#Once upon a time the Belgians | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

delopsia · 1 year

Text

Santa Dress | Bob Floyd x Reader

Word Count: 5,400 Cross Posted Here on AO3 Warnings & Notes: 18+, Fem!Reader, unprotected sex, surprise welcome homes, unrealistic snow because who gives a shit about realism, bob fingering you while he drives, ✨road-head✨, and my personal favorite, sex against a wall :D

It's a flurry of red and white behind this tiny little bar, velvet red dresses flowing back and forth as you and Penny put together drinks and fetch ice-cold beers from the mini-fridges. It's been hours since you've last been able to feel your hands, frozen into numbness by the sea of orders. The never-closing front door has long since sucked out any ounce of heat, and you've long since given up on tucking your hands into the faux leather belt of this short Santa dress.

Curse whoever decided not to give this dress pockets.

"Thank you again for helping me out," Penny says aloud, sidling up to you to fill a chilled glass with Belgian White, "I know you always hated the Holiday Rush when you used to work for me."

The two Budweisers in your hand are desperately attempting to slide out of your weak grasp; the pilot you're serving is quick to reach out and take them, at least. "Me, hating the Holiday Rush?" Feigning innocence, under the thin veil of a barely audible gasp, "I could never!"

Although you can't see it, you can feel the hard stare fixating upon the back of your neck, "the only reason you didn't quit that last Christmas was because you met your little drummer boy."

"As if you haven't stayed over just to spend more time with a cute Navy boy or two," and you had more ammunition to tease her with, but a stone-faced Admiral is speaking up, ordering a whiskey on the rocks.

Great, more ice!

You're still not sure what made you agree to this. Maybe it's the boredom that comes with being unemployed. Maybe you're chasing the wistful memories of looking up from the bar that fateful evening and locking eyes with a shy new Top Gun student sitting on the far end of the bar, visiting early to spend some time with his buddies for the holidays.

It certainly isn't money or the overwhelming pressure to find a job, that's for sure. Bob's position in the Navy pays quite well, and he's been sure to make it very clear that you don't have to work if you don't want to. "Money is never going to be an issue, sweetheart," he always reminds you.

Maybe you're just hoping that every time you turn around, you'll find him standing there in those same old glasses with that same bashful grin. If you try hard enough, you think you can still feel the way your heart fluttered when he kept coming back to see you again and again.

"You've got me there," that flashy diamond ring on Penny's finger is enough proof of her own ventures with a Navy pilot. Strange, usually Maverick is looming around the bar at this time, a vulture seeking to claim the next available seat.

The whiskey on rocks is by far one of the easier orders of the night. Nothing special, so simple in fact that you only remember handing it off to the Admiral and then immediately being hit with more beer orders.

"How's Bob?" Penny asks as you pass her once more, "coming home for the Holiday?"

"No," resisting the urge to flick this bottle cap at the man rudely trying to flag you down, "they've decided to keep him until after Christmas, for whatever reason."

"Santa must need a WSO."

The rush is just about over; a few more fussy customers and you think you just might be able to catch a breather. Back and forth, the skirt of your festive dress flowing with each and every turn, the soft white fluff on the ends brushing against your cold thighs. You're not sure if it was Penny's idea to wear these for the holidays or if it was Maverick's.

Your gut tells you it was Maverick, and a part of you hopes he gets forced into a Santa suit again. If Rooster could find a way last year, you're sure he can find a way this year.

Reaching below the bar, your frigid digits open the door to the mini-fridge and delve inside, seeking another ice-cold Budweiser, "damn it."

Penny's head tilts over her shoulder, too preoccupied with mixing this drink to fully turn around, "we out again?"

"You still keep them in the same spot?" Your question is answered with a simple nod of her head, and that's really all you need.

It's almost strange how easily this has all come back to you. When you left, you truly never thought you would be coming back here to work again, but here you are, stepping into the old backroom, and it's like nothing has changed. It's still lined with old pictures that couldn't fit onto the main floor. There's still a mark from the time you snuck Bob back here and pushed the door open so hard that the handle put a dent in the wall.

You're the reason why the door handle was removed in exchange for something less-destructive to innocent walls.

You'll have to remember to take picture of this and send it to him before you leave. You can only imagine how pink his cheeks will get at the memory. For now, though, there are people in the bar who will not be happy if you let the memory of kissing a Navy WSO until he's lightheaded get between them and their beer.

There's a crate already loaded and ready in the walk-in cooler. This used to be one of your favorite places to get away for a minute or two, but that will have to wait for a day when your hands aren't going completely numb.

It's a hell of a task just to bend down and pick this thing up off the floor; the designers of this tiny Santa Dress truly did not have functionality in mind when they made this. God, you forgot how heavy these things are when they're loaded fully.

Cold-crate in your arms, you head back out into the bar floor, carefully balancing your fragile cargo while minding each and every customer that decides to offer you a rushed "excuse me" as they step right in front of you.

Someone steps out a little too fast, his shoulder colliding with your crate, the beer bottles rattling dangerously. The bar equivalent to a rattlesnake shaking its little tail, threatening to create a problem.

"Watch where you're going!"

This is why you quit.

Biting your tongue, you step past him, darting into the safe confines of the bar itself. If Penny overheard any of that, she hasn't said anything just yet, still chipping away at yet another unique drink order.

Every bar has a regular asshole, and for some reason, the Hard Deck seems to be running rampant with them. For every sweet and well-mannered person that walks through that front door, two fussy assholes come in, asking you to give them the moon and the stars. Something you really hadn't paid much mind to until Bob came through those doors.

Oh, Bob. Sweet, sweet Bob, who would beat you to picking up that heavy crate by a mile, would offer to put these cold bottles away because he knows how cold your hands get on shifts. Bob, who just had to walk through that door and remind you of what a real man is.

Bob, with his gentle hands and kind heart, that's too big for his body. Who would visit you during your shifts, no matter how exhausted he may have been, and drove you home when your car wound up in the shop because it's not safe for you to walk alone in the dark. Who climbed a tree and fractured his ankle because Amelia's new kitten had gotten stuck up there.

It never healed right, still bugs him every once in a while, and leaves him with the slightest limp, but he always says it was worth it because, in the end, that kitten wound up safe and sound.

You're thinking so hard that you swear you can hear him laughing as you finally hand off this beer to the man that's been waiting all this time. It's not him; you don't know how many times you've sworn you heard him laugh, only to get excited and realize it's not him at all.

You can't wait to go home and sleep in one of his old t-shirts, pretend that just for a little bit, he's here, with you, and not anywhere else.

Empty crate in hand and your latest order taken care of, you turn to head back out of the bar; if you leave this thing out, one of you will trip. And these aren't the kind of clothes you need to be tripping and falling in.

You aren't two steps out onto the open floor when that same guy walks past you, throws a glare over his shoulder as he passes...but strangely, it falls right off his face. Expression wiped clean and left pale as a ghost before he scurries off into another part of the building.

...did you look at him funny?

There isn't much time to dwell on it because, all of a sudden, another Hard Deck employee is walking up to you, taking this crate off your hands. "I'll take this off ya," is all he offers, disappearing into the backroom with it.

Odd, Penny told you she couldn't get anyone to work today.

You're turning around, question heavy and burning on the very tip of your tongue, but it dies before you can even open your mouth.

Because you either miss him so much that you've started hallucinating, or that's Robert Floyd sitting right in front of you. In the same damn chair that he always sits in, smiling so big that the corners of his eyes crinkle from it.

"Was wonderin' when you'd notice me starin' at you," and he must be exhausted because that Southern drawl is thick as can be, absolutely dripping off his tongue.

You aren't sure when your feet start moving. All you know is he's standing up, opening up those big, warm arms, and wrapping you up in them for the first time in what feels like years. He just about melts into you, so tired and worn down that you can feel it radiating off of him. Even so, he still has the energy to lift you off the ground by a few inches, swaying back and forth like he always does.

"I missed you," murmuring into the crook of his neck, where you can still catch the faintest hint of his favorite cologne, "how long have you been sitting there?"

"Since Penny texted me and said you went into the back," he chuckles, pressing a kiss to your temple.

Your jaw slackens; of course, it would be Penny that constructed this entire thing. "I thought you were stuck in..." but there's no point in finishing your sentence because he's already shaking his head.

"Pulled a string or two," gently, he lets you slide down until your feet comfortably hit the floor once more, "didn't expect Penny to put you to work, though."

"Consider it retribution for all those times you two snuck off during a shift!" Penny all but yells, shaking her damp towel at you with an animated iron fist.

Just like that, Bob's cheeks tint pink, "didn't know those retributions included freezing you half to death." Wandering hands slide up your shoulders, trickling down your arms until they reach your numb fingers, jumping at just how cold they are, "always so cold."

"You're lucky I didn't stick my hands under your shirt," because while you always seem to wind up frozen, Bob runs as hot as a furnace, no matter the weather.

His large, warm hands encompass yours, and you can already feel the ice starting to melt from your bones, "well, if you let me drive you home, I'm sure I can find a way to keep you warm."

"You didn't tell me it was snowing!"

"I thought you knew!"

God, it's everywhere, ice-cold snow covering everything the eye can see, draped in a white blanket that sparkles under the street lamp. There hadn't been a single snowflake when you first went in, never mind catching a glimpse of it falling through the windows. It's a good couple of inches, at the very least, enough that it's going to get into your black slip-on shoes.

In hindsight, the boots were a much better option.

It's by some miracle that he's already found your car; you're not sure who else would have cleaned the snow off your vehicle and your vehicle only. Parked nice and neat in the back of the lot, where nobody other than employees are likely to park.

"I didn't know it could snow in this part of the state," a breeze has you stepping closer to him, eagerly snuggling into his very, very warm side.

"I didn't either," Bob squeezes you closer to him, just about cradling you into his chest, "hold on, I've got an idea."

Apparently, that was meant a little more literally than you thought. One moment your feet are firmly on the ground; the next, you're being scooped up like a bride, clinging to Bob's broad shoulders as he starts to carry you. This certainly isn't what you had in mind, but you'll take it.

The hand on your thigh plays dangerously close to the inside of your dress; it's been so long since you've last felt that, the slide of his soft, strong hand on your upper thigh. Oh, the things you would do to get him to slide that hand just a little higher...

It takes a little maneuvering to get the car door open, but soon enough, you're perched in the passenger seat of your own vehicle, watching your favorite WSO struggle with readjusting the driver seat.

"This car gets smaller every time I get in it," he chuckles, "don't think I remember a time where my knees didn't wind up pressed into my chest."

"I think you're just getting taller," you're genuinely convinced that he's gained an inch or two since you met him. That, or you're, for some reason getting shorter.

The world will never know.

There's that eye roll, scoffing like he's just heard the most ridiculous statement of all time. Such a little action that makes your heart flutter, even now. You're just as jittery as you did the first time he drove you home, but even now, no matter how many times he's done this, he manages to completely miss getting the key into the ignition.

The streets are just about empty, sparkling with snow that nobody quite knows what to do with yet. It's breathtaking, your own private winter wonderland, and yet, you find your attention fixating on Bob. The way the street lights illuminate his face, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the console because he's so used to driving a stick shift that it just winds up there out of habit.

You can't fight the urge to reach out and tangle your fingers together; it's been so long that you've become powerless to resist even the tiniest of things. His hand lifts, and for a second, you think he's pulling away from you, but instead, it comes to settle on your thigh, squeezing lightly.

"Jesus, you're like a little ice cube over there," gasping, he runs his hand up and down your chilly skin. But you're so sensitive after these past couple of months that heat blossoms between your legs. Just from his touch alone, your legs involuntarily flutter shut, trapping his roaming hand between them.

"If you keep doing that, we're going to have a new problem, Bob," you grit, composure rapidly slipping out of your grasp.

For a moment, he's quiet, but then his hand starts to move again, swirling light circles into your inner thigh, climbing up and down, higher and higher, until you feel him brush against your thin panties. "I did promise to keep you warm, doll."

All it takes is for you to part your legs the tiniest fraction, and you're rewarded with a taunting finger, stroking up and down your folds through the thin fabric. All the while, his eyes are trained on the road ahead.

Cute bastard.

It's a traffic light that becomes your saving grace, flickering red and forcing you to come to a stop. Bob's hand slips out from between your legs, and you catch yourself whining at the loss; the radio does nothing to conceal the sound.

"Hold on," chuckling, he wets two fingers with his mouth, pink tongue visibly swirling around the digits until they're dripping, "I promise I ain't done with you yet."

Then he's reaching back down, sliding your panties to one side as his fingers tease your entrance. Only one dips inside, but your head hits the headrest all the same; it's been too long. You've almost forgotten how thick his fingers are.

"You've gotten so tight, baby," he's so fixated on watching his finger work in and out of you that he almost misses the light turning green. You certainly believe him; can feel yourself stretching as that second finger eases in alongside the first. Shallow thrusts that stop just short of halfway, giving you what you want but not quite enough.

Impatient, your hips squirm further down the seat, urging him a little deeper. Simultaneously, his fingers curl upward, dragging deliciously against a spongey spot that sends you reeling. You can never seem to hit this spot the way he does, and he makes it look so effortless. Working back and forth, curling and uncurling where you're most sensitive. You're quivering around him, growing wetter and wetter, and he hasn't even so much as brushed against your clit yet.

But you're still so far from home.

"Baby, sweetheart, I'm driving," Bob hisses, but there's no malice to it, a weak warning that's only half a bark and no bite.

"That hasn't stopped you so far," smiling big and wide as you stroke up his thigh; those sweatpants do nothing to conceal his cock as it twitches.

His bottom lip quivers as your palm rolls over him, once, twice, before stopping in opt to trace your fingers along the outline of his cock. That left leg starts shaking, bouncing up and down, with some hellish mix of hesitance and impatience.

It's so easy, reaching up and slipping under his waistband, circling around his girthy length and making him jump.

"Seems I'm not the only one that's sensitive," you tease as you gently ease him out of his pants.

The streetlights shimmer against the already wet head, still dripping and slicking your hand up as it experimentally strokes down. Despite his warning, he's already twitching up into your touch the best that he can, eyelashes fluttering behind wireframes.

Reaching down, you guide his fingers out of you, already longing for him to delve inside of you once more, but not as much as you long to feel him against your tongue.

"Oh no," he whispers under his breath, but despite his audible expression of concern, he does nothing to stop you from leaning over the center console.

It's been so long since you were last able to run your tongue along the side of his cock, from base to tip and then back down again. Bob twitches under your touch, audibly inhaling through his nose, and you just know he's trying to force himself into silence. Don't react, and maybe it'll stop.

Tentatively, your tongue swirls around his head, slow, languid motions that treat him like a damn lollipop. Over and over, like he's the sweetest candy you've ever had until he's so wet with your saliva that he's dripping.

That breath punches out of his lungs the very moment your lips wrap around him, keening high in his throat as you hollow your cheeks and suckle at him properly. The hard plastic of the console digs into your ribs as you sink down on him, but you can't bring yourself to pay it any mind. Not when he's panting above you, free hand scrambling for purchase on the back of your head.

"Oh God," Bob whispers, gasping between words, "feels good, feels so good."

You can't help the satisfied hum that he churns out of you, and God, he shakes, and he hasn't even hit the back of your throat yet. Just another inch, and he does just that, fat head pressing against your hot throat; you can't take him any further, not when you physically can't lean any further across this console.

Instead, you reach down with your other hand, dipping between his legs to find and stroke his balls in tune with your mouth. Such a simple motion that rewards you with the prettiest moan. Caught so off-guard that he can't hold it back.

Drawing back until only his head is in your mouth, you give his slit an experimental flick, can hear the way his hand tightens around the leather steering wheel. Then you're going back down, settling into a slow bobbing of your head, going as far down as you can, and then all the way back up.

Bob's left leg is shaking, struggling to maintain some sort of composure that just about melts when you swallow around him, forcing him to feel your mouth and the entrance to your throat contract around him.

"Almost—" he tries, gulping, "house is right there."

With a loud, wet 'pop,' you draw yourself off of him, peering out the window. You recognize where you are now, only a few hundred feet from your driveway, by the looks of it. And as if you hadn't just been tormenting your poor boyfriend, you settle back into your own seat, wiping your spit-slicked lips clean.

"Actively trying to kill me," you hear him mutter under his breath.

You suppose you'll be nice and reach up to press the button on the garage door opener, seeing as he's actively attempting to tuck himself back into his pants and turn the vehicle all at once. It's remarkable just how well he manages to park your car, all pink-cheeked and chest heaving, struggling to catch a breath that you seem to have stolen.

As soon as the car shuts off, you're getting out of the car, and you don't need to look over your shoulder to know if he's following or not. Walking straight to the door and stepping inside your warm, cozy home, fumbling for the light switch.

You don't hear the garage door rumbling as it shuts, can't pick up on the soft pitter-patter of shoes on the hardwood floor. All you know is that you find the light, and all of a sudden, you're being pressed against a wall, and there's a pair of lips on yours that you haven't felt in ages.

"Got me wrapped right around your tiny little finger," he grumbles into your mouth.

The words are on the very tip of your tongue, but he's already kissing you, open-mouthed and completely unyielding. Strong body pressing against yours, firm hand settling on your waist, gathering you closer, the other audibly thumping against the drywall as he backs you right into it.

Your surprised gasp opens your mouth to his, and your tongues meet for the briefest moment, only broken apart when he settles both hands on you and lifts. You're caught by chiseled hips sliding between your legs, strong hands cupping your ass as your legs lock around him.

