#or teaching ruth to ride a bike

[with-eyes-closed]

George, meanwhile, hated the Removes as Paul had done twelve months before. It was demeaning to be lumped in with boys a year younger. As he put it with characteristic brevity, "I did one day in Mike McCartney's class and then I thought fuck this and went over the railings."

Tune In - The Beatles: All These Years Vol 1 by Mark Lewisohn, page 188

[halfagone]

I had a sudden idea here:

The two most common Ghost Core types given to Danny in fanfics:

Ice core

vs

Electricity core

But what if he had neither of those and yet both at once?

What if Danny has a Storm Core, which gives him the power to rain down ice and call upon the biggest lightning storms?

Amity Park has never experienced a full Summer day ever since the portal. The hottest days of summer should've been sweltering, right? (No really, am I right? I'm not from America, so correct me if I'm wrong)

Except nowadays, it feels like the worst Summer will ever get is a particularly hot Spring day, where you maybe throw on a t-shirt and comfy denim over your swimsuit and go to the beach or pool.

And last time there was a particularly nasty storm coming their way, it seemingly faded and vanished, only to appear on the other side of town and leaving Amity unscathed. After all, a cyclone will fade upon meeting an opposing cyclone that seems to spin against it. And Danny has always been very good at going up against forces of Nature, and forcing them to yield, or at least coming to a draw.

Ember might've also one time referred to him as an "oncoming storm of ass-kicking"

The day Danny calls on a tornado to trap her and her fire attacks in the eye of it's razor winds, the ghosts come to understand she was more on point that anyone expected.

Technus gets his ass zapped by a bolt of lightning like Thor calling down his judgement (or, as he said later, "like Pikachu on crack") and it leaves him short-circuiting for a good while, like when the light goes out for a bit and suddenly your wifi has to be rebooted to make it work again. Later, he begrudgingly teaches him to better channel electricity. Danny's first Technus-inspired move is a real-life Thunder Fang. And he used it against Vlad.

And, since I adore the headcanon that the Ancients collectively adopt Danny, Pandora starts calling him her "little storm"

I kinda wanna have him end up dating both Kitty and Johny, as a whole thing where they both dated him at separate times, but both times he was the best goddamn date they ever had asides from being each other's soulmates, and now they're having FEELINGS for him, so Kitty has the idea of both of them sitting down with Jazz, since she's the local feelings expert, and she whacks them with a rolled up magazine, but they both end up together asking out Danny.

And I'm imagining he's more influenced by them than he would admit, because he got himself a bike like Johnny, and started taking tips from Sam, and has more leather stuff and goth fashion than he'll ever tell anyone about, especially because the heavy fabrics are great to wear on a bike.

Kitty ping-pongs between who's bike she hitches a ride on. And I'm betting she was a huge fan of books, while Johny loved Greek mythology (yes, I'm saying Johnny was a Percy Jackson fan as a kid). Which means that their affectionate nickname for Danny is "Typhon", for the Greek Titan of storms.

(Ignore how my brain keeps yelling at me that Danny would call them "Kitty Cat" and "Barghest". I imagine Barghest for Johny because of Shadow, who starts hanging out more and more as a puppy because of Cujo, except Shadow prefers a hanging out as a shaggy hound ((imagine Ruth from Ancient Magus Bride)) and that's exactly what a Barghest is.)

Ooh, that's a really interesting idea! Danny has been shown to control the weather after the Vortex incident in "Torrents of Terror" so you've even got some canon backing to this! (As for weather in America, it really depends where you live? It's commonly headcanoned that Amity Park is in Illinois, and the temperature on average across the state in the summer is in the 80°s Fahrenheit or ~26.667° Celsius, but there have been records of summers reaching to the hundreds in Fahrenheit, although it doesn't happen often.)

It'd be really cool to see Danny both consciously and subconsciously altering weather events. I really like the idea of Danny being able to control the weather, especially if he does it so casually while others are looking on with their eyes bugging out of their sockets in shock. Because controlling the weather is no easy feat (Storm from X-Men? OP as fuck). Aww, "little storm", love that nickname. A little ball of ferocious energy. Like an angry chihuahua.

It might not be a cyclone, because Amity Park isn't near the coast even if you don't headcanon it in Illinois specifically. But parts of Illinois and the Midwest are in what's called "Tornado Alley", so it still technically would work, it would just probably not be a cyclone but a tornado. Unless it's Vortex up to his tricks again, but then it wouldn't be a naturally occurring- Sorry, tangent, but you get the idea.

If you've read lex luthor's ascent, then you know I like the idea of Danny dating both Kitty and Johnny at some point, but why not both at once? Polyamory coming in for the win! Hopefully Danny can keep these two from constantly arguing tho... Honestly, I just adore the possibilities of dynamics between these three (especially if Danny is stuck as 14- physically at least- as many AUs will have him, he can be with his also eternally young partners and not have it draw much attention from strangers). "Barghest" is a really interesting nickname and- after doing some more research- I can see why you chose it for Johnny, particularly with Shadow in mind.

A Storm core AU is really cool. I like Space core AUs as well, because there are a lot of weather events that could be caused by astronomical phenomena and it ties really well with Danny's love for space, but I think this is the first time I've ever heard of a Storm core for Danny. It would explain why Danny took to Vortex's power really well/easy, and while canon is really more of a suggestion to Danny Phantom fans at this point, I still really appreciate the neat tie-in it can offer.

Thank you for sharing this with me!! I'm glad others share my love for Danny/Johnny 13/Kitty, in any of its forms. (Mostly, forms that appreciate both their characters for all their faults.) Thanks for making me day a little brighter, and I hope you have a great day!

[storytella-bella]

The Joy of Life Challenge S2 - #1

Aspen has just unpacked his stuff in his new dorm room! He of course had to have all his photos of his best friends hanging up, except for his ex, obvs.

Shortly after that, his housemates came to say hello.

This is Lucinda O'Gallagher. She is currently majoring in Culinary Arts, just like Aspen! She's childhood best friends with a fellow housemate, who you'll meet shortly.

This is Lorcan Alexander. He is majoring in biology, in the hopes of becoming an athlete. He is, of course, on the UBrite athletics team, but he also has an interest in music, particularly piano.

He introduced himself and got to know his housemates a little more.

Then he met Annika!

This is Annika Grant. She is best friends with Lucinda, and she's majoring in Art History. She is very creative, but is also really good at parenting / teaching.

Aspen & Annika played on the gaming sytem that Aspen brought from home.

There's also an amazing outdoor area at this student housing!

He took a bike ride to the UBrite kiosk to buy a text book, he sure has the money for one due to his scholarships! It was such a beautiful day for him to stop for a coffee, too.

When Aspen got home, he saw that Lorcan was doing homework, and decided to join him.

After his homework was complete, he was feeling a little peckish. He decided that making a meal for his new roomates would totally help them all get along!

He got to cooking, and Lorcan joined in helping him cook (as much as he could).

It was almost like his family meals back home, except with people he didn't really know. But he's already getting to know them more and more, and he's excited for the friendships that could come of this!

Before bed, he gave his parents a ring, telling them how he's settled in already, and is excited to start class the next day.

The next morning, Aspen did some laundry and made himself cereal, and he maxed the cooking skill!! He was such a natural at cooking, AND had April as a mother, so, I'm honestly not surprised he's maxed it already.

Then, he got a text from Eleni. Clearly, Sophia told Eleni about the breakup, and Eleni quickly told Aspen that she didn't like the way he went about it.

Then, I discovered that Aspen's roomate won the lottery?! §1,000,000 BTW!!!

The rest of the day went like this:

Wren payed Aspen a visit! How cute! Aspen went to the UBrite commons after taking notes in class, and got himself a meal.

Then, he saw a sim that he kinda fancied...

Her name is Ruth Logan, a drama major. And they seem pretty damn compatible.

(I didn't have Jade from victorious in mind when I made her but, that's what she ended up reminding me of, lol!)

He talked to her, asking about her degree and getting to know her etc. and even autonomously flirted with her.. 👀

I'd say he's had a pretty successful first two days!!

[scarlettwriter91]

Date - March 17, 2022

Full Name - Beauregard Matthew Anderson

Reason or meaning of name? Fair regard + Gift of God

Nickname? Beau

Reason for nickname? Short for Beauregard

Race? White

Occupation/class? Farmer and Youth Pastor

Physical Appearance

Age: 26    How old does he appear? 28

Eye Color? Stormy blue     Glasses or contacts? Neither

Hair Color? Brown   Style? short

Weight? 225        Height? 6’1

Type of body/build? Athletic/lean

Skin tone? Tan    Skin Type? Normal

Shape of face? Long face, wide cheekbones, square chin

Distinguishing marks? none 

Freckles: no  Moles? No  Scars? Long scar on right leg from accident

Predominant Feature? Intense eyes

Face claim? Scott Eastwood

Is he healthy? Yes

Favorites

Favorite Color? Green

Least favorite Color? Pink

Why? He thinks he’s too manly *Agressively rolls eyes*

Favorite Music? Country

Least favorite music? He doesn’t have a least favorite

Why? he likes them all

Food? Burgers

Literature? Hatchet

Expressions? NA

Expletives: This would imply that he says a lot   

Mode of Transportation: Old red Ford truck that he got hand-me-down from Wesley

Daredevil or cautious? Daredevil

Same when alone? Yes

Habits? Running hands through hair. Biting nails (but he’s getting better with that)

Hobbies? Working on the car. Horseback riding. Camping. Archery.

How does he spend a rainy day? Sitting on the porch

Background

Hometown: Decatur, Tennessee

Type of childhood? Happy. Normal?

First Memory? Wesley cleaning his scraped knee after he wrecked his bike

Most important childhood event that still affects her? The accident

Why? Tommy died

Education? Small town public school 

Religion? Christian

Finances: They get by

Family

Mother: Ruth Anderson

Relationship with her: Close

Father: James Anderson

Relationship with him: Very Close though they often butt heads

Siblings: brothers

How many? 2   Birth order? Wesley, Tommy, Beau

Relationship with each: He was always closer with Tommy and the age difference between him and Wesley strained things, but they are getting closer the older they get.

Children of siblings? Wesley- Tj, Amy and Gracie. Tommy - Unknown Son

Extended family? James’ parents are still alive

Close? Not really   Why or why not? They are somewhat estranged

Attitude:

Most at ease when? Riding his horse

Ill at ease when? Being a passenger in a car

Priorities: God, the youth group, the farm

How he feels about himself? Confident but sometimes feels like he doesn’t measure up

Past failure he would be embarrassed if people know about? Not a failure but he’d be embarrassed if anyone found out he had a crush on Anna as a kid

If granted one wish, what would it be? To have never left his room that night.

Personality:

Greatest Strength: Leading

Greatest Weakness: Being too hard on himself

Soft Spot: sob stories

Is this soft spot obvious to others? Yes

Biggest vulnerability: Letting anyone find out that he has PTSD

Traits:

Optimist or pessimist: Pessimist

Introvert or extrovert: Introvert

Drives and motivations: 

Talents: Music, building things

Extremely skilled at? Piano

Extremely unskilled at? Anything, absolutely anything, involving heights

Good Characteristics: Honest, protective, strong-willed, polite

Character flaws: Stubborn, short-tempered, unwilling to open himself up to anyone

Mannerisms: Not looking at people when he’s feeling overwhelmed. 

