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surftrips · 1 year ago

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SNOW ON THE BEACH

OBX WRITING WEEK DAY 2 — MEET CUTE W/ JOHN B.

word count: 1158

summary: after y/n's flight is delayed, she ends up stranded in a cafe in kildare, rescued by a golden-haired boy.

a/n: my first time writing for john b. and i had so much fun! it's been so hot where i am so i am yearning for winter and cozy vibes in case you can't tell haha

Y/N’s flight to Boston had been delayed at the Kildare Airport, out of all places. And out of all the reasons, it was because of an impending snow storm. Who even knew that it snowed in North Carolina? She couldn’t believe her luck, she was supposed to be going home to visit her family for winter break and now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere.

She supposed the Outer Banks would’ve been beautiful any other time of the year, but it was December and there was no one left but her and the locals. With an indefinite layover, she decided to leave the airport and head into town. Y/N was in desperate need of caffeine.

After hailing a taxi and asking to be taken to the nearest cafe, she lugged her carry-on and suitcase into the store before realizing that she had no place to stay. She knew no one in the area and she was sure all the hotel rooms for the night would have been booked by now.

Groaning, she ordered a hot caramel latte and slumped into a seat by the window. Y/N shot her mom a quick text about her flight being delayed, not in the mood to call her and explain the whole situation. Next, she pulled open her laptop and started looking into a cheap AirBnb or motel nearby.

In the middle of doing so, she was interrupted by a voice behind her.

“Hey, you’re not from around here,” he said.

She turned around to see who it was. Her initial guardedness went away when she saw that the boy was around her age. “Is that a question or a statement?” she replied.

Smiling, he said, “I’m pretty confident it’s a fact. I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“Don’t you get a lot of tourists?”

“Not many as pretty as you are.”

Y/N found herself blushing despite how ridiculous this situation was. “I’m just passing by,” she muttered out, unsure of how to respond to his straightforwardness.

“Really? You didn’t plan on vacationing in the Outer Banks in the dead of winter?”

She laughed, the ice having been broken, and decided that it was probably safe to introduce herself to this (admittedly) cute stranger.

“Haha, no, not really. I’m Y/N, by the way.”

“My friends call me John B. Y/N, what’s your story?”

“Well, my flight here was awful, thanks for asking. Then I found out my connection to Boston was delayed because of a New England storm or something and now I’m stuck here indefinitely,” she sighed.

“Shit, sorry to hear that. You must be really unlucky because it never snows around here.”

“You’re really helping me feel better John B.”

“Sorry,” he scratched his head. “How can I help?”

“Seriously? You want to help me?”

“Yeah, sure. Got nothing better to do.”

“Well, unless you have a place where I can crash I don’t think you can help me very much.”

With that, the boy’s eyes lit up. “Actually, I do happen to have a place for you to stay.”

“Oh, I-I was sorta joking you really don’t have to do that.”

“It’s no big deal, my friends crash there all the time. My dad’s not home that much and even if he was, he wouldn’t mind.”

Y/N was starting to wonder what the catch was, sure the boy looked nice and like he meant well, but at the end of the day, this was a stranger. He could be luring her back to his house and she would never be seen again.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he started again.

“What?”

“You can trust me. Look, it’s a small town, everyone knows me. I’ll even invite all my friends over so you can feel safe. Two of them are girls.”

Y/N really wanted to say yes. She had been silently begging all day for a miracle and this was the closest thing to it at the moment.

Sighing, she gave in. “Okay, fine. How far away do you live?”

“Like ten minutes that way,” he pointed east from the store. “We can get there in the Twinkie.”

“The what?”

He led her outside where he had parked his van, infamously named the Twinkie. John B. carried her suitcase into the back while she held onto her carry-on.

“And this thing is safe?”

“Yes, she is safe to ride in. My friends and I have been through a lot worse than a minor storm with her.”

“Whatever you say,” she said, still not convinced. “Hey, what time do you think it’s going to snow anyway?”

“Who knows if it even will? My buddy Pope said it probably won’t get cold enough.”

What was supposed to be a short ride back to his house ended up becoming a very elaborate tour of the town. It started with John B. pointing out a few of his friend’s houses, then the The Wreck where his friend Kiara worked, the high school they all went to, and finally, they ended up at the beach.

Y/N had to admit, it was a nice beach. Even in the dead of December, the sand looked clean and the sparkling ocean had not yet frozen over. As John B. admired the landscape, she used this time to get a good look at him. His golden brunette hair, the blue bandana around his neck, the slight hint of a smile on his face as he looked out into the water. She couldn’t decide what was more beautiful to her at that moment, the boy or the sea.

“Oh my god,” his voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

“What? What?”

Wordlessly, he fumbled open his side of the door and raced outside.

“John B? Where are you going?” she called out after him.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, in awe.

“Can’t believe what—” Y/N stopped in her tracks. There, in front of them, and above and behind, were small white flecks. They could’ve been lights, or fireflies, but she knew they weren’t. He knew it too, even though he had only seen it a few times in his life.

“It’s snowing,” he said, incredulously.

“Oh my god, it is!” Y/N had grown up with the seasons, had felt the wrath of a New England blizzard ten times over, but this, this was something magical.

“Is this what it feels like? It’s like a scene from a movie,” he was smiling like a little kid now, reaching to grab a pocketful before the flakes melted in his hand.

“This is so weird.”

“But beautiful,” he looked over at her then, taking in the moment. Her smile was like she just won a contest, and she found no need to hide it anymore.

John B. pulled his arms around Y/N, wrapping her in his embrace. They stayed like that watching the snow come down, silently.

#obxweek23 #obx #outer banks #obx x reader #obx imagine #john b x reader #john b imagine #chase stokes #chase stokes x reader #john b x you #john b routledge

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saintfrancis-ofassisi · 1 month ago

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Wsp Eleanor! I'm genuinely interested in the OCs u keep posting about lol do you have some sort of lore for them or smth ?

hihi!! ohhh boyy i have so much lore for em n ill be happy to share !!!

sooo starting with my first real kinda big project, tranquility. (its a mashup fanfic based on the concept of tranquility base hotel and casino, the monument mythos, andd the secret history.)

the main character (also the one ive made the most art of) is mark schwartz (his name is a reference mix of the song n alex turner's persona) . so he was born on a smaller sheep farm in england n yea grows up normal n boring. he moves to sheffield for college, but after two years he gets the news that his father died. so he moves back to the farm to help his mother. she dies like a few months later from natural reasons. now mark is alone in this world n he hates it. (also this takes place from the 60s-70s) so he ups n moves to america. what he doser know is that theres a giant monster under it n a alternate reality where your head gets ripped off and turned into a government blimp (i think its canon in mm, but i dont remember lol) so he gets a giant industrial level cattle ranch in a small town in nebraska ULTRA cheap from some dude tryin to leave as fast as he can. (he found out though a magazine) so mark moves in n yea. he sell all the cattle to gai back what money he lost on the farm. SO this is where the second mc comes in /another oc

sherrible clemens (sherri). so her family has always lived in the small town (no name rn) n they are ultra religious (most of the town is). they only know stories of the special trees n all bcs it hasnt affected them yet. anyways when shes thirteen she gets in a hunting accident and kills her best friend in a smallish scrubby forest outside the town. n shes so scared of hell n god n like shes in shock but her first thought is to hide the body so she pushes it under a tree and BOOM it disappears n she finds a real special tree. basicly she said that her fried got lost n everyone bought it. so know she knows n her whole life is ruined blah blah blah she becomes vry manipulative n hides everything n yea her life is kinda normal until mark comes. so like hes nEw and all so the whole town is all over him n like mark n sherri are some of the only youngish adults so ofc they kinda bond later become friends n all n yea its all ok or whatever untill like a few months later when sherri decides to go to college in vermont (anything to get away from her crime) so she does n idk what she studies but theres an undercover agent who befriends her i hope of gettin more info on special trees/wonderlad bcs the government thinks bcs she killed someone n sent them to wonderland she has more info or whatever. she she falls for it and again shes in college for around two years n they are a bit more than friends when she fids some notes hes been takin on her n like in a fit of rage she kills him near a gully n runs away back to nebraska where mark is gone wOw ( they lost contact in the first year) SOMEHOW mark got connections n built a hotel and casino on the moon

idk man but anyways hes up there n gets news that sherris back so he sends her a ticket or whatever to get up there n like she comes to say goodbye bcs she wants to kill herself. so when she gets up there she breaks down n all and mark is like wOw i rEaLlY sHoUlD pRoPoSe tO hEr rIgHt nOw and yea she says no ofc n leaves as soon as he can n kills herself on a special tree, and mark is like wtf so he goes onto the lunar surface and meet richard nixon who is a god in a cave n good ol richard offers to take away his depression so ofc hes like yes i should trust the president living in a cave on the moon and yea he basically dies and comes back as a deity with no memories n nixon controls him AND sherri bcs ofc shes not rlly dead and like they just make messes on earth or whatever nixon wants until sherri decides to kill mark to get his power n she does n then BOOM shes power hungry so she gets nixon n messes up the universe and the timeline changes n the story restarts in a way where everything was normal or whatever and james dean is the president (hes also basically a devil)

anddd yea. the end ig

NOWWW onto the sisters gemini (this is somthin im writing with @skagheart sooo im mostly explaining my oc)

so i dont rlly want to spoil this one but basiclly cassandra gemini grew up in a kinda normal household (her mother is schizophrenic n both her daughters are too) on a mountain somewhere idk where. and yea she moves out at twenty three n gets a job n apartment blah blah blah utill her father dies n she moves back in with her mother n sister. after his death her mother kinda snapped n became obsessed with religion n thinks shes a god of sorts. her sister (madeline) starts beliving her n everything gets worse from there. cassandra is the oly halfway sane one anymore and her mental/physical health is declining rapidly until around twoish months later SHE snaps in in her delusion shoots em both before running into the woods behind their house n hanging herself with barbed wire.

okkk on to the fun ones

so gabe (gabriel, no last name rn) falls in love with his friend (axel, i did not name hm) after they like are friends for around two years n play shitty music together anddd yea they realize theyve been in love with each other the whole time and yea the end its vry boring

andd untitled work with this slightly loopy lady named maya who has a tonnnn of cats n believes in aliens n all and yea an alien visits her and leaves n she trys to convince everyone that it happened but no one believes her and the end (its a wip rn)

and i have a few more but theyre also wips so like idk if you wanna hear about them lol (i also have a tonnn of dd ocs lol)

#casio.asks #lolol i LOVE talkin about em :)

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thestalwartheart · 2 years ago

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bonds.

