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#but buster’s is just. his name. birth year-death year.
marauderundercover · 3 years
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Taking Chances Chapter Five: Paris Revealed (Stories/Memories)
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AO3
Marinette flinches back as the room erupts in shouting. The younger boy, who was definitely younger than her and yet almost (if not definitely) taller than her, was fiercely glaring while he screamed at Mr. Wayne in….was that Arabic? The man that walked in with him was waving around the knife in his hand while Dick yelled at Mr. Wayne, his face filled with confusion instead of fury. Glancing around for a way out, Marinette makes eye contact with Alfred who nods behind him. Sneaking away from the group of angry men, Marinette follows Alfred into the kitchen and instantly feels at home. And much calmer.
“I’m sorry.” She mumbles, breathing deeply to avoid spiraling again. Alfred simply hands her a cookie before turning around and putting water in a kettle.
“There is no need to apologize, Miss Marinette. It seems Master Bruce has forgotten all sense today and is instead insistent on acting like a fool. It was wrong of him to announce you like that, without preparing you or the boys beforehand. I do hope that his atrocious display of proper manners doesn’t make you want to leave.” Alfred says, and Marinette’s eyebrows shoot upwards. Was he? Was Alfred actually blaming this situation on Mr. Wayne? Was it Mr. Wayne’s fault? Did he not actually hate her? Did he just make a mistake?
“I- what?” Marinette says, unsure of herself.
“You, my dear, are not at fault. Your father didn’t tell any of his sons that you were coming to the manor today, or that you existed in general. And judging by your face, you weren’t prepared for the boys to be here either.” Alfred clarifies.
“Oh. No, I wasn’t. Mr. Wayne just said that he wanted to get to know me, and he knew I wanted to get to know him. I- my birth mother passed away. But my Maman knew her, so I can find out from her how I’m similar to Bridgette. But neither of my parents knew Mr. Wayne, and I just wanted to know if I was like him, I guess. I didn’t even know who he was until two days ago.” Marinette admits.
“As in you found out Bruce Wayne was your birth father two days ago or-” Alfred trails off, waiting for her to clarify.
“Oh no. I found out the name of my birth father awhile ago. It’s just- I really don’t pay attention to celebrities. The only ones I really know are designers. So I didn’t put two and two together, and I didn’t even know about Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises until a few days ago. My friend Adrien made me google him and that’s when I found out about...the boys.” She says, stopping herself from saying her brothers as she was still unsure if Mr. Wayne actually wanted her like he wanted the others.
“Well I’m certain that things will start to calm down shortly. In the meantime, would you care for some tea?” Alfred asks, holding up the kettle. Marinette nods gratefully, trying hard to stop her inner spiral from drowning her.
---
“What do you mean daughter?” Damian snarls, finally switching to English. Bruce blinks at the boy before sighing.
“I mean, you have a biological sister.” He says, tired and wishing he had been able to convince Marinette to go somewhere else. Not that he didn’t want her to meet her siblings. But it definitely wasn’t the laid back first meeting that he wanted.
“You mean half-sister.” Damian spits out, crossing his arms and sticking his nose into the air.
“Shut up, Demon Spawn. She’s our sister, get over it. Where’d the kid come from? Her mom drop her off?” Jason asks, obviously trying to actually understand the situation.
“No. I first met her at the Museum and had my suspicions. She’s in Gotham on a class trip, and before you ask, yes. We had a DNA test done and yes, I am her father.” Bruce says, frowning when he sees Dick’s hurt expression morph into one of excitement.
“Wait, wait, wait! Was she the girl who was sassing the Joker?” He asks quietly, practically buzzing with excitement. When Bruce nods, Dick cheers and runs from the room. Okay then.
“Wait, she met the Joker?” Jason asks, his expression turning dark. Bruce watches his son’s face morph into one of disgust when he puts it together. “She’s the French kid he had at gunpoint, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Which is one of the reasons why we both thought the manor would be a more appropriate meeting place rather than somewhere public.” Bruce says, sighing as Damian once again starts screaming. This was not what he had planned.
---
After just a few minutes with Alfred, Marinette already felt calmer. Calm enough to giggle at another story about something that one of the boys- one of her brothers- did. Calm enough to let her guard down. And mess up.
“If you wanna see something ridiculous, you should look up the 26th time Monsieur Ramier was akumatized into Monsieur Pigeon. He made all the buildings turn into bird cages and all the food turned into bird seed. Luckily it didn’t last long, but seeing the Mayor of Paris stuck inside a giant bird cage was kind of hilarious.” Marinette rambles, giggling at the memory. It was definitely a needed akuma, situated right between two super destructive akumas. Monsieur Pigeon was, while a nuisance, always a breath of fresh air. His akumatized form was brought on by his fierce protectiveness of the pigeons, which luckily never led to death for civilians.
“Pardon me, Miss Marinette, but could I ask what you mean by ‘akumatized’?” Alfred asks, his posture suddenly stiff. Marinette’s eyes widen as she realizes what she just did. She told someone outside of Paris about the situation happening in Paris. Well crap. Normal Parisians didn’t know about the media block that she had set up with the help of the Mayor and Max. But after her calls to the Justice League were ignored, and she realized how disastrous it would be for a member of the League to be akumatized, the media block was the best choice. Time to act clueless.
“Akumatized, as in, a person is possessed by an akuma? Surely you’ve heard of it. It’s been happening in Paris for almost two years.” She says, hoping he doesn’t ask to see any evidence. This isn’t good, this is awful, this-
“And what is an akuma?” Alfred asks. Okay, this isn’t too bad.
“It’s an evil butterfly sent out by the villain, Hawkmoth.” Marinette says, giving out more information than she’s really comfortable with. Okay, time to change the subject, no more questions about heroes or villains or-
“Marinette!” A new voice calls, sliding into the kitchen, almost immediately falling over.
“Master Dick, have you forgotten about your ban on the kitchen?” Alfred asks, his lips quirking up in amusement.
“Awww, Alfred, I just wanted to talk to Marinette. I feel bad for all of us overwhelming her back there.” Dick says with a pout that somehow doesn’t look ridiculous on him. Despite obviously being at least ten years older than her.
“Don’t feel bad. It was just...a lot all at once.” Marinette says with a small smile.
“So I have to ask, are you the one who sassed the Joker at the Museum the other day?” He asks, a wide grin on his face as he sits on one of the stools. Marinette’s eyes widen and she blinks. How?
“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess. It wasn’t a big deal though. He thought I was a Wayne- well, I guess he figured it out before I did- but I think he just wanted to scare my class.” She says, waving her hand to brush off the topic. She really didn’t want to talk about the Joker. Because she was sure it would turn into-
“I apologize for asking, but have you been caught up in the villain attacks in Paris before?” Alfred asks, Marinette instantly panicking. Sure, she’d been caught up in almost every single akuma battle as Ladybug. But there were a few on record where she was targeted as Marinette, and even a few battles that she assisted as Marinette. And then there was Kwami Buster…
“Well, a few. But basically everyone in Paris has dealt with it at some point. That’s just what happens when there’s an attack so often, you know? And my school seems to be a hotspot but that makes sense because teenagers are full of negative emotions and-” Marinette cuts off her rambling, cursing herself on the inside. Great job, Mari. Now they’re going to be worried or they’re going to think you’re a freak or-
“What do you mean negative emotions? Why would that matter?” Dick asks, his previous cheerful smile replaced with a look that clearly meant business.
“That’s how the villain chooses his targets. Negative emotion. If someone is having a bad enough day, he can take control of them and give them powers and basically destroy the city trying to get to Ladybug and Chat Noir, who are our heroes. I only know what’s been posted on official sites like the Ladyblog or miraculousparis.org.” Marinette says, smiling apologetically and hoping that this conversation can be over.
“Have you ever been akumatized?” Dick asks, tension suddenly filling the room.
“No, thankfully. I’ve found ways to manage my negative emotions so that they can’t take me over. I don’t blame anyone who has been akumatized, it’s hard not to be. But, I also don’t think I’d be able to forgive myself if I was akumatized.” Because then her family would be a target. Because Hawkmoth would know her identity. And if Hawkmoth’s insistence on her being akumatized was anything to go on, she’d be a devastating akuma. And if Ladybug wasn’t fighting in the battle….would the cure even work?
“That is a lot of pressure, Miss Marinette.” Alfred says softly after a moment of tense silence. Marinette grins brightly.
“I can handle it, don’t worry!” She says, hoping no one can tell how hard it actually is. How hard it is constantly being strong. Never truly feeling a negative emotion.
---
Bruce winces at the faux cheerfulness in his daughter’s voice. He had only found out about the Paris situation a few days ago, but he was determined to fix it. Find a solution. Do something to help the city and by extension, his daughter. She’d be going back there soon. Back to a city that was being held hostage by an emotional terrorist. Bruce would fix this. He had to.
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the-lost-lights · 3 years
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Beast Wars: More than Meets the Eye AU REBOOT: Part 1
Introduction
A long, long, LOOOOOOOONG time ago, I made an anonymous ask to @yes-i-write-fanfiction​ about an idea I had: what it there was a version of the Transformers comic Transformers: More than Meets the Eye with Beast Wars characters? I began working on it and soon, and with some help of yes-i-write-fanfiction, I made some profiles for the characters.
Despite my objective was to make all the profiles for an hypotetical “first season” of the comic, a variety of events caused me to give up the project.
Until now.
I’m going to give this project a second shot, rewriting everything and making it bigger and better than before (hopefully).
Wish me luck!
Story
The war against the Vehicons is over.
Optimus Primal, the heroic leader of the Maximals and the resistance, has defeated Megatron, stopping the Vehicon plague, healing everyone infected by it and turning the planet Cybertron into techno-organic paradise, at the cost of his life.
Despite the galaxy is now in peace, many tensions remain, making the hard-hearned peace fragile: the NAILs, led by Terrorsaur (that is unhappily sharing his body with Starscream) want that all Maximals and Predacons should not be allowed back on the planet after having caused the war, some alien civilizations accused the Transformers of having intentionally released the Vehicon virus and the Matrix of Leadership hasn’t been passed yet.
Cheetor, who became during the war the second in command of the Maximals, decided to try to open it because he showed multiple times the potential to become the next Prime, but during the public cerimony something unexpected happened: despite managing to open it, the Matrix rejeted Cheetor and merged with his best friend Lio Convoy, turning him into Lio Prime. Before anyone could react, the supercomputer known as the Oracle announced that Lio was going to be the last Prime and disappeared, causing chaos all over the planet.
Confused and in need of answers, Cheetor searched everywhere the Oracle and when he finally found it he asked why he wasn’t chosen and why lio was going to be the last Prime. The Oracle simply told him to search for the legendary Covenant, a group of twelve legendary knights created by Primus long before the birth of the first Transformers, and showed him the path for the planet where they sleeped.
Determined to accomplish the mission given by the Oracle (and partially because he hopes to avert its propecy so that he’ll be able to become a Prime), Cheetor decides to make an expedition in search of them, searching high and low for the best ship in the universe and Cybertron’s brightest and most heroic Transformers for the crew.
Shame that he only managed to recruit a bunch of weirdos, losers and misfits and the ship he found malfunctioned and sent them in the middle of nowhere.
Now Cheetor and his motley crew have to find where they are and how to reach the Covenant’s planet, all while dealing with lots of problems (both personal and not) and secrets, including the identity of the saboteur that is manipulating them for an unknown reason.
Characters
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Cheetor (Rodimus):
Once one of the youngest member of the Maximals, he used to be a delivery boy before the war. One day, during a delivery, he discovered that the Predacons conquered his home town of Kaon and razed it to the ground, leading him to conscript in the Maximal army in search of revenge. Here he met Optimus Primal and Rattrap and despite the rocky beginning they became friends. During the war he slowly rise in the ranks and accomplish many impressive feats... and put himself in trouble lots of times. During one of his misadventures he met Lio Convoy, then known simply as Lio, and the two became best friends, having many adventures during the years until Lio discovered to have the rare potential to become a combiner, forcing Lio to remain in space with the other two parts of the combiner while Cheetor followed Optimus on Earth and was forced to enter into stasis when the ice age began.
He was one of the first Maximals to awake from slumber in the 19th century, and briefly acted as Rhinox’s second in command while he temporarely replaced the then MIA Optimus Primal as leader. When their existence became public, Cheetor began to act as the face of the Maximals and for a while acted as an intermediary between the UN and the Maximals, doing a decent job at preventing a war between the two species. During the Vehicon war he met again Lio, now having gained the rank of Convoy, and the duo managed to led the troops into saving some planets from Jetstorm. During the end of the war Cheetor became Optimus Primal’s second in command and temporarely guarded the Matrix when Optimus wasn’t considered worty of it anymore.
After the whole Matrix fiasco and the Oracle’s propecy Cheetor became determined to find the Covenant, no matter the hardships, but the numerous misfortunes made him doubt that he’ll be able to accomplish it and also convinced him that there’s a saboteur that is responsible for some of the incidents... or maybe he’s just paranoid.
He’s similar to Rodimus, personality-wise, but a little bit more responsible towards his crew and a lot more mature. The fact that the Matrix chose his friend hurt him a lot, and despite he claims to have accepted the Matrix’s decision and is very supportive for his friend, deep down a part of him despises him and wants to have his role, even if he knows that the Oracle’s propecies are never wrong. Despite he has many friends, the only bots he’s close in the ship are Tigatron and Rattrap and he also has a certain amount of respect (and fear) for Dinobot and Big Convoy.
He has a Transmetal body that grant him a flight mode, but after he is exposed to a mutagen he slowly starts to mutate into a stronger Transmetal 2 form, losing his ability to fly but gaining the ability to manipulate energy.
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Big Convoy (Ultra Magnus+Fortress Maximus):
Originally a friendly and skillful, albeith a little strict, Maximal general named Slammoth (Big was a nickname given him for his size), he was put on charge of the special assault team known as the Wreckers shortly after the first Megatron took control of the city of Kaon. He was sent with his team to dispose of him and the rebellious Predacons by the government, but he secretly planned to simply capture him and force the rest of the rebels to surrender, preventing a possible bloodshed.
Unfortunately, his plan went very wrong and it ended up starting a million years long war in which most of his friends died and he saw and did horrible things, to the point that many Maximals want him dead. Despite this, Optimus Primal always defended him, stating that his strategic skills where unmatched by anyone and most of the time his actions ended up saving many Maximals.
Unfortunately, with the end of the war and the death of Optimus his situation soon became worse, and Big realized that he needed to leave Cybertron or else he would probably be condemned to spend what remains of his life in jail or be hunted down by vegeful bots. When he heard about the expedition, he begged Cheetor to let him join as head of security and he accepted, if only because he was afraid of what Big would have done if he said no.
He is very serious and takes his role of head of security very seriously, to thepoint that he put in jail half of the crew for having not properly saluted him. He suffers from PTSD and occasionally he has random bout of violence, and since his body is filled with weapons you can imagine what happens in those situations. He also enjoys metallurgy and writing poetry, but the sheer nihilism and lenght of it led to some poor bots that listened to it to enter into an angst coma.
He despises Rampage for having killed some of his closest friends during the war, and Waspinator because he keeps trying to analyze him. Most of the crew feels the same towards him, but especially Transmutate, who HATES him so much that she once almost killed him because she thought he harmed Rampage. The only bot that tolerates him and vice-versa is ironically Inferno, who shares his passion for metallurgy and has a similarly horrible past.
He turns into a mammoth and is classified as a living weapon of mass destruction due to his internal arsenal. He also owns an one-of-a-kind weapon called Matrix Buster that has enough firepower to destoy a star that he famously used to destroy a star system in order to not let it fall into Predacon’s hands.
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Waspinator (Rung):
If you search “unlucky” on a Cybertronian dictionary you will find his face, and you also find out that his name is a synonym for it.
Nobody knows where he came from, not even him: all he knows is that he woke up with a big headache in a building in Kaon and before he could realize where he was Big Convoy demolished the building during the battle with the first Megatron. Extracted barely alive from the ruins by a group of Predacons, he was mistaken for one of the civilians that sided with them and recruited in their faction. Since then he got involved in many battles and many misadventures, from being stomped by an awakened titan to being possessed twice by the spirit of Starscream, being blown up so many times that you could make an army of him with his lost parts.
When he was forced to follow Megatron on Earth things for a while improved for him: after the ice age ended he woke up thousands of years earlier than the rest and ended up becoming the god of a tribe of hominids, leading an happy life until he run out of energon and was forced to enter stasis in order to survive.
And then he accidentally woke up in the 19th century and discovered that the other Predacons were awakening and he had to follow again his much hated leader, leading to him being blown up and beaten up again and again and again. Eventually he got fed up and in 1999 he decided to leave the Predacons and became a Maximal, who treated him much better than his former comrades despite they hated him for being a former Predacon. When the war apparently ended, he finally tried to relax a bit, but soon the Vehicon war began. Tired and not interested in fighting another war, he left the Maximals and Earth, becoming one of the ever expanding NAILs, and started living on a far away colony alongside them. While the universe was in chaos, he began studying psychology in order to help the many soldiers that wanted to have a better life and eventually he got a licence.
When Cybertron and the universe were saved he came back on Cybertron for an holiday, but when it was time to board the ship to go back home he mistakenly boarded the Lost Light and when he realized his mistake the ship’s engines malfunctioned and he found himself partially merged with a wall, dragged into a quest he didn’t want or meant to join.
On the good side, he now has lots and lots of patients, some of which didn’t blew him up during the war.
Waspinator used to complain a lot about his fate, with his famous catchphrase “Why universe hates Waspinator?” being a classic meme on Cybertron, but nowadays he’s mostly unfazed by whatever happens around/to him. It’s unclear if this is resignation to the fact that the universe hates him or simply he began taking things in stride, but one thing is for sure: he’s a massive magnet for weirdness and misfortune. He often spends time with the Survivors, a ragtag bunch of misfits (and Tigratron) that used to be Airazor’s crewmates and had similar misadventures during the years.
He turns into a wasp, but for a brief time he became a Transmetal and gained a jet mode. Unfortunately that happened by the time he got possessed again by Starscream, meaning that not only he wasn’t in control of his body, but technically it was Starscream that gained the upgrade instead of him, meaning that when he abandoned the body Waspinator was brought back to normal.
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Rampage (Cyclonus):
One of the last remnants of a long gone era. The bot that became Rampage was once an astrophisician and a bot of culture that joined Galvatron’s (Beast Wars 2 Galvatron, not Generation 1 Galvatron) expedition to a newly discovered planet and got contaminated alongside the others by the highly dangerous Angolmois Energy, becoming an invincible beast with a thirst of destruction.
For a long time he was forced to obey his now insane and corrupted “leader”, who cut off part of his now immortal spark and put it in a device that crushed it if he tried to rebel, but he slowly planned his escape and revenge towards his oppressors. During that time, the only things that prevented him to slip further into insanity were books, which he stole from the ruins of conquered planets, and Depth Charge, the only bot that ever managed to fight against him and survive. They fought each other multiple times during the years, and Rampage always hoped that one day he would have been able to kill him, but that would never happen.
During the Vehicon war, Megatron managed to create an antidote to Angolmois and used it to cure Galvatron and most of his crew before slaughtering them. Rampage survived by destroying the hull of the ship, floating in the empthiness of cosmos until some members of the resistance found him and mistakenly thought that he was dead. He would have killed them in any other situation, but not then: most of the bots that tortured him for years were dead, including Galvatron, leaving him unable to get his revenge, and the only cure in existence was in the hands of Megatron. Furious, he forced his saviors to bring him to Optimus Primal and then offered to help him stop Megatron and then be dragged to jail for the rest of his life, but only if first he let him kill him with his own bare hands. Optimus reluctanctly accepted, and with his help the resistance managed to score some significant victories, but despite this no one was happy of him siding with them.
Especially Depth Charge.
Depth Charge hated having him around, since he killed billions of living beings along the galaxy and attempted to murder him more than usual. Megatron knew of this and decided to make Charge an offer: he would give him the Angolmois antidote to kill Rampage, but in exchange he would become a Vehicon commander. Filled with anger, he accepted, and in the span of a day Depth Charge almost caused the resistence to fall, causing the loss of lots of lives and resources. Rampage was devastated: he was healed by the effects of Angolmois, but the only bot he considered his rival betrayed everything he stood for and willingly sacrificed thousands of lives in order to kill him and the survivors blamed him for this. Rampage ran away and disappeared for a long while, crushed by the weight of his actions and the effects they had.
Rampage later reappeared on Cybertron in search of the few surviving members of Galvatron’s crew with the intention of killing them and then himself, but once he found them he discovered that Inferno mistook them fro bounty hunters and killed them. Furious, Rampage tried to kill him, but Transmutate’s attempt to escape from her capsule caused an huge explosion, knocking him unconscious. The trio got dragged on the Lost Light with the intention of treating and then leaving them on a civilized planet once they recovered, but the malfunction forced them to join the crew, which made Rampage very angry.
He hates being forced to partecipate to a mission he believes to be pointless and being surrounded by a bunch of people that either hate or fear him, but most of all he is tired: he lived a long time, spent most of his life as an evil insane monster and finally regaining his sanity at the cost of the closest thing to a friend he had. All he wants now is dying.
And yet he got attached to Transmutate, a defective point one percenter who most of the crew treats with a mix of pity and disgust, and developed a sort of respect towards Silverbolt, that was created in laboratory, forced to obey his mad creator’s orders despite he knew they were wrong and struggled to fit in the Cybertronian’s society.
Will he be able to redeem himself? Or he will remain the monster everyone says he his? Only time will tell...
He has a crab and a tank alt-mode, and lots of cannons and other weapons of mass destruction.
PART 2===>
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chiseler · 3 years
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The Mysterious Death of a Hollywood Director
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This is the tale of a very famous Hollywood mogul and a not-so-famous movie director. In May of 1933 they embarked together on a hunting trip to Canada, but only one of them came back alive. It’s an unusual tale with an uncertain ending, and to the best of my knowledge it’s never been told before.
I. The Mogul
When we consider the factors that enabled the Hollywood studio system to work as well as it did during its peak years, circa 1920 to 1950, we begin with the moguls, those larger-than-life studio chieftains who were the true stars on their respective lots. They were tough, shrewd, vital, and hard working men. Most were Jewish, first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe or Russia; physically on the small side but nonetheless formidable and – no small thing – adaptable. Despite constant evolution in popular culture, technology, and political and economic conditions in their industry and the outside world, most of the moguls who made their way to the top during the silent era held onto their power and wielded it for decades. Their names are still familiar: Zukor, Goldwyn, Mayer, Jack Warner and his brothers, and a few more. And of course, Darryl F. Zanuck. In many ways Zanuck personified the common image of the Hollywood mogul. He was an energetic, cigar-chewing, polo mallet-swinging bantam of a man, largely self-educated, with a keen aptitude for screen storytelling and a well-honed sense of what the public wanted to see. Like Charlie Chaplin he was widely assumed to be Jewish, and also like Chaplin he was not, but in every other respect Zanuck was the very embodiment of the dynamic, supremely confident Hollywood showman.
In the mid-1920s he got a job as a screenwriter at Warner Brothers, at a time when that studio was still something of a podunk operation. The young man succeeded on a grand scale, and was head of production before he was 30 years old. Ironically, the classic Warners house style, i.e. clipped, topical, and earthy, often dark and sometimes grimly funny, as in such iconic films as The Public Enemy, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, and 42nd Street, was established not by Jack, Harry, Sam, or Albert Warner, but by Darryl Zanuck, who was the driving force behind those hits and many others from the crucial early talkie period. He played a key role in launching the gangster cycle and a new wave of sassy show biz musicals. At some point during 1932-33, however, Zanuck realized he would never rise above his status as Jack Warner’s right-hand man and run the studio, no matter how successful his projects proved to be, because of two insurmountable obstacles: 1) his name was not Warner, and 2) he was a Gentile. Therefore, in order to achieve complete autonomy, Zanuck concluded that he would have to start his own company.
In mid-April of 1933 he picked a public fight with Jack Warner over a staff salary issue, then abruptly resigned. Next, he turned his attention to setting up a company in partnership with veteran producer Joseph Schenck, who was able to raise sufficient funds to launch the new concern. And then, Zanuck invited several associates from Warner Brothers to accompany him on an extended hunting trip in Canada.
Going into the wilderness and killing wild game, a pastime many Americans still regard as a routine, unremarkable form of recreation, is also of course a conspicuous show of machismo. But in this realm, as with his legendary libido, Zanuck was in a class by himself. He had been an enthusiastic hunter most of his life, dating back to his boyhood in Nebraska. Once he became a big wheel at Warners in the late ’20s he took to organizing high-style duck-hunting expeditions: the young executive and his fellow sportsmen would travel to the appointed location in private railroad cars, staffed by uniformed servants. Heavy drinking on these occasions was not uncommon. (Inevitably, film buffs will recall The Ale & Quail Club from Preston Sturges’ classic comedy The Palm Beach Story, but DFZ and his pals were not cute old character actors, and their bullets were quite real.) Members of Zanuck’s studio entourage were given to understand that participation in these outings was de rigueur if they valued their positions, and expected desirable assignments in the future. Director Michael Curtiz, who had no fondness for hunting, remembered the trips with distaste, and recalled that on one occasion he was nearly shot by a casting director who had no idea how to properly handle a gun.
