#torrid wedding collection

[princess-of-purple-prose]

[ID: A collection of tweets by hors d'oeuvres (horse divorce) @/corviiid. They read:

anyway the real dichotomy in ace attorney is narumitsu who dance around being effectively married on the soulmate plane for 30 years before having a tearful revelation in the middle of a murder-conspiracy vs klapollo who are like wanna go on a date after work yeah okay sure 

phoenix is like apollo. take it from me, a married man. ur love life WILL be torrid for 2 decades. 3 if u count the years when u were 8 and working out the connection b/w homosexuality and court but it WILL be worth it. apollo is like klavier is bringing thai food to my apartment

judge: well then. mr. wright? what is this decisive evidence? phoenix: (this is it... i can't afford to get this wrong!) phoenix: TAKE THAT! everyone: ........ judge: this is your wedding ring phoenix: yeah. miles please help edgeworth, standing at the opposite bench: 

kay: you gotta put yourself out there mr edgeworth i mean you never know! mr right could be just around the corner edgeworth: ? no, it's a work day. he'll be in his office downtown. kay: what? edgeworth: what? 

klapollo. is so good and so funny. diva rock-star prosecutor who is like human form of the concept of vtubers. net worth of a small nation state. has his own barbie doll. dating: man who has invented a category called "most normal person on earth" and is trying so hard to win it 

apollo is like klavier i cant date you i would feel guilty if we were dating but i didnt support you by watching your new reality/lifestyle show but i cant because its on at the same time as the local news and i have to write the forecast in my pocket notebook every night

klavier is like ach i understand boyfriend forehead. you are too insecure to join me on the red carpet. i assure you that everyone will find your suit that you bought from target as charming as i do and apollo is like no i know that 

thinking about phoenix wright getting his badge back after eight long years and immediately taking on a case without checking who his client is and then when he finds out his client is an actual fucking orca he's like Aw brother. Golly gee. Well this might as well happen

trucy, mouth full of pocky: so you'd think klavier is the cool one in the relationship. but actually he gets excited about well drafted contracts. it's not him phoenix letting trucy give him a pedicure: so it's apollo? trucy: no phoenix: well, that's all the options trucy: yeah 

naming one child kristoph and one child klavier is really like going these are my two cats this one is named geoffrey and this one is named placemat

does anyone remember that one tumblr post about what if there was an anime where every episode is the protagonist dodging the first episode of another anime because she wants to be just some guy. realising that that's apollo justice

orphaned when father died in a fire and mother disappeared and lost her memory? that's just how it is. won't look into that. raised in a foreign country by a guy who becomes an infamous insurgent? don't want to talk about it. will never bring it up. i want to be a solicitor

phoenix becoming an attorney to see miles again proving he's been thinking about miles for 15+ years and never stops and then in investigations miles proving that he thinks about phoenix like eight times a day every time anything happens but never by name that's too intimate

just a whole ass relationship of miles microwaving a lasagne and thinking This microwaveable lasagne. once so cold, is now warm to the touch. Much like my heart, which was changed by... that attorney

maya voice That's why you bought out the grocery store's entire supply of bratwurst? To meet Edgeworth?! and then edgeworth doesn't even like bratwurst

halfhearted bratworth joke

(miles edgeworth tripping over a crack in the sidewalk) That's right... I could have fallen so much farther if I had not been caught by a certain / End ID]

in honour of twitter violently lowering itself into a pit of lava, i’ve started saving some of my favourite tweets from my twitter account in case it all goes down. i guess i’ll start posting them here on tumblr in chunks - the ace attorney ones go here, though i know i haven’t been all that active lately!

this is also a heads up that i’ve made a new general blog @corviiids for all the yammering that’s been on twitter up until now. if you’re INTERESTED in yammering, you’re very welcome to come over and follow me there too.

[micro-expressions]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Frye Melissa Button Brown Leather Knee High Boot.

[dawnlovesangel]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Torrid Ever After White Lace Strapless Fit & Flare Wedding Dress 14.

[joanielorraine]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Torrid Outlander the Series Exclusive Collection Thistle Print blouse gathered d.

[marcopollio]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: The limited shirt medium top gray women’s blouse sheer detail buttons.

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/torrids-new-plus-size-wedding-collection/

Torrid’s New Plus-Size Wedding Collection

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Whether you’re getting married soon or you’ve got twelve bridesmaid gigs lined up for spring (a true mood), finding the right dress is—for lack of a better word—difficult. Add in the fact that many dresses aren’t made to fit plus-size women, and you’ve got a full-blown fashion dilemma. Let me assure you, though, that help is out there, and it’s in the form of Torrid’s new wedding collection. The plus-size brand has been gracing us with its delightfully floral dresses, cute tops and butt-hugging jeans, but they’ve just added something new to the mix: plus-size wedding and bridesmaid dresses.

Yes, you can now shop Torrid for an outfit perfect for the special day—made with plus-size bodies in mind. Whether you want more of a classic wedding dress, something more casual or want your bridesmaids to look amazing, there’s something in the collection that’s sure to make all the wedding planning go more smoothly. From some lacy boho vibes to skater dresses, spring colors and adjustable straps, there’s nothing that Torrid’s wedding shop isn’t prepared for. It’s a plus-size wedding dream, and I’m here for it.

To give you a taste of what the collection offers, I rounded up some of my favorite dresses and hair accessories (Yes, there are hair accessories, too!) perfect for any spring wedding. Planning, being a part of or attending a wedding shouldn’t be more difficult because of your clothing size. So shop away, because the next sound you hear might just be wedding bells.

1. Ivory Lace Capelet Formal Gown, $168.90 at Torrid

Oh, did I mention how affordable everything is?

2. Lavender Studio Knit Convertible Maxi Dress, $64.45 at Torrid

You can wear this dress whatever way makes you most comfortable.

3. Ivory Chiffon Plunging Hi-Lo Dress, $128.90 at Torrid

It’s like having a train on your dress without having an actual train.

4. Ivory Sequin Lace & Chiffon Formal Gown, $148.90 at Torrid

Here comes the bride, all covered in sequins. 😉

5. Rose Gold Rhinestone & Faux Pearl Hair Comb, $18.90 at Torrid

I’m not even getting married and I might have to buy these.

6. Black Lace & Satin Skirt Two-Piece Set, $77.34 at Torrid

Honestly, I would love to wear this as a bridesmaid.

7. Ivory Dot Mesh Midi Skater Dress, $118.90 at Torrid

Those sleeves are so cute.

8. Pink Studio Knit Convertible Maxi Dress, $59.45 at Torrid

Imagine a world where all bridesmaid dresses were this pretty.

9. Rhinestone Beaded Headband, $16.90 at Torrid

It’s all in the details.

10. White Lace Jumpsuit, $148.90 at Torrid

If you want to do something a little different, try a jumpsuit.

  Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.