There, there, now you feel him, hard and heavy, right between your legs. All you're aware of is his mouth on yours and his heavy cock, grinding directly into your dripping core, so close to where you want him to be.

It's all Bob and his tongue that tastes like the lemon candies he can't quit sucking on and his big hands that work in the backseats of fighter jets so effortlessly that he makes it look like child's play. Bob and the scar you can feel as you tangle your fingers in the hair resting at the nape of his neck. Bob Floyd and the well-concealed muscles that you can feel rippling against you, such a pretty body that so few get to behold.

"Here?" Weakly, you pant into his mouth, unsure of his next move.

You don't get a verbal response, just a soft 'mhm' against your lips before he pulls away in favor of nibbling at your jawbone. Teasing nips that tug at your skin until it's red and sensitive, then beyond, settling comfortably at the soft spot below your ear. His tongue laves over the spot, such a surprising sensation that makes you squirm away, tugging at his hair.

"Sensitive?" He asks, drawing back in tune with your pulling.

Nodding your head, "very." Carefully, you reach up, taking hold of those silver frames and lifting them off of his face. Only intending to gently place them somewhere safe, but Bob's faster, taking them from you and tossing them to the kitchen countertop with a loud clatter.

"I was trying to be careful," you pout, feigning hurt.

Bob chuckles at that, already returning to your neck, "need new ones anyway."

There's not a doubt in your mind that there's going to be a few marks on your neck in the morning, not with the way he sucks at that same spot and soothes over it with his tongue, only to repeat it in a neat little line to your collarbone. This position leaves you with no other option but to squeeze your legs tighter around him and pant into his ear.

His hands are wandering again, up and down your ass, dipping under the thin band of your panties but never staying for too long. Cock grinding into you, such a feeling that makes you twitch around nothing, simply from the reminder of how big he feels between your legs.

"Robert—"

"—I know, darlin', I know," voice husky and deep as he momentarily draws his hips back, holding you up with one strong hand as he fishes himself out of his sweats.

His cock hits your inner thigh with a soft sound, still wet from your mouth. There's no option to remove your panties in this position. The most you can do is reach down and push them to the side, but oh the feeling of his head dragging between your folds could kill you right here and now.

Circling against your clit, the first attention it's gotten all day, and it is delicious. You almost wish he would get you off just like this, just the tip of his cock rubbing against that sensitive little button until you're cumming just from that. But then he's dragging back down and catching on your entrance, and you realize that the idea will just have to wait for a time when you're too sore to take him.

"Do you want me to open you up a little bit more?" Sweet, sweet Bob, who always has to keep asking questions, too afraid of hurting you on accident.

Impatient, you lock your legs behind his waist and push down, forcing the thick head of his cock into your pussy without warning. It's been so long that you've almost forgotten how thick he is; there's a dull sting that's already settling between your legs. However, that's completely forgotten in favor of watching his eyelashes flutter, baby blue irises momentarily drawing into the back of his head at the feeling.

"Fuck."

You take pride in being the only reason Bob Floyd will swear.

Gently, he sinks into you, stretching you open around him. Opening you up a little bit more may have been helpful because even you can feel just how tight you are. The slow drag of his cock against your gummy walls is dizzying, has Bob pressing your foreheads together as you both pant, overwhelmed by the feeling. Every time he comes home, it's like the first time all over again.

"So tight, sweetheart," he cooes, right against your lips, "almost all the way, I promise."

And somehow, he manages to delve even deeper, to places that your little vibrator can never seem to reach. So full that you feel like you can't breathe, unable to take a full breath with him opening you up like this.

His hips press flush against yours, bottoming out entirely, and for some reason, you're concerned that he may just keep going, even now.

"Who knew you were this fucking big," you gasp. Even after all these years, even you manage to forget his size.

"Who knew I was comin' home just to find you in the tiniest little dress I've ever seen," already drawing back because he knows your cues better than you do, "and to think I almost didn't get to see it."

There's something you want to say, some little recollection about how when you'd fantasized about him coming home and bending you over the bed the moment you put this little garment on. But you can't get it out, not when he's drawing out until he's about halfway and then snaps his hips back in, a little half thrust that knocks the breath right out of you.

Stars sparkle behind your eyelids as he does it again and again, hard, short thrusts that take their time on the drag out. Such an overwhelming feeling that only seems to build each time the head of his cock kisses that little gooey spot along your walls. Over and over on each bypass makes you flutter around him and your hips start to squirm, unsure if you want more or to escape it.

"Oh, you feel so good," he gasps, "I should've come home sooner, fuck—"

Your nails bite into his clothed shoulder, struggling for purchase on anything that will keep you from falling after every hard thrust. Oh, it feels so good, the way he stretches you open, how he never seems to miss that sweet spot that makes you grow wetter and wetter until each thrust is punctuated with a soft squelch.

"Bob, Bob," you chant like a mantra. Like it's the only word you can remember.

His pace is changing, quickening, as soon as he's pulling out, he's already pressing back inside, can't punch the breath out of you anymore because you can't even breathe now. Feels so, so good that you don't realize your mouth has fallen open, whimpering so loud that it echoes throughout the kitchen.

"'M already close," he warns, and without missing a beat, he takes one of your hands off his shoulder. His soft tongue wets the bottom of your index and middle finger, guides you down between your legs, "touch yourself for me, sweetheart."

As soon as your wet fingers find your neglected clit, a shudder ripples throughout your body, your pussy clenching down around his pistoning cock. Your skin feels like it's been set alight, walls twitching and beginning to spasm as your entire body begins to shake.

You're close too, so, so close.

"Baby, baby, baby," Bob whines, his head tilting back, "fuck, can—can feel you spasming around me."

It hits him first, seemingly by surprise, because one minute he's weakly looking you in the eye; the next, his eyes are fluttering closed, and his hips are just about slamming into you, drilling directly into your sweet spot just one more time. You've got no choice other than to feel his cock pulsate inside of you as his hips hold you down, and like a freight train, you cum too. Trembling, crying out as you bury your head into his sweaty shoulder and cum around him.

The world is spinning, everything turning white as it washes over you in tidal waves, so overwhelming that your entire body downright tingles.

"Talk about a hell of a welcome home," Bob mumbles directly into your ringing ear, and you don't know how long it's been because it feels like you've just woken up from a dream.

"Welcome home, loser," barely strong enough to lift your head and kiss his cheek, "have fun cleaning up the mess you've made between my legs."

It's weak, but you feel his cock twitch inside of you. "I'm sure I can fuck it out of you in the shower."

You're not sure if you'll be able to walk when Christmas day finally rolls around.

583 notes · View notes

chickycherrycola · 12 days

Text

perfect

Happy SoMa Day to all who celebrate! A national holiday, as far as I'm concerned 😋I offer a fluffy, bite-sized little ficlet as my contribution, which features some of my favorite Soma tropes - grumpy Soul, domestic fluff, accidental cuteness, and BREAKFAST - all in less than 1k words!

Read it on AO3, or under the cut in its entirety!

“You’ll feel better once you have some food in you.”

Soul knows she’s right–Maka is almost always right, not that he’d willingly admit it–but still, he’s choosing to gripe about it.

He gripes about it all the way from his motorcycle to the glass entry doors of the restaurant, through the tightening of his meister’s grip on his wrist, until they're sliding into plush, squeaky booth seats and the hostess is shoving menus into their hands with a stifled smirk.

He bitches a little less, however, when his eyes fall upon the wide selection of food items displayed on the pages of said menus, as he flips through the smorgasbord of breakfast offerings. Banana nut pancakes and huevos rancheros, Belgian waffles and eggs benedict florentine. This place has every breakfast delicacy under the sun.

Unfortunately, the rest of the population of this po-dunk little Midwestern town must know this, too, as the restaurant is packed, and harbors every social annoyance under the sun as well.

Screaming toddlers. Middle-aged brunchers clinking their glasses of mimosa too loudly. Elderly couples staring at him obviously, their expressions aghast with horror. A crowd of servers gathered around a nearby table, presenting a young girl with a stack of birthday pancakes as they sing to her.

His head hurts, they got back to their hotel room after the mission way too late, and he’s running on a less-than-optimal amount of sleep. He wants to shovel a giant plate of scrambled eggs and bacon into his face and then promptly crash into the nearest sleep-able surface.

Soul groans and lets his head fall to the table, his forehead meeting wood with a heavy thunk. Moments later, there’s the all-too-familiar sensation of a pinch to his ear.

“You’re such a grump,” Maka giggles.

“I’m allowed.”

“Never said you weren’t,” she replies. He waits for her to continue berating him–’sit up straight already’ or ‘stop breathing on the table, it’s disgusting’- but she doesn’t. He rolls his head around, angling his eyes up to look at her, and finds her attention focused elsewhere.

“Isn’t this place just the cutest?” she muses. “I love the décor. It’s so cozy and welcoming.”

She’s gazing out at the room beyond, a twinkle of delight in her eyes as she takes it all in. Soul notices, too, for the first time–opposite them is a flickering fireplace framed by a brick hearth, and whimsical works of modern art hang upon every wall. Strategically placed ivy plants bring some color to the dining room, their jade-green, star-shaped leaves cascading down in long, elegant tendrils.

And on the wall of the booth they’re presently seated at, a lushly textured panel of artificial greenery. Maka’s flaxen head contrasts nicely against the darker shade, and–it would make for a lovely photo backdrop.

“Hey.” He sits up, suddenly feeling invigorated, and reaches a hand into the back pocket of his jeans to retrieve his phone. “Smile for me real quick?”

Maka blinks at him. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you… are you taking a picture of me?”

“No, I’m checking the weather for our flight home later,” Soul deadpans. In response, Maka sticks her tongue out at him and wrinkles her nose in an exaggerated grimace. Soul shrugs and hits the camera button, forever immortalizing the moment on digital film, and Maka blanches when she realizes he’s snapped a photo.

“H-Hey! Delete that!”

“No.”

“W-Well, take another one at least–”

“Pose nicely, then.”

Maka pouts, her cheeks visibly flushed and her brows cinched together, but before he can get that expression on film, she composes herself–adjusts her pigtails and straightens her spine, schools her face into a pleasant, soft smile. Soul lines her up in the viewfinder of his camera app, and–

Snap.

He examines the photo for several minutes, eyes darting between his meister and the image of her on his phone screen, before nodding subtly to himself.

“Well? How do I look?”

“Perfect.”

His fingers tap, tap, tap away as he uploads the picture to his story, witty caption and all–’She dragged me to a bougie brunch place instead of letting me sleep in’- and doesn’t realize Maka has fallen silent until he’s hit the post button.

When he puts his phone down and looks at her once again, she's staring at him with a strange expression on her face, her bottom lip between her teeth and her cheeks a shade of scarlet nearly rivaling his eyes.

“What?” he asks.

Maka clears her throat, runs a nervous finger idly around one of her pigtails and looks down at her lap.

“N-Nothing.”

At that moment, his phone pings–a reply to his story post from Black Star.

“Bro, you’re such a sap.”

#soul eater #soul x maka #SoMa Day #soul eater evans #maka albarn #soul eater fanfiction #cherry writes #fluff #ficlet #one shot #writers on tumblr #ao3 fanfic

35 notes · View notes

blurredcolour · 11 days

Text

In My Blood | Part Two

In My Blood Masterlist

Curtis "Curt" Biddick x SOE!Female Reader

It is no longer safe for you to remain in Belgium. With the Gestapo closing in, Curt is finally ready to make his escape with you. But is it too late?

Warnings: MAJOR canon divergence, Language, Violence, Weapons, Spy Craft, Detailed Description of Murder, Death, Injuries, Angst, Grief, Fear, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: This story contains revisionist history, read at your own risk. Reader is half-Belgian, half-English and has been given an extensive backstory and family tree. While they have been given the codename of "Marie," no physical descriptions or Y/N are used.

Italics used for non-English words and to indicate dialogue spoken in a language other than English.

This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 6929

-------------------------

May 3, 1940

“Honestly Papa,” You protested in French, threading the telephone cord between your fingers as the line crackled and hummed with the standard overseas audio distortions,“I do not understand why you will not let me come home, nothing has happened in months–”

“Enough, my little monster,” Your father’s voice gently but firmly cut you off. “We have been over this a thousand times, it is simply too dangerous for you to leave England with war declared. Yes, it is quiet at the moment, but it is only a matter of time now that the weather has grown warm.”

Your eyes scanned across the neatly appointed Edwardian writing desk in your grandmother’s study before turning to eye the drizzly gardens of the Dower House through the spotless window behind you.

“If it is so dangerous, why do you and Mama insist on staying in Brussels? You are both more important than me and if those Nazi bastards invade you know that’s where they’re headed – straight for you.”

“Come, come now, don’t let your mother hear you using that language.” His chastisement was half-hearted and filled with laughter, pulling a reluctant grin from you. “Belgium is neutral, firstly, but if the worst happens, we will simply flee to the house in Wallonia. Chin-up my little monster, we are made of sterner stuff, are we not?”

“Yes, Papa,” You replied, feeling somewhat reassured and heartened, “we truly are.”

------------

October 28, 1943

The collision of your spine against the brick wall drove the air from your lungs, a strangled noise of pain seeping from your throat as the broken end of a bolt that had once affixed something to the side of the building tore through the fabric of your blouse and dug into the meat of your right upper arm. Gritting your teeth as your eyes watered at the searing pain and warm gush down your sleeve, your grip tightened on the handle of your knife, swinging it higher towards the vulnerable neck of the man you had lured into this alleyway.

He had been following you for at least twenty minutes, Gestapo most likely, on your way to pick up some material to then courier to another contact. You had been unsuccessful at losing him, and with the sun setting and curfew nearly upon you, confrontation had remained your only option. While sneaking out after curfew was perilous enough, being caught out around the fall of curfew was nearly suicidal. Parking your bike in front of a well-attended pub, you had made your way across the town square, wending your way through the emptying streets before ducking into this very alley to lay in wait.

Unfortunately for you, the man had proven to be much larger than you had first estimated, and along with a brutal case of halitosis, each sour breath assaulting your senses as it impacted your face, he was easily overpowering you, slowly turning your knife in your grip, threatening to use your own weapon against you. Unfortunately for him, you had been trained in all the ‘ungentlemanly’ ways one could undertake warfare, and he was utterly unprepared for the collision of your foot with his most tender parts.

A sound consisting of an intriguing mixture of a yelp and a wheeze escaped his mouth as he fell back, his oppressive weight finally easing off you. Seizing the momentum, you quickly struck with your blade, meeting the weak block of his forearm and drawing a yowl this time. While he was not proving to be a quiet kill, thankfully his racket resembled an alley cat, and could be explained away if necessary. Heart hammering in your ears, breaths coming in quick gasps under the heady influence of your own adrenaline, you swung the blade home into the defenseless flesh of his neck and tugged forward, sealing your opponent’s fate as he crumpled to the worn cobblestones.

Taking several awkward steps backward, you inhaled deep, greedy gulps of air as the man exhaled his last and grew still. It was both relieving and unsettling. Casting about for the large metal bins you had glimpsed earlier, you darted across the alley to quickly remove the lids from both, shifting the filthy contents from one into the other to make space for your deposit. Returning to his lifeless form, you assessed his bulk before struggling to strip him of his large, navy wool coat before dragging him down the alley and hoisting him into his final resting place. The wound in your triceps screamed in agonized protest with every breath until you had resecured the lid, the scene unremarkable enough in the long shadows of evening.

Shrugging into the bulky coat to conceal the damage to your blouse and retrieving your luggage, discarded moments before the altercation began, you forced yourself to exit the alley at a perfectly normal pace in the direction of Doctor Legot’s clinic, trusty bicycle abandoned for the sake of a speedy departure. Reaching the clinic well after closing, you slid around the back, setting down your suitcase to root around in the hedges for the upturned pot hiding the spare key known to only a select few. You took a moment to compose yourself, taking a deep breath and brusquely wiping at the tears of discomfort that had been stubbornly welling in your eyes the entire journey.

The lock turned soundlessly under your practiced hand, the door swinging inward to an unexpected shaft of light spilling from the patient washroom. Peering around the doorjamb, your eyes widened to see Curt standing at the small sink in the powder room, stripped down to his undershirt, carefully dragging a safety razor across one lathered cheek. Exhaustion and injury got the better of you, making you sway unsteadily, forcing you to catch yourself on the frame of the door, immediately attracting his attention.

“Marie?” He turned to look at you, well-defined muscles of his arms flexing with his movements, shaving cream adorably still adorning a great deal of his face.

Hastily lurching forward into the clinic, you quickly closed and latched the door behind you, depositing your luggage and shoulder bag before shrugging out of the claustrophobic overcoat.

“Jesus Christ, look at you!” His outburst, followed by the sound of his razor hitting the porcelain bowl of the sink, made you drop your gaze to your clothes, only to be greeted by the sight of your late opponent’s blood drenching the fabric.

“Oh, do not fret about me…” You had hoped to put on a display of bravado, but your voice was aggravatingly thin, “…the other fellow is much worse off.”

His startlingly warm palms cupping your elbows made your head jerk back up, meeting his furrowed brow, eyes darkened with concern. “That isn’t very comforting, gorgeous.” He muttered and began tugging you towards Doctor Legot’s office where a crack of light shone from beneath the door. “Doc?” He barked out before open the door without any further preamble.

Only a small noise of protest sounded before the doctor was shooting to his feet, quickly ushering you to take his recently vacated chair, rapidly looking you over before his eyes settled on your arm.

