#I think Colin mentioned that she always wants to win everything and we all know that she always tries to one up Gregory

[castelled-away]

I am rewatching bridgerton s3 again before part 2 drops and am hoping beyond hoping that Hyacinth will turn out to be bit of a tomboy when she gets her story

[janetsnakehole02]

Things I liked and disliked about Bridgerton season 2 (spoilers below the cut)

Fair warning it’s very long and it’s pretty much just self-catharsis because I needed to write out my thoughts so you can scroll past if you want

Liked:

Kanthony’s chemistry - everyone’s been saying it but it’s off the charts and this season definitely outdid the last one in this regard. The sexual tension was unbearable, to the point where I punched my desk out of frustration more than once. They only had one sex scene but that’s all it took to send me over the edge. 

Jonathan and Simone’s performances - they were the highlight and if they don’t get any nominations or wins this awards season I will be SO UPSET. I might have issues with the way the writers adapted Kanthony’s love story from the book (which I’ll get into) but Jonny and Simone WERE Anthony and Kate. They bodied those characters, period. And as the eldest daughter/older sister to a younger sister in a desi family, I related to Kate even more than I did in the book and I 100% owe that to Simone. She captured Kate’s essence so well and you’re rooting for her from the start.

Benedict - obviously anyone who knows me also knows that this man is my favorite character on the show and I loved every single scene with him in it. I enjoyed seeing him grapple with his art career and also seeing the seeds of his impending identity crisis from AOFAG being sown in this season. Not to mention his comedic timing and one liners were everything. I just wish we got more of him.

Kate and Eloise - this friendship was everything to me and I’m so glad we got those few moments because they do have a lot in common. But again this is something I’d like to have seen more of.

The Dancing On My Own and Wrecking Ball scenes - I loved both those covers and the tension in those scenes was impeccable so I had to give them a separate shoutout. Not to mention both of those scenes are such major turning point in their relationship because they both forced Kate and Anthony to take a good look at their relationship and confront their feelings for one another.

Bridgerton family scenes - this is kind of a given but I did really enjoy their scenes, particularly the ABC ones. Obviously the best was the Bridgertons and Sharmas dancing together. I also loved Anthony and Gregory talking about Edmund, as well as the role reversal of Daphne talking to Anthony and trying to get him to see what’s so clear to her. And of course Anthony’s scenes with Violet. Especially when he just broke down in front of her when he realized Kate was okay. 

Eloise figuring out Penelope was Lady Whistledown - although in the books the Whistledown mystery wasn’t really much of a plotline till RMB, it never made sense to me that Eloise didn’t once question that it could’ve been Penelope. It felt like kind of an insult to her intelligence. It makes much more sense that she figured it out first, honestly. The drama that ensued between Eloise and Penelope this season wasn’t that interesting to me (or rather it made Penelope less likable because she regressed in character development) but I did like this part specifically. It seems in-character for Eloise so I’m happy about that. And overall I think Eloise learned a lot this season and grew up a bit more.

Colin visiting Marina and talking to Phillip - this may be one of the only side plots I actually enjoyed and wouldn’t have minded seeing more of. I’m glad Marina got to speak her mind with Colin, and that he was able to apologize as well as get some closure. Not to mention him nerding out over plants with Phillip was the absolute best. And I love that Phillip and Marina’s relationship, as well as their relationship with their kids, already looks healthier than it was in TSPWL. I love Philoise but I always had an issue with the way JQ treated Marina, and (so far at least) I’m liking the direction the show is headed with this specific plotline.

Disliked:

The amount of time spent on the Featherington plot - maybe if they had made it interesting it would’ve been nice to watch but it just wasn’t at all. That’s just my opinion though I’m sure others might feel differently.

The Sharma family - Edwina and Mary took some real character assassination in this season, Edwina especially. Edwina in the book doesn’t have much substance but the one thing that is absolute is that she cares about her sister just as much as Kate cares about her. That sister relationship is just as important in TVWLM as the love story. The Edwina I know would never have taken Kate for granted the way she did in the show, nor would she have ever had the audacity to make her feel like an outsider by calling her a HALF-SISTER. And as for Mary, I don’t have much against her, simply because the show didn’t develop her or give her much of a relationship with Kate. I do wish she had stood up for Kate when Edwina unfairly took her anger out on her, because that only ended up ostracizing Kate more. #justiceforkatesharmacanigiveherahugplease

The lack of elaboration on Kate’s trauma + the library scene - in TVWLM the beginning of the exploration of Kate’s trauma with thunderstorms is in the library scene. That was so crucial to Anthony and Kate’s relationship and it should have been longer, preferably word-for-word from the book. I understand it’s an adaptation but you can’t change the core moments of a relationship, moments that are the reason this couple is so loved, and then expect the same results. That scene in the book is incredibly pivotal for them emotionally and it was honestly reduced to a moment of sexual tension which is such a disservice. They had PLENTY of those moments in the show and they needed more emotional ones. They needed that library scene to be just the way it was in the book. Kate deserved to have her trauma fully explored and not glossed over for the sake of the engagement drama.

The lack of elaboration on Anthony’s trauma as well - while they did show his relationship with Edmund and how his death ends up changing him, they never fully explore the fact that Anthony fully and firmly believes he is destined to die early like his father. The reasons he doesn’t want to “succumb” to love in the book are so well-defined and he gets the opportunity to face his issues and his grief and get closure in TVWLM, something that we don’t actually see happening in the show. We don’t actually see his emotional growth take place (something I blame on the unnecessary side plots), even though we see him say “I love you” to Kate at the end, we don’t get to see how he got there. Again, I know it’s an adaptation, so not everything will be the same, but this part of the story is so important and it’s what makes Kanthony so Kanthony. The similarities between their trauma, their responsibilities, their issues with death - they only ever really covered their similarities as the eldest sibling in their respective families, and although I liked that, one of my favorite things about Kate and Anthony is how they both help each other process their grief from the loss of a parent, because it’s a feeling both of them understand. They complete each other, literally. And although thanks to Simone and Jonny’s performances I believe these characters love each other, the writing never really showed us how or why they fell in love, which again is a disservice to them. 

The Indian representation - this was all over the fucking place, honestly. There were parts I liked, like Kate shitting on English tea (as she should) and the K3G string quartet cover. But then Kate and Edwina call their parents Amma and Appa (Tamil), Edwina calls Kate Didi (Hindi), Kate calls Edwina Bon (Bengali), and they’re from Mumbai (Marathi/Hindi). And the first thing Kate says to Anthony when she runs into him is baapre - Hindi. So which is it?? Where the fuck are the Sharmas actually from?? It honestly looks like the writers mixed up all of those languages and cultures and thought “no one can tell the difference, it’s all Indian” well I am sorry to be the one to tell you that YES I absolutely can tell the fucking difference. If there’s Amma and Appa then Edwina SHOULD be calling Kate Akka. Also KATHANI?? What were they thinking?? If you make the choice to change the family’s country of origin to India then you need to actually care enough to find out that difference. It seems trivial but you cannot treat Indians like we’re interchangeable. And the fact that Kate is Indian at all makes me uncomfortable because we know that at this point in time India is being colonized by the British. I still think they should have made the Sharmas a normal family in London the way they did with Simon. No one is looking for historical accuracy in Bridgerton so why are you trying to make it worse?

Too many Polin easter eggs and not enough Benophie ones - Benedict and Sophie are headlining the next season yet all I saw was Polin hints episode after episode. Why aren’t we seeing any deliberate hints to Sophie in this season the way we saw hints to Kate in the last season? I was expecting Benophie easter eggs on the level of “tulips - they symbolize passion” or “I shall begin looking for a viscountess - removing love from the equation will make it all the better” and instead they put in the “I’d never marry Penelope Featherington” scene one season early. Not a fan of how they did that, either - Penelope deserved to say to Colin’s face what she said in AOFAG: “I never asked to marry you and I never asked you to ask me either.” Why couldn’t they have hinted at a masquerade at the end instead? Yes Benophie is my #1 Bridgerton ship is it showing

Changing Kanthony’s love story to “scandalous forbidden love” - this is the vibe I got from their relationship this season when in actuality that trope belongs to Benophie. The whole drama behind being ostracized in London society because of that fallout was not necessary at all. To me honestly it diminishes the value of Benophie’s story because their relationship is the one that will ultimately face the most amount of scandal, and now that scandal has already been handed off to Anthony and Kate. Going forward I have this really bad feeling that people who haven’t read the books are going to call the scandal plot “overused” and maybe downplay the severity of the amount of societal shame that Sophie and Benedict are going to face once they see it on screen, when really they’re the first ones to face that level of scandal. And it is so so important that this distinction is made because their relationship had arguably the highest stakes of all the Bridgerton couples and now it may not seem that way. Not to mention I quite like the fact that in the book Anthony and Kate get to know each other better and truly fall in love after marriage, because that made their story (especially from Anthony’s side) so much more interesting. He was hell bent on not marrying for love and he unknowingly ended up doing just that and that makes his inner conflict much more compelling.

TLDR I don’t hate this season and I think Kanthony was okay but my issue is that they shouldn’t just be okay. They are one of the most anticipated couples from the series and this season did not do that anticipation appropriate justice. Their relationship in the show had the right actors and the right chemistry, giving them the potential to be even better than what we got, but the side plots and the excessive love triangle took away too much time, preventing that potential from being fulfilled. We probably could’ve gotten a full library scene, the scene where Anthony helps Kate with the thunderstorms post-marriage, or just any sort of conversational scene with Kate and Anthony that brought more emotional depth to their relationship, if the writers maybe hadn’t wasted time on things like the Featherington plotline or the Whistledown plotline. While Kanthony this season had some nice moments, I’ll always be just a bit upset knowing that they could’ve had the chance to be what they were in the books if they were just in the hands of better writers. 

[popsbridgerton]

Coming home again - Chapter Four - A.B.

Coming back with chapter four. I had to drop it quickly because I'm so unhappy with the third. I hope you like this better or the same if you liked the third.

Words: 1400+ Note: Like always, not proof read yet.

Summary: Violet announces that theres going to be a ball the next evening and some gentlemen reserve their dances. 

Prolog

Taglist: @isletsoflou-gerhans​​​​​ @keithseabrook27​​​​​ @pastelsweaters-and-bubble-t​​​​​ @neenaw-neenaw @anthonybridgertonsmistress​​​​​ @michael-loves-chickens​​​​​ @thebrightsideofthebluemoon​​​​​ @icanholdyouinmyarms @mythical-goth​​​​ @magicalxdaydream​​​ @peterporkpie​​​​ @lora1030 @momothepeachgirl @antaraxy​​ @rollwithitlwt @bubblytonks​​ @savagittariuspy​​ @purplewcrld​​ @ilearnedthatfromethepizzaman​​ @latte-and-steam​​ @enoraturner​​ @galileostyles​​​ @alainabooks143​​ @do-not-forget-your-towel​​ @mrseasycompany​​ @iixbella​ @bangtanxberm​ @starryrevelations (i still coulnd’t tag the ones who are cancelled)

The exhibitions Benedict would like to take you was in the evening. You knew that. But you didn’t think that you could attempt dinner with all the other Bridgertons and go to the exhibition afterwards. But it was that late. You didn’t mind and your mother didn’t either. Only Violet had asked Benedict if he was sure that a Lady should be at such an occasion that late. But he only stated that it wasn’t for an English Lady but since you were a French Lady it would fit perfectly. You were amused by this answer and again very thankful that things were less strict in France.

Dinner was almost done, when Violet raised her voice again. She was sitting at one end at the table. Your mother next to her as well as Francesca. Gregory next to his sister and Hyacinth next to your mother, Eloise next to her other side and at the opposite of Colin. Next to Colin Benedict on whose opposite you sat and at the other end of the table Anthony as the head of family. You were pleased to sit close to your favorite Bridgertons and far away from your mother. It means you could have fun without knowing her. “There is going to be a ball tomorrow.” Violet announced. “The very first of the season. You should join us.” She looked at your mother who was obvious curious to went to a ball where she could talk to all the Ladies, she had known years ago. “We would love to join you!” She returned but you squeezed your face. “We?” You asked but since you were sitting so far away from her, she hadn’t heard you.

“Do you have a dress, Y/N?” Francesca asked across the table at your surprised features which you got back under control soon and nodded. “Sure.” You returned. “I do have some dresses from Paris with me.” You smiled at her. “If you like you can help me to pick one, later.” She nodded in excitement and you smiled a little brighter. You always had fun in picking dresses for occasions and you were happy to share this fun with Francesca. “Y/N.” Colin stated and looked from the other side at the table to you and you raised your gaze to look at him as well. “Colin?” “Since you will join us. Am I allowed to reserve a dance on your dance card already?” You chuckled a little. You knew Colin loved to dance in fact he was the only one from the three older Bridgertons who liked to dance. But you never thought he would be so quick with asking you for a dance. “Sure, you are.” You answered and being also happy to have a dance with somebody you knew and liked.

“Since none of the dances are reserved yet, which one you would like to pick?” You asked, smiling at Colin. He thought about it for a second, his lips pressed together. “The one in the middle” he announced then. “You will have some dances and some time to get in touch with people. And if you don’t like it, you can tell me, and we can escape.” He smiled proudly of his idea and you returned his smile with an amused one. “That sounds perfect.” You agreed. “I’ll will reserve it for you as soon as I get the card.” You smiled at him and got back to your plate when Benedict raised his voice.

“Now that we are reserving dances.” He started and immediately got your attention. You smiled amused as you could thought of what he might say now and tilted your head a little. “I would like to reserve one as well.” He nodded and looked seriously at you. Trying to look surprised you tilted your head even more. “Do you?” “Indeed.” He agreed. “And actually, I would like to reserve two.” His voice was deep and steady. You raised your brows. “Two?” You asked surprised. From all the things Francesca and Eloise told you he and Anthony hated dancing. “Indeed, two.” He repeated. “One at the beginning of the ball, the first one, and the other at the end.” He paused and then finally his smile returned. You knew he reserved two for a special reason. “The first one to give you comfort. You don’t have to dance with some strange man instead you can dance with a friend - me – and get an overview over everything.” He smiled as if this was one of the best ideas he ever had. “And the last one to be your hero after a long, annoying evening at the ball, who will save you from everything and as Colin said, to help you escape.” He smiled even bigger and still looked at you while Colin looked at him a little upset that he had stolen his idea. “I would love to.” You simply said, still smiling and turning your head to Anthony who hadn’t said anything at all.

You looked at him, as if he should say something, but he didn’t. He continued to eat as if nothing had happened and just when he noticed that not only you looked at him but also the rest of people sitting at the table he simply asked “Is there something?” taking his glass of wine and leading it to his mouth to take a sip.

Of cause, he knew that there was something. Everybody at the table waited for him to reserve a dance on your dancing card as well. Because even Benedict who hated dancing as much as he did, had. Even two! But he wouldn’t. He simply wouldn’t. He had watched this whole scene quietly and he would remain quiet. For everybody’s sake. He wouldn’t join this masquerade. Because that was what I looked like to him. Of cause, when his mother had mentioned the ball and your mother had agreed to join, he knew Colin would ask you for a dance. But not tonight. Not right now. He would have had enough time to ask you when you had your dance card. So why did he do it now? Anthony had a strange feeling about that. Colin did it because of him. Because he and Benedict had decided to play a mean game on him. The one who dance the most with you would win. But you weren’t a price. And he would never dance.

“Do you like to reserve a dance on my dancing card as well?” You asked softly and smiled at him. Because to be honest he was the only one you really wanted to spend at the ball with. Of cause, it would be fun to dance with Benedict and perhaps even more with Colin because you were sure he was the best dancer of the three of them. But Anthony was your best friend. And you couldn’t imagine something making more fun than tattling with him over all the other beautiful ladies and gentlemen who did they best to find a match.

“I don’t.” Was all he said, placing his glass back on the table and his attention back to his plate. A quiet “Oh” fell from your lips as your smiled dropped because you didn’t think he would refuse you. After all it was just a stupid dance. An awkward silence grew where you could hear nothing but Anthonys fork and knife scratching over his plate. But after what felt like forever the rest of the Bridgertons start to chat again and the room was filled with loudness again.

You remained silent looking at your plate but being surely sated after his words. You never thought that it would hurt you when somebody dismiss you a dance. You liked dancing but it never meant the world to you, so you were fine when somebody didn’t like to. But tonight, with Colin and Benedict asking you for a dance but not Anthony you felt utterly unliked. Unliked by the person you loved so dearly. Unliked by the person you thought would love you dearly as well. It felt like he had punched you. You almost felt like crying because of the bad feeling he had caused.

Your attention was brought back to reality, when a foot touched yours underneath the table. “Hey.” Benedict murmured softly and locked his eyes with yours when you looked up at him. Anthonys place was empty, you hadn’t realized he had left. “It’s not your fault. He’s just a stupid grouch.” He offered you one of his softest and kindest smiles that said everything was alright and for a second you believed him, so you returned his smile and nodded slightly. “I know.”

__

You know what stands here: If you like it reblog and comment please. You can also do this if you don’t like it. I would love to hear what you think about it. Taglist is still open, if you like to be tagged please head over to this post. 😊💕

Chapter Five

[ambrosiaaddiction]

Not Meant To Be

Word Count: 2,107

Pairing(s): Anthony Bridgerton x reader, Simon Basset x reader

Summary: The Bridgerton family and the Duke have been invited to a picnic that was planned by yours truly. Tensions begin to grow, and things don’t go quite as you hoped they would.

TW: none

Part 2/6

⋘ ──── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ──── ⋙

Today’s weather of sunshine and blue skies called for a picnic. I gave clear instructions to Cook that he should prepare a delicious meal and treats, including Simon’s favorite of gooseberry pie. I would never forget something so important about him because it always came in handy.

I then go to find our butler, Charles, and say, “Please send invitations to the Bridgertons and the Duke of Hastings, Charles. There will be a picnic at the park, and do tell them that it will be late at 1pm.” He bows in response, and repeated my words before he left to complete his tasks.

With a nod of satisfaction, I left the main floor then up the stairwell to change my attire. What I was currently wearing fell short of today’s planned event, and I needed to win Simon back. Once inside my bedroom, I closed the door and quickly strode to the wardrobe to see my options.

My thoughts roamed to the man who promised that we would spend the rest of our lives together, which made my blood boil with rage. Men these days were either too dense or too arrogant or had little backbone. Simon was a mixture of having a huge ego and vulnerable when he opens up to the people that know his true personality.

None of this was my fault whatsoever. I left for only a mere three months to study abroad in France, then I return to the ‘wonderful’ news of his engagement to a girl named Daphne Bridgerton. A trip to London hadn’t been something I expected for myself, but I came to the city for him and no other reason.

In truth, Simon technically was still my fiancé, although I knew there was an explanation for everything that took place while I was absent. As a matter of fact, he brushed off the situation like it was a speck of dust that ruined his perfect image to the desperate mamas and equally egotistical lords.

“Good heavens, I’m going to get wrinkles if I keep thinking about the “what-ifs” and not do anything to change them.” I huff in exasperation at my own foolishness, a bit disappointed in myself for having such thoughts when the damage had yet to be done.

After endless decision-making, I chose to wear a yellow dress with a simple pink floral design from the sleeves to the hem of its skirt, and I twirl in front of the mirror with a bright smile. It wasn’t a ball gown, but this would surely make Simon realize that he wants me more than anyone in all of Grovensor Square. It just had to.

I had to admit, the dress itself was too revealing for a lady of my status. Well, at least it would be just myself, Simon, and the Bridgertons alone for a picnic. A reminder to cover my legs repeated itself over and over in my mind, yet I had a feeling that I would catch the attention of everyone’s eyes anyway.

The clock rang the second its big small hand reached 12pm, which meant there was an hour left for preparations and riding to the park. “Marianne! Please call for the carriage, and tell chef to hurry!” I shouted into the air, and I heard Marianne reply from down the hall. Perhaps I was rushing for punctuality-sake, but a host or hostess must never arrive later than their guests.

It was a good thing that mama had long left for tea at Lady Farland’s estate, and papa was probably gambling at the gentlemen’s club again. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if he came home with news that he either won lost of money or lost a majority of what he gambled. No one could tell me that the picnic was meant to open Simon’s eyes and see just me in them rather than that so-called “flawless” Bridgerton girl.

Nonetheless, I had to get going before they gossiped of my tardiness if I wasn’t already at the location. Time seemed to blur from when I scurried down the stairs to gather everything I needed to when I got into the carriage and made it safely to the park. The next thing I knew, I was trying my best not to laugh at a discreetly explicit joke Benedict had shared amongst ourselves.

Anthony looked like he was going to strangle his brother or maybe he was going to give him a pat on the shoulder? I couldn’t tell because I was too preoccupied with devouring my favorite sandwich while I brushed my shoulder against Simon’s. Of course this got his attention, and he whispered into my ear, “Now is not the time nor place to play, y/n. Behave yourself.”

His warning provoked something inside of me, but there were too many people who would witness the indecency behind my innocent act. “My apologies, your Grace. I’ll be a good girl for you.” I whispered in reply, then continued to enjoy my delicious sandwich as though I did nothing wrong in the first place.

I knew what I was doing to him, and he liked it. He knew what would happen if I went further, and I was fanning the flames with fervor. “Is Daphne aware of our relationship? Sorry, I meant, what it was supposed to become? You know, such as getting married? Living together and in the country?”

Simon’s jaw clenched just like when he used to have me underneath him, calling his name and coming undone by his touch as I squeezed tighter around him. Those nights were by far the best I had ever experienced, and he treated me with such tenderness after we were spent.

“Don’t you remember the great times we had, love? Everything fell apart when I came to London and found you dancing with the red-headed girl in the moonlight.” I scowled under my breath, then I slowly calmed myself down before I could ruin this lovely picnic with a beautiful family and my old lover.

