#what about before the events of 1917

[jirlshi]

wait so, what is the age order of the bone heads? Or atlesst how would you order them?

THIS IS A HARD QUESTION

Some of the guys doesn't have an official year-of-death/year-of-birth/period-when-they-lived, or even their current age, but I have some "official" info

Daniel - He's the one with a specific year of birth and death (1254-1286), with simple math he lived till 32 and has been dead for 738 years, a total of 770 years till this day

Lewis - In his wiki says he died at 21, the first Mystery Skull shorts doesn't specify in which period of time everything happened, but probably he just been down there a couple of years

Manolo - In the events of the movie he had 19, and he had kids at 22, at least from his wiki, I didn't find what period of time was when it developed the events of the movie, but based of the dialogue of Manolo's cousins, they fought in the mexican revolution and won, between 1910-1917, so probably the events of the movie happened after that, so he can't have more than 126 years, counting living and dead ones

Brook - We know he died at 38 and actually in the manga he has 90, the only thing is that the manga probably isn't in an modern era, I don't know in which period of time One Piece is inspired, so that's unknown

Jack - Doesn't have an official age, probably older than 20-30, also it isn't specified in which year the events of nightmare before chritsmas happened, if we take the year of the movie, near the 90's as the times of the events, then Jack could be between his 40-50

Manny - This is a tricky one, we don't know the age of Manny, even if the events looked like it happened near the 40's or 50's (Grim Fandango's second years is VERY inspired in the movie Casablanca, the events of that movie are in the middle of the WW2, so is very probably that hapenned in those years) we don't know if Manny is older than that. There's a reference in the click and point game Monkey Island and there's Manny with a pin that says "Ask me about Grim Fandango", this could be a simple reference or maybe Manny is HELLA OLD

This is the information I could gathered, you can do your own order of age, cause for now I'm not sure what to believe, if anyone knows some extra info I would appreciate it 😅

#answer #boneheads #lewis pepper #brook #manny calavera #manolo sanchez #jack skellington #sir daniel fortesque #yeah i been checking a lot of info from these guys #I watched casablanca for Manny calavera and it was actually a good movie so i dont complain

[cowgurrrl]

This Time Around

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader

Author’s note: I wasn’t gonna write anything for Joel’s birthday and then I took a shower and got all writery about it

Summary: “I’ll cry about this earth in heaven too.” — Marina Tsvetaeva, from Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922; “A Hero of Labor” aka a different September 26th [1.2k]

Warnings: grief (what’s new), talks of Outbreak Day, June being way too deep for tumblr dot gov

When your brain is done wading through the skeletons and sparks of rage from your past, Joel's breathing is the first thing you hear. You can tell he's awake. His breaths are just a little too close together for it to result from his circadian rhythm. You stretch to bring real feeling back into your body, replacing the weight of a gun in your hands with Joel's soft skin. When you blink your eyes open, the sun is barely peeking in through the curtains and reflecting off his graying strands. He looks beautiful. You smile and kiss his jaw, your hand resting on his cheek to keep him from scrambling away.

"Hi." He says, his voice fatigued, and rests a hand on your thigh.

"Hey," you say. "D'you get any sleep?"

"No." He swallows thickly, and you nod. He dreads his birthday every year. Seeing the date on the calendar makes him relive his final day with Sarah. He turns the events over and over again in his head like he's looking for an alternate outcome where he, Sarah, and Tommy make it out safely and together. Like if he stares at the anniversary hard enough, he can will it to change. In the few years since you've come to Jackson, he's been open to doing some things to celebrate his birthday, mostly to appease Ellie, but he always picks up a shift to keep his mind off it. However, Ed took over his patrol shift this year without asking him. When Joel interrogated him about it, he said, "Ain't no sense in leavin' your family if you don't have to."

Ed doesn't know the exact details of what you and Joel endured that night, but he can guess. It's probably similar to what he went through with his wife before she died. The rumor is that he was at work, and she was already gone by the time he made it home. Infected broke in the house, and there was nothing she could do to protect herself. It's why he's always taking shifts so others can go be with their families or friends. It's a thoughtful gesture, but the suddenly empty day made Joel anxious and quiet, something Charlie immediately noticed. You told her Daddy's birthday makes him sad sometimes, but can't find the words to explain what happened that night. Twenty years later and there's still no coherent way to talk about everything you lost in the blink of an eye.

It's still early. Charlie is still asleep. Ellie's offer to take care of her for the day still stands. You don't bombard him with questions about what he wants to do or what you should do today. There's no right way to mourn the way of life the world collectively lost and celebrate your husband simultaneously. You play with the messy curls at the nape of his neck and take a deep breath.

"We don't have to do anything. We can just… lay here. Pretend the world's not there. Whatever you want," you mumble. "I just want you to know I'm really happy you were born today." He doesn't say anything, but his jaw flexes, and you catch the tears sparkling in his eyes.

When Charlie wakes up, he puts on a brave face and offers to make her pancakes, pretending like today is just another day. Ellie, Dina, and JJ come over around lunchtime, and Ellie hides the tiny framed picture she drew of Joel holding JJ, yellow sunbeams lighting their faces like cherubs. It's rare that she uses color in her drawings. Then again, it's rare that Joel lets anyone acknowledge his birthday. It's special.

Tommy, Maria, and Camille come over, too, and the kids play in the backyard while the adults sit on the back porch with lemonade and a little bit of celebratory whiskey Tommy brought. You listen to the brothers exchange stories about growing up in Texas and their parents, something they never talk about, and laugh a little too hard at a story of a seventeen-year-old Joel getting caught climbing out of some cheerleader's window by her dad. At one point, Camille and Charlie climb the porch with a toddling JJ not far behind and a bouquet of wildflowers clutched in each tiny fist. Joel takes a shaky breath as he accepts the little beautiful things from the beautiful little girls. You can almost hear his thoughts running wild with accusations of not deserving the flowers, the girls, his family, and his life, and you put a hand on his arm to silence them.

"Thank you, honey." He manages to get out before pressing a kiss to each of their heads. Just like that, the kids are off again to run around and play silly made-up games together. There's a heavy moment of silence on the porch where no one knows exactly what to say. You raise your eyebrows at Joel, wordlessly offering him an out, and he shakes his head.

"Joel?" Dina finally speaks up, and he turns to look at her. "What was it like? Y'know… before?" She asks. Ellie turns her head to mumble something dismissive, but Joel stops her. To pretend like today isn't full of sadness and anger and regret is to strip it of its full meaning. Joel takes a breath as you squeeze his arm. The kids are giggling together in the grass, and the air is cool. You can smell the earth and the last batch of wildflowers pushing through the soil before it gets cold. There's not a cloud in the sky, the endless blue stretching out over the mountains and hills of Jackson. He smiles as the kids fall down after playing an aggressively fast game of Ring Around the Posie and finally looks back at Dina.

"Was a lot like this," he says. "Scary and dangerous and sad but… happy," you smile as he nods like he's just realizing this himself. "Even with all the shit, we were so goddamn happy."

"Sounds nice," Dina says.

"It was," he turns to look at you. "It is."

That night, after everyone has gone home or fallen asleep on your couch (Ellie and Charlie), Joel walks outside and stands under the stars. You don't follow him, but you watch him through the kitchen window. His head is tipped back, and he's searching the night sky for something. You remember looking up at the same sky twenty years ago with blood pouring out of your arm and Jane sleeping on your chest and wondering if life would ever be okay again. You didn't know your future husband was hundreds of miles away, wondering the same thing. You didn't know your second daughter would lose her mother under the same night sky six short years later. You'll never know how the earth keeps spinning despite the grief weighing it down or how the night sky looks the same no matter who was killed or born under it.

What you do know is that when Joel comes in with cold hands and tear-stained cheeks, you'll be there to hold him. You'll cry and grieve together in the kitchen you rebuilt for your family. You'll hold his hand the whole way up the stairs, tell him you love him, and fall asleep once his breathing evens out. You know you'll dance this dance and sing this song for as long as it takes for September 26th to feel a little bit less painful. It may take the rest of your life to achieve, but there are far worse things to fall victim to.

TAGLIST: @abbyhaslongshorts @kiwiharrykiwi @sumsworldz @myloveistoolittle @anavatazes @marantha

#joel and sarah #joel miller x reader #joel miller series #joel miller the last of us #joel miller fic #joel miller and ellie williams #joel miller au #joel miller #the last of us #joel the last of us #the last of us fic #the last of us series #the last of us au #tlou au #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x fem!reader #dad!joel miller

[gothhabiba]

[...] [T]he United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution of 29 November 1947 recommending the partition of Palestine [...] meant, in effect, the establishment of a Zionist state on Palestinian soil irrespective of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants and was taken by the Zionist leadership as a green light to launch their long-contemplated and delayed conquest of such a state. To most Westerners, thoroughly imbued with the Zionist version of events, this last statement would seem shockingly wrongheaded. [...]