But ducks were just the beginning. In 1927 Zanuck took his wife Virginia on an African safari. In Kenya Darryl bagged a rhinoceros and posed for a photo with his wife, crouched beside the rhino’s carcass. Virginia, an erstwhile Mack Sennett bathing beauty and former leading lady to Buster Keaton, appears shaken. Her husband looks exhilarated. During this safari Zanuck also killed an elephant. He kept the animal’s four feet in his office on the Warners lot, and used them as ashtrays. If any animal lover dared to express dismay, the Hollywood sportsman would retort: “It was him or me, wasn’t it?” Zanuck made several forays to Canada with his coterie in this period, gunning for grizzly bears. Director William “Wild Bill” Wellman, who was more of an outdoorsman than Curtiz, once went along, but soon became irritated with Zanuck’s bullying. The two men got into a drunken fistfight the night before the hunting had even begun. In the course of the ensuing trip the hunting party was snowbound for three days; Zanuck sprained his ankle while trailing a grizzly; the horse carrying medical supplies vanished; and Wellman got food poisoning. “It was the damnedest trip I’ve ever seen,” the director said later, “but Zanuck loved it.”
Now that Zanuck had severed his ties with the Warner clan and was on the verge of a new professional adventure, a trip to Canada with a few trusted associates would be just the ticket. This time the destination would be a hunting ground on the banks of the Canoe River, a tributary of the Columbia River, 102 miles north of Revelstoke, British Columbia, a city about 400 miles east of Vancouver. There, in a remote scenic area far from any paved roads, telephones, or other niceties of modern life, the men could discuss Zanuck’s new production company and, presumably, their own potential roles in it. Present on the expedition were screenwriter Sam Engel, director Ray Enright, 42nd Street director Lloyd Bacon, producer (and former silent film comedian) Raymond Griffith, and director John G. Adolfi, best known at the time for his work with English actor George Arliss. Adolfi, who was around 50 years old and seemingly in good health, would not return.
II. The Director
Even dedicated film buffs may draw a blank when the name John Adolfi is mentioned. Although he directed more than eighty films over a twenty-year period beginning in 1913, most of those films are now lost. He worked in every genre, with top stars, and made a successful transition from silent cinema to talkies. He seems to have been a well-respected but self-effacing man, seldom profiled in the press. 
According to his tombstone Adolfi was born in New York City in 1881, but the exact date of his birth is one of several mysteries about his life. His father, Gustav Adolfi, was a popular stage comedian and singer who emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1879. Gustav performed primarily in New York and Philadelphia, and was known for such roles as Frosch the Jailer in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. But he was a troubled man, said to be a compulsive gambler, and after his wife Jennie died (possibly of scarlet fever) it appears his life fell apart. Gustav’s singing voice gave out, and then he died suddenly in Philadelphia in October 1890, leaving John and his siblings orphaned. (An obituary in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent reported that Gustav suffered a stroke, but family legend suggests he may have committed suicide.) After a difficult period John followed in his father’s footsteps and launched a stage career, and was soon working opposite such luminaries of the day as Ethel Barrymore and Dustin Farnum. Early in the new century the young actor wed Pennsylvania native Florence Crawford; the marriage would last until his death.
When the cinema was still in its infancy stage performers tended to regard movie work as slumming, but for whatever reason John Adolfi took the plunge. He made his debut before the cameras around 1907, probably at the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn. There he appeared as Tybalt in J. Stuart Blackton’s 1908 Romeo and Juliet , with Paul Panzer and Florence Lawrence in the title roles. He worked at the Edison Studio for director Edwin S. Porter, and at Biograph in a 1908 short called The Kentuckian which also featured two other stage veterans, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett. Most of Adolfi’s work as a screen actor was for the Éclair Studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the first film capital. The bulk of this company’s output was destroyed in a vault fire, but a 1912 adaptation of Robin Hood in which Adolfi appeared survives. That same year he also appeared in a famous docu-drama, as we would call it, Saved from the Titanic. This ten-minute short premiered less than a month after the Titanic disaster, and featured actress Dorothy Gibson, who actually survived the voyage, re-enacting her experience while wearing the same clothes she wore in the lifeboat. (This film, unfortunately, is among the missing.) After appearing in dozens of movies Adolfi moved behind the camera.
Much of his early work as a director was for a Los Angeles-based studio called Majestic, where he made crime dramas, Westerns, and comedies, films with titles like Texas Bill’s Last Ride and The Stolen Radium. In 1914 the company had a new supervisor: D. W. Griffith, now the top director in the business, who had just departed Biograph. Adolfi was one of the few Majestic staff directors who kept his job under the new regime. A profile in the February 1915 issue of Photoplay describes him as “a tallish, good-looking man, well-knit and vigorous, dark-haired and determined; his mouth and chin suggest that their owner expects (and intends) to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better.” It was also reported that Adolfi had developed something of a following as an actor, but that he dropped out of the public eye when he became a director. Presumably, that’s what he wanted.
Adolfi left Majestic after three years, worked at Fox Films for a time as a staff director, then freelanced. During the remainder of the silent era he guided some of the screen’s legendary leading ladies: Annette Kellerman (Queen of the Sea, 1918), Marion Davies (The Burden of Proof, 1918), Mae Marsh (The Little ‘Fraid Lady, 1920), Betty Blythe (The Darling of the Rich, 1922), and Clara Bow (The Scarlet West, 1925). Not one of these films survives. A profile published in the New York World-Telegram during his stint at Fox reported that Adolfi was well-liked by his employees. He was “reticent when the conversation turned toward himself, but frank and outspoken when it concerned his work. Mr. Adolfi is not only a director who is skilled in the technique of his craft; he is also a deep student of human nature.” Asked how he felt about the cinema’s potential, he replied, with unconscious irony, “it is bound to live forever.”
III. The Talkies
In spring of 1927 Adolfi was offered a job at Warner Brothers. His debut feature for the studio What Happened to Father? (now lost) was a success, or enough of one anyway to secure him a professional foothold, and he worked primarily at WB thereafter. Thus he was fortuitously well-positioned for the talkie revolution, for although talking pictures were not invented at the studio it was Sam Warner and his brothers, more than anyone else, who sold an initially skeptical public on the new medium. After Adolfi had proven himself with three talkie features Darryl Zanuck handed him an expensive, prestige assignment, a lavish all-star revue entitled The Show of Shows which featured every Warners star from John Barrymore to Rin-Tin-Tin.
Other important assignments followed. In March of 1930 a crime melodrama called Penny Arcade opened on Broadway. It was not a success, but when Al Jolson saw it he sensed that the story had screen potential. He purchased the film rights at a bargain rate and then re-sold the property to his home studio, Warner Brothers. Adolfi was chosen to direct, but was doubtless surprised to learn that Jolson had insisted that two of the actors from the Broadway production repeat their performances before the cameras. One of the pair, Joan Blondell, had already appeared in three Vitaphone shorts to good effect, but the other, James Cagney, had never acted in a movie. Any doubts about Jolson’s instincts were quickly dispelled. Rushes of the first scenes featuring the newcomers so impressed studio brass that both were signed to five-year contracts. While Adolfi can’t be credited with discovering the duo, the film itself, re-christened Sinners’ Holiday,remains his strongest surviving claim to fame: he guided Jimmy Cagney’s screen debut.
At this point the director formed a professional relationship that would shape the rest of his career. George Arliss was a veteran stage actor who went into the movies and unexpectedly became a top box office draw. He was, frankly, an unlikely candidate for screen stardom. Already past sixty when talkies arrived, Arliss was a short, dignified man who resembled a benevolent gargoyle. But he was also a journeyman actor, a seasoned professional who knew how to command attention with a sudden sharp word or a raised eyebrow. Like Helen Hayes he was valued in Hollywood as a performer of unblemished reputation who lent the raffish film industry a touch of Class, in every sense of the word.
In 1929 Arliss appeared in a talkie version of Disraeli, a role he had played many times on stage, and became the first Englishman to take home an Academy Award for Best Actor. Thereafter he was known for stately portrayals of History’s Great Men, such as Voltaire and Alexander Hamilton, as well as fictional kings, cardinals, and other official personages. The old gentleman formed a close alliance with Darryl Zanuck, whom he admired, and was in turn granted privileges highly unusual for any actor at the time. Arliss had final approval of his scripts and authority over casting. He was also granted the right to rehearse his selected actors for two weeks before filming began. All that was left for the film’s director to do, it would seem, would be to faithfully record what his star wanted. Not many directors would accept this arrangement, but John Adolfi, who according to Photoplay “was determined to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better,” clearly had no problem with it. His first film with Arliss was The Millionaire, released in May 1931; and in the two years that followed Adolfi directed eight more features, six of which were Arliss vehicles. He had found his niche in Hollywood.
One of Adolfi’s last jobs sans Arliss was a B-picture called Central Park, which reunited the director with Joan Blondell. It’s a snappy, topical, crazy quilt of a movie that packs a lot of incident into a 58-minute running time. Central Park was something of a sleeper that earned its director positive critical notices, and must have afforded him a lively holiday from those polite period pieces for the exacting Mr. Arliss.
In spring of 1933, after completing work on the Arliss vehicle Voltaire, Adolfi accompanied Darryl Zanuck and his entourage to British Columbia to hunt bears. Arliss intended to follow Zanuck to his new company, while Adolfi in turn surely expected to follow the star and continue their collaboration. Things didn’t work out that way.
IV. The Hunting Trip
It’s unclear how long the men were hunting before tragedy struck. On Sunday, May 14th, newspapers reported that film director John G. Adolfi had died the previous week – either on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which paper one consults – at a hunting camp near the Canoe River. All accounts give the cause of death as a cerebral hemorrhage. According to the New York Herald-Tribune the news was conveyed in a long-distance phone call from Darryl Zanuck to screenwriter Lucien Hubbard in Los Angeles. Hubbard subsequently informed the press. The N.Y. Times reported that the entire hunting party (Zanuck, Engel, Enright, Bacon, and Griffith) accompanied Adolfi’s remains in a motorboat down the Columbia River to Revelstoke. From there the body was sent to Vancouver, B.C., where it was cremated. Write-ups of Adolfi’s career were brief, and tended to emphasize his work with George Arliss, though his recent success Central Park was widely noted. John’s widow Florence was mentioned in the Philadelphia City News obituary but otherwise seems to have been ignored; the couple had no children. 
V. The Aftermath
Darryl F. Zanuck went on to found Twentieth Century Pictures, a name suggested by his hunting companion Sam Engel. One of the company’s biggest hits in its first year of operation was The House of Rothschild, starring George Arliss and directed by Alfred Werker. The venerable actor returned to England not long afterwards and retired from filmmaking in 1937. In his second book of memoirs, published three years later, Arliss devotes several pages of warm praise to Zanuck, but refers only fleetingly to the man who directed seven of his films, John Adolfi, and misspells his name.
In 1935 Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with Fox Films, and created one of the most successful companies in Hollywood history. He would go on to produce many award-winning classics, including The Grapes of Wrath, Laura, and All About Eve. Zanuck’s trusted associates at Twentieth-Century Fox in the company’s best years included Sam Engel, Raymond Griffith, and Lloyd Bacon, all survivors of the Revelstoke trip. Personal difficulties and vast changes in the film industry began to affect Zanuck’s career in the 1950s. He left the U.S. for Europe but continued to make films, and sporadically managed to exercise control over the company he founded. He died in 1979.
In 1984 a onetime screenwriter and film critic named Leonard Mosley, who had known Zanuck slightly, published a biography entitled Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon. Aside from his movie reviews most of Mosley’s published work concerned military matters, specifically pertaining to the Second War World. His Zanuck bio reveals a grasp of film history that is shaky at times, for the book has a number of obvious errors. Nevertheless, it was written with the cooperation of Darryl’s son Richard, his widow Virginia, and many of the mogul’s close associates, so whatever its errors in chronology or studio data the anecdotes concerning Zanuck’s personal and professional activities are unquestionably well-sourced. 
When Mosley’s narrative reaches May 1933, the point when Zanuck is on the verge of founding his new company, we’re told that he and several associates decided to go on a hunting trip to Alaska. The location is not correct, but chronologically – and in one other, unmistakable respect – there can be no doubt that this refers to the Revelstoke trip. From Mosley’s book:
“There is a mystery about this trip, and no perusal of Zanuck’s papers or those of his former associates seems to elucidate it,” he writes. “Something happened that changed his whole attitude towards hunting. All that can be gathered from the thin stories that are still gossiped around was that the hunting party went on the track of a polar bear somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness [sic], and when the vital moment came it was Zanuck who stepped out to shoot down the charging, furious animal. His bullet, it is said, found its mark all right, but it did not kill. The polar bear came on, and Zanuck stood his ground, pumping away with his rifle. Only this time it was not ‘him or me,’ but ‘him’ and someone else. The wounded and enraged bear, still alive and still charging, swerved around Zanuck and swiped with his great paw at one of the men standing behind him – and only after it had killed this other man did it fall at last into the snow, and die itself. That’s the story, and no one seems to be able to confirm it nor remember the name of the man who died. The only certain thing is that when Zanuck came back, he announced to Virginia that he had given up hunting. And he never went out and shot a wild animal again, not even a jackrabbit for his supper.”
VI. The Coda
Was John Adolfi killed by a bear? It certainly seems possible, but if so, why didn’t the men in the hunting party simply report the truth? Even if their boss was indirectly responsible, having fired the shots that caused the bear to charge, he couldn’t be blamed for the actions of a dying animal. But it’s also possible the event unfolded like a recent tragedy on the Montana-Idaho border. There, in September 2011, two men named Ty Bell and Steve Stevenson were on a hunting trip. Bell shot what he believed was a black bear. When the bear, a grizzly, attacked Stevenson, Bell fired again – and killed both the bear and his friend.
That seems to be the more likely scenario. If Zanuck fired at the wounded bear, in an attempt to save Adolfi, and killed both bear and man instead, it would perhaps explain a hastily contrived false story. It would most definitely explain the prompt cremation of Adolfi’s body in Vancouver. Back in Hollywood Joe Schenck was busy raising money, and lots of it, to launch Zanuck’s new company. Any unpleasant information about the new company’s chief – certainly anything suggestive of manslaughter – could jeopardize the deal. A man hit with a cerebral hemorrhage in the prime of life is a tragedy of natural causes, but a man sprayed with bullets in a shooting, accidental or not, is something else again. That goes double if alcohol was involved, as it reportedly was on Zanuck’s earlier hunting trips.
Of course, it’s also possible that Adolfi did indeed suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. Like his father.
John G. Adolfi is a Hollywood ghost. Most of his works are lost, and his name is forgotten. (Even George Arliss couldn’t be bothered to spell it correctly.) Every now and then TCM will program one of the Arliss vehicles, or Sinners’ Holiday. Not long ago they showed Adolfi’s fascinating B-picture Central Park, that slam-bang souvenir of the early Depression years in which several plot strands are deftly inter-twined. One of the subplots involves a mentally ill man, a former zoo-keeper who escapes from an asylum and returns to the place where he used to work, the Central Park Zoo. He has a score to settle with an old nemesis, an ex-colleague who tends the big cats. As the story approaches its climax, the escaped lunatic deliberately drags his enemy into the cage of a dangerous lion and leaves him there. In the subsequent, harrowing scene, difficult to watch, the lion attacks and practically kills the poor bastard.
by William Charles Morrow
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My sources for this article, in addition to the Mosley biography cited in the text, include Stephen M. Silverman’s The Fox That Got Away: The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at Twentieth-Century Fox (1988), and Marlys J. Harris’s The Zanucks of Hollywood: The Dark Legacy of an American Dynasty (1989). For material on John Adolfi I made extensive use of the files of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Special thanks to James Bigwood for his prodigious research on the Adolfi family genealogy, and to Mary Maler, John Adolfi’s great-niece, for information she provided on her family.
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rochiomaru · 3 years
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THE BETRAYAL
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We make the journey to the islands and land on Minion island in a cove where we can see the rendezvous point at Swallow Island without our position being spotted. I have a terrible premonition that things are about to get extremely treacherous for my family, and as we spend time watching, this feeling is proven accurate. My heart sinks as we watch two warships begin circling the port. The size of these ships are so massive that they almost match the ones used in a buster call. These ships are here to rain destruction, not to simply guard a transaction. It’s as if the Marines are preparing for a war.
It is then that my transponder snail begins to ring. The demons in my soul practically sing in glee as I know whatever news is on the other end is going to destroy the remainder of my happiness. I’m not even sure how I am aware of this, but it is a knowledge that I would place my life on. I simply close my eyes and my fingers crack and bend as I flex them back and forth before taking the snail’s receiver.
Vergo informs me of my brother’s secret letter to the Marines. My world comes to an end for the briefest of moments and my vision blurs as wretched heat fills my eyes. Rosinante has attempted to tell them everything. The auction houses, the devil fruits, and worst of all, he tried to warn them about Dressrosa. It is a country that was stolen from our family by the worthless world government. That crown should have been mine at birth, simply by matter of bloodline! It was denied to me by those pompous fools, so why would help them to keep what is rightfully mine?
I am pulled from my reverie when Vergo attempts to appease me by letting me know he punished Rosinante and Law. Even my voices know to let me be at this moment. Law is my son and still a child. I am the only one to decide his punishment if one is even warranted. My brother is currently the only transgressor, and I still want to talk to him. Maybe the Marines forced him to betray me? I must know why he did this! Brothers...blood is forever! How could he choose them over me? A voice whispers in my mind that The Family is my only true family. I ignore it for now.
“Whoa-whoa, you haven’t killed them, have you?” I ask Vergo. He assures me they are still breathing, but I do not like his flippant tone. I will overlook it, though, as he has been so faithful to me all these years and has been undercover, away from the family. I tell him that we will be that way shortly, as the pirates we have fought said the devil fruit was stolen from them, so it must have been my brother.
Vergo becomes irritated. Apparently, Rosinante and Law have disappeared, but it is of no great importance. We will find them, for how far can a child and an injured man go? I also have my devil fruit to assist me. I pull forth one of my most formidable abilities. Birdcage. I can feel the subtle vibrations as people begin to grab a hold of the strings in a futile attempt to escape. No one can escape this trap once I have set it. I will find my son.
As a final push towards destruction, I release my parasite strings and begin to grab random pirates to slay anyone near them. A morbid pleasure fills my breast as I can sense the pain and fear that fills them whenever someone’s flesh is pierced by my power.
We make our way towards the town and cut down every rat we come across along the way. No amount of begging, or crying is enough to grant mercy. No display of anger, or effort to fight is adequate to repel my family’s judgement. Death is granted to all without hesitation and the stench of iron increases even as the sounds of war decrease. With each death, the demons at the core of my being are gaining more momentum. I can scarcely tell what is them and what is me. It is as though I am losing my true self, and I feel a small flicker of fear. I am drowning, and with Rosinante’s betrayal, I no longer have a lifeline to grasp, nor perhaps even the desire to hang on.
I finally reach a warehouse and use my strings to lay waste to the door. Inside I find the sorry excuse of a pirate captain. He is the one who was to meet with the Marines and sell the Ope Ope no Mi, but here he is cowering before me on the ground like a worm. Somehow this filth dares to accuse me of taking the precious fruit, but I make sure to tell him that if I had taken it, I would not be here now going through all of this. 
He sickens me to even look at him and only have one thing more to say, “How dare you let it be stolen, you drunken idiot?!” before I pass his final condemnation and pull the gun from my coat. He isn’t even worth death from my personal power, and the bullets pass through his head before he can utter one more word in response. Good riddance.
After it is done, I slowly lower myself to the floor and stare at the gun in my hand. I’m losing myself while the demons of both past and present begin to take over everything. I remember how I felt when I met Trebol for the first time. I was so small and broken. He recognized greatness in me and was able to put name to the power dwelling within my soul. Haki. The power that saved me from the villagers. If it hadn’t been for him and Vergo, I never would have met my destiny.
I continue to stare at the gun. The gun Trebol gave me to take my revenge and steal my power back from that man. He’s the one that caused me and my brother to hurt so much! He tried to take my power from me! I can hear Rosi...Rosinante screaming for me to stop. He’s screaming for that man. I ask him why he took that power I had. I tell him we can’t undo what he’s done, but I plan to take his head to the Celestial Dragons to regain entry to heaven. I’m doing it for us! Why doesn’t Rosinante understand? Instead Rosinante persists in clinging to and crying for that man!
He simply turns and says, “Doflamingo, Rosinante. I’m sorry you had to have a father like me.” I pause when he smiles at me. There are tears in his eyes and I can feel my hands begin to shake as I falter. I hate myself for my self-doubt, but this was a man I once trusted more than anyone in the world. At one time, he was everything to me. He would hold my hand as we walked along the streets of Mariejois, and he spent time playing games with me. He held me on his shoulders the first time I saw Rosi. Then I remember the pain and humiliation. He brought us here to be hurt. He let her die. He betrayed us.
The feeling of the iron is hot as I pull the trigger and I’m surprised how it makes my palm sting when the recoil causes the gun to slam back into my hand. I can smell the acidic burn of gunpowder in the air, and it is joined by the unmistakable rich odor of blood. I can feel gore and wet heat splatter on me from his wound. Rosinante continues to scream.
Pica is calling out my name, but I can scarcely bring myself to look away from the gun still sitting in my hand. It seems so small now. How can such a tiny weapon have brought such major changes in my existence? Pica then puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me they have found my brother. That manages to catch my full attention. The time has come to find out for sure if he has truly betrayed me to the point that there is no longer hope for us. I put the gun back into my coat and followed Pica into the cold.
I took my time walking towards the sounds of fighting, and though I was no longer right behind Pica, I could see his footprints in the snow. My voices are screaming for bloodshed, but I have never felt so conflicted before. My chest is aching from how tight it feels, and I notice the taste of copper in my mouth. When I put my fingers to my lips and pull them back, I see I have managed to bite through my bottom lip until it bled. Fufufu… I can’t help but to laugh at myself. Perhaps I am not as strong as I always believed?
The closer I come to where the family is confronting my brother, the harder it is for me to catch my breath. My chest is becoming even tighter, and my throat is getting dry as I struggle to swallow. I must stop and close my eyes. My fingers are moving fast and cracking as I create and release strings to try and relieve the tension in my body. I growl at the voices to shut the hell up, since they have become so fucking loud that I can’t concentrate on catching my breath. I need to understand why Rosinante is doing this!
WHY?
It isn’t until I hear Lao G tell Gladius to stop before he kills my brother that everything seems to freeze. My eyes snap open and I look up towards the direction where everyone is at just over the hill. He’s going to die? I lean my head to the side and relax my face into a wide grin, full of sharp teeth. People often tell me it is quite unnerving. I begin to chuckle softly, and it increases until I can’t even control the laughter. My demons join me in my head. We laugh until tears begin to roll down my face. Then I begin to sob. When did my brother stop loving me?
Did he ever love me?
After a few moments, I wipe my face with both of my hands and straighten my tie. I run my fingers through my hair and ensure that my coat is snug on my shoulders before continuing onward. My face is carefully blank as I approach Rosinante and my family, but I keep my hands in my pockets since I cannot seem to keep the fidgeting of my fingers under control.
I count off the steps in my head to try and keep calm. There is still a burning ember of hope in my chest, he will say something to make this better! He is still my lovely younger brother. All I have ever wanted is to have family and to be happy. We deserve better than the hell of this shameful dung heap that man cursed us to! It is all I have worked towards these long years. Surely Rosinante must know that! 
I stop and look down at Rosinante covered in blood, coughing as he is trying to smoke a cigarette. I want to reach out to him and take care of his injuries, but I know this is not the time for that. In fact, there may never be a time for that again. Instead, I say to him, “It has been six months, Corazon,” and wait to see what he will say back to me. 
The look of disgust and hatred in his eyes repulsed me. I can practically feel it burning my skin as he attempts to stare me down. Suddenly he smiles and reaches into his coat. The others immediately react, but I hold out my hand and tell them to stand down. He is my brother! I will see to this myself.
They were right not to trust him as he pulls a gun from his coat and aims it towards me. He even dares to pull back the hammer in preparation to fire. Icy fingers wind their way around my heart even as fiery pinpricks stab behind my eyes. He surely is betraying me, and I don’t know why. 
What is it about me that makes it so my biological family doesn’t want to love and protect me? I have the blood of the Celestial Dragons in my veins, but they have cast me away too. My hand goes to my eyes before I catch it and put it back into my pockets.
The next thing my brother says is that last thing I was ever expecting. “Marine Code 01746. Commander Rosinante of the Navy Headquarters. Donquixote Family captain Doflamingo, I have been undercover to prevent a future tragedy of your doing. I am a Navy soldier!” 
