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xhannahbananax03 · 4 years ago

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The Boyfriend Diaries- Chapter 3

Words: 1.6k

Chapter Warnings: Mentions of depression, alluding to suicide, mentions of death and homelessness

MASTERLIST

Once Riley was in the safety of a bus barn, she pulled the wig from her head and released her hair of all the bobby-pins. Shaking her red locks free, she ran a hand through her hair as she bit down on the pencil in her mouth.

She paced while staring at the same paper that held the news of Madison's suicide. There wasn't any mention of a note or a reason why she had done it. Just a eulogy, written by her mother, and few comments from friends and family.

But one comment caught her eye in particular. It was from a friend going to her high school.

"Madison was my best friend. Sure, she struggled in school with the other kids. But I never thought she'd do this. If only I had known..."

The rest of the comment was a bit mushy. But the first part of it seemed unapologetic and uncaring. But it was really the picture that caught her eye.

It was a picture of Madison and the girl who had made the statement, Stacey. It was a seemingly perfect summer day. But Madison was dressed in all black. Black jeans, black sweatshirt, even black boots. Not to sound cliche, but it definitely looked like a classic depressed teen.

Meanwhile, Stacey was distanced from the girl, only temporarily tearing her eyes away from her phone to give the camera a snarky smile. They didn't look like friends at all.

Riley circled over the statement and photo with her pencil before shoving the paper and other things into her bag. She decided that since the bus barn was still in use, she'd stay in one of the broken down busses behind the barn.

Sneaking around back, being careful to not get spotted by anyone in the neighboring houses, she found a perfect bus. It was smaller, damaged beyond repair so that meant nobody was going to come to fix it.

Forcing open the door, she stepped inside, stomping her foot down to make any critters run off. When the bus stayed silent, besides the whining of the old metal, she walked further back into it. Dusting off a seat, she pulled her blanket out and laid it across the seat before setting up her small travel pillow. It wasn't much, but it would do.

She then opened all the windows, she'd close them before she fell asleep, but it was Louisiana and it was hot, so she should get the stuffiness out before bed.

She sat down on her seat and pulled out her journal and a small snack, she'd have to go shopping tomorrow after school.

Dear diary, Today was short, talked to Madison's mother but she didn't have much to say. I did find a note in her room, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of it before Mrs. Sticher caught me and kicked me out. Madison did blame that kid named Andrew for her death. Apparently, listening to those teenage gossip sites can be helpful sometimes. She wrote, referring to the gossip site she had gotten this story off of the days before she came here.

Tomorrow will be my first day at the school here, it's only a little bit scary. But if I just keep my head down and do my job, it'll go by fast. Right?

She finished before closing up her journal. She finished up her granola bar and pulled out her water bottle. It was half empty and warm, but she was thirsty. She drank to fast before seeing that there was now only a sip left inside. Rolling her eyes at herself, she stood and looked out the windows in search of a hose or pump.

She spotted one a bit back, probably in case there was a fire. She left the bus and started for the blue water pump. When she finally got there, she had several grass cuts covering her ankles. Riley pulled the handle of the pump and waited a second before cold, clear water started running out of it.

She smiled and put her water bottle under it. Once it was filled, she took a giant drink and that's when the urge to pee hit her. Looking around, she spotted a bush and decided that would be the place to take care of business. Good thing she always carried a few tissues with her.

After she was done, Riley slowly made her way back towards the bus. Enjoying the sun and cool breeze, blowing her hair over her shoulders. The smile left her face when she saw a head in the bus. She ducked down and decided she had to run. That's when she remembered she had left her journal in there and she couldn't remember if she left it unlocked or not.

Pulling her pocket knife out, she snuck up to the back of the bus and watched to see if she could tell who it was, granted, she didn't know anyone in this town. But it wouldn't hurt to size the person up.

She saw it was a boy, about her age, light brown hair, tall but lean. Maybe she could play this off as simply being a reckless high schooler, bored of being home.

Shoving her pocket knife back into her pocket, she stood straight, but still walked quietly over to the door, once she was there, she slapped her hand against the inside of the window, effectively making the kid jump.

He turned around to face her with wide eyes, "I swear I wasn't doing anything!" He squeaked in surrender, throwing his hands up beside his head. Riley couldn't help but chuckle, this kid was obviously harmless.

"Calm down. I'm not gonna hurt you." She said cooly, walking over to her seat and quickly doing a once over, seeing everything was still intact. "What're you doing in here?" She asked, plopping down in her seat and facing him.

"I'm just here with my dad. He works on the buses so I thought I'd take a look around." He said nervously, fumbling with his fingers and not making eye contact.

She tensed at the mention of his dad. If he knew she was here, he'd probably kick her out. "Uh listen," she said quietly, sitting up and finally he looked down at her. "You can't tell anyone I'm here ok? I just, I don't want to get in trouble."

He smiled a crooked smile and nodded his head, "I promise I won't tell." He looked around before sitting on the seat across from her, "My name is (enter name), what's yours?"

"Riley." She introduced herself with a bright smile, half fake, half real. "It's nice to meet you, (enter name)." It has been awhile since she was able to talk to a boy her age without planning on murdering him later. It was nice in a strange "normal" kind of way.

He paused for a moment, staring her down but it didn't make her feel threatened or uncomfortable, if anything she felt a little flattered, "So what're you doing here anyways?" He asked leaning his side against the back of his seat and quirking a messy eyebrow at her.

She smiled beginning to feel slightly uneasy as his dark eyes stared right into her soul, "Just bored of being home ya know?" She looked down, fiddling with her nails. The black polish was chipped and faded and she made a mental note to repaint them.

"Yeah I get that feeling..." he mumbled, turning to face the back of the seat in front of him before his head tilted back and he stared at the rusted ceiling of the old bus, "You're new here right? I've never seen you around her before."

She just nodded her head and murmured out a "Uh-huh..." before her eyes moved up to study his side profile. She was cute, even she had to admit but something about him seemed off, not right. Like he was being forever tortured by something and had no one to express that pain to. She could relate to that feeling all to well.

He opened his mouth like he was gonna say something but before he could, another man shouted out after him, "(Enter name)!"

They both jumped and he stood up quickly, "Uh I need to be going now." He said before quickly making his way back to the front of the bus.

"Wait! Um, (enter name), you promise you won't tell anyone that I was here, right?" She stood and watched him intently with a silent plea in her eyes.

He just chuckled and shook his head slightly, "Yeah, I won't tell anyone about the girl living in the bus. Scouts honour." He helped up three fingers on one hand and placed his other hand over his heart.

Riley's face paled slightly and she immediately went to defend herself, "I'm not.." the words died in her throat as he just laughed and slowly moved down the stairs towards the open doors.

"I'm no idiot Riley. I know a bed setup when I see one." That made her shut her mouth and blush slightly.

How could she be so stupid as to just leave her things out and think he wouldn't notice.

"See ya, Riley." He waved slightly before the man shouted for him again and he quickly moved out of the bus, being sure to not be spotted before he waved once more and ran to the front of the barn so his dad wouldn't know where he came from.

She sighed heavily and dropped back onto her seat before slipping her shoes off and laying on her back, one arm covering her eyes while the other fell off the side of the seat and he hand slid into her bag.

Her heart dropped when she realized her diary was no longer in there.

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d2kvirus · 5 years ago

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Dickheads of the Month: September 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of September 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

As if proven liar Boris Johnson suspending parliament to try and force through a No Deal Britait at the end of August didn’t look dictatorial enough, he then moved on to threatening and Tory MP who doesn't fall in line with deselection - and yet, rather than call this the obviously despotic move that it is, instead the media spent more time focusing on him adopting a fucking dog

Master strategist Dominic Cummings said that, rather than listen to “rich Remainers” in London, people should listen to those all over the country - which certainly helped, as Cummings’ genius idea to have proven liar Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson walk the streets of Morley and Doncaster saw said proven liar have to listen to the non-rich giving him both barrels for being responsible for the mess we are currently in

Not only did Laura Kuenssberg repeat what the press did with Carrie Symonds’ neighbours and throw around the term “Labour activist” to dismiss the very real concerns of the father whose daughter was in the understaffed hospital that proven liar Boris Johnson visited for a press op and then called out the proven liar’s claims it wasn’t a press op by pointing to the camera crew a few feet away, but she went one step further by doxxing the person by posting one of his tweets to her Twitter timeline, which unsurprisingly led to him getting a dog’s abuse from people because he dared say bad things about proven liar Boris Johnson - abuse he would not have got if Kuenssberg hadn’t doxxed him to her 1.1m Twitter followers, all because she wanted to distract attention from the fact her beloved BoBo had been caught on camera lying to someone’s face

...and it wasn’t long before the BBC proved their blatant double standards, having circled the wagons around Kuenssberg to say she did nothing wrong while doxxing a member of the public, yet disciplining Naga Munchetty for an off-the-cuff remark about the Orange Overlord saying Trump saying non-whites who criticise him should “go back where they came from” is racist

There is nothing sinister about Dominic Cummings saying that, if MPs wants to stop receiving death threats, they need to get Britait done. Absolutely nothing sinister about that at all...

