#this post is about paint it black by the rolling stones
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posted so much angst recently that I guess ill make it up with an alternative ending to this
...
General Lilias yelling hadn't left you without your woes. You had decided to take a break, walking deep into the woods to collect herbs and fruit as a way to pass time to cool off. Hours passed and when you hadn't returned to the cottage as you normally would, and Lilia began to worry (against his will) . He sat at the wooden table, head propped up with his hand as he stared at the clock ticking on the wall much to his annoyance. Deciding he had waited long enough, the general pushed aside his pettiness and went out searching for you, putting on his mask and rushing out the door.
It wasnt long until he found you collapsed on the forest floor, seemingly in a pool of dark red liquid. With eyes wide and heart becoming heavy as stone dropping into his stomach, he ran quickly to your side, holding your body up to his chest as his long black and red streeked hair caged around you. It wasn't long until you emerged from the sudden movement, tiredly looking into the glistening tear filled eyes of the general. squinting your eyes you groggily groaned and hissed in pain, Lilia gasping at your concious state.
"Lilia...?" the fae looked around in a slight panic, eyes wide as he realized you were also able to speak.
"Quick, where were you harmed? I could not find an entrance wound, we must hurry and put pressure on it before-" you cut him off as you grasped the situation in its entirety now with a breathy laugh, Lilia looking at you with furrowed eyebrows eith a frown to match painted upon his beautiful tear stained features.
"This isnt funny," he snapped, "You could-" noticing how well you were able to function despite the seeming severity of the situation, he realized something must have been amiss. Lilia took a moment to look around once more to analyze a second time, seeing the tipped over basket of red berries.... The way you were laying...the buldge of your swollen ankle...using a finger he dipped it in the red liquid and brought it up to his lips, tasting it. ah. He understood now.
Suddenly dropping you and turning his back, you could feel the heat of embarassment radiating off of the soldier. To cover his red face, Lilia placed his mask back on and began to take a step away from you.
"Wait, wait! Liliaaa," you whined, "that hurt! When you dropped me! I sprained my ankle and fell on my Back. Would you please pity me? Just a little?" He stopped his movements from advancing forward back to the enterance of the forest, before taking a deep annoyed sigh and turning around to help you up.
He placed you on his back, the powerful fae hoisting you up and using his arms to interlock your knees and elbow supporting your bum. Your arms wrapped around his neck and your head peaked out from between his shoulder and neck. It was silent for a moment, and no more than that before you immediately broke the silence (not to his suprise).
"Were you crying, oh great and powerful general?" You cooed into his ear, Lilia immediately groaning in annoyance.
"If you do not shut your mouth, i'm leaving you here to rot. And I cannot believe you fell asleep on the forest floor, that was incredibly foolish," he chastised you. With a shrug of your shoulders you tilted your head in thought.
"Well, I was tired. My ankle hurt, and I was sad, so...it felt like the world was telling me to take a nap? I guess?" You laughed. Scoffing at your silly reasoning, Lilia simply rolled his eyed and continued forth towards the cottage. Another moment of silence rang before, of course, you interupted the peace once more.
"Why? Do you care about me?~" you teased. Another groan.
"Yes." He replied coldly and quickly, leaving the smile wiped off your face and jaw to the floor. Finally you allowed the silence to take over as heat crept up your muddied cheeks.
It was silent all the way back to the cottage, through to the moments of Lilia running a bath for you, to him bandaging your sprained ankle as you sat on your plump bed.
"If you continue to stare at me, you're going to burn a hole into my head. Spit it out, what do you have to say?" He finished putting away the bandages and folded his arms, looking at you- who now had a smug satisfied smile plastered on your lips. He already knew what you were going to say, you were all too predictable. And he had his answer ready, too.
"Ah, I think I just feel deeper in love with you..." You sighed dramatically, your hands over your heart before abruptly grabbing hold of Lilias hands, with the same stars in your eyes as the day he first met you.
"Will you-"
"Yes."
You blinked
Once, twice, four times. You had to shake your head roughly to clear out your ears to be sure they were functioning properly.
"Wait- you dont even know what I was gonna-"
"You were going to ask my hand in marriage again, yes?" He asked, a smirk coyly forming on his lips, his fang poking out ever so slightly.
"Well, yeah," you laughed awkwardly, "But I'm pretty sure I heard you say that wrong- did you say-"
"I said yes. I will marry you, human." He cut you off once more, looking away with flushed cheeks. "Don't make me say it twice."
...
"And that is how your (co parent) and I got engaged!" The short haired fae smiled proudly as you groaned, face burried in your hands. The young boys looked at you in awe, as the small silver haired one poked you to get your attention.
"Were you really like that?" Silver asked, Lilia interjecting himself before you had even the chance to defend yourself.
"Yes! They were rather clingy and outspoken. A far cry from now, wouldn't you say? Perhaps ten years of marriage makes one dull, you have lost your charm, my dearest!" You rolled your eyes and let out a scoff of laughter towards your fae husband.
"More like you stole it from me," you huffed, "How does one as old as you become so childish and carefree? sebek, silver, would you even believe me when I said he was so cold and mean towards me in my youth?" You pouted. The two boys shook their head, causing Lilia to let out a hearty laugh in response. Sighing with defeat and a smile upon your lips, you pushed Lilias face away from your own as he floated towards you with puckered lips.
"Alright boys, time for bed." Without protest the two had gotten ready and tucked into bed, leaving you and Lilia alone in the living room.
"You didn't have to tell them that," you huffed as Lilia trailed kisses down your neck, "I was not THAT ooverbearing! I mean, of course I had my moments..." With a raised eyebrow Lilia challenged that statement with the look in his eyes.
"It was your perserverance that attracted me to you, my dearest. It is nothing to be ashamed of, I assure you! If anything, you could be a little more... Clingy..." His voiced turned into a low sensual growl as his lips captured your own, pressing back with equal force as his hands began to wander under the hem of your shirt...
"Am I interuptting?" A familiar voice called out, causing you to gasp and push away a chuckling Lilia.
"Ah...Malleus. Im sorry, how long have you been here, exactly...?" You inquired. The draconic fae sitting on the couch tilted his head curiously, "you truly havent noticed? I have been here this entire time." Awkward silence rang for a moment and nothing more than a moment, before Lilia grabbed your hand and began to tug you towards your private quarters. With mischief in his eyes and voice sweet as honey, he leaned into your ear to whisper;
"Let us renew those wedding vows, shall we, my lovely spouse?"
Masterlist
#twisted wonderland#Lilia#Lilia Vanrouge#Lilia Vanrouge x reader#Twst#Twisted wonderland x reader#twst x reader#Lilia twst#lilia vanrouge headcanons#Twisted wonderland headcannon#twisted wonderland fanfiction#twst fanfics
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Lewisohn vs. Wenner Pt. 2 of 2
Part 1 // More Tune In analysis
You probably know the drill by now: I'm looking at the quotes from Tune In against the source Mark Lewisohn gives for them, and seeing if they're faithfully reproduced. This post deals with the multi-source Frankenquotes that are partly attributed to Jann Wenner's interviews. Five of the quotes here are from the infamous Lennon Remembers interview, with a sixth from a separate interview for Rolling Stone. Lewisohn combines John's words from these interviews with a myriad of other sources: a televised interview of John by Jean-François Vallée (1975), Hunter Davies’ The Beatles (1968), an interview/cohosting spot on The Mike Douglas Show (1972), and an interview with Lisa Robinson for Hit Parader (1975).
Before I get into it, I wanted to take a moment to discuss how I ‘grade’ Lewisohn’s quotes based on the type of source he cites. If Lewisohn is using a recorded interview, there’s some wiggle room in things like punctuation and word stress. When transcribing the same interview, two people might listen to the same phrase and come away with slightly different versions, e.g. “My favorite color was blue, but that changed after the accident in the paint factory,” vs. “My favorite color was blue. But that changed after the accident in the paint factory.” Both of those could be correct interpretations of the same recorded audio, so I can’t fault Lewisohn for changes along those lines when he’s working from an audio source.
There isn’t the same wiggle room when working from text. If I pull a quote from a book, and the book reads, “Now, I love green. It’s so lush,” I can’t change that to, “Now I love green; it’s so lush.” I’m not actually quoting the person who said those words originally—I’m quoting the transcribed and published version of what that person said.
I've taken this into account with these Frankenquotes. If there are punctuation differences between Tune In and the printed version of Lennon Remembers pictured here, I haven’t made note of them. Those same differences in a quote pulled from Davies’ The Beatles will be noted, since Lewisohn is quoting the printed source and not an original audio tape. This becomes a bit confusing when a single “quote” is compiled from different sources, and the bits from one source are graded on a different rubric than the other, but such is the thrill of fact-checking Mark Lewisohn!
Citations at the end. Time stamps refer to this upload of the Lennon Remembers interview.
Tune In 4-12 vs. Wenner p.76 (2:14:41), 18 (36:24) ��+ Vallée Interview
I haven't been able to track down the source for the middle section of this Frankenquote (it’s from an interview by Jean-François Vallée for the French TV Series Un jour futur, in the episode “Il était une fois: John Lennon.”), nor did I find the first sentence of the third part of the quote. It isn’t in the printed version of Lennon Remembers, and it doesn’t appear before the final sentence in the audio, though perhaps it’s elsewhere on the tape.
This has several classic Lewisohn offenses: stitching together multiple sources, combining distinct sections of a single source into one quote, and phrases omitted without ellipses. I've noted these on the images above.
What I'd like to bang on about is Lewisohn's choice not to clarify who John is referencing at the start of the quote--the "somebody" discussing black music and white bodies. In the original interview, John credits it to either "Michael X or Eldridge Cleaver" (Lennon Remembers gives this as Malcolm X, but it's clearly Michael X on the tape--see end of post for some background on Michael X and Lennon). It's common practice by many authors to clarify ambiguous references like this; Mark Lewisohn even does it in Tune In. He mostly does this in the endnotes (e.g. P-4, 2-22), but he uses a footnote to clarify a song lyric he himself uses in the prose of Chapter 4 (see footnote 4-c). Lewisohn not only fails to clarify who John is referencing here, he does not quote John's attempted attribution.
But maybe this falls under Lewisohn's inconsistent policy of not referencing the future. Still, even without naming the black activist who John references here, this quote is not a reflection of John's mindset in his adolescence: he wasn't sitting at a Quarry Bank chum's house in 1956, thinking "gee, thank goodness this black music has reconnected me with my middle-class white body!" The use of the above quote is foresight in and of itself, so why not credit the person who originated that line of thinking? Are Lewisohn's footnotes only for pronunciation guides and details of how demonstrably effeminate certain Beatles' relations were? For someone proclaiming their book a "social history", it's a bit of an oversight.
It's Eldridge Cleaver, by the way, in his prison memoir Soul on Ice (1968). It's in the chapter titled "Convalescence," in a discussion about the Beatles and white rock 'n' roll. Be forewarned if you seek it out, that section is also heavily homophobic.
Tune In 6-7 vs. Wenner p.133 (3:53:54) + Davies p.33
Hunter Davies did not record his interviews with the Beatles, as described in the introduction to the 2009 edition (p.lxiii): “I also wish now that I’d used a tape recorder. I never have done, which is silly.” Since we know Lewisohn was working with Davies’ written word, he was not at liberty to make changes like the one we see here: Davies starts a new sentence at the word “But”, which Lewisohn combines with the preceding sentence. There are changes like this throughout the quotes pulled from Davies’ work, but that’s a matter for a later post.
The other change Lewisohn makes here is more consequential. When discussing how Paul came to join the Quarrymen, John says, “That decision was to let Paul in.” Lewisohn gives the quote as “[my] decision was to let Paul in.”
