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lovelettersfromluna · 7 months ago

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Too Sweet

Summary: Getting divorced from your ex wife after a measly two years of marriage wasn’t exactly your plan, so now you’re packing up and moving back to your quiet small town, will old flings bring back even older feelings?

an: Count on me to hop from dark brooding vampire Ellie to high school sweethearts Ellie within the same month. Let’s just be completely honest, are you even apart of this community if you haven’t dabbled in mechanic!ellie? Long story short, I’m a sucker for a summer romance, so I hope you all enjoy!

Warnings: MDNI!! eventual smut in later chapters!!, this one is sickly sweet I’m sorry (but also very angsty), reader is a bit of a tough cookie at the beginning of this (her hearts broken and her walls are back up what do you want me to do), mentions of cheating (no main characters don’t worry, mentions of alcohol consumption (all characters are 21+ ofc), lots of flashbacks, lots of kissing, pet names (baby, princess, angel, and a few special ones), mentions of cigarettes, pls lmk if I missed anything!!

Read part 2 here!!

The summer breeze was cool against your body, the linen blanket protecting your bare legs from the prickly grass, the stars even seemed extra brighter, almost putting on a show for you and Ellie as you both gazed up at them.

The summer after your senior year of high school seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye. One moment, you were walking across the stage in front of your entire class, taking she diploma you’d worked for since you were in kindergarten, all of those countless years of school finally coming to that moment, and the next, you’re laid out on the ground in your backyard with Ellie, soaking in the feeling of your last night together before it was time to leave for college.

You noticed Ellie’s hand reach up, finger pointing to a small pair of stars at the very corner of the deep navy blue sky.

“See those two? Tucked away in the corner? I think that one’s us…” she hummed out. It sounded like she was sure of it too, like it was a well known fact that she was simply sharing with you. It makes you giggle, rolling over to straddle the girl beneath you.

And it’s like the very stars above are in her eyes when she’s looking up at you, her hands caressing your soft, bare thighs, watching as your hair frames your face oh so perfectly. One of her hands reaches up, tucking it behind your ear as she gives you a soft smile.

“Who told you could be so fuckin pretty?” She pouts out playfully, almost angry with how beautiful you are. It makes you roll your eyes, bringing your hand down and giving her cheek a soft pinch.

“Shut up…” you mumble out, quickly becoming shy beneath your girlfriend’s gaze.

In that moment, you realize just how much you’ll miss moments like this. You were going off to the big city to live your dreams and go to college, and Ellie was staying behind because frankly, school was never really her thing. You knew that when both your decisions had been made, that it would more than likely affect your relationship. The thought makes you frown, and Ellie notices immediately.

She’s giving your thigh a soft pinch, sitting up and giving you all her attention.

“I thought we said no pouting today…you promised” she sighs out, leaning in and pressing a soft kiss to your cheek. It doesn’t really help, your hands loosely wrapping around her shoulders as you stare down at her lap that you’re settled on.

“I just…know that everything will change tomorrow” you sigh out, a soft pout on your lips as you avoid Ellie’s gaze.

She hums out in understanding, listening to your worries, simply allowing you to voice them. She lets a moment pass by before she responds.

“It’ll only change if we let it…I’ll come visit you all the time, and you need to come back to bake me and my dad cookies” she hums out nonchalantly, giving you a gentle shrug, which only earns a soft huff and a nudge from you to her shoulder.

“I’m serious El…I hate the idea of being without you…” you huff out softly. She chuckles as you give her a shove before she leans in to give you another soft kiss.

“I am being serious…” she drawls out, pulling away from you and cupping your cheek softly, staring into your eyes with so much love and care, it was almost unbearable.

“You’ll always be my girl…you know that” her voice is above a whisper, as if you and her were the only two people in the world. Sat there, in the quiet back yard of your even quieter neighborhood, the wind chimes clanking together on the front porch, paired with the sound of the rustling of the trees in the breeze, all of it coming together to create something of a perfect lullaby that can only be described as Ellie.