When Jacob Rees Mogg wasn’t literally lying in parliament, he was dismissing the genuine concerns of neurologist Dr David Nicholl by comparing his concerns to those of anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, who was struck off for giving erroneous advice

I’m trying to work out if Justin Trudeau forgot about the whole wearing blackface thing, or merely assumed everyone else had. Either way, at best he could generously be accused of gross naivety - especially when the second round of photos came out, after he tried to pass it off as a one-time prank

So not only did proven liar Boris Johnson sound supremely cuntish by saying that leaving the EU would honour the memory of Jo Cox - that’s the same Jo Cox who, while campaigning for Remain, was murdered by a member of Britain First - but when quizzed on this Bernard Jenkin could only respond about the stress that the proven liar was under, because as we all know the real victim is the person who said something monumentally dense and not the person murdered by a member of the far-right on the streets of their constituency

If anyone can explain what the hell compelled Stephen Kinnock to suddenly decide that Theresa May’s deal should have yet another going over in parliament in spite it being defeated three times already and her not even being PM at this point, let alone why he wanted to bring this up at the moment No Deal was being defanged, I would love to hear it

Something compelled Quentin Letts to compare the recently-deceased Robert Mugabe to Boris Johnson...as a compliment

Compelling argument against nominative determinism James Cleverly thought he was being clever by keeping up the “chicken” jibes against Jeremy Corbyn that proven liar Boris Johnson and his cronies at The Sun had been keeping up for days in a desperate attempt to pretend Corbyn hadn’t spotted an obvious tarp by Dominic Cummings and sidestepped it...right up until his stunt ended up seeing the entire Tory party get bitchslapped by Kentucky Fried Chicken

...and it wasn’t long before proven liar Boris Johnson rendered all jibes of Corbyn being “chicken” laughable when he responded to some heckling when visiting Luxembourg by publicly running away from a press conference with Luxembourg’s PM

According to Kwasi Kwarteng there are people up and down the country questioning the impartiality of the Scottish judges who ruled Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament unlawful. Just a reminder, Kwasi Kwarteng is the Business Secretary and not a Youtube right-wing conspiracy nut

Waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage has decided that those dozens of appearances on BBC political programming over the last decade were examples of the BBC being biased against him, and he;s boycotting all future appearances. He neglected to mention whether or not any other member of The Nigel Farage Ego Project would follow suit...

We saw just how little credibility Laura Kuenssberg has on the 2nd September edition of The Six O’Clock News where she stood outside 10 Downing Street talking about how proven liar Boris Johnson would be calling a snap election, only for her to be cut off mid-sentence by the proven liar walking out to waffle for five minutes where the only thing of note he said that wasn’t an easily-debunked lie was that there would be no election...and once he was finished Kuenssberg continued talking about a snap election as if she hadn’t been stood less than twenty feet away when it was said there would be no election

The fact that nobody was surprised when James Cleverly falsely claimed that the Tories created the NHS during the Tory conference isn’t a surprise - not least because it’s not even the first time Cleverly has made that patently false claim

It would appear that Alan Sugar misses the days that he and not Alexander Boris De Pfeil Johnson was being held up as the British answer to Donald Trump, judging by his posting a tweet taking aim at the dogwhistlers’ favourite target Diane Abbott

We are supposed to feel sorry for David Cameron after his memoirs stated that he thought that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove behaved “appallingly” before and during the EU Referendum campaign. If only the party leader did something about this, which they were in the position to do, and what was the name of the leader of the Tories at that moment in time again...?

Forgetting that we’re supposed to be calling Jeremy Corbyn a chicken, instead our good and honest friends at the Daily Mail instead ran an article about how awful it was that Jeremy Corbyn supported the Guildford Four’s Paul Hill. That’s the Paul Hill who, like the other members of the Guildford Four (and the Maguire Seven) were threatened, beaten and tortured by the police and served fifteen years in jail for being members of the IRA in spite of the fact that they weren’t members of the IRA nor plotted any terror attacks, and the Mail thinks it’s bad to show support for someone who was a victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history

It’s a bit rich for Rachel Riley to be the face of the Don’t Feed The Trolls campaign considering her history of harassing, doxxing and encouraging pile-ons on anyone who disagrees with her

Sentient testicle Toby Young thought he was being really, really clever when he accused Phillip Hammond of an “anti-semitic conspiracy theory” after Hammond stated that the sole reason for proven liar Boris Johnson trying to take the UK out of the EU by October 31st is to help out his speculator mates - although the cleverness rapidly evaporated when Hammond responded personally with a threat of suing for libel, and for some strange reason Young’s really, really clever tweet vanished off the face of the earth

...and because Toby Young has to be Toby Young about things, rather than keep his head down after Hammond’s threat of legal action instead he came rushing to the defence of the proven liar by saying that female Spectator employees felt upset if they weren’t groped by proven liar Boris Johnson, which is not only the defence of the rapist but his “defence” only serves to say that proven liar Boris Johnson has a history of groping

It’s as if The Sun have decided they can go back to their pre-Leveson levels of scumbaggery, judging by how they’d both told Gareth Thomas’ parents he was HIV positive and threatened to publish it, as well as reporting how two members of Ben Stokes’ family had been shot and killed several years ago without actually obtaining consent from Stokes before splashing it across their front page

...and right on their heels was the Daily Mail doxxing Jo Maughan for the sole purpose of...nope, no idea why they felt the need to do so, but they did it anyway

If Steve Baker thought he was helping the Leave side look non-deranged, his claiming that proven liar Boris Johnson is moving the Tories back to the centre ground failed to do that on a molecular level

It’s all well and good the Liberal Democrats acting as if bringing in Luciana Berger and Angela “funny tinge” Smith as MPs is some kind of major breakthrough...but they sure kept it quiet that they wouldn’t be defending the parliamentary seats they’ve been squatting in since February

So nice of Mike Gapes to join the dogwhistling brigade with his deciding to highlight Diane Abbott’s poor use of grammar...by highlighting that she was using grammar correctly while Gapes’ attempts at grammar bullying only served to highlight his grasp of the English language could be better

It says it all that the Daily Mail was encouraging their readers to stop sponsoring the RNLI for the crime of using 2% of those donations to support causes abroad

To nobody’s surprise, as soon as John Humphrys was out the door he harrumphed about the BBC’s “liberal bias” to the Daily Mail - as if over thirty years of his using the Today programme as a platform of his right-wing views and generally being a miserable twat

How generous of Tim Martin to say that, as the UK had left the Customs Union, Wetherspoons could now charge 20p less per pint...except Britain hadn’t left the Customs Union, revealing that Martin could have cut prices long ago if he wanted to, but he obviously felt he didn’t need to as the chain’s profits weren’t nosediving as a direct consequence of Tim Martin alienating half of his customer base for the past three years

According to reports, Nicalis head honcho Tyrone Rodriguez went to the same business school as Channel Awesome supremo Mike Michaud, judging by the reports coming out that he would go weeks without answering any calls - which is not what an indie dev who sent their game over to Nicalis to be ported wants to discover - as well as a laundry list of evidence of him not realising he isn't a 14-year old edgelord who can only talk in raicst, antisemitic, homophobic or ablest slurs, on top of his charming habit of bullying members of staff

In the latest attempt by PewDipShit to prove he's not beholden to the alt-right section of his fanbase he offered to donate $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League...and when that same alt-right section of his fanbase kicked up a fuss, he cancelled the donation and waffled about “taking responsibility” while demonstrating that how averse he is to the idea

This month it was John Ocasio-Nolte who was getting insanely triggered by Greta Thunburg, taking to Twitter to suggest she either needs to be spanked or receive psychological counselling (which worked about as well as can be expected the second the tweet was posted) while Dinesh D’Souza said she looks just like images used for Nazi propaganda as if that means anything other than Dinesh D’Souza spend hours going through Google image searches to try and find something, anything that would serve as the basis of an utterly batshit proclamation that his moron followers would swallow

Not a good look for Focus Home Entertainment to decide that, once their deal to distribute Frogwares’ games expired, their solution would be to drop all of Frogwares’ games from every online store - yet rather than return the code to Frogwares, instead they’d be keeping those as well because if Focus Home can’t sell those games, no-one can

It’s not a surprise to see The Sun forgot the faux outrage they stoked last December at trying to say Jeremy Corbyn called Theresa may a “stupid woman” (even though any lipreader will tell you he said “stupid people” of the entire Tory front bench) judging by their response to proven liar Boris Johnson calling Corbyn a “big girl’s blouse” was to dispatch one of their hacks to Corbyn’s house the following dya waving an item of women’s clothing at him, seemingly under the impression this looked anything other than mad

Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph wrote a piece comparing waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage to Britait’s Icarus...somehow forgetting how the story of Icarus ended

Britain’s most triggered man Piers Moron Morgan took to Twitter to howl about how Dora the Explorer discourages men from becoming explorers. I’m guessing that he forgot how Indiana Jones and Nathan Drake exist...

