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homomenhommes · 2 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 2

1805 – Born: Hans Christian Andersen, often referred to using the initials H. C. (d.1875). Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Snow Queen", "The Little Mermaid", "Thumbelina", "The Little Match Girl", and "The Ugly Duckling".

During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide, and was feted by royalty. His poetry and stories have been translated into more than 150 languages. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films.

Hans Christian Andersen was born in the town of Odense, Denmark. The family was associated with Danish royalty, through employment or trade. Whatever the reason, King Frederick VI took a personal interest in him as a youth and paid for a part of his education. Later, Hans Christian was forced to support himself. He worked as a weaver's apprentice and, later, for a tailor. At 14, he moved to Copenhagen to seek employment as an actor. Having an excellent soprano voice, he was accepted into the Royal Danish Theatre, but his voice soon changed, and he began to focus on writing instead.

Jonas Collin, who, following a chance encounter with Andersen, immediately felt a great affection for him, sent him to a grammar school in Slagelse, covering all his expenses. Andersen had already published his first story, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave, in 1822. Though not a keen student, he also attended school at Elsinore until 1827.

He later said his years in school were the darkest and most bitter of his life. At one school, he lived at his schoolmaster's home. There he was abused in order "to improve his character", he was told. He later said the faculty had discouraged him from writing in general, causing him to enter a state of depression.

In 1833 he received a small traveling grant from the King, enabling him to set out on the first of many journeys through Europe.

It was during 1835 that Andersen published the first installment of his immortal Fairy Tales. More stories, completing the first volume, were published in 1836 and 1837. The quality of these stories was not immediately recognized, and they sold poorly.

His true genius was however proved in the miscellany the Picture-Book without Pictures (1840). The fame of his fairy tales had grown steadily; a second series began in 1838 and a third in 1845. Andersen was now celebrated throughout Europe, although his native Denmark still showed some resistance.

In June 1847, Andersen paid his first visit to England and enjoyed social success. The Countess of Blessington invited him to her parties where intellectual and famous people could meet, and it was at one party that he met Charles Dickens for the first time. They shook hands and walked to the veranda, much joy to Andersen, and he wrote of it in his diary.

In Andersen's early life, his private journal records his failure to have sexual relations. Andersen often fell in love with unattainable women. The most famous of these was the opera soprano Jenny Lind. One of his stories, "The Nightingale", was a written expression of his passion for Lind, and became the inspiration for her nickname, the "Swedish Nightingale". Andersen was often shy around women and had extreme difficulty in proposing to Lind. When Lind was boarding a train to take her to an opera concert, Andersen gave Lind a letter of proposal. Her feelings towards him were not the same; she saw him as a brother, writing to him in 1844 "farewell... God bless and protect my brother is the sincere wish of his affectionate sister, Jen."

Just as with his interest in women, Andersen would become attracted to non-reciprocating men. For example, Andersen wrote to Edvard Collin:

"I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery."

Collin, who did not prefer men, wrote in his own memoir: "I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering." Likewise, the infatuations of the author for the Danish dancer Harald Scharff and Carl Alexander, the young hereditary duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, did not result in any relationships.

In the spring of 1872, Andersen fell out of his bed and was severely hurt. He never fully recovered, but he lived until August 4, 1875. Shortly before his death, he had consulted a composer about the music for his funeral, saying: "Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps." At the time of his death, he was an internationally renowned and treasured artist. He was receiving a stipend from the Danish Government as a "national treasure".

1905 – Serge Lifar, Russian dancer, born (d.1986); Lifar was the last of Diaghilev's dancer- lovers. He used his looks, charisma and talent, fuelled by his fierce ambition to become one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the 20th century.

Some say that Diaghilev was instantly drawn to the handsome 18 year-old dancer, others suggest that Lifar made sure Diaghilev noticed him. One slight fault had to be corrected before the 'honeymoon' - and before the stardom that 'marriage brought'. "Don't sit in the sun. The paraffin will melt," his colleagues teased. But the nose job had its intended results. Lifar, just twenty, became the lead dancer of the Ballet Russes and Diaghilev's lover, as well. His charm, persistance, whatever, paid off and he joined the list of Diaghilev star dancers/lovers in the footsteps of Nijinsky, Leonide Massine & Anton Dolin. This meant he was cast in leading roles and encouraged to choreograph, as Diaghilev had done before.

He was at Diaghilev's bedside when he died in 1929, but the maestro's death left the Ballet Russes in chaos. However, Lifar was invited to star in a production at the Paris Opera Ballet, to be choreographed by George Balanchine, but his illness saw Lifar taking his place and he successfully went on to become ballet master and director of the Paris Opera Ballet until 1957 - although he was accused of collaborating with the German High Command during the Occupation of Paris and banished between 1944 and 1947.

He remained a major figure in international ballet for the rest of his life and was, with Boris Kochno, Diaghilev's last love, the last of the line from the great Diaghilev. He died in Switzerland in 1986.

1914 – Sir Alec Guinness, English actor (d.2000); Guinness married the artist, playwright, and actress, Merula Salaman in 1938, and they had a son in 1940, Matthew Guinness, who later became an actor.

In his biography of the actor, Alec Guinness: The Unknown, Garry O'Connor reveals that Guinness was arrested and fined 10 guineas for a homosexual act in a public lavatory in Liverpool in 1946. Guinness avoided publicity by giving his name as Herbert Pocket to both police and court. The name Herbert Pocket was taken from the character in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations that Guinness had played on stage in 1939 and was also about to play in the film adaptation. The incident did not become public knowledge until April 2001, eight months after his death.

The authenticity of this incident has been doubted, however, including by Piers Paul Read, Guinness's official biographer, who believes that Guinness was mixed up with John Gielgud, who was infamously arrested for such an act at the same period of time, though Read nonetheless acknowledges Guinness's essential bisexuality.

1945 – Linda Hunt, is an American film, stage and television actress known for her role as Henrietta Lange in the CBS series NCIS: Los Angeles. After making her film debut playing Mrs. Oxheart in Popeye (1980), Hunt portrayed the male character Billy Kwan, her breakthrough performance, in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). Her role as Billy Kwan earned her an Academy Award, an Australian Film Institute Award, a Golden Globe nomination and various other awards.

She has had great success in films such as The Bostonians (1984), Dune (1984), Silverado (1985), Eleni (1985), Waiting for the Moon (1987), The Relic (1997), Dragonfly (2002), Yours Mine and Ours (2005) and Stranger Than Fiction (2006).

Hunt has also had a successful television career. From 1997 to 2002, Hunt played the recurring role of Judge Zoey Hiller on The Practice. She currently plays Henrietta 'Hetty' Lange on the CBS television series NCIS Los Angeles, a role she has played since its debut in 2009. The role earned her a Teen Choice Award nomination in 2011. She is also the narrator in the God of War video game franchise.

Hunt is is 4 feet 9 inches (1.45 m) tall. In high school, she was diagnosed as having hypopituitary dwarfism. She does not have Turner Syndrome as some blogs have stated.

Hunt is openly lesbian, and since 1987 has lived in Los Angeles with her wife Karen Klein, whom she married in 2008.

1952 – David M. Halperin is an American theorist in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, critical theory, material culture and visual culture. He is the cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and author of several books including Before Pastoral (1983) and One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (1990).

Halperin is openly gay. In 1990, he launched a campaign to oppose the presence of the ROTC on the MIT campus, on the grounds that it discriminated against gay and lesbian students. That same year, he received death threats for his gay activism. In 1992, he was accused of sexually harassing a male assistant professor, Theoharis C. Theoharis, in his department at MIT. In 2003, the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association tried to ban his course entitled 'How to Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.' In 2010, he wrote an open letter to Michigan's 52nd Attorney General Mike Cox to denounce the homophobic harassment by one of the latter's staffers, Andrew Shirvell, of a University of Michigan student, Chris Armstrong.

Halperin uses the method of genealogy to study the history of homosexuality. He argues that Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium does not indicate a "taxonomy" of heterosexuals and homosexuals comparable to modern ones. According to Simon LeVay, Halperin believes that "Aristophanes did not recognize a category of homosexual people, but only the separate categories of men-loving men and women-loving women" and that he "divided men-loving men into two independent 'sexualities' - the love of youths for adult men and the love of adult men for youths."

1952 – A New York court dismisses the disorderly conduct charge of a man who asked an undercover police officer to go to his apartment for "fun."

1954 – Walter Gibbons (d.1994) was an American record producer, early disco DJ and remixer.

Aside from being gay, Walter Gibbons was unlike most DJs at disco’s dawn. Born April 2, 1954 in Brooklyn, New York, he was slight, introverted and Irish-American when his rivals were outgoing and black or Italian-American.

Long before he got his own first big break at Galaxy 21 in 1975, Gibbons made things happen for himself. In 1972, at age 18, he met his first lover Rich Flores, and the pair lived together with an acetate lathe that made possible their own acetate label, Melting Pot Sound, which bootlegged the underground club jams of the early ’70s. By the time Galaxy 21 – an afterhours Chelsea club at 256 West 23rd Street – opened in August 1975, he’d broken up with Flores, and was more than ready for Manhattan.

Fellow Galaxy 21 DJ Joey Madonia – who later became Levan’s lover and lighting man – describes the multi-floored main room as a simple, unadorned space: Nothing distracted from the lighting and music. You couldn’t even tell it was a club from the outside.

He was an important part of the early 1970s New York City disco underground scene, influencing garage and house music DJs like Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan. He also laid the foundations for early 1980s experimental Chicago house music. One of the early pioneers of beat-mixing, and known for considerably more skillful mixing than many better-known DJs at the time, he is cited by many early pioneers of the house-music scene as an influence. His "Disco Blend" remix of Double Exposure's "Ten Percent" was once described by UK DJ Ashley Beedle as providing a "blueprint for house music".

Gibbons was known as "the DJ's DJ" because his peers would go out of their way to hear him play. Kool DJ Herc brought Dub to the New York City music scene, where Gibbons and other remixers played it and applied dub techniques to dance music. He played disco songs, focusing more on the percussion than the melody, and "stretched out the grooves so much that they teetered on the edge of motionlessness." Like Arthur Russell, who recorded with him, Gibbons "used dub as a dislocating device, preventing disco's simple groove from developing under the dancers' feet."

Gibbons became a reborn Christian in the 1980s, but still managed to turn out cutting edge mixes during this period (he simply focused on songs and lyrics that did not offend his beliefs). He died of AIDS-related symptoms in 1994.

1961 – Christopher Meloni is an American actor. He is known for his television roles as NYPD Detective Elliot Stabler on the NBC legal drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for its first 12 seasons and its spin-off Law & Order: Organized Crime, and as inmate Chris Keller on the HBO prison drama Oz. In June 2012, he returned to HBO as the vampire Roman on the main cast of True Blood for the series' fifth season. Meloni also starred in and executive produced the Syfy series Happy! from 2017 to 2019. His films include Man of Steel, Wet Hot American Summer, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, 12 Monkeys, Runaway Bride, 42, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Meloni was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of three children of Cecile (née Chagnon), a homemaker, and Charles Robert Meloni (1927–2012), an endocrinologist. His maternal ancestry is French Canadian, and he is a descendant of Matthias Farnsworth. His paternal ancestry is Italian, with roots in Velva [it],in the municipality of the town Castiglione Chiavarese, (province of Genoa, in the region of Liguria.)

Meloni worked as a construction worker prior to getting his acting break. He has also worked as a bouncer, bartender, and personal trainer. Meloni worked his way up the acting ladder with commercials, short-lived TV series, and bit parts in a number of films. His first noticeable role was the hotheaded son of a Mafia don in the 1996 thriller Bound. He appeared as Robbie Sinclair's friend Spike in Dinosaurs in the early 1990s. He played criminal Jimmy Liery in eight episodes of NYPD Blue during 1996-1997 and the fiancé of Julia Roberts's character in the 1999 romantic comedy Runaway Bride.

From 1998 to 2003, Meloni portrayed the bisexual criminal Chris Keller on the HBO series Oz with its famous nude scene.

Meloni has appeared in many public service announcements in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. In 1999, Meloni jokingly kissed Lee Tergesen (who played Tobias Beecher, Meloni's on-screen boyfriend on Oz) at an awards dinner for GLAAD. In 2006, Meloni was given the Human Rights Campaign's Equality Award, along with actor Jake Gyllenhaal and director Ang Lee, for his work on behalf of LGBT issues. In addition, in 2011, Meloni appeared in the Human Rights Campaign's "New Yorkers for Marriage Equality" video. Meloni was included in the 2006 edition of People magazine's Sexiest Men Alive.

2013 – Uruguay senate approves same-sex marriage by a vote of 23-8, becoming the fourteenth country in the world to legalize marriage equality.

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ohyangchon · 11 months

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Alistair,

It’s Joel again. Th’ Duke’s goons got their hands on ya, and I was movin’ our shit outta our usual spot ta somewhere less infested - by the time I got there, your place had been trashed and I found ya out like a light in our bedroom.

Navezgane’s finally gone ta hell. I’m settin’ ya up with a doctor pal o’ mine, Jen, th’ next town over and she’d be helpin’ ya relearn th’ ropes while ya recover. I’ve still got crap ta settle - maybe start trackin’ down whoever did this ta ya and teach ‘em a lesson they ain’t ‘bout ta forget. When all this is said and done, I’m ridin’ up on my 4x4 and bringin’ ya home like th’ bride ya deserve ta be. No more fightin’ zombies and runnin’ ‘round like a headless chicken doin’ these dangerous jobs.

P.S. I donated all th’ stuff ya said ta donate ta some o’ th’ survivors that were helpin’ me with errands. Only thing I couldn’t bear ta throw out was that black spear ya so loved. That one’s framed up in my office. Whenever this whole crisis with th’ Duke tides over, feel free ta come pick it up again. It’ll always be yours. ---- The new town was about as quiet as I’d expected it to be.

I’d set up shop next to Jen’s place, considering her interest in seeing my recovery. Learning to reuse the spear again was the first on my agenda (everything seemed scrambled in my head, and I’d pieced together crafting some basic tools through the magazines she’d been providing me), and the comfortable if not smaller grocery store beside her stronghold had been my base of choice.

Even so, occasionally tracing the drops of rain from the attic, I couldn’t help but think of the cabin from time to time.

Alistair’s Cabin. Joel had jokingly named it that, merging my name and the cabin’s together. It had been a little out of the way, but it had been our home. This “Moe’s Grocery” was comfortable enough, but there was just a spark of joy in the place that felt woefully missing without Joel sneaking over through the balcony to tease me about future work.