Perhaps you’re thinking, “He’s used brackets! It’s fine!”, but I disagree. Brackets can be used when changing the tense of a quote, or when changing a word to clarify the meaning of a quote, so long as doing so doesn’t change the meaning. Clarification isn’t necessary here: the quote, as stated by Lennon, would make sense in the context Lewisohn provides. There’s no confusion about what decision John is discussing here.
But this change isn’t simply superfluous—it actually changes the meaning of the quote in a way that’s only clear if we look at the source. Here’s what immediately precedes the quote:
“I met Paul, and I made a decision whether to—and he made a decision too—whether to have him in the group or not.” Emphasis mine.
So John is not talking strictly about his decision, he’s talking about Paul and his mutual decision to work together. Without this context, even without the change from “that” to “my”, John seems to be discussing his own decision. Lewisohn’s change is completely unnecessary to get across his point. It’s as if he made this change specifically to push back against John Lennon’s assertion that a young Paul McCartney had autonomy and didn’t simply exist to satisfy John’s whims.
Tune In 8-4 vs. Wenner p.133-4 (3:54:42) + Davies p.44-5
Color-coded to show the absolute chopped salad Lewisohn made of these two sources.
Also of note is Lewisohn’s follow-up to this quote, “Despite this frank if uncharitable purge of his feelings….” Lewisohn does this elsewhere (notably with John’s quote about hitting women): he follows up a self-critical quote from John with an authorial “Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself, buddy!” It’s unnecessary.
Tune In 8-28 vs. Wenner p.140 + The Mike Douglas Show
Lennon: He’s the greatest rock ‘n’ roll poet, and I really admire him.
Douglas: Do you feel the same today as you did years ago in Liverpool about rock?
Lennon: When I hear rock, good rock, of the caliber of Chuck Berry, I just fall apart and I have no other interest in life. Y’know, the world could be ending if rock ‘n’ roll’s playing, y’know. It’s a disease of mine.
I wasn’t able to find this quote in the interview audio, but I’m sure its there somewhere. I used Lennon Remembers as a guide to find the correct location of a certain segment in the 4+ hour audio, and it is apparent that certain parts of Lennon Remembers have been reordered.
I transcribed this section of the Mike Douglas Show from a video posted on the Shanghai-based streaming app BiliBili - see link in my source list.
Lewisohn uses an ellipsis to indicate a transition between two totally different sources here but does not use an ellipsis to indicate the phrases he left out of the Wenner interview. There are several small changes to the quote from the Mike Douglas show as well, but the meaning is retained.
Tune In 22-78 vs. Robinson 1975 + Wenner p.122 (1:33:20)
The first source here is Lisa Robinson’s 1975 interview with John for Hit Parader. You can find a version of this interview here. Note the lack of ellipsis between the purple and pink sections, despite the lengthy omission between them.
Lewisohn does use an ellipsis in the Wenner-derived portion of this quote, but he doesn’t place it correctly. The omission occurs between “and” and “Brian”, not between the rest of the quote and “and Brian.”
It wouldn’t make sense to include Allen Klein and Yoko Ono in this quote as it appears in Tune In, since they won’t appear until much later in the series, but I do wonder if presenting the quote without their names truly preserves the quote’s meaning. However you feel about them personally, Allen Klein and Yoko Ono are two of the most controversial figures in Beatles’ history. Within a few years of this interview, John would be on the outs with Allen Klein. John describes himself as someone who “make[s] a lot of mistakes character-wise”, and goes on to list three examples of his good judgments. Two of those are Allen and Yoko. Is it intellectually honest to delete those two names from the list and present Brian as the one example of John’s character judgment?
And our final Wenner Frankenquote. This one isn’t from Lennon Remembers, but from a 1970 Rolling Stone article titled “The Beatles: One Guy Standing There, Shouting ‘I’m Leaving’.”
Tune In 22-72 vs. Wenner 1970 + Robinson 1975
This one is audacious enough to warrant its own post—and we’re in luck! I defer to @mythserene's post for proper analysis. You can also find this one discussed in @anotherkindofmindpod's "Fine Tuning: Ep 7 Spanner in the Works."
In brief, in the ‘quote’ lifted from Wenner’s interview, John is using “Epstein” as a stand-in for Klein. John’s not saying “Three of us chose Epstein”—he’s saying “Three of us chose Klein, throw aside your assumptions about him for a minute.” It’s not the sort of quote you can divorce from its context if you have any credibility.
Some Context on Michael X and John Lennon:
Michael X (a.k.a. Michael Abdul Malik, born Michael de Freitas) was born in Trinidad and became a prominent member of the black Power movement in 1960s London. Lennon met Michael X early in 1970 and became a devoted supporter and advocate until Malik’s death in 1975 (Wiener 1991, p.115-123). Here’s a brief rundown of their involvement:
Since you’re the sort of person who reads citation-by-citation analyses of Beatles books, you have probably seen pictures from early 1970 of John and Yoko sporting matching pixie cuts. In January 1970, John and Yoko shaved their heads (as a publicity stunt, I assume?), and kept their shorn hair in a bag. This bag of hair was the centerpiece for their first public interaction with Michael X: in February 1970, Lennon and Ono gave Malik their bag of hair, and he gave them a pair of Muhammad Ali’s shorts. The press was very much present, but they failed to make headlines (Doggett 118). The hair was supposed to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s to support Malik’s Black House, but this fell through (see Lennon on The Dick Cavett show here.) Pictures of the event can be seen at The Beatles Bible.
Malik fled London for his native Trinidad when legal issues loomed in 1971. He started a commune there, which John visited in April of the same year. In 1972, the bodies of Joseph Skerritt and Gale Benson were found on the commune (Weiner 1991, p.118). Malik was convicted of ordering the killing of Skerritt and would be hanged for that crime in 1975 (NYT 1975 May 17).
Malik may or may not have ordered Skerritt’s murder, but regardless, he did not have a fair trial. John and Yoko campaigned from the time of his conviction up until his death for clemency, without result (Weiner 1991, p.119-123).
Sources:
Cavett D [host]. 1971 Sept 11. Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The Dick Cavett Show. Accessed online on 2024 Feb 23. Available from: https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/7kXCnKfdGOY.
Cleaver E. 1968. Soul on Ice. New York (NY): Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 210p. Accessed online. Available from: https://archive.org/details/soul-on-ice-by-eldridge-cleaver/
Davies H. 1968. 2009 Edition. The Beatles. New York (NY): W.W. Norton & Company. 408p.
Doggett P. 2009. You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup. New York (NY): HarperCollins. 390p.
Douglas M [host]. 1972 Feb 16. Season 11 Episode 123. The Mike Douglas Show with John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Accessed online 2024 Feb 23. Available from: https://b23.tv/mQMUDg9
Militant Is Hanged by Trinidad After Long Fight for Clemency. 1975 May 17. New York Times.[Internet] [cited 2024 Feb 24]. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/05/17/archives/militant-is-hanged-by-trinidad-after-long-fight-for-clemency.html
Robinson L. 1975 Dec. Interview with John Lennon. Hit Parader. Accessed Online from www.beatlesinterviews.org. Available from: https://web.archive.org/web/20230409044146/https://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1975.1200.beatles.html
Wenner JS. 1970 May 14. The Beatles: One Guy Standing There, Shouting ‘I’m Leaving’. Rolling Stone. Accessed online. Available from: https://web.archive.org/web/20231017203039/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-beatles-one-guy-standing-there-shouting-im-leaving-43403/2/
Wenner JS. 1970. 1970 12 08 John Lennon Interview, Rolling STones Lennon Remembers, Complete Unedited [video]. Youtube. 2022 Apr 18, 4:26:50. Accessed 2024 Feb 18. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YelhzUbrCE
Wenner JS. 1971. 2000 ed. Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Lennon Remembers. London: Verso. 151p. Accessed online. Available from: https://archive.org/details/lennonremembers00lenn_0/
Wiener J. 1984. 1991 Illini Books ed. Come Together: John Lennon In His Time. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 379 p. Accessed online. Available from: https://archive.org/details/cometogetherjohn00jonw/
#mark lewisohn#tune in#the beatles#john lennon#jann wenner#lewi-sins#it's A LONG ONE#sorry#next post: pt 1 of my kim bennett manifesto#edit bcuz i forgot to add my sources...lewisohn moment
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My Blood Your Paint
Rating: M / Pairing: The Dark Urge/Enver Gortash (one-sided—thanks, amnesia) / Word Count: 3,139
If you’d told me when I started this game that my writing brain would be consumed by this particular antagonist I would not have believed you, but hey, here we are! I’m working on more about Valas (and Gortash) set before the game, but it seems fitting for my first posted Baldur’s Gate fic to be about the scene that started it all.
Here's the Act 3 coronation from Gortash’s perspective.
Excerpt below, and you can read the rest on AO3.
Today was supposed to be the best day of Enver Gortash’s life.
Everything was to be his. Everything. Exactly as it always should have been, from the moment Bane looked into his black heart and saw the makings of a lord. After all the cold, long years he’s spent, belittled and betrayed, building himself up with unwavered faith to close his fist around the kind of power Baldur’s Gate has never seen: to become its first Archduke.
Yet it was incredibly clear, long before today’s vaunted coronation, that today won’t be the uncomplicated triumph he’s long imagined.
Ketheric is dead. Orin is unstable, wavering, threatening to carve out the plan’s still-barely-beating heart—the antithesis of anything he would have chosen in an ally. The brain threatens to revolt, rumbling beneath the very streets, sparking his own panic even as he stands straight to solve everyone else’s. And Ketheric’s killers, utter unknowns, bearers of the third Netherstone—they remain the key.
And so this day, his day, becomes all about them.
No matter. He’ll convince them, that standing with him is the way forward, the only way to best the brain: through logic, through charm, through the power of pageantry—or through force, if it comes to that.
He just wishes—as he makes the final touches to his hair and pins the last golden brooch to his lapel, as he descends the winding stairs of Wyrm’s Rock, as he hands the ceremonial sword to Ulder Ravengard, mind tadpole-tethered and tamed—he wishes he had more to go on about what makes these mysterious adventurers tick.
Orin had tried to plant a treacherous little seed, of course, and he curses himself for sparing it another thought. With a toss of her braid, affectedly aloof, and the exact right idea to carve into his skull: that her sibling, Bhaal’s fallen Chosen, his own lost everything, lives still. Is among those adventurers. Is on his way to him here, today, has accepted an invitation to these very formalities.
Gortash didn’t fail to notice the cruelty in Orin’s eyes as she’d said it, had tried to focus on its memory as he heard of sightings across Rivington, through his Steel Watch and more quiet observers—or at least, sightings of someone wearing his face. Gortash wasn’t going to fall for that again, even as each report sparked an unwanted shock of hope through his heart.
It’s not him.
It can’t really be him.
He focuses instead on the details of the audience hall: takes a silent roll call of the invited patriars, in their ceremonial best to greet the city’s new dawn, checks and re-checks its defenses, the Steel Watchers standing sentry and the traps, gilded gold, ready to make ash of anyone who tries to intervene. Orin and her ilk won’t come here. Even she wouldn’t dare.
By the time he feels a faint resonance in the stone secured to the back of his hand, he’s calm again. Confident. Sure, as he listens to Dillard Portyr introduce him with a dull-as-ever speech, that he has this in his control.
But when the far doors open, when he’s sure the newcomers are the ones he seeks, when they come close enough for him to see Valas DeVir’s face—that’s when Gortash knows he’d been wrong.
Gods below, this really is the best day of his life.
