#this works as a reference as to which parts of france are part of this blog

[askhetafrenchregions]

magic anon! for 3 asks! rpg adventure team. What class does everyone choose?

m!a dnd start !

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

ABBA - Waterloo 1974

"Waterloo" is a song by Swedish pop group ABBA, with music composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and lyrics written by Stikkan Anderson. It is first single of the group's second studio album of the same name, and their first under the Atlantic label in the US. This was also the first single to be credited to the group performing under the name ABBA. The title and lyrics reference the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, and use it as a metaphor for a romantic relationship.

In 1974, "Waterloo" represented Sweden in the 19th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Brighton, winning the contest and beginning ABBA's path to worldwide fame. The song differed from the standard "dramatic ballad" tradition at the contest by its flavour and rhythm, as well as by its performance. ABBA gave the audience something that had rarely been seen before in Eurovision: flashy costumes (including silver platform boots), a catchy uptempo song and simple choreography. It was the first winning entry in a language other than that of their home country; prior to 1973, all Eurovision singers had been required to sing in their country's native tongue, a restriction that was lifted briefly for the contests between 1973 and 1976 (thus allowing "Waterloo" to be sung in English), then reinstated before ultimately being removed again in 1999. Watch the performance in Swedish here. Sveriges Radio released a promo video for "Waterloo" that was directed by film director Lasse Hallström, whose first notable English-language film success was What's Eating Gilbert Grape in 1993. ABBA recorded the German and French versions of "Waterloo" in March and April 1974; the French version was adapted by Alain Boublil, who would later go on to co-write the 1980 musical Les Misérables.

The song shot to number 1 in the UK and stayed there for two weeks, becoming the first of the band's nine UK number 1's, and the 16th biggest selling single of the year in the UK. It also topped the charts in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, West Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Switzerland, while reaching the Top 3 in Austria, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. Unlike other Eurovision-winning tunes, the song's appeal transcended Europe: "Waterloo" also topped the charts in South Africa, and reached the Top 10 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Rhodesia, and the US (peaking at number 6, their third-highest-charting US hit after number 1 "Dancing Queen" and number 3 "Take a Chance on Me"). In 2005, at Eurovision fiftieth anniversary competition Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest, "Waterloo" was chosen as the best song in the contest's history.

"Waterloo" is featured in the encore of the musical Mamma Mia!. The song does not have a context or a meaning. It is just performed as a musical number in which members of the audience are encouraged to get up off their seats and sing, dance and clap along. The song is performed by the cast over the closing credits of the film Mamma Mia!, but is not featured on the official soundtrack. It is also performed as part of the story in the sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, by Hugh Skinner and Lily James.

The Australian film Muriel's Wedding (1994), features "Waterloo" in a pivotal scene in which lead Toni Collette bonds with the character played by Rachel Griffiths. The film's soundtrack, featuring five ABBA tracks, is widely regarded as having helped to fuel the revival of popular interest in ABBA's music in the mid-1990s. "Waterloo" features prominently in the 2015 science-fiction film The Martian. The song plays as the film's lead, played by Matt Damon, works to ready his launch vehicle for a last-chance escape from Mars. In "Mother Simpson", the eighth episode of the seventh season of The Simpsons, Mr. Burns plays "Ride of the Valkyries" from a tank about to storm the Simpson home, but the song is cut-off and "Waterloo" is played, to which Smithers apologizes, advising he "must have accidentally taped over that".

"Waterloo" received a total of 89% yes votes!

(the video is posted by ABBA's own account, not Eurovision's = safe to watch)

[withercrown]

The worst thing about the reductive argument about whether Vander and Silco are "brothers" is that everyone involved misrepresents what that word actually means, and as a historian I have had enough.

"Brothers" is not meant to evoke either actual brothers (they are just simply not brothers, either by blood or adoption) or brothers-in-arms (this is a militaristic concept which is not appropriate imo).

The kind of 'brotherhood' they share is specifically revolutionary/national brotherhood.

The French flavoring of the show—everything from the graffiti to the architecture of Piltover (it's just Paris, guys) to the revolutionary imagery—is one of the things I love most about Arcane. Fortiche is a French studio. They wove their own history and culture into their work.

What's the single most famous phrase associated with the French Revolution?

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité".

This motto was popularized by Robespierre in a speech he gave in 1790. It encapsulated the spirit of the French Revolution so completely that it became institutionalized as the national motto of France to this day. The concept of brotherhood in an explicitly French revolutionary setting is not ambiguous and we are not going to pretend that it is.

"Men of all countries are brothers, he who oppresses one nation declares himself the enemy of all." -Maximilien Robespierre, speech delivered April 24, 1793

During the Revolutionary period, it was the feeling of belonging to a common struggle among the people of France, all together, united as brothers, by their beliefs and their nationality: This struggle was led internally in France against the absolute monarchy, which had to be toppled. Source: France Diplomacy, Liberty – Equality – Fraternity

We have got to start thinking about why the creators might want to emphasize the revolutionary brotherhood between Silco and Vander so strongly. Fraternité was arguably the most actively dangerous part of the triad:

Fraternité was sometimes styled as “fraternité ou la mort” — “brotherhood or death.” This “you’re with us or you’re against us” mentality, cloaked in the ideals of freedom and enlightenment, would go on to fuel one of the bloodiest episodes in France’s history: the Reign of Terror. Source: Liberté, égalité, fraternité: French Political History and THE PLAGUE

Fraternity is not a toothless concept. This isn't about picking a brother and a sister and maybe a mommy and a daddy. This led directly to the beheading of the King and Queen of France and their son, and to a political slaughter severe enough to be named the Reign of Terror by historians. 30,000 people died, 17,000 by execution. These guys were not messing around. Again: this is France's (and Haiti's) motto today. You can go to France right now and see this all over their buildings and monuments.

Vander and Silco diverged on this point. When they speak to one another, they use the past tense. You were my brother. They no longer see each other as being part of the same vision. They no longer interpret brotherhood in a way that includes one another.

Fraternité ou la mort is practically a thesis statement for Silco's character. He lives and dies on his sense of brotherhood—and in fact, choosing his daughter over Zaun and his sense of revolutionary brotherhood directly and almost immediately results in his death.

(Not so incidentally, in making the choice of Jinx over Zaun, he refers to Vander as brother again, as their visions have finally come back into alignment.)

(they're both still wrong tho)

It's not enough to say they were brothers-in-arms. It's also not textually supported to say they were siblings. Their relationship to one another was defined through their commitment to Zaun, and their relationship with the fraternity promised by that dream.

I think there is a broad scope for valid interpretations of their relationship, btw—from revolutionary brothers to best friends to boyfriends. I am just so tired of seeing the same points repeated ad nauseam about the word 'brother' when it isn't really ambiguous at all what was intended, and learning that information is just France 101.

[books]

Writer Spotlight: Jamie Beck

Jamie Beck is a photographer residing in Provence, France. Her Tumblr blog, From Me To You, became immensely successful shortly after launching in 2009. Soon after, Jamie, along with her partner Kevin Burg, pioneered the use of Cinemagraphs in creative storytelling for brands. Since then, she has produced marketing and advertising campaigns for companies like Google, Samsung, Netflix, Disney, Microsoft, Nike, Volvo, and MTV, and was included in Adweek Magazine’s “Creative 100” among the industry’s top Visual Artists. In 2022, she released her first book, An American in Provence, which became a NYT Bestseller and Amazon #1 book in multiple categories, and featured in publications such as Vogue, goop, Who What Wear, and Forbes. Flowers of Provence is Jamie’s second book.

Can you tell us about how The Flowers of Provence came to be?

I refer to Provence often as ‘The Garden of Eden’ for her harmonious seasons that bring an ever-changing floral bounty through the landscape. My greatest joy in life is telling her story of flowers through photography so that we may all enjoy them, their beauty, their symbolism, and their contribution to the harmony of this land just a bit longer. 

(Photograph: Jamie Beck)

How do your photography and writing work together? Do you write as part of your practice?

I constantly write small notations, which usually occur when I am alone in nature with the intention of creating a photograph or in my studio working alone on a still life. I write as I think in my head, so I have made it a very strict practice that when a thought or idea comes up, I stop and quickly write the text in the notes app on my phone or in a pocket journal I keep with me most of the time. If I don’t stop and write it down at that moment, I find it is gone forever. It is also the same practice for shooting flowers, especially in a place as seasonal as Provence. If I see something, I must capture it right away because it could be gone tomorrow. 

(Photograph: Jamie Beck)

You got your start in commercial photography. What’s something you learned in those fields that has served you well in your current creative direction?

I think my understanding of bridging art and commerce came from my commercial photography background. I can make beautiful photographs of flowers all day long, but how to make a living off your art is a completely different skill that I am fortunate enough to have learned by working with so many different creative brands and products in the past. 

(Photograph: Jamie Beck)

Do you remember your first photograph?

Absolutely! I was 13 years old. My mother gave me her old Pentax 35mm film camera to play with. When I looked through the viewfinder, it was as if the imaginary world in my head could finally come to life! I gave my best friend a makeover, put her in an evening gown in the backyard of my parents’ house in Texas, and made my first photograph, which I thought was so glamorous! So Vogue!

You situate your photographic work with an introduction that charts the seasons in Provence through flowers. Are there any authors from the fields of nature writing and writing place that inspire you?

I absolutely adore Monty Don! His writing, his shoes, and his ease with nature and flowers—that’s a world in which I want to live. I also love Floret Flowers, especially on social media, as a way to learn the science behind flowers and how to grow them. 

How did you decide on the order of the images within The Flowers of Provence?

Something I didn’t anticipate with a book deal is that I would actually be the one doing the layouts! I assumed I would hand over a folder of images, and an art director would decide the order. At first, it was overwhelming to sort through it all because the work is so personal, and I’m so visual. But in the end, it had to be me. It had to be my story and flow to be truly authentic. I tried to move through the seasons and colors of the landscape in a harmonious way that felt a bit magical, just as discovering Provence has felt to me. 

(Photograph: Jamie Beck)

How do you practice self-care when juggling work and life commitments alongside the creative process?

The creative process is typically a result that comes out of taking time for self-care. I get some of my best ideas for photographic projects or writing when I am in a bath or shower or go for a long (and restorative) walk in nature. Doing things for myself, such as how I dress or do my hair and makeup, is another form of creative expression that is satisfying. 

What’s a place or motif you’d like to photograph that you haven’t had a chance to yet?

I am really interested in discovering more formal gardens in France. I like the idea of garden portraiture, trying to really capture the essence and spirit of places where man and nature intertwine. 

Which artists do you return to for inspiration?

I’m absolutely obsessed with Édouard Manet—his color pallet and subject matter. 

What are three things you can’t live without as an artist?

My camera, the French light, and flowers, of course. 

What’s your favorite flower to photograph, and why?

I love roses. They remind me of my grandmother, who always grew roses and was my first teacher of nature. The perfume of roses and the vast variety of colors, names, and styles all make me totally crazy. I just love them. They simply bring me joy the same way seeing a rainbow in the sky does. 

(Photograph: Jamie Beck)

[havin-fun-imagining-twd]

It felt so real.

What - Yearning. Daryl misses you and your family so badly that it seems his imagination is dreaming you up to keep him from going crazy

When - big time jump to when Daryl finds himself in France (spinoff season 1, episode 2)

Where - the school in France

Pronouns - she/her (howdy, wife reader!)

TWs - language, reference to child loss, self-loathing, sappiness (it's fanfiction, y'all XD ) and Daryl gets a little...'excited' (mild instance of sexual arousal between a married couple)

Perspective - Daryl 3rd person POV

References - some are yet unpublished because this is a significant time skip, which means a few little surprises. Others can be found throughout the series!

Series? - the Slowpoke Series! It's a fun, slow time that sticks to canon to help maintain immersion (as much as you can with adding an oc lol) ;)

Can I read this chapter if I haven't started any part of the Slowpoke Series yet? - definitely

----------------------------

----------------------------

“It's so good to hold you again, sugar.”

Those words, that voice, made him relax into the bed. She was there again! He’d last imagined her when he was being tended to by those nuns, so it was only, what, a handful of days ago?

Wasn’t enough for him, he missed her so much.

“Dare, I want them all. Full stop, every last one.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I knew you’d say that.”

“As if you aren’t wantin’ to take at least a handful. All those kids with just an old woman to care for them…well, now she’s dead, but…” She sighed and held him tighter. “Lou reminds me of Enid. Don’t you think they look similar? M’sorry her name had to be Lou. A lot of things over here are making you homesick, ain’t they? And that poor boy in Maine, named TJ, too.”

He pulled her closer, doing his best to not wake himself up so Y/N would stay with him. He wished that kid, with same name as his oldest, has just gone back to his girlfriend like he'd told him to.

“Our own Louise lights a candle with me for you every day. Those nuns would be proud.”

He swore to himself that whenever these dreams happen, there’s got to be some way it isn’t just all in his head. It was way too real.

It felt so, so real.

But that Louise was lighting candles for him, he knew because Carol told him when she spoke to him briefly over the radio in Maine...

