#I love how all of my top posts except one (1) is about midnight mass

[feelmyskinonyourskin]

A Hell's Kitchen Christmas [Hallmark Trope]

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader

Trope de Sept Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Hallmark Special tv movie trope 1. Busy career woman in big city reluctantly returns to hometown for problem™. Handsome man in town who she initially clashes with wins her over and they fall in love. She stays in hometown. It is also Christmas. "You return to Hell's Kitchen to help your estranged dad in a legal battle over his hardware store. You’re a hot-shot Miami lawyer after all, how hard could it be? Except the charming, handsome local lawyer named Matt Murdock your dad hired to help him keeps getting in your way. And yes, it is Christmas. Because this is a Hallmark Movie."

Warnings: No use of Y/N. No pronouns are used for reader, so any gender applies! Catholic/Religious mass mentioned/attended by reader, reader’s mom is dead, Christmas, Fluff on top of fluff.

WC: 1500

*I never give permission for my fics, manips, or any other original creation I post on this site to be copied, posted elsewhere, translated, or fed into any AI program. The only platform I currently post anything on is Tumblr. Thanks!*

The footsteps of parishioners thumped softly against the carpeted aisle of Clinton Church, nearly drowned out by the blaring of the organ as it played them out while they all exited. Christmas Eve Midnight Mass had just ended. Typically always over-crowded with those Sister Maggie called “Christers” (those who only attend church on Christmas and Easter), the many people walked past where Matt sat in a pew towards the back, chatting about what excitement tomorrow brought them (technically today, as it was nearly 1AM on Christmas Morning).

Matt remained in his seat, listening to the crowd depart, until there was just one other person in the chapel with him.

He noticed you as soon as he sat down before the service. Despite the many unfamiliar heartbeats in the crowd tonight, he picked yours out right away. Your citrus-scented perfume confirmed your presence when its pleasant smell reached him. 

You were alone, which Matt found odd. Not joined by your father for the holiday celebrations as he expected you to be.

He heard you finally stand from your spot and walk up to the altar just as the last of the crowd left. The lighter trembled in between your fingers as you picked up a tea light and lit it, placing it amongst the many flaming symbols of other people's prayers.

“Shit God, I know I don’t pray a lot… or at all really.”

Matt listened as you spoke, chuckling to himself. You clearly hadn’t noticed him there.

“Look, it’s just my dad… the hardware store has been his whole life since mom died and please, you just can’t take that away from him. I know me leaving didn’t help, I know. I’m still living with that guilt, believe me.” you continued to pray, sniffling and wiping away a tear from your eye

“But this pro-bono guy he’s got. I don’t think it’s gonna be enough. I guess what I’m asking is please just let him open his heart enough for me to help. Or at least for this Murdock schmuck to get it together enough and actually save my dad’s store. You know, like a nice Christmas miracle? Um… thanks God.”

You crossed yourself and bowed to the altar, turning to leave.

Matt could tell you spotted him from the gasp that left your mouth and the way your heart skipped a beat.

“Matt. Hey. Um… Merry Christmas.” you said, still trying not to cry as you walked over to him

“Hey. Merry Christmas to you too. Where’s your dad?”

“Oh, he had a long day today. You know him, he never stops working. I told him to stay home and rest. Can I walk you home?”

“Oh you don’t have to…”

“Come on Matt, it’s late and it’s Christmas. It’s only a few blocks anyway. Let me walk you home.”

Matt nodded and took your arm as you led him out of the church and into the cold New York night. The snowflakes danced around as the two of you walked, arm in arm. Crunching footsteps made a path through the white-covered sidewalk and left evidence of the route to Matt’s apartment you took. 

“Did you not bring a warmer coat? I can hear you shivering.” Matt exclaimed

“I didn’t. I never come home for Christmas, but with everything going on with my dad, I booked the trip so last minute and a winter coat isn’t exactly something I need in Miami.” you replied, tugging at the sleeves of your thin jacket

“May I?” Matt offered, releasing your arm for a moment to shrug off his wool pea coat.

Gloved hands ghosted your neck as he situated the garment around your shoulders. It was snuggly and warm and reminded you of Matt in a way you couldn’t quite put your finger on. 

“Thank you Matt. Not just for the coat, but for everything. You’re really helping my dad out.” you said, letting him take your arm once more and resuming your journey

“Oh yeah? You sure I’m not just some schmuck he hired?”

“Shit. You heard that? I didn’t mean it.” you shook your head and Matt just chuckled

“You really are a good lawyer.” you continued “Everything you’ve proposed we try and all the research you’ve done… I know I’ve been really hard on you since I got here and I’m sorry. I’m a big deal at my firm in Miami and I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am. And my dad is about to get evicted and he doesn’t even call his own kid to help? I know I’m in corporate finance law and I’m not licensed in New York but still… He didn’t tell me this was happening for months and he hired you and I was hurt.”

“So why’d you come back to New York then? If you think I’m a good enough lawyer to help your dad out that is?” Matt asked

“I didn’t think that at first. Didn’t think a small pro-bono firm could take on the big developer trying to tear down the whole block. But now that I’ve been working with you on this, well I was wrong. And maybe I came back too because I missed him and I missed home.”

“Yeah?”

The streets of Hell’s Kitchen were practically empty at this hour, families all tucked away in their homes waiting for the excitement of Christmas morning. It was tranquil, seeing the city that never sleeps so quiet and calm. The electric buzz that New York always seems to have was still there, but dimmed. 

“After my mom died, we just grew apart. He threw himself into work and I threw myself into school and my career. I think he was bitter that I moved away, that I didn’t want to take over the store from him.”

“Well you shouldn’t feel bad about going on your own path.” Matt reassured

“Yeah but it was the way I did it. But now that I’ve been back, god it’s like we used to be. Close you know?”

“Yeah I was really close with my dad too. And I’d give anything to have him back. To have what you and your dad have.”

“Shit you’re right. I guess that really puts it in perspective.” you replied

The purple and gold light of the video billboard on Matt’s block reflected off the snowflakes like a disco ball. A festive touch considering what day it was. You stopped your journey just outside his front door, facing him to observe the way he licked his lips as he formulated his next thought.

“I think he just wants what’s best for you.” 

“I know that. It’s a shame it took me this long to figure out what’s actually best for me.” you replied

“Oh yeah? You figured that out just in the 10 days you’ve been home? Wow counselor, research and evidence gathering stage usually takes longer.”

“Very funny Murdock. Yeah actually, I have.” you replied

 “And what did you figure out?”

“Matt, the work that you do, seeing it in action and how it’s helped my dad, it really inspired me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I think I want to shift my legal specialty. Find a firm to work for that takes on clients like yours and actually helps people. And Matt, I don’t know that I would have discovered that if it weren’t for you.”

A wide smile spread across Matt’s face as he lowered and shook his head.

“Well, I might know of just the firm that could use a lawyer as smart as you. You’d have to stay in Hell’s Kitchen though, or at the very least New York…”

“Matt, are you offering me a job?” you asked

“Well I mean you’d have to pass the bar in New York first, but yeah, actually I am.”

“What are you doing tomorrow– or today I guess technically?” you asked

“For Christmas? I don’t really have plans. I used to go to dinner at Foggy’s family, but his parents became snowbirds a few years ago, so now all the Nelsons travel to Florida for the holidays. Why?”

“My dad is cooking a fabulous meal and we’d love to have you join us. To thank you for all you’ve done. For both of us.”

“I don’t want to impose on your first Christmas in years with your dad.” Matt replied

“Oh c’mon Matt, you have to come! You’re practically family at this point; you’re saving my dad’s business, you’re repairing our relationship, you’re offering me a job.”

“Okay, okay. I will come.” he conceded

“Great! We can tell my dad I’m moving back to New York. Together.”

“Does that mean you’re saying yes? To my offer?”

“Yes Matt, I am saying yes. To working for you. And staying in New York.”

Reaching out with a trembling hand in the cold night air, you ran your thumb along his jaw. Matt let out a chuckle as you reveled in the way his stubble felt against your freezing fingers. A sigh escaped you into his plush, soft lips when he finally kissed you, warming you instantly from the chill.

“Merry Christmas, Matt.”

“Merry Christmas, Sweetheart.”

[valentinoappreciator]

I posted 1,869 times in 2021

155 posts created (8%)

1714 posts reblogged (92%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 11.1 posts.

I added 3,095 tags in 2021

#photo - 918 posts

#text - 809 posts

#gif - 304 posts

#midnight mass - 237 posts

#misc - 221 posts

#father paul - 187 posts

#my post - 152 posts

#writing - 93 posts

#queue - 87 posts

#hitman - 87 posts

Longest Tag: 114 characters

#especially after me accidentally blurting out that i wouldnt mind getting together with him at the christmas party

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

As I'm watching Midnight Mass, I am violently realizing why people go apeshit for Father Paul

I, too, wanna suck him off in the confessional, and I'm only on the first episode

156 notes • Posted 2021-10-03 18:30:56 GMT

#4

ugh i want to peg father paul as he's clutching his rosary, panting his hail mary's, and make that man crumble beneath me. or on top of me. make him ride me so that i may see how his facial expressions change - his brows creasing, his eyes tightly shut, his mouth wide open, his nostrils flaring.

anyway. pegging father paul until he can't even pray anymore, his voice too hoarse and shaky, until he can only just barely string two sentences together, most of them being blasphemous, and the rest being so reverent that god himself would be jealous

164 notes • Posted 2021-10-11 13:45:59 GMT

#3

WELL DONE ITALY!!! WINNING EUROVISION /AND/ THE UEFA EURO 2020 ???? YOU GOOOOO

215 notes • Posted 2021-07-11 21:55:54 GMT

#2

BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE!

2nd chapter of my Father Paul x fem!reader fic :DD

Word count: 2.3k

Pairing: Father Paul x (AFAB) reader

Rating: VERY MUCH EXPLICIT

Tags: Disrespectful use of prayers, priest kink (obviously…?)

Warnings: blasphemy, me not knowing jackshit about Christianity :’))), probably a lot of grammar errors

Will also be uploaded to my AO3, TheWeirdDane <3

---------------------

In the days after breaking Father Pauk’s view of celibacy, the guilt ate you alive. It prickled under your skin and made you queasy whenever you so much as thought about him. What had you been thinking?! He was a man of God, a holy man and a better person than you would ever be!

You wanted to skip masses out of shame, but you also couldn’t deny the want to see him. You loved those moments when you sat on the front pew, so close to him it felt like you could touch him if you just stretched out your hand. You loved seeing the passion and determination with which he preached, with which he delivered his homilies, and, not to forget, how kind he was with everyone.

Today was no different.

Wearing his purple chasuble - which looked illegally good on him, according to you - he delivered his sermon with the same passion as always. Grand gestures and his booming voice filled the church as he preached, his vestments flowing this way and that.

You were enthralled, and desperately hoped it wasn’t too obvious. At least, to anybody but him. He probably knew. He had to. He was a clever man, a man of wisdom, there was no way he didn’t know what he did to you.

Receiving the body and blood of Jesus Christ, you kept eye contact for an obscene amount of time. He blinked a few times, clearly flustered, but regained his composure the instant he stepped away from you to bless the next person.

A devilish fire of delight roared in your belly.

When mass was over, you excused yourself to your family, claiming you had something to discuss with Father Paul. Which wasn’t entirely a lie. Mostly.

“Sweetheart,” he said, sounding a tad surprised to see you hang back. You smiled at him while putting your missal back on the pew in front of you before standing up and walking over to him.

“Father,” you all but purred and slithered up to him, pressing against him so that you could kiss his cheek and jawline. Your fingers dug into the purple chasuble, not quite wanting it gone yet still wanting him out of it so that you kiss him all over.

“You shouldn’t,” he admonished, but his voice betrayed him by brimming over with warmth.

“Shouldn’t what?” You feigned innocence and fiddled with the soft fabric of the chasuble while looking up at him, peering into those warm, dark eyes.

“You know what I’m talking about, heathen.”

The word was spat at you as he suddenly grabbed your hair and yanked your head back, a sharp gasp escaping you, and your eyes widened. There was something... new in his face. A lust, a yearning that you had never expected to see in him.

Then it was gone, his features softening, and he let go of your hair, clearing his throat and looking away.

“No, that’s... that’s not right. I’m sorry, that was... wrong of me.”

“Don’t apologize, Father,” you croaked, a weak smile on your face. “I don’t mind that.”

“I do. It’s not a good thing to say.”

Silence stretched out between you, and you cast your gaze down.

“Anyway,” he then said with a sharp inhale, and the smile was back on his face. “Did you have something you wished to talk about?”

“Not quite talk,” you confessed, batting your eyelids. He caught on and chuckled softly, shaking his head.

See the full post

228 notes • Posted 2021-10-05 11:03:33 GMT

#1

BEHOLD - A CREATION OF FILTH

Sooo uuhhhh, I may be diving headfirst into the filth-pool of the Midnight Mass fandom (I'm sorry for not being sorry). Therefore, I have created A Fic(TM) for you all to enjoy 🥰🥰🥰

Word count: 4.3k

Pairing: Father Paul x (AFAB) reader

Rating: VERY MUCH EXPLICIT

Tags: Virginity loss (TECHNICALLY (also yes, sue me, im doing that kink)), disrespectful use of prayers, priest kink (obviously...?)

Warnings: blasphemy, me not knowing jackshit about Christianity :'))), probably a lot of grammar errors i'm like three hours past my bed-time lmao

Will also be uploaded to my AO3, TheWeirdDane 🥰🥰🥰

----------------------------------

Father Paul Hill was not who you had expected to see at mass that day. Not to be mistaken, he wasn’t a bad sight, at all, he was just not the Monsignor Pruitt that you had become accustomed to. With his lush, dark hair that curled in the back, he was so far from the Monsignor Pruitt who had run the church for as long as you could remember.

Father Paul Hill silenced the congregation which had, perhaps rightfully, been buzzing with questions and low conversations ever since he had entered.

Having introduced himself, and having explained why Monsignor Pruitt was absent, Father Paul Hill gathered them in psalms and praying.

You couldn’t keep your eyes off of him, try as you might. Your thoughts were pure, rest assured, they were, but you were curious about who this young man was, what his journey to here had been, what his reasons for being here were. You had a frightening amount of questions burning in your mind, and no answers were given that day.

No answers were given the next day, either. Or the next.

So, naturally, you decided to confront him. Not rudely, of course, no, not aggressively, just catching him after mass in the hopes that you could ask him some of the questions that seemed to burn through your mind, hanging in the air as tangible words that one could just grab.

“Father?” you queried the following day as the pews emptied after another enlightening mass.

Father Paul looked around, trying to locate who had spoken his name, and, seeing you, smiled fondly with a slight bow of his head.

“Hi,” he said, voice deep and warm and soft. You immediately felt safe. There was something about his voice, about the softness of it that enveloped you wholly and made you feel so at ease.

Reigning in a beginning blush, you bowed your head before him before speaking.

“I have some questions I hoped you could answer.”

“I’m happy to try,” he smiled.

You spent the rest of the afternoon talking, and when you exited the church, the sun was already sinking beneath the horizon, leaving a vague, smoldering streak of red on the sky. Beautiful as every sunset was, it stole your breath away, and you stood still, as still as a marble statue watching over the church, ensuring its safety.

Feeling lighter and more purposeful than ever after the conversation with Father Paul, there was a spring in your steps as you walked back to your little house on Crockett Island.

Every following mass, you would look at him as he spoke, so passionately and brimming with warmth, and maybe once, or maybe even twice, an impure thought would present itself. And maybe, just maybe, you invited the thought in, invited it to unfold and create an astonishingly beautiful world in which there was no sin, a world in which laying with your priest wasn’t wrong.

It was close to blasphemy, but in those moments, when Father Paul’s image was so vividly ingrained in your brain and on your retina, when you could practically hear him utter praise for you, you were beyond salvation and beyond God’s good grace.

---------------------

Mass was over, and you were on your way out, when Father Paul called for you. His voice forming your name was like nectar to a starving butterfly - you relished it dearly before turning around to face him.

This time, you couldn’t stop the blush going from your neck to your ears as you walked up to him, trying to act neutral.

He smiled at you, as he always did to everyone, and for the briefest of seconds, you wanted to curse at him for smiling at everyone, when you felt he should only smile at you.

Jealousy was an ugly feeling, however, and you did your best to purge it from your soul and mind. When you looked at him, instead of feeling jealousy, you felt flowers grow and heard birds chirp in your chest.

See the full post

458 notes • Posted 2021-10-04 22:33:24 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[x-ximenas]

Midnight (Pt.1)

Prompt: Midnight - 5SOS. Future parts are linked to other songs so...

Pairing: Female!Reader/Roger Taylor

Warnings: Alcohol consumption, mentions of sex (I don’t go in full detail, but there are big innuendos)  and my terrible grammar and punctuation remember English’s not my first language.

Word Count: 3,291 words

A/N: This has been on my drafts for a loooong while, but I never had the guts to post it, nor the time to do something about it, so I’m a little rusty -as mentioned in my Nikki Sixx bit- but I’m trying.  Also, if you liked this bit, I’d love to hear some comments! If you’d like to be added to a taglist for upcoming parts comment, dm me, ask me… just communicate with me!

A/N pt.2: Like most of the time, I took a few literary liberties, there are some movie things, there’s some real stuff, so... yeah.

A/N pt.3: If you’re looking to read some Brian stuff, I have a multipart story (pt. 1, pt. 2) -sadly not finished- but if you read it and like it I’ll do my best to do something about it.

// Part 2 //

———————————————————————————————————–

Smile, shake hands, leave.

She crossed one leg over the other just to uncross them again and cross them once more. She repeated this process a couple of times before settling with crossing her legs by the ankles. Now, she started tapping her fingers in a rhythm that sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite make out so she stopped to look down at her hands that were resting over her lap, rings adorning almost every finger, heaving she started to play with the one that was on her index.

“Everything’s alright, miss?” asked the kind taxi driver who had been watching her fidget through the rearview mirror.

“Yes, thanks.” She quickly replied, too quickly.

“You got a date?” The driver inquired.

“No.”

“Oh, I thought, considering your nervousness.” He added.

“Oh, no, I’m just… I don’t know, having second thoughts, maybe I-”

“Do you want me to drop you back from where I picked you up?” He asked.

