#the lighting and colouring was so inconsistent rip

[vakariaan]

ultimate ships challenge - [4/10] she cleans up nicely scenes

[biinanzas]

✦ ˚ ⋆ 𐚁 ⋆ ˚ ✦ Joe and Adam in Bonanza "A Rose for Lotta" 1x01 Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 ✦ ˚ ⋆ 𐚁 ⋆ ˚ ✦

[dreamscape-popstar]

What's Shahrukh's typical wardrobe and what's his favorite piece of clothing to wear?

Typical wardrobe? Probably comfortable. T-shirts, jeans, light jackets, just really basic guy wear

As for a favourite piece of clothing, probably his "default" outfit that he specifically commissioned a company to make for him that fits his whole vibe. Three different t-shirts (same pattern, different base colour), two different jackets (same design, just one short sleeve), and one pair of jeans that come with fabric inserts and put where the "rips" are underneath the jeans so skin wouldn't be visible, it's a 50/50 whether or not he has them.

It kind of frustrates me that we have no fullbody reference to pull from and we draw shit inconsistently but this is the gist

The cutouts of the jacket and the "claw"-esque patterns are meant to represent animal Shahrukh's unique patterns, seen on his ears and tail, and most likely his back. Though the piercings he has also represents specifically the ear markings because we love clever character design.

Out of the entire fit, he probably likes the jackets the most, because it's like, a pretty unique and easy signifier of "This is Shahrukh" to him, just in clothing form. Also jackets are cool as hell.

[alexcaldownapier]

Keeper - The Hardest Work

I hate colour grading, I hate it. I hate so much about the things it involves and yet I still spent 5 days staring at wheels, graphs and images. It just makes me so painfully aware of my lighting mistakes (which i thought were fine when on set).

This was a particularly difficult film to grade due to the uncontrollable powerful lighting fixtures throughout the locations. The changing room was fine, but as soon as we're under the floodlights, it was a real struggle. For one thing, the four floodlights lighting our pitch each had different levels of green tint to them. Then the pitch we bordered on was lit by tungsten lights which often spilled across onto our pitch. Also, there was the wet pitch on the first exterior day which made for the turf extra reflective and tinting everything with this soft green underlight. It was impossible to colour match our lights to the floodlights as both of our powerful lights were singular colour - 5600k white. Then there is Andrew Clark, incredible actor, but also the whitest boy known to man. Skin like porcelain, this boy. Lookin like a sheet of paper, he was. [Strangely, an issue that carried over from the test-shoot...?] Or maybe this was just because he was often stood next to Stuart, a 50-year-old man, with a 50-year-old man complexion. Anyways, there was a lot to fix and colour match and there are still some things that look a little weird scene to scene, but christ, I did my best. Mainly it's the bloody stretches at the start of the session - what a terrible pair of shots, Alex! Get it right on set next time, ya eejit, man.

But, amongst all the hatred, there is a little bit of love in my heart for colour grading. Because, after all the correction, I was able to have some creative input to the image. First up was the aspect ratio. We'd chosen a 1:66 aspect ratio back in last term, for the movie that it was originally going to be. But, even with the direction and story change, the 1:66 ratio still made sense. Not just for framing single characters, but also for the added height that we needed to establish the scale of the environment. I liked having our characters walking across the bottom of the frame with the floodlights towering over them.

Then there's the highlights. I was having some fun bringing out the cold, stark feeling of the lights by ripping out the saturation in the upper highlights, making them appear white. This also helped add some shape to Will and Aaron's strips, as they were both heavily saturated, so were hard to read the different light values within them.

I also added some grain as an overlay to make it feel it a little softer, but still gritty. Overall, I wanted to push the contrast in the images and pull down the saturation and keep to the reasonably monochromatic colour scheme that we had set out. I like the way it looks, colour wise, despite the inconsistencies and horrible stretching scene.

[jasonsbones]

Introducing original character do-not-steal, Poly Byron!

He is:

From another Flatland style 2d world! Because imo there should be unlimited slices we take into two-dimensionality. I'm gonna say it's still kicking around- unlike Bill, he's actually still physically connected to his world, and what we see of Poly is a metaphysical/dream/trippinballsintheflow manifestation. He doesn't cast a shadow (it actually gets brighter when light is cast through him, like a prism) and his shaded sides will have inconsistancies in colour, since he actually doesn't exist in a proper third-dimensional state (3d brains just fill in the concept with 'brightness', kinda like how Flatlanders might describe how they might try to interpret height without fully understanding it)

From a flatworld whose workings would be very similar to Euclyidia, I'd say- except in the concept of infinity. You can go too far from home to ever return to it in your life, depending on your lifespan. You don't just wrap around and find home again. You can still go any direction, but think of it like trying to explore the vastness of space- you just keep going, you know? At a point you can't go back to Earth.

Unlike Bill, no Trauma for this Triangle! He may do crimes (drugs) but they're all to himself and maybe giving some terrestrial druggies some very weird dreams. Might tripsit for others trying to understand the 3rd dimension.

Also unlike Bill, in spite of having access and power thru the dream realm (and in theory, summonable in a similar demonic manner to Bill), he's basically just a dream demon. The most he does is rip your dreaming self through a fuckton of hotels, motels, and carnival rides. His concept of time is going to be completely different to somebody from the 3rd dimension- so what he might think is like, a fun vacation through your head for both of you might end up feeling more like a feverish stress dream, if not technically a nightmare in the strictest of senses. They're not all bad, they're just messy.

If summoned into the physical 3rd dimension, his 2d body might actually be ripped apart and he might Come Back Wrong. Potential drawing of this in the works, but I could see it being similar to Nightmare Pyramid Bill. Typical summonings will bring about a manifestation that's equivalent to a hologram, though he's hard to look at with waking eyes simply due to being a 2-d projection into the 3-d world.

Minor details like, his hat does not float above his head, he wears white gloves, he has written a thesis on the 3rd dimension (unlike Flatland and Euclydia, it's not forbidden), and would approximately be middle-aged. When he dies, I imagine the Axolotl or some other force will try to pop him into some Role, since he's one of the few dimensional beings that can have multi-dimensional experiences without like. Being a dick about it or losing his mind.

He's basically my substance user triangle. I'm a nerd enough to say triangles were my fave polygon as a kid, and green is my favourite colour. I'm a man of simple needs, and for better of worse, this guy thinks he's showing dreamers of other dimensions a good time. He's a little misinformed, but not malicious.

Din't a book say something about Euclydia being like a side-scroller? Now I know the vibe is usually, oh yeah hey that's bill-

But what if it's not? What if it's say, a denizen of Euclydia, Exwhylia, or something fairly similar, another version of flatland?

[absenthearted]

THE QUARRY | CHAPTER 7 | THE PAST BEHIND US

If you knew all this, why didn’t you just kill it in the storm shelter when you had the chance?  It’s not so—I’m—I was—when I—  Straightforward?  No! It’s not—They’re not so easy to hit. I was trying to protect you two.

CYNICAL or ENCOURAGING → SUSPICIOUS or ACCUSATORY 

[saladejin]

Call An Uber? | 05

BTS x Reader | idolverse au, uber driver!Reader, translator!Reader | Fluff, flirting, super slow burn, angst and hurt/comfort, mature themes and eventual smut

Summary: Your normal life with a normal, yet inconsistent job gets drastically changed when your dreams come true. Sounds boring right? What happens when all of this occurs, but you’re still doing something you love AND getting a large sum for it? Now there’s something to think about, and it’s definitely not what you’re thinking.

Warnings: Mild swearing

Word Count: 4k 

< masterpost >

A/N: Hey there tumblr readers! This story might not seem all that angsty or plot-heavy in these first few chapters, but I promise it builds into it. I apologise for all the slow burn, I just can’t help myself ^^;

»»————- <<prev | next >> ————-««

       Getting home after the calming car ride seemed a tad anti-climactic. Weariness from the day piled high onto my shoulders, and as I threw my bag into the corner of my bedroom, I all but flopped onto the bed unceremoniously.

The small apartment wasn’t much, but it was enough to sustain me. The landlord was polite at least, and the rent was luckily just within my budget for now. It consisted of a small kitchen and a cosy living room all in one tiny, yet open space. A door led into the one and only bedroom of the apartment, which was also lacking in spaciousness, but it wasn’t as if anyone else was living here. All in all, it was adequate despite not really being something I was used to.

Laying silently on the bed allowed my thoughts and memories from the day to shroud my mind. I remembered how helpless and overwhelmed I’d been feeling when escaping into the carpark of the building, and how my responsibilities had come crashing through like swelling waves of inky ocean water. 

Feeling lost was one way to describe that moment, but Yoongi had consoled me to a point where I felt stable and supported. Even if he didn’t mean to show it directly, of which I wasn’t so sure, his way of letting me know he cared hadn’t been lost on me. I was usually good at noticing these things, so it was surprising to see that he wanted to show the gentle side of him tonight. I guess I really was finding out how these boys lived. I was seeing their thought processes with my own very eyes, something vital that was missing in my connection with them before.

Things were happening quickly, but I was ready to let them happen with welcoming, open arms. I was going to absolutely thrive in this new lifestyle, so why let stress weigh me down like a pile of bricks? I just wouldn’t let it.

Rolling over to smooth down the pale bedsheets with my fingers, I couldn’t help but let my mind drift to the sharp eyes of Yoongi, the dazzling smile of Jimin, Namjoon’s dimples…and just all seven of them. I needed to let them know how their fans felt, and I needed them to let me know if they had any doubts about their popularity and future. This could be one of my purposes, and a goal combined with many, many ARMYs. If I had the chance to console them, just like Yoongi had with me, then I would jump at the opportunity with no malignant intentions. I only wanted to help them and share with them the happiness they had given me throughout the years. To groove out their misgivings and straying negativity that allowed unnecessary stress and anxiety to build.

This was my purpose.

~

The days scorched hotter and hotter, meaning another short meeting for us at the firm. Nobody wanted to stay inside a sticky office filled with the sounds of stuttering air conditioners and electric fans, so Bang PD let everyone go home earlier than usual. When I say earlier, I mean mid-afternoon anyway, so it’s not like it’s actually early.

I’d finally started out with my new job, and so far things had gone swimmingly. The staff were continuously friendly, and the workload was nothing too devastating. Since the company had been a little short on multilingual interpreters, the amount of language related jobs had been growing over time. I could have been overwhelmed, but instead it was somehow smooth sailing from the get-go.

Things were going splendidly, but I wondered about what was going to happen with my Uber job. Would I just stop? It wasn’t like I needed the money from it now, so what would even be the point of it? Meeting new people from all cultures and backgrounds wouldn’t even be an issue at all. Maybe, just maybe the idea of giving up my job as a glorified taxi driver was an imminent one.

~

The office had been bustling today, but I knew it was because everyone was focused on preparing for the upcoming BTS concert. One of the company’s translators held out some papers from where he sat in his wheeling chair. “(Y/n)-ssi, could you please drop these down to the stylists? I translated the articles like they asked, so they’ll want to have a look as soon as possible.”

“Of course. I was about to bring them some coffee anyway. They’ve been working tirelessly,” I smiled at him and grasped the papers. It seemed the marketing management had wanted select articles about their fashion sense, hair styling and makeup to be translated from various languages.

I scurried to the kitchen area where I’d already started on the coffees. Someone had graciously told me how most of the stylists liked their drinks, and I knew they would need it after how much they had been testing makeup supplies and hair products downstairs. I shuddered at the thought of having my fingers sticking together from the amount of hairspray circulating the room.

The basement was pretty much where everything happened. Practices, auditions, coaching etc. You name it.  After dropping off the notes and coffees, I was showered with gratitude from the stylists and was shocked to see just how tired and worn-down they were. The thought that something big was about to happen caused excitement to curl deep within the pit of my stomach.

Maybe there’ll be new hair colours soon?

“No worries, make sure you get some rest!” I reminded them before letting the door to the changing room click shut.

I was right about the hairspray thing, it was seriously suffocating in there. At least they had some air vents open for ventilation, but I felt bad for those kind-hearted men and women. They would most likely be staying there way into the hours of the night too.

I began to walk back towards the elevator, but my eyes were caught by a bright light flooding from one of the main practice areas. One of the doors had been left wide open, and I glanced inside to see a very expansive room enclosed by pure white walls. The floor was made up of tawny brown floorboards, or maybe vinyl, I wasn’t quite sure. I think it had only recently been renovated.

“(Y/n)? Hello!” a clear and high-pitched voice made me jump in my skin. I looked further into the room to spot Jimin resting in one of the black, wheeling chairs of the studio area. His fading blonde locks had been swept back completely, and I could tell he was tired and sweaty from practicing.

To his left was Hoseok, who seemed distracted until Jimin’s exclamation, and the last person in the room was none other than a certain Kim Taehyung. As soon as the youngest of the three found out I was hiding in the doorframe, his eyes blew wide.

“Hey Jimin, Hoseok-ssi and Taehyung-ssi,” I bowed, as was the custom, and made my way into the room. You really had to spin around to take everything in, it was incredibly large for a practice studio.

I turned when I heard footsteps and was greeted by a very bright and bubbly Taehyung.

“(Y/n)? Ah, it’s so great to meet you finally!” He bowed also and I instinctively reached out to shake his hand, smiling once he brought both of his warmer ones together around my own.

They’re so big, what the hell.

Ripping my line of sight away from his long fingers, I glanced behind him to see Hoseok making his way forward too. “Hey there! I’m also glad to meet you (Y/n).”

I exchanged similar greetings with the fiery red-head, but stepped back when Jimin intervened with a low-pitched whine.

“No, no.” He ran forward and grasped his two bandmate's shirts gently to pull them away. “Don’t crowd her, we’re all smelly from practice!”

His disgusted expression made me grin again, and I shook my head. “Don’t worry about that, a little sweat won’t kill me.”

Hoseok laughed while playfully batting away Jimin’s hands. “Sorry about that, we are kind of gross right now.” He started airing out his shirt rapidly while strolling over to where three water bottles rested along the wall. I noticed that they were the only people in the room and puzzled over the thought. they were usually here with a manager or something, weren’t they?

“What were you guys practicing? And where are the others?” I queried, and watched as Taehyung flashed me a boxy grin. Jimin just groaned and ran his fingers through his hair yet again.

“We’re practicing for the concert, but I only came a couple of hours ago, the others are just at home I think,” Taehyung explained, patting Jimin’s back heartily. “Jiminie and Hoseokie-hyung have been here all day. They’re so fit!”

I glanced over at the two dancers as Hoseok jumped over to tickle Tae lovingly, Jimin just smiled at their loud antics. I was beyond surprised, as none of the members even seemed too tired. They were simply out of breath despite the sheer amount of exercise they’d undergone.

“That’s amazing! You all have so much energy to be able to practice so much.” I earned all of their attentive gazes, Hoseok instantly gracing me with his own beaming smile.

“Thanks! We’re just having a little break, but we’ll start again soon. Would you like to watch?”

My heart almost leapt out of my chest at the thought.

“Would I? Of course I’d love to watch you guys dance.” I clapped my hands together in excitement, eyes bright and shining with an uncontrolled delight. This made Taehyung reach forward with both hands to make a 'flower' under my flushing face.

“How cute!” He cooed, and Jimin pulled him away again. An eye-smile was stretching across the shorter boy's face in the most endearing way possible. Hoseok laughed, following with a “very cute, very cute” and ran off to start the music again.

All three of them were in light clothing, but Hoseok was wearing a white short-sleeved t-shirt while the other two adorned button-ups varying in style. All three wore long black Puma pants, most likely because of the ambassadorship they were part of.

“Ah, I don’t want to mess up in front of (Y/n),” Jimin tilted his head and looked at me with a somewhat pained expression. When I raised my eyebrows at him, he pouted and shook his hair out of his downcast eyes. I felt like I needed to step in.

“Jiminie, you’re an amazing dancer, you’d even make messing up look good. Plus, it’s only practice.”

“Yeah Jimin-ah, she won’t mind,” Hoseok helped me out and as the music started blaring from the speakers again, the rapper jogged over to jab Jimin teasingly in the side.

From the words of encouragement, Jimin brightened and smiled in my direction again before joining the others with a serious glint in his eye. I sat against one of the pristinely white walls to watch the action unfold before me, knowing I was about to witness something magnificent. Taehyung started moving his hands and bobbing his body to the beat in that hilarious way he usually did in mock dance practices, and I couldn’t help but snort in amusement.

“Oh, Taehyung is improving! It must be because we have a lady in the room,” Hoseok teased and shook his head, breaking out into chuckles when Tae moved to hit his shoulder in protest. His bashful smile switched focus to me, and I nodded my head in approval.

“I'm loving the skills though.”

Suddenly, the starting track for ‘Fire’ began rumbling loudly through the speakers, and my ears perked in recognition. Was I actually going to see this performed in front of me? I knew this dance all too well from the countless videos I’d seen.

“Are you guys ready?” Hoseok hollered into the open space, and I watched them line up a few metres back from the large mirror. They must’ve been planning to perform this at the upcoming concert, but I wasn’t sure why they needed so much practice seeing as they literally performed it at most live events.

I suddenly threw my cardigan across the room and jump to my feet, rolling up my sleeves in determination. I didn’t even care if they thought I was the strangest person in the world right now, because this was ‘Fire’. “I’m so joining in!”

As the first ‘bultaoruene’ resonated against the pale walls, I ran into the middle of the room and launched straight into the first part of the dance. Despite wanting to come across as serious, I couldn’t keep a cool and collected demeanour and opted instead to laugh loudly. The others were no different, and as my arms started moving wildly, Jimin fell to the floor in a breathless wreck. Hoseok exaggerated his surprise by cupping his hands around his mouth and cheering me onwards while Taehyung mimicked him with his own loud whoops. All three ended up on the ground as I continued to dance, biting my lip to feign seriousness.

I didn’t try to replicate their dancing, as I knew I couldn’t reach their level, but I still shook my hands rapidly and squeezed impassioned eyes to parody something that resembled it. The music stopped, and I fell to the vinyl floor as well, my breathing shortened due to how much I was cackling. Hoseok had stumbled over to pause the track, and I could hear him suffering just as I was.

“Oh my-Oh my God that was great. Did you learn the whole thing?” he gasped out, making his way back over to where I was sitting with my head pressed into the cold floor. My whole body was shaking and erupting with shamed giggles, and when I rolled over, I hid my face in my hands to stop the embarrassment from showing.

“I’ve seen it too many times to not dance to it.”

“I was not expecting that, you have to dance with us, I’m begging you.” Taehyung ran over, his deeply toned sentence breaking up into various airy chuckles. Jimin was the last to get to his feet, but his face was completely reddened and his hair was even messier than before.

“We’ll teach you the rest. I think we’ve practiced the actual dances enough for today, don’t you think hyung?”

Hoseok exhaled loudly, his eyes crinkling with his smile after regaining his composure. 

“Yes, you’re right. And the newest member of the dance line needs some instruction.”

I was still on the floor, but at the agile dancer’s statement I fell over again. Taehyung and Jimin both smiled at the sight of my pained expression.

“Guys, I wouldn’t be able to dance the whole thing properly, let alone with phenomenal dancers like you right there.”

“Thank you for the compliment, but you are going to learn this. No buts.” Taehyung held out a helping hand, and I grasped it to help me get back on my feet. I then turned to Hoseok.

“Okay sonsaeng-nim, where do I start?”

All three boys laughed again, and Hoseok straightened himself, puffing out his chest to seem scholarly. Taehyung pointed towards him with a grin that only widened.

“Hobi-hyung is literally everyone’s dance teacher, he’ll make sure you get it perfect.”

At this, the greyish-brown haired boy rushed to line up beside me and looked sideways expectantly. Jimin , but chose not to line up. I nudged Taehyung into a straighter position with my elbow as Hoseok began pacing in front of us, massaging his chin with two fingers thoughtfully. He lowered his voice to sound gruff and strict, and I had to blow out my cheeks to keep it in.

“First lesson of the day, the chorus choreo.”

“Yes, teacher,” Taehyung and I recited in unison as if being scolded. Jimin nearly fell over again until Hoseok waved his hand dismissively and the whole act was dropped. I fell into the boy beside me, suddenly embarrassed once more, but not being able to contain myself any longer. Taehyung patted my shoulder comfortingly while stifling his own noises.

“Honestly, we weren’t joking about you learning the dance though,” Hoseok started and meandered over to grasp both my forearms, tugging on them to lead me forwards. I groaned and sent a look that screamed ‘help’ towards Jimin and Taehyung, but they both just snorted.

I internally cursed Jimin for betraying me like this. I’d thought he was my friend.

“Jimin-ah, Taehyung-ah, you’re going to help too.” Hoseok beckoned them over, and I could only grumble in more complaint.

“Okay, just get Jimin to show me some steps and I’ll see if I can do it properly.” I straightened my arms, which were still being pulled by Hoseok, and tapped my feet a couple of times to get ready. The red-haired dancer eventually dropped his hold, but looked down at his hands as if he’d touched something strange and foreign.

Jimin nodded at my request, and I paid close attention as he lined up in front of the mirror and ran through the starting choreography to the chorus. As both he and Hoseok showed me a slowed down version, I managed to get it all memorised. Taehyung clapped his hands to congratulate me, but his face fell when the phone in his pocket started buzzing incessantly.

“Sorry guys, it’s my turn to help Jin-hyung with dinner tonight. I have to go,” Taehyung fake sobbed, and I watched as Jimin went along with it to hug him comfortingly. Hoseok pretended to cry as well, and I couldn’t help but think this whole scene looked like he was about to be sacrificed to the Devil or something.

“Bye (Y/n), I hope I’ll see you soon,” The lively boy called as everything returned back to normal, and I couldn’t help but revel in the easy-going atmosphere surrounding me suddenly. I hadn't even met two of these people yet, but somehow I'd managed to skip past all the initial awkwardness of first meetings.

“Of course, definitely soon!” I vowed, and the singer left while grabbing one of the sports bags that rested by the door, continuing to walk backwards and wave rapidly. He was just too cute, and the way his eyes glimmered with hope just before he left was etched deeply into my mind. Even long after he was gone.

“We’re fine to teach you something, before we have to go anyway,” Hoseok turned back to us, and I almost face-palmed at the thought.

“Please don’t waste your time, I don’t even have a dancer’s body,” I spoke, my voice drawling out in protest.

“(Y/n) you do! Even if you were playing around before, you could still dance,” Jimin fought my statement, and I scoffed at his widened eyes. He was seriously against people belittling themselves.

“Plus, everyone gets better with practice,” Hoseok joined in, nodding his head cutely as he slammed his hands onto his hips. Jimin ran through the dance again, and I sewed their teachings together to try and copy him. I was shorter and had a different body shape to both dancers, but it wasn’t too difficult to try and alter the moves to accommodate for that. It was safe to say I actually ended up pretty proud of the outcome.

“I just don’t like how I can’t flow properly when I come up from the first move,” I grunted, trying out the steps again. Jimin hummed considerately before moving to stand behind me.

