#there was that protest in clare not too long ago

[princekirijo]

Sick to my stomach over what's happening in Dublin right now

[algumaideia]

Rereading THE chapter 54

Such a gold mine. I'm gonna comment on it later, but for now some highlights:

"We’d long ago freed our slaves in the Night Court. We didn’t trust the humans to keep our secrets, not when they bred so quickly and frequently that my forefathers couldn’t hold all their minds at once."

The way R/hys cares and respects humans is different.

"I hadn’t wanted C/assian or A/zriel or anyone else there that night to witness what I was to do—"

A/zriel job is to torture people, I really don't get it.

“And as I felt my powers being ripped away by that spell she’d put on it at the toast, I flung them out one last time, wiping Velaris, the wards, all that was good, from the minds of the Court of Nightmares—the only ones I’d allowed to come with me. I threw the shield around Velaris, binding it to my friends so that they had to remain or risk that protection collapsing, and used the last dregs to tell them mind to mind what was happening, and to stay away"

Wow, it is almost like he didn't need to do such bad things to protect Velaris because he city was already protected.

“Every night that I spent with Amarantha, I knew that she was half wondering if I’d try to kill her. I couldn’t use my powers to harm her, and she had shielded herself against physical attacks. But for fifty years—whenever I was inside her, I’d think about killing her. She had no idea. None. Because I was so good at my job that she thought I enjoyed it, too. So she began to trust me—more than the others. Especially when I proved what I could do to her enemies"

I think S/JM made Amarantha too dumb. Or R/hys thinks he is way smarter than he is

"I’d wake up with your scent in my nose, and it would haunt me all day, every step"

I just think this is disgusting.

“So I let you walk away"

And I think this is creepy and obsessive and R/hys does not own F/eyre!!!

"I made them confess to conspiring to find other rebels that night. I made them lie and claim that they hated her. I watched her carve them up while they were still alive, protesting their innocence. I enjoyed it—because I knew what they had wanted to do to you. And knew that it would have paled in comparison to what Amarantha would have done if she’d found you.”

I just think it is funny because then he sexually assaulted her.

“And I decided that I had to scare Tamlin. I had to scare you, and L/ucien, but mostly Tamlin. Because I saw how he looked at you, too. So what I did that day … ” His lips were pale, tight. “I broke into your mind and held it enough that you felt it, that it terrified you, hurt you. I made Tamlin beg—as Amarantha had made me beg, to show him how powerless he was to save you. And I prayed my performance was enough to get him to send you away. Back to the human realm, away from Amarantha. Because she was going to find you. If you broke that curse, she was going to find you and kill you. But I was so selfish—I was so stupidly selfish that I couldn’t walk away without knowing your name. And you were looking at me like I was a monster, so I told myself it didn’t matter, anyway. But you lied when I asked. I knew you did. I had your mind in my hands, and you had the defiance and foresight to lie to my face. So I walked away from you again. I vomited my guts up as soon as I left.”

There is a lot to unpack here, so later.

"I told Amarantha the name of that girl, thinking you’d invented it. I had no idea … I had no idea she’d send her cronies to retrieve Clare"

He confessed it was his fault and at the same time he didn't acknowlegded it was his fault.

“I decided, then and there, that I was going to fight. And I would fight dirty, and kill and torture and manipulate, but I was going to fight. If there was a shot of freeing us from Amarantha, you were it. I thought … I thought the Cauldron had been sending me these dreams to tell me that you would be the one to save us. Save my people"

R/hys does like to contradict himself and to make no sense whatsoever.

"A way to defy Amarantha, to spread the seeds of hope to those who knew how to read the message, and a way to keep you alive without seeming too suspicious. And a way to get back at Tamlin … To use him against Amarantha, yes, but … To get back at him for my mother and sister, and for … having you. When we made that bargain, you were so hateful that I knew I’d done my job well. So we endured it. I made you dress like that so Amarantha wouldn’t suspect, and made you drink the wine so you would not remember the nightly horrors in that mountain. And that last night, when I found you two in the hall … I was jealous. I was jealous of him, and pissed off that he’d used that one shot of being unnoticed not to get you out, but to be with you, and … Amarantha saw that jealousy. She saw me kissing you to hide the evidence, but she saw why. For the first time, she saw why. So that night, after I left you, I had to … service her. She kept me there longer than usual, trying to squeeze the answers out of me. But I gave her what she wanted to hear: that you were nothing, that you were human garbage, that I’d use and discard you. Afterward … I wanted to see you. One last time. Alone. I thought about telling you everything—but who I’d become, who you thought I was … I didn’t dare shatter that deception."

A lot to unpack here too.

"All I could see was you, in your stupid wedding dress—so thin. So, so thin, and pale. And I wanted to kill him for it, but I had to get you out."

Hypocrisy

"I didn’t want you to think that everything I did was to win you, just to keep my lands safe. But I couldn’t … I couldn’t stop being around you, and loving you, and wanting you. I still can’t stay away"

Hummmm.

Best regards,

Me.

Ps. He didn't apologized, no I'm sorry or anything like that. Idk why but I thought it would have at least a shy sorry in the middle of this mess, but nothing.

[somethingthatsaysbubbles]

THE RIPPING CASE OF MS. DELIA RODWICK | Chapter Six: Is Love’s Bed Always Snow?

WARNINGS BY CHAPTER:  MINORS DNI. 18+ ONLY. Smut. Sex. Oral Sex (Laszlo Receiving). Dom!Reader. Sub!Laszlo. Possessive Language. Explicit and Enthusiastic Consent. Edging. Orgasm Denial. Body Worship. Breast Kink. Self-Degradation. Praise Kink. Mentions of Domestic Violence/Child Abuse. Discussions of Childhood Trauma and Canonical Disability. Drinking (Wine). Grief. Fear. Illusions to Violence Against Women/Sex Workers. 

Word Count: ~3.5K

Fandom: The Alienist

Pairing: Laszlo Kreizler x AFAB GN!Reader

Insert Guide: (Y/N) = Your Name.

Translations: Szerelmem = “My love” in Hungarian. Édesem = “Sweetheart” in Hungarian.

A/N: Thank you so much for all of the love and support! As always, let me know if you catch a typo, missed warning, or you would like to be added to the taglist. In this chapter, the reader’s clothing is period-accurate, assumed-feminine clothing. I apologize for any historical inaccuracies. Enjoy!

Masterpost

The following days passed you by in a whirlwind of worry and panic. Your presence was pulled from the investigation despite your protests, and you were all but locked away in Laszlo’s home. “For your own safety,” he assured you before joining Sara and John on the hunt to find Mr. Clayton. 

That was three days ago. 

The police ransacked Mr. Clayton’s residence on the second night, confirming with Mr. Sinclair that he hadn’t worked in over a week, but—according to the whispers that snuck into your ears from Laszlo’s sitting room—all they unearthed was a letter confessing to his crimes. Your dear friend’s killer was still roaming free, and that knowledge—that heavy, horrible weight is what led you to a lonely glass of rich, red wine. Richard Wagner’s “Liebestod” played listlessly over Laszlo’s gramophone, and the fingers of your free hand fumbled over the keys of his piano. 

“Exquisite,” he whispered...Exquisite. He said it so easily, too easily, like when Laszlo asked me about Delia, you thought—a headache building behind your eyes. Laszlo and his beautiful eyes, beautiful and brown like honey—like sunbaked earth—the color of autumn leaves and ducks’ wings—the color of Papa’s favorite, winter coat. Your tortured thoughts trapped your mouth somewhere between a smile and wince as you took a long sip of wine. “What is your real name,” Laszlo once asked as his eyes searched mine shyly...When did Augustus learn my real name? Your mind hastily flicked through every memory you had. “Mr. Clayton will show you out when you’re ready to leave,” I said like Augustus was someone we could trust—someone I could trust! “Stay safe? It’s cold outside.” It’s so cold, Laszlo. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s—

“Are flowers the winter’s choice?/ Is love’s bed always snow?/ She seemed to ‘ear my silent voice,/ Not love's appeals to know./ I never saw so sweet a face/ As that I stood before./ My ‘eart has left its dwellin’-place/ And can return no more.” You sighed softly as Delia closed her collection of John Clare’s poetry. Sitting together in silence, your bare toes dug into the park’s grass and dirt while Delia looked longingly at the early-Autumn sky. “I miss Provence,” she said, securing a sandwich from your picnic basket.

You laughed. “How can you miss a place you’ve never been to?” 

“I ‘ave been,” she countered. “The day we met, I dreamed that we strolled through the lavender fields together—readin’ Keats.”

“Visiting a place in a dream isn’t the same as seeing it in real life.”

“Some of us only ‘ave our dreams,” Delia grumbled, glowering as she took an angry bite of her sandwich. You frowned as your gaze fell on her profile; you took in her tired eyes, her dismally wrinkled dress, and the purple bruises that peeked past her collar. Huffing, you turned to face her fully—wiping your hands on the blanket beneath you.

“Tell me about Provence,” you insisted, stitching a sweet smile onto your face. 

Delia knew you were just humoring her, but she lit up—lacing the fingers of her free hand with yours. “It’s beautiful. Rollin’ ‘ills of purple as far as the eye can see—” 

“—I wasn’t aware you played.” You jumped at the sudden intrusion on your thoughts and spun in your seat, your tense posture relaxing as you recognized Laszlo. He loitered in the foyer, hanging up his snow-dusted hat and coat. 

“Stay safe? It’s cold outside.”

“I don’t.” You chuckled cheerlessly, placing your half-empty glass of wine on the bench beside you. “I loved the piano growing up, but I was never good at it.” You laid your fingers across the keys, casually fumbling your way through the first few notes of Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” “My mother preferred the violin.” 

In the cold quiet that snuck into the sitting room from the storm outside, you didn’t realize you were crying until Laszlo sat beside you—his left hand holding your cheek. “You’re trembling,” he whispered. 

“I’m terrified.” You bit back a sob, your throat burning against a barely withheld scream as you tried not to hold yourself together. “I’m so scared, Laszlo,” you hiccupped, your chest heaving with a series of wild, worried breaths. 

“We’ll find him,” Laszlo promised you, pulling you in against his chest. “He won’t hurt you. I won’t let him.” 

Your fingers found purchase in his waistcoat as you shook your head—a cracked, hysterical cry twisting past your teeth. “I don’t care about that!” Laszlo stilled, silent as you took a second to level your breathing. “I don’t care if he hurts me,” you urged honestly—looking into Laszlo’s beautiful, honey-brown eyes. “I’m terrified that something is going to happen to you, that you’re going to walk out that door and never come back.” You sniffled, reaching for the hand that rested on your cheek. “I don’t want to lose you,” you said, softly enough that you doubted that the declaration even came from you.

“You won’t,” he replied, dragging his thumb underneath your eye just like he did in The Water Lily Room and in the carriage before you—

A sharp, tortured sigh left your lips, and your eyes closed as you memorized the way his skin met yours—how he felt so warm and right. You turned your lips in toward his palm, and—laying a lingering kiss on the heel of his hand—you breathed his name. “Laszlo...”

“(Y/N)…” Your eyes flew open at the diffident desperation in his voice. Laszlo’s fingers fluttered against the side of your face, and he slowly—so slowly that his pace paralleled the setting sun—raised his right arm to rest against the curve of your waist. Your own hand wandered up the buttons on his waistcoat, your fingers inhuming themselves among the hairs that graced the nape of his neck. Laszlo’s lungs hitched, his breath hot against your lips as you drew each other closer. 

You stilled, mere centimeters from each other’s mouths as the sweet notes of Isolde lamenting over her lover’s form drifted from Laszlo’s gramophone. Wagner’s aria pushed and pulled both of your bodies like the tide over a sun-touched beach, like heartbreak and grief—like saltwater waves to the shore—like anchors to the bottom of the ocean—like monarch butterflies to the Sierra Madre Mountains—like—

A kiss.

Your lips met softly, searching—his beard brushing delicately against your cheeks. It was careful, even a little awkward with Laszlo’s trembling fingertips and your flushed, sorrowful face. You whimpered all the same—a small, sacred sort of nebula bursting behind your eyes as you cupped the sides of Laszlo’s throat—holding him tightly to you. Laszlo gasped against your lips, and you gave him the entirety of your mouth. Your tongues met briefly as you teased his bottom lip before locking your teeth around the plump piece of flesh and pulling free. 

Laszlo looked over your face wildly, utterly lost in longing. “Forgive me, I—” He cut himself off, floundering under your heavy gaze—his eyes half-lidded. You were on each other again in seconds. Surging forward, you captured each other’s lips with such sweet intensity that your wine glass was knocked to the ground—discoloring the carpet. Your hands buried themselves in Laszlo’s hair reverently while he wrapped his arms around you, crushing you to his chest. Your lips danced ardently, and he moaned into you as you tugged on his hair with a heady sort of hunger—opening his mouth to you. You slid your tongue in between Laszlo’s waiting lips and tasted him, his warmth, and every witty, wonderful word he hid behind his teeth. Laszlo’s tongue flicked timidly over yours. Cautiously, he drew you in closer before pushing you back into your own mouth—his teeth briefly touching yours. 

You pulled away, panting. A gossamer string of spider-silk saliva connected you both before breaking under the room’s electric lights. More, you thought. I need more. 

“Laszlo,” you moaned, swinging your leg over his lap as you straddled him—your lips sucking on the sweet skin under his ear. “Tell me you want this,” you whispered, feverishly marking the tender flesh of his neck. “Tell me you want me.”

Laszlo gasped, a surprised groan gripping his voice as you claimed him—his left hand latching onto the piano bench for support while his weaker arm wrapped around your waist. “(Y/N),” he whimpered. “Please.” 

A warm shiver snaked down your spine, curling your toes as you pulled away from his neck with a noticeable pop. Smiling, you held Laszlo’s cheeks into your hands—touching your foreheads together. “Use your words,” you teased. “Tell me everything you want.” Laszlo’s back arched as you ground your hips down on his lap—a harsh breath leaving the both of you as the heat of his hard, clothed cock pressed against you. “Everything you need. Let me make you feel good,” you moaned, your mouths embracing each other as deeply as your lips would allow.

“I want you,” the alienist answered as your mouth moved down to his throat, his hips rolling against yours ravenously. “I’ve wanted you since the moment we met and every moment after,” he rasped, his words coming out rushed and ragged. “I want all of you, every tease—every feather. Everything,” Laszlo gasped, his left hand holding your head tighter to his throat. After a moment, he tilted your head back, and you moaned while he marked you in return. “I want your fingers dancing over every book in my library. I want your hand holding mine. I want your wit—your smile. I want everything I don’t deserve.” A strangled sob left Laszlo as your hips lurched forward, and his cock twitched in his trousers. “Szerelmem!”

You mewled, biting your bottom lip between your teeth—your fingers fumbling over the buttons on his waistcoat. More, your mind repeated. I need to feel all of him. 

“What does that mean,” you asked, helping him shrug his vest off his shoulders. 

“My love.” Laszlo’s sunset-stained face blurred before your eyes as your hands stilled under the straps of his suspenders. He swallowed nervously, color creeping down his neck. “It’s all right, if you don’t—”

You silenced him with a hungry kiss. “I love you,” you whispered, and Laszlo moaned against your lips—a soft, quivering sound—as your hands frantically reached for the fastenings on your dress. 

Your fingers fumbled over the buttons as Laszlo’s lips caressed your throat—his teeth tugging a perfect, purple bruise into the blushing skin just above your collarbone. He grunted your name, his hips heaving against yours of their own accord. “I love you,” he replied, and you rewarded his need with more of your naked skin—standing to let the fine fabric of your dress pool about your ankles. 

Your underclothes weren’t much different than when you danced for him. Corset. Chemise. Stockings. Garters.  The good doctor sat silently, staring at you adoringly before you took his hand and trailed it along the ties of your bustle and petticoat. “I wanted this the first time I undressed for you,” you whispered. “I wanted your hands on me the moment you spilled your champagne.” 

Laszlo smiled—a perfect, pink blush embracing his cheeks. “You made me so nervous, teasing me so relentlessly,” he admitted, pulling your petticoat free—the heavy fabric hitting the floor with a muted thud.

You raised a single eyebrow, stepping out of the small mountain of cotton and silk before kicking it to the side. “Do I still make you nervous, Dr. Kreizler?” 

The alienist’s eyebrows pinched upward, and a soft whine worked its way past his teeth. Laszlo leaned forward, concealing his face with your covered chest. You sighed and slid your hands through his hair, kissing the top of his head before reaching behind you for the cords of your corset. He pulled away, watching you wistfully—his right hand resting against your hip. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”

You hushed him. “Let me worry about getting undressed,” you cooed, casting your corset to the side and sneaking your fingers under the straps of your chemise. “You can worry about where you’d like to put your mouth.” The soft, silken folds of your chemise fluttered to the floor like an autumn leaf—bearing your breasts to your soon-to-be lover’s longing gaze. Goosebumps graced your arms as Laszlo took you in—two famished, twin flames of desire dancing in his eyes. Reverently, he ran his quivering hands along your naked torso—kneading your hips as he cradled you closer—caging you between his legs. His left hand ran along the length of your ribs, skating up your side in a way that was just as fearful as it was famished. 

Cupping your breast, Laszlo balanced the weight of you in his hand—holding his breath as he squeezed you softly. You nodded supportively, biting your lip as Laszlo brushed the nexus of his thumb over your nipple. The smooth skin pebbled, pulling a gasp from between your teeth as your back arched—your hands anchoring in his hair. 