“I’m not going to ask how such misfortune befell you, Marie. I am a wiser man than that. But what, specifically, happened to your arm?” He murmured in Dutch as he retrieved a set of suture scissors to begin cutting away the sleeve of your ruined shirt.

“I backed into the shorn off end of a bolt with rather a bit of force.” You sighed wearily, glancing at Curt who remained in the room, eyeing the pair of you intensely from where he leaned against a filing cabinet. “Why is your guest upstairs?”

Your sentence ended in a hiss as you inhaled sharply through your teeth at the feeling of the doctor’s fingers prodding at the wound on the back of your upper arm.

“He cut himself shaving by candlelight one too many times. Once the cast came off, we made an agreement he could come upstairs between closing and dinner to wash up. You’ve had your tetanus vaccine?”

As Legot began to aggressively paint your wound with disinfectant, you pressed your lips together tightly against any further mortifying outbursts, and thus only managed a nod in confirmation.

“Good.” The room fell silent as he applied a square of gauze to your wound, securing it in place by wrapping your arm in a bandage, tying it off.

Your eyes drifted back to Curt who had not seemed to move an inch, not even changed position, the shaving cream on his face drying out, growing crusty against his skin. His silence was perhaps the most unnerving thing you had encountered this evening, his voice seeming to have filled every waking encounter you’d had with him thus far.

“It’s a lot of blood…” He muttered, eyes rising from your clothes, marred by scarlet quickly turning a mottled brown as the blood dried and aged.

“Mostly someone else’s.” You reminded him gently, earning a non-plussed grunt in reply.

A heavy sigh fell from the Doctor Legot’s lips, making you look up at him slowly. “Marie there has been…an increase in the Gestapo around town. A contact of mine was even questioned about a woman bearing a remarkable resemblance to you. And now that you seem to have had a run in, I’m…concerned.”

Despite similar thoughts ricocheting about your brain the entire flight back to his clinic, the breath you drew in felt like it contained thousands of tiny shards of glass which imbedded themselves deep inside your breast as you heard it from an external source. Rationally, to have survived so many months in your occupation was a feat worth celebrating.

An SOE agent typically had a life expectancy of six months, and yet to watch your ability to remain in Belgium, to remain useful to your fellow Belgians, crumble before you was incredibly painful. You allowed your exhale to accumulate in your cheeks before releasing it all at once through pursed lips with a nod, the feeling of having failed your people, your family, once again a yawning pit deep in your gut.

“It is time for me to move on.” You conceded flatly.

“If you are headed in a certain direction, might you be able to take a certain guest with you?” He asked with a nod in the American’s direction.“Couriers are still stretched thin.”

Your eyes widened slowly as it dawned on you that it was well over two months since Curt had become a guest in his cellar and should be well on his way to Spain by now. “He is well enough to travel then? Have they made him papers yet?” Your rapid-fire questions were greeted by frantic blinking from the doctor before he nodded quickly in the affirmative to both.

Turning back to Curt you tilted your head, reinvigorated by the chance to be useful one last time as you tried to remove yourself from occupied Europe, saving another’s life infinitely more important than simply trying to preserve your own. “Tell me, Curt, are you ready to head back to England?”

The apprehension that had drawn his features tight melted away, yielding to a bright smile, his eyes fairly sparkling with anticipation at the promise of beginning his escape at last. “You have no idea.”

You could do nothing to stop the uplift at the corner of your mouth in response, nodding slightly. “I’m going to change out of these clothes and then we’ll get ready to leave in the morning.”

Straightening from his lean against the cabinet, he moved to the door. “I’ll just go grab…” His voice trailed off as he disappeared down the hall before returning with your suitcase, setting it on the floor with a nod before departing once more, not loitering long enough to accept your gratitude.

Legot produced an old flour sack for you to deposit any clothes beyond saving, to be burned upstairs in his fireplace, before leaving you alone in his office. Feeling the chill of autumn in your damp clothes, you quickly stripped, using a towel to wipe any bloody remnants from your skin with water from the sink in the corner of the room, before changing into fresh clothing. Your mind was already occupied with plotting your route – to Antwerp, fetching supplies from the small flat you kept as a base of operations there, and then boarding a train to the border before crossing on foot then onto another train at Lille to Toulouse before meeting up with the Ponzán group to be guided across the Pyrenees. But this time, you would be one of the party making the crossing in neutral Spain.

Bringing your damp towel to try and blot any blood from the pilfered overcoat, hoping to save it for Curt’s benefit during the mountain crossing to come, you turned off the office lights and headed toward the storeroom, grabbing the garment from the floor on the way. Dropping it through the open trapdoor followed by the wet towel, you smiled to Curt as he appeared below, passing him your suitcase with your good arm before beginning your own descent down the ladder. Pushed well beyond all possible limits, your battered and bandaged arm gave out at your demand to bear your body weight, a yelp escaping as your right hand lost its grip on the ladder as a result.

Strong hands quickly landed on your hips, steadying and supporting you.

“Easy, gorgeous, good as you got the guy, he still hurt you.” Curt muttered behind you, the fresh scent of soap and aftershave radiating from his warm skin as he helped you down the last few rungs.

“Th, thank you, Curt.” You stammered, hugging your throbbing limb close as your feet settled onto the cellar floor, watching him easily climb up the ladder to swing the heavy trapdoor shut almost silently even from inside. “You’ve come a long way in the past few weeks…”

He smirked a little, carrying your luggage over to set on the foot of your bed for you. “Been doing a lot of shadow boxing down here.”

“Boxing!” You breathed in surprise, gathering the abandoned coat from the crumpled heap it left on the floor, trying not to notice the way his muscles moved as he pulled on a thick knit sweater in the cool damp of your hiding space. “If I had known, I would have gotten comics related to your interest…”

“I enjoyed the ones you brought, even read the book too. My teachers would be proud.”

A small laugh escaped you as you settled onto the edge of the bed, inspecting the coat for bloodstains and methodically beginning to blot them out. His own laughed intertwined with yours all too melodically, making you swallow tightly.

“That coat is awful big for you, gorgeous.” He teased, watching you from where he stood at the end of your bed.

“It’s not for me, Curt, it’s for you – you’re going to need it where we’re headed. Just need to get all the blood out first.” You murmured, turning the right sleeve inside out knowing you had surely bled on it yourself.

“Do I get to know where we’re going?”

You peered up at him a moment before shaking your head. “Other than England. That will suffice for now. I will share the goal with you day by day, but the less you know the safer you will be. Aside from a few key portions, the majority of the trip will be by train to start. Tomorrow, though, we shall have to try something new.” You trailed off into a mutter at the last, wrestling with the heavy fabric, shooting him a grateful look as he grabbed the hem of the coat to help you position it, allowing you to reach one of the last stains.

“What’s so special about tomorrow?” He prodded, clearly still listening even though your final statement had more been musing aloud than for his ears.

Pausing a moment you sighed before meeting his eyes. “I suppose you ought to know that I appear to be a known entity to the Gestapo, at the very least locally, and so we will take extra evasive manoeuvres when we leave town. I shall be disguised, we will leave just before dawn, and avoid public transportation. I have a few ideas for how we might reach where we are going first, do not worry.” You offered a reassuring smile, to which he returned a small nod. “Jan will have been by the take your photo and give you papers?”

“Oh, yeah, nice fella if a bit quiet. Gave me a couple sets of papers.” He stepped over to his cot to retrieve two well forged sets of identity papers, bringing them over for you to inspect.

Laying the now-cleaned coat to dry across your suitcase, you accepted them from him, looking them over before holding out those in your left hand. “These are your Belgian papers. I suggest you put these in your usual pocket – the one you will reach for first, so that you can produce them as naturally as possible. We will destroy them as soon as we have left Belgium.” You watched as he took them from you.

“Belgian papers, got it.” Curt made a tiny salute with the papers before grabbing a leather jacket from the back of a small chair that was a new addition to the cellar, sliding them into the inner left breast pocket.

“And these,” you held out those in your right hand, “are your French papers. You will want to keep these close, in a safe place on your person, but not somewhere you will mistakenly hand them over until they are needed.”

His eyebrow shot up playfully. “Hold up, Marie, I thought you just said you weren’t going to tell me where we’re going…”

“Did I?” You blinked innocently and his guffaw of amusement threatened to pull another unintentional smile from you.

Since when had your expressions become so very difficult to control?

“The most important thing for you to remember on our journey,” you soldiered on despite your inner struggle, “is not to speak. Your voice absolutely gives away the fact that you do not belong here. Many of the airmen whom we guide find the most success by feigning deafness. It explains both their inability to speak and the fact that they do not understand the language.”

“You could just teach me French, or whatever you speak with Doc…”

“Flemish?” You found yourself fighting back laughter. “We do not have enough time for you to master either, Curt. We leave tomorrow. Now take your French papiers and get some sleep, we leave in a few hours.” You nodded firmly, but with a kind smile.

“You too, Marie, you need dinner or anything?”

Shaking your head softly, certain you could not bring yourself to eat even if you felt hungry, the pair of you settled in to sleep, the damp wool coat taking over the chair in the middle of the room to dry, looming in the flickering candlelight like some grim reminder of your actions. Huffing at your melodramatic thoughts, you pulled the blankets over your head and rolled over to get some rest.

As agreed upon, Legot woke the pair of you shortly after four with warm bread, apples, and granola. You could almost taste the ghost of butter, jam, sugar, and cream on your tongue – heavily rationed delights that had been hard to come by in England and all but non-existent here under Nazi rule. Downing your dry, brown breakfast, you opened your suitcase to retrieve a wig from its depths, gathering your hair and securing it beneath the false strands to disguise your apparently known appearance.

“I dunno Marie…” Curt’s musing were interrupted by an exaggerated yawn as he smoothed his hair with a pot of borrowed pomade. “Your natural hair looks so much prettier on you.”

Fighting the girlish urge to preen under his indirect compliment, you shook your head. “It’s a good thing I’m not trying to look pretty then, just different.”

“Well in that case you look nothing like your usual self.” He shrugged into his leather jacket before snagging the hard-won navy coat from the back of the chair and folded it in perhaps the most unmethodical way you had ever witnessed, but it still wound up flat and small enough to fit into his suitcase.

“Good.” You muttered and snapped the latches on your own luggage closed, heading over to the ladder to climb up.

“Wait, let me help you.” He hurried over, reaching out to grasp your waist. “You sure you can pull the cases up?”

Huffing a little, more in annoyance at being injured than his offers of help, you nodded firmly. “Absolutely.” Clenching your jaw, you forced your way up the ladder, stubbornly ignoring the ache in your still-healing arm, turning to reach out expectantly for the first piece of luggage once you were kneeling on the floor above.

A bemused expression greeted you before he easily hoisted the first, waiting until you had it tucked aside before sending the second up. Taking a moment to extinguish the candles still burning below, he then quickly ascended the ladder to join you, silently securing the trapdoor behind him.

“Right, this is it then.”

About to make your way down the hall to bid a final farewell to the doctor, you turned with a soft gasp to find him stand there with a small canvas bag of food.

“For your journey.” He held it out, nodding as Curt quickly stepped forward to sling it over his shoulder.

“Be safe, Doctor Legot, thank you for all your assistance.”

“The very same to you, Marie. Best of luck on your travels.”

A small, sentimental smile poked through your serious expression before your eyes widened. “If you are in need of a bicycle, mine remains outside the pub across from the town square. Farewell.”

At serious risk of lingering too long, you turned then and headed out the backdoor, glancing over your shoulder in the faint light of early morning to ensure Curt was following you. You kept a quick pace, cutting and winding through town towards a familiar farmyard, dairy cows grazing the fields, lowing softly, as the farmer and his daughters loaded containers of milk into the back of a worn truck. The sun had escaped the confines of the horizon by now, flooding the landscape with the golden light of an autumn sunrise as you cast another glance of confirmation over your shoulder, nearly tripping over your own feet at the unjustly stunning quality of Curt’s eyes in daylight.

“Whoa, easy.” He hurried a few steps forward to steady you by the elbow, catching the attention of Tillens who quickly sent his children back into the house.

“Hush.” You whispered firmly before waving to the farmer, who squinted at you a moment before relaxing as you greeted him warmly in Dutch.

“That you, Marie? You’ve done something new with your hair, didn’t even recognize you for a moment…”

“The point, I am afraid. Are you by any chance headed to Antwerp today?” You asked hopefully, stomach falling as he shook his head.

“Could take you to Brussels, but Antwerp is tomorrow.”

Brussels was the one place you avoided, far too many familiar faces and even more Nazis along with their collaborating government.

“How much could I offer to convince you to take us to Antwerp today?”

Tillens’ brown eyes studied your disguise before looking over at your companion. “It’s only one hour out of my way, Marie, for you there is no charge. Hop in the back and I’ll pack the rest of these around you.”

Your eyes widened before you quickly gestured Curt forward, digging into the bag on his shoulder and pulling out the loaf of the bread you found there. “Then please accept this, for your family.”

“Marie…” Tillens protested but you pushed it forward insistently and he accepted it with a grateful nod. “Thank you, every bit helps.”

“Thank you, for it truly does.” Grasping Curt’s elbow, you pointed into the back of the truck, watching him step up and weave his way towards the back.

Setting your suitcase on the tailgate, you reached for the handhold with your left arm, gasping as Curt’s hands were suddenly around your waist to hoist you in amongst the containers of milk.

“Gorgeous but stubborn.” He muttered under his breath, grabbing your suitcase and leading you over to a gap he had found just large enough for the pair of you to settle on the floor.

Pulling your shoulder bag against your body, you tucked your skirt beneath yourself as you sat down beside him, nodding to Tillens as he peered in at the pair of you before sealing you in with the last of his cargo.

“It’s about a two-hour drive, feel free to sleep.” You whispered, the back of the truck going dark as Tillens secured the doors shut, the motor growling to life shortly thereafter.

“So he speaks Flemish too?” Curt asked curiously as the vehicle jolted into motion and you nodded softly.

“It’s Dutch, really, with some regional differences. In the bigger cities you’ll find more of a mix of Flemish and French.”

“And you speak it all.” Curt smirked and you nodded, hugging your knees to your chest as the cargo rattled around you. “Really somethin’…” He muttered, leaning back to close his eyes and try to get some rest as you had suggested.

The drive smoothed out as the truck navigated onto the main road, and you felt yourself relax a little after the first hour of distance was put between you and Beverst. You were by no means out of danger – the Gestapo was an insidious organization, their network a far-reaching and interconnected tangle. The fact that at least one agent had come looking for you specifically meant that, if the entirety did not know of you yet, they soon would. You had to run all the way to be truly safe.

Of their own volition, your eyes drifted towards Curt’s sleeping form, his handsome face grown slack and soft in sleep, the youth of him both striking and painful. What would his life look like if Hitler had been able to keep his hands to himself…or better yet had never even come to power? What would your life look like? Certainly neither of you would be in the back of a dairy truck sneaking your way to Antwerp.

A roughened patch of road jostled his body, threatening to wake him and you quickly wrenched your eyes away, studying the handwritten labels from Tillens’ farm. Thankfully Curt remained asleep for the rest of the drive, the truck pulling to a stop amidst the hum of the city, and you gently prodded him awake with a shake to the shoulder.

“We’re here.” You whispered before pressing a finger to your lips and he nodded drowsily before straightening.

Light flooded into the back of the truck, the pair of you blinking owlishly as Tillens shifted the cargo to make a path of exit into a familiar alley. Climbing out carefully, you turned to unload the suitcases as Curt passed each, nodding sharply to the farmer before you and the airman assembled yourselves, and strolled casually out into the foot traffic on the sidewalk.

The interference and unpredictability of humans had you on edge, not appreciating the way Curt always seemed to be not where you expected him to be with every glance over your shoulder. After the fourth time you looked for him a little too long, your heart in your throat, you stepped around a rather annoying blonde making eyes at him, and seized his free hand with yours. To keep better track of him, of course. The fact that your throat tightened slightly as his blunt fingers wrapped around your hand in return, requiring a forceful swallow to clear it, was utterly irrelevant.

Turning the corner, you looked both ways before tugging on his hand, guiding him across the street to the unassuming building of flats from which you were intending to collect your warmer clothes and some other supplies. The sight of the rather nice car out front was the first sign that something was off. The next was the sound of your neighbour, an ancient, haggard woman named Josephine De Smet, speaking loudly in the stairwell, her creaking voice cascading down the tiled stairs to the lobby, halting your feet immediately.

Clearly distracted, Curt’s body collided with your back, forcing you to brace against the wall lest you topple over.

“Geez, why’d you sto–” His less-than-hushed whisper was cut off by your palm, forcefully freed from his grasp, slapping over his mouth as you quickly pushed him back into the corner of the lobby under the stairs, casting a sharp look at him before craning your ear back upwards.

Holding your breath, you listened intently, trying to hear the rest of the conversation. To confirm if the alarm bells ringing in your head were warranted.

“Just what has that hussy gotten herself mixed up in then, sir?” The old crone rasped in French, not her usual choice of language, and you pressed your lips into a line thin.

“I cannot say, madam, other than she is a monster and you’d best be wary.” The deep male voice, a German accent poisoning his pronunciation, made you inhale sharply through your nose.

Hand dropping from where it pressed against Curt’s remarkably plush and soft lips to grasp the lapel of his jacket, you pulled hard, yanking him out of the building and back onto the street. They were a lot closer on your trail than you had realized. Pulse rabbiting at your throat, you held your suitcase out to Curt in a silent request, grateful when he took it without question, following you as you took off down the sidewalk at a brisk clip.