My heart feels as though it is shattering in that moment and there is a fever pitch of wails lamenting in my head. For the last few years that I’ve been tormented with the thoughts and suspicions that my brother hated me and was lying to me, to hear it put so plainly now was eating me alive. I could feel a cold sweat breaking out on my back and muscles tightening in my abdomen. That power began rolling and coiling within me, wrapping around the demons fighting for dominance. I felt it overwhelming me, but truly had lost the will to care.
Despite the turmoil churning inside my consciousness, I managed to keep my exterior facade in place, save for the deepening scowl on my forehead. Commander Rosinante continued, but he was no longer looking at me as he spoke. Again, my voices cried out he was playing games, only this time I know to listen to them. I realize he is no longer speaking to me, though I am not sure why he is trying to pretend any longer. What is the point in this charade? “I’m sorry I lied to you. I lied because I didn’t want you to hate me.” 
LIES!
I can feel the look of disgust that curls on my lip as I respond to him, “Stop telling those insipid jokes…” before the rage manifests on my face and I scream for him to answer my questions. I ask him about the Ope Ope no Mi and Law. He looks so proud of himself when he tells me that he had Law eat the fruit! I want to laugh in his face and wipe that smug look from existence. All he did was what I had planned from the beginning!
It’s what he says next that changes everything. My whole world feels like it is jerked out from underneath me and I am left with nothing. Law is not within the boundaries of the birdcage and Rosinante has allowed him to be given to the Marines. My son is with the FUCKING MARINES!! The icy fingers around my heart have just ripped said heart from my chest and crushed it to leave nothing but a gaping, bloody hole.
No, no, no, no… he must be lying, is all I try to tell myself as he begins to grin that cocksure fucking smile that lets me know I was never his brother. I was nothing more than an assignment to him. I begin to grind my teeth, but before I can move to react to him, Buffalo and Baby 5 cry out to me. They confirm that a boy was indeed taken by the Marines, so I begin to give out orders to the Family to retrieve Law. Then something in me snaps.
I was simply a pawn to the Commander. A villainous pirate to keep an eye on and report back about. I was never his brother! He never loved me this whole time! This realization causes the dam holding the demons back to break. I no longer have any control and they consume me. I think I may even be… grateful? After so many years of struggling, I begin to sink into the blackness of their embrace. I am me, yet I am not. It is my body, though it is not I that is fully in possession any longer.
 The bastard has the nerve to look offended that I plan to take my son back from the Marines. When he speaks aloud for me not to and asks me why I want to get Law back, I know I would never give him the honest answer anymore. He is no longer family and doesn’t deserve any kindness from me. I allow the demons to answer in my stead, simply because at this point, I want him to hurt as much as he hurt me.
 I can feel my face change as I lean in towards him. The cruelty is almost alive the way it distorts and disfigures me. I truly am demonic in my hatred and my demons have given me a new smile as I answer the Commander. “Why would I wanna go after Law? If he ate the Ope Ope no Mi, he needs to be educated in order to die for me!” Somewhere deep within I wonder if I have allowed them to go too far to even say such a thing, but when I see his face, revenge is sweet, and I force the regret away while retrieving the gun from my coat.
 I look at him and all I see is our father where I used to see our moth… all I see is him, when I used to see her. She has truly left this world for me and the only family I have is the ones I have found. The ones that came to me when I was ten.  I just don’t understand why my blood wants to reject me. I don’t mean to say it to him, but it slips out, “Why do I have to kill another member of my biological family?!”
 We stare at each other for a few moments, each pointing a gun at the other. I tell him he won’t shoot me because he is like his father. Since they do not want me, I will no longer claim them either. The Commander and that man can have each other in hell! I begin to fire. Once I pull the trigger, I can’t stop. I see flashes of my life. My brother as a baby, Law, Mariejois, my moth...my mother; all the things that have been taken from me! Why does everyone leave?
 The voices whisper, “because you are a demon, like us. A worthless monster. Who could ever love something like that?”
 I keep firing until the gun is empty. It is so cold out and I watch as Rosinante slides back against the treasure chest. Snow begins to gather on his body and red stains it. I watch while the others begin to gather the stacks of loot and beri to carry back to the ship, but a part of me doesn’t want to leave him there alone in the cold. He betrayed me in the deepest way anyone ever could, but... I love him. It’s freezing out here, and Rosi is so damn helpless and clumsy. I worry about him. He is my baby broth…
 Diamante taps me on the arm and tells me it’s time to go. I turn away and walk towards the Numancia with my family. We are about to wage war on the Marines in the harbor to get my son back. 
 I release the birdcage and my lips spread wide in a razor-sharp leer. My glasses hide the insanity that is swimming at the surface of my consciousness. I feel like the world cannot begin to touch what I have become.
The Marines will forever regret what they have done to me and my family. I am about to pay them back in spades for the life of my brother, then I will take Law before any further damage can be done.
The Heavenly Demon shows mercy to no man and has now been fully unleashed.
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harmonyandco · 4 years
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Death eaters were dying. They weren’t being spent on his goals, they were having very suspicious “accidents.” “Catastrophes.” Apparently being “randomly” targeted in “violent acts.”
In short, the self styled dark lord was losing his minions to activities that his minions should be performing. Not falling victim to. Worse, he had no idea who or what was getting them. Possible leads vaporized like smoke in the dark of a new moon. On the surface, the war was going extremely well for his side. He outright controlled the ministry, Severus had controlled Hogwarts, now the Carrows did...but they suspected McGonagall held the wards. When Severus died she also disappeared. One of their spies had tailed her to the seventh floor where she vanished and hadn’t been seen since. But the school itself wasn’t cooperating. The daily prophet and WWN were mere mouthpieces for he and his minions...and yet a full 50% of his marked forces were either dead or had vanished. Not ran, he would know thorough their marks. They were gone. He fully suspected they were dead, but had no evidence beyond suspicions. When he first noticed his agents were going quiet he thought that the Order and/or Potter had gotten lucky a few times. But as his losses mounted at an alarming rate he knew there was a new player on the field. One he didn’t even have a name of. Death eaters were afraid to walk down Knockturn Alley! They owned that alley for longer than their movement had existed, and somehow, now, if they were in the open their heads may explode without an apparent curse having been fired. Fenrir went that way when he thought to make an example of a child that had ventured too near the Diagon Alley entrance. Others were found dead in the shadows without a mark upon them beyond a look on their face of surprise or shock. Initially the killing curse was suspected but St Mungos said they, to a man, had had their necks expertly broken. They weren’t all even in their Death Eater garb. The Parkinson matriarch was last seen in an evening gown for a ministry gala. Poof. Gone. Severus was killed in an apparent dragon attack through the window of the headmasters office. But nobody saw or even heard a dragon. But what else could burn that hot? He had to find out what was going on. And soon. The true scope of the losses only he knew but it was getting hard to conceal. Only their fear of his wrath has kept them from asking too many questions.
It reminded him of events from September of ‘79 to his unfortunate sabbatical in October of ‘81. By all appearances the war was going well then too. The light thought that they were on the ropes. But his forces were being worn far too thin by eerily similar occurrences. He had to track this menace down.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
From her “nest” in a bell tower 2000 yards from Knockturn Alley, Emma Granger quietly cleaned her rifle and contemplated the last year. Her husband Dan was quietly making his way back after dispatching his last two “appointments” for the day. Their having “awoken” from an unscheduled vacation in Melbourne has thrown both of them for a loop. For all their Spec-ops training they were both blindsided by their own daughter erasing their memory. They hadn’t seen it coming at all. Apparently they’d been living the life of a pair of mild-mannered dentists for a couple of months already when a routine medical exam to her brought it all rushing back when the couple was asked about her internal scarring and if she had lost the baby. The 17 year old girl that they’d forgotten they had. Now, they had no idea where she was, but within 24 hours of recovering their memories they were back in country and were put in touch with the M division of the Organization and soon were looking at case files that both thought they’d put to rest 18 years ago. Three times this Riddle guy had nearly killed them both. Three times they’d defied the odds. The first they both believed to be random chance. After that they were on his radar and he didn’t like to miss. The last time had nearly caused Emma to miscarry, giving birth to Hermione nearly a week and a half early instead of the end of September. They started this campaign of eradicating him and his followers then until Halloween of ‘81 when Emma managed to put a bullet through his head as he stood in a nursery in Wales. She couldn’t get a shot before he’d killed two more victims that night. The only strange thing was the green flash she’d seen in her scope as her bullet made the journey. Seconds later his heat signature was just gone. Not on the floor and cooling as the adults were. Gone. She and Dan had been read in on the magical world that night. But since it wasn’t their area, they didn’t work it. Until now. Their daughter and future son-in-law Harry were right in the middle of this mess and both had disappeared. And Dan and Emma were going to find them. And soon.
A Thermite RPG into the headmasters office of the school killed Snape.
After the parents find the kids-The Horcrux in Bellatrix’s vault the goblins refuse to “help” with...they won’t let anyone not authorized into another customers vault. But they can certainly give a tour to potential customers. And if potential customers happen to be informed where Bella’s vault is for targeting information and it gets hit with a bunker-buster dropped through Borgin and Burke’s thereby incinerating the contents and melting them into a pile of slag that the goblins have really no problem recasting into coin... well so be it.
Yes. This long winded thing is a prompt. Sorry it’s so long. Use none of it. Use part of it. Use all of it. I don’t care, it just struck me today and I had to share it. Basically, Hermione (as in Canon) wants to protect her parents and Bolivia tea them and sends them away. She it basically the daughter in the movie “True Lies” and has no idea who her parents really are or what they’re capable of. September is the 7th month of the Roman calendar and I think I also came up with enough to throw the prophecy into ambiguity that it could even be Hermione that is the chosen one. And NOBODY knows it.
Have fun with it.
submitted by @harmonyeveryday
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CHARACTER INTRODUCTION: CLARENCE
"Oh, Clarence, you really are terribly moronic!"
"It's called tactful, my dear."
full name: Clarence Deshmukh
age: 20 - 25 (born August 23, 1898)
gender/orientation: male, he/him/his, pansexual
family: mother (Sarasvati), father (Navin), older brother (Lysander) (deceased), younger sister (Diana)
appaerence: about 6′0 tall, gangly, tea-coloured skin, dark brown curly hair he tries to flatten by using ridiculous amounts of hair wax, likes to wear red, almond-shaped brown eyes, short nose, is generally considered to be good looking, warm smile
personality: very friendly, but opaque, courteous, tactful, can keep his feelings very well to himself, independent, sometimes tends to be jealous, watches Alex's escapades with a shaking of the head, but does not try to prevent him from anything, cheerful and unspoilt, but sometimes considers himself to be extremely cunning
Biography: (mentions of illness, war and death)
He was born in Calcutta as the second oldest son of the wealthy hotel owner Navin Deshmukh and his wife Sarasvati. When he was two years old, his brother Lysander (his parents had given all their children British names) died of whooping cough. 
When he was ten and his sister Diana seven, their parents moved to England, as his father had been offered co-ownership of the Meridian Hotel in London. At fourteen he, like Alex, came to Eton and they became friends at once, as Clarence was as progressive as Alex, although Alex was not aware of his views at the time. It should be said at this point, however, that they were never more than friends, and never felt secretly attracted to each other in a romantic way. Together with Alex, he was expelled from Eton in the spring of 1916 for well-known reasons. Being blind in his left eye from birth, he was not drafted into the army when the war broke out, and instead moved to a noble flat in Mayfair. Through his father, who naturally knew many people in London, he also heard of the Cosmopolitan Café and became a regular there long before Alex. 
When Alex returned from the war much gloomier than before, Clarence had retained his youthful freshness, and was largely responsible for Alex not becoming emotionally stunted by also showing him the Cosmopolitan Café.
taglist: @alias-levi @hildy-dont-be-hasty @writerlywonders @buster-keaton @rememberedkisses. If you also want to join/leave the taglist, just ask or dm me! :)
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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years
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FATHER’S DAY
The death of Lucille Ball’s father at an early age had a great impact. Throughout the four situation comedies built around her, the “Lucy” characters had mothers, but references to their fathers was rare. Here’s a tribute to the precious few dads found in the Lucyverse! 
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Henry “Had” Durrell Ball (1887-1915) ~ Father of Lucille Ball and Fred Ball.
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Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y Alberni II (1894-1973) ~ Father of Desi Arnaz and grandfather of Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz IV. Desi Jr. is now the father of two. 
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Ricky Ricardo (aka Ricardo Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha aka Enrique Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha III) ~ Father of Ricky Ricardo Jr. (Keith Thibodeaux). Actually, Ricky’s son was played by 8 actors over the course of the series.
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In “Return Home From Europe” (ILL S5;E26), Ricky insists that he is not the father of baby Cheddar Chester!
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Below are all the fathers on “I Love Lucy”!  
But first, a (Father’s Day) word from our sponsor!
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Will Potter ~ Father of Ethel Mertz. Besides Ricky himself, Will Potter (Irving Bacon) is the only father of the main characters on “I Love Lucy.”  Although all four have living mothers (two of whom are characters on the show), only Ethel’s father is alive and well and appears on screen in “Ethel’s Hometown” (ILL S4;E16). 
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Charlie Appleby ~ Father of Stevie. Charlie makes two appearances on the series, although each time he is played by a different actor: Hy Averback played him in “Baby Pictures” (ILL S3;E5) and George O'Hanlon (inset photo) in “Lucy and Superman” (ILL S6;E13).
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Harry Munson ~ Father of Billy. Harry and Grace live about a mile from the Ricardos in Connecticut. Harry is played by Tristram Coffin in two episodes: “Lucy Misses the Mertzes” (ILL S6;E17) and in “The Country Club Dance” (S6;E25). 
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Ralph Ramsey ~ Father of Bruce Ramsey. The Ramseys live across from the Ricardos in Westport. Ralph (Frank Nelson) was only seen in two Connecticut-based episodes: “Lucy Gets Chummy With The Neighbors” (ILL S6;E18) and “The Country Club Dance” (ILL S6;E25), although Nelson appeared in many more episodes as different characters. 
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Danny Williams ~ Father of Rusty, Linda and Terry, although Terry does not appear in “Lucy Makes Room For Danny”, the cross-over episode that brought “The Danny Thomas Show” to CBS. In fact, for its first three years, the show was known as “Make Room for Daddy.”  Subsequently, Thomas did a sequel called “Make Room for Granddaddy” and Lucille Ball guest-starred on it in 1971.
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The Sheriff of Bent Fork, Tennessee ~ Father of twin girls Teensy and Weensy. Will Wright played the character in “Tennessee Bound” (ILL S4;E15). 
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Mr. Stanley ~ Father to nine girls! When “Lucy Goes To The Hospital” (ILL S2;E16), Ricky meets a man in the fathers’ waiting room (played by Charles Lane) anxiously awaiting the birth of his latest (and he says last) child, whom he hopes will be a boy. His hopes are dashed - times three over!   
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The Italian Farmer ~ in “Lucy’s Bicycle Trip” (ILL S5;E24), claims to have nine  children: Teresa, Sofia, Luigi, Pietro, Dino, Gino, Rosa, Mario, and Antonio!  The Farmer is played by Mario Siletti, but his "multi bambini” remain off screen!
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Ernie Kovacs ~ Father of Kippie and Bette, unseen but mentioned characters in “Lucy Meets the Mustache” (LDCH S3;E3) in 1960. The girls are said to be making friends with Little Ricky, while their father entertains at Lucy and Ricky’s (last) party. 
Moving on to the Fathers of “The Lucy Show”...
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Theodore J. Mooney ~ Father of Bob, Ted, Arnold, and Rosemary, who was never seen, but is said to live in Trenton and to have had a baby, making Mr. Mooney a grandfather as well! Gale Gordon played Mr. Mooney from 1963 to 1968. If the character was ever given a spin-off, it might have been called “My Three Sons”!  
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Father Time ~ Played by Sherman Bagley (Ralph Hart) in “Chris’s New Year’s Eve Party” (TLS S1;E14). He is accompanied by Baby New Year played by Jerry Carmichael (Jimmy Garrett). In the series, Sherman’s father Ralph is mentioned, but never seen. Jerry’s dad is deceased and never given a name.  
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Kenneth Westcott ~ Father of Debbie, who is a friend of Lucy Carmichael’s daughter Chris and Principal of their high school in 1963′s “Lucy is a Chaperone” (TLS S1;E27). He is played by Hanley Stafford. 
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Mr. Sanford ~ Father of Timmy, who is having a birthday where Lucy and Viv are hired as party planners and the entertainment in “Kiddie Parties, Inc.” (TLS S2;E2). Mr. Sanford is played by Lyle Talbot. If he was ever given a sequel, it might be called “Sanford and Son”!  
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Jonathan Winslow ~ Father of Charlie, Danny and Bobbie (aka Roberta) in “Lucy the Babysitter” (TLS S5;E16). What Lucy doesn’t realize is that the Winslow children are actually baby chimps!  Mr. Winslow was played by Jonathan Hole. 
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In “Lucy and Harry’s Tonsils” (TLS S2;E5), Mr. Phillips (Jack Collins) plays an father expecting his first child who believes Mr. Mooney is there for the same reason, while Mr. Mooney thinks Mr. Phillips is there for a tonsillectomy! Phillips (having his third child) is similar to the character of Mr. Stanley (who is having his ninth – all girls!) in “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16).
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“Lucy Becomes a Father” (TLS S3;E9) finds single mom and widow Lucy Carmichael trying to be both mother and father to her son, Jerry. She joins five other cub scout dads on a weekend away, trying desperately to do what the other dads do. The fathers include (left to right): Hal Smith as Mr. Wilson, George ‘Red’ Fox as George (hidden), Gale Gordon as Mr. Mooney, George Niese as Mr. Carter, and Buster West as Tom. Coincidentally, Gale Gordon had the surnames Carter in “Here’s Lucy” and Wilson in “Dennis the Menace” but neither were dads! 
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In the play “The Founding of Danfield” staged in “Lucy and Arthur Godfrey” (TLS S3;E23) in 1965, Godfrey plays “Daddy” of Lucybelle (Lucy Carmichael), and [spoiler alert] Conrad P. Field (Mr. Mooney) turns out to be the daddy of the Honest-But-Poor Piano Player Dan (Vinnie, played by Max Showalter). In real life, Godfrey was the father of three.  
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The Father of Our Country ~ George Washington, as embodied by Lucy Carmichael when “Lucy and Viv Open a Restaurant” (TLS S2;E20). Viv (Vivian Vance) dresses a George’s wife, Martha, to promote their new Colonial-themed restaurant. 
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In “Lucy the Gun Moll” (TLS S4;E25), Lucille Ball plays both Lucy Carmichael and a look-alike gun moll named Rusty, who performs the Cole Porter song “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”!
And now the Dads of “Here’s Lucy”....
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Mr. Caldwell ~ Father of Laurie in “Mod, Mod Lucy” (HL S1;E1), the very first episode of “Here’s Lucy.” Lew Parker played the over-protective dad of teenage Laurie (Nancy Roth). His wife is played by Nancy Howard. Parker was best known for playing the father of another TV character, Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas) on “That Girl.” In real-life, Marlo’s father was Lucy’s friend and co-star - one of the most famous daddies on TV - Danny Thomas!  
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On “Lucy and Johnny Carson” (HL S2;E11), while appearing on “The Tonight Show” and playing Stump the Band, Lucy Carter chooses a song titled “Snoops the Lawyer” that she says her father sang to her when she was a child.  This is the only mention of her father on the series. Coincidentally, Ball’s real mother is one of the audience members (Carson is sitting on the arm of her chair). Since the song was not written until 1920, and Lucille Ball’s real father Henry died in 1915, this cannot be a real-life recollection from Lucy. 
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Lee Wong ~ Father of Linda Chang and Sue Chin in “Lucy the Laundress” (HL S2;E17). The single father and business owner was played by James Hong. 
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Moose Manley ~ Father of milquetoast Wally in “Lucy and Wally Cox” (HL S2;E21). Moose was played by Alan Hale Jr. and his timid son by Wally Cox (insert). 
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Harrison Otis Carter the First ~ Great Grandfather of Harry Carter IV (aka Harry). Gale Gordon’s image was used to create Harry’s great grandfather.  Harry claims he was one of the founders of Sinclairville, New York, and was father of 17 children!
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Konstantin Kasos ~ Grandfather of the Bride in “Lucy’s Wedding Party” (HL S3;E8). The role was played by Bruce Gordon (”The Untouchables”) who was really just 55 years old playing a 77 Greek granddaddy. 
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Vincent Price - Father of Victoria aka “Little Vicky”, the name of Price’s real-life daughter, who is mentioned by Lucy, but does not appear in the episode “Lucy Cuts Vincent’s Price” (HL S3;E9). 
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Alfredo Colucci ~ Father of Ricardo, Anna Maria, Louisa, Luigi, Vincenzo, Dino, Lucrezia, Alfredo Jr., Margarito, Bruno, Rosa, and Frederico - all of whom appear in the final moments of “Lucy and Harry’s Italian Bombshell” (HL S4;E3) starring Kaye Ballard. Emile Autuori plays Alfredo, but the twelve children appear uncredited. 
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Claude Wolff ~ Husband of Petula Clark, who was noticeably pregnant when they played themselves on a “Here’s Lucy” in 1972. In real-life, Wolff became a dad for the third time with the birth of his first son, Patrick. 
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Harry Carter (Gale Gordon) finally got to play a working class dad to two unambitious teens when he appeared in a TV commercial during “Lucy and Cousin Ernie’s Fun Farm” (HL S1;E23) in 1969. 
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Harry Carter (Gale Gordon) pretends to be a husband and father (to be) when he convinces Lucy to play his pregnant wife to scare of a domineering suitor (Jean Willes) in “Lucy, The Part-Time Wife” (HL S3;E14).  
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The Lucyverse has plenty of room for fathers of all kinds. Father Lambros (Paul Picerni) showed up for a Greek wedding in “Lucy’s Wedding Party” (HL S3;E8).
And Finally, “Life With Lucy 
All Lucy Fathers come back to Gale Gordon - a man who never had children in real life!  
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Curtis McGibbon ~ Father of Ted McGibbon and Grandfather of Ted’s children Rebecca and Kevin. Gale Gordon played Curtis, the patriarch on “Life With Lucy,” with Larry Anderson as Ted, Jenny Lewis as Becky, and Philip Amelio as Kevin.  
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In “Mother of the Bride” (LWL S1;E8) in 1986, Lucy Barker and her sister Audrey (Audrey Meadows) mention their father during a private conversation in the kitchen.
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candy--heart · 4 years
Link
If we nominate a candidate plagued by a litany of disqualifying issues, Trump will win. We can’t make that mistake again.
---- ---- ----
JOE BIDEN
has been personally involved in nearly every bad policy decision of the last 50 years. Currently coasting on name recognition and association with Obama, he can only go down from here as people realize he is more comparable to Trump than he is to anyone else. With all the negatives of Hillary’s failed campaign but none of the positives, he would almost surely see us lose the general election again. If you love your grandchildren at all please do not vote for Biden.