What would a month be without Donald Trump doing something utterly lunkheaded? Not this month, that’s for sure, judging by his response to mistakenly claiming that Hurricane Dorian was heading to Alabama wasn’t to admit the mistake or even never mention it again, but instead draw on a weather map with a Sharpie to make it look like Dorian’s path would now head into Alabama - so not only did he prove he can’t admit to being wrong, but he’s so thin-skinned his being wrong eats at him so much he can’t let his being wrong go, which only draws attention to his being wrong in the first place

#dickheads of the month

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blackdieselcinema · 6 years ago

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My Top 30 Films of 2018

(plus my favourite performances of the year)

I finished 2018 having seen 134 of last year’s new releases. Here are my absolute favourites.

30. INCREDIBLES 2 (Brad Bird, USA)

29. A QUIET PLACE (John Krasinski, USA)

28. SKATE KITCHEN (Crystal Moselle, USA)

27. THE HATE U GIVE (George Tillman Jr., USA)

26. UPGRADE (Leigh Whannell, Australia)

25. FIRST REFORMED (Paul Schrader, USA/UK/Australia)

24. ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE (John McPhail, UK)

23. BODIED (Joseph Kahn, USA)

22. PHANTOM THREAD (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA/UK)

21. A STAR IS BORN (Bradley Cooper, USA)

20. BLACK PANTHER (Ryan Coogler, USA/South Africa/South Korea/Australia)

19. CLAIRE’S CAMERA (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea/France)

18. GAME NIGHT (John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, USA)

17. LOVE, SIMON (Greg Berlanti, USA)

16. EIGHTH GRADE (Bo Burnham, USA)

15. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (Boots Riley, USA)

14. IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Barry Jenkins, USA)

13. WIDOWS (Steve McQueen, UK/USA)

12. ROMA (Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico/USA)

11. TULLY (Jason Reitman, USA)

10. TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE (Susan Johnson, USA)

9. ONE CUT OF THE DEAD (Shin'ichirô Ueda, Japan)

8. BURNING (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea)

7. ANNIHILATION (Alex Garland, UK/USA)

6. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT (Christopher McQuarrie, USA/China/France/Norway)

5. THE SHAPE OF WATER (Guillermo del Toro, USA)

4. HEREDITARY (Ari Aster, USA)

3. CLIMAX (Gaspar Noé, France/Belgium/USA)

2. CRAZY RICH ASIANS (John M. Chu, USA)

1. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, USA)

Honourable mentions – L’Amant Double, Aquaman, Asako I & II, Avengers: Infinity War, Bad Times at the El Royale, Batman Ninja, BlacKkKlansman, Blockers, Coco, Creed II, Dead Pigs, Deadpool 2, The Devil’s Candy, Ghost Stories, Hearts Beat Loud, Hell Is Where The Home Is, Hotel by the River, Lady Bird, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Love and Other Cults, Mandy, Never Goin’ Back, The Night Comes For Us, Piercing, Ready Player One, Red Sparrow, The Rider, Rock Steady Row, Searching, Set It Up, A Simple Favor, Support the Girls, Thoroughbreds, Unsane, Wildlife, You Were Never Really Here.

My Favourite Documentaries of the Year - Shirkers (Sandi Tan, USA), The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling (Judd Apatow, USA).

Plus (for the benefit of those who don’t follow me on Twitter)…

My Favourite Film Performances of 2018 (in alphabetical order)

Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give) Blake Lively (A Simple Favor) Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born) Carey Mulligan (Wildlife) Charlize Theron (Tully) Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians) Daniel Kaluuya (Widows) Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade) Ethan Hawke (First Reformed) Jesse Plemons (Game Night) John Cho (Searching) Josh Hamilton (Eighth Grade) Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born) Lakeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You) Lana Condor (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before) Logan Marshall-Green (Upgrade) Margot Robbie (I, Tonya) Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther) Nicolas Cage (Mandy) Rachel McAdams (Game Night) Regina Hall (Support the Girls) Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water) Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water) Steven Yeun (Burning) Toni Collette (Hereditary) Viola Davis (Widows) Yalitza Aparicio (Roma)

Cheers,

Andrew

Follow me on Twitter @blackdieseluk

Check out last year’s list here.

#film #movies #cinema #best films of 2018 #best movies of 2018 #2018 in film #top films of 2018

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limejuicer1862 · 6 years ago

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

How Clark sees the writing process

Clark Allison

Born 1961 Glasgow. Attended Glasgow University 80-81. Resident in California 83-92. Studied further at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Took up library studies at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen 93-98. In continuing education in Aberdeen 2000s. Moved to West Lothian 2015. Publications include two pamphlets ‘Temporal Shift/Daubs’ (Trombone Pr 98), ‘Unspoken’ (Smallminded Books 17). Reviews and poems in Shearsman, Robert Sheppard’s Pages blog, Tears in the Fence, Stride particularly. More limited work experience, though trained in librarianship. Continuing regardless with periodic reading/studying and a varying amount of writing.

Links

Stride stridemagazine.blogspot.com/

and archive https://www.stridebooks.co.uk/archive.htm

Shearsman www.shearsman.com

Robert Sheppard Pages robertsheppard.blogspot.com/

Tears in the Fence https://tearsinthefence.com

The Interview

1.What inspired you to write poetry?

I might prefer a term like ‘persuaded’ or ‘conduced’, since I didn’t have to write. However, I put a lot of it down to social adjustment, and how one chooses to think or behave. The short version would have to cite the anthology ‘Poetry 1900-75’ (Longman 80) ed George MacBeth, which was read and studied in high school, including such poets as Eliot, Yeats and Edwin Muir (no MacDiarmid incidentally).

Having become acquainted with poetry especially in high school, but also essay writing generally, I took it upon myself to continue with a significant amount of reading and writing after I left high school. I wanted to, and did read more by Eliot, including a biography of his early years by Lyndall Gordon. I thought Prufrock and The Wasteland set the bar for short form poems, real set pieces, other instances being Olson’s ‘Kingfishers’ or Apollinaire’s ‘Zone’, though this type of poem is actually quite rare, and maybe even ill advised! And yet equally I’m altogether out of the kind of class consciousness Eliot presented or inhabited, my parents were not well to do, it was a sense for me of being inspired by the writing.

I did write poems after high school. These were decidedly not modelled on Eliot, nor really on anybody else particularly. I’d say my earlier poems were much more influenced by what I might term phenomenology or psychoanalytic association, since I was, equally, very interested in psychology, not at high school, but at university. I thought poems might engage, express and reveal what happened to be going on in my mind, but these were uses of language, too. I was getting a kind of ‘subjective’ orientation from psychology and an ‘objective’ one from Eliot, but I really wasn’t writing poems of that kind. I took up more of his critical ideas fairly seriously, the ‘objective correlative’ and the ‘dissociation of sensibility’, notably. My awareness of behaviourist social conditioning psychology (Pavlov, Skinner etc) had quite an effect, the stimulus-response school.

So, one could either write for an audience, wherein I just didn’t have one. Or one could write as an inquiry into self awareness via language, which is what I found myself doing.

Who introduced you to poetry?

Well, this goes back to the first question, that was high school English classes and mainly the MacBeth anthology. We studied Shakespeare too, ‘Lord of the Flies’, Grassic Gibbon. Memorable teaching sessions included whether The Beatles ‘She’s Leaving Home’ counted as poetry; and whether John Cage’s ‘4’33” counted as music or art of any description. I think I was early on struck by the seeming inconsequentiality of writing much. But what I called my writing exercises and reading material continued on, even after I left Scotland in 1983 for the US (until 1992). I really wasn’t sharing my writing much at this time. I found one small magazine called ‘Outposts’ that looked promising and John Calder’s ‘New Writing’ series, but I never took to sending them anything, ie where would that get me anyway?

3.How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Well, part of this was that I didn’t encounter any poets in person. On the other hand we did have a lecturer in film studies who had published a new book, John Caughie ‘Theories of Authorship’, and he was very engaging and down to earth, while warning us that some of the film/social studies theory was difficult.