“Laszlo,” you moaned, and your lover responded by rocking forward—wrapping his lips around you. You tightened your hold on him, hiding your nose in his hair as he worked his tongue over you in a feral frenzy; he pushed and prodded before latching his lips onto you and suckling with a wanton whimper. You moaned, your stocking-covered toes curling into the wine-stained carpet as he worshipped your breasts—burying himself in the taste of you—the taboo tenderness of you—the foreign feeling of the metal bars that pierced your nipples tickling his tongue.

Laszlo pulled away, panting, and he groaned at the sight of his saliva—cooled by the sitting room’s cold, evening air—tugging your skin taut. His mouth embraced your other breast, offering it the same adoring attention. His trousers tightened near unbearably, and you dragged your blunted nails down his scalp—singing his name with soft need. Your chest burned, reddened to mirror a damask rose—warm, wet want pulsing between your legs. “You’re wearing too much,” you stuttered, taking off his tie and tossing it behind you. His hands halted you before you could unbutton his shirt, his fingers wrapping firmly around your wrists. Your eyes flicked fretfully over your lover’s anxious expression; the alienist answered your question before you could think to ask it.

“My arm...”

You sighed, your gaze softening. “I know,” you said, your fingers finding his with an assuring squeeze. “I love all of you.”

“No, I—” 

Laszlo looked away from you. “I lied to you,” he confessed through clenched teeth. 

Eyebrows furrowing, your stomach was sickened by fear as you sat beside him—holding his hands in your lap. “Tell me,” you demanded, and a deep, restless breath racked Laszlo’s chest—his eyes glistening under your understanding gaze.

“My father,” Laszlo muttered. “My father was both loving and brutal. He—” 

Laszlo’s body shook under a barely stifled sob, and your fingertips found the back of his neck—stroking the base of his skull. “He fractured my arm when I was a young boy. I don’t remember if he was drunk, or if I said something to upset him.” His eyes finally fell on your face, and you frowned at the tear tracks that marred his cheeks. “He often told me that I was nothing more than a little imposter,” he hiccupped, and your heart broke. 

“Laszlo,” you cooed, cradling his face in your fingers. You pulled him in for a soft, sweet kiss—solid and solacing in a way that reminded him of the Metropolitan Opera House. “Thank you for telling me,” you whispered, dragging your hands down his arms. Bringing his right hand to your mouth, you met his knuckles in a noble kiss. “You’re so strong...so intelligent, thoughtful, and caring.” You encouraged him to cup your cheek as you continued, nudging his palm with your nose. “How lucky I am to call you mine,” you said, smiling wide and wildly in love.

“Please,” Laszlo sobbed. “Say that again?”

“Mine,” you asked, and the alienist’s weak, answering whimper made your soul ache. “My Laszlo,” you teased, toying with the button on his trousers. “My perfect, sweet man.” You slowly sank to your knees in front of him, hooking your fingers in his waistband. “My good boy.”

A strangled moan left Laszlo’s lips as you pulled his pants and drawers down around his ankles. “Yours,” he said as you took in the sight of the hard, thick cock that hung heavy between his legs. The head was painted purple-red, weeping—waiting for your lips. 

“May I taste you,” you asked, your fingertips playing in the patch of dark curls that wreathed Laszlo’s cock. His neck burned brilliantly under the crisp, white collar of his shirt, and he nodded shyly—licking his lips as you wrapped your hand around him.

“My Laszlo,” you promised, your tongue peeking past your lips and caressing the underside of his cock—prodding the pulsing vein that sat under his head. “My good, good boy.” Kissing his tip, you swallowed the beads of precum that slid onto your tongue from his slit—moaning long and low as you wrapped him in the wet heat of your mouth. 

“(Y/N)!” The good doctor gasped, his hips stuttering as you sucked on his head. “Tha-at—” 

Laszlo cut himself off with a soft cry as you swallowed him down, your mouth meeting your fist in an obscene kiss. “Oh God,” he keened as you cupped his balls with your free hand. His fingers white-knuckled the piano bench as he panted, overcome by pleasure. 

You peeked up at him, smiling before you started to slowly bob your head. Laszlo looked absolutely wrecked, his face flushed red by bliss—his mouth wrought open by torturous rapture. He ran his left hand through his hair, corralling an errant curl that had found itself hugging his forehead—sweat twinkling along his temples—caught in the notch between his collarbones. Every inch of him entreated your tongue for its soothing touch. 

The alienist’s right hand hesitantly cupped the back of your head, and you moaned as you took him into your throat—burying your nose in the dark curls adorning his crotch. Laszlo whimpered in response, and you breathed out through your nose as his balls twitched and tightened in your hand. Gagging, you pulled away, and he mewled your name so preciously—praying. A deep moan tore through his throat as you ran your tongue along the length of him. “I’m close,” he whimpered, warning you as his hands held onto the bench beneath him. You responded by sliding your tongue along the seam of his balls, sucking them into your mouth. Your hand stroked him slowly, carefully—coyly. “Please,” he pleaded, choking on a moan.

Poor boy. 

You let him go with a pop, picking up the speed and pressure of your hands—your free fingers carving crescent moons into his inner thigh. Your lips and tongue teased his head with kisses and kitten licks. “Do you want to cum for me, my love?” Laszlo nodded, his legs trembling as his cock twitched under your touch. “Where,” you purred, and your lover sobbed— biting his lip hard as his chest heaved. Your free hand held his hips in place as he fought and failed to sit still, wanting to unravel for you—needing to cum. “Tell me where, Laszlo.” 

“Inside you,” the good doctor gasped, tears gathering in his eyes as his hips rocked forward—fucking himself into your fist. “Édesem,” he moaned. “Ple-ease, I need to be inside you.” You smiled wide, slowing down your hands until they halted; you lavished his inner thighs with careful, calming kisses as slowly came back to himself after being so close to cumming.

“Are you okay,” you asked, trailing your lips up Laszlo’s soft stomach—flicking your fingers teasingly over his covered nipples. His breath hitched, and he huffed a laugh. Wrapping his arms around you, he anchored you onto his lap—burying his head between your breasts. You sighed sweetly, threading your fingers through his hair. “You can still cum in my mouth, if you want to.”

“No,” Laszlo said, shaking his head as he tilted his tired eyes up to you. “I want—” 

Your lover swallowed, seemingly at a loss for words as your fingertips soothed his tense jaw—salving the skin beneath his beard. “I know,” you promised, pulling him in for a featherlight kiss. “I’m going to help you with your pants, then I want you to wait for me in your room.” Nuzzling his cheek with your nose, you nipped his ear excitedly—your hands massaging the muscles in his shoulders. “Is that all right?” Laszlo sighed, nodding against your neck. Smirking, you said, “Use your words, Dr. Kreizler.” 

The good doctor smiled, a delicious shiver curling his covered toes as he took your left hand in his. “Yes,” Laszlo whispered, weaving your fingers together—laying his lips to rest in the hollow of your throat. 

“Good,” you murmured, your mouths meeting sweetly as you stood—helping Laszlo to his feet. “I won’t be long. I just want to grab some candles and water.” You paused, pulling his trousers back over his hips. “Among other things,” you teased, your teeth catching on Laszlo’s bottom lip. He kissed you deeply as you dressed him, humming at the taste of himself on your tongue—his hands holding your waist. 

“I love you,” Laszlo whispered with softly parted lips as you pulled away.

“And I love you,” you said, sending your alienist upstairs.

TAGS:  @scuttle-buttle @bruhlsbees @apparrio​ @livvyshmiv​ @ajeff855​ @imalsonotsure​ @bubblegum28universe​ @frozenhuntress67​ @uncomfortablebagel​ @janine-007​ ​

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[Next Chapter]

[ebonyheartnet]

Somebody suggest a song I should cover for funsies. Things to consider:

All of this will be my voice, with no accompaniment/backing vocals, just what I can record in one go

I can sing most things that’re low for AFAB folks or high for an AMAB folks, but I’ll try most things and say if it’s too difficult for me to modify

I like alt rock in general, 90s/00s soft rock or pop, jazz, blues, folk, filk, funk, and a whole lot of stuff!

I don’t mind love songs but I will Nope if it makes me uncomfortable

I LOVE PROTEST SONG THO SO GIMME RECS AT THE VERY LEAST

Not a Christian, so anything along those lines is out (a lot of Christmas carols do go hard, ngl, but it’s September so nah)

Some specific examples of songs/artists that I love (and can sing pretty well with their stuff):

“Too Close,” and, “Relax My Beloved,” by Alex Clare

“Shape of My Heart,” and, “Desert Rose,” by Sting

Almost all of, “American Idiot,” and, “21 Guns,” by Green Day

The entirety of, “Minutes to Midnight,” by Linkin Park (and a lot of their discography bc I was a bby edge lord a decade ago before going punk lol)

Bill Withers (just name a tune y’all)

Ray Charles (same thing)

Ella Fitzgerald (can’t go as high as her, but I love her scatting 😍)

Stevie Wonder (love the earlier work, but @ that one song where he mentions lotion: sir, umm, the hell???)

“Don’t Wanna Fight No More,” by Alabama Shakes

Nina Simone (closer to what I sound like)

Tracey Chapman (👀👌🏽 good shit! That’s some good- *cuts self off to spare y’all the pain*)

“Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves,” by Seanan McGuire (I LOVE THIS SONG AN ORDINARY AMOUNT, WHY DO YOU ASK?)

“I Ain’t a Marching Anymore,” by Phil Ochs (🎵Call it “Peace” or call it “Treason”🎵)

“Chemical Worker’s Song [Process Man],” by Great Big Sea

“We All Lift Together,” by Keith Power

“16 Tons,” by Tennessee Ford

“Folsom Prison Blues,” by Johnny Cash (I put my own spin on this one y’all, don’t come @ me 😬)

Everything in, “Dreaming Out Loud,” by One Republic (The Timbaland version of, “Apologize,” is the best; you can’t change my mind)

The Fray (I’m a slut for the acoustic version of, “How to Save a Life,” and, while Cayenne East can choke, these guys did do a most excellent cover of “Heartless” ✌🏽)

Most of the “Viva La Vida,” “X&Y,” and, “A Rush of Blood to the Head,” albums by Coldplay

This is getting too damn long now lol, so just tell me shit you think I should try to cover in an ask or something! 😂

[prettywordsyouleft]

Down By The Lake - Part 2

Summary: It was only meant to be a stolen moment between you and your lover Daehyun and ended with him framed for murdering your best friend. With the assistance of your aloof friend Inspector Bang, could you find the real culprit called The Pauper, in time to clear Daehyun’s name?

Pairing: Jung Daehyun x reader ft. Bang Yongguk

Genre: murder mystery / periodic au / horror-ish

Warnings: murder / death / dark content given the nature of the storyline

Down By The Lake will be shared daily at 10am NZST.

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It didn’t take long for the scene to turn into complete chaos.

Your scream had alerted those within earshot and before you could ask Daehyun to help you remove Lucy from the lake, there were multiple people before you shouting different commands. You were grabbed suddenly and you struggled within their grip, reaching out for Daehyun who was being dragged off in the opposite direction.

“Wait, no! What are you doing?!”

“Calm down, my Lady!”

“How did you get into this state?!”

“You’re safe now!”

“I was safe a moment ago!” you stated, shivering with the cold seeping into your undergarments. “Let him go! He was with me!”

“Precisely and we need to protect you from him!”

“No, I mean! Oh, this is ridiculous, let me go and listen!” you exclaimed, shoving a man off of you roughly and dashing out of the water after Daehyun struggling against his four captors. “Let him go this instance! That is an order!”

“Y/N!” a voice called sternly and you whipped about, bursting into another wave of emotions. Rushing to your father’s side, you took his hand and shook it rapidly. “Father, they are taking away an innocent man!”

“Where are your clothes?!” he breathed, looking around at all the men who quickly darted their attention to the ground. “Find my daughter something to cover up with!”

“Father!”

“Y/N, are you hurt? Come with me, this is a dangerous place!”

“WHY WILL YOU NOT LISTEN?!”

“Now, my dear, you are growing hysterical. Someone, fetch a doctor! My daughter has fallen ill!”

Despite the apparent shiver coursing throughout your body, you grew desperate to be heard. “Please Daddy, Daehyun and I overheard the—and Lucy struggled and—”

You choked on your distraught sobs, clasping a hand to your mouth in hopes to settle them, only noticing the blood upon your skin when you pulled away. It all became too much for you and you stumbled, unseeing from that moment as everything turned dark.    

“Daehyun!”

You sat up with a start, blinking rapidly as your private chambers came into focus. Looking to the right where you heard movement, you groaned when your lady maid rushed to your side. “Oh no, my Lady. Please lie back down, you are awfully pale.”

“I am perfectly well, Clare,” you corrected, gently pushing her encouraging hand away. “I need to get ready at once.”

“Your father insists you rest until the doctor is back later today. It’s only been three days since-”                                                                                        

“Three days?!” you echoed in horror, throwing the blankets aside and ignoring Clare’s whimpering protests. “Why have I been in here for so long?! I need to go to the station immediately! What have you of the stable hand that was with me that night?”

“I fear I have no information to give you, my Lady. Investigators have been here every day, eager for you to wake up.”

“Send word that I am now alert and ready to communicate,” you instructed, approaching the mirror across the room and stared at your reflection. You folded your arms across your bosom, determined to rectify the situation immediately.

However, it appeared no one was ready to listen to you seriously. Investigator Moore nodded apathetically in your direction once you were done explaining what happened that evening.

“Yes, about the young man you were found with, how long have you been acquainted?”

You frowned. “Well, some weeks. I believe he arrived here just before spring.”

“And how long has he courted you?”

Your father gasped into a handkerchief. “Investigator!”

“Apologies, my Lord, it must be spoken of. Your daughter just admitted to grave connections with the man. I fear he may have corrupted her.”

“Honestly!” you remarked, shaking your head incredulously at the pair. “Corrupted?!”

“Has he taken from your body?”

“Sir,” the companying officer breathed and the older man nodded gruffly. “Just answer the question.”

“I approached him!” you confessed, trying not to look in the direction of your father now heaving visibly. “It was I, not him, who made the first move.”

“Y/N, enough. She is not of the right mind-”

“I am perfectly sane right now. I demand to see Daehyun at once.”

“Afraid not, my Lady, he’s not in an area where visitations are allowed.”

“You have convicted him of a crime he has not done!”

“He is the only suspect we have. This is the fourth killing this year of young women from the upper-class society. Surely, you have suspicions.”

“Yes, that there is a killer who walked right by Daehyun and I. He was with me at the time! I heard it all! Did you not listen when I expressed this the first time?!”

Investigator Moore nodded once more, mumbling to himself. “Perhaps she’s right.”

“I am!”

“If you heard it then, why did you do nothing to help the poor girl? Why, you could be an accomplice!”

“I am nothing of the sort! I went to and then…”

“And then?” your father prompted as you stilled, trying to wrap your mind around it.

“And Daehyun held me back. I believe for my safety!”

“So you could have stopped the killer from murdering your best friend, could you have not?”

You gripped at your skirt, blinking rapidly to replay the scene. Daehyun had definitely looked troubled as he held you back. But why? You were certain it was to protect you, to keep you from seeing something so ghastly in person. Not that seeing Lucy after had been any easier on your wits but at least, you hadn’t been put at risk either.

Your life wasn’t any more valuable than hers and had you known, you would have leapt in front to save her. Was Daehyun aware of this and that was why he stopped you?

Or could he have seen what was happening and… chosen to allow it to continue?

You struggled with this new thought process, tears welling in your round eyes. You had believed him to be honest, hard-working, humble and much more fun than the boring over-exaggerative Viscounts and Earls you were used to spending time with.

But could he have been more dangerous than a simple stable hand? Your hand rose to your mouth as you began to tremble.

Investigator Moore grinned. “Well, my Lady, that will be all for today, don’t you think?”

You were now seen as the living victim of Lucy’s murder. You went from being someone people talked about with envy to that of the girl they pitied, and rumours began to mill around. Most pointing that you would be next to meet The Pauper. It should have filled you with chills and have you barricaded within your house until he was captured.

And yet, the fact that you had too many questions and not enough answers had you knocking on the door of an aloof inspector’s house desperately until an old man swung it open midway, clearing his throat disapprovingly. “It is Sunday, madam.”

“I am aware of the day; however, I am in need of speaking with Inspector Bang today if it is alright. Please, I sent word ahead of my visit.”

“And surely you would have received notice if he had been inclined to an intrusion today.”

“It is quite alright, Percy,” a deep voice called from within and you smiled with relief. The owner of the house stepped into view and gave you a half-smile. “Y/N will never leave us be unless we let her in. Come, I am sure you have much to inform me of.”

“Have you seen him by chance?” you asked when you were done explaining all you knew to Yongguk, his expression unreadable. You took a distracted sip from the teacup you had held onto as if your life depended on it this entire time. Yongguk remained unmoving and you placed it down with a jostle, tea sloshing over into the saucer. “Stop with this silence! I know if there is anyone in this world who will listen to me right now, it is you. Everyone else sees me as a mere woman who has gone particularly mad after seeing a dead body.”

He finally smirked. “Anyone who knows you personally will understand you have been mad for much longer.”

“I am not here for your amusement, dearest,” you muttered though it did relieve your nerves having Yongguk respond like that. It meant he was listening and taking what you said seriously.

Unlike everyone else.