“Did Carol also mention that Lydia’s been drawing you? Or did I write part that in the letter?”

“The letter. Carol and I didn't have much time to say anything.” Y/N wrote him a long, long letter. One part mentioned how both Lydia and Glenn took to getting nightmares again after he left. At Maggie’s suggestion, Lydia had been drawing his picture. Apparently it helps her feel safer.

RJ had been 'retreating more than usual,' also. Adam was acting out, too, so she wrote. If Daryl was figuring it right, the boys losing another father figure probably hadn’t helped.

“Dare, he’s three. Three-year-olds don’t only act out with foster parents, Adam would be doin’ the same with Alden. And RJ is without Michonne right now. That's the greater culprit.”

His wife also wrote how Coco just started calling her ‘mama,’ and correcting her to say ‘auntie’ wasn’t working yet. She chalked it up to her being a motherly figure and the baby assuming all caring ladies were ‘mama.’ He wondered if Gabe knew yet. Ain’t like Y/N hasn’t been a mama to that little girl since Rosita died. Actually, nah, Gabe obviously knew; Y/N would’ve (legit) run to him immediately and told him what was up.

The faces of all their kids ran through his mind over and over, Lydia and Judith and RJ included. Then his wife’s face. Carl. Adam. Hershel. Gracie. Coco. Carol. Ezekiel. Maggie. Rosita. Aaron. Jesus. Jerry. Rick. Merle. T-Dog.

“Oo, I want to be here when T-Dog visits. Has he ever visited?” Y/N chirped.

He wished. “Once. I just think about him a lot.”

“Bummer. He must have been so thrilled when we actually did name our first after him, without you even tellin’ me nothing about how he’d teased you on it! Say, what about Uncle Jesse? Does he visit? He must’ve been happy TJ’s middle name is for him!”

He shook his head. You even visited me before I was smart enough to fall for you. When I fell down the ridge. It was you and Merle.

A sneezing from one of the kids in another part of the building resounded four times. It woke him briefly.

He closed his eyes, focused…

It was okay, Y/N was there. Daryl breathed a sigh of relief.

“I am a mite surprised you didn’t take the floor anyway,” Y/N admitted, peeking over his side to look at where the nun Isabelle was laying down next to him. “Or share with Laurent so the two sisters could share.”

“Neither of them trust me enough for me to share a room with the boy. And she sounded like she didn’t want me on the floor. Must be that I’m gettin’ too old." All I feel these days is tired and sore. "Hell, I don’t think I could get up if I slept on the floor.”

Angel, I ain’t the same without you, I’m a fucking mess. Look at the shit show that I’ve made of things.

His wife whispered, “Hey. You know I can hear that, I’m from your imagination.”

“Y/N, I miss you so fucking much.” Baby, I’m so goddamned far from you all and I don’t know how I’m gonna get out this time.

“No cusses in front of the kids, Daryl,” She cupped her belly, the one he was imagining she might have again. Carol, when she spoke to him, used what little time there was to mention how Y/N was avoiding taking a test because she missed him too much. Y/N didn’t say nothing about it in her letter she'd packed in there during one of his home visits.

How’s that for a reason to hate yourself?

“You should,” shot back another familiar voice. “Leaving your own kin, leaving your woman. Ain’t you learned nothing, boy? Didn’t think you was that much of a deadbeat but here’s proof the apple didn’t fall far from the tree."

Merle.

Damn, it’d been ages!

"Yup. Nanu nanu," his brother mocked, waving his metal stump and glaring. "Here you are, in the white flag capital of the world, surrounded by Euro kooks instead of your own blood.”

“Oh, Daryl, don’t imagine him as cruel again!" Y/N cooed. "Let us both love you if you’re gonna go about having us here.”

Daryl breathed slowly so he wouldn’t wake up. When he felt level enough, he answered, “I don’t have much control over what y’all say.”

“I thought you had some control over it.” Y/N gently pushed his hair off his face. He loved it when she did that. Delicately, she examined the new scar gracing his forehead.

“I blame that old coot what you let whup you on the head as to why you’re seeing things,” his brother crooned.

His wife nodded. “Another concussion, you poor man. But this isn’t a hallucination, it’s just a dream. It’s that good kind of dream where you’re not fully awake but not fully asleep.” She trailed her hand along his forearm.

“Y/N, you’re too good for this sad sack.”

She fired back faster than Daryl knew his imagination could go. “Merle. You love your brother to death and you’re happy he got hisself a wife and family.” Y/N had pushed herself up to sitting in order to scold him. “Tell me you don’t swell with pride seein’ him be a good father and good husband. The cycle stopped with him, and you’re proud of it.”

Daryl, a hand protectively around his wife’s side, was busy trying to figure out what Merle was even doing, whittling?

Ah, he was eating an peach with the knife attached to his metal stump.

Weird, he thought ghosts didn’t eat.

“Maybe I ain’t a real ghost, retard,” was a blunt comeback. “Maybe I’m just a poor copy you conjured up in that concussed little head of yours.” Merle then turned to Y/N. “As for you, kitten, he left you and your brats! Left you when you was up the duff, left you when you don’t even got all your legs no more! How’s he supposed to protect you when he’s out here?”

“Merle William Dixon! I ain’t ‘kitten’ and those ‘brats’ are your nieces and nephews, dick. Noah’s middle name is even for you, so you best watch your mouth, hear?”

Merle smirked and sliced off another wedge from the peach. “There’s my sister-in-law. I had to make sure your square self at least still had that fire in ya.” He offered her a slice, but she crossed her arms.

The expression on her face was so disappointed it made Daryl’s chest tug.

His brother duly inclined his head in apology and raised his hands in surrender. “You’re right, ma’am. Y’all are doing a good job on them brats. And this sumbitch ain’t nothing like our old man, so there’s something.” Merle chopped another piece of fruit. “And it’s always a pleasure to roll with a fellow amputee, Y/N. Not many can relate to how trippy the phantom limb bullshit can get.”

She tilted her head in agreement, rubbed the spot above her prosthetic calf, and settled back down next to her husband with a big sigh. “I do wish Daryl imagined you in a kinder light, Merle, but, either way, I’m happy he watched Mork & Mindy because it got him thinkin’ about you — and now you’re here for him!” Her hand grazed along her bump. “And, you meant to say to him that I was possibly pregnant.”

“Dunno about that, sister, you’ve always seem to know when you been knocked up.”

“That ain’t incorrect,” she confessed, curling in on herself. “Even if I was, it’s possible we had a loss again, Merle. Whether early or late this time.”

“Another reason he shouldn’t be screwin’ around out here.” Merle next words sliced him as if his heart were the peach in his hands. “I'm angry for your own good, lady. What if you had to handle another kid dying, this time on your own?”

The bad memories crashed down like waves threatening to drown him in grief and guilt. He wanted to pummel his brother in the hopes Merle would best him and make him pay for leaving her.

But Merle wasn't actually there. Neither was Y/N. It was pretend. Daryl was just beating himself up in his head, and failing even at that.

Y/N said the words as Daryl thought them: “Why are you twisting the knife?” She swallowed and covered her face with her hands. “Maybe, this mission is w-worth the sacrifice of, of us not havin’ him here right now.”

No. It’s not.

I know you said that before I left to make it hurt less, but it’s not. Listen to your stutter, you know it ain’t.

I should be back there with you, not constantly leaving for weeks at a time. I'm supposed to be home now. I'd told Carol when I reached her on the radio back in Maine that I'd be there in a about a week, which is what she would've told you. This whole thing is horseshit!

“Darlin’, think on happier things or you’ll upset yourself awake or into another nightmare,” Y/N soothed. "You almost woke from anger at Merle just there, which is really just anger at yourself." Her fingers laced into his where his hand rested on her belly. His wish was that his dream would include feeling the baby move. He loved that feeling. Except, he must’ve been waking up because his dream wasn’t letting him feel her hand or her belly very much when he tried. Still, it felt real enough. He’d take what he could get.

“Might could be fun to think back on how beautiful it was making them, if indeed we made another one.” She walked two fingers along his bicep. “Would’ve happened on or around the last night before you left. Or,” she mused, then started to giggle. At that moment, he could even imagine the vibrations of her laughter as if she were really, actually laying beside him. It felt so real! “I wouldn’t be surprised if made them on the day itself, that was soo — oh man, hold up!” She pulled away from him and eyed his crotch in suspicion. “No sex dreams allowed, there’s a bride of Christ in the room! Keep that thing down, deal?”

He almost laughed out loud, and possibly in real life. So long as he didn’t wake up, he didn’t care if he laughed in his sleep. The reactions, the tone, it was all just like his Y/N. And he could hope they had another kid. He’d take as many as came along.

Aw, shit, how far would she even be along, if this one made it? How long had he been away?

“Goddamn, y’all, is this some kinda kink you got?” Merle cut in. “Me and the penguin are still here, you perverts.”

“Oh hush, neither of us are actually here. Him and me aren’t doing nothin’, he just got a little aroused,” Y/N countered. “And to answer your question about another baby, Daryl, I reckon you’ll find out when you come back.” She shrugged. “Unless you reach us on a radio? Eugene is diligent about it, especially now.”

That was another thing she wrote in her letter. Eugene and his radio.

The helplessness crashed back down on him. “I’m tryin’ babe.” He didn’t want to start crying. The nun was next to him and he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop crying once he started.

Merle jeered, “Try harder, Darylina.”

He was right, Daryl needed to. He needed to try harder! What kind of washed out fuck-up was he?

“Sweetheart,” his wife called softly. Her hand caressed his cheek. It felt so, so real. “Margaret — a woman who knows the pain of losing a husband — trusted this to you because you survive. And I trusted you to go, because you’ve got the brains, the balls, and the grit. You don’t die or get bit, Daryl, no. You always come home.”

Bullshit. Not this time.

“Not bullshit. Yes, this time.” She looked to the window. “Merle, back me up.”

“Based on your track record, she’s right, little brother.”

“You may not believe you can or will,” she lifted herself up on her hands and leaned forward to kiss him. It had to have been real. It felt so, so real. But he was not about to open his eyes to see if by some miracle it was. “Despite how you feel right now, my vote is you will get that happy ending. It ain’t coincidence that Laurent said so just like our Judith did! How’s that for a reason to hope?”

Shit, he was about to break down. “Y/N, maybe I don’t deserve that. You saw the shit-show what got me here.” And there came the tears. “I left you, that’s all there is to this. I don’t deserve you.”

“Oh, that word.” Y/N wasn’t a fan of the word ‘deserve.’ “On that topic, what an honest prayer you said to bless the food! So many times you used ‘deserve,’ ugh, but,” she paused, “God loves honesty like that. Very, very much.”

She kissed his eyelids where the tears were starting to slip out, kissed the scar that never seemed to fade, then settled back against the side of his chest and curled one leg around him. With her hand, she rubbed comforting circles along his torso. “And He don’t punish or withhold, that’s just our fallen world. His hand is always out for you,” she murmured. “Say, how long do you think you can keep up with imaginin’ my theology?”

“Angel, I’m already at my limit. That’s why part of me thinks you’ve gotta be here somehow, some parts of this feel so real. Smart stuff like this ain’t in my head.”

“TJ and Georgia would call out your self-hate if they could hear you. You’d owe them a lot of quarters. Hm, and euros, seeing as you're here.”

His chest tugged at their names. “How are they?”

TJ, their oldest besides Lydia, had long hair like the little French kid here. Just one other thing that ripped at Daryl’s heartstrings to make him ache so bad for home it shocked him that he wasn’t bleeding out.

“They’re as good as gold and better. Just like their father.” That phrase he knew was from his memory because she’d said it before. “All of us miss you like crazy. Postal level.”

You shouldn’t.

“Daryl.” Her hand gripped his. There’s no way it wasn’t real. It felt so real. “When I was broken after Carl's death, and I claimed the same stuff — that you should leave me and TJ, that you needed someone better, that your life would be better if we weren’t a part of it — how much did it rip you up? ’Cause even if I hadn’t told you this before, you would have to understand how it’s tearing my insides to shreds hearin’ you think the same.”

Calm. He had to stay calm or he’d be alone again.

“I’m right,” he whispered.

“I have to disagree.”

“I —” his voice went up. He switched tactics and spoke to his brother. “Merle, talk some sense into her. I failed. This is it, this is—”

“—You did screw shit up like a royal turd, but your lady would rip my danglers off if I went along with your pretty little pity party.”

Believe it or not, the tough love helped. Felt genuine, as if Merle really was shouting some sense into him. It felt so real.

He caught his wife giving Merle an air high-five. “Thank you, Merle.”

In hindsight, Daryl figured it must’ve be because Merle, in Daryl’s imagination, had to raise his metal arm to return the five. He taunted Y/N, “You’re welcome, peg-leg.”

Dream or not, Daryl was fixing to bark, but his wife playfully kicked her own prosthetic and taunted back, “Love you, gimpy.”

His brother was smug. “Square.”

As if Y/N hadn’t heard that before.“Trailer trash.”

