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#because then most of 15 was spent in the academy and by 16 there had to be some kinda established relationship
littlx-songbxrd · 2 years
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(Un) Friendly reminder timeline wise Alastair and Charles most likely met when Alastair was 14
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gunsandspaceships · 13 days
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Tony’s Childhood. Part 1: Identifying facts
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In the MCU, Tony sometimes acts like a kid. There is a reason behind every behavior, so I wondered what it was like for him when he was a real kid.
So, the questions of the day: what do we know about Tony's childhood? Did he have one? And, most importantly, how did it affect him?
Let’s first list what we know from the movies:
At age 4 Tony built his first circuit board (IM1)
At age 6 built his first engine (IM1)
Was sent to a boarding school by Howard (IM2)
Cracked the Pentagon’s firewall in high school on a dare (AoU)
Had a nanny until the age of 14 (IM3)
Went to college at 14 (IM1)
Built Dum-E and U when he was there (IM1)
At 17 graduated summa cum laude from MIT (IM1)
Continued his education until his parents’ death (CW)
Tony’s genius gave him two things: the brain and the pain. And by the pain, I mean that instead of interacting and bonding with his parents, enjoying life, playing, having fun, making friends, taking care of pets, and all the other things children do to gradually prepare for adulthood and grow up "healthy", he got this list of achievements. That doesn’t make a person normal.
Parents
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We know his relationship with Howard was complicated. Howard loved him in his own way. He had too many things to do to be a good father: SI, S.H.I.E.L.D., scientific projects, trying to build a better future with clean energy, etc. All good, except when you want your child to love you back. Especially if in the tiny amount of time you spend with him, you don’t show him any signs of affection.
What do we know about Maria? Her name, what she looked like, that she played the piano, and died at Winter Soldier’s hand on Dec 16, 1991. That’s it. She didn’t spend much time with Tony either. Remember, he even had a nanny, instead of a mother. Tony's words about her showed that he loved her, but he didn't talk much about her. Because she wasn’t present in his life enough. Why? Because…
School
Howard sent Tony to a boarding school.
Here’s in the S.H.I.E.L.D.s file we have this information about the school:
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“Phillips Academy, Andover, MA 1977-1984”
This means he was there from age 7 to 14. Howard sent him to a boarding school when he was SEVEN.
Phillips Academy Andover serves grades 9-12 only (it is a college preparatory school). Thus, either this is a mistake by the creators of the film/file, or Tony, due to his genius, became an exception. Since the early age he was already at school was also mentioned in IM2 tie-in comics, and in Earth-616 that was also 7, we can mark 1977-1984 as valid.
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Think about it again: Tony was sent to boarding school in another state when he was 7 years old. He spent another 7 years there, alone, among high school-aged teenagers. No parents around, no peers.
For example, even Hogwarts accepts 11-year-old children, and they live with their peers. Now imagine Harry Potter, at the age of 7, is thrown into a dorm with 7th-year students and locked there. Doesn’t make a person normal either, does it?
Nannies and Jarvis
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Since Tony was at the boarding school, there are two options for how he could have a nanny (mentioned in IM3) and spend time with Edwin Jarvis:
1) He was at the boarding school with a nanny. There is almost no possibility that the nanny was Edwin Jarvis because Jarvis was Howard’s butler and had other responsibilities.
2) He had a nanny at home in the summer and during short school breaks. In this case, his parents couldn’t even give him this little of their precious time.
In any case, he could only see Jarvis at home, a few months a year at most.
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Note: There is a date error in IM3, stating Tony was 14 in 1983. This is clearly an error and we can omit this detail.
Bullying
Remember this dialog between Tony and Harley in IM3?
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0:45:15 – Harley asks him how he knew he was being bullied at school. Tony doesn't answer. He gives him a non-lethal flash thing to "discourage bullying."
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We see that Tony knew exactly what was going on with Harley at school. Because that’s exactly what happened to him there. Harley reminded him of himself. Brilliant kid with no friends and practically no parents. He was bullied by 9th-12th graders.
If he had a nanny with him at the school, that probably made things even worse. He would be bullied because he has a nanny, and despite he has one to look after him.
In Part 2 we will discuss how all this affected him. Stay tuned.
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akeowc · 1 month
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Well, this is a story from a novel on Wattpad called “Sleeping Love.” You can find it on Wattpad and read it because I have already published approximately 7 chapters
To be clearer, this is Lance x oc's story, ever since I watched the show I've actually fallen for him.
So I wanted to do a story for him with my oc.
Now I leave you with the information.
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Name: Elena Harris
Japanese name: エレナ・ハリス
Alias: Sleeping head
CHARACTERISTICS
Age
15 (Debut)
16 (now)
Gender
Female
Hair color
navy blue
Eye color
Bright teal
Height
164 cm
Weight
51 kg
Birthday
May 7th
PROFESSIONAL INFORMATION
Affiliation
Easton Magic Academy
Occupation
Student
Status
Alive
RELATIONSHIPS
Family
Unnamed father
Dead mother
Leon Harris (Older Brother)
MEDIA
Anime debut
Episode 1
Manga debut
Chapter 1
Japanese va
Sumire Morohoshi
Elena's mother died when Elena was very young. After her death, Leon took care of his little sister until she was 5 years old, when he had to leave his sister and go to Easton Magic Academy. During this period, her father was so busy that he appointed a nanny to take care of Elena.
She took care of her until she was 9 years old and said that she could take care of herself, so she did not need a nanny, even though she spent most of her time sleeping, which made her personality to be somewhat lazy. One day when she was  10 She went to the forest to go for a walk, and on her way she came across a boy of the same age pumping iron
She talked to him and asked him why he trained like this, he only replied that his father only told him to do it, she later learned that his name was Mash, and I became friends with him, since most people can't stand Elena's lazy personality when she starts, but Mash didn't mind  she also knew that he loves cream puffs, and when he finishes training, they eat them
Appearance
Elena is a girl of average height. She has slightly messy dark blue hair and pale skin. She has a moon-shaped mark on her left cheek. She often wears simple clothes when she visits Mash, but when she entered Easton Magic Academy, she always wore a school uniform that consisted of a T-shirt.  White, with a red tie, a black skirt with black socks, brown shoes and a black cloak, she is often seen with a sleepy expression but with a small smile on her face.
Fanbook Stats:
Blood type: O-
Dominant Hand: Right
Foot size: 23cm
Good Subjects: Astronomy, stars and the sky in general
Bad Subjects: Annoying or arrogant people
Hobbies: Sleep at all times and learn new information
Favorite Food: Sweets of all kinds
Favorite word: Sleep is the solution to everything
Favorite type of opposite sex: I don't care much about appearance, the important thing is that he is a good person and can deal with my personality
Dislikes: Complex topics
Frequently visited school spots: Mash room, dormitory kitchen
E.g. of spending money: Buy astronomy books
How to spend holidays: Hanging out with Mash and sleeping
----------------------------------------------
I hope you liked Elena. I tried as much as possible to try to imitate the style of drawing the anime, and this is what happened to me. The next chapter will be about the meeting of Mash and Elena. After that, I will start plotting the anime
See you in the next chapter!
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curator-on-ao3 · 4 months
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20 questions for fic writers
Thank you for tagging me, @starrybouquet! ❤️
1. how many works do you have on Ao3? 123 works, including a fair amount of ficlet collections.
2. what's your total Ao3 word count? 649,427
3. what fandoms do you write for? Various Star Treks, mostly Voyager, Picard, and Strange New Worlds.
4. what are your top five fics by kudos?
Tuvok’s Secret (G, Kathryn Janeway & Tuvok friendship, 535 words) Tuvok has a secret — and he trusts only one person onboard to keep it.
Feet on the Ground (G, Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, 6,436 words) Something solid slams into Kathryn’s back. She stumbles forward, bumping Mark, who in turn careens into someone else. Kathryn turns to glare at the probably inebriated party-goer who didn’t watch where they were going. But, instead, she looks up to achingly familiar dark eyes and the curves and lines of a tattoo that Kathryn spent the last eighteen months telling herself she didn’t miss.
The Halo Effect (M, Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris, 24,515 words) Tom Paris and Kathryn Janeway didn’t intend to fall in love.
Bad Ensign (T, Voyager ensemble friendship fic, 1,643 words) Harry Kim finds out he missed out on an important part of the Starfleet Academy experience. Hilarity and dirty jokes ensue.
Fly Me to the Moon (E, Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris, 25,117 words) Kathryn Janeway and Tom Paris never met each other years before Voyager. Never served on a covert mission together. Never fell in love. Never planned a future together. Nope, never happened. Because a secret like that could lead to some … complex dichotomies.
5. do you respond to comments? Yes. If people take the time to comment, I want to thank them.
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Possibly Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun (T, Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, 12,793 words), a story I totally fucked up and have considered deleting multiple times. Or possibly In The Doorway (T, Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris, 850 words), a story I did not fuck up.
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I write a lot of happy endings. I like happy endings. I’d need to list a bunch to be complete here.
8. Do you get hate on fics? I hope not.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes. Vanilla. With lots of feelings.
10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Yes. I’m not sure if this counts, but The Kelvin Scale (G, it’s complicated, 100 words) is a … unique … drabble in which Nyota Uhura sort of senses the Kelvin universe when she introduces Kirk and Spock in Strange New Worlds. I dunno. I was in a mood.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I hope not.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, In The Doorway has been translated into Russian.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, and am working on another one.
14. What’s your all time favorite ship? NCC 1701
15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? A follow up fix-it to Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun. I have the concept but not the desire to write it.
16. What are your writing strengths? Brevity, details, and (I have recently been informed) technobabble.
17. What are your writing weaknesses? Word repetition and an inordinate fondness for the em dash.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? There’s some dialogue in Spanish in The Monster (E, Kathryn Janeway/Raffi Musiker, 22,881 words) that I ran past a native speaker who gave great corrections. I think if it’s more than a few words, a native speaker can help with authenticity.
19. First fandom you wrote for? Star Trek Voyager.
20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Because my favorite is usually my most recently posted, for now, my favorite is Youthful Exuberance (Some Kind of Love). (E, Number One | Una Chin-Riley/Christopher Pike, 95,132 words). That universe means a lot to me.
If you want to play, I hereby tag you! 🥳
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fandoomrants · 2 years
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Some random thoughts on plot holes/unexplained things throughout the seasons of TUA
So I have these random things I’ve noticed throughout the seasons that I’ve been wondering about and I was curious if anyone ever also thought about these things. 
This post is not about the most obvious plot details we’re not aware of but rather some small things that had me thinking. Might add to it later but for now, my thoughts are mostly about... 
DRIVING: 
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Ok, so, I think we see everyone from the Umbrellas drive throughout the seasons (Except Ben, for obvious reasons..) but the thing is, I wonder how did they learn how to drive? 
The obvious answer would be as teenagers, like most of the Americans but I’m not sure if Reginald would have cared enough/found it an important enough skill to teach them. Or, at least maybe not all of them, hear me out: 
Let’s say, they learned in the Academy. Still, I doubt he would have cared enough to teach (or rather hire someone to do it) Victor as he was “powerless” and didn’t go on missions with the rest. 
And unless he had done it very early, before they were 15-16 (not that surprising if we go with the route he did it. he after all set them to be superheroes that killed people so them being able to drive as children is not that unusual compared to it, BUT if he didn’t), FIve probably also didn’t learn to drive in the Academy.  
In case they didn’t learn while in the Academy, I suppose Allison, Diego and most likely Victor, would have learned later as they pretty much started their own lives that had little to do with their past. But Luther or Klaus? Luther spent more time than the rest in the Academy and went on a Moon mission for 4 years, when did he have the time to take drving lessons? And Klaus was drinking/taking drugs for most of his adult (and teenage, I believe) life. When we think about it, we know the least about him and what was he up to during the gap from them leaving the Academy to when they reunite in season 1, But I’ve always pictured him not really having much money or a job, plus constantly being intoxicated would make it hard getting a license. 
And, of course, Five. How did he learn to drive in either case? During the Apocalypse sounds unlikely as had no one around to teach him and I doubt he spent time trying to learn himself while trying to survive. So, most likely the Comission. Do they have driving courses there? Lol. Still, sounds most likely to me he learned then. 
And now, some things when it comes to the characters driving in the show that make little sense to me: 
Klaus: 
In episode 1 of season 1, he asks Diego to drive him, saying that he can’t. Yet we see him driving later this season, and often during season 2 and 3. So what was that in ep 1? My personal thoughts are: 
-He meant he “can’t” because he’s not sober. 
-He might have had a license that was taken because he was caught driving intoxicated. 
-I once saw a theory that he has ghosts driving for him. But I think it’s unlikely as, even if we say Reginald taught them and Ben could drive, in all scenes where he’s there with Klaus while he’s driving, he’s clearly not touching the wheel or anything. Also, Klaus is canonly afraid of the ghosts so I don’t see him making one do it for him. And he only learned how to make ghosts more... phisical, let’s say, in the end of season 1 with Ben. 
So, in conclusion, I think he can drive on theory, but either never had, or doesn’t currently have a license. I think that’s also the case with Five. 
And speaking of no license... 
Victor: 
So, we see him driving in season 2 and I believe in season 3, yet something that doesn’t make sense to me in season 2 is how he had no memory of his past and obviously had no documents on him, 
So, how did he know he could drive? 
And how did Sissy and Carl (Karl??) trust him with their cars? And, in general, let him drive them and their kid around without documents? Who does that?! Was there no police in Dallas in the 60s!? 
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a fiction show but these things just make me wonder :D :D 
Anyway, thanks to anyone who beared with me and read this whole rant! Feel free to add your thoughts on the matter if you want to! 
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26 Reasons why Qrow is not Ruby’s father and why Taiyang is Ruby’s father
In response to the toxic aspect of the fandom attacking CRWBY and demanding that their desires for Qrow be chosen over canon, or how they feel their theory is more valid than the show itself? I have researched RWBY to make this 26-point Discussion as to why Canon is valid, and fancanon is not when it comes to Qrow Branwen, Ruby Rose, Taiyang Xiao Long, and Summer Rose.
 1.       “Monty said NO”    Most obviously. Monty Oum.
   He said in this tweet that ruby and yang are half-sisters…half-sisters,  which means they share the same mom or dad…in this case Taiyang….
  https://twitter.com/montyoum/status/492070189731565568
Now people have claimed “he obviously meant step-sisters or cousins” Why is it that every time we show the English dictionary to you people or ask you to read it, that you claim you are being attacked or that you claim Monty was misleading us?
 2.       The writers said NO
   Miles Luna debunked this theory on Reddit…
   He pointed out that Ruby sees Qrow as a Role model, so she adapts her colors to be similar to his.
   And you don’t need somebody to be blood to be your role model.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/7x3w4s/crwby_ama_w_miles_luna_kerry_shawcross_and_paula/du5d67g/?
 3. “Rooster Teeth said NO” Rooster Teeth even said that Qrow is "Ruby and Yang's Uncle" They also said “Ladies, he’s not your man”
https://twitter.com/RoosterTeeth/status/1067205612331782144
 4.  “But what if Summer had feelings for Qrow? Why does Qrow Serve Ozpin?” Qrow said in Volume 6 " No one wanted me... I was cursed... I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world... I thought I was finally doing some good... " So he was saying he wasn't wanted, so no relationship with Summer. SUMMER DID NOT WANT HIM. And he was literally saying he served Ozpin because Ozpin gave him purpose. It’s pretty sad how people think Qrow can only be a complex character if he obsesses over another person’s wife and child. What , you wanna make him Severus Snape, the Lilly Potter stalker who insulted a girl’s face and tried to poison a boy’s pet and publicly outed a teacher?
https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Qrow_Branwen/Quotes#So_That.27s_How_It_Is
5, "But Qrow could be lying" Except in volume 6 Qrow literally said "Don't lie...we're better than that"
And in volume 7?
" Long time ago. I just found working alone tends to be for the best "
" Gotta say, I’m still not really used to working with other Huntsmen in the field. "
And finally World Of Remnant on Patch.
" Nice place to raise a family, if you're into that sort of thing. "
https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Qrow_Branwen/Quotes#So_That.27s_How_It_Is
  6.  “Qrow fans claim that Ruby and Summer form a core part of Qrow’s character and backstory.” WRONG! The main accusation for demanding Rooster Teeth / CRWBY change the backstory for Qrow would accomplish nothing.
Raven already pushed Yang onto Taiyang to raise on his own.
Qrow forcing Tai to Raise Ruby alongside Yang while Qrow could regularly visit, and while Summer lived with Taiyang, Yang, and Ruby?
It would cheapen Qrow’s character….blood isn’t everything.  Neither are cliches.
 7. “But what if Qrow gave Ruby to Tai to raise after Summer’s death?” Volume Chapter 6, Burning the Candle.
Yang tells Blake that she (yang) and Ruby were raised together by Summer and Taiyang…not by Taiyang on his own, but by Summer and Taiyang.
Yang clearly had memories of being raised by Summer and Tai both,  which meant that Summer and Taiyang lived together raising Ruby and Yang for Several Years.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZkN-53h5Os
  8. “Does Taiyang care about Summer or Ruby?” Taiyang was noted to have shut down when Summer didn’t come back…. Yang noted this in Volume 2 Chapter 6, and Ruby mentioned in the first episode of Volume 3 that Taiyang missed Summer. Qrow also said that Ruby is Taiyang’s “Special Angel”…. Ruby has also pointed out numerous times that Taiyang is Overprotective of Ruby. In fact, Ruby's conversation with Penny about overprotective fathers.