“He is alive. For how long, I do not know. The commissioner wants to label Daehyun as The Pauper. He fits the bill. He is a mere stable hand. The weapon used by the killer is a tool found in most stables. And so far all he has done is attack daughters of the elite. Being found with one of the most influential unwedded young women in our county makes it even more suspicious.”

“Except, if he was the killer why am I still alive and who murdered Lucy whilst I was with him?” you questioned and Yongguk smiled.

“He could have lured you and hired an accomplice for the evening so he could kill you next. Or there’s a copycat and you were always the main prey.”

“Perhaps we could also consider Daehyun as innocent!” you demanded and Yongguk nodded easily.

“Yes, yes, innocent until proven guilty. However, how many of the lower class gets that privilege? He’ll have a week left at most.”

“A week?! Surely we can find proof in the meantime! Please, Yongguk, I swear to you, I know he is innocent. I had my suspicions for only a moment and I simply cannot believe someone I got to know intimately could be a killer!”

Yongguk’s eyes popped and he coughed a couple of times, your gaze darting to your lap at how he had taken your words. With cheeks blazing, you shook your head. “I am not meaning in that manner!”

“No, I would expect nothing of the sort,” he responded, strained with embarrassment.

“I have already been labelled as tainted and yet no one believes me for the words I speak that are truthful, just those that lead them to think I have sullied my family name all because I was found in my undergarments.”

“I believe in you, Y/N,” Yongguk announced sincerely, leaning forward in his chair to catch your gaze. He smiled determinedly. “I want to catch the killer myself as well, so shall we join hands in solving this case together?”

You nodded, holding out your hand in agreement. “I will assist in any way I can so long as we can clear Daehyun’s name.”

_________________

Part 3

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[something-fanfiction-ie]

Tear Me To Pieces

Pairing: Shadowhunter!Tom Holland x Shadownhunger!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of demons and demon killings, a hot make out sesh, and angst

A/N: Oof, so I thought I was on a writing roll there a while ago but it turns out I was lying. Sorry guys. Anyways, my cat woke my up about four and a half hours ago and this is the result. I’m going to hate myself in the morning. Heh. Heh. So, this is based on the works of Cassandra Clare revolving around a group of demon fighting, half angel warriors. Those ideas don’t belong to be, and neither does Tom Holland. Okay, okay, as always, remember to like, comment, reblog, and send me asks. FOR HEAVENS SAKE, PLEASE COMMENT AND GIVE ME ATTENTION. Heh. Uhm, enjoy and thanking you for reading my little blog! OH! Also! I wrote this while listening to lovely by Billie Eilish on repeat if you want to do that.

___

It was mass chaos. You stood across the room, engaged in combat with a horde of demons, your sword wielded in your hand as if an extension of your arm and your eyes a blazing fury.

Tom could feel your presence the moment he entered the room, a constant throb against his parabatai rune.

Parabatai. A friend in times of need, family in times of happiness, a set of eyes when he was blind, and another set of hands when his were bound. A parabatai was your other half in nearly every way, but never as a lover. The Law forbade any romantic relations between parabatai, nevertheless it didn’t stop Tom’s heart from swelling in his chest when he heard a peal of your laughter, or felt your hand graze his back.

Now, as you plunged your sword deep into the abdomen of a demon, yanking it away as the body exploded into a shower of ichor and dust, Tom knew he needed to get to you. Sweat beaded at your forehead and he could feel the race of your heart next to his own.

Slashing and fighting his way to get to you, twisting this way and that around punches and attacks. By the time he finally made it to you, his own heart racing now, a look of deep gratitude came into your eyes.

“Took you long enough.” You managed to tease as you blocked an attack to your side. Your back rocked against his for a fraction of a second before you lunged forward with your own attack.

“I didn’t want to ruin my hair.” The head of a demon rolled off of it’s grotesque shoulders and onto the floor before disappearing in a puff of dust. You rolled your eyes, sweeping the twisted leg (tentacle?) out from beneath a demon and driving the end of your blade into what could only be assumed as a chest. Ichor, a type of poisonous demon blood, and dust exploded from the body and came up to sting your cheek and chin.

You managed to brush most of the ichor away with the back of your arm before it burned your face too much.

“Tom, they keep coming. We need to get out of here and try coming back in the daytime.” Demons didn’t really come out during the day, they were vicious creatures of the night. Besides, it was just the two of you snooping through this house. Two shadowhunters couldn’t possible fend off this many demons no matter how skilled they were.

You watched your parabatai roll the idea through his head before nodding in agreement. His brown eyes met yours before he reached out with his free hand, his seraph blade balanced in the other. There was not a moments hesitation as you slipped your hand into his, a bolt of lightning went up your arm and your parabatai rune burned as if it were on fire.

<!—more—>

You ran as fast as possible, which was pretty damn near fast given the speed runes you’d drawn on each other before you had come inside. Runes were like tattoos, some permanent and some temporary, that acted to enhance things like speed, hearing, healing, and the like. Only shadowhunters, also known as Nephilim, could bare runes on their skin.

By the time you made it out the door to your busted up 1969 Jeep Commando, the horde of demons were no longer in sight. Still, you and Tom flung all your weapons into the trunk before speeding out of the driveway. Rocks kicked up in your wake.

Alone, no longer surrounded by the buzz of battle, it was hard to ignore the pops and cracks of electricity that bounced in the small space between you and Tom. It almost physically pained you not to reach your hand out and intertwine your fingers together again. Your palm was still warm from his touch.

“You’re bleeding. Pull over.” Tom said, reaching up to the tear in your gear where a mantid demon had managed to slice a deep and burning cut into the top of your arm before you had shred it to pieces.

The Jeep bumped and bounced around as you pulled onto the side of the rather empty highway. First you took off your seat belt, and then your gear top. All the aches and bruises of battle made themselves known as you moved and shimmied out of the jacket-like top.

Bared to the world in only a blank tank top, the wound looked worse than before. The edges were black and blood continued to slowly beat out of it and down your arm. A hiss of pain escaped through your teeth.

“He got me good, didn’t he?” You looked over at Tom to see him staring at you very fixedly. The way he stared made your face heat up like a thousand suns. He cleared his throat, shaking his head and pulling out his stele, a long and slender metal wand used to draw runes on shadowhunters. He leaned close, his breath hot on your shoulder as he drew an iratze, a rune that heals wounds, onto the bit of your arm that wasn’t cut open by a demon.

Your own breath hitched in your throat at the proximity of him. For months the two of you had been dancing around each other, too afraid to get too close. You couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment you knew things had changed between you, but you remembered looking into those deep brown eyes only to look away with your heart lodged in your throat. It was bad, very, very bad.

“(Y/N)?” He touched your thigh with his hand and just like earlier, a bolt of lightning went through you and sizzled into your parabatai rune. You turned to face him, your breath mingling together in the small space between your lips.

His eyelashes were too beautiful for a boy, thick and black as night. You half expected them to leave a dusting of charcoal on the tops of his cheeks every time he blinked. His lips were parted ever so slightly, almost teasingly inviting you with how soft and kissable they looked. You took a steadying breath and immediately regretted it. The smell of him coiled in the air you breathed, surrounding you in a haze of want and crumbling self restraint.

When you finally found your lips on his, gasping into the touch, you weren’t sure if it was you or him that initiated the contact.

You couldn’t bring yourself to care, clambering over the console and into his lap. The kiss was deep and rich, reaching down into even the darkest places of you and warming them in seconds. His hands were on your hips, holding you so tightly that you wondered if he were doing it just to make sure you were real. His perfectly styled curls, that had, somehow, managed to stay perfect during your fight with the demons, was soon ruined and tangled around your fingers.

When he broke away from your lips it wasn’t to end your make out session, but to trail kisses down your neck and your exposed collarbone. Fire blossomed under your skin with each press of his lips, spreading through out your body and lighting your whole world on fire.

Just as you went to reconnect lips, a pounding on your window jolted you apart. Your head hit the roof with a bang and a yelp. A mundane cop, a human or non shadowhunter, stood on your driver side with a blaring flashlight shinning in.

Bashfully, you scrambled back into your seat and rolled the window down.

“Officer.” Your face was on fire again and you wanted nothing more than to bury yourself alive.

“Maybe you kids shouldn’t do things like that on the side of the highway, huh?” The cop had an amused glint in his eye, wrongfully suspecting you as two crazy kids in love, looking for some privacy from parents and the like. If only he knew how wrong it was for you to be doing whatever it was you could call that wild moment of reckless abandon.

“We’re very sorry, sir.” You said, white knuckling the wheel.

“Just don’t let it happen again, the side of the highway is for emergencies only. I’m going to let you off with a warning, okay?” You managed a feeble nod before the officer wished the both of you a good night and walked back to his cruiser.

Your mind was racing as you started the Jeep back up, waiting for the cop to pull off ahead of you before you merged back onto the road. You opened your mouth to say something several times but you always closed it after a few seconds. A line had been crossed, one that was never meant to be crossed, and you couldn’t help but love the way it felt.

“That was a mistake.” Tom said, staring forward with a look of steel. His jaw was tensed and his lips pursed, it was an odd look given the red blush that colored his cheeks and the wild mess you had left his hair in.

“What?” You choked, glancing at him in bewilderment before looking back at the road. Your heart hammered in your chest and you knew that he could feel it, because his own heartbeat drummed steadily next to yours.

“We can’t do that ever again. Never. If anyone were to find out.”

“But no one will.” You meekly protested.

“Can you guarantee that, (Y/N)?” He snapped, eyes zeroed in on the road as you turned off the highway to the road where you lived. When his question was met with silence, he nodded his head.

“That’s what I thought. It was a mistake. We will forget it ever happened and move on. It doesn’t matter, really.” The words were a knife in your chest, stealing the breath from your lungs. The remainder of the car ride was silent as you forced tears out of your eyes, praying to the Angel that you could keep it together long enough to get away from him.

You hadn’t even shut the car off before Tom had launched himself out of the vehicle. He dismissed himself with a curt nod and a mumbled salutation. You watched him dash inside the doors of the institute as you sat in your seat for several seconds longer, the tears that burned your eyes finally trailing cool rivers down your cheeks.

It was forbidden, you knew that. The consequences of having a romantic relationship with your parabatai were as severe as they could get. But the song of his heart called to your own in a way that no one else’s ever could. You seemed to want him with every fiber of your body.

Tom. The boy you had grown up training with. The boy who had stood across from you in a ring of fire, reciting those blasted vows before taking his stele and carefully shaping the parabatai rune forever to your skin.

Entreat me not to leave thee,

Or return from following after thee—

You slid out of the car, numbly reaching into the back for your sword.

For whither thou goest, I will go,

And where thou lodgest, I will lodge.

You barely noticed the crunch of your boots against the gravel as you made your way to the door, steeling your soul.

Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

You grabbed onto the doorhandle, sucking in a clean breath of air. It was like a cold shower turned on over your emotions, trickling down and hardening every hot and steaming feeling that poured from your heart.

Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.

A flash of his lips against your own was briefly disorienting, causing your brows to furrow. You grabbed the stone that was now your emotions and dropped it into a box that you covered in iron chains. A click of a lock and you shoved the box far away for you to never touch again. Forbidden.

The Angel do so to me, and more also,

If aught but death part thee and me.

You pushed the door open, plastering a smile to your face as Haz waved to you from the top of the stairs. The words of the parabatai oath echoing in your mind.

[drummerqueenrmt]

5 + 1 (Roger Taylor x reader)

Summary: five times you and Roger almost kiss and one that you finally did.

Warnings: lots of fluff and a little bit of swearing.

Words: 3,073

Notes: First of all, I know it’s been a long time since I have published something about Rog but I was studying for my exams and I didn’t have time, sorry. Here you have a long fic to compensate, I hope you all like it! If you do please comment, like or reblog it. Thanks for reading 💛

1. The first time you met

“Hi, guys! Nice to see you all again. Look, this is my new friend [y/n]”

“Hi” You said shyly. “Nice to meet you all”

“Hello” They all said at the same time.

“How did you met my little sister?” Roger asked while passing an arm around Clare’s shoulders.

“We go to class together this year”

“Yeah, yeah… But why did you chose my sister to be your friend? Didn’t you have any other option?”

“Hey!” Clare protested while pinching him on his side.

You laughed at the scene. You knew they both had an amazing relationship for what Clare had told you and now you were able to see it with your own eyes.

“Do you want something to drink, darling?” Freddie asked you.

“I really shouldn’t” You felt all eyes on you, confusing looks everywhere. “I promised my uncle to help him in his store, I need to wake up early”

“Oh, c’mon!” Roger said starting to pour some vodka on an empty glass. “Soda, lemon…? What do you prefer?”

“Thank you, but I really don’t want to drink today”

“Just one” He winked at you. And at that moment you realized how hot he was.

So you couldn’t resist it. “Ok, just one”

But it wasn’t just one.

You lost the count.

“This is your fault” You said pointing to Roger that was only centimeters away from you.

“Yes, it is. And I’m not even sorry”

You punch him in his arm and he made and offended look that made you both laugh.

“You know… Your sister warned me about you”

“About me? Why? I’m an actual angel, I’ve never done anything bad in my life” He immediately laughed.

“Well done, very convincing” You laughed too. “He said that you are always trying to flirt with every girl you met”

“Woah! Not with everyone” He approached you even more, noses almost touching and a smirk on his face. “Only with the pretty ones”

And you didn’t know if it was the effect of the alcohol or of the effect he was having on you but at that moment you were completely determined to kiss him, and he seemed to be determined to kiss you back too, both leaning and ready.

“No, no, no” You heard suddenly at the same time that you felt someone pushing you away from him. “I don’t give a fuck if you get drunk any other girl and then do whatever you want with her but she’s my friends and you respect her”

“I wasn’t doing anything” Roger argue, lifting his hands as a signal of innocence.

“You were going to kiss her!”

“Because she wanted to”

“No, she didn’t”

“Yes, I did” You said, winning a disapproval look from Clare. “What?”

“You’re drunk”

“Just a little bit… And no because he got me drunk, I drank what I wanted”

“You see… I’m not doing anything! I’ll never try to take advantage of her while drunk”

“Shut up!” Clare said while pointing to his brother. “The party is over. We are going home, [y/n]”

“Really?” Roger and you said at the same time.

“Really. We are going now”

And knowing how angry she was the only thing you could do was to give a sad look to Roger while saying goodbye and follow her out.

2. Watching a film in the Taylor’s house.

Clare apologized for her behaviour of the other night, realizing that you were adults capable of made your own decisions. To compensate you for it she invited you to her house to watch a movie.

What you didn’t expected is that Roger was there to and that it seemed that he was going to watch the movie too.

“Hi” You said quietly, a little bit embarrassed of what almost happened some days ago at the party.

“Hi, [y/n]! So nice to see you again” He looked very happy to see you, and he was looking stunning in a blue hoodie and some comfortable pair of tracksuit pants. You simply smiled to him and sat in the opposite side of the sofa.

“Here comes the popcorn!” Claire announced, passing one of the bowls to you. “Ready for the movie?”

“Hey! Why I don’t get popcorn?”

“Because you weren’t invited, you autoinvitate yourself to watch the movie”

“I’m in my fucking house… I think I have the right to do whatever I want”

“Yes, but without popcorn”

Roger snorted and crossed his arms and he looked like a little kid for you then.

After that, Clare put the movie and you could swear it was the most boring thing you had ever seen in your life. And, apparently, it was also for Clare because in less than twenty minutes she felt asleep.

Suddenly, you realized that Roger was stealing some popcorn and when he found you looking at him, he placed his index in his mouth as a sing for you to be quiet. You simply nodded smiling.

Ten more minutes passed till you hear Roger whispering to you. “I can’t believe that she chooses the worst film ever, makes us watching it and then she falls asleep”

“I’m going to fall asleep soon too” You confessed.

“The thing is who wouldn’t end up falling asleep watching this shit”

You laughed covering your mouth with your hands for not to wake up your friend.

“Do you want a beer?”

“Do you want me to get drunk again?”

“No, no… I just-”

“I’m joking. I would love one, please”

“Come, we have different types”

You stood up quietly and followed him to the kitchen.

“Serve yourself” He said opening the fridge. You took one, opened it and started drinking.

“Look…” You could notice that suddenly he looked very nervous, his hand playing with the back of his neck. “The other night...I didn’t want to get you drunk to take advantage of you” Oh, it was that. “I just simply wanted you to have a good time and-”

“As I told Clare I didn’t feel you did”

He looked at you a little bit more relieved. “Nice”

“And I wasn’t that drunk for not knowing what I was doing”

“And what were you doing?” He asked smirking.

“You know it perfectly” You shot back.

He was surprised by your confidence and started approaching you. “Yes, I do”

Slowly, he started wrapping his arms around you. Your heart accelerating at the contact and the proximity. You placed your hands on his chest, feeling how his heartbeat was accelerating too as you became closer and closer to each other.

You were almost kissing when you heard the sound of the front door closing. “Roger! Clare! Help me with the bags”

Roger sighted. “Sorry, that’s my mum… I need to help her”

“No problem” You said when you were cursing internally.

Clare had woken up with all the noise and he shot you a questioning look when you appeared at the living room.

“You weren’t watching the movie”

“You weren’t neither” You said while sitting next to her.

“I fell asleep but… where were you exactly?”

“I was drinking a beer”

“With Roger”

“Yes”

“And…?”

“And… what?”

“Nothing else happened?”

“Nope”

Not yet.