Darting around the next corner, you led him on a chaotic, unpredictable, and hopefully untraceable path to a tramway stop several blocks away as you dug through your shoulder bag for the coins to make fare for both of you. Once that was secured, you traded his fare for your suitcase, tucking your own coins into the pocket of your light jacket, trying to suppress your grimace at the loss of your winter clothes in that now unvisitable flat. The feeling of Curt’s sturdy hand slipping into yours, enveloping your skin in warmth and his strong grip, halted you for half a step before releasing some of the tension in your lungs.

Propelling forward across the street, the pair of you jumped onto the tram just as it was about to pull away, shuffling into the heart of the crowded carriage to purchase your tickets and keep your faces away from the windows. It was not an overly warm ride to Antwerpen-Centraal station, but you could certainly feel sweat prickling in your armpits and rolling down your back between your shoulder blades. Tugging on Curt’s sleeve, you disembarked one stop short with him and ducked into an alley to yank the wig free, hanging your head upside down to shake out your hair before repining it. It surely looked sad, but given that identity papers were required to board a train, you needed to resemble your photo and thus the wig was shoved into a nearby trash bin.

“We will be asked for papers, there will be a lot of soldiers, try to remain relaxed and do as I do.” You whispered to Curt, and he nodded, patting the left breast of his pocket with an easy smile, though you watched his adam’s apple bob sharply as he swallowed. “We will be buying tickets and travelling to the border where will stop for the night, alright?”

“Lead on, gorgeous.” He nodded and turned to following you toward the grand, stone-clad station built at the turn of the century.

The presence of Nazi soldiers was pronounced, their bright red swatiskas flashing about the otherwise pleasant square like blemishes on a beautiful face. Keeping your expression perfectly neutral yet pleasant, confident yet not cocky, you took a moment to exhale slowly as you made it past the first hurdle into the building before heading to the ticket counter, requesting two tickets to Kortrijk. It was nothing short of a miracle that you managed a polite nod rather than kissing the ticket seller full on the mouth when he informed you the train would be leaving in twenty minutes. Pulling the bills from your bag, you accepted the tickets in return before leading Curt to track three.

Rolling your shoulders in and down your back, you confidently offered your identity papers to the Nazi soldier standing at the carriage door, immensely pleased when Curt did the same without prompting.

“Where are you two headed?” The soldier asked in clipped, stilted French, his piercing blue eyes wholly unsettling as they flicked between you and Curt before coming back to you.

“Kortrijk, sir.” You answered simply.

If he wanted to know more, he would need to ask more. You certainly had a lie prepared should he require one. He made a noise of displeasure, looking over your shoulder, implying the accumulation of other passengers.

“Off you go.” He grunted, returning both sets of papers to you and you nodded rapidly, climbing aboard quickly, even as your arm shook under the strain of hauling your body up the steps.

Shuffling down the hallway of the carriage, you at last came to an empty compartment, stepping inside and setting your luggage on the bench. As soon as Curt stepped in behind you, you slid the door shut behind him, knowing it was rude with a full train but not wanting anyone else to join you. As you turned back, he was already hoisting your suitcase up onto the luggage rack, making you smile fondly.

“Merci.” You murmured, hoping he would understand your meaning.

Judging by his responding smile, it seemed he certainly did. Despite your longing to collapse onto the bench seat, you sat with decorum, trying not to stare at your watch and count down the minutes. As the last whistle blew and the cars at last shunted into motion, you finally relaxed back into the cushion behind you.

“Is it always like that?” Curt whispered and you shot him a rueful look before shaking your head.

“I am deeply sorry, that…that is solely a complication of traveling with me right now.” You murmured in response, digging out his ticket and papers, returning them to him. “The conductor will arrive closer to our destination to check your ticket, then we show the papers again in the station after we detrain.”

You watched as he carefully took the items and tucked them back into his inner pocket.

“No apologies, gorgeous. We’re both not wanted here, so it’s a good thing we’re leaving.” He nodded and you looked out the window when rain pelted the glass as the train left the shelter of the station, biting the inside of your cheek savagely to keep your emotions in check. “Why don’t we have some lunch?”

He started to root around in the bag from Legot and you forced a smile, sharing the few apples and the small wedge of cheese, akin to a rare jewel, that the man had gifted the two of you with. After a minor squabble over who ought to be resting, Curt finally gave up and obstinately remained awake as you insisted that you must, staring out the window as the fields of Flanders rolled by. The train made numerous stops until the conductor arrived to check your tickets, signalling you were about to arrive in Kortrijk, the final stop.

Courtesy of your preparation, the process went remarkably smooth, and the pair of you stepped off the train once Curt had retrieved the suitcases from overhead. Another successful check of your papers and you were melting into the population freshly departing from their workday and making their way home. Within thirty minutes, you had arrived at an unassuming home on the southern edge of town, knocking the door in the prescribed way.

A young woman with a toddler perched on her hip opened the door, eyeing each of you cautiously.

“May I help you?” She asked in Dutch.

“Good afternoon, Ma’am. We were wondering if you might be interested in some new cosmetics?” You smiled broadly, delivering the passphrase.

A flash of recognition crossed her delicate features, her plump cheeks flushing in excitement as she briefly went rigid before she reined in her emotions. “Why don’t you come in and show me what you have for sale…” She stepped back, holding the door open wider for you and Curt to step inside.

Once the door was secured behind you, she led you through her small but tidy home up the narrow stairs to a small half door before opening it slowly.

“Here you are, dinner will take some time.”

“Whatever you can spare is truly appreciated, thank you.” You thanked her softly, sliding your suitcase into the attic before crouching down to crawl in after it.

The space was smaller than Legot’s cellar but larger than the back of Tillens’ dairy truck, enough room for each of you to lay flat, high up in the very peak of the small house. It was not a safe house you would have employed for a larger group. For the first time, you were grateful it was nearly November and not the heat of summer.

“Ouch!” Curt hissed as he cracked his head on a low beam, and you frowned, shifting up onto your knees to make sure he was alright. “Yeah, yeah, m’fine Marie, just an idiot.” He gave you a lopsided grin and you shook your head.

“Sorry it’s not the Ritz, but it’s not a cellar either?” You tilted your head hopefully.

“Never stayed at the Ritz, you?” He asked, settling onto the centuries-old wooden planks beside you.

“Hmmm.” You hummed noncommittally. “She says she’ll have something for us to eat in a bit, we will rest and then start out walking after midnight.”

“Walk…?” He prompted, eyebrow raised.

“It is not easy to cross the border, we cannot simply take the train into France, so we must walk. It is best to do so at night, and even better to do so rested. I promise we can linger a little longer at our next place, but we must get out of Belgium.” Despite your efforts to quash it, a slight tremor remained in your voice and Curt shot you a look of sympathy and utterly threatened your ability to maintain your composure. “So sleep.” You tacked on firmly and pulled off your jacket, folding it up to make a pillow before laying on your side with your back to him.

There was a decidedly awkward silence as he remained seated, looming above you, before laying down with a heavy exhale, clearly frustrated with you. Well that made two of you.

Dinner arrived two hours later with a soft knock, driving home the fact that you had not slept, but the warm vegetable hash was so very welcome and filling, giving you hope that you might be able to actually fall asleep for the last few hours of your stay here. As you lay back down onto your make-shift pillow, Curt’s breaths almost immediately evened out into the heavy sighs of sleep, making your lips twitch in a mixture of annoyance and amusement. Yet as you closed your eyes, all that echoed through your mind was the voice of your father ‘mon petit monstre’ and the Gestapo agent from the stairwell of your flat building ‘elle est un monstre.’

Petit monstre

Un monstre

Monstre

Grief clawed at your throat, making you sit up sharply as you gasped for air, eyes brimming with tears as the realization that you would never again hear that nickname in your father’s voice – that it would now only come to you by way of anger and insult – sank like a stone in the pit of your stomach. Sniffling petulantly as your nose began to run, you jumped at the feeling of Curt’s hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong…” He whispered groggily, shifting closer.

Shaking your head quickly, you roughly wiped the tears from your eyes trying to hide the evidence, huffing as the action only caused fresh ones to spill onto your cheeks.

“Don’t tell me then, just c’mere.” He replied and gathered you into his arms, cradling you close against his chest.

Every muscle in your body went rigid at first, your rational, well-trained self knowing this was utterly inappropriate. And yet…

And yet, he was so warm, so kind, and he was holding you so tightly that maybe you could fall apart just a little without crumbling entirely. Surrendering to the fact that no arms had attempted to hold and comfort you in years, you yielded to his embrace, becoming pliant as you loosened the clenched-fist-grip on your grief just a little, allowing tears to slide freely down your cheeks in the darkness of that attic as his palm soothed up and down your spine.

“Shhh, I’m right here, you’re not alone…”

How very much you wanted to believe him.

-------------------------

Read Part Three

In My Blood Masterlist

Tag list: @precious-little-scoundrel, @luminouslywriting, @polikabra, @beingalive1

#curtis biddick x reader #curt biddick x reader #curtis biddick #curt biddick #mota fanfic #mota fic #masters of the air fanfiction #mota #masters of the air

41 notes · View notes

bfpnola · 1 year

Text

Hey. It's @reaux07. If you remember my last angry history rant on Paul Robeson, I'm back for Part 2. This time? King Leopold II and his relationship to the Congo. I just finished writing a 5-page, single-spaced essay on this for class, so I'll do my best to summarize in bullet points this time rather than chunky paragraphs. This will still be long though, as a warning, but it's a necessary read. Please let me get through this, because y'all know this hurts to write.

Trigger warnings for... just about everything typically associated with mass colonization (e.g. rape, murder, torture, etc.). Tiktok below as a brief introduction first:

King Leopold II of Belgium, due to his personal unpopularity and lack of love from his parents, had low self-esteem. As his father had already made 50 attempts to colonize foreign lands to no avail, Leopold felt the only way to uplift both himself and his country was to take take control of his own colony.

He checked Sarawak, the New Hebrides, the Fiji Islands, and the Philippines. Nothing. But what was left? The Congo.

How did he learn of the Congo? Leopold hired Henry Morton Stanley, a famous Welsh explorer of the time, to cross Africa from east to west, walking and canoeing 7,000 miles.

Upon the Congo's discovery, Leopold turned his palace into a luxury hotel for the delegates of a new conference to discuss Africa's colonization, supervising every detail. He successfully lied to the major powers of Europe, making claims of charitable and philanthropic aims, and that there would be free trade amongst the African colonies. (And yes, he did give every single attendee a painting of his face... Because he could.)

Meanwhile, back in the Congo, Stanley (the explorer I just mentioned) used bribes and trickery to provide official treaties with the various chiefs of the land in case Leopold ever needed legal proof of land ownership. (Ex of said trickery: One report noted that a village assumed "the white man controlled the sun.")

In 1891 and 1892, Leopold released decrees stating that both vacant land and produce of the forests exclusively belonged to Belgium and that natives could only harvest for the state.

Enforcing Leopold’s rule were 16,000 Africans equipped with modern Belgian-made automatic rifles.

Outing Attempt #1: One African American man, George Washington Williams, during his trip compiled a report to be sent to the American secretary of state. In this letter, Williams remembers bets being taken on who could shoot the native people in the head first, among other instances of vile treatment. While the document never made it back to Williams’ home country, it was eventually found in Europe where he later died.

By this point, the Congo was actually ruining Leopold’s finances and he was growing desperate. But to his surprise, he happened to pick the one spot where rubber grew in abundance, just as the demand for cars and bicycles rose internationally, John Dunlop, a Scottish veteran, having just invented the first pneumatic tire.

Because of this, rubber-prominent areas were the targets of mass exploitation and punishment if daily and weekly rubber quotas were not met.

Missionaries began to write not just to one another, but back home in disgust of these aforementioned “punishments,” one man’s writings put in missionary magazines and national newspapers in Europe. These punishments included rape, tying people up to trees, cutting off men's heads and genitals to be displayed along the fences of Congolese villages, cutting women’s breasts off, and most notably...

Attempt #2: The world, if only momentarily, saw BASKETS after BASKETS of right hands that had been cut off as proof that each of the cartridges given to the Africans had been fired and killed one of their own people. These hands were then smoked for preservation and brought back to their officers.

What did Leopold do once this information came out alongside photos of child mutilation? Acknowledge the abuses and moved on almost immediately.

In Europe, the rubber was processed in a city called Antwerp, ironically named after a mythological giant who also cut off hands. To this day, the connection between such a name and Belgian history has not been made by the general public as countless documents by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are kept secret to maintain an image of untouched royalty.

One commissioner in charge of a district in Congo, Leon Fievez, produced one ton of rubber a day, boasting of 1,000 people killed, 162 villages destroyed, burning gardens and plantations so people would starve, and having “only” used 3,000 cartridges. He was nicknamed the “Devil of the Equator” and rightly so.

Attempt #3: One day, a man named Charles Stokes, a British trader working for the Germans, entered the picture. Stokes was arrested for trading in state territory, despite those former claims of free trade, and sentenced to death. Leopold was forced to pay compensation to both Britain and Germany for his death, both countries now increasingly aware of the Congo’s dark reality.

To cover it up, Leopold made claims of the Congo opening up to new companies. Let's be real: His men were on the boards of all these new companies and he took 50% of the profits.

In particular were these "concession companies" where the "hostage system" was set up. Agencies, with official hostage licenses authorizing such, would take the wives of rubber collectors for up to 15 days until the quota was met.

On the 15th day, the men of the Congo either got their wives back or faced further punishment, often death. For the agents, the 15th day meant it was time to calculate commissions, and for the king? It was proof that this new hostage system worked.

These abusive concession companies lasted over 10 years until formal competition arose in South America and Asia.

Attempt #4: Then came Edmund Dene Morel, a half-French, self-taught shipping clerk turned investigative journalist who wrote in The Speaker of the abuses faced by the Congolese, backed up by evidence, not just speculations.

Due to Morel’s growing specialization in West African affairs, he was able to not only send out 15,000 brochures and 3,700 letters in six months after his move to Wales, but start his own newspaper, West African Mail.

By 1903, Roger Casement, an ally to Morel’s cause, spent two months traveling the upper Congo, recording African testimonies. He, too, realized that missionaries were key witnesses and went to visit Joseph Clark (a missionary of 20 years) for 17 days.

Through these reports, which grew to 50 pages in length, Casement and Morel were able to solidify Belgium as perpetuating the worst colonial system Africa had ever known. Punishments included Africans performing public incest for the colonists' entertainment, decapitation, women being stabbed with wooden spikes up their vaginas, and one woman tied up to a tree and slashed straight in half from her left shoulder through her abdomen and out the other side.

The West African Mail even reported on a part of Congo no one knew existed, private property within private property called the “Crown Domain” on the other side of Lake Tumba, which gained 231 million euros alone, all sent directly to King Leopold II. Crown Domain was 10x 5)3 size of Belgium.

Founded by Morel, Liverpool became the headquarters of a coalition called the Congo Reform Association. He also published a book called Red Rubber (1906). I think you’ll find the cover particularly striking! Check out the hand in the bottom right corner being weighed against King Leopold II on the left.

Leopold obviously not having this, commissioned a number of books and monthly magazines to clear up the mess. This didn't work. Obviously.

He even tried to send his own international commission to control what the Congolese said in 1904, to no avail. This was due to a missionary named John Harris who had taken the accounts of various people in the area and sent them back to Morel.

In one particularly heartbreaking moment, a chief brought to Leopold’s judges 110 twigs for each of the entire villages, not just people, killed by the Belgian state, naming every last one.

By the time they returned to Europe, the governor-general committed suicide and, upon being asked, Harris suggested Leopold should be sent to the gallows by the relatively new International Court of Justice.

The commission's report vindicated Casement and Morel. Leopold had tricked no one. EVERYONE in Belgium was calling him out.

Leopold ordered all of the Congo State Records to be burned.

In 1908, the Congo became a Belgian colony, not longer Leopold’s personal property. The state still made claims of "civilizing" the Africans after Leopold's death though, utilizing the leftover mineral exploitation industry with no guilt.

At least during his funeral, which he was denied of having privately, the entire city booed his body <3 well deserved. By this point, he had become Europe’s most hated man of the time.

And in case you were wondering, Casement and Morel were both accused to pro-German sympathies during WWI and executed.

I would like to add more detail but I think I’ve hit a character limit. Just know that Congo’s population was cut in HALF, in some places as much as 60-90%. Villages after villages were burned, as shown through so many soldiers’ and missionaries’ journals. This was a genocide of over 10 MILLION PEOPLE y’all. Hearing this story was truly SICKENING, but here’s the BBC 4 documentary we watched for class for more: Congo: White King, Red Rubber, and Black Death.

What truly gets me is just how OTHER colonizers were calling this man out after finding out the full truth… For me, that feels like extra proof of how truly messed up this was if THEY were disturbed too.

And what feels truly insidious was how Leopold made sure to institutionalize all of his wrongdoings and was so… obviously knowing about every wrongdoing, I mean writing in letters to make sure no one else found out. Please…

Linking my angry history rant on Paul Robeson from last semester here.

Happy Black History Month.

#belgium #king leopold ii #democratic republic of congo #history #black history month #colonialism #tw genocide #tw rape #tw torture #tw massacre #the congo #tw incest #resources #bipoc #undescribed #reaux speaks #black lives matter

197 notes · View notes

whippedstrawberrycream · 4 months

Text

It’s Not a Date

Stone had hoped to wait until the end of the day to reveal his gift, but with Robotnik around, things never turn out as he'd planned.

