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all-things-fic · 4 years ago

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Somewhere Only We Know

A/N - Hello, you lovely lot! Hope you are all keeping well in these utterly shit Covid times. Who would’ve thought that we would still be here in December?! Please see my offering for @goldenbluesuit‘s Christmas Fic Challenge. Hope I’ve done a bit of justice with this piece.

I can remember Katie texting me telling me about the challenge, and I’ll admit I was given first dibs and now I’m absolutely shitting myself because I’ve seen all the brillaint entries so far and I’m not sure I really cut the mustard with this piece but I’m proud of myself for being able to put a solid 70% of this together in just one day (that one day being today).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Katie has done a brilliant job and I know how grateful she is towards anyone who has joined the challenge or supported by reading/sharing etc.... I need to stop rambling... Okay, thank you for sticking with me as always and happy reading! .x

***

The last thing you remembered actually reading in the group chat was “make sure you have your wellies”. You were glad that you remembered that part at the very least.

Winds whipped around you as you buried your face further into your cream roll neck cable knit jumper, all but hidden underneath your tobacco borg teddy coat that someone had already likened to Macklemore.

Nothing like being back home with your closest and oldest friends.

Mud squelched under your feet as you walked in line with two of your oldest girl friends, eyes looking over the four males in front of you as they led the way over the grassy hills.

There had been zero planning on what today’s events would bring. It was quite clear that the seven of you just wanted to be reunited with the country air and wind bitten cheeks.

It was nice. How simple it was. On the surface at the very least. That was until you zoned in on the little things.

Like his laugh. The same laugh that always carried somehow and it seemed like the wind was making it that much more prominent than usual today.

There was no denying, he had this glow about him. Even from the back of him. You felt silly for thinking it, but it was true. It was in the way he held himself as he attacked the grassy hills with his feet clad wellies and brown trousers.

Life had changed a lot in over a decade. Christ, had it been that long? You’d all gone from baby teenagers to fully fledged adults. The age range of your friendship differing slightly, the odd person here and there slightly older than a couple of people in the group.

Nonetheless, many of the experiences had been the same. The big job offers, and the even bigger promotions. The heartbreaks, regardless of their prominence or lack of, had been the felt the same. The flirtation between some of you sparked probably a bit more so now with a finesse that didn’t have you rolling your eyes but rather leaning into it.

Four out of seven of you were single. Jack and Jonny were virtually married off, however neither of them were with their partners this year with both deciding to spend Christmas at home and New Years with their significant others. Alice was still loved up and going strong with her fella, as was Grace who you hadn’t heard a peep from as she constantly checked her phone to see when the person she was besotted with finally arrived up North thanks to West Midlands Trains pulling into Crewe.

So that left Will, you and Harry. Harry who had quite publicly made it known that he was single. Well, according to your Mum he had, in several interviews. Including the one that she had described as an ‘incredibly relaxing watch and nice background noise to my Sunday evening brew and ironing session’.

That was a strange one for you, his honesty. In earlier years of friendship, he always seemed quite aloof. Like he was keeping his options open. Guarded in a way that frustrated at least 75% of the friendship group, in the nicest way possible. You knew that was a contradiction but any annoyance came from a good place.

You remembered one night in 2014 when he wouldn’t quite give you a straight answer over tequila shots whether he was shagging someone or not. You also remember the way he’d been pulled away from you tactfully by Alice that night when she sensed how you were about to blow up at his lackadaisical attitude.

The same had been felt in 2016. Not so much in 2018, but you weren’t single then so maybe you just didn’t care.

2019 was significantly different though.

See the thing was, you knew him now. Like, knew knew him.

Some would think it was a lapse of judgment, a reading that you would agree upon given what had happened two days prior if ever prodded about it publicly.

Others would vehemently disagree. Stating how long any sort of energy between the two of you had been bubbling for a number of years.

Looking back you couldn’t even understand why you’d attended his show. You lived in Camden and it made sense, but that’s where the sense stopped. Even the ways he had reached out had been one of the most random messages you’d received from him

There was no context, just a simple ‘I’m playing the Electric Ballroom and there’s tickets waiting for you if you want ‘em.’

And the thing was, you loved that venue. The grungy-ness of it all. The way you had stuck to the floor while trying to dance along to the likes of The Hives and Kings of Leon when seeing them playing there, basking in your sweaty happiness.

But the stickiness of the floor and sweatiness of the room didn’t compare to the stickiness and sweatiness you later found yourself partaking in as Harry took you from behind over the side of his couch.

A shiver rolled through you at the thought, one that you would blame on the December bitter chill because it was a secret. One that neither of you had mentioned since it happened on Thursday night, or to be technically correct the early hours of Friday morning.

He’d been good. Of course he had been.

He had that way about him that night that pulled you under a false sense of endeared security. From his dimpled smile to gleaming eyes. He was happy.

And the way he had shone as he found you on the balcony had warmed you like nothing you had known in the longest time.

It caused you to forget about the worry that had laden you limbs as you turned up at 9.13pm to the wooden doors of the building, wondering how many songs he was in to the set as you convinced yourself he would start at 9.00pm.

As you’d been ushered over to a clear box window and uttered your name to a dorky looking man wearing a tracksuit pull over and watched him handover a white envelope through the circle hatch.

You stood in the dark, next to two much younger girls who enjoyed the way his glances lingered over at their side. Eyes had found Gemma in the opposite corner of the balcony, her dancing and singing with some recognisable faces mainly more so because you had seen them on social media.

You, however, kept yourself to yourself. Until you were anchored in the tightest hug from Gemma that you had ever felt from her and swayed from side to side as she made it known how pleased she was to see you once the concert was over.

That familiarity had been nice. The vibrancy of nostalgia consuming you in your entirety.

Watching him work a room when he finally entered the after party was a sight to behold, in his navy blue pinstripe suit and yellow ‘I’m gonna die lonely’ t-shirt.

He wasn’t. Gonna die lonely, that is.

He glided so smoothly from one person to the next, spilling a drink down himself in the process you’d seen (and later felt when your hand clung to the fabric of his t-shirt as you kissed), making time for everyone in his own unique way.

Big eyes followed you over Gemma’s shoulder when he had finally found himself within your circle and hugged his sister once more that evening. They were hard to read but also openly filled with a glimmer of hope as he dropped his gaze to see what you were wearing.

And when he approached you, he hugged you in a way that managed to pull you into the darkened corner of the dingy space. Spinning your body to keep your face concealed from any prying eyes.

He revealed to you how he didn’t think you were going to turn up, scanning you with his gaze as he spoke. You did the same, a bit taken aback by just how attractive you were finding him. He had always been handsome but the aura he gave off, made your fingers itch to have him closer to you.

Words ran away from you that night as he begged and pleaded with you to tell him what your favourite song had been. Based on first impressions, which the show has been, then Canyon Moon and Watermelon Sugar had smothered you and given you no other option but to pick them.

If he were to ask you now you’d probably say To Be So Lonely, thanks to the drive home being longer than originally thought and said album being your choice of road trip music.

Forget Driving Home For Christmas, nothing slapped more than one of your closest friends admitting to being an arrogant son of a bitch.

After your chat, he mingled some more but Harry was always tactile and that night had been no different. He veered conversations with people you had never seen before to take place by the zone that you all occupied.

He actively kept his back against yours, allowing the faintest of touches and brushing of arms - sometimes hands too if he dropped them down heavily enough with his arms as he spoke - to entice and create a spark.

You were kept late enough to miss the last tube. Battery dangerously low on your phone that you didn’t know if a transaction with Uber would be worth a try.

Jumping into the same car as him had been easy. His soft and tired eyes findings yours in the cab as he leant his head back against the headrest in the back seat and let his lips tip upwards in an expression of tenderness that had you melting in your seat.

“‘S been a while since we’ve both been a bit pissed in the back of a taxi,” he mused, pushing his fallen locks out of his eyes to ensure his view of you wasn’t obscured. “Come an’ cuddle me like you used to do when we went out a’ home and were worse for wear.”

Falling into his side was almost second nature, eyes closing as you let your forehead rest against his jawline and let his worn in cologne fill you senses and scatter your judgment.

You don’t even remember how you ended up kissing that night. A mixture of confessions about missing each other and praise of how good you both were in your own ways. The sound of his whispered, “are you coming home wi’me?” against your lips an offer too good for you to refuse as you sat pressed into his side and half in his lap.

The giggles that night, around dramatic shushes as you tripped and shuffled from the car to his front door were almost haunting in your memory as he tried to chastise you around spluttered laughter about being respectful of his neighbours.

Getting the key in the lock proved unchallenging - one of the better analogies aligned to your memories and latter sexual endeavours - as you slipped into the house. He enjoyed watching the way you walked ahead of him into his home, not realising how much he needed that visual of seeing how well you fit in.

While time seemed to slow in that moment, movements desperately sought the opposite. Hands gripped and clawed like their lives depended upon it.

Looking back now, both he and you wished it hadn’t happened the way it did. Skirt lifted and over the side of his couch. Teeth clashing and hips knocking.

It had been every inch a drunken fumble. A first meeting slightly cheapened but wanted nonetheless. Only made even cheaper by the hush-hush concealing of it ever occurring.

But a secret it was and a secret it would remain.

And oh how you wished you had a pillow you could press you face into right now and scream, this time for an entirely different reason. Unlike that night.

“Not seen a sign of any deer yet, mate,” you heard a voice break you out of your indulgence of recollecting past events. Harry was the worst at wanting to get a reaction.

“Christ, have a bit of patience would yer?”

You smiled at the bickering, just like it always was as the River Dane could be heard in the distance somewhere as you walked. If you listened really close, that is.

Lifting your eyes, your smile lingered as you watched Harry spin his body around and let his hands get lost in the massive pockets of his parka. He walked backwards holding your gaze softly with his eyes twinkling before he gently rolled them at the overreaction and impatience of your friends.

He seemed pleased that you’d enjoyed his teasing as you once again hid you smile into your jumper.

You’d be alright.

***

You heard giggles and screams ahead of you as your friends stumbled in the dark and messed about as you got closer to the viaduct. This place or the people didn’t change, and at times while it filled you with a warm nostalgia, it could be heavily jarring.

A soft and lazy smile pulled at your lips as you felt his heavy forearm lightly tug you closer to him, his lips finding your hair. And then there was Harry.

“Think we should go this way m’self,” Harry mumbled, the nudge of his hips against yours had you stumbling slightly in your heels away from the direction of your friends and somewhere completely different.

“And why’s that?” You turned your face slightly, cheeks warm and flushed thanks to the mixture of alcoholic beverages; eyes glazed as they lifted up to look at him.

“Cause you never would’ve let me when I was sixteen,” he admitted.

“You didn’t ask.”

“‘M askin’ now.”

With slow blinking eyes, you looked at his own unfocused vision. A soft shine to his skin, hair blowing gently against his forehead. The softest of smiles tilted at your lips.

“On yer go,” he nudged you forward, this time more so with his crotch and his hands, which wrapped around your hips to help steer you. Harry was met with only a small amount of resistance from you as you split off from your friends and turned in the different direction.

You bit back your laugh, dropping your head slightly as you felt your heels started to sink into the grass as you walked. Harry was level with you when you sunk down noticing the way you legs slightly gave way, a soft chuckle omitting from his throat as he asked, “You alrigh’?”

“I’m sinking in these bloody things,” you grumbled, pulling your heel from the grass and trying to place the sole of your shoe onto the ground beneath you first.

“So much for no’ being able to take the country out o’ the girl. London’s changed yer, swear it.”

Shaking your head, you cut your eyes to give him a harsh stare for his wind up. His amused expression lit a fire in you like no other. He really wasn’t one to talk though, was he?

“Gi’me your hand ‘ere,” he held his out to you, quickly cupping it when you handed it over and pulled it under his bent elbow. “Remind me again who’s idea this was, eh?”

He didn’t need reminding, he had been one of the keen instigators for the whole jaunt down Twemlow Viaduct. It usually was him, or Jack. The two of them often reminiscing on times they had both raided their parents' alcohol cupboards and managed to sneak out with some dusty bottle that held a liquor that tasted out of date and stale, and if not that then, cheap.

“‘S still fucking freezing down ‘ere, in’it?” He asked, lifting his left hand up to his mouth and blowing against it to try and get some feeling back into his fingers.

“We’re so close to the river, I don’t know why you’d expect anything different?”

“Is this why everyone was always so insistent on necking anything with over 11% alcohol in it when we came down ‘ere as kids?”

“Probably,” you softly laughed.

“‘S a bit different now though innit?”

“Oh, I’m not so sure,” you started to correct him, shrugging your hand out from under his elbow and reaching for your bag. Quickly fumbling with the clasp, you lifted up the quilted flap and managed to pull out the stainless steel hip flask.

Harry cackled a harsh laugh, his eyes crinkling as he slowly let his laughter die down and softly let his joy wash over his features. “Impressive. Gone all proper on me.”

“You know I haven’t,” you held his eyes watching as he nervously cupped at the back of his neck for a short while, a gentle bite down of his bottom lip, as you quickly uncapped the item and held it out to him. He looked like he needed the courage. You continued, “We’re just a bit more refined, that and we earn a good living. Some more than others, and by some I mean you.”

He held his hand up towards you with an amused grin at your comment. “You first, ‘s yours after all.”

Lifting the item and knocking back your head, you swallowed the whiskey with a small grimace, before offering it to Harry once more. This time he accepted, his right hand making light work of taking the item from your hands and sipping at the contents.

His face wasn’t as contorted as your’s when he swallowed, a fan of the chosen beverage if needs must. “‘S the proper stuff, tha’ is,” he commented with a quick lick of his lips before continuing, “Come a long way from sneaking the bottles of dusty Blossom Hill from the back of the cupboard.”

“Don’t know about that,” you smiled, taking the item and pushing it back into your bag. “I’d still drink if, if it were on offer.”

“‘M sure Mum’s got a bottle or two going at home?”

“Is that your way of asking me to go home with you?” You paused. “Again.”

Harry remained silent at your words. Both you and he knew it was going to happen. A mixture of sparks and lovelorn, lingering glances was enough to make anyone both want to give up, while also giving a burning confidence usually unknown.

Neither of you expected it would be you who started the conversation, however.

“It is, ‘f it’s gonna work. ‘M not sure I could wait any longer t’be’onest wi’yer.“

Laughing, you reached up to push at his shoulder. He always knew exactly what to say, but no way was he going to make a laughing stock of the whole thing. “Oh, give over,” you spoke, harshly swallowing when he kept your hand against the thick cable knit black jumper he had on. “You’ve made it this far, thus far just fine.”

“‘M not playin’,” he whispered, hand gently curling around your own and lifting it up to press against his face. His cheeks were warm underneath the cooler hands, despite the cold night whipping around you both and your mind quickly wondered if he was just as embarrassed for his lack of acknowledgment as you had been. “Homes nice, you’re nicer.”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about it,” you let your soft voice get taken by the wind.

“An’ what gave you tha’ impression?”

He did. He gave you that impression. By not mentioning it. By treating you how he always did.

“You.”

“Me?” Harry responded, indignantly, blowing out a sigh that had his cheeks puffing out underneath your hand. “‘M not doing a very good job then am I? I can’t keep m’eyes off o’you. ‘S not my fault you don’t bloody notice ‘em.”

But you had noticed them.

His eyes, gaze following your every move, near enough. Stupid little touches. Glances of approval. Not just now, but from years before.

Treating you how he always did.

Oh, treating you how he always did.

Bringing your eyes back to his figure, you saw the way his gaze darted and nervousness dragged at his features. A frown began to set itself between his eyebrows from worry.

“Changes everything.”

Running his tongue along his teeth, Harry pursed his lips. “Everythin’ has changed, changed a long time ago an’all.”

You dropped your hand down, it now massaging against the back of his neck and shoulder as you felt the tension of his body radiating through his clothes. Under the dim moonlight and the odd spotlight that had been added to the viaduct with each passing year for safety, Harry exhumed everything anyone would want in a boyfriend. He was soft, and so bloody gorgeous. Not just because he was personification of an almost six foot tall string of handsomeness, but his character did the talking for him.

He knocked the door before he walked into a room, for example. Who really did that kind of thing anymore?

But you could also still see the heartbreak that lingered, albeit not as strong as it once was, it was still there. And that was problematic and scary. To be on the receiving end of it. Not that you would hold it against him, because you had been him at one point too. At many points in fact.

When the two of you had shagged, because let’s face it that is exactly what it had been, while a sense of familiarity in the person was prevalent it was definitely overruled by the desire to just hit a euphoric high that if hit right could not be topped.

Familiar overruled in other aspects, and it wasn’t to be brushed away. But was familiarity a mask that would slip sooner rather than later? Was it the start and the end?

The both of you experienced similarities in your life that could not be matched by the friends in your friendship group. London had chewed you up and spat you out, ruthlessly so. While rewarding you with long hours but fat pay cheques, careers that catapulted you to new heights and enabled you to see parts of the world that two country kids (which in one way you were) could never have imagined.

Sure Harry’s had been on a much, much larger scale - you would not ever deny that - but you no longer fit in.

And neither did he.

This was a place that only the two of you knew. A place where you watched those around you fall in love and have the time to do so. A place where your friend's happiness was created a lot easier than it wasn’t and allowed a sense of success to weave its way in, through the most unexpected of happenings.

Not a place where you found happiness in your work because there was less of a space for happiness to blossom elsewhere. Not really. Not like you; both of you.

Understanding was vital.

This had been a place you knew like the back of your hand. A place that had you feeling the earth beneath your feet, fresh air in your lungs and had at times made it so you found yourself sitting by a river and finding yourself feeling complete.

Yet looking over at the almost 26 year old, that just wasn’t the case anymore.

And for once you didn’t feel alone.

The sound of the odd piece of cobbled pavement underneath Harry shoes, buried beneath overgrown grass and plants, broke you from your thoughts, as you watched him kick at the ground and scuff his shoes.

He sighed, head tilted back before he knocked it to the side and caught your eyes. A small scoffed laugh left his lips as he shook his head and dropped his gaze to his feet.

“‘S it fucked?”

You hummed, a small frown lacing your features.

“Fucked it, haven’t I? Fuckin’- idiot-“ he breathed out a noise as he clenched his teeth, one that wasn’t quite a growl but enough to let you know he was agitated. Only strengthened by how tight his jaw became.

Before you could even think, the back of your hand gently brushed against the pulsing hinge of his jaw. Muscles taut as you tried to soothe him in a way that your mind was screaming was far too intimate.

You didn’t want him having any internal battle about right and wrong. Not when you had both taken the same steps to get here.

“Thought it was just meant as a one time thing,” you admitted. “Like you needed it, and I needed it. Was what it needed to be at the time. Bit rough, bit sloppy-“

You cringed are the use of the word. Wanting the ground to swallow you in a weird fashion. You should be able to talk open and honestly with someone who you had known longer than hadn’t.

“Rough?“ Harry swallowed audibly, his face fallen. “That’s not-“

His eyes held an emotion similar to sorrow at the mention of the word. “That’s not the impression I wanted to give you.”

“We were both drunk, it happens.”

“Not with me it doesn’t. Not when it’s me, wanting to be wi’you.”

“I mean I was into it if that helps anything?”

“Were yer?”

You looked at him from the corner of your vision, watching his lips try to fight a smile as you rolled yours into your mouth to not give yourself away. You knew what you were trying to do by speaking those words aloud but you wished you hadn’t. Awkward breathy laughs were shared by the two of you as you held his eyes.

“Was I?”

You hummed in agreement to answer his question, letting your smile dance along your lips now and watching as Harry’s dimples started to show. His expression was youthful, slightly smug.

“Good t’know.”

***

Finishing saying your goodbyes to your friends and ignoring their suggestive expression because ‘Harry was stopping as an extra pair of hands’, you shut the heavy wooden door and reached up to close the deadbolt lock at the top. Shortly after, you let your feet drop as you stopped standing on your tiptoes and pressed your forehead against the door.

The silence of the pub was always a strange one to you. A place that was usually thriving, whether it was just your friends, or your parents friends. When the lights were turned out, it was actually quite a lonely place. Regardless of growing up around this sort of industry your entire life and having parents as publicans nothing was more depressing than an empty bar, lifeless and nothing like it was intended.

A suggested lock-in from Jack, who managed to interrupt both yours and Harry’s conversation earlier had not been a bad shout after all. You knew it meant that you would have to deal with the fallout with it being Christmas Eve, but it wasn’t very often that you found yourself in the setting.

Turning to move from the door, you almost jumped out of your skin when you heard the opening of a familiar Lily Allen song start to play over the speakers.

Harry emerged from the corner of the pub that housed the jukebox, slowly rubbing his hands together before he wordlessly picked up the scattered pint glasses that had remained on one of the tables that had been missed by the staff on the evening shift. His eyes glanced over at you, as you stood with a hand to your chest.

This wicked smile and gleam washed over his face as he paused his movement. “Did I scare yer?”

“Do you not think it’s a bit loud?”

He wrinkled his nose at you, a soft shake of his head no, to answer your question.

“‘S your fave innit?” He asked, head nudging to where the jukebox was now hidden.

With a small smile you nodded, “Prefer the Keane version in all honesty.”

“Don’t have it in the bloody jukebox though, d’yer? Can’t like it that much.”

Your smile deepened at his exclaim and how prominent his accent sounded as he spoke, the small clink of the glasses he was holding only heard if you really zoned in.

“Where d’yer want these?” He asked, holding up the five pint glasses he had collected. “Behind t’bar?”

Humming, you nodded and watched as he weaved his way through the tables to you. You frowned as he got closer, not understanding why he hadn’t bypassed you completely.

Once he was close enough to you, you watched as he reached for what you knew to be your own glass of wine that was almost finished.

“Fancy the rest of this or can it go too?”

Looking at him and down to the glass, you gently wrapped your hand around it and brought the lip to your mouth. You knocked the item back quickly, swallowing the rest of your wine, before handing over the now empty glass back to Harry.

“Good girl,” he joked, light laughter lacing each word. “Sit yourself down.”

Wearing an amused and quizzical expression, you let yourself sink down into the wooden chair. Resting your chin on your hand, you spun slightly in your seat to keep your eyes on Harry as he placed the glasses down and lifted the hatch so he could step behind the bar.

With your free hand, you started to tap the worn beer coaster labelled with the Cheshire Brewhouse logo against the table. Part of you hated how Harry had a knack for anything, including knowing his way around a bar.

He busied himself with collating the glasses once more as you let your eyes take in the surroundings you had known, loved and even grown out of.

Your parent’s pub was cosy and friendly. A truly

classic and quintessential British village pub, featuring open fires, bookcases found in the very far corner or the jukebox in the other, lots of old oak and a really pleasant garden with benches for the summat and heaters for the winter. You know the kind that had its regulars that had kids who had seen each other grow up.

The bar was the centre of the pubs house, with an extensive array of whiskies amongst many other delights. A nice range of local ales and a well-balanced, great quality list of wines on offer designed (which you would be taste testing if the service hadn’t decided to take a break) to complement the food menus designed daily by a team of chefs who all have a passion for great cooking using fresh, seasonal and local ingredients.

It looked as Christmassy as Christmas could get, with a real tree which was locally sourced from one of the many surrounding farms and traditionally decorated with golds and reds. Twinkly lights shone, not only on the trees but as part of the garland that was hung above the bar each year, much to the annoyance of your Dad and the delight of your Mum.

Slowly dragging your eyes back to the bar, you watched Harry as he poured you another glass of white wine and started to recap the bottle. He must’ve felt your eyes on him, his gaze meeting yours almost immediately.

“Service is a bit slow,” you jibed, once you knew he was with you. “Going to ruin the reputation of a fine establishment.”

His chuckle was breathy in response, but warmed you through as he turned his back and pushed his tumbler glass up against the device at the bottom of the Glenfiddich distilled malt whiskey, not once but twice going for a double.

“Helping yourself to the stock now, as well.”

“‘M sure your Dad won’t mind,” he responded, twisting his body back around to reach for your own glass and place it onto a tray that sat along the bar top. “In fact he’d probably make a comment about how it’d put hairs on m’chest.”

You laughed, unrestrained, knowing just how right he had been with that comment.

Over the otherside of the room, Harry smiled and shushed you as he walked closer, easily holding the tray with your drinks upon it. “Being a bit loud,” he taunted as he slid the tray down to the oak table.

“Oh, now you’re concerned about the noise.”

With his hand against the back of the chair which was currently housing your outstretched legs, you felt him start to wobble the seat to give you a warning.

“Hang on,” you said, “Plenty of other chairs.”

“This one’s mine,” he responded.

Wanting to roll your eyes but deciding not to, you let your legs drop down and gave the seat back to Harry. Once he was comfortable and he’d taken your drink off the tray, he gestured with his right hand.

Not entirely focused, he had to do the ‘come hither’ motion a couple of times before you finally cottoned on. He was willing to let you put your legs on his lap instead, while he may have taken the seat it didn’t mean he wanted to take away your comfort.

No sooner had your legs been raised to rest against his tan washed velvet corduroy trousers, was he fiddling with the buckle of your stiletto sandals.

“Got mud everywhere,” you commented, wiggling your toes that were painted a festive red and inspecting the little dots of dirt that were splattered against your skin, as Harry dropped the first shoe to the floor and quickly worked on the second. “Dread to think what they smell like.”

“Smell alrigh’ from ‘ere,” he mused, smirk faint but glaring obvious in his tone of voice as he threw a quick and mischievous glance at you. As you elongated your foot against his thighs, the tips of your toes were just about able to press into his thick jumper to try and jab at him for his comment.

Before you were able to put any sort of force behind your action, Harry’s hand clamped down around the top of your foot causing your eyes to snap up away from his hand and up to his eyes.

There he sat watching you, top two teeth pressed into his bottom lip keep his smile at bay. Releasing his lips slowly, his whispered threat left his throat, “I will tickle.”

You tried to fidget away but to no avail. With a whined laugh, you frowned as Harry goaded you by slowly raising his eyebrows. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

You had tried him.

Truth be told you wanted to again.

If he wanted to.

Reaching for your wine, you took a hefty sip and let the silence swallow you both. Harry, who kept his hand on your foot and his fingers dancing gently against the top, let his head fall back awkwardly against the hardwood. His head dropped to the side taking in his surroundings and their familiarity.

“Do you ever get tired of coming back?”

You hummed, sure you had misheard due to the way the blood was rushing around your ears. He turned to look at you, all double chin and puffy cheeks.

“Of everything being the same, but different?”

His whispers captivated you, hushed confessions not quite meant for anyone else but his own mind yet spilling from him with such an ease that he did nothing to fight them.

“I’ll admit, I come home for other people. Not for me.”

“People?”

“Mum, Dad,” you paused. “You.”

His smile deepened. His chin knocking down to his chest, his eyes looking up at you from underneath his curling hair from being caught in the moist winter evening just hours before.

“You can stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you did three nights ago.”

Harry breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring and his chest expanding. A lick of his lips, before his mouth dropped to sit slightly agape.

“What if I don’t wan’to? What if I want t’look at yer like this all the time?”

You found yourself unable to respond, nose burying itself into your wine glass as you pressed your lips against the cool outside to try and hide your burning smile.

His lips curled lightly, before he breathed a laugh once and gently shook your foot with his hand. “Eh? Come ‘ere-“

“Harry,” you breathed.

“C’mon, c’mere. ‘S room for more than just your feet.”

If it wasn’t for the creak of your chair as you slowly started to push yourself out of it, you wouldn’t have consciously been aware of how you were making your way to him.

His body relaxed, somehow managing to become closer to horizontal than sitting upright in his seat, as he peered as you walking the short distance over to him.

With his legs widened, he pressed his face into your side now that you were close enough. His nose inhaled the familiar scent of your perfume which was only faint now due to the other senses and scents it had mixed with throughout the evening.

Rolling his face out of your body, he knocked his head back and pressed his chin where his face had been. The face you showed him was worn with worry, an expression he did not want to meet.

“‘S wrong?”

His ask was lazy. Not wanting to dig deep and know. What if he didn’t like what he found?

“We know how this is going to end.”

“Do we?” He prodded. His eyes moved over your features quickly before they partly disappeared to him, thanks to your curtain of hair which slowly fell down.

His hand reached up, desperately brushing it away and cupping at the back of your head as best as he could while he remained seated.

“How’s that? Tell me.”

“Same, but different.”

You knew you shouldn’t use his words, not in a way that could be considered against him, but they - in the most ambiguous of ways - described everything perfectly.

“Not if I have my way.”

His words were almost lost against your stomach as he pressed his face against you once more and wrapped his hands around you; sweaty, nervous palms pressing to the backs of your thighs.

“Same, but better.”

Harry guided you down to his lap, his lips somehow managing to remain pressed into stomach, or your chest, or your clavicle, as your face became level with his.

“Different, but better.”

He kissed against your cheek slowly, nose nudging at your skin as he willed for you to relax against him. “I don’t know how you like it, like this,” he whispered in confession. “Show me?”

A puff of air left your lips as you turned to look at him with hooded eyes. His mouth was closer to yours than you originally thought, corners of lips brushing as you slightly pulled away.

When your lips met, it was in the softest of pecks that trembled under your nerves. Both sets of eyes looking back at each other as you innocently engaged.

If you were to take your eyes away from him in any way, you would notice those fluffy curls of his falling over his forehead and the lightest dusting of red blush making itself known against his cheeks and the tops of his ears.

He felt like a school boy, lost and clumsy. The kid who was once again flicking paper at you in science class just so he could pull a face at you over something your teacher was saying to get you to laugh.

Mouths hovering over each other, your breathing mixed, as Harry nodded to you slightly. You pressed your lips to his once more, feeling the way he gradually opened up to you, warmed and softened underneath the puckering of your mouth against his.

His hands, that slightly trembled, smoothed over your hips trying to pull your body so that it was more so flush against his. You moaned softly, your hands running over his jumper covered shoulders, fingers digging and pulling at the material just below the nape of his neck.

The chair beneath you moved lightly against the floor, not quite a scrape but a dull drag. Neither of you broke the kiss, but his hands against you allowed fingers to dig in to hold you steady to him so if you were to fall from where you were sitting, he still had you.

His lips slowed, moving to press against your cheeks again as he panted and his warmth breath bounced off your skin. “Think I got it,” he heaved.

“Do you?”

Harry hummed his ‘yea’, before pressing his lips so tenderly to your chin and the underside of your jaw. He felt how you swallowed heavily, throat dry from the way your mouth hung open and your neck further exposed itself as you lolled your head back.

You were falling further and further back, finding it hard to stay upright as he devoured you and made you weaker with each pulling kiss. His groans were needy, muffled and making your ache. While yours were silent and making his desperate to pull something from you. To build is confidence in that he was doing something right, you liked it this way too.

Hands fumbled and dragged upwards at your skirt, faintly aware now how it was similar - if not the same one - to the garment you wore to his show.

“Gonna take this off properly,” he mumbled, feeling the way your hips moved slightly from his hands to roll over him.

“You don’t have to-“

“No?”

Your voices were rushed as you spoke to each other, barely audible but loud enough all the same. His head was knocked back slightly as you hovered over him and you found yourself admiring his blissed out face even only in the lead up.

This was a sight that you hadn’t received last time, and if you had your way it was one you were going to greedily enjoy in all its glory.

Like watching the way his eyes closed and he softly grinned, the left side of his teeth started to show as the one side of his face reacted first while your hands blindly moved to lift up his jumper and the white tee he had on underneath, to allow you to find the button of his corduroys.

“What ya doing?”

“Nothing,” you mused.

He pulled a face, the kind that down turned his lips, eyebrows raised and head slightly tilted to the side. The kind that had you smiling.

“Not trying to get m’trousers around m’ankles for a second time within a week then?”

You giggled. “No.”

“Please do.”

A low moan left you as you pressed your forehead to his jaw and dropped your eyes. Your hands slowly started to pull at the brass button and pop it open before seeking out the zip thanks to his desperate plea, encouraging you to continue.

Hands quickly sought out the waistband of the trousers and gently pulled at the item. From the way that you were sat, you knew there was no way you were doing to make them budge.

“Stand up fo’ me,” he mumbled, quickly helping you get off his lap so that he could make light work of his clothing and pull down his trousers and underwear.

His bare bum made easy contact with the cushion leather beneath him, eyes carefully watching you as your hands moved to underneath your skirt.

The fabric of your underwear slipped so easily down your legs, his eyes just about caught the sight of them as they pooled against your ankles and you kicked them away.

Legs pressed together, you slowly untucked the v-necked blouse you had chosen and pulled it over your head. Wearing nothing but a fancy black bra, and a tight little skirt you hastily snatched for your wine and took a hefty gulp.

You could feel his eyes on you, a gruff groan catching in the back of his throat and when you finally turned your eyes from where they had been looking down at your heaving chest and how great this bra made your boobs look, causing him to move his hand down to start playing with himself.

His name left your lips in a breathy gasp, causing you to look up quite surprised at the find of his right hand gently tugging at his hard length.

“Keepin’ me waitin’,” he groaned, his left hand sloppily reached for the back of the collar of his jumper and tee, pulling the item roughly over his head.

“Fuck sake,” he mumbled under his breath, agitated that he was unable to get both items of in one go.

“Smooth.”

Harry stared up at you with a playful squint, before he gently fell back and moved the chair as he did so, the dull scrape heard once more.

And if you didn’t know he was flushed before, when you first kissed, you were definitely aware now. His eyes were blown out and hungry as they devoured you. Hair wildly haphazard before he let go of himself with a soft slap of his skin and harshly pushed his fingers through it.

“‘S it still a couple of quid for a strip of three,” his words brought you back to him. This smugness radiated off of him as he groaned and leaned forward to push his trousers down all of the way. Over his vans and socked feet, before he toed them off as well be harshly pulled at his white sport socks.

You didn’t even need for him to explain what he meant, staying silent as you watched his hands tug at his corduroys from the floor and retrieve his wallet. As his fingers moved around to find a couple of quid, the jangle of the coins was taunting.

One leg crossed over the other, you swayed and found yourself blushing when he looked up at you once he’d managed to find enough money and then some. With his wallet thrown on the table, he stood proudly from the seat and closed the short gap between your both.

Leaning forward he easily took your lips with his own before pulling away. With his face still close to yours he whispered, “Promise not to look at my arse.”

He didn’t hang around long enough for your reply, instead turning away and brazenly giving you all the time you would ever need to admire him, his fantastic bum and his hairy legs before he opted for a jog-walk type of thing, suddenly conscious that he was absolutely walking around naked from the waist down in a pub owned by your parents.

While you waited you took a quick pull from his whiskey, needing the heftier burn for Dutch courage. Nervousness returned when you heard the endings of what you believed to be Harry whistling.

“Machine ate all m’fuckin’ change,” he grumbled, regardless of the twinkle in his eye at the strip of overpriced condoms he had managed to score from the men’s bathroom. “‘S Durex. Business must be booming, your Dad’s definitely gone up in the world.”

“Please don’t talk about my Dad.”

He smiled brightly before he reached for your face with one hand and pulled you towards him mumbling his ‘sorry’s’ against your lips as he gave you several kisses in quick succession.

His other arm loosely wrapped around your back and pulled you with him as he walked backwards and slowly lowered himself back onto his previous seat. The chair creaked as you joined him, slipping into his lap and feeling the way he was smiling now.

Pulling away from your kiss, he quickly tore away one of the condoms allowing the others to fall without much care to the floor. Teeth took a hold of the foil-like packaging and he tore it not so elegantly with his eagerness.

With his cock nestled in the crease of his own thigh now, the heat radiating from it matched your own agonising yearning. Scooting back to give him space, you heard him groan as he gently rolled the condom down onto himself. Eyes looking up just in time to see him knocking his head back and breathing deeply through nose. The foil-like packaging was back in between his teeth once more as his hands were otherwise preoccupied.

Slowly your hand reached up to take it from his mouth, feeling some playful resistance as Harry continued to hold it in his teeth. His eyes were open and boyishly sincere, as you tugged at the item and he finally released it when you lightly laughed.

“Gi’me a kiss.”

Obliging him, you leant forward and slotted your mouths together a lot easier than you had done at the start of the night. A heat built easily between the two of you, as Harry gave you his tongue and you felt the flex of his jaw under your hand as he worked your mouths together.

He was eager, his hands tightening on your waist before he growled when he understood he had to grab handfuls of skirt before he could cup your backside. But when his skin met yours and you ground down onto his lap, the groan that left him was the most animalistic sound imaginable.

The frown your face fell into showed your desire to whimper, as he kept you atop him and marvelled in the way you writhed, both from satisfaction and keenness at the pressure of his cock against you.

“Can I have you again?” He asked, the startings of sweaty hair being pushed off your face. His eyes peered at you, searching for his answer as you seemed to be able to do nothing but pant and look back at him yearningly. “Are you letting me?”

You dragged your fingers down his t-shirt covered torso and lifted it slightly just to see the quiver of his stomach as pulled you onto him once more.

“Like this?” you voiced, meekly.

“‘F this is what you like then, yea’”, he breathed into your mouth, hands shifting your pliant body. “Is this what you want?”

You wordlessly nod, mouth falling open in a breathy gasp when he managed to move you so he sat so enticingly at your entrance. He was teasing both yourself and him, wanting to keep you both on the edge.

Harry blinked a few times as he looked at you, and you revelled in the way he couldn’t seem to concentrate. His hands held your flesh tightly, fingertips dipping into the skin of your bum cheeks as he gently guided you down.

An unattractive and dull, quite strangled noise, left your throat as you let your forehead fall against his temple. Eyes falling down you see the cups of your bra fall slack, you felt his hands softly gliding over your shoulder blades and shoulders.

He rid you of your bra, hands moving to your chest to squeeze your breasts. His jaw fell slack when you found yourself sitting snugly on his lap - on him - settled and already feeling spent.

This was so different compared to the last time; if not overwhelming so because of the way you both appeared to be so present. Each movement of your hips, and the way they rolled and grinded and dragged felt too much. So much so that you had become nothing more than a mess of short, quick breathing and blushing, sweaty cheeks.

Slack-jaw, you were unable to find it in you to return Harry’s kisses, and his joyful, breathy chuckle seemed to lead you to believe he was fine with it. In fact he was happy to keep going as you were.

Your movements were frantic, and despite the build up, not entirely driven by lust either. Harry continued to encourage you to move as you were; slow, grinding motions on his lap that caused the filthiest of groans and dirtiest of laughs from the two of you. Laughter that was only made stronger as the chair that held you both started to creak too.

You couldn’t do much about it though other than to breathe into each other’s mouth, and rock your hips together with more fervour each time.

“Yea’,” he breathed against your lips, left hand at the back of your head holding you to him, while his right rested just above your bum. “‘S better. That’s better.”

It was better. Better than last time. Better than anything before.

And while it hadn’t been frantic before, it was now as your legs that were hanging down either side of the chair started to tremble and your toes started to dig into the worn carpet beneath them. Hips knocking and your clit dragging heavenly against his public bone, you grasped his name as you buried your face into his neck and dug your nails into his nape.

Harry hissed his approval which fell to a groan as your nails pushed up into his hair and lightly pulled as you sought leverage. There were so many things you were learning this time around and his penchant for liking his hair pulled from time to time, was one of those things.

“God, ‘m gonna come soon,” he admitted, gruntly as he forced your hips down as he anchored his legs and widened his seating position. “Are you close?”

“Yeah,” you whined. “Yes. Like this-“

And as you pressed your face to his once more, he was everywhere. Soft but hard, loving but commanding. Smelled like clean washing detergent but of country air. Inviting and alluring, allowing you your lingering kisses between grounding breaths that became staccato in unison with the movement of your hips.

You aren’t ashamed of the whines that escaped your throat as you squeezed down on his cock, praised by indecipherable works that left Harry but were nothing more to you than lips moving against your rough and dry ones. Word that made the burning feeling of your pending orgasm spread through your entire body, warming you and setting you alight.

It was long and deep, with your toes curling into the carpet they were pressed against now. Barely able to catch your breath, sucking in harshly and shaking.

And when you came to, thoroughly exhausted, you noticed that he was waiting for your say so. That he could let go and enjoy the pleasure brought about by your shared labour.

“Coming-“ was all the warning that you got and was enough to encourage you to watch him as he came, his face completely void of anything other than pure pleasure. Wrinkles and frowns fade, his mouth falling open with his pink lips glinting prettily under the dim Christmas lights around you.

His forehead gleamed with sweat as he wrapped his arms around you tightly and his hips bucked up one, two and three times for good measure. “Fuck me,” he heaved gruffly.

You were suddenly desperate to feel his lips on yours despite the way you both continued to fight to get your breath back, but settled for resting them against the skin of his cheek, which was hot to the touch.

When you felt Harry start to go soft, you reluctantly pulled away and let him slip out of you. He wasn’t so keen to let you get too far, holding you just that bit higher than before with his hand cupping gently but firmly at your hip. “Where’d you think you’re going,” he hummed, eyes still closed as he continued to heavily inhale and exhale.

You softly smiled, taking in his soft face and responded by nuzzling close to him again.

Nowhere. Somewhere. Anywhere with him.

A place where only the two of you knew, like the back of your hand. The same way you knew each other. Now and possibly forever.

#gbsxmaschallenge #harry styles #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry styles x reader #harry x reader #harry styles x you #harry x you #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles christmas #harry christmas

569 notes · View notes

brookewritesyk · 4 years ago

Text

t w o

───── 𝐉𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 ─────

𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍. That meant it was time for Charlie-Rose to go back to Goodman's household. Every time Charlie replays the last memory she had with Jonny she felt butterflies at the second hug and the mumbled request of her coming to dinner next Friday.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she exhaled then smiled and thought I really fell hard for him huh. Then her phone ringing snapped her out of her thoughts, she turned around to get her phone on her bed and the caller ID said 'Pissface'. Just who she needed rang by.

Picking up her phone, she answered it and teasingly said: "Hey Pissface."

"Hi Paris," Jonny replied in the same tone.

"What's up?" She asked now sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Nothing I was just was wondering if you were still coming?"

"Yeah, I'm still coming Pissface." She said smiling whilst playfully rolling her eyes and hanging up the call. Then carried on getting ready.

───── 𝐀𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐦𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 ─────

Charlie-Rose finally got to Martin's and Jackie house and she parked up her Fiat 500 in the drive. Weirdly, she saw Adam and Jonny staring intensely and bewildered at the outside window through the dining room.

"What are you two doing?" Charlie queried with a frown, intrigued and shutting her pastel blue car door and locking it.

"Come here Paris!" Jonny whisper-shouted at her and gesturing to the window.

"What?" Charlie scoffed now getting more perplexed.

"Quickly!" Adam ushered.

Impatiently, Jonny quickly dragged her to the window that caused butterflies to go wild in her stomach again. Now, she was now sneakily looking through the window with them.

"He hasn't got a top?" Charlie guessed "He according to what you've told me and what I saw last week, he never has a top on." Then she noticed that it wasn't the Martin not wearing a t-shirt concerned them, it was that he was looking down his trousers and his boxers. "Oh Shitting Hell!" Charlie exclaimed now increasingly uncomfortable.

"He's been doing that for ages and he just keeps on looking and looking..." Adam told trailing off getting more disgusted as he continued.

"Ok I love Martin but I'm not going to stand here and watch him look at his, you know." Charlie defended shaking her head to get the mental image she had created. "Jonny keys please if you're going to stand here and look at your dad doing that."

Not paying attention Jonny throws her the keys which she luckily catches. Smiling at her mini victory, she opened the door, closed it but leaving the latch on so the boys could come in. "Hi Jackie," Charlie called down the hall, putting her coat on the coat rack.

Then Jackie came in from the kitchen and welcomed "Oh hello Charlie, where are the boys?"

"Oh they'll be in a minute they just forgot something in the car." Charlie lied but she was an actress she knew what she was doing.

"Hello, Bambina!" Marin greeted rather cheerfully pretending for at least half an hour he wasn't looking down his pants.

Then Jonny and Adam walked in as Martin was no longer in the dining room.

"Martin put a bloody shirt on!" Jackie moaned.

"I will in a bleeding minute!" Martin argued walking away.

As Martin left Jackie, the boys and Charlie went into the kitchen.

"So where's Allison?" Jackie asked stirring the soup.

"Oh yeah, where's your girlfriend?" Adam teasingly inquired.

"She couldn't come," Jonny told blankly.

"Because she doesn't exist?" Charlie joked but deep down she didn't know if Allison was actually real but secretly hoped that she wasn't.

"Ohhh Paris you don't know how proud I am of you!" Adam dramatically said and whipping a pretend tear away smiling.

Rolling her eyes, Jackie then looked at Jonny again expecting an explanation as to why Allison couldn't come again.

"She's with a friend," Jonny explained sighing.

"Simion?" Adam asked with a smirk

"Nice soup." Jonny tried to change the subject and looking over the oven to pretend to care.

"Simon?" Jackie responded with a knowing look.

"They're friends," Jonny emphasized.

"Boyfriend." Adam corrected.

Then Martin walked in now surprisingly wearing a shirt and asked Adam for the magnifying glass. Charlie, Jonny and Adam looked at each other nervously shocked.

───── 𝐃𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 ─────

"Does my hair look good?" Jackie randomly asked.

"Yess..." The boys said unenthusiastically whilst carrying on eating.

"She had a flaky scalp," Martin informed not seeing the issue of bringing it up at dinner.

"Uhh, Dad!" Adam groaned.

"It's not in the food is it?" Jonny asked worried, looking down at his plate of food.

"Charming," Jackie muttered.

On the contrary, Charlie complimented truthfully: "Your hair looks lovely Jackie!".

"Thank you, sweetie, why couldn't I have you as my daughter?" Jackie sighed and the boys looked at her offended. "We've run out potatoes I'll just pop to the kitchen." Jackie noticed and rushed to the kitchen.

"So Martin, Jonny told me you hurt your knee, how did you manage that?" Charlie asked acting concerned.

"I banged it." Martin simply said with a slight stutter.

"Oh, really what?" Jonny asker catching onto what Charlie was doing.

"My other knee."

Before they could query him anymore Jackie walked back in the with the potatoes. And Adam said, "Oh mum I have some news, my jingle thing is on tonight."

"Oh, well-done bobble!" Jackie congratulated and kissed Adam on his head and face. "I'm so happy, Martin, Adam's jingle thing is on tonight we mustn't forget to listen."

Martin not surprisingly didn't answer.

"Tell Allison to listen too," Adam added.

"Ok," Jonny replied with a quick smile.

"Although won't she find it difficult with Simion's balls in her ear?" Charlie teased whilst smirking.

Jackie and Adam burst out laughing but Jonny whined with a pout "Hey you're supposed to be on my team."

Then the door went, this time Charlie went to get it and she was greeted with an unfamiliar person.

"Hello, Jack-" Jim started until Charlie cut him off smiling sweetly and said- "I'm not Jackie, I'm Charlie-Rose it's nice to meet you." extending her hand but he just looked a hand whilst flinching away from his dog.

"CHARLIE! Could you ask him to come back later we're eating!" Jackie called.

Shortly after Martin yelled, "Tell him to bloody go away!"

"Martin!" Jackie tutted.

Politely you smiled and went to go close the door until Jim explained: "Jackie said she would sponsor me for cancer."

"Oh," Charlie began to feel guilty and grabbed her purse and took out a thirty-pound note and gave it to him. Smiling sadly said, "here for the sponsor, put it down as Charlie-Rose Evans."

"Oh thank, you thank you!" The strange brunette man with square-framed glasses thanked and went in to kiss her cheek but Charlie quickly dodged them and said laughing "Oh I never caught your name."

"Caught my name?" The man asked confused.

"Umm, I meant what is your name?" Charlie clarified laughing.

"Oh, my name is Jim, Jim Bell." He introduced again flinching away from his dog again.

"Nice to meet Jim I've got go now bye!" Charlie cheerfully said and went back into the dining room.

"He must think I'm such a mean cow." Jackie moaned "He keeps asking me to sponsor him, but I'm always busy."

"Oh don't worry about it, I gave him 30 pounds for the sponsor," Charlie explained sitting down next to Martin again.

"Why would you do that?" Adam asked and Jonny agreed "Yeah!"

"Because unlike you two, she isn't horrible," Jackie answered for her rolling her eyes.

"Adam, your mother tells me that your radio jingle is on tonight," Martin said, extremely formal.

"Rather formal. Uh yes, sir." Adam caught on.

"So who wrote the music?" Martin asked now speaking normally.

"Uhh, I did dad, I wrote the jingle," Adam stated matter-of-factly.

"Brilliant." Jonny and Charlie whispered unintentionally at the same time. They looked at each other surprised with a warm smile.

"Aww, Jonny-boo why won't you go out with Charlie?" Jackie moaned.

Charlie choked on her wine while Jonny looked like a deer in headlights.

"Mum, I have a girlfriend!" Jonny reminded Jackie.

Charlie felt her heart sank again but then realised he never explicitly said he didn't like her like that.

───── 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 ─────

"Mum how come you have more pictures of Pissface than me?" Adam asked.

"Your face annoys me," Jackie merely says not looking away from her magazine.

"Right. No really?"

"Really," Jackie said now looking at Adam.

"Apply cold water to the burns." Charlie taunted and Jonny laughed.

Then Martin came in from the kitchen and asked "Adam, could you come with me for a moment."

"What do you want?" But all three of us had an idea of what Martin wanted.

"Oh my God," Charlie whispered looking at Jonny then down.

───── 𝐀 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 ─────

"Females?" Jonny and Charlie said shocked yet relieved.

"Yes, I'm going to go on a dating site for twenty minutes."

"You agreed to that?" Jonny asked puzzled,

"He's paying me twenty pounds." Adam sated simply.

"Fair enough." Charlie-Rose agreed.

───── 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 ─────

"I heard about your parents," Jonny said softly and sincerely whilst Charlie's head was on Jonny's lap and snuggled into him. "I'm so sorry."

Charlie felt tears spring to her eyes. Her parents recently were killed by a robber and the emotions were still fresh. She hide her face into Jonny's lap so he couldn't see her cry.

But Jonny knew better, "Hey, hey Paris look at me." He told Charlie and used his thumb and forefinger to tilt her head up so he can see her face that had tears streaming down her face. "Oh Charlie," He cooed then they stayed like that for a few moments. Suddenly, Jonny kissed Charlie, it was the best kiss either of them had. Then she remembered Allison.

Feeling sick to her stomach, she pulled away and got up then ran to the front door with Jonny following behind her saying "Charlie wait-". Hurriedly, she put her coat on and started to open the door before Martin, Jackie and Adam came down the stairs and noticed she had her coat on.

"What's going on?" Jackie asked confused.

"I'm leaving."

"Why what happened?" Adam asked worriedly seeing the tears on her face.

"I'm sorry." Charlie left, crying silently.

"What did you do?" Jackie asked angrily.

"I kissed her," Jonny murmured realising what he did.

"You what?" Adam asked laughing as he was so shocked.

"I KISSED HER!" Jonny yelled angrily.

"While you were dating another girl?" Jackie clarified giving him a death glare.

"I made Allison up just so you couldn't set me up with anyone," Jonny confessed. "I'm still in love with Charlie."

#jonny goodman #Charlie-Rose #x oc #friday night dinner #adam goodman

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carewyncromwell · 4 years ago

Note

3, 10, 11, and 17 for my faves Carewyn & Bat? ❤️

Who named them? (Mother, father, or someone else?)

Lane named Carewyn, recalling the name from an old family tree tapestry that used to hang in the dining hall at the Cromwell estate and having always thought the name was rather pretty. Oddly enough it was also the middle name of Carewyn's great-grandmother, Charles's mother Isabelle Cromwell, who also had red hair and was sorted into Slytherin. That's where the similarities between the two end, though.

Bat's father, Jonny Harker, named him Robert. Bat's mum Nell had been tempted to name Bat after his father, but Jonny was firm that his son should have his own name, since he himself was the third "Jonathan Harker" in his family. Jonny chose "Robert" because of its association with kings, most notably Robert the Bruce. Before he died, Jonny always imagined that his son would go on to do great things, even though Nell Harker (and ultimately Robert himself, under her influence) was always much more practical and modest when it came to their ambitions.

If they have a partner, what pet names do they use for each other?

Carewyn will sometimes dip into "dear" with Orion, but when she's feeling particularly affectionate, she calls him "Starlight," as a reference to the constellation bearing his name.

As for Bat... *SNORT* "Grim." 🤣 "Grim" is his pet name for his other half Atticus, even when these two are not romantic. Bat calls Atticus almost nothing else. If he ever calls Atticus by his first name, it's either because he's deathly serious or his feelings are so intense in that moment that he feels like his breath's been stolen away.

Do they like their name?

Carewyn likes her name! Though when she was little, she was a little sad whenever anyone misspelled it -- her teachers would sometimes spell it "Carewin" or "Carewinne" by mistake.

Bat likes his name all right -- he just likes his nicknames better, coming out of most people's mouths. When he was a vampire everyone knew as "Bat," though, he actually found he liked it whenever Atticus called him "Robert," however strange it felt at points being reminded of who he used to be, as it kind of made him feel that bit more like his old self than he had in a century. In his second life, he's most often called "Rob," with Atticus exclusively calling him "Bat" -- if anyone calls him Robert, it's generally either his mother or his friends being more serious than normal.

What is their opinion on nicknames?

Carewyn isn't usually the type to give other people nicknames. If someone has a nickname they prefer to be called, she'll call them that...but about the only "nickname" she developed herself, if you can call it that, was the moniker of "Fireballs" for herself and Charlie as a duo. She's fine with people giving her nicknames, though, whether Pip/Pippa (by Jacob), Winnie (by her mum), or Carey (Bill, Charlie, and Tonks).

Bat is ALL about nicknames. He sees shortening someone's name or otherwise nicknaming them as an indicator of closeness, hence why Bartholomew is "Barty," Cecelia is "Ceci," and Atticus is "Grim," among others. Bat even just called his mother "Ma" a lot of the time. When he was a vampire, Bat took to calling people "Mr./Miss [last name]" a lot, dipping into first names only when someone somehow became close to him, but eventually those people at the heart of his inner circle all were called by their nicknames, whether Danny Gibson @catohphm or Adelia and Teddy Selwyn-Ellison and their three kids @thatravenpuffwitch. 💙

Name Ask!

#name ask #carewyn cromwell #bartholomew varney #about carewyn #about bartholomew #atticus grimsley #orion amari #lane cromwell

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noel-byers · 5 years ago

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What monsters do you fight? || chapter O2

Chapter O1 • Chapter O2 • Chapter O3

Words: 1650

N/A: the girl in the gif with Noel is Melissa

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If there was a place where surely a girl was hiding to cry she was definitely under the terraces of the garden, where they usually played rugby matches. In fact, she was under the seat, with her knees on her chest and her shoulders clutching her bent head. I could hear his sobs and his breath trying to stifle his noisy cry. I slowly approached her and seeing that she still hadn't noticed my presence, I coughed putting both hands in my pockets. Melissa looked up and only then could I see her swollen and red eyes. That piece of shit had reduced it to a rag with a few but sharp words. "Cigarette?" I asked, taking the named item out of a pocket of my jeans.

"I...I don't smoke" she said, sniffling. Ah man that sucks the mucus.

"Better this way" I replied with a shrug. "You will ruin only your breath and your lungs. Smoke isn’t cool kid, unless you want to destroy yourself. Which is really cool” I said with a little irony as I tried to light my beloved cigarette.

A few moments passed in silence until Melissa said lightly to me "Did you see it all?"

"Yep" I replied immediately taking out a cloud of smoke from my lips "You don't have to fear anything, you won't lack respect next time" I said capturing the blonde's attention "It's an insult to the male gender to take it out on a woman when it's ten against one” I continued shaking my head.

"But he had all the reasons in the world, in short, look at me...I'm like all the girls...I thought to impress the bad boy of the school and take his best part out of him...but I just deluded myself" the girl explained, sniffing again.

"Listen to me, Melissa, first of all take my flannel shirt and blow that nose...my heart is crying to sacrifice my favorite dress but I don't have handkerchiefs, so blow your nose before I change my mind" I said handing her my shirt, which she immediately grabbed looking at me, puzzled but not refusing my order.

"You're really weird, ehm..." he stopped, looking into my eyes and making me realize that I hadn't introduced myself yet. I put the cigarette between my lips again and brought my hand closer to shake her in education.

"Noel, Noel Byers" she raised an eyebrow.

"Melissa Danielsen, as you will already know. Are you the sister of the missing child?"

"I would prefer you to call him Will, I'm sick of people cataloging him as a poor outcast" he said pulling up a heavy sigh "Going back to us, I know how you feel now, you'll surely be wondering what made you sell your virginity to that asshole of Billy Hargrove, and many other things that surely do not positively depict your person" Melissa nodded silently “Stop being so hard on yourself, you are young and in fact we are both young and in this adolescence we make so many mistakes" my cigarette, making her realize that as far as I was an employee I hated being under a stupid habit.

"The truth is that in the coming days people will stare at you, laugh at you and make you jokes of bad taste, and you don't have time to cry, you have to be strong, you have to growl and let the comments slip away that are not worth it to listen. Probably the same girls that Billy uses as a sex toy will tease you, but you don't listen to them, i mean, you know which pulpit the sermon comes from" I explained, sucking up some tobacco.

"Not forgetting that I will no longer have friends on my side..." Melissa commented disconsolately.

"And who the fuck am I? Santa Claus?" I asked slightly strangely "I almost blew the head of Billy Hargrove for you and probably because I'm a bit feminist. But first of all I did it for you” I concluded with a shrug.

"Thank you..." she replied with a small smile.

"And then, as strange as it may seem, I have a couple of friends too, and they certainly think like me" I continued to cheer her up letting an almost maternal smile show on my mouth "But now you raise your blonde ass, let's go to the bathroom to rinse your face, you blow your nose with real handkerchiefs and I'll walk you home, huh?” I suggested standing up with a jerk and pulling Melissa by the arm in a playful way, urging her to follow me and she choked and consented.

"All right, as long as you wash your mouth a little, hell, you smell obscene tobacco"

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By evening he had fallen on Hawkings and tonight we strangely breathed less heavy air in my house. It was probably because Bob had come to visit us. He and my mother had been dating for a couple of months and...God, I never saw my mother so happy. Seeing her joking, hugging and kissing with one who finally didn't mistreat her made me feel at peace with myself. Slowly my family was re-emerging from that dark and distressing oblivion, I felt that if they were still passing by a couple of months surely my family could have been called as such.

"What are your plans for the evening? Will you watch a movie?" I asked as I made my entrance into the kitchen, tying my hair into something not too high, Bob turned around and his camera automatically picked me up.

"You choose the boys the movie is evening. Do you, ma'am, have an appointment?" The man asked playfully, infecting me with his good humor.

"Tempting, but not. My shift starts at 8:20 pm and if I don't leave the house in ten minutes, I'll pay back my salary” I explained with a shrug “The only plus is the free hot dogs" I admitted attracting my mother's attention.

"Noel don't eat too many, do you remember that on Jonathan's birthday last year you had a colic and -"

"MUM! I don't want you to make a short film about my intestinal problems while Bob is back! "I answered, turning my face flushed as I ran away with my tail between my legs in my room, looking for my shoes.

I went through WIll's room and my attention was caught by his sudden raising of his voice.

"Stop treating me like that! Like I'm about to break. So don't you help me, just make me feel weirder" my exasperated younger brother said, it was obvious he was arguing with Jonathan.

It was difficult to take someone's part in these situations, I knew how Will could feel right now, he was scared and had suffered multiple traumas, including that of an apparent death. On the other hand, I also understood Jonathan, because it was also my own position, like that of anyone who wanted to help Will. To console some or give him moral support was like wandering in a minefield, you never knew if you could touch some sore point.

I remembered when I decided to sleep together with Will the night made me feel better, I knew that I could protect him, but now that he's growing up and kindly asked me to let him sleep alone, I realize how much my "safety" thought travels one way. As far as I could have been next to Will, there was nothing I could do to keep him from thinking about his mind, he was a demon that only Will could have fought.

"You're not weird" Jonathan said

"Yes I am, I am" replied our younger brother dryly. I looked at the figure of Jonathan who was about to give up, but then he came out with a sentence:

"You're right, you're weird" both my younger brother and I raised both eyebrows. "So why should you become normal like the others? Being weird is better, I'm weird. Our sister who has been staring at us for half an hour is weird” he said pointing to me.

"Hey nerd go easy" I said in an ironic tone, approaching Will's bed and occasionally pulled an ear to my big brother in a playful way.

"Is that why you have no friends?" Our little brother asked disconsolately.

"We have friends, and weird friends are the best. You don't need to have a hundred to feel cool, a couple is enough, because you know that you will remain faithful forever. And then we are creative, sensitive and original, in short, the best on the market" I explained to Will to encourage him, infuse he also had it, but it was obvious that in those dark moments the positives were difficult to see them.

"Then why are you always with me?"

"Because you are our best friend!" Jonathan immediately replied "And we prefer to be friends of Zombie Boy than of a trivial nullity. Do you understand me? In short, who would you like to be friends with? About Bowie or Rogers?" At that point Will almost shivered and shook his head with an amused smile.

"What Jonny wants to say is that normal people never do anything important in life, as Kierkegaard says, they are locked in their 4x4 box with a family and a job, thus continuing until the end of their days..."

"Oh my God the nerd has come, Will stuck your ears!" Jonathan said jokingly, pushing Will away, who had begun to show signs of little laughter.

"Come on idiots, it's important! In summary, it is always the people outside the lines who make the revolution and enjoy their lives properly" I explained hiding a laugh and pulling a small snort.

"What about Kenny Rogers?" Will asked ironically.

"Kenny Rogers? Oh I love Kenny Rogers!” Bob said suddenly, coming out of the corridor and suddenly I remembered that I was being late for work.

"Fuck! I love you guys, please, be good" I said, running off down the corridor.

"NOEL YOU ARE LEAVING WITHOUT SHOES" my mother shouted.

"Fuck the shoes!" I yelled back, turning back.

T O B E C O N T I N U E D . . .

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N/A: Hello everyone! This is a passing chapter, but it also seems right to give some space to noel and her character before making her interact with Billy. Thank you all for your support, you make me really happy. If you want to be tagged in the next chapter, please leave a comment and tell me what you think of the story, if you like 🌸🌺

Tag list:

@xxemoluverxx @sledgy14 @ellenna

#stranger things #stranger things imagines #stranger things imagine #stranger things aesthetic #stranger things gif #stranger things headcanon #stranger things preference #billy hargrove #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove imagines

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soveryanon · 6 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG138! /o/

- ………………… It’s Holy Shit Smirke What The Fuck time, and I feel obligated to mention in preamble that: yes, I do get one of the points of his statement – that he lacked… flexibility and that it impacted his understanding of the Fears; that he associated them with a neat categorisation, with places, with stone and concrete and stable, fixed monumentality (“And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed.”) when they’re actually mutable, can express themselves in an infinity of ways, and that Smirke’s ~taxonomy~ was far from perfect, probably too tainted by his preconceptions and associations with tangible places to work for long after a few decades of illusion; that, in the end, Robert Smirke died as an old man unable to admit the flaws in his work (“Would you have me separate The Corruption between insects, dirt and disease? To, to divide the fungal bloom from the maggot? No. No, I… stand by my work.”), ready to blame others than him or his own community for their sufferings (“No; I feel certain they were bought into existence by some ancient civilisation, some… foolish tribe from pre-history.”). Leitner (!) (yes, “!”: Leitner, being right about something, I know. Incredible.) and Gerry had actually warned about describing the Fears with such neat separations:

(MAG080) LEITNER: I told you it was an unhelpful analogy. Let’s try another one. Um… Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?

(MAG111) GERRY: […] And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen. ARCHIVIST: [DISBELIEVINGLY] Th– I mean, there are a lot more than fourteen things to be afraid of in the world. Where do you draw the line? GERRY: Hmmm. I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. […] And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour. O–Of course, with these things it’s not a simple spectrum, y’know, it’s more like– ARCHIVIST: An infinite amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in every direction at once. GERRY: Now you’re getting it. ARCHIVIST: Like colours, but if colours hated me.

Sounds like the Fears are… part of a whole, and that “infinite amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in every direction at once” might still be the most Accurate Description for… whatever they are.

But I’m also an utter fool who likes neat categorisations for these concepts so YES, I acknowledge that Jonny is calling us out on trying to put labels on everything that happens in the series and on trying to make occurrences fit into the list we were given in MAG111, but suddenly I can’t read / HOW ABOUT I DO IT ~ANYWAY~. :w

- Obligatory tears because: Tim, disillusioned at the end of season 3, had reached the conclusions about Smirke’s work that Smirke himself half-admitted here (back-and-forth between admitting that he had been wrong and ~standing by his work~):

(MAG117) TIM: […] You know, for the longest time I thought the secret was in balance…! In some… dusty old architect’s work on symmetry. [SCOFF] But he failed, didn’t he? What was he even trying to achieve? He’d lived like anyone else, he… died like anyone else. Whatever he was looking for, in his “Balance and Fear”? I don’t think he found it.

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I have been blessed with a long life, something few who crossed paths with the Dread Powers can boast, but now… at the end of it, my true fear is that I have wasted it, chasing an impossible dream. To speak plain, I have begun to lose faith in the possibility of Balance. Of any sort of equilibrium among them.”

And look, yes, I know, I should be terrorised that Smirke’s shiny system wasn’t so great and functioning after all… but I’m mostly SAD, because Tim had spent the last three-to-four years of his life trying to understand Smirke’s work, and had concluded that it wasn’t working. And he was right. (And then he died, too.)

- So we’re getting a new designation for the Fears: the “Dread Powers”, which, yeah, what it says on the tin, neat!

- Smirke’s words and his influence on current characters localised in London puts me to mind again that… how come that some people apparently knew what the rituals would do to our world? How can they know of the result, since no ritual has succeeded so far?

(MAG092) ELIAS: These things that touch us, they… don’t have a form of the sort that could exist in physical reality. So the Stranger wishes to remake that physical reality into something closer to itself. It wants to make this world its own.

(MAG111) ARCHIVIST: No, I don’t have time. Tell me about the rituals. GERRY: Well, they all have one. Most of them, anyway. Takes centuries to build up to a level of power where they can try it, and if they fail, it’s back to square one. ARCHIVIST: Okay, but what do the rituals do? GERRY : They… kind of “shift” the world, just enough for the Power to come through. Merge with reality. Some say, or well, they guess, that it could bring other entities through with them. I mean, I doubt The Buried would be bringing through The Vast, but you know. ARCHIVIST : But what does that actually mean. F–for the world? “Merging with reality”? GERRY: […] right now all the entities have to act like a hunter, they pick off the weak ones around the edges, the ones that wander to close, and the rest of the time they have to just graze on whatever fear we all passively give away. ARCHIVIST : And if one of the rituals succeeds? GERRY : The world becomes a factory farm.

So this might be what Smirke theorised himself, notably on the idea that Powers had allies and opposites:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “Fourteen Powers, with their opposites and their allies, each with an aim no more no less than manifestation. Apocalypse. Apotheosis. I wonder: did my work bring about these Dreadful things, or… did I simply develop the means by which they can be known…?”

And we saw through The Hunt (or… the essence of the hunt) that its goal is not to manifest, since it revels in the chase and the pursuit – not in getting the prey. Though Smirke might have given inspiration to humans touched by the powers, to organise their activities around circumstantial allies (or allies by nature) and enemies? There might still have been a bit of truth to it, since Gertrude did manage to neutralise The Buried’s ritual with the body of Vast-touched Jan Kilbride… So, to what extent was Smirke, in the end, spot-on, and to what extent did he over-systemise something that was filled with irregularities and particularities?

(- I wonder if the ideas of what the world WOULD look like if one of the rituals succeeded weren’t due to… the Fears-touched dreams? There is definitely something too suspicious about “dreams” overall in this series – I assumed for long that it was a case of “well, of course, if you experience a terrifying thing, your subconscious with get plagued with it and you’ll have nightmares related to this” for a lot of them, independently from Jon’s Archivist-induced dreams. But Smirke revealed that he had initially begun his work influenced by the dreams he had:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man, long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange, far-off places: a field of graves; a grasping tunnel; an abattoir, knee-deep in pigs’ blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any “secret book” can claim.”

And we’ve had various cases of dreams being more spooky than “regular” ones: Oliver began to see the veins in his dreams (MAG011, MAG121), Robert E. Geiger was only able to hear Stefan Brotchen’s last words in his dreams (MAG099), Annabelle had started to get dreams involving spiders despite being unaware of the nature of the experiments (MAG069), Carter Chilcott had been dreaming of “floating through ancient graveyards or the open, empty sea” while on the Daedalus (MAG057), Joshua Gillespie dreamed of asphyxiating despite the coffin itself not giving him any such experience while he was awake (MAG002)… Is it possible that people are more sensitive to the Fears in their dreams, since dreams are a bit more in the Fears’ territory (Jonny mentioned, iirc, that they behave on “dream-logic”)? Is that how Garland Hillier saw The Extinction coming, too: due to his dreams?)

- Alright: sudden information that Smirke APPARENTLY HELPED THEORISE THE RITUALS??? HOLY MEW????

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I… perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a “Grand Ritual” of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the Powers so, it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper. They certainly do now, and I shudder to think how Lukas, Scott and the others may use this conception.”

So, to break this down: it seems like Maxwell Rayner agreed to discuss with Smirke about what he identified as The Dark’s ritual, and Smirke guessed from there that the other Fears that he had isolated probably had (or should have) their own rituals, and worked on theorising them? Basira herself had noticed that Natalie Ennis’s words reported in MAG025’s statement (“She said that they were all going, that 300 years was a long time to wait, but she was lucky to have found it so close to the end.”) matched with two solar eclipses happening in Ny-Ålesund (MAG108: “And when Natalie Ennis talked about it being 300 years ago, well. How much do you know about the relationship between Edmond Halley and John Flamsteed?” “What, Halley like the comet?” “Exactly.”); Basira might have been spot-on on the idea that The Dark is quite… regular and organized around these eclipses? Or at the very least, that The Dark was aware of its opportunities to reshape the world.

And Smirke hypothesises that a few other people might have taken inspiration from it, some of them also part of Jonah Magnus’s own circle (so they were probably all mutual acquaintances, at the very least, as people that Smirke had “brought into [his] confidence”?):

* “Mr. Rayner” (The Dark): unless twist, Maxwell Rayner himself, and Smirke had abundantly talked with him, apparently. No mention on whether Jonah knew him too (except if the Elias-is-Jonah theory turns out to be an actual thing, since Maxwell was revealed to have been a ~friend~ of the Head of the Institute in MAG135), but Dr. Algernon Moss, in a statement given May 14th 1864, had reported on his encounter with Maxwell Rayner who was already well-known at the time (MAG098).

* “Scott” (The Buried): likely referring to George Gilbert Scott (MAG050), who had been under Henry Roberts’s tutelage, who had himself been one of Smirke’s disciples. Sampson Kempthorne, the author of the letter to Jonah, briefly employed Scott in 1834 (historical fact) and noted that he tended to design claustrophobic places. Scott had been said to have “also received certain architectural tutelages from Sir Robert himself”, and during a reception, Smirke had explained to Kempthorne that Scott hadn’t really understood his lessons about “balance” and that Kempthorne had dodged a bullet getting rid of him. Sampson Kempthorne wrote his letter on June 12th 1841, was in good terms with Jonah Magnus but not really an intimate of Smirke himself (he wasn’t into ~the confidence~).

* “Lukas” (The Lonely): we know from Barnabas Bennett’s letter to Jonah Magnus, dated April 9th 1824, that Jonah had warned him to avoid Mordechai Lukas and was himself on “good terms” with him according to Elias (MAG092). Smirke could be referring to Mordechai or another from the family – since, at least, it seems like the ties between the Lukases and the Magnus Institute remained strong over time, with the Lukases being current sugar daddies patrons of the Institute (MAG017, MAG033) and Elias knowing ~Peter~ personally.

So that’s indeed quite a peculiar society of people in the know about the ~Dread Powers~. Given that Maxwell Rayner gave information to Smirke about The Dark’s “Grand Ritual”, and that Mordechai Lukas was already… powerful enough by himself to punish Barnabas in 1824, it doesn’t look like Robert Smirke “converted” all of the people surrounding him, but that he got acquainted with a few people who already had their own knowledge? Not sure about George Gilbert Scott, though – it seems like this one learned Smirke’s principles and ran away with them, serving The Buried.

In the same way, it really feels like Smirke might have exaggerated his role in organising the rituals? The Dark has its own already; we know that the previous attempt to bring The Stranger through took place in the Court Theatre of Buda in October 1787 (statement given by Abraham Janssen in MAG116), when Smirke was… a young kid. There was also some suspicion about the ~Archives~ under Alexandria, which were attacked by what looked like a Dark faction in AD 391, perhaps to stop an attempt by the Beholding (MAG053). According to Peter Lukas, The End and The Web have never been interested in setting up their ritual (MAG134), and Daisy&Jon guessed that The Hunt doesn’t want to reach its culmination (MAG133), even though some Hunters were seeking it. It doesn’t seem like Smirke created the principles that guide rituals, more that he himself didn’t have any information about attempts by other factions than The Dark? But he apparently wrote… guidelines (/wild-mass guessing essays) about others, and feared, towards the end of his life, how they could be misused.

Smirke, why the FUCK did you do that in the first place, OF COURSE IT WOULD GET MISUSED………….. (Though, it’s easy to see how something meant to protect could serve nefarious purpose. Explain in details how fire works, in order to save lives during a housefire, and one pyromaniac could still twist the principles to achieve more damage…)

Smirke specifically said that he “put pen to paper” so, unless it was an exaggeration… there might be a Robert Smirke essay somewhere about his ideas of the Fears’ rituals, whether they’re concrete guidelines or more general principles. The question is: where, and is it actually “worth” something, either to construct the rituals or to stop them? Did Gertrude have access to it? … is it in Elias’s safe? (Or is it… absolutely useless and off-the-mark, and Smirke feared for nothing because he thought his work a bigger deal than it actually was for the Fears themselves?)

- Amongst the list of people into ~Robert Smirke’s confidence~, what about Henry Roberts? He had trained George Gilbert Scott:

(MAG050, Sampson Kempthorne) “Henry [Roberts] was very effusive about the talents and prospects of young Mr Scott and was at great pains to inform me that his young protégé had also received certain architectural tutelages from Sir Robert himself. He said this with the oddest of looks, as though there was some jolly secret between us. I rather just nodded, as if to say I took his meaning, and he left well enough alone. […] At the mention of the name George Gilbert Scott, Sir Robert’s face flushed suddenly, in a manner not entirely unlike that of his protégé. He asked me what my interest was in Mr Scott, and I told him that he had, until recently, been engaged as my assistant. At this, Sir Robert gave a small laugh of satisfaction and told me I did not realise exactly how lucky an escape I may have had. I asked again what his training had entailed, and Sir Robert stared at me for a silent minute, before he finally nodded his head. “Balance,” he told me. “Equilibrium. […]” Without prompting, his tirade continued, and he talked about George, about shortcuts in symmetry and a patron that the young fool did not understand. I could follow very little of it, and it seems to be decidedly removed from anything that I would consider architecture, but whatever it was that Sir Robert had been teaching George, it appeared the lessons had been put to less noble use than he had intended.”

Both George Gilbert Scott and Henry Roberts historically survived Smirke (dying respectively in 1878 and 1876) – but it seemed that at the time, Henry Roberts knew about the true nature of Smirke’s work, and yet didn’t apparently dedicate himself to one power like Scott apparently did with The Buried…? Did it happen later, or did Henry Roberts totally manage to remain neutral…?

(And I’m HOWLING overall that… I hadn’t noticed, back in MAG050, that. Henry Roberts’s behaviour implied that Robert Smirke was indeed sharing what he knew of the Fears with his private club of acquaintances. I thought he was only training people in his “Balance and Fear” and that they independently happened to discover the powers by themselves. But nope, it’s REALLY all because of Robert Smirke; good job, Bob.)

- A curious detail: Robert Smirke’s death as given in MAG138 does not match the official version in our ~world~: the historical figure died on April 18th, 1867 while Martin reported that the letter he wrote to Jonah was dated February 13th, 1867, and that he died of ~apoplexy~ mid-writing it. That’s two months before his historical death!

(MAG138) MARTIN: Statement of Robert Smirke, taken from a letter to Jonah Magnus, dated 13th of February, 1867. […] Uh… [INHALE] The, hum… The letter ends there. Uh… Ap–apparently Robert Smirke was found collapsed in his study that evening, dead of, uh… [FLIPPING PAPER] Apoplexy.

Buuuut that year (1867) curiously has one matching point of data with the statement previously read by Martin, in MAG134 – it’s the same year Garland Hillier disappeared.

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Garland Hillier’s final essay, published in 1867 and simply titled “L’Avenir”, “The Future”, was supposedly a rambling and meandering speculation on the end of the human race, influenced by Darwin’s recent publication of The Origin of the Species and his own shattered faith. He posited a future where, far from any glorious or holy revelation or reckoning, a decadent and corrupt humanity was violently and utterly supplanted, and wiped out by a new category of being. One he referred to as “les Héritiers”. “The Inheritors”. He gave no details on how he believed they might look like, or how they might behave, but his predictions for the final days of humanity were unpleasant, and visceral. […] Anyway, the point is that sometime after that essay was published, Garland Hillier disappeared. Exactly when this happened, no one is really sure, but the last records of his existence can be found near the end of 1867.”

I don’t know if the “change” regarding Robert Smirke’s death is simply a matter of authorial self-protection (Magnus Archives is ~an AU~ of our reality, this Robert Smirke is not the same one as the historical figure) or if it is potentially tied to something more tightly knitted (a shift, a rupture between the Magnusverse and our own world? etc.)

At the very least, I *squint* hard at 1867. Were Jonah’s activities tied (from afar or more closely) to Garland Hillier’s own activities? Did Beholding start feeling threatened by the ~prophecy~ announcing the new emergence?

- You, too, get Marked by Beholding and get A Big Giant Eyeball haunting the sky in your dreams, the got-in-contact-with-Magnus trademark:

(MAG120) ELIAS: The Archivist wanders. He is searching, though, for what he does not know. […] All through it, the shadow is above him; the shape that gazes down upon him, bloodshot and unblinking. […] It opens, and he walks slowly down the steps into the earth; but even as it closes above him, the great shadow still Sees him. There is nowhere in this universe that it would not blot out the sky. […] So he watches her, trying in his single-minded focus to ignore the attention of that impossible thing that covers the sky and fixes its gaze on him with such force it would choke him – were he breathing. […] And at last, the Archivist looks up. [STATIC INTENSIFIES] At last, he looks into The Eye that sees all, and knows all, and clutches at the secret terrors of your heart. The Ceaseless Watcher of all that is, and all that was; the voracious, infinite hunger that tears at his soul, invoking him to discover, to observe, to experience all and everything and forever.

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I have been dreaming again, Jonah. The same every night for months, now. I imagine myself a boy again at Aspley. I awake, cold and alone in the dormitory. The sky outside is dark and I see no stars. I light a candle to better see my way, and step down the silent corridor. The masters’ rooms are empty; the fire in the kitchen is dead. Eventually, my steps lead out into the courtyard. It is so quiet that the sound of my feet upon the grass is painful to my ears. I stop, and look up at the sky, that empty black nothing, and I see the edges of the horizon becoming a dull white. I cannot understand what I am looking at. And then the sky… blinks. And I awake.”

(Bob didn’t have it so bad, after all? I mean. At least, his Big Eyeball blinked.)

- Third named mention of “The Watcher’s Crown” in the series! … almost directly answering Jon’s plea to know more about it from last episode:

(MAG111) GERARD: She worked out they’d all be happening quite close together. She’d already been doing it a while, and the Unknowing was the next on her list. That and The Watcher’s Crown. ARCHIVIST: The, the what? GERARD: Uh, the Rite of The Watcher’s Crown. It’s what she called the ritual for the Eye. She didn’t tell me much about that one, just that she knew how to take care of it.

(MAG137) ARCHIVIST: […] What the hell is The Watcher’s Crown? So far the only mention of it I’ve had is from Gerry, and he didn’t seem to know much about what it actually meant. [PAUSE] And he’s gone now. But if it is the grand ritual of Beholding, then I– … I mean… I need to know about it. Right…?

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I am not a fool; I know well enough what this dream is likely to mean, and I warn you again that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear The Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them! Not simply for the sake of your own soul, but for that of the world! I have always had the utmost respect for you as a man of dignity, and learning. Do not allow yourself to fall to this madness.”

Interestingly, Smirke presented it like a literal crown that could be worn…? (What is in Elias’s safe.) (Is the crown Fashionable.)

- Take your pick of your Failed-Because-Of-Hubris representative:

(MAG080) LEITNER: And so I branded them with my seal. I told myself that if any should escape such a mark could help me retrieve them. But I think, in my heart, I dreamed of my work becoming known. That “The Library of Jurgen Leitner” would stand as a symbol of courage and protection. Hubris. I suppose it is fitting punishment that my name has become a watchword for evil, spoken by those who only know it as marking the darkest, most terrible of secrets. My name has become a curse.

(MAG111) GERRY: Eventually, I grew old enough and wise enough to see [my mother’s] obsession for what it really was: hubris. She lived her just carefully enough not to be destroyed by things she studied, but that was it. The things out there weren’t like taming fire, they couldn’t be contained or used for light or warmth. The best you could hope for from them, would be that they don’t spot you, and instead my mum chased after them, obsessed with others who had tried to stare at them without being blinded: y’know, Flamsteed, Smirke, Leitner. Idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing.

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “You see, Jonah, I feel the hour of my death approaching and, though you have always been reluctant to pay due heed to my warnings or counsel, I continue to see in you the reflection of my own past hubris. […] So yes. Hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals. “

I wonder if we’ll hear about John Flamsteed at some point, since Basira had done a bit of research on him by MAG108, too… (Though he lived waaaay before Smirke and Jonah.)

- I’m still not sold on the Jonah Magnus=Elias theory. On the one hand, there are many things indeed reinforcing that possibility: Smirke thought that Jonah had sunken into Beholding and that he planned to launch the Watcher’s Crown. MAG138 casually revealed that Smirke knew “Rayner” and the way he described him implied that Jonah knew him too (there was nothing in MAG098 to confirm or deny that Jonah knew the guy; the statement was even given to the Institute, not to Jonah himself, and we didn’t know if he was still alive at the time (1864) until MAG138). This is coming shortly after MAG135 which… revealed that Elias PERSONALLY knew Maxwell Rayner and was acquainted (?) with him at some point. Robert Smirke was guessing that Jonah was trying to escape death, and there is obviously the question: and if he had succeeded, who and where would he be? There is even the mention that:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I am choosing to assume that these manifestations are unintentional, Jonah, and you have not… simply decided to implore a Dark Patron to end the life of an old man.”

… which (except for the fact that Beholding Never Does Shit) obviously puts Elias to mind because uh, who is well-known for murdering old people? Would Robert Smirke have been voiced by someone from Jonny’s family, too?

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, every time Elias opens his mouth, I… can’t “read” him as 220+ years old. He’s too shitty? Too petty? Too… not exactly impulsive, but there is always an undercurrent of impatience in him, I feel? I don’t really know how to explain, but I feel like someone much older than “middle-aged” wouldn’t… revel as he does in petty jabs and punchlines, wouldn’t be so intent on getting the last word and on being Verbally Right at every turn?

(But then, that’s one of the main question in this series: what the HECK is Elias, what is his backstory, what are his goals, what even is his ROLE, and what does he know about the Spiders in his Institute.)

- HOWEVER, nervous laughter re: the fear of dying, because hum. Hum. Who does that remind me of.

(MAG080) ELIAS: Well, he was always going to need to fly the nest at some point. Go out and see the world for himself. LEITNER: He might die. ELIAS: It’s always a danger. Almost always.

(MAG121) OLIVER: The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off for a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You’re not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge, where The End can’t touch you, but you can’t escape Him. I made a choice. We all made choices.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die.

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I beg you, do not pursue this goal; if only a single lesson may be gleaned from my life of long study, and longer hardship, it is that the fear of Death is natural, and to flee from it will only bring greater misery. Repent of your sins, Jonah. Seek forgiveness. I am certain the Dread Powers cannot take a soul that keeps faith in the Resurrection.”

Elias had already installed Jonah Magnus as a Role Model for Jon in MAG092 (“Because he had to know, to watch and see it all. That’s what this place is, John, never forget it. You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard. This, at least, Gertrude understood.”) and ;; I. Am. Getting the feeling that Jon might be, totally unknowingly, walking in Jonah’s footsteps a bit…? Except for the part where he’d agree to sacrifice people close to him, because Jon’s conscious decisions have been the absolute opposite so far.

- Something heartbreaking to me: the way… information is not being shared, between Martin and Jon – though Martin is apparently planning to let Jon hear Robert Smirke’s statement eventually. Because MAG138 brings another light on Jonathan Fanshawe’s letter and Jon’s own conclusions about Jonah Magnus:

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: Hm. “Jonah Magnus”. I’ve never really given much thought to him. Not nearly as much as I should have. I suppose I had always hoped there was a chance he was… innocent, in all this. I know, I know! But I had… [EXHALE] I had just… hoped that maybe the founding of the Institute was in earnest. And not simply the foundation stone for all the terrible things that have happened here. … But no. Whatever is happening now… has its origins two hundred years ago. In the work of an evil man.

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “It is telling that of those I have brought into my confidence, it is only you and I who have continued this far without falling to one Power or another, despite all my instruction and work. This is, of course, assuming you have not taken the path of The Eye that I know has called you – called us both – for so long, even since before we began our work on Millbank. […] I am choosing to assume that these manifestations are unintentional, Jonah, and you have not… simply decided to implore a Dark Patron to end the life of an old man. I further find myself supposing that they may emanate from your own intrigues and preparations to culminate those plans which we agreed to abandon so many decades ago! […] The Eye has marked me for something, of this I have no doubt. My… humble hope is that it may be a swift death, an accidental effect of your own researches, which I once again implore you to abandon.”

Jonathan Fanshawe sent his letter to Jonah in November 21st, 1831: the fair assumption was that Jonah had probably funded the Institute in 1818 as a temple to Beholding? But it seems like it wasn’t the initial goal of the Institute, since Smirke was under the impression that Jonah hadn’t followed the path of Beholding until rather recently (unless Jonah had managed to deceive him all this time?). It could explain the wording used by Breekon to refer to the Institute:

(MAG128, “Breekon”) “That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal.”

“what WOULD BECOME this place”: not what it WAS already, even though Breekon is talking about their time serving on the Robert Small, around 1853, years after the foundation of the Institute. (Though the concept of the Institute, of Jonah asking all his acquaintances to send him spooky stories, amassing knowledge, threading his map of relationships around spooky people, of trying to know and learn more about it… indeed sounded extremely Beholding in the first place. But it seems like Beholding taking a hold of the Institute was a consequence, and not the initial goal of it – like the Institute wasn’t initially created to serve it?)

In the same way, I had wondered in MAG127 if Jon mightn’t have been wrong to conclude right away, like Jonathan Fanshawe, that Jonah’s goal had been to get rid of Albrecht without any concern for him – there could have been other reasons to take the actual books away from him, especially since they were the ones affecting Albrecht? But hum, alright: even without being a (conscious?) Beholding agent in the 1810s to 1830s, there are many ways to indeed be an “evil man” – Millbank says hi:

(MAG127, Jonathan Fanshawe) “Jonah; I must first and foremost decline your generous offer of a medical position servicing Millbank Penitentiary. While the terms you’ve laid out are no doubt more than adequate, I have, over these last months, come to the unfortunate conclusion that our intimacy and friendship must cease immediately. I do not know what interest you have in the poor condemned souls within those walls, nor do I care to guess. In the light of what I have so recently witnessed, I can no longer in good conscience associate with any of your endeavours.”

(MAG128, “Breekon”) “Poor wretches who emerged from Millbank, with tales of Australia and its cruelty on their lips, bundled into the cramped and creaking ship that would drag them away from everything they loved – and towards everything they feared.”

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls. […] This is, of course, assuming you have not taken the path of The Eye that I know has called you – called us both – for so long, even since before we began our work on Millbank.”

For Breekon to mention that it was an awful place, it must have been REALLY bad, indeed.

And it saddens me to agree with Martin that he… probably wasn’t the right person to read this statement:

(MAG138) MARTIN: I don’t know what he’s talking about when he mentions Millbank. The old prison, I guess? Tim said the tunnels under the Institute were all that was left of it, but… Jon said he’d checked them pretty thoroughly. [SILENCE] [SIGH] I’m not the one who knows all about this stuff…!

It’s not even just Jon who was specialising in navigating the tunnels – he was finding his way, but Tim was able to use them pretty efficiently too (MAG114, Jon: “I know there are some exits to the tunnels outside the Institute, so I guessed you were using them to get in and out, avoiding any… tape recorders.”). And there is something that Martin didn’t appear to remember about them, but that he had read himself:

(MAG088, Enrique MacMillan) “so here I came. To tell my story, of course, but another thing as well; cold, empty and calling. There’s something here, you see. Something to be dug up, rooted out, buried within. A hollow space that all eyes point towards. And I intend to reach it, if my fingers don’t give out first. I know where to dig.”

[…] MARTIN: Based on a few scattered notes and accounts from some of the older staff, it sounds like Mr. Macmillan got in a bit of a fight, which led to his arrest, and the replacement of quite a bit of the floor in Jon’s office. There are still a couple of boards with marks on them that I’d always hoped weren’t fingernail scratches, but I guess…

(+ Daisy’s mention to Jon in MAG114 that she didn’t like the tunnels because they felt “empty”, and the fact that… the “DIG” leaked into Jon’s dreams for reasons still unknown, despite Martin having been the one to read that statement.)

Is it the same structure as the tunnels under the Reform Club (MAG035) and St Paul’s Church (MAG063), or are they all separate installations? The ones under the Reform Club were long but looked clearly organised and structured; the one under St-Paul’s Church ended with a wall; and the ones under the Institute had been mentioned to be a veritable maze and… cover a very large area:

(MAG080) LEITNER: Over the years I have found that [this unexpurgated copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture] interacts with Smirke’s architecture, and those tunnels specifically, in a more predictable way. By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels. […] I’ve been in hiding for over twenty years now, ever since my library was destroyed. Obviously I have not spent all that time below your Institute. The old Millbank prison tunnels stretch out a very long way, and there are other entrances than the one below the Archives.

(Leitner even telling Jon that he had made them simpler for him.)

- YOU KNOW WHAT OTHER LINES SHARE THE SAME ENERGY?!

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. [SHORT SAD CHUCKLE] Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…? … Everything’s changed. … [SIGH] Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.

(MAG138) MARTIN: Tim said the tunnels under the Institute were all that was left of it, but… Jon said he’d checked them pretty thoroughly. [SILENCE] [SIGH] I’m not the one who knows all about this stuff…! I wish– … No. No, it’s fine, I’m… fine, I… [EXHALE] I can do this.

It’s open to interpretation but I’m really hearing Martin’s “I wish–” as a “I wish Tim was still alive and with us” and AOUCH orz

(I’m… still hoping that we’ll get something from Martin about his own mourning of Tim orz Because that one must have been… so harsh… he was so worried about Sasha’s disappearance in the beginning of season 3, his small voice broke my heart in MAG092 when Elias confirmed that she had died a LONG time ago, and the fact that he had been buddy-buddy with her murderer while Elias was doing nothing about it had been one of the points he threw to Elias’s face in MAG118. And Tim was around even longer, and he experienced so many bad things alongside Tim, and even at his worst, Tim was often mellowing down / a bit more protective of Martin than… anyone else, really, be it in Michael’s corridors or when Tim had explained to Martin that he didn’t think that reading the statements were a good thing? And this despite Tim telling Jon in MAG114 that he didn’t know Martin as well as he knew Sasha, hence the fact he was avoiding him like the others – what does it say about Martin’s relationships with other people… ;;)

- But the “Good luck, Jon, I– … [HUFF] Stay safe.” coming after was absolute Gay Energy, and MARTIN!!!

It feels like the episode was the Perfect Recipe for how to get an episode popular/trending/making people scream: it has MARTIN throughout it, and we’re all thirsty to hear from him! It has Martin being snappy and cunning! Martin’s loyalty towards Jon! A Robert Smirke statement! The relationship between Smirke and Jonah Magnus! New questions about Jonah! More lore with Smirke’s taxonomy from the inside! Beholding statement, with eyes horror! A small mention of Tim! Elias! Elias in prison! Elias FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGING PETER’S EXISTENCE! MORE CHAINS RATTLING AT EVERY TURN! Elias calling Martin out for his manipulative tendencies! Martin using the tape recorders instead of being used by them!

I still feel floored.

- Special bonus for another occurrence of Martin’s “Mm-hMM” when people are telling him something he doesn’t want to hear, and I LOVE HIS CASUAL SNAPPINESS IN SEASON 4…

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: I just… I’m sorry. Basira is off doing… God-knows-what, and I can’t talk to Melanie. MARTIN : Mm-hmm.

(MAG134) PETER: […] And as far as the coffin goes, there’s not much I can do about a bull-headed Archivist who seems hellbent on self-destruction. My powers only extend so far. MARTIN : Mm-hmm.

(MAG138) ELIAS: I am so very pleased to see you. MARTIN: Mm-hmm.

Martin “Mm-hMMm.” Blackwood, ilu.

- The difference between how Elias constantly reminded Jon how he belongs to The Eye, versus Elias’s… apparent uninterest? in Martin’s own alliance to the Lonely is quite… jarring. As for Jon:

(MAG092) ELIAS: [SIGH] What are you? ARCHIVIST: I… The Archivist. ELIAS: Precisely. It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well… ARCHIVIST: It doesn’t please your master? ELIAS: Our master, Jon. […] We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown. If you are to stop them, you need to get better at seeing.

(MAG116) ELIAS: I have been doing my best to prepare you, Jon, to See. You should hopefully have it a bit easier than the others. ARCHIVIST: Another of my… powers? ELIAS: More… an aspect of your becoming. DAISY: You don’t say. ARCHIVIST: Er… right.

(MAG120) ELIAS: [The Eye] stares into him, and it stares out of him, and he is falling into the devouring eternity of its pupil. He wants to cry out in horror, but he cannot. He. is. whole.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Fine. Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. […] If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera.

With Jon, it’s always been a casually possessive “us”. While Martin…

(MAG138) MARTIN: I think he wants me to join The Lonely. ELIAS: Then it sounds like you have a decision to make. [SILENCE] MARTIN : … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS : That makes two of us. MARTIN: [HUFF] ELIAS : But no. This is too important for me to jeopardise with cheap “mindgames”. I simply have to trust that when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Great. Great, great. So, what you’re [NERVOUS LAUGHTER] actually saying is that you’re gonna be… no help whatsoever!

… is clearly not getting that.

It’s terrible yet makes so much sense that of all people, Martin would talk to Elias about Peter’s offer, and implicitly seek out… whatever Elias might have to say about it? Elias had been the one to hire Martin in the Institute:

(MAG056) MARTIN: I don’t have a Master’s in parapsychology, I don’t even have a degree. When I was 17, my mom, she… had… she had some problems, and I ended up dropping out of school, t–trying to support us. I tried everything, but no one was hiring. So I… I just kinda started to lie on my applications, sending them out to just about anywhere. For some reason, my lie about parapsychology got me an interview with Elias and, and then a job here. M–most of my employment details are made up, I’m only 29!

… for reasons still unknown – was Elias actually fooled But Would Never Ever Admit It (as of MAG084, at the very least, he knew about Martin’s fake CV (“I mean, that doesn’t actually, er, make her qualified.” “[POINTEDLY] Formal qualifications aren’t everything, Martin.”) but that was long after MAG056 and he could have eavesdropped on that conversation)? Did Elias hire him because Martin was vulnerable and either prone to become canon-fodder or Beholding food, being Full Of Secrets and fearing that they might get discovered? Was there… something else? And in the same way, we’re not sure how Martin ended up working in the Archives – when Tim, in MAG098, pointed out that Jon had asked him to go with him, Martin was curiously silent as if… he couldn’t really say the same. Why is Martin at the Institute? Doesn’t working there for at least nine years mean anything?

I feel like the episode both began with a question (Martin asking where he should stand between The Lonely and The Eye) and ended up with his implicit answer, maybe… after all guided by Elias, when he made a jab at Martin for being into manipulation games too, and for not sharing his information about The Extinction with Jon:

(MAG138) MARTIN: So… so what? What does it mean? Am I supposed to be reassured that new Entities can be born? That there’s some, some kind of… precedent for The Extinction? … Peter? [SILENCE] Huh. Maybe he has gone to a party. […] I don’t know what Peter’s planning, but my–my guess is that it might involve something below the Institute. Hopefully, by the time you get these tapes, I’ll have something more concrete for you. [PAUSE] Good luck, Jon, I– … [HUFF] Stay safe. [CLICK.]

At the end of the episode, Martin’s answer feels twofold: to manipulate, and to choose “Jon”.

Manipulate, because he checked whether Peter was around before revealing that he wasn’t just using the tape recorders because it’s what the archive team does with the statements (MAG134: “I can’t help but notice you’re recording right now?” “It… was a statement, right, that’s what we do.”), but because he’s planning to send information to Jon, through the tape recorders that have always been associated with him (MAG126: “… It’s because he’s back, isn’t it. [SIGH] He’s back, so now you’re going to be… around, again. Listening in. Mff. You missed him, didn’t you. … Yeah. … [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] Yeah, me too.”).

I don’t know if it’s enough to go full Web-aligned, but… it feels like between Eye and Lonely, Martin is actually heading towards a third option? Or maybe a neutral ground, since his loyalty for Jon is bypassing the rest as of now? Elias’s arrest had always been presented as Martin’s plan, it’s logical that Elias would remind Martin of it with such insistence (since he’s still stuck there), but it’s still… stricking:

(MAG113) ARCHIVIST: Martin’s plan is solid. I think. MARTIN: I mean, they might just kill him. MELANIE: Good. ARCHIVIST: I mean, maybe. But… I think they’re still our best chance. Even if we did manage to blindside him, I–I don’t know how long we could… hold him. MARTIN: And, in fairness, he’s happy enough to use the police against us. ARCHIVIST: Quite. And I’d rather not be staring down a kidnapping charge on top of everything–

(MAG114) ARCHIVIST: And Martin… he’s okay with it? DAISY: It was his idea. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. You think it’ll work?

(MAG117) MARTIN: These last couple of years, I’ve always been... running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but… but now it’s my trap. And, well. I think it will work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but… it felt good, weaving my own little web. […] I guess I’m just… sick of sitting on my hands, drinking tea and hoping everyone’s okay. This way I finally get to do something. It’s gonna hurt, but… I’m ready.

(MAG120) ELIAS: I must admit I’m impressed, Martin. I knew you were all planning something, of course, but I didn’t believe you specifically would have the… er, capacity for boldness that you displayed. It took me quite by surprise. MARTIN: You didn’t just see it in me? ELIAS: Honestly, I didn’t look. For all my power, I will admit I am not immune to making the occasional lazy assumption. I presumed that I knew you thoroughly, but by the time you demonstrated otherwise… well. There was simply too much to keep watching over. I only have two eyes, after all.

(MAG138) ELIAS: Besides which, don’t forget I am still living At Her Majesty’s Pleasure, due in no small part to your actions. […] MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us.

(And once again, it is VERY interesting that Elias likened Martin’s depiction of him to Martin himself on the subject of manipulation. Once again: what do you know about the spiders in the Institute and about Jon’s ties with the Web, Elias…)

- It really feels like Martin was Our Protagonist, during this episode? From Jon barely catching him in MAG124, to Martin’s own work alongside Peter at the end of MAG126, to Martin reading a statement in MAG134 to… Martin being the character we follow in different locations in MAG138, getting his point of view (going to see Elias, reading a statement, doing his own follow-up, revealing a bit more of his own agenda).

;;;; I’m still so “!!!” over Elias and Martin being in the same room. Elias was absolutely shitty with him, but at the same time, there is an undercurrent of… honesty? behind their exchanges? Because Martin knows that Elias knows about his relation to Jon and:

(MAG118) ELIAS: [EXASPERATED BREATHING] … Did Jon put you up to this? MARTIN: You think I’m doing this for him? ELIAS: No. It’s just the sort of half-baked scheme he’d come up with. And I’m well aware that you’ll do just about anything for him– MARTIN: I– ELIAS: –and I don’t need to read your mind for that one. […] MARTIN: Well, I hope you've got something better than that pathetic dig at my feelings for Jon. ELIAS: It’s baffling, really. Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly. MARTIN: Oh, is that supposed to be, what, a revelation? ELIAS: [CHUCKLE] You know, I really should have gone for that. Find something that would finally manage to shatter that precious image you have of him.

(MAG138) MARTIN: […] Why am I only hearing about this now, and why doesn’t Jon know?! ELIAS: […] as for our… dear Archivist, I’m afraid I no longer have any real control over what he does or does not know. Unlike yourself! [PAUSE] I notice you haven’t told him either. MARTIN: Yeah. Well. I’m still not sure I really believe it. [EXHALE] A–and, I don’t… I–… I’m, h… ELIAS: Worried he might charge off into another coffin. [SILENCE] … Quite.

… I feel like we always get a glimpse of what Martin isn’t saying, when he speaks to Elias? It’s not the whole picture, it’s not Everything about Martin’s feelings, but there are some bits, some weaknesses that are getting exposed. (And I don’t know if these were Gratuitous Jabs at Martin or if they were meant to get Martin to do exactly the reverse of what Elias was denouncing ;; Because the episode did end with Martin making sure that Jon would know, though indirectly…)

- I’M ABSOLUTELY DDDD: OVER THE FACT THAT

Ahahaha, “This is too important for me to jeopardise with cheap ‘mindgames’” says the guy who sent Basira (and potentially Jon) to focus on The Dark and DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE EXTINCTION TO THEM, and, in the meantime, discusses The Extinction with Martin when he brought it on the table and DOESN’T MENTION THE DARK’S ACTIVITIES AT ALL WITH HIM. Guess who is back to manipulating through information: THIS GUY. So, there is definitely an agenda behind it; he’s not seriously concerned by The Dark, isn’t he. It’s just a matter of throwing a bone to Basira and making sure that Jon gets to Experience The Dark, isn’t it.

- On the Relationship Between Elias And The Apocalypse:

(MAG080) LEITNER: The Unknowing. ELIAS: [CHUCKLE] Creativity never was their forte. LEITNER: You of all people should want to stop them. ELIAS: And we will. But I don’t think we’ll need your help.

(MAG092) ELIAS: The Unknowing. I need you to stop it. ARCHIVIST: Again with– What is “The Unknowing”? Exactly. ELIAS: A ritual. The Stranger and its kin attempting to gather power enough to bring it closer.

(MAG102) ELIAS: I should have thought preventing the horrific transformation of our world is not solely my concern!

(MAG126) MARTIN: Yeah. You said. … But if things are really so urgent, then why didn’t Elias say anything? PETER: [LAUGH] Because, behind all his bluster, Elias’s just like all the rest. He’s so preoccupied playing the game he doesn’t pay attention to the big picture. He managed to convince himself that he could get his ritual off first, which would have made all of this a… bit moot, but that’s not really an option anymore.

(MAG135) ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world. […] You thought the final death of Maxwell Rayner might have sufficiently derailed them? Yes, that was my hope too, but alas it would seem not. […] I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective. The stakes are far too high for that kind of… indulgence.

(MAG138) MARTIN: So why haven’t you helped him?! ELIAS: My relationship to the apocalypse is more… complicated. MARTIN: [UTTER DISBELIEF] Oh, seriously? ELIAS: Seriously.

TECHNICALLY, we only have Peter’s word that Elias wanted to launch ~his ritual~ because Elias was obviously Very Silent on the issue, but. What is your “relationship to the apocalypse”, Elias – is it just a matter of getting it the way you want it, or not at all…?

(In the way he answered Martin, it sounds almost as if he wouldn’t have been against The Extinction wrecking the world, hence his inaction but? He was probably implying that he had other plans to stop it which involved Beholding’s ritual?)

- Regarding Elias’s agenda:

(MAG122) BASIRA: Elias is locked up. […] A bunch of Section’d officers took him in. He made some sort of deal, I think. But… he’s not getting out anytime soon.

(MAG127) ELIAS: Our… arrangement with the Inspector notwithstanding, I… rather feel that right now all the distrust is very much your own. […] I’ve made it clear my cooperation’s contingent on his not seeing me, and my terms have been accepted thus far.

(MAG138) ELIAS: As for why I’ve done so little about such a looming existential threat… to be blunt, I have been rather busy. MARTIN: [BARELY CONTAINED SNORTING CHORTLE]

Was Elias talking about his activities while still running the Institute, or what he’s currently doing in prison? But oh yes:

(MAG138) MARTIN: Great. Great, great. So, what you’re [NERVOUS LAUGHTER] actually saying is that you’re gonna be… no help whatsoever! ELIAS: … Just like old times~ MARTIN: I don’t know what I expected. [INHALE] Right. Right, we’re done here.

Elias has always been a Very Busy Person.

- … And Peter Has A Very Busy Social Life apparently, too:

(MAG134) PETER: Right! Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have a family thing to get to. […] Okay! Now, I really am running late, so if you don’t mind?

(MAG138) MARTIN: … Peter? [SILENCE] Huh. Maybe he has gone to a party.

Technically, maybe he’s trying to make Martin feel Very Alone by showing off that he has a lot of things to attend, but still. Does anyone even realise he’s there.

- Have I mentioned that ELIAS FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGED PETER’S EXISTENCE? Incredible, I can’t believe, etc.

And he did it in the BEST POSSIBLE WAY:

(MAG138) ELIAS: Come on, Martin. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Let’s not start with lies. MARTIN: [LOUD SIGH] Fine. ELIAS: I am so very pleased to see you. MARTIN: Mm-hmm. [SILENCE] ELIAS: No time for pleasantries? Very well, then. To business. What can I do for you? Tired of running budgets for Peter? I know I would be.

Absolutely unprompted and to gratuitously complain about Peter – ALSO, L-O-L ELIAS, “let’s not start with lies” but WHO is lying here. We ALL KNOW that you’re dying to do these budgets, that you’re probably doing them in your head a millisecond before Martin by watching him, seething that he’s doing YOUR precious scheduling and budgeting.

And

(MAG138) ELIAS: [INHALE] Everything Peter has told you is true. MARTIN: Oh… ELIAS: For all his… many faults, Peter is legitimately trying to stop the end of the world as we know it.

…………………. Listen. It’s getting harder and harder to keep in minde that they might NOT be marrying/divorcing for the sixth or seventh time. It sounds so much like bitter exes/nagging spouses………………………. And I mean………………… they deserve each other………….?

(Though, if season 4 is any indication: Elias’s true OTP is with hand gestures. He’s getting WORSE and WORSE with the chain rattling sound.)

Title for MAG139 is out and HHHHHHHHHHHHH once again. Immediate thoughts are for AGNES? AGNES? AGNES? PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE? (Reminder that The Desolation still hasn’t gotten a statement in season 4 so far~). Agnes statement from Gertrude’s stash…? (Is there a tape with Agnes’s voice, somewhere?) Or maybe about The Dark’s victims, to keep with the theme; Julia? Julia’s mother?

And second meaning could as well be about Martin, or more likely… Jon, very obviously. I guess ;;

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #tma season 4 #mag138 #tma liveblog #long post/

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tmisaccidentreportbook · 2 years ago

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MAG005, Thrown Away

Case #0092302, Keiran Woodward Release date: April 2, 2016 First listen: 14th October I think? Going but the notes. Presumably early on the walk into work.

Ah, the buck toothed step child of a statement that no one could categorise until Jonny set it straight in the Q&As. He admitted that this is a version of The Flesh that still hadn’t been quite realised, but I really liked it. And by really liked, I mean it freaked the bejeezus outta me.

- I have vague memories of listening to thing on the walk into work. Walking in the early morning, y’know, the same sort of time that the refuse collection teams are out…

- I’m not sure if I’m built odd, and I appreciate that refuse collection is hard, sometimes dangerous work, but I think I’d prefer it to office work. I don’t have the constitution for office work, I did admin for a year and it got to the point that every time a phone went I hissed at it. And that role had puppies included.

- ‘A strange side to humanity, but an honesty one at that,’ feels like such a fond line. I love it. And I can appreciate it. I have a somewhat odd inherited habit of skip diving and I’ve found… strange things. Also, I know well the planning needed for the strategic disposal of wine bottles. I don’t drink, but my family has hosted A LOT of shindigs over the years and you learn to chip away at the pile.

- The dolls. Actually, no, the doll heads. An excellent, damn creepy choice Jonny. I didn’t really have a problem with dolls before this podcast, but it’s amazing how many things I’ve come to realise, oop, yup, nope, don’t like that. But I have spent time working at the find arts auctions with my mum on occasion, and I usually on the miscellaneous lots; lots with no real category and were all thrown in together so it was unreasonable to have the person manning it have a deep understanding of everything, so throw the student who knows nothing but is delighted to learn on there. Only, sometimes they had dolls. And they always attracted a strange breed of dealers. Typically little old ladies with slightly unnerving stares.

- I think this episode was a discussion on surplus and waste but there’s something odder still. It’s one thing to have a bag of doll’s heads. It’s another to have a bag of doll’s heads that look purpose bought and then purposely distressed only to be thrown out.

- ‘Waste collecting, second most dangerous profession in England’. OK, checking that out… So a few tabloids are putting it around 12th but they appear to be going off the same data set. uk.indeed.com have it in 2nd after deckhand. Business leader has ‘waste management’ in 5th but I think that’s an entire industry rather than roles. I’m tempted to go with Jonny, Kieran and uk.indeed.com’s assessment because any other publication I’d trust more than The Mirror or The Sun have their articles about the reports behind a sodding paywall…

- Not UK related but I think I read somewhere about the mottos and titles of different city departments in New York. Fire fighters, ‘New York’s Bravest’. Police, ‘New York’s Finest’, ACAB. The Department of Sanitation, are ‘New York’s Strongest’.

- Alan so interested in the bags’ contents. Another one being punished for curiosity. Or rather, the curiosity, almost morbid in this case, made for an easy take.

- The Lord’s Prayer, written over and over again in Latin. Latin = Bad News. We’ve got another one! I’m really interested to hear how Jonny came to this choice. The doll’s heads and the teeth are macabre and could be seen examples of waste and excess and the expandability of people. But I’d love to hear what inspired this line of thought. Was it just something unnerving and almost occult? A prayer passed over a flame? Was it about the organised religion and the history of excess and corruption? Was it about the impacts of prayer over action? The same prayer over and over and over again? Was it just something that was damn creepy? No, I’m not spiralling, Jonny I just want to talk. I’m an atheists, I have no horse in this race, but I have been in a lot of churches and sat through a lot of services, Jonny, what does it mean!?

- The teeth… The mounting dread of the team, apart from Alan. Kieran, the designated pick-uper of the bag. I wonder how many teeth you can fit in a bin bag… Am I gonna risk goggling that?

- All I got was ideally that they need to be disposed of in medical waste and sites selling tiger bags, yellow and black striped bags.

- Dave, vomiting into a drain. Good lad, not compromising the scene or the evidence. Well done.

- Phoned the police. Yeah, there’s no confidentiality clause with the bin teams.

- It’s a little thing, but the officer that knocks on the door is gendered as female. So was one of the officers that attended to Not!Graham and was shown his passport photo. Part of me wondered if perhaps they were either Basira or Daisy or perhaps the same officer. But I’ve looked at the map, and I don’t know how the allocation of police beats works, but Clapham and Walthamstow are clear across the river from one another. And can not see Daisy or Basira laughing with Not!Graham or being rattled by the teeth.

- Poor old couple being the unwitting site of eldritch fly tipping… Ooooh THIS might be why I got so upset someone was leaving bags to go out with my rubbish…

- Yeah, in a job like that, the last thing you want is someone becoming a danger.

- ‘Needed to know’… Ermmm… and coupled with the appearance of the music…

- Fell asleep at the wheel. Jonny makes a point of saying no one was hurt, but there has been a number of terrible and tragic collisions involving bin lorries in recent years in the UK.

- Dark green ribbon. Why dark green? In mockery of the typical council uniform?

- Bronze heart ‘roughly carved’ but the name ‘Alan Parfitt’ engraved with ‘machine like precision’? Like… although whoever it was knew it was to be Alan, but just not what memento was to be left?

- I have often fantasised about disposing of things in our medical waste bins to be incinerated... This is not to be used against me in a court of law, but there’s padlock on that thing and if you put it in a tiger bag… OK, so I will say that during one summer internship, a friend and I effectively wrote a murder mystery between us in an effort to keep ourselves sane and discussed all the ways we could THEORECTICALLY dispose of a body at a falconry breeding centre. We were going to call it ‘Tuppence A Bag’.

- ‘End of statement. So nice to be able to verify this one.’Jonathan, so happy, yes, time stamps, names, addresses, good.

- ‘Got Martin out of the archive for an afternoon, which is always a welcome relief.’ MEAN. SO MEAN. An aside, but I love time travel aus where they go back in time and see just how grumpy and mean past-Jonathan can be. And just how ‘not taking your shit’ future-Martin is. I love starfleetrambo’s stuff.

- Apparently the officers called to 93 Lancaster Road were Officer Suresh and Officer Altman, so defiantly not Basira or Daisy. I can’t remember if it’s mentioned what units the two served with beyond Section 31.

- So you can get 2780 teeth in a bin bag, good to know. The deliberation he takes to say ‘the exact... same... tooth...’ screaming

#MAG005 #the magnus archives #The Flesh

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theothersidepress · 5 years ago

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My Mother’s Grief – A Story of Hope

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This is a difficult, confronting and deeply emotional story about death that must be told. Rest assured it has a comforting ending and I hope it finds its way to anyone who is struggling to come to terms with their grief – particularly mothers of stillborn babies.

Once Upon A Time

Photo Credit: Jonny Lindner

I grew up knowing that that my late mother Maja gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in the early 1960s. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that she spoke at length about her traumatic, at times horrific, ordeal.

Maja emigrated to Australia from the ‘Iron Curtain’ Baltic State of Estonia in the late 1940s. She eventually settled in Adelaide, South Australia where met her Estonian husband Karl. After escaping from the Soviet terror and oppression that befell their homeland, falling in love must have felt like a fairy tale to end all fairy tales.

When they were ready to start a family, my mother miscarried before carrying her first child to full term. She recalled being heavily pregnant and feeling overdue. Doctors at Rose Park Hospital told her otherwise. Her intuition urged her to request that her baby be induced but her plea was ignored.

By the time my mother was what she believed to be at least ten days overdue, she knew that something was terribly wrong and demanded to be induced immediately. This time, the doctors didn’t argue. Tragically, her beautiful baby girl was stillborn.

Dealing With Death Very Badly

After the birth, my mother’s daughter was wrapped in a cloth and whisked away by a nurse. None of the staff knew what to say to her. Nor did her shocked, grieving husband.

She described how a group of doctors milled nervously near her bed, whispering in hushed tones. They all had worried looks on their faces and nobody could look at her, let alone talk to her.

Now deeply traumatized, my mother asked them to bring her baby back but nobody acknowledged her. She needed to hold her child, to say goodbye. Sadly, the hospital staff clearly had no knowledge of how to deal with death in a caring, compassionate manner. Fed up with being ignored and treated like a third-rate immigrant, she yelled at them to bring her baby back.

Thankfully, her baby daughter was returned and she held her close until she was ready to let her go.

Photo: Roman Kraft

A Glimmer of Hope

The final part of this story still haunts me. My father took my mother home from hospital and they never heard a single word about their daughter again. And they were deprived of the opportunity to give their child a funeral. Instead, stillborn babies were secretly buried by hospital authorities and the stillbirth incidents hushed up instead of investigated. As if the babies had never been born.

Just like my late father, I, too, had no words.

Struggling to process this shocking, infuriating story, I sat at my typewriter and thrashed it on my mother’s behalf. Then I called a friend who was a senior newspaper reporter and arranged to meet him.

Unable to speak, I handed him my typewritten pages. He looked over it, looked at me and didn’t utter a word. I left him with it and an article appeared a few days later about an unmarked mass grave in Adelaide’s West Terrace cemetery where stillborn babies had been secretly buried. Parents were given the opportunity to come forward and give their child a respectful farewell with a special memorial.

I showed my mother the story, relieved that she now had the chance to say her final goodbye. Sadly, reliving the grief of losing her baby proved too overwhelming and she shut herself down again. I respected her feelings and left it at that. It felt inappropriate to act on my mother’s behalf and I didn’t dare suggest it.

My Mother and the Shepherd

My mother died suddenly in September 2006. Her health had been failing on all levels and our relationship had become increasingly strained. I saw less and less of her over the years and eventually gave up trying to resolve things. In hindsight, our relationship fractured on the day my father suddenly died in 1980 and we slowly grew apart due to our unresolved grief.

On a happier note, my mother called me the day before she died and sounded unusually chirpy. Little did I know it would be the last words we would speak. Or so I thought.

The Postman Medium

My partner happened to be an evidential mental medium who never charged money for readings because he had a full time job and just wanted to be of service. He considered himself a lifelong apprentice to spirit – a humble ‘postman’ who simply delivered messages – word for word – from loved ones on the other side. His highly attuned gift of mediumship would bring me immense comfort and strength during the immediate aftermath of her death.

On the morning of my mother’s funeral, my partner rose earlier than usual. I hid under the covers, wishing that death and funerals would go away. He returned to the bedroom soon after, sobbing inconsolably. He said my mother was sitting in our lounge-room wearing her wedding dress and reading a passage from Lord Is My Shepherd. He also said she pointed to the verse that says, ‘I have no ills.’ Surprised that she had come to visit us soon after her passing, I felt a loving wave of relief sweep over me.

Interestingly, the stressful days leading up to her funeral, my brother, sister and I met the pastor at our mother’s house and he read Lord is My Shepherd to us. I chose not to mention the earlier incident with my mother to him because most religious teachings tend to discredit or frown upon the reality of mediumship and direct contact with the otherside.

My Mother & The Pastor’s Lap

During the pastor’s introduction at my mother's funeral service, my partner discreetly nudged me and pointed to an empty chair against the wall near the lectern. He whispered that my mother was sitting there listening and seemed quite pleased with the proceedings.

When the pastor sat down, he whispered, “Linda, the pastor just sat on your mum’s lap.” I started to laugh but swiftly composed myself. It was a funeral after all.

The lonely and challenging grieving process that followed the sudden death of my father in 1980 was a far cry from the experience that unfolded with my mother. She ‘moved in’ with us at our seaside home for several weeks after her funeral and many wondrous things occurred during her stay which made my grieving process so much easier.

Proof That My Mother Is ‘Alive And Well’

Three significant moments with my 'dearly departed' mother will stay with me forever. I hope that sharing them will give readers a sense of hope and comfort that I desperately sought, but never found, in the dark weeks and months that followed my father’s death.

The Sunday morning after the funeral, my partner and I sat outside drinking coffee, soaking up the peaceful spring energy. Out of the blue, he said, “Linda, your mum’s here. She needs to talk to you.”

Jolted out of my daydream, I prepared myself for what would become one of the most profoundly memorable experiences of my life.

Connections From The Otherside

For the next two hours, my partner relayed deeply personal, at times confronting questions and emotive anecdotes directly from my mother. I had never shared our old grievances with my partner because they didn’t seem relevant and proceeded to respond to my mother as though she was physically sitting at the table with us.

Immersed in an intense melting pot of truth, misconceptions, anger, honesty and love, my mother and I proceeded to resolve our many earthly differences through my partner’s highly attuned link to her vibration in spirit. We unearthed difficult, painful, at times infuriating issues that had been previously shrouded in toxic silence, creating an ever-widening rift until my mother’s death.

There is no need to share the nature of our grievances here – we all have them. My purpose is to demonstrate why there is no need to live with regret or guilt for the rest of your life when a loved one dies. Issues can be resolved after a loved one’s death with the assistance of an attuned, experienced, evidential medium. But the challenge often lies in finding an authentic medium able to facilitate such a sitting.

The internet will have you believe that everyone is a highly attuned medium which is why discernment is vital when seeking out mediumship services. All the more reason to make our peace with loved ones while they are still with us.

Toward the end of what I can only describe as a crystal clear, three-way-conversation spanning two dimensions and a myriad of emotions, a peaceful calm descended upon us. My mother ended the ‘sitting’ by acknowledging my repeated attempts to pass her an olive branch and heal our differences while she was still alive, conceding that she was too stubborn to meet halfway and accept a truce.

In turn, I apologized for all the upset I caused her over the years and told her that I loved her more than ever. As her energy began to fade, I basked in a soothing energy of love, compassion, joy and gratitude for the profound healing both my mother and I experienced that day.

My partner was as blown away by the marathon sitting as I was and revealed that it was rare to maintain a consistently strong connection to a spirit energy for such a long period of time. My gratitude for his extraordinary gift and vast amount of energy involved in facilitating the vital meeting with my mother, was immeasurable.

Let There Be Light Of A Different Kind

The second significant event occurred when my partner excitedly called out to me from garden shed. When I poked my head inside, I saw him standing underneath a bright fluorescent light with a strange look on his face. When I asked him what was wrong, he pointed to the unplugged light plug swinging from the rafter. We both stood there looking at the light and laughing. I remained brightly lit for quite some time and just as I decided to grab my camera to capture evidence of this freak event, the light flickered out.

I had read that loved ones in spirit can manipulate electricity to gain our attention. Given that my late father was a wildly humorous, electrical engineer in his earthly life, the case of the mysterious, unplugged light made perfect sense.

Mother and Daughter Reunited

The third significant event unfolded early one evening when we were relaxing in the lounge room. My partner looked past me, focused on the nearby patio glass door.

“Linda,” he said. “Your mother is here. She’s holding hands with a beautiful young girl.”

I felt my spirit shift.

“That must be the daughter she lost in the sixties,’ I replied. “My sister.”

He described the little girl as angelic with shoulder length blonde hair and wearing a beautiful white dress. She was seven or eight years old.

“She is very shy,” he continued, “and your mother is gently coaxing her to move toward you. Here she comes now. She is standing in front of you and has just put her hand on your arm. She is saying hello to you.”

I said hello back to my little sister, in awe of the deeply moving moment. We spent some time together in silence and then they left. Knowing that my mother was reunited with the child she lost all those years ago, helped me release the grief that I carried for many years after my mother shared her traumatic story.

“Linda, There Is No Death”

Photo Credit: Valentin Sabau

The healing power of spirit is something that needs to be experienced first hand to truly understand – with or without religious beliefs. I had believed in life after death for a couple of decades thanks to insights from my father who began visiting me in my dreams about nine years after his death.

I clearly recall him appearing in front of me in an ethereal environment and extending his hand. I physically felt his hand when I held it and said, “Dad, you’re not dead, are you?” To which he replied: “Linda, there is no death.”

Which brings me to what prompted me to write this story in the first place.

My day began with a random news report about Australian women giving birth to a stillborn baby every four hours, an abnormal rate that has not declined in two decades. I was immediately reminded of my mother’s experience.

Later that same day, a social media post by evidential medium, spirit interventionist and author Jock Brocas assured grieving parents that their child was ‘alive and well in the spirit world’ and that they will be reunited one day.

I interpreted both messages as signals to write this story about my mother’s loss. Having personally drawn great strength and hope from true stories about overcoming adversity, I hope my story provides some comfort for others who are struggling to come to terms with their grief.

Evidential Mediumship Is Our Greatest Antidote For Grief

In closing, I would like to add that my search for answers began when I was 17, on the day my father suddenly died – the day my impossible grief set in. If it wasn’t for that life-changing event and the tumultuous journey that followed, I wouldn’t be where I am today, or advocating that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel when you know where to look.

Experience has taught me that the secret to healing from grief and embracing life again lies in finding spiritually-minded professional support to help you confront, emerge and heal rather than be hindered by hopelessness or shut down with long-term life-numbing drugs.

An experienced, evidential medium with counseling skills, or a counsellor that collaborates with a trusted medium to help clients navigate through the emotionally tumultuous journey that follows the death of a loved one, is a safe and effective place to start.

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icanttalkimhavingacrisis · 8 months ago

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Introduction Post!!!

hi!! lovely to see you - won't you stay awhile?

the basics:

name: Joy, short for Jonathan

age: 18

pronouns: he/she/they

orientation: omnisexual, polyamory

gender identity: genderfluid and pangender!!

timezone: CET (GMT +1)

my tops:

musicians: Twenty One Pilots, Måneskin, Hozier, George Michael, Wham!, Bastille, P!ATD, Tally Hall, My Chemical Romance, The Oh Hellos, The Amazing Devil, Lemon Demon, Kwiat Jabłoni

songs: Lavish, Bourgeoisieses, This is Love, ANARCONNASSE, Too Sweet, Sunlight, Midwest Indigo, Routines in the Night, l'altra dimensione, tous les memes

fandoms: marauders era, the lunar chronicles, the good place, grishaverse (haven't read king of scars yet tho), the cruel prince, some musicals (mainly Hamilton), DDLC, FNAF (I haven't played the games but I do really like the lore and songs), WTNV, AGGGTM, TØP lore

books: the cruel prince trilogy, red white and royal blue, they both die at the end, aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe, the midnight library, six of crows duology, 1984, animal farm

shows/films: the good place, loki, moon knight, the umbrella academy, heartstopper, hazbin hotel, legally blonde, tick, tick, boom!, hamilton, howl's moving castle

Hobbies: writing, reading, cello, painting, writing my own songs, D&D

miscellaneous:

I'm a band kid, I write songs and plays and stories and books ^^

I finished writing a book recently!! You can read it on AO3 here. Let me know if you want a pdf or epub version, I'd be happy to share!!

hogwarts house: slytherin apparently

grisha order: durast

godly parent: Apollo

divergent faction: amity (born candor)

hunger games district: probably eleven

I'm obsessed with Welcome to Night Vale (mountains are fake y'all, they were made up by the government)(although I haven't listened to a lot of it...)(Still love it tho ^^)

I'm absolutely a yapper, and love meeting new people, so feel absolutely free to dm me if you wanna chat!! <3

please consider using tone tags, I dumb as all heck

I have two younger siblings!! A brother and a sister :>

my people:

@andytheoverthinker - husband, partner, beloved boyfriend <3

@evee-refuses-to-die - squirrel extraordinaire, sweetest lil' insomniac

@lyionly - genuinely the most talented artist I know, best bio partner

@bjcf23 - favourite cousin ever <33

@astroocti - my drummer friend :D

mutuals: @erraticprocrastinator-alt @jess-of-all-trades @finnslay @moonysfavoritetoast @cazzythefrogking @chatter-crow @def-not-kaz-brekker @chaosgremlinlivinginyourwalls @waitingonadeathgodtocallmeback @saivamp @lemon-cosmoscollection @gay-for-zoya @agenaroace-a-fucking-disgrace @finleyforevermore @kaithe-enby404 @currently-becoming-potatoes @catinasink @vintagetee13 @clodoveah @ghost-of-a-poet @viago-vamps @ddlcbrainrot @pan-anarcho @gremleyn @discoveredreality @blue-bell-icecream @xrinnihil @artemisiamezzanotte @drifter-gaming @stqrgirl3 @my-castles-crumbling @winters-rose-daughterofcain @elliots1stshadow @daydream-of-a-wallflower @razz-is-queer @blood-slushy @starcrossedmoony @celestialserenity24 @justafanbutcurious @37x3

WAHHHH I LOVE YOU ALL!!! MANY HUGS AND KISSES FROM MOI <333

final section!! my bullshit:

#jonny writes stuff - my writing

#joy has thoughts - I say stuff

#joy on fandoms - anything fandom related

#joy on volleyball - I rant about volleyball I guess?

#joy has a strange mum - about my mother (sometimes I rant, idk what to tell ya--)

#joy on music - anything music related

#joy has friends - about my irls <3

#joy is gay for andy - about my beloved bf

#joy gets asks - I respond to asks!! May take me a while tho-

#the witchy saga - I post about witchcraft apparently

@joywritesbutitsactuallymystories - sideblog where I repost my writing

@prongsiedadeerest - my James Potter rp sideblog

my poems

my novel

my carrd for further contact info!!:

ok lovelies, that's it!! thank you for being here <3

#intro post #joy has thoughts #jonny writes stuff #joy on fandoms #joy is gay for andy #joy has friends #joy on music #joy on volleyball #joy has a strange mum #joy gets asks #the witchy saga

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hollyoaksloversx · 6 years ago

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A Pie Protest, Romeo Rejected and More Monster Mac...

Rounding up a week in Hollyoaks (10th-14th December 2018)

Poor Prince hasn’t had the easiest time of it over the last few weeks. Not only has his wife cheated on him with his best mate and his Mum been charged for a murder she didn’t commit, but he may have testicular cancer. With all that misery, it’s no wonder actor Malique Thompson-Dwyer needed a break and headed off to the Australian jungle for some respite. This week saw Prince preparing to undergo surgery to remove his testicle, something he kept from wife, Lily. With Prince acting strangely, Lily jumped to the conclusion that he was having an affair and he didn’t deny it when Lily confronted him. With her marriage in tatters, Lily prepared to leave the country and begged Romeo to go with her. Seeing it as the perfect opportunity to escape from Donna-Marie, Romeo accepted, however, Prince confided in Nana about his operation and she went straight round to tell Lily, who rushed to the hospital to be with her husband. Prince’s operation was a success and he and Lily agreed to give their marriage another go, leaving Romeo devastated...

Meanwhile, Sienna was full of festive cheer this week. With Liberty away visiting Dennis, Sienna was looking forward to spending Christmas with Maxine and Minnie, so had to hide her disappointment when Maxine announced that they were going to spend Christmas with Mitzeee in America. Sienna tried to cheer herself up by decorating the flat, but she was left heartbroken when she accidentally destroyed an angel she’d bought for the twins. Brody found a devastated Sienna in the village and tried to comfort her, but he soon received his own bad news when he found out that his case against Buster had been dropped. Sienna was grateful for the distraction and threw herself into researching cases similar to Brody’s, before telling him that he could appeal the decision. Sadly, Brody wasn’t convinced and ended up drowning his sorrows at The Loft and then punching Damon when he tried to intervene. Heartbroken to see the state Brody was in, Damon tried to help by making a statement to the police, telling them that he’d seen his Father abuse Brody...

Elsewhere, the Donovan’s were in a right old mess thanks to their dead Dad leaving them with a mountain of debt. With Jesse insisting they would have to sell the salon to pay it off, Liam began looking for other ways to make money and quickly proved that he had not left the gangster world behind when he tried to flog some dodgy vodka to Jay Johnson’s sister. It didn’t take her long to realise she’d been had and so she took Jesse as hostage before demanding that Liam give her her money back. Despite being concerned for his Brother’s safety, Liam wasn’t about to hand over the cash and soon turned to Grace and Lisa for help. Going along to the Johnson family bar, Grace distracted the bouncer whilst Lisa stole money from the safe, money which Liam gave in exchange for Jesse’s release.

Also this week, Ste was plagued by financial worries (again). With the Lunch Box out of action following the fire, Ste was busy looking for a new van and the last thing he needed was Leah dropping her Christmas list on him. Moaning about his situation at The Bean, Ste got talking to the new manager, Jonny, who suggested he set up a new business outside, selling pies. Within hours, Ste’s new business was up and running but he quickly ran into trouble when he refused to serve Yasmine, who took revenge by protesting loudly against Ste outside The Bean.

In other news this week, Mac continued to be despicable as Cindy prepared to discharge herself from hospital. With Cindy now back on her medication, she felt much better and insisted she was ready to come home, despite reservations from Alfie. Cindy coming home was obviously very bad news for Mac but he had a plan up his sleeve and told Cindy that they could pay for her to attend a private clinic by remortgaging her house. Cindy agreed, but Mac later told Donna-Marie that Cindy had actually signed her house over to him. Finally, Damon and Maxine bonded over loved ones they’d lost this year but Damon misread the situation and tried to kiss Maxine, leaving her furious. However, Damon soon made it up to Maxine when he discovered that Minnie had missed out on meeting Santa and he later arrived at her flat dressed as Santa. Maxine was touched by Damon’s gesture and the pair made up.

5 Things We Learned This Week:

1. We all know that Mac’s pure evil but this week, we learned that he’s stupid, too, as he tricked Cindy into signing over her house. Where was Cindy when she signed those papers? Oh, yeah, a psychiatric ward! How on earth does he think he’s going to get away with that? There are laws in place to protect mentally ill people from exactly those situations!

2. Someone in the Hollyoaks universe has finally woken up to the fact that ‘Esther’s Magic Bean’ is a seriously dodgy name for a cafe. With The Bean under new management, Jack revealed that the name was going to be changed as it wasn’t ‘family friendly’ enough. A family friendly business? In Hollyoaks? There’s nothing family friendly about that village!

3. Broodiness arises in the strangest of situations. Watching Leah throw a strop over a mobile phone had Scott coming over all broody. Leah’s great to watch, but she’s enough to put anyone off having kids!

4. Sinead is trying to get Laurie sacked from his new deputy head job. Why else would she turn up twice in one day and throw herself at him? Plus, why is security so lax at that school?!

5. The origin of money is not important. With the Donovan’s facing selling the salon to pay off Glenn’s debts, Grace tried to appeal to Maxine’s good nature by asking if she’d consider giving them the money Glenn left for Minnie. Of course, Maxine said no. Glenn may have been a gangster who acquired his money illegally, but Maxine’s not willing to part with it (unless your name happens to be Kim Butterfield). Does Minnie really need that money, though? Doesn’t she have inheritance from Patrick? On other note, surely any money Glenn had would have been used to pay off his debts. There would be none left to leave to Minnie!

Characters Featured:

Alfie, Brody, Cindy, Cleo, Courtney, Damon, Donna-Marie, Grace, Jack, Jesse, Jonny, Juliet, Laurie, Leah, Liam, Lily, Lisa, Maxine, Mac, Minnie, Nana McQueen, Prince, Romeo, Sally, Scott, Sienna, Simone, Sinead, Ste, Tony and Yasmine.

Past Characters Mentioned:

Nico Blake, Sebastian Blake, Sophie Blake, Esther Bloom, Kim Butterfield, Adam Donovan, Glenn Donovan, Maggie Kinsella, Tegan Lomax, Mitzeee Minniver, Dennis Savage.

#Hollyoaks #Highlight #Prince McQueen #Lily Drinkwell #Romeo Quinn #Sienna Blake #Brody Hudson #Damon Kinsella #Liam Donovan #Jesse Donovan #Grace Black #Ste Hay #Yasmine Maalik #Leah Barnes #Maxine Minniver #Cindy Cunningham #Mac Nightingale

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laresearchette · 5 years ago

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Friday, June 19, 2020 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: DADS (Apple +) SHERMAN’S SHOWCASE: BLACK HISTORY MONTH SPECTACULAR (AMC Canada) 10:00pm

WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT JUNETEENTH: A CELEBRATION OF OVERCOMING (ABC Feed) DINO HUNTERS (TBD - Discovery Canada) DEADLY TRANSACTION (TBD - Lifetime Canada)

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME/CRAVE/NETFLIX CANADA/CBC GEM:

AMAZON PRIME 7500 FRANKIE DRAKE (Season 1) LOL: LAST ONE LAUGHING (AU) (Season 1) MURDOCH MYSTERIES (seasons 1-12) MURDOCH MYSTERIES SPECIAL MOVIE 1 MURDOCH MYSTERIES SPECIAL MOVIE 2 MURDOCH MYSTERIES SPECIAL MOVIE 3 PENGUIN

CBC GEM QUEENS (Comedy Series): There’s all kinds of sabotage happening leading up to the “Miss Church Street” pageant as several different Toronto drag queens prepare. However, this year is different as someone has literally stolen the crown from the reigning queen and other performers seem to keep getting interrupted in strange and unfortunate ways while prepping for the pageant.

CRAVE TV 9 TO 5 DOG TALES RESCUE (Season 2) THE FISHER KING GRAND ISLE THE GOOD LIAR HIGHWAY THRU HELL (Season 4-5) I STILL BELIEVE LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE PARENTHOOD TWINS

NETFLIX CANADA BABIES: PART 2 DISCLOSURE FATHER SOLDIER SON FEEL THE BEAT FLOOR IS LAVA (Season 1) GIRLS FROM IPANEMA (Season 2) LOST BULLET ONE-WAY TO TOMORROW THE POLITICIAN (Season 2) RHYME TIME TOWN (Season 1) WASP NETWORK

KOREAN BASEBALL (TSN3) 9:00am: Doosan Bears vs. LG Twins

TIMELESS LOVE (Super Channel Heart & Home) 9:20am: A woman seems to have the perfect life with a wonderful husband and two children. Then she finds herself awakening from a coma and discovers she is not and has never been married.

JUNIOR BAKING SHOW (CBC) 8:00pm: It's Dessert Day and Prue and Liam are looking for the bakers to produce the perfect finale to any meal.

WATTS ON THE GRILL (CTV Life) 8:00pm: Chef/TV personality Spencer Watts demonstrates how to barbeque anything, from steak and chicken, to seafood and breads, like a pro.

MISTER WINNER (BBC Canada) 9:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): Leslie finds a piano while on a house clearance job with his father-in-law Chris.

GRAND ISLE (Crave) 9:00pm: Walter and his neglected wife lure a young stranger into their Victorian home to escape from a hurricane. When the man is charged with murder by Detective Jones, he must reveal the couple's wicked secrets to save himself.

DEADLY FLIGHT (Super Channel Fuse) 9:00pm: Obsessed with a handsome student, a deranged flight instructor tries to destroy the people in his life and make him fall in love with her.

CARIBBEAN LIFE (HGTV Canada) 9:30pm (SEASON PREMIERE): A busy Wisconsin couple is looking for a change in lifestyle that allows for more quality time together basking in the Caribbean sun.

FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER (BBC Canada) 9:30pm (SEASON PREMIERE): Brothers Adam and Jonny are horrified to find Mum and Dad in a hot tub in the garden, drinking champagne. Neighbour Jim arrives to ask them if they can look after Wilson because his sister, who's terrified of dogs, is coming to visit.

DEAD STILL (City) 10:00pm (SEASON FINALE): A malevolent figure drives Blennerhasset, Nancy and Molloy apart.

DRAG SOS (Out TV) 10:00pm: The Family Gorgeous visits Dudley to help Dominique rediscover her self-confidence by becoming an intergalactic space queen.

HOPE FOR WILDLIFE (Cottage Life) 10:00pm: The Buzzard’s Breakfast

SKINDIGENOUS (CBC) 11:30pm: Nahaan's work draws on the symbology and aesthetics of the Indigenous West Coast.

#cdntv #cancon #canadian tv #canadian tv listings #junior baking show #watts on the grill #mister winner #friday night dinner #dead still #drag sos #hope for wildlife #skindigenous

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aurelliocheek · 5 years ago

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25 years of Frontier Developments

The 25 year tale of Britain’s most ambitious indie.

If there’s one thing that Jonny Watts has learned during more than two decades at Frontier Developments, it’s that the act of making the games is just half of the equation. As chief creative officer and longtime stalwart of one of the UK’s most inventive and ambitious studios, Watts has been at the forefront of many its most famous titles – from classics like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and LostWinds, to its most recent successes: Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution. But as he explains, the secret to Frontier’s success as a fully independent, self-publishing development house required the whole team to analyse, study and adapt to the changing industry in order to become the success it is today.

Based in the heart of leafy Cambridge, England, Frontier is one of the most eclectic video game studios in the development business, not just in the UK but the world over. Celebrating its momentous quarter century milestone this year, Frontier‘s games have featured everything from cute interactive animals to scientifically accurate black holes; death-defying theme park rides, to authentic recreations of prehistoric lizards. Now with around 30 fully fledged titles under its age-worn belt, this is a truly veteran studio, but one that exudes a passion and a verve that belies its age.

Perhaps more importantly, there’s an inherent intelligence to Frontier that comes across in its games. There‘s an artful comprehension for how interactive experiences need to make players feel; a mechanical understanding of the detail and depth required to create specific niche interest titles; and an operational rigour that allowed the studio to pinpoint how it wants to communicate with and sell to its players. This last bit, crucially, is what has made Frontier Developments such a shining case study for the many benefits of studio independence.

The rise to indie darling was never an overnight transition; in many ways, it was 25 years in the making.

Elite Dangerous, Frontier’s massively multiplayer space epic let’s players take control of their own starship. They can fight, explore and travel throughout an expansive cutthroat galaxy, consisting of more than 400 billion star systems.

The DNA of a startup For Watts himself, the game development dream begun back in 1987, when he would run home from school, leap up the stairs to his bedroom and get to work coding games on his own personal computer. Naturally, his mum didn’t approve of Watts’ creative flights of fancy, insisting there was no financial future in playing games. At the time, she was largely right, but little did she know that it wasn’t playing games that Watts ever dreamed of turning into a feasible profession – it was making them. “I got just as much enjoyment destructing how games worked, learning how to code, learning how to do art,” he says.

Watts did, despite his initial childhood dreams, follow his mum’s wise advice in the latter half of his education – at least through university, where he studied a zoology degree. He was still creating games while studying, though. It was something he could never escape from, and which sustained his creativity through his university career until he pivoted to study a masters in computer science. Back in those days, this was the main academic currency if you wanted to be a video game developer – there were far fewer routes into the industry then, so Watts capitalised on his opportunities where he could.

As an alumnus, he went almost directly to development, firstly at the fellow Cambridge studio, Sensible Software. “[They] were in the same location as where Frontier was founded,” he says, “they were just north of Cambridge and we were south of Cambridge. It’s a development hub, so we all knew about each other, and I’d known about David [Braben, Frontier’s legendary founder] from when I first got my Spectrum, playing Elite on it. Everyone at our age was influenced by that game but I was actually more influenced by another Braben game called Zarch. It was a polygon game but it had real-time particles, light source shading, real-time generated shadows. It was an absolute technical tour de force, so much so that it influenced me to do my masters in computer science, because I was just so interested in graphical programming.”

Little did Watts know that, only several years after he left university he would begin working with his development hero. He reminisces about the earliest days of the studio‘s history, when the studio was based out of a farm in the Cambridgeshire countryside with just ten staff to its name. “My first memory was going through the door – it was all open plan – and seeing David with a microphone doing chicken sounds for some of the proto sound effects in Dog’s Life,” he says, laughing. Braben’s chicken impression was just for the placeholders, but there’s no doubt it’s uncanny. “You saw a very human side to a very friendly company,” Watts continues. “It was very technologically advanced, but if something needed doing we’d all muck in.”

The expansion from ten staff to now over 400 has taken many years, but the studio still retains the DNA of that startup. Elite, co-developed by David Braben and Ian Bell, along with Zarch and Virus were created before Braben founded Frontier Developments. The studio was born out of a desire to make a wider range of games and to make them faster, rather than spend five or six years in a single development cycle. Establishing Frontier allowed Braben to hire like-minded individuals that brought ideas to the table, in order to create a collaborative space where, as Watts puts it, “the egos are left at the door”.

Fast forward 25 years and Watts is still sat just a short way from Braben’s desk at Frontier’s brand new office premises – a pristine multi-level labyrinth of glass and steel that houses the 400+ strong team, all of which are working on their own individual projects. From the talented group still developing updates and expansions for Elite Dangerous, to the developers that are still adding content and new ideas to Jurassic World Evolution. Frontier continues to update its existing games heavily with new ideas and content, but that’s not to say it isn’t busy at work on future unannounced projects that span far into the future. What‘s perhaps most impressive is that the team has retained the spark and soul that made it such a brilliant upstart back in the early nineties.

The highly acclaimed Planet Coaster gives players limitless freedom to build rides and scenery piece by piece, with advanced management simulation gameplay and a connected global village where everyone can share in the creativity of players around the world.

Fired up by new technologies It must’ve been an alien prospect to think about back in 1994, when Braben and his team were hard at work in their tiny studio on a Cambridgeshire farm. But the technological power of Elite and its resounding popularity paved the way for a studio that relied on powerful, advanced proprietary technology to create some of the most believable worlds in video games. “David is a man who, along with Ian Bell, built an entire galaxy on the comparably unpowered BBC Micro, before creating Zarch for the Acorn Archimedes,” Watts says. “It wasn’t a big gaming machine, at all, but it fascinated him because of how powerful it was and what he could do with it. He did similar with Darxide for the 32x, which wasn‘t really well-supported by third parties but he looked at the technology and thought ‘I bet I can do some really crazy stuff with the technology in here’ Sure enough, it‘s one of the most technically advanced games on 32x.”

You can trace this trend all the way through Frontier’s history – instances where the company just saw an exciting piece of new technology and got fired up about it, using the bleeding edge advancements in hardware to enhance the game experience. And not just doing it for visual‘s sake, but learning how to leverage the machines to make the experience even more visceral, real, believable and authentic. With time the games machines themselves have, of course, become more advanced, with storage space and memory reading capacity increasing to the point where games can render enormous 3D environments, improve graphical fidelity to resolutions like 4K, not to mention feature more voice work, deeper simulations and much more. Features like shadow technology all sound like obvious and even boring, unimpressive staples of modern games nowadays, but the team at Frontier has been one of those driving this technology forward for 25 years, always revolutionising and always innovating.

A galaxy like no other Elite Dangerous is perhaps the purest example of this, taking the core components established with the original Elite and using Frontier’s newly expanded, talented team to build a modern 1:1 recreation of the entire Milky Way galaxy. It is, at its very core, a natural evolution of the game created in 1984, its enormous scale and detail made technically possible by the many advancements that Frontier has made since then. At the heart of it is a team who bring untold levels of talent to the process.

“The guys who did the stellar forge – the way we calculate the galaxies from real scientific data – one has a PhD in astrophysics, and one did astronomy in university,” Watts says. “There’s maybe five people in the whole country, in the world, who could do that, who have the strange crossover between a degree in astrophysics and a degree in computer programming, an interest in video games, and an interest in Elite. And of course David has his Cambridge science degree. A lot of us have science backgrounds. We’re, at worst, amateur enthusiasts. At best we’re actually pretty clued up people who have an absolute passion for the subjects we work on. We’re still reading, researching, looking at articles, stimulated by it.”

Elite Dangerous is a wonderful melding of passion and intelligence, and one of the the largest video game worlds ever created. It boasts a scale unlike few others, but the magic of Frontier is that there is depth and detail to match the scale. Not only can you gawp at the macro features of the game; faster-than-light travelling across the galaxy, zipping close to distant stars, landing in space stations and rovering around the rugged, rocky surface of exoplanets; you can also invest hundreds if not thousands of hours into role-playing in an interconnected universe that rewards your intelligence. Players can communicate, trade and fight with one another; team up and explore distant star systems; invest and sell trading goods in an ever changing economic world; create clans that fight it out for territorial control of the many segments of this galactic world. There is politics, economics and real struggle in this universe. It’s not just huge – it’s believable. “It feels very real,” Watts says, “and when you’re in it you feel very vulnerable.”

Authenticity and real science The two other of Frontier’s most recent games – Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution – follow similar trends, creating worlds that are believable despite being completely different to galaxy sized space role-playing games. Planet Coaster revels in a beautiful, charming and gentle aesthetic that welcomes you into its colourful simulations and lets you spend dozens of hours creating your dream theme parks. But hidden under the hood are complex codes and authentic simulations all based on the real life flow systems utilised in actual theme parks. Watts himself is an avid theme park enthusiast, regularly visiting parks across the UK and beyond to get his roller coaster thrills with his two daughters, and it’s an intense passion that clearly comes through in the finished games.

“My favourite theme park is – and this is really hard – Disneyland,” Watts says, explaining how the team had the chance to build a 1:1 recreation of the original Disneyland, in Anaheim, which happens to be the only theme park Walt Disney saw before his death. It was re-created for Disneyland Adventures and Frontier captured the sights and sounds of this original landmark down to the most minute of idiosyncrasies. “We were so committed to authenticity. When you feature a Disney princess from the 60s or 70s we had to use, where possible, the original stars. That kind of detail really did transport you into that magical world.”

“Disneyland is a strange place because once you go there, all your troubles just evaporate. I went there with my 18 and 20 year-old daughters and I‘m suddenly a dad again rather than the person giving them a lift back from the pub or something,” he says. “It‘s a wonderful place. And I really like the theming in parks. It transports me to another world. Again, it goes back full circle to another believable world.”

This hidden authenticity enforces the realism and believability of Planet Coaster, despite the otherwise cartoon looks. It’s an approach that allows Frontier’s game to further stand the test of time simply because the foundations themselves are built on real science. It’s not surface entertainment that relies entirely on the graphics or the characters, instead utilising the real world information that’s baked into the very code itself.

In Jurassic World Evolution players take charge of operations on the legendary islands of the Muertes archipelago and bring the wonder, majesty and danger of dinosaurs to life.

Dinosaurs and Kinect experiments As for Jurassic World Evolution, the real life science is less concrete simply because of the 65 million year old nature of the creatures in question, but it’s “unbelievably authentic to the films,” Watts says. “We’re using the original actors, the things that have been derived from the films and the books. There’s actually a bit of zoology in there; the genetics, going back to my zoology degree. We use science and reality and authenticity to make things believable. We have so much accuracy in our games, and everything we do we want to have this grounding. We had a guy called Dr Jack Horner, and he was a consultant paleontologist on the Jurassic films back in the day, actually working with Michael Crichton. We asked him to come over [to talk about the game] and I like to think he didn’t do it just because of the paycheque, but because he saw that we had a passion, and an intelligence, and a dedication to doing these things.”

Frontier doesn’t just limit that adventurous and authentic approach to scientific accuracy to its software. Many of its hardware experiments have similar traits, including the Kinect experiments that it embarked on in the mid noughties with the Xbox 360, when the team was still partnered with publisher Microsoft. What makes this all fundamentally possible is Cobra, the studio’s own game engine, which it has been consistently and steadily updating for many years. Rich Newbold has been the Executive Producer at Frontier for a while now, joining over 10 years ago. “Cobra is constantly evolving and growing,” he says. “It has a dedicated code team working on improving it as well as us generating new technology for each game and merging that into it. On Kinectimals, we developed technology to improve our animation system to allow a more usable way to use state machines and logic on a character. This then got developed more and more with Kinect Disneyland Adventures and again with Zoo Tycoon, Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution. The constant improvements to the render system for each release feeds back into Cobra and we then use that in the new projects. We‘re always looking to develop and re-use the core technologies across our projects. It’s a huge asset to have such a flexible engine in-house.”

The entire brief for Kinectimals was to create animals that look, sound and feel alive to the players. It was a challenge that Frontier relished as it had the chance to bring its creativity into even more physical environments, connecting cute animals on the screen with players in the real world. It hadn’t really been done before – at least not in such a mainstream way – and Frontier was the mastermind behind the code and tech that would give Kinectimals a real sense of life to the players.

“Even though [the animals] are beautifully cute, the AI behind them is super sophisticated,” Watts says. “There’s something like 500, 600, 700 animations on there, all reacting to make that animal feel alive.” The expertise the team built up animating the animals in A Dog’s Life proved beneficial for the work on Kinectimals. “I remember doing a Dog’s Life lecture at Bournemouth university,” Watts continues. “One of the students came up with a question – he said, ‘are those animals alive?’ A few seconds later I realised it was the first time he’d seen an animal on a computer game screen that was reacting in an organic, non-repetitive way. There’s a lot of attention to detail that stands the test of time.

“The thing I was most proud of was the subtle things that we did; the way you move your head, the way you move your body, the animal would react and position itself to you,” he continues. “If you didn‘t do anything, the animal would try and get your attention. It was always monitoring you. It was always trying to stimulate you to do something and that‘s what I was quite interesting in with Kinect – we can obviously do the clever stuff where you throw a ball [but] it’s what we can do behind the scenes which made those animals come alive. To be honest, it‘s what Kinect did the best; interpret what you could do behind the scenes. We also did something which I thought was really cool in Zoo Tycoon with Kinect. We wanted to do animal enrichment with chimpanzees. And what was really good is that you could move your face and move and blink and the chimpanzee would come up to the screen and mimic you. That‘s what they try doing in real life. What‘s even better is when it didn‘t quite work, you thought – and this is the illusion of game creation – that the chimpanzee was being a bit cheeky even though it might not have recognised it. That was really subtle. It was really interesting to see people properly interact with human natural movement with essentially what is an AI ability.”

With Kinectimals Frontier succeeded in creating virtual animals that felt, sounded and looked alive to players.

Military doctrine and a DIY approach The same too goes for VR, which the studio invested in heavily for Elite Dangerous. Again, earlier work stood the team in good stead – Frontier had already worked in secret on software for Microsoft’s Hololens. The goal was to create one of the most immersive virtual reality experiences available. In many ways it was the perfect fit – a beautiful, expansive world in which you remain stationary as a player, controlling a moving vehicle without having to move your own body. It dodges the usual problems associated with VR – namely, the gimmicky tacked-on movement controls that mean virtual reality shooters or sports games are nigh on impossible to get right. In Elite, you control your spaceship from the cockpit, but are treated to the immense scale and scope of a space game.

“If you launch in a Lakon ship – they‘re with the ones that have a glass bottom – you come out of the station and look down and you almost have a sense of vertigo,” Watts says. “When I‘ve really got the lights turned down, I almost feel like I‘m insignificant in the world and I‘m just trying to make my way. That was really cool.”

“The second thing from a combat point-of-view; in combat you have an amazing competitive advantage. That‘s why all the canopies are glass – because when you are in VR, if a spaceship goes over the top of your craft, you can move your head and look at them. This is military doctrine – in dogfighting, he who sees first wins and really the absolute premise is that we wanted to get dogfighting to be absolutely as visceral as possible and as accurate. What‘s really interesting is in space, if we were really being super accurate, in space you‘d be going so fast that dogfighting wouldn‘t [really work]. All the best space games mess around with speed to make it more akin to World War Two. There was quite a lot of research in combat, which facilitated the use of VR and that‘s why it‘s an amazing experience, because it‘s not just a mechanism to make you feel part of the world, it gives you a competitive advantage in a very large component of the game.”

Kickstarting Frontier’s success Frontier has always had a DIY approach to its development, typically finding and hiring the right people for the job – rollercoaster experts, astrophysicists and more. It’s created a studio that has a wonderful camaraderie that encourages collaboration, and which allows them to go all in on projects. However, it was the transition to being self-published and fully independent that allowed them to take those risks to the next level, making decisions based on what the studio as an entity wanted to embark on, and not being beholden to outside influences. Digital distribution was the catalyst that made all of that possible.

“In the old days, you release your cassette or your 3.5“ disk and never update it,” Watts says. “Maybe, just maybe, you‘d get another disk as a cover disk on a magazine to do a critical flaw but now we‘re distributing digitally and being independent, we can make decisions and keep telling more stories. It‘s fantastic.”

It’s generally regarded that Elite Dangerous was Frontier’s first real self-published game, but in fact it was LostWinds that paved the way for Frontier’s future. “The beautiful thing about Lost Winds is it‘s highly acclaimed, won awards, people really liked it,” Watts says. “It had a beautiful vibe but it was a game that we started and finished without any publisher involved. But publishers can be very helpful. When you make a game, I think there needs to be a little bit of antagonism like in The Beatles, you need someone to critique what you have done to make it better and not settle for second best. We had to fulfill both roles and be our own harshest critics.”

The happiness clearly inspired the team to push further towards full autonomy over their own destiny. Toward the end of 2012, the team unveiled the aforementioned Kickstarter program for Elite Dangerous, which was one of the most successful crowd-funding projects of the time. It propelled Frontier forward and gave them an answer to the question that Braben, Watts and the other senior team members had been asking themselves: is Elite still relevant? Does it still retain the popularity to be a big hit?

Fast-forward five or six years and it’s a model that Frontier adopts for all of its games. “It’s good from a profit point of view, but we also engage directly with players,” says Watts. “We know what they want and it’s an amazing partnership. One of the things that people say that when you self publish it’s so good because you can do what you want and haven’t got this external producer – when we had the Elite Dangerous kickstarter we had 20,000 external producers. They were our conscience. We had exactly the same goals, obviously different ways of getting to those goals, but they really stimulated us to do better. What was really good about it was that it was sort of a validation for our idea. It gave us such confidence to make the game that we all wanted.”

Elite Dangerous is continually evolving, adding new features, narrative and in-game content with each new season.

A clear vision for the future The transition itself was made possible by learning from their excellent working relationship with major publishers like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Frontier had always had a fantastic game-making ability from the beginning, but there’s a whole host of other things involved in releasing and selling a video game rather than just producing it on the creative side. Frontier learned a huge amount about maintaining quality, and all the nuances of how publishing works, from working with publishers in the decades prior. “We had such an amazing relationship that [publishers] were very open with us,” Watts says, “and we had insight into the other half of releasing a game. We spent thousands and thousands of hours understanding that and being exposed by these very gracious yet demanding publishers, and that really trained us.”

When the Elite Dangerous Kickstarter was launched, Frontier‘s publishing team was a team of no one. A few years later and that publishing team is over 35 people strong, complete with dedicated product managers, graphics artists, trailer editors, a dedicated community team and its own in-house PR and Marketing teams. The entire company approached publishing very seriously, and dedicated a lot of resources to making the publishing side of the business successful, ramping it up at such an incredible rate. Over the last 25 years the studio has gone from the Cambridgeshire farm, to a single space on the Science Park industrial park, to three individual offices on the Science Park, to its own space on the Science Park. It‘s remarkable.

“We‘re still really friendly with the people that we dealt with,” Watts says. “It‘s quite interesting that when we released Elite Dangerous on Xbox, it was like dealing with old friends again. Microsoft, Sony, whoever we work with knew that we were obviously super professional and hit our deadlines and our budgets, but our quality would always exceed. We exceeded it because we are so passionate about making games. In some way, it was never a development issue transitioning. Yes, we can develop games, but guess what: we can also sell them and we can communicate with our players, we can communicate with the world, we get our story out.”

“The relationships we have across every single component of what it takes to get a game out there has grown magnificently. We‘re a super professional company and I think we managed our transition so well on so many levels. Again, I just think that from where I am sitting, I think it‘s an absolute pleasure to be in the games industry. Between developers and publishers we all know how hard it is to make a game, we know how much passion we put into a game and we‘re all working together. It‘s just a really nice industry.”

As for the future, it looks very bright for Frontier. There’s still the passion and love for video games that existed 25 years ago, only now it’s distilled, straight from the makers themselves without any middle men. What you see is what you get, and it seeps into every aspect of the games – from development to PR and community events. “We still approach games in a very similar way,” Watts says, “and the passion that I put into Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is 100 percent [the same level of] passion I put into Planet Coaster. We‘ve grown so much and over the last few years it‘s just this on-going process. Now we‘re relying on our own IP.”

The team are understandably tight-lipped on what’s next, not ready to reveal whatever creative, ingenious project they’re cooking up behind the scenes. No doubt it’ll be something packed with detail, and rich with a British soul. But Frontier is quick to reassure that there’s still an ongoing commitment to the many games they’ve already got out there in the world – Watts himself is still excited about all of them, and they fit exactly into the creatively unique, technologically challenging framework that they want to achieve at Frontier.

The timeline of Frontier Developments

1994 David Braben had actually been making games since 1983, so he was almost a decade into his development career by the time he founded Frontier Developments. It was a monumental time, with Frontier’s first actual game being the CD32 port of Frontier: Elite II. Braben’s own older games – Zarch and the original Elite (created with Ian Bell) – are considered archival Frontier titles. While they weren’t made under the Frontier name, they influenced the studio’s output and are part of its DNA even today.

2004 It was ten years into Frontier’s life and the team had a huge success with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. It was a much loved theme park simulation game, and one that sold well over 10 million copies worldwide, making it Frontier’s best-selling game to date. Thanks to the studio’s hard work, it was also a technologically bold game with graphical settings that stretched the most powerful graphics cards of the era. That meant that the game itself had a very long shelf life and didn’t begin looking dated until long after release.

2008 LostWinds acted as one of Frontier’s experimental games, letting the team dip its toes into the water and see how self-published games could be made and marketed. Originally released on the Nintendo Wii, the popularity of LostWinds saw it later ported to iOS and later to PC for a wider player base to experience. It isn’t the most well-known of Frontier’s 30 or so games, but it’s arguably one of the most important in its transition to a fully independent studio.

2014 While 2014 marked the official release of Elite Dangerous, the game’s story starts much earlier. In 2012 the studio embarked on a Kickstarter project to fund the game’s development. It was a resounding success, with players desperate to get a new, modern version of the much-loved space franchise. It also marked the real turning point in Frontier’s history, launching the studio onto the stock market and capitalising on the upticking trend of digital distribution to create a fully independent studio. It’s a model that’s made Frontier and several other studios like it a great success.

2018 Jurassic World Evolution saw the many lessons learned with the success of Elite Dangerous applied to a widespread release across multiple platforms. Whereas Elite Dangerous had a staggered launch across PS4, Xbox and PC, Jurassic World Evolution was released on all three at once. While the team worked with Universal on several parts of the project, it was developed and published by Frontier themselves. When it released last year it fast became the team’s best launch of all time, selling one million copies in just five weeks.

Wolfgang Fischer

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