TOP 5 HIGHLIGHTS:
Led the fight against desegregating schools even years after it had been proven a success and defended by Republicans [Expanded 7/6]
Voted for the disastrous Iraq War, then escalated it, then lied about it, still says he’d “do it again,” and just hired a foreign policy advisor who helped Bush orchestrate the war before joining a lobbying firm for the military-industrial complex [Expanded 8/13, 8/29, 9/6]
Wrote the racist Crime Bill that intentionally led to record-breaking mass incarceration, positioning himself to the right of even Reagan and Bush
Opposed Roe v Wade and voted to allow states to overturn it like they are now, worked to undermine the ACA’s coverage of birth control, does “not view abortion as a choice and a right” and still opposed federal funding for it multiple times including during this election
Long history of creepily/patronizingly groping/sniffing/kissing/grabbing/condescending women and young girls just so many times, even including intimidation and continuing even now after his non-apology [Expanded 10/14, 10/29, 11/9]
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL:
Racist comments like this and this, and fondness towards if not impassioned support for so many of the worst racists and segregationists like this whom he chose to work with, as well as Republicans like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Mike Pence, and Jeb Bush. Generally has no understanding of racism in America [Expanded 7/27, 8/8, 9/13]
As part of his crusade against desegregating schools he was the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to block two black appointees to the Department of Justice
Has lied about marching in the Civil Rights movement multiple times, and seems to lie about attending an HBCU [Expanded 8/31, 10/29]
Horrible treatment of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas hearing
Supports cutting Social Security and Medicare and raising the retirement age on multiple occasions, backing Paul Ryan’s efforts to do so, while voting to gut welfare
Led the disastrous War on Drugs, and somehow still opposes cannabis legalization (while simultaneously trying to destroy the growing industry by handing it over to the Big Pharma), yet two of his children escaped consequences for drug use [Expanded 8/31]
Pushed to expand death penalty, even to those on drug charges
Opposes Medicare for All while he and his campaign lie about it what it would entail, and wants to bring back penalizing those who can’t afford to pay for private insurance. He continues to praise Big Pharma to his ultra-wealthy donors and is the only candidate to refuse to meet with disabled healthcare activist Ady Barkan [Expanded 7/6, 7/27, 9/21, 10/14]
Originally claimed he “doesn’t have time” to propose his own healthcare plan, then proposed one that would kill 125,000 Americans and leave over 10 million uninsured (which he’s lied about) in a rollout sponsored by Big Pharma (even his own wife admits he’s not good on healthcare, and he’s let slip the true reality of his proposal) [Expanded 7/6, 7/27, 8/19, 8/26, 10/14]
Personally fought to make cancer medication unaffordable for patients in developing nations [Added 10/14]
Opposed equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community even very recently, only eventually coming around just 7 short years ago, and is still awkward at best on the issue [Expanded 9/22, 10/14]
Supported the NRA in passing massive anti-gun control legislation, and has blamed videos games for mass shootings multiple times [Expanded 8/5]
Opposes meaningful action on the climate crisis like the Green New Deal, instead pursuing the “middle ground” while his campaign attacks publications for accurately reporting this
He’s rated D- by Greenpeace in part because he supports fracking, oil and gas exportation, and the building of new fossil fuel infrastructure, and his campaign shot down the proposed climate debate and skipped MSNBC’s climate forum [Added 8/23, Expanded 9/6, 9/16]
Plagiarized fossil fuel groups’ language in his woefully inadequate climate crisis plan after his climate advisor made $1 million from one natural gas company alone. He then made uncomfortable physical contact with and rudely dismissed a young woman who asked him about this [Expanded 10/14]
Broke his own pledge to not accept fossil fuel money by attending a fundraiser hosted by his former advisor and current oil corporation co-founder/owner Andrew Goldman, and lied about it twice [Added 9/6, Clarified/Expanded 9/7, 10/14]
Voted to expand deportations and indefinite detention for immigrants multiple times and opposed amnesty for immigrants and supports requiring them to learn English
As VP his administration deported more people than any other in American history, deporting people at a higher rate than Trump’s administration even according to ICE themselves, and expanding the anti-immigrant system Trump now uses by 3,600%. He still refuses to answer for this and has gone as far as calling the police on immigration activists for passing out flyers [Expanded 7/9, 10/14]
As VP his administration built the inhumane concentration camps in which children separated from their families are still illegally caged, beginning the practice which Trump has now continued and resulting in the ongoing lawsuit claiming that ICE is violating the Flores Agreement by not providing basics like toothpaste and soap [Added 7/9]
Voted to build border walls and supported sending military to the border long before Trump
Voted to ban immigrants with HIV, locking Haitian refugees up in Guantanamo Bay
Spearheaded the Alliance for Prosperity which increased deportations, border militarization, privatization, and oil pipelines for American exploitation while worsening the refugee crisis
Architected Plan Colombia, internationalizing the War On Drugs resulting in mass death, displacement, and destruction of food crops, while opening the country to US business interests
Sides with Trump in backing right-wing coup in Venezuela
Voted to authorize invasion of the Netherlands if an American is tried for war crimes by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, refusal to participate in UN peacekeeping unless the US obtains immunity, and withdrawal of aid to countries that ratify ICC treaty
Supports Israel’s right-wing regime and apartheid in Palestine purely to protect US interests. A self-described Zionist, he blames Palestinians for multiple US-backed Israeli massacres, including an attack that killed 9 peace activists. Calls BDS “anti-semitic” and has a 100% rating from AIPAC [Expanded 7/4]
Recklessly threatens nuclear war with North Korea
Sided with banks to overturn Glass-Steagall and deregulate, leading to financial crisis, and has dishonestly tried to take credit for the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau despite actually helping strip state consumer protection [Expanded 10/18]
Defends billionaires hoarding wealth and promises to ensure it keeps happening at the expense of everyone else while voting to slash the top income tax rate and cripple the estate tax, resulting in $83 billion lost annually
Led the disastrous Bankruptcy Bill resulting in increased debt and specifically fought to make student loan debt more difficult to live with before dismissing the plight of Millennials who are now the most indebted generation ever [Expanded 8/26]
Lied about his own student debt multiple times, his own scholarship, and his own academic achievements, and has not proposed any plans to make public college tuition free or to abolish student debt [Added 8/26]
Voted against abolishing the electoral college that undemocratically elected Bush and Trump
Took $200,000 to help a Republican beat a Democrat to Congress despite being anti-abortion
Voted against enhancing labor protection enforcements
Voted for NAFTA, supports TPP, is generally to the right of Trump on trade, and argued against the prediction that China would become an economic competitor [Expanded 9/13]
Works with union-busters, voted to cut union pensions, continues to snub unions, and is generally bad for workers [Expanded 10/14]
Consistently sides with special interests and corporations against antitrust regulation and voted for the first antitrust exemption since 1922
Opposes net neutrality
Driving force behind the Patriot Act, supports warrantless wiretaps / mass surveillance while his son partially owns the Chinese government’s Islamophobic mass surveillance system [Edited 9/13]
Personally tried to prevent Ecuador from providing asylum for Edward Snowden
Says the CIA torture report is not a “black stain on this country” but a “badge of honor”
Worsened the opioid epidemic and made it harder to treat
Wants to make up reasons to jail anyone associated with a rave and literally bulldoze it down while his RAVE legislation lets kids die from preventable drug overdoses
Was the only senator to vote against expanding a child care tax credit [Added 7/29]
Has questionable electability based on receiving less than 0.22% in 3 previous Democratic primary elections. He has a history of insulting voters and is currently skipping major party events, hiding from the press, and holding only between a quarter and half as many public events as his rivals
Has questionable electability based on his infamous propensity for awkward “gaffes,” including many, many, many, many, many, many, many in this election cycle alone, to the point where he is literally unable to campaign [Added 8/9, Expanded 8/11, 8/13, 8/15, 8/23, 8/24, 9/2, 9/17, 10/14]
Plagiarized law school papers and campaign speeches (in which he lied about having coal miner roots), which ended his 1988 presidential run
His anti-progressive campaign surrogate Ed Rendell is a sexist, pro-fracking, pro-AIPAC Fox News supporter who approved bombing a black neighborhood in Philadelphia, killing 5 children and 6 adults [Added 6/26]
Used Charlottesville as a prop in his campaign video despite never even visiting once
Lied about getting shot down in Iraq and experiences in Afghanistan [Added 8/31]
Has no plan to reform the court system or counter its Republican takeover, has proposed re-nominating the failed Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, a nearly 70 year-old “moderate” who has opposed voting rights and human rights for Guantanamo detainees, and is fine with Kavanaugh remaining on the Supreme Court for life [Added 7/6, Expanded 9/16]
Is still openly courting Republican billionaires for donations, including John Catsimatidis, who’s compared taxing the wealthy to Nazi persecution of Jews
Endorsed by Alan Dershowitz, the millionaire Trump supporter accused of taking part in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex ring, after Biden’s son ensured a similar billionaire pedophile avoided prison after raping his own toddler
Voted to deregulate the credit card industry while a credit card company was his top donor from 1989–2000 and then hired his son
His administration awarded a $1.5 billion contract to his brother’s construction firm despite his brother having no prior residential construction experience
Has a long history of generally Trump-esque nepotism that he refuses to address [Added 10/14]
Broke his own pledge to take over 2x more money than Trump from lobbyists and special interests, including at least 13 billionaires, has the same general donor base as Trump, and very openly partakes in general corruption [Expanded 8/5, 8/11, 8/23, 10/14]
Flip-flopped on his initial opposition to using Super PACs and established one with military industrial complex and private healthcare lobbyists, even after admitting, “You shouldn’t accept any money from a Super PAC, because people can’t possibly trust you” just one year prior [Added 10/25]
His Senate chief of staff is now running Fox News’ lobbying operation [Added 10/14]
Hasn’t released any tax returns since 2015, which people seem to care about now [On 7/9 he released them to no media attention, revealing an $11 million increase in income in his first year out of office alone]
Seems to have found a loophole to avoid paying his interns [Added 7/12]
Unconvincingly co-opted Bernie’s education plan and slogan, and a Biden PAC plagiarized Kamala Harris’ slogan for its name
Despite his supposed frontrunner status he is a distant 5th in individual donors, raising questions of electability [Added 10/14]
“A lot of us sit around thinking up ways to vote conservative just so we don’t come out with a liberal rating. I’m really quite conservative…”
Meghan and the McCain family and Strom Thurmond have endorsed him, and Trump has donated to him
The worst part? He’s still not sorry for any of this (but wants a black man to apologize to him)
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Buster & Rio
Buster: Where's Nance? Buster: You had her last Rio: No idea Rio: Junior's room maybe? Buster: Cheers Rio: 👍 Rio: Any time Buster: Yeah Rio: Good talk, McKenna Buster: You wish, babe Rio: No doubt Rio: highlight of my night Buster: I know Rio: You don't need to say it Buster: You don't need to still be saying anything but you are Rio: Off you go then Buster: Make me then Rio: The reek of desperation is overpowered by your dad's cologne you clearly knicked Buster: Shame you didn't nick any lines from him 'cause yours are weak whereas he hardly ever loses an argument Rio: Come at him with the hero worship Rio: you turn my stomach without it, like Buster: He wishes Buster: And I'd have to find him first Buster: Probably hiding in the bathroom, unlucky for you Rio: Awh Rio: like father like son Buster: Fuck off Rio: No, you Rio: that's what we're doing here Buster: I'm nothing like that cunt Buster: And if that's the best you can do, give up Rio: If it didn't touch a nerve, why are you being such a pussy about it Rio: again, go convince yourself of that lie and all Rio: not what I'm here for Buster: If you were capable of touching a nerve, being convincing or telling a decent lie it'd almost be worth having you here Rio: 💔 Rio: If only I could say the same for you Buster: You can't say anything for me 'cause that'd involve speaking to me as well as about me, which you're also incapable of Rio: Why would I need to do either Rio: or wanna Buster: You tell me Buster: You're heartbroken by your own admission Rio: For you, babe, not about you Buster: You done now that's off your chest or is there more bullshit to come? Rio: You're out here begging for a reason to go Rio: not me begging you to stay Buster: I don't beg so you're gonna need a new fantasy Rio: Ha Rio: The one where you're not in my face has been a dream, honestly 💋 Buster: Yeah, I bet Buster: And if I was allowed to leave, I would Rio: Get over it Rio: Its a wedding, no one wants to be here Buster: Get over me Buster: Fucked if your parents don't but whatever Rio: They've done this many years and dramas, I doubt a real wedding will be what tips them over the edge, honey Buster: Do they need a new toaster? That could've been what swung it Rio: I hope so Rio: need one that does at least 10 slices at a time Buster: Fingers crossed someone's got 'em one that does 6 and another cunt's bought one that does 4 then Rio: Careful, that was almost like exchanging pleasantries Rio: you can admit you got them a toaster and still be a dick about it, amateur Buster: Calm down, just 'cause my name's on the card don't mean I have any fucking idea what was wrapped Rio: See Rio: such a #lad Buster: If you get excited about being in the kitchen making breakfast more fool you Rio: We all have to do it Rio: may as well do it with an all singing all dancing toaster Buster: That's your birthday present done and delivered then, babe Buster: You're welcome in advance Rio: I'll expect it and the 'Sorry I can't make it' first class Buster: 'Course Buster: I'll get your name put on it, how many slices do you personally want? Rio: 😏 Rio: Go six or go home, obviously Buster: Size matters Buster: Alright, I'll remember Rio: Girls gotta eat Buster: Especially on your birthday Buster: Still a princess then Rio: Duh Rio: Thought I'd give the tiara a miss though Buster: Shame Rio: Of course you'd think so Buster: What's that meant to mean? Rio: Sure its all foreign princesses and socialites Buster: Are you? Rio: Don't you wanna tell me it is Buster: Not really Rio: Alright Rio: I'll be sure then Buster: Good to know, like Buster: I'll see you around then Rio: at the next wedding perhaps Buster: Not if I'm old enough to not be forced to attend Rio: Unlikely Rio: someone always shacking up Buster: Yeah but in this fam they have their kids first so I've got loads of time Rio: Well Rocky just had his first so Rio: no you don't Buster: There's no way he'll stop at that one Rio: You don't have to birth your own bridal party Rio: they could do it and then have more, not a death sentence Buster: They won't though Rio: You're so clueless Buster: Fuck off Buster: I am not Rio: You are Buster: Why? Rio: Rocky isn't like the rest of this fam Rio: he's already garda Rio: why wouldn't he buck the trend there too Buster: Kids are expensive as fuck Buster: So are weddings Rio: If you're you Rio: I'm sure they'll go down the office and get it done nice and simple Buster: That ain't a wedding that's paperwork Rio: 🙄 I'm sure they'll be devastated to not meet your high standards too, McKenna Buster: You mean you'll be devastated to not see me there Buster: 'Cause there won't be the fam gathering you've got your fingers crossed that we cross paths at if they keep it cheap and simple Rio: He's enough like this family that there will still be a party at the pub Rio: don't be stupid Buster: Make your mind up, Cavante Buster: He's either one of 'em or he ain't Rio: You wish it was that simple Buster: I don't need wishes for that Buster: It is Rio: Nah Buster: Like I said, you ain't convincing Rio: Why do you want convincing so badly? Rio: Get a grip Buster: Why are you so bad at everything? Buster: You didn't used to be Rio: And my lines are weak Rio: You know nothing about me Buster: Yeah they are Buster: Hence I don't wanna know you Rio: Thank God Rio: be awkward if it wasn't mutual Buster: And this convo is awkward enough so Rio: You started it Rio: and refuse to leave it Rio: being this bad at taking hints ends up in prison sentences, like Buster: You can leave Buster: There isn't a literal door that you need me to hold open or shut in your face Buster: Take the hints yourself Rio: This is my inbox Rio: so why should I Rio: literally fuck off Buster: 'Cause you want it so badly apparently Buster: Why haven't you blocked me years back? Rio: In case I need a kidney? Buster: You ain't having mine even if there's nobody else to ask Buster: So you can go ahead and do it now Rio: Why Rio: You're so crap at this Buster: You won't miss me when we can no longer chat then Rio: I'm not petty, I don't block Buster: You're a glutton for punishment Buster: I'll bear that in mind Rio: You wish you had any kind of effect on me Buster: I don't need to wish for that either Rio: Still do though Buster: You wish Rio: Obviously Buster: Yeah obviously Rio: What do you want Buster: From you or from tonight or from life in a more general sense, like? Buster: What do you mean? Rio: Oh my God Rio: are you a philosophical drunk now Buster: Get me a drink, we'll find out Rio: Are you going to get me one Buster: It's your house and I'm the guest Buster: Don't be rude Rio: For what Rio: I don't need to hear what you pass off as wisdom Buster: Fine, don't Rio: They're free, don't act offended Buster: I'm offended by the gesture, or lack of, not the prize tag Rio: Yeah well back at you then? Buster: Fuck it I need to find Nance anyway Buster: You've done me a favour with your lack of manners Rio: Awh, you gonna tell her you love her Buster: Why would I lie to her face? Buster: Not very nice Rio: You aren't Rio: but you are pissed Buster: Me and the majority of the people here Buster: Probably wanna start now if you wanna tell 'em all too Rio: Exactly Rio: can't you just feel the love Buster: Nah Rio: Are you surprised Buster: Ain't the word for it Rio: Shouldn't be Rio: reap what you sow Buster: Cheers Rio: What, you really thought I'd be nice to you Buster: I didn't think about you, babe Buster: Other than that you could potentially know where my sister is Rio: Yeah right Buster: Yeah right Rio: Leave her alone Buster: Shut up Buster: I do what I want Rio: She's had enough of you Rio: and you're at my house so have some manners Buster: She's more than capable of telling me that herself along with anything else Buster: It's nothing to do with you Rio: Well she doesn't need to because you already know Buster: Like I said, stay out of it Buster: You're not fighting her battles for her Rio: No, I won't Buster: Hilarious Buster: What do you reckon you're gonna do? Rio: What have you done? Rio: Fuck all Buster: Don't sit there and fucking preach to me Buster: I'm there every day Rio: I don't give a fuck about you, don't get it twisted Buster: I never said you did Buster: I said you don't know fuck all about what's going on with her Rio: She's told me Buster: She'll have told you what she wants you to know Buster: So like I said Rio: Yeah she really wants me to know all the nasty shit being said and done to her Rio: such a juicy story Buster: Whatever she's said, everything she ain't told you is worse Rio: And what are you doing about it Rio: go on Buster: Maybe I would if I had anything to prove to you Buster: But I don't Rio: Prove it to her 'cos she's said how you've taken their side Buster: I bet she has Rio: Fuck sake, Buster Buster: Don't start with me on this Rio: You were always at least a decent brother Buster: I said, don't Rio: Do something about it Buster: Don't tell me what to do Buster: You don't even know what you're asking for or what it means Rio: She's your sister Rio: end of Buster: Yeah, mine not yours Buster: It's our lives not yours Rio: Yeah and hers is miserable and you aren't trying to help her Buster: I'm fucking trying to get her to help herself Rio: Jesus Christ Rio: that's not how this works Buster: I'm not a girl, I can't get involved in that shit Buster: That's how it works Buster: I've already sorted loads of lads out Rio: Yeah, no shit you can't smack then and pretend that's a fix Rio: she could still know that you don't endorse their bullshit, which she don't Buster: Fuck you Buster: And fuck her if she's gonna be that stupid Rio: Its not about being stupid Rio: all you have to do is tell her Buster: It's about everyone wanting to see the worst in me, her especially Buster: End of Rio: I already said, are you surprised though Buster: About her being such a man hating lesbian stereotype? Sometimes Rio: That is not what I meant Buster: I know exactly what you mean Buster: And I already answered you, surprised ain't the word Rio: What is then Rio: Don't be mysterious Buster: I ain't, I'm being polite 'cause I know you don't care Rio: Pick your moments Buster: Yeah Rio: If its not what you want with her, then you should do something Rio: 'cos its what you want with the rest of us Buster: I can't do what she wants me to and it's unfair of her to expect it from me Rio: But how is it not unfair for you to expect her to be a different person suddenly Rio: its on the bullies, not her Buster: I don't expect her to be a different person Buster: Just own the person that she fucking is Rio: You don't get it Rio: That's alright for you 'cos you get clapped on the back and prizes for the person you are all the time Rio: the person she is is awkward and shy and non-confrontational and her turning 'round and acting like she's the shit with it would not make them think its any better than it is Rio: they're clearly shitty people, end of Buster: Well she can be really confrontational when it suits her Buster: And there's plenty she's capable of being recognised for that isn't who she wants to fuck Rio: It's not about her being gay Rio: girls are vicious Rio: its all the other ways she doesn't fit in with them Rio: in what world is she gonna turn around and be so bad ass that they're stunned into what, liking her? Rio: why would she want that? Buster: She ain't tried to fit in at all Buster: In what world is it my problem that she didn't get to stay in Cambs? Buster: She wants to villianize me all of a sudden but that ain't vicious Rio: Because your genius solution is she just needs to befriend the people who are vile to her Rio: literally why Buster: That ain't any solution, least of all mine Buster: Nance made up her mind she was gonna hate it there before she got here and so she does Buster: Yeah there are cunts in Chelsea, there's cunts everywhere Rio: You keep missing the entire fucking point, Jesus Rio: They made up their mind that they hate her, they make her life hell, end of Rio: however fucking marvelous you think she can make her life to spite them, that's remaining a fact and you aren't even acknowledging it Rio: she would rather live here than with her own family, let that sink in, that is the situation Rio: she isn't moping about leaving a place behind 3 years ago, my God Buster: You're welcome to her then Buster: See how she manages to fuck Dublin up for herself Rio: Like I said, leave her alone tonight Buster: Like I said, make me or mind your own business Rio: Fuck off Rio: You're no help to her Rio: and you're happy not to be, clearly, so do her that one favour Buster: I don't do people favours Buster: Not a charity Rio: Just a sad excuse for a brother Rio: understood Buster: You don't understand fuck all about me but keep telling yourself you do Rio: I don't care Rio: and neither do you so you don't get to dictate how we see you Rio: your lack of action speaks loud enough Buster: Good Buster: Saves me making a speech, like Rio: That we can agree on Rio: 🙌 Maybe there is a God after-all Buster: As long as we don't make a habit of it Buster: And you don't take his name in vain or whatever Rio: That's the one message you're taking away from the bible then Rio: bit of a weird one but okay Buster: I remember loads of that shit Buster: Obviously the lions were the best but Buster: There's some good fights Rio: Jesus was lucky they didn't put him in the coliseum really Rio: might've scared Mary and co away when he came back, all mangled, like Buster: She might've been into all the scars and everything Buster: You don't know Rio: Well she was obviously into feet so Rio: I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, her tastes were well freakier than that cliche Buster: 'Course Rio: Have a good night then Rio: get some more blood of christ Buster: Shame his blood don't taste better, that way the two things you just said would be more likely to be mutually exclusive Rio: Your taste buds are as immature as you? Rio: figures Buster: That's the biggest load of bullshit you've written down all night Rio: It is not Rio: I drink red wine sometimes Buster: Me too just not the shit bottles your parents do Buster: They'd be better off letting your dad cook with it all Rio: Pah Buster: Either defend 'em or don't Buster: What the fuck is that noncommittal bullshit? Rio: I'm sorry but how have you convinced any of them that you're money Rio: that's what that sound was Rio: not dignifying that pitiful attempt with anything more Buster: You should be sorry Buster: Pathetic, like Rio: You said it Buster: You're judging my parents finances Buster: How undignified of you Rio: I'm judging you Buster: Yeah, trying to call me poor Buster: I've got what I've got, I don't need to convince anyone I belong anywhere Rio: And you can't buy class Rio: You're from trash Buster: I ain't trying to Buster: There's nothing wrong with my class or where I'm from Rio: Oh so you're claiming self-made Rio: that's your da Rio: you'll have to get your own act and you ain't found it, babe Buster: Like you said, I'll reap what I sow Buster: And I intend to sow plenty of epic shit Rio: Daddy's field Rio: Oh, McKenna Rio: I feel so bad for you Buster: My blood, sweat and tears, babe Buster: What do you reckon I'm doing at school all day, it's not just making the uniform look good Rio: How impressive Buster: It's necessary, if you wanna be impressed, you can have that Rio: I'm not Buster: Whatever you say Rio: You can leave the copy of your latest marks out of my birthday package, thanks Buster: You've just ensured I won't Buster: Enjoy the skim read Rio: 🙄 Buster: Been fun catching up, Cavante Buster: Let's leave it another few years next time though Rio: Take your own advice Buster: Easy when you're this boring Buster: Not gonna take yours Rio: Then why the hell are you still here? Buster: You don't want me to be Buster: And it's as simple to wind you up as it's ever been Rio: No, you're just even shittier Buster: That too Rio: What happened to you Buster: Like I said, Chelsea's full of cunts Rio: Yeah Buster: What happened to you? Rio: You said they're everywhere too, right? Buster: Yeah Rio: That's life, I guess Buster: How long did it take for Dublin to be as shit as anywhere else? Rio: I didn't ever think it would be any better Rio: beyond having family nearby Buster: Alright Rio: I didn't Rio: was never that stupid Buster: Calm down, I already said I believe you Rio: Alright Buster: You want a drink? Rio: Of course Buster: Of what? Rio: Not wine as you're such a snob about it Rio: I don't care, I've had all sorts today Buster: You had any brandy? Rio: I wasn't aiming to end my night with my head in the toilet, like Rio: so obviously not Buster: You do care then Rio: I didn't say no Rio: I said it wasn't in my plan Buster: I'll sort you out a decent drink Buster: Not that cunt, whoever you think I am Rio: I don't think anything Buster: Yeah you do Buster: You've made it well obvious Rio: That's about how you're behaving Buster: [brings her that decent drink as promised] Rio: [so awkward but having to maintain eye contact to be like cheers 'cos can't not] Buster: [walking away so casually like my job here is done] Rio: [🙄] Buster: [😏 I wish there was an even more smug dickhead version of this tbh] Rio: [Not too proud to drink it though but am gonna absolutely down it whatever it is] Buster: [he obvs has to as well but faster cos everything's competitive] Rio: [I hope you get the hiccups boy] Buster: [haha if only but he's too lucky for that kind of comeuppance to strike him down] Rio: IOU Buster: Easily fixed Buster: Off you go Rio: What do you want Buster: Don't spit in it and I'll take it Rio: 👍 Rio: have that for free Buster: Lucky me Rio: Don't push it Buster: What'll happen if I do? Rio: You're lucky, you won't find out Buster: Well now I'm obviously gutted Rio: [at him with some drink like drown your sorrows, boy] Buster: [knocks his glass against hers like oh thanks] Rio: [moving back like don't spill it on me, you messy bitch] Buster: [shakes his head and looks hot doing it probably] Rio: [shrugs like 'what?'] Buster: [gives her a look like you're the one still interacting with me] Rio: [walks off like you're weird] Buster: [watching her walk away and enjoying that view, once again where is everybody clocking this] Rio: [all partayingggg] Buster: [clearly] Rio: Why did you want to find Nancy? Buster: Last night I said some shit I shouldn't have Buster: But whatever she shouldn't of still been up Rio: They're in the music room Rio: if you still want to find her Buster: Forget it Rio: Go on Buster: Nah, we've had this argument already Rio: Yeah, last night, right Rio: so you should go Rio: you've got nothing else to do Buster: Don't tell me what to do Buster: She was the only person online then, she ain't now Rio: I'm not, it was your idea Buster: That you've spent most of tonight trying to talk me out of Rio: So you're gonna listen to me now Buster: Said like I've never given you exactly what you want Rio: Not that I remember Buster: Not that you're choosing to remember Rio: You feel up to reminiscing? Buster: According to you I've got fuck all else to do Rio: Except go talk to your sister Rio: which you're choosing to forget too, I guess Buster: I was doing line after line, I didn't know what it was gonna make me feel like Buster: It don't mean I'm gonna choose to dig a deeper hole now when I ain't Rio: What? Buster: It was my first time trying it so Rio: Did you like it Buster: I kept doing it, obviously didn't hate it, did I? Rio: Not that obvious, not necessarily Buster: Yeah well Rio: Where'd you even get it Buster: I was at a party I didn't have to get it Buster: It was just there Rio: yeah but who's party Rio: one of your friends Buster: Some girl from school Buster: I didn't ask Rio: Right Buster: Like I said, forget it Rio: Why, I'm not gonna tell on you Buster: 'Cause I didn't bring any with me so what does it matter Rio: Obviously Rio: you're not a complete moron Buster: Careful, you were almost talking sense Rio: If you reckon me giving you that you wouldn't try to take drugs through customs is a compliment, have it Buster: If I was taking it as a compliment I'd have told you that you were being complimentary Rio: If you were aiming for clarity, you would have made a statement in the affirmative of your apparent intellect, saying I'm ALMOST talking sense by implying you're not a COMPLETE moron, could as easily mean it'd be full sense to say you are in fact, a TOTAL moron Buster: You were almost talking sense 'cause you didn't admit that I'm not an idiot and felt the need to say that I still am Buster: There you go Rio: I said moron but I'll allow it Buster: I can read Buster: In case you've forgotten which twin you're talking to, like Rio: Hardly likely Buster: I know but a princess can dream, yeah? Rio: I'm sure they can Rio: but no need Buster: Whatever Rio: Exactly Rio: when I wanna talk to Nance, I will Rio: and should I ever feel the need to replicate a conversation with you, I'll go bash my head into the nearest brick wall Buster: So dramatic Rio: You really are Buster: You and me both, babe Rio: Careful, don't admit we're anything alike Buster: Why not? Buster: I ain't scared of making a favourable comparison, that's you Rio: Scared ain't the word Rio: and because last time we bothered to check-in, you think you're amazing and we're all beneath you Buster: You wish you were underneath me any time we've ever checked in Rio: I'm too sober to listen to your disturbing fantasies Buster: Stop chatting shit to me and get yourself more drinks then Buster: It shouldn't be that difficult Rio: Let's not conflate our mutual need for another drink with me wanting to hear what sick shit you're thinking about, McKenna Rio: Must you ruin everything, like Buster: 'Course I must Buster: That's the least you've heard about me Rio: You wish Nance would frame it like that Rio: You think infamy would suit, undoubtedly Buster: Never assumed or stated she was your only source of info anymore than I would her being reliable at it Rio: [Oh, before I forget, my idea was her lil boyfriend at this time is the neighbour boy 'cos realize that goal honey lol 'cos in my head its 6 boys and he's the oldest- (3 years older than her 'cos the vibe is when you're young that doesn't matter but he's like coming up 16 to her 13 now which makes you have to act so mature even when you ain't ready anyway)- like Rio and then some of the others are ones we've referenced Janis hanging with in the future when Grace was like you simply must not! and they could all be at this wedding anyway 'cos neighbour friends] Rio: Admit that you stalk much Buster: It's hardly considered stalking when you love yourself so much you post constantly, but alright, babe Rio: 🤔 hurr why didn't you block me years ago durr Rio: and if I'm after a drink, it ain't tea, so put the pot and kettle away Buster: Why would I block you? I'm having a lovely time Rio: Keep that to yourself Buster: Again why would I? Rio: Because I told you, I don't wanna hear what you think about me Buster: I'm not telling you Rio: You're implying it Rio: and being gross with it Buster: No I ain't Rio: Whatever Buster: If anything the implication is what you think about me and I could be much 'grosser' about it, like Rio: No Rio: I've told you what I think about you, one Rio: and you saying you're having a lovely time looking at my socials is an implication, one you can't pin on because I don't look at yours, I keep you on messenger apps only in case of emergencies re. kidneys and the like Buster: I'm only having a lovely time killing mine at this bullshit fam function conversing with you, anything else is you overthinking Rio: Get better at conversation because that's not what you said that in reference to Buster: 'Cause I knew it would get to you which it clearly has Rio: And why would you want to do that Buster: It's the most fun I can have until I'm allowed to leave Rio: How sad Rio: you said your sister isn't the only one online, why don't you make use of it Buster: I don't drunk dial, I'm not a fucking amateur Rio: Wow Rio: how many more lame excuses do you have Rio: seems neverending Buster: I already told you, I'm surrounded by cunts, I'm not gonna give 'em ammunition Buster: I'm not my sister Rio: I told you, I'm not confused Buster: Then don't act like it's an excuse Rio: Just leave me alone Rio: I'm not your stand-in entertainment just 'cos your friends aren't here Buster: What else are you? Rio: Fuck off Rio: I'm serious Buster: You've been very serious this entire time Rio: Today is shit enough without you Rio: I did not need this Buster: Likewise Rio: And? Rio: You're irrelevant Buster: And I don't feel sorry for you Buster: I'm talking to you 'cause I have fuck all to lose by doing it Rio: Enjoy talking to my inbox then Rio: I started over this, this is beyond Rio: I was only replying for your sister Buster: Stop crying about it Buster: Jesus Rio: 😥 Buster: [brings her a drink she did not ask for like drown your sorrows girl] Rio: [won't take it from him like put it down and go] Buster: [does but loling like okay] Rio: [closes her eyes and takes a deep breath] Buster: Why's it shit? Rio: you mean besides the cheap wine Buster: Yeah Rio: why ask Rio: you don't care or feel sorry Buster: Come on Rio: even if you did, you aren't ready for the rant Rio: get another full glass, like Buster: [Does] Buster: Tell me Rio: Its shit because it always has been and always is Rio: Last night, when mum and dad were doing whatever the fuck to get all this bullshit ready, Edie ran away. It started when they started planning this nonsense because even mum can have the same last name as us now and Edie really is the only one who won't but when one of the kids we asked if she wanted dad to adopt her she freaked the fuck out and I had to pull her away or she was gonna really hurt them but she's really fast and scrappy and I got covered in loads of scratches and bite marks Rio: and I didn't want to tell them because they were so busy so I had to look on my own Rio: luckily, she went to the pub to see granddad but then she was saying they should adopt her and she wouldn't come back for ages and Rio: then this morning she wouldn't put on anything nice, and then Janis always copies her and Edie encourages her 'cos she thinks its funny even though I was the one who had to make sure they were all ready because all the adults had fucked off to do more important shit and then Grace starts crying because she wants Janis to wear the same as her even though that was never happening and Diego and Gus are just so annoying about having to wear any clothes at all Rio: so by the time I'd given up on them all, I had no time to get ready and I already feel stupid because 13 is too old to be a pissing bridesmaid but no one cares about that, so I asked Harry to give me a ride on his moped to town but that didn't happen 'cos, well, reasons, so I'm just wearing something I already had Buster: [downs his drink and pulls her away into a quiet corner so that he can look at the damage Edie did because we all know he cares so much bye and is just looking at her like show me then cos needs to know that she's alright always before anything else can be said or done] Rio: [probably most of those scratchmarks are on her face so having to wear skin makeup which she wouldn't usually 'cos frecks and good skin so tah for that, just like have a closer look 'cos clearly not been that close today/forever, then I'll be nice and say the bites are coverable, on her stomach/back area but with what she's wearing can't really pull up or down so she's like it's fine but probably having a little drunk cry 'cos that frustrated and has opened the floodgates now] Buster: [thanks Edie for letting me do the softest face touches of all time and also brushing her tears away really carefully so the make up won't be totally ruined cos actually considerate af] Rio: [when that makes you cry harder but that's only partially your fault boy] Buster: [just hugging her and making me die cos he's so toll and she's so smol] Rio: [probably had such a growth spurt since, even though he's always been taller] Buster: [literally though she'd be shook] Rio: [just blurt out 'you're tall' you are drunk after-all Buster: [a little lol but actually genuine for once, pulling away enough so you can look at her and also genuinely being like 'it's a decent outfit'] Rio: [lols back 'cos obviously the least of her concerns but still 'thanks'] Buster: [just shrugging like it's so casual] Rio: [suddenly breaks the hug, looking around like !!!] Buster: [walking away cos can actually take hints] Rio: [but pulling on his arm like no and pulling him down so she can talk without shouting  'have you seen Edie?' obvs Mcvickers would also be keeping an eye on her too after her showing up but Rio lowkey been watching her all day but has slipped 'cos carried away in their arguing etc] Buster: [shaking his head since he likewise has been paying no attention to anyone else and why would he but has a little scout around now like let's go look for her without saying it cos can't care too much ever and be seen to but obvs does] Rio: [go from wherever you are and hopefully find McVickers and Edie and not Harry 'cos likewise being ignored rn] Buster: [Yeah she can be with them living her best life cos deserves it tbh] Buster: [ooh throwback one of mcvickers should say jokingly something about them being together cos never are] Rio: [just like NOT NOW GRANDPARENTS lmao] Buster: [walking away like fuck all y'all cos of course he is] Rio: [oh so moody, god bless you teens] Buster: [literally bumping into his sister on the way so he can be like fuck you as well and burn every bridge fully] Rio: [oh boy] Buster: [so angry and so sad always boy]
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jengis-morrangis · 5 years
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Separated at Birth
This took me waay too long to make. I decided to take my own spin on the separated at birth story. Like I said in the previous post, I’ve got a few other ideas coming down the pike so stay tuned. Enjoy!
P.S. The Starship Troopers movie sux!
Mabel bounced her legs against the park bench where she sat, crunching snow beneath her winter boots as she waited anxiously. She shook slightly at a cold gust of wind and tucked herself deeper into her sweater.
She was waiting on a bench outside a study hall on the University of Oregon campus, holding a manilla folder tightly to her chest. Again she opened the folder and reread the description for the twentieth time in the last hour, even though she had memorized the entire thing: five-ten, brown hair, birthmark on forehead, and a few other details.
Soon a group of a dozen students began emptying out of the classroom hall. Some walked off to their own devices and some chatted in groups as they got out, but none matched the description so far. Suddenly she spotted a man walking out with his hands tucked into his sweater and steamy breath billowing through his scarf. He had a blue backpack on and was walking tall with his shoulders back. She stood up from the bench and approached him.
“Hi there.” She said, trying to hold back her hopeful excitement. He stopped and looked down at her. “Are you Frederick Ottinger?”
He paused for a moment, quickly looking her up and down. He pulled his scarf down and spoke. “Yes, that’s me.” He said casually. Mabel squealed in delight, hopping up and down before lunging forward and wrapping him in a tight hug. He didn’t hug her back, instead he tensed up and held his arms out awkwardly to his sides. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?” He asked.
Mabel let go and backed away, suddenly feeling bashful. “No, no you wouldn’t remember me.” She said, much quieter. She perked up as she remembered the folder in her hands. “I’m your twin sister, Mabel!” She said enthusiastically.
He didn’t say anything at first, frowning in confusion. “What?” He asked after a moment of pause. “How can that be?”
Mabel held out her arms, presenting him the manilla folder. He looked down at the folder, then back to her eyes, then back to the folder before tentatively taking it from her hands and opening it. His facial expression changed every few seconds as he read through its contents. “When we were born, a nurse immediately took you away and sold you to human traffickers. They told our parents that you had suffocated to death.” She said as he continued reading. “When law enforcement found out what happened and the nurse was arrested several months ago, we hired a personal investigator to track you down.”
He was silent for a while. He was still reading, only now he seemed completely shocked. His Adam’s apple bobbed and he didn’t seem to be breathing. “Th-this is crazy!” He said with a shaky voice. He looked at his watch and back to Mabel. “Look, I’ve really got to be somewhere soon, but I really want to talk about this.” He said genuinely. “Maybe over dinner?”
Mabel smiled. “I would like that.”
===
===
“I can’t believe this.” Fred said distantly as he reread the folder. Mabel sat across the table from him in the small booth of the restaurant they decided on. It was a small hole-in-the-wall pizza place that seemed comfy enough. They sat down and ordered food before she gave the folder to Fred, allowing him to read it again.
Mabel took another bite of her cheese pizza as he placed the folder on the table and rubbed his temples. He let out a stressed sigh and looked up at Mabel. This was clearly a life changing discovery for him, and even though he was clearly stressed, he was also trying to keep calm and figure the situation out.
“So… what’s your story?” Mabel asked tentatively.
“My story?” Fred asked.
“Yeah, catch me up to speed.” Mabel was hesitant to ask. Even the best case scenario after being sold into human trafficking couldn’t have been too good.
He waited for a moment, deep in thought. “Well,” He began slowly. “I don’t remember the people who originally took me from…” He paused. “Our parents.” He said, gesturing between himself and Mabel. “My earliest memories were probably around three years old, when I was growing up in an orphanage in Oregon.” He looked down at the table glumly. “Rough times in there.” He paused for a moment, and Mabel felt a ping of regret for asking. He seemed so pained by it, and judging by her first impressions of him, he seem good at containing his more intense emotions.
He realized how long he had been silent when he looked up and made eye contact with her. He quickly sat up straight and wiped the look from his face. “Anyway, I was adopted by a family when I was seven. I was confused at first when you said my last name was Ottinger, ‘cause that’s what it was originally before I was adopted, when it became ‘Corduroy.’”
“Corduroy? Wait, your last name is Corduroy?” Mabel interrupted, and Fred seemed surprised by her reaction.
Fred nodded cautiously. “Yeah, is there something wrong with that?”
Mabel shook her head. “No, not at all. But did you happen to have a sister named Wendy? She was a redhead. She had a bunch of brothers. Always wore flannel.”
He frowned. “Yeah, I did. How did you know that?”
“I hung out with her all the time! This is so cool! How did I never see you before?”
“Hold on, you’ve been to Gravity Falls?”
“You bet I have! I went there every summer since I was twelve! I stayed with my great uncle Stan. Oh my gosh, it was the coolest place on earth, with all the weird junk that went on there.”
He seemed taken aback by this new fact. “Wow. Yeah I usually went to work with my uncle Steve at his logging camp in upstate Oregon over the summer. I do know Stan. The ‘Man of Mystery.’ Seemed pretty neat. Kinda weird to think I’m related to him. My sister worked at his shop.”
Mabel was amazed. “Woah, what a small wor— wait a minute. Your dad made you work at a logging camp over the summer?” She interrupted herself.
Fred shrugged. “Eh, I think he did it to toughen me up. I was a pretty wimpy kid by Corduroy standards. It was all in love, though.” He pulled out his wallet that contained a family picture of he and his siblings. His brothers and sister were all smiling together, one next to the other while he stuck out due to his differing hair color and noticeable size difference. He handed the wallet to Mabel, who looked at it with adoration.
“Aww, that’s so cute!” She exclaimed. She looked up and down from the picture of the small, skinny boy to the grown, filled out man in front of her.
“Yep! Never enough children for the Corduroy family.” Said Fred.
“How cool is all of this? Our entire lives we’ve been almost crossing paths and never knew it?” She shook her head in amazement and handed his wallet back. “So how did you end up here in Eugene?”
He snapped out of a similar daze to Mabel. “Right, well once I graduated high school I joined the navy for two years and served as an engineer on a destroyer. I got out a year ago. Now here I am, going to college.”
“Wow! This is soo cool!” Mabel whispered in amazement. “Frederick Corduroy…”
“Please, call me Dipper.” He said, pulling up his hair to reveal a constellation shaped birthmark.
Laughing as they walked out the restaurant, Dipper held out his arm that Mabel linked with hers before they strolled down the street, talking as they enjoyed each other’s warmth. “So where to now?” Asked Mabel.
“Well, there’s a movie theater nearby, a park. Uh, hmm let me think.” Dipper stroked his chin as he pondered. “Well there’s also a mini-golf course down the street. Hmm, but it’s probably too cold for that.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mabel yelled in excitement. “I’m totes down for some mini-golf! Let’s boogie!” She shouted while tugging him along. “Prepare to get schooled, chum!”
===
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“Mabel Pines lines up her shot. This old timer from Piedmont, California is infamous for her skill in mini-golf. She is a champion of golfing competitions all around California, and from the looks of it, this windmill doesn’t stand a chance.” Mabel narrated herself. “She lines up what looks to be a solid fourteen footer,” She brought back the putter and tapped the ball. “She takes the shot, she scores!” She shouted as the ball maneuvered around the obstacle and dropped into the hole, before making a fake cheering sound as she waved her arms through the air.
“Impressive!” Dipper admitted. “You seem to really know your way around a putter.”
“You bet your bottom drawer, buster! I’ve been doing this since I could make a fist with my ravioli-sized hand, and from tonight’s performance, you better pick up the pace if you ever wanna come close to beating me.” Mabel bantered.
“I think I can get there one day.” He said before tapping the ball on the same windmill, only for it to hit one of the barrier walls and roll back towards him until it was five feet behind the starting position. He looked up at Mabel and shrugged. “Maybe.” He said flatly before they both burst into laughter.
They moved onto the next obstacle, which Mabel surpassed with ease. “Man, you must have done this with your friends all the time growing up.” Dipper commented with amazement at how nothing could truly stand in her way.
Mabel’s shoulder slumped slightly at his words. “Mmm, not really.” She said deflated. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Most people just wrote me off as ‘weird.’” She said bitterly. She forced herself to look down. She didn’t know why she just said that. She got too comfortable around Dipper. She got too comfortable and now he knows one of her deepest, most personal insecurities. He can put two and two together to realize from her previous behavior from the moment she first hugged him that she was just a spazzy social outcast.
She saw Dipper glance at her out of the corner of her eye, but he didn’t say anything. She knew he was reading her, examining her body language. She suddenly felt very exposed. A churning feeling in her stomach grew as she froze and felt her cheeks heat, despite the cold. She didn’t want to show any signs of weakness or emotional distress. The last thing she needed was his pity.
She didn’t realize she hadn’t moved until Dipper intruded on her thoughts. “Hey Mabel,” He said gently. Mabel pried her eyes away from the golf ball on the ground and forced herself to meet his eyes. She expected to find him looking at her with pity, what she saw instead shocked her. He was looking at her with an expression of total understanding. Empathy. “I get it, Mabel.” He said in a way that, paired with the look he gave her, made her insides twist in an entirely different way. It wasn’t what she was feeling a minute ago, instead more similar to that of butterflies. It helped to calm her, and in that split second she realized just how caring her brother turned out to be.
“I’m sorry.” She said in almost a whisper.
“It’s alright, Mabel. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He assured her. They stood there for a moment, the silence of the night penetrated only by a passing gust of chilling wind and the distant talk of other golfers. She surprised even herself with a sad sniffle. One that she isn’t unfamiliar with, and Dipper came to her in an instant. Wrapping her in a hug so warm and safe in contrast to the air around them that she pulled him closer, tighter. He gently stroked her hair and let her cry into his shoulder.
“I-I’m just s-so glad I’ve finally found you.” She sobbed. “It’s been so l-lonely, growing up by m-myself.”
“I know, Mabel. I know.” He whispered. Mabel was so happy to hold him, to finally have someone in her life who would stick up for her and stand by her side for support.
“I always wondered what it would have been like if you had survived. How different our lives would have been if we’d grown up together.”
Dipper chuckled slightly at that. “Heh, we probably would have been close.” Mabel tightened her lip in a smile as more tears streamed down her face. She squeezed Dipper a little harder.
Once Mabel had stopped crying, they pulled away and found comfort in each other’s smile. “I think we’ve had enough mini golf for tonight.” Said Dipper. “You ready to go?” Mabel nodded.
They arrived at the counter of the quartermaster and returned the equipment to the young woman stationed there. As she was checking in the putters, she kept stealing glances at the two of them, but said nothing. It was when she handed them the receipt that she said,  “You two make a very cute couple.” She said it kindly, but Mabel immediately felt herself blush and get even redder than from the cold.
“Oh, we’re not—”
“Oh, we’re not—” They interrupted each other.
“Together.”
“Together.” They both finished, laughing heartily at their tandem speaking. The young woman nodded bashfully and stowed the equipment. The twins walked off, arm in arm as they strode down the street, chatting away about anything and everything. All the years they missed, all the moments they never shared. Hours seemed to pass in an instant when they arrived at Mabel’s apartment. Dipper walked her to the door.
“Tonight was nice. I had a lot of fun.” Dipper said with a lopsided smile.
“Me too.” Mabel returned the smile.
There was a beat of silence between the two of them.
“Could I see you again sometime?” Dipper asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, right!” Mabel said after she realized she had been silently staring at his chestnut eyes. “Yeah, that would be awesome! I’d love to hang out again.”
Dipper smiled before bringing her in close for a hug.
“Take care, Mabel.” Dipper said as he walked back to the sidewalk.
“You too, Dipper.” She replied. They waved goodbye and Dipper started to walk down the sidewalk. Mabel watched him for as long as possible until he disappeared down the street. She made her way to her room and suddenly found herself in her bed wearing her pajamas. She had a lot on her mind. Time seemed to flash by. She laid her head on her pillow, feeling calm and subdued.
For a few minutes she didn’t want to sleep. She just wanted to bask in the happiness of today. The fact that her twin brother is alive. The fact that he is so kind and sweet. The fact that they get along so well they are already finishing each other’s sentences. She giggled a bit at that last thought. She thought about how much she wished she could date a man like Dipper; he was sweet, handsome, and completely adorkable. But that was another thought for another day. She picked up her phone from the nightstand next to her bed and dialed a familiar number. She waited excitedly as it rang a few times until an answer came from the other end.
“Hey mom. I found him!”
===
===
Eventually they decided it was time for Dipper to meet their parents. They made the trip to Piedmont one day, arriving outside the house as he nervously prepared himself and Mabel reassured him. It was a whole new flood of emotions upon meeting his parents for the first time. More so for their parents. Dipper didn’t remember them at all and had no real emotional connection to them, but he understood the magnitude of the moment and was still delighted to meet his biological parents.
They met up several more times after the visit to their parents. Anytime they had no classes or other obligations. They did anything from a trip to the bowling alley or mini-golf, to Dipper leading a game of DD&MD. Dipper told Mabel all about his interactions with the supernatural and taught her how to make coded messages, while Mabel told Dipper more about their parents and family and taught him how to knit and make sweaters.
They had a lot to catch up on after two decades of not knowing each other. Their lives had played out so differently in so many ways. But Mabel could tell they’re interactions were different from how she had known other siblings to act. In a way it was a lot closer in their own unique way. She didn’t think much of it; she loved to see him and after all this time, rightfully so. She loved just about everything about him. The feeling of his warmth when they hugged, holding his hand and running her thumb across his wide knuckles, looking into his eyes and admiring just how handsome he was.
There were a few times that she had to pry her eyes away from him after she realized she had been staring too long, and realizing where she had been staring. His eyes were a sight to beheld. They were a mirror of her own, but there was something so intense in them. Everytime he looked at her there was some sort of spark in them that made her heart flutter in an odd way she couldn’t quite put words to. Weird, huh?
Tonight they decided to watch a movie together at Dipper’s small apartment off campus. It wasn’t the first time they decided to. They usually went back to his apartment after a night out to watch a movie or cook dinner, only to fall asleep on the couch together. They were laying down, snuggled closely together with Mabel resting her head on Dipper’s chest with her arms wrapped around his body and he rested his arms on her back as they watched the movie.
“Come on you apes! Do you wanna live forever?” Shouted the soldier on screen as he and other soldiers ran out into a hallway and onto smaller spaceships. As they zoomed off towards the surface of a nearby planet, text came up on the screen that read:
They’ll keep fighting
And they’ll win!
The credits rolled soon after that, and Mabel cheered. “Yeah! Go humans! Get those stinky bugs!”
Dipper blew a raspberry and rolled his eyes. “Man, this movie always gets on my nerves.” He said annoyed. “The director didn’t even read the book! And yet he wants to make a satirical movie of it?” He shook his head dramatically. “Heinlein must be rolling in his grave.”
“Yeah whatever, mister party pooper.” Said Mabel as she playfully jabbed him in the chest, before cuddling up closer to him. “If you’re so smart, why don’t you make a better one?” She asked rhetorically.
He frowned as if in deep thought for a few seconds before puffing up his chest exaggeratedly. “Maybe I will…” He said with a sly grin.
