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fancyfeathers · 6 months

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Society of Protection (Yandere Bungo Stray Dogs x reader x original characters) (normalized yandere au)

Chapter Seven

Two Sides, Part Two

You all have chosen A.) Gaston and Dr. Stevenson have a meeting scheduled with high ranking Japanese government officials, the vice minister of the Ministry of Justice, Tonan, who may be willing you listen to your Society about some change

Prologue and oc intro

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven, part one

“Gaston and Dr. Stevenson .”

Miss Jane nodded and looked over to the the two on the opposite couch for approval and Gaston nodded in approval. “Very well then, I suppose I’ll be off with Alexandre and Victor. I am quite handy with a hand gun.” Miss Jane said, smoothing her gown, “besides my ability isn’t well suited for combat.”

Now that you think about it, you have never seen or even heard about Miss Jane’s ability besides in passing that she has one at the very least

So now you decide to ask. “Miss Jane, if I may ask, what is your ability?”

The room fell silent and everyone turned to Miss Jane, except Dr. Stevenson who leaned back on her seat, her eyes shut, a smile on her face, and her hands folded in her lap. Miss Jane also smiled but she walked over to you, peeling off her silk gloves as she did so. She extended her hand to you for you to take. “If you may, touch my hand.” As she said this you got a worried expression on your face. She noticed this and gave a little chuckle. “It’s alright, I won’t hurt you.”

You trusted her words so you placed your hand in her own and immediately you felt a relaxing pulse flow through your body, washing away all your stress and fear you had building up with in you for the last few weeks.You saw a light flow admitting from where Miss Jane’s flesh touched your own. You tried to wonder what was going on but your mind felt far too muddled to think. Then Miss Jane released your hand and put her glove back on, your mind returned to you but of course you still felt so calm, so calm, almost unnaturally so. There was a hum heard from over the couch, Dr. Stevenson. “Miss Jane’s ability, Pride and Prejudice, when she touches someone she is able to read their emotions and thoughts and manipulate their thoughts and emotions as long as she is in physical contact with them.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t last very long though after its usage, its effect on you will probably only last a few minutes.” Jane added with a bit of an embarrassed smile. “I may be the leader of the Society but my gift is the weakest out of us all.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Jane. You know what your gift can do.” Gaston stepped in with a push of his glasses, the light reflecting off them just right so that you couldn’t see his eyes. “It’s how she got away from Fitzgerald, she used it to the point of nearly passing out to sedate him. From what I heard he was in a haze for almost two days.”

“Yes, but Gaston remember if it wasn’t for Dr. Stevenson being nearby I would have passed out myself or worse.” Miss Jane stepped back over to the table in between the couches and picked up a cream file and handed it over to Victor. “Changing the subject now, this is your case. It contains photos of the the individuals you will be keeping an eye on.“ Victor opened the file, looking it over and then tucking it away in his bag that he kept at his feet. Miss Jane then looked at you, Gaston, and Dr. Stevenson. “Dr. Stevenson is in charge on this mission. It is a simple meeting with Mr. Tonan.”

Gaston stood up, dusting off his jacket. Me reached into his pocket and jailed out a set of keys with a smile. “Alright, but I’m driving.”

—————————

The drive to the the government building Mr. Tonan’s office was in was quick enough, Gaston drove and surprisingly he was a very good driver. On the way there you watched Dr. Stevenson go over her notes, seemingly nervous for a meeting, apparently Gaston noticed it as well and spoke as he drove. “Doctor, don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

She sighed and set her notes down. She reached a hand up and rubbed her temples as if she had a headache. “Yes but Louis would be much better at this than I.”

“Louis is an ability, not an actual person.” Gaston snapped back, almost scolding the doctor, his eyes still firmly fixed on the road. “Your ability is not you as a person, it is just an extension of yourself.”

“Louis? Is that your ability?” You questioned, stepping into the conversation. The doctor nodded looked back at you from her front seat.

“Yes, my ability is called The Strange Case, call it… giving birth to another personality of mine for lack of better phasing. Letting my alter ego take form via my shadow.” She looked away from you, her eyes back to her notes, rereading them over again. “Do not ask me to use it unless the situation is dire, she tends to be a bit… insane.”

—————————

You three arrived at the government building without a problem. Gaston had parked the car out front, making it not too far of a walk from the building to the car in case anything did go horribly wrong. You three made your way inside where of course with most government meetings you had to fill out a form, and wait… and wait… and wait. Until finally a young man with black hair came over to you all, he looked like somewhat of an assistant but something… some small thing felt off about him, maybe it was his smile? You didn’t know but you weren’t the only one to notice, you glanced over at Gaston and his eyes were fixed on this man with almost of a glare. The man came up to you all and extended his hand to each of you. “I am so sorry for the wait, I’m Mr, Tonan’s assistant and you must be Dr. Stevenson…” he gave the doctor’s hand a firm shake before letting you and his eyes fixed on Gaston. “You’re the famous Gaston Leroux of the Paris Opera, can I just say how big of a fan I am. Your work is something of the angels.” He said shaking Gaston’s hand with an enthusiastic laugh and smile… then he turned his unsettling smile to you and extended his hand to you. “And you are?”

Something about his voice gave you chills as you extended a hand back to him. “(N-Name)”

“Well that’s a very lovely name, Miss (Name).” The assistant shook your hand with a firm shake and that same unsettling smile. After a long moment of silent staring at you with that same uncomfortable expression he turned back to the rest of the group. “Now if you would just follow me, Mr. Tonan is waiting for you in his office.”

You three followed him down the halls of the buildings, both Gaston and Dr, Stevenson picked up on his strange behavior so Gaston stepped in front of you and the doctor stayed at you side, all of their eyes fixed on him. He lead you to a large office where an older man was waiting for you, he was a bit on the heavier side but still seemed kind, genuinely kind, not like his strange assistant. You assumed this man was Mr. Tonan from how he treated Gaston and Dr, Stevenson with a friendly greeting like old friends, but everything they said fell on deaf ears to you because you could feel the assistant’s smile and eyes on the back of your head. It wasn’t until you heard Gaston introducing you to Mr. Tonan that your mind snapped back into reality.

Mr. Tonan had some tea brought up for you all as you talked and over all Mr. Tonan seemed very receptive your case and when you brought up the break in at your apartment he expressed genuine concern. “Honestly I stand with you with how our system is set up. That is why I took this position in office. I have been friends with Miss Jane for years and when she told me about your society a few weeks ago you know what I said, I said, finally someone is taking the action that needs to be done.”

“You don’t know how much that means to us, Mr. Tonan.” The doctor said with an excited smile. “So you’ll help us?”

Mr. Tonan nodded with a wide smile. “I will certainly try. You are good folk and your cause is just.” He paused and frowned, his expression changing from one of hope and excitement to one of worry and dread. “I must warn you that what you want to achieve will be dangerous, people will try to dig up your pasts to exploit you. You’ll need to prepare for what comes next and-“

“Dig our heels into the ground. Trust us, we know.” You cut Mr. Tonan off, finishing his sentence. “Sir, in the last few weeks I have encountered members of the Guild, Port Mafia, and Armed Detective Agency. Two of which threatened me the last of which tried to convince me that this wasn’t a big deal and I shouldn’t worry my pretty head about it and you know what I took it, I took their threats and words and just stayed silent. I don’t want to be silent anymore, because this is my life.”

“I couldn’t agree more. For now we need to build a case.” Mr. Tonan reaches into his desk and pulls out an ordinary cream paper file. “Miss (Name), I’m going to ask you to be a lab rat in this case. Any time something happens to you. You are going to document it and place it in here in either words or photos. Be as descriptive as you can. If we gather enough evidence we could stop this once and for all. I know this is scary and you don’t have to do this if you don’t wish to but-“

“I’m in.”

“Very well, I’ll have my assistant to stay in touch with you then, you can report things to him that you document. If we play our cards right, then their actions will destroy themselves. They’ll eat each other alive.”

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During the rest of your meeting, Mr. Tonan’s assistant slipped out into the hall and walked it a bit, out of ear shot from everyone. He pulled out a phone from his back pocket and dialed up a number, a wicked smile, more sinister than before comes across his face as the person answered. The assistant spoke, completely dropping the fake accent he used, going that that of one more European in origin. “Dostoy, seems there is a bit of trouble brewing from your little мышь. Seems like she’s aligned herself with that French composer, what was it you called him… oh yes, the angel of music.”

There was a chuckle on the other end of the line and then the voice of a Russian man responded. “Oh really? I should have expected something from him after all these years. No one like him simply gives up. Seems like this game is going to get interesting.”

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After the meeting you all made your way back to the car, hearts feeling full and a new found spring in your step. You finally had hope that things would change for the better for once. Gaston himself held his head up high and the Dr. was no longer nervous like she was in the car, looking over her notes overly so. “So Gaston, what’s our next game plan? I over heard you and Miss Jane talking about something in her office last night.” Dr. Stevenson questioned her French friend. Gaston smiled, the sort of smile that was scheming but not in the evil sort of way.

“Easy, we’ll gonna see what we can do about an alliance with the Armed Detective Agency and the Port Mafia, if all of us work together we’ll unstoppable against the Guild. I honestly can’t wait to see the look on…”

Then you saw it, on a roof top nearby. It was a man… holy fuck that was a sniper, aiming right at Gaston. As Gaston spoke you began to run in an attempt to push him out of the way and then…

BANG!

As you pushed him to the ground to felt a burning pain sear through your left leg. You let out a loud scream as you toppled to he ground, Gaston beneath you. Dr. Stevenson was. The second to notice where the sniper was and she pulled you and Gaston up, carrying you to the car and leaving the composer to his own devices. She threw you into the back seat along with herself. In your pain you didn’t notice Gaston quite literally walk through the car like a ghost and into his seat where he materialized fully and stepped on the gas, trying to put as much distance between you all and here. You were laid on the back seat row of the car and Dr. Stevenson reached into her bag and pulled out a first aid kit. She took a cloth and bandages and placed the cloth on top of your bullet wound.

“I need to stop the bleeding, I can get the bullet out at the apartment with my equipment there. Fuck how did this happen.” She said that last bit under her breath as she started to wrap the bandages around your leg, this made you cry out in pain but she squeezed your hand to help you deal with the pain. “Gaston, do you have any clue who did that?”

“The Guild, no doubt in my mind. They were after me, I’m the one who keeps out society’s secrets well hidden. Fitzgerald told Alexandre and Victor that he would exploit us until none of us had a cent left to out names, all of us. With me in the way he can’t find shit out on any of us, he doesn’t know about you in the war, he doesn’t know about me, he doesn’t know about Alexandre’s family, he doesn’t know shit besides me standing in his way.” Gaston made a rather sharp turn as he spoke. “As for the sniper, his name is Mark Twain I believe. I don’t know much about his ability unfortunately, I just remember Miss Jane talking to be about him joining the Guild not to long before she escaped.”