As if Merle hadn’t heard that before. “Goody-two shoes.”

“Two shoes? Ahem,” Y/N drawled as prim and proper as a southern belle. “Did we not just establish how I only require but one shoe these days?”

Merle slapped his thigh and cackled like a hyena and Daryl couldn’t help but do the same. Y/N joked about her missing calf like she got paid for it, pirate jokes to no end.

Daryl hadn’t felt this light in months, not even close to it since leaving home.

…And to think, it was all a lie.

All fake.

They weren’t really there. Not his wife, not his dead brother. It was all in his head.

“Oh, my sweet mangy hick. Enough moping and angst, enjoy the moment! Merle and I really did a fair job on our banter just there. And you never know, Merle could really be here, seein’ as he’s dead.”

“Y/N, I even miss bickering with ya, goddamn,” he breathed.

“It is one of our love languages. That reminds me — you’re doing great with the French, Dare!”

She can’t be serious. Or, rather, he himself can’t be serious. “Babe, I ain’t spoken a word of it. The letters don’t matter half the time. I swear, these people sound drunk.”

Merle snickered, “Hell, even I speak better French than him. Voulez vous coucher av—”

“—Well, I meant like when you used the dictionary to translate that conjugated verb.” Her voice had gone down when she said this and it sounded, well…how it usually sounded when she was turned on. “If I were there, the part where I’d push your suspenders off your shoulders would drive me wild…”

Stay calm or you’ll wake up, Daryl.

And you realllly don’t want to start a sex dream with some other chick in the room. A nun!

“Get a room, horndogs. The word was ‘conjugated,’ not ‘conjugal,’” Merle spat. “This is why you got all them kids.”

His wife made one of her signature huffs, but didn’t say nothing back to Merle. Into Daryl’s ear, she sympathized, “Being horny is so annoyin’.”

Ha. Blushing even in his dreams. Part of him wondered if he was cracking up in his sleep, too, but either way, it felt good. Felt real. It felt so, so real. “I don’t even know what ‘conjugated’ means, Y/N.”

“Yes you do, otherwise I wouldn’t say it. I’m a figment of your imagination, remember?” Aw man, why’d she have to nuzzle him in the crook of his neck? He loved it when she did that. Mmm, hot damn it felt so real… “And you know that you doin’ something like conjugating a verb in another language would be sexy to me.”

“I told y’all jackrabbits to keep your britches on. Now, Daryl: ‘conjugate’ is when you make the verb agree grammatically with the subject. You’ve heard that word before,” Merle explained. Seemed out of character. And the room looked strange, there was—it was another room now?

Daryl’s thoughts turned to when Y/N and Rosita would speak Spanish. Listening as Judith helped TJ and RJ with phonics. Watching Georgia sing to baby Louise that song Siddiq had taught her in, what language was it?

“Hey. Dummy,” Merle scoffed. “You’re driftin’ off, sweet boy. Gotta stay a teensy bit lucid if you want us here.”

So that’s why the room had just looked different. He’d been slipping.

“I still don’t get how this happens, which is why I think you’re actually here,” Daryl said to both of them. “Merle, you’re probably in…somewhere in-between.”

“What, I don’t get to be in heaven yet? Y/N, you hearin’ this uppity sumbitch?”

“He still has trouble believing in such things, Merle, especially lately. I prayed for your soul, so I got hope.”

“Thank you, sister.”

“Anytime.” Y/N looked up at Daryl and smiled. “Then what about me, dude? I ain’t dead, pinky promise. So, how is it that I come to be here?”

Yeah, he’ll be as sappy as he wants with his wife of ten years. “Maybe you’re dreamin’ about me, too.”

Merle’s kissy noises were interrupted by Daryl firmly telling him to get out after which Y/N smooched him harder than she’d had in his imagination since he’d left America. The smell of her, the sounds she made, the way she would lift her head so he could bury his face in her neck, it all felt so real.

It was when she ran her hand lower down his abdomen and almost reached his you-know-what that it all stopped cold. “Sorry! Aw, shoot — Merle! Get back in here, quick, we got carried away! Well, t-technically it was all you, Dare, but — just, please don’t get a stiffy with a nun in the room!”

“Someone should put that on a shirt,” his brother called.

“Ew, no, Merle! Good Moses, maybe I really should ought to be there if you’re startin’ to imagine messed up t-shirt slogans.” She was only teasing. “Ooh, but if I were really there I could meet little Sister Sylvie! So far, I like her.”

“I knew you would.” Daryl grinned. “The way she is with the boy, she reminds me of you.”

If only you were really here, angel.

Wait, no, I don’t want you here because you wouldn’t be safe. I need you safe.

She brought his hand to her lips. “I know what you meant, sugar.”

Unexpectedly, the nun shifted on the bed, nearly jolting him fully awake.

Slow breaths. Keep your eyes shut, do not open them!

He kept them shut tight and pictured where Y/N had been to try and keep her there.

“What am I, chopped pig’s feet?” Merle grunted.

Daryl relaxed. Merle was still there, and he got back the feeling of Y/N beside him.

“You know,” his wife considered. While she was still there, he was having trouble visualizing her. Was he still close to waking up? “That Sister Isabelle is willin’ to risk sharing a room with a strange American says a lot about how much she’ll give to protect the boy and the others here.”

“Still damn weird she didn’t just share a room, the three of ’em.”

“It is. It’s really weird.” Y/N rested her forehead on his chest. He felt the warmth of her breathing against him. If he focused really hard, he could just about imagine the feel her heartbeat, too. “Maybe she’s fixing to be the first line of defense, with all them other kids livin’ here.”

“Still weird,” he grunted. “Hey, where’d my—” He looked around in his imagination at the room. “Where’d my brother go?”

“Maybe he wanted another peach. Or, maybe you're too close to wakin’ up. Be careful, darling.”

He breathed slowly and kept his eyes locked shut. His frustration was growing. It had felt so real, why was it going away?

Calm. Stay calm so she’ll stay.

“It was also unusual,” Y/N thought, “how Sister Izzy—”

“—Sister Izzy?”

He imagined that her mouth would have twisted in embarrassment. “Yes, I’d probably definitely give her that nickname. You sure know how to portray me realistically.” She started again, “It’s unusual how she didn’t accommodate for your maybe-not-wantin’-to-be-seen-in-the-tub-by-a-nun. By anyone, for that matter. Although,” she reconsidered, “they were nurses who had to change your undies and cauterize your wound, weren’t they?” When he pictured her bottom lip beginning to tremble, he held her closer. “Oh, I hate that they all died but for two! What has this world come to? Why would those men kill them?”

That was something.

The dream got easier to maintain. He felt the curve of her waist. The rise and fall of her chest. It felt real again. It felt so, so real.

Relieved, he didn’t know what to say at first other than, “The water was cloudy enough.” When he was getting treated, bathed, doctored, how hard he wished it was Y/N doing it. Another thing that made him ache, watching them nuns give him medical attention when for the past 12 years it’d almost always been his wife.

He breathed out heavily. “Dunno, when she was in there, it wasn’t too uncomfortable.”

“The habit can have that effect on some. The crucifixes and religious artworks hopefully brought some peace, too.”

“Habit?”

“Nun outfit.”

He tried to hold her even tighter. The way it felt more real than before encouraged him, got him nearly falling off his seat with excitement that he got her back!

Except, the excitement turned into panic that he might lose this moment because he was so happy, as fake as it was.

And it sent him over the edge. Just like that, he was awake. Very awake. And alone. No Y/N, no Merle.

He blinked as the room came into focus.

None of it was real. He’d, he'd known that.

And now he was awake. Lying on some flat, shitty, tiny bed, an ocean away, in a country full of people he didn’t understand, that had walkers who burned you when they touched you, and soldiers who shot up a convent full of nuns who patched up strangers and were only trying to keep a little boy safe.

He didn’t even have his ring anymore. All he had was a snippet on a voice recorder that told the world his name and how badly he'd fucked up.

Daryl turned onto his side, the pain from his burned arm screaming at him, but he didn’t give one flying fuck. Y/N wasn’t there anymore because his stupid ass had woken up! He’d earned the pain, he needed it, he deserved it.

Quietly, he thought to hell with it and let himself weep. He was so fucking done with all this bullshit.

He wanted Y/N back. He wanted his kids back. The fuck kind of brainless jackass was he, leaving them for so long, so much? And for what?

To "see what's out there?"

As if he'd find people who had a cure?

To bring Rick and Mich home? If Rick is even alive, if Michonne is alive.

To transport some creepy French boy to a group of weirdos grasping at the hope of some imaginary friend in the sky who damns them if they don’t do all the rules in the world that He’d let go to shit as a punishment or test?

Really, was Daryl that much of a guilt-ridden jerk-off to still say yes to whatever Maggie asks him to do? It’s a hopeless fu—

“Daryl, I love you so much. Please don’t blaspheme.”

“Y/N?” I thought you was gone. No, you were gone, I woke up! “You’re back?” Holy shit, thank you. Thank you! Thank you, Whoever's up there.

That small, shy smile melted all the ice he’d just had in his heart. “Try not to wake all the way again?”

He didn’t waste any more time blubbering like an idiot, he reached for her and held on. It was still a dream, so he had to be careful to not get too excited or do anything too stimulating. And, don’t worry, he wasn’t about to willingly get a hard-on when there was a nun next to him.

He just needed to have Y/N in his arms again so he could make it through the next 5 minutes without going insane!

For 12 years, she’d been there, loving him in one way or another. For 10 years they’d been husband and wife. Without her, without their kids there, in that strange, foreign place, he was losing himself so quick it brought him to his knees with shame.

Her lips pulled away for a moment. “I wouldn’t agree that you’re losing yourself. I watched Shaney lose himself, it looked different. Daryl, I’m serious,” she insisted. “Listen: did you not save that dad and daughter even after they robbed you?”

Big whoop. “You know what those guerrilla shits would’ve done to her." The same thing that got done to you. "And those assholes would prolly have made the old man watch and killed me regardless.”

“Yeah, but you also went back to try and save that gaggle of nuns from those jar-head pieces of shit, that’s got to count for somethin’.” Wait, that was Merle’s voice. He was back, too?

Daryl looked over at the window to see his brother there once more. Merle winked. “My baby brother, the hero. Stay zen if you’re fixing to keep us here, now. Keep hittin’ that sweet spot between dreamland and the real world.”

Y/N beamed at Merle before turning back to Daryl. “And did you not help those children get the medicine, Dare? Heck, now they got access to that whole castle full of supplies and it’s so much more secure. Um, m-minus the moat full of dead ones.”

“I lied to those kids out my ass, Y/N. Lied and didn’t give a damn.”

“And you ensured none of them got hurt, then promptly admitted the lie with what I’d call purity of heart.”

“I cut that boy’s mule loose without a second thought. You see that? He loved that thing.”

“Better than to have failed to back up the cart in time, which would have happened and would have gotten all five of y’all eaten. And it was almost fast enough to escape by the looks of it. One dead mule to the benefit of four living souls is a good outcome.”

“What’d my sister-in-law say earlier?” Merle asked. “Brains, balls, and grit? Not to sound all mushy gushy, but she’s right.”

The memories of falling into that moat of walkers seized him, made him start to panic again. No brains, no balls, he almost died right in there—

“—Baby, shh,” Y/N hushed. Her arms tightly wrapped around him the way she would when his nightmares hit bad. “You survived. No bites. No burns. Not even a broken bone, I don’t know how you managed it again.” Her lips, her chest, her hands pressed against him. It felt so, so real. “But you always seem to.” She kissed him. “You’ve got brains.” Another kiss. “Balls.” A deeper kiss. “And grit. And you’re alive, sweetheart. There’s always hope as long as your heart is still beating.”

“How will I get out of this?”

“You’ll find a way,” she said with confidence. “You simply don’t know what the way is yet.”

“What do I do about the nuns?”

“Help them keep Laurent safe, of course — if you choose to do so.”

I don’t want to.

“You don’t have to,” she assured him.

I want to go home.

“And you will,” she assured him once again.

I don’t want to help them. I don’t want to. I don’t fucking want to!

…God damn it. “But I should.”

“You ain’t obligated,” Y/N responded, but with hesitation that time. “It is up to you.”

Merle was the one to point out, “It’s that conscience of yours, kid. Sometimes you just can’t help but help. I’ve been watchin’ you these past, what is it, 11 years since I got my crusty white ass killed?” He chuckled to himself as he shaved off the final bit of peach before flicking the pit away. “Can’t be too mad at it when it roped you a fine piece of ass to squeeze at night and how many kids because of it?”

“Merle,” Y/N warned.

Daryl could feel his anger rising.

“What, ain’t you relieved I can’t call you ‘sweet little virgin’ no more, son?” Merle kept egging on.

“Daryl, this isn’t really him. Don’t get angry or we’ll both disapp—”

“—So, my thinking is, Daryl, that you just won’t be able to help yourself from bringing that little sissy boy to them nutjobs —”

“Shut up!” Daryl burst out ��� and opened his eyes in real time. Again? Is he that much of an idiot?