And her words make your heart bloom, giving you the hope that you needed to wake up in the morning and start your journey as a small town girl in the big city, knowing that if all else fails, you’d always have your Ellie to look forward to and depend on when you needed her.

Your cheeks almost feel sore with how big you’re smiling, leaning in and pressing a loving kiss to your girlfriends mouth, to which she accepts gladly, strong hands on your hips as she pulls you down to lay on her chest as her back hits the ground softly.

“I love you so much, Ellie…” you sigh out against her lips, barely giving yourself enough time to say it between the passionate kiss you two share. It makes her smirk against your lips, nodding as she gives your waist a gentle squeeze.

“Love you more, dream girl..” she hums out against you as she practically drowns herself in you.

It’s funny, because while that all felt like it happened just yesterday, it had been almost five years since you’d last seen Ellie Williams in the flesh.

Because as most teenage girls do, they aim for the stars. They believe that the sky’s the limit in the adult world, and where there’s a will there’s a way, and tons of other stupid sayings that are just words used to promise yourself something that may or may not happen.

All of it was just that, words that didn’t amount to anything.

Because you didn’t expect for the city and college to be the way that it was. The first night you moved into your apartment was one of the most hectic you’d ever experienced. You were a girl from a comically small town, catapulted into this fast paced world filled with adults who were going and coming from work, other students trying to make a name for themselves, and people simply trying to live.

To put things into simpler terms, you just weren’t available enough to keep Ellie in your life.

While she spoke to you on the phone almost the entire night of your first night in your apartment, soothing you and helping you sleep, and she made sure to text you in the morning and make sure you had everything you needed, your responses on the other end just became less and less frequent. Phone calls slowly stopped, text messages weren’t getting answered, and you gradually disappeared from Ellie’s life, the city swallowing you hole and keeping you away from her.

The worst part about it? You barely even noticed Ellie wasn’t in your life anymore. Between your classes and your job, you barely had enough time to breath let alone keep a relationship with your girlfriend.

It wasn’t until about a year into city life that it all happened. You were so absent, that you didn’t even realize Ellie sent you a message one day saying it was best to just be friends rather than try to keep a relationship, wishing you the best in a way that sounded far too understanding.

Before you knew it, you found a girl to take Ellie’s place in your heart. She was smart, and kind, and from the moment you laid eyes on her in a bar in the city one night after exams, you knew she had to be yours.

Soon enough she was, the two of you moving a bit too fast for your parents taste. Getting married fresh out of college wasn’t exactly what they wanted for you, but you were happy! And that’s all that truly mattered to you.

Man, should you have listened to them.

Two years. Two fucking years with the girl you were planning on devoting your loyalty to for the rest of your life was all you had, all you were given until you caught her fucking her coworker into the mattress of the bed you two shared. To say you didn’t see it coming would be a lie. Your ex wife was a fucking moron who couldn’t lie to save her ass. You’d only been gaslighting yourself for the last six months of your marriage into thinking she was just going through a rough patch or even planning some romantic getaway for the two of you.

No romantic getaways though, only heartbreak.

It was like you couldn’t even cry when you saw it, your body freezing at the sight of them in your bed once you followed the very loud trail of moans leading to your bedroom. The idiots, they didn’t even have the decency to do it in a fucking hotel or something.

So as your wife’s (ex wife) chasing you through your apartment, watching as you silently grab your suitcase and throw your things into it, the girl on your bed watching with wide eyes as she grips your favorite silk sheets against her chest to cover herself, you only truly have one thing on your mind.

“Come on baby…I…it was one time! You have to believe me!” She’s calling out like a wailing child, and the voice you once loved with all your heart sounds like nails on a chalk board. You swiftly tug your wedding ring off of your finger, tossing it onto the coffee table.

“My lawyer will send over the divorce papers” you speak out clearly, wanting her to hear ever fucking syllable that exits your mouth before you leave the apartment with the door slamming behind you, muffling her pathetic pleas behind the door.

You needed to go home.