“Noted, for now just drive, I have a new patient it seems…” Dr. Stevenson’s words became hazy as you fell unconscious.

—————————

Meanwhile Alexandre, I for had run into the Guild members, John Steinbeck and H.P. Lovecraft, trying to kidnap two girls, they were able to team up with two members of the armed detective agency, Junichiro and Kunikida, to help the girls get away. While Junichiro and Kunikida kept Steinbeck and Lovecraft busy, Alexandre, Victor, and Miss Jane, helped them run and board a train, fending off vines that came from Steinbeck’s ability. They boarded the train with the girls, Miss Jane helped calm them down with her ability when a little boy ran right into them.

“Oh I’m sorry little one.” Miss Jane said looking over at the boy. They were a strange looking child, wild eyes, two colored hair, and a horrific looking doll. They child looked over to Miss Jane with a curious smile.

“Did you say sorry?” The child asked and Miss Jane nodded. The child looked at her with a smile. “I should apologize, are you hurt.”

Miss Jane and the child whose name was Q, or nickname anyway, got along splendidly. He absolutely adored her accent and her old fashion personality, he said it reminded him of a princess. Alexandre and Victor were talking to the girls, Naomi and Kirako, making sure they were okay and just reviewing over the situation, making sure they had a safe place to go. Apparently they had members of the Armed Detective Agency picking them up at the next stop, which was also the place where the Society had their car that was waiting for them. Soon the train came to a stop and everyone got off the train, Q holding onto Miss Jane’s hand, dragging her along like mother and child. Waiting at the stop was a young man, he had whitish gray hair, with interesting eyes, purple and yellow. He ran up to the two girls wondering if they’re okay. Apparently the two girls were clerks at the Armed Detective Agency.

“Honestly if it wasn’t for Kunikida and Junichiro as well as our new friends we wouldn’t have had escaped.” Naomi said gesturing to Miss Jane, Alexandre, and Victor. “Atsushi, this is Jane, Alexandre, and Victor. They’re visiting from Europe.”

“Thank you so much ma’am, sirs.” Atsushi said, bowing slightly. Alexandre shook his head and waved Atsushi off.

“It’s alright, just doing the right thing. Also don’t call me sir, I’m probably not that much older than you, kid.” Alexandre said, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Just call me Alexandre.”

Q let go of Miss Jane’s hand and walked up to Atsushi, bumping into him. As Atsushi went to go look down at Q, he began to unroll his sleeve, revealing razor blades taped to his arm. Miss Jane screamed at this sight. They all watched Q tear their doll in hair and a look of madness came across Atsushi’s face, blood coming out of his eyes. He ram to strangle Kirako, but Alexandre and Victor began to restrain him, grabbing each of his arm. Miss Jane ran towards Q, touching him on his cheek, at least weakening his hold on Atsushi. All three society members knew at that moment that this child was insane. Atsushi clawed, literary clawed, at Alexandre and Victor, like cat. In all this panic a young man came forward and grabbed the doll with one hand and touched Miss Jane’s shoulder with the other, disabling both Q’s and Miss Jane’s ability, it was Dazai.

Miss Jane collapsed at that time as Q ran off back onto the train that was starting up again, but before she hit the stone, Dazai caught her, holding her up as he glared at the child. “Mr. Dazai’s friends are so weak, they broke so easily. But that’s fine, cause I’ll be saving Mr. Dazai for last.”

The rest of the conversation went in one ear and out the other for the society members as Victor and Alexandre ran to Miss Jane’s side, helping her get back up after the large use of her ability, taking her away from Dazai. Victor gave Dazai a nod as they walked off, but Dazai grabbed Victor by the wrist and pulled him back to whisper. “I know Gaston is planning on making an alliance with us, just remember nothing comes for free, nothing.”

—————————

Everyone finally returned to the headquarters and Victor and Alexandre sat down with Miss Jane to get her something to drink. At the same time you were waking up in Dr. Stevenson’s office, your leg bandaged up, Gaston and Dr. Stevenson by your side. Gaston was the first to notice you were awake, rushing over to you and hugging you, squeezing the life out of you.

“What were you thinking? I could have gotten out of the way, you worried us so much.” You felt something wet on your shoulder and you realized he was crying. “Don’t do that again.”

“Luckily it’s only a wound, nothing broken. The bullet did cut through some nerves that allow movement in your leg so you’re gonna be in that wheelchair for the foreseeable future.” Dr. Stevenson added and sighed when she saw Gaston wasn’t letting go. “Gaston, let (Name) breathe.”

He let go and you saw his face tear stained, you reached a hand up and whipped his face off. “Don’t cry music man.”

Dr. Stevenson helped you into a wheelchair soon after to get you back into your room to rest in a more comfortable space. As she rolled you down the hall you heard the front door of the building open and close, and quite a few footsteps walking in. Dr. Stevenson’s eyes narrowed and she quickly made her way to Jane’s apartment where everyone had gathered. “Miss Jane, did you hear that?”

Miss Jane nodded, this was only odd because everyone who lived here was in one room. Then when she was about to saw something there was a knock at the door. Miss Jane looked at the maid, Joan and gestured for her to open it. So Joan went to the front entry, opened the door and you heard a gasp as someone walked in. Everyone looked at each other with worried eyes. Then… you heard Miss Jane drop her tea cup and it shatter on the floor. You all saw a few people who came here uninvited, but in front of them all was a man, a blond man in his thirties and dressed up to the nines. There was a look of horror on Miss Jane’s face and he walked up towards her, like he lived her. He went up to her side, grabbed her chin and made her look at him.

“Hello Zelda.”

…The Guild had found you all

#yandere bungo stray dogs x reader #yandere bungou stray dogs #yandere bsd #original character x reader #bungou stray dogs oc #bungou stray dogs #bungou stray dogs x reader #yandere dazai #yandere chuuya #yandere mark twain #yandere mori ougai #yandere Fukuzawa #Yandere Edgar Allan Poe #Yandere John Steinbeck #yandere fyodor

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bridgeportbritt · 10 months

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Willington Palace Gardens | Sage, SimDonia

Diana sighs contently

Diana to herself: I hope you love this place as much as I do little one. There's no better place to be alone with your thoughts.... hopefully you'll get more use out of it than I do lately.

Footsteps approaching and voices outside

Gaurd: Your Majesty, a Dr. Fitzgerald is requesting an urgent meeting with you.

Diana: Really? Please send her in.

Dr. Fitz: Your Majesty, I do apologize for the intrustion. I asked a member of your staff where to find you and they directed me here.

Diana: Doctor, is everything alright? It's unusually chilly out today. I'm sorry you had to venture out to find me.

Dr. Fitz: Not a problem at all, ma'am. I have some great news that I couldn't wait for our next appointment to share with you.

Diana: Really? Did you- Did you find a cure?

Dr. Fitz: Sort of. I think we're very close to finding a noninvasive treatment plan that will block all the symptons related to this defect. It's a short term fix, but the longer cure is still on our rader. But, I thought this is something you'd want us to explore, as well.

Diana: Absolutely! That's amazing! What do you need from me?

Dr. Fitz: Well, we still need to do some testing to see if the treatments are successful. It will need to be on each member of the family we found with the defect. Seeing the responses from this will help not only create a plan to block the symptoms, but hopefully fully cure them, as well.

Diana: This is music to my ears. When can we start?

Dr. Fitz: We can start right away if you like. Our team is about ready.

Diana: Fantastic. I say, we go ahead, then. Great work, Doctor.

Dr. Fitz: Of course, ma'am. I will, of course, need your go ahead on informing the patients of the ongoing treatment.

Diana: What do you mean?

Dr. Fitz: Legally, ma'am, our team cannot administer treatment without consent from the patient.

Diana: I see.

Dr. Fitz: I'm sorry, ma'am. I know discretion about this matter has been of the upmost importance to you.

Diana sighs: No, don't be sorry. I imagine it's time I come clean about this. I was just... hoping I had more time.

Dr. Fitz: I understand. Should we postpone the treatment?

Diana: Yes, I need to inform everyone myself. Then, we will move forward.

Dr. Fitz: Understood, ma'am.

#simdonia #chap 11 #doc basically said she has good and bad news lol #time to tell the fam what's going on #how will they react #to be tested without their knowledge #about a secret defect #hmmmm lol #sims of color #sims 4 story #sims 4 gameplay #ts4 #royal sims #royal simblr #sim: diana #just one post this week #then 2 more posts next week to end the chap!!!#seeing beyonce this week so i might be quiet #here but screaming my lungs out there lolol

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goldenfreddys · 1 month

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september ‘04, cont.— american healthcare

Dr. David Miller’s office was situated in a dingy, hole-in-the-wall clinic downtown that practically oozed of quackery. The clinic was obviously created for the sole purpose of exploiting impoverished, desperate people who couldn't afford actual healthcare, Jeremy thought. Unfortunately, he was one of those people, and being scathingly self-aware could do very little to change it. He needed his terrible nightguard job, so he needed his brain halfway functional, and that meant getting his pills refilled before the withdrawal symptoms got too severe. At the very least, the clinic took drop-in appointments.

“Samuel Fitzgerald?”

He cringed as the man in the hallway beckoned him to another room. He figured by the white coat that this was the so-called medical professional that had been generously provided to him in the spirit of goodwill and philanthropy. He had large, rectangular glasses and a long face, which Jeremy figured would be enough discernable features to correctly identify him in the future.

Dr. Miller placed himself behind a cluttered desk with a dusty computer monitor in the classic, charming grayish beige that all technology seemed to come in before the year 2000. Facing the desk, there was a faux leather armchair with a visible slash in the upper corner of the upholstery. Besides that, some motivational posters were plastered on the walls.

Jeremy sat down and ambled through the motions of exchanging pleasantries, which the doctor kept graciously brief.

“Now let’s get right into the nitty gritty. Are you sexually active?”

“... No.”

Dr. Miller let out a quiet chuff, as if amused by his response.

“Do you smoke?”

“Sorta, but I’m- um, trying to quit.”

“Are you on any medications? If so, which ones?”

“Xanax, I guess. The uh, generic brand though. Can you- um, could you get my prescription renewed? That's actually- that's why I'm here. I've been taking it for, like, a long time now, and…”

“We can discuss that once we’re finished the screening process.” Miller took some sheets of paper from his folder and held one up, “Duck or rabbit?”