 9. “Qrow knows Taiyang is Ruby’s Father. Taiyang knows Ruby is Taiyang’s daughter. Qrow has referred to Taiyang as Ruby’s father during volume 3 and 7. Taiyang referred to Ruby as his daughter in volume 3.
 10. “Why didn’t Taiyang train Ruby in Martial Arts?” Taiyang is a martial arts fighter.   Ruby has neither the build nor the personality for ruthless hand to hand combat like her sister… Taiyang would trust Qrow, despite his semblance.   Remember how bad Ruby was in v5?
 11. “Qrow’s semblance is not what his fans exaggerate it to be”
Speaking of Qrow’s semblance? He was playing video games with his nieces,   taught at Signal Academy,   and could train Ruby… Clearly,  his semblance is not what theorists make it out to be.
 12. “Why doesn’t Qrow treat Yang the same way he treats Ruby?”
Yang is the daughter of Qrow’s sister,who abandoned the team.
During a one on one interaction between Qrow and Yang after yang vs mercury, Qrow called his own niece crazy, after she had been framed.
Qrow was not empathetic to Yang.
Qrow may not like Yang’s resemblance to Raven.
Ruby is the daughter of his two closest friends, so of course he’d prefer Ruby over Yang.
 13.  “Examples of Taiyang caring for Ruby.”
Volume 2 Ruby was excited when Taiyang sent a package in the mail, not even knowing it was Zwei.
Taiyang was at Ruby’s bedside in V3, and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
He also tried to bring her breakfast in bed.
Taiyang said he wanted to chase after Ruby, but had to nurse Yang back to health.
During the V8 broadcast, Taiyang was upset when the broadcast was cut.
 14. “Genetics research”
Black hair is the subtype of the pigment for blonde hair…
Also, Ruby’s got the same hair strand that Yang and Taiyang have.
Finally, black hair is more dominant.
So Ruby doesn’t need blonde hair to be Taiyang’s kid.
https://askinglot.com/is-black-hair-a-dominant-or-recessive-gene
https://www.quora.com/If-a-jet-black-haired-parent-and-a-blonde-parent-have-children-what-color-hair-would-the-children-likely-have
 15. “The STRQ Photo”
The photo....Qrow was with STRQ for four years...do you really think Qrow is not allowed to cry on the photo unless he was romantically involved? Can't a man grieve over the death of a female friend that he was NOT in a relationship with? Or are men not allowed to have female friends? Ichigo and Rukia from Bleach for example...friendship. They were his friends, his family. People seem obsessed with the idea that Qrow cannot care about a woman unless he was romantically involved or unless he's their bastard father.
 16. “Men and Women…as friends, platonic” Harry Potter as a book showed that a boy and a girl can interact and still be friends…
Why can’t Qrow be Summer’s friend?
Why does he have to be her lover?
We’ve seen Qrow talk about Innkeeper’s skirt lengths and leer at Barmaids who flirted with him.
Also, he’s shown to be bonding with both Clover and Robyn.
People act like he doesn't flirt with anyone , and yet he does.
 17. “Bad Luck Charm” Qrow has spent his whole life with his semblance, named after a Crow.
Raised by the Branwen bandit tribe.
“You and I are not the same, you don’t want the burden of my name” Both Branwen and Qrow are names that Qrow hates due to his semblance and past…
People may think of him as cool, but Qrow suffers from self-loathing.
So NO, the Bad Luck Charm song does NOT in fact allude to Qrow being Ruby’s father, but that Qrow hates himself, hence a major part of why he’s alcoholic.
Proof of which is his volume 6 exchange with Ozpin about being useful, which Qrow disagrees with, leading him to drink further. Yang literally said that she had never seen qrow so drunk before in v6.
And Ruby encourages his self-worth leading him to try giving up alcohol….
His alcoholism is tied to low-self-esteem, not relationships.
 18. Manga Anthology
Taiyang was shown in the Manga Anthology to have shut down upon Summer’s Death. That impacted his relationship with Ruby and Yang. Qrow? Is relatively unaffected. The good Uncle helping around the house. Taiyang haters and Qrow stans took this to demand that Qrow is entitled to Ruby, despite Taiyang recovering and doing his best to be a father. Anything Qrow does is worshipped like Mother Teresa, while anything Taiyang does, good or bad, is downplayed and smashed. Taiyang loved Summer so much he was devastated by her death. Qrow was unaffected. Think about that.
 19. “I like Brats” Why does Qrow spend time with kids he’s not related to? Because he likes kids. You know how there are adults who enjoy being around brats? That’s Qrow. He didn’t have romantic feelings for Summer, he liked being around her because she was like a kid. Similar to how Blake likes Ruby’s idealism? And trusts her leadership?
 20.  “Taiyang the 2-timer accusation”
A woman on youtube claimed that Taiyang was a 2-timer who cheated on raven with summer, as there was, in her and her friends’ minds, “no way that taiyang could be with half his team” When asked about TaiQrow as a joke, she was angered that people even ship TaiQrow.
But let me ask you this. Are you the same person you are now that you were 10 years ago? People claim that Qrow was somehow cool in beacon…because he’s cool now. But Taiyang, who raises two kids, and holds a job and a house…cannot be ruby’s father…because he’s not cool? And that somehow he was never cool? I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had to be cool to be a parent. I also had no idea people were only allowed to be in one relationship per lifetime. Raven freaking abandoned Tai for the tribe. Summer chose Taiyang over Qrow. People literally make Qrow out to be either an OC in a shipping fanfic, or a Naruto fanfic where Naruto is written to be fawned over by a girl whose canonical spouse, boyfriend, or male friend is somehow rewritten as evil.
1 year…..in 1 year since Raven abandoned Taiyang and Yang, Summer Rose the friend of Taiyang’s who he had known for 4 years, became more than a friend.
So no….Taiyang is not a two-timer…he moved on from Raven.
 22. “Why can’t Taiyang talk about Summer?” To WHO? He’s barely got 15 minutes of screentime, and the writers did NOT do him any favors when they had Qrow demand he leave so Qrow could tell Ruby a secret Ozpin trusted him with, before telling Ruby to run away from home leaving only a freaking note. Terrible daughter. Even Yang was prepared to do the same! To a man whose first wife abandoned him! At least Weiss has a legit reason for acting as she does against Jacques, several at least. Ruby? No. Now why would Taiyang talk about Summer’s fighting style to Yang when trying to get her to stop acting like Raven in her fighting style and semblance? Sure if there was more time…but RT at the end of the day isn’t some money-hungry political entity, it’s a startup at the end of the day, they don’t have the ability to do a full anime episode. Also, Taiyang cannot go out on these active missions…he was a schoolteacher who did not do missions until only recently…he was retired, remember.
 23. “These fanworks make more sense to me”
Qrow fans have tried using fanworks to justify their theory or ship, the same way Blacksun fans or Adam apologists make similar claims, and even Raven fans try to claim Raven is somehow a good mother. What do these fanworks do? Hate on Taiyang. Dismiss Ruby and Yang being half-blood siblings. Ignore multiple elements of the show or scenes. Occasionally shit-talk the writers.
Every time somebody tries to make a “rwby rewrite” or “rwby alt” or “Qrow is ruby’s father au” they cannot do it without completely rewriting the characters in so many forms and even the show, till Qrow, Raven, Taiyang, and Summer are NOTHING like they are in the show…And ONLY how a shipper wants qrow to be.
Or rewriting qrow to be nothing like he is in the show.
Most Alt or Rewrite consists of making Taiyang abusive, a cheater, or refusing to allow him to interact with Summer, while regularly pushing qrowxsummer at each other.
So no…it’s not that it makes sense to them through some fanart….a headcanon that has been debunked is no longer headcanon. A theory that is shut down is no longer a theory. There’s a reason anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers still exist. Because to them, their theories make more sense than reality. Which is why people still believe Qrow is Ruby’s father the same way people believe vaccines cause autism. Neither are true, and no amount of facts will shut them down, but they’re both popular theories.
 24. “Qrow Rings and Cross”
People claim that Qrow was married to Summer or that his cross represents him mourning Summer. Did the STRQ photo, in v3, the same volume as his appearance, not show Qrow with his rings, his cross, and angrily scowling, while Summer was right next to Taiyang?
 25. “What about Summer Rose’s choice?”
Remember how I said making Qrow’s character based on solely Ruby and Summer, ignoring everything regarding the tribe and ozpin giving him hope, and the grimm reaper…was bad writing? There’s a reason people hated v5. Raven was proven to be the deadbeat, Qrow was shown to have friends, and that Taiyang knew about Salem, and of course it was confirmed that Yang and Ruby again were sisters by Raven.
Now how about Summer? Team leader….took a man and a daughter who were abandoned by her friend…and made them her own. Yang calls Summer Rose “Supermom” and “Her Hero”…was literally willing to storm a bandit camp so Raven could use her portal to take Yang to Qrow, so she could get to Ruby. And yeah, I know the RWBY critics scream “why didn’t Yang just look for Ruby in Mistral?” It’s a bloody kingdom, and Yang was pursuing a lead, that Tai had given her, and Qrow told Yang he’d look after her sister. Remember that? Oh wait, RWBY Critics forget, my bad. Anyway, she’s more of a sister to Qrow than his blood sister Raven, she’s more of a mother to Yang than Raven, and she’s more of a spouse to Tai than Raven. Good Stepmother. Non-married couple. Relationship built on trust. Blood is not the same as family. (Example Weiss’s remark to her father) (Or Dom Toretto)
So making Summer into a throw-away character who dies so that a brooding jerk of an alcoholic can claim character development? Making a woman nothing except a throw-away for a man to get development is BAD WRITING. For God’s Sakes, even Pyrrha was written better than that! She interacted with team rwby, nora was always helping her out, and so was Ren (though those shakes are a crime against humanity” But when Qrow fans try to demand he’s ruby’s father? Their fanworks make Summer as much of a flat character as Preston Harvey from Fallout 4, where they make Summer unable to do anything but be obsessed with Qrow and having his child, similar to how Preston cannot think of anything other than “Another settlement needs your help, I’ll mark it on your pip-boy”
 26. Finally, the accusations that CRWBY are lying.
“You have to be ****** if you believe CRWBY when they say Qrow isn’t Ruby’s father” “CRWBY is lying, it’s what writers do” “It’s okay for writers to lie, it’s good for plot” “I’d prefer it if CRWBY was lying to us” “Monty is dead, the writers should change it now” “Monty is dead, nothing else in the writing matters” “Monty was hiding the truth from us” “CRWBY is hiding the truth about Qrow being Ruby’s father” “It makes sense for CRWBY to lie to us” Look at this…Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, instagram…. The first quote? Was a woman who was using an anti-autism anti-disability slur defending the theory. Never have I ever seen people so obsessed with a  theory that they would deny reality and be rude to the very writers and original creator. But the QrowxSummer and Qrow is Ruby’s Father fandom group has made countless cases of this. THIS is how they defend their theory? And people upvote, like and support these remarks? SHAME SHAME SHAME
 Conclusion:
I get how people desire qrow to be Ruby’s father for ships or fanfics.
Even to where they make Taiyang a hated character just for the sake of making sure nobody disagrees with them.
But the attacking of RWBY and CRWBY, claiming that “this needs to be fixed”, or getting angry at RT for not giving you the non-canon ship you want? Claiming that just because you want it to be so, that somehow your ship/theory has “validity?”
That reflects poorly on the fandom and critics.
But then again…. It’s easy to ignore what’s real and what’s a fact that when theorists and ship-pushers and CRWBY Haters on youtube tells you to stop listening to monty and the writers, and instead believe whatever you want and claim whatever you want, Because surely you know what’s better for the show than the people who worked on it, right? Ha ha ha, no. THAT is the ULTIMATE disrespect somebody calling themselves a fan could ever give. And if you think or agree with that type of logic, you should look in the mirror.
I looked for backup sources to defend CRWBY and RWBY, you’ll find them below.
Backup sources include:
 https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/qrow-is-not-rubys-dad/422o_0rbCYuoXj36VoB7obK3MXPZRbPKkz5
 https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/why-the-qrow-is-rubys-father-theory-is-wrong/z668_nQlIxu0dmRdRpEPxqE3qlWlZEmoE2
 https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/qrow-cant-possibly-be-rubys-and-heres-why/8BB5_LPVCmu2bonkw8eEP3Yokg8m8zJlgNV
 https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/why-qrow-isnt-rubys-father/lXXx_5QoUQuPVGo3Wgko3wJ52mMBl7644P
 https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/is-qrow-rubys-father-short-answer-no/422o_0rbCYupDKezxPxpdje7dRn3nB8YvZ
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPbft3KJd6o
https://aminoapps.com/c/rwby/page/blog/qrow-is-rubys-dad-theory-debunk/d33g_pQEcbu1NKQoMEv0kmDpP6N8bmowkkq
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deliahscrush2003 · 2 years
Text
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Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Face Claim: Zendaya Coleman (but blue)
Fic Series: The Seda Series
Fic Playlist: The Seda Series Playlist
Story Board: The Seda Series
Pinterest Board: Serina Seda
Headcannons: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Concept Art: 1 | 2 |
Moodboard: 1 |
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Full Name: Serina Seda
Nicknames: Seda (Nox), al'verde/Commander (Clones).
Titles:
Padawan Serina Seda of the Jedi Order.
Jedi Commander Serina Seda of the GAR 212th Attack Battalion.
Gender: Female.
DOB: 36 BBY, SEPTIMA 23 *September 23rd.
Star sign: Libra.
Age: 14 (22 BBY) 15 (21 BBY) 16 (20 BBY) 17 (19 BBY)
Affiliation: The Jedi Order/ The Galactic Republic / The Army of the Galactic Republic
Occupation: Jedi Padawan of the Jedi Order/ Jedi Commander of the GAR 212th Attack Battalion
Sexuality: Heterosexual.
Homeworld: Pantora.
Species: Non-Human || Pantoran Jedi.
Location: Jedi Temple, Coruscant. Core Worlds.
Moral Alignment: Lawful Good.
MBTI: ISFJ - Defender.
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Background:
In a galaxy far, far away...
In 32 BBY, as a battle is waged on the peaceful lake planet of Naboo, a Jedi Knight by the name of Serifa Altunen lands on the planet of Pantora on her way back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, returning from her mission off-world.
While her ship is tended to, Serifa boards with a poor farming family in the Rolling Hills of Mah where she meets the daughter, Serina (4), who she discovers possesses Force Sensitive abilities when the child trips and unwittingly uses the Force to stop her fall.
Serina also revealed that she possesses the ability to see Force Bonds, appearing to her as strings of multi-coloured light that attaches a person to another person. She can also feel the emotions of others stronger than most Jedi normally can, something that used to hinder her greatly.
Because of her abilities, they were mostly kept secret from most of the Order by the Jedi Council and she had many tutors from the Council of First Knowledge, and thus spent most of her upbringing in the Temple Archives where her ability as a Force Empath was researched.
When she was not in the Temple Archives, she was with the rest of the Jedi Younglings and her clan, the Dire-Cat clan where she met Ahsoka Tano.
In 31 BBY, one year after arriving at the Jedi Academy, Serina was leaving the Temple Archives after a private tutoring when she found a couple of the upperclassmen attempting to touch Ahsoka's lekku and montrals without her permission.
When Serina stood up for her and tried to explain why it was wrong, they laughed at her and called her "blue" until Ahsoka, at just five years old, kicked their asses.
From then on, they were best friends and over time, their instructor insisted they had never seen such a well-bonded pair. They sparred as good together as they did a part and even ranked top of their classes at the Academy.
It was rumoured by her instructor that they had developed a Force-Bond, not as strong as the legendary Dyad bond or even the bond between Master and Padawan, but one that allowed them to be in sync, as if they at times knew the others movements before they made them.
In the year 26 BBY, the Dire-Cat clan was escorted to the Jedi Temple of Ilum, where they faced they braved the labyrinth and their worst fears to find their kyber crystal.
Serina's (10) worst fear appeared to her in the form of Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order. Serina was momentarily hit with grief at the thought of Ahsoka's abandonment but persevered, believing that if Ahsoka wanted to leave than nothing could stop her, not even Serina.
Serina overcame her fears by offering to walk the fake-Ahsoka to the Temple gates. Fake-Ahsoka took her hand and the illusion faded in the wake of a bright, magenta hue, revealing to her the Crystal Cave where twin lorridon gemstones sang to her.
After returning from Ilum, Serina confessed to Ahsoka what her worst fear was and they both made a secret pact that they would never leave the other by their own volition, even if it meant they both left the Jedi Order.
Once Serina successfully constructed her lightsabers with the lorridon gemes, she finally wielded a pair of blades imbued with a striking magenta light that were attuned to her opponents movements, allowing her to almost perfect the defensive lightsaber combat Form II : Makashi and Form III: Soresu throughout the next three years as she prepared for the Initiate Trials.
In 22 BBY when the Initiate clans were being reviewed for selection to participate in the Apprentice Trials, Serina (13) sparred for the first time under the watch of Jedi Council members, Masters Mace Windu and Plo Koon.
Master Windu sensed an unusual fear in the other younglings as they watched the Pantoran girl and when he question asked their instructor why that was, it was revealed that it was because of her lightsaber colour, that they believed in the myth that purple lightsabers were a sign of the dark side.
Master Windu would later pull Serina aside and questioned her about it, to which she responded that she understood why they feared her but that to her, it didn't matter what colour her saber was, only what one chose to do with it.
Master Windu approved of her opinion and selected her for the Apprentice trials.
Months later, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi returned from the battlefield following the outbreak of the Clone Wars to attend the Apprentice Trials at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.