His pulse was pounding. Dread and self-loathing flooded his mind, how stupid could he be?

Immediately, he squeezed his eyes shut in a desperate hope to get his wife and brother back. He focused, focused, focused, prayed, pretended, focused…

“Daryl,” came her voice.

He could hear Y/N, but not see her. It was clear that it was all him forcing the memory of her voice back. It was all in his head.

“Why bother caring that it’s in your head, sugar? Breathe slowly and focus on the feel of my body against yours. I don’t wanna leave you."

“Y/N, I need to get back,” he panted. “I can use their help to do that. Those religious people, the Union of Hope or whoever, Isabelle says they got a good radio. I need that to get back home.”

“Well, there you go! I trust you.”

He reached up to tangle his fingers where her hair would be. His imagination wasn’t letting it happen, so he focused with gratefulness that at least he could still hear her.

“Just don’t abuse their trust, and you’ll be alright,” she softly pleaded.

Don’t break their trust? “Angel, you don’t know what I did to end up in this mess.”

Of all the ways he could have daydreamed her reacting, it was that her laughter filled the room. “For the last time, my mangy hick, I am a figment of your imagination and quite literally know everythin’ inside that brain of yours. And I still love you despite that ‘shit-show’ what landed you here.”

He brought to mind the color of her eyes, wanting, wanting, begging for a miracle that would make her truly there with him so he could stare into them all night. “What would you say if I asked ‘that if I don’t find nothing, what good am I?’”

“Y/N, you can blame our raising for that shit right there,” his brother commented.

“You poor boys. Broken people sometimes make for broken kids.”

Gently, he started to perceive the way she would rub her cheek against his chest when she’d lay down with him. “Daryl? If I were here, I’d say things to try and make it stick in your head that your worth ain’t dependent on what you can offer.”

“What does it depend on, then?”

“Careful, you’re treading into religious waters now, and I ain’t sure you’ve got the bandwidth tonight. But God is involved,” she hinted.

This mess was hopeless, wasn’t it? No winning, no out, no happy ending.

“Angel, I can’t come home empty-handed.” He squeezed his eyes tighter and willed himself to not lose his cool yet again. “I can’t come home with no Rick or Michonne, no cure, no nothin’ but a burn, more nightmares, and more lives on my conscience.”

“You can,” she answered simply. “It ain’t all on you. No — please, don’t get any more upset or you’ll wake up again! Daryl, I’ve already slipped so far away!” He heard his wife begin to cry, but the sound went further and further from him. All he could see were the backs of his eyelids.

Still, he held on as best he could. “Please stay here, angel.”

“I-I would, sweetheart.”

“When I’m back, I won’t even want to leave the walls to hunt if it would mean not being next to you, d’you know that?”

“Let someone else hunt. You’ve done enough to last a lifetime.” Her voice was hoarse the way it had been when she’d said those same words to him about a year and a half ago. “More than enough. Oh Daryl, I’m so sorry we’re going.”

“Not yet, angel, please don’t!”

“Use all those things makin’ you homesick as reasons to hope. Do it for me, sugar. Get yourself home again. Don’t die, don’t get bit.”

“I won’t. I’ll get back to you. Tell the kids I love ’em?”

There was silence.

Stillness.

Daryl lay there, accepting that he couldn’t feel Y/N next to him anymore.

His throat tightened. “Angel?”

He doesn’t know why he bothered. She was gone, he knew it. He ran his finger where his ring should’ve been, if he hadn’t lost it.

“Angel,” he tried again.

Silence.

“Babe, please. Please.”

Silence.

“Y/N, please, one more time, angel.”

Silence.

The pain in him was hollow and cold.

Feeling small and helpless, he lifted his arms above his head and held back a wail of despair. He closed his eyes again and, in his head, he cried out in desperation, “Merle?”

At first, there was no answer. He hadn't expected one. Why should he?

But then he heard a quiet, low, “I’m still here.”

Merle spoke slowly and heavily, almost as if it hurt him to admit it. “I don’t think she’s gonna come back tonight, Daryl. You’ve already fallen out a few times. I ain’t gonna be here much longer, neither. You know that.”

Any strength he had left seeped out like a stab wound, leaving him crying like a child. “I can’t see you anymore.”

“I know, little brother.”

“It felt so real.”

“It sure as hell did. I think you needed it, even if it hurts like a bitch now.”

It had felt so, so real!

But it wasn’t. “I’m alone,” he choked out.

“Nothin’ you can’t handle.” For a moment Daryl could make out his brother’s face again. “You’re a tough sumbitch, so I’d advise you act like it. Quit blubberin’ like a baby and wipe the snot out your nose.”

Daryl sniffed and tried to get a grip.

“Good.” Merle’s voice began to echo. He was almost gone, too. “Now listen here: don’t die, don’t get bit. Get your ass back where you belong.”

The room came into view.

The echoing stopped.

The hollow, cold pain he’d felt at knowing they were gone there turned sharp and hot. Turns out, it was actually the throbbing in his arm. Daryl really had turned onto his side, which positioned his burned arm underneath him. He strained to get off it and flip onto his back.

You know what? The pain from his burned arm didn’t hold a candle to the ache in his chest.

Were those tears on his face, too? Guess he must’ve started crying for real in his sleep. Made sense considering how real it all felt. It all felt so real.

If only his pulse would stop racing, he felt sick.

He was getting damned old.

Instinctively, he tried to fiddle with his wedding band, which is when he recalled yet again how he’d lost it. Only a faint tan line remained.

He closed his eyes, exhausted, and chewed at his lip. Another tear or two escaped and ran hot down his cheek.

A strange part of him wished he hadn’t lied to Laurent about having a wife and family back home. At the time he said it so it wouldn't hurt as much, but…

“You deserve a happy ending, too,” the kid had told him. Just like his Judith had, when she saw how low and unworthy he begun to feel. She told her auntie Y/N, too, of course, not that his wife wasn’t unaware of how twisted his head had gotten into thinking he was no good. It didn’t feel twisted to him, it felt honest. He didn’t deserve them. They were too good.

His wife’s words to him played again in his mind. He may have just been making all that shit up in his brain, but he was only remembering a mix of real things that she’d told him before, over and over in the hopes his stupid ass would accept it one day.

“Despite how you feel right now, my vote is you will get that happy ending. It ain’t coincidence that Laurent said so just like our Judith did! How’s that for a reason to hope?”

He did need a reason. It was getting harder and harder to hold onto hope. Any hope.

So, maybe, a weird kid with long hair like TJ’s who drew a picture of some washed-up bum on a beach three weeks before Daryl showed up was reason enough to hope. He could grasp onto that.

If it would get him home, hell yeah, he could do that.

How the same weird kid told him what his niece had and what his wife had could be reason enough, too. He could grasp onto that as well, if it would get him home. He could do that for them.

Daryl ran his hand in slow, gentle circles along his stomach like Y/N would. Maybe he’d been doing this in his dream, which is why it felt so real.

It had all felt so, so real.

------------------------------------------

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[imshymorph]

Here’s soft!price, i’m sure you missed him or at least i did. Of course as soon as i say i’ll write and post about ghost i get ideas for everyone and their mother and write those instead.

I believe that sometimes, when John is away for a mission and struggles to fall asleep, he thinks back to moments in your relationship.

Like now, it had been at least an hour since he had left the rec room where the rest of the task force had been chatting after supper. He had gotten ready for bed and finally found a comfortable position. And yet here he was, still awake despite how tired he really felt.

And just like any other time he had the chance to, he let himself think of you. First he was thinking about how you'd probably be knocked out by now, for sure falling asleep while the two of you watched a movie on the couch and cuddled.

- - - - -

How he'd pause it so you wouldn't miss anything, pick you up carefully to not wake you and carry you to bed. Hold you close and pull the covers around you both before pressing a kiss to your forehead and whispering a soft "i love you".

A little amused smile appeared on his lips when those three little words made him jump onto a different memory. One that you referred to as "the unofficial first i love you".

It had started when John received a call from the hospital, not giving the nurse the chance to say more than your name and at what desk he should ask to see you before he was fleeing base and coming to you (even if at that time you hadn’t been together for that long).

To this day you defend how overly dramatic he was, sure you had been in the ER, but it had been "just" because of a minor concussion. You had wanted to snack on some chocolate covered almonds while watching your show, but when you went to get them you had realised the little container had been pushed to the farthest part of the cupboard. Even in your tiptoes, your fingers only grazed the container, not getting enough of a grip to pull it forward.

Determined to have your snack you had gotten a step stool (which John had been happy to hear because he had worked really hard on getting rid of your dumb habit of climbing on the counter). What you hadn’t noticed was that the damned kitchen faucet had been leaking again. So when you got on it and leaned forward, the stool slid back, the movement making you bend forward and smack your head on the cupboard’s edge. After feeling dizzy you had called for a cab and gotten to the ER. And there you were, waiting for him to pick you up.

He had gotten leave for the first few days and kept to deskwork for a couple weeks after to make sure he was available were anything else to happen. He was glad he had done so, as the first week had mainly been you on bedrest with a killer headache, feeling dizzy nearly every time you sat up, almost nauseated whenever you had to walk to the bathroom.

He now was able to admit to himself without guilt that, despite how much he hated the circumstances (the faucet didn’t have the chance to be leaky again from then until you moved in together to the house you now share. And your step stools have grippy stickers on the feet) he loved the perfect excuse it gave him to baby you and hold you all day. Which had led to the memory that made him smile every time.

“John, I'm bored… Talk to me about something.” You murmured, your head resting on the crook of his neck to shield your eyes from the light that managed to filter through the curtains. “Anything, really.”

“Hmm, let me think.” He murmured, his gruff and low voice surprisingly being of help with your headache, giving you something to focus on instead of the pain. “I actually thought about this last week… You haven’t been to France, have you? Maybe when you recover we could plan a weekend trip to Paris.”

He couldn’t help but smile when he heard you chuckle, although it withered a bit when a small pained whimper followed, the pair flaring at the effort. “I’m okay.” You reassured almost instantly, “I just hadn’t expected the topic to be France.”

A low chuckle left him as well, “well, you said I could talk about anything, love.” He justified it with a small self-pleased smile before pressing a kiss on your forehead. “Need me to bring anything to help with the pain?”

“No, it’s fine.” You reassured softly, adjusting a bit in his arms. “Don’t change topics now, you were promising to take me on a trip.” you say lightheartedly, earning a small laugh from him. “I’m making a big effort here to recover, I better get something good after.”

He chuckled again, one hand moving to rub your back, making you smile against his neck. “Making the effort for me or for the trip, doll?” He teased, but he froze when your answer came, his heart beating faster than he could admit and the warmth on his cheeks luckily hidden by his beard.

“For you, of course.” It had been so simple, and yet he had to stare at the ceiling for a full minute to recover from it, feeling like his heart could jump out of his chest at any moment. And before he could realise, he had gently held your chin and pulled back a bit to look you in the eye.

“I hope you don’t tease me for the rest of our lives for saying this now, but… I love you, I love you so much.” His words had left in a soft murmur, his eyes matching your widening ones as you both processed the moment.

A small shaky breath left you and despite your prominent headache you lunged forward, pressing your lips to his in what he still considered one of the best kisses he had ever received (the list was pretty long but all of them classified after the one on your wedding). “I love you too.” you had said softly as you pulled back, just to immediately slap his shoulder. “But why tell me now, you twat. I’m stuck in bed, we can’t do anything cute like a date night.”

It had caused him to chuckle then and it did now as he adjusted his pillow and pulled the covers a little higher. The official version according to you was a month later, when you both had snuck away for a weekend to the Paris trip he had promised. You had planned an incredibly cliché day out but pretty much none of it had worked out when a storm had drenched the whole city. Somehow you had found yourself taking cover in a quaint and cosy jazz club where you had spent all night chatting away in a small booth.

He could still remember the adoring look in your eyes when he had turned back to you after ordering new drinks for you both. And when you had leaned in and said those three little words, he had known he had been right to say it a month before. His heart soaring and his whole body thrumming in delight when he whispered it back before kissing you.

With a soft smile and a quiet murmur of I love you, John passed his thumb over the wedding band that hung around his neck along with his dog tags before finally falling asleep.

[reasonsforhope]

"The amount of electricity generated by the UK’s gas and coal power plants fell by 20% last year, with consumption of fossil fuels at its lowest level since 1957.

Not since Harold Macmillan was the UK prime minister and the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time has the UK used less coal and gas.

The UK’s gas power plants last year generated 31% of the UK’s electricity, or 98 terawatt hours (TWh), according to a report by the industry journal Carbon Brief, while the UK’s last remaining coal plant produced enough electricity to meet just 1% of the UK’s power demand or 4TWh.

Fossil fuels were squeezed out of the electricity system by a surge in renewable energy generation combined with higher electricity imports from France and Norway and a long-term trend of falling demand.

Higher power imports last year were driven by an increase in nuclear power from France and hydropower from Norway in 2023. This marked a reversal from 2022 when a string of nuclear outages in France helped make the UK a net exporter of electricity for the first time.