“Rabbit.”

“Great. How about this one?” he shuffled to the next paper, which was a printout of an Rorschach Inkblot. At this point, Jeremy had his answers for inkblot tests locked and loaded.

“Ghost.”

“And this?”

“Also a ghost.”

The doctor leaned in with an inquisitive smirk, “Do you believe in ghosts, Sam? Are you a superstitious guy?”

“I don’t know. I just think they're cool.”

“What's your relationship with your father like?”

“Not applicable.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Again, I-I need my meds refilled.”

“Why?”

“Because I can't stop taking them suddenly or I get jittery and spacey and I can't think, can't sleep, and my head hurts and I feel like throwing up all the time.”

“It says on your file that you have a family history of psychosis. Are you aware of this?”

“Being crazy has been running in our genetics since prehistoric times. Can I please—”

“Follow the yellow rabbit.”

“Get my… What?”

Dr. Miller held out what looked to be a pen topped with a small plastic bunny figurine. He slowly waved it from side to side.

“With your eyes. Trust the process.”

Jeremy obeyed, “You know, despite its- its clinical popularity, most members of the scientific community uh, they consider EMDR to be borderline pseudoscientific–”

“I can't help you if you don't let me, Sammy. At least try to keep an open mind.”

“I've had an open mind. I never skipped a session, I took my pills. I went on walks, I filled out worksheets, I read those short stories about kids who were quote-unquote just like me. All I got was this stupid benzo addiction.”

He took a shaky breath, still following the plastic bunny with his eyes.

“I’ve heard the buzzwords a million times: progress isn't linear. Grief doesn't always dull with time, it just gets easier to manage. It gets better, blah blah, etcetera. It's not like I chose to be like this! It's just- I’m- I’m not supposed to be here, it was supposed to be me- not Charlie, not Cass, it- it really, really should have been me.”

“And yet here you are.”

The doctor put down the pen then reached into his desk, shuffling around before pulling out a small, unlabeled bottle of pills.

Dr. Miller tossed the bottle to Jeremy with a grin, “They're not exactly your Xannies, but they're in the same family. Best I can do on short notice, but they should tide you over until I can getcha something better.”

Jeremy let out a heavy sigh of relief and crumpled over in the chair. Despite his deep embarrassment about crying in front of other people, a gross, wet sniffle escaped him.

Miller hummed approvingly, “Attaboy, have some damn catharsis. It’s good for the id.”

#my writing #parmaverse #fnaf fanfiction #fnaf au

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gh-verse · 5 months

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Some GH Verse x FNAF AU Design things…🤭

🦊 (Liam/Foxy): Fennec

🐤 (Maddie/Chica): Cici (short for Ciceron)

🐰 (Anna/Bonnie): Belle

🐻 (Tavy/Freddy): Fitzgerald

Now Introducing Madonna Pierre as William Afton and Alistair Lamoliatte as The Puppet (and Henry Emily—smooshed together the narrative roles for Reasons). They need a divorce So Bad.

Lore Below The Cut! 📌

Anna and Liam are Madonna and Alistair’s kids (per canon), and our tragic little tale of woe begins when Liam Mysteriously Disappears. Liam was known for being a rebellious child, so at first everyone thought they had simply run away...But the way the couple was acting in the aftermath had some of the neighbors raising eyebrows--Madonna was making a spectacle of her grief, while Alistair stood silently nearby, almost looking...defeated. it was very odd behavior for parents who's kid was only reported missing.

Suspicions only heightened when their other kid later died in a Freak Accident. Not much information on the case was disclosed made available to the public, since the files had been sealed. They just know it involved her "tampering" around with some of the animatronic parts the family kept in the basement.

Maddie was one of the neighborhood kids who was close friends with the both of them growing up. Strangely enough, she also went missing. Its spectated by a few that she might’ve seen something she shouldn’t have.

There’s a pretty substantial time skip that happens here, ultimately culminating in the Pizzeria being shut down (TL;DR Alistair goes missing after Going off The Shits making robotic replicas of his kids and their dead friend and without him, the business just kind of fell apart).

Tavy is the security guard. At least...At first. He used to go to the pizzeria all the time as a kid and when he saw the job ad he immediately applied.

And…well. It’s FNAF. You know how it goes 💀.

Their brains all got a little scrambled egg post death and how much comes back depends on the person. Right after is probably the most Blank Slate things get though. Gotta give them a few days to cook.

Liam and Maddie pretty much have a handle on things at this point. Liam remembers but is driven by rage and vengeance and sometimes that makes them forget. Per usual, Maddie is the most well-adjusted of the bunch. Meanwhile Anna is over there forgetting she used to be a person half the time (something something getting your frontal lobe bitten out has ramifications post-death 🤭).

#Madonna can’t enter the complex without Fennec IMMEDIATELY gunning for her ass so she pays poor saps to do it for her #Madonna letting him in: Have a nice shift #Tavy: Aren’t you going to show me around or?—#Madonna: No.#More to come later. I’m feral.#yippee!#Realizing Alistair’s puppet design has accents of his kids colors: Ouugghhggghhgg yeah that hurts #Me: And Maddie’s name in this AU is Cici 🤭🫶#My Friend: ….Cici’s Pizza… (they’re a genius)#GH Verse #my art #FNAF #FNAF AU

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trashlama · 1 year

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YANDERE MALE(OC) X READER!

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IDK why but, I suddenly began typing this instead of sleeping. I did my best to proof read it however I have a terrible disease called laziness. It's very contagious.

Anyways—

I hope you guys like this I tried quite a bit.

WARNINGS!!!

Talks of Sanity, actual real life practices for mental illness that today's standards would be considered barbaric. And arranged marriage.

Oh and body mutilation!

Have fun~!

Also later on I'll probably add a picture of Felix after I draw him.

Let me know if you guys want more!

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You weren't sure how much longer you could last.

You feared the next treatment will be you're last; physically and mentally.

You've seen how the doctor's approval meant total lost of psychie or even worse—

Removal of the parts that made, you, you.

This place was hell on Earth and everyday you grew more mad with burdensome thoughts of how you landed in this ceases pool of ungodly despair.

You weren't off your rocker, and never have ever hurt anything aside from arrogance's pride. You were just a normal gal just trying to be wed off to benefit your family and their financial position.

And now you were here.....

You don't know it ended up like this. Your once beautiful (h/c) cut to ribbons. The roots struggling to meet with demands of the patrons that came through to purchase supplies.

Your soul felt hollow and your body mirrored it such. From the glimces you've gotten of yourself in pools of God knows what, amongst the sanitarium floors you looked like a skeleton of yourself. Literally.

In the beginning when you were just a normal free woman. Finding her suitor that her family proved. A match to procreate with. To spawn the suture generation of their lineage.

However when you were finally about to be paired off.... your wedding day they came for you. The "caretakers" came and pinned you down spewing claims of help and support. That you'll see better days.

Though as soon as they threw you in the back of their looney wagon. It was a whole other tale.

Your gown was torn by the real madmen in back trying to assault you. Tears of fear had flooded your gaze as you defended your dignity so much you could. Having not noticed when the prying hands that had roamed for scaride parts you had hoped only your husband would ever touch. Had been torn away with a almost inaudible growl.

Gazing up at the fleeting hands and whimpers that followed. You found the two men who had taken you were restraining them in braced jackets, chains, and cranium cages. Your brain was short circuiting from the event.

Next to the duo of specialists was a brunette male with grinning lavender eyes and white lab coat that clearly displayed he was amongst the medical community. Your thoughts wouldn't have registered him hadn't been for the way he clawed you out of the back of the wagon. Your (e/c) orbs dilating in unregisterable fear.

Once in his arms his grasps you in an embrace you would never thought would occur when exiting the wagon.

" Your finally here..." Is what he whispered in delight.

Arms embracing you like restrictor snakes. Coiling around your smaller frame with ease and pleasure. Arms although slender held great underling promise power. Same with the rest of his slender frame that was hidden underneath a button up light lavender dress-shirt, a darker lavender vest and pair of dark kaki brown. Large feet concealed in their wing tipped armor.

As he tugged you into his surprisingly sturdy chest you arrived with a small oof at his intended destination for you. Not that the other duo cared very much that went on between you and who would later learn to be Dr. Felix Fitzgerald.

Hands that rivaled his feet in size clenched your upper fore arms and informed you that you were safe and now under his care for now on.

That was what you almost believed for the first of the three years; according to your tally marks.

And in those three years? You fell deeper into actual insanity.

Despair clung to your heavy heart every time they hooked you up to a different device they were convinced would cure you. The electro shock shock burned and rattled your teeth despite the gag. Every time they did that you were convinced you had been a step away from being a roasted goose. The opposite could be said for the temperature baths. The fluctuating degrees in between the ice tub and the heated jets of boiling bath. If you showed your reaction to the process(like you had a choice). They would repeat it again, and again until you either passed out or passed on.

Not that they would ever admit to the latter being their responsibility. They would simply claim that the subject had a "Poor reaction to the new age cure". It was despicable. And it wasn't even the worst.

The worst kept you up at twilight hours. Cages and violations scare your nighttime escapes. You could speak of them cause you feared they would drag you down to real depravity. Real insanity. And you weren't sure if you could crawl out again.

It was hard enough the first time.

Your brain keeps trying to fool your heart into believing that you will escape this. You will find a way out. Prove your sanity.

Though no one would listen.

No one.

Not the doctors, nurses, psychologists, visitors. Not even your own family.

You don't know why this is happening.

Even they believe your fucking crazy. They look at you with remorse while keeping a distance.

Your own fiance won't even visit you.

You're pretty sure he's moved on. You haven't even recived a single letter. From anyone.

For the first three months you cried.

You bawled for the following five.

And almost lost your mind when they placed you in solitary for the next 210 days.

Through the whole ordeal only one sole face had a constant appearance. Flex Fitzgerald. Dr. Fitzgerald. The man with lavender eyes that acted like an abyss to keep you drowning in so you may never flee their swirling pools.

A relatively young man, possibly twenty-eight. Flex had the patience of someone twice his age. The way he had held out until the very end.

You had tried too many times to escape. Offered terrible things to be able to return to your old life. You just wanted the normalcy back. Your freedom. Your future. Back. It was a request that was ignored by whatever controlled the fates of man.

Your time at the sanitarium had taken its tole after some time.

You were weak. Beaten down by the misery that was this certified mad house for quaks.

You had been there way too long. You at that point had been ready for any escape if it meant not leaving as a zombie, vegetable or in a casket. And he fucking knew it.

He had planned this all along.

What a deceiving weasel.