Word count: 794

“You can’t run from me, Stone!”

Stone raced from the lab, admonishing himself as he did so. It was stupid; he felt stupid. Two weeks ago, he’d seen the Doctor browsing a website, lingering for a long time on an item before closing the browser tab. Of course Stone had taken it upon himself to purchase said item, shipping fees be damned.

He was normally the first to arrive at the lab, but upon entering, Robotnik was already seated at his station. Stone had every intention of moving over to his own desk to hide the item in his drawer, but it was too late; the Doctor had spotted him quickly maneuvering something behind his back, and his eyes had narrowed in suspicion.

Whirring sounds suddenly approached from the corridor behind him, and in seconds his back was to the wall, and he was surrounded. Stone knew the badniks wouldn’t attack him, but he had no chance of escape. One of the badniks bounced up and down, thinking that it was a game. Slow footsteps echoed in the corridor as Robotnik sauntered over, his hands behind his back. He arched an amused eyebrow at Stone.

“You know better than to believe you can outrun my technology, agent.”

Stone eyed the floor. “I know, sir.”

With a flick of the Doctor’s wrist, the badniks dispersed. He stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Gimme.”

Stone sighed and retrieved the item from underneath his blazer. He glanced up as Robotnik took it from him with a furrowed brow.

“Cookies,” he said, frowning.

“I, uh, saw you looking at them not long ago,” Stone mumbled, nervousness seeping into his voice. The well-rehearsed speech that was to accompany his gift had fled his thoughts. “I was going to give them to you at the end of the day.”

“A Belgian woman gave these to me once as a child,” Robotnik replied, inspecting the packaging. “I wanted to see if they tasted as good as my memory would have me believe.” He placed the box against his hip. Stone felt the Doctor’s curious eyes on him as his heart began to thud; he knew what question was coming next.

“Does this have anything to do with today’s date, Stone?”

“No,” Stone quickly replied, as his heart continued to pound. “They arrived a day ago.”

Only part of his response was a lie. That today was Valentine’s Day was not entirely coincidental: he just wanted to give the Doctor a thoughtful gift to express his appreciation, and what better day than today? By the suspicious looks being thrown in his direction, he knew the Doctor wasn’t buying it. He took a deep breath and continued: “I didn’t know you observed Val-”

“I don’t,” Robotnik interrupted. “But I do keep to my own traditions.”

Stone nodded. “So do I.”

Robotnik gestured with his free hand. “Go on.”

Stone leaned against the wall, feeling less apprehensive now. “I get takeout for dinner, then after I watch a couple of movies with a box of chocolates. Usually thrillers. Anything but a rom-com.”

He saw the Doctor visibly shudder.

“Sounds similar to my evening,” Robotnik replied. “I sit down to a double feature. I eat something loaded with sugar until I fall asleep.” He lifted up the box slightly. “These will do just fine.”

Stone felt himself smiling. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Hitchcock’s on the menu tonight: Rope followed by Rear Window.” He paused as if thinking something over, and then shrugged. “You can join me, if you feel inclined.”

Something akin to excitement arose in Stone’s chest. That the Doctor had invited him over to his apartment unprompted and on a non-work related matter made him feel a little warm inside.

“I’d lov-”

“But don’t get weird about it,” Robotnik continued. “Or I’ll rescind my invitation.”

Stone shut his mouth. He was well aware of the Doctor’s aversion to anything that might be deemed romantic.

“I’ll bring the chocolates,” he said instead.

“What shapes?”

“Oval, square, rectangle.”

“Any hearts?”

“Not that I’m aware of, sir.”

“Don’t let the dim lighting in my lounge room fool you, it’s optimised for film-viewing purposes.”

“Of course.”

“My couch is on the small side, so don’t be surprised if I’m pressed up against you for the duration of the night.”

“That’s fine.”

“If fall asleep with my head on your shoulder, it’s entirely accidental.”

“I completely understand, sir.”

“Good. First feature begins at eight-thirty.” Robotnik stepped back and eyed Stone. “It’s not a date!”

As soon as the Doctor had turned and stalked off, Stone let out a grin.

“Sure it’s not,” he muttered under his breath, then jumped when he received a reply:

“I can HEAR you from here, Stone!”

#you know today's a good day for a sonic 3 teaser hint hint #stobotnik #valentine's day #fic #wsc post

27 notes · View notes

lonelyrosebindery · 10 months

Text

This is a day late because spoons, but the book arrived on time so I'm saying that's what counts :P

This binding was a present for @pretty-pony for @renegadepublishing's Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day binding event!

This fic is the heartrending Drive, She Said. I knew the first time I finished reading it that I would be revisiting it, because it's just that good!

She and Regina had discussed this only once, late at night when they were both tangled together, sweaty and sated. Regina was still breathing heavily, but she had turned her head to Emma and said, “There has to be a plan for Henry if this all goes bad.” So they’d come up with this plan. This system. They would leave together, unless they couldn’t. Unless someone needed to fight for the town and Henry needed to be safe. And today Regina had said the magic words.

It's a Swanqueen Once Upon a Time fic and a fairly short bind, coming in at a little over 13k.

I had a lot of fun with the Secret Belgian binding style. I've never done one before but I really enjoy doing non-adhesive bindings, because there's no waiting! Once it's done, it's done. It's US letter paper, folio, so it's nice and sleek and perfect to hold while I read this and cry!

The endpapers are maps of NYC, because most of the fic takes place there. That also inspired me for the title page, which was so much fun to make! This binding also-also gave me my first take on a two-spread title page. It was a little challenging making it on Word, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Another first for this one: using fabric markers on the cover! I think it took a similar amount of time as my cricut, and probably similar levels of frustration :'D but I'm in love with the look!

#fanbinding #ffwad #ffwad2023 #renegadelovesfic #lonely rose bindery #ficbinding #renegade bindery #once upon a time #drive she said by prettypony #prettypony

59 notes · View notes

testure-1988 · 8 months

Text

I love compilations so very much. I'll never get tired of downloading em (I have thousands in my plex library). I especially love the ones that have 100+ volumes

Some of my favorites are:

A Life Less Lived (80s goth rock/post-punk)

The Goth Box (90s goth rock)

To The Outside Of Everything (Post-Punk)

Black Box (Wax Trax! Boxset)

Those were...Crazy Times (Bootleg series of 90s Acid, Techno, House, 200 volumes!!!)

D.Trance (Trance compilation series)

Super Eurobeat (250 volumes!!)

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80s (This is a great bootleg series of 80s music...has lots of unknown and underground New Wave and alternative stuff. It even includes japanese music!! It's the best 80s series I've discovered)

Belgian New Beat vols 1 & 2

New Wave Club Class-x series

Once Upon A Time series (Punk Rock)

36 notes · View notes

blog-of-a-multitude-of-fandoms · 7 months

Text

Reunite- Luke Alvez (2)

Pairing: Luke Alvez x Reader

Characters: Luke Alvez

Warnings: N/A

Request: Wattpad- I was wondering if you could do one for Luke Alvez. One where the reader used to be a part of the BAU but left because her and Garcia didn’t get along. (Garcia was being nosy about her abusive childhood)!So when she leaves she becomes a lawyer and takes Spencers case. When they’re working on his case Luke realizes how much he missed her and then comes to the conclusion that it’s because he loves her. Could you also make it so that Spencer doesn’t go to jail because the reader is a really good lawyer who has never lost a case.

Word Count: 484

Author: Charlotte

You spent the following few hours intermittently discussing Reid’s case and catching up or getting to know the team. Luckily no one asked any questions about the brief exchange you had with Luke, even though JJ and Emily gave you bemused looks anytime they noticed you staring at their colleague. Time became lost to you and finally you had to say your goodbyes and head out of the office to try and get some work done.

You headed towards the lifts but hearing your name made you turn back. Luke caught up with you, a boyish smile upon his face.

“I’ve missed you,” he smiled. “I’m sorry we lost contact.”

“You don’t need to be sorry Luke; we both had a lot going on. We both ended up in the academy and I finished law school, time just got the better of us both.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, instead just taking in what he saw in the woman he had once known so well but had changed over their years apart.

“What did JJ mean by ‘That superior’?” He questioned.

Your cheeks felt aflame. “Oh… nothing… you know just girl talk from years gone by.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You told her about us?”

“Not fully. We were talking about exes and how could I not mention how much you taught me in my training… and elsewhere.”

Luke playfully shook his head. “Were there other people you spoke about? Or… anyone else you could talk about now?”

You couldn’t help but laugh at how he tried to skirt around the question.

“Are you asking me if I am single?” You chuckled.

“Maybe,” he shrugged.

“I am,” you stated. “And I guess from your query, so are you?”

He avoided your gaze. “Just me and Roxy, she’s a Belgian shepherd; you’d love her. Maybe you could come by some time and we could get dinner?”

It felt as though your heart would pound out of your chest. You had always had feelings for Luke and just through circumstance of your previous meeting, it didn’t last. There was passion a plenty but you wanted to go back to civilian life and he didn’t, and there just wasn’t the time nor place to discuss that there was something past just the physical attraction. Things didn’t work out that time but maybe now you were both part of the same world, both in busy, demanding jobs but both there, it could be a different story.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” You asked.

“And if I were?”

“On two conditions. We can have dinner, but only once Reid is out of prison, I can’t have distractions and from what I remember, you’re very distracting,” you said, poking a finger into his chest. “And the second condition is that you don’t cook.”

He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him. “I think that’s fair.”

#Reunite #Part 2 #Request #Luke Alvez #Luke Alvez One Shot #Luke Alvez Imagine #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds One Shot #Criminal Minds Imagine #CM #CM Imagine #CM One Shot #Charlotte

24 notes · View notes

adarkrainbow · 9 months

Text

Since people have taken an interest to some of the "Hansel and Gretel" variations I have been posting about, here is a few more ones for your delight.

I will start with a very important yet currently unreadable one. It is commonly agreed that when the Brothers Grimm re-edited and rewrote Hansel and Gretel, in their post-1842 versions of the tale, they were influenced by an Alsacian story that had been collected and written in German by August Stöber, as "Das Eierkuchenhäuslein". The translation would be "The Little Pancake House" - the Eierkuchen being indeed quite close to a pancake, being an Alsacian variation of the French crêpe, but thicker and crunchier. Notably several expressions and turn of phrase in the final text of the Grimm came from this story. Stöber's work is very famous and influential in the Alsace region, since he was basically the great soruce and collector of folktales and fairytales there - unfortunately his work cannot be easily accessed today. I do not speak German, and there is no online French translation of his work. They exist - his great-great-nephew did a French translation of his "Legends of Alsace" work in 2008 for example, called "A Thousand Years of history, legends, and oral traditions in Alsace", but I couldn't find any copy of the story or any access to the book anywhere. There was also a scientific edition of "Legends of Alsace" done in French in 2010, but again no luck finding it.

The Internet Archive has a big collection of August Stöber's works, but given they're in German, I can't use them.

I also talked previously of the variation of the story involving "a wolf in a sugar house", instead of a "witch in a bread house". The brothers Grimm, in their research notes, wrote that this story existed in the region of Schwaben, but they did not include it in their version of "Hansel and Gretel". And, as I said and described previously, this story survived in the Flanders region of Belgium, where it was collected and stays a known Belgian fairytale usually called "The Sugar-Candy House". (You'll find it under the tag "Belgian fairytales")

One variation that I have access to, however, is a French variant of the story, called "The Cabin with a Cheese Roof".

It was collected by H. A. Gueber in "Contes et Légendes", an 1895 collection of French folktales and legends. "The Cabin with a Cheese Roof" is noted by Gueber to be descending from a Swedish variation of the Hansel and Gretel tale. It goes as such:

Once upon a time there was an old and cruel witch who lived in a cabin, in the middle of the woods, upon a high mountain, and she liked to eat little children. So, she had the habit of placing all of her various cheeses upon the roof to attract the children of the neighbourhood. [Note: You can DEFINITIVELY tell this story is French when the candy is replaced by cheese. France loves its cheeses.] Near the witch's cabin, lived a poor peasant who had two children - a little girl who was very stupid, and a little boy who was very intelligent.

One day, the peasant sent his children in the woods to gather strawberries, and they came upon the witch's house. Since they were hungry, the boy climbed on the roof and took a cheese. The old witch, hearing a noise, asked "Who is here, upon my roof?". The boy answered with the softest voice he could: "It is little angels." "Then, dear little angels," the witch said, "eat as much cheese as you want", and she stayed sitting by the fire. The boy then took as much cheese as he could, and left with his sister.

The following day, the children returned to the witch's house, hoping to trick her again. But this time, when the witch asked who was on her roof, while the boy answered "This is just little angels!", the girl, who was said to be a chatty girl, couldn't help but answer "And I'm here too!". The witch immediately got out of the house and seized the children. "Oh yes, you are two pretty little angels, and you will make a good roast. How does your mother kills her pigs?" she asked.

The little girl said: "She cuts ther head with a big knife." But the boy said: "No, no, she places a rope around their neck." The witch placed a rope around the boy's neck, and he fell onto the ground as if he was dead. "Are you dead now?" the witch asked. "Yes." the boy answered. Of course, the witch was no fool and pointed out that if he was still speaking, he couldn't be dead. The boy answered: "If I am not dead, it is because my mother always fattens up her pig before roasting them - she says they're more delicious that way."

So the witch placed the children into a cage. "How does your mother fattens up her pigs?" she asked. "With grain." the little girl said. But the boy replied: "No, no, my sister is too young, she gets everything wrong! My mother fattens up her pigs with cakes and sweet milk." And so the witch gave them plenty of cakes to eat and sweet milk to drink.

[Note: The fact that the witch asks all that does a double effct. On one side it reduces the children to the state of pigs to be fattened and slaughtered - which is a subtext in other variations of the tale, but here is explicit - on the other, it also portraits the witch as an evil double or caricature-twin of the children's mother, trying to imitate her for perverse purposes]

One day (the story does not precise how much time passes), the witch went to the cage and said: "My eyes are hurting, and I can't see if you are fat enough." So she asks for their finger, of course. The little girl was about to give her finger, but the little boy prevented her, and rather gave a little stick - and since the witch found them "very skinny", she gave them twice as much cake and sweet milk. A few days after she asked for their finger again, and this time the boy gave a "cabbage's tail" (you know, the thick stump/stalk of a cabbage]. Finding them fat enough, she got the children out of the cage and into her cabin, asking the little girl to prepare a great fire in the oven. When it was hot enough, she asked the kids to climb, one after the other, onto the oven's shovel, so she could cook them.

The little girl was about to obey when her brother took her place. But as the witch was about to shove the shovel, the little boy rolled onto the ground. As the witch was getting angry, the boy said: "Madam, we are stupid and clumsy. Show us how to climb on the shovel!". The witch did just so, and the boy pushed her into the oven and closed the door.

The children took all of the witch'es' cheeses and returned to their father. The witch died burned in her oven, and nobody cried upon her death.

I've got more stories, but I'll place them under the cut:

Another French fairytale (folkloric one, not literary) that is often compared to Hansel and Gretel is a story called "The Lost Children" (Les Enfants Egarés). Originally collected by Antoinette Bon, Paul Sébillot took it back for his collection of Auvergne folktales - mentionning the story came from the Cantal area. It is actually a sort of cross between Hansel and Gretel, and Little Thumbling.

The story goes as such: In the past, in the village of Gargeac lived an avaricious coupled called Jacques and Toinon. Toinon was even more avaricious than her husband. They had two children, one boy and one girl, who suffered greatly due to their parents' greed and selfishness, but they were obedient and loving and so they went on in life without complaining. The boy, Jean, was twelve, the girl, Jeannette, was younger than him.

Since Jacques and Toinon hated spending money for their children, they decided to abandon them in the woods. The mother took them in the woods to gather dead wood, planning to abandon them there, so that the wolf might eat them at night. The children called their mother everywhere once they realized they were alone, to no avail. They cried and tried to find back their way, failing at this too. Jeannette told her brother to climb on a tree, to see if he could find anything. He climbed but only saw branches ; his sister told him to climb higher, but he still only saw "the green branches of the forest", she told him a third time to climb higher, and this time he saw two houses. One white, one red. Jeannette was asked by her brother which house they should go towards - and the girl chose the red house because it was "the prettiest". Spoiler: This was the wrong choice.

Knocking at the red house, they met a woman "who was as tall and strong as a man". The wife accepted to let them in, but told them to hide, because her husband was "wicked" and would eat them. She hid them as best as she could, but her husband smelled "a Christian's smell" and discovered the children. He then beat up his wife as a punishment. Something of importance: the husband is the devil. Now, it isn't the actual religious devil of Christianity, but the folkloric devil. In French fairytales of the folkloric kind, a lot of times you'll find the "devil" as an antagonist, but actually replacing what is commonly known as an ogre or a giant. Which is why you find tons of stories about man-eating, giant devils killed by heroes: this is just a Christianization of the old tales of giants and ogres. In this precise case, the devil is clearly an ogre by another name.

When the devil took Jean by the hand, he perceived that he was skinny, so he locked him up in a little stable, so that he might be fattened up - and once he is fat enough, he shall be killed. As for Jeannette, she became the servant of the household, and she regularly fed her brother (Trivia: there is an inconsistency here, as the opening of the tale mentions Jean is the oldest, but here it is said he is the "little brother" of Jeannette). Since the devil was too big/too large to enter in the stable, he couldn't check by himself Jean's atness. After a few days of fattening, he asked Jeannette to cut the tip of her brother's little finger, and to bring it to him. Jeannette rather cut the tail of a rat, and the devil was fooled into believing Jean was too skinny.