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[royalpain16]

A Brief History of Princess Diana’s Fiery Family

HADLEY HALL MEARES

JUNE 29, 2021 4:04 PM

According to Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles. Indeed, the role of the aristocratic family of Diana, Princess of Wales, for centuries has been that of royal disrupter. This legacy stretches to the 14th century, with their disputed ancestor Hugh Despenser’s alleged torrid affair with King Edward II and Despenser’s eventual brutal execution. Clever, charming, and fiery, much like Diana, her ancestors learned how to play the royal game—and then ripped up the rule book.

“Nearly 300 years on, my father would talk about him with an ashamed, resigned chuckle,” Charles, Earl Spencer, writes in The Spencers: A Personal History of an English Family of the mercurial family blackguard Robert Spencer (1641-1702). While the second earl would secure the Spencers’ status as political power players for centuries, he was also “cunning, supple [and] shameless” with “a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirt.”

Sunderland’s ascendancy began in the 1670s when he orchestrated King Charles II’s secret pact with England’s traditional enemy, France. Securing large payments from the French king and court for Charles II and himself, Sunderland was rewarded when he was appointed secretary of state.

After double-crossing Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, Sunderland cleverly insinuated himself with new King James II. He converted to Catholicism to appeal to the very Catholic king, and became one of James II’s closest advisers. But the king, though he valued the brilliant man’s diplomatic skills, was fully aware of Sunderland’s duplicity.

James II finally dismissed Sunderland from service in 1688, and he was later exiled. But in December of that year, James II was deposed by the Glorious Revolution, bringing his daughter Mary and her husband, William, Prince of Orange, (with whom Sunderland had conspired) to the throne.

Again in favor, he was rewarded with the post of Lord Chamberlain before retiring from public life in 1697. “Too much cannot be said of his talents,” one historian noted. “Nor too little of his principles.”

The Boss: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

The daughter of Parliamentarian Richard Jennings and his scandalous wife, Frances, the passionate, brilliant Sarah (1660-1744) started out as a maid of honor in the court of James II. She became the most powerful woman in England, through her magnetic control of the future Queen Anne, a comparative dullard who worshipped her and perhaps became her lover. (You may remember their relationship from the 2018 movie The Favourite, in which Rachel Weisz played Sarah.)

For Sarah, her friendship with Anne was a way to advance her family and her liberal Whig politics, which she shared with her equally powerful husband, the military hero the Duke of Marlborough. “I hated tyranny by nature,” she wrote in one version of her memoir, according to Ophelia Field’s The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill. “I thought mankind was born free, & if Princes were ordained to make their subjects happy; so I had always in me an invincible aversion to slavery, & to flattery.”

In 1700, Sarah arranged the marriage of her distant relation Charles Spencer, the future Third Earl of Sunderland, with her favorite daughter, Anne. Over the next 44 years, she would shape the family fortunes—and gift them with their famed auburn-tinted locks.

According to The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill, with Anne’s accession to the throne in 1702 Sarah reached the peak of her power, racking up virtually every important post in Queen Anne’s suite, dictating cabinet appointments, and encouraging the ire of satirists.

But cracks would soon begin to appear. Queen Anne was naturally inclined to support the royalist Tories and was encouraged in these leanings by a new favorite named Abigail. A vindictive Sarah became a master propagandist, leaking insinuations about their relationship to the press, and allegedly threatening to blackmail Anne over the contents of their highly charged correspondence.

Sarah was finally forced to vacate her royal apartments in 1711, but she was not down for the count. A brilliant businesswoman, she became the richest woman in England, according to Field, controlling her Spencer grandchildren with promises of money and power. Centuries before the modern Diana and Prince Charles wed, Sarah even attempted to marry her favorite granddaughter—Lady Diana Spencer—to the broke Frederick, Prince of Wales, with a promise of 100,000-pound dowry. The plan fell through.

But not all her grandchildren were willing to be manipulated by their formidable matriarch. Sarah claimed her equally tough granddaughter Anne “[deserved] to be burnt,” and she disinherited her grandson Charles, Fifth Earl of Sunderland, which prompted him to write her:

As for putting me out of your will…I neither expected or desired to be in it. I…assure Your Grace that this is the last time I shall ever trouble you by letter or conversation. I am Your Grace’s grandson, Sunderland.

Sarah’s letter back was brutal. “You end that you are my grandson. Which is indeed a very melancholy truth…had you not been my grandson, you would have been in as bad a condition as you deserve to be.” Fitting words from a woman immortalized by Alexander Pope thusly:

Sixty years the World has been her Trade, The wisest Fool much Time has ever made. From loveless youth to unrespected age, No Passion gratify’d except her Rage.

The Star: Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

From the start there was something special about Georgiana (1757-1806), the coddled daughter of John, First Earl Spencer and his wife, Margaret. The captivating teenager married the sophisticated William, Duke of Devonshire, in 1774, and quickly became a sensation in London’s highest circles. “[The Duchess of Devonshire] effaces all,” Horace Walpole wrote, according to The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation. “Her youth, figure, flowing good nature, sense…and modest familiarity, make her a phenomenon.”

Georgiana soon found her cold, older husband was not nearly as interested in her as everyone else. Luckily, she had many talents with which to amuse herself. She set fashions of the day, developed her own haughty way of speaking, known as the “Cavendish drawl,” and became dear friends with Marie Antoinette, according to Amanda Foreman’s The Duchess. She was also a successful novelist, and an amateur scientist.

But it was Georgiana’s brilliance as a Whig operative that would turn her into a target of the press. Constantly brainstorming with her friend, George, Prince of Wales, and political soulmate Charles James Fox, she hosted countless summits at her home. Georgiana was, she later wrote, “in the midst of the action,” seeing

“partys rise and fall—friends be united and disunited—the ties of love give way to caprice, to interest, and to vanity…”

Georgiana also worked essentially as a campaign manager for Whig candidates. During the 1784 election she bravely canvassed the street for Fox, charming Londoners with her common touch. “During her canvass,” Walpole wrote, “the Duchess made no scruple of visiting some of the humblest of electors, dazzling and enchanting them by the fascination of her manner, the power of her beauty and the influence of her high rank.”

According to Foreman’s The Duchess, there were rumors Georgiana kissed men in exchange for votes, leading to scurrilous cartoons distributed by the Tory opposition. “You have almost unavoidably amassed a great deal of useless trash—gathered weeds instead of flowers,” Lady Spencer wrote Georgiana. “You live so constantly in public you cannot live for your own soul.”

Her mother was worried about more than bad press. The hard-partying Georgiana was one of a long line of Spencer gambling addicts. She also had a laudanum dependency, and a scandalous ménage à trois arrangement with her husband and the disreputable Bess Foster. Calamity struck in 1792, when Georgiana became pregnant by the future Prime Minister Charles Grey and was banished from the country for a while.

Georgiana returned to her husband and children two years later. For the remainder of her life she battled ill health, but continued her role as a political operative, aware of what she could have been. “Would I were a man,” she mused to Sir Philip Francis. “To unite my talents, my hopes, my fortune, with [Charles James Fox’s], to make common cause, and fall or rule.”

From the start, the Spencer legacy laid heavily on John Spencer’s (1924-1992)

shoulders. As a child he was constantly cowed by his genealogically obsessed, brutal father, who considered him an intellectual lightweight. “He used to dread the train journey home [from boarding school],” his son, Diana’s brother Charles, writes. “He would hide in shadows of the train carriage, hoping his father had forgotten to collect him.”

