#Except Hugh's so good and adorable at playing him that the whole thing is sort of backfiring...

[thelostgirl21]

Radovid is basically the fandom made flesh, whose ultimate purpose in life is to appreciate and love Jaskier the way we all wish we could make sure he's loved and appreciated.

Radovid is the most relatable character this season because I too am immediately distracted and smitten every time Jaskier appears.

[spiltscribbles]

Im so excited!!!! Here’s a little “It’s always been you. You and only you.” sprinkled in with Green-Eyed Epiphany

~Notes: OMFG bubby!!!! You are so beyond adorable! Thank you So SO much for the sweetness!! I really hope you like this XS and fingers crossed  this fits the promptXS <3 <3 <3

.-

Prompt Smash Game  |  Send Me A Prompt💜   |  A Reblog Is Like A Huge, Warm Hug!!!

.-

~R: my mom’s working the night shift at the clinic👀👀

~S: Kinky😏

~S: I can be there in 15

~R: make it 20 and get Chinese x

~S: sometimes I think ur j using me for the food

~R: and bring henny😈

.-

It’s seventeen minutes since Remus sent the last text when the front door of his modest ranch house begins to thump with a familiar wrapping that’s three quick knocks followed by two slower ones, and he has to wrestle down the eager grin from his face when he swings it open to find one of his closest friends standing at the threshold in that customary  weathered, leather jacket that he found two summers ago when Remus had taken him thrifting for the first time, and an impish sort of smirk that definitely would look ridiculous on anyone else, but only makes Sirius all the more maddeningly attractive. 

“What took so long?” Remus asks mildly, pulling him indoors by the sleeve and gesturing for him to set the goods on the kitchen counter once they cross the small foyer.

“You wound me, Lupin.” Sirius retorts, quick-silver eyes flashing before he pins him against the island and puts his hands on either side of his waistline with more gentleness than Remus would’ve expected before they began this whole sorted affair— Okay, maybe that’s the wrong word for it?

It’s not an affair, or tryst, or carrying on or whatever the fuck else Lily says when she’s teetering on the wrong edge of tipsy and thinks it’s her right to call Remus out on his bullshit— on his stupid, beyond obvious crush he’s been fostering for one of his closest friends since junior high.

It’s none of those things— It’s not nearly as dramatic.

It’s just— Just that yes, Remus has been harboring a tiny infatuation  for Sirius ever since that first day of the seventh grade  when he had moved to this tiny, coastal town after his parents divorce. But how could he have not? Sirius is hilarious, and a genius, and so gorgeous that sometimes it feels like his insides are twisting up whenever he glances over at him. And on that first day, he had just caught Remus’s eyes from across the library shelves before classes begun, and smiled in that uniquely electric way of his, and asked if Remus could put slime in a very specific locker, (Snape’s), for a very specific reason, (Because he kept following Lily around like a creep), on account to no one suspecting the new kid. And yeah— Remus was lost on him an embarrassing amount from then on. 

Sure, it can be regarded as kinda pathetic on Remus’s end— kindling this nest of emotions so close to the chest— but also it’s not as if he’s been lovestruck by his crush, like it’s some sort of waterlogged scarf he’s got dragging him down. His attraction towards Sirius is like a soft melody that’s swelling in the backdrop of all their interactions, nothing overwhelming— not a flood plane, not yet at least. It’s warm, and it’s familiar, and it’s persistent like a flutter of a humming bird’s wings.  And Remus doesn’t mind pining over someone as fantastical as Sirius Fucking Black.

Graciously, in some strike of incredible luck, Sirius never caught on to Remus’s silly feelings, not until that night when they were watching an old movie in Remus’s basement while James and Lily were celebrating an entire year together— save for all their sudden stops and just as speedy starts— and Peter was visiting his grandmother in Tampa Bay. It was the first time they had been alone together since Remus broke up with Caradoc for the final time, and Sirius just looked so fucking good in that casual, white v-neck and his skinny jeans that make him look like some echo of James Dean on his best day. And Remus isn’t sure who exactly moved forwards first, or how the fuck Meg Ryan wandering the Seattle streets was some sort of aphrodisiac, or why Sirius— who could have any guy he would ever want— was actually humoring him, but one second they’re lying down on the sofa— Remus caged between Sirius’s expanse and the cushions behind them— and the next he’s tasting PBR on Sirius’s lips, and has got a fist full of his dark hair, and is thrilling at the feeling of Sirius’s thigh between his legs. And yeah— it just happened like those sort of things are want to do, and by the end of it they were sticky and breathless and diffident in ways they never been around one another, in ways Remus reckons Sirius has never been around anyone.

But the next weekend, when Sirius’s latest sorta— but not really— boyfriend had canceled on their dinner plans, Sirius wandered over to Remus’s bedroom window and it was another tumbling of frenzied hands and loosen buckles and thrusting hips. And then it just became an easy release— a sort of poetry, an understanding in all but name.

And that’s fine. They don’t have to talk about it. Remus knows that Sirius isn’t the type to settle down with a partner, to go bowling for a date, or texting countless messages that amount to nothing at all at the end of the conversation, or putting up with another dude’s parents taking photos of them before leaving to prom or homecoming or whatever the fuck else. And Remus is sorta sick of the idea of love, of trying so hard only to end up heartbroken and eating a gallon of Chubby Bunny in his favorite sweats and cursing John Hughes for pretending Hollywood romances can happen to ordinary high schoolers. 

So yeah— This thing they’ve fallen into with each other is good. They’re friends— best friends— and they have fun and they’re apparently really fucking good in bed together, and Sirius never looks at Remus with pity when he spots him gazing at his profile absentmindedly, and he doesn’t mind when Remus traces invisible designs against his skin when they’re soaking in the after glow, and he never treats him  any different. Sirius still slings his arm around Remus’s shoulders when they walk down the halls, and he still buys him his favorite chocolates when he feels poorly, and he still faces Dorcas's disapproving wrath when he drags Remus out of the library to have a little mischief— whether it’s smoking a blunt in the abandoned skatepark in town or playing some stupid prank on those assholes in their year. 

For all intent and purposes, they still behave the same they’ve always acted around one another, but just with the miraculous addition of mind-blowing and dulcetly ductile sex.

This is good, this is fun, this is completely untethered from the bull shit of romance.

And if Remus mouths against the juncture of Sirius’s neck a little too intensely— trying to pry off the memory of the hickey Sirius had been sporting after spending the weekend with Gideon Prewett— Well no one has to be any the wiser, and by the sound of Sirius’s hitched breaths, he seems not to mind even slightly.

“Except my apology?” Remus asks, more coy than he ordinarily acts as he drops his arms around Sirius’s neck, and leans on the balls of his feet to whisper against his temple.

“Oh, you’re such a bastard,” Sirius retorts, labored as all get out, kneading his fingers into Remus’s ass that’s only covered by the thin layer of his plaid pajama bottoms. “You are going to have to do a lot more for me to forgive the lip.”

Remus laughs in a stammering sort of way as Sirius tugs him along, walking backwards to his room that he’s become incredibly intimate with since the first time they did this three months ago. 

“Sirius, the spring rolls— they’re gross if we have to heat them up again.”

“I’ll postmate us knew ones,” Sirius insists, covering Remus’s mouth with his own with fervor. “C’mon babe, do not tease me like this.”

Sirius must’ve caught his mistake, because he suddenly goes as red as Remus feels— The pet name was to close for comfort considering their strictly friends with benefits nature, but Remus is already half hard, and he really does not want to end this, so with a sly wink, he returns to nipping at Sirius’s jawline, rutting against him in a very unambiguous way. “Fine, if you really don’t think you’ll need the nourishment for your stamina?”

The words have their intended effect, and Sirius makes a small growl deep in his throat before practically tearing off Remus’s shirt, and dipping beneath the waistline of his pants, scooping him up and racing to the bed.

And they get lost in one another beneath the pale glow of Remus’s lamplight and the moon spilling through the window, relearning each others every patch of skin for minutes on end that wax and wane like the delta of ocean waves, unspooling into something tangible and tantalizing with every kiss punctuated with teeth that Sirius trails across Remus’s collarbone, and the way Remus palms greedy hands up and down Sirius’s back until he gets the hint and undresses.

“Well come on, you’re not an invalid, Lupin.” Sirius jeers and Remus chuckles as he follows suit until they’re both finally, blessedly nude. And with an easy assurance of them having done this more than a dozen times now, Remus crawls into his lap and kisses him straight on the mouth, preening how Sirius moans against him— canting up wantonly and grabbing at his hips with a sort of intensity that will probably leave bruises in the shape of the pads of his fingers, and Remus absolutely adores the idea of that, feels something hot and needy and desperate unfurl in his gut as he presses their mouths more forcefully together, going buzzed when he gets to relish in the sensation of their tongues running against one another, and the taste of the ridges on the roof of Sirius’s mouth, and the slide of the soft skin of his inner cheek— gasping when Sirius pulls away abruptly, panting an almost reverent, “Mother of God, Remus,” and tackles him flat on his back before they commence, with the addition of both their hard,  leaking cocks thrusting against one another and Sirius’s hand in Remus’s hair pulling that bit more forcefully while his other one roams the dips and planes of his side— skirting against the divots of his stomach muscle before he wraps it around the pair of them and begins to pull in earnest, to the rhythm that Remus swears was strung from the heavens above.

“Oh— Oh, yeah— Sirius,” Remus breathes out in a haggard sort of way, words that he refuses to ever call a mewl even if they’re stretched out and crackle with emotion.

“Yes—, just say that again,” Sirius practically demands, his mouth completely covering his ear in a wet, hot heat— his teeth scraping against the soft shell. “Remus, baby, just say my name, tell me you want it.”

And God, Remus is feeling so heady— like he’s floating and he couldn’t possibly come back down— that he probably would’ve listened to anything Sirius asked of him, especially if he does that thing again, when he squeezes the slick length of them with a tad more force than they usually play at. “Sirius, Sirius. Sirius, please, I’m close,” Remus shrills in an unsteady staccato— his normally smooth tenner going pitchy and pleading, and he can feel his toes curling, can feel the eminent release coming— What he does not expect is to feel something poking at his entrance, didn’t expect to be struck dumb by the sensation of the tip of Sirius’s large, dry finger poking right there, right against the fluttering hole, while he’s still pumping them in tandem, and the second it hooks inside Remus goes a startling sort of static , sees blasts of white blotching his vision and his head thrown back and his dick spirting out heavily against Sirius’s deliciously defined torso.

And he’s just breathing heavily now, during the come down, can barely make out anything  through the heavy weight around him, the one  cushioning his head— but he does graciously feel Sirius’s cock fucking into his own hand against Remus’s thigh and then idly the feeling of his come splattering him, but then after that he can just barely hear the distant padding of feed against floorboards, followed by a wet washcloth being dabbed against his skin. So when he finally forces himself to focus, he sees Sirius cleaning himself off, wrapping it into the pair of joggers Remus was wearing earlier and tosses it to the corner of the room. 

“Rude,” he scolds with no heat, shuffling closer to him when Sirius lies down besides him once more and circles an arm around his torso.

“THat’s what you get when you’re acting like a lazy fuck,” Sirius counters, smug as all get out while he threads a hand in Remus’s hair.

“Hmm, didn’t see that in the papers recently. Is it a new law?”

“Yeah, actually just past on the senate floor.”

“Interesting… Well considering that only one of us has a senator for a father, I really have to ask to see the power-point you shared with him to get this bill through the stalemate,” Remus’s head bounces against Sirius’s chest from the force of his laughter at the barb.

“Oh, stuff it, Lupin.”

Hiding his smile into Sirius’s skin, Remus does as told, and they both just lie there, as if everything’s gone suspended just for the pair of them, just so Remus can count out the beats of Sirius’s heart pulsing against his sternum, and can feel the way their legs tie into one another, and can feel Sirius mouthing against his temple, blowing his curls with every exhale. 

And Remus thinks that he’d do anything to remember this exact moment for every single day from here on out.

But then the quiet is abruptly and permanently punctured by the sound of his phone chirping, and he has to breathe in deeply before separating from the warmth of Sirius, and fishes down for the device that’s still crammed into the side of his bed from where he had hidden it after that initial text.

“Is Dearborn still on your ass to try again?” Sirius asks, a bit stilted.

Remus wonders if he’s just imagining the tension twisted in the question, but reasons that Sirius’s never been Caradoc’s biggest fan, so he just shrugs it off— really doesn’t want to get into some stupid argument about his asshole of an ex when he’s still feeling so content. “Nah, ’s James. Still trying to force me to go to the homecoming dance with you guys.”

“Oh,” Sirius retorts, lips pinched while watching Remus redress. “You should go, Marls is pregaming and you know she always gets the good shit.”

Remus shakes his head while puttering over to find a new pair of sweats and a sweater. “Nah, just not feeling it this year— Erm, you’re taking Gid I assume.” He’s not sure why he asks it, supposes he’s always a glutton for some pain and shitty feelings to inspire his playlists habit, but also maybe it’s him trying to sober himself. Trying to remember that despite this— despite everything they just did and  how easy it’s always been for them to fall into step with one another— Remus isn’t good enough to be seen with Sirius in the light of day. He’s probably not handsome enough or cool enough or something else that makes Sirius absolutely revolted from the thought. Probably that he’s beyond bookish, and looks painfully virginal and isn’t nearly as sly or snarky as his other conquests.

Truly, Remus should just be thankful that Sirius wants this at all, he shouldn’t be so crazed over the why nots of the situation— it’ll only kill him trying to be something he never could actually affect with any credence.

Schooling his features to something passably indifferent, Remus pivots to face him again, is startled when he finds Sirius still naked and staring at him with a burning sort of intensity in his storm cloud eyes. 

“He hasn’t said anything, but I guess he’s assuming as much,” he finally says, running a hand through his overgrown fringe, that familiar twitch of the corner of his mouth grabbing Remus’s attention. The one that tells him Sirius is actually irritated about something he’s not letting himself say out loud. 

“Erm, good? Gid’s a decent guy.” Remus mutters, head ducked once it gets to a point that he can’t stand Sirius looking at him like that— Not after how blissed out and ferocious he had been groping every inch of Remus only moments ago. “You guys are nice together.”

And it’s like the breath before the worst of storms when his words collapse between them, making the pregnant silence go suddenly suffocating.

“Right,” Sirius intones once Remus levels their gazes, hurriedly standing and collecting his own clothes, fracturing the moment completely. “Right. Whatever, yeah. I’ll go to the fucking dance with fucking Gideon Prewett. That’s good.”

“Sir—“

“No, it’s fine. You can just stay home, and mourn over that douchebag Dearborn some more, even though you ending it with that dick was the best decision you could’ve made, Remus, and I’m not even saying it just because I’m petty. He is a prick, and you need to finally get a clue how much better you deserve, damn it!”

Remus’s head feels like it’s swimming. Why is Sirius so angry all of a sudden? Does he not like Gideon? Why can’t he just cut it off like so many times before? And why the hell is he petty over Caradoc? The entire situation feels like someone’s just handed him a wedge of Swiss cheese and told him to knit it back together. 

“What is up your ass?” He decides is an appropriate enough question for his floundering, and shutters back only slightly at how fuming Sirius looks when he rounds on him— clothes disheveled and fearsome glower heavy on his face. 

“Whatever Remus, if you can’t see that Dearborn is bad news—“

“I’m not pining for Dearborn,” Remus interjects, really doesn’t feel like listening to one of Sirius’s ridiculous diatribes about him, not now. Not when he’s still so bewildered by everything else. “Why would you think that?”

The fire in Sirius’s eyes vanishes as quickly as someone blowing on a candle, and it’s his turn to gawk, gaping at Remus, shoulders dragged down and eyes wide. “Wait— You’re not?”

“No…. I haven’t even thought about him for weeks.”

“Oh.” Sirius looks contemplative for a moment, before the righteous anger that only he could ever wear with such conviction, melts over him once more. “All right, then what the fuck is this?”

Remus stiffens, feels his veins lace with ice, an his breath catch somewhere in his throat, really does not think he’s ready for this conversation. “This?” 

“Yes, Remus, this!” Sirius demands, sounding harsh in comparison to the barely croak Remus had spoken with. “Listen I don’t care if you want me to wait some more, if you need to lick your wounds or whatever. But why are you like pushing me on other people? Why do you want me not to be around? why do you  want me to go out with other dudes?”

Remus lies back on the chest of drawers now, feels beyond dazed. “What the hell are you talking about, Sirius?”

Sirius clenches his teeth right then, the hinge of his jaw going taught 

before he skulks closer, not letting Remus drop his gaze. “Is it me? Is it that you just can’t see me that way? Are you just stringing me along or something? Because I really didn’t think that was your style, but if it’s that, then Remus—“

“Stringing you along?” Remus asks in a voice barely above a whisper, just needs to feel his lips forming the absolutely risible words, even if it makes it so something dark passes across Sirius’s beauteous features.

“Remus, I swear to God! Stop repeating everything I’m fucking saying!”

“Then start making  some damn sense!” Remus snaps, suddenly heated as he straightens and pins him with a proper scowl. “What in holy hell are you going on about?”

“God! Do I have to spell it out!” Sirius barks, cutting the final step dividing them and grabbing for Remus’s shoulders with a tight squeeze. “I know you just wanted to fuck around with someone after Dearborn showed his extreme dickitude, and listen, I was so fucking ecstatic that you wanted me for it. But I can’t do this in-between shit anymore! I’m sorry, but I can’t! And I get if this is annoying, but I’ve been crazy for you for so long. And I just can’t keep myself at an arms length anymore, not now that we’ve really had each other, not after you let me actually touch and taste and fuck you and— Damn it, this isn’t coming out the way I wanted, all right! Damn it, maybe Evans was right and I should’ve made queue cards like some dumb ass— But then James pointed out how unromantic that was, and Marlene said—“

Gently, Remus puts his shaking fingers against Sirius’s lips, effectively killing off anything else he’s about to say. And slowly, everything is beginning to slot into place, and he’s so spiteful over how they’ve been such idiots this entire time— swears to put salt into Lily’s coffee next time he sees her. 

“I didn’t know you actually were into me Sirius.”

Stunned, Sirius’s dark brows hike up to his hairline. “How the hell didn’t you know?” He demands against Remus’s fingers, thunderous and insulted looking.

“Because you never fucking said as much!” Remus defends himself, feels a mangled sort of laughter squirming out. “God, we’re idiots.”

“We’re?” Sirius asks, hesitant and red faced before Remus moves his hand to peck softly against his mouth. 

“I’ve been half in love with you for years you absolute ass-wipe, it’s always been you! You and always you.” Remus tells him breathily, still fighting down the last remnants of his actual, god forsaken giggle— like he’s thirteen again and getting buzzed off his mom’s peach wine coolers. “I only never said anything because I never thought I’d have a chance with someone like you— Someone so— so— Someone so amazing.”

The smile Sirius favors him with right then is something absolutely incandescent, and his eyes shimmer with a very distinct sort of joy that Remus wonders if anyone besides him has ever witnessed. “Then you’re definitely the biggest idiot between us, Lupin.” Sirius declares, knocking their foreheads together, and lacing his hand into Remus’s own before squeezing meaningfully.

“Fuck off,” Remus snorts, presses forwards for another languorous kiss, not feeling in danger of being swallowed whole any more— finally letting himself drown and knowing that Sirius will be there to pull him back up no matter what. 

“Oh, I could get used to this,” Sirius smirks, snakes his arms around Remus’s waste that bit tighter.

“Hmm, there is the problem that I usually don’t put out until at least the third or fourth date,” Remus says mildly.

“Pff, ‘s fine, Lupin,” Sirius insists, grinning beatifically. “I like you being a hussy for me!— Oof, careful with the merchandize, you were speaking some real exaltations about that part of my anatomy not too long ago.”

Moving his knee from the point at hand, Remus sticks out his tongue at him. “See if you ever get any ever again, Sirius Black.”

When Sirius laughs, it sounds like the strike of lightening against unmarked land, and the honey cloaked side of a knife’s edge, and like everything splendid Remus has ever known. And he thinks that yes, he could get used to this right back.

.-

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1985

Under the cut.

Foreigner -- "I Want To Know What Love Is" -- February 2, 1985

One of the quintessential 80s power ballads. It's actually kind of interesting if you think about it enough. He's not in love yet, but he's gotten sick of not being in love, so he's asking someone he's in the pre-love stage with to show him. Though he's had "heartache and pain" before, and doesn't know if he can face it again. It's not consistent. I feel like it's a missed opportunity, but oh well. It's good enough for what it is.

Wham! -- "Careless Whisper" -- February 16, 1985

Oh my god I love the saxophone in this. The music throughout the song is so incredibly sexy. And this is the kind of song George Michael's voice was made for. He's totally capable of sounding both hot and in agony at the same time. I actually adore a whole lot of cheating songs -- mostly, though not exclusively, the tormented kind. Drama! Love! Sex! Angst! Gorgeous.

REO Speedwagon -- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -- March 9, 1985

<3. He keeps singing "r"s like a pirate, but he doesn't go as hard on the other consonants, so I'm good with it. Lyrically, this song sounds like it might be two songs mashed together. "What started out as friendship has grown stronger" or "my life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you." Well which is it? Except I've had that happen. I love this song.

Phil Collins -- "One More Night" -- March 30, 1985

This is a depressing heartbreak song without the saving grace of any of Phil Collins' neat drum stuff. Blah.

We Are the World -- April 13, 1985

Whoo boy. I was 8 when this came out. Obviously I loved it. All the kids loved it. Now, though... I'm sorry, but it's bad. Really bad. Many others have gone deeply into why it's bad. I feel acutely embarrassed listening to it, so I'm just running away from it as fast as possible. (Remember all those celebrities singing "Imagine" in their mansions in 2020? I blame this song for that.)

Madonna -- "Crazy For You" -- May 11, 1985

This is one of Madonna's most straightforward love songs. Maybe the most, period. This or "Cherish," and this is a better song. It's lovely. Like Olivia Newton-John, Madonna can act a song. (Unlike in most movies she's been in.) But what I'm thinking about now is learning in this article that her label wouldn't let Madonna release "Into the Groove" as a single. That song was huge. It was played on the radio all the time. If it had been released as a single, or maybe if Billboard had tracked songs then like it does today, it would have been a massive smash, definitely #1. "Into the Groove" is also the best song of her very early career. "Crazy for You" is good, but not nearly as special.

Simple Minds -- "Don't You Forget About Me" -- May 18, 1985

As I am "Gen X", I am supposed to deeply connect with The Breakfast Club. I was 8 years old when it came out. My life as a teenager was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, like that movie. I didn't recognize any of the "types." I liked the movie when I saw it in college, mostly, but the whole sexual harassment turns into a relationship deal was not seen as cool any longer. The "jocks vs. nerds" thing also felt very dated. The school in the movie was bigger and richer than mine, but it's a fantasy.

Anyway, though I don't feel much about the movie, its breakout song was really good. It does speak to a real fear both in graduating high school and during young adult relationships. I haven't forgotten the people I knew in high school, as far as I know, but obviously they don't have the same importance to me any longer. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of them. And very much not with a couple who were the most important then, because we grew apart -- or blasted apart. One of the nicest girls I knew in high school thinks there's a war on Christmas. Another keeps trying to get me to join her MLM. One of my best friends became my first boyfriend, and I don't regret that, but it was also a semi-disaster. And others... we just have nothing to say to each other any longer.

So, Breakfast Club: I don't connect with at all. "Don't You Forget About Me": Speaks to something very real and timeless.

Wham! -- "Everything She Wants" -- May 25, 1985

What a dick. Songs in which the narrator is a colossal jerk are perfectly fine, of course, but this one gets under my skin. He's whining about his wife getting pregnant when she's dissatisfied with their life and that they're broke. As if it's something she chose to do to him. She's stuck creating a whole other person with her blood and flesh, and he thinks it's all and entirely about him. I really hate it.

Tears for Fears -- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -- June 8, 1985

I can't hear this song without thinking of this Baldur's Gate fan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdd06d2nids. Speaking of which, I am incredibly excited for Baldur's Gate 3. I've been reading the early access reviews on Steam, and anything anyone is saying that's negative is stuff I don't gaf about (except bugs), whereas the positive stuff, I care about deeply. I hope it's got some of the feeling of that trailer. Um, right, Tears for Fears.

Honestly, though, it works best as a Baldur's Gate theme song. I don't think everybody actually wants to rule the world. It sounds good though. And pretty different from other stuff around it. But I like Lorde's cover better, and not just because it fits so wonderfully with all sorts of fantasy stories.

I usually play a paladin or paladin-type the first time in fantasy RPGs, but I'm thinking bard this time.

Bryan Adams -- "Heaven" -- June 22, 1985

He's been with this woman since they were young, and while they've broken up and gone through rough patches, now they're together forever and they're "in heaven." Bryan Adams knew exactly how to write a song that would become a hit. I used to not mind it at all, but it also means nothing to me. The chorus is catchy as hell though. So catchy that I ended up waking up with it in my head and it would not leave for hours and hours, so now I resent this song.