Of course, I was probably just counting my eggs a little before they hatched. Settling in to the place hadn’t taken much effort, with my scavenging across the mall strip a short walk away yielding well in starting myself off. Jen was a fair employer in what she offered me, and I was certainly relieved to avoid any bears in the vicinity for the time being, yet the emptiness remained.

At the very least, the sleepy town was more forgiving that Navezgane had been. Travelling at night for a quick scavenge saw a few loose zombies but nothing particularly threatening. The most harassment I received these days were the occasional vulture, and perhaps some snakes that lived in the area - more meat wasn’t something I complained about, I’d mused over the grill with Jen one night.

“You’re pretty special, I think,” Jen admitted, dropping off the crafting magazines in my mailbox with a grin, “I’ve never seen Joel stick his head out so much for a survivor like he did for you. He’d rather die than part with his money, but he was rushing you to me promising his entire fortune to keep you safe.”

“I wooed him with shepard’s pie,” I’d joked back, trying to keep matters cool, “Once I gather the ingredients for it, I could probably make you some. Only if you want to visit and take a break from treating people. Take it as thanks for saving me.”

Jen shrugged. “Least I could do. You were one of the best runners in Navezgane. Sadly, a doctor’s duty is never done,” she replied, already leaving as she tossed me a backwards glance, “If you really wanted to help, start donating your extra food tins to us instead. You’ve been growing a robust garden in your backyard - surely you could spare some crops.”

I reddened as she returned, glancing out towards the garden. It was true that I’d started developing a green thumb after coming to town, and the sprawling farm plot of various vegetables and hops were a testament to it. Once upon a time, I’d brewed an almost endless supply of beer, and now I’d been struggling to set up the chemistry station I once had to work the same way it did back inside the cabin. Not that I was lacking time, really.

Gardening took away some of the anxiety I had about how alone the nights stretched on, even if the place hardly attracted attention. While sitting at home waiting for night to pass, I’d taken to reading the various crafting magazines in the area and teaching myself the recipes to recreate some of the machinery I’d left behind in the cabin. It was either that or demolishing cars for spare parts (why were springs so scarce here?) or checking the dew collectors for a fresh water supply to brew drinks with.

For a moment, I could forget the place was less forgiving than Navezgane.

#7 days to die #tadprompts #guess who's back playing this again #after the update that ruined me because the trader moved lol

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rylandjennings · 11 months

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「 mr. ryland jennings 」

Full Name: Ryland Thatcher Jennings

Nickname/s: Ry, RJ, Ry the Music Guy

Faceclaim: Nathan Dean Parsons

Gender // Pronouns: cis male // he/him

Age // Date of Birth: 33 // February 7, 1990

Hometown: Pontiac, Illinois

Occupation: Songwriter

Neighborhood: Downtown

Time in Nashville: 17 years

「 quick links 」

nashvillehq | full bio | connections | tags

[ tw: parental death, car accident, mentions of drug use and bullying (sibling) - all triggers are tagged by bullet point throughout the intro below! ]

「 the introduction 」

[tw: parental death, car accident] Ryland’s parents were killed in a car accident when he was three and he was raised (along with his older brother, Cade) by his grandparents on their small farm in Illinois.

Ryland always had a thing for music. Started guitar lessons at age 8, got his first guitar at age 10, and visited Nashville for the first time at 16.

[tw: mentions of drug use/addiction] Ryland's older brother is a real dick to him and their grandparents, and he's a hardcore addict. Ryland hasn't seen him sober since Cade was 16 and Ryland was 14.

Ryland moved to Nashville just three days after graduating high school. He worked as a bar back at The Tin Roof, eventually working as a bartender and playing on the stage sometimes.

After being in town for 4 years, he finally got noticed by a record label employee, but not for his singing. The guy broke the news that Ry was a pretty face with a decent voice in a sea of decent voices and pretty faces, but his songwriting really stood out, so he offered him a job as a songwriter.

Ryland signed with his first label (label tbd) in 2011 and decided to go freelance in 2014 when his contract ended. Now he writes with artists across all labels, but he is exclusively country in genre.

Ryland has gone on tour with some folks across the industry from time to time, and he's pretty good at guitar and keys. He's the kind of guy who has no trouble filling in for someone on short notice, but touring is hard on his mental state when he is gone for too long.

「 deeper dive 」

Ry is a hopeless romantic at heart, and he’s notorious for thinking each new girlfriend he finds is “the one.” Ryland is a sucker for love. It doesn’t help that most country songs are written about something so incredibly consuming, so absolutely fascinating to the boy. Maybe it’s the fact that his parents were so open with their love in photos and videos, who knows?

Despite the chaotic relationship shared with his older brother, Cade, and the many issues Cade struggles with, Ryland tends to see the potential for good in everyone he meets. He's one to ignore the red flags or lackluster signs, which is obviously always a great idea, right?

Ryland has over 150 songs that he’s written or co-written that have been recorded and released. There’s a dozen more in production now, or songs that haven’t been handed off to be recorded just yet. The boy has written for and with the likes of Kelsea Ballerini, Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and more names that dominate the country music scene, but he’s never one to brag. In fact, he almost never brings up the people he's written for, and despite being friends with many of them, almost never admits that he wrote a song until he's asked point-blank.

Writing is his shit and he’s literally been known to forget to eat for 24+ hours when he gets in the zone. He does everything from tweaking tunes and lyrics to starting from scratch and writing entire songs, and you'll always find him with a notebook nearby, if not in his hand.

Because he spent the last 14 years in Nashville, Ryland’s Illinois accent isn’t as profound as people would expect. He also has a habit of picking up accents from people so he can make sure words actually rhyme when they sing it themselves, so people sometimes have a hard time pinning his accent to a certain region.

Totally important fact: Ryland has a massive crush on Sara Bareilles and probably has since “Love Song” blew up back during his senior year of high school. Please don’t get him started on it, it’s so embarrassing for the both of us.

「 at-a-glance timeline 」

1990: Born in Pontiac, Illinois

May 2008: Graduated high school & moved to Nashville, Tennessee

June 2011-March 2012: Dated Maggie Devereaux

2011-2014: Under contract as a songwriter (label tbd)

2014-Present: Worked as freelance songwriter

Nov. 2020 - April 2021: Dated Emilia Madden

#nahq.intro

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nityarawal · 7 months

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10/24/23

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Afternoon Songs

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Did Marilyn

Monroe

Know This

Is That What

Gave Her Confidence

Against The Odds

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Too

That's The Joy

Of Love And Life

Guessing Einstein

Knew

What You Seek Is

Seeking You

Too

Rumi Always Said

The Great Persian

Mystic

Poets

What You Seek

Is Seeking

You Too

Go Within

Wrap In

Blankets

Of Dreams

Transcend

And Find The Joy

Of It

A Union Appears

An Understanding

A Bird Call

Heard

Never Know Where

Just An Inclination

Did Marilyn

Walk Here

In The Fields

Walking Her Dogs

Near My Gardens

Did Marilyn

Walk Here

Was This Her

Vintage

Dressing Trailer

Should've Bought

A Cloth Bag

For All My New

Clothes

Maybe More

Will Come Back

Italian Leather

Coats

Muubaa

Soft Leather

Isabella Fiore

Woven Stitched Bags

Johnny Was

Israeli Designers

All My Things

Around Town

Cowboy Boots

Florentino Baker

Old Gringos

Golden Goose

Still Walkin'

Around

Dancin'

Swedish Clogboots

Cloggin'

A Rosebud Mirror

In Jen's Garden

Vintage Tin Rosebuds

Sent All The Way

From San Miguel

De Allende

With Love

Mexico Treasure

Hunting

For Maestro

Chile Gonzalez

Mirror

Found In Encinitas

Finally

Thrifting After

Years Of

Ebay Hunting

Real Estate

Bargains

Celebratin' Beach Home

Closes

Just A Tin Junk

Art Fan

For Your Garden

A Loan

A Memory

Of Nitya

Slumlordings

And Alibis

To Come

Oceana Said She Has

My Persian Carpets

Collected From Grandparents

One Made Especially

For Kings Taster

With Sill Fuschia Rose Buds

On Silk

White Wool

Just A Vintage

Dressing Room

For A Movie Star

Covering Old Wallpaper

In White

Might Make It

An Art Box

With Peacock Wash

Motif

Om Symbols

Ganesh

My Kids Names

In Sanskrit

Just A Walk

On An Old Dirt Road

In The Sunflowers

Alone At Last

Like Marilyn

Know How She

Feels

In The Sage

And Red Shenk

Old Trails

Peace

At Last

Peace,

Nitya Nella Azam Davigo Moezzi Huntley Rawal

0 notes

ginwhitlock · 3 years

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summary: human!JASPER/ human!BELLA. Bella is called to deliver day supplies to a very tired and mostly lost 1st Regiment Calvary, headed by no other than Major Jasper Whitlock. What will the two do once left alone to go over maps of the Tennessee hills?

fic type: oneshot, SMUT 18+

warnings: is set in the civil war, which means Jasper is a soldier in the confederacy literally only because he’s from Texas I promise, it would’ve been weird to make him union and apart of the Texas Calvary as that wasnt a union regiment, I do not support the confederacy or any of its beliefs, its just part of his backstory and this fic is centered directly in his human life (the confederacy itself is not mentioned in detail, it is just alluded to the fact). This is a smut fic but not hardcore in anyway so be warned. Oh also I made Bella and Emmett siblings. Of course.

She almost broke his nose kissing him.

She almost shattered bone and cartilage clicking their teeth together, enamel scraping enamel.

She almost caved in the center of his face so she could lick the insides of his molars, separate his jaws to find the pit of his throat, dangle her self righteousness by his uvula.

And to think she almost didn’t go out that morning.

Isabella Marie was the kind of pretty you didn’t see right away. The layers of fine muscle and fragile skin hiding the richness of her blood-red cheeks, crisp even in the horrible heat of August. And with that heat came hot headed Calvary men with unlined coat pockets and a hunger for pretty little girls.

She met Major Whitlock three miles outside of town, the local preacher sending her out to their camp with as many baskets as her daddy’s two mules could hold on their hips. She was flushed, the slot of her breastbone slick with afternoon sweat— her riding boots did nothing but slosh around with her pale feet inside, leather no match for Tennessee mountain hidin weather.

Maybe she should’ve dropped ice down her shift. Maybe she should’ve played dead and waited for God to put her on her ass.

The thin brunette was graced with the presence of an even skinner red head the moment Stubborn Ass’s (as she affectionally called her steed in private) hooves entered the temporary camp. The mans hair fell limply in front of his eyes which were slightly sunken, the blue of his irises molting into a starved shade of dust. His lips were worse. Once pink and slightly plump, now skinny and cracked with the less than dusty air.

“Is this the 1st Regiment Calvary? From Texas?” Her voice was strained and feverish, salt dripping off her Cupid’s bow.

The man nodded and offered a hand, “Names Sargent Henry Arquette. Nice to see you Miss, the boys haven’t been able to get any supplies up here for days,” Bella grasped his hand tightly, afraid her unskilled balance would come into play, and forced her weight down to the ground ungracefully, “you’re the sheriffs daughter, right miss?” His smile seemed correct handing off his skinny face, his teeth crooked and off centered, but sweet. She quirked her lip in return.

“Yes Sargent, I seem to be your supply wagon today. There’s more back in town but I was told you wouldn’t be in for a day or so.” Flushed and overdressed, that’s how she felt. Every second.

Henry took in the view of the well fed half breeds and gestured off handedly, something she would come to learn was an action he didn’t even notice he performed. “Day. Days. Who knows until we ration it. These trails are less trails and more raccoon paths. I’m just waiting to see why the hell we’ve been sent so far east to begin with.” He had no recognition what was proper to say in front of the young lady at his side, the year had been sucked dry of any feminine… life, to say lightly. A piece of his brain nudged him for speaking so plainly, but Bella never once looked offended and twitched her head in both sympathy and understanding. She had been raised in these hills. She knew their damnation like the back of her hand. Maybe even the back of her skull.

“I’ve heard about raids up in McMinnville. Bases and such lining up and down the mountain. My brother’s part of the 16th Regiment Calvary up there actually, you know. Things are heating up in our little slice of the world.” The little thing spoke like a sparrow, her nose pointed and soft, the bottom of her front teeth pillowing into her bottom lip. At the age of seventeen she seemed somehow both grounded and unsure.

The south was ripping itself apart. And she— and the Sargent, knew it.

Bella could see the redhead start to comment on her brothers hand me down gossip when a giant of a man— boy? Man? Definitely man, by the looks of his muscled shoulders and high jaw, the darkened cast shifting just under the skin of his cheeks, the low dip of a scar just below his brow— a brow which furrowed, twisted, and arched back up into his tanned forehead when he noticed the mules waiting restlessly, tails swinging behind a girl in a kinder man's idea of a dress and interrupted the lower soldiers train of thought.

“You must be Miss Isabella McCarty. I spoke to your father when we arrived last night.” Clipped and forward were his words, his hand outstretched in front of him, decorated in mis-matched freckles and calluses she could feel pressing into the column of her throat as she placed her small palm in his. “Major Jasper Whitlock, at your assistance.”

No smile graced his face but by God she would witness his lips stretch over his teeth if it was the last thing she ever did.

Still with her hand in his she whispered “You can call me Bella. Or Bella Marie. Or Isabella Marie oh or my mother calls me Belle or sometimes when my father is upset with me he calls me Marie McCarty like my grandmother used to and um..” her tongue had to have swelled to the size of a watermelon in the three seconds it took to look him in the eyes— the swamp green eyes in fact. Eyes the color of duckweed and marigold stems and whatever leaves would stick to the blackberries in the spring.

He laughed. And it sounded like a white flag waving in her insides. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Maybe the preacher was a righteous man after all.

“I like Isabella Marie. Miss Isabella Marie.” Like rain drops on a tin ceiling.

The Arquette boy looked between the two before edging towards the black mules “Any orders where to put these, Major?” Skinny lips. Skinny spine.

Jasper had finally looked up from the strawberry cheeked girl in front of him, released their hands, and knocked his head backwards, towards the other soldiers checking tents and cleaning their own horses.

“Just take em back to the storage tent. Not like it’ll be competing for space.” The Major looked back at his men “Calhoun, Jennings, help Arquette move these rations will you? Make yourself useful for once.” His voice didn’t have to boom and condense like a rung out air horn, the cool of his vocal cords carried and personally plucked the not yet men from their activities and dragged them towards the group of three. Like some sort of magic act.