Peculiarities: 

Biggest Regret: Everything that happened the night of the accident

Minor regrets: Spending so much time being angry. Putting his parents through so much

Biggest accomplishment: his life, exactly how it is right now.

Minor accomplishments: Graduating high school. Teaching TJ how to hotwire the tractor. 

Darkest Secret: That he almost committed suicide 

Does anyone else know? Yes

If yes, did he tell them? No

[supersonic-darling]

Dad Van Fleet - Headcanons

The boys as dads, as requested by Anon! 

I like imagining them as dads sometimes but I get that some of you don’t, hence why its under the bar.

Josh

Josh is a fun dad, I can imagine him being really good with small kids

Like you wake up and walk into the kitchen, and Josh is there with your baby in a high chair, doing airplane noises with his breakfast

He sees the joy in everything so I can imagine he can’t get enough of your babies’ giggles

He’s always kissing their chubby little cheeks and it makes your heart explode

Josh seems to be quite family orientated (I think I read somewhere he’ always the one to ring home) so I think he’d want to give your kids family names

But their middle names would totally be something nature related; like, Kelly Aspen Kiszka

You’d definitely go on family hikes

I can imagine Josh wearing a papoose with your kid in it constantly taking group selfies with matching smiles

Whether you have one or more kids Josh is going to be that dad with so much energy all the time that he can keep them all entertained all the time

And when you get home in the afternoon Josh is asleep on the sofa, mouth open; with baby on his chest and any other kids you have scattered around the room, also asleep

Jake

I can imagine Jake inadvertently having a lot of kids (… like his dad)

He always has his hair tied up around the house because your babies grab at it

He’s always got a weird stain on his shirt and he never knows where it comes from – and those eye bags … permanent

Jake loves being a dad but he also loves dropping your kids off with Uncle Josh for the weekend and sleeping

A bit like Josh, Jake is always taking you guys camping in the summer

He’s good at teaching them practical skills, like tying ropes and cooking

Also you cannot convince me that he doesn’t start giving them instruments to play with as soon as they can hold a spoon

I think Jake would name his kids something traditional or related to someone he admires eg; Thomas James ‘Jimi’ Kiszka

Falls asleep next to his kids bed, holding their hand, when he’s reading to them or when they’re sick and he goes to sit with them, its so cute but you have to wake him up because he’ll get a stiff neck sleeping like that

‘One black coffee’ Dad

Danny

Simultaneously Traditional and Hippy!Dad

Definitely names his kids something traditional but is up for more nature related names like Robin or Willow

Gets them novelty onsies about Drums or Golf

His hair is in a permanent very high bun, ever since your baby grabbed a tiny fistful of his curls and tugged so hard his eyes watered

Loves blowing raspberries on their tummies because he can’t get enough of their giggles

When they play together (because they’d have the same relationship he did with his sister) he wraps his arms around your waist from behind and watches them with you

Always playing outside with his kids – his tall lanky frame flailing about trying to catch his kids

Teaches them to ride bikes, swim, play golf (obviously)

When they’re babies he has a papoose which he straps to his chest when you guys go out, its just incredibly cute to see your tiny human strapped to his broad chest

You walk in on them one day and he’s bench pressing your five year old

You all get matching jumpers every year for Christmas… his mum sends them to you

Sam

Has an oops baby, especially the first one, it definitely wasn’t planned

Full on laid back dad – he doesn’t mind what they want to do, as long as they don’t seriously injure themselves

You name them after role models (*see Ruth Bader Ginsberg)

You guys go and do things like pick litter at the beach or go on kids nature courses like looking at sea life in rock pools and things

Occasionally he remembers to go and visit his family and the car journey is when he really regrets his life choices

Because his kids are just as loud and crazy as he is and he’s definitely going to apologise to his mum when he gets there

His kids look so much like him its almost as if you could stack them all together like Russian dolls

When they’re babies he’s always taking photos of them with your dogs, they learn to walk by holding onto their backs and puling themselves up

When you leave them alone for the day you will come back to your child dressed either in a costume or just absolutely insanely

You guys troll your families with ridiculous family Christmas cards; like ones where you’re photoshopped at a cliff edge you climbed and Sam is throwing your baby in the air – anything that looks almost believable but isn’t real.

[johns-prince]

Waaaait, I didnt hear about John teaching Ruth riding a bike 😍

Mm! Yes, he did! @novakflower has more of the details, she’s like one of our Beatles/Mclennon historian/researcher! 

But yes, he did, Ruth remembers so, of “Uncle” John helping her learn how to ride her bicycle; she remembers him being fun, crazy, and “a bit manipulative” towards Paul, but that he was a good person and she missed him. 

[shakespearcean]

hello hello!! i hope everyone is doing great!! congrats on making it through the first full week of 2020!! and welcome back to saturday night reviews.

as always, before we get started, i just want to make a little disclaimer. everything i say in this review is purely my own opinion. i don’t hate any of the authors i review; writing a book is hard work and i admire them for doing it. all the comments i make are from my point of view and i do not mean to offend anyone.

this week we’re doing into the magic shop by james r. doty. my friend was traveling over the holidays and they chose this as their in-flight entertainment and sent me quotes, and i loved them so much that i decided i had to read the full book. 

did i not know exactly what it was when i borrowed it? yes. do i think of the bts song every time i look at the title? yes. but did i enjoy it? read on to find out!!

Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart. Doty would go on to put Ruth’s practices to work with extraordinary results—power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.

(summary taken from goodreads)

my final rating is: 4/5 stars

this is a non-fiction book, which judging by the title, i didn’t expect. i don’t generally like non-fiction. this isn’t a diss to the genre - i’ve read incredibly interesting non-fiction books - but i find it very hard to get into. i never had that problem with this book.

even though this is non-fiction, one of the things i enjoy the most is james doty’s storytelling. as an autobiography, obviously, it’s focused on stories from the past. doty manages to make these stories interesting and entertaining, with his own insights from his current point in life and insights into what he was thinking at that point in life. 

one of the things i enjoyed most was ruth’s notes. after the end of every part (if i remember correctly) doty gives us the notes on what ruth had talked about or what he had elaborated on in the previous chapter. learning more about meditation techniques with little insights from someone in the medical field made the whole thing ten times more interesting, and i enjoyed doing the exercises. 

please feel free to let me know what you think of this book, and this review series!! are you a nonfiction fan?? 

see you next week!!

[momtemplative]

One-Act Play

1.

It was the summer of 2004. I was living at 940 North Street in Boulder, in the strange kind of rental property you can only get away with in your twenties. It was dilapidated and half-swallowed by shrubbery, but also rustic and quaint, a slice of woods in the middle of town. (A raccoon had babies in my ski boots out back.) It was few blocks from the mountains and a few more blocks to Pearl Street. I used to ride a hand-me-down bike that was heavy as wrought-iron down to the Trident Coffee Shop on Pearl Street and pretend I was a “real” writer. 

(I parked and tripped over the very same bike during the very same summer to greet my buddy, Lisa, and her friend, Jesse, who were enjoying a drink at an outside table at the Corner Bar. That was the first time I met Jesse, and the summer of 2004 is when our romance began. But that story is for a different day.) 

I had just quit my job after a year of working as a receptionist at a chiropractic office. I’d had it with a passive-aggressive boss and no growth potential. I was living with my former African drum teacher and his girlfriend. They ascribed fully to the phrase you-only-live-once and they buzzed with a sort of free-spiritedness that would make my mom cringe. So when I quit my (responsible if people-pleasing and self-sacrificing) job, fate had it so I was living with them, with their input that said, Good Riddance. Now what do you really want to do?

In a bold act of maternal generosity, my mom wrote me a check that covered tuition for the entire month of the Summer Writing Program at Naropa’s Jack Karoac School of Disembodied Poetics. (Naropa, a Buddhist college in Boulder, CO.) I signed up for one week with artist /dancer, Michelle Ellsworth, and used the extra on rent and groceries. (I’d been in Colorado for all of two years and I was barely able to make ends meet even before my new status of being unemployed.)

I picked Michelle randomly;  I liked her picture in the brochure. I can envision her now, as clearly as if I had a Fotomatic print of her in my hands. Clear blue eyes like crystals you hang in the window to shoot rainbow-slivers into the space. A wide, shiny smile. She spoke to our crowded class with a quick, giggly cadence, like the tick of a wound-up clock. Any details blur into the oblivion of non-essential memory, but her imprint, like that of a fossilized leaf on a river stone, hasn’t faded in the slightest.

2.

Our assignment was to write a one-act play about anything.

940 North was entirely furnished in one afternoon from the Habitat for Humanity Thrift store, and its décor was mostly provided by an old lady’s estate sale. I had emptied out the closet in my bedroom to make a writing nook. I had an ancient laptop and a borrowed printer. We definitely did NOT have Internet; I had to use the computers at the college for that. This was still an era where Internet could be used intermittently and intentionally—for checking email and other specific to-dos that required only a finite amount of time. This was before Internet was available and necessary for us to receive continuously and at a heavy drip.

I had not slacked. I didn’t procrastinate. To the contrary—I cleared my calendar for this assignment, took it way too seriously and tried WAY too hard. I wanted so badly to be awesome at this, but after two complete afternoons, I could barely pinch out a coherent sentence.

On the due date, Michelle said, “Ok, let’s go around and have everyone tell us about their play.”

Bla, bla, bla, blur, blur, everyone did their assignment, no problem, until the spotlight landed on me with, it seemed, the sound of brakes coming to a screeching halt. I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair.

“I didn’t finish it.” I said. I felt a clenching desire to fold up and hide. The back of my skull droned like the sudden onset of a fever.

She smiled without a fleck of irony. “Then tell me what you did instead.”

Okay...? So many eyes on me...”Honestly? I re-organized my closet. Then I stared at a blank screen.  Then I ate a bunch of potato chips. Then I typed a few words and printed a page, tossed it into the trash, hung out with my roommates and cleaned my toilet. It went on like that for hours, two full afternoons.”

“Well then that’s your play,” Michelle said, giddy with the proposal. “Anyone want to help Heather out with this one?” Four hands from four complete strangers shot up.

3.

Low, behold, later that week, the five of us lined up on stage like human-cogs in the grand machine that was to be our performance.

I, PERSON ONE: typed furiously on a typewriter, then I pulled out the paper and handed it to the person to my left. Then I started again, and it went on like this.

PERSON TWO: crumbled up the paper and threw it into a bucket of water, then put a hand out my way for another paper to crumple and dunk. Our movements were stiff and mechanical.

PERSON THREE: pulled the paper out of the bucket, squeezed it then smoothed it flat on a towel. Then she looked up to pretend-talk to an invisible person, while pulling another paper from the water.

PERSON FOUR: grabbed the wet paper from the towel and handed it to the next person.  Then he shoved a handful of potato chips from a bag open directly in front of him into his mouth, before grabbing and passing another one.

PERSON FIVE: placed the wet paper overtop a balloon that was held steady onto a table with tape, and then another wet paper and another.  

It went like this, a factory line going going going through at least six cycles, each of us doing our part to assemble a visual-thought from beginning to end, without fighting or judging—just reporting.

When the last piece of paper whizzed out of my typewriter and was handed to the next person, I froze. Then, each of the four remaining performers did their respective actions and froze, until PERSON FIVE was the only one moving. He plastered the final wet paper to the balloon and held it up for observation. Then the scene went dark, and, applause.

The idea that there is information (dare I say wisdom, creativity) in the non-doing, the over-doing, and everything in between, shattered my archaic notions of black-and-white thinking. It created grand pockets of space for curiosity to germinate. Curiosity— the grand antidote to perfectionism.

4.

I could not undo this teaching even if I tried. 

I pull it out now as a sort of valuable overlay to everyday life. It breathes oxygen into the mundane moments, and works as sort of a salve when shit doesn’t go as planned, which is the New Normal. Let the record show, I’ve had young kids in my life for the passed decade-plus, so I’m accustomed to lack of control. And yet, I’ve always also had certain chunks of the day when I was guaranteed some sense of command over my own actions. While Ruth was in preschool, 12 hours a week, I worked and did adult life, making choices that actually happened. At a bare minimum, I had that.

Now we are dwelling in the land of a thousand distractions, with no reprieve. There is no boat off this island. No departures in the near future. It often feels like the how the day unfolds is entirely up to some larger sources that I have utterly no influence on. Is Ruth in the mood to play independently for any stretch of time today? Is she up for watching a TV show while I do a little writing? Will she spend more than five minutes on an art project without descending into coloring her eyeballs with face paint or covering an entire palm in glitter glue? One never knows. One can only pray.

Truth: It took me an hour to write and send a three-line email this morning. The staggering disruptions became almost comical. Ruth fell down FOUR separate times. This is an extreme example, almost as if her nervous system could sense my focus was elsewhere and ran a smear campaign against Mom Completing Any Singular Task. But, if perhaps a lighter version, this is a typical day.

Before Michelle, I may have regarded these off-script moments as those of non-doing, small fails to wrestle with until I can get my “actual shit done.” But today I can see there is so much more there. Choices, aggravation, empathy, my physical body, the body of my wild-puppy preschooler, suppressed laughter, expressed laughter, suppressed annoyance, expressed annoyance—all are contained in these moderately priced moments.

Then you add a blizzard. In the last four days, we’ve gotten multiple feet of snow. The world is covered in a suffocating wool blanket, itchy and hard to breathe underneath. The snow outside—higher than the dog’s belly!!—squeezes us between the walls of this house, everything inside seems tighter and louder because of the outside’s sound-deadening insulation.

So there’s my one-act play for today.

[the-girl-in-the-band-tshirt]

You’re Killing Me, Swan - Chapter 1

You’re Killing Me, Swan

Rating: G

It’s reveal day! Woo! So, yes, the Sandlot AU fic is mine. I hope you all love it because I really enjoyed writing it!

The @fallforcs project is a marvelous idea, and it is wonderfully run. If it’s around next year, I’m in. It was an absolute delight to work with everyone.  @theonceoverthinker was my beta, and the universe must have intervened to match us up. She’s one of my greatest friends irl, and her vastly different takes on my story improved things. I wouldn’t have a piece to be proud of if not for her. I owe her more thank yous than I can get out. 

@sailingcaptainswan: Do you know how excited I was when I saw your name on my artwork?! Seeing that I got lucky enough to get another piece done by you made me ridiculously happy. You continue to be one of my favorite people ever, and I'm glad to hear you liked this even though baseball isn’t really your thing. Your artwork is just too cute! I smile every time I see it. It’s so well done. Thank you so much!!!

And now, Chapter 1 of “You’re Killing Me, Swan.”

Also on Ao3

There is one all-time greatest moment in the history of sports, and it happened in the 1932 World Series. The story goes that in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs, a full count and the tying run on base, Babe Ruth raised his arm and pointed to the center field bleachers. No one believed it, because nobody had ever done it before. But The Babe was calling his shot. On the next pitch, the Great Bambino hit a towering home run. And even though he'd been a hero before that, that's pretty much how he became a legend. Sixty years later, a kid named Killian Jones was a neighborhood legend. We met in the greatest summer of my life when he taught me to play baseball, and he became my best friend, and maybe a little more than that.  

-----

Killian Jones was always going to do great things in the world of baseball. Emma knew this from the first moment she saw him. She had just moved in with a new foster family, the Swans, and was sitting on the porch of her new house with a book. Killian was 15, tossing a baseball in the air and catching it in his glove as he walked along the street. Emma was 13, but she was instantly drawn to him. He stopped in front of her house inexplicably, looked over at her, and smiled. She smiled back. He nodded and went back to walking, tossing the ball along the way. Emma watched him walk away, then went back to her book.

------

Emma had long, light blonde hair. She had green eyes with hazel flecks in places. She liked to wear oversized flannel shirts, T-shirts, and jean shorts. She was a pretty girl, but she never emphasized her beauty.

Killian was a tall and lanky teen. He didn't look like he had power, but he had the best swing of anyone. His eyes were always the brightest, clearest blue. He had a mop of chestnut brown hair atop his head. He always looked curious, like he wanted to learn more.

------

In all her foster homes -- out of all seven of them, no one had ever taught Emma how to play catch. And it didn’t bother her most of the time, just when she got put in homes in neighborhoods with lots of kids. They all played in clearings and backyards, and she would watch from the window in her room. She didn’t even know how to catch a ball, or throw one for that matter. At the rate she moved, no school would put her in a gym class because they figured she wouldn’t be around long enough to buy a uniform. And no gym uniform meant that she couldn’t participate in PE. Emma did feel lucky she never had to take gym class, as that would most likely involve a ball of some sort. But in general, to save herself the embarrassment, she had fun doing other things. She liked to read, and she was very artistic. Still, she longed to be able to run around with all the other kids her age, and to maybe even make a couple friends.

So far, moving in with the Swans was no different than any of the other homes. Emma would often sit on her porch steps with a book, which she used as a cover as she watched the neighborhood kids riding bikes and playing soccer in their yards. From her foster father’s office, she could see a clearing behind her house where some kids were in a perpetual game of kickball. Emma never felt comfortable asking to join. Even if she could kick the ball, she could never play in the field. They’d laugh and she’d never be invited to play ever again. So she would just watch.

-----

“Emma, honey.” Emma looked up from her book as her foster mother, Ingrid Swan, came into her bedroom. Emma bookmarked her page and sat up against her headboard.

“Hi,” Emma smiled at her new mother.

Ingrid hesitated before sighing and asking, “have you made any friends yet?”

Emma shrugged in response.

“I love that you love reading, and I love how creative you are,” she gestured to the pictures Emma painted taped on wall and the library books littering her desk, “but I think it would be good for you to make some friends with kids in the neighborhood. Maybe you can play outside with them every once in a while. A little sun is good for you.” Emma opened her mouth to respond, but Ingrid beat her to it, “and, yes, I know you read outside, but we both know that’s not what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll try.” That’s what Ingrid would hope to hear, and Emma felt she needed her new mother to be happy. If Ingrid wasn’t happy with Emma, she could send her back, and that was the last thing Emma wanted.

“There’s more to this, isn’t there, hon?” Emma bit her lip and nodded. “Emma, you can tell me.”

“It’s just,” she hesitated. Ingrid looked so caring, and Emma really wanted this to work. So she took a deep breath and continued. “I don’t know how to catch a ball. Or throw one.” She muttered the words quietly, but Ingrid appears to have been able to hear her. “I never had anyone to teach me, so I never learned.”

Ingrid smiled. “Well, let’s fix that.”

“What?”

“Did you know your father used to want to be a baseball player?”

Emma smiled. “Really?”

“When he was little, he would draw his own baseball cards. Arthur Swan, pitcher. I bet he’d love to teach you.”  

Emma was excited by the thought. She was actually going to learn how to play ball like the other kids. “Yeah, okay. That sounds great.”

-----

“Alright, Emma, I’m going to throw this baseball to you. You’re going to catch it in your glove.” Emma nodded. Arthur nodded back and threw the ball underhand, right for her glove. She recoiled away from it.

“Sorry!” She grabbed it, worried he’d give up on her.

“It’s alright, kid. You don’t need to be afraid of the ball. It doesn’t hurt to catch.” She nodded. “Okay. Now throw it back to me.” She looked at the ball, then at her foster father, then back at the ball. “Just bring your arm back, then guide it forward and let go.”

Emma brought her arm back, but she let go too soon and the ball went behind her. She let out another “sorry” and went to grab the ball. This time, she ran it back to Arthur.

“Let’s work on catching first then," Arthur started, a determined grin on his face as he held the ball in front of his right eye. "Keep your eye on the ball, and don’t back away. Got it? They key to this game is keeping your eye on the ball. No matter whether you're in the field or at bat, eye on the ball, okay?”

He looked to Emma to see if she understood, and Emma nodded sheepishly even though she had just about zero confidence in her ability to catch a baseball.

Staring across the yard at her foster dad, only one thought circled through her mind: How was she going to catch anything?

"Trust me, Emma," Arthur said, seemingly sensing her apprehension. "I used to be so good that my friends called me The King. Thought I was gonna be the next Bambino." Emma stared blankly, clearly not getting the reference. Arthur waved his hand dismissively. "That's a lesson for another day. Anyway, what you've gotta know is where the ball goes, your glove should go." He paused before asking, "got it?”

“Yeah, okay."

Arthur nodded at her, confident that he could help his new daughter catch a ball.

“Okay, alright,” he said before giving a final nod to Emma to let her know he was about to throw it. When she held her glove up in front of her, he sent the ball her way.

Apparently, Emma took his advice quite literally because in one moment, she saw Arthur toss the ball, and in the next, there was pain in her eye as her glove went into it.

“Ow!" she cried. "Oh, my eye! Ow! Ow!”

Out of her good eye, Emma watched Arthur drop his own glove and run over to her, calling for Ingrid as he did so. Ingrid ran out to find them both struggling to get Emma’s eye open so they could assess the damage.

However, despite the pain and temporary blurred vision in one of her eyes, Emma was able to see a silver lining.

“I kept my eye on the ball!” She laughed as Arthur pried her glove off her hand.

“You also caught the ball!" He held up her glove, newly pulled off her hand, the ball snugly inside.

Ingrid was not waiting around for Emma and Arthur to finish their bonding conversation when Emma was injured. “Emma, let’s go inside and get some ice on that before it swells more.” She followed Ingrid inside, Arthur trailing not far behind. Ingrid grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, wrapped it in a towel, and placed it over Emma’s eye.

“It’s going to bruise. I’m sorry, Em.”

“Arthur, how did this even happen?” Ingrid crossed her arms as Emma took over pressing the ice pack into her own face.

“I - uh,” Arthur stuttered, seemingly confused himself as to how such an event managed to occur. He looked at Emma, standing between her foster parents with an ice pack covering half her face. “It'll still be black, but it won't swell. Sorry.” He looked nervous, like Emma would up and run away because of an accidental black eye.

“It’s okay. I caught the ball.” And when all three Swans started to laugh, Emma finally felt like she might actually be a part of a forever family.

-----

Walking home from the library one day, black eye still present, Emma stopped by the field in which the neighborhood kids were playing baseball. She watched them day after day as she passed the field, but this is the first time she stopped. They played every day, the game seemingly never-ending. Every day, they picked up where they left off. They didn’t keep score. They played because they loved it.

Tightening her grip on her book to bring her back to reality, she became aware of voices yelling in her direction.

“Hey!”

“Can you get the ball?”

“Throw it back!”

Emma looked around quickly trying to find their ball. She spotted it a few feet to her left. She ran to grab it, then froze.

“Hey, just throw the ball!”

“What’s taking you so long?” “Throw it back!”

She didn’t know how to throw properly, but she was overwhelmed by screaming boys. Against her better judgment, she pulled her arm back and threw the ball. Only, it didn’t go more than three feet. The screams that had just overwhelmed her quickly turned to laughter, and she scanned the faces of the eight boys a few times before muttering a “sorry” and running the rest of the way home. She was upset her unfortunate eye on the ball situation halted her lesson. She needed to learn to play, and she needed to get redemption.

-----

Emma sat on her front porch reading her latest recommendation from the librarian. She was getting lost in the novel, her senses to her actual, physical setting seeming to dull as she digested the words on the page. It would take her two days maximum to finish this one.

Emma was snapped back to reality when her peripheral vision picked up on a figure sitting next to her. She bookmarked her page and and turned toward the intruder so she could get rid of whoever it was. She quickly lost sight of that goal when she saw Killian Jones -- that kid with the baseball and the team -- smiling at her. He was something of a neighborhood legend, whispers about him fluttering through the kids at neighborhood parties she attended with Ingrid and at the community pool when she went to cool off. And being a part of a neighborhood, it was easy to catch gossip as she read or drew quietly outside. She was a near-expert eavesdropper.

“The Outsiders?”

“What?”

“Your book.” He pointed to her lap. “The Outsiders. We read it in school last year.”

She let out a quiet, “oh.”

“It’s a fantastic read. Are you enjoying it?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s pretty good. I’m not really that far yet.” She held up the book so he could see the ratio of read pages to unread. She hoped he’d understand that she wanted to read uninterrupted.

He didn’t take the hint. “Would you like to play baseball with me? I’ve got a whole team -- well, almost. I was kind of hoping you’d be our ninth player.”

“I - I can’t play baseball. You saw me.”

He didn’t let her finish her thought. “Sure you can.”

“I really can’t.”

“It’s instinctual.”

“I don’t have those instincts.” Emma could already tell this wasn’t going to be an easy victory. They were clearly both stubborn.

“Could you just show up? Take up space? There’s a gaping hole where a player should be.”

“And if the ball comes to me?”

“You’ll know what to do in the moment.”

“I really won’t.”

He stared at the lawn for a few seconds, seemingly considering his next move.

“I’m Killian Jones, by the way.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Oh, so you’ve heard of me?” He quirked his eyebrows in such a way Emma couldn’t help but smile.

“Emma.” She held out her right hand. He took it in his own.

“You’re the new Swan kid.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He let go of her hand and smirked. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Swan. I’ll be by tomorrow, and we’ll walk to the sandlot together.” He stood up and started walking away. Emma’s jaw was nearly on the ground.

Pulling herself together, she yelled after him, “I didn’t say I’d join your team.”

He stopped walking but didn’t turn around. “Something tells me you will. I promise you’ll have fun.” He turned around, smile already planted on his face. “Dress comfortably.” He took off his baseball cap and threw it to her. It landed on the ground at her feet. “And wear that.” He turned back around confidently and began walking away.

In that moment, staring at Killian Jones’ back disappear, she knew he had won.

-------

“Alright, guys. This is Emma Swan. She's our ninth man. Now we have a full team.”

“Why did you bring her, Jones?”

“Yeah, she can't play.”

“She ain’t game.”

“Come on, Jones. We were fine before.”

“Look, I want a full team. Now we have it.” Killian glanced between Emma and the boys.

“We had a full team before Booth moved away.”

“Yeah, and we never filled in Booth’s spot. Why now?”

“With her, I get to rotate eight positions instead of seven. I need the practice, guys.”

“You're the best on the team. You don't need any practice.” All the boys groaned but the one that said this. He stood with his arms crossed, seemingly studying Killian. His gaze barely lingered on Emma. That was different from the other boys, all of who are shooting daggers her way.

“No, you don't.”

“You're the best, man.”

“Come on, Jones, man. The girl is…”

“...A weenie!”

“Yeah. Oscar Mayer even. Foot-long!”

“What are you laughing at, Scarlet? You run like a duck.” That shut the boy - Scarlet - up real fast.

“Look, man, you saw the way she throws. She can’t play.”

“It's not like you were all great players when you started. So give her a chance. She's got it. I'm telling you.”

The kid -- Scarlet -- spoke up again. “Guys, don’t you see Jones only brought her here because he wants her to be his girlfriend?” Emma felt her cheeks warm immediately. She felt her hand sweating in the glove Killian gave her before they arrived at the field, on the correct hand after Killian had corrected her when she initially put it on the wrong hand. There were snickers across the group until Killian flashed them all a glare that not one of the other kids dared to challenge.

There was silence among the boys as they continued looking Emma over. Killian took Emma’s elbow and pulled her closer to the rest of the group.

“Swan, this is Liam, my older brother. He’s 18, but he hangs out with us while he works part-time so he can get a car.” The tall, curly haired boy -- man -- was the one watching Killian instead of her earlier. He failed to hold back a knowing smile as he looked between Emma and Killian. Emma crushed an ant in the dirt under her shoe.

Killian, either oblivious to the situation or just trying to ignore it, continued the introductions. “This is Eric. We call him Squints because he's blind without his glasses. This is Will Scarlet, David Nolan, Robin Locksley. This is Grumpy and Sneezy; they're twins. Grumpy’s got an attitude and Sneezy has year-round allergies.”

There were a few muffled “hey”s and some barely intelligible “hi”s. There was a rogue sneeze. Emma bent her elbow slightly in attempt to wave. She croaked out a soft, “hi,” as she avoided eye contact with any of the boys. She tucked some hair behind her ear and looked at Killian as the silence got unbearable.

“Alright, guys.” Killian looked them over for a second, eyes landing on Emma, “team,” he corrected. “Let's play ball!”

The boys all screamed as they took their positions.

“Swan, left field!” Emma nodded and made her way over to where she approximated left field might be. From the laughs that followed, she figured she was wrong. “More to your left, Swan.” She did what she was told, looking at Killian for a cue that she was in the right place. When he smiled and nodded, she stopped and let out a deep breath.

She shuffled her feet as Killian tossed the ball in his hand for a few moments before stepping up to the plate.

“Swan, catch this and throw it to second!” Robin waved her glove at her from second base.

“Jones, why?” Will groaned.

“She's not going to catch it, Jones!” Squints punctuated the accusation with a stomp of his foot.

“She's a square, Jones. The girl's a square!” That was clearly Sneezy, as he sneezed between sentences.

“Hey,” everyone turned to look at Liam when he spoke. “Killian brought her here for a reason. I'm sure she'll be great.” He sent Emma an encouraging smile over his shoulder, and she smiled back in appreciation.  

Liam seemed to shut everyone up, and there were only inaudible grumbles as everyone took their places and turned their attention to home plate, where their captain waited to get the game started.

David pitched the ball, which Killian hit easily. It landed right next to where Emma stood in the field. If Emma could catch, it would've been easy. But Emma did not know how to catch, so she watched it fall to the ground.

“Swan, what the hell?” Will was the first to comment.

“I knew it.” Squints sighed.

“You didn't even try!” David chimed in.

“What was that, sister?” Grumpy crossed his arms.

“I told you, Jones!” Sneezy’s comment followed his brother’s.

Emma watched the group of boys switch their gazes between Killian and her.

“Alright, alright. Calm down, guys.” Killian jogged over to Emma in the field. “Hey, Swan, you okay?” He kept his voice down so only she could hear it.

“I- um, I don't know how to catch. I was learning. The glove went into my eye, and that's how I got my black eye.”

Killian nodded in understanding.

“Just hold your glove out, and I'll take care of getting the ball there.”

“Yeah, okay.” Emma dropped her gaze to her glove.

Killian turned to head back to the plate when he noticed Emma didn't exactly look confident.

He lifted her chin so their eyes met. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” Emma nodded.

“Just keep your glove out. I promise you'll catch it.”

“Okay. I'll do it.” She smiled at him, causing him to smile back. And then another realization hit her as Killian went to head back to home plate once again. “Killian, wait!”

He raised his eyebrows in question.

“I don't know how to throw either.” Killian watched her cheeks turn pink as she blushed in embarrassment.

Avoiding Killian's eyes, she noticed Liam watching his brother help her out with approval. She took her attention away from Liam and put it back on Killian.

“Hey, hey” he started softly and gently. “You think too much.”

“What?”

“You know how to throw.” Killian looked confident.

“I really don’t.” She pulled the bill on her hat down slightly.

“Sure you do. You just need a coach who knows what he’s doing.”

She looked at him skeptically.

Killian crossed his arms in amusement. “I bet you get straight A's and stuff, don't you?”

“I got a B once. Well, it was an A-, but it should've been a B.” She felt embarrassment wash over her. Why was her achievement in school suddenly a bad thing?

Killian sighed, but it wasn't condescending. “You're killing me, Swan.” He paused. “Alright. Well, this is baseball. You need to stop thinking and just,” he took his baseball cap off, ran his hand through his hair, then put the cap back on, “have fun.”

“I am having fun,” she retorted defensively.

“If you were having fun, you would've caught the ball.”

“There's got to be more to it than that.”

Killian thought for a moment before moving to stand behind her rather than across from her.

“Okay, Swan, don't jump. I'm going to take your hand for a minute.”

“Okay,” she croaked out, barely a whisper.

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and raised it over her head until her hand was behind her head. She was too young to understand the reason she instantly broke out into goosebumps at his touch, but she would look back later and realize that she felt sparks at that moment.

“You just raise your arm like this,” he positioned her hand until it was at the highest point in an arc, “and when your hand gets to here, just let go.”

“Just let go,” she repeated.

“That's all there is to it.” He let her arm drop as he moved so he was facing her again. “You can do it. Just have fun, and just let go.” He smiled at her before heading back to his position. Emma looked at the glove on her hand as she extended her arm out.

“About time, Jones. My clothes are going out of style.”

“They already are, Squints. Shut up.”

David doubled over with laughter as Killian lined up his stance.

“Ready, Swan?” Killian yelled from home plate.

“Yeah!”

She watched Killian throw the ball into the air, then heard the crack of the bat as he hit it. Next thing she knew, the ball was in her glove. He was right. She just had to stop thinking so much.

She beamed with the realization that she can actually catch a ball when she heard Robin yelling her way.

“Over here, Swan!” His glove was over his head. She pulled her arm back, brought her arm forward and just let go. And Robin caught it just a couple feet before the base.

“I knew she could do it!” Liam gave her a thumbs up as the other boys cheered for her.

“Alright. She's alright.” Will smiled approvingly.

“Told you so, man.” Killian smirked.

“Alright, team,” David shouted, “let's play ball!”

------

Emma had just made it through her first game on the sandlot.

“Wait, Killian.” She jogged the couple feet to catch up to him when he stopped on his way jogging to his house.

“Aye?”

“Why did you bring me in the game? I’m not stupid. I know the rest of the guys didn’t want me there. And I know Scarlet was just pushing your buttons when he suggested,” Emma trailed off so as to not actually repeat Will’s idea that there might be something more to the new friendship.

Killian smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He let the thought linger for a moment before countering the idea. “I know what it’s like to be the new kid. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not from around here.” Emma laughed as he emphasized his very British accent.

“The thought may have crossed my mind.”

“Well, you were new..” There was more to that. They both knew it. “And besides, we needed a ninth man,” he paused, “or woman, I guess.”

“Thanks, Killian. I…” Emma stopped mid-sentence and decided to leave the emotions off the field. “It just means a lot.”

“Of course, Swan.”

-----

As the summer went on, Emma and Killian increasingly snuck away from the group to play catch by themselves. As much as they loved the full-team games, they realized more and more how nice it was to spend time just the two of them.

“So how did you get so good at this?” Emma threw the ball, and it landed directly in Killian's glove.

“At what?”

“You know,” Emma gestured between them, “this.” Killian laughed and raised his eyebrows for clarification. “How did you learn to play baseball?”

“Well, baseball didn't entirely catch on in the U.K.”

Emma held out her glove. He threw her the ball, which she caught. She still felt a surge of pride whenever she caught a baseball. Emma held out the hand holding the baseball in question, silently asking if Killian was ready for her throw. He motioned for her to keep it and walked to a tree in the clearing and sat, leaning against it. Emma followed.

“When I was young, around 4, my father started dating a woman, even though he was still married to my mum. But this woman, she was married and involved with a man with access to much of London's financial assets. And with money comes power.” Emma watched as Killian stared at the ground throughout his story. “When the man found out about the affair, he paid off some detectives and government officials. My father got into a lot of trouble for nothing really, since you can't really get arrested for cheating on your wife. Anyway, he fled to escape the charges.” Killian let his head rest against the tree, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead. After taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and looked at Emma. “He left one night and never came back. My mum was ill at the time. If she hadn't recovered, I don't know where I'd have ended up.”

“Hey,” Emma said gently, “you don't have to tell me.” She was no stranger to the sob story, what with parents who left her on the side of a highway when she was barely more than a year old. She didn’t like to dwell on her own past, so if Killian didn’t want to share, she’d absolutely respect that.

“No. It's - it's okay. My mum got better. Even though we were too young, Liam and I still got part-time jobs while she recovered. We knew a couple people in our apartment complex willing to hire us to help us out. When we saved enough, she moved us here.”

“To Storybrooke?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “It was unheard of. My father would never find us here. And it's a small town. My mum just wants Liam and me to be happy and have a real childhood. She still feels bad I was working at 7 years old.”

“So where does baseball come in?”

“Liam is only three years older than me, but I idolized him growing up. He was more of a father to me than my real dad ever was. Liam - he came home from school with a baseball, and he taught me to play. He learned at school, and I learned from him. We played, just the two of us, for months. Then I met Robin and David. I’ve always felt - I don’t know - different from everyone else. Liam and I would never be like other kids, even though our mum recovered. But when we hung out with Robin and David, I learned that baseball was universal. No matter our beginnings, all that mattered was what was on the field. I’m not a near-orphan who started working at 7. When I play baseball, I’m a baseball player, same as everyone else.” By the end of his story, his eyes had moved from Emma’s to the distance, and he stared at the horizon as he spoke. He only returned his gaze to Emma’s after he was done talking.

Emma smiled at him. “And look at you now.”

“Look at us now.” Killian smiled back at her and nodded toward the ball in her glove, “you appear to be a natural.” She laughed, and Killian looked at her meaningfully. “I don't mean to upset you, Swan, but you're part of the team.”

-----

Private games of catch became a regular thing for Emma and Killian. Every so often, they'd escape to play and talk while getting to know each other.

“Who's your favorite player?”

“What?” Emma threw the ball back to Killian. He caught it easily.

“Baseball -- who's your favorite player?”

“Um.” Emma held up a hand to signal him to wait to throw it. Killian raised his eyebrows.

“You don't have a favorite player?” he asked in disbelief.

“I - uh, I've never seen a real game.” Her voice was quiet with embarrassment.

“Really? Never seen a real game?! You're killing me, Swan! They're on TV all summer.”

“My last foster home didn't have a TV. And the group home I stayed at between families certainly couldn't afford a TV.” She stared at a strand of hair between her fingers.

She was expecting Killian to apologize for her past or to mention how bad he feels for her. To Emma's delight, he didn't linger on her history. “You have to come over and watch one!”

“What?” Emma laughed. She was so used to people treating her differently when they learned about the conditions in her group homes and foster families, but Killian was more concerned with getting her to see a game. It was refreshing.

“Come over! We'll watch whatever game is on now.” He held his hand out to her. She took it and he led them to his house. When they got inside, Liam was already on the couch watching baseball.

“Hey, Emma. Hey, little brother.”

“Hi, Liam,” Emma smiled at him as she sat on the couch at Killian's signal.

“Younger brother,” Killian muttered under his breath as he sat right next to Emma.

“What game is on?”

“Red Sox-Yankees.”

“Ooh,” Killian leaned forward, closer to the TV. “Swan, this is a great game to start with.”

Liam looked their way. “First baseball game?” he asked. Emma nodded. “Killian's right. This is a great start. This is one of the biggest rivalries in baseball.”

“Check these guys out, Swan! I want to be just like them when I get older.”

“You will,” Emma said. You're the best player on the team. Like, you're way better than the rest of us.” Killian's cheeks were tinged pink and the tips of his ears burned red as a result of her compliment. She found she liked having that effect on him. Emma tried to keep her eyes trained on the game, but she couldn't quite help it as her gaze repeatedly landed on Killian.

“Hey, Killy,” Liam started. Killian grumbled at the nickname. “What do you say we take Emma to a game this summer?”

Both Killian’s and Emma's eyes lit up.

“That'd be awesome, Liam! She'd love it!”

“You guys don't have to do that.” Emma didn't want them taking her because they felt bad for her.

“We want to, Emma,” Liam assured “You're one of us.”

“Would you come, Swan?” Killian looked at her with such hope in his blue eyes.

Emma shrugged. “Yeah, okay. That would be amazing.”

Liam told her, “I'll talk to your parents later to work out a good day to go.”

“Thanks, guys. I'm really, really excited!”

“It'll be a pleasure to have you with us, Emma.”

“You'll love baseball even more going to an actual, major league game.” It was clear Killian had such a deep love for the game. Emma was fascinated by his infatuation with baseball. She was delighted to see him so excitable and passionate. “Swan?”

She snapped out of her thoughts. “Yeah?” Emma stared at her lap. That clearly wasn’t the first time he tried to get her attention.

“Do you still want to watch the game?” She had totally been watching him watch the game rather than the television screen itself.

“Yeah, totally.”

Killian seemed satisfied with that, pointing to the screen at different moments, explaining to her who the players were and giving their stats. And in the corner of her eye, Emma noticed Liam watching the two of them interact. He always had this look on his face like he knew something no one else did. Emma shook it off and turned back to the screen, paying attention so she'd understand all Killian's explanations. Once she really got into it, she found herself really engrossed in the game. She was able to understand some of the terms for the plays, and she even started calling them toward the last couple innings. Killian looked immensely proud, which made her even happier with herself. In the end, Emma loved watching the game, and was really looking forward to getting to go to a real, live game with the brothers Jones.

-----

Killian was always down for a game of baseball.

He would've played ball all day, all night, rain, shine, tidal wave - whatever. However, the other kids were not so willing to play when the temperature and humidity partnered to make it feel well over 100 degrees. But of all the things the group ever did besides baseball, going to the pool was what he tolerated best.

On the days it was too hot for the rest of them, there was nothing the group loved more than spending the day at the Storybrooke community pool. And Killian was happy to join his friends there if he absolutely had to leave the sandlot.

It was Emma's first time at the pool with her new friends, and they were all having the greatest time swimming around, splashing each other, and trying to outdo each other's wacky jumps. Well, all the kids were in the pool but Eric.

“What's Eric's deal?” Emma swam over to the wall Killian was leaning against. Killian glanced in Eric's direction, but Eric paid no mind to his fellow teammates.

“He only comes to the pool to stare at Ariel.” Killian chuckled and crossed his arms.

“Who's Ariel?”

Killian pointed at a redhead sitting in a lifeguard chair. “She's here every day, all day. I've never seen her anywhere but watching over this pool.”

Emma looked back at Eric. He looked absolutely smitten. He was sitting on a pool chair, knees to his chest. His chin rested on his knees as he stared at the object of his affection.

“He doesn’t know how to swim,” Killian revealed. “Sometimes he comes in as far as he can stand. But most of the time, he just does this.”

Will swam up next to Emma and Killian and followed their gazes. “Hey, Squints! You going to come in or what?”

Eric glared at Will, then glanced back at the lifeguard. She was smiling, probably laughing at the scene below. With a loud huff, Eric stood up, took his glasses off and put them on his towel, and walked towards the diving board.

“Squints, what the hell are you doing?” Killian's face dropped with concern as Eric made his way onto the board.

“Oi, mate! You're going to fall off the board without your glasses!” Robin shoved himself against the wall between Emma and Killian.

Eric shook his head and took a tentative step forward.

“Eric, stop!” Emma screamed.

“You can’t swim, Squints!” Killian reminded him.

He looked in the general direction of the group, unable to see clearly without his glasses, and smiled. “Trust me.” And with three more steps forward, he cannonballed into the water.

“Did he tell anyone about this?” Liam stared down the group as if someone knew something.

The whole group shook their heads no. There were a couple voices shouting, “no,” and Sneezy, well, sneezed.

“Guys, he hasn't come up yet!” Grumpy yelled.

Emma yelled “help” to get the attention of the lifeguard. Hearing her cries, Ariel dove into the pool, spotting Eric at the bottom and swimming down to grab him. She pulled Eric up, and noticing he was unconscious, she laid him on the side of the pool and started administering CPR.

“Oh, god.” Emma climbed out of the pool and stood above Eric. The rest of the group was quick to follow, and they soon formed a circle around where Ariel was still trying to get Eric to breathe again.

“Come on, Squints. You've gotta pull through.” Killian looked as worried as she felt.

“Come on, Squints,” David added.

“Wake up! Breathe, would you?” Sneezy yelled at Eric as if that would make him regain consciousness.

“He looks real bad,” Will chimed in.

Scooting slightly closer to Killian, without thinking, Emma grasped his hand. He gave her hand a squeeze as they shared a glance before returning their attention back on Eric.

With no sign of improvement thus far, Ariel moved on and started to perform mouth-to-mouth on Eric.

“Lucky bastard gets to make out, and he's not even conscious,” Grumpy grumbled. There were a few chuckles, but it was hard to laugh while Eric was still ghostly pale.

As Ariel continued breathing for him, Eric opened his eyes and winked at his friends out of Ariel's view.

“He's okay!” David couldn't hold back his reaction.

When Ariel went down for her next breath, Eric grabbed her head and kept it pressed to his as he kissed her.

There was a chorus of “ooooh” from the boys and a gasp from Emma. When Ariel ripped herself out of Eric's grasp, she started shouting, banning the group for the rest of the summer, when they all grabbed their towels and took off. Laughing along the way, Emma ran right along with them. When they got back to the sandlot, Eric had his glasses back on and was receiving quite a few pats on the back from his friends.

“How long have you been planning that, man?” Liam had his arms crossed as he shook his head in amusement.

“Months,” Eric answered proudly.

There were more cheers for Eric as the group sat around and dried off in the sun.

On that day, Squints became a hero.

-----

So Ariel banned them from the pool for the summer, although she would later tell Emma she was welcome to come back as long as she left the team on the sandlot. Girls have to stick together. After all, females felt terribly outnumbered in this town. But despite Ariel’s initial anger, she was witness to how the group was more like family than just friends and teammates. She saw they had something special. The boys may have been banned from the pool for the rest of the summer, but they had to walk past the pool on the way to the nearest 7-11 for Slurpees and candy. And every time Grumpy ran out of bubble gum or Scarlet decided he was going to mix all the Slurpee flavors and down the largest size in less than 2 minutes to see how bad his brain freeze could get, the team went by the pool, right behind Ariel’s lifeguard chair. And Emma couldn’t help but chuckle as she noticed Ariel turn toward them and smile at Eric every time they walked by.

-----

The team was in the middle of gameplay when all the boys suddenly stopped playing. Emma stopped herself mid-run on her way to third and looked around at all her friends.

“What’s going on, guys?”

Liam, who was standing next to her as shortstop, pointed to the fence behind home plate and just said, “Cassidy.” She looked up at him for clarification, and he, sensing it wasn’t enough, looked down at his newest team member. “That’s Neal Cassidy. Killian used to play ball with him. They got into a fight one time when Cassidy said some things about,” he trailed off. “Well, he said some things about our father, and Killian just couldn’t brush it off.”

“He never told me about Neal,” Emma said quietly.

“He’d rather forget about Cassidy.” Emma caught Liam watching Killian. “Ever wonder why we play in some open clearing rather than a real diamond?” Emma shook her head; she hadn’t really thought about it before. “Cassidy is rich. His family has tons of money. His friends get to play on the real field in town. After their fight, Cassidy made sure Killian wouldn’t be able to play on a real field again.” Before Emma could say anything, Liam continued, “ever notice that scar on the back of Killian’s left hand? He busted his hand open on Cassidy’s face. Needed 16 stitches. And there’s the one on his cheek from where Cassidy got him back -- 7 stitches. The two really went at it. They hit each other real good, kept punching even when they both fell to the ground. It took six of us to break it up.”

“Wow. I didn’t know.”

“Killian and I and our mum -- we might not have much, but Killian is proud of what we do have. He’s proud of the life we have, and I know he’ll never forgive our father for what he did.” He looked at her as if to ask if she knew what Brennan had done. She nodded in response. He continued, “and he’ll always defend his family and friends.”

To his credit, Killian did not approach Neal. It was the latter who initiated. All the boys, still in their places on the field, groaned in unison as Neal and his posse made their way into the sandlot. David and Robin were the first to head over to Killian and stand on either side of him. Will, Eric, and the twins all took spots. Emma looked over at Liam as she tentatively walked toward the forming wall of boys. Liam followed her.

“Gee, Killian, how are you supposed to get better when you’re stuck playing with a bunch of rejects?”

“Shut your mouth, Pan,” Killian said through clenched teeth.

The kid in the middle - Emma assumed that was Neal - murmured something after that, but it was unintelligible.

“What’d you say, Cassidy?” Will asked.

“I said you shouldn't even be allowed to touch a baseball. Except for little Jones, you're all an insult to the game.”

Grumpy chimed in, “oh, yeah?”

Sneezy added a sarcastic, “you think so?”

Killian spoke up next. “Come on! We'll take you on right here, right now!”

Robin yelled, “come on,” as the rest of the guys shouted in agreement.

“We play on a real diamond, Jones.” The leader - Neal - spoke again.

“You ain't good enough to lick the dirt off our cleats,” Will crossed his arms.

“Watch it, jerk,” the tall kid - Pan - stepped toward Will.

“Shut up, idiot,” Will stomped his foot.

Emma stood there as the boys passed insults back and forth, some boys joining in with “oohs” as the insults got harsher and harsher.

“Moron!”

“Scab-eater!”

“Butt-sniffer!”

“Pus-licker!”

“You bob for apples in the toilet, and you like it!”

Neal laughed as he noticed Emma for the first time; it was a jarring sound against the backdrop of exchanged insults. “You got a girl on your team? Makes sense since you all play like girls!”

Everyone got real quiet at that. For a group of adolescent boys, there was no greater insult. Cassidy had crossed a line. It was clear no one had an answer to that…

...until Killian spoke up, getting nose-to-nose with Cassidy as he asserted, “you wish you played like Swan!”

“Yeah, right.” The boys next to Emma all laughed; Neal didn’t have a good comeback. Emma would’ve laughed, too, if she wasn’t still bug-eyed from Killian standing up to Neal to defend her.

Killian smirked as his team cheered his apparent victory in the insult war. He winked at Emma.

“Tomorrow at our field, noon,” Neal interrupted the celebration.

“We’ll be there,” Killian got even more in Neal’s face. Neal narrowed his eyes, gaze lingering on Emma as he smiled mischievously, before gesturing for his team to follow him away from the sandlot.

The chorus of cheers got louder when David yelled, “we’re going to kick their butts tomorrow!”

[justanoutlawfic]

Resurrected: Remember Me

Prompted by anonymous on CuriousCat: Prompt request for your resurrected verse: (while staying at Regina’s) Henry and Roland fight about Roland being still mad at his mom.

Also on AO3

Henry had never gone through the jealous sibling phase. He was 3 years old when his brother was born and though he didn’t remember much about that time, one thing always stuck out to him. His dad had told him that brothers are supposed to protect one another, stick up for them and be each other’s best friend. Ever since that day, he and Roland did a lot together. They played, they went for bike rides around the neighborhood. When they were told their mother died, it was Henry that finally convinced Roland that cars weren’t scary and that they were safe driving in one. Roland had insisted Henry join him on a play date so he’d finally start hanging out with other kids again.

 Yes, the Locksley-Mills brothers were incredibly close. Which was why the rift that grew between them when Regina returned was extremely hard.

 Henry understood why Roland was upset to a certain extent. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little hurt himself. Regardless, they had their mom back. Three years of crying, being in pain, it was over. Their mom was home. Even if their family wasn’t what it used to, how could Roland be so mean to her?

 He tried to be patient with him. His dad had told him that he and Roland didn’t see eye to eye and rather than fight about it every five seconds, they needed to just respect each other’s differences. So, that’s what Henry did. He stayed out of the dinner battle between Roland and Regina. He didn’t say a word when Roland tried to find reasons to be out of the apartment.

 The final straw for him was their last full night of their first week with their mom. Regina had ordered pizza and rented Coco. Roland claimed to hate it and went into his room. Henry sat through the entire movie, not saying a word. After, when Regina suggested he head to bed, he stormed in and started slamming through the drawers, trying to locate his pajamas.

 “I’m trying to sleep,” Roland mumbled.

“Oh well.”

“You know, it’s bad enough we have to share a room…”

“Shut up.”

“Whatever.”

Henry turned to face his younger brother, folding his arms over his chest.

 “You’ve always loved Coco. We watched it all the time when it came out, you had Uncle David teach you how to play Remember Me on the guitar.”

“So?”

“So, why wouldn’t you watch it with her?”

“Because I didn’t want to.”

“She’s our mom, Roland!”

“No, she left us!”

“Because someone was trying to hurt her, hurt us!”

Roland sat up on his bunk, folding his arms over his chest. “She could’ve taken us with her.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“No, it’s not! You and Margot may be okay with all of this, but I’m not! I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to see her! She abandoned us, Henry! How does that not bother you?”

 Henry swallowed. The truth was, everything Roland said, had run through his mind when his father first old him that she was alive. Why didn’t she take them all with her? They all could’ve started over. It would’ve been hard, but at least they would’ve been a family. Yet, he also knew that he could either spend time being angry or he could attempt to make up for the past three years and try to move on from it.

 “Just because it bothers me, doesn’t change that I love her. Do you even still love Mom?”

“I never said I didn’t.”

 Roland flopped back down and rolled over so his back was facing Henry, pulling his stuffed monkey into his arms. Henry sighed and changed into his pajamas, flicking off the lights and climbing up to the top bunk. His eyes stayed open, trained on the ceiling that didn’t seem that far away in the moment.

 “Do you know why I wanted to learn Remember Me?” Roland’s voice broke through the silence.

“Because you liked the movie?”

“Because it reminded me of Mom.”

 Henry frowned. They had never admitted it out loud, but they had connected to Coco on a deep level. The idea that the deceased lived on, as long as you could remember them was comforting. They weren’t a particularly religious family, but he and Roland had clung to that idea. They thought of their Grandpa Henry, who had been joined by Grandma Ruth not long after. They wondered if their Grandma Cora was there as well, even though they had never met her.

 Most of all, they imagined their mom there. Surrounded by her loved ones, waiting for the day that that they would join them.

 Except, she hadn’t been there at all. No, she had been across the country in Seattle, working at a bar. They no longer felt the grief and sadness that the characters did when they lost someone. Instead, they felt the same betrayal that Miguel had when he discovered the truth about Ernesto.

[visawords]

Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit

Let’s face it, there’s a abstruse amusement absorbed to American Express “precious metal” cards, whether Gold or Platinum. Whether it’s from decades of tv cast announcement or artlessly because you apperceive your bang-up carries one, you accept absitively to accompany the club because associates has its privileges. You can brainstorm your restaurant server or bounded merchant appropriation demography apprehension back you duke over the iconic agenda cast with the brownish sheen. Perhaps the cachet fizz comes from the cards actuality “charge” rather than “credit,” which agency the bill is paid off in abounding at the end of the month. The attenuate bulletin it conveys is: “I can allow to absorb advisedly on aggregate I appetite and allegation and not go into long-term debt to pay for it.”

The 11-Month Itch: Getting an American Express Gold Annual .. | amex gold statement credit

But back it comes time to accept a exceptional Amex card, how do the gold and platinum cards compare? The American Express Gold agenda carries a $250 anniversary fee while the Platinum agenda has an agitative $550 anniversary fee, as of June 2020.

Over 10 years of use, the Platinum will amount you an added $5,500, and a side-by-side allegory confirms that the Platinum agenda is basically a Gold agenda with some adorable add-ons. As a result, it’s best to accomplish your accommodation based on whether you will amount and use the added appearance year in and year out. If so, the Platinum agenda may able-bodied be anniversary the college anniversary fee.

The Gold agenda comes with an anniversary fee of $250, and there is no anniversary fee for abacus any added cards to a Gold account. One of the better allowances for any cardholder is the associates rewards program, which allows consumers to acquire credibility as they use their acclaim cards.

The Gold agenda is geared toward people who are big shoppers, eat out a lot, and do a lot of accustomed spending. American Express Gold cardholders can acquire four credibility for every dollar spent at U.S. restaurants and U.S. supermarkets (up to $25,000 in purchases), three credibility for every dollar spent booking flights with airline companies or through the American Express biking website, and one point for every dollar spent on any added purchase.

American Express Centurion: Once you go black, you never .. | amex gold statement credit

As of June 2020, first-time cardholders are additionally acceptable for 35,000 credibility afterwards you use your agenda to accomplish $4,000 in purchases for the aboriginal three months of anniversary membership.

Unlike acceptable acclaim cards, American Express allegation cards do not accept a approved APR or allegation interest, as all balances allegation be paid in abounding anniversary month. However, the Gold agenda does action cardmembers the adaptability to pay for purchases of $100 or added over time at a set absorption rate.

Other allowances accommodate up to $120 in dining credits anniversary year—up to $10 per ages in automated anniversary credits back you use your agenda at Grubhub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Boxed, and accommodating Shake Shack locations. But, cardholders allegation accept in the affairs to be eligible. The agenda additionally offers a $100 airline fee acclaim every agenda year back arrested accoutrements or in-flight commons are answerable to the Gold card. This agenda additionally offers an continued assurance program, acquirement protection, acknowledgment protection, Amex adopted basement on airlines, and roadside assistance.  

The Platinum Amex agenda offers associates bristles credibility for every dollar spent on flights appointed anon through airlines or through the American Express biking site, bristles points for prepaid hotels appointed through amextravel.com, and one point for every dollar spent on added purchases.

These Amex Offers will save you money and make your life easier .. | amex gold statement credit

The Platinum acceptable benefit as of June 2020 gives cardholders 60,000 credibility back they absorb $5,000 or added in the aboriginal 90 canicule of anniversary membership. This is the agnate of $600 for flights appointed through the Amex biking website. However, if you adjudge to add up to three added cards on your Platinum account, apprehend to pay an extra annual fee of $175. Anniversary agenda afterwards that will be billed a $175 anniversary fee, as well.  

The Platinum agenda is abundant for bodies who adulation to travel. There are acutely abounding added allowances that appear with the Platinum agenda than with the Gold, abnormally back you accede the college anniversary fee. Rewards can be acclimated for merchandise, allowance cards, dining, shopping, entertainment, or for use at the Amex biking website. Credibility can additionally be transferred to added common flyer programs. 

The Platinum agenda offers Uber ride credits in the United States, giving cardholders a best of $15 in credits anniversary month. The agenda additionally comes with an anniversary $200 accidental airline fee acclaim on the acceptable airline of your choice, giving cartage adulatory arrested accoutrements and an in-flight meal with condoning airlines.

Members additionally get a $100 auberge acclaim with bookings at qualifying The Auberge Collection backdrop through the Amex biking website. Added allowances accommodate (but aren’t bound to) a $100 or $85 anniversary acclaim for the Global Entry affairs or TSAPre✓ affairs respectively, adulatory Boingo Wi-Fi at added than a actor hotspots, emergency biking medical insurance, and exceptional roadside assistance. Given all of these features, it is absolutely the add-ons of the Platinum agenda that add amount and can accompany bottomward the cost.

Amex Offers Home Depot Promotion: $60 Statement Credit for .. | amex gold statement credit

For those who can allow to alive at a actual VIP level, the Platinum agenda offers a bulk of anniversary such as discounts on clandestine jet and auto rentals and a committed babysitter anniversary to abetment in managing biking details. American Express alike holds anxiety at absolute restaurants common should you crave agriculture back you travel. 

There are added costs to accede besides annual fees. Both cards are allegation cards, which agency that balances allegation be paid in abounding at the end of anniversary month. The aboriginal backward acquittal fabricated will acquire a fee of $28. Any added backward payments in the afterward six months will aftereffect in a $39 allegation per ages for a gold agenda in June 2020. The aforementioned rules administer to any acquittal that is alternate by the cardholder’s bank. In adjustment to accumulate the anniversary in acceptable continuing and accumulate a spotless acclaim score, it is consistently important to accomplish payments on time every month.

There are no absorption accuse on the Platinum anniversary because it allegation be paid in abounding anniversary month. However, there is added adaptability with the Gold card, which offers cardholders the advantage of accustomed a antithesis on assertive purchases over $100 with interest. The anniversary allotment amount (APR) for this affection is 20.49 percent. Absorption additionally accrues on backward and alternate payments at an anniversary amount of 29.99 percent.

Neither agenda accuse a adopted transaction fee, authoritative it easier to use them back cardholders are abroad. Amex chock-full charging the over-limit fee in October 2009, so cardholders are not answerable a fee for activity over their limit, which is dynamically set over time vs. a preset absolute as with acceptable acclaim cards.

Best Travel Credit Cards of 2019: Top Offers Now – The .. | amex gold statement credit

Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit – amex gold statement credit | Delightful for you to our blog, in this period We’ll teach you regarding keyword. And from now on, this can be a primary picture:

American Express Gold Credit Card | Amex Gold Charge Card – amex gold statement credit | amex gold statement credit

Why not consider image previously mentioned? is actually that will incredible???. if you think thus, I’l t demonstrate several photograph once more beneath:

So, if you like to get all of these wonderful images related to (Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit), click on save link to save these shots for your personal pc. They are prepared for transfer, if you’d rather and want to have it, just click save badge in the post, and it’ll be directly down loaded in your notebook computer.} Finally if you want to grab unique and recent picture related to (Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit), please follow us on google plus or book mark this blog, we try our best to offer you regular update with all new and fresh shots. Hope you love staying here. For some updates and recent news about (Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit) pictures, please kindly follow us on twitter, path, Instagram and google plus, or you mark this page on bookmark section, We attempt to offer you update periodically with fresh and new pics, like your exploring, and find the best for you.

Here you are at our site, contentabove (Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit) published .  At this time we are pleased to announce we have found a veryinteresting contentto be discussed, namely (Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit) Many people searching for information about(Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Amex Gold Statement Credit? | amex gold statement credit) and definitely one of these is you, is not it?

Best American Express Credit Cards for July 12 – amex gold statement credit | amex gold statement credit

複線ポイントレール④: SketchUpでプラレール – amex gold statement credit | amex gold statement credit

Amex Corporate Advantage Program Credit – myFICO® Forums – 12 – amex gold statement credit | amex gold statement credit

Amex Insurance Offer: 10X Membership Rewards points – Live .. | amex gold statement credit

Amex Gold Collection: Introduction of Taj Vouchers, Devaluation .. | amex gold statement credit

Amex Premier Rewards Gold New $12 Dining Credit, 12x at .. | amex gold statement credit

from WordPress https://www.visaword.com/quiz-how-much-do-you-know-about-amex-gold-statement-credit-amex-gold-statement-credit/ via IFTTT

[potionsandmagicmilk-blog]

Fluffy headcanons for @ladyknighttime! Happy slightly belated birthday!!

Vanessa is the first one Kendra goes to for advice, but since Kendra usually needs advice when she's awake at four a.m. and stressing out, Vanessa tends to wake up to a 49 texts and 8 missed phone calls.

Tanu legit cried when Kendra and Seth bought him a "number one uncle" mug

Kendra takes EXTREMELY organized notes, all color-coordinated and proper indentation and stuff. When she studies from those notes, she doodles little flowers and stars in the margins so she knows what she already looked at

Every time Elise shaves her legs, she comes running down the stairs and slams her leg on the table. Every. Time.

Vanessa's teenage rebellious phase wasn't actually dark clothes and edgy music, it was ABBA until five in the morning and neon clothes to piss off her mom

Seth can't actually ride a bike. Any time he was on one he was doing a stupid prank and crashing, so Marla and Scott figured it would be a bad idea to get him a bike and let him keep doing that. Any time Seth got dared to ride a bike into something/down a hill/etc. he would just fake it until he made it

Dale blocked Seth's number. They weren't in an argument or anything, Dale was just sick of all the memes

Ruth loves ancestry and old family photos, but when she finally digs out and starts sorting through all the photos from her youth, everyone can hear her yelling "and who the hell is THIS?" every five minutes

Vanessa has a stack of business cards to dismiss people, which she hands out both sarcastically when someone is pissing her off and genuinely when she needs a break from talking to people.

Seth still gets the occasional neat stuff from the satyrs, and he usually sells stuff he doesn't need or want to other creatures on the preserve. The first thing he bought with the profits was a mega-sized bag of gummy bears

Warren can make a ridiculously accurate water-drop noise, and he once had Dale looking for a leak in the cabin for an hour before he burst out laughing and gave himself away

Bracken technically doesn't need to sleep, but he likes to because he taught himself how to lucid dream while in Living Mirage

Warren once wore stilts in order to match the dryads height while talking to them and now he's not allowed to talk to them ever again

Vanessa tried to teach Seth how to pickpocket using the seven bells method, since everyone figured a shadow charmer would be a good pickpocket, right? Seth ended up punching the manakin in the face. Apparently shadow charmers are better at convincing people to just give stuff up

Kendra crossbreeds different types of plants she finds on the preserve, but at one point as a joke she tried making the plant from Little Shop Of Horrors and succeeded TOO much. Kendra had to chainsaw the thing open to get back all the books, furniture, and Dale it had eaten

Elise, running out of her room covered in paint and glitter: THINGS HAVE GONE HORRIBLY WRONG

Udnar the troll was freed onto the preserve when Bracken reclaimed his first horn from the centaurs. Occasionally random bunches of bananas replace stuff around centaur territory. Udnar refuses to say how he got the bananas, and then smiles and waves at Seth because he's not subtle

Warren, to a captive Society member: "you have the right to remain—" Seth: "a loser!!" Warren: "nice, but now I legally have to start over"

Stan grew up in a Jewish family and put presents around the menorah

"Have you guys seen Raxtus—" (fairy Raxtus pops out of Kendra's hoodie) "hello" "whAT FRESH HELL"

Warren still has a video of Hugo holding the siblings up and trying to sing the lion king

Ruth has small bell at the dinner table that she dings every time someone makes a pun

Dale, laying down with the preserve's chickens: I'm done. I'm done. Just let me be with my children

Seth: *dabs and smacks Warren in the face*

Vanessa isn't allowed to carve pumpkins for festival nights because best case scenario she carves "bracken sucks," worst case scenario she stabs the pumpkin into a gloopy mess

Tanu: "pick your battles, Kendra. pick... fewer than that. please put some battles back, that's too many."

Bracken gets stressed over how fragile mortals are. "They're squishy, mother. Do you know how many things can kill a mortal. Do you—"

"Tanu never would've let me down like this"

Elise has gotten into heated debates about robocop and has won

The fairies take a liking to Hugo and land on him, he's just like "..............????"

A different Fablehaven resident brings Seth and Kendra to all their outside-the-preserve stuff and everyone wonders how Seth and Kendra have so many parents

Kendra, in front of the hill where the old chapel was, wearing sunglasses: what's poppin' Muriel

[kristinasarochenko]

Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart. Doty would go on to put Ruth’s practices to work with extraordinary results—power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.

[everydayinferno]

Quicksand Interview: Marissa Stewart, playing “Anne/Ensemble”

IRT Presents Everyday Inferno Theatre Company’s QUICKSAND By Regina Robbins

IRT Theater 154 Christopher St, NYC December 1st-15th, 2018 Tickets: $5-35

“They say that if one stands on the corner of 135th street and 7th avenue long enough, one will eventually see all the people one has ever known. It’s pretty true, I guess. Everyone comes to Harlem sooner or later.”

In Regina Robbins' Quicksand, heightened theatricality, live music, and dance combine to immerse the audience in the 1920s: an era of incredible progress and unimaginable inequality. As we follow the journey of Helga Crane, a biracial woman, from the deep south, through Chicago, New York, Denmark, and back, historical figures of the period appear unexpectedly; Broadway star Al Jolson sings “April Showers” on a New York City street, W.E.B. Du Bois lectures in a lady’s bedroom, and Paul Robeson performs a scene from The Emperor Jones. Infused with the flavor of the roaring 20s, this lively production will pull you back to a past eerily similar to our present.

What about the play resonates with you most/are you most excited to share and why?

I love ensemble-based shows and the creative journey we go on through telling this story. The play feels grand and intimate at the same time. I am excited for my teenage cousins to watch the play and see people that look like them on stage.

If you could have a fantasy dinner party and invite three guests (alive or dead, but they must be real people), who would you invite? What food are you serving?  

Michelle Obama, Beyonce and Ellen DeGeneres. It would be more of a dance party, let's be real. Food would be on the side to keep us fueled during dancing and would consist of unlimited sushi and pinot noir. Plus all the fries. Halfway through the dance party our special VIP guest would arrive: the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

What do you wish the theatre had more of?

Outreach and accessibility for youth and marginalized communities.

MARISSA STEWART* (Anne/Ensemble) is an actor and teaching artist originally from sunny San Antonio, Texas and is beyond thrilled to be in the cast for Quicksand. Upon receiving her Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, she made the big move to New York. Some of her favorite credits include playing Horatio in an all-female cast of Taming of the Shrew, Juliet for the School Visit Program at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as well as performing Thornton Wilder's short plays at the Moscow Art Theater. When she isn't acting, teaching, dancing, or traveling, Marissa can be found riding her super cool bike across the boroughs of NYC.

*Denotes member of Actors’ Equity Association

[hubblogfan-blog]

The Deep Finish Of Dance Courses

Long Island is a stunning, fun stuffed place to invest your retired many years: With miles of beaches, hundreds of locations to go shopping and sufficient great food to go around! The following are a number of factors that make Lengthy Island the best http://www.koreshdance.org/school_adultclassdescriptions.php location to retire! November 19th is the day to mark on your calendar for Sarasota Ballet Venture at 8pm at Ruth Eckerd Hall, located at 1111 McMullen Booth Street Clearwater. Tickets prices are $68, $58, $48 and $38.

Dance Classes In Ajmeri Gate Jaipur

Friday July 8th catch the stunning artwork of Flamenco dance in Clarita Filgueiras' Flamenco Puro at the Tarpon Springs Carrying out Artwork Center located on 324 Pine Road, Tarpon Springs at 8pm and Saturday July 9th at 10am a workshop is offered. Performance tickets variety from $12-$16 and workshop $10.00 with restricted space.

Coming Up in September at the Tarpon Springs Cultural Center at 101 South Pinellas Avenue, get your Greek on with Greek dance classes beginning September 7th on Wednesday evenings from 7pm to 9pm. Advance courses are $30 for four courses or $8 fall in. Be part of a program. There are lots of programs that you can join with to give you assistance for increased health and fitness. You probably have a selection of fitness programs available check here to you via your region fitness center or community middle. If those aren't what you are searching for, you can discover a variety of applications online. You should attempt Couch to 5K for help increasing your health and fitness as well as your stamina levels. Jillian Michaels thirty Working day Shred is incredibly well-liked. These are just two of the programs that people swear have labored for them. Give your self some time to find a plan that works fantastic for you.

Top 10 Dance Classes In Ajmeri Gate Jaipur

Oregon's best line dancing and line dancing classes is at Wranglers Bar and Grill. We presently have two of the best dance instructors in the state right here to educate you first hand on how to shake that money maker. To employ choreographer can be extremely fun while performing the study and viewing many different designs of dance. There are many lecturers searching for methods to specific their abilities on the dance floor. View them teach and how they relate to the dancers, is important also. You want the dancers to enjoy the instructions, as they will carry out better if they are getting fun. A good choreographer can link with the students, dancers, and make them really really feel the songs and perform so that the viewers will get into the songs with them. If you and your girlfriend just recently broke up this is going to be a difficult psychological time in your life. Getting over an ex girlfriend can seem impossible. Your abdomen is in knots, you have trouble sleeping and you have zero want to consume. I know that sensation all as well nicely as I've been there prior to as well. The DJ or band might assist you on the dance floor by inviting other people to come and share the system with you, but it is always useful to know a little little bit of wedding etiquette prior to the reception.

Couple Dance Classes

Center's dance director, Jenna Jones, is an alumnus of New Mexico's Project in Movement. Project In Motion has scheduled a display they state is a mesmerizing adaption of the Shakespearian traditional, A Midsummer Evening's Aspiration. The show will operate from March eight-seventeen in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

When you are searching for a great way to increase and transfer your physique, stylish hop beats can enable you to get heading. Recently, everybody likes looking and feeling their best. This is not continuously enjoyable to visit the gymnasium and exercise. Weight lifting and riding stationary bikes might be dull and will get previous truly quick. A stage cardio physical exercise class was huge however dance programs are awesome. Progressively much more people in fitness centers about the world are asking to think about dance classes. Length of Cruise: How numerous days you want to be out at sea is certainly a element you will want to consider. There are cruises as brief as 3 days, or as lengthy as thirty days or much more (sea sickness can sometimes be a thought).

Best List Of Dance Classes In Ajmeri Gate Jaipur

There are others who aren't phased at all by the video clip. It phone calls into query what would get their interest if these seven year olds sporting spandex lingerie, hefty makeup and shaking their body like a twenty yr previous doesn't even make them take a 2nd appear. The most favorite among her collection are her determine hugging attire, which gives a complete beautiful look to women who want to flaunt their amazing physique. Her even grown tends to make you look radiant in them. Her assortment caters to various taste of women, and for en these who are quite picky on their attire. Her attire are really worth the price for the beautiful detailing and the perfection with which it is produced. The attire fit extremely well on the body and make you really feel very comfy.

[montydonaldson7-blog]

Companion Along with Reality Initiative.

On Thursday, March 30, Friday March 31, as well as Monday April 3, Reality on the Market and the International Facility for Rule and Economics showed a blog symposium-- Agricultural as well as Biotech Mergers: Ramifications for Antitrust Legislation as well as Business economics in Ingenious Industries-- going over three suggested agricultural/biotech field mergings awaiting judgment through antitrust authorizations around the planet. But after that all the payments create themselves evident: no traffic congestion, a knowledgeable bedroom, and also ... K cars! But what Administrator Ohlhausen seems to miss is actually that, through invoking antitrust guidelines, the policy from cause and also very competitive impacts analysis, the Declaration incorporates by recommendation 125 years from antitrust legislation and also business economics. This's why very few people have whatever psychological premium is actually called for to order, as well as appreciate, definitely unique products-- autos, garments, bikes, weapons, check outs, whatever. Somewhat, the analysis has to show that such behavior is going to be actually probably due to lessened competition. For the death that he passed away, he perished to sin the moment for all; yet the lifestyle that he lives, he lives to God. Mylan and also various other general suppliers contend that Accuseds engaged in a method to restrain general competitors for top quality Doryx (an acne medicine) through executing many product redesigns and discontinuing promotion from prior solutions. But some antitrust enforcers-- very most particularly the FTC-- are actually standing in the means. If you liked this article as well as you want to get more details with regards to http://medicacorpo.com/eco-slim-es-una-buena-dieta-fina-y-sin-esfuerzo kindly pay a visit to the web site. Gannett undertook development from a website initially given that some cross-section of everyone wanted checking out news online (and also was certainly the instance for any digital distribution pre-2007). Automobiles are almost always examined wherefore I phone horizontal functionality". Having the Pro-Truth Vow seems like acquired behavior to me. The security of our freedom of speech in the Constitution was actually not place there certainly to secure misstatements and also deceptions. Second, the data Commissioner Rosch trusts are actually unfinished as well as, in many cases, demand correction to become beneficial to address the inquiry at hand. Sizable commentary-- or even congressional focus-- has been actually guided to the vacancy from UMC authorization restrictions, the suitable extent of that authority, and also its own value for business regulated by Commission. During that situation, court of laws have actually stored that anticompetitive effect was not shown under Area 2 of the Sherman Shuck and jive (Rambus).

Is actually gel Any sort of Good? 10 Ways You May be Certain.

Seven Factors To Learn about gel.

Why Is Everybody Referring to gel?

We at TTAC have actually candidly questioned the future of Successor, though recent purchases efficiency from brand new products looked to have actually placed the youth-oriented brand name on the correct path. When he talks to Sarah Ruth to take a look at his spine and also observe a photo of the living incarnate God, she carries out not identify the paint from the design as an image of Christ. We want to do our absolute best to avoid universal competition. The cars and truck was steered by auto writer Wayne Gerdes and electronic devices developer Bob Winger. Among the films that will premiere within this segment is the brand-new mystery Killing Ground," about a young married couple's nightmarish weekend break getaway. However we targeted larger: that was actually apparent that here was a possibility to establish the right of Israeli Religious to congregate publicly and to make use of a suitable aspect of an existing building for that objective. This power, if it is actually to be utilized prudently, allows the FTC to defend buyers off really unsafe organisation practices certainly not dealt with due to the FTC's overall consumer defense authorization. Item redesign only makes competition more durable considering that generics can no longer complimentary ride on automated alternative legislations; rather they should either take part in their personal advertising and marketing attempts or revamp their item to match the brand drug's modifications. As a result, and either deliberately or even by mishap, UMC never ever established a physical body of legislation inclusiving distinct targets or even concepts like antitrust's customer welfare criterion. The Innovations group involves country wide recognized know-how in tobacco management policy, procedure and investigation; marketing and purchases; client service and also support; software advancement, and company operations. Subaru's time out of mind gone to look for The United States And also while USA vehicle sales continue slowing down-- succumbing to a seventh successive month in July 2017, for instance-- Subaru's U.S. purchases continue climbing July, in which Subaru begins the current 's 2nd one-fourth, was Subaru's 68th successive year-over-year month-to-month increase. Moreover, the mission Christ turned over to His Religion is to show the roadway to salvation, which calls for the obedience to the universal moral rule, which is actually called the natural selection. Automobiles merely don't obtain neglected" like they made use of to. Still, there are actually opportunities when one thing slips up by means of the proverbial gaps. Our team find several recommendations to The lord's could as well as power in the Psalms, as an example. Resale nears so sizable in their analysis certainly not given that consumers care about this (or are deceived about it), however since the genuine things of their enmity is actually the lack of a digital initial sale teaching" that exactly mirrors the legislation relating to tangible goods.