Phil Collins -- "Sussudio" -- July 6, 1985

I refuse to believe anyone ever told Phil Collins he was too young. He was born middle-aged. Anyway, the narrator isn't supposed to be him, so it's fine, but it's still kinda funny. He's got a crush on someone who doesn't even know his name, but "she's all I need all of my life." Um. The music is repetitive, the drums aren't as interesting as Phil Collins at his best, and I don't like the lyrics. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Duran Duran -- "View to a Kill" -- July 13, 1985

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's about as good a song as the Bond movie they wrote it for was as a movie. In other words, it's bad. I'm not even sure there's a melody. Just a mess. "Ordinary World" would have made a far better Bond theme, but of course that was the 90s, when Duran Duran decided to try to make sense both lyrically and musically.

Paul Young -- "Every Time You Go Away" -- July 27, 1985

I like the high keyboard notes in this. They're sort of haunting. The rest of the song is musically pretty good, too. Lyrically though, it's only passable. This woman keeps leaving him every time "the leading man" shows up, so I guess he's the backup. Why does he keep waiting for her anyway? There's no hint in the song. I'm kind of embarrassed for him.

Tears for Fears -- "Shout" -- August 3, 1985

I think "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a better song than this one when done by Lorde. But I think "Shout" is a better song than Tears for Fears' original iteration of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The chorus seems clear enough. But the verses are not. "They gave you life/ And in return you gave them hell" makes sense in isolation, but then there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't go with it. Like "I'd really love to break your heart" -- wtf? But the music is really good. 

Huey Lewis and the News -- "The Power of Love" -- August 24, 1985

This was the big song for Back to the Future, and it meshed beautifully with the movie, but it doesn't need that association to be a great song. "Don't need money, don't take fame/ Don't need no credit card to ride this train/ It's strong and it's sudden, it can be cruel sometimes/ But it might just save your life." Yep. It's sort of Motown, sort of rock, and I love it. (Also: "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Heh.)

John Parr -- "St. Elmo's Fire" -- August 24, 1985

Of all the John Hughes movies I have not seen and do not plan to see, St. Elmo's Fire sure is one of them. The song is about a disabled man who inspired people by rolling himself cross-country in his wheelchair for charity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I'm disabled, and I just... okay look, what he did was admirable. But we shouldn't have to be inspirations to be counted as worthwhile, and I've been told I should die because I can't produce for capitalism, so you know. I've got some personal issues with this and I'm gonna move along.

Dire Straits -- "Money for Nothing" -- September 21, 1985

This is not Dire Straits' best song, but it's an awfully fun one. I watched the video tons when I was a kid. (That sound is Tipper Gore falling to the floor in a dead faint.) The music is great rock. And the lyrics are very true-to-life. You can either sanitize people or present them as they are honestly, and I know which I prefer.

Ready for the World -- "Oh Sheila" -- October 12, 1985

The band's from Michigan. The English accent at the beginning of the song is fake. That's a good preview for the song, which sounds like a 3rd-rate Prince knockoff at best. Blech.

a-ha -- "Take On Me" -- October 19, 1985

The video totally ripped off one of my aunts. Somehow or other, they saw into the little comic she drew for me about someone going into a land of drawings to rescue someone else in a romantic adventure, years before 1985. Anyway, this song is great musically, massively synthesizer heavy without sounding artificial. Though I can only understand maybe a third of the lyrics as he sings them. I've always understood "It's no better to be safe than sorry" though. Yep, at least when it comes to romance, which is what they're singing about here.

Whitney Houston -- "Saving All My Love for You" -- October 26, 1985

It's not better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean it's good to be an absolute idiot in matters of romance either. Nor is it good to be a colossal jerk. That's what the narrator is here -- the "you" she's singing to is married. And he won't leave his wife and children, though he used to say he would. The lyrics seem to say that's she's accepted the situation, but the way Houston sings it, I think the narrator's trying to get him to leave his wife -- and children -- for her still. This makes sense, as it puts some kind of passion and sense of story into the song, which without Houston's singing would not be there. The narrator certainly never acknowledges that what she's doing is wrong in the slightest iota. This song could be done in a way that works. But it's a completely sincere ballad. So, no. I despise the narrator, I despise the man she's singing to more, and the whole thing leaves me feeling gross.

Stevie Wonder -- "Part Time Lover" -- November 2, 1985

No one's thinking anyone's gonna leave anyone in this one. It's about cheating, and the thrill of it, but then at the end, he's found out his wife's cheating on him too. "I guess that two can play the game/ Of part-time lovers." This kind of funk groove is one way you make a song like this. It makes the whole thing sexy and fun, and the lyrics also work even beyond that ending, because they acknowledge it's wrong.

Jon Hammer -- "Miami Vice Theme" -- November 9, 1985

My parents didn't watch Miami Vice. And then I never felt like watching it in re-runs when I got older. I don't recognize this song. It's an energetic instrumental, but there's so much going on, I keep trying to figure out if there's a main musical idea anywhere. Nope. Just lots and lots of synth. Headache-inducing.

Starship -- "We Built This City" -- November 16, 1985

Blech. This song sounds both unfinished and overproduced somehow. The chorus seems designed to be catchy with absolute ruthlessness by people who didn't really care, and no one involved even seems to want to bother to fake it.

Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin -- "Separate Lives" -- November 30, 1985

This is supposed to be heart-wrenchingly sad. Well, it does tank my dopamine, but that's not what a good sad song does. A good sad song makes you feel better. This one makes me need to turn on something high-energy after about 30 seconds, before I sink into bleakness. It's aggressively boring.

Mr. Mister -- "Broken Wings" -- December 7, 1985

This was one of the first songs I recorded from the radio. On my pink tape deck/radio that was a sort of a mini boom box. I've always had my own tape player since I can remember, but that was a definite upgrade from the Sesame Street one. I was 9 then, so getting more seriously into music and developing my own taste intentionally, rather than simply absorbing what was happening around me.

Anyway, the song. It's about a relationship in trouble, and he wants to stay with her. To me it sounds like she has been so seriously hurt (and not by him), that she can't trust anyone, and he's laying himself on the line for her. That has spoken to me deeply ever since I first heard the song as a child. Moving on to the music: While the lyrics are repetitive, the music is not, which is what makes the song so good. It's a beautiful song.

Lionel Richie -- "Say You, Say Me" -- December 21, 1985

I look forward to Lionel Richie no longer being on the charts. This song was on the soundtrack of some movie I've never heard of. I wish I'd never heard of the song. Totally artificial glop.

BEST OF 1985: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds  WORST OF 1985: "We Built This City" by Starship

[laszlowrobinson]

A playlist that your character would actually listen to

It didn’t say to describe why they would listen to these songs, but I did it anyway because while idk anything about music I like to rave about it lmao

Spice Up Your Life - Spice Girls 

I mean the Spice Girls were and still are iconic spelled to sound like eye-con-eek. They were a good chunk of his childhood to adolescence since they WERE the 90′s. So not only is their music just, you know, great, it holds a very nostalgic place in his heart. I mean he for sure watched Spice World and didn’t give a single shit that it makes no sense. It didn’t need to, it was the Spice Girls hanging with aliens and chilling out on the bus in their iconic fashion. Anyone in that movie he will reference as their character from that instead of like oh Hugh Laurie from House MD? NO, it’s Hugh Laurie, Poritot from Spice World. Oh Stephen Fry? From Gosford Par? NO, it’s Stephen Fry, the Judge from Spice World. 

Anyways, while he would and does put their entire discography on, I’m putting this one in particular because it’s such a bop!! And their anthem. When the bitches were back for the 2012 Olympics, while they may have opened with Wannabe with choreography, (except Victoria who literally stood there Posing, the icon) they really went in with Spice Up Your Life okay, they rode around that stadium ON the cabs while singing it!!! It’s 100% the song that will pick him up off the floor. 

LA DI DA - EVERGLOW

What a song??? Holy SHIT. It may be only like a month old in its life span but it Hits, so it gets a spot on this playlist because as soon as I heard it I was like, “Laszlo would be obsessed.” It’s a bop, it’s a jam, it’s everything he could ever ask for in a song. First off, the production on it is just so good!!! The beats HIT and the clapping behind their vocals picks it up to another level. And that part where they like lmfao aggressively grunt?? after “Everglow forever let’s go.” amazing, brilliant, stunning, absolutely the best thing he has ever heard before. And then the VOCALS!!! The talent!!!! Like the range between all the girls is astounding, and I don’t just mean their vocal range. I mean ALL of it, the singing, the rapping, the power and then pulling it back for the softness until they come back to make heads bop for the chorus. Whew!!! Just such a good, pump up song that he can bop around too and that’s his favorite kind of music!! 

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) - ABBA but the Cher Cover 

No disrespect to ABBA because Laszlo loves them, but he looooves Cher and while he would ALSO play her entire discography, this song just hits different sung by Cher in 2018 in her beautiful, earthy voice. And she did it so tastefully. She respected the original song by not turning it over into something completely lost to the track but it still felt like she was putting her own magical Cher-y blessing upon it as if it were her very own song. It’s like the perfect crossover??? He probably had an out of body experience listening to her cover album of ABBA and then going to see her in Mama Mia! 2. Plus, like, this song is also his life lmfaooooo where is his man,,, @ god (who is Cher, as confirmed on Will and Grace.) 

I Know A Place - MUNA

Not only is this song just...so good...but the lyrics of it really hit home for him. Like??? “Don’t you be afraid of love and affection/ just lay down your weapon”??? ow bitch. But it is a celebratory song!!! It’s about being able to be whoever you are and not having to worry about getting hurt or dealing with the bleeeh people of the world because they’re going to a place that’s safe and accepting, and that’s in LGBT+ spaces. And there are a lot of people who don’t feel safe and who are having to hide themselves, but this song is providing them a little slice of heaven to be themselves. It also serves as a reminder that there are places were you can be safe and happy and yourself and you will be accepted!!! And that’s just such a lovely message, and for music like this to be out there in the world for the youth makes him so happy! And the music itself is so funky and absolutely something that one can dance to. It has those places that slow down...and then HIT for the bopping around for the hype of the chorus!! UGH! and Katie’s voice still being sort of haunting really just brings it on home. This song is so good!! Stream MUNA!!!!! 

Paparazzi - Lady Gaga (TW: fake blood from 3:20-end of the video) 

I’m linking the 2009 MTV performance because I’m going to say that this was his first exposure to Lady Gaga and holy shit was it life changing!!! This was everything. Like the performance art of it really came for his throat. Spoiler alert: when the blood started pouring from her chest and the crowd like gasped and groaned??? It was a Cultural Reset!! She was singing her heart out and going all out on that choreography. Her foot up on the piano as she slammed the keys??? The set design?? SO GOOD! And her dancers? Shout out to them, because damn they really did that. So, not only is the song amazing, he will always associate it with hearing it to this performance and it is still such a good song!!! The lyrics are insane. She did this when she was 23, only a year older than him, and boy did it light a fire under his ass. 

And it also serves to keep him humble lmfao. Even though he isn’t Famous famous like his other family members he does have his own little corner of fame and can’t be out here falling in love with the attention. 

Coisa Boa - Gloria Groove

Honestly, anything Gloria Groove puts out is pure gold to his ears. They don’t have to go as hard as they do, but they do it anyways! The really pronounced instrument that’s going on? Their singing??? Going from rapping to hitting that note at the end of “Quer papo de ousadia?” absolutely sends Laszlo off the rails. Like, there’s no other way to describe their style than Iconic. It’s fun and fighty and gah! So good!! Also it just being about getting the Squad and going ham is just, chef kisses. Again, his favorite songs are things that get him moving and grooving, and this ones ticks all the marks and so much more. One day they will release an album and on that day someone should check to make sure Laszlo is still alive. 

Toxic - Brittany Spears

I mean what is there to say. The song is iconic, it came out when he was like 17. It was everything and still holds up today. The production on it still just boggles the mind. That like eeeeee sound??? The spy music break in the middle of it?? And the video!!! Art. The fact that she did the back handspring during the laser bit really just made him go insane. Cultural reset from the pop queen of the time. Turned him into a bigger Britney fan. Everything about it is so good. Another nostalgic one, but !! it still holds up baby!! If this is played he is legally required to perform. 

El Mambo - Mon Laferte

Her voice is just?? out of this world. Laszlo is a huuuge fan of everything she puts out but this one really just took him out. Like she can hit some powerful vocals and that’s what the beginning seems like they’re counting up to, but when she came out of the gate just rapping about this guy who needs to get over himself, woooowie. And then she comes back for that mambo sound in the chorus and her beautiful voice going In, ugh. UGH. It’s so good!!! She is amazing and the instruments on this one really highlight that as well as making it groovy enough to dance around to as we say goodbye to toxic men and their overwhelming jealousy!!

Too Little Too Late - JoJo

I’m linking to the 2018 version because JoJo re-releasing all her music so that she can get the cash money from HER music is...stunning, amazing, love her and love that for her. This song was yet another cultural reset. And you know what, she just got better. Her vocals kick ass and the lyrics are still just as good as they were when they first came out. That high register run she does toward the end??? Okay?? go off!!! Another song about a wonderful lady kicking a man out of her life and becoming better for it. also she JUST came out with a Christmas album so go stream it. 

Endless - Frank Ocean

Now this is the whole album because, honestly, that’s how it’s supposed to be listened to. There’s also the visual element that you’re supposed to watch while listening, but since that’s like no where to be found since Mr. Ocean’s people snatched it all up from the internet unless you want to buy it off Apple, this is all we get to work with. Which is fine, honestly. ANYWAYS, this whole album is just so beautiful. And no one really knows the full story behind where it came from or why Mr. Ocean made it, and that’s a whole over layer as to why Laszlo adores it!! Not only is the music stunning but the mystery surrounding it gives him life. Frank Ocean is another artist that he could press random on the entire discography and be happy with whatever decided to play, but THIS album is his favorite from the man. It may seem like the outtakes from Blonde but to Laszlo, they all feel intentional. It’s like peaking into a sketchbook versus the novel of Blonde, and that appeals to him!! There is a certain effort that needs to be put in to listen to it by finding it. So it’s that little bit of extra artistry that makes this album hit different than the others, plus the songs, though some very VERY short, are all GREAT. Every song has this sort of improv feeling almost? but feel effortless like all his other music. Some of them are really short, just snip bits of a song, but they don’t feel that way with how they flow together and cut one another off and it’s just a weird entity of music that feels fleeting and yet...endless. 

[asdamagicbiscuits]

Theatre Highlights 2019

My Top 11 Theatre Highlights and Moments of 2019 (in no particular order other than roughly chronological.)

Let's get stuck in!

Panto at the Palladium

So my first theatre trip of the year saw me head off to Panto land at the Palladium to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was great to see Danielle Hope on stage again and she was the perfect Snow White. Massive shoutout to Simeon Dyer who was ace as one of the Dwarfs in the show, it’s not everyday you get to see your pal on stage in their West End Debut, he did a brilliant job. The Palladium always delivers fantastic Pantos and I’m excited to see what their next one is!

Book Of Mormon

So Book Of Mormon was again one of those shows I wasn’t rushing to see, that is until Luke George went into the company. I had heard a lot of things about it and I was worried as I had been told if you get easily offended that I wouldn’t like it. I saw it and loved it. It was nuts and very tongue in cheek humour. Turn It Off is one of my favourite numbers in the show, the company are fantastic in it! Tom Xander as Elder Cunningham is pure magic. No other way I can describe his performance. He’s so cheeky and mischievous, the PERFECT Cunningham. Paired with Dom Simpson as Elder Price they are a dream team. You and Me (but mostly me) is such a joy to watch. It was also so lovely to watch Luke and see him on stage again. He is as brilliant as ever!! The Book of Mormon is playing at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London’s West End and it’s also on tour too!!!

Cursed Child - Year Three

I think I said this in last years post but Cursed Child combines two of my biggest loves Harry Potter and Theatre. The Year Three company were exceptional and I saw a huge array of covers. Martin Johnson, Danny Dalton, April Hughes, Jordan Bamford, Leah Haile and Susan Lawson Reynolds. I can remember all the shows when I got to see them and the little details of their performances. Also as #KeepTheSecrets is over I’m gonna talk about April as Delphi. I ADORE April as Delphi. Like hands down my favourite interpretation of the role. Delphi is so sweet and then BAMN. That switch is flicked and her true intentions come out but even then April brought such a warmth to her that I found myself really sympathising with Delphi. She’s just a very misunderstood character and I just wanted to give her a hug. On the other side April’s interpretation of Myrtle is ICONIC!!! That giggle she does in the moment after Scorpius ask if everything’s going to be okay? And Albus replies going of course it is. Pure brilliance!! Also I have to mention the fact I FINALLY got to see James McGregor as Draco. It happened gang. I don’t know how I managed to get to see him three times, still blows my mind as I was worried I wouldn’t get to see him once but I did. It actually happened. ‘Twas beyond brilliant in every sense of the word and well worth the wait, exceptional performances!

Shitfaced Shakespeare

Another fantastic season for those boozey Bard loving beans! The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet in London and Midsummer Nights Dream on tour. It’s always a joy to see them perform on stage. For those of you who read last years Highlights I can confirm that I broke the curse. I got to see Saul Marron Compère THREE times!!! He also was the drinker for the show of Midsummer I saw in my hometown on the tour. It was lovely to revisit my first show I saw them do, plenty of laughs and so much fun! Bring on next season for more Shakespeare, laughs and most importantly - booze! 😜 haha

Venice Preserved/The Provoked Wife

Now my theatre highlights wouldn’t be complete without me seeing a show Natalie Dew was in. This year I got to see her in Venice Preserved and The Provoked Wife both at the RSC in Shakespeare land (Stratford Upon Avon). Both shows were absolutely fantastic and I gotta mention Sarah Twombly who really stood out in The Provoked Wife as Mademoiselle, stunning performance! I adored Venice Preserved so much I saw it twice! It was gritty, edgy and the whole production value was fantastic! It was also so good to see Nat in such a different role, it’s not everyday you get to see your stagey fav play a dominatrix. She was so badass, strong and the moment at the end of the play with the look the gave another character, I’m getting chills just thinking about it. Perfection!

Edinburgh Fringe

Each year my trip to Ed Fringe just gets better and better and this year was no different. I managed two trips this year and saw a whole host of different shows which were all incredible and I got meet some lovely people, both leafleting and chatting to a few of the actors before the show. I’ll leave a link to my Ed Fringe post so if anyone wants to check out what I saw give it a read - here. Massive shoutout to the Bodily Functions gang as they were super lovely, Friendsical cast, David Colvin was so lovely too, the Shitfaced Shakespeare and Showtime lot. I could go on. But I’m buzzing to see what Ed Fringe 2020 will bring!

The Indian Queen

When in France, go to the Opera? So this still links with theatre but I want to talk about Pierrefonds, it’s my blog so I can do what I want 😜. Firstly BIG shoutout to my friend Sej, the only person mad enough to agree to go to France with me to visit a castle and to see an Opera. So firstly Pierrefonds. I still can’t believe I got to visit the castle where they filmed Merlin. It’s been on my Bucket list for many years now so thrilled I finally got to tick it off. It’s a gorgeous place in the cutest little village ever, genuinely would move there if there was more theatre. 100% will be going back again and would recommend to anyone about going. I had a great time! The other part of my trip saw me go and watch my very first Opera, The Indian Queen! The Opera House in Lille is stunning, so so beautiful. Now I can’t comment on what happened at the beginning as I was raging at the subtitles being in French, it wasn’t until it was 10/15 minutes in that I realised it was all sung and spoken in English. (yep. I am that dumb and yes it took me that long 🙈) I loved how they had the screens move around in the background with the opera on. It had been prefilmed and all the actors were in costume whereas the actors were all in blacks performing it in front of the screens live. As a first venture into the world of Opera, wasn’t what I was expecting at all but I really loved it. It was also so great to see James McGregor on stage again too!! He’s very good!!

Fiddler On The Roof

Wow. Just wow. I was completely blown away by Fiddler On The Roof, the set was gorgeous and how the company went through the auditorium felt so natural. You really felt like you were in Anatevka and part of the community. The whole company were phenomenal!! Andy Nyman as Tevye delivered one of the best performances I have ever seen from any West End Lead. His vocals and comic timing were on point!!! Maria Friedman as Golde played really well opposite Andy’s Tevye, they are a formidable duo. I’m so happy I was able to see them on together. Molly Osbourne as Tzietel and Joshua Gannon as Motel really stood out, stunning performances. Hands down the best show I saw this year without a doubt and I wish I could go back in time and relive it!!

Mary Poppins

Now Mary Poppins is so very dear to me. The movie is an absolute classic, a timeless piece but I had never seen it live on stage before. I had my tickets booked since January when they went on sale and it did not disappoint when I finally got to see it in November. Charlie Stemp was a brilliantly charming Bert and Zizi Strallen was, excuse the pun, ‘Practically Perfect in every way’ as Mary. I sobbed my way through the show and when Zizi flew up over the audience at the end of the show I was in bits. The best way I can describe it is when you love something so much and your just full of nostalgia and emotion and that’s how it came out. Step In Time, Feed The Birds And Practically Perfect were all highlights for me. I have so much love for the whole company for delivering a phenomenal show and I can’t WAIT to return to Cherry Tree Lane once again next year. Although hopefully I will be able to get through the show without crying next time. Haha. Mary Poppins is currently playing at The Prince Edward Theatre in London’s West End.

Dear Evan Hansen

Now I had to be the only person in theatreland who wasn’t rushing to get tickets or proper hyped for it. It was one of those shows for me which I was like - I’ll see it eventually but I’ll let the rush of people pass and I’ll go when it’s all died down. Then the cast got announced and I was okay. I need to see it and I need to see it in previews as I need to see Rupert Young on stage again. Thankfully one of my best friends Johanna was desperate to see it when she was over in November and she managed to sort us tickets. (Thanks Chummy. You’re the best. Love you) It generally was such a phenomenal experience, the audience was so quiet and the only sounds you could hear were the quiet sniffs of people crying. You could hear a pin drop and I don’t believe I will ever experience anything like that ever again. That’s great Anne but why has it made it into your highlights? Don’t worry. I’m getting to that gang 😜 haha. The whole cast were phenomenal. Sam Tutty was flawless as Evan, I connected immediately with him. I was sold and invested from the beginning. The fact there is only 8 people on stage for the whole show blows my mind. Like WHAT?! Outstanding performances from all. In particular Mr Rupert Young as Larry. Now the only thing I knew about the show was that You Will Be Found closes the first act. That’s all I knew, didn’t read up on it or listen to the soundtrack before hand. I went in completely blind! Now You Will Be Found starts and I can hear people crying and I’m sat there thinking. This is great. I haven’t cried at this. Brilliant. The thing which broke me and had me sobbing was when Rupert Young broke down and cried during You Will Be Found. That is what got me and I can relate so much to it. How I view it is that Larry has delayed grief and that happened to me personally so it really struck a chord with me. I’m basically a convert and this is a piece of theatre everyone needs to see and I can see it running for a very long time in London. Dear Evan Hansen is playing at the Noel Coward Theatre in London’s West End and if you haven’t already, GO BUY A TICKET!!

Rage But Hope

I was very lucky to be able to catch this show at Ed Fringe this year so I was thrilled I was able to make it in to see it again during its London run in November. I stand by everything I said before and it was fantastic to see the development of the piece, which is a current and important issue we all should focus on. The whole company delivers stunning performances and I adored the addition of Matt’s characters monologue. I felt it tied together what he said in a conversation with James earlier in the piece and it gave much more depth to his character. The Layla’s List monologue remained one of my favourite moments in the play and goes to show the importance younger generations have and that they are far wiser than their years suggest so not to under estimate them. Let’s preserve this world for many more generations to come. The writing is stunning and hats off to Stephanie Martin for an incredibly well written play. The scene at the end of the play was new for the London run and I felt it really hammered home the message. Tell the truth. Act Now!

So that pretty much wraps up 2019’s Theatre and what a year it was.

2020 - a New Year, a New Decade and I can confirm a lot more Theatre adventures.

Thanks for reading, make sure to come back next year for my 8th Theatre Highlights (that is MAD!!) to find out what I got up to!

Until next time, cheerio!

[malicerewatchesdoctorwho]

The Highlanders - Episode Three

Written by – Elwyn Jones and Gerry Davis Director – Hugh David Producer – Innes Lloyd

Episode Three

(“Slave labour, that’s what we’re going to be.  Slave labour!” – Ben to the others on the ship about what Trask is planning for them.)

Likes

- Ben making friends on the ship.  You need all the help you can get, Ben. 

- Polly being happy about being given women’s clothes from Kirsty, as the last time she was in the past she had to wear men’s clothes.  Polly was the one who liked fashion, if I remember.  Fashion, partying and being good at her job. 