Driving back to your home town was something you’d always imagine would be therapeutic. You imagined yourself packing your kids into a car with your wife, and making the drive all the way back to show them where their mommy grew up, allowing them to see a side of you that not many got to see.

This drive was nothing like that.

Instead, you were alone. Your old Cadillac your dad gifted you as a graduation present was practically begging you to get back on the road again. While it felt good to drive instead of taking a bus or a train, the circumstances made your heart ache.

While you didn’t cry when you initially found out about your wife’s affair, it all seemed to hit you on the drive back home, crashing down on you and making it hard to breath. You had to pull over and collect yourself for a good thirty minutes because the tears in your eyes were blurring your vision too much to drive.

You couldn’t even feel excited to go home, not with the overbearing weight of heartbreak leaving an ugly feeling in your chest.

It’s like your town is frozen in time. The same stores are there, the same shady trees, everything is just how you left it. It comes as a relief to you, because if your town had undergone a shitty futuristic makeover by some big corporate asshole looking for new business opportunities, you probably would’ve lost your mind.

The street where your house sits is just the same. There are kids riding their bikes up and down the quiet block, reminding you so much of yourself when you were their age. They even wave to you, giggling and smiling at you as if you’d been there the whole time, even though you’re sure a handful of them were born well after you’d left town.

And there your house sits, quiet and empty, practically waiting for someone to step in and fill her up. She’d been void of any of your family members ever since your parents became empty nesters and decided to travel the world. They of course let you know that the house was more than yours when they found out about your divorce. They told you they’d been needing someone to step in and take over for a while now since they’d been gone, that you were just the person they needed.

You knew they were saying that just to make you feel better.

Stepping out of your car and looking up at the house that you once called home makes your emotions all the more intense. It makes you feel old, but it makes you feel like you’d moved too fast all at the same time, your feelings contradicting each other in that sense. You have to take a deep inhale, swallowing back the tears that threatened to spill out onto your cheeks as you took a moment longer to take in the big house before you decided it was time to start moving your stuff into the house.

Besides a new couch and some new paint, the house is virtually the exact same as the way you left it. It makes your heart ache, because you realize you haven’t been back since the night you left when you were eighteen years old. You were too eager, too excited to leave behind the life your parents had built around you from the day you were born, that you neglected to even visit the world that they’d created for you.

It makes you feel like a bad daughter.

And suddenly you’re crying again, with no one to hold or console you, remind you that everything is fine and it only feels like the world is crashing down on you. Your life had gone in a way that you’d never expected, taking a course that you never saw for yourself, and it had its way of ignoring everything that you’d achieved, instead making you feel like a failure.

Your bedroom hasn’t changed either. The same shitty posters and figurines are still littered along your walls, your desk and your dresser, reminding you of all the silly little interests and hobbies you had as a young girl.

All the ones you’d forgotten as an adult.

It makes your heart ache, because it feels like everything is just crashing down on you and making you feel like all the things you’d been ignoring are practically begging, forcing you to acknowledge them, forcing you to feel them.

That first night back consists of you crying in the bath, followed by crying in your bed until you’ve fallen asleep.

You don’t leave the house for a few days, almost a week, thanking the forces of the internet that DoorDash had come to your small town, allowing you to feed yourself without the consequences of stepping out into town.

You weren’t ready for that. You weren’t ready for the people of your town to recognize you, to see the once happy, golden girl of their town that made it out of it all to get to the big city, back. Now lacking that sparkle she used to have in her eyes.

They all cared about you deeply, you could see it in the way they asked your parents constantly about you. But you couldn’t face them, not yet.

It doesn’t take long for the rest of your things that you’d shipped down to arrive at your house, a big truck stopping outside your house one early morning before setting everything in your garage. Once they left, you were faced with the task of moving all of the shit you’d accumulated in the city, into your new home.

And what a surprise it was when you were just about to grab a big box, only to see a familiar old grey truck pull up into your driveway next to your car.

Joel hadn’t changed at all. He was still just as old and burly as you remembered, his eyes crinkling at the edges with those familiar little wrinkles and his smile shining through the thick hair covering the bottom half of his face.