His curiosity was piqued when the sisters, Tiplar and Tiplee revealed that two Initiates had great potential and as he watched Ahsoka Tano and Serina Seda face off, he could not help but agree.
Ashoka was on the offense throughout the fight, her strikes aggressive and unhesitant, causing Obi-Wan to mistake the two as genuine rivals. In return, Serina put up a strong and indomitable defence that greatly impressed Obi-Wan, combining moves from Form II and Form III in an expert and well-practiced fashion.
In the end, the two Initiates were the last ones standing in the arena and would have continued if it were not for Serina leaving herself open, thus leading to her defeat leaving Ahsoka as the victor of the battle royale round.
Obi-Wan was astounded by the battle prowess of the two Initiates, but what he really admired was how Ahsoka extended her hand to Serina following her victory, helping her friend off the floor and embracing her in joy as they celebrated with the rest of the Clan.
(He would later put in a request for their assignment to himself and Anakin, unbeknownst to the latter)
Following their graduation from the Jedi Academy, Ahsoka attended Serina's ceremony, one that was customary on Pantora for those graduating from their internships.
Serina received her first tattoos, two wings under her eyes that represented her allegiance to the Jedi Order. She was also gifted a headdress of two, modest golden disks engraved with the simple markings of the Jedi code.
In the month Septima of 22 BBY, after turning 14, Serina and Ahsoka joined Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his former Padawan, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker on the planet Christophis where announced their assignment to the Jedi Generals, Serina as Obi-Wan's Padawan and Ahsoka as Anakin's.
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Family:
Unnamed Pantoran Mother
Unnamed Pantoran Father
Jedi Knight Serifa Altunen of the Jedi Order (Recruiter)
Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Jedi Order (Master)
Friends:
Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano (best friend and bond-mate)
Clone Commander Cody (best friend, co-commander, comrade)
Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker (close friend, older brother figure)
Jedi Knight Aayla Secura (mentor and friend)
Clone Captain Rex (good friend, comrade)
Clone Commander Fox (good friend)
ARC Trooper Fives (good friend)
Senator Riyo Chuchi of Pantora (close friend)
Senator Padme Amidala of Naboo (friend, Anakin's secret wife)
Senator Lux Bonteri of Onderon (friend, in love with best friend)
Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore (mother figure, Obi Wan's wife)
Korkie Kryze of Mandalore (friend, spitting image of her master)
Frenemy:
Asajj Ventress (Sith apprentice, adversary, opponent, reluctant ally)
Afina Nox (Serennian noblewoman, twin sister of Serina's stalker)
Bariss Offee (don't get along much, passive aggressive civlity)
Enemies:
General Grievous (currently)
Count Dooku (currently)
Love Interest:
Rivin Nox (Separatist senator, nephew of Count Dooku, enemies and occasionally, reluctant ally)
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FUN FACTS:
• magenta lightsaber • wielder of twin blades • lorridon gemstones • primary form: makashi • secondary form: soresu • can see force bonds • a force empath • the defence to Ahsoka's offense • makes jokes when she is in pain • has accidentally infiltrated Serenno • agree to disagree • strives for understanding • shares her master's preference for morally ambiguous senators • struggles to understand that you can't save everyone • her favourite clone is actually Fox (besides Cody, of course) • abhors the loss of life on both sides of the war • The Responsible One™ •
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[ [ If you have any questions about Serina Seda, don't be afraid to drop an asks in the inbox ] ]
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schnees-and-schnugs · 3 years
Note
Whitley didn't even look at Winter or addressed her first. The Atlas party? He only talked to Weiss (wich shows how much of a little brother he is by annoying his older sister) but that's because to him, Weiss IS family. He remembers her, growing up with her. If Winter and Whitley are AT LEAST 10 years apart (25-15) then that means Winter left behing 5y/o Whitley. And it only gets worse if we decrease his age.
Praying for rwby to have a good timeline for the schneeblings lmao
A few issues I have tho:
I don't think winter ran away when she was 15. That's even too young to attend a huntsmen academy, which accepts students generally at 17 years old. And we don't even know if winter ran away *to* atlas academy. I'm assuming since Jacques wanted Weiss to attend atlas academy instead of beacon (I think, correct me on that if I'm wrong), I don't really think winter had to run away to the academy.
Weiss is ~ 19 years old, putting winter at maybe 23-25 years old. whitley is 14-16 years old, so winter is about 8-10 years older than whitley.
So let's say winter ran away to atlas academy at 17, that would make whitley about 7-9 years old when she left.
Now let say winter stuck around while she was at the academy, met ironwood, and decided to give up her inheritance half way through the 4 years, then winter would have been ~19 when she ran away. Whitley would have been 9-11 years old.
Now let's say that winter only ran away to join the military *after* she spent her whole 4 years at the academy and decided to take part in the huntsman school to military pipeline rather than continue to be her father's heiress. She would have been ~21 when she ran away (fully an adult with career prospects so Jacques couldn't force her to come back even if he wanted to), putting whitley at about the age 11-13 years old.
I don't really know which option is the most accurate, but it would be certainly interesting if whitley wasn't actually that young when winter left. That puts their strained relationship in a much different light.
I doubt winter left before the age of 18, I don't know what the age of maturity in in atlas, but winter couldn't have run away while Jacques had legal custody over her as a minor. Especially since he knew where she was.
Also whitley not acknowledging winter, I think it's super in character for the way he deals with trauma. He doesn't like her and probably views her as one of the people in his life who abandoned him- and no doubt Jacques fed into that heavily. He had pushed her away, just like he tried to do with weiss because it gives him a semblance of control over his life that he otherwise doesn't have. Whitley doesn't seem to like being in his mother's presence at all either, with willow commenting about how whitley doesn't come down to her garden to be with her very much (DC comics) and generally how whitley interacts with her pre-hound attack.
I don't think he gives winter special treatment, if anything it's weiss who he treats the most different because he seemed to go out of his way to antagonize her (probably since she's closest to him in age and the wound is relatively still fresh).
But idk idk. Fuck me for trying to make sense of a rwby timeline :/
23 notes · View notes
notebooknebula · 3 years
Video
youtube
Become A 7-Figure Real Estate Investor with Nick Perry and Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority
https://www.jayconner.com/become-a-7-figure-real-estate-investor-with-nick-perry-and-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority/
Freedom to go on different ventures, explore different areas of life, helping other real estate investors become financially free.
These are the things that Nick Perry wants to share with everyone as he talks with Jay Conner about how he started his real estate business until his company became one of the largest wholesaling companies in the US.
Nick is the Owner/Founder/Executive Chairman of Want To Sell Now. The largest nationwide wholesaling company in the United States is based out of Austin TX.
He also owns a fleet of semi-trucks multiple eCommerce businesses and invests in multiple companies and commercial real estate. He also owns the 7 Figure Cartel mastermind that gets people quickly through the hurdles to become multiple 7 figure real estate investors.
He grew up in Northern Virginia and spent the first 5 years of my career in Personal Training before moving to Austin TX where he now resides. Nick moved to Austin with no job, network, and very little money. Soon as he got to Austin, he decided he would do whatever it took to be successful in real estate in pursuit of new opportunities.
He didn’t come easy. It took him 11 months to get his first deal but he did not give up. Nick worked 18 hours a day 7 days a week. He got a six-figure sales job at Indeed.com while he was building my real estate business. Nick devoted all of his sales commissions and time outside of my 9-5 to building my real estate business until he was able to go full-time. As soon as he went full-time, he quickly scaled his real estate company to where it is now in less than 3 years. He now has 8 streams of income and is working on creating more.
Timestamps:
0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money
1:02 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now” –https://www.JayConner.com/Book
1:59 – Today’s guest: Nick Perry
4:45 – Nick Perry talks about how he got started in the real estate business.
5:47 – What is your definition of freedom?
6:25 – When did you start your real estate business?
6:47 – Nick talks about some of his early struggles.
8:40 – As the owner of one of the largest wholesaling companies in the USA, Perry talks about what his company looks like and the number of deals they are making now.
10:04 – Nick Perry talks about what wholesaling is all about.
11:32 – Nick explains what is a Novation deal.
12:28 – What makes your company/organization different?
14:00 – How do you run your real estate business remotely?
16:10 – Nick talks about how he manages the rehab or repairs of a property.
17:51 – Tips on building buyers lists.
19:40 – Do you agree that it’s more challenging to find real estate deals now than a couple of years ago?
22:18 – How much money do you spend in marketing to get a contract?
23:21 – What tools in your real estate business that you can’t live without?
24:19 – What is the most important lesson that you learned from real estate investing?
26:42 – Nick Perry talks about his passion for helping other real estate investors.
28:18 – Connect with Nick Perry: https://www.7FigureCartel.com
Private Money Academy Conference:
https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135
Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book
Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast
Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.
What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference
https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo
YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner
iTunes:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034
Listen to our Podcast:
https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11198/become-a-7-figure-real-estate-investor-with-nick-perry-and-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority
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Become A 7-Figure Real Estate Investor with Nick Perry and Jay Conner
Jay Conner (02:10):
I don’t know about the rest of you, but today he’s down in Miami, on the beach. Anyway, this company is the largest nationwide wholesaling company in the United States, and it is based out of Austin, Texas. Now my guest also owns a fleet of semi-trucks, multiple e-commerce businesses, and he also invests in multiple companies and commercial real estate. Now he also owns this mastermind, the 7-Figure Cartel Mastermind. I can’t wait to hear about that. And that gets people quickly through the hurdles to become and enjoy a multiple 7-figure real estate investing company. Now he grew up in Northern Virginia, spent the first five years of his career in personal training before moving to Austin, Texas, where he now lives and moved to Austin with no job network, very little money. And as soon as he got to Austin in pursuit of new opportunities, he decided he was going to do whatever it took to be a successful real estate investor.
Jay Conner (03:12):
Well, it did not come to him easy and as it does for most of us. It took him 11 months before he got his first deal and he didn’t give up. He worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, got a 6-figure sales job at Indeed.com, while at the same time, he was building his real estate investing business. He devoted all of his sales commissions and time outside of the 9 to 5 to building his real estate business until he was able to go full time. So as soon as he went full time, he quickly scaled his real estate company to where it is now and did all that in less than 3 years. And today he has 8 different streams of income and is working on creating more. With that, let me welcome to the show here, my friend, Nick Perry. Hello, Nick. Welcome to the show.
Nick Perry (04:04):
Jay, what an intro man. That was incredible, but I’m honored and excited to be with you guys right now. So looking forward to learning it from you and, hopefully, being able to give it a lot of value to the audience as well.
Jay Conner (04:15):
Absolutely. Nick. So it looks like you’re relaxing down there in Miami.
Nick Perry (04:22):
I am. I actually just moved into a new house here in Miami Beach. So I’m getting my office set up, the interior designer’s coming back and forth. So I’m hanging out on the couch, working from the couch today.
Jay Conner (04:33):
Awesome. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. Well, I appreciate you taking time out to join me and the audience here on the show. So are you ready? You got your seatbelt on?
Nick Perry (04:43):
Let’s go.
Jay Conner (04:45):
All right. What got you into real estate?
Nick Perry (04:49):
My entire life, coming from a kind of middle-class family, everybody that I surrounded myself with was your W-2 employees. They work 9 to 5, just like the majority of the world. And when I was a personal trainer, most of my clients were really, really well off. They were business owners, they were in sales. And those were the guys that were taking nice vacations, they were driving fancy cars, they had freedom and all the things that I wanted in life. And so rather than going with the flock to continue on a 9 to 5 path, I realized that in order to be financially free, I better go out and build a company or get into some high-ticket sales because that’s what everybody who actually had money was doing. So I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but real estate ended up turning out to be that vehicle. And it’s been incredible, as you know, it’s the best decision I ever made in my life.
Jay Conner (05:47):
So you mentioned the word “freedom.” What’s your definition of freedom?
Nick Perry (05:50):
Well, I mean, I’m sitting here right now in Miami Beach. I live two blocks from the ocean. I’ve got the freedom to be able to go where I want when I want, be with the family when I want, so yeah. If I was working at a 9 to 5 job, you just can’t do that kind of thing. So that is also freedom just to be able to go into new ventures and explore different areas of life. That’s really what it’s all about for me. So yeah, I’ve been able to create that for myself and it’s been a heck of a ride.
Jay Conner (06:26):
So, what year did you start?
Nick Perry (06:29):
I landed in Austin, Texas, like you said, without really anything. I had like $5,000 in my name and I just started learning and taking action and I just didn’t give up. And now here we are 7 years later.
Jay Conner (06:45):
Yeah. So what were some of your early struggles?
Nick Perry (06:51):
Early struggles? Obviously, everybody’s got a learning curve, but in 2014, I was doing a lot of direct mail. I wasn’t getting a lot of results either. I would handwrite the cards myself because I didn’t have enough money to pay for a fulfillment house. And I had to get good at sales, too. When I moved down to Austin, it was a much different place than Northern Virginia where I grew up. So, I had to adapt my sales style. You can’t talk so fast down in Texas like you can up in Northern Virginia. So I had to slow down a little bit, and really, the biggest thing was I was getting too much information. I think this is what happens to a lot of investors, as I’m watching YouTube video after YouTube video, trying to absorb as much as I can. And I really didn’t start getting traction until I hired my first mentor and just plugged directly into him. So I started working with Sean Terry, a great guy, in the very beginning, and I would visit with him every quarter and he would tell me exactly what I needed to do and I’d come back the next quarter. And I did that for a couple of years and that really got me going. So hiring a good mentor early was critical for my success. I was fumbling around trying to watch YouTube videos for the first 11 months.
Jay Conner (08:17):
Right. I got you. So yeah, getting a mentor, getting a really, really good coach up front was very important for you. So you’ve got one of the largest, if not the largest, wholesaling company in the US. What does your company look like?
Nick Perry (08:51):
Basically, what does it look like physically? It’s an inside sales office, right? So we’ve got 11 employees and inside of it, we’ve got 5 in Acquisitions. We’ve got 3 in Dispositions, we’ve got my seat as CEO. Then we’ve got a couple support admins and then myself. So we’re not huge, but we’ve been doing it long enough that all of our people are just A players.
Jay Conner (09:23):
So, how many deals are you doing these days in your organization?
Nick Perry (09:28):
So, when we’re in the office, we’re getting anywhere from 3 to 5 contracts every single day. So between 40 to 60 closed and funded deals every month.
Jay Conner (09:39):
Gotcha. And how many different markets are you in?
Nick Perry (09:43):
So the unique thing about my company is we market the entire United States. So I don’t have a specific market or pockets or different markets. I literally blanket the entire US.
Jay Conner (09:59):
Got you. So about five contracts a day. Day in and day out. Let’s make sure everybody understands what we mean when we say “wholesaling.” Different people have different definitions of wholesaling. So what’s your definition of wholesaling? How does that work?
Nick Perry (10:14):
Yeah, wholesaling is, you’re going and you’re contracting a property. Wholesaling, you could literally wholesale any item, but we’ll just use real estate for the example. So you negotiate with a motivated seller to get a property under contract for a certain amount that you can turn around and give it to an investor for a higher amount. So easy numbers, you’ve got a $100,000 property. It’s worth a hundred grand. You get the seller to agree to let you have that property and put it under contract for $65,000. And then you turn around and you find a fix-and-flipper or an investor that wants to buy that property. And they’ll buy it for $75,000. Well, when you get a contract with both parties and turn them into the title company, the title company will give you a $10,000 check or however much the difference is.
Jay Conner (11:03):
Right. So would you say wholesaling in your company is sort of synonymous with assigning or collecting assignment fees?
Nick Perry (11:11):
Correct? Yeah, so we collect a lot of assignment fees, but we’re not just a one-trick pony either. We do “subject to” deals. I hold a lot of rentals in my portfolio, as well. We do novations. So we’re always looking for different exit strategies to monetize more deals.
Jay Conner (11:32):
Right? Explain to everybody what a novation is. What’s a novation deal?
Nick Perry (11:36):
So a novation deal is basically if you have a seller who wants close to retail, their house is in pretty good shape, right? You can go ahead and contract that property. Say they want thousands. We’ll use the $100,000 example again. You got a house that’s a hundred and the seller doesn’t want to take a dime less than 90. Well, you put that property under contract with a novation agreement at 90,000, and that novation agreement will allow you to actually list that property at full retail. Sometimes there’s minor repairs that you do as part of the novation agreement. You may go in and do some carpet or paint or landscaping, but you’re not doing any heavy remodels. These are properties that are in fairly good condition and you can put them and list them and get full retail from a conventional buyer at the end.
Jay Conner (12:27):
Right. What would you say is different about your organization, say from some of your other friends that have real estate investing companies, or say, from some of your other competitors?
Nick Perry (12:41):
Well, being nationwide is completely different than being in a select handful of markets because we don’t have boots on the ground. That would be really impossible, as well. So in order for us to be successful, we have to literally do everything over the phone from acquisitions to dispositions, to coordinating the showings. Literally, everything from A to Z is done remotely from our office in Austin, Texas. So that’s something that’s different than a lot of people, is we’re not having any boots on the ground or anything like that. And then, additionally, my people, that’s the biggest key to my success is the caliber of candidates that we’ve attracted into our organization. I think bar none, I’ll put my team up against anybody’s team that I’ve got a great group of guys.
Jay Conner (14:02):
Give us a 30,000 foot view of how you run a totally virtual remote operation, no boots on the ground. Like what are the key components that you have to have in place for that to work?