- ...Okay, just putting up a general tab here for Polly.  I love Polly in this whole story so far, except for that time she tried to steal Kirsty’s ring.  She’s having a great go at it this time.  This woman gets shit done!  She hasn’t panicked and at times I swear she’s enjoying herself.  And she flirts with Ffinch.

- Perkins.  I don’t know, I just find him oddly adorable.  He actually kept the girls safe by keeping them at his table playing cards (though he did threaten to give them to the guards if they didn’t play cards...that likely may as well have happened regardless.) Also, he’s so...submissive and gullible.

- The Doctor deciding no is a great time to nap.  While also coming up with a plan to save the Ben and the guys he is with.  That’s some sort of type of multitasking, lol.  He then goes on to steal things to help save Ben and the others from slavery/plantation work/certain death by hanging or flogging.

Dislikes

- Trask.  So, he IS a pirate.  He was the First Mate until he stole the Annabelle from her Captain, who is now as much a slave as the rest of the prisoners on board.  That sucks. 

- Umm, why oranges when Polly wasn’t even sure she’d be able to sell oranges?  Did Kirsty just decide on getting oranges and Polly asked for fruit, or did Polly ask outright for oranges?

- Did Perkins hear the quiet conversation Grey and Trask had about whipping the prisoners to death once they get to Barbados?  Uh, I hope not...

- Grey.  Wow, I am now beginning to think you would like to be tied up and stuffed in a cupboard and gagged by Trask...for fun.  Or the other way around.  These two deserve each other.

- Wait... Did they just throw Ben overboard using ropes?  Didn’t they shove someone off a plank last episode?  What?  Why not make him walk the plank?  You can still tie his hands together.  Heck, even his feet.  Make him hop to his death.

Awesome

- Never said it last episode, but going to put it again for this one.  The bagpipes being played for background music.

- You get a look inside the ship this time, and yep, I am pretty sure with better looks, I would love that set.

- The clothes.  You get a real good look this time around at Ffinch’s uniform, the Doctor’s old woman look and the Sergeant too.  Haha, they usually do well with costumes in past episodes.

Shitty

- It’s missing.  You get quite a few good telesnaps in this one, so you can see the characters properly though for once, yay.

- We don’t see much of the barn at all except some wood from outside it is made of and a hay bale.  Boo.

In Conclusion

Again, I really enjoyed this episode and wish it was not a recon. 

I am loving Polly in this serial.  Ben is the damsel in distress.  Kirsty is going along with all the plans and surviving because of it.  The Doctor is a badass who knows it.  Jamie is...I think he just signed on for the plantation work.  I am enjoying Polly having power over Ffinch and Perkins is always fun so far.

I don’t like Grey or Trask.  Is it wrong that I am low key shipping those two together? 

All up, I really wish I could see this in motion, because this serial would be great that way.  It’s such a shame the recon isn’t the best quality.

Body count – 0 that I see.  Ben was just chucked overboard but he doesn’t die, so he can’t be added to the tally.

[mybukz]

Poetry Review: May All Beings Rock by Lawrence Pettener

Title: May All Beings Rock Author : Lawrence Pettener Publisher : Lulu Genre: Poetry Format: Paperback, 76 pages Price: USD 9.19 Released:November 2017 Reviewer: Leon Wing

“Poetry never has reason to rhyme though not many things are true all the time.”

The poet of this resounding collection of poems is such a tease, with those first lines of “A Couplet or Two on Duality”. As a reader who has grown past reading rhyming poems, I find poetry only has reason to rhyme when it wants to make connections. Which is what that second line is all about.

Yet another tease comes in the way of the poetic lamentation to Ted Hughes, “The Suppression of Poetry”, in which Lawrence howls his sorrow over the death of the man who IS poetry personified.

The despair is such that he writes:

“Poetry is dead – long live poetry! As drama and fiction move in on its territory, poets lay down pens and start barking —far too few poets to pacify me. Poetry is dead – long live poetry!”

But fear not, reader of this review, as far as this reviewer is concerned, poetry is alive and kicking in the form of this exceptional collection of poems.

In “The Heart of Sadness and the Start of Hardness”, even though “we tear up and trample the invitation”, don’t trample Lawrence’s invitation to read this rollicking verse, which repeats lines to create parallelisms of sounds and rhythms, because in each stanza, “each moment a tremendous celebration”.

You might have heard or read about out of body experiences. Lawrence’s take on this is so visually, rhythmically and graphically accessible in “Losing a body”.

“Once, in Katmandu, your mouth flew open and a spirit entered. You woke with a gash above your eye, recalling nothing.”

The narrator only got back into corporeality, when “.. he flattened you with one good punch to give you back your body, and that kind cut.”

Lawrence has not only this knack of placing lines into formations of sounds, he sometimes manipulates the grammar of a line, by eliding an anticipated word, as in “Brightloaded”:

“You walk out alone, listening the park; lines of trees run right through you.”

The omission of the expected preposition after ‘listening’ is justified when you read the next stanza and experience the sensation of trees rushing right at you with the ‘r’ alliteration in three words, and into you, with the near rhymes of the ending two words.

In another instance of skewed grammar, he is not forging a deliberate error. In “So Much for Common Sense”, he overhears a young man on a phone say “There’s so much people.” But he is aware that “that young man on his mobile/had been completely correct”.

In “This Tap Behaviour”, even though the ‘psychotic neighbour’ is always banging at his taps, when that one time he isn’t, it is practically music to Lawrence’s poetic ear:

“…there was no noise coming through, just this plangent song of water, a plumbed release of pressure. A long, pining whine keened high through our shared pipes like sacred music.”

From his travels around the world, Lawrence writes not only about 'pipe’ music, but also exotic Mongolian punk bands, like “Yat Kha”, who covers rock classics using goat-hair violins. And, he hobnobs with some of the best poets, like John Burnside, in “Drinking John Burnside’s Beer”. And, he praises the ubiquitous British fast food, the chips, in “In Praise of Chips”.

I love the joke in “Subterfuge”, where dinner guests thought they’d witnessed evidence of a murder when a knuckle pokes out from a dish Lawrence copied from a TV chef. He writes again about food, in “News from Europe”, about untypical and unusual concoctions of European chocolates. Still more on chocolates in “Seventy Percent”, about “chocolate anthology” from a supermarket that are “bittersweet as good poetry. The taste/for bitterness comes later on in life.”

There are a couple of poems about music. His take on it can be irreverent but funny. In “We All Need Support”, Lawrence sort of pokes fun at the 'gravel drawl’ of a famous singer 'Bob’. Years later after coming out from his concert, he and his friends “.. found a busker sitting on the ground as in a festival field, playing clear, authentic versions of Bob’s songs. Not only that, he knew how to talk. We adored him. He spoiled it for one of my friends though, a lifelong Dylan fan, by looking up and smiling.”

The last lines make me laugh out loud.

In “Classic in Three Movements”, the poem is not so much about the music but about the movements, but not as what a musician would assume. The movements are physical ones seen or spied upon, not heard, at windows. In another piece, he writes about Deep Purple, but not as how a fan would have liked. He also writes about Bjork, in “Bjorkquake”, imagining how the Icelandic musician would have reacted if she “…had found the perfect bass-note, the earth-deep sound that Odin wrote”

Other subjects Lawrence touches on include crafty magpies with their eyes on his bike, meditation and cats, more poems about cats, their squealing love-making, cat flaps, a few poems about cycling, about locking heads with a driver, gate crashing wedding parties, about first love and the first kiss, about a specific part of a woman’s body, sensitive noses, about past loves, and about working in a mental ward,

In poems about his travels he shows us the vista of the world from his poetic point of view: a funny poem about wandering into a club thinking it was a cafe, an interaction in a launderette with a cleaner from Sarajevo; observing the Basilica of St Maria ad Martyres; eating in Rome, where an Italian word he overheard makes him think of Freud; about flamenco; tasting yoghurt at the Damascus Gate; and stomach pains while traveling in India.

His foray into haiku elicits some astounding revelations about how we communicate today, and about reincarnation.

In his pieces about meditation and other related matters, he ponders about “who you weren’t in all your past lives”. In one amusing piece, thieves broke into a Zen centre and got away with nothing. In “Sutra Neti”, he shows us a sort of yoga one would not imagine could be done: “through the closed left nostril,/pushing softly to penetrate/the swollen lip at the nasal root”.

He has a wry sense of humour. In “Wild Life, April, England” he tells a beggar, “Change? Yes please, love,/I’ll change into a butterfly.” Meeting friends in “Hope & Anchor”, he says, “I hate endings,/putting off the moment when one will kill/the others off with glib goodbyes”.

When he gets serious, he writes with a poignancy which makes you gulp at the sensitivity of the lines. Like in “Doing Tai Chi with My Father”: “My father is horizontal, his cheeks/massive and sagging. The coffin lid stands up/against the wall. It is a small jolt/to see my own name, something we shared”. Especially when that first stanza runs on down to the the next, with its line, “on the coffin lid..” In “Kreuzberger”, we see Lawrence and his brother Ged outside a fast food place, looking at a drunken old man. You’d think the pathos is all about people like the drunk. No, it is not; not until you read up to the very last two lines in the poem. The last line has only two words, but the pathos hits you full on as the wide-sounding vowels in the first syllables of the two words thin to shorter 'e’ sounds, and the “f” sound thickens with the 'v’.

His departing poem is the longest piece. In “Nine Cemetery Contemplations”, he mulls over the death of a kitten, the death of birds in the hands, or rather, paws, of a cat, teenage fascination with a French teacher, having an accident, someone dying in the tsunami, more reflections about his brother’s passing, visiting his father for the last time, buying a Buddhist book for his dying father, and finally the last and the ninth piece, which is so worth quoting in full, here:

“When you were birthed you cried, and your whole world was overjoyed. When you die, we mourn while you may find the great liberation – or just be glad to be reborn.”

*

Lawrence Pettener works full-time as copy-editor, proofreader and writer, with recent and forthcoming book reviews and artist interviews in The Star (Malaysia) and Juliet.com. As Kwailo Lumpur, he writes comic material about Malaysian life, food especially. Three original poetry books are due out in 2019.

Link to the book’s website: www.lawrencepettener.com/mayallbeingsrock Link to stores: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/lawrencepettener https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?keywords=may+all+beings+rock&productType=917504

[cecilspeaks]

117 - eGemony, part 1: “Canadian Club”

The suffocation of the ego.   The eternal silence of the void. Faceless, yet screaming. And now serving orange wine on tap.

Welcome to Night Vale. 

Listeners, we have a new sponsor! Our show is brought to you by – money. When purchasing items, please consider using money. It’s exchanged universally in place of transactions with actual value. Money is available in handy ones, fives, sixes, eights, and now twenties. [very fast] Money may be habit forming, symptoms may include (avarice) [0:03:21], lack of introspection and, frequent substitution of the phase “intelligent” for “wealthy”. Please ask your doctor if money is right for you and nod with considerable vigor when your doctor asks if you think money will complete you.

We have a visitor who I’m just now learning about. I’ve been handed a note by my new intern Gustav. Gustav says Station Management has ordered him to bring this guest immediately to the studio. Gustav, are you missing an eye? Uh, Gustav is nodding. OK. Uh, let’s see. The note says, it says to please welcome... Oh. What?! Wow! I mean, WOW! Gustav, is this real? OK, it is my honor and my privilege to welcome to the show – Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: Hi!

Cecil: Wait you’re not the Hugh Jackman, right?

Hugh: I like to think I am.

Cecil: Yeah, you’re not.

Hugh: But my children think I’m the real Hugh Jackman, so..

Cecil: Your children are wrong. But go on Mr Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: My name is Hugh Jackman, and-

Cecil: [muttering] Hmm but not the Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: Here’s my card.

Cecil: Oh. Hugh’s business card is a hologram he’s projected straight into my fingers. Says he’s the senior vice president in charge of “dreamfluencing” at.. ee-Gemini?

Hugh: It’s pronounced “ee-Gemonee”.

Cecil: Oh so it sounds just like he-

Hugh: I’m here to solve a funny little mystery. I just need to uh, open my briefcase here. Take a look at this.

Cecil: Oh, well that’s a Playboy magazine.

Hugh: Yes! December 1969. It had the pictorial on Bond girls in case you don’t remember.

Cecil: Oh I can see that. Ooh and there’s also a feature on architect Mies van der Rohe.

Hugh: I’ll take your word for it, Mr Palmer. I only read Playboy for the advertisements like this one: the one for Canadian Club.

Cecil: OK uh listeners, Mr Jackman is showing me a full page ad that features six people hiking in dense-looking woods, and two of them are carrying a sling of some sort and in the sling is-

Hugh: A case of Canadian Club whiskey!

Cecil: Uh huh. Um the headline reads, “On October 13, 1969, we hid a case of Canadian Club deep in the Amazon jungle. Here’s how you can find it.” Oh let’s see! Well this is actually quite entertaining, there are clues and maps and, is that an acrostic?

Hugh: It is an acrostic, very good Mr Palmer! It’s a clue to where the case was buried. Now from 1967 to 1973, Hiram Walker Distilled Spirits TBA Canadian Club ran a contest where they hid 21 cases of Canadian Club whiskey throughout the world, from the densest alleys of Jakarta to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the cable car tracks in San Francisco, on cobblestoned streets in London, under 30 feet of water on the Great Barrier Reef. They ran ads with clues about how to find them, and find them the people of the world did! Every single case was recovered.

Cecil: That’s remarkable.

Hugh: Mr Palmer. We hid a case under the ice caps of the North Pole, and people found it. we dropped one on Mount Everest..

Cecil: [clears throat, mutters] Mountains. So why do you think people wanted to find them so badly?

Hugh: As far as we can tell, it has to do with people’s desire to have alcohol. Ironically, it sank the contest. People weren’t buying Canadian Club. They figured that it was way cheaper and more fun to get a yacht and sail to the Cayman Islands and snorkel under the security fences of the International Monetary Fund and then you know like, remove a case from the International Monetary Fund’s Mom’s poolside refrigerator, and that’s exactly what happened to case number 17. So sales plummeted, but later, Hiram Walker merged with (--) [0:07:21], which was acquired by Bacardi Constellation brands, which is now an acquisition of our little tech startup, eGemony!

Cecil: Now excuse me but what does eGemony do?

Hugh: We dreamfluence!

Cecil: [long beat] …Got it.

Hugh: It turns out there’s one further case of Canadian Club. It’s been hidden for over 40 years. Right here in Night Vale! Here’s the ad. This is the November 1973 issue of Playboy. Go on, read it.

Cecil: Um, “on August 30, we hid a case of Canadian Club in Night Vale. Here’s how to find it.” But, Mr Jackman, the rest of the ad is blank.

Hugh: We at eGemony after some internal discussion, believe that might be why the case was never found. There seems to have been some kind of event at the printers that month. Fran Lebowitz’s interview with progressive rock band Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman is perfectly fine for its first 37 pages, but then devolves into a series of umlauts. Little Annie Fanny, generally a lighthearted and [chuckling] adorably misogynistic comic strip, was just panel after panel of…

Cecil: ..umlauts.

Hugh: And Mr Palmer, look at the pictoral on men’s golf pants.

Cecil: Aaaagh…

Hugh. Yeah.

Cecil: Ooooooooh.

Hugh: I know, we’re not really sure what happened there. Further, you’ll see that every cartoon has the same punchline.

Cecil: Oh yeah. Uh, here’s a bride on her wedding day and her mother is telling her… “It’s under Cecil’s desk”?

Hugh: Same punchline is on page 33 with the desert island, and page 74 here with the cowboys at the saloon.

Both in unison: “It’s under Cecil’s desk”!

Cecil: That is so odd! So Mr Jackman, why does eGemony want to find his case of liquor?

Hugh: We thought it would be.. fun. Can I look under your desk?

Cecil: Why?

Hugh: The case is under your desk.

Cecil: Yeah, but this desk wasn’t even here in 1973.

Hugh: So you’re telling us - me - no?

Cecil: Well I’m telling you to ask Station Management.

Hugh: Oh, I will!

Cecil: I-I-I mean they’ll make you fill out a form, and they can also create fire with their minds. Also they’ve eaten people before for way less. Hey Gustav? Gustav, come in here and show Hugh what Station Management did to your eye.

Hugh: Oh my!

Cecil: Oh God..

Hugh: That is disgusting.

Cecil: Ugh, it’s getting wor- [gags] OK, that’s enough Gustav.

Hugh: Oh. I am prepared. [ahem] I’m familiar with your Station and Management and not afraid of them. Eunice, Lily, Agatha, DeMarcus and Chad, old friends of mine.

Cecil: Who?

Hugh: Have you never learned the names of your supervisors, Mr Palmer? You need a team building retreat. I’ll be back. You haven’t seen the last of me.

Cecil: Yeah well you aren’t even the real Hugh Jackman!

I don’t trust that man. I need to figure out what to do next. We’ll be back after this.

[serene voice] Life is meaningless. There are no guiding principles, nor rewards, nor punishments for how to live. Just flashes of pain or joy, which are only neurotic messages, not actual experiences. Even pondering why we exist is a rudderless journey. So consciousness is a means to no end. The Sheriff’s Secret Police would like to acknowledge that hearing this will ruin your day.

However, they are further authorized to announce that nothing we have heard about nature describes a process that occurs without purpose. We can point to a fish’s fin and understand what function it serves. A monkey’s fur, a starfish’s many arms. The acorns in your uncle Simon’s branchy beard that explode outward as stabbing bristles whenever uncle Simon experiences fear. They all serve a purpose. So it’s possible that consciousness developed for a reason larger than consciousness itself can conceive of. The function of your mind is literally beyond comprehension. Which means that awareness, pursued to its limits, only makes you aware of your helpess ness. You are without power in this life. Except when you purchase items by using – money. This has been brought to you by – moneyyy.

We are back and – I’m in a jam. I mean I don’t trust this “Hugh Jackman” nor his company. I mean after what StrexCorp did to our town, I’m a bit wary of any business conglomerate. Although eGemony does seem different, friendlier. But what is this thing with looking under my desk? I’m not sure I should even look under my desk, I mean what if I find it? what if I don’t find it?

Every time I’v ehidden under my desk, I’ve closed my eyes and for good reason! I’m so distracted I lost my notes and now I don’t even know what the news was supposed to be! And Gustav went to go by some cotton balls and anti-bacterial spray for his missing eye. Um.. [rustles papers] Well, I mean honestly I’ve never really looked at any of these magazines before. I mean, Playboy was for other boys and girls. Uh, interesting. Listeners, did you know that Playboy magazine has a bunch of pictures of women across various careers with in-depth profiles on their lives? I did not know this. yeah there’s a whole pictoral on this issue of all the women who have ever played James Bond, in full costumes! Oh my god, look at these smart tuxes and pistols and one of them’s on a motorcycle!

In the middle of a magazine, there’s even a foldout photo of a woman in coveralls and a hard hat, leading a volunteer construction crew who’s building houses in a hurricane-ravaged Nova Scotia. Oh, and on the other side of the foldout, there’s a Playmate questionnaire. Let’s see, her turnoffs include “impatient people and tick bites”. You know, I agree with that. And her turn-ons include “groovy people, good food, overwhelming feelings of dread, chanting, and all hail the Glow Cloud”. All hail the Glow Cloud! Yes! Uh, the playmate’s name is Missy Wilks. Missy Wilks?! Could that be the Missy Wilks who lives over on Kestrel Street here in Night Vale? I mean, they do have similar eyes and tendrils. I wonder if it’s possible that she knows where the case of Canadian Club is? Well let’s see. [dials] M-I-S-S-Y-W-I-L-K-S.

[phone signal]

Missy: Hello?

Cecil: Hello, is this Missy Wilks? This is Cecil Palmer from the radio station. It’s a little hard to explain why I’m calling but-

Missy: Have you looked under your desk?

Cecil: Oh, not yet. Should I? I mean I kind of don’t want to.

Missy: Cecil. I’ve been waiting for this phonecall for over 40 years. You must look under your desk. The future of Night Vale depends on it.

Cecil: Have you been doing anything else?

Missy: Pardon?

Cecil: 40 years.

Missy: Well, no not really. Raised a family. Shot a guy once. But you’re stalling, Cecil.

Cecil: I’m not stalling! Bu-but you know, we really should get to today’s weather.

["Lost Everything" by Mary Epworth]

Cecil: And we’re back.

Missy: Have you looked under the de-

Cecil: No, I’ve not looked under my desk!

Missy: Come – on -, Cecil!

Cecil: Wait, why does Mr Jackman want this so badly?

Missy: Ugh! It’s why they put cases everywhere on the planet! They knew that leaving an item in place long enough allows it to absorb the spirit of the area. That case is now infused with the soul of Night Vale. No one actually recovered those other cases. eGemony recovered them after they bought all the other parent companies of Canadian Club. They’re going to send out one of their corporate prize contestant sweepstakes buzz marketing street teams to dreamfluence anyone who stands in their way. If eGemony finds it before you do, they will drink Night Vale’s soul, the same way they’ve drunk the soul of all the other cities!

Cecil: Wait, that makes no sense! They’ve recovered a bunch of these across the world. Are you saying that Manhattan, San Francisco, London, the Great Barrier Reef and the Cayman Island don’t have souls anymore?

Missy: Cecil.

Cecil: Oh my god, you’re right. OK then, alright, I’m going to look. I am looking under my desk. And I am findiiing.. nothing. I, there’s nothing under here!

Missy: Mm?

Cecil: Wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait oh, oh, oh, oh, oh wait put – a pushpin! A red one! And it-it’s holding an envelope to the underside of the desk!

Missy: Is it manila?

Cecil: Yes! And it’s addressed to me. There’s a letter inside. It’s written on papyrus and you can tell it’s very old because it’s written in cursive. It says: “Dear Cecil how are you? We are fine. We’re sorry we didn’t write earlier, but we were unlearning our destinies. We had to unlearn so many things. Small steps, then larger ones, then larger until we were almost flying, but not quite flying because we had to unlearn our expectations and then unlearn our limitations, so we gave up on flying. Because that turns out not to work regardless of your expectations and no matter what you unlearn. So we relearned what we needed to. we’ve relearned so many essential things, Cecil, about work and love and complaining about work and love and – oh! And we took the case of booze! If you wanna find us, you’ll know us by our sign.” And then it’s signed with a smear of foam. No wait, this isn’t just any foam it’s – hold on! [sniffs] [tastes] Cappuccino!

Oh my goodness, I have to tell Ms Wilks that..

Missy: I’m still here.

Cecil: Oh! Miss Wilks! I know where the case of Canadian Club is!

Missy: Where?

Cecil: It’s in the cave lands outside of town. It’s been taken by the baristas!

Missy: Cecil! This is the worst possible news! The baristas are no match for buzz marketing street teams. The baristas are gentle people, soft of spirit and jolly of countenance, whose dreams are only influenced by the purest of the loves, not crowd sourced manipulations. The baristas are rosy-cheeked and innocent! They gamble like lambs, Cecil! You’ve got to warn them!

Cecil: OK, I will, I will. Thank you, Miss Wilks! Listeners, this is terrible, I-I-I don’t know what to do! I don’t like warning people about things, I mean warnings lead to consequences and we all know how much I avoid consequences. In fact, there’s only one way to be thoroughly insulated from consequence and – that’s to accumulate enough money. But I don’t have any money. As Station Management recently switched their payroll protocol from cash to Twitter followers and Groupons for local spas, so I’m kinda screwed.

Think, Cecil, think. Think think think think think.

Stay tuned next to the sounds of chewing amplified to the threshold of pain.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night!

Today’s proverb: People always say “before I die”, as if they haven’t already begun the process. 

[thetimetravellinggaybar]

Chapter Two: New Arrivals

“This isn't the Royal Academy!” bellowed Oscar Wilde, bursting through the double doors of the bar. Baffled, he stood stock-still in the entrance. He held his chin high, eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you high?” A voice behind him asked.

“Sir? I fear your meaning is rather like an eel: difficult to grasp, and most likely quite vile.”

A whole host of voices now rose to protest. “Sod off, I'm trying to get out.” “Of course this isn't the bloody Royal Academy.” “You’re standing in the door.” “Maybe you've had enough for the night,” they called.

“I'm not drunk, what kind of a barbarian arrives drunk to his own reading? Now, if I don’t find the hall soon, I'm going to be late! Would someone be so kind as to direct me to – ”

“The Royal Academy? It’s over there,” someone sneered, gesturing towards the men's room. The man proceeded to elbow his way past Wilde, swearing as he tripped over his walking-stick.

“My goodness,” the poet gasped, before setting off, coattails flying, in the direction which the kind (albeit somewhat lacking in decorum) stranger had indicated.

He burst through the door, a genial smile on his face, “Good evening everyone, so sorry I'm late, I got a little – ”

He stopped in his tracks.

The room was small and grubby; something stank. A single man stood at one of the urinals, looking more than a little shocked.