Bella was far from resigned. “So Major Whitlock, what would you like me to do?” Hopeful eyes, always searching to please. Or to piss off— as Emmett always scorned.

An upturn of lips flashed through Jaspers face and he looked to the sky for a mere moment “Mind helping me sort out some of my maps back in camp? My backwoods knowledge ain’t as sharp as my Houston kind and you seem like an expert in this area, getting yourself up to us all alone.” Bella’s feet started to move on instinct towards the felted wool tent covering a hundred or so feet behind the large man, but his hand stopped her at the shoulder, “And, if you don’t mind, would you be my guide back to town this evening? I’ve got to scout the path for the boys to pull through by the end of this week.”

She should’ve thought longer about it, linger over his words, the way his tongue flicked over his canines and brushed noticeably at the edge of his front teeth. But she didn’t. Not now. Not when the time it would’ve taken could pick at the carefully constructed wall built specifically for boys with serpent tongues. And lion hands. And bear teeth and… he still waiting for her response.

A shake to her head “Of course Major. If you’ll help me bring the mules back home, you’d be more help to me than I think I’d ever be to you.”

He could taste her self doubt. And he didn’t like it.

A jut of his brow led them through the ragged campsite, broken down cinders coating the bottom of her unusually worn boots, the lace of her dress clashing horribly with the scent of charred flesh and resting wounds. If only she knew a doctor. If only the town still had one.

His tent was one of the stronger ones, every inch placated with the spine of a book or a map binder or a drape of letters. He needed a desk and a real bed and maybe someone to make sure he stayed warm during the mountain nights.

Jaspers hands found a tiny stack of drawn maps and laid them over his now folded lap on the ground. Bella swiftly found her place at his bended knee and ran a finger over the torn edge. “These look older than my father. It doesn’t even mark the trail you follow to town.” The squishy flesh of her thumb traced an invisible oil line through the mountain and deposited itself in a town with seemingly no name, according to the parchment. “That’s home. If you’re following these maps I don’t quite understand how you ever got here.” Her eyes were full, engorged on road markers and faded city names.

Jasper softly nodded, their heads just inches from each other as she leaned in to scour the map. He had barely gotten to the camp they were in, his right hand Henry doing nearly all of the sight work. He’d be a hell of a tracker if he was a bloodhound. The blond almost chucked at the thought of Henry with big floppy mutt ears, yelping at the pretty girl almost in Jasper’s lap.

Her hair was like a chocolate waterfall. The good chocolate that mama got sent to her from her sister up north, the kind that was broken off continuously, piece after piece fed to him and his sisters until nothing was left.

Part of him wanted to see if she tasted as sweet.

He’d blame it on how damn long it’s been since he’s smelled anything other than soured sores and gunpowder. Even if Miss Isabella Marie smelled good enough to eat. Good enough to take like a man starved. And God— Jasper hungered like no other.

“There’s a river through the valley here, if you can find yourself through the woods.” Bella had found a piece of graphite and drawn in the harsh line of a hidden waterway just a mile or so from camp. She looked up at him as she spoke, her eyes warmly whiskey colored through her lashes.

His mouth clenched. “How old are you Miss McCarty?”

She blinked rapidly, like coming out of a daze. “Seventeen.”

Her hand dropped the instrument to the paper and draw up to his knee, the covered bone sharp under her knuckles.

“Do you have a boy at home waiting for you, Miss McCarty?” Hot air blew from his mouth to hers like a heatwave. Like a curse.

Bella’s lips formed a small “No” as she slid her small hand up the Major’s thigh, her singular ring gliding like margarine inch my inch as the seconds ticked by, each breath marking the two closer.

“Do you have a wife, Major?” Only whisper escaped her rosebud mouth, his face turning downwards, noses only separated by spirit.

“I was too busy waiting for you, it seems, Miss Bella.”

Her heart thumped her chest hard enough to make her ears ring.

Bella’s fist jumped from Jasper’s thigh to his army issued button up and crushed his chest to her own, her lips finding purchase slotted against his, the force clinking their front teeth together without care. His hands were gripping the roots of her soft waves, their skulls as close as their skin would let them. She wanted more, more, the heat suffocating the tent from more than the August sun. Her thin fingers slipped easily through the button gaps as his tongue invaded the privacy of her mouth. A horrible demented part of her brain screamed ‘Take, Take, Take. Mark me down and climb into the spaces that were meant to fit just us.’ Her brother had always called her too much of a dreamer. Too much of a poet and a believer and an artist. But God. This man was in her hands and she felt like a masterpiece.

A man she hardly knew.

But somehow, the scrape of his knuckles against her soon to be bare thighs felt like they had known each other at birth. Like Texas and Tennessee were just minutes from each other. As if they were the only bodies in the whole entire war.

Jasper’s hands were of no gentleman’s when he unfastened the ribbons holding her skirt to her waist, the under coat used for riding coming off like silk in his calloused palms. She was moaning into his mouth, the world outside the tent becoming buttery soft and not to be worried about. All there was was Jasper and his fucking mouth moving to her neck and his teeth toying around her jaw.

“Jesus, Major” He chuckled at her swear and rid her completely of every layer but her shift and the wool of her stockings, the small corset she wore becoming just cannon fodder for the mouth and hands of the Cavalryman.

“I love when you call me that, darlin. Wanna hear you scream it.” She had barely gotten open a single button on his shirt before he brushed the maps out of the way and flipped her on her back underneath him, the sway of his curled mane teasing her, the golden wheat just barely out of the reach of her teeth or fingers.

She wanted to use it like reins.

She’d especially like calling him by his rank then.

“You know I—“ her breathing caught the better of her as he lifted her by her thighs and dragged her ass to his kneeled position, his fingers running up her stockings with particular care, each inch another layer to her growing wetness. She didn’t let go of her breath until he had reached the skirting of her underdress, the white cotton nearly see through with the sweat sticking to every inch of her skin. His watery eyes devoured the sight with an indescribable hunger. Like a wolf hanging over a bleeding lamb.

What a happy sacrifice she’d be.

“Are you a good little southern girl, Isabella?” His fingertips brushed just under the fabric, his intent not easily hidden behind his hardened brow.

She came out trembling, she couldn’t tell over excitement or fear. “Yes Sir. No ones ever…” even her mother would blush saying those words.

Jasper finally smiled, sharp and soul quenching, like a mist of rain before a hurricane.

“I’m going to ruin you.” He couldn’t tell her about the wedding playing out behind his eyes or the static electric resonance he felt thinking about how another man would never get to lay a hand on his pretty Isabella.

His fingers slipped over her cunt, the soft curling hair tickling his fingertips. The moist warmth wet his fingers before skirting over her lips. He almost groaned. She was soaked. He had to see what his little Belle looked like in the light.

Jasper’s eyes met Bella’s giant blown out doe ones, her elbows holding up her upper body, trying to anticipate his very next move.

If they were playing chess, he was going to win. And she had always been a sore loser.

The skirt of the shift creased with the heat of his palms against her stomach, the slightly cooler air blowing across her pussy, making Bella suck in a breath through her teeth, her bottom lip becoming stuck under them with practiced strength.

Her knees knocked against Jasper’s hips as he watched the pink of her pussy clench around nothing, her wet little hole puckering and buzzing with the want of something under his trousers. He licked his lips as he had a gathered two fingers at her slit and traced upwards, her breath coming out in pants as he reached her clit, the engorged nub nearly ringing in her ears. A small circle over it make her moan from her throat. Bella had never felt someone else’s touch, she had never realized how much she wanted for it. She never knew how much she wanted Jasper to touch her.

The solider took his time as he brought the pads of his fingers back down to her achingly small hole and gathered some of her slick, the smell of sweat and Bella nearly driving him half insane as he brought a finger to his mouth, his tongue licking her clean off.

If Bella could speak to God directly and have him reply, she’d thank him for the creation of Major Jasper Whitlock.

But all she could do was cry out for more. And more he silently promised to give.

Maybe too much.

He had to stretch her out, the head of his cock wouldn’t fit into her without an orgasm in her, not now at least. Jasper slowly brought his hand back a third time and entered a single finger, her hips nearly bucking against his wrist as he slowly sat himself. A bead of sweat ran off his brow. A second finger partnered with the first after a few pumps, in and out, in and out. The near wetness coated on those fingers alone could bring him to release in his cot. He couldn’t wait any longer.

“Isabella I have to—“ “Please Major I need—“

The two looked at each other, their mouths in sync as they sat, their souls intertwining and bundling up into a bramble of wonderful thorns, coy smiles gracing both their faces.

Bella sat up slowly and draped a hand over Jasper’s belt buckle. “May I, Major?” The shorty craftsmanship of the iron buckle became putty under her unskilled hands as he nodded, now without words for the angel in front of him. The belt was off before the two noticed and Jasper brought his issued pants down to his ankles and off with his shoes to rest with the scraps of her dress he had taken off so quickly.

“Do you… always go bare?” The squeak of Bella’s voice made Jasper snicker like the teenage boy he technically still was, the nineteen year old clicking his teeth together and grinning. “Miss McCarty, sometimes underpinnings only get in the way of an army man.” A deep blush settled into her cheeks as she slapped at his chest, his shirt hanging open just slightly as he pushed her back to the floor.

“Shush, Whitlock.”

His smile turned feral as the head of his cock graced the hood of her clit, bouncing just slightly with the breath of their bodies. Jasper marked in his head that this should be a sight to see on their wedding night, not their first night together, but by God was it a beautiful one.

He looked at her as he grasped one of her hips with his right hand and the base of his cock with his left. “Breathe, Belle. Breathe with me, alright?” She nodded her head slowly and brought her own hand to the tent floor, grasping tightly.

Jasper’s hand guided the head carefully over her lips and to her quivering entrance. One buck and he’d tear her to badly to bear. No matter how long it had been… he’d never rush with his Isabella. Not now.

He slowly pushed in, the stretch a burn like no other, Bella’s voice turning from a quick steal of breath to a long sigh, the air being pushed out as he took her in. Inch by inch she devoured him, the heat marking his cock in emotional third degree burns. The sky burned brighter, the colors in his eyes turned clearer. Her hips and her fragile skin and the slip of her cunt was the end of the world and the birth of something entirely new. She grasped his shoulders as he mumbled a slew of impressive praise as he allowed her to adjust and seated himself at the very base of her cervix. Her throat screamed out to him as her nails dug in his back.

A wonderful, wonderful burn.

Bella slipped a hand to Jasper’s hip to push him back, to set any and all pace so that the fire would keep burning. He quickly slotted his face in the clench of her neck and began to move his pale hips, beginning to push and pull within her very tight walls.

The tent was full of grunts and moans and breathy screams he was sure the entirely camp heard. But Jesus Christ he didn’t give a single damn at that very moment. His boys knew to stay out of his shit and they be proven that every second until his angel’s orgasm.

God he wanted to fill her up. Wanted to take all of his cum and bury it deep where the lord intended, leave her leaking and exhausted and full of everything he had. He’d empty his balls in her again and again if it meant the Tennessee flower in his arms would keep him forever.

He wanted her forever.

“Major, deeper, please God please yes YES.” Jasper’s hips were snapping at a rapid pace, his balls slapping against her ass as he drove her into the hard ground. He could feel her tighten up the way he felt the air change around him before a fight broke out, the way a horse steps on a snake without jumping. There was an electricity in the air and the moment Bella tore his head out from her and pulled him into a jaw crushing kiss, he was crumbling at her feet, her pussy clenching and spasming around his cock with enough force to take out a grizzly bear.

She locked her legs around his hips as he all but collapsed into her, his hair sweaty between her fingers as she combed through it as his dick twitched it’s last time inside her belly. Jasper’s own hands found repentance under her ass and stayed there, too tired to remove himself from her heat.

“That ride home is gonna be sweaty, isn’t it?” Her whisper made her snort and bite into the side of her neck as she giggled.

#btw the link on the summary is always the ao3 link #i cross post things there #jasper/bella #my writing #mine #writing #fic #twilight #thetwilightsaga #twilight fanfiction #jasper hale #jasper Whitlock #jasper Cullen #bella swan #confederacy tw #smut tw #smut

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the-velveteen-victorian · 4 years

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The Lizzie Borden Case: A List of Strange Occurrences And Happenings Worthy of Note (Part 1)

~ Tensions between Abby and Emma/Lizzie were high. Lizzie referred to Abby as a “mean good-for-nothing thing” in March of 1892.

~ The dispute between Emma/Lizzie and Abby when Andrew bought Abby’s half sister the property the sister and her husband were residing in (the sister owned half and her mother owned the other half and wanted to sell... the half-sister could not afford to buy her mother’s share), put it in Abby’s name, and allowed Abby’s half-sister and her husband to continue living there free of rent.

~ Emma promising her mother on her deathbed to take care of “Baby Lizzie”; possible grooming of Lizzie?

~ The robbery a year before the Bordens were found murdered: Money, gold, streetcar tickets, and items of sentimental value were taken in the middle of the day (none of the household members heard a sound)

~ There were food poisonings 2 nights before the murders.Swordfish left the elder Bordens with severe food poisoning and Lizzie/Bridget with mild symptoms (Emma being out of town). The night before the murders a dinner of mutton stew left the household- with the exception of Lizzie- ill again.

~ The night before the murders Lizzie visited old neighbor/friend Alice Russell and said she thought the milk was being poisoned… and felt that “somebody” was going to “do something”

~ There is also Lizzie’s alleged attempt to buy prussic acid the day before the Bordens were murdered (later there was reasonable doubt as an inspector’s wife had asked a different store for the same thing on the same date… and was said to resemble Lizzie).

~ Lizzie was supposed to be out of town during the time of the murders visiting friends. Instead she postponed it to fulfill supposed secretary-treasurer duties for the Christian Endeavor Society at a meeting on Sunday. She supposedly sent a letter explaining her decision to other members of the society… The recipient burned the letter after the murders so that Lizzie’s actions would not be misconstrued. When questioned the recipient said very little about the letter, and none of the other women in the society would talk to the police.

~ Lizzie’s relationship with her father is also on the table… She stated she sometimes had to ask 2-3 times for money or favors, but usually received what she wanted… She was dissatisfied with her lot in life (receiving a spinster’s sum of $4 a week from Andrew who in today’s world would have been worth $10 million). Lizzie attended a church higher in society with which Andrew had had a real estate dispute with years before (resulting in him renting a pew at a more “modest” church).