(keep reading)
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#enver gortash#the dark urge#durgetash#dark urge x gortash#my writing#bg3 fanfiction#valas devir#dark urge/gortash
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I spent this entire time thinking that mick taylor was the Fleetwood Mac guy but you posting made me question everything I know about that band but turns out that mick taylor is not, in fact, the Fleetwood Mac guy and my knowledge of them is back down to zero.
Mick Taylor is the guitarist for the Rolling Stones...
But I'm talking about Mick Taylor th e character, from Wolf Creek.
Wait. Rolling Stones...
OH MY GOD I JUST REALISED WHY MICK TAYLOR LIKES PAINT IT BLACK SO MUCH...
(SORRY, "Paint It Red". The boofhead....)
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something im obsessed with about miles’ music (and especially change the show) is the sheer number of references to other songs he makes, including his own - these are the ones i could catch, some may be quite dubiously linked/coincidental but i love discovering all the lyric parallels, please let me know if there are any that ive missed
tell me what you’re feeling (cts 2022)
silverscreen (cdg 2018)
(also science fiction 2018 - arctic monkeys that was released in the same year as coup de grace - i discovered the parallel recently and went insane)
adios ta ra ta ra (also dancefloor reference?) (cts 2022)
don’t let it get you down (cts 2022)
don’t let it get you down (cts 2022)
cold light of the day (cdg 2018)
don’t let it get you down (cts 2022)
come closer (cott 2011)
nothings ever gonna be good enough (cts 2022)
peaches - the stranglers (1977)
adios ta ra ta ra (cts 2022)
psycho killer - talking heads (1977)
tonight (dfwya 2013)
come together - the beatles (1969)
first of my kind (dfwya 2013)
higher ground - stevie wonder (1973)
better than that (dfwya 2013)
four letter word - beady eye (2011) (which miles has posted about on insta)
cry on my guitar (cdg 2018)
the hellcat spangled shalalala - arctic monkeys (2011)
loaded (cdg 2018)
the element of surprise - the last shadow puppets (2016)
paint it, black - the rolling stones (1966)
killing the joke (cdg 2018)
cole porter - you're the top (1989)
looking out my window (b side 2012)
Waiting for that little brown eyed girl, she's coming back
brown eyed girl - van morrison (1967)
My brown eyed girl, you my brown eyed girl
la five four (b side 2018)
I was out of control, I was here for the roll
out of control (dfwya 2013)
But we'll rock as we roll, rev the engines and go, let's get out of control
la five four (b side 2018)
With your fingertips calling on the back of my spine
rearrange (cott 2011)
Magic from your fingers tingles down my spine
this is most likely not a reference but i like the parallels
the wonder (omb 2023)
Seeping on my wishing list, momentary bliss
momentary bliss - gorillaz (2020)
We could do so much better than this, mausoleum faces and momentary bliss
and of course telling the future
adios ta ra ta ra (cts 2022)
one man band - to be released... (2023)
also this is quite dubious but i found it funny so...
adios ta ra ta ra (cts 2022)
hot n cold - katy perry (2008)
special mention to telepathy (not necessarily a song referenced) (cott 2011)
i love the reference to the little flames <3
#miles kane#lyric parallels/references#again please add any more that ive missed i love stuff like this
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Beshaba
The Maid of Misfortune, Lady Doom, Black Bess
Beshaba is the counterpoint to Tymora and is just as frequently acknowledged in daily life as is her more benevolent "sister." She is seen as a cruel and capricious goddess who must be propitiated to avoid attracting her attention and interest in a negative way.
Beshaba's name is invoked when someone is beset by bad luck-which could be as minor as stubbing a toe or breaking a wagon wheel, or as catastrophic as slipping and accidentally falling off a cliff. It is also invoked to ward off her attentions when someone is doing something in which good luck wouldn't play a part but bad luck might. For example, someone rolling dice would invoke Tymora because they want random chance to fall in their favor, but someone about to cross a rickety bridge would ask Beshaba to keep the bridge intact.
Folk make the symbol of Beshaba by folding in their thumbs and extending their fingers on one or both hands (mimicking the horns of her holy symbol) to ward off misfortune. The same gesture raised to the head signifies a salute; when pointed at someone, the "horns" indicate ill favor directed toward that individual.
Many druids worship Beshaba as one of the First Circle. They propitiate her with dances while wearing fire-blackened antlers dipped in blood. According to these druids, her holy symbol is the horns of a stag because when Beshaba was first worshiped, humans were simple hunter-gatherers and she was believed to bring misfortune to hunters, such as being gored by a stag.
Although most people tremble in fear at the prospect of Beshaba's attendance at any event (even in spirit), Beshaba is almost always invoked and welcomed formally in the opening speeches or ceremonies of formal functions such as marriages and coronations, contests of sport or martial prowess, and at the naming ceremonies of children. If she isn't invited to such an event, she might take offense and wreak misfortune on those involved.
Temples to Beshaba are virtually unknown. It's common, however, for rural folk to erect a post and mount antlers on it at the site of some roadside accident or murder. In cities, where antlers are hard to come by and murders and accidents more prevalent, the fashion is to draw the black antlers of Beshaba with charcoal on a nearby wall, leaving the symbol on display until weather scours it away. These "shrines," in either form, serve as warnings to others about places of ill fortune.
More formal shrines to Beshaba exist in places where folk frequently hope to ward off misfortune. These sites tend to be posts or stones painted red with blackened antlers attached to them, or a red, triangular wall mounted plaque with attached antlers. Both types have a stone or bronze bowl where coins can be tossed or burnt offerings made. The Red Wizards of Thay commonly erect such shrines outside their ritual chambers to guard against unfortunate mistakes.
Few dare to take Beshaba as a patron. The rare clerics of the Maid of Misfortune are those who have been deeply affected by great misfortunes and who seek to warn others of the essential unfairness of life- or to inflict that unfairness upon them.
source: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide pg. 26
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One fic I associate with your username: Paint it Black! 🖤🖤
I am quel surprised.
:D
Not sure what "secrets" that fic has. That was questioned to death during its run.
Lemme see...
--> there was a scene very early on (chapter two, I am 99% sure) that I wrote that was incredibly dark that I actually erased and rewrote and now I am completely glad that I did, because it would have made Regina irredeemable. The scene in which Snow visits Emma at the castle and first sees the damage caused. It was... so MUCH WORSE and Snow had to do something really drastic. Eventually, i erased the lot of it and culled a bunch of ideas, and tamed it a little and I am so glad I did, because the story that actually grew out of it was beautiful.
--> It was supposed to be a quick one shot... 🤣🤣🤣
--> Despite all the furore and controversy, (all the death threats and people wishing I would go off and be raped and that my kids would be taken away) I am incredibly grateful for having written this fic. I really stretched myself as a writer and learned a lot. And you can tell by the end of it.
--> I still laugh at all the perplexed Rolling Stones fans that were stumped with this entire thing swallowing up the "paint it black" tag on tumblr for a few years. Also, for a time, it was one of the first things google would suggest when people searched for "swan queen", I was very humbled.
--> this fic made me join tumblr. I started posting it on LJ and someone got me over to AO3 to start posting and then people in the comments were like "girl, you should see what they're saying about you on tumblr", so I said "sure, I'll come lurk a bit to check it out" and then I carved out my little cave and hunkered down and here I still am!
--> I will never recapture the fandom interaction this fic had. The commenters, the picsets! There was a youtube preview of this fic, fercrissakes. Fandom will never be what it was, but I am grateful that I had it for this fic.
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Hello, quick question if you don’t mind.
Did George Harrison like any musical artists newer than his own generation?
Perhaps this is a silly question but I am hoping you might be able to answer it. Like for some reason I have a hard time seeing him liking any of the artist that emerge like post the 1970s.
Hi anon!
George was very attached to the music of his generation, that's where his heart was. He did enjoy a select few of the 'new artists', too.
"In 1992, Guitar World asked George if any contemporary bands struck him “as having a bit of the same spark” as his early heroes. George said no.
“I can’t say I’ve really heard anything that gives me a buzz like some of that stuff we did in the Fifties and Sixties,” George said. “The last band I really enjoyed was Dire Straits on the Brothers in Arms album. To me, that was good music played well, without any of the bulls***.
“Now I’m starting to get influenced by my teenage son, who’s into everything and has the attitude. He loves some of the old stuff, like Hendrix, and he’s got a leather jacket with Cream’s Disraeli Gears album painted on the back. As for recent groups, he played me the Black Crowes, and they really sounded okay.”
“Elvis Costello is very good – very good melodies, good chord changes. I’m pleased about his success, but I never liked those monotone kinds of yelling records.” George Harrison, Rolling Stone, 1979.
To me, it seems like his apathy and/or dislike of punk and rap and anything that was happening in the music industry was a mix of:
Being sick of the industry in general + being an old english Dad, with all the bias and closed-mindedness that can come with that + Having his own specific taste that he felt very strongly about + the evolution of his own relationship with music and writing.
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A California mom and OnlyFans model — who has been accused of “pedo-baiting” by editing her photos to look like a child — has taken her own life.
Diana Deets, who was known online as Coconut Kitty, committed suicide on Feb. 12, according to an announcement on her Instagram page addressed to “all lovers and fans of Coconut.”
“It’s unfair. Life is unfair. We wish you guys could get to know her the way her friends and family did. See, she was such a light to this world. Truly she was always glowing. You could never slow that girl down,” the statement informs her more than 5.4 million followers.
“She was so hard headed and strong, but also just so kind with the biggest heart we have ever known. She was always trying to lift everyone up around her. She wanted everyone to win,” the statement continues.
Deets’ age remains unclear, as the model would refuse to reveal it, but reports suggest she was 24.
Deets was described as “the type of person who would drop everything to help you with your problems and would always be in your corner.”
The model was also remembered as “a mom, a sister, a daughter, a best friend” and a person who “could light up a whole room.”
“It could turn your whole day around. And her laugh, her laugh was so contagious,” the statement read.
The post includes two images, one a black square and the other the number 988 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US.
Deets had a reported net worth of about $450,000, according to SNBC13, which cited unconfirmed reports that she had suffered from depression that may have involved backlash from her line of work.
According to a 2021 article in Rolling Stone, Deets had been criticized for editing herself to look like a child — with some accusing her of catering to pedophiles.
“I did get tired of people commenting on my looks when I was camming” she told the magazine. “It kinda bothered me.”
When asked what her real age was, Deets refused to reveal it to Rolling Stone — deeming it “irrelevant.”
She said she first tried to make money by selling her acrylic paintings, but that she needed to supplement her income further.
“At that point, I was like, ‘How can I make money off my art?’ and that’s how I decided to do digital art,” Deets told Rolling Stone. “And that’s how I created Coconut Kitty.”
Regarding her appearance online, she said: “I wanted to make something that looked like a real-life anime character — small chin, big eyes — that was made in my likeness, because I use a picture of myself and I edit it.”
She added: “I just wanted to create a fantasy, just a character. And I was able to hide my identity and still make money off my art.”
Kate Oseen, an Instagram creator and anti-porn advocate, had accused Deets of “grooming” and catfishing underage young women on social media to join OnlyFans, according to Rolling Stone.
Oseen cited a tweet Deets had posted asking women with more than 700,000 followers on Instagram to contact her for a “business opportunity.”
But Deets denied the claim and said she was only looking for another model to co-host a car event with her.
“I wouldn’t do anything in an unsafe environment, and I wouldn’t attend myself if I was unsafe,” she told the mag. “And I wouldn’t do that to someone else if it was unsafe for them.”