Carbon Brief found that gas and coal power plants made up just over a third of the UK’s electricity supplies in 2023, while renewable energy provided the single largest source of power to the grid at a record 42%.

It was the third year this decade that renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, hydro and biomass power, outperformed fossil fuels [in the UK], according to the analysis. Renewables and Britain’s nuclear reactors, which generated 13% of electricity supplies last year, helped low-carbon electricity make up 55% of the UK’s electricity in 2023.

[Note: "Third year this decade" refers to the UK specifically, not global; there are several countries that already run on 100% renewable energy, and more above 90% renewable. Also, though, there have only been four years this decade so far! So three out of four is pretty good!]

Dan McGrail, the chief executive of RenewableUK, said the data shows “the central role that wind, solar and other clean power sources are consistently playing in Britain’s energy transition”.

“We’re working closely with the government to accelerate the pace at which we build new projects and new supply chains in the face of intense global competition, as everyone is trying to replicate our success,” McGrail said.

Electricity from fossil fuels was two-thirds lower in 2023 compared with its peak in 2008, according to Carbon Brief. It found that coal has dropped by 97% and gas by 43% in the last 15 years.

Coal power is expected to fall further in 2024 after the planned shutdown of Britain’s last remaining coal plant in September. The Ratcliffe on Soar coal plant, owned by the German utility Uniper, is scheduled to shut before next winter after generating power for over 55 years.

Renewable energy has increased sixfold since 2008 as the UK has constructed more wind and solar farms, and the large Drax coal plant has converted some of its generating units to burn biomass pellets.

Electricity demand has tumbled by 22% since its peak in 2005, according to the data, as part of a long-term trend driven by more energy efficient homes and appliances as well as a decline in the UK’s manufacturing sector.

Demand for electricity is expected to double as the UK aims to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 because the plan relies heavily on replacing fossil fuel transport and heating with electric alternatives.

In recent weeks [aka at the end of 2023], offshore wind developers have given the green light to another four large windfarms in UK waters, including the world’s largest offshore windfarm at Hornsea 3, which will be built off the North Yorkshire coast by Denmark’s Ørsted."

-via The Guardian, January 2, 2024

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

[redclercs]

DELICATE✰ CHARLES LECLERC.

xii. oh no, i’m falling in love again.

— the one where he changes your ticket home.

“𝘛𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘺𝘦𝘴. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘯𝘰.” ― 𝘎𝘢𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘭 𝘎𝘢𝘳𝘤í𝘢 𝘔á𝘳𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘻, 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘢.

warnings: this is fiction so we're going to ignore everything that doesn't adjust to our real world timeline, okay? okay. ft. timothée chalamet, paris inaccuracies, alcohol consumption. 3.4k words (+articles!)

currently playing: labyrinth by taylor swift!

also the song referenced in the first article is this one.

masterlist ✢ next

by Alan Gomez

After months of awaiting its release, Aidan Kim has graced us with the first single of his upcoming album “MIRRORS”.

The first song off the album, called “In Your Pocket” was released last Friday august 4th, and reached its peak at #7 in the billboard 100. The track, in which Aidan participated both as a lyricist and producer, talks about a dying relationship thanks to the girl being a cheater and protecting the evidence by not showing her cellphone to her counterpart.

With a constant “show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” and “it should be really easy if you have nothing to hide” Kim depicts what could be his personal experience with ex-girlfriend y/n y/ln, who was accused of cheating with a Formula 1 pilot last May.

The album expects its release in October 5th.

SEE ALSO:

→ Victoria Presley takes a break from social media: "My free speech is being disrespected."

→ Who did Aidan Kim date before y/n y/ln?

→ Mia Kim loses role on Netflix's Heartstopper.

By Beatrice Mann

With the release of his first single, Aidan Kim keeps pushing the same old narrative that he got cheated on by his ex-girlfriend actress y/n y/ln.

The thing is, there is absolutely not proof of this to be true. y/n herself has said that despite everything going on in her relationship with Aidan Kim, cheating never crossed her mind. Plus, the allegations that involved Formula 1 driver, Charles Leclerc have been debunked by the monegasque himself saying he had “the pleasure of meeting y/n” in April.

Aidan Kim is manipulating the narrative to make himself look as the one who was blindsided, however no one is holding these facts against him, when it’s clear lying has never been past him.

Even Joel Austin who spent most of the 2010’s working with Aidan Kim in Star-5 has called him “deceitful” and “jealous”.

It is extremely harmful that, despite y/n refusing to say Aidan Kim’s name in public and choosing to only refer to him as “my former partner”, Aidan can’t keep her name out of his mouth to save his life. Tell me Aidan, who really is freeloading of the other one’s fame?

SEE ALSO:

→ Former Star-5 staff says Aidan Kim played a key part in the group's disbandment.

→ y/n y/ln looks radiant leaving Columbia Pictures HQ.

→ Swifties prove they're #TeamYN with new trend praising the actress.

August 15th, Paris, France.

Laughter fills your hotel suite, you're stumbling around the room barefoot, in an attempt to dance to ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' while Matilde takes pictures with a disposable camera and holds her aching middle.

You're supposed to be getting ready for a Fashion Show happening in an hour and a half, one both Matilde and you got invited as guests for Dior. Your outfits are hanging by the door to the suite, away from the mess you've made with spilled champagne and a half-eaten fruit platter.

It's the first time in days that the lyrics to 'In Your Pocket' aren't playing in the back of your mind as you try to go on with your day. Being with Mati always helps you forget the outside world, even for a little while.

The music fades as you pose in the middle of the room and Matilde snaps a picture that leaves you seeing stars for the following seconds.

"Okay, let's get serious now," you say through a chortle. "We need to be ready!"

These public appearances are becoming increasingly important for you, they are the few chances you get to show everyone that you are still likable enough to get invited to events and therefore, not an awful person at all. Although actual awful people get invited too, you're hoping to give the opposite impression.

Your styling team will be getting there in ten minutes, assuming you're showered and ready and not in pajama shorts and your hair in a bun on the top of your head.

"Fine!" Matilde takes a deep breath, soothing her laughter before giggling again. "Go on, take a shower and I'll pick our stuff up."

"Thank you!"

You make a stop before running to the bathroom. Your cellphone rests on top of your bed, facing down. A text from Charles pops up as soon as you lift the phone, the screen unlocking with your face. It's a simple 'see you later, soleil' that has you smiling like an idiot against your will.

"What's that?" Matilde wonders, picking runaway crushed grapes from the marble floor. She knows exactly what it is that's got you smiling like that, you spilled everything last night, when you were drunk on red wine.

Your stupid little crush on Charles isn't your best kept secret anymore, but there is no one you trust more than Matilde to keep it with you.

Surprisingly, despite her initial warning, Matilde didn't judge you at all as you hiccuped and whined about how good Charles looked at the wedding and how unfair it was that you felt butterflies every time you thought of him.

The butterflies didn't last long, though, supplanted by worms of anxiety. Falling in love was not a conscious decision, no matter how much you wish it would be otherwise. And it was so frightening. Falling felt like flying, until you ended up crushed on the ground.

“Nothing,” you say, locking the phone again.

“Huh,” Mati is holding back a smile, wiping the stickiness from her hands on her pajama top. “Weird.”

You smile at her, a sheepish ‘I’ve been caught’ smile that finally makes Mati herself grin. You’re glad she didn’t repeat her “you don’t wanna do that” sermon, although maybe it would have helped you make your mind up about whether you want to explore your feelings or throw dirt on them to extinguish the fire.

Maybe you just have to get through one day at a time, if there's anything you've learnt since your downfall began is that the future is unpredictable. You wish you had a crystal ball, though.

─────────

It's at the After Party that you actually get five minutes alone with him, or as alone as you possibly can in Le Carmen, surrounded by half-drunk people and loud music blasting.

"Here, soleil," Charles hands you the Vodka Soda you ordered, before taking his whiskey. It makes you remember the smell of his breath, so close to your neck, while you danced at the wedding.

You take a sip of your drink before Charles can clink his glass to yours, and he just laughs as embarrassment fills you. "Sorry."

He looks impeccable in his tailored suit and with his hair slicked back. Your hands are sweating and you try not to let it show how nervous you suddenly feel, this isn't you. Not around Charles, anyway.

"It's okay," he says, sipping his drink too, a smile still on his lips.

Red lights flash on your faces as you try your best to hold a conversation about the fashion show. Charles was a guest for Armani, and had to sit exactly opposite to you facing the runway.

"Hey! y/n!" someone is grabbing the upper part of your arm before you have even turned around.

"Oh, hi!"

You saw Timothée around a couple times tonight, but with his popular kid aura, all he'd done was greet you with a smile and a wave before disappearing through the crowd with a drink in his hand. To be honest, after what you'd said about him on your Youtube video you felt a little shy, but he never seemed to remember or mind your comments, he said he was on your side once or twice, even.

"How's it going?" he asks, his hand has left your shoulder and dropped to his side, but you notice the way Charles' eyes follow it. "Also, nice to meet you," he offers the same hand to Charles who takes it immediately, giving it a strong squeeze.

"C'est mon plaisir," is all Charles responds.

"All good," you half-sigh. Stress is a normal part of your life now, but it doesn't mean you're okay with it. "You?"

Timmy shrugs, imitating your response before drinking from his glass. "Just wanted to say hi, i'll see you soon, yes?"

"Hopefully?"

The exchange can only mean one thing. He has gotten the call.

Your little trip to Los Angeles was for a chemistry read at Columbia Pictures with Timothée for Greta Gerwig's new version of Little Women. It's the furthest you've gotten all year to landing a role and just thinking of it has the vodka churning in your stomach.

Charles watches the conversation with his brows furrowed, gripping the whiskey glass tightly. You give him a smile that he doesn't return before downing his drink.

"I'm sure I'll see you," Timmy is smiling again and his long fingers squeeze your bare shoulder once more. "Exciting, right?"

"Oh, you have no idea," you finish your vodka soda and immediately regret it. The alcohol is going to go straight to your head if you don't slow down.

"What are we talking about?" Charles questions, finally done with being the outsider, and letting his annoyance get the best of his manners.

Timothée and you open your mouths at the same time, but before words can come out, someone is dragging your could-be-costar away not caring at all that he's busy, and all he does is say a quick 'sorry' and 'bye'.

Awkwardness falls between Charles and you as you stare at your shoes, then his, and finally look up at his face, the lights have changed to blue and green and hide the color of his eyes.

"Want to get some air?" you suggest, "I'll tell you all about that." you signal to where Timothée disappeared with your head and bite your lower lip. Charles' expression softens and he nods, following you out as people woo for Rihanna's 'We Found Love'.

You take a deep breath once you're out of the club, the air is warm and pleasant. Charles observes you, leaning against the wall of the building. The back is empty, albeit a little creepy, but you don't mind. It's quiet and you're alone with Charles. Okay, maybe that you mind a little. When did you forget how to act around him?

"So," you begin, standing in front of him. Charles' demeanor is still mildly off-putting and you know you'd be the same had you been excluded in the way you did to him. "It's not a big deal, really. I haven't told anyone because, well, you know how things are right now and, yeah..."

Charles raises both eyebrows, his lips form a thin line briefly, before he switches to a good attempt at being neutral.

"I auditioned for a movie, Little Women, and finally got a callback. We had a chemistry reading a couple weeks ago," you explain quickly, rubbing your forehead in an anxious gesture. "His 'see you soon' is just wishing me luck, he's already got the role."

"Soleil, that's wonderful," Charles pushes himself off the wall, holding both your shoulders with his warm hands. "Why didn't you tell me?"

You shrug, making his palms slide to your biceps. "I didn't want to die of embarrassment when I didn't get the role. Which I can still do, by the way. Die, I mean."

Charles laughs, and you break into a smile too. "Seriously, Charles."

"You're not dying of embarrassment, not on my watch," he squeezes your shoulders. "I'm so proud of you."

"I'm sorry that you felt left out back there," you apologize, and it takes more than a little effort not to look away from his eyes. "It was really rude."

Charles shrugs—all nonchalant—as if he wasn't about to crush a whiskey glass with one hand just ten minutes ago. "That's okay, soleil. You can keep your secrets."

"You can keeps yours too," you joke, and it's like the air shifts around you. Heavy with secrets and unspoken words.

Charles lets go of you then, taking a step back. "I don't want to keep secrets from you, y/n."

Your heart wants to jump out of your chest, and the knot in your stomach tightens so much it turns heavy. You cannot say that you don't want that either, because keeping this secret from him is self-preservation.

It's not the time to think about him, and you hate yourself for it, but when Aidan's face flashes through your mind you're filled with fear. And you hate him more than you could possibly loathe yourself. Because he's made you afraid of falling in love.

You plan to meet up with Charles for brunch the next day. You ignore Mati's chants of 'It's a date!' all morning as you move around your shared suite, trying to pick out the perfect outfit, excusing the indecision with how 'unpredictable' the weather is. Although it's been mild for the past fourteen days.