~ Lizzie’s frustration with not living better or being on The Hill while Andrew simply hoarded his money (neither for spending nor social recognition on his part)

~ Abby, a 5’ tall 200 lb. woman, fell upstairs when she was struck down with 19 blows. Bridget was outside washing the windows and speaking to a neighboring maid…. But why did Lizzie not hear her fall… or at the very least hear some sort of noise…?

~ Lizzie calls Dr. Seabury Bowen and ignores the fact that 2 other doctors (Dr. Kelly and Dr. Chagnon) lived on her street… This may have been due to the fact that these doctors were Catholics while the Bordens were Protestants (no previous friendliness etc.).

~ The fact that Lizzie was heard laughing as she descended the staircase when Bridget said something funny as Lizzie’s father returned to the Borden house right after Abby would have been murdered. Bridget’s testimony later lined up with Lizzie’s descent of the staircase which would have put her in the line of sight of Abby’s body in the bedroom… Lizzie initially denied being upstairs and changed her story later saying that she HAD gone upstairs but only for a “few minutes.”

~ Lizzie’s change of clothes from blue clothing to a pink dress after the murders

~ The fact that there was at least an hour between the murders of Abby and Andrew- meaning that an assassin outside the household would have had to hide during that time and find their way downstairs to murder Andrew without being seen.

~ Lizzie’s initial story that Abby was out of the house after having received a note from a sick friend

~ The fact that when Alice Russell and Adelaide Churchill were with Lizzie (after discovering Andrew and sending for Bowen), Lizzie stated that Abby might have come home early

~ No note was ever found, no one came forward to state that they had indeed sent a note to Abby, no delivery-boy stepped forward to say one had been delivered, and the fact that no one saw Abby return home after said trip out cast doubt on Lizzie’s claim.

~ John V. Morse’s (Lizzie’s and Emma’s uncle) alibi was confirmed by a relative he was visiting and Dr. Bowen who was attending on said relative when Dr. Bowen was called back to the Borden house… It was strange that Morse was able to recall his streetcar number and the number on the streetcar conductor’s cap in such fine detail.

~ Even though Lizzie didn’t have food poisoning symptoms the night before the murders, she told Abby she wasn’t planning on having dinner the day of the murders… but during the murders she supposedly went to look for a sinker for fishing equipment in the barn (random?) and ate some pears up there that she gathered from the family’s fruit trees. She would have been in the one place that didn’t have a good view of the comings/goings of the household.

~ A convenient time for a crime as most of the police force was gone for their annual picnic near Providence, RI

~ Dr. Bowen’s protectiveness of Lizzie… even shutting the door in policemen’s faces to give her a moment to compose herself

~ Dr. Bowen’s strange burning of scraps of paper he seemed to be trying to piece back together… When asked about what he was doing he said it was a letter from his daughter. Officer Harrington, who caught a glimpse, said he saw Emma’s name on the burning paper… Dr. Bowen’s daughter’s name was Florence.

~ The pail of bloody rags that were found soaking in the wash cellar (Dr. Bowen provided a medical explanation for those)... Bridget had not noticed the pail until that day and that it could not have been there two days prior or she would have seen it as she put the contents in the wash that day.

~ Andrew Borden asked Emma to provide him with information on how she could be contacted by telegraph while she was visiting her friends… almost as if he had a sense something was going to happen.

~ Lizzie’s eerie statement after Adelaide ascended the stairs and glimpsed Abby: “O, I shall have to go to the cemetery by myself now.”

~ Lizzie’s lack of emotion while being questioned

~ Lizzie’s roundabout way of answering questions and often stating she did not understand simple questions

~ Lizzie’s last words under oath concerning a “shadowy” figure she saw lurking about the house a couple weeks before the murders; she was not able to provide specific dates or times for these sightings

~ Alice Russell said that initially Lizzie told her she went to the barn for some tin or lead to fix a window screen… not for sinkers

~ There was a testimony from a seamstress who stated that Lizzie, among other things, had said she and Emma did not usually eat with the elder Bordens... and would often wait until they were finished to go and eat themselves.

~ The warrant for Lizzie’s arrest only mentioned Andrew Borden

~ Lizzie received special treatment in her cell as her keeper was the mother of a childhood friend (Mrs. Wright).

~ The matron at the jail where Lizzie stayed prior to and during her trial overheard Emma and Lizzie talking… Lizzie allegedly said, “Emma, you’ve given me away.” Emma replied: “I only told Mr. Jennings [one of Lizzie’s lawyers] what I thought he ought to know.” Andrew Jennings finds out and tries to get the matron to sign a statement saying that she will not speak about the quarrel. She refuses and goes to City Marshall Hilliard… Hilliard advises her not to sign the statement and to wait to testify.

Andrew: Abby’s and Emma’s biological father

Abby: Emma and Lizzie’s step-mother

Emma: Lizzie’s biological sister

Bridget Sullivan (Emma and Lizzie called her Maggie): The house maid

Andrew Jennings: One of Lizzie’s lawyers

Alice Russell: An old friend and previous neighbor of the Bordens

Adelaide Churchill: Their current neighbor who first asked Lizzie after the murders: “Where were you?”

John V. Morse: Lizzie and Emma’s uncle (their deceased mother Sarah’s brother)

Dr. Seabury Bowen: A physician and neighbor of the Bordens

#lizzie borden #the borden murders #strange facts #andrew borden #abby borden #emma borden #fall river massachusetts #unsolved true crime #true crime #victorian crime #1892 #19th century crime #will it remain a mystery #92 second street

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maybeginny · 5 years

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TeamStarKid Descriptions

TeamStarKid: a bunch of thirty-ish year olds acting like children by making fun of other franchises but they're on a stage and they’re hilarious

Members (not all, but a lot, of them):

Nico Ager, Julia Albain, Rachael D. Albert, Chris Allen, Nick Anderson, Joel Arnold, Julie Ballard, Clark Baxtresser, Jaime Lyn Beatty, Jeff Blim, Mary Clare Blake Booth, Michael Bou-Maroun, Pat Brady, Cory Braun, Adam Brunetti, Tyler Brunsman, Mike Burke, Jamie Burns, Richard Campbell, Joe Carroll, Phil Chester, Amalea Chininis, Kavin Chung, Britney Coleman, Mason Cormie, Brant Cox, Darren Criss, Sam Crittenden, Matt Dahan, Corey Davis, Drew DeFour, Kevin DeKimpe, Denise Donovan, Corey Dorris, Jess Dumbroff, Ilana Elroi, Jason Emmendorfer, Erdem Ertal, Max Evarard, Mariah Rose Faith, Elona Finlay, Justin Fischer, Josh Fleury, Andrew Fox, Scott Fussey, Paul Gabriel, Nick Gage, Matt Glenn, Arielle Goldman, Ali Gordon, Gordon Granger, Lisa Griebel, Hayley Hanway, Samara Harand, Michael Hart, Andrew Hill, Jeff Himes, Brian Holden, AJ Holmes, Justin Hong, Jade Ingardona, Sam Johnides, Marta Johnson, Nick Kabat, Eric Kahn Gale, Max Kaufman, Proma Kholsa, Jon Jackson, Bob Joles, Craig Kidwell, Bruce Kiesling, Angela F. Kiessel, Justin Kono, Mike LaFond, Justin LaForte, Scott Lamps, Jen Lang, Matt Lang, Nick Lang, Mark LeGrand, Lauren Lopez, Chris Lorentz, Corey Lubowich, Evanna Lynch, Devin Lytle, Robert Manion, Jon Matteson, Lily Marks, Ryan McDiarmid, Lana McKinnon, Jama McMahon, Kaley McMahon, Curt Mega, Alle-Faye Monka, Joe Moses, Yonit Olshan, David Orlicz, Lauren Pais, Alex Paul, Devon Perry, Sarah Petty, Eric Pidluski, Tony Pisaneschi, Madeline Platt, Amy Plouff, Jim Povolo, Ryan Proch, Carolyn Reich, Corey Richardson, Joey Richter, Molly Rife, Claire Roche, Josh Romero, Brian Rosenthal, Cami Ross, June Saito, Jacob Saleh, Lena Sands, Dylan Saunders, Matt Script, Pierce Siebers, Christopher Smith, Teia Smith, Bonnie Socha (née Gruesen), Rachael Soglin, Miles Spagnola, Katie Spelman, Mike Sportiello, Meredith Stepien, Taylor Stanton, Jack Stratton, Nicholas Joseph Strauss-Matathia, Emily Stromberg, Ruby Summers, Jade Svenson, Mark Swiderski, Sango Tajima, Emily Thomas, James Tolbert, Anna Troiano, Ronnie Vail, Carlos Valdes, Meryl Waldo, Joe Walker, Lauren Walker, Russ Walko, Andy Warren, Kim Whalen, Liam White, Tiffany Williams, Clara Wong, & Marguerite Woodward

*this list most likely does not include all of the StarKids

Productions:

Little White Lie: a YouTube show about bands but Duder's a spy

A Very Potter Musical: Harry Potter but Harry is an ass, Ron is a jerk in love, Hermione is bullied, and Voldemort is hot and in love in Quirrel

Me and My Dick: Joey Richter plays a sex-crazed version of himself but it's a musical with singing dicks and vaginas

A Very Potter Sequel: Harry Potter but they go back in time and the actor who played Voldemort in the first one plays a chubby little fuck but is still hot

Starship: the little mermaid but with bugs and in space

Holy Musical B@man!: Batman but Dylan Saunders' voice fucking slays and instead of the Joker they have Sweet Tooth who makes a lot of candy puns

A Very Potter Senior Year: Harry Potter but Harry is even more of an ass, Voldemort is even hotter, and you will cry

Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier: Wicked but for Ja'far and Aladdin is a dick

ANI: A Parody: Star Wars but the villains are the heroes, Darth Vador is not threatening, Tarkin is in love with a stormtrooper, Jar Jar is lovable, and they pod race again

The Trail to Oregon!: the game but the characters are named by the audience and they are all idiots

Firebringer: cave people but with revolutions, love, and fucking awesome choreography

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals: a musical about a guy who doesn't like musicals but a meteor crashes in his town that turns everything into a musical

Black Friday: a horror comedy commentary about capitalism and corruption but Dylan Saunders is BACK and fucking bops (i will add everyone who worked on this incredible musical to the list of StarKids as soon as i have time, sorry)

*this list does not include tours, concerts, reunions, The Harder They Fall, Hobbit, Hobbit 2, Yes, I am Afraid of the Dark!, 1 Night 2 Last 3 Ever, Airport for Birds, Movies, Musicals, & Me or their YouTube Short Comedy Sketches for the sake of simplicity

Tin Can Bros: a separate but similar theater company created by a few StarKids but they are still StarKids

Members:

Corey Lubowich, Joey Richter, Brian Rosenthal

Productions:

Spies are Forever: a musical about spies but they say the word spies way too many times and the plot twist will smack you and call you a bitch

The Solve It Squad Returns: Scooby Doo but they avoid copy-right infringement by changing all of the names and they are aged-up and depressed

*this list does not include Alive! On Stage!, Seriously Not a Joke, We Didn’t Plan to Kill Our Guest, Idle Worship, Flop Stoppers, Wayward Guide, Choose Our Destiny, or their YouTube Short Comedy Sketches for the sake of simplicity

If I forgot or am wrong about something, please let me know so I can fix it

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shiros-boyfriends-are-pretty · 4 years

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It was the beginning of the summer months of 1814, a simultaneously eventful and uneventful year for the house in Kent.

The Davis estate stood down a winding, unpaved road, hidden by trees. Its grandeur had been glimpsed by few, largely because no one dared to venture in, lest some misfortune befall them.

But the house and its inhabitants suffered not for the lack of local society. Sunlight filtered slowly through high windows just as it did on any other day, landing on old floorboards and intricate wall carvings- and a door. It looked to be elderly in its own right (the door) with carefully placed stained glass in the center panel, surrounded by more heavy wood. However, its age was soon no consideration, as a tall, sprightly young man swung it wide open, waiting on neither servant nor maid to attend to him.

"You cannot be serious, Madam, I know the man and his family are fed and taken care of; they do not need your hospitality."

The old woman, in contrast, merely stepped inside. She paused, and let her attendants remove her shawl, hat, and gloves from her form, speaking passively as they flitted about.

"Laurie you were quite entirely present; the Jennings' will stay here in this house."

"John works for the cobbler down the street! The only one in town. He is paid well enough!! Even his wife works as a seamstress under the Boyles!!"

"I will not hear another word on the matter, Laurie."

"They are lying to you."

"Laurie."

"But it's absurd!"

"Laurie. "

Her change in composure was brief lived, but he turned to face her nonetheless. Laurie attempted to speak but found himself unable to utter another word. He brought his hand to his mouth instead, gazing about the foyer in pure frustration.

Laurie sighed, turning away. His hands bracing against the table beneath him.

"These people- villagers! They gossip, slander your good name, speculate the validity of your fortune and your right to own it. They cannot stand to see a woman be rich without a man, and yet you grin and bear it! You have funded their church luncheons and school supplies and their opinions remain the same. They see you as someone from whom to leech! To fund their every desire until you are as ragged as they are."

If she registered his vexation at all it barely affected her. Madam Davis simply walked by him, into the sitting room. She arranged her skirts to facilitate her sitting, and called for a cup of tea. From her right pocket she retrieved a small tin of lemongrass hand cream, which she massaged into her deep brown hands. She was neither frail nor able bodied, neither short nor tall, and forever wore an expression akin to neither frown nor smile, a trait Laurie Elkins found most insufferable in times such as these. Nonetheless, as her maid brought forth the tea, she beckoned him to join her for a cup.

The two were so opposite in temperament at that very moment that you would have almost thought them siblings, despite the 40-year gap in age. His hair loose and wild, hers kept in a low bun; his collar undone slightly, her dress perfectly in place; his stance agitated, hers poised. They seemed two sides of the same coin.

The tea and time dwindled, and Laurie started again,

"I cannot understand why you care so much about any of them."

The lady set down her cup.

"Well, that much was clear."

"Then why do you care?"

The question hung in the air, finally asked properly.

"My dear Laurie, my mother raised me to believe I was nothing if not what I did for others, and I have lived my life continuing that selfish delusion."

Laurie's face contorted, confused.

"Selfish? I'd call you anything but!"