But by the 1940s, John’s heroism as a captain in the Royal Scots Greys during World War II, and his tall, good looks and simple charm made him a most eligible bachelor. According to the documentary When the Spencers Met the Monarchy, he was even once looked at by the palace as a suitor to the future Queen Elizabeth II.

Instead, in 1954, Queen Elizabeth II (whom he served as an equerry) attended his wedding to heiress Frances Roche at Westminster Abbey. The couple had four children—Sarah, Jane, Diana, and Charles (another son, John, died shortly after birth). They were a mismatched pair, he rather dull and she vivacious, but John was reportedly blindsided when he discovered Frances was cheating on him. “How many of those years were happy?” he later said of his marriage. “I thought all of them until the moment that we parted.”

After the dissolution of his marriage, John became Diana and Charles’s primary caregiver and developed what Lord Glenconner once termed “an unfortunate raw sausage look.” Although he was stiff and old-fashioned, he attempted to be an involved father, and Diana was determined to be his “comforting angel,” according to The Diana Chronicles.

In 1975, John’s fortunes turned when his curmudgeonly father died, making him the Eighth Earl Spencer. According to Andrew Morton, he also inherited a 2.25-million-pound bill for death duties as well as 80,000-pounds-a-year running costs for Althorp, the family estate in Northamptonshire. He also found a helpmate to run Althorp in the fascinating Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, whom he married in 1976 without even telling his children. “We weren’t invited. ‘Not grand enough,’” his daughter Sarah quipped to a reporter at the time.

Despite the flippant tone, John’s betrayal would cause a deep rift in the family. A severe stroke in 1978 caused him to become frail and even more distant from his children. “He was one person before and he was certainly a different person after,” Princess Diana said, according to Morton. “He’s remained estranged but adoring since. If he comes and sees me he comes and sees me, if he doesn’t he doesn’t. It’s not my problem anymore. It’s his.”

The Rebel: Frances Shand Kydd

Frances Ruth Roche (1936-2004) wasn’t from as noble stock as the Spencers, but her family was far richer. Her father Maurice, fourth Baron Fermoy, was a conservative politician and a “terrible bottom pincher,” Lady Glenconner says in The Diana Chronicles, while her wealthy mother, Ruth, was a scheming, incurable snob and great friend of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

It was Ruth who encouraged a teenage Frances to marry the much older John Spencer, despite her tender age. “When you meet someone at the age of 15 and get engaged just five months out of school at 17, you can look back and ask, ‘Was I adult?’” she asked years later. “I sure thought I was at the time.”

The couple cultivated a farm at her family home of Park House in Norfolk, but Frances was quickly disillusioned with life in the country as a young aristocratic mother. “I’m so bloody bored with opening village fetes,” she told a friend. It was no wonder that the fiery Frances wanted more. “She was very attractive and blonde and sexy with such joie de vivre and fun about her,” a friend told Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles.

By the 1960s, Frances escaped to London more and more. She also started having an affair with a married bon vivant named Peter Shand Kydd. In 1967, she separated from John and left her two youngest children with him. “The biggest disruption was when Mummy decided to leg it. That’s the vivid memory we have—the four of us,” Princess Diana later told Andrew Morton.

Frances fought for custody of the children but lost to John, partially due to her own mother, Baroness Fermoy, who testified against her. Social outcasts, the Shand Kydds eventually moved to the coast of Scotland, and their warm household was a refuge for her children when they were allowed to visit. “Diana and I adored it for its wild beauty and the fun we had on the sea, lobster potting and mackerel-fishing,” Charles Spencer recalls.

Frances counseled against her youngest daughter’s marriage to Prince Charles, seeing too many parallels to her own first marriage—including her mother’s encouragement of the match. According to Brown, after voicing her concerns, Diana said, “Mummy, you don’t understand. I love him.” Frances replied, “Love him, or love what he is?” To which Diana asked rhetorically, “What’s the difference?”

The Grande Dames: Barbara Cartland and Raine Spencer

Perhaps no writer influenced generations of British romantics—including Princess Diana—more than Barbara Cartland (1901-2000). The author of 723 books, Cartland had, in the words of Brown, a “penchant for pink, her meringue coiffure and false eyelashes,” which betrayed a steely, snobbish character that was tough as nails.

Cartland would pass both her strength and outrageousness on to her daughter Raine (1929-2016), whom she raised to be, in Brown’s words, a “social monster baby.” Not only did she nab Gerald Legge, Ninth Earl of Dartmouth, but she also forged a career as a conservative politician, becoming the youngest person to ever serve on the Westminster City Council.

“She never took any prisoners, and never took no for an answer,” a friend recalled.

In the early 1970s, Raine set her sights on the divorced John Spencer. “She wanted to marry Daddy; that was her target and that was it,” Princess Diana recalled. According to sources, “Acid Raine” alienated the children and old friends. She also took the reins of Althorp, allegedly selling off family treasures and decorating it in her and her mother’s garish style.

During the lead-up to Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles in 1981, what to do with the clownish Cartlands became a national conversation. According to Brown:

Alexander Chancellor, the editor of The Spectator, wrote an editorial in which he called for a special Act of Parliament to ban Raine and her mother from St. Paul’s Cathedral, adding, “For it would be more than a little unfair on everybody if these two absurdly theatrical ladies were permitted to turn a moving national celebration into a pantomime.” Diana was so afraid the pantomime might indeed take place, she pressed for stratagems to blackball Cartland.

In the end Raine was invited but her mother was not. This would not be the most awkward Spencer wedding—that prize would go to Charles Spencer’s first wedding in 1989, where Diana scolded Raine for her rudeness to their mother. “If only you knew how much we all hated you for what you’ve done, you’ve ruined the house, you spend Daddy’s money and what for?” she hissed.

For her part, Raine would tire of being the scapegoat for the Spencer dysfunction. “I’m absolutely sick of the ‘wicked stepmother’ lark,” she said, according to Kitty Kelley. “You’re never going to make me sound like a human being, because people like to think I’m Dracula’s mother.”

Surprisingly, Diana would come to agree. Toward the end of her life, she grew close to her stepmother, whose no-nonsense advice she came to admire. However, it appears there was no love lost between Diana and her former favorite writer, who would quip of the royal breakup, “Of course, you know where it all went wrong. She wouldn’t do oral sex.”

The Role Model: Lady Sarah McCorquodale

Born in 1955, Sarah Spencer was the oldest, and wildest of John and Frances Spencer’s brood. Reckless and salty from an early age, Brown writes that she was kicked out of boarding school and rode her horse into her grandmother’s living room. “Sarah always had to be the best at everything,” a friend recalled. “The best car, the wittiest put-down, and the best dress.”

She also had a constant shadow in her youngest sister, Diana. “I idolized my eldest sister and I used to do all her washing when she came back from school. I packed her suitcase, ran her bath, made her bed—the whole lot. I did it all and I thought it was wonderful,” Diana told Morton.