Nick Perry (14:27):
So, we do a ton of inbound marketing pretty much through PPC. So we do all online marketing. We don’t do any telecommunications. So a lead will come in and we’re talking to them very similar to the way that most people are talking to these sellers, but when we negotiate, we negotiate over the phone. So we’re going through the property condition. We’re evaluating the property right there on our computers in Austin, and based on the comparables and the condition that the seller describes, we’ll go ahead and contract that property via DocuSign, like electronic signature. And once we have that electronic signature, then the next step is to actually get real photos on file. And that way we can actually start to market that property. So we’ll have the seller take photos for us, or we’ll hire a local handyman or a realtor to go get photos for us on our behalf.
Nick Perry (15:22):
And then from there, once we’ve got our photos, we’ve got our contract and we know how to get access into that property, then we can start locating interested parties who actually want to buy that property. So we’ll go out, we’ll find the buyer, we’ll have them usually put a deposit down before they even go out to the property, once their deposit is in and they’ve agreed to purchase it based on the inspection, we’ll give them one walkthrough after they put their deposit down. Then from there, they’ll do their walkthrough and we’ll use a local title company, or we have national title companies that we use that’ll facilitate the closing with all parties and you send the wire right into our bank account.
Jay Conner (16:08):
So a little more specifically, how do you get really close on estimating repairs?
Nick Perry (16:17):
It’s an art. So one thing that we do is we have a detailed property description and then pictures tell a thousand words, right? So yeah, sellers don’t always know the exact condition of their property, or they try to hide things, you know? But once you have a detailed Rolodex of photos to look at, that’s going to get you really close. Also, after we send somebody in there, if they find out that there’s additional repairs that are needed, we’re going to disclose that to the seller and all parties and make sure that it’s a win-win for everybody involved. We want the investor to get a great deal, solve the seller’s problems. So, nothing’s really getting past us.
Jay Conner (17:08):
You say the majority of your buyers are other real estate investors that are taking the deal down and you’re planning on an assignment fee from them?
Nick Perry (17:21):
Yeah. And unless it’s a novation agreement or sometimes, we’ll just list the properties on the MLS on behalf of the seller. And in those cases, it’s a conventional buyer, but the majority of our clients are all real estate investors like yourself. And you guys that are watching the show that are fixing-and-flipping property, or you’re a buy-and-hold investor looking for additional cash flow properties. Those are our end clients at the end of the day.
Jay Conner (17:51):
You’ve got someone that’s starting out and they want to be in wholesaling. One of the first things they need to do, I suppose, is build a buyers list, right? So what are some of your tips and secrets and strategies on how you quickly build a buyers list of other real estate investors to market wholesale deals today?
Nick Perry (18:15):
Well, yeah, that was one of my biggest challenges going nationwide. I had leads coming in from everywhere, but I didn’t have buyers everywhere. And so one thing that was really helpful to me was you’re going to these masterminds and things like that because I got to know so many other investors from different markets. I was either able to barter, trade, or buy a ton of different buyers lists. So I quickly built up a large buyer’s list just from that. And then, additionally, Facebook is a great tool. There’s tons of real estate investment, Facebook groups, all over where there’s active investors looking for deals. So that and a lot of these small towns, we just reach out to the realtors there because those realtors know everybody, right? They know the doctor that wants to buy a couple of rental properties a month. They know the big fix-and-flipper that’s doing 40 homes a year. So you just get resourceful, roll your sleeves up, and talk to people.
Jay Conner (19:18):
You can’t be picking up the telephone, can you?
Nick Perry (19:22):
Now, we are big on that. I’m big on being on the phones. We don’t do a lot of texting or emailing. My guys, it’s old school, pick up the phone, and make contact and have a conversation.
Jay Conner (19:37):
Yeah, there you go. I love it. We’re in a crazy market nationwide, pretty much every market. There’s no inventory to speak of in the multiple listing service. I hear a lot of my real estate investing friends say it’s the most challenging time that they’ve ever had, finding the off-market deals. And so we gotta be consistently marketing. So first of all, would you agree with that statement that it’s more challenging to find deals today, say than a couple of years ago?
Nick Perry (20:13):
I don’t know. I mean, I’m making more money than I’ve ever made in my career right now. So I think it just comes down to being smart with the way that you’re marketing because if you’re doing telecommunications, which is cold-calling, ringless voicemail, texting sellers, that’s an uphill battle. You’re beating on their door, knocking on their door, asking to give them a cash offer and everybody else is doing that. So one thing that was critical for me was to get really good at online marketing. All I do is pay-per-click advertising. I don’t do any other form of marketing. It’s been that way for a long time just because it’s a completely different approach when somebody’s reaching out to you, asking you for help versus you reaching out and trying to help somebody.
Jay Conner (21:06):
Absolutely. I was gonna say, it’s a whole different conversation when they’re raising their hand looking for you versus you raising your hand and you looking for them. It’s a different, whole conversation when somebody is clicking on your ad and saying, “Hey, please contact me,” versus you’re coming into somebody’s newsfeed or a Facebook ad or anything like that. I love it. So that’s interesting. You’re the only person I’ve talked to that only has one marketing channel. So that’s fantastic. I would think your sales guys, your acquisitions guys have a lot happier day than some other wholesalers.
Nick Perry (21:54):
Big time. If I were to give them cold calling leads or texting leads, they’d probably quit because I mean, it’s a completely different vibe. We get our conversions and it’s 1 out of every 10 to 15 leads is a contract. So they’re having to do much less outbound dials to get deals.
Jay Conner (22:16):
Right. What’s your average cost of a deal these days? What’s your conversion cost? How much money do you have to spend in marketing to get a contract?
Nick Perry (22:31):
I know it fluctuates between $800 and $1200. So our cost per contract’s really low because I’ve been working on PPC for so long. I’ve got my cost per lead really low at this point, which obviously plays a huge part in the cost per contract and profitability and all of that.
Jay Conner (22:49):
That’s fantastic. Do you use virtual assistants in your business?
Nick Perry (22:55):
We do. We have some virtual assistants that help out on the disposition side. We have some a couple of full-time virtual assistants that help follow up within our internal database, but the majority of my staff is all in-house right there in Austin, Texas. And they’re 5 days a week, Monday through Friday just going after it.
Jay Conner (23:21):
What kind of CRM or tools or systems do you have in place that your business really couldn’t live without?
Nick Perry (23:31):
We’ve customized our Podio to do everything that we needed to do. So that’s been phenomenal. If you’re using Podio, find a good developer to help customize it to the way that you like to do business. And then additionally Zillow, we comp using Zillow and we comp using PropStream. So those are really helpful. And then on the selling side of the properties, we use a software called InvestorLift, which is really helpful. It’ll show you all the LLCs of the people that are flipping property there in the area and give you their contact information. So InvestorLift has been a powerful tool for finding those investors across the country.
Jay Conner (24:18):
Interesting. So you’ve got quite a few years of experience right now. My next question, you would probably be able to answer this in more than one way, so I’ll just let you pick one. What’s one of the most important lessons you’ve learned since being in real estate investing?
Nick Perry (24:35):
Oh man. There’s so many. If I had to boil it down to one though, I don’t want to give you a cliché answer, like, “Don’t give up” or anything like that, but in terms of real estate investing is, “It’s going to be okay.” So here’s what I tell a lot of my students, too. It comes down to your team, and let me elaborate on that. “A” Players are the only thing that work in this business. If you have an A Player and B Player, here’s what happens. You got the B Player that ends up getting half of the leads, and that deal that your A Player would have closed and made $70,000 on, your B Player is going to fumble on that and it’s not going to become a deal. So you end up having a lot of lost revenue. So you look at that and you take that scenario and you extract it out over a week, a month, a quarter a year, you could, you could be potentially losing your multiple 7-figures if you don’t have the best talent. So I think people want to try to settle for inexperienced people, people that aren’t A Talent because they don’t think they can afford them and things like that. But I’m telling you, good talent is really the key to my success.
Jay Conner (26:01):
And what are your favorite ways to find that talent?
Nick Perry (26:06):
So I worked at Indeed before coming into real estate. So I know a lot of the tricks on how to get a ton of candidate flow there. And then we’ve come up with a proprietary way of just being able to quickly funnel through people and get near the best people that rise to the top on Indeed. So, Indeed, by far is number one and then referrals, as well. We’ve had a lot of great people come through who work with me just through referrals.
Jay Conner (26:36):
Gotcha. Super! Well, Nick, I tell you what, you have got the experience and you are one impressive human being. What is a final thought or thoughts that you would like to share with the audience?
Nick Perry (26:50):
Yeah, final thoughts. The biggest thing is if you’re already in the business, what tends to happen a lot of times is you plateau, you end up getting stuck. I got stuck in what I call “wholesaling purgatory” for 3 or 4 years where I couldn’t get past 5 to 8 deals a month. And what I did was now that we do 40, 50, 60 deals a month, the biggest difference was 1. Your team, 2. Your marketing, and then 3.) Also being nationwide. So I literally downloaded everything I know into video format and then created a mastermind behind it, as well, where I work with already experienced real estate investors that are looking to get from maybe a handful of deals a month to 7+ figures, multiple 7-figures a year. That’s what I’m really good at is helping people that are already successful in getting them quickly through those growth pains in this business because I already went through it. So that’s my new passion now is working with other investors I get to help. That’s really rewarding to me. And that’s been my new passion since I don’t do much in the day-to-day of my wholesaling operation anymore. I just get out of those guys’ way and let them close deals.
Jay Conner (28:11):
Yeah, man, and I’ve gotten the same passion and that is making a difference in other real estate investors’ lives. So let’s give everybody your website because we got some viewers and most of the people that are going to be listening to us will actually be listening to the podcast. So that website is www.7FigureCartel.com. Did I get that right, Nick?
Nick Perry (28:49):
You got it. Or you can just reach out to me on Instagram. It’s just my name, Nick Perry and then REI like real estate investments. So just Nick Perry REI, or you can go to the website, but yeah, happy to connect and help you guys any way I can.
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In The Air Tonight
From The MoonBrella Academy
Word Count: 2300
Warnings: sex (penatrative, m/f), erotic asphyxiation, death, angst, PTSD, mentions of war, magic, general Klaus-induced chaos. GIF by @sheehanspam
A/N: During the summer of 1974, The Kostas family feels more than the oppressive weight heat. A true prophecy warns them something is on the horizon. Something that will set the course for the rest of their lives all thanks to the man out of time and a baby they promised to raise.
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Honey found her balance after straddling Leon. Her hips rolled in a steady rhythm of back and forth. Her husband reached up to caress her breasts. She seized his wrists so tight, her manicured nails dug into her own palms.
Leon, switching gears, grabbed at them roughly instead. He pinched one of Honey’s nipples swollen then the other. They were lost perfectly in his grip as he massaged them, played with them as Honey rode him. He growled and she cried out before moving his hand towards her mouth to suck and bite at Leon's finger and thumb.
They were like a couple possessed. There was something in the air like static. Manhattan was the hottest Honey had known it to be. Everyone drifted slowly and drenched in sweat on the streets and in her apartment. It had been quiet during the worst of the heat. Only Diego and Klaus dained to still visit.
Earlier in the evening, up on the roof with their feet solidly in a wading pool, Leon and Honey sensed Klaus was uneasy about everything. He complained that the temperatures and the electricity in the air was suffocating him. Making his skin crawl as he stripped to his underwear. Everyone was in stages of undress, even the littles were naked and Honey topless.
“It's like Vietnam. The humidity is cellular. I feel strange and twisted.”
“Murderous, but fancy a good shag?” Leon’s query settled across the roof. “Like you could kill who you..” he mouthed fuck.
Two sets of verdant eyes gawked at Honey who suddenly sat up and covered her breasts. “Knock it off, the both of you. You're creeping me out.”
Somehow they made it through dinner and bedtime and MASH and Carol Burnett before Leon threw Honey over his shoulder. She squealed and mimicked trying to escape, but it only spurned Leon into grabbing a fistful of her ass. He maneuvered her around so she could wrap her arms and legs around him while they lumbered and kissed and undressed towards the bedrooms.
“Shhh,” Honey admonished with a strangled laugh. She pointed at the doorway to Sugar and Sunny’s room.
Klaus had passed out on the floor between the tiny beds, his head in his arms on his stomach. Sunny half poured out of the bed with a hand on his.. uncle? Brother? Klaus’s head, little fingers tangled up as he sucked on his free thumb.
Now here they were maybe hours later, insatiable. The air was stifling and had a magnetic crackle that raised the hair on their bodies as they kept having sex. Honey pushed it out of her mind that metal objects were slowly shifting in one direction as she placed Leon's hand around her throat. Her body rocked up and down faster.
There was a blue tinge to the sky and lightning. Heat lightning Leon insisted. It set Klaus on edge with the kids playing around him. He and Sunny tested out telekinesis while Selina danced to David Bowie. Her dark eyes were covered by Klaus’s literal rose colored glasses. He kept zoning out. Like he was waiting, waiting for the consequences of all of his actions.
“Tio Topolino, watch me!” Selina spun with her arms up in the air. Uncle Mouse. Klaus had been too hard to say before she learned her parents’ native tongues.
“Something is coming, Gracie.”
“Why would you say that, Leonidas?”
They were whispering in Greek. The littles weren't quite ready for Greek yet, but Klaus was born fluent. So they spoke in hushed tones on the fire escape.
“Doesn't it feel that way? The last few Weeks. Klaus usually leaves after a day. He's been here for nearly two months. There's bound to be repercussions, right?”
“Not much happened that he's said, or we read, as the result of Vietnam or 1960-1963.”
Leon rolled his eyes at his wife and made a tsk sound, “Just a bloody apocalypse or two. That Dickensian fuck who raised him got a whole new legion off it. Klaus talked you into having our baby. Then into taking another baby he stole. Skip a stone on a pond, and it makes ripples, don’t it?”
Honey hated when her husband was right. And her vagina loved how smart he was. She had looked in the window in time to see Sunny stand and toddle towards Klaus. His eyes glossed over and lost their irises. It was as if he had gone blind.
The parents scrambled through the window towards their son, but Klaus had him by the tiny hands. Sunny's pudgy fingers curled around his.. The larger ones for stability.
“Sunny?!” Selina shook her baby brother lightly.
“Klaus what the fuck? HELP HI-!” Honey yelled but Leon clamped a hand over her mouth.
“He’ll be ok,” Klaus sort of cooed. His voice was low and gentle. “I remember these. It happened so much when I was a kid. It's the innocence I think. I lost this ability because of Reginald.”
“He's in a trance, love. Like in all those movies with seances where the medium goes wonky, and they've got a message from the other side.” .
Everyone held their breath. Then a delighted shout came from the boy. “BIRB!! BEN!!” Then his eyes came back into focus; he threw his arms around Klaus’s neck. As if that was what he planned the entire time.
“Ben?!” Two men with the same face asked simultaneously. “That's my brother.”
“That was your brother’s name?” Klaus spoke first. “Maybe that's where I got it. When Mom asked us to choose our names based on our birth countries, I thought Germany was mine. My brother was Korean, but he couldn't settle on a name. Ben came to my mind. It felt.. familiar.”
Leon walked over to his kids and his twin, or clone, or whatever Klaus was, and picked Sunny up. The toddler stuck his thumb in his mouth and flexed and unflexed his little chubby fingers in his daddy’s long curls.
The matching mess of hair covered Leon's neck and chin as Sunny laid his tiny head down on the elder’s shoulder. The little yawned as his hand now absently stroked Leon's goatee.
“He died in Cyprus. He fought for Britain against our own people. He defected and was killed,” Leon said so casually. “He was 20. I was 16. It was really bloody difficult being an immigrant. A refugee. We left Greece during the Independence War when I was a year old. There's so much death, mate. All around us. I'm just really so sorry you and Nicklaus have to see it up close. I hope here, with Honey and I, they're a bit friendlier.”
Klaus had offered to conjure Leon's brother. His Benjamin. Leon declined. One day, maybe, but 15 years still wasn't enough time. That The Séance had likewise lost his brother in battle at the same age was empathetic enough.
Everyone was a bit melancholy, the air more humid with a spark, Klaus offered to get the littles to bed. Asked if he could crash in their room tonight instead of on the couch. The couple didn't mind.
Really, if Klaus could somehow, they both preferred he just stay here permanently. Honey could keep an eye on him that way. She and Leon knew Klaus had to go back and forth, maintaining his own timeline.
Except the last time he came was two years after he smuggled Sunny to his parents. He promised five minutes. This time it had been over a year. The Kostases were worried the next time he showed up, it would be the 80s. Or they would be old, their kids in their forties.
It was a silent agreement between Leon and Honey that they liked Klaus being around. “But what’s the price WE end up paying?”
Now there they were in the throes of it all. Honey encouraged Leon to tighten his grip around her neck as she scratched at his forearm. Their bodies gyrating in ways they hadn't in years. Not since before Selina. As if they couldn't fuck each other harder or faster.
Honey started to see black spots on the corners of her eyes. She relished in the struggle to breathe. Looking down, the blue tinted midnight sky with its wild lightning reflected back at her through Leon's eyes. He looked deliberate, livid. She knew she looked barking mad to him.
Honey tore at her tits and hair as she felt an orgasm coil around her sex and stomach. She was lightheaded and unable to scream out like always. She began to laugh as best she could like a woman possessed. Rode Leon through his explosion inside of her. She mentally willed it to get her pregnant.
Such a strange thing to wish for while Leon was killing her. Except he wasn't really, was he? Honey could feel herself pass out when there was a massive explosion in the sky over Manhattan.