Some times later he asked again for a piece of Jean's finger, and Jeannette brought another rat tail. But the third time, the devil realized it was a rat's tail - so he placed his own hand within the stable and took Jean out of it, realizing he was fat eough to be eaten. He prepared a trestel to bleed Jean, but then decided to do a promenade before cooking. He told his wife to watch over Jean - and especially keep an eye on Jeannette, that he greatly mistrusted. However the devil's wife got drunk and sleepy. Jeannette opened the door to the pigs stable in which Jean was imprisoned [Note: we have a confirmation here of the "pigification" of the boy, already hinted by the fact that the devil wanted to bleed Jean, the same way farmers bled pigs]. Jeannette than pretended not knowing how to tie Jean to the trestle. The devil's wife, finding her stupid, placed her body onto the trestle to show her - Jean promptly tied her up, and cut off her neck. The children then took the devil's gold and silver, and fled with his horse-drawn carriage.

When the devil came back, and found his beheaded wife and the pig-stable empty, and his carriage missing, he understood what had happened. He wandered through the area searching for the children, and met a plowman. The devil asked him in a rhyme: "Vous n'avez pas vu Jean, Jeannette/ Ma charrette, / Mon cheval rouge et mon cheval blanc, / Couvert d'or et d'argent?". In English: "Have you seen Jean, Jeannette / My carriage / My red horse and my white horse / Covered in gold and silver?". The plowman however understands that the devil is saying he is badly plowing his field - and the devil has to clear up the misunderstanding before finally hearing the plowman didn't saw anything.

The devil later met a shepherd and asked him the rhyme again, but the shepherd understood that the devil was telling him his dog was not barking enough. So after the shepherd told his dog to bark after the devil, the devil had to repeat himself once again, and once more the shepherd saw nothing. The devil finally reached a river where washer-woman were working. He asked them the rhyme, the washer-women understood that the devil was telling them "You are not beating up the cloth enough", and once again he had to repeat himself to be understood. This time the washerwomen understood, and told the devil the kids had crossed the river with their carriage. But there was no bridge, and the devil complained about it. One of the washer-women understood that it was the devil they were talking to, and she informed her companions, telling them they should play some "tricks" to him.

What the washerwomen did was ask the devil to let his hair being cut, so that the women could make a bridge out of it. The devil agreed, and once his hair was cut, they elongated themselves and formed a bridge over the river - that was held by the washerwomen. But once the devil was in the middle of the bridge, they let go of the bridge, which fell in the water with the devil - and the devil drowned. The washerwomen then went to Jean and Jeannette (who had returned home), and informed them that the devil had drowned. [Note: Yes they seem to be some fairy, witchy, washerwomen, though the text doesn't say anything beyond them just being badass washerwomen].

Jean and Jeannette made their parents rich, and "everybody was happy". The moral of the story is apparently "One must be good for their parents, even when they were bad for their children". A... very debtable and questionable moral. The story ends with : "Night came, the rooster sang, and the tale ended."

To conclude this post, I will leave one final variation of the Hansel and Gretel story, that was name-dropped by the Wikipedia article about the fairytale: the Moravian fairytale "Old Grule". Collected in 1899 by Marie Kosch, the fascinating thing with this story is that it clearly takes after the German version created/collected by the brothers Grimm - for example, having the two sibling-protagonists being named "Gretel and Hans".

In this story, Gretel and Hans are naughty, disobedient children who are often beaten by their parents. One day, the two wanted to go pick strawberries in the woods, but their mother told them no, because a thunderstorm was approaching. The children being disobedient, they still went in the woods - and ended up caught in the dreadful storm (hail, rain, branch-breaking winds, thunder and lightning). They hid in a rocky cave and when the storm died own, they realized they were completely lost. [Note: It is fascinating how the beginning of this tale is the very reverse of "The Cabin with the Cheese Roof"]. As night fell, Gretel urged Hans to climb to the top of a tree, and from there he saw a light they followed.

The light led to a little cottage made of gingerbread, with a marzipan roof. [Note: Given this story is ulterior to the Grimm's H&G, we see here clearly how the idea of gingerbread and marzipan settled itself in popular imagination] The children took a ladder lying narby and climbed on the roof to eat the marzipan. The inhabitant of the house was about to go to bed when she heard the noises: she was a witch named Grule who loved to eat children. Running outside, she said with a deep voice "Who is robbing my house?" and Gretel answered "The wind, the wind" with a soft voice. The witch, satisfied, went to bed... But as the moon rose up, the witch noticed a large hole in her roof, and poking from it a child's head. So she quickly captured the two children on her roof, and locked them up in a chicken coop, enraged that they were ruining her house.

For a few days she fed the children only the best foods (cakes, sweets, fruits) to fatten them up so they could make a good roast. When it came time to check if they were fat enough, she took a knife and asked Gretel to stick out her finger - but she held out her apron's string, and as the witch cut it she said "Skinny, skinny". Same thing with Hans who gave his trouser's string. The witch, understanding that her meals of good things didn't work, switched to a diet of exclusively flour porridge. And the children grew so tired of eating flour porridge every day they didn't trick the witch the next time she came ith her knife: each time they gave their finger for her to cut into it, and as she saw one drop of blood come out from each child's finger she said "Fat, fat".

The witch went to her kitche, and the narrator describes how she prepares her oven: she makes a fire in the oven, when it dies out she takes a wooden crook to spread the coals over the entie surface of the oven, she then uses a wet straw whisk to sweep the coals in front of the oven, and then takes them out. Going to the chicken coop, she took the children, claimed she had some baked plums in her oven, and needed the kids to retrieve them for her. The kid gladly agreed, hoping they could eat the plums instead of the flour porridge. The witch went to fetch a baker's peel (what I called an "oven's shovel before) and meanwhile Gretel looked into the oven, seeing no plum at all. Understanding what the witch tried to do, Gretel played dumb and pretended not knowing how to sit on the peel, falling onto the ground every time she tried. Old Grule gathered her skirts and sat on the peel, only for the kids to burn her to death in her oven.

They returned to their parents, who were happy to see them alive - because they thought the children were dead. But the two kids still received a good beating because they had disobeyed their parents. The end.

As you can see this story is... WEIRD. There is definitively something meant to be dark humor and almost a parody of the original with how the kids are naughty brats, who enjoy being fattened up, and ultimately are not morally good heroes. In fact, the two children stay blissfully unaware of the witch's true intentions until the very end: the reason they trick the witch at first is because they actually wanted to keep eating sweets, cakes and fruits all day long, not knowing they were to be cooked later! Similarly, the whole "the witch notices a big hole in her roof" seems almost like a joke - showing how from the German story collected and spread across Europe by the Grimm, a sort of more down-to-earth, humoristic tone was added typical of many "peasant versions" of fairytales, that usually involve more jokes and like to point out a tale's own absurdity or moral ambiguity.

#hansel and gretel #hansel and gretel variations #french fairytales #german fairytales #moravian fairytales

13 notes · View notes

antoine-roquentin · 1 year

Photo

Nobody knows Maurice Tempelsman these days, but once upon a time he was hot shit both in terms of political connections and conspiracy fodder. Getting out of Antwerp in 1940, his dad was prominent in the diamonds industry, which meant he had an in to all sorts of mining concerns especially around Africa. At the same time, his family’s firm ended up hiring Adlai Stevenson as a lawyer. Stevenson was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956 chosen by the Roosevelt wing of the party, so of course he made all sorts of political connections. Finally, in 1950, Tempelsman managed to sell the Pentagon on buying diamonds for defense applications in bulk from his company, bringing him into the military-industrial complex.

Tempelsman worked heavily in the Congo. George Wittman, CIA case officer, was his representative there until 1963. He was replaced by Marc Garsin, a boisterous Belgian agricultural engineer with a big moustache. In 1976, Garsin was replaced by Larry Devlin, the CIA’s station chief in Kinshasa until he was forced out by pressures related to the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Garsin said some really wacky shit when he was finally pinned down for an interview in January 2005, which was strangely truncated, poorly formatted, and spread across multiple sources:

Q: You were working with Maurice Tempelsman until when?

Garsin: 1982 . . . I enjoyed every minute of it. After Africa they [Tempelsmans] sent me to South America. That was much better. Peru mostly. Chile. I was there of course when there was a revolution! I’ve got great fond memories to speak about Messr. Pinochet. . . .Let me tell you that the Allende years were not the sweetest years you could imagine. . . . Tempelsman was quite involved with the Kennedys.

Q: It’s been said that Maurice Tempelsman was also seeing Madeleine Albright. . . .

Garsin: That must have been after my time. In my time it was Jackie. She was a lovely woman. . . . And she loved Maurice. She really loved him. . . .

She learned her trade the hard way. Campaigning. . . . She was so good at it.

Who am I? . . . But when I was in the room with her — I was number one. She was fantastic at doing that! Pushing your guy up. . . . She knew how to do it. She was a great woman!

Maurice had this crazy way of always asking questions. And one day we had the Russians for lunch. The Russians were here to buy wheat. New York was in a terrible financial state at the time and Maurice asked the Russians —

“What would you advise New York to do?”

And the Russians said, “If you don’t have the money, don’t spend it.”

And I had it here [thinking to say], “If you don’t have the wheat, don’t eat.”

And Maurice knew me very well, and he knew what was coming. And Jackie was there. He looked at me as if to say, “Shut up!” He didn’t say it but he didn’t have to say it.

At his place I met nearly every Senator, every member of the House — for lunch the ones important. And I tell you something, there is not one who had it! The people who are governing us are idiots. Believe it or not. . . . Tempelsman had the biggest fundraiser [and I was introduced]: “Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa”. And they’d say — “Where’s Kinshasa?” People who were in charge of foreign affairs! At a time when there was a big business [in Africa] . . . Where’s Kinshasa. . .

Solarz. You remember Solarz? He was a member of the House from Brooklyn. He asked, “Where is Kinshasa?” He was a member of the foreign affairs committee.

It’s a bunch of zeroes! It’s a bunch of zeroes! All of them. The only one who made me laugh was Koch. . . .

Q: Sally Quinn was on Charlie Rose after the inauguration talking about how George Bush may have a “learning disability”. . . .

Garsin: Clinton was not better you know. I know people who told me. I’m not going to tell you who told me — but they said I’ve been a friend of this guy for 15 years but I’m not going to vote for him.

And you go abroad and it’s even worse. Even worse! Politicians. All of them. More than 50% of the House in Belgium after the war were checked for collaboration. And those people are trying to teachs us morals? Perfectly crooked . . . My son for a while was living in Holland. You can’t live in that country anymore.

Q: Drugs.

Garsin: If you’re robbed you’ve got to say thank you. It’s not going to last. It’s not going to last. We’re going to see a binge one of these days like in Chile.

Q: What do you think about all the security now here in the US? Overreaction?

Garsin: What’s the opposite solution? . . . I don’t know. I don’t like to get a bomb every time I cross the street. Something has to be done. But what? How?

Q: Organized crime. William Colby, former Director of the CIA before he died, said it’s possible that organized crime is “calling the shots” at all levels of government. And then he died mysteriously.

Garsin: It’s obvious.

But when they speak about torture, it’s hypocrisy! It’s been going on for years. I was talking to a Frenchman, a veterinarian who was taking care of all the animals for Mobutu. Mobutu had a zoo at the time. . . . He told me — “We did that in Algeria. We tortured people.” And he was the sweetest guy I ever met. . . .

And I asked him, “How can you do that [torture]?”

He said, “I promise you — you’d do it.”

“I would do it? Why?”

“You know that the guy knows something that’s going to kill your friends — you’ll do it.”

I’ve been thinking maybe he’s right. I don’t know. He was the sweetest guy you could imagine. And you realize — he said to me, “I torture people” . . .

Tempelsman was doing business in the Congo on behalf of American Metals Climax, which exported copper and diamonds from the colony. Part of this involved aiding Moise Tshombe’s Republic of Katanga, a breakaway province that declared independence about three weeks after the anti-colonialist leader Patrice Lumumba was elected Prime Minister. Part of this involved an interesting deal involving Congolese uranium. In a meeting on July 27 1960, Lumumba announced to the American Secretary of State Christian Herter that he was willing to sell his country’s uranium to the highest bidder, whether that be America or the Soviet Union. At the time, Soviet sources of uranium outside of its country had through diligent work been curtailed, resulting in a limited supply of nuclear weapons relative to America’s stockpile. Suddenly, Leon Tempelsman and Son reported in September that the Pentagon wanted to do a deal for diamonds worth tens of millions, a strange commodity given that they had already stockpiled more than enough for years.

Perhaps the strangest part of all has to do with the CIA’s “executive action” program, a euphemism for assassination. Officially, the CIA initiated ZR/RIFLE in the fall of 1961, with the groundwork being laid in the spring of that year. The term is important. The CIA piggybacked on the State Department’s network of communications around the world, often in the form of telephone cables hooked up to machines that could encode and decode various messages. In order to ensure a degree of secrecy, even within these messages references to operations and people were never written directly. Instead, people were first given pseudonyms, and then they were given “crypts”. Consisting of two letters referring to an area of operations or sometimes a type, they were followed by a single word. What this word would be depends on who was naming it. Often, it was the young women the CIA used as typists around the world, resulting in names like LI/PSTICK referring to phone tapping and surveillance around Mexico City. Other times, CIA station chiefs (GS-13s, current salary $84,546.00 to $109,908.00) would compete to name things in a way that would be popular among readers as they were shared out loud at CIA HQ (as told by John Stockwell). LI was the digraph for Mexico. LI/TEMPO-1 was the nephew of Mexican president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. LI/TEMPO-2 was Ordaz himself. LI/TEMPO-8 was Mexican president Luis Echeverria Alvarez, and so on.

ZR was not a digraph for a country. It referred to CIA Directorate of Operations, formerly the Office of Operations, also known as Staff D. because of a memo from 9 Dec 1946. Here’s a document the CIA wrote up for the Church Committee on ZR/RIFLE:

Why were they interested in QJ/WIN? This was the codename for a group of people hired for “sabotage and assassination” activity in Eastern Europe in the early 1950s. They were recruited by QJ/BANNER-1 Arnold Silver, head of the Luxembourg station, and thus placed under the digraph associated with that country. QJ/WIN-1 was assigned the pseudonym Jose Marie Andre Mankel, likely real name Jose Moise Czeschlak. QJ/WIN-1 had a long history of smuggling, including 3 convictions for narcotics, and was a typical choice for moving material. He hired a pilot for the Tempelsman job on November 21 1960, DM/LIVID-1. However, he was also the subject of a cable that was by far the earliest slugged ZR/RIFLE on November 1 1960, simply specifying that his identity was not known to Mobutu Sese Seko. The Church Committee ultimately concluded that he was used for a “one-shot assassination attempt”, which they found odd given his normal area of expertise. Ultimately, the bulk of the ZR/RIFLE program was targeted in a completely different area of the world: the order to kill Fidel Castro came down a year later in November 1961, 6 months after the program’s head, CIA agent William Harvey, had begun to hire mafia figures like Santos Trafficante and Meyer Lansky. Many of these figures were ultimately fingered repeatedly in the Kennedy assassination, leading to questions of whether QJ/WIN-1 had anything to do with it. There’s no record of just how Czeschlak got into the Congo, but there’s a decent chance Tempelsman could have helped given his own role in the program. And who is that pictured with Tempelsman on the tabloid cover, a woman who he was involved with at the very least from 1980 to 1994? It’s JFK’s widow, Jackie Onassis. Could this Holocaust survivor have committed the ultimate cucking?

On the board of executives for American Metals Climax with Tempelsman was Harold Hochschild, who also worked with him at the African-American Institute. This will be important later.

17 notes · View notes

sterlingarcher23 · 11 months

Text

Stranger Things/ElMax and a Valerian & Laureline parallel

I noticed something when I just watched Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (which is why I give this post priority) and while it was at first just how Laureline (Cara Delevingne) looked at Valerian's lips (Dane DeHaan) totally says "Yeah, looking at someone's lips communicates a romantic interest" which means that El & Max looking at each other's lips screams 'romance incoming', the whole scene had some weirdly similar vibes.

From the "Wait a moment, our moment is interrupted", therefore no kiss, to the ridiculous charge of Valerian & Laureline and Max on the other side.

Before this all happens Laureline's brain was meant to be a dish for an alien emperor guy (typical Luc Besson humor)

Like I said: vibes...

It should be noted that Star Wars which has a huge influence in pop culture including Stranger Things, would have looked very different and probably less interesting if the makers and Uncle George weren't plundering franco-belgian comics and artists including "Valerian & Laureline" by Pierre Christin & Jean-Claude Mézières or the works of Jean "Moebius" Giraud and others.

Just a few examples:

youtube

A video showcasing certain images and although not comparing everything, once you see it, you know that you've seen it.

Something that at least should be acknowledge - Pierre Christin interviewed years ago by a German journal wasn't against inspiration, that's how art works and lives on, he was just sad that their works weren't even mentioned and that it is a thing with Americans that they take what's needed and don't even say "Thank you" which, according to Christin is the very least you should do.

The interview but it's just in German.

Btw Mézières & Christin worked with Besson on his Fifth Element that's why it looks also very similar to some Valerian illustrations bit those came before.