3. After a Queen concert

“They are amazing!”

It was the first time that you were seeing a Queen concert and you were more than delighted. All four were amazing, the crowd were singing and dancing all the time and the best part were all the smiles and looks that Roger was doing every time your eyes connected.

He looked impossibly hoter, all sweaty and without his top. You could swear you had never seen something like that in your life.

“Yeah, I have to admit that they sound pretty good” Clare shouthed to you because it was impossible to hear something with all the noise.

When the concert finished you followed her to congratulate the boys.

“Did you liked it, [y/n]?” Brian asked you.

“Yes! Amazing guys”

You suddenly felt two arms wrapping around your waist and lifting you up in the air.

It was, obviously, Roger.

“I’m so happy that you are here, honey” He whispered to your ear before putting you on the floor again. “Did you enjoy it?”

“You know I did” You answered, winking to him. You noticed that his cheeks flushed a little at your words but you didn’t mention anything. “Clare was right beside me but since we arrived here I don’t know where she is anymore”

“I’m sure she’s in the bathroom right now, she always has to pee after a concert. Too much drinking, you know” You laughed. “You look amazing tonight”

Now you were the one flushing. “Thanks, Rog” You replied shyly. “You too”

The drummer smiled and passed a strand of your hair behind your ear and then came closer to whisper something without. “To be honest you look amazing always, love”

You could feel as a shiver ran through your whole body. Your right hand came to rest on his shoulder as his free one came find his place on your waist, the other one still playing with your hair.

“I have wanted to do this till the first time I saw you”

You just could gulp as he was approaching his face to yours.

And when he was almost there…

“We have been fantastic, darling! We- Oh!” You turned up to look a very surprised and embarrassed Freddie. “Sorry, sorry, sorry” And he left as fast as he could.

And right after that Clare appeared to give a hug to his brother and to guide both of you to the backstage party.

Damn.

4. At the cinema

After all your previous interruptions, Roger thought that the only chance you two had to kiss was on a date, so one day he called you and you agreed to go to the cinema.

You prepared yourself in detail. You were wearing your favourite chino pants and a new shirt you bought for the occasion. Red lips to complete the look.

What you didn’t expect is that he was also impecable dressed. His smile as the best complement.

“I hope you like action movies” He said nervous of your answer.

“Yes, sure. Anything but the movie Clare put the other day”

“Right” He smiled widely for your delight.

You entered the cinema and sat at the end of the room. Tension everywhere.

The drummer was especially nervous, his fingers tapping the piece of wood between you two. You were getting more and more nervous because of that so you decided to took his hand, a thing that Roger seemed to like by the way his body relaxed automatically.

But the tension appeared again when, in a scene, the main actors of the film shared a very heated kiss and you felt Roger’s grip tightening. You turned your head to him and he did the same. Your noises almost touching and your eyes closed as the previous times, but this time nobody was there to interrupt you, or was it?

*vrooom*

“Woah!” You heard Roger saying suddenly and when you opened your eyes you saw him looking at the screen in delight, eyes sparkling. “Look at that car, it’s amazing!”

And that’s when your anger made its appearance. “Are you fucking kidding me, Roger?”

“What?” He asked you without, eyes still fixed on the screen.

“We were finally going to kiss and you ruined it because you like the fucking car in the movie?”

“Have you look at it? It’s gorgeous” He said pointing to the screen.

“Fuck off” You said standing up.

“Hey! What are you doing?” He asked when he realized you were leaving.

“I’m going home… Maybe if you ask the car you can have a date with it”

“No, wait…” He followed you.

5. At the park

“How many times do I have to say that I’m sorry?”

“At least one hundred” You reply with your mouth full of ice cream.

“C’mon… I have invited you to dinner and to an ice cream too. Do you want me to flagellate myself or what?”

“That sounds great to me”

He scoffed and crossed his arms and the child you saw at his house the other day appeared again and you couldn’t do anything but smile.

“What?” He said looking at you half confused and half angry.

“You look like a child when you do that”

“When I do what?”

“Crossing your arms like than and putting that angry expression”

He rolled his eyes and placed his hands on his legs. “At least you laugh now”

“Do you want?” You asked offering him some ice cream.

“Yes, please” You approached it to his face but instead of allowing him to take a bite you literally dirtied his nose with it. “Hey!”

“Sorry but I wanted to do that since you bought it for me” You say between laughs.

“Clean it” He said pointing to his nose.

“I don’t think so”

“[y/n]... Clean it”

“Nope”

“Do you want to have chocolate on your face?”

“No, thank you”

“So if you don’t clean it right now that’s what is going to happen…”

“Alright” You said smiling. Then, you grabbed a tissue and took his face with one hand ready to clean him. “You actually look cute like that, you know”

He blushed immediately and looking even cuter, and you had an idea. Instead of cleaning it with the tissue, you started licking his nose. Roger was in shock, incapable of moving or saying anything. When you finished you planted a kiss on it. “Cleaned”

He gulped, still looking at you with wide eyes. “That was…”

“Hot?”

“Yes…”

You smiled triumphantly. “It’s a pity that you don’t have any more chocolate to clean”

He didn’t think it twice when he grabbed the ice cream of your hand and he got his lips dirty with it. “Ups…” He just said with a smirk.

You smiled back and grabbed him by the neck again, more than ready to kiss him.

But…

Suddenly a cat jumped between you too decided to stole the ice cream from Roger’s hands. “No!” He said rising his hands in an attempt to save your ice cream. “Bad cat!”

You tried to help with by scaring the cat but it was only focus on what was on the drummer’s hands and started to climb his back. “AH! It’s hurting me!”

“Go away, cat!” You continued scaring him but the only thing that happened was that the cat got angry and scratched the poor boy in the face. “Rog, throw the ice cream, it’s the only thing we can do to stop him”

He did as told and the cat quickly got off of him.

“Shit! That did hurt… Fucking stupid cat!” He touched his face to confirm that, as he thought, he was bleeding a little.

“Are you ok?” You said without being capable of contain the laugh.

“Do you think this is funny? I have got hurt to save your stupid ice cream and now you laugh at me?”

“Sorry, but the scene was very funny. Let’s clean it!” You approached him to examine the scratch.

“Don’t touch me…” He said moving away from your touch.

“Oh, c’mon Roger! It’s only a little scratch not the end of the world”

“It’s on my face! Why if it leaves a scar?”

“It won’t! Well not if you let me cure it” You slowly approached him and started caressing his arm. “Come to my house and I’ll clean it”

“I think I have more on my back”

“I’ll clean them too. C’mon!”

You started your way home and he quietly followed you.

+ 1. At your home

“Take off your shirt” You ordered while entering the room with some alcohol and gauzes on your hand. All his anger suddenly faded away and he smiled at you mischievously. You rolled your eyes while smiling and sat behind him. “Wow! You have four more scratches here!”

“And all because of you!”

“Excuse me?”

“Who wanted that ice cream?”

“Who had to buy it as an apology for being an absolute idiot at the cinema?” You shoot back.

“Touché” He replied making you both laughed.

You started to gently apply the alcohol on the wounds and he, obviously, started to act like a little child. He was all the time complaining about how much it was hurting and also he was moving everywhere making it more difficult.

“Roger, stop!”

“It hurts! You are the one who has to stop”

“I’m done with the back, turn so that I can finish with the one on your face”

He turned and you took his head with one hand, the other holding the gauze. “Don’t move”

“I can’t promise anything”

“Rog…”

“Alright… I’ll focus on your perfect face to avoid thinking on how much the alcohol stings”

Your face become a tomato in a matter of seconds. You tried not to think too much on what he had told you and started cleaning the scratch.

You were very close to each other and you could feel his beautiful blue eyes examining every inch of your face. “Stop”

“I’m not moving” He protested.

“You know what I’m talking about”

“I don’t” He said smiling.

“Don’t look at me like that”

“Why?”

You stopped to look directly at his eyes. “Because if you continue to do that I’m not going to be capable of contain myself and I’m going to kiss those perfect lips of yours”

He placed a hand on your face approaching it to his. “Do it” And you didn’t hesitate and FINALLY your lips connected. And it was perfect. Sweet and gently. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this to happen” He whispered.

“Let me guess… Since you met me at that party?” He simply smiled and kissed you again, this time with more passion.

“I like you a lot, [y/n]. I like you that much that I think I’m going crazy”

You placed your hand on the back of his neck, playing with his hair. “I like you too, Rog. More than I should”

“Nice” He said triumphantly before devouring your lips again.

He stayed for the night.

And for a little more too.

THE END

[doctorcolubra]

This is a day late for International Women’s Day but under the cut, please enjoy me telling my wife about two Byzantine empresses (sisters!) who hated each other but hated men and/or the world even more: Zoe and Theodora Porphyrogenita. Pretend it’s a transcript from your favourite podcast hosts!

(That’s Zoe on the right, pictured with her very good friend Jesus and one of her useless husbands)

Tal: so the sisters are Zoe (the hot one) and Theodora (the ugly one), and their dad keeps trying to marry them off to other rulers but nothing's working out, and he eventually just gives up and leaves them to rot in the women's quarters together for like, most of their adult life Tal: no one really knows why but they started to haaaaaaate each other Tal: Dad dies, and the two sisters are the only heirs to the dynasty, so now the whole court is trying to marry them off to local Byzantine aristocrats Clare: "NO FUCK YOU" Tal: the mayor of Constantinople is the big pick, but Theo is like "a) he's already married and b) he's my third cousin, so no" and Zoe says "yeah whatever I'll marry him" Tal: the mayor (Romanos Argyros) has his wife have an "accident" and he's free Clare: oh fuckin what Clare: this clown over here like "idk what happened, she just slipped and fell down forty-seven flights of my steps that are inset with jewels" Tal: Zoe now accuses Theo of conspiring against her, and has her dragged off into a monastery against her will Clare: WAIT A MONASTERY FOR A WOMAN WHAT Tal: but Zoe is like, almost 50, and she's trying to conceive but she CAN'T, she's trying potions and charms and shit, OH YEAH monastery is the term for both men and women in the East, a lot of the time Tal: Byzantines loooved to force people into taking vows Clare: OKAY CONTINUE Clare: (I know next to nothing about the Byzantine Empire actually so this is great) Tal: so Zoe can't get pregnant and Romanos is tired of her, so she's furious and starts fucking a servant, really flagrantly in front of everybody Clare: ride 'em cowboy Tal: Romanos goes "k" and takes his own mistress Clare: well at least he didn't "accident" Zoe I guess (YET) Tal: but then people start saying (correctly) that Zoe and her new boytoy want to kill him, and he is "concerned" but doesn't really do anything about it, he's kind of a weak dude Clare: he sounds like a real champ from what you've said, defs Tal: so Zoe and her lover drown him in the bathtub Clare: YESSSS Clare: GET SOME ZOE Tal: NOW plot twist, the servant loverboy's eunuch brother is the chamberlain of the palace, and he's this Machiavellian character, John Orphanotrophos Tal: with his brother fucking the empress, John is like OH BOY HERE'S MY CHANCE Tal: so as soon as his brother (Michael) is married to Zoe, John's like "okay uh let's...put her somewhere, she is not the most reliable lady" Clare: in a monastery Tal: NOT YET Michael puts her back in the women's quarters for now, where she conspires against the dudes in vain Clare: Michael u dum Tal: BUT Michael is epileptic and pretty soon his health is failing, John's basically running the empire from behind the scenes Clare: jesus christ Tal: his brother's dying, so John gets his nephew lined up to be the next emperor, and when Zoe protests, boom, monastery Clare: (WHERE IS THEO IN ALL THIS) Tal: THEO'S COMIN Tal: so Zoe's been sworn in at the monastery on an island, but the people of Constantinople decide they don't care for that, and they fuckin RIOT Clare: YEAAAAHHHHHH Tal: the mob dethrones John's relative and demands ZOE AND THEODORA BACK IN TOWN Clare: i just wanna imagine all of them screaming like frat dudes, YEAAAAHHHHHHH Tal: Zoe tries to make it all about her and send Theo back to HER monastery Tal: but the people ain't having it Clare: EXCUSE YOU LADY YOU JUST GOT A REPRIEVE HDU Tal: Theo demands that the emperor be blinded (Byzantines loooved to blind people) and have HIM sent to a monastery, and I think at the same time they also get rid of John by blinding him and castrating all his male relatives Clare: I KNEW THE BLINDING THING WEIRDLY ENOUGH Clare: that shit made it into [Mormon] scripture someplace or something, I knew that one BUT JESUS Y'ALL ARE SO SAVAGE Tal: HELLA so the Orthodox have a rule that you can only marry twice, you can't be a black widow for too long over there Tal: Zoe and Theo need husbands for heirs and they don't want to fuck it up this time Clare: oh god I'm so afraid Tal: Zoe wants this one dude who she had a broken engagement with yeeeeears ago, but then she meets him again and she's like "you know what I DON'T LIKE YOUR TONE" and scratches him off the list Tal: she tries another former fling, but he gets mysteriously poisoned by his wife, like "NOT GONNA DIVORCE ME FOR THE EMPRESS, BITCH" Clare: and then Zoe marries that wife Clare: because they would rule Clare: ...sorry I just made that up GO ON Tal: she finally finds a guy who's supposed to have been "handsome and urbane", and at this point I want to mention that all three of these men were named Constantine Clare: JESUS ZOE Clare: BRANCH OUT Tal: she marries him, he becomes Emperor, Zoe is still Empress but also so is Theo, and there are already court factions breaking out between them Clare: also she over 50, whh Clare: how is babby formed Tal: right, like girl IT AIN'T HAPPENING Tal: HOWEVER Constantine #3 wants to bring a fourth into their polycule Clare: k ya big weirdo Tal: he has a long-standing mistress named Maria and he demands that she be allowed to go everywhere with them and have a title of her own and all this shit Clare: "this isn't enough drama I WANT MORE OF IT MORE OF THE DRAMA" Tal: "The 64-year-old Zoë did not object to sharing her bed and her throne with Maria Skleraina." Clare: the 64-year-old Zoe had a li'l boner for Maria Skleraina neh Tal: so idk maybe she was cool with it but the public thought it was kinda weird, so now there are rumours that Maria wants to poison BOTH Zoe and Theo Tal: so there is another riot Tal: Constantinople does not take shit lying down Clare: that's what we do in our spare time btw, all of us women with husbands and no jobs Clare: we think about poisoning Clare: everything Clare: everyone Tal: I mean I get it Clare: (poisoning someone is the bitchiest move in history and I love it every time GO ON) Tal: that was basically it for Zoe, she let her husband have the power and she focused herself on developing a line of beauty products Clare: ....you're fucking with me Tal: “Zoë recognised her own beauty and its use as a tool of statecraft. Attempting to maximise and prolong its effect she had a variety of creams and treatments prepared in the gynaeceum, and was said to have carried out experiments attempting to improve their efficacy. She operated a cosmetics laboratory in her rooms in the palace, where perfumes and unguents were constantly being prepared. Psellus reports that her face looked youthful into her sixties.” Clare: YOU WERE NOT FUCKING WITH ME Clare: I'M SCREAMING Tal: RIGHT Tal: now after Zoe died, Theo wasn't done yet Clare: you know what I want tho, you know what I want Clare: I want Theo to be poisoned by one of Zoe's neck creams Tal: IT DID NOT HAPPEN, ALAS Clare: just standing over her as she dies like THIS IS THE LONG CON, SISTER MINE Tal: Zoe died first (of presumably natural causes) and Theo basically made the dudes recognise her not as empress but as EMPEROR Clare: oh gosh I like her Tal: she got the senate and the imperial guard on her side Clare: oh I like her so much Tal: and then SHE PURGED Clare: that is such a power move that is such a Cersei Lannister move oh my god Tal: all the officials she didn't trust, all the guys that were being suggested for her position instead of her, DISMISSED AND EXILED Clare: BOOOOOM Tal: she was 76 but she gathered all the power in her own hands as much as she could, she showed up in the senate every day and judged cases herself, she was not here to play Clare: that is fucking fantastic Clare: I wanna marry her Tal: she did finally die but she refused to get married and refused to even name an heir because she knew THAT'S HOW THEY GET YOU, and only on her deathbed did she kind of nod like "I guess" to appoint some civil servant as emperor Tal: who nobody liked but they thought he was easy to control Clare: BOSS ASS BITCH Tal: YUP Clare: aaaaaaamazing Tal: and that is the story of Zoe and Theo, the end Clare: I LOVE THEM

[alexander-slander]

Song Fic Chapter one

Part one (1)

Okay so this is a little ten chapter thing that will be being posted in two parts for some chapters. Not sure how big the chapters will be.

Summary: College au. Characters singing to each other. There’s not much I can say without giving it away.

DISCLAIMER: None of the songs feautured in this story are mine!

TW:There’s no real warnings minor cussing I think can’t remember if you want to be tagged let me know enjoy!!

—————————————————————

Magnus and Camille

I was sitting in my loft thinking about everything that happened since I met her. We met back in high school. I was head over heels for her. I did everything I could to impress her. I even turned my back on my best friends Catarina and Ragnor.

After we broke up I said I was never going back to her. My friends didn’t believe it but they supported me. Last week was the last straw. I had to end it once and for all I was done playing her mind games.

I texted her asking if we could meet up at my place in an hour.

To Camille: hey can you come over in an hour we need to talk.

From Camille: Sure I’ll be there. ;)

I shuddered when I saw the winking face. I can’t believe I let her control me for so long. We were in our third year of college and I knew I was in a toxic relationship. I never let myself believe it though. I always pinned it off as a misunderstanding on my part.