Mabel giggled at his enthusiasm. “You’re so silly.”
“What? You don’t think I will?” He asked with faux offense. “I’ll show you. I’ll show everyone!” He jabbed her in the sides, causing her to flinch. He continued to tickle her and she giggled in response. She tried to counter him—grabbing at his hands, jabbing at his sides, tickling his stomach and chest. She started to gain the advantage and Dipper was on the defensive. He howled as she began to overwhelm him. They fell to the floor, Dipper on top of her, both in a fit of laughter as pressed their foreheads together.
A nonverbal ceasefire was declared as they caught their breathe, heaving air to slow their rapidly beating hearts. Mabel looked him in the eyes again. There was something different about them. A spark, that wasn’t new, but had been growing every time he looked at her. It was there from the very beginning, but now it was so warm and inviting. They slowly moved closer to one another, and she could feel his warm breath on her. Their lips brushed against each other, until they came together for a kiss.
They melted into each other. Exploring each other’s mouths as their hands roamed each other’s bodies and combed through each other’s hair. One of Dipper’s hands found itself under her t-shirt, gently kneading her soft breast. She felt such ecstasy from his warmth. She could feel his excitement through his shorts as he pressed into her hips while she wrapped her legs around his waist. They soon broke apart, gasping for air as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Everything about this moment made butterflies flutter in her stomach. She wanted more.
At that thought, she bolted upright as an alarm sounded in her head. She started to quickly scoot away from Dipper as he stood up on his knees and reached his arms out, saying something Mabel couldn’t process in an attempt to get her to keep calm. Her eyes were open wide with terror, staring at him from only a few feet away. Every time she scooted scooted away, he scooted forward in trying to close the space between them. Voices chided her as she tried to figure out what was happening.
‘Uh Mabes, this is your brother. Y’know, like blood related! Like, long lost twin bro, who you shouldn’t be macking faces with!’ She didn’t realize she was hyperventilating until Dipper snapped her out of her shock.
“Mabel… don’t freak out here, alright?” He said cautiously.
“Wha-whadya mea- what?” Mabel stuttered. “What do you mean ‘don’t freak out’, do you realize what just happened? What we just did?”
“Mabel please, just listen to be before you jump to conclusions.”
“Jump to conclusions? What does that even mean? This is pretty straightforward!” Mabel couldn't control her voice from rising. He scooted a knee forward and reached out for her hands. “No, don’t come any closer!” She shouted, and he flinched and drew back like he had been burned. He sat down on his knees, looking at the floor. Mabel felt guilt growing in her stomach. She didn’t want to hurt him, she was just afraid. “I’m sorry, Dip. I don’t mean to be cruel, I’m just not sure what this means.” She brought her knees to her chest. “And I’m scared.” She mumbled into her pajama pants.
Dipper was scratching the back of his neck anxiously. He looked up and made eye contact with her for a split second before darting his gaze to the floor. “Can I just… talk?” He asked nervously.
Mabel gave him a frightened and uncertain look, afraid of what he might say, but she willed herself to nod-- she at least wanted to let him say what he has to say before she has another outburst. He took a deep breath before sitting down flat on the floor and crossing his legs as he leaned his back on the couch.
“When I was younger, I really looked up to my siblings. Especially Wendy.” He emphasised. “In more ways than I should’ve…” The way he said that made her look up at him to see his expression, only to find him looking back at her with a look of sorrow. “I was…” He gulped. “Not so platonically attracted to her.” Mabel felt her grip tighten on her pajamas.
“She was just so… wonderful. I truly felt something great for her. Maybe even loved her…” He paused for a moment and shook away the faraway look in his eyes. “My family eventually found out and my mother gave me a talk.” He looked down at the floor again. “I was heartbroken when I had to come to terms with the fact that I had to give up what I felt for her. I realized just how truly impossible it was. But you Mabel, I’ve never felt so connected with anyone than I have with you. And I don’t want to throw that all away out of fear of what others will think.”
Mabel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She certainly felt conflicted, but all the little voices of logic in her mind were screaming at her that the answer was obvious. “Dip, I really want to agree with you right now, but I just can’t— can’t…” She didn’t want to finish that sentence. “I mean, what would our parents think? What would your family think?”
Dipper scowled in contemplation. It was clearly something he hadn’t quite thought of. “Our families will want what we think is best for us.” He said firmly after a moment of thinking. Mabel didn’t respond. It was almost a minute before he spoke again. “But I think the better question would be whether or not it’s what you want.”
Mabel hesitated. “I dunno, Dip.” She said nervously. She could feel her throat tightening as she spoke. “This is a lot to take in and— I mean I really just met you and I really don’t want to mess up what we have because I like— really care about you and— and…” She dropped her head into her hands and choked on her words. She felt Dipper’s hand rest on her shoulder.
“I get it, Mabes. I feel the same thing.” He said as he scooted closer to her. “I don’t want to lose what we have, but at the same time I feel like there’s more to us than just… this.” He gestured between them.
He moved his palm to cup her cheek. Mabel steadied herself and nuzzled into the comfort of his hand. She looked up to see him looking at her with that spark in his eyes. It amazed her, even now.
“I’m not entirely sure what the future holds. I don’t have all the answers, but I know that what I feel for you is genuine. And our families would want what we feel is best for us, and we should want what’s best for us.”
He moved his hand from her cheek and wrapped his arm around her back. He pulled her close to his side and kissed her on her forehead. She felt the butterflies fluttering in her stomach finally conquer the twisting in her gut.
“Okay.” She said with a bit more confidence. “I trust you.”
As she leaned up to kiss him, she knew she was making the right choice.
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quakerjoe · 5 years
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JOE BIDEN:
has been personally involved in nearly every bad policy decision of the last 50 years. Currently coasting on name recognition and association with Obama, he can only go down from here as people realize he is more comparable to Trump than he is to anyone else. With all the negatives of Hillary’s failed campaign but none of the positives, he would almost surely see us lose the general election again. If you love your grandchildren at all please do not vote for Biden.
TOP 5 HIGHLIGHTS:
Led the fight against desegregating schools
Voted for the disastrous Iraq War and still says he’d “do it again”
Wrote the racist Crime Bill that intentionally led to record-breaking mass incarceration, positioning himself to the right of even Reagan and Bush
Opposed Roe v Wade and voted to allow states to overturn it like they are now, worked to undermine the ACA’s coverage of birth control, does “not view abortion as a choice and a right” and still opposed federal funding for it multiple times including during this election
Long history of creepily groping/sniffing/kissing women and young girlsjust so many times, even including intimidation and continuing even now after his non-apology
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL:
Racist comments like this and fondness towards if not impassioned support for so many of the worst racists and segregationists like this whom he chose to work with, as well as Republicans like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Mike Pence, and Jeb Bush
As part of his crusade against desegregating schools he was the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to block two black appointees to the Department of Justice
Lies about marching in the Civil Rights movement
Horrible treatment of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas hearing
Supports cutting Social Security and Medicare and raising the retirement age on multiple occasions, backing Paul Ryan’s efforts to do so, while voting to gut welfare
Led the disastrous War on Drugs, and somehow still opposes cannabis legalization, yet two of his children escaped consequences for drug use
Pushed to expand death penalty, even to those on drug charges
Sided with banks to overturn Glass-Steagall and deregulate, leading to financial crisis
Led the disastrous Bankruptcy Bill resulting in increased debt and dismisses the plight of Millennials who are now the most indebted generation ever
Defends billionaires hoarding wealth and promises to ensure it keeps happening at the expense of everyone else while voting to slash the top income tax rate and cripple the estate tax, resulting in $83 billion lost annually
Opposes Medicare for All, says he “doesn’t have time” to propose another healthcare plan, and wants to bring back penalizing those who can’t afford to pay for insurance [Expanded 7/6]
Opposed equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community until very recently
Supported NRA in passing massive anti-gun control legislation
Opposes meaningful action on the climate crisis like the Green New Deal, instead pursuing the “middle ground” while his campaign attacks publications for accurately reporting this. He’s rated D- by Greenpeace
Plagiarized fossil fuel groups’ language in his woefully inadequate climate crisis plan after his climate advisor made $1 million from one natural gas company alone
Voted to expand deportations and indefinite detention for immigrants multiple times, has opposed amnesty for immigrants and supports requiring them to learn English, and helped expand the system Trump now uses to commit human rights violations by 3,600%
Voted to build border walls and supported sending military to the border long before Trump
Voted to ban immigrants with HIV, locking Haitian refugees up in Guantanamo Bay
Spearheaded the Alliance for Prosperity which increased deportations, border militarization, privatization, and oil pipelines for American exploitation while worsening the refugee crisis
Architected Plan Colombia, internationalizing the War On Drugs resulting in mass death, displacement, and destruction of food crops, while opening the country to US business interests
Voted to authorize invasion of the Netherlands if an American is tried for war crimes by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, refusal to participate in UN peacekeeping unless the US obtains immunity, and withdrawal of aid to countries that ratify ICC treaty
Supports Israel’s right-wing regime and apartheid in Palestine purely to protect US interests. A self-described Zionist, he blames Palestinians for multiple US-backed Israeli massacres, including an attack that killed 9 peace activists. Calls BDS “anti-semitic” and has a 100% rating from AIPAC [Expanded 7/4]
Sides with Trump in backing right-wing coup in Venezuela
Recklessly threatens nuclear war with North Korea
Voted against abolishing the electoral college that undemocratically elected Bush and Trump
Took $200,000 to help a Republican beat a Democrat to Congressdespite being anti-abortion
Voted against enhancing labor protection enforcements
Voted for NAFTA, supports TPP, is generally to the right of Trump on trade
Works with union-busters and voted to cut union pensions and is generally bad for workers
Consistently sides with special interests and corporations against antitrust regulation and voted for the first antitrust exemption since 1922
Opposes net neutrality
Driving force behind the Patriot Act, supports warrantless wiretaps / mass surveillance while his son partially owns the Chinese government’s mass surveillance system
Personally tried to prevent Ecuador from providing asylum for Edward Snowden
Says the CIA torture report is not a “black stain on this country” but a “badge of honor”
Worsened the opioid epidemic and made it harder to treat
Wants to make up reasons to jail anyone associated with a rave and literally bulldoze it down while his RAVE legislation lets kids die from preventable drug overdoses
Has questionable electability based on receiving less than 0.22% in 3 previous Democratic primary elections. He has a history of insulting voters and is currently skipping major party events, hiding from the press, and holding only between a quarter and half as many public events as his rivals
Plagiarized law school papers and campaign speeches (in which he lied about having coal miner roots), which ended his 1988 presidential run
His anti-progressive campaign surrogate Ed Rendell is a sexist, pro-fracking, pro-AIPAC Fox News supporter who approved bombing a black neighborhood in Philadelphia, killing 5 children and 6 adults [Added 6/26]
Used Charlottesville as a prop in his campaign video despite never even visiting once
Is still openly courting Republican billionaires for donations, including John Catsimatidis, who’s compared taxing the wealthy to Nazi persecution of Jews
Endorsed by Alan Dershowitz, the millionaire Trump supporter accused of taking part in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex ring, after Biden’s son ensured a similar billionaire pedophile avoided prison after raping his own toddler
Voted to deregulate the credit card industry while a credit card company was his top donor from 1989–2000 and then hired his son
His administration awarded a $1.5 billion contract to his brother’s construction firm despite his brother having no prior residential construction experience
Funded by lobbyists and special interests, and very openly partakes in general corruption
Hasn’t released any tax returns since 2015, which people seem to care about now
Unconvincingly co-opted Bernie’s education plan and slogan, and a Biden PAC plagiarized Kamala Harris’ slogan for its name
“A lot of us sit around thinking up ways to vote conservative just so we don’t come out with a liberal rating. I’m really quite conservative…”
Meghan and the McCain family and Strom Thurmond have endorsed him, and Trump has donated to him
The worst part? He’s still not sorry for any of this (but wants a black man to apologize to him)
(READ MORE)
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theheadlessgroom · 5 years
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About the muse
I was tagged by: No one! Tagging: All who’d like to do it!
Don’t reblog if tagged, copy, paste, re-post with your answers.
Name: Randall Huit Pace
Age: Is really 237 years old, but mentally thinks and feels like he’s 33, the age he was when he died
Height: 4′12
Weight: Probably weighs 100 lbs. soaking wet
Blood Type: AB-
Eye color: Was pale green, now a milky white
Hair color: Was jet-black, now more gray/salt and pepper
Date of Birth: May 9th, 1782
Zodiac sign: Taurus
Shoe size: 8.5
Favorite Color(s): White is his favorite, but he also likes grays, blacks, greens, and blues
Favorite smell(s): Roses, a fresh pot of hot black coffee, homemade foods, strawberries, and the scent of Emily’s perfume 
Birth Gem: Emerald
Race: Human male; now a ghost (specifically classified as a phantasm)
Talent(s): Hat-making, sewing/mending clothing, singing, and climbing-he’s also a fair dancer and a decent cook when the situation calls for it
A wish they have always wanted: When he was a boy, he often wished for stability in his life; for his mother not to have to constantly work to keep food on the table, mainly. These days, he mostly just wishes to have his wife back.
An item they hold dear to their heart: Lots of things that he’s very proud to have made, but Emily’s wedding veil ranks up there as being both his masterpiece and a very important symbol of their relationship. There’s love in every stitch, made for her and no one else-and it was really the object that brought them together, as she’d been looking for one when she came into his haberdashery. 
Favorite sound(s): Jazz music, the Singing Busts, the Organist’s music, the delighted shrieks of their mortal guests, and, of course, Emily’s lilting, beautiful voice
Fear(s): Autophobia, or the fear of abandonment. He doesn’t want to be banished from the Mansion again, nor does he want to never see Emily again.
Accomplishment(s): Helped his mother by taking on odd jobs from an early age in order to earn extra money; faced down heaps of discrimination for his Irish heritage; ‘lived’ a happy life post-mortem with the woman he loves; remains an iconic fixture of the Mansion and a certain beloved status among the mortals despite his decades-long absence 
Your muse’s catchphrase(s): Usually he gives a dark chuckle when you see him in the attic, performing his little ‘trick’, but any pun related to the loss of his head will do as well 
Likes: Anything to do with Emily, silent horror movies (or really anything with Lon Chaney in it), sewing/hat-making, music and dance, scaring mortals, and a good homecooked meal
Dislikes: Anything to do with Constance, flash photography, the thought of never seeing Emily again
Any scars?: One long, thin, jagged one that winds around his throat; this is the telltale scar he received upon losing his head-it’s prone to aching and sharp pain (usually around his deathday) and is extremely sensitive to the touch; the only person besides himself allowed to touch it is Emily
Birthmarks?: None
Something about your muse that is different from everyone else: A less-than-happy haunt on the outside, with a heart of gold on the inside
What makes your muse cry?: The memory of losing his mother, being banished, or coming home to find Emily gone and Constance in her place; certain horror movies (especially if the monster is hopelessly in love with the leading lady, such as in films like The Mummy and The Bride of Frankenstein)
What makes your muse happy?: A little peace and quiet between mortal tours; a good drink (non-alcoholic, preferably); old love songs; anything and everything to do with Emily
What makes your muse laugh?: The antics of the Hitchhiking Ghosts, some of the Ghost Host’s spookier puns (no matter how cringeworthy), joking around with Dorian, silent comedies (put on a Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd movie, and he’ll be wheezing with laughter in no time) 
Does your muse love his/her parents? Why or why not?: Randall doesn’t really remember his father, and even then, he doesn’t have the greatest opinion of him, considering it was his alcoholism that led to his struggle to hold down a job and subsequent demise while out fishing, leaving Randall’s mother to be the primary breadwinner and caregiver to her only son. He was very close to her in life, and misses her dearly in death
Does you muse have any friends? Which friend is closest to him/her?: Randall has a handful of good friends, but none are closer to him than Dorian Gracey, the master of the Mansion. Having known each other since boyhood, the two have a brotherly rapport, and it shows in nearly every aspect of their friendship
Your muse’s favorite food?: Potato soup and corned beef are perennial favorites, though he’s also never met a strawberry he didn’t like
Does your muse follow a religion? If so, what is it and what are their beliefs?: Randall was raised Irish-Catholic (drawing much ire from his New Orleans neighbors), but he’s really pretty uncertain these days when it comes to the topic of religion, being a ghost and all
What would get your muse to fall in love with someone?: Just being Emily Randall is moved by genuine compassion and kindness, even towards those others might deem beneath them, as well having a good head on their shoulders (no pun intended) and an appreciation for hard work and the importance of family
Has your muse ever killed/murdered somebody? Why did they do it and what was their motive?: Never: Chalk it up to his being a murder victim himself, although he’s got a hair-trigger temper and wouldn’t balk at beating somebody over the head with his cane (or just throwing a good punch), he wouldn’t resort to murder. That’s Constance’s MO, not his
Does your muse have a type when it comes to physical attraction?: Randall has been infatuated by blondes since his youth, and he certainly doesn’t discount a fondness for blue eyes either. It doesn’t hurt to be a bit taller than him too, that he doesn’t mind
What does your muse find endearing personality wise?: Compassion and understanding, as well as valuing good, hard work, and the importance of family
What is the most stupidest/illogical thing your muse has done and why did they do it?: Oh, there’s a handful of examples that could be given here, as Randall is oftentimes a very emotional spook, and as such flies off the handles at a moment’s provocation, usually if he’s driven into a rage. Some of the dumber things he’s done has involved goading Constance into a furious frenzy, leaving him to make a hasty escape, lest he wants to lose his head again 
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doublenuzlocke · 5 years
Text
Entry #4: Napoleonic Cindrella
Disclaimer: all materials belong to their respective owners. This is a parody for fun. Please support the official release.
Director by: xxxDreamingflowerxxx
Written by: Republic Empire
Requested by: xxxDreamingflowerxxx
Story by: Republic Empire and xxxDreamingflowerxxx
It has minor occurances with cuss words, but have a nice reading time…
Republic Empire Theater of Parodies presents:
“Once upon a time in Europe in the age of Napoleon’s reign whom he rules the French Empire. After the war of First Coalition, Napoleon demanded peace [1]. Now, all of Europe is at peace. Meanwhile at France, a certain girl named Crystal, who lives with her father as he has given her everything she needs. But he worried that she needed a mother-figure. He married to a… *cough*… a woman of her status, Lady Clair with her two snobby daughters, Whitney and Sabrina. They lived… ‘Happy’ for a while, but in the year of 1810 [2], Crystal’s father died. After the dead of Crystal’s beloved father, Lady Clair revealed her true self; she was vain and jealous of Crystal’s gentle and intellectual nature. Lady Clair reduced Crystal into a housemaid with no pay [3].
Later on since Napoleon had no son [4] as heir to take the throne after his retirement or death. He was, upon by advice by Josephine; Napoleon’s wife, to adopt one of their nephews to take his place until, he found the right heir. He adopted Gold; one of his nephews, his now stepson who has an unusual case of having Golden eyes.
“This is our story begins” The Narrator says with exclaims with a sigh. “I’m not getting paid enough for this job…”
Cinderella
France, 1815
Peace has known for the French people for over 10 years since the battle of Austerlitz [5]. No war has distracted them, everyone has live their business and the economy has never been better. Somewhere, in a certain mansion, where a certain girl lives in the upper rooms, near the roof lays Crystal sleeping so peacefully until the sound of a bell ringing woke her up.
“Argh” Crystal woke up with hint of drowsiness.
“Another day is another day to work. Clean, work, helping the Professor, and more work. I wish I was free to do as I please. What’s the chance that would happen to a girl like me?” Crystal sigh as she got dressed in a maid’s dress.
At the floor of Crystal’s, we go to a mouse-hole, where we meet our mice couple; Sapphire and Ruby, also a… ‘Happy living… family’ [6]
“RUBY, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?” Sapphire screamed in anger.
“What? It’s like 7 in the morning? What are you screaming about?” Ruby replied while rubbing his eyes sleepily.
“I have worked my ass out to make this!” Sapphire points the breakfast in the table.
“You can cook?” Ruby asked surprised.
Sapphire face palms in disbelief and attempts to beat her husband up.
“NO wait! Argh!” Ruby screams in pain begging his 'oww’ so loving’ wife to spare him the pain and mental injuries that she always inflicts on him. Let’s leave the lovebirds alone for a while.
“I am your narrator, a generic voice with no……"Narrator [7] tells the audience until….
"Excuse me, who are you?” Crystal asked with confused look [8].
Anyway, meet Crystal; our main Protagonist of this Cinderella version for this theater and…"Narrator further tells the audience.
“Then what you are doing?” Crystal asked again.
“Look, just ignore me, but you do need to do what I tell you. It’s part of the story.” Narrator tells to Crystal [9]. Crystal just nods confused and continues her acting. “I have a bad feeling about this.” She mumbled softly.
“Anyway, our dear Crystal was to work for her evil stepmother, Clair and her spoiled bitchy, good for nothing stepchildren: Whitney and Sabrina. She works day and night to serve them, but together with her sisters, she goes to the best High School in all of Europe. A high school, really? Can’t the director come up with a better idea? Oh, it’s part of the story? Um, ok. Meanwhile blah… While the narrator explains the story, we turn our attention to someone who is entering Napoleon’s palace on his horse.
We meet the crown prince of Imperial France, Gold. When his father died, his mother had to raise him on her own. He is Napoleon’s nephew by blood and a few years before the battle in Austerlitz, Napoleon adopted Gold. Also from his birth parents side Gold is a French nobleman with Corsican roots.
"This is Gold, the Crown Prince. He is the designated to become heir to the Throne. Napoleon adopted him, because Josephine was unable to bear children. But he has unbecoming as a prince. What brings the attentions of the Emperor?” As the Narrator is telling the story, Gold enters the room with Napoleon waiting for him along with Josephine.
“Explain.” Napoleon asked to Gold with disappointment.
“Explain what, Uncle?” Gold replied with hint of curiosity and amusement,
Napoleon points out the newspaper on the table. Gold looks at it which the newspaper says, “Crown Prince gone wild.” showing Gold’s antics like gambling and drunken brawls [10]. “I can explain that.” Gold stated.
“How can you explain, when all the monarchies of Europe are LAUGHING AT ME?!” Napoleon shouted in anger. “This is the last time, I catch you doing this!” Napoleon said to Gold. Josephine calms down her husband.
“If you send another tutor, forget it.” Gold replied with huff. “I got a better idea. You should know I have built the first High School in all Europe. And you will be sent there to learn, there’s a professor willing to tutor you! If you don’t agree, then I’ll send the army with you.” Napoleon told Gold. There’s going to be a tough day ahead of him.
“And so Napoleon sent Gold to High School so he could be re-educated. What was waiting for him? Damn, why is it that everything has to be so cliché [11]? A prince who is acting like a delinquent and a girl abused by her stepmother and step sisters. Ladies and Gentlemen, this story is going to suck. Back to the crappy story, Gold enters the room where Professor Oak waits.” Narrator explains.
“Welcome, your highness. I’m professor Oak. I study mechanics of nature and….” Professor oak was about to explain until…
“Boring.” Gold said loudly. Professor Oak blinked in surprised upon hearing the prince’s statement.
“This is going to be a long session.” The professor mumbled.
“I wonder how it’s going to be old man; I hope it won’t be all…” Gold was about to say more until the door open.
“Sorry for being late Professor.” Crystal apologized when she came in. Gold was stunned upon seeing the girl; she looked like an angel send from heaven. He stared blankly at her. “Professor, who is he?” Crystal asked.
“Oh, this is the nephew of your highness Napoleon, himself.” Professor told the girl. “Crown prince, he doesn’t look like one.” Crystal huffed.
“Hey! I am the prince! When I take the throne, I can do whatever I want!” Gold responded proudly with a smug on his face.
“Yeah, like a kid.” Crystal replied back to him.
Gold frowned “Don’t tell you are like those super serious gals?” He asked her.
“What’s wrong being serious?” Crystal angrily replied.
“Now now, do calm down. Crystal, can you do those reports while I teach the Crown prince.” The Professor asked as he gives her the papers. Crystal leaves them alone as she begins to work.
“Oi Professor, who is she?” Gold asked. “Oh, that’s my assistant, Crystal.” Professor Oak answered. “Crystal? It sounds pretty hot for a workaholic.” Gold said as he and Crystal are making funny faces to mock each other.
“Gold and Professor Oak resume their lesson, while Crystal does her work. This routine continues for 20 days. That’s until…You know what I am not going to saying anything more, since we have to switch back from our chat-based writing style due of the guidelines. You know screw this. Let’s continue this.” Narrator told to the Audience.
Gold sat down in his seat, the Professor hadn’t arrived yet and the golden eyes boy wondered why. “Why am I still going to this stupid tutoring?” Gold asked himself. After a while Professor Oak finally arrives. “Where have you been?” Gold asked, clearly showing his annoyance.
“I won’t able to tutor you, because there’s an important research I have to go to. But rest assured, my assistant will tutor for about 5 days. Crystal, you know what to do.” Professor Oak said as he left the room [12].
“Yes, Professor.” Crystal replied, refusing to show any sign of annoyance on her face and voice.