“Move your hands super quickly, and maybe keep this arm up so it’s easier.” He lightly grasped one of my forearms while I stayed frozen in position, and I actually saw in the mirror how it could help me. I was very much aware of how gentle his touch had been and how close his body was to mine. It didn’t help my racing thoughts when his warm puffs of breath made the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.

“And since you have to move your feet soon after, maybe don’t put so much weight on them beforehand,” Hoseok chipped in, and moved my other arm down so I could focus on my feet this time around. He’d been firmer than Jimin with his touch, but the singular fact that both of them had touched my arms in the span of a minute was enough to leave me breathless. I followed his instruction and gulped when the dancer’s lips quirked up into a knowing smirk.

The fucker knows what he’s doing.

“See, speed it up and try it now!” Hoseok bounced to get on my other side while Jimin stood and watched his partner offer his own extra tips. I found out just how useful a wall-sized mirror was when learning to dance, and when complimented by Hoseok’s timely sound effects, it wasn’t hard to get down the moves.

“Pa, pa and... boom! See, you have it. You’re a natural.” Hoseok reached up to exchange a sharp high-five, and I complied before covering my face again. This was almost too embarrassing. I just knew how badly my cheeks were flaring with flames of blazing pink.

“See hyung, I told you she was cute when she blushed.” One of Jimin’s fingers came to poke my cheek, just like he had done that one time in the car.

I reeled away from him. “Ah, don’t tease me, how rude!”

Hoseok and Jimin chuckled, and I heard the older dancer agree with my words in another fresh bout of mockery. “She’s right Jiminie, don’t embarrass her too much or she might just faint because of you.”

I growled, and they both stifled their laughing.

“As if I would faint, it’s not like I’ve never received a compliment before.”

“Ooh, cocky.” Hoseok tilted his head back and I smiled as both boys shook their heads at each other with crossed arms.

“Hey!” I pushed both of them away using their broad chests, scrunching my face up. Knowing it wasn’t convincing in the slightest, I inwardly cursed my continuous failure to hide emotions.

“But seriously, she has that natural aegyo,” Hoseok pointed out with wide eyes. Jimin’s jaw slackened in surprise before he agreed wholeheartedly.

 “I’m leaving, before my face burns clean off,” I then announced, pointing an accusing finger at the two chuckling dancers who were making their way over to gather their belongings and drink bottles.

 “Remind me to never be alone with you two again.”

“But (Y/n) …” Jimin licked his lips and smiled sweetly. “We’re not making any promises.”

The duality of this man truly scared me.

“Whatever, I should actually get going though,” I noted forlornly, not continuing to joke even though I really wished to do nothing but. The boys both nodded with their spirits also seeming to dampen slightly, but Hoseok lifted his head to smile with that signature sun-like glow of his.

“It was really fun to dance with you, please consider learning with us again (Y/n).”

“It sounds like you’re trying to sell me something, but sure I’ll think about it.”

Jimin erupted into giggles and slapped his elder on the shoulder before curling into him, just like he usually did when he laughed really hard. Hoseok merely pressed his lips together and tilted his head to seem hurt.

“Please do,” he agreed in a broken whisper, but I steeled my throat from letting anything close to laughter escape its clutches. I would be here for way too long if I couldn’t control myself.

“Okay bye!” I shout, listening to their farewells before ducking out into the chilled hallway.

Time had seriously flown by, and I remembered that I would have been home hours ago if I hadn’t been so severely side-tracked. I sighed with weariness as I finally made my way towards the steel doors of the elevator, listlessly passing a trashcan full of several empty coffee cups.

            Copyright © 2020 by salade. All rights reserved.  

tagged: @l4life​, @joyful-jimin​

[seasons-of-ceres]

Feb 2 2021

There is something in the silence of snowfall. The crush of wind over rooftops. The quiet roar of cars driving apart snowdrifts, the waterfall rush of fresh flakes tumbling over the edge of the bridge. A light outside my window keeps flickering, and even from across the train tracks, I can watch clumps of snow floating down into its inconsistent beam. Ever marvel at how bright things appear at night? When there are no clouds and no moon, but the sheer whiteout creates light? It should be dark outside, navy to pitch, but everything is soft, cashmere grey. I could wrap myself in the haze outside, the cold bristles would tickle my cheeks and dust my eyelashes. Watch me become a chimney, the smoke rising from my throat is nothing but the breath from my lungs, excited by the cold, encouraged to colour themselves white.

It’s stupid and romantic, the silence of fresh snow. When tired souls look outside and dread shoveling, and others anticipate nervous drivers who stop too early or otherwise take dangerous turns to escape the traffic. I nearly froze outside today, bundled beneath a blanket with my sister, but I do not think I have ever felt so at peace. No noise. No sound. No great cacophony. Just magpies, crows and maybe ravens, chickadees. The chatter of squirrels, a yappy dog across the streets, my own dogs wrestling all over the still-icy backyard.

I ripped open my finger in a fall; I am watching the way my skin slowly heals. This new cream has been carefully erasing the scabs from my hands, my shoulders, my legs. I am biting my nails still, eating the skin around them, it is a terrible habit but a good way to measure time between Big Stress Events. Of course, I need to keep my nails short for work, but you know.

I pluck hairs from my chin every night. That too is a bad habit, I get scabs there as well. I don’t know if I just hate my body in general or if this is a new stress thing, something I am trying to control to have a sense of control in my life. I cannot control a lot of things, that probably explains why I’m so hesitant (scared) to try new things.

Mom got me a watercolour kit. I am eager to capture the sky, I’ve taken at least one picture to replicate—the middle of a sunrise, a half-made yellow orb surfacing over the horizons, the bright pink glow, and then the fading purple to blue sky. Gods. Drown me in sunrise and sunset. And I like the name Demeter more and more.

[thesnowinthemountains]

NCT 127 helping you study

(a/n: i did my best but i apologize in advance if there are inaccuracies in certain fields of study, i also acknowledge that the lengths of these are hella inconsistent. oops.)

Taeil

He thought it would be a good idea to have music playing in the background while you tried to study. Tried. You kept getting distracted by a particularly good lyric or interesting instrumental arrangement until you were eventually about to crawl out of your skin. He was sitting across from you at the dinner table, your papers scattered everywhere, scrolling through his phone.

“Taeil, turn that off please.” You said it softly.

“No.”

You look up at him now.

“What do you mean ‘no’? Yes. Turn that off,” you laugh it off, but you’re the slightest bit annoyed. This is one of the biggest exams you’ll have this semester, and if you don’t straight up ace it, you’ll be struggling for the next few weeks. He shakes his head.

“Taeil-”

“I read somewhere that if you can associate sounds or music to words, it helps to memorize them. I’m trying to help.”

“Oh.” You pause. “Well, maybe try it again later, for now I don’t even have my definitions down.”

He finally looks at you.

“Fine.” The music stops and you fall back into a peaceful silence.

Johnny

“Alright, who painted ‘Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow’?”

“Mondrian. Come on, at least give me something difficult, I’m trying to pass this final,” you whine, head hanging over the side of your bed. Johnny sits at your desk across the room.

“Okay, how about some added incentive?” Your study sheet falls from his face and you realize you haven’t actually looked at him in about a half hour.

“Yes?” You lean up onto your elbows.

“Every answer you get right now is a kiss you’ll get later.” He cocks his head. You don’t even have to think about it.

“Deal! Come on, next question.” You plop back down. A few minutes later, after a lightning round of names and dates, colours and details, you sit up to find him writing on your notes.

“What are you doing? Those are important.” You frown.

“I’m keeping a tally so I don’t forget one later. We are at...” He smirks without looking up and counts his marks on the page. “Seven, so far.”

“Ah,” you blush, “carry on, then.” You think to yourself there’s no way in hell you’ll ever be able to focus on that particular page of notes again.

Taeyong

You were supposed to memorize the entire periodic table and you were absolutely overwhelmed at the prospect. This was one of those moments you wished you had some superhuman photographic memory that would require minimal effort on your end. Taeyong had you study piece by piece over a long period of time. At first, you hadn’t even noticed he was doing it - he was being sneaky.

“Hey, what’s the first row of the periodic table?”

“That’s a weird question.”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know, I just had a weird flashback to science class in high school, it was up on a wall next to my desk. I think it starts with helium, right?”

“Hydrogen and helium, technically, yeah, but that’s not really how they’re grouped.” You explained.

“Oh? So how are they grouped?”

“Well, you’ve got your metals, halogens, stuff like that.”

“Huh. And what are they?”

That’s when you started to catch on. You cocked your head at him.

“Which ones? There are a few different types of metals.”

“Well, whichever.” He shrugged, still playing his part perfectly.

Yuta

It wasn’t an exam, per se, but you had to put together a final portfolio for an art class, one you hated. It was supposed to be basic drawing techniques, but the professor was all over the place; not all that surprising for an art professor, but still annoying to follow. You were sitting on your living room floor, papers strewn everywhere, barely knowing where to begin. You had a drawing of a flower that was nice and simple, you had gotten the shading right, you liked it enough. One was of a hallway; same deal, the technique was alright, you set it aside, but you had to pick a total of ten drawings. You had dozens, some of the same thing over and over again because you, or the professor, were never satisfied. When Yuta walked into the apartment and found you in that state, he started by sitting quietly beside you on the floor.

“What are we doing?” He murmured after a minute.

“Freaking out.”

“I see. Anything I can help with?”

You didn’t answer, but held up a decent-enough drawing of a hand.

“Do you think the details on this are okay?” You asked. He looked at you and then the drawing. He liked pretty much anything you did, but he knew you needed brutal honesty if you were ever going to be finished with this. He took a long, deep breath.

“So, the index finger on this one looks a little wonky, I think this one,” he reached for another drawing of a hand, “has better lines, better dimensions. All the fingers are good.”

“Oh, I hate the thumb on that one, though…”

He shrugged.

“This one?” He picked a drawing of a desk under a window. “The light looks really cool.”

Doyoung

For your final assignment, you were to make a long, detailed marketing proposal to your class. If it was picked up, you passed, if not, you had an opportunity for a do-over, and a private presentation to the professor alone. You didn’t want the second option, you had other things to do after passing this class that did not include a one-on-one meeting with your middle-aged professor some time after the end of classes. You had been reciting the whole thing to yourself for days, you had prepared a PowerPoint presentation and a ton of visuals to aid you, but you needed a second opinion. You had gone out with Doyoung a handful of times, you both figured it was a matter of time before things between you were made official, so you had him over, sat him down, and launched into your presentation. At the end, you took a breath, then asked:

“How was that?”

He gaped at you.

“Well, hot, we’ll start there.”

“No, Doyoung, I meant would you go for this idea if you were the CEO of something?”

“Honestly, yeah. You made some good points, you had valid, real reasons for what you wanted to do and how you wanted to market this thing. I think it works.” He shrugged.

“You’re a business major, you better not be bullshitting me.”

“You’re a marketing major, you could probably tell if I was.”

Jaehyun

You had given Jaehyun a key to your apartment months ago. He let himself in regularly, and a lot of the time, he was there when you got home from school or work. This time, though, he walked in to you sitting on your living room floor, laptop on the coffee table, facing the couch. There was paper all over the floor, some crumpled, some ripped, some simply abandoned. He had to tiptoe and side-step all the way to you. Your hair was a mess, which he would’ve found endearing if your eyes hadn’t been bloodshot.

“What are you doing?”

You nearly jumped out of skin, startled.

“Fuck, when did you get here?” You asked, eyes wide.

“Just now. You know you have a desk.” He nodded to the wooden furniture in the far corner of the room. You sighed.

“I couldn’t sit there anymore, I was going out of my mind.”

“Well, what are you doing?” He asked again, picking up notes on the couch to sit, facing you.

“My final portfolio for my fiction class is due tomorrow and I haven’t worked on anything in weeks.”

“You’re always writing.”

“Yeah, I’m always writing, but I had two of these stories workshopped months ago and I hadn’t looked at them since. God, they needed so much work, Jaehyun, I can’t believe I actually submitted that. Plus, I was missing a good ten pages for the portfolio, which I’ve written now, thank god, but I have so many drafted versions, I don’t know which one I want. I wrote seven different endings. I’m not even sure about my characters’ names. Or if I want them to be named, nothing’s coming out like I want it, I don’t know what I’m going to do-”

“Okay, slow down, slow down,” he moved to sit on the floor now, facing you at eye level. “How long have you been writing?”

You looked down at the time on your laptop. You frowned, confused.

“That can’t be right.”

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“There’s no way-”

“Alright, go take a nap, I’ll order some food.”

Winwin

“I need you to play judge.” You told Sicheng.

“Judge?”

“Yeah, sit,” you placed him at the center of the couch, and looked around before handing him a spoon. “Tap that on the table if you need to interrupt me.”

He stared at the spoon.

“Isn’t that for weddings?”

“So, I’m basically defending a client accused of theft and-”

“Don’t I get, like, case notes or something?”

“So demanding.” You rolled your eyes but went for your notes. He looked them over for a few minutes before leaning back comfortably.

“Proceed.” He declared, voice loud and clear. You smiled before launching into everything you prepared for your final. He did a fine job of rebutting if possible and interrupting when necessary, though you had to stop him from objecting! about anything he disagreed with.

Jungwoo

As an education major in your first year, your big final assignment was to prepare an elementary-level language class to teach your fellow university-level education major peers. To prepare, you had Jungwoo come over and told him he’d be playing the role of a seven year old, which pleased him.

“I’m a baby, you know that. This is perfect,” he grinned, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of you.

“Yes, now shut up, we’re learning vowels.” You said in your regular voice before switching to the over-enunciated, slightly higher-pitched voice of a first or second-grade teacher.

Mark

“How’s the essay going?” Mark asked, coming into your dorm room. He plopped down on your bed behind you.

“Well, so… get this,” you swiveled around in your chair to face him, leaving behind you a handful of novels, two different notebooks, and your phone open to pictures of your friends’ notes. “I’m supposed to write a compare-and-contrast essay about James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, of all people.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Mark, have you ever read Beckett? It’s like an acid trip in slow motion. You finish it, you have straight up no clue what you just read, but now you have to write about it.”

He frowns.

“And that other guy?”

“Joyce? He’s okay, I’m just glad writing about Ulysses isn’t a requirement. There are just certain things I’m not willing to put myself through.”

“Well, mind if I keep you company?” He leans back on your bed.

“Go ahead, just try not to distract me too much, I want to get this done today.”

“You won’t even know I’m here.” He puts his headphones in and lies back against your pillow. 

Haechan

This boy had arranged a whole game night just for you. He had friends over, set up a whole tournament bracket in which he was, of course, your partner, and he made sure even if you didn’t end up winning, you would end up learning, memorizing, and having fun getting ready for your most dreaded final. Food was ordered, drinks were made, and finally everyone involved in this evening was sat around the dinner table, in a heated trivia competition.

Some days later when your exam came around and you saw the first questions, your mind flashed back to Haechan shouting the answer at the top of his lungs and standing up so fast his chair fell backwards. It had been a ridiculous, slightly stupid idea, but damn if it hadn’t worked like a charm.

[season-of-love]

Rules: answer 20 questions and tag 10 people you want to know better

I was tagged by @radcowboyalmondtree (go follow her!)

Name: Alexandra (Lexi)

Pronouns: She/Her

Nicknames: Lexi, lex, lex-I (its a long story)

Zodiac: aries

Height: 5’6

Languages: English and a lil french

Nationality: im first generation Canadian (so like Irish-Canadian if thats a thing??)

Favourite season: Fall, its all comfy!!

Favourite scent: fresh baked cookies

Favourite colour: pink! or just any pastel colours

Favourite animal: bunnies!!

Favourite fictional characters: Alyssa Greene & Emma Nolan, everyone from HP but specifically Ginny, toni topaz (in season 2), the heathers and a few more 

Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: tea!

Average sleep hours: its not consistent at all (i have insomnia) 

Dog or cat person: i have had dogs my whole life and a cat for the past like 6 years until recently (rip CC, ily pretty kitty) so it’s hard to choose

Number of blankets I sleep with: 2, one heavy duvet and one light fluffy blanket

Dream trip: Ireland or NYC

Blog established: Idk like october?? November???

Followers: i hit 80 this morning!!!

Random fact: when i was in third grade (9 years old) i had the reading comprehension of a 16 year old but I was struggling to do basic math!

idk who has and hasnt done this and i dont really know anyone but mia so: @impossibleclair @babeebobo @queencamden @backlandsofbutter @beanmorechill @annabanana2401 @moonlit-inconsistent-art @parrlyndreams @lilreadergurl

[galivantingg]

Alpha and Beta

Hiding

She never cried once, not as a baby and not as a toddler, and certainly not as a young child. In her entire life, she had never shed a tear, except when she was born, and that was when Cal knew she would be a fighter. Cal knew she would be tough and strong, but he didn't know that she would also be sweet, thoughtful. Cal didn't know that she would become the light of his life, the light he currently watching fade before his very eyes. There was the damn ringing in his ears again, but he suspected it was for a different reason than before. Cal felt sick to his stomach, and in the moments where he he sank to the forest floor and was unresponsive, Alpha Maddens escaped. He slipped away into the darkness, not to be seen unless he wanted to be seen. Cal crawled towards his baby sister, not noticing the tears streaming down his face until they landed on hers, just like a few hours ago. He gently lifted her head, pressing his forehead to hers like he would every night before bed, and sat there for a few minutes.

He didn't know if it really was a few minutes or hours before he finally moved, his limbs stiff. No one had come. No one was around, they couldn't find them. Cal was alone, all alone, truly alone. He had no one. He felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest, like she was his child, because really she was, and he had to bury her. This isn't what he wanted for her, or for his brothers. He didn't want this. He tried to be angry, but he was just drained. Gently scooping her up, he stood wavering slightly, and slowly started moving forward, back to the Pack House. Back to his family. Back.

As he shuffled through the trees, wolves from his pack joined him, trotting silently beside him, an escort, there if he couldn't go on. Her heart wasn't beating, and neither was Cal's. He died with her.

Alexander was standing on the pack porch of the Pack House when they broke through the trees, Cal walking steadily towards the house. He knew in his heart she was dead, he knew there was no saving her, there was no fixing this. He was still crying. Alexander froze when he saw them, and stumbled forward a few steps, a strangled noise coming from his mouth, before collapsing on the ground. Elizabeth materialized out of nowhere and knelt beside him, comforting the Alpha. Cal was alone. He had no one. He could still smell Alpha Maddens on her body, almost as if he was standing right beside him. Oh God, Cal thought suddenly, walking past Alexander and Elizabeth. What was he going to tell his brothers?

Two weeks had passed. The attacks were coming quicker and harsher, more wolves getting injured in the skirmishes, and all of Alpha Maddens' wolves escaping. Cal was so distracted by everything that was happening that he completely forgot about Alexander's birthday. July first rolled around, and Cal was woken up by the sounds of screaming. He bolted upright, tugging on clothes and racing out of the house. There was a crowd gathered on the Lawn, and Cal shoved his way through them to see Alexander in the middle wearing pyjama pants and half shifted. Parts of his skin covered in dense fur and his eyes a bright yellow. He looked even thinner. He was screaming incoherently, and it took Cal a second to realized what was going on. July first. Alexander's birthday. He was supposed to find his mate today, and he couldn't because his mate was hiding from him.

Cal redoubled his efforts to hide his scent, and then pushed forward. "Alex," he called. "Alex can you hear me?"

Alex whirled around to face him, eyes blazing. "Where is my mate?" He screamed.

"I don't know," Cal lied. "Try to breathe. You need to regain control."

"My mate! I need my mate!" Alex wouldn't listen. He was sniffing madly, trying to find his mate, be Cal wouldn't be found. He wasn't ready for this, especially not now, not after he lost Iph-- after he lost her.

"Alex," Cal kept a steady voice. "Alex you need to listen to me. Regain control."

Alex turned on him. "You're hiding my mate from me. I need my mate!"

"I don't know where your mate is," Cal said. "You need to regain control."

"Stop telling me what to do!"

"Alex!" Cal snapped. "We have more important things to worry about than your mate," Cal was so angry now, so so angry. He was so angry he didn't notice that the crowd had dispersed a while ago, as soon as they saw Cal. He was so angry he didn't notice that Alpha Maddens was closing in. He was so angry he didn't notice the prick of a needle in his neck. But he did notice the effect whatever it was they injected into him had. He started to feel woozy, and the last thing he remembers seeing before passing out was Alexander taking off into the woods, going absolutely feral.

When Cal did wake up, it was in a cold concrete basement, with no windows and no noticeable entrances or exits. His feet were chained to the wall he was leaning against, and he was still wearing the shirt and shorts he had pulled on quickly this morning. Or maybe it was yesterday morning. Cal didn't know how long he had been out for, there were no windows to look through. He didn't know how long he had been awake for when finally someone came out from the shadows. Cal hadn't even heard them come down stairs or however they got in here. He ruffled the hair by his ears, but they were working just fine. Not even the ringing was there. He couldn't hear the person walking towards him, but he could see them.

Alpha John Maddens of the Lothian Pack.

Cal flinched, memories of what had happened coming back to him. Alpha Maddens laughed coldly. "Well well well Little Calchas, it seems we meet again," he drawled. Cal tried to summon any anger, blame, resentment, but he just felt tired. The cold had invaded his bones and seeped into his brain, it was calling his name and he wanted nothing more than to succumb to it. Whatever they had drugged him with, it was powerful. Cal didn't even try getting up to put up a fight. Alpha Maddens laughed again, this time seemingly amused. "Oh my," he couldn't contain his smile. "You're quite broken aren't you? It seems like I won't have much work to do." Alpha Maddens pulled a chair out of nowhere, or maybe it had always been there and Cal's eyes just weren't working like before, and sat down quite quietly for a man of his physique.

They stared at one another for a while, Cal with his empty eyes and Alpha Maddens with his eyes so bright. "Now, your father," he said with distaste, "Saw something he shouldn't have. He was meddling with things far beyond his understanding, and I'm afraid that because of that, he needed to die." Alpha Maddens watched him closely, gauging for a reaction but Cal didn't give him one. He didn't feel anything anymore, and he didn't care what happened to him. "I'm afraid he may have told you about what I had been doing, and you must understand," Alpha Maddens fixed him with a look so sympathetic that Cal really believed he wanted what was best for him. "I can't have that. So we're going to stay here until you tell me what you know." He reached out into the shadows, now Cal really believed that his eyes weren't working much anymore because it looked like only Alpha Maddens was illuminated, and twisted something. A cold drip of water started falling onto Cal's head, followed by another, then a pause, then three more. Cal started counting them, looking for a pattern, but there didn't seem to be one. They'd come in bursts, and just when he thought it was done, there'd be one more, so light it was like it hadn't even been there. Alpha Maddens just watched him.