The key poets for me, Eliot and Yeats, were long gone. In terms of successors to them, I wasn’t really coming up with a lot. I went off to the States and found that they were much more interested in Pound and Olson rather than Eliot, too Anglophile, likely. In Los Angeles, where I lived, I did encounter Holly Prado’s writing group in person. She’s a fine poet I think, married to Harry Northup an actor and fellow poet, published by Bill Mohr’s Momentum press, and I think I gained a lot from her seminars. She was unintimidating. One felt mostly an invitation to try to comprehend the process, which for her certainly included classical myth like Orphism and Thoth (kind of the Egyptian Hermes) and a kind of sensibility question where one would be taking off from certain themes, eg Robert Bly and masculinity. Holly Prado has a wonderful essentialist work called ‘Word Rituals’ (Boxcar 2). Meanwhile I was if anything more interested in the journals Temblor (ed Leland Hickman) and Sulfur (ed Clayton Eshleman), to whom I submitted but was not published. Hickman encouraged me to send work on, even though as it turned out he didn’t use it, and there was a short correspondence. Paul Vangelisti who had been in Temblor was also running seminars, but I felt it beyond me, and not altogether reasonable, to attend both.

I also submitted work to Barrett Watten at ‘Poetics Journal’ (co-ed Lyn Hejinian) and James Sherry at Roof publishers, which they did not use, but were considerate and respectful in responding. I continued writing exercises on my own account, feeling it, as I said, possibly revelatory or therapeutic, part of the process of getting through things. Reading Kerouac and Burroughs helped a little too. But I had little cognisance of any eventual reader.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I effectively don’t have one. I try to set aside time for writing, and try to write down anything halfway important that pops into my head. My appetite for writing exercises has reduced, whereas I might formerly write 3 pages a week, now it might be less than one even. I guess I try to establish where it fits in in terms of psychological need. I don’t set a quota.

5. What motivates you to write?

I guess this is back to the psychology. I’d maintain there is a revelatory aspect to writing, ie going through the act of doing writing changes something and it can be personally enlightening and perhaps socially too if you share your work. It might be a bit like thinking and feeling out loud. Write it down! even if for personal reference.

6. What is your work ethic?

I studied continuing education philosophy. Ethics is exceedingly complicated. More than anything I’m a bit of a Darwinian, ie the survival and preservation of the self and of those others in the collective you happen to identify with. Compared say with crop failure and starvation writing poetry can seem like very small beer. On the other hand writing creativity can be inculcated in the education process. Writing surely has an ethics if we seem to mostly be disagreeing just what that is. Art for art’s sake has an argument behind it, but does not seem to me fully defensible, but then neither is Soviet style social realism..

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Here I could perhaps mention that there were a few writers very relevant for me early on, and they still are. All that has happened is that some of my more youthful enthusiasms have worn out to an extent, so that I’ve diverted attention more latterly to such poets as Charles Bernstein, DuPlessis, Silliman and Nathaniel Tarn. I think that High Modernism is on the wane, and we’re diverting more attention back to the Romantic poets like Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley etc. Ah, did ‘Ancient Mariner’ in high school, but I don’t think it’s at all Coleridge’s best; I look more to the ‘Biographia Literaria’. I think accepting the claims of new writers is a cause for some perplexity; they have to persuade and convince, always that problem of the primacy of first acquaintance.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

This overflows from the last one. One could get quite caught up in a long list. Trying to keep it short. Among contemporaries, usually older, I would include people like Bernstein, who’s a bit of a spokesman for the Language school, Silliman, Bruce Andrews, DuPlessis, Hejinian, in Britain more ‘innovative’ poets like Robert Sheppard, Maggie O’Sullivan, who actually I struggle with, Ken Edwards, Denise Riley, Peter Riley (no relation as he keeps saying), Prynne, Wilkinson, Drew Milne, Andrew Duncan, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Rupert Loydell, Martin Stannard, Charlie Baylis, Allen Fisher, Rod Mengham, David Rushmer, Kenneth Goldsmith (the Conceptual school), another struggler for me Vahni Capildeo, also poets in translation, but there it tends to thin out, Raul Zurita etc or Zizek’s latest pronouncements on theory and crit.

What I admire most is a sympathy with the innovative and progressive, and addressing writing to the realities that confront us today. However, I don’t think we have to be loud or confrontational, a lot of what’s effective comes out of the words themselves.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

Well, everything in a sense surely comes down to communication and behaviour, of which communication is a part. Communication can take numerous forms, and indeed many writers now are trying to experiment with other artforms besides, like installations or video etc. I just regard writing essentially as part and parcel of communicating., and that includes the likes of social theory, in which I’m also very interested (eg structuralism, Frankfurt School, narratology etc).

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Here I think early education is very important, preschool and primary school included, literacy. Where you have a certain fluency with words it becomes a possibility. But it ties in with motivation. What do you want to do, or achieve? What are your better skills? What is the best use of your time?

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

Here it becomes a bit indeterminate. I’ve just had a few book reviews posted or due to appear online, of writing by Wilkinson, Richard Gwyn and Vicente Huidobro. There may be some more poems, but I have to say the muse is not entirely with me at present. I seem to have gotten into a pattern of writing responsively to other things I’ve read. I like Terry Eagleton’s phrase, ‘hope without optimism’.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Clark Allison Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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thrashermaxey · 6 years ago

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Ramblings: Dobber reviews, team-by-team, an eventful Free Agent Frenzy (July 2)

***

What a fantastic Free Agent Frenzy this year, highlighted by John Tavares taking a discount and the Sabres – Blues ending things with a blockbuster. Truly enjoyable, though I wish the latter trade was done three or four hours earlier, but that’s nitpicking.

We have the fantasy analysis of all the key deals with fantasy impact listed right here.

Here are my quick one-off thoughts on how each team did overall yesterday…

Anaheim – I had always liked Anton Rodin as a prospect, but his bad luck with injuries derailed his development and the Ducks are too deep for him to crack the lineup, barring a couple of key injuries to top sixers and disappointing camps from top prospects. They also signed a good depth defenseman in Luke Schenn, and a No.4 goalie in Jared Coreau (I think Kevin Boyle is a promising prospect goalie who is probably a better option than Ryan Miller if he ever gets a chance to show it).

Arizona – Michael Grabner brings nice speed into the lineup as long as it’s used on the third line. The Coyotes already did their tweaking, so the main thing they did was officially sign Oliver Ekman-Larsson to his eight-year deal – not to mention keep him happy by signing his brother Kevin to an AHL contract.

Boston – Jaroslav Halak is a great backup, and as good as Anton Khudobin was last yer I think Halak is even better. I think their depth signings were solid (Joakim Nordstrom, Chris Wagner) and adding John Moore gives them five enviable defensemen plus two more good bottom pairing guys. The Bruins didn’t have to do much because their rookies did so well last year and now they have added Ryan Donato.

Buffalo – Well what can I say? The Sabres are no longer going to employ a bunch of AHLers to fill out the roster. Casey Mittelstadt has allowed them to trade Ryan O’Reilly, which injects three players into the roster in place of one. If you add in the Conor Sheary acquisition and the Rasmus Dahlin draft pick and I’d say the Sabres get the Gold Medal for most improved team over the past month. I’m not sure Carter Hutton is an upgrade to Robin Lehner, but at least he stays healthy – and I really like Linus Ullmark so I think the team will be covered in net. And yes, I’ll be handing out Silver and Bronze today too, read on.

Carolina – Uh oh. Petr Mrazek? It’s a good thing this team did the Dougie Hamilton trade and already had a great group of young forwards, because their goaltending didn’t get any better.

Calgary – The Flames did a pretty good trade last week that re-jigged the roles of a few of their roster spots, and yesterday’s signing of Derek Ryan was supplemental to that. As you may have read in my “dark horse” breakdown, I thought that Austin Czarnik signing was a sneaky-good one and he could surprise. You know me – I’m always looking for the next Martin St. Louis or Cam Atkinson revelation.

Chicago – I feel like, in order for the Blackhawks to be serious contenders again, then they need to effectively replace the two rocks on defense in Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook. So I’m not sure why Chris Kunitz was signed. I get bringing in veteran Cam Ward to help stabilize the net, which was a big issue last year. And Brandon Manning is just their usual low-minute defenseman signing that they do every year. But there’s no magic savior on defense in the free agent market. Their stuck trading for a solution. It’s a good thing Henri Jokiharju is coming soon – he’ll be a stud worthy of the top pairing. As I write this, Chicago has the least cap room in the NHL at about $2 million.

Colorado – I like what the Avs have been doing. Although it has been nothing earth-shattering, they didn’t really need that. Adding Philipp Grubauer to transition into being their future starter was a nice move last week. And signing the hustling winger Matt Calvert to play half the season on their third line was a good addition. I say “half a season” because he’s hurt for the other half, guaranteed. Ian Cole was a good depth defenseman add – and that’s what this team needed badly rather than using guys like Mark Barberio.

Columbus – Lots of tweaking, but nothing of substance. The Riley Nash deal was a good add, but if this team didn’t go deep in the playoffs in the spring, Nash isn’t going to change that.