"Is it not selfish to find joy in being a conduit of happiness? To strive so wholly to be what people rely on to keep the world turning? To be praised and well liked for being nice? God does not make everyone happy because He is selfless. I, on the other hand, chose to love everyone for my own selfish gain, make no mistake. To love others is a narcissism most grave indeed."

"But is it not a moral obligation to others that drives kindness? Most treat it a burden."

The woman smiled a small smile.

"The most selfless thing that can be done is to leave others alone and care not about them. Actions have consequences regardless, and caring often hurts before it helps."

That response would not satisfy, but then again neither would tea, so the lady called to ask when the meal would be ready, and to discuss the plans for the Jennings' arrival.

The sun had moved to grace the tea set, but otherwise nothing had really changed. Outside, birds prepared for the night to come, feeding their nearly grown children. The winding road that lead away from the Davis estate remained unpaved, the woods still obscuring each end of it from the other. It was an ordinary summer day, in 1814. Uneventful and eventful all at once.

Happy are the things that never change. As such, quite little is truly happy.

#excerpts from the book i'll never write #writings #writing #my writings #original writing #regency #i wanted to write like jane austen ok sue me #also theyre both black we need more regency stuff with POC the era is too beautiful not to have it #can we get more regency era novels #ok end of rant #okay to rb #ok to rb

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thefinalyeehaw · 5 years

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Ballad of Dell Jennings (Rdr2 fanfic) Prologue pt. 2

Part 2: Dell Jennings, Horse thief

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Horse thievery became Dell’s main staple. She had a natural talent for horses, the broncos were calmer and trusting in the presence of the young girl. Because of this ability, Dell becomes an expert in luring even the most headstrong horses from the hitching posts of local saloons without alerting the riders or patrons of the crime. Then afterward she sold the fillies to Mr. Larson, the dubious owner of the neighboring town’s stables, who never batted an eye when Dell always rode in on the horse she planned to sell him.

She knew stealing horses was the equivalent to murder, especially out in the West, where equines was a person’s livelihood. Guilt would probably eat at her if her intended targets weren’t well-to-do businessmen whose pockets could afford another pony.

The money Dell stole from her “guide” was dwindling fast, she spent a large amount when visiting the Creedstad general store, prior to the theft of Jolie, for supplies after an appointment with the sneering tailor to fit the clothes stolen from the unguarded suitcase of a male train passenger. She was in dire need for a big score and soon, her tinned ration supply receding at an alerting rate.

“Ya wanna make serious bank?” Mr. Larson asks one foggy morning, leaning against the wooden gate of the stall as Dell brushed the slightly tangled mane of a Dutch Warmblood. Sometimes Dell worked at the stables when she needed to lay low until the law of a neighboring town stop sniffing around for a horse thief to string up.

“What do you mean, sir?” She knew to be wary about any job suggestion the stable owner gave her. Mr. Larson, a hefty Midwestern man with a thinning scalp of caramel hair, steely-eyed, with a bear-like rumble of a voice, is a notorious swindler who uses down-on-their-luck schmucks to do his dirty work and then, is not afraid to finger them for the blame.

“Ya know, a gig, one that could fill up ya pockets handsomely,” Though facing away from the man, she could tell the stable owner was becoming slightly annoyed by Dell’s oblivious attitude, the man had a rigid no-bullshit policy.

“Oh! What is it then?” Dell always enjoys playing the role of a fool, everyone underestimates her cleverness because of her age and impoverished appearance. And never fail to be flabbergasted when realizing they have been hoodwinked, cursing the young thief’s name in the wind as she rides into the next town with a heavier satchel and a sly grin plastered on her face.

“I’m glad you asked, Mr. Jennings,” Mr. Larson said in a sing-song voice that made Dell suppress a cringe at the Mr. It became apparent early for Dell, many people believed she was a boy. A belief only made truer by her lanky shapeless figure that swam in dark billowing shirts, often hung off her narrow shoulders, despite it buttoned up to her sternum. The cuffs of her oil-ruined pants rested high above her ankle, the ill-fit hem was cinched tightly to her amorphous hips by a well-worn belt. And her hair, pixie-cut mop of auburn locks, often hidden underneath a tan Stetson hat, Dell stole from a drunken man asleep at the bar of the saloon she was scoping out. To everyone else, Dell looked to be a young orphaned boy, too tall and lithe for his clothes and filthy from the backroads the forgotten must survive on.

A few months earlier, she definitely had been offended by Mr. Larson’s assumption of gender, but now Dell knew it was a blessing, the young thief learn quickly it was better to be a wayward boy in the West, then a wayward girl.

“Ever heard a Hoagy Macintosh?”

Snapped out of her thoughts, Dell shook her head “No. Who’s that?”

Mr. Larson let out a heavy sigh behind her, grumbling underneath his smoky breath about clueless brats. Ignoring the miffed owner, Dell finished brushing the horse’s mare, she admires dark silky hair as the strands seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the stable. The glow of the horse’s mane reminded her of a simpler time in her past, she often forced herself to not think upon it, for it was just too painful to recall. As she returns once again to the present, Dell noticed Mr. Larson began explains further “Hoagy Macintosh is a wealthy doctor from New England, comes a long line of well-respected physicians-”

“What does this have to do with the job?” She turned to the man, irritated. He was beating around the bush, she could tell. Usually, Mr. Larson was very straightforward with his demands and bargaining, so this was unknown for Dell, it terrified her.

“If ya didn’t interrupt, brat, I would have gotten to the goddam’ point!” Mr. Larson growled, annoyance flashing on his aged face before returning to the man’s regular scowl “Long story short, he’s in town and owns me some money from a poker game a few years back.”

Now, was that so hard to say? “Okay. How does this involve me?” Dell responds, watching as another stablehand, whose name Dell could never place, slip past her to grab the reigns of Dutch Warmblood. The stable hand guided the snorting bronco around the two and outside to the fenced-in field for grazing.

When Dell glanced back at Mr. Larson, a sense of dread filled her belly as the stable owner grinned wolfly at her, showing off his missing front tooth “I want ya to steal the bastard’s horse.”

* * *

The sense of dread never left her.

Not even after she delivered the silver Turkoman to the grasp of Mr. Larson, grinning crazily like a man who lost his mind. “Thank ya for ya service, Mr. Jennings!” The man celebrated, clapping Dell in the back with a level of force that would send an unbalanced person to the ground. “...All in a day’s work, Mr. Larson” She wheezed out, her lungs heaved from nearly having the air knocked out “So where’s my payment?”.

Mr. Larson simply waved her over, telling the young thief to come back in a week and a half, claiming that once the horse is sold, she will be paid.

Irate, Dell stormed out of the stables. She wasn’t too pleased about waiting for the couple of weeks to get paid, people typically pay her once the horse is in their possession. Money was already tight of her, food was scarce back at her campsite, there was only a three-days worth of canned goods which mean she is going to go hungry before getting paid by Mr. Larson. She groaned aloud, rubbing a hand across her face, disgusted at the filth that appeared on her glove. Wishing deeply that she had the money to take a nice soak at the town’s hotel, guess she could wash up in the river, even though it was running with the melted snow from winter as the season of spring quickly approached. She grimaced at the thought of the frigid water kissing her bare skin, deciding that it was better to wait the week and a half than take her chances with hypothermia.

Dell strolled down the dirt road towards the town of Underwell, a tiny mining town known for its abundance of coal in the surrounding mountainside and its vast criminal underground. Though the town does not seem like a community of thieves, liars, and gunslingers with the freshly-painted houses, clean roads, quiet shops, and kind-looking people. But once the sun slips past the mountains, that when the low-lifes come out.

The sun hangs high in the clear blue sky, signaling noontime. Dell made her way towards the saloon, she has visited the bar to drink after the death of Jolie but got refused by an older barmaid, scolding the youth “Come back when there’s sum hair on ya chest”. Jolie, her late mare got bit by a rattlesnake while the two stroll through some tall grass, Dell tried to get the bronco to Mr. Larson get aid. The Midwestern man directed the distraught thief up to his office, distracting the youth with details of his new gramophone as a nameless stable-hand led the stumbling Turkoman behind the stable. Dell appreciates Mr. Larson turning up the gramophone in his office, muting the gunshot underneath the second-floor window.

Dell snapped out of her thoughts when she noticed a flash of white in the corner of her eye, she grinned as she caught sight of her prize from the theft. At the hitching post stood the white Arabian owned by one Hoagy Macintosh. When she went to steal the horse, she became intrigued by the powerful grace of the snow-colored stallion, deciding at the moment to steal the horse for her personal use. To swindle Mr. Larson, she decided to grab the horse next to the stallion, the silver Turkoman that is residing in his stable.

The young Arabian noticed the young thief’s arrival and announced his annoyance, stomping an impatient hoof upon the ground, stirring up puffs of dust. Dell rolled her eyes at the act, the stallion was barely out of his time of being a foal, so she knew the horse was yet to be trained.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You hate waiting, boy,” Reaching out to stroke the abrasive equine’s colorless mane, the stallion relaxed underneath the girl’s hand, leaning closer into her palm. Dell smiled softly, untangling her hand from the horse’s silky hair, she proceeded to climb onto the stallion, with much difficulty. The equine was unusually tall for an Arabian horse, at least a good hand or two taller than average. And Dell’s atypical height didn’t help her struggle with climbing on top of the horse, luckily the Arabian stay still as the girl managed to swing her leg over the stallion’s wide back, securing her boot in the other stir-up.

“Come on, boy, let’s go,” She said, pulling the stallion into a trot down the main road as they entered the outskirts of Underwell.

“Fucking asshole!” Dell cried out.

Early in the day, she returned to the Underwell stables a week-and-a-half later, to collect her payment. “I haven’t sold the horse yet,” Mr. Larson called out from his second-floor office as the young thief entered the stable. Dell blinked for a moment, then her confusion morph to anger “What? You told me that I would be paid in a week and a half. It’s been a week and a half! Where’s my money?” Her voice bounced off the wood walls of the stable, startling a few of the horses in nearby stalls. Dell knew better than to cause a public scene, but she was too livid by Mr. Larson’s deception to care.

Mr. Larson, unfazed by the youth’s outburst, clambered down the wood stairs that groaned underneath the weight of the burly man “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Jennings,” The man said, tilting his balding head down in mocking guilt, Dell fought the urge to knock out his remaining front tooth as the stable owner approached her. “Ya see, the fella I was intending to sell the Turkoman to, never showed. So I have been scrambling to find a new buyer, unfortunately, I hadn’t got much luck” Dell huffed, scrubbing her face with her hand. She was nearly out of money, despite taking on a couple of horse stealing jobs, to provide some food for herself and her new horse. But it still wasn’t enough, and now the law slowly closing in on her after a botched theft in a few towns over, she needed to leave town soon with cash in her pockets.

“How long you do need?”

“Another week.” Mr. Larson quickly added when Dell shot the owner a dumbfounded expression “An old buddy of mine coming to town, he owns land in Michigan, he’ll take the horse off my hands for the same price I gave the other fella.” Mr. Larson then stuck out a paw-like hand in front of the conflicted horse thief “Do we have a deal, Mr. Jennings?” Dell stared down at the hand as if she had never seen one before. Knowing this was probably of Mr. Larson’s scams to sell her out to the law, in order to keep the cash, and by shaking the man’s hand, she might as well sign her death certificate too. But money was scarce, she desperately needs the profits from the Turkoman sale to keep her afloat, at least until she reaches the next county.

Throwing all caution to the wind, Dell reached out and shook the meaty palm.

“You have a deal, Mr. Larson.”

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan #john marston #charles smith #dutch van der linde #hosea matthews

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tin-town · 12 days

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Welcome to Tin Town!

Here's all you need to know about us!

...

Tin Town is an independent multimedia art project created for digital platforms; a thematic collection of art, literature, comics, and music, among other things!

Every addition tells the story of four characters in an industrial yet decaying future, threatened by an imminent catastrophe!

They must embark on a mission to save the world and, most importantly, break free from their old lives in the name of adventure!

What can we say? It's just another story about a group of friends saving the world!

Or is it?

...

Now, let's take a look at our beloved characters! Starting with...

Jen!

Feisty, amiable, and bearer of genuine sincerity. Her bubbly attitude makes her the heart that binds the team together, and her fiery passion makes her someone who always strives for the better! Though it is well said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Ted!

The calm anchor amidst chaos; cordial and serene. His honorable character brings a soothing flow and balance, making him the dependable foundation of the group. Don’t take him for granted, however! He’s not your everyday teddy bear and can really pack a punch!

Ivy!

Decisive and down-to-earth; her low-key nature and spot-on observations make her the master key of the bunch. With an unwavering focus, she keeps her promises to heart and will do anything to see them fully accomplished, although the means taken can be... unconventional.

And... Kev!

A spunky, spirited firecracker that is sure to be your partner-in-crime! Exuding spontaneity everywhere he goes, he's a wildcard among his peers. Even so, he often finds himself stuck in a whirlwind of his own, so he may need a helping hand every now and then.

...

A little more about Tin Town:

Tin Town arises from a deep dissatisfaction with the current state of society and the life-consuming exhaustion that comes with being part of it.

Tin Town is also a wide compound of various references and interests! Art-wise, it takes heavy inspiration from retro-futurism, which helps further enhance the commentary on industrialization.

In the same way, we draw inspiration from surrealism and op-art, as it forces us to find new, unconventional ways to portray our vision.

More contemporary references include internet projects like Homestuck, which also rely on multimedia storytelling.

Most importantly, Tin Town originates from the love that comes with being human, the feeling that there’s more to life than what it seems to offer, and the experience of fighting in the name of life in a world where everything seems to fall apart.

...

So, if you managed to read to this point, we invite you to stick around to see what we've got in store! Tin Town optimally relies on public engagement, and it can only reach its full potential with your help!

These are our socials in which we may upload:

▪︎ @/tin.town on TikTok

▪︎ @/tin-town on Tumblr (You are here!)

▪︎ @/tintownofficial on YouTube

▪︎ @/TinTownOfficial on Twitter

Likes, reblogs, and overall interactions are highly encouraged to help us know that you're interested in our vision!

Thanks for reading, and see you later on!

With love, Tin Town.