I needed a moment alone, so I stood up and sheepishly excused myself from the blanket before walking away. It was almost as though the night I found myself standing at the lake was repeating itself again, but this time, I knew where I was going and no tears would shed. No, this time was different than last. Instead of crying because I couldn’t control some situations, I chose to think about I would take back Simon for myself.

Seeing Simon chuckle and comment on every little thing Daphne said created small cracks on my heart. I couldn’t think of when he used to do that with me, and I close my eyes to forget all of the recently bad memories. Heavy footsteps approached from behind, but I was too distracted by the wrong Simon had done to me.

“Y/n, are you alright? You left so suddenly, and everyone is worried about you.” Anthony softly called out to me, his hand resting on my shoulder to turn me around and see the miserable state I was in. “I’ll be better, my lord. There’s no need to waste your worry on me.” I mustered a fake smile to dissipate his concern for me, but apparently he had dealt with heartbroken maidens before.

The Viscount gently pulled me into his arms, and rocked our bodies back and forth. I was speechless for I had no idea what he was doing, and yet I didn’t want him to stop. It felt pleasant to be comforted by a warm embrace that held a promise of always being there when it was most needed in times of anguish.

“You are a strong woman, y/n. You don’t need to act as though nothing can break through your walls. You’re still human, and that’s okay. Believe me, I know what it’s like to feel helpless.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and smiled when I pulled away to stare at him with wide eyes. I always knew what kind of man he was, but the side of him that I admired truly was a rare sight to behold.

What felt like an eternity of comfortable silence was interrupted by Eloise who came searching for her brother and I after he had been gone for too long. “Mama won’t stop spouting nonsense that you’ve gotten lost, brother. We had to stop her from creating a search party.” She snickered at the fresh memory, and it stopped when she realized that Anthony was hugging me unusually close to his chest.

I caught on and quickly pushed myself away, then I fixed my dress before thanking her. “Thank you for taking the responsibility, Eloise. You’ve found us alright, and I believe we best return to your family.” Anthony cleared his throat, a big embarrassed that the particular sister of his had seen something she would never let go.

“Yes, Miss Denbow is right. Let’s return before mother actually gathers a search party for three people.” He leads the way, and I smile awkwardly at Eloise as I walk past her. I then let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding in since she found Anthony and I, but I hoped that she wouldn’t mention it when we got back to the picnic.

Once there, Lady Bridgerton literally shed tears of joy as soon as she saw my face and brought me into a hug. What was with the Bridgertons and hugging? I could see Simon lean over to Anthony, his mouth forming the words, “Thank you for bringing her back safely.” Anthony nodded in reply, then sat down in between Colin and Benedict before he grabbed his glass of wine to take quite a long sip.

Well, it was back to where I started. I didn’t want to ask questions and make matters worse, but I knew that the current engagement wasn’t going to last for long. According to Lady Whistledown, Queen Charlotte was not convinced of the proclaimed love that everyone said Simon and Daphne shared.

I had to say it. Otherwise, I would lose the love of my life to a woman who gained Her Majesty’s favor, and I would be lonely until the day I die. “The Duke and I were once lovers, but now he’s going to marry Miss Bridgerton.” Complete and utter silence. I take in a deep breath before I continue.

“I had traveled to France for three months, and the Duke asked me to come see him here, in London. I truly thought that he was going to marry me, but I was proven wrong and a fool. He’s pretending as though we didn’t have a beautiful relationship before he chose to help her and she him.”

Lady Bridgerton was the first to break, and she began to stumble over her words while overcoming the insurmountable shock that I gave to everyone. Eloise tried what she could to stop herself from laughing, Benedict smacked her arm while he was struggling to do the same.

Colin couldn’t find the right words, and Anthony spat out his wine. Except for the two youngest children who were playing in a flower field, we adults all sat together with no help to describe what our mixed emotions were. “What is the matter with you, y/n? Did you even think this through before you babbled on about the past? If I had known that you were so childish, I would’ve left you a long time ago.”

Simon glared cold daggers in my direction, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The man who I loved was now a stranger with a much better woman than I, so there was nothing I could do now to take him back. “You’re right, Simon. I’m such a child, and I don’t know any better than to tell the truth when living a lie is all the more tempting.”

I gave my deepest apologies to Lady Bridgerton, promising her that I would make up for my demeanor with tea and a visit to the spa one day. I then said my farewells to the Bridgertons, but I didn’t spare the slightest of glances to Simon who looked like he was going to let out a fury of anger.

It served him right for playing with my heart, and if he was so play a part not meant for him that would end in heartbreak, then so be it. I knew someone who could help me make him regret losing me, and they were a professional when it came to such lengths.

Just you wait, Simon Basset. Just you wait.

[aquariusrunes]

The Superfriends AU (part 10)

Damian was not having a good day. It was six in the morning, he had to be at Edna’s photoshoot in an hour, he had left a perfectly warm and very cuddly boyfriend and large dog in his bed, and his cousin was rambling far too much for his taste. He sat out in the lobby of the floor their rooms were on, leaned back as far as he possibly could in one of the red chairs, his legs crossed, hands gripping the armrests. A scowl to rival Batman's resting on his face. 

Marinette sat in the chair next to him, his laptop on the coffee table in front of them. The girl was hunched over typing frantically on his phone. She had kept it all night, which didn’t both him much, he could go a few hours without being constantly updated on the Gotham Academy Class 1A drama. As long as she was keeping it charged. 

The second half of the photoshoot the day before had been very interesting, his cousin spending every moment of every break they got on his phone. When he had a moment to check it at dinner he noted four unknown contacts, she labeled each of them.

First there was Sweetness.

Then there was Mighty Mouse.

One labeled Rock Vamp Opera.

And finally the one she had been exchanging the most texts with, Foxtrot.   

He waited for his cousin to finish whatever long text rant she was obviously on, instead he checked himself in the camera of his laptop, fixing his hair. He smoothed it back as best he could but without any product it was hard. Edna had forbidden him from gelling it till the shoot was over. The things he put up with in this family, really. 

“What exactly are we doing?” Damian asked. 

“We’re going to…” She trailed off, still focused on her texting. “Video call some girls I go to school with.” She finished. 

“At six in the morning?” He asked. 

“Time difference Dames.” She set down his phone. “Okay!” She pulled his laptop close. “They just broke for lunch so Juleka should be logging on soon enough!” Marinette pulled up a web page browser, typing in the URL for Instagram. She immediately went to Damian’s account. He wasn’t sure when his cousin had gotten his password, but knowing how much Dick loved to mess around on it, he had to assume she got it from him. 

“Okay, I’m going to change a few lines of your bio.” 

“Why?” He asked, head falling back. 

“Well, Colin takes over your instagram on weekends right?” She asked.

“When I see him, yes.” Honestly, Colin and Dick were really the only ones who posted on his instagram. It was clearly stated in his bio that Colin controlled his instagram on weekends, the fact that Dick was in control of it the rest of the time, was not mentioned anywhere.  

“So I’m going to change this line, red menace takeover weekends. To something clearly stating your relationship.” 

“He’s called my boyfriend in practically every post that features him.” Damian said, now leaning forward to see what his cousin was altering. 

“Yeah, but people are lazy, and don’t want to dig. They want things to be obvious and loud so they don’t have to put a lot of thought into it.” She grumbled. “Trust me, I know from experience, some of the people at my school literally have to be punched in the face and then kick in the nuts by the truth before they believe it.” 

“Try not to sound too bidder Nette.” Damian hummed. 

“Just, prep yourself to give a good speech about your and Colin’s relationship. We’re really going to need something that pulls right on the heart strings.” 

“Because?” He asked, this whole morning was excruciatingly annoying. 

“Are you going to use Rose?” Damian looked up, taking notice of two blonde Parisian teens standing at the entrance to the lobby. They both were still in what looked like pajamas, both holding coffee. 

“That’s the plan.” Marinette said, answering Adrien’s earlier question. 

“Devious.” Chloé cocked her hip, taking a sip from her cup. “And relatively smart. Should be quite the show. Shame we’ll miss it.” 

“Someone could always ask nicely for their friends to record it.” Marinette mused. 

“Should I text Nino?” Adrien asked, his face clearly stating how unsure he was of the situation. 

“If you want.” Marinette said, finishing her work on her cousin’s social media. “I’m going to give my crew a heads up once things are in motion. If you do text him though, let him know nothings happening till, most likely, after lunch.” 

“Marinette?” Her fingers stopped their work, her head popping up to look at Adrien. “You sure about this?” He asked. “It could be kind of...explosive.” His fingers tightened around his coffee. “What if it causes an akuma?” 

She gave him an understanding smile. “Don’t worry Adrien, I’ve got contigonsies for that. Like I said a few days ago, I’m playing a game of RISK, and you can’t win the game if you don’t capture any territory.” 

“And your about to clear the board form the looks of it.” Chloé smirked. 

“Something like that.” Marinette looked back down at the computer, switching back onto the video chat app and logining online. “But the goal isn’t to clear the board, not yet.”

… 

Contrary to popular belief nowadays, Mylène did not hate Marinette. She didn’t even necessarily dislike the girl. But she did not agree with the brash and loud way she had been going about her problems with Lila. She found them rude and distasteful, and honestly, a little out of character for her once friend. She was sure Marinette didn’t do everything Lila accused her of, at least half of the allegations had to be simple misunderstandings that the two girls could never figure out because they were always at one another's throats. 

But try as she might, she just couldn’t take Marinette’s side. Lila brought up quite a few good points in regards to Marinette’s character, while the Italian girl wasn’t a saint either, Marinette wasn’t quite the angel everyone thought she was. And some of her and Lila’s fights were truly violent and horrendous to watch. 

But she wasn’t one to speak poorly of others, especially not Marinette. While the girls weren’t friends anymore, and she didn’t agree with what was now Marinette’s additude, she still was nice to most people, even those who sided with Lila. And she did a lot for people, even when they didn’t notice her good deeds. 

Marinette had always been very eccentric ever since Mylène had known her. But this was probably one of the strangest things she had ever experienced due to Marinette. Mylène was seated on Juleka’s bed, Rose seated on the goth girl’s other side. They were staring at Juleka’s laptop, a facetime app opened. 

Last night all three had received text messages from unknown numbers claiming to be Marinette texting from a friend’s phone. Mylène was sceptical, even after getting a picture sent to her, but Rose was curious and so was her other friend, so when they said they were going to be eating lunch at Juleka’s house so they could talk with Marinette, Mylène agreed to go along with everything. 

“Okay…” Juleka typed in the screen name she had been sent the night before, AmyrWayne05. 

“What do you think she wants?” Mylène asked. “And who’s phone was she texting from?”

“I don’t know..” Rose crossed her ankles. “I didn’t recognize the boy in the photo she sent.” 

“Neither did I.” Juleka said. 

“I didn’t even know Marinette was out of the country.” Mylène whispered. 

“Kim and the others probably did.” Juleka supplied. “I doubt she wouldn’t have told them,”

“But why didn’t they tell us?” Rose asked, blinking innocently. 

“I can think of a few reasons.” Mylène’s voice was low, wondering why her boyfriend hadn’t said anything. 

“Well whatever they might be, we’re about to find out.” Juleka called attention to the screen name displayed on her laptop. The three girls watched as the smaller text underneath the name changed from offline to online. A second later Juleka was being asked to join a video call. She quickly hit except and the screen went black, loading until the familiar face of Marinette Dupain-Cheng was on the screen. 

“Girls!” She said happily. “Thank you so much for calling!” 

“You said it was important.” Rose said, eyes a little down cast. The girls didn’t exactly talk on the regular any more. 

“It is! Super important.” 

“So, what’s going on?” Mylène asked, wanting to get through the call as quickly as possible. She had felt weird all day, not telling Lila or Alya about the texts from Marinette, it was like she was cheating on them. 

“Okay,” The bluenette let out a large breath. “I know you guys think Lila hung the moon-”

“Marinette I am not going to sit here and listen to you bash on her!” Mylène interjected. 

“That’s not what this is!” She waved her hands frantically. “I promise!” 

“It better not be.” Mylène crossed her arms. 

“I promise girls, it’s really not. I-just, okay, so I heard that Lila’s been telling people that she’s dating Damian Wayne. Right?” 

“She is.” Rose informed. “They’ve been dating for a few months now. They’re really in love and I’m not going to listen to you say anything negative about their relationship Marinette.” Anyone who knew Rose, at least knew her well, knew that love was the thing she was most passionate about. She refused to stand for any sort of injustice involving the subject and would defend a couple till her dying breath, no matter how well she knew them. 

“Okay.” Marinette said, voice low. “Then I won’t say anything.” She gave a sad smile. “I’ll let him tell you.” The laptop suddenly shifted, the view changing quickly from their classmate to a good looking young man they recognized from the photo Marinette sent the night prior. 

“Hello.” He said, eyeing each of them carefully. “Do you three know who I am?”

“Your the guy from the picture Marinette sent.” Jukela answered. 

“Would one of you please google Damian Wayne for me?” He asked, Rose quickly complying with the request. She looked up the famous boo of their friend on her phone, a small gasp escaping her lips as she turned the small screen towards her girlfriend and Mylène. 

And there was the boy currently on Juleka’s laptop.

“You’re Damian Wayne?” Mylène asked. 

“That’s what my driver’s licence says.” He said, but his tone made the three girls unsure whether it was supposed to be a joke or not. 

“Why are you with Marientte?” Juleka asked. 

The boy looked to something off screen, probably the girl in question. “Can I?” He asked. He waited a moment before sighing. “I’m sure you’ll all find out why later, but for the moment, all you need to know is that I am with her as of the current moment.” 

Rose gave him a strange look but didn’t say anything. 

“This is why you wanted to talk to us?” Mylène asked. “To tell us you were hanging out with Lila’s boyfriend?”

“No.” Her voice came. 

“Actually, Lila is why we wanted to talk.” Damian said. 

“What about her?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” 

The three girls all went quiet, none speaking. His face was pensive, eyebrows nicked and corners of his lips pulled down into a frown. “I’ve never even met Lila.”

“But she said she’s known you since you were very little!” Rose exclaimed.

“A lie.” He said simply. “I couldn’t have known her from the time I was little because I was locked away in a compound till I was ten years old, and even then I was kept exclusively within the walls of Wayne Manor for another year before my father could introduce safely to the world as his ward without my Grandfather taking harsh and violent action.”

“She said her parents were friends with your dad.” Juleka added.

“I’ve checked with my father and he’s never met anyone with the surname Rossi. And none of his friends have a child named Lila.”

“I’m very confused.” Rose whispered. 

“Girls, we need your help!” Marinette’s voice came. “Or rather, Damian does.”

“With what?” Mylène asked. 

“Adrien mentioned that Lila’s been telling pretty much everyone that she and I are dating, is that correct?” Damian asked, his hands folding in front of him. 

“She’s been talking about it for the past few days.” Mylène said, she vaguely remembered Nino mentioning Adrien being out of town for a modeling gig that involved Damian Wayne, she was still confused as to why Marinette was with them though.

“She’s told practically everyone who would listen, and some who wouldn’t.” Juleka crossed her arms. To most it would be hard to pick up on, but Mylène could tell when the girl was angry. Juleka had been questioning Lila a lot more lately, Mylène was sure the girl was just waiting for a good reason to switch sides, and the only reason she hadn’t already was because of Rose. Juleka had been Mylène’s saving grace when it came to her current problems with Ivan. The goth girl was probably afraid of a rift forming between her and her girlfriend the way it had between the classes former favorite sweet hearts. 

Damian sighed on screen. “I’m not a person who likes to ask for assistance from others, but under these circumstances, I’m in need of your help.” The three girls watched as his hand raised to pinch the bridge of his nose, eyes closed before his hand dropped and he looked up at them. “I don’t know how much you all know about Gotham, but people have always had mixed reactions when my siblings have come out in the past, my own coming out included. Normally they don’t have a huge problem with it because all of my siblings have come out as pansexual or bisexual, or something that includes both genders. But when I came out I didn’t specify my sexuality. I just announced I was dating Colin.”

Oh no. 

Mylène could feel it, Rose’s heart was swelling. If he was really about to go into a long winded story about he and his boyfriend’s love, then Mylène was sure Rose’s Champion of Love and Justice persona was about to be uncaged. Many of their classmates called it her Sailor Moon mode. 

“Who’s Colin?” Rose asked, voice timmed and quiet. 

“Colin is my boyfriend.” A small smile gracing the boy’s hard features. “We’ll be celebrating our three year anniversary in two months and two days.”

“Oh.” Rose’s hands clasped together, a dreamy look crossing her face. 

Suddenly Damian’s face become more downcast. “Not a lot of people like Colin. Well, not a lot of people who people listen to like him.”

“Why ever not?” The blonde asked, moving so her face was closer to the screen.

“Colin is an orphan.”  The words were blunt and hit all three girls hard and unexpectedly. Of all the things Mylène had been prepared for this morning the heart breaking backstory of Damian Wayne’s boyfriend was not one of them. “Basically anyone with money and influence insists he’s a gold digger trying to mooch off of me. And the Wayne Ward Fangirls are quick to crucify him for anything he does, wrong, right, good, bad, all of it. And of course there are those in the religious communities who are constantly berating us. That faction is especially hard on him, he lives in a Catholic orphanage you see.”

“That’s terrible!” Mylène could swear that the small blonde girl had tears in her eyes. 

“While I agree that’s awful, and I also agree that Lila shouldn’t be lying about dating you, I don’t see what it is you need our help with?” Juleka asked, voice laced in confusion. 

“If word gets around,” suddenly Marinette’s face was squished in frame with Damian’s. “That Damian has a long distance girlfriend, things are going to get worse for his and Colin’s relationship.”

“People in Gotham play very dirty, they’ll latch on to any rumor or fact, as long as it serves their needs. People will be throwing Lila Rossi’s name in my face, in Colin’s face, and in the faces of all of my family members for years.” Damian’s face had gone back to sternly neutral. “People will insist that Colin broke us up or something absurd like that, they’ll use her to villainize him.”

“They will?” Juleka asked, concern written on her face. “That sounds like something that only happens in movies.”

“They will.” He insisted. “Trust me, I’ve seen it happen before to members of my family and their friends. It’s just a matter of time before it gets to the right people, unless…”

“Unless?” Rose asked, voice going high, the girl eager to help. 

“Unless we cut off the head of the snake.” Mylène supplied. “We need to make a statement, make sure everyone who might have heard Lila’s lies knows that it’s fake.”

“The louder the better.” Marinette added. “To make sure she doesn’t turn it around on Colin or Damian.”

“I hate to ask this of you,” Damian said. “Especially since we are perfect strangers, but my c-“ He grunted, his body jostling on the screen as Marinette shot him a glare. “Companion.” He finished begrudgingly. “My companion here, insists that you three can be trusted with this task.” 

“Please help us girls.” Marinette said. “If not for me, then for Damian and Colin.” 

Damian sighed before going into his own plea. “Colin is very important to me.” His voice was quiet. “I’m not the easiest person to get along with, and everyone says I don’t deserve someone like him.” He looked down. “He is one of the most important people in my life and I don’t want some girl, who I’ve never even met, to ruin it because she wanted her five minutes of fame.”

Rose stood quickly from the bed, almost knocking the computer off her girlfriend’s lap. “Don’t worry Damian! We’ll take care of everything!” She shouted, running for the door, her voice leaving behind the call of “no one stands in the way of true love!”

Juleka and Mylène watched her go before the goth girl sighed. “We should go get her before she runs all the way back to school.”

“Yeah,” Mylène stood. “She’s going to need backup.” She looked back at the computer. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything.”

… 

Nino didn’t know what was going on. 

He was sitting on the stairs in the gym area of his school, most of the student body just loitering around. Lunch was over but they still had about five minutes before anyone needed to start heading to their class rooms. The room was filled with soft chatter and laughter, he wasn’t invested in any conversations though. 

Adrien had texted him a few minutes ago and told him to start recording. He didn’t know why, but like a good bro, he did as asked. His phone was barely raised, picking up mostly just the shoes of his classmates. He noticed across the gym Marinette’s crew also had their phones up and were recording, though Nino wasn’t sure why. He now knew that Marinette and Adrien were in Steel City together, but Marinette had asked that the reason she was there with Edna remain secret and Nino didn’t want to pry into the girl’s personal life. If she didn’t want to tell anyone, then she had a good reason. But he also knew, via Kim, that Marinette had no international coverage and couldn’t contact anyone. Leaving the question of what her crew was currently doing? 

Maybe Adrien texted them too? 

But what would he need recorded so badly?

Nino debated getting up and going over to talk to the group but Lila and Alya were stationed in the middle of the gym, either girl would spot him if he made his way over to his secret friends. And he really didn’t feel like lying to his girlfriend today. 

‘ BANG ’

Everyone jumped as the doors to the school crashed into the walls behind them. All eyes on the entrance, taking in the petite form of Rose Lavillant. The small girl’s face was heated a blush pink, eyes narrowed into a glare and hands clenched into fists. Juleka stood on Rose’s right, her backpack slung over her shoulder and her girlfriend’s carried in her hands. Mylène stood on the girl’s left, arms crossed and an expression on her face that looked both angry and guilty. 

“LILA ROSSI!” 

His hand instinctively shot into the air, camera focusing on the trio. Nino had known Rose since he was five years old, and not once in all of those years, could he ever remember her yelling, nor could he ever remember her really being angry. And definitely not this rage fueled. No one spoke as the three girls made their way towards the center of the gym, Lila and Alya both standing helplessly in the girls’ sights. Nino took notice of his friends’ phones now trained on the pack as well. 

“Rose?” Lila asked. “Is everything oka-”

“SHUT UP!” 

Nino flinched at the pink girl’s tone, several others in the crowd did as well. 

“Rose what’s wrong?” Alya quickly inserted herself between the two as Nino stood, standing on a higher stair to get a better camera angle. 

“What’s wrong?” The blonde asked. “What’s wrong?!” Rose’s hand raised into the air, for a panicked moment Nino thought his girlfriend was going to get decked in the face. But then Rose’s finger shot out from her fist, pointing accusingly at Lila. “SHE’S A LIAR!” 

With her words came a few cheers from Marinette’s crew and a handful of others in the school who had come to resent the girl. 

Nino even heard one “preach” though he couldn’t tell where it had come from. 

“Ros-” Alya was cut off. 

“Everyone!” Mylène shouted, “Take out your phones and google Damian Wayne, you know the famous kid from Gotham? I’m sure everyone knows that he’s Lila’s boyfriend, or so she’s been telling us.” Mylène shot a glare over her shoulder at the brunette. “Go to his instagram!” 

Nino didn’t want to stop recording, thankfully he could see the people’s phones in front of him. The boy’s icon was a picture of him flipping off the camera with a rainbow painted on his cheek. His bio was only four lines. 

Damian Wayne

Animal Rights Activist 

My Boyfriend and Brother are the only ones who post on here

Please don’t talk to me

Nino tried really hard not to laugh, but couldn’t help his snicker. He knew pretty much instantly that Damian was not in fact Lila’s boyfriend, and doubted them ever actually meeting. But did she seriously not do even the smallest bit of research? There is no way it would have been that hard to figure out that the boy was gay, let alone in a relationship. 

“That’s right everybody!” Mylène shouted. “Damian Wayne has a boyfriend!”

“He’s cheating on me?” Lila asked eyes wide and heartbroken, Nino would admit, it was a good idea to save face. Claim the long distance son of a playboy was a player himself. If he didn’t know better he’d probably buy it. 

“They’ve been dating for three years.” Juleka’s voice was quiet but strong, the people around her who heard it started passing it back to those behind them who didn't.

Lila opened her mouth to spit out another lie but Rose beat her to the punch. “TWO YEARS, NINE MONTHS, THREE WEEKS, AND FIVE DAYS!” Her fists were clenched at her sides again, her whole body shaking. “THEY ARE TWO MONTHS AWAY FROM CELEBRATING THEIR THREE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! AND THIS-THIS...LIAR! IS TRYING TO TEAR APART THEIR HAPPILY EVER AFTER!”

Juleka placed a hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder, trying to calm her just a little bit. 

“Lila also lied about knowing the Waynes! Damian Wayne didn’t interact with anyone outside of his family until he was eleven! And Bruce Wayne confirmed that he doesn’t know anyone with the last name Rossi, and none of his friends have a daughter named Lila!” Mylène shouted. “The three of us talked to Damian Wayne today! Adrien Agreste is modeling with him right now in America! He asked Damian about Lila and he’s never even heard of her!” 

There were mixed reactions from the crowd surrounding them. Mylène suddenly shot her phone into the air. “He sent me a video telling the whole story! If anyone wants to watch it! I will happily show it to you!”

“I can so explain this!” Lila said, stepping forward. “You see, some of Gotham’s villains have come after my famil-“

“I SAID SHUT UP!” Rose screeched. “COLIN WILKES IS A PRECIOUS BOY WHO DESERVES THE WORLD! AND YOU ARE TRYING TO TAKE HIS PERSON FROM HIM JUST FOR A LITTLE ATTENTION!” Juleka pulled Rose back a step, worried about her girlfriend getting too out of control. “GOD!” She shouted. “YOU ARE SUCH A LITTLE...LITTLE-”

“Say it Rose!” Alix shouted from the side lines, Nino swore if her the short girl’s smile got any wider her face would crack in half.

“ATTENTION WHORE!” He almost dropped his phone. The crowd, which had started to get more vocal, went silent. Alya’s jaw dropped and even Lila was left speechless and wide eyed. 

“Oh my god.” Kim’s voice carried over the noiseless room. 

Rose was left fuming. Her body was still vibrating at a speed Nino was sure couldn’t healthy. Her cheeks were puffed out, making her eyes large, the blues popping out against her now red face. 

“Lila is a liar and nobody should believe a word she says.” The girl huffed. “I am the champion of love and justice,” she squared her shoulders. “And refuse to stand idle while someone destroys the bond of two sweethearts.” Rose took a deep breath before striking a pose similar to Sailor Moon’s iconic one. “In the name of true love, Liar Rossi, I will punish you!”

Nino was not prepared for the burst of applause that erupted from the crowd. He actually howled out a cheer of his own, phone focused on the girls in the center of the mob. He moved his phone to follow Lila as she went running out of the corral of applauding teenagers. He assumed she was heading for the bathroom, probably to fake cry till someone came to comfort her. 

A long, loud, exasperated sigh fell from his lips as he watched his girlfriend chase after the Italian girl. He shook his head as he stopped the video, tapping on his messaging app and sending the video to his best bro. 

DJBubbles: Dude

DJBubbles: how did u know this was going 2 happen?

… 

Alya hesitated outside of the bathroom door. Cautiously she glanced back over her shoulder, people were still cheering she could hear them from down the hall. She wished she could be with them. But she had a mission to see through, and with everyone turning on Lila she knew it was do or die time. 

She slipped her phone into her back pocket and took in a deep breath before pushing open the door, masking her face in concern as she approached the girl hunched over one of the sinks. Lila had her face in her hands, muffled crying sounds coming from behind her fingers.

“Lila?” She asked quietly. 

“Oh god!” Lila turned away from her. “Alya it’s so awful!” She took a few steps farther away, laying her head against the wall of the restroom. “I-I just-just…” 

“Lila it’s okay…” Alya placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding.”

Lila sniffled, looking at the girl over her shoulder. “It’s not.” She whispered. “I lied.” She turned her head away quickly. 

“Why?” Alya asked. 

“I don’t know.” Lila whipped around, tears streaming down her face. “I-well, I just-” She sniffled loudly. “I like Adrien so much.” She started, back leaning against the wall. “But he didn’t really seem to take notice of me, so I thought if while he was gone I could get everyone talking about how I had this awesome boyfriend it’d make him, well, I don’t know.” 

“You wanted Adrien to be jealous of Damian?” Alya asked, eyebrow cocked. 

“Y-yeah.” Lila looked down. “I know it was stupid and I just should have kept my mouth shut. But I didn’t know how else to get his attention.” A few more tears streamed down her cheeks, her hands raising to rub at her eyes. “I’m so sorry I lied to you.” 

Alya sighed. “Look, I can kind of see why you did it.” She crossed her arms. “But Adrien isn’t the type to respond to jealousy. In fact, if he did like you and found out you were with someone else, then he would gracefully bow out. He wouldn’t want to come between you two.” 

Lila’s eyes stayed focused on the floor. “I guess I didn’t think about that. He really is so sweet.” She whispered. 

“And while I don’t think you should have lied about dating Damian Wayne, I definitely don’t think Rose, Juleka, and Mylène had the right to humiliate you like that. It was uncalled for.” Alya’s eyebrows nicked together. “They should have just asked to talk to you in private. Seriously, I have never seen them act so vicious.” 

“Marinette must have turned them against me.” Lila’s face suddenly hardened. “She’s out to get me Alya. You know she is. She’s taking everyone away from me!” Lila surged forward, grabbing the girl’s shoulder. “She’s going to steal you too!” 

“Marinette will never steal me from you Lila.” Alya sucked in a deep breath. “Your my best friend, and I’ve got your back no matter what!” God that left such an awful taste in her mouth. 

“Thank you Alya!” Lila pulled the girl into a tight hug. One brunette’s face turned devious while it was hidden, the other simply rolled her eyes. 

… 

Nino took his seat at his desk, unable to hide the smile on his face. He was rewatching the video on his phone. He honestly hadn’t felt this good in a while, probably not since the last time he wielded the Turtle Miraculous. It felt like everything was over, but seeing as how Lila still had Alya, and probably Sabrina, who was out sick today, he figured it wasn’t. Meaning his job as mole wasn’t done quite yet. But the few minutes he had to celebrate the Liar’s major take down with his friends was invigorating and made him feel like he was operating at one hundred percent again. 

Rose, Juleka and Mylène all came into class together, everyone already in the room standing up and cheering for them. Alya and Lila weren’t back from the bathroom yet, so Nino applauded them from his seat. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Kim shouted. “The hero of the hour, champion of love and justice herself!” He jumped up on his desk, extending his hands in an overly complicated gesture in Rose’s direction. “Ms. Rose Lavillant!” 

Nino’s classmates cheered harder as Nathanael walked forward and embraced the tiny girl in a hug. “We’ve missed you sweetness.” 

“I’ve missed you all too!” Rose hugged him back as forcefully as she could. “I’m so so sorry everyone!” She pulled back from the red head, positioning herself to look at those who filled the opposite side of the classroom as Nino. “Can you ever forgive me for falling for her lies?”

“It took all of us time to see she was lying,” Max came forward, setting his hand on Rose’s shoulder. “The important thing is that you finally saw through them.” 

“Yeah, she’s pretty good at covering her ass, none of us blame you for taking so long.” Alix said, kicking her feet up on the desk.

“Do you think we could have our old seats back?” Juleka asked, voice quiet as she stepped forward and took Rose’s hand. 

Kim jumped down from his and Alix’s shared desk. He held his arms wide open, embracing the two girls. “Welcome home babe.” He said, dramatized tears in his voice. “God we’ve missed you.” 

Alix rolled her eyes. “Knock it off drama queen.” She yelled. “Seriously though,” She swung her feet around on the bench, standing up and gesturing to the seats. “It’s good to have you two back.” 

“I think you mean three.” Max said, he and Nathanael had their arms draped over Mylène’s shoulders. The girl had a small blush dusting her cheeks as she climbed the steps towards the back of the room where her boyfriend sat.

“I’m really sorry I didn’t listen to you.” She whispered, eyes downcast. “Do you think you can forgive me?” Ivan gave a soft smile, scooting down the bench so that Mylène could sit by him. The girl sat down quickly, latching onto her boyfriend’s arm with a large smile. 

“Power couple’s back,” Kim whispered. “We got all our lovely ladies on the side of truth and justice, I know have video of Rose striking her cute ass sailor moon pose. It’s like all's right with the world!” He said, sitting down at Alix’s old desk, the girl having reclaimed her seat now that everybody’s favorite girlfriends had retaken their old desk.

Everyone was happily chattering away, Marinette’s crew filling in the three girls on everything they missed when Lila and Alya walked in. 

“Not all our lovely ladies have come to their senses.” Nino mumbled, resting his cheek against his fist. As long as Alya had yet to see the light, he couldn’t in good conscience retire as Marinette’s mole. And he certainly couldn’t leave his girlfriend alone with that coyote. 

“How can you still be friends with her?” Mylène asked. “After knowing everything was lie?” 

Alya shot the girl a dirty look. “She lied about having a boyfriend, that didn’t give you the right to humiliate her in front of the whole school.” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “I swear, you’ve all become as bad as Marinette.” Alya took her seat behind Nino, Lila sitting where Marinette once did, large crocodile tears still streaming down her face. 

“Seriously Nino?” Juleka whispered, disbelief in her eyes.

The boy simply shook his head, turning away from the majority of his classmates. Alix flipped around on her knees, leaning close to the goth girl and whispering into her ear, she then moved on to give the small explanation to Rose. In the back of the room Ivan was quietly filling Mylène in on Nino’s situation. 

The three girls were quiet, save for Rose’s soft. “Oh.” Thankfully it wasn't loud enough for Alya or Lila to hear. 

It wasn’t long before Miss Bustier came into the classroom. She set her papers down on her desk, then turned to write something on the board before finally facing the class. Her eyes scanned the room slowly, a loud sigh escaping her lips. “Okay,” She breathed. “Let’s just begin class.” The poor woman was so tired. 

_______________________________________________________________________

(part 1)  (part 2)  (part 2.5)  (part 3)  (part 4)  (part 5)  (part 6) (part 7)  (part 8)  (part 9)  (part 10) - Here (part 11)

Not  exactly Photoshoot Part 3...I’m just trying so hard to get to this Incredibles cameo guys, I feel like I keep underestimating how long parts are going to be. I’m so sorry it’s taking so long for this character to show up. Anyway, who was prepared for Rose this time around? I love the idea of her being essentially this tank that no one sees coming till it’s far too late. Now it’s just Sabina and Alya, and Nino left on Lila’s side (or so she thinks). I also love the idea that the class has the most ridiculous pet names for one another. Not sure when part 11 will be up because we are getting very close to finals week at my college, but I’ll do my best to get something out as soon as possible! Thank you all so much for the likes, reblogs, and especially the comments! They are such huge mood boosters for me, they really change the whole course of my day and I appreciate them so much. Please let me know what you thought of this chapter! I loved writing it. As always if you have any questions about the story or AU feel free to ask, I love getting them and will happily answer any question you got (even if it’s not about this AU)! And if you want to be tagged let me know! 

@graduatedmelon @northernbluetongue​ @violatiger8​ @bamagirl513​ @vixen-uchiha​ @beaversuenightly​ @tumbling-down-hills-and-stuff​ @todaylillypads​ @laurakinneylance​ @vgirl-10123​ @wellcrud-blog-blog​ @silvergold-swirl​ @crazylittlemunchkin​ @an-ahez​ @queencommonsense​ @ladybug-182​ @meganemily231​ @driftingmoonlitpetals​ @kand-roo​ @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry​ @theatreandcomicfreak​ @paradoxal-occurance​ @miraculousl4dybug @thanks-captain-obvious​ @sassydepression​ @multishipper1needshalp @wegan97​ @surprisebishhhhhhhhh  @redscarlet95 @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @synnesstra @fandomkitty8 @tired-yeetling @saluteswifties @kanamexzeroyaoifangirl @dast218 @naclychilli @royalchaoticfangirl @panda3506 @nataladriana9 @shreky-boi @my-name-is-michell @dawnwave16  @thethirdwheelfriend @quiet-oracle @heaven428

[tslasvegas]

Episode 3: “UGH just rename Luxor to Loser” - Xavier

Well... that takes care of the Timmy problem... Love Timmy... Just didn’t know how our dynamic would be cus he was runner-up to the last survivor game I played which I won. Hm... Well...

That went well. There's nothing like a live video tribal to get people together. and stephen didn't react too badly. but i know now he won't work with me moving forward

I’m sorry I’m terrible at confessionals... So things are going well, I think we have a decent tribe but it is too soon to tell. I’m not a huge fan of creative challenges, at least from my previous game, I guess we will see how that goes. Most of the guys seem nice, still trying to feel everyone out.`

A 4-2 vote off is interesting. Someone is on the bottom for sure. Also, this next challenge is a creative challenge and when I do these solo I usually do really well. Hopefully I can channel that energy into a win for us here because two tribes are going to tribal. We’ll be down to 17 after this, so I’m not sure if we’d go into a tribe swap yet? Maybe 2 tribes of 8 with one person sitting out? 

Oh hot dang, two tribes are going to tribal next time. Probably going to be us :( now it is time to make alliance chats!

....five seconds later

I suspect that after this double vote out that there will be a tribe swap. I hope I end up with Mo and Jaiden at least.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17NPxKO_TKgqjNqsaWlbmlL0jgU36Aygi/view?usp=drivesdk

I really like this challenge. I feel confident about it but at the same time nervous that 2 tribes will be going to tribal. I really hope my tribe wins this one since I still don't know how the tribe feels about me. Wish me luck guys!

My tribe is not going to win this immunity challenge. Our nightclub is due just hours away and we have little nothing done. I am going to have to scramble soon.....I did nothing to help my tribe with the challenge, so if it is me that goes, I would understand 

....five seconds later

Honestly, I want to keep Jaiden and Mo around because I feel closer with them than anyone else. I want to keep Kailyn around because she seems to make time for challenges. Everyone else I am okay with going home, Ben hasn't really done anything soooooo maybe him? Oof

If we lose, then it's 2/3rds my fault and 1/3 Stephen. We better not be on the chopping block if we do lose. This is a two person Tribe as of now. Bobby Jon and Stephenie.

...five seconds later

UGH just rename Luxor to Loser

Second we lose Ben finally responded to my pm’s..... hm..... alright....

Y’all rlly won with a PowerPoint SKDJDJSKLALALL

Some of these guys have an excuse for not giving input into the challenge. Some do not. If I go home because some americans could be bothered doing some base level discussion, ill be annoyed. If I go home because a tribe threw a challenge because they thought id be an easy vote, ill be pissed.

All that hard work that went into this challenge really paid off! We scored the best and don’t have to attend tribal!! Which is absolutely exciting! Andrew told me he wanted to work together which is rad. Livingston and I want to work together which is radder. And Joey and i want to work together which is raddest. I haven’t spoken too much with Jeff lately even though we talked quite a bit early on. Pat and I speak occasionally. Stephanie and I didn’t really speak at all until recently but we’ve gotten into a good groove the last few days. I’m feeling pretty good about this game so far. I hope there’s no tribal swap or anything right away.

So when I get my chip total I'm gonna update Keegan. He is currently at a soap making class but I want him to know I am serious about working with him in this game and I think this is a good gesture. - keegan has let me know he has 4 chips and is willing to pool them over to me when we have enough so that we can unlock the store. I let him know I am okay with doing the same thing to him, whichever. But yes this is looking HOT for me. - "what's in the store?" | all i can really assume is advantages. we need 10 chips to unlock it. This is very similar to the Unnamed Season but the betting cap gives us more control. At this point, I don't think anyone can mathematically unlock without pooling chips. Keegan and I just need 1 more chip between us. Let's just hope we aren't separated by a swap or some shit. I am hoping for a bit more time on this amazing tribe to get that set up so I have a good idea of what the store holds.

Some of these guys have an excuse for not giving input into the challenge. Some do not. If I go home because some americans could be bothered doing some base level discussion, ill be annoyed. If I go home because a tribe threw a challenge because they thought id be an easy vote, ill be pissed.

We lost again!?!?!?!?!??! I am so surprised? Nah I'm kidding, but I don't care. I don't blame our team for losing because 3/5 of us were panicking because our president could be a cheetoh. I'm voting Stephen tonight, I hope the others follow suit. It SHOULD be simple, but 9 hours is a long time for Survivor; and if he knows it's him then might run around and create some chaos - which would be funny.

Rachael (love her she’s probably who I’m closest with along with DeNara and Kailyn) is not being subtle about the fact that she either has a pre-existing friendship with Ben or is currently aligned with Ben. Because Ben, from my knowledge has not been social with anyone, nor has he been super active and in our alliance chat with Kailyn, Rachael seems uncomfortable with the fact that Ben is said to be the vote and is saying she would prefer someone else to go. But like c’mon you can’t deny he hasn’t been social, and even if I had a friendship with somebody before a game, if they aren’t active I’m voting them out. Also I lied to my tribe a couple times this round because I’m lazy.

UGH. We LOST the challenge!!! And it wasn't even close *grumbles angrily* But it's okay. I'm gonna have to work my pussy out to this entire tribe to make them keep me around! I feel pretty good about this, I believe the target is leaning towards Ben but we'll have to wait and see. I don't think it's possible rn but I'm hoping for a swap soon so I can feel a little more re-energized in this game because my tribe has been super quiet lately... I think people will try to move the vote around so I'm going to use my current lack of employment as an opportunity to make myself stay alive on this tribe lmao

These guys are being super boring and either Jake is dumber than i thought, or shadier than i gave him credit for. Xavier might be trying to play me but regardless its doubtful ill stay. John seems to have the most chance of winning out of these four as hes not overplaying. Kevin hasnt spoken to me since the colin vote and it pisses me off that I might be going home after being one of two people that worked on the challenge when kevin was taken off the chopping block immediately for playing jeopardy. i hate this tribe.

....five seconds later

Johns out, Jake too by the sound of it. Time for plan B, which never works but might as well try. Fake idol time.

Oof well the uhh, “obvious friend group” has picked their target and it just so happens to be the only person I’ve made an actual alliance with :/ Poor DeNara. I really didn’t want to have to vote her off this early if I didn’t have to and then the worst part is she didn’t even hear it from me. Nobody is even mentioning game right now and Rachael is acting legitimately surprised to me when I came to her saying “okay this is an easier vote than I thought”.. even tho Ben claimed he had already talked to her..?? Idk man I must’ve done something wrong along the way but these people LEGITIMATELY don’t talk to me. My instant reaction is leaning towards being bitter but bitterness doesn’t really get me anywhere :/ I feel kinda.. out of it rn emotionally just because of everything else I have going on so if I seem more reserved tonight at tribal than usual, that’s why. I just hope that I’m not still stuck on that damn mountain rolling my dumbass rock back up only to get knocked back down again. I’m remaining optimistic for the future.. let’s keep winning some challenges mmkay

Okay good news, I shouldn't be leaving. But that being said DeNara, you have goT TO PULL. YOURSELF. TOGETHER. She's packing her bags and from my knowledge she's going to be fine tonight. Hopefully it'll be Ben who's going but DeNara giving up like this isn't helPING. 

....five seconds later

Also I am in two alliances which is cool I guess.

Oops....... and now I'm controlling this vote I think :) It feels good. I don't know what my plan is !! I'm lying to everyone. I basically put myself in a position to be the 4th person in both votes and I love it so much. I keep telling ppl I'm an emotional mess and I think I'll milk that because SOMEONE is going to get betrayed tonight... love that for me. Rachael, Nik, and Ben want to vote out DeNara Mo, Kailyn, and DeNara want to vote out Ben And tbh I would prefer Rachael or Nik!! Since neither of those things are happening I guess it's up to me to decide which way I wanna swing... I hate/love myself for this. I think there are good cases for both people to leave, because I think that getting rid of DeNara strengthens bonds I never had with Rachael and co. while getting rid of Ben just makes me their enemy. Honestly I am starting to lean towards getting rid of DeNara for that sole purpose alone. It'll be messy for sure. Ben provides NOTHING to the game right now and I hate the fact that he announced in his intro that he's just here to backstab people... but villains don't win unless they're sitting next to another villain. He's the goat to me and Rachael right now, but pretty homos like me always win xx I might regret this decision down the road but HOPEFULLY whichever side I take will pay me back in protection down the line. I think I have the charm to smooth shit over w Kailyn and Mo but its up for determination. I think that I have the finesse to beat Rachael in a vote, too, but I don't want to put her back up against the wall just yet..... ;) Anyways... I hope this isn't my last confessional. I wasn't having fun until I found my place. Let's get it on.

It is me or Ben tonight. Guess we will find out who...

[thatmultifandomhoe]

Strawberry Cream and BBQ - 11

Pairing: Hybrid Hoseok and Human Reader

Overview: Your best friend knows she can count on you for anything, so when she asks you to watch her hybrid while she’s gone for a study abroad trip for four months, you can’t say no. But when these four months are over, things have changed in a way no one expected.

Word Count: 1,376

Genre: Hybrid AU, Fluff, Future smut, Angst, Best friends to Lovers

Warning: None.

Master List

Sneak Peak - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24 - Part 25 (Final) - Move in Day: A SC&BBQ Drabble

©thatmultifandomhoe Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without permission.

You were starting to think that maybe, just maybe, you were overthinking everything.

With a huff, you ran a hand through your hair as you leaned back in the God-awful wooden chair that made your back ache after only twenty minutes. The Biology Lecture had ended an hour ago, but you weren’t ready to go back to your small apartment and be alone with Hoseok. Instead, you hightailed your ass to the Stacks in your campus library and went to the third floor. There you began to pull out every single book about hybrids, more specifically, hybrids and their mates.

Which meant that the table you were sitting at was covered in a dozen or so books, all opened to their sections about mates, with all the same recycled information. It was the same thing that you learned about in the Hybrid 101 class you took, and what all your hybrid friends told you.

Mating was seen as the most intimate bond between two hybrids. You thought it was more romantic than simply getting married because with mating, there was no divorce. It was a life long commitment that only Death could sever. Instead of a ring, the female was marked on her neck with a bite from the male. This would then intertwine their scents together so that any other hybrid would know that the female was already claimed as someone else’s.

What was confusing for you, was that finding a mate was instantaneous. Once they found each other, it was supposed to be clear as day that the two were made for each other. Or at least for the hybrid if the other was human.

Your friendship with Hoseok has been going on for three years now. Not once has he ever mentioned the possibility. According to the books, it had listed the male as being extremely protective of the female when they were around other males that were unfamiliar to him. Again, that wasn’t Hoseok. He had always been protective, but he was protective of all his friends to a degree, but Sue and you were always his top two since the others had their hybrids.

Except...except for that first night when he came to stay with you and caught Johnny’s scent. That was the fist time you ever saw Hoseok, furious and even a little terrifying when he thought you let Johnny mark you.

“Once,” you muttered to yourself, harshly closing another book and tossing it on to the ever-growing pile on the table. “He’s acted like that once in three years.”

Why did it hurt then? Why did the thought of him being with someone else romantically, make it feel like your breath was lodged in your throat and your heart shaking? It was the memory of Hoseok burying his face in your neck and his arms tightening around your that warmed you, that allowed you to take the deep breath.

If, and it was a giant if at that, if you were his mate then why wouldn’t he say anything? He could have had you all those years ago, but instead he let you suffer heart ache after heart ache with each ex. He knew how much it hurt. He was the one who comforted you.

Loudly groaning, you leaned forward and rested the upper half of your body on the table of books. He was your best friend. These feelings, they weren’t appropriate. Friends aren’t supposed to feel like this. Especially with knowing that he had a mate out there in the world. But here you were, your heart longing for Hoseok; a dream that  was only meant for the imagination.

Sadly, you didn’t want it to stop.

Somewhere in the pile, a vibration moved the books along with the sound of wind chimes. After a moment of participating in your own pity party, you sat up to search for your phone. Sue’s contact was personalized so that every time she sent a text, wind chimes would softly ring out. As Hoseok had once joked, it was a calm breeze before the chatter box could speak.

It took a few tries but eventually you found it, half hidden in the pages of one of the books. Raising an eyebrow, you opened up your messages, seeing that she had sent you a bunch of short texts.

Just checking in.

Colin said he hasn’t heard from you two so thought I’d text.

Sorry I haven’t called in a while.

School’s getting busy.

Lots of sightseeing.

How’s Hoseok?

You smiled, your thumbs moving across the screen to answer her. At least with texting, you didn’t have to worry about her seeing straight through the lies as you wrote, ‘Everything’s good!’

Everything was not good. Your heart was conflicted and you didn’t even know the truth. Only Hoseok did, and the idea of asking him was the equivalent of drinking a cup of anxiety. Not today, thank you very much.

Just as you hit send, your phone vibrated once again, this time from the guilty man himself.

Hey Strawberry, just letting you know I’m leaving the café now. I should be home in a bit, want me to pick up Ben and Jerry’s and we can have another movie night? This time we’ll actually finish the movie too.

A breathless laugh escaped as you leaned back against the chair once again. He knew you all too well. Before you could even think of a better reason to stay – because let’s be honest, there wasn’t – you were already agreeing and promising to leave the campus soon. Standing up, your back cracked immediately, making you moan in relief as you twisted both ways to relieve even more of the pressure. That alone was a sign you had stayed too long.

Closing up the books, you brought them to the carts to be reshelved, taking three trips. As much as going home excited you, the nerves that were building up in your stomach forced you to take your sweet time.

You sighed, running a hand through your hair. Lying to Sue was not something you enjoyed, but how could you explain what was going on to her, when you couldn’t explain it to yourself?

Across from the where you stood was a window overlooking the campus. Your eyes locked on it in curiosity as you walked over to it, taking a deep breath while leaning against the wall. From this high up you were able to see fellow students milling about, bundle up in their winter gear as they attempted to walk across the frozen green to get to class.

The sky was a grey overcast, the frigid cold seeping into your bones despite all the layers. It felt like it was going to snow at any given moment. Even so, there was something that made you feel warm on the inside. Two students were walking across the green, their hands laced together with smiles on their faces as they headed in the direction of one of the dorm buildings. The girl was holding a coffee in her free hand, and the man had a Dunkins to-go bag in his free hand.

Whatever they were saying to make each other smile and laugh was left unknown. Instead, you merely got to watch as the man came to an abrupt stop and kissed her. It was sweet, adorable, a true Pinterest moment if you say so yourself. You smiled and the longer you watched, the more you wished that you could be her. To be happy and carefree with the man you wanted. Or in your case, with the hybrid you wanted.

Pressing your lips together, you forced yourself to walk away from the window to gather up your belongings, not wanting to keep Hoseok waiting if he was already home.

It seemed like your heart was winning more and more with each passing day. Even with the day’s research – or lack of it – you were still hopeful that maybe, just maybe, it was possible. That one day maybe the two of you, could have what the couple outside had right now.

Sadly, unless Hoseok ever mentioned it, you weren’t ever going to know. And you weren’t sure if you were willing to risk that type of heartache on yourself by asking.

[meadweos]

𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐊 𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄   ——   𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒑𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 !

❛❛ Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. ❜❜ — Iain Thomas

001. 𝒆𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒓…

sun or moon? stars or clouds? sea or sky? sunrise or sunset? early morning or late night? snow or rain? pastel or primary colours? hot chocolate or coffee? dusk or dawn? baths or showers? swimming or running? singing or dancing? paperback or hardcover? misty mornings or rainy mornings? soft pillows or hard pillows? pop or punk?

002. 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆…

… forced to choose between saving your best friend or yourself, what would your choice be?

❛ My best friend. ❜ It seems as though there’s a lump in her throat as she speaks, her voice sure and strong. ❛ Far more readily than I would save myself. It’s --- It’s not right. It wouldn’t be right for me to --- for me to not save her, save them. ❜ She goes silent for a few more seconds, her eyebrows raising as she asks a simple question. ❛ Why, what did the others say? ❜

If ever you’ve already asked a question but already know the answer, it’s this one: Dorcas suffers from chronic heroism, and would save her best friend far more readily than she would ever consider herself worth saving. There’s no ‘forcing’ about it - Dorcas would choose others over herself in a heartbeat. 

… trapped on a deserted island, who would you want to have with you?

❛ Probably Calliope or Emmeline. Maybe, maybe Lily. Or Alice. I mean, it’s kind of impossible to choose, right? You can have someone you get along with, or someone who you know is better at magic than you, or someone who knows stuff about surviving on a deserted island, or literally anyone famous. ❜ Dorcas shrugs. The question is more casual than the others, and her shoulders droop as she breathes in and out deeply.

… able to turn back time and given the chance to change one thing, would you?

❛ My - my brother. I’d go back, for my brother. So I could save him. Or die in his place. Anything. Just - my brother. He should be here. ❜ Her voice is panicked, now. It’s a question she hadn’t been expecting, and she knows traveling through time is possible - time turners - but she doesn’t trust herself to use them. She doesn’t trust herself to save him without breaking everything. She didn’t save him the first time. What’s to say fear won’t paralyze her again?

… able to see the future, would you try to change it, or let it happen as it should?

❛  I mean, if things are happy in the end, I’d probably let it happen as it should. But i’s not about me or my happiness. If the people that I love are happy, then I’d keep it the same. But I’d change it in a heartbeat if I knew the end of all this was anything but simple, pure happiness for any of them. ❜

If Dorcas knew what would happen to her, to her friends, her life wouldn’t be the thing that she’d want saved. No. Marlene dies soon after she does - they think it’s by Travers and his crowd, but nobody ever finds out. He gets her entire family. There are no more McKinnons that will ever grace the grounds of Hogwarts. Gideon and Fabian Prewett - brave, strong, good - are killed by five Death Eaters that same August. The ground becomes hallowed, sacred, and nobody can speak their names without thinking of Molly - poor, dearest Molly. Lily and James have a son, they get to be happy, but they’re locked away in Godric’s Hollow, and it’s there that they die, only months after Dorcas had. Their son lives, but his life is scarred, and set out for him, already. The life of a martyr. Sirius wastes away in Azkaban, and when he gets his only taste of freedom, it’s tinged by imprisonment in a house he never wanted to call home again in his life, and then he dies, and there’s no body to bury. Peter’s a traitor, until he has one moment - one shining moment of humanity - and then he is dead by his own hand. Remus lives an entire life without his best friends, goes near mad with the grief of that loss, and after finding Sirius again, he loses him so soon, and then dies himself, too. 

Emmeline lives. She gets to live, for a shining, glorious number of years, but they’re numbered. They’ve always been numbered. He comes for her, as he came for Dorcas, and she dies in the street. Alice is tortured into insanity like Frank is - they become Aurors and are successful pillars of the community and then it happens. They get their happiness, their son, but it is ripped away. He’s raised by his grandmother - formidable and strict, always criticizing him for not being the father he’d never known. Nobody ever knows what becomes of Regulus Black. Nobody ever talks about his story, or how he’s a good person, in his own way. Andromeda and Ted get married. They have a daughter, with a name as long and complex as Andromeda’s own, but then Ted goes away. He goes into hiding, and he doesn’t come home. His name is on the list of deaths announced on the radio, and Andromeda’s world stops, too, when she loses her daughter as well. Emma Vanity has a career in Quidditch - she lives through both wars, and is happy. She’s not untouched by the ravages of war, on either front, but it doesn’t hurl her into the waves like it had with the others. Lucius and Narcissa live. Lucius, imprisoned for far less years than he deserves, gets a pardon at the very end of things - they both see their son grow up, see the son they had raised to be a snake marry, and have children of his own. Mary survived, but, God, at what cost? At what cost? She loses her best friends, her family. 

Severus dies as he had lived - hopelessly in love with Lily Evans, staring into the last piece of her has left - her son’s eyes, but he has become someone not even Dorcas would recognize - a man of casual cruelty, who bullies young Neville Longbottom until he’s his worst fear. But there are no more McKinnon’s. No more Meadowes. No more Prewett’s. No more Black’s. No more Tonks’. The war that they had thought would be final isn’t. They are raised to become soldiers, some less touched by this reality than others, but it comes to them in the end, and one by one, their lives are torn apart. But, in the end, they get to be happy. There’s happiness even in their failure to surely end things. They don’t get to live until their eighties, sit back on their rocking chairs and reminisce about the old days. They die young, but some of their children live. They fight like hell to live, but they do. It’s the question of whether or not it’s worth it. They are children born to be soldiers, who bring soldiers of their own into the world without knowing it. Harry Potter is saddled with a fate worse than death - he’s raised like a pig for slaughter, and people don’t talk about that enough. He survives, he wins, but at what cost? Nightmares, pain, horror? For the rest of his life? His scar may not hurt anymore, but his limbs ache, and he remembers the feeling of someone in his mind more vividly than he ever wanted to. His friends, his friends, die. Fred and George Weasley? Dead. Remus? Dead. Tonks? Dead. Colin Creevey? Dead. Happiness isn’t something easily measured - they are happy, but it’s always tinged by the fact that a lot of their problems haven’t gone away. Psychologically, the harm of war stays with you forever. 

Dorcas would want everyone else to live. She’d throw herself in front of that Killing Curse for anyone, for anything. If she knew, she’d want everything rewritten. It would begin and end with her, nobody else, and she’s so foolishly optimistic that it might actually work. But the thing is she doesn’t know, and if she did, she’d surely go mad with the weight of it, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t change it - just that she wouldn’t be the same. And in the end, when she dies, she isn’t the same as we know her now. She still doesn’t kill, but she’s raised her wand far more times than she ever thought she’d have to, and she still holds out hope for everyone, but it’s not rose tinted anymore. The sad truth of the matter is that right now, she’d die for any of the people I mentioned above. Any of them. 

003. 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔…

what’s your character’s myers-briggs personality type?

INFP — The Mediator

Mediator personalities are true idealists, always looking for the hint of good in even the worst of people and events, searching for ways to make things better. While they may be perceived as calm, reserved, or even shy, Mediators have an inner flame and passion that can truly shine. Comprising just 4% of the population, the risk of feeling misunderstood is unfortunately high for the Mediator personality type – but when they find like-minded people to spend their time with, the harmony they feel will be a fountain of joy and inspiration.

what’s your character’s alignment?

Neutral Good

Creatures of neutral good alignment believe that there must be some regulation in combination with freedoms if the best is to be brought to the world--the most beneficial conditions for living things in general and intelligent creatures in particular. Creatures of this alignments see the cosmos as a place where law and chaos are merely tools to use in bringing life, happiness, and prosperity to all deserving creatures. Order is not good unless it brings this to all; neither is randomness and total freedom desirable if it does not bring such good. Neutral goods value both personal freedom and adherence to laws. They feel that too many laws may unnecessarily restrict the freedom of good beings. They also believe that too much freedom may not protect society as a whole and encourage counterproductive divisions and in-fighting. They promote governments which hold broad powers, but do not interfere in the day-to-day lives of their citizens.

if you had to use one tv trope to describe your character, what would it be?

Skilled, but Naive or Wide-Eyed Idealist

[marvelousmatt]

Matt Berry on Why Making What We Do in the ShadowsWas ‘Terrifying’

By Elisabeth Donnelly

Since the debut of the definitive mockumentary on the secret life of centuries-old vampires, the 2014 horror-comedy What We Do in the Shadows, New Zealand comedy treasures Taika Waititiand Jemaine Clement have shown admirable commitment to expanding their bone-dry world of silly vampire jokes into a mini empire. Coming on the heels of the first spinoff, last year’s New Zealand television show Wellington Paranormal, and the persistent rumors of a sequel called We’re Wolves, their TV adaptation of What We Do in the Shadowspremieres on FX March 27.

With the same creative team behind the movie (many of the episodes are directed or written by Waititi and Clement, and some are directed by former Shadows familiar Jackie Van Beek), the show sets up a similar world with a different cast of vampires, preening and arguing for the presumably exhausted documentary team filming their hijinks. This time the vamps are living in an elegantly crumbling Staten Island manse, and their coven includes foppish dandy Lazlo and the tempting Nadja, who are in a long-term open relationship; Nandor the Relentless and his officious human familiar Guillermo; and the inspired creation of an “energy” vampire, khaki-clad day-walker Colin Robinson. While the main cast is a murderer’s row of comic actors who mostly cut their teeth on English television — plus the ascendant Beanie Feldstein, of Lady Bird and Booksmart — the most recognizable face for a particular strain of U.K.-besotted comedy nerd is that of Matt Berry, who plays Lazlo.

For the past decade and a half, Berry has been stealing scenes in shows like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and The IT Crowd, appearing in his own sketch show called Snuff Box, and writing and acting in his creation about a middle-aged actor, Toast of London, which netted him a BAFTA for best male comedy actor in 2015. If anything can be considered a comic trademark, it’s Berry’s voice — plummy and unforgettable, a knighted foghorn that’s fallen on hard times and is trying to get you in the sack; much of his hilarity stems from the mismatch between his vocal elegance and his actual persona. Naturally, he’s found success as a voice-over artist, most recently appearing in Netflix’s Disenchantment, and he’s also a talented musician, making legitimately good psychedelic rock (not to mention all of the music for Snuff Box and Toast of London).

Vulture recently spoke to Berry — who’s deep in the process of working on Channel 4/IFC’s Victorian detective-comedy series Year of the Rabbit — to find out how What We Do in the Shadows tapped into his deepest fears, and how Netflix has changed the trajectory of the once-cult comedian.

How did you get involved in Shadows?

I did a film with Jemaine [Clement] two or three years ago [An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn], and when we were working on that he said, “I’m thinking of doing a vampire series based on the vampire film I did. Do you want to be in it?” That’s literally it. It was as quick and simple as that, and we made the pilot in Los Angeles and filmed the rest in Toronto [as a stand-in for Staten Island].

What kind of freedom did you have to create your character?

I started from the beginning and tried not to pay any attention to the film. I treated this as a completely new job with a new set of characters in a new scenario. It was exciting for all of us that it was different.

How did you and the other actors keep a straight face? Did you end up doing a lot of takes?

There’s a lot of takes. We shot all the time, it was quite an intense shoot, so that helped for the lack of breaking. You just didn’t know your ass from your elbow. You already have jet lag and it’s four in the morning.

So you were shooting vampire hours, in this case?

We started scenes at four in the morning, or even later than that — or earlier than that — which was something to get used to, but you get on with it. The hours are a lot different in the U.K. There, you shoot from seven in the morning until seven at night and then everyone goes home.

What’s it like to do the wirework that makes you fly as a vampire?

Wirework is terrifying. It’s terrifying because I’m afraid of heights, and you have to look like you’re not, when you’re a vampire. There’s no reason why a vampire would be afraid of heights, much like a bird wouldn’t be afraid of heights. So that’s the veil of acting, because one minute you’re standing on the floor and then, within two or three seconds, you’re 50 feet in the air.  In one case, we were next to a building, so you can really feel how high up you are, and then you have to do your lines and look as if everything is completely normal. That was hard for me.

How did Lazlo’s costumes help with the role?

Well, they were kind of heavy. But very useful when it’s outside and it’s cold. Big capes and cloaks. They really come into their own when it’s snowing and minus-four degrees.

What was it like developing a comedic rhythm with the other vampire cast members?

I hadn’t worked with Kayvan [Novak] before, that’s the weird thing. We’d been in comedy in the U.K. but our paths had never crossed. At last they did, and it was a real joy, because it took going to the other side of the world to work with him. It’s an odd thing, what causes you to work with people. It’s the same thing with Natasia [Demetriou] — she’s fantastic in what she does. But they’re two people I never worked with in the U.K.

What’s it like having such a distinctive voice?

I don’t hear it the same way as you do. It’s something that I’ve always had, and I would exaggerate it with friends when I was at college. It kind of went from there, and it’s basically taking the piss out of actors that I would’ve worked with or seen when I was much younger, especially stage actors who did TV work and over-projected. That’s where it came from, and now it’s turned out to be hilarious.

When did you know that you could make people laugh?

I don’t know. You do what makes you laugh. I draw from the most pompous people, who are the people that make me laugh the most. My father’s not pompous, but he says ridiculous things, and I base things on him and somebody who has no sense of humor whatsoever. They’re the people that have made me laugh. If somebody has no sense of humor, I think that’s a great place to start for British comedy, in terms of your character.

Tell me more about winning the BAFTA. The photos of you with the award are really joyful.

People always say this, but it’s true for me when I say that I absolutely did not expect to win. [Toast of London] had been described by most critics as “cult,” and as we all know, no one votes for the cult option, let alone the performer from the cult option. When my name was read out, I was in complete shock. I had prepared nothing and therefore walked onto a stage in front of a full theater — not to mention a live BBC broadcast — with nothing to say. I immediately went into some kind of automatic mode and gathered the necessary reserve power to thank most of the people I needed to. My only interest was to thank my family, which I did, so job done. It was an honor and I’m still incredibly thankful and feel incredibly lucky.

What’s your favorite vampire?

That would easily be Christopher Lee, with Nosferatu running a close second. I’ve always been a huge Hammer Horror fan, so Lee’s portrayal would’ve been the first and most potent I saw. I missed out completely on the recent teen-vampire genre, as I was probably either looking for my keys, working, or in the pub.

Now that shows like The IT Crowd and Toast are on Netflix, do you feel like less of a secret?

The only difference is that someone from somewhere that you never expected has seen you and wants to know if you’d like to be involved with something else. When Toast got on Netflix, I noticed a difference. It was something I thought that only myself and a few people would find funny, and suddenly it’s on a very large platform. Now it kind of belongs to everyone. The shows I do, you can see them everywhere now.

What are you working on next?

A show called Year of the Rabbit, which is a Victorian detectives thing that I’ve co-written for Channel 4. I did that a week after finishing Shadows. Now I’m in the edits for it. I’ve gone from being 700 years old to 200 years old.

I have to get this Rabbit thing done. It’s like when you work on something that isn’t quite finished, you can’t think of anything else. All I can think about is Victorian London until it’s finished, and then when it’s done, I’ll go on holiday and not think about it.

[dontknockitkid]

Farewell

You knew this one was coming haha

I never posted anything on social media about baseball being over for me because I didn’t want to accept it, acknowledge it, or over-romanticize the ending of a simple game for me.

But I will, however, write this;

These are my sentiments about a game that had an exceptional part in molding me into the man that I am today. I will never communicate anything like this again, unless it’s in person and verbal and only if someone asks.

Here i present to you, Chris Ramirez, the baseball player.

First and foremost, I feel the need to give the greatest gratitude and praises to God for blessing me through my baseball years without a debilitating injury. I never broke, severely strained, pulled, or tore anything in the 16 years of constant travel, overhead motions, conditioning, or weightlifting. I praise my almighty God for that absolute blessing. With saying that, I’m not talking down to anyone who has had one because I’ve realized how anxious it makes athletes as well as how much it affects their confidence, self-esteem, sense of worth, and identity. I truly feel for those who have been affected by the unforeseen traumas of athletics.

Now, for the tear-jerky portion of my outpouring.

My dad has told me that he wanted to sign me up to play little league baseball when I was younger, but my mom was opposed to the idea because she said it was dangerous and I might get hurt. My dad, being the person that he is, went on to sign me up at South Side Little League in south Oxnard, CA. I make sure to specify SOUTH Oxnard because it was the most rag-tag, blue-collared, league in Oxnard (in my opinion of course). Being in this league for the first couple years of baseball made me the humble, quiet player that I was because we always played (and were crushed) by the surrounding, more wealthier and supported, leagues. The best thing about my younger years (pre-high school), was the traveling. Specifically the long drives I had with my dad. We would drive 3-4 hours and basically spend the weekend together. We would wake up early, go to the nearest McDonald’s, and then head to the sports complex. Those are some of the moments, weekends, and trips that I will cherish the most regarding baseball because they constructed the relationship I came to have with my dad. My dad went to as many games as he could, but the majority of games I either had to hitch a ride with a coach or teammate, and he would show up whenever he was able to. Both my mom and dad have supported and been there for me after every great and terrible game to give their unique feedback (you sucked today but we still love you; keep fighting kid. You have unbelievable potential.) I held on to each and every pre- and post-game talk with my dad because above all else, he was PRESENT. He cared about what I had to say and how I felt about my performance, and he absolutely 100% knew that I cared what he saw or had to say (even though after the tough losses I acted like I didn’t want to hear anything from him at times, but like a young boy, I yearned for my father’s edification and approval). They provided the life and the beautiful days I would never EVER take back, and seeing them smile at me and say they’re proud of me when I didn’t get drafted, had my last start, and graduated college meant the entire world to me.

Now, while I’m talking about my family, I wanted to include a few words for the village that raised me.

These pictures are from my very last season of baseball, but it embodies the support I’ve received from my beautiful family. From fundraisers, to them traveling/camping overnight for several days to see me play (succeed, and sometimes really suck, which often made me really sad), I am forever grateful for their presence. My brothers, Angel and Kevin would often help me forget about a tough loss by providing laughs that turned into happy tears, as well as celebrating with me when I had a great game. Their hugs and affirming, congratulatory presence throughout my life have fueled me to be a respectable sibling. I have always wanted to make them proud of me. I value the photos we have together in our baseball uniforms growing up, as well as the ones we took when they came to visit and watch in Vegas and southern Cali. Even more so than the photos, the moments I was blessed to experience when I hugged them and told them that I loved them after a game or after having not seen them in months, are where my love during those years rests. Te quiero muchisimo mis hermanos. Cousins, Tia’s and Tio’s, family friends, who have housed me on my trips, and let me crash on the couch or guest bedroom for a night or two as I was making my way across the country or back home, I love you. You have no idea how grateful I am for your gracious hospitality. It is and always has been truly heartbreaking as a little kid knowing I wasn’t able to make a baseball trip because of insufficient funds. My parents have done everything that they could to make sure I was able to go to at least a couple trips growing up, and I tear up just thinking about how they made it all possible. I am so thankful for the limited opportunities because it made me appreciate each and every one of them a whole lot more. I love you, mi familia. Near and far, familial and friend.

I couldn’t write something like this without mentioning my coaches. The men (and their wives because if you know anything about coaching, it is a HUGE commitment and sometimes takes a toll on their families. So if any of my coaches’ wives read this, THANK YOU for being patient, kind, and supportive to the men that helped mold me physically, emotionally, and spiritually) that took their time showing me how to simply throw a small object wherever I wanted it to go with controlled aggression, allowed me to spend a good-sized portion of my life having the most fun I’ve had playing a little kid’s game.

I wanted to give a special and heartfelt thank you to my friend, brother in Christ, and former pitching coach Matt Merricks because he (by God’s wondrous grace) developed a form of pitching that incorporated your walk with Christ. Once I was saved by God and my world changed forever, I also became a different type of pitcher, and Matt was there to help refine the explosion of my new heart in Christ. Thank you forever Matt, you helped a young boy understand what it takes to heave a baseball and leave it up to God from there as soon as it left my fingertips, as well as doing the same in life.

To my amazing teammates:

To say you guys have changed my life would be the biggest understatement ever. My boys at Channel Islands and the surrounding high schools who I became so close with, you guys gave me afternoons worth enjoying. You made Oxnard and SoCal a place that tore my heart leaving, but oh so wonderful reflecting back on. If I wrote a small little paragraph for each person or year of baseball, this blog would span a lifetime haha, but I’ll keep it short and to the point.

Channel Islands: Jonny, Isaiah, Matt, Beto, Alfred, Ricky, Manny, Micah, Felipe, Greg, Miles, Anthony, Ray Ray, Leo, Wade, Josh, Stefon, and a few others who were my little tribe in high school: thank you for riding through it all with me. All the high school shenanigans, trouble-making, talks about girls, long days of practice and conditioning, were boosted to absolute nostalgia because of all of you. The memories jam packed at that one school and ball field, are some of my most cherished moments of my upbringing. People always say that you should go to college because those are supposedly the best years of your life, but in all honesty, these years are a definite close Second haha. I can still remember and feel the deep belly laughs at jack in the box, trips to fresh and easy, and countless other get-togethers I will not mention because some of my family might read this eventually hahaha

I love you, and I pray you all are doing well.

Colorado Northwestern:

A small junior college in Rangely, CO was the perfect place for my collegiate baseball career to kick into gear. Why? Because of these guys: Joe, Ricky, Alaska, Mikey, Cado, Nies, Chase, Trevar, Colin, Tanner, Riding, Hoff, Texas, the Woods brothers, Naus, Cory, and several others who brought seriously so much happiness to my days there. At a low point in my life, you guys helped keep me afloat by your jokes, brotherhood, invitations, inclusivity, and acceptance of a new direction I was going in life. You supported me, held me accountable at the late hours of the evenings, and poured into me when I really needed a laugh, friend, or a late night/early morning trip to Vernal or the gas station. The trips we took to the lake, the hikes behind the school, phenomenal bonfires at red rocks, runs up and down Kennedy, when we discovered the “rollercoaster”, and post-game dinners in the caf; dang, I freakin miss that small little school in that small little town.

If you didn’t see your name, don’t take it personally I promise. Even if you were only at that specific school for a couple weeks, you still were part of my experience and growth, and for that I am forever grateful for you all.

Mesa:

Finally, my Mesa family.

Not enough words could describe the absolute excitement and gratitude I had entering a program that was notorious for having a winning record, playing home games at the same stadium the junior college World Series is held, and where a minor league Colorado Rockies affiliate resides. I talked about the anticipation and excitement that was literally almost oozing out of me to every person that would listen, and I want to take a moment here and thank each person that listened to my gripes, groans, and endless soliloquys about a little boy’s dream coming true. You may not have known it at the time, but those moments and conversations built me up (or how us young people say it these days, “it HYPED ME UP”) and encouraged me to live up to the “hype” that I was giving myself haha

Colorado Mesa is where I bore my fruit; the fruit I had worked so endlessly for throughout my life. I was crafted and molded into the pitcher I would come to be my sophomore year at CNCC (and that summer), and CMU is where it all flourished. The grit was there; the motivation was there; the humility; the approach; the passion; the youthful zeal (you’re gonna hear me say that NUMEROUS times throughout my written pieces, so you better get familiar with it because it’s one of my favorite phrases). Everything was already in place, by God’s gracious love, and now it was time to showcase it. Soli Deo Gloria style. Coram Deo style.

Pitching at CMU was everything I’d hoped it would be and so much more. Having the opportunity to pitch in a rotation that included some of the best pitchers in the nation was a dream come true for a little kid from South Oxnard. My friends and roommates making their way over to the stadium on some Saturday or Sunday afternoon would come to be one of my favorite memories of putting on that creme colored jersey and doing what I loved. Now instead of making this a 55 page blog post, I’m just gonna talk about the memories that stand out the most:

I’ll start with the entire 2017 season. The 2017 season came with a ton of extraordinary moments, some of which I’ll go into a bit of detail soon, but it also came with devastating news that would lead to the season’s mantra and future banner of pride, brotherhood, and hardwork. A ball player and dear friend to many named Ryan Teixeira past away from his second battle with cancer. His wake and funeral services in California were unbelievably moving, and I couldn’t help but admire (and absolutely sob) on how unashamed of the gospel his family was at his funeral service. They were bold, broken, vulnerable, but stood firm on the promises of God. It was truly spectacular. May Ryan rest in glory.

I had the best year of baseball in 2017. Although my sophomore year at CNCC was super wonderful, I cannot compare the two as to which one was better than the other because each one was vastly different. At Mesa;

- I experienced a beautiful Friday night fireworks celebration after breaking a school win-streak. The stadium was as full as it ever had been while we were playing in it, and there was this aura of happiness and genuine enjoyment, regardless of wherever you were sitting (even in the visitor section). Fireworks and baseball have always been like peanut butter and jelly, ham and burger, salt and pepper, and tyga and Chris brown. 😂

- I flew for the first time (in a private airplane at that) to play in a regional tournament, as well as a D2 World Series. This playoff experience had me almost in tears thanking God for getting our team and I to that point in order for us to experience and excel in an environment like that. I pitched the BEST two games in my life that season (complete game shut-out against the #1 team in the region at their home field to eliminate them and send us to the championship, and a complete game win against the #1 team in the nation to eliminate them and send us to the semi-finals in the World Series).

Baseball is boring to a lot of people; I’ll admit I even think it’s boring sometimes, but I found an aspect that was worth cherishing the boredom forever. Through this game God gave me memories, friends for a lifetime, extreme frustration and anger, absolute joy and passion, and a love and appreciation for a game played by 4 year olds and 70 year olds. How amazing is that?

God, thank you for these years.

I will miss it forever.

[magpiefngrl]

Drarry Aus: Medieval

@annalimirlsblog asked: “...  First of all I want to tell you that I really like your stories and I hope I can help you. What do you think about medieval AU? There are so many possibilities...”

Thank you for your prompt! I was trying to figure out a premise, but then I thought of a Medieval D.A. :)) Hope you enjoy it! 

Many thanks to @theblowfishdiaries for the beta! ❤ ❤ 

The Rightful Heir      

(Mature, 3.2k) Here’s the start:

**

Harry gazed at the small crowd that had gathered at the back room of the Hog’s Head, separated by the main inn where the fire burned merrily and a drunken blacksmith had paid the bard to sing bawdy songs about naughty maidens and crafty stable boys. Lascivious lyrics, laughter and lute melodies drifted through the heavy door mingling with the solemn atmosphere in the stone-walled room where the people loyal to Harry sat in grim silence and waited.

With a nod from Hermione, Harry stood and addressed them. ‘I want to thank you for being here. Ever since the usurper, Queen Dolores, assassinated my uncle and took the throne from me, the rightful Heir, I’ve been hunted. Being seen with me is an offence punishable by imprisonment — or worse.’

Every face in his audience indicated they were aware they were risking their lives.

‘Her schemes, her laws, are destroying our land. The poor are getting poorer. The ill are left untreated. Taxes have been raised…’ ‘Harry continued, his voice rising, as everyone nodded or murmured in agreement. ‘I won’t stand by and watch as she ruins the kingdom. My kingdom.’

‘Here, here,’ Ron said, raising his tankard.

‘But how can we fight her?’ Seamus asked, pointing at the group. ‘She’s unstoppable. Her Inquisitorial Squad is everywhere. She has most of the knights at her disposal and you’ve only four; the rest of us here are palace staff, servants, carpenters and—’ No one mentioned his name, but he was there, insolently leaning against the stone wall.

‘And me,’ Draco drawled, examining his fingernails. ‘The Queen’s trusted advisor. It must make you quiver in your boots, doesn’t it, Finnigan?’

‘Yes, Harry — how can we trust a spoiled brat who’s—’

‘Stand down, Ronald, before you hurt yourself,’ Draco said with derision, but Harry interrupted. He knew their quarrels could escalate to the point where they reached for their swords. He also knew that Draco, although not better than Ron at duelling, was willing to cheat in order to win, which is why Harry ensured they never got to exchange blows.

‘Enough. If we start fighting amongst ourselves we’re doomed.’ He exchanged a pointed glance with Ron, who sat back in his chair. Harry addressed the others. ‘A lot of you don’t trust the son of Lord Malfoy because of his connection to the usurper. But I promise you, his offer to assist our endeavour is genuine.’ He turned and glanced directly at Draco. ‘And if he betrays us, I’ll kill him myself.’

The resolve in his words seemed to reassure everyone.

‘Seamus asked a good question,’ Harry said. ‘How can we fight back? There are two ways…’ He glanced at his two best friends, who both spoke at the same time:

‘Sword fighting!’ said Ron.

‘Reading,’ said Hermione, the palace’s librarian.

‘Both.’ Harry looked around. ‘Some of you need to learn to handle weapons; others need to learn to read and write. Knowledge is as important as fighting. The way we will arrange it is thus: I’ll take the sword fighting class. Draco will teach the rest of you reading.’

Groans.

‘Why not Hermione? She’s the scholar,’ Seamus protested.

‘I’m no good with weapons. And,’ she coughed, ‘Ron has promised to teach me how to use a sword.’

‘Yeah, he’ll show you how to hold his sword alright,’ Seamus murmured audibly and some people chuckled until Hermione glared at all of them, and the laughter trailed off.

‘We’ll meet in the woods near the Wolf’s Peak in three days’ time,’ Harry said, signalling the end of their meeting, when Ron’s sister interrupted them.

‘Do we have a name? Our group of fighters, the resistance — we need an identity.’

‘Ehm, OK? Any ideas?’

‘Harry Potter Rightful King to the Throne’s Fighting Group,’ Colin said.

‘That’s a mouthful,’ Seamus laughed.

‘That’s what she said,’ Ron piped and everyone laughed — even Draco struggled to keep a straight face.

‘Death to Dolores Faction?’ Dean offered.

‘It might be a good idea,’ Luna said from the back, ‘not to advertise what we’re doing. In case we ever need to talk about it in public.’

I’ve a cool one,’ Ernie said. ‘The Death Eaters.’

Ron snorted. ‘What‘ve you been reading?’

Ernie scowled but Harry agreed with Ron. ‘Too occult. Sounds like a group prancing around in masks, doing dark deeds in exchange for immortality.’  

Draco spoke then. ‘How about the Defiant Association?’

Everyone mulled over it, but no objections came. Harry said, ‘Perfect. We can call it D.A. for short.’

 *

As everyone took their leave and shut the door behind them, Harry rubbed his temples. ‘Do you think it’s madness?’

‘I do,’ Draco’s voice came from beside him, ‘but madness might be the only way out of this mess.’ He stroked Harry’s back, and Harry wrapped his arm around him and drew him close.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you for helping me.’

‘Of course,’ Draco said and kissed him. He brushed a lock of Harry’s hair back from his forehead and sighed. ‘Although I have to say it’s too revolutionary… teaching chambermaids and the gardener’s kid to read and write. Useless.’

‘Hermione insists,’ Harry said. He lowered his head to leave a trail of kisses on Draco’s neck. ‘We could’ve told them, you know. That we’re together.’

‘And have everyone doubt you because they assume your decision-making is guided by your dick? Bad idea. Besides, Ginevra harbours some affection for you, still.’

Harry sighed. ‘I told you it was before we met—’

‘You mean before you saw me relaxing in the baths and molested me?’

Harry smiled and gave Draco’s neck a gentle bite. ‘I seem to remember you enjoying it. Oh yes, Harry… faster, Harry…’

Draco poked him in mock indignation, and Harry laughed. He buried his face in Draco’s hair and inhaled his citrus-and-cedar scent. ‘We’d better leave. Separately.’

Draco kissed Harry. ‘See you in the forest in three days.’

**

The clearing at the Caves at the foot of Wolf’s Peak was the perfect location for their illicit activities. In a grove by the stream, Draco had sat down with those who needed to learn their letters: among others was Neville, the gardener’s son; Colin, Harry’s servant; Lavender, the chambermaid; and, to his distress, Seamus, who as a man-at-arms’ apprentice was well-versed in the art of holding a sword, but not in the art of holding a quill.

Harry had shown the rest of them the first basic rule of sword fighting, which was to parry an advance. He and Dean demonstrated types of advances and how to deflect them, and then the group split in twos or threes while Harry and his knights (Ernie, Dean, Ron, Susan) supervised and assisted.

An hour later, pleased with the progress of his students, Harry allowed himself a moment to gaze at Draco as he corrected Seamus’s wrong answer with ill-concealed glee. Draco’s hair shone in the slanting light, creating a halo around his head. He must have sensed Harry watching, because he turned and sent Harry a small smile; secret, just for the two of them.

Harry smiled back, holding his gaze for a moment before returning to the practice duels. Ron and Hermione stood at the edge of the clearing where Ron demonstrated a front guard — as always Hermione was the most advanced of the group — and she copied his movements in the precise, meticulous way she applied to everything. Next to them, Dean was showing one of the textile merchant’s daughters how to use her feet for balance, while her twin observed closely. Ginny, handy with a sword since she was young, dueled with Cho, the Ambassador’s daughter, and Cho fought back, her long hair tied in a high bun, her forehead gathering beads of sweat.

‘Take it easy, Ginny,’ Harry called. ‘Even wooden practice swords can cause damage.’

‘She can take it,’ Ginny smiled at Cho, her cheeks flushing as she spoke. ‘She’s a fast learner. But I’ll be careful.’

Cho beamed. ‘Do your worst, Ginevra.’

Ginny smiled wickedly and raised her sword. Harry left them to it and corrected Luna’s hold. ‘This isn’t a scalpel,’ he reminded her of her healer training. ‘Put some thrust in it.’

Harry watched Luna sparring with her partner, a wine merchant’s daughter if memory served, who seemed particularly reluctant to fight back. Harry switched them up with Ron and Hermione — ignoring Ron’s scowls — and had Luna partner with him, feeling Hermione would be a better match for this girl...  Marion? Morgana? His memory failed him. He’d ask Draco for her name later.

After two long hours, as dusk fell creating long shadows on the grass and the birds called the night in, it was time to leave. The women changed in the cave out of their fighting gear and into their normal dresses, and everyone left in twos or threes. Harry sat in the cave mouth with Ron and Hermione, discussing the first day’s training, while Draco disappeared down the back of the caves.

‘I can bring some more parchment tomorrow,’ Hermione said. ‘And books so they can practice reading at home. No one’s going to miss some of the old tomes.’ She glanced at the shadows in the cave behind them and lowered her voice. ‘Despite his personal shortcomings, I’m impressed that Draco taught them half the alphabet in one lesson.’

Ron snorted. ‘Difficult job.’

Harry ignored his taunt. ‘Intelligence says that Queen Dolores has got wind of our project. Do we know if anyone talked?’

Ron’s eyes widened. ‘Queen Dolores knows?’

‘Suspects,’ Harry corrected.

‘And you wonder who talked? Are you being stupid on purpose?’ Ron raised his voice. He pointed a finger at the back of the cave. ‘He could bring an army here to capture you and your “project”!’

‘He won’t. Draco won’t.’ Harry stood, indicating the conversation was over, but Ron wouldn’t let it go.

‘You’re playing with fire and endangering all of us by trusting him.’

‘Ron’s right,’ Hermione said. ‘If there’s a reason you trust him, we should know.’

Harry stared at the forest ahead. It’d gone dark now, emptying of colour but filling with sound. Bugs and critters chirped in the undergrowth and birds cawed to one another. ‘I can’t tell you yet. But he’s the one who brought me the news that Queen Dolores is aware that something is brewing. Draco spies for us.’

Ron didn’t seem convinced. ‘If he’s playing you, Harry, we’ll all end up dead.’ Hermione tugged him away and they disappeared through the trees.

‘They’ll never trust me, you know,’ a silky voice said behind Harry. Two arms circled Harry’s waist and Harry felt Draco’s breath on his cheek as he tugged Harry close. ‘They’ll always suspect.’ He kissed Harry’s neck and whispered in his ear, ‘Come. I found something.’

Draco took Harry’s hand, a torch in the other, and led him to the back. The narrow cave led to what seemed like a dead end, but Draco slid inside an opening that barely fit one person. If Harry hadn’t seen Draco slip inside the crack in the wall, he’d have no idea a passage existed behind it.

Ten steps later, the narrow passage opened to a cathedral-tall cave. ‘It’s dry,’ Draco said, ‘and airy. Hard to find. We can store things: weapons, dry food, clothing. There might come a time when the Queen discovers who the renegades are. We need a hideout.’

The torch light played on Draco’s face, illuminating his cheekbones and the soft curve of his mouth. Harry’s longing for Draco sometimes made it hard to breathe, a fist squeezing his lungs. He kissed him, letting his mouth linger on Draco’s as he spoke. ‘You think of everything. But let’s not share it with anyone else yet — not until we figure out who spoke to her.’

Draco placed the torch down, cupped Harry’s face and kissed him. He rubbed his hardening cock against Harry’s thigh in slow, circular movements, spreading wildfire through Harry’s veins. ‘For now the cave can be used for different purposes,’ Draco murmured.

Harry smiled and threw his cloak on the ground as a blanket before pulling Draco on it. He slipped a hand inside Draco’s breeches, palming his hot pulsing cock. ‘What different purposes?’

Draco grinned and proceeded to show him in excruciating detail.

Read More on AO3 Deleted! My apologies!

**

Mermaid AU

Dare Dating (8th year)

Pirate AU

Durmstrang!Harry and Beauxbatons!Draco AU

Royalty/Arranged Marriage AU

Musicians AU

Fae AU

Adventure AU

Firefly/Space AU

Magical Flower Shop AU (canon universe)

Buy me a kofi

AU Series on AO3

[lwbluedice]

Masterpost for my Stories and Ocs!!!

A spoilerfree list of most of my Ocs and stories (reuploaded here on my main blog)

Includes:

- Name of the story and state it’s in

- short summary/facts

- Character names

If you want more information abt any of them(like a description or a pic) or abt the stories, just message me/ ask me!  Also feel free to ask me to draw them ( for example in the color scheme thing or sth)!

Note: The stories are all written in german so if you don’t speak that language i can’t send you the original documents but i can try summing them up for you!

I bet this is not everything and i will add stuff but yeah!!!!

Hotaru (first draft is finished)

- Abt two men that are linked through a surgery called “synchronisation”, which basically connects their minds and bodies, so they are forced to work as a team. Ea is an ex-soldier and Cain was a hacker, but due to the fact that they can’t stand each other, they also didn’t share their pasts with each other. To pay someone to unlink them, they become bounty hunters and kidnap the girl Ai and her robot Subaru, which is one of the old military robots, called Hotarus (high technologised, operating, transforming, artificial intelligence, ranger units). They are connected to a human ranger and can transform into what the ranger wants them to transform into.

The Hotaru headquarters exploded 10 years ago and since then the Hotarus are super rare on the black market.

The two men plan on selling both the girl and her robot and let’s just say it all doesn’t work out that well.

Ai Hoshino

Ea

Cain Bishop

Subaru

Dr. Chandra Natarajan

10 A

10 B

and other synced pairs

George Watton

Asha Watton

Elaine Bishop

Christopher Bishop

Haruto Hoshino

Shiori Hoshino

The Pleiades. A Hotaru Unit.

Atlas/ Emmett Hunter

Maia/ Ilya Neverwinter

Elektra/ Hailey Gray

Taygete/ Daiyu Ghou

Alcyone/ Charlotte Gryffith)

Caelano/ Sora Aurora River

Merope/ Imogen Harrington

Sterope/ Elizabeth Bresley

Additional Characters for the (maybe Sequel) in which the grown up Ai will try to find out who attacked the Hotaru Headquarters

- Skya

The day the world turned white ( first draft is finished, working on it)

To stop global warming some scientists basically caused a new ice age. On the long run this might be very effective but the former countries, now sectors, are hit by strong ice storms, called snow white. To stay safe huge bunkers, the Safe Cities, were built and the local fauna and flora were stored in Arks, to preserve them.

Usually an alarm sounds before all citizens are brought into the SCs, but this time Reese and her best friend Yuki dont manage to get to the vehicles on time and are left behind. They seek shelter in a private bunker outside of town that Yuki found out about recently. Suddenly a group of boys their age knocks on the door, because they were also left behind and followed the girls.

Al, the brothers Eli and Isaac, Gil and Henry become the new bunker-mates and the group has to survive one year in the bunker, until the storm is over.

( I have a blog for this story, just search for The day the world turned white! There are pics and some posts for example abt which patronus/spirit animal the charas have!)

Reese/ Therese Wells

Al/ Alexander Glover

Yuki Sarah Brooke

Eli Green

Isaac Green

Gil de Santos

Henry Summers

The Sun will always rise (The sequel, probably forever unfinished)

About a group of rebels, the Sun Children, that are sworn enemies to the government and its ways to cope with Snow White.

Takes place abt one/two years after Tdtwtw.

Lucy and Aidan are kicked out of an underground organisation that stays in the cities underground system during the storm phases and the two wander around in the snow until Michael and Rin pick them up and bring them to the Sun Children. From looking into the snow directly to maneuver, Lucy has turned snowblind.

Yeah the plot is… not 100% existent.

Characters:

Lucy

Aidan

Michael

Kate

Gil

Bo

Finya

Rin

The XII Games ( First book is finished, i started the second one, unfinished)

A story abt spaceships that let slaves fight in games, if they win a certain number they are “free”. Cassidy makes it and is sold to a women, Trisha, that takes her home onto her home planet, where Cassidy lives a nice life and learns abt her heritage. One year later she meets Tobias again and she and Trisha are brought to a planet that is basically the universes capital. Cassidy has to take a more important role in the uproar of a war, than she ever imagined.( The cast members are mostly human looking but are other, non human, races)

Cass (Cassidy ) E’ Alandril

Tobias

On the slave ship:

Neala

Sam ( Samuel)

On Anterra:

Trisha  Willowrish

Max ( Maxwell)  E’ Alyndral

Lukas

Tori

Khorr

Keri

Wil

Quinna

On the Space sparrow:

Zach ( Zacharyas) Gryaan

Benj ( Benjamin) Bottledom

Rashka Hyrelian

Oreadh Urunna'ur

Butcher

Kagrim

Kyluur

Irian Ashcott

On Capital Estellar:

Galea ( Galeandrih Fiyur’ Ihal)

Iyal

Wren Fawell

Luasia  

Luminor the Shining

Fallen Angels ( A trilogy, one and a half books were finished, reconcepted)

We don’t talk abt this but it was one of my first stories i truly wrote.

Abt fallen angels saving the world or sth. It’s super clichee and just ugh.

The newer version would cancel some charas and make it abt rebalancing Darkness and Light in the worlds. With a more diverse cast and also different magical races. And a way less creepy Adam.

Eve/Evelyn White

Adam

Peregrine/Perry

Ray/Raven

Sera

Colin

Robin

Raphael

Ky/ Kyron

Gabe/Gabriel Frost

Bree/ Gabriella Frost

Indigo ( haven’t written it yet and i don’t know if i ever will, but have drawn stuff. I lowkey wanna see this as a comic)

A story abt a clan of shapeshifters, called Indigos. They are basically human that can shift into dolphins and their clan lives on an island near Australia. Its a modern story and the gang consisting of our local gay dolphin girl Keerie, her cousins Akash and Arjuun (younger brother, older sis), and Ky ( adopted as a child, japanese heritage, a different breed of dolphin idk) lives their “normal lives” with lots of shenenigans and drama.

Some day Keerie falls in love with Navy, the daughter of the owner of the local Aquapark (that the clan suspect also does illegal stuff like snatching wild animals).

Keerie

Arjuun

Akash

Ky

Navy

“Neo Alcatraz” ( reworks of a very old story)

To put it simply, there is a pack of scientists that bionically enhance children and send them off to different countries to basically be local superheroes. Our gang was kinda left behind bc the countries rather took the newer, better versions and here they are now, a bunch of supernatural teens facing the (not so) everyday struggles of life.

Atalanta

Chi

Callie

Lee

Victor/Konrad

Gemsona (just art)

Larimar

- has water powers and her backstory bases on my private/old Squads life story and a lot of me thinking of drawing music videos for her but never doing it

Anthea (art and headcanons)

- my Dnd Oc

The Bender Girls ( art and headcanons)

- basically some Avatar the last Airbender Ocs i made once

Daiyu

Hotaru

Yura

Sündenfall / Sinfall (short story)

A short story i wrote for a competition which is basically every crime series but magic.

Harvey is immortal, he dies and is revived, and solves crimes through it. Paige is basically his assistant and the case they are on is abt a person that kills magical beings and “arranges” the victims fitting to the seven sins.

Ilya Winter

Harvey

Paige

Delphi

Sphinx

The concept charas, that had a different storyline ( they were basically a team of magical beings that would solve cases… rather unconventional.) I considered reworking them into the new Fallen Angels concept:

Ilya

Harvey

Timothy

Worth mentioning:

Project Alpha (script, some art):

The script for a shortfilm i once made with my friends. A school class has a plane crash and only a few students survive, they all embody a different character archetype (the sunshine, the soziopath, the smart one etc.) They try to survive and are put through weird psychological mind experiments like the trolley problem.

To be honest, the concept had and still has a lot of potential and we just hadn’t the opportunities to rly set it the way we anticipated. The shooting day was super fun, though! Still laughing about the outtakes

Astral Chronicles (some art and a few chapters, unfinished)

A story Idea i still like but probably wont write like this because of copyright problems. Its basically a giant Crossover.

Its abt people who have an Astral( mostly a literature figure) they embody when they are dreaming. Their body stays in bed and is vulnerable but the Astral can basivally run around and has special powers. If the Astral dies, the person wakes up but i think when the body dies the person dies too? idk.

The Protagonist embodies Alice and there are also the White Rabbit, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell usw.

There was also some kind of conflict? I dont remember.

If i would ever rewrite it the Astrals would be embodiments of the Zodiac signs.

(does this even fit?)

The Fanfiction thing i wrote abt Peter Pan/ Jack Frost

- like i have tons of short drabbles and the start of a fanfiction and honestly i liked the ideas i had a lot

The ones we better not talk abt:

Part Hunter

Basically there was a being named eternity/aeterna that was shattered into oarts (like in TRC)

and chosen ones have to reclaim them.

The ones that basically die are turned into guardians, like Time and Space ( they had animal companions they were fused with i guess)

Melody is the current part hunter and has a tragic love story, her animal is a tiny horse thing??????

Idk

basically a long story in which i used my dreams as base for the episodes

The nameless story

Actually super interesting but too many charas and a too tiny will to draw action scenes or write them.

Like its based around a super popular game in huge spheres/buildings and the teams wear some anti gravity outfits and shoes and can walk on the walls and shit and can basically attack using elements/illusion/ conjure monsters idk.

And the main team had an opponent team that basically specialized in the 25272 other elements and some day they just fused teams idk.

There also was some prophecy shit abt the anchors, ppl that can control all elements the same???? Idk

Element guardians

- basically four teens that control the elements and do shit together

- at some point i gave all of them dragons

- still thinking abt this sometimes

- The originals:

Luna: the shameless self insert , earth, pony girl, bland blonde i think

Katy: Air, best friend, bubbly

Dan: The jock. Fire

Nick: The emo. Water

At some point Katy became Skye and Dan and Nick got other names but yeah-

Talent Academy

The story thats basically a ripoff of Alice academy. Like a school with hierachie between the students and ranks and shit and different houses and the students have powers IDK

If you read through all of this, bless you for showing interest in my stories ;) And hey, if you want me to rant about any of them, just send me an ask or a message!!!

[mybumpbirthandbeyond]

Motivation

I understand from the beginning this blog has been about me – mainly my pregnancy, my birth and my ‘recovery.’ I have said before, but I continue to be overwhelmed at the reaction and response to what I have written, from people I haven’t spoken to in years, to possibly people I haven’t even met. With that in mind I now feel I might need to do a wee introduction to myself.

I live in Scotland with my husband, our son and our two Springer Spaniels. I am now living in the town I was born in. I went to primary school here and went to secondary school not too far away. My mum taught at my primary school, and my dad taught at my secondary school. (Yeah, I didn’t have many boyfriends at school – especially as my dad was head of PE and one of the rugby coaches!!). I think it’s important to speak about a major thing that happened in my life, because it might explain my mindset. When I was 14, my dad was killed crossing the road in Spain when he was on a golf holiday. It is the worst thing that has ever happened to me and my family, and that hasn’t changed. It’s been 18 years, but it you never get used to that – you learn to live with it. Every single happy occasion is tinged with sadness knowing he is missing it all. That will continue for the rest of my life. It’s become even more apparent now I have my son – he would have loved being a grandparent and would have been the best Grandpa ever. Cailean is Gaelic for Colin – we named him for my dad. We pronounce it differently to the Scottish Gaelic pronunciation, but I suspect it’s similar to the Irish. I’m okay with that. 😊 I mention all of this, because no matter how tough this journey gets, I’ve been through worse things, and I know there are always going to people in a worse position than me.

I studied Law with Spanish at the University of Glasgow. I lived for a year in Granada in the south of Spain studying Law IN Spanish as part of my degree. I became a lawyer in Glasgow, having trained in civil and criminal court practice. As a newly qualified, I then focused solely on crime. It’s less like Suits or Legally Blonde, more like: this cell smells of pee, the client stinks of alcohol, and I’m at a police station until 5am and I have to leave for court at 7am miles away. The gown was pretty cool though – makes you feel quite powerful, like a superhero – defender of the neds and the smelly. I do sometimes miss it – the challenge of being constantly intellectually challenged and thinking on your feet (literally on your feet in the courtroom) by some of the brightest legal minds in the country. The buzz of winning my first trial and being able to learn at the feet of the masters in High Court cases when instructing Counsel. I always thought I’d end up wearing the wig myself, but sadly legal aid is a shitshow and crime really doesn’t pay – what they don’t tell you is, it doesn’t pay the lawyers either!

Fun fact – the Spanish always comes in handy on holiday, and actually we were already booked to go to Mallorca when the doctor told us we were pregnant. Bit shit I couldn’t have a cocktail on holiday, but there you go! I had bought new clothes for it and by the end of the 10 days – yes 10 DAYS - only weeks pregnant, I couldn’t fit some of them! Start of the story of my life…We were in the hotel restaurant and they had homemade ice cream. Anyone who has been pregnant knows whippy or soft ice cream is a no-no. Anything has to be from pasteurised milk. It was roasting, the ice cream looked amazing – what can I say. I used my language skills to explain to the waitress I was pregnant, and was the ice cream made from pasteurised milk? She congratulated me and had to go and check with the chef but thankfully it was. So the first person in the world we told we were pregnant, was the waitress. It was in Spanish so I didn’t really feel it counted, but it makes me laugh even now. Even more so when ‘pregnant,’ in Spanish is a word that looks like it could mean ‘embarrassed.’ You can imagine when I was Uni student you didn’t want to be making that mistake in conversation!!!

Hope that gives a bit of an insight, but back to the rehab. In my last blog I mentioned the decision I made to definitely have surgery and hitting the reset button multiple times in preparation. I was due to appear at Grainne’s conference in Glasgow. It was so oversubscribed, that Lyndsey ended up sorting another date here at my local hospital for anyone who couldn’t make it to the Glasgow date. That was due to happen the end of March. The week of the conference I was due to see Lyndsey, having not seen her since the end of February. I’d still been working hard in between times and progressing where I could but it always helps to have a goal and something to aim for.

I had a trip to Belfast at the start of March. Some of you will have seen my posts about that – yet more queries about if I was pregnant, yet more jeans that didn’t fit. This story was getting old. Happily, there was a tiny gym in my lovely hotel and after work the two days, I hit that. I was feeling pretty good but as I mentioned I had motivation – when you know you’re going to be tested in a room full of some of the best pelvic health physios in the country, you don’t want to look weak and useless. If I’m going to be tested on my ability to perform a crunch with a double leg lift (thanks Antony!) then you better believe I’m going to work my butt off to give a good account of myself. Not only that, but Antony was due over to Scotland in May to run a course for fitness pros and physiotherapists (thank you Rosie!). We had agreed I would donate my body to the cause and we would finally get the chance to meet in person. Powerful thing motivation.

Then it just disappeared. Coronavirus hit and my appointment and the conference were postponed (understandably). Lyndsey kindly called me, which was unexpected, to tell me she was being redeployed to a ward and did I still have contact with Grainne and Antony in case I needed anything? That’s the incredible thing about these people – they’re not just amazing at their jobs, they are amazing people. That is why I am so lucky. That is why I knew I would cope – even if it was a bit rubbish knowing I will go months without physical feedback and what felt like nothing to work for. Wrong.

I’ve mentioned perhaps only a few times (!) how lucky I am and how much respect and admiration and just pure gratitude I have for those on my team. I’ve not even seen Grainne and Antony in person, but I undoubtedly count them as part of my team. How could I not? They have helped me progress in a way I never thought was possible. They have advised me in ways Lyndsey admitted she couldn’t, because if it isn’t for the likes of Grainne and Antony, that information just does not exist, or certainly not enough of it does. I am more informed now than I ever have been. That is down to them and everything I have been advised. I owe it to all of them, to work at this and continue to work at this regardless. I owe it to myself, but a bigger driver is not letting them down. That is almost more important to me than doing this for me is.

I was unwell for the first few weeks of lockdown. It was suspected kidney stones, possible kidney infection, after I discovered blood in my urine. Pretty scary especially when you’re in a lot of pain. When the X ray and urine came back negative and the antibiotics didn’t work (yep a trip to the GP and hospital during a pandemic) – the doctor was perplexed so made an urgent referral to Urology. They then made an urgent referral to Radiology for me to have a CT scan. Radiology apparently decided it was routine, not urgent, so I had to chase around three different departments. With it being ‘routine’ – they weren’t doing routine appointments during the pandemic so I wouldn’t be seen. Urology decided to get it upgraded as urgent as I still had blood in my urine. Finally, they agreed and two weeks later (this has now been going on over a month) I have now had my CT scan. I’m waiting to hear from Urology.

In that time, I felt pretty demotivated – I was in pain so rehab felt out of the question. The pain was mostly in my side, but also my lower back and lower abdomen. Not really helpful to then engage in exercises testing your core. Time started to tick by, but I was exhausted and just not really in the mood. Then a lightbulb just flickered on and stayed on. How could I possibly explain the next time I spoke with one of my physios I just haven’t bothered? I wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye and I would be ashamed. The pain was still there, albeit duller than it had been, so I pushed through. This is the resilience I was referring to in my previous post. I needed to forget about my kidneys and just get on with it. That’s what childbirth is about after all – you may be in pain or discomfort, but you just get on with it because there’s no choice. So do what you have to, but just do it.

I started posting about it again on social media. I had been relatively quiet, but I thought I needed to get accountable. I knew there was a chance they were watching (I wasn’t wrong). I addressed the things I would like to do and how I was managing that without direct feedback from my physios – I bought an abdominal slant bench with the idea I could try to get to full sit-ups. Lyndsey had discovered a 30 degree angle was probably ideal until I could overcome the initial angle from flat to 30 degrees – after that I was fine. Then I had a message from Grainne who had seen my story on Instagram. She told me to just do it. Forget the bench just do it. It seemed like a piece of simple advice, but she’ll never know how much that impacted my mindset (unless she reads this of course!). It lit a spark of less thinking, more doing. So I did exactly that, and before I knew it I had reached 15 full sit-ups. My feet were locked and that is still the case now, but I never needed them to be before everything. I’m aiming to get to a point where they aren’t locked. That’s the point - I have goals back, it’s just I’m setting them and not my physios.

That then gave me the freedom to test my boundaries – press-ups were on my knees and had been for a while. What if I did them full on my feet how I used to? Started with 4, then 8 on my knees. Next night, 6 on my feet, 6 on my knees. Next night, 8 on my feet, 4 on my knees. Then it was 8 on my feet, but 8 on my knees. Now, it’s more like 16 on my feet, and 14 on my knees – I’ve just done it over two reps. I started doing more upper body work with the dumbbells I already had. Then I started doing my planks on my feet – I last only a few seconds but this is usually after my press-ups and sit-ups so I’m letting that go at the moment. I don’t use the bench now: until the other night – I tried a few reverse crunches. My back wasn’t a fan, so will have to leave that on the shelf for just now and come back to it. Instead I’ve been trying to build more strength in the crunch with the double leg lift – I’ll explain why in a couple of paragraphs.

In between I got a very welcome email from Grainne – given how everything was going, she wanted to do another consult. Not just that, but somehow in the midst all of the chaos, she had put together an online version of the course that was due to take place in person and I was very kindly being given access as the live case study. Told you – amazing person! The course was really interesting, and amazing to work through - no surprises here. It was fantastic to get the opportunity to read more about what I was going through and the more clinical side. Of course, there are bits there are lost on me, but I like to learn so that’s not a problem. She is going to continuously add to the section on me because there will be further updates, but it’s crazy to listen back to the consults we had when we first started.

Our next consult was even better than I thought it was going to be, because both Antony and Lyndsey were also able to join. Lyndsey had started this whole journey of mine and was the reason I even know about Grainne and Antony – I was delighted she would get to speak to them ‘face to face’ as it were, for the first time. With my back giving me a bit of bother, I altered what exercises I was doing in the lead up to the call. I absolutely knew Antony was going to ask me to do the crunch with the double leg lift and I really wanted to not want to collapse in a heap like I did last time. I had to prove the work I had put in and that I was getting stronger. I actually practised some but had to stop, so was slightly dreading that part, but it’s amazing what strength you find when you need it. It was more or less the first thing I was asked to do, aside from stand there so they could see what the appearance was like. There was a comment or two that it looked good, but I didn’t really pay attention too much. Funny how I did a few days later…

I was honest about my lack of motivation, but Antony said it was a good thing – athletes need days off and come back feeling refreshed, why wouldn’t i? That’s what I love about Antony – he challenges your beliefs and pushes you to be better. He has such a knack for stating something so simply that it really strikes a chord and resonates.

The double leg lift and crunch went well enough, but the repetition tired me out. Not sure if I’ll ever get over that the way things are, but it definitely went better than last time. Antony admitted it was the hardest thing he would ask me to do and he always starts there. Good thing I love a challenge! One of the biggest takeaways I had from this were two-fold: I hold my breath when it gets hard. When I’m pushed to my physical limit, I hold my breath. Antony asked me to sing a note as I did a sit-up. I tried so hard not to laugh as it seemed so ridiculous. They must have all thought I sounded like the cat’s chorus!! (I promise I can actually sing better than in that video if anyone ever sees it). In my defence, it’s the same part of the sit-up that previously stopped me from doing one at all – that’s where I lose it. I now have a decent marker for progress though – when I can hold that note, I’ll have gotten stronger and sit-ups will be easier.

Secondly, when we were wrapping up at the end, Lyndsey said how much she appreciated being on the call. She said something she had never said to me– she knew she couldn’t help me get to where I wanted to be which is why she told me to listen to that podcast all those months ago. That was huge. You worry people are offended when you seek a second opinion, yet here was Lyndsey saying she was grateful they were able to help when she thought she couldn’t. See what I mean? Incredible people – I can’t say it enough.

When I said I had nothing to work for I was wrong. I’m not just working for myself – I’m working for my team. As little information as there is out there about Diastasis Recti, these people are trying to change that. The least I can do to thank them for everything they are doing for me, and so many other women out there, is to work my ass off to show their research, their advice, their practises work. That they are right, and I am proof of that. If you’ve seen my recent post, you’ll know what I mean. In under 6 months my body shape has changed massively – even to the point that I am actually noticing now. I would never have agreed before about that. I refused to believe or listen when people told me ‘your tummy is coming down.’ Oh yeah? Well how come the gap is no smaller and the measurements say it isn’t? I haven’t had those measurements taken since February. If I was gambler, I’d bet at least the circumference has come down since then.

I’m now back to doing more of the type of exercises I’ve always done at the gym. That’s liberating in itself, but I also have freedom to decide where this goes. I probably always had that freedom, but the reality is I was holding myself back – I was constantly checking in to make sure it was okay. That’s nobody’s fault – its partly the way people are trained to treat women with diastasis recti, but it’s partly down to my attitude of not wanting to do wrong; not wanting to disappoint. That’s innate in me and always has been.

There’s very little that is off the table now. I jokingly said I’d like to get to pull-ups. Well the response was a resounding, unanimous ‘DO IT’. I’m going to be grateful for the rest of my life to these people and I can’t even begin to thank them enough. They haven’t just given me all the advice, support and help when I needed it most – they’ve given me motivation, a positive mindset, and the freedom to choose the direction that this goes. They have backed me all the way and continue to do so. There is still such a long way to go, but what will be a very difficult and no doubt painful journey, is made a hell of lot easier with them on my team. I’ll need this when the days get tough and there will be many of those ahead. This is my motivation when I hit the reset button.

[survivorkvaloya]

Episode #3: “I Wanna Start S#!t” - Chelsea

Honestly, Steffen, not much has happened for me in the first two episodes. We'll go over it really quick. I liked my original tribe of 5 with Jules, Liam, Christine, and Ryan. They were all awesome. My mentor, Colin, a fellow House of Shade alumni--also awesome. We won the flash game challenge (of the 5 competitors of my tribe, I scored 1 point which landed me in the middle of our tribe rankings). I bonded with Christine early. That could be something to hang onto. The following round was a crapshoot competition and we won that, too! On my new tribe, I like Lauren and Jack and I also have Christine there. I really wish there was more dirt or drama because I love writing lengthy confessionals, but things are just getting started here!

Alright. So I guess no one wants pleasant kind hearted lily around. They want mean angry bitter ass lily which I'm happy to give but they ain't gonna like it. I got an extra vote on this island thing that no one is gonna know about because fuck these bitches. I know I will need the upper hand later when the couples try to destroy the singles. When I get out of reflection island I'm gonna try to buddy up with Connor and ask him to be my new mentor. Jules I'm pissed. I wish I knew exactly what happened but I will try to get to the bottom of it and make sure all those losers pay. I hope you start feeling better too. I feel like I can't trust anyone after that but Jackson seems pretty genuine of not knowing or not being able to do anything. But, because of this HUGE betrayal everyone on that other tribe can fend for themselves. I'll be all nice nice yeah I'd love to work with you but nah. I ain't interested. Let's be clear here, I have no loyalties and I'm not playing some kind of loyal game. You cut my mentor ill cute you. BYE Andreas also told me about Jules getting voted out most likely before the vote which is cool. I appreciate that. But Nicholas Colin we ain't buddies. I'm rooting for a student to win but it ain't y'all. Tonight I will hopefully put together a board of what original tribes people were on their swap tribe and who their mentor is. I think this will help me get a better picture of what's going on. Also, being bitter as fuck only two days in? My aesthetic. 

Oh and also I miss the damn creative challenge? There better be more to come because I'm sad. I've never done a music video challenge this was my shot and these bitches took me out!!! What the HECKIE???? 

nothing's really happened imo. this main is slow. i want drama. nicholas said there's a majority cross tribe alliance. where's my invite? i wanna start shit. my goal is just to make merge so i can blow up, the best way "Trixsea" Steele knows how. :) :) :)

I know i killed this music video challenge, but Chelsea told me that me and only 3 others submitted anything and after re-reading the rules and seeing that its an extra 5 points for every appearance we could actually be fucked. It wouldn't be to big of a problem because honestly I like going to tribal and getting to vote people off, but I also know of the cross tribe majority alliance who supposedly has majority on our tribe right now. If we lose this I'll probably try to blow up and either shake that alliance up or go out in a blaze of chaotic glory.  

Im at tribal right now and I was getting a sick feeling that I was going to be the one voted out... But I always feel like that. I think that I am going to get my team together, Liam got a vote and if he wasn't sure if he wanted to work with me (even thought he said he wanted to) so yeah.... Me, Andreas, Colin, Liam, Ryan, Jackson... Then we have the numbers? yeah cus there is only nine of us rn. We could pull in Conner to make life really easy and to add a couple number just encase. If we do that then out of everyone we would have: Me and Liam, Colin and Brett, Ryan and Jackson, Andreas and... someone (-_- sorry) and then Conner who lost their student. Thats 9 people in a game with 18? maybe that  about half. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore but I do know that this needs to happen soon before I get bumped to the side... I do no like being a side bitch 

Ahhhh, I'm literally so in love with this challenge it was so much fun and Chelsea did such an amazing job editing it. If we don't win I'll be shocked...and scared. Lauren disappeared for a bit and didn't participate so like I'm a little...or a lot worried for her. As of right now I literally love this tribe. QuilLynn is super smart and I adore her, Willow and Chelsea are sweet and adorable and Brett is a gem. I guess the only person I haven't clicked with is Jack but for now everything's looking good and Im hoping we win the challenge :)

Whew, I'm so excited to have won immunity! The challenge was so much fun and now...its messy cause alliances are starting to form and QuilLynn told me about one that apparently me and Lauren are in? So I don't know if Lauren's making deals without me or what, but nobody's approached me specifically and I'm not in any chats so! I'm not sure what's going on and I don't like it. I think right now my #1 is QuilLynn. She's smart, sweet and very easy to talk to so I officially adore her and wanna protect her at all costs. I need to get things in order with Lauren cause I don't wanna get in the middle of some warfare we don't need to be in. 

We lost. Again. This is the worst. My tribe is cursed. Kinda. It's like a blessing in disguise for me tbh. I'm using this time to recover from last round and regroup. There's more talk of a majority alliance forming and I wanna make sure it happens so I can solidify my place in it. I think my number 1 ally has shifted from Nicholas to Jackson now. Jackson is literally my fave person in this game. He's so nice and fun to talk to, he's socially and strategically aware, and most importantly, he's really cute and nice to look at so! I still got that alliance with JD and Andreas but I am not really loyal to it. JD seems to playing messily and I've mentioned before Andreas seems too well connected for his own good. Anyway, onto this vote! Literally? The only thing I've heard? Is Connor? but....... that's all I've heard. Connor isn't putting out another name. No one else is putting out another name. And that's a recipe for paranoia in my mind. I wanna trust the majority that's been built, JD says Jackson and Ryan will be voting with us, and I trust them 10000% but I'm a paranoid hoe. 

my confessional game so far has been weak af so far like I literally forgot to write a confessional last round, so I guess I'll just do a quick recap. Essentially I have mixed feelings about my tribe bc there are 3 other people who I really like Chelsea, QuilLynn, and Gage. We ended up creating an alliance and QuilLynn titled it "arent you Klad I didn't say fjorden" which is iconic! Anyway that cookie challenge last round killed me but I'm glad I came up with the strategy to split 3 on 0, 3 on 9 and 3 in the middle. Lily was convinced that they weren't going to put all their cookies on one of our tribe mates so like I'm kinda glad I proved her wrong lmao idk. As for the people I have mixed feelings about Jack is okay I mean he usually replies but in PMs he can be kinda boring and give one word answers. Christine is really nice but she just doesnt reply a lot? maybe she just doesnt like small talk or something. Brett, I've heard really good things about him but he only replies when its about him lol, like if I ever start sharing one of my stories or whatever idk he just stops replying lol. Lauren, okay shes super cute but seems inactive. Anyway I was like super excited that we got to do the music video challenge this round, its always super fun even though what I make is always really awkward lmao. Anyway like 4 people from our tribe didnt submit, Jack was sick (so he says), Gage was moving which is alright, and Lauren (didn't say anything about why she didn't do it lol), and Chelsea was editing so its all good. Shes like a really good editor and our video turned out great so I'm glad we won even though we had like 4 people in the video compared to them having like 7. So then QuilLynn informs me that Chelsea told her that theres a majority alliance of like 8ish people?? like what the fuck thats about half the people here. So its Andreas-Jack, Colin-Brett, JD-Liam, and potentially Lauren-Christine. And there are a bunch of people we're unsure could be in the alliance. And then as Im hearing about the alliance I'm realizing that it consists of the people on my tribe who dont always reply to me lol or when they do are boring. And I mean I know im not the most interesting texter but these people are worse then me. So then I was talking to Ryan and asking him about his tribe and the reward and stuff to see if I could get any information about whether if hes in the majority or not without directly asking. So I was like whats was the idol clue reward this time and he told me about how it has to do with whoever gets the lowest score in the challenge, which sounds super complicated bc if someone with the lowest score doesnt have the clue then no one gets the idol. And he gave the clue to me, and I wanna give it to QuilLynn but we dont need too many people throwing the challenge and if one of our alliance members already has it then it should be alright, and it'll keep up my trust with Ryan since Im not supposed to give it to anyone so Im hoping its a win win. but he told me that I wasnt supposed to tell anyone about what the reward was but before he told me that I had already told my alliance bc I think I trust them more oops? but I think I want to trust Ryan. I told him that I heard rumors about a cross tribe majority alliance but thats all I knew, and he told me about a group of mentors and students talk about a potential alliance and they asked Danielle about it and she told Ryan she would try to get him in if she could. So then I tried talking to Danielle just making small talk or whatever and she only gave one word answers, which was fucking weird? Like some shit is clearly going on that I dont know about? I can already tell im becoming messy af which I wanted to not try to do as much as I did last season but maybe im just naturally a messy player and theres nothing I can do about it lol. Anyway I hope the majority isnt something I should worry about and I hope they self destruct somehow or Im just hoping that it doesnt exist at all and it was just a rumor made up to scare people or some shit. 

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

Initial Thoughts--6x16 Mother’s Little Helper

Well that episode was quite the wild ride, wasn’t it?  We got a little bit of everything--pirates, Neverland, a nasty new villain, pirates (specifically a certain one-handed one who is amazing), twists and turns, an evil giant spider (could have done without that!), pirates, a tragic backstory, Emma and Killian both fighting like crazy to get back to each other, pirates, a double-cross from someone who’s being controlled, pirates, a new twist to the author story that ups the stakes, pirates, Lost Boys out for blood, and...did I mention pirates?  Because I liked the Hook/Blackbeard scenes.  A lot.

Overall impression:  Excellent episode in the midst of what’s turning into an excellent arc!  They have me on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what happens next...and I don’t even have a clue what that might be!  Speculating’s fun, but when a narrative leaves you without even a guess where they’re going next?  That’s OUAT at it’s best!

Okay, so 3 main plot lines this week: 1. Henry and his little author incident. 2. Gideon’s backstory with the Black Fairy and his further attempts to kill Emma. and 3. Hook trying to find a way back to Emma.  Under the cut, let’s dive a little more deeply into each one of those storylines.

Henry, the author and the last chapter

Very curious what happened to Henry when he went into that little trance.  I wonder what exactly he wrote--and in what language.

Maybe some people were looking forward to seeing Isaac again, but...eh...4b was one of my least favorite seasons, and he just got on my nerves with his whininess....and he just kept it up in this episode.

I was glad Regina called Isaac’s bluff.  She knew she had him over a barrel.  He may have info she needed, but he wanted to get out of Storybrooke more than she wanted his info, so the ball was totally in her court.

Interesting about the story being in it’s final chapter, though.  I wonder what that means, exactly?  How will the savior’s story end?  What happens after the final chapter is written? Could we be lucky and get a season 7 about our faves living their Happy Endings?

Isaac explained what’s going on with the book, but he didn’t really address the whole Henry situation.  How does Regina keep Henry from having further such incidents?  What happens if he keeps having them?  Is there any significance to that other language he wrote?  

So many questions!

I will say, kudos to Regina for working so hard to try to fix the EQ’s messes!

Gideon/Emma/the Black Fairy/Rumbelle

Rumple had some messed up parents!

The Black Fairy is shaping up to be quite the formidable villain.  There’s something chilling and evil about her that goes beyond what we’ve seen from other villains.  And Rumple definitely came by his penchant for manipulation honestly!

Not surprised she cast the Dark Curse, but her attitude toward the children she kidnapped is curious.  It’s almost like she honestly does see herself as their mother, as someone they should love, despite her cruelty.  In that sense, she’s your stereotypical fairy tale wicked step-mother.

Chilling how she was able to brainwash Gideon and turn him from a scared little boy who was terrified of her to her second in command.  Seems a bit of Stockholm Syndrome took place there.

I liked that it was his friend that he wasn’t able to save that snapped him back into a desire to fight the Black Fairy.  Not cool on her part, though, to orchestrate the whole situation to trick Gideon into betraying her.

How did I not see the heart control coming?  It’s classic Once Upon a Time.  How did the writers manage to blindside me with it?  Kudos to them!

In the present, I dearly loved seeing Emma fighting back and ready to beat the crap out of Gideon to get Killian back.  I get why Emma reacted the way she did in the last episode, but I love having the fighter back!

It showed what a genuinely good person Emma is that she took Rumbelle’s suggestions, and went to Gideon--after all he’s done to her--genuinely trying to help him and give him back hope.  I liked that she was willing to help him.

Bringing a gigantic Shelob-wannabe spider to the sorcerer’s mansion in order to kill Emma?  Ugh!  That whole scene, from the moment Gideon trapped Emma in the web to the moment the spider mummified her felt like it was right out of Lord of the Rings.  Gideon was Gollum, Emma was Frodo, and the spider was obviously Shelob.  I guess that makes Rumple Sam....?  Okay, that’s weird.

I was glad Rumple saved Emma’s life, and I am glad that he’s stopped being the absolute worst in order to try to save his son from becoming evil.

Yet still...there were definitely things about Rumbelle in this episode that struck me a bit wrong.  Even when they’re at their best, their morality is just a little bit...off.

I get both Belle and Rumple wanting to help their son.  I get them hoping for his ultimate goodness, hoping they can get through to him and bring him back from the dark side.  I get them not wanting someone to harm their son.  But I think they make a huge mistake when they only look at who they think he might be deep down and they ignore, downplay, or dismiss the terrible things he’s done.

No, no one’s born evil.  Yes, Gideon had a terrible childhood, but you know what?  That doesn’t give him licence to try to kill an innocent woman who was genuinely trying to help him.  Newsflash: nearly everyone in Storybrooke had a tragic backstory.  Maybe they weren’t raised by someone as dark as the Black Fairy, but they had terrible traumas as well.  The heroes overcame them and went on to be heroic.  It is possible.  What makes one a hero is not how good their life was in the past, but how they choose to live their life going forward.  *Note, in all of this discussion about my issues with Rumbelle, keep in mind they don’t know that Gideon’s heart is being controlled by the Black Fairy, so it’s kind of irrelevant to my discussion of their behavior.*

By dismissing what he’s done as “he’s really a good person deep down, give him a chance,” they’re really not doing Gideon any favors.  They are kind of enabling him in living in a way that will ultimately be his destruction. (Granted, Belle is less guilty of this than Mr. “they just see things in black and white” Gold.  She acknowledges that Emma was right in what she said; it’s just that her mother’s heart can’t stand to see her son suffer, which is understandable.)

It also frustrated me greatly the way they treated Emma and insisted she treat Gideon with kid gloves.  She owes that kid nothing.  He’s tried to kill her twice now, shows no indication he’ll stop until someone stops him, and he banished her True Love to a distant land just when she needs him most.  Emma has a right to defend herself in whatever way is necessary.  If Gideon ends up hurt as a consequence of that, it’s on him.  Emma didn’t start this fight.  She never sought Gideon out.  She’s done everything she can for him.  Whatever bad things befall him are on him....

...or they would be if he were truly in control of himself.  As it is, he’s not in control of his heart, so he can’t stop himself from trying to kill her.  It turns out, Gideon needs saving more than any of them know.

And now the Black Fairy is in Storybrooke.  Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

Killian and Blackbeard

Ngl.  I would watch an entire episode of nothing but Killian and Blackbeard one-upping and sassing each other.  That was A+ quality stuff there!

Killian, thoroughly pirate and thoroughly hero was hot.  I mean, he’s always hot, but there’s a certain...pirate swagger that’s been missing for a while, and words cannot express how happy I was to see it back.

That one handed shuffling thing Killian did...be still my heart.  (How many takes did it get Colin to do that without dropping cards everywhere, bless him.)

Excellent strategic thinking on Killian’s part!  His strategy was brilliant.  Win or lose, he knew he’d get Blackbeard to do what he wanted.  If he won, he just got the bean.  If he lost, Blackbeard would still take him home, even if just to get his newly acquired loot.

I love how unconcerned Killian was about Blackbeards taunts about him giving up everything for a woman.  Emma’s more important to him than anything or anyone, and he couldn’t care less if Blackbeard wants to rib him about it until the cows come home.

But of course, Killian couldn’t get home because of Gideon’s savior’s tears spell.  I love that they ended up on Neverland instead!  I’ve been hoping to get back to Neverland for a long time!

Those Lost Boys were intense!

Not at all cool of Blackbeard to knock Killian out and steal the boat.  Also...not the brightest of all ideas. 1. If he leaves Killian high and dry, how’s he ever going to get the Jolly that he won?  2. Where does he think he’s going to go?  They’re in the realm of Neverland.  Literally the only place he can go is the island.

I was a little disappointed we didn’t get a CS reunion in this episode, but in hindsight, it was probably best.  There was way too much going on in this episode.  The reunion couldn’t possibly get the focus it deserves amidst all the chaos.

Looking forward, next week looks like another wild ride!  Can’t wait until next Sunday!

[networkingdefinition]

Play Quotes

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• A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly. – Pablo Neruda • A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. – Wayne Gretzky • A name, for me, is a short way of working out what class that child comes from. Do I want my child to play with them? – Katie Hopkins • A person might be able to play without being creative, but he sure can’t be creative without playing. – Kurt Hanks • All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. – William Shakespeare • All work and no play doesn’t just make Jill and Jack dull, it kills the potential of discovery, mastery, and openness to change and flexibility and it hinders innovation and invention. – Joline Godfrey • All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy – and Jill a wealthy widow. – Evan Esar • All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. – Stanley Kubrick • American writer 1803-1882 Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning. – Diane Ackerman • And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. – Khalil Gibran • And yet the artist will go on with his work without knowing in some way if any of his representations are sound or unsound. The artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the subjects he represents, and that art is a form of play, not to be taken seriously. – Plato • As a matter of fact, I rarely ever play myself. – Frank Langella • As a performer, you can’t just sit around waiting for the phone to ring. You have to write and develop projects for yourself, because casting people aren’t always going to see you the way you want to be seen. Write a one-person show, shoot a short film, do plays, whatever – activity breeds activity. No one’s interested in a stay-at-home actress. – Wendi McLendon-Covey

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Play+', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_play').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_play img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars. – Henry Van Dyke • Bobby Fischer started off each game with a great advantage: after the opening he had used less time than his opponent and thus had more time available later on. The major reason why he never had serious time pressure was that his rapid opening play simply left sufficient time for the middlegame. – Edmar Mednis • But I’d play on everything from pop records to a lot of the glam stuff to rock stuff to classical stuff. I used to get called to do all those things, it was great. – Rick Wakeman • Champions keep playing until they get it right. – Billie Jean King • Colin Morgan gives a stunning performance in Parked; he plays Merlin in the BBC TV show and he says the two characters are like night and day. Watch him. He’s got everything it takes to be top notch. – Colm Meaney

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought. – Albert Einstein • Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious. – Peter Ustinov • Contemporary American psychiatrist It is a happy talent to know how to play. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of ones chosen form. – Stephen Nachmanovitch • Culture arises and unfolds in and as play… culture itself bears the character of play. – Johan Huizinga • Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays. – Friedrich Schiller • Darren Fletcher is the type of player who would walk over hot coals to play for his country, and he has done – Andy Gray • Deep meaning lies often in childish play. – Friedrich Schiller • Does it not appear to you versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius-versatility and playfulness? In my mind they are both essential. – Mary Russell Mitford • Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you. – Charlie Parker • Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there. – Miles Davis • Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. – Voltaire • For me right now I think being the world number one is a bigger deal than being the world champion because I think it shows better who plays the best chess. That sounds self-serving but I think it’s also right. – Magnus Carlsen • For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape, than that the government should play an ignoble part. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. • For Ripley I learned to play some songs on the piano, and I never really played them again. – Matt Damon • Generally the younger generation are not hard working. They will have to put in more effort to achieve results in tournaments. most of them can perform well but they cannot deliver when they play abroad. – Jahangir • God does not play dice. – Albert Einstein • He is not someone who went off to play in Europe and only a few Americans follow. He has the potential to be on magazine covers and more newspaper coverage. – Lamar Hunt • He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’ th’ sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort. – William Shakespeare • Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain. – Edward de Bono • I believe that the artist’s feelings are in some way generative. And I suspect that much of the artist’s most productive emotion – not all of it but much of it – is felt in the course of playing around with form. – Carter Ratcliff • I can play songs that I hear from a movie and just play it a few times on the keyboard. I will hit all the notes on the keyboard until I find the right key, and then I will play the rest of the song. – Callan McAuliffe • I come to sing for the people, not for the government. God made the sunshine for everyone and made the moon for everyone. We have to follow his example so we have to play music for everyone too. We have a message, and in order for our message to reach the people, we have to play. – Ziggy Marley • I didn’t really play dress up when I was a kid, and I’m really T-shirt and jeans-y. – Ellen Page • I didn’t really want to be an actor when I was growing up – I wanted to be whatever I was reading about or seeing at the time. When I read The Firm I wanted to be a lawyer; when I saw Top Gun, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. So that’s why acting probably turned out to be a good thing for me because I get to be people for five minutes or 90 minutes. I’d be curious to see if I had the attention span to be like those guys on 30 Rock and play the same character season after season. – Jason Sudeikis • I don’t give a damn about any actors. What good will John Barrymore do you with the bases loaded and two down in a tight ball game. Either I get the money (more than Barrymore), or I don’t play! – Babe Ruth • I don’t have a favorite place to play. – Keren Ann • I don’t have to support Bibi, his government or any other conservative organization in order to come and play music in Israel, for people who want to come and listen to music. I think it’s b******t to ask me to boycott Israel and not America. It’s interesting that some people choose to pick on Israel and isolate her… I was invited to perform and that’s why I’ll perform, as long as the border is open and I’m welcomed. I’m just coming to play. – Anton Newcombe • I don’t think I’m very ambitious at all. But I seem to play people who have that quality. – Catherine Keener • I don’t wear bright orange clothes or leopard skin boots, but it was really good fun to play someone that does and have an excuse too! – Sally Hawkins • I guess the characters I play may be at the more destructive edge of the spectrum, more damaged or whatever, but I find a lot of female roles uninteresting. – Lili Taylor • I had this health teacher who kept me after class one time, saying, ‘You’re missing a lot of class.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but I’m doing this play.’ He said, ‘Community theatre is not going to take you anywhere. Maybe you should stay in school’ – Dane DeHaan • I like to be other people, not me. And when you’re on the red carpet, it’s like, ‘Here’s Tom Hardy.’ I don’t want to be me. That’s why I play other people. – Tom Hardy • I like to play smart, three-dimensional women. I also like to play roles where the women are a little crazy. I just have a feel for crazy people. – Lili Taylor • I love doing voiceover work. I started doing voiceover work when I had just dropped out of school, and the first few professional jobs I got were plays, but then I started making money doing voiceovers. – Justin Long • I love the game – and I hate the Russians because they’ve almost ruined it. They only risk the title when they have to, every three years. They play for draws with each other but play to win against the Western masters. Draws make for dull chess, wins make for fighting chess. – Bobby Fischer • I love to play bid whist as much as I love football. – Emmitt Smith • I love to play games. I really like football, and I also like to ride horses. – Mary-Kate Olsen • I must be absolutely clear about this. Britain cannot accept the present situation on the Budget. It is demonstrably unjust. It is politically indefensible: I cannot play Sister Bountiful to the Community while my own electorate are being asked to forego improvements in the fields of health, education, welfare and the rest. – Margaret Thatcher • I often tell my students that you can’t worry about the end of an improv scene because the end is not up to you. You just play as hard as you can until someone changes the scene. The scene has changedthe end is not up to us. – Mark Sutton • I play an 89-year-old man whose wife has Alzheimer’s in a movie called ‘Still.’ I play a World War II veteran, I acted with my son and it’s called ‘Memorial Day.’ – James Cromwell • I play bad golf for good charities like the LA Police. – Robert Stack • I play guitar and I love the Beatles and melodic music. – Stephen Dorff • I play guitar, piano, bass and percussion. – Teena Marie • I play the guitar. I taught myself how to play the guitar, which was a bad decision… because I didn’t know how to play it, so I was a shitty teacher. I would never have went to me. – Mitch Hedberg • I play with microbes. There are, of course, many rules to this play…but when you have acquired knowledge and experience it is very pleasant to break the rules and to be able to find something nobody has thought of. – Alexander Fleming • I play, like, 12 instruments. Guitar, piano, harmonica, African drums… I’m working on mastering the accordion. – Lucas Grabeel • I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. – Leo Buscaglia • I think the media makes it tough to play in New York. There are so many papers and TV channels covering the Knicks and the expectations for the Knicks are so high. • I thought it was such a unique concept to play parents who happen to be super heroes and have a son who is going through puberty and starting high school. – Kelly Preston • I thought people would ask me really personal questions because I’ve shown more of myself, but it’s a comedy, and people understand that it’s a game we play. – Charlotte Gainsbourg • I was in lots of dodgy bands growing up and I always fancied myself in a band. But, you know, I was rubbish at writing music. So maybe one day I’ll play a rock star, or punk rocker. – Gemma Arterton • I wasn’t allowed to play in some universities in the United States and out of twenty-five concerts, twenty-three were canceled unless I would substitute my black bass player for my old white bass player, which I wouldn’t do. – Dave Brubeck • I’ll play Pretty Pretty Princess with you if you just let me watch a little bit of March Madness. – Matt Damon • I’d like to do plays, maybe a one man show. – Jean Reno • I’d like to one day play Amanda, the mother, in The Glass Menagerie. – Bernadette Peters • If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn’t be very many roles for me to play. – Michelle Yeoh • If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. – William Shakespeare • If music be the food of love, play on. – William Shakespeare • If you can play the first ten or fifteen moves in just as many minutes, you can be in a state of bliss for the rest of the game. If, on the other hand, Bronstein thinks for forty minutes about his first move, then time trouble is inevitable. – Alexander Kotov • If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. a lot of people don’t appreciate the moment until it’s passed. – Kanye West • If you play an audiotape of a yawn to blind people, they’ll yawn too. – Malcolm Gladwell • If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. – John Cleese • If your opponent is short (on time), play just as you played earlier in the game. If you are short keep calm, I repeat, don’t get flustered. Keep up the same neat writing of the moves, the same methodical examination of variations, but at a quicker rate. – Alexander Kotov • I’m not afraid to play my age. I never was. I’ve never been an ingenue. I like getting older. – Maria Bello • I’m sure civilizations will still evolve through play, or rather as play, since that seems to be a fundamental mechanism of our humanity. – Diane Ackerman • In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm. Michael Ignatieff, a former professor at Harvard and contributing writer for the magazine, is a member of Canada’s Parliament and deputy leader of the Liberal Party. – Michael Ignatieff • In art, everyone who plays wins. – Robert Genn • In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play. – Friedrich Nietzsche • In my early life my mother tried to create a nurturing environment in which my mind could play. Her big rule was “Never lose in your imagination.” She told me that thoughts were things and that I would become the thing I thought of most. This kind of empowerment is crucial to creative thinking. – Joey Reiman • In my sophomore year, a kid told me that the secret to getting women is to play really, really hard to get. I followed his advice, and I didn’t have so much as a date that year. – Greg Kinnear • In our play we reveal what kind of people we are. – Ovid • In the midst of wanton aggression, we still call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in its bodies and institutions – provisional or permanent. – David Ben-Gurion • It is better to play than do nothing. – Confucius • It is fair to say that insofar as sport is taken seriously by those who play it, then to that extent their conduct in play – their ability to deal with loss or victory, their ability to meld strategic thinking and brute force – can be taken as a small-scale model of how they, or others like them, might behave in life. – Will Self • It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it. – Maya Angelou • It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self. – Donald Woods Winnicott • It is my opinion that the 21st century will be the century of play, and the heteroglossic activity of artists in the 20th century has been the forecast. – Brian Sutton-Smith • It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them. – Leo Buscaglia • It is the fertile hallucination that makes paint so compelling. Paint is like the numerologist’s numbers, always counting but never adding up, always speaking but never saying anything rational, always playing at being abstract but never leaving the clotted body. – James Elkins • It is true that there are few plays of Shakespeare that I haven’t done. – Judi Dench • It may be that other developers are finding that their games play better on one platform over the other, so they’re choosing to migrate to that platform. – Sid Meier • It seemed like the right time. You reach a point when you say to yourself, ‘Do I want to keep doing this?’ There are other things on my plate I want to do — I’ve been writing a play, I’ve been neglecting my standup. – Joy Behar • It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity. – Michel de Montaigne • It’s been liberating to be able to play someone who’s a bada– or promiscuous, because that’s the opposite of who I am … It’s like a drug. – Jessica Alba • Its impossible to go onto the Tardis set and not play with things and fiddle with dials. – Jenna Coleman • It’s the faster bands that made me want to play guitar, bands like The Jam. – Graham Coxon • I’ve always been attracted to women who are assertive and have confidence – qualities older women possess. They’ve been on the Earth a little longer. They’re more seasoned. They don’t play games. They know what they want, and they’re not afraid to tell you. – Taye Diggs • I’ve always wanted to play a role in inspiring people to be better, to live higher quality lives and to feel good about the way that they look and feel. – Apolo Ohno • Jazz of the sort we play is a happy, extroverted music. You don’t have to think about it too much. – Chris Barber • Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game. – Michael Jordan • Late in the third quarter the Cougars were behind 12-0. Duva had completed 5 out of 20 passes. Edwards looked at Gifford Nielsen. Giff had never done a thing, in practice or anywhere else, to give us confidence in him. . . . . . . the coach said later. He sent him into the game anyway. First play was a 19-yard completion. Second was a 6-yard run. He threw again on the third play to running back Dave Lowry who ran 37 yards for a touchdown. – LaVell Edwards • Learning is not child’s play; we cannot learn without pain. – Aristotle • Let’s not play games. I was suggesting – you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. – Barack Obama • Life is a challenge, meet it! Life is a dream, realize it! Life is a game, play it! Life is love, enjoy it! – Sathya Sai Baba • Life is too short to play bad music – Bob Brozman • Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. – William Shakespeare • Looking at the championship-winning quarterbacks, Edwards remembered their particular talents: Gary Sheide: The image of Joe Namath. He even had Joe’s number. Had just a great feel and touch for the game. A great athlete who could play all the sports. He was more of a streak guy than any of them. He could miss two or three passes and then get hot and hit ten straight. He was the one who got it all started. – LaVell Edwards • Love is a game that two can play and both win. – Eva Gabor • Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, once told me that when a brass band plays at a small club back up in one of the neighborhoods, it’s as if the audience—dancing, singing to the refrains, laughing—is part of the band. – Tom Piazza • Man does not cease to play because he grows old, he grows old because he ceases to play. – Drew Lachey • Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. – Heraclitus • Man’s most serious activity is play. – George Santayana • Men should learn to live with the same seriousness with which children play. – Friedrich Nietzsche • My 10 year old son likes it. He’s trying to play guitar and everything. He likes that kind of music. – Merle Haggard • My acting’s very understated. I think my sad and happy don’t play that differently onscreen. – Bret McKenzie • My family was never cultural in that we never went to see plays, my mum wasn’t very into films. – Gemma Arterton • Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. – Paulo Coelho • Of course, money matters to everyone even if some don’t want to admit it. If I won the Race to Dubai, I look at that prize money and think it could pay off my new house or the range I’m building. I am privileged to play golf for a living – look around St Andrews, that’s my office. • One aspect of play is the importance of laughter, which has physiological and psychological benefits. Did you know that there are thousands of laughter clubs around the world? People get together and laugh for no reason at all! – Daniel H. Pink • One man in his time plays many parts. – William Shakespeare • One night I was in the players’ parking lot at the Fleet Center in my Celtics warm-ups about a half hour before a game, waiting for one of my dealers to come up from Fall River, because if I didn’t get my stuff I was too sick to even go through the pre-game layup line, never mind actually play in the game. – Chris Herren • One will only be free when one plays and one’s society will become a piece of art. – Herbert Marcuse • Paul Klee seems to handle colors and dreams as if they both came out of a box of children’s toys. He plays and dreams with whatever he finds. – Jean Helion • Play becomes joy, joy becomes work, work becomes play. – Johannes Itten • Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning…They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play. – Fred Rogers • Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special function of its own in human experience. – Johan Huizinga • Play is the exultation of the possible. – Martin Buber • Play is your route to mastery. – Sara Genn • Playful arising is authorized by both risk and trust in the process and in oneself. To be truly playful and improvisational one must not look for results. – Joshua L. Goldberg • Russia will occupy most of the good food lands of central Europe while we have the industrial portions. We must find some way of persuading Russia to play ball. – Henry L. Stimson • Self-interest speaks all manner of tongues and plays all manner of parts, even that of disinterestedness. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld • Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself. – Miles Davis • Sound is not simply what we hear or play, but equally a feeling in the body – Howard Snell • Surely all God’s people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play. – John Muir • That’s what I love about acting, you get to find little pieces of yourself in every character you play. – Julianna Margulies • The artist must ever play and experiment with new means of arranging experience, even though the majority of his audience may prefer to remain fixed in their old perceptual attitudes. – Marshall McLuhan • The beauty of playing together is meeting in the One. – Stephen Nachmanovitch • The cherished dream of every chessplayer is to play a match with the World Champion. But here is the paradox: the closer you come to the realization of this goal, the less you think about it. – Mikhail Tal • The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. – Carl Jung • The creative mind plays with the object it loves. – Carl Jung • The creative writer does the same as the child at play; he creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously. – Sigmund Freud • The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable. – Carl Jung • The Eeyore Educational System sees childhood as a waste of time, a luxury that society cannot afford . . . Put children in school at the earliest age possible; load them down with homework; take away their time, their creativity, their play, their power; then plug them into machines. • The Holy Spirit, in the variety of his gifts, unites us and enables us to contribute to the building up of the Church in holiness. In this great work, each of us has a part to play; each of us, as a “living stone”, is needed for the growth and the beauty of God’s holy temple. Let us ask the Lord to help us to take an ever more active part in the Church’s life and mission, guided by the Holy Spirit and with Jesus as our cornerstone. – Pope Francis • The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both. – James A. Michener • The only time it dominates is during a solo, or when we play a low blues and I put figures in behind Eric’s vocals. There’s never any real problem fitting guitar and organ together. – Alan Price • The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression. – Brian Sutton-Smith • The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery. – Erik Erikson • The Play’s the Thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King. – William Shakespeare • The play’s the thing. – William Shakespeare • The quality of a play is the quality of its ideas. – George Bernard Shaw • The spirit of playful competition is, as a social impulse, older than culture itself and pervades all life like a veritable ferment. Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play….We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play…it arises in and as play, and never leaves it. – Johan Huizinga • The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day. – Dr. Seuss • The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play. – Arnold J. Toynbee • The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything. – Friedrich Nietzsche • The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen, the feeling that whatever happens, it’s okay… you’re either free to play, or you’re not. – John Cleese • The world is open for play, that everything and everybody is mockable, in a wonderful way. – Robin Williams • There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago. – J. Robert Oppenheimer • There are times when I love to play all kinds of complicated games in painting. But this is one case when I need to be fairly straightforward. I’ll just try to paint the man, his intelligence, his amiability and his stature, maybe paint him fairly close to humor and try to get it just right. – Nelson Shanks • There is for many a poverty of play. – Donald Woods Winnicott • There is something about seeing real people on a stage that makes a bad play more intimately, more personally offensive than any other art form. – Anatole Broyard • There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness. – Gelett Burgess • There’s such a sense of theatre in getting glammed up; it’s like putting on a play or short film. – Felicity Jones • There’s that thing that can happen to you when you meet somebody and you don’t consider them extraordinary at all and then they do something like play the cello or write amazing poetry or sing and suddenly you look at them completely differently. – Yvonne Prinz • There’s very little to be said for learning a piece note by note, reading the rhythmic markings, practising the fingerings and following your instructor’s suggestions, if you haven’t any idea how the music will eventually sound and feel. If you learn a piece mechanically, you may have to ‘unlearn’ it before you can play it with expression and feeling. – Barry Green • They said I couldn’t play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York. – Roddy McDowall • This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. – Alan Watts • Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched. – Miguel de Cervantes • To learn to play seriously is one of the great secrets of spiritual exploration. – Rachel Pollack • To start your life as a character of 120 years when you are in your late thirties, and then go back in time about 20 years later to play the same character who is your own age then, its very complicated, but very interesting. – Ian McDiarmid • To stimulate creativity one must develop childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition. – Albert Einstein • To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it! – Charlie Chaplin • Tony Vigorito has grown a cult following of thousands for one reason – his stuff is fun to read… It’s… filled with the freshness and the freewheeling independence that made his reputation… This book is the ‘work’ of one of the least pretentious and most enjoyable to read novelists at play in America today. – Kris Saknussemm • Usually most characters I play are quite realistic. – Virginie Ledoyen • Very often the effort men put into activities that seem completely useless turns out to be extremely important in ways no one could foresee. Play has always been the mainspring of culture. – Italo Calvino • We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing – Charles E. Schaefer • We can’t all be Einstein (because we don’t all play the violin). At the very least, we need a sort of street-smart science: the ability to recognize evidence, gather it, assess it, and act on it. – Judith Stone • We could play them through the week, and then the weekend we could play the black joints. I learned to be very versatile and learned to love it. So it stays with me even up to now. – Little Milton • We don’t play slow and we don’t play fast, we play half fast – Louis Armstrong • We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. – George Bernard Shaw • We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square. – Michelle Obama • We live in a world of entertainment in full color with a lot of fast action, a world in which many children grow up thinking that if it isn’t fun, it is boring and not worthwhile. Even in family activities we need to strike a balance between play and work. – Joe J. Christensen • We often say that psi is like musical ability: it is widely distributed in the populate, and everyone has some ability and can participate to some extent – in the same way that the most nonmusical person can learn to play a little Mozart on the piano. On the other hand, there is no substitute for innate talent, and there is no substitute for practice. – Russell Targ • We tend to think of the Faustian man, the one who fabricates, manipulates, seduces and ends up destroying. But the new image will be man the creator, the artist, the player. – Jean Houston • Well, I am very happy that I was able to play a part in bringing music from the streets onto the radio and into modern culture, I worked very hard and always believed in the sounds I was creating. – Ice T • Well, I play Jews and parrots. Parrots are how I’ve branched out. – Gilbert Gottfried • Well, it’s a marvelous night for a Moondance With the stars up above in your eyes… And I’m trying to please to the calling Of your heart-strings that they play soft and low And all the night’s magic seems to whisper and hush And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush… One more Moondance with you in the moonlight On a magic night – Van Morrison • What if not just women, but both men and women, worked smart, more flexible schedules? What if the workplace itself was more fluid than the rigid and narrow ladder to success of the ideal worker? And what if both men and women became responsible for raising children and managing the home, sharing work, love, and play? Could everyone then live whole lives? – Brigid Schulte What we play is life. – Louis Armstrong • When I play from my mind I get in trouble. – Stevie Ray Vaughan • When I started off many years ago, I made a determination that there were certain roles I didn’t want to play. – Joe Morton • When I tour I’m going to countries to play music for people. My presence in a country is not an endorsement or a condemnation of that country’s policies. My presence in a country is an effort to connect with people through playing music. – Moby • When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast. – Miles Davis • When you play a match, it is statistically proven that players actually have the ball 3 minutes on average … So, the most important thing is: what do you do during those 87 minutes when you do not have the ball. That is what determines wether you’re a good player or not. – Johan Cruijff • When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all. – Theodore Roosevelt • Whoever wants to understand much must play much. – Gottfried Benn • With passion pray. With passion make love. With passion eat and drink and dance and play. Why look like a dead fish in this ocean of God? – Rumi • Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable. – Carl Jung • Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions. – Mark Twain • Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. – Mark Twain • Working with Sturges was like working with a guy who wanted to have a party all the time. He was very serious about his work, but in between shots, he was fun and we would play games. – Eddie Bracken • You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four. – Miles Davis • You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else. – Albert Einstein • You play to win, to get that World Series ring, All-Star games and whatever comes with it. – Nick Johnson • Your government has problems…my government has problems. I can’t be a judge. All I can do is be an ambassador of love. I’m a musician, not a soldier, and if I’m invited to a place in order to play and bring love, I’ll always accept the invitation. – Meshell Ndegeocello • Your money is like your willy, it only grows if you play with it – Len Goodman • You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play. – Warren Beatty

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