Leon immediately let go of his wife. A blazing white light that blinded both of them filled the bedroom, and a squawking noise sounded from down the hall. Then yelling from Klaus lost somewhere in the present and possibly Vietnam. There was giggling and the patter of feet with more incoherent shouting and swearing from the littles’ room.
The bird noise only grew over the shouting, so Honey covered her ears to drown it all out. Leon looked stunned. Like he had woken from a terrible dream. That little girl laughter. The patter of feet running down the hall. The yelling and squawking all stopped. Cut off, as if the couple had fallen deaf.
“Mummy!” Selina exclaimed delightedly. It would be strange to Honey that her daughter had developed an accent like Leon's. Except that's who she spent most of her days with. Eventually Selina grew out of it, and Little Italy would take over.
“Can we keep him?! Are you and Papa playing?”
Honey knew Selina’s little head would be tilted. Little forehead wrinkled as it gathered between her eyebrows, tiny pink mouth slightly agape. How Honey loved finding more of Leon in her daughter every day.
“Keep what, Poppet?” Leon asked while helping Honey slide off of his lap. They weren't being modest, she just clearly was coming down from an adrenaline rush.
“This!” Selina held something large and black aloft. That squawking sound again.
Her parents froze. Selina held a raven nearly the size of Sunny in front of herself. It blinked its bright ebony eyes a few times, but was rather calm for being squeezed by a 5 year old. It, he. They knew it was a he. There was even affection on his face.
“Blimey love, whatcha got there?” Leon dared to ask. He was more fascinated than scared. The corvid set Honey’s hair on end.
“It’s Ben, Daddy!” Selina made a tsk noise and rolled her eyes. Little female Leon. “Sunny told us he was coming! The sky was filled with blue people, and Topo was scared. And Sunny’s little hands were blue and Topo’s were too and then Sunny started to fly. He's on the inside roof! Is he Mary Poppins?!” Selina could barely breathe, she was so excited.
“Those blue people are sad and Topo saw one and started to cry. That blue people is Dave. Then the bird came,” she held him out again towards her parents, “and he started making noises at all the blue people and they went away except three and Topo won't stop crying and Sunny is giggling. I'm tired. Can I sleep with you?”
As calm as they could muster, Honey and Leon got out of bed and put on clothes. Leon scooped up Selina who held the raven like a baby. Her dad ignored it. They made their way to the second bedroom where a blue light emanated into the hallway.
Like Sugar said, Klaus was on his knees crying into his hands. Sunny bobbed along the ceiling. He pushed off of it and bounced back up. The little boy’s laughter was a creepy juxtaposition to his older self gently weeping on the floor.
Honey knew. Leon knew. The “blue people” were ghosts. All of that static, that violence and heat in the air the last few weeks were the dead. Crackling and surfacing, begging to break through now that TWO mediums were together. It was, they immediately understood, Klaus’s sheer willpower that had held them at bay. But he was vulnerable, lost vigilance. They all broke through at once.
“Fuck me,” Leon managed at one of two soldiers. He was taller than Leon, but no mistaking his best of curls and angular jaw. Honey knew in life he had dark eyes. “Βενιᾱμῑ́ν?” Benjamin?
Dave, the woman knew, had been Klaus’s lover in Vietnam. He died saving Klaus and their regiment on the front line.
Except Honey could tell that wasn't true. The Commission had him killed to fix the timeline. They were different, not governed by violence more like stern warnings. As if parents instead of a dictator ran them now. When would they come to scold her family?
Lost in her worry, Honey didn't see the third man. The melancholic one with a cigarette perched in his fingers. He wore a giant suit jacket and equally large pants. There was a transparent tumbler of whiskey in his other hand.
This one, this ghost opened his mouth. At the same time Klaus sat up, his head cocked. Then he spoke, and a voice Honey hadn't heard in ten years came out.
“Hiya, Gracie.”
Honey began to weep. “Uncle Lenny.” She hid herself away so he wouldn't see the tears.
“Aw c’mon dollface. It's ok. I'm ok. I'm not ruining my life anymore. I do miss the stage. And Kitty. Tell Kitty I love her, will ya? And Honey, my Honey. That Kindergarten hooker. Spiteful bitch. I miss them. Proud of you, Gracie. We gotta go, ok. The three of us got wrapped up in all that jazz. By the way, cute little fuckers ya got there.”
Lenny tipped his head at Honey and Leon. Then he was gone. They were all gone. Everyone left behind in their wake to cry harder. To mourn in disbelief. Then giggling brought them all to.
Sunny floated down enough for Klaus to catch him by the ankle. He held the little boy to his chest, and Sunny patted him on the cheek. His hands weren't glowing anymore as he shoved a thumb in his mouth. Then, delighted, he gave a shout in the direction of the raven:
“BIRB!!”
@neuroticpuppy @nightmonsters @magic-multicolored-miracle @forenschik @super-unpredictable98 @ghouls-buddy @vonkimmeren @messengeronthemoon @frogs--are--bitches @bisexualnathanyoung @elliethesuperfruitlover @070188 @firstpersonnarrator @rob-private @duck-noises @sylvertyger
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aion-rsa · 3 years
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The True Story Behind James Cameron’s Titanic
https://ift.tt/3shvKln
James Cameron’s 1997 blockbusting tearjerker, Titanic, puts an epic love story in the middle of the greatest maritime disaster in the history of the North Atlantic. On April 15, 1912, midway through its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. Because of a severe shortage of lifeboats, 1,517 people died. In the weeks which followed, the luxury liner was said to have been billed as “unsinkable,” but that claim had never been made until after the nautical disaster.
This and other myths have lived on, thanks particularly to Cameron’s romantic (and often fanciful) movie. And yet, not all truths have been lost at sea.
Jack and Rose
Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and Rose DeWitt Bukater, played by Kate Winslet as a young woman and Gloria Stuart when elderly, are a myth. They are fictional characters. Jack wasn’t slipped $20 for rescuing Rose, and never taught her how to spit off the side of a ship like a man. But there was a member of the Titanic crew named Joseph Dawson. Born in Dublin, Joseph Dawson worked as a coal trimmer, evening out piles of coal which were shoveled into the ship’s furnaces.
Rose DeWitt-Bukater is the first film character portrayed by two actors who were both nominated for an Academy Award. Winslet was nominated as Best Actress, and Stuart was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Rose is modeled on Beatrice Wood, who did not travel on the Titanic. Born in San Francisco to wealthy parents, her coming out party was cancelled the same year the Titanic sank.
Beatrice joined the French National Repertory Theatre under the stage name Mademoiselle Patricia, playing more than 60 roles before she was noticed by artist Marcel Duchamp. She was well known by artists during the Dada period, and lived long enough to be invited by James Cameron to the opening of Titanic.
Captain Edward John Smith
Before skippering the Titanic, Capt. Edward John Smith (Bernard Hill) spent 40 years at sea without major incidents. Smith had been working on boats since he was a teenager. He earned a master’s certificate, which is required to serve as captain, in 1875. He became a junior officer with the White Star Line in 1880. He commanded his first ship in 1887. Like many veteran captains, he occasionally ran ships aground, and was captain of the Olympic when it collided with the British cruiser Hawke off the Isle of Wight in 1911, a year before he helmed the Titanic.
The Titanic received iceberg warnings several days into its maiden voyage. Smith adjusted the course but reportedly did not decrease speed. He was away from the bridge when the ship struck an iceberg. The first damage report, from Fourth Officer Joseph G. Boxhall (Simon Crane), found no damage. But a closer inspection from the Titanic’s designer Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber), found five of the ship’s 16 watertight compartments were flooded. The Titanic could have stayed afloat with up to four flooded compartments. At about midnight, Andrews reported the ship would founder within 60 to 90 minutes. Smith gave orders to uncover the lifeboats and alert the passengers at 12:05 a.m.
Because of some of the reported incidents, some historians wonder whether Smith was in a state of shock at the news. Crewmen didn’t lower the lifeboats until 12:45 a.m., and only because Second Officer Charles Lightoller (Jonny Phillips) reminded the captain to give the order.
Smith’s final moments are unknown. Early newspaper reports alleged he shot himself with a pistol. Several witnesses claimed to have seen him swim to a nearby lifeboat with an infant in his arms before swimming back to the Titanic. Some witnesses said he was swept off deck by a wave, others believed he made it to an overturned lifeboat. Smith’s body was never found.
Joseph Bruce Ismay
J. Bruce Ismay (Jonathan Hyde) was born Dec. 12, 1862, near Liverpool, England. His father was the founder of the White Star Line. Educated at Harrow and tutored in France, he travelled the world before becoming the New York company agent for White Star Line. He became head of Ismay, Imrie & Company after his father’s death in 1899, oversaw its acquisition by J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company in 1902, and was named president of IMM in 1904.
In 1907, Ismay met with Lord Pirrie of the Belfast shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff to discuss building a fast luxury liner with huge steerage capacity which would rival the Cunard Line’s RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania. Three ships were built, the RMS Olympic, RMS Britannic, and the pride of the fleet, the RMS Titanic. The ship was built by British White Star Lines at a cost of $10 million. It weighed 46,000 tons and was 882.5 feet long.
History puts culpability for the Titanic disaster on Ismay. He reportedly demanded the captain increase speed in spite of the iceberg warnings, but during the U.S. Senate’s Inquiry into the disaster, he testified the ship was never going at full speed and didn’t even have all of the boilers on. Ismay was the company officer who gave the order to cut the number of lifeboats onboard from 48 to the Board of Trade standard minimum of 16, plus 4 collapsible Engelhardt boats. But Ismay also helped crewmen get the lifeboats ready and convinced passengers to board the lifeboats before danger was visibly apparent. Ismay boarded Engelhardt C, the last lifeboat launched, only 20 minutes before the Titanic crashed beneath the waves.
While Ismay was attacked in the press and branded a coward for escaping while so many working-class women and children died, testimony from surviving officers exonerated his actions as in the best interest of the passengers. Ismay retired from IMM and the White Star Line in 1913.
Chief Engineer Officer Joseph Bell
Joseph Bell (Terry Forrestal) was from Farlam, Cumbria, and a family who had been farmers for generations.  Born in March 1861, Joseph began his seafaring career as an apprentice engine fitter at Robert Stephensons and Co. in Newcastle. Bell joined the White Star line in 1885, serving on vessels working the waters of New Zealand and New York.
Joseph, was promoted to Chief Engineer on the Coptic in 1891 and married Maud Bates in 1893. By 1911, he was the Chief Engineer on White Star Line’s Olympic before being transferred to the Titanic. His staff consisted of 24 engineers, six electrical engineers, two boilermakers, a plumber, and a clerk. None survived the sinking.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
Legend has it, Margaret Tobin Brown (Kathy Bates) was called “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” because she helped evacuate the ship, took up one of the oars in the lifeboat, and threatened to throw Quartermaster Robert Hichens (Paul Brightwell) overboard if he didn’t go back to the boat to save more people. The myth says the nickname was plucked from the first words she said upon landing safely in New York: “Typical Brown luck. I’m unsinkable!” But Brown actually got the tag as an insult from Denver gossip columnist Polly Pry as revenge for the story of a local hero being printed in another magazine first.
Molly Tobin was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1867. Her Irish family was part of a wave of immigrants who came to America after the country’s industrialization. Margaret went to school until age 13 when she began working in a factory. She left in search of better work conditions. She met J.J. Brown, a mining engineer, and they were married on Sept. 1, 1886. While most of their neighbors in the Leadville, Missouri community lived in devastating poverty because of the 1893 Silver Crash, J.J. discovered gold in Ibex Mining’s Little Johnny Mine, where he was made a primary shareholder. The couple became nearly instantaneous millionaires.
Moving to Denver where the Silver Crash also took a heavy economic toll, Margaret became part of the Progressive movement, fighting for public baths, public parks, and other city improvements. The Browns separated in 1909 but never divorced. Margaret and her daughter Helen were on an extended vacation with Col. John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV and Madeleine Astor in 1912 when they heard news about a family member’s health issue at home and booked passage on the first available ship, the Titanic.
After the crash, Margaret was lowered in lifeboat number six, which was equipped to hold 65 passengers, but set off with 21 women, two men, and a twelve-year-old boy onboard. Margaret manned an oar. Her knowledge of foreign languages helped her bring passengers aboard the Carpathia, the first ship to answer the distress call. Margaret distributed blankets and supplies, and got the first-class passengers to donate money to help less fortunate passengers.
Brown continued her Progressive program, helping miners striking against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Twenty people were killed when a battle broke out between the miners and private guards hired by the company in one of the most violent labor conflicts in American history. Once the aftermath and PR battles died down, Margaret moved into her summer home in Newport, Rhode Island where she became involved with Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, the President of the National Women’s Suffrage Association.
The two women spearheaded the National Women’s Trade Union League, which advocated for a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, and did not distinguish between women of the upper classes and working women.
Margaret wrote newspaper articles, gave public speeches, and was drawn to the radical side of the party, which pushed for a national suffrage amendment. In July 1914, Brown and Belmont organized the Conference of Great Women, which led to Margaret’s bid for a U.S. Senator seat representing Colorado. She shifted her focus when World War I broke out, traveling to France to work for the American Committee for Devastated France.
After WWI, Molly indulged her lifelong passion for the stage, performing in plays in Paris and New York. The 1960 Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown was based on her life, Debbie Reynolds played her in the 1964 film adaptation.  Brown died in her sleep on Oct. 26, 1932, at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City.
Madeleine Astor and Jacob Astor IV
Madeleine Astor (Charlotte Chatton) was five months pregnant when she boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France with her husband Col. John Jacob “Jack” Astor IV (Eric Braeden); her husband’s valet, and her maid and nurse. Madeleine was the daughter of William Hurlbut Force, a shipping magnate, and her family was part of Brooklyn high society. The Astors were ending their extended honeymoon which began with a trip from New York on Titanic‘s sister ship, the Olympic.
When the Titanic was sinking, Astor’s husband helped her and her maid into lifeboat four but was denied entry himself by Second Officer Lightoller, who said the boats were for women and children only. Col. Astor perished with the ship. Madeleine Astor gave birth on Aug. 14, 1912. Her late husband’s will was conditional, and when Madeleine married her childhood friend, the banker William Karl Dick, four years after the Titanic tragedy, she lost her stipend from his trust fund.
Isidor and Ida Straus
Here’s a real heartbreaker greater than even Kate and Leo. Remember the image of a couple holding each other and crying as water seeps into their cabin? They were based on the tragically real figures of Isidor and Ida Straus, two of the wealthiest people on the Titanic.
Born into a Jewish family in Otterberg in 1845, back when that village was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria and Germany did not yet exist, Isidor immigrated as a child with his family to the United States. Growing up in Georgia when the Civil War broke out, he even considered joining the Confederacy before instead becoming a blockade runner for the South (think Rhett Butler). After the war, he moved to New York City where he met Ida, a fellow immigrant from the Germanic states.
In New York, Isidor worked at L. Straus and Sons, which quickly became the glass and china department at Macy’s. Yes, that Macy’s. The original one. By 1888, Isidor and his brother became partners in the first major American department store. By 1896 they owned it. Around this time, Isidor even served a single term as a Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.
When the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912, Isidor and Ida were returning home after a holiday in France. As a first class passenger woman from one of the finest cabins on the ship, Ida was almost immediately offered space on a lifeboat. Isidor escorted her to it, but when it came time to get on, she refused. She wouldn’t leave her husband. Isidor was then also offered a spot on the lifeboat beside her, but he also refused, saying he would “not go before other men.”
So both of them declined the lifeboat space and instead gave it to Ida’s maid. One witness said she heard Ida say, “We have been living together for many years. Where you go, I go.” They walked off back toward the neck, never to be seen again.
And the Band Played On
The crew of the RMS Titanic took the adage “women and children first” very seriously. The Titanic‘s eight-member band, led by violinist Wallace Hartley (Jonathan Evans-Jones), never even jockeyed for position. When the band heard the ship was going down, they set up in the first-class lounge and played to keep passengers calm. As the water rose, the band moved to the forward half of the boat deck. Hartley worked for the Cunard ship line before taking the gig on the Titanic. The other band members were violinists George Alexandre Krins and John Law Hume, violist and bassist John Frederick Preston Clarke, cellists John Wesley Woodward, and Roger Marie Bricoux, and pianists Percy Cornelius Taylor and Theodore Ronald Brailey.
According to some passengers, the final song played was “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” a hymn written in 1861 by the Rev. John Dykes. Versions of this song play in the films Titanic (1953), A Night to Remember (1958) and Cameron’s Titanic. This was discounted by Colonel Archibald Gracie, an amateur historian who survived the disaster.
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“I assuredly should have noticed it and regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death to us all, and one likely to create panic,” he is quoted as saying in Steven Turner’s book, The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the Eight Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic. He recalled that the band played cheerful songs to keep spirits up. Other survivors also reported hearing songs like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “In the Shadows.”
“Nearer, My God, to Thee” was sung by passengers who survived the 1906 wreck of the SS Valencia and had been played during the impending doom on the decks of the Titanic, but those passengers who heard the song had disembarked earlier than the crew.  Wireless operator Harold Bride told The New York Times he heard the song “Autumn” before the ship sank.
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chiefladylightyay · 3 years
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Dragons of Vytal World Building note 3
Hopefully this will be the last world building notes post for a while so I can actually write something concrete for the au. Finally have a name for the thing!
Part Two located here
The Branwen-Rose-Xiao Long Family
Taiyang Xiao Long, charmed the pants off of his team, father of Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long. Contester for Dadliest Catch(tm) and Pungeon Master(tm). Teacher at Signal Preporatory Academy.
