#crafting in Alison's craft room

[asravenous]

slice of pi

task: write a self-para of your character presenting their talent. evening (sometime between 6–8pm), the spare room september 7th 2005 with mrs. tristan & the rest of the wards

The whole thing was outrageously absurd. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend how Mrs. Tristan had come to the conclusion that a talent show in the middle of the week would be the perfect way to raise their spirits. To take their minds off grief? Vikram shifted uneasily in his seat as Celia and Angus performed a cello and violin duet. All the announcement had given him today was even more grief — once he came to terms with the miserable reality of being asked to perform at a “family” talent show at thirty — the irritation slowly simmering under the surface, like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

He still had half a mind to sit out of this one. Being sentenced to wash dishes didn’t sound completely awful. Tiring and laborious, sure. But awful? That was yet to be determined. Given that the threat of menial labor came after their day at the greenhouse, however… He was sure the rest would choose to stand in the center of the room, subjected to 16 pairs of eyes.

Joining in the discordant applause, Vikram looked on as Mrs. Tristan pulled out the next name out of her head. Alison. Not him, which meant he could still sit in the shadows and continue mulling over his decision. He stared at the table in front of him, zoning out as he played with his food.

“Vikram dear, are you participating?”

Without his knowledge, his name had been drawn out of the hat. That either meant Alison finished her performance and he missed it in its entirety or she had withdrawn. How long did he not pay attention, anyway? He took a moment to compose himself, looking up from his plate and meeting Mrs. Tristan’s eyes.

“Yeah,” he mumbled dumbly, not immune to her expectant gaze. It was always hard to say no to Mrs. Tristan, having relied on her all those years he spent in Woodrow. Clearing his throat, he nodded his head in assent.

“Yes,” loud and clear this time, “sorry, I’ll make my way there now.”

“Perfect!” She clapped her hands, equal parts relieved and delighted that he didn’t refuse. You could never be too sure with Vikram, in spite of his apparent predictability at times. “Come now, sweetheart, I can’t wait to watch what you’ve prepared.”

Unfortunately, Vikram thought sullenly as he walked over to the makeshift stage, I haven’t prepared anything. He didn’t share the same musical talents as Reece, Celia or Angus. River as well, odd as his performance was. As far as talent shows went, the acts presented thus far were pretty much standard fare. Celebration of Richard’s love of the arts, indeed. Too bad he couldn’t just pluck any of the pieces he made in Ceramics Club as a teen and showcase them here. By this point, everyone had already seen those.

Finally taking center stage, standing in front of people who were simultaneously familiar and strange, all Vikram could feel was his own heartbeat thudding in his ribcage. Awkwardness and a general unease encompassed his lanky body, as much as he tried to present himself otherwise. The confrontation with Talia that night aside, he hadn’t felt this way in years. Not even when he first started giving lectures in front of hundreds of students. 

“Well…” he started off, stalling a little for time as he quickly racked his brain for something he could do on the spot. “I can’t say I can hold a tune like some of us, even though I might have pestered you guys to teach me when we were younger.”

There’s a wry laugh at that — his own. If anyone else had reacted, Vikram couldn’t hear while he balanced being in his head and being present. Always a toss-up. He couldn’t have both without giving up one thing or another. 

“It’s a shame I didn’t keep up with any arts or crafts. Watching the lot of you performing while having dinner was an amazing experience. Honestly, they deserve another round of applause,” he paused for a bit, clapping as well. His posture straightened, confidence growing the more he spoke. “I can’t wait to watch what the rest have lined up as I finish my dinner.”

Knowing his own tendency for going down a rabbit hole every now and then, he had picked up a few too many things over the years. At best, they were mildly useful and at worst? They served no purpose, shelved away to the back of his mind. Maybe it was time to blow the dust off at least one of them. 

“It got me thinking: the dinner we had together on Monday featured some of his favorite dishes. Dessert was apple pie à la mode,” Vikram squinted a bit then, the spotlight suddenly feeling a little too bright; the segue into what he wanted to do a little too forced for his liking. Being put on the spot really tested the limits of his creativity. Perhaps he should’ve done an introductory class on How to Bullshit instead of Physics, with the way this was going.

“So here’s my favorite slice of pi. Just one hundred digits of it.” Light work, really. But boring them with anything more than that would be overkill, wouldn’t it? “Three point one four one five nine two six five three five…”

“…eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six two six…”

“… four three three eight three two seven nine five zero two eight…”

“…eight four one nine seven one six nine three nine nine three…”

“…seven five one zero five eight two zero nine seven four nine…”

“…four four five nine two three zero seven eight one six four…”

“…zero six two eight six two zero eight nine nine eight six…”

“…two eight zero three four eight two five three four two one…”

“…one seven zero six seven,” he finished, slightly bowing his head in thanks before using those long legs of his to walk briskly back to his seat.

[riverbills]

TASK:The Eulogy

"Say a few words in honor of Richard"

River considered himself a talented writer. He had his name written in enough soap opera end cried crawls to prove it. He had the imagination to think of overdramatic scenarios and the observation skills to know what the most realistic reactions to situations would be, before ditching realism for more engaging character responses instead. But writing a euology for Richard was different to writing scripts. When writing one off episodes of medical dramas River loved writing cliches. The thought of giving a cliche eulogy made his skin crawl. Richard deserved better than a cliche eulogy. Richard deserved a eulogy that was as unique and poignant as he was. River was concerned he didn't have unique and poignant words in him. Especially not where was a massive ache in his chest. He didn't want to be at the funeral. He wanted to be curled up in his childhood bedroom staring at one of the ugly neon green walls and petting Saskia. In normal circumstances River loved giving speeches. As a teenage he used to sit at the vintage typewriter Richard brought him practicing writing his Oscars acceptance speech. Richard was always the first person he thanked. He couldn't channel that enthusiasm for speech writing into his eulogy but maybe he could channel that gratitude towards Richard into it.

River first attempt at writing his euology was on Saturday morning. He wrote it hunched over in his airplane seat. Unsatisfied with the result he he tore out the page from the pocketbook after he was finished and scrunched it into his pocket.This earned him a concerned but sympathetic look from the flight attendant. The eulogy was as stale as the taste of vodka in his mouth. He needed to think of something more touching than what he'd written. His second attempt at writing the eulogy was on Sunday evening. He wrote it on the vintage typewriter Richard gifted him. He was grateful that Saskia kept interrupting his writing process. Unsatisfied with the result he sighed then tucked it into his suit jacket pocket. He wished he thought of something more impactful than what he'd written but it was all he had.

As River walked up to say a few words of respect he kept his eulogy burning a hole in his suit jacket pocket. Maybe if he improvised a few words they would be more sincere. His prepared eulogy wasn't as heartfelt as Mick's or as touching as Alison's. "Hello, I'm River Billngham. Some of you are already aware of who I am."He stopped to gesture towards the towards, still theatrical even at his lowest. "But most of you aren't. Richard had numerous wards but not enough to solely give him the send off he deserves." River paused hoping for nods of agreement or at least one titter.“When my parents died…a part of me died with them.” In hindsight River's parents weren't as present as they should have been but it was true that at the time a part of him died with them. He couldn't pick up at instrument without bursting into tears. But Richard took him in anyway.“I thought I would never be happy again. And obviously I'm not happy right now but I have joyful memories from the past sixteen years and some of those memories are because of Richard." River sucked in a breath."I don't know what I would have done without him. He gave me a home. An unusual disjointed home full of traumatised disfunctional children but a home nonetheless." River looked down at his bracelets for a moment, fiddling with the leather. "You know, I really needed an environment as untraditional as Woodrow House. I don't think I would have survivied anywhere else." Not many other legal guardians would have let an artsy teenage boy fill his room with craft projects and mismatched bright furniture. "The incredible thing about Richard is that he nurtured his wards in the exact way they needed. And he wasn't flawless because..."River stopped as he felt a lump form in his throat ."because nobody is, not even people who seem like they are from the outside. But he was as close to flawless as you can get on this shitty planet. And I'm..." River stopped as the tears welled up."Fuck! I needed more time. I'm sorry, this is too much. "River ran from the funeral.

[jaggedwolf]

pll rewatch 2x04

The Great Gatsby billboard staring at them from above after they get an A text!! Conveniently in this sketchy location for the girls to maybe wonder if there’s a camera in that eye. Okay, maybe they didn’t wonder, but I sure did

Everyone did a solo session with Dr. Sullivan before Hanna does this episode, hmm. Emily might’ve talked about moving to Texas, Aria about her parents cheating or blustering on about something else, but I bet Spencer showed up, brought her homework, and said nothing.

When her mom stops her in school, Aria immediately assumes Ella wants feedback on her teaching. I’m starting to enjoy when Aria is like this to her mom because my opinion of Ella as a parent has sunk compared to my memory of her.

When Caleb makes fun of Lucas’s room being filled with toys, Hanna immediately defends them as collectibles. Hanna probably does get it, given her own 1001 handbags and shoes.

Wren sucks more every time he shows up, he is passing out drugs to his ex-fiance and should lose his medical license.

Sullivan: “I’ve talked with a lot of young people about loss” Maybe Sullivan specializes in teenagers, with a focus on grief. Give the Liars’ parents a half-point for finding a relevant therapist.

Hanna is guarded about saying that a combination of guilt, anger, and fear is what she feels about Ali - so far, the girls haven’t really discussed with each other the experience of being friends with Ali. They gesture to it, like with Spencer pointing out Emily’s easy acquiescence to Ali, but they do not expose their own vulnerability in depth to each other

And I think Hanna would be the least likely to do so with the others

Aria is forced to endure sports and I am forced to endure too many shots of shirtless dudes (in a Philly November? Wear a a shirt!)

At least Aria gets rewarded with getting to ogle Jason. That man’s biceps are gigantic and I did not recall this about Jason

Omg there’s more Emily/Samara scenes at swimming meets. RIP Paige hope you’re oblivious to this

Doubt she is, because Pam Fields is yelling DANBY all over the stands and you know Nick McCullers is going “see if you got anchor you would’ve gotten a guaranteed offer too and not mere interest”.

Nick McCullers exposing the letter lie after doing some digging would’ve been so funny and so bad and both Paige and Emily would have wanted to melt off the face of the planet

Spencer wishes she could sleep over at Aria’s :( Last time she wanted Emily to stay over. Someone be a nice non-threatening sleepover buddy for Spence already :(

Pam is extremely charmed by Samara, who talks about the challenges of glue guns and the delights of crafting (with her mom). Samara gives good parent.

Generally speaking I spent very little time contemplating Samara back in the day, but I appreciate the way she functions in the context of Emily and Pam’s mending relationship 

Samara does all do this before a second date though, which, wild. Wild as well is Emily telling her the letter is fake. The unearned guilt must be eating at her.

So, Hanna in 2x04. It is specifically helping Lucas with his Danielle date and him thanking her that drives her back to Sullivan’s office. With every Liar, there’s the damage that Alison does to the girl and there’s the girl’s complicity in Alison’s cruelty, and somehow it is Lucas saying he no longer sees the latter in Hanna that drives Hanna to fully reject the former. As I said above, I don’t think any of the other liars have gotten as far as Hanna does this episode in extricating Alison from herself. Hanna’s the only liar whose present version we’ve seen interact with Alison so far, and there’s no regression to her flashback behaviour. 

All of the liars felt chosen by Alison, and all of them had an angle Alison was working. The way Alison comes at Emily and Hanna, I think, is that both girls are experiencing adolescence as their bodies betraying them. But where I don’t think Emily’s personality was wildly different pre-Alison, for Hanna I always get stuck on Mona’s anecdote of Hanna as a child bowing after a successful backflip, even when covered in vomit. A kid happy to get attention, fond of some showmanship, in contrast to the more muted one in the flashbacks. That isn’t all Alison - female adolescence in general gets some credit - but it’s hard to separate it from Alison. 

Hanna’s imaginary Alison suggests Hanna is scared of the liars moving on from her. I don’t think this is (as of yet) a fear we’ve seen any of the others express, and it’s a fear that has no basis in the current liar dynamics, so that’s interesting. I do read Hanna as the most guarded in S1 about the gang getting back together. I like that her conclusion here is that this has nothing to do with the liars or Alison (or Ashley, or Caleb, or Mona, or god forbid her dad), that she has herself and always will. Am reminded of a different blonde teenager who replied to “Take all that away...and what's left?” with “Me.”

I thought she was wearing a robe when Lucas came by her house in the morning and I was so thrown that she was wearing the same outfit at Sullivan’s till I realized it was a regular top

Why is Aria so pissy about Mike not playing basketball? The audience knows it’s bad vibes but girl, your parents pay zero attention to what y’all do after school, that’s how you have so many hours to waste in Fitz’s apartment or hang out with your friends you are banned from seeing. Do you want to rock this boat. 

Emily wants to call Garrett when they all shadow Melissa and Wren. I STG Emily it worked out with Toby but not all sketchy-seeming men are worth your trust. Glad Aria is a “No” on calling Garrett

As the four liars approach the abandoned barn (1) Emily would like take a photo, to prove to the cops they are honest kids (2) Hanna would settle for not getting murdered (3) Aria wonders if Ian has a gun, because “he’s a bad guy” (4) Spencer is laser-focused on Melissa

Yeah, that tracks.

Best A message of the episode: NOSY BITCHES DIE, painted in red across the wall in Sullivan's office

[choco-cherry-chunk]

And so it goes…

Modern BBC Ghosts AU a la Cherry (i.e., with mpreg bullshit) - Part 4

Part 4

Humphrey Bone could not identify exactly when he became the stand-in for the therapist Fanny Button so obviously needed. Just that one day, he was in the library, he asked her one question about her morning, and it was all downhill from there. Well, he wouldn’t consider it inherently negative; he didn’t mind talking to the woman, and it did admittedly feel nice to assist her in identifying more appropriate responses to matters than just shouting until they went away. But sometimes he wished he was more than a sounding board for her worries and that perhaps they could continue their conversations beyond how sick she was of the casual indifference of minimum wage employees and why she got so irritated when Alison wanted to modernize certain features of Button House.

Maybe that was why he’d developed his friendship with his closest hall neighbor. He saw a bit of himself in Thomas Thorne. The artistic spirit, the desire to create. Where Humphrey painted, Thomas wrote his poetry, and both were inclined to some manner of careful clothing curation. Sure, it wasn’t necessarily the most financially intelligent decision to fund Thorne’s room and board at Button House, but Humphrey had the money and some part of him wanted to see what the young man could accomplish without being forced to face the modern capitalistic grindstone. They even had something of a salon each week to hone their crafts, and it was clear that Thomas was always writing – regardless of how good that writing was.

But those thoughts weren’t long on Humphrey’s mind when he heard excitable pounding at his door, knocks of such intensity that he knew they couldn’t be from anybody but the lady of the house. Opening the door, he stepped aside, knowing better than to even try greeting her as she stepped into the entryway.

“Have you heard about this—this—” She gasped, struggling to think of an appropriate word to describe her surprise and frustration, “This so-called revelation?”

“Revelation?” With practiced ease, Humphrey closed the door and made his way to his kitchenette, preparing a glass of water for Fanny.

“Revelation, pronouncement, whatever you’d call it.” She huffed, clasping her hands together. Her eyes flitted about the room, taking in the mess of painting supplies strewn about and easel set up with a partially completed canvas. In the past, she would catch herself upon interrupting Humphrey’s life. But after enough instances when he assured her he didn’t mind, she was less inclined to feign worry over coming in the middle of task. She thanked him when he handed her the glass and took a moment to press the cool material to her cheek. Humphrey returned to his work, paintbrush back in hand.

“Dunno if I have. What’re you talking about?”

“Oh, don’t play stupid. It seems he’s told everyone in the house, save for me,” Even as she said it, Fanny knew she was being dramatic, but she didn’t care. She was hurt and she knew Humphrey would be the least likely to judge her for it, “James’ little predicament.”

“Predicament?” Humphrey hadn’t heard any recent gossip about the man. Hell, the two of them didn’t even talk all that much; not out of any disagreement, mind, but just the reality of living on different floors and not having all that much in common. Sure, there’d been that time he was commissioned by his museum to restore a particular general’s portrait—

“Oh, for— his being in family way!” Fanny insisted pointedly, putting the glass down with enough force that the water sloshed over the lip. She made an irritated noise and headed off to find a tea towel, leaving Humphrey frozen, the bristles of his paintbrush just barely tickling the canvas. This was…

When Fanny returned, she found herself encountering a secondary surprise. Her tea towel dropped to the floor, the fabric barely making a sound. She hadn’t been concerned about approaching Humphrey with her frustrations, having figured he would fixate more on helping her discern how she could handle her stung feelings about the man not telling her himself. But she’d had no intention of speaking to anyone else on the subject, especially not the person she saw standing in the hall, having inevitably exited the toilet at some point during their conversation.

While it was hard to believe that James would tell Julian about his pregnancy before he would tell Fanny, she did not believe it entirely impossible. However, she did know with certainty that there was someone he would never tell before her. Thomas Thorne gaped at her and Humphrey, eyes wide and jaw hanging like a loose shelf of bone from his face. Oh, she had certainly stepped in it now—

“The Captain’s expecting?” The young man gasped, stepping further into the sitting room. She should have known he would be there; the poet was always hanging around Humphrey if he wasn’t lazing about his own flat.

“Seems so.” Humphrey said, shaking his head and refocusing on his brushwork. Fanny picked up the abandoned cloth and went to sop up the water.

“That was not for your ears, Thomas—”

“It might as well have been for the whole house’s ears, the way you were carrying on,” He replied, returning to the chaste lounge he’d been residing in for much of the afternoon, “This is engrossing, however. The Captain, of all people, with child.”

Fanny pursed her lips. She knew how James and Thomas didn’t get on. Much as neither would want to admit it, they had rather similar personalities. A bit boastful, inclined to the sounds of their own voices, creative types – though the former would be less inclined to admit it. Those similarities were often the reason for the arguments the two could so easily fall into when interacting, and were exactly why she assumed (correctly) that he’d not told Thomas about the pregnancy. Which she had just done for him. Oh dear—

“This information is not to leave this flat, do you understand?” Fanny’s desire for advice from Humphrey was forgotten. Sure, she was still offended that James hadn’t confided this news in her himself, but if he found out she’d told Thomas without speaking to him first…

“Then how is he supposed to get home?” Humphrey asked with a vague degree of sarcasm. Fanny’s eyes didn’t even leave Thomas. The young man just continued to sip his tea, as if oblivious to her order.

“Thomas, do you understand me?”

“Do you think he would be open to name suggestions?” He asked, picking up a pen and paper, “Because with names like James and Anthony, I have to imagine they may not be as inclined to the eclectic. But I’ve always thought the name Arabella should make a comeback. Or Honor, good gender-neutral name.”

“Oh, he’d like Honor.” Humphrey agreed, gesturing to him with a paintbrush, as Thomas returned it with his own writing utensil. Fanny about threw up her hands.

“Thomas, I’m serious!” She insisted, moving to stand before him. She looked down to find that he really was scribbling names in his notebook. “If you didn’t know before now, you cannot let James know that you know.”

“Ah, is he planning to tell me some specific way?” Thomas asked, pausing to look past her to Humphrey, “Do you think Modesty has a poor connotation these days?”

“May be a problem of irony when it’s older.”

“Best not, then.”

Fanny looked to the ceiling, a silent prayer for an extension of patience, “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Well, how did he tell you?”

“He didn’t.”

The room was quiet once more. Even Thomas paused his writing. He turned to her, eyes narrowed. “He didn’t tell you?”

“…No. He didn’t.” Fanny couldn’t help the disappointment reappearing in her voice, and she moved to sit down in one of Humphrey’s armchairs, turning to the window to avoid looking at the men as she elaborated. “Julian told me.”

Humphrey and Thomas shared a look. When they didn’t speak, Fanny scowled. “What?”

“Well…” Humphrey began cautiously, “You know Julian tends to put on a bit of a show.”

“He may be taking you for a ride, Fanny.” Thomas added, offering her a sympathetic smile. However, in Fanny’s eyes, it was smug. Like she was a silly woman who’d had the wool pulled over her eyes by her own tenant.

“I doubt that very much. You’ve seen James of late, how strange he’s been acting.” The statement was initially just a vague defense, but as she spoke, she found herself reflecting on her interactions with her friend in the recent weeks. The little comments, the changes in his behavior.

“Fanny, I’m afraid you should consider changing perfumes. The lily scent you’re wearing is overpowering.”

“I have to cancel tea tomorrow. I’m still feeling under the weather, and I don’t wish for you to catch anything.”

“Oh, two sugars, please. I suppose I’ve developed something of a sweet tooth of late.”

Maybe that was why she’d been so quick to believe Julian. After all, it did make some amount of sense. As she offered more context, she was surprised to find Humphrey and Thomas providing some of their own.

“He was quite irritable during our last few conversations,” Thomas said, putting on something of a mysterious inflection, “Mood swings, perhaps?”

It was Fanny and Humphrey’s turn to share a look, neither eager to be the one to point out the likelihood that that had simply been a matter of The Captain interacting with Thomas at all.

“Watched him sick himself in your daffodils.” Humphrey shrugged, inclining his head to the window, “Figured best not to pry.” He’d seen any number of the residents do it once or twice coming home from a pub crawl. If anything, he’d privately cheered The Captain on for letting loose.

As more evidence mounted, Fanny was surprised to find that her disappointment was morphing into something more akin to sympathy. She’d never sought to have children herself, nor did she feel the ache of missing out on having a family after her divorce, and a large part of that had to do with her general distaste for things related to explicit domesticity. What if James hadn’t kept this from her because she’d misconstrued what their friendship was, but because he had? Did he think she wouldn’t want to know something like this? Had her comments about the more bothersome components of a baby living in Button House been enough for James to think it would be best to keep this from her? Well, Fanny wasn’t about to let him believe that. She would make that man aware of her approval of his growing family, by hook or by crook.

Standing from her seat and brushing some invisible mess from the front of her dress, the head of the house refocused on the men before her. Humphrey’s attention returned to her, while Thomas continued his ramblings about the resurgence of hyphen names.

“I think it may be best if we just forget having this conversation.”

Thomas stopped speaking. He wasn’t sure what to say in the moment, confused by the decision she’d apparently made for all three of them. However, Humphrey was sporting just the tiniest hint of a smile beneath his facial hair and offered a brief, agreeable nod. And, before Thomas could even offer his own take on the choice, Fanny bade them a good afternoon and disappeared out the door. Humphrey’s apartment was just as it was as when Fanny’d swept in, save for the extra glass. Music still floated out from his record player. Brush bristles gently scraped against the canvas. In Thomas’ notebook, beneath a few stanzas about the creeping change of winter into spring was a list of names.

[ailendolin]

Grace - Chapter 9/10

Title: Grace [AO3]

Characters: Thomas, Alison, Mike, Baby Cooper, the Ghosts, the Plague Ghosts

Summary: “Mike and I are going to have a baby.”

Baby Cooper’s arrival at Button Houses changes many things, and all for the better - at least at first. Or as Mary once said: babies can see ghosts sometimes but usually only up until they can walk.

Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - Epilogue

————

A/N: There is a little song in this chapter which I wrote for this story. If you want to know how it sounds, just click on the lyrics and you will be directed to a post with an audio file and sheet music.

————

Grace

Chapter 9: The Present

In the weeks between Grace’s birthday and Christmas, a new sense of normal slowly creeps into their lives. What used to be their everyday routine gently shifts into something that still feels familiar but is also undeniably different. Alison would like to say she’s getting used to it but every now and then she feels this pang of regret deep in her chest when it hits her just how much has changed and that things won’t ever go back to the way they were before. It’s something she fears she may never quite come to terms with.

The ghosts have started to join her, Mike and Grace for breakfast in the mornings again – all of them except for Thomas, that is. His absence doesn’t exactly feel like a missing puzzle piece because he’s no longer missing, thank god. It’s more like he’s not quite fitting into the space he has carved out for himself over the years anymore. Alison knows he will again one day, has to believe that he’ll be able to find a new place and purpose for himself with time, but right now he is lost and she hates that there is nothing she can do about it.

Her only comfort is that he is not alone in his self-isolation. The villagers from the basement have taken it upon themselves to ensure that he never lacks company when he wants for it. Just before breakfast, they come upstairs to visit him, and every now and then Alison catches one of them, mostly Nigel or Jean, asleep with him in his room when she checks up on Thomas in the mornings. She hasn’t asked any of them about it – she has a feeling they stay with him on the bad days, and she’s glad for it. While her relationship with Thomas has mended somewhat since their last heart-to-heart, she doesn’t want every single conversation they have to be about Grace or grief or loss. So instead of saying something, she does her best to have faith that Nigel and the others will take care of him when it all becomes too much.

She tries to find other ways to be there for Thomas; ways that allow him to forget about Grace for a little while. On the weekends, when life is less hectic at Button House, they meet up to watch the sunrise together now. It’s a new part of Alison’s routine that she wouldn’t want to miss for anything in the world, even if it makes her late for breakfast sometimes. It’s just her and Thomas by the little well on those cold winter mornings. Thomas claims it’s the best spot to watch the sunrise but Alison suspects he chose it for more sentimental reasons. After all, they had shared their first true connection by this well. Back then, Thomas had so rarely dropped the theatrics that she still remembers how surprised she was to find him gazing at the sun instead of her and saying something truly poetic. He had simply talked in that moment – without thinking, without carefully crafting each and every word – and it had been mesmerising to see the beautiful, broken soul he always tried to hide laid bare for once.

He used to talk to Grace like this, back when Storytime was still a thing. Alison has only listened in on them a few times in the beginning when she was still unsure Thomas would be able to manage Grace on his own but she remembers being struck by the honesty in his voice when he spoke of lands far ago.

Thomas isn’t quite that open with her now when they watch the sunrise together but sometimes, when he feels particularly melancholic, he quietly talks about his childhood and the times he would sit by the window in the morning, thinking that the sun was just as unreachable and unapproachable as his parents were. More often he is quiet, though, and then Alison will fill the silence with stories about her own loneliness growing up. It’s a theme that connects them despite the different lives they’ve led, and when Thomas quietly tells her one morning about the time his mother caught him writing with his left hand and how she punished him for it, Alison thinks out of the two of them, she got the better end of the stick. She might have lost her parents but at least she never had to doubt they loved her.

Thomas is not the only one she spends a little extra time with in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Despite everything that’s going on it hasn’t escaped her notice that Julian still looks guilty whenever he interacts with Grace. There is a strain around his eyes when he reaches out to her, and an unhappy frown mars his face every time Grace inevitably giggles and says his name in response. 

“It’s just not fair,” he growls out one day after he abruptly left the room and Alison hurried after him. He said the same thing before, back in the kitchen when she asked him to boop Grace’s nose, and Alison’s chest tightens when she hears the guilt in his voice, disguised as frustration. He looks like a caged tiger as he paces up and down in front of her; like he would give anything not to have his power in that moment.

“Thomas doesn’t begrudge you this – you know that, don’t you?” Alison asks softly.

Julian sighs and stops pacing long enough to turn away from her. He looks out the window and shrugs. “It still doesn’t feel right. He should be able to do this. What he had with her–“

He breaks off with a shake of his head and Alison wishes she could reach out offer physical comfort somehow because he looks like he needs it.

“Don’t underestimate how much you mean to Grace,” she says quietly, willing her words to get through to him. “Every interaction she still gets to have with you guys is precious now. It lets her know you’re still there – that Thomas is still there, even if she can’t see or hear him. You’re helping, Julian. Trust me.”

Julian bows his head. “Doesn’t feel that way.”

“I know,” Alison sighs. She wants to tell him that it will one day but the truth is she has no way of knowing if it’s going to. She has no idea if any of this will ever feel right again; if Julian will come to terms with the gift he has been given or if Thomas will ever be able to smile with genuine happiness around Grace again.

So instead of making promises she may not be able to keep, she steps up next to Julian and says, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad she’s still got you.”

————

She’s talking to Fanny about the specifics of this year’s Christmas tree – something she knows Fanny is very particular about – when Fanny suddenly interrupts her halfway through a ramble about baubles to say, “Alison, I have been thinking about the dilemma with young Grace and discovered a way to help you keep her memories of us alive.”

With a meaningful look, she nods down at the phone, the one Alison has been using to take notes on. It takes her a moment to make the connection but when she does, her eyes widen and she laughs. “Oh my god, of course! How haven’t I thought of this? I can take pictures of you and show them to her!”

“No, my dear,” Fanny says, her voice coloured with fond patience. “You can do better than that – you can take pictures of Grace and me together.”

Alison laughs again because the idea is so simple, so logical that it never crossed her mind. She’s been planning on making painting of Grace’s memorable interactions with the ghosts, thinking it’s the only way to capture those moments, but this – this is so much better. This is proof. This means Grace will never doubt her ghostly childhood friends are real because Fanny will be right there in the pictures with her, pulling silly faces to make her smile or frowning down at her writing over her shoulder once she goes to school. They will give her something tangible to hold onto when her memories fade and start to feel more like murky tales she’d once been told, and that means everything.

Alison looks up from her phone and feels her whole chest warm with the possibilities. “I honestly can’t believe I never thought of it.”

Fanny gives her a kind look. “You’ve had a lot on your mind these last couple of days.”

A few hours later, after she picks up Grace from Kindergarten Club – something Alison was adamant about the ghosts continuing, even if it’s hard for those like Pat and Kitty who can’t directly interact with Grace anymore – she asks Fanny to join them on their afternoon stroll in the garden. It’s a cold but sunny day, and with Grace all bundled up in her fluffy teddy bear jacket and practising her walking, they slowly make their way past Thomas’s well.

Grace has just found a frozen twig lying on the ground when Alison, phone in hand, catches her attention by pointing to the right and saying, “Fanny says you’ve got a lovely little twig there.”

It’s perfect: Grace looks up at where she is pointing and holds out the twig in her hand with a toothy grin just as Fanny looks down with a warm smile on her face. Alison snaps a picture of the moment and feels her heart nearly burst with happiness when she looks at it. Fanny’s form is faint but the love on her face is as palpable as if she were alive. Grace is more or less looking directly at her, making the illusion perfect.

“Look,” Alison says to her daughter and turns the phone around so she can see the picture. “It’s you and Fanny!”

Grace’s eyes go wide when she sees Fanny in the picture. There’s an adorable look of confusion on her face when she looks up and tries to spot Fanny next to her.

“I’m afraid that won’t work, my child,” Fanny says and leans closer to have a look at the picture herself. After a moment of careful consideration, she nods approvingly. “You might want to get that framed.”

Her tone makes it clear it’s more than a suggestion but Alison doesn’t mind. She already has an idea for a collage in mind, and judging by Grace’s happy babbling as she points between Fanny in the picture and the empty space next to her, she has no doubt that her daughter will love having her beloved ghosts line the walls of her bedroom one day.

“This was a great idea,” she tells Fanny quietly on their way back half an hour later.

Fanny inclines her head gracefully. “It’s one less ghost you’ll have to paint for her in the future.”

Alison gives her a warm smile. “Thank you.”

She has been working on proper portraits of the ghosts – portraits that show them smiling and laughing and glowing with happiness. The ones of Thomas, Fanny and Humphrey that exist are all … nice, as Thomas would say. Grace obviously loves them but they look too stilted and posed for Alison’s liking. She wants Grace to be able to see the ghosts the way they really are: goofy, silly and so full of love for her they often do not know what to do with it.

So one evening when she’s got a moment to herself, she sat down and started the first painting in what she calls the Ghosts Series. It’s just a small one but it shows Pat, crouching down with his arms wide open to encourage a toddling Grace to walk towards him. It makes Alison smile every time she works on it, and she hopes to fill the whole house with dozens of paintings like this one day. The ghosts deserve to leave their footprints in their home for all the world to see, and she already has ideas for the next ones: Julian gently reaching out to touch Grace’s nose, the Captain playing hide and seek with her, Robin grinning like a maniac as he raises his hands to the ceiling to make the lights flicker and Thomas– 

Thomas gazing fondly down at Grace’s crib as he weaves tales of fantastic lands and unlikely heroes just for her, just because he loves her and wants her dreams to be filled with magic and wonder.

There is something else, something secret, that has kept her and Mike busy in the evenings, watching one tutorial after another. It’s meant to be a Christmas present for Grace, and while Alison has no idea if they’ll be able to pull it off in such a short time, she is determined to at least give it a try, no matter how difficult Heather’s old sewing machine is trying to make it.

“I swear that thing is possessed by a demon,” she growls out late one night.

Mike looks up from the fabric in his hand. “Is that actually a thing? Demons?”

Alison gives him a look.

“What?” he asks defensively. “We’ve got a house full of ghosts. Who’s to say demons, werewolves, vampires and all that shit can’t be real too?”

Alison lets out a tired sigh and begins to thread the needle for the twenty-seventh time that evening with a patience that’s slowly but surely running thin. “Well, if you happen to see a unicorn grazing on the lawn shoo it away because Fanny and Kitty will probably want to adopt it and I’m not prepared to build a stable for it.”

In the end, they end up switching roles: Mike takes over the sewing machine while she cuts out the pieces of fabric. Surprisingly, and much to Alison’s relief, it works. Whatever Heather’s sewing machine has against her clearly doesn’t apply to Mike. The thing does everything he wants without tearing or muddling up a thread even once, and while a part of her wants to glare at it in a very childish way, in the end Alison is just glad to see Mike holding up an almost perfect little doll in triumph.

“Not going to lie, holding a tiny Thomas in my hand feels a bit weird but he does look sort of cute, doesn’t he?” he asks, squinting at the doll.

“Yeah,” Alison says as she takes in the brown colour of the waistcoat, the silky fabric of the cravat and the brown button eyes. They have given the doll a smile and after some debate also added the bullet wound. Alison knows Thomas can be quite self-conscious about it but it is a part of him and Grace has only ever known him with it so she argued it should be there. “Do you think Grace will like him?”

Mike gives her a long look before he hands little Thomas over to her. “I think Grace will cuddle the shit out of him.”

His bluntness makes her laugh.

“Well, you better be prepared to make the other ones too,” she tells him with a grin. “Creepy plague girl and all.”

Mike looks down at the mess of fabric, thread and buttons around him and groans.

————

It’s the night before Christmas and Alison is just getting Grace ready for bed upstairs when she hears the soft sound of a throat being cleared behind her. She looks over to the door and finds Jemima standing there with her doll clutched tightly to her chest. The little girl doesn’t usually wander around upstairs – something to do with the attic and her death, Alison has heard the other ghosts whisper – so she’s more than a little surprised to see her. She wonders if it has something to do with Thomas and the moment the thought forms, her mind immediately goes through all the worst case scenarios she tries very hard not to think about every time she realises she hasn’t seen Thomas for a couple of hours.

Taking a deep breath, she firmly tells herself not to draw conclusions based on nothing and manages to offer Jemima a smile. “Good evening, Jemima.”

“Hello,” Jemima says shyly.

Grace, in a fresh nappy but still without her nightclothes, wriggles around to get a look at the door. “’mima?”

“She’s by the door and waving hello to you,” Alison explains and patiently waits until her daughter has waved back before wrangling her into her clothes. To Jemima, she says, “Is there anything I can help you with? Has Robin blown the light bulb in the pantry again?”

She tries not to laugh when Grace races her pudgy hands to the ceiling and makes explosion noises that eventually dissolve into soft giggles of amusement.

“No,” Jemima says. “I’m here because of Thomas.”

So this is about him, Alison thinks as she places Grace in her crib. Worry creeps into her bones and makes her voice tremble a little when she asks, “Is he all right?”

Jemima shrugs. “He is sad a lot. Especially today. He told me he wanted to recite one of his favourite poems for her.”

Alison doesn’t need to ask what poem she is talking about: A Visit from St. Nicholas. She has seen Thomas recite it to Grace a year ago, his face all soft and full of wonder as he smiled down at her, and she knows he’s been looking forward to reciting it to her again this year. It feels like a lifetime ago that they talked about it.

“Are you here to recite it for him?” Alison asks softly.

To her surprise, Jemima shakes her head. “No. Too many words. I came to sing a lullaby.”

“Oh,” Alison says softly and gestures for her to come closer before she looks at Grace. “Jemima is here to sing you a song.”

Grace looks away from Thomas’s portrait and Jemima takes that as her cue to start singing. It only takes a few notes for Alison to realise she has heard this song before, a long time ago when she was so ill and exhausted she fell asleep beside her daughter on an early afternoon in spring. She remembers hearing Thomas’s voice from far away, remembers him telling Grace to be quiet because her mummy needs to rest, but it’s only now that Jemima’s voice rings out across the room that she actually remembers the song Thomas sang that day.

“Good night, sleep tight In the evening light Good night, sleep tight, Till the sun will rise

In the night the stars they glow And the moon it shines Good night, sleep tight In my arms tonight”

It’s a quiet song, a gentle song, and by the time the last note fades there’s a lump in Alison’s throat. She looks down at her daughter and finds her gazing at Thomas’s portrait with a sleepy but content smile on her face. Grace is humming softly to herself and Alison’s heart aches when she realises she is singing along to the best of her abilities. It’s clear this is a song her daughter is familiar with. It must have been a part of her Storytime routine with Thomas, and Alison – Alison had no idea.

“Thomas thought she might like to hear it again,” Jemima says softly, interrupting her thoughts. Quietly, she adds, “His grandmother used to sing it to him, apparently.”

Alison can just imagine it: a young Thomas snuggling up to his grandmother, feeling more loved in her presence than he’d ever felt around his parents. It makes her heart feel heavy, the thought of the man who has been loved so little in his life not only sharing this precious memory with her daughter but now also with Jemima just so Grace won’t ever have to miss hearing this song.

“Thank you,” Alison somehow manages to say just as Grace closes her eyes with a happy little murmur of Jemima and Thomas’s names.

Shyly, Jemima looks down at her doll. “If you’d like, I could sing it to her again sometime? I … I like singing it, and I like to help.”

It takes everything in Alison not to gather the young girl up in her arms and hold her close, impossible as that may be. “You’re more than welcome to, Jemima. Whenever you like.”

Jemima flashes her a smile before she curtsies and turns around with a quiet, “Goodnight, Alison.”

She leaves as quickly and quietly as she appeared, and there’s a part of Alison that wishes she had stayed longer, that they could have talked a little more. Jemima has always been an elusive one, though, and Alison knows it will take time for her to feel comfortable enough in her presence to stay for more than a few moments. It’s something she has to accept, just as she has to accept Thomas keeping his distance right now.

It’s hard, though, she thinks as she places one last loving kiss upon her daughter’s brow. With a soft sight, she activates the baby monitor and gently closes the door behind herself to join Mike down in the kitchen.

————

Later that night, after most of the presents have been wrapped and more or less the whole house is decorated with fairy lights, snowflakes and reindeer, Alison takes the little doll she and Mike made and quietly knocks on Thomas’s door.

He calls for her to enter, and Alison can’t say she’s surprised to find Jemima asleep on his bed and Nigel sitting with him by the window. She flashes them a small smile and joins them with a quiet, “Hi.”

Thomas’s lips twitch in response and Nigel jumps down from the windowsill to make room for her. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“There’s no need,” Thomas hurries to say, and Alison thinks it’s a testament to how awful he must be feeling that he wraps his fingers around Nigel’s wrist to stop him from leaving. There is a moment of silence as they regard each other before Thomas drops his gaze and begs in a small voice, “Please stay.”

Nigel’s face softens.

“Of course,” he whispers and gives Thomas’s hand a squeeze.

Alison doesn’t think she imagines the sigh of relief that comes from Thomas nor the way his shoulders relax when Nigel settles back down, and she tries not to take offense. She knows this has nothing to do with her. It’s about Thomas being afraid of being alone and forgotten on Christmas; about him craving company even though he fears he will ruin the holiday for everyone else. He clearly does not want to be alone with her right now and face whatever Grace-related thing she came to talk to him about on his own. It makes Alison wonder if she is being cruel by showing him the little doll she made of him to ease Grace’s pain, knowing very well that his own heartache won’t be so easily soothed.

Still, the last thing she wants is for Thomas to find out about the doll by accident and think he is being replaced. So once Nigel has tucked himself into the small chair below the window – the one that’s close enough to Thomas that Thomas’s fingers can rest on his shoulders – she gathers up her courage and says, “I wanted to show you something. Mike and I – we have been making something for Grace, something that we hope will help her even more than the portrait does.”

Thomas, thank god, looks intrigued rather than pained. “What is it?”

Bravely, Alison holds out the little doll.

“This is not meant as a replacement,” she says quickly so Thomas doesn’t get the wrong idea. “It’s just – she can hold it and touch it, you know?”

She realises how desperate she sounds but she needs Thomas to know that she does not mean any harm by this; that while she has Grace’s best interests at heart, she wants to make sure they don’t come at the cost of his.

For a moment, all Thomas does is stare at the doll. His face is not giving any of his feelings away and it’s that lack of reaction that prompts her to say, “I won’t give it to her if you don’t want me to.”

Thomas blinks as if waking from a dream. He reaches for the doll with one elegant, long-fingered hand that Alison has always thought was made for playing the piano and stops just shy of making contact. “You poured a lot of love into it. I can tell.”

It’s not quite the reaction she expected, and she exchanges an unsure look with Nigel before she says, “Mike actually did most of the sewing work. Turns out Heather’s sewing machine and I are mortal enemies.”

Her words elicit a wisp of a laugh from Thomas. He looks up from the doll and when his eyes find hers, Alison is relieved to see only warmth in them.

“I am sure Grace will appreciate the war you’ve fought for her.” Then, very softly, he adds, “It’s a lovely present, Alison. Truly.”

Allowing her eyes to close for a moment, Alison breathes out in relief. “I’m so glad you like it. I really think it will do a lot of good.” She pauses. “Mike’s probably going to have to make everyone else at some point as well.”

Behind Thomas, Nigel’s eyes widen for a split second in pleasant surprise before his face falls and he looks down at his plague-riddled hands. It’s glaringly obvious he’s thinking everyone else only means the upstairs ghosts – it’s written all over his face and Alison feels guilt churn in her stomach. She knows the villagers love Grace; has always known that and yet so rarely taken her daughter down to the basement to see them. She regrets that now.

“And by everyone, I mean everyone,” she says softly and smiles when Nigel looks up in surprise. “If we’re doing this, we’re making all of you. No exceptions. Same with the paintings.”

“Really?” Nigel asks, his voice almost painfully hopeful. Alison nods and he smiles at her bashfully for a moment before he looks up at Thomas. “You wouldn’t mind?”

Something breaks in Thomas’s eyes, something that leaves behind a pain that has nothing to do with his own loss and grief. He places his hands on Nigel’s shoulders and gives them a long, meaningful squeeze. “Of course I don’t mind. Grace has lost so much more than me. She needs and loves all of us.”

“But she loves you a little more,” Nigel says softly.

Instead of squeezing his eyes close in heartbreak, Thomas smiles – genuinely, beautifully, tragically. “And it is the greatest gift I have ever been given.”

The words are tinted with sadness but it does not feel as overwhelming as it would have a week ago, Alison thinks. Thomas is getting better, baby step by baby step.

The irony of the phrase isn’t lost on her.

“I know you won’t join us tomorrow but – would you like to have a little Christmas ceremony with me? Just the two of us? Or do you prefer to be alone?”

She can see the battle Thomas is silently fighting in the way his eyes become strained and the corners of his mouth slightly curve downwards. In the end, he shakes his head and says, “No, it’s all right. Christmas is for family.”

“You’re family,” Alison says, her voice shaking just a little.

Thomas smiles. “I meant your living family. You should celebrate with them. I’ll be fine – I mean it.”

Alison is about to voice her doubts when Nigel says, “It’s okay. He won’t be alone. He’s promised Lady Button to visit her pets with her after breakfast and the others and I will be with him later.”

Even though that makes Alison feel a little better, she can’t help but ask Thomas, “Are you sure?”

Thomas nods. “I am. And should I change my mind, I know where to find you.”

He sounds so sure that Alison doesn’t push but she still feels bad that he won’t be there when they open presents, that he’ll have to wait for his own until nightfall when Grace is asleep and most of the Christmas lights have been dimmed. He should be with them, should partake in the quiz Fanny is going to win like she does every year and sit next to her at the piano while she plays her favourite carols.

Next year, Alison thinks hopefully as she bids him and Nigel goodnight and heads back down to the kitchen to wrap up his doll as lovingly and carefully as she can.

[scotianostra]

Aberlady Bay’s midget submarines.

I took a trip out to Aberlady last night to catch the low tide where these relics from World War Two are left decaying as the tide comes in and out.

In the spring of 1946, two midget submarines were towed to Aberlady Bay and tethered on either side of an anchor point made of one old concrete anti-tank block set on top of four others. There, over two days of trials in the first week of May, they were fired at by aircraft including Mosquitoes and Seafires (the naval version of the Spitfire) in an experiment to judge the effectiveness of 20 mm cannon shells against the submarines’ steel hulls.

The story of the Aberlady Bay midget submarines was uncovered brilliantly by a researcher named Alison Boutland in a report for the Nautical Archaeology Society. She was able to identify the submarines as XT-craft, a training variant of the X-craft mini submarine.

X-craft were about 16 metres (52 ft) long and powered by a diesel engine when on the surface and an electric motor when underwater. They had a crew of four: a commander, a pilot, an engineer (known as the engine room artificer, or ERA) and a specialist diver. They were used in September 1943 in a daring raid on the German battleship Tirpitz in a fjord in the far north of Norway – a mission that inspired the 1955 film ‘Above us the Waves’, starring John Mills.

The XT submarines, built by Vickers Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness, were used not just for training X-craft crews, but also to stand in for full-size submarines in training exercises in which they were hunted from air and sea. The XT-craft were simpler than X-craft, since they did not need as much equipment. In particular, they did not have a retractable periscope; the periscope was fixed in a fin-like housing on the top of the submarine. The distinctive eye-shaped attachment point for this periscope housing was clearly identified by Boutland on the two Aberlady Bay wrecks.

Six XT-craft were built, named Extant, Sandra, Helen, Excelsior, Extended and Xantho. When the war in Europe drew to a close, they were no longer needed, and in June 1945 all six were sent to the Naval Construction and Research Establishment in Rosyth. Boutland was not able to figure out which of the six were used for the target trials, although she did conclude that the better-preserved wreck is probably not XT-5, Extended, which, as its name suggests, was modified to be a little longer than the others.

The cannon-fire trials took place on May 1, 1946 and, after the subs were patched up and re-floated, May 6, 1946. The website East Lothian at War, which has the dates as May 2 and May 7, says that the first trial involved armour-piercing shells and the second high-explosive shells, and that the latter proved more effective. Surviving documentation includes annotated photos of the subs showing the damage after the attacks.

Aberlady Conservation and History Society was recently given movie footage of the trials, filmed by a naval officer from the deck of a boat from which the operation was observed, and in 2019 the footage was digitised and posted on YouTube, the footage, although in colour, is not great, I will post it below for you to have a wee look at.

An interesting addition to the story of the submarines comes from Coastkid, a local blogger and Surly fat bike enthusiast, who has evidence that the subs continued to be used as targets for live firing practice by aircraft based at Drem. He recalls working as a greenkeeper at Gullane in the 1980s and finding dozens of spent 0.5 inch shell cartridges as well as 20 mm cartridges, and he was told by a retired tractor driver that aircraft used to line themselves up using a marker pole behind the seventh tee on Gullane No 3 course, and fire when over the rows of anti-tank blocks, near the green of the twelfth hole on No 2 course.

[warningsine]

When the first season of GLOW ended, it was on a cliffhanger. Over 10 episodes, Ruth (Alison Brie) and Debbie (Betty Gilpin) had crafted new identities as Zoya the Destroyer and Liberty Belle, two women wrestlers with an intense, Cold War–inspired rivalry. In the final episode, Zoya and Liberty Belle faced off after weeks of training in a thrilling, meticulously choreographed bout. At the end, they took a minute to acknowledge how well it went. They both smiled. Ruth tentatively asked Debbie if she wanted to get a celebratory drink. Debbie’s smile immediately fractured. “No,” she said. “We’re not there.” Ruth’s face fell. The credits rolled.

It was an odd, disconsolate note for the series to end on given the triumphant nature of the final few scenes, as the stars of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling wrapped their first TV shoot. But it was a realistic one. In the pilot for GLOW, viewers met Ruth, an out-of-work actress, and Debbie, a soap star turned stay-at-home mother, only to discover at the end of the episode that Ruth had been sleeping with Debbie’s husband. Debbie, incandescent with rage, confronted Ruth in the warehouse where GLOW was rehearsing, prompting the show’s wily director, Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron), to imagine how sparks might fly between the two women in the ring. Debbie was cast as Ruth’s arch rival. The question underpinning the season was whether wrestling would bring the friends back together, or whether Ruth’s behavior was ultimately unforgivable.

Television has centered female relationships before, often in quartet form (Girls, Sex and the City, The Golden Girls), or in ways that are riven with tension (The Handmaid’s Tale) or codependency (Broad City, Grey’s Anatomy). Insecure thrives on examining the relationship between Issa (Issa Rae) and Molly (Yvonne Orji). But GLOW does something different. It treats the relationship between Ruth and Debbie like a romantic one, elevating it above any other partnership in the series. Their breakup as friends is the core event that precipitates their casting on the show, and it’s conceived as seriously and as thoughtfully as a romantic breakup. Debbie’s final “We’re not there” affirms that they might have made progress as coworkers, but they’re a long way from fixing the damage that Ruth has done—and they might not make it.

The second season of GLOW, which was released in its entirety late last month, continues to foreground Ruth and Debbie’s relationship, culminating in a moment of violence and a furious, ugly fight in a hospital room. One of the questions for the writers in Season 2, GLOW’s co-showrunner Liz Flahive told me, was whether Ruth deserves happiness, and if she does, whether Debbie, who is going through a divorce, should have to watch Ruth be happy. It’s a question that branches out from something the show considered in its first season: Can Ruth, who’s revealed so early on to have betrayed her friend so egregiously, still be sympathetic? As a character, Ruth defies simple likability: She’s ambitious, pretentious, and frequently ridiculous. But in Brie’s hands, she’s also engaging, insecure, neurotic, and brave enough to be rooted for. “Look, people do really mess things up,” Flahive said. “And watching a character try, for better or worse, is so compelling.”

For the first half of Season 2, the dynamic between Ruth and Debbie remains unchanged. Debbie, in addition to channelling some of her anger into her bouts as Liberty Belle, redirects her energy toward her professional ambitions, negotiating a raise and a promotion to producer. Ruth, for the most part, meekly takes whatever Debbie throws at her. At work, they interact politely but struggle to make eye contact. When Ruth is asked out by a cameraman, Russell (Victor Quinaz), she accepts a ride home with Debbie instead, taking whatever crumbs she can get. “Is it going to bother you if, um, I go out on a date? Do you mind if I meet someone?” she asks Debbie. “I don’t care what you do,” Debbie replies quietly, before going on to deride Russell in a way that makes it clear how much she does care.

As the season continues, the tension between the two women comes to a head first when Debbie rails at Ruth for running away from a casting-couch situation that might have saved their show. “Feminism has principles,” Debbie spits. “Life has compromises.” Then, after a furious, despondent Debbie encounters her ex-husband’s new girlfriend, she intentionally fractures Ruth’s ankle in the ring. The event restores a degree of balance to the relationship that enables one of the most excruciatingly realistic TV fights between two friends in recent memory, in which buried resentments are dug up and toxic patterns thrown out. Gilpin, conveying Debbie’s commingled rage and guilt, is hypnotic in the scene, equally furious at Ruth and at herself. Ruth, emboldened by a growing sense of her own victimhood (and by a Valium–Klonopin cocktail), strikes back. Their relationship, she poses, is built on how Debbie savors her success against Ruth’s failure. It doesn’t justify Ruth’s infidelity to her friend, but for the first time in the series it suggests how it could have happened.

The scene is so potent because it’s so familiar. Friendships between women rely, often, on the unsayable—the secret comparisons, the petty jealousies, the familiar patterns of behavior. A fight with a friend can feel as emotionally draining, as unbearably cruel, as a fight with a partner. By putting Ruth and Debbie’s tangled relationship at the center of GLOW, the show comprehends this dynamic, almost to the detriment of the supporting characters (it’s the rare Netflix show that has so many stories to tell that it could stand to be longer). It uses the tension between two former friends as fodder for both character growth and narrative progression. But it also takes a realistic view of female friendship that television often sugarcoats. TV friendships, Emily Reynolds wrote in the New Statesman in 2016, tend to be idolized and cherished in a cutesy Galentine’s Day, yas-queen, matching-bangs kind of way. Ruth and Debbie are different. GLOW never guarantees that their friendship will recover, or that it should. What it does do is assert its significance in the first place, and emphasize how devastating its breakdown is to each of them.

[wankerwatch]

Commons Vote

On: Opposition day: Access to primary healthcare

Ayes: 80 (81.2% LD, 5.0% PC, 5.0% Green, 3.8% RUK, 3.8% Ind, 1.2% DUP) Noes: 337 (97.6% Lab, 2.1% Ind, 0.3% UUP) Absent: ~233

Day's business papers: 2024-10-16

Individual Votes:

Ayes

Liberal Democrat (65 votes)

Adam Dance Al Pinkerton Alex Brewer Alison Bennett Alistair Carmichael Andrew George Angus MacDonald Anna Sabine Ben Maguire Bobby Dean Brian Mathew Calum Miller Caroline Voaden Charlie Maynard Charlotte Cane Chris Coghlan Christine Jardine Claire Young Clive Jones Daisy Cooper Danny Chambers Ed Davey Edward Morello Freddie van Mierlo Gideon Amos Helen Maguire Helen Morgan Ian Roome Ian Sollom James MacCleary Jamie Stone Jess Brown-Fuller John Milne Josh Babarinde Joshua Reynolds Layla Moran Lee Dillon Lisa Smart Liz Jarvis Luke Taylor Manuela Perteghella Marie Goldman Martin Wrigley Max Wilkinson Mike Martin Monica Harding Munira Wilson Olly Glover Paul Kohler Pippa Heylings Rachel Gilmour Sarah Dyke Sarah Gibson Sarah Green Sarah Olney Steff Aquarone Steve Darling Tessa Munt Tom Gordon Victoria Collins Vikki Slade Wendy Chamberlain Wera Hobhouse Will Forster Zöe Franklin

Plaid Cymru (4 votes)

Ann Davies Ben Lake Liz Saville Roberts Llinos Medi

Green Party (4 votes)

Adrian Ramsay Carla Denyer Ellie Chowns Siân Berry

Reform UK (3 votes)

James McMurdock Lee Anderson Richard Tice

Independent (3 votes)

Adnan Hussain Iqbal Mohamed Shockat Adam

Democratic Unionist Party (1 vote)

Jim Shannon

Noes

Labour (327 votes)

Abena Oppong-Asare Abtisam Mohamed Adam Jogee Adam Thompson Afzal Khan Alan Campbell Alan Gemmell Alex Baker Alex Ballinger Alex Barros-Curtis Alex Davies-Jones Alex Mayer Alex McIntyre Alex Norris Alice Macdonald Alison Hume Alistair Strathern Allison Gardner Amanda Hack Amanda Martin Andrew Cooper Andrew Gwynne Andrew Lewin Andrew Pakes Andrew Ranger Andrew Western Andy MacNae Andy McDonald Andy Slaughter Anna Gelderd Anna McMorrin Antonia Bance Ashley Dalton Baggy Shanker Bambos Charalambous Barry Gardiner Bayo Alaba Beccy Cooper Becky Gittins Bell Ribeiro-Addy Ben Coleman Ben Goldsborough Blair McDougall Callum Anderson Calvin Bailey Carolyn Harris Cat Eccles Cat Smith Catherine Fookes Catherine McKinnell Catherine West Charlotte Nichols Chi Onwurah Chris Bloore Chris Curtis Chris Elmore Chris Evans Chris Hinchliff Chris McDonald Chris Murray Chris Vince Chris Ward Chris Webb Christian Wakeford Claire Hazelgrove Claire Hughes Clive Betts Clive Efford Clive Lewis Connor Naismith Connor Rand Dan Aldridge Dan Jarvis Dan Norris Daniel Francis Daniel Zeichner Danny Beales Darren Jones Darren Paffey Dave Robertson David Baines David Burton-Sampson David Pinto-Duschinsky David Smith David Taylor David Williams Dawn Butler Deirdre Costigan Derek Twigg Diana Johnson Douglas Alexander Douglas McAllister Elaine Stewart Elsie Blundell Emily Thornberry Emma Foody Emma Hardy Emma Lewell-Buck Emma Reynolds Fleur Anderson Florence Eshalomi Frank McNally Fred Thomas Gareth Snell Gareth Thomas Gen Kitchen Georgia Gould Gerald Jones Gill German Gordon McKee Graeme Downie Grahame Morris Gregor Poynton Gurinder Singh Josan Heidi Alexander Helen Hayes Helena Dollimore Henry Tufnell Ian Lavery Imogen Walker Irene Campbell Jack Abbott Jacob Collier Jade Botterill Jake Richards James Asser James Frith James Murray James Naish Janet Daby Jas Athwal Jayne Kirkham Jeevun Sandher Jeff Smith Jen Craft Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Jess Asato Jess Phillips Jessica Toale Jim Dickson Jo Platt Jo Stevens Jodie Gosling Joe Morris Joe Powell Johanna Baxter John Grady John Slinger John Whitby Jon Pearce Jon Trickett Jonathan Brash Jonathan Hinder Josh Dean Josh Fenton-Glynn Josh MacAlister Josh Newbury Josh Simons Julia Buckley Julie Minns Juliet Campbell Justin Madders Kanishka Narayan Karin Smyth Kate Osamor Katie White Katrina Murray Keir Mather Kenneth Stevenson Kerry McCarthy Kevin Bonavia Kevin McKenna Kim Johnson Kim Leadbeater Kirith Entwistle Kirsteen Sullivan Kirsty McNeill Laura Kyrke-Smith Lauren Edwards Lauren Sullivan Laurence Turner Lee Barron Lee Pitcher Lewis Atkinson Liam Byrne Liam Conlon Lilian Greenwood Lillian Jones Linsey Farnsworth Liz Kendall Liz Twist Lizzi Collinge Lloyd Hatton Lola McEvoy Lorraine Beavers Louise Jones Lucy Powell Lucy Rigby Luke Akehurst Luke Murphy Luke Myer Luke Pollard Margaret Mullane Marie Rimmer Marie Tidball Mark Ferguson Mark Hendrick Mark Sewards Markus Campbell-Savours Marsha De Cordova Martin McCluskey Martin Rhodes Mary Creagh Mary Glindon Mary Kelly Foy Matt Bishop Matt Rodda Matthew Patrick Matthew Pennycook Maureen Burke Maya Ellis Meg Hillier Melanie Onn Melanie Ward Miatta Fahnbulleh Michael Payne Michael Wheeler Michelle Scrogham Mike Amesbury Mike Reader Mike Tapp Mohammad Yasin Nadia Whittome Natalie Fleet Natasha Irons Naushabah Khan Naz Shah Neil Coyle Neil Duncan-Jordan Nesil Caliskan Nia Griffith Nicholas Dakin Nick Smith Nick Thomas-Symonds Noah Law Oliver Ryan Olivia Bailey Olivia Blake Pamela Nash Pat McFadden Patricia Ferguson Patrick Hurley Paul Davies Paul Foster Paul Waugh Paula Barker Paulette Hamilton Perran Moon Peter Dowd Peter Lamb Peter Prinsley Peter Swallow Phil Brickell Polly Billington Preet Kaur Gill Rachael Maskell Rachel Blake Rachel Hopkins Rachel Taylor Richard Baker Richard Quigley Rosie Wrighting Rupa Huq Rushanara Ali Ruth Cadbury Ruth Jones Sadik Al-Hassan Sally Jameson Sam Carling Sam Rushworth Samantha Dixon Samantha Niblett Sarah Champion Sarah Coombes Sarah Edwards Sarah Hall Sarah Jones Sarah Owen Sarah Russell Sarah Sackman Sarah Smith Satvir Kaur Scott Arthur

Seema Malhotra Sharon Hodgson Shaun Davies Simon Lightwood Sojan Joseph Sonia Kumar Stella Creasy Stephanie Peacock Stephen Kinnock Stephen Morgan Steve Race Steve Witherden Steve Yemm Sureena Brackenridge Tahir Ali Taiwo Owatemi Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Terry Jermy Tim Roca Toby Perkins Tom Collins Tom Hayes Tom Rutland Tonia Antoniazzi Tony Vaughan Torcuil Crichton Tracy Gilbert Uma Kumaran Vicky Foxcroft Warinder Juss Wes Streeting Will Stone Yuan Yang Yvette Cooper

Independent (7 votes)

Apsana Begum Ian Byrne Imran Hussain John McDonnell Rebecca Long Bailey Richard Burgon Zarah Sultana

Ulster Unionist Party (1 vote)

Robin Swann

[thaidakar-is-hot]

Alison Wayfarer Back Story

I realized I never talked about Alison on here. I deleted the blog that had all her backstory. So here's a NOT SO SHORT post about her!

Alison was a mage studying in Dalaran at the time Khadgar was! She's around his age, only a year behind him, and so she was 15, he was 16, when they met. They met due to Alison's meddling; she noticed him in a lecture hall, noticed how incredibly beautiful he was, and had to speak to him.

She "accidently" ran into him with all her books, which led to them all toppling and the two meeting eyes as they stooped to catch them. A real hollywood meeting, but it worked. Khadgar was enraptured by her, and she found him beautiful. (I base him off the old Drew Winchester drawings from yore, which I can't post but they are very, very old.)

They quickly started courting, meeting in secret, and then out in the open. Towards the end of Khadgar's stay, they actually moved out of shared dormitories and rent a room in Dalaran proper; a tower room.

Alison is naturally gifted with Arcanogeology, and this was her choice of study. Khadgar was gifted at everything, naturally so. He required very little study, and was always sticking his nose into unwanted places.

Alison's gift with barriers and defenses actually led her to creating her own birth control, but…that's neither here nor there. :)

Khadgar is sent to apprentice. She makes him promise to write, and he does; but he letters never reach her. She writes to him as well, but her letters never reach him. Both of them are worried sick about the other, and eventually, Khadgar returns, a changed man and aged before his time.

But it's him! She recognizes those eyes! She would recognize that face, too, under any amount of line and wear. She calls after him as he pushes his way through the crowded streets. He couldn't believe she still wanted him, and offered her a chance to leave; he was an old man after all.

She wouldn't hear any of it. Khadgar was hers.

The Second War wore on, and afterwards, the pair reunited for some short respite before packing up and moving to Stormwind. Here they marry, and try for a child, but no luck. Khadgar blames it on Medivh's curse, and Alison blames it on herself, but the fact remains: They can't have children, at least not easily.

It was pretty lucky they DIDN'T have a kid, as they were thrown threw the dark portal. Khadgar tells Alison she should stay behind, and she tells him here, snarling, that she will never leave his side again.

She means it.

The pair are assumed lost for decades. Here, after the sundering of Dreanor into Outland, Khadgar falls into a deep depression where the only thing he focuses on is his work. Alison cries nightly, trapped on a doomed planet in a marriage with a man she loves but she feels doens't love her back.

He does, though. He's just…so tired of all the pain. It takes the Dreanei priestess in charge at Aldor Rise to slap some sense into him, and the pay reconcile. They gradually fall into their old ways, a pair of best friends, lovers, and husband and wife, thick as thieves and concealing nothing.

Of course, they move back to Azeroth when able, though it takes many years for them to feel comfortable doing so. Khadgar was…leery of returning. So much responsibility, so much changed. He was worried about the overwhelming reality. He had to learn about the scourge, and it's second rise to power, and Deathwings sundering of the planet once more.

But they manage. They rebuild. They are given fantastic quarters in Dalaran, and Khadgar and Alison have a sizeable fortune in gold. All seems relatively peaceful; the Pandaren conflict is so far away…they can try and raise a family.

NO DREANOR TIME. This time Khadgar WILL NOT let a second invasion happen, and he's ready for it. The pair go through with the rest of the force and settle in that tower we all know. She also learns a lot more of her craft from the local artificers.

It's in Legion, around the time of the uhhh Broken Shore Patch, that Alison finds out she's pregnant. But some…miracle, at her "advanced" age (She's like in her 40s.) she managed to finally get pregnant. Khadgar attempts to say she won't leave the city, but she shoots that down quick, and he smiles, realizing his error in trying to control his wife. They do, however, keep her pregnancy a secret with illusion spells as much as possible.

She gives birth to a baby girl, whom they name Leyla. The war with the Legion was still raging, and during this time Alison was apart from her husband during the critical moments, but not while they were on the Vindicaar. Here, she reunites with old friends. Alleria is very happy to see her baby, and Turalyon is ecstatic.

Then…the Alliance and Horde begin fighting again. And the pair fade away, wishing to retire. Khadgar and her spend some time in Karazhan, but it's no place to raise a baby girl. They rent a house in Stormwind, and Alison grows close to the former Queen Kayleigh, now Lady Kayleigh, and Leyla gets to play with her kids. Her son, Torstan, is several years older then Leyla but he enjoys messing around with her and playing in the castle grounds.

But…life moves on, and Khadgar is asked, or demanded, to rejoin the Council of 6. So he does. He again attempts to get a spot for Alison, but she refuses on grounds that two council members cannot be married. (I also don't want one of my OC's over throwing canon characters <3)

Dragonflight happens. They spend a lot of time exploring the isles, it's a rather peaceful campaign after all. Many years have passed, and Leyla is a teenager now.

And then it happens, and they both die together, leaving Leyla and orphan.

[xprojectrpg]

This Day in X-Project - July 1

Liam Nelson's birthday.

2015: Adrienne posts a plea for help as Garrison has made her go to Toronto to watch the Sox and the Jays play. Megan lets people know that there is an arts and crafts fair in District X. Bobbi comments on how she’s got Carly Rae Jepsen songs stuck in her head. Sooraya goes to Kevin for help on the background of a project. Alison asks if anyone going to the store can get her some laser pointers, Sue agrees to bring some home from work.

2016: Everett bumps into Cecilia on her morning run with Lucky, they get to know one another while discussing powers and their time at the mansion.

2017: Amanda emails the magical people about the meaning of the stones and the existence of the Winding Way. She also alerts the various teams. Cecilia posts about going on vacation.

2018:

2019: Fear in the Dark: X-Force puts their plan to motion; The second part of the heist, getting in, goes off without a hitch; the heist almost goes according to plan, until the ravens interfere; Wanda and Clea are waiting nearby as lookouts when they see two men teleporting out.

2020:

2021: Jubilee posts about a song she identifies with. Emma talks about dealing with renovations and ponders someone buying her an appropriate mug. Marie-Ange thanks Fourteen for a belated Christmas gift.

2022: With Independence Day just around the corner, Jubilee asks the mansion to join her in celebrating. A Danger Room session with Kane has April evaluating her moves. Terry texts Darcy to ask if she'd be willing to pick her and Kyle up Sunday.

2023: Doug makes a journal entry about a funny image he found. Darcy and Haller finally meet in person and have a discussion about the blow-up on the journals, and afterwards she provides a little tech support. Arthur goes to see Wanda about his new powers development and winds up talking it over with Marie-Ange instead.

[alisonadamsartuk]

Embrace Nature with Woodland Wall Art: Transforming Spaces with Alison Adams Art

In today's bustling world, finding solace in nature is more important than ever. Many people seek to bring the tranquility of the outdoors into their homes, and one way to achieve this is through Woodland Wall Art. In the UK, Alison Adams Art stands out as a premier provider of such exquisite pieces.

Alison Adams Art offers a stunning collection of Woodland Wall Art that captures the essence of nature's beauty. Each piece is meticulously crafted, bringing the serenity of the forest into any living space. From majestic trees to delicate flora and fauna, Alison Adams' creations evoke a sense of calm and wonder.

Woodland Wall Art UK enthusiasts are drawn to Alison Adams Art for its exceptional quality and attention to detail. Whether adorning the walls of a cozy cottage or a modern apartment, these artworks add a touch of rustic charm and sophistication to any room.

One of the standout features of Alison Adams Art is the use of vibrant colors and textures. Each piece is carefully painted to convey the depth and richness of the natural world. The artist's keen eye for detail ensures that every leaf, branch, and creature is rendered with precision and lifelike beauty.

But Alison Adams Art is more than just a brand—it's a testament to the enduring allure of nature. By incorporating these artworks into their homes, individuals can create a sanctuary where they can escape the stresses of daily life and reconnect with the earth.

Whether you're a nature lover, an art enthusiast, or simply someone looking to enhance their living space, Woodland Wall Art UK offers something for everyone. With Alison Adams Art, you can transform any room into a tranquil retreat that celebrates the splendor of the natural world.

In conclusion, Woodland Wall Art by Alison Adams Art is not just about decorating walls; it's about bringing the outdoors inside and creating a sense of harmony and balance in our lives. So why wait? Explore the collection today and embark on a journey of discovery and inspiration.

[smallerplaces]

It's Britney, Bitch: Kitchen BEFORE

My 7" Britney Spears doll lives in a gray mansard house built from the Petite Dreams Deluxe kit, a house that looks almost exactly like a Real Good Toys "Alison Jr.," only in reverse. I built the house with my parents as a family project over Labor Day 2017, so it was Mom's choice that the floors are painted brown and the walls off-white. She furnished it in very serious Old West.

When I moved into the family home a couple years after her death, I decided this was the only 1:12 house I was going to keep, since it had meaning to me, it's mostly flat and up so it takes a reasonable amount of space, and it goes with my gray bedroom walls. I refurnished it primarily with my own 1:12 furniture (previously in an IKEA Flisat that I didn't bother moving), plus pieces from Mom's collection that I particularly liked or found especially useful.

I'm now giving myself permission to really work on it.

The overall concept is that the house is the "big fancy house" in one of those little towns in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, in the present day. It's been divided into a main house (four rooms) and an income apartment (two rooms). It's to have been redone to capture or retain historic character while being modernized.

Let's take out the furniture and see what we have.

I'm 90% sure that the stainless steel kitchen set is from Hobby Lobby. While Mom boycotted everything in sight for the most random reasons, she never boycotted Hobby Lobby even though its management promotes appalling bigotry that she was supposedly opposed to. I'm chalking that up to the power of location: it's on the main drag of our city, near stores she shopped regularly. The other big craft stores are or were: (a) out near the highway in a difficult-to-get-to plaza; (b) way out past the highway; or (c) in the next town over. I've been tempted, just because it's so much closer than Michaels, but then I remind myself that its leadership would cheerfully have me killed, and there are limits.

Nonetheless, I'm keeping it, because it wasn't my purchase decision. I'm not tracking down the provenance of every innocent-looking item I've inherited, so there are probably items that are way more ethically gray. Also, I still wince when I recall my efforts to create a stainless steel kitchen using a cheap set from AC Moore.

The table set is a must-have because it was my find at an antique store in Sedona, Arizona, when I took the old AZ Shuttle there to get away from the Phoenix heat one summer. On the way up, I'd been talking with the shuttle driver about her dollhouses, and she talked me into the idea of making a quaint little cabin in a Greenleaf Corona Concepts "Primrose." So of course it was Meant to Be when I found this table set!

I never did order a Primrose kit, but this dining set is important and must be included.

Most of these items are things I bought at the Phoenix Park 'n' Swap or at the little J Chew Mexican Import shop in Scottsdale, or that Mom bought when I took her to those places. So they stay, and get some friends added out of my stash.

So the one thing that isn't making the cut is the paper rug that looks like a quilt. This room still needs a lot of work.

Flooring: I want something that says "Victorian California" but also says "washable."

Is this an occasion for subway tile?

Tin ceiling. Seriously. A must-have.

Shelving: means I can display more accessories.

Art: where the accessories don't fit.

Did I mention accessories?

It is time to get cracking on research.

[ailendolin]

🥰: Thomas and Isabelle

Here’s your ficlet, anon! I hope you enjoy it!

Next up:

❤️‍🩹 Reunited after a long time apart - Francis & Isabelle

🤒 Needing to be looked after - Humphrey

🛁 Platonic bathing - Ian/Gabriel

⚡ Scared of thunderstorms - Robin

🎶 Dancing - Robin, Humphrey's body, Mary & alive Kitty

🥶 Cold - Fanny

✊🏽 Protecting - Thomas & Francis

💪🏽 Bridal carry - Pat & the Captain

Ask Game is here. Filled prompts are here, here & here on AO3.

I'll accept 3 more prompts for this ask game until I move on to another. Please take a look at my pinned post for information about which characters/pairings I won't write for.

————

Letting Go

🥰 Saying ‘I love you’ without saying it

Thomas knew everyone believed him to be fond of big love declarations – the ones where you shouted your love from the rooftops so that the whole world knew to whom your heart belonged. He couldn’t blame them for thinking that, wrong as they were. His behaviour around Alison was all they had to go on, after all, and he certainly wasn’t quiet or shy about his affections for her.

The problem was: Alison had never owned his heart. Thomas loved her, yes, worshipped the ground she walked on but he was not in love with her. He had not been in love with anyone since Isabelle, too heart-broken to dare leave himself vulnerable like that again. His heart was surrounded by walls now, and had been for so long that he had no idea anymore how to tear them down and let someone in.

Some might say he was still in love Isabelle, that that’s why he couldn’t let himself love anyone else, but Thomas knew better. He had tried so hard to be happy for her and Francis after his death that his feelings for her had dimmed like the light of the setting sun in the evening and eventually disappeared altogether. But he had been in love with her, once, and that love had shone so fiercely despite being such a quiet, subtle thing –  all about hands brushing against one another, seemingly by accident, as they walked through the gardens and smiles being secretly shared across a room when they thought no one was looking. It had been confined to letters crafted so exquisitely no one but them could have possibly deciphered the hidden messages written between the lines, and allowed to bloom only in silence where it could not be noticed.

Thomas had hoped to openly declare his love for Isabelle one day, once their courtship had been made official, but it had obviously never come to that. Meaningful glances, secret messages and subtle but loving gestures were all they’d ever had, and Thomas still treasured every single one of them more than gold. His own boldest gesture might have been the rose he had given Isabelle once, white as the first snowfall in autumn. To everyone else it must have looked like any other courteous gift a young man might give a young woman but his rose had been special – carefully selected from his mother’s garden and lacking any thorns. Isabelle, upon noticing the smooth stem, had held the rose against her chest with such a pleased smile that Thomas was sure she had understood what he couldn’t put into words just yet: I care about you, my fair lady – so much so that I would pluck the thorns from all the roses in the world if only to keep your gentle fingers safe from them.

That same evening, just as he was about to depart, Isabelle had pressed a book into his hands and whispered, “I found myself enjoying this story quite a lot, Mr Thorne, and thought you might do so as well.”

Thomas had read the book twice in a matter of days just so he could share his thoughts on it in his next letter to her.

He had many memories of similar gestures and moments they had managed to carve out of time for themselves despite it all. The reveal of Francis’s deceit had tainted every single one of them; had turned them into something tragic that made Thomas want to weep when he thought about them for too long and wish he had thrown caution to the wind just once and told Isabelle about the depths of his feelings on one of their rare unchaperoned walks. Perhaps Francis wouldn’t have been able to convince them that their love was unrequited so easily, then.

His only condolence was that at the end, Isabelle had known he’d never left her. Thomas had been right by her side when she’d taken her last breath and the light had appeared above her body – unlike Francis who couldn’t be bothered to do even that little for her after she’d given him the son he’d always wanted.

“Thomas” she had said in breathless surprise as her soul, still as radiant as it had always been, hovered above her body, hesitating between worlds.

Thomas had smiled at her, then, despite the tears that were gathering in the corners of his eyes. “It is good to see you again, Lady Isabelle.”

“Oh, Thomas,” Isabelle had whispered, her voice full of regret as she realised what his presence meant.

When she reached her hand out to him, Thomas took it in his own and placed a loving kiss upon it. “It is quite all right. I am just glad we finally get a chance to say goodbye.”

Before she could ask what he meant, the light enveloped her and pulled her up, far beyond his reach. For a moment, Thomas stood there with tears silently rolling down his face as he stared up at the ceiling. Then he’d gathered up his grief and turned away, fading through the nearest wall.

It was the last time he had ever allowed himself to love – and it had been by letting her go.

[lranceusw4]

School First Half

First Session

My first session was at the museum, I met with the group of Year Nine students, who were lovely and definitely reminded me of myself at that age, and reintroduced myself to the teachers. I immediately felt like this was something I would enjoy, in school I loved to follow the rules and felt more in-line with the staff than the students so actually being a member of staff felt like a long-time coming. We went into the museum and met one of the staff members there involved with the project, Alison, who is the director of the museum. We dumped bags off in the learning room and then Alison gave the group a tour of the Ethel Mairet exhibition. I did a bit of research before coming but found it so useful to be shown around by someone who has spent years gathering information for the exhibition, it was a lovely experience. We then gave the group a few minutes to go around on their own taking pictures and sketching artefacts to help with their documentation in their sketchbooks - the project is to fulfil the Bronze Art Award which is hosted by the museum, the students are researching Ethel and then having a hands-on go at her craft in workshops in the school, they will also later teach what they learn to two groups of younger students to finish the Art Award. We then returned to the learning room and all listened to a presentation over Zoom by Radhi Parekh who works in India with local weavers. She taught us all about the history of spinning wool and weaving cloth in India and the way Ethel links to Gandhi and the importance of Indian weaving in their fight for independence from British Colonialism, which is why their flag has a spinning wheel in the centre. 

It was a shorter session but this was as it was setting up for the next ones in which we will do workshops with an artist from Bristol which will have more teaching and helping needed. I had a great time anyway, I already feel hugely inspired and enthusiastic about this project and feel so lucky to be able to help out and tag along for the ride. This session also was the perfect way of easing me into the placement. I couldn’t have planned it better! The students were in non-school uniform so I didn’t stick out hugely, although I was much taller than the kids, and it was in the afternoon on a Friday which meant everyone was excited and relaxed (including the teachers).

Session Two

The second session was my first in school, I had to sign in at reception and wait for the other guests - Angie Parker the weaver from Bristol and Sarah Montague from the museum - before we were led to the classroom where the workshop would be. I was a bit nervous sitting waiting for them as I’d never met them before and I usually get a bit anxious about small-talk and introductions - however, it was completely fine! They were very smiley and kind and we chatted about the workshop and my university course happily. Me and Sarah helped Angie bring the equipment out of her car and then set up on tables around the room. We also brought the looms for tomorrow's session across to the Art Block and I wrote out name tags for the kids so Angie could learn their names quicker. After lunch the kids came in and the workshop got started. We were doing natural dyeing with four different substances; onion skins, avocado, red cabbage, and weld. First Angie explained how to prepare the wool, winding it into lengths and tying string so it wouldn’t knot together in the dye bath, then we got the water boiling and put the dye material in with the wool. She then explained the science behind dyeing and linked it with Ethel’s practice. The kids then had fun experimenting with different acids and alkalis to change the colour of the dye water, this got a little messy but it really opened their eyes to how many vibrant colours you can get from simple natural plants. Next we all looked at examples of Angie’s work and lots of samples of fabric she bought from India when she lived there, these again linked to Ethel’s time in India and the influence their culture had on her.

After the wool was finished both dyeing and then cooling slightly, we were able to get them all out and see the finished product - some went as expected and others didn’t, but Angie pointed out that’s the beauty of natural dyes. We used a lettuce spinner to get more of the water out and then at 4.30 it was time for the kids to go. We packed up all the pots, pans, fabric, and wool, making sure we left the classroom clean and not sprinkled with drops of strangely coloured water, then we carried the equipment back out to Angie’s car. I had a really great day, I loved getting involved with the process and helping Angie but also feel very motivated to do my own natural dyeing now I’m equipped with the knowledge of how it works. I was mainly helping students with the dying and being Angie’s assistant - moving things around and preparing resources for her - and it was really fun, the students are all so sweet and fun, and I felt very comfortable in the classroom. Tomorrow we will be weaving with the newly dyed wool.

Session Three

Session three was similarly lovely, we set up in a different room, setting out six large looms on tables. The workshop started with Angie giving a demo for the students, showing how the looms worked but also naming each part and explaining what they would look like on a full scale floor loom like Ethel used. While most of the kids then started working away on their weaving, Angie set two of the students up on back-strap looms - as there weren't enough frame looms to go around - this was the area I then took over. When the kids swapped around I’d explain the back-straps to the new pair of students. I enjoyed this greatly, there were only two students so it felt very casual and calm, but I was helping them handle the wool and explaining the whole weaving process so they knew how to continue. It felt good to see them understanding as I explained and answering their questions when they needed help. Doubly satisfying was knowing I too had learnt a new skill that I could go home and practise! I also brought some of my personal wool and my drop spindle in to show to the class. I asked Angie and the teachers in the morning if that would be useful and they were more than happy for me to do a little talk about it. So, I spoke to the group about spinning wool to fill in the missing step in the process that they hadn’t yet seen - what happens to get the wool from sheep to weavable yarn - I showed them my drop spindle and how to use it along with some raw wool before it had been cleaned and carded. The teacher was very glad I did this bit, it helped give them more context for the wool industry and helped with information for their sketchbooks. I was really glad it went down so well for the people listening, and it went well for me speaking! I felt a bit nervous, especially when the teacher called over the students and I was just waiting for them to line up and listen but once I was talking I felt more in-control, and I said all I had to say and did it confidently.

  The workshop continued until all cushion covers had been woven and time was up. I helped in a few other areas, like assisting students who were spinning wool on the yarn winder and some who had confused themselves with the patterns on their frame looms. It was a great day and I felt really settled into the role of ‘teacher’, it felt great as I love being helpful, and I learnt new skills that I can take with me in my own practises at home. During the clear up, Sarah from the museum spoke to me about a weekend workshop they are holding and invited me along for free, both to help out and take part. I was surprised, but very grateful and lept at the opportunity. It felt so exciting to be in the room with people who had creative and museum jobs and then to be accepted as one of them, it was the first time I’ve made connections like that and I felt really proud that she invited me as I must have come across as helpful and kind.

[watching-crazy-science-fiction]

Guess what?! I made that! @mackenziegracedonaldson reached out back in March and I've been keeping it a secret this whole time!!

[crazybengiefb]

God Jah Will

God Jah is greatest. We give thanks, glory and praises to the Most High God Jah Ras Tafari.

Some people a short while ago now, in their cultural, racist, ignorance, chose more than twenty preists, over a Rastafarian, and lost as a result.

The world heals itself. We are here, not to serve society, business, sat-un, etcetera, but to serve the Most High God Jah, God Jah love. God Jah bless.

Crazy Bengie FB