The flight you're taking back to New York with Matilde leaves the next day, and you're carrying the dread of packing the mess you've left at the hotel. The press has been right about one thing only that involves you or your friends, Matilde is going back to Broadway and since your home is finally just yours again, you offered it to her while she figures her stuff out.

"y/n, chill, okay?" Mati is lying on her unmade bed, holding her phone above her face. "Your packing will be done just in time, just worry about your date."

"It's not a date," you repeat, running the brush up and down your cheeks again, painting them a glowy peach. "Is it?"

Mati rolls her eyes, and before she can turn to face you, she drops her phone right on her face. "God damnit!"

You burst out laughing before you can help it, but still leave your chair to check on Matilde. "Are you okay?"

She rubs her nose, tears in the corner of her eyes. "Never better,"

"You'll be fine," you assure, blood doesn't come out and the redness is probably just from her incessant rubbing. "Be careful next time."

"Sure mom," Mati rolls her eyes again and sits up on the bed. "Oh, loving the makeup!"

"Thank you," you stare at your reflection in the mirror for thirty seconds straight, urging your eyes to find a flaw. Is the line on your eyelid crooked? Are your teeth stained pink? Maybe you should have chosen another shade for your blush.

"y/n," Mati is still pinching the bridge of her nose and you feel really sorry for laughing. "You look beautiful, okay? Stop looking at yourself like that."

You flashback to a time Victoria told you maybe you should just 'stick to what suited you' when you tried a shorter haircut.

"Thank you, Mati," you take your eyes away from yourself. "Sorry for laughing, are you sure you're okay?"

Mati nods, showing you her clean palm. "This has happened to me more times than I care to admit."

You giggle, running your fingers through your hair one last time. "I promise I'll finish packing as soon as I get back."

"Can you just focus on one thing at a time?" Mati picks a stray hair from your forehead and puts it back in place. "If Charles doesn't tell you how beautiful you look, I will kick his ass, by the way."

You laugh, but you hope he will actually think so.

You get a déjà vu feeling when you get to the restaurant and Charles is already there, tapping his foot on the white linoleum and fixing his empty cup on the little plate.

"Am I late again?" you ask after the host leads you to his table. You're smiling and your cheeks are about to protest in pain.

"I'm just too early, again," Charles gets up to pull your chair, and you hold your breath as he kisses your cheek before moving on to the next task. "You look gorgeous, soleil."

At least Mati won't have to kick his ass.

"Thank you Charlie," you beam wider, enjoying the moment of satisfaction before anxiety presents itself. "You look very handsome."

His beige shirt and glasses aren't otherwordly on a normal basis, but you love the way they look on him. And you're proud of yourself for being able to return the compliment for the first time.

Lunch goes by smoothly as you recap last night's party, the good, the bad and the ugly. You spent the rest of the night dancing with him and Mati, and doing your best to stay away from the vodka to soothe your nerves. You even saw Timmy again before he left, and he wished you good luck in his own strange way before saying goodbye in slurred French to Charles and you.

"So, what are you plans for the rest of the break?" you're on your third cup of coffee, not your best idea, really.

There's around twelve days left before Charles has to go back to racing.

"Maybe taking a trip, spending a few days at home too. I just want to rest."

You nod. As an actress sometimes you have to travel a lot, but it can't compare to the way he's always away from home, you just got the tiniest taste as an Elix ambassador.

"Sounds like a great plan, Charlie,"

It's like Charles is always inviting you to join him in anything he plans to do, and this is not the exception, as the words that come out of his mouth next are: "Do you want to come with me?"

“Come where?” You laugh, to be honest, most of the time you think his offers just come out of being polite. Like when you offer someone a piece of your food and you secretly hope they’ll say no.

But Charles is always authentic when it comes to his offers, especially to you. “Anywhere you want,” he smiles, his eyes become small behind his glasses. “Have you ever been to Greece?”

You can’t help but throw your head back and laugh. “Seriously?”

Charles nods, semblance unchanged. He is smiling but he isn’t joking at all. “Italy? though you know that already thanks to Matilde. Carlos says Tenerife is beautiful.”

“Why?” You gulp, your right hand is gripping your thigh under the table, anxious.

“I want to go with you,” Charles admits, and it’s the first time his calmness falters, just for a split second. “I like being with you.”

The line between what you two are and what you’re not is blurring again, and you’re uncertain as to which side it’s the one you want to choose to remain at, although you’re sure which is the safest.

“Why?” You repeat, your tongue is sandpaper in your mouth. You want to hear him say it, and you dread it all the same.

“Because I like you, y/n. I like you a lot, and I want to be with you.” Charles doesn’t skip a beat and the juxtaposition between how soothing his words are and how nervous they make you, has your head spinning. Sure, it’s not the first time he tells you he likes you. But you know this is different. "Why don't we hang out before you get busy with filming?"

You scoff. "Oh you do have a lot of faith in me, don't you?"

Charles frowns, always disliking every time you self-deprecate. "Yes, and so should you. I'm sure you're getting that role."

"Right," you sigh, annoyed at yourself for going straight down the self-hate line in front of him. Though it's not like he hasn't witnessed it before.

"So?" Charles jumps back to the previous topic swiftly, "Where should we go?"

"I have to go back to New York, though," you wince, your excitement and anxiety dying at once. "I made a promise to Mati."

Charles is unable to hide his disappointment as he looks down at the table. He's unsure of how much longer he can keep playing this game where he's okay with being just friends with you although it's clear you keep crossing each other's lines and taking a step back every time it gets too real. And he promised himself he'd be patient, because what he feels for you is real. But the pain he feels every time you find a polite way to reject him is also very real.

"I understand," he assures, smiling.

"Thank you, Charlie. I'd love to go with you, though."

It's the first time Charles isn't sure you're not lying to him.

"Are you actually out of your mind?" Mati gasps, her fork clanking against the plate as she lets it go. "Why did you say no?"

"H-How was I supposed to say yes?" you mutter, directing an apolegetic look to the rest of the customers Mati has startled.

"y/n my beloved, you just had to say yes, just like that. "Yes Charles, I'd love to go" finito."

"Right, you make it sound so easy."

Mati softens then, drinking from her sparkling water to gain some time. "Did you want to go with him?"

You find yourself nodding.

"Then why did you say no?"

"We have to go back to New York, Mati, I couldn't leave you hanging."

"First of all," Mati's accent comes out with her slight exasperation. "I can stay at a hotel, y/n. It's not the end of the world. Or you could always give me a key, you know," she raises both eyebrows, and it makes you laugh. "Why don't you put yourself first, y/n?"

This refers to pretty much everything going on in your life for the past 6 months. But the one time you put yourself first meant the beginning of the end.

"I'm scared," you whisper, avoiding Mati's eyes.

"I know," Matilde reaches for your hand and gives it a soft squeeze. "But you deserve to be happy, inspite of the fear. Maybe Charles can add on to your happiness. How will you find out if you don't even let yourself try?"

You know you cannot keep letting fear control your actions and stop you from getting what you want. You've done that enough, it wasn't patience that stopped you from speaking up for yourself all that time while Aidan and Victoria ran you through the dirt. It was fear.

"Could you excuse me while I make a phone call?"

Mati just cackles in response.

─────────

The prickle on the back of your neck has returned, and you're trying to get more air into your lungs while you wait for Charles to pick up the phone.

"Allo?"

"Hi Charlie," you breathe, failing at hiding your anxiety.

"Hello, soleil," you can hear the smile in his voice, "Are you okay?"

"Um, yes. I just wanted to ask you something."

"Go ahead,"

"So um, is it too late to join your trip?" you speak too fast, but you barely have time to wonder whether Charles understood, because he lets out a short, breathy laugh that's filled with relief.

"It's never too late to change your mind. Can New York really wait, though?" Charles fears he's said too much, or that he sounds sarcastic enough to make you regret taking the initiative.

"New York will be there, and so will Matilde," you laugh.

"Let's change your ticket, then, soleil."

You're still falling. You're still afraid. But you're going headfirst.

─── team principal radio: ❝it's finally here! thank you for reading! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. please let me know what you think, i appreciate all of your interactions with delicate so much! if you're a ghost reader, don't be afraid to interact too. we're all very nice here❞

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[meazalykov]

the golden girl

uswnt x uswnt!reader

summary: what happened in a world where reader played on the USWNT in the 2019 World Cup?

part one (part two here)

Knowing that the call at eight am could change the pathway of my career, I couldn’t sleep. My mind spins rapidly as I tried to close my eyes and manipulate myself into believing that tomorrow would be an ordinary day, but that didn’t work. 

Hi! My name is Y/n L/n and I am a soccer player who plays for club Olympique Lyon. I am a forward who many people call the “next big thing,” since I am only 19 years old. 

After winning the Champions League final with Lyon, scoring a brace which involved a penalty, my career seemed to go in a great path that was unordinary for a teenager. 

I sat on my bed, criss-crossed, as I stared at the digital alarm clock on my bedside table. 4:38am. Three hours and twenty two minutes until I get the call. 

After traveling to my hometown in the United States, Virginia Beach, I traveled to the last International camp, before the World Cup, in order to “try out” for a World Cup roster spot. My mentality is great, my skills during the camp were phenomenal and I believe I proved that to the coaches, but I am young. 

The coaches will prioritize other forwards like Alex Morgan, Tobin Heath, Megan Raphinoe, and Christen Press first. I am aware of that. They’ve won the 2015 World Cup four years ago and have the experience to go up again. However, everyone knows that the USWNT will need to bring on youngsters to set themselves up for future competitions, so I have confidence that I'll be the one they’ll call. 

Three hours and twenty minutes later, I sat at my dining room table in Lyon, preparing for the unexpected. 

My phone’s flashlight goes off a few times and my screen brightens at the sight of my International Coach’s number. 

“Hey.” I spoke first as my finger pressed on the green button. The nervousness in my voice was present, I wanted this decision to go my way. 

“Hi Y/n! How are you feeling right now!?” My United States coach, Jill Ellis, asked. 

“I’m- Um— I’m nervous.” I told the truth. I heard a small chuckle come from the coach which I raised my eyebrows at. The tension on my end could be cut with a sharp knife. The lack of sleep made my nerves worse too. 

“Well I have some news for you.” Jill said. I swallowed on nothing as the next few seconds can predict how my day– sorry— year will go. I know she has to call other players about the decisions for them so our call won’t last long, thankfully. 

“Let me start off by saying that all of the coaching staff, including myself, needed to consider someone who is young and has a lot of quality. We were impressed by the amount of work you've put into our international camps and we’ve kept up on your club experience at Lyon for more reference. So, we’ve chosen you to be on the roster to represent the United States in the 2019 World Cup.” The excitement in Jill’s voice grew when she announced that I would be in the World Cup. 

However, most of what she said sounded muffled through the happy tears that poured down my eyes. I couldn’t believe it! My hard work paid off. 

“Thank you!” I said. 

“No Thank you Y/n! We’ll see you soon, Bye!” Jill ended the call before I jumped in joy. 

A couple of months later, I sat on the bench in France as the USWNT was up against Thailand in the group stage. It was the 64th minute and we were up 7-0. As I sat on the bench, my heart raced faster out of nervousness. Eventually, my head turned when I heard her call my name. I am excited, but my stomach felt like there was a rock in it. The weight of expectations settled squarely on my shoulders as I looked at the ongoing game. 

We are winning the game by seven, but I still wanted to prove my best to the coach, teammates, and the fans. When I stood up, my legs felt like jelly making my way to the touchline. The crowd's roar was deafening, every step closer to the pitch amplifying my nerves. 

“You’re going to go on for Raphinoe. We are up 7-0 but use this as an opportunity to get a feel of the field and experience.” Jill spoke with empathy as she patted on my back, allowing me to do the required warmup on the sideline before standing at the midline. 

I tried to shake off the doubts, reminding myself of the countless hours of practice that had brought me to this moment. The nerves in my legs wouldn’t calm down. Maybe I can use that as a source of adrenaline. 

Running onto the field in replacement for Raphinoe, the enormity of the occasion hit me like a ton of bricks. The stadium seemed to stretch endlessly all around me, filled with thousands of spectators watching my every move. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. The ball was at the other end of the field, giving me a moment to collect myself.

Then, Julie Ertz shot the ball over the left side of the field to gain space. The ball landed on my ivory-colored cleat and I dribbled around a Thailand opponent before passing to Alex Morgan who lightly tapped the ball behind the net. Goal!

My jaw dropped in realization as Alex jogged over to hug me. Some of the girls on the pitch came to congratulate me on the assist as others clapped their hands. I didn’t take it offensively, we are up 8-0 now and there's not much to celebrate now besides the inevitable win. My first touch in the World Cup gave an assist which I later found impressed spectators. 

I glanced at my teammates when the game started again, finding reassurance in their encouraging, yet concentrated, nods and smiles. They had confidence in my abilities, even if I struggled to find it within myself sometimes. With each passing second, my nerves began to settle, now replaced by a fierce determination to prove myself worthy of wearing the US jersey.