In 1977, Sarah, who had suffered from anorexia, according to Brown, met Prince Charles at Ascot. The two began dating, and it was Sarah who introduced Diana to the prince during a shooting party at Althorp (“I’m cupid,” she’d later quip). “I remember,” Diana later said, “feeling desperately sorry for him that my sister was wrapped around his neck because she’s quite a tough old thing.”

But Sarah’s romance with the prince would soon end. She made the mistake of talking to reporters. Not only did she reportedly confess to having “thousands of boyfriends,” she also disparaged Charles as a hopeless romantic. “I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love, whether it was a dustman or the King of England,” she said. “If he asked me I would turn him down.”

This cardinal sin would cause Sarah to be promptly frozen out, with Charles reportedly informing her, “You’ve just done something extremely stupid.” And so, only three years later Charles would begin to court the blossoming Diana. Perhaps there was a hint of jealousy in her alleged counsel to a despondent Diana to not pull out of the wedding over his relationship with Camilla: “Bad luck, ‘Duch. Your face is on the tea towels so you’re too late to chicken out.”

[finishinglinepress]

FLP POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: CROSSWINDS by Debbie Richard

TO ORDER GO TO: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/crosswinds-by-debbie-richard/ RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

This collection of poetic works articulates crosswinds that result in the aerodynamics of how we maneuver through life, whether we land or keep flying to reach a point on the compass. Crosswinds takes the reader on a tour of poems from the unveiling on a wedding night, to a father’s disguise, a Sunday afternoon in the park, to a towering rough exterior trying to break one’s shell, to the elegance of A Measure of Grace. Overcoming difficulty transports us further than we dared to go. Our lives depend on it.

Debbie Richard is listed in the Directory of Poets & Writers as both a poet and creative nonfiction writer. She was short-listed for Best Poem in Adelaide Literary Award for Poetry, 2018, and her poems have appeared in various magazines and journals including Torrid Literature Journal, Literature for the People, WestWard Quarterly, and Halcyon Days. Her published works include: RESILIENCY, a chapbook of poetry (2012, Finishing Line Press), HILLS OF HOME, an Appalachian memoir (2014, eLectio Publishing), HILLS OF HOME AUDIO BOOK (2018, Sweetsong Productions), PIVOT, an illustrated volume of poetry (2019, Adelaide Books of New York), which received an Honorable Mention in the 2019 New York Book Festival Awards, and a 5-star review from Readers’ Favorite. www.debbierichard.com

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR CROSSWINDS by Debbie Richard

Each poem represents true events, human strife, joy, dreams, nightmares and fear. Nonetheless, poetess Richard journalizes instances of her life that have become indelible in her memory. She speaks openly, often bluntly from a photographic memory about them detailing vivid description that makes them so genuine. There is no vagueness, or obscurity in her words, just glimpses of her experiences as they come and go, whilst journeying through twists and turns, a roller coaster ride written in people’s language. These poems are as refreshing as they are poignant.

~Raymond Fenech Gonzi, Publisher and editor of LITERATURE FOR THE PEOPLE, twice nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize, and is widely published in Europe and Canada.

Debbie Richard’s collection Crosswinds is aptly named, as the poems examine the constant tensions between the superficial and what lies beneath. Tranquil and beautiful nature contrasts with all the turmoil and uncertainty of people’s lives; our inner world is often at great odds with the outer one. But Richard urges us to always “Look skyward toward the heavenly light.”

~Rita Sims Quillen, author of WAYLAND and SOME NOTES YOU HOLD, is a three time Pushcart Prize nominee, a songwriter and musician, and the recipient of the Outstanding Poetry Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association.

Our flights through life are not always smooth. With glimpses of her life and growing up in Appalachia, Debbie Richard’s poems remind us we have within ourselves the means to break free of those who create turbulence and find inner peace.

~Trilby Plants, author of FIRE SONG – TO HEAR THE LEE-ATH SING, BOOK 1, children’s books, and co-author of DOUBLE DANGER, a romantic suspense. Plants creates video book trailers and animated book covers.

Please share/please repost [PROMO] #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry

[alottanothing]

Left to Ruin: Chapter Fourteen

Summary: Ahkmemrah prepares for his marriage to Nouke. A week after sending his brother to the cells, the pharaoh’s guilt sees him visiting Kah in search of salvation.  

Previous Chapters

Word Count: 2715

Warnings: just some good ole angst

Tag List: @xmxisxforxmaybe​, @r-ahh-mi​, @theultraviolencefan​, @hah0106​, @rami-malek-trash​, @diasimar​, @sherlollydramoine​, @flipper-kisses​, @ivy-miranda-2390​, @txmel​, @sunkissedmikky​, @concentratedsassandcandy​, @babyalienfairy​, @edteche2 (Let me know if I missed you, or if you would like to be added to the tag list)

A/N: This is one of the shortest chapters of this whole story, maybe the shortest. However, I feel like there’s still a great deal of importance to the scenes, especially the ones between Kah and Ahk. Also, thanks for all the love last chapter! The comments, and tags and like and reblogs are like candy to me! 🍬 ☺️Again, as a disclaimer, I am not an ancient Egyptian expert and google only knows so much. So yeah, I took so historical liberties while writing this to make my life easier, but tried to keep it as “authentic” as possible.

Over the course of several days, the pharaoh's daily routine was exceedingly more arduous than the one he was accustomed to. Those long hours were a blur of official greetings and ostentatious dinners meant to welcome the important dignitaries who had traveled from afar to partake in the union of their king and soon to be queen. Merenkahre insisted on a week to properly allow all the guest to make their journeys and get settled; then on the seventh day, all of Waset would honor their new queen.

Truthfully, when his father asked for a week's time to prepare for a grand festival, Ahkmenrah agreed readily, entirely too wrapped up in the notion of marrying Nouke to realize how long seven days would actually be. Those days moved so sluggishly. A week was absolutely too long to be away from her, but duty often eclipsed what his heart desired.

However, duty also lent him distraction from his yearning heart. Families began arriving two days after the pharaoh proclaimed his desire to wed the servant girl Anuksumn. Boats lined the shores of the Nile, crowding the market harbor as families—along with their entourage—made their way to the palace with enough fan fair to rival that of the pharaohs.’ Despite their raw pomposity, Ahkmenrah showered them each with unyielding kindness as he welcomed them to stay in his home—as was expected of a king.

The ruse of playing host grew old after only one evening of official dinners and introductions; proving to be all work and no play. The stories his guests told during their feasts lacked zeal. Mostly, everyone spoke of their own accomplishments and their supposed generosity to the cities they governed. A few guests were genuine—able to steer topics away from themselves. Apart from those cherished few, every man, woman and even child invited to celebrate the impending nuptials held themselves above all others. And while no one dared to speak outwardly with such hubris, Ahk could read each of them as clearly as the hieroglyphs scribed onto the walls.

Somehow, he mustered a smile and played his role perfectly all the while wishing to be miles from the noise of the palace, tangled together with Nouke under the stars.