Last week when I saw her harassing that cute shy boy from my drama class my blood ran cold. I walked right up to her and said, “Camille, sour patch, would you mind stepping away from my new friend he hasn’t done anything wrong to you.” She looked at me dumbfounded that I’d talked to her like that then I stepped in front of Alec I believe is his name. Then I said, “Also don’t bother stopping by tonight we’re done.” Everyone looked shocked. Yes I’d stood up to her a couple times before but nothing like this.

I grabbed Alec’s hand and dragged him to my favorite café on campus. Camille never liked this place so I didn’t get to come her often but luckily one of my friends worked here so she knew how to fix my drink.

I walked into the café and waved to Clary who gave a thumbs up and made two coffees. We sat down at a booth and we started talking. Clary came over and gave us our drinks.

“So Magnus, where’s Camille? She’s not taking one of her sick days. And no offense but you’re always glued to her side when she goes to class. So you hardly have time to stop by.”

I blushed sheepishly at that and bent my head. “Well my dear biscuit there is no offense taken because I am aware of my actions. Also I’ll have you know that I just publicly dumped Camille while she was harassing poor Alexander. For good this time.”

“One nice. Honestly I didn’t think you had the guts to do it in public. Second I’m not going to hold my breath on this being the last time I hear you’re dating Camille.”

Before I could protest she turned to Alec and asked, “So Alec besides the fact that Magnus just saved your life how do you know him?”

He chuckled and it was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. “Good one Clare.” We both gave him a look that said ‘this is no joke.’

“Alec she can destroy your life on and off campus. You think that bully in high school was bad she’s worse.”

He looked petrified now. “Wait I’m confused how do you know Alexander?”

“Magnus this is Alec Lightwood my boyfriends’ brother along with my best friends’ brother.”

I was about to say something then she said, “Magnus I would love to keep talking but I need to get back to work. Sorry.” She said and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Even though Alexander doesn’t seem like that much of an affectionate person she went over and gave him a hug.

A ding sound brought me out of my thoughts. That day was so clear in my head like it happened yesterday when in reality it happened a week ago. I downed my drink and answered the door.

“Magnus my dear, how are you?”

“Quit with the small talk Camille.”

“Always right to the point. Huh Magnus?” She smirked

“I remember when we broke up the first time

Saying, ‘this is it, I've had enough,’ cause like

we hadn't seen each other in a month. Because you said you needed space.

Then you come around again and say

“‘Baby, I miss you and I swear I'm gonna change.’”Remember how that lasted for a day?

I say, "I hate you," we break up, you call me, "I love you." We called it off again last week.”

“What are you saying Magnus?” She asked disbelief clear in her voice.

“I'm telling you we are never ever, ever getting back together. You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me,

but we are never ever, ever, ever getting back together like, ever.

She stood there looking dumb founded. But I continued.

“I’m not really gonna miss us picking fights

And you falling for it screaming that you’re right

And you would hide away and find your peace of mind

With some indie record that's much cooler than mine. I called you up again tonight. So I could tell you this time we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together.”

“Magnus you can’t be serious.”

“Oh but I can and I am. I’m sick and tired of having you rule my life. And the way you treated Alec last week that was the last straw. What gave you the right to harass him like you did?”

“Magnus he’s different he doesn’t belong at our school.”

“Well you know what I think we should embrace our differences. Cause you know what I’m different too. I’m bi.”

She looked disgusted and shocked at the same time. “Did you really think I was a straight guy who wore make up?” I chuckled and walked over to the door. “Good day Camille I hope this is the last time we talk…ever.” I said gesturing out the door.

She sauntered out of the room and turned around but before she could say a word I slammed the door in her face. I sat down on the couch and started a group chat.

Glitter-mania added: biscuit, grumpyfell, NurseCatarina, the grouch, Angel

The grouch: Magnus what do you want?!

Glitter-mania: well good afternoon to you too.

Grumpyfell: Magnus to what do we owe the pleasure.

Biscuit: Magnus I love you but I’m working the late night shift at the café and I really need to finish this essay for my English class so can we please hurry this up.

Glitter-mania: well your paper can wait a little longer as I have news that you’re just dying to hear.

Angel: Uhhh…Clary? What’s going on here? Who are all these people?

Biscuit: oh hey Alec didn’t know Magnus got your number ;) Anyway Glitter-mania is Magnus. I’m guessing grumpyfell is Magnus’s friend Ragnor fell. NurseCatarina is our friend Catarina and I’m not sure who the grouch is.

The grouch: honestly red I’m offended.

Biscuit: Ahh now I get it hey Raph.

Glittery-mania: since all the introductions have been made it’s time for my news.

The grouch: Magnus if you don’t hurry up I’m seriously going to block you.

Angel: Now I understand why he’s called the grouch.

NurseCatarina: Hey guys. What’s up?

Biscuit: hey Cat glad you could join us. Also say hey to my friend Angel. It’s Alec Lightwood.

NurseCatarina: hey Alec nice to meet you.

Angel: …

Biscuit: sorry Cat he’s shy around new people.

NurseCatarina: it’s fine anyway what this big news that you have Magnus?

Glitter-mania: so you may have heard rumors about me publicly dumping Camille.

Angel: well they aren’t rumors since you actually did. I should know I was there.

Grumpyfell: we all know that you broke up with her a week ago.

The grouch: Magnus I swear if you tell us that you’re back together with that witch I am going to come over there and punch you in the face.

NurseCatarina: why is he in such a grumpy mood?

Glittery-mania: I’m not sure he’s been testy since I texted everyone.

The grouch: Magnus!! Hurry up or I’m going to come over there and punch you so hard you’ll be out for two days!

Glittery-mania: Alright, alright, so I called Camille over so we could talk. And before anyone says anything it’s not so we could get back together. I told her we are never ever, ever getting back together. Like ever.

Grumpyfell: Finally that witch is out of our hair for good.

Biscuit: hey can I add Jace, Izzy and Simon so they can hear too?

Glittery-mania: of course biscuit you know what I say the more the merrier.

Biscuit added the Idiotblonde, kickbuttfighter, starwarsnerd.

Idiotblonde: hey what’s up?

Starwarsnerd: hey fray what’s going on?

Kickbuttfighter: who’s all in the group?

Biscuit: Raphael, Catarina, Ragnor, Magnus, and Alec.

Glitter-mania named the group chat “celebrating”

Idiotblonde: so Magnus what are we celebrating?

The grouch: Read up and find out.

Private chat between starwarsnerd and biscuit.

Starwarsnerd: Fray who’s ‘The grouch’

Biscuit: Alright we really need to change his name. It’s Raphael.

Starwarsnerd: wait you’re telling me that I’m in a group chat with Raphael Santiago?

Biscuit: no I’m telling you that you’re in a group chat with Raphael Stevens. Yes that’s what I’m telling you.

Starwarsnerd: Omgomgomgomgomgomgomg.

Biscuit: Simon calm down

Starwarsnerd: …‘Panting’

Biscuit: Simon don’t you dare hyperventilate on me. I have an English essay to write and I’m working the late night shift tonight.

Starwarsnerd: …

Biscuit: for gods sakes Simon —————————————————————

To be continued!!!!!! That’s where we leave it for this part until next time enjoy! Comments are welcome if you have any questions don’t be afraid to ask!!!!

[aelin-and-feyre]

Ten Minutes Ago (Part 11)

Feysand - Cinderella au

Fic Masterlist

Only one more part after this!

Rhys is pacing again—he seems to be doing this a lot lately—dragging his hands through his hair over and over, practically pulling chunks out.

“If you keep doing that you’re going to go bald.” Cassian warns, not even looking at his Prince to know what he’s doing. “We tried everything Rhys, and now Az will find her. Don’t worry.”

But Rhys has to worry. Cassian hadn’t seen—really seen what had happened tonight. He witnessed the carriage going through the gate but his Captain hadn’t seen the rest.

“You don’t understand, Cassian,” Rhys exclaims, exasperated. “Her dress was practically disappearing from around her body, she slipped through a solid door, she went through a wrought iron gate for Cauldron’s sake!”

“Okay, so she’s magical, there are tons of people and things out there with magic,” Cassian reasons carefully. “Why is it such a bad thing?”

“Because it means she could be anywhere by now! She could’ve flown away, morphed into a dog, transported to another dimension for all we know and I will never be able to find her!” The Prince stresses. Cassian lets out a huge sigh of relief.

“Oh thank god,” he breathes, “I thought you were freaking out because you fell in love with a magical being, I was ready to slap you upside the head, and Amren would’ve too.”

Rhys rolls his eyes. “Of course I still love her, I couldn’t care less about any powers she might have. She’s amazing, and smart, and sensitive, and beautiful, and-“

“Okay, Romeo,” Cassian puts his hand on his Prince’s back and guides him to the door. “I think it’s time for you to get some sleep.”

Just then, the door to the library bursts open, revealing Azriel, breathing heavily. Rhys and Cassian rush over to him and quickly sit him down in one of the chairs to catch his breath.

“Did you find her?” Rhys asks impatiently.

Azriel shakes his head and takes a deep breath. “No, I’m sorry, Your Highness. The carriage vanished.”

“The whole carriage? The horses, driver, footmen, everything?” Rhys questions and Azriel looks hesitant, like he’s not sure if he should say whatever he wants to. “What is it?”

“No, that wouldn’t be possible,” the spy mutters to himself.

Rhys scoffs. “Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of things tonight that should be impossible. Tell me what happened.”

Az takes another deep breath. “We were right behind her, going through the north roads, and the carriage took a sharp right. We were surprised and galloped right past the path. Galloping back, I let the others go ahead because I needed to talk to the girl.”

“The girl? What girl?” Rhys and Cassian ask simultaneously.

“A girl was sitting to the side of the path—dirty clothes, tangled hair, white apron. Do you know many horses were leading her carriage?” Azriel asks suddenly.

“Four,” Rhys answers almost immediately, he memorized everything he already knew about her earlier that day to set up this plan. A plan that failed miserably.

Azriel nods. “And two footmen….” He shakes his head again. “Anyway, I dismounted and talked her her. Very high voice, name’s Sevenda, works in the village, common citizen. But I don’t know, there was something about her…” He trails off and Cassian and Rhys exchange a look. “Anyway, I left her and when I caught up with the others, they were at a dead end. The path just stops and there was no sign of a carriage trampling through the brush. Then, when we went back, the girl was long gone.”

Rhys lets his head drop. That girl very well could’ve been Clare, and now he has no idea where she could be.

“Your Highness, this girl couldn’t have been Clare, she would have to be-“

“Magic,” Rhys answers for him, raising his head to look at his friend. “I’m guessing that she has some sort of ability that allows her to move through objects and change her appearance.”

Azriel shakes his head. “No, I wouldn’t say that. Part of my job is to tell when people have magic—Clare does not possess any herself.”

“Okay, so she’s not magical,” the Prince ponders, “but then how did she pass through the door and the gate, and how did she change so quickly?”

“I didn’t say she doesn’t have magic with her,” Azriel continues, pulling an object from his hunting bag. “She might not be magic, but this surely is.”

Pulling the cloth away, the glass slipper Clare lost the night before is revealed. He hands it to Rhys. “You mean it’s enchanted?” Cassian questions.

“No, more like it’s made of magic. This shoe did not exist until a faerie or other flicked their wand, creating a perfect fit for whoever it was meant for,” Az explains.

“I thought you said that Clare isn’t magical,” Rhys accuses.

“Oh, she’s not, but she must know someone who is because this leaves a clear magical residue. I’m guessing some sort of fairy godmother.”

Everything is starting to click for Rhys. “You said this is a perfect fit for Clare?” He questions, still examining the relatively small shoe.

His friend nods. “I’d be surprised if anyone else’s foot ever fits in that, and it is only because it got stuck in the tar that Clare’s foot slipped out in the first place.”

The wheels in Rhys’ head are turning, thinking of a new plan. “Okay, Az, this is what I need you to do.”

...

“What?” Feyre exclaims, close to tears. Her stepmother surely can’t mean what she is saying, it’s preposterous.

Amarantha sighs. “You are over the usual age Cinderella, it’s time you are married off. Tamlin is a nice man, I met him just last night at the ball and he fell in love with the idea of you,” she assures and Feyre feels like she’s choking—all the air is forced from her lungs.

“B-but, I can’t get married to someone I don’t know, to someone I don’t love!” She manages to say and Amarantha scoffs.

“Please be serious Cinderella—do you really think any man will ever give you the time of day long enough for you to fall in love? You’ll be an old maid before the chance of that can happen.” Feyre wants to protest, wants to say that she has fallen in love, that she has someone who wants her. But she can’t—can’t tell Amarantha about Rhys. Not ever. “So, go pack up. Tamlin is coming tomorrow to collect you.” Amarantha dismisses Feyre with a flick of her hand and she slowly turns away just as the door opens.

“Mother!” Nesta’s voice is shrill as both girls sprint into the living room, not giving a second glance the tears of Feyre’s cheeks. “You will not believe what we just heard in the village.”

Amarantha visibly perks up. “What happened?”

“There was a royal decree!” Elain squeals and Nesta puts her hand up to silence her.

“Princess Clare left her shoe at the ball last night,” the older sister begins, Feyre now listening intently—the other slipper stayed as well, then. “The Prince still doesn’t know who she is so he’s having the High Lord’s Hand travel the Court and every maiden in the land is to try on the slipper. Then, whoever the shoe fits, that girl will be the prince’s bride!”

Amarantha stands up suddenly, rushing over to the girls and gathering them in a large hug. “Oh my little devils, we still have a chance!” She exclaims, then releases them quickly with a gasp. “We must get ready!” Her stepmother turns and seems to remember that Feyre is there. Scowling, she says, “Well what are you waiting for? You are no longer needed in this household, go upstairs and pack.”

“But I am an eligible maiden,” Feyre insists, her hope restored. Rhys is searching through every eligible maiden, that means the servants and shopkeepers too, that means he might accept her if he finds out—when he finds out.

However, as always, Amarantha crushes that hope. “Not anymore you’re not, you’re engaged,” she reminds and the sisters gape as Amarantha ushers Feyre to her staircase with no further argument. “Now go.”

Silent tears slip down Feyre’s face as she climbs the steps, opening her small attic bedroom slowly and falling onto the old mattress. She begins to sob, clutching her beautiful glass slipper.

...

Rhys takes a deep breath, raises his fist, and knocks on his father’s door. “Come in,” a voice from inside beckons. Rhys pushes the door open to see his father and Nuala standing by the window.

“You called for me father?” The Prince asks.

“Yes, Nuala has just brought something to my attention.” Rhys turns his attention to the cook, one of his closest friend who has helped him a lot since his mother died.

“Prince Rhys,” she begins, “before Clare fled last night, she told me something, knowing that I would know whether this information should be passed onto you.”

Suddenly, the Prince is incredibly desperate. “You know something about her? Please Nuala, tell me. I need to know who she is,” Rhys begs, not caring that his father is seeing this weakness.

The High Lord places a hand on Rhys’ shoulder. “Sit down, son,” he requests, sitting down himself. “Clare’s not a princess is she?” Rhysand averts his eyes, shaking his head as his only response. “That’s what I thought—but you love her? Even though she is not royalty?”

“I love her more than anything, father—she is my mate,” Rhys whispers, feeling in his whole being how much he loves this girl.

The High Lord’s eyes widen and then he gives his son a rare smile. “Then I think I know who she is,” Rhys looks up in shock, his eyes searching his father’s for any form of treachery. “I recognized her last night but thought it impossible because she was a princess. She looks so much like her mother I should have known right away.”

The Prince is on the edge of his seat. “You recognized her too.”

The High Lord nods again. “Especially with that song you two sang together, so much like her mother—like your mother.” Nuala nudges him to let him know that he should just tell Rhys before he explodes. “She lives in the north, in the Hybern household, as it is now called. I don’t know her first name but you will find her there.”

Rhys is standing again, hugging Nuala shortly and then bowing to his father, ready to bolt for the door. One hand on the handle, the High Lord calls him back. “Rhys.” The Prince looks into his father’s weary, sick features that are just managing a grin. “Her mother was your mother’s very best friend. I approve of this girl with all my heart, so you better not mess this up. I’m happy for you.”

He feels his heart pinch, tears coming to his eyes, and he smiles softly. “Thank you, father.” And then Rhysand exits the office and takes off to go find his mate.

Masterlist

[pcvkaplowitz-blog]

In Retrospect...

“Stand up when your name is called” directed the Costa Rican border agent standing in the front of our bus. Coming from Nicaragua I’d heard a lot about Costa Rica, it seemed like everyone I talked to knew somebody working across the border. The more politically minded would tell me that the only reason Costa Rica was prosperous was because of the Nicaraguans who fled during the war. Since then the border crossing is hard for Nicaraguans, and usually it would have been harder for me as well, but the U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua and Costa Rica had already coordinated with the Costa Rican government to ensure our evacuation went smoothly.

“Josh Wynn” called the agent, and I though back to killing the scorpion and chinche with Josh “Bootylicious” Wynn what seemed like an eternity ago but actually only been the week prior. In Somoto, Clare “Fachenta” Davies looked on in horror, silently praying that the next two years of service in Nicaragua wouldn’t be filled with dangerous insects in a remote mountain village. The bugs were a hardship we expected to face. Indoctrinated with the mantra of resiliency the prospect of leaving Nicaragua before the 27 months term of service ended barely figured into the imagination. Now, almost two months after arriving we were crossing into Costa Rica.