Dallas – The Stars added a really good backup in Anton Khudobin, one who is capable of doing a better job than Kari Lehtonen did when Ben Bishop gets hurt (which happens often). Lehtonen had a nice bounce-back year, but I think Khudobin can do better and that should mean at least an extra couple of wins. And that’s how close they were to a playoff spot. Blake Comeau is an underrated two-way guy for the third line who can replace Antoine Roussel minus the penalty minutes. Valeri Nichushkin is a free addition.

Detroit – The Red Wings refuse to go into full rebuild mode, opting instead to tread water. Re-signing Mike Green and bringing back Thomas Vanek strikes me as pointless, though Vanek can be traded at the deadline for some assets. But Green? As for Jonathan Bernier, I think he makes a sneaky-good add because I think he can become Detroit’s starter by next year. In 2018-19, however, it’s hard to have a good starter when the team doesn’t win many games. But keeper leaguers take note – I feel that Bernier found his starting job, he’ll just have to outplay Jimmy Howard and prove it.

Edmonton – Anton Slepyshev reportedly signed to play in the KHL, but adding Tobias Rieder is a bit of an upgrade. Just don’t overrate him, he’s a checker often miscast as a scorer. Kyle Brodziak brings character and was a great add. The Oilers addressed the easy needs to address – but were unable to address the difficult needs. Defensemen. They don’t grow on trees, though.

Florida – Did absolutely nothing. Well, they signed a No.3 goaltender in Michael Hutchinson who now sits behind two Band-Aid Boys and in the end just might end up seeing the most starts! No, this Panthers team will basically be the same team you saw last year, except upgrade Radim Vrbata to Mike Hoffman. This team badly underachieved last year, so perhaps doing nothing yesterday wasn’t so bad.

Los Angeles – The Kings added Ilya Kovalchuk and extended their main guy – Drew Doughty. This team still strikes me as not deep enough, and a couple of pieces short…but then again the Washington Capitals just won a Stanley Cup that way so I can’t really count out the Kings. They just injected 30 goals into their lineup so their offseason is among the Top 10 just from that.

Minnesota – The Wild shed themselves of Tyler Ennis and shored up a lot of depth (Andrew Hammond, Eric Fehr, JT Brown, Matt Bartkowski, Matt Hendricks, Greg Pateryn). Nothing earth shattering.

Montreal – The Habs turned themselves into possible Cup contenders after I’m sorry I can’t keep going and keep a straight face. Habs fans: keep the faith. All big-league teams go through down times like this, just hang in there. Montreal brought back a fan favorite in Tomas Plekanec and added a decent depth winger in Joel Armia. I wouldn’t mind Kenny Agostino as a possible ‘next PA Parenteau’, except the Habs don’t have a John Tavares to turn Agostino into a Parenteau. So that AHL experiment doesn’t look promising. I do like Montreal’s draft selection of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and their focus should be on prospects and picks. They should use the Ryan O’Reilly deal as a blueprint for what they should try to get back for Max Pacioretty.

Nashville – The Preds didn’t do anything beyond adding two wingers who could be called up when injuries strike – Rocco Grimaldi and Connor Brickley. This team didn’t need to do anything though, as they have a great roster and should already be adding Eeli Tolvanen.

New Jersey – This one’s a head-scratcher and I think I’ll give the Devils my Bizarro-Gold Medal for worst offseason. This team added nobody of substance, and let a fine prospect goaltender in Ken Appleby walk, while re-signing a proven-to-be-weak goaltender in Eddie Lack. Maybe team brass doesn’t feel as we do. Maybe they feel that this team didn’t just play over their heads. Taylor Hall is a superstar, but he’ll never be Hart-Trophy good again. And while getting Marcus Johansson back from injury will be nice, Will Butcher’s second half tells me a sophomore slump is on the way. If they make a few small trades going forward, they can be forgiven because then they’d be taking a page out of my playbook (i.e. skipping free-agent frenzy and address major needs via trade).

NY Islanders – I don’t blame the Islanders one bit for pushing until the last minute to sign John Tavares. He is a generational talent and they needed to throw everything they had at him. Ottawa should do the same with Erik Karlsson. After they lost him, there wasn’t much the Isles could do. Signing Valtteri Filppula and Leo Komarov addressed needs, and Barry Trotz is a great coach. But they’ll never be able to fill the Tavares hole.

NY Rangers – The Rangers added Fredrik Claesson as a depth defenseman but did nothing else. As a team in rebuild mode, I don’t really mind this. It gives youngsters like Lias Andersson, Filip Chytil, Libor Hajek and Tony DeAngelo a shot at making an impression.

Ottawa – A great draft pick in Brady Tkachuk was mitigated by the panic trade of Mike Hoffman, which was exasperated by their not signing anyone of consequence on July 1st. They needed to throw fans a bit of a lifeline, and if they’re making a play on extending Erik Karlsson this certainly didn’t help matters.

Philadelphia – The Flyers added proven and reliable 30-goal man James van Riemsdyk and then they dropped the mic. Boom. The only other need they could address is goaltending, and they have two of them already in place as a stopgap until their prospect studs are ready. This team is my Honourable Mention – not quite in the Top 3.

Pittsburgh – The team shed salary in Matt Hunwick and Conor Sheary last week so they could sign…Matt Hunwick II? To me that’s all Jack Johnson is: a fringe defenseman who was getting scratched in Columbus late last season. Then again, the Penguins turned Justin Schultz into a great Top 4 guy and Jamie Oleksiak looked damn good once he came over. So perhaps Johnson has a revival of sorts. Bringing back Matt Cullen was nice, and the Pens did well with bringing in depth pieces Jimmy Hayes and Stefan Elliott.

San Jose – Addition by subtraction by shedding Paul Martin’s contract. And Doug Wilson is, of course, a genius for how he handled the Mike Hoffman flip. But other than extending Logan Couture for eight years (no small feat there, though), the Sharks did nothing Sunday. They’re keeping Evander Kane and I think you should keep an eye on the free agent European they signed a few weeks ago named Antti Suomela, who I think is a better Joonas Donskoi.

St. Louis – The Blues were weak up the middle and they could have used another scoring winger as well as a backup goaltender. Check, check, check and…check! Chad Johnson is a career backup who is a decent, but won’t have any illusions about stealing Jake Allen’s job. So the Blues are all-in with Allen and are hoping that helps. The Blues also signed David Perron and Tyler Bozak, suddenly adding incredible depth to their forward corps. So then they took that depth and turned it into Ryan O’Reilly, shedding Vladimir Sobotka and Patrik Berglund to do it, but losing promising prospect Tage Thompson as well. However, this team now boasts Brayden Schenn – Ryan O’Reilly – Tyler Bozak up the middle. That takes them from one of the weakest teams down the middle to one of the strongest. My Bronze Medal winners, folks!

Tamp Bay – GM Steve Yzerman did nothing more than extend Ryan McDonagh for seven more years. The Lightning could use some help on depth lines, but those players can be signed at Yzerman’s leisure. This is Dobber’s playbook!

Toronto – I’m sure you figured out that the Leafs were getting my Silver Medal, and you’re right. They get that just for landing John Tavares. They also added depth players Josh Jooris and Adam Cracknell, plus an interesting project in Jordan Subban, PK’s brother. Jordan is small at 5-9, and he’s very weak in his own end. His offense has shown signs of coming around at times in the AHL, but he has yet to get over the hump. Back to Tavares. There are a lot of articles coming out right now about how the Leafs do not have to trade William Nylander because they can afford his projected $6.5 million salary next year and still have $3 million next year to play with. But those articles are wrong. Mitch Marner could very well top 80 points this season – do you think he’ll sign for $6.5 million after that while Auston Matthews signs for $11 million? You’re dreaming. If Matthews gets $11 million and Marner outscores him, then Marner is getting $11 million. Now re-jig your article with that small adjustment, Mr. Hockey Journalist. It makes more sense to just trade William Nylander next summer for a great return.

Vancouver – The Canucks made some fantastic additions for their Stanley Cup run. What’s that you say? … They aren’t expected to go on a run for the Stanley Cup? Oh. Well then why did they sign character guys Antoine Roussel and Jay Beagle? By the time the Canucks are ready to truly need these types of players, their contracts will be up. They each signed for four years, so maybe during the fourth year they can help on a Cup run. Maybe Jim Benning was just thinking (way) ahead?

Vegas – The Golden Knights were deep on defense so it was easy to let Jason Garrison and Luca Sbisa go. Signing Nick Holden wasn’t even necessary, but it couldn’t hurt. Adding Paul Stastny was a big win but losing James Neal (who is reportedly still talking to them) and David Perron hurts. Solid depth minor-leaguers with NHL experience Daniel Carr and Curtis McKenzie were good adds.

Washington – The Cup Champs signed a bunch of depth guys (Nic Dowd, Jayson Megna, Michael Sgarbossa) and lost character guy Jay Beagle. They have just $8 million in cap space and still have so re-sign Tom Wilson and Madison Bowey, plus add another defenseman. And they can do that later.