Raven Branwen-Xiao Long, got her pants charmed off by Tai, mother of Yang. Left the family for a little while due to untreated postpartum depression, returned in the nick of time to save Yang and Ruby from a wandering Grimm. Low key huntress, takes no shit from anyone. Currently MIA.
Summer Rose-Xiao Long, got her pants charmed off by Tai, mother of Ruby. Keeper of the Silver Eyes(tm) and Winner of the Super Mom(TM) award, slayer of Grimm and baker of cookies. Went on a dangerous solo mission and almost died, spends her time being a stay at home mom and occasionally teaching at Signal.
Qrow Branwen, got his pants charmed off by Tai, uncle of Ruby and Yang. Winner of the coveted Coolest Dude(tm) and Best Uncle(tm) awards, hobbies include turning into a bird and charming the pants off any gay and bisexual man he can get his hands on. Conquests include Specialist Clover Ebi and General James Ironwood. His semblance is the same as Raven's. No bad luck this time around, no sir. Had too much to drink once, never again.
Ruby Rose-Xiao Long, daughter of Summer and Tai. Keeper of the Silver Eyes(tm) and winner of the Cookie Nomster(tm) award. Dead set on becoming a huntress, despite all the terrible stories told by the adults in her family. Age 15 years and 10 months when she stops that famous criminal from robbing a random dust shop. Geekiest weapons nerd that ever geeked over a weapon. Has yet to suffer the gay mojo, but she will. Oh, yes, she will. Trans.
Yang Branwen-Xiao Long, daughter of Raven and Tai, punchiest blonde this side of the galaxy and junior Pungeon Master(tm). Hobbies include punching things, flirting with both guys and gals (succeeding too) hanging out at dive bars and riding a mean motorcycle. Has a masters degree in history. Age 16.
The von Schnee Family
Nicholas von Schnee, founder of the family line, got ennobled for saving the Kaiser once. Frame for the Arma Gigas. Long since dead and buried.
Wilhelm von Schnee, father of Willow von Schnee, grandfather of Winter, Weiss and Whitley. Founder of the Schnee Dust Company, think Scrooge McDuck, lived long enough to see the birth of all his grandchildren.
Edelweiss von Schnee, wife of Wilhelm and mother of Willow von Schnee, grandmother of Winter, Weiss and Whitley. Died in child birth.
Willow von Schnee, wife of Doctor Jacques von Schnee, mother of Winter, Weiss and Whitley von Schnee. Retired huntress, member of the Convention of Twelve. Spends most of her time at home, making sure her children are well cared for.
Doctor Jacques von Schnee, doctor of robotics, business and finance. Brother of Doctor Arthur Watts. Hired by Wilhelm to replace the workforce in the dust mines and refineries with robots. Hated by the working class for this feat. Husband of Willow von Schnee, father of Winter, Weiss and Whitley. Member of the Convention of Twelve, spends most of his time at the company hq. Still makes sure to spend time with his family.
Winter von Schnee, eldest child, has no desire to inherit and so passed the mantle of heiress off to Weiss. Combat Instructor at Atlas Academy and one of the primary advisors for the headmaster. Has a harsh but sisterly love towards her siblings because she wants them to be safe. Wants something more out of life, but does not know what. Age 22.
Wiess von Schnee, middle child and heiress to the family fortune and the SDC. Famous around the world for her singing career, currently set to attend Beacon Academy to become a huntress. Very, very, very much a lesbian. Currently dating Penny Polendina, a fact she has somehow managed to keep hidden from the rest of the world. Has a masters degree in finance and business. Age 17 and change.
Whitley von Schnee, youngest and softest child. Very loved by his family, famous around the world for his music, specifically his piano pieces. Very fond of crepes, and heaven help you if you take them from him. Currently working on his doctorate. Age 14 and change.
Klein Sieben, head of household staff at the Schnee manor. Literally studied up his family fortune, but has no actual results (a bunch of Almost Doctorates are useless to an employer) from this. Had to turn to his old friend Willow to get himself a job. Much loved by the family and the rest of the staff.
The Belladonna Family
Shere Belladonna, the Red Maws operative who assassinated the Heir Presumptive of the Atlo-Mantelian Empire, thus sparking the Great War. Died unmourned in prison due to the horrific deaths in the war he caused. Very much a black mark in the family line.
Warchief Ghira Belladonna, father of Blake, ruler of Zion. A good man, spent his youth fighting for Faunus Rights. With the direction the White Fang has taken in recent years he's currently working on damage control.
Kali Belladonna, mother of Blake, like Ghira she spent her youth fighting for Faunus Rights, but her pregnancy put a firm stop to that. Spends her time advising the Fang on less violent methods, with mixed results, and teaching at Zion Preporatory Academy.
Blake Belladonna, daughter of Ghira and Kali, fighting for Faunus Rights is in her blood. Spent her youth fantasizing about being the Next Big Thing(tm) in the Good Fight(tm). Almost went off gallivanting with Adam Taurus, but a firm taking in hand by her parents scrapped that plan. Blake is very bitter about this fact. Intends to attend Beacon, just to get away from her parents whom she sees as too controlling. Age 16. She/Her nonbinary.
The Polendina Family
Doctor Pietro Polendina, father of Penny Polendina, and doctor of robotics and applied systems engineering. Due to an accident in his youth he's unable to father children. The same accident also left him paraplegic. Don't let the chair fool you, he's completely capable of laying the smackdown on anyone who threatens or bullies his daughter. Member of the Convention of Twelve, spends most of his time with Penny or building new military hardware for the Atlo-Mantelian government.
Penny Polendina, daughter of Pietro. Very cute, very curious and very gay, her free time is spent mostly with either her father or with Weiss. The first artifical human, her original purpose was to be the first of several, but the costs involved has left her as an only child. Sees Winter and Whitley as her siblings, much to their delight. Age 16 and change.
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narutoblog · 3 years
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can i request minato x kushina younger sister scenario pls? thank you 😁
a/n: eek this is my first request; i’m so honored & excited <3 <3 that being said tho, I got a bit carried away with this scenario & it turned into a full fanfic story w/multiple parts, my b 😩 i’ll try to post part 2 tomorrow (it’ll have more fluff i promise)
Everlasting Beauty (Part 1)
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prompt: Minato x Kushina’s younger sister OC (Kumiko); these two are dating, but Kushina didn’t know & she’s an overprotective big sis
Content/warning: set before 3rd shinobi war, Kushina & Minato are 16(ish?), Kumiko is 14-15;; mostly backstory & wholesome depiction of the sisters <3;; little bit of angst/loneliness in this first part
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Fall had arrived in Konoha – the crisp wind gently passed through the trees as the streets were dusted with the remnants of summer.  Kumiko had always felt attune to this time of year.  It was something about the way the reddish brown leaves seemed to swirl across the ground with a mind of their own that mesmerized her, and she often found herself sitting in the Uzumaki courtyard letting her thoughts drift away with the leaves.
The Uzumaki home wasn’t big (it didn’t need to be, considering the dwindling size of the clan), but it was more than enough for Kumiko and her older sister, Kushina.  As far back as Kumiko could remember, it had always just been the two of them.  She was too young to remember their parents, but Kushina often told her stories of their parents’ bravery before they went to sleep.  It became a nightly ritual; Kushina and Kumiko would tuck themselves into bed next to one another and Kumiko would fall asleep to the excited voice of Kushina retelling stories of their invisible heroes.  Kushina would fall asleep soon afterwards, feeling assured by the soft breathing of her little sister.
Back in the day, it didn’t take long for Kushina’s temper to become well known by the children of Konoha. After she enrolled in the academy, Kushina faced bully after bully who made fun of her red hair and her ambition to be the first female Hokage.  She was a born fighter and made it clear to her offenders that she wouldn’t back down, no matter what; she couldn’t afford to, not when she had a younger sister who would start the academy soon after her with the same trademark Uzumaki hair.  Kushina was quickly labeled the “red hot habanero,” but much to her bullies’ dismay, she wore the name with pride.  Afterwards, she spent her first few years as a genin with an impeccable mission record to prove to everyone that the Uzumaki clan weren’t just simple outsiders to be underestimated.  Time and time again, Kumiko watched her sister claim victory over what seemed like the impossible.  Kushina had ferociously fought off her bullies, graduated to genin level, and succeeded in missions with an actual team.  To Kumiko, her sister was a real-life hero – similar to the ones she’d heard about in Kushina’s stories, but tangible and alive.
By the time Kumiko started the academy two years after her, the Uzumaki name was well known among other kids, but somewhat feared, and no one dared to mess with the red hot habanero’s sister.  In fact, no one dared to talk to her at all.  For most of her time in the academy, Kumiko spent her days sitting in the corner of the classroom away from the other girls giggling behind her, or throwing practice shuriken in the yard while the other kids played ninja in the courtyard.  She was recognized by her clan name only and ignored in all other aspects; Kumiko jokingly wondered if she had some sort of unknown jutsu that made her invisible around the other students.
The Uzumaki clan, however, has always had an undeniable strength that allowed them to endure and continue in the face of adversity.  While Kushina’s strength was loud and aflame, Kumiko discovered that her strength was one found in stillness, as the bedrock guiding the path of a crashing river.
After graduating from the academy, Kumiko spent every morning in the Uzumaki courtyard, meditating on a flat stone next to the small pond.  When her sister began training for the chunin exams, Kumiko threw herself into intense training of her own to perfect her chakra control.  Working closely with her sensei, she developed a knack for medical ninjutsu and began interning at the hospital to develop her skills further.  On days when Kushina was home from missions, Kumiko asked her to help improve her taijutsu and teach her the Uzumaki sealing jutsu.  With their enormous chakra reserves, they trained relentlessly, interrupted only by their grumbling stomachs which they happily filled at their favorite dumpling shop.  In a short few years, the Uzumaki sisters had made themselves an invaluable part of the fabric of Konoha; the red hot habanero was a fierce jonin kunoichi with a trapping and sealing specialty, while her sister quickly became one of the head medical ninja in the hospital, promoted to chunin and already leading teams through hours of intense surgery without breaking a sweat.
With political tensions running high between the great nations, the number of dangerous and intense missions were increasing, even for chunin and genin teams.  But due to their different specialties, Kushina and Kumiko often only crossed paths at home or at the hospital after returning from a mission. Kumiko was often stationed in the hospital for emergency operations or called in by messenger bird whenever necessary; Kushina, on the other hand, was often placed on front-line teams to gather intel on the other nations, which ultimately meant high-risk missions where death was not unlikely.  Most recently, Lord Third had sent Kushina with a team gathering intel on Kirigakure forces, and she wasn’t due to return for another two days.
Kumiko drifted back to reality as a sigh escaped her lips. I wonder how Kushina’s doing.. she thought, as a stray leaf brushed against her cheek.  She shook her head and picked out the leaf that had now lodged itself in her hair and held it up to examine it.  The leaf was long and jagged, one that she didn’t recognize from the Uzumaki courtyard.  Still a little dazed from her wandering thoughts, Kumiko blinked and tried to focus her eyes on the leaf when the wind ripped it out of her hand and dropped it into the pond.  Kumiko’s skin raised slightly in goosebumps as she stepped towards the water to look for the leaf.  It was torn clean in half, each end floating away from one another as it rode the ripples of the pond.
Just as Kumiko realized the probable omen, a messenger bird from the hospital flew down and perched itself on her shoulder.  Kumiko did her best to not flinch too hard to avoid scaring the bird.  She unraveled the small scroll and revealed a message that summoned her immediately to the operating room.  She quickly imprinted her chakra signature on the scroll to let them know she was on her way, then tied the message to the bird and let it fly away. Kumiko’s instincts kicked in as she ran through her mental list of preparations for working at the hospital.  She changed into her hospital uniform, grabbed her medical notes, and rushed onto the roofs of Konoha, racing towards emergency room.
When Kumiko arrived at the hospital, the medical staff were in an unusual frenzy.  She joined the other medical staff in the hurry as she tried to gather as much information as she could from scribbled charts, but there wasn’t enough information.
“Kumiko! Over here!” Kumiko jolted her head up and looked down the hallway to see the jonin in charge frantically waving in her direction.  She navigated past the other medical staff and civilians to get closer, then followed the jonin into the operating room near the end of the hall.  “We’ve got two teams back from their A-rank missions, four with moderate injuries, two in intensive care,” the jonin explained as she scrubbed her hands, forearms, then put on sterile gloves.  Kumiko followed suit as she listened.  “We pulled her into the operating room a few minutes ago because her chakra levels weren’t responding to the emergency treatment and we can’t figure out why; we need to detect any abnormalities in the chakra network to see if it has been tampered with and restore her levels immediately,” the jonin spoke quickly, nodding to the patient on the table.
Kumiko nodded in understanding, then followed the jonin’s gaze to the patient.  She could hear the jonin in charge hold her breath as Kumiko noticed the curtain of red hair spilling out from underneath the medical cover. no… no no no nono..
“Kumiko,” she heard her name from somewhere in the distance.  She wanted to look for whoever called her name, but she couldn’t move.  Her eyes were glued to the red hair she knew so well, the thick strands that had always roared with life at Kushina’s anger and yet were somehow so limp in the operating room, gone of their previous passions, lifeless.
“No,” Kumiko’s voice choked as she struggled to regain feeling in her hands.  “No, no, no, it can’t..”
“Kumiko,” her name was spoken more firmly this time, laced with urgency.  She turned her head slowly, painfully dragging her eyes away from her sister’s body.  The jonin gave her a grave look.  “We can save her, but we need your help.  You’re the only one on staff who has as much chakra as Kushina does, and right now, we need you to focus and do what you do best.  We can do this, I promise.  You can do it.”
Kumiko gulped and tried to take a deep breath.  She quickly finished putting on her gloves and nodded, following the jonin closer to Kushina’s body.  The jonin did a quick scan then began giving orders to the other operating staff, requesting injections and creating a list of ingredients for a possible antidote. She turned to Kumiko, who stood still, listening to her sister’s weak breathing.  “Kumiko,” the jonin said.  Kumiko looked up.  “Prepare for a chakra transfusion,” Kumiko nodded, understanding her orders.  “But Kumiko,” she looked up again.  “do NOT push the limit.  I mean it.  We need you on the other side of the operation, we can’t take care of you and save her too.  Understood?” She nodded again and gathered her hands to prepare for the chakra transfusion.  Once she had built up a steady flow from her network to her hands, she placed them gently on Kushina’s vital points to push chakra into her body.  She cringed as she felt the chakra rush out of her system, but stayed focused.  I will not let you go like this, Kumiko shouted in her head.  Not like this, not ever!  With an unmistakable Uzumaki fire in her eyes, Kumiko nodded at the others to begin the operation.
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Minato had known Kushina from their academy days, but he hadn’t seen her around much after their genin teams were formed.  Most of his time was spent training under Master Jiraiya, who spent half their time doing “research” by the onsens.  But Minato was ever quick to learn and ingeniously skilled; under Jiraiya’s guidance, he quickly mastered the toad sage mode and developed a strong relationship with his toad summons.  In the few years after leaving the academy, Minato rose through the ranks and was promoted to jonin.  His trademark technique of the flying raijin gave him the name “yellow flash of the leaf,” and his speed combined with his original jutsu of the rasengan made him feared by all the great nations.  And yet for all his talent, he couldn’t protect his teammates on this mission.  Elite shinobi or not, he was still left sitting in a pool of worry outside the ICU, anxiously waiting for some news about his injured teammates.
As the hours passed, Minato stayed put in the area outside of his teammates’ rooms, watching medics flow in and out.  The only proof of the passage of time was a nurse that stopped by every now and then to check and replace his bandages.
“You should get some rest,” a familiar voice suggested, placing a weighted hand on his shoulder. Minato struggled against his heavy eyelids and shook his head, determined to stay by his teammates until he was able to see them with his own eyes.  Jiraiya chuckled and let out a deep sigh.  “You know, you may be a smart kid, but you’re still young.”  Minato raised his head to meet his sensei’s gaze slowly and Jiraiya gave him a grim look.  “To be a shinobi is to endure, even if that is the consequences of our decisions.”  Minato grit his teeth and looked away.  “You decided a plan of action you thought was best, but this time, the enemy outsmarted you. Should things have gone their way, all of you would be dead.”  Jiraiya slowly turned to walk away.  “Your team was able to get out there alive.  Use this opportunity to get stronger.. Or else next time, you won’t have the chance, “ Jiraiya advised, walking away towards the front door, one arm held up in goodbye. Minato looked at Jiraiya’s back, replaying his words in his head.  Next time.. I’ll protect them.. he vowed as his body slumped in the chair, finally falling asleep.
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part 2 is here!!
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zmediaoutlet · 3 years
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my year of fic (2020)
I had a lapse in doing this, because the end of 2019 was just---a haze---but I thought it might be fun to try again on this, my first day off of 2021. Ignoring for a moment the armed sedition and the pandemic and the general feeling like the world’s about to spin upside down, I think it might be a good day. Let me try to feel some joy in writing, so that I might do some more writing this weekend. There’s a chance!
Per the AO3 stats tracker:
Total words written in 2020: 278,664 (Compared to 2019: 201,375 -- definite improvement!) That brings the overall AO3 published total to: 1,160,723. Jesus. I need another hobby, haha.