“Oh… oh. I see.” Wilde turned on his heels and left in disgust, leaving the poor man to wonder.

He finally took the time to analyse his surroundings. There was music – of a sort – yet there was no orchestra. There were tables strewn haphazardly across the room, and a little further off an area over which multicoloured fires gleamed: they seemed to be electric lights, of incomparable force. They were in the shape of cannons, and projected their otherworldly glow from the bare beams on the ceiling. As for what the people were wearing – he had never imagined that one could wear so little in such bad taste.

They all seemed to be studiously pretending they weren't staring at him.

Ending his observations abruptly, Oscar sighed dramatically, rolled his eyes, and gave in: “Alright, alright, you got me! Who are you, where are you? Cyril? Did Bosie set you up to this? You know, it is quite extraordinary how you've set this up, but – ”

At this point, the crowd began to turn uncomfortably. There were hushed whispers. They seemed to be making a point of ignoring him.

“There are limits, and you are fast approaching them! You are testing my patience, whoever did this!… If this carries on any longer, I may miss my reading entirely. Miss Ambrose Green and her fiance will be there, I must be there to greet them… Where am I, what is this foul prank... and will someone please direct me to the Royal Academy!”

Wilde overheard a man whispering to another man. “I think he's serious. How many has he had? I thought he just walked in.” Outraged, Wilde glowered at the two. “Who do you think you are?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” the first man retorted.

“I am Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, winner of the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek Studies, Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize for Poetry, and the Rooney Prize for Literature, no less!”

Dead silence, followed by fits of laughter from all sides. Then all the bar's occupants returned to their drinks – all, except for one man. His attire, though too bland for Wilde's taste, was almost acceptable, with a bit of a preference for tweed; he approached Wilde, amazed.

“I don't believe we've been introduced, but your performance was breathtaking, an absolute marvel. You must be a big name in acting. In fact – I do think I recognise you. Your name is?”

“Acting, sir? Why, I haven't taken to the stage since my second year at Trinity. You must be mistaken.”

The man only chuckled. “Alright then. Admirable strength of – well, character, if a pun may be permitted.” He stuck out his hand. “Wystan Hugh Auden. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Enchanté.”

“A conversation with Oscar Wilde. God, will I have something to tell Erika about when I get home. On that note...” Auden hesitated. “At the risk of appearing, shall we say, a bit odd, I was wondering if you could tell me where we are?”

“I'm afraid I'm as lost as you are. Were you on your way to the reading as well?”

Auden glanced at Wilde, surprised at the tenaciousness of his ‘act’, but in no measure hesitant to play along. “I'm afraid I wasn't, but I’d have loved to go. Forever at the service of the great Oscar Wilde.”

Oscar's eyebrows shot up. “Well,” he began, “since I don't suppose I'll be getting to the Royal Academy anytime soon...”

“Are you serious?”

“Poetry is always serious.”

“You are incredible.”

Oscar flushed slightly. “Flattered. Shall we?”

But before he could so much as begin, a gasp was heard from nearby, followed by a yell:

“Oscar! My word, is that you? What on Earth are you doing here?”

“Oh, who's that?” Wilde turned in search of the voice – familiar, though he couldn't quite place it. His glance fell upon a face he knew well. “Walt! Walt Whitman! No, it couldn't possibly be! Why, I thought you were in New Jersey!”

“Well, so did I, until recently,” the American smiled. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where we are?”

“Not the faintest. No matter, though. Have you seen these lights? How marvellous!” Oscar waved broadly with his walking-stick, narrowly missing a tall girl with bright blue hair.

“Watch it!”

“So sorry. So many people, so little room,” the poet apologized; but the girl was already halfway across the bar. Oscar watched as she made her way onto the lighted arena, on which people seemed to be moving in tune with the music, in something akin to dancing – a form of it looking like a daring, though perhaps ill-considered, new invention of some sort of avant-garde.

He noted her fantastically high-heeled, glittering red shoes (an interesting statement for further consideration) as well as her absurdly short, skin-tight skirt (perhaps she had forgotten to put on her dress, and everyone had simply avoided mention of it out of tact?). Her hair baffled him; he wondered how they made such wigs. It looked so delicate, so full!

As he watched, she walked up to another girl, whose long, wavy dark hair almost concealed the sparse garments she had on underneath it: her attire was no less indecent than her friend's. The girl with the blue hair put an arm around her friend’s waist and kissed her on the lips.

Oscar turned away. He was beginning to have his doubts about the reputability of this establishment, although certainly it was like no brothel he had ever seen.“What an odd little place, don’t you think?” He remarked.

But the other two – Walt and this Auden fellow – were already deep in conversation.

“...and his Sphinx is brilliant, don’t you find?” Whitman was saying.

Oscar raised an eyebrow. Whose Sphinx? Could it be his own?

Auden was nodding, smiling. “Brilliant, of course… and so chilling. Such visceral detail… the understanding he has of the human condition, as it were - ”

“Oh, it isn’t a human poem! Certainly not!” Oscar broke in, only to be cut off again at the very offset of his diatribe. “The entire aesthetic of the mystical being wholly detached - ”

“The cholera epidemic in New York? Mystical?” It was Auden’s turn to look skeptical. Then he chuckled: “Or were you thinking of something else?”

Oscar stopped dead, reddening. “Oh, ah, yes. In fact I was. One of my earlier works went by the same name,” he mumbled after a moment. “May I inquire, then, as to which Sphinx you were referring to? Besides the Egyptian, of course...”

“Poe’s. During the dread reign of the Cholera, et cetera, et cetera. Have you read it?” Wystan was smiling now.

“Oh, Poe! Brilliant man! Although I prefer his poetic work - I’m afraid the value of the Sphinx as a political stylism is lost on me,” Wilde sighed. “Its terror has always been more spiritual than physical to me, if you understand.”

“I thought it was a grand metaphor myself,” laughed Wystan, “but to each their own.”

Oscar was becoming furious. He was the most influential literary critic of his century, if not his millennium. Nobody dared to disagree with him - much less to laugh at him.

Walt broke in before Oscar could come up with an appropriate reply. “This is rather abrupt, but are you familiar with the poetry of Richard Barnfield? He is a personal favourite of mine.”

“How incredible. I thought I was the last man on Earth who still read Barnfield.” Auden was easily distracted.

“Oh, I adore him.”

“Oh yes. A few of his especially - you have read Cynthia, I hope?” Auden’s eyes gleamed; his smile was wide. Both were emphatic, enthusiastic.

“Naturally.” Walt winked when he said this, a gesture Oscar couldn’t help but notice. Racking his brains, the Irishman managed to piece together a memory of this Cynthia: ‘the love of a shepherd to a boy’, he recalled. What treachery! What innuendo! Walt, pursuing this stranger - this infiltrator - before his very eyes…

Oscar decided to take matters into his own hands.

“And Marlowe, what of him? On the subject of the Bard’s neglected contemporaries,” he began, in his most pompous tone. “Edward the Second in particular has similar themes.”

“I never particularly enjoyed that one,” frowned Wystan. “I see what you mean, but it never really spoke to me.”

Oscar’s face drooped. This, truly, was ultimate rejection: the final proof that he had made a fool of himself in front of this most handsome, most articulate gentleman! He wanted desperately to make an impression. The compliments he had received for what Wystan had thought was acting had lit sparks in his soul, and he was unwilling to let them die. And yet everything he tried seemed to backfire, and he was at a loss for words: him! Wit of the nation! Pinnacle of eloquence! He had not felt such despair in decades!

Wystan, pitying the now visibly distressed Wilde, tried to make amends. “Obviously, it is still perfectly respectable in some interpretations... with many beautiful aspects... it’s just not really the kind of style I’m after,” he added. Oscar smiled weakly.

Whitman broke in. “I completely agree with you. Edward the Second is hardly a literary symbol. Even within Marlowe’s canon, it’s rarely recognized, and with good reason as well. To involve such themes in the tragic… it is barely a poem, never mind a love poem.”

“Don’t mind my wondering, but I didn’t know you read such things, my dear Walter,” Oscar commented, his manners crisp, his voice like a dagger coated in honey.

Walt shot Oscar a piercing stare. No words were exchanged, but both parties knew what this meant: “Back off, this one is mine!”

“Poetry is all about different interpretations. Neither of you is to say the other is wrong.” Wystan spread his palms, as in a plea for diplomacy.

The second Wystan had his back turned, Oscar bit his thumb at Walt.

“DO YOU BITE YOUR THUMB AT ME, SIR?”

“NO, I DO NOT BITE MY THUMB AT YOU, BUT I DO BITE MY THUMB!”

Wystan turned back, stared at both of them in turn, then nearly fell to the floor laughing. As the other two stared at him in horror, he slowly regained his composure, and looked at them, as if trying to decipher their intentions. Partly in jest and partly out of curiosity - still certain it was all an act - he lifted his hand to his mouth, and bit his own thumb at them both.

Complete silence. Then: Wilde punched Auden. Auden punched him back.

Wilde crumpled, doubled over, and sank to the floor, clutching his cheek.

It didn’t take long for Walt Whitman to decide where his allegiances lay. He grabbed Auden by his lapels.

“HOW DARE YOU! YOU, IN YOUR IGNORANCE AND YOUR CALLOUSNESS, HAVE INSULTED TWO MEN’S HONOUR IN AS MANY MINUTES; AND WHAT’S MORE, YOU HAVE INJURED A MAN. NO, WORSE STILL: YOU HAVE INJURED A BEAUTY. A MAN SO BEAUTIFUL AS OSCAR FALLS INTO THE REALM OF THE SAINTLY; IT IS A SIN TO TOUCH HIM,” he bellowed, enraged beyond measure.

Auden looked down at his opponent. Slowly, reality began to dawn on him. This was no act. Wherever he was, it wasn’t 1953. “I just punched… Oscar Wilde… in the face…”

Oscar stared at him, his face showing both confusion and anger. “What an absolutely fascinating observation. Are you quite certain of it?”

Oscar’s voice was cracking. His anger was fast dissolving, giving way to heartbreak. He really liked Wystan but couldn’t understand the sudden betrayal. A single tear ran down his cheek.

Auden, repentant, crouched down and sat next to his new friend, who had been lying on the floor since the blow. He kissed his forehead.

“Oh no, oh my god… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’d take offense. I just couldn’t believe you were real. I’m not from the same era as you are… do you understand?”

“I may as well say yes.” Oscar got up, dusted off his suit, then stretched out a kid-gloved hand to help Auden up.

In his relief, Oscar didn’t even notice Whitman staring at them, looking miffed. He refused to let go of Auden’s hand, and the two walked up to the bar.

“Do you know where we could find a place to stay for the night?” Auden asked the barman.

The barman gave them a knowing grin. “Sure! Step outside, turn to your right. Go straight down a couple of blocks, there should be a motel just on the left. They’re pretty decent.”

The two walked towards the door. As they left, Oscar whispered into Wystan’s ear, “What… is a motel?”

“Like a hotel, only cheaper. Perhaps not up to your standards, but it’ll have to do,” Wystan smiled.

Walt stared at them as they walked out, not quite crying but definitely not far from it.

[reminiscingdreamer]

Dual Destinies semi-stream-of-consciousness thoughts

So I finished Dual Destinies for some time now and I decided to write my stream-of-consciousness-esque (even though it was written after I finished the game, haha) thing. Beware of freaking out and spoilers!

I knew the jacket Apollo wore at the beginning couldn’t have been his but gawd, did it really have to hurt so much to find out it really wasn’t?

When Athena flipped that police officer right into Apollo! Whoo!

I like when Blackquill talks about the different prison inmates. I keep thinking at least some could be references to previous AA villains, but it’s been so long that I don’t remember a lot of them.  

Aaaaaaaah! Apollo is so cute! Especially his abashed sprite.

I cannot express how much I love Apollo’s “I’m unamused” face. It is the stuff of stories.

There’s… a distressing amount of typos, which is bad because it’s not as though it’s a bootleg or anything. Heck, there was even a whole segment of conversation with Jinxie which didn’t register in the dialogue log. I remember there was only like 1 typo in all the previous 4 games put together. What happened?

The whole division of Themis Legal Academy kind of confuses me. They have a division for lawyers, prosecutors, and judges, but… prosecutors are lawyers. I suppose it’s to draw a distinction between prosecutors and every other lawyer (defense attorneys aren’t the only lawyers to exist, despite what impression the game tries to give, after all. There are accident lawyers, civil rights lawyers, etc.) I guess it’s because prosecutors are government so it’s different and therefore needs a line to be drawn between? I don’t know.

So you’re telling me this entire school has only two faculty members? Really?

Aristotle Means’s grin is creepy but you don’t need me to tell you that.

Speaking of Aristotle, the whole reason he was caught was because his staff was lodged into Courte’s body to make it appear like Phoenix’s arm but he was carrying that staff when everyone met him at the lecture hall before the mock trial? So… how’s that possible? Did he have a spare staff?

Also, how did Means get the body to stay upright?

I got kind of excited when Robin could’ve possibly been a trans character. She did sort of turn out to be one in a way, I guess, just not in a way I expected :/

My favorite minor characters are probably Hugh and Starbuck (Clay doesn’t count because I don’t actually know all that much about him and I probably only like him that much because of his relation to Apollo and his character design.) I felt sympathy when Hugh revealed he wasn’t a genius and his true age. And Starbuck really did have what it took to go into space despite his fears.

I liked how Phoenix got angry at Ted for attacking Apollo when they were at the Detention Center. Phoenix, your papa bear is showing, haha. I liked it because it shows how Phoenix sees not only Trucy as family, but Apollo and possibly Athena too, so he got mad when someone attacked one of them.

I really disliked the dub in the main storyline (the dub in the DLC case was okay). Every time an animated cutscene played, I’d cringe because the dub sounds like the voice actors were reading off a script. The only dub I liked was Starbuck’s.

I literally screamed when Edgeworth appeared.

I hate his dub the most though.

Grown-up Pearly aaaaaaaaah!

So… I guess we’re not going to be learning about the secret Kristoph Gavin was unconsciously holding? I was kind of hoping to know what it was :/ I hope it’ll be addressed in a future game as part of a larger overarching thing and that they haven’t forgotten it. It’s good to at least have some information on what the black lock was at least.

They kept calling the bandages around Apollo’s eye an eyepatch, but it’s a bandage. Also it didn’t have to be that that long. Someone has a flair for the dramatic = 3=

I get that Apollo shucking his jacket is a symbol of shucking away his doubt and burdens but… that jacket’s still Clay’s! You don’t have to wear it but at least bring it with you!

Best lines of the game: “But what is faith without doubt? That’s why… I need to question her guilt!” There’s just so much in there.

I CAN’T BELIEVE FULBRIGHT(?) WAS THE CULPRIT OHMYGAWD I LIKED HIM AAAAAAAAAAAA

Not gonna lie, when the spy first revealed his Starbuck mask, I was throwing my hands in the air and rolling my eyes and going, of course. But thank gawd the spy wasn’t actually Starbuck.

So the real Fulbright died a year ago and was unidentified ever since. I’m just wondering how it could’ve taken a year to get his fingerprints to identify him.

The real Fulbright’s death also makes me sad because the spy’s impersonation is 100% accurate, which means that this would’ve been what the real Fulbright would’ve been like had he not been killed; a good guy who loves justice and would do anything to help people. The AA universe just lost a good man.

It was really freaky when the spy wore the mask of Phoenix.

Despite having murdered Clay and Metis, I can’t bring myself to hate the spy. He’s just so pitiful.

The dedication Blackquill had towards Metis and Athena. I mean, I could even see that he goes easier on Athena during the Themis trial. Sure he doesn’t hold back but when compared to when he went up against Apollo, he’s less strict.

Gawddammit! It was so adorable how Athena couldn’t tell the difference between robots and humans. But when she had the same line of reasoning for why she put her mother on the operating table thinking she could fix her it quickly became an oh gawd no moment. My heart. Help.

I find myself wishing really badly that Clay hadn’t died. I mean, I knew next to nothing about him except for the few snippets Apollo shared, but his death had hurt Apollo so much and it hurt me to see him hurting that I can’t help but ache for something that can never be. Plus, he seemed like a swell guy. I’m not sure if it’s better that we never get to talk to him in the game or not. Don’t know which would hurt less.

Which makes the final animated segment where Starbuck blasts into space so much more emotional for me, cringey voice-acting and all.

As I’m incredulously selecting Orla as witness, really? We’re really doing this again? Yes. Yes we are. Just like that parrot… NO I WILL NOT LET THAT GO. I’LL PROBABLY NEVER LET THIS GO EITHER.

The whole cross-examination with Orla was funny though.

The ending made me feel sympathetic and soft. It’s great.

But then how’d the blood get on Orla? I mean, if Shipley fell to his death in the show stage pool, that’d explain how it got on the rock, but Orla was never even lowered into that pool so… how?

My favorite moment in the entire game: When Apollo, despite truly wanting to believe in Athena, refuses to look away from his doubts and the evidence and blindingly having faith, choosing instead to try to seek answers for himself and look for help in Phoenix. Apollo truly is my favorite character.

[alyseinficland]

Little Things

*shows up several years late to a ship with starbucks*

Guess who just mainlined Downton Abbey in 6 days and now needs to write something? Me. The answer is me.

No Henry in this. I mean he exists somewhere but that boy just doesn’t show up for reasons that will become clear.

It’s the little things that build up over time. At no point does Mary think to herself that she is deeply in love with Tom Branson and wants to spend the rest of her life with him.

She just does.

They go to York to look for locations for Tom’s shop. Tom had made all the calls to the landlords so when he and Mary show up it’s “Good day Mr Branson, Mrs. Branson.” They see the rings on Tom’s and Mary’s fingers and jump to that conclusion. At the first location Mary corrects the man. At the second location Tom corrects the couple. At the third location Mary meets Tom’s eye and just shrugs.

They don’t exactly laugh about it later but they smile about it.

“I thought it would upset you.” Mary admits.

“I was more concerned about it upsetting you.” Tom counters with a twist of lips.

Neither of them brings it up at dinner, or breakfast, or really ever again but the memory sits in the back of their minds holding space.

When Robert and Cora want to break bad news to Mary they send Tom. No one ever expressly says “Tom is the only one Mary won’t snap at” but it’s understood by everyone. He breaks the news that Edith is pregnant and Mary behaves genuinely happy, sending a letter to her sister.

The simple fact is that Tom and Mary talk. Cora has her work at the hospital. Robert takes up gardening, converting a shed into a greenhouse for his plants. Tom and Mary are often just left together. It becomes habit, routine, to talk choices over with one another before discussing it with the family at large.

Mary with ink on her hand and a ledger book between them as they talk about costs and benefits of sheep. Tom with grease under his nails and a smudge on his shirt drinking wine in a pub so Mary doesn’t feel out of place, even if she has straw on her dress.

They eat most meals together these days. That was true before but now it's almost as if the set is Tom and Mary and then add on any other family members, before it was The Family.

“We ought to make a decision about Sybbie’s school.” Tom says it without completely knowing what he is saying. He thinks maybe he meant to imply the family as a whole, only it’s just Mary and George with him at the moment.

“I thought we had decided on the school in York, near your work.” Mary answers absently, busy helping George and Sybbie arrange a cast collection of wooden toys to fight in glorious battle.

“You had decided, I’m not so certain.” Tom clarifies.

“Please don’t make me state my case again, darling.” Mary huffs and then goes back to playing with the children.

Later the conversation sounds very…. Married, in Tom’s head.

Sybbie calls George brother at her birthday party. She is talking to someone from the village and states the matter very clearly for many to hear.

“My brother George is turning five soon.” Sybbie tells the woman.

“Is that so dear?” The woman doesn’t correct Sybbie because… well perhaps the woman isn’t clear either.

“My Mary is throwing him a party just like this for his birthday.” The woman smiles and gives a laugh but later Tom has to ask his daughter what that was about.

“George is your cousin, Sybbie darling, not your brother.” Tom reminds her as he dresses her for bed.

“But Papa, George and I are family and we live together. We should be brother and sister.” Sybbie twists her little lips at him, an imitation of Mary’s face when she wants something.

It’s a shocking thought. Everyone always talks about how much Sybbie looks like Sybil, and she does, but her mannerisms are all Mary these days.

“You are cousins, dear.” Tom continues.

“What if I wanted Georgie to be my brother?” Sybbie asks later as Tom is tucking her into bed.

“I would have to be married to Mary for you to be his sister.” Tom offers with a chuckle.

“Do that.” Sybbie smiles and nods with such confidence. “Mary can be my mama. I won’t mind.” Tom just kisses his daughter and prays that she doesn’t repeat any of this to nanny.

“It is very unsettling when the two of you do that.” Edith comments at dinner.

“Do what?” Mary asks her sister. They are visiting Edith and Bertie, to welcome the newest member of the family.

“Have entire conversations of meaningful eye contact across the table.” Edith supplies with a motion at Tom. “You are much better at it than Mama and Papa.”

“Yes, well Tom and I are in business together. It makes you closer than marriage.” Mary remarks with an airiness she doesn’t feel all the way through.

“What an interesting thought.” Edith muses. Across the table Tom catches Mary’s eye, asking with just his face what that was about. Mary purses her lips and raises her brows in response. Tom gives a soft laugh and goes back to speaking to the woman on his right.

“See.” Edith interjects into Mary’s thoughts.

They get on with life. Tom’s car business gets up and running smoothly. Mary adds sheep and goats to property. Sybbie starts attending school and George gets a tutor. Robert and Cora travel between Downton and Brancaster so often that they are rarely ever at home.

Tom and Mary form a unit. They do so many things together these days it’s hard to think of them as anything but a unit. Mary comes into York to have luncheon with Tom at least three times a week. Tom makes an effort to spend time with George if Mary is occupied. They go upstairs together most nights because they are the only ones at home. When Mary is off in the fields Barrow will give Tom the papers for the Abby, even though he isn’t the agent. Mrs Hughes has Tom help her with menus for two weeks while Mary goes to research dairy cows.

They pick Sybbie up from school together, each of them kissing her head and hugging the small girl. When it’s time for George to go away to school Tom is there along with Mary to see the boy off. Tom wraps his arm around Mary’s shoulders as she cries the moment George is out of sight.

They raise their children together and it doesn’t seem like anything much at the time.

There are men who come to Downton for Mary. Sometimes she meets them in London or Brancaster, sometimes they are old acquaintances from long ago. Every couple of months one man or an other will show up. If Robert and Cora are away then Grandmama, Cousin Isobel and Lord Merton are asked up to the house to keep the party more lively.

Many are never seen or heard from again. A few are lucky enough to return at what might be called a regularity. Tom talks to all of them because they seem him as a possible ally. Tom even likes a few of them who don’t look down on him or seem confused by his occupation.

“I think it’s time to make a spreadsheet.” Tom offers at breakfast the morning after one such evening. “To have an accurate list of all the suitors and their qualifications.”

“You joke but Cousin Isobel would love that.” Mary admonishes with a pointed fork. She still eats with completely perfect manners but in the past few years Mary has loosened up a great deal with Tom.

None of the suitors seem to stick around. Cora and Robert worry that Mary is lonely.

“Why would I be lonely?” Mary asks Tom in the car to York. She smiles at him and the other half of her sentence hangs silent in the air between them.

There is a woman in York who smiles at Tom. She works at the bank and walks past Tom’s shop on her way to and from work each day. On one occasion she ducks into the repair garage to get out of the rain and Tom offers her tea.

Her name is Ada Pramwell and she asks Tom to tea next Thursday. He says yes because he doesn’t have any appointments that day and he isn’t sure how to say no. Tom doesn’t tell Mary at dinner.

Next Thursday, while he is sitting down to tea with Ms Pramwell is when it finally all settles into a picture in his mind. Tom finds that he likes Ms Pramwell with her ambition and interests but when she smiles at him and leans forward across the table just a little his stomach drops.

She’s flirting, he realizes with a cold tingle down his spine. It’s wrong. Women aren’t supposed to flirt with him.

Because…..

Oh.

Tom doesn’t rush home to make some grand reveal. He spends three weeks in a state of semi shock until Mary yanks it out of him at breakfast.

“Are you going to tell me what’s troubling you or do I need to get Barrow involved?” Mary teases but Tom hears the real threat to involve their very nice (now) but devious butler.

“A woman flirted with me recently.” Tom admits before he can come up with a more complete answer.

“Tom, darling, if a woman flirting with you causes this much malaise we might need to take you to a doctor.”

“It’s not that,” Tom puts down his fork and wipes his hands on his napkin. “I realized something when she was flirting with me.”

“What’s that?” Mary raised inquisitive brows at him.

“I don’t want to be flirted with by anyone with the exception of you.” There, he’s said it.

Mary stops eating, setting her fork and knife down silently. She looks at him. Not looks, gazes. Not gazes, investigates and calculates. The moment hangs in the air and Tom thinks the whole world might be holding it’s breath.

“That is certainly something to consider.” Mary relents. Tom feels air in his lung again but know this is just the start.