Winnipeg – The Jets are being very careful about the salary cap and they also have, in my opinion, one of the three or four best rosters in the NHL. An amazing feat. This team has $27.5 million in cap space (leads the league) and just 29 contracts (an NHL-low). They’ll need to cough up $10 million I’m sure to re-sign Connor Hellebuyck, plus another $10-$12 to sign Jacob Trouba, Josh Morrissey and Adam Lowry. So their only move was to sign Laurent Brossoit to come over and be their backup goaltender. The Jets will be looking at small, short-term deals on the open market because after locking in the aforementioned key components, they have next summer to worry about (Blake Wheeler, Patrik Laine, Kyle Connor, Tyler Myers).

This year, for the Fantasy Guide, I am taking user input as to which players I will dig deep and give my thoughts on for each team. Remember the feature “Dobber’s Lowdown on…”? It will be based on YOUR votes. Voting is taking place in the forum (right here), check in every day for a couple of new teams. And on Facebook we will take the first to players voted for each team – and have a final poll to determine the player I dig deep on. So like our Facebook page here to vote the second time. You don’t have to sign up for the forum in order to vote. So far it looks like Ondrej Kase and Brandon Montour will go to the Facebook polls for Anaheim, and Christian Dvorak and Alex Galchenyuk for Arizona…

See you Wednesday – I’ll be back for my old day this week as Ian is away on vacation.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-dobber-reviews-team-by-team-an-eventful-free-agent-frenzy-july-2/

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brooklynislandgirl · 2 years ago

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Advent Calendar: Day 6 @tabbyrp

“Red leader, this is Gold Leader. We’re starting our attack run.” Tabby’s breath fogs the air with the ghosts of her words. Her dark hair is covered with a red and green beanie with elf ears ~a match to Beth’s striated purple, Jay’s silver and gold, Andy’s blue and white~ and matching scarves. All of which Beth made as early gifts. There’s still a couple days before Christmas and the tree in Clan Riley’s apartment is surrounded by layers of presents large and small, their stockings hanging from the fireplace mantle. There’s enough food for an army waiting to be cooked or ready to go. And as is tradition, there are sleeping bags and pillows, extra blankets in the living room for the holiday sleepover. Andy is still a little guilty of having gone behind her back to arrange for her to have the next four days off, and they have her pay covered for those days. Heavy-handed? Yes. But Tabby deserves both the break and the holiday to make up for so many ones that didn't have fairy tale memories attached. “I copy, Gold Leadah. Move into position.” Right now, they’ve staked out a good amount of space here in Central Park, and are commencing in a freeze or be frozen snowball fight. To make things fair, the two shortest are paired together, verses the two tallest. The height war. But Beth is breathlessly delighted that she’s using dialogue from Andy’s second favourite movie to coordinate their team efforts. It all feels so easy, the four of them, found family as people say. From behind the shelter of their trees, there’s a flurry of hand gestures between them. They’ve scouted within the confines agreed on beforehand, and have discovered that Andy and Jay have chosen to make their basecamp at Gapstow Bridge. They can see the deep navy blue of Andy’s peacoat though neither one of them have accounted for Jay, though Beth is so certain that Jay is up on the top of the bridge, hiding behind the stonework walls. That’s where she’d be. She accidently comes out from behind her tree a few seconds ahead of Tabby. “Stay in attack formation!” Tabby runs low over the open ground, weaving behind tree trunks. Beth follows close behind, her arms loaded with what amounts to nearly her own body weight. She’s the spotter and carrier, Tabby has so much better a throw. And sure enough, when they are free of their cover, Andy instantly spots them. Unfortunately for him, Tabby already had several small, hard-packed snowballs in hand. “The exhaust port is marked and locked in.” She sends three of them in rapid succession, and all three tag Beth’s brother right on the backside. His arms windmill to fend off the next round, and he’s shouting for Jay to provide him cover fire. And that’s when he realises that there’s a snake in the nest so to speak, as she rains down her buckets of frozen ammunition. As if she would ever truly side against the other women. Sometimes Andy doesn’t think things through. Fifteen minutes later, he’s on the ground laughing and groaning as they gather around him. Tabs sits on his chest triumphantly accepting his terms of surrender. Jay’s packed up the supplies they brought and is fixing to dole out the cocoa in individual thermoses, and Beth is surreptitiously keeping the cold from sending searing pain through her brother’s limbs and no doubt his very bruised backside. She isn’t about to ruin the toboggan races down the hill with his complaints. Tabby glows like the Star of Bethlehem.

#Tabbyrp #There are Seven Stars|Tabby and Beth #Honourable Mention|Jayden Morgan #Honourable Mention|Andrew Riley #ohana means family #Merry Christmas 2022

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brooklynislandgirl · 1 year ago

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"Beth." He's suddenly invading her space, pushing her backwards until she's trapped between the wall and his body. He doesn't want her wiggling away.. Especially not after the conversation he had had with Andy. He most certainly wouldn't approve but.. He knows what she wants, he's seen her eyes straying to his blade whenever he was handling it. He knows that lust. He knows thrill that rushes through her as he lifts the blade to trail it down the curve of her jaw. "...Big brother isn't here to save you.. How bad do you want it, Bethy?"

There is a moment. One that seems to span an eternity even if she could tally up the actual fragments of time into a web that would only loop itself between her fingers like a cats-cradle. In this perceived aeon, Beth can feel her heart leap into her throat. The friction of it acts like tinder, setting everything below on fire as she feels the warmth of him, the weight and the texture of muscle and bone from where her shoulders rest against the lower portion of his ribs. She is slight. Barely there. He meets no resistance. What is a cage to others is often a comfort to Beth. Darkened eyes from where her pupils have dilated giving away any pretence that she's untouched by any sense of desire ~the oxytocin leaking into her bloodstream from the moment he said her name in that very specific way~ and now stare up, slivers of leaf green that are normally vast virgin forest. She's never been shy about the beauty of his hands and the way they work with his knives. If anything there's maybe a slight envy. Her own fluid grace is clinical, something she can't separate so they are delicate strokes, never the power and rage like Franks, and she can only lift Andy's sword when she uses mana to enhance her strength. When he allows her near it at all. Billy, of them all, though seems to possess a balance. She sighs, winsomely, when he caresses the square jaw ~a family trait~ with cold steel. She's sure he can feel that momentary ache inside of her, too. And then... Then... Billy has to go and ruin it. Frustration clouds her gaze before she puts a hand on his chest. Gives him a faint push. One that is blatantly half-hearted. "...Bout as much as ya wan Andy t' fold ya up like a blanket an' bend ya over da foot of his bed." Her voice is soft. There's no edge. There's no fight. Simply... resignation. Her brother has hurt his feelings. So he asks the person he knows doesn't really know how to say no. Even when she feels something in her chest chip away. "Should put plastic down, first. Frank say it helps keep wood from staining."

#prettytm #Broken Wings|Billy Russo #Waiting For This Moment|Billy and Beth #Rough Roads|Punisher au #Brooklyn Stories #Lost in Translation || N S F W #knifeplay tw #{{she will need to go to Antarctica for a shower cold enough}}#Honourable Mention|Frank Castle #Honourable Mention|Andrew Riley

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brooklynislandgirl · 2 years ago