In addition to adult modeling, the model was developing an “ADULT HUMOR CARTOON MEETS LOONEY TUNES SERIES,” her Instagram page says.
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shuffled playlist tag game
@blue-hi mentioned me in a post and i always forget to do these but Not This Time lol, ty!
Rules: you can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to. Put a playlist on shuffle, list the first 10 songs and then tag people :)
i'll go with one I've had on lately, but this is only representative of Some of my music taste lol
Beverly Hills--Weezer
Only--Nine Inch Nails
Barracuda--Heart
I'm A Swing It--House of Pain
Paint It, Black--The Rolling Stones
Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)--Limp Bizkit
Sure Shot--Beastie Boys
Zero--The Smashing Pumpkins
All My Life--Foo Fighters
Break Stuff--Limp Bizkit
in conclusion: spotify's shuffle algorithm is ass but so is my music taste, i like all of these songs but i promise i listen to more women than this
no pressure to at all, but tagging @astriiformes, @honeybeeofficial, @kidrat, @tyrannuspitch and @doctorwhoisadhd if you want to!
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❝ You don't belong here, do you? ❞ Woolf's features are sharp in profile, and her slow smile seems all teeth. One eye rolls independently of the other toward him. Her voice is an intonation. "That 'corpse upon the road of night'?"
Dreamcore/Weirdcore | Accepting!
CW: Antisemetism. Gore. Body horror.
"And it shall be for a sign to thee upon thy hand, and for a memorial between thy eyes, that the L-rd’s Torah may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand did the L-rd bring thee out of Miżrayim." - Exodus 13:9
Stained glass windows glow in dawn's light. 06:45 Shacharit in Poppa's shul. Before the renovations he had seen at his father's burial. Seventies wood paneling richly gleam. He can't smell the coffee wafting down the hallways but he knows its there. Shul was his second home when he still considered home home. Young Adventures of Indiana. Warm debates, passionate yelling and laughter.
Watching police talk about discharged brass, the bullets through the wood front doors. Cleaning off red painted hate. Local news. He hates Illinois Nazis.
Marc knows he's dreaming. It had been rare they attended weekday Shacharit. The president typically ran the daily minyan. Poppa's mornings were full with school drop offs, full of ensuring Marc and Rand got there safe.
Doesn't change anything. Deeper than muscle memory, lips kiss the edge of his tallit gadol white wool. He opens the garment wide and lips recite the bracha. White wool with black stripes cover Marc's adult head and wrap around his shoulders like Moon Knight's glider-cloak.
He rolls his left sleeve all the way up. Arm-tefillah is unwound from its case and wound tight around his bicep, box facing his heart. The first blessing is recited and he begins to wind - once around the upper arm, then the forearm, mentally counting in Hebrew each rotation. Akhat. Shata'im. Wet wriggling sounds. Shalosh. Gut hurts. The minyan is still gathering, talking quietly, putting on their tallit and tefillin. Men he once knew. The kosher butcher. Doctors. Businessmen. People.
Abra. Sweat drips down his neck, water from his eyes, teeth gritting a whine. Has to be just right. Tight but not constricting. Khamesh. Rand stands next to him, a dark mirror in green stripped pajama pants, no shirt, light brown hair as wild as his eyes. Blast scars from a grenade thrown by Marc's hand. Cracked skin. Tree limbs stick out of his chest. They look like they were post mortem; Marc remembers the order. Different deaths years apart. Tree limbs were the first. Frank shot Rand full of lead the second before knocking him out the window. Crescent dart is stuck in Rand's throat. Marc's deliberate action for the third death. A Halloween mask is tucked into the book rack.
Shesh. Sheva. Excess is wrapped around his palm and he looks for the head-tefillah case. Did it fall out of its bag? Golden twisted knife, a bloody relic, is by his feet.
❝ You don't belong here, do you? ❞ Semi-familiar intonation draws him away from winding. He'd be pissed if he wasn't grateful for the Woolf's interruption across the mechitzah. She's head and shoulders taller than the wooden divider with glass squares. Her eyes have a mind of their own. "That 'corpse upon the road of night'?"
Jejunum, red and fleshy intestines wrap around his arm, lead back to his abdomen. Blood drips onto the pew. Rand gurgles. Frantic, he claws inside himself, ripping further, if he can tear out the violence, tear out what else Khonshu put in him --
Mr. Knight bolts awake in his sarcophagus, anguished yell, gloved hands sliding the stone slab above him to the floor before he brains himself. Copper taste in his mouth. Had to get up, pull waistcoat, dress shirt, undershirt out of his trousers.
Smooth, scarred flesh and muscle. Bruises and bandages. No sign of gaping hole. No Woolf. No Rand.
Exhausted, he sits on the sarcophagus edge, sock poking the phone with its cracked screen.
[Just a dream] soothed Steven.
{Uh huh. We all belong} Jake added.
Mr. Knight doesn't believe that.
#asked and answered#windy city | rabbi's son#rand | hatchet man & shadowknight#antisemitism cw#gore cw
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Songs for Cobra Kai Characters
Happy Cobra Kai anniversary!
I've done a post similar to this before, where I assigned songs to characters from Dracula by Bram Stoker, and here I am going to assign songs to the main cast of characters from Cobra Kai that can be included in a playlist. There are four (4) songs per character, and the song assignments are based on the vibes of the song itself or the lyrics featured, and relate to the characters themselves (although some songs have been included in the show itself). My choices also reflect my own musical tastes, so if there is a song that you think fits a character, that might be why.
If you have any thoughts about my choices or any suggestions of your own, let me know!
DANIEL LARUSSO
You're the Best - Joe Esposito
Ain't That a Kick in the Head - Dean Martin
My Life - Billy Joel
Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears
JOHNNY LAWRENCE
Mony Mony - Billy Idol
Nothin' But a Good Time - Poison
Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions
I Love Rock and Roll - Joan Jett
JOHN KREESE
Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi
Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
Paint it Black - the Rolling Stones
Union of the Snake - Duran Duran
TERRY SILVER
Just Another Day - Oingo Boingo
I Want it All - Arctic Monkeys
I Did Something Bad - Taylor Swift
Charmer and the Snake - the Velveteers
SAM LARUSSO
Fight Song - Rachel Platten
Praying - Kesha
Boys Will Be Boys - Dua Lipa
Start All Over - Miley Cyrus
MIGUEL DIAZ
I Wanna Rock - Twisted Sister
Listen to Your Heart - Roxette
Livin' on a Prayer - Bon Jovi
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys
ELI 'HAWK' MOSKOWITZ
Wild Side - Motley Crue
Deceptacon - Le Tigre
Somebody Told Me - the Killers
Pretty Fly (for a white guy) - the Offspring
DEMETRI ALEXOPOULOS
Buddy Holly - Weezer
Weird Science - Oingo Boingo
Mr. Brightside - the Killers
Boys Don't Cry - the Cure
TORY NICHOLS
Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
Nightmare - Halsey
Bad Girls - MIA
Midnight Sky - Miley Cyrus
ROBBY KEENE
You're Gonna Go Far Kid - The Offspring
Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High - Arctic Monkeys
#cobra kai#daniel larusso#johnny lawrence#john kreese#terry silver#sam larusso#miguel diaz#hawk#eli moskowitz#demetri alexopoulos#tory nichols#robby keene#playlist#songs
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hey uhh i posted a thing over a year ago that’s basically a re-telling of arc 1 but from cyrus’s perspective, and here’s a little preview of chapter 2! enjoy!
He remembers when they were freshmen, when their robes were too big and their magical capabilities as limited as they were promising.
It was easier, back then, because he didn’t care so much.
Autumn had painted Wizard City in its warm, fiery hues. Appearances of the joyful pixies who fluttered throughout town had become a rarity, lest they freeze and break their wings before winter. It was the beginning of the semester, the awkward, slow period of the year when he had to pull his new class to speed and dash all the formalities. The first day of the year was nondescript (certainly thanks to his reputation keeping the new ones in line) and the rest of the campus’s usual chaos was nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, the first Friday was a welcome one.
On his way to work, he passed the blackboard merchant signs in Olde Towne advertising heavier garments and new school supplies fit for the start of the school term. The wares became even more appealing in the Shopping District, where he spotted either very irresponsible or very clever students only just now making their purchases. He had already memorized the faces of all the new pupils in his roster, of course, and merely looked the other way when one of them—a unkempt, scruffy boy with black hair and a look about him that gave the professor dread—waved in greeting through a shop window.
Aside from him, none paid the professor any mind as he made his daily commute. They even seemed to make way for him in that silent way townspeople do when they’ve only heard distasteful rumors of Ravenwood’s myth professor.
A crisp chill followed him through the grey stone buildings of the Commons and trailed along his coat ends to Ravenwood. In the center of campus, surrounded by court fields of browning grass, the Great Bartleby remained evergreen.
From the corner of his eye, a stranger wearing a dirty white workshirt and hand-patched trousers approached him.
"Can I help you?" the professor asked.
"Uh, no, sir," the man stammered. "I don't need nothin' from ya', just wanted to give my sympathies."
"Sympathies for what?" He didn't mean to ask questions he already knew the answer to, but it made him feel better if he forced others to admit the uncomfortable. Sometimes it drove them away entirely.
"The--uh--Professor Malistaire's--"
A glare from another passerby. Steps slowing to eavesdrop. Mind your own, Cyrus thought.
"His untimely passing. 8 years ago since today, I think?"
"If the daily paper hadn't already told you," he responded, unimpressed. "Don't bother. I get it enough as is."
"Right! I'm sorry sir, I really am--" The man's shoulders fell in the face of Cyrus's indifferent stance.
"I'll be on my way now. Be well, sir."
Great down of Grandmother Raven, he thought to himself. That would be enough idling in public today. It was time to return to campus and try, hopelessly, to dissuade young thrill-seeking students from venturing into Nightside.
Every year, this godforsaken anniversary rolled around, and every year, he gave the same one-sided responses, the same painfully blunt statements.
He slid a crown onto the wooden crate. Before the vendor could open the register, he said, “Keep the change.”
Ale in hand--it would not be the last--he glanced at his pocket watch and left the burning sunset and Elk's Edge behind.
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A Darker Shade of Magic, Part VI - CH III - V. E. Schwab
"And then, the black-eyed Kell began to move. He shrugged off his coat and
tossed it onto the nearest chair. And then, Kell watched with horror as his echo
began to unfasten his tunic, one button at a time.
Kell gave a small, strangled laugh. 'You’ve got to be kidding me.' Lila only
smiled and rolled the stone in her palm as the Kell that wasn’t Kell slid slowly, teasingly, out of his tunic and stood there, bare chested."
It's been a while since my last post here and well, my new obsession is V. E. Schwab's Shades of Magic Trilogy and man, I'm in love with it. It's so perfect I ask myself how could I stay all this time of my life without knowing about this series existence?? I fell in love with master Kell just by reading the synopses and he's so damn perfect!!
Of course I had to draw him.
This is just the first illustrations I did back in February. I still have about 22 more comic pages of illustrated scenes to come and some more attempts at concept arts. I have to enjoy it while I'm in the hype, otherwise it won't come out.
I did a test of painting the last drawing in watercolor and I'm not satisfied, it looks better with simple painting, but whatever.
#shades of magic#kell maresh#lila bard#a darker shade of magic#digital aritst#digital art#illustration#ilustração digital#desenho digital#ilustração#artists on tumblr#worldsofagnes
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"You left without saying a word"
( Previous ) | Part 2 of We Can Make This Place Our Home
Pairing: Bruce Wayne x Original Female Character
Word count: 5.9K | AO3 Link
A/n: I was so lazy to post it in here because of all the formating, but I needed to if I want to post the next part, so here it is.