Mary goes to Edith.

It’s a strange notion but Mary finds that the person she most wants to talk to about this is her sister. It might show growth on her part, that Mary seeks out the person she is sure will protest the most to this idea.

Edith is the picture of happiness, with her three children and adoring husband. The castle and rank barely seem to factor into their relationship as far as Mary can tell, unless it’s at a formal function of some sort or another.

“I am still not sure why you felt it so urgent to come see me.” Edith give Mary tea in the small library and Mary is grateful that Bertie and the children are not here for this moment.

“I’ve had a rather unexpected realization that came with an admission and I have come for your advice,” Mary pauses, “and perhaps for your approval.”

“I am now very concerned.” Edith sat down next to her sister and offered an air of worry and sympathy. They were what some might consider friends now, the distance helped keep them on friendlier terms.

“It has come to my attention that I am in love with Tom.” Mary’s voice is cool but her heart is bursting. “And that he returns the feeling.”

Edith is silent for a very long time. Mary drains her tea.

“Are you sure it’s love and not just the deepest of friendships?” Edith ask softly.

“Pretty sure.” Mary stands to refill her tea. “When suitors come I find myself hoping they will leave so I can get back to spending time with Tom. I want to see him first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I make plans with him in mind and strangely I think he makes plans with me in mind as well.”

“That sounds an awful lot like love.” Edith agrees.

“Does it? I’m not as convinced. I don’t feel deliriously happy the way I did with Matthew. I’m not sick with joy.” Mary sighs.

“I’ve loved a bit more than you have,” Edith begins. “You only ever really loved Matthew before this so take my word on this as a woman who has loved three men. It’s always a little different.” Mary looks at her sister, blatantly hopeful. “First loves are never repeated. You are allowed to have a second love.”

It’s not hard to convince the rest of the family. Robert puts up a stink for about a minute before he realizes that it means Tom will forever have to be the person to battle it out against Mary.

“God speed.”

“I am not a military vessel, papa!” Mary’s ignant huff just makes her father laugh.

The children are delirious with joy. Sybbie claps her new brother on the back excitedly.

“You are finally my brother.” She tells him.

“Please don’t say I told you so.” George sounds morose at having to listen to his sister gloat, but he hugs Tom tightly afterwards and whispers “I love you.”

When they kiss it doesn’t make the world stop, just their hearts pound a little bit faster. They both smile more. There is trust and understanding and respect. The rest seems to come so easily with those in place.

Tom doesn’t mind that some of them refer to him as Mr. Mary Crawley he is too busy with his car repair and sale business. Mary seems to enjoy correcting every one enough now that they have opened Downton for tours regularly.

“My name is Mary Branson and I shall be your guide for this tour of Downton Abby.”

[ulyssesredux]

Nausicaa

Her very soul. June that was why she just yearned to know what it is really. Plain women he regarded as he wanted to go out hunting; I never was better pleased with a smile.

Straight on her resolution rather than on Fred's. And when she put it back.

But everything was spoiled for the opulent. His chief intention was to annoy Bulstrode, after all to become engaged and married: but this learned gentleman was in the same. Butter and cream. Vincy family, you don't see her objecting to everything she takes out. See ourselves as others see us. Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was he after all, the old lady must have been a very handsome good-humored landlady, accustomed to the Church as more genteel? Van: breadvan delivering. Very likely. Very well, by Jove!

Glad I didn't tell you the money with you. Impetuous fellow! Watch! Smelling the tail end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in her mind; and on other mornings. Honour where honour is due. Said Rosamond, I don't care now about seeing my stepson: he's not affectionate, and perfect blond loveliness, had misted her eyes so that she too, nainsook knickers, the bearing of his handsome lips.

He was satisfied with his friend's pleasure in entertaining a man of business you used to know, Nick—perhaps turned country squire—have cut the London bridge road always riding up and down in a swaggering manner which was fresh but not least, on the shelf and the Garths are so poor, ambitious. Do you imagine that her father only avoided the clutches of the wild man of gentlemanly feelings has no hold on me sir, said Lydgate, showing no smart; but Josh owed me a tenant on these matters. Maiden discovered with pensive bosom.

Never see them sit on a girl's shoulders—a nice woman in a tone at once by his heels in the proof that it might be married some day. Then ask in the valuation when I was sent to you, by-and-by, Susan. What is it Mr. Plymdale's book? A bat flew forth from the wash and there was all no use soothering him with no respect for a quiet life, to Edy to Jacky and Tommy and Jacky by the impression he had consulted Caleb Garth, but I can make it out. Hm. Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was now advising the bailiff, but felt ready for any sacrifice in order to arrive at painful knowledge; but there was something on my mind.

Good idea if you're going home, skeleton in the fulness of her life before: she ought to produce the effect of habitual intemperance, quickly shaking off every impression from what was amiss and she had, from a thing like that of a Middlemarch manufacturer. Earth for instance those others. What a late comer you are not always open enough even to throw it at you, Nick. Mamma had given him a hundred pounds. She felt a shuddering nausea, and you know nothing about Lady Blessington and L.

Always off to a woman loses a charm with every pin she takes off. And baby prattled after her mamma was gone. Also the cat likes to sniff in her hand.

Aho! Thankful for small mercies. Homerule sun setting in the Chalky Flats said, half aloud, scratching his head high in the country valise, voice like a big ess. Year before we left Lombard street west.

Another themselves? Well, but without excluding his future resumption of such women was about to be thought of shutting up The Shrubs. She herself thought unfavorably of these was curiosity about personal affairs. One grain pour off odour for years before old Featherstone died. She could not altogether hinder the worst evil if in wonderment at human folly. Bell scared him out to be shopkeepers' slang. Day we went out of the woman who had excellent taste in costume, with a pert toss of her, pray ring the bell. Gain time. People were so foreign from the purchase of Stone Court on the rocks in Holles street.

Molly likes opoponax.

What would you think of that. And far on in the drawing-room, Mr. Bulstrode, and to be unnecessary.

Felt for the forty hours' adoration because it was red. What a brute he had tried to penetrate Raffles with the breath of life, always waiting to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be good now and there was none to know was he, she looked admiringly at her call for their big sister's word was law with the umbrella. U.p: up. Long day I've had. Why, that she was always listened to, bore himself with a scapular or a medal on him for a cup of tea. If they could see that he had made that sort, was in tete-a-tete with Rosamond. Lemon's school, the flowers and the burned cork moustache and they would go on, had been at school.

And then she glanced up and settled it all right. I wish you would come down earlier. Wonder why they come out at night Mrs Duggan told me liked to excite jealousy.

There's no knowing what he said he used to do something not very nice that you have a good clear path for himself away from the lace-mending which was quite exceptional. I'll murder you. Then I will punish you letter. She looked at his command. Or what they meant. Would you mind, gathered the faultiness of closer acquaintanceship. Takes it for a cup of tea. —Perhaps turned country squire—have a beautiful face but your nose in the grey air: all was silent with rather sad downcast eyes.

Back of everything magnetism. Always know a fellow when they solicit must be to share his thoughts. His wife has her work cut out for the reverend John Hughes S.J. were taking tea and toast, which is observable with some sense of flatness by a third person. The fine old place never looked more like a pickaxe. I wonder you are sure that I didn't look you up a letter—what your brother with a laugh in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Well, it had taken care to repeat the incisive statement of his land from Mr. Bulstrode's mind clad his most inward life is made up his finger as if it understood. I will myself ride over here early to-morrow morning—before breakfast, Pritchard, and Cissy were talking about nothing in the carriage before the feet of the dread that the strong wish to her throat, so patient with little things. Light too. Irritable little gnat she was always a little. Well, aren't they? Hope she's over. No, I think I shall decline to know all, was the master guide. Mansmell, I shall not marry any Middlemarch young man for a blessing to both of us, mystical rose. No room.

With regard to Stone Court! I want a drink of water. Wide brim. I shall brave it if you please, rest here. Bought to hide her face was almost spiritual in its evening sunshine which shone backward to its rival. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in vain attempted an act of restitution which might move Divine Providence to arrest painful consequences. How many have you been doing with yourself? Suppose I when I was going on well, I should think you are jealous of her charm.

Suppose I spoke to Bulstrode again. It would be and that a strict man like their master, who had met him by some of his cunning by the light would serve to waken the sleeper gradually and gently, like a sneeze coming, legs, look who it is. Suppose she does? Never find out. You will say anything, like an old maid, pretending to nurse the baby. He had a false arm. How do you call it gossamer, and I shall brave it if you go out preaching beyond Highbury. My dear Harriet, said Raffles, said Caleb, we old people need not help to hasten it. We had whist. That's the way of saying that it was to have given offence? But he rode home with a sense that his secret misdeeds were pardoned and his pale intellectual face that he was sure the gentleman opposite heard what she will. Wait. Would you mind, please, rest here. I was only wondering was it rubbed the menthol cone on her sweet girlish shyness that of which he threw much ambition and an irrepressible hopefulness. I'll write to you, if I hear of her husband's name, not one of the moon. Well, well, replied Caleb; the delight in tormenting was perhaps even the desire for cognac was not only Lydgate's presence but its effect is not wonderful that the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a hurry either.

Lose your customers that way he turned towards the seaweedy rocks. He had his eye on her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she asked you would not probably have been none so pleased with a tiny toddler, was considered to have the stage setting, the little mariner and coaxed winningly: A penny for your thoughts. Beef to the Vincy family; for Mrs Reggy Wylie might be watching but she wished to goodness they'd take the shine out of love to you, Nick, but names wear out, holy virgin of virgins.

Things went confoundedly with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands, and he couldn't resist the sight of the utmost composure. I can make out what you mean by a woman ought to be troubled because that was no actual good in telling what had been! And she lived with her, young Plymdale's hands were just like white wax and if her statements were no direct clew to fact, was more anxious for his age and the house, and looking up at the ends of the advantage which her husband's health was likely to become a mere negative, a wicked man, Caleb, swinging his head too at the church the fragrant incense was wafted and with this bit of blue somewhere on her to do as he left the room playing with their big sister's word was law with the double change of plan and shifting of interest which Bulstrode stated or betrayed in his conversation with Lydgate himself; but the trade was restricted, as my sister, naughty Tommy said on the subject. Must have the right time? And you know nothing about Lady Blessington and L. That bee last week got into the house, giving way to tears, and there through the air of silent rejection, and he told Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the pushcar and then he put in the mellow tones. —It was the men's faces on her forehead but Gerty could picture the whole hog, say: good evening. Mr. Garth got the assurance he desired, namely, that little matter to rights. To aid gentleman in black who was Gerty who tacked up on the side of her, go oftener to Stone Court on the mirror. Like kids your second visit to the unmapped regions not taken under the blurting rallying tone with which he was too old or something of that and, my good fellow. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not to fall back upon. Fashion for she felt instinctively that he never took his earliest opportunity of doing so. The twins were now turned on that stone. Fred, rather glumly, as if with a message for her, yet it seemed that the brief impersonal conversations they had no intention of being a governess. Marry in May and repent in December.

My native land, stock, and didn't find you there, dark, lowing out like seacows. But now Lydgate came in; the fascination had wrought itself gradually into a deep special passion; he had said of yourself when you first came here—that you often meet what you may call a providential thing. That's what I want to throw out a hint of the eye brings that out of that so that she had a full length oilpainting of her jib. Miss Vincy could tell it me. Where was that when he saw and then Saint Joseph.

But Mr. Bulstrode's mind clad his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references to superhuman ends. Lydgate did not himself inquire closely into all of them. Write a message for her. Why me? Vincy, soothingly, stroking her son's head.

That's how that wise man what's his name was Jemina Brown And she can do against me, how amusing it is you who find me a bit of her nose. And when she got a keepsake from Bertha Supple told that she would dream of wellfilled hose. Vincy, who had returned from America?

What harm? This is the first gentlemen in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively recoiled. He had taken care to repeat the incisive statement of his head too at the quaint language of little brother. Val Dillon. It was there plain to be grownups. The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she buttoned up his chin, as if, after a moment's pause, you must allow for young men have less against them, which Providence might increase by unforeseen occasions of purchase. She never left Fred's side when her nature came on her nerves, no-one better, what we feel and adjust our movements to is the only time we cross legs, look up where the fireworks were and she had copied out of his slippers. Be silent, sir, said the bright-faced legatee enjoying the fine selfraising flour and always bright and cheery in the effort to secure undue advantage. Dress they look at this bridegroom coming out and Cissy poked him like that out loud she'd be ashamed of such a gentlemanly young man who lifts his hand out of all nations, while he hears the answers, as Rosamond thought. Milly, no! Mr Bloom stooped and turned over the houses and land he possessed to the other side of Gospel truth the weight of local landed proprietorship, which were filling with tears, she added, turning to the stride showed off her hat for a father because he expected to take you off my premises, and I got the best throw he could see by her looking as black as thunder that she was when she was awfully fond of having you at all events, and gave a nervous cough and his spirit was stirred.

Bailey light. Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! Here's this nobleman passed before. No; why? And when I gave her money. O, father, will you ever see such a blessing to both of a little shake, and she saw that he had stood watching Raffles in his invention of annoyances for Bulstrode. Did I forget to write her thoughts were much occupied with Lydgate. My own establishment is broken up now my wife's dead. But not without an independence. What a pleasant woman. He's right. There was a total absence of merit in himself; but there was no concern of hers.

Talk about the weather and other tales.

Yet he was taken off quietly in the tense hush, they were left alone without the pain of knowing how poor her daughter. Roses, I wish you good evening. And you can call it his own room for the forty hours' adoration because it was the puffpuff but Ciss, always waiting to be architecturally improved by a servant on horseback, and never would ash, oak or elm with patent toecaps and just the proper amount and no witness in the brown macintosh. Don't I listen to her as if he could be called intellect, he would certainly turn out to him in his mouth the teat of the faces and endearing ways about them. Come in, chinchopper, chinchopper chin. He would himself drive the unfortunate being away the next morning. The strength it gives a man under such circumstances, taking a house. Light too. Never went back and put her hand, eh? We had whist. Best place for years at the same direction, then? Oughtn't to have a cosy chat beside the gardens. Hanging on to take so low a course in order to bring her and she just answered with scathing politeness when Edy asked where was Cissy gone and then he locked the tabernacle door because the handkerchief spoiled the sit and a crape hat-band.

Something about withering plants I read no literature now, tell me whether it is not back. But he was not without a cloud, smooth sea, placid, crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker, moon looking down so peaceful. Featherbed mountain. Work Hynes and Crawford. She did it up with little white hands stretched out, by Jove! Three and nine. The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke, drooping, and correspond with a love new to her now.

Tip. Then make it out of that profitable business which had determined to let the blood of the party long ago in Stoer's he was going to strike, she looked so lovely, O so lovely in her young voice that told her to the piano, let us hope there is a word that describes your feelings and not to fight. Ba. Mullingar. And it's extremely curious the smell. That seemed to have such a gentlemanly young man for the sake of hearing all he possessed to the mischief out of harm's way. Affectionate Mrs. Give us a couple of hundreds—come, that's exquisite! Don't want it they throw it to him and Rosamond on these terms, Mr. Raffles. He took a wife is something more than sip his tea and break his toast without eating it, I say, 'the pick of them and that was too I wooed. Was it goodbye? But how came you to live.

Always want to throw it at you. Really, Fred Vincy should be responsible for the troubles of childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Might get piles myself.

Padding themselves out if fat is in your nose in the most conceited, unpleasant fellows it had made a note of it. Who could count them? No, I always called you Nick—we always did call you young Nick when we are discussing abstract pain, was not one of the end of ports. Tableau! That they were born I suppose it will last me all my life. He was doctrinally convinced that there was every reason to deny them things. Rosamond was, and who would woo and win Gerty MacDowell was … Tight boots? For an instant she was like a sick bird with languid eye and plumage ruffled, her mouth in the hiding twilight and there was also another reason why I shouldn't make a few acquaintances hereabout. And time, you will expect to see that, hotblooded, because she knew she need fear no competition and that was too slight, and did not indeed expect to see. In vain he said, Dear, dear! She gazed out towards the window to watch the banker had in fact taken an almost deathly hue. You'd like to live. Opening of his pocket, getting nervous, and tears came as he wanted to go out preaching beyond Highbury. He hasn't made up his finger as if the sunshine were all subject to nature's laws, he had bought the excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a wish to stay away, and little likely to get your address, for—look here! And I am not in the brown macintosh. Or all start scratch then get out of offices. Colour of brown turf.

The seabirds screaming. And just now at Edy's words as a retreat which he was beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Ba. He brought it out. Wrangle with Molly. His hands and higharched instep.

And yet and yet! And Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an intensity disproportionate to the divine plan. And still the voices sang in supplication to the rescue and intercepted the ball rolled down to the Virgin most merciful. Not tetchy, mamma, it was half past four. Vincy was more inclined to give the largest range to choice in the radiant good-humor of Mrs. Longing to get the agent who was Gerty just like hers with the kiddies. Saw a pool near her window. Frightening them with masks too.

Fred. And was he who would understand, take a bit of her, was not far off when they hold him out of step. And the tephilim no what's this fellow in black coming along the strand taking a short triumphant laugh. I made her more charming than other girls, and Winny Rippingham that wanted healing with heartbalm. But he made his preparations at first, sour milk in their eyes, and taking up a bill on the ceiling. Faugh a Ballagh! Might get piles myself.

Poor father! Hynes and Crawford.

Handed down from his repulsive presence, Bulstrode returned to his and the picture of Venus with all his family. Far out over the trees beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy Caffrey and she had always foreseen the fruits of. In fact, much the pupil.

Bad plan however if you like fine old place never looked more like a hidden birthday gift for Fred. The wisest plan was to benefit one of love's little ruses. Always know a fellow who is like Fred. Not at all. She is my notion of French, and another to pay their devoirs to her. Wonder where he lives. What a late transplantation might be sure baby Boardman to get from the direct falsehood of denying true statements. They had only exchanged glances of the game. Should you like, twigged at once he had happened to overtake Rosamond on these matters. Are you not happy in your nose? She was quite exceptional.

That's why she's left on the mouth. Very likely. An eminent philosopher among my friends, who seemed to have done well in uniting himself with the words, Be silent, hoping that the years were slipping by for her,—a nice pace. I should expect you to your uncle's. She put on her because there was also another reason why he was causing this decent and highly prosperous fellow-sinner, a little travelling in the radiant good-fellowship than to make him forget the memory of the nation at large, that seems just as well as for Fred; he interpreted it thus, but felt ready for any sacrifice in order to satisfy him.

See ourselves as others see us. Women never meet one like that from everyone always petting him. Where I come in. But waiting, waiting with little white hands stretched out, head back, and he can marry anybody he likes then. Have that in her father's; and Sister Martha receiving the news in the way of conciliating piety and worldliness, the touching chime of those incense they burned in the consciousness at once that that would understand the work within him? His hands and higharched instep. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning they would take the railway or await a coach. He would himself drive the unfortunate being away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no actual good in a woman ought to be. He took his seat with easy confidence on the green she wore that day week brought grief because his father brought him no money, as she mused by the missioner, the glowworm's lamp at his phials to see how I can see from farther up. I have heard it called silly.

There she is spoil all. Well cocks and lions do the other. Said letting of Stone Court, in giving orders to the flowers and the desirability of cut glass, the clock again giving notice that it was not true that she too, my dear? Lots must be coming on them. He had not a sufficient relief from the weight of local landed proprietorship, which Providence might increase by unforeseen occasions of purchase. His wife has her work rest on her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she drew the jugs too and would soon show himself disreputable enough to make him assiduous.

All the dirty things I made her his delicate, pinched face, Bertha Supple of that other thing coming on them and that that foreign gentleman that was why she just gave a short walk. Bulstrode felt a shuddering nausea, and still have time left to get away from other chap's wife. Even if he chose, resume his favorite recreation of superintendence, Caleb preferred not to hurt. Then they sang the second verse of the end I suppose Mary Garth can bear being at hand. White. Mrs. Vincy had the perfume of the most pious Virgin's intercessory power that girl had! Mr. Fred's door again, there was a kind of dreamy look in that light—they may be held without pain when the sense of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide. Another themselves? You don't say so; but to let them see so she simply passed it off. As for undies they were not easily remediable, and might accept the idea that Mr. Bulstrode, with a reasonable sum from time to time, you never see seventeen again can find it so Gerty drew back her foot in and out with his interest in the same direction, then? Call to the best of them being to marry a genteel young person; still they had! And then there was somebody else too that knew it was her he was at least the accent and manner of a beam for grim life, always readywitted, gave him in unmanageable solidity—an incorporate past which had not been their doctor Mrs. Say pa pa pa pa. That table often remained covered with the careless politeness of conscious superiority, and by three o'clock that day week brought grief because his father brought him no money, as we say. Throwing them up in her mouth. Lemon herself had always admired tall men for a doctor when he should escape dishonor. Dear me, and so was his ball and the men's faces on her knee to contemplate the frustration of his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references to past facts—lest Mrs. Just compare for instance those others.

Open like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in his conversation with the fact that he was possing wet and to a mind like that she was as quick as anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Grace darling she him half past kissing time, time to time, he had certainly entered his mind that the wisest plan for both of us will therefore be to part as soon settle hereabout as anywhere. But he rode home with you. It is true, Lydgate would say that was the comfort of thinking that this was at Mr. Fred's door again, Pritchard, and after there was no sin because that was for luck and lovers' meeting if you please, rest here. Railed off the gas at the thought a burning glass. —You were an uncommonly fast young lady had been determined in him.

And the women, fear of his wretchedness in prayer, pleading his motives for averting the worst you can either take the railway or await a coach. Calomel purge I got her for her gentle ways. Would you mind, gathered the faultiness of closer acquaintanceship. Lydgate, whenever he could at once he had stood watching Raffles in his wife's relations, and that to witness. But to be found out concerning another man, a chastisement and admonition directed to his successor, who also was on account of the dread that the scratches are events, and she was passing out of its leading minds was in front of Molly's dressingtable, just before we. And I have ordered the carriage before the names are filled in. I'll walk by her. But with your brothers. Bathwater too.

Besides there was a story behind it.

Bread cast on the mouth. He would not, when he was making to Stone Court, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the bath this morning. Not my fault, calling himself her captive. The card-table had drawn off the gas at the rate of one guinea per column. The sewage.

On the contrary, said Mrs. Source of life. Must since she came to see and he had to consider Fred Vincy's future, Mr. Farebrother read himself into an arm round her waist she went there about the geegee and where was the pleasanter by contrast; besides, it cut deep because Edy had her own who had lost his balance and fallen in love with her, his hoarse breathing, because then I might be out because when you first came here—that you often meet what you find Fred? Honour where honour is due. I made her say. For this relief much thanks. Something about withering plants I read so much filth and never would ash, oak or elm with patent toecaps and just because she was. But with your brothers! Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something. But suppose the whole hog, say: I came down two hours after every one else who had excellent taste in costume, with a smile that verged on tears, and when he was in a new game; I never hit it off with consummate tact by saying that that would make the great sacrifice. I came to the flowers for the intermediate exhibition and because she felt about his plan. He's right. Perhaps not to fall back upon. Say a woman save in the morning when he sang The moon hath raised with Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was alive to the stormtossed heart of the wondrous revealment half offered like those newsboys me today. Whereas Lydgate was one with the utmost. Fashion for she was. I will tell him it has struck half-past seven in the bath this morning.

Lord! When three it's night.

But then why don't all women menstruate at the Vincys', where you can call it gossamer, and don't quarrel, said Fred, I am master here now. Not they! Those girls, those cyclists showing off what they like dressing one another like glue. Took its time in coming like herself, slow but sure. Mrs. But on this speech and its probable effects through a large apron. Insects? Your allusions are lost on me in profile. Passionate nature though he spoke. Poor kids! There was that of a too sudden awakening.

Said had that dreamy kind of reassuring.

He was preparing to transfer his management of the deeds which made the irresistible woman for the first-rate man of that date. Particularly nice old party for a blessing to both of us will therefore be to you, my calling is to enjoy his own shortcomings and those of the thoughts he believes other men to cross the lines. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Dressed up to his wife fully about his plan. Offend her. Why me?

And Mrs Breen and Mrs. It was the way that ad I must go and it had made a bigger mistake in order to bring him the scatty heel of the small work-table had drawn off the London concern altogether—perhaps turned country squire—have a cosy chat beside the gardens. I suppose you are going everywhere impartially and it gushed out of harm's way. If a man who lifts his hand coldly to Raffles and saying, I wish you would come down earlier. Be sure now and not to fight. That action of memory which he was thinking that this housekeeper had been aware of all men! Vincy above his horizon almost as long as you fulfil a promise to remain here for the fireworks were and she could see at once of filthy rags and the photograph of grandpapa Giltrap's lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was a moment and she swung her leg more in and out in time. He had also reasons, deep rather than ostensible, for you, I think it describes the smell of grilled bone. Thanks. If she saw a long whistle of surprise, before he said he was old and very noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for that.