Eventually, I found myself caught up in the rhythm of the play. My eyes were on the ball, blocking out the noise of the crowd and the pressure of the moment. With each touch and pass to a teammate, my confidence grew and my movements became more fluid and precise.

Then, in the 73rd minute, it happened. A perfectly timed pass by Samantha Mewis found my feet. At this point I wanted to be the goalscorer, not the assist. With a burst of speed, I raced towards the goal and dribbled around the defenders who were in the way of the goal, the screaming chants of the crowd fading into the background as they saw what I was doing. At that moment, there was only me, the ball, and the goal.

My right foot unleashed a powerful shot, the ball rocketing into the back of the net with a stunning curve. Goal! The stadium erupted into cheers, the sound washing over me like a tidal wave of euphoria as my teammates ran to congratulate me on my first ever goal in the World Cup. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to bask in the glory of my achievement, the weight of my nerves finally lifted off of my shoulders. The game ended in a 13-0 win for us!

Later in the World Cup tournament, I found myself on the bench as my heart pounded at the match in front of me. Thanks to Alex Morgan and Christen Press who scored in the Semifinal against the Lionesses, we were in the World Cup final against the Dutch. 

As the game enters the 79th minute, with the score being 2-0, the coach calls my name. This took me by surprise since I didn’t believe that any substitutes would join the final. When I stood up, my legs felt like lead as I made my way onto the pitch for Tobin Heath, who had an injury earlier in the tournament and couldn't play all 90 minutes. The roar of the crowd washes over me, drowning out the doubts that threatened to consume me since I am on the right wing.

With only minutes remaining, I can’t make a mistake. I have to make every second count. We are up 2-0 but the Netherlands could easily catch up if we make a few errors, they’re EURO champions and have a statement to make for the world.

As I focus on the ball, blocking out the noise of the crowd and the pressure of the moment, the 89th minute comes along. Krieger gets the ball from a Dutch forward and launches the ball in the air towards Rose Lavelle. The girl who scored the second goal in the final headed the ball over the field again before it landed onto my feet— This is my chance. 

My feet take the ball towards the goal. Veenendaal, the Dutch Goalkeeper, sets herself up in a ready position. As I race closer to the goal, my heart pounds in my chest. The defenders close in but I dribble around them effortlessly. An Oranje defender missed her chance to side tackle me as my left foot unleashed a powerful shot. The ball grazed the tip of Veenendaal’s fingers and the ball hit the back of the net with stunning precision. Goal!

The stadium erupts into cheers as I run to the corner of the pitch to celebrate. A typical knee slide that allowed my knees to slide through the soft grass before I stood up and turned to my teammates who rushed to congratulate me. Everyone on the bench got up and ran to me as well to celebrate. At that moment, the voice in my head told me that I’ve done it. My goal gave everyone the reassurance that we secured a World Cup win for the USWNT four times. 

After winning the Bronze Ball, Gold Medal, and being able to take pictures with the World Cup trophy itself, I cried. The tears wouldn’t stop after my bestfriend Mallory Pugh hugged me as she cried as well. We were so happy, I have never felt so proud of myself and my team. 

Hopefully 2023 will secure us a three-peat…. 

part two here

[johnwickb1tsch]

bittersweet ~ a yandere!John Wick x fem!reader sunshine/grump coffee shop AU... Part 27 all chapters

WARNING: NSFW, SEXUAL CONTENT, YANDERE SH!T. Plz take care. I luv u all. 😘

-“I have a surprise for you.”

Hearing this fills you with what is perhaps a disproportionate amount of trepidation.

However…consider the source.

“Oh?”

“I wasn’t going to give it to you yet, but…I think I’d better.”

You are not sure what to think about this, so you remain silent.

He takes your hand, leading you up the stairs.

As you walk down the hallway you are filled with more and more apprehension, convincing yourself that there is some trick he’s pulling around the corner. He has been disappearing on and off, refusing to tell you where he was going, but vaguely hinting that he was cooking something up for you.

You fear it’s something you don’t want at all, like a red room fully fitted with racks and restraints and hooks hanging from the ceiling. If he frames that as a gift you swear you will pull a Bertha, and burn this personal version of Thornfield Hall to the ground.

You do not like it, when he insists on covering your eyes as he walks you through a door close to your bedroom upstairs. By the time you take three steps into the room you have damn near worked yourself into a lather, a fine trembling running through your limbs.

“Shh, baby, you’re going to like this,” he assures you, which is no real assurance at all.

Five more steps before he stops you, removing his hands with a flourish.

Your heart leaps to your throat.

Floor to ceiling windows let in a flood of morning light to the room. There is a big table, and copious shelves, and…an easel.

You realize he has made you an art studio.

Your feet move forward of their own volition, taking in the various boxes stacked on the table and the shelves. They’re art supplies, and you recognize brand names that you could hardly afford on your barista’s salary. Sennelier. Windsor and Newton pigments, top tier. Fine brushes from France and Germany that cost fifty dollars a piece. Tablets in every size and every tooth of Canson paper.

“Oh. My. God.”

“You…like it?”

He almost sounds vulnerable in that moment, which is entirely ridiculous.

You imagine how you would have reacted, if your relationship had been normal. You would have thrown your arms around his neck, showered him with kisses.

This studio is everything you’ve ever dreamed of having, as an artist.

As it is…he is buying your complacency, if not your love, trying to distract you from your situation with expensive trappings and let’s face it—adult arts and crafts.  

It hurts.

And yet, you know you’d better fucking say something, or Mr. Nice Wick is going to flee the scene.

“How did you know?” you ask, fingering a box of brand-new oil pastels. “It’s perfect in every way.”

You are trying your best to sound happy about it, but your throat is tight, and you know he’s going to get mad about it any second now.

He couldn't have surprised you more, if he'd stood on tiptoe and performed a pirouette, as when he simply gathers you into his arms. 

“I had help from the owner of the art supply store,” he admits. “Pretty sure they'll be sending me a Christmas card for the rest of my life.” 

You laugh at that, settling into the hollow at the base of his throat. It feels so good, just to be held like this. A part of you cautions not to trust it—but most of you is so exhausted from living on edge, you just take the comfort at face value. 

“Did you go to Mr. Morton’s shop?” you ask, referring to the local art stop in town. You don’t know why this gives life to a glimmer of hope in you. It’s not like the kind old man would have any reason to suspect you’re here, with John Wick, just because the mysterious newcomer suddenly had a yen to buy out the store of all its art supplies.

“No, I went a little farther afield.”

Almost as though he was covering his tracks.

“Oh.” You cannot conceal the note of disappointment in your tone. “John…” You muster your courage for the next question, hoping you won’t blow the day all to shit, but you suddenly need to know. “Am I a missing person?”

He presses his lips to your forehead, and speaks quietly against your skin. “Technically, no. A friend of mine will ping your passport entry at JFK soon. You’ll tender your resignation with regrets at the coffee house. I’ll have your little apartment cleaned out. You don’t need it anymore.”

He really did think all this through. You digest the details of his Machiavellian plan rather distantly, as though you are on the outside watching from above. He has orchestrated your disappearance masterfully, but also in a way that won’t raise questions with authorities should you happen to resurface in his company. In a twisted way this gives you a sliver of hope, that maybe he doesn’t intend to keep you locked away forever.

A fool’s optimism, perhaps, but at the moment it’s all you have.

“Where’s my phone?”

“At the bottom of the Grand Canal, I’m afraid.”

“That’s littering.”

He just snorts in answer. You find that you regret the fact that all your photos are lost. You never did back them up on the cloud. How strange, that such a record of your life could be erased with the destruction of one electronic device.

Talking about this doesn’t seem to scuttle his mood, so it gives you the courage to ask, “Can I come in here whenever I want?”

You are so hopeful in your request that you sense him war with himself, in the end unable to outright say no. “If you're a good girl,” he qualifies with his lips still on your forehead. 

Hiding beneath his chin, you grind your teeth at this caveat, but don't voice aloud any of the pithy comebacks that come to mind. 

 Then you notice your sketchbook from Italy is sitting on the worktable, along with your custom bound copy of Jane Eyre.

After everything, you’re not sure why seeing it there, knowing it had been in his hands, makes your heart skitter in your chest. He follows your gaze, a dark eyebrow lifting. It is filled with sketches of him from before you met up in Venice. The whole fucking thing is practically a confession of the grinding longing you'd felt for him, in the first couple weeks after you left. You can’t deny it now, but you can choose not to acknowledge it aloud.

He stares you down, clearly hoping for…something. A confession, perhaps, or at least an admission. You feel like a bug under a magnifying glass in the sun, fixed with that gaze. But you hold fast, and in the end he sighs. “I’m going to go clean up breakfast,” he tells you. “Have fun with your new toys.”

He kisses your forehead before quitting the room, and once again you fancy that if one were to squint, you could almost mistake the two of you for a normal couple.

-He actually leaves you to your own devices until darkness begins to fill the trees beyond the window.   

By the time he comes to collect you he has changed into a black button down and dark jeans. It suits him to his bare toes, and inwardly you sigh. Why does this devil of a man have to be so goddamned handsome?

“So, what has my little artist made today?”

You are loathe to admit, the answer is nothing.

You opened every box, gazed at the pastels and paints and pencils longingly. And yet with charcoal in hand the fine white paper taunted you, inspiration an illusive thing.

You had no idea what you wanted to draw, or paint, or make. The past week has been so jarring, you would think you would be bursting with something, but all you draw is a blank. 

You shrug, curled up in the comfy chair by the easel, your drawing pad open in front of you. He takes the seat opposite, regarding you quizzically.

“You don’t like it in here?”

“I love it,” you assure him, and its no complacent lie. “I just…have been soaking it in.”

“Hmm.”

You can tell that he’s disappointed, and your treacherous heart skips a beat.

You failed to turn on any lights, as the sun is setting. John flicks on a single lamp on the side table, washing his one side in a dramatic glow. It is as though something clicks into place, as you look upon him. Your dark angel, your sinister lover, your obsessive captor, a man you should hate, but you are drawn to him like a moth to the flame.

Perhaps now, he shall also be your muse. Was ever there a man better suited to embody the mysteries of Caravaggian shadow?

“Don’t move,” you say softly, and begin to draw.

[hetalian-veteran]

Art Styles I Personally Think the Hetalia Characters Looked Their Best In (and Why) Part 2

Link to Part 1, Link to Part 3

Please note that I am referring to the show and not the webcomic. This is primarily because I didn't always have access to the webcomic and thus the show is what I've always been most familiar with. I will also refrain from talking about characters that have only appeared in one season.

Also, please keep in mind that these are just my opinions. And if you have any different ideas of what designs looked better, that's totally okay. At the end of the day, I'm just here to have fun.

America: Seasons 1-4

It was kind of hard to choose which design was best for America, seeing as they are all very similar to one another while also having different qualities that I liked. But I ultimately settled on the one from the first four seasons. I adore the WWII bomber jacket, as well as how the character in general was animated back then. Not to mention that the older art style just fits him so well. A lot of Americans have an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude about things, so I find it fitting that, at least in my opinion, this also works for aph America. He looks great everywhere else, but I won't deny I have a nostalgia for the original. This was an exceptionally close tie with his design for season 5. Not to mention I once drew aph America fanart for an art project in middle school and got an A on it.

England: Season 5

Okay, I'm gonna be real here. This all came down to the eyebrows. Well, not entirely, but it definitely played a large part. I never had a problem with England's design in seasons 1-4, but those eyebrows though. They were so distracting. I understand wanting to give characters a prominent feature that makes you go, "Yep this is (insert character here)." But I think England's eyebrows were too overdone in the previous seasons. However, I also believe they were far too thin and lightened up in seasons 6-7. Season 5 had a good balance. Not too thick but not too thin. Also, I feel like his facial structure and design made him look kinda weird in season 7.

China: Season 5

So... I'm gonna be honest here. All of the other designs for China make him look like a young girl to me. Yes, he still looks sorta feminine in season 5, but not like he appears in seasons 1-4 and 6-7. In season 5 he actually looks more like an adult man to me. Not to mention his hair. Because holy crap that is some of the most beautiful hair I have ever seen put to animation

Russia: Season 6

This was a close tie between all his designs, but it ultimately came down the hair. Yes, I know, I talk about the characters hair a lot. But that really was the deciding factor for Russia. All his designs look great in that the long coat and vertical lines throughout give me the impression of a Russian nesting doll. Now, whether that was intentional on Hima's part or not, I cannot say. But it's a cool detail that I always notice whenever I see him. When it comes to his season 6 design, I like not only how innocent he looks (which is an important part of the design Hima intended from the beginning), but that his hair has some more fun detail too it. It looks so soft and fluffy, not like the previous designs that made it look like he had water dumped on his head.

France: Season 5

What can I say about this design that hasn't been said already? The only other character who had a bigger glow-up than France was Spain (who you can see my opinions on in a previous post). Literally everything here is an upgrade from his design through seasons 1-4. His hair looks so silky and soft, not like that yellow plastic we had earlier. Also, the hair ribbon tying it back looks so elegant and refined, fitting perfectly with the character. I also love the small detail of the ribbon being the same color of his eyes. It's a nice touch. His outfits this season are great as well. They are very simple, but still elegant, with soft, curved lines and balancing both warm and cool colors. Especially in his outfit during the Joan of Arc episode.