In retrospect, and in the light of half a century of contemplation, what is most striking about the Zionist version of the background, nature, circumstances, and aftermath of the 1947 partition resolution is the extent to which it has become the paradigm or lens through which the entire history of the Palestine problem and the Zionist Arab conflict prior and subsequent to the resolution itself is viewed and judged. To verify this proposition, one has only to recall how consistently and how often [...] the UN 1947 partition resolution is [...] assumed to be the defining moment in which a legal, moral, fair, balanced, pragmatic [...] "compromise" formula for the resolution of the conflict was accepted by one party in a statesmanlike and accommodating mode and brusquely rejected by the other for reasons difficult to fathom but assumed to be rooted in the arcane realms of religious or cultural atavism.

So defining a moment has this 1947 UNGA partition resolution become in the victor's version of events that a collective amnesia has descended to obliterate all its antecedents [...]. It is as though the partition resolution were the [origin] of the Palestine problem rather than the catastrophic (for the Palestinians) culmination of everything that had preceded it since the birth of political Zionism. Thus, starting with the distant past, no correlation is entertained [...] between the partition resolution and that real and clearly definable starting point of the modern conflict: the Basel Program at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. The hidden agenda of that program, formulated some fifty years before the 1947 UN resolution and long before the Holocaust, is explicated with brutal frankness and in classical imperialist fashion in Theodor Herzl's little-publicized draft for a "Charter" for the colonization of Palestine.

Nor is any correlation entertained or attempted between the 1947 UN resolution and its intermediate antecedent, the prolonged nightmare of the British rule (1917-47) during which the leading Western democratic country suspended democracy in Palestine to facilitate, with bayonets, the laying down of the infrastructure of Zionist power in the country in the teeth of mounting Palestinian resistance. Equally forgotten in historical invisibility is the crushing by British military might of the desperate Palestinian national rebellion against the Royal Commission (Peel) Report of 1937 calling for the partition of the country and the consequent destruction of all effective Palestinian political and military organizations.

– 1997. Walid Khalidi, "Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution," Journal of Palestine Studies 27.1, pp. 5-21.

#Palestine #Palestinian history #Zionism #Walid Khalidi #quote #readings

[purplesigebert]

WIP Wednesday #22 - DW Crossover

This takes places before Caroline meets a soldier.

Western Front, 1915

She slammed down into the mud and winced, time travel without a capsule was so not fun, but at least she could say that she was rarely late, unlike her dad. Now she realized why the army uniforms were brown, she didn’t know how the white Red Cross uniforms stayed so clean.

Caroline hoped that this trip would be quick, Mr Saltzman was kind enough to give her an extension for this assignment. Of course, this was because of the accident and due to her transition. She didn’t know the man well enough, he was just her history teacher and Elena’s aunt’s boyfriend.  Apparently he was also a vampire hunter, and from the little that Elena had told her, he was on-again, off-again buddies with Damon, the vampire who turned his wife. Said wife was Elena’s biological mother - small world.  She would try to hold his association with Satan Salvatore against him.

The assignment that Mr S had set, before all of the Founders’ Day events had taken over the town, was a paper researching and analyzing an item of historical relevance related to the Allies in the First World War. It was a pretty wide topic so Caroline was confident that Mr Saltzman would approve her topic, and he did.  She wanted to write about John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Field. As it was one of the most famous poems of the time. With all of her committees, her student council work, and the Miss Mystic Court prep, she had kind of, sort of forgotten about this assignment. This was the first chance that Caroline had to work on this assignment.

So, her list of things to do was to observe McCrae before talking to him and his fellow soldiers.  Maybe try and find those who rescued the poem from the garage.  What would the world be without this poem? Those men deserved medals of their own.

His writings on the Second Battle of Ypres were heartbreaking, especially since it was one of the first examples of chemical attacks in the history of war. She was reminded once again of how extraordinarily deadly human beings were to each other, even before factoring the supernatural and extraterrestrial.  Caroline wanted to see if she could find Clare Gass, a battlefield nurse that had served with McCrae.  It would be amazing to get her first hand account. 

Maybe when all of this was over, she could go visit Uncle Jack.  He had mentioned that he served in the War.  There were records of him being at the Battles of the Somme and Passchendaele.  Caroline decided that she would visit Jack, sometime in 1917 and then attended Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae’s funeral in early January 1918. 

After that Caroline found herself drifting through rural, war-torn France.  She had said she would keep this trip short, her paper was long since completed, but she was dreading going back to Mystic Falls.

She would not call it home.  Although her mother was there and they were trying to build a better relationship, home would always be a blue box that was bigger on the inside.

#klaroline wip wed #klaroline #the vampire diaries #dw crossover #gabby writes #my writing

[otmaaromanovas]

Myth-busting - did sailor nanny Derevenko betray the family?

Several members of the imperial entourage have been villainised over the decades, none more than Andrei Eremevich Derevenko, whom Anna Vyrubova claimed in her memoir to have betrayed the family. Many historians in the 20th century took this as fact, but more evidence has shown that it is highly likely that Derevenko did not betray the family or Alexei, and fell victim to one of the many lies in Anna Vyrubova's book. Some popular history books go as far as calling him 'abusive' - but let's look at the real facts.

Andrei Eremevich Derevenko was born in 1878, in Volyn, Zhytomr, in the Ukraine. He was a member of the baltic fleet, originally a sailor before being employed by the Imperial Family. In May 1906 he was appointed as the Dyadka, meaning 'uncle', to Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. Derevenko was a sailor nanny, his primary role was to look after Alexei, and to ensure that the haemophilliac did not do himself an injury.

Derevenko found himself in more favour with the family in 1907, when his actions during a collision of the yacht Standart with a large rock were seen as admirable. His experience as a sailor came in incredibly handy; he knew that the boiler rooms of the ship were most likely to sink first, so grabbed the tiny Heir and ran to the opposite side of the ship, ensuring the Tsarevich's maximum safety.

In 1910, he was paid 120 rubles a year annually. By 1913, this had increased to 360 a year. Derevenko was joined by another sailor nanny, Klimenty Grigorievich Nagorny, in 1913 to help protect the heir as he grew into a rambunctious boy. The Tsarevich especially enjoyed playing with Derevenko's sons, Sergei, Alexei, and possibly a third, Alexander. The Tsarina were the children's godmother, and in turn the Tsar and Tsarina paid yearly expenses for the boy's education, and covered the cost of a surgery one of them underwent. Derevenko kept a daily diary, where he mostly recorded the duties he performed for Alexei, and what they both got up to during the day.

Now we come on to the origin of the myth. In her memoir, Anna Vyrbova claimed that after the February Revolution, she discovered:

"Lying sprawled in a chair was the sailor Derevenko, for many years the personal attendant of the Tsarevitch, and on whom the family had bestowed every kindness, every material benefit. Bitten by the mania of revolution, this man was now displaying his gratitude for all their favors. Insolently he bawled at the boy whom he had formerly loved and cherished, to bring him this or that, to perform any menial service his mean lackey's brain could think of. Dazed and apparently only half conscious of what he was being forced to do, the child moved about trying to obey. It was too much to bear."

Anna Vyrubova was arrested in March 1917, and did not spend the following months with the family at the Alexander Palace. She claims that this event happened on 20 March 1917. In contrast, family photo albums show that Derevenko was still a part of the retinue until the day of departure to Tobolsk, and was actually promoted in July 1917 by the Tsar to the role of Alexei's official valet.

Historian Charlotte Zeepvat proposes another explanation:

One of the most enigmatic figures, and the most intimately involved with Alexei, was the sailor Derevenko. Anna Virubova claimed to have seen Derevenko bullying Alexei, shouting orders at a boy too bemused to fight back. If this is true it would have been a shattering experience, but its truth is not so clear cut as it may seem. According to Anna, it happened on 20 March, two days before her own arrest. After a display like that the sailor would surely have left or been made to go, but he was still at the palace months later. Shortly before the move to Tobolsk in August he submitted an invoice for new clothes and shoes for Alexei to Colonel Kobilinski, the commandant of the palace garrison. He was asking a huge amount, so payment was withheld: when the sailor complained to the Tsaritsa and she intervened on his behalf, Kobilinski showed her the invoice. She took the Colonel's part. Derevenko was refused permission to accompany the family to Tobolsk, but months after their departure, he was still pleading to be allowed to join them. Failing that, he asked for the return of a trunk, which he said had gone to Tobolsk in error. It was found and opened, and inside were the new clothes and shoes, and an icon given to Alexei by his great-uncle, Grand Prince Sergei Alexandrovich. Was Derevenko stealing? Looking after the boy's interests in his own peculiar way? No one will ever know.