“No, no, no, I’m fine, thanks though.” She smiled.

“No problems, miss.”

She sighed, leaning back on the cab’s leather backseat, folding her arms one over the other as she stared out the window. Like she just told the driver, Y/N was -indeed- having second thoughts, completely regretting telling her friends a thing as she was now forced to actually go to the pub where he was performing. She should’ve turned down his offer right away, he was too drunk and too tired to even know what he was saying:

“Come to my next show, love, you’ll have fun.” He tried to persuade her. She almost didn’t catch what he had said from how slurred the words were, but in the end, she did.

“What?” Was all she managed to say, but he had already fallen asleep, he didn’t hear a thing.

“Miss?” The driver said.

“Yes?” Y/N answered, snapping out of her daydream.

“We’re already here, miss.”

“Oh, thanks. How much is it for the drive?” she asked, rummaging through her purse.

“5 pounds, miss.” He answered.

“Here you go -she handed him the money-, thanks!” She told him, climbing off the car.

Smile, shake hands, leave.

She smoothed out her off-the-shoulders red top and pulled down the ends of her high-waisted shorts that had ridden up when she was sitting down. With a mumble of a curse she walked into the pub, the smell of cigarettes and booze hitting her immediately, she straightened her shoulders and tried to stand on her tiptoes and find her friends but the first thing she caught sight of was a certain blond getting friendly with some random brunette, averting her eyes she kept on looking until she found the small group sitting on a booth.

“Y/N! For a moment I thought you might have bailed on us” Kat mocked with a smirk.

“I couldn’t, I was responsible for this gathering after all” Y/N mumbled with a tight smile.

“Wow, what got your knickers in a twist” Donna practically yelled, hitting Y/N on the arm.

“Nothing, I just didn’t feel like coming after all” Y/N mumbled annoyed.

“But you sounded so excited when you told us earlier this morning, you said they’re really good!” Kat questioned slightly surprised.

“Yeah, I just- I don’t know…” Y/N mumbled once more, looking into the distance, her eyes fixed on the blond man, who was getting dangerously close to the brunette’s face just to pull away with a satisfied grin.

“I’m going for a drink” Y/N told her friends, leaving them dumbfounded.

Smile, shake hands, leave.

Y/N tried to squeeze herself between spaces, not minding to excuse herself when she walked in the middle of someone’s conversation, all that she needed at the moment was a drink, straight -no soda water, nothing- just a straight shot of whatever she can get her hands on.

Suddenly she bumped into someone, she was about to tell them off but she stayed quiet when she saw who it was:

“Roger?” she swallowed thickly.

He didn’t even bother on answering, he just kept on walking towards the side of the stage, the guitarist next to him, Brian she recalled from their conversations

“Don’t be rude, Rog.” Brian said, but he didn’t manage to stop Roger from walking. “Sorry.” He mouthed, Y/N shrugged.

“What can I get you, love?” Ben, the bartender asked Y/N, she already knew the man, she vented to him every once in a while.

“Two shots of whatever.” Y/N replied, Ben just stared at her with worry.

“Two shots of whatever it is then.” He said, pulling out two shot glasses, filling them with vodka and as soon as he was done with his job Y/N downed them in a single breath before slapping a bill on the bar.

“Thanks, now can you give me my usual, please?” She asked.

“Bad day?” Ben asked her, preparing her drink.

“Not really, the early morning was great, but now not so great, truth be told. I always get down with the same shit, you know?” Ben just hummed in response, putting her drink in front of her, and before she could pay he shook his head, declining the money.

“It’s on the house, you need it, love.” He winked and she smiled, returning to the booth where her friends were sitting.

“Hey, there you are! We thought you might have left, we wouldn’t have blamed you, love.” Kat stated, Y/N shrugged her off.

“I’ll be fine, thanks for worrying, girls.” Y/N told them, grabbing both girls’ hands. The three girls kept chatting, sharing laughs and staring at both girls and boys, making Donna noticeably flustered.

All that Roger could do was stare from a distance with a scowl and a pout, his arms crossed over his chest not really paying mind to what Brian was telling him, his focus on Y/N who even from where he was standing could see that behind those laughs and giggles she was off. What a prick.

“Roger! What’s wrong with you tonight? First the incident with the girl back there and now you’re not even listening to me.” Brian threw his arms upwards in exasperation as he let out a huff.

“Wait for me here.” Roger stated.

“Wh-What?”

Roger was decided to talk to Y/N, apologise for being a shithead, and almost as if she felt his gaze, their eyes met. Y/N furrowed her brows, one eyebrow being considerably higher than the other in inquiry, her smile died and her laughter did as well, and even in the pub’s shitty light he could tell that her eyes had a mix of confusion and anger that no matter how hard she tried to push down, she wasn’t able to keep it there.

“I’ll be right back” Y/N mumbled, never taking her eyes off of him, Kat and Donna shared glances before nodding in acknowledgement.

Just like before, Y/N made her way through the mass of bodies in an attempt to get to something, this time being Roger and not alcohol. Meanwhile, Roger was doing the same, but unlike Y/N he wasn’t angry nor in a bad mood to not say excuse me and sorry every once in a while, making him slower in the task of meeting Y/N in the middle. Suddenly he realised that Y/N had already reached his place and before he could even open his mouth to even say anything Y/N beat him to it:

“What?” She’s annoyed, he thought, fuck.

“I –he paused in contemplation– I was wondering what were you doing here, ‘s all” That’s the way to go, Rog, he mentally reprimanded himself.

“You- I- Fuck- You don’t remember, do you?” Y/N sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “I should’ve known better than to come, I’ll leave, see you later tonight, unless you leave with the brunette then don’t bother on coming to my place.” Y/N rambled, less annoyed, now she felt hurt and stupid, indeed she should have known better.

Y/N didn’t even let Roger answer her question –not like she needed an answer–, she just walked away, holding herself, her back no longer straightened as it was when she got there to confront him, her body posture screamt insecurity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She closed her flat’s door with a sad sigh, she ran one hand through her hair out of habit as the other turned the lights on. She felt so stupid for believing even for just one moment that Roger actually could remember what he had told her that same day many hours ago but more than that, she felt stupid for actually going and getting excited over it. They might see each other every other night, but they’ve never seen each other so publicly, around their friends; their meeting place was her place, especially because Y/N was too afraid to have the guts to go to his flat just to find another girl on her side of the bed.

Every time that she felt that she got considerably closer to him he seemed to push her away or to not recall or mean what he said less than 24 hours before. The worst part of it all is that she didn’t mind the grey area she was in, she was so in love with the thought of him –no, with him– that she was happy with the few things that he gave her, with the reassuring words, with the slurred words before he fell asleep; that was enough for her, but she desired more, she wanted to wake up with him still by her side, to have him around when the light was provided by the sun and not the stars and moon. But she took what little she could get, the chances he unconsciously gave her, like tonight. Except tonight was a mess and she wished that it never happened.

She left the pub just before their first set ended, wanting to listen and enjoy the music, to feel it pumping through her veins, to catch on Freddie’s excitement; so she did, she stayed but not long enough so that Roger could catch her before she left, before he could convince her to stay up for him. But apparently that wasn’t enough, because a knock on her front door made her jump and the man standing on the other side was the last person she wanted to see but also the person she needed beside her the most.

“Roger, wha-” Y/N tried to say, but her sentence was cut short by Roger grabbing her face and brushing his lips against hers, trying to test the waters before truly diving into a kiss.

Y/N was flabbergasted, for a moment she wasn’t sure of what she had to do, but in the end she caved in, her eyes fluttered close and her hands flew to the neck of his open shirt, pulling him closer to her, his hands moving from her face to the small of her back one travelling down further to grab her ass. That slow movement made Y/N gasp, Roger smirked triumphantly at her reaction, taking the opportunity given he decided to nudge her tongue with his, said action was received gratefully by Y/N, who started to move them inside the flat instead of the doorway. Roger kicked the door close and now that he was sure he was welcomed into her place he broke off the kiss.

Y/N’s face radiated heat, and if he could press his head to her chest he could be able to listen to the accelerated beat of her heart, her lips were slightly ajar and her eyes were still closed, almost savouring the moment for a few more seconds.

“Y/N, I-” Roger started, but he was cut off by Y/N’s lips.

“Please don’t say a thing.” She mumbled against his lips as her hands were messily working on his shirt’s buttons.

“Y/N! –Roger abruptly pulled apart– I’m trying to apologise”.

“Oh, go ahead then” Y/N replied, her hand instantly going to her clothes, trying to make them presentable, almost as if she hadn’t wanted him to take them off less than a minute ago.

“I shouldn’t have been such an arsehole back there, and I probably –Y/N raised an eyebrow– no, wait, I shouldn’t have asked you why you were doing at the pub, that was a stupid thing to ask, I’m sorry, love” Roger said, cupping her cheek, Y/N leaned unconsciously on the hand resting on her face, taking in its roughness and warmth.

“ ‘s okay.” She answered, Roger just pecked her lips.

But that peck turned into a deeper kiss, Roger –as usual– was leading the kiss, but it didn’t stop Y/N from teasingly pulling on his lower lip, yearning for a reaction of any kind. Roger’s tongue didn’t take long to come out and play, brushing Y/N’s lip, waiting for her to open her mouth; Y/N decided to make him wait a little longer, but Roger didn’t want that, so like last time, his hand dropped down to her ass, grabbing it and slightly massaging it. That action surely did make Y/N gasp, Roger took it as his opportunity to finally fully deepen the kiss.

In an almost déja-vu moment, Y/N’s hands started to busy themselves by untucking and unbuttoning Roger’s shirt, and as soon as the task at hand was done she pushed it off his shoulders, her hands staying on his chest, enjoying the warmth and the constant beat of his heart; but after one of Roger’s hand started to travel inside her shorts she moved her hands up to the back of his neck, pulling at the hair in the back, urging him to do something other than just kiss and tease.

But instead Roger decided to take his hand away, breaking off the kiss for a couple of seconds just to take off her red top, revealing the Rose tattoo that rested on the top of her right breast as well as the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath the garment he had just taken off. His lips started to trail down her neck, a small whine leaving Y/N’s pouted lips as he went lower and lower, sucking a mark right on top of the flower. His hands were travelling up her waist to her chest, cupping them in his rough hands and then one wrapped around the side of her neck, making her gasp.

“Please Roger.” She begged, pulling on his hair.

“Jump.” He said, both hands going down to her ass and to her tight, to make the job of wrapping her legs around him easier.

“Bedroom, Rog, please.” She whined, earning a chuckle from him.

Roger’s lips trailed upwards to meet with hers once again, Y/N moaned into the kiss and Roger just hummed in response, his hips involuntarily thrusting upwards to meet with hers, making them both gasp a little as if they’ve never done this before, like they were teens, like they didn’t play the same games every night, the same scenario and the same scenes.

They enjoyed it anyway, the feel of their bodies pressed against one another, their heavy breathing, the moaning, everything. They lived for it, they savoured each other like they’ve never eaten before.

When they arrived to her room, he realised that he ached for her, never wanting to part. So, without letting go of her he sat down on the edge of the bed, leaving her sitting on top of him, their chests tightly pressed against one another, leaving barely any room between each other –not like they wanted to be apart. So without their kiss breaking, Y/N straightened up, her hands travelling to the button of her shorts, popping it open so she could easily take them off; Roger’s hands quickly travelled to its waistband, ready to help her out of them, but he stopped when he felt her cold fingers fiddling with his belt.

They both took their sweet time at pleasing the other, loving any reaction that came out of their mouths –call it moans, whines, grunts, or the broken versions of their names–, they enjoyed this carnal version of frustration relief, where both of them could stay satisfied with the results. They tried their best to please the other, putting in an effort to relish on the ethereal sounds that could come out of their mouths, whether they were down at their knees –like Y/N was earlier– or with their head between the other’s legs –like Roger tonight.

It always felt as if it all happened incredibly fast, the taste of the other was still lingering on their mouth, leaving a bittersweet feeling that could only be washed away when they see each other the following night.

Now, Y/N was lying comfortably on Roger’s sweaty chest as he drew small random figures on her back, causing goosebumps to erupt all throughout her skin, she felt whole and content with the position she was currently in, not really wanting to think about what will happen before she wakes up later that day. Her head was going a thousand miles an hour, a feeling of regret and pain suddenly settling in her agitated mind so without really putting a lot of thought into it, she blurted out:

“Have you ever thought of the future, Rog?”

He straightened up and cleared his throat, “Yeah, I’ve seen myself with the guys, touring the world, meeting new people, new friends, making more music… “ Even though that wasn’t the direction her question was heading to, she enjoyed the sound of his voice too much to actually interrupt him to clarify.

A silence fell upon them and Y/N took her head off of his chest, deciding to sit up a bit to meet his eyes, the same eyes she was to mad to stare at less than three hours before, the same eyes she searched for when he was sitting behind the drum kit –despite her anger. “That’s not what I meant.” She looked down in shame, she had already started the conversation, and no matter how hard she bit her tongue she had to finish the talk one way or the other, knowing that he would find a way to coax it out of her.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “So what did you mean?”

“I meant, our future.” She mumbled in response and as soon as the words left her lips she regretted ever opening her mouth.

Roger was unable to answer, his mouth hung open, unfit to form a sentence. He ran a hand through his hair, the feeling of her fingers running through the locks still very much present, just like the taste of her lips, of her, in general.

“You know, that was a stupid question, it’s late, I should just go to sleep.” Y/N quickly rambled, a knot on her throat forming quickly.

“Yeah, good night.” Was all he managed to answer.

Y/N wrapped her arms around herself, her back turned to him, mirroring his position, their bodies lacking the contact of the other. Y/N was angry at herself for her commentary, but she knew deep down that it had to be asked at some point, and though it felt as if she had chosen the worst moment to ask such thing, it was better to do it now than later when they reach the two year mark –a mark that wasn’t too far away.

Brilliantly done for a smile, shake hands, and leave.

// Part 2 //

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Infinity Thoughts

 So I have something of a tradition of reading comics that will in some way tie into upcoming Marvel live action films. To this end with Avengers: Endgame approaching I read through, among other things, the TPBs ‘Avengers vs. Thanos’. ‘Rebirth of Thanos’, ‘Infinity Gauntlet’ and ‘Infinity’ volumes 1-2.

For the most part I rather enjoyed them. My respect for Jim Stalin grew and I’d argue Infinity Gauntlet may well be Marvel’s finest ever crossover event story of all time...Then I got to Infinity.

Hooooooooo-boy.

This was a lame story.

To be crystal clear the trades I read through collected the main issues of the event plus the tie-in issues of Avengers and New Avengers. Since all were written by Jonathan Hickman the tie-ins are actually essential to the reading experience and I was never exactly lost reading the story. There was a brief but well done reference to the Guardians of the Galaxy tie in issues that weren’t collected but that was it.

You know how I said my respect for Stalin grew through reading this stuff? Ell my respect for Hickman sunk...even lower than it already was.

First off reading Infinity seems to have been a waste of time for my personal purposes. Whilst I do not know what Endgame has in store Infinity War took precious little from this story. It just borrowed 4/5 of Thanos’ inner circle of henchmen (Corvus Glaive, Prixima Midnight, Ebony Maw) and also the Outriders, those four limbed footsoldiers Thanos uses to invade Wakanda. Speakin of which the mere idea of Thanos invading Wakanda was also borrowed from this story but it plays out drastically differently.

That’s not really a problem with the story just a personal complaint I had.

On the flipside something I can’t really complain about but will point to as a problem is that to follow the main story of Infinity you HAD to pick up the tie-ins I mentioned. A well written event shouldn’t price gouge you like that. Noticeably Infinity Gauntlet didn’t. Reading all 6 issues was a satisfying experience unto itself, I never felt like I was missing anything.

But saying Stalin is a better cosmic writer than Hickman would be redundant.

Another problem I discovered after the fact with this story was how the first 15 pages of Infinity #1 are literally just reprints of New Avengers #6 and the Free Comic book day Infinity issue. So 15/54 pages were stuff you’d either read before or could read for free.

This isn’t even getting into the writing problems in general. First of all Hickman had this insufferable habit of within issues themselves having like chapter breaks in the for of entirely blank pages with a grey title and symbol at the top. So you know...nice that you are paying for nearly blank pages amidst your £4+ comic books.

Second of all Hickman has this habit of like throwing meaningless lore at you.

In Infinity #1 for example he throws at you the brief backstory of this planet you have never seen before nor will see again as though it means something, complete with flashbacks and exposition about this planet’s great champion who’s already dead courtesy of the guy delivering the narration. And when I say it’s meaningless lore I mean Hickman has the guy say “Whatever happened to your proud champion to won the Water Wars and untied the tribes by defeating the Great Beast of Pol?”

Like...who gives a shit no one knows where or what Pol is or what the Water Wars were. The best part is that this is all adding up to this planet giving Thanos’ henchmen a tribute of several dead people.

Basically it stretched out 11 pages with meaningless lore to communicate Thanos is bad, Thanos has bad henchmen, Thanos’ demands defeated planets pay him tribute in dead people. Seems like you could accomplish that in maybe 4 pages at a push, especially for a villain everyone knows about already.

What makes this all the more confusing is that Thanos isn’t even really the central plot or threat in the story. This is in spite of being on the covers, mentioned in the solicits, the story’s name referencing stories that explicitly involve him and the story frankly existing because of his post-credits scene in Avengers 2012.

The story’s central conceit I guess is that it’s a war on two fronts.

Captain America leads most of the Avengers into space to join the Kree, Shi’ar, Skrulls, Annihilus and other alien races in a war against the army of the Builders. Meanwhile the remaining heroes (including Iron Man and the Illuminati) have to contend with Thanos who has invaded Earth looking for the sole remaining Infinity Gem and the last of his children, the half-Inhuman Thane.*

Essentially in spite of the advertisement Thanos is really just one of two antagonists in this story. And frankly clearly the one Hickman is less interested in compared to the Builders, whom shockingly, just so happen to be his own creations.

What follows is essentially a cosmic war story all about military strategy and game theory and so on, with very smart people doing very smart things.

Now in fairness conceptually this isn’t a bad idea whatsoever.

So what if Thanos is just one of two antagonistic forces. So what if it’s a war story. Those are ideas that can be done great right?