“Well would you look at who the cat dragged in” he chuckles out as he steps out of his car, old boots settling down onto the hot concrete of your driveway as his hand rested on the top of the car door.

His presence is enough to light up your face, quickly setting down the box as you rush out of the garage to meet the man outside of his car. The feeling of his strong arms wrapping around you in what could only be described as the closest thing to what hugging a bear feels like, temporarily mends your broken heart.

“Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again…it’s good to have you back kid…” he sighs out, chin pressed to the top of your head as you press your head against his chest. You can smell the faint scent of pine and cigarettes, further proving how much Joel has managed to stay the same since you’d last seen him.

You don’t trust yourself to respond, feeling the familiar tightening of your throat, the burning at your eyes and the tingle in your nose.

Joel had become somewhat of a second father to you, what with you and Ellie growing up together and all. Between your dad and hers being best friends, and you and Ellie being as close as you were, only to end up dating in high school, it wasn’t exactly a shock that you two had become so close with each others families.

Despite the heat of the summer time sun beating down on the both of you, you can’t bring yourself to let go of him. It feels like he’s the first person that’s hugged you in a long time and you’re fighting back the urges to cry with a fucking bat.

He chuckles softly, giving you a gentle squeeze before he pulls back, looking down into your eyes only to see that they’re pooling up with tears. You remind him so much of that little girl that was in and out of his home, stealing his daughter’s heart and running off with it to the big city to chase your dreams.

He can see so clearly just how much you’re hurting.

It makes him frown, bringing his hand up to ruffle your hair playfully.

You sniffle, biting back your tears as you stare up at the man. “What are you doing here?” You croak out, far too choked up to get a proper sentence out.

He hums softly as he looks up at the house, and then to the boxes filling up your garage, which he gestures to. “Your folks gave me a call…said you’d been comin’ home…they asked if I’d be able to help you get settled in” he explained, his eyes squinting a bit as if to size up the amount of things you had to take up before he gave a firm nod, as if confirming he’d be more than able to.

He looks back down at you, giving you his signature warm smile before he continues. “I was indeed free…so here I am” he confirmed with a chuckle.

You simply blink up at him, trying to gauge whether or not he knows, if your parents told him exactly why you were coming home along with telling him that you were coming back in the first place. Clearly you were moving back home, and he knew that you’d been married.

But he doesn’t say anything further. He doesn’t say he’s sorry, he doesn’t ask if you’re okay. He simply treats it like you’re just coming back home because you want to, not because you’re running away from something.

You decide to simply leave it at that.

Soon you’re giving him a soft smile, nodding as you look back at the boxes before leading him into the garage. You let out a soft sigh as you look at the work cut out for you two before you gesture towards them.

“It’s a lot, Mr. Miller…and I don’t expect you to help with everything so-“ he’s quickly cutting you off, the older man scoffing as he bends down to grab one of the bigger ones in a way that’s far too impressive for a man his age.

“Mr. Miller? The city went and made you all formal? Now…come inside and show me where you want these” he hums out casually, making you giggle softly before you grab a box yourself, moving to walk in front of him before you nod inside.

“Fine…but at least let me feed you once we’re finished” you make sure to add before leading him inside and show him where to place the box he had.

Soon, it’s nearly mid day and your garage is free of boxes. You almost don’t believe how quickly you and Joel were able to get all of the boxes in, the man moving quick for his age. You had to bite your tongue from mentioning it, knowing that he’d scoff and tell you he could run circles around the young kids asses any given day.

He of course lets you hold up your end of the bargain, making him a sandwich and some freshly squeezed lemonade just in time for lunch. Sitting down with him at your kitchen table makes you face just how lonely you’d been in that house. Sure, you didn’t mind doing things on your own, you were by yourself for the first three years of college before you met your ex wife. There was just something about being in your childhood home that was once bustling with life, always buzzing with the sounds of a family, now only filled with you and the soft patter of your feet against the wooden floor when you had to get from one point to another, that seemed to leave your heart feeling even more hollow than it already had become.