Several letters sent by Derevenko have survived. In the letters, he explains that the commissioners at the Alexander Palace and Tobolsk had informed him that there was 'no space' to take him on the trip, and that he was awaiting summons to Tobolsk, should he be required. Interestingly, these letters detail that the other sailor nanny, Nagorny, stayed in contact with Derevenko, and he also reveals that he was receiving multiple letters from the family and retinue from Tobolsk.

Historian George Hawkins, who has translated all of Alexei's correspondence and diaries from 1905-1918, found an interesting account by Comissar Pankratov. In this account, he explains that Colonel Kobylinski was confronted by Alexandra Feodorovna when Derevenko was not on the list, though was embarrassed when she discovered that he had requested a disproportionately high invoice to the Provisional Government for his duties. Pakratov added that Derevenko wrote to him repeatedly asking "when would he be called to Tobolsk to continue his official duties with the “heir”."

George Hawkins summarises: "Going by this account, it would seem he didn't [betray the Imperial Family]. Ania Vyrubova is the ultimate source for his 'betrayal' where she wrote that he started ordering Alexei about. I think something like that may well have happened, as it is also reported by Sokolov in his investigation into the fate of the Romanovs, but it would seem he still stayed with the family until their departure to Tobolsk - trying to get extra money out of the provisional government with his exaggerated bill, and kept trying to get to Tobolsk for some time."

The exact fate of Derevenko is unknown. Some sources suggest that he joined the White Army and died in 1921, either from being wounded/killed in action or succumbing to an illness. The early 1920s were years of intense turmoil and civil war in Russia, so it is not unusual that his documents drop off the record.

Though we can conclude that Derevenko did not betray the family in that he was 'abusive' to Alexei, he was not exactly popular with the suite. Pierre Gilliard recalled in his memoirs 'Thirteen Years at the Russian Court' that Derevenko preferred peasants to:

"[drop to their] knees before Alexis Nicolaïevitch to offer him what they had brought. I noticed that the boy was embarrassed and blushed violently, and when we were alone I asked him whether he liked seeing people on their knees before him. "Oh no, but Derevenko says it must be so !".

Gilliard also believes that the sailor nannies stifled Alexei's progress too much, and did not allow him to test the boundaries of his disease in order to become more self-disciplined.

Sources:

Memories of the Russian Court - Anna Vyrubova

Romanov Autumn - Charlotte Zeepvat

Russian Imperial Family: Romanovs in Their Own Words - Helen Azar and George Hawkins

Expenses of Alexey - Alexander Palace Org

Alexei - Russia's Last Tsesarevich: Letters, diaries and writings Part One: 1904 – 1915 - George Hawkins

Alexei - Russia's Last Tsesarevich: Letters, diaries and writings Part Two: 1916-1918 - George Hawkins

Photos:

Public domain, flickr - LastRomanovs

#myth busting #Romanovs #Alexei Nikolaevich #Tsarevich Alexei #myths #my own #Andrei Derevenko #Pierre Gilliard #Derevenko #Dyadkas #Nagorny #Klimenty Nagorny #russian history #romanov family #Anna Vyrubova #sources

[cowgremlin11]

Hi :) @i-will-decidedly-bite here I've read the comic but I'm a bit confused about one specific period. It's stated that "Atlas found Mordecai while the latter was making a "hasty departure" from New York, and he joined Lackadaisy in 1920-1921". This matches with Bobbie's story about the Lodge (it happened after prohibition started, so no earlier than 1920; it was the first, to his knowledge, that Atlas employed Mordecai as a hitman; and "after that, Mordecai followed Atlas back to the city" - which I initially understood as "M never was to the city before" but probably can be read simply as "they went back" so idk.) But also that Mordecai was 17 when he left New York. Given his date of birth (March 28, 1899) it was between the spring of 1916 and 1917. So... it's a 3-5 year gap between New York and Sent Louise. Is there any info on what he did during this time? Lackadaisy probably didn't even exist before 1920 - or was a legal (?) business. (I mean, doubtful because Atlas would have no business helping Mordecai with the mafia if he was just a businessman himself). I know there might not be a defined answer but I'd like to compare notes :)

first off: mordecai was NOT 17 WHEN HE LEFT NEW YORK.

He left New York on a getaway train to Chicago, then was saved by Atlas, then made it to St. Louis with him to work as a hitman for the speakeasy.

Atlas started as a restaurant owner, as seen on the first page of the comic. He also met Mitzi after starting the speakeasy, as he hired the band to play there.

This is where everything started; with the purchase of the cafe in 1920 when prohibition began.

There is no 3-5 year gap. He fled New York during prohibition and was hired to be a bootlegging hit-man after Atlas saved him. "What he was doing in that time" isn't part of canon, because the chain of events are as follows:

Atlas buys the speakeasy, he has business in New York, he witnessed Mordecai and saw potential so he saved him, Mordecai went back to St. Louis to work for the speakeasy and for Atlas since his life was saved.

I genuinely do not know where the dates leading to 'Mordecai is 17' are coming from? That's not what the comic says at all. That's not said anywhere. He was in his twenties.

And also, Atlas could have hired Mordecai a year or two after he started the speakeasy. That part of the timeline is muddied. There are no set in stone dates of what happened between 1920-1926.

But we know that everything started in 1920. That's when the ball started to roll and all these characters' lives started to intertwine.

side note: The lodge was after 1920. That was an average job to have been carried out by bootleggers. Atlas had lost some liquor for the speakeasy and he sent the boys to go clean things up.

#please god mordecai wasnt a baby he was an adult man #from under the inbox #grem rambles #lackadaisy #lackadaisy cats #mordecai heller

[akallabeth-joie]

More Blue Castle Year Thoughts

Following from the Olive's Dead Fiance and Barney's timeline posts:

What, if anything, does Barney's personal timeline add to our understanding about the story's year of occurrence?

TL;DR: We have a lot of slightly vague data, but I think it adds up to the story opening between 1918-1923. My personal preference is for the story opening in 1919-1920, with Barney's return to Canada corresponding with the beginning of the war.

I think the main dating factors we can glean from Barney's story is: 1) his world travels, particularly the three years jaunting about Europe, Africa, and Asia, would be a lot more difficult during the war years of 1914-1918; 2) he himself manages to avoid conscription and pressure to enlist, which suggests that the war* either happened before he was old enough, or after he's headed off to the Yukon; and 3) his ex-fiancee is widowed young, a factor which may or may not be related to the war and flu pandemic. [Per the Canadian War Museum, conscription of men aged 20-45 started in 1917; 1914-1916 all enlistments were voluntary.]

Putting this together, and with 1925 as the last possible starting date for the book, in order for it to conclude in 'the present', some possibilities:

Possibility 1: The book starts around 1925, with Barney born in 1890, and his two years in the Yukon aligning with the end of the war around 1917-1918, then his three years gallivanting around 1919-1921-ish. He stayed in college instead of enlisting at the beginning of the war, then was off in the Yukon during the conscription period (though the army would have been an option for running away from his life, he apparently decided the being alone in the wilderness was better for a broken heart.) The problem with this timeline is that he doesn't have 3-ish whole years to tour Eurasia & Africa between the end of the war and arriving in Muskoka at T-5 years. In this arrangement, Ethel would be marrying right around 1918, and widowed at an unknown time between 1918-1926.

Possibility 2: Barney' did his traveling during the war, which puts an extra danger element to working his way to Britain on a cattle boat, etc. He avoids military service by being out of the country. South Africa and Spain, though hard to get to with all the fighting in the Atlantic, are at least theoretically open to him to visit. I have no idea if/how he could have made it to China, Italy, and Samarkand. In this timeline, the book opens as early as 1920 or as late as 1924, with Barney having arrived in Muskoka anywhere between 1915-1919 (and with his traveling years ranging between 1912-1915 and 1916-1919). In this version of events, Ethel marries around 1914-18 (and is widowed within 8 years). I think this is the least likely option.