He had loved you for ever. Certainly more than mister suitor that your father had paired you off with . He was meant to be yours and in turn you were meant to be his. Felix wasn't having it any other way. He would allow it.

His family was a prominent member in both the cities and medical community; so getting you "diagnosed" was fairly simple. He just had to play his cards right and then you would be his.

He knew what your father had in mind when he paired you off to the Johnsons'. He wanted gain in return for his daughter warming their eldest son's bed. And worst of all... you. didn't. care.

You wanted to be a "benefit" to your family. And you didn't care you were being sold off to better everyone but yourself. Felix knew that man would ruin you. Perfect, ignorant, defenseless you. And the teddy bear brown brunette would not have it. He wouldn't. He rather had killed you and himself before that.

However he had a better idea.

Using his father's ties in the community with the name he bore with his birth. His heritage came to fruit when he was able to blackmail the sanitarium's president to send out a padded wagon for you.

Who knew a couple of dates and allowing himself to be touched by that old fart could actually get him what he wanted.

It did help when he had evidence in the form of erotic letters and drawings from the man. All signed with the presiden's name and family crest.

If it looked bad for him, Felix could simply say that the president took advantage of his position and forced Felix into that position.

Oh how easy it was.

And he would blackmail all the perverse creeps of the world if it meant he could have you for a solid moment to just himself and no one else. No promised unworthy suitors. No ridiculousness famila emotional ties. Dreams for futures away from him and the city you both dwell in.

Felix has always been there. Even if you never realized it. You were his since his broken gaze meet yours filled with so much hope for better days even though you both were in similar demanding positions. The second son trying to get his father's recognition, and you the little girl who hopelessly followed where ever your father dragged you down. Even if it meant to be sold to someone of such deplorable standards, regardless of their higher class.

That's why he had too. He had to show you. You needed him and only He be would remain when everyone else left. After the fourth year your family stopped visiting all together. Not even a letter to check on your welfare. Your fiance had been long time ago you assumed. Consider the papers showed him with a new woman and a child at her hip. Headlines in bold text honoring the birth of the senator's new son.

You don't know when but you guess at some point you gave up. Gaze glazed over with hopeless despair for your lost potential, lost opportunity, lost chance at a world you'll never be familiar with. That's when he came.

You weren't sure if it was night or day. They had you under a strict isolation to keep you safe. What a joke.

The padded room had no windows and barely enough light to keep you from thinking your eyes stopped working. Nothing seemed real so when he walked in you just thought you were hallucinating again from the lack of— well everything.

Sleep hasn't come to you for some time. The same followed with hunger and thirst. Bodily functions you don't believe even function anymore with how much you've let yourself go.

You don't even remember the last time you had a period. All this stress really wasn't good for you.

Arms like bandadages came to wrap around your skeleton like form. Warmth of physical affection coming to heal those wounds that dug deeper than any treatment. The tiny remains of the person who inhabited your body still existed but, the woman that was you has secluded yourself to the depth of your brain so you wouldn't drown. Drown in the madding loss and misery. Sadness trying to swallow you like a tuna fish in the ocean. (If people who are old enough get that reference.)

"I didn't want it to be this way but, your father..... he wouldn't let me have you." Felix began, lavender orbs darker than cosmos in the faint light. "I had been asking forever. But, he refused to accept." Felix obviously looked irritated as he recalled his memory, recanting the tall of the endless rejections by your father. "I didn't understand why he said no. I have the status, the wealth, the name. But still he refused to let me make you mine." His arms toughened around your skinny form. Bones ache at the pressure he delivered from his desperate embrace. " I'm sorry it had to be this way. I needed to make sure you understood".

Wait what?

"No one else would stay for you. Not in your darkest hour. Not your fiance, not the community,... ." His breath ghosted by your ear. The warmth revealing this is indeed reality. ".... Not even your father wanted you when you were with nothing to him anymore." He sighed, his tone said remorse, pity for you. Though you know he really didn't care. Not as long as he got his way.

A prick in your throat made you suddenly feel woozy. The world spun more fucked up than it had been the last almost five years.

You just wanted to sleep. And ironically that's what Felix wanted you to do too.

So when your (e/c) fluttered shut. His pearly grin grew wide only disguising itself as he treaded down the barely-serialized hall ways of the sanitarium. The asylum never attempting to locate the lost patient from room B23. But, unless they wanted to lose funding it was in their best interest to forget about the problem all together.

While'st Felix got his wish.

Waking up you found yourself laying in a soft padded bed in a normal bedroom in a normal looking house with normal looking furniture. However when you made to move to walk out of bed instead of being able to search beyond your current horizons; your found yourself gravitating towards the floor. Sprawled out like ragdoll you were unable to stand up. Your feet. Your feet didn't want to work.

Nausea overwhelmed you as your heart rate raced. Looking towards the heel of your (skin tone) foot there you discovered a wound you would never heal from.

A horrible cry erupted from your throat at you struggled to regain your once strong stance. Your feet— your feet— they weren't working!?!?

Your panic caused Felix to burst in from somewhere within the house. His long brown hair whiping around with his speed. Glasses almost flying off his face too in the process.

"(y/n) are you ok—"

"WHAT DID YOU DO TOO ME!?!?"

Sobs flooded your throat with uncontrolled gasps of air that displayed your Brian trying to regain its stability.

Your feet had gashes in the heel that resembled a cleaver by the cuts. Not even needing a physician's observation to tell you that you'd never be able to use them again. The tendons had to be severed,there was no way they weren't. Bone far too damaged for weight to be pressed in it.

"Ohh (Y/n) I'm sorry it had to be this way... ." Felix cooed. Though clearly pleased. "I just couldn't risk you falling into the wrong hands again." The doctor reasoned embracing you against your will as he attempted to comfort you. Hands rubbing your back in a protective manor. "I love you.. (Y/n), I hope you can forgive me one day..." He trails off with his apology. You can obviously tell the snowflake doesn't actually mean it. Tears dreanched your checks with agony. Out one prison into another you sob to yourself. Your new husband clearly not making any attempts to ease your pain but, rather more like force your dependence on him. He wants you to rely on no one but him. Only him.

Only Felix loves you.

And he'll make sure to continue to never have competition.

For only he can love you.

And he'll make sure it stays that way.

#oc #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader #yandere oc x you #oc x you #oc x y/n #oc x reader #male yandere x reader #yandere x you #male yandere #yandere #im lazy #im stupid #i try i really do

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golden-web · 1 year

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(Ooc: sorry this is all confusing but we’re going Dr. Simmons POV now so bare with me)

I look at the screen showing Finley’s brain data. They’re asleep now, thankfully they accepted some sedatives tonight to rest. I rub my eyes and plop my head on the table.

“Hey jemma,” Fitz says as he walks into the lab. “I brought you a sand which. Well us sandwiches.” He sits down next to me. “Have you called their dad?”

“No, I probably should.” I stand up and reach for my phone. I scroll through till his number pops up. Before the phone can even ring once Mr. Fitzgerald picks up.

“How are they?” He asks shakily.

“They’re asleep right now. We… we’re not really sure what happened yet. We are having Mr. Barnes come in tomorrow to see if anything is happening in his brain.”

“He said that, do you think it’s something to do with hydra?” He says.

“We don’t really know. We have called Shuri cron Wakanda who helped both of them and she has been looking over the little we know. We hope note. Your child is safe right now though. How are you sir?”

“I’m okay,” his words say that but his voice says everything. “Bucky went back to his apartment but came back saying neither of us should be alone.”

“How is Mr. Barnes?”

“Oh, his arm is okay, and the… the cuts weren’t bad.” He seems to choke slightly at this. “I’ve never seen her do anything like that.

“Is that Mr. Fitzgerald?” Dr. Garner asks as he sweeps into the lab. I nod quietly. “Can I have the phone?”

“Sir, I’m going to give the phone to Dr. Garner now, alright?” I hear a whimper on the other side and hand it to him. They seem to talk for a while as my and Fitz sit in silence eating our sandwiches. After a while Dr. Garner comes back over and hand me my phone.

“He’s such a good father.” Dr. Garner sighs and sits down.

“Why do think Finley isn’t a good kid?” I say a tad too harsh.

“Well no, it’s just—”

“I’m not trying to place blame Andrew, but it seems a bit like you and Finely don’t always get along. That you’ve done some things.” I’ve never been so short with him before. His lips purse into a line.

“Are you saying this is my fault?”

“Well no…” I shake my head. “I’m sorry sir, I’m tired. But you don’t always seem to be doing the best for them.” He sighs at this.

“I’ll be honest. I know how to help adult soldiers. Finleys a child who was forced to play soldier. There’s a lot of foreign territory. I’ve never dealt with teens.”

“Do you not like finely?” Fitz says through a full mouth.

“I’m quite found of them, really. I just wish I could help more. Most adults seem so much more willing of help than they do. It’s frustrating. They don’t always want to listen to authority.”

“That’s most teens,” I say. But I understand. Finley is difficult sometimes. “I’m sorry sir. We need to work together. Because regardless, somethings not right with them.”

#golden-web #spidersona #itsv #spiderman into the spiderverse #into the spiderverse #spiderverse #dr garner #fitzsimmons #leo fitz #jemma simmons

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justforbooks · 2 years

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The actor Robbie Coltrane, who has died aged 72, was regularly described as a big man of the British screen. Journalists said he was heavy on talent yet thin-skinned as an interviewee. He disliked his encounters with the press. But the larger-than-life roles with which he was most associated – the criminal psychologist Fitz, Harry Potter’s half-giant friend Hagrid – demonstrated something else: they were performances of a kind of crumpled vulnerability that was also characteristic of the man.

Coltrane recalled that during the filming of Ocean’s Twelve (2004), he found himself sitting at a table with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt. “These are about the three most successful, most beautiful actors in the world at the moment. And here am I. A fat boy from Rutherglen … What the fuck am I doing here?”

The fat boy from Rutherglen also had a splendidly eviscerating wit, useful for rebuffing questions premised on his girth. Once, he was telling an interviewer how he was trying to raise money for a film about Laurel and Hardy. Who would you play, his interlocutor asked? “I’d be playing the wee one with the funny hair, like yourself,” snapped back Coltrane.

It was easy to confuse the big man with his big roles. In the 1990s ITV crime drama Cracker, scripted by Jimmy McGovern, for which Coltrane won the best actor Bafta three years in succession, he played Dr Eddie “Fitz” Fitzgerald, an obese, alcoholic, foul-mouthed, sarcastic, yet cerebral criminal psychologist. “I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I am too much,” Coltrane’s Fitz shouted in one episode. That self-description seemed to fit actor as much as character. True, smoking and gambling were not Coltrane’s vices, but alcohol was: “Booze is my undoing,” he said once. “I can drink a gallon of beer and not feel the least bit drunk.” And Coltrane was regularly written up as just too much, dominating conversations with anecdotes and funny voices rather than listening.