Summary:
Living in Gotham is like waiting the train after midnight.
The pitch-black night creeping, shadows lurking.
Having a gun pointed to the head so many times, it turns into habit. It turns into another day.
The train never comes. The danger is getting closer.
Gotham kills and takes away.
That's a story about war, about scars and trenches, of those born there.
"Your Bristol accent was showing."
One of the greatest pleasures of life is seeing Bruce Wayne visibly scrunch his eyebrows. He learned how to tuck his emotions away very carefully, at a very young age, but sometimes it seemed like his eyebrows had a will on their own.
Helen sits on the balusters and his eyes shine. Bruce is ten minutes later than her, walking without vigor to fight the way she risks her life so carelessly. Or to say she also has a Bristol accent.
They hide where there's no audience to perform to, on one guest bedroom of dozens in the Blackwood Manor. Bruce looks to her like he didn't expect he to be there but knew she would, cold exhaustion in blue eyes, tossing his butterfly tie somewhere and leaning on the stone by Helen's side.
There's more tension on his eyes than should ever be allowed to be. He's handsome using that suit. Alfred could make anything fit anyone with enough prep time, indeed.
"You're smelling like cheap perfume," she says the moment some wind brings the scent to her nose.
Bruce groans and Helen can imagine perfectly the old ladies trying to get a chunk off of the Wayne heir. Her jaw tightens.
"I hate this," he says, putting the glass of champagne between him and Helen.
He's not old enough to have a driver's license but of course someone put alcohol on his hands. Bruce rolls with it, seething this is Gotham, enraged. He is its prince, after all.
"Your speech was good, pretty boy," Helen promised, maybe trying to comfort or distract, carefully adjusting herself on the edge. "Although I didn't think my father would call you to the floor."
Bruce sighs, not flinching if Helen is the one calling him that.
The situation had the underlying humour of Bruce Wayne, rebellious teenager that was in a fight every other week, talking in the podium about whatever her father rambled about his distorted concept of charity.
Two floors below, in marble floors and under candelabra crystals, her father is getting drunk on white wine and promising to change the city once again. The ballroom is packed with politicians and influential people, bubbly champagne flowing or otherwise her father wouldn't allow.
It's designed to demonstrate wealth and power. Even the celling is ornate in intricate golden paint, intended to ease those people's obsession with pointless rivalry and redirect their energy in compliments to her father.
The chilly air makes her shiver, briefly. Behind her lays the almost endless darkness of Bristol, where things don't happen and time is frozen in place, past the garden lights and tall trees, Drake Manor. Then, over it and their just as over-exaggerated luxury, stays Wayne Manor burned to ashes.
Bruce graze at it with a ten-yard stare, even if his eyes can't reach it. A rage flies over the first layer of numbness, burning as Gotham did.
Helen leans back, stretching her arms up. Bruce's eyes change focus then, trained on her like she might fall from the edge at any second.
The height makes her stomach flutter. "Wanna to go downtown, eat some fast-trash?"
The story goes like this: Helen steals her father's most forgettable car so she and Bruce spend time on a cheap diner where the streets still alive but no one pays attention to their faces.
One of those days, this story will have a bad ending.
They're royalty, smell and talk dirty rich. The story will repeat itself on spilled pearls.
But until Helen's is met with blood, she will be trying to make this all sound normal. Like ordinary teenagers planning a little adventure.
Bruce tilts his head, looking up to meet Helen's eyes. "We have a chemistry test tomorrow."
There's some fun on this, too. Bruce's getting a perfect score on every test after having a week-long suspension for cursing the principal straight in the face.
Helen huffs. "As if you ever cared about that." Bruce looks somewhere else, not daring to meet her gaze. "If you don't want, just say it."
Again, there's a comical timing on Bruce's eyebrows as he scrunched it so childishly, it throws Helen years back when he pouted on Martha's arms about how much he hated carrots.
Bruce's head falls between his hands. "Why your father..."
He doesn't even finish his complaint, voice dying halfway through.
Helen smacks her lips together, training her tongue on the inside of her mouth where a scar is placed.
"He's just like that." Making other people take on a speech without any warning, a teenager no less. "I don't know what do with him."
And people would agree with what the Prince of Gotham says even if he had a mouth full of hot potatoes and was babbling nonsense. Up in the tower that watches from above, lives the most fitting rich person to talk about sorrow.
Her father is a politician at heart. She jokes with it.
"You're so pitiful," Helen rubs salt on the wound, swinging her legs.
Bruce groans harder, in despair. Makes her get off the balusters and stand on her feet, balancing herself on designer heels.
"How about a..." Helen pauses in calculated suspense. "Blueberry chiffon cake?"
He runs a hand through his hair, white strips covering the knuckles. "Explain to me how you know to do that but don't know how to make tea."
Helen collects herself, proper and elegant like she should, inspecting her outfit with precise hands. Bruce stands little feet away, observing and only occupying space like he has no coherent thought on his mind.
Like she didn't pause to check herself, Helen elbows Bruce mean on the ribs. "Einstein didn't know basic math."
And like clockwork, Bruce scrunches his eyebrows everytime she says something unfathomably untrue. "This is a myth–"
"Yeah, right, pretty boy," she babbles, adjusting the heels on while using Bruce's shoulder to level herself. "I'll just leave you safe and sound at home then, stomach empty."
Which sounded like an awful excuse to go downtown and crash at his house, but sometimes he's as blind as a door.
Bruce's mouth sets in a hard line. "Alfred will come get me."
A boy with constant cherry-red lipstick marks on his lapels, walking over flashes of cameras and greedy hands that won't love him right, getting cuffed and uncuffed because of the trouble he causes, there's loss on his heart.
But now he looks like just it, a boy. 'Wayne Heir' that tabloids love to plaster on first pages be damned, Helen hates to share.
After the cleaning crew finished working and the golden lighting no longer had value, night on the Blackwood Manor would be considered hell by most people. The deafening silence only breaking by her father reaching for an unopened bottle of champagne, searching for her.
And Helen would prefer being where he can't find.
"Although, I think that..." Bruce starts, unsure and wishful, white strips on his knuckles, "Alfred promised cookies."
Helen's face spikes a bright smile. "Who are you to not to pay attention when says cookies?"
Bruce looks away. Like a telltale story, Helen can see a brash immature Bruce Wayne arguing all the way to her house, cursing her father to Alfred. Arguing is the only thing that would make him not pay attention to such important matter.
"Will you come?"
Not the after-party she's most used to, but the one she loves the most.
"As sure as the sun rises," she answers.
(-)
Golden lights under crystals.
"Well, prom is here," she says, spinning.
Bruce holds her waist a little tighter, leading the dance. And she leaves him to it, all the eyes on them like their lives depended on it.
Him, pretty much like her, has a dozen of invitations waiting an answer, made by people that will start to brag the second they hear a yes.
It is almost funny how Gotham Academy holds a prom for those filth rich brats, as if they aren't attending just as pretentions parties every month.
On marble floor, Helen spins with all eyes on her. Soft glistening golden light, the same color of her gown.
People expect it of them. Bruce grabs her hands and spin her around.
"I didn't even bought a dress yet," she whines, "I don't even know what color I would choose."
A week away from prom, but she hasn't showed much hurry for anything in those past years.
Her father looks from the crowd.
"Red," Bruce demands, as spoiled he always has been.
"Red?"
"Burgundy."
Helen doesn't tip her head back with laughter, but almost. "Oh, you know the name of the color." Bruce narrows his eyes on her. "What makes you think you can decide, though?"
Blue eyes burn into her.
Bruce Wayne looks at her with a question.
Helen has to admit, she's a little selfish at it.
"Rachel Dawes," Helen taste the name on her tongue. "Why don't you invite her?"
Bruce looks at her with several questions, now.
Rachel, Dorothy's granddaughter. Has a scholarship for Gotham's Academy, same year as Bruce but different classes. Pretty and clever, straight A student, lacking an etiquette class or two but charismatic and gentle, well-mannered and well-intentioned. Volunteer at fundraisers on weekends, winner of the debate team.
Most importantly, Helen knew pretty well how Bruce watched Rachel intently as the girl rushes through the halls.
He likes her. Helen is yet to understand the criteria but it's enough.
Bruce scrunches his eyebrows. "Why?"
She watches from the corner of her eyes, her father and his perfect friendly smile.
"Because I'm saying so," Helen answers without missing a beat.
All but Bruce is dull, twirling. And he looks at her with pain, having his heart at her hands while watching her handle it to someone else.
He likes Rachel.
Rachel Dawes doesn't have the supermodel type of beauty but she's adorable, and she'll be lovely by Bruce's side.
Rachel is a familiar face and gentle enough.
And Helen's own heart drops to the floor of the ballroom, crashing like gass.
When the dance comes to an end and Bruce stares at her with a myriad of questions, under soft golden lights.
He likes Rachel but she's not the one he wants.
Helen is a little dramatic at it. She sees blue eyes shimmering, hold his jaw, won't let him be hurt by no one, much less her father.
And she wouldn't hurt him if it killed her.
"Go chase her," she whispers.
Bruce can't do nothing but comply.
Helen Blackwood doesn't show up to prom.
(-)
Living in Gotham is like waiting the train after midnight.
On a railway station.
The pitch-black night creeping, shadows lurking.
Having a gun pointed to the head so many times, it turns into habit. It turns into another day.
Helen learns how not to fear. Not wincing once.
How to lick the love out of every bullet.
The train never comes. The danger is getting closer.
But Helen Blackwood wouldn't know.
She's part of royalty, has a lavish lifestyle, unreasonably wealthy. She never had to wait for the train.
Even with blood hiding under their cuffs. Guilty of all the crimes and all the sins, and innocent lives lay on their shoulders as their fault. Even them, she's still a Blackwood.
The train never comes. Now she has another gun touching her forehead.
She stands on the floor not like someone mourning could.
"As most of you know," she starts, people buzzing to their seats, "my father passed away yesterday, deep in his sleep."
Reporters, journalist, executives, shareholders, noisy rich people, crowding, hold their breaths up to their chest. The room falls silent, people have their faces covered in shock.
Helen Blackwood stands on the floor, has her eyebrows furrowed together. Pearls and a sharp black suit, a look on her eyes that could melt metal.
"I'm his eldest and only daughter, the one who he left as new CEO of the Blackwood Industries."
The flashes of cameras trying to catch the perfect angle don't distract nor blind her.
As if life is worth living but not fair.
She has blood under her nails, like her mother before her.
"It's a prestigious company, with a legacy and a name to uphold," Helen declared. "I plan to continue my father's work, serving this country like he did."
As if life is fair at all, this says something about her.
It could have been easier. If she was the daughter of a strong woman, of a honored man.
"I know there is those who criticize the industry."
As if she stripes naked every reporter, dare them, order them to make her words immortal, she reduces them to bones. Her voice is not imposing because of the microphone.
"They say we profit from war," she remarks, "say we profit from violence."
People will easily underestimate her. She smiles, easily now, not like someone mourning could. "I, however, am proud to play a role in protecting our country and its people."
She's doesn't like what this situation says about her.
Helen pauses. This is what everyone expect of her. Smile natural, pretty face.
Woman don't talk and don't see. They look beautiful and smile.
A memorized speech, charisma. Because she's a stunning face and just that. "That's why I'm honored to announce or new 3d printing technology."
And then everybody holds their breath. Air suddenly thick when the screen behind her changes to show the technology in action.
"This technology will allow us to create complex designs with greater precision, to produce at a much faster rate."
The pitch-black is scratched into the walls of her throat. Swallowing it whole is better than letting anything out.