News of the protest first reached me on Thursday while travelling from Somoto back to my training site by way of Managua. The handful of the other volunteers who happened to be traveling on the same bus with as me received texts notifying us of the protests. The first messages were innocuous, telling us that we must take taxis to avoid loitering in the Managua areas. The severity increased with each successive notification until finally we were told to disembark in Tipitapa and avoid Managua all together. In Tipitapa we rendezvoused with Peace Corps officials who drove us back to our sites. Even then I failed to comprehend the extent of the upheaval brewing.

Once safely in Niquinohomo the news of the protests came through filtered sources. It was clear that the initial protest was in response to an executive order changing social security but the reason for the volatile nature of the protests was unclear. The only news channels broadcasting on TV served as offered biased critique and inaccurate reports, skewed to support Ortega. My host sister works in the Mayor’s office and downplayed the protests. Other locals in my house claimed that the protests had been used as an excuse for vandals to loot stores. They all seemed to think there would be a return to order soon. These viewpoints contrasted sharply with those of other members of my community.

On Friday it became apparent that the unrest was bigger than originally apparent. People complained of election fraud, lack of representation, and the disconnect between the Ortega of today and the former Sandinista leader. Some accused Ortega of selling out Nicaragua for his personal profit. Additionally, it became apparent that the peaceful protests had been responded to with violence. Riot police took to the streets and counter-protestors fought the demonstrators. In Tipitapa, where I had been hours before, a Nicaraguan was killed. State news claims the murder was by vandals intent on burning the mayors office, but a number of other sources allege the vandals were paid by the government to cause violence and delegitimize the protestors.

Peace Corps sent me another notification: “Standfast.” The emergency action plan was officially underway. In Niquinohomo it remained calm, it seemed surreal. I had heard the news but assumed it was exaggerated like the way Fox covers the protests in Ferguson and Chicago. I still thought things would settle down. I didn’t pack a go-bag and walked around town in my flip flops chatting with the neighbors.

That night there was a large march in Niquinohomo. Hundreds of people paraded through the streets wearing black, waving Nicaraguan flags, tearing down Sandinista propaganda. Trucks and biked honked their horns. The people chanted. “They have the right to demonstrate” said my sister who works at the Mayors office. She didn’t join the protestors though, I heard anyone who worked for the state (including teachers and local and regional officials) would lose their job for demonstrating or criticizing Ortega.  The police in Niquinohomo waited on the street corners and watched. The police in other sites were not so patient.

Violence blossomed over the weekend. Police fired live rounds into crowds, killing students. Snipers on the rooftops in Managua targeted people seeking refuge in a church. I was told “They’re aiming at the head and the heart, they’re trying to take people out.” In Bluefields a journalist was killed, shot in the head while streaming on Facebook live because his channel had been cut off.  Across the country the army was deployed.

My friend living in El Rosario texted me: “I heard they are coming to burn our alcaldia (trans. mayors office)...” Her family locked down their house and she slept with her knife. The mob never came for her but in Leon, Diriamba, Masaya, Managua, Bluefields and other cities it did, burning down the mayor’s offices. In Masaya fighting between the police and the citizens was especially severe. “It’s a war over there,” my host family warned me.

Ortega spoke but his two-hour speech only managed to enrage the crowds. His themes were tangential, and his demeanor was slow. He reminded me of a tortoise with Alzheimer’s. He called for dialogue but only with the heads of the COSEP, a group of business leaders that spent the past decade eating out of Ortega’s hand. Later he revoked the executive order, but it wasn’t enough to calm the crowds. Some businesses closed. Many grocery stores and gas stations were looted.

Peace Corps activated the next step of the Emergency Action Plan on Sunday, “Consolidation.” At this point Peace Corps Volunteers in Managua were locked down in the central office, unable to leave even to go pack their belongings for the evacuation. Trainees in Diriamba had spent the prior night gathered at the house of a volunteer avoiding the disturbances downtown. I packed half my things, expecting the reversal of the order to be enough to reverse the consolidation decision.

At 9:00 pm I got a call telling me that I’d be picked up the next morning for Consolidation in Grandad before eventual evacuation to Costa Rica and the States. Reluctantly I admitted that I would have to leave tranquil Niquinohomo. My host mom was upset “We have food, we have water, we have electricity, this house is very secure!” She told me. “Out there is where the craziness is, everything is fine here!” I had to explain the order was from the Ambassador and it was for all volunteers not just us. She still didn’t want to see me go.

I left twice. At 10 AM the van picked us up and I helped load bags on the roof, tying the bags down as the sun beat down. I finished securing the bags and hopped down, ran to hug the host families goodbye, and hopped in the van. We got on the road and began our briefing session when Daniel “Freak” Tassitino asked me where my backpack was. I apologized profusely as we turned the bus around to go grab my laptop, passport, and camera. Twenty minutes later and I was back on the road with my backpack and a big IOU for Daniel’s host family.

In the bus Ashley explained the situation. Official reports of death were underreported and estimates are that 100 people were killed over the weekend. The plan was to stay in Granada for two days and get all volunteers together before moving on to Costa Rica and eventually the United States. The Embassy was evacuating all non-essential personnel. There were concerns about accessing food, water, and gas. Some routes to the embassy had been blocked off leading to fear about being cut off. It felt good to be with the other trainees. We felt safe together and I trusted Peace Corps to keep us safe.

The customs agent began calling names I didn’t recognize. The names of the Volunteers who shared our bus. All the trainees and volunteers got evacuated together. In Granada we mingled awkwardly. The group was conflicted. I’d met some of the volunteers before and I tried to take advantage of the opportunity to talk with them and meet other people who could share some perspective with me. At the same time I tried to avoid being insensitive to those taking the transition harder than I was. Some of the older volunteers resented being pulled away from their families for the last time without being able to say goodbye. Some had friends in jail. But here in a fancy hotel we enjoyed drinks by the pool and catered meals, almost as if nothing happened.

Granada looked peaceful. I knew there had been protests earlier in the week but the tourist district we stayed in was tranquilo. The first day we were locked down in the hotel. There was nothing to occupy our time that first day except the pool and Flor de Cana rum. I don’t think it really hit me that I’d be back in the States in less than a week. When we to packing up all our stuff and leave our homes I told my friend Troy “Sweet T” Marderosian that “best case scenario this is all just an annoyance.” The first day in Granada were like a little bourgeoisie vacation at the time and I enjoyed it while briefly under the impression that we may return to our normal routine before too long.

The briefings began the second day in Granada and it was made clear we would be leaving the country. Don Howard, the seemingly implacable country director, choked up during his speech. He tried to sound hopeful, but the gloomy reality of the situation couldn’t be ignored.  The uncertainty that had provided refuge and hopes of a quick return during the consolidation process morphed as Peace Corps switched to “Evacuation” mode.  Staff members families were sent to the United States. The Director traveled with an escort from the embassy. The immediate confusion of what going to happen now turned into an anxiety about what’s going to happen next.

We boarded the busses. Fifty volunteers per bus, our belongings stuffed into the storage spaces, only a few hours behind schedule we headed toward the border. Jammed packed, I was grateful for the air conditioning. No stops, I was grateful for the bathroom. Although, we did get off for a minute right before the border while they searched the busses, it was fast almost cursory. And now here we are getting ushered into Costa Rica. When they called my name, I waved from the back row, popping my head above the seats, acutely feeling the privilege of my blue and gold passport.

The border crossing made me think of all the people we were leaving behind. Don Howard had mentioned that all the staff accompanying us were leaving their families. How could anyone be asked to leave their family in an agitated country to accompany some privileged gringos across the border? And what of our own friends and host families? I’m grateful Niquinohomo is safe but the protests have continued. I’m outraged at the injustices committed by the government in Nicaragua, the lack of representation, the twisting of the facts. I also can leave at will. I’m privileged to disconnect.

“Poverty is not knowing if you can ever leave” Said Peter Hatch during our training. And now I’m leaving a country just when the situation gets hairy. It’s funny that just a few weeks prior I was surprised that people had been complaining to me about the government and now there were riots in the street. I guess the people had enough. A number of people told me that Ortega had sold out to corporate interests.

“Nicaragua could be the richest country in central America” said my neighbor. But the country has a brutal history of dictators using the natural resources for their own personal gain, complicit in this is the buying power of the United States and other foreign countries. The U.S. has been responsible for starting wars in Nicaragua and benefited from exploitative trade agreements. It is the pinicle of irony that an American businessman pressured Ortega to reverse the Social Security mandate that sparked the riots. Civil disturbances are bad for business.

“The people don’t trust COSEC, they’ve been stealing from Nicaragua for the past 20 years” Said Ashely. The people have power in the streets, but when they let the business sector speak for them they lose that power. Ortega has dictated who he will negotiate with, the streets don’t care, the streets shout “Ortega, Somoza, son la misma cosa.” The streets want change. The people are finding their voice. And I am leaving.

In Costa Rica the change is noticeable. The countryside houses have cars in front of them. Even the roads in the mountains look different. Although I haven’t had the chance to travel much of Nicaragua, For the first time since moving to Latin America I got to see the Pacific Ocean. We check in and settle into rooms at another nice hotel and meet up for the first debrief sessions.

The sessions at the hotel are mundane. They cover the logistics of the departure. The specific reasons for leaving. They leave the future floating in ambiguity. They share the resources Peace Corps offers to deal with the transition. My mind meanders, my pen doodles on the page. I look around and see other people drifting off in their own worlds.

As a volunteer the time in Costa Rica felt protracted. Our debriefing meetings were done en mass and despite many voices asking, the answer I really wanted was absent. I still don’t know if I’m going back. The officials refused to speculate. It’s really up in the air. At least, I better understand the process of how the decision is going to be made.

The suspension of activities works on 30 day cycles, starting with the date we left the country. Every 30 days the staff in the embassy will assess development in Nicaragua. The criteria they will use to determine if we are cleared to return is the same criteria that factored into their decision to evacuate. These include, access to food and water, access to gas, freedom of travel, peaceful demonstrations. Protests are acceptable as long as the threat of violence is low.

Now I wait. In the meantime, I’m keeping myself occupied, see friends, travel, write, organize my photos… I can already feel a shift in my attitude. When I first got bck I was enthusiastic to explain the situation and confident that I would return, my brain still focused on the content of training. Now, hardly a week later I am thinking in terms of plans and things I would like to do here, imagining my goals for after Peace Corps.

In some ways it’s good to have this opportunity to think a little bit more of my goals for after Peace Corps and direct what I want to get out of the next two years. Assuming I still go. I still want to go but I’m dreading what the culture shock will be like going back and forth. I felt like I was just settling down and getting ready to live in Nicaragua for two years when I got pulled out.  If I have to go to another site the wait could be another 9 months, and I don’t know what I would do in the meantime…

So while my head is still spinning it is only because once again the future is unknown. Thrown back into the chasm right when I was getting comfortable with my plan for the next two years.

[claremal-one]

Have Americans’ Views On Race Relations And Police Brutality Changed Since Ferguson?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Over the past week, there were a number of demonstrations across the U.S., protesting the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. Videotape captured a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck, ignoring repeated cries from Floyd saying, “I can’t breathe.”

But while the majority of Americans (61 percent) think Floyd’s race played a significant role, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll, there is less agreement on how people are processing the protests. Fifty-one percent of Americans in that same poll described the unrest in Minneapolis as “mostly violent riots,” while just 10 percent described it as “mostly peaceful protests.” A quarter said it was a mix.

In many ways, what happened in the wake of Floyd’s death — the police officer was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Friday — felt like a watershed moment in how the majority of Americans view deaths at the hands of police. Police chiefs across the nation condemned what happened, as did many conservative news personalities, but in the aftermath of the protests, there has been, as Wesley Lowery of “60 Minutes” describes, a desire to ascribe “simple narratives to explain complicated realities.” In other words, the protests may risk dividing Americans along familiar partisan and racial fault lines.

The subject of race relations in America is complex, but what can we say, at this point, about what has happened as a result of Floyd’s death? Are Americans reacting differently from how they did in 2014, after Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri? How have Americans changed — or not changed — on issues of police violence and racial relations since then?

To start, how is this moment different?

john.sides (John Sides, political science professor at Vanderbilt University): If anything, Americans have become more pessimistic about race relations, according to Gallup polling conducted before Floyd’s death.

Gallup has asked since the early 2000s whether relations between white people and black people are good or bad. And among African Americans, the percentage who said “very good” or “somewhat good” fell from 66 percent in 2013 to 40 percent in 2018. Views among white Americans are also less positive than they were in 2013, but they’re still higher than views among African Americans, as you can see in the chart below.

maggie (Maggie Koerth, senior science writer): I see some big differences in how white people, particularly conservative white people, and police officers are approaching Floyd’s death. I first noticed that earlier last week, when conservative family members started reaching out to tell me they agreed with the protesters and thought the police officer responsible for Floyd’s death should be arrested, including the officer’s colleagues who stood by and watched without intervening. And now we’ve seen things like police officers in other cities taking the knee … something I couldn’t have imagined happening a year ago.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): A couple of things are at work: 1) The video of Floyd’s death is pretty unambiguous. We know what happened. That wasn’t the case in the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, and in some other high-profile deaths by police. 2) We’re in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic and economic meltdown. Floyd himself was allegedly trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill, and I think a lot of people see the protests over his death as indicative of the spot we’re in. People have been grappling with death for months. They’re angsty and in lockdown, social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus. There are a LOT of emotions swirling in America.

sarah: Right, there’s both this unprecedented moment we’re in, as Clare says, and the fact that views on race relations in the U.S. had already taken a sharp downturn after 2014 during Obama’s presidency, after both the grand jury decisions in Brown’s and Eric Garner’s cases found the police officers not guilty. And as John pointed out earlier, these numbers haven’t exactly bounced back either.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): People see race relations poorly because the Black Lives Matter movement really gained prominence in 2014, Trump emerged as a presidential candidate the same year, and we’ve had racialized conflict ever since.

In other words, people see race relations as poor because they are poor!

The news media is also covering these conflicts in the frame of race conflict a lot, unlike it did pre-2014.

clare.malone: Yeah, there’s probably more nuance in the coverage of these protests and deaths.

maggie: Than previous ones, you mean? I’d agree with that, for sure.

clare.malone: First, we’ve now had a few years of these videos that make people — namely, white people — who aren’t as intimately acquainted with police violence, feel some digital proximity to those events. They are emotionally tugged. And they are then intellectually tugged into the conversation, and then, finally, in an activist way, tugged into actual protests. We’re basically seeing a maturation of the conversation, in part because more people have become aware of the issue and then, I think, the media has matured (slightly) in its coverage.

And what I mean by that is that there’s more awareness of what it means to call something a “riot.” There’s more talk about what motivates looting/anger/violent reactions to police in a protest.

I don’t think you get that without America having had a few years of just seeing these videos over and over again. It’s horrific that we’ve had years of videos of these deaths at the hands of police. But I think that it has made the problem more understood.

maggie: There’s also an element of the heavy-handed response against the press having an impact on how the protests are covered. It’s one thing to be a local TV news reporter covering Black Lives Matter protests in Minnesota a few years ago and framing them largely as a rude, maybe scary, inconvenience. (Which is what I, as a local citizen, saw the media do.) Now, though, when the police are shooting reporters with munitions live on TV, well … the conversation changes.

sarah: Yeah, this piece from Slate caught my eye because, while it pointed out that the police’s public response to Floyd’s death has been different — police officers have condemned the officer and called for him to be charged — the overall police response to protesters hasn’t actually been all that different.

maggie: Yeah. We just published a story on Monday with The Marshall Project, about how difficult it is to change police norms when it comes to dealing with protests — even in the face of 50 years’ worth of evidence.

clare.malone: Of course, you’ve also got forces like the Sergeants Benevolent Association in New York City that feel pretty free to put some nutty stuff/rhetoric out there too …

john.sides: This is not my area of expertise, but there is research indicating that police respond more harshly to protests that are specifically reacting to police brutality.

sarah: What do we know so far about how Americans are reacting to the protests, though?

john.sides: Attitudes toward the protests are mixed. That Yahoo News/YouGov poll you mentioned earlier, Sarah, showed big differences in people’s views of the protests. For example, 33 percent of Democrats described the protests in Minneapolis as “mostly violent riots,” but 73 percent of Republicans said this.

There were also pretty big differences in whether respondents said the riots reflected genuine desire to hold police accountable versus just a long-standing bias against the police. Republicans were 43 percentage points more likely to say it’s just bias.

clare.malone: Yeah, I mean, I’ve even seen the police described as “counterprotesters.”

sarah: It is definitely a weird and troubling dynamic that the organization/people being protested (i.e., the police) are also the ones responsible for ensuring the safety of the protesters.

clare.malone: Right, the protests are about police violence. Yet, in some instances, police feel personally (and physically) attacked by protesters. There’s also an element of politics here, though, in that the police in the Trump era have been talked about more and more as a Trump constituency — the law-and-order constituency — and maybe been given great authority as a result. But then some cops dismiss the protesters as just part of a political dynamic (on the left) that sees them as the enemy.