🖤

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visitaustralia-biz · 6 years

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Visit Tasmania's East Coast | Discover Australia

Hi, it's Clint and Jen here from the TV travel series, Places We Go. Let's talk about Tasmania's East Coast. Without doubt, it's one of the most stunning coastal drives in the country and here's our guide to help you on your way. Firstly, we love exploring the region by car. The Great Eastern Drive is stunning and the only thing you have to worry about is keeping your eyes on the road. Alongside the spectacular beaches and fresh local seafood, there are some historic townships worth exploring too and there are so many wonderful little towns along the way, you are spoilt for choice. The two largest towns are St Helens and Bicheno. Now at St Helens, which is the Bay of Fires region, it's lit up by the white sandy beaches and the red lichen on the rocks. Remember when we went snorkeling with an abalone diver. Ah, that was fantastic. We had the most magnificent seafood feast down by the pier in St Helens, just a charming little fishing village. And then an hour drive down the road, we headed straight to the blowhole, which it certainly gets rid of the cobwebs especially when she's roaring. And she was roaring. We also went to East Coast Nature World and saw the Tassie devil. Remember Charlie, she absolutely loved it. This is the best day ever. And we loved the glass-bottom boat in the Gulch and saw the unique marine life. And if you like wine, one of Tassie's best vineyards is on the road south from Bicheno, Spring Vale Winery. And inland from the coast, you'll find the temperate rainforest and the rich heritage of the boom days of tin mining. We also walked up the Blue Tier, hugged the hundred year old eucalyptus trees, which you loved. It was spiritual. It was amazing. There's actually five national parks along the coast and if you keep driving south, you will come to the Freycinet National Park. Coles Bay and Wineglass Bay, voted one of the top 10 beaches in the world. The National Park is famous for those pink granite mountains, the Hazards. One of my favourite afternoons was when we were kayaking on Coles Bay and the Hazards, they were lit up by the sun. We also loved the Freycinet Marine Farm, where we got some lovely fresh oysters and mussels. We actually took ours back to the balcony of our holiday park and ate them til the sun went down. Oh, delicious. And you can't not go up to the lookout over Wineglass Bay at sunset. It just sums up why we love this part of the world so much. Tassie's East Coast. It's a ripper. Happy travels.

https://youtu.be/vT6CrOQCDcM

#australia #tasmania #downunder

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keywestlou · 3 years

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KEY WEST PLATO'S ATLANTIS?

Plato’s Atlantis sank because of an earthquake. Key West will not die a similar death. If anything, it will be because of an overload of people.

Two recent Citizens’ Voice comments and the cruise ship referendums reflect the thinking of the Key West citizenry.

One comment: “The mayor of Maui is pleading with airlines to stop ‘over tourism.’ There needs to be a balance between the tourist economy and the locals. Seems applicable here too.”

The other comment: “The town is already overrun by too many tourists from the pent-up demands from the pandemic. Now there are some who want to add thousands more daily from the cruise ships? Insane.”

In November, the people of Key West spoke re the cruise ship problem. The three referendums clearly revealed the feelings of the people: Limit the size of the cruise ships and number of passengers.

The vote meant nothing to the Governor, State Legislature, and certain monied persons. The State passed a bill and the Governor happily signed it into law prohibiting local ballot initiatives or referendums from limiting size, number of passengers, etc.

The people of Key West lost! The result of political shenanigans. The Governor and State slapped Key West in the face. More accurately, spit in Key West’s eye.

Fortunately, whoever drafted the new law withdrawing the power of a municipality to control its own waters may have erred in the drafting of the law. There may be a drafting screw up whereby the City Commission could take a different route whereby the people can be heard.

A meeting is scheduled for monday night where the Mayor and City Commission will review the matter and hopefully arrive at a decision consistent with what the people of Key West want.

Esteemed and respected Key West citizen Joseph Lyles called the other night. Joseph and I have been friends for many years.

The last time we were together was at a monday night Dueling Bartenders. Some time before the pandemic became a problem. Which means Joseph and I have not communicated in more than 2 years.

It was a joy hearing from him.

Joseph for years was a waiter at The Hot Tin Roof. Then manager for an additional number of years. Following which he was the concierge at the Reach. He presently is involved with the sale of legal marijuana at a Dual Street location.

Sounds like Joseph jumped from one job to another. Not correct. He is on in his years and been around long enough to have had several occupations. In addition to which he has spent many years involved with St. Paul’s Church.

Joseph reached the cane stage earlier than I. I recall when he graduated from a cane to a staff. A rough pole about 5 feet tall. He reminded me of John the Baptist.

We agreed it had been too long since last we were together. We will be meeting for lunch at Louie’s Backyard.

Mosquitoes are a bit earlier and a bit more this year. The increase in rain thought to be the cause.

Mosquitoes are always a Keys concern. Some years can be extremely bad.

Last summer, there were 67 reported cases of dengue fever in Key Largo. Unusual.

Two nights ago, I had difficulty sleeping. At 3 in the morning, I turned on the TV set. Saw an enjoyable war movie. A submarine one. Starred Matthew McConaughey.

The movie was titled U-571.

In the Citizen’s Historical Section yesterday, mention was made of a vessel whose last name was Cueno. On July 9, 1942, it was sunk 66 miles southwest of Key West. Sunk by the German submarine U-571.

Any relationship between the movie and submarine that sank the Cueno?

There was a German submarine U-571 that worked the waters off the Keys. Actually several other submarines also. I did some further digging. Could not however find any relationship between the sinking of Cueno and U-571.

Joe Biden has a heavy plate. So far, so good. However, he has to move swiftly on a couple of matters. Certain things can only be permitted to sit too long.

The cyberattacks are one. Biden spoke with Putin for one hour in a telephone call this week. Drew the line in the sand. Time now for action. One more ransom situation and he must move. He has the capacity to destroy one of the cyber attacking facilities. Or maybe blow up one of Russia’s pipelines. The pipeline a step too far? I don’t know.

One thing is certain. Putin does not want a war. He is aware he is not the leader of the Soviet Republic. He heads the tiny entity called Russia. Except for his nuclear arsenal left over from World War II, he is no threat to the U.S.

Putin has major unrest in Russia. He is not the power person he was even 5 years ago. Russia cannot afford a war. It is hurting financially. Ergo, he can be pushed.

Biden’s other problem is getting legislation through Congress. The bottom line remains the same since he took office. Get rid of the filibuster. If he could and did, by the time of the 2022 elections he will have achieved great success. He could easily pass infrastructure as he wants it, get new voting laws in place, and whatever else he desires.

Manchin and Sinema are his problems. Their bipartisanship efforts have proved naught. They are being played by the Republicans and seem blind to it. They are glorying however in their 15 minutes in the sun.

Biden has to get them on board or get two Republicans to vote for ending the filibuster and supporting some Democratic programs. May not be as difficult as it sounds.

Failure to get sufficient legislation passed wills result in Republicans taking over the Senate and House in 2022. I have to believe Biden is not lacking in awareness of this fact. He has to move and do so this summer.

Remember the Scopes trial. Also known as the Monkey Trial. The trial began this day in 1925 in Rhea County, Tennessee.

The issue evolution in violation of a Tennessee criminal law. Scopes was a high school teacher who taught evolution in violation of the law.

The trial a big deal! Clarence Darrow represented Scopes. William Jennings Brian the prosecution.

Scopes was convicted. Tennessee’s Supreme Court ultimately overturned the conviction.

The trial turned out to have been a fraud. A joke. Not for real.

The Rhea County merchants wanted to bring business to their area. They concluded a big time trial would place their area on the map. They rigged the whole thing. Everyone bought it at the time. Except the merchants and Scopes who were in on the phoniness.

I doubt the judge and counsel were aware.

It is amazing how people to this day believe the trial was for real.

The house without air conditioning for 3 hours plus yesterday was difficult to handle. I decided on a leisurely lunch at Geiger Key. Most enjoyable. By the time I got home, the air was running and the house cool.

Enjoy your day!

KEY WEST PLATO’S ATLANTIS? was originally published on Key West Lou

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communityadvocateot · 4 years

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My (biased) position on my positionality

Tin walls trapping the summer heat in a densely packed township. A pot of rice cooks on the gas plate. Five children with hungry stomachs await their measly dinner after a day in their crowded creche. Two neatly made beds covered with a traditional blanker await their paraplegic mother and her five children. This is you.

Brick beige painted walls surrounded by short green grass. Pots simmering--hearty curry. The smell permeates the house as the family have dinner after a day of work and university. Awaiting them are three neatly made beds, for three family members. This is me.

The problem is, I just can’t seem to understand you…

As a 23 year-old white, English, South-African female university student. I grew up in a semi-rural town in a close-nit middle income family of my single mother and older brother, with the support and parental-type guidance of my loving, yet conservative grandparents. Diligence, skewedness, skillfulness, and ‘family-first’ priorities were inherited familial values and core skills. I went to a multi-racial, white cultured Christian government high-school.

Blah blah blah… This is alll me….. This is my positionality. But what do my ‘labels’ matter to the members of the community if I cannot see them for who they are?

As I have had a completely sheltered life with little involvement in drugs, alcohol, abuse, and life from a perspective of poverty. I have to consciously look outwardly taking in the aspects that make up a members of the community’s perspective instead of focusing on myself. For instance, where an individual sees smoking Zol as therapeutic and meaningful for her mental wellbeing... and perhaps,, for her, it is. This is what makes community block is a perfect opportunity for me to realise the barriers of my positionality. And how this constricts the effectiveness of any intervention I could provide, to anyone, anywhere. Lee Ross has a video on the impossibly of being able to break free form your own perspective and the effects this has on complex social dilemma. Why not check it out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCBRB985bjo&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

Providing healthcare in a culturally, religiously and racially diverse country requires a practitioner to be exceptionally sensitive to various outlooks and beliefs. It requires the practitioner to lay aside ascribed positionality and visualize life through their own positionality. Cultural sensitivity cannot be learnt. It cannot be achieved by an attainment of knowledge. However, experience can increase ones awareness of their lack of awareness, and perhaps this is key

It is important that the intervention is evaluated by the community themselves as is seen in a rehab study by Kloppers, Pretorius, & Vlok, (2016). They discovered that many clients related on the positive experiences and enjoyment obtained during rehabilitation as opposed to the minimalization of bodily limitations. This contrasted with the purely academic and function related perspective of the healthcare provider in the study. Quite obviously stated: intervention received by the community must benefit the community. The community must experience this intervention as beneficial within their perspective and from their positionality. If, for the members of the community, effective intervention is talking about their five children who they are unable to feed in a support group with other mothers over coffee, or learning vocational skills through whilst being involved in the garden project at the clinic. Effective intervention, is intervention the client deems effective.

Thus, considering this, my individualistic mentality is something that I need to deconstruct and reassemble, particularly whilst working in a community that thrives on ‘ubuntu’ (I am who I am because of who we are). The community thrives on wholistic benefit to everyone as opposed to addressing only one individual. This highlights the need for large scale, practical intervention that meets the basic needs of the people, a concept that initially turned my medically constructed mindset inside out. One way to better understand the dynamics of the community is to increase my awareness of the community member’s response to current social and political dilemmas. For instance, the nurses striking due to a poor work environment, provides a fundamental understanding to the positionality of staff and patients alike.

Finally, although I may be starkly different to the average Kenville community member. Butt, acknowledging my difference, my bias and my subjectivity is one step to freeing myself from the confines of my positionality. As Benjamin Franklin said “Most men indeed…think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error” I may not understand you, yet, but I would like to get to know you, if you let me?

References

"II. On the Federal Constitution by Benjamin Franklin. America: I. (1761-1837). Vol. VIII. Bryan, William Jennings, ed. 1906. The World's Famous Orations". www.bartleby.com. Retrieved 2019-12-04.Kloppers, M., Pretorius, B., & Vlok, E. D. (2016).

Clients' subjective experience of their participation in rehabilitation at an out-patient community rehabilitation center. South African Journal of Occupational Therapy, 46(1), 59-63. https://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2310-3833/2016/v46n1a12

Speak Green. (2014). I don’t understand you yet. Retreived from http://speak-green.com/portfolio/i-dont-understand-you-yet/

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nityarawal · 7 months

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10/24/23

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Afternoon Songs

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Did Marilyn

Monroe

Know This

Is That What

Gave Her Confidence

Against The Odds

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Too

That's The Joy

Of Love And Life

Guessing Einstein

Knew

What You Seek Is

Seeking You

Too

Rumi Always Said

The Great Persian

Mystic

Poets

What You Seek

Is Seeking

You Too

Go Within

Wrap In

Blankets

Of Dreams

Transcend

And Find The Joy

Of It

A Union Appears

An Understanding

A Bird Call

Heard

Never Know Where

Just An Inclination

Did Marilyn

Walk Here

In The Fields

Walking Her Dogs

Near My Gardens

Did Marilyn

Walk Here

Was This Her

Vintage

Dressing Trailer

Should've Bought

A Cloth Bag

For All My New

Clothes

Maybe More

Will Come Back

Italian Leather

Coats

Muubaa

Soft Leather

Isabella Fiore

Woven Stitched Bags

Johnny Was

Israeli Designers

All My Things

Around Town

Cowboy Boots

Florentino Baker

Old Gringos

Golden Goose

Still Walkin'

Around

Dancin'

Swedish Clogboots

Cloggin'

A Rosebud Mirror

In Jen's Garden

Vintage Tin Rosebuds

Sent All The Way

From San Miguel

De Allende

With Love

Mexico Treasure

Hunting

For Maestro

Chile Gonzalez

Mirror

Found In Encinitas

Finally

Thrifting After

Years Of

Ebay Hunting

Real Estate

Bargains

Celebratin' Beach Home

Closes

Just A Tin Junk

Art Fan

For Your Garden

A Loan

A Memory

Of Nitya

Slumlordings

And Alibis

To Come

Oceana Said She Has

My Persian Carpets

Collected From Grandparents

One Made Especially

For Kings Taster

With Sill Fuschia Rose Buds

On Silk

White Wool

Just A Vintage

Dressing Room

For A Movie Star

Covering Old Wallpaper

In White

Might Make It

An Art Box

With Peacock Wash

Motif

Om Symbols

Ganesh

My Kids Names

In Sanskrit

Just A Walk

On An Old Dirt Road

In The Sunflowers

Alone At Last

Like Marilyn

Know How She

Feels

In The Sage

And Red Shenk

Old Trails

Peace

At Last

Peace,

Nitya Nella Azam Davigo Moezzi Huntley Rawal

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in-the-bookish-dark · 4 years

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Trinity Bluffs - Chapter 1 - RL

From the small bay window at the front of my office, I could see everything worth watching on my block, which wasn’t much. Off to the right, a couple had just come into view, in the middle of an argument. At first, I thought he was going to slap her – right out in the open, right out in the street, just yards from the theater they’d walked out of only a moment earlier. Then I thought maybe she was going to slap him, just barely out of the shadows of the Majestic’s marquee. Neither of them were acting violently, no flailing of arms or even yelling, but there was a wiry, fluid tension between them. It was a steel cable they were both tugging on, one that had been taut for years, and I had no way of telling from my vantage point how many strands had already snapped. I usually get called into a case just before or just after the cable snaps, so I tend to keep my eyes peeled for such things.