Gold got a bad feeling about this. The minute Oak left, she turned around to face Gold himself with a stern look on her face. “I got news for you buster. I’m not here to have chit-chat with you. We are strict-time, any questions?” Crystal asked Gold.
“Yeah, can I leave early?” Gold asked.
Crystal scratched her head. “Um, let me see…no. Professor Oak trusted me to tutor you. I will tutor you, one way or another. Let’s start with this.” Crystal responded in a serious tone.
“Crystal gave the Crown prince a hard time. Sometimes she even had to physical abuse the prince to get him to listen to her.” The Narrator said.
“Ow, why you hit me?” Gold asked with his hand on his already bandaged head.
“No sleeping in class! You should stop staying up so late in night!” Crystal told him in a hint of anger.
“Why you so serious all the time” Gold asked.
“And why are you so lazy and stupid?! Some Future Emperor of France you are.” Crystal responded back to him.
“Hey! I’m not like you. Miss Perfect!” Gold angrily yelled back to Crystal. That actually hurt Crystal.
“Oh, you think I live a perfect life? What about you? Living in a castle? With servants you can get what you want? And….me, a maid to my stepmother and being treated like dirt by my step sisters.” Crystal shouted at Gold angrily. The poor guy flinched by surprise.
“Sorry, I didn't…” Gold was about to say until….
“Get out of here! I don’t want to see you again! I will tell the Professor, you failed!” Crystal yelled. After a short while Gold left the room with a painful feeling in his chest.
“Thus things have become hard and complicated, but our Crown Prince felt guilty and decided to come back the next day.” Narrator told to the audience [13].
Crystal comes in as she puts on the lab coat until….
“I’m ready.” Gold said which surprised Crystal, who was unaware that he was in the room.
“Why are you here?! What you want?!” Crystal asked angrily.
“I’m here to apologize and I wanted to be tutored. I didn’t mean it the other day. Can we have this show on the road?” Gold asked to Crystal which she smiled a bit.
“Sure and apology accepted.” Crystal sighed. Gold sat down and the girl starts with her lessons.
“Thus Crystal tutors the Crown Prince, Gold in Science, philosophy, mathematics, and nature itself and during that time, the Prince slowly begins to fall for her. When Professor Oak came back to resume their session, Oak was amazed what great job the Crown Prince has done. But one night, the Crown Prince was writing an anonymous letter to Crystal. He drops off the letter before Oak or Crystal arrive; he sends her letters as her secret admirer. Until one day when Crystal absent from the classroom…"Narrator said.
"Hey, Old Man. Where’s super serious gal?” Gold asked. “Oh, she has errands to do. Why you asked?” Professor Oak asked the young prince.
“Oh, nothing.” Gold answers as he sneaks around to drop off the letter, but sadly for Gold the Professor had his suspicions since a few days.
“So, you’re the secret admirer, eh?” Professor Oak said as he notices the letter the prince was trying to hide.
“Please, don’t tell her. It’s just since a few weeks ago… I like her, okay?” Gold told the Professor.
“Don’t worry your secret is safe with me. She’s having a hard time, being a maid in her own home.” Professor Oak told Gold that.
“Why is that?” Gold asked.
“It all happened when her father died; her stepmother became head of the house and forced her to become a maid.” The professor explained.
“After hearing the story from the professor, the young prince saw his tutor in a whole new light and respected the girl even more. A few days later, back at the Mansion…"Narrator said.
We see Crystal working hard to cook and clean the house. "Crystal! Where’s the food?” Whitney asked arrogantly. “Coming” Crystal responded annoyed [14].
Unbeknownst to Crystal was that the mice couple was watching the girl every second.
“Poor Crystal.” Sapphire sighed.
“I wish there was something we could do for her?” Ruby mused. He was worried for the girl.
The family dog names Diamond or Dia for short came in and spotted the mouse couple. Dia was the gentlest dog you’d ever see. His hobbies were eating, keeping an eye on Crystal and listening to the quarrels of the mice.
“What’s going on?” Dia asked the mice couple.
“Its poor Crystal, she has to do everything that her evil step sisters and stepmother tell her to do. On top of that she’s also assistant of Professor Oak. All that work will kill her someday” Ruby explain to the dog.
“I feel sorry for her.” Dia responded.
The stared at the girl for a while, until the family’s cat arrived; Platinum [15]. Thought she may look mean, Platinum is good friends with Diamond and the mice couple, Ruby and Sapphire and like the three she’s very worried about Crystal. “What’s wrong with Crystal? I haven’t seen her like this for a long time.” Platinum said.
“She’s been working too much. I feel so sorry for her” Sapphire told the cat.
“But hasn’t she accepted this since the death of her father?” Platinum wondered.
“At least it can’t become any worse than it is, right?” Dia asked.
The animals keep talking with a while, until their conversation gets interrupted by a knock on the door. Crystal and the animals looked up surprised.
“Coming!” Crystal answered.
She opened the door and gets greeted by the mailman. “Good day miss, I have letters from the Emperor, himself. Have a nice day.” The Mailman hands over the letters to Crystal and leaves. Crystal closes the door and looks at the letters. She decided to go upstairs to tell her stepmother about the news.
“Crystal, what it is this time?” Clair asked the girl.
“Letters from the Emperor.” Crystal answered. She hands the letters to Lady Clair. Her step sisters, who stopped with their singing lesson hurried over to their mother, curious about the letters.
“It’s an invitation to a ball for the Prince’s engagement to the Princess of Portugal. And all the monarchies are invited as well” Clair said.
“Engagement ball?!” both Sabrina and Whitney shouted in surprise.
While the two stepsister start talking about what dresses they should wear, Crystal had her eyes glued on the invitation. “Can I come?” Crystal asked, curious about Gold’s engagement.
“Of course you can, only if you finish your work.” Clair told to Crystal.
Crystal nodded in joy that she could finally have something to be eager about after she finishes, sadly she had too much work to do and she wasn’t able to finish. The step sisters and the stepmother left for the ball leaving a disappointed Crystal alone.
“Why did this happen?” Crystal wondered sadly as she looked at all the work she still had to do. “I thought I could finish it all, go to the ball and ask Gold for an explanation. Why didn’t he told me anything about the engagement?”
One day ago….
“Sorry for coming later Professor.” Crystal apologies as she comes into the room. She looks around to see if she could spot a certain person, but it was only her and Professor Oak. “Where’s Gold?” Crystal asked. “Oh, he left before you came in.” Professor Oak answered.
Disappointed Crystal grabs the pile of papers and starts to work.
“I must say that boy has taken an interest in you, I wonder he’s your secret admirer…!” Professor Oak muses softly.
Crystal snorted. “Professor, that’s absurd. He’s a prince and I’m just a…” She trailed off.
“Just a maid?” Professor Oak asked his assistant.
“Yes, sir, a low-class maid.” Crystal responded with hint of sadness [16].
“Crystal, he’s worrying about you. Most of the time when he’s here, he asks about you instead of actually learning something. He even begged me once to have you tutor him. Did something happened while I was gone?” Professor Oak asked Crystal.
Crystal shook the feeling she was starting to feel and cleared her throat. “Sir, there’s nothing going on with two of us.”
“Well, I’m heading to the ball tomorrow and you’ll take a day off.” Professor Oak told Crystal.
“I want to go. I wonder why the Professor thinks that Gold is my secret admirer. If only I could go to the ball and ask him myself, but how? I don’t have any clothes, walking takes too long and in top of that they took my invitation.” Crystal muttered.
The bluenette decided to go outside for some fresh air, but her peace got interrupted by an explosion of sparkling glitter and stuff appeared out of nowhere. The mice, dog, cat, and one of the family’s horses names Pearl went to the garden to see what was happening.
“What was that?” Pearl asked.
“I don’t know.” Dia replied.
“What happened?” Both Sapphire and Ruby asked.
Out of the glitter and smoke a figure appeared. It looked like a young woman with long brown hair and blue eyes. The figure coughed. “Damn I should have chosen a better method!”
“Who are you?” Crystal asked the young brunette.
“I also need to work on the landing.” She woman muttered. She turned around and spotted Crystal. “Oh hello there, I’m your fairy godmother. My name is Blue”.
“A godmother, that exists? And what do you do?” Crystal asked Blue.
“Oh, I’m here to fulfill your dreams. You wanted to go to the ball so you can snatch your prince back, right?” Blue answered in a sweet tone.
Blue clapped in her hands and in a second an invitation letter appeared in Crystal’s hand. Crystal was surprise to see the letter.
“Don’t you have wands?” Crystal asked.
“That’s old fashion and only for fairy tales. Seriously people these day, they just get dumber and dumber. Before you know it it’s totally normal to see teenage girls getting entranced by their boyfriends. Now let me see. To go to the castle we need more help.” Blue mused while she was reading a book. “Oh screw this!” She said as she threw the book away. “Green, honey I need you here.” Blue called.
In seconds a man appeared with spiky-brown hair and green eyes. He was sitting on a chair, while reading a newspaper. “HEY! What you want?” Green asked clearly showing his annoyance [17].
“I need your help here sweetie.” Blue cooed innocently.
“Help with what?” Green asked indifferently.
Blue pointed at Crystal. “This sweet innocent girl needs to go to a ball to proclaim her love to a prince.”
“I’M NOT IN LOVE!” Crystal shouted.
“Sure you are. Now we need a carriage and some people who can bring Crystal to the ball.” Blue said.
“Can’t you do it yourself?” Green asked.
“No, a fairy’s job isn’t bringing people to balls to proclaim their love. We have to help the people who are in need and need to proclaim their love to their loved ones.” Blue answered.
“This makes no sense.” Crystal muttered softly to no one in particular.
Green sigh. “Why didn’t I finished Fairy academy?! Why did I married you instead?”
“Because you love me.” Blue laughed in a teasing tone.
“Pesky girl. Fine, I do it. But only this time, now let’s see. Pumpkin for the transport, mice for the horses, the horse as the driver, and the cat and the dog as escort servants… it doesn’t make much sense, but I don’t care.” Green mumbled. He turned to the animals and snapped in his fingers and well you know what happened.
Pearl, Diamond and Platinum look at themselves in amazement. “I can’t believe I’m so beautiful.” Platinum exclaimed in happiness.
“Please tell me we’re going to look like this forever.” Pearl muses.
“I am hungry.” Diamond pointed out.
“There done.” Green said.
“Why is the horse an escort and are we the horses?!” Ruby complained.
“Oh, such ya trap sissy!” Sapphire yelled.
“Thank you very much honey.” Blue said in delight. “Now let’s get to my favorite part; a dress for the lady.”
Ruby nudged Blue. 'I hope she can understand animal’ He thought. “Uhm excuse me but, can I make the dress? I am very good at knitting and sewing.
Sapphire scowled angrily and head-butted Ruby as hard as she could.
"I got a better idea.” Blue says as she claps her hands together in delight. She drags Crystal further in the garden. After snapping with her fingers, Crystal’s clothes turned into a beautiful dress [18].
Crystal went to the pond to see her dress. She is amazed by it.
“I like it sexy you know, that way you can seduce your prince easily.” Blue commented. “Well, have fun at the ball.” Blue told to Crystal as she steps in the carriage.
“Don’t forget. The magic will expire by midnight.” Green warned Crystal.
“Drop death.” Pearl grumbled in disappointment.
Crystal nodded and off they go. Blue and Green saw her off to the ball. “We did a good job, didn’t we?” Blue asked as she snuggled closer to Green.
“Swear this is going to be the last time.” Green commanded annoyed as he tried to get Blue off of him.
At the ball all monarchies of Europe invited by Napoleon himself arrived at the palace. The guests are dressed very fine and elegant.
“Hey Prez, what will be on today’s news?” A reporter named Black asked his boss; White, president of the newspaper Paris Times.
“The biggest scope of the daily news is the Ball. They’ll announce the engagement of the prince and a lot of royalties will be present. On top of that the prince is known for being a party-guy and troublemaker; just think what for big scoop we can catch!” White explains exciting. She grabs him by his hand and drags him with her. “The party has started!” White almost yelled elated.
They went inside, once they reached the ballroom, they saw the room filled with guests from all over the world. There was a long line of food that would make Diamond end up in the hospital from drying up by his constant drooling. Somewhere in the corner of the room sat the Crown Prince of Imperial France.
“This is boring.” Gold said to himself. He wondered what Crystal is doing and how she’d react about the engagement. He never met the girl and this engagement was only made to keep peace in the land. “I wish she was here.”
“Hey, Gold!” Gold looked up to see a young man with spiky black hair and red eyes approaching.
“Hey Red, how’s it going?” Gold asked as they shook hands.
Red was the son of King George IV and heir to the throne of England [19].
“What do you think? I heard you about to wed Princess of Portugal?” Red answered.
“Yeah, but it’s was Tallyard’s idea. It’s only to keep the peace in Europe.” Gold answered with little enthusiasm.
“It seems so.” Red agrees. “By the way, is something wrong? You don’t seem like your usual self.”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing really.” Gold reassured the young man.
“He’s in love with some else.” A boy with red hair, silver eyes and a cold expression answered. The boy’s name was Silver and he happens to be Gold’s best friend since 1805. Behind him were Princess of Austria, Yellow and her younger brother Emerald of Russia [20].
“With who?” Emerald asked
“Emerald!” Yellow yelled sternly.
“Ok, it all began with the tutor session I was forced to follow…” Gold started to explain.
Outside, Crystal’s carriage arrived and the Imperial Guard let her in. She steps out of the carriage with a nervous look. She gives Pearl, who looks worried at her a reassured nod and walks into the palace.
“… So what should we do to kill time?” Diamond asked.
Pearl looked puzzled at Platinum.
“How about a card game?” Platinum suggested.
“What about Ruby and Sapphire?” Pearl asked.
“They can join, as long as no one sees us.” Platinum answered.
“I get the snacks!” Diamond announced cheerfully.“
"She may be super serious, proper and a sadist, but she’s interesting.” Gold told his guests.
“That’s something you don’t see every day.” Silver said in a sarcastic tone.
“A commoner and a sadist too?” Yellow asked worried.
“How did you fall for her?” Red asked Gold with curiosity.
“It’s got to do with…” Gold was about to answer when he sees a mysterious and beautiful looking girl [21]. Strangely the girl reminded him of Crystal. He ignored his guests and walked over to the girl. While Napoleon watches him.
“Tallyard, who is she? She looks familiar, have I seen her before?” Napoleon asked his diplomat.
“I don’t know, sire, but it seems that your nephew has taken interest in her.” Tallyard answers.
“What if his interest in her is more important to him that his engagement to the princess of Portugal?” Napoleon asked worried.
“That could cause a political fault, sire. Unless, we could do something about it” Tallyard answered.
“No, let him be for once.” Napoleon commands as he watches his Nephew move his towards the blue haired girl.
Meanwhile, Crystal wanders around in the crowd until she is tapped on the shoulder. She turned around to see the Crown Prince, Gold standing in front of her expectantly.
'Act natural, Crystal. He’s just a no good…handsome prince I never had feelings for…no, this is not the time for this.’ Crystal thought when Gold comes close to her.
“I’ve never seen you around here. What’s your name?” Gold asked.
“Umm, it's… Chris, for Christine.” Crystal responded quickly, hoping that Gold wouldn’t find out.
“Chris? I like that. Care to join me?” Gold offered his hand.
“Sure” Crystal answered as she takes his hand.
They join the dance floor while Beethoven performs the waltz. While…
“This is the scope of the century!” White mumbled exciting as she writes her notepad full.
“What is?” Black asked confused.
“That!” White points her finger to Gold and Chris (Crystal) who are dancing.
“Crown Prince has feelings for a girl that���s not his fiancée. Oh, this is so going to be on daily paper.” White exclaims happily, while dreaming of the success their news will bring. “This is the best say of my life!”
Black sweat-drops and tries to calm his overactive boss down, while everyone else became amazed by the Crown Prince and Crystal’s dancing.
“So, Chris. What brings you here?” Gold asked her.
Crystal hesitated to answer, hoping that her answer won’t blow her cover. “I wanted to come to the ball.”
“For what?” Gold asked suspiciously.
“I needed to get out once in a while.” Crystal answered no trace of nervousness in her voice.
Gold chuckled. “You know, you kinda remind me of someone.”
“And of whom do I remind you off?” Crystal asked wondering about what the professor told her the day before.
“Her name is Crystal. She’s the most beautiful and serious gal I ever met.” Gold said with sweet tone.
“What’s so important about her?”
“She’s somehow interesting, proud, bossy and a sadist, but yet I feel so attracted to her. She reminds me of myself; behind her mask of seriousness is a face that’s trapped and yearns for freedom, like me. "Gold answered.
"What do you mean?” Crystal asked surprised.
“Thus we; the audience, I and the director know that Crystal is the mystery girl, but Gold seem too stupid and dense enough not to notice, what is he, Red?! Anyway, her plan was to find out about Gold’s feelings which, succeeds, but what she didn’t expect was that she also realized that she also fell in love with him. Wow, that sounded like too Cliché [22], don’t you think?” Narrator told to the Audience. “Now let’s continue with this too cliché story!”
“Who is she?” Lyra, the Princess of Portugal wondered while she was watching Gold and Crystal.
“A friend I guess.” Silver answers as he approached the girl.
“So, when do we have our dance?” Lyra asks while putting up a puppy-face to Silver.
“… Later!” Silver answered while turning away quickly to hide his blush.
“It seems that Gold like her?” Yellow stated.
“Maybe she’s his soul mate?” Red wondered. He knew of the prince’s reputation of being a lecher and flirt. So the idea of the golden eyes boy to fall in love for the first time was quite interesting.
They continued to watch the dancing couple. Beethoven has come with a new kind of waltz which is rougher, with rhythm that is too modern like Tango or ballet [23]. Gold and Crystal matched the song perfectly and flawless, until they separate by 5 feet apart. Everyone waited until the surprise climax as they run towards each other. They continue to do their dance with perfection, until the song stops. The two stare at each other’s face. To their surprise everyone applauds. After bowing they leave the dance floor for some privacy.
“Come on, let’s follow them!” White yells as she runs after the duo. The poor Black tries his best to catch up to her.
“Wait for me!” Black shouts out.
“Our two love birds are walking down the garden, until they reach a fountain. Both of them stay quiet and enjoy the garden’s scenery. Gold splashed water at Crystal and the crystal-eyes girl responded by soaking him too. They enjoyed the moment as they never had before. Crystal finally saw another side of Gold that she never saw before, which makes her fall even more in love with the prince. She plans to tell him everything, who she really is and her feelings, but when they reached the top of the stairs. Crystal noticed the clock; it was almost midnight. She shrugs the nervous feeling away and pretends like nothing this evening is too good to be true and it’s too early to let it end.”
“Do you love her?” Crystal asked.
“Who?” Gold responded confused.
“The Princess of Portugal.” She answered.
“No, it’s only a political marriage. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.” Crystal answered quickly.
“Say, have we met before? You look familiar.” Gold said, he noticed that she was getting nervous.
Before Crystal could answer the clock hit twelve and the sound echoed through the palace. “I, have to go!” Crystal said and she quickly ran downstairs, but Gold grabbed her wrist.
“Wait! I need to know. You look like her, you sound like her too and you even act like her, are you her? Are you Crystal?” He asked while he stared into her eyes.
Crystal felt as if he was looking through her soul. The sound of the clock was heard again through the castle. Crystal snapped back to reality, she yanked her arm free and continued to run downstairs.
“Wait!” Gold yelled after her. He ran as fast as he could, which gave him stares, strange looks and various scolding from the crowd, but he didn’t care. He had to catch up with her and confirm everything himself; sadly she was way ahead of him.
She ran into the carriage, the animals and the escorts all had returned when they heard the first ring of the clock but, Crystal arrived too late and everything was changes back. Crystal quickly grabbed the pumpkin, the cat, the dog and the mice and jumped on the horse. The Old Guard stare confused as the girl leaves the gate. Gold arrives shortly after Crystals departed.
“Have any of you seen a hot blue haired girl in a sexy dress?” He asked.
“No, but we did see a 'hot’ girl on a horse in an ugly dress.” One of the guards answered.
“Both work fine for me, which way did she go?”
“She left east, but I don’t think you can catch up to her.”
“Dammit!” Gold cursed out loud. Disappointed he walked back to the castle, but he stopped when he saw something shimmering. He looked closer and noticed at was a heel made of glass. “I wonder if her feet hurt.” Gold mused. “Those heels look painful especially if it’s made of glass.”
The Next day, Crystal lost in her thoughts, daydreaming about last night; she didn’t notice Professor Oak entering.
“Crystal, why are you so early?” The professor asked.
“I felt elated after taking a day off.” Crystal answered.
“I see, well I got news to tell you.” Professor Oak announces proudly as he showed her a copy of Paris Times. It was written with a giant letters; “Crown Prince and his mystery girl shocked the Monarchies of Europe.” Crystal was quite surprised, satisfied and puzzled about her feelings when she saw it.
“The mystery girl really is something. She reminds me of you.” Professor Oak said, while taking a sip from his coffee. Crystal looked attentively at the professor. She sigh and put her work down.
“Sir, I got something to say.” Crystal said.
Professor Oak frowned curiously. “What is it?”
“I’m the mystery girl. I went to the ball secretly and danced with Gold.”
Professor Oak sigh. “I was wondering if I was just seeing things, but what I don’t understand is, how were you able to go to the ball?”
“It’s a long story that involved a lot of strange things including the strangest fairy couple I’ve met, But that’s not important, what’s important is that I know now what kind of person Gold really is. He’s so…nice and caring. I’ve never seen him like that. When we danced, it’s like we are in our own world and no one can get us out of that world. He’s like… the kind of person I always dreamed to be with” Crystal explained.
“I get it; you fell in love with him. It was pretty obvious you know that?” Professor Oak said.
Crystal shook her head, “Professor, I can’t. I shouldn’t be together with him. I shouldn’t interfere in political affairs. If I didn’t knew he was to be wed with the princess of Portugal, then maybe I could tell him that it was me.”
“It was you, this whole time?” Both Crystal and Oak turned surprised to see Gold standing by the door. “Why you didn’t you told me?” Gold asked [24].
“I was thinking about telling you, but you are engaged to the Princess of Portugal.” Crystal explained.
“You think I care about that shit?” Gold asked as he slowly approached Crystal. “Super serious gal, I prefer my feelings over political matter, screw them! If we ever end up in a war because of my decision, I’ll handle it when that time comes.”
“Don’t do that!” Crystal protested.
“Why?” Gold asked. He leans into Crystal and kissed her, but to Gold’s surprise Crystal leans away.
“Don’t. Do what your country expects you to do.” Crystal answers while putting her hand between them.
“Crystal, you don’t mean that. You really don’t have to worry about that. I’ll speak with my uncle. I’m sure he’ll understand and cancel the engagement.” Gold exclaimed as he left the room.
At the Palace, Gold runs into his uncle’s room.
“Uncle, I need to speak with you, it’s urgent.” Gold said.
“Is this about the marriage arrangement?” Napoleon asked.
Gold was taken aback by how well his uncle knew him. “Yes.” He answered,
“I have talked with Tallyard and he agrees with me that we should cancel your engagement. I’m sorry for taking you away from your happiness. Go to the woman you love and live your life. You’ll still be heir to the throne and you have to remain faithful to your duties, but you are free to love the one you wish [25].”
Gold hugged his uncle and thanked him over and over. After he finished drying his tears he ran outside on his way back to Crystal, thought on his way, he remembered that he still didn’t know where she lived and that he had a shoe to return. So he decided to go to the lap and ask professor Oak for her address.
“So, Gold was on his way to Crystal’s mansion. Back at the mansion, the stepmother has her suspicions’ about Crystal being the mystery girl that danced with Gold at the ball. So she locked the poor girl up in her room, just before the prince arrived.”
“Let me out! I swear you’ll pay for this!” Crystal threatened.
“Don’t worry dear; I’ll let you out once the prince returns to the castle!” Clair repeated in an evil tone.
“… if you do that I can always to go Gold myself, makes me wonder why I returned to this mansion in the first place.”
“… Shut up and follow the plot!”
“Meanwhile the prince was getting ready to make his entrance to impress Crystal…”
“Hi there sweetie, I came to pick you up… no that sounds lame. *Cough* Good day milady I understood that someone ordered a prince and a lost shoe? Dude what am I a nerd trying to pick up a girl?! Yo super serious gal, you look pretty hot today, let’s go for a ride… dammit not good enough!”
“So, while out prince was still busy with coming up with the perfect pick up line for Crystal, the girl herself tried to escape from her room. The kicked and tackled the door as hard as she could, but the door refused to break open.”
“Dammit! What is this door made of titanium?” The blue haired girl wondered, while she looked for any other option to escape the room.
“Ruby, Sapphire, Platinum and Diamond looked pitiful at the girl. They decided to try their best to reunite her with her prince.”
“Hey guys, what if we break open the window? That was she can escape and surprise the prince.” Sapphire suggested. The other animals looked awkwardly at her. “What? It happens a lot in those TV-shows and movies.”