It’s troubling when the government has a monopoly on legalized violence and that the wielders of that violence — the police — aren’t in many, many cases exercising it in moderation. The videos of police cars ramming protesters, the pepper-spraying of people who aren’t being violent, etc. It’s a bad dynamic.

john.sides: The protests are exactly the kind of event where you’re going to see these differences play out by party and race, too. They’re diffuse events, varying within and across cities. Additionally, it is not always clear what is happening and who is responsible. Are these people looters or political protesters? So ordinary Americans are going to take cues from news coverage and their party’s political leaders to make sense of events.

sarah: Yeah, that Yahoo News/YouGov poll seems to point to this quite clearly. Although Americans have shifted from 2014 in how they view police violence, they still rely on their partisan lenses when it comes to thinking about the unrest that has resulted. Do we have a good explanation for that disconnect?

john.sides: It is one thing to ask Americans about an event with such clear video documentation, like Floyd’s death. That helps to eliminate ambiguity, and it’s why Americans of both parties agree with the firing of the officers involved, according to that same poll. But when it comes to the larger issue of police treatment of African Americans, there’s a lot less agreement. For example, on the question of whether deaths of African Americans during encounters with police are isolated incidents or part of a broader problem, 84 percent of Democrats say it’s part of a broader problem compared with just 32 percent of Republicans.

sarah: Right, and this poll from Ipsos MORI found a strong racial divide as well. Seventy-eight percent of black Americans polled said they didn’t think white Americans understood the level of discrimination they face in their lives.

Has this disconnect on racial relations in the U.S. — especially between white and black Americans or between Democrats and Republicans — gotten worse since 2014? Or has it remained about the same?

john.sides: Overall, attitudes about race line up much more with partisanship than they used to. Democrats and Republicans increasingly disagree on crucial questions like how much racial inequality is due to structural forces like discrimination. What my research with Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck found is that views on issues like racial inequality were one of the key factors that better predicted vote choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016. We found this played an even larger role than it did in 2012, predicting vote choice between President Obama and Mitt Romney. And that probably had to do with the fact that the 2016 campaign focused a great deal on racial issues.

clare.malone: The idea that eight years of a black, Democratic president helped accelerate voter awareness of where the parties stood on racial issues is fascinating. And the fact that Trump made a lot of racial subtext in the past four years has done a lot to keep the focus on race in politics and what that means for both parties.

perry: Right, in some ways believing that there is structural racial discrimination is part of being a Democrat now.

john.sides: And it really didn’t use to be this way. Tesler has done some important work on this, finding that there were larger party divides on whether “12 Years a Slave” deserved an Oscar than on the 1995 O.J. Simpson verdict.

sarah: Let’s shift gears a little and talk about the administration. There’s a lot of coverage on how Trump has been notably silent as protests raged outside the White House and across the country. But on Monday, he berated governors for not being tough enough, telling them they have to step up the military response against the protesters and “dominate.”

Clare wrote on Friday about how some of Trump’s law-and-order rhetoric might be shortsighted here in 2020. So where do we think the conversation is headed next?

Biden has his own complications with taking black Americans for granted, as we saw in his interview with the Breakfast Club host Charlamagne tha God. And even President Obama was criticized for not doing enough in response to the Ferguson protests in 2014.

What are the political fault lines here moving forward?

perry: Biden will probably tread carefully — he is trying to stay near what he thinks is the center of the electorate, so that means he will probably want to try hard to not offend the police or black people. I wouldn’t expect his comments on Floyd’s death to resonate with the protesters, though. They seem to be younger and more liberal and want aggressive, transformative rhetoric and policies.

All of this probably does affect his campaign, though. For instance, it’s probably hard for him to pick Sen. Amy Klobuchar as his vice president now. She is being criticized for refusing to file charges against police officers who killed civilians when she was the top prosecutor in the Minneapolis area. So it is hard to imagine Biden choosing her as his running mate given the firestorm around criminal justice issues in her home state. Not to mention that some prominent black Democrats, even before Floyd’s death, were already wary of Klobuchar.

Biden himself will also have to speak about issues of racial inequality more, and he may not be particularly effective at that.

john.sides: Biden will likely turn this into another attack on Trump’s leadership, though — similar to his attacks on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic or the economy. You could imagine him talking about how Trump sat in the bunker with the lights off at the White House and chastising him for trying to blame everything on governors. Biden has already highlighted his willingness to talk directly with the protesters rather than hunkering down.

And that poses a challenge for Trump. He talked about ending American carnage in his inaugural address. But how does he campaign when the carnage has only grown worse since he became president?

It’s not that Trump is directly responsible for the smashed windows or fires. It’s just that Americans sometimes blame incumbent officeholders for a wide array of problems, even ones out of their direct control.

maggie: So Trump is more likely to be punished electorally for the fact that disruption is happening generally than for anything he specifically did or did not do about it?

perry: I think, like COVID-19, it is really hard to see all of this mattering much electorally. The polls are just not moving much. I don’t think voters are learning a ton of new information about Trump from this.

clare.malone: For Trump, his lack of response to this — a death that people of both parties see as unjust — is more an example of the leadership void people have been seeing from him on COVID-19.

john.sides: Figuring out the exact electoral impact is hard. There is evidence that violent protests may have hurt Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey in 1968, even as nonviolent protests helped him (and may have given a long-lasting boost to Democrats). But research on the violent protests after the Rodney King verdict in 1992 found that the protests moved public opinion in a liberal direction. We just don’t have a lot of cases to generalize from. Moreover, as Clare and others have rightly pointed out, Trump is the incumbent here, which complicates the analogy to 1968.

sarah: Right, it’s hard to know where things will go from here, but it certainly seems as if Floyd’s death is a turning point in the conversation around police brutality. It’s just an open question of where we go from here.

from Clare Malone – FiveThirtyEight https://ift.tt/36V91SU via https://ift.tt/1B8lJZR

[onepiecefeatstuff]

Eternal | A Sanami fanfic | Part 1

Warning: This is the result of reading too much Cassandra Clare in too little time. It might be confusing at some points if you haven’t read anything about TMI or any other Shadowhunter book, but I’ve tried to clear everything up. God I’m crazy.

The first time Sanji saw her was centuries ago, but he can recall almost every single detail. He remembers the dark night, and the one single fire in miles and miles. The villagers cheers, and their wooden stakes up high. He remembered smelling the blood, and how he had struggled to contained himself to take a closer look. Struggled, and failed.

He bit his tongue when his fangs grew out. So many years of experience and yet he still wasn’t in full control of himself. He had thought about how stupid it would be to get closer to the village, but he had found himself hiding in the shadows, looking at the big bonfire, just a second later. His super speed didn’t really match his thinking velocity. And he was just about to walk away, turn around and make the wise decision; when he heard a voice. A female voice, screaming. He had never heard anything like that until that moment: it wasn’t a ladylike scream of a damsel in distress; it was more of a cursing. It was the sound of a storm coming.

“If I burn, you’ll all burn with me!” she was screaming, at the top of her lungs. Sanji couldn’t see her face, but he felt like he didn’t need to. “Did y’all hear me?!”

Some of the villagers looked at her with fear, but the majority was showing rage towards her. Sanji couldn’t imagine what she could have done to them, but he was certain that she didn’t deserve to die in a bonfire. Nobody did, of that he was sure.

He slipped away from the shadows and into the crowd, and he could feel the heat from the fire so close that he felt as if he was in a heat. He hadn’t felt like that in a while, in fact, he hadn’t seen a fire so close in a long time. He never needed to warm up, he was used to feeling his body cold. One would even say he was used to feeling dead. But in that specific moment, he felt so alive…

Sanji moved like a cat, quiet and quick. He didn’t give his brain a second to think about everything that could go wrong (starting from the fact that vampires were extremely flammable), and started to unwrinkle the ties from the girl’s heels. She was barefoot, and the fire had started to burn her feet. He also didn’t give himself a second to look at the girl’s face, because he knew it would become a distraction to him. When he was done with those ties, he had to back up. Aside from the villagers who had just realized that a stranger was untying their witch to burn, the fire was too close and he was starting to feel dizzy. He ran back to the darkness, before the whole town could attack him.

He tried to stay silent, which wasn’t very hard since he wasn’t even breathing. Perks of the undead. He heard voices calling him and accusing him of being an accomplice of the “witch”, but it didn’t worry him. His biggest concern was not being able to save that mysterious woman with the temper of the brave seas. He thought about going back, but the flames were too high now. He wouldn’t even have the chance before the fire burned him too. At least he hadn’t had the chance to see her face, he thought. He couldn’t have born it if he did.

He was starting to move towards the woods slowly when he felt a presence nearby. He looked around, but saw no one. He returned back to his thoughts, but not for much longer: Suddenly, he had a hand covering his mouth, and an arm around him. He tried to protest, and it even occurred to him to let his fangs out, before he took a closer look: It was a woman’s hand. Long ago he had made a promise not to hurt any female, and though the promise could be forgotten, he would never break it. He was a man of his word, that he could assure.

“I didn’t need your help out there” the voice said, and Sanji recognized it instantly. It had the same torrential force as the one from the alleged witch, and it could be nobody else’s. “I had it all pretty covered.”

She turned him around, and with the only light of the moon and the bonfire burning in the distance, Sanji noticed that her hair looked as red as blood. He felt his fangs coming out again, and he tried to hide them while facing her. She took her hand out from his mouth, but grabbed his arm, not wanting to let him go yet. Sanji felt her warmth in his cold skin, and almost shivered.

“And don’t think you’re the hero” she told him, looking straight to his eyes. “I’m not an innocent victim you’ve saved from a fatal destiny.”

Sanji nodded, not wanting to even open his mouth until his fangs had gone back to normal.

“Why did you do it, anyways?” she wondered then, looking at him like someone who’s trying to solve a puzzle. Like he was a mystery she had to unravel. “They are right.”

Then she laughed, rather maniacally. Sanji looked at her feet, she was still barefoot. Didn’t it hurt? He figured she wouldn’t take an offer for him to carry her to the next village, and at a normal speed, he wouldn’t think they would arrive before the sunrise. He definitively didn’t want to get himself burnt to death.

“Look at me” she said, and there was something in her voice that sounded like a charm. Sanji didn’t hesitate, and looked at her eyes again. He remembered them being dark, but with so little light, he couldn’t have guessed the exact color… But in that moment, her eyes were different. In fact, they weren’t even human eyes, he realized. They were literally cat eyes. He blinked, surprised, but he didn’t break his gaze. In the end, the girl did, with a frown.

“They are beautiful” Sanji whispered, still hypnotized. She looked fierce, yet vulnerable. It was the greatest image he had ever seen, and he would remember it forevermore. He didn’t even care about his fangs showing off or not, he just wanted her to know how gorgeous she was. She looked up, and Sanji swore he could see the gears of her brain starting to work and come to a conclusion.

“Dear Lord” she said, with a laugh. “You’re a downworlder too, huh? You can’t be a warlock, I would obviously know if you were; and you don’t look like a werewolf at all. Shadowhunters don’t care about what happens to the rest of us… Do you have the Vision?”

Sanji gulped before answering. So she really was a witch, a downworlder, like him. Hided like the rest, trying to fit in with the rest of the mortals, the mundanes. And he thought he had the Vision, like some of those mortals who could see beyond the ordinary, who had access to the Downworld but weren’t supernatural creatures.

“Actually” he said, showing his fangs “I’m a creature of the night.”

The witch looked surprised. “So you’re telling me a vampire crossed out a fire? You must be suicidal then.”

“I just couldn’t stand the thought of anyone burning to death in a bonfire.”

The girl let out a little sigh. “Then you’re definitively way worse. An empathetic vampire, breaking all stereotypes.”

“Not all” Sanji answered with a grin. She was quick-witted and sarcastic, and he liked that. “I’m still wearing black.”

The witch laughed, in a light-hearted air, and her eyes went back to normal little by little. Then she made a little bow of courtesy, and waved him goodbye. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, vampire.”

Sanji stared at her, confused. She was just laughing about something he said, and now she was leaving him just like that? He didn’t even know her name. He should have asked her about her name, he thought, as he saw a magical portal appear at the witch’s invocation.

“My lady” he made a reverence “May I ask…?”

When he looked up, she was already gone.

[wp-yahoo-style-1042-yahoopa-blog]

‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Star Elisabeth Moss: ‘Saying You’re Not a Feminist Is Like Saying You’re Not a Human Being’

On AMC’s Mad Men she played Peggy Olson, the first female copywriter at Don Draper’s advertising agency. Her performance as an unapologetically driven wordsmith, someone who openly resented being overlooked professionally because of her gender, who never minced words about her ambition, and who didn’t strive to be likable or cute, earned her six Emmy nominations.

Now, Elisabeth Moss, 34, is tackling the kind of role Peggy would have clamored to write: that of Offred, the reproductive sexual slave in Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. She produced the series, premiering April 26, and got involved in all aspects of production, from dialogue to attire.

For anyone who’s read Atwood’s dystopian novel, which came out in 1985 and is now topping bestseller lists, the indelible attire of a handmaid — a fertile woman whose ovaries are handed over to powerful but barren couples in the hopes of producing a child via a brutal and soulless ceremony that’s basically rape — is the red cloak.

“When we designed the costume, Ane Crabtree and I had a couple of stipulations. It had to be really comfortable. It had be a great fabric that could breathe. And it had to be something I wanted to put on every day. I felt good in it. It was flattering for everybody,” Moss tells Yahoo Style. “When we did the flashbacks and I had to wear modern clothes, I hated it.”

Elisabeth Moss as Offred in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’ (Photo: George Kraychyk)

Wearing that cape, coupled with a white bonnet with built-in blinders to stop the handmaids from seeing too much, “didn’t weigh on me. It’s pretend. I do think that I had respect for it. It helped me so much with the character. I had a sentimentality about it. It didn’t hinder me. It made me feel like I was in that world every time I put that on. I’m not a method actor. I’m the last thing from a method actor. It’s pretend, what we do for a living, and we get paid for it,” says Moss.

Clearly, the look is potent with meaning. And the series is one of the year’s most anticipated, with Variety calling it “a worthy, heartbreaking adaptation of the text, anchored by strong performances and profound visual grammar” and Harper’s Bazaar summing it up as “stunning.”

You can add timely to the mix. In March, a group of women donned the cloaks to protest anti-abortion measures being debated in the Texas senate. And even though the book itself came out more than 30 years ago, it’s even more relevant today, as men in power rule how and when women can control their own bodies and the defunding of Planned Parenthood continues to be a hot-button political issue.

“The fact that the book has that relevance is not a new thing. History tends to come back around and it does repeat itself. With things happening in the country now, of course it has this relevance,” says Moss.

Elisabeth Moss in Rochas. (Photo: Getty Images)

Her performance is searing and soulful and at times truly difficult to watch in the best sense. Her haunting, desperate eyes stick with you. Initially, Moss’s June is happily married, and the mother of a young daughter, when slice by slice, her rights are taken away — and protests achieve nothing.

The topics under discussion are heavy, to say the least, but in person, Moss is lightness in human form. She’s outgoing and gregarious, arriving to this interview in a chic Rochas ensemble, but promptly changes into sweats and Uggs the minute her on-camera duties are done.

It’s why she waxes poetic about the many positives of headlining such a thought-provoking series. For starters: minimal time in the makeup chair, since Offred is shorn of anything sexual or pretty or feminine. She’s a fertility machine, whose survival hinges on her ability to reproduce. There’s no need for mascara or lip-gloss.

“That was a huge plus. Huge plus. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t like getting up in the morning. I will push as late as possible to be on set. The fact that my makeup and hair took 30-45 minutes at the most was amazing,” she says.

Elisabeth Moss in Rosetta Getty. (Photo: Getty Images)

And the grueling schedule had its own rewards.

“If you’re not sleeping a lot because you’re working your ass off and you get dark circles and bags under your eyes — the more you have, the better. You’re supposed to look stressed. In fact, one night I got sleep. I came in and my makeup artist was like, ‘Oh dear,’ and was disappointed that I didn’t have the dark circles under my eyes that we needed,” she says.

The script came to her a year ago, while she was shooting the second season of Top of the Lake in Australia. She read the first episode and was smitten. By Episode 2, she was enamored.

“It took a while for me to say yes. I wanted to make sure it would be what I wanted it to be: really, balls to the wall and be brave about it,” she says. “I was thinking about not doing it and I couldn’t sleep. The thought of someone else doing it really bothered me.”

Damn straight I am:) @thewrap @hulu #powerwoman2017 #handmaidstale #hallwayseries for everyone below who's asked the shirt is Claire Vivier and @karlawelchstylist gave it to me literally off her back cuz she's a boss)

A post shared by Elisabeth Moss (@elisabethmossofficial) on Apr 19, 2017 at 4:20pm PDT

Maybe it’s because Moss is unabashed about her beliefs. If the Clare V. shirt she wore in Washington, baring the phrase JE SUIS UNE SUFFRAGETTE, doesn’t spell it out, Moss will do it for you.

“I cannot imagine a world where I would not be a feminist,” she says.

And she doesn’t have much patience for those in the public eye who parse words, and hesitate to use the ‘F word’ when describing themselves.

“Saying you’re not a feminist is like saying you’re not a human being. Women’s rights are human rights. It’s not about men and women. It’s about humans,” she says. “I can’t imagine not being one. As for equal pay: It’s so important to speak out about that stuff. And not for actors — for teachers, for people making minimum wage.”

Elisabeth Moss in a scene from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.” (Photo: George Kraychyk)

At a time when actresses vie for the few truly meaty roles out there — and during a year that thus far has yielded the must-see female-led HBO series Big Little Lies — Moss can truly own that she’s embodied two of the small screen’s most indelible women: Peggy Olson and Offred. Or, as she prefers to call her, June.