The silence is palpable, so she explains matter-of-factly, "This new 3D printing technology utilizes cutting-edge additive manufacturing techniques, operating at the astonishing speed of 13.000 millimeters per second."
Her posture changes a little, to be more straight, as if she's proud of it.
She licks love out of this one more bullet. Tasting bitter, gunpowder explodes on her mouth.
"This means," she proceeds, like spelling to children, "that our troops will have access to the best possible weapons when they need them most."
Just like gunpowder, the crowd explodes. Question after question. She meets every one of them with an equally competent answer.
They doubt her and what she says.
So day after say she has to prove herself.
The situation says, she's a horrible person.
She would sit and watch the printers work for hours, way after everyone on the building left.
Helen could use them to make something useful. To make prothestics, or simple car pieces.
Instead, she creates a tool to shed blood. Because she's a Blackwood.
Because that's what about her.
There's blood on her hands, under the cuffs, under the nails, on her teeth. Not a flick of what run on her veins is honorable.
Everyone she goes, people know her as Death.
She makes space for herself. Gets comfortable up on the throne. Main defense contractor is not a badge of honor, not one she feels proud about. People pay attention to what she says.
And her hands are cruel. Either she destroys it or creates something to destroy it.
A bottle of champagne popping open puts her on the edge. She watches from her spot.
Helen see the years pass. Soft golden lights and false promises, the chandelier sparkly, starry nights where she lies like her father before her.
The quietness around when she speaks is deafening, people are listening.
(-)
"Helen Blackwood."
Helen realizes, fairly quickly, she doesn't like how her name sounds on his mouth. The voice is suave and calculated, and a snake recognizes another.
She smiles, tucking away any discontent carefully.
"Lex Luthor!" she exclaims, and they both shake hands cheerfully. "It's a shame that we're only meeting now."
He smiles back. "It really is."
Golden lights. A man that is two decades older and doesn't like to lose.
They shake hands firmly, looking each other in the eyes and reading purposefully for a weakness.
"Your speech was impressive," Lex compliments, so naturally it makes Helen's eyebrows genuinely shot up.
Quiet tall, bald, green eyes, suit expensive even by rich's people's standards. Polished, shook her hand firmly but taking care to not hurt.
On a charity event that doesn't do anything besides waste everyone's time. His eyes are not very kind but strangely passionate. They don't burn like Gotham but they're intense like Metropolis always has been.
Impressive, he says. You're a good liar, he doesn't.
Only fools would fall for them, anyway.
"Thank you, Mr. Luthor." Helen gives him a glass of champagne, like dancing.
Friendly, if not trying to sound magnanimous for giving her the honor, he says, "Lex is fine." He takes the glass. "You know, Miss Blackwood, we should partner on something."
Helen Blackwood has her veins flooding with adrenaline. She has to take careful note to not smile too wide.
"Oh, please, you should call me Helen." Her voice is silvery, dripping honey and genuine excitement. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Lex. We should definitely partner on something."
Looking at Lex Luthor makes her shiver, agony creeping under the skin. He is, somehow, everything she heard about but not as terrifying as she imagined.
Not as terrifying but not harmless.
A snake recognizes an equal on the wild. Many species will hunt and eat each other opportunistially.
Bloodlust, she realizes, is a hell of a drug.
With masterfully-concealed curiosity, they talk the night away, voice singing:
(Dies iræ! Dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Mors stupebit et natura)
[-]
Because it has been the first time in years that she cried.
Her mind rushed with possibilities, every single way of dying because of the explosion. Choking, being burned alive, being crushed by a wooden column–
Bruce Wayne was dead, dead, dead.
He died and she couldn't do anything.
He died and she wasn't there.
He died and hadn't have been given the chance of a goodbye.
She hadn't cried when her dead died. On his sleep, peacefully. Helen felt a kind of creeping shiver under her skin hearing her father flatline. She wanted him to suffer, to die screaming.
Death is final.
Watching the Wayne Tower burning on live TV was nothing like actively seeing her father die.
He heart roared on her chest, suddenly hallow and echoing.
Helen couldn't even begin to wrap her head around that concept. Bruce Wayne dead.
She didn't allow the tears, either. She hadn't the chance to allow them. Only on the airplane, in the almost-private cabine of the first class, Helen bent over her knees and howled.
Bursting into a helpless cry. Didn't it sound melodramatic and theatrical? It was exploding on her mouth without regard of etiquette.
Bruce Wayne, dead. Her mind was hovering around this concept for the whole flight, holding her head between her hands like she was bleeding off. Maybe if she stays just quiet enough it'll be a lie.
It's all wrapped around her sternum and hands, closed together in a crying without words.
Didn't it meant something of her died too? The best part, that part that feels like summer and sunlight. The part that is like laughter and childhood.
She couldn't afford to have this part of her dead.
But there she was again, making everything about herself. And maybe having him dead, this best part of her dead, was a closure to the goodness lingering on her stomach. This was closure.
Bruce's laugh, small and almost unnoticeable, was the only thing that she could connect to being a good person.
And looking at him now was like seeing a dead man.
Because he was dead.
Until he wasn't.
Until he was there, standing there. Offering tea, talking, disapproving every singe decision she'd made without saying a word. Tender like sunlight, the only shining on Gotham.
"I was actually surprised when I saw the news," Helen sips. The tea is not so bad, a little watered and she would prefer cream with it.
Bruce looks over his shoulder, trying to find something to chew along the tea. As always, he looks like a caught-off-guard animal.
He stayed the same, after all those years. Helen finds it funny, if not a knot on their throat that doesn't let them talk about it.
You left without saying a word.
"Bruce Wayne gives half his fortune to reconstructing the city..." Helen recites the headline. "I don't think no city needs that much money."
Which says something about them two. Billionaires. Sitting on enough money to rebuild three Gothams and build two more.
Which says something about how much this world is unfair.
How much Helen is acid. But not really.
She just needs to know. It is ugly.
"Rebuilding the city and the orphanage..." Bruce starts, hoarsely so, and he's still looking pale. "It takes a lot of money."
Helen leans back on her chair, calculating a way to make the stubborn Bruce Wayne sit down and tell her why his teeth is fake.
He's breathless. Titanium implants, as far as she can see when he talks. Fake but crooked enough it doesn't look like it. So imperfect it is perfect.
"Doesn't matter," she says, a little cursed, "I saw the report of the last WE fiscal year. You're gonna make the same amount until the end of the year."
Bruce scrunch his eyebrows. Briefly. She almost couldn't caught it by how brief it was. Haunted.
Helen wonders if he finally noticed how selfish she is. Wanting to hold more and more power as long it means keeping herself safe, consequently reflecting this wish on him.
It locks her jaw and not a single word or tear is set free. She keeps the grief on her throat and it doesn't die. It doesn't disappear.
Helen thinks of Martha Wayne. Gentle and caring. A merciless death, bullet to the heart.
But what could have been done?
By the end of the day, she's a Blackwood.
Helen doesn't know what to do with this grief that haunts; what does she do with blood on her mouth or the words she swallowed?
What Helen must do with the blood on her hands, staining the glass of champagne? That's a hassle, really.
Now Gotham needed the business working, more money flowing than water.
And, even if Helen didn't like the bitter taste of gunpowder, weapons manufacturing was a hell of a lure to rich people. They threw money on anything she mentioned, anyway.
Helen watches as the rightful prince of Gotham ascends to the throne.
This is all she can do, watch.
[-]
"You broke his heart."
It's strange for Helen, returning to Gotham and having everyone know her name. Especially because her father's corpse returned to there before her, buried on the Blackwood Manor's yard like half her ancestors.
Harvey sounds neither happy or sad, nor angry at Helen. The commentary is made aiming something Helen can't see. Maybe testing the waters.
Helen doesn't have energy for it.
She leans back on the balcony, the cold of Gotham burning her, using only a red taffeta dress, unloved.
They've know each other for how long?
It doesn't matter. They've know each other as long Bruce knew Harvey and Helen knew Bruce.
But all of those statements return false now.
Helen is weapons dealer but legal, Harvey is an attorney that hunts bad people. Years passed under golden lighting and pouring rain.
The city is angry.
"I know."
But I didn't, before.
[-]
"He was like a father to me," Helen lies through teeth, easily as breathing.
Gotham is angry tonight. Not like the usual type of angry, its explosive and burning nature wasn't showing like most nights, but a cold drowning type of angry.
The funeral has been quiet. Only family attended.
Helen was almost family.
From one of the windows, the vineyard covers half the wealthy side of the outskirts of Gotham, Helen can only see the city's lights far away.
Carla sits where her brother used to sit. Content, if not dramatically happy, to wield more power. Chicago already between her fingers, but Gotham is where the treasure stays hidden, an ancient gold mine for criminals.
But Helen knows better. Gotham is yet to explode on their faces.
Both women use black dresses. The weeping veil hide Carla's intention, looking much less brash than she used to look in comparison to her, now dead, brother.
"I know that my father..." Helen says, clenching her fists in calculated hesitancy. "He knew Mister Falcone."
Her voice trembles. There's a little audience watching her perform, bodyguards and family. Not too bold, not too loud, Helen makes herself little.
Of course, Carla is a mother and Helen is just a scared little girl that lost another father. It's devastating, it must be.
Carla might still have a little of a mother instinct but she's watching like a hawk, scanning to see a lie. "Your father was more than just friends to my brother."
He was family.
Helen licks her lips. Head down, watching the wine that was poured to her, smiling simply as if comforted. Demure, like she should, submissive to the older and wiser woman. Studying land, the wine that came from the grapes that are still Falcone.
Gotham is yet to explode on Carla's face, a woman that thinks the war is over. Helen makes herself little and Carla sees an opportunity where there's none.
Carla is not really the type to bend, to be mistaken or wrong.
"This was a long time a go," Helen says, smelling the berries on the wine, voice tiny and sorrowful, nonthreatening. "I can only wish to have a friend now."
She wipes off a tear but she hasn't been crying. Is it too much? Helen is always too much or too little, but somehow Carla surpasses her on this aspect.
A hand comes to her shoulder, comforting. Carla's hand, naturally, but Helen never had a mother.
Rubbing circles on her back, Carla smiles to her and Helen graze back with glistening black eyes and sudden hope. Helen watches as the woman's face changes with dreadful desire.
The tears are silent, but she's not crying. Helen's face is all wet and her mascara is ruined, smudged over the cheeks, but she's not leaning to the older woman nor running away. She is simply there, pitiful.
Carla doesn't bend, she folds.
"We can be friends," she declares, as kindly as she could muster with all the emotion of power, of having the Blackwood's heir at her fingertips. Her heart, without a doubt, beats strong with only the possibility.
Blood runs on her veins, as sweet as cherry wine. Helen may taste it by the end of this.
For now, she melts at her with a promise of friendship that sounds almost childish, if not the implications. She makes herself little and harmless, helpless, a perfect prey. A coy without opinion but loss at heart.
Helen never had a mother, but she is Gotham's child.
Using a dramatic velvet dress, starry with a diamond necklace as the Falcone's chauffeur pulls around the grandiose main entrance, the first proof of friendship. She winked at Johnny Viti on the way out.
The ride home is quiet, passing through the endless silence of Mountain Drive where only the moon can light, Helen goes back to the Blackwood Manor.
She's been born with the weight of the world on her shoulders. No mother, no father. Child of a strange city.
Chicago, Gotham, and now Helen Blackwood? Carla is living the dream.
And Helen smiles.
Gotham is proud of her tonight.
The acoustics are excellent, holding one bottle of wine that has been gifted to her.
Tonight, her voice echoes through the halls. The ride home was silent. But now?
