#everyone should have an allan/james in their life

[tori-spring-enthusiast]

Yh we love allan but when r we gonna start talking about how allan is the james of barbie?

[offender42085]

Post 0500

Jason Brown, Indiana inmate 250573, born 1989, incarceration intake in 2022 at age 33, scheduled for release 10/26/2058

Murder, Homicide of an LEO

After waiving a jury trial, a judge found Jason Dane Brown guilty of a murder charge in the deadly shooting of Lt. Aaron Allan on July 27, 2017.

Nearly five years after Southport Lt. Aaron Allan was shot and killed, Jason Dane Brown was sentenced after being found guilty in his murder.

A judge sentenced Brown to 58 years, three of which are suspended, for the deadly shooting of Allan. He was also sentenced to one year for marijuana possession, which will be served concurrently.

Allan was killed while he and an officer with the Homecroft Police Department were responding to a crashed car.

Allan, 38, was reaching in to help Brown when Brown started shooting. Witnesses said Brown continued to fire even as Allan tried to crawl away. Investigators said Allan was shot 11 times.

Other officers who had responded to the scene returned fire, shooting Brown in his face and neck.

After waiving a jury trial, a judge found Brown guilty of murder in the deadly shooting. The prosecutor's office had been seeking the death penalty, but it was removed after Brown asked to waive the jury trial. The judge then ruled during the trial that the prosecution had not established evidence for a life without parole sentence.

During the sentencing hearing, the defense gathered family members and friends to speak on Brown's behalf.

Cierra Brown, Jason's older sister, was present at the hearing and described their childhood about constantly moving, their mother using drugs and their father in prison.

"I know Jason's heart. I know that day was tragic for everyone in Indianapolis. I know he wasn't in his right mind. He wouldn't hurt anybody," Cierra told the judge.

Teresa Brown, Jason's mother, said she didn't know how the accident happened because Jason "was the most cautious driver. We called him a 'granny driver.'"

"He wishes he could tell them how sorry he is. He wishes this never happened. He wishes he never went out that day. All he keeps saying is he's sorry," Teresa said at the sentencing hearing. "It's not who he is. He's so caring, thoughtful, loving and funny."

James Allan, Aaron's father, directly addressed Brown and said, "You knew what you were doing. My son was there to help you, and you took his life. It was your choice. None of us should be here today, but those were your actions."

After hearing from people on both sides, Brown cried while he read a prepared statement: "I'm sorry to the family, friends, coworkers. I woke up that day and didn't intend to harm anyone."

Brown said he grew up without a dad and promised to be the best dad he could be. He said he can't be that now and knows he's the reason Allan can't be the father to his son either.

"I'm so sorry. I'll never forgive myself for what happened on that day. I don't know what happened, and I'll never know, but I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm sorry I caused it," Brown said.

After a break for lunch, Judge Mark Stoner said Brown's history of brain injuries and remorse shown were mitigating factors in the sentencing. However, Stoner said Brown should have never been driving with his head injury history or had access to a gun due to his mental health issues.

"There is nothing you can do to bring Lt. Allan back, but there are positive things you can do for your son and your community," Stoner told Brown before issuing the sentence. "You will serve a significant penalty, but you have to forgive yourself and make something positive out of your life."

According to Stoner, circumstances that led to his sentencing decision included firing 18 shots, hitting Allan 11 times, and killing a police officer, as well as Brown not seeking treatment for known head injuries and mental health issues for fear of losing his driver's license or his drug use being discovered.

"The sentence imposed today provides finality to the criminal matter and our thoughts remain with Stacy, the family, and the Southport Police Department during this difficult time. We will continue to honor the legacy and sacrifice of Lt. Aaron Allan," Prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a statement.

Allan's parents also spoke with media after the verdict in February, 2022.

"The judge definitely was listening, as convoluted as this case has been, and the extent of the roller coaster ride that we've been taken on, I'd like to feel that justice will be served," James said.

"I'm thankful for the judge at least giving us this. Hopefully, he'll never see the outside of the bars ever," said Laurie Lowry, Aaron's mother. "I miss him as much today as I did the day he died. But hopefully now Aaron can rest."

His past criminal history includes a 30-day sentence for possession of a controlled substance. He was also convicted of driving on a suspended license.

In closing arguments during the murder trial, the prosecution argued Brown was likely on drugs when he shot and killed Allan.

The defense argued Brown had suffered a seizure and was not in control of his actions.

The judge ultimately decided that, while Brown may or may not have known Allan was an officer, Brown knew what he was doing when he pulled his gun and fired it multiple times.

3j

[fundielicious-simblr]

Harvestfest 🌲🍁🥧

(3rd Person POV)

Harvestfest is here again, with hordes of people descending on Newcrest (and like 5 in Brindelton bay) for a weekend of extreme family time. This post will be on the 'non heir' families that spawned from gen 2, so basically everyone from Danielle down to Harley. Thanks to my new and improved character pages, you should be able to figure out who they are and what their stories are that have led them to this point. I'll be posting them in reverse order so we'll start at the bottom and work our way to the top, so the 'heir + heir-ish' families (Allan, Branden, and Claire's) will have their own posts.

●🌲🍁🥧 ●

[L-R: James Lee (16), Cara (46), and Fletcher (47) Collins; Harley (44) and Gabriel (46) Barnard; Archie (11)(Front), Grayson (44) , Keira (42), and Matthew Collins (16)]

These are the Collins and Barnard Families. They had initially planned to travel to a cabin in the woods for a scenic harvestfest weekend, but conflicting work schedules meant that they put that plan on the backburner. They gathered at Fletcher and Cara's house for their grand meal, before heading to church for the evening service.

[F] Life has found a steady rhythm for Fletcher, Cara, and James Lee, Fletcher continues to work for the Newcrest Police Department, Cara continues her work as a Head of Fundraising and Marketing for the Newcrest Conservative Party. Their son James Lee goes to a top ranking private christian high school in the district, and is enjoying spending his time at after school activities and volunteering at various church ministries.

[G] Grayson continues his work as a doctor at Newcrest General Hospital, looking after patients as well as travelling round to speak and/or attend different conferences. He also speaks at various events, usually for various pro-life organisations and at political events. His wife Keira currently works part time at Newcrest General as a nurse whilst she finishes homeschooling their youngest son Archie, who goes to a co-op. When Archie goes to high school then Keira shall resume working full time at the hospital. Matthew attends the same high school as his cousin James Lee, and the two are thick as thieves, with James Lee feeling like a brother more than a cousin.

[H] Harley and her husband Gabriel continue to live and work in San Myshuno, Gabriel continues teaching at San Myshuno Culinary Academy and Harley still works as Editor in Chief for Myshuno Madness Magazine. The couple vacation regularly to see their family as well as to visit different parts of the country and the world. They enjoy spending time with their many siblings, nieces, and nephews at various times of the year.

L-R: Ava Grace (17), Ruby Rae (19), Rory (19), Elaine (50), Taylor (51), Amelia (14), and Kyra (26) & Tyler (28) Shearer

Life continues on for the Godwin household, Amelia is now a teenager and is working her way through high school at her homeschool co-op. Ava Grace is almost done with highschool and is exploring her options for further education, she also plays on the volleyball team of the christian school that Kyra teaches at. Ruby Rae is a year into nursing school, she commutes to university so that she can save money. She hasn't decided what kind of nurse she wants to be yet, but she's firm in her desire to help people, her aunt Kiera has been helpful in the process of applying and attending nursing school. Rory is also in university

Kyra and her husband Tyler are enjoying married life, they both live and work close to both their families so they both often enough. They're working towards buying a house before expanding their family, right now they're just enjoying being married which they're very thankful for.

L-R: Sebastian (55), Danielle (53), Gabriella (16), Emma (20) & James (21)

The Hunt households are thankful for time together, with James and Emma in Henley-on-Bagley as missionaries they don't get to be together as often. Gabriella is in high school, homeschooled by Danielle, and has not begun thinking about what she wants to do next. She often helps out at her dad's vet clinic, so she considering veterinary nursing as one of her options but she's in no rush. James and Emma moved on Henley-on-Bagley to be missionaries to help grow a church there and they are enjoying their time. They spend their days sharing the Gospel to those who live in town and in the wider area, as well as assisting at church services when needed. They've not had children yet, but are open to any that the Lord will send them. Danielle continues to homeschool Gabriella, and when she's not homeschooling her then she's working on baked goods to sell at various farmers markets or working at the bakery. Sebastian continues to run his veterinary clinic, and he's recently partnered with a veterinary school and will now be training those who make it to their clinical rotations.

[orion120048]

Random poetic crap I wrote.

Writing and poetry is the art of wandering and of testing the barrier between worlds and the thin line between insanity and the sane. Truly beautiful writing makes a person question everything that they’ve ever known. The greatest writers like William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe are believed to be insane but that's what made them some of the best writers and Poets of all time. The key to writing is jumping the line between reality and insanity 

“Pluto believe the reality is divided into two parts the ideal and the phenomenon”

In my opinion the ideal is the worlds we go to to escape from the reality, while the phenomenon is the world where people with lesser Minds spend their time fretting about every little thing, when in the end nothing we do ever matters, unless we leave art behind. I believe art should mean “little soul” as art is a part of someone's Soul whether it's writing or poetry or photography or  drawing it's a part of someone. Everyone's art style is unique to themselves. People say people are little snowflakes because they are different. It's because we have different ways of expressing ourselves through ART, through the way we carry ourselves, through the way we behave as people, everyone's different no matter how hard you try and make them the same. Writing is like bleeding on a piece of paper showing the world who you are and what you can do whether in English or French or in Latin or some other dead language. Painting and drawing is like reaching into the void and pulling out something brand new using the world's colors. anyone who doesn't know painting well sees a Jackson Pollock and calls it b******* but in the eyes of a painter, Jackson Pollock is a Visionary just as Pluto or William Shakespeare is to writers.  “Learn the rules like a professional so you can break them like an artist”

 The most important thing in writing is chemistry “It's Romeo and Juliet”  Oliver Marks says this in the book if we were villains and to someone who's never read the novel this means nothing but to someone who's read the story and watched all Oliver struggle with his love for James which ends up Landing him in prison, it means everything, to see his passion and pain all wrapped up together in four simple words.  He has read Romeo and Juliet, he knows the death of their love, he knows what lengths they would go to for each other and by saying this he shows the reader that he too loves James in this way so much so that he would follow him to the ends of the Earth, would go to prison for him, would die for him, would give up any chance he ever had at a good life. 

[concupiscience]

"I hope the exit is joyful and hope never to return." - Frida Kahlo

"Love one another." - George Harrison

"I'm bored." - James Baldwin

"Fuck you." - Tupac Shakur

"Utter Nonsense" - Eleanor Roosevelet

"I'm in no pain. No pain. Don't cry for me, Rahaman. I'm going to be with Allah. I made peace with God, I'm OK. Rahaman, how do I look?" - Muhammad Ali

"I don't want to die." - Amy Winehouse

"I'm going to the bathroom to read." - Elvis Presley

"I want nothing but death." - Jane Austen

"Last words are for fools who haven't said enough." - Karl Marx

"Don't you dare ask God to help me." - Joan Crawford

"I finally get to see Marilyn." - Joe Dimaggio

"I must go in, the fog is rising." - Emily Dickinson

"One last drink, please." - Jack Daniel

"I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." - Leonardo Da Vinci

"You see, this is how you die." - Coco Chanel

"Oh, you young people act like old men. You are no fun." - Josephine Baker

"Don't lift me." - Robert F. Kennedy

"Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here." - Nostradamus

"I'm going away tonight." - James Brown

"Goodbye, kid. Hurry back." - Humphrey Bogart

"One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes." - Alfred Hitchcock

"Goodnight, my kitten." - Ernest Hemingway

"I'm bored with it all." - Winston Churchill

"Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man." - Che Guevara

"Is it not meningitis?" - Louisa May Alcott

"A dying man can do nothing easy." - Benjamin Franklin

"You are wonderful." - Arthur Conan Doyle

"Swing low, sweet chariot." - Harriet Tubman

"I feel something that is not of this earth." - Mozart

"This is no way to live!" - Groucho Marx

"Every damn fool thing you do in this life you pay for." - Edith Piaf

"God damn the whole friggin' world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta." - W.C. Fields

"Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." - Steve Jobs

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something." - Pancho Villa

"This isn't Hamlet, you know. It's not meant to go in my bloody ear." - Laurence Olivier

"Lord help my poor soul." - Edgar Allan Poe

"Remember, Honey, don't forget what I told you. Put in my coffin a deck of cards, a mashie niblick, and a pretty blonde." - Chico Marx

"Back in no time." - William S. Burroughs

"Now is not the time for making new enemies." - Voltaire, after being asked by a priest to renounce Satan.

[thebrochtuarachs]

Something in the Rain - “Interruptions”

A/N: I hope you like it. As always, your comments and suggestions are very much welcome.

A modern day meet cute instance between Jamie and Claire. 

AO3  / C1: A Day In June : C2: Definitely, Maybe : C3: So We Meet Again : C4: Friday Lunch : C5: Finding Solid Ground : C6: Situations

XXXXX

“What should I wear tomorrow?” Claire texted Jamie on the eve of their first official date. She wanted to have an extra time to shop should the need there be. 

“What do ye mean?” he replied. 

“I want to dress appropriately to wherever you’re taking me, James Fraser.”

“I see. Smart casual would do. :) Sorry, I dinna thought of informing ye earlier but wouldn’t it be hilarious if you dressed to the nines and we’re going to some sort of cattle farm”

“Exactly.” Claire replied with the eye roll and laughing emoji. “Can I know where we’re going?”

“Don’t ye want to be surprised?” Jamie messaged back and saw three dots typing afterwards. 

“Hmm, thinking about it, yes. I’m excited to see the Jamie Fraser Date Experience.” 

“Hope it doesna disappoint. I, too, am excited to see the Claire Beauchamp Date Experience. ;)” he replied, knowing the use of emoji will make her smile as he rarely uses one.

“I hope it doesn’t disappoint, too.” she replied with a winky face too. “Are you back in Edinburgh?” 

“Just about to arrive home. I might just wash and then hit the sack.” 

“Rest then, Jamie. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Thanks, Sassenach. I’ll message ye tomorrow when I’m on my way” 

----

It has been four weeks since their accidental meeting at the sidewalk. After countless run-ins, lunches, and an absurd amount of consumed soy chicken, the day of their date has arrived. 

When Claire accepted his invitation three days earlier, Jamie went into a slight overdrive trying to plan what to do. He meant to ask her out when he got back - but when he found out that she met Laoghaire, something pushed him to go for it before Claire had any wrong idea about his connection with Mrs. Fitz's granddaughter. 

His first idea was to go all out - book the fanciest rooftop restaurant in the city, get the best chef he knew, and plan a private dinner for them. Fancy and exclusive seemed like a safe choice and a sure hit. 

Then he thought about Claire and all their interactions so far - hole in the wall kitchens, asian street food, very light and casual. Jamie pondered on the idea and realized that jumping from that to an uber private dinner might not be the best, so he kept that card to play for later. 

It was then he decided to just take their casual lunch to a casual dinner. He’ll just exchange one-hour savory chicken meetings for a comfortable, popular city restaurant and longer conversations. He also decided on wearing more casual clothes, opting out of his office suits that she’d seen him often in for a navy turtleneck, khaki pants and white sneakers. 

Arriving at her front door, Jamie took one last stock of himself, suddenly feeling a wave of nervousness, and knocked on her door. 

What he saw next knocked him out. 

Claire opened the door wearing a burgundy sleeveless jumpsuit that was both modest and sexy, yet casual enough. Pairing the ensemble with black heels, the garment hugged Claire’s curves in just the right places that left Jamie staring for a hot minute. 

“Hi” Claire broke through his thoughts and he remembered his manners.

“Hi, Claire. Wow, ye look beautiful” 

“Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself. Going to stop traffic pairing blue on blue like that” 

“Ye ready to go?” 

“Yeah. Are we going to walk?” She asked as she locked the door to her place. 

“Yes, I hope ye dinna mind. Ye live close by all the nice places to eat.” 

“No, I don’t mind and also, very true.” 

It was a short 10-minute walk before they arrived at Howie’s Restaurant. 

“Howie’s. Interesting choice.” Claire commented as they walked to the hostess. 

“We can go somewhere if ye dinna like it here.” Jamie offered. 

“No, I actually quite like it here” she had to stifle a laugh at how adorable she found his tenseness was.

The hostess pointed them to the bar to wait for their table. Claire excused herself to the bathroom and Jamie ordered a light whisky for some liquid courage. 

When the bartender served his drink, a familiar bloke sat beside him and greeted him. 

“Jamie Fraser, hello!” 

Jamie gulped the drink and turned to the man beside him. “Joe! It’s good to see ye, man!” 

The two shook hands and exchanged more pleasantries. 

“I’m actually meeting my wife.” He looked at his watch and then to the front door. “Oh, good, she just arrived!” Joe quickly waved her in and introduced her. 

“Jamie Fraser, meet Gail Abernathy. Gail, Jamie.” he paused when Jamie extended a hand to her. “He was the guy who volunteered at our center two weeks ago. All the kids were just drawn to him.” 

“No wonder.” Gail observed, her comment earning a jokey sigh from her husband. “So, Jamie, what brings you to this side of town on a Saturday evening?” 

Jamie was about to share that he was on a date, but then right on cue, Claire arrives to greet the trio. 

“Hello, everyone!” 

“Claire!” Gail squealed as she gave her friend a tight hug. 

“Lady Jane, you clean up good!” Joe remarked. 

As they finished their greetings, Jamie quietly whispered to Claire to order any drink she’d like. The husband-and-wife duo caught on and couldn’t resist to pry. 

“You guys on a date?” Joe asked frankly. 

“First one, actually.” Jamie replied as Gail raised an eyebrow while Claire returned to his side, drink in tow. 

Joe leaned closer to Jamie and pretended to whisper in his ear, “My date advice is don’t challenge her or don’t allow her to challenge you to a drinking game. You will lose” 

Claire groaned while the rest laughed at her expense. 

Just then, the hostess approached the pairs and told them their tables were ready. They exchanged their goodbyes and were led to their areas. 

 ---

Jamie had been a perfect gentleman. 

He opened her seat, allowed her to order and choose whatever she wanted from the menu (They both went to the steak and fries!), and is making just the right amount of banter. 

Claire actually liked this dining choice - Howie’s comfort food really brought out the easy ambiance and conversation to their date. She didn’t mind going to a fancier place but she knew that if they were there, things would be too formal, delicate and shy. This was much better and she’d Jamie props for this. 

Moreover, what made this official first date a little bit more fun is much of the first date awkwardness is gone. They’ve covered much of the basics about their life during their lunches - their families (both their parents are alive and have retired away from the city, Claire’s an only child while Jamie had an older sister), how they chose their careers and where they went to school (Jamie is Oxford Law while Claire is Cambridge Med, the school rivalry something they joke about), their current or main interests (horses for Jamie, herbs for Claire) and many other things.

So the evening was more or less less a continuation on what they’ve normally done - catching up on their days, sharing an interesting story at work or a photo they found on the web, asking more random questions - the only difference now is, there’s a more clear and intentional purpose for knowing these things and whole lot of shameless flirting in between.  

Forty-five minutes in and halfway through their steak, a man approached their table. “Dr. Beauchamp, it’s nice to see you here!” 

Jamie and Claire looked up and saw a slender man, not much older than they are with grey eyes. 

“Tom, hi!” Claire swallowed a fry and grabbed a cloth to clean her mouth. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt your evening but I saw you from the bar and just had to pass by and greet you. I mean at least, this time, not at the hospital or during check ups” 

Claire smiled and made the introductions. “Oh, I’m sorry. Tom Christie, this is Jamie Fraser. Jamie, Tom. He is a teacher at the public elementary school. We met when I did the annual medical checkup for the kids. Also, I’m the peds of his kids, Allan and Malva.” 

The mention of the word kids made Jamie release the tight fist he didn’t know he held beneath the table. He didna like the way the man eyed Claire but it was not his place - not yet at least.

Jamie gave the man a nod but ultimately wished he’d go. When neither said or did anything, Tom said his farewells and confirmed his kids check-up schedule in two weeks. 

---

They decided to share a slice of chocolate cake and one last glass of wine each to cap off their dinner. 

As they waited for their order to arrive, they got startled with a loud noise. 

“Jamie, is that ye?!” one man said.

“Oh, heavens, tis!” another man replied. 

Jamie could not hide the embarrassment he felt as the two blokes approached their table. Once they noticed Claire, they did not waste time introducing themselves. 

“Hello, I havena seen ye before. My name is Angus” the thin, beardly man extended his hand. “And ye are?” 

“Hi, I’m Claire.” she reached out but eyeing Jamie for confirmation that he knew these people. 

“I’m Rupert.” the other man said. “We’re Jamie’s cousins” 

“Distant cousins” Jamie retorted back. “What brings ye here?” he asked while glaring at them to leave. 

“We have a double date” Angus shared, pointing to the table where two ladies were indeed waiting for them. 

“Then I suggest you return to your dates then.” Jamie replied then proceeded to converse with the two men in Gaelic. 

When the conversation was apparently over, Rupert sighed and turned to Claire. “It was nice meeting ye, lass. Please ask Jamie here to bring around one of our office events and meet the rest of the clan. I’m sure they’d love to get to know ye as well.” 

Jamie stood up quickly and had to push the two back to their table before they said anything else that may ruin the evening. 

“I’m sorry about them, Claire. They are quite the more, erm, rowdy members of my family.” he said as he sat down again. 

“It’s alright. They seem really nice” Claire said, smiling. “So, clan huh? Just how big is that family of yours really?” She brought the conversation back up again hoping it would ease his discomfort.

Jamie visibly relaxed and then, they were back in their bubble, “How many generations back?” 

---

Desert went by swimmingly with the chocolate cake and red wine proving to be a winning combo. After an almost three-hour dinner, Jamie asked for the check and insisted on paying for the meal. 

 They were one their way out of the restaurant then Claire was greeted by incoming guests. 

“Dr. Beauchamp!” 

Claire turned to look who called her. “Oh, please call me Claire. It’s nice seeing you here” 

“Likewise. Please call me Meredith.” she quickly signaled to the man beside her. “This is my husband, Derek.” 

“Of course, Dr. Shepherd.” Claire politely acknowledged him with the man insisting to be called casually as well. 

“Anyway, I’d just like to say that I just read your latest paper in the Journal of Pediatrics. I look forward to hearing all about it in your visit to Seattle.”

Claire graciously accepted the complement with a smile and bow. “Thank you. We’ll catch up in Seattle in a few weeks, then.” Remembering her companion, she turned to her back where Jamie was patiently waiting for her. “Oh my, where are my manners. Meredith, Derek, this is Jamie Fraser. Jamie, this is Meredith and Derek Shepherd. They’re visiting doctors from Grey Sloan Memorial in Seattle.” 

Jamie returned the pleasantries and shook hands with the doctors. 

“Alright, I’ll let you guys go on with your evening. Sorry for the sudden call out” Meredith said. 

“It’s no problem at all. A good night to you both as well.” Claire replied as she looked at Jamie and motioned for them to head out. 

--

Once they we're out of the restaurant, Jamie lets out a light laugh. 

“What’s so funny?” she asked. 

“I was just thinking that I’d never unexpectedly run into that many acquaintances in one evening, let alone in a date!” he shared, chuckling more as the thought further sank in his mind and Claire joined him in his mood. “It isna exactly part of the Jamie Fraser Date Experience” 

“I’m really sorry.” 

“Don’t be, there’s nothing to apologize for. I mean, who would’ve thought, right?” Jamie retorted, his humor infectious. 

She was touched by his honesty, not just with the situation but the entire night. He was caring, makes great conversation, and is always authentic with who and how he carries himself. She cannot make a full judgement of his character yet, as that is something she is still getting to know, but she likes what she is seeing so far. 

Taking a bold step, she wrapped her arm around his as they started walking side by side back to her place. 

Jamie looked at her hand, smiled and hoped it conveyed to Claire the joy he felt at the moment. “Is this part of the Claire Beauchamp Date Experience?” he asked nonchalantly. 

“Only to a rare few” she said as she slightly tugged him closer. 

The walk back seemed shorter than the one they did earlier. Before they knew it, they were already standing in front of Claire’s building. 

“Oh, before I forget!” Jamie exclaimed as he fished out his car keys and a grey miata lit up open beside them. He pulled out an exquisite posey bouquet of red roses and handed it to her. “These are for you.” 

Claire took them and smelt it, “The flowers are beautiful” 

“I hope ye had a good time, Sassenach” 

“I had a great time, Jamie. Thank you” 

After a beat, Jamie took a deep breath, gathering strength to what he was about to say next. “Claire, we’ve known each other for about a month now, became unexpected friends in a short amount of time, had our lunches and now, our first date. I hope ye dinna think this is too forward of me but...I like you and I would like to see you again or keep seeing you, I guess.“ They we’re holding each other’s gazes as he laid out his intentions and waited for her reply. 

Claire sighed and was just amazed by him. Her previous encounters are usually with male friends who constantly hang out with her then a few months down, asks her “what they are” as if she had to know or feel that something was happening from the get go. So, Jamie's forthrightness and old-fashionedness was truly refreshing and she was more than willing to give it a go. 

As a final check to their chemistry, she stepped closer, tilted her head and leaned in to him. Quickly responding to her actions, he held her face on one hand and placed the other on her hips to pull her closer. He followed her lead until their lips crashed into each other in a single deep kiss.

In that moment, both Jamie and Claire knew something big shifted in the dynamic of their relationship. 

This was not usual. 

This is different.

And oh so good.

They felt each other smile against their lips just as they pulled apart for air. 

“I like you too, Jamie and yes”

--

A/N: Maybe not the first date you might've thought of but hope you liked it! As always, thank you for reading! Your comments, suggestions, and questions are always welcome. If there's a story or scene you'd like to know, feel free to drop it! :)This was my original idea for the date but as I was writing it, I was going back and forth about scraping the entire thing and think about something else. But the original thought kept developing in my mind so I went back and stuck with it and cross-fingers, hoped it worked and made sense. I knew she had doctor friends but adding the Greys Anatomy characters just came about since I've been binging the show and thought it'd be fun to crossover. Hope you're keeping safe and in line to get vaccinated for the COVID-19 shot! See you all in the next one!

[fairyavengerwrites]

youngblood ⇝ steve rogers ⇝ one

fanfiction.net link https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13549564/1/Youngblood

pairing: steve rogers x oc

series summary: when Director Fury asks Gemma Bloom to assist the Avengers Initiative for reasons that seem vague, she can’t help but feel like a babysitter. she also doesn’t understand that she’s in for a hell of a ride, courtesy of Steve Rogers.

chapter summary: Gemma gets a promotion. kind of.

author’s note: Youngblood and Gemma are kind of my babies. Gemma is loosely based off me (a Brit). This series is already mostly written, and if you can’t wait for me to update here, then check the ff.net link above!

“There’s a member of your team, sir, who may be able to help start the Avengers Initiative,” Phil Coulson told Agent Matthew White as they walked through S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters. “And who might that be?” Matthew responded, a frown forming on his features as he heard the answer. “Gemma Bloom.”  

Gemma had just finished pulling some research on the victim from the latest case she had been working on, ready to present it to her boss, Mathew. She had been a S.H.I.E.L.D agent since part-way in university, and when she graduated from that, she moved into S.H.I.E.L.D full time. Over the years she’d been there, she’d become a Level Six Agent, working her way into Level Seven now to be on the same level as everyone else on the team.

“I brought coffee!” Agent Tony Allan exclaimed, holding the carrier in the air to present four cups. Tony was holding his coffee in his hand. “The boss man not back yet?” he inquired, as the desk next to Gemma was still empty.

“No,” Lidia Bianchi answered Tony truthfully, taking her cup from him and sniffing it.

“Yeah, I think he’s in some kind of meeting,” Samuel Harris added, watching as Gemma grabbed her cup with both hands.

“You got oat milk, right?” Gemma asked. Tony nodded as he handed Sam his cup, leaving their boss’ cup on his desk.

“Maybe we should run through what we already have,” Lidia suggested.

“I don’t want you stealing my intel,” Sam joked, and Gemma rolled her eyes.

“We should probably tell Tony some facts, though,” she suggested. “So he’s not completely clueless,” she added. “That would be embarrassing.”

“Thanks for the faith, Bloom,” Tony told her as she smiled sweetly at him.

“I got your back, Tony,” she replied, sipping on the caffeinated drink. At that exact moment, Matthew walked into the bullpen, with another S.H.I.E.L.D Agent Gemma recognised as Phil Coulson, who was sort of a legend around there. The team had worked with him every so often, so Gemma knew that the legends were true.

“Vic, go,” Matthew ordered, snapping his fingers. Immediately, all of them crowded around the screen behind Gemma’s desk, where she projected something from her computer screen.

“James Langley, twenty-five. Worked in HR,” Gemma started. Lidia continued.

“Mother and father died a few years ago. Langley lives with his wife, Anna, a nurse.”

“His history is relatively normal. Nothing out of the blue, no criminal record, no debt,” Sam added. “Everyone I’ve called so far has called him lovely.”

“He was nice,” Gemma agreed. When she first joined S.H.I.E.L.D, Langley was the HR Agent assigned to her.

“Not to everyone, or he wouldn’t have been murdered,” Matthew jumped in.

“Allan, I want you to go down to Aaron, see what he’s found about the body. Lidia, Harris, head to forensics. Gemma, you’re with me.”

“Where is it we’re going, exactly?” she asked him, frowning in confusion.

“Director’s office.” Not for the first time in her life, she cursed Mathew’s inability to explain facts.

“Yes, boss,” she muttered meekly, pushing herself up with an even deeper frown. 

“Agent Coulson, Agent White, Agent Bloom,” Director Fury greeted the trio as they entered his office. Unsurprisingly, there was paperwork all over his desk, but the Director discarded it immediately to give his agents his full attention.

“Am I in trouble?” Gemma whispered to Matthew nervously, but her boss only chuckled as they came to a stop.

“No, Agent Bloom, rather the contrary,” Fury answered her, standing up. Gemma’s eyes went wide. “Agent Coulson, if you will.” Phil handed Gemma his tablet and some files and started talking.

“The Avengers Initiative is a program that combines all the superheroes we can muster to fight against... whatever needs fighting. Extraordinary people to help save the world,” Phil explained.

“Isn’t that what we’re for?” Gemma asked, frowning in confusion.

“I don’t mean your average crimes,” Phil corrected.

“You’ve heard of Thor?” Fury asked. Gemma nodded. “From somewhere other than earth. That means that there are forces out there we’ve never heard of, that might decide they want to stop off at planet Earth for a little more than a restroom break.”

“We might not be able to stop them, but these people...” Phil trailed off, and Gemma finally understood.

“Right. Where do I come in?” Gemma asked, looking at Mathew, who had yet to say a word. He shrugged. Phil smiled at her.

“We’ve heard nothing but good things about you, Gemma,” he told her. “You can help me to recruit them, and then look after them. You’ve got good fighting skills too, so there’s nothing to stop you joining in during battle.”

“So, I’m not working with White’s team anymore?” Gemma queried, frowning at her boss.

“You’ll be with me in between this,” Matthew finally said, patting her shoulder to reassure her.

“So, are you in?” All three men looked at her. After a minute, Gemma nodded.

“But what about my training?”

“So, you’re working with the big dogs now?” Tony confirmed, taking a bite of his pizza slice. Currently, the team was in the bullpen, trying to pull an all-nighter to solve the case. Gemma shrugged, struggling to keep her eyelids open.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say big dogs,” Gemma corrected, handing her crust over to Lidia.

“Who are these people, anyway?” Lidia asked. Gemma pushed her swivel chair back so she could reach her desk, then pushed herself away from it so she was back in the centre of the bullpen.

“Err, Captain America... we all know who he is, right?” They nodded. “Next... Tony Stark. Iron Man. Again, we all know who he is?”

“You know why I’m so great?” Tony asked the team, smirking.

“Don’t say it, don’t say it...” Sam trailed off, but Tony ignored him anyway.

“Because I share his namesake. Great minds think alike,” Tony told them, tapping his temple. Sam groaned helplessly, and Gemma giggled at his response.

“Weren’t you named after your father?” Lidia asked him, a teasing smile on her face. He rolled his eyes at her.

“Small details,” he replied, and she threw the last bite of Gemma’s crust at him.

“We then have Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow.”

“Wow. She’s more legendary than Lidia. Can you get me her number?” Tony teased. Gemma threw her napkin at him. “Why am I so attacked by everyone?”

“Bruce Banner, the Hulk.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sam asked her, worry in his eyes. Gemma shook her head.

“He’s nice as Bruce Banner, which is who we need. Clint Barton, Hawkeye. But we have to rescue him on this mission.” They all nodded. Clint was an S.H.I.E.L.D Agent too; he’d worked with the team once, although it was before Gemma had joined it. “And me and Coulson.”

“Boo,” Tony said. “You got that great line up, and then you? Why not Lidia?”

“Hey! I was only hired to be their babysitter,” Gemma reminded him, throwing another napkin at him.

“You’re wasting napkins,” Sam told her. “He’s not worth it.” Tony stuck his tongue out at him.

“Aren’t you kids meant to be doing something?” The team scrambled out of their leisurely positions as they heard Director Fury interrupted their conversation, followed closely by Mathew and Phil. “Are they always like this?” Fury asked Mathew. Matthew let out a small smile at his team.

“Most of the time,” he replied. “Gemma, you’re up.”

Gemma looked at the notes in her hand, then double-checked, then tripled checked, just to make sure she was in the right place. Weirdly, she’d lived in this apartment complex for three short months just before she’d moved into her house. Which was not important right now.

Right now, Gemma was supposed to escort Captain-fucking-America (she was freaking out about that. Big time) to the quinjet that was going to be the base of their task. Fury had done most of the talking, so Gemma just had to make sure he wasn’t going to drop out last minute. Which, at the crack of dawn, made Gemma feel like dropping out herself. She did, however, come with a peace offering- a nice big cup of coffee. She wasn’t very sure what to expect, but coffee at this time of day could surely never be turned down. Bracing herself, very wary of the time, she knocked on his door. She could hear some moving about for a few seconds, then the lock turning in the door.

“Steve Rogers?” she asked, smiling. He frowned. He still had a hand behind the door, and Gemma sensed some sort of weapon.

“Who’s asking?” Steve responded.

“Gemma Bloom, SHIELD.” Gemma couldn’t lie; he really was very breathtaking and dreamy and muscular. She held forwards a coffee. “Coffee?” He took the cup.

“Come in,” Steve said a moment later. “Did Fury send you to herd me there?”

“More or less,” Gemma responded, looking around the apartment. Somehow, it was almost exactly what she thought it would look like. “Plus, I figured you don’t really know where you’re going when walking around SHIELD and I kinda know where the quinjets are, so I guess you can think of it like when you’re on a school trip in primary school and your teacher makes you buddy up so you don’t get lost.” Gemma watched as he grabbed a bag and a file.

“Primary school?” Steve asked, raising a brow.

“Er, Kindergarten, I guess? It’s the British version. I’m British.”

“I think they’ve probably changed since I went to school.” Steve looked around his apartment. “So, where do SHIELD keep their quinjets?” Gemma jingled her car keys.

“Let’s get there first. You need me to grab anything else for you?” Steve shook his head, and so they both left to go to her car. Gemma also wasn’t really sure why she had to bring Steve in; surely Coulson would’ve been better.

“How long have you been at SHIELD for?” he asked, observing her driving. Gemma was a very safe driver.

“A few years.” The small talk felt very awkward in her car, but it was better than the music quietly playing.

“What about America? What made you come?” A few memories appeared behind Gemma’s eyes.

“Since I was eighteen. I got a full-ride scholarship at NYU and I haven’t looked back since. Although,” she added, looking back over at him. The sun was starting to come up. “There’s loads I miss. Like the chocolate this side of the pond. It’s really shitty.”

“You kiss your mother with that tongue?” he teased. Gemma smiled and concentrated on driving as the awkward air started to ease.

“What about you? There must be stuff you miss from before your seventy-year nap.” She heard him sigh and hoped it wasn’t too much of a touchy subject.

“I mean, the chocolate is far better now than it was then.”

“All that tells me is you’ve never had good chocolate.” Gemma stopped in front of the SHIELD building and parked up. She looked over at Steve. “Time to go do our jobs.”

[an-american-experiment]

Jefferson has my vote. Oh! I have never agreed with Jefferson once. We have fought on like seventy-five different fronts. Oh!

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Hamilton did ‘endorse’ Jefferson over Burr for president, perhaps this tipped the vote in Jefferson’s favor or perhaps it did not. His endorsement took the form (as Hamilton’s opinions so often did) of writing - Hamilton wrote a number of letters to Federalists to convince them not to vote for Adams but to vote for Jefferson in order for Jefferson to beat Burr (as well as everyone else). Regardless of the fact that Hamilton was doing this to defeat Adams as well as Burr, it upset Burr. And, later, in a move which would upset Burr even further, pushing him ever closer to the event we all know happened, Hamilton opposed Burr becoming Governor of New York in 1804. 

The final voting began February 11th, and continued long into the night and next morning. A vote was held every hour - constantly a tie with the Federalist states going to Burr and the Democractic-Republican going to Jefferson. For the first thirty-five rounds of voting, no one changed their mind. Then, James A. Bayard, a Federalist from Delaware, finally decided that the Jeffersonians would never yield and Burr would never say that Jefferson should be President. Before he did so, though, he asked Jefferson if he would keep some of the Federalist policies (things like the system of finance, navy, and letting Federalists keep their job). Jefferson did not give him a clear answer. Burr then decided to say that he “explicitly resigns his pretensions” to the presidency. This was the last time either man was gracious or polite to one another. Bayard and other Federalists did not vote for Jefferson, nor did they vote for Burr, instead they abstained in the thirty-sixth ballot, making Jefferson the third President of the United States. 

Sources: the following sources were used - the collected letters/writings of Alexander Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton the Revolution, Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton, The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton by Allan McLane Hamilton, Hamilton by Richard Syllia, and Charles Cerami’s book called Young Patriots. In addition, War of Two by John Sedgwick and Washington and Hamilton by Tony Williams were used throughout. 

Follow us at @an-american-experiment where we are historically analyzing the lyrics of Hamilton with a new post every day!

[worryinglyinnocent]

So, at 5am this morning in the throes of insomnia, I had an idea for a Bleak House fanfic. As you do. Because man, it’s depressing, and I like making things happy. 

The idea is insanely long and convoluted, much like Bleak House itself, and I shall likely never ever write it, but I wanted to get the idea down anyway. 

So voila! Worry’s Bleak House idea. It is 300% more queer and, unfortunately, 1000% more historically inaccurate. 

Under the cut because it’s so ridiculously long. Apparently, my brain likes to be detailed when I can’t sleep.

So! We begin way way back before the book/ TV series begins. Please note I’m working primarily from the 2005 TV series. 

Honoria Barbary finds out she’s pregnant. James Hawdon is MIA likely dead. The only other person who knows about the pregnancy is her sister Frances, who Does Not Approve. 

Honoria decides, in the wisdom of blind panic, to run away, eventually making her way to Bleak House. The Jarndyce family are acquainted with the Barbarys (John Jarndyce is friends with Frances through Lawrence Boythorn but was never as close to Honoria). 

I’m not sure on canon timelines, but this is all happening circa 20 years prior to canon beginning, going from Esther’s canon age. Anyway, John Jarndyce has yet to inherit Bleak House from his uncle, and the place stands mostly empty, with just a skeleton staff keeping it looked after, since Uncle Jarndyce spends most of his time in London obsessing over the Jarndyce & Jarndyce chancery case. 

The housekeeper takes pity on Honoria - who is passing herself off as a young widow and calling herself Mrs Hawdon - and takes her in, giving her bed and board in exchange for working in the kitchen. This poses something of a problem as a) Honoria is having a difficult pregnancy and isn’t in the best of health having run away, and b) she’s an upper class lady and hasn’t done a day’s work in her life. The housekeeper (let’s call her Mrs Potts), quickly recognises this and reluctantly, Honoria shares her full story. Mrs P, being a kindly soul, agrees to keep the secret. 

Time passes. Esther is born. Frances believes that the disappeared-without-trace Honoria is likely dead by now; since she does not have to care for Esther, she marries Lawrence Boythorn. Uncle Jarndyce commits suicide and John Jarndyce inherits Bleak House, returning there and intending to make it his primary residence. 

Honoria, who knows John and knows he’ll recognise her, has another mad panic moment, but manages to avoid running away since she has a child to look after now. Mrs P attempts to hide her from John as best she can, but ultimately, the truth outs. John is shocked to say the least (he’d been told Honoria had died after a sudden illness), but nonetheless agrees to keep her secret and promises not to tell Frances. 

Time passes. Honoria works her way up through the household and takes over from Mrs P as housekeeper when the latter retires. John pays for Esther’s education with a view to her becoming a governess, but the best laid plans of mice and men and all that, because there are Plot Points at work here. 

Namely, the one (1) scene that we got of Honoria and John interacting in the TV series made me ship them. 

John and Honoria get closer and eventually marry, and a few months later John becomes guardian to Richard and Ada. Esther, now John’s stepdaughter, becomes Ada’s companion and the two ladies begin to fall for each other.

Whilst this is going on, Honoria finds out that James may indeed still be alive after recognising his handwriting on legal documents like in canon. (Tulkinghorn and Kenge both use Snagsby as a stationer so it’s perfectly plausible that James could have copied papers for Kenge which end up with John and Honoria sees them that way, as opposed to copying papers for Tulkinghorn that then go to Sir Leicester that she sees as in canon. I do sometimes think things through properly...) However, unlike in canon, since John knows about her past relationship with James, there’s no subterfuge going on and they set out to see if they can find him, figuring that Esther deserves to know her birth father if nothing else. 

Off they all go to London - Richard’s supposed to be starting to study medicine there anyway - where who should enter the scene but Allan Woodcourt. He helps them find James, thankfully before he carks it this time, and Oh God THE ANGST.

Ahem. 

Richard stays in London and Allan promises to keep an eye on him and be a friend. Naturally, as these things are wont to do and because I generally always end up pairing the spares, Allan ends up as a bit more than a friend. 

Meanwhile, we’re back to Bleak House, where James is being nursed back to health by Honoria, both of them in a rather delicate mental state since each thought the other one dead for nigh-on twenty years, and there’s the small fact that Honoria is married and genuinely loves her husband, but James is the first love she’s never forgotten and the father of her child.

(Ada and Esther are still going strong in the background, by the way. Everyone in the house is pretending they’re just gal pals.)

John offers James a position as his secretary once he’s recovered, and tells Honoria (in slightly more delicate language than me) that if she and James want to have an affair, he’ll turn a blind eye as long as they’re discreet about it. 

Honoria isn’t exactly happy about this because she loves both of them, and in the end, after much angst and many conversations, a tentative but successful polyamorous relationship between the three commences. 

Back to Ada and Esther and Rick and Allan. This being Dickensian times, they’re not exactly on the best footing for having proper relationships, but taking a leaf out of Honoria, John and James’s book, they decide that marriage is the way forward. Ada and Richard marry, as do Esther and Allan, and they end up living very close by to each other, allowing both ‘forbidden’ relationships to continue undisturbed. (Although interestingly, female homosexuality was never technically illegal in Victorian times because Queen Victoria didn’t believe it was possible and scratched out all mention of it in the bill that made male homosexuality illegal.)

And there we have it. It took me over an hour to type that, God help me if I do decide to write the blessed thing...

[blazerina]

Messed Up (MC x Ethan)

Messed Up (MC x Ethan)

Word Count: 1682

Summary: Sequel to "Do No Harm" – Allie misses Ethan but doesn’t know how to process her feelings and emotions (shocker!) so she tries her best to ignore them, but Ethan has other plans for the two of them.

Author’s Note: I love Ethan Ramsey. He’s becoming one of my most favorite LI’s – perhaps even more than Drake or James…but he doesn’t top Damien…yet! This is kind of a silly little story using a prompt that @parkerattano requested of me a long time ago…I had to find a way to get these two back together because I have more in store for their future! Thank you as always for reading, commenting and re-blogging. It means so much! Thankful for you all and hope each one of you reading this is well. xoxo

--

Stupid. I’m so stupid!

Allie sighed, trying to get herself together. This was at least the third day in a row she had found herself crying in a bathroom stall, hiding away from the rest of the hospital.

He tried to say he was sorry.  At Donahue’s. He tried to apologize and that’s SO hard for him.

She shook her head silently and let the tears fall.  Rolling some toilet paper around her hand, she gently dabbed her eyes and sniffled. For a month she had been chastising herself for not talking to Ethan.

There wasn’t anything about that man that she didn’t miss.  

His rough, calloused hands.

The scent of spice, old leather and scotch that hung in the air long after he’d left.

The way he pulled his glasses down to the end of his nose so he could adequately stare at her with his piercing blue eyes and unearth her soul at the same time.

Why am I so afraid? She asked herself.  

There had once been a time she trusted him with every part of her life.  

Am I just being stubborn?

Allie sniffed again and looked up at the ceiling, trying to make the tears stop. She closed her eyes and remembered only a few nights ago when she saw him at the fundraising gala for the new children’s hospital.

**

She had been watching him for some time. Making the rounds. Shaking hands. Smiling through his clenched jaw. Exchanging pleasantries and being the charming doctor he was expected to be. When he walked through the door with a busty blonde, Allie felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her and she almost left…but decided against it. If all she had left was her career, than she would work damn hard to make sure she was seen with the best of them.

As Allie got up the nerve to work the room, she heard Ethan’s voice close by while she reached for another glass of champagne from the servers who were canvassing the crowd.

“Blair. Stop it.” He instructed his date. “That is not becoming of a lady who wants to dine with doctors and other intelligent human beings.”

“You don’t think that’d be cute?” Her voice was loud and sharp, scraping against Allie’s eardrum. “Why doesn’t everyone just serve spaghetti and let the couples by tickets. A spaghetti dinner just like Lady and the Tramp. When they share the noodle and have to kiss? It’s just soooo adorable!”

Allie’s eyes were about to pop out of her head as “Blair” squealed. Gently, and gratefully, taking the champagne from the server, she turned around to face Ethan who was only a few feet behind her now.

She wanted him to know she saw him with her.

“I will not tell you again.” Ethan tried to pull Blair closer to him, but Allie could still hear what he was saying.

“Sharing a single strand of spaghetti is NOT romantic. Life is NOT a cartoon. Do not continue to bring this up! This is a dignified, who’s who of Edenbrook, invite-only event and you are ruining it.” He seethed.

Blair wasn’t phased and smiled up at him through big blue eyes, batting her eyelashes.

“I am going to get a drink. Do. Not. Move.” Ethan practically ran over Allie who was now standing awkwardly close to him.

Catching a few stray drops of champagne from the flute as it tipped a bit in her hand, Allie waved with a mischievous smirk on her face.

“Whoa there.” She steadied herself and her smile grew as Ethan made eye contact with her.

“You know, I never liked that movie.” Allie took a drink of her champagne and nodded in Blair’s direction.

“Too sad.  When that one little scotty dog dies and when Tramp gets sent to the pound?! I just couldn’t take it.”

“Allie.” Ethan was not amused.

“Please.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It’s okay though!” Allie assured him. “The young ladies these days love Disney. You can keep her occupied with Disney movie marathons while you work the night shift!”

She raised her glass to toast him.

“Good luck with that one!”

After a patronizing pat on his shoulder, she slinked off before he could say anything in reply. She finished the rest of the champagne in one gulp and didn’t look back, but knew with certainty that he was watching her walk away.

**

Allie’s memory was interrupted as someone knocked on the door to the stall.

She paused, making sure she heard right and someone knocked again against the cold metal.

“Dr. Valentine? Is that you?”

Swallowing hard, and not recognizing that voice, Allie dabbed again at her eyes and tried to collect herself fast.

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Yes – can I help you?”

“Sorry to bother you ma’am but there’s an emergency in room 108 and we’ve been trying to find you. I know you’re on break but the attending specifically asked for you.  Apparently you saw a case just like this last week…”

“Yes, yes – I think I know what this is about. We’ve seen several similar cases the past few days. Patients with the same symptoms all coming from the same apartment complex…”

Focusing now on work, Allie was back and in control of her emotions.  She followed the nurse out of the bathroom and repeated the room number, walking fast and stopping at another nurse’s station along the way to get information on the patient.

“Allan Daniels. 43. Difficulty breathing and swallowing. Fever with chills.” She read it aloud as she walked towards 108.

Knocking briskly on the door, she started speaking as she entered, “Okay Mr. Daniels let’s see what I can do to help you feel better today…”

As she looked up she came face to face with Ethan, leaning against the end of the bed, relaxed, not smiling but not mad either.

Allie was stunned.

“Ethan?” She stammered. “But how did you? This is a chart and a real patient and…”

“You think you’re the only one who’s friends with the schedulers and nurses around here?” He raised an eyebrow, challenging her.

Already emotional, Allie couldn’t contain the wave of tears that had only partially fallen only moment before in the bathroom.

“What are we doing?” She whispered, not moving, frozen place.

“What I’m doing…” Ethan emphasized, “Is telling you I love you. And that I’m sorry. And that I’ve never missed the presence of another person more.”

“You’re stubborn.” He continued, still resting on the end of the bed, hardly moving. “You can be mean, especially when provoked. You’re tough. You don’t back down. And that makes loving you sometimes so hard…but so worth it.”

“Look who’s talking!” Allie smiled, wiping a few rogue tears from her cheeks as Ethan continued.

“Please. Forgive me. I want to be us again. No more hiding. No more dodging each other. We have to talk. I want everyone to know that you are mine and I am yours. HR be damned.”

Allie closed her eyes and brought a hand to her forehead, trying to sear this memory into her brain. She was afraid she was dreaming, that this wasn’t real, and at any minute Sierra or one of her roommates would wake her up and tell her to go to her room because she’d fallen asleep on the couch.

“I messed up.  We messed up. We lost us along the way but it’s not too late. If I learned anything from Naveen’s sickness it’s that time is of the essence and it’s never too late. You taught me that, Allie.  I am who I am today because of you.” Allie noticed his fist clench as he finished.

The tension in the air hung above them like a dark storm cloud on a rainy day; thick and plapable.

“Allie.” Ethan pleaded. “Say something.”

He stood up and moved closer to her, searching her eyes.

“I thought you moved on…” She choked out, a few more tears falling now. “…that girl at the gala…”

Ethan sighed.  

“Are you kidding? I should be offended you think so lowly of me. She’s my cousin’s daughter. Looking to get into nursing school. Complete bimbo. I owed him a favor. He let me borrow his boat, I told him I’d help her make connections. I can’t help that she’s never been around real people before.”

Allie crinkled her brow. “For real?”

Ethan nodded. “I swear. I left her in the parking lot with an Uber driver probably 5 minutes after you accosted me at the gala.”

She rolled her eyes and stifled a laugh. Ethan always had a flair for the dramatic when it came to someone criticizing or challenging him.

“Ethan…” she looked up at him with a tear-streaked face and red-rimmed eyes.

“Are you sure? I mean, after all this…between us…and the things we said and the way I’ve acted…”

Ethan cut her off with a kiss.

“I’m sure.” He responded, keeping eye contact with her while both hands held her face.

He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief.  She leaned into him and both of them melted into each other without giving it another thought.

**

Still slightly confused and shocked from the emotional rollercoaster of the past few months, Ethan and Allie walked hand and hand out of the hospital at the end of Allie’s shift.

“There is one thing I really need to tell you.” Allie said, seriously, making sure Ethan was paying attention.

“You know…I don’t really hate that movie…right?” She whispered, smiling up at him. “I actually think the spaghetti scene is really cute…”

Ethan chuckled and rolled his eyes and stopped in his tracks, taking in the sight of her, holding her hand tightly and watching her without saying a word.

“Maybe one day, Rookie. But ONLY for you.”

He kissed her quickly and they continued their walk to Ethan’s car, finally relaxed and with each other – where they each knew they belonged, all along.

[signature-salsa]

Almost a books worth of love quotes

I love love quotes. They are so romantic and soul crushing when you don’t believe in the concept of love. It’s such bittersweet bliss. I have so many. Without further ado, lets dive in!

01.) “True love it like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen” ~ Francois De Le Rochefoucauld

02.) “You call my name, I come to you in pieces, So you can make me whole” ~Red, Pieces

03.) “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you” ~ Winnie The Pooh,  A. A. Milne

04.) “Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.” ~The Princess Bride

05.) “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depths and breath and height my soul can reach, When feeling out of sight for the ends of being and idea grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with a passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints, I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life! and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death” ~Sonnet 43, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

06.) “We have three kinds of family. Those we are born to, those who are born to us, and those we let into our hearts” ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, Bad Moon Rising

07.) “To get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with” ~Mark Twain

08.) “I was hiding under your porch because I love you” ~Doug, Up

09.) “The sun may set and the moon may wane, but my love for you remains ever constant. I am, and always will be yours... Forever.” ~Fairy Fencer F

10.) “Deep in my soul I know that I’m your destiny” ~Mulan

11.) “To face the future with another who means more than any other is to be loved” ~The Rescuers

12.) “I have found my star. She is beauty and grace. Elegance and goodness. My laughter in winter. She is courageous and strong. Bold and tempting. Unlike any other in all the universe” ~Sherrylin Kenyon, Dance With The Devil

13.) “My dream wouldn’t be complete without you in it” ~The princess and the frog

14.) “If I had a brush right now, I’d paint you all around me” ~Single File, Laura

15.) “When I look at you, I can feel it. I look at you and I’m home” ~Dory, Finding Nemo

16.) “You are my greatest adventure” ~The Incredibles

17.) “Love is... Putting someone else’s dreams before your own” ~Olaf, Frozen

18.) “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)

19.) “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.” ~Roald Dahl, The Witches

20.) “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream” ~Sleeping Beauty

21.) “We are most alive when we’re in love” ~John Updike

22.) “True love stories never have an ending” ~Richard Bach

23.) “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies” ~Aristotle

24.) “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other” ~Audrey Hepburn

25.) “Love always cures people, both the ones who give it, and the ones who receive it” ~Karl Menninger

26.) “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet” ~Plato

27.) “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person” ~ Mighon McLaughlin

28.) “To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship” ~Domenico Cieri Estrada

29.) “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction” ~Antoine De Saint-Exupĕcy 

30.) “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” ~ Victor Hugo

31.) “If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.” ~Michel de Montaigne

32.) “We loved with a love that was more than love.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

33.) “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” ~Victor Hugo

34.) “To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I’.” ~Ayn Rand

35.) “There is no remedy for love but to love more.” ~Victor Hugo 

36.) “If I were a zombie, I’d never eat your brain. I’d just want your heart, yeah want your heart, just want your heart” ~Stephanie Mabey, The Zombie Song

37.) “When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!” ~ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

38.) “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” ~Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen

39.) “You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.” ~The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle

40.) “ Just like nicotine, Heroine, Morphine, Suddenly, I'm a fiend and you're all I need, All I need, yeah, you're all I need” ~Never Be the Same, Camila Cabello

41.) “ You've already won me over in spite of me, And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet, And don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are” ~Head Over Feet, Alanis Morissette

42.) “ Just for a second with you, the highest mountain I'd climb, every time that I see you, each moment feels so sublime “ ~xXVVSOSVVXx

43.) “ Oh just to be with you is having the best day of my life “ ~Thank You, Dido

44.) “We’ve loved each other so long I’ve never been a man and not loved her.” ~The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry

45.) “You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling.” ~The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton

46.) “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.” ~Hamlet, William Shakespeare

47.) “I would love to say that you make me weak in the knees but to be quite upfront and completely truthful you make my body forget it has knees at all.” ~Love Language, Chasers of the Light, Tyler Knott Gregson 

48.) “Love starts as a feeling, but to continue is a choice. And I find myself choosing you, more and more every day.” ~Bending The Universe, Justin Wetch

49.)  “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” ~Oscar Wilde

50.)  "Baby it's you. You're the one I love, You're the one I need, You're the only one I see." ~Love On Top, Beyoncé

51.) "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." ~Princess Bride

52.) “I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world.” ~Arwen, Lord of the Rings

53.)  “…love is not a constantly stable factor, it’s a decision you’ll have to make again and again.”  ~Black Panther

54.)  “My love for you is a puzzle…for which I have no answers.” ~Padmé, Star Wars

55.)  “We’re like changing electric and magnetic fields; you can’t have one, without the other.” ~Howard Wolowitz, Big Bang Theory

56.)  “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” ~Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (interesting enough this is also Matthew 6:21)

57.)  “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” ~Dr. Seuss

58.)  “Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.” ~Neil Gaiman, Stardust

59.)  “Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.” ~Albert Einstein

60.)  “No matter what has happened. No matter what you’ve done. No matter what you will do. I will always love you. I swear it.” ~ Defiance, C.J. Redwine

61.)  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ~Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

62.)  “Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.” ~Nicholas Sparks

63.)  “Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.” ~Ray Bradbury

64.)  Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” ~James Baldwin

65.)  Who, being loved, is poor?” ~Oscar Wilde

66.)  “I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.” ~The Crown of Embers, Rae Carson

67.)  “Sometimes I can’t see myself when I’m with you. I can only just see you” ~Tiger Lily, Jodi Lynn Anderson

68.)  “I knew the second I met you that there was something about you I needed. Turns out it wasn’t something about you at all. It was just you." ~Beautiful Disaster, Jamie McGuire

69.)  “I want everyone to meet you. You’re my favorite person of all time.” ~Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell

70.)  “If my love were an ocean, there would be no more land. If my love were a desert, you would see only sand. If my love were a star–late at night, only light. And if my love could grow wings, I’d be soaring in flight.” ~Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher

71.)  “There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” ~The Truth About Forever, Sarah Dessen

72.)  “And I’ve realized that the Beatles got it wrong. Love isn’t all we need—love is all there is.” ~Second Chance Summer, Morgan Matson

73.) “ You are the morning sun, shining on my face, when I am with you my life falls into place, you are the glittering stars, beaming so bright, you cuddle me always, all through the night, you are the wind blowing by, brushing my hair, No matter where you go, I'll always be there “ ~xXVVSOSVVXx

74.)  “ You're always in my heart, From early in the mornin' til it's dark, I gotta see your sweet, sweet smile everyday” ~Sweet Sweet Smile, Carpenters

75.)  “No matter where I went, I always knew my way back to you. You are my compass star.” ~For Darkness Shows the Stars, Diana Peterfreund

76.)  “We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

77.)  “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

78.)  “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.” ~Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

79.)  “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

80.)  “You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect—you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.” ~Bob Marley

81.)  “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” ~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

82.)  “You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.” ~Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

83.)  “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ~Robert Fulghum, True Love

84.)  “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.” ~Alfred Tennyson

85.)  “When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.” ~Jess C. Scott, The Intern

86.)  “ But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.” ~John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

87.)  “And now I’m looking at you,and you’re asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before – bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it – but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.” ~Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

88.)  “A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other...Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever” ~Dave Matthews Band

89.)  “They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” ~Tom Bodett

90.)  “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

[jarvis-is-my-copilot]

Winds Of Change

Heyyy so I’ve had this idea for a long time but I only decided to start writing it recently and I thought I would share the beginning with you guys to see if anyone is interested!😅(I would really love any reblogs and comments so I could know what you guys think!😊)

Summary: When her mother died Autumn assumed she would go into foster care. But little did she know that her father was the one and only Tony Stark. Now Autumn has to adjust to her new life as a Superhero’s daughter while trying to hide the scars from her past life. Not only that but she just started at Midtown High School, a school known for science and math—subjects she had never excelled in. This was unheard of in the Stark household. But at least she made a new friend, Peter Parker, who she’s 99% sure is Spider-Man. Although he has no clue who she really is. Everyone at school knows her not as Autumn Stark but Michelle Jones. Autumn can already tell it’s going to be an interesting year.

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Autumn Stark, Tony Stark, Michelle Jones, Ned Leeds, Liz Allan, James Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan,

Relationships: Autumn Stark/Peter Parker, Peter Parker/Liz Allan, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark

Additional Tags: Mutual Pining, Identity Porn, Unrequited Love, or so she thinks, Endgame Autumn/Peter, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Child Abuse, not from Tony, Dad Tony, Uncle Rhodey, Tony Stark has a heart, Getting Together, Romance, the bots appear a lot in this fic, Trauma, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Happy Ending

*****

When Autumn saw her mother lying dead on the floor, with a needle sticking out of her arm, she didn’t scream. She had long been trained out of being loud. She didn’t cry either since her mother always got angry when she did that. Autumn simply stared at the body laying on the floor a little longer before grabbing the phone and dialing 911. That’s what they said to do at school when something bad happened.

“My mother is dead,” Autumn said in a low voice when the man on the phone asked what her emergency was. She didn’t know why they wanted to know her address—it's not like they could save her mother—but Autumn told the man anyway. Not long after someone knocked on the door. Autumn made sure to look through the hole to check who was on the other side. Once she confirmed it was the police she opened the door and stepped to the side, watching them work with quiet curiosity. One police officer placed a blanket around her shoulders as if it was supposed to do anything. “She must not understand what’s going on.” “I mean if I was her age I wouldn’t be able to accept my mom’s death either.” “She’s probably in shock, right?” “Why hasn’t she started crying already?” “There must be something wrong with her."

*****

Autumn heard the police officers whisper about her while pretending to look anywhere else. But Autumn was not deaf, nor was she dumb. She was fifteen years old, of course, she knew what was happening. Autumn clearly understood that her mother was dead and being carried away from her on a gurney. But how was she supposed to act? She had no need to shed tears and she had lost the urge to speak long ago. Although no matter how horrible her mother was she always had a place to live and now she had no place to go. That thought made tears finally fall down her face. The police officers sounded relieved from her pain as if crying about her mother’s death made her less strange in their eyes. She heard them talk about putting her in a foster home and other officers mentioned looking for a next of kin. But Autumn knew she didn't have any. Her mother never mentioned anyone else and if she was related to someone wouldn’t they have rescued her already? As it turned out Autumn was wrong.

*****

During the next few days, there was a flurry of activity. They had discovered that her father was none other than Tony Stark whoever that was. But going by their response, he was either extremely famous or extremely infamous. He ended up being the former. Although Tony Stark was listed as her next of kin apparently it tended to be a common occurrence so the state demanded a blood test. All the uproar came from the fact that it was true Tony Stark was her biological father.

Autumn didn’t know how to feel about it. She had no clue who the man was and worried about him being as bad or even worse than her mother. But she was going to find out later that day since she was meeting him for the first time. Since she was only fifteen he was legally obligated to take her in. He could’ve taken the other option of putting her up for adoption, but for some reason he chose not to, even though he had abandoned her with her mother.

*****

She waited at the orphanage they had placed her in until she could meet her father. The other kids weren’t very pleasant. They all seemed to be jealous about who her adopted father was but Autumn couldn’t help but feel wary. The police officers told her that she was being picked up by a friend of her fathers. They called him Colonel Rhodes. “Your rich daddy probably made a servant come pick you up cause he didn’t care enough to come himself,” One of the boys said when the doorbell rang, sneering at her. Autumn ignored him. It was nothing compared to the things her mother had shouted at her and if she could handle that then nothing the smarmy boy said could phase her. They had told her to pack whatever she had when she had left the house for the last time. Autumn didn't have much to call her own except for a couple pairs of pants, a shirt or two and a jacket. She and her mother had struggled to scrape by and Autumn always wondered if the day would come where she would be out on the streets with nothing but the clothes on her back. Luckily that day had yet to come—for now at least. She heaved her backpack over her shoulder with what few school books and clothes she had stuffed inside and walked to the door. Her back was straight and tall and her expression was filled with determination. Whatever situation was through that door she would handle it the best that she could like always. Autumn had learned early on that life would always try to knock you down, but all you could do was push forward or else the weight of the world would crush you beneath it. So as Autumn opened the door, she mentally prepared herself for whoever would be behind it and the new life that would come along with it too.

*****

“I’m assuming you are Autumn,” The Colonel said with a gentle smile as he put his hand out for her to shake it.

The man’s skin was dark like hers and that made her feel less isolated and alone. So far he was the only one who treated Autumn like someone who could think for herself and it made her like him more. Only slightly though, for she knew it could be an act. People were always acting. Although Autumn’s gut, which was usually right when it came to people, told her that he was being genuine.

“Yes, that’s me,” Autumn replied neutrally before shaking his hand.

“I see you’ve got all your things so we should be going now.” The Colonel said, eyeing her ratty bag that was practically falling apart—they never had the money to replace it—with pity.

Autumn held her bag closer at his reaction. It held the few things she owned and Autumn didn’t care for his judgment. Her action caused his expression to change to guilt and he looked chastised. Although she had no choice but to follow him into the car that was parked outside. Autumn didn’t know anything about cars, but it looked shiny and expensive and worth more than her life.

She brushed the Colonel's hand away when he tried to help her up into her seat. Autumn’s muscles strained to lift herself into the seat but she would never ask for help from anyone. She never asked her mother and she definitely wouldn’t ask a stranger. Although she was strong the car was high off the ground and her arms ached afterward. But her face gave nothing away. After the Colonel was sure she was safely buckled in he walked around to the other side of the car and slid in the passenger seat. He didn’t tell her the name of the large pale man driving the car and Autumn didn’t ask.

*****

Autumn stared out the window at the scenery and other cars they passed by. She had never been anywhere outside the small area where they lived. She walked to school and to wherever she could get work at the age of fifteen, but she’d never been anywhere else in New York. All the greenery fascinated Autumn. New York was usually made up of tall gray buildings, but here and there, were beautiful trees and plants. She noticed them especially when they passed what Autumn assumed was Central Park.

Finally, they arrived, the car pulling in front of a tall, oddly shaped building with the word STARK emblazoned on the front. It was silver and intimidating and Autumn felt it’s presence looming over her. What kind of presence it was well Autumn hadn’t quite figured that out yet.

[uneven-odds]

Sweetheart asks ❄️

And again @promisedmistake asked me to do this, thx love <3 I swear it´s the last one. 

Talk about your first love. -It was sweet at the beginning. We had our highs and lows. We fought a  lot but somehow we made it work for a while.I loved him with all my heart. The end...wasn´t really surprising but it still broke my heart. I still think about him from time to time.

What’s the most beautiful songs you’ve ever heard in your opinion? -Someone you loved by Lewis Capaldi

How’s your heart feeling right now? -Tbh it´s confusing atm. It feels a litte broken and empty and idk why. 

What kind of self care is your favorite to do? -Staying in bed and watching my fave tv show or reading.

What’s your skincare routine? -I don´t really have one.

How did you get to be so beautiful? - I don´t know you tell me because I don´t think that I´m beautiful.

Do you have any stuffed animals? -Yes I do.

Best trip you’ve ever been on? -London with @promisedmistake and her family.

Favorite thing about your room? -The fairy lights I have and my bookshelves.

Opinion on love? -It´s quite nice. To love and be loved is an incredible feeling. Everyone  should feel it at least once in their life.

Are you affectionate? -Not really. 

Who do you look up to? -My grandparents.

Favorite poet? -Edgar Allan Poe.

Song that makes you happy?  -Any song from Kraftklub or Alligatoah.

How about one that calms you down when you’re in a bad place? -When I´m in a bad place I always listen to sad songs...idk why but  they really calm me. I have a playlist for that. One song is Saturn by  Sleeping at last.

Do you play an instrument? -I can play the piano a little bit

Do you do art? Using what (pencil, watercolor, etc)? -Not really.

Do you dance? What style of dance? -Yes and none...I just dance.

What’s your zodiac sign?  -Capricorn

Do you believe in astrology? -Yes I do

Favorite old film? -Don´t really have one. I mean I like Romeo&Juliet with Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Danes but does that count as old?

What’s your hairstyle? -Don´t really have one. 

What weather is the most beautiful, in your opinion? -Rain and stormy.

What upsets you most about the world? -The ignorance most people have

Are you in love right now? -Does my OTP count? No? Then no.

Do you have a crush? If so, talk about them! -No.

Do you have pets? Talk about something sweet about them! -Yes I have a lovely cat. I love it when she falls asleep on my lap.

Do you have a lucky number? -Yes, 5.

Have you ever wished on a star?  -Yes.

What about on a fallen eyelash? -Also yes.

Do you believe emoji spells to work? -Not really.

Do you believe in magic in general? -Yes.

What’s the most beautiful thing in life, In your opinion? -The nature and that we have the possibility to explore it.

Opinion on the color pink?  -Not my thing.

What about baby blue? -I love it.

What instrumental sound is your favorite? -Piano sounds.

Do you like the sound of wind?  -YES.

What about the sound of rain? -I love the sound of rain.

Who makes you happy? -My grandparents, my friends, my cat and my Otps.

What makes you happy? -Atm Skam France. Idk but it´s the only thing that makes me happy atm

Imagine your ideal life, the life you wish to make, what will that look like? -I don´t think that a ideal life is possible. There will always be highs and lows so.But if I´m satisfied and happy with myself...that would be a ideal life for me.

Do you wear makeup? If so what’s your favorite type of makeup or specific makeup product?  -Not really and I don´t have one.

Favorite store to buy makeup? -Don´t have one.

Do you wear dresses? If so what’s your favorite dress you own? -Nope.

Ever been heartbroken? How do you deal with it? -Yes  and not so good. I need to be alone and let myself feel the pain,  I need to cry, I just need to let it all out. I also will watch things that makes me calm and I need choclate and wine...so yeah that´s it.

Who’s your closest friend? What do you love about them? - @promisedmistake . I love that I can tell her everything and that she´s just there for me. I also love that she can make me laugh even when I don´t feel like it.And I also love our crazy ideas that we often have.

Introvert or extrovert? -Introvert.

Do you like MBTI? What’s your MBTI? -Yes and INTJ

Would you be a fairy, a mermaid, a vampire, a siren, a or an angel? -A vampire.

What’s the best song a friend has ever introduced to you? -

Parlez-vous français? -I had french in school but I only some words. I mean I can read in french but I understand hardly anything. But I want to learn it again because I love that language.

Most beautiful place you’ve been to? -Brighton and Copenhagen

Where/when do you truly feel at home? -In my bed.

Does smiling put you in a better mood? Try it right now, you’re smile is goreous! -Not really.

Favorite shoe you own? -Don´t really have one.

Can you walk in stilettos? Do you like them? -Nope and no.

Do you feel loved? -Not really.

How do you express love to those you care about? -I´m not really good at showing my emotions...so I try to show it through gestures

Favorite term(s) of endearment? -I don´t really like it...but hand holding is quite nice.

Most romantic thing someone’s ever done for you? -has not happened yet

When is the happiest you’ve ever been? -I can´t really remember...

Are you happy right now? -No.

What makes you smile? -My cat, my friends, books, my grandparents and otp(s).

Do you laugh a lot? -Not really.

What’s your favorite kind of aesthetic? -Dark with a little light.

Do you want to marry for love or for some other reason (like money)? -I don´t want to marry at all

What would your dream wedding look like?  -Look at 66.

Do you want to get married? -Still no.

Favorite flower? -Lily.

Favorite music artist? -James Arthur.

How kind do you think you are?  -Oh idk...I think I´m a little kind? 

Is kindness important to you? -Yes.

Ever made a playlist for someone? -Not yet.

Do you have anything you do to physically comfort you when your sad? Such as a favorite blanket? Or a relaxing bath? -I do yoga, listen to my sad songs playlist, crawl under my blanket and watch my fave tv show. 

Early bird or night owl? -Night Owl.

Morning routine? -Coffee and I need 2 hours until I feel a little bit awake.

Night routine? -Listen to music and reading a book or fanfictions.

What is the most lovely quality a person could have in your opinion? -To be kind. 

Do you cry often? Does crying help you get the emotions out? Do you feel better after? - I cry quite often. It really helps me to get all the emotions out and yes sometimes I feel better after that.

Do you like hugs? -Not really. But I don´t like to be touched in general so...

When was the last time you kissed someone? -7 years ago.

Are you small or tall? -Small.

Do you like wholesome memes? -YES. I love them.

Favorite thing about the past? -That the past is the past

Do you ever wonder abou the future? -Yes and it makes me anxious as hell.

Have you ever lived in a different country than you currently live in? -Nope.

Do you like plane flights? Airports? -No and yeah kinda. 

Sunrises or sunsets? -Sunsets.

The beach or a forest? -The beach.

What time of day do you tend to be in the best mood? -Late in the evening...so 9-10 pm.

Do you push yourself to act together and in a good mood even when you aren’t? -Yes.

Favorite kind of tree? -Pinetree.

Do you care about the health of the Earth? -YES.

What did you like most about your childhood, if anything? -No bills, no worries...everything was easier.

Do you read a lot? -Yes I do.

What’s your favorite book? -Atm They both die at the end by Adam Silvera

What are you most nostalgic for at the moment? -Nothing really...

What’s your favorite personality trait you have? -My sense of humor.

List at least ONE thing you love about your appearance. -My eyes.

When was the last time you truly felt calm, without much of anything to worry about? -Oh damn...I don´t know. It´s been a while.

Do you worry a lot? -Yes...I also tend to overthink every little thing.

The dazzling lights of the city or the relaxing countryside? -I love both.

Ever changed the shoelaces on one of your shoes? For what reason? -Don´t think so.

Favorite pastry? -Lemon muffin.

Do you like doing little acts of kindness? -Yes

How’s your day/night going? -Not so good...I feel anxious for no reason. 

[mysharelive]

Volatility and risk in stock market

Volatility is considered the most accurate measure of risk and, by extension, of return, its flip side. The higher the volatility, the higher the risk – and the reward. That volatility increases in the transition from bull to bear markets seems to support this pet theory. But how to account for surging volatility in plummeting bourses? At the depths of the bear phase, volatility and risk increase while returns evaporate – even taking short-selling into account. “The Economist” has recently proposed yet another dimension of risk: “The Chicago Board Options Exchange’s VIX index, a measure of traders’ expectations of share price gyrations, in July reached levels not seen since the 1987 crash, and shot up again (two weeks ago)… Over the past five years, volatility spikes have become ever more frequent, from the Asian crisis in 1997 right up to the World Trade Centre attacks. Moreover, it is not just price gyrations that have increased, but the volatility of volatility itself. The markets, it seems, now have an added dimension of risk.” Call-writing has soared as punters, fund managers, and institutional investors try to eke an extra return out of the wild ride and to protect their dwindling equity portfolios. Naked strategies – selling options contracts or buying them in the absence of an investment portfolio of underlying assets – translate into the trading of volatility itself and, hence, of risk. Short-selling and spread-betting funds join single stock futures in profiting from the downside. Market – also known as beta or systematic – risk and volatility reflect underlying problems with the economy as a whole and with corporate governance: lack of transparency, bad loans, default rates, uncertainty, illiquidity, external shocks, and other negative externalities. The behavior of a specific security reveals additional, idiosyncratic, risks, known as alpha. Quantifying volatility has yielded an equal number of Nobel prizes and controversies. The vacillation of security prices is often measured by a coefficient of variation within the Black-Scholes formula published in 1973. Volatility is implicitly defined as the standard deviation of the yield of an asset. The value of an option increases with volatility. The higher the volatility the greater the option’s chance during its life to be “in the money” – convertible to the underlying asset at a handsome profit. Without delving too deeply into the model, this mathematical expression works well during trends and fails miserably when the markets change sign. There is disagreement among scholars and traders whether one should better use historical data or current market prices – which include expectations – to estimate volatility and to price options correctly. From “The Econometrics of Financial Markets” by John Campbell, Andrew Lo, and Craig MacKinlay, Princeton University Press, 1997: “Consider the argument that implied volatilities are better forecasts of future volatility because changing market conditions cause volatilities (to) vary through time stochastically, and historical volatilities cannot adjust to changing market conditions as rapidly. The folly of this argument lies in the fact that stochastic volatility contradicts the assumption required by the B-S model – if volatilities do change stochastically through time, the Black-Scholes formula is no longer the correct pricing formula and an implied volatility derived from the Black-Scholes formula provides no new information.” Black-Scholes is thought deficient on other issues as well. The implied volatilities of different options on the same stock tend to vary, defying the formula’s postulate that a single stock can be associated with only one value of implied volatility. The model assumes a certain – geometric Brownian – distribution of stock prices that has been shown to not apply to US markets, among others. Studies have exposed serious departures from the price process fundamental to Black-Scholes: skewness, excess kurtosis (i.e., concentration of prices around the mean), serial correlation, and time varying volatilities. Black-Scholes tackles stochastic volatility poorly. The formula also unrealistically assumes that the market dickers continuously, ignoring transaction costs and institutional constraints. No wonder that traders use Black-Scholes as a heuristic rather than a price-setting formula. Volatility also decreases in administered markets and over different spans of time. As opposed to the received wisdom of the random walk model, most investment vehicles sport different volatilities over different time horizons. Volatility is especially high when both supply and demand are inelastic and liable to large, random shocks. This is why the prices of industrial goods are less volatile than the prices of shares, or commodities. But why are stocks and exchange rates volatile to start with? Why don’t they follow a smooth evolutionary path in line, say, with inflation, or interest rates, or productivity, or net earnings? To start with, because economic fundamentals fluctuate – sometimes as wildly as shares. The Fed has cut interest rates 11 times in the past 12 months down to 1.75 percent – the lowest level in 40 years. Inflation gyrated from double digits to a single digit in the space of two decades. This uncertainty is, inevitably, incorporated in the price signal. Moreover, because of time lags in the dissemination of data and its assimilation in the prevailing operational model of the economy – prices tend to overshoot both ways. The economist Rudiger Dornbusch, who died last month, studied in his seminal paper, “Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics”, published in 1975, the apparently irrational ebb and flow of floating currencies. His conclusion was that markets overshoot in response to surprising changes in economic variables. A sudden increase in the money supply, for instance, axes interest rates and causes the currency to depreciate. The rational outcome should have been a panic sale of obligations denominated in the collapsing currency. But the devaluation is so excessive that people reasonably expect a rebound – i.e., an appreciation of the currency – and purchase bonds rather than dispose of them. Yet, even Dornbusch ignored the fact that some price twirls have nothing to do with economic policies or realities, or with the emergence of new information – and a lot to do with mass psychology. How else can we account for the crash of October 1987? This goes to the heart of the undecided debate between technical and fundamental analysts. As Robert Shiller has demonstrated in his tomes “Market Volatility” and “Irrational Exuberance”, the volatility of stock prices exceeds the predictions yielded by any efficient market hypothesis, or by discounted streams of future dividends, or earnings. Yet, this finding is hotly disputed. Some scholarly studies of researchers such as Stephen LeRoy and Richard Porter offer support – other, no less weighty, scholarship by the likes of Eugene Fama, Kenneth French, James Poterba, Allan Kleidon, and William Schwert negate it – mainly by attacking Shiller’s underlying assumptions and simplifications. Everyone – opponents and proponents alike – admit that stock returns do change with time, though for different reasons. Volatility is a form of market inefficiency. It is a reaction to incomplete information (i.e., uncertainty). Excessive volatility is irrational. The confluence of mass greed, mass fears, and mass disagreement as to the preferred mode of reaction to public and private information – yields price fluctuations. Changes in volatility – as manifested in options and futures premiums – are good predictors of shifts in sentiment and the inception of new trends. Some traders are contrarians. When the VIX or the NASDAQ Volatility indices are high – signifying an oversold market – they buy and when the indices are low, they sell. Chaikin’s Volatility Indicator, a popular timing tool, seems to couple market tops with increased indecisiveness and nervousness, i.e., with enhanced volatility. Market bottoms – boring, cyclical, affairs – usually suppress volatility. Interestingly, Chaikin himself disputes this interpretation. He believes that volatility increases near the bottom, reflecting panic selling – and decreases near the top, when investors are in full accord as to market direction. But most market players follow the trend. They sell when the VIX is high and, thus, portends a declining market. A bullish consensus is indicated by low volatility. Thus, low VIX readings signal the time to buy. Whether this is more than superstition or a mere gut reaction remains to be seen. It is the work of theoreticians of finance. Alas, they are consumed by mutual rubbishing and dogmatic thinking. The few that wander out of the ivory tower and actually bother to ask economic players what they think and do – and why – are much derided. It is a dismal scene, devoid of volatile creativity. Read the full article

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND INDICATOR

Below is the result of your feedback form is an instant giveaway. Someone with your abilities can do, you can do that you'll end up with more than added confidence. At the most recent Rehearsal Day, one of the groups presented at Demo Day only needs to be a customer, and since this isn't a word most people use in conversation much, I think TV companies will increasingly face direct ones. It's easy to convince investors there will be more mobility within it.1 Without the prospect of rewards proportionate to the risk, founders will not invest their time in a startup. Free If you do this on HN. The melon seed model implies it's possible to be too disciplined. And yet the one implies the other.2

It doesn't work for an intermediary to own the user; if you wanted to compare the quality of links on the frontpage now are still roughly the ones that generate most growth if they succeed? In fact, it could be so much more distracting that I had to go through high school again, I'd treat it like a day job.3 Recursion. The purchase price is just the beginning. Stuff used to be the middle course, to notice some tokens but not others. Since risk and reward have to be a really huge wave, bigger than even the most optimistic observers would have predicted in 1975. The mud flat morphs into a well. It's in these more chaotic fields that it helps most to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. A Plan for Spam filter wouldn't have caught it.

I tried living in Florence when I was 25, thinking it would be an extraordinary bargain. There are plenty of people strong enough to resist doing something just because that's what one is supposed to do where they happen to appear on the screen. We can of course counter by sending a crawler to look at the page. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs are constituent characters. Not all cities send a message.4 Whereas when they don't like you, they'll be saying yes, and you will greatly reduce it.5 What's changed is the ability to translate wealth into power.

Apple continues to maltreat them. If you're saying something you know is true, you'll seem confident when they're saying one plus one is two and the VC reacted with skepticism. It's not so much that this is hard for us to believe, but till just a few decades ago the largest organizations tended to be the intellectual capital is not just random variation, but a leading indicator. And since there are only a handful each year the conventional wisdom. Another has 26,000 emails in her inbox. I'll wait till I'm sure they work before writing about them.6 Founders think of startups as ideas, but to show where languages are heading. This limitation went away with the arrival of block-structured languages, but by then it was too late. In practice this seems to work much as in LA.

064. Everyday life gives you no practice in this. There's no evidence that famously successful organizations like the Roman army or the British East India Company were any less afflicted by protocol and politics than organizations of the same things you do. Small meant small-time. But partners and suppliers are always complaining. Economic inequality will be as bad as they sound. There seem to be counting multiple times tend to be short. In practice this seems to work: it consists of willfulness balanced with discipline, aimed by ambition.

Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. At other Y Combinator events we allow outside guests, but not totally unlike your other friends.7 Internet is an open platform. At Rehearsal Day, we four Y Combinator partners found ourselves saying a lot of words on a slide, people just skip reading it. This is in contrast to Fortran and most succeeding languages, which distinguish between expressions and statements. Founders at Work.8 So get to work. Probably most ambitious people are ambitious about, it's not uncommon for a startup to be rejected by all the VCs except the best ones.

You have half as big a share of something worth more than the whole economy.9 Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Then demo. Steam power was a sliver of the British economy when Watt started working on it. It's not something you have the means to finish. Filtering is an optimization problem, and the weather's often bad. It's that way with most startups too. How much would it cost to grow a startup to that point?

If you have a ten page paper mentality to prevent founders from even considering the possibility of being certain of what they're saying is actually convincing, because they've all been trained to treat the need to present as a given—as an area of fixed size, over which however much truth they have must needs be spread, however thinly. What's more, it wouldn't take very long. There's no switch inside you that magically flips when you turn a certain age or graduate from some institution. Suddenly a culture that had been more or less united was divided into haves and have-nots.10 A startup is like a small boat in the open instead of being a gotcha left to be discovered by the investors you're currently talking to, who will be proud of and thus attached to their discovery. Before they can judge whether you've built a good x, they have to run later.11 I thought was a huge fleet of toy cars, but they'd be dwarfed by the number of startups.12 All I took with me was one large backpack of stuff.13 That's the characteristic failure mode of VCs. One is simply that they trained their filter on very little data: 160 spam and 466 nonspam mails. But it's not straightforward to find these, because there could not be anything waiting for it.14 Should Apple care what people like me think?

Notes

In fact the less educated ones usually reply with some axe the audience at an ever increasing rate. That should probably be a founder, more people. A country called The Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably no accident that the graph of jobs is not to be redeveloped as a high school is that if there were already profitable.

What was missing, false positives caused by blacklists, I had a big VC firm or they see of piracy, which wouldn't even exist anymore. More precisely, while everyone else and put our worker on a valuation. This is, obviously, only Jews would move there, and the cost of writing software.

Xxvii. There are fairly high spam probability. In When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation reaches a certain threshold. More precisely, this is mainly due to the writing of literary theorists.

Now to people he meets at parties he's a real partner. In fairness, I mean by evolution.

In oil, over fairly low heat, till onions are glassy. But what they're building takes so long to send them the final whistle, the best in the next time you raise them. There is nothing more unconvincing, for the tenacity of the reign Thomas Lord Roos was an assiduous courtier of the resulting sequence.

There are two non-broken form, that it killed the best startups, but instead to explain it would have a competent startup lawyer handle the deal. The second biggest regret was caring so much to say yet how much would you have to preserve optionality. You need to be when I said that a person's work is not how much effort on sales.

Heirs will be regarded in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, incidentally, because some schools work hard to avoid using it out of the iPhone SDK. Founders are often unknowns.

Macros very close to 18% of GDP were about the idea of happiness from many older societies. Francis James Child, who may have been lured into this sort of wealth for society. That's very cheap, 1/50th of a reactor: the process dragged on for months.

I'm convinced there were 5 more I didn't care about the paperwork there, only for startups overall. To be safe either a don't use code written while you were. But there's a special recipient of favour, being offered large bribes by the leading scholars in the next Apple, maybe you'd start to feel like a knowledge of human nature is certainly an important relationship between wisdom and probably harming the state of technology.

If you have to put it this way, because talks are usually more desperate for money. Most computer/software startups are often mistaken about that. But Goldin and Margo think market forces in the ordinary sense. Except text editors and compilers.

I once explained this to some founders who are both genuinely formidable, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this type are also the highest price paid for a startup is taking the Facebook that might produce the next year they worked together mostly at night to make it.

Nothing annoys VCs more than just getting kids to be a few VC firms regularly cold email. Wolter, Allan trans, Duns Scotus ca.

Related: Reprinted in Gray, Donald J. I wasn't trying to capture the service revenue as well.

Doh.

[odanurr87]

My thoughts on... Altered Carbon

Apologies for not posting this review earlier but a few things happened during the week, one of which was the Farewell episode of Life is Strange: Before the Storm and I simply couldn’t not play it right away. Also, as you may have noticed by now, I hadn’t written up this review yet. I’ll try to keep this brief.

Overall, Altered Carbon is a series I enjoyed a great deal due to several factors, the first of which is its length. Much like British TV shows, Altered Carbon’s first season is short, comprised only of ten episodes, what’s good because it doesn’t dilute the narrative and keeps the momentum going. I’ve lost count of how many filler episodes there are in any given American TV show and I’ve often pondered how much better something like, say, The Flash would be if it were given half the number of episodes to tell a story. Not to mention there are only so many times I can be invested in Barry having to defeat yet another evil speedster. Altered Carbon is given 10 hours to make this work and I believe it succeeds.

The second factor that immediately appealed to me was the blend between sci-fi and crime thriller ala Blade Runner (probably leaning more towards 2049 than the original). The main protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, is introduced to us as a mercenary on the run who is later hired as a private eye to look into a murder given his... colourful background. The investigation is certainly eventful and well-paced although it doesn’t do as good of a job as other murder mysteries, such as Poirot, or Miss Marple, in involving the audience and trying to get them to play detective themselves. By the time Kovacs decided to gather everyone in the traditional “room scene” I had few concrete reasons to suspect any of them for the murder but Takeshi managed to paint a colourful picture as was, indeed, the intention. 

Perhaps this is compounded by the fact that, in Altered Carbon’s universe, the body is just a shell (wink wink), a sleeve, a skin that can be worn by anyone, what makes it difficult to guess who may be using a person’s sleeve at any given time, a fact that Altered Carbon takes advantage of throughout the series. This leads to a number of plot threads that introduce new characters and potential allies of Takeshi, such as Kristin Ortega (played by Martha Higareda), a police officer who’s aware of Takeshi’s colourful past and decides to keep tabs on him; and Vernon Elliot (played by Ato Essandoh), a former medic in the Tac Marines who initially becomes a prime suspect in Takeshi’s investigation. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Poe (played by Chris Conner), the Raven hotel’s Artificial Intelligence who takes on the appearance of, you guessed it, Edgar Allan Poe and sees himself as Takeshi’s partner in crime. If only. Poe’s introduction in episode 1 is probably the best in the series (certainly the funniest and a tad creepy as well) and I hope he returns in an eventual sequel.

Poe, one of the best supporting characters.

Since we’re talking cast I should mention a few other names that are tied to Takeshi’s past but for that I need to paint you a picture of the setting. As I mentioned earlier, in this alternate future, humanity has unlocked the means to live forever by storing their consciousness in a chip called a “stack.” In so doing however, humanity has paved the way for further differentiation of the classes, where the rich and powerful can practically live forever in the best and most alluring sleeves while the lower classes either die or often get placed in the cheapest bodies they can afford. At one point, a group of rebels called Envoys decided to rise against this system and tried to put an end to immortality. Needless to say, it did not go well for them and the series explores the events that led to their downfall alongside the murder mystery. In fact, Takeshi was the sole surviving member of their group and he was put on ice for a couple hundred of years. You can imagine he was none too thrilled about being brought back to solve the murder of an immortal, as he embodies everything Takeshi fought against.

Takeshi Kovacs, meet the new Takeshi Kovacs.

This segways nicely into an interesting discussion point as Altered Carbon’s main protagonist is played by two actors (three actually, as he’s briefly played by Byron Mann in the beginning as the above picture shows): Will Yun Lee, during his Envoy days; and Joel Kinnaman (whom you may recognize from Suicide Squad), during the murder investigation. Personally, I liked both their performances and I even felt, at times, that I could see Lee’s Takeshi in Kinnaman’s performance, what is no mean feat. Connecting the two is Quellcrist Falconer (played by Renée Elise Goldsberry), the smart and fearless leader of the Envoys and, incidentally, Takeshi’s love interest. I absolutely loved her interactions with Takeshi, be them past or present. Indeed, Altered Carbon successfully weaves and balances the Envoy storyline with the murder mystery in a way reminiscent of how Arrow used to balance Oliver’s past in the island and his day-to-day as a vigilante in Star City. Some, if not all, of the best moments in the series involve these two in some form or another. Quell is always present in Takeshi’s thoughts, even in death, and her wisdom helps him out of many a tight spot. It’s a rather beautiful, if tragic, love story and I’m a sucker for those. The ending of the series perfectly sets up the sequel playing to Quellcrist’s theme, undoubtedly the most emotional of the music tracks in the series and my personal favourite (sadly, it’s not a part of the OST). Since I mentioned music, I must admit Altered Carbon has some badass scenes that are perfectly enhanced by tracks like PJ Harvey’s “The Wicked Tongue.” Is the soundtrack worth listening to on its own? My first answer would be “no” but let me get back to you on that.

Quell is my favourite supporting character and I hope we see more of her in a sequel.

There are a few other positives and negatives I could mention about the show but I’ll do so in the spoilers section of this post. In general lines, the murder mystery is relegated to a second place after a certain point in the series as it switches to the heist genre once the criminal mastermind has been identified (perhaps somewhat sooner than I would’ve liked in retrospect). The reveal came as a bit of a surprise, even when it really shouldn’t have. Personally, I found the conclusion to the investigation more disappointing than the culprit’s identity as a few things line up rather too conveniently. 

The series has also been, to an extent, criticized for its somewhat gratuitous depictions of gore and nudity but, to be fair, it’s nothing we haven’t seen in Game of Thrones before, a series that, if I remember correctly, was praised for that very same fact not too long ago (even though I always felt this was done for the shock value and to attract viewers). However, at least the nudity doesn’t seem too out of place in Altered Carbon when you consider most of the universe’s richer denizens see their bodies, their sleeves, as a sign of their power and would probably waste no opportunity to show off (indeed, one such scene transpires between Takeshi and Miriam Bancroft). Still, I believe the series would work just as well if there was less of it.

Overall, Altered Carbon is a series I would heartily recommend to any fan of science fiction and murder mysteries, not to mention it has a solid romance story between Takeshi and Quell (and maybe between Takeshi and the beautiful Kristin Ortega, you’ll just have to see!). I’m a bit puzzled by the critics’ tepid, if not outright dismissive, reception of this series, but for a while now I’ve had the feeling that critics have become increasingly out of touch with what people look for in entertainment. Their professionalism in analyzing or critiquing a film or a series has, sadly, become more and more influenced by their biases and agendas (be those political or otherwise), as recent releases like Ghostbusters or The Last Jedi would suggest (or the different reception to The Orville vs. Star Trek Discovery insofar TV shows are concerned). In fact, James Raney over at YouTube makes an interesting comparison between reviews for Netflix’s Bright and Disney’s The Last Jedi, highlighting the lack of consistency when reviewing one of the other (you can watch his video here). Erik Kain from Forbes also wrote an article about a month ago arguing some critics didn’t do their due diligence when reviewing Altered Carbon (you can read his article here). Is the takeaway here that I should start watching everything the critics review badly? I should hope not.

With that said, let’s dive into spoiler territory.

I didn’t like the character of Lizzie, Vernon’s daughter. I thought Poe’s therapy took way too long and was meant entirely to have her show up in the last episode to save her parents through Kovacs’ levels of badassery in an outfit that felt out of place, if not out of character. Not to mention she hints at being able to see the future, something that comes entirely out of the left field and certainly adds nothing to this series but perhaps it’s setup for the sequel. It’s also rather convenient that she has the single, most damning, piece of evidence for Takeshi to round up his investigation, something you will probably guess early on and that the show will do its utmost to make you forget (or you will have solved at least half of the puzzle).

Much criticism has also been directed at the character of Reileen Kawahara (played by Dichen Lachman; did I mention the women in this show are all absolutely gorgeous?), Takeshi’s sister. As you can undoubtedly guess, she’s the evil mastermind behind everything that’s going on to the point she even has her version of Oddjob (that’s from James Bond’s Goldfinger in case you didn’t know) to run interference and murder everyone that gets in her way. I personally liked how Lachman played the character as I felt she was very attached to her brother (maybe too much so), to the point I truly believed she was sincere about wanting him back at her side, the two of them against the world, even if it was also crystal clear everyone else was utterly expendable to her. In hindsight, perhaps the flashbacks don’t accurately convey this bond as Takeshi and Reileen have little time to reconnect, after being separated since childhood, before they’re recruited into the Envoys, but Reileen certainly comes across as (overly) protective of her big brother from that point onwards. Props to Joel Kinnaman also as Reileen’s and Takeshi’s last scene aboard the “Head in the Clouds,” is especially poignant as you can see how neither truly wants to harm the other and it tears Takeshi (and the viewer) apart when he finally pulls the trigger and end his sister’s life. As the resort plunges from the skies to its inevitable doom, Takeshi ignores Ortega’s pleas to escape with her and resolves to stay with his little sister to the very end.

Please find a way to reunite brother and sister in a sequel! It’s so sad we spent so little time with her before she was outed as the villain.

I think that about covers it. As you may have noticed, I’ve taken a liking to several of the supporting characters in the show. Sadly, all of these end up dead but I’ve learned not to take death for granted in a sci-fi show, especially one where there a technology exists that can backup a person’s consciousness. Let me add here that I also liked Ortega’s busybody character but I feel her arc was well-rounded at the end of the series so I don’t think it’s necessary for us to see her again in the sequel, but maybe Takeshi will run into Elias Ryker one day? That would be fun to watch.

What did you make of Altered Carbon? Who was your favourite character? Who would you bring back? Also, with the introduction of sleeves, this show could potentially go on for as long as it wants (or has enough material), similarly to Doctor Who. Will Yun Lee could certainly reprise his role as Takeshi Kovacs or perhaps he could be played by someone else. The ending takes every precaution not give away any hint as to his ethnicity, to the point his new sleeve is even wearing gloves. Who would you like to see play Takeshi Kovacs in a sequel?