Yep...except...they aren’t.

Let’s talk about Thanos first.

His central motivation to kill his half Inhuman son is contrived and whilst it COULD have worked it just doesn’t.

As the lead in issues to Infinity Gauntlet make clear with Nebula, who claimed to be Thanos’ granddaughter, Thanos finds the idea of reproducing an affront to his nihilistic beliefs.

Thnos of course is in love with Death. As in he sees Death as a woman he’d like to make out with. To this end he committed his life to mass slaughter to win her love.

Thus entirely logically his creator Jim Stalin established that Thanos would not seek to have any offspring because, duh, if your goal is to kill as many people as possible you aren’t going to create MORE life.

So on the most basic of levels, Thanos even having any children seems out of character.

But it could have worked because the story does establish Thanos has killed his other children too. So it is entirely possible to argue that Thanos, whilst no celibate, made a point of killing his off spring to balance the scales, possibly even seeing his kids as mistakes of his youth before he’d entirely committed himself to Death.

Except the story doesn’t say anything like that. Thanos simply states the idea of Thane existing keeps him awake at night. In other words one of the 2 central antagonists has at best vague motivations.

To make matters worse Thanos is defeated via a total dues ex machina. Basically Thane undergoes a mutation as a result of Black Bolt unleashing a Terrigen mist throughout Earth, this causes him to inadvertently and instantly murder everyone within a certain radius by waving his left hand. He can only control this with the help of a containment suit one of Thanos’ inner circle, Ebony Maw provides. Maw acts as a kind of evil mentor/advisor to Thane, think Wormtongue from the Two Towers but more powerful and sinister, but we’ll get to him in a minute.

Anyway Thane is captured by Maw and presented to Thanos and whilst Thanos and his last surviving inner circle (they’re called the Black Order btw) Proxima Midnight are beating the shit out of the Avengers. Maw then says some shit about wanting to see if Thane has evolved and how he’s the only one who can beat Thanos. So Thane waves his right  hand and encases Thanos and Proxima in a great big amber cube.

Oh and this comes out of exactly nowhere!

That’s the resolution to the final issue by the way. THAT is how this 2 volume event friggin ends. Pathetic.

More pathetic even than the already pretty pathetic motives and characterization given over to Ebony Maw and the entirety of the Black Order.

Look, the idea of Thanos having an elite entourage as opposed to just hordes of gneric nameless thralls** is a good one.

The idea of them worshipping him and/or Death is fine.

But beyond their looks we get little characterization from any of them. Glaive and Midnight are offhandily established as married. Black Dwarf is just a big dumb warrior thug. We get a mini-monologue about Supergiant’s childhood and why she follows Thanos in the pages just prior to hear death towards the end of the story. And Ebony Maw...nothing. We have no reason for why he acts against his master or what the fuck his agenda is.

What little we know of the Black Order comes from I kid you not a mini Marvel Handbook segment randomly inserted into the story that gives you like a short paragraph on each member and their abilities.

So you know...literally telling us instead of showing us who these people are and to boot it’s not even actually part of the story.

Then the story has the audacity to say that Thane, Hickman’s new underdeveloped character has and will become even worse than his Dad. His Dad who I will remind you literally caused universal genocide when he snapped his fingers and killed half the universe’s population...and THEN murdered all the cosmic beings. Oh but Thane is worse because he...can trap people in amber...?????

There is also precious little characterization or development lent to Thanos in the entire story, whereas the events its trading off of (Infinity Gauntlet, etc) absolutely did. Here Thanos is the big bad villain and little else. He isn’t even the biggest threat nor does he comprise the majority of the panel time.

That distinction goes to the Builders.

Oh lord...the builders. Who also count among their ranks the Gardners known as the Ex Nihili, the Alephs robot soldiers and exist in the superflow of the multiverse having created the Starbrand and other cosmic tools to shape the evolution of species across the universe.

Did any of that sound bland, boring, meaningless and simply pretentious mastabatory science fiction talk?

Well that’s only because it is.

Marvel has a robust cosmic lore to them. The first generation of that was really installed by Lee and Steve Ditko in Doctor Strange and to a much greater extent Lee and Jack Kirby in Thor, Fantastic Four, Avengers and other titles. That’s where we of course get guys like Galactus.

The second generation I’d argue was Jim Stalin who set up Thanos, Drax the Destroyer Adam Warlock, the Infinity Gems and also Chris Claremont along with his collaborators who birthed the Phoenix Force and the Shi’ar and so on.

The third generation was Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Keith Giffen. These guys added a few things to Marvel Cosmic but really their forte was more adopting stuff already in the Marvel universe and expanding it or using it in interesting ways. The best examples of this being their Magnum Opus, Annihilation which made Annihilus a Big Bad for the Marvel Universe, and ESTABLISHING the Guardians of the Galaxy that the movies took inspiration from. Whilst they didn’t necessarily create any of the Guardians they were the guys who essentially made them the space Avengers.

Hickman is essentially the headliner for the fourth generation and by far and away the most creative.

And by creative I mean he is very good at dreaming up ideas. He’s a classic ‘Big Concepts’ science fiction writer.

Where he falls down is in executing said concepts.

Whilst the past generation of Marvel Cosmic creators vacillated between going for something sweepingly epic or else fun and bombastic or something in between, Hickman’s work is devoid of the fun bombast of a Silver dude riding a surfboard in space but is also if anything trying way too hard to be ‘Epic Cosmic’ than anything the older creators did. And they at least were doing it at a different time when standards for comics were different.

Let’s take the Galactus Trilogy and Infinity Gauntlet as an example. In the 1960s presenting us a science fiction comic book antagonist who was an allegory for God was really impressive and him engaging in a debate with the Watcher about the nature of humanity was deep stuff.***

Similarly the Infinity Gauntlet was concerned with the burden of Godhood and acted as something of a bizarre love story between Thanos and death, the ultimate character study of the Mad Titan.

Hickman in Infinity though mostly just throws Big Science Fiction Concepts (tm) at you and expects you to be impressed by their mere existence, as though ‘the Avengers fight a big space war’ is something to be impressed by in 2013 when we’ve had how many stories like that?

Worse his Big Concepts aren’t just expected to be impressive via their mere existence but are also just...rather dull. There is little personality to the boringly named Builders and only slightly more in the pretentiously named Ex Nihili (Hickman loves throwing around very impressive big nonsense words for his science fiction crap, God forbid they be something simple and/or silly but memorable like ‘Galactus’, ‘the Infinity Gauntlet’, ‘Annihilus’, etc). The Gardners/Ex Nihili kind of look interesting but the Builders themselves are just the most boringly designed aliens ever.

When you see the Watchers or the Celestials you BUY that they are the oldest race in the universe, you buy they are cosmic beings on a higher plane than mere mortals. The Builders are just grey vaguely buggish dudes. Their footsoldiers the Alephs are worse. They’re generic Terminator rip off robots.

The art throughout the story looks pretty but it’s design sense is lame at best and it has the eternal problem of so many 2000s/early 2010s comics that the art looks beautiful panel to panel but is also stiff and looks like a series of very pretty portraits that lack life or the illusion of movement. Comic book art shouldn’t be  a series if paintings next to one another conveying the highlights of a scene but an organic flow from one panel to the next creating the illusion of movement. Want to see this done well in a big event story? Check out Mike Zeck on Secret Wars or Perez/Lim on Infinity Gauntlet. Or hell anything Ron Frenz draws.

Okay, they look boring, they sound boring, their concepts aren’t used that effectively BUT...surely the Builders storyline has merit? Surely this cosmic war story is at least a good war story.

Well...yes and no.

The military strategy used in the story is pretty realistic and well thought out, speaking as someone who isn’t familiar with military strategy history or stories rooted in that stuff.

If nothing else the core concept of Thanos attacking Earth whilst the Avengers are off fighting on another front and the X-Men are divided (because of Schism) is basic and interesting use of strategy.

And the space warfare for the most part seemed reminiscent of Star Trek, speaking as someone who’s got novice knowledge at best of that franchise.

Here is the problem though...it’s also painfully dull for anyone who isn’t hyper into that stuff.

Which would be fine...if the story was solely contained within the main Infinity book.

I’ve long defended Secret Wars 1984 on the grounds that as it’s own mini-series it wasn’t obliged to follow thematic conventions or writing conventions of the solo or team titles, it could be it’s own sandbox. So if it wanted to be a light war story/series of fun action set pieces, fine.

So if Infinity wanted to be an Avengers space military strategy comic book for 6 issues okay fine. Except it wasn’t, it roped in Avengers and New Avengers into it too.

And at that point the tie-ins at the very least needed to have something more. You know like...personality.

The single biggest problem with pretty much any Hickman story I’ve read is that far too often the characters talk stiffly and unrealistically, with a coldness to them, a functionality. There is precious little personality or emotion to them. Even when the art is showing us emotion you simply see it as opposed to actually connecting with it.

There are only the briefest of smatterings of truly emotional or personable moments in the entire story and as a consequence they kind of stick out like a sore thumb. Smasher and Cannonball hooking up (out of nowhere in the story like there was no inclination they had the hots for one another earlier) and Sunspot quipping about it is the most human moment in the entire story closely followed by Manifold expressing exhaustion over constantly fighting.

The closest thing to a charismatic character in the entire story is friggin Maximus the Mad!

How do you do that in a story with Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Reed Richards, Namor and friggin Thanos!!!!

All this and the story exists for anything but a genuine creative drive. It exists because

a)      Marvel needed to make bank off of Thanos’ cameo in Avengers 2012

b)      Marvel needed to remind people Thanos exists after his cameo

c)       Marvel needed to workshop some possible concepts for the then inevitable Thanos movie on the horizon

d)      Marvel needed to amp up the Inhumans via their stupid cloud unleashed in this story so they could begin their dastardly master plan to supplant the X-Men with them

 Ugh. I recommend you simply skip this story wholesale.

*The other 5 Infinity Gems were destroyed

 **By the way in Stalin’s stories Thanos’ armies comprised of a diverse group of alien baddies. Here...there are different kinds of aliens but they seem to be a few species who all look the same. Hardly what Stalin and other artists rendered, which gave you an idea of the scope of Thanos’ travels.

If we’re going to be paying more money for comics nowdays could they maybe put in at minimum the same effort as cheaper comics from 40 years ago!

 ***The Watchers and Celestials by the way, Jack Kirby creations, get supplanted by Hickman as the oldest and most powerful race in the universe for the sake of his boringly named ‘Builders’

[oldsamshouseoffic]

Southern Sun

Words: 7161

My very first modern AU.

Merry Kristannamas, @epbaker! Based on your recs you seem to appreciate a variety of AUs and character interpretations, so I tried to push out of my comfort zone. And boy, did I. It was meant to be a simple fluffy oneshot but, well, you can see it kind of got away from me and is now double the length I planned with oodles of family angst. I split it into four parts and the fluff doesn’t really start until Part III: Bribery. But they get there, they do get there.

I hope you enjoy my hot mess. It even follows the suggested theme...

To anyone with actual knowledge of Antarctic operations, my apologies in advance for the many, many inaccuracies.

Part I: Lousy Antarctica

Lousy Antarctica.

Anna Arendal threw her covers off and dragged herself to her feet, strangling a howl of frustration as she looked at the clock, her only reliable measure of time on this stupid continent. She opened the shutters, ignoring the recommended closure hours sensibly displayed across them in Norwegian, and let the bright daylight into her room. Her brain kind of knew the light was there anyway, even if she couldn't see it. It felt like daytime, twenty-four seven. And she had got used to it. Mostly. Normally. You couldn't be an intrepid polar researcher if you couldn't manage the weird hours- everyone knew that. But...

Lousy Kristoff.

Lousy storm.

Lousy dated, unreliable equipment, that falls apart if a teensy little gale force wind hits it.

Lousy... actually, this wasn't Elsa's fault at all, not this time.

Lousy Anna. Lousy Anna's lousy big mouth.

Lousy comms blackout, at the worst possible time.

She fell back on top of the mangled bed covers, the ambient chill than pervaded every inch of Troll Station even in summer creeping under her onesie and the pyjamas underneath that, at throat and wrist and ankle, setting her skin tingling. The chill cut through the fog of her insomniac funk, just a little.

It was all her fault. And Kristoff's. And the storm, obviously. And the midnight sun. But mainly hers.

She shouldn't have yelled at him. Kristoff was a big, oblivious... Kristoff, and she was expecting him to be a mind-reader. Of course he didn't get why she'd been pulling out her hair about a few days without Internet. She'd never explained about her family, after all. Not that he'd been very polite about it.

But then neither had Anna. Maybe it was guilt, the reason she was replaying their argument in her head over and over. Or maybe... maybe it was a sign of how few people she actually had, out here, on the underside of the world. How few friends to lose.

Lousy language barrier...

Antarctica is a post-state scientific utopia. In theory.

On December 1st, 1959, the twelve nations with active science bases on the frozen continent signed the Antarctic treaty, dedicating one of the great land masses of Earth to peace and scientific discovery. As of 2006, forty countries are signed up to the treaty and operate research bases and stations. More than forty are permanent, 12 months-per-year settlements, antennae and living pods linked together like moon bases, dozens more are small, summer outposts.

The biggest, McMurdo Station, is American. It is more like a town than an outpost, its population never dropping below two hundred even in the depths of the polar winter, and swelling to over a thousand in the summer research season. That was where Anna had spent her first season in the continent. So many fellow research biologists. So many penguins! She could literally walk to one of the Adélie colonies, except that she had promised never to do that again. Those darn pencil pushers...

This year was different. Particular research had to be collected from other parts of the continent, very specific, penguin-ey data which couldn't be gleaned from what other nations had shared. I can do that one, Anna had said, pointing to where Troll Station had been circled on the map. My parents spoke Norwegian. I'll fit right in...

“It'll be great!” Anna had insisted to Elsa. “No more of the big-base politics and bureaucracy and meetings... Ugh, so many meetings! All the nonsense there was around that congressional visit. None of which was my fault, by the way. Just real researchers, braving the frozen wilds for science!”

Elsa had looked uncertain; she hadn't said anything about how Anna was travelling to the other end of the planet again, and that it was different this time, they were different. But they'd promised to stay in contact- the base had a dish for Internet- and Anna had sworn she wouldn't let them drift apart a second time.

The journey back to the frozen continent had gone smoothly, considering how complicated it all was. Connecting flights down the length of the Americas, an overnight stay at an airfield in Argentina, and then a chartered plane had brought her back to McMurdo. She'd had enough time to say 'See ya later' to a couple of old friends before the equipment she'd need was collected and loaded onto yet another plane, which had carried her to the South Pole.

A pilot had greeted her on arrival, a sharp-featured older woman who had informed her in laboured English that she was to to fly her the rest of the way, and had seemed surprised but delighted when Anna answered her in Norwegian, even complementing her accent. She hadn't known she had an accent. Was that... actually a complement, though?

With an hour or two free once she'd made sure her luggage was safely transferred to the smaller cargo plane, and although she had already felt tired from the long hours in the air, Anna had still got out and walked around the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. Partly to stretch her legs, and partly because she was at the South Pole.

The South Pole... Wasn't that just crazy? Mother Earth's frosty little butt.

It hadn't even been all that cold, being the start of the Antarctic summer. Okay, pretty cold, maybe minus twenty, but she'd come straight from the first frosts of a New York winter and was wrapped up in the finest thermal gear government funding could buy, so she'd felt the sting on the exposed parts of her cheeks and that was about all.

There was... literally a pole there.

Right in front of the base. It was a goofy little thing- red and white striped with a shiny ball on top, sticking up absurdly from the packed white permafrost. To think so many men died to reach the site of some novelty lawn ornament...

She had taken a selfie with it, to send to Elsa as soon as she had Internet.

By the time the final leg had brought her to the little airfield alongside Troll Station, she had been awake for more than twenty hours, which had made it, according to the pilot, only mid morning by Central European Time. A massive man whose ginger muttonchops were sprinkled with white had been standing, waiting for her, by a red minibus fitted with massive winter tyres. Every vehicle in Antarctica looked like a scaled-up kids' toy.  As it turned out that was the station director, Dr Kjøpmann, who insisted on Anna calling him Oaken with the same polite informality which proved to be the norm for... most of the station staff.

On the way from the airfield Oaken had launched into what could well have been the introductory spiel he gave every newcomer. Troll Station was established first by the Norwegians as a summer outpost, and only expanded into a permanent, year-round station in 2003. This was good news in a lot of ways- there were all the modern conveniences. A TV room. Even basic Wi-Fi- although he admitted it wasn't very reliable. A sauna- Anna had tried not to giggle at that. But of course there was a sauna...

And the base now had a wind turbine to generate part of its power. He sounded particularly proud of that. Then Anna remembered being told that a good portion of the Norwegian scientists at the base were environmental researchers. Sustainability was probably close to their hearts.

The base was not much to look at in itself- Antarctic stations never are. A handful of blocky prefabricated buildings, mostly bright red to stand out at a distance to anyone lost nearby, connected by tracks and walkways. What really stood out was that it was all built not on snow, but on bare rock. A huge rock formation rose out of the ice sheet, running up towards a collection of oddly shaped mountains in the near distance, and the Norwegians had planted their flag right on top of it. Oaken explained all this, adding that the mountains were the 'trolls' after which the station had been named.

By the time they had made it to the station, Anna had been half-awake, and they had installed her equipment in one of the lab buildings and installed Anna herself in an empty dormitory room as quickly as possible so she could sleep off some of her extreme jet lag, having gone from EST to New Zealand time then back to European time over the course of one trip.

Left alone to unpack and rest, she'd zipped open her case, changed into her pyjamas, pulled her favourite penguin onesie on over the top because she'd still felt the chill, then remembered just in time to text Elsa.

......

Did you arrive yet? x

Anna, please text me when you're safely there. You know I get jittery when you travel x

Arrived safely! ;)

Thank God. How is your Norwegian holding up?

Xxx

Okey dokey so far.

I'm so out of practice.

Elsa I need my sleep. So do you. It's 4am in NY.

Wait!

???

Forgot this. Lo, ye literal South Pole XD

This... is ridiculous x

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Don't let the bed bugs bite x

Have an adventure, Anna. Skype me. Love you x

Luv u xxx

......

Sisterly duty discharged, Anna had flipped the light switch and collapsed straight onto the bed, instantly asleep...