She sings.
(Lacrimosa dies illa,
Dona eis requiem,
Dona eis requiem)
[-]
The necklace breaking, a cacophony takes place. Pearls hitting the ground, a child crying out as the father is down on his knees. Thomas Wayne fought with all he had. Martha Wayne bite the man's fingers off.
Everyone knows this story, how Martha and Thomas didn't die until three hours later because they didn't want to leave young Bruce alone. Bruce didn't want to be left behind either. He crawls and beg into his parents bodies.
But before, he brings Helen forget-me-nots. They walk hand to hand on the endless garden of Wayne's Manor.
Their mothers' laughter echoing through green and blue. Happiness and sunlight, Gotham is happy.
Shy tiny Bruce Wayne offers her a flower. Helen takes it.
Martha peels an orange, separating the halves. The smells stains her hands, perfectly manicured nails being ruined with acid. She gives one to her son and one to Helen.
Then Wayne Manor burns.
Everything goes along the way for destruction; Martha's garden that was cared with love, the flowers and blueberries bushes.
Gotham floods, it rages. It kills.
A dream that melts between Helen's fingers. Gotham kills and takes away.
They're stained with blood, children of a city.
That's a story about war, about scars and trenches, of those born there. How brutally Gotham loves and yearns.
[-]
Living in Gotham is like waiting the train after midnight.
On a railway, waiting for something to happen. But nothing ever happens.
When there's blood must there be bloodshed? Will nothing ever change?
For Helen, then answer is an unwilling yes. It's true, nothing will ever change, she'll stay licking the love our of every bullet.
When something does happen, it strikes Helen on the face first. Filling her mouth with blood and breaking her nose, another gun pointed to her head.
Or, at least, having a gun pointed to her head would be easier to deal with it.
She'd been standing on her office. Gotham's office, one of the only sharp and modern buildings in Gotham. Organizing a lot of paperwork, ignoring how that was her father's office before her and that that information somehow inflicts damage on her brain.
Helen has the weight of leadership, of being listened, crushing her bones.
Helen learns how not to fear. Not wincing once.
How to lick the love out of every bullet.
She leans on the desk, gigantic mahogany dark wood, her shoulders and back burning. Her mind clouded with exhaustion somehow recognizes that she shouldn't feel Gotham's wind.
But she does.
And this alarms every braincell on her head.
Pointing a gun so many times, it turns into habit. It turns into another day.
The train doesn't arrive, it derails.
A figure standing on the edge of her office, lurking.
Helen's first reaction is to hold a gun, the one she keeps close for emergencies.
This is an emergency.
Aiming directly on what her subconscious identifies as head.
Blood drums mad on her ears, then. Until she realizes who is standing there, the finger was on the trigger ready to shoot.
"You scared me halfway to death," she mumbles, feeling the gun's edge.
One of the new models. Light, it feels clean and unused on her hands. She tested the model herself and closing her eyes she can recollect almost every detail; how fast the bullet travels, shooting sounds like a typewriter's click. Nobody would ever hear if she shot it.
"Helen Blackwood," a growly low voice calls.
The Dark Knight is standing on her office and this is every sign of how bad her life is turning to be.
She lowers the gun, then.
And she has no other option but to sit down, feeling her legs wobbly.
Tries, vehemently, to understand why Batman is on her office. No success at it, it's past midnight, she's tired, a lot has been happening and–
"Yes...?" she sighs, gripping hard on the gun. "I'm honored to have you here, Batman. I would offer you a glass but I don't think you would accept."
Helen points at her half-empty whiskey with the gun, but can't see his reaction. Batman is standing directly on the shadow, supposedly to sound more mysterious and threatening.
All she does see is a man wearing some plates of armor, probably kevlar, and believing hard he is going to survive the night.
It might not be what he is used to, too. Helen slips into familiarity as easily a snake shed skin. She knew one day the Batman himself would make her justify the space she's been occupying.
There's a panic button under the desk. Her father put it there.
Helen tilts her head, placing the gun down, eager to view something more from Batman.
"As far I can tell, you only go after criminals," she says, prompting. "What I do is more legal than vigilantism."
He is, somehow, everything she heard about while not as terrifying as she imagined. Maybe that's the thing about nightmares and dreams: it's always a little disappointing seeing it up close.
She wonders how much anger must be filling him. Enough anger to make him go out every night and seek revenge.
Anger, of course, is the only emotion that could possibly prompt any person to do this.
Batman narrows his eyes, stepping closer but keeping himself on shadows. "Your recent involvement with Carla Vidi–"
"Gosh, you're sounding like an amateur," Helen interrupts. "I attended a funeral, this is not a crime."
But something happened.
Gotham is a derailed ungovernable train. Things happen all at once.
And Helen realizes, when Batman stays quiet analyzing her face for hesitancy, that she might have proven innocence on accident.
It wouldn't be surprising if Carla was already dead, but disappointing. Helen was so sure the older and wiser woman would last at least a whole month.
But, alas–
There's a panic button under the desk. Her father put it there like almost everything on the office. Dark gigantic mahogany desk and oppressive walls, a mirror right behind her back and disturbing paintings of battles long forgotten.
Her shoulders crush with the power of being listened.
Helen stands, then, no intention of pressing that button. Feet hurting with the pumps but very proper and elegant like she must.
She'd been waiting for the perfect opportunity. A closure to the goodness lingering on her stomach.
"I actually do have something for you."
Batman's face spikes with curiosity, carefully hidden below a cowl and an oath.
She slides a pendrive on the desk, for him. Helen knew that one day Batman would want her to justify herself, and here she is, doing it.
It's another approach, Helen is offering something as if Batman's a wild animal and not someone that beats criminals to a pulp every other day.
And, for a blink of a second, Helen sees it.
Trust.
Filled with anger, burning. Batman has trust on his eyes, along hesitancy. An apprehensive animal.
An injuried dog, Helen realizes.
A hurt angry dog that is loyal to its owner. A dog that keeps going back to the hand that feeds but also hurts.
A dog that knows no better.
She doesn't understand why or how, what was the criteria she accidentally met to be trusted. She ain't complaining.
Returning home after getting the paperwork done, she won.
Helen is Gotham's child, doesn't matter what she does.
So her voice echoes.
(S'il lui convient de refuser
Rien n'y fait, menace ou prière
L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait
Et c'est l'autre que je préfère
Il n'a rien dit, mais il me plaît)
#bruce wayne x oc#bruce wayne#batman#Batman dc#dc comics#dc fic#Batman fic#arwrites#me!batman#helen blackwood
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Capricorn Season Chapter Nineteen
I am very sorry for the huge lapse in posting. I was going through a lot, but I am back now! Enjoy this update.
Table of Contents
My heels clicked against the laminate floor of Heathrow airport. It was packed. I didn't want to fly and I didn't want to be there, but I had to. I was nervous. Too many people. Too many voices.
My outfit was tight and uncomfortable but that was the price to pay for beauty. I wanted to look nice the first time Jimmy saw me after a few months. It wasn't like me to be so worried about what he thought but my anxious thoughts got the best of me. I worried he would be disappointed after not seeing me in so long. I wondered if it was even worth considering. I wore a pink dress I bought recently with some white pumps. My outfit matched my luggage.
Everything was fitting together, running flush as I started this new journey. It made me feel better about the uncertainty ahead. And there was lots of it. It wasn't like me to jump into things like this, not without knowing every little detail.
As I walked to my terminal I looked at the throngs of people. Whether they were waiting in line or sitting on the floor, they meandered. They wandered like clueless chickens with their heads cut off. They clucked and flapped their beaks as they tried to find their way to baggage claim, stomping around and fluttering their sickle feathers as they searched for their passports. I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous they all looked.
Not that I was much better. I was so nervous I couldn't see where I was going. I almost went to the wrong terminal! I checked three more times as I opened the door to the lounge marked with a big red 5, just to be sure. Thankfully I was in the right place.
"Here you are, miss, just take a seat and wait for the plane to board." The fair-skinned desk lady gave me a thin-lipped smile and handed me back my pink passport. Another piece of the ensemble. I followed her orders and went to find a chair, releasing a large breath as I finally sat. It had been almost a year since I had been on a plane. This would only be my second flight ever, which was the reason for all this anxiety.
I sucked in a breath and stepped into the hallway. It was time to board the plane. The worst part. I could feel anxiety bubbling in my chest. I found my seat in five short strides. My nails hit the rigid plastic armrest as I nervously tapped. I'm sure everyone was annoyed with me as my feet clomped against the carpeted floor, but I couldn't help it. I had to get my nervous energy out somehow.
I remembered being amazed when Dominic told me about his plane ride to and from Africa, and how wonderful the experience was. That was his first plane trip and he was delighted to be flown by David E. Harris, the first black pilot. Harris became the plane captain by 1967, a year and a half before I flew for the first time. I compared my experience on this Pan Am flight to Dominic's account.
Sometimes I let him creep in, allowing his judgment to run free in my mind. It was so long ago, I know, but I couldn't help it. It felt good to swim in that lake of nostalgia. I remembered his words from so long ago and the way he drew out his syllables, how his face contorted in total joy when he made himself laugh, and how gorgeous he looked with smoke coiling around his lips.
He's actually the one who told me about England. He spoke about Reading and told me all about how magical the culture was, about the history, food, and architecture. He told me about Reading festivale and how one of his friends saw The Rolling Stones. He said he wanted to take me there. His face was painted with total elation. He had a huge mouth, lips, and teeth cracking into a geode smile, glittering and beautiful. I always thought he was a very pretty man. I wondered how he looked now, if he was still gorgeous, if he was still an asshole.
That's why I think I still let him into my head the way I did. His effect couldn't be understated. He still presided over my life, affecting where I lived, even with just his words. I worried that he would always have some measure of control over my life. I still judged myself based on his rubric, still looked off his paper as I made moves across my life. I didn't know if that was because he was my first and last boyfriend, the only man who filled the role of my absent father, or if I hadn't gotten over him yet.
Love had always been hard for me. I always wanted love but I didn't know how to get it, or how to give it. Love was always a guessing game. But the gap was bridging, just as the space between Jimmy and I, as the plane came closer to New Haven. I was getting closer to love. I could feel the flame drawing ever closer, and I could feel the drip of molten wax down my shuttering frame. I wished not for a fall from grace.
But I did move to Winnersh, the place I still call my home. It was a nice little area. Although the people were pretty conservative, I enjoyed it. I wondered if Dominic would like it there. Probably not. He would think it too still and sterile. Too white.
The airplane seats were a lovely shade of green and had a white towel draped over the front. I wondered what they were for at first, but then I saw people patting their faces as the flight went on. I thought it was gross and abstained from joining in.
Three stewardesses accompanied us, surveying the aisles and providing everyone with drinks and meals. The food selection started with hors d'oeuvres, which Jimmy later told me was common on English flights. I declined the stewardess's offer because I saw the crackers had mushrooms on them. Yuck!
The next dish to be passed around was a salad. It didn't look like any salad I had ever seen.
"It's an English garden salad. There are potatoes, runner beans, spring onions, sundried tomatoes, Cheshire cheese, mint, mustard, and honey." This stewardess had red hair. It was lighter than mine but longer and curly. Her eyes were huge and blue. Her long eyelashes were coated in a thick layer of mascara and her cheeks were covered in blush. She was pretty but wore too much makeup. She put me off because runner beans, or lima beans, were not beans at all. They were legumes. So I told her so.
"They're actually not beans, they're legumes. Like peanuts."
"Oh. Would you like some salad?" She asked again, holding out the dish.
"Sure."