Cal wasn't sure how long it had been. Alpha Maddens didn't move from his spot, which led Cal to believe that it couldn't have been long, surely the Alpha had to eat and rest? But then he remembered what his father had shown him, and he thought maybe the Alpha didn't need rest. Maybe he just needed life essence. Cal's life was probably going to be added to Alpha Maddens' as soon as he revealed what he knew and that no one else knew this, but Cal couldn't bring himself to care. He didn't even care that it would probably kill Alexander too. He just didn't care.

Maybe it was minutes, maybe hours, or maybe days. Cal said nothing. The water kept drip drip dripping onto his head, cold as ever and as inconsistent as it could be. Maybe it was a super long pattern? Cal begun again, but he couldn't keep track past the first few bursts, the time between them becoming either too long or too short. Cal resorted to counting the minutes, but then he lost count and didn't have the energy to begin again. Alpha Maddens showed no signs of turning off the water, no signs of impatience, no signs of anything. Cal couldn't get anything off the Alpha. He had nothing to think about, nothing tp focus on, nothing to do. Which left him with his thoughts.

Images flashed behind his dull eyes, images of his brothers and sister, images of Alex, and they kept speeding up and disappearing until all he had left were the faint memories of the time he had been part of the Lothian Pack. It was if he had never left. He built a new life in his head, a life where Henry and Tia never made them leave, and he had grown up under Alpha Maddens' control. He saw himself rise through the ranks, become head warrior wolf. He saw himself mated with Daisy, never finding out his true mate was, what was his name again? It must not matter. He saw himself producing children, and going into battle for his Alpha. His glorious Alpha. Praise be. What Cal didn't know was that he was mumbling all of this, the water dripping down his face, and Alpha Maddens watching him unravel with a smile on his face.

Cal's vision got darker and darker, until he could no longer see. His ears were next to go, and that dreaded ringing was back. He hated that ringing. The memories in his mind got stronger and stronger, sharpening into beautiful colours and wonderful sound, sound that distracted him from the damned ringing in his ears. It didn't matter what had happened in the real world anymore, it no longer existed in Calchas' mind. His brothers and sister didn't exist. The Bardolph Pack didn't exist. Nothing from his life existed anymore. He didn't even notice Alpha Maddens coming and going from the basement, or another pack member ripping his fingernails out to get a reaction from him.

Cal was dead to the world.

He wasn't sure when he came too, but he awoke slowly. He could see again, and hear. He also knew that he wasn't supposed to be here. He checked his body, his fingernails hurt but he couldn't see anything wrong with them, and there were bruises around his ankles, but nothing there to suggest where they came from. He stood slowly, not able to see much in, where was he? It looked like a concrete basement, the air was cold and damp and clung to Cal's skin. He didn't know much of what was happening, but he knew this is not where he is supposed to be. His feet dragged as he walked the length of the room, trailing one hand along the wall to look for a door. He finally reached one, and it groaned when he pushed him. It looked like the wood had expanded with the moisture in the air. Cal was slightly alarmed, although he didn't know why, but he had been in this room for a long time. Judging from the pain in his fingertips, and were his nails shorter than before? If they had been pulled out, that means he's been here for at least six months.

The door finally opened, and he was blinded by the light outside. He took one step forward, then another, finally picking up his pace and becoming more steady on his feet. He didn't look back, and plunged into the forest, following his instincts. He heard something snap off to the right, and out of fear he hid his scent. He didn't know how he did that, but then it came back to him slowly. He is a werwolf, part of the Lothian Pack. He wasn't sure how he had ended up in that room, but he was out now and he was going home. Home to Alpha Maddens, and to his mom and dad, and to Daisy.

He travelled for hours, not recognizing anything, just following his gut. He passed a clearing that tickled something in the back of his mind but he paid it no attention. He was nearing his destination, he was sure of it. He picked up speed, finally breaking through the trees and stopping halfway across a field. He looked up at the Pack House, but something was off about it. It wasn't his, not his Pack House. Was it renovated in the time he had been gone? Why? He looked around at the werewolves walking around, they paid him no mind. He didn't recognize any of them. He started walking again, going into the back door of the Pack House. He didn't know this house, but somehow he made his way to the living room. Something was seriously wrong. He knew this place, knew this place by heart, but he had no recollection of it.

Sitting on the couch were two teenagers about Cal's age. How old was Cal? It took him a minute, but he remembered. Eighteen, he turned eighteen on the first of January. Someone else he knew had a birthday on the same day, he was sure of it, but he couldn't quite remember. He just knew it was important. He coughed, and the two teens looked at him wide eyed. They all froze, fear and anger and something else he couldn't place was running through Cal, keeping him rooted to the floor. They boy looked more scared than anything, he had rumpled brown hair and brown eyes, his nose small. The girl, a pretty Asian, looked utterly bewildered. Cal didn't move. Suddenly he had the strong feeling that he didn't belong here. That something was seriously wrong.

"Cal?" The girl spoke. How did she know his name? Did the Lothian Pack get bigger while he was gone.

"I'm, I'm sorry," Cal stuttered, his voice rusty. He must not have been speaking to anyone while he was missing. "I don't know who you are?"

The girl stood and took a step towards Cal, but he stepped backwards. He was very very scared. She stopped. "Of course you know who I am, I'm your friend, remember? Elizabeth," She tried to take another step forward but Cal just stepped back again. She stopped trying to move forward. The boy was still just looking at him. Why did it feel like he knew that boy?

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't know an Elizabeth. I don't know you." Cal needed to get out of here. He spun around and was about to take off, but the boy stopped him.

"Beta Calchas," his voice rang out true and clear. "You are my Beta, Calchas Edmonds, and you have been missing for seven months." Cal froze. Calchas? That was his name. Calchas Edmonds. He turned around, his eyes wary.

"Who are you?" He asked cautiously. He felt like this was the most important yet stupidest question he had ever asked. Why did he not know the answer? Who were they?

"My name is Alpha Alexander Edwards," the boy stood, and his eyes hardened.

Cal's mind shattered.

[eddisgon-blog]

BERK ATAN? No, that’s actually EDGAR BONES from the MARAUDERS ERA. You know, the child of ENDER BONES and IRMAK BONES (NÉE KUNDAKÇI)? Only 29 years old, this GRYFFINDOR alumni works as an UNSPEAKABLE and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. HE identifies as CIS-MAN and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be RECKLESS, BELLIGERENT, and INTRANSIGENT but also TENACIOUS, JUST, and ASTUTE. — &&. ( CAMI, GMT, SHE/HER, 19. )

TW: death, child death, blood, alcoholism (vaguely)

yoho guess what, edgar is a reckless idiot who somehow has gotten even more reckless and yall are gonna have to put up with it! he’s also just as likely as harry to name his next kid albus so there’s that tidbit of info. his favourite colour is lilac. now here’s some worse info:

I.

the child of relevant members of wizarding community AND purebloods, things could have gone much differently for edgar, but that’s a fact he’s taken long to comprehend. the role his loving family, that believed in him every step of the way, played is one of love for edgar, but not something he’d, until rather recently, attribute to the way his story goes - not the way his story ends. their values, their love, their care, his siblings; they were truly so important in the makings of him.

irmak and ender were a strong tree, with branches all around him for protection, softening every blow and fall.  their safety and encouragement nurtured a deep desire within him to do whatever he set his mind to, regardless of the consequences. after all, if he tried hard enough, he’d get all of his wishes. as a child, edgar wasn’t learning how to fly a broomstick as fast as his friends and siblings, and he didn’t have any particular wish to take the heights, but his assumed failure only propelled him to try harder. for hours upon hours, he’d lose balance, fall to the ground and then get back up, knees dripping blood. his father found him at dinnertime, taking rounds around the house, conquering for the sake of conquering alone.

that tenacity never left the boy, determining his future within the gryffindor bravado, his push for better grades, his detentions and self-made heartbreaks, all because the riot in him would not let him stand still. hexes and kicks, edgar quickly became known as one not to anger, a likely future brutal auror, given his yearning for justice even after the smallest of infractions, like a group calling a muggleborn slurs after potions class - because the world was his to conquer, should he chose to, and he had nothing else to choose. 

entitled, they called him. edgar always prefer to see himself as an idealist instead. 

the moral code passed down by his family was instrumental in the shaping of who he became. eddie always knew wrong from right, and that certainty let him see the world as black or white, with no room for the indecisions his classmates exhibited, or the inconsistencies of the ministry, every newspaper headline contradictory with the previous. the world around him seemed to tip toe and edgar knew only how to slam in. 

his ways kept him close with a variety of friends, but especially to the other rowdy ones, unafraid to speak their minds and go just far enough to be thrown in detention once more. his ways also cost him the biggest thing he’d been after all of hogwarts: the prefect badge. 

II.

becoming an auror had a certain allure to it. an outlet for the flaming energy inside him, and for his yearning for justice, being a source of scenarios in which he could play the detective, a role he so enjoyed. training was brutal, however, and every day passed, his desire to live forever beneath a badge kept diming. edgar’s lack for motivation was noticeable, as if the light in his eyes had purely shut off, and his mates encouraged him to pursue other paths.

politics was out of the question, too grey for him. healing bored him to death (and he was never that great at herbology anyway). eddie considered journalism for a while, but the likely future of a dusty desk at the daily prophet, carrying out their at times sensationalist work, made him not want to read a newspaper ever again. but edgar couldn’t be adrift. he’d made damn sure all his life he was pushing himself to be the very best possible, edgar with a plan, edgar ready to make a dent on the world. to accept defeat would have very easily broken him. 

after short stints in ministry offices (from clerk, which lasted all of four days, to secretary, security, forgotten offices who’d hire pretty much anyway with decent grades) he became a hit wizard. his intellect suffered, not through any fault of his coworkers, but due to it being so damn close to auror work, except he couldn't call the shots, not could he investigate, piece together the puzzles like he so loved. in the meantime, he’d sought direction in life elsewhere: that pretty girl from the bar just at the end of his street whose talks of muggle films and news had always kept him for hours, drink in hand, too enthralled to sip. he hated the trickery of politics but he could hear her explaining the iron curtain for hours. anna had stuck around through every change, knowing little of the context of it all. then a little more. and a little more. small breaches of wizard law, small TREASONS. he’d moved in with her, shown her a spell or two. in a few years she was meeting his family, watching his cousins fly in a broom, reading his newspapers with the moving images and scary news of impending conflict. (even marrying the fool, later down the line)

hit wizard work is brutal, and it began to show. despite being an outlet for his inner riot, it put him in vulnerable positions, and anna worried - that simply had to stop. especially when she became pregnant. 

to this day, eddie isn’t certain who dropped his name in the department of mysteries - he suspects his father, or perhaps dumbledore, who’d begun seeing him more often (he did enjoy placing pawns in place, not that edgar would acknowledge such a grey-area) - the young man found a letter inside one of his kitchen cabinets. another later that day inside his pocket. he as being summoned, should he wish to go. an interview followed. for hours, edgar sat - lies, he paced around in excitement - solving puzzles, enigmas, philosophical debates; the stuff he left at hogwarts and at auror training. at last, something that brought that light back, filling him with interest. there were no limits, no bureaucratic doors closing - the questions were secret and so were his answers. the puzzle solver was hired the following day, circling through various sub-departments until he got settled doing research on the subject of death a year before the shift of time. the questions that troubled him the most involved immortality and the concept of a chronological finish line. he laughs at that now. 

the secrecy of his job was always the hardest part. eddie was never one to keep secrets, especially not when excitement ran through him, and he often spilled results and theories that had been found just because he couldn’t contain his excitement in.

sidenote: he’s a very gestural person. speaking for edgar means moving around, big physical gestures, arms flaying, a proper demonstration.

the conscience instilled in him in the past was raw energy when combined with his entitlement.the very same characteristics were what drew dumbledore to him, with a position in mind. edgar couldn’t say no to a side-job as a revolutionaire.  there, along with his work, was a change to leave something of value behind. plus, he had personal skin in the game then. his future wife was a target, he was a traitor, his children heresy. 

eddie had, as well, his experience as a hit wizard, which made him useful for field work. that same bravado and need to fix the world made him devoted with reckless abandon. dumbledore was a figure he worshipped, unable to see the flaws in their own plans. there was no way he could have made himself bigger of a target during the war, especially when it was not nearly as quiet of a fact as it should have been that he was an unspeakable, with access to untold knowledge - especially one his enemies looked for. a traitor who knew too much and was too damn stupid to keep that to himself. edgar was a man with lots to lose living in the shoes of a man with nothing to lose. 

that very year brougth another major event besides new career, the order and his first child: the murder of his parents, in the very hosue he’d grown up in, the very hosue his younger sister still lived in. visibly freaking the mold, perhaps even called traitors, the bones were a proeminent thorn in need of ripping out, and edgar got lost in the confusion of the year. he let it fuel him, of course, but he didn’t allow himself to properly grieve, nor to be present for his siblings who also needed to grieve. from a young age he’d been told to walk away if he was angry, to not mix such a horrible feeling and family, and that’s just what he did. the world was broken and it burned him from inside out so he stepped away and dealt with it (poorly) on his own, a decision that came to haunt him the following year once the dust settled. he’d left them, the one promise edgar couldn’t have broken - they’d needed each other and he’d left. not that he’s apologised as of yet, all these years, but the shame of his decision comes to light at times.

III. (the death tw and child death tw applies very heavily in this whole part)

the future comes with many harsh truths to take in. they won, but not really. the world had barely changed, so what was the point of all the sleepless nights, all the wounds he’d healed, all the missions he’d led? what was the point of standing proud in front of the masked foes? what was the point of burying his friends one by one? what was the point of dying as his children cried upstairs?

those were the news that truly shock him. edgar knew he’d get himself killed eventually, even if he did his best to deny it. but reckless, he didn’t think they’d come for anna, or for his three children. he’d set up protections, just in case, of course - wards around the house and portkeys in specific places meant for emergency escapes - but how could have expected a terrified seven year old to remember where they kept the music box that would take her to grandma’s house? the futility of it all hit him like a wave. 

edgar dug in as soon as he learned, damned be the questions his line of work had taught him to ask. time didn’t matter, not at all. what did was the bloodshed his story told. which friends wouldn’t have made it either. his sister, who’d survive only to have to fight the same war again, with worst odds. himself. his family. a bottle of firewhiskey next to the folders he’d gotten from ministry friends and connections. both vices, drinking and learning the painful details of the truth, were self-destructive tendencies he’d thought he’d long escaped. perhaps that was the bones curse, to always crawl back to whatever wrecked them even more in times of hurt.

every newspaper article, trial transcript and even the crime scene photographs he chased hell and below to get his hands on. it was addictive, to learn exactly how much he could blame himself, how much he could blame the war, and who he should exert vengeance on. by now, he knows how to draw a timeline of the event better than any auror on the case, minute by minute, victim by victim, player by player; as he obsessed over it for the first week and a half, non-stop. 

they’d followed him for days, believing him to be a way to the prophecies they searched, or to answers they might seek. and to take down a traitor. a rebel traitor at that. he’d been too blind to notice. they’d chipped slowly at his wards. they’d broken in one wednesday night, at dinner time, shortly before anna and the children had gotten home. edgar didn’t see them there when he put away his coat, when he saw the bags of takeout on the kitchen counter, when he asked the eldest, dahlia, if she had homework to do. like rats in the walls. 

he’d died downstairs. edgar broke a chair against the wall when he learned. he’d died downstairs, hand reaching up, head rested on the second step. after short but brutal torture, in which he seemed to have revealed more secrets than most whistleblowers, he still died downstairs, his moral sacrifice for nothing - but he was probably desperate, he thought, desperate to reach up, where anna, dahlia, oscar and oliver hid, from where he heard his son yell for him, from where he heard the toddler cry, from where he eventually heard anna scream in horror. even if he’d died upstairs too, he just wanted to be there, the last barrier between the world he’d brought upon his family and them. no matter how much furniture and vases she threw at death eaters, anna came to a wand fight ill prepared, and she was the first to go. the small one in her arms too. oscar followed, holding a shoe - it was the wrong one, the portkey shoe just a meter away. and edgar tried to run, to climb, but he remained downstairs, not nearly as close. dahlia was later, he read, assumingly because she was the hardest to find - underneath a bed. 

three weeks. that’s all he had until then. if the time shift had happened three weeks later, he’d be dead. 

the aftermath was a mess. muggle neighbours heard yelling and called the police while aurors arrived, but not soon enough to stop the confusing murder of a whole household from hitting local news. in 2029, it’s a cold case, has been for decades. but edgar had learned the truth wizardkind knew and he let him fuel him. after darkness, he bounced back with the flaming hope that made him join the order: he could change things. if he tried hard enough, harder than LAST time. if he just worked hard enough, edgar could fix this and forget there’s a grave with his name - but he can’t. ever since it happened, he visits it nearly weekly. it was looking old, nearly forgotten, like the world had moved on without him, without his family, without amelia, without his fallen revolutionary friends. he’s cleaned them up, put some flowers on them. you see, this time he’s actually a man with nothing to lose, nothing he hasn’t lost before. 

no amount of puzzle solving can erase the fact that he should not exist right now - edgar feels very much alive, perhaps more than ever before, now that blinding rage courses through him and now that the past is past and he has nothing to lose by trying a new timeline. but another him, just a few WEEKS older, is bone and dirt beneath a tombstone in his hometown, so now he searches for answers.

edgar is driven by the riot in his head, still very much the son of the revolution, even if his war ended forty-eight years ago.

NOW who’s ready for some character paralels? shadow moon (american gods), luke bankole (handmaids tale), meredith grey (grey’s anatomy), steven crain (thohh), elijah bradley (marvel), quentin coldwater (the magicians), sabrina spellman (tcaos), jessica jones (mcu) ?????

[fortheheavenssake]

PG MM Anon Interpretation Collection- 11

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU DEAR MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

71: Sept. 30

MM Anon

MM ANON …… PR gestapo returns … the converted are turning …… never a Dull atonement …… “So quick bright things come to confusion”… 🎼 “A spoonful of sugar”🎼 …… a hostage to her fortune … the grey accountants …… “ death and taxes “…… a Scottish invitation accepted …… “Back home old thing, shame!!!”…… old habits…… new evidence has leaked…… a basket full of eggs.

PR gestapo returns

The PR team returns to London to continue their ‘dark arts’ of deception on madams behalf. They are preaching to the wrong crowd. There is no amount of PR that could change things. It’s far too late, even if she got on her knees(go away filthy ideas), in Trafalgar Square and pleaded forgiveness, there would be none, ITS TOO LATE! Leave her to Heaven, by the way that’s a fantastic film and fits perfectly about narcissism. Jeanne Craine and the gorgeous Gene Tierney who plays the narc so amazingly well! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS FILM!!! Or is this JS hired by PA to do his PR? Likely not because it says returns!

the converted are turning

Many people who were chuffed and liked madam are seeing abs turnings their opinions as they are realizing who and what she really is. That’s the baffling thing about HRC and MO chiming in supporting her. They have no business doing that or do they? Backers??

never a Dull atonement

Atonement,is a reparation for a wrong or injury, (in religious contexts) reparation or expiation for sin. The statement is never a dull moment but MM ANON has changed it and capitalized Dull. We know she has done fake conversion to several religions through first two marriages, now baptized allegedly into the COE prior to marriage . Atonement has never been on her radar. So what of it, is she going to go whiz bang to Balmoral fall on her sword and beg mercy from the Crown? Is that what this means? I highly doubt it. I am struggling with the capital D in Dull, is the opposite of Dull meant? She will never atone, but she’s never dull either, dim yes but dull no.

“So quick bright things come to confusion”

This is why l love the riddles, teachable moments and MM ANON never fails to deliver. Alas we return to our beloved Shakespeare, this theme A Midsummer Nights Dream . Their relationship, to call it that, began at Soho as a hookup, and progressed to now. It was never ever love for either! However, the public, who so badly want Harry happy believed the story, most of them. As time went on certain people like our 💜🐼💜, and others began to ask questions because they saw cracks and inconsistencies. Fast forward to today, madam is hated, loathed, despised in the U.K. and many other places in the Commonwealth and beyond! I have no idea how she can ever do an appearance in public after the final slap of hiding amw and then showing off live baby in SA, final massive F*** YOU to HMTQ, the U.K. and the Commonwealth! The bloom is off the rose big time, just thorns left. Thank you MM ANON for using Shakespeare, l am wondering how many more riddles there will be, l am sensing a real tipping point.

🎼 “A spoonful of sugar”🎼

Julie Andrews at her finest in Mary Poppins, such a shame a surgeon botched surgery and she can no longer sing, makes me angry actually the world deprived of her voice, speaking selfishly. I saw her interviewed, she was so classy talking about how that changed her life. But l digress, the line is a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, in the most delightful way, l can hear her singing it as I type and sing along! So here’s the rub of it, what is the medicine that needs sweetening, is it actually medicine for madam, that’s way too obvious for MM ANON. I think there is something on offer that madam will tolerate return to,London and trip to Balmoral , what is that? It’s the availability of hobby items, that’s the one thing she needs! Like physically neeeds!

a hostage to her fortune

Ha ha this is funny! Having a fortune, speaking money here, and being hostage or tethered to it. Most of it is ill gotten gains allegedly, of course l know nothing, one would owe home country amazing amount of taxes and if unlawfully obtained money, it’s Literally your fortune as in future. If ill gotten gains, the lawmen come a calling. So the use of the word fortune was very clever as usual MM ANON! Fortune as in financials and fortune as in tell my fortune, the future things to come!

the grey accountants

The brilliant men in grey, behind the scenes doing HMTQ work. Intel, surveillance, interviews, AND keeping track of every single coin$$$££££€€€ earned. I can only imagine the total by now. Given the reception President DT received and the intel that he brought, l am certain the US/IRS is working in tandem with the loyal men in grey forever unknown but giving their all to serve the Crown and HMTQ! God bless them!

“ death and taxes “

Two old phrases l love, the only things certain in life are death and taxes. The other one is, you can’t fight city hall. So, if l read this correctly madam has a massive tax bill due from the American tax man. Can you hear his adding machine(those of you of my vintage will know exactwhat l mean🤣🤣) can you hear it Rachel? Can you hear the footsteps of the taxman comets? Can you Rachel? It’s like Poe’s Telltale Heart. Have you even heard of Poe or the story Rachel? Likely not, but the taxman wants his due!!

a Scottish invitation accepted

So, at long last, they will deign to attend HMTQ and give Her the honour of their company at beloved Balmoral, her safe place. . Isn’t that grand and kind of them? I am sure HMTQ is squealing with delight at this visit, NOT!

“Back home old thing, shame!!!”

LG to HMTQ, upon the return of the Sussexes or, since its October, this is the month her respite/vacation to Balmoral ends and she returns to the hectic pace of London life. Although, between BOJO, PA and The Sussexes, l can’t imagine this has been much of a respite.

old habits

Oh old habits die hard! Old hobbies do as well, sniff sniff, snort, snort, swallow, swallow, yes return to London will bring ample time and availability of hobbies and hobby time. I said London, because we ALL know, no one is living at Frogmore except Kermit 🐸. Keep at it, the nose will completely collapse, no amount of plastic surgery can ever truly repair it.

new evidence has leaked…

Is this regarding BOJO ? And his continuing issues of women? I am not aware of any other leaks, but l haven’t read the blog or papers yet. I am still 💤💤💤💤😴😴😴 resting a lot .

a basket full of eggs.