After the second evening of myriad stories of uninspiring nature during dinner, Ahkmenrah snuck beyond the walls of his royal sanctuary and returned to Nouke’s farm with news he’d promised to bring.

“It is all very official and exhausting,” Ahk tutted with a mild scowl. Just thinking about what awaited him at the palace bled into the serenity of laying with Nouke in his arms, nestled among the cushions, their garments left in a forgotten heap nearby.

“Trust that I cannot wait to bring you home once and for all. However, I am also not ready to share you yet.” He smoothed the hair away from her face as she looked at him from where she laid on his chest. “I want to enjoy having you all to myself a while longer.”

Nouke smirked and kissed him softly.

“Mmm, I’ve never thought of you as a greedy man…” she teased as she traced the outline of his lips with her fingertips.

Ahk grinned and kissed the pad of each rough digit before speaking, “You will find that I am exceptionally greedy when it comes to you. I want you to be only mine, now and forever.”

“Now and forever,” she agreed with a breathy murmur.

Her eyes stayed fixated on his until she drew him into an affirming kiss that built lazily in a slow, sensuous expression of worship before passion swept them away for a second time.

What she gave, he took—her name a low hum tumbling from his lips. What he gave, she took—holding him close enough for their hearts to beat in perfect synchronization. They made love in a symphony of wanton expressions whispered into the night air with breathless praise until they reached that glorious peak together. And when morning came with the harsh break of day—golden light pulling them from the depths of their slumber—it was too soon.

He left his bride to be with a kiss and the promise it would only be a few more days until they could spend their lives together.

It was that night he’d spent tangled with the woman he loved—his best friend—that Ahkmenrah held in his mind the days that followed. He clung to images of Nouke like a valuable life source; granting him the energy to masquerade through every dinner and introduction that remained.

***

“I have made the arrangements for you to collect your bride tomorrow at mid-day,” Merenkahre said from his usual seat at the council table.

Ahkmenrah blinked out of his thoughts, suppressing a yawn, doing his best to fend off his exhaustion a while longer, and grinned.

“After which,” his father continued. “You and your desired bride will be wedded with an audience of your advisors and guests of your choosing. Festivities will then commence before twilight.”

The pharaoh's sudden influx of enthusiasm was difficult to keep from his features when he nodded, not wanting his excitement to mar his kingly composure.

“Perfect,” he said.

Idly, his eyes skirted around the table, mentally noting which of his advisors he wanted in attendance until his sweeping glance stopped on the empty chair reserved for the Consul of Montu. A pang of guilt bit into Ahkmenrah with enough potency to taint both his enthusiasm and his resolve the longer he stared at the barren spot.

The presence of the vacant seat was suddenly crushing with guilt, and a frown fought to twist onto his features. Almost a week had passed since banishing Kahmunrah to the cells with only his name and no titles. And not one of those days went by without Ahkmenrah brooding over the punishment he’d bestowed upon his brother.

Even with ample distractions at hand, his mind could not surrender how they parted. The scene in his memory stirred a sense of betrayal—his betrayal to Kahmunrah. Ahkmenrah never wanted to be a ruler who dealt with his problems by burying them in a cell to be forgotten. Or worse yet, a king who executed and silenced his problems. How Kah would have preferred I run things.

The council meeting finished quickly when the pharaoh could find no other topics to discuss suddenly too laden with grief to proceed effectively. With the men gone, the walls of the council chamber became a meditative space for him to ponder.

The day that would follow was to be one of the happiest of his life, and yet, Ahk felt that joy abruptly strangled; his guilt and the anger he held on to, like beasts he needed to slay.

The fury in his soul for what had been done to Nouke and Setshepsut remained deep and unsated, tormenting Ahkmenrah with unease. Wrath could devour a good man if it was left to fester. Already the infection was spreading. Ahk’s torrid heart wanted Kahmunrah to know punishment for the things he’d done, and still, the pharaoh’s mind screamed and begged for him to let the past be covered in sand—forgotten.

With right and wrong poised so precariously in his head; he wasn’t sure which side of the scale to leap onto.

Minutes passed, the oversaturated colors of sunset vanquished by the black of night when Ahkmenrah finally relinquished a slow, weighted breath. He rubbed his temples hoping the added pressure would deter the ache beginning to swell in his skull as his frenzying thoughts became too much to fathom.

Letting go of his anger and forgiving his brother was the only way to ensure growth could come from all that transpired. Holding onto resentment would only permit stagnation. Ahkmenrah had no choice but to face his brother.

***

Of all the buildings located on the palace grounds, the cellblock was not constructed with intricate detail or grandeur of any kind. The stone structure was far from the central palace, a narrow edifice with almost no windows and lit mostly by mounted torches along the length of the corridor. It had been years since the pharaoh found himself in the dismal confines of the cellblock. He’d visited last with his father during one of his lessons, and Ahkmenrah liked those walls even less now than he did then.

The sting of guilt surfaced again as he took in the bleak accommodation once more. How could I have condemned my brother to live in such squaller?

The man on guard, stationed just outside the doorway, greeted the pharaoh with a shocked expression and hasty bow.

“My king!” The man did his best to chase away his shock, but his confusion was still obvious in the glow of the torch he held. “What business brings his majesty here?”

“My brother,” Ahk stated cooly. “I wish to speak to him.”

The man nodded and directed him to which of the long line of cells housed his brother.

Ahkmenrah counted his steps as he went, focusing on the numbers to distract himself from the dismal interior and the shame it all provoked. In the darkness, his brother was only a silhouette, perched on the back half-wall of his cell, and Ahk could feel the tendrils of Kah’s bitterness reaching vengefully through the bars.

“And so, the mighty pharaoh descends from on high to look upon the lowly and condemned.” Kahmunrah’s voice was cold, dripping with resentment. “What do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Surely my sentencing is not through already.”

The urge to recant a snide comment—to fight fire with fire—swelled on the tip of Ahkmenrah’s tongue, but he swallowed it. He refused to let any word passed his lips without having thoroughly thought it over first.

“Or have you come to gloat?” Kah gibed when Ahk struggled to piece a rational sentence together. “I overheard the guards talking about your impending nuptials to that servant girl I exiled. Congratulations."

A frown worked onto the pharaoh’s face taking note of the unabashed hate in his brother’s tone—a knife in his belly.

“It pains me you think I would come and rub my good fortune in your face. Have you ever known me to be so arrogant?”

Kahmunrah stood and moved into the singular beam of torchlight flickering through the bars of his cell. Without his usual golden raiment and accessories, Ahkmenrah had difficulty recognizing the man before him. His threadbare garments were a stark contrast to gold and gems, and they caused another wave of guilt to beat against Ahk.

“No,” Kahmunrah finally responded, looking as though the truth was akin to poison on his tongue. “You are the golden son—kind and humble.”

Kah spat at his brother’s feet, “Weak. You are weak for a king.”

Ahkmenrah closed his eyes and let out a long meditative exhale to carry away the influx of anger. Venom soaked words would only kindle the flame of hate. Not acting on impulse was an arduous task, but Ahk had come to purge the contempt out of his system as calmly as he could.

“If you are attempting to provoke me, brother; I am sorry to disappoint you.”