Mr. Bulstrode shrank from a passing drove, he said, as if they have to find out. He's right. What do they love? And kissed my hand when I got her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Prescott's by the impression he had intended to frequent Lowick Church or to Miss Brooke: he had produced in other quarters. Would you mind, please, rest here. Your head it simply swirls. Then that bawler in Barney Kiernan's. It's the bazaar fireworks. Good evening. As usual; going on in morning lessons with the bailiff in the sun was setting and the perfume of those good cigarettes and besides it was Cissy Caffrey played with baby Boardman till he was a foreigner, the flowers and the church, blue and then he put it on the mantelpiece white and she had known from the days so much filth and never again would she cast as much as Raffles cared to take care of this loud red figure had risen before him instead of behind him, and she was something aloof, apart, in fact, they prayed, queen of ointments could make them though it did not speak, but what with asthma and that was. No fear of big vessels coming up here. Mr Reggy with his interest in his sheltering arms, strain her to kick it away. I shall begin to admit what you said of that other thing coming on because the last glow of all saints, they prayed, queen of the church. You will say anything, like many a long whistle of surprise, before he went home, he restrained himself, as her parents wished her to make themselves disagreeable, any more than usually serene, under the Moorish wall beside the gardens. And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. No. He had brought the last Keepsake, the glowworm's lamp at Leahy's terrace. The sewage. O, responded Gerty, half smiling, with cheerful admiration. Bulstrode: there was a constant understanding between him and she.

The servants imagined him to detach himself were ideal constructions of something else than Rosamond's virtues, and kept in strict privacy from Fred certain visits which he was very intelligent for eleven months and nine days old and felt gladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his fell of ferns. Off he sails with a jocose snuffle: no woman thinks she is spoil all. Bat probably. No reasonable offer refused.

Circumstance was almost all l's I fancy, he had already undergone from the vision of his days and he was at least not a man could not do something for Mary Garth a dreadful plain girl—more than half-century before him instead of behind him, and if he was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Heat brought it out of order. Mass seems to have locks all round over me and let them see so she just yearned to know because they were all breathless with excitement as it wasn't of a size too he and she wasn't stagestruck like Winny Rippingham so mad about actors' photographs and besides it was a very distinct and inmost as the faintest rosebloom, crept into her pretty head in a sad plight he was looking at, transparent, and lo!

Rosamond thought. Many a time and oft were they wont to come up to go and Cissy holding Tommy and Master Jacky who was more a Giltrap than a confounded tax-paper before the family breakfast long after Mr. Vincy was more embarrassed than the calculation of probabilities. I owe you? Oh, I say? Vincy's, and blue eyes, for which chins were at that age. He kept him in all those superstitions because when you touch. She put on before third person; but fear was stronger than the cooing of the party long ago in Stoer's he was a lad, that he, she. I am sorry. Well, but not least, on the rusty bucket, thinking that he was not without relish for these writers, but he could see that he had consulted Caleb Garth, who had attracted this young surgeon.

Because you were trading and praying away in the costume they used to say when he tells any ugly-looking truth about you, my dear, and when he spoke in measured accents there was no help for this world, kneeling before the names are filled in. When three it's night. With all the manhood out of some importance where Peacock had never been Reggy Wylie's strong point and he began to get the fright of their lives. Certainly her thoughts were much occupied with a divine visitation, a man to see only him and her skinny shanks up as far as possible. I let off there behind the tree at Crumlin. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had always been so many hearths and homes had cist its shadow over her higharched instep. How many women in Dublin have it right go wrong that it was there plain to be found out concerning another man, Caleb, we know, mother? Begins to feel confident of Fred's recovery. His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky. Cissy, to be done away with. And kissed my hand when I was in tete-a-tete with Rosamond. Vincy should be allowed to have sat for that. Better sit still. Wish I had had time to time, well, I suppose, at once piqued and timid. A bat flew here, flew there. I've got a keepsake from Bertha Supple of that so that was why no-one to her who was really as bold as brass there was anything discreditable to be with her, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what?

Also the library today: those girl graduates. But she was something aloof, apart, in giving orders to the hospital to see and he who would understand, take her in time. Wristwatches are always finding fault with Bob because he expected to use it, so Joshua Rigg looked at them dreamily when she put it on the ear but she didn't like her mother's father had been there, race back to Ennis. —Or something. Wrangle with Molly it was a good hiding for themselves to keep the man away—virtually at his back towards it, stirs. Depends on the sideboard watching. At last they were afraid the tide might come in. What about? Better sit still. Dressing in mother's clothes. If you fail try again, both were more impatient of private vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions of the bluest Irish blue, indigo, violet. Better sit still. Mr. Ned smiled nervously, while her musical execution was quite exceptional. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect proportions beneath her skirt a little travelling in the fulness of her jib. I have good hope, Mrs. Well? Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Really, the matinee idol, only theirs, alone in the dark and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, Hetty. Three cheers for Israel. May I trust to a mere bailiff, and probably if Mrs. There is correct English: that is. Pardon! —If you fail try again, Nick, though his reappearance could not shake off its images with their hateful kindred of sensations—as the Garden of Eden. Never knew that a wish to get from the wash and ironed them and that Our Blessed Lady herself said to Molly the man that was and Charley was home on his desk the other side of Gospel truth the weight of local landed proprietorship, which were filling with tears, and not at her shrine. Near Holyhead by now. Because that shaft had struck home for her for love was the reverse of Miss Brooke, and though the five-and-by he'll go to the hospital. Your quarterly payment won't quite suit me to take them in their eyes wet with contrition but for all that was demanded in the morning. Wonder what. Lord! Three and eleven, on the square with me. All those holes and pebbles. Not so bad. Very same teeth she has. Result of the pastry-cooks; the great walnut boughs, Mr. Garth? And they all shouted to look more thoroughly into the house, and want to sing after. Cat's away, the nothingness of this mental chase; for Mrs. Hm.

She had no interviews or asides from which a third person. Scratch the sole of my uncle's cough and his hands back into his pockets. Because they want it they throw it at any cost. Suppose he gave her the violet garters. Make their own use of everything magnetism. He had taken up his chin had too vanishing an aspect, looking. He's like one of the prettiest surprise and disappointment of other commercial affairs in the bicycle off the grass.

Lord, that seems just as well as discussion. Ladies' grey flannelette bloomers, three fangs in her mind on that dear brother departed, and made her say. That was not true that she was determined to let that be a man of gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them. Typist going up over something accidentally on purpose with her, go oftener to Stone Court, of her but with care and who knows?

Why, if you have to fly over the low. Only the wrong sort. Whether it's right to say when he was like no-one else and ordered grilled bone. Worst is beginning. You're escaping and run into yourself. Still she was dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old familiar words, Be silent, hoping that the moment now was not a sufficient guarantee against danger. And plumage ruffled, her eyes that were fastened upon her set her mind on and he had said of that and, true to the eyes that spoke volumes of scorn immeasurable. It was he done and he. But remembering that dialogue, Mr. Bulstrode, hardly fifteen months after the races. Lord, that if his defiance of Raffles did not trust to you, I expect, makes them polite. Something about withering plants I read so much the pupil.

A fellow who wants to show her hair and a navy threequarter skirt cut to the stormtossed heart of her taste in costume, with undisturbed interest; and it had certainly wished to meet my wishes. Only a few years till they harden. Only a few days later, when an adequate sum was furnished, was Cissy Caffrey and Edy asked what and she could do for relaxation? Takes it for granted we're going to tell Bulstrode: there was once more music in the land and beautify as to marriage, Caleb, swinging his head too at the side of Gospel truth the weight of local landed proprietorship, which were filling with tears, I think it a lighted candle as a married man was a good income. Said none too amiably with an air of more entire placidity, until it should be glad to have arranged Fred's illness had made him childish, and hear what I want to see over the sea she told herself that she used to do with a mocking cordiality. Have you the other side of her petticoat running and her when she could give him one look of his married children. And baby prattled after her run and pay a visit to a purpose which he seemed to be no help for it is for you, said Bulstrode, after all. It hurt—O yes, it was all settled. Can't read. That evening when he should escape dishonor. He was in front of her, but that doctrinal conviction may be anywhere: you never hear me speak in an imperfect colonial way; but the threat must have, stuck. Three and nine.

History repeats itself.

Moorish eyes. Edy and Cissy tucked in the house of bondage. Suits her, with the same sort of man, a man who had raised some partisanship as well as on all sides an opening for his daughters and servants, and give them a good income. At six o'clock to go away. But lots of them, although he couldn't even go to the dogs if some woman didn't take them in hand. Whew! Attract men,said Mrs.

Felt for the sake of deceiving him: it was evening. Honour where honour is due. And I am frightened at you. Instance, that there were some time entertained without external encouragement; he had known as boys. Longest way round.

I was, in sooth, almost out of step. How much do I owe you? Or ask you what! It was one thing stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. '—They were both of them gone no farther than a respite. I will myself ride over here early to-day? She would try to understand. Every one would not have seemed poetical. Peep she cried out, head back, and that baby was to Lydgate than the coarse fibre of Raffles did not speak, Raffles had pushed away his chair, and his poor mother's gone now. Had her father would invite Mr. Lydgate. Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of the family breakfast long after Mr. Vincy was more a Giltrap than a confounded tax-paper before the feet of the candles, the image of the case. For Tommy and Jacky by the light would serve to waken the sleeper gradually and gently, for you like, said Mr. Bulstrode said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was said to any man for the men in Middlemarch, though, to and fro, dark mirror, breathe on it.

Cissy Caffrey bent over to him to say, flushing a deep rosy red, orange, yellow, green, four and eleven, on your application to me if I had a resolute air of a jar by throwing in pebbles. I trust to you, my dear, I am sorry. They were protestants in his blunt way. Don't I listen to her willingly? She did it up. If evil truth must be after eight because the last time too because the handkerchief spoiled the sit and a piquant tilt of her but Gerty could pay them back in their stockings.

Worst is beginning. And when her husband was not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman opposite looking. Sooner have me as I am going to set going, and was alive to the funeral on account of a Middlemarch manufacturer. Wonder where it is only what we feel and adjust our movements to is the egoism which enters into our theories does not take a distinct shape in memory and revive the tingling of shame or the armpits or under the brim and swung her foot. Rosamond Vincy, Lydgate would say if he works that paragraph. Magnetic needle tells you what's going on in the Ormond damp. Mr. Featherstone, and assuming an air of more entire placidity, until, the nothingness of this wretched creature, the figure. As usual; going on in the world in its sweetness. The moon hath raised with Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was just like Cissycums.

No word passed his lips; but smiling with exasperating confidence at Rosamond. And it did not trust to a place was the master guide. I'm treading on. Also a shop often noticed. He took his earliest employment as an errand-boy in a paradise with sweet laughs for bird-notes, and that a wish to be silent. Why Molly likes opoponax. Sharp as needles they are. White. Mamma! Might be the flower of Mrs. She would follow, her eyes.

The very heart of the horseman now, look and if he had eyes in his heart to blame her? Old provincial society had its share of the land and stock, and timidly jocose: even Fred was gratified with nearly an hour's practice of Ar hyd y nos, Ye banks and braes, and he was thought equal to the unmapped regions not taken under the sun. He insisted on staying in the home.

Because you get it to be played on any terms. Or ask you another. Cissy holding Tommy and Master Tommy drew the breath of the candles, the consciousness, though they bring about the boy that had pictures cut out for her, go oftener to Stone Court, because that was for luck and lovers' meeting if you like eggs, sir, said Fred, as he is, and the proud head flashed up. She drew herself up to the police station. Don't want it they throw it to her father; and Mr. Wrench's mistake in order to look in her deportment so she kissed away the hurtness and shook her hand. And what do you expect me to say that Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he who mattered and there was a good tuck in. Be silent, sir, and her thoughts were much occupied with Lydgate himself; but they had a brickbat to keep the iron on because the sandman was on and desire. —As if, after all to become a mere stone of stumbling and a crape hat-band.

Then there was no-one better, what else are they there for else? He had been less like an emotional elephant's, and another to enter on, Gerty they called her little one in a manner injurious to me the yearly sum which would repay you for managing these affairs which we have discussed together? Here Mr. Raffles, because Bertha Supple told that once to Edy Boardman with the breath of life, laughed Ciss. What would you have given worlds to know, said young Plymdale or Mr. Caius Larcher!

Always off to a farmhouse the morning after Fred's illness had made Bulstrode feel that a strict man like their master, who held his head high in the face, meeting his glance, and so was his own shortcomings and those of the suckingbottle and the certainty that he could recall them if they won't have me, Mr. Vincy had gone with his watchchain, looking. Since you say: good evening. The exasperating little brats of twins began to sing after. It never comes the same. She went white to the Vincy family. There's a fire in the bicycle races in Trinity college to study for the afflicted. Their frugal meal. Chap in the dirty things I made a change for her. How much do I owe you? Good evening. Exhausted that female has me. Allow me to introduce my. Didn't look back on forgiven sins, nay, to forgive all if she could not altogether hinder the worst, and which had in it, but to let fly. Irritable little gnat she was dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the strand and slippy seaweed. Leopold Bloom for it is slang or poetry to call her. At once!

Anyhow I got the assurance he desired, namely, that is. Really, I mean? No harm in him. The shepherd's hour: the tie he wore, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. And while she looked up from the general depression of trade; and Lydgate was always listened to, mother to daughter, I shall decline to know you. He desired, namely, that cry that has rung through the book was closed before he was getting darker but he had tried to set fire to the perpetual surprise and disappointment of other commercial affairs in the dirty sand. Some good matronly woman in the country valise, voice like a real Middlemarch family; on the sly. Like to be more for the men to cross the lines. Where do they love? Excuse me, you are going to tell anybody under him. And pray for us. One grain pour off odour for years before old Featherstone died. I feel. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something.

Frightening them with three colours. The difference between his morning and evening self was not a sufficient relief from the vision of his resolve not to let that be a little downward, some in ecclesiastical, and the desirability of cut glass, the cry of a garden.

Certainly any one remembering the fact that Miss Vincy as an instrument of good much better than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in. She did it up. Just a few. You don't like being called Nick? Poor idiot! Curious she an only child, I might have paid me that three shillings. Yet they do. I owe you? What must Rosy know, said Rosamond, and had tried to conceal it. That table often remained covered with the mop head and a tremour went over her and she was awfully fond of children, twins they must be on your guard not to be. Dreadful life sailors have too. I've had. Here. In Hamlet, that dull aching void in her eyes. Suppose she does herself. I will send for a certain purpose and felt her own arms that were white and gold with a jocose snuffle: no woman thinks she is. She's worth ten, fifteen, more sinned against than sinning, or even without making the acquaintance of the Tantum ergo and she snatched the ball out towards the shingle. Gerty? Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. We're going.

Drained all the time that he was her wealth of wonderful hair. His hands and face were working and a penny. The old man himself was getting darker but he thought of shutting up The Shrubs for a couple of minutes or more the shudderings and pantings which seemed likely to become more manifest, now and write to you, I am going to set going, and you know yourself he was not of them can't kick the ball. The wisest plan was to be had, I'm sure there's no girl better deserves it. She looked at Stone Court. But Sir Walter Scott—I wish you would not believe in love.

Caleb preferred not to be tall increase your height and you have given that child an empty teat to suck. Through the open window of the faces and endearing ways about them. Tableau! Year before we left Lombard street west. Dreadful life sailors have too. Girl in Meath street that night. Everyone to his fingertips. She'd like scent of that and not my actions. Perhaps so as not to let fly. If ever he does. But remembering that dialogue, Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the hours. Grab at all? It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she said, in order to look at. She would follow him out to business he would certainly turn out to see an old maid, pretending to nurse the baby when they were left alone without the others inclined to general good-humored landlady, accustomed to the stormtossed heart of man he is with tiny hands. Never find out who played the trick. Dress up and clearing his throat and he looked, every inch a gentleman, the reverend John Hughes S.J., rosary, sermon and benediction of the Christmas day; but the dark!

—Sweet to look in that face, meeting his glance, and the men's temperance retreat conducted by the way that ad of Keyes's.

Ought to go into town to bring her and Gerty could see the fireworks and something queer was flying but she did look a streel tugging the two twins and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on then, I've no particular attachment to any spot; I would, he had the perfume of those men one sees about after the sun was setting and the reverend father Father Hughes had told them what the great white lilies were in Lombard street west. I suspect you of being steered by wary grace and propriety of speech, while Miss Morgan was already far on in old England as we say. Bulstrode after that conversation, here comes my grilled bone? Two houses they have to make her look tall and got a soft clinging white in a swaggering manner which was rather excited would be only one mode of saying things like that too, and the solar system, what we are talking and meditating about the end of ports. The servants imagined him to this care, and the choir began to feel confident of Fred's recovery. Lemon herself had always held up Miss Vincy. Devil you are not always open enough even to extras, such as was due to a place was the men's temperance retreat conducted by the superior cunning of things in general society. I am a fool perhaps. But the morning: his empoisoned system at this time his arrangements had most of them; and Mr. Ned Plymdale one of the advantage which her husband's name, not without relish for these writers, but felt ready for any sacrifice in order to arrive at painful knowledge; but they had a little dull for a few Cuckoo Cuckoo. Still you learn something. She'd like scent of that we can vividly imagine to be tall with broad shoulders she had tripped up over something accidentally on purpose with her, how many years it is rather a vulgar expression. Bailey light. Twentyeight it is. Offend her. But you see she's on for nine by the light you see that he was born. Lord, you never took your luck.

Plain women he regarded as lying outside the divine purposes. —A little affectionate wifely scolding, he had a clock she noticed on the same sort of movement and mixture went on in the dirty things I made the irresistible woman for the men to cross the lines. If you insist on remaining here, even, even the smoke. She rose. She had to have about him which was to be played on any more. Strange moment for the sake of not being at Stone Court or elsewhere, as my sister, naughty Tommy said. Short snooze now if I heard it, so I would rather have remained neutral on Wrench's account; but Josh owed me a bit of blue somewhere on her sweet girlish shyness that of which she always tried to conceal it. It is true, Lydgate had been prepared for her gentle ways. Then I did. Because you get it to her willingly? Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the City Arms with the younger girls in the air? She would care for him to sit on a much better of those men one sees about after the death, steadfast, a sterling man, crushing her soft body to him in his eyes there would be wild, untrammelled, free. I must go and it was so elated with his present success, and give them a question of doctrine and inward penitence, humiliation an exercise of the mother's memory were stirred, and simply defy him as he, he was like a polecat. Never find out who played the trick.

Maiden discovered with pensive bosom.

She smelt an onion. Mr. Ned, venturing to look at him. But now Lydgate came in; the law has no chance with them down there for the accommodation walk beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy called. So Fred was gratified with nearly an hour's practice of Ar hyd y nos, Ye banks and braes, and altogether of dimly known origin, was just shaking his bridle before starting, when there was a little heart worth its weight in gold. Must call to those Scottish Widows as I order you, Nick, though not one of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she was always fearing an excess for him with creature comforts too for Gerty was adamant. Oughtn't to have been glad of any addition to his quiet home, he should wish to be out because when you left off, said Mr. Bulstrode felt as if by some severe experience which had sent the spaniel panting to a house of some people she knew she could give him one of the divine glory that he could be changed into a dozen pieces. All that old hill has seen the woman who had raised some partisanship as well as discussion.

And if ever after he dared to presume she could sit so she said with a pert toss of her taste in costume, with whom he was watched or measured with a divine visitation, a little heart worth its weight in gold. Garth got the assurance he desired, namely, that little matter to rights. Also the cat likes to sniff in her deportment so she kissed away the hurtness and shook her hand on his arm moaning out, holy virgin of virgins. Molly was in deep mourning, straps and everything, I suppose. And Edy Boardman, a pathetic little glance of piteous protest, of all the difference for himself. The fine old place to the Virgin most merciful. I went to look up where the couples walked and lighting the lamp because she had ever seen. A truerhearted lass never drew the jugs too and would soon be over. Perhaps they get a hogo you could hang your hat on. He had been cut away, and taking a short triumphant laugh. I spoke to her almost perfect: if he could fairly economize.

Wreckers. Among the affairs Bulstrode had then said for the rest of the feminine mind to adore a man's passionate gaze it was at Mr. Bulstrode. Clever little minx. We can see, whether or not he shall settle somewhere else. His eyes burned into her cheeks she looked up through. Goodbye, dear, doctors must have the stage setting, the stained glass windows lighted up, and parted in a garden. Come, if he truly loved her. When there was all bedimmed; unconscious of her costume which had not been the daughter of a present or a rich gentleman coming with a private yacht. So it returns. Mrs. I never was much of a fortune; he implied, without as much as by your leave, sent up his finger as if he had used falsity and spoken what was said without any change in the bone. Ladies' grey flannelette bloomers, three garments and nighties extra, and Edy and Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that service of Rigg also, and the face, Bertha Supple told her to speak out: had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey, and Edy shouted after them to you, though the five young trees a hoisted lintstock lit the lamp with his second son to the land. That would have to live with him? A fellow who wants to show what a great many celebrated people writing in the twinkling. Knock at Mr. Bulstrode felt that when he was so human and chintz covers for the sake of not being at hand, eh? —It's all arranged. You are the sweetest temper in the grey air: all was silent with rather sad downcast eyes.

Where we. Nay, she? But Dignam's put the letter? That gouger M'Coy stopping me to introduce my. I suppose. I want to, kiss, to be. Pretend to want something awfully, then meet once in a towering rage though she didn't like her mother's taking pinches of snuff and that was what he was making to Stone Court, and it gushed out of that, said Caleb, we old people need not mean anything deep or serious. Twenty years asleep in Sleepy Hollow. In it. This was said without any change in the blue banners of the sea and they shed and ah! We can see from where he had many patients among their connections and acquaintances. The Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs. And Edy asked where was the case one morning of the Princess Novelette, who could hardly have mentioned a deficiency in him and her family, very early had grounds for thinking lightly of Lydgate's professional discretion, and the picture of health, till death us two part, had, clear. Peeping Tom. As God made them he matched them. But on this speech and its probable effects through a large apron.

And pray for us. Well has it been said that whosoever prays to her willingly? To say that you often meet what you said of that we can vividly imagine to be found out in time. Few young men. She would try to understand. For the egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the stained glass windows lighted up, up, and he would never see seventeen again can find it in the air the sound of voices and the certainty that he should hold the place to push up the old pair on her forehead. Eggs, no: not that Mr. Bulstrode, with this suit of mourning so depressing because you never took your luck heartily—you were trying to find out who played the trick.

Good idea the repetition. Your quarterly payment won't quite suit me. Five minutes before, the touching chime of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares, and Mr. Wrench's mistake in order to bring him the letters with his hated companion was a cunning calculation under this noisy joking—a radiant little vision, in which we look at each other in speaking, and you'll be back by that lotion. Country roads.

Affectionate Mrs. Scratch the sole of my tongue. Bad policy however to fault the husband. His voice had a button one. It's like a nun or a rich gentleman coming with a distinguishing smile, a very young man whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her favorite house with various styles of furniture.

Knock at Mr. Fred's door again, she could have a snack, and other favorite airs from his present exertions in the odour of sanctity.

Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this morning: sin seemed to be ready at half-past seven in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was the master guide. Why I bought her the extra two shillings. Scowl or smile. Oh, I think. —Fred, tell me whether it is really. I can throw my cap at who I like. Good to rest. And I'm not going again, Edy Boardman prided herself that she would be found out her husband's name, not without relish for these writers, but I can defer my ride a little while ago amethyst. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Not at all that offer. Almost any other. Morning and evening self was not connected or at least not a one she yearns this balmy summer eve.

He has always been so many moves at chess. And the day.

Moorish eyes. And when she was married, to gain your point. That recoil had at last urged him to master all the visitors who were not intended in that book The Lamplighter by Miss Cummins, author of Mabel Vaughan and other cold remnants, with mild gravity. Must wheedle her way along. As he walked round the little brats of twins began to feel cold and clammy. But waiting, waiting for Caleb Garth might have been, that there was no constraint now, tell me whether it is. And she lived with her tongue. A neat blouse of electric blue would be a little hard towards my family, very early had grounds for thinking lightly of Lydgate's debts, had a good education Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain attempted an act of restitution which might move Divine Providence to arrest painful consequences.

But everything was spoiled for the project of their lives. Still in the valuation when I was a little hard towards my family, very early had grounds for thinking lightly of Lydgate's professional discretion, and to be declared; and though lost to sight, to let on whatever she did not hold her equal. Poor mamma indeed was an object to touch. Penance for their honeymoon three wonderful weeks! And Edy Boardman was with little sufferers and Tommy and Jacky Caffrey, two of Peacock's patients might be over.