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@kit-just-kit

Talking About You Makes Me Smile || -

I. Something they like about your muse: Beth breaks with the decorum literally drilled into her from near infancy. Her elbows on the the table, her hands are folded one ontop of the other in opposite directions, with her chin holding them in place. Her doe eyes grow wider still as Kit regales with the continuing story of her nameless patient and the trials and tribulations she's been through before finally backing out as his therapist. She never breaks HIPAA regulations by giving Beth the man's name or personal details. Some part of her even wonders if all the ups and downs are real or if the other woman is exaggerating here and there, or worse…leaving out the truly harrying details. But over the last forty-five minutes and multiple pots of tea shared between them ~to go with the bear claws that Andy baked himself the day before~ Kit has woven a story that ought to be a best-seller, but also one that highlights the thing that Beth likes the best about her. Every word that Beth hangs on is full of patience, kindness, and a genuine desire to help someone who despite himself likely came off better for all of her gentle wisdom. Thankfully her hands are close enough to cover her mouth when she spurts out some tea. Once she cleans herself up and no longer has Darjeeling dripping from her nose, she laughs. "I'm…I'm sorry. What about a goat?" II. Something they dislike about your muse: It isn't that she dislikes Kit. In fact, the woman is one of the few people that Beth would confidently count on her fingers as a close and personal friend. Someone whom she would trust implicitly in the course of her life, but when it comes to Andy? Every hackle is raised even if she doesn't want them to be. She's as overprotective as he is with her, the two of them so deeply and intimately involved with one another that they might as well be extensions of each other. Beth knows that Kit understands the damage that the Jersey Devil caused Andy. That she was the reason he was so quick to re-up for another tour, which ultimately cost him his leg, some of his spine, and nearly his life. She deprived him of the child he could have raised ~and did so intentionally, saying the worse things she possibly could about it~ and she cheated on him more times than Beth can count, flaunting it eventually. Ever since his medical discharge and finalising the divorce, her brother hasn't really been the same. And Beth is so afraid that Kit will want to help him. Will try to analyse him and reopen the wounds. She's afraid that somehow, through no fault of her own, she's going to break his heart. And in turn, Beth will have to ruin her friend's life. "I mean, he's kind of basic, but at da same time, he may be more romantic dan me. So wha' kind of date did ya really got in mind?" III. Their first impression of your muse: Beth passed the woman three times without noticing her. She'd heard they were having a therapist filling in on the ER psych rotation but it means so very little to her until and unless she needs to double check orders for patients, or needs to track down a consult. About ten hours later, Beth nearly literally runs into Kit, though run might be a stretch in terms. A little shudder runs the length of Beth's spine. "Oh, Quot'e, you should not be heah," she hisses, head tilted and eyes widened. "Beg your pardon?" Okay so the accent was new but the face was not. "I said-" "Yes, I heard you, I just don't quite understand." Five minutes of incredibly convoluted conversation later and Beth finds herself apologising. It is said that everyone has a double in the world, someone who looks enough like them that the pair could be twins. In proof of that, there's Doctor Kit Prince, and one of Beth's nemeses, Quothe. "No, no, it's all my fault. Mebbe sometime ya let me buy ya some coffee or somet'ing, and take it as an apology, please." IV. Their impression of your muse now: Beth's hand fly up to her mouth and cover the flash of her teeth as she tries so very hard not to laugh. She fails. The sound is rich and warm and full-throated. "You're nevah serious?!" The three words are carved out of her breathlessness. At least once a week now Kit and Beth make time to have lunch or dinner together. They take that time to unwind. To find a way to ward off the tragedy and horror of their jobs through shared experience and understanding. There's a level of comfort with one another that cannot be faked. Sometimes it's just a word or a look that coveys entire worlds of meaning between them. This is what friendship looks like and Kit is one of Beth's closest friends. Jayden, her hanai sister, shoulder-checks her gently. "Let her finish!" She flashes Kit a dark-eyed wink. "Can't take her anywhere. I'm sorry. Carry on." Girls' Night is exactly just that. A chance to bond and talk things out. Beth nods in agreement to all of Jay's statements and giggles as she pours them all a refill from the pitcher of midnight margaritas Jay'd blended a few minutes ago. Once she sets it down, she leans closer and puts an arm around Kit and lays her head on the other woman's shoulder. "See? Totally family, right?" V. How they feel about your muse: "Okay, but try dose shoe wi' da dress. Very sleek, very streamline." Beth enjoy Kit's company, sees her as a good and close friend. Of course there are moments where the little nurse feels she could go full feral at anyone else who might dote on Kit as well, because in her mind the good doctor walks a very fine-line between being Beth's friend and Andy's… well. She's not sure what Kit and her brother are but she's not stupid. She's seen him show off all the best of his abilities; the cooking, his music, his ability to lift and move heavy things and read things way above her head. Beth's affections are slightly more subtle. Spending time with her friend, often bringing little gifts, things that vibe with Kit insofar as Beth sees her. The late afternoon pick-me-up coffee, the invite to come along to dinner because they both work jobs where things like that are few and far between. It's one of Beth's love languages. Caring for others, that is, even if sometimes it can come across as smothering or cloying but she doesn't mean it to be. Andy makes excuses; that she was born under a bridge and was raised by mo'o, that the seagulls and flounders never taught her how to behave like a human, and so on. Sometimes it is funny while other times it's just downright embarrassing. "Ooh, an' wha' about dat necklace? Da big chunky gold one?" VI. Something they are hiding from your muse: "Beth?" She doesn't know exactly how long Kit's been waiting for her to respond. She doesn't know what came before her name, what she's expected to answer, what's the right thing to do in the moment. Her eyes stray toward Kit. They wander from the woman's hands to her mouth then up to her eyes all while she wears a vague sort of smile. It makes the same trek back down. She reaches for her coffee. Takes a long sip as she scrambles to come up with something reasonable to say. "Beth doesn't always pay attention, she might not have caught what you said." Andy shrugs and slathers a pat of butter on his toast. It's everything she can do not to kick him in the shins. I'm getting better, she wants to shout, her default mode when he points out just how much she really isn't like him or most other people, when he goes spilling her secrets to anyone who'd listen. Somehow it seems worse when it's someone whose opinion she values. She can't manage to raise her eyes from the nebulous space between her cup and her plate. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I got lost in my own head. Could you mebbe repeat dat try an' ma….please?" What she means is she's broken. That there's a wire or two loose between her ears and her brains and she's literally missed the last five minutes of conversation simply because she didn't know it was happening. Oh there's a dozen different suggestions Kit could make. She's always being reminded that there's implants she could get to sort of strengthen the signal as it were. Headphones that could maybe cancel out background noise, if she doesn't mind sacrificing comfort and any sense of functionality. The thing Beth wants most is likely the thing she can never have; a sense of normalcy. VII. Something they wish they could to tell your muse: Kit is standing at the windows, wrapped in her own thoughts, staring out at the constellation of the city's lights and the false-dawn they provide even though it's closer to midnight. She's not really waiting up for Andy. She isn't waiting for the sound of his engine, the sleek black shadow of Sally's hood rolling into slow view. It's more than that and Beth knows it as intimately as she knows how to breathe. The way her shoulders are drawn together inward and down. The way her arms are wrapped around her waist and her chin is tucked close. Protecting her softest places, the ones that are the most vulnerable. It's there in the way she flinches at little sounds. The way she sometimes holds her breath for a few seconds before it feels okay to let it out. This is trauma response, and they both know it by name. Beth really wishes she could say… It's okay. It was never your fault. You did everything the way you should have and better yet, you've survived. And now you have us. You'll never be in that kind of danger again. But that's a promise she can't be sure she can keep. She knows her brother will do his best. Just as much as Beth herself can. They can offer her comfort and company, but they can't change the past. Beth doesn't lie. "Oh, hey," she says. "I happen to be awake an' was gonna make some cocoa or tea. Can I getcha some?" It isn't a lie but it skirts close to one. She forgives herself because all she's trying to do is make her friend feel better.

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brooklynislandgirl · 5 months ago

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Emma: Has your muse ever attempted a matchmaking scheme? Why? How did it turn out in the end?

Fragments || Accepting

The look that she gives Tabby is pure comedic gold, exaggerating her wide eyes as she glances at her friend sideways before rolling them and letting her face settle back into it's normal neutrality. "So, yeah. Alla time, I t'ink, t' veryin' degrees. Sometimes I'll try an' matchmake Panda, an' nevah work out because he's so pretty to look a' an' den he open his mouth, an' ruin everyt'ing." She isn't lying. Tabby, bless her heart, for as much as she loves Andy sometimes has a hard time dealing with all of him all the time, and does better than most. "Sometimes, try an' set up my cousin Tony. Tall, medium-dark, handsome, an' attracted to men. Italian. Amazing cook, well read, plays piano an' composes, an' is a federal agent. Tell me he's not perfect! But hardship is...findin' someone wor'dy, dat won't take advantage of him."

Beth's face squinches. "I mean if I could, I'd jus' t'row one big party an' den jus' pair people off two by two until all match up like Noah's ark. Somehow, I don't see anyone agreein' to dat, even if I do know best."

#Mahalo!Tabby <333 #She's Talking to Angels {Bethisms}#Making Wishes on Passing Cars|Answered Asks #Honourable Mention|Tony DiNozzo #Honourable Mention|Andrew Riley

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brooklynislandgirl · 15 days ago

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"Beth......if we we're to do a joint costume for Halloween this year, my top three picks up to now would be Thelma & Louise, Romy & Michelle and Cagney & Lacey.....any ithers you'd like to throw into the mix?".

It Came From the Late Late Meme Show || -

Beth glances up from the treat bags she's making. A hundred and fifty gluten-free, diabetic friendly ones already sit inside the massive cauldron. Paper bags and sticks collected and washed from Central Park, tied with ribbons to look like witches' brooms. She's making another batch of three times as many for the kids that will be coming to the door of the apartment building, these containing more traditional and sugary snacks. "I mean, I t'ink da hardest part would be talkin' Andy into wearin' dresses or sensible shoes..." It's clear that Beth isn't just teasing, but simply assumed the other petite brunette would have plans with her sibling. Until it occurs to her that they might assign him to patrol or that he might be on call. Homicides don't take holidays off, after all. Which then means that Kit is asking her about the two of them going out in matched costumes. "We could do ya hair up red an' go as da sistahs from Practical Magick. Or everyone into Wicked so you could be Glinda an' I could be Ephelba. Or if we sweet talk Jay into it, could be Sanderson sistahs from Hocus Pocus. I mean, we could do literally any kine, really... but I tend not to like da kine too scary." She taps a nail ~bats along the sharp curve of the edges~ against her chin. "Or we could be da t'ree velociraptors an' Andy could be Owen Grady."

