concept of 'shooting a pilot' – explaining to Mr. Mooney (and the viewers) that this does not mean gunning down someone who flies airplanes!

Mr. Mooney (perhaps jokingly) says he speaks seven languages – but not Lucy's!  

Mr. Mooney ends up all wet – again – when Lucy throws a bucket of water on him thinking he is a bank robber.

The end of the episode turns very meta when Leonard says:

“I suddenly got this idea for a new television series. It would be about this kooky red headed girl. She works in a bank and she gets into all sorts of impossible situations and... forget it.  Nobody would ever believe it.”

Blooper Alerts!

Health Check! When Lucy reports for work, she kindly asks Mr. Mooney “How are you? “How is Mrs. Mooney?” but never asks about his children! Much like Lucy’s own offspring - out of sight, out of mind!

Credit Check? Leonard asks Lucy if she's ever done any acting. Lucy says “No, sir.” Faithful viewers will know this is not true. Lucy Carmichael has appeared on stage (as Cleopatra), TV (with Danny Thomas) , and film (as Iron Man Carmichael).  

Alarming Bravery! Lucy says that it it brave for Leonard to enter the bank through the front doors. She should have known something is up when the bank's alarm didn't go off!  

Cart Conundrum! As scrub women, Lucy and Mary Jane push a cart labeled “LAUNDRY.” Why would a bank's cleaning staff have a laundry cart? The laundry cart has been noticeably padded to accommodate Leonard's stunt of falling into it, a stunt which he performs himself! 

Callbacks!

Lucy convinces Mary Jane to play a scrub woman to go undercover, just as Lucy Ricardo convinced Ethel Mertz to do in “Cuban Pals” (ILL S1;E28).

Lucy asking Mr. Mooney (Gale Gordon) for a raise by sheepishly asking “You’re not going to give me a raise, are you?” is nearly identical to when Ricky sheepishly asked Mr. Littlefield (Gale Gordon) for a raise on a 1952 episode of “I Love Lucy.”   

Sheldon Leonard and Gale Gordon both appeared in the feature film Here Come the Nelsons in 1952, eight months before the debut of the TV series “Ozzie and Harriet.” 

Like Lucille Ball, Gale Gordon was directed by Sheldon Leonard when he made several appearances as Landlord Heckendorn (and other characters, including the Devil) on “The Danny Thomas Show” from 1959 to 1961. 

Lucille Ball first worked with Sheldon Leonard when he played Harry Martin, slick salesman for the Handy Dandy Company in “Sales Resistance” (ILL S2;E17). 

In January 1959, Sheldon Leonard directed Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (playing Lucy and Ricky Ricardo) on an episode of “Make Room for Daddy” titled “Lucy Upsets the Williams Household” (S6;E14), a reciprocal appearance for the cast of Thomas’s show appearing on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.” 

In 1965′s “Danny Thomas’ Wonderful World of Burlesque II” featuring Lucille Ball, Sheldon Leonard made a cameo appearances as a cigar vendor in the theatre aisle. Ball and Leonard did not share any scenes. 

In May 1966, both Lucille Ball and Sheldon Leonard participated in a documentary TV film titled “The Magic of Broadcasting”. 

Fast Forward! 

Before his death, Sheldon Leonard was interviewed by The Television Academy Foundation for The Archive of American Television to talk about the influence of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz on television.

In his 1995 book, And the Show Goes On: Broadway and Hollywood Adventures, Leonard wrote:

"Operating on the well-founded belief that a comedy show needs an audience to give it the authentic response that canned laughter can never duplicate, Desi brought in an audience to watch and react, while he used multiple-camera shooting technique borrowed from live TV."

“Lucy Meets Sheldon Leonard” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5

#The Lucy Show #Lucy Meets Sheldon Leonard #Sheldon Leonard #Lucille Ball #Gale Gordon #Mary Jane Croft #Fred Stromsoe #Harvey Parry #George Sawaya #Andy Griffith Show #Gomer Pyle USMC #Make Room for Daddy #Gangster #Ann Sheridan #Nelson Eddy #Season 5 #smog #Bible #Flag Day #Dick Van Dyke Show #I Spy #1967 #TV #CBS