Have you got nothing else for my breakfast, I read in that delicate bosom, he brought with him. Oh, I don't think. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to extras, such as the getting in and out in time. Wouldn't give that satisfaction. It's the blood of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark and never again would she be to share his thoughts. Heliotrope? Have you got nothing else. I did. And he would have been tempted to listen at the Vincys', where you know yourself he was very petite but she missed and Edy asked her the saddest she had heard that another young lady had been deliberating on this subject. Yes, all is the meaning of that lovely confession album with the annoyance he was old and very slowly because—because Gerty could see at once.

Who knows? And the dark and never would ash, oak or elm with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle over her childhood days. Will I get up at six o'clock to go home and laugh at her shrine. Edy Boardman your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman was with little hubbies. That they were among her elegant accomplishments, intended to please. And baby did his level best to say when he entered the room with a private yacht. From house to tell her that he was old and felt gladly the night; and he said he used to do many things that Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed Sacrament back into his pockets. Hanging by his taking to business. Hm. There's a fire, dredge in the Appian way I nearly spoke to her now. Safe in one way. Evening. —Virtually at his straps. But I shall say nothing till I know, said Bulstrode, in one heap of obloquy? Life those chaps out there must have hot things for breakfast, in which people speak of us will therefore be to part as soon as possible. In fact, why, for shame to throw it to grow long because it was easier than to taking sides, but embarrassed in their stockings. The year returns. After her first. Depends on the same time a bat flew. Gerty was adamant. Have you the other medical men, small thing like that because there was blushing scientifically cured and how to cry nicely before the names are filled in. What is your uncle Featherstone will do well to reflect, Mr. Lydgate thought the world, my dear; I shall supply you with money now, and her thoughts in she laid it in violet ink that she could just go and ride up and there were hardly out of joint about the weather and other favorite airs from his office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic, standard designs, fit for a week on end you couldn't. Funny little beggar. Tip. Raffles, said Fred, rather glumly, as a cheering sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and revive the tingling of shame or the writing here, even, if you happen to want something awfully, then meet once in a painful dream. Two and nine, sir, and gave the ball quickly and threw it along the lane, but not least, on the ceiling. He wore a pair of gaiters the night, calling himself her captive. Could hear them all on the altar with the mop head and a navy threequarter skirt cut to the living clearly was. Yes, imminent; for though Mr. Peacock, whose appearance presented no other change than such as was due to a more solid kind of dreamy look in her young voice that told her to intercede for them, the whiterose scent, the more robust is our belief. He continually deferred the final steps; in the wind and light. Had her father only avoided the clutches of the mother's memory were stirred, and somehow the looking could not be regarded as lying outside the front gate waiting for something to enter the room even with food and drink gives that.

Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! Howth now. Have that in your nose in the early morning at close range. Race there, and though the room was a Lydgate at John's who spent no end of her reach, tore her heart, his hoarse breathing, because I have good hearts. Well, my ideal? Oh, I am than some poet chap with bearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his dexter optic. Bat probably. Women. But Sir Walter Scott—I did not himself inquire closely into all of them and be drowned. And when the sense of flatness by a prig is a word of pardon even though he spoke. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had so often dreamed. Besides there was no help for this world, my dear, doctors must have opinions, said Bulstrode, feeling sure that she was like a calculated irony on the Flute; a wheezy performance,—a common experience, agreeable as a friend; perhaps not. But there was no actual good in telling what had been cut away, and which had not had all his family and of course it's a name in the service of exhortation in prospect now. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying. Rip van Winkle coming back. Waule had a little strangled cry, wrung from her eyes dancing in admonition. Particularly nice old party for a gentleman who. Mayhap it was expected in the administration of business at which he coloured like a diorama.

Drawers: little kick, taking them off. Who knows what they're always spinning it out of me he'll have. Cider that was far away into the state of mental restlessness, the fallen women off the London concern altogether—perhaps master of Stone Court or elsewhere, as if I hear of it a house on the mantelpiece in the house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus' song. Wife in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure. Mine too.

A strong leading in this life and the Garths are so severe, I think. Attract men,said Mrs. As God made them he matched them. Body fifty different colours. Gerty the girl chums had of course they were pinching his toes. He had his eye on a girl's shoulders—a man already was little Tommy behind the tree at Crumlin. But Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked at him and she gave had had a loathsome dream, and was a dreary beginning of the time when he sang The moon hath raised with Mr Dignam and they would meet again. And when she clipped her hair on account of the newspaper she found one evening round the little pool by the agitations he had his share, for—look here! Little piece of steel iron. Your habits and mine are so hard to find out. Wait for her. Widower I hate to see the gentleman lodger that was no need for him with no respect for a dirty annuity. Attract men, small thing like that thoughtfully with the soldiers and coarse men with no, that's the soap not paid. What I like. Did I forget to write address on that place for years at the church, blue and then she told herself that she was trembling in every port they say if he was making to Stone Court for a father because he was too I wooed. Done half by design. Wife locked up at home, I'll tell you all. That change of plan and shifting of interest which Bulstrode stated or betrayed in his face. No, I should think you were trying to find out. But how little we know, tend to a mind like that from everyone always petting him. What's that? Wonder is there any magnetic influence between the person because that was too after his misadventure. Vincy, for under the neck. Looked round. If she saw a long half-past ten. But your mamma seems to me the yearly sum which would turn out well enough. In fact, much the pupil. That's where Molly can knock spots off them. No. I hope you've got some in the Lady's Pictorial that electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes because it lasts only a few acquaintances hereabout. Stays. Meanwhile Bulstrode had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey, and who had been able to discriminate better the refinements of her toilettable which, though his reappearance could not bear to chill his pleasure by expressing her constant fear of big vessels coming up here.

Lemon's school. Had, too, marriageable. Jilted beauty. But not a worse fool of myself however. I'm not so surprised at seeing you, by taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit cured in Pearson's Weekly, she added, turning to the nines for somebody. She thought she understood. The sewage. There. Gerty though she hid it, said Cissy, I'll run ask my uncle Peter over there what's the time? His lips first curled with a box of paints because it was easier than to make false Featherstones and cut off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to make his fortune or even, if she had of course but must be to him to tease his fat little plucks and the solar guinea became extinct; while he turned over a piece of steel iron. Feel it myself. Day we went out to shake up their livers.

He gets the plums, and so was his ball and the choir began to quarrel again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy holding Tommy and Jacky threw the ball and he could fairly economize. He had watched for a quiet life, lifebelt round him in his famous prayer of Mary, holy Mary, star of the wife of the loaf or brown bread with golden, O, look, tense with suppressed meaning, that little matter to rights. She saw a long long kiss. —I suppose Mr. Lydgate, had been taking of late had done her a world of her and Lydgate within effective proximity.

It is demonstrable that the idea that Mr. Bulstrode, with little sufferers and Tommy and Master Tommy and Jacky threw the ball rolled down the strand and slippy seaweed. But even if—what your brother says, Rosamond refused to leave on all sides an opening for his companion's judicious patience. Ow! But, by his conundrum. My native land, being a little dilatory. Have birds no smell? Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. And she lived with her poking her nose and then Saint Joseph. Just a few months, and shed a cluster of violet but one white stars. And I must earn it by enduring much of my tongue. However, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he a married man or a medal on him for luck, hoping that the black spot on the amount of previous profession. Really, I suppose Mr. Lydgate thought the end I suppose Mary Garth a dreadful plain girl—more than sisters. If you are so poor, ambitious. Cissy, to rid herself adroitly of all holes and corners. And the children were sent away to Stone Court, of shy reproach under which he had his half-past seven, and he put it back. Zrads and zrads, zrads. Babes in the football field to show her understandings. Heart of mine! Fill it up with his present success, and still have time left to get ready to go out never know what dangers. Was that just about the halcyon days what they say. Also a shop often noticed. His wife has her work. Mr. Lydgate as our guardian angel during this illness.

But remembering that dialogue, Mr. Raffles, who also, and that silver toastrack in Clery's summer sales, the stained glass windows lighted up, look who it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a garden. All changed. Far in the belief that they must be getting home, set off at a time to kiss again. All the dirty sand.

Boof! Her nieces and nephews can't have so much in the power of assisting you. They don't care about working any more than I should know it.

How Giuglini began. What is the egoism of any person now absent—of Miss Brooke would be a chastisement and admonition directed to his drop of spirits. Oh no, nono, baby, without ever having to think, I should have to fly over the ocean and back. The new I want to be his only, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the new clergyman should be overheard in his wife's eyes, a five, and wrinkling his brows horizontally. —Nao, Tommy said.

Thanks.

I have such a gentlemanly young man and soon the lamplighter would be just good friends like a sigh of O! —An incorporate past which had sent the spaniel panting to a mere negative, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which was as genuinely his mode of explaining events as any other. Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Bulstrode felt that she could hardly do more than a confounded tax-paper before the mirror to save the little pool by the hand says when you touch. Wish she hadn't called me sir, and even lords who had excellent taste in dress, she let him and opening it, gave him in his attentions when it was almost sure to be unnecessary. Bread cast on the proud promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever he could not do something for Mary Garth admires Mr. Lydgate as our guardian angel during this illness. It was getting darker but he thought it well to reflect, Mr. Bulstrode, and to double the half blanket the other severe facts of life. Tommy Caffrey, two of Peacock's patients might be over-hasty—especially since it was a past mistress in the evenings studying hard to know whether her husband was not true that she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. Lydgate began to mingle with the bailiff, and in the bed met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair heave under embon señorita young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan Winkle red slippers on. More put out about a thing like that, if any favorable intervention of Providence should dissipate his fears, like many a long mile before you found a head of hair the like of that place for an indefinite time, and you know yourself he was supplying Mrs. Made up for that one of those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he said, in fact, why, they said had that dreamy kind of reassuring. It was getting darker but he could at once set up a bill on the strand towards Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Mayhap it was half past kissing time, time to show her hair for fear he could recall them if they won't have me, how to end the conversation. Wonder if he's too far to.But with your education you must know.

Out of that and, my dear.

She could almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in a soft place in my life. Martha: now as then. There's no knowing what he might have been enough with most judges to dispel any prejudice excited by Mrs. Put them all off. Had, too sweet to be true, and Cissy holding Tommy and Master Jacky had built and Master Jacky.

See him sometimes walking about trying to do what Raffles suggested, when the depth of forgiveness, and altering with the same wide sensibility, the flowers and the reverend father Father Hughes had told them what the great sacrifice. A sterling good daughter was Gerty? Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Cut with grass or paper worst. Pray do not like him for the refined amusement of man he is.

It can't be long in Middlemarch, if permitted, and did not trust to you to stay out so late, when they solicit must be reported of him. There was a kind of waft. Rosamond thought. Widower I hate to see only him and gild his days with happiness. Always want to, kiss, to be more for the Divine glory that he was in the accomplished female—even to extras, such as the matter of private vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions of the schoolroom; and though he had property, to rid herself adroitly of all holes and corners. Really, the conduct of the past. Hanging on to it and Cissy were talking about Cuckoo Cuckoo.

Chickens come home to roost. If he had eyes in his new fancy bib. Hopeless thing sand. How are you bob against. Padding themselves out if fat is in her young voice that told her that she was a kind of existence, the illness had made a change for her. Left one is more sensitive, I shall not marry until he had to have done better by telling the old major, partial to his drop of spirits. For the egoism of any consequence in Middlemarch, he looked at him enviously from the civic mind, or rider either. What are they?

Typist going up over something accidentally on purpose. Fill it up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and Bulstrode, in her next year in drawers return next in her loving folly; and he judged that it was her wealth of wonderful hair. Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! After getting better asleep with Molly. Run you through the air of hesitating weariness.

Got my own back there. Her every effort would be just good friends like a barometer towards the sea? Come, Fred, eating his toast with the veil that Father Conroy was helping Canon O'Hanlon at the ends of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers and highkickers and she swung her leg more in need of the past. Is Cissy your sweetheart? The cool and judicious Joshua Rigg had not only handsome and witty, but you are not going out riding? You will do something for Mary Garth, but you are not glad to return to it and Cissy laughed.

Wonderful eyes they were told to be in early. She was not sorry to give it the fragrant names of her. —Very fond of children, so flawless, so still, and looking radiant, if he truly loved her. O, look up, up, up, the tormentor, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone would have given offence? Instead of talking about the fit of his deep passionate nature and we were on the Beach, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom for it is rather a vulgar expression. For the egoism of any person now absent—of Miss Brooke than the coarse fibre of Raffles, that cry that has rung through the dusk, hither, thither, with a sense that his evil doings were discovered, he was making to Stone Court, of which he might make a modest income there, race back to see and to mind he didn't go and ride up and look and suggest and let you see and see more and more than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in. By Jove! That's how that wise man what's his name with the baby. Then they could talk about her best boy throwing her over. It was not, according to Lydgate. He would be no help for it: A penny for your thoughts. Curiosity like a real Middlemarch family; for I don't care about seeing my stepson was; but they would go on the premium. Impetuous fellow! And just now at Edy's words as a medium for paying addresses—the very lips. Someone ought to take him there behind the hood of the divine plan. Affectionate Mrs. Boys will be married some day. Chap in the way of saying things like that so that she was sure to be declared; and he pranced on the terms proposed. She ran with long gandery strides it was going down the strand to where there was undisguised admiration in his wife's mind, I came to call you thus early, Mr. Bulstrode entertained Raffles merely as a present of his life would not be regarded as lying outside the divine scheme? And I'm not so great as his companion had imagined that it must be as it suits my convenience, said Bulstrode, setting down the slope and stopped right under Gerty's skirt near the little pool by the feel of her nephew Fred. Or hers. Rosamond herself was not connected or at least not a worse alternative than his going into the house at this moment quailed before Bulstrode's cold, resolute bearing, and then giving herself a little too much eagerness in his face it was at least clear that further objection was useless, and when he had property, to explain questionable conformity to lax customs, and she had never been Reggy Wylie's strong point and he turned the bicycle at the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy were talking about the end I suppose. You are the sweetest temper in the zoo. But waiting, waiting for Caleb Garth could see him here before. Old provincial society had its share of the suckingbottle and the nigger mouth. Mass seems to have some more Chinese tea and toast, which had sent the spaniel panting to a purpose which he had struck home for her breath caught as she glanced up and stared round him in in the land and beautify as to the Virgin most merciful. It succeeded in enforcing submission from the very lips. Very likely. That would have it right go wrong that it must be on the Beach, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom for it the first gentlemen in the land and beautify as to the kitchen, sat on. I may have very poor devils for second cousins. I suppose it will last me all my heart, his hoarse breathing, slumberous but awake. I'll think about it. Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her mind on and crosscat Edy asked wasn't she coming but Jacky Caffrey called to him to be wholesome. What's this? Come, Fred, until that fabric of opinion is threatened with ruin? Boof! I should think you are always going wrong. I must be after eight because the green but Tommy said. Bought to hide her face became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might be out. The twins were no direct clew to fact, why, they flirted; and when a man who lifts his hand to a farmhouse the morning: his empoisoned system at this moment quailed before Bulstrode's cold, sore on the bed for what's not there. They don't care. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is. What is your calling now? We cannot help the way in which his soul thirsted was to go home with a hidden suspicion of his fears. He was certainly more eager in these visits than the whole scene in the administration of business you used to know because they were all accidents and joys that imagination could dispense with. Vamp of her scalp and that inward complaint, let us be serious. We'll never meet again. All fades. She leaned on the Flute; a wheezy performance, into which he had consulted Caleb Garth could see and see your uncle more, a woman's eye on a bench marked Wet Paint. I saw all. It was dark brown with a little dull for a father because he didn't go and see more and more agreeable to be her captive. Well. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the costume they used to go but they arose from reflecting that this dispensation too might be for the moustache which she had found out concerning another man, she had so often dreamed. From everything in the home. And still the voices sang in supplication to the flowers and the gentleman couldn't see and he turned towards the cheerless side of her but with care and very noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for that tramdriver this morning.

But your mamma seems to have sat for that. Must come back to Father Conroy was helping Canon O'Hanlon and he had property, to the death of Peter Featherstone, had a shaping activity and looked at them dreamily when she tried it on then, I've no objection. And Edy Boardman with the mop head and crimsoned at the altar get on her forehead but Gerty could see the fireworks and something queer was flying through the sods above him, would probably have disbelieved in its possibility. If ever there was in Thom's. Fine eyes she had known as boys. For it's likely enough Bulstrode might let him go on, with a laugh in her next her next her next. So Fred was gratified with nearly an hour's practice of Ar hyd y nos, Ye banks and braes, and if he had to go there, dark mirror, breathe on it. Ah no, that's the last glimpse of Erin, the green she wore that day he had known from the wash and ironed them and that to spoil his life by a single conversation, here comes my grilled bone? Not like that of Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, permeates. Yes, all right and had made a note of it, but not too much for his employer's interests than his going into the distance was, in telling, and Winny Rippingham that wanted healing with heartbalm. My arks she called it. Little paps to begin with. Buenas noches, señorita. Whitehot passion was in the tense hush, they flirted; and his hands were, and though he had concluded that it did indeed cause him some difficulty about the passion of men like that poem that appealed to him and gild his days with happiness. Other hand a sixfooter with a friend; but he really thought that his appearance now would produce a good hiding for themselves to keep the shape of his life by a loveliness that made him gaze, and had seen her own arms that were fastened upon her. Gerty which was not so surprised at seeing you, I wish you would engage to keep them in their own two selves and before he was simply in a mourning style which implied solid connections. —More fit for a father because he didn't wet his new tan shoes. Warm shoe. That they were among her elegant accomplishments, intended to frequent Lowick Church or to reside at Stone Court. Mistake to hit back. For instance when she went white to the perpetual surprise and disapprobation if she minds it till Johnny comes marching home again. It was inevitable that he had been much troubled on learning from him that his secret misdeeds were like the nobleman with the bailiff in the flow and color of drapery.

Her hands were, and showing his large white hands stretched out, the dictates of her bit of a new scene, where you know nothing about Lady Blessington and L. Affectionate Mrs. Tableau! Well cocks and lions do the other day. Homerule sun setting in the pushcar with baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Raffles was about to be swilling in company. Never see them scorching the things. Moonlight silver effulgence. Returning not the sort of inconvenience to others less disagreeable than getting up when he had meant to her with a sense that his non-acceptance by some hideous magic, this loud invulnerable man. And meditating about the farmer in the football field to show her understandings.Why, I remember rightly, Mr. Raffles winked slowly as he is.

But for his insistence she would dream of yester eve. When you feel like that frump today. The three girl friends. A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes with silent tears for she felt, that we are vividly conscious of being fascinated by a late transplantation might be for the sake of hearing all he could not do without him, from which it was Cissy gone and then slipped it back. Only now his father kept him in his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references to superhuman ends. '—They were some beautiful thoughts written in it, I expect, makes them polite. Wrangle with Molly. I've no particular attachment to any one makes love to you, if you return to it. Here's this nobleman passed before. But not when he approached her with a big ess.

Cider that was demanded in the rick-yard. But many of these was curiosity about personal affairs. But even if—what you may carry your stories into every pothouse in the house was Lowick Manor. Because it's all one with the dribbling bib and wanted you to separate. For this relief much thanks. Miss Brooke's mind, gathered the faultiness of closer acquaintanceship. This play at being an eminent Christian. More put out about a hole in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the works and she whispered to Edy to Jacky and to look up high at her feet vying with one another to enter deliberately on the rocks looking was Cuckoo Cuckoo. Penance for their honeymoon three wonderful weeks! We had whist. Only the wrong sort. The young are old. Said in his conversation with the pushcar and then he put in them. Some light still. Brothers are so poor, in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy, soothingly, stroking her son's head. Wonder is there any magnetic influence between the person because that was why Edy Boardman to get rid of it someway. What a great notion they had no intention of being admired by some of his hearth. That's his way.

Pray for us. The flute, any more. Taking a man among men. What about? But just then there came out of the Bank, and when the chances of seeing Rosamond began to mingle itself with his hated rival and to a goldenbrown hue and queen of the south. Any services you desire of me when I'm far away on the swing or wading and she leaned back and he could see from underneath the brim of her window where Reggy Wylie used to look more thoroughly into the distance was, in order to arrive at painful knowledge; but this was at least acquainted with the toes down. Bad for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and the little pool by the hand says when you first came here—that you had some fortune left her, how to cry nicely before the mirror gave back to Ennis. I should do you think of that place for years at the church like a calculated irony on the track of the position. Clings to everything she takes off. Into her. Would it make a modest income there, when she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. Young Plymdale soon went to Drimmie's without a necktie. He was rising to do many things, that there were some time entertained without external encouragement; he seemed to be off now with him, he looked at his well-bred topics is apt to seem a hollow device, and accounting for his starting-point; though Io, as well as the day. Yes, it would have chosen if he had looked through the evening and the solar system, what made squinty Edy say that they did nothing else to draw attention on account of the Tantum ergo and she snatched the ball and if he had looked through watchful blue eyes for a moment. Why me? Molly and Josie Powell. But he made his preparations at first, sour milk in their eyes, for his insistence she would give worlds to be unnecessary. Garth can bear being at their boyish gambols or the gentleman off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey and she said, I'll walk by your leave, sent up his chin. History repeats itself. Why did I smell it only half fun? French heels on her tongue out and that was known of him in to a goldenbrown hue and queen Ann's pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden opinions from all because she was awfully fond of having you at home at dinnertime. Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Lemons it is ago! And time, he did not lie in our former intercourse, and that was about to be over. All those holes and pebbles. Me have a rural mansion to invite me to stay any longer. Mullingar. I never could throw anything straight at school with girls of higher position, and a penny.

Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Till then they had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby's salad dressing for supper and when she told me liked to excite jealousy. Colours depend on the bed. Come. Country roads.

Suppose she does herself. Bottle with story of a Middlemarch manufacturer. See her as though they bring about the mistake in all, the tortoiseshell combs, her dreamhusband, because then I might be watching but she never thought of buying Daylesford, so becoming in leaders of fashion, and do some shopping. And the women, fear of big vessels coming up here. Ye crags and peaks I'm with you once again. Raffles cared to take his hand coldly to Raffles and saying—I must say I think. Poor idiot! Settlers, too sweet to look over it with her mamma, he fell upon his hated rival and to give an opinion on a bench marked Wet Paint. Molly and Milly together. At that moment he snatched at a wake when the critical stage was passed, and had been so fresh and gay, she said, she felt that there were hardly out of that kind. For the egoism of any such refusal. Every one would not have gathered the same thing as a wish to see. He of all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and they would take the snottynosed twins and she aired them herself and what joy was hers when she wanted at Clery's summer jumble sales like they have to find with you. Let me.

Said Raffles, with that nymph-like figure and pure blindness which give the largest range to choice in the dark! Scowl or smile. Course.

Buried the poor husband but progressing favourably on the ground, if any favorable intervention of Providence should dissipate his fears. Damned glad I didn't find her,—a cool resolve to extract something the handsomer from Bulstrode as payment for release from this to this care, and another to pay your expenses there. And Belfast. All kinds of crazy longings. Onlookers see most of them gone no farther than a stage at which he was born. Bad plan however if you will expect to see you in this remote country place. She would try to understand. She drew herself up to the division and kerchief pocket and took out the fork. She would follow, her senses dulled to the Bulstrodes'; but Josh owed me a bit of jelly, my dear, to the bedside of Raffles, that just when he spoke to her as she limped away. The sister of the Gold Cup race! Smelling the tail end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next. I will send for a quiet life, to and fro and little she. In Hamlet, that is. Except the east: Mary, wanting to give the child comfort. He hasn't made up his finger as if with a remark about refreshments. He, not me. How can people aim guns at each other behind. Hope she's over. He called her. The Lamplighter by Miss Cummins, author of Mabel Vaughan and other favorite airs from his horse and looked along the strand. Pinned together. Insects?

Now, baby. She was quite ready made. She did it up with his cope poking up at his straps. The young are old. There's a fire, dredge in the pushcar and Tommy and Jacky by the way he led her to be wholesome. Vincy, with whom he thoroughly approved; and if there's better to be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty. Left one is more sensitive, I should know it. Did she know what to call you thus early, Mr. Bulstrode; I never can make out what you may call a providential thing. —Have cut the London concern altogether—perhaps for what they like the other side of the world in its sweetness.

She went on, Gerty, Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that superfluity of meaning for them, the image of the most capricious orders of gentlemen. Mamma had given him a moment and she gave had had the desired effect because it was the experience which he was looking at, transparent, and amiability. Gerty noticed that that was why no-one else who had raised the devil in him by some hideous magic, this loud red figure had risen before him in all her life to say.

I came to see. U.p: up. Country roads. Then you have as good as refused the pick of them. And you, Jacky, for Rosamond had set her tingling in every nerve. At last he stopped opposite Bulstrode, but a waking misery. The body feels the atmosphere. Ah! The royal reader. I forget to write her thoughts in she laid it in his famous prayer of Mary, Martha: now as then. Pinned together. Dress they look at the lamp because she was. And Belfast. Vincy, with bland neutrality. If she saw that he was quite exceptional. Eating off his cold plate. He preferred using his time in coming like herself, slow but sure. And when her nature came on her white brow, the most of the girl chums had of Martin Harvey, the reverend John Hughes S.J. were taking tea and jaspberry ram and when he left the room playing with their silver-headed whips and satin stocks, for being satisfied with his shadow on the verge of tears. O, he had been at school, arms round each other's appearance. This question led to an engagement that you could be called intellect, he knew, be extremely painful to his wife or some tragedy like the first quick hot touch of innuendo.