Canada: Season 5

I think I'm starting to have a favorite season in terms of character designs here. Canada just looks his cutest here, primarily because of his outfits. He has one of the most adorable and cozy wardrobes this season, and I want to raid this man's entire closet. I love the flannels and cozy jackets and hoodies that he has. As someone who grew up most of her life in northwest Montana (which, if you ask the rest of the US, is basically just lower Canada), I think I have to be a little biased here. Canada's design gives me the feeling of home in a way, and this is definitely a wardrobe that I embrace for a time growing up.

Austria: Seasons 1-4

The hair curl in his cowlick hits harder here, just getting that out of the way. There's more of a curl to it, which is more reflective of Himaruya's art style. And even though his wardrobe in the latter seasons is great, this one all around looks better to me. I like the royal blue lined with the deep red. And the cravat is just a fabulous detail that I love. Now that I think about it, everything about this design just feels very Himaruya. Like, this is one of his best character designs. There's also the placement of the mole on the bottom right-hand side of his face. In other designs, it's not as prominent. But here it's easier to see. I feel like it makes the design all the more unique.

Hungary: Seasons 1-4

THIS. This design for aph Hungary is top tier, and nobody can convince me otherwise. Something that has always intrigued me about Hungary is that she was raised primarily around men. So much so to the point where she saw herself as one growing up. But when she got older and realized she was actually a woman, she ended up adopting more feminine clothing and characteristics. Aph Hungary is a female character who balances both feminine and masculine traits. And her design from seasons 1-4 emulate this balance perfectly. Her long hair is a pale brown color, and her eyes a dark green. Unlike later seasons where she's given long, shiny, elegant hair and sparkling eyes. She's often found wearing either military uniforms or pretty dresses. We even see the evolution of her fashion from child to adult, where she goes from wearing her hair shorter to wearing it longer and with a flower. Her design encapsulates the idea that, yes, she is a woman. Yes, she is feminine. But at the same time, this is someone who has seen war and battle. (I might have to do a separate post about Hungary, because her design and character are honestly fascinating).

[lady0ctavia]

How They are When Jealous (Allies)

Headcanons for how I think the Hetalia characters would act when they're jealous of someone hitting on their S/O.

America: Out of everyone, Alfred is the least prone to jealousy. Part of this may be because he is just a little bit dense, but it's also largely because of his self-image. I mean, so what if a guy flirts with you, or tells you you're pretty? He has enough self-confidence to believe you wouldn't leave him. Not to mention he has total trust in you. But make no mistake, if a guy is getting too close, too friendly, or making inappropriate comments, that's when the fists come out. I can also see him getting a little jealous if you flirt back with the guy, unintentionally or not. If that were to happen, he'd mope about it.

England: Arthur is passive aggressive as Hell when he's jealous. Now, he trusts you enough to know you wouldn't flirt with anybody else. But even so, he doesn't like feeling as though someone is eyeing his sweetheart. If he finds a man giving you extra attention, he's quick to stand by your side and join the conversation, subtly throwing in a few comments about how you're his, and how he's an absolutely invincible British gentleman (kudos to you if you get the reference). He may even throw some thinly veiled insults the man's way, leaving the other guy wondering what just happened.

France: Francis is a man who believes that love is one of the strongest forces on Earth, and as such, your bond resonates with the same power. But that doesn't stop Francis from getting jealous when someone flirts with you. While he can understand someone stopping by to appreciate your beauty, he gets a little irritated when someone seems to take a liking to you, only intercepting it if you get uncomfortable or signal that you need help. If not, he'll be moping about it once you get home, and you'll have to reassure him that you love him more than anything.

Russia: Despite being such a loving and attentive partner, he can still be a little bit childish and immature. And this often shows up when/if he gets jealous of someone hitting on you. Now this seldom ever happens, as he's fairly clingy and always by your side. But on the off chance a guy finds you alone and hits on you, Ivan would quickly and silently be by your side in an instant. He wouldn't say much initially, only standing just behind you with an intensely threatening aura. And if that doesn't scare the guy off, Ivan will threaten him with a smile on his face, prompting you to have to get him to calm down. He's actually somewhat similar to Lovino, in that's he's afraid you'll leave him. Which is, of course, something he'd have to work on.

China: Seeing as he's basically an old man, Yao is too mature for jealousy. He doesn't think about it, and it seldom ever crosses his mind. If a guy is talking to you, or even flirting, he doesn't think twice about the attention you're giving the guy. Mainly because you know better than to flirt with another man when you already have Yao. I dunno what else to say here. I just cannot see him getting too jealous. He has more important things to worry about.

Canada: Matthieu isn't the jealous type, but he is insecure. So when another guy talks to you and begins flirting, he gets a little unsettled. Wondering if you may like this guy more than him. He'll be as polite and cordial as possible, quietly walking up to you two and asking what the two of you are talking about, maybe even giving you a small kiss on the temple to send the guy a message.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Where have you been?

Uhhh, France?

(That’s a Hamilton reference, btw. I have never been to France.)

So! Another Hobbit Day is upon us. On this day last year, I’d promised you all that we would take another trek through LotR, with all new drawings and poems and fanfics. I fully expected to be finished with Book One by now, at least halfway through FotR. What actually happened is that the blog struggled through the first five and a half chapters of the book before suddenly going radio silent.

So what happened?

Well, as you might expect, real life happened. I won't go into the details here—since it has nothing to do with LotR—but I can explain in DMs if anyone is interested.

Basically, a change in my family led to a reexamination of what I thought I knew about my family, which led to a reexamination of what I thought I knew about myself, which kicked off an intense period of self-improvement.

Over the course of this past year, I began to unpack my family's abuse; I learned about boundaries; I started to unlearn my old people-pleasing tendencies; I reconnected relationships that were broken, reevaluated ones that were in the wrong place, and cut off ones that weren't good for me. I discovered there was a little kid in my head who's been waiting years and years for an adult to love her, and to take her needs seriously, and I finally have the chance to be that adult. And I'm happy to say that I've come to a place where I feel safer in my own head than I have ever been.

Probably very little of that is going to show through on this blog. It's all inward stuff; foundational stuff. But one thing that might affect you guys is that I left my (dreadfully overstimulating and stressful) part-time job, and I'm now working full time somewhere else. As much as I love what I do for a living now, working 40 hours a week does mean that I am become Boring Adult who does not have as much time for interneting. With my current schedule, there is no way I'd be able to sustain the intense schedule of "must post one drawing a day" that I had in the early days of this blog; and I don't expect myself to.

But! I would like to—slowly—get this train rolling again.

I find it hilariously apropos that the last piece of art I posted on this blog was of Frodo suddenly disappearing. From Merry's perspective, he completely vanished without explanation or warning. From your perspective, so did I.

But I find myself here again, on another September 22nd, and once again I'm beginning to feel that pull; that pull to read, and draw, and create, and share, and laugh with all of you. Life has calmed down enough for me that I once again have the mental space to think about pursuing my hobbies. There are so many things I want to do—so much to do with the time that is given to me. And I want this blog to be on that list.

My current goal is to post some new book art every other day. If that's too much, I'll adjust it. But if I find my groove and really get into it, who knows? We might return to your regularly scheduled Daily Dose of Frodo-With-Glasses. We shall have to see.

Anyway. If you've read this far, thank you! If you've stuck with this blog since the early days, thank you. And if you are one of that lovely core Fellowship that has had my back and prayed for me all along, I cannot thank you enough.

This past year has been an absolute ride. Not as difficult as a trek to Mordor, maybe, but not easy either. But no matter where I walked, I knew I didn't have to take the journey alone.

Anyway! Enough sappiness. Happy Hobbit Day! I'm excited to see what the next year has in store for us. 💚

[concerningwolves]

Fashion history resources?

researching fashion for the various time periods has been driving me a little crazy, particularly because when you search up historical fashion, the results overwhelmingly trend towards upper class women (usually aristocracy), then upper class/aristocratic men, then middle class men/women, with little representation of working class women and even less for working class men. (This obviously depends on time period and country; currently, I'm scrounging around for references for servants in 1660s France. Non-European fashion is even harder to research).

So, I figured it could be good to start a chain of resources on fashion history! Here's two that I've been using heavily in researching my current WIP:

Nicole Kipar's Restoration Costume Comes to Life

This truly lovely website which details costumes of the Restoration (1660s England, mostly), and has a gallery collection of paintings of working class people with annotations on what they're wearing, the time period, and their specific social role (i.e., poor peasant, affluent peasant, market trader). It's designed for costume makers, but it's also useful for artists or writers. There are five parts: working class men and women, women of the gentry and aristocracy, men of the gentry and aristocracy, accessories, and a costume focus.

Fashion History Timeline

It is what the name suggests: open source fashion history timeline from prehistory to (afaik) 19th century. I haven't explored much beyond 1660s yet, and generally does seem to focus on fashion of the upper classes, but it's already been so useful.

If anyone has any websites/books/other resources to add, please do!

[opencommunion]

"What is this force, these human beings, referred to in this word – resistance? 

First, literally, we refer to the achievement of the poorest and most strategically disadvantaged people on the planet. Within the encircled and immiserated Gaza Strip, many of the Al-Qassam fighters are orphans. Amidst closure and de-development, the popular resistance has been able to consolidate an arsenal and bring 1.5% of its population into a guerrilla force of 30,000-40,000 men that can – man for man – outmatch nearly any in the world. 

The resistance, secondly, has alloyed ideological commitment, willingness to sacrifice for their people, and technological ingenuity into armed capacity capable of going head-to-head with a nuclear power from underground tunnels, the ‘rear base’ and physical strategic depth needed for guerilla insurgency. The concrete is their mountains. From there they have imperiled an enemy with orders of magnitude higher GDP per capita – Israeli GDP is at $52,000 a year, with arsenals worth billions.

Third, the resistance, in launching its October 7 operation, is an example to the world that post-Soviet asphyxiation and extermination procedures, sanctions and terror lists and aid-based countermeasures, could not prevent the rise of a disciplined and new national movement from raising its head to the sky. 

Fourth, the popular cradle brings the word resistance beyond armed men to doctors going to their deaths in lieu of abandoning their patients and women and men in the Gaza Strip’s North – facing white phosphorus rather than abandoning their homes. It is precisely the strength of the civilian commitment to the national project that provokes US-Israeli extermination: ‘the 'civilian' officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population’ are, as a result, the targets – not out of cruelty but to break Hamas by breaking its cradle. 

Fifth, through these achievements, the Palestinian resistance has been able to present an acute threat to the settler-capitalist property structures called Israel, to militarized accumulation, to the world’s workshop for counterinsurgency technology, and to the entire architecture of regional repression with its associated petrodollar flows, treasury and security purchases, and arms merchandising. For capitalism is not just the smooth clockwork of accumulation through generalized commodity exchange and labor exploitation, it is the machinery of violence – its technology – which ensures the smooth running of the clock, the thingification of its human elements, the political decisions to maintain and rework the machinery of monopoly accumulation, and the waste of human lives which is increasingly the core Arab input into global capitalism. 

More worryingly from the perspective of monopoly power, the Palestinian resistance is not alone. It is part of a regional populist resistance enfolding the poorest people on Earth. ... It is unimaginable that the neocolonial authoritarian states nor their US benefactor would remotely tolerate massive working-class militia which speak a language of justice and republicanism and raise arms against those states’ sponsors. In turn, it is as natural as the sun rising in the East that the US, the UK, Germany, France, and their Gulf and Arab satraps would converge on support for Israel as the spear’s tip of the assault on the surrounding Arab popular militia. 

And because Israel is the keystone of the regional imperialist order – maintained not by hegemonic consensus but the brutality of Apaches and Merkavas – it is as natural as water falling from clouds that what has developed in the Gaza Strip, as soon as it mobilized politically and militarily, would incite the Western reaction to wipe it from the face of the Earth and impose unimaginable horror to terrify the Palestinian, Arab, and Third World people to never again raise their heads.

The October 7 operation has perhaps overcome the central role of the Israeli state in accumulation on a world scale: ingraining a state of defeat amongst the Arab working classes, as part-and-parcel of the post-Soviet ideological defeat imposed by capital upon labor globally. Deterrence is the form that defeat takes when pushed to the military plane, and Israel openly admits that its deterrence has been shattered.

Seen from this perspective, the risks run by the western capitalist states – their imposition of fascist regulation against freedoms of speech and assembly, their backing for genocide, their desperation to see the Palestinian armed militia wiped from the face of the Earth – is logical, reasonable, and rational in its sociopathy. It is the logic of monopoly attempting to defend itself and the consciousness which bodyguards it with fire from the sky. It is a logic which fills graveyards, and a logic which makes orphans, and it is a logic which might yet meet its end in that crossroads of continents – that salient, and city and their camps and their people."