She put a large serving of salad onto my rounded plate and walked away with a smile. Her mouth was small. I was surprised she could put her lipstick on. I looked down at my plate and saw that it was not salad at all, but a pile of mashed ingredients. The English were terrible at food. No wonder so many of them were stick-thin.
Thankfully the salad never entered my mouth. The turbulence caused it to fly onto the floor, collecting at my feet. A stewardess, this one brunette and portly, scurried over and cleaned it up. She apologized profusely as she put the sticky food on a napkin and carried it off. She was gone before I got a chance to tell her it was okay.
I tried my best to squeeze my eyes shut and sleep. But I fought blindly in the dark behind my closed lids for the entirety of the flight. I was too nervous to eat or drink anything. And getting out of my seat before the plane was on solid ground was out of the question. The worst part was that my bladder was calling to me, pleading desperately to allow me to empty it. I patted my tummy and sighed, telling myself I would get to go when we were back on the ground. It wouldn't be too long, I kept repeating. Not too long.
In the black desert of space under my eyelids, my mind started to wander. I was bored. I had thumbed through the on-flight movie selection and came up empty-handed. I had either seen everything or wasn't interested. I laid my head back and let memory sweep me away, thinking of the last few days.
It was all so crazy. I let Jimmy find me a job, something I had never done before. I didn't want anyone's help, certainly not from the guy I was seeing. But he found me a good job, one with a good boss, one that allowed me to be excited about what I would be doing.
I was more grateful to him than I ever had been to anyone. No one had been as kind as he. Where I come from, kindness was something to be earned. It was hard-fought and scarcely rewarded. But he gave it to me endlessly. I didn't even have to ask. I was given kindness and respect without begging. Something I'd never had.
"Right, love, I've made some calls. I know you wanted to go as freelance as possible, so I've found a manager for you. His name is William Wells. You'll be able to join us and take photos and send them to William, then he'll send them out to other companies." Jimmy's voice was broken and patchy on the phone. We were miles away, countries apart, and the reception was an annoying reminder.
"Are you serious? Oh my god, that's like the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I can't thank you enough for this." I was embarrassed, having needed his help, but was grateful in spite of that fact.
"Well, you don't have to. I just want you with me as soon as possible. And I know you'll take some great photos of the band."
"I'll give him a call right away. Thank you so much! Really, thank you. I will see you soon!"
"That sounds great, love. I'll see you soon."
There was a slight silence as we lingered on the line, just for a moment or two. I could hear him breathing and a pain hit me in the chest. I missed him. Of course, I was happy he was having fun with his band, but I was selfish. I wanted him here with me, in Pangbourne once more.
"I'll see you soon, bye," I said.
After I hung up the phone I paced around anxiously. I was really going to join them on tour! And soon. Oh my god... oh my god. I'm fucking going on tour with a band. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what to pack or what to think. What do you wear on tour? Was it going to be hot? Of course, it's going to be, it's America in the summer. I've lived in America longer than anywhere else. I was going crazy with excitement.
First, I had to call William Wells and arrange a time to meet. Then, I had to go and sign stuff, then I had to worry about packing. I was getting so ahead of myself. I couldn't help it. I was going to see Jimmy, we could spend every day together for the next few months.
The dessert was good, at least. It was a "Victoria sandwich", which was just a sponge cake with whipped cream and raspberry jam. What the hell was with the British and cream? They were obsessed with dairy. They served it after another nasty bout of turbulence. I thought my head was going to fly off my neck!
It wasn't long after a glass of champagne that the flight ended. I was shaky and needed to pee really badly. When people began to file out of their seats I bounced anxiously. I didn't know if I could make it, honestly. I had to go so badly. Annoyance started to build in me as people shuffled down the aisle. My carry-on had started to get heavy as well. I wanted off the floating tin can from hell.
The cab's window rattled as we drove over bricked streets and busy intersections. Heavy rain pummeled the car. It was peaceful to see the raindrops racing on the window, crashing into one another as the downpour continued.
I was growing tired as the day dragged on. But I knew salvation would be coming soon. I could lay down in a bed with Jimmy and sleep. Nothing sounded better.
I was once again entwined with recollection as I dissipated from the smelly cab. I was walking my steps from yesterday, my hands shaking in the confines of the metal car just as they had as I walked down the office hallway.
The office was hot and I wondered when I'd get home. If we hurry this along, maybe I could make a late lunch and still be home in time to beat the rain. I hated driving in the rain.
William came in shortly after. He was tall and pleasant, like a scarecrow. He shook my hand gently, the sign of a good man. "Hello, I'm William," His face was clear and bright, with a thin structure and hollow cheeks. His eyes were warm and friendly. Dark blue. "I trust you found your way here alright."He sat back in his red oval chair with a smile. He was all too warm and friendly. I wondered if it was a facade. He speaks like an American, like me. I felt at home in his dip-thong and drawn-out syllables. He's a Yankee.
"Yes," I nodded, "just fine."
"How are you doing today?"
I was taken aback by his small talk. I knitted my brows together and tried to make a daisy chain of an answer, "I'm fine, I guess," I stumbled through an appropriate response and searched for anything to add onto. I had to turn on my corporate brain, "hoping it doesn't rain. I'm sick of the rain".
He laughed. "Yeah, me too. Ever since I got here it seems like it hasn't stopped raining."
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Indiana. Yeah, I know, big guy from the big city!" Oh, so he's a Hoosier.
Now I laughed. Short, small bursts of air puffed from my nose. "Where in Indiana? I've never been but I'm familiar with most of the state capitals. Have to keep in touch with the American roots," I joked.
"Muncie. It's a little college town. Blue collar. I don't expect you to know it."
I shrugged, "no, I don't. Is it close to Indianapolis? When I moved to Winnersh, I had a layover at the airport there."
"No, not really. It's about an hour and a half away. Where are you from?" He turned the question on me awfully fast.
"California."
"Wow, so that must've been an interesting experience."
"Oh, yes, it certainly was," I tried my best to laugh.
Now it was time to get to business. I could see the corporate mask slip on. His expression changed from friendly to serious. His lips pulled together and his brows lowered. "When Mr. Page showed me your work I found it incredibly interesting. You capture action very well," he opened the leather-bound portfolio and rifled through the thick pages of black paper. White tabs held the photos at each corner, allowing for an unobstructed view and the ability to remove the picture at will. "That will be a valuable skill when taking shots of the band. You also have an excellent eye for detail and great depth of field. I'm very impressed." He closed the portfolio.
I was quiet. I nodded. What was I to say?
"We should move onto business, shouldn't we?" He asked. His nose was narrow and pointed at the end, almost in the shape of an arrow.
"I suppose."
"Well, if you were to join our team you would be shooting the band and sending the film via mail. I would have them developed and get them to publications that were looking for photos. Mainly magazines that are running articles. And, of course, we would publish them in our magazine at the start of every month, given what article is being run. You could also be sent out for shoots when you're not working with the band. It's just that Zeppelin is very in demand right now, so we would want that to be your main focus."
I was so nervous I didn't really know what to say. It sounded great but I wasn't sure if the money would be great.
"If you're worried about your photos in other hands, don't worry, our team of developers is excellent. They are highly trained and-" he spoke with stressed features.
"No, that's not it. I actually used to work as a developer. I spent most of last year in a dark room," I interrupted. he laughed, his brows coming back up, "I just don't know how great of a fit I would be. I mean, I haven't really done something like this. I've only shot three or four bands."
"You have a personal connection with the band, as Mr. Page made it sound, and I see here that you are very adept. I think you would do wonderfully."
I sighed. This was new territory. I don't know what Jimmy told him, but it seemed like he was desperate for my employment. "I-I just don't know. How good is the money?"
"Well, we can't guarantee, of course, but most buyers pay per photo. For in-demand bands, you could get anywhere from 15 to 20 dollars. For an entire roll, which publications such as Rolling Stone or Circus will pay for, usually go for 30 or 35 dollars. We take a certain percentage, which can be negotiated if you agree to our terms."
Thirty dollars for a roll? Wow! My rolls would go for five or ten if I was lucky. Jimmy got me in good. There must be a catch. Surely. "What percentage do you usually take?"
"Five."
I clicked my tongue. "That's a bit steep."
Now my corporate mask was thinly strung across my face.
He jumped in his seat, lurching forward, "I can assure you that it averages out for our services."
"Four percent."
He sighed and placed his palms on the table. "Okay, four percent."
I smiled. I was content with my quibbling. Sudden confidence had come from his apparent interest in my work. This was the first time someone was willingly offering me a good position.
"Now is the matter of your stay on tour, which is the major concern of our contract. The tour is finished on September 20th, as Mr. Page told me in our lengthy phone conversation. You will be staying through the entirety, correct?"
"Yes."
"Alright, that is sound. Now," he put his fists on the table with a smile, "I don't expect that you'll be filling a roll each night, but I do expect one roll every week. On the weeks they have minimal shows, you could do one for every two weeks."
I sat back in my chair and the tension in my body diffused. I was more relaxed than when I first entered. The sweat on my underarms had dried and I was able to take in my surroundings better.
His office was large and neat with modern furniture. A large brown desk sat between us, riddled with stacks of papers and a lamp on the corner. A picture window lined the back wall, blinds occluded any view into the street below.
We were on the third floor of the tall building. His office was one of three on the level. Four rows of cubicles occupied the majority of the space left on the floor. I had passed people writing copy and reviewing shots on the way in.
"Right."
His secretary sat outside his office at a small desk. I could hear her humming while reading a magazine as I waited for William to see me in.
"Now, let's just sign the papers and we can get it finalized." He said. The brash overhead lights shined off his slicked-back brown hair.
We ended the meeting with the signing of papers. My hand shook as I held the stout pen. I scratched my signature on the allotted lines, looking down at the dark ink. It's set in stone now. I've got my first real job, where I'm taking the photos I want. People were going to see my work!
The cabbie helped me retrieve my luggage from the trunk. I slapped a 20 in his hand and was on my way. I ran through ran into the hotel lobby, seeking refuge in the heat of the bright room. It was pretty nice. White sitting chairs surrounded oaken coffee tables. Gold chandeliers hung over the red runner that started at the entrance. My heels squeaked with each step as I trudged up to the front desk.
"I'm here as a guest under Grant." The dark-skinned woman worked on checking me in. I took notice of her big, blue eyes and red nails. Her hair was long and sleek. "I love your nails. I can never go for a color that bold. Wouldn't look good on me." I was soaked from the rain and felt out of place in the lovely interior design but tried to appeal through flattery.
She gave a short laugh. "Thank you. I think it contrasts with my eyes and skin quite well." She held a boney hand up to her cheek, posing with a smile.
"Yes, you look absolutely ravishing!" I mocked Jimmy's grandiose accent.
She waved me off with a smile, telling me the room was ready. I didn't get a key.
"One last thing, if you don't mind me asking," she caught me before I turned away from the counter, "but you are here for the band, right?"
"Yes, I'm the photographer." I stood curiously at the counter. There was a puddle at my feet.
"Oh, well, I was going to ask if the rumors about them are true. About the lead singer, y'know?"
I pulled my brows together. "What about him?" I leaned in close as her voice lowered to a whisper.
"That he has a big... Y'know."
I hollowed in laughter, slamming my hand on the counter. I was tickled by her assumption. I wish I knew.
After my fit died down, I could see that she was uncomfortable. "Oh, well, I don't know about that. I'll have to find out about that. I'll report back to you if I get that information."
And I was on my way down the hall to the elevator.
Taglist:
@anothercanyonlady , @jonesyjonesyjonesy @paginate54 , @seventieswhore , @jimmypages , @jimmys-zeppelin , @jimmysdragonsuit13
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