Anyway: Did the Duffers copy Valerian too to have El & Max like Valerian & Laureline? Not sure. It just has similar vibes and although not in the movie but it was meant to happen in a sequel and IS a big thing in the comics, both Valerian and Laureline are time agents,usually only visiting the past (Laureline is originally even a girl from the middle ages) and the constant hints to time travel/space travel (Back to the Future, A wrinkle in time) and dimensions outside the space time feels like this could be an influence and aspects inspiring Stranger Things and more specifically El & Max (because these two most definitely go on a time travel/jump).

The visuals how Laureline communicates with Valerian in "Metro Chatelet" over space and time (she's in the future, he's in the 80s) could be an inspo for Stranger Things, communication/time travel.

Speaking of similarities (Valerian shows that he's the guardian of the soul of a princess):

So, it could just be a coincidence (although nerds like the Duffers may know about some ofthe origins of Star Wars) but at least it would be cool... and honor what influenced a world wide cultural phenomenon like Star Wars that inspired Stranger Things too.

Just the artwork for this book reminds me of the reflection, mirror and upside down/inverse from the show, splitting it in space, time and dimension too - and yeah, in German Laureline was renamed to Veronique.

So, a Valerian & Laureline / El & Max couple parallel that's undeniable for the nerds that know more than just DC & Marcel and I'm happy.

"There's beggary in love that can be reckon'd"

It cannot be reckoned, it's infinite, bottomless, is infinitely deep. It's timeless. It's neverending.

"And there here upon a rainbow is the answer to a Neverending Story."

#Youtube #elmax #max mayfield #stranger things #el hopper #elmax nation #elmax my beloved #elmax supremacy #elmax is real #elmax is endgame #stranger things analysis #valerian and laureline

10 notes · View notes

feverinfeveroutfic · 8 months

Text

The Red Flannel Dress | Kinktober 2023

title: master of the house

prompt: role play (courtesy of @flightlessangelwings)

pairing: alex/q (love is not enough)

word count: 3180

masterlist | ao3 🍎

Jay had quite the stories to tell for him, but there was something about Q in particular with the scars on her lower belly and the way she watched him from the other side of the bed. The broach of the taro root followed him in the corner of his eye all the way to across the Atlantic Ocean, but Q kept silent all the way to Cardiff. He knew that he had to give her something special for their brief time in Wales together.

As the plane descended over the Irish Sea followed by the lush countryside down below before the outskirts entered their view, he thought about the scars on her skin as well the ones on her psyche. Jay had scars as well, but there was something to Q, however. Something that made him glance over to the distant expression on her face as well as the frizz to her hair; when he glanced back to Jay and the peaceful slumbering expression on her own face as well as the petals of the broach, he could feel the flutter in his chest as well as his stomach. But he looked back over to Q and he could feel a slight yearning within him.

The plane touched down on the tarmac, which in turn jarred Jay awake. She adjusted her hat and showed him a smile.

“Welcome to Wales,” he told her with a smile back to her.

“I have roots here,” she replied.

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows at that.

“Oh, yeah! I’m French, Belgian, Welsh, and Irish on my mom’s side, and Scandinavian, Portuguese, and Baltic on my dad’s side.”

“Wow. That’s fascinating.”

“I’m sure your story is interesting, too,” she pointed out.

“Eh. I’m Ashkenazi Jewish. There is a hell, and we have seen it, but we know how to fight, though.”

“For thousands of years, no less,” she insisted. “

All the while, Q remained silent, and more so as they stepped off the plane and padded through the airport to the main entrance: the rest of the band was a few hours out, and thus, they had time to themselves for a while. Jay adjusted the brim of her hat and beamed up to the gray sky overhead.

“What’cha thinking about?” he asked her with a kiss on the side of her neck, and she lifted herself up onto her toes at the feeling.

“I’m gonna look around for any places we can get our paws on lingerie,” she told them with a wink. “I could also get us something to eat, too, if we’d like.”

“Yeah, we could check into our room and then we’ll join in on the walking around,” Q added. “You know how we do it over here across the Atlantic, Jay Mama.” She flashed her a wink, to which Jay puckered her lips at her in response.

“We’re gonna be at the hotel right around the corner up here—” He pointed up the street to the first corner away from the noise of the airport. “It’s got a red roof, can’t miss it.”

“I’ll be right back, baby,” Jay promised him. He gave her another kiss on the neck before she padded away from them: a fine mist fell upon their heads, all while he watched her go all the way to the corner off to the right. Once she bowed around the bend in the road, he turned his attention to Q, who remained there at his left.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked her in a soft voice.

“Of course,” she assured him, and they began walking up the street, in the opposite direction towards the hotel in question.

“Seeing as we’re in Wales, and Jay’s gone off into town, what say you and I enjoy this time to ourselves?” he suggested. “I feel like I barely know you, so I want to get to know you.”

“Oh, there’s not much, baby,” she told him with a shake of her head and shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve had my journey through the world of sex. I’ve been ill, I’ve had my heart broken many times before, my mother is a widow…”

“Really?”

“Yeah, my dad died a couple of years ago. Cancer.”

“Oh, jeez, that’s horrible,” he lamented.

“It’s been rough, but—just like Jay—I do what I can, though. I like to go back home and be with my mom, you know, just so she’s not by herself because my aunt, my uncle, my grandma, and her friends can only do so much. Jay and I both have our battle scars, and we walk through the streets in search of healing ourselves.” They reached the corner, and he led her across the street to the opposite corner. Indeed, just prior to the corner up ahead stood that bright red roof behind a cafe and a bookstore, both of which looked to be closed for the rainstorm over Wales.

“It’s funny because Jay’s actually really insecure,” she added once they reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

“Feeling good around me but insecure elsewhere,” he muttered.

“My mom says it’s the curse of the tomboy,” she continued. “They’re hot but they don’t realize it.”

“I knew a few girls like that,” he recalled. “Some of the best female friends I’ve ever known, too. It was like they knew how to treat me well, and they often flirted with me, too.”

“You are quite the decadent specimen, baby,” she told him as they reached the front door of the hotel. She did the honors of checking them into their room, as well as the added tidbit that Jay was to show up to the room within the next hour or so.

Their room was up on the second floor, just so it looked out to the city of Cardiff in all its coziness there under the gray of the wispy clouds from the North Sea. The dark red velvet curtains over the little square window made everything even softer and cozier. The entire room smelled of fresh linen and peppermint, accentuated by the red and white striped wallpaper of the walls and the dark red wine-colored duvet covers on the beds.

Q set her things down before the dresser on the edge of the room, and she gave her hair a gentle toss.

He peeled off his jacket and hung it up on one of the hangers on the silvery rung right next to the door. It was right then he had an idea, and thinking about it brought the butterflies to his stomach.

He was alone with Q, and it would be some time before Jay returned to them with something to eat as well as some slinky lingerie.

He bowed into the bathroom with his travel bag still slung over his shoulder, and he set it down on the floor before the bathtub. He continued to think about the scars on her lower belly, the way that they resembled to commas on her skin, as he searched around for the right shirt, the one packed at the very bottom to protect the smooth silk and fit him only one time. He took off his shirt and put that one on: the white silk hugged his slender little body, especially around his waist, while the small black buttons proved to be hard to fasten all the way up to his collar.

Thinking quickly, he cupped his hand underneath the faucet for some water, and he ran his fingers through his bangs and the plume of gray at the crown of his head, as well as the waves and ringlets all on the sides of his head. He already wore a hint of cologne on the sides of his neck, and he had a hunch that he was going to need a shower after the fact, especially with the lingerie on its way to the room.

Something caught his eye there under the basin of the sink: he took a step back to find a small box of white latex gloves there.

“Jackpot,” he whispered, and he took two for himself. He kicked off his shoes and his socks so he could have some ease in taking off his pants.

He slunk out of the bathroom with the right one on part of the way. He cocked his hip out part of the way for Q’s enjoyment; she had taken her seat on the edge of the bed with the phone directory plunked across her lap and her jacket unbuttoned so he could see the low cut blouse underneath the thin black leather. She lifted her head and gasped at the sight of him there before her.

“Oh, my,” she breathed, primarily at the sight of his smooth pearly white silk shirt.

“Latex gloves,” he said with a snap of the left glove on his wrist. “Something I’ve never seen before in a hotel room, much less a room in the United Kingdom.” He slipped one glove on, followed by another.

“When I was in the hospital, my nurse was a man,” she told him.

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was a great nurse, too. He was really gentle with me and he knew right away that I didn’t react well to morphine.”

He took a step closer to her so she could see the gloss to his curls, and she showed him a little smile.

“One thing I’ve never been able to do with a client before was role playing,” she confessed. “I don’t know, I was just never given the opportunity to do it with someone. Jay’s the role player, if you ask me. Her aunt is an actress and she was in drama club in school, so she’s good at it.”

“Her aunt’s an actress, really?”

“Yeah, she’s been in stage productions for decades. One thing Jay’s told me—and she has yet to prove this to me, like she actually has a few photographs back at home, and I’m dying to see them, too—is her aunt was actually wardrobe director for Mistress of the Dark.”

He gaped at that.

“Elvira?” he sputtered out.

“Yeah. According to her, they used to style up her dresses to where they’d stand up without the hanger. Since there were always wardrobe malfunctions, they painted her boobs black to go with the dresses themselves.”

He clasped a hand to the crown of his head.

“Fucking hell, that’s like every boy’s dream right there,” he declared, and she chuckled at that.

“I should put in an extra request for Jay to show us the money then,” she declared. He snapped the bottoms of the gloves and gave his hair a toss with the flick of his head. Q glanced over at him with a little smile on her face.

“You wanna play around and show me the inner actress in you?” she suggested.

“I’ve got the gloves on, after all,” he assured her, and he held out his hands on either side of his head, as if he prepared to perform an examination on her.

“Here—” She sauntered over to him, and she placed her fingers on the top button of his shirt. She undid his collar for him, and she followed all the way down the front of his shirt to his waist. She nudged the sides of his shirt to the sides to reveal his pale, milky skin and the sparse line of dark hair on his chest to her. That line of hair, the way it started from the middle of his chest down his belly to the waist of his pants; she licked her lips at the sight of him.

Q then took a step back to peel her jacket off all the way.

“So, you want me to be your nurse?” he asked her with a little smile.

“Be my nurse and don’t leave me in the hearse,” Q declared, to which he chuckled.

“I’m gonna need you to change your clothes, my dear,” he said to her in a low voice.

Very slowly, she took off her top, followed by her pants, the latter of which she let slide down her legs to her feet. She tossed her top over to the dresser, and she stepped out of her pants. She nudged the duvet cover back to show off the clean bedsheets underneath, and she climbed up onto the bed with her ass pointed towards him so he could have a full view of her: he licked his lips at the sight of that smooth skin on the backs of her thighs. She lay down on her side to show off her curves, and then she rested the back of her hand upon her forehead.

“Oh, my nurse! Nurse Tevye! I am in need of having my pulse taken. I think my blood sugar is a little low.”

“Allow me,” he assured her with a flash of his eyebrows and a sly smirk on his face.

He locked eyes with her as he strutted over to her; he rubbed his hands together before he put one knee up on the edge of the mattress. He crawled closer to her, and he eyed the scars on her belly, right over the delicate band of her lacy panties.

He lowered himself onto his chest so he could be face to face with the scars.

“Oh, whoa,” she blurted out.

“Tender?” he asked her, slightly concerned.

“Still.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be gentle. Besides, kisses are a better medicine than morphine.” Gingerly, he brought his lips to the scars for some tender feeling. Q groaned in her throat, and he knew that they still ached her. His lips lightly brushed against that extra soft scar tissue, and she groaned again, that time a sound he knew wasn’t a pained one.

She rolled over onto her back so he could have more control.

He nudged the waistband of her panties back to show more skin, and all the while, he kept his lips on that tender scarring.

Anything to make the pain go away for a little while.

“My patient is going to need a pelvic exam,” he said, still with that sly grin on his face.

“Please,” she begged, and she tilted her head back so she could breathe better.

He peeled her panties off a bit more to show off her hood as well as her lips. He could feel his own dick pressing against the denim inside of his pants, and he knew he would have to act quick. To ease the pressure on himself, he unbuttoned his pants and let them fall down his legs, down the side of the bed and onto the floor.

He snapped off the left glove and slipped it over his dick to act as makeshift protection once she was ready. He licked his lips and brought his head to the rim of her hood. She gasped at the feeling.

“Did you shave, nurse?” she asked him.

“Not yet,” he replied. “Is it too much?”

“No—it’s not enough,” she insisted. “Give it to me, my naughty nurse. Get on top. It’s your turn to get on top.”

With another lick of his lips, he slithered his tongue inside. He lightly tapped the head of her clit, and she immediately bucked her hips. With his gloved hand, he held her still on the mattress.

He slipped his tongue out to give a lick to her lips. His tongue wandered inside and she gasped again at the feeling. It wasn’t as intense as the caress on her clit, but he continued with it to tease her. Her lips were smooth and warm, and he squinted his eyes open to see her clit right in front of his face.

He slipped his tongue out of her lips for another lick of her clit. She once again bucked her hips at the feeling: her chest heaved, rose and fell at the feeling, but her lips were still not pink enough yet.

Another stroke of his tongue on her lips, and that time with his eyes open all the way to see her face. She raised her head enough to lock eyes with him, albeit for a moment. A brief thought shot through his mind, one that told him he should also work this magic on Jay when she returned, but for now, he was with Q.

He was with Q and treating her to something that she so desperately yearned for in those dark moments, between the loss of her father and the fear of succumbing to cancer on her own part.

He could feel the electricity up his spine, especially when he tapped the head of her clit extra hard. Q yelped out from the sensation, and he slipped his tongue out yet again. He adjusted the glove on his dick, which had grown even fuller from her own pleasure.

“We’re gonna need to prescribe a heavy duty painkiller, darling Q,” he told her in a husky voice. “Something that kicks morphine’s ass one way and the other.”

Careful not to hurt her, he straddled her hips from the edge of the bed, and he very gently pushed his protected dick into her lips. It was tricky given the fingers of the glove, but he could do it. He thrust slowly and gently into her: Q locked eyes with him, and she breathed harder. He had no idea if it was from the sight of him or the feeling of him, but it made no difference to him. He was giving it to her.

He was giving it to her, and when he had been on the bottom most of the time this whole time.

His face flushed as he knew he was about to reach the top on his end.

“Harder,” she blurted out. “Harder!”

He thrusted harder, and through the protection of the latex, he could feel she was even wetter and softer from before. He had already made her come twice with the licks on her clit, but now he was about to do it himself. He barred his teeth and raised up before he came all inside of the glove. He nearly fell onto his back on the floor, but he caught himself and flopped face down onto the bed next to her, out of breath. His damp hair spread over his face, and he could feel the sweat on the side of his forehead.

She lay down on the side of his body and kissed the side of his neck.

“You did so good,” she whispered into his ear. “So very good.” She then lifted off of him and climbed off the bed.

“There’s Jay with the food and the lingerie,” she said, out of breath. He closed his eyes and listened to the door opening, followed by their whispers to each other. They giggled at something, and then he felt Jay gently patting his bare ass.

“He’s gonna have hell of a time after dinner tonight,” was all he heard right then.

4 notes · View notes

bestiarium · 2 years

Photo

The ghost chariot of Horst [Belgian folklore; Flemish folklore]

This is a folktale connected to the Castle of Horst, which is in Sint-Pieters-Rode, Belgium. This impressive estate dates back to medieval times, and has belonged to many different people over the centuries. Among them, according to legend, was a very wealthy but very envious baron. For all his faults, the man was well-traveled and been to many countries. When his younger days were over, he decided to settle down for good and marry a beautiful young girl. She was known for her kindness and generosity as well as for her beauty, and her kindness certainly had a positive impact on her husband.

But nevertheless, he remained an exceptionally jealous man, to the point where he forbade his wife from leaving the castle or even having visitors, lest she might fall in love with another man. The one exception was the castle’s curate. Note that I am uncertain whether ‘curate’ is the right word: my sources use the Dutch ‘kapelaan’ which is an old term for a religious function and I’m not certain whether it still exists, but for the purposes of this story, the only relevant details are that this fellow was a devoted man of God and also the only man allowed to see the baron’s wife in person. But alas, the baron suspected (incorrectly) that the curate was planning something behind his back.

One day, a young farmhand was hunting near the castle and killed a hare. Whether intentional or not, he committed this act on the baron’s lands, which were reserved for him and him alone. To hunt there without his permission was a crime, and therefore the young lad was apprehended and sentenced to death. But, as was often the case, the baron’s wife interfered. She went to talk with the lad, who told her that he was engaged and planned to marry his beloved soon. The wife took pity on him and (which was also common) managed to talk her husband into releasing the farmhand.

Sometime later, the baron was summoned by his feudal lord, the duke of Aarschot. He left in his carriage with only his wife and the curate. As coincidence would have it, their carriage passed by the wedding of the young farmhand. The baron did not know this, for he had never actually seen the lad in person. The young man’s newlywed wife saw the passing carriage and recognized the baron’s wife. She knew that this woman had saved her beloved and wanted to thank her, so she ran up to the carriage and gave her bouquet to the curate – who happened to be sitting near the window – and asked him to pass these flowers to the baron’s wife.

The curate did as he was told, but the baron was watching. He had been theorizing that his castle’s curate was in love with his wife for a while now, and now he accepted a bouquet of flowers from some random peasant and gave it to his wife! In the baron’s mind, this was all the evidence he needed to prove that there had been a grand conspiracy going on. He unsheathed his dagger and killed the curate on the spot.