They argued briskly with each other, like alternating gusts from a chill January wind, despite it being a particularly warm early June day in Fort Worth. The man’s arms were crossed; the woman’s were clasped together in front of her, gripping her clutch tightly. They stood at the corner, waiting for cars that weren’t coming, waiting for the pedestrian sign to change and allow them across to the far side of Main Street. I guessed that the same thing was restraining all their behaviors. Maybe their respect for rules, which kept them from plunging into the street without official sanction, despite the lack of traffic, was also keeping them from plunging daggers into each other. The crossing sign changed, but they didn’t notice immediately, being so wrapped up in their acrimony.

Aside from their tension, the view from my window was calm and quiet. In 1875, the struggling former Army outpost picked up the nickname “Panther City” owing to a report that the town was so inert that a panther was found sleeping in the street up by the old courthouse. Even nearly 75 years later, at least at that moment, a passing panther could easily have taken a nap in front of my building on the far south end of downtown.

It was too hot to sit in my office, waiting for nobody to walk in and nobody else to phone. I decided to escape. I’m versatile when it comes to that; I can be ignored anywhere, and preferably in a cooler locale. I grabbed my hat, gave a dismissive shake of my head to my two oscillating fans. They were fighting the good fight, but all that effectively meant was rearranging the hot, stale air and annoying the flies. I closed my window half way, and trudged down the stifling stairs to my air-cooled backup detective office. I knew it was air-cooled because it said so in blue, cursive letters shivering atop ice blocks on the pharmacy sign.

Back then, my office was a barely furnished second floor walkup at the front of a short hallway right above a drugstore. The three story building was only slightly older than me, but looked and creaked like it was older than my grandfather. The cornerstone said 1896. I’d have believed it if it had said 1846, except for the fact that the indoor plumbing seemed mostly intentional, and not an afterthought. At any rate, in my backup office, I can sit at the soda fountain almost directly beneath my desk and hear the phone ring through the tin ceiling. As for visitors, unless they’re ballerinas – and I was never so lucky – they’d have been hard put to get five feet up the stairs without me hearing. Even so, through the drugstore window, I could watch them walk right up to my door.

Bob Wills greeted me as I walked in. He and his Texas Playboys had the Cotton Patch Blues. Third time this week they’d come down with them. Jerry always had the radio on WBAP, except if he was there at nights cleaning. At night, he could pick up WGN from Chicago and listen to the Cubs play.

“Jerry – some lemonade when you have a chance – with a splash.”

Jerry leaned his broom against the marble counter delicately, as though the wooden handle might mar the stone. After rummaging about with the lemons, sugar water and ice, and a brief dip behind the counter for a discreet splash, he slid my lemonade down the black and white marble to me. In the weak light, mostly reflecting in off the sidewalk, my eyes couldn’t tell the color was off, but my tongue told me the truth.

“Damn, Jerry, what’s the idea of putting bourbon in this? It tastes like horse piss.”

He shrugged and reached for my glass, but I pushed his hand back.

“Worse than abusing alcohol is wasting it, my friend. You never know when a drought is going to come on. Next one tequila, right?”

He bobbed his head up and down then turned to the back counter, forgetting his broom, and began wiping the soda spigots with a damp rag. He was a good-natured kid, albeit kind of slow, and in the way that never really speeds up. I doubt if he’d have gotten a job if his uncle hadn’t owned the drugstore. He’d have ended up the world’s oldest paperboy, throwing the world’s oldest news. So, his uncle gave him a job cleaning and serving sandwiches and sodas, and asked him periodically about visitors the druggist might have. The last guy there was running a booking joint out of the shop, and he wasn’t having a repeat. He was skittish enough renting an office to a private investigator, but I’d been fortunate, and hadn’t ever dragged any of my messes into the building.

I’d known Jerry maybe three years and for the first six months of that, any time I spoke to him, he flinched like his dad, his mom’s second husband, was about to smack him around some. His dad has since been taken care of by people much worse to cross than me, and with better reason than me, but Jerry still flinched around fellas he didn’t know.

Swirling his rag over the back counter, he lurched to a halt, gave out with a quiet “Oh” and just froze, facing away from me.

I gave him some time, but he stayed frozen. No wiping; no talking; no nothing.

“Jerry - what is it?”

Only then did he turn and with his eyes anywhere but my face, ask, “Uh, did he find you?”

“Tell me who, buddy.” Thinking it might help, I shifted my eyes to the same phone pole his were latched onto. No pressure. I waited.

Once he’d played the “who, what, where and when” again through in his head, he started up again.

“A man, a driver in a uniform and a big car come by before you got here –“

“A cop?” I cursed myself for interrupting. I didn’t care one way or another if the guy’s a cop. I had no particular beef with them at the moment, or vice-versa. I just know better – usually know better – than to mess up Jerry’s concentration when he’s trying to focus.

And then I had to wait for it while he rewound and restarted the reel …

“A man, a driver with a uniform in a big car like a chauffeur, come up this morning. Pulled up right by your steps. Goes up your stairs with an envelope; doesn’t even take off his gloves. I hear him up there, but he just comes back down, which is how I know you wasn’t up there. He comes back down and goes to drive off which is when I see he has a lady in the back seat. She looks at me looking at her and hits the seat in front of her and he stops again. He comes back around and stands by her window and she gives him a note. Then he comes right up to this window and walks in.”

“He asks about you, and alls I say is I don’t know, like you said to.” He smiled at this and I realized he was waiting for me to smile back.

I cut in with a quick “Good boy” which wound him up a bit, and for a moment, I was afraid he’d start back at “A man …” again, but after an extra beat, he went on.

“He don’t like it, but when I tell him how I’m your buddy and how you know you can trust me not to blab things, he figures maybe I’m alright. That’s just what he says, ‘Maybe you’re alright, you and your buddy.’” He practically glowed, repeating it.

Having someone else call us buddies got him cranked up again, so I just nodded like it was a good thing, which it was, and he went on.

“He hands me a folded piece of paper and says the missus would like Mr. Dixon to get this note.”

I gave him time to decide he’s done with the story, then asked, “That’s aces, Jerry, but where is it?”

He looked down in a panic, then slapped the pocket of his apron. “Right here, Dix.”

Relief flooded his face like the Jennings underpass in a storm.

After another slow count, I ask if I could have it. He flushed red and fished it from his pocket.

The half piece of cream colored stationary was engraved ELC in blue flowing script, with Mrs. John C. Conklin printed beneath in black. It held one line of handwriting, a perfect example of the Palmer method. “Please meet with me at my residence at your earliest convenience.”

Being only the upper half of the sheet, the note was missing its address, but everyone knew which house on Quality Hill belonged to John and Evelyn Conklin.

A meeting meant a possible job, however small, and I wasn’t about to balk. A visit could mean anything. Not that I had any illusions about Evelyn Lambeaux Conklin courting me behind her husband’s back. Even if I did, those musings were more for after hours, so I shut them down as fast as they came up.

Anyway, I’d been spending too much time lately tailing dirty husbands or wives, and it was starting to leave a permanent bad taste in my mouth. What I didn’t need was to raise my cynicism up to a new permanent plateau. With the Conklin woman, there was a shot at a change of pace. There was no telling what it might be, but at least there were more options out there than the same old dirt. Maybe some domestic was pinching silver or making long distance person-to-person calls..

I checked my watch as I asked Jerry, still standing in place, “What time, Jerry?”

“Nine … no … nine-thirty. Around there, anyways.”

Three hours. A reasonable delay. I’d appear ager enough for gainful employment, but not so eager as to invite being pushed around. Especially in this business, I don’t know if first impressions can make you, but they sure as hell can break you.

I fitted my hat on my head and pocketed some mints. Bourbon breath might pass for some of my clients, but not the Conklins. Hell, compared to some of my clients, I’m still a kid with my knickerbockers buckled above the knees, but compared to the Conklins, I pretty rough around the edges.

I slipped off the stool and waved back as Jerry called out “See ya, Dix!”

I was half way down the block to my car when I remembered. I turned and trudged back up to the second floor. I stepped down the hall to the second office on the second floor and slipped my head around the half-opened door. Alice was on the phone and fanning herself to beat the band. I pointed down at the floor and made a driving gesture. She nodded and waved me off. Alice didn’t work for me, but for some decrepit insurance shill who officed next to me. He was seldom around, so if there was nothing going on, from time to time, if she was talking to me that week, she’d run down and grab my phone if I was out. Her pay? Dinner now and then, with any stories I could make up about my exciting career as a detective. Sometimes it was actual local gossip, or a slightly harrowing encounter with a poodle. Sometimes it was a story I picked from radio shows and reworked to fit Fort Worth. It was a fair exchange. My phone didn’t ring that often, so I didn’t have to make up that many stories. Cute kid, but a little straight-laced for my tastes. More important, all her cuteness aside, I was all full up on ex-wives at the time, so I was eager for things to stay calm and copacetic with Alice.

Three blocks west on 7th, I decided on one quick diversion.

I whipped right around the next block, up a few streets and around another corner and parked kissably close to a hydrant. All the better to encourage me to keep the visit short. ELC’s invitation was to meet with her specifically, which made me curious about her husband’s participation, primarily whether it was welcome or not. Two minutes of reconnaissance would tell me all I needed. I was on a nodding basis with Conklin, principal managing partner of the Worth National Bank. He recognized me and was known to sometimes nod at me in passing. I was known to sometimes appreciate the gesture. A quick stop at the bank would doubtless tip me to whether he knew of his wife’s invitation.

The nods would end, however, if I simply showed up at his bank to get nodded at, so I came up with a pretext. As the story would go, I was out yesterday evening with some research and saw what appeared to be his very recognizable town car sideswipe a parked car. Before I went to the police, I wanted to stop by and find out whether his vehicle might have been making unauthorized visitations to Como. In reality, I just wanted to read his body language and see if he showed any sign of impending connection. If he knew of my meeting with his wife, he’d mention it in our encounter. His way of staying in charge of all he surveys. One of the ways a man like him stays a man like him. Plus I was going out of my way to show concern for one of the gentry without costing myself too much pride. Just a typical transaction we small businessmen make every day. Sell a little subservience now and maybe get to sell a little business later.

Three steps up to the revolving door, and I was in the ornate lobby surrounded by marble columns topped by Corinthian capitals. The lobby said cattle money every bit as much as the stuffed longhorn tucked away in Conklin expansive office.

“How do, Dix?” Trent, loan officer and my inside man at the bank glanced up just as the slapping-sucking sound of the door died down.

“Trent, pal, how goes it?” I folded myself into the chair opposite his. His feet were up on his desk; mine stayed on the floor.

“Good, if I can sell you some money. Business has been dry and dusty the past month.”

I smiled with half my mouth, and that was all the answer he needed.

“Aww … damn, Dix, you’d think I had teats, as often as you’ve been in to milk me these days.”

“Don’t get your udders knotted up, Trent – just a quick question and I’m gone. The old man in?”

“Conklin, Barlow, or VanTafel?

“Conklin”

“He’s been down in Austin two days now, putting lipstick on some state senator before he screws him.” He ducked his head and glanced around, suddenly realizing how well that last comment had carried in the cavernous lobby.

“… coming back …?”

“Dunno – tomorrow, day after. Based on the size of the stack of movie tattle rags on his secretaries’ desk, I’d have to guess he’s got at least two days to go.”

I nodded, taking the info in, watching his face as he made silent guesses. Eventually, he gave up on silence.

“She call you?”

“Dame Conklin?”

“No, Bess Truman.”

“Might have.”

“On a case for them?”

“Her? Not yet, but that’s my guess. She doesn’t usually have me for tea.”

“Any idea what?”

“Utterly clueless.”

He studied my face, trying to see if it looked like the face of a man foolish enough to cuckold a bank partner, civic big-wheel, and prominent former Klansman. Taking everything he knew about me – which was a lot - into account, Trent couldn’t decide one way or another, so he shook his uncertainty out of his head and moved on.

I fitted my hat to my head, then tipped the brim to him, saying “I think I just paid you back for the info.” He might disagree, but I’d just given him something shiny to play with, which would distract himself for the rest of the afternoon.

He tried to object, but all he succeeded in vocalizing clearly was his sigh of resignation.

I waved; he harrumphed; I was out the door again.

Maggie, diligent and methodical meter maid, was still a full block away up the street. She made me just as I spotted her, and I knew the fist she waved in the air was for me. She told me once how she knew I was up to something – “Dix, if you’re standing upright, and not flat out on a slab in the morgue, you’re up to something.” At the moment, all she could do was watch as I whipped out of the parking spot, abandoning my hydrant-side mooring for more adventurous seas.

My eight-cylinder carriage pulled up the circular drive to the Conklin house at 1:45. No liveryman met me, but then, even in the Conklin’ circles, liverymen had been extinct two generations. I half-expected a prissy and officious butler to meet me at my car and rigorously dust the commonness off of me before permitting me across the threshold. I was disappointed, but not enormously. Such imagination is the result of having spent too many Summer evenings inside refrigerated theaters, hiding from the heat, but simmering inside someone else’s fantasy. A few drinks beforehand in Hell’s Half Acre didn’t hurt that imagination.

A butler did greet me once I reached the door. No, greet is too warm a word. I was there; he was there, and by his intervention, the door ceased to block my entry. He, however, effectively blocked further ingress. I stood in the foyer while he stepped into the parlor on the left to skeptically deliver my tale of having been invited.

While I waited, I glanced around the oak-encrusted foyer and thought of what I knew of the Conklins – more specifically, what I knew of Evelyn Conklin. Her family was fairly recently arrived from New Orleans, recently being last generation. Her father was something in the cotton trade down in the port, but ran into a bit of trouble with a combination of alcohol and someone’s husband. The Lambeaux family moved up here post-haste while Evelyn and her mother were on a tour of France. Evelyn mostly had her Irish mother’s looks, or at least an updated version of them. Definitely not Irish Channel Irish – Doherty or O’Connor or some such name with a little weight was her mother’s family name. Evelyn Conklin had, as best I could recall, red tresses curling down past her shoulders like smoke, grey-green eyes, pert nose and a pointed chin. Her skin was more like Lambeaux skin, clear, but with a touch of olive from his mixed Acadian and Provencal roots. She was a few years my junior; her husband a few my senior, and then a few more after that. Two kids. Boy off at military school; girl somewhere close to graduating TCU.