She'd been woken up again after only a couple of hours, but that was life, wasn't it?

Broken sleep was kind of part of working through the midnight sun, Anna considered, still staring at the ceiling of her room. Maybe they were all feeling a little edgy, shorter tempered...

After another twenty minutes replaying her good and bad choices with increasing frustration, Anna thought: To heck with it. Brooding was Elsa's thing- she was a problem solver.

Well, how to solve her problems, then?

Problem 1: Elsa. Couldn't do anything about her until the storm damage to the comms dish was fixed.

Problem 2: Kristoff.

Kristoff. Anna had the beginnings of a plan to repair that particular burned bridge. Hopping up, she pulled her boots, gloves and coat on over her night clothes. If she remembered the rota right, Olaf was on nights at the moment...

Olaf Snømann was in his element. Three quarters of the staff were asleep and the canteen block was empty, so he could use the kitchen without interruption. Strictly speaking, Troll Station having no official chef, meals were meant to be cooked by the researchers based on a rota, but Olaf often volunteered his down time to bake, mix, prepare. Partly because putting together a lovely stew relaxed him when he wasn't grappling with satellite data, and partly because if he didn't cook, someone else had to- and most of his colleagues struggled to empty a tin of herring onto a slice of bread. It certainly made him popular. Everyone wanted to be friends with the cook.

Of course, with the satellite down he had all the time in the world anyway.

The door swung open which a swish of frozen air which tickled Olaf's scalp through his thin, silver hair, and a lone figure waddled in, wrapped in a thick high vis coat. It wasn't time for the night shift to eat, but there was no mistaking his visitor anyway. Olaf stopped stirring the stew pot and hurried to shut the door as fast as his stumpy legs would allow as American Anna undid her jacket, yawning. Underneath she was dressed in the same bizarre one-piece hooded costume that she'd worn the first time they'd met, her wind-burnt face framed by ginger pigtails sticking out under a goofy plush penguin face...

She had only been at the base a couple of hours at that point, months ago, but according to her she had forgotten to turn off her phone alarm. Now, an early alarm in Latin America is past midday in Europe and, finding herself awake at lunch, she'd decided to brazen out her jet lag and try the canteen.

Everyone had introduced themselves, of course. And it had turned out the base rumour mill was, for once, true and she actually spoke Norwegian, although her accent was so strong Olaf couldn't believe she had ever left the United States before. Although Olaf's own spoken English was atrocious, so it was a relief to know they wouldn't have to rely on it.

In any case, she had sat down, bleary-eyed, clad in her novelty onesie, said thank you very politely for the smørbrød Olaf had placed before her, before devouring a good half of it with her hands- like a toddler. Eventually she'd gone pink in the cheeks, registering that people were staring, and picked up her knife and fork to finish. Someone had jokingly called her 'Pingu' and she'd looked at them blankly. Olaf had shooed them away and sat down to eat with her, feeling a little protective of this young, half-penguin researcher, with her feral American table manners, half asleep and wholly out of her element.

And she was fun, it turned out. A breath of fresh, crazy air. He'd not had a snowball fight in years before Anna had arrived...

Anna coughed, bringing Olaf's mind back to the present before he could .

“Hi Olaf. I'm sorry about the dish.”

He looked back at the pot. “What? Oh, the satellite dish.” He shrugged, smiling serenely. “These things happen. He glanced out one of the little porthole-like windows, sighed, and returned to stirring the pot. “This land is beautiful, powerful, dangerous... that is part of the wonder of it. A little damage, a little delay- it's nothing we can't fix.”

Anna inhaled sharply, wringing her hands. “Yeah... fixing things. About that. Could I ask you a really, really big favour?”

Part II: Penguin Girl

Kristoff shovelled snow.

The base had a snow plough, obviously, but the storm had done more than spread a few feet of powder over the roads. In the driving wind, tonnes had built up in dense drifts against the buildings, burying cables and equipment that had to be dug out by hand. And so, since Lars had called dibs on the plough and he wouldn't be driving Anna anywhere until comms were restored, Kristoff had picked up a shovel and offered a hand.

That was if Anna ever actually wanted to share a cab with him again. The thought that she might insist Oaken assign her one of the other techs bothered him in a way part of him found surprising. He wasn't sure exactly when he'd stopped being annoyed by the ginger menace and started...

He carried on shovelling. He'd been working at it steadily for a while now; Sápmi winters had trained him well and he kept up a clean, rhythmic technique, the exertion warming him against the burning cold of the Antarctic air, efficiently clearing the loose-packed snow into piles that could be swept off by vehicle. Initially the exercise had kept his head clear, stopped him from dwelling on the fight, but now specific impressions kept forcing their way back into his head.

Anna had been so unreasonably angry, Kristoff had thought, about losing Skype when the blackout left the base cut off from other stations if there were an actual emergency, and when the whole TrollSat team's actual jobs rested on the comms mast being fixed, and when actual international treaties existed around Norway sharing that satellite data. And he'd told her so, and he'd not really listened to her...

But now, now he remembered her hands, fidgeting, tying her braids in knots as she'd complained; the tension in her wide blue-green eyes, almost tearful, and that wasn't just Anna being her usual impatient, volatile self. Something had been very wrong, and Kristoff hadn't listened.

Now he was worried, and wondering if it was too late to fix... whatever they had. It wasn't like he could fix comms.

Kristoff remembered when he had first set eyes on her...

He'd been hearing the others gossip about Anna for a couple of days, the strange American penguin girl, but they'd kept missing each other, which suited him fine. 'Kind of hot', apparently, 'in a Pippi Långstrump sort of way'- he hadn't wanted to dwell on that particular disturbing mental image. All Kristoff had known was that some American government agency had cut a deal with some Norwegian government agency, which meant he now had to spend four days a week ferrying some stranger far overland to look at birds.

He had been checking over the snowcat when Anna and Oaken had come strolling up together. The Red Sven was a tracked polar specialist about the size of a tow truck, and the only vehicle they had with the necessary speed and range for Ms Arendal's outings. The director had simply handed Kristoff his revised work schedule and marched back to his office with a wave, leaving his more taciturn countryman to try and make conversation with the newcomer.

It had turned out that making conversation with Anna Arendal was mostly nodding and saying 'Huh'. Her Norwegian was better than he'd heard, although her accent was strong, going high and low in all the wrong places with heavy American 'R's. Still, words, mostly the correct ones, poured bubbling up out of this girl- sweet and effervescent and unrelentingly upbeat, like a human can of Sprite. Questions, follow-up questions, answers to questions he hadn't asked... maybe it was a nervous trait?. She had just arrived after all.

Their first trip had dispelled the theory that Anna only talked too much when she was nervous, as she'd quickly settled into a calm, collected routine of always thinking in her mouth.

Anna was in Troll Station because it was 'close' to penguin colonies she needed to observe and collect data from. However, Antarctica was a continent, and 'close' meant travelling hundreds of miles by snowcat as opposed to thousands by plane. Troll Station being the 'closest' to the colonies she needed to study meant that it was 'only' a three hour drive each way in fine weather, plus an hour or two of driving between the penguin nesting spots themselves. Plus waiting around for Anna to make observations and collect samples.

And through it all, Anna would talk...

Are we there yet?

No.

You don't say much, huh?

No.

…

…

…

If the rock rises through the ice around the station, is the ice thinner? Like, do we have to worry less about falling in cracks?

Actually, you'd think so, but no.  The ice gets thick pretty quick as you move away from the Jutulsessen nunatak.

…

…

…

I've never observed an Emperor colony before. Most of the data I collected last year is from Macaronis, but we need to track the pollution effects on the other Antarctic species and form hypotheses about dietary factors, so... are you listening?

Um, sure.

…

…

…

Are you ever around in winter?

No, it's only really the satellite station team that are needed during the long night.

Twenty-four hours of night. That must suck.

Yes.

…

…

…

Are the nights very long where you come from?

Oh yes.

So, far in the North?

Sápmi.

Sorry?

Sápmi. You know, ugh, 'Lapland'?

Like Santa Claus?

...No, not like Santa Claus.

…

…

…

What's a Pingu?

…

…

…

It had been exhausting at first, chauffeuring their foreign guest from breeding site to breeding site. That first week, the idea of being grounded at Troll Station for a few days would have sounded like a holiday. So why, whatever he did, however much he tinkered with the vehicles in the garage, or cleared snow until his back and shoulders burned and his clothes and beard were dusted white... Why did the day feel so empty now?

He missed the easy smile, the fizzy energy that escaped in bursts of joy, or curiosity, or irritation. He somehow missed the constant barrage of words.

He missed Anna. At some point in all those long, long drives over the ice, she'd grown on him.

Like a terrorist and her hostage...

Part III: Bribery

The sun didn't set during December in Antarctica. But this far from the Pole it did skim lower in the sky for a few hours, swelling into a warmer golden light that smeared itself along the horizon like the glow of a distant fire. Kristoff liked to sit out and watch it sometimes, on his breaks or when there was no work for him. That was how Anna found him, sat on a box by the wall of the garage block and sipping steaming black coffee from a Thermos flask. Alone. Good.

He was looking away from her, scarf loose around his thick blond beard, woolly hat pulled down over his ears, rolling his broad shoulders gently as if working out the aches and pains of the day. Anna saw the shovel propped up against the wall next to him. Clearly Kristoff had been making himself a lot more useful than she had been, sulking in bed, and for a moment she hesitated to bother him.

No, shyness wasn't going to solve anything. If Kristoff didn't want to talk to Anna he could tell her. And the package in her hands wasn't getting any warmer.

“Anna?” She jumped.

“Oh, Kristoff...” Anna swallowed nervously. She'd been spotted, no point in trying to back out now. She stepped up to her colleague, her rehearsed apology completely evaporating from her mind. “So, I...” “I should apologise.”

“What? No! I should apologise.” Anna blinked in surprise. “I yelled at you.”

“I didn't listen to you.”

“No one listens to me!” Anna paused. “I talk too much I know it's a thing.” She held the bag in her hands out to him. “Peace offering. I didn't have time to wrap it.”

“For me?” Kristoff stared at the bag for a couple of heartbeats, then took it and sat back down on the box, shuffling over so Anna could join him. He lifted the box out of the bag, a large plastic tub she and Olaf had found in the kitchen, and...

As Kristoff cracked open the lid of the tub, the smell of sweet fried dough was detectable even in the icy midsummer air. He smiled. “Doughnuts. You got Olaf to make them again.”

“Yep.”

“Everyone has been badgering him to make more since... well, the last time. He said we had to wait for a special occasion.”

“I twisted his arm.”

“They're so good.”

“Yep.” Anna was giggling now. “And they're all yours. Tell no one, or the meteorological team will descend on you like vultures.”

Kristoff laughed, and Anna was finally starting to relax, relieved. “It's a strange world.”

Kristoff reached for a rucksack sitting on the snowy rock, and fiddled with fastenings. Thermal gloves made little things awkward. Eventually, mumbling an apology, he drew out a small package tied up in a cotton rag. “I didn't have time to wrap, either.”

Anna let him place the little parcel in her hands. “And it's not even Christmas yet.” As she pulled the cloth away she saw the gleam of coloured foil. Was it really...

“Chocolate!” Anna jumped up and down, clutching The Precious to her chest, then sat down self-consciously. “Wow, thanks. My stash lasted, like, a week. Not even that.”

She turned back to Kristoff. “I can't believe we both decided to bribe each other with sugar.”

“It's the drug of choice around here.”

“Like cigarettes in prison.”

“We should talk.”

“Yeah...”

“I promise to listen this time.”

It was far too cold to stay outside, so Kristoff led her into the garage. Soon they were sat together in the cab of Kristoff's snowcat, as they had on so many achingly cold, bright 'mornings' since Anna had arrived here.

Anna's chocolate was frozen solid- goodness knows where Kristoff had been hiding it, maybe buried somewhere safe from hungry researchers- so they shared Kristoff's doughnuts as Anna explained a little of her family situation.

How Elsa had increasingly isolated herself from everyone including, most hurtfully, her sister. How they hadn't realised how ill she was, not for years- Pappa hadn't really encouraged them to talk about it.

Eventually, in their twenties, after they had both made some questionable choices- Kristoff didn't need to hear about Anna’s jerkass of an ex just yet- things had reached a breaking point.

After a particularly severe crisis had landed Elsa in the ER, she was finally receiving the medical attention she should have been getting from the beginning. Encouraged by her therapists, she had reached out to Anna.

They were making progress, slowly learning to be sisters again. But things were still fragile between them. Anna could be thoughtless and short-tempered, Elsa was painfully sensitive and sometimes kind of paranoid... it was a volatile combination.

In their last Skype call before the storm had wrecked the mast Elsa had been smiling, proud of herself. She had gone to a Christmas party. Elsa. Elsa Arendal had gone to a party. And enjoyed herself. With people. And dancing.

Anna had asked her where the party had been. Elsa had prevaricated, but Anna had pressed the issue, knowing her sister didn't drink and the blush on her cheeks was not alcohol.

“It... was an office party.”

“Oh really... Whose?”

“Oh, whose office? A, um, friend.”

“A friend took you on a date, huh?”

“Well it doesn't have to be a date, necessarily.”

“Uh-huh...”

“Okay, it was. Maybe.”

“Ooh... Maybe I should check this guy out, ask him his intentions towards my sister. Or do I know him already? You don't meet that many people, no offence.”

“No, no.”

“You hesitated.”

“No, honestly, she's new in town... oh God.”

Kristoff looked wary. “And was that...”

Anna nearly spat out her doughnut. “Oh for God's sake Kristoff, I'm not a homophobe! I'm a scientist! It would be like... hating someone for their shoe size!”

Kristoff's nose scrunched up when he was thinking. It was kind of adorable- Wait, what?

“So, if you're not-”

“There's no if! Geez, one nightmare clown gets elected and everyone thinks the worst of us.”

“So what did you say?”

Anna face-palmed, groaning. “Nothing.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Nothing? You?”

“I panicked! Said some nonsense about having my lab tests to get back to...”

Anna found herself fidgeting with her hair again. “We're sisters, and I love her, but sometimes it seems like I hardly know anything about her. Elsa pulled away from me so hard all through our teens- I didn't know then about her mental health, I just thought there was something wrong with me, maybe. And it just got worse after Mamma and Pappa passed. We've only really reconnected in the last year after she started getting therapy and meds, and so much is still uncharted territory between us.

There should have been sleepovers and girls' nights in and blanket forts where we talked about our crushes and shared our darkest secrets. But there was none of that. Just a locked bedroom door I passed on my way to the stairs. And being reminded of that made me feel like the lousiest sister in the world all over again.”

She pulled her legs up to her body, hugging her knees. “And you know, I am.”

Anna put her hand up to stay Kristoff's well-meaning protests.

“No, really. I made it about me. I got all weird and made excuses so I'd have time to feel comfortable. I was so scared of saying the wrong thing I said nothing! The one time I didn't talk when I actually should have...

I should have told her that it was okay. I shouldn't have signed off before I was sure she believed that. Elsa never finds it easy to tell me anything. Her issues make her so scared all the time, make her expect the worst. But she's been trying so hard. She's been getting better...”

Anna buried her face in her hands. “But that was when we lost Internet! And phones! Everything! Like, ten minutes later, back at the lab I had started to worry and wanted to send her a quick message, something supportive, even just a stupid little “Luv u Elsa xxx”...

...But no signal. Blackout! So now my only sister's back stateside thinking I freaked out and ghosted her, probably deciding to cut me out of her life for good this time. Or worse, having another breakdown... because of me...”

Kristoff wasn't the most demonstrative guy Anna had ever met, so she was surprised when he shifted the remaining doughnuts to one side and wrapped her in a tight hug.

It was nice, though. It was really nice, even with the gearshift pressing into her hip. She felt adrift in nightmarish uncertainty, no clue what Elsa was doing, no way to fix it, and the feeling of his arms encircling her, thick and strong as tree trunks, was kind of grounding. He was so calm and still most of the time, it was easy to forget how big he was. Two Annas big. Like a bear. A brawny Norwegian bear man.  She couldn't really feel the warmth of him through the layers of insulating clothing they both wore, but... why was she thinking about that?

“Anna, listen to me. The dish will be fixed before you know it. You will call your sister, or Skype or whatever you want. You will tell her exactly what you told me, and she will understand and she will love you. We will carry on collecting data, data and poop alike, I will make you watch Pingu in the TV room so you understand the joke, and everything- that means everything- will be alright. Okay?”

Anna nodded. Something about the sheer, solid presence of Kristoff made it easier to believe his words, to expect good things, as she mumbled his words back to him. “Everything will be alright.”

“That's right.”

They met again the next evening, in the same spot- where Kristoff waited in the freezing wind with a sheepish grin and enough coffee for them both. Anna's chocolate had had time to thaw out and was no longer like trying to bite into a slab of glass, so they took their eating caffeine and drinking caffeine into the garage workshop. Kristoff must have known it would be empty.

“I should explain my behaviour,” Kristoff announced out of nowhere.

Anna put her plastic mug down on the crate that Kristoff had dragged over between their stools to make them a table, with that effortless strength of his. “No offense, but you need to narrow that down.”

“I can often be too...” Kristoff trailed off, his brow furrowing under his woolly hat.

“Laconic?”

He grunted. “Actually, yes. My family are a bit overpowering. It would make sense if you could meet them.”

Anna leaned in, curious. “Your family?”

She'd never thought about him as a family person. But then she'd never asked. Had she really been so self-centred?

“Well, adoptive family. My brother, that's my... hold on.”

Kristoff reached into his coat to retrieve one of the indestructible phones the Norwegian teams were issued with and flicked through a couple of screens, before turning it over to her. It showed a photo of two young men dressed in colourful woollen clothes, smiling and hugging each other while one held up the camera. It took a moment to realise which one was Kristoff- he looked different without the thick beard he'd been wearing since she had arrived.

“My only blood relation. Sven and I lost our folks when we were very little. Then we were adopted by new parents. There were ten of us, altogether, growing up right at the furthest frozen edge of the north of Europe.”

“Ten?” Anna gawked. One sibling had been complicated growing up- seven seemed like, well a zoo.

Kristoff chuckled at the face she was making. “Pappa said it kept the house warm. It was crowded. I never had much time to myself as a boy, except when I was out on the ice. At home, there was always someone talking to me, dragging me off to join in with something. Sometimes there would be songs, all through our little house, just because someone felt like singing and then Mamma joined in, then everyone else joined in...”

“They sound wonderful,” Anna blurted out, before she could stop herself. Compared to the years of her parents always being busy with the company, and Elsa ghosting her- not that they'd known why at the time...

Kristoff snorted. “They are. But also loud, and excitable, and overbearing, and kinda never shut up. I miss them, but at the same time I need to get away for some of the year.”

At that, Anna felt something implode slightly inside of her, a feeling she couldn't exactly account for, but she didn't want to ruin their second actual proper conversation, so she tried to grin and make a joke of it.

“So, you come all the way to the bottom of the world for some peace and quiet, and instead you're driving me two hundred clicks to collect penguin poop, while I talk, and talk, and talk your ear off the whole way? Tough break. Wow.”

Kristoff looked up at her and shook his head. “The whole drive back, too. But that's not quite what I meant. I should relate to people. It is part of life, I want to. But I guess my family has left me too... passive. You come to me, and you sit and talk and I let you, like you're one of my kid sisters. But you are not. I am not home, letting the noise wash over me, where my family know what I feel even if I do not show it. I am here, and you are my... friend, and I should talk to you, let you know that your company is valued.”

Anna wasn't expecting the sudden turn, and the sad look in Kristoff's eyes and the hesitant way he said 'friend', like it was a question, had her head spinning in odd ways. “That's well, I mean, not that- Do you? Value it? My company? I value yours. I think I took that for granted before our fight, which is a thing I do and- sorry.”

Kristoff nodded, radiating sincerity. “I do, Anna.” He held out his gloved hand across the crate, mashing the empty chocolate foil, and Anna took it and held it. “We're all the way out here in fourteen million square kilometres of ice and frozen rock, and only a few thousand complete madmen-”

“And madwomen!”

Kristoff laughed. “-To share it with. It's good we have each other, don't you think?”

Anna squeezed his hand. “Yeah.”

“I have good news.”

“Oh! Hi...” Anna looked up from her breakfast to see Kristoff awkwardly hovering. Checking the hood of her onesie to make sure it hid her bed hair, she wondered for a second why he was looking so uncomfortable if he had good news... before she realised he was just waiting for an invitation. “Sit, sit, come on Kristoff! Tell me.”

Kristoff joined her at the table, grasping a mug of that now familiar thick black coffee. She wondered if he drank it instead of sleeping- he was certainly up at all hours.

“The repairs to the satellite system are almost complete.”

Anna's face lit up. “That's amazing! How long...”

“They'll be able to reintegrate with the satellite and start relaying data back to Europe tomorrow morning.”

“And Internet? Phones?”

Kristoff scratched his beard. “That will take another day or two. Oaken wants to make sure we have everything straightened out before we bring back non-emergency comms, so no Wi-Fi.”

Anna's heart sank.

“But...” Kristoff smiled. “Oaken's office has a direct broadband connection, which will be back straight away, and I told him you had a family emergency and, well, he's really a good boss.”

“Wait, what did you tell him?” Anna's eyes widened.

“Oh, no details, only that you needed to contact your sister urgently. He may or may not think that she's dying.” Kristoff shrugged. “The advantage of not asking for anything for five years is, when you do, people take it very seriously. Just talk to Oaken and arrange when it would be best to use his office tomorrow-”

Kristoff wasn't that surprised when Anna leaped up and threw her arms around his neck in thanks. She was a pretty excitable person. The kiss she pressed into his cheek before she rushed out of the canteen, on the other hand...

He sat still where he was for a moment, just processing. The other driver, Lars, took a seat beside him.

“So, you and Happy Feet, right?”

“Lars, no!” Kristoff hesitated, willing himself not to let his blush rise above the beard line. “I don't know. Maybe.”

Lars snorted with laughter. “Kristoff, you hopeless young idiot. It'll be Christmas eve on Monday. Invite her to the party. A little festive cheer, a little lutefisk, a lot of Oaken's akevitt...”

He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, undeterred by Kristoff's stony silence. “She is the first new person I have seen you happily interact with since... I don't even know. You're at the damn South Pole, do you think you're holding out for someone better?”

“No! Anna's great, really great, she...” Kristoff caught himself. “Oh, I see you.”

“Because if there were someone better, sorry, but she wouldn't date you. You're reaching as it is.”

Kristoff got up, zipping his coat. “I'm leaving now.”

As he walked to the door Lars called after him. “Go, follow the beautiful penguin girl... Confess your true feelings...”

“See you around, Lars.”

Part IV: Julaften

“But he gave you chocolates?”

“Chocolate, Elsa. Chocolate. As in a candy bar. We had an argument...”

“And he didn't have flowers?”

“Hilarious. Kristoff's just a guy I know.”

“Who went out of his way to help get us back in contact. And gave you chocolate, and you spend all day with him. I'm just looking at the facts- he's basically your snow husband.”

“Stooop... A couple of dates and suddenly you're the love expert.”

“'Love' expert? Ha! A confession.”

“I could sign off right now...”

“Wait, Anna. Listen, listen, I'm being serious. You should see the way your eyes soften when you just say his name. Anna, this is me, of all people, telling you to take a chance... Why not just catch him under the mistletoe, see what happens?”

“Elsa, they don't do that in Norway. I think. We don't have mistletoe, anyway. Even if...”

Anna stared at the akevitt in the bottom of her glass, reflecting on her most recent Skype with Elsa. After the initial awkwardness of clearing up misunderstandings- it had turned out Elsa had sent about twenty panic texts and Anna had solemnly sworn to delete all of them unopened once they arrived- their conversation had turned with surprising ease to the warmer, more familial awkwardness of being interrogated about her love life. Not that she actually had a-

The door to the TV room opened, and Kristoff joined her in the hall, rosy cheeked with Christmas spirit and also probably from the rich, dark Christmas ale half-filling his cup. It was not to her taste, but by the rate it was disappearing it clearly suited some of their colleagues. “Not enjoying the film?”

"Three Wishes for Cinderella? They show it every year." Kristoff shrugged.

“Give me It's a Wonderful Life any day.” Anna sipped her drink. “Shall we go out and say hello to the doggie?”

Kristoff tried to frown, but it wasn't working. “It's a goat. A Yule Goat. They're meant to be made out of straw, but Gerda and Lars only had bits of crate to hammer together, which is why it's so...”

Anna grinned. “So... what?”

“So like a robot dog.” Kristoff sighed in surrender. “Sure, let's take a walk.”

A few minutes later, wrapped up warmly, they stood at the centre of the base trying hard to admire what Kristoff's colleagues had constructed. They would not be winning any art prizes.

“So, how's it a goat?”

Kristoff pointed up at some of the messier parts of the beast. “The bent-over parts are meant to be horns.”

“Really? Not ears?”

“Be nice. It would probably look more impressive at night.”

Anna rolled her eyes, giggling. “Sure, at night. Let's just wait a few months.”

Kristoff crossed his arms and pretended to sulk. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh at our ancient traditions. What do you do for Christmas?”

Anna grinned, stepping closer to him. “Give each other gifts...”

“Yeah, we already did that, and I'm out of chocolate.”

She looked up at his face, all bemused patience, eyes dancing. “Eat turkey...”

“Good luck with that. I'm not driving you to the nearest supermarket.”

“Where is that?”

“Cape Town. I hope you can swim.”

“Okay, okay,” Anna laughed, her gloved fingers trailing down the front of Kristoff's jacket. His brown eyes were as dark and heady as the ale he drank. “Well, there is mistletoe. You know how that works?”

“We have Hollywood. But if an American really wants to kiss someone why not just-”

“Yeah, why not?”

The kiss was brief- almost a collision- as Anna grabbed Kristoff's head in both hands and pulled him down, springing up on her toes to meet him halfway. Then she let go and staggered back a few feet.

Yep, she’d actually done that.

Kristoff was bright pink. “Anna...”

“You can't blame me!” Anna yelped. “I'm drunk and I have terrible impulse control!”

Kristoff burst out laughing, which Anna decided could either be good or really, really bad.

“Kristoff?”

That was when he kissed her back. Slow and loving and tender, and the alcohol in her veins could not compete with how that touch warmed her.

What was that bleeping?

Pulling away slightly, Kristoff pulled his phone out of his back pocket. His smile broadened.

“Midnight.”

Anna looked at the bright sunlight gleaming off the ear-horns of the Yule plank-monster. The sun was low over the mountains in the distance, gleaming off the ice flats... “Amazing.”

“Merry Christmas, Anna.”

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching SPN 13x11 “Breakdown”

(not what I expected!! which is a good thing)

04:00pm

soooo i’m pretty sure this episode is about cannibalism and that’s among my top squicks so i’m likely to watch this with my eyes closed and my headphones pulled out

just a heads up

i’m leaving my curtain open with all the blazing summer daylight, and i got basic quality video rather than 720p because the less i see of this the better

i’m essentially just here for donna tbh

-

04:04

i forgot how homoerotic the dean!vampire thing was

-

04:04

opening scene with the sound of screaming and a bonesaw and i’m already watching with this window halfway in front of the video one

who needs full screen when you can watch tiny things instead

-

04:06

ah this must be donna’s sis--

WAIT NOPE 

stolen card i guess

(edit: did this ever get explained? why did she have donna’s ID card??)

-

04:07

look this situation is legit terrifying

too fucking real

monsters aren’t scary, people are scary

-

04:09

ah, dean does indeed make pancakes

i’ve written that so many times in my fics but i don’t think he ever did it in canon before

-

04:10

oh a neice

-

04:13

dean: “the victim... she’s my cousin”

sweet

like in terms of family members to assign the niece to, that’s a nice one. kind of makes donna his.... sister?? aunt?? (my brain cannot family tree maths though so i’m a wee bit tangled)

-

04:19

someone tell me how dean knows so much about truckers

and knows how to talk on their radios so effortlessly

how many truck stops has he... yknow... stopped in

-

“67... midnight rider”

sexy

(edit: frick now i wanna use this for a fic idea i’ve had for years, based on a russian folk tale, except this moniker would put dean as the character i was gonna use for cas)

(actually wait no, that works, ‘cause cas is the sunshine anyway)

(also no promises because i have like 34 other things to work on rn, mostly offline)

-

04:25

dean dressed as a trucker... weirdly good look for him

-

04:34

oh man this “everyone online loves to see people being tortured live” thing is such a weird niche trope that somehow keeps coming up??

it was in “almost human” and also... “castle” maybe? i’ve definitely seen it at least twice

-

04:35

urhg god this is so bleh ksflkdg

-

04:36

MUSTACHE GUY HITS THE DUDE AROUND THE HEAD

OMG. THIS GUY. I kind of dig him a lot

-

04:37

dean: “takeout for monsters”

OKAY GOOD NOT CANNIBALISM THEn

somehow that’s way easier for me to deal with

-

04:39

also i’m watching full-screen again, but when i pause to type i have the tumblr post open in a half-screen window. this works better for me that switching tabs entirely, idk why i never thought of this before

-

04:43

(fbi guy shows up and sam’s like !!! “why are you here”)

i mean, the obvious thing is that the fbi guy is the bad guy

idk if that’s just a writer’s trick or whether it’s a totally overdone trope

(i.e. he spends 12 years “hunting” the monster, just to cover up the fact the monster is him)

but there’s nobody else who fits the profile right now, because the asshole kid is WAY too obvious, and he wouldn’t have given them the website link if it was him

unless it’s the trucker lady who dean met at the diner, given there’s basically no other characters and this is essentially a whodunit

(i don’t want it to be her though)

i’ve watched too many whodunits and i’m 99% sure it’s gonna be the fbi guy

-

04:49

then again, how would the fbi guy get changed so quick

no maybe it’s not him

like i said, i’ve seen too many whodunits and this episode fit the profile up until now

(as in, the bad guy is always someone you’ve seen before and probably didn’t suspect, rather than a random new person)

(which honestly makes guessing the bad guy really easy on a show like “castle” because it’s always the secretary that comes in to ask the main suspect to sign something, or the boyfriend who got in a one-liner and then was never seen again for the rest of the episode, unlike literally every other character with a speaking role, who the audience is made to suspect at some point)

-

04:51

WAIT NO FBI GUY HIT SAM I WAS RIGHT

-

04:58

you know the writing is good when even the bad guy has a motive that sounds perfectly sane and reasonable

everyone’s the hero of their own story and quite frankly he’s doing a pretty decent job...... kidnapping and violent, painful murder aside

-

05:01

oh come on, fbi guy is way too recognisable like that, with the pig mask and nothing else

how he’s gonna explain that to the other fbi people

-

05:02

although to be fair, the whole “i’m feeding the everyday monster masses” shtick isn’t even accurate since these auctions are pretty pricey for a single meal

AND WHAT ABOUT SHIPPING

gotta ship a tiny freezer cross-country??? excuse you

so do monsters need to eat way less than humans (e.g. 1 meal a week rather than ~3 meals a day) or what??

because i mean

if they needed blood i feel like there’d be a lot of it at, like, a chicken farm or something

-

05:06

i like that lil whistle dean does to tell donna which way he’s going

-

05:08

doug: “fine? i was a vampire???”

oh my god i love him what a sweetheart

-

05:10

a thought: so donna’s been hunting vampires for quite a while, the winchesters know that, and yet only TODAY she gets informed there’s a reverse potion thing?? *squints*

-

05:12

me: *makes accidental out-loud noise of sympathy when donna goes :(*

-

05:14

sam: “it ends bad”

..........oh dear :c

--

well that was way less gory and terrifying than i expected at the start, which i’m glad about !!

but also dark and depressing in a way

hm

i mean, 9/10 for story, but 5/10 for enjoyment tbh

good but not my thing

i like how we never saw the face of the faceless guy. that gave more weight to the fbi guy being the worse one

also i’m curious whether the “person assigned to hunt the baddie is secretly the baddie” trope is actually overused, or whether i just think that because i used it myself once? i feel like it would’ve had more impact if i wasn’t a writer myself

YAY DONNA, but sad donna :c :c :c

she needs some of dean’s breakfast pancakes and lots of hugs

(has donna ever met cas? i forget. i feel like that particular beam of sunlight would cheer her up a bit)

[michaelandy101-blog]

How to Implement & Succeed With Marketing Automation

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/how-to-implement-succeed-with-marketing-automation/

How to Implement & Succeed With Marketing Automation

Emails. Social media posts. PPC campaigns. Wait — another email. Don’t miss that new lead that just downloaded your online course!

The life of a marketer or business owner is busy. Your brain is constantly swirling with ideas, which doesn’t help you get to the bottom of your never-ending task list. Believe me — as both a marketer and business owner, I know how this feels.

In the past 20 or so years, new tools and technology have helped simplify some of these tasks … but this increase has also served to heighten customers’ expectations: Oh, our audience is expecting abandoned cart emails now? Okay, let me add that to the list…

One technology improvement has made marketers’ lives abundantly easier, however — marketing automation. This guide will walk you through the ins and outs of marketing automation, including:

Let’s dive in.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation refers to marketing efforts and tasks that have been automated using software. They are typically triggered by a consumer action, like subscribing to a blog, filling out a form, or making a purchase.

If you’ve ever done some midnight shopping (ahem, like me) and immediately received a confirmation email, you’ve been met with marketing automation. You didn’t think there was a poor guy sitting behind his computer at 1:00 AM waiting for new purchases to come through, did you?

No, that online store likely has some pre-written and scheduled email automations ready to go out when their customers complete certain tasks on their website. We’ll talk more about email marketing automation below.

Other marketing automations include social media, advertising, and SMS marketing automation, as well as internal automations that help you manage and triage marketing tasks.

Marketing automation can help you capture and nurture more (and more qualified) leads. Learn more about how to do this in our free HubSpot Academy course.

Nearly 70% of marketing leaders are currently using a marketing platform. Of those who are automating marketing, 23% are automating their content delivery.

Marketing automations can certainly make life easier, but it shouldn’t replace human touch. As I said in the introduction, a recent increase in technology has been met with increased or changed consumer expectations. Marketing automation is no exception — consumers appreciate the timeliness and thoughtfulness of automation, but they also can also read between the lines of bot-written copy or stale imagery.

Marketing automation should complement your current marketing efforts, not replace them.

What is marketing automation primarily used for?

Marketing automation is primarily used to mechanize and automate otherwise manual marketing tasks like sending emails, posting social media messages, collecting information, and managing internal tasks.

Benefits of Marketing Automation

There are countless benefits of marketing automation. A few I’d like to highlight include:

Efficiency: Wasted time is a marketer’s nightmare. Marketing automation can help you complete repeatable tasks in an efficient and effective manner.

Nurtured leads: It takes a lot of time and energy to effectively nurture every individual lead; however, it’s too important not to. Marketing automation allows you to nurture your leads on a mass scale while still personalizing each lead’s experience with your brand. 70% of the companies report that the most important benefit of automation technology is better-targeted customer communication.

Increased revenue: The more you nurture your leads, the more leads that’ll likely convert to users. Marketing automation can result in increased revenue as more leads become paying customers.

Better reporting: Marketing automation streamlines important marketing tasks and allows you to review and analyze your activity and its results.

Types of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation can take many forms. Let’s unpack the different types of automation and how you can use them in your marketing.

Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing automation is perhaps the most common use case for automation. From welcome emails to post-purchase emails and re-engagement emails, there’s a lot that goes into email marketing. Without email marketing automations and workflows, email would be an otherwise very manual process.

Email automation is typically triggered by time or action. Time-based emails are sent on certain occasions, such as a customer’s birthday (don’t you love those free birthday drinks from Starbucks?) or a holiday (Black Friday discounts, anyone?).

Action-based emails are a bit more involved. These automated emails are triggered by actions taken by a website visitor, lead, or customer who then receives an email or series of emails related to that particular action.

Let’s return to my midnight shopping example. Instead of completing my purchase and receiving the subsequent confirmation email, let’s say I exit the site with items still in my cart—and within 30 minutes, I receive an email reminding me about the forgotten items. This is called an “abandoned cart” email, and many online stores deploy them in hopes that shoppers return and complete their purchases. This is an example of an action-based email marketing automation.

Source

Email automation campaigns are among the top three tactics used by email marketers to improve performance, and email marketing automation has many benefits. The best one (in my opinion) is how it saves precious time and energy by otherwise priceless tasks. Automated emails can help you generate leads and increase revenue, but that doesn’t mean your marketing team has to spend all their time sending and monitoring them. That’s what marketing automation is for.

Learn everything you need to know about email marketing in our free HubSpot Academy course.

Digital Marketing Automation

Although email marketing is a common use case for marketing automation, it’s not the only one. Let’s talk about other forms of digital marketing automation (both external and internal).

Social Media Marketing Automation

Anyone who works in marketing knows how time-intensive social media marketing can be. If you’re going to do it right, you’ve got to do, well, nonstop. Thankfully, marketing automation can help. Tools like HubSpot and Hootsuite allow you to schedule content, set social media monitoring filters, and even automate the response process — although this should never replace genuine, human interaction with your followers and customers.

Advertising Automation

You’ve heard of retargeting, yes? Now … could you imagine having to go into every advertising platform and change the copy, graphics, and timing based on each customer’s individual actions or behavior? Whew, that’d be a lot. Retargeting is an example of advertising automation, as it automatically shifts and smartens its strategy in response to consumer behavior. If a customer visits your website, your retargeting automation will respond by displaying relevant ads on the sites they browse next.

Source

Mobile Marketing Automation

As SMS marketing becomes more popular and effective, companies are adding mobile marketing to their marketing automation tool belts. Like emails, text messages can also be automated and triggered based on time or actions, and they tend to have a higher (and faster) open rate than emails.

CRM with Marketing Automation

Ah, the CRM—a marketer’s best friend. Thankfully, your CRM and marketing automation can go hand-in-hand. A simple update in your database can trigger a whole host of internal tasks, including lead scoring and alerting your sales team to new prospects. You can also use your CRM to trigger email workflows, either based on user data or user actions.

Source

Marketing Automation Software

As a marketer, your marketing technology stack may or may not be your best friend … I know mine sure is.

Do you have a favorite tool or two? Let me guess — a marketing automation software (if you’re currently using one) just crossed your mind.

I don’t blame you. These tools sure make our lives easier and our customers happier. If you’re looking for new tools to add to your list, or you’re wanting to check out marketing automation for the first time, take a look at the marketing automation software tools we’ve compiled in this article. Here are a handful of of my favorites:

HubSpot

The HubSpot CRM, as mentioned above, provides many marketing automation features. As a standalone tool, HubSpot’s marketing automation allows you to automate a variety of tasks, from setting up simple email workflows to building a complex network of rules to target users with tailored emails, live chats, and more.

Drip

Drip specializes in e-commerce marketing automation. It’s mostly used for email marketing and provides email automation workflows, multi-channel marketing, full campaigns, and more.

ManyChat

ManyChat allows you to extend your marketing automation strategy beyond email. Use this tool to build a smart bot to engage with prospects and customers on Facebook Messenger and over SMS. While your marketing automation shouldn’t replace a human touch, ManyChat can help you get the conversation started with prospects — it also captures information from prospects and adds it to your CRM.

Sprout Social

I had to include at least one social media marketing automation tool on this shortlist. Sprout Social can help lighten the load of manual social media tasks — responding to messages, tracking engagement, and measuring audience sentiment. Moreover, Sprout Social provides easy onboarding documentation and resources so you can hit the ground running.

Marketing Automation Strategy

Your marketing automation strategy should vary depending on what tools you use and what goals you set. For example, if you choose to use HubSpot to nurture leads that download a free ebook, your strategy would focus on converting those leads using information relevant to why they perhaps downloaded the ebook—and how your product or service could help meet those needs.

Regardless of your marketing automation strategy, however, make note of these few marketing automation best practices:

Know your audience. You can’t create personalized marketing — whether automated or not — without knowing what your audience’s pain points are and how you can meet them. Build your buyer personas to get to know your audience before building your marketing automation workflows.

Know your customer journey. A key determinant of successful marketing automation is meeting your lead wherever they are. You can’t do this unless you know their journey to become your customer. Map out your customer journey and match your marketing automation to those lead stages.

Review on a regular basis. Although marketing automation is pretty hands-off, it is not a one-and-one strategy. Review your marketing automation workflows on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. Your automation should change as your business, products, and customers do.

Check out this blog post for more marketing automation tips.

Automate Your Marketing to Grow Better

Marketing automation may seem like a lot to learn upfront … but imagine what it’ll feel like to kick back and relax once you’ve got everything in place. OK, maybe not relax, but marketing automation will certainly help you shorten that to-do list.

From email marketing to advertising and retargeting to internal tasks, marketing automation can help you save time, energy, and money — and make your customers’ lives easier and happier. It truly is a marketer’s best friend.

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[librarified2004]

Here we go again...

This looked like fun. Hijacked from the amazing @the-random-fandom-one, so the actual title of this should be “@dammittmarie, you made me do another survey!”  Reblog with your answers! I want to get more communication going in the writing community here. Answer one, answer some! Answer whatever you want to! 1. What was the first character you ever created? I’ve been writing stories since I could pick up a writing utensil. I think the first character I ever really put a ton of thought into, though, was this character I played in an MMORPG during undergrad. Her name was Lindarian, and her past was tragic: the half-elven child of an illegal union between a mortal and an elf princess, she was basically raised in seclusion only to watch her three older half-brothers and her parents be brutally murdered on her eighteenth birthday. Man, even before I knew what fanfiction was, I knew how to whump a character. 

2. Is there a specific thing that made you want to start writing more? The MMORPG I played as an undergrad and grad student went down for good in about 2005, and after that, I stopped writing stories because there was no reason, really, to further develop that character. I got a job and started doing some professional writing--blogs and reviews and that kind of thing. Then I reconnected with an old friend who had written an entire book, and he started pushing me to do fiction again. I played around with some ideas, even published a short story, before I discovered fanfiction through a professional development class that I had to take. I can’t go back to school for my MFA in creative writing at this point, but I think writing fanfic is saving my sanity as well as giving me a sort of ad hoc, DIY MFA where I work at my own pace and set my own curriculum. Plus, some days it really saves my sanity. In the wise words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, I can pick up a pen and write my own deliverance.

3. Favorite character you’ve ever created? In the short story I published, “Swan Song,” I had this side character who existed simply to be my villain. I didn’t pay him much attention until very late in the creative process, when the editor said the big reveal was too abrupt. (He was right.) So I took that character out to coffee--literally, I took my laptop and a notebook to my favorite coffee place so I could have a distraction-free conversation with him--lit him a smoke (funny thing, I don’t smoke, but literally everyone in that story does and my smoker friends say I got that exactly right), and really, for the first time, tried to get to know him. I knew only the basics, but it turned out he had this whole past (tragic) and motivations that I’d never even seen. Knowing all this didn’t just change the reveal, it pivoted the entire story, and when I sat down to rework that reveal, the words just poured out. It turned out that he was rather an anti-villain and he ended up in an awesome place--if I ever write a sequel to that story, it will be his to tell. Nik, the villain of “Swan Song,” is my favorite because he taught me to look deeper, love harder, and never have a character unless you’ve taken the time to know them all the way down to their shoe size. 

4. Do your stories tend to have only a few characters or a lot?

As few as possible. In fact, I kind of freak out a little bit when I realize I need another character to serve some purpose. 

5. Do you sit down and plan out your worlds or just let them build themselves as you write?

Some of both, really. I tend to write a lot of fanfiction exchanges (or at least, that’s what gets published), and I always do a thorough canon review before I start plotting so I can get voices and world-building details right. My one published original short story is set in Moscow during WWII, and I did a bunch of research on that setting and time period before I went in, but I never really tried to force anything to fit. Interestingly, during revisions, I was able to go back and add date stamps to certain plot points based on my historical research. But  that story also has a magic twist to it (it was for a fantasy anthology) and the magic part just came to me, no building required. 

6. Do you ever meet people and want to write about them? Fictional characters, all the time. I love writing missing scenes. I don’t put much of real-life people into my characters (but I totally could--I work in a public library. Public libraries are literally the last remaining free resource in this country and my job is madness.)

7. What kind of environment do you do most of your writing in? Music or no music? Loud or quiet? In private or wherever? Depends on the day and the story. I have a novel in progress (which will never be finished, probably) and for that I have entire playlists of music for each character. But if there’s music, there can’t be words in a language I can understand, because I will end up singing along. No TV or movies, because I end up watching instead of writing. I like my backyard, and even better, my parents’ backyard. But when all else really fails, I’ll jot out whatever in the notes on my phone. I’m picky, but not picky at all. And if I’m on deadline, I will make that deadline come hell or high water or plague or fire or mass destruction.

8. Do the people in your life ever read what you write, or do you tend to not show them? Not fanfiction. I’m very, very protective of my writing in general. My mom was an English teacher (in fact, she was MY English teacher in tenth grade), and even when I was an undergrad getting my B.A. in English comp, she read all my essays with a red pen (after they’d been graded--and I graduated with a 4.0 in my major!). When I published my original short, she was so proud--and then she pointed out a glaring continuity mistake I had missed in about nine million rounds of editing. When I read my own stuff, I only see the mistakes, so I’m also shy about showing it to anyone else. That said, I have about a million partial fics rotting on my hard drive, phone notes, and Google docs, so someone might want to go after them if I ever shuffle off this mortal coil. 

9. What inspires you? Oh my, so much. Music, other people’s stories, history, walks in the woods, the way the lights in the children’s room at the library change color. Literally everything. Probably the better question is who pushes me, and the answer to that is @dammittmarie, who got me into the school’s Dead Poets Society in undergrad (we met at midnight in the basement of the library and damn, we were cool) and the beautiful @rain-and-roses-in-the-city, who puts up with my crazy ideas, my headcanons, lets me play in her sandbox, and sometimes has even seen the partial stories I talked about earlier. 

10. What’s the weirdest character you’ve ever created? Don’t really have one.

11. What’s the most boring character you’ve ever created? All of them, it feels like sometimes :)

12. Do you name your background characters? Do you even have them? I learned a hard lesson about knowing my characters, so now, if I can’t flesh them out, they don’t appear. 

13. Are you one of the writers who writes in symbolism and specifically thinks about things like the color of a hat or that kind of thing? Or do you just pick those things at random? Sometimes. Not always.

14. Are there any authors you feel have influenced your style? Published authors, fanfic authors, ect. I learn things from everywhere. My gold standard for plot twists is the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which made me screech out loud on an airplane years ago. I think the Hamilton fandom in particular is full of talent, and the WhamFam especially (you know who you are). And going back to @dammittmarie, she’s the one who made me unashamed of being a whump writer. 

15. Were you a story teller before you could write? Yes! I devoured books as a kid, and handwriting came super hard to me. You couldn’t read my penmanship until I was in junior high, so I learned storytelling in the oral tradition first. 

16. How many characters have you created? Not too many. I tend not to write OCs in fanfiction for fear of them coming out like total, obvious Mary Sues. There are maybe a dozen characters in “Swan Song.”

17. Do your stories tend to take place in the real world or in a fantasy world? Both? Neither?

That depends on the story

18. Do you tend to set your stories in the present or the past or the future? Do you think about when it’s set or does that not factor into the story?

Whatever works on a given day for a given story, I guess. I love, love, love the canon era of Hamilton, but I also like modern AUs if they’re done well. So yeah, whatever works. 

19. What kind of things do you like to write? Poetry? Short stories? Novels? Fanfiction? Children’s Books? Nonfiction? Something else entirely? Fan fiction for pleasure. My professional life includes writing book reviews, blog posts on various topics, and newsletters, so fan fiction is escapism for me.

20. Do you like to do events like NaNoWriMo or the Three Day Novel, or do you prefer to do things at your own pace? Yes and no. In my professional life, I’m a volunteer blogger and reviewer on top of the demands of my day job, so I’m almost always on deadline for something. (Right this second is actually an exception--I wrote two articles this weekend and I’m deadline-free until at least April 1.) I tend to write fan fiction at my own (snail on a strong sedative’s) pace, but I have signed up for NaNoWriMo a few times, and I might do Camp NaNo in April because I have a 5k exchange piece due at the end of the month. And the one piece that I’ve published that wasn’t fan fiction actually got finished because I went to a signing where there were like six people and ended up pouring my heart out to this poor author. I told her I had a story and no idea how to start, and she told me to write 100 words a day for 100 days and tweet her my word count every day. If I missed a day, I had to start over. I made it to 100 days, just over 11,000 words, and that piece is good--you can even buy it on Amazon.

[terryrayca]

20 Best Songs To Listen To While High

Before we embark on this list of amazing songs that are enhanced when under the influence of Medical Marijuana, please visit the best buy weed online Canada known as www.weed-deals.ca. Providing exceptional prices for both strains such as girl scout cookies strain and premium flowers that other cannawholesalers places just can’t beat.

Interested in improving your cannabis encounter with no additional work?

Sure, eating particular foods is one way. Playing various board games and video games is just another. Along with reading good novels, well, that is always soothing. But once you’re in the middle of this cannabis encounter, it is clear they do not supply exactly the exact same feeling as listening to audio, in other words, in case you’ve got the best significant songs.

If you’re interested in all of the Pseudo, armchair and REAL scientific details behind why music sounds better if your high, this is not the post.

Instead, here we breakdown the very best tunes to listen to while large, whether old or new, using a list that is updated regularly.

Ready?

10 Greatest Chill Songs to Listen to While stoned

1. Zedd — Happy Today

Even though Zedd Is famous for his huge space EDM monitors which may be observed at festivals year round, he could even lay down a cool tune that is ideal to float to.

‘Happy Today’ is precisely that, only sitting on a cloud and appreciating the second, a great high tune. Elderbrook — Hard to Enjoy

“I’m difficult to enjoy in the best of times. Oh, in the best of times”…

Who doesn’t feel like this sometimes? It’s easy to become wrapped up in life also have a thousand thoughts and theories happening in our mind at one time. It actually can be daunting and have a toll on our mental wellbeing. We need ourselves to be present and appreciate what is happening.

This might have gotten somewhat existential, but do not worry, it is just to easily install how’Tough to Enjoy’ from Elderbrook is a very excellent tune to listen to if high.

I will let you in on a little secret About me, this is in my top 5 favorite tunes of all time. While the record is ever changing, who knows perhaps one day it will fall to sixth, except for now being Medasin stirs a timeless ‘Daydream’.

Trust me once I say this,’Daydream’ is among the greatest tunes to listen to while completely sober, either way works!

Odesza — Sun Designs

Selecting just 1 of Odesza’s tunes is kind have a criminal action, yet, it needs to be accomplished. Even though’Sun Designs’ is Absolutely exactly what the doctor ordered, any time, any location, I recommend that you check out more of the work since it is devised to ease you into bliss — an ideal, high, higher tune really.

Even though Seinabo gets Loads of credit for this laidback groove,’Younger’ gets The remix it warrants by Kygo. And if there’s one thing I understand about Kygo, it’s that his songs are essentially made to smoke bud and revel in the sunshine.

Sure, it is not always shining outside, But if it is or not, your mood will be with ‘Younger’ playing in the background. It is a weed smoker tune that is certain to make you feel younger.

If you are Beginning to grab a vibe From the tunes on this listing, you are not in the incorrect. It might be the sunlight, it can be the simple fact that tropical home is almost always a fantastic option when rolling a joint, but one thing is for sure,’Jubel’ is a necessity in everybody’s lifestyle best substantial songs playlist.

Creating a feeling that looks like putting a hammock somewhere the sun doesn’t set. I for one understand that my bose speakers will probably be appreciating this particular vibe for a long, long time to come.

“Would you feel the sunshine? (you make it brighter( brighter)

Make it brighter for me personally

If sun comes shining on me

If you have ever wanted the most perfect tune to wake up and bake to, I have got it for you. ‘Brighter’ is the optimal approach to begin, bridge and finish, and anything could be in-between daily.

If you sensed an ephemeral breeze blowing off, with the color of palms trees each so slightly from the last tunes,’Indian Summer’ is the final action. It is essentially a sunset bottled up and packed for the masses.

If you have heard of Mura Masa Earlier, then you know his personality is ideal for a playlist full of tunes to listen to while high. The same as many other people, it is difficult to select just 1 song, but ‘Firefly’ stands at the top this time around.

While this list can go on for weeks (literally), we must wrap this up at a certain stage, and the following song is the nearest thing to resting your head on a cushion….that is, just to realize it is a cloud. Autograf — Fantasy

You have made it this way, so that may Only signify this record has struck a chord. To complete the first half, I wished to leave y’with a tune to wind down it. This high tune a part of a ideal setting to finish a very long day and shut your eyes .

‘Fantasy’ by Autograf is wrapped is just as the title says, a mild dream that gradually sets in and calms you from head to toe.

10 Classic Greatest Songs to Listen to While medicated

No need to worry, this listing is not About classical Mozart and Bach — that classical kind of music — that is not bad, since I really like some classical once the mood is perfect!

Rather, this section is about the Very good vibes and grooves which were overlooked, which have been lost in transit as a result of endless quantity of music being released nowadays. Only a couple diamonds in the rough, you can say.

I could have used a Lot of tunes to get The party begun, but this large tune begins this section just perfect. The Zombies have a special spot in my heart, and after listening to’Summertime’, I am certain that they will for you also. Steely Dan — Can it

There is not much to mention about Steely Dan’s ring that has not been stated already. If you know anybody over age 40 that likes to smoke ganja, they have probably got a couple of fond memories of Dan himself.

‘Do it Again’ has borderline psychedelic storms occasionally, and is ideal for virtually any event, whether you are not.

Doobie Brothers — Listen to the Audio

‘Listen to the Music’, seems Easy, does’nt it? I mean, what else are you supposed to do with audio? However, the question is, how frequently do you LISTEN to the audio, from the tune, voices, instruments and all the small sounds which go into creating a tune?

How often do you really really want to Listen to your tune, just to realize halfway through, that the majority of the tune flanked by and you do not recall hearing a damn thing. ‘Listen to the Music’ is a perfect reminder to only be current, whether it’s listening to music, reading a book, speaking to a buddy or just walking down the road.

“Thunder only happens when it is raining

Players only love you when they are playing

Say girls they’ll come and They’ll go

Once the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll understand”

These lyrics from Fleetwood Mac May be a number of the most well-known of all time. There is just something special about Stevie Nicks’ voice which can not be quantified. She will not blow you out of the water along with her large pitches, or drawn out vocals, but her soothing tone is certainly of the magic selection, making for an ideal tune to listen to while large.

‘yells’ is a classic with any means which could be left on repeat at the same time you smoke and roll a joint.

There are not many issues from the World that can not be solved using a doobie and a few refreshing and light music. Obviously, there’ll always be problems, but letting go of anxiety that has been a deterrent can make all of the difference.

If your neighbor will not cut their Hedges, once you get cut off while driving home from work, or if Janet from bookkeeping informs the same’ol story about how she left the casserole on the counter, it is time to throw the ideal high tune’Summer’. Life, in relation to virtually anything; a food that reminds you of a place, a smell that attracts you into a specific childhood memory — also for me personally,’A Horse with No Name’ reminds of those Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Do not overthink it. Name is an excellent songs to hear when high — and who knows, perhaps you’ll start seeing a few of the links whom I’ve produced between it and the Alchemist…or perhaps you’ll begin earning links of your own!

Van Morrison and cannabis go together, such as, well, such as just Van Morrison and cannabis can. When listening to’Into the Mystic’ while sober or high , you can only help but wonder why youpersonally:

A) Have never heard of Van Morrison…and B) This song’s so brief!

If you recorded the several things that bring a smile to a person’s face, a harmonica would not be on this list. Is not a video with adorable creatures, or a kid doing absurd things, but if Neil Young is playing with it, you can not help but grin, thus rendering it a fantastic tune to listen to while high.

Thanks Neil Young!

“Some Folks call me the space cowboy, yeah

I wish I could say exactly the same, but sadly this is not the situation.

I am a joker

I am a smoker

I am a midnight toker

I get my lovin’ on the run

Wooo Wooooo

Now that is a more precise representation!

10. Grateful Dead — Ripple

If you are interested in discovering, possibly, the chillest set of individuals of ALL TIME, then look no farther than “Deadheads”. In brief, they flew across the countries after the Grateful Dead, A prominent choice and psychedelic group. Even the Grateful Dead’s influence in popular culture could be felt across the world, as can their laid back songs, which makes for ideal music to listen to while high. What Is Your Perfect Chill High Song?

Music is a never ending trip that Fills our souls with a power which has no rival. It has ability to make us proceed, to fill an area and change the whole mood of a scene is astonishing.

However, when you pair it with cannabis, and together with the very best songs to listen to if large, it is taken to a very profound level.

Stay tuned and check back frequently, for the budbox is on it’s way to the public and will be available for purchase before you know it. Get them while they’re hot!

I have given you my best list, so what is your best high music list?

As always, cheers.

And sharing is caring!

source http://www.thepalacevenue.com/20-best-songs-to-listen-to-while-high/ source https://thepalacevenue.tumblr.com/post/186741601846

[rosemalmbergca]

20 Best Songs To Listen To While High

Before we embark on this list of amazing songs that are enhanced when under the influence of Medical Marijuana, please visit the best buy weed online Canada known as www.weed-deals.ca. Providing exceptional prices for both strains such as girl scout cookies strain and premium flowers that other cannawholesalers places just can’t beat.

Interested in improving your cannabis encounter with no additional work?

Sure, eating particular foods is one way. Playing various board games and video games is just another. Along with reading good novels, well, that is always soothing. But once you’re in the middle of this cannabis encounter, it is clear they do not supply exactly the exact same feeling as listening to audio, in other words, in case you’ve got the best significant songs.

If you’re interested in all of the Pseudo, armchair and REAL scientific details behind why music sounds better if your high, this is not the post.

Instead, here we breakdown the very best tunes to listen to while large, whether old or new, using a list that is updated regularly.

Ready?

10 Greatest Chill Songs to Listen to While stoned

1. Zedd — Happy Today

Even though Zedd Is famous for his huge space EDM monitors which may be observed at festivals year round, he could even lay down a cool tune that is ideal to float to.

‘Happy Today’ is precisely that, only sitting on a cloud and appreciating the second, a great high tune. Elderbrook — Hard to Enjoy

“I’m difficult to enjoy in the best of times. Oh, in the best of times”…

Who doesn’t feel like this sometimes? It’s easy to become wrapped up in life also have a thousand thoughts and theories happening in our mind at one time. It actually can be daunting and have a toll on our mental wellbeing. We need ourselves to be present and appreciate what is happening.

This might have gotten somewhat existential, but do not worry, it is just to easily install how’Tough to Enjoy’ from Elderbrook is a very excellent tune to listen to if high.

I will let you in on a little secret About me, this is in my top 5 favorite tunes of all time. While the record is ever changing, who knows perhaps one day it will fall to sixth, except for now being Medasin stirs a timeless ‘Daydream’.

Trust me once I say this,’Daydream’ is among the greatest tunes to listen to while completely sober, either way works!

Odesza — Sun Designs

Selecting just 1 of Odesza’s tunes is kind have a criminal action, yet, it needs to be accomplished. Even though’Sun Designs’ is Absolutely exactly what the doctor ordered, any time, any location, I recommend that you check out more of the work since it is devised to ease you into bliss — an ideal, high, higher tune really.

Even though Seinabo gets Loads of credit for this laidback groove,’Younger’ gets The remix it warrants by Kygo. And if there’s one thing I understand about Kygo, it’s that his songs are essentially made to smoke bud and revel in the sunshine.

Sure, it is not always shining outside, But if it is or not, your mood will be with ‘Younger’ playing in the background. It is a weed smoker tune that is certain to make you feel younger.

If you are Beginning to grab a vibe From the tunes on this listing, you are not in the incorrect. It might be the sunlight, it can be the simple fact that tropical home is almost always a fantastic option when rolling a joint, but one thing is for sure,’Jubel’ is a necessity in everybody’s lifestyle best substantial songs playlist.

Creating a feeling that looks like putting a hammock somewhere the sun doesn’t set. I for one understand that my bose speakers will probably be appreciating this particular vibe for a long, long time to come.

“Would you feel the sunshine? (you make it brighter( brighter)

Make it brighter for me personally

If sun comes shining on me

If you have ever wanted the most perfect tune to wake up and bake to, I have got it for you. ‘Brighter’ is the optimal approach to begin, bridge and finish, and anything could be in-between daily.

If you sensed an ephemeral breeze blowing off, with the color of palms trees each so slightly from the last tunes,’Indian Summer’ is the final action. It is essentially a sunset bottled up and packed for the masses.

If you have heard of Mura Masa Earlier, then you know his personality is ideal for a playlist full of tunes to listen to while high. The same as many other people, it is difficult to select just 1 song, but ‘Firefly’ stands at the top this time around.

While this list can go on for weeks (literally), we must wrap this up at a certain stage, and the following song is the nearest thing to resting your head on a cushion….that is, just to realize it is a cloud. Autograf — Fantasy

You have made it this way, so that may Only signify this record has struck a chord. To complete the first half, I wished to leave y’with a tune to wind down it. This high tune a part of a ideal setting to finish a very long day and shut your eyes .

‘Fantasy’ by Autograf is wrapped is just as the title says, a mild dream that gradually sets in and calms you from head to toe.

10 Classic Greatest Songs to Listen to While medicated

No need to worry, this listing is not About classical Mozart and Bach — that classical kind of music — that is not bad, since I really like some classical once the mood is perfect!

Rather, this section is about the Very good vibes and grooves which were overlooked, which have been lost in transit as a result of endless quantity of music being released nowadays. Only a couple diamonds in the rough, you can say.

I could have used a Lot of tunes to get The party begun, but this large tune begins this section just perfect. The Zombies have a special spot in my heart, and after listening to’Summertime’, I am certain that they will for you also. Steely Dan — Can it

There is not much to mention about Steely Dan’s ring that has not been stated already. If you know anybody over age 40 that likes to smoke ganja, they have probably got a couple of fond memories of Dan himself.

‘Do it Again’ has borderline psychedelic storms occasionally, and is ideal for virtually any event, whether you are not.

Doobie Brothers — Listen to the Audio

‘Listen to the Music’, seems Easy, does’nt it? I mean, what else are you supposed to do with audio? However, the question is, how frequently do you LISTEN to the audio, from the tune, voices, instruments and all the small sounds which go into creating a tune?

How often do you really really want to Listen to your tune, just to realize halfway through, that the majority of the tune flanked by and you do not recall hearing a damn thing. ‘Listen to the Music’ is a perfect reminder to only be current, whether it’s listening to music, reading a book, speaking to a buddy or just walking down the road.

“Thunder only happens when it is raining

Players only love you when they are playing

Say girls they’ll come and They’ll go

Once the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll understand”

These lyrics from Fleetwood Mac May be a number of the most well-known of all time. There is just something special about Stevie Nicks’ voice which can not be quantified. She will not blow you out of the water along with her large pitches, or drawn out vocals, but her soothing tone is certainly of the magic selection, making for an ideal tune to listen to while large.

‘yells’ is a classic with any means which could be left on repeat at the same time you smoke and roll a joint.

There are not many issues from the World that can not be solved using a doobie and a few refreshing and light music. Obviously, there’ll always be problems, but letting go of anxiety that has been a deterrent can make all of the difference.

If your neighbor will not cut their Hedges, once you get cut off while driving home from work, or if Janet from bookkeeping informs the same’ol story about how she left the casserole on the counter, it is time to throw the ideal high tune’Summer’. Life, in relation to virtually anything; a food that reminds you of a place, a smell that attracts you into a specific childhood memory — also for me personally,’A Horse with No Name’ reminds of those Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Do not overthink it. Name is an excellent songs to hear when high — and who knows, perhaps you’ll start seeing a few of the links whom I’ve produced between it and the Alchemist…or perhaps you’ll begin earning links of your own!

Van Morrison and cannabis go together, such as, well, such as just Van Morrison and cannabis can. When listening to’Into the Mystic’ while sober or high , you can only help but wonder why youpersonally:

A) Have never heard of Van Morrison…and B) This song’s so brief!

If you recorded the several things that bring a smile to a person’s face, a harmonica would not be on this list. Is not a video with adorable creatures, or a kid doing absurd things, but if Neil Young is playing with it, you can not help but grin, thus rendering it a fantastic tune to listen to while high.

Thanks Neil Young!

“Some Folks call me the space cowboy, yeah

I wish I could say exactly the same, but sadly this is not the situation.

I am a joker

I am a smoker

I am a midnight toker

I get my lovin’ on the run

Wooo Wooooo

Now that is a more precise representation!

10. Grateful Dead — Ripple

If you are interested in discovering, possibly, the chillest set of individuals of ALL TIME, then look no farther than “Deadheads”. In brief, they flew across the countries after the Grateful Dead, A prominent choice and psychedelic group. Even the Grateful Dead’s influence in popular culture could be felt across the world, as can their laid back songs, which makes for ideal music to listen to while high. What Is Your Perfect Chill High Song?

Music is a never ending trip that Fills our souls with a power which has no rival. It has ability to make us proceed, to fill an area and change the whole mood of a scene is astonishing.

However, when you pair it with cannabis, and together with the very best songs to listen to if large, it is taken to a very profound level.

Stay tuned and check back frequently, for the budbox is on it’s way to the public and will be available for purchase before you know it. Get them while they’re hot!

I have given you my best list, so what is your best high music list?

As always, cheers.

And sharing is caring!

via The Palace Venue http://www.thepalacevenue.com/20-best-songs-to-listen-to-while-high/

source http://thepalacevenue.weebly.com/blog/20-best-songs-to-listen-to-while-high

[hiramschmidtca]

20 Best Songs To Listen To While High

Before we embark on this list of amazing songs that are enhanced when under the influence of Medical Marijuana, please visit the best buy weed online Canada known as www.weed-deals.ca. Providing exceptional prices for both strains such as girl scout cookies strain and premium flowers that other cannawholesalers places just can’t beat.

Interested in improving your cannabis encounter with no additional work?

Sure, eating particular foods is one way. Playing various board games and video games is just another. Along with reading good novels, well, that is always soothing. But once you’re in the middle of this cannabis encounter, it is clear they do not supply exactly the exact same feeling as listening to audio, in other words, in case you’ve got the best significant songs.

If you’re interested in all of the Pseudo, armchair and REAL scientific details behind why music sounds better if your high, this is not the post.

Instead, here we breakdown the very best tunes to listen to while large, whether old or new, using a list that is updated regularly.

Ready?

10 Greatest Chill Songs to Listen to While stoned

1. Zedd — Happy Today

Even though Zedd Is famous for his huge space EDM monitors which may be observed at festivals year round, he could even lay down a cool tune that is ideal to float to.

‘Happy Today’ is precisely that, only sitting on a cloud and appreciating the second, a great high tune. Elderbrook — Hard to Enjoy

“I’m difficult to enjoy in the best of times. Oh, in the best of times”…

Who doesn’t feel like this sometimes? It’s easy to become wrapped up in life also have a thousand thoughts and theories happening in our mind at one time. It actually can be daunting and have a toll on our mental wellbeing. We need ourselves to be present and appreciate what is happening.

This might have gotten somewhat existential, but do not worry, it is just to easily install how’Tough to Enjoy’ from Elderbrook is a very excellent tune to listen to if high.

I will let you in on a little secret About me, this is in my top 5 favorite tunes of all time. While the record is ever changing, who knows perhaps one day it will fall to sixth, except for now being Medasin stirs a timeless ‘Daydream’.

Trust me once I say this,’Daydream’ is among the greatest tunes to listen to while completely sober, either way works!

Odesza — Sun Designs

Selecting just 1 of Odesza’s tunes is kind have a criminal action, yet, it needs to be accomplished. Even though’Sun Designs’ is Absolutely exactly what the doctor ordered, any time, any location, I recommend that you check out more of the work since it is devised to ease you into bliss — an ideal, high, higher tune really.

Even though Seinabo gets Loads of credit for this laidback groove,’Younger’ gets The remix it warrants by Kygo. And if there’s one thing I understand about Kygo, it’s that his songs are essentially made to smoke bud and revel in the sunshine.

Sure, it is not always shining outside, But if it is or not, your mood will be with ‘Younger’ playing in the background. It is a weed smoker tune that is certain to make you feel younger.

If you are Beginning to grab a vibe From the tunes on this listing, you are not in the incorrect. It might be the sunlight, it can be the simple fact that tropical home is almost always a fantastic option when rolling a joint, but one thing is for sure,’Jubel’ is a necessity in everybody’s lifestyle best substantial songs playlist.

Creating a feeling that looks like putting a hammock somewhere the sun doesn’t set. I for one understand that my bose speakers will probably be appreciating this particular vibe for a long, long time to come.

“Would you feel the sunshine? (you make it brighter( brighter)

Make it brighter for me personally

If sun comes shining on me

If you have ever wanted the most perfect tune to wake up and bake to, I have got it for you. ‘Brighter’ is the optimal approach to begin, bridge and finish, and anything could be in-between daily.

If you sensed an ephemeral breeze blowing off, with the color of palms trees each so slightly from the last tunes,’Indian Summer’ is the final action. It is essentially a sunset bottled up and packed for the masses.

If you have heard of Mura Masa Earlier, then you know his personality is ideal for a playlist full of tunes to listen to while high. The same as many other people, it is difficult to select just 1 song, but ‘Firefly’ stands at the top this time around.

While this list can go on for weeks (literally), we must wrap this up at a certain stage, and the following song is the nearest thing to resting your head on a cushion….that is, just to realize it is a cloud. Autograf — Fantasy

You have made it this way, so that may Only signify this record has struck a chord. To complete the first half, I wished to leave y’with a tune to wind down it. This high tune a part of a ideal setting to finish a very long day and shut your eyes .

‘Fantasy’ by Autograf is wrapped is just as the title says, a mild dream that gradually sets in and calms you from head to toe.

10 Classic Greatest Songs to Listen to While medicated

No need to worry, this listing is not About classical Mozart and Bach — that classical kind of music — that is not bad, since I really like some classical once the mood is perfect!

Rather, this section is about the Very good vibes and grooves which were overlooked, which have been lost in transit as a result of endless quantity of music being released nowadays. Only a couple diamonds in the rough, you can say.

I could have used a Lot of tunes to get The party begun, but this large tune begins this section just perfect. The Zombies have a special spot in my heart, and after listening to’Summertime’, I am certain that they will for you also. Steely Dan — Can it

There is not much to mention about Steely Dan’s ring that has not been stated already. If you know anybody over age 40 that likes to smoke ganja, they have probably got a couple of fond memories of Dan himself.

‘Do it Again’ has borderline psychedelic storms occasionally, and is ideal for virtually any event, whether you are not.

Doobie Brothers — Listen to the Audio

‘Listen to the Music’, seems Easy, does’nt it? I mean, what else are you supposed to do with audio? However, the question is, how frequently do you LISTEN to the audio, from the tune, voices, instruments and all the small sounds which go into creating a tune?

How often do you really really want to Listen to your tune, just to realize halfway through, that the majority of the tune flanked by and you do not recall hearing a damn thing. ‘Listen to the Music’ is a perfect reminder to only be current, whether it’s listening to music, reading a book, speaking to a buddy or just walking down the road.

“Thunder only happens when it is raining

Players only love you when they are playing

Say girls they’ll come and They’ll go

Once the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll understand”

These lyrics from Fleetwood Mac May be a number of the most well-known of all time. There is just something special about Stevie Nicks’ voice which can not be quantified. She will not blow you out of the water along with her large pitches, or drawn out vocals, but her soothing tone is certainly of the magic selection, making for an ideal tune to listen to while large.

‘yells’ is a classic with any means which could be left on repeat at the same time you smoke and roll a joint.

There are not many issues from the World that can not be solved using a doobie and a few refreshing and light music. Obviously, there’ll always be problems, but letting go of anxiety that has been a deterrent can make all of the difference.

If your neighbor will not cut their Hedges, once you get cut off while driving home from work, or if Janet from bookkeeping informs the same’ol story about how she left the casserole on the counter, it is time to throw the ideal high tune’Summer’. Life, in relation to virtually anything; a food that reminds you of a place, a smell that attracts you into a specific childhood memory — also for me personally,’A Horse with No Name’ reminds of those Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Do not overthink it. Name is an excellent songs to hear when high — and who knows, perhaps you’ll start seeing a few of the links whom I’ve produced between it and the Alchemist…or perhaps you’ll begin earning links of your own!

Van Morrison and cannabis go together, such as, well, such as just Van Morrison and cannabis can. When listening to’Into the Mystic’ while sober or high , you can only help but wonder why youpersonally:

A) Have never heard of Van Morrison…and B) This song’s so brief!

If you recorded the several things that bring a smile to a person’s face, a harmonica would not be on this list. Is not a video with adorable creatures, or a kid doing absurd things, but if Neil Young is playing with it, you can not help but grin, thus rendering it a fantastic tune to listen to while high.

Thanks Neil Young!

“Some Folks call me the space cowboy, yeah

I wish I could say exactly the same, but sadly this is not the situation.

I am a joker

I am a smoker

I am a midnight toker

I get my lovin’ on the run

Wooo Wooooo

Now that is a more precise representation!

10. Grateful Dead — Ripple

If you are interested in discovering, possibly, the chillest set of individuals of ALL TIME, then look no farther than “Deadheads”. In brief, they flew across the countries after the Grateful Dead, A prominent choice and psychedelic group. Even the Grateful Dead’s influence in popular culture could be felt across the world, as can their laid back songs, which makes for ideal music to listen to while high. What Is Your Perfect Chill High Song?

Music is a never ending trip that Fills our souls with a power which has no rival. It has ability to make us proceed, to fill an area and change the whole mood of a scene is astonishing.

However, when you pair it with cannabis, and together with the very best songs to listen to if large, it is taken to a very profound level.

Stay tuned and check back frequently, for the budbox is on it’s way to the public and will be available for purchase before you know it. Get them while they’re hot!

I have given you my best list, so what is your best high music list?

As always, cheers.

And sharing is caring!

source http://www.thepalacevenue.com/20-best-songs-to-listen-to-while-high/ source https://thepalacevenue.blogspot.com/2019/08/20-best-songs-to-listen-to-while-high.html

[thepalacevenue]

20 Best Songs To Listen To While High

Before we embark on this list of amazing songs that are enhanced when under the influence of Medical Marijuana, please visit the best buy weed online Canada known as www.weed-deals.ca. Providing exceptional prices for both strains such as girl scout cookies strain and premium flowers that other cannawholesalers places just can’t beat.

Interested in improving your cannabis encounter with no additional work?

Sure, eating particular foods is one way. Playing various board games and video games is just another. Along with reading good novels, well, that is always soothing. But once you’re in the middle of this cannabis encounter, it is clear they do not supply exactly the exact same feeling as listening to audio, in other words, in case you’ve got the best significant songs.

If you’re interested in all of the Pseudo, armchair and REAL scientific details behind why music sounds better if your high, this is not the post.

Instead, here we breakdown the very best tunes to listen to while large, whether old or new, using a list that is updated regularly.

Ready?

10 Greatest Chill Songs to Listen to While stoned

1. Zedd — Happy Today

Even though Zedd Is famous for his huge space EDM monitors which may be observed at festivals year round, he could even lay down a cool tune that is ideal to float to.

‘Happy Today’ is precisely that, only sitting on a cloud and appreciating the second, a great high tune. Elderbrook — Hard to Enjoy

“I’m difficult to enjoy in the best of times. Oh, in the best of times”…

Who doesn’t feel like this sometimes? It’s easy to become wrapped up in life also have a thousand thoughts and theories happening in our mind at one time. It actually can be daunting and have a toll on our mental wellbeing. We need ourselves to be present and appreciate what is happening.

This might have gotten somewhat existential, but do not worry, it is just to easily install how’Tough to Enjoy’ from Elderbrook is a very excellent tune to listen to if high.

I will let you in on a little secret About me, this is in my top 5 favorite tunes of all time. While the record is ever changing, who knows perhaps one day it will fall to sixth, except for now being Medasin stirs a timeless ‘Daydream’.

Trust me once I say this,’Daydream’ is among the greatest tunes to listen to while completely sober, either way works!

Odesza — Sun Designs

Selecting just 1 of Odesza’s tunes is kind have a criminal action, yet, it needs to be accomplished. Even though’Sun Designs’ is Absolutely exactly what the doctor ordered, any time, any location, I recommend that you check out more of the work since it is devised to ease you into bliss — an ideal, high, higher tune really.

Even though Seinabo gets Loads of credit for this laidback groove,’Younger’ gets The remix it warrants by Kygo. And if there’s one thing I understand about Kygo, it’s that his songs are essentially made to smoke bud and revel in the sunshine.

Sure, it is not always shining outside, But if it is or not, your mood will be with ‘Younger’ playing in the background. It is a weed smoker tune that is certain to make you feel younger.

If you are Beginning to grab a vibe From the tunes on this listing, you are not in the incorrect. It might be the sunlight, it can be the simple fact that tropical home is almost always a fantastic option when rolling a joint, but one thing is for sure,’Jubel’ is a necessity in everybody’s lifestyle best substantial songs playlist.

Creating a feeling that looks like putting a hammock somewhere the sun doesn’t set. I for one understand that my bose speakers will probably be appreciating this particular vibe for a long, long time to come.

“Would you feel the sunshine? (you make it brighter( brighter)

Make it brighter for me personally

If sun comes shining on me

If you have ever wanted the most perfect tune to wake up and bake to, I have got it for you. ‘Brighter’ is the optimal approach to begin, bridge and finish, and anything could be in-between daily.

If you sensed an ephemeral breeze blowing off, with the color of palms trees each so slightly from the last tunes,’Indian Summer’ is the final action. It is essentially a sunset bottled up and packed for the masses.

If you have heard of Mura Masa Earlier, then you know his personality is ideal for a playlist full of tunes to listen to while high. The same as many other people, it is difficult to select just 1 song, but ‘Firefly’ stands at the top this time around.

While this list can go on for weeks (literally), we must wrap this up at a certain stage, and the following song is the nearest thing to resting your head on a cushion….that is, just to realize it is a cloud. Autograf — Fantasy

You have made it this way, so that may Only signify this record has struck a chord. To complete the first half, I wished to leave y’with a tune to wind down it. This high tune a part of a ideal setting to finish a very long day and shut your eyes .

‘Fantasy’ by Autograf is wrapped is just as the title says, a mild dream that gradually sets in and calms you from head to toe.

10 Classic Greatest Songs to Listen to While medicated

No need to worry, this listing is not About classical Mozart and Bach — that classical kind of music — that is not bad, since I really like some classical once the mood is perfect!

Rather, this section is about the Very good vibes and grooves which were overlooked, which have been lost in transit as a result of endless quantity of music being released nowadays. Only a couple diamonds in the rough, you can say.

I could have used a Lot of tunes to get The party begun, but this large tune begins this section just perfect. The Zombies have a special spot in my heart, and after listening to’Summertime’, I am certain that they will for you also. Steely Dan — Can it

There is not much to mention about Steely Dan’s ring that has not been stated already. If you know anybody over age 40 that likes to smoke ganja, they have probably got a couple of fond memories of Dan himself.

‘Do it Again’ has borderline psychedelic storms occasionally, and is ideal for virtually any event, whether you are not.

Doobie Brothers — Listen to the Audio

‘Listen to the Music’, seems Easy, does’nt it? I mean, what else are you supposed to do with audio? However, the question is, how frequently do you LISTEN to the audio, from the tune, voices, instruments and all the small sounds which go into creating a tune?

How often do you really really want to Listen to your tune, just to realize halfway through, that the majority of the tune flanked by and you do not recall hearing a damn thing. ‘Listen to the Music’ is a perfect reminder to only be current, whether it’s listening to music, reading a book, speaking to a buddy or just walking down the road.

“Thunder only happens when it is raining

Players only love you when they are playing

Say girls they’ll come and They’ll go

Once the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll understand”

These lyrics from Fleetwood Mac May be a number of the most well-known of all time. There is just something special about Stevie Nicks’ voice which can not be quantified. She will not blow you out of the water along with her large pitches, or drawn out vocals, but her soothing tone is certainly of the magic selection, making for an ideal tune to listen to while large.

‘yells’ is a classic with any means which could be left on repeat at the same time you smoke and roll a joint.

There are not many issues from the World that can not be solved using a doobie and a few refreshing and light music. Obviously, there’ll always be problems, but letting go of anxiety that has been a deterrent can make all of the difference.

If your neighbor will not cut their Hedges, once you get cut off while driving home from work, or if Janet from bookkeeping informs the same’ol story about how she left the casserole on the counter, it is time to throw the ideal high tune’Summer’. Life, in relation to virtually anything; a food that reminds you of a place, a smell that attracts you into a specific childhood memory — also for me personally,’A Horse with No Name’ reminds of those Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Do not overthink it. Name is an excellent songs to hear when high — and who knows, perhaps you’ll start seeing a few of the links whom I’ve produced between it and the Alchemist…or perhaps you’ll begin earning links of your own!

Van Morrison and cannabis go together, such as, well, such as just Van Morrison and cannabis can. When listening to’Into the Mystic’ while sober or high , you can only help but wonder why youpersonally:

A) Have never heard of Van Morrison…and B) This song’s so brief!

If you recorded the several things that bring a smile to a person’s face, a harmonica would not be on this list. Is not a video with adorable creatures, or a kid doing absurd things, but if Neil Young is playing with it, you can not help but grin, thus rendering it a fantastic tune to listen to while high.

Thanks Neil Young!

“Some Folks call me the space cowboy, yeah

I wish I could say exactly the same, but sadly this is not the situation.

I am a joker

I am a smoker

I am a midnight toker

I get my lovin’ on the run

Wooo Wooooo

Now that is a more precise representation!

10. Grateful Dead — Ripple

If you are interested in discovering, possibly, the chillest set of individuals of ALL TIME, then look no farther than “Deadheads”. In brief, they flew across the countries after the Grateful Dead, A prominent choice and psychedelic group. Even the Grateful Dead’s influence in popular culture could be felt across the world, as can their laid back songs, which makes for ideal music to listen to while high. What Is Your Perfect Chill High Song?

Music is a never ending trip that Fills our souls with a power which has no rival. It has ability to make us proceed, to fill an area and change the whole mood of a scene is astonishing.

However, when you pair it with cannabis, and together with the very best songs to listen to if large, it is taken to a very profound level.

Stay tuned and check back frequently, for the budbox is on it’s way to the public and will be available for purchase before you know it. Get them while they’re hot!

I have given you my best list, so what is your best high music list?

As always, cheers.

And sharing is caring!

source http://www.thepalacevenue.com/20-best-songs-to-listen-to-while-high/

[ask-de-writer]

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ROM : Origin of the Rom, part 7 :  MLP Fan Fiction : Part 1 of 6

A Brief History of the Rom and Their Customs

Or:

How Luna and Celestia Discovered the Rom of the Equestrian Roads

the Seventh part in the origin of the Rom

ORIGIN OF THE ROM SERIES in reading order.  (will be completed as the stories are posted in linked form)

Part One : NORE’S CHOICE, which starts HERE

Part Two : WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA! which starts HERE

Part Three : FAIR AND UN-FAIR, which starts HERE

Part Four : ON THE ROADS OF EQUESTRIA, which starts HERE

Part Five : THE FIRST ROM HEARTHWARMING,  which starts HERE

Part Six : SANDO’S LAKE, which starts HERE

Part Seven : A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ROM, which starts HERE

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

© 2014 by Glen Ten-Eyck

Cover art by Alte Seele

17062 words

Writing begun 04/28/14

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author. //////////////

Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions. All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

Luna was leaning out over the balcony of her quarters in Canterlot Castle. She was straining to hear. There were strange, faint melodies arising from the Fairgrounds, far below, out on the plain below the Mountain of Canterlot.

As her ear picked out the unusual tune, her feet began to dance, almost of their own volition.

She turned back inside, her hooves sinking silently into the deep pile of the carpet. Her eyes lighted with pleasure at the unique voice of the music arising from the plains below.

She smiled. “I have had a a lovely thought, Bourbage,” she said to her Canterlot Court Officer of Protocols and Schedules.

In his somewhat dry voice, Bourbage replied, “Yes, Princess, and that is …?”

She exclaimed, “The Canterlot Fair, Bourbage! I am going to go down and play for a while! I will see for myself what our subjects do and enjoy these days!”

Looking down his nose at her, Bourbage stated, “Quite impossible this year, Madam. I have your schedule fully prepared for the next whole month. There is no room at all for such a frivolity. Besides, we have a goodly number of entertainments planned in your schedule and fine noble stallions already set to accompany you to them. You have no need for the fair.

“Perhaps, if I have adequate notice, I can schedule you to go to the fair for up to three hours, next year. With a proper noble stallion for an escort, of course.”

Planting her hooves stubbornly, Luna said flatly, “No. Bourbage, you did not listen. I AM going to the fair. Now. My missing a garden party will not bring down the kingdom.”

“But - - You must have a suitable Noble Stallion as your escort! In that way, the populace will know that there is still an active search for a proper King to rule - -” He got no further. Royal hooves slammed into his side and drove him against the wall. He fell, a crumpled heap of pony.

Luna’s infamously loud and carrying Royal Canterlot Voice roared out, “TREASON! GUARDS! CELESTIA! I need you here NOW! EAST DOOR TO MY QUARTERS!”

It was a few minutes before Celestia got there. She was leading a comet trail of Court sycophants, the Saddle-Arabian Ambassador and a contingent of Guards.

“What is the fuss, Luna? Whatever do you mean by yelling like that? If you wanted to meet me, our protocol ponies can always set something up.” As she was speaking, Celestia’s eye fell on the crumpled form of Bourbage. Her eyes widened in sudden shock and interest.

Her own protocol pony, Alder, saw Bourbage too. He turned to flee. Fruitless. Luna’s midnight magic held him just above the floor of polished Marble.

She dropped him on top of Bourbage. Turning to Celestia, Luna asked, “Have you asked to see me lately, Sister? I have asked to see you. I was told that you were too busy with important functions to see me.”

Celestia frowned below her crown. “I have asked to see you. I was told the same.” Struck by a thought, she asked, “Have you tried to read the Chronicle lately? Every time that I start to go that way, I have been diverted by other things.

“Alder told me that he has somepony watching the Chronicle for any developments of importance.”

Luna gave Celestia a troubled look, her eyes drooping. “Bourbage told me the same. I have had no actual reports of what the Chronicle says. No notes from Father either.”

Luna turned haunted eyes to her sister ruler.

“Let me explain what has happened here. I told Bourbage that I was going to go down to see the Canterlot Fair, on the plains below the mountain. Bourbage let it slip that I needed a proper Noble Stallion for an escort so that the populace will know that we are still searching for a proper Stallion to rule as King.”

Celestia nodded, grimly. “It is happening again. We swore, after you returned from the Moon, that we would NEVER let the Court come between us again. They are obviously doing far more than merely trying to marry us off.”

Luna nodded sadly. “They are trying to seize the rule of the kingdom, just like before the Nightmare Wars. We have caught them in time, I think. We cannot allow such divisions to happen again.”

With a sigh, Celestia turned to her guards. Pointing with her horn, she commanded, “Cap their horns with metal, so that they cannot give or make any surreptitious message or signal. Lock them in a common dungeon cell. Give no notice to any nor allow any visitors. Do not place them by name in any record. List them as unknown intruders who are potentially violent.”

Reaching for fetters and a horn cap, the guard ventured, “These ponies are important members of the Advisory Council. Are you sure … “

Luna said with deadly mildness, “There are sixteen tiled latrines on the palace’s east side. They will soon need to be cleaned by a private holding the brush in his mouth. Am I clear enough?”

All that the Guard Sargent said was, “How did these intruders get so far into the Palace?”

He efficiently secured them and capped their horns. Accompanied by three guards, Bourbage and Alder were led away.

Celestia knit her brows in concentration. “It has to be the whole of the Advisory Council. I will double check the Chronicle and see if Father has left us any notes.”

She shed a tear. “I so wish that those idiots so long ago had not tampered with what we wrote for the Edict of Banishment. Grander Language and Finer Poetic Wording be damned along with those vile ponies. I would give anything to be able to see Father again.”

The Saddle-Arabian ambassador was aware that he was observing both a major governmental upheaval and, apparently, some sort of a personal one as well.

He made a snap decision and offered, “A number of your other courtiers appear to be trying to flee as well.”

Magics, both many hued and midnight reached down the length of the hall, slamming the doors, which, though decorative, were very solid.

Seeing a possible opportunity to ingratiate himself with what he had been told were titular rulers but who seemed to be asserting themselves, he said, “Well done! I saw something that I believe that I should not have. I do not mean the arrests. Those are politics which I am instructed to stay away from.

“I refer to the issue of your father. It was my understanding that you are about 3000 years old. That would make him an immortal like you, if you might see him again. I ask from ignorance of the problem, but perhaps my nation’s influence might be used to find him if he has left or fled Equestria?”

Celestia turned to him and replied, “The problem is not so simple, Isea ben Grabbit. If that were all that it was, we could easily do the same. Still, We thank you for a generous offer.”

Luna said sadly, “You have been to some of our Adjustments of the Heavens. I know that you did have some ponies checking the magic that we use. You know that it is very different from ordinary unicorn magic. It is not our Alicorn magic either. That is simply an extremely powerful form of unicorn magic.

“At Adjustments and a few other rare events we use Creator Magic. It is a form of the same magic that was used to make this whole world. It has some great limitations. What is done with it cannot be undone by any means at all. The other and equally important one is that it cannot be set against itself.

“Through a machination of the Court prior to the First Nightmare War, our Foster Father of more than a thousand years was banished from our sight and from Canterlot by the use of Creator Magic. It was supposed to be a limited and reversible banishment. The Courtiers, unknown to us, switched the scroll containing the Banishment Edict. “All that they did was reword it for Better Poetic Language and a Grander Effect.” Those changes became literal and permanent.

“Our Father vanished from our sight and from Canterlot. Forever. That is a word that means something different to Immortals like us than it does to short lived ponies.”

The horse (not a pony) from Saddle-Arabia thought over what he had been told carefully. “So, if your father is found, and you steered to him as pony of interest, rather than, ‘I have found your father!’ that would be a good thing to do. Proving him to you would simply deny him to you in the same instant. Is that correct?”

TO BE CONTINUED

NEXT ==>

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