You knew that with some food and some spare time to simply sit with each other, conversation would erupt between you and Joel, so it didn’t come to a surprise when he finally mentioned the elephant in the room.

The plates were filled with crumbs and some discarded sandwich crust, glasses half filled with ice and a few lemon edges as you sat across from each other, the warm summer breeze blowing the lacy curtains further into the house.

“I don’t mean to pry…but what made you decide to come home?” He questions innocently. You know he isn’t doing it to gossip or lurk too deep in places that he doesn’t belong, he’s simply curious. He could see that look in your eyes when he first got there, and he knew that there was something behind them begging to get out, begging to be heard.

It makes you hum, your fingers lazily wrapped around the white and yellow striped straw in your cup, swirling around the remnants of your drink before you let out a soft sigh.

“I um…my wife and I got divorced…” your words trail off, almost ashamed to say them. You let out a soft scoff, nodding as you catch Joel’s shocked face before you continue.

“She was sleeping with her coworker…in our bed…” you pour salt on the wound with that one, a soft chuckle leaving your lips before you sigh, finally looking over at Joel to see he’s giving you and apologetic frown, his hand reaching over to grip your hand on the table, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Kid…I….fuck…I’m sorry” he tries, and you’re shaking your head to stop him before he can even continue further.

“I shouldn’t have married her so quickly…my parents told me it wasn’t a good idea but I…was too eager” you mumble out with a shrug before you give him a soft smile, your hand moving up to give his a squeeze instead, wanting to assure the now sad man that everything was fine.

“I’m okay Joel…really…if anything it’s karma for what I did to Ellie-“ he’s quickly cutting you off, seeing the way you’re simply talking out of your ass at this point.

He’s shaking his head, settling back in his chair before he cuts you off. “No…nuh-uh…Ellie has never blamed you for how things ended and you know that” his voice gets a bit more firm, wanting you to fully understand what he’s trying to convey.

You can’t help but frown as you stare down at the old kitchen table, far too deep in thought to even listen to the man. He can tell, he can see that you’re zoning out and getting deep in your head, so he pushes himself forward, resting his forearms on the table as he gets a bit closer to you.

“She knew how much leaving meant to you…she’s never once blamed you for anything” he tries again, this time trying to convey to you how truthful his words were, how much he truly meant them.

Hearing her name only makes your heart hurt more.

Because it felt like the universe was punishing you for not choosing her, for choosing the wrong girl instead of the one that you’d be given, the one that was simply perfect for you. You knew you were wrong for it, but was all of this necessary?

You don’t say anything, simply giving the man a soft smile before you nod, moving to grab the empty plates and cups and moving them to the sink, desperately trying to escape the conversation.

You hear him hum softly behind you, knowing it means he’s going to speak further. “She owns the car shop in town….bought it off of Mr. Johnson a little while after you left…” he explains.

The thought of Ellie had crossed your mind the moment you came to terms with the fact that you were moving back home. She crossed your mind a lot, but knowing that there may or may not would come a time where you’d have to face her again had your stomach in knots. You knew little to nothing about Ellie now, you didn’t know what she was doing or whether or not she was still living in town, you didn’t even know if she was with someone or not.

So to hear her father confirming that she was in fact still there, still around and not angry or bitter over the way things happened, it felt all too much like Joel trying to play Cupid between his daughter and her high school girlfriend.

His words make you freeze for a moment, your hands stilling against the dish and the sponge in your hand. He notices this, standing up from his seat at the table and moving to stand next to you, his palms pressing against the counter as his neck cranes down to eye you carefully.

“You should stop by…say hello…if you want” he assures you, wanting you to know that it was completely up to you and what you were comfortable with. You finally look up, giving the older man a soft smile before nodding.

“I…thanks Joel…for everything” you manage, finishing up the dishes before you grab a nearby rag to dry your hands. He smiles warmly as he nods before he brings his hand up to check his watch, sighing softly as he nods his head towards the door.