My, my, my, my a basket of eggs is so fragile isn’t it? One wrong move and they crack. The older the eggs are, they are more fragile and they can go off. Now we are definitely not talking chicken 🐓 🥚 eggs here. A woman of her age , those eggs, harvested, must be very near or past their sell by date. When the extraction was done, viable leftovers would have been cryofrozen. Have the 🥚 eggs in the 🧺, cracked, not viable, not healthy? Oh God please intervene make it thus, so no more innocents are created to be used and abused.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you dear PG! I get lost in your words….like a great turn pager….I want more…more …….more! Thank you, sounding good! I love taxmen talk! 🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜

💜💜addition:

PR Gestapo returns

The SS was the Nazi feared from wiki

The Schutzstaffel (SS; also stylized as Sig runes thin.png with Armanen runes; German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] (About this soundlisten); literally “Protection Squadron”) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II

SS IS SUNSHINE SACHS!! These things stock in my head and bug me, a light came on, l had to come back to add this.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Ask Skippy submission

—————-

72: Oct. 1

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU SO MUCH MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON … 🎼” back to black”🎼…… uncomfortably reunion …… “ AND THE CROWDS WENT…… home”… “blend in with the POC”🤣🤣🤣🤣…… Pressed for time. …… PR with blinkers… don’t Sue the messenger …… Harry on camping…… background colour …… “ bloody African Queen ‘ don’t think so”…… “ returning after their triumphant tour “…… OMG’ it’s definitely her

🎼” back to black”🎼

Amy Winehouse, what a tragic loss, she was working so hard to get clean. So many talented people, artists, musicians, writers, throughout the ages have struggled with mental illness and addiction of varying types. This song is about lots of sex, relationship where her man comes and goes to other women and her dying inside, the couple using drugs together, extremely dysfunctional relationship. MM ANON , are you equating the current ones in discussion to the type of relationship in this heartbreaking song? I miss Amy Winehouse, they tried to make me go to rehab but l said no no no! RIP AMY🙏🏻

uncomfortably reunion

Return to London and interacting with the press was going to be tough back home. But now, l have no clue what’s going to happen. Reunions with the BRF, l have no words. HMTQ , PP LG everyone must be FURIOUS! I can imagine a lot of cocktails, late nights and foul words. This is all so unnecessary, look how our dear Autumn, she married Peter Philips, she’s Canadian, she has seamlessly adjusted. Hasn’t put a foot wrong. This is all down to one thing , evil, manifesting itself in heavy narcissism!

“ AND THE CROWDS WENT…… home”

We have had this line before. The ‘crowds’ yesterday at Victoria Yards , what l saw photos of two people, one on each side not standing too close and than two photographers. Others had children running up to her, she hugged them, Today, at uni, she has become patron of the ACU, Association of Commonwealth Universities. The comment in the paper said they ‘hailed her partially because she was black”. No huge crowds, the people didn’t linger long or wait hours and hours.

“blend in with the POC”🤣🤣🤣

She has been doing her own thing, likely all prearranged by PR, right down to someone from the embassy ordering bespoke 👖 jeans for her. She did the shopping walk about at Victoria Yards, buying things here and there. She personally went to puck up her jeans, the designer/maker was so excited, he had made a little pair for amw, they were so cute. So she was at the uni today, blending in, as per the comment l wrote .

Pressed for time.

Busy schedule for both of them during this holiday. I was hoping Harry could get into talks with Angolan government officials regarding becoming a Commonwealth member, that was the goal, his first attempt at a diplomatic mission. Pressed, ironing, l know this isn’t it, but gracious both of their clothes have been a mess. Wrinkled, ratty, those brown suede lace ups, Harry please toss them, please! They all need pressing/ironing. I know, MM ANON, that is not what you meant but it fits well. The press had their flight from London delayed about ten hours l think, they were not permitted at amw and DT meeting, it was all privately hired and now owned by the Sussex team. Now with what’s happened today, my mind is whirling in many directions for this clue.

PR with blinkers

Sirens for emergency, police, fire, ambulance. PR blinkers LLOK HERE something great happening. Or don’t look there, nothing to see at all carry on. I keep reading PR firms use the ‘dark arts’. The paper said that about Jason Stein, PA new PR guy, as well. Just what are these dark arts? PR is going off the charts upon return to the U.K. In fact, blinkers/sirens/looky here have just happened today with the letter from Harry and lawsuit filed against the DM for something they did months and months ago. Why now? Is it a last money grab? It’s nearing the end, Winter is coming, winter is coming.

don’t Sue the messenger

Well normally it’s don’t shoot the messenger, but here we finally have it today, lawsuit filed against the DM and it’s parent company. The stony silent press have been sitting on a dossier of lurid information,a stand-off, so to speak is over. The British Press have kept schtum on a dossier so raunchy, l cannot fathom. Today, shots fired off the bow, and battle has begun. I said it last night in my riddle interpretation, we are near a tipping point, well that was last night, today, NOW , the tipping point has arrived. War has been declared, and it’s going to get very very VERY NASTY!

Harry on camping…

Harry was part of National Geographic and was laying on the ground in Malawi, taking the most amazing uplook photos near and of a Baobab tree. He looked in his element, out in nature, enjoying its beauty and taking photographs for his contributions to a joint project with Nat Geo.

background colour

She has always, professionally and socially identified as Caucasian, this has been her background. Seemingly, when convenient, things change, bronzer goes deeper, she calls herself sister to Africans. Interesting, beyond my comprehension how someone can continue and continue to use others, without any regard, none at all. You’re convenient, if l need something from you, l will take it, when you’re not of use bye bye.

“ bloody African Queen ‘ don’t think so”

Great film with Bogart and Hepburn, the African Queen is. But l digress, these are PP, words of disgust as her self perception of being a sister and POC , and thus more relatable and the Queen of Africa. I think she has the same skin tone as before, before the bronzer face overload. You look at today’s photos her arms and legs are pink, it’s especially noticeable when she is standing next to a local person of a different culture. I am boiling at this point. The powder keg has been lit. We wait for response from HMTQ!

“ returning after their triumphant tour “

Yes, like the Prodigal son returns after doing whatever he wanted and was welcomed with open arms! Ah no, that will DEFINITELY NOT BE THE WELCOME, ESPECIALLY AFTER TODAYS EXPLOSIVES LOBBED AT THE BRITISH MEDIA! They have sat silent on what they know for over two years! Taking to court, something called discovery in the U.S., both sides have to share their data. The welcome home was going to be explosive because of madams behaviour and ESPECIALLY because amw was paraded around like an Olympic medal!

OMG’ it’s definitely her”

Allegedly, can’t recall, ?last week, the alleged sex tape salad tape was sold. Is this meaning it’s in good lawful hands and they are convinced it’s madam??

Is this what people said when they saw her just out shopping yesterday, enjoying the buskers performance, surprising the designer and picking up her order? I honestly was happy for him, because he was so excited and he had been so thoughtful to make a pair for amw. He said he was so shocked to see her there in person. Again l am so happy for him. I hope his business increases through this media coverage!

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you dear PG! This looks great! Good things coming! Greatly appreciate the effort you put in on doing the riddles for us! 🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

——————

73: Oct. 2

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF BIRTHDAY MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

🥳🥳🥳🥳🎂🎂🎂🎂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻WISHES FOR THE HAPPIEST BIRTHDAY, JUST SORRY I AM SO LATE AT IT🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳💜💜💜💜💜

MM Anon… Happy Birthday to you!

MM ANON …… A TM visit?…… a pitiful cry for help …… “tears of a Crown”…… “ Philip’ stop swearing!!”…… ink block carnage … a scathing edi-TORY-al……”A Sunday surprise “…… “well,well,well’ fe-MAIL- empowerment”…… Fleet St. circling the wagons …… 🎼 “ Homeward bound, I guess ………” 🎼j…… … ace card archificial …… “SA’ well that was a dud Megs”…… leap-Frog to Calipornia 🤫🤫🤫

A TM visit?

Oh my golly!! Is gramma Tom, Thomas MArkle, going to be visiting?😮😮😮😮 Will this be like when Samantha came to KP, in her wheelchair, that’s was so sad to see, they wouldn’t let her through security. Will TM just show up? I doubt he has that confidence. Ha ha speaking of confidence, did you know that was the original name for con, confidence game, you’d gain someone’s confidence or trust and then use then every which way you can. Anyhow again l digress, back to TM, are they arranging some sort of visit garnering public sentiment? Don’t bother Rachel, the public has developed sentiment and more than a plenty of it, it its far from good! After yesterday, nothing is left, of what little there was. But her MO, HRC AND EDGENERATE LOVE YOU! That makes a perfect life, with the one thing, they’re AMERICAN! Again my American friends, l love you, not bashing you, just a select few. Last time l checked, the titles you bear are British and Commonwealth titles.

a pitiful cry for help

I saw Harry today, in the still photos it was evident, but in the video, l KNOW WHAT HES FEELING BECAUSE I HAVE LIVED IT FOR 12 YEARS, AND LAST WEEK YOU ALL KNOW WHAT L WAS SUFFERING! Something has happened, he has either worked out his anger physically to such a point he’s torn a muscle or he has a slipped disc. The pain, as he stepped up to the podium, this time, him holding onto her, and his involuntary wincing, and trying to cover it up, L KNOW THAT PAIN. Please, PLEASE GET HIM HOME, BETWEEN, his mood, his wasting away, and now this, for goodness sake he needs being seen urgently, an MRI, and REST!! I am certain he has either been given an injectable for pain along with oral meds. Oh Harry, we are slowly watching you falling apart in every way. My heart aches beyond measure, when l saw the pain he is in, the physical pain, l know that, l live it!! Imagine his humiliation having to learn on madam, oh makes me sick.

“tears of a Crown”…

There is an old song, Tears of a Clown, think this is play on that. However, Crown, capitalized, is like the Royal We, it refers specifically to the reigning Monarch. Imagine HMTQ tears, yesterday especially, and today seeing him in pain. She has ruled for decades and decades. Nearing the end of her reign, when life should be treating her kind for her service, it has dealt her a well planned, well financed attack, involving use of her beloved grandson. I feel for her pain, yet l cannot fathom how deep it goes and how it must anger some and pain others in the family. The rage at this attack and the rubble it has left since it began spread far and wide across the U.K. , the Commonwealth and the world. Please let’s once again remember to pray for HMTQ.

“ Philip’ stop swearing!!”

As l speculated yesterday, in the riddle, there would likely be lots of cocktails, lots of foul language and lots of sleeplessness. This clue affirms one, HMTQ begging her husband to cease and desist the language. PP is an Alpha male, strong, Navy man, soldier, stalwart, ever present at HMTQ side. Now in his twilight years, just imagine his anger and feelings of helplessness, he too, is in need of our prayers. How l worry about both of them and their health. All of this woe and strife has to be having a marked detrimental effect on both and all around them.

ink block carnage

Ink blocks can be carved of stone or wood and are used for new beginners or more skilled calligraphers. Now madam has for quite some time put calligraphy on her CV(resumé). This has riled up actual skilled calligraphers who have said what she does, is not true calligraphy, it is flouncy fluffy writing, as girls do in junior high school. This letter, that she dated, signed and sent to daddy has come back to haunt , yet again . The carnage, the use of the media in the U.S. ie p e o p l e magazine, and in the U.K. Funny, it’s ok, for her pals to chatter on in a magazine but the person who the letter was given, to hence his property, cannot. Double standard yet again. The carnage continues. Lawsuit filed, letter supposedly written by a furious PH, accompanied it, all without consulting or informing HMTQ or the Palace. Don’t you worry, not a White happens without LG knowing! Again l remind you of that special wedding ring Harry wears. I will leave it there!

a scathing edi-TORY-al

Piers Morgan, editor of The Daily Mail and host of Good Morning Britain, formally identified as a Tory or Conservative, we call them Tories also, back in 1994. He today, had an editorial ready positive regarding the SA trip. He wrote the editorial but had to add to it. It did include positives, but then turn into a scathing public reprimand of yesterday’s occurrences. I would encourage you all to read it. I won’t repeat it all, but he pointed out the unmitigated gall of madam and the Princess Diana comparison, the usage of the media when on her own terms, madam, l mean. I cannot do it justice, just please read it. It is scathing to put it mildly, he pulls no punches, his cards are all laid out on the table 100%!

”A Sunday surprise “…

Will it ACTUALLY HAPPEN? Finally headlines printing of all the information in the million dollar dossier that the papers have been sitting on for two plus years now! Oh how dee doodee how l hope so! PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR AND A CHERRY 🍒 ON TOP!!!

“well,well,well’ fe-MAIL- empowerment”

Femail is a subset on the Daily Mail website, fluff meant for women, hence the cute usage and spelling. Madam features heavily there. She spoke about female empowerment and female access to education during her visit to the University of Johannesburg yesterday. Again she raised the idea of paying for university, she said she attended but did not, that l read, mention graduating or a degree. She mentioned families helping to finance the cost. She also announced four new scholarships. Earlier in the week she held a private breakfast for female activists.

Fleet St. circling the wagons

Fleet St(Street), is like the Royal we, it’s the term for British Media.Going back to 1500’s this was the street of printing and newspapers appeared several centuries now. It’s the term understood to represent British or London journalists and journalism. Circling the wagons again goes back hundreds of years, when the first settles arrived and moved out west. They were encroaching on native lands and often were attacked. They literally circled their wagons for shelter and protection. Now the tutorial done l can move on. Fleet st circling their wagons oh me , oh my!! Get ready kittens!!! The previews are almost over the main film, no pun intended, ACTUALLY MAJOR PUN INTENDED 🤣🤣😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣! The main film is about to begin, it’s all ready to roll and l for one am waiting with bated breath!!

🎼 “ Homeward bound, I guess

Again we have S&G(Simon and Garfunkel) homeward bound, sitting at the railway station……. not to Cali. Oh no no no, this is HOME, LONDON, tee here, no delays. The inevitable must happen, play time over and back to the real world. The usage of ‘lguess’, is hesitancy for her because it’s not her home, for him, because l can’t imagine his feelings and what he anticipates his reception will be!

” 🎼j…… … ace card archificial

You’ve got to have an ace in the hole by George Strait. MM ANON, l highly doubt this is the song you meant but it fits beautifully! It’s all about life, secrets, gambling etc etc. The ace card is from wiki. An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the ace of spades. This embellishment on the ace of spades started when King James VI of Scotland and I of Englandrequired an insignia of the printing house to be printed on the ace of spades. This insignia was necessary for identifying the printing house and stamping it as having paid the new stamp tax.[1] Although this requirement was abolished in 1960, the tradition has been kept by many card makers.[2] In other countries the stamp and embellishments are usually found on ace cards; clubs in France, diamonds in Russia, and hearts in Genoa because they have the most blank space.

The BRF have archficial as their ace, she thinks she does🤣🤣🤣😂😂

The whole fauxmegnancy, EVERYTHING that went along with it, finally seeing a real breathing baby in SA, many many ramifications. It’s not Harry’s child, DEFINITELY not of the body, may be her egg but surrogate carried alllegedly baby. The whole doll, thing, l have no idea how all this information will be leaked/shared with public.

“SA’ well that was a dud Megs”…

Dud, funny word, not used much these days but to a certain vintage,🤣🤣😂😂😂 like me , commonplace. It is a thing that fails to work properly, another word is lemon, again my vintage. Something that is worthless. However, when my mum used to say get your duds on, it meant hurry up get dressed, put your coats on. For church or elsewhere fancy, it was said you put your finest duds on. Memories anyone?😊. Here MM ANON certainly means the former, not the latter, although some of the duds, a lot of them have been very wrinkled and on madams part buttoned low at the bust and unbuttoned very high at the thigh. Well for the most part, her machinations aside, they were well received. What occurred yesterday by way of lawsuit announce was most bizarre timing. They just can’t seem to stop getting in their own way. The letter that is identified as being from Harry, has many many Americanisms. Taken only on paper, one could say, despite it being attributed as his words, one can say full stop this was written by an American, no offence. The wordage, sentence structure and the glaring use of the word democracy, when the U.K. has been a Monarchy, albeit with Parliament now, it most certainly is never ever defined as being a democracy. How do they let these things slip? These billion dollar PR firms? I know, we only need look who their client is. Full stop.

leap-Frog to Calipornia 🤫🤫🤫

Frogmore is the official residence, we all know they have never lived there. The locals told and continued to say the only time there were lights, vehicles, signs of life were when the builders were there. Interesting MM ANON Cali PORNIA. Good gracious, is this her plan, to hop across the pond back to Cali and earn $$$$££££€€€€ making porn? That just might be the job a madam is most deft at and qualified for.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you dear PG! I love your wit! You make reading your interpretations such fun, I get lost in them! Thank you so very much! This is sounding sooooooo good! Love you!🙏🏻💜💜💜💜

Oct 2nd,

——————

74: Oct. 3

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻😊😊THANK YOU MM ANON! I HOPE YOUR BIRTHDAY WAS DELIGHTFUL 😊😊🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON …… rogue withdrawal …… a petulant rattle slays fleet st. …… royal analysis paralysis ……… “ settlement now!!!! ……TM lawyers up…… tabloid utopia …… “ This is a bloody tape diversion old thing “…………“A spitting Halloween 🎃 “……… “ remember ‘remember, the 5th of Nov.” …… “ Philip ‘ this year you give the Queen speech”…… 🎆🎇😱🇬🇧💩⚖️⚖️⚖️…… GBTQ.

rogue withdrawal

They say Harry has gone rogue by marrying against advice. They say Harry went rogue releasing the statement in November 2016 when madam told him she felt unsafe and race was an issue. I never knew she was not Caucasian until this came out. They say Harry has again gone rogue not so much with the lawsuit, which by the way HE IS NOT SUING!! It is in her name the lawsuit has been filed. Back to they say he has again gone rogue by that blistering angry letter on their website that also listed the lawsuit information. So withdrawal, to remove or take something away from a place or position. It can also mean to leave or cause to leave a place or situation. So , this clue is basically meaning, he/ they have left SA on a very angry tone , things will be interesting as they settle back in London. Just wondering are we back to a doll now? Was the baby SA? Or American? Or who, what, where, when, how and why. These are the tenets of being a good interviewer, getting those basics down. Don’t you just hate it when people use the word basically all the time? I do apologize for that!🤣🤣😂😂😂

a petulant rattle slays fleet st.

Well this is basically saying a moody grumpy baby threw his rattle out of his pram and slayed Fleet Street. I explained Fleet Street in yesterday’s riddle, it’s the street in London for centuries where the newspapers are printed. It’s now synonymous with British/London journalists and journalism. There have been a number of editorials penned, PM being the most scathingly critical of PH. They are describing their assessment of his behaviour as entitled, spoilt, selfish, immature, et al, hence the way this clue is worded. To put things short and simple they see him as a spoilt child whose had a bad temper tantrum, for no logical reason, right after he has been given ten days worth’s of gifts ie positive PR. You decide for yourself, l am just explaining this clue.

royal analysis paralysis

Are they really paralyzed? Unable to take any action? The public has been clamouring for months, for HMTQ to DO SOMETHING! Read the comments in the DM, any media, in pubs, in workplaces everywhere, people are wondering why nothing , in their eyes, is being or has been done to rein her in and by virtue of his proximity to her and what’s happened this week, rein him in also. We know very well she called LG back for help. The things like separating of offices, separating the Cambridges and the Sussexes, the Heads together has happened awhile ago. Their office was moved to BP. PC cut off their funds a few weeks ago. I am 100% certain there have been so many things going on internationally in the background, most of which will remain classified we will never know. International security is at play. Then we have PA and JE with GM. So l would encourage people just to have a think before determining their paralysis analysis is correct.

“ settlement now!!!!

Is Harry demanding settlement? He cannot take anymore? Or is this any number of family, PC, PW, PP, who see him wasting away , want this settled and over? This has gone way past a quick settlement and life goes on as before. The whole plan in its evil agenda, still exists. People are demanding rid of her, take their titles away, ship them off to California and live as private citizen celebrities.

TM lawyers up

TM, Thomas Markle, madams father or daddy as she calls him, has lawyered up? I read all the papers about six this morning, l didn’t read that. A family of grifters, sounds like a country music song. There have been those who have had their doubts about the provenance of madam and whose who in this group of individuals. There have been people who believe they are all working together in this alleged project. I have no clue. If he has lawyered up, it is a very wise thing. This thing just is festering and festering for two years now, how much more can it fester before the boil needs lancing or it explodes on its own? I wonder who his lawyer is and who is paying his legal bills. 🤔🤔🤔

tabloid utopia

Let’s define these words so we all know what the basics are. A tabloid is a newspaper having pages half the size of those of a standard newspaper, typically popular in style and dominated by headlines, photographs, and sensational stories.lets be clear tabloid social media is much more common these days. Utopia is defined an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. So madams PR for , since November 2016 has been thus. Fake relationship kept going through PR, Vanity Fair article. Twitter accounts multiple. All the thousands of PR articles have depicted a perfect marvellous life. Perfect husband, perfect love, marriage, shortly after wedding of perfection followed by pregnancy, fauxmegnancy, that lasted a year, resulting in many a cat and mouse game, born, not born, where, boy? Girl? Name? Photos not photos. It’s craziness. Everyone is fatigued, imagine how Harry feels! He is wasting away and breaking apart right before our eyes. Whether you think him complicit or not, there is no denying, hair loss, weight loss, looks like he hasn’t slept, ratty shoes wrinkled clothes and now the obvious back pain. A caring spouse would not have stood there smugly grinning like a Cheshire Cat next to him while he was giving a speech on obviously agonizing pain.

“ This is a bloody tape diversion old thing “

LG speaking with HMTQ. He is giving her his well educated opinion based upon his knowledge of the intel.This lawsuit is a massive look 👀 here, don’t look 👀 there, nothing interesting to see over there , LOOK HERE ARMS WAVING LOOK 👀 HERE!! This lawsuit is a massive distraction, or diversion to use LG’s words from tape that is now safely secured by LG and in possession of ‘the grey men’. Reassuring her, helping her process all of this stuff happening that is so hard to process. The average person in a lifetime will never encounter a narcissist on this scale.

“A spitting Halloween 🎃 “

Oh my goodness!!!! We heard a week or two back the British satirical puppet television show Spitting Image, was returning. Check old episodes out on YouTube it’s brutally hilarious!Is this telling us Hallowe’en is the first episode? It spares satirizing no one, royals, politicians, celebrities etc etc. Oh my how fabulous this would be🤣😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣. Just IMAGINE the costumes each character would wear🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂Oh the wig, the eye lash glue🤣😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣. Oh l hope the CBC airs it!! Please share it please!