His wife fell unconscious and died after a handful of days, presumably from the sheer shock. But the baron never admitted his mistake, and he was far too rich and powerful to be brought to justice. He lived his life without remarrying, and his family line died with him.

But he would not stay dead. The baron of Horst would haunt the castle he once ruled, and people often saw a pitch-black carriage, pulled by six black horses, flying around in the sky and driving through the castle’s gate. A brightly flashing light could sometimes be seen coming from the embrasures in the fortress’ tower. Sometimes people would see a ghostly figure floating around the area, chasing people who wander after dark. This spirit was once shot by the local forester, upon which it disappeared while a disembodies laughter could be heard. The forester then saw the carriage and lost consciousness. He survived but his hair turned white overnight.

The carriage would only appear at midnight. It was called the ‘Spookkaros’ (‘spook’ means ghost and ‘karos’ is a dated word for ‘carriage’). There are a lot of supposed sightings. The castle itself is still standing; it was partly destroyed during the world wars but later rebuilt.

Note that there are different versions of the story. Some claim that the carriage is bloodred instead of black. One version claims that instead of giving the bouquet to the curate, the girl gave it directly to the baron’s wife instead. She gestured to the curate that he shouldn’t say a word about it to the baron, but the baron saw the gesture and, not knowing what it meant, accused the two of conspiring and killed the curate. In yet another version of the tale, there is no mention of a wedding or a young farmhand. Instead, the baron spent an entire day chasing a single hare and when he arrived at the castle, he found that mass had already finished in the castle’s chapel without him. Angered, he shot the priest on the spot.

Sources: Peeters, K. C., 1981, Vlaams Sagenboek, Davidsfonds, Leuven. https://www.seniorennet.be/redactie/artikel/127/vliegt-de-spookkaros-nog-steeds-rond-boven-horst https://www.beleven.org/verhaal/de_zwarte_koets_van_horst (image source 1: the 1990 Flemish comic book “De spookkaros” from the “De Rode Ridder” series, by Willy Vandersteen and Karel Biddeloo) (image source 2: the castle of Horst in its current condition, photo source: Anton Raath)

#Belgian mythology #Flemish mythology #ghosts #ghost stories #myths #mythology #folktales #folklore

54 notes · View notes

whoredmode · 10 months

Text

ANYWAY so. continuing on with describing differences as they happen in my replay. the whole belgian problem mission plays out differently in the rewrite.

anteros, shaundi, pierce, and johnny all head out to kill loren. once inside they do their usual thing of just killing everyone in their way; however they have a moment of pause when, upon busting open one of the doors, come into a room with a man, beaten and clearly held hostage for a long time. he introduces himself as oleg, and explains that loren has held him here for several years.

oleg was part of an old russian mafia family, and he was their everyman. he was an adept enforcer, tactician, assassin, spy, you name it. the syndicate, having been controlled by loren since the 1980s, had been trying to absorb the family into the larger criminal enterprise for decades, but the family staunchly refused. it infuriated loren to no end as it was the one thing he couldn’t control. fast forward and the syndicate leads a brutal attack on the family, taking out several important figures. afterwards, oleg is tasked with killing loren. however, severely outnumbered, oleg is captured and tortured for years. the rest of the mafia and oleg’s family are killed as well. he has nothing to return home to, so he wants to finish loren and join the saints in bringing down the syndicate. they agree, free him, and hunt down loren.

so as funny as loren’s death is in canon, it plays out much differently in the rewrite. it takes awhile but they finally wipe out most of the people in the building and corner loren at the top. there’s some back-and-forth gunplay before loren tries to escape to his elevator. shaundi shoots him in the arm, causing him to drop his gun, as oleg gathers his strength and rams him into the elevator. oleg begins smashing him into the elevator repeatedly, years of pent-up rage and grief all at once spilling out until loren’s face is unrecognizable. loren is fucking paste. oleg’s absolutely covered in blood. it scares those four a little, but it’s clear just how capable and powerful oleg is and that they want him on their team. oleg thanks them for allowing him this, allowing him to complete his final mission, and says he is in their debt and will follow them wherever they go.

they head back to the saints penthouse HQ. everyone gets inside, except anteros is the last one about to go in when suddenly he hears a familiar voice behind him.

“Hey, Anteros.”

it’s troy.

despite being a bit injured from the mission he just returned from, anteros lights up at seeing troy again. he runs up and hugs him, and troy hugs him back tightly. it’s so nice to see him again, to hold him like this again—when he watched him leave that holding cell, he feared that was it.

anteros asks what he’s doing here, and troy says he quit. anteros is genuinely shocked, but troy continues and explains that he couldn’t just sit at his desk anymore and he couldn’t protect the saints from there any longer. he needed to be here. this is where his loyalty has always, always lied. anteros is so happy. so happy, in fact, that he doesn’t think about how the rest of them will react to seeing troy rejoin them.

#and the recruitment of kinzie and angel and zimos also goes differently but that’ll be its own post #srtt tag #srtt rewrite tag

4 notes · View notes

tilbageidanmark · 1 year

Photo

Movies I watched this Week #115 (Year 3/Week 11):

(I went a bit crazy this week...)

🍿

“...You’re interested in fashion, Harmonica?...”

It took 3 accomplished writers to compose the epic saga Once Upon a Time in the West: Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento. But without Ennio Morricone’s haunting film score this Spaghetti Western will not be half as iconic. Now I only have about 500 movies that he wrote music for left on my watch-list. 7/10.

🍿

2 by acclaimed Israeli director / actress Ronit Elkabetz:

🍿 Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem is a harrowing nightmare of religious bigotry. Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz (the only brother-sister director-duo I know of) directed 3 semi-autobiographical films about their long-suffering mother. This is the last of that trilogy.

Like other fanatically-patriarchal societies, Israel does not recognize the civil rights of married women to getting a divorce. So Viviane Amsalem, after 20 years of cruel & loveless marriage, must appeal to an orthodox Rabbinical court to receive a ‘Gett’. But the three old, misogynistic men with unchecked power over her, will not give her a fair shake. Her tortured 5-years travails in this medieval legal system is very hard to watch.

This whole claustrophobic drama takes place in one small, shabby room, and is composed of just a few figures arguing bitterly with each other. It’s extremely depressive, but is superbly staged and played.

8/10 and no more, and only because I can’t stomach horror movies of the Taliban kind.

🍿 The girl on the train, my 2nd meandering French drama by André Téchiné, again with Catherine Deneuve. Émilie Dequenne, (who played Rémi's mother in the terrific Belgian ‘Close’), is younger and less grounded here. She plays a mixed up rollerblader who fabricates being a victim of an anti-Jewish hate crime. A light thriller that goes in many direction but has no exact center. Ronit Elkabetz plays an ex-wife of somebody with no real connection to the main story. 3/10.

🍿

My stuff, a small, interesting, year-long documentary from Finland. A young filmmaker conducts an experiment on himself by getting rid of all his material possessions. Starting butt-naked in his completely empty apartment, he retrieves only one item per day from the storage unit where all his ‘stuff’ is packed, in order to see what he really needs to survive, and thrive. So on the first night, he runs naked through Helsinki’s snow-covered streets to the storage place, and picks a winter coat. The second day, shoes, the third one a blanket, then, a pair of pants, Etc. The first month feels like a thriller. After about 4 months, he picks up his cell phone, and slowly fills up his place, and life, with some of what he owned before.

It’s a well-told story about consumerism. After 50 or 60 'things’, he stops going to the storage place daily, simply because he doesn’t need urgent things any more. With 100 items to his name, he feels that he functions ‘nearly’ at capacity, and with 200 items, he’s comfortable. (Photo Above).

This film was ‘relevant to my interests’. In 2019 I left my 4,500 sq.ft. house in Southern California, after also getting rid of everything that I ever owned, and moved to the other side of the world with an iPad and 2 suitcases of clothes. Since then, I continued to live a minimalist, monk-like existence in a closet-size room, with a bed, a desk, a chair, and a lamp. And in many ways, I feel better now than most other periods of my life. 8/10.

🍿

2 more from unique Swedish-Egyptian director Tarik Saleh:

🍿 Saleh’s strange ‘Metropia’ was one of the most original dystopias I’ve ever seen. His latest political nail-biter, Boy from heaven (AKA Cairo Conspiracy) is as different and still as masterful as his debut film. An Egyptian intrigue story, spoken only in Arabic with zero European/Western influences, except of the immaculate film style and conventions. A son of a humble fisherman receives an offer to study at the prestigious Al-Azhar university. Naive and devout, he finds himself in the weeds of a deadly power struggle between the omniscient Secret Security forces and the entrenched medieval Imams. It’s an all-male, religious environment not often seen on film. 9/10.

🍿 Tommy is his most accessible (= traditional) movie: A tight crime thriller about the steadfast wife of a feared mobster. She returns to Stockholm from Sri Lanka to collect the 40M loot from his last major robbery - without letting his colleagues know that he had been killed while in hiding. Dark, ominous and unexpected.

🍿

I’m certain that Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb will probably stay as one my favorite films of the year, when I do a recap of 2023. This is an extraordinary documentary about two remarkable men: The biographer and his lifelong editor.

Caro spent his whole life writing about two complex, larger-than-life power brokers; Robert Moses, who had shaped New York City more than any mayor or governor, and Lyndon Johnson, who established the American modern welfare system. Gottlieb helped him pare his first book down to 1750 (!) pages, and his Johnson saga to 4 (plus a fifth one still being written) hefty tomes. The fascinating documentary by Lizzie Gottlieb, Editor Bob’s daughter, shows these two literary titans as absolutely worthy subjects themselves. Wonderful in every imaginable way. 10/10.

🍿

Sundown, my first by Mexican director Michel Franco. In the spirit of ‘Aftersun’, and ‘Bergman Island’, and ‘A bigger splash’, and ‘The lost daughter’, it seems that Tim Roth has been recently taking more rolls that allows him to combine move-making with existentialist vacations to beaches in exotic lands.

Here he’s a taciturn, detached man on a lovely vacation in Acapulco who doesn’t want to return home to London. Unassuming and unsettling, it’s hard to figure out the painful reasons that makes him take the steps he does. Absolutely mesmerizing! 9/10

🍿

“... Here’s to sugar on our strawberries”...

First watch, The swimmer: Very hunky Burt Lancaster, very blue-eyed and clad in blue swimming trunks only, tries to swim home across all the pools in his upper class Connecticut suburb. With the same voice as Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, he sounds commending and self-assured, but something doesn’t get quiet right. What had caused this successful ex-adman to be so shunned and out of touch? With Marvin Hamlisch’s first terrific film score. 8/10.

🍿

Me and My Gal, a 1932, pre-code romantic comedy with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. Directed by Raoul Walsh. A waterfront cop and a wise-cracking cafe waitress, as well as her sister who gets married but still loves a sleazy mobster.

🍿

“Today I learnt” about Alice Guy-Blaché, a French pioneer filmmaker who was probably the first and only female filmmaker in the world between 1896 to 1906. She later was also the first woman to build a movie studio, The Solax Company in Flushing, NY, which was the largest pre-Hollywood studio in America. From 1896 to 1920, she directed over 1,000 films, some 150 of which survived, and 22 of which are feature-length.

🍿 Her 1896 The Fairy of the Cabbages is considered the world’s first narrative film ever, and the first to be directed by a woman. The original version is lost, and the remaining clip is from a 1900 version.

🍿 Pierrette's Escapades (1900), a 2-minute hand-tinted ballet film, with possible lesbian tones.

🍿 The Consequences of Feminism (1906) is a fascinating alternate history short with gender role reversal: Men cook, iron and tend to the children, and woman chase them while hanging out in cafes, smoking and drinking.

🍿 A Fool and His Money (1912), the first Narrative film with an all black cast. A comedy about a dishwasher who finds a wallet full of cash.

🍿 Falling Leaves (1912), a wonderful drama about a cute little girl who tries to save her sister suffering from consumption with the help of a “bacteriologist” who had discovered a new serum. The girl behaves like Jackie Coogan in Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’.

More of her silent films are on YouTube. This is from a good ‘Metafilter’ post.

🍿

2 More by Hal Roach with Harold Lloyd (and real-life wife) from 1920:

🍿 An Eastern Westerner, a spoiled rich son from the East Coast is being sent westward, and falls in love with the first girl he meets. Mildred Davis was a silent-era actress who starred in 15 of Lloyd’s films, married him, stopped acting, but then stayed with him until old age (unlike most Hollywood’s love affairs).

🍿 High and Dizzy, another short about a drunk doctor who tries to heal a female sleepwalker. Not too funny, but it includes a scene where both are teetering on a ledge of a high building, just like that famous routine from ‘Safety first’.

🍿

3 more by Charlie Chaplin:

🍿 Making a living, Chaplin’s very first film, where he plays a seedy swindler with a top hat and a drooping mustache. A Keystone comedy from 1914, completed in 3 days.

🍿 First watch: Behind the screen, a 1916 slapstick 2-reeler, with regular co-players Edna Purviance and Eric Campbell. Great fun, especially the final pie-throwing sequence.

🍿 The Gold Rush, the classic comedy which includes the many scenes of ‘Eating the shoe’, ‘The bread rolls dance’, ‘Dangling cabin’, ‘Hallucinatory chicken’ and more.

🍿

La ciénaga (The Swamp, 2001) by Lucrecia Martel is another masterful debut film from a young female director. It is considered today as the "Greatest film of Argentine cinema, by a wide margin”. It bristles with uncomfortable restlessness and nightmarish ennui, reminiscent of a Sartre play. A chaotic, atmospheric, noisy no-story about a large middle class family who gathers in a decaying summer house near the border, getting bogged down by screaming kids, running dogs, disconnected sights of the Virgin Mary and one unfortunate mishap after another.

I was planning on paring it with Martel’s recent film ‘Zama’, but this confusing film exhausted me so much, I’ll anxiously keep ‘Zama’ for another time.

🍿

William Friedkin-adjacent X 3:

🍿 The laudatory Italian documentary Friedkin Uncut (2018) starts with the statement: “To me the two most interesting characters in the history of the world are Hitler and Jesus”. It's a traditional reflection of one old man’s successful career. But it got me to search for a few of his many top-ten.

(Also, his first wife, out of 4, was Jeanne Moreau).

🍿 “... If I have to be a corpse - I’ll be a presentable corpse!...”

The Wages of Fear, my 3rd film by Henri-Georges Clouzot (after ‘Les diaboliques’ and ‘Le mystère Picasso’). I have no idea how I could go so long without seeing it before. But this vicious, bleak thriller was too nerve-racking for me: I was planning to watch it together with Friedkin’s ‘Sorcerer’ which was an adaptation of the same source material, but I had to give it up; It was just too incredibly tense for me. 10/10.

🍿 In 1974, after the success of ‘The French connection’, William Friedkin was able to fan-interview Fritz Lang at his home. The 90 minutes raw footage is available on YouTube.

I was not aware that Lang is the person who actually invented the rocket-launching convention of ‘The Countdown’ (in his ‘Woman in the moon’). Also, I really need to see Lang’s films that I missed so far, ‘The big heat’, ‘Dr. Mabuse’, Etc.

🍿

As much as I love to see other films from Italian cities of the early ‘60′s, and as much as it inspired Coppola in describing The Corleone familial dynamics, Visconti’s homoerotic epic Rocco and His Brothers didn’t speak to me. The performances of Annie Girardot's as Nadia the Putana and gorgeous Alain Delon as Rocky were tragic, and Nino Rota’s score was superb, though.

🍿

My first 2 wordless shorts by Melvin van Peebles:

🍿 Three Pickup Men for Herrick (1957) was his very first film. 5 day laborers wait on a street corner to be picked up for some work, but only 3 are needed.

🍿 Cinq cent balles (1963): A Parisian boy attempts to retrieve a 500 franc note from a storm drain. 7/10.

🍿

I watched Cocaine Bear only because Sammy said it’s like a Carl Hiaasen b-movie, knowing full well it’s not my kind of thing. But it did start with a citation from Wikipedia, and is Ray Liotta’s last film. 3/10.

🍿

Goodbye, Dragon Inn is my first by celebrated Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang. Like ‘Cinema Paradiso’ transported to Taipei, it’s the last night of a movie theater that went out of business, and it follows the few people who remained for the last show.

I love me some ‘Slow Cinema’ as much as the next guy, and I’m glad I stuck around until the last rainy shot full of pathos and nostalgia. But this was WAY too slow even for me. 2/10.

🍿

I love Isabelle Huppert and I tried to watch all her movies. But After her recent creepshow Greta, I think I’ll ease up with this fanboy obsession. A freaky ‘Fatal Attraction’ updated for no reason, with irritating young actresses instead of Michael Douglas. 1/10.

🍿

I only picked up the British historical film Pride, because it promised Thatcher Hate, and who wouldn’t relish hating again that despicable hag. London Gay & lesbian activists raising money for Welsh coal strikers in 1984? Check. Bill Nighy, Paddy Considine, Faye Marsay, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Andrew Scott playing? Check. But historical dramas about old bigotry are dramatically cheap, because the sanitized outcomes can’t be surprising, so there’s zero suspense left in the story. 3/10.

🍿

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, an animated short from Louisiana, that won the 2012 Oscar, over for Pixar’s ‘Luna’. Simple computer animation about the “love of books”. 3/10.

🍿

Throw-back to the "Art project”:

Pride Cookie Adora.

🍿

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

2 notes · View notes