This was based off a prompt given to me by @eragonsaphira forever ago. All you really need to know is that in Australia and New Zealand, we have an underwear brand called Bonds. You can see where this is going. Rated E. Read here or on AO3.

Bond’s thumb trails over Q’s lower back. Not satisfied with interrupting Q’s routine at work, he seems intent on bringing chaos to Q’s domestic routine as well. That single touch has all the intent of distracting Q from getting his early-morning load of washing done.

“Is there a reason,” Bond purrs, voice still husky from sleep, “that you’re parading around with my name on your pants?”

“What? Your name isn’t—“ Q puts down his laundry basket and looks down at the waistband of his briefs. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh. Recent purchase?”

“No. I got them years ago when I was in Australia with—” Q stops, remembering he really shouldn’t be letting slip about any past beaus high-up in Britain’s intelligence community. Also, he has no urge to encounter Bond’s distinctively green-eyed side, though he suspects that particular boat has already sailed. “Never mind. I was in Sydney.”

“With who?” Something else seems to dawn on Bond, and he narrows his eyes. “I thought you were afraid of flying.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I wasn’t at the time, and the airline lost my luggage, so I bought some clothes. I happened to quite like these, so I kept them.”

“Who were you with, Q?”

“No one important. Though I suppose you aren’t in the mood to leave a man some secrets.”

Bond hums, pressing his mouth to Q’s ear. “You seem to have quite a few of them.”

There’s no real reproach to it. Bond’s hands are still playing at the waistband of his pants with intent. All the same, Q readies himself to part with a few facts about about his past. As casual as this little arrangement is, Q isn’t about to give Bond a reason not to trust him.

“I was there with an ex-boyfriend. And I’m not afraid of flying. I never went to Macau because I’m not a bloody errand boy. M didn’t take kindly to being reminded.”

“Moneypenny is hardly an errand girl.”

“True. I imagine she had other reasons for turning up in your hotel room,” remarks Q loftily. “I had someone from Q Branch ready to go when she intervened.”

Bond smiles, amused. “Jealous, were you?”

“Sorry to tell you, but I was seeing someone at the time.” Q hopes that comes across as casual enough for Bond to move past it swiftly, but his hopes are shot through when Bond's gaze sharpens.

“More ex-boyfriends.”

“Wonders never cease. And on the subject of exes, you’re not allowed to give me any flack at all.”

Bond ignores that in favour of rubbing the cotton of the briefs between his fingers. As he does, his thumb works over and over a sensitive spot on Q’s hip. Q has no doubt he’s doing it on purpose. Bond knows enough about Q’s body these days to play it like a violin.

“They’re cheap,” Bond tuts, snapping at the waist.

Q rolls his eyes. “They’re serviceable. Come to think of it, I believe you’ve been described that way too.”

“Fine things can be serviceable. If they have my name on them, they ought to be better quality.”

“It’s not actually your name. You do see that, don’t you? Or is your eyesight going in your ripe old age?”

Bond smacks Q’s arse rather hard for that, and Q tries very hard not to let out the noise that gathers in his throat.

“I’m willing to forgive the lack of apostrophe,” decides Bond. “I like seeing my name on you.”

“Evidently. You’ve never spanked me before.”

“I should have. You’re a terror.”

“Shall I lie on my front and think of England then? Perhaps you’d like me to call you Da—”

He gets another swat against the other cheek for that, then, with an impatience that signals he’s finished with games for the morning, Bond plasters himself to Q’s back, wrapping his arms around Q’s waist. He’s still warm from bed, and it sends a delicious shiver through Q that only gets stronger as Bond plays lightly with one of his nipples.

“I’d rather you be quiet and come to bed," whispers Bond, "where you’re going to keep those on and ride me until your thighs are shaking and I have to hold you up.”

That sounds like the best use of an hour or two Q has ever heard in his life, but in the interests of annoying Bond even more—something else he considers another excellent use of time— he sighs, pretending to be vexed in spite of the contrary evidence in his pants.

“That sounds like a lot of work for a Sunday.”

“Since when have you been afraid of a bit of weekend work? Get upstairs.”

Q doesn’t budge, though he has plans to soon. Instead, he turns around and leans in to whisper in Bond’s ear.

“You know, they came in a pack of five, and I bought more than one. This isn’t the first time I’ve paraded around with your name on my arse.”

Bond groans and pulls Q into a hot and demanding kiss. It lasts an age, which is not nearly long enough. For all the joy Q gets out of their bickering, he’d be happy never to speak again if it meant Bond would kiss him like this all day, with his searing tongue and skilled lips, and teeth that ever only bite as hard as Q wants them to.

When the break apart, Q is still in the mood to tease. “In fact, if I remember correctly, I was wearing them the day we met, which I considered a very funny joke at the time. And after I handed over that gun, I thought it would be even more fun if, without arousing suspicion, of course—”

“Christ, Q.”

“—we paid a visit to the men’s bathroom so you could find out where my loyalties really lay.”

“You can't be serious. I looked like a wreck,” says Bond, incredulous. He seems a bit overcome.

“I have a great fondness for wrecks. Perhaps that explains why I’m finding this caveman act so…” Q hums, content. Quite seriously, he admits, “I was yours from the start, you know. You’ve never had to worry about that.”

Bond tugs him in for another kiss. Mercifully, there are no more words after that for a very long time.

#00q #00q fic #my fic #james bond

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jonesbrianshining · 5 months ago

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Zouzou - French model, singer and actor - girl-friend of Brian Jones in 1965

"... I was having dinner at the Bilboquet restaurant the same night that the Stones gave their first concert in Paris (16 April 1965). They arrived and I didn´t even notice them. I went to the toilet and on the way I ran nose to nose with Brian. He asked to borrow my jumper - and we exchanged jumpers - we started talking. I found him quite annoying as he wanted me to take him to dinner at an "anthropophagic Parisian restaurant". Already at this time there was no unity between him and the other members of the band. For three days and three nights he and I wandered around Paris - and never met the other Stones. Then he went to the USA and called me on the phone. Every night. He asked me to come to England, he booked me a room at the Dorchester, but when he came to pick me up from the hotel, he got kicked out of the room. Then he asked me to live with him and we never parted again. All the time we spent together, the rest of the Stones ignored me - all except Bill. We socialised with other people - The Who, The Beatles - expecially John and George, Viv, the drummer of The Pretty Things, Eric Burdon and Alan Price - but never Keith or Mick. We´d go to the Flamingo Bar, where Brian would play with Burdon and Zoot Money. The other Stones went to posh clubs. I´d drag drunk Brian out of cheap pubs. Often he´d get furious at Mick and Keith´s songs. He thought "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?" was an outrageous, trashy song. He preferred The Beatles. He was still one of The Stones, but it was just an appearance. I don´t think he realised how his life had changed. And that lack of understanding made him paranoid. He was very impressionable and tried to kill himself on a number of occasions. He felt unwanted. As an example, he was a great harmonica player, but he lost that when Jagger took over."

First part of an interview for the French edition of the magazine "Rock&Folk" - via beatles.ru

#Brian #zouzou #the rolling stones #girlfriend of brian jones

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weirdowithaquill · 1 year ago

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Traintober 2023: Day 17 - Holiday

How Sudrian Tourism has Evolved:

Sodor has changed majorly thanks to the publication of the Railway Series and the subsequent Television Series, both of which propelled the island and its railways from being just another part of the UK into a tourism juggernaut. But the fact of the matter is that Sodor did not immediately transform from being an insignificant island on the coast of Cumbria to one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United Kingdom overnight – so how did it all change?

To understand, we must go back to the 1500s, and the Protestant Reformation in England. At the time, Sodor was part of the English Crown – but far looser than its Irish and Welsh neighbours. Due to its small size, rough terrain and low population, King Henry VIII was far less interested in confiscating Catholic land on the island than its surrounding areas. This was in part due to the both Sir Geoffrey Regaby and Bishop Michael Colden, who managed to guide Sodor away from the Lincolnshire Rising and the Pilgrimage of Grace. Due to their remote location and general poverty, Thomas Cromwell never visited Sodor, and Cronk Abbey was never closed. For its part, St Luoc’s Cathedral at Suddery was ‘converted’ to a Protestant Cathedral in 1537, but continued holding Catholic mass. This was done by holding the two religious ceremonies one after the other.

As Sodor was now one of the few parts of the British Isles that had a Catholic church and direct line to the Papacy in Rome, it became an ‘underground’ tourist destination as a new British site of pilgrimage, frequented by Catholics looking to attend mass at the Suddery Cathedral. In return for continuing these ceremonies, Sudrians became more devout to the crown – in particular to Queen Elizabeth I, and by 1603 the Catholic mass had been all but forgotten. This did not end the attractiveness of Sodor as a religious destination, due to the caves of Saint Machan and several other holy sites that litter the island; the numbers were not large, but they did lead to a number of important connections, especially with Ireland, the Isle of Man and English ports.

The next phase of Sudrian tourism came in the 1860s, when the Skarloey Railway found the long-forgotten Skarloey lake and hidden hollow. Rather than explain it, I think I’ll just use the description that the Reverend Wilbert Awdry did:

“Spas were popular at the period and offered the possibility of a lucrative passenger business. Skarloey’s mineral springs and sheltered situation took hold on the minds of some members of the Board, among them Shamus Tebroc who conceived the idea of developing Skarloey as a spa. An hotel and a number of villas were built as a speculation, and the gravity worked incline which had been installed for the conveyance of materials was retained and up-graded for coals, merchandise, and passengers’ luggage.”

Skarloey became the first of the Island of Sodor’s tourist hotspots, especially due to its proximity to Culdee Fell and Saint Machan’s cave. The popularity of the spas was good for a time, but began to fall off as the bad fortunes of the Sodor & Mainland Railway continuously hurt the Skarloey Railway’s tourism campaign with delayed and cancelled trains, ratty carriages and even standoffish staff. This led to Skarloey becoming a local holiday destination instead, but even that began to slow down as WWII loomed.

On the other side of the island, the Mid Sodor Railway also began heavily advertising their railway to holidaymakers across the UK, but to a somewhat better result. The Isle of Man Steam Packet contract the railway picked up led to a large influx of tourists across the late 1800s and early 1900s, up until the 1920s. The railway’s ability to reach the walled city of Peel Godred and the cave of Saint Machan (via the Culdee Fell Railway) made it a very attractive destination for tourists, though this would change at the end of WWI.

The advent of relatively cheap international travel via ferries in the 1920s did a lot of damage to Sodor’s tourism economy, as their major markets in England preferred to travel to either the Continent or the Lake District – or even as far afield as the United States. Sodor instead switched to being primarily an agricultural and resource-extraction economy, with some manufacturing. This continued throughout WWII.

Which leads us to May 12th, 1945. The Three Railway Engines was published – in colour – in the UK. It achieved enough success to lead to the continuation of the series in 1946, and again in 1948, and then again continuously until 1972. These twenty-seven years’ worth of publicity for the island and its railways had a massive effect. Skarloey was rediscovered and the budget-conscience holiday maker of the 1960s chose it for its low prices, high quality, and picturesque scenery, turning around the railways needed to reach it. The Culdee Fell Railway also saw an uptick in traffic as the Peel Godred Railway brought in more passengers than the old Mid Sodor Railway had.

Furthermore, tourists came to see the engines, a phenomenon not seen before in the island’s tourism industry. Insignificant towns such as Dryaw, Brendam, Crosby and Glennock became infinitely more popular as the sites of incidents in the Railway Series, or as convenient locations to stay for travelling the island. The biggest success story of the island’s cities was Cronk however. Cronk grew massively from the tourism trade as the most central location on the NWR to reach the various tourist destinations of Sodor – even Awdry takes a moment to mention ‘The Crown of Sodor’ Hotel on Sigmund Street due to its prominence as a hotel on the island.

This large influx of tourists was however of a majorly local source – the UK, parts of continental Europe and a relatively low number from North America. It wasn’t until the advent of cheap international jetplane flights in the mid-1970s and the debut of the TV series on October 9, 1984.

This debut is what changed everything.

The Thomas and Friends Television series was an international success, with translations into a number of languages (eleven by Wikipedia’s count) and broadcast around the globe. This, coupled with the opening of an enlarged airport at Vicarstown (which had been constructed in 1941 by the RAF and expanded by Vickers in the 1960s. The airport itself had been bought by the NWR in 1982 (probably in anticipation of the TV series) and began receiving jetliners from across the world as early as 1986.

Today, Sudrian tourism is one of the largest income producers in northern England due to its international status crafted by the Thomas & Friends series. The island is a popular tourist attraction for both railfans and Thomas fans, as well as religious pilgrims, spa enthusiasts, hikers, ramblers and historians. The airport at Vicarstown has been linked into the NWR via a spur line, and more recently a number of signs on the island have been converted to include secondary and tertiary languages, for better interpretation.

Sodor reached its best numbers for international tourists in 2019, when over 1.5 million people visited the island, making it the third most visited tourist destination within England, beating out Birmingham. The secret to it’s recent further uptick in visitors is the opening of a number of museums, galleries and other cultural sites on the island, as well as a strong advertising campaign that focused on the island’s major tourist draws, which are:

The North Western Railway, Skarloey Railway, Culdee Fell Railway and Arlesdale Railway from the Railway Series book and subsequent Television series

A pre-Norman era Abbey at Cronk, one of the oldest of its kind in Britain

Suddery Cathedral, which continues to be one of the few remaining pre-reformation cathedrals in Britain

Several Norman-era castles, including a completely intact castle at Harwick

The Walled City of Peel Godred

The caves of Saint Machan

Culdee Fell

Henry's Forest National Park

Skarloey and its spas

Museums, galleries, and cultural centres

The Standing Stones of Killdane.

This advertising campaign brought a greater variety of tourists to the island, especially those from North America.

The island was badly affected by the advent of the Coronavirus pandemic, which saw the high tourist numbers of the previous decade prop by over eighty percent, which forced the island to once again consider restructuring their economy around agriculture, manufacturing, and resource extraction. This eventually was decided against, as tourist numbers have slowly picked back up through 2022.

Sodor has been greatly affected by its rise to one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the UK, including a number of hotels being built on the island – many of which are converted manorhouses – as well as several upgrades made to the transport systems of the island, with updated ferry services between the island’s major ports and locations in the UK and Ireland, as well as the railway building a special line to the island’s main airport, new tram and bus services within the major cities on the island. The island’s railway system has also seen upgrades throughout the latter half of the 20th century, including a third track being added to the mainline, new signalling systems and a number of extra connecting services to cities in the UK, such as Manchester, Birmingham, Carlisle and Preston.

Sodor has grown drastically as a result of its tourism industry and is today an international tourism hotspot. The island continues to be popular into the modern day, as a result of strong advertising and a pointed diversification of tourist offerings on the island to help the island’s tourism industry grow and bring in profits for the island’s people.

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#fanfiction writer #weirdowithaquill #railway series #thomas the tank engine #railways #RWS analysis #Thomas and friends analysis #island of sodor #tourism #mid sodor railway #skarloey railway #traintober 2023 #traintober

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mariacallous · 4 months ago

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As a teenager, I was embarrassed about liking chopped liver. To be fair, I was embarrassed about most things — my parents, my lack of the coolest sneakers, and my freckles among many other things. But liking chopped liver was high up on the list. It was just one of those gross foods: aesthetically unappealing, greyish and mushy, and just plain weird. None of my non-Jewish schoolmates had ever heard of anything like it.

But it tasted so damn good. All of it did — my grandmother’s, made from beef livers and shimmering with schmaltz served weekly at Shabbat lunch; the mass-produced packaged stuff that was kind of gristly, in a not-all-bad way; the scoops of it sandwiched between two slightly stale slices of white bread at the kosher deli (which may well have been the packaged stuff); and best of all, the creamier pate-like offerings, topped with a sweet fruit chutney, served at Friday night buffets in Israeli hotels. Chopped liver was rich and didn’t require a lot of effort — you barely needed to chew it. It also sparked an iron-fueled rush of energy. It was my guilty pleasure.

I didn’t realize I had been so spoiled in the chopped liver department until I left home from England, to Israel, where it was actually quite hard to find. Israeli chefs were deep into a returning-to-culinary-roots movement but hadn’t really delved into the Ashkenazi kitchen yet, preferring the spicier, sexier Mizrahi dishes like kubbeh and upscale stuffed pita sandwiches. I could find chopped liver in haredi areas like Bnei Brak, but it was a real schlep.

So I did what any committed liver enthusiast would do: I started making my own. I had my grandmother’s recipe, but beef livers were hard to come by, so I set my sights on a chicken liver version I’d found in Geila Hocherman’s Kosher Modern cookbook. This was more a pate; it departed from tradition in some quite ballsy ways, like adding capers! And thyme! And chili flakes! I was intrigued.

Finding chicken livers wasn’t a problem — there were trays of them, slippery and pink, in the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv. And, like those my Ashkenazi ancestors cooked within Eastern Europe, they were cheap and sold raw. Back at home, I gave my grandmother a call and she, delighted by my culinary undertaking, gave me step-by-step instructions. First I had to rinse the livers, salt them, and broil them — this was going to take some time.

I tend to be an impatient cook — technique-heavy, complicated recipes bring out the worst in me. But the process of making chopped liver was unexpectedly enjoyable. Growing up in an Orthodox community, my role as a woman often felt passive, mostly consisting of watching the men participate in Judaism. So it felt new, and welcome, to take on the active task of preparing the livers, with instructions passed down through my matriarchs for generations.

Once they’d been sufficiently broiled on both sides, I added the livers to a pan with caramelized onions, capers, thyme chili flakes, and a splash of white wine. Then I blitzed the mixture and a few slices of soaked bread with a hand mixer and steeled myself for a taste.

While the unorthodox ingredients added a saline spurt and chili zing, the chopped liver tasted wonderfully familiar. It was my take on all the other versions I’d gorged myself on before — not competing with them, but adding something a little new. I was content and even proud. I sat at the kitchen table with a glass of red wine, a box of crackers, and a jar of mango chutney and ate half my homemade liver in one sitting. Not the healthiest snack, I grant you, but it was an important reminder to me that sometimes it is worth investing time in the kitchen to please only yourself. Making chopped liver began as an exercise in nostalgia but turned out to be much more — an act of culinary self-care.

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teaandransacking · 2 years ago

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I'm a fan of yours on ao3 and I binged your The Devil All the Time series this week - so good OMFG - and your soft smut is immaculate.

Would you bless us with some Lucy/Lockwood first time smut including the Lockwood Pajamas (tm)?

First of all YOU HAVE READ THAT FIC? I feel like only about 10 people in the world read that, and I loved writing it. Thankyou.

Just for you, please enjoy some 5-ply soft, non explicit smut.

Let's pretend these characters are 18 or older, OK? OK.

except when we went from friends to this

Words: 2500 ~ Pairing: Anthony Lockwood x Lucy Carlyle ~ Content: super soft non explicit, dreamy first-time sex.

It all begins with a present from Flo.

Lockwood is confused at first. A hotel? He hasn’t been inside a hotel - the ones that are unhaunted, anyway - since he was a small boy in a boy size suit, eating afternoon tea with his parents on his birthday. The memory makes him feel funny, and he rubs his hand over his chest as he looks down at the shiny voucher, out of place against the cheap formica of the cafe tabletop.

Flo frowns. “I hope I didn’t overstep, Locky. It’s your birthday, after all, and I thought - well, you could take Lucy with you-”

He looks up at that, and a different sort of emotion makes his chest tight. Fantasy snapshots flit through his mind. Lucy, walking down the grand staircase of a fancy hotel, a cocktail dress flaring out from her hips. Lucy, covered up to her neck in bubbles in a fancy hotel bathtub.

He could give her that.

He traces his finger along the edge of the card. “How did you get this?”

“Bartered for it, didn’t I. Amazing what you can get when you’ve got an… eclectic skill set like mine.”

Lockwood thinks it’s best he doesn’t ask any more questions about that.

“What about George?” he blurts out, wondering if the other young man will feel left out.

Flo smiles slowly. “You know I’ve never been entirely altruistic, Locky. If you and Lucy are out, well, I’ll have George and his ghormeh sabzi all to myself, won’t I?”

Oh. Lockwood looks down into his cup of tea, feeling a flush creep up his neck. “Right. And he’s…. Okay with it?”

“Would I have asked if he wasn’t?” She grins.

Thinking about the implications of her smile and her words too long makes Lockwood think of the time with the yoga, so he blinks the image away, sipping tea. “Thankyou,” he says eventually. “This is really kind. I appreciate it.”

Flo grins that cheshire cat grin again. “No, you don’t. But you will.”

He doesn’t rise to the bait, but tucks the gold-edged voucher away safely inside his coat.

He knows what Flo thinks is going to happen if he takes Lucy to the hotel. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t, but what Lockwood wants most is just to be with her, uninterrupted time, where they can talk and cuddle and laugh and relax, without the threat of Visitors - or any other kind of unwanted guests.

Perhaps he’ll get the Do Not Disturb sign and hang it on the door as soon as they arrive.

If Lucy agrees to go, that is.

####

“The Connaught?” Lucy exclaims, almost knocking over her mug of tea. She grabs it just in time, so that only a few drops spill over the edge. Her eyes are wide with excitement, and Lockwood could just drown in them, wade into those clear depths and never look back, not for anything. “That’s the poshest hotel in England!”

“So you want to go, then?” He asks, nerves cramping his stomach. “With me, I mean.”

She gives him a funny look. “Who else would I want to go with?”

He reaches across the table, from his position opposite her, runs his index finger over the back of her hand. “I wanted to be sure.”

Lucy turns her hand over, palm upwards, and tangles their fingers together. “You are a bit of an idiot sometimes, you know that?”

Relief makes his shoulders slump, and he feels the grin spread across his face. “I am well aware.”

####

Dinner’s at eight, the desk clerk informs them, but it’s not included in their room rate.

“Not to worry,” Lucy murmurs as they head off towards the stairs with their room key, “I packed a picnic we can eat on the carpet.”

He loves her. If he wasn’t entirely sure of it before, he is now.

The room somehow manages to be cavernous but cosy. How that’s achieved, he has no idea, and right now, he can’t bring himself to care as he watches Lucy run for the huge bed and launch herself on to it. She bounces, laughing, and it’s been so long since he’s heard her laugh like that, carefree, and when she lands, her gaze finds him.

“Come on, then! You can’t come all the way here and not bounce on this bed.”

“It’s only Mayfair,” he points out, but the smile on his face is completely irrepressible. He feels like he has to add, “at least take off your shoes.”

Lucy laughs, but wiggles to the end of the bed and shucks off her boots. “Come on, Lockwood. Remove the stick from up your arse for once.”

She says it so fondly that he can’t be annoyed, even a little bit. Truth be told, he was a bit of a stick in the mud before her, before George.

He toes off his trainers and shoves them aside before walking to the bed. For a second he falters, wondering what to do. He would have known, once, before his entire family was taken from him, before-

Lucy grabs his hand and tugs him, and he falls on top of her, their bodies flush, and she looks up at him in surprise, her lips parted slightly, and it’s an invitation he simply can’t refuse. He settles his forearms either side of her head and then he touches his mouth to hers.

It starts off soft and sweet, like many of their kisses, mostly chaste, and then she slides a hand up into his hair and sighs into his mouth, and suddenly everything inside him is on fire.

“Lucy,” he groans, drawing back to look at her. Her lips are kiss-swollen and her titian hair is spread out over the crisp, snow-white bedsheets. He’s seen some of the finest art in the known world, and none of it, not a single painting, compares to having Lucy Carlyle warm and willing under him, her gaze lust-soft and her cheeks flushed.

She smooths his hair back from where it falls over his forehead. “I did really want to see you jump on the bed, but I think this is better.”

It’s very difficult to think when their bodies are so perfectly lined up, especially since he’s never been this close to her without interruption, but he concentrates and makes himself form a reply. “I’ll do a cartwheel over the bed later if it’ll make you laugh, but for now - wild horses couldn’t pull me away from this moment.”

“You can do a cartwheel?” she asks, her brows arching up, but his expression must be a reply all in itself, because she presses her lips closed and then frames his face between her hands. “I love it here, too. I’ve, er, been thinking for a while that it’d be nice to have some time together. Hard to relax when anyone might overhear.”

“Yeah. That’s not really my thing,” Lockwood agrees.

Mischief flits across Lucy’s beautiful face. “I’d like to find out what is your thing.” And she lets her body go soft under his, spreading her legs so he’s cradled right there and his brain completely short circuits at the sensation, even through their layers of clothes.

“Have mercy,” he manages to whisper.

“On the great Anthony bloody Lockwood? Never,” she whispers, but there’s gentleness in her voice. “How about a bath, first?”

That makes him immediately imagine her naked, and for another second he can’t form a single coherent thought.

Lucy shakes her head, laughs softly, but it’s a sweet laugh, a kind, warm one. He doesn’t protest when she rolls their bodies and then hops off him, standing and holding out her hand. “Come on. A proper bath, in a proper big bath tub, with fancy bubbles! I have never had fancy bubbles!”

Lockwood has to blink again to get the cogs in his brain to turn, and then he lets himself be led into what turns out to be a palatial bathroom. It’s all sleek marble floor tiles and travertine walls, and the claw foot tub rises from the floor, a porcelain leviathan, waiting to be filled, and all he can do is stand there and imagine Lucy in it, the water fanning out her hair, and her eyes closed, long lashes resting on her cheeks.

She turns on the taps, fits the plug in the circular hole, and then eyes him. “Clothes.”

He blinks at her. “Yes. I packed them.”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “We can’t get in the bath with clothes on, Lockwood.” She grins at him, and there she is, sarcastic as ever, and suddenly he feels at home again. “I’ll turn around if you like.”

Heat floods his face, and he starts to acquiesce, and then he realises, he doesn’t want her to turn around. He wants to feel her gaze on him as he undresses, and then he wants to see her peel her own layers away, and he wants to sink into the hot water with her, feel the silk of her skin and slide soapy hands over her-

And then he’s obviously dawdled too long, because Lucy crosses the space between them and starts unwinding his tie. He gazes down at her, at the overhead lights glinting off her gorgeous, silky red hair, and he drops a kiss on her forehead.

She looks up, a small smile on her lips, and continues with her ministrations until his tie lies limp around his neck, either side of the collar of his white shirt.

“I can do the rest,” he says softly.

She steps back, grinning, her eyes eating him up, and in that moment, he feels like he could take on the world, if only he could carry the light in her gaze with him always.

He discards the tie, unbuttons the shirt. He’s been shirtless in front of her before, for short periods - one memorable time when she couldn’t sleep and came to talk to him at midnight when he was already undressed - but never like this, with this superheated air between their bodies.

Lockwood shrugs the shirt off and it falls to the floor in a whisper of cotton. He doesn’t look at what he’s doing, only at her, and the naked want in her eyes could sustain him for days.

The metal buckle of his belt clinks loudly as he unbuckles it, stepping out of his trousers and pulling off his socks, and then he’s barefoot in the fancy, high-ceiling bathroom, wearing only black boxers, and for a moment, nerves shred his stomach, but then Lucy hooks a finger in the waistband of his underwear and pulls him close to kiss him, and his fears unravel into warm yearning. His arms go around her and he holds her as their mouths whisper over each other.

Then she draws back, smiling a little, and moves to turn off the taps. “Nice and full. Water’s going to get cold. Can’t waste it.”

He glances over at the veritable lake. No bubbles, but they’ve got all night. They can always have another bath later. He opens his mouth to tell her that it’s her turn to take off her clothes, but instead hears himself say, “Might I - can I - undress you?”

Her eyes spark. “Since you ask so nicely. Come here, then.”

Lockwood joins her by the rolltop side of the bath, his hands going to the hem of her jumper, fingers curling in the softness of it, and then she lifts her arms obligingly, and he gently tugs it off. It goes the way of his clothes, unmissed, and her tank top and jeans and socks follow, and then she stands, pale and perfect in her underwear, and the shape of her blows every one of his fantasies out of the water.

Lucy whispers, “I think we’re still wearing too many clothes for a bath,” and he grins at her, and they help each other with the last of their garments, and then climb into the tub, gazing at each other.

The bottle of body wash is glass, and scented with citrus and bergamot, and it’s silky-smooth when they wash each other with it, learning the angles and curves and lines and soft spaces of each other’s bodies. There’s no words, but there’s no need for any, not when they’re cocooned here together, warm and wet and safe and together.

The water is tepid, almost cold, when they leave the bath, and Lockwood wraps Lucy in a huge, soft bath towel, and then himself, and she laughs when they run to the bed together, snuggling under the covers until they’re warm again.

Lockwood isn’t sure who makes the first move - he’s pretty sure it’s Lucy, of course it is - but one moment they’re cuddling, talking softly, and then next moment, she’s straddling his hips, looking down at him with large, soft eyes, and being under her is bliss unlike any he’s ever experienced.

“I haven’t ever - that is…” he begins, settling his hands on her hips, wanting something, wanting everything, except to disappoint her. He couldn’t bear it.

She drops a kiss on his mouth. “I haven’t either, but I’m almost certain we’ll figure it out together.”

And they do, for the first time, and the pleasure is intense and overwhelming and so much more than he could ever have expected.

He learns what to do to make Lucy sigh his name, how to make her hands fist in the bedsheets, and he does it several more times, before they eventually remember that picnic, and they eat it wearing their pajamas, sat on the carpet, looking through the big picture window up at the stars.

“I wanted to give you something special,” Lockwood begins as they lie together, after midnight, curled up sleepily in the enormous bed. “I thought about you in a pretty dress, on the big grand staircase… having a fancy dinner…”

Lucy chuckles. “Is that what you think I want? Fancy dinners? Do I need to remind you about my feelings on horseradish?”

He grins into the dark room. “No, you don’t.” He sighs, kissing her hair. “I wanted it to be perfect.”

“Anthony Lockwood, you never know when to bloody shut up, do you? It is perfect.” She snuggles into it, slides a leg over his. “And if you really want to make up for the lack of fancy dinner, you can order breakfast in bed tomorrow.”

#lucewood #locklyle #lockwood and co #tumblr request #lockwood and co fanfiction

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 9 months ago

Text

So, I weirdly haven’t written enough about this on this blog so far, given what a big thing it is for me – I’m going to the fucking UK this summer. For real this time. For real. Here is a post about it.

I first posted on this blog about wanting to go to the UK in early 2021, I think. I remember making posts about how maybe once the vaccines were finally released, and I was all vaccinated, travel would be safe, and I could go for a little while before I start my college courses again. That didn’t happen for quite a few reasons.

I spent much of 2021 planning a hypothetical trip, knowing it probably couldn’t really happen, because obviously things like this don’t really happen, but I needed something to fantasize about in the depths of lockdown. It’s odd that a global pandemic made me interested in international travel for the first time. Pre-COVID, my life was so full of a single sport that I didn’t really have time to think about anything else as a hobby. I was on the road most weekends, but that road was the 401, driving off to the same few cities anywhere from two to twelve hours away, to sleep in a cheap hotel or on someone’s gym floor and then shout at teenagers at day and immediately drive home. Every once in a while we’d go to a tournament in the States, which counted as exciting international travel. The idea of actually seeing places that are not in or near the border with my country just hadn’t occurred to me.

Then the world ended, I fell deep into the Britcom rabbit hole, all that stuff. And in 2021, I got really into 1) memorizing how to label all the countries and major cities in the world, and all the counties or other regional areas in the UK and Ireland, on a blank map, because I’d learned that the larger world existed and I wanted to be clear about where it all is, and 2) going through places I’ve never been on Google Earth, usually while listening to audio comedy. I also took to looking up things to do in the UK on Trip Advisor, mapping the route on Google Maps and following it on Google Earth, knowing this was all for a hypothetical fantasy trip but still researching things like train fares and schedules because it was more fun if it felt like it could be real.

I’m fascinated by the idea of places that are Different From Here being actual real physical places where people could actually go. Which is especially weird in this case because I actually have been to the UK. I have a godmother there, whom I’ve met in person three times, twice when she’s come to Canada and once when for my sixteenth birthday she paid for my mother and I to go to England for a week. We stayed at her place in London, did all the tourist-y things, also spent a day in some spot in Somerset but I’m fuzzy on where or why, it was 2006. My clearest memory of the week is seeing Spamalot on St. Patrick’s Day and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. I’ve also got fairly clear memories of climbing stairs at St. Paul’s Cathedral, thinking Westminster Abbey was the most beautiful building I’d ever seen, and seeing some extremely cool stuff at the British Library including some original handwritten Beatles lyrics. And I remember the tube and being impressed that the cars really do have driver doors on the wrong side, that’s not just a thing they made up on Fawlty Towers.

Still, it was so long ago, and it was such a short time compared to the amount of time that I’ve spent watching Britian on TV, that it does feel a bit like Britain is a fictional place that exists on TV. Obviously I realize that’s a very ignorant North American thing for me to say, and in my defense I think I know a hell of a lot more about Britain than the average ignorant North American. I can label all the regions in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in under five minutes. But I’ve got to admit, on a visceral level, learning all that stuff does feel a bit like memorizing lore in a fantasy novel.

There is kind of an appeal in the idea that… okay, the last time I was this obsessed with something besides a sport in which I actually participated, I was a kid in the Harry Potter fandom. I was a kid who read a lot of books, and a lot of my favourites happened to be British fantasy or sci-fi novels (Harry Potter, CS Lewis, Tolkein, His Dark Materials, Douglas Adams), but Harry Potter was the one that took over my life from the ages of about ten to fourteen. You classic situation of – didn’t have friends in real life, all my social interaction came from Harry Potter message boards, a vast chunk of my free time dedicated to reading every passage of the books over and over and over and analyzing them and writing things about them and I made some friends on the internet who loved Luna Lovegood as much as I did. Then I got to high school and started wrestling and made some friends in real life and slowly moved away from online fandom, didn’t do anything except that for fifteen years, then the world ended, I came back and found a new online fandom that was also British but had less magic and more panel shows, then the author turned out to be a terrible person and ruined my childhood.

Anyway. The point is that I remember when I was a kid, obviously I spent ages fantasizing about being able to actually go to all those places in Harry Potter. But I couldn’t, because those are not real places. Well, my new foray into fandom also feels a bit like that – like this fictional thing I’ve got obsessed with that no one around me knows anything about but some people on the internet are into it. Except that this time, the place where all these things happen is actually a real place, and I can pay money to go there. This concept remains amazing to me.

So I mapped out the idea of this trip a couple of years ago, and for a long time, it stayed in a limbo between fantasy and genuine possibility. I did actually start working out budgets and putting money aside for it, but all the while thinking this won’t actually work. I was starting to do things post-lockdown again, the sense that we were all locked down so nothing is real so I may as well engaged in some escapism and plan some fantasy trips – that started to give way to regular life, and in regular life, I’m not a person who does shit like that. I can’t just fly across the ocean to see a fictional place. I still had it vaguely in my head that maybe someday I’d like to, but I stopped actively planning anything.

But at the same time, the whole concept of Britain was starting to feel a bit less fictional (I’m… I’m feeling the need to clarify, again, that this is just a sort of emotional automatic response to put “the place where Britcom happens” in the “fictional” category in my brain… I did not at any point genuinely think the United Kingdom was fictional… especially since I’ve been there before). I do remember the first time I got physical, tangible proof that the people in the fictional Britcom world are real, when Russell Howard came to my city in March 2022 (my then-girlfriend got us tickets because she knew I liked British comedians, she was excited about it so I didn’t tell her that actually I’m mad at him for the Jordan Peterson apologism so don’t want to go, it’s not something I’d have chosen myself but it was a thoughtful gift and to be fair an extremely fun night), and I could not get over the idea that the man from the fictional place was here in real life displacing air like he’s a real human being and actually all of it is physically real. Over the next few months I did an 8.5-hour drive to New York City to see Nish Kumar, and then two months later a 2-hour drive to see him do the same show in Montreal, because it was that fucking great a show. I also saw James Acaster in Montreal, and a club night with Dara O’Briain and Fern Brady and Phil Wang and Tom Allen and Sindhu Vee and every single one of them was an actual real person breathing the same air as me. Before the show I saw Dara O’Briain on the street and was so shocked that I hit my mother too hard to show her and she jumped and the commotion attracted his attention and I didn’t know what to do except stare at him like he was a zoo animal until he smiled awkwardly at me and went on his way.

Things like this did rather renew my interest in a trip, not just for the novelty of seeing a place that feels fictional, but for the more practical purposes of seeing my favourite comedians live. My interests within Britcom were starting to shift significantly toward stand-up, I got obsessed for a while with learning everything about the history of the Edinburgh Festival in the 21st Century, it seemed like another world, the time of the Chocolate Milk Gang and 24-hour shows from the early 00s, but then I watched videos on the internet that were filmed at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival and realized this place is actually real and still happening now and it is technically possible to go there.

After that, the concept rapidly became de-fictionalized in my mind when I sent someone a message on a comedy forum, in the hopes of finding a few comedy recordings that I heard existed, and by complete coincidence stumbled upon the best person I possibly could have. I’d thought worst case scenario is he doesn’t reply and I will be left to assume he saw my message and considered it horribly rude, great scenario is he has a few things I’m asking for, amazing best case scenario is maybe he has lots of stuff and is willing to share. As it happened, I got the best case scenario, plus far more than that. Specifically, a the coolest fucking person I could possibly have found, as a new friend, direct interaction that made all of this seem a hell of a lot less fictional very, very fast. He said things like “So are you ever going to come out here and actually see this stuff yourself”, and I said things like “Obviously I have plotted a route and looked up train fares but don’t be silly, that was just the stuff of lockdown-induced dreams.”

I quickly started planning things more seriously, but at the same time, the editing work I’d been doing started drying up, I had a bit of a financial crisis where I became concerned that I’d be unable to pay rent, and couldn’t save for a trip. I followed the 2023 Edinburgh Festival from afar, from NextUp streams and hearing stories about it from a friend who actually went there and sent me pictures, which was so fucking cool, and it was all so very very real.

I got a new job, this one much harder because it involves leaving the house all day for five days a week, but also it’s much more stable than the editing work I did for all of lockdowns, and I was able to start saving money in the second half of 2023. I learned that the place where I work shuts down for the last week of July, and the Monday of the following week is a holiday. So I put in a request for just four days off, the Tuesday-Friday, to create a two-week holiday. One week in London at the end of July, and one week in Edinburgh during the first week of the Edinburgh Festival.

The time off got approved (barely, I was told I can’t book any other vacation time in 2024, but I got it) in late 2023, and it was so exciting, and that’s the first time it started to feel even a little bit real. Then I booked an Air B&B for the week in Edinburgh, because it’s my understanding that accommodation availability and prices are a huge issue there and you want to book early. I think I did well, though. Found a place that’s not cheap but not unfeasibly expensive, I can have my own room and it’s a 50-minute walk or 10-minute bus from Edinburgh city centre. It was so exciting to book the place, put some money down, finally have something on the books for sure. Though I did triple check that it’s fully refundable if I cancel up until pretty much the day before, just in case something goes wrong.

I booked the flights over Christmas. They weren’t cheap, but I was able to afford them without destroying my ability to pay rent, because it turns out there is a reason why I put myself through human interaction for 8-10 hours five days a week. I did pay an extra fee to give myself the ability to pay another fee and cancel them, because still, it felt like I can’t be totally sure this will actually work. But that was a big commitment.

And that’s pretty well the main things sorted out. I still have to book a whole lot of train tickets, but I have the flights. I have the time off work. I have the Edinburgh accommodation. I have accommodation in London, because the absolute coolest person I could possibly come across on a comedy message board has a spare room, and is extremely kind and generous with his time and space, and I’ve said some pretty disparaging things about that message board before (based on some quite bad threads from like fifteen years ago, that I spent weeks reading in their entirety because, you know, autism), and I would like to take them all back.

Now they’ve announced the first bunch of acts at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival, and I’ve been going through picking out which ones look most interesting to me, and for maybe the first time, it’s finally feeling completely, entirely real. This is happening. For real this time. I am going through an Edinburgh Festival catalogue not just to take screenshots of the most interesting blurbs so I can save them in a folder and/or post them on my blog to say here’s an interesting piece of history. I am going through it to pick what shows I wish to see.

So here’s my plan, that I’m writing because I now feel confident that I think it’s actually going to happen. Obviously I have a spreadsheet with various tabs, and a KMZ file so I can open Google Earth with all the places I might potentially want to see already marked. I have been planning this trip for years. I have two weeks in the UK, and I don’t want to waste a single second. I want to make sure all that time spent planning comes to something, because as a fundamental part of my personality, I have always believed that there is a level of planning you can do to guarantee that everything goes right. This belief has been proven wrong time and time again, but I’ve never tried something with this much planning beforehand, so surely this time it’ll work. No taking a chance on some tourist attraction that might turn out to be shit, because I’ll have looked at it all on Google Earth beforehand and ranked things in order of how cool they look.

I have organized my spreadsheet into seven tabs: overview, plan by day, places to eat, things to see London, in Edinburgh, in Cambridge, and things to pack. I have organized each “things to see” tab into three sections: things I want to see for reasons related to general tourism, things I want to see for reasons related to comedy, and things I want to see for reasons related to Harry Potter. I apologize for the latter, and obviously I will not be doing anything that would give revenue to JK Rowling. But nothing JK Rowling can say in the 2020s will change my childhood, and I need to spend some amount of time indulging my childhood dreams of running around fancy buildings feeling like I’m in a magical British land.

London, tourism: pretty straightforward. Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral are on the list, because I remember how cool they were last time, and because for some reason when I stopped being Christian at age 16 I did not also get rid of my awe at fancy churches. I want to see Parliament and related areas, I want to try to get a picture of the Number 10 door as seen in Yes Minister. I want to see some bridges. Take a cable car across a river. Go look at Douglas Adams in Highgate Cemetery (I realize there are more famous people than Douglas Adams there, I’d like to see them too, but mainly Douglas Adams). Go see what The British Library has going on while I’m there. There are too many pubs on the list given the fact that I’m currently trying to stop drinking, I am going to cut some of those pubs off the list and I’m just trying to decide which ones, but I really love a good pub and the ones in London look so cool and even if I can’t have a pint I want to sit there in the atmosphere and have a burger or some shit.

Harry Potter tour of London is simple. Obviously I want to go look at King’s Cross Station, I did it when I was 16 and it was so fucking cool, I don’t care how stupid that is. Otherwise, I’ve looked up three different areas that were used in filming Diagon Alley, and according to Google Earth, seem like the do sort of look like Diagon Alley-like places. That’s what’s interesting to me. I’m not really interested in places where the movies just happened to be filmed (the movies were fine, I’ve seen them a couple of times each, but it was the books that I read until I had them nearly memorized), I want to see places that look like they could be where the books were actually set. And Goodwin’s Court appears to look like where Harry Potter could have actually been set. So I’ve made an appointment to go walk down a road.

For the comedy-related locations in London, there are a few venues I want to see. Ideally while something’s playing in them, but even if there’s nothing I’m interested in at the Soho Theatre while I’m there, I’d still want to go in and just see the building, after the all the shows I’ve seen and heard that were recorded there. Same with The Bill Murray. Battersea Arts Centre. I also wish to make a pilgrimage to the bit of Regent’s Park where Daniel Kitson’s done some of the most landmark nights of comedy in the last twenty years. Obviously I want to go stand outside the gates to the Taskmaster house and see just how close it is to that golf course. (There will also be a few hours of the itinerary where I might just leave some of the details blank, no need to get too much into what I want to see there, it’s in my spreadsheet as just “Crystal Palace”, and I will say that if you don’t want people to go look at a place where you used to live, don’t make your address the title of your theatre show – I need to stress again, just so we’re clear about what level of creepiness I’m talking about here, it is a former address, not anywhere that anyone significant lives now or has lived for the last fifteen years, it's just the subject of comedy stories that are now long in the past, as are various surrounding landmarks, it’s archaeology.)

Now, in Edinburgh I’ve put a lot fewer things on the itinerary, because I want to leave most of my time for going to see comedy shows. And going to see a couple of music shows, because that first wave of events they’ve announced includes a couple of traditional Scottish music things that I am so excited about, it’s going to be mostly comedy but I do want to do that as well. Celtic music, Harry Potter, British comedy – all the biggest special interests of my life besides the one where you beat people up, all easy to access at this festival (I mean, technically Edinburgh has something called wrestling too, but it’s best if I don’t hear anyone try to compare the Max + Ivan wrestling to the sport that I do).

I do want to climb Arthur’s Seat, because I’ve done it about a hundred times in Google Earth so I just have to do it in real life. When Mark Watson released his book last year, I got the signed and dedicated version and he said we can tell him about a problem we have for him to solve in the dedication. I said my problem is I’m going to London and Edinburgh next year and need advice on where to go, he said I should climb Scott’s Monument. Even though my levels of respect for Mark Watson have dropped significantly since that book actually came out, I am still going to climb Scott’s Monument because Mark Watson told me to.

Similarly, this extremely kind and cool person I know recently got the chance to get me an autographed copy of Tim Key’s new book (which I unfortunately won’t get until I go to London and pick it up in person, but it looks great), where he also asked Tim to give me some advice for my trip. Tim Key said to go to Mosque Kitchen, and Indian restaurant in Edinburgh, so I’m doing that. Oh, and while I’m in London I have to go to a place called Kebab Kid, because it’s Nish Kumar’s favourite shawarma place in England, which I know because I know a guy who could just walk up to Nish Kumar after one of his gigs and ask him what his favourite shawarma place is. Have I mentioned how fucking cool this is?

Anyway. That’s the extent of my interest in Edinburgh tourism, mainly. I mean, if I were going when the festival weren’t on, there would be plenty of other stuff I want to see. But I don’t want to take time away from festival events. I might do the castle. The castle’s probably cool. I definitely want to walk up that hill, as I’ve done many times on Google Earth, and look at the castle. Whether I pay to go inside will depend if there’s a hole in the comedy schedule, I guess.

In the Edinburgh – Harry Potter section, I have a few things. Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, the graveyard with the story about the dog that’s probably bullshit (I mean, it happened, but I think someone was just feeding that dog) but the story about how it inspired Harry Potter character names that’s true. Go get a picture of Tom Riddle’s grave. I’ve marked a couple of streets and a couple of buildings that look particularly like they could be from Harry Potter, those are on the list of places to walk. There’s a Harry Potter store that I want to go in and look through the stuff because the interior seems really cool, but I promise I would never spend money in there.

And then Edinburgh – comedy will probably take care of itself. I want to see The Stand and The Gilded Balloon, as the sites of many of my favourite comedy events over the last twenty years. But I’m hoping I’ll end up in those places anyway to see shows, so no need to make a special trip. If not, though, I’m making a special trip. I have to see the stage where the cow got torn apart. I absolutely have to go see it in person.

There is also the Cambridge tab, because I have blocked off one of my London days to take a train to Cambridge and back. I have made a Google Earth document with about 20 of the most interesting-seeming colleges marked. Obviously I’m not going to see 20 colleges, I’m going to look at them all in Google Earth and then rank them by how cool they look and go see as many as I can in order. I have also, of course, marked down which ones let you take tours and at what times. The place I’m most excited to see is the Wren Library, which appears to be a library from Harry Potter or His Dark Materials or something. I want to see Trinity College because it’s the college on which Douglas Adams based the college in the first Dirk Gently book. A few of the colleges have chapels that look really pretty and are interesting to me because I have for some reason not lost my awe of pretty churches. And mainly, I just want to walk around the Cambridge University grounds looking at stuff.

Oh, and we’re leaving another day to take a train to Kent, where they have an archive of stand-up comedy materials that I wish to see. But I haven’t made a tab for that, because I just want to see some stuff in the University of Kent and then go back to London.

I am also hoping I can block out one day from the Edinburgh week to not book any shows, and just take trains around Scotland. I have always wanted to take trains around Scotland. I have always romanticized trains, I have always romanticized Scotland, taking a train through rural parts of Scotland will make me feel like I’m on the Hogwarts Express, it’s everything my over-romanticizing heart fantasized about when imagining this trip. I’ve checked, and while it would be an incredibly long day, it is possible to take a train from Edinburgh to Mallaig in the morning, have a couple of hours in Mallaig, and take another train back at night. This would take me, twice, through something that’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world, from Glasgow to Mallaig. Mallaig is a tiny village on the West Coast of Scotland and it’s got a hiking trail and a pub and I just want to take a train across a country and walk around the trail and then sit in that pub and look at the ocean. I want that so badly. It’s been a rough couple of months, I find it hard to spend 8 to 10 hours a day interacting with other people, the thought that one day in early August I might spend one hour sitting in a pub in Mallaig looking at the ocean is really getting me the through the day at this point. There are a few pubs in Mallaig, but obviously I’ve picked out my favourite. I want to eat seafood. I love seafood. That’s not just a Mallaig thing, seafood is my favourite food and I always eat lots of it when I visit the East Coast of Canada because it’s better near the ocean. All of Britain is near the ocean, so I want to eat all their seafood.

Okay, that’s the plan. I was going to write about what I’m thinking in terms of actual shows to see, but I might let that turn into a different post. Right now, I’m just excited about the idea of posting this on the internet because it is real and I am actually going to do it and having this to look forward to is way too big a proportion of my motivation at this point in my life.

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rosemaryhelenxo · 3 months ago

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South Beach Restaurant and Bar at The Nici, Bournemouth: A Culinary Delight with Ocean Views | Review

With its picturesque beach views and vibrant atmosphere, it’s no wonder that South Beach at The Nici, in Bournemouth has become a popular destination for food lovers. Located in the heart of the popular beach town, this restaurant offers a unique dining experience that combines delicious food with a beautiful backdrop. As a self-proclaimed foodie, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to indulge in…

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randlemartin · 4 days ago

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fic guessing gaaame! artillery, stroke, blood

artillery:

He forces himself to read on, even as the words blur in front of his eyes, because while she was worrying about whether or not it would snow, he was freezing his ass off in a blizzard and dodging Kraut artillery. While she’d been wondering what to get his parents as gifts, he’d had to tell Captain Winters that Julian had been shot in the neck and there was nothing anyone could do to even get his body, that Babe had tried.

no use of stroke (yet 😏) but there's a stroking!:

Slowly, he starts stroking up and down, waiting for the blood in his body to get the memo and rush to his dick, while he scours his mind for something, anything, to think of. The obvious answer should be Pat, he should be picturing her with painted lips and the way she sighs when he kisses behind her ear, how her hands feel as they roam his body, how each time he’s fucked her has felt better than the last. Johnny tries - he closes his eyes and casts his mind back to the last time they’d been together, weeks before he’d shipped out to New York, and from there, England. They’d spent most of that weekend in a cheap hotel bed, mapping each other’s bodies like it might be the last time they see them. That reminder is enough to kill the heat he’d been chasing.

blood:

Tonight - this morning (it’s that weird time where it could be either, depending) it’s Skinny who wakes up the tent, thrashing and screaming over some unseen foe. Johnny’s probably a terrible person and even worse sergeant for it, but he’s glad that he’s loud enough to distract from the fact that he’d also woken up with a start, wiping Webb’s red, coagulating blood and brains from his hands. His heart still pounds too loudly in his chest, like it’s going to burst through his ribcage into the open air, and while Skinny stalks off to do whatever he does to come back to earth, he leaves the tent and finds Bull sitting on cold ground outside, having beaten Johnny to it.

thank you <3

#ask game #my wip

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ohmyoverland · 1 year ago

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Ghost!Lockwood snippet for the first prompt of @lockwoodandcoff

The house was cheap. Too cheap.

Lucy knew this when she first saw the For Sale sign, she knew it when she called the real estate agent, she knew it when she was signing the closing papers and took the eagerly-offered key.

But she had an ace up her sleeve: nowhere else to go. Between her renter’s history and Jacobs’ blacklist, there was no bed nor sofa left in all of England she was welcome to crash on. Faced with the choice of wasting all her savings on hotel rooms until she ran out and settled for a park bench, or spending it all on a house, Lucy would take the leaky roof and foreboding attic every time. And maybe having a project would be good for her.

It didn’t take long after moving in to learn what was cutting the price down. The problem even had a name: Lockwood.

“So what’s on the docket for today?” He asked, semi-corporeal form appearing to walk in step with her down the stairs.

#this is a No Problem but ghosts still exist AU #i didn't have much time to FINISH it this weekend but in the spirit of it being flash fiction i wanted to share anyway #lockwood & co #lucy carlyle #anthony lockwood #lockwood and co flash fiction #my writing #fic

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starrose17 · 1 year ago

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Ohhh I have such a big life decision to make and I just can't decide.

Some of you may remember I did a post about walking out of my job back in August after having a breakdown, well I did go back but working 4 rather than 5 days a week.

Mentally it's been great so far makes a big difference, but of course money wise it's a problem. Had to cancel subscriptions to stuff and find much cheaper deals for insurance, internet, phone etc etc etc, and although it is manageable i basically have no extra money for anything. No takeaways, no games, nothing that I enjoy.

I keep umming and ahhing about moving house again. Lived near London all my life then moved to Scotland for 3 years now I'm down in the westcoast but i hate where I live it's a dump full of morons and it makes me hate humanity more than i already do. And I hate it alot.

Working with the public for 11 years makes you very very bitter towards people because you only see the worst side of them and you are not allowed to react just smile and wave smile and wave and I don't like how angry it's made me as a person. I genuinely hate every person I see. Just strangers in the street, anyone, it's why I don't go anywhere I have zero social life cos I can't stand being around people.

I have a hell of alot of pent up anger, but the problem is I cannot find another job out of the hotel sector I already work in cos you need "experience" and the only experience i have is as a receptionist. Any Office skills were lost 20 years ago, so no one even looks at my CV.

So, if I'm stuck in the job I have, then at least I could make where I live better so I don't feel so angry, hence the indecision about moving.

Because where to move.

I could move further south west, to a lovely town on the beach, great beach walks in the warm, BUT, expensive housing, so difficult to find the kind of house with a large garden that I want.

Alternatively, I could move back up North again, either to the mountains in Scotland or North East England where there is another beach type town, though colder of course, but it will get snow, which I absolutely love. Same with the place in the mountains that I'm thinking of, and the houses are SO cheap up there I could almost buy two of them for the price I'd sell my current house for, so it'd be alot easier to get the type of house and garden I want. But it is very far away from my mum, who is getting on in years and what if she needs help when she gets older I don't want to abandon her.

All 3 of these places have a brand of my hotel there so I could just transfer, so no worries about not having a job to go into, but I just can't decide what to do.

Do I stay and try and make it work on 4 days? Do I move? If so where? More money if moved up North and will have snow, and a train line direct to London, but far away from mum. Or down further south, less money and less travel options, but beautiful warm beach to live on.

I just don't know what to do. I tried to look up therapy to deal with my hatred, but ironically I can't afford it, which made me even more angry.

*sigh*

Why can't I just move to a little village in the middle of no where and not have to work at all, just live off vegetables grown in my garden and somehow get free electricity and internet, that'd be great.

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wannabedjs · 9 months ago

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2003 was an eventful year...Went on a reality tv show ("Anything for Love") which never aired, studies abroad in Guadalajara Mexico, visted Mexico City, and Cuba . A key new chapter in my life. Fairly quickly after starting my job at UCH in 1998 it became quite evident that there was a disconnect between the providers/staff who only spoke English and the sizable patient population that only spoke Spanish. The sole translator was Dr. Michel Choncol, a renal fellow from Venezuela. I've always felt that the monolingual culture of the USA was a disadvantage. Having only taken a couple Spanish classes in high school, I had near zero Spanish skills. I decided to start the process to learn spanish. Taking classes a couple times a week at Colorado Free University and then enrolling at CU Denver into classess for no credit. Over a period of 3-4 years I advanced my spanish vocabulary to hold simple conversations. I knew if I wanted to accelerate my learning I needed to have a dedicated period of immersion. I'd been talking about this plan for a number of months, so when I proposed the idea of taking a 2 month immersive 'sabbatical' in Mexico to my boss and coworker, it was received with support. As a student at CU Denver I was able to enroll in an study abroad program down to Guadalajara, Mexico. Guadalajara is the LA of Mexico (Mexico city being the NYC) and is located in the state of Jalisco (home of tequila, puerto vallarta, mariachi music, and dozens of large scale murals). I lived with a family that had 2 other 'renters" in their central Gudalajara home. One of the other renters was a Japanese guy who didn't speak English and worked as a sushi chef and was a lucha libre on the side.

Wonderful experience as I learned more in 6 weeks of class than I did in the previous 3-4 years of classroom studies in Denver. (The key was not hanging out with the other native English speakers, most of whom were from England. The movie, Y tu mama tambien, had a sizable impact on most of them wanting to learn Spanish). I regularly hung out with the family's young 20ish old daughter and her boyfriend, Diego, who I was pretty sure was part of the cartel. He owned a couple "bars" which were just fields of land where they served cheap beer and had hip hop music. He even had a young dog named "Sixty" (for 69..yep. no lie).

Weekend trips included a memorable evening in a cemetery in Michoacan for noche de muertos. Straight out of Coco.

I had 2 weeks at the end open for travel and full immersion traveling to Spanish speaking cities. Half way thru my time in Guadalajara, I started planning an excursion to Mexico City then Cuba. Mexico City was as lively as advertised and my prep for Cuba seemed rather simple. No US banks in Cuba and they accepted cold hard cash from the USA.

So entering Havana with enough cash to make it for a week vacation in Havana and the beach town Varadero. Loved Havana and a highlight was walking up to the Interior Ministry government building thinking it was maybe some fancy hotel. It has a massive Che Guevera face on the outside with the tag line "Hasta Victoria Siempre." Now I should have researched the area where I was at, but looking over at the building I thought it said "Hotel Victoria Siempre.'....common mistake...one that you realize quickly as you begin walking toward it and fully armed military guards start walking towards you telling you to leave. I was like "Bet!" and high tailed it for some mojitos and grub far away from the plaza.

Varadero is the old Copa Cabana area. Like Vegas, but frozen in the 1960s. Massive hotels (previously casinos) just vacant. I was staying at an all inclusive type hotel with beautiful beaches with many european tourists. Most were topless which made it very difficult to read on the beach. One of the nights the hotel arranged for everyone to go to a nightclub which was all you can drink (For like 20 bucks) and had a full on cuban band with dancers. Kind of like an old supper club, but without food. It was fantastic, the 10+ piece band threw down cuban salsa/conga for hours. Towards the end of the show they invited the crown onto the large stage to dance. So here we are just getting down on the stage (the Italian gals with tops on just didn't look the same..hahaha) and they show ends at like 10ish. Within minutes of them stopping the place goes straight US hip hop club. With the 1st song being "In Da Club"...a very current song at the time.

If that wasn't memorable enough, I had everything planned. for the last 24 hours of my trip. Bus trip to the airport in Havana was scheduled and and I decided to spend the rest of the cash I had on gifts. Cigars, t shirts, foods, random wooden statues, etc. So I get to the airport and check in my bags with plenty of time before take off. As I approach the customs check point, I see that there is a $25 departure fee to leave the country. Again cash only. Problem was I only had like 5 bucks. Now I like to believe I'm relatively calm and collected when it comes to stressful situations. I find it rare that you end up in situation without a solution. Well, this was one of those situations . I had a moment where I was like "Fuck, I don't have a clue how I can make this work?" Then the master plan hit. The Cuban embargo that has kept the country frozen in time circa 1960 also has kept technology away. Common electronics are extremely expensive. SOOOO. I take out my yellow sony-disc man and walk around the airport waving it saying "se vende! Se Vende!" It took a good 30 min, but a dude came up with $20 and I sold him the discman...which got me out of the country. I still have the flight ticket with the PAGO $25 stamp on it.

2003 - peak meet me in the basement rock n roll

The comeback after the post grunge rock-rap (see Woodstock 99) boy band era. Was it all post 9/11?

Elefante, white stripes, broken social scene, strokes, TV on the radio

But also an electro-rock-punk scene w the rapture

No need to listen to- GREATS

OutKast: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (Arista)

The White Stripes: Elephant (V2)

Radiohead: Hail to the Thief (Capitol) - saw at red rocks

BSS- you forgot it in people

Basement Jaxx: Kish Kash

Postal service- give up

Yo la tango

Belle and sebastian -dear catastrophe

RH factor - hard groove

Erykah badu - world wide

50 cent - get rich or die trying

Sandra Collins - march essential mix w pete tong from Miami winter music fest

Revisits and new finds

Four tet - rounds

- his debut (?) and maybe my fav. Less Asian/Indian influenced

Caribou- up In Flames.

early release with few great tracks.

Elefante - loved them back it 03 and still solid 2000 era rock n roll

Strokes - room on fire. Just the same music as this is it..but who cares? It’s great!

Rapture- Echos. an early release of the budding electro-punk-rock-dance scene (mainly from NYC). 2-3 banging tracks

Tv on the radio- young liars EP 1st

Audio bullys- ego war. Can’t believe this didn’t get on best of lists. A blend of house, punk, British hip hop, and beats. We Don’t Care is one of best tracks of the year.

Decemberists - her majesty. Still catchy and an enjoyable listen. Very 03-y

M83 - really out there with full synths, but a couple tracks which lead to his take off w “Dreaming” almost a decade later

Pernice brothers- these guys! Discovery of the week. Indie/folk/country rocky with a coolness and sincerity . Lyrically stellar

Massive attack 100th window

Death cab- transatlanticism

- was a late comer to DCFC and really didn’t listen to this record til 08ish. Can see why they have a large loyal fan base. My question, ya think they’ve made more money off tv shows and movies that have their music than off their records? Last song end like the 1st begins . So can start anywhere and the album flows if on repeat

New Pornographers: Electric Version (Matador)- catchy pop-indie rock. I probably would have been really into them had I given this record a couple listens back in 03

Massive attack - 100th Window. The OGs of trip hop! F/u to mezzanine from 98’. That alone made this a must listen to. Still their signature sound that resonates through me the same as in 03’. A truly night record. Not many of those in 03

Randomness

Wrens - pitchfork #1. Not good

Jeff Buckley - live at sin e rerelease as 2 CD set. He will always be a part of my musical journey. Maybe the largest part w regards to memories over years and stories

- NYC house of neon(?) during interview for job at montefore

- house sitting for Bud Carlsen (a subconscious influence to me going to CO). and making late night pancakes listening to his music

- late night music!

- heading to Memphis to search for his body with Angela Angstman and Allison

Lots of great music I didn’t get to…

Bad plus

Arab stap

Mad lib invaded blue note

British sea power

Cursive

Ted Leo and pharmacists

Jay z black album

The neptunes - clones

Constantine’s

Memomena

My morning jacket

Kings of Leon

Mogwai- happy songs for happy peeps

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever to Tell (Interscope)

The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop)

Lefty deceiver

#year in music #pkpickles #2003

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