I’ll try to collect a year masterlist below, but let’s see what happened with stats first.
fic with most hits, which is not the same thing as best: no disguising truths i’ve sold -- y’all are fiends for the dadsex, just admit it. It always gives me a giggle how many hits these ones have with so few people actually interacting. :)
fic with most kudos, which I guess means people admitted they liked it: there will be better days -- which I guess isn’t a surprise, written when it was, but it’s still super gratifying to see that people enjoyed it. This one takes top spot for most of the other categories, too, so I’m going to go for the 2nd-placers on the next few...
fic with (2nd-)most comment threads, which I guess means people wanted to chat about it: In a Cursed Hour, which is a pleasant surprise! This is the very long gen (with sneaky pining!Dean), the first part of which was technically finished this year. I hope I come back to it at some point, because the story is... great, haha. Just super hard to write. Gratifying that people wanted to talk about it!
fic with (2nd-)most bookmarks, which I guess means people want to read it again: see things so much clearer -- aw, now that’s a nice surprise! This kinda felt like channeling old-school weecest, in some ways, so it’s cool that people seem to have enjoyed it.
fic with (2nd)-most subscriptions, which I guess means people are hoping for more: welcome to capitalism -- another nice surprise! I almost forgot about this one: a little ruthless, a little kind. Logical choices in a world that sucks, kind of my favorite genre, haha.
longest fic: what comes after certainty -- ow, ow. This is a---strange one---started in 2019 before the haze, published finally in a bit of ignominy, still not read by the recipient I’m pretty sure because it’s fucking depressing, haha. But I’m kinda proud of it, or at least proud of myself for finishing it, so I guess it’s good that I spent this many words on it.
least popular fic, if we’re going by kudos: transference -- lol, that makes sense -- Umbrella Academy momcest? That said tho, it’s kinda fun and you should read it. Diego’s just the biggest mommy’s boy. Ahem.
The best thing writing-wise about this year was stretching into stuff I wouldn’t normally write, thanks to the charity drives. Maybe I’ll try to do that again this year; I’m sure something horrific will happen that will need some monetary support.
In the meantime, here are all of the fics I wrote this year, in order that they were written. Probably Sam/Dean unless otherwise specified. Imagine retrospective montage music:
January
none. no surprise here.
February
the hollow summer - E. Boy King Sam, AU.
March
‘he has a kiss stuck in his mouth’ - M. Pining!Dean, Stanford era.
no disguising truths i’ve sold - E. John/Deanna, pre-series.
“I almost died” - T. Jared/Jensen, firefighter!Jared fluff.
‘sam waking dean up with his mouth’ - E, somnophilia, married!sex.
relay - E, D/s play.
April
extreme pollen warning - E, sex pollen, established relationship.
whatever we were before - E, Dragon Age AU, mage!Sam/warrior!Dean.
‘cokehead!Alex’ - T. Alex/JDM; part one.
pragmatics - E. Established wincest, past Dean/others. Prostitution.
May
teamwork (makes the dream work) - Alex/Jared/Jensen. cokehead!verse pt 2.
to dream of the next - E. First time, pining!Sam.
In a Cursed Hour: Protesting Fate Supreme - T. Men of Letters AU, ch.6.
June
FFFB 1 - M. Gabriel/Rowena, meeting through the years.
FFFB 2 - E. A/B/O, first time.
FFFB 3 - E. Jensen/Jeff, voyeur!Jared, Non-AU.
FFFB 4 - M. Cloud/Sephiroth, mindfuck.
FFFB 5 - M. Amos/Alex, pantykink.
FFFB 6 - E. Dubcon shading to noncon, pining!Dean.
FFFB 7 - M. Hannibal/Will, first kiss.
FFFB 8 - E. Post-Michael possession, piercings, body mods.
FFFB 9 - M. Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, AU.
FFFB 10 - M. Dean/Bobby, Stanford era.
FFFB 11 - E. Mommy!kink, bunker era.
FFFB 12 - M. Gen, Sam’s wall, mild self-harm.
FFFB 13 - M. Sam Wilson & Bucky Barnes, racial discussion.
FFFB 14 - M. s2, Sam’s cast.
FFFB 15 - E. Jared/Jensen, established relationship, CBT.
FFFB 16 - E. weecest, first time.
FFFB 17 - M. Sam/Dean/Jack.
FFFB 18 - M. Amnesia.
FFFB 19 - E. BDSM, sub!Dean, dildos.
FFFB 20 - E. A/B/O, demon!Dean, noncon.
FFFB 21 - T. Established relationship, Stanford discussion.
FFFB 22 - E. Dubcon, time travel, soulless!Sam/young!Dean, prostitution.
FFFB 23 - M. Implied Dean/John, jealous!Sam.
FFFB 24 - E. ‘The End’!verse, Lucifer!Sam/Dean, noncon.
FFFB 25 - E. Tentacles, body horror, oviposition.
FFFB 26 - E. Belly bulge!kink.
July
none. apparently I needed a break.
August
have a cigar - E. Sam’s powers, slight D/s.
welcome to capitalism - E. Jared/Jensen, prostitution.
September
the wealth gap - E. ‘capitalism’ pt 2; Jared/Jensen, prostitution.
what comes after certainty - M. Mutual pining, amnesia.
reunion theory - E. Cloud/Sephiroth, Cloud/Hojo. Body horror, torture, mpreg. Fic for fire relief 1.
the honeytrap - E. Jared/Jensen, mob!AU. FFFR 2.
scotch courage - M. Sam/Kevin, hair play. FFFR 3.
he will tear your city down - E. Damen/Laurent, slight D/s. FFFR 4.
cyrano - E. Jensen/Antony Starr, established J2. D/s, consensual infidelity. FFFR 5.
two runners on base - E. Dean/Deacon, established relationship, BDSM, DP. FFFR 6.
what’s to stop me, pretty baby - E. Noncon, MoC!Dean. FFFR 7.
the need to choose - E. A/B/O, pregnant!Dean. FFFR 8.
transference - E. Diego Hargreeves/Grace, mommy kink. FFFR 9.
vertex - E. John/Dean, Stanford era, pining!Dean. FFFR 10.
faith without works is dead - M. Sam’s powers, violence, dubcon. FFFR 11.
be subject to each other - E. Photography, facial. FFFR 12.
October
you know i’m gonna be like him - M. Past Dean/John, child abuse. FFFR 13.
unbalance - E. A/B/O, Jared/Jensen, prostitute!Jared. FFFR 14.
buccaneer - E. Crowley/Deanna, demon!Dean, always-a-girl!Dean. FFFR 15.
make much of time - E. Sam/Dean/Jack, virginity kink. FFFR 16.
see things so much clearer - E. Pre-series, first time, diaries. FFFR 17.
won’t let you let me down so easily - E. Sam/Brady, Sam/others, Stanford era, mind control, gangbang, noncon. FFFR 18.
the beams of our house are cedar - E. Bunker era, panties, feminization. FFFR 19.
November
negotiation tactics - E. Homelander/Soldier Boy, D/s, superpower sex.
finale coda - M. Heaven.
15.19 coda - T. Jack as god.
there will be better days - E. Heaven, first time.
December
a leaden anchor - E. Post-Playthings.
That’s it. I haven’t had a single writing thought in my head since that last one. Here’s hoping it comes back in 2021!
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alwaysmarilynmonroe · 4 years
Text
Today is a very special day, it’s Marilyn’s Birthday! Can you believe that if she were still alive,  Marilyn would have been turning 94 years old today – just two months younger than the Queen herself! With each year I always try and write a special post about this amazing woman, who has helped me so much and achieved more than anyone could have imagined in her 36 years. Therefore, I decided to write 94 facts about the Birthday Girl – some you may know, some you may not, all in the hope that genuine things will be learnt and the real Marilyn will be more understood and appreciated.
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Gladys and baby Norma Jeane spend some quality time together on the beach in 1929.
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Little Norma Jeane, aged seven, in 1933.
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Norma Jeane photographed by David Conover whilst working at the Radio Plane Munitions Factory in either the Fall of 1944 or Spring of 1945.
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Norma Jeane by Andre de Dienes in late 1945.
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Marilyn by Richard Miller in 1946.
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Marilyn on Tobey Beach by Andre de Dienes on July 23rd 1949.
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Marilyn by Ed Clark in Griffith Park in August 1950.
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Marilyn attends a Party in Ray Anthony’s home, organized by 20th Century Fox on August 3rd 1952.
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Marilyn filming The Seven Year Itch on location in New York City by Sam Shaw on September 13th 1954.
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Marilyn by Milton Greene on January 28th 1955.
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Marilyn by Cecil Beaton on February 22nd 1956. This was her favourite photo of herself.
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Marilyn attending the Premiere of The Prince In The Showgirl at the Radio City Music Hall on June 13th 1957.
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Marilyn by Carl Perutz on June 16th 1958.
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Marilyn by Philippe Halsman for LIFE Magazine in October 1959.
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Marilyn attends a Benefit for The Actors Studio at the Roseland Dance City on March 13th 1961.
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Marilyn on Santa Monica Beach for Cosmopolitan Magazine by George Barris on July 1st 1962.
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1.  Stood at a height of 5’5½”
2.  Born in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County Hospital at 9:30 AM on June 1st 1926.
3.  Married three times;
– Jim Dougherty: (June 19th 1942 – September 13th 1946) – Joe Dimaggio: (January 14th 1954 – 31st October 1955) (Temporary divorce granted on October 27th 1954) – Arthur Miller: (June 29th 1956 – January 20th 1961).
4. Suffered two confirmed miscarriages; an ectopic pregnancy on August 1st 1957 and miscarriage in December 16th 1958.
5. Suffered with endometriosis very badly, so much so that she had a clause in her contract which stated she would be unable to work whilst menstruating.
6. Starred in 30 films – her last being uncompleted.
7. Favourite of her own performances was as Angela Phinlay in The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
8. Winner of three Golden Globes; two for World Film Favourite – Female in 1954 and 1962 and one for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for her performance as Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot (1959) in 1960.
9. Her idol was the first Platinum Blonde Bombshell, Jean Harlow.
10. Amassed a collection of over 400 books in her library, ranging from Russian Literature to Psychology.
11. Favourite perfume was Chanel No.5
12. Had two half siblings; Robert “Jackie” Baker (1918 – 1933) and Bernice Miracle (1919) – the former she would never have the chance to meet and Bernice was not informed about Marilyn until she was 19 years old.
13. Former Actor and 20th Century Fox Studio Executive, Ben Lyon created the name Marilyn Monroe in December 1946 – Marilyn after fellow Actress, Marilyn Miller and Monroe after Marilyn’s mother’s maiden name. Ironically enough, Ben starred with Jean Harlow, in her breakout movie, Hell’s Angels (1930).
14. Legally changed her name to Marilyn Monroe ten years later, on February 23rd 1956.
15. Attended The Actors Studio.
16. Third woman to start her own Film Production Company – the first being Lois Weber in 1917 and the second being Mary Pickford in 1919.
17. First had her hair bleached in January 1946 at the Frank & Joseph Salon by Beautician Sylvia Barnhart, originally intended for a Shampoo Advert.
18. Contrary to popular belief, she was technically a natural blonde, not a redhead or brunette. She was born with platinum hair and was very fair until just before her teen years. Her sister described her with having dark blonde hair upon their first meeting in 1944.
19. Another myth debunked – she had blue eyes, not brown.
20. Was one of the few women in the 1950s to use weights when exercising.
21. Wore jeans before it was considered acceptable for women.
22. Her famous mole was real – albeit skin coloured, so she emphasized it using a brown eye pencil.
23. Was a Step-Mother in two of her three marriages to three children – Joe Dimaggio Jr. and Bobby and Jane Miller.
24. Found out she landed the lead role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) on her 26th Birthday.
25. Another huge myth dispelled – only actually met President Kennedy four times from 1961 – 1962. Three of them were at public events, with the last being her performance at Madison Square Garden. One of them was at Bing Crosby’s Palm Spring house with various people, so at most (which again, is very unlikely) they had a one night stand – nothing more and nothing less.
26. Was the first Playboy Cover Girl, although she did not actually pose for them, nor give permission for them to be used. Hugh Hefner bought the photograph from a Chicago Calendar Company for $500 and the two never met.
27. Speaking of Playboy, the photo was taken by Photographer Tom Kelley on May 27th 1951 and Marilyn made a total of $50 for the photo shoot. The most famous photo then went on to cause a national sensation after being sold to the Calendar Baumgarth Company and became known as, “Golden Dreams“.
28. In 1955 it was estimated that over four million copies of the Calendar had been sold.
29. Favourite singers were Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. 
30. Attended the Academy Awards Ceremony only once on March 29th 1951 and presented the award for “Best Sound Recording” to Thomas Moulton for All About Eve (1951) which she also starred in.
31. Performed ten shows over four days to over 100,000 soldiers and marines in Korea in February 1954 – she actually ended up catching pneumonia because it was so cold.
32. Was one of the few Stars who had Director Approval in their Contracts. Some of the names included were, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, William Wyler, Joshua Logan and Sir Carol Reed.
33. Was pregnant during the filming of Some Like It Hot (1959) – filming finished on November 7th 1958 and she miscarried the following month on December 16th.
34. Featured on the cover of LIFE Magazine seven times during her lifetime;
– April 7th 1952 – May 25th 1953 – July 8th 1957 (International Edition) – April 20th 1959 – November 9th 1959 – August 15th 1960 – June 22nd 1962
35. Favourite bevarage was Dom Perignon 1953 Champagne.
36. By the time of her death, her films had grossed over $200 million, when adjusted for inflation that is the equivalent of $2 billion in 2019.
37. Designer, William Travilla dressed Marilyn for seven of her films, two (*) of them received Oscar Nominations in, “Best Costume/Design, Color“;
– Monkey Business (1952) – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) – How To Marry A Millionaire (1953) * – River Of No Return (1954) – There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954) * – The Seven Year Itch (1955) – Bus Stop (1956)
38. Spent 21 months of her childhood at the Los Angeles Orphanage, from September 13th 1935 until June 7th 1937.
39. Was one of the first Stars to speak out about child abuse, with her story appearing in movie magazines as early as 1954.
40. Fostered by her grandmother’s neighbours, Ida and Albert Bolender, for the first seven years of her life.
41. Lived in England for four months, during the period of filming for The Prince and The Showgirl (1957) from July 14th 1956 – November 20th 1956.
42. Her Production Company, Marilyn Monroe Productions produced only one film, The Prince and The Showgirl (1957) based on Terrance Rattigan’s play, The Sleeping Prince.
43. Was photographed by Earl Theisen in October 1952 wearing a potato sack dress after being criticized by the press for her outfit choice at The Henrietta Awards in January 1952. A journalist wrote that Marilyn was “insignificant and vulgar“and “even in a potato bag, it would have been more elegant.“
44. Was a huge supporter of LGBT+ rights, saying the following quote about fellow actor and friend, Montgomery Clift to journalist W.J. Weatherby in 1960,
“I was remembering Monty Clift. People who aren’t fit to open the door for him sneer at his homosexuality. What do they know about it? Labels–people love putting labels on each other. Then they feel safe. People tried to make me into a lesbian. I laughed. No sex is wrong if there’s love in it.”
45. Her measurements were listed as the following by her Dressmakers; 35-22-35 and 36-24-24 by The Blue Book  Modelling Agency. For the majority of her life she weighed between 117-120 pounds, with her weight fluctuating around 15 pounds, during and after her pregnancies (1957-1960), although her waist never ventured past 28.5 inches and her dress size today would be a UK Size 6-8 and a US Size 2-4 as she was a vintage Size 12.
46. Her famous white halter dress from The Seven Year Itch (1955) sold for $4.6 million ($5.6 million including auction fees) on June 18th 2011, which was owned by Debbie Reynolds. The “Happy Birthday Mr. President Dress” originally held the record for the most expensive dress, when it was sold on October 27th 1999 for $1.26 million. It then went on to be resold for $4.8 million on November 17th 2016, thus regaining it’s original achievement.
47. Was discovered by Photographer, David Conover, whilst working in The Radio Plane Munitions Factory in the Fall of 1944 or Spring of 1945, depending on sources.
48. Now known as the, “Me Too” movement, Marilyn was one of the first Stars to speak out on the, “Hollywood Wolves” in a 1953 article for Motion Picture Magazine entitled, “Wolves I Have Known”. The most famous incident being with the Head of Columbia Studios, Harry Cohn, who requested Marilyn join him on his yacht for a weekend away in Catalina Island. Marilyn asked if his wife would be joining them, which, as you can imagine – did not go down well and her contract was not renewed with the Studio. Marilyn made only one film with Columbia during her six month contract, this being Ladies Of The Chorus (1948) which was shot in just ten days!
49. Loved animals dearly and adopted a variety of pets over the years. These included a basset hound called Hugo and parakeets, Clyde, Bobo and Butch with Husband Arthur Miller.  A number of cats including a persian breed called Mitsou in 1955 and Sugar Finney in 1959. Her most famous pet was gifted to her in March or April of 1961 by friend, Frank Sinatra, a little white maltese named Maf. His full name was Mafia Honey, as a humorous reference to Sinatra’s alleged connections to the Mob. After Marilyn’s death, Maf went to live with Frank Sinatra’s secretary, Gloria Lovell.
50. The book she was reading at the time of her death was Harper Lee’s, To Kill A Mocking Bird.
51. One of the movies she starred in was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and won, this being All About Eve (1950) at The 23rd Academy Awards on March 29th 1951. It ended up being nominated for 14 Oscars, a record at the time and has only been matched by Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016).
52. Her first magazine cover was photographed by Andre de Dienes in December 1945 for Family Circle, released on April 26th 1946.