“ remember ‘remember, the 5th of Nov.”

from Wikipedia, to save my hands, typing more challenging today.

Festivities in Windsor Castle by Paul Sandby, c. 1776

Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Firework Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in the United Kingdom. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605 O.S., when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Actenforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure.End of Wikipedia.

Ha ha! Guy Fawkes, BONFIRE NIGHT IN 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 SCOTLAND, This has come up before, l have explained it. In case you didn’t see that, this goes back centuries. This day is still commemorated each year, and in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, it’s fabulous fun. Everyone setting off fireworks 💥 hence the term bonfire night, drinks all around and just a really fun night. One time, the house down the road, l don’t think he planned it well, too close to the house and a rocket crashed into the roof 🤣🤣😂😂😂😂. No major damage, likely too much drink involved 🤣🤣😂😂.

“ Philip ‘ this year you give the Queen speech”

HMTQ, speaking to her beloved likely half jokingly and half seriously. The Queen, speaks in the third person, which means she doesn’t say l or me, she says we would like tea or you may leave us now, l hope that makes sense. So with this sentence structure, the way it’s worded, reads to me as if they are having a one on one conversation about the Annual Christmas message. However, it may also be, but l don’t think so, since the word Annual is used,the Reigning Monarch speaks at the official opening of parliament. Since the Courts ruled the proroguing of Parliament was not valid, they can just resume Parliament. I think this is referring to HMTQ Annual Christmas message. I am attempting as l do the riddles, to help the worldwide readership here understand with background information we may take for granted that everyone knows. Each year on Christmas Day, at noontime, we stop and watch HMTQ Annual Christmas message on the tv. It’s a major part of Christmas Day as l was growing up and still watch to this day. It’s about ten or fifteen minutes or so. She reviews the major things that have happened, along with family milestones, weddings, babies etc. She always looks fabulous, but when does she not? She’s amazing! Sounds like things are just hitting her tolerance level and she is leaning on her husband who has been at her side all these years she has reigned.

🎆🎇😱🇬🇧💩⚖️⚖️⚖️

Fireworks times two, Britain will be shocked and mortified at the shi* that will be exposed in this lawsuit! She made a very very very bad move in the game she has been playing, let me rephrase that, her backers instructed her to make a very very bad move. One wonders , the letter from ‘Harry’ says this has been many months in the making. HRC tweet occurred, just before the U.S.Open. Madam jumped a flight to NYC less than 48 hours later. Methinks that was the genesis of this lawsuit.she played nice, sort of, because her nice is still not nice!!! in SA so the press were manipulated so she could say they were sometimes nice sometimes unbearable. My sentence structure is horrid but l hope my points are coming across! So not months in the making but weeks. One needs public sentiments, in a good way in any PR war, and this is war that has moved to the Courts. Remember we heard months ago, rather obtusely that a nephew was encouraged by his uncle to consult his grandfathers mate, regarding the higher courts? I believe it was in a riddle. I wonder if Harry was anticipating this day and action might come and wanted to prepare himself by getting knowledge from a trusted, well advised court. I cannot recall the title of this person, but he is an old mate of PP. This decision is going to turn out the be the final blow-out battle that has been coming for two years. The Mail on Sunday will not back down, and they have their dossier, she has way more to lose than they do. The public will NOT stand for any more impingement on their freedom of speech. For example, just look what happens in the DM comments when comments don’t appear or are removed, sometimes people banned or doxxed. Online, in social media things of a similar nature have happened, to our dear 🐼also. People will resist, they will not stand for it. There has been such outrage over money wasted, privilege, disrespect towards HMTQ and the citizen of the U.K. and Commonwealth.

GBTQ.

GOD BLESS. THE QUEEN!! INDEED!!

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you dear PG! How you can do these riddles is beyond me! Wow! Love it! They get more and more interesting all the time! Thank you, I know today is not a great day, so the effort you put into this for us all. Is so appreciated! You are the best! Thank you!🙏🏻💜💜💜

Skippy

Oct 3rd, 2019

——————

75:

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜WISHING YOU A GRAND WEEKEND 💜😊💜

MM Anon

MM ANON …… Meanwhile at CH…… A Family meeting’ o dear!!…… “ One is apoplectic with disappointment “… (two red faces)…… “ this isn’t a game of happy f%#@k families!!!”…… an atmospheric cut…… legs and tails …… They Aga successful …… in the brown Windsor soup……a green beret chum…… nutmeg begs…… happy Harry …… SS documentary’s doom

1255 hrs CST

Meanwhile at CH

CH is Clarence House, the former home of the Queen mum. Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall now reside there and their offices are based there also. The clue reminds me of the saying, when life gets very hectic, meanwhile back at the ranch, meaning change of topic to get your mind off it, or in a movie it’s a complete change of scene. I hope that makes sense. I am desperately trying to make terms, words, phrases, for those who aren’t familiar, I WANT EVERYONE 😊😊😊😊WHO TAKES THE TIME TO READ MY INTERPRETATIONS TO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND! That’s extremely important to me. So interpretation, what’s going on at CH? Imagine the scurrying, the SA tour, amw on display like a medal 🎖 won at the Olympics, but not to his home country, a foreign one. Add to that madams lawsuit, and now Harry filing suit, it must be mayhem. Phone hacking must bring back memories of PC and Camilla whose naught naught private conversations were recorded and made public. They were mortified.They are balancing a dozen glass plates in the air , which one first?? Interesting Harry’s suit was filed last Friday but we are only learning of it now.

A Family meeting’ o dear!!

HMTQ has summoned everyone, this must be discussed and dealt with, l am speaking of madam, her lawsuit, but more pressing is the massive security breach allowing their phones to be hacked. I think a massive security overhaul and everyones mobiles, computers etc etc will need securing.I think decisions have been made in how to proceed, it may be explaining what will happen next. Some may say it’s an intervention, for Harry. An intervention, in the way l am meaning, happens when an addict is confronted by loved ones, usually with a therapist, often a surprise to the individual to be blunt in how they have been affected by the addicts behaviour, give them ultimatum, or choice, go to rehab or we severe or cut off all ties with you. I don’t think that way, l am still 100% behind Harry, he shrunken, depressed, in pain, and massively loyal to his granny HMTQ! I will not be dissuaded from my belief.

“ One is apoplectic with disappointment “

Let us review what apoplectic means, it is to be overcome with anger or extremely indignant, feeling or showing anger or being very annoyed at what is perceived as unfair treatment. Here we have the third person usage of the word One, that means it is HMTQ speaking. She is angry and very disappointed by something. I am certain this phone hacking, which was filed last Friday and made public today brings back memories of this happening before. She must be furious! Again many will say it’s about Harry. I am certain she has these feelings about where his initial poor choices and thinking he could manage madam on his own, and where this has led to.

(two red faces)

Harry and Rachel, is it possible those hacked phones and messages were of a very very VERY personal nature not with each other but others and that would be tres embarrassing. Your face reddens or blushes when embarrassed. I can only begin to imagine what they got on her from her phone. Harry, also, where was their security teams. Those phones should be firewalled up the wazoo. Did they learn NOTHING from the squidgy tapes with Diana or PC with Camilla wanting to be her you know the word!

“ this isn’t a game of happy f%#@k families!!!”

PP speaking, nothing is a game, to madam it’s a game , getting $$$££££€€£, using people, smug look when Harry was obviously so much in pain. This is the most serious game, by the way, have you ever read the story,The Most Dangerous Game ? It was mandatory read in my school curriculum, l can’t recall which grade.THATS A STORY! I can only, l have said this with almost every time l write about PP, imagine his rile, anger, fury even, at the goings on. A man’s man as we used to say, rugged, professional naval veteran, lifelong royal veteran, watching this all unfold. I am certain he has had his advice sought, especially from HMTQ, but he’s retired, he is unable to act, to do anything to stop this. I pray for them both.🙏🏻

an atmospheric cut

Atmosphere is defined as the envelope of gases surrounding the earth or another planet or , the one l think applies best here is the pervading tone or mood of a place or situation. I imagine the atmosphere at BP and with the royals, especially the Senior royals you could cut the tension with a knife. That’s a common saying , things get to intense people are almost frozen, cut it with a knife, literally not metaphorically yes.

legs and tails

Heads or tails are the usual when you flip a coin, here MM ANON has given us legs and tails. Well everyone since day one has had comment after comment about madams legs. Tails, well it does have a raunchy meaning, you either know or you don’t, this l am no sharing!

They Aga successful

William and Catherine met with the Aga Khan yesterday at the Aga Khan Centre in King’s Cross. This was to connect before their trip to Pakistan October 14 - 18,2019. The royal visit has been organized in co-operation with the High Commission of Pakistan. William and Kate met community leaders and business figures as well as musicians, chefs and artists from the Pakistani diaspora. Aga Khan is a title given to the Imam (leader) who serves as the spiritual leader of the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam The current Aga Khan is 83-year-old Prince Shah Karim al-Husseini, the 49th Imam. The Imam role acts much like a royal dynasty, as the same family has passed down the title for the past 1,300 years. I recall reading in the paper his bloodline goes back to the Prophet Mohammed. He is a very revered and respected worldwide. Our PM and his family vacationed with him. They have known him since they were young when their father Pierre was our PM, Justin Trudeau now serves as his father did. This is all planning so that their visit builds on the success of Princess Diana’s trip years ago, in relationship building. This was a very important meeting and one that went exceedingly well. As usual, Catherine dressed completely appropriately, as she does! So this was a very successful prelude to the upcoming Royal tour to Pakistan 🇵🇰.

in the brown Windsor soup

What’s brown Windsor soup, lots of you are asking. It goes back to the Victorian era. Simply put, is a British meat soup that is said by when food was more scarce. Warm and hearty as it could be, warmed an empty belly. We might call it a sort of comfort food. The term brown Windsor soup became shorthand for horrible food and was used as a prop by comics in the post-war years. So if you’re in the soup, your rations are running low. Is madam broke? Or very nearly?

a green beret chum

What is a green beret some ask, was the official headdress of the British Commandos during WWII. It is still worn by members of the Royal Marines after passing the Commando Course and personnel from other units of the Royal Navy, Army and RAF who serve within Third Commando Brigade. and who have passed the All Arms Commando Course. The Duke of Sussex attended the revered has presented them with their green berets at Bickleigh the 42 Commando Royal course. Is Harry spending time with veteran chum to help him with his PTSD and the huge stress and strain he has been under? Only a veteran can truly understand the horrors and be entrusted to be there. I sincerely hope that is what this clue is, because Harry needs help in every facet of his being.l prayed 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 so long for him last night.

nutmeg begs

What is she begging for l wonder?🧐🤔🤔 Is she begging to rescind the lawsuit with the blow-up. Is she begging please please not to share the information obtained from her mobiles, l am sure she has several, after all how many twitter accounts does she have☺️☺️🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂. Fearing the blowback of the MOS revealing what all they have kept schtum on all this time. I don’t think she thought through the ramifications of what she has done by filing suit. But, then again, thinking has never been her forté nor her job, her backers did and continue to do all the thinking, planning and ordering her actions.

happy Harry

This is a crazy clue because the only time l saw Harry happy, like for real happy, in the last two plus years, was the day he attended the Anzac Day service with Catherine. Now, within the last hour, word has been announced that he has filed lawsuits against The Sun and The Mirror and the owners for hacking his phone. This is way more serious that madams issue. There would, if in fact this happened, would have required very skilled intelligence people because of his status l a certain his mobile is very very secured OR IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN!! I cannot fathom what would make him happy, unless her begging is for a divorce and leaving , or just plain leaving. The only rabbit l can pull out of this hat, is that his mission is complete now that the SA and other African country visits are complete. He can now heal and resume some semblance of a life! I hope and pray l am correct!

SS documentary’s doom.

A whole lot of bang for your buck or should l say the backers buck eh Rachel?? One might even think they had two clients, the one that paid more wanted them to pretend to be her PR the while working against!, Dont cry for me Argentina, song from Evita! the play/film 🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂 make that don’t cry for me Rachelina 🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂Since SS has come on board things have gone from worst to unimaginable worse🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂. They’re not long for this world, likely they have already been sacked.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

1430 hrs CST Oct 4

Thank you PG! This looks interesting….fun times coming! Much appreciated

Oct 4th,

—————

76: Oct. 5

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON …… chocolate sundae …… don’t give up your day job …… single exit west …… a SMALL diversion … “ is he mine?” …… home alone ………… “ I fear for them Philip” …… Duty calls …… 🎼” you wore out your welcome with random precision “🎼……… “ we must talk Harry”……… jack and Jill went up the hill ……… “ it’s all on This memory stick.

October 5,2019 2030 hrs

chocolate sundae

What’s better than a chocolate sundae? Hmmmmm maybe a chocolate MOS(Mail on Sunday) 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁 MM ANON are you cleverly telling us that there will be oh so sweet tidbits of final exposure in the MOS and or other media? Chocolate may be colour, or maybe chocolate sauce was used in lieu of salad dressing in the tossed salads! My mind never knew these things before, madam has affected or infected all of us in filthy ways!

don’t give up your day job

This is an expression used when someone is doing something very very poorly like singing at the karaoke, or something like that. I am surmising here that madams performance in the video that allegedly exists is not Oscar worthy🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂. What’s the difference, none of her others have been, especially the penultimate role as DOS,!!! I wish they had a spitting emoji!

single exit west

Is this suggesting that madam will do an exit stage left, as they used to say in the cartoons, and leave by herself and head west across the pond? Please go, we will all pitch in for the one way ticket, just go away!! Is she going to take archficial?? Who will care for him??🤣🤣😂

a SMALL diversion

Diversion, is a distraction, SMALL in all caps, that’s done to elevate that word. So what is the diversion and who is using and needing it? All roads lead to Rome , but in this case all roads lead to madam. She thought her lawsuit was the cats meow, she must have been thunderstruck, sorry AC/DC reference..see l am learning from MM ANON😁! But she must have been thunderstruck to learn Harry had filed suit a week ago bit more now, against hacking. Her proverbial goose is really cooked, as l have no doubt hacking was used to gather intel on him, William Catherine any of them, this plot has been in the planning for years! Her searching for Harry’s mobile so furiously, l am SOOOOOOO glad whoever sought that on film!!

“ is he mine?”

References back to Morocco when Harry made the comment “is it mine” Everyone in the room laughed except madam, l am sure she was seething with rage! So here we have is HE mine? So one wonders at what this means, is this a typo, or did l get it wrong? Nevertheless, the meaning and interpretation is the same.Those who were already sceptical took this as a major clue from Harry. The bulk of people thought he was just being silly. The line he said before that was something like Oh, you’re pregnant?? So we know it’s not Harry’s child, they were never intimate post wedding, grounds for annulment! MM ANON clue is telling us that we are going to shortly find this out, ok shortly is my wish but it’s all going to come out. If madam does a runner to the U.S. won’t that be interesting. She has no idea what her backers are really capable of, she should be afraid very afraid of who she’s tethered to and how much information she knows!

home alone

Poor archficial, all alone, outlived his usefulness. But madam is home alone or not depending whose sofa she’s sleeping on or staying with. Harry is back to Not Cot with his dog, l am sure his dog will give him a royal welcoming. Those of you who have dogs know how therapeutic they can be.

“ I fear for them Philip”

HMTQ sharing concerns for Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as they take on this high risk Royal tour of Pakistan. There are many, including sugars who would delight with glee if something untoward would occur. Security will be very very very tight, the outlay of the tour states it will be their most complex tour yet. The itinerary will be kept close at the best as to where they are visiting specifically etc etc, it will be a pure military and RPO nightmare to keep them safe. They , on the other hand will represent HMTQ with aplomb, they will be relaxed or appear so and l foresee thus being a hugely successful Royal tour. We must pray for all involved!🙏🏻

Duty calls. Harry has several appearances , as Prince Harry on October 10,2019 international Mental Health Day. Back to duty he goes, he , you can never dissuade me , is 100% loyal to HMTQ. He will resume his duties. I hope in the interim there has been time to debrief, talk about what happened in the field upon return to home base . I have led many debriefings, they take place in many firms, people of crimes, military after a tour of duty, firemen or police officers after a bad scene or officer involved shooting, healthcare staff after assault or violent incident etc etc you get it. 🎼” you wore out your welcome with random precision “🎼

MM ANON returns to Pink Floyd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Song someone wanting it all willing to do anything, end up dark and exposed by the light. This is a marvellous lyric to describe the situation that is now happening? HOW DO YOU DO THIS MM ANON? YOU’RE BEYOND BRILLIANT! I THINK WRITING THESE RIDDLES FAR JARDER THAN SOLVING, I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO YOU! I AM WRITING UPPERCASE BECAUSE I WANT TO RESPECT HER AND HAVE HER TAKE NOTICE.

we must talk Harry”

HMTQ, His attorney, PC, PW or all talk about what is really going on, make a plan and figure out what the next step should be. I think the most important thing is, talk about how he is appearing, depressed, thin, stressed and in agony with his back. I am certain they are all worried sick at the toll this has taken on him in every way as are many of us.

jack and Jill went up the hill

Old child’s nursery rhyme it goes Jack and Jill ran up the hill to fetch a pail of water , Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

Isn’t this a perfect description of where our Harry is at with a lot of people? He paired up with this Jill, sorry to all the Jill’s that read this, nothing personal, and since then it’s been one long for lack of better word sh** show of lack of respect for HMTQ, merch fest, etc etc. Harry’s crown or reputation is in tatters and now the media are furious by his statement, his altercation with Rhiannon Mills of Sky news and on and on. The ultimate fall, for her, is coming. She will tumble lower than low once the dossier on her is in the public realm and the alleged video!! I am waiting with bated breath for the MOS tomorrow!!

“ it’s all on This memory stick.

Yep everything about her, what she’s done, the backers, her calls back and forth with them, emails, videos, her yachting history, the lost years, the ‘Markle family’ everything is on this memory stick and LG has and it will be put to use. They have her, she got cocky in SA and invaded her own privasy☺️🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂🤣🤣. All laughs aside this has been a deadly serious plot to bring down the entire BRF! Justice is coming, the people of the U.K. and Commonwealth who aren’t taking the time to look beneath and take PR as truth will be shocked into disbelief. The process of truth telling will be a measured approach to be sure.

I am in awe of you two ladies! Wow! You speak the same “language”…..this again is amazing, and very informative…things are coming…fantastic! So appreciated! Thank you, dear PG and MM Anon!💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

gstqaobc

Thank you dearest MM ANON for the absolute honour and privilege of interpreting or at least attempting to, your riddles. 💜🐼💜🙏🏻☺️🐼☺️ Thank you for doing me the continued honour of allowing me to do my interpretations of MM ANON’s brilliant riddles and for posting my work! This has been so good for my brain 🧠 and exercising my. Rita al thinking skills! Let this be my small contribution to your blog and to being aTruth Seeker as Christ calls me to be. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

———————

[phanlight]

The Boy on the Blue Moon Dreams of Sun

prompt: dan is a theatre kid who hasn't had his first kiss but has to kiss someone for a show. he doesn't want his first kiss to be wasted so he tries to get it done properly beforehand & he meets phil and w/e you can take it from there!!!

““Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what we’ve spent the past ten minutes doing?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

GUESS WHICH BITCH IS BACK AND WRITING AGAIN (spoiler: IT ME)

I thought it was about time I branched out a bit and tried my hand at a theatre au. This was so much fun to write (albeit kinda hard as despite being a literature student my Romeo and Juliet knowledge is a little subpar lmao lets hope I at least sort of did it justice tho) and deffo has more than ur daily dosage of angsty teenage actor!dan so look forward to that. thank u to the lovely anon who prompted me with this! (also yes i’m still relying on ptv lyrics for my song titles after 3 years sh)

Also I’m sorry if the writing in this is a lil inconsistent. I started this fic literally over a year ago and abandoned it for ages before finding and continuing it again. The first half was written in literally like mid 2016 (from which point my writing has obv improved a lot) and since then I’ve been working on it sporadically so if it feels like halfway through my writing style suddenly changes then that’s why OOPS soz

This was not supposed to be this long im so sorry wtf 13k ??? fuks sake

It’s the first time Dan’s ever been pissed off with being cast a lead role in a play.

He usually loves it – he loves the attention, loves having a ripped up script full of highlighted lines and more soliloquies to memorise than he can even keep count of. He shines under the warmth of the spotlight, lapping up the attention like a hungry cat, and when the applause ripples throughout the audience at the end, he can’t get enough of the sound.

It’s just- well, there’s one problem with his part.

It’s nothing he has against Romeo, not necessarily, and the piece itself is okay – Dan’s copy of the popular play in question is already crumpled with annotations; small post-it notes spilling fluorescent colours out of every crease (studying English literature alongside Drama always comes in handy as far as Shakespeare is concerned) and Romeo has a decent amount to say.

The problem is, he’s going to have to kiss someone.

Dan Howell, the one who snaps up almost every single role he auditions for, the one with a clay personality that can be moulded perfectly into whatever role he’s going for next, the one who lives the stage and breathes the lights, who was once described as ‘the heart and soul’ of the local theatre, is going to have to kiss someone.

And believe it or not, Dan Howell, the same seventeen-year-old who breezes through auditions leaving a flutter of girls at his feet, the same guy who was once rumoured to have made out with three people at the Les Miserables afterparty and the same guy who once had to reject two people in one night, has never actually kissed anyone before. Not properly, anyway.

Granted, he’s been extremely close to it a fair few times – having been in and out of auditions and callbacks since the age of about five, he’s come into contact with a considerable number of roles that involve love interests; only last month was his character Eddie supposed to kiss the love of his life, Alexandra, in the back of a car at a drive-in cinema. It was a play that one of the drama students had written; set in the fifties, all red-and-white ice cream parlours and hand jives and high school dances and Marilyn Monroe posters. Dan had enjoyed playing his part, and not just because it was the only opportunity he’d get to sport a black leather jacket (though he did decide leather looked really quite hot on him after that play. It’s almost a shame he’s vegetarian), but because the minor obstacle could, like every single other time, be solved with a stage kiss. Just a few seconds of his back to the audience, being agonisingly close to someone else’s lips, before pulling away and raking though his mind to try and remember the next line. It’s always worked for him, every time.

Except for this. Because the director, a Lucy Howcroft with a loud voice and a bossy personality, has only gone and booked them the Round at the Old Vic theatre. Which would be fine, of course it would; it’s one of the most popular theatres in the city and the theatre group is going to get a huge reputation for this afterwards, but it’s not so handy as far as stage-kissing is concerned. When you’re being stared at from every angle three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around, there’s no way you can get away with only partially leaning in to kiss.

“Are you sure there’s no way around this?” Dan had insisted when he’d stolen a moment after rehearsal to talk to Lucy. She’d been clearing her desk – a papery mountain range, and had looked a bit too busy to talk, but Dan would rather discuss this with her one-on-one instead of having to voice his feelings with twenty other pairs of eyes staring at him.