He returned twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds later. “Missus Conklin asked me to tell you to please join her in the parlor.” Listening as he inflected the verbs left no doubt in my mind as to the social order. He was “asked;” I was “told,” even if “please” was attached to the telling. It was a cordial directive.

I could certainly take a cordial order on the chin if there was the soothing poultice of a job behind it somewhere. Even on a good day, the thing a private dick sells most often is a little slice of his pride. The results we produce are the gravy in the humble pie we eat, making it more palatable and less likely to choke us than failure and the barrel of our own hand guns.

When I breached the double doors of the parlor, her head tilted, and from over her shoulder she said, “Please, join me over here, Mr. Steele.” Her voice was violets and gardenias with a hint of molasses and mint. She curved her “R’s” inward, like a true daughter of New Orleans. I stepped around the room to the horseshoe shaped cluster of armchairs and chaises in front of the hearth.

She was dead center. She set a saucer and cup of tea in front of the chair just to her left. Clearly, that was where I was expected to sit. I sat, but didn’t enjoy it. My hackles were already rising. I have very sensitive hackles. They do that. At first, I perched, then decided “to hell with it” and sat back, teacup and saucer atop my knee.

Her one raised eyebrow suggested that I might have actually muttered the words aloud, rather than just thinking them. For every job I ever won with my tactical obsequiousness, I lost three times as many with my impromptu coarseness.

I raised my eyebrows back. I decided to let her decide on her own if I was doing so in anticipation, curiosity, or impertinence. As I waited, I couldn’t help noticing the way her neck curved down from her jaw and flowed into her shoulder. Like a swan. Once I let myself be aware of that, it was a very slippery slope downward. She was neither buxom nor scrawny. Everything about her body seemed to be moderate, save the glow she gave off. Tough men with guns gave me fewer butterflies than I had in my stomach at that moment. Not all of them, of course, but enough of them.

“You have to be wondering why I asked you to come.”

I nodded into her eyes, then grew very interested in the painting just over her shoulder.

“My husband – who happens to be in Austin at the moment – would never engage an investigator for this, so I feel I have to. As a banker in our recent hard times, he found himself with many enemies, as you can well imagine.”

I nodded my head, as if that were what I was currently imagining.

She went on.

“My husband arises earlier than me, normally, and one of the things he enjoys doing before the day becomes active is strolling our grounds. He says he enjoys the contrast between the tall buildings downtown and the natural beauty of the Trinity down the bluffs.” A belle of the Garden District doesn’t run to conclusions, whatever the tale and whoever the audience, so I listened slowly as the story trickled out.

I flicked my eyebrows to suggest that I thought she had a point somewhere in the distance. Perhaps a point visible from our lofty position atop the bluffs.

She continued.

“Two weeks ago, after a rain, he found tracks around the house – mud from the flower beds tracked onto the sidewalks around the house. He mentioned them to me. Actually, he mentioned them to me in a very accusatory fashion, if you must know.”

Clearly, she was of the opinion that I must know. I was less certain, but at that moment, I was willing to leave the question to her. My brow furrowed as it does when I’m working to focus on troubled words, instead of the heaving bosoms they tend to cause.

“After that morning, he had several other episodes where he felt he’d seen tracks in the dew on the lawn; mud on the sidewalk; a face peering in a window, a wrong number …”

She paused. I stared.

“He suspected me of indiscretions.”

She paused again. I stared some more. It’s handy sometimes, just waiting for the other person to grow bothered by the silence and try to fill it with information they hadn’t intended to share.

“He suspected ... accused … me of indiscretions that I’m innocent of.”

Interesting phrasing, I thought, wondering if he had ever suspected-accused her of indiscretions she was guilty of. While I suspected that she indeed had some indiscretions in her portfolio, I wasn’t there to accuse her. I might be thick, but even then I knew that much about fishing for a job.

She continued as I mulled over the possibilities. I blew on my tea. It wasn’t the nape of her neck, but it would do in a pinch like this.

“He wanted to put off this trip – ‘get to the bottom of things’ – he said, but there were too many appointments set up and too much riding on the trip, so he went on.”

“And?” I asked after her next sad and soulful pause.

Her eyes flitted around the room, alighting here and there on things that needed to be cleaned or straightened. I couldn’t help thinking that her mind was doing the same thing with her narrative.

“And … I wanted someone who could get to the bottom of this. I don’t know if he actually saw someone, or something. I don’t know if someone is actually a threat to us. I don’t know if I understand what is happening. I do know I am already quite tired of him mistrusting me.”

It still didn’t sound like a protestation of innocence to me.

“For my sake; for his sake; for our sakes, this needs to be resolved. I don’t know anything about you, aside from acquaintances who’ve told me that you make things happen.” Acquaintances. She knew someone on her social level who knew someone one level down who knew someone on my level who’d heard of me.

I watched her face, waiting to see what would take its place when this expression of domestic concern and anguish grew passé.

“I want you to make things happen.”

I was sure that she did. At the same time, I doubted everything about her story. Nothing unusual there – it’s part of my job to doubt everything about a client’s story while pretending it’s gospel. I’d sort things out myself once I had a retainer in my pocket.

“That’s a compelling tale you tell” I responded, without elaborating. I also didn’t elaborate on what I felt compelled to do at the moment.

“My rates are twenty-five a day with a five day retainer to start – for work like this.” I lied. My rates were usually fifteen a day, and if I got a retainer, I felt blessed by the gods. This crowd wouldn’t settle for anything that seemed underpriced, however, so I had to make it look good. Twenty five a day and a $125 retainer looked good to me.

“I’ll find out what’s actually going on.” That was a variant on what was normally my first nod to candor when speaking with a client. “I’ll do everything I can to bring it to a resolve that’s acceptable to you.” My second nod. If I can keep the client clean without running myself afoul of the law in the process, that’s my job. If I can’t, that’s their problem.

I emphasized “acceptable to you.” I might find out things she didn’t want found out, but as long as I was getting paid, I’d do what I legally could to work it out for her.

“So – tell me more about the comings and goings here – anyone in residence, etc.”

“We have three people on staff. Holst tends the grounds and drives me where I need to go.”

“He’d be the fella who drove you to my establishment earlier today.”

For some reason known only to her, this statement took her slightly aback, but she nodded to the truth of it. My eyebrows invited her to continue, and she did.

“Malcolm takes care of the house and the staff in general. He has a room here, but also lives elsewhere. He’s always on hand for guests and events. Minnie came with the house. She cooks, does laundry, and cleans.”

“Three people, only one of whom overnights here.”

“Minnie does now and then, when we have an event that runs past the last streetcar, but that’s not but about twice a month.”

“Does your daughter, young Miss Conklin, live at home?”

She shook her head. “Not as anyone would notice. Belinda is Chi Omega at Texas Christian, and spends most nights there. We do keep her room, however.

“House guests, frequent visitors?”

This got a cagy smile out of her, even as she shook her head. “No nothing of that sort, Mr. Dixon.”

“Steele”

“Pardon?”

“Steele. Dixon Steele.”

“Of course,” she nodded. “A good name in your profession. Who would hire a Mortimer or a Clarence?”

“I once knew a private di~ I mean an investigator … his Christian name was Clarence. Davenport was his last name. Sadly, both names fit him. He was a davenport through and through, if you take my meaning.”

“I do, Mr. Steele. And you?”

“Me?”

“Does your name fit you … through and through?” One corner of her mouth turned up at her own cleverness.

“I like to let people make up their own minds, though I can’t say I’ve had complaints …” I wasn’t sure what I meant by that, but it gave me a little distance while allowing me to play along with my brand new client.

Here eyebrows rose slightly. I’d say they were bemused. She was too old for the gesture to be coquettish and too many social steps above me for it to be playful. Or so I thought.

At the edge of a slippery slope, it was time to get back on the rails.

“The … uhh … staff. Any issues? Disgruntlement, unreliability, shenanigans, disloyalty?”

“They’re all quite loyal to me.”

“And Mr. Conklin?”

“He’s dreadfully loyal to me.” There was impatience in her voice and weight to the ‘dreadfully.’ It left her mouth coated with Mississippi mud, and the corners down-turned. Though that wasn’t the question I was asking, I noted the word choice and the tone. The implication was unavoidable.

“What I mean is the staff and him.”

“I have a rapport with them. With my husband out of the house as much as he is, the relationship is different.”

I waited for her to elucidate. I waited in vain, as would often be the case with her.

Wanting to fill the hanging silence, she added, “It’s just different. I’d never say they were disloyal to him. Also, Mr. Steele, there are no shenanigans to speak of amongst my staff.”

I pondered a moment, tugging at the cuffs of my trousers to straighten them, then spoke.

“One of three things is going on, Miz Conklin. The first, maybe your husband is letting his imagination embarrass him. It wouldn’t be the first case of a man with a very attractive younger wife doing so. The second, you’re stepping out and have gotten noticed. Also not the first case of this happening with a man and his very attractive younger wife.”

Her face reddened on cue, and due to no embarrassment on her part. I’ve had innocent, rosy cheeks pulled on me by the best in town before, by some smooth operators, even though as a private dick I can usually spot them a mile off and manage them. I continued.

“The third is that someone is actually stalking you or your house and has slipped up. So, it’s only a matter of time before he’s dealt with. And let’s add a fourth – someone’s playing games with you or your husband. That’s easily the least likely, for what it’s worth.

“And what’s your current theory?”

“I don’t have a current theory, currently. Not about the particulars of this particular case.”

“About anyone involved in the case?”

“I’ll keep those to myself for the present, if you don’t mind.”

She started to pout, then decided to tuck it back away for later. On and off like a light switch.

“What are the odds of any of the four, Mr. Steele? You’ve been doing this kind of thing a while.”

“Well, I avoid these cases whenever I can, but for all the ones I’ve seen, by the time a husband or wife gets suspicious and calls me, it’s already a fact.”

“But I called you myself.”

“That you did, and it muddies the picture. Not beyond resolution, mind you, but it gives me more to think about. A smart chess player might call it a gambit. A smart poker player might call it a bluff. Do they play much of either down in New Orleans, Miz Conklin?”

“Lord, in the middle of summer, that’s about all some folks have the energy to do, Mr. Steele. Though I dare say, I never got that good at either – too many other distractions. Speaking of distractions, I wouldn’t like to think you’re taking my money and not attending to things at hand. Will you be pondering me and my situation, Mr. Steele?”

“That I will, Miz Conklin. That I will.

Then we sat there, neither of us wanting to be the one who blinked.

“And what will you be wanting from me, Mr. Steele?”

I paused too long – long enough for the corners of my mouth to curl. She read me like a pulp magazine.

I didn’t even try to make excuses for what she was now perceiving. The best I could do was redirect. I squinted. It didn’t help, but it’s what I do.

“A retainer will start me off. I’m sure I’ll have questions. Considering your caution about getting this taken care of without your husband’s involvement, we may need to speak at odd hours. You might consider how best to accomplish this, before it becomes necessary.”

We both paused. We stirred our own teas. We peered into our cups.

“I’ll do that.”

I gave a tight smile, stood, and brushed my trousers.

“I’ll be in touch. My girl will bring you a copy of the contract, and can take the retainer when she comes.”

She nodded. I nodded. That was the safest thing to do.

I left. Also the safest thing at that point.

Contrary to my impromptu posturing, it occurred to me when I reached my car that I didn’t have “a girl” to send. I’d come up with one. Alice could be reasoned with, particularly if it meant even a moment’s entry into the Conklin home. She always got a special sparkle in her eye when Quality Hill was mentioned. I don’t think it was the money or power so much as fairy tales her mother indoctrinated her with. Like I said, she’s a good kid, but definitely on the innocent side of my tastes.

“Same old stuff,” I moaned to myself as I flung my suit coat onto the passenger seat of my car and started around the grounds. More who’s cheating on who or whom or whatever. Thirty seconds out of the house and my refinement vanished like a summer shower.

There wasn’t any sign of tracked mud on the sidewalk at that point. The help had probably vanished it the very next morning. Lazy servants don’t find permanent positions on Quality Hill.

Tracks in the dew would be impossible to discover. I figured maybe a couple of stops on mornings when I was actually out of bed close to sun-up would turn something up.

I’d made one loop of the house and found myself on the north side near a recent planting of hawthorns next to the cellar doors. I was all set to walk the fence line when a divot in the hawthorn bed caught my eye. It wasn’t exactly a footprint. There was an old root sticking up an inch, and from the look of it, someone had caught a heel on it and taken a tumble, maybe planting one hand in the dirt about three inches deep. One of the hawthorns looked like it could have been disturbed, so I shook it. The whole plant shifted left to right. Definitely disturbed.

I had on the shoes folks typically refer to as their church shoes. Since church was a purely hypothetical construct for me, I call them my client shoes. I cursed as I stopped in the middle of the shrubs for a better view.

It was nothing a judge would pay a lick of attention to, but I was ready to bet a fiver that some peeper had taken a fall there since the last rain two weeks ago.

It was dry enough not to make a big mess, but nothing looked to be eroded, and that was a good rain we got.

As I was coming back out of the bed, I realized I was being watched. I glanced up, and there was the lady of the house peering down at me from a second floor window. I couldn’t quite make it out from the angle and the glint from the sun, but it seemed more like a dressing gown she was wearing, and not the peach colored dress she’d worn during our meeting.

Her face was blank. I felt like a dull exhibit from some detective museum. The closeted warmth from our recent encounter seemed to have entirely faded.

The only reaction I got from her was when I touched my hat to acknowledge her. She seemed to start, looked like she was going to bolt, and then settle back as she was.

I turned away and smiled to myself, not because of her, but because I’d just caught the butler scowling at me from what might have been a library window, just under hers.

His expression was much easier to read. If I had a shot or two of bourbon in me, I’d have likely stormed back in and one or the other of us would’ve wiped that dark smirk off his face. Even so, it didn’t seem like something I wasn’t quite ready to put out on the table with her yet. I wanted a better idea of what his game was – and to make sure that it wasn’t simply a ruse of her making. Back to the first rule: look like you’re trusting your client, but don’t be crazy enough to actually do it.

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