There could also be too little of the big man. When, for instance, he fulfilled his manifest destiny and played the boozy, libidinous, life force Falstaff in Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film of Henry V, the critics felt short-changed. “Mr Coltrane is not on the screen long enough to create any true idea of Falstaff’s magnificence,” decided the New York Times. “Instead, he simply looks like a woozy Santa Claus.”

He could also erase himself exasperatingly: once in 2012, after disclosing to an interviewer that he was diabetic and had lost four and a half stone in order that a leg operation could proceed, he turned tight-lipped. How did he lose weight? “I just stopped eating for a while.” Seriously, how did he manage it, pursued his interviewer. “No, no, no! I don’t want to talk about this in the press!”

Born Anthony McMillan in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, he changed his name, on becoming an actor, in honour of the great jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. His mother, Jean Ross, was a pianist and teacher, and his father, Ian, a GP who also worked as a police surgeon. His son recalled that Dr McMillan “used to spend all weekend stitching up knife victims”. Their son attended Glenalmond college, an independent school in Perthshire, often described as Scotland’s equivalent to Eton. “It was a very strict school and I didn’t respond well to discipline.” Indeed, he was nearly expelled for hanging prefects’ gowns from the school clocktower, but also played for the school’s rugby team, captained the debating team and won prizes for his art.

At Glasgow School of Art (1968-72), he was nicknamed Lord Fauntleroy for the posh accent he quickly repressed. Contemporaries included the poet Liz Lochhead and TV presenter Muriel Gray. He soon became known as Red Robbie for his involvement with radical causes. In 1971, he supported the campaign by workers to keep the Glasgow shipyards open. “I believe I showed a pornographic movie and charged people five shillings to look at it and gave the money to Upper Clyde shipbuilders.”

To his lasting regret, he never became a painter. In 2014, when invited back to art school to open the Reid Building, Coltrane said: “I wanted to paint like the painters who really moved me, who made me want to weep about humanity. Titian, Rembrandt. But I looked at my diploma show and felt a terrible disappointment when I realised all the things that were in my head were not on the canvas. I felt there was something wrong with my hands. That was a heartbreaking day.”

At art school he had started acting. Lochhead saw him in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter and recalled his performance as “fantastic … bloody terrifying”. His memory was different: “I threw up every night before going on stage.” He went on to study art for another year, at the Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh, and acting became his vocation: “One day, [the renowned Scottish actors] Bill Paterson and Alex Norton came to me and said ‘Are you just going to carry on showing off in pubs, or are you going to take this seriously?’ and they sent me to the Traverse theatre”. His first success was in John Byrne’s trilogy The Slab Boys (1979), about a group of young working-class Scots in the 1960s.

Coltrane came to British TV viewers’ attention in a string of 1980s sketch shows, including A Kick Up the 80s and Laugh? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee, working alongside Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry and Rik Mayall. He went on to become a fixture of TV comedy, starring in Blackadder and several films in the Comic Strip Presents series.

He was particularly fine as the butt of Blackadder’s wit as an increasingly apoplectic Dr Samuel Johnson in a 1987 episode. “Here it is, sir. The very cornerstone of English scholarship,” the doctor declared to Blackadder, brandishing the manuscript of his recently completed dictionary. “This book, sir, contains every word in our beloved language.”

“Well, in that case, sir,” retorted Blackadder, “I hope you will not object if I also offer the Doctor my most enthusiastic contrafibularities.”

He was better yet at the difficult task of playing Charles Bronson playing Ken Livingstone in the Comic Strip Presents … GLC: The Carnage Continues (1990). After preventing the Tories from flooding south London to turn it into a yacht club, Coltrane’s Livingstone strives to thwart Margaret Thatcher from beheading the Prince of Wales and taking over the kingdom.

Coltrane’s success had downsides. “I’d been broke for a long time and suddenly I had enough money in the bank not to worry if I could afford to eat out or drink a whole bottle of whisky and suddenly I was famous. It went to my head. It only lasted for 15 years.” His friend the actor John Sessions once said that Coltrane had a “strong self-destructive streak … a deep, driving melancholy”.

In the late 1980s, nearing 40, he met Rhona Gemmell. They had a son and daughter and married in 1999, but split up four years later.

The funny man went straight in 1987, when he starred opposite Thompson in Tutti Frutti, a six-part drama by Byrne about a faded Scots rock’n’roll band called the Majestics, newly fronted by the dead singer’s brother, Danny McGlone (Coltrane), who has a romance with a former classmate, Suzi Kettles (Thompson). Danny proves his fondness for Suzi at one point by taking a drill to the teeth of her estranged husband, a dentist. The performance earned him his first Bafta nomination.

Though his subsequent performances in Cracker (1993-96, plus a 2006 revival episode) won awards and critical plaudits, it was the cheesy British film comedies such as Nuns on the Run (1990) and The Pope Must Die (1991) that made Coltrane a movie star. He also appeared in two consecutive James Bond films, GoldenEye (1995) and The World Is Not Enough (1999). In 2000, he came sixth in a UK poll to find the “most famous Scot”, behind the Loch Ness monster, Robbie Burns, Sean Connery, Robert the Bruce and William Wallace.

In 2001, though, Coltrane’s celebrity status went global when he was cast as Hagrid, the half-giant gamekeeper of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry in the first film adaptation of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, reportedly at Rowling’s insistence. The 6ft 1in actor had to adjust to the novelty of being looked up to by adoring small fans. “Kids come up to you and they go: ‘Would you like to sign my book?’ with those big doe eyes. And it’s a serious responsibility.” In 2006 he was appointed OBE.

Coltrane had a passion for classic cars, which he indulged in two travelogues. For Coltrane in a Cadillac (1993) he drove from Los Angeles to New York in a convertible; in 1997 he drove from London to Glasgow in an open-top Jaguar for Robbie Coltrane’s B-Road Britain.

When, in 2009, Coltrane hung up Hagrid’s beard for the last time, after filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2, the eighth and final adaptation from Rowling’s books, it was with regret. He went on to star in David Pirie’s well-received cop drama Murderland (2009) and in the last episodes of the US sitcom Frasier.

He memorably captured the years when entertainment crashed into investigations of sexual abuse as the veteran comedian Paul Finchley in the Channel 4 drama series National Treasure, written by Jack Thorne, with Julie Walters as his wife and Andrea Riseborough as his troubled daughter. Times and attitudes had moved on: again there was a crumpled vulnerability as Finchley failed to come to terms with what was happening to him. In 2020, Coltrane appeared in Sky Arts’ Urban Myths series as Orson Welles in Norwich.

He is survived by his son, Spencer, daughter, Alice, and sister, Annie.

🔔 Robbie Coltrane (Anthony Robert McMillan), actor, born 30 March 1950, died 14 October 2022

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Robbie Coltrane #in memoriam

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sarah-aliterarylife · 11 months

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5 Quick Reads

For our most recent public holiday in the UK, I wrote about my favourite doorstep novels (big books to get stuck into and take your time over).

Today, we’re going in a different direction, and I’ll be talking about some of my favourite quick reads.

We all live busy lives, and much as I love a big book, occasionally I crave the opposite: a short book I can read in a single weekend (or over 24 hours, if I’m on leave from work).

Here are five of my favourites:

Animal Farm by George Orwell (144 pages)

Ignore anyone who laughs at you when you tell them you’re reading this (which happened to me one day at work – it is possible the man in question thought I was talking about something else!).

Subtitled “A Fairy Story” this is actually anything but. A novella about the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm, who overthrow their human master Mr Jones and take over the running of the farm themselves, it’s a satire about totalitarian regimes (specifically Communism) and what happens when idealism is replaced by corruption and greed.

Granted, communism isn’t the most cheerful subject to acquaint yourself with on a sunny weekend, but Animal Farm is entertaining, powerful and terrifying in equal measure.

Shopgirl by Steve Martin (220 pages)

Yes, that Steve Martin. He writes books too!

I read this last year as part of a reading list. The prompt was “an author with the same initials as you”. I’m not the biggest Steve Martin fan, but I enjoyed the film version with Claire Danes and the author himself as her love interest, and so, over 3 long nights during the 2022 World Cup, I gave it a shot.

Shopgirl is a fun read, telling the story of Mirabelle, a lonely, adrift shop assistant who works in an LA department store. Mirabelle is pursued by two suitors: the older, emotionally unavailable millionaire Ray, and penniless, equally adrift Jeremy. It’s dark, funny and just a bit cool. I loved it.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (180 pages)

You didn’t expect me to write a list of quick reads without including The Great Gatsby, did you?

The quintessential novel of the Jazz Age, The Great Gatsby is one of the few novels that both myself and my sister thoroughly enjoyed. The tale of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his doomed romance with the socialite Daisy Buchanan, told by Gatsby’s acquaintance Nick Carraway, there is a reason this one regularly makes an appearance on lists of the greatest novels ever written.

It’s very readable, it’s concise, and it doesn’t meander. The characters are flawed but likeable, and most importantly they are relatable.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of making Jay Gatsby’s acquaintance, sit down this week and do so immediately. You won’t want to leave.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (104 pages)

One for a dark, cold, rainy night. I was gifted this book as a student, as part of a bound boxset of mystery and horror novels. It was part of a larger collection of short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson. Many people know what a “Jekyll and Hyde character” is, think they know the plot and hence avoid the book. Don’t be that person.

It reads like a mystery thriller, so if you’re not into horror novels (like me), there is still much here for you to enjoy.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is very much the perfect short story, an absolutely riveting thriller. The plot races along at a breakneck pace (Stevenson himself wrote the original draft in less than three days), and if you’re anything like me, you’ll wish by the end that you didn’t already know what was coming!

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (192 pages)

One night, in the days before Netflix and Disney Plus, I was bored. I was in search of something to watch on TV and began channel hopping, when I came across a film called Wide Sargasso Sea. I had missed the first few minutes, but something about it grabbed me instantly. I was riveted and didn’t move from my seat until the film was finished. I’ve never seen it shown on any television channel or streaming service from that day to this. Having searched fruitlessly for months to find a copy of the film (these were the dark days when such things were not instantly available), I decided instead to read the novel on which it was based.

A prequel to Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a white heiress living in Jamaica, who meets and marries the young Mr Rochester. It is essentially the story of how their marriage disintegrates and she becomes the Madwoman in the Attic of Charlotte Bronte’s novel.