Possibility 3: Barney traveled before the war, possibly coming back to Canada five years ago because the war at sea made going abroad less feasible. This puts the story date at 1920 or earlier, with Barney traveling no later than 1911-1914 and buying the Mistawis cabin in 1914/15 at the latest. In this version, Ethel is married by 1912 and widowed by 1921 (prime time for her presumably-young husband to die in the war or pandemic).

Looking into the McGill angle, the college was founded in 1821, which doesn't help our timeline for Barney. His one-time fiancee Ethel Travers received her B.A. there as well, which indicates she graduated in 1888 or later (the first year women received degrees). While we don't know that she graduated the same year as Barney, it is likely she completed her degree before marrying, which we know she did 2 years after Barney left. This puts an utmost earliest possible year on TBC at 1896 (assuming Ethel was in that first class, graduated the same year she married, and was still a student during her engagement to Barney) or at 1902 (assuming Ethel and Barney finished the same year but met later, and that she's in that first class). Both of those assume she's in the first class of women receiving degrees in 1888, with any later year moving the story back accordingly, as would her having completed school before she even met Barney, much less got engaged to her husband. Also, the fact that they didn't meet until after Barney graduated might point to her being younger or older than him, though I'd expect the social pressure on her to marry, much as we saw with Valancy and Olive, would make it less likely that conventionally-beautiful (socially connected, of good family, ostensibly rich) Ethel was unattached at 24+ when she met 23-year-old Barney. However, I think the details we get elsewhere in the story point to a much later date than the 1890s-1900s, making much of this branch of speculation pointless.

Other details we have from the story:

Fashion-- Short-sleeved dresses have been worn in Deerwood for at least a year when the story starts, and Port Lawrence has a shop which stocks low-necked dresses with low waists. By the end of the story, "flappers" are mentioned as hanging around the Deerwood train station. While we associate flappers with the 1920s, Vanity Fair wrote about them in 1914, as did Pearson's, and the Saturday Evening Post in 1912. A quick N-gram shows the term in use through the 1910s and 1920s, peaking in published uses around the time The Blue Castle came out. [Note that "flapper" doesn't mean "unconventional young woman" in all of those instances--some at least are mechanical patents and the like which refer to a piece of machinery by that term. By I think the overall trend line is useful, and helps solidify that our story is in the 1910s or early 1920s.] In the same vein, Valancy's new styles follow the classic 1920s low-waisted look, though examples of this silhouette appear at the tail end of the 1910s. Depending on how fashion-backward Deerwood is, style-wise Valancy's present-day really could be anywhere from about 1918-1925.

Hair styles-- Valancy started wearing her hair up (~age 16) while some form of the pompadour was "still" in style, but low puffs are the fashion when she's 29--also bobs are not yet in, though "shingle" hairstyles are known. The terms are too widespread for an N-gram, since there are too many other uses for "bob" and "shingle", but browsing through Googlebooks, I'm seeing lots of magazine references to pompadours in the 1908-1910 range, with very few by the mid-1910s. This intriguing court transcript suggests they were "in" in 1910 and "out" by 1912-13, though pompadour variations do pop up later, as in this 1915 beauty book. Taking the N-gram I made above, overall uses of the word pompadour peaks around 1907, ranging mostly between 1900 and 1915, and the first few pages of results from 1915 onward are talking about a man's haircut. All in all, I'm quite willing to take that 1900-1915 range as marking the time when Valancy started wearing her hair up, and with the language of "still" and the fact of pompadour being out of fashion at the time the novel opens as evidence that we're really looking at the later part of the range for her being a teenager, say 1907-1915. Most of the printed references I've found to shingles classify them with bobs and are in the 1920-1927 range. One of these earliest runs 1920, which is also the year I found a children's story which references shingling the hair to help it grow. Prior to 1920, references to the shingle haircut are few and either specify boys are wearing the style or at least do not mention women adopting it.

The adoption of cars and use of the phrase "Tin Lizzie"-- The first is slow to spread in Deerwood, and the second has not caught on as of the opening of the story. When I searched for "grey slosson", all of the results are on this book (including people asking on car forums about whether the model is real or invented), so we can't use that as a dating guide. I made another n-gram, which suggests that the term tin lizzie really started taking odd around 1915, though we are given that Deerwood is a bit behind on such slang.

Narrative Voice-- The whole thing is written in a fairly contemporary voice, with only a few futuristic mentions of bobs being unknown and modern slang like "tin lizzie" and "old dear" suggesting that the story takes place a few years before the time of writing/publishing.

Putting all that together:

The latest year we can place the opening of the story is about 1925, which would have the end be the present. This fits with the style bits we get, but I think the narrative works better if we're a few years before this and that Barney's international travel fits better a well. The mention of a woman taking a BA at McGill places the start of the story absolutely no earlier than 1896, though the presence of cars (especially old ones) and Valancy's pompadour being several years out of date suggests a date at least twenty years later (add on the "tin lizzie" remark, and we're talking 1916 or 1917 at the earliest). Depending on just how old-fashioned the Deerwood "old family" set is, I think we're fairly safely set 1918-1923.

Specifically, I like the idea that this story starts in May 1919 or 1920. That sets Barney's retreat to Muskoka right when the Great War starts making international travel difficult (and provides a further reason, beyond 'book sold, maybe time to write another book about the Canadian wilderness?' for why he changed his MO from constantly moving to settling in one place). It also explains why Barney apparently never served (32-34 years old, living in an isolated spot), and situates the deaths of two* young men mentioned in the book (Olive's first fiance and Ethel's husband) within a time window in which a lot of otherwise healthy young men were at increased risk of death from war and/or flu (respectively between 1911-1914, and 1912-1921). Valancy's personal style timeline sees her first putting her hair up when pompadours were all the rage in 1906 or 1907, but looking several years out of date by the time of the story opens; her subsequent decisions to cut her hair and start wearing the new fashions put her eccentrically ahead of the curve in 1920, while allowing Montgomery to opine that bobs were "not yet in" when she did so (a more problematic statement in 1925, when bobs are very much in style).

*Cousin Gladys also had a son who "died young" though we don't have concrete information about what age this was at; the fact that her surviving son is old enough to be "always fighting" with her suggests that we're talking teen to adult in the present, so it's possible that the other died as a young man rather than in childhood.

#the blue castle #blue castle book club #blue castle spoilers #applying the forbidden magic of math #overthinking it

[scottsummersbingo]

For the Sexy Days of Summers Event happening right now we've invited Scott Summers (Cyclops) fans to take part in spreading more love for him out there on the internet by creating fanfiction, fanart, fan works, etc. to celebrate our favorite X-Men leader and the possibility of what if. For the duration of this challenge so far we've received some really incredible submissions with super rare pairings that are new to us. For the month of September we'd like to share some of those and also share some various fandom creations along the way in terms of content. Some might be an old favorite pairing while others might be something in terms of shipping you've never considered before.

Below under the cut we take a different approach as instead of focusing on romantic pairings we are showcasing Scott's 'adoptive' parental figure relationship with Charles. The stories featured below showcase some moments with Scott and his son!

Stay tuned for more duo spotlights coming soon!

No Harm by SSJandTechno (Rated G) Children had two broad responses to trauma, in Charles Xavier’s experience. Some of them went feral; sullen, foul-mouthed, truant, aggressive, willing if not able to fight the whole world. Scott Summers had done very much the opposite.

Charles Xavier is very used to traumatized children, and to helping traumatized children grow in to functional adults. Gentleness and patience are useful tools for this, so, sometimes, is telepathy.

Strike! by tyrsdayschild (Rated T) Fill for Scott Summers Bingo Square G3: 1920s AU

In 1917, Captain Xavier met Private Summers.

By 1918, they were comrades.

In 1920, Scott is Charles right hand man.

But after 1926, they would never see each other again

the winters of our discontent by Duck_Life (Rated T) Cyclops has revealed the truth about mutant resurrection to the world. Charles Xavier is not happy about it.

The Moon Will Sing by IcyDeku13 (Rated G) Scott hestiaed images flashed in mind; Cyclops standing next to Magneto, in a costume he designed, a black leather jacket and dark blue sleeveless turtleneck, with the mask Charles had given him black pants with plenty of pockets and a yellow belt with pouches.

In a universe where the X-men Comics and Mutants exist Scott must deal with the fact that his life is getting a little too similar to that of his favorite comic book character.

Growing Pains by Induurisa (Rated M) Scott Summers' powers manifest for the first time, and he's lost, scared, and alone. Another mutant, Jack Winters, takes advantage of his vulnerability and uses the fifteen-year-old boy for his own purposes under the guise of "helping" Summers. After Scott finally escapes Winters' control, he finds a new home with Professor Charles Xavier.

Ghosts by GrayJay He’s not quite three, and his father is holding him up to look into Alex’s bassinet; impossibly tiny fingers warm under his hand when he reaches down, and he knows he’d do anything for-- His dad’s voice, You’re a big brother now, Scott. Do you know what that means? He’s twenty-two, half doubled over in a chair Professor Xavier’s office, clutching a crumpled sheet of paper, and everything is red; and he thinks, It means this.

#scott summers #cyclops #scottsummersbingo #scott summers bingo #sexy days of summers #charles xavier #professor x

[dots3a]

I am reading "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017" by Rashid Khalidi

Obviously this was published before the events of October 7, 2023 and the escalation of genocidal activity in Palestine, specifically in Gaza. However, it is very disturbing to read about event after event that unfolded for the same reasons and in the same fashion as what is happening now.

The United States and Israel are operating out of a playbook that they have been using for fifty years now. If I had read this history prior to October 7th, I would not have been surprised by a single event or decision made by governments involved so far.

Which means Palestinians aren't surprised. Not by Israeli actions, not by US involvement in their ethnic cleansing, not by the empty words of governments in the Arab, Asian, or European worlds. They expect this behavior. They expect the lies. They expect to be labeled terrorists. They expect Western citizens to eat up the propaganda like candy. Because it's been happening this way. Like a wind up toy that can not deviate from its designated path.

The one thing that is possibly different this time is the widespread dispersal of information about what is happening as it is happening. Usually only the citizens of the Arab world react in horror and demand change; this time, the message is being broadcast widely and loudly enough that people worldwide are angry. I hope more than anything this means we can break the wind up toy.

The Israeli and US spin machine has been pivotal in the success of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine since at least the late 1960s. Prior to the Nakba in 1948, the British empire was the main and key supporter, responsible for arming, training, and otherwise enabling the Zionist entity whose goal has always openly been the removal of non-Jewish Arabs from their homeland to be replaced by a fully Jewish, largely imported, population.

This time, instead of the Palestinian cause lacking the reach and relatability needed to generate true solidarity with outsiders, Israel and the US seem to be the ones underestimating the importance of their lack of PR success.

This is all to say, 1. Read this book. It is written by a Palestinian who has been a part of the resistance since birth by virtue of his nationhood, and whose family has been involved in Palestinian cultural preservation and the strive for nationhood for generations.

And, 2. Keep talking about Palestine. Keep organizing on the ground. Bring this up in conversation. Share your sources.

We are part of the difference this time. Together we can reach a different outcome than before. Your loudness on this issue matters, it can and will save actual lives.

As always, Free Palestine. Know that Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea. Participate in expediting that outcome.

#words words words #free palestine #ceasefire now #learn our history so we can stop repeating it #your voice matters #free gaza #they did to the PLO what they're doing with Hamas #nothing new under the sun

[catt-nuevenor]

I remember the book thief. It was a good, sad, book.

I held off answering this until I finished the book, and here we are. I finished the Book Thief yesterday.

It is a very good book and I highly enjoyed my time with it. I also think it is a very important book, and it deserves the accolades and awards it has achieved over the years since its first publication.

That all sounds like I'm gearing up for a 'but', doesn't it?

I'm not, not really. But I've found myself coming back to the comment of 'sad' a lot while I was listening to it and since I finished it.

I say the following to give context to my approach to the book, not to associate myself directly with the struggles of the characters, or the historical events they are based on in an exploitative or inherently informed manner.

A bit of background on me. I'm a history nerd. I did an undergraduates degree in ancient history and archaeology, I watch documentaries for fun and leisure, I regularly consume books that deal with world history and such things do not shy away from difficult topics.

Side recommendations for non-fiction books related to WW2 and the topics discussed in the Book Thief:

Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Extreme in WWII by Laurence Rees

The Good Germans: Resisting the Nazis, 1933-1945 by Catrine Clay

Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany by James Wyllie

The Holocaust: A New History by Laurence Rees

The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 by Robert Gerwarth

Obviously Content Warning for Extreme Violence, Radicalisation, Bigotry, Genocide, and Psychological Trauma. These are not pleasant books at times, they are important.

Secondary bit of background info on me. My Grandfather served in the Royal Signals Corp during WW2 and volunteered the day war was declared in England. He served in Africa, Italy, took part in the D-Day landings, moved up through Belgium, the Netherlands, then into Germany where he and his unit were put in charge of minding SS prisoners in a converted concentration camp, north-northeast of Hamburg, for two years after peace was declared. During his time in Germany before the official end of the conflict, he served as a signalman with the 15th Scottish Division, this includes the liberations of Bergen Belsen, Neuengamme, and a sub camp of Neuengamme, Bad Segeberg concentration camp, the latter of which is where the SS prisoners were held.

I am incredibly lucky for three things in relation to my Grandfather:

He and my Grandmother kept all their letters from the war, labelled them in frankly archival detail, and passed said letters down to me.

Working in Signals allowed my Grandfather to write about events during the war that might not have otherwise made it past army censors, such as details, and dates.

He was a very good writer, and he wrote every day about all that he had seen.

Now, all that out in the open for everyone to get on the same page (more or less), back to the Book Thief.

In all honesty, I laughed and cheered more times than I felt upset while listening to it. I adore Rosa Hubermann, though I'd loathe her in reality if I had to deal with her, she and her 'tact' made me cackle with glee so many times. Zuzack's descriptions are as beautiful as they are at times a little too flowery for my personal tastes, but they are immersive despite this. And of course the Narrator is wonderful.

I always knew what was coming and the depth of what was happening beyond our view of events in the story, so it did take some of the punch out of matters for me. I couldn't ever say I was sad while listening to it.

A book can be read in as many ways as there are individuals to read it. My reading of it left me with a strong impression of civilian life during the third reich from a child's perspective, it taught me how to swear in German much to my (learning) German-speaking father's delight and bemusement, and it's given me a new recommendation to put forward to the teen offspring of friends as a good first book to discussing the complexities of WW2.

So, yes. I highly recommend the Book Thief by Markus Zuzack.

#asks #The Book Thief #Book recommendations

[qqueenofhades]

I was wondering how you approach historical research for a fic, especially for periods you're not already intimately familiar with. Do you do as much research as possible before beginning to write, or do you research as you go to make everything as accurate as possible? And what are the moments you say "fuck it" to accuracy over stories?

Well, it is probably different for me than for your average layperson fanfic writer, since a) I am a professional historian and already have a breadth of general knowledge, and b) the settings I am interested in using for fic are usually those that I know well anyway and thus have to do a relative minimum of supporting research to flesh out. I did do a ton of extra research for the Swan and Crossbones series, although it was a setting I was at least relatively conversant with, since the 18th-century Caribbean/colonial world is not my primary focus or something that I have done much work on, but it happened naturally as the fic went along and filled in tons of plot points and background detail overall. But If you're too paralyzed with achieving Historical Accuracy TM to actually write, this is your official permission to go "fuck it" and just start writing. It probably won't be nearly as anachronistic as you think, you can fix obvious howlers later, and besides, do you ever go into someone else's fic determined to joylessly vet it for complete Accuracy as determined by you, Noted Internet History Expert? No, you go for a good time and to be reasonably convinced. So let yourself have some of that same grace.

Likewise, part of it is being a generous reader, especially when you're reading amateur (as in not paid people who don't write for a living doing this for fun in their free time and thus should not be expected or criticised against professional standards, even if their stuff is often better than some published writing but I digress) authors. I once had some excessively pedantic douche complain that I used the word "sodomite" in TNR, and this was Wrong since the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, from whence the etymology of the word derives, does not exist in fantasy-world Westeros. And just like... what? This is obviously utter bullshit since every OTHER modern English word has an etymology traceable to events that don't exist in fantasy worlds, I'm not going to make up a completely different word to attempt to clumsily convey to my audience what they know to be implied by the word "sodomite," and since ASOIAF/GOT loudly and repeatedly claims to be Accurate to Medieval Europe (lol), it IS the word that GRRM himself would almost have surely used (you know, if he ever wrote about gay people in any substantial or meaningful way). So.

I do try to avoid using, as I said, obviously anachronistic references; once I didn't use the words "quixotic" and "kowtow" in medieval historical fiction because they obviously herald from a later era. In the last chapter of OMM, I initially used the metaphor of a nuclear bomb before remembering the scene was set in 1917 and obviously that wasn't something they would be able to know about or compare to. Likewise, much Internet Historical Accuracy is total nonsense, based on an extremely skewed and shallow view of the past and what is Modern, and can usually be generally disregarded anyway.

#anonymous #ask #history #writing advice

[delurkr]

The Semicentennial Nightmare Walk au

For your consideration: A version of events where the reincarnation cycles are real, and every time they die they get trapped in the spirit world and run around the town of Little Hope (however it looks in their era) trying to save themselves from the same demons, and their tether in the material world is always the A-boy who outlived the previous cycle. The A-boy is always traumatized by what happened when he was 18 and he always looks crazy to the people in the material world, and from 1692 on down the line the cycles have always failed to beat their demons up to and determinately including the 2020 cycle, and when they fail the next cycle starts.

Does it make any sense? Probably not. But to illustrate, the way this would look for the 1972 cycle is:

The five Clarkes die in the house fire and Anthony gets hurt like canon. All six of them wake up in the spirit-world housefire and get out of the house minimally injured. They start wandering around the town, which continues to look just how they knew it, and they're figuring out what they're going to do next and whatever, but only Anthony gets proper responses from people they try to talk to. They think it's weird; they know the townspeople and all and they're still getting ignored. It's night so there aren't too many people out around town but there are more people than in 2020 when it was just Vince acting weird, so it's easier for the Clarkes to theorize stuff about being dead and all. They get the same 1600s flashbacks, presumably recognizing Carver as Carson, and the demons start coming after them.

So Anne, Tanya, Dennis, and James get chased and are each conquered by their demons at any point during the night. (Megan has been involved but she's a spectator and still distant and uncommunicative like before they died). Anthony, Megan, and whichever of the others are left then make it to the final flashback, which does not necessarily take place at the ruined house, and Anthony along with one of the other adults make the big choice. Even if they save Mary, the remaining demons then kill the rest of their targets because nobody broke their locked traits. Megan is around somewhere, but no matter what the "ending" was Anthony then returns to the material world and wakes up in the hospital or whatever went on the morning after the housefire. He was unconscious the whole night, and in fact the person who had been running around the material world interacting with the townspeople and everything is the guy from 1917, the previous cycle:

who is old now and is probably reclusive and not known to many of the townspeople. They think he's weird because of the way he's been acting while he was Anthony's tether, and he could be arrested or not depending on how he acted. About a month passes and then, because the Clarkes failed to break the curse, Angela is born in February 1972.

And then yadda yadda everyone grows up and the 2020 events of the game happen, and this time it's Andrew in the spirit world with Anthony in the material one. Whether Andrew gets arrested, makes it to the diner, stays at the ruined house, or shoots himself, it only affects Anthony because the moment we get the reveal of the bus driver is when Andrew wakes up in the hospital or at the site of the crash or wherever, and Angela, Daniel, John, Taylor, and the little girl are corpses who died in the crash. If any of the four adults failed to beat their demons, a new cycle will be reincarnated. The size of the next cycle could determinately be just 3 people (A-boy, M, and only one person who did not break their locked traits) or any number up to the full 6, but Andrew will still be the tether. And the cycles continue like that until all of A-lady, J, T, and D have beaten their demons.

So... did anyone read all of that? If something doesn't make sense go ahead and poke holes in it, I won't be offended lol

#calling it the #semicentennial nightmare walk au #because goofy names appeal to me lol #it roughs out to about every half a century that two a-boys link up to experience a night of horrors #its like a planetary alignment or something 😆 #ramblings #little hope au #the dark pictures anthology #little hope

[ailendolin]

Thanks for tagging me @viola-halogen!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

199 at the moment. Which is a little insane.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,054,233

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment, I mainly write for BBC Ghosts, Yonderland and Bill (2015) and Horrible Histories. I have posted a few Loki fics recently as well because the new season came out and inspired me but it's back to Ghosts now.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. When Sorrow Sang (6,806 kudos - The Witcher)

2. Helpless (2,215 kudos - Thor Movies)

3. For The Best (2,190 - Stranger Things)

4. Here With Me (1,952 - Thor Movies)

5. A Moment (858 - Loki Series)

All those fics were written for large fandoms so it's no surprise they gained more attention than, say, my Six Idiots fics)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Absolutely! Fandom thrives on interaction and the reason I post my fics online is because I want to talk about my favourite characters with other people! That's how I have found my closest fandom friends :)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Mhm, I think my Capvers fic Missed Chances probably fits that bill. Also Attentions (Kendall/Ellis of Woolworth), my 1917 fic God is not here and my Hornblower fic Cast aside.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Since most of my stories end on a happy note, it's hard to pick just one out of the 199. I think I'll go with my Thomas-centric fic The Storyteller because it focuses on Thomas finding his place in his family through storytelling and ends on a very heartwarming note. The same goes for Renovations.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't so far, thank the gods. I honestly don't get why people would comment hateful things on something other people share for free. If you don't like something, just close the tab and move on. It's as simple as that.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No and I never will. I have alluded to it in some stories if it was necessary for the plot (like in Compromise which was all about Thomas and Julian needing different things from their relationship) but I have no intention of ever writing it in detail because it's just not my cup of tea.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I do - very rarely because I like to stay true to canon as much as possible. Crossovers or alternate universes often don't work for me because too much gets changed and the characters often become unrecognisable in the process. But I am very fond of my Button House Museum AU which is essentially a crossover between Ghosts and Night At The Museum where Button House is an old museum that comes to life every night thanks to ancient Stone Circle magic.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12. Does not exist apparently

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Have I? I don't think so. I have collaborated with an artist before for an event but that's it, I think.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I don't have one all-time favourite ship because I don't move on from fandoms. Once I love something, I love it with my whole heart. There might come a point where it stops consuming my every waking thought but it will always stay with me. Some of my oldest ships are Janeway/Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager, Sam Carter/Jack O'Neill from Stargate SG1 and Mulder/Scully from the X-Files.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have had a third installment for my The Pacific series Moments of a Different Past planned years ago. A part of it is already written and I know exactly where I want the story to go but I'll probably never finish it which makes me a bit sad.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Oh this is difficult. I'd say conveying emotions and writing fics that feel like a warm hug? At least that's what people tell me they like about my stories - that they almost always end on a warm note and make them smile.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue, probably. Getting the voices right. English is my second language so dialects etc. often go straight over my head. Writing in a second language can be quite frustrating in general because you're aware your knowledge is limited and you keep catching yourself using the same phrases over and over again but don't really have the skills to shake it up a little.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I'm honestly not a fan of it. I think the odd word or phrase here or there is fine but as a reader, I find it very tedious to have to go to the end of a fic/chapter for the translation all the time so it's something I personally try to avoid (both when reading and writing).

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I honestly don't remember. Perhaps Digimon? Or Yu-Gi-Oh? Though tbf I've daydreamed fics even before I knew what fanfiction were or even thought about writing them down, so if we were to go that far back, it would probably be Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Oh, that's so hard to say because I pour my heart and soul into every fic I write. That being said, I am very fond of the multi-chaptered fics I've written, so Grace and This place (I never thought would feel like home) are definitely among my favourite BBC Ghosts fic. The Sound of Voices Two and The Rivers Between Us for The Pacific are two fics I also love to go back to and re-read. Sometimes, it's not a specific fic but rather the universe that connects them that I have created. My Yonderland fics fall into that category and it's always a joy to return to it.