53. Joined The William Morris Agency on December 7th 1948.
54. Was right handed, not left as often believed.
55. Third Husband Arthur Miller wrote the screenplay for Marilyn’s last completed film, The Misfits (1961) which was originally written as a short story for Esquire Magazine in 1957. After the tragic ectopic pregnancy Marilyn endured in August of 1957, friend and Photographer, Sam Shaw suggested to Miller he alter his short story specifically for her. Ironically the making of this film culminated in their divorce and Marilyn stating,
“He could have written me anything and he comes up with this. If that’s what he thinks of me then I’m not for him and he’s not for me.” 56. Was Author, Truman Capote’s original choice for the role of Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) however, she was advised to turn it down by her Acting Coach, Paula Strasberg, who did not think the role of a prostitute would be good for her image. Writer George Axelrod, who wrote the Screenplay for Bus Stop (1956) and the play, The Seven Year Itch, ironically ended up being the Screenwriter for this movie.
Capote said this regarding Marilyn,
“I had seen her in a film and thought she would be perfect for the part. Holly had to have something touching about her . . . unfinished. Marilyn had that.”
57. Second Husband Joe Dimaggio had The Parisian Florists deliver red roses on Marilyn’s grave twice a week, for twenty years, from August 1962 until September 1982. Marilyn had told him how William Powell used to do this for Jean Harlow after her death and he reportedly vowed to do the same after their Wedding Ceremony. After the 20 years he then donated to a children’s charity, as he thought it would be a nice way to honour her memory. They also created the flower arrangements for her casket at her funeral.
58. The following five Directors directed Marilyn in more than one movie;
– John Huston; The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Misfits (1961) – Richard Sale;  A Ticket To Tomahawk (1950) and Let’s Make It Legal (1951) – Howard Hawks; Monkey Business (1952) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) – Billy Wilder; The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959) – George Cukor; Let’s Make Love (1960) and Something’s Got To Give (1962)
59. Was an illegitimate child, which unfortunately was attached with a lot of stigma in the 1920s. Her mother, Gladys, listed her then husband Edward Mortenson on the Birth Certificate, although it is commonly accepted that her real father was Charles Stanley Gifford, as Gladys left Edward on May 26th 1925. Gladys had an affair with him, which ended when she announced her pregnancy and he never acknowledged or met Marilyn, although she tried multiple times over the years to speak with him. 
60. Stayed in a number of foster homes during her childhood,
– George and Emma Atkinson; February 1934 – September 1934 – Enid and Sam Knebelcamp; Fall of 1934 – Harvey and Elsie Giffen; January 1935 – March 1935 – Grace and “Doc” Goddard; April 1935 – September 1935 and June 1937 – November 1937 and end of 1940 – February 1942 – Ida Martin; November 1937 – August 1938 – “Aunt Ana” Lower; August 1938  – End of 1940 and February 1942 
61. Had her hand and footprints immortalized in cement at Graumans Chinese Theatre on June 26th 1953, with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) co-star, Jane Russell. Marilyn would place a rhinestone in the dot of the letter “i” as a reference to her character, “Lorelei Lee” but it was sadly stolen. This was an incredibly special moment for her, as she often talked about placing her hands and feet in the many prints there, when she spent her weekends at the Theatre as a child, especially in 1933 and 1934.
“When I was younger, I used to go to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and try to fit my foot in the prints in the cement there. And I’d say “Oh, oh, my foots too big. I guess that’s out.” I did have a funny feeling later when I finally put my foot down into that wet cement, I sure knew what it really meant to me, anything’s possible, almost.”
62. The famous gold lamé dress worn in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and designed by William Travilla, was deemed too risqué by the censors. Unfortunately for fans, this meant that the musical number, “Down Boy” was cut from the film and we only glimpse a few seconds of the dress from behind, on screen.
63. Due to the censors, the original, “Diamond’s Are A Girl’s Best Friend” costume was changed to the now iconic pink dress with black bow. Originally it was to be a diamond encrusted two piece, which was extremely daring for the then Motion Picture Hays Code.
64. Loved Erno Lazlo Skin Cream, Vaseline and Nivea Moisturizer.
65. Had she completed Something’s Got To Give (1962), Marilyn would have been the first Star in a major Motion Picture to appear nude on film. As she passed before it was completed the achievement went to fellow Blonde Bombshell, Jayne Mansfield in, Promises! Promises (1963).
66. Met Queen Elizabeth II in England at the Empire Theater in Leicester Square whilst attending the Premiere of, “The Battle Of The River Plate“ on October 29th 1956.
67. The Misfits (1961) was both Marilyn and Clark Gable’s last completed films. Clark died 12 days after filming finished, on November 16th 1960. The film was released on Clark’s would be 60th Birthday, February 1st 1961 and Marilyn passed 18 months later.
68. As Marilyn died before the completion of Something’s Got To Give (1962) it ended up being remade with Doris Day and James Garner, entitled, Move Over Darling! (1963). The film was originally intended to be a remake of, My Favourite Wife (1940) which starred Cary Grant.
69. Signed a recording contract with RCA Records on September 1st 1953. One of her songs from River of No Return (1954) entitled, “File My Claim” sold 75,000 copies in its first three weeks of release.
70. Was admitted to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic on February 10th 1961 by her then Psychiatrist, Marianne Kris. Originally thought to be for rest and rehabilitation, following her divorce from Arthur Miller and the strain of filming The Misfits. However, Marilyn was placed on the security ring and held against her will. Thankfully, she was able to contact ex Husband, Joe Dimaggio, who stated he would, “Take the hospital apart brick by brick” if she was not released and after three days of emotional trauma, she left.
71. Visited the following Countries;
– Canada – (July – August 1953) – Japan (February 1954) – Korea (Feburary 1954) – England (July – November 1956) – Jamaica (January 1957) – Mexico (February 1962)
72. Purchased her only home, 12305 Fifth Helena Drive on February 8th 1962, where she would tragically pass just under 6 months later.
73. The home had the following tile located on the front paving entrance saying, “cursum perficio” meaning, “my journey ends here.” The title is still there to this day.
74. Her final interview was published in LIFE Magazine on August 3rd 1962 and was written by Richard Meryman.
75. Aside from her millions of fans, had a staunch group of supporters affectionately known as, “The Monroe Six” who followed Marilyn around New York during her time there. Their nickname for Marilyn was, “Mazzie” and they became so acquainted that Marilyn actually once invited them for a picnic at her home.
76. First married at just sixteen years old, this was to avoid returning to the Orphanage she had spent almost two years in as a child.
77. Supported numerous charity events, most famously riding a pink elephant in Madison Square Garden, to support the Arthritis and Rheumatic Affections Association on March 30th 1955.
78. Left 25% of her Estate to her then Psychiatrist, Marianne Kris and 75% to mentor and friend, Lee Strasberg. For reference, her Will was last updated on January 1961 – a month before she entered the Payne Whitney Hospital on the advice of Marianne Kris.
79. At the time of it’s release, The Misfits (1961) turned out to be the most expensive black and white movie ever made, costing a budget of $4 million dollars.
80. The Premiere of The Seven Year Itch was held on her 29th Birthday, on June 1st 1955, she attended with ex Husband, Joe Dimaggio.
81. Laid to rest at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery on August 8th 1962 at 1:00 PM, with friend and mentor Lee Strasberg delivering the Eulogy. 
82. Although so often associated with diamonds, actually wasn’t that fond of jewellery stating, “People always ask me if I believe diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Frankly, I don’t.” 
83. Spent her 36th Birthday filming Something’s Got To Give (1962) and then attending a Charity Event for muscular dystrophy at the Chavez Ravin Dodger Stadium, which also happened to be her last public appearance.
84. Whilst recovering in hospital from an appendectomy in April 1952, Marilyn asked long time Makeup Artist and friend, Allan “Whitey” Snyder to do her makeup, should she pass before him. She gave him a gold money clip with the inscription, “Whitey Dear, while I’m still warm, Marilyn” and he did fulfill this promise to her.
85. Converted to Judaism for third husband, Arthur Miller on July 1st 1956.
86. Despite appearing in 30 films, she only actually dies in one, that being her breakout movie, Niagara (1953) where her character Rose Loomis, is strangled by her Husband George, played by Joseph Cotten.
87. Moved to New York City in 1955 and attended The Actors Studio, after breaking her Film Contract with 20th Century Fox. This was for a number of reasons, mainly years of low pay, unsatisfactory scripts and lack of creative control. A new contract would finally be reinstated on December 31st.
88. Repurchased a white Baby Grand Piano that her mother, Gladys, owned during their time living together in 1933. After Marilyn passed it would then be sold at the Christies Auction of her Estate in 1999 to none other than, Mariah Carey for $632,500.
89. Wore long hair pieces in River of No Return (1954) and a medium length wig in The Misfits (1961). The first I can only assume was due to the time period and setting of a Western and the second was due to the bleach damage her hair had suffered. After the filming in 1960, she wore the wig a couple of times in public events and then reverted back to her normal hair.
90. Like all students, it was tradition to perform in front of each other in The Actors Studio and on February 17th 1955, Marilyn acted out a scene from “Anna Christie” with Maureen Stapleton. Although it was an unwritten rule that students were not meant to applaud one another, an eruption of cheers and clapping happened after Marilyn had finished.
“Everybody who saw that says that it was not only the best work Marilyn ever did, it was some of the best work ever seen at Studio, and certainly the best interpretation of Anna Christie anybody ever saw. She achieved real greatness in that scene.”
– Actor Ellen Burstyn, on recalling Marilyn’s performance.
91. Used the pseudonym, “Zelda Zonk“, when trying to remain incognito.
92. Marilyn’s mother, Gladys Baker, suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia and after various stays in institutions, was declared insane on January 15th 1935, when Marilyn was just 8 years old. After 10 years she was released and managed to retain various cleaning jobs and had developed an intense interest in Christian Science. However, by 1951 she was back in various institutions and would stay in the Rockhaven Sanitarium until 1967. Even after death, Marilyn continued to cover her mother’s care payments and Gladys would go on to outlive her for 22 years.
93. Favourite photograph of herself was taken by Cecil Beaton on February 22nd 1956.
94. Last professional photos were taken by Bert Stern, famously known as “The Last Sitting” for Vogue Magazine on June 23rd, July 10th and 12th 1962. Allan Grant took the LIFE Magazine interview pictures in her home, on July 4th and 9th 1962. Whilst George Barris took his photos for Cosmopolitan Magazine, the previous weekend on the 29th and 30th of June, until July 1st 1962. ______________________________________________________________________________
To those of you who took the time to read through all 3000+ words, thank you! It truly means more to me than you know and I really hope it’s shed some light on the truly special person Marilyn was and made you hold a good thought for her on her big day.
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Happy 94th Birthday Marilyn! Today is a very special day, it's Marilyn's Birthday! Can you believe that if she were still alive,  Marilyn would have been turning 94 years old today - just two months younger than the Queen herself!
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bigassheart · 4 years
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Updated TUA Timeline
A little over a year ago, Aidan posted a timeline for the events of the Umbrella Academy on his Instagram. I posted it on this blog at the time and promised I was going to update my TUA Timeline post with that info. Never did. But I am now! So, here it is. The updated TUA Timeline.
Also, there will obviously be spoilers, so don’t read this if you haven’t watched season 1.  
October 1st, 1989 - The Umbrella Academy kids are born.
1993 - Grace Joins the family. This is according to Aidan’s Timeline. Depending on the time of the year, the kids would be 3 or 4 when this happens. This may or may not be when the kids get names. 
1993/1994 - Vanya forgets about her powers. Vanya also trains with Reginald and is subsequently made to forget about her powers around this time. Though we don’t get a specific date or length of time that Vanya trains, the flashbacks don’t appear to show her training for a super long time. I think a good guess would be less than a year for this training, putting Vanya’s age at 4. (This also matches up with the casting for the young Vanya and young Allison roles, which I used previously to estimate this age/date)
1997/1998 - Klaus is locked in the mausoleum for the first time. I am basing this on the casting for the role of young Klaus, which has him at 8 years old.    However, it’s not quite that simple, because when Klaus is talking to his dad in episode 7, he says that his dad locked him in the mausoleum when he was 13. Complicating matters even further, there is a post somewhere out there that took a screen shot of Reginald’s journal with notes about locking Klaus in the mausoleum. (I have not been able to find that post again, so if anyone knows the one I’m talking about and has a link, I would love to put it in here). The date recorded on those notes is 2001. (I don’t remember the month, but I think it was summer) That would have made him 11 years old. It’s possible that this was just an inconsistency in the writing. Or it’s possible that Reginald locked Klaus in a mausoleum on at least 3 different occasions at age 8, 11, and 13. Possibly more. 
2001/2002 - The Umbrella Academy stops a Robbery  I’m basing this on the fact that all the same actors were used for these scenes as were used in the scene where Five leaves, so they can’t be much more than a year younger than that. 
November 10, 2002 - Five leaves the Academy  According to Pogo in episode 1, Five has been gone for 16 years, 4 months, and 14 days. The date in that episode is March 24th, 2019 (according to Vanya). That means that Five disappeared on November 10th, 2002, a little more than a month after the Umbrella Academy kids all turned 13. (This date is also confirmed on Aidan’s timeline)
(Side-note. Remember when Klaus mentions being locked in the mausoleum when he was 13? That means it probably happened not too long after Five disappeared. Holy Fuck Regi!)
2006(?) - Ben Dies OK, this is only a guess, BUT it’s a good one and if you scroll down to the additional notes at the bottom, you’ll see why. 
2014 - Vanya publishes her book In episode 3, we learn that Vanya wrote her book 5 years earlier. (when they were 24) At this point, Ben is already dead and Luthor has not had his accident yet.
2014/2015 - Luther has his accident We’re not sure how long it takes Regi to send Luther to the moon after his accident (days? weeks? months?) so all we really know is that the accident happens sometime between Vanya publishing her book and the moon trip.
2015 - Luther goes to the moon In episode 6, Luther says that he was on the moon for 4 years, making him about 25 years old when he left. Aidan’s timeline also confirms that Luther went to the moon in 2015. 
March 24th, 2019 - Reginald’s Funeral We know this because they tell Five the exact date. 
April 1st, 2019 - Apocalypse (Dear Commission: Worst April Fools joke ever). 
This Brings us to the present. The members of the Umbrella Academy are all 29, except for Five, who is 58, and Klaus, who spent 10 months in Vietnam and is therefore 30 now. 
Additional Notes on the Timeline: 
Five in the Future Five finds Delores pretty soon after the apocalypse (again, same actor, so I’m figuring a year leeway at most). He tells Klaus that he was with Delores for 30 years. That would make him about 43 when The Handler shows up. When Five gets back to the present, he gives a very specific amount of time he has been gone: 45 years. This means he spent 15 years working for the Comission, making him 58 at this point. Five also traveled through history extensively while working for the commission. His last mission had something to do with the Kennedy assassination, which would put him in 1963.  (Quick note on this one - Someone commented on this post a while back with a correction and I was going to go back and do more research so I could correct these numbers, but now I can’t find the post and it’s been so long that I can’t remember what the correction was. So, if these numbers look off, let me know and I will fix it)
1968 - Klaus travels back in time to the Vietnam War Historical Context: This is 3 years after the first American troops arrived in Vietnam and 5 years after Kennedy was assassinated. Nixon was elected in 1968. This was also the year of the Tet Offensive, a massive campaign by the North Vietnamese Army to push the US troops out of the country and ferment rebellion among the South Vietnamese people. This was the big turning point in the war and marked the beginning of the US troops’ defeat. This was also the year of the My Lai Massacre, where the US Army murdered more than 500 civilians in the city of My Lai. This incident was covered up for a year before the American press found out about it.  
Finally, the reasoning behind my guess that 2006 is the year Ben died: 
Klaus mentions that Ben died “young and tragic”
Everyone left the house after Ben died, according to Vanya.
In episode 3, Alison says that they left their mom alone for 13 years. (13 years ago, they would have been 16) We don’t know how quickly everyone left, if it took days, weeks, or even years, so it’s possible that 13 years ago was when Alison left specifically. It could be that everyone was gone by that date. Or it could be that this is when everyone started leaving. 
Diego mentions moving out at 17. Again, everyone left after Ben died, so it would have happened before that. 
Ben’s statue does not have a date on it, but obviously he would have had to be at least the same age as he is depicted there.
We also have the following portraits sequence in episode 1 that was used to show Five’s disappearance and Ben’s death. Here are all 4 portraits.
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Portrait 1 is done when they are all 12 or 13 years old. Everyone looks about the same age in portrait 2, so I’m assuming it Reginald had it commissioned right after Five disappeared. It would therefore make sense that portrait 4 was done right after Ben died. There are clearly several years age difference between portraits 2 and 3. It also looks like there may be another year or so age difference between portraits 3 and 4. Because of this, I would argue that the children are at least 15 years old in the final portrait. Therefore, Ben dies at age 15 or 16.
Last bit of evidence is Aidan’s timeline. Now, the year for Ben’s death is blacked out, BUT we can see the general shape of the numbers. The first number is clearly a 2, so we know that it’s not just a bunch of 0′s as a place holder. The last two numbers are rounded at the top and the bottom. In the font they are using, that gives us these possible years: 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009. 
The placement between 2002 and 2015 is just a little past the middle point, so at first I figured that would mean the year was 2009. HOWEVER, that would mean he died at age 20. The other kids definitely don’t look 20 in the portrait after Ben dies and this doesn’t match up with the comments Allison and Diego make about leaving when they were still in their teens. Also, if you look at the timeline for earlier years, the same space between dates is used across the board, whether those dates are 4 years apart or 9 years apart. 
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Conclusion: I think Ben died in early 2006 (making him 16). 
And that’s all I’ve got so far.
If anyone else has more clues for the timeline, please add them to this post. 
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