“I’m very proud of it. Exceedingly proud of it. These are complicated, interesting women. They’re strong and vulnerable and good and bad. For me, I’m very proud of it. As long as I continue playing human beings, I suppose I’ll continue playing feminists,” she says.

The series ends in a way that it leaves it open for another season, something that Moss hopes will happen. Throughout the episodes, her character never loses her dry sense of humor, her perfectly timed sarcasm, or grasp of the absurd. In real life, says Moss, she’d be the same way: She’d never stop fighting the good fight.

“Oh yeah, absolutely, of course. I think that a lot of people would,” she says. “You don’t know how you’re going to find your heroism until it happens to you. I would never give up and I would intend to survive as she does.”

Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style:

• Jessica Chastain’s Fairy-Tale Fashion Moment Isn’t What You Think • ‘Pretty Little Liars’ Stars Get Real About Body Image: ‘I Decided to Be Honest’ • Scarlett Johansson Is ‘Incredibly Proud’ to Show Her Daughter She’s a Working Mom • Every College Accepted Her: ‘Black-ish’ Star Yara Shahidi Is Hollywood‘s Most Stylish History Nerd

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and@YahooBeauty.

[galleryyuhself]

Clare Hollingworth, Reporter Who Broke News of World War II, Dies at 105

By MARGALIT FOX

From a single gust of wind, Clare Hollingworth reaped the journalistic scoop of the century.

Ms. Hollingworth, the undisputed doyenne of war correspondents, who died on Tuesday in Hong Kong at 105, was less than a week into her first job, as a reporter for the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, on that windy day in 1939.

Driving alone on the road from Gleiwitz, then in Germany, to Katowice, in Poland — a distance of less than 20 miles — she watched as the wind lifted a piece of the tarpaulin that had been erected on the German side to screen the valley below from view.

Through the opening, Ms. Hollingworth saw, she later wrote, “large numbers of troops, literally hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns” concealed in the valley.

She knew then that Germany was poised for a major military incursion. Hastening back across the border to the Polish side, she telephoned her editor with the news, a world exclusive.

Continue reading the main story The date was Aug. 28, 1939, and her article, published the next day, would become, as the British paper The Guardian wrote in 2015, “probably the greatest scoop of modern times.”

On Sept. 1, Hitler’s forces invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II.

For the next four decades, Ms. Hollingworth (who over the years contributed articles to The Telegraph, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune and The Wall Street Journal) covered World War II from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and North Africa; the Greek and Algerian civil wars; hostilities between Arabs and Jews in the waning days of the British mandate in Palestine; and the Vietnam War, among other conflicts.

Often under fire, occasionally arrested and possessed of such a keen nose for covert information that from time to time she was accused of being a spy — both by local governments and by the British — Ms. Hollingworth was friend, or foe, to seemingly everyone in a position of power in the world at midcentury.

Ms. Hollingworth in 1985. Credit United News/Popperfoto, via Getty Images She obtained the first interview with Mohammed Reza Pahlavi after he became the shah of Iran in 1941, and what was very likely among the last, after he was deposed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

In 1965, wanting to cover hostilities between India and Pakistan but discovering that reporters were barred from the front, she simply secured permission from an old acquaintance, Indira Gandhi, who was then India’s minister of information and broadcasting.

Ms. Hollingworth was also one of the first Western journalists to report regularly from China, opening The Telegraph’s Beijing bureau in 1973.

Her other major scoops included a 1963 article for The Guardian in which she cautiously identified the British intelligence agent Kim Philby as the long-sought “third man” in the ring of Soviet spies then known to include the Englishmen Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. Another was a 1968 article for The Telegraph in which she reported the United States’ incipient plans for peace talks with Vietnam. (The talks opened in Paris later that year and were concluded in 1973.)

Ms. Hollingworth was never so happy, she often said, as when she was roaming the world equipped with little more than a toothbrush, a typewriter and, if need be, a revolver. Embedded long before the term was applied to journalists, she slept in trucks and in trenches, at times buried up to her neck in sand for warmth on cold desert nights. She once held off an armed Algerian policeman by threatening to hit him about the head with a shoe.

Had her eyesight not begun to fail some 20 years ago, it was a life, Ms. Hollingworth made clear, that she would gladly have continued to the end of her days.

“I must admit that I enjoy being in a war,” she told The Telegraph in 2011, on the eve of her 100th birthday.

In 1989, though nearly 80 and nominally retired, Ms. Hollingworth, attired in a safari suit, her working uniform of choice for 60 years, was spotted in Tiananmen Square shinnying up a lamppost for a bird’s-eye view of the government’s violent crackdown against civilian protesters.

She periodically slept on the floor of her home in Hong Kong well into her 90s, just to keep from going soft.

Through all her travels, with all their attendant rigors, there was only one thing, Ms. Hollingworth said, that she truly could not abide. “I do not mind not washing for a week or more,” she wrote, “but I do hate getting fleas in my hair.”

Her Graham Greene existence, with its typewriter, revolver and most particularly its fleas, was a far cry from the life her conventional, well-heeled British parents had envisioned for her — one of quiet propriety, dutiful wifehood, charity balls and hunting.

Clare Hollingworth was born on Oct. 10, 1911, in Knighton in central England, outside Leicester. As a child, she enjoyed touring the historic battlefields of England and France with her father, who ran the family’s boot and shoe factory.

At her parents’ insistence, the young Ms. Hollingworth attended domestic science college in Leicester, an experience that did nothing to make the prospect of hearth and home attractive. (“Although it is useful to be able to make an omelet,” she later wrote, “my domestic science training caused me to hate having anything to do with housework.”)

Partly in deference to her upbringing, she became engaged “to a suitable young man,” though she soon broke off the engagement and further scandalized her parents by announcing her intention to become a journalist.

“My mother thought journalism frightfully low, like a trade,” Ms. Hollingworth said in the 2011 interview with The Telegraph. “She didn’t believe anything journalists wrote and thought they were only fit for the tradesmen’s entrance.”

In the 1930s, Ms. Hollingworth attended the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London and afterward studied at the University of Zagreb, then in Yugoslavia.

Working for the League of Nations Union, a peace and social justice group established in Britain in 1918, she was dispatched to Warsaw.

There, in early 1939, she aided thousands of refugees from the Sudetenland — the region of Czechoslovakia that had been annexed by the Nazis in October 1938 — arranging travel documents that would let them cross into Poland. She wrote about their plight for small publications in Britain.

The Telegraph learned of Ms. Hollingworth’s work in Poland, and on Aug. 25, 1939, while she was visiting London, it hired her as a correspondent. Assigned to cover the prelude to war in the region, she flew to Warsaw the next day.

From Warsaw she traveled to Katowice, commandeering an official car from the British consul general there. It was in that car, Union Jack boldly flying, that she drove over the border, past astonished Nazi guards and into Germany on Aug. 28.

Ms. Hollingworth’s scoop comprised two parts. The first was her story of Aug. 29, about the advent of war. The second was her report on the start of the war itself.

Awakened by explosions at dawn on Sept. 1, Ms. Hollingworth, from her quarters in Katowice, saw German bombers overhead and the flash of artillery fire in the distance.

She telephoned a friend at the British Embassy in Warsaw.

“The war has begun!” she cried.

“Are you sure, old girl?” he said. Her published article notwithstanding, Ms. Hollingworth later wrote, British officialdom persisted in thinking that war remained weeks away.

She held the receiver out the window as German tanks roared outside. The embassy was persuaded and soon, too, was her editor.

Ms. Hollingworth’s article on the start of hostilities appeared in The Telegraph the next day. Her work from this period is unbylined — few reporters were accorded bylines then — a state of affairs she pronounced as being for the best: It simultaneously spared her parents familial anxiety and social indignity.

What followed was more than 40 years of chasing danger, for it was in the most dangerous places, Ms. Hollingworth often said, that the best stories lay.

Traveling with British troops in North Africa, she was buried in the sands for the night when she awoke to the sounds of a German reconnaissance party. “A sneeze would have brought death to us all,” she later wrote. She held her breath in the darkness, and the party passed unseeing.

In Vietnam, a sniper’s bullet narrowly missed her head.

Ms. Hollingworth’s first husband, Vandeleur Robinson, whom she married in 1936, divorced her for desertion 15 years later. (“When I’m on a story, I’m on a story — to hell with husband, family, anyone else,” she told The Guardian in 2004.) Her second husband, Geoffrey Hoare, a journalist whom she married in the early 1950s, died in 1965.

Her death was confirmed by Patrick Garrett, her grandnephew and her biographer. Her survivors include a stepdaughter, Hilary Sandre.

Over time, some members of the British press grew alienated by what they saw as Ms. Hollingworth’s imperious manner. “Ms. Hollingworth’s snobberies are very tiring, her cozy relations with British embassies irritating,” the English journalist Robert Fisk wrote, reviewing her 1990 memoir, “Front Line.”

But she remained a widely admired, even venerated, figure, a recipient of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 and a perennial fixture at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, where she had made her home since the early 1980s.

Her other books include “The Three Weeks’ War in Poland” (1940), “There’s a German Just Behind Me” (1942), “The Arabs and the West” (1952) and “Mao and the Men Against Him” (1985).

As Ms. Hollingworth made clear in later interviews, though there was no dearth of wars to accompany her old age, she did not truly expect to be called upon to cover them. Yet to the end of her life she slept with her passport and a pair of shoes within easy reach, just in case.

[salfordelim]

Neil’s Reflections

I’m cursed with the mixed blessing of being able to see both sides of most arguments. It makes me good in the midst of conflict but can mean I stay disconnected from the passion that others are feeling.

But there are times when that is not enough. Times when there are not too equal sides. Times when you become aware there is only right and wrong. For most of us that’s what’s become all too apparent over the past two weeks.

Sometimes a spark sets off a fire that engulfs everyone. One man’s death triggered protests that swept over us all as we watched a new, young generation march in defiance of the police and in defiance of the virus to say things have not been right for black lives for a long time. The power of that was not just seen in the protest marches, but in the testimonies of people from the black community who shared their stories of being discriminated against.

And for people like me, it was a moment to recognise that our lives have been very different. Sure, we may have had our personal struggles, but most people like me, men, from stable homes, with stable homes, stable incomes, a good education, and white skin benefit from privilege. It’s the privilege that lots of my neighbours do not enjoy.

Change has to come. I have to use my privilege to say that all lives matter – but at this moment, specifically, black lives matter.

Privilege means that I am used to doing things, to being active, to try and make things happen. And there may be times when that is really important. But that must not be our posture. We need to stop, listen and learn.

In Acts 5, there’s a privileged, powerful man, Gamaliel, who rescues the apostles from being killed. He does so by encouraging the ruling authorities to let the preaching and the healings continue. He tells his fellow powerful friends to wait to see what might happen. And it works, the apostles only get whipped. I always thought he was the good guy. And in the light of what might have happened, perhaps he was.

But there’s more than saying, ‘let all this play out, if it’s of God it’ll last, otherwise it’ll just die down like all the other protests.’ There’s a moment to lay aside your privilege, to sit and listen, to learn and to act with others, not just for others. That’s why it’s important to watch short films like this.

If you want to be a true ally to #BlackLivesMatter please watch this. Thank you to @HamiltonMusical's wonderful @ObiomaUgoala pic.twitter.com/byINXss8Kp

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) June 3, 2020

And why films like this matter as well. As someone who has listened to U2 most of his life, I fully get why Bono because of his Bono-ishness can get on people’s nerves. But this is worth listening to, because as he says, we are called to sing of the certainty of a Beautiful Day coming long before it comes. It’s what prophets have always done.

Full articleWatch Bono Introduce All-Star Cover of ‘Beautiful Day’ on ‘Dear Class of 2020’ Special

Interview

This week’s interview is with Clare. Clare talks about a time when things got so bad that suicide seemed the only option and how God was at work in her life.

News

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

1. Our Gatherings

Sunday Gathering

The link to this Sunday’s Gathering is here:

Join our Sunday Zoom meeting

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/836810848 Meeting ID: 836 810 848

After some technical issues with our Facebook livestream over the last couple of weeks, we’re now switching to streaming our Sunday services live on our YouTube channel.

You’ll also be able to find the service live on the homepage of our website.

This will continue to be in addition to using Zoom. We want to encourage you to join our service using Zoom if possible, as it allows you to interact with other people in our church and be part of our breakout rooms after the service.

But we’re also aware that some people will find being part of our services easier via YouTube instead of Zoom, so we want to offer this option for you.

It also allows people from outside our church to access our services in an easier and less intimidating way, so please do let anyone who’d be interested know!

If you’ve got any questions, please let Phil Maylor know!

Midweek Gatherings

We are going to move our prayer meeting to Thursday evenings so the small groups will meet every other week. There will be Home Group on Thursday 11 June. 7.45pm is a time to log on.

Join our Home Group Zoom meeting

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/998857193?pwd=Ni9ZY2pSSWdQcWRvellMWXJYbG5rZz09

From Thursday 9 July there will be a new group – Building Foundations. Led by Charlie, it will explore all that is involved in ensuring that your life as a follower of Jesus is based on really strong foundations. Let us know if you would be interested in joining that group.

There will be a Prayer Meeting on Thursday 18 June at 8pm The link is here:

https://zoom.us/j/99171331331?pwd=WWUrajBFd29SUGNETnVJVlpSMVA1UT09

2. Quiz Night – Friday 12th June 7.30-9.30pm

After the success of our first online quiz night, we are doing it again!

Our host, once again, will be the wonderful Andrew Gordon.

You can come on your own of course or you might want to come as a team – there might be folks in church that you want to team up with but it’s also a chance to extend an invitation to those who don’t come to church with you regularly. If you know that you want to come with friends and family you can form a team of up to 4 screens. But you must register that team with Ian by Thursday evening (11th) at 10pm. He needs to know the names of who will be in your team (email addresses if you have them will be helpful) and the team captain’s mobile number (the team captain will also need to have WhatsApp installed on their phone). If you have no clever friends (!), come along and we will create teams on the night – no one will be alone. But please turn up on time! It should be a fun night. 🙂

3. Virtual Vine Wednesdays

Like most businesses, we had to close The Vine Cafe a couple of months ago and we are not sure when we will be able to open again. In the meantime, we want to offer a few ways of connecting with us, starting on Wednesday the 10th of June. These are great opportunities to invite friends, family and colleagues too.

‘Virtual Coffee Morning’ – Wednesday 10.30-11.30am

Since closing we’ve missed chatting to people and we know some of you have missed popping in for a brew and a catch up too. So, whilst it’s not as good as the real thing, we thought we would try meeting up online instead. So, grab yourself a brew and join us. There may even be games and live music!

Join our Virtual Coffee Morning

https://zoom.us/j/94930624852?pwd=dlI0SnhwY3RaNnUrUGpSMTkrWm5hZz09

Virtual Prayer Room – Wednesday 1-2pm

The current crisis has affected everyone in one way or another. It’s often during times of crisis, pain and confusion when people reach out to God. You may feel anxious and just need someone to pray for God’s peace over you. You may be ill or be concerned about someone who is sick; we can pray with you for God’s healing. You may feel low or confused; we can pray with you to know God’s joy and guidance in these strange days. Whatever your reason, we would love to pray with you and for you.

Join our Virtual Prayer Room

https://zoom.us/j/91853590251?pwd=ZnFPWkNWOTZoK3p4eTgxY0Zxc3ZwQT09

Virtual Vine Alpha – Wednesday 2.30-4pm

The current crisis has raised questions for many people; not least about what is most important in life. The Alpha Course is a great opportunity to explore the bigger questions of life and faith such as ‘Is there more than this?’, ‘Who is Jesus?’ and ‘Does God guide us?’. No question is ‘out of bounds’ and everyone is welcome to join us without pressure. 

Join Virtual Vine Alpha

https://zoom.us/j/92458850833?pwd=UmZXUEJOTi9ZeEc3RG5KZDJaS0Rqdz09

4. Inviting Others

During these strange days, we want to stay growing as church. You might have friends and family who might be interested in staying in touch with us as a church. Ask them to fill out the form on our church website and we will add them to our mailing list.

Sign up for updates from Salford Elim Church

This may be an easy time to invite friends and family to our Gatherings, after all they can be with us from the safety of their own homes. You have nothing to lose, they have a lot to gain!

We are going to be streaming the service via the church’s Facebook page now – if that is easier for people to access.

5. If in doubt…

All the links to the meetings are in our ChurchSuite app and on the Calendar section of our church website.

Visit our Events Calendar

6. You’re not alone

If you need prayer, or need to talk, don’t hesitate to contact folks in your WhatsApp group, or Neil – his number is 07771 558058.

7. Giving and receiving

Thanks to all who contribute to the financial ministry of the church, it’s been great to see some of you using the online giving facility on the website. If you do use this and you pay tax, please can you make sure that the gift aid box is ticked in the app. That will increase the value of your gift to us.

We set aside some of church’s money so that we can respond to needs that we become aware of in church. You might want to give to that fund, if so, let Bev Walsh know, or you might be in need yourself. If you would need help, don’t be embarrassed to talk with Charlie Blundell. We want to help.

Links and Resources

Children’s Resources

Morag and Ian have put together a couple of films for children at different ages. Having said that, whatever your age you might want to take a look!

But if you have children that fall into these groups, I know that they will really value your feedback.

You can watch them here:

This week’s Kids Resources