Kah’s lips curled into a sneer, “Just as I said, weak.”

Ahk shook his head with disbelief, “Is it not tiring to hold onto all of that anger?”

The pharaoh’s own wrath was exhausting to carry day to day. How Kahmunrah managed to live all of his life in a perpetual state of ire was a feat to be admired, or respected at least.

“My anger is all I have thanks to you.”

Something cold and abject worked through Ahk with a chill. The truth of his brother’s words biting into him with such force, Ahkmenrah’s sure footing faltered and he leaned against the stone wall behind him for aid.

“Yes,” the pharaoh husked out. Even his whisper echoed eerily in the long corridor to haunt him.

It took him a minute or two to find his strength again, incrementally able to hold himself with the sturdy wall to brace against. Ahk’s focus was on his brother, looming threateningly just past the bars of his cage. Ahkmenrah found he could not look into his eyes—his guilt beginning to swallow him completely.

“I did not want this for you, my brother. Do you not know that? I gain no pleasure from seeing you like this. In fact, I have felt nothing but guilt for days.”

“Good.”

Ahkmenrah sighed and swallowed the lump in the back of his throat, and willed himself to meet Kahmunrah’s glower.

“I’m sorry..." Ahk said. “I am sorry you were denied what you thought was rightfully yours. I’m sorry for what I have done to you.”

He paused long enough to blink away the tears beginning to brim his eyes before he continued. “But…you left me with little choice. And for that too, I am sorry.”

Kahmunrah’s black eyes never turned away, nor did his expression of cold hatred ebb. It was staggering to see such emptiness behind living eyes, and their piercing leer did little to allay the lingering guilt. Still, Ahkmenrah continued.

“Do you want to know what else?" he sighed. “I forgive you…I must.”

Slowly, the heavy veil of the pharaoh’s anger started to slip away. The gravity of his words would be lost on Kahmunrah, but the salvation Ahk felt releasing years of tension almost made up for his brother’s apathy.

“I do not want to live my life as you have: harboring grudges and wishing ill upon others. And it is my hope, one day, you could do the same. I want that for you.”

Ahkmenrah half shrugged and his eyes dropped their focus to the shadowed void behind Kah as he considered his brother’s previous observation.

“Maybe that does make me weak…” The pharaoh’s voice faded as the remaining pieces of his anger crumbled and drifted away.

All at once, his mind was overrun with a thousand thoughts that made the ache in his head begin to pulse again. The silence that filled the narrow cell block was sullen and heavy, but Ahk used it to sift through the teeming thoughts in his head quietly.

Kahmunrah sulked back to the shadows of his cell, this time sitting on the ground, his back propped against the wall. Ahk sagged against the wall behind him as well, folding under the weight of his thoughts until he sat, mirroring his brother.

“I want so much for us to be brothers…” Ahk confessed softly.

A single, mirthless chuckle cracked Kah’s silence.

“Well,” he stated in a low voice, devoid of sympathy. “Take a lesson from someone who knows all about disappointment, little brother. And learn that we do not always get what we want.”

A sad smile ghosted over Ahk’s lips as a solitary tear spilled down his cheek. It was foolish to hope his brother would ever change, but Ahkmenrah would never give up.

With a deep breath to build his strength, Ahkmenrah stood feeling, more or less, lighter. All the poison was at last purged from his system, but a hint of disappointment remained as he realized how ruthlessly his brother continued to cling to the bitterness inside.

Sleep beckoned the pharaoh with a yawn, the promise of rest alluring for his frenzied mind. However, one thought dug its hooks too deep in the forefront of his mind to go without seeking an answer. The question alone made Ahk’s stomach churn, but he was much too exhausted to fight his curiosity.

“I dread thinking you may have had a hand in what happened all those years ago regarding the disappearance of my tablet. Framing Nouke’s family to be rid of them—to hurt me.”

He paused, feeling his stomach slosh again, “The assassin even….”

That night flashed so vividly in his mind; the man over him with a knife drawn ready to take his life. Ready to kill a boy of fifteen who’d known no enemies apart from one... Ahkmenrah glanced into the black of Kahmunrah’s cage. No response came from its depths, the deafening stillness causing a chill to prickle over the pharaoh’s skin. And as he left, Ahkmenrah could not decide if Kahmunrah’s silence filled him with more confirmation or fear.

Next Chapter-> Chapter Fifteen: Together Again

[micro-expressions]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: $399 Frye Carson Pull On Black Leather Southern/Western Cowgirl Festival Boot.

[dawnlovesangel]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Torrid Ever After White Lace Strapless Fit & Flare Wedding Dress 14.

[among-the-lostboys]

Spill The Tea || Adventure Cuz

It had been several weeks since the wedding with Mocha. It had been a pleasant experience-- boring, really, the more he looked back on it. Weddings in mythology were always torrid affairs, you see. People got slaughtered or challenged to duels. Sometimes the Fae would show up to curse a royal or steal a baby. Or weddings came at the end and that was a sign that the fairy tale was wrapping itself up, lessons learned, heterosexuality confirmed, reproductive futurity ensured. 

In a way, his perfectly boring wedding had been very queer, then, for its lack of plot and/or character development. 

Insert something here about unbecoming and queer time, which allowed John to live in a comfortable stasis with Mocha and Jane and everyone else. John loved his comfortable stasis. In fact, when anything threatened to disturb his normalcy, John was compelled to expel the threat at once.

For example-- his Earl Grey tea bags surreptitiously disappearing, systematically, ever since the wedding in question.

Now. John didn’t jump to conclusions. First, he assumed he’d simply miscounted the number of bags within the box. While John was meticulous when it came to his tea collection (he had to be, in order to manage the tea spreadsheet), he could allow himself some human error.

When the second bag disappeared, well, he supposed maybe it could be a nisse. Unlikely; they preferred cooler climates. 

When the third bag disappeared, he knew it was his cousin. 

But still, still, he’d allow room for good intention. Perhaps Jane had mixed up his tea with her own. Perhaps she had forgotten, once, to repurchase some tea and, desperate times desperate measures, borrowed one...or two...of his bags. 

John responded as any sane person would: he put his name on his tea. And attached a little note, recommending that Jane stop by the Moon Market before or after class. There. Problem solved. 

So John did not expect the knock on his door, the day after said note was attached, to be about tea. “Yes?” he called from his desk, where he was bent, grading papers. 

@lost-girl-at-sea​

[deviantaisla]

Part One: Return to Freehold

     Nothing had changed in this forsaken port. The air still smelled like shit, the roads still looked like shit, and there were still rats that masqueraded as pirates leaning against sagging archways. Freehold needed the love and funding a government would bring, but the Irontide had sunk their claws in deep and they weren’t letting it go. What was worse: most people didn’t know they could want better. 

     Unlike almost every other time she’d gotten dressed, Aisla made a conscious choice to show as little skin as possible knowing where she was going to be standing. Not that she felt what she wore was an invitation, but there was no need in risking walking by some fresh blood trying to prove himself in the cockpit, and there she was in nothing more than a fancy bra and fishnets. This time, though, she kept a garter of small throwing knives strapped around her thigh in plain view over her pants. If she was armed, someone might hopefully be less inclined to try something. She kept her chin up and her eyes dead ahead of her. 

     Much to her great relief, she made it to the shack of a house she’d lived in the entire time she’d been in Freehold without any incident beyond a cat call here and there. Of course the door was unlocked, but when she pushed it in, there was no sign of it being ransacked. Likely due to the clout her father had within the Irontide fleet. No one would dare fuck with him. But then… they didn’t know he was dead yet either. 

     It was just one room, but the bed she and Rowan had shared in the corner had been replaced with a desk. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. There was no sign that Brian had ever had any children. There wasn’t any sign that he’d ever had a wife. No pictures, no dried flowers to keep as a memento. On a bookshelf across from her, there was a wooden jewelry box she’d recognized as her mother’s, but she didn’t even need to open it to know it was empty. Rowan had already been through here to collect the one thing she’d promised him: her engagement ring and wedding band that now hung around Georgie’s neck. 

     Without dwelling on the fact that she had nothing to remind her of her beloved mother, Aisla moved to the desk in the corner and began to rifle through papers that had been haphazardly strewn about. The only things she could really read on them was her father’s name. That was evidence enough that nothing on it was going to be important. It wasn’t until she recognized her own name on an envelope that she stopped and flipped it around to tear into the seal. 

     She only saw a flash of the picture of the little girl before the world went completely black.

Soft Mentions: @rowan-montgomery​ @torrid-sunbeam​

[cinnamaldeide]

#Hannigraham Meet-Cute Challenge

There’s just barely enough air to breath lately, summer has finally hit us in full force and all that is left for us... is fun. Fun at the seaside, fun with our psycho friends, fun with our precious, scruffy partners, and @funwithtyler​ fun reading lovely stories. Some of us have to combat this torrid heat to approach one very hot computer to type their very beautiful fanfictions and creations, but luckily for us we get to reap the benefits!

#29: Welcome to Widdershins Close by @zigzag-wanderer #110: Fancy meeting you by @mazephoenix #74: Going My Way by @fragile-teacup #55: A Face Like Yours by @hannibalsimago (now with fanart by @bayobayo) #13: Admirable Deceit by @cinnamaldeide​ #248: The night shift customer by @niceven-silace​ #3: You don’t see enough, you see too much by @fhimechan​ #1: Nigel’s Books by @murderfriesandgayguys {fanart} #186: Hello Gorgeous, Love Your Left Hook by @ishxallxgood #230: the aesthetics of pleasure by @exarite​ #116: Speed Dating by @ishxallxgood​ and @stratumgermanitivum #50: Evening Wedding by @emergencytrap {gifset}

You see our list of contributions is growing steadily and inexorably, but in this update I have the pleasure of including not only an incredible cooperation between our unstoppable @ishxallxgood and @stratumgermanitivum, but also an entirely new form of art, which is @emergencytrap’s nsfw gifset where the film Evening meets After the wedding.

As we had announced months ago, despite the name of our challenge, we’re allowing both Hannibal and HEU character, which means EveningWedding and Spacedogs, like in the case of our gifset and fanart, but also RoyalInstincts, DogsDogs, LucAdam, Kaisergram, whatever crosses your mind.

I’ll seize the opportunity and remind you of the #RareMeat fest, mostly on Twitter by now, which is exactly about these pairings. If you’re eager to write something involving Overgård and Galahad, for example, but you don’t know how or where they meet, only that a lot of snow is involved, consider selecting one of the prompts you see here (ง ื▿ ื)ว

#22: A is having a quiet night at home – that is, until A’s apartment neighbour begins blasting music. Frustration levels rising, A goes to knock on the neighbour’s door to ask them to keep it down… at the same time B, the resident on the other side, is about to. Need more detail? Click on the post.

#32: A checks into a cozy inn while on a cross-country road trip, beyond tired and ready to collapse. When A gets to the assigned room, he or she is in for a surprise! Someone else, B, is already in the room. Uh-oh.

#117: A is a professional assassin hired to take out a client’s cheating husband. But the client also spoke to B, a close friend, who has made it his/her’s own mission to also kill the husband. Unfortunately, both A and B have chosen the same night to do so, and it just so happens that B is a bit clumsy… and keeps getting in A’s way.

#143: A’s blind date just left, mumbling some sort of excuse about leaving the stove on. Confused and feeling rejected, A sits orders another beer at the bar, wondering where s/he went wrong. B, who had witnessed the situation, goes over and says sympathetically, “I think I know what went wrong… there’s something in your teeth.”

#162: A is interviewing potential roommates and is having very little luck. When it comes to B, A says, “I’m so sorry, I don’t think this is going to work. I can’t live with someone that I’d like to ask out.”

#166: A is at a coffee shop and sits down at a table, only to find a book on the chair. Intrigued, A starts flipping through it, and realizes it’s actually someone’s journal that had been left behind! And it’s fascinating. Unfortunately, B, the journal’s author, rushes back to retrieve it… and is horrified to see A reading it. But A, having gotten a feel for this person through his/her writing, asks if they want to go out sometime.

#176: A works at a pet store and is utterly surprised when B bursts through the door in a hurry and walks up to the cash without looking around. Out of breath, A says, “Please don’t ask why, but what do capybaras eat?”

#180: There has been a series of recent break-ins in A’s neighbourhood. B, a cop, knocks on A’s door to recommend safety measures and to ask if A has noticed anything peculiar — A hasn’t really seen anything, but invites the cop and his/her charming smile inside for coffee and a bit of false information so s/he might stay a while.

#207: A meets B and falls immediately for them, but B clearly doesn’t feel the same. After being rejected, A calls on Anteros, the avenger of unrequited love, to exact vengeance on B.

#210: A is a writer struggling to find inspiration for their next book. The publishers are breathing down their neck and the pressure is almost more than A can take. When A comes across an old Greek book in a thrift store, A brings it home and flips through the pages…. only to come across an old chant that was supposed to bring inspiration to those who read it out loud. A gives it a shot and… oh dear. Oh, oh dear. Somehow that summoned B, one of the Muses, to A’s living room.

#215: A is brought in to the police station for questioning about a crime they know nothing about and is put in an interrogation room… with B, who is another suspect in this particular case.

#231: A is hanging out with a friend but ends up stopping to look at some lingerie in a shop window. A is still chatting away, thinking that their friend has stopped with them also, and turns to where they assume their friend is to jokingly ask: “Wouldn’t I look sexy in that?” But it turns out that the friend had kept walking and it was B, a total stranger, who A had spoken to.

#232: A is in a public place and temporarily leaves their things where they are seated so that they can use the bathroom. When A returns, A notices B, the person sitting at the next table, putting A’s phone back on the table. A demands to know what they were doing with their phone, and B tells them that the phone was ringing non-stop and it was bothering everyone. Also… “Your friend is drunk and I think they want to sleep with you.”

#239: A is sitting in a cafe trying to casually read their book, but is distracted by B’s loud phone conversation at the table over. B tells a joke over the phone, which makes A crack up unexpectedly – B looks over at A, annoyed that they were eavesdropping, but also appreciative that at least someone liked their joke! B hangs up and offers to tell A another.

#240: A stops at the pub near their house to pick up some food on the way home (they make the best fries in the neighbourhood) when A receives a phone call – and some terrible news. A starts crying and B, the bartender, asks A what’s wrong. As A opens up to them, B gives A a drink on the house, and helps talk them through it.

#246: A was fatally wounded in an accident and suddenly finds themself looking down at their own lifeless body in confusion. B is a reaper and offers A guidance… but A doesn’t want to do the whole follow the light bullshit. A wants to flirt with the cute reaper.

#252: A is in the public library and notices a strange book that looks like it doesn’t belong in this section. A moves along to another genre, but it seems that this book is in every section… almost like it’s following A. How peculiar! When A finally picks it up to see what exactly it is, B appears out of thin air, and simply says, “I’ve been waiting fifty years for you.”

You may have noticed the lack of line breaks in this post. Well, it’s not the only thing I cannot do anymore on this platform, and it would be a big leap to say I’m more or less leaving Tumblr because I can’t do anymore what I previosly did, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. And I’m not alone, apparently.

This challenge, as well as the Accidental Sex initiative, could go on only thanks to those who so kindly kept the word spread for @fhimechan​ and myself. This time, I really thank @zigzag-wanderer​, @mistikfir​, @diemetzgermeisterin​, @cassraven​, @ishxallxgood​, @tiggymalvern​, @crisisoninfintefandoms​, @dyggyd​, @evakkorotta​, @thatthreetoedsloth​, @hannibalsimago​, @xchrysaliswhispersx, @bonesandscales​, @fragile-teacup​, @psychoheu​ and @cinelitchick​, you’ve all helped us keeping this well into Tumblrgeddon, but I’m sad to say this platform is not helping anymore. We’ll have to close this challenge before we had planned and hope the next one will be more fruitful.

In short, hereby starts your last month to choose one of those fantastic prompts and fill it, in whatever capacity you like: fanfiction, fanart, gifset, smoke signals, Hannigraham or RareMeat, whatever crosses your mind. We’re here to reap and to include in our collection, we appreciate your commitment and hope you won’t be mad at us for letting go of this challenge before due time.

[thatdamnokie]

the good news is that i made it to edmonton safely.

the bad news is that my luggage—which contains both my bridesmaid dress and my walk-through romper for the civil ceremony—did not.

more good news is that edmonton is home to a huge mall and i am now the owner of new lululemon studio pants, a burgundy floral dress that hugs the good curves from torrid, the long-sleeved ravenclaw shirt from the harry potter vans collection that was admittedly an impulse purchase, and! best of all!

a t-shirt i randomly found at winners that’s tie-dyed blue and says ‘i took the pepsi challenge’. i got so excited over this dumb shirt that if i had any kind of dignity i would’ve been embarrassed. it looks like it’s straight out of the 80s, it’s my new favorite t-shirt and i now headcanon it as a part of my wardrobe in the universe of @whirlybirbs’s moonrise radio series (which i highly recommend to any and all stranger things fans) where i’m banging stanley tucci (fuck you guys i’m keeping that and you can’t stop me).

(now, the airline did call me and is delivering my luggage to the apartment complex tomorrow morning, but i’m still keeping that dress, it’s too cute.)

but the best news beyond all of that is that i was allowed to help craft a majority of the reception playlist. i drew inspiration from the roanoke ships, my friends, and my own mix for my future wedding (that may not happen, i know, i know). it felt really good to take all these pieces of my inner and outer worlds and shape them into a gift for someone who’s been one of my best friend since we were 12. if that makes sense.

i’m a woman of little physical beauty and few talents, but the day i see god i’m going to look him in the face and acknowledge “you’re the reason i can make a sickass soundtrack for every occasion mankind will ever face in the history of anything.”

[regnbuereisen]

Day 17: Dallas

Another transport day, a pretty uneventful day. The drive from Houston to Dallas takes a little over 4 hours (counting traffic and several accidents along the way), so after a delicious hotel breakfast and then collecting our clean clothes from the washateria (I can’t wait to wear clean shorts again tomorrow), we headed north.

But then we had read about a shopping centre, The Galleria, that apparently is the largest in Texas with over 400 shops.

I don’t know what else to say than OMG! It was huge! We spent ages walking from one end to the other, and we got lost a few times. But I found a pretty dress at Torrid - not use to have so much choice in clothes (no picture of me wearing it, because I’m horrible at posing),

and Øyvind got his phone fixed after the fall in Terlingua. I also found the best shop: Papyrus! All you could wish for of things made of paper. <3

Too many hours later, we were back in the car and on the highway. I know Houston 1 and Houston 2 said the traffic there was insane, but I only half believed them. Now, though, I know they spoke the truth. Do people in Houston even learn how to drive? Or care about the traffic rules? I doubt it. We even encountered a crazy Amazon Prime driver in a large truck going well over 100 miles an hour (160 km/h). If Øyvind wasn’t such a collected and experienced driver, we’d be minced meat by now. The picture doesn’t show how crazy it was.

Drove past Sam Houston as well:

We had a short stop at Buc-ees in Madisonville, refuelling both the car and us. It was really the largest gas station I’ve ever seen: we refuelled from pump number 50! And that wasn’t even the last one, they have 120 pumps in total!!! o.O And inside: wow! The shop was filled with people, food, and stuff. Last place I expected to find (and buy ;P) souvenirs, but hey: Buc-ees is kinda a legend with us. Anyway, the burrito we had for lunch was really good, even though Øyvind cut his lip on the aluminium foil.

After that, it was pretty much straight to Dallas. It was a long ride (by Norwegian standards, anyway), so we arrived at our Air bnb around 18.30. We had some trouble finding the parking garage, and there was some trouble with the permit, but the concierge helped us out.

Our apartment is wonderful! We’re on the 8thfloor, and the view is gorgeous. We took a break, watching a bit of Batman before going to dinner.

Today we reserved a table at a fancy restaurant, deciding to celebrate our 10 years wedding anniversary. Del Friscos is just a short walk from where we live, and they were wonderful. Such amazing service. We  even got prosecco on the house when they found out we were out celebrating. And the food, oh my gods, the food. As a starter we got lobster bisque, and the main course was steak, of course. The meat was so tender it just about melted in my mouth. When our server (Luis, he was a star) came over to ask us how things were, I couldn’t even answer, but he said he understood my gestures. Apparently he’s been waved to before.

The dessert (Belgian chocolate mousse with salted caramel sauce and a cheesecake that was so rich it could give Scrooge McDuck  competition) was amazing as well, but by then we were so full, it was hard to eat anything. Got a box to go, and I’m looking forward to breakfast tomorrow.

Today’s wildlife:

Being in and between large cities doesn’t amount to much wildlife. We encountered a large crowd of grackles trying to drink the condensation from the cars’ air condition. Yeah, it was hot today. Other than that, one dead armadillo and a couple of turkey vultures. Yeah, that’s about it.