I later donated Wide Sargasso Sea to a book swap shop in Tenerife, in the hope that someone else would discover it and love it as much as I did. And perhaps one day the BBC will decide to show the film again!

What are your favourite quick reads?

#quick reads #book blogs #classic novels #books and literature #books and reading #book addict #literature #bookshelf

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javatpoint · 1 year

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Kate Chopin Biography

American writer Kate Chopin, real name Katherine O'Flaherty, was born in Louisiana on February 8, 1851, and passed away on August 22, 1904. She is one of the most well-read and well-known writers of Louisiana Creole descent, and academics view her as a precursor to American 20th-century feminist novelists of Southern or Catholic origin, such as Zelda Fitzgerald.

Chopin, whose parents were Irish and French, was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. After getting married, she and her spouse relocated to New Orleans. Later, they relocated to the country and settled in Coulterville, Louisiana. From 1892 until 1895, Chopin penned short stories for both kids and adults that were included in popular journals such as The Century Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, & The Youth's Companion.

Two short story compilations & two novels were among her most well-known works. The albums' names are Bayou Folk (1894) & A Night in Acadie (1895). Her well-known short stories include "Désirée's Baby" (1893), which is about miscegenation in colonial Louisiana, "The Story of an Hour," and also "The Storm" (1898). The prequel to "At the Cadian Ball," which was included in her debut collection of short stories, Bayou Folk, is "The Storm."

At Fault (1890) and also the Awakening (1899), two novels by Chopin, are respectively situated in New Orleans & Grand Isle. Most of her characters are Creoles from Louisiana, and a lot of them are of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. Within ten years after her passing, Chopin was regarded as among the greatest authors of her days.

Early Years

Chopin was born in O'Flaherty, Katherine in Missouri's St. Louis. Thomas O'Flaherty, her father, was an accomplished businessman native of Galway, Ireland, who emigrated to the US. As the child of Athénase Charleville, a Louisiana creole of French-Canadian ancestry, Eliza Faris, his second wife, was a prominent member of St. Louis' ethnic French community.

One of the first European (French) residents to Dauphin Island, Alabama, was Chopin's ancestors. Although Kate was the third among 5 children, all of her sisters passed away when she was a little kid, and both of her step-brothers passed away in their early 20s.

They were brought up following the French and Irish Roman Catholic traditions. She developed a voracious reading habit, devouring ancient and modern literature, poetry, religious parables, and fairy tales. She received her diploma at St. Louis' Sacred Heart Convent around 1868.

Following the passing of her mother, her business, & her husband, Chopin experienced sadness. Chopin's obstetrician & family friend Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer suggested she begin writing because he believed it would be healing for her.

He understood that her exceptional energy might find a focus in writing, which could also serve as a source of revenue. By the early 1890s, Chopin's short stories, essays, and translations had begun to appear in periodicals, such as literary magazines and St.

Louis Post-Dispatch newspapers. She was considered a local author who contributed regional flavor during a time when folk stories, dialect works, and other aspects of Southern traditional life were widely published. Her literary prowess was disregarded.

The Awakening, her second book, was released in 1899. Some newspaper critics gave the book high marks. But the reviews were overwhelmingly unfavorable. According to reviewers, the behavior of the novel's characters, especially the women, and Chopin's broader handling of motherhood, female sexuality, & marital infidelity was objectionable since it went against existing moral standards.

This novel, which is her best-known creation, depicts the tale of a woman who is imprisoned within the boundaries of a repressive society. Before becoming recaptured in the 1970s, when women's literature was the subject of a flurry of new research and praise, it had been out of publication for some decades.

It has won praise from critics for both the caliber of its artistry and its importance as a pioneering work of feminist literature from the South.

Critics claimed that sensational masterpieces like The Awakening just weren't socially acceptable because they were scandalous. Despite feeling extremely frustrated by the slow response, Chopin continued to write and eventually turned to short stories. In 1900, she released "The Gentleman of New Orleans," and the following year, she was included in the inaugural Marquis Who's Who.

Awards and Recognition

Early in the nineteenth century, Alexis Cloutier and Oscar Chopin constructed their house in Coulterville. In the late twentieth century, the house became recognized as the Kate Chopin House, a National Historic Landmark (NHL), because of its literary significance. The Bayou Folk Museum was built inside the house.

By October 1, 2008, a fire destroyed the home, leaving just the chimney standing. In 1990, Chopin received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. At the Writer's Corner in St. Louis' Central West End neighborhood, an iron bust of her head was erected in 2012. It is located across the street from Left Bank Books.

#Kate Chopin

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whatilistenedtoatwork · 2 months

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From March 4th to March 7th, 2024

04-03-2024

ABBA “Voulez-Vous”; ROD STEWART “Every Picture Tells A Story”; VAN DYKE PARKS “Jump!”; VARIOUS ARTISTS “Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes #6”; ABBA “ABBA”; STEREOLAB “Aluminum Tunes – Switched On, Vol. 3”; 21 Savage “i am > i was”; ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION “Rafi's Revenge”; SWEET BABOO “The Mighty Baboo”; BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO “Waitin' For My Ya Ya”; LESBIAN HORSE “Cursed Sounds For Lovers”; STEREOLAB “Fab Four Suture”; TRICKY “Blowback”; EUROS CHILDS “Thrips”; SWEET BABOO “The Boombox Ballads”

05-03-2024

BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO “Taking It Home”; BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO “ On A Night Like This”; ST. ETIENNE “So Tough”; BRIAN WILSON “Brian Wilson”;SPIRITUALIZED “Songs In A&E”; SHONEN KNIFE “Yama-No Attchan”; μ-ZIQ “Lunatic Harness”; GUIDED BY VOICES “How Do You Spell Heaven?”; STEREOLAB “Sound-Dust”; SWEET BABOO “Hello Wave”; THE JAMES TAYLOR QUARTET “(A Few Useful Tips About) Living Underground”; SHORT & CURLIES “At The Dance”; THE FALL “The Infotainment Scan”

06-03-2024

ELLA FITZGERALD “Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Irving Berlin Songbook”; THE CURE “Three Imaginary Boys”; GRUFF RHYS “Pang!”; OZZY OSBOURNE “Ozzmosis”; DREAM THEATER “The Astonishing”; ROBBIE WILLIAMS “Sing When You're Winning”; DEATH “Spiritual-Mental-Physical”; ZUTTO MAYONAKA DE LINONI “Hisohiso Banashi”; CORNERSHOP “Woman's Gotta Have It”; CHILDISH GAMBINO “Awaken, My Love!”; CLIFTON CHENIER “Bayou Blues”

07-03-2024

T.REX “Dandy In The Underworld”; NEVERLAND “Neverland”; SPARKS “Terminal Jive”; EUROS CHILDS “Olion”; SUEDE “The Blue Hour”; TAKE THAT “The Circus”; PARQUET COURTS “Sunbathing Animal”; ROBBIE WILLIAMS “Escapology”; CATHY DAVEY “Something Ilk”; FISHMANS “Long Season”; SUPERGRASS “Live XFM Session 2004”; EUROS CHILDS “Live 2007”; DR. DEMENTO PRESENTS... “The Greatest Novelty Records Of The 1980s”; SARAH VAUGHAN “Close To You”; KRISTIN HERSH “Mississippi Candlelight”; EUROS CHILDS “Curries”; CHILDISH GAMBINO “Camp”

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brookston · 8 months

Text

Holidays 8.29

Holidays

According To Hoyle Day

Black Book Clubs Day

Clean Your Keyboard Day

Day of Loose Talk

Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of Ukraine (Ukraine)

Fennel Day (French Republic)

Flag Day (Spain)

Happy Housewives Holiday

Head Day (Iceland)

Individual Rights Day

International Day Against Nuclear Tests (UN)

Judgment Day (in the film “The Terminator”)

Michael Jackson

Miners’ Day (Ukraine)

Municipal Police Day (Poland)

National Caretaker Appreciation Day (Canada)

National College Colors Day

National Monterey County Fair Day

National Police’s Day (Poland)

National Sarcoidosis Awareness Day

National Sport Sampling Day

National Sports Day (India)

Nut Spas (Russia)

Potteries Bottle Oven Day (UK)

Slovak National Uprising Anniversary Day (Slovakia)

Targeted Individual Day

Telugu Language Day (India)

Third Onam (Harvest Festival; India)

World Day of Video Games

Zipper Clasp Locker Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Chop Suey Day

Gnocchi Day (Argentina)

International Peppercorn Day

Lemon Juice Day

More Herbs, Less Salt Day

National Swiss Winegrowers Day

5th & Last Tuesday in August

Lammas Fair Day (Ballycastle, Ireland) [Last Tuesday]

Touch-A-Heart Tuesday [Tuesday of Be Kind to Humankind Week]

Independence Days

Hjalvik (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]

Mivland (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Veyshnoria (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Adelphus of Metz (Christian; Saint)

Beheading of St. John the Baptist (Christian)

Blobfish Day (Pastafarian)

Dr. Lily Rosenbloom (Muppetism)

Eadwold of Cerne (Christian; Saint)

Euphrasia Eluvathingal (Syro-Malabar Catholic Church)

Feast of Agios Ioannis (Halki, Hittitie God of Grain)

First Day of Thoth (Egyptian New Year)

Gahan Wilson Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Hathor’s Day (Pagan)

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (Artology)

John Bunyan (Episcopal Church)

Medericus (a.k.a. St. Merry; Christian; Saint)

Nativity of Hathor (Egyptian Goddess of Joy & Drunkenness)

Papin (Positivist; Saint)

Sabina (Christian; Saint)

Sebbi (a.k.a. Sebba), King of Essex (Christian; Saint)

Thiruvonam (Rice Harvest Festival, Day 2; Kerala, India)

Vitalis, Sator and Repositus (Christian; Saints)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Prime Number Day: 241 [53 of 72]

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [38 of 60]

Urda (The Oldest Fate)

Premieres

At Your Service Madame (WB MM Cartoon; 1936)

Balls of Fury (Film; 2007)

Cat-Tails for Two (WB MM Cartoon; 1953)

Definitely Maybe, by Oasis (Album; 1994)

The Fugitive final episode (Most Watched TV Show; 1967)

The Full Monty (Film; 1987)

Here Today, Gone Tamale (WB LT Cartoon; 1959)

Independent Women, by Destiny’s Child (Song; 2000)

It’s A Pity To Say Goodnight, recorded by Ella Fitzgerald (Song; 1946)

Kid Galahad (Elvis Presley Film; 1962)

Mary Poppins (Film; 1964)

Move It, by Cliff Richard and the Drifters (Song; 1958)

Pretty Woman, by Roy Orbison (Song; 1964)

Ridiculousness (TV Series; 2011)

Runaway, by Janet Jackson (Song; 1995)

Saint Errant, by Leslie Charteris (Short Stories 1948) [Saint #29]

Shanghai Surprise (Film; 1986)

Signing Off, by UB40 (Album; 1980)

Today’s Name Days

Beatrix, Johannes, Sabine (Austria)

Anastas, Anastasi, Anastasiya (Bulgaria)

Bazila, Ivan, Sabina, Sebo, Verona (Croatia)

Evelína (Czech Republic)

Johannes (Denmark)

Õnne, Õnnela (Estonia)

Iina, Iines, Inari, Inna (Finland)

Médéric, Sabine (France)

Beatrice, Johannes, Sabine (Germany)

Arkadios (Greece)

Beatrix, Erna (Hungary)

Battista, Giovanni, Sabina (Italy)

Aiga, Aigars, Armīns, Vismants (Latvia)

Barvydas, Beatričė, Gaudvydė, Sabina (Lithuania)

Jo, Johan, Jone (Norway)

Flora, Jan, Racibor, Sabina (Poland)

Nikola (Slovakia)

Juan (Spain)

Hampus, Hans (Sweden)

Candace, Candice, Poppy, Sabina, Sabra, Sabrina (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 241 of 2024; 124 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 35 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Coll (Hazel) [Day 22 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Geng-Shen), Day 14 (Ji-Wei)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 12 Elul 5783

Islamic: 12 Safar 1445

J Cal: 1 Aki; Oneday [1 of 30]

Julian: 15 August 2023

Moon: 97%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 17 Gutenberg (9th Month) [Papin]

Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 2 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 69 of 94)

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 8 of 32)

Calendar Changes

Aki (Month 9 of 12; J Calendar)

#calendar #Holidays

0 notes

brookstonalmanac · 8 months

Text

Holidays 8.29

Holidays

According To Hoyle Day

Black Book Clubs Day

Clean Your Keyboard Day

Day of Loose Talk

Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of Ukraine (Ukraine)

Fennel Day (French Republic)

Flag Day (Spain)

Happy Housewives Holiday

Head Day (Iceland)

Individual Rights Day

International Day Against Nuclear Tests (UN)

Judgment Day (in the film “The Terminator”)

Michael Jackson

Miners’ Day (Ukraine)

Municipal Police Day (Poland)

National Caretaker Appreciation Day (Canada)

National College Colors Day

National Monterey County Fair Day

National Police’s Day (Poland)

National Sarcoidosis Awareness Day

National Sport Sampling Day

National Sports Day (India)

Nut Spas (Russia)

Potteries Bottle Oven Day (UK)

Slovak National Uprising Anniversary Day (Slovakia)

Targeted Individual Day

Telugu Language Day (India)

Third Onam (Harvest Festival; India)

World Day of Video Games

Zipper Clasp Locker Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Chop Suey Day

Gnocchi Day (Argentina)

International Peppercorn Day

Lemon Juice Day

More Herbs, Less Salt Day

National Swiss Winegrowers Day

5th & Last Tuesday in August

Lammas Fair Day (Ballycastle, Ireland) [Last Tuesday]

Touch-A-Heart Tuesday [Tuesday of Be Kind to Humankind Week]

Independence Days

Hjalvik (Declared; 2020) [unrecognized]

Mivland (Declared; 2018) [unrecognized]

Veyshnoria (Declared; 2017) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Adelphus of Metz (Christian; Saint)

Beheading of St. John the Baptist (Christian)

Blobfish Day (Pastafarian)

Dr. Lily Rosenbloom (Muppetism)

Eadwold of Cerne (Christian; Saint)

Euphrasia Eluvathingal (Syro-Malabar Catholic Church)

Feast of Agios Ioannis (Halki, Hittitie God of Grain)

First Day of Thoth (Egyptian New Year)

Gahan Wilson Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Hathor’s Day (Pagan)

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (Artology)

John Bunyan (Episcopal Church)

Medericus (a.k.a. St. Merry; Christian; Saint)

Nativity of Hathor (Egyptian Goddess of Joy & Drunkenness)

Papin (Positivist; Saint)

Sabina (Christian; Saint)

Sebbi (a.k.a. Sebba), King of Essex (Christian; Saint)

Thiruvonam (Rice Harvest Festival, Day 2; Kerala, India)

Vitalis, Sator and Repositus (Christian; Saints)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Prime Number Day: 241 [53 of 72]

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [38 of 60]

Urda (The Oldest Fate)

Premieres

At Your Service Madame (WB MM Cartoon; 1936)

Balls of Fury (Film; 2007)

Cat-Tails for Two (WB MM Cartoon; 1953)

Definitely Maybe, by Oasis (Album; 1994)

The Fugitive final episode (Most Watched TV Show; 1967)

The Full Monty (Film; 1987)

Here Today, Gone Tamale (WB LT Cartoon; 1959)

Independent Women, by Destiny’s Child (Song; 2000)

It’s A Pity To Say Goodnight, recorded by Ella Fitzgerald (Song; 1946)

Kid Galahad (Elvis Presley Film; 1962)

Mary Poppins (Film; 1964)

Move It, by Cliff Richard and the Drifters (Song; 1958)

Pretty Woman, by Roy Orbison (Song; 1964)

Ridiculousness (TV Series; 2011)

Runaway, by Janet Jackson (Song; 1995)

Saint Errant, by Leslie Charteris (Short Stories 1948) [Saint #29]

Shanghai Surprise (Film; 1986)

Signing Off, by UB40 (Album; 1980)

Today’s Name Days

Beatrix, Johannes, Sabine (Austria)

Anastas, Anastasi, Anastasiya (Bulgaria)

Bazila, Ivan, Sabina, Sebo, Verona (Croatia)

Evelína (Czech Republic)

Johannes (Denmark)

Õnne, Õnnela (Estonia)

Iina, Iines, Inari, Inna (Finland)

Médéric, Sabine (France)

Beatrice, Johannes, Sabine (Germany)

Arkadios (Greece)

Beatrix, Erna (Hungary)

Battista, Giovanni, Sabina (Italy)

Aiga, Aigars, Armīns, Vismants (Latvia)

Barvydas, Beatričė, Gaudvydė, Sabina (Lithuania)

Jo, Johan, Jone (Norway)

Flora, Jan, Racibor, Sabina (Poland)

Nikola (Slovakia)

Juan (Spain)

Hampus, Hans (Sweden)

Candace, Candice, Poppy, Sabina, Sabra, Sabrina (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 241 of 2024; 124 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 35 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Coll (Hazel) [Day 22 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Geng-Shen), Day 14 (Ji-Wei)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 12 Elul 5783

Islamic: 12 Safar 1445

J Cal: 1 Aki; Oneday [1 of 30]

Julian: 15 August 2023

Moon: 97%: Waxing Gibbous

Positivist: 17 Gutenberg (9th Month) [Papin]

Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 2 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 69 of 94)

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 8 of 32)

Calendar Changes

Aki (Month 9 of 12; J Calendar)

#Holidays

0 notes

whileiamdying · 1 year

Text

Harry Belafonte, 96, Dies; Barrier-Breaking Singer, Actor and Activist

In the 1950s, when segregation was still widespread, his ascent to the upper echelon of show business was historic. But his primary focus was civil rights.

Harry Belafonte stormed the pop charts and smashed racial barriers in the 1950s with his highly personal brand of folk music, and went on to become a major force in the civil rights movement. Above, the singer in 1957.Credit...Bob Henriques/Magnum Photos

By Peter Keepnews

April 25, 2023Updated 10:40 a.m. ET

Harry Belafonte, who stormed the pop charts and smashed racial barriers in the 1950s with his highly personal brand of folk music, and who went on to become a dynamic force in the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 96.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said Ken Sunshine, his longtime spokesman.

At a time when segregation was still widespread and Black faces were still a rarity on screens large and small, Mr. Belafonte’s ascent to the upper echelon of show business was historic. He was not the first Black entertainer to transcend racial boundaries; Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and others had achieved stardom before him. But none had made as much of a splash as he did, and for a few years no one in music, Black or white, was bigger.

Born in Harlem to West Indian immigrants, he almost single-handedly ignited a craze for Caribbean music with hit records like “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell.” His album “Calypso,” which included both those songs, reached the top of the Billboard album chart shortly after its release in 1956 and stayed there for 31 weeks. Coming just before the breakthrough of Elvis Presley, it was said to be the first album by a single artist to sell more than a million copies.

Performing at the Waldorf Astoria in New York in 1956.Credit...Al Lambert/Associated Press

Mr. Belafonte was equally successful as a concert attraction: Handsome and charismatic, he held audiences spellbound with dramatic interpretations of a repertoire that encompassed folk traditions from all over the world — rollicking calypsos like “Matilda,” work songs like “Lead Man Holler,” tender ballads like “Scarlet Ribbons.” By 1959 he was the most highly paid Black performer in history, with fat contracts for appearances in Las Vegas, at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and at the Palace in New York.

Success as a singer led to movie offers, and Mr. Belafonte soon became the first Black actor to achieve major success in Hollywood as a leading man. His movie stardom was short-lived, though, and it was his friendly rival Sidney Poitier, not Mr. Belafonte, who became the first bona fide Black matinee idol.

But making movies was never Mr. Belafonte’s priority, and after a while neither was making music. He continued to perform into the 21st century, and to appear in movies as well (although he had two long hiatuses from the screen), but his primary focus from the late 1950s on was civil rights.

Early in his career, Mr. Belafonte befriended the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and became not just a lifelong friend but also an ardent supporter. Dr. King and Mr. Belafonte at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in 1956.Credit...via Harry Belafonte.

Early in his career, he befriended the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and became not just a lifelong friend but also an ardent supporter of Dr. King and the quest for racial equality he personified. He put up much of the seed money to help start the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was one of the principal fund-raisers for that organization and Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

He provided money to bail Dr. King and other civil rights activists out of jail. He took part in the March on Washington in 1963. His spacious apartment on West End Avenue in Manhattan became Dr. King’s home away from home. And he quietly maintained an insurance policy on Dr. King’s life, with the King family as the beneficiary, and donated his own money to make sure that the family was taken care of after Dr. King was assassinated in 1968.

(Nonetheless, in 2013 he sued Dr. King’s three surviving children in a dispute over documents that Mr. Belafonte said were his property and that the children said belonged to the King estate. The suit was settled the next year, with Mr. Belafonte retaining possession.)

In an interview with The Washington Post a few months after Dr. King’s death, Mr. Belafonte expressed ambivalence about his high profile in the civil rights movement. He would like to “be able to stop answering questions as though I were a spokesman for my people,” he said, adding, “I hate marching, and getting called at 3 a.m. to bail some cats out of jail.” But, he said, he accepted his role.

The Challenge of Racism

In the same interview, he noted ruefully that although he sang music with “roots in the Black culture of American Negroes, Africa and the West Indies,” most of his fans were white. As frustrating as that may have been, he was much more upset by the racism that he confronted even at the height of his fame.

His role in the 1957 movie “Island in the Sun,” which contained the suggestion of a romance between his character and a white woman played by Joan Fontaine, generated outrage in the South; a bill was even introduced in the South Carolina Legislature that would have fined any theater showing the film. In Atlanta for a benefit concert for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1962, Mr. Belafonte was twice refused service in the same restaurant. Television appearances with white female singers — Petula Clark in 1968, Julie Andrews in 1969 — angered many viewers and, in the case of Ms. Clark, threatened to cost him a sponsor.

He sometimes drew criticism from Black people, including the suggestion early in his career that he owed his success to the lightness of his skin (his paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother were white). When he divorced his wife in 1957 and married Julie Robinson, who had been the only white member of Katherine Dunham’s dance troupe, The Amsterdam News wrote, “Many Negroes are wondering why a man who has waved the flag of justice for his race should turn from a Negro wife to a white wife.”

Mr. Belafonte with Ed Sullivan in 1955. At a time when segregation was still widespread and Black faces were still a rarity on screens large and small, Mr. Belafonte’s ascent to the upper echelon of show business was historic.Credit...Associated Press

When RCA Victor, his record company, promoted him as the “King of Calypso,” Mr. Belafonte was denounced as a pretender in Trinidad, the acknowledged birthplace of that highly rhythmic music, where an annual competition is held to choose a calypso king.

He himself never claimed to be a purist when it came to calypso or any of the other traditional styles he embraced, let alone the king of calypso. He and his songwriting collaborators loved folk music, he said, but saw nothing wrong with shaping it to their own ends.

“Purism is the best cover-up for mediocrity,” he told The New York Times in 1959. “If there is no change we might just as well go back to the first ‘ugh,’ which must have been the first song.”

Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. was born on March 1, 1927, in Harlem. His father, who was born in Martinique (and later changed the family name), worked occasionally as a chef on merchant ships and was often away; his mother, Melvine (Love) Bellanfanti, born in Jamaica, was a domestic.

In 1936, Harry, his mother and his younger brother, Dennis, moved to Jamaica. Unable to find work there, his mother soon returned to New York, leaving him and his brother to be looked after by relatives who, he later recalled, were either “unemployed or above the law.” They rejoined her in Harlem in 1940.

Awakening to Black History

Mr. Belafonte dropped out of George Washington High School in Upper Manhattan in 1944 and enlisted in the Navy, where he was assigned to load munitions aboard ships. Black shipmates introduced him to the works of W.E.B. Du Bois and other African American authors and urged him to study Black history.

He received further encouragement from Marguerite Byrd, the daughter of a middle-class Washington family, whom he met while he was stationed in Virginia and she was studying psychology at the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). They married in 1948.

He and Ms. Byrd had two children, Adrienne Biesemeyer and Shari Belafonte, who survive him, as do his two children by Ms. Robinson, Gina Belafonte and David; and eight grandchildren. He and Ms. Robinson divorced in 2004, and he married Pamela Frank, a photographer, in 2008, and she survives him, too, along with a stepdaughter, Sarah Frank; a stepson, Lindsey Frank; and three step-grandchildren.

Mr. Belafonte and his wife, Julie, at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom event in Washington in 1957.Credit...George Tames/The New York Times

Back in New York after his discharge, Mr. Belafonte became interested in acting and enrolled under the G.I. Bill at Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop, where his classmates included Marlon Brando and Tony Curtis. He first took the stage at the American Negro Theater in Manhattan, where he worked as a stagehand and where he began his lifelong friendship with a fellow theatrical novice, Sidney Poitier.

Finding anything other than what he called “Uncle Tom” roles proved difficult, and even though singing was little more than a hobby, it was as a singer and not an actor that Mr. Belafonte found an audience.

Early in 1949, he was given the chance to perform during intermissions for two weeks at the Royal Roost, a popular Midtown jazz nightclub. He was an immediate hit, and the two weeks became five months.

Finding Folk Music

After enjoying some success but little creative satisfaction as a jazz-oriented pop singer, Mr. Belafonte looked elsewhere for inspiration. With the guitarist Millard Thomas, who would become his accompanist, and the playwright and novelist William Attaway, who would collaborate on many of his songs, he immersed himself in the study of folk music. (The calypso singer and songwriter Irving Burgie later supplied much of his repertoire, including “Day-O” and “Jamaica Farewell.”)

His manager, Jack Rollins, helped him develop an act that emphasized his acting ability and his striking good looks as much as a voice that was husky and expressive but, as Mr. Belafonte admitted, not very powerful.

A triumphant 1951 engagement at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village led to an even more successful one at the Blue Angel, the Vanguard’s upscale sister room on the Upper East Side. That in turn led to a recording contract with RCA and a role on Broadway in the 1953 revue “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac.”

Dorothy Dandridge and Mr. Belafonte in a scene from the 1954 film “Carmen Jones.”Credit...20th Century Fox

Performing a repertoire that included the calypso standard “Hold ’em Joe” and his arrangement of the folk song “Mark Twain,” Mr. Belafonte won enthusiastic reviews, television bookings and a Tony Award for best featured actor in a musical. He also caught the eye of the Hollywood producer and director Otto Preminger, who cast him in the 1954 movie version of “Carmen Jones,” an all-Black update of Bizet’s opera “Carmen” with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, which had been a hit on Broadway a decade earlier.

Mr. Belafonte’s co-star was Dorothy Dandridge, with whom he had also appeared the year before in his first movie, the little-seen low-budget drama “Bright Road.” Although they were both accomplished vocalists, their singing voices in “Carmen Jones” were dubbed by opera singers.

Mr. Belafonte also made news for a movie he turned down, citing what he called its negative racial stereotypes: the 1959 screen version of “Porgy and Bess,” also a Preminger film. The role of Porgy was offered instead to his old friend Mr. Poitier, whom he criticized publicly for accepting it.

Stepping Away From Film

In the 1960s, as Mr. Poitier became a major box-office attraction, Mr. Belafonte made no movies at all: Hollywood, he said, was not interested in the socially conscious films he wanted to make, and he was not interested in the roles he was offered. He did, however, become a familiar presence — and an occasional source of controversy — on television.

His special “Tonight With Belafonte” won an Emmy in 1960 (a first for a Black performer), but a deal to do five more specials for that show’s sponsor, the cosmetics company Revlon, fell apart after one more was broadcast; according to Mr. Belafonte, Revlon asked him not to feature Black and white performers together. The taping of a 1968 special with Petula Clark was interrupted when Ms. Clark touched Mr. Belafonte’s arm, and a representative of the sponsor, Chrysler-Plymouth, demanded a retake. (The producer refused, and the sponsor’s representative later apologized, although Mr. Belafonte said the apology came “one hundred years too late.”)

Mr. Belafonte addressed a civil rights rally in New York City in May 1960.Credit...Jacob Harris/Associated Press

When Mr. Belafonte returned to film as both producer and co-star, with Zero Mostel, of “The Angel Levine” (1970), based on a story by Bernard Malamud, the project had a sociopolitical edge: His Harry Belafonte Enterprises, with a grant from the Ford Foundation, hired 15 Black and Hispanic apprentices to learn filmmaking by working on the crew. One of them, Drake Walker, wrote the story for Mr. Belafonte’s next movie, “Buck and the Preacher” (1972), a gritty western that also starred Mr. Poitier.

But after appearing as a mob boss (a parody of Marlon Brando’s character in “The Godfather”) with Mr. Poitier and Bill Cosby in the hit 1974 comedy “Uptown Saturday Night” — directed, as “Buck and the Preacher” had been, by Mr. Poitier — Mr. Belafonte was once again absent from the big screen, this time until 1992, when he played himself in Robert Altman’s Hollywood satire “The Player.”

He appeared onscreen only sporadically after that, most notably as a gangster in Mr. Altman’s “Kansas City” (1996), for which Mr. Belafonte won a New York Film Critics Circle Award. His final film role was in Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” in 2018.

Political Activism

Mr. Belafonte continued to give concerts in the years when he was off the screen, but he concentrated on political activism and charitable work. In the 1980s, he helped organize a cultural boycott of South Africa as well as the Live Aid concert and the all-star recording “We Are the World,” both of which raised money to fight famine in Africa. In 1986, encouraged by some New York State Democratic Party leaders, he briefly considered running for the United States Senate. In 1987, he replaced Danny Kaye as UNICEF’s good-will ambassador.

Never shy about expressing his opinion, he became increasingly outspoken during the George W. Bush administration. In 2002, he accused Secretary of State Colin L. Powell of abandoning his principles to “come into the house of the master.” Four years later he called Mr. Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world.”

Mr. Belafonte was equally outspoken in the 2013 New York mayoral election, in which he campaigned for the Democratic candidate and eventual winner, Bill de Blasio. During the campaign he referred to the Koch brothers, the wealthy industrialists known for their support of conservative causes, as “white supremacists” and compared them to the Ku Klux Klan. (Mr. de Blasio quickly distanced himself from that comment.)

Looking back on his life and career, Mr. Belafonte was proud but far from complacent. “About my own life, I have no complaints,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Yet the problems faced by most Americans of color seem as dire and entrenched as they were half a century ago.”Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Such statements made Mr. Belafonte a frequent target of criticism, but no one disputed his artistry. Among the many honors he received in his later years were a Kennedy Center Honor in 1989, the National Medal of Arts in 1994 and a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2000.

In 2011, he was the subject of a documentary film, “Sing Your Song,” and published his autobiography, “My Song.”

In 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in recognition of his lifelong fight for civil rights and other causes. The honor, he told The Times, gave him “a strong sense of reward.”

He remained politically active to the end. On Election Day 2016, The Times published an opinion article by Mr. Belafonte urging people not to vote for Donald J. Trump, whom he called “feckless and immature.”

“Mr. Trump asks us what we have to lose,” he wrote, referring to African American voters, “and we must answer: Only the dream, only everything.”

Four years later, he returned to the opinion pages with a similar message: “We have learned exactly how much we had to lose — a lesson that has been inflicted upon Black people again and again in our history — and we will not be bought off by the empty promises of the flimflam man.”

Richard Severo and Alex Traub contributed reporting.

#Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.#Harry Belafonte #Obituary #New York Times

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