“That may be true, but it’s rude and unladylike to do. He’s the Prince of France for heaven’s sake.” Platinum answered.
“Yeah, but he’s also a rude delinquent lecher who loves to party. I noticed he was trying to peek under her dress once.” Sapphire countered.
“But, but, It’s barbaric!” Ruby yelled.
Sapphire felt another headache coming up and beat the poor Ruby into pulp.
“Let’s just find the key.” Diamond suggested.
“They all agree. Ruby and Sapphire went out of the room to find the key, luckily for them Crystal was the only bright one of the household, so they found the key on a table next to Crystal’s room. Sapphire grabbed the key and went back to Crystal’s room. Once back Ruby and Sapphire immediately dropped the key in shock, when they saw Crystal with a chair in her hands and facing the window [26].”
“To hell with this! This isn’t my house to begin with, so I won’t feel guilty breaking anything!” She yelled.
Ruby fainted and Sapphire started to laugh maniacal. “HAHAHAHA! I told ya that breaking that window would have been better!”
“Platinum and Diamond sweat-dropped, while Crystal kicked the chair against the window. How ladylike.” The narrator commented sarcastically.
Crash!
“Now a few minutes ago the prince finally decided to enter the house and pick up his bride.”
“Yo super serious gal! You dropped something at the ball so I thought you might want it back. Also I talked to my uncle and he’s totally okay with us hooking up together! Crys?” Gold looked confused around. “Crys where are you?”
Clair approached the prince, while her two daughters were watching in the back curiously. “Good day your highness, what brings you to our home?”
“Well uncle Oak told me his super-hot assistance Crystal lives here and I came here to pick her up and to return something she dropped.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we don’t have a girl names Crystal living in this house. Isn’t that right girls?” Clair asked her daughters.
“Yes mother, we don’t know anyone that goes with the name Crystal.”
“Then do you know someone called Christine?” The prince asked.
Clair and her daughters looked confused at the prince. “What?”
“Crys sometimes goes with the alias Christine, Chris or super serious girl.”
“I am sorry your highness, but we aren’t familiar with those names either.” Clair responded.
“Shit, maybe I heard him wrong.” Gold mumbled.
“But wait, it would be a shame if your journey was for nothing, why won’t you stay and have tea with us? My daughters are very good company.”
“Nah, I’m not into old, ugly and fat. I prefer sexy, busty and with a nice ass.” Gold answered uninterested. He was about the leave when they suddenly heard a crash upstairs.
“What in heaven’s name…” Clair wondered.
They all went outside and they saw Crystal getting ready to jump.
“What the?!” The step sisters yelled in surprise.
“Super serious gal!” Gold called in delight.
Crystal fumed. “Don’t call me that! Who is sexy, busty and with a nice ass you pervert! Crystal yelled, while she jumped out of the window and landed perfectly on her step sisters while giving Gold the kick he deserved.
Clair gasped and ran to her daughters. "Are you alright my angels?”
Sabrina and Whitney groaned as they got up from the mud. Crystal walked over to Gold and helped him get back on his feet.
“I can’t believe that I actually missed your physical abuse.” Gold mumbled.
“And I can’t believe that I missed you rude and perverted comment.” Crystal mused, while Gold held up her glass shoe/ heel/ slipper, whatever you want to call it. Crystal looked confused.
“You dropped it.” Gold explained. “Man I can’t believe you were able to walk on that, it’s super painful.”
Crystal looked puzzled at him and raised an eyebrow.
“I was curious.” Gold answered. “You girls make it look like it’s easy walking on those, but it hurt so much, I thought someone was pricking me with needles and for you information I fell a lot too. They should forbid heels I’ll tell you.”
Crystal giggled. “Sure they should.”
“So, do I get that kiss that I deserve?” Gold asked.
“Crystal frowned, but complied. They kissed for just 5 seconds, but for them it was enough. The animals were cheering, Gold’s slaves, I mean lackey’s too and on top of that Lady Claire almost got a heart attack.”
“Let’s go super serious gal.” Gold said, while leading Crystal to the carriage.
“With pleasure.” Crystal answered. “Oh by the way miss Clair, I think your house is on fire.” Crystal said casually.
Lady Clair looked shocked at her house that indeed was burning down.
“NOOO MY HOUSE!” She yelled desperately. She tried her best to save her house, but little could she do.
Pearl, Dia, Platinum and the mice couple were watching them silently from the buses. Sapphire was whistling, while cleaning her hands with a leaf. “Well I’m sure she won’t miss the house, since we will live in a castle from now on and I don’t think anyone will notice if the whore trio become homeless.”
“But, what about us?” Rube asked.
“We’ll be living with Crystal of Course.” Pearl answered. “After everything we’ve done for each other.”
“Does that mean we can play a card game and eat when we want?” Dia asked exciting.
“Of course we can.” Platinum smiled. All the animals all cheer in happiness.
Thus, the French Empire celebrated the wedding of Prince Gold and his newly wed wife Crystal, soon to be queen of France. Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond, Pearl and Platinum moved in with Gold and Crystal, on Crystal’s request of course. Lady Claire and her stepsister died a tragic death, but since no one cared they’re bodies were left at the burned house waiting to eating by rats and other wild animals. So the kingdom was at peace and everyone lived happily ever. You know what; this was a short story I had to tell. Ha ha ha ha, doing the full story with all the details? Hell no! {26] Why giving the director too much stress? She can’t do that, or else this story would be screwed. Okay, enough of this, I am out of here.“ The narrator announced as he left the room.
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Equilibrium
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Bonus chapter centering on if Patience had the wrong man's baby.
***
There was always that small chance.
One percent out of a hundred. Fifty. Eighty. No matter how you explained the dates away. Some complex medical explanation, overlong expectancy, miscalculation.
One small chance. Needle in a haystack.
***
When the baby came out--wrapped in a caul that Wendy had to break with a scalpel--it was perfectly formed, small and weak, with a full head of black hair. Holding the small thing in her arms as it commenced the first, healthy wail of a newborn, Wendy felt something cold creep over her back.
Mr. Borghese was standing there, arms held out and a plaintive smile on his face, "Can I see her?"
Wendy was frozen, the baby dangling from her arms, and Borghese took a domineering step forward and reached for the covering it was swaddled in.
Wendy could pinpoint the moment in which he realised the child wasn't his. The hair was too dark to be the chestnut bay of its mother. His face was frozen in the warm anticipation of a father holding his child, still like a mirror image. His eyes were a bottomless swamp.
"Perhaps could I hold her?" His voice broke into her ears.
"No," said Wendy almost immediately. She clutched the baby tight. "It needs to--be weighed and checked first."
***
Today was Borghese's last speech, but he didn't show up. He made no comment as Nizzola dropped put of the race. Garland City was lost and confused.
Wendy watched it at home, listening to her son bustling around in the kitchen. Buster was a good boy, taking over the house duties without a complaint when his father died. He had high marks in school and wanted to join the Marines. She was proud of him
Watching the flustered commentary of Borghese's campaign manager, she wondered how he was feeling. She remembered the serpent look on his face as he rounded on her--if they both die, you both die--and then the dead look as he beheld the nameless child. She felt a sudden wave of fear come over her.
"Buster?"
"Yes, ma?"
"I'm going in for another shift at the hospital tonight. Keep an eye on the house and don't stay up too late."
She clocked in in the middle of the night and made her way to the baby's ward. The emptoness of the halls was familiar but strangely strangely unnerving. She went to check the baby ward.
Wendy felt an immediate prickle on the back of her neck as she approached. The ward was usually empty, save for this sole child. The lights were switched off, as they should be. As she passed, she noticed a shadowy figure standing over the one occupied crib.
Her heart went into overdrive. She hurriedly switched the light on and rushed in. Some heightened part of her wanted to attack the figure, but instead she hurried to the baby's side and swept it up. "What are you doing here so late? It's time for the baby to... to get her checkup."
She was expecting him to see right through her hurried excuse, but his eyes were far away. He stared quietly at the baby in her arms. He looked disheveled. "I just wanted to hold her."
"You can, after we--we take her blood pressure We'll bring her right back," she lied.
Wendy clutched the wailing baby to her chest, feeling the blank, penetrating gaze on her back. She felt like she was turning her back on a lion. The baby had been pressed against the pillows face-down. The babies were never put down like that. It could lead to... suffocation.
She could imagine his eyes, blue as a shattered robins egg, as he pressed the child's sleeping face into the soft, smothering pillow, his eyes showing that certain blank, and yet concentrated sanity.
It had no birth certificate. Borghese refused to sign it. If it died tonight, there would be no record. No evidence of its existence save for a young woman's body torn open in another room.
Some primal mother instinct made Wendy clutch the child tight. She stayed by its side during the whole night, performing meaningless tests and keeping it warm and fed, making sure she watched over it each and every second. She snipped off the shrivelled umbilical cord and changed its diaper and swaddled it. It became clear to her that it was a girl. Out of a fear to not let it vanish if it disappeared the next morning, she took out a birth certificate and noted a name on it, the name the girl who had given birth to it had groaned out.
Darla.
***
The next day she delivered it into the arms of its mother. The woman was young--she looked all of fourteen, and Wendy desperately hoped she wasn't. Her pale face lit up when her black-haired daughter was placed into her arms. "Here's your little girl."
"Darla," the girl whispered, holding the infant to her small breast. She really was so young, wasn't she? The baby had to nose until it found the nipples. The girl's face was relaxed in the vacant, blissful post-birth way many mothers were. Then something dawned on her.
The fear that crept over the girl's pale freckled face was slow, dead, like a shadow falling across her face. She looked down at her newborn daugher like she was looking at a dying animal nestled on her arm, then looked up at Wendy.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
"No," she said.
Wendy didn't know what to say.
The girl was shaking hard, her voice trembling like she had a gun to her head. Her eyes dripped tears of fear.
The girl wasn't speaking. Her breakdown was entirely internal. She held her daughter tight to her chest, her eyes dripping tears down her nose as her body trembled like she was bejng electrocuted.
"Do you need formula?" Asked Wendy gently. "Do you want to be alone? We can take your daughter--"
"No!" She was on the verge of screaming. "No, please, no, don't take her away--not my--no. No." She was on the verge of hysterics.
Wendy wanted to reassure her that she was safe, but she would be lying and the girl would know it. Sooner or later Borghese would come back. And after that. And after that...
Wendy did not know who she was to him. But the fact that he was the mayor, and she was a young woman who she knew nothing about, did not bode well. There was something dark lurking behind them, something she wasn't comfortable digging into for the sake of her safety and her son's.
***
"I'm a cousin," said the man.
One look and Wendy knew who he was. The pitch-black hair was one thing. The virulent, insanely PERSONAL fury behind his facade was another. The man could not hide it. His fingernails bit into the ceramic tae, his eyes black and bloodshot and livid.
For a moment she wondered whether she should send him back. But while his overwhelming, hot anger was one thing--it burned, was overwhelmingly emotional. Borghese's didn't. Borghese's anger was cold and methodical, and scared her more than anything she had ever seen.
"She's in room 42," she told the father of the child softly. The man stood up, tall and wiry and furious with a paranoid bonfire in his eyes. Wendy stood at the desk for too long, until her legs hurt, tense and waiting to hear a high scream for help.
Wendy went back and shuffled her files, ears pricked. What if the girl was being strangled to death, her face choked and blue? What if he wasn't the father at all? Wendy made up her mind, she would go back there--
Finally, she heard the click of leather shoes, a soft gait where it had previously been heavy. The black-haired man emerged from the hall, carefully cradling the small bundle of a newborn on his hands.
The change in his posture was evident. It was as if the fury, the terrifying tenseness, had been washed away. He stared down with a half-startled, half-adoring look on his face, the child wrapped securely in his arms. The baby was wiggling, not used to being away from its mother. Wendy felt a sudden pang of worry, and didn't want to let them leave. Her motherly instinct had come back full force when she saw little Darla, and she didn't want to let her out of her sight.
"She's too young. Sir, you should put her back."
The man started, then looked at her. "She'll be fine. My mother had three children--she'll know what to do. My Darla will be fine."
Against her worrying, he gently carried what had to be his daughter out of the building. Every molecule of "nurse" in Wendy's body wanted to chase him. Down, but something more cautious and dark made her hold back. Perhaps the primeval female sense that had kept young safe for hundreds of years. A sixth sense, one more informed by the innate mistrust of the blond man who everyone seemed to trust.
Wendy gave the man on Room 5 his lunch, checked his IV, and scheduled release for him tomorrow. The man in Room 31 was near death from a bullet wound, and she did a quick packing up his belongings to prepare for his passing.
She visited the girl to bring her dinner, and she was curled up on the side of her bed, arms loosely wrapped around her body. Her eyes were dry, and her eyes staring into space.
The girl didn't react to Wendy's gentle pleas for her to eat. She didn't respond at all, not a blink or a twitch. All she did was look into space, her eyes glazed and blank.
Wendy left the tray there and left for the door. In the doorway she heard a small whisper. "Please, Mrs. Ledbettter."
Wendy stopped, one hand on the side of the door.
"Please say it died," she said. "When he asks--please. Please say it died."
***
The next day the door to the hospital swung open and a well-groomed man with a million dollar smile and his blond hair slicked back came in. "Buongiorno, Mrs. Ledbetter. How have things been since I've been gone?"
He had given his delayed speech over the radio to millions of cheers. Wendy had shut it off as soon as she heard it come on the radio.
The calmness of his voice sent her mind into a peculiar spiral. She felt helpless letting him in the hospital, knowing whatever he did she could not prevent. "Mr. Borghese, I have some bad news."
His dark eyes flicked up as he jotted his name down, and his pen stilled. "Is she alright?" His voice was quiet, but his eyes fixed on her with pitch-black pupils, unwaveringly blank.
"The girl is... the baby isn't."
"Oh, dear. What happened to the poor thing?"
"Ahh, it had a... breathing problem, and it... didn't survive." Wendy thought of the frail girl in the back, and then the dark-haired man with her child in his arms. Wendy's eyes became blurry, and she blinked some tears away. Please be safe, Darla.
Leonardo was looking at her closely, and as a trickle of a tear wormed its way down her cheek, he appeared mollified. "How awful. The mother must be disconsolate."
"She's not taking it well. I'm afraid she needs to be alone, for the duration of the birth, to prevent infection. Perhaps in a few weeks--"
"Women in my country give birth and are working in the fields the next day. A woman's body is very durable." He finished and snapped the visitor's log closed. "I'm sure she'll need comfort and support during this trying time."
Wendy could do nothing but watch him pass her toward the main hall of the hospital
He paused in the doorway. "Incidentally, I don't want any interruptions. No matter what you hear. Stay out of her room until I leave."
With his last words, all she heard heard was the click of his polished shoes on the linoleum. She stared at the visitor's log book, at the loopy, calligraphic signature on the bottom of the page, then she closed the book and went into the back room and put her head in her hands, and did not get up even when a high, shrill wail began to echo through the hospital.
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chiseler · 5 years
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Amigo Gigolo: Gilbert Roland
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In 1905, in Ciudad Juáraz, Chihuahua, Mexico, a bullfighter and his wife gave birth to a son, Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso. Young Luis intended to become a bullfighter just like his father, but when the family moved to California, he fell into acting after being cast as an extra in the Lon Chaney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Two years later, Ben Schulberg at Paramount studios cast the 20-year old Luis opposite Clara Bow in a college comedy, The Plastic Age, where he was first billed as Gilbert Roland. He had the sort of looks that seemed different from different angles: romantic in profile, but somewhat shifty when he was seen full face with his eyes narrowed. When he opened his eyes wide, however, their greenness had a heart-stopping effect, even in black and white films. Many of his leading ladies took notice.
During filming of The Plastic Age, the macho but sensitive Roland only knew a little English, and he was nervous about acting: he would ask his fellow players, “Am I doing alright?” But the camera took to his steady presence right away, and so did Bow, who reacted with her patented reckless enthusiasm to his shy initial wooing (he affectionately called her Clarita). They were a hit in The Plastic Age, but off-screen, Bow was running wild and couldn’t be tied down to one man, and Roland displayed some recklessness of his own when he moved on to another, very different movie star, Norma Talmadge, with whom he played Armand in a film of Camille (1927) and with whom he had a years-long affair. Talmadge had made her name in sweet romances, and she was married to the powerful producer Joseph Schenck, who managed her career. Roland appeared in three more films with Talmadge, and he faced down Schenck’s wrath like the bullfighter he had hoped to be as a boy (a story has long circulated that Roland at one point proudly walked naked around the pool at the Hollywood Athletic Club to prove that Schenck had not had him castrated.)
In front of the camera, Roland always commanded attention, especially as a lover boy who kisses ladies’ hands so that he might get his own hands on their bankroll. In The Passionate Plumber (1932), a bedroom farce, Roland actually gets more laughs as the supposed studly straight man than Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante do as the star comics. “Oh, leave your guitar of a heart!” cries one of his women (Irene Purcell), as he tries to pitch some woo; later, we find out that where women are concerned, he prefers to “find, fondle and forget” them. His old girlfriend Bow called Roland back to her side for her penultimate movie, Call Her Savage (1932), where he plays Moonglow, a loyal friend who stands as still as a post when Bow gets in a temper and violently whips him. “I love to see your head bandaged,” she tells him after she’s tended to his wounds. “It looks so romantic!”
Roland instantly kisses Mae West’s hand in maybe her best movie, She Done Him Wrong (1932), and she takes kindly to his attentions. He plays Serge Stanieff, who is said to be the “new assistant” of the shady Rita  (Rafaella Ottiano). “Day or night work, Rita?” asks Mae, who then sweeps up the stairs as the film cuts to a close-up of Roland, wondering just when he should come up and see her. After he enters her boudoir, Roland’s Serge can’t seem to decide whether to look at her bosom or the diamonds that cover it, which leads to brief confusion behind his deadpan face until we can see him thinking, “I will have both!” The great Mae looks him up and down and pronounces him “warm, dark and handsome,” and he takes her innuendoes with his steely, bullfighter calm. “A boy with a gift like that should be workin’ at it!” says Mae before he goes, and she might have been speaking about Roland himself and the shadowy, two-faced presence he brings to all of his roles.
The following year, Roland was cleverly used by George Cukor as a straight-up gigolo to an older woman in a film adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s play Our Betters (1933). Duchess Minnie (Violet Kemble Cooper) calls Roland’s Pepi “a gambler, a spendthrift and an idler,” but she cannot give up the sexual satisfaction she gets from him, even when he refuses to make any pretense of loving her. Roland lasciviously eats a cake as he looks at Minnie’s friend Lady Pearl Grayston (Constance Bennett), which signals that he’s decided to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants Lady Pearl, right under Minnie’s nose, just as Roland romanced Talmadge right under the nose of her tycoon husband and still lived to tell about it, and even work on in Hollywood. You can hear Roland’s Mexican accent here more than in his other early films because he’s given arch things to say like “hang it,” but he’s able to get a big laugh by emphasizing the disconnect between Pepi’s words and his feelings: “After all, I have some pride,” he says, then stares ahead of himself and takes a drink so that we can see that he obviously has none and doesn’t care a damn that he doesn’t.
Roland then took up with Bennett, appropriately enough, and even married her, from 1941 to 1946. He served in World War II and did some westerns as The Cisco Kid, then made a major comeback in John Huston’s We Were Strangers (1949), digging a tunnel with John Garfield. After that, his range of roles expanded. He played the saintly Juan opposite Barbara Stanwyck in The Furies (1950), he was Gaucho, the star who tempts Gloria Grahame’s reckless Southern wife in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and he began to star in westerns where he spoke his own language and offered his beautifully weathered face and body to the camera as he had offered it to so many happy-to-indulge women off-screen and on.
He semi-specialized at this point in the Male Love Death, expiring in the arms of Cary Grant in Crisis (1950), and in the arms of Kirk Douglas in The Racers (1955), where he quips, “Baby, you can spit in my crankcase any time!” Roland headlined some spaghetti westerns and worked all the way up to 1982, when he made the Fred Schepisi western Barbarosa. He had gone from silent lover to early talkie gigolo to middle-aged manly grace, until he remained as a Grand Old Man of the cinema, mainly uncelebrated, but recalled with fondness by his friends, who called him “Amigo,” and by the many women he tempted, off screen and on, to the most devil-may-care of pleasures.
by Dan Callahan
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Oc Rose just putting thoughts together. its a lot so a read more my man my dude
So Rose is an older oc of mine, who got revamped for FF7. her tag will be “ #wilted-Rose 
When I made her she already had 4 wings so I warped it around and made it fit, along with her back story. Dia isn't here as that causes a bit of a split in timelines. but rose can fit into dias timeline just a few things change. 
Pretty much, Mother’s eggs were used Jenova cells used as a sudo sperm. The first baby died, so the mother was removed from the program. Jenova cells lived off of basically mother periods until they were stable enough to fertilize again.
Mother gave birth to Rose, died during birth because 4 wings on the back aren’t too good for a mother in the slums. Either way, word spread fast and Rose was y o i n k e d by Shinra.
Rose was similarly to Sephiroth subjected to tests but hers were less about being soldier and more dealing with Jenova and the Cetra.
Rose was likely housed at head corders and was a slippery little thing, thus interacting with the three musketeers. She basically bonded with them because she’s half Jenova. She has a pretty strong pull.
Angeal was basically a dad/big brother as you’d expect. He’s pretty good at keeping her clam and still dose his long talks of honor and such. Rose sucks it up like a sponge and finds a great deal of interest in his Buster Sword. Calls him Honer, or Ang.
Genesis for a hot while was a bit indifferent but would help in soothing her. He’s been the designated one to sow on small fake flowers to her clothes, it has to be done by him or she cuts them off. Rose will wait for Genesis to return from missions to sow them on, its one of the ways they bonded. Calls him Genny
Sephiroth is more sympathetic, being able to more understand the experiments. Well, he absolutely sucks at showing it Rose gets the idea of what he’s trying. Rose quite enjoys braiding Sephiroth's hair and is quite good at being sneaky about it. Calls him Sephy.
Rose fucken love their eyes. she finds the slight glow of Mako a comfort to find in the dark, and really just likes to look at the detail and shape of Sephys cat eyes due to them being the only pair. 
For all three Rose will commonly hide behind them away from her experiments, always having a vague idea where they are. She also made a feathered earring for the three. It’s metal but wrapped around the tip of a long feather, having their nickname etched in on one side and real name on other. Rose got some help from Sima ( @coldhands-shipping )
Speaking of Sima, id thinks she meets her though Genesis but doesn’t really get that they are a pair, just thinks they are close working buddies of sorts. Rose just likes to annoy people and probably off handly mentions she’s making the earrings and Sima may offer to help?
When Genesis yeets off, he probably figures out some way to yoink Rose. (Still working on that) Genesis likely takes her on a whim because of the whole wing thing. Her cells being stable Jenova related ones are (theorized) to halt his degradation process. So him being less than sane pretty much forcefully take Roses cells.
After a while Genesis May see what happens if he puts his cells in Rose, it causes changes like hair color change & wing color change. But it takes a lot, given to much her left eye changes into the same Mako blue as Genesis. She tried to remove it with a fork.
Roses Genes sort of replaces the genes of who they are injected to. If monster it will make a rose copy of sorts if someone with Jenova Genes they will copy those genes. Thus giving Genesis more of his own genes in a way?
Rose absolutely fights Genesis, so she gains a few scars when Genesis has to pretty much hold her down. To him, it’s Life or death so a scar is worth it.
When Rose gets over the Jenova pull is likely towards the end of CC. Her cells want to be near other Jenova cells. but when Genesis is denied by death she follows Zack & Cloud.
She pretty much sticks by Cloud and tries to wake him up. (I like to think she does wake him up, Zack picks to yeet, and lives. Please let my son live.)
She follows Cloud pretty much, even watching Sephiroth die, tho does struggle with also hearing Jenova. She joins Avalanche for a hot moment, maybe about a year before just leaving. (Kinda hard to be put to work when you are half Jenova, and Sephiroth went bat shit)
Rose rose to her own area, someplace deserted. She builds her own farm really. Having a few flowers, fruits and veggies. And her mental health has gone to s h i t
Rose has settled down & is basically trying to slowly kill herself tho it’s a pain. She chops off her wings out of a moment of despair, lives.
“Hi I’m 16 years old and I’m an alcoholic”
Sima will sometimes bug her but Rose will react violently. When Genesis comes around she’s more use to Sima dropping by. Basically, she burns Sima well in a half-drugged dazed. She and Genesis fight, and legit tell Genesis to kill her.
He doesn’t and leaves and she gets back to her farm.
Rose from 20-30 will turn Jenovay, hair turning white, her still brown eye will go green & cat-eyed. Her blue stays the same. She sprouts new wings, that replace her old ones & hurt like hell. But she can hide them which is a plus! They are black but the end feathers are a sort of dusty white
Basically Rose is mega fucked and super salty. Genesis says anything and she can wrap it around to his desperate abuse. Tho in time she will attempt to make up & get better when she’s around 25.
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