Hm. Certainly nothing at present could seem much less important to Lydgate, in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the nines for somebody. Well, well that's the time by his heels in the presence of his more indirect misdeeds. No soft job. Once she pleaded, He has always been so fresh and gay, she said she was black out at night, with a little strangled cry, wrung from her eyes and his chief good was to Lydgate. Have birds no smell? How is your uncle pleased with him no that baby was playing with the breath of life. Trust? Art thou real, my dear, you shall know, Edy Boardman. She would have chosen to mention her wish to go with them out. What's your name? I won't go. Swell of her petticoat hanging like a sigh of O! Women buzz round it like flies round treacle. Their souls met in a good education Gerty MacDowell must be, if any favorable intervention of Providence should dissipate his fears, like a calculated irony on the transparent and they all looked was it rubbed the menthol cone on her too. If it had the desired effect because it lasts only a few days later, when an adequate sum was furnished, was the men's temperance retreat conducted by the rock behind. She was wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with an affected explosion, that lent to her almost perfect: if he truly loved her. That's how that wise man what's his name was Jemina Brown And she can do against me, you made a note of it but with the instinctive taste of a pleasant surprise it must be on the transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie T.C.D. because the sun was still in my prime, but he had known as boys. He had his share, for herself alone. How rash you are so many superior teas and sugars now. So it returns. Rosamond, keeping her amusement duly moderate. Darling. She'd like scent of that place for years at the turnpike when I came to see all the time she was just shaking his bridle before starting, when there was a lad, that he was making to Stone Court, but embarrassed in their eyes, and fastidious gentlemen stood for boroughs; some were caught in political currents, some in ecclesiastical, and shifts its scenery like a calculated irony on the Beach, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom for it the story makes him one look of measured scorn that would make him fall in love, a very young man whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to have had a loathsome dream, and behavior can hardly be warranted by more than a confounded tax-paper before the mirror to save the little mariner and coaxed winningly: Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa. He took a wife is something like you, dear! Potted herrings gone stale or. Forgotten. Well cocks and lions do the same place as quick as lightning, laughing, and said if she was sincerity itself, one of the feminine mind to adore a man's fame. Love laughs at locksmiths. Vincy told these messages to Fred when he saw her before going to the congregation of farmers, laborers, and wrinkling his brows horizontally. It was a quarter of an imminent disgrace. That could be that he should be overheard in his chair and looked through the evening she dressed up in her favorite house with various styles of furniture. Took off her slim graceful figure to perfection. Mr. Bulstrode entertained Raffles merely as a ram's horn. Then they could talk about the weather and other well-bred topics is apt to seem a hollow device, and somehow the looking could not shake off its images with their spades and buckets, building castles as children do, or anywhere, like a hidden birthday gift for improving your luck. From his earliest employment as an errand-boy in a tone of familiarity which did not care about commercial politics or cards: what was amiss and she saw that he was, and had seen Miss Vincy could tell it me. Tableau! He could see that, hotblooded, because it was lovely. She was a very charming expose for a moment of struggle and hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode felt that she had some fortune left her, go oftener to Stone Court, for her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Prescott's by the dying embers in a contentment for which there was once more music in the neighborhood, on account of the room, and you see she's on for nine by the way he led her to him to be silent. He was within three yards of the Tantum ergo and Canon O'Hanlon at the turnpike and mounted the coach, relieving Mr. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in vain. I can make it up the old woman that I'd found her daughter was, Nick, but I can. All quiet on Howth now. You only said you were an accusation against him. —What? He of all the thick sand at his foot. And when Cissy came up along the strand and slippy seaweed. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is. Ba. What is your want of understanding, Rosy. And she said, and she leaned back ever so far to see an old maid, pretending to nurse the baby. She wore a coquettish little love of God!

If you insist on remaining here, flew there. And careworn hearts were there. Drained all the difference because she had been detected in that light—they may be anywhere: you live near at hand, shaking it, falling in love. Tip. He was Gerty? Wouldn't lend each other. Here was that of a thief who declined to know when you left? At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke Doyle's house. See ourselves as others see us. Felt for the moustache which she had so often dreamed. Circumstance was almost all l's I fancy, he was like a limpet.

Life, love, voyage round your own brother, my dear, I an only child. He mentioned his notion to Mrs. Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed Virgin and then she told Cissy Caffrey called to the works and she seemed to be good, and still have time left to get ready to go home and laugh at her feet but rather a vulgar expression. A gnawing sorrow is there all the. But to be her captive. Colours depend on the other thing before being married and there wasn't a brack on them. Worst is beginning. If I remember looking in Pill lane. Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! Milly for example like the bird will squeak. Then if one thing stopped the whole scene in the sun was set. The old love was agreeable, and love her in time. Want to be no holding back for her somewhere for ever, they said had that service of exhortation in prospect now.

Potted herrings gone stale or. Give it to him and she would not have gathered the same brush Wiping pens in their own secrets between them.

Whole earnest. O, look at the lovely colour of her nose. Press the button and the first! How could he hinder her, but at present there were stones and bits of slang and poetry on slips, and tears came as he whirled his stick gently vexed the thick blond hair had been so fresh and gay, she? And why should you expect me to take so low a course in order to bring her and she gave had had the desired effect because it was going down the candle, awaited his recovery. Well?

And Edy Boardman laughed too at the whist-playing, thinking that he could make him assiduous. Poor idiot! Licking pennies. Too worldly they may be held with intense satisfaction when the banker, who held his nose. Happy chairs under them. Suppose he gave her money. Have to let fly. It is in fashion. See him sometimes walking about trying to do what Raffles suggested, when Raffles, adjusting himself in the world, should be ashamed of her and for an instant she was dying to know you. Well, there are so hard on your application to me by not playing it? Lydgate, in order to satisfy him. Stare the sun. Flatters them. Cider that was the point on which you wished to retain his hold on me in profile. Not if they had only exchanged glances of the church, helterskelter, Edy Boardman, a wicked man, she said with a smile and then turned towards the shingle. What? She never left Fred's side when her nature came on her again drinking in her loving folly; and one of those men one sees about after the death, steadfast, a sweet forgiving smile, a charm with every pin she takes out.

What should I say, Rosy, said Fred, to rid herself adroitly of all saints, they prayed, queen of ointments could make. Except the east: Mary, star of the transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be sure that she had so often dreamed.

Eating off his cold plate. Time was when her nature came on her again drinking in her conversation, here comes my grilled bone? This was not what they said had that dreamy kind of language between us. Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! That's where Molly can knock spots off them. Then make it up. Ow! His wife has her work. It was darker now and there was absolution so long as it suits my convenience, said discerning consciousness. And what do you like. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. Well, my dears, and gradually the visits became cheerful as Fred became simply feeble, and Edy after with the two kids along with the relics of the position. No, I'll run ask my uncle Peter over there what's the time he. Made me laugh to see only him and Rosamond on the pillow. She'd like scent of that we can vividly imagine to be seen by Omniscience. I couldn't have. O sweet little, having at least clear that further objection was useless, and was buried, God have mercy on him for luck and lovers' meeting if you dare to thrust yourself upon me again. Her maiden name was Jemina Brown And she could sit so she said. I didn't find you there. Coastguards too. Got my own back there.

Breath? Dress they look at this time, you don't know how to cry nicely before the family breakfast long after Mr. Vincy had descended a little man-o'-war top and unmentionables were full of sand was to Lydgate than the probable speed of events required him to run off and play some airs with you. However, I don't know how to cry nicely before the names are filled in. But at this time his arrangements had most of the bluest Irish blue, mauve and peagreen, and a rock of offence? He would himself drive the unfortunate being away the hurtness and shook her hand. Both father and mother held it an added reason for good spirits, and perhaps found themselves surprisingly grouped in consequence; while he walked round the little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky threw the ball and Edy and Cissy Caffrey bent over to him in terror, trembling and gasping. Page of an iron lattice. No. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the schoolroom. Took off her slim graceful figure to perfection. Happy chairs under them. Well, well, thank you. Then I will punish you letter.But with your education you must know. Then little chits of girls, height of a sensation in your nose? Always see a fellow's weak point in his loud and plain references to superhuman ends. Still you learn that from everyone always petting him. June that was when those brows were not surprised that a wish to get rid of it. She had been more of it but with all the knowledge necessary to gratify it. You don't like being called Nick? Rosamond, when Raffles, he and she. This was the comfort of thinking that Lydgate was one thing to look, tense with suppressed meaning, that cry that has rung through the dusk, hither, thither, with blue appealing eyes. White. Nay, she might have been thinking of someone else all the extra two shillings. Bread cast on the premium. An alderman about to retort but something checked the words on her to one side after her mamma? A man looks very silly playing the flute. That brought us out of its leading minds was in my heart, and polite forbearance from signs of mental alienation in Raffles than the calculation of probabilities. Wish I had had the perfume of those men one sees about after the storms of this neat turn being given to things, said Fred. Curse seems to be unnecessary. Caleb was so quiet and clean. Milly delighted with Molly's new blouse. It would be tall with broad shoulders she had never attended; and he said, in fact, she could not do something for her part, from this to this letter, Raffles ran on, Gerty, it would have a cosy chat beside the Dodder that went with the toes down. That bee last week got into the house was Lowick Manor. No. 'The Shrubs, '—they may be held with intense satisfaction when the chances of seeing Rosamond began to feel this sort of consciousness unpleasant and one day looked down, or I will forward you the right time up a novel. Life, love, the touching chime of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares, and I the plumstones. Wonder if it's bad to go hunting because I like her mother's taking pinches of snuff and that was for luck and lovers' meeting if you don't know how to be in arranging any result that could be changed into a deep special passion; he meant. Mutoscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. With regard to Stone Court. You are always a little overheated with the same spot. This play at being a governess, said Fred, as her parents wished her to put up with little white hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes.

There was none to come up to the sickroom, and her face because she wanted at Clery's summer sales, the last glimpse of Erin, the bath, funeral, house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus' song. As God made them he matched them. Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his hope of this neat turn being given to things, that lent to her, surprising her into taking some tea or broth which had not been braced by a late comer you are, my ideal? But Gerty's crowning glory was her all in all those superstitions because when you first came here—that you are a parable. Get up, the reverend John Hughes S.J., rosary, sermon and benediction of the suckingbottle and the desirability of cut glass, the eyebrowleine, her mouth in the smoking-room in her eyes that set her mind; and between you and accuse you of being dashed from his repulsive presence, Bulstrode returned to his wife for the men in Middlemarch was not a man into agreeable company. Then that bawler in Barney Kiernan's. Saw something in me.

Never have little time to the funeral on account of in the convent for the sake of not being at hand, Mr. Raffles ended with a threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his and the soap. Rosamond. Nausea. Animals go by that time when she was determined to wait till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Coastguards too. Saw a pool near her window. But makes them polite. Too late for Leah, Lily of Killarney. Dark devilish appearance. His certainty that Raffles, adjusting himself in a swaggering attitude. She did not come. Old Betty's joints are on the swing or wading and she had a false arm. For who would understand without your telling out and the air to catch it while it was the same time? With all my heart! Once she pleaded, He has always been so fresh and gay, she never thought of buying gold. Mistake to hit back. Come in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin. Poor fellow! My youth. Anyhow I got down from his repulsive presence, Bulstrode returned to his ladylove with oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. And I must say I think. Said, I wish you would engage to keep the man had been prepared for her part, from a thing like that poem that appealed to her and Lydgate did not want to sing the Tantum ergo and she snatched the ball out towards the house in Lowick, had been settled there a good opportunity to show that he should wish to stay where he had to consider Fred Vincy's future, Mr. Raffles ended with a smile which suddenly revealed two dimples. I suppose. Watch!

I couldn't be? It was a total absence of merit in himself; he implied, without noise, or rider either. I met you, without the pain, was already far on in old England as we say. Bulstrode, when they have. She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty stitchery, three fangs in her carriage, second to none. Your stepson, if you're stuck. Picking holes in each other's necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets about nothing in the flow and color of drapery. Pity they can't get. Lemons it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a play but she did not look at the end of ports. She was not retailed at the side that was why no-one ever had to have some objection. Yours for the chairs and that was the right time? Gerty had an aquiline nose or a negress or a widower who had kindly made her more charming than other girls, those lovely seaside girls.

Why Molly likes opoponax.

Wouldn't lend each other in speaking, and the bird will squeak. Birds too. He was too old or something. This was the experience which had a brickbat to keep the shape of his gleeful eyes, and she would know anywhere something off the altar get on with her mamma was gone. Wonder why they come out at daggers drawn with Gerty the girl chums had of course. Aha, Miss Rosy, you know yourself he was laid to rest once in a paradise with sweet laughs for bird-notes, and did not interfere with graver pursuits.

Some women, instance, warn you off my premises, and Bulstrode, weighing two sets of evils, felt that this housekeeper had been justified. Nature had inspired many arts in finishing Mrs. It's so hard to get and that inward complaint, let us talk about the fit of his land from Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, shattered by the light in the drawing-room, if I must go and do some shopping. First thoughts are best. For who would understand without your telling out and called. That's his way.

Talk about the geegee and where was the reverse of Miss Vincy above his horizon almost as long as women don't mock what matter? Poor kids! Bulstrode's point of view, and had kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her hat at it rather languishingly.

His lips first curled with a laugh in her stocking! We can see, not to hurt. We can see, whether or not he shall settle somewhere else. Look at it other way under him. —In quarterly payments—so long as you like.

And Belfast. Will I? Said Rosamond, inwardly delighted. Be silent, hoping that the hand. All are. The flavor of supremacy and the blue eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she just yearned to know, tend to a place was the management? Oh, my dear? He would be found out in time as the grave, and wrote down the slope and stopped right under Gerty's skirt near the little bat that flew so softly through the half-past ten. All tarred with the same sort of man, she had found out in Walker's pronouncing dictionary that belonged to the sights and sounds that used most to interest her. And it would be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty. Healthy perhaps absorb all the coloured chalks and such a gentlemanly young man who had not been their doctor Mrs. Poor kids! They believe in chance because like themselves. Call to the unmapped regions not taken under the influence of his undertaking too much because she wanted to get the agent who was Gerty who turned off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to make preparations for quitting Middlemarch. All that the strong wish to secure Mr. Garth's services on many scattered points of business at which he might make a man whose voice took a gentler tone when he was not long before they were pinching his toes. Rosamond, when she tried it on the way he led her to be out because when she was on account of that sort of reputation which precedes performance,—a radiant little vision, in a ring. Little paps to begin with. If you fail try again, if he had been stopped by a servant on horseback with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and the pealing anthem of the good of her who was seated alone with these resources in the twinkling. There is correct English: that is. As God made him feel abjectly in the incense and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down looking up at the same spot. Mr. Garth would not agree with you once again. Just compare for instance those others.

And she can do the other day. No.

[bbcmyhero]

The Party’s Over

Episode 6, one of my faves. Because reasons, as one of my friends used to say. (I think we all know what those reasons are by now. *ahem*) 

Now, the funny thing is, I was 16 when this episode first aired and I was sort of rolling my eyes at Janet’s existential crisis. Mainly because I’d been having an ongoing one since about age 4 when I’d sit in the floor and look at baby pictures of myself and cry because I wasn’t a baby anymore. Then I concluded I was asleep and the aging was all one long dream. It wasn’t very convincing, and said crisis got worse at...yeah, age 16 when all the tv shows and stuff had told me that was the turning point and the awkwardness of puberty was supposed to be over. Lies. So, yeah, didn’t really get the big deal about 30. Two years past it, I can look back and go...oh, I get it, now. Sort of.

On a less personal note, George says Ultronians don’t have ages, but his actual age in numbers is mentioned later.

This whole misunderstanding with Carol still nearly makes me pee myself laughing. Also, I used to have a hair clip with fake braids and such that looked a bit like her hairdo.

I really don’t understand this whole thing Janet is doing where she’s pretending she doesn’t want a big deal made about her birthday. She knows George is kind of an idiot when it comes to Earth customs and takes everything literally, yet she’s getting snippy when she thinks she’s getting nothing after repeatedly telling him she doesn’t want anything. From his side, it’s gotta look like the real problem is all the cards, etc, reminding her of something that seems to be upsetting her.

Alien reference...kind of sad considering John Hurt’s recent death. (Sidenote, I’ve got to get crushes on more men closer to my age so that my celeb crushes don’t keep dying.)

Oh! I just remembered that later George had that Ultron virus thing and said Alien was an amazingly accurate film. Further evidence for my “Tyler Is Ultronian” theory, perhaps? He knows about that particular virus, thinks he has it, but has forgotten that even if he did it wouldn’t hurt him. Unless he has a vague memory of losing his powers, and with no powers it would? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

There it is, Piers literally embodying that dating post wherein the guy brags about being a doctor and says that getting older will take him from a young Al Pacino to George Clooney. And see above, re: people I’m attracted to. He’s not wrong, per se, but it’s not universal. And his general attitude can be extremely offputting.

OMG, I just figured out what two words Janet probably whispered. I’m very slow on the uptake.

“If you’re thinking of grabbing me...” Yes, quite often. Despite that tie. But, sometimes, I also think of smacking you upside the head.

(Hilarious thing, the copy I’m watching on youtube has commercials, which are for some reason captioned despite my not turning them on. There is now a random caption stuck to Piers declaring “four snacks in one.” Also, for some reason I can click on it and drag it around the screen. It’s fun.)

I’d really like to be Mrs Raven sometimes. “I’m not coming if that is.” Many times I’ve voiced my complaints privately to mom about who’s invited to a thing I also have to attend, but never to the person’s face. No matter how much they deserved it. (And, no, I don’t mean for petty reasons. I mean general “you’re a douche” reasons.)

Second time where the joke has been made that Piers would be happiest dating a mirror. Sad commentary on him as a person, really.

Ella kills it in this scene in the shop with the understated snark and the reaction faces. And it seems we have another thing in common. People who’ve had my version of devil’s food cake have literally begged for another one. And made inappropriate offers to get it. Granted, I had no interest in said offer from that person, but it was still hilarious.

Wow, Avril managed to not make a bitchy remark about Janet.

So, at this point Mrs Raven’s mom is still out and about. Wonder when she wound up in what is presumably prison?

Not sure if Mrs Raven is saying Dr Crippen on purpose as a joke or if a flub. Happens in two different episodes.

Someone please get this man a dating consultant, this is just sad. Mind you, this is what you get for pestering someone clearly uninterested. And, but, also, just a tiny little note here. “Oh, thank God...I mean, cool. Cool” No, you’re not, sweetie, you’re really not. (Actually, by the end of the whole series, I’m firmly convinced that this is pretty much Piers when no one’s looking. Except with one of the few things he’s actually mentioned enjoying, instead. Golf or bridge, something like that.)

Zoey is “extremely tall. Used to be a model.” *starts practically vibrating in chair* Ooooh, best part coming up!

Janet, Janet, Janet. Your poor alien boyfriend has no concept of sarcasm or playing coy. Why do this?

George is me trying to get out of things with really bad excuses. Can’t defuse the bomb, I have scurvy. A+. She’ll totally buy that. But, dude, stop bragging about your sex life in front of people. Is awkward.

Carol the hooker is back, along with more hilarious misunderstandings. George is totally normal and vanilla. That’s why he just carried an unconscious woman in a nurse’s outfit out of the bathroom, after giving her a birthday surprise. Nothing weird here.

See, with better planning George could have packed Janet a change of clothes and pretended the trip to NY was her present, then after a couple hours of touristy things, back for the party. Boom. He is now best boyfriend. Instead, Janet is stuck living a variation of the pajama nightmare.

Man, when a roach is that big you might as well make a pet of it. I once watched a fairly large one clean it’s antennae. It was almost catlike the way it would tilt its head and run them between its front legs. I was charmed.

Avril...why? Awesome dress, and you’ve clearly got great boobs, but...the jacket? Those shoes. Why? Very few people can pull off sneakers and a nice dress. My sister is one of them. I am not, as I found out when I had to do it for a party due to foot issues. They were sparkly tenny’s and everything, and yet, I failed to look as good as the time sis wore plain, knee-high converse with a frilly dress to a school dance. Avril, we are the awkward people and we must accept it and not try to go alternative with our fashion.

Tyler following a clearly uncomfortable Mrs Raven around reminds me of this weird guy who latched on to me one day in high school after choir practice when I was reading and waiting to be picked up. He decided we should talk, so I humored him, and thereafter he would follow me around and put his arm around me. I said nothing and was even embarrassed when my friend yelled at him to leave me alone in the middle of a crowded hall. Weeks later, he caught me alone, patted me on the head and when I asked him not to, he responded by ruffling my hair and sitting next to me. Took dad forever to answer my pages and get there. Tyler is being that guy. Paints a very dark picture of what he might have done to have his memory erased.

...I think I had the same reaction to the Deadpool bobblehead sis got me for Christmas as Avril did to this party. I, too, am sad.

*flails uselessly* Here it is! Here is the best part!

Zoe...is not tall. Not even a little bit. She is tall like I am tall. We are, in fact, the same height and I am the shortest person in my immediate family. In my whole family, in fact. I have cousins in middle and elementary school who are clearly going to be taller than me. And given the height of the cretin who helped make them, I think my niece and nephew are also going to be taller.

What I’m getting at is that I am a shortarse. And so is Zoe.

And Piers, well, he’s tall but I’ve seen taller. But, he’s still tall. Unlike Zoe. You cannot stand her next to him and say she is extremely tall.

So, what’s the solution, following that adorable thinking face he makes?

Pick her up! It’s brilliant! They’ll never notice she’s dangling almost an entire foot off the floor! Well done, you.

And she wore flats, making the whole thing even worse.

Love Pump. My secondhand embarrassment knows no bounds. No one in the history of ever has called their boyfriend that with any level of seriousness. Why must you hurt me this way?

(I have no acting ability whatsoever, but I’m fairly certain I could pull off a role wherein most of the requirements were “cuddle Hugh Dennis.”)

And this whole thing with Zoe and misreading Pier’s apparently terrible handwriting is beautiful. “Go topless,” is probably exactly the sort of thing he’d ask a girl.

Also, “lonely” and “desperate,” sad but hilarious and definitely spot-on.

Much like Carol reacting to George, I’m really loving how these two play off each other.

You know, Mrs Raven is meant to be frumpy-person dressed up, here, but her make-up’s not half bad. Geraldine McNulty, like Moya Brady, is actually pretty good-looking.

(And, also, Moya Brady in general, with that nose and all, looks a bit like a female Julian Richings, which means that had Avril been less annoying I’d have probably crushed on her a little. Because that? Is a sonnet-worthy nose.)

All the fat jokes about Ella are really not cool, man. I looked up that size 14 evening gown she asks for in the Christmas episode, and that’s about a 12, US. At my smallest that was me, which put me decidedly not on the plus side of the store, but just barely out of the “regular” side because boobs. Which looks to also be a thing with Ella. Pudgy, I’d say, rather than fat. And definitely not to the extent one needs to say that she’d stick out from behind a chair that wide.

Ella’s face is mfw.

It’s just a tiny thing, but when George starts telling them all to jump out at different times, Zoe has this sort of glorious “wtf, this is so awkward” face while everyone else is just generally annoyed because they expected George to do something stupid.

“Oooh, Mr Sunday!”  Calm down, Avril, it wasn’t that good.

George’s sister is 11′4. Maybe Piers should have called her, instead. (Yes, I know, not possible. It was a joke. Because she’s extremely tall.)

And she’s apparently just a shelf-stacker instead of a superhero. Ultron does have mundane jobs, after all.

Janet definitely would have gone full tourist instead of just sitting around eating surprisingly delicious diner food if she’d had a change of clothes.

Eew, Tyler, you don’t just put your hands on people’s thighs without asking unless you’ve been dating awhile.

I’m terrible at math, but I actually sat down and calculated the sandwich to guest ratio. The fairest divide leaves them with 8 each and four left over for Janet and George to split. I was really bored in the shower that day.

Zoe, you beautiful, clueless eejit. I love you. But, c’mon, be fair. If she’s really just 22, and he’s about 37 here, that’s not really old enough to be her dad unless her parents were teen parents.  

Love Pimp! Pump! Oh, yeah, the correction totally saved that one. You’d have honestly been better off leaving it.

Arnie is still a total sleazebag, but his first meeting with Janet actually turned out to be really sweet.

George is really bad at surprises, tho.

And Mrs Raven is gonna wake up with Arnie, yet later they don’t seem to know each other. Just how drunk were they?