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brooklynislandgirl · 1 year ago

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He walked into the house like he owned the place, just a normal Sunday afternoon. A six-pack of beer was tucked under his arm, an offering for the snacks he knew Riley would have ready for their football watching pleasure.

“Holy shit - will you knock it off with the pumpkin spice, it smells like the great pumpkin’s asshole in here.” He held his nose with his free hand.

Autumn Offerings || Accepting

No one in the house thinks twice. Brian is family, has his own spare key, even one of the guest bedrooms is often referred to as his. And yet, the tone he strikes puts Beth's back up. "Hey! Not me! An' if I had the oxygen to breath, I'd be totally offended. If you wanna complain, address Princess Peach over there." She's seated near the open glass doors to the patio, as far away from the kitchen and pretty much every other room as she can get. Both of them are answered with a quickly flung middle-finger from Riley, who is busy turning this batch of chicken wings. There's already a stack of Buffalo-sauce coated ones, this will be the sweet and spicy barbecue batch. "What? You're always bitchin' that California isn't like back east, and you miss the-" "Doesn't mean I want you to destroy the ozone-" The siblings talk over each other and Street just shakes his head.

#therealgamble #Kanoa|Brian Gamble #First Flash of Freedom|Brian and Beth #Sibling Rivalry|Andrew Riley #Honourable Mention|Jim Street

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brooklynislandgirl · 2 years ago

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20: Is your muse good at picking up on others’ flirtation/sexual advances or are they oblivious? (asked from whichever boy or girl takes la fancy)

Little More Conversation || Accepting

Beth’s hands stop stirring the brownie batter when Hannah asks the question, but she doesn’t look up. If anything, she squeezes her eyes shut and swallows down the lump in her throat. She shifts from one bare foot to the other and Hannah could easily be forgiven if she thought maybe Beth hadn’t heard her. Or that the red-haired teen had somehow overstepped invisible, inexplicable boundaries. By rights, she should have told the girl it was better to ask her mother or an auntie, but isn’t that sort of what Beth is?

Hannah is friends with the boys; Noah and Styxx. She is visiting from Tennessee, and maybe she just needs an outside perspective, or maybe she’s testing the waters, gleaning insight from the only other female in the house. Beth could never imagine her being so candid with Zarek. Or even as sensitive as her son can be, this is not the kind of thing anyone would ask him, and she thinks this as his doting mother. She sets the spoon aside, looks up, and inclines her head graciously to the girl before she comes around the counter, and sits beside her. One leg crosses over the other, foot tucked behind an ankle. She wipes her hands on a dishcloth. What Beth is doing is stalling and they both know that. “When I was your age,” she says slowly, carefully, recalling many years back, now. “I wasn’t the person you know now. If you can imagine, I was cripplingly shy, completely uninterested in boys or girls...or anything, really. When I thought about the future, I imagined I would be a doctor, and my brother would be an officer...Captain, maybe, or even on his way to becoming a General. Or maybe he’d follow in the Admiral’s footsteps and becoming a senator for New York. “I’d already been accepted to Columbia and several other colleges for pre-med, and the mainland was so very new to me. I was probably too afraid, too busy getting my feet under me to notice if anyone tried to make gestures of affection. I spent almost all of my time studying, working hard. I barely had time to go anywhere with my hanai-sister much less anything else. “Eventually, Andy had his accident and there was a long time that we believed he’d died, and that put me in a very dark and terrible place. Eventually I came here, to New Orleans, and met Zarek.”

He’d tried to kill her. Right after or maybe during her trying to kill him, so that was fair. He tried to drown her. He called on Sin to pass judgement over her. He’d sent her away. Then he’d gone and found her and brought her back. During that trip, Sin had murdered her, but not before she and Zarek had consummated their relationship, though those are all details that she is not going to tell the girl. “Eventually, as sometimes happens, he married me, and we ended up having Styxx. We both made some mistakes...” She still can’t say Garrett’s name without dying a little on the inside of shame, especially when she’d mistaken friendship for an advance. Moreso that she contemplated it for a whole five seconds. She also learned to stop asking if her husband loved her.

“...but here we are. I don’t think I ever really noticed that Zarek was flirting with me, at least not the way you see it in movies or read it in books. And the only time I ever saw Andy have to try was with Seren. So, I guess you could say...I’m the oblivious kind. “But I don’t think you really care about that, and it’s not why you’re asking. Girl to girl... do you think Noah’s flirting with you? Has he said anything, or has his behaviour changed toward you? Or is it someone else?” Beth’s perfect English drops into her more comfortable pidgin for the first time ever, something that could be mistaken for the local creole. “Go on, tell Auntie, make ya feel mo’ beddah.”

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brooklynislandgirl · 3 years ago

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💫 Have they ever been hit/struck by a partner and turned on by it? Let's go with.... Larry asking.

The Lost Memes || Not Accepting

The only thing mortifying about the question is the answer.

One she only allows Lawrence because to stop and chide him for it would both be a distraction ~unwelcome~ and relatively pointless. He isn't just making conversation for the sake of it, she's learned enough by now, working and socialising with him so closely as she has these past few months, their goal being able to find a way into the Lighthouse. One that did not require making her ask Andy for any help. She knows her brother better than anyone alive, and he'd refuse her out of sheer spite because at some point, she would have to reveal that Lawrence is part of whole mess, and it's fair to say neither man particularly enjoyed anything about the other.

She peers up over the tome that she's been pouring almost silently through for the past half hour. The light glints off the lenses of her glasses but doesn't hide the slight narrowing of her gaze, nor the way they seem to shift colour, becoming darker, as hazel pours into arctic blue.

It feels as though he'd watched her while they'd been at whatever gala it had been ~each one usually blending into another until she can almost not tell them apart in memory~ when Tabby's ex had started a scene that Tabby had ended on her own, no help needed from Andrew Knight in Tarnished Armor Riley.

She remember smelling the blood before she saw it, the way it mingled with French grapes and the hint of toast and cocoa from its aging. She also remembers her fingertips tightening their grasp on Larry's wrist when it hit her, not just in her olfactory senses but how it had plunged straight down into her unmentionables. A cross-wired lust in her brain that had her straining to see, to scent more as the euphoria of it washed through her.

The way Tabby had looked in that moment like an Erinyes, indignant and full of gorgeous rage. Andy a moment later having event security escort the idiot away despite wanting to pound the guy's face in, fists curled but fingers gentle as he grazed Tabby's chin. An almost identical flush of desire as her own that she knew meant she might have to make other arrangements for the evening or things were going to get very awkward very quickly at home.

Even now she could recall that moment in perfect clarity and feel the rising heat shimmering in her veins. She can't explain it in any reasonable way but there's something to be said about violence, the bloodier the better, that chips away at her resolve and only makes fuller the realisation that she's not found anyone or anything that can help ease the resonating want within her. That can alleviate the weight of that softest, sneering whisper in the back of her mind that tells her that she is sick, sick, sick. That there is something deeply wrong with her, twisted because she is impure.

For moments, all he gets is one dejected rise and fall of a thin shoulder. The view of her blank expression as she uncurls her legs from beneath her as she puts the heavy and thus far useless book aside. She stretches and then moves away from him entirely, tongue running the edge of her teeth, over their points. Which themselves are a tell-tale sign that she is a monster, but like everything else, only hapa.

Her pacing leads her to one of the windows, and she leans against her fear. It prickles the skin at the back of her neck with its claws. Heights and darkness staring back at her as if to remind her that all things, even little witches, come to a mortal end eventually.

"Jus' you aksin' dat question, Larry," her voice creeps toward him, "tells me you already know da answer. Wha' it don' tell me is why ya wanna know. Arousal nevah really your bag, an' you are not tryin' t' get in my skirts. First, dey da wrong colour for you, an' second, you'd nevah fit in 'em."

She draws in a deep breath and exhales it until her lungs are empty.

"If ya worried dat mebbe in a fit a' pique I will be so out of mind wi' desire dat I'll pounce on you as if you were a gazelle on da savannah? I'm not li'dat. I was not lyin' to ya when I said...you got one free shot an' aftah dat, I'd take my pound of flesh. I'd sooner a limb wi' flesh an' bone attached dan your..."

The pause was so pregnant that it was already fully dilated.

"Junk."

She turned back around when she was sure her eyes were no longer fever-bright and her skin was no longer flushed.

"But if you wanted t' get physical, is mo'beddah ya aks. I'd be glad f' accommodate you."

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