Tagging: @magicaltear @ginevralinton and @i-am-a-world but as always no pressure💙

#tag game #fanfiction #writing

[kaasknot]

Hey! I have a paper on Buster Keaton coming up in my History of Film class? Would you be willing to info dump everything you know about him? I've only heard of this man through your blog and don't know where to start haha

bruh you're lucky you weren't standing next to me when i read this, my screech would have blown out your ears.

okay, buster keaton 101. he was one of the giants of the silent comedy era, alongside charlie chaplin and harold lloyd, and from the period of 1920 to 1929 he put out 19 short films and 10 feature length films under his own studio, plus two more silent films under MGM that can creditably be called his creations (i use his filmography page on wikipedia to keep it all straight). he also had the unique distinction of doing all his stunts himself, as well as doubling for many of his co-stars. most of these stunts have never been replicated, because honestly they'd probably kill people; his crew called him the "little iron man" because he was fearless and nigh indestructible. he was also a genius behind the camera, in ways that unfortunately i probably can't fully appreciate.

he was born october 4, 1895 in piqua, kansas, during a one-night stopover. his parents were working with a traveling medicine show at the time, to little acclaim, along with harry houdini before he got big. buster's first known stage appearance was as a toddler, interrupting his father's act. at first they tried to shoo him offstage, but his antics drew bigger laughs from the audience, so they decided to incorporate him into the act—leading to what would eventually be called, once they reached vaudeville, "the three keatons." buster said in interviews that his first salaried year was at 5 years of age, in 1899. that was when his family finally hit the big time—and he was almost single-handedly responsible for it.

their act is incredibly difficult to describe. the central conceit was: joe keaton threw little buster across the stage in a parody of strict parenting, while myra keaton played accompaniment on the saxophone. the best description i've found is biographer rudi blesh's, in his 1966 book, Keaton, on pp. 30–33 and 47–48. you can borrow a copy here. (be careful with this book; the author has a way with words, but he sets aside facts in favor of mythology more than once. for a rigorously researched and trustworthy biography, one with all the dates and weights, go for A Filmmaker's Life (2022) by james curtis.)

vaudeville was buster's early training ground, where he learned tumbling, comedic timing, improvisation, and how to construct a gag. most film comedians of the era got their start in vaudeville or comparable music halls, and many of the gags buster performed in his movies were adapted from vaudeville stage magic or repurposed from the family act. if there's one single book on buster keaton i'd recommend, it's Camera Man (2022) by dana stevens. it's not as dense or as thorough as the james curtis book, but it's an extremely good overview of the main events of his life AND the surrounding historical context—including vaudeville. it's also just a really fun read.

buster's vaudeville era ended in 1917, when he was forced to break up the family act over his father's worsening alcoholism. the official party line is that joe couldn't handle the fact that he was getting older, which i think is partly true, but i think a more true explanation is that he couldn't handle the fact that he was outshone by his own son (pretty much all sources agree that buster was the better comedian). he took his anger out on buster onstage during performances, and out on his wife offstage between performances, until myra finally had enough. she and buster ditched joe in los angeles when buster was 21 years old. here's an interesting paper that digs into buster's rough childhood and the impact it likely had on his films.

buster almost immediately found work as a solo act, but a chance encounter with an acquaintance introduced him to roscoe "fatty" arbuckle, then one of the highest-paid, most well-known comedians in film. it took one day on set—and one night disassembling a camera—to convince buster to abandon the stage for a film career. as a bonus, he and arbuckle became life-long friends. they spent the next three years working non-stop, making 14 short films together (plus a couple more buster wasn't involved in, during the 10-month period he was overseas for ww1). the grueling schedule wasn't without its downsides, and arbuckle, tired of making short films, decided to move to feature-length films, which had a slower, more relaxed pace. he left buster his entire studio and crew.

and that's when the real magic began. buster started (continued) with short films: 20 minute "2-reelers" that were played before a feature film, basically doing what looney tunes cartoons would do later. the best way to understand how different buster was from the dominant comedic idiom of the time is to watch a couple of arbuckle shorts ("coney island" and "the garage" are good choices), then watch a couple of buster's own ("one week" and "cops" are probably the best known). buster catered his humor to an older audience, and his gags were sophisticated, subtle, often cynical or ironic, and intricate to construct and film. "keaton made you laugh, then think" (blesh, xi).

in 1923, buster dropped short films in favor of feature-length films, starting with "three ages." he was a little behind the curve on this, but not through lack of trying; if he'd gotten his way, he'd have been the first major comedian to switch to feature-length films. unfortunately, studio contracts and his producer's cold feet held him back for a few more years, so chaplin and lloyd got there first. not that that slowed buster down; his output in the eight years he had creative control is virtually unmatched. despite getting married (in 1921, to natalie talmadge) and having two children (james, 1922, and robert, 1924), he continued filming at breakneck pace. to see what he could do with a camera, i'd recommend "sherlock jr." to see him at his cinematic best, i'd recommend "the general" "the cameraman" (i just committed cinematic heresy with that recommendation, but IN MY DEFENSE it was thee romcom training film for 20 years at MGM, well into the talkie era, so it's hardly a dud :p).

in 1928, buster's producer, joseph schenck, sold his contract to MGM. buster wasn't the owner of keaton studios, just an employee, so he didn't have much say in the matter. both chaplin and lloyd tried to talk him out of it, but in the end he signed the new contract anyway. later, he said it was the worst mistake of his career. denied the creative control he was accustomed to, he gradually descended into full-blown alcoholism, running away from his studio responsibilities and his disintegrating marriage alike. his final film for MGM, "what! no beer?", was an attempted buddy comedy with jimmy durante, and buster was visibly drunk or hungover in almost every scene. MGM fired him in 1932; his divorce, started in 1932, was finalized in 1933.

from there, buster had some dark years. he got married a second time, in 1934, to mae scriven (who mostly seems to have been a con artist), before they divorced in 1936. he was in and out of various rehabs, and nearly died at least once, before he managed to buck the odds and dry out. he spent the last years of the '30s working as a gag man and consultant for other comedians at MGM.

after that, things started to get better. he met his third wife, eleanor norris, in 1938 and they married in 1940. he had a couple high profile cameos in big movies, my favorite being the one in "sunset boulevard," where he played one of norma desmond's waxworks. then, a massively popular article by james agee, titled "comedy's greatest era," was published in LIFE magazine in 1949, kicking off a resurgence of interest in silent film as an art form and as a feature of cinematic history. agee paid special attention to buster, and that, combined with buster's own fascination with the up-and-coming technology of television, led to his comeback. he worked steadily and enthusiastically in television (and occasionally in movies) up until he died of lung cancer on february 1, 1966, living long enough to see his films receive the recognition they deserved. (also here, have this nice article i found while trying to find the one by james agee.)

i've never taken a film history class myself, so i can't begin to explain all the ways buster keaton advanced filmmaking. here's an article that analyzes the gag as a staple of film comedy; a book that analyzes buster's comic and directorial style chiefly through "the general"; and another article that explores gags, this time specifically mechanical gags, and has lots of nice things to say about buster. if this isn't enough and you decide to go whole chicken fried hog on buster like i have, hit up me, @spokir, or @busterkeatonsociety and we can connect you with all the material you could possibly want.

enjoy!!!

(colossal, chrysler building-sized thanks to spokir, who sourced most of these articles. seriously, talk to your local librarian, they WANT to find things for you.)

#buster keaton #askbox #smallfry15005

[ufonaut]

Hi! Been trying to calculate the birthyears of the OG JSAers for reference during my comic reading. While there's estimates, have you ran across any canon birth years for any of them? So far I've calculated Jay G. (1918), Alan S. (1916), Al Pratt (1920), and Johnny T. (1917). I know Wes & Charles are a little older than the others while Kent's aging was thrown off by Nabu (aged up in 1940) but the exact years are harder to pin down, though I imagine most were probably born between 1915 - 1921.

HEY NOW THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M HERE FOR!! this made me very happy to read, it's exactly the kinda thing i spend ages thinking about all the time and i think you're only off by a couple years!

as far as i'm aware, the only jsaer with an exact birth date/year stated during the actual golden age is johnny thunder (07/07/1917) in flash comics 1940 #1, although he's later written as much younger and the majority of his stories treat him as a teenager. that being said, it's equally easy to make an educated guess about kent nelson's birth year -- his origin story in more fun comics 1936 #67 begins in 1920 and the doctor fate 1987 miniseries later states he was twelve at the time, which would make him born in 1908 (the same mini also states that nabu has kept him and inza frozen at twenty-one years old until his rapid ageing during the events of the story).

al pratt is a sophomore in college so i'd personally place him around 1921, while jay graduates in 1940 and that presumably places him around 1919. mcnider has to be at least 30, he's a well-established doctor by the time he's blinded so it's probably something like 1910 or earlier. i'd guess wes is somewhere around there too and rex is probably a couple years younger in his mid-to-late twenties as he's a college graduate and he's been working at banner chemicals for a decent amount of time by his first appearance in adventure comics 1938 #48. similarly, carter is a complete mystery but presumably in his mid-to-late twenties too since flash comics #1 calls him a 'collector and research scientist'. on the other hand, the spectre 1992 series has jim corrigan lying about his age to enlist in the first world war so if he's 17 in 1917 then that makes him born in 1900 and dead at 40.

as for alan, most of his golden age stories do emphasize his youth to the point that i believe we're meant to understand that his career -- and especially the very fast advancement of it -- is extremely uncommon for his age. we know nothing concrete about his past but we do know doiby dickles was in wwi and must be somewhere in his forties, we also know that alan is young enough to be his son so i generally see alan as born in 1918 and twenty-one at the time of the train crash in 1939 (the exact year of the train crash is also subject to some debate, i prefer this particular version that roy thomas suggests in the all-star companion because it gives him a decent chunk of time as a solo hero before the jsa but doomsday clock places it in 1940 as per cover date rather than volume date of aac #16).

i think the absolute best possible resource for the jsaer's ages is paul levitz's 'aging the all-stars' article from the amazing world of dc comics #16, this is as close as we've ever gotten to explicit canon confirmation of any of this and it makes for some easy math with 1976 as the present year he's using to determine all this. more to the point, he has alan as born in 1919 if he's 57 in 1976 so he's on board with the 20-21 age range for the train crash too.

hope this helped!

#asks #anon #alan scott #jsa #justice society of america

[unfortunate-arrow]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝

A/N: For @hp-12monthsofmagic’s July prompt (“A surprise”). Warnings include use of the word “bastard,” and panic attacks. Set in 1892 and then 1917. Primrose Gray belongs to @endlessly-cursed, while Josie Edwards belongs to @slytherindisaster. A parallel of sorts to this fic by @endlessly-cursed.

Everyone knew that William Devlin was a bastard. It was quite possibly the world’s most poorly kept secret, gossiped about by everyone from the servants to the tenants to the nobles of the ton. It was hard to disguise, given William’s uncanny resemblance to the late viscount Edward Carlisle. Not many people had seen the Devlin boy, though. William was granted a lonely childhood, with no playmates and only the most discreet of tutors, but he had marketable skills. Fluent in French by the age of seven. He’d become competent in fencing by nine. He’d been granted a drawing instructor at seven after the housekeeper had discovered some sketches done by the young boy. He’d read or skimmed through most of the viscount Paul Carlisle’s library by eight. He’d mastered the piano by ten. The only stain against his character was the overwhelming stain of illegitimacy.

Of course, for the right price or by the right person, stains such as illegitimacy could be overlooked. After all, William was a boy. He had the freedom to adopt a career, gain a fortune that might allow one to overrule any concerns about blood.

“A what?” William asked, staring stunned at the viscount before hastily adding, “my lord.”

“An engagement, William,” the viscount responded, sounding annoyed.

“I am only ten, my lord. I shall not be permitted to marry.”

“The wedding will not be held until you both reach your twenty-first birthdays. It shall allow you both the time to mature.”

“May I ask who the bride shall be, my lord?”

“Your fiancée is Miss Primrose Gray, Viscount Gray’s daughter. You have met before.”

“Only once, my lord.” 

“That is of no concern. We shall make the announcement in a fortnight.” The viscount waved his hand. “You are dismissed.”

William stared at the viscount for a moment before taking his leave. A fiancée? He’d never even thought about kissing a girl before! Sure, Miss Gray hadn’t immediately turned her nose at him, but three years had passed since their meeting and everyone eventually turned their noses up at him. Okay, so Louisa didn’t really turn her nose up at him, but she was Lady Carlisle’s daughter and she barely spent time with him outside of the occasional family dinner. 

The next fortnight passed excruciatingly fast and with each tick of the clock, William found himself dreading the announcement more and more. He’d always hated events that he was required to attend. Aside from the constant attention, no one was expected to arrive at the time given on the invitation. William had quickly learned that very few people in the aristocratic world valued punctuality quite the way he did and it made him miserable… a feeling that was heightened the moment that he set foot into the event hosted by Lord and Lady Gray. And so, William had slipped out to find somewhere to breathe the moment that everyone had been distracted.

He’d ended up in the nursery somehow. It was a bit of a mess, and he had a particular way that he liked art supplies to be organized. He was organizing the watercolors when a footman appeared and informed him that his presence was required in the ballroom. The knot in his stomach grew tighter and tighter the closer he came to the ballroom. By the time he set foot in the ballroom, William was certain that if he opened his mouth, the contents of his stomach would make an appearance. He was maneuvered to stand by the viscount and Miss Gray, his chest tightening now as well.

“As you know, my wife and I have been searching for a husband for our little treasure, and we believe that we have found the perfect man for her. Hence, I am delighted to announce the engagement of my daughter, Miss Primrose Gray, to Mr. William Devlin, Lord Carlisle’s Ward,” Lord Gray announced with a sweeping gesture to the two children.

The outrage came on almost immediately. His chest tightened even more, causing William to gasp for breath, and he spied the open door to the gardens. His feet moved of their own accord… until a small hand wrapped tightly around his wrist, preventing him from moving. He had never felt the baseness of his illegitimacy quite as much as he did in that moment. And, oh god, could the floor just open up and swallow him?

“That’s enough!” Miss Gray cried. “I made the choice. My father presented me with my options and allowed me to make a decision about my own future. Mr. Devlin was a clear choice. I can understand your anger and disappointment, but I cannot allow you to insult my bridegroom. You shall speak to him with the utmost respect from now on or risk offending me and Winbourne.” 

William heard nothing else as the rushing blood hummed in his ears. The feeling in his chest loosened slightly, but he still couldn’t breath. The moment that all eyes turned off him, he wrenched his arm free and made a beeline for the gardens. Cool air rushed against his skin and he gasped for breath, running a few fingers between his neck and collar to loosen the fabric. A movement in the shadows caught his attention and he whirled around to see Miss Gray.

“Why’d you do it? I didn’t ask you to. You don’t even know me. I didn’t need you to.”

“They were insulting you, Mr. Devlin. I couldn’t allow it. The choice has been made and we shall be married when we are older. It is our duty to look after one another,” Miss Gray responded, an air of offense coloring her words.

“Thank you,” he paused. “No one has defended me like that before.”

She nodded. “I shall leave you to your own thoughts. You know where to find me.” 

William let out a long sigh as she left. The cool breeze ruffled his hair and tinged his cheeks red, but the tightness of his chest began to loosen just enough to feel like he could breathe again. 

Twenty-five years had passed since that mortifying engagement, and at 35 (nearly 36), William could confidently say that being engaged to a woman that you actually cared about and wanted to marry, was much less mortifying than having one be selected for you. Of course, his engagement to his darling Josie had only been for a few short months, not years that were spent dreading every interaction. 

“Will, darling, a letter arrived for you!” Josie called, poking her head into the room that served his studio. He placed his brush down, still marveling at the fact that this was his life. He was actually making a living on his art. 

“Whose it from?” he asked. 

“A Lord Carlisle.”

William frowned deeply. He hadn’t heard from the viscount since he had moved out after graduating from Hogwarts. He took the letter from Josie and studied it, noting that the handwriting was different from the viscount’s. Summoning a letter opener, William gently opened it.

“Dear Mr. Devlin, 

It has been years since we have spoken, but I feel that it is my duty to inform you of my father, Lord Paul Carlisle’s death as you have been included his will. He leaves you a sum of £10,000. I have enclosed all the information from the solicitor in here as well in order for you to claim your share.

There is another matter that I am writing to you about, though. I have discovered, amongst Father’s personal papers, that you, Mr. Devlin, are indeed his son. I have enclosed a letter, written by your late mother, which includes the revelation. It appears that she wrote a letter to accompany you when she left in the care of Father. I know that we have never had much of a relationship, but I am glad to count you as my brother. You were always kind to me and I shall never forget your kindness in gifting me Claude. He was the most faithful companion a boy could ask for. 

Sincerely,

Your brother,

Viscount Julian Carlisle,” William read aloud, staring dumbfounded at the letter. “He left me money. He never forgot about me. He held onto proof that I was his son.”

William turned to Josie, his eyes starting to light up. “We can pay off the rest of the house, love. We can have money to put aside. We can tell the children that their grandfather thought of me.” 

“Oh, that’s incredible, darling.” 

William let out a whoop of joy, pulling Josie into him and spinning her around, a goofy smile on his face. He’d only felt this happy a few times before. His wedding. Samuel. Emmeline and Lucy. Sebastian and Mattie. His father, acknowledging his existence and holding onto the proof that William was his son. Of all the ways that William had predicted his life would go, he had never imagined this. A beautiful wife, a burgeoning career as an artist, five amazing children… and it was all his. 

#hp12mom #william devlin #primrose gray #josie edwards #willsie #william x josie #hp victorian era #hp legacy era #hphl #my writing #my aesthetic #other people’s ocs #i did not intend for this month’s story to go to william… he popped up and wouldn’t leave #so will it is! hopefully the other months for work for kiddos i haven’t really written much for before #might be the longest because once william got started he didn’t stop #was also debating whether or not to include the end bit (in 1917) but let’s end on a happy note