“For someone who just bagged yet another lead role, I would’ve thought you’d be a little more gracious than this,” Lucy had muttered, snapping a file shut. “I didn’t have to cast you, y’know.”

“It’s not- I am grateful, you know I am, it’s just-“

“Is there a problem with the casting of Juliet?” she’d offered, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Dan had insisted. “She’s fine.”

“The costume, then?” she’d tried. “I’m not a bloody mind reader, Dan. Help me out a bit here.”

Dan had shut his eyes and taken a deep breath, trying to comb the tangle of words in his head into some kind of coherent sentence.

“I mean- I just- the venue,” he gulped. “It’s- there’s a bit of a problem.”

“What about it?” Lucy sighed, irritation tracing the edges of her tone. “I fail to see what’s so problematic about getting a slot at the Old Vic of all places, but if you have any objections, then do enlighten me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just-“ Dan gulped, not really too sure how far he’s going to get with this. The bitterness already in her tone didn’t sound at all promising. “I don’t know. Do we have to perform in the round?”

“Christ, is performing in one of the most popular theatres in London that much of a chore?”

“No, no, I just-“ he gulped, trying to work out how the hell he’d word this without sounding like a twat. “I’ve never really… you know. Performed in an environment like that before.”

“You’ve been acting for twelve years,” she said bluntly. “I’m sure you have enough experience to be able to deal with a round stage instead of a rectangular one.”

“But- like, isn’t the round meant for- like… you know, Greek plays and shit?”

“It used to be,” she’d said, taking care to apply extra emphasis on the past tense. “Since when were you so hung up on the traditions of theatre, anyway?” she’d added after a pause. “Only last week were you totally in favour of the idea of having a rap battle in the middle of Othello.”

Dan had frowned, because that wasn’t really fair – sure, a rap battle isn’t exactly a common feature of Shakespeare’s plays, but no one could deny that Louis, playing Iago, was pretty good at freestyling whenever a mic was thrown in his direction. Despite not adhering to the conventions of traditional English theatre, it certainly made the play more entertaining.

“It’s just gonna be- you know. It’s gonna take some getting used to,” he’d mumbled instead.

“You have three months to get used to it,” she’d pointed out. “I’m sure you and the rest of the cast will have familiarised yourself with it by the time the production comes around.”

“But- the round is traditionally meant for-“

“Look, if you’re going to get so archaic about it, I can always build a time machine, book the open-air Globe for, like, sometime four-hundred years ago, and you can spend the next three days picking rotten tomatoes out of your hair,” she said. “Does that sound better?”

“They only did that to bad actors,” Dan had pointed out. Lucy rolled her eyes.

“And you know what makes a good actor, Dan?” she retorted. “Flexibility. The willingness to branch out of your comfort zone.”

Dan had sighed. He’s not going to get anywhere with this, is he?

“You know what?” he’d finally shaken his head, defeated. “Forget it.”

She watched him turn on his heel with a raised eyebrow. “See you Tuesday, then? First read-through of the script is at eleven in the morning.”

“See you then,” Dan muttered, not even bothering to turn around.

He let the door slam behind him.

It’s not that Dan doesn’t want to kiss anyone – (quite the contrary, really. He loves the idea of it, loves the thought of someone’s lips pressed up against his, the world slowing down around them and his heart feeling like fire. He’s always tried to incorporate that feeling into his acting, letting his passion leak into every character he’s cast, but when the stage lights are off and the curtain is down, his attraction to his colleagues ends there) – it’s just- well, he doesn’t really think he’s found the right person to share the real experience with, yet. His fellow actors and actresses aren’t unattractive by any means, but he doesn’t look at any of them and find himself struck by the desire to taste their lips and whisper incoherence into their ears like Eddie was supposed to do in the back of that car.

Seventeen, and still hasn’t had his first kiss. Still doesn’t want to waste it, at that.

Pathetic.

-

Technicians don’t get paid enough, Phil thinks.

He’s spent the day holed up in the trap room, devouring what was left in the back of the fridge (including a half-opened pack of Doritos that tasted like they expired about five years ago) and puzzling over this fucking broken light board that everyone had very kindly left him to take care of. It had already taken him over half an hour to get one of the chunky old Mac laptops up and running again (seriously, who in this day and age is still using an iBook?) and even then it only really half-functions – a handful of keys are missing, the trackpad only ever seems to work when it feels like it, and there’s a huge hairline crack right across the screen. Phil’s spent so long cursing through gritted teeth and smacking the table in frustration every time the damn thing freezes that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he ended up contributing to those cracks by the end of the day. Maybe that’s how they ended up there in the first place.

“You alright?” the door suddenly opens and a voice – Nick, Phil presumes, breaks the aching silence that the room has been blanketed in for the past four hours. Finally, Phil sighs, feeling a pinch of anger melt away. Human company.

“Been better,” Phil mumbles, popping a couple of grapes into his mouth. Been better, he scoffs to himself. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t been worse.

“Chuck me a coke, will you?” he pulls up a chair and puts his feet on it, perching on the edge of the table. Phil heaves out a sigh – that involves getting up – but musters up enough energy to lean over and yank the fridge open. He tosses him a can, and Nick catches it expertly.

“Nice of you to show up,” Phil rolls his eyes. “Only four hours late this time. That’s an hour and a half off your personal best.”

“They said they didn’t need me here ‘till three,” he protests, popping the can open and taking a few gulps. “They said you had it all under control.”

His sentence is punctuated by a burp. Phil grimaces.

“Under control,” Phil snorts. That’ll be the fucking day.

“What did they leave you here to do?” he frowns.

“Only fix this entire fucking thing,” Phil nods over to the stupid light board. God, he’s sick of the sight of it. “Beats me what’s wrong with it. I’ve only just managed to get this dinosaur up and running,” he gestures to the corpse of a laptop in front of him, “let alone look at that.”

“Fuck me, man,” Nick sighs out a heavy breath. “If I knew, I could have come in earlier to help you out a bit. You should have texted me.”

“It’s fine,” Phil sighs even though- well, it’s not, really. There’s only so many hours of broken technology and out-of-date food one can take. “It’s not your fault,” he adds truthfully.

“They’re twats sometimes, aren’t they?” Nick lowers his voice, despite the fact they’re literally underground here, beneath the earshot of everyone.

“I’ll say,” Phil widens his eyes, trying to click something and- nope, it’s fucking frozen again. “For fuck’s sake. They’re all bloody loaded, too. You would have thought with the money they have, they could fork out a little for equipment that at least half-functions, right?”

“Yup,” Nick sighs. “Guess bookings for overpriced fancy-ass theatres are higher up on their agenda, though.”

Phil can’t argue with that. Apparently they’re going to have to wire up something in the Old Vic, of all places, next week. Phil dreads to think how much hiring that place out for even a few hours is going to cost, let alone booking it for three nights.

Probably more than enough to buy a better fucking laptop.

-

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but-“

“No- no,” Lucy holds up her hand. “Come on, Dan. More emotion than that. You’re telling the love of your life that even the moon is envious of her beauty. At least pretend to put some passion into it.”

Dan rolls his eyes – only the fourth time he’s had to repeat this fucking soliloquy in the past fifteen minutes. He’s pretty sure he’s only one “no, no, it’s too (insert adjective here)” away from giving up with this whole thing altogether. He’d rather have played Benvolio anyway.

“Come on,” Lucy continues. “We’ll take it from Be not her maid…”

Dan shuts his eyes, scrapes up the remaining traces of his sanity, and takes another breath.

“Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!

It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.

Oh, that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?

Her eye discourses. I will answer it.—

I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks.

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they retur-“

“No, no-“ she interrupts him again and for fuck’s sake, at this rate, Dan won’t even need to spend any time in his bedroom going over his lines. He’s pretty sure he’s memorised half of the monologues already just from recapping in rehearsals alone.

“Come on, really feel it,” she pleads. “You can’t say something as romantic as that with a face like yours – you’re literally saying that two stars in the sky have gone away and they’re asking Juliet’s eyes to shine in their place until they return.”

Dan balls his fists, ready to snap back that yes, he’s fully fucking aware of what’s going on in the play thank you very much, in case she hadn’t forgotten he did actually study it for three separate exams and subsequent exposure to the text in question has made him rather familiar with the occurrences currently taking place, but they’re all interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Lucy huffs, mildly irritated.

The door knob jitters, then twists.

“Hiya,” a black-haired boy nods tiredly, pushing through the crack in the door. Dan immediately recognises him – one of the tech guys, he thinks, but he isn’t entirely certain. He’s never really spoken to any of the crew before; they tend to keep well out of the limelight (they’d rather control it instead).

“Everything okay?” Lucy asks, before turning to Dan and Alexandra (his Juliet). “You two, take five. Be ready to take it from the top.”

They both relax and take a seat on one of the upturned wooden boxes. It isn’t until Dan takes the weight off of his legs he realises how much they’ve been aching – fuck, he really needs to get back to that gym.

“Any luck?” she says to Mr. Black-Hair. He’s holding a laptop that looks as if it’s seen better years, never mind days, and a long cord of wire that snakes around his fist.

“Nothing at all,” he sighs, flicking a strand of his fringe out of his eyes. His hair looks as if it hasn’t seen a hairbrush for days, but there’s something about the way it sits shaggily on his head that kind-of suits him (Dan wishes he could pull off messy hair – he only attempted ditching the straighteners once and spent the rest of the day wondering if any birds had mistaken his head for a nest).

He doesn’t realise he’s been staring until he catches the tail end of Alexandra’s sentence and realises he hasn’t actually been listening for the past minute or so.

“What was that, sorry?”

“I asked you how you were finding Romeo so far,” she repeats.

“Hm? Oh yeah, yeah- he’s fine,” Dan says, not taking his eyes off of Mr. Black-Hair. He’s lost the thread of their conversation (he’s no lip reader) but by the looks of it, it seems as if there’s a problem with one of the laptops.

“Are you sure?” Alexandra frowns. Dan looks at her, but his glance is soon pulled back to the technician.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She shrugs. “You don’t really- I don’t know, you just don’t seem to be… you know. That into it, y’know?”

“Wait-“ Dan shakes his head, trying to focus on their conversation instead of the one a few metres away from. “Hang on- what? What makes you say that?”

She raises her eyebrows, as if to say ‘really?’. Dan’s expression remains carefully blank.

“Come on, Dan. We wouldn’t have had to repeat this stupid scene like, five times if you were actually into it. I’ve seen you do way better than this.”

“Oh, not you as well,” Dan groans, deflating. He’s pretty sure that exact sentence had fallen from Lucy’s lips not so long ago. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of having to sit and listen to people tell him that he ‘can do way better’ and ask ‘is everything all right, Dan? Nothing bothering you, is there?’ because he’s just ‘not himself’ at the moment.

That’s the most ridiculous one, he thinks, because for Christ’s sake, he’s an actor. He’s never himself.

“No, I don’t mean it like that,” Alexandra says, backtracking. “You know I don’t. I just- I think I overheard Lucy say you had a problem with something or other last week?”

“Did you,” Dan mumbles, unable to keep the bitter sarcasm out of his town. Alexandra remains unfazed.

“What was that about, though?” she remains unfazed. “Nothing to do with the casting, is it?”

“You really think it’s to do with the casting?” Dan stares at her in disbelief, before scoffing. “Yeah, like, I’m gutted to have bagged the lead role alongside you at one of the best theatres in the country. How am I going to cope?”

Not entirely truthful, but not a complete lie either.

“Just making sure,” a grin tugs at her lips, and she flicks a curl of red hair behind her shoulders. “I don’t have much of a problem with it myself, to be honest.”

“That’s reassuring,” Dan smirks sarcastically, but his tone is fairly benign. There’s certainly no denying she’s fucking gorgeous and it’s really no wonder she’s Juliet – she has hair the colour of a sunset falling down her back in ruby curls, emerald eyes framed by a curl of long eyelashes and cherry red lips that stretch into a wide smile whenever Dan cracks a joke, giving way to a small dimple on the side of her cheek. Her skin is pale, the colour of moonlight, almost, and he idly thinks, just for a fleeting second, that the moon probably would be jealous of her. She’s beautiful.

“Certainly don’t have a problem with getting to snog you in front of a thousand people, I must be honest,” she adds, and Dan’s stomach drops and his grin vanishes. Shit.

He wrings out a laugh, internally wincing at how false it sounds. “Yeah, I- um-“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” someone mutters a few footsteps away from them. He snaps his head up, and Lucy plus Mr. Black-Hair are hunched over the desk, clearly getting nowhere with the absolute disaster they call an iBook.

“Wait- what’s the problem?” Dan suddenly gets up. He feels a little bad for leaving Alexandra so abruptly so he throws her a little apologetic ‘be right back’ glance, but he can’t help it – he might actually be able to help, here.

He shoves down the other voice in the back of his mind, the ‘or rather you’re just grabbing at any opportunity to avoid any potential conversation about the kiss you fucking wimp’

“It’s okay, Dan, sit back down. I’ll be with you both in a second,” Lucy calls over her shoulder.

“No, really,” Dan insists. “I know a thing or two about Macs. I have one myself, and-“ he catches Lucy drawing in a breath, ready to protest, and he regrets the spill of words almost as soon as they come out – fuck, why can’t he just keep his mouth shut? – but Mr. Black-Hair turns around, an eyebrow quirked upwards.

“Really?” his stare is the colour of ice, the sky on a December morning, but it’s weirdly warm at the same time.

“I- uh, yeah,” Dan stutters when he remembers how to talk again. “I’ve always had Macs. They’re great when they decide to work, but they can be a bitch when they begin to act up, and-“ he cuts himself off with an awkward shrug, “yeah.”

“Tell me about it,” the technician smirks. “This bastard-” he nods to the chunky white rectangle in his arms, “took me like, half an hour to boot up alone. And now it’s been frozen for like- twice as long as that. I’ve only had chance to type in my password so far.”

Lucy’s still standing in the middle of them and it’s getting a bit difficult to ignore the stony glare burning into Dan’s peripheral vision right now and even harder to avoid eye contact with her, but it doesn’t stop him from offering some help, albeit rather inappropriately timed.

“I- um, have my MacBook with me if that helps?” Dan offers, trying not to feel the heat of his blush when Mr. Black-Hair looks straight at him. “I mean- if you don’t need it that’s fine, but like- it’ll function a bit better than that thing,” he shrugs. “I dunno. It would probably save you a lot of time.”

“Really?” he raises an eyebrow. “Like, with you right now?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I mean – I haven’t got my charger on me, but it’s on, like, eighty percent. Should be fine.”

“I mean-“ he throws a permission-seeking glance, towards Lucy, who Dan is pretty sure would be having steam coming out of her ears would it be humanly possible. She fixes Dan with a hard stare, a real ‘go on; be my guest’ look that’s always comes across as more of a dare than permission, a challenge for his conscience, but he can’t help an apologetic smile tugging at his lips.

“It’s cool with you, right?” his lips say before his mind catches up.

Lucy rolls her eyes in defeat. “If you absolutely must. But only- only because I could do with the extra time to independently go over one of Alexandra’s soliloquy.”

His face breaks out into a grin, and he’s not that sure why. “Thanks, Luce. I owe you one.”

“Don’t you make a habit of this, though. Remember; this is your own rehearsal time you’re sacrificing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan calls over his shoulder, trailing off. Mr. Black-Hair holds the door open behind him, and suddenly they’re out of the rehearsal studio and walking in a weird mutual silence sitting in a strange middle ground between comfortable and uncomfortable, across the car park and over to the actual theatre.

“Are you alright to do this, yeah?” Mr. Black-Hair (Dan seriously needs to come up with more imaginative mental nicknames for people) breaks the silence on their walk down to the trap room.

“It’s no problem at all,” he smirks as another wooden step groans under his foot. “Anything to get out of rehearsal.”

Dan’s never really been here before, never touched the underground territory where the technicians lurked, but there’s something about the atmosphere of this place that grips him.

-

Half an hour passes, and Dan couldn’t really tell you why he’s still sitting down here, still sitting on a revolving chair with a rip in the upholstery, under half-broken beams, tables that look like they’re seconds away from collapsing, and a lot of weird technology that he’d never even attempt to get his head around (seriously – do they even need this many buttons?). He’d given his laptop to Black Hair to receive a very emphatic ‘thank you, like seriously you’re a fucking lifesaver if I spent a second longer with that piece of shit I really don’t know what I would have done’ and the job had been done in seconds. Since then, a casual conversation had been struck up and Dan finds he doesn’t actually want to go back upstairs just yet.

“You two sounded really good in there,” Black Hair comments. They’d been talking about the play. “From what I heard, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Dan says, trying to ignore the quiet blush that warms his cheeks. There’s nothing quite like someone complimenting his acting. “Clearly not good enough for Lucy, though.”

“Few things are, Dan,” he sighs, and Dan only finds it half-weird that this guy knows his name, but Dan doesn’t actually know his. It’s unnerving, sure, but nothing he’s a stranger to. “She’s been on at you all morning.”

“Yeah,” Dan pauses, before adding an apologetic “sorry, I- um, I don’t think I caught your name?”

“It’s fine. I’m Phil,” he grins, and Dan thanks his lucky stars there’s finally a name to put to the face.

Dan studies him briefly, and frowns. “You do look familiar, actually.”

“Yeah – I do all the donkey work downstairs,” he grins. “You may have seen me emerge from the cave every now and then.”

Dan chuckles, deciding there and then that he likes Phil.

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Dan asks, studying the square lights looming above them, one of which he notices is stuttering slightly, flickering on and off every now and then.

Phil shrugs, not taking his eyes off of the screen. “Kinda. But I mean – I have my little crew down here, y’know? There’s five of us. We just like- keep each other company. Help each other whenever we need to,” he glances at Dan. “Oh, and sneak up to the theatre and watch you guys every now and then.”

Dan giggles. “Brilliant. Must be a nice little community, though.”

“Yeah, it is,” Phil hesitates. “Or perhaps ‘support group’ might be a more appropriate term. For the poor sods who have to put up with shitty laptops and gross food.”

Dan laughs, and helps himself to another Dorito.

-

“Okay, right- Dan, sorry if this sounds a bit weird because- like, we’ve pretty much only just met, but like- um- I was wondering if you wanted to-“

“Phil,” Dan cuts him off. As an actor, there’s something about hearing people stutter and ramble without really saying anything that tends to grate on him. “I’d love to.”

“Really? Well, I-“ Phil stops and frowns. “Hang on a second. How did you know I was gonna ask you to hang out?”

Dan shrugs like he hasn’t spent the last thirteen years mastering the sciences of body language and speech and how they can be applied to the acting world. “Lucky guess, I suppose.”

Phil smiles. “I mean- would you? Like, really?”

“Of course,” Dan says.

“Well yeah, like- I don’t have to be home for a while yet, and I have a car so we could just like- drive around for a bit? Go to town if you want?”

Dan smiles, and repeats what he said before he even knew what Phil was going to say.

“Yeah. I’d love to.”

-                                          

It’s a bit of a weird result to come out of lending his laptop to a stranger for a while, but it’s how Dan finds himself spending the evening sat in the passenger seat on the top of a car park roof, blasting some weird indie song from the depth of Phil’s Spotify and watching the sun sink further behind the buildings, painting the sky warmer with every slow minute that passes on the dashboard clock.

They’d had a drive around the city together, sometimes talking, sometimes letting lulls in the conversation give way to thoughtful silences, both of them tapping away to Phil’s music taste, but Dan thinks it’s been about fifteen minutes since either of them last said anything.

“So,” Phil is the first to break the silence. He flicks the last of his cigarette out of the window (Dan had insisted on rolling down the windows before he did that – there’s no way he’s going home stinking of an ashtray). “Tell me about yourself.”

Dan looks up from his phone at that, his heart thudding.

“You what?”

“You know,” Phil’s gaze doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on the view in front of the windscreen. They’d picked a spot at the very top of a multi-storey car park overlooking everything, leaving the city a pool of lights and colours and life far beneath them. “I don’t really know you. So tell me about yourself.”

“I- um-“ Dan gulps. This wasn’t really a question he came prepared for. He shrugs. “I don’t really know what there is to tell, if I’m honest.”

“Oh, now come on,” Phil presses. “Just- anything. Your hobbies. Your life. Your dreams. What you want to be when you’re older.”

“I feel like I’m in a bloody job interview,” Dan chuckles. Phil’s lips quirk upwards in response.

“You are. I’m interviewing you to see if you’re fit for the job of being mates with me.”

“The ‘job’?” Dan frowns. “Like it’s a chore?”

“That’s for you to decide,” Phil grins. “Now, come on. I wanna hear about you.”

Dan gulps, silence falling for the first time in a while.

“I- um, well I think my hobby is probably pretty obvious, for a start,” Dan begins. Phil rolls his eyes. “And what I wanna be when I’m older, too. I’m gonna do a degree in Drama, I reckon.”

“What else are you into, then?”

Dan stops for a second. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” Phil presses, flicking his lighter and sparking up another cigarette. “You must have other interests besides acting. You got a girlfriend?”

Dan clams up. “Um- no.”

“Oh. Boyfriend, then?” he quirks his eyebrows, and Dan shakes his head miserably.

“Afraid not.”

“Glad we established that,” Phil smirks, but Dan doesn’t really smile back.

He chews on the inside of his lip, having a staring contest with a pair of headlights sliding across one of the roads beneath them.

“What music are you into, then?”

Dan swallows, trying to think. It’s like someone’s scraped over his mind with an eraser, rubbing out his interests and his life and his personality, all pencilled in with weak lines.

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs. “This and that. I like whatever this is,” he nods to the Spotify track on Phil’s phone. “Bit of Indie, it’s good. Oh, and I love- what are they called? Pink Floyd?”

“Floyd’s good,” Phil agrees. “And Nirvana.”

“Yeah,” Dan gulps, feeling another silence probe the conversation.

“You into the Smashing Pumpkins?”

Dan shakes his head.

“Oh, okay. Slaves?”

Dan shakes his head again.

“Genesis?”

“Never even heard of them.”

“Cobalt Night?”

Dan shakes his head again

Phil cackles. “Oh Christ. You do realise I made that last band up?”

“Oh god,” Dan can feel his cheeks burn peony. “I’m not doing myself any favours here, am I?”

“Don’t worry, I’m only messing with you,” Phil says. “I think it would be more embarrassing if you said yes, to be honest.”

“True,” Dan shrugs, feeling Phil’s stare burn into his side profile. He sits back further in his seat, keeping his stare.

“You’re not really into much, are you?

Dan shrugs.

“I’m more into Musical Theatre, really. Ever since we did a production of Hamilton I haven’t really been able to get that rap out of my head,” he chuckles.

“Right,” Phil sits up a little bit and clears his throat. “Well we’ve established your music taste and your hobby. Who are your favourite actors, then?”

It’s like someone’s flicked a switch inside Dan. His eyes light up.

“-and Leonardo DiCaprio, oh my God, don’t even get me started on him. I mean- who wouldn’t fuck young Leo? Have you even seen him in Titanic? And Romeo and Juliet too, Jesus Christ he’s gorgeous. He’s so fucking gorgeous. I’m not gonna do Romeo’s role any justice when he’s my competition, am I?”

Phil just nods and says the odd ‘hm’, listening to Dan’s stream of consciousness.

“-and Helena Bonham-Carter, what a fucking legend, man. She’s just- her character is just so versatile, you know? I mean- there’s a good reason she’s in literally everything, and that’s because she’s fucking amazing- have you seen Fight Club? You must have seen it, it’s incredible. She’s incredible. It’s a bit of a mind fuck if I’m honest, what with the split personality thing and everything, but- oh God, Brad Pitt is so good in it too. And he’s pretty hot, I’m not gonna lie. Well, until he grew out his hair and looked a bit like a farmer. But- where was I? Oh yeah, Helena Bonham Carter-”

“She was good in Sweeney Todd, too,” Phil comments, and he’s off again.

“-like, that was the first time I ever saw Johnny Depp act, and by Christ that film creeped me out. I mean- I was only like, seven when I watched it so of course it was gross, like, what seven year old watches people do- you know, that, to paying customers? I feel sorry for the poor sods who just went in there wanting to give their beards a trim. But- yeah, they were both really good in Sweeney Todd. I had a bit of a crush on Helena- and Johnny too, for that matter, I mean come on, who didn’t? But then I found out Johnny Depp is a bit of a dick in real life so I went off him after that. But Helena’s still cool, obviously.”

“She’s good, yeah,” Phil nibbles at a protruding hangnail on his thumb.

“And- oh god, who’s another good actor? Oh, don’t even get me started on Morgan Freeman. Absolute fucking legend. Like, oh my god. Him and that other one- god, what’s his name? The guy from Donnie Darko?”

Dan’s brain is moving far too quickly for Phil to keep up and he has no idea what the correlation between Morgan Freeman and Donnie Darko is, but he gives it a shot anyway.

“Jake Gyllenhaal?”

“Yes. Yes, oh my god, that’s the one,” Dan’s face breaks out into a grin. “Fuck, Donnie Darko. What a film, man. My friend has a tattoo of it, and-“

It continues like this, Dan chatting nineteen-to-the-dozen and Phil counting the glitters of passion in his eyes, before they’re both interrupted by a buzzing on Dan’s lap.

“Oh shit,” he grabs his phone. “It’s my mum.”

Phil doesn’t know what she’s saying on the other end of the line, but judging by Dan’s apologies it sounds like he’s stayed out here for a little too long.

“Sorry,” Dan mumbles, tugging on his seatbelt. “Lost track of time a bit, there.”

“Clearly,” Phil grins.

“This was good, though,” Dan says. “Like, really good. Thanks for, you know. Suggesting this.”

“Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again soon, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what I’ve spent the past like- hour doing?” he glances at the clock and shit, has it really been that long? It’s pitch black outside, the only light coming from the glitter of the city beneath them (shit, it really is beautiful from up here) and he was supposed to be home forty-five minutes ago.

“Yeah,” Phil says, starting up the engine. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

The next few days pass in a blur of line-learning, enduring Lucy’s lectures about how he just ‘isn’t putting enough ‘oomph’ into it, come on now, we’ll take it from the top one more time’ and Dan has to act like he actually gives more of a shit about what Romeo’s saying right now than what Phil had said in that car a few days ago. He has to act like it isn’t what he’d been reciting over and over in his mind, the words digging grooves into the back of his mind and making themselves at home.

He has to act like there’s more to his fucking life than acting.

-

The next time Dan sees Phil, they’re both cooped up in a control room eating lunch in a companionable silence; Dan going over his lines and Phil puzzling over these two wires that are, according to him, sly bastards that won’t fucking go in these holes Jesus Christ, to which Dan had shut his eyes and prayed to god no-one outside the room had caught that out of context. There’s a huge control panel, rows and rows of buttons and sound mixers and, as Dan had very accurately christened them, “slidey-things” in front of them. He has no idea what any of this stuff is, no idea what a “cross-fader” is or what the hell a “submaster” is supposed to do, but every now and then Phil will casually lean over and flick a switch or press a button and a stage light beneath them will change.

“What’s up?”

Dan looks up from his script. He’s been poring over his lines for so long he’s pretty sure stripes of yellow highlighter are now permanently inked into the back of his mind, now.

“What? Nothing.”

Phil swings his legs off of the bar they’d been resting against. They’re halfway through sharing a KitKat (Dan had taken a trip down to the Co-op at the beginning of the lunch break and returned with a bag so heavy with food it had left a dent in his hand, insisting Phil can’t be living on stale crisps his entire life) and watching a rehearsal, one Dan doesn’t have to be in for once, through a pane of glass.

“You’re going to have to do better if you want to convince me, Mr. Theatre Kid,” Phil reaches over to the bowl in front of them and plucks a grape from the stem. “I thought you were good at acting.”

“What do you want me to do; leap up and perform a jig?” Dan turns a page, the paper rustling a bit too loudly. “I’m fine, Phil. Stop reading into things too much.”

Phil stares at him. “You’re sat there with a face as long as my leg, and I’m reading into things?” he quirks an eyebrow. “Be careful. If you stare at that page any longer it’ll probably burst into flames.”

“Shut up,” Dan mutters, the edge in his voice a little too sharp for it to slip by as a joke.

Phil does.

Dan sighs. “Sorry, I just-“

“Rehearsals getting to you?” he suggests softly. Dan doesn’t plan on letting the real problem slip; Christ, he can only imagine the havoc that would ensue if it got around that as well as obsessing over acting he’s also never actually kissed anyone, so he quickly takes Phil up on that.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I mean- Romeo’s a good character to play, I guess, but he does have an awful lot to say.”

“You’ll be okay,” Phil reassures him. “You still have months of time left to memorise your lines. When’s the play?”

“Seventh of February,” Dan says. Two months from now.

“There we go,” Phil says. “You have plenty of time yet.”

“I guess so,” Dan shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve done this millions of times before,” Phil says. “You’ll be fine; I know you will. You’re a natural.”

Dan wishes he knew the half, he really does, but there’s just something about Phil’s smile that makes him almost want to believe him.

-

Dan manages to tell Phil a little bit more about himself next time they’re on the roof together, and in return, he learns a bit about Phil too.

“Well, when I was acti-“

“Nuh-uh,” Phil interrupts him. “No acting talk, remember?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “It’s relevant to what I was gonna say. It’s an important part of the story.”

“Wherever the hell you can fit acting into a story about you and your friends getting drunk and stealing a supermarket trolley because you couldn’t afford a taxi, I’d be very impressed.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dan grins, and that was the only time acting came into conversation that night.

-

Dan learns Phil is eighteen, that he’d failed his driving test three times before passing because he was driving on the wrong side of the dual carriageway, and swears he’s going to give up smoking next year, he promises. He learns that his favourite colour is blue because he likes the way the colour skates across the ocean water in the summer, and that he used to be scared of dogs before his parents got him a puppy for Christmas, a bouncy Labrador called Daisy with a love for the sun and walks down to the beach.

“I fucking love dogs,” Dan beams.

“So do I, now. Took me long enough,” Phil agrees, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Daisy’s so cute, oh my god. You will love her.”

Dan doesn’t say anything, but there’s something about the definite use of ‘you will’ that he likes.

He, in turn, finds that he does have some thoughts and feelings and dreams hidden away in there, beneath the façade of scripts and stage lights and acting. He finds he does have stuff to say, stuff that isn’t always attached to a web stringing back to the theatre. He tells Phil all about his cat, Ozzy (a little shit who takes great pleasure in knocking all his belongings off of his desk and sleeping on his laptop, but he loves him anyway) his annoying next-door neighbours who don’t seem to see any problem with blasting ABBA at three in the morning, and they manage to find common bands they both like. Oasis is playing when the sun sinks, the sky darkens, and the city lights up beneath them.

“God, I love this one,” Phil mumbles, his speech obscured by the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Don’t Look Back In Anger. It’s one of their best.”

“Oh god, yeah,” Dan agrees, tapping along to the chorus. “That and Stand By Me. Oh god, and Champagne Supernova, too.”

Phil grins at that, and leans forward, picking his phone up from the dashboard. Before Dan has a chance to question him, the chorus stops dead in its tracks, and an acoustic softness follows the sudden silence, a series of guitar chords that are just that bit too familiar. He grins.

“I always think the intro sounds a bit like Wonderwall,” Phil comments, putting his phone down and leaning back in the seat.

“Yeah,” Dan sighs, leaning back in his own seat and turning his gaze to the city beneath them, staring at lights and roads and buildings until they pool into a hazy amber blur in his vision.

How many special people change,

How many lives are living strange,

Where were you while we were getting high?

Slowly walking down the hall,

Faster than a cannonball

Where were you while we were getting high?

 Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova in the sky.

Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova;

A champagne supernova in the sky.

They don’t say anything, instead letting Liam Gallagher do the talking, but sly glances are exchanged from under brown fringes and black eyelashes.

-

“Nice up here, isn’t it?”

It’s only until Phil breaks the silence they’ve lapsed into that Dan realises the song has drawn to a close. He slides his gaze from the city and over to Phil, over to his thoughtful stare skating along the skyline, the ruffled sweep of black hair coating his fringe, and the orange glow of a cigarette tip poking out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes flicker over to Dan’s.

Dan looks back over to the city.

“Yeah.”

“I always come up here.”

“I can see why.”

“Yeah, well. Sometimes a little look over the city is just what you need to clear your head. It just puts everything in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dan swallows. “It really does.”

There’s a litter of thoughts and worries in his mind, buried deep and multiplying with every day that drags past, every day that pulls him closer and closer to the production, to the hundreds of burning stares in the audience seats, to his colleague’s lips. He’s been longing for a break from it. Just a few hours of silence, a few quiet moments that don’t have to be spent combing over every single thought in his head, thinking and thinking until it inflates into anxiety, spilling into the pit of his stomach and clawing at the edges as it goes.

And the more he counts the city lights, the more he feels the cold night air stroke his cheeks and the engines reverberating around the car park levels beneath them, the more he reckons a more few nights up here. It’s the remedy he needs; just him, Phil and the lights.

Their eyes meet seconds after, and Dan can feel the question he’s vowed to ask Phil before the end of the night already beginning to rest on his lips, on the cusp of speech.

“When can we do this again?”

-

The late nights begin to pass more frequently in a spinning blur of city nights, passenger seats and conversations, all whispers and cold air and stolen glances. Dan can feel himself unravelling like a threadbare blanket, his carefully constructed personas and characters fraying at the edges with every hour spent up on the top of the city with a boy whose lips spill truths like water, and it isn’t long until Dan finds cracks in his paper personalities and begins to feel more and more honesty begin to seep through. He finds that no, he doesn’t have to spin false anecdotes like cotton and lie about his interests and find a way of linking everything back to acting, hooking every little quirk and element to his personality back to the stage. He doesn’t have to impress Phil with his knowledge of Hollywood throughout the years and he doesn’t have to act like he loves things he’s never actually heard of and he doesn’t have to lock his feelings away and throw away the key.

He doesn’t have to pretend.

-

It’s all okay until they fall onto the topic of previous relationships.

It’s been a good night. They’d visited the car park again, but this time without the car (it was warm enough to leave it in the driveway and make their own way up the concrete staircases, glass bottles in plastic bags clinking around their legs). They’d situated themselves in the very same parking space, the one second to the right and next to a beacon, but they’d traded car seats for a picnic blanket, headlights for phone torches and gear sticks for bottle openers.

“Yeah, like- fuck, she wasn’t a good kisser at all, was Mary. I mean- we were in year nine and she tried, bless her, and God knows so did I. But you know, with that as my first impression of kissing, when it was over I was like ‘what the fuck is all the fuss about?’” Phil chuckles, and Dan pretends to grin.

“Yeah, I mean-“ he shrugs, staring down at his lap. “I’ve had my fair share of bad kisses in my time.”

The ease with which the lie rolls off of his tongue almost takes him by surprise. It’s been a while since he’s lied about himself to Phil, and it feels strange.

“I can imagine,” Phil says, before frowning. “But you’re an actor. So you must be an excellent kisser, right? What with all the practice you guys have.”

Dan frowns, looking up from his bottle. “You what?”

“Oh come on. I saw what went on in the back of that car last term. Eddie and Alexandra. That play involved more lip-on-lip action than the fucking Notebook.”

Dan smiles at that, remembering the play adaptation they actually did of that when he was in year ten. He doesn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry over the sheer amount of starring roles he’s had that are heavily eloped in some kind of romantic storyline.

“Us actors have our techniques,” he says carefully.

Phil’s eyes widen at that. “You do? Like what?”

Dan shrugs, taking another sip of beer. “Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Phil shuffles closer, a flicker of eagerness in his cerulean stare and shit, Dan’s beginning to regret opening his mouth now. “Come on. What techniques do you have? I could use a few tips myself.”

Dan raises an eyebrow, his eyes firmly locked onto the spread of amber lights in front of them.

“I doubt you’d ever want to use these kinds of techniques on anyone,” he says, a hint of humour drying his speech. “I imagine stage-kissing on a real date would be quite a deal-breaker.”

“Stage kissing, huh?” Phil widens his eyes. “How does that differentiate from a real kiss, then?”

“Well,” Dan takes another sip of his drink, his vision beginning to slow down. “First of all, it’s not really a kiss at all.”

“Huh?” Phil frowns.

“I mean- not usually. There are different kinds of stage-kisses, but most of them don’t involve, you know,” he smirks, reusing Phil’s rather vulgar term of “lip-on-lip action”.

“So you guys don’t actually kiss?” Phil asks.

Dan shakes his head. “Nope.”

“But-… how does that work?”

Alcoholic courage swims through Dan’s veins at that. He glances at Phil.

The words are a whisper, a dare almost, and it isn’t until Phil nods that Dan realises he’s actually said it out loud.

“Want me to show you?”

“Yeah, go on,” Phil’s tone is casual, soft almost, but his eyes are glittering.

“Okay, well- come over here,” he beckons.

Phil does as he’s told, shuffling up on his knees until he’s facing Dan.

“One of the actors needs to have their back to the audience,” Dan says. “So, let’s say the wall over there is the audience,” he nods over Phil’s shoulder to the stretch of concrete watching them.

“Alright. The wall’s the audience. Now what?”

“Now,” Dan gulps, feeling his heart begin to pick up the pace because shit, this is really happening now. “So, what you do is, like, just lean in normally for a kiss, but stop just as your lips are about to touch.”

Phil scoffs. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Look, do you want me to show you or not?”

“Nah, nah, I’m kidding,” Phil says. “C’mon, then. Show me how it’s done in Hollywood.”

“You dick,” Dan mumbles, but he’s leaning in.

Phil gets closer, his face begins to crawl up to Dan’s until their noses are brushing and his fringe is a tickle on Dan’s cheek and his breath mixes with Dan’s own, warm and languid through parted lips and fuck, Dan’s heart is really thudding now. His legs feel like jelly and his lungs feel like fire and there’s something warm and fiery swirling in the pit of his stomach, something alien, something that he’s certainly never felt before with any other colleague he’s come this agonisingly close to kissing.

They stay there for what feels like minutes, lips hovering, warmth tingling and the city still thundering beneath them, and it’s Phil who pulls away first.

“Impressive,” he smiles, eyes glittering with nonchalance. “Frustrating, but impressive. Is that your go-to one, then?”

It takes three swigs of beer to calm Dan down before he can speak again.

“I mean- um, yeah. Though sometimes if you’re, like, sitting really far over to the side in the audience you might be able to tell that they’re not actually kissing, so,” he shrugs. “It just depends on the stage, I guess.”

“Right,” Phil nods, swigging from his own bottle. “You, er- you mentioned a few other types, right?”

The thought of coming that close to Phil’s lips again sends the strange flame of warmth flooding back into Dan’s stomach. He all but chokes on his mouthful of drink.

“Er- yeah,” he stutters. “There are a few others,” he gulps again and shit, what’s up with him?

Dan doesn’t really know what’s happening, doesn’t know why being within a metre radius of this guy is already making him feel far more than he’d ever felt with any colleague, kissing or not, but it doesn’t stop him from beckoning the older boy over and showing him kiss number two, their lips locked together with nothing except Dan’s thumb in between them. He can feel the warmth of Phil’s mouth against his skin, the hot movement of Phil’s breath through his nose and the tickle of his hair against his cheek again. When he parts his mouth, Dan feels the tiniest touch of lip against his. It’s only the very corner and can’t have lasted for longer than a millisecond, but the feeling comes back like a spark to a flame and he’s beginning to find it difficult to balance and oh, shit.

They break apart, eyes searching each other’s, and it’s the first time Dan’s feeling like this post-‘kiss’ without having to throw on a character like an old shirt. He doesn’t have to follow anything up with someone else’s speech, with a fake accent and a stupid costume and a mannerism that doesn’t quite fit.

For once, he doesn’t feel like he has to act.

Phil narrows his eyes after a few silent seconds, fighting back a smirk.

Dan frowns, the post-stage kiss high beginning to melt away.

“What?”

“Is that seriously it?” Phil says.

“Yeah,” Dan moves away, trying to ignore the surge of electricity he had felt upon edging within a few millimetres of the other boy’s lips, the city a roar beneath them.

“I don’t know why I feel so disappointed,” Phil smirks. “From where I sit, looking at you lot doing all your stuff down on the stage, it looks a whole sight more realistic than that.”

Dan looks back out to the city.

“Yeah, well,” he says, feeling his heart slow down. “Acting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

-

“So. You and Alexandra, eh?”

Dan glares at him. Dawn is beginning to throw pastel colours into the blackness of the sky. It’s still dark enough to see the stars, fainter twinkles against the sweep of indigo above them, but it’s light enough for them to see each other, to make out feint outlines of faces in the low pre-sunrise light, eyes half-lidded and shadowed from the sleepless hours. It must be pushing four in the morning, and they’ve been here since eleven o’clock, leaving their parents with promises that they’re spending the night round each other’s houses to make a few preparations for the play.

(If reciting Romeo’s Balcony Scene soliloquy through giggles and slightly drunken slurs counts as preparation, then at least half of that promise is true).

“We’re not an item,” Dan mumbles, taking a drag from his cigarette. It tastes strange, kind-of like dirt and ash and tar and he’s not a smoker and probably never will be, but Phil had offered him one and- well, fuck it.

“I know,” Phil says. “But you guys are performing in the round, aren’t you?” Phil narrows his eyes, and Dan swears he leans an inch or two closer before whispering, “your stage kisses won’t work from that angle, I’m telling you.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dan shuts his eyes. So far he’d been doing quite a grand job of pushing that worry to the back of his mind, burying it deep into his consciousness. The whole reason he’s up here altogether is to escape it.

Phil hesitates.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t you want to kiss Alexandra?”

Dan gulps, the taste of alcohol souring on his tongue a little.

“It’s not that,” he says. “I mean- a kiss is a kiss, right? It’s all part of the job, and-“

“But you don’t fancy her,” Phil says.

Dan frowns. “Well- no, of course not. She’s a colleague.”

“I know,” Phil says. “It makes a difference though, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“Kissing someone you don’t fancy. It’s weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan mumbles. It’s getting harder and harder to maintain this lie. “I- er, yeah. I usually stick to stage-kissing on the job, to be honest,” he shrugs. “It’s just easier than kissing someone you don’t really have feelings for.”

“Have you never, you know, properly kissed anyone before, then?”

Dan takes a deep breath. Lies can flow like water when he wants them to; he’s a master at concealing the truth behind a blanket of fabrication and deception, but there’s something about talking to Phil that makes falsehood sour on his tongue.

He lets it out in a deep sigh, feeling his chest deflate and his heart thud. Fuck it.

“You know what?,” he begins. “No. I haven’t. I don’t know if you can tell, but- yeah. I dunno, I guess that’s why I’m so stressed about this shit with Alexandra. And like- I know that probably makes me a fucking loser for never having kissed anyone at the age I am now, and probably even more of a loser that I want my first one to be with someone special, but- fuck, I don’t know,” he swallows, feeling the knot of anxiety in his chest loosen a little. “No. I haven’t. Okay?”

Phil doesn’t say anything. He bites his lip and averts his eyes down to the neck of his bottle. He fiddles with the loose cap, letting it fall through the spaces between his fingers with a sharp clink.

Dan doesn’t like that, doesn’t like the silence. The knot returns.

“What?”

“I- er- that wasn’t really what I meant,” Phil finally says.

The knot tightens.

“What do you mean it’s not what you meant?”

“I meant have you properly kissed anyone on stage before,” Phil glances up. “Not in general.”

Dan’s stomach drops. Oh fuck.

He open his mouth, but no speech follows. No amount of words can haul himself out of his hole now. Shit.

“I mean-“ he finally speaks again after a silence, and there’s a tremor in his voice that he desperately tries to smooth over. “Oh, shit,” he deflates, feeling the pit of his stomach begin to churn due to the abundance of the night’s alcohol. There’s no point trying to clamber out of the hole he’s just dug himself. He’ll only deepen it.

“Have you really never kissed anyone?” Phil asks in a quieter voice, but he doesn’t sound surprised. Or humoured. Or any other emotion Dan had feared. Just… curious. “Like, at all?”

Dan gulps, the beer a sour swirl in the pit of his stomach. Maybe the sixth bottle was a mistake.

“Well there’s no point denying it now, is there?” Dan finally mumbles, his eyes fixed on a dent in the concrete not far from where they’re sitting. “No. I haven’t.”

The gentle thrum of city engines fills the silence between them, and the three seconds Phil doesn’t say anything for might as well have been days.

“Yep,” Dan breaks the quietness once it borders on unbearable. “There you go. You think I’m a fucking weirdo now, don’t you?”

“Not at all,” Phil replies, and his voice is unusually calm. Dan looks up, his eyes meeting a soft expression, and for some reason he really didn’t expect Phil to react like this.

“So-“ Dan shakes his head. “What? You’re not gonna take the piss? Laugh at me? Say I’m a fucking weirdo that only lied to you to try and look cool?”

The truth scratches his heart, but it needs to be said.

“Why the fuck would I laugh at you?” Phil frowns, and there’s something about the sincerity in his voice that, beneath the turmoil, Dan finds weirdly comforting.

“I mean,” Phil begins. “I’m surprised, don’t get me wrong. Only because you’re an actor and- well, let’s face it, you’re fucking gorgeous too, but-“ he shakes his head. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m the first to say I’d much rather make sure my first kiss means something. If anything, I agree with you on that.”

“You’re not pissed off that I lied to you?” Dan gulps down another mouthful of lukewarm alcohol.

“Of course not, you twat,” Phil says. “I mean, I get why you did, but there was no need to. Really.”

“I know,” Dan sighs, picking at the label on his glass bottle until the paper frays at the edges.

“Wanna know something?” Phil says, his eyes not moving from the soft sweep of stars above them, dimmed by the early morning light.

Dan takes his eyes away from the sky. “What?”

“If you’re a liar, then so am I,” Phil tells the stars.

Dan frowns. “You what?”

Phil’s eyes flick back down to earth, meeting Dan’s gaze. “I lied too.”

Dan gulps, his heart thudding. “About what?”

Phil forces a chuckle, but it’s drained of humour. “Do I have to spell it out to you? I haven’t kissed anyone either.”

The words ring in Dan’s ears moments after, Phil’s voice an echo above the roar of the city below.

“Wait-…” is the only word that passes Dan’s lips in the next passing minute or so. “But-…”

“Yeah,” Phil shrugs. “Turns out you’re not the only one, are you?”

“But-…” Dan shakes his head. “Why did you lie about it too?”

Phil just shrugs and says, “same reasons you did.”

Dan tries, he really tries, to comb through the tangle of confusion in his mind right now, but the best response he can come up with after a moment or two of silence isn’t the most articulate.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees, and they descend into quietness again.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Phil is the first to break the silence. “That we feel the need to lie about that.”

“It’s society’s fault for making us feel as if being over the age of about fifteen without having shoved a tongue down anyone’s throat is a failure.”

Phil grimaces. “I’ve never understood the attraction of that, you know. Like, I get making out and stuff, but why would you want to literally devour the person next to you? When I saw kissing scenes as a kid I thought they were actually trying to eat each other.”

“I know,” Dan takes a sip of beer, the alcohol slipping down with a little more ease now. “It sounds grim. I don’t know how people do it. At least with acting on stage you don’t have that problem.”

“True,” Phil mirrors his actions, pulling his drink away from his lips and tracing the rim of the bottle with the tip of his thumb, staring down the tube-shaped glass into the remains of the flat beer, swimming lukewarm and flat at the bottom of the bottle. Only when he glances up a few seconds later does Dan realise he’s been staring.

Dan smirks.

“What are you grinning at?”

“Just-…” he shakes his head and shit, he’s definitely had enough to drink tonight. He can feel the alcohol-induced honesty begin leaking through his parted lips and he knows he’ll probably end up saying something he’ll regret tomorrow morning but- oh, fuck it. “The thought of you having never kissed anyone. It just- doesn’t make sense to me like- look at you. How?”

He’s not really sure where the line between a compliment and a very sorry attempt at flirting is drawn but he’s pretty sure he’s fallen somewhere in the middle.

Phil’s gaze lingers a few seconds too long. “I could ask you the same thing. I mean- come on, look at you. A guy like you must have been drowned in opportunities.”

They’re both a bit too drunk, a bit too cold and there’s something about the atmosphere of an empty car park at fuck-knows-o’clock that warps reality just a little. Dan blinks and the city lights don’t unblur and he feels a bit like he’s in a dream.

“Yeah, I-…” he shrugs. “I’ve had my fair share of offers, I won’t lie.”

“I’ll bet,” Phil interjects, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“Oh, don’t act like you haven’t either,” Dan rolls his eyes, but he’s smirking. “I just-… yeah, I dunno. I didn’t really wanna waste it, but I never really found someone I liked enough.”

“That’s nice, that is,” Phil says, and though Dan scours his tone of voice for a trace of sarcasm or mockery, but Phil’s eyes glitter earnestly. “No, like, really. Most teenagers just, you know, dive straight into it. Slam their face against anything with a pulse that crosses their path. But the fact you care enough to wait,” he glances up, eyeing the boy beside him carefully. “That’s rare. Kinda admirable in a way.”

“Were you the same, then?”

Phil nods without any hesitation. “A hundred percent.”

Dan nods understandingly, taking another sip of beer, and the two of them watch the town sleep for a quiet moment before Phil speaks up again.

“Oh, come here,” he stretches out his arms. “You look like you’re seconds away from hypothermia, for Christ’s sake.”

Dan leans into his chest, closing his eyes and snuggling into the Topman denim of Phil’s jacket. “I don’t really think a car park roof is the most suitable drinking spot,” he mumbles, his speech slightly obscured by his rattling jaw.

“Not at five a.m. in December at least,” Phil says. “It’s a lot nicer in summer, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dan says, and the indirect promise that they’ll come out here and do this again makes Phil smile.

It’s quiet, serene and blue, and Dan loses count of the minutes that drip by until he hears Phil’s voice again, shattering his trance dancing on the fragile edge of drunken consciousness.

“Dan?” it’s only a half-whisper, but it still makes him jump.

The younger boy turns his head, his brown hair tousling against Phil’s denim chest until they’re eye-to-eye.

Phil lowers his gaze, but this time his eyes don’t flicker back up to Dan’s. Dan parts his mouth in response, but before he can say anything, there’s a surge forward and a soft pair of lips on his.

A jolt of adrenaline, shock, and a general ‘holy-fucking-shit-this-can’t-be-happening’ feeling shimmers through his body as he kisses back, and despite his embarrassing inexperience when it comes to anything remotely romantic, his lips move perfectly in time with Phil’s, their mouths melting together in flawless harmony.

Phil’s the one to break away, and Dan misses his lips the second the cold morning air touches his mouth. He frowns, studying Phil’s expression half-hidden by his mop of black hair, but the older boy refuses eye contact.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came ov-“

“Don’t apologise,” Dan cuts him off immediately, his hand hovering over Phil’s arm in quiet protest. “Just-…” he gulps. “Do it again,”

Phil’s head snaps up, his eyes boring into the brown stare in mild confusion.

“Please,” Dan mouths, and Phil doesn’t need to be told twice.

They kiss for longer, deeper, slightly parted lips and slow breathing and the teal glow of 5am light and shit, this was certainly worth a seventeen year wait. Phil’s lips feel like warmth and taste like tobacco and he feels a gentle comb of shy fingertips through his hair and yep, he can definitely see what all the fuss is about now.

When they break apart for the second time, all blushes and broken breaths, they’re both grinning. Phil drops his gaze with a bashful chuckle.

“Well,” Dan breathes. He’s still sitting close, their upper arms touching but neither of them really wanting to move away.

“Well,” Phil says, almost in agreement. They’re bathed in silence once again, but this time it’s comfortable.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Dan begins, looking out over the city. “That was definitely worth the wait.”

Phil tilts his head down, their noses almost touching. “Yeah?”

“For sure,” Dan cranes his neck up a little and pecks Phil’s lips again. The other boy grins, pulling his jacket further over Dan’s shoulders.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime then, won’t we?” Phil’s eyes glitter.

Dan grins, glancing at the view spread in front of them. The sun is beginning to awaken and there are fewer streetlights illuminating the land below and it’s cold and wow, they should really think about heading home soon. Dan hasn’t checked his phone in hours and he’s sure it can’t be running on anything much more than a measly four percent.

“Definitely,” he says, then hesitates. “Although, well.”

“Well what?”

Dan flicks his eyes up at the boy above him, tired brown against weary blue.

“Perhaps next time we should choose somewhere a little warmer than a car park,” he says in a soft voice, before adding, “I can barely feel my arse right now.”

Phil bursts out laughing, and then a pair of lips are on his for the third time.

-

The next couple of weeks rush by in a flurry of rehearsals, meetings, crumpled scripts and weird costumes that itch around the collar. Dan and Phil spend most of their time three storeys apart, meaning secret rendezvous up in the control room or down in the trap room are often necessary. The closer the big day creeps, the hotter the atmosphere becomes with stress, so it’s nice to leave the tension with the stage and the equally tense co-workers and escape for a bit.

“For fear of that, I still will stay with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart aga- oh for fuck’s sake, you’re not even listening.”

Phil looks up from his phone, a giggling smirk still lingering on his face. “Huh?”

“Come on, Phil. You said you’d go through this with me and you’re sat there playing around with bloody Snapchat filters.”

“Sorry, sorry – I am listening, it’s just-“ his eyes flicker back down to the screen in front of him. “That’s hideous. Who even makes these filters? I look like a toe.”

“Can unflattering photos of you not wait five minutes until I’ve finished this? We’re literally nearly done anyway. We only have, like, one more paragraph to g-” Phil interrupts him by flipping the phone around to face the other boy. A bald, rather unsightly version of Phil with weird eyes stares back. Dan’s eyes widen in horror. “Fuck, that really is hideous.”

“I know,” Phil shudders. “I didn’t even know my face could do that,” he glances back at the screen and pulls a couple of experimental faces. “Would you still be with me if I looked like that?”

“Nope,” Dan replies semi-seriously, rolling his eyes when Phil pouts.

“What about if I looked like this?” Phil turns the phone around. He looks a lot better this time, but a little bit too much like an animal. Dan’s never really understood the national attraction towards ‘dog filters’.

“Probably. The ears might get in the way a bit, though,” he chuckles, before urging, “now come on. We haven’t got long left now.”

Phil agrees, albeit reluctantly. He swings his legs off the table, grabs Dan’s battered highlighted mess of a script sitting in front of him and they pick up from where they left off, something about ‘worms that are thy chamber maids’, ‘everlasting rest’ and ‘inauspicious stars’ (whatever the fuck that adjective means). They last a grand total of fifteen seconds before Dan’s voice is interrupted by a shriek of laughter.

“Oh, fucking hell that’s bad!” Phil cackles. Dan groans, wondering for a fleeting second where the best place to launch Phil’s phone might be.

“That’s it,” he loses it, suddenly leaping across the table and swiping the irritating rectangle of interest straight from Phil’s hand. His smile vanishes in seconds.

“Aw, what?!”

“You have five seconds to put this stupid fucking thing away, or else it’s going out there,” he points to the window behind them. Phil follows his gaze, his eyes widening. They can see the majority of the town from up here. That’s a long drop.

He turns his head back around. They’re nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye.

“Fine,” Phil smiles, the tips of their noses brushing together. “But just so you know, seeing you angry just makes me want to kiss you more.”

Dan rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide his smirk. “Are you still gonna want to kiss me when your phone ends up on the ground?”

“What do you mean ‘when’? I’ve put it away now,” he points to the bulge in his back pocket.

Dan fixes him with a glare.

“Come on,” Phil leans forward as Dan leans back. “Just one?” he pleads, his eyes big and blue.

He shakes his head and pulls away, a grin curling at his lips. His eyes flicker back to Phil, a brown gaze that lingers too long.

“Afterwards,” he says in a voice like velvet.

Phil rolls his eyes, flopping back onto the chair. “Fine. Bloody hell, it’s like being back at school.”

Dan pretends not to hear that last comment. “Come on, we’ll take it from “world-wearied flesh…”

Phil’s phone doesn’t move once from his pocket after that. The promise of Dan’s lips after rehearsal is more tempting than any filter some dumb app has to offer.

-

“How do I look?”

Phil eyes him up and down, a smirk playing at his lips. “Hot.”

The comment receives a soft punch to his upper arm.

“Behave,” Dan turns back to the mirror, twining a lock of perfectly sprayed hair that he was specifically instructed not to touch around his fingers. “Are you sure? I feel like I look like a-“

He’s interrupted by a pair of soft lips for a few seconds.

“That’s really not helping the nerves,” Dan breathes once they break away.

Phil grins. “You look fine. You know you do. Now quit playing with your hair before Alexa sees.”

Dan doesn’t think Alexa, the make-up artist, is capable of seeing anything that isn’t within a thirty-centimetre radius of her own face right now. She’s been hurrying around backstage all evening; powdering this, curling that, flitting from actor-to-actor so quickly it makes Dan out of breath to even watch her. She certainly hasn’t done a bad job though, he thinks, as he inspects his reflection. A slightly dishevelled, 15th-century version of himself stares back, all weird leather and burgundy velvet and wow, perhaps he should sport an Elizabethan tunic more often.

“Suits you,” Phil smiles as if he’d read his mind. Dan adjusts the collar accordingly.

“D’you reckon?”  

“Yeah,” Phil eyes him up and down again. “Most people here kinda look like twats in their costume, but you really actually pull that off.”

“Um- thanks? I think?” Dan smirks, frowning at his reflection. He doesn’t mention it has anything to do with his long-standing ability to morph into literally anyone he likes (he’d often been described by many make-up artists as having a “chameleon face” which he hopes is a reference to his adaptability to blend into multiple characters as opposed to resembling a lizard), and instead accepts the ever-so-slightly backhanded compliment.

“What are you doing down here?” someone with an updo the size of Jupiter asks Phil, sauntering past in something that really rather resembles a cupcake. Phil was right, Dan thinks. They do look a bit ridiculous. “They need you upstairs in five minutes.”

“Oh shit,” Phil glances at his watch. “Okay. Gotta go before Nick kills me.”

“Alright,” Dan smiles, pulling him in for a quick hug.

“Good luck,” he whispers into his shoulder. “You’ll fucking kill it.”

Dan tightens his grip around his arms. “Thank you.”

The word has multiple other meanings, and judging by the glitter in Phil’s eye when he pulls away, he thinks he understands every single one.

-

That night, Dan lavishes in warm spotlights and painted wooden sets resembling palaces and balconies, and he feels alive.

That night, the finest Elizabethan literature spills from his lips, flowing as easily as water, his voice shaping every monologue, soliloquy and duologue perfectly.

That night, there are another pair of lips on his; only this time painted red and totally professional. It feels strange, alien, and not a single trace of the spark in his heart that Phil’s lips ignite can be found, but it’s work. It’s courage.

And that night, someone up in the control booth watches through the pane of glass over all the light boards and buttons and wires, and smiles.

As if it’s been almost a year since my last oneshot??? Wtf this must CHANGE I’m getting back into writing (properly this time I swear) so there’s a lot more where this came from. Feedback is always appreciated whether it be good or bad so pls let me know how you found this! Feels so good to be doing this again u have nooo idea holy shit <3

[bthump]

what are the things you like and dislike about the '97 anime and the films?

ty for asking, i’m just gonna write a few long lists lol

97 anime likes:

the animation, including the like, yk the more detailed stills they pan over in place of action or to punctuate important moments, i love it

the gorgeous backgrounds

most of the colour choices. red eclipse, femto’s blue eyes, casca’s skintone, griffith’s mauve clothes, etc.

how close it is to the manga. like, it’s a solid adaption just by virtue of making very few changes.

so like, most of it really, because i like the manga

special mention to the entire lead up to the eclipse from griffith’s reality break to the sacrifice tho, because i think that was all pretty damn perfect. it’s the most important scene and they did it right.

actually also shout out to casca’s flashback to griffith and the dead kid, gennon, the river scene, all that. another difficult v emotional sequence that they nailed imo.

griffith thinking about how he “loves” guts during the monologue

skipped most of the griffith/charlotte sex scene iirc which i approve of

the glimpse of black swordsman guts in ep 1. it’s not perfect but it’s way better than the ovas starting w/ 15 yr old guts

the opening and closing themes. fucking love both songs ngl

also the opening monologue. never get tired of hearing it

the score

the portrayal of griffith was honestly pretty solid imo. i have very few issues there. and lbr that’s important lol

97 anime dislikes:

not a big fan of griffith or guts’ character designs.

just about everything that isn’t identical to the manga is a change for the worse

turned griffith’s scratch marks into that giant unexplained scar

adding extra scenes where casca is secretly impressed with guts’ skills in battle in an attempt to build up their relationship better, which instead just made casca look unfair for still being a dick to him for 3 years and made guts stupidly gary stu-ish

obviously the straightforwardly romantic portrayal of guts and casca’s relationship

through several seemingly minor changes (eg, skipping guts’ night of self-doubt after he leaves, giving guts’ stay with godo its own half-episode, making guts inviting casca along super romantic rather than the incredibly casual and assholish way he does it in the manga, etc) it makes Guts’ dream seem legitimately noble and worthwhile, with none of the like… implicit critique the manga has. like honestly it completely fucks up what i consider one of the central themes of the story lol

the pre eclipse stuff also fails to sell guts’ sense of regret - through things like playing guts’ theme while judeau is telling guts to leave, not repeating guts’ statement of regret after casca tells him to leave again, the tone remains consistently in favour of guts’ dream. wrong and bad.

like it really reads like the suggested tragedy is that guts doesn’t get the chance to ditch griffith with judeau and take off with casca and the raiders lol

also fucks it up by never directly mentioning guts’ csa trauma

also fucks it up by losing guts’ self-destructive single-minded urge to fight monsters that we saw thru the wyald stuff. i’m not gonna say that losing wyald was a bad decision, but they should’ve at least moved erika suggesting that guts just wants to fight zodd again to the fucking waterfall scene in question, which they portrayed completely sans zodd discussion, completely sans implication of the self-destructiveness of guts’ dream

like in the manga he nearly gets killed by the falling logs and just laughs it off like a dumbass while erika is concerned and suggests that guts is driven by something irrational and not actually a ~noble~ dream, ie, wanting to fight zodd again (ie, going deeper, his csa trauma), while in the anime we get a 2nd scene where he successfully slices through the logs as a super basic symbol of growth and a narrative pat on guts’ back that shouldn’t be there!

honestly just fucking everything about the portrayal of guts’ dream lol it just takes it at face value in a way the manga consistently never did and always undermined and critiqued, and it bugs the hell out of me.

guts is just drawn in a way that makes him look angry way too often and he often feels ooc to me bc of it. like he lacks a lot of the warmth he has in the manga imo

showing that griffith is awake when guts says “i’ll stay too” even tho in the manga those words are placed over a panel of him asleep for a reason like, ffs

lots of other random nitpicky details that only i give a fuck about because my opinions and feelings about the story are too strong lol. like not showing griffith’s face when he asks if guts thinks he’s cruel

oh huge one: moving the scene where the torturer rips off griffith’s behelit from about a day after he was imprisoned to right before his rescue. completely trivializes griffith’s torture because it still looks like he’s been in there for a day at most

why on earth did it end where it ended????????????? who’s bright idea was that? the perfect ending is skull knight riding tf out with guts and casca and femto not killing them, but then they also cut out skull knight’s first appearance so idfk man.

oh some downplaying of griffguts, like i can’t complain too much about this because it was still p homoerotic, but things like omitting guts assuming griffith wants to fuck him right before their first duel. boo.

ultimately at the end of the day as much as i do genuinely like the anime, it’s not telling quite the same story the manga was - the story it’s telling is more boring and basic. but because it sticks so close to the manga the good story still shines through? it just means there’s inconsistent tone choices and stuff, like the aforementioned grievances.

it’s like, they kept casca’s diatribe at guts line for line while she’s screaming that griffith needed him and a man can’t live on dreams alone, but they don’t extend that train of thought to guts going off to pursue his dream, while the manga does.

anyway despite that giant list of dislikes i still think the anime is pretty fantastic overall. i just also like, blame it for a lot of wrong fandom takes lol.

movie likes:

character designs! honestly imo everyone looked pretty great.

they played up the homoeroticism and i appreciate that

illustrating griffith being torn between guts and his dream through that lovely moment when he catches guts when he nearly falls off the stairs right before he catches charlotte, and in a more romantically suggestive way

the whole scene where griffith shows up at charlotte’s window thoroughly improved on the manga, so hats off there. loved how completely out of it he was to the point where he barely realized where he was and immediately turned to leave when charlotte was like ‘woah dude wtf,’ love that charlotte was the one to ask him to stay and then physically move his hand back to her tit, love how emphatically griffith was thinking about guts during that sex scene, etc. like it’s still not perfect, but it is a vast improvement.

griffith showing up in person after the hundred man fight was a nice touch

it was cool that they got a lot of the same english vas from the anime dub back, and they all did a gr8 job. like it’s a pretty good dub imo.

i liked that they moved ‘the crystalization of your last tear shed’ to after guts’ post-eclipse breakdown

compared to the anime at least gtsca was more low-key and chill rather than dramatically romantic. still don’t want it there, and still not as… unromantic as the manga, but i’ll take what i can get

the animation during griffith’s transformation into femto, yk that whole sequence, was cool

slan’s english voice was super sexy

ummmmm i feel like they conveyed the whole dreams are stupid theme, and guts’ decision to leave being a mistake, better than the anime? like i got the sense that the ova ppl recognized that was a theme, at least. i’d have to watch them again to really be sure of that tho

movie dislikes:

GRIFFITH’S. NARRATIVE.

like holy fuck they completely destroyed his character lmao

i cannot believe

no backstory! no tombstone of flame! no ‘do you think i’m cruel?’ THAT WAS THE REASON HE MADE THE SACRIFICE FFS HOW DO YOU SKIP IT????

no dead kid angst, gennon only in vague implication, no self harm - oh no wait we saw self inflicted scratches, they were just completely contextless and meaningless to the point where we could assume charlotte’s nails made them

no torture chamber monologue

no guts monologue in the tavern either for that matter

no rooftop scene

again barely the implication of guts’ childhood trauma, both the sexual abuse and the general parental abuse. one vague flashbacky nightmare doesn’t cut it, it’s the cornerstone of the story

like i get it, it’s a movie trilogy, you have to cut some things, but goddamn, cut out gtsca. trim the hundred man fight. add 20 minutes to the first ova and take the insanely long rape scene out of the third. trim down the whole eclipse sequence. don’t cut out like… the story. like they cut out SO MANY emotionally relevant scenes and kept so many much less relevant scenes, idek.

and like let’s be real here, they turned griffith from an immensely interesting and complex character into a 1 dimensional dude who is torn between a vaguely evil ambition and being in vaguely evil love with guts, just for the sake of streamlining the least interesting aspects of the story

they don’t even try to pretend otherwise lol, look at his fucking hilarious evil smile here

also while i’m looking at it, in general i think they failed at the whole eclipse sequence. looks, lighting, colour, build up of tension… there are a few minor improvements here and there (eg casca’s point of view shot of femto, femto telekinesising guts back a la the black swordsman arc which emphasizes his failure to act when he escapes), but overall it doesn’t work for me at all. like imo the anime has the exact same highs and lows as the manga, but while the ova avoids some lows it never reaches those highs.

they also had griffith overhear guts saying he wants to stay. i really don’t get why this happened twice lol, like… ok his face is kind of shadowed here but he’s still very clearly asleep? this is an important detail, guts’ interrupted words are even on that very panel, so why would you go out of your way to show that he’s awake and listening at that point.

the pacing sucked. 3rd movie was too long, 1st was too short, and they skipped waaaaaay too many significant scenes that should’ve been there as emotional beats

honestly the movies are pretty, they’re nicely fanservicey in ways, they capture some good subtleties and nuances at times, but they’re a husk of the story

oh did i mention the music during the eclipse rape? incredible.

also i am actually generally positive about the movies too despite what it seems like here lmao. i’ve watched them all like, 3 or more times and i find them v enjoyable.

i just have a way easier time listing nitpicky flaws than positives honestly. the flaws stand out to me, the virtues pass me by because i’m just enjoying them and not dwelling on them

and lbr here at the end of the day no adaption will ever really satisfy me unless i somehow find several million dollars lying around and make my own lol. and that would probably be a flop anyway.

[impietastar-blog]

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