“I’ll be heading out now then…I have some things I need to take care of in town” he explains, looking down at you and giving you a slight nod. “You call me if you need anything missy…you hear?” He firmly reminds you before cracking a smile, reaching out and giving your arm a gentle squeeze before you walk him out of your house.

That night, Joel’s words echo throughout your head, and all you can think about is seeing Ellie again. Should you even consider it? Was it even a good idea for a newly divorced girl to be dabbling in the world of her old flings? Her first fling to be exact?? It all somehow sounded like a recipe for disaster.

Yet you couldn’t stop yourself from mentally searching through your closet for an outfit to wear on your first official outing.

After about another week of sulking in your house, you finally haul an old pair of denim shorts and a nice white linen blouse and force yourself out of your front door. Sure, you would’ve preferred crawling under your sheets and sobbing into your pillow, wondering why this had to happen to you, and why you couldn’t have a long happy marriage like everyone else, but healing had to start somewhere. You knew that you couldn’t do any of that if you continued wallowing in your own self pity.

The sun does a good job at pulling you out of your home. The weather was too nice to stay stuck inside of an old house all day. Summer vacation was in full swing, paired with the neighborhood kids bringing out the old sprinkler and everything, you’re sure you can even hear the ice cream truck coming down the road when you’re pulling out of your driveway.

It’s like you can finally see the beauty of your little town whenever you’re put together with the intention of coming out. It’s almost like the opposite of living life with rose colored glasses, instead you were blinded by a grey fog that came with your divorce, keeping you from truly seeing all that your home town had to offer.

Being in town does more for you than you’d ever imagine. Visiting the old faces that were once apart of your day to day almost makes it feel like you’d never left. Mrs. Charlotte still owns the little produce store, you’d always visit her after school and on the weekends because she always had some of the best strawberries no matter the season. The smile on her face when she saw you was one like no other, the woman grabbing you and pulling you into her chest the moment she saw you walk into her shop.

Mr. Johnny still owned the local photography store, he gave you your first job when you were sixteen years old. He’s partially to thank for helping you pay for college. You couldn’t believe your eyes when his little girl that you used to babysit was getting ready for her final year in high school, working in the same position you were when you were her age.

And Mr. and Mrs. Peters made sure to stop you when you were passing by their old pet store, Mrs. Peters unable to believe her eyes when she saw the golden girl passing by her old shop. She scolded you for not writing her earlier, letting her know that you were coming into town. You make it up to her by telling her you’re here to stay, and that you’ll make it a point to have both her and her husband over for dinner one of these days whenever they’re free.

So? Nearly nothing has changed. Sure, everyone’s gotten a bit older, but so have you. You’ve changed, and you’ve grown, and you’re so much different and so much more than the small towns golden girl that finally made it out to the big city, just to get her heart broken in the process of it all.

And that’s what you remind yourself as you find yourself pulling up to the familiar car shop that Joel had mentioned the week before.

It’s no surprise that Ellie ended up finding herself to be the owner of the local car shop in your town. She’d always loved cars, working on them, fixing them up, everyone in your school knew that if you had a problem with your vehicle, you’d call Ellie. She was the one that came together with your dad to fix his old Cadillac, fixing her up, turning her out and making her brand new for your adventures in the big city.

Standing in front of her shop makes your heart beat right out of your chest. But you’re here already, so you might as well just suck it up and walk right in.

As you do so, you can’t help but let the lingering thoughts take over. The suns already setting at this point, and you’re sure she’s close to closing up if she hasn’t already. What even was the point? Ellie probably didn’t even wanna see you! This was all Joel’s idea and what if he was just trying to make you feel-

“I’ll be right there!” You hear a familiar voice call out from the back, making your heart beat faster just from the sound of it.

She sounds the same, yet more mature. Her voice deeper with a bit of roughness to it, making her sound all the more irresistible. It makes you stand in the opened garage of her shop, surrounded by all of the cars that are opened up or hoisted up into the sky, your hands gripping your bag almost nervously as you stand there, frozen, unable to move.

Soon, she’s emerging from the back. