#a 10 years period and say 'that was the real revolution' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Tumblr Inc. is using 66 technologies for its website.

#a 10 years period and say 'that was the real revolution'

jarofstyles · 5 months

Text

Jarofstyles Fic Rec 2023 🪽

hello my loves! Here is our updated fic rec.

[some may be repeats of last year because we reread them!]

Also check out our fic rec account, @jarofstylesrecs for some we most definitely missed!

There are so many I want to put on here and I’ll update it again, but here we are! Let me know of any fics you recommend 🩷

WATTPAD-

Bambi- vanillasoy (or @queenofgraveyards here) (ceo soft H, in my top 5)

Flower- vanillasoy (bodyguard/grumpy h x sunshine ofc)

Devil’s Due- petite_cerise (classic dark!H)

Adonis- temptress_ (dark!H and fierce OFC)

Valhalla- temptress_ (Viking!H)

Baby Blue- theasstour (artist!H and model y/n)

Lucky Penny- alisonfelix (teacher h, soft, ofc finding herself)

Informed Consent- alisonfelix (college romance, absolutely tooth rotting fluff I’m obsessed)

One Night Stand- alisonfelix (short story, pregnancy one night stand plot. A lil angsty but cute)

Ladybug- _screamingcolour (50’s au, super cute)

Pirouette- _screamingcolour (ballerina ofc, so fucking cute it hurts)

Flower Girl- sushirrrry (idk how to describe but chef’s kiss)

Celestial- sushirrrry (WIP, it hurts but it feels good, nerdy h who loves the stars)

Wildflowers- latenightgab (assholeish tattoorry, single dad)

Jezebel- latenightgab (sugar daddy ceo x dancer teacher)

Office Hours- latenightgab (lawyer and professor H x student)

Pink Slip- stillhurtingstyles (plus size! Assistant y/n x boss h)

Always - styleslegend (my OG favorite fic, nerdy h x popular y/n, old but good)

A Lifetime With You- anenglishbird (supernatural au, witchy, adore it)

Inclination- peanutboyfriend (sexuality discovery, so good)

Aerial- peanutboyfriend (aerialist h and ofc, 60’s set, another top 10 fic)

1789- everlasts (period piece, just read it. French Revolution)

Breaking The Ice- sarbearfive (hockey!H)

Sail My Ridges- @1800titz (new but soooo fucking good. Piraterry, writing is phenomenal as usual)

The Devil is a Gentleman- @1800titz (again, writing is incredible. Kink heavy, lovely, bdsm club, masks, real estate agent H- just please read it)

Sinners Place- @shroombloomm (so fucking good, preistrry, all the good drama, 10/10)

Do I Wanna Know? - @eatyourhoneyh (trust me, stripper ofc. Obsessed)

Boston- witchysunflower (hockey h, cheating plot)

Haste- htownrry (pregnancy plot but unconventional, racer h, very good)

TUMBLR-

Prosecco- @moonchildstyles (older!H)

Gravity- @moonchildstyles (camboyrry)

Aster- @moonchildstyles (tattoorry grumpy sunshine)

Èlan- @moonchildstyles (bodyguardrry that pulled my heart strings)

firemanrry- @jawllines (softest H, made of sugar and the little puppy :( )

Ballerinarry- @jawllines (enemies to lovers, obsessed)

Young American- @0nlythrowharrybeaux (tattoo artists h and y/n, so well written)

Wolves- @0nlythrowharrybeaux (Wolfrry!!!)

A Good Fit- @0nlythrowharrybeaux (trust me, read)

LVRS CLUB- @0nlythrowharrybeaux (sex club slay)

Best Friend’s Dadrry- @gurugirl (exactly what it says. So good)

The Arrangement- @gurugirl (sugar daddy h!)

The Ex- @gurugirl (trusf me again)

The whole Knockout series- @freedomfireflies (yall don’t even know how feral this series makes me…)

404- @freedomfireflies (again obsessed, nerdy enemies chefs kiss)

Silk and Rope- @cupid-styles (dom/sub dynamic, so soft)

Only Angel- @cupid-styles (tattorry, experienced h, shy y/n)

Complicated Freak- @lukesaprince (best friends Dadrry is a weakness)

Rich- @lukesaprince (older! H, age gap,)

Mutually Beneficial - @cherryjuiceblues (Dom/sub dynamics, perfection!)

Could You Live With Just a Taste- @frioamor (Dom/sub, smut is mind blowing)

Love’s Divine- @atlafan (nanny!h omg)

Peaches & Cream- @atlafan (anything they write tbh)

You’re Someone I Just Want Around- @adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy & @sunflowervolvimp3 (I put this every year bc I reread it every single year. I’m obsessed. My Roman Empire. I’ve never heard ‘like real people do’ the same since.)

Please You- @adorebeaa (again just trust me)?

Wolfrry- @adorebeaa (please I’m obsessed w this and the smut is incredible)

The Dark King- @shroombloomm (so so so so so good, dark obviously but I love it)

Achilles Heel- @angelisverba (I’m obsessed w their writing and plugrry but this smut is mind blowing)

1K notes · View notes

i-write-hurt-not-comfort · 7 months

Text

@yuukanaazu hi there! thank u for your question, i would LOVE to talk about this. i've thought about this so much and i love the who Mukami backstory. i would like to disclaim i'm not a history expert but i've researched this a fuck ton. whilst a lot of the Mukami routes have bits of the Romanian history lore scattered around, the most lore comes from Ruki's MB but especially his LE, so i'm going to be using that as my main source.

putting this under a cut here because it's very long. TW for discussions of the Romanian orphan crisis.

so right off the bat in MB, we see Ruki clearly has this trauma surrounding something which happened in an eastern european nation, as seen in this manga panel when he's sitting in class and the teacher is talking about an outbreak of orphans.

although they don't SAY Romania, it's pretty heavily implied that it's Romania as this was where the infamous orphan crisis occurred and we know the Mukami's met in an orphanage. the REAL confirmation of what actually happened in Romania comes from Ruki's LE.

credit where credit is due, rejet did alright with the Romania lore. in the 1960s, Romania was under a dictatorship by Ceaușescu. Ceaușescu's socialist policies had Romania and its capital Bucharest in declining conditions. wild-spread poverty caused children to run away from home so there were already some children on the streets. Decree 770 was enacted in 1966 which banned abortion and contraception with the hope of population growth directly leading to economic growth.

Ruki's father was supposedly a politician during the time of Decree 770 being enacted. it is implied Karlheinz convinced Ceaușescu to impose Decree 770 to cause wide-spread casualties particularly in children and use these for ghoul experiments. Karlheinz also convinced Ceaușescu to impose higher taxes and embezzle public funds.

it's unclear exactly when Ruki's father was dismissed from his political position, but we see it happen in LE and he becomes an alcoholic. over the next few years, birth rates would increase substantially, especially over 1967, 1968 and 1969 when the policy was still knew. parents who were unable to take care of their children gave them up to orphanages. by 1977, parents were taxed for being childless. potentially this is when Ruki's father dies and they all enter the orphanage.

children ran away from home due to parents being overloaded with children and poverty stricken. by the 1980s, conditions in the orphanages had significantly declined. Ceaușescu was killed in December 1989. supposedly, Kalrheinz was assassinated at the end of the revolution too, and was hung in public, but his corpse disappeared.

conditions in the orphanages were as follows:

Children did not have access to food, water, medicine or basic needs

Many were not educated and were illiterate

Hygiene was below standard and sexual assault common

HIV/AIDS spread throughout orphanages particularly in the 1980s

Military run orphanages often saw violent child abuse

Children self-harmed and abused aurolac, a type of paint inhaled as a solvent (commonly distributed around Bucharest during this period right through to common times)

Gangs were formed inside and outside the orphanages which led to further violence

There weren't enough beds

Some children were sold off as slaves for money or to be abused (Kou is an example of this)

Disabled children were sent to special places and were treated the worst

the Mukami's lore is mostly implied from theories, and the bullet points i'm about to drop are only my perspective. though it is based off canon events.

here, we are going to assume the timeline matchup or make some kind of sense…

it DOES kind of make sense if you imagine the Mukami's to be born in 1966/67 due to the abortion ban

thus they would be around age 10-11 in 1977 when they all entered the orphanages

obviously the orphanages were overcrowded by this point in time, hence the conditions were so bad

Azusa was at the orphanage first and when Ruki arrived, he followed him around

Ruki was creeped out at first but eventually came to see Azusa as a younger brother

then Ruki meets Kou when he's in the middle of trying to kill himself and calls him a loser

Yuma joined the orphanage last, and became friends with everyone after meeting Kou in the punishment cell

so the order is Azusa, then Ruki, then Kou, and then Yuma

Ruki

Ruki's father was a politician… until he wasn't

when Decree 770 was enacted, he turned into an alcoholic and began abusing Ruki's mother

it's explained in Ruki's LE Maniac Epilogue and it's a bit vague but I do think the implication is that Ceaușescu imposing higher taxes (potentially the childless tax in 1977) is what caused Ruki's father's dismissal

this means Ruki was a baby when Decree 770 was first enacted but he was pampered so he didn't know that was going on in the real world

1977, Ruki's father was fired then committed suicide, his mother had an affair and ran off, and Ruki entered the orphanage

he was beaten up a lot for being an ex-aristocrat

Kou

Kou was born to an aristocratic family but they were exiled when he was still young

(i headcanon his parents being from another country, possibly Italy considering his name was Emilio)

he was off-handed to a nanny but she abandoned him when he was young

she potentially abandoned him due to having to care for too many orphans (early 1970s)

kou spent most his childhood on the streets, at which point he was shown to beg for food and money

he exchanged this (IN CANON!!) for aurolac (which i write about here)

eventually he was taken into the orphanage, right when some army officers shot some people in front of him

there he was sold off to aristocrats, aka slavery, and gouged out his eye

continued using aurolac in the orphanage

Yuma

i will assume he ended up in Bucharest around mid-1970s

his farming family in the village which burnt down was poor due to socialist policies and higher taxes

he was in a gang as the name Bear and was one day thrown into the orphanage when everyone else was shot

his leader Lucks had been shown to be prostituting himself to get money for the gang

Yuma steals food from the orphanage and got into a lot of fights due to people insulting his gang

Azusa

Azusa was raised by Romani people

it isn't clear whether he was born into a Romani family or whether he was born accidentally and abandoned and then taken in by the Romani people

i personally headcanons the former

he was weak compared to everyone and Justin, Melissa and Christina beat him up a lot

one day they were killed for burglary and Azusa cried

then he passed out in front of a shop and was sent to the orphanage

he enjoys getting beaten up at the orphanage and that's when he meets Ruki

i am sorry that this is SO LONG. if you made it to the end, thank u and congratulations. i love this lore. if you want it saved somewhere, i have it all here (+ more information).

#ask #or well a reply #diabolik lovers

44 notes · View notes

princessshikky · 1 year

Text

10 Fandoms, 10 Characters, 10 Tags

@squirrelwithatophat tagged me, and I'm just going to pretend I'm fashionably late to the party or something.

As far as I understand, you just name 10 of your favorite characters from 10 fandoms? Is that it? Also, I'm not going to rank them, it's not a "top 10", they're all my favorites.

Chi Xiaochi, "Don't pick up boyfriends from the trash bin"

One of the best protagonists ever, and here's why: he's extremely ruthless, calculating and manipulative, cruel and vindictive... but he's not a villain protagonists, he actually has a solid moral compass and a strict code of ethics. He's never needlessly cruel, and while he may initially come off as a jerk because of his cynicism and a devil-may-care attitude, Chi Xiaochi is actually a very kind and caring person. But when he's dealing with his "targets", who are awful, horrible, no-good scum-of-the-earth, CXC is absolutely the scheming bastard. And it's glorious. Also extremely rare in a protagonist, which makes CXC stand out.

Oh, and he's very proactive, which can't hurt. Love me a proactive protagonist.

2. Wen Ning, "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation"

A sweet, gentle zombie whose superpower is turning into a roaring berserker when he feels like it. Also he's extremely loyal, nice to people, and he once made a grown-up man cry just by talking.

3. Anders, "Dragon Age 2"

Anders is my favourite Bioware character, period. He's the person who spent years being brainwashed by a corrupt theocracy, defied them at every turn, risked his life to provide free medical care to refugees, then went out of his way to try and start a revolution against said corrupt theocracy. And it was awesome. Honestly, the chantry boom on its own would've been enough to make me love Anders even if he were a homicidal maniac, but he's also very caring, brave and devoted person. And gorgeous. And passionate. And is the real hero of "DA2", because while Hawke just runs around and does crime, Anders is there peacefully (and not-so-peacefully) protesting against the people who would execute him for his mere existence.

4. Luffy, "One Piece"

Again: love me a proactive protagonist who does stuff and moves the plot instead of waiting for stuff to happen to him. And Luffy's awesome.

5. Sir Lancelot of the Arthurian Legend

I love almost every iteration of sir Lancelot (let's just all pretend "The mists of Avalon" don't exist, ok?). He's perfect. Nothing else to say.

6. Ned Stark, "A Song of Ice and Fire"

Ned is a fundamentally good person, which makes him an awful politician and costs him in the long run... but you know what else that makes him? A perfect husband/father material.

7. Iskander, "Fate/Zero"

A charisma that literally moved armies. The only person to weaponise the power of friendship. Also Iskander is surprisingly smart, and a lot of his seemingly stupid and rash decisions are well thought-out, once you stop to think about them.

8. John Gaius, "The Locked Tomb"

The Evil Overlord done right. Like, he's extremely obviously evil, he's literally a necromancer waging war against humanity, and yet I can totally believe people are standing in line to join his army. Hell, I'd stand in line to join his army! John Gaius is what you get when someone reads "200 things I'd do if I became an evil overlord" and says "Hey, that sounds perfectly reasonable, I'm doing that".

9. Alexander Tiedermann, "Dark"

Perhaps one of the healthiest, sanest, nicest characters in the whole show. I also love how he's initially presented as a cold, uncaring mogul only to be later shown as a loyal and caring husband and father and a decent human being overall. Considering how most of the cast are awful people, Alexander was a breath of fresh air every time he was on screen.

10. Hob Gadling, "The Sandman"

I just like his story arc. The immortal human who never gives up on humanity, who never loses hope, who loves this life and this world, whose endless optimism and perseverance impresses even the beings who stand above gods. Neat.

#mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #don't pick up boyfriends from the trash bins #dragon age #da2 #da #dragon age 2 #one piece #dark #the sandman #fate/zero #the locked tomb

3 notes · View notes

datasportsgroup · 2 years

Text

How Has The Sports Betting Industry Undergone A Transformation Because Of Data?

Often times the data experts in the industry would proudly compare the data revolution to that of the Industrial Revolution that happened in the 1800s and forever changed the way we work. Experts would not be wrong to do so since the magnitude of the change stays the same, how two centuries ago coal brought about a revolution, and data has done the same to our world the only difference is, that it had a digital impact.

With more dependence on data, technology also evolved over the decade and disrupted the way of working in many industries including sports. Businesses have gotten a boost with an advanced way of broadcasting, live-streaming, and internet connection which changed the way sports events were recorded and made available to fans all over the world. Technology is ever-evolving, with more innovative ways being developed as you read this article. We have access to smartphones now and readily available information whenever we desire it. In today's world, an average Joe has shifted a huge part of their daily activities online from online shopping to online banking even entertainment is mostly sought out online. The recent pandemic also fueled the growth of technology as millions of people shifted to remote working and even studying online.

The online gambling market saw a huge growth in recent years in terms of players and the value of the industry as well. By 2023 the projections say the industry would be worth USD 92.9 billion as per Statista. When we talk about the gambling market, we include casino games, poker, and sports betting. The major growth factor for the betting industry was online sports betting, which includes in-game betting as well nowadays.

In-game betting has surged the demand for sports data as to make accurate predictions and win big they need accurate and reliable data which is rich in detail and available quickly for the punters to analyze and place their bets in a short time frame. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics, along with virtual and augmented reality gave way to a Goliath-like metaverse.

The world of sports has firsthand witnessed the potential of data and how it can be applied to Data collection and analysis. The aim at first was just to improve athletes' performance and the team performance overall but later the same could be applied to the world of sports betting data, and fantasy gaming. More facts from Statista states that the global sports analytics market is set to grow with a CAGR of 21.8 percent between 2021 and 2028 and would be worth more than USD 10 billion by 2028. Sensors also monitor arm speed, elbow stress, the ball touches to the feet, and for the legs, distance covered, stride length, acceleration, and deceleration.

Apart from the obvious enhanced experience data has created for sports fans, data could also be used to monitor the behaviors of punters. Gaming operators depend on bettors for the success of their betting platform and over the period their demands have changed from just the betting odds to ongoing games. Tech-savvy bettors demand faster and more accurate game data as well which will aid them in faster decision-making. Betting operators have also taken up a new quest to analyze the behaviors of betters and their habits and preferences to offer a seamless and enhanced betting experience. Based on this analysis they can make bet suggestions and tailor-make products for them as well. Their habits could be observed over time for example the sports they bet on, location, time or days on which they bet enthusiastically, or whether they prefer pre-game betting or in-game betting. In order to promote safe, responsible gaming they can even place spending limits or curtail playing time.

The aim behind using data is to increase the betting volume and the frequency as well by creating attractive odds. With real-time athlete data, predictions can be made soundly. AI technologies are used to explore the next level of data analytics. In-game betting truly took away the dependence on the scoreboard, but in fact, individual pieces or actions are used to place a bet on, for example, the next strike in the game of baseball, the next three-pointer in Basketball, and such small actions. Even past data is used to create better insights for the bettors

While all that sounds fancy, some have raised interesting concerns over privacy infringement issues and data ownership issues. Sports operators face issues related to issues of intellectual property (IP) rights which differ as per sports also different countries have different copyright infringement laws as well. Many sports data providers have even signed exclusive rights with leagues to become their data partners.

If you are struggling with the decision to choose sports betting data providers, we have the perfect solution for you! Do a free trial of our Data Sports Group sports betting data API. You can use sports betting odds APIs to boost your business and take your betting platform ahead. Get in touch with our team and set up a trial for free.

0 notes

warrioreowynofrohan · 3 years

Text

Timeline of Middle-Earth

To develop a clearer sense of the sheer scale of the timelines we’re dealing with in Middle-earth’s Ages of the Sun, I thought I would put it in perspective by comparing it to real-world history. This can be done comparatively simply because the main events of The Lord of the Ring occur in 3018-3019 BC. (3020 in Middle-earth is a very good year, conspicuously unlike our 2020.)

So if we analogize T.A. 3019 to our 2019, we can get a sense in our terms of how long ago various Middle-earth events were to (mortal) characters in The Lord of the Rings. The beginning of the Third Age, for example, would line up with 1000 BC (approximately the time of Solomon). The beginning of the Second Age would be 4441 BC, and the beginning of the (much shorter) First Age a little before 5000 BC. A lot of my dates will be from the history of the Ancient Near East and Europe, simply because those are the periods of ancient history I’m most familiar with.

Using this comparison, the beginning of the Second Age and the foundation of Númenor is roughly contemporary with the earliest development of the wheel (~4500 BC, Wikipedia tells me) and the earliest forms of writing. So if you want a timescale for just how old any elf who saw the First Age was, that’s a helpful starting point (Maglor and Galadriel are, of course, much older).

The forging of the One Ring (c. S.A. 1600) corresponds to a little before the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The imperialist era of Númenor, under Tar-Ciryatan, begins at about the same time as the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza (~2500 BC) and lasts until roughly the end of the New Kingdom of Egypt (that’s the one that included Hatshepsut and Ramses II) a little before 1000 BC. That makes ancient Egypt really quite helpful for envisioning the span of Númenor’s history, except that Númenor also had about 1900 years of being non-terrible prior to that.

The Last Alliance of Elves and Men corresponds to around 1000 BC, around the tine of the start of the Chinese Zhou dynasty (for context, this is still well before Qin Shi Huang and the Terra-Cotta Army) and the time of David and Solomon in ancient Israel.

Arwen is born in the year 241 of the Third Age. This roughly corresponds to the time of the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey by Homer. So when Elrond tells Aragorn that Arwen is far, far older than him, he is, if anything, understating the point.

The breakup of Arnor into three realms occurs in T.A. 861. We have now skipped over a quite considerable period of time (past the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Alexander the Great in the ancient near east, andpast Qin Shi Huang in China) to the time of the Roman Republic and of the Han dynasty. So that gives some perspective on what Aragorn re-founding the kindom of Arnor means - the the people of, say, Bree, this is a kingdom from ancient history.

Around T.A. 1000 - corresponding to the time of the New Testament and the early Roman Empire - the Istari arrive in Middle-earth and the first hobbits come to Eriador (i.e. the land west of the Misty Mountains). However, the hobbits don’t cross the Brandywine and found the Shire until a long time later (T.A. 1600).

The centuries around T.A. 1300s-1400s see civil war in Arnor (incited by the Witch-king of Angmar) and Gondor, and in invasion of Arnor by the Witch-king. This corresponds to around A.D. 300s-400s in our time, and the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Shire is founded in T.A. 1601, corresponding to around our A.D. 600. This is roughly equivalent the time of the founding of Islam in our world. So the Shire’s got a very considerable history behind it!

The fall of the north-kingdom of Arnor to the Witch-king occurred in T.A. 1974. Also in the late 1900s of the Third Age, the Witch-king returns to Mordor; a Balrog appears in Moria and drives out the dwarves; and Thrain I founds the Kingdom Under the Mountain in Erebor. A little after (T.A. 2050) the line of the kings in Gondor ends and the time of the Stewards begins. This is equivalent, in our terms, to around the time of the Norman Conquest of England, and of Cahokia in North America. When Boromir asks his father why the Stewards of Gondor are not considered kings yet, he has a point.

In 2463, the White Council is formed; this is also around the same time that Gollum obtains the Ring. Roughly speaking, this is equivalent to the time of the Renaissance in Europe for us. Gollum had the Ring for a really freaking long time.

The arrival of the Rohirrim, and the granting of Calenardhon to them as the realm of Rohan (irrespective of its actual inhabitants) occurs in 2510 of the Third Age, or close to equivalent with the beginning of the Reformation for us.

The Bagginses, Tooks, and Brandybucks can trace their ancestry back to the years 1000s to 1100s in Shure-reckoning (2600s-2700s of the Third Age), equivalent to a family in our time being able to trace its lineage to the 1600s-1700s A.D.

Smaug’s destruction of the Kingdom under the Mountain is in T.A. 2770, shortly followed by the War of the Dwarves and Orcs when Thror (Thorin’s grandfather) is killed by an orc in Moria. In our terms, corresponding to 1770, around the time of the American Revolution. Thorin dies in T.A. 2941 (equiv. A.D. 1941), to to get a perspective on dwarf ages, Thorin’s lifespan is equivalent to someone being able to fight in both the American Revolution and World War II.

Bilbo is born in T.A. 2890, equivalent to 1890 (the Gilded Age) in our time. The Fell Winter, when wolves attack the Shire over the frozen Brandywine, happens when he is 10 years old.

Aragorn and Denethor are born at almost the same time, Denethor in T.A. 2930 and Aragorn in T.A. 2931. Huh, hadn’t realized that. How mich does Denethor resent that he’s an old man while Aragorn is still in the prime of his life. Anyway, this is around the 1930s in our terms.

The events of the Hobbit take place in T.A. 2941, equivalent to our 1941 - a happier year for Middle-earth than for us, certainly.

Frodo is born in 2968, equivalent to our 1968.

Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday, and the events of The Lord of the Rings, occurs in T.A. 3001, equivalent to our 2001.

So, hopefully that gives some perspective on how long ago the various events of Middle-earth’s history would feel to the mortal - or at least, human and hobbit - characters of The Lord of the Rings. The major difference is that the existence of elves mean that both written records and living memory go back far, far further for Middle-earth than they do for us.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #the lord of the rings #bilbo #frodo #aragorn #denethor #númenor #second age

485 notes · View notes

aswithasunbeam · 3 years

Note

What was historical George and Alexander relationship like? I read Alex’s letter when he resigned from being aide and the picture it was painting was different from what I got from the musical. And some even say they were never really friends to begin with. So I am wondering what’s the real deal. Thank you!

Such a fascinating topic! Their relationship was incredibly important to the founding of the US, but it was also complicated and certainly developed over time. Washington was about twenty-five years Hamilton's senior and he could be a difficult man to work for, especially when he was stressed, which made a close relationship between the two a challenge.

As much as Washington tried to present a stoic front, he could have quite the temper in private, and his aids, such as Hamilton, often found themselves on the receiving end. Hamilton worked closely with Washington for the better part of five years with hardly any leave by the time he resigned from Washington's staff in 1781. At the time Hamilton resigned, he claimed he "felt no friendship for [Washington] and had professed none. The truth is our own dispositions are the opposite of each other & the pride of my temper would not suffer me to profess what I did not feel." (Hamilton to Philip Schuyler, 18 February 1781). In a more candid letter to James McHenry, Hamilton wrote, "The Great Man and I have come to an open rupture....He shall for once at least repent his ill-humour." (Hamilton to McHenry, 18 February 1781). It's important to keep in mind Hamilton's pent up frustration when he penned these letters, however, and that at all times Hamilton respected and trusted Washington, even when he didn't like him very much.

The two spoke little in the years immediately after the Revolution. By the time of the Constitutional Convention, however, when Hamilton had begun to establish himself as a formidable national figure in his own right, a certain amount of camaraderie and warmth enters their letters. When Hamilton needed to go back to New York, Washington wrote to him of his sincere fears about whether they would succeed in coming to any kind of agreement. He closed the letter, "I'm sorry you went away. I wish you were back....I will not at this point trouble you with more than my best wishes and sincere regards." (Washington to Hamilton, 10 July 1787).

Their years of working together throughout the war gave them a similar perspective on the importance of a strong national government to bind the states together. Hamilton became arguably the most influential figure in Washington's cabinet during the Washington administration. They trusted and understood each other in way that was unmatched by the others in Washington's circle of advisors.

But even that period had it's rocky moments. In early 1794, when Hamilton was being dragged before his opponents in Congress and questioned about his methods of paying foreign loans, he claimed that although he could not point to explicit permission from Congress, he had acted on the approval of the President. He wrote to Washington hoping that he would confirm those orders. Instead, Washington attempted to distance himself from Hamilton: "I cannot charge my memory with all the particulars, which have passed between us, relative to the disposition of the money borrowed." (Washington to Hamilton, 8 April 1794). This wasn't exactly the ringing endorsement Hamilton had been looking for. In the end, though, Hamilton was cleared of wrongdoing.

Hamilton resigned from the Treasury in 1795. In a moving acknowledgement of their shared efforts and trust, Washington wrote to Hamilton:

In every relation, which you have borne to me, I have found that my confidence in your talents, exertions and integrity, has been well placed. I the more freely render this testimony of my approbation, because I speak from opportunities of information wch cannot deceive me, and which furnish satisfactory proof of your title to public regard. My most earnest wishes for your happiness will attend you in your retirement, and you may assure yourself of the sincere esteem, regard and friendship of Dear Sir Your affectionate Go: Washington. (Washington to Hamilton, 2 February 1795).

Washington's affection and support continued to be important to Hamilton well after he left the Treasury. In the red heat of the Reynolds scandal two years later, Washington sent Hamilton silver wine cooler as a symbol of his continued support, writing:

Not for any intrinsic value the thing possesses, but as a token of my sincere regard and friendship for you, and as a remembrancer of me; I pray you to accept a Wine cooler for four bottles, which Coll. Biddle1 is directed to forward from Philadelphia (where with other articles it was left) together with this letter, to your address. (Washington to Hamilton, 21 August 1797).

When the quasi-war with France began soon after, it was at Washington's insistence that Hamilton was promoted to General and placed in command of the effort to raise an American army.

Washington passed away on December 14, 1799. His last (official) letter was to Hamilton, written two days earlier, approving of his thoughts regarding the establishment of a military academy. After learning of his passing, Hamilton wrote the following moving epitaph to Tobias Lear:

The very painful event which it announces had, previously to the receipt of it, filled my heart with bitterness. Perhaps no man in this community has equal cause with myself to deplore the loss. I have been much indebted to the kindness of the General, and he was an Aegis very essential to me. But regrets are unavailing. For great misfortunes it is the business of reason to seek consolation. The friends of General Washington have very noble ones. If virtue can secure happiness in another world he is happy. In this the Seal is now put upon his Glory. It is no longer in jeopardy from the fickleness of fortune. (Hamilton to Tobias Lear, 2 January 1800).

This only skims the surface of one of the most consequential and fascinating relationships among the Founders. For a deeper look, I'd recommend Stephen Knott and Tony Williams' excellent book "Washington & Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America".

#alexander hamilton #george washington #history #ask

100 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

Text

Podcasting "Against The Great Forces of History"

This week on my podcast, I read my latest Medium column, “Against The Great Forces of History,” in which I describe how Ada Palmer’s pedagogic techniques as a Renaissance historian at the University of Chicago has changed my view of how the world works.

https://doctorow.medium.com/against-the-great-forces-of-history-4946651f2f80

Palmer specializes in banned information during the Inquisitions, specifically in Florence. She’s an authority on how the Inquisitions dealt with witchcraft, homosexuality, pornography, heresy and banned science. You should read her blog!

https://www.exurbe.com/

Every year, Palmer takes a group of students through a LARP that re-enacts the election of the Medicis’ Pope in 1490. Students are assigned to role-play real cardinals from the powerful families of the day over a period of weeks.

https://history.uchicago.edu/news/papal-election-here-campus

The climax is a conclave, held in the Neo-Gothic Memorial Chapel, in full costume (Palmer has a Google Alerts for theater companies selling off their wardrobe). The cardinals, having spent weeks horse-trading and backstabbing, gather to choose a Pope from among the final four candidates.

Here’s a funny thing: two of those candidates are always the same, year after year. But the other two? They’ve never been the same.

In other words, the Great Forces of History are certainly bearing down on that moment. They are ordaining that the two most powerful families in the running will get a shot at elevation. But these forces don’t determine the outcome — they influence it. The human choices, made by people with free will, set up fully half of the possible outcomes.

That is to say, history doesn’t run on rails. It is steerable. Its great forces don’t strip us of agency (and indeed, “great forces” are just the product of earlier human choices). We make history.

As you might expect from this brilliantly imaginative pedagogical method, Palmer isn’t just an academic. She’s also a musician — a librettist and singer of great breadth, whose works include an album-length retelling of the Norse mythos:

https://adapalmer.com/publication/sundown-whispers-ragnarok/

As well as a song about space travel that literally reduces me to tears every time I hear it:

http://www.sassafrassmusic.com/songs/sci-fi-fantasy-fandom/somebody-will/

She’s also a brilliant science fiction writer, whose profound understanding of the past has created an utterly original vision of the future in her Terra Ignota series:

https://adapalmer.com/series/terra-ignota/

That series is concluding now with the fourth and final volume, Perhaps the Stars:

https://adapalmer.com/publication/perhaps-the-stars/

Palmer has influenced my thinking a great deal. We co-hosted a seven-part seminar series comparing information control during the Inquisition with other information revolutions.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeNP7NIWmB70wFBv9QolYkg/about

And hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about her Papal LARP, and what it says about being an activist. History bears down upon us at every moment, but we are not its prisoners. We make history, through our choices.

I delved into this last week at the Internet Archive’s 25th Anniversary Celebration in San Francisco, in a talk entitled “Seize the Means of Computation.”

https://youtu.be/pzMlOtrhEwc?t=2241

The podcast episode is here:

https://craphound.com/news/2021/10/25/against-the-great-forces-of-history/

And here’s a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they’ll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_406/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_406_-_Against_the_Great_Forces_of_History.mp3

And here’s the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

#pluralistic

24 notes · View notes

moonlightchild-otome · 3 years

Text

the real story of amélie from arthur’s route

hey hey! it’s been a long time! i have been quite busy these past weeks with finals and the summer break.

i also want to start writing hcs, so if you have any requests don’t hesitate to send them to me!

today i wanted to write about a story that i read not too long ago that really coincides with the evil character of amelie in arthur’s route.

a lot of people might have actually already heard of it, she is known as history’s most cruel murderer.

the person we are going to talk about lived in the period of victorian england and was sometimes suspected to have a link with jack the ripper, the serial killer who terrorized the inhabitants of whitechapel.

in other words, she is called the ogress of reading or the victorian ogress and the trial of these murders has been the subject of much attention, especially because she preyed on very young children. Let me tell you the terrifying story of a monster who disguised herself as a warm and loving mother figure

the story of the infamous amelia elisabeth dyer

an ordinary family

our story begins in 1836 in the port city of bristol in england. the hobley family welcomes the arrival of a fifth child, a lovely little girl called amelia elisabeth. the little amelia is very lucky, in a time when poverty reigns in the united kingdom she knows a respectable education, learns to read and to love poetry. however the luck ends quickly as amelia’ mother caught typhus, an illness that showed her a lot of psychological problems. amelia had to take care of her mother until she passes away from her illness. after her mother’s death, the girl loses contact with most of her family members. meanwhile, amelia starts seeing george thomas, a 59 year old man, much older than her, who was only 25 at the time (long live the sugar daddies!). they planned to get married and to avoid gossip, they both lied about their date of birth on the day of the ceremony. (amelia pretended that she was 32 and george 48)

during her marriage, amelia learned to be a nurse but she doesn't have time to forge a real career as her husband dies leaving her alone with their children who are still very young. it's already not easy to raise a child alone nowadays but imagine what it was like at that time when england was in the middle of the victorian period, the industrial revolution changed the shape of the cities and saw the emergence of new social classes. in london and other major british cities, poverty has invaded the neighborhoods and the poor have few options to get by. some live in workhouses which reduce them more or less in slavery for a mouthful of bread while others choose criminality to support themselves.

however, amelia remembers ellen dane, a midwife in her building with whom she got along quite. she had told her that to earn more money she had become a baby farmer.

it is a profession which does not exist any more today but was rather widespread in the 19th century. now, it should not be forgotten that this england inherited puritanism and considered that to have a child out of marriage was a horrible sin. if that came to be known, the young women concerned risked big and could lose their reputation and their work. especially that, at that time, one did not consider that the father had a role to play in the event of unwanted pregnancy. also, it was obviously out of question to abort except clandestinely which was at the same time illegal and very dangerous. all that to say that when an unwanted child came to the world most women preferred to give it up rather than risk public humiliation. but abandonment was also illegal, and none of them wanted to risk the death penalty if their actions came public. this is precisely where the baby farmers intervene. when a woman fell pregnant and did not want to keep the child, she had to put an ad in the newspapers and leave her child to a farmer.the baby would be taken care of and fed until the farm finds a new family. it was a sort of clandestine human trafficking, and sometimes the farmers even housed the mothers in their homes during their pregnancy in order to hide their big bellies.

the birth of the monster

soon, the ogress settles in reading close to london and publishes advertisements where she presents herself as a respectable woman to marry, capable of providing a healthy environment and filled with affection to the children that she intends to collect like the other farmers. she asks for money to be able to look after them. amelia quickly realizes that it is much more profitable to keep the money rather than to use it for feeding and educating the children. and so little by little the treatments that she inflicts on the children become more and more dire (spoiler: she doesn’t take care of them anymore). and even worse, she even drugs the children to prevent them from crying because of hunger. the kids often die of malnutrition and infantile diseases. it is absolutely terrible and yet it is far from being unusual, in fact orphans were very often victims of abuse and many of the baby farmers were far from being trustworthy people. a lot took advantage of the distress of the mothers ready to do anything to keep their secret and these so-called “baby farmers” would leave the children to die in order to pocket the money without any effort. when the mothers asked for news of their children, they often got no answer and when a family wanted to get a child back, the farmer gave them another one instead.

amelia very quickly became addicted to the drugs she used on the children as she couldn’t stand the crying and the presence of the orphans anymore. she decides to move on to a more radical option: directly eliminating the children she is entrusted with.

at first, she will choose to poison them and claim an infantile disease, but the doctor who came to attest the death of the infants shows himself a little suspicious (at the same time, she gives him a case every week or so :/). in short, the guy warned the authorities so that they could investigate on amelia. but no luck, she manages to get away with negligence with a simple sentence of forced labor. and moreover, she decided to opt for a more brutal method for her future murders. that is to say, she was going to strangle them as soon as she was allowed to keep them, pocket the money and look for a new child to start all over again. and this will go on for years, sometimes at the rate of six babies a day, no need to declare the deaths, she got rid of them herself, wrapping them in cloth or old clothes, and then she left to burn them in an isolated place to hide them or throw them in the thames. and when she felt that the authorities could trace the dead children back to her, she simulates a nervous breakdown and suicidal desires and runs off to a psychiatric hospital. she even tried to kill herself once by overdosing to escape an overly suspicious mother who was asking for her child. except that by consuming opiates she had become hyper resistant and the dose that she took was not enough to kill her. she then moved often and took on different identities to prevent the police from finding her and understanding who she really was and this little merry-go-round worked for a long time, a very long time, even, but not indefinitely...

ambush and arrest

in january 1896, a waitress named evelyna marmon gave birth to an illegitimate daughter named doris. she was looking for someone to take care of her and very soon she came across the ad of a certain mrs. harding who wrote "married couple, without children, want to adopt a child in good health in a beautiful country house, price: 10£”. necessarily for this young mother, it is a godsend and the two women contact each other. and here is what mrs. harding replied, "I would be happy to have a dear little girl, one that I will be able to raise like my own. we are a united couple of fairly good conditions. I do not want a child for the lure of gain but to accompany the comfort of the house. my husband and I love children but we do not have any. with me, this child will have a good house as well as all the love of a mother". at this stage you can guess that mrs. harding is in fact amelia dyer who took a false name and who continued with her macabre activities. doris gets taken from the waitress by “mrs. harding” who confirms by letter that the child is doing well, after that she doesn’t give any more news. spoiler: the child did not have more than a few hours to live. once the crime is committed, because yes, it’s done already. amelia covers the body of doris with another child in fabric and travels to the edge of the thames to throw them under the eyes of a man who seemed to observe her but who didn’t address a word to her.

in this kind of case, one wonders “where tf is the police??” well they were on the point of starting a very interesting investigation... on march 30th 1896, the police force finds the lifeless body of helena fry, a baby of hardly 15 months who floated on the waters of the river wrapped in a brown cloth. for the authorities, it is obviously a murder since the child was strangled. they later found on the cloth, a half erased writing which resembles an address. this address is amélia’s, who is now 58 years old; the police then trace her and set up a trap.

basically what they did was to use a young woman as a cover, she pretended to need a farmer to look after her child and as expected it was amelia who answered her directly. so that's how the police organized an ambush at the murderer's house. what first shocked the policemen was especially the unbearable smell which reigned in the house because of the decomposition of certain corpses, they also found meters of edging tape which she used to strangle her victims, and also telegrams testifying of all the adoptions made as well as letters of mothers who asked for news of their children. so yes, there is a lot of evidence to charge her for, especially as they found at least seven more bodies by dredging the thames after her arrest. the bodies clearly had a white mark around their neck probably because of the tape she used to kill the children with. we also know that about twenty children under her care at that time were missing but for the rest it's impossible to know the exact number of amelia's victims. in fact, it is estimated that in 20 years she would have killed between 200 and 400 newborn babies, that's why she is said to be the most prolific serial killer in history.

her sentence and death

in spite of this very important number of victims amelia will be accused for only one crime, the one of the little doris. except that she very quickly confessed a quantity of other murders and tried to commit suicide twice while she was incarcerated. the defense pleaded madness and because she had spent time in asylum the doctors that she had managed to manipulate were able to confirm that was unstable. she herself said that the children she had killed died peacefully; that they were called back by God who was someone who could love them more than anyone on this earth, she said that she had simply made angels and that one day she would sit beside the Lord Almighty. her breakdowns of madness always coincided strangely with the moment when the police approached, so we can think that it was more of simulation and calculation than true dementia. the jury took hardly five minutes to return its verdict, the crimes were so horrible that her mental state could not do much anyways.

amelia was thus condemned to the death penalty. on june 10th 1896, amelia dyer walks towards the scaffold, she decided not to appeal by hearing her verdict and wrote herself five notebooks of confession before her execution that she entrusted to a priest. she tells inside them to have taken pleasure in seeing her victims dying. before her execution, one asked her if she had any last words to pronounce but she answered that she did not have anything to add. at 9 o’clock sharp, the woman who was called the ogresse of reading was hanged. following these tragic events the controls of the adoptions and the activities of the baby farmers were reinforced, new laws were also put in place to protect the children and the mothers and the advertisements in the newspapers were supervised. that said, it still took a certain number of years before child trafficking was seriously supervised…

that’s all for the story! it is a very horrific case and i can’t even imagine what the children must have gone through. i also think we can all agree with the similarities with the character of amélie in arthur’s route.

#ikemen #Ikemen Vampire #ikemen games #ikemen series #ikemen arthur #arthur route #ikemen vampire arthur #IkeVamp #amelia dyer #serial killer #victorian england #victorian #victorian era #ikevamp arthur #ikevam #ikevam arthur

27 notes · View notes

egcdeath · 3 years

Text

a blip in the reader-verse

chapter 3: someone in the crowd

summary: in your expedition through the multiverse, you find yourself in the crowd of a war bond show.

warnings: somewhat of a bittersweet ending

word count: 1.8k

author’s note: let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist. i’d love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, so any likes/reblogs/comments are very much appreciated!

previous chapter / series masterlist

Steve sat up abruptly, breathing heavily and heart racing from the vaguely distressing experience of being in someone else’s dream. And to top that off, the stakes of being in the dream were extremely high. If he couldn’t contact you and convince you that something was off, he could be stuck here, in the wrong universe, forever.

Steve rolled over and sighed, only to be met with the curious expression of the Ancient One, and nearly jumping out of his skin.

“Did it work?” She questioned, and Steve wordlessly nodded while anxiously cracking his knuckles.

“So now we wait?” He asked, turning his body around so his feet were planted firmly on the floor. Feeling the ground against him gave him a slight sense of comfort, knowing that he was back in the real world.

“You and I cannot take that risk. I’m going to try to send your consciousness into another universe, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find your way home. If not, then… I’m not sure what else there is to do.”

“It’ll work though, right?” Steve looked up at her through furrowed brows.

“We can only hope so.”

——

Before your eyes even opened, you noticed the all-encompassing raket of a crowd clapping and hollering for… Captain America?

You opened your eyes and glanced around at your surroundings. If you were sure of one thing, it was that you weren’t in a time that was even somewhat close to yours. That quickly became clear to you as you observed the people sitting around you, and the astoundingly monochrome clothing of those around you.

You looked down at yourself, and observed your own time period appropriate outfit, your knee-length flowered dress fell nicely against your body, but the shoulder pads weighing on your collarbone kind of made you feel like a football player. You also quickly caught onto the fact that your watch seemed to turn itself into a pendant on your neck. You then glanced up at the stage, and noticed your alarming proximity to it.

As the curtains on the stage opened, a profound silence fell across the audience. You looked up at the platform expectantly, and you were not disappointed when your boyfriend of many years popped out.

Except, he seemed much more jovial. The dark circles under his eyes weren’t so dark, and he seemed to have a lightness in his step as he pounced around the stage. In the midst of your ogling, the woman next to you leaned over and set a hand over your knee.

“Didn’t I tell you he was gonna be cute?” she whispered in your ear. At the sound of her voice, you felt a wave of recollection surge over you.

This was your friend Aaliyah, just like your closest childhood friend back in your own reality, who’d dragged you out to this war-bond-promotion thing to see her man crush of the week.

“He’s really dreamy,” you concurred, not taking your eyes off of the man.

“So you’re not mad at me for bringing you out here anymore?” She asked, an air of teasing in her voice.

“Shh!” a voice from somewhere above you hissed down at the two of you.

The both of you rolled your eyes, then you looked over to Aaliyah and shared a knowing look with her.

You looked back at the stage, and watched the routine play out, giggling to yourself at times. The whole show had been at least 10 times funnier, now knowing Steve, even if this wasn’t exactly your Steve.

In the midst of a giggling fit, Steve glanced down at you, and flashed you a pearly grin. Despite seeing that beautiful smile millions of times, you couldn’t help but to slightly swoon, and look over at Aaliyah excitedly.

She gaped her mouth open at you, and pointed at you with a brow furrowed in confusion, ‘You?’ she mouthed. You responded by pointing at yourself with an equally shocked expression, and mouthing, ‘Me?’

It seemed like the show was over after that, and the lights in the room slowly rose back to their original colors.

“Holy shit!” Aaliyah squealed, grabbing your arm. “Did Captain fucking America smile at you?”

“If you saw what I saw, then yes!” You grabbed her opposite arm, “we have to celebrate this somehow, right? I think this deserves celebrating.”

You were honestly surprising yourself with the words coming out of your mouth. Part of you knew that Steve looking at you was a regular occurrence that you were used to, but the part of you that actually lived in this universe’s feelings must’ve been strong enough to override even the most logical part of your brain.

“Uh, hell yeah it deserves celebrating. Let’s go!” The two of you stood up, and you straightened out your dress a bit before squeezing through the aisle of chairs, and heading out of the concert hall.

Leaving the hall turned out to be more of a hassle than you’d initially expected. The lobby towards the exit was packed like a can of sardines, and you and Aaliyah seemed to be standing around for an excruciatingly long period of time.

During this period of time, you zoned out a bit, only half-listening to Aaliyah drone on about some new John Ford movie.

In this downtime, you decided to ask yourself why you hadn’t left this universe yet, since this was so clearly not the one you belonged in, and not the reality your Steve was in. You came to the conclusion that your morbid curiosity of what may happen next in this reality was more than enough to motivate you not to leave. Besides, who knows? Maybe you could learn a lesson about yourself, or some other corny thing like that.

Lost in your own thoughts, you failed to notice the built blonde man draped in a brown trench coat and looking down speed walking straight into you, and sending you stumbling back into your friend’s arms.

He looked down at you with worry in his eyes, and extended a hand out to you quickly. “My gosh, I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed.

Steve.

Of course, fate had decided to bring you to the man (who technically wasn’t really your man).

You gladly accepted his hand, and let him pull you forward a bit. Your cheeks warmed at the little touch, and you swore you could sense Aaliyah gawking behind you.

“Again, my apologies…?” You could tell that Steve was leaving an opening for your name.

“Oh, uh, Y/N,” you smirked a bit at him.

“Let me make it up to you, Y/N,” he offered politely, and speaking softly so that he wouldn’t attract too much attention.

“Make up pushing me on accident?” You giggled at this. Steve somehow managed to be a bit of an unsmooth dork in every reality.

“Uh, yeah, I guess. But only if you want me to… make it up to you,” a bit of a rose tinted blush was clearly visual on Steve’s face.

“I would love that.”

----

“The perks of having a circus monkey take you out, is that he knows all of the back entrances and exits,” Steve explained while weaving his way through the building.

“Is that some sort of saying from the 40’s?” You casually threw out, following behind Steve as the two of you made your way through the back of the concert hall. As soon as you realized the weight of your words, your eyes went wide.

“What?” Steve asked, looking back at you while the two of you continued your trek.

“Nothing,” your eyes bounced around the room, and you tried to think of something to change the subject to. Luckily for you, you’d arrived at the door, and that was subject change enough. Steve opened the door for you, and held it as you walked through.

You immediately recoiled at the scent of the city. Simply put, it smelled like the Industrial Revolution. Quickly playing it off, you turned your head to look at Steve, and reach out to grab his hand.

“So, where are you planning to take me, Captain?” Steve gladly accepted your hand back, and you happily intertwined your fingers, despite the slight dampness you noticed on his palms. Was The Captain America sweating from nerves from being around you? You’d have to mentally note this to tell Aaliyah later.

“Well, there’s this diner somewhere around here that I’ve heard is pretty good. You interested?” He glanced over at you, and you pursed your lips as you faked deep thought about the proposition.

“You really know the way straight to a gal’s heart, huh?”

----

You had been sitting in a booth across from Steve for what must’ve been hours now. The conversation between the two of you seemed to flow naturally, as if you were longtime friends. In a way, you kind of were, but in another very real way, this was just the beautiful start of something that would blossom more with every second you spent with Steve.

You picked at a napkin, and Steve glanced down at his watch.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, concern clearly present in your tone.

“It’s just really late, and my manager’s gonna be pissed if I miss my flight tomorrow,” Steve sighed sadly, and reached into his pocket for a pen. “I’ll be trading New York for Wisconsin. So exciting, I know, but we gotta get the war bonds somehow,” he chuckled.

“I get it,” you nodded sadly, then noticed Steve scribble something onto a napkin.

“You know Howard Stark?” he questioned.

“Heard of him,” you nodded slowly.

“Well, he’s working on this new thing. It’s just like a phone, but it comes with you everywhere you go. I have a prototype of it, I think it’s pretty neat,” he slid you the napkin. “This is it’s number. You can call me any time, anywhere, and I’ll pick it up.”

You smiled sadly at Steve, but accepted the napkin, folding it into a neat little triangle, and slipping it into your dress pocket. “Is this goodbye?”

“Just for now,” he stood up from the booth, and you followed suit, before he reached for your hand and laced your fingers with his.

The two of you silently walked out of the diner, hand-in-hand. Steve eventually pulled his palm away from yours, and started for the direction of his hotel. Although, before he could get too far, you scurried over to him, and pressed a quick peck against his cheek, catching him by surprise, “Bye, Steve. I’ll see you soon.”

“Of course. Bye, Y/N,” Steve waved as he departed, and you made your way towards the curb so you could hail a taxi.

A taxi quickly pulled up to you, and slipped into the backseat and muttered your address. The soft vibration against your chest that alerted you that it was time to go, did not go unnoticed by you, and you closed your eyes as you attempted to relax into the rather uncomfortable seat.

next chapter

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #captain america x reader #captain america x you #marvel fanfiction #ABITRV #40's AU

41 notes · View notes

frevandrest · 3 years

Note

Don't get this the wrong way, but how is it possible to excuse violence? I'm generally on the side of the revolution but i can't condone violence that happened.

I wouldn’t say that revolutions (including Frev) are “about violence” - violence takes many forms, in many different circumstances and regimes, including revolutions. It can be criticized - so no, the point is not to excuse it. What I am interested here is the fact that Frev is remembered (particularly in certain circles) as an incredibly violent event/period, but this implies that what came before (Ancient regime) or after (Napoleon) was somehow not violent, which is not correct. Furthermore, a lot about those two periods is praised, so it’s clear the thing is not about violence per se. So, to equate Frev with violence is not a neutral choice, and it paints a misleading picture of the Revolution.

The Revolution lasted for 10 years (if you take the most commonly accepted dates of 1789-1799); focusing solely on what happened during Terror (which is typically what people mean when they talk about violence during Frev) in one year: 1793-1794 (or, more precisely, 7 weeks in June-July 1794) is not all of the Revolution.

Furthermore, even if we focus on the Terror alone, simply viewing it as “mindless violence” or something orchestrated by evil! Robespierre to gain absolute power (?) ignores its historical, social and political context: the war(s) with half of Europe, civil war, counter-revolutionary conspiracies (which were a real threat and not a figment of Montagnard paranoia). And, perhaps most importantly, the fact that the Terror was, at least in part, formed as an answer to the people’s popular demand (and people taking matters into their own hands to punish those they considered to be an enemy). It’s not that evil Robespierre woke up one morning and decided to kill innocents out of his thirst for power (and people shaking in fear of him, hoping for something/someone to stop him). In reality, a lot of Terror was demanded by “the people” (in lack of a better word), with Robespierre and the government often being accused of not being harsh enough. It was an incredibly complex situation, and a lot of it can be criticized (tbh, I am not sure what would be the “right” thing to do in those circumstances), but simply saying “revolution = violence” is reductive.

Finally, it is important to understand the rapidly shifting situation during the Revolution and the Terror. What was true in 1790 was not true for a situation in late 1792 or in mid-1793. This is particularly important for the spring and summer of 1794 - what was true a week before (situation, alliances, etc.) could be changed in a heartbeat. What I mean by this is that in the beginning, the Terror was a measure that many welcomed (in the government and in Paris). It’s not like Robespierre pushed for it and everyone trying to stop him. In fact, he was not a (sole) “mastermind” behind the introduction of the Terror and was often the one trying to stop the excesses - some of the political purges were a direct result of dealing with those who were more radical/violent. Which doesn’t excuse a political purge (faction fights in year II are a problem in itself) but illustrates the complexity of the whole thing.

But if we want to discuss violence in a broader context of revolutions... The saddest thing is that the history shows that some rights cannot be earned peacefully. Not because it is theoretically impossible to do so, but because those in power will not let go. Which is what typically happens. And when it happens, there are only two answers: 1) not to use violence to get rights/fight the oppressor, even if it means your own/your people’s death and further oppression or 2) use what could be described as violence (or, more precisely, fight the oppressor).

Now, many people agree with the above, but they do not associate it with violence during the French Revolution, because this term almost always refer to the Terror alone, and Terror seems so horrible because it was a government-proscribed violence. From our today’s POV, this sounds scary and is, I believe, one of the main reasons why so many people reject the French Revolution. So, it is not about violence per se: it is about the type of violence that seems ideologically scary. Especially in the (Anglo?) West, these things are often equated with the oppressive regimes of the 20th century, despite the fact that 1) there are way too many differences; and 2) it implies that today’s West would never commit violence/be oppressive, which is not correct.

Don’t get me wrong: despite of the theme of this blog, I have numerous qualms about the French Revolution and its legacy. I don’t support all of it, and I do think it had many bad/unintended consequences. I just feel that a lot of criticism is done automatically, and often without knowledge (or interest) about history. It is a theme that provokes ideological and political discussions, and it’s for the most part, about us today and not about 18th century France and Frev.

tl;dr: You can support revolutions (including Frev) while not excusing violence, because revolutions are not about violence. Or, more precisely, violence happens in many (all?) regimes, and it was certainly ubiquitous in periods before and after Frev (Ancient regime and Napoleonic times).

(Man, this was long.)

#ask #anonymous #french revolution #robespierre #frev

27 notes · View notes

sweetsmellosuccess · 3 years

Text

The Best Films of 2020

The 15 Best Films of 2020

Normally, when I assess a full year of cinematic offerings, I consider both sides of that coin — the outstanding entities, and the least successful — but the year of our lord two thousand and twenty provided more than enough misery for all of us, I do believe. Ergo, in my own small way to bring better vibes into the universe, for this year’s round-up, I’m staying solely on the positive tip, highlighting those films whose unfortunate release date during the Year of the Hex shouldn’t preclude them for being fully appreciated. Let’s take a year off from negativity and schadenfreude, shall we, and just stroll amongst the poppies and bright sunshine of some of the best releases of the year.

15. The Invisible Man

“Leigh Whannell’s film is thoroughly modern in approach and sophistication, but the film it most reminded me of was made back in 1944. George Cukor’s Gaslight starred Charles Boyer as a loathsome husband who attempts to convince his already anxious wife (Ingrid Bergman) that she’s going insane by secretly rearranging things in their house and taking things from her so she thinks she’s always misplacing them. He preys on her emotional vulnerability in order to mask his own pathology and emotional detachment. The effect is absolutely enraging: Onscreen, he’s one of the more hateful villains ever committed to celluloid.”

Full Review

14. The Killing of Two Lovers

“From the opening sequence, with a distraught, estranged husband standing over the bed of his wife and her new boyfriend with malice in his heart, and a gun in hand, the film spirals out into incredibly well structured compositions, taking us inside and outside of David’s recurring psychosis, utilizing a bevy of techniques: The framing shrinks down around him, the sound gets muffled, as if underwater, save for the incredibly unnerving metallic sound of cables being stretched taut, and the sickening kathunk of a heavy car door slamming shut.”

Capsule Review

13. Another Round

“Typically, Vinterberg avoids simple conclusions — and God help us all if this film gets picked up by a U.S. studio and remade with, say, Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, and Chris Rock — providing more or less equal examples of the delirious fun drinking with your friends can be (the film opens with a group of high schoolers gleefully doing “lake races” whereby teams compete to drink a case of beer while running around the nearby body of water; and closes with the same teen crew, and some of their teachers, whooping it up in celebrating their graduation); and the horrorshow it can become (one teacher ends up peeing the bed, and on his wife in the process, another wakes up bloodied and out of it in front of his neighbor’s house), leading to very real and horrible consequences.”

Capsule Review

12. Soul

“Co-director Pete Docter is the creative force behind many of Pixar's best titles, having a hand in the Toy Story franchise, WALL-E, Up, and also directing Inside Out, a brilliantly moving treatise on the subject of emotional upheaval. This film, which he co-wrote and made along with fellow co-director Kemp Powers, is his first film back at the helm since that high-water mark, and he has again dug into the fertile earth of our mortality and come back with a particularly vibrant crop.”

Full Review

11. The Burnt Orange Heresy

“Based on the novel by Charles Willeford, the film briskly moves through its paces, clouding the waters with the schemes of duplicitous men, who have sold out any love of art for their greater obsession of cash and prestige. A literary thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley, it’s become a genre all too rare in the era of blockbuster bravado. This film will remind you what a mistake that is.”

Full Review

10. Lovers Rock

“In the course of the party, the fuses blow while the house DJ is spinning Janet Kay's "Silly Games," a fan favorite at the time. Undaunted, the guests continue dancing away, singing the lyrics a capella in delirious unison, as McQueen's camera swirls around the living room as if nothing happened. Such a heartfelt moment of unbridled togetherness, putting into distinct bas relief the sense of community we've been denied as a species in 2020, feels like a benediction, an epitaph for the year, and a salve for what we've all been so desperately missing.”

Capsule Review

9. Time

“Ostensibly, it’s about the strain of incarceration on even the most grounded of families (an experience naturally disproportionate for POCs); but, on a deeper level, it’s also about the manner of our use of the limited number of revolutions we get to enjoy situated on this earth. It is a profound knock-out.”

Full Review

8. New Order

“Meet the new boss, only in Michel Franco’s damning portrait of a society locked forever in cycles of oppression, revolution, and new oppression, it makes no difference who you are, what your belief system is, or whether or not you subscribe to a moral set of ethics.”

Capsule Review

7. Dick Johnson is Dead

“Utilizing stunt people and special effects, Johnson kills her father off a number of different gruesome ways, as a means of softening the blow of actually losing him as his mind slowly slips away. This eventually culminates in a final gambit, both acutely painful and deeply moving, in which our sense of things gets seriously upended. As Johnson put it during the post-screening Q&A, the film serves as a “doomed experiment trying to keep my father alive forever.” This film won’t make him immortal, alas, but it does make him indelible.”

Capsule Review

6. Martin Eden

“Marcello packs the film with offbeat bits and pieces of other films, including strips of what appear to be vintage home movies, sometimes in juxtaposition to what Martin is feeling — a group of kids swinging wildly from the bar of a fence, to a full galley ship taking in water and suddenly sinking like an iron ingot – which adds a more winsome, timeless element to the narrative. It’s clearly set in the past, but avoids being too dependent on that particular sense of place and time. Martin is a young man, at first, just coming into himself, and the actions he takes, what he goes through, the film seems to suggest, would be similar in any age.”

Full Review

5. Minari

“The film is certainly charming, but that’s not to diminish its straightforward approach to its characters’ plight. It doesn’t shy away from their difficulties, and as a result, it doesn’t cheat towards smarmy emotional closure.”

Capsule Review

4. Collective

“The breath of hope in the film, when the inept Minister of Health resigns, leading to the placing of a new, emboldened director who works quickly to clean the quagmire left by his predecessors, is just as quickly expelled after the next round of elections, in which the Social Democrat party — the very ones in charge of this catastrophe in the first place — gets re-elected with an even greater majority than what they had before. A perfect reflection of what happens when a government is allowed to exist without any meaningful oversight, other than from a bedraggled press and a disenchanted electorate.”

Full Review

3. First Cow

“Reichardt, a naturalist at heart, is not known much as a humorist, but there is a lightness to her screenplay -- co-written by Jonathan Raymond, her frequent collaborator, who wrote the original novel upon which its based -- that keeps it as sweetly airy as one of Cookie's fried confections. The two friends are so out of step with their surroundings -- the party of men Cookie initially travels with are little more than brutish thugs, and the fort upon which they end up is no better -- they almost had to find each other. They are reunited in the local bar of the fort only because literally every other patron runs out to egg on a brawl between two loutish combatants.”

Full Review

2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

“Hittman’s eye for detail and emotional complexity — her characters can rarely articulate anything they’re experiencing — is incredibly acute, and she pulls tremendously understated performances out of her two leads.”

Capsule Review

1. Nomadland

“Perhaps no American director since Terrance Malick has made more of the collapsing light of dusk and twilight than Chloe Zhao. Much of her new film, which stars Frances McDormand as a transigent woman (“not homeless, houseless”), who traverses back and forth across the west in her beat up live-in van, doing seasonal work, takes place in that particular kind of vibrant half-darkness that shrouds the desert and its mountains with a magic kind of mystery.”

Capsule Review

Other Worthy Mentions: 7500; Assassins; Bacurau; Beanpole; Beginning; Black Bear; Bloody Nose Empty Pockets; Boys State; Come Play; Emma; Gunda; His House; Horse Girl; I Am Greta; Jacinta; La Llorona; Let Him Go; Limbo; Mangrove; Mayor; MLK/FBI; One Night in Miami…; Palm Springs; Possessor Uncut; Red, White & Blue; Relic; She Dies Tomorrow; Shirley; Shithouse; Shiva Baby; Some Kind of Heaven; Spring Blossom; Swallow; Tenet; The Dissident; The Invisible Man; The Nest; Sound of Metal; The Vast of Night; The Viewing Booth; The Way I See It; Vitalina Varella; Welcome to Chechnya

Inexplicably Underrated: 7500; Shithouse

Biggest Welcome Surprise(s): The Vast of Night; His House; She Dies Tomorrow

The Best Two Films I Saw This Year, Period: Satantango (1994); Harlan County, USA (1976)

32 notes · View notes

margridarnauds · 3 years

Text

Scattered Thoughts on Treason: The Musical

[warning for some critical discussion]

The Cold Hard Ground:

First song I listened to.

God, we’re getting DARK. This is seriously a mix between a villain song and a hero song, and I’m HERE for it.

This is the one I’m possibly most interested in, because it’s really making me wonder how they’re going to portray the plotters: Are we going to be seeing them as fanatics, or as heroes, or somewhere in-between? In this song, it looks like Catesby is a man broken by grief who turned to fanatical religion as a way of coping with his own suicidal tendencies.

“So TAKEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEE. You won’t BREEEEEAAAAAK meeee, it’s too late to SAAAAAAAAVVVVEEEE MEEEEEE.”

GOD those final notes are going HARD.

At first, I thought that it was rather scattered, musically wise, but the more I listen to it, the more I think it’s brilliant because the music comes together by the end, as Catesby seems to calcify in his convictions.

I’ll be really curious to see how anyone but Hadley serves this, but a solid 80% of this song, at the moment, is built on his impressive performance. I’ll be really curious in knowing how the livestreams went.

Take Things To Our Own Hands:

Honestly, my favorite song on the album, probably one of them that I can best visualize on stage.

WE NEED TO THINK OF A WAAAAAY TO BRING THE WHOLE SHIP DOWN.

Favorite vocal moment: When all the conspirators’ voices join one another, and then the moment at the end where it sounds almost like a church’s choir.

I absolutely LOVE the slick folkish feel to this, paired with the driven pace, it’s like if “The Story Told” from Monte Cristo decided to go folk, I love it. It really has a feel that I don’t see many musicals going for (Hadestown being the closest, though it goes in a jazzier style than this) , and that’s something really in its favor. If the rest of the songs follow this level of quality and tone, this musical is going to be a really, really fun ride.

Also, it’s very interesting in terms of how, even though this is the conspirators’ “Pump Me Up” song, there’s this very DARK overtone to it, which makes sense given what they’re proposing. Their voices go increasingly hard, almost into a staccato, and I wonder how much of that is diction VS them showing how hardened and increasingly radicalized the conspirators are becoming.

That being said: “I once had influenza but now that’s all gone when things turned sour”?????????????????? I’m trying desperately to wrap my head around this lyric, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

The lyrics in this particular song are, admittedly, its weakest point: They tend to be very, very repetitive, but, in all honesty, it doesn’t really bother me - It works with that mood of the conspirators becoming radicalized.

I know that Hadley tends to get most of the kudos for this song, but the other conspirators (Waylon Jacobs, Oliver Savile and Emmanuel Kojo) deserve MASSIVE kudos for their performances, I’m seriously going to be looking into all of them after this.

The Day Elizabeth Died

I started off not really caring for this song, but I’ve really warmed to it.

I’m really curious about who the main singer in this song is supposed to be, because I feel like that will really change how I feel about the lyrics specifying that she had “An inch of makeup on her face”. If we’re supposed to view this from the perspective of a devoutly religious 17th century Catholic woman, I can understand it more than a Protestant woman, given that it really, really works with some misogynistic stereotypes about Elizabeth.

So, the singer’s apparently Anne Vaux, which makes sense. Okay, I’ll give them this one. A little period-accurate internalized misogyny can be good for the soul.

I LOVE Rebecca La Chance’s voice. It’s so wonderfully clear and strong, delicate, but with steel beneath it.

There’s something almost....wistful, melancholy, and isolated about this song? It strikes a very odd balance between being sympathetic to Elizabeth (some say she died of a broken heart) while condemning her reign.

ALSO. BEST VOCAL MOMENT ON THE ENTIRE ALBUM. “We mourned for her, she was our queen, and for 45 years, she had reigned supreme.” And then the conspirators coming on with “WE DID NOT MOOOOOURRRRN FOR HER. SHEWASOURCAPTOR.” I could, legitimately, listen to that bit alone on repeat, I’m actually obsessed with it. That odd, conflicted feeling between Elizabeth having been Queen for longer than most of England had been alive, providing a sense of stability, while also the very real persecution that English Catholics were under. This is the kind of nuance I really want to see the musical carry forward.

Blind Faith

I don’t really know what to say except that Martha Percy’s love for Thomas Percy is juxtaposed with Thomas Percy’s feelings for Catesby.

Literally.

That’s the song.

If this musical ever develops a fandom, there are going to be a hundred Catesby/Thomas fics, with James/Thomas being the darkhorse fic.

It’s hard to judge this one, simply because it’s much more conventional love song - It sounds similar to, for example, “That Would Be Enough”, if Alexander Hamiltpn decided to blow up George III instead of join the American Revolution. It’s a TWIST on the conventional love song, but it still follows similar beats.

But I DO love how their voices go together, the song really starts to shine when that happens.

That last “This path was MINE to choose, he has nothing to prove”, probably is the best vocal moment.

Overall, I don’t have MANY thoughts on this song in comparison to the others, but I can also see myself warming up to it over time.

The Promise

“His face is quite nice” It’s VERY obvious they’re going for a queer comic relief interpretation of James, which I honestly have mixed feelings about given that he is, clearly, going to be the one that our protagonists are trying to get rid of. There’s.....something about that, a bunch of presumably straight protagonists ganging up to kill a stereotypically portrayed gay man. I know that historically, James WAS, but.....I still don’t like how stereotypical they played this one. Someone could point to Herod from JCS but, in all fairness, Herod was written in the 1970s (and, tbh, given that the central relationship in the musical is Jesus and Judas, you could argue that the entire musical is very, very homoerotic, which makes it less glaring.) This is...well, I’ll have to see how the musical deals with it. I’m willing to give it a fair shake, but they might have set themselves up for danger here.

But Daniel Boys is, admittedly, serving this song on a silver platter.

Really, really going into the Spoiled Child Route here.

If it sounds like I’m disappointed with this song compared to the others, it’s because......yeah, I kind of am. Musically, it’s fine and a little catchy, lyrically, it’s fine, but that nuance I’d been seeing in the other songs goes out the window. James isn’t my favorite historical figure of all time (Bro basically set up the English Civil War), but there still HAD to be a better way to do him justice than this.

It doesn’t hurt that, unlike the other songs, which were demonstrably TREASON, this one is very much.....a JCS/Hamilton rip-off. Like, it’s very, very blatant.

Love the rising strings when Percy tells him that Elizabeth is dying, that sense of tension - It does remind me a little of something I heard in The Pirate Queen, but you know what? I’ll give it to them.

Lowkey obsessed with Oliver Saville’s eyebrow raise when he says “You could save England.”

The problem is that they’re leaning so hard into the comic route that, when James says that he’ll be a fair king, it really, really makes the Catholic nobility sound dumb as Hell to listen to him. Like “Yes, man who routinely, gleefully sings about cutting off people’s heads, I’ll listen to you!” I know they’re desperate but....come on.

But also. THAT HIGH NOTE. Daniel Boys really put 110% in there.

Overall, my takeaway is that this musical could either do very, very well or very, very badly, depending on how they play it. It’s hard to judge because the public only has access to 5 tracks (except for the lucky ducks who bought tickets to the stream, where they got access to 10) - It’s hard to judge a musical based off of 5 tracks, and a musical about the Gunpowder Plot with, say, a love song called “Blind Faith” almost sounds like something out of a parody, something destined to be one of those flops that go down in history. BUT, that being said, the musical has some very strong vocal performances and some really good music, when it keeps to its own mood and style instead of trying to go off of what other, more successful musicals have done. There’s some real, real promise in this musical, and I’ll be both anxious and excited to see how it all turns out (and if they ever offer a full purchase for the live recording......I’d honestly probably buy it.) It was a shame I found out about it so late in the game, because I’d have totally bought tickets to the stream if I had known earlier.

#treason the musical

14 notes · View notes

weirdestbooks · 3 years

Text

Secret States Chapter 10

Getting No Sleep Isn’t That Bad, Right?

France POV

DC, NASA, Vermont, and American Samoa all exchanged looks after my question.

"I mean...not really. It's just something that we've all accepted as a constant in our lives. Tama would like a regular sleep schedule, it's just...not possible." America Samoa said, biting his lip, shooting DC a glance.

"How is it not possible? NATO mentioned a lot of work, but it can't be that much." Scotland asked.

"Well there is. Dad has a lot to manage. He has the states, the territories, me, and then the reservations, although the states and reservations can manage their own things sometimes." DC explained.

"Reservations?" Wales asked.

"The Native American tribes. Some of them have their own land, and make their own laws there. What did Dad call them again?" NASA explained, before looking to DC as he asked his question.

"They're 'domestically dependent nations.' Their governments work very similarly to the states, just without the strong connection to other state governments, or the federal government." DC said. I was shocked. America had given his native tribes sovereignty over land? And his native tribes were still alive? I thought that they had all died long ago.

"The tribes are alive?" Britain asked. American Samoa nodded.

"Over 500 tribes are recognized as tribes, but the 326 that have reservations are the ones who can govern themselves, at least on an extent." American Samoa explained.

"Not all 326 reservations belong to a single tribe. Some have more that one. Just use the 574 federally recognized tribes as a headcount." Vermont told his siblings.

"Although Navajo Nation, Hopi Nation, Cherokee Nation, Choctaw Nation, and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are the five who are considered autonomous administrative territories." DC explained. Oh my. I mean, when I learned America was a union, I knew he was going to be divided up into many parts, but I didn't expect it to be this many pieces.

Or for it to be this complicated. America had divided himself into so many different parts, the states, the territories, the reservations. How did he deal with the demands of so many different parts? He was divided into more pieces that UN was, and UN had the majority of the world in his organization.

"That's...a lot." Northern Ireland said. Vermont laughed.

"There are a lot of different native people. They aren't all the same. If you want to know more about their culture, see if Ari, Okie, Xico, Vada, Wash, Ore, Southie, or Cali can help you. There the states with the most reservations, right?" NASA explained, before asking DC his question. I didn't recognize any of those names, aside from Cali, so they wouldn't help me that much.

But I guess that states were so used to calling each other nicknames that they didn't use real names. The states weren't used to have to call each other by their real names to clarify who they were to strangers.

Because America kept them a secret. No matter what we learned about America in the past couple of days, everything really stems from, and comes back to, America keeping the states secret. I know they wanted to be kept secret, and I could understand Louisiana's reasoning. What I did to here was horrible, and I should of been a better sister to her when I had the chance.

I just wish they wanted to meet us. I looked back at DC, NASA, and American Samoa. I wonder if any of them wanted to keep themselves secret from the world?

"I believe so, yes." DC responded.

"Why do you always ask DC questions?" New Zealand asked NASA.

"I'm the space exploration program. I know about things outside of this planet. Not so much about internal politics. Everyone tries to stick to their own thing unless another state does something they don't like. D helps Dad keep track of everything involving the entire Union." NASA explained.

"Yeah. Although if I get statehood, I will not longer be keeping track of things." DC said.

"But you're like the federal government." American Samoa said.

"Dad is the federal government. I am a federal district that is run by the federal government, more specifically the US Congress. Which basically means I'm run by the people the states elected." DC explained.

"Don't you guys have people in Congress?" NASA asked.

"Yeah but they can't do anything. We aren't states, so we can't vote on the laws, just complain to the states and their representatives and senators to do something that will benefit us." American Samoa said.

"Really? What about equal representation?" Britain asked. American Samoa shrugged.

"It's always been this way. All the states were territories at some point, aside from the Thirteen, Texas and Vermont. They all went through a period of not having a say in Congress." DC explained.

"Oh." Britain said, "I just assumed with the whole Revolution America would give everyone representation."

"It doesn't work that way." NASA said, shrugging.

"The Constitution never really planned for territories outside land that would eventually become a state, so the territories were left with no voting representation. But that's not what we're here to talk about, nor is it the entire reason for any of that." Vermont said. DC nodded, before turning to face Britain and Canada.

"I want to know that you're sorry for burning me." She said, her eyes narrowed in anger and suspicion. The air in the room, well hallway I guess, become awkward. All of the countries here, aside from Australia, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland, had something they had to apologize for to a state.

"I'm sorry about everything that happened during that battle. I...I...I don't think I could ever apologize enough for what happened." Canada apologized, his apology falling out of his mouth quickly, like he had been waiting to say it.

After his breakdown over realizing he burnt his niece, my granddaughter, I expected that. After hearing everything thing that happened during the Burning of Washington it made sense. Canada was incredibly kind hearted and very protective over his family, even after everything that happened between him and America. And finding out that he unknowingly hurt his family and not just his family, but a child, was hard enough without the fact that he tried to kill America at the same time.

"I know you went along because Britain wanted to burn the capital and you wanted revenge. I would forgive you if it was just that. It will take a while to gain trust from me. What about you Britain?" DC told Canada before questioning Britain.

"I apologize as well. I never meant to hurt anyone that wasn't America." Britain told DC, who narrowed her eyes.

"You shouldn't have been trying to hurt us at all and just recognized our independence properly." I heard Vermont mutter under his breath. Ireland looked toward Vermont, who shrugged.

"An apology's nice. But I'm not going to trust you again until you can prove that you're trustworthy." DC said.

"Deja vu." Muttered Scotland. He wasn't wrong about that. DC sounded a lot like America did when the British Isles were trying to earn back his trust. He accepted the apology, but that wasn't all it took to win back his forgiveness.

He gave everyone certain demands or things they had to do. One of the those demands for England was to keep whatever happened in the 1860s a secret. I wish I knew what happened. The states seemed very angry about whatever happened, but kept it a secret because America asked.

England mentioned that it was personal for America, and he seemed very intent on not mentioning what happened. Was that because America asked? Or because he wanted to keep us from finding out he threaten to declare war on America? Maybe it was just because he didn't want to talk about whatever happened?

Whatever happened during that time period wasn't good. I wish I could know what happened. I don't think keeping it a secret will help anyone in the end. Especially not America. But that's not my decision to make. I hope that America will trust me with that secret someday.

And I hoped that someday came soon. Mon fils was clearly struggling with many things, the plethora of children, the lack of a constant sleep schedule, and whatever happened during those years of silence. Whatever happened in the 1860s.

Whatever happened seemed to terrify mon fils beyond anything I had seen before. It was a bit scary to me. Not only because of my worry and concern as his mother, but as a nation. If the sole superpower is scared of something, it's usually a cause for concern.

"I understand. Your father was the same way when we went to fix our relationship. I was patient then, I can be patient now." Britain said. DC nodded.

"Well now that we're done dealing with that...I don't know we didn't really plan discussion topics." American Samoa said.

"I could blab about space." NASA said raising upon his hand.

"If you don't mind, I wanted to catch up with Vermont." Canada said. NASA nodded.

"That's fine." He said before turning to me. "Do you want to hear about the Perseverance mission on Mars?"

"Ou te tauto pe a toe taʻua e ia lena misiona o le a ou leiloa." (I swear if he mentions that mission one more time I’m going to lose it.) American Samoa muttered.

"Not sure what you said but I'm pretty sure it's an insult. So...hey, you don't have to me mean about me being excited about my things." NASA said, causing DC and Vermont to roll their eyes.

"I would be interest in hearing about the Mars space mission." Wales said. NASA nodded and smiled.

"That's great! Normally the only people when get excited about missions are Dad and Flor, because Dad likes space and all the stuff I did for the Apollo mission was mainly in Florida, which got him into space. And I guess Navajo is more into space now since we're using her language to name things." NASA said, his speech getting faster and more excited as his wings flared out and hit American Samoa, with DC barley dodging them.

"Will you stop doing that! I swear to god you have no control over your wings you muli!" American Samoa said.

"Sorry Sam. You know I get excited about my projects and missions." NASA said. American Samoa rolled his eyes.

"Sometimes you get overly excited Nas." Vermont said. NASA nodded.

"I know, but space is just really cool! And its my thing. I'm the space program in case any of you forgot." NASA said.

"Why do you think you have a countryhuman anyway? Nada has a space program, and Mom and Dad are part of Europe's space program, but neither of those programs have countryhumans?" New Zealand asked. I had never though about that. It did seem weird that America was the only country we knew of to have a countryhuman for their space program, when he always far from the only country to have a space program. NASA shrugged.

"No idea." He said.

"The US is a weird place that doesn't like making sense. There. That's your answer." American Samoa said.

"Well you're not wrong about that." Vermont said. That made a lot of sense as an explanation. Even before we found out about the states, many things America did were always considered odd by at least thirty countries.

From his use of the imperial system, his large personal space bubble (a trait the states seemed to share), and many other things that didn't happen anywhere but his country. America was always very different from other countries, not in a bad way, he could just be a bit odd.

Being revealed as a Union, a father, having a horrible sleep schedule, and haunted by something horrible that happened in his past weren't the normal oddities I had always learned to expect from America.

And I'm not sure why this worried me so much. Maybe it was fear that America was hiding more secrets that could be harmful to his mental health. America did have a habit of saying he was fine, even if he was far from it. America could be hurting his mental health and not even realizing it.

So that's most likely the source of my worry, although I had no idea how to get America to open up enough to trust me with personal information about his mental health. While America was close to us as a family, he could be very closed off sometimes, most likely a result from his isolationist days.

"I guess we could give you a quick introduction to all the states, but you can get to know them more personally at separate times. There's way to many of us to do it all at once, even if you exclude my siblings you already know." DC said. Vermont frowned.

"Would you mind if I caught up with Bec and introduced him to our siblings at a separate time?" He asked. DC turned towards Canada.

"Well? How do you feel about that?" She asked him. Canada nodded.

"I want to catch up with Mont. It's been a long time." He said. NASA sighed and looked disappointed.

"Guess I can't blab about space now. Oh well I'll do it later." He remarked.

"Well D, have fun giving them a tour. I've got to get something set up with Guam." America Samoa said before running off.

"If you make a mess you're cleaning it up!" Vermont yelled after him. I stifled a giggle at that. All of America's kids so far have had different personalities, but they all seemed to fix together, regardless of how different they seemed.

I mean, if they didn't fit together, America might now be alive right now. I pushed away that depressing though. I already had enough America related worries. I didn't need to give myself anymore.

"Well I guess we can start introducing you to whoever we run into. We can check the house , but since Dad broke up Michi and 'Hio's fight, I'm not sure who's in here." DC said.

"Before we start, or you could start and I'll catch up, but I was wondering if I could talk to America?" I asked DC, who nodded.

"What about?" Britain asked.

"Just his sleep schedule. It's not healthy." I responded. Britain nodded.

"Yes, if you can convince Dad to sleep, that would be great. He needs it, regardless of how much he says he doesn't." NASA said. DC nodded.

"Yeah, please get him to sleep. He's probably trying to do work right now." Vermont said, before turning to Canada, "So, Bec, what do you want to catch up on?"

As Vermont and Canada began talking, and DC took everyone else to meet the other states, I walked into America's room. He was sitting at a desk, leaning over a piece of paper. His head would droop slightly before he raised it up again. America was barley keeping himself awake.

"Ame. You need to sleep." I told him. America looked up at me, his eye bags prominent.

"I'm fine. I just need to finish this, then I'll try." He said before returning back to his work, head continuing to droop every couple of seconds. Why did America have to be so stubborn? Sure, it could be helpful sometimes, but America took it to a ridiculous extreme.

"America you're barley staying awake. Your health is more important than your work." I told him.

"It's not." America said, before looking at me, widening his eyes. Clearly America hasn't meant to say that, and it was concerning. Why does America think work is more important than his health?

"Ame..." I said. America looked down.

"I..." he said, seeming at a lost for words.

"Ame I will not let you hurt yourself this way. You need to set aside your work and go to sleep." I told him. America looked back up at me.

"I...Mom...I just...I...I..." he tried to protest, trailing off as he couldn't come up with an argument.

"Ame." I said. America sighed.

"Fine, but if I don't fall asleep within five minutes, and I'm going back to doing my work." America said. I nodded, and America stood up before walking over to his bed. He laid down on top of the covers.

"I'm telling you, I'm not going to fall asleep." America said.

Two minutes later he had fallen asleep. I smiled. I hope this would help America. I would help him now, but the topic of getting him a healthy sleep schedule was still important. America didn't seem to realize how harmful his sleep schedule was.

He also thought that work was more important than his health. That wasn't something I expected from America, and it worried me. America was going to get himself killed one of these days if he continued with that habit.

"Юг, моля." (South, please.) I heard America mutter, his voice sounding slightly distressed. I didn't understand what he was saying, so I could be sure if he was having a nightmare or not.

"떠날 수 없어!" (You can’t leave.) America said again, sound more panicked. I was worried now. America did would like he was having a nightmare, although, without understanding him, I didn't know what. Could be about the 1860s, that event that England, America, and his children wanted to keep secret? Was it about another traumatic event America faced?

"Confederacy no!" America cried out once more, this time I was able to understand him. Who was Confederacy, and what was America saying no about? Did this have something to do with the 1860s. I heard crying and saw that America had woken up, and was hugging himself, while softly crying.

"Ame?" I asked. America looked up at me, before buying his face in his knees, which he had pulled up to his chest.

"Mon fils..." I said before sitting on the bed next to America, giving him a hug. America turned his face into my shoulder and began crying into it, while hugging me back, seeming desperate for a source of comfort.

This sort of vulnerability was something I had never seen from America. While he was still close with me and the rest of our family, he never showed any extreme sadness or fear. Nothing close to the levels I had seen over the last couple of days. Not showing signs of experiencing negative emotions beyond little incidents was probably a red flag I should of seen sooner.

America had hid his negative emotions from the world, from his family, trying to project an image that he was okay, and fine. As I held my sobbing son, crying over a nightmare from an event I knew nothing about, I saw that the image he projected didn't show what he was really like.

America hid important parts of himself from everyone.

But why did he find that necessary?

Why didn't he think he could trust others with the most vulnerable parts of himself?

I didn't have an idea. America's life since his independence always seemed full of conflicts. Maybe it had something to do with that. Maybe it had something to do with his independence. The only person who knew for sure was America.

And I don't think he was going to be telling anyone his reasons.

#secret states by weird #weird’s wattpad stories #countryhumans #statehumans #writing

6 notes · View notes

downwiththeficness · 3 years

Text

A Need So Great Chapter 11

Summary: Eva Moore is assigned to work the last year of her contract with the DEA in Colombia. She just wants to get to the end of her tenure, but she keeps getting drawn further into a string of murders in the city. It isn’t long before she’s forced to face the ghosts of her past.

Word Count: ~7,100

Warnings: Smut

A/N: For the purposes of this story, Carrillo isn’t married--or, if you like, divorced. A/B/O dynamics are prevalent, and they come with their own warning. The overall rating for this story is Explicit, although not every chapter will contain adult themes.

Taglist: @dirtynerdy98 @1zashreena1 @heresathreebee @deliciouslyclassytrash @maybege @kid-from-new-zealand @clydesducktape @revolution-starter @autumnleaves1991-blog @jedi-mando @buckysalefty

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8.5, 9, 10, 10.5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Someone was banging on her door. Eva groaned and rolled out of the bed, pulling on a pair of sweatpants and trudging through her apartment to answer it. Standing on the other side was a livid Connie, a storm in her expression.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Eva stumbled back, pushed by Connie into the living room. She winced against the sunlight, thankful that Connie closed the door behind her.

“Steve says you haven’t been at work all week and you’re not answering your phone.”

That was true. Eva had turned off the ringer on the phone when the incessant noise kept pulling her out of much needed rest during the periods when her heat wasn’t demanding she see to it.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been… indisposed.”

That was how her mother had put it, whenever she’d have to send Eva to a neighbor for a few days as her mother’s heat began. Indisposed. Like a fucking maiden in a story. A pretty word to gloss over the animal ferocity that was a heat. The truth of it was that heats were intense, frantic, primal things that served to bind together partners. The sex was a bi-product of an onslaught of bonding hormones that were assuaged by physical touch. There was nothing gentle in its nature.

Connie looked at her like she was insane, “That’s your explanation. Jesus, Eva, I thought something had—.”

She cut off, inhaling. Eva had been working to clear out the air in the apartment as discreetly as possible, but she knew the scent remained. Connie had gone very still, and very red.

“I—I’m sorr—,” she cleared her throat, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Eva shook her head, “I didn’t tell anyone.”

Connie’s brows drew together, “You didn’t tell anyone? Not even…” She left the sentence hanging, turning her hand over, her meaning quite clear.

“No,” Eva confirmed, “He had a mission he was doing, and I didn’t want to pull him away. Besides, its early to...do that...together.”

They’d been seeing each other maybe twelve weeks or so. And, if Eva’s hunch was correct, their innate compatibility would have resulted in a deeper intimacy than would normally happen at this stage in a relationship—at least, that’s how she understood adult relationships. Her perception had, no doubt, been skewed a little.

Scoffing, Connie folded her arms over her chest, “You should have told him. Steve said he got back this morning. Maybe give him a call or something, let him know what happened.”

Eva rolled her eyes, “What good is it going to do now? Its over. I won’t have another for a couple of months, maybe more.”

She didn’t even fucking know her own cycle, her hormones too screwed up from her experimentation with off-use suppressants. Eva could have another heat in a month, six months, or not for a year. She only hoped that she was a little more prepared for it the next time around. The knowledge that he was back rattled around in her head. Her body buzzed at the thought that she would get to see him very soon.

Connie’s expression turned soft, “You shouldn’t have to go through it alone, Eva.”

As an alpha, herself, Connie was well aware of what Eva had just gone through. Though Steve was a beta, he’d respond immediately to the hormonal fluctuations, ride it out with her. If she were unmarried, she may or may not be able to find a willing partner. As a woman, it could be dangerous to take on an unfamiliar partner during a heat. If she were a man entering rut, she could potentially go to any one of the many sex workers in the area and this would be generally acceptable, if unfortunate. A woman had no such option.

“I did okay,” Eva said, lying through her teeth. She absolutely had not done well, and she felt like shit.

Connie eyed her, “No, you didn’t. You look like you’ve been hit by a train.”

Eva laughed, couldn’t help it, “I’m good. I’ll be better in a few days.”

Mouth thin, Connie dropped her arms, “Listen, I think you need to talk with Horacio about this. But, do whatever you want.” She headed for the door, turning a bit, “You need anything?”

Eva shook her head, “I’m good.”

Connie sighed, pointed a finger at her, and said, “Hydrate. Lots of water.” Then, “I’m glad you’re alright.”

And then she was heading back out into the sunlight. Eva stared at the door for a little while, feeling weak. She sat on the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest, and eyed the phone. A phone call. She could make a phone call, hear his voice, feel the comfort of knowing he was safe. Then, she could go back to laying around in bed until he could stop by.

Chewing on her thumbnail, she stood and stepped over to the phone, picking it up from the cradle and dialing. It rang. It rang, and rang, and rang. She hung up. Glancing at the clock, she figured she’d give it an hour or so before she called again.

To distract herself, she showered. The water was gorgeously hot, sweeping away the tiredness that had settled into her muscles. She dried off and wrapped a towel around herself so that she could look for something to wear. Her brain helpfully supplied that Horacio might want to see her, so she should make a little bit of an effort. She pulled on a sundress, reaching behind her to pull up the zipper. She’d been careful with her underwear selection, choosing a soft lace hipster brief and a bra with semi sheer cups. Though they were both in a similar champagne tone, they weren’t a matching set. Eva didn’t actually own any matching sets. She didn’t have the energy to wonder what that said about her.

Barefoot, she padded back to the living room, running her fingers through her hair. She opened the fridge and looked at the contents, her stomach turning. She wouldn’t be able to eat anything more than bland foods for a while, her body still flushing out the hormones. Closing the fridge, she returned to the living and sat on the couch, sulking.

It was late afternoon, the sun starting to head down towards the horizon. He’d gotten back that morning, but she hadn’t heard from him. Eva chided herself. He was a busy man, in charge of an entire unit of police. He was probably tying up the loose ends of his mission. Doing paperwork. Normal job duties. Still, she couldn’t help that little bit of anxiety that bubbled up beneath her logical explanations.

“Its the hormones, Eva,” she said to herself. “Its just the hormones.”

She lasted the hour and allowed herself another phone call. No answer. Eva huffed, thinking. She was going to drive herself crazy if she kept doing this. Grabbing her purse, she dug through it for her keys. What she found was the lighter he’d given her in the bar. She’d dropped it into her purse for safe keeping all those weeks ago and it had fallen down into the depths of the bag.

Eva turned it over in her hands. It was a plain silver, heavily weighted, no inscription or decoration. She flipped open the top and spun the flint, the flame igniting easily. Closing the lighter, Eva slipped it into the pocket of her dress, patting it.

Keys in hand, she drove down to the restaurant that he’d taken her to when they’d had lunch. In stilted Spanish, she ordered a few of their recommended items, smiling wide when they handed her a bag stuffed full.

When she was back in her car, Eva sat at the wheel and wondered if what she was doing was appropriate. The boundaries of their relationship weren’t clearly defined. But, he’d always seemed happy to see her when she dropped by, always seemed to welcome her presence. This was no different. Eva nodded to no one in particular. She would drop in, deliver the food, let him know that she was glad he was back, and leave. Short. Sweet. Simple.

Decision made, Eva headed for the station. The walk up to his office was quiet, most of the officers having left for the evening. Her sandals whispered over the tile floor as she navigated around the bullpen of desks towards his office door. When she leaned in, he wasn’t there. Eva smothered the disappointment.

Sighing, she swung the bag from her arm to the opposite hand, moving to set it on his desk. Nimble fingers plucked a pen from where it lay atop a pile of folders.

“Sticky note...sticky note,” she murmured, looking for something to write on.

The scuff of a shoe behind her startled Eva from her search, she spun around, brows lifted in surprised.

“Hey,” she breathed.

Horacio stood in the doorway, hair wet and brushed back from his face, a bundle of clothes in his hands. His gaze was focused, intense, sweeping over her in such a way that she could tell he was noting every detail. She stilled, the smile on her mouth dropping a little as she waited, breath held.

“Hi,” he said finally. There was an odd note in his tone, a slowness to the one word sentence that usually wasn’t there.

Exhaling, Eva gestured to the bag of food on his desk, “I brought you something to eat. I figured you’d only been eating MREs for the last week and you might like some real food.”

His eyes flicked down to the bag and then back up again. Moving slowly, he set the bundle of clothing on a table near the door and stepped into the room. Back to her, he closed the door, hand lingering on the handle. When he turned back to her, he fixed her with that same focused look and Eva’s spine straightened underneath the weight of it.

Head canted down, he walked towards her. Every muscle in Eva’s body froze as she eyed him. He moved leisurely, a relaxed saunter, but there was darkness in his eyes that she had only very rarely glimpsed. Lips parted, her thoughts muddied in her head. She couldn’t move if she tried.

When he reached her, his arms wrapped around her middle, hauling her up against his chest in a fierce embrace. Reflexively, Eva cradled him to her, arms rising to his shoulders. Pushing his face into her neck, Horacio nosed along her skin until he reached her scent gland. His next inhale was deep, intentional.

Gasping, Eva’s head fell back, her body leaning into him. He held her weight easily, crowding her until they were pressed together from chest to knee.

“I missed you,” he murmured into her skin.

Eva’s eyes closed tightly, relief flooding out from her heart into her veins. She inhaled, trying to center herself. His scent was rolling over her, alternatively calming and exciting.

“I missed you, too.”

He pulled back a little, one hand tucking her hair behind her ear, looking at her as if he hadn’t seen her in months rather than a little over a week. Eva blushed, unable to hold his gaze. Her skin tingled where they touched, heart palpitating in her chest. She felt like she had the first time she’d scented him, a bundle of vibrating nerves that grabbed and pulled her into his orbit, holding her there.

“How did the mission go? Did you catch him?”

His shoulders deflated, and Eva knew she’d said the wrong thing.

“No, we didn’t. We did get a few key players, but that’s it.”

Eva traced her hands up above the collar of his uniform, thumbs finding their place at the nape of his neck. She kneaded the muscle there, please when his eyelids drooped.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, knowing how disappointed he must be about it.

He dropped his forehead to hers, “Not your fault.”

“I know, but I’m sorry all the same.”

Hands gripping her waist, thumbs rubbing over her belly, he closed his eyes. She continued to press her hands into his neck, fingers spanning out beneath the collar of his shirt to get at that tense shoulder muscles. He let out a soft groan when she hit a particularly tight spot.

“I want to kiss you,” he said softly. “Can I?”

Eva smiled, “Yes.”

Leaning down, he pressed just the tiniest kiss to her mouth, lifting up a fraction of an inch before diving back down to kiss her properly. She opened for him, hands pausing at his shoulders as she lost focus. He kissed her deeply, arms pulling her so tightly to his body that she had to rock up onto her toes to keep balance.

The first taste of him after so long without was a shock to Eva’s system, everything inside her lighting up into bright, incandescent fire. It was then that she knew coming here may have been a mistake. She thought the heat was over—she was sure of it. But, the lingering hormones in her body rushed to her brain, sending sizzling signals to her core. It was not a heat, but the echo of the one she’d just gone through, a ricochet that hit her right in the chest.

Breaking the kiss, he took a step back, pulling her with him, “I want to touch you.”

She followed him closely, until he was sitting on the couch at the far end of his office, pulling her into his lap. He looked at her, waiting for her answer.

“Yes.”

Legs on either side of his hips, Eva carded her fingers through his damp hair, kissing him fervently. True to his wishes, his hands moved over her, fingers curling over her skin, grabbing handfuls of her thighs and hips. He pushed his hands beneath the fabric of her sundress, rucking up the fabric. The cut of the dress caught on his wrists, restricting his movement, the pads of his fingers stopping short of her breasts. With a frustrated growl, he reached behind her and yanked on the zipper, pulling the dress down.

Without skipping a beat, he cupped her breasts, running his thumbs over her nipples through the sheer fabric. He kissed down her neck, pulling down the cup of her bra, mouth sucking at her skin until he drew her nipple between his teeth, biting down ever so slightly. Eva moaned, a high pitched thing that caught in her throat.

She’d been waiting all week for this, had been fantasizing about having him back with her while she worked to get off. The reality of feeling him hard beneath her, hips rolling upwards, was so much better than she could have imagined. His scent wafted around her, clean and fresh from the shower.

Releasing her nipple with an obscenely wet sound, Horacio placed an open mouthed kiss against her neck before shoving his nose against her and inhaling lewdly.

“Smell so good,” he ground out, fingers gripping tight.

Eva could only nod. She knew what he meant. After a week without him, she wanted to drown herself in his scent. Tobacco and vetiver. Her mouth salivated just breathing him in. Needing to taste as much as she needed to touch him, she leaned down and licked a hot stripe up his neck until she got to the scent gland behind his ear. It was feverish to the touch, a little swollen, and radiating the smell that had and would continue to haunt her fantasies for the rest of her life. Lips open, she encircled it, sucking hard.

The sound he made was as feral as it was pathetic, his hips snapped up, grinding into her forcefully. She whined, lifting to try to keep hold of him, tongue swirling. Fingers in her hair, he pulled her away, her scalp stinging. She groaned, mouth open.

He shushed her, “Have to be quiet, Eva. There’s still others here.” He kissed her, a sly smile on his mouth, “Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head wildly, hair falling over her bare shoulders. He looked up at her, eyes bright, skin flushed—looking for all the world like he was awed by her.

“I want to be inside you,” his tone was urgent, tongue coming out to wet his lips.

“Yes,” she answered him, her voice cracking.

Pulling her close, he kissed her, hands sliding up her thighs. She met him eagerly, hands fisting in his shirt. He nipped at her, hand moving to work at his belt, fingers pulling at the zipper and pushing his pants down just enough to free his erection. Fuck, but she missed looking at it. The toy she’d used as a substitute wasn’t nearly as thick as he was, and her body clenched at how she knew he would stretch her wide, fuck her open in the most delicious way.

Impatient, Eva rose up on her knees, using one hand to pull her panties to the side and the other to line him up and sink onto him. If she hadn’t been fucking herself through a heat over the last week, it might have taken the usual two or three thrusts to drop all the way down. Instead, she slid over him smoothly, her body welcoming him enthusiastically.

He gasped, surprise written all over his face before his jaw clenched and he grabbed her hips to hold her steady. Eva threw her head back, biting her lip to keep the wail that wanted to escape at bay.

“Fuck,” he breathed, looking down at where they were joined. Reaching up, he pulled her to him for a kiss, saying against her mouth, “I thought about you every day. Woke up hard for you. Couldn’t even get myself off because there was no fucking privacy.”

The image of him laying in a tent somewhere, aroused and unable to do anything about it was titillating. Then came the image of him stroking off to the thought of her, his fist flying over his cock. Eva felt like she couldn’t catch her breath, the need to come pushing its way to the forefront of her mind. She shifted her hips, trying to catch a rhythm that she knew would send them both into a frenzy. He met her, the muscles of his arms and chest bulging as he helped her thrust down on him.

“I want—,” Horacio’s lips pressed together, cutting off the sentence.

Eva cupped his jaw, forcing him to look at her, “What do you want?”

Everything inside her wanted to give him whatever it was that he wouldn’t let himself have. The man denied himself so much, controlled everything about his life to the minutest detail. If he needed, she would provide.

“I want,” he started again, pausing. He buried his head against her neck and she could feel him fighting to keep the words down.

Leaning back, she forced him to look at her. There was an openness to his expression that gave her pause, an almost pleading in the tone of the sounds coming from him. She ran her thumb over his cheekbone.

“Tell me what you want,” she whispered, kissing him softly, “Tell me.”

His eyes closed as he said, “I want to come inside you.”

Liquid fire coursed through her, a wild feeling that reverberated around until she shook with it. Eva felt her body respond in a primal reaction, her hips swiveling down on him as if to coax the orgasm from him immediately.

“Yes, alpha,” she moaned, the words out of her mouth before she could catch them.

Eyes flying open, he hauled her to him, holding her immobile. Eva squirmed, incensed that she couldn’t keep grasping at the tendrils of pleasure that she needed. His arms tightened further, until she was sure she would burst from the pressure.

“Say it again,” he demanded through clenched teeth.

“Yes, alpha,” she gasped, pulling at his shirt, trying and failing to gain any leverage, “Please, alpha.”

Snarling, his torso rotated and she fell heavily on the couch cushions. Horacio crawled over her, pushing his hands under her dress to yank off her panties, dropping them to the side. He braced a foot on the floor, dropping his hips and shoving into her again.

Mouth at her ear, he let out a string of filth, telling her how good she felt, how tight and hot she was. His hands held her still as his hips slapped against her, the wet sound of his cock pushing up into her loud in the quiet room. Eva held on as best she could, burying her face into his neck to quell the sounds that she couldn’t keep inside. He reached up and gripped the arm of the couch, using it to gain leverage.

His pace was hard and fast, and exactly what she needed. Eva felt her body bear down on him, tightening as she neared release.

“You gonna come on me,” he asked hoarsely, “Gonna soak my cock with your come, omega?”

The use of her designation caused her eyes to roll back, the sweet, lancing pain of her orgasm rocketing through her as she laid there, unable to do anything but bite down on his shoulder to stop herself from screaming.

“Sweet fucking omega,” he growled, pace picking up until she could feel him pulsing inside.

He held himself against her, hips grinding for several long moments, until his body relaxed. Breathing hard, he let his weight fall atop her briefly, nosing against her neck, licking at the sweat that had pooled there.

With effort, he pulled out, his eyes falling to her folds. There was that focused gaze again, his lips pulling between his teeth. She could feel their combined orgasms leaking out of her slowly and she had to resist the urge to close her legs at the thought of what he was seeing. Lifting onto one palm, Horacio ran two fingers up her slit, gathering the wetness and pushing it back inside. Still sensitive, Eva drew in a shaky breath, her hand grabbing at the forearm near her head.

He stirred his fingers inside her a few times before pulling them out, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them clean. Eva’s jaw dropped as she watched him, her core pulsing at the sight.

After tucking himself back into his pants and setting his clothing back into place, he carefully helped her to dress. He laid down a kiss on each patch of skin before he covered it again, a softness to his touch that had not been there a few minutes previous. Kneeling, he reached for where he’d dropped her panties, his free hand pushing open her thighs.

His gaze lingered over her, eyes dark. Then, with little warning, he dove down and gave her a long, hot lick. Groaning, he leaned into her, nose pressed against her curls, mouth sucking at her clit. Eva hissed, her body curling over him. He swirled his tongue over her, a helpless little moan catching at the back of his throat. His hands tightened on her thighs, her panties hanging from where they’d caught on his pinky.

Eva gripped his shoulders, giving a pouting little huff when he pulled away suddenly. Panting he squeezed his eyes shut and Eva watched as one hand fell to his lap, palming at the erection that was growing behind his fly. He looked up at her, a kind of desperate surprise in his eyes. Eva grasped the hand on her thigh, soothing.

He rose, her panties still gripped in his hand, and paced away towards his desk. Eva brought her knees together self-consciously, not sure what was happening.

“Did you mean it?”

His back was to her, he ran a hand over his hair, fingers tucking her panties into his pocket. She knew without asking what he was getting at. She’d called him ‘alpha’, had acknowledged him as such. For an omega to make that kind of declaration was serious. Serious, and dangerous. It was a thing that existed in the space between marking and bonding, a deeply intimate gesture. That left the question: Did she mean it? She’d never wanted to invoke it before, the recognition of an alpha had terrified her in the past. Now, the thought was seductive.

Eva took a breath, steeling herself against the urge to protect herself at all costs, “Yes.”

He visibly tensed, still looking at the far wall. Then, he circled his desk and opened the middle drawer, pulling out a key. Stepping determinedly, he returned to her side, sitting next to her on the couch. He put the key in her hand. His tone was firm when he spoke.

“This is the spare key to my house. I’ve got some things I need to wrap up here, but when I come home, I want to find you in my bed—naked.”

Eva stared at him, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. He curled a finger beneath her chin, kissing her lightly. Dropping that hand to her thigh, he traced up the inside of it lightly.

“This is mine tonight, do you understand?” He asked as he circled her opening.

She nodded, resisting the urge to slot her hand on his and push his thick digits inside. He kept circling, breath fanning over her cheeks, his free arm coming up around her waist to hold her to him.

“Can I…?” she started, her words cut off as he threaded two fingers into her folds, rubbing at the hidden legs of her clit on either side.

He hummed in question, eyes trained on where he was playing with her.

She swallowed dryly and tried again, “Can I get my overnight bag from the apartment?”

One side of his mouth lifted, “What would you do if I said no?”

Eva blinked, shifting on the cushion as he applied just a little more pressure, “I wouldn’t go get it.”

Looking up at her from beneath his lashes, clearly pleased, he kissed her temple. The hand between her legs pulled away, grasping her skirt and settling it down over her knees. It took everything in Eva to keep from begging for him to keep going, her core throbbing.

“Go get your bag,” he said as he stood, helping her to rise with him. Then, he walked her to the door of his office, pausing in the threshold. “I’ll be home soon.”

The walk to her car, the drive to her apartment, and then to his house was a blur, her mind foggy with arousal. Eva was standing at the door to his house before she knew it, the key in the lock. Swallowing, she turned it and stepped inside.

The house, like it always did, smelled like him. Eva took a deep breath, moving through the living room and down the hall to the bedroom where she dropped her bag. The bed was made, the closet door closed, the blinds drawn. One of his jackets was thrown over an armchair to the right of the bed, the clock on his nightstand read seven pm.

Dropping her overnight bag next to the dresser, Eva sat on the bed, leaning down to pull off her sandals. Absently, she felt the lighter still sitting heavily in her pocket. Pulling it out, she set it carefully on the nightstand.

She didn’t know how long she had, but she felt the need to make herself as presentable as possible. The frantic searching for the things she needed to pack in her apartment, the drive over, not to mention the exertion in his office...Eva could smell the sweat on her skin.

Rising, she peeled off the sundress and stepped into the bathroom. Showering quickly, she toweled off and returned to the bedroom. She should maybe eat something. Still naked, Eva went to the kitchen and looked through the cabinets until she found a box of crackers. She ate as many as she could stomach, which was, admittedly, not a lot. Washing it down with a glass of water, Eva stood at the sink and tried to figure out if she needed to do anything else. He hadn’t given her any other directives. Bed. Naked. That was it.

Filling the cup again, Eva leaned against the counter and looked at the living room through the archway. A few magazines and the TV remote sat on the table. She could maybe try to distract herself with a late night show—no, if he found her on the couch...Eva shivered. She wasn’t quite ready to test his limits, but the thought was intriguing enough that she filed it away to explore later.

Reaching over, she flicked off the lights, heading back to the bedroom. She’d settled on getting rest. There had been promise in his voice when he’d told her he would be home soon. Eva needed to have the energy to rise to the occasion.

Sleep came easily, ensconced as she was in his sheets, in his scent. Dreamless, she snuggled deeply into the comforter. As solid as her sleep was, Eva could be forgiven for taking a minute to come back to consciousness.

Horacio was sitting beside her on the bed, hand on the dip of her waist. He’d pulled the sheet and comforter off her, the bulk piled at the end of the bed.

“I should have you here more often,” he said.

Eva smiled, “You usually want to go back to my place.”

He hummed, leaning down to pick up a plastic bag from where it sat at his feet. He reached in and tossed a box onto the nightstand. Eva would have giggled if her insides hadn’t twisted in anticipation. He’d gone to the drug store on his way back from the station. If there was any confusion about his intentions with her, they were now clear as fucking day.

Dropping the bag to the side, he worked the buckle of his watch loose, setting it on the nightstand. She watching him notice the lighter, his hand covering it for half a second. Then, he moved to his belt, sliding it through the loops of his uniform and rolling it into a neat spiral. Next came his button up, thrown onto the armchair. His undershirt, too. He paused over his pants, debating. Then, his thumb flicked open the fly and he pushed them down. Eva noted that he must have removed his shoes and socks before he sat down. They were laying neatly by the door.

Leaving his boxer briefs on, he moved to the end of the bed, looking down its length at her. Eva rolled to her back, arms over her stomach as she waited. He looked at her a while, eyes narrow.

“Open your legs.”

She did.

“Wider.”

Leaning down, he grasped her ankle, thumb pressing into her Achilles heel. First one knee, then the other pressed into the mattress as he crawled up and over her, hands trailing alongside. The breadth of his chest pushed her thighs open further. Face against the soft swell of her belly, he breathed in.

The fingers on her hips curled, he looked up at her, displeased, “You showered.”

Eva bit her lip, nodding.

“Why?”

She shrugged, “I wanted to…” she searched for the words, “be presentable.”

A soft chuckle left his lips. Eva felt her cheeks heat in embarrassment. She looked away, trying to think of what to say.

Moving up her body, he grasped her chin, trying to catch her gaze, “No, no, I’m not making fun of you. I just—don’t pout—I just think its cute that you think I’m going to find you anything but irresistible.”

Eva rolled her eyes, “I was a mess.”

His brows quirked and he hummed a little, “A mess that I made.”

She absolutely had no response to that, her mouth open in shock. He clocked it, smiled wide enough that she could see his dimples, and leaned down to kiss her. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, moaning. Eva grasped his sides as he kicked up the intensity, his hands in her hair.

“I need to tell you,” he gasped against her mouth, “While I can still think—fuck—while I’m still sane. You know what this is?”

Eva stared up at him, trying to make sense of his words, her mind already beginning to fog over with arousal. Pulling away, he grabbed her wrist and shoved it between them, laying her palm over his erection.

“Feel that?”

Eva groaned, eyes closing, as she tried to give him a firm pull. His grip tightened, his free hand cupping her cheek to get her attention.

“Feel, Eva.”

At the base of his cock there was a swelling, a little ring of flesh that was only about a quarter the size of what it would be fully engorged. Eva’s hand froze, her eyes flying to his face.

He looked down at her, all serious, “If you don’t want this, you need to tell me. I’ll get up and I’ll go, but you need to tell me right now.”

As if to illustrate his point, he rose up on his hands and knees, his body trembling above her. Eva looked him over, looked at the scars she’d traced in the lazy intervals between kisses, looked at the arms that had held her, supported her, looked at the dark eyes that were begging her to choose quickly.

With deliberate slowness, Eva tucked her hand into his briefs and palmed him, sliding down to the base and squeezing the barely formed knot. He hissed, back bowing, eyes squeezed tightly shut. When he opened them again, they were as focused as they had been in his office.

Quick, sure movements hand her wrists in his hands, sinking into the mattress on either side of her head. He mouthed along her collarbone, dropping his hips into the cradle of her thighs, knees pushing outwards to spread her wide.

The ascent upwards was fast, frenzied, his hips twisting against her. The friction felt amazing on her already sensitized skin. He rocked against her, tasting her skin. Pinned down as she was, Eva could only hike her legs up high on his waist, using the little bit of leverage to grind against him.

“Inside,” she rasped, trying to arch deeper into every thrust.

Horacio shook his head, breathing hard, “This one is for you. I don’t know that...I won’t be able to make sure you’re, shit, taken care of after I…”

Eva took his meaning. He was nearly in rut, a frenetic sexual energy coursing through him that would not be stopped once it started. An alpha male in rut wouldn’t knot fully, but the partial swelling was enough to drive them to fuck until it had emptied—with a partner or without.

Feeling her body respond to that knowledge, Eva threw her head back, her thighs burning. She’d soaked through the front of his briefs, could feel even more slick dripping out of her as she climbed higher towards orgasm. A choked gasp caught in her throat, her body clenching down on nothing, spasming beneath the heavy weight of him.

“So good for me,” he praised, kissing her cheek chastely.

Eva sighed, muscles limp as he lifted off her and reached over to open the box of condoms, pulling apart the foil packet and rolling it on. After kicking off his underwear, he settled back between her thighs, lifting one leg up and over his hip. He pushed inside slowly, grunting as she pulsed around him. As he bottomed out, his eyes rolled back, the little swell of his knot settling against her folds.

There was a pause, a breath that held stagnant between them for only a second or so, and then he was pumping into her at an ever increasing pace. Eva teeth clacked together when he gave a particularly hard thrust, knocking against her cervix, grinding down.

All at once she was reminded of that first conversation they’d had following their first night together—how he’d worried about having hurt her. She had a feeling this was why. Eva had known he was strong, could feel it every time they touched. She’d seen him fight, knock a guy unconscious. She’d felt him lift her with seemingly no effort. All of that could not prepare her for the unbridled force with which he was currently fucking up into her.

His skin slapped against her, cock thrusting against her walls, hitting her g spot regularly enough that she felt another orgasm begin to rise. He wrapped both arms around her, holding her to his chest, face in her neck. It cost him in leverage, his knees digging into the mattress for purchase. But, he didn’t seem keen to let her go.

Eva hugged him to her, one hand in his hair, the other tracing down the length of his spine. She could not quell the whimpers falling from her lips, could not stop her ankles from locking together at the small of his back, urging him on. She definitely could not stop her cunt from fluttering around him.

He groaned into her neck, hips stuttering. Cursing, his body slowed, lungs drawing deep breaths. Eva sighed as he rolled off her, her hands falling on either side of her body. She turned to her side, stretching her legs out, toes pointed.

Horacio returned to her, having dealt with the condom. He touched her shoulder, sliding up behind and slotting his leg between hers.

“You good?” He asked, voice rough.

Eva nodded, laying her hand over the arm around her waist. He continued to trace along her skin for a while, mouth leaving syncopated kisses all over. Soon enough, she felt him begin to harden against her ass and she tilted her hips back in invitation.

“Rest for a moment,” he said, his hand tracing up to her breast, kneading gently. He continued to dot kisses over her neck and shoulder, licking here and there.

He petted her for a long while, occasionally reaching down to slide his fingers over her pussy, rubbing light circles over her clit. All the while, sweat began for form over his arm and along his chest where they were pressed together. It wasn’t long before he was reaching for another condom and rolling Eva to her back, pushing into her.

The sound she made was not feminine or pretty. It exploded from her throat, a needy, guttural thing. As before, his pace was quick and hard. Eva gripped the pillow beneath her head, jaw unhinged as she tried to keep up. Too soon, her tired body was giving up, her legs falling wide as she simply took what he was giving her.

Horacio grasped her behind the neck, pulling her to him for a sloppy kiss. Eva could barely breathe around the way he kept upping the intensity of how he fucked her, changing the angle, pushing inside and grinding on her, using one hand to arch her back up to him so that he could bite at her breasts. She keened, a frission running through her.

He came with a shout, his body shaking all around her, forehead dropping to her chest. She barely felt him pull out, still reeling from the electric static running rampant over her skin. Hands ran over her, lulling her as she dropped into a strange kind of sleepy place, somewhere between waking and dreaming.

When she came back to awareness, he was rolling his tongue over her pussy, one long finger dipping inside. He massaged her thighs, hanging over his shoulders. Eva moaned lowly, his name sounding as she shifted against the sheets. He sucked at her lips, thumb rubbing at her clit. From between her thighs, he watched her come apart, her head thrown back, legs shaking.

Making a sound of satisfaction, he lifted up, already reaching for another condom. With confident hands, he rolled her to her stomach, laying down atop her, pushing his cock into her in a smooth, firm stroke. The sound he made against her shoulder was obscene, a desperate, needy thing that dropped down into his chest.

He gave her a few slow, controlled thrusts before his body took over. The way he straddled her thighs, pushing them together around him, the weight of his body keeping her immobile—it built around her, feeding into something deeply held, something she didn’t know existed in her. She liked that she couldn’t move. She liked that he could, in that moment, do whatever the fuck he wanted with her.

Whining against the pillow, Eva felt herself say things she had never let herself say before. Things like: Yes, hold me down and More, alpha, give me more. Fuck me harder, please. Her words seemed to spark even more of a fire in him. He lifted back to sit on his heels, pulling her with him until she was sitting astride his thighs with her back to his chest, speared on his cock.

At this angle, he could grind the promise of his knot against her. One arm crossed over her chest to hold her steady, the other reaching down between her legs, he strained against her. Eva grasped futilely at his hips, his thighs, not exactly sure what she was trying to do but she needed to touch him. She needed more of him, more connection.

Mine, mine, mine, he was saying, and it took too long for Eva to recognize that he’d dropped into Spanish. Words falling out of him like water. He called her his little omega, called her beautiful, called her his.

Pushing her hair over her shoulder, he kissed underneath her jaw, licking up to her scent gland and swirling his tongue over it. Eva gasped, her nails digging into his thigh, urging him on. Grunting, his fervent kiss turned into a deep bite and she could feel the moment he broke the skin.

She screamed in pleasure, the orgasm powerful enough that her whole body shook with it. She must have passed out, because the next thing she knew, he was calling her name, shouting at her.

“’m okay,” she groaned, touching his jaw tenderly.

Eyes wild with worry, he stared at her face. She smiled at him, giving his cheek a pat before settling down into the softness of the mattress. He made her drink the cup of water she’d brought in with her before laying down beside her and watching her carefully. His eyes drooped as he stroked her thigh. Eva leaned over and kissed him, feeling blissfully worn out.

“Thank you,” she murmured before succumbing to sleep, though those weren’t the words that echoed silently alongside it.

#narcos #horacio carrillo #carrillo #A Need So Great

45 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

whatifwereallcarrots

randomhumanbeingweird

gen3m

Gen3M Speaks Out

tomotopdollar

TomoTopDollar

congtyvoffice

The Estimating Group

the-things-i-put-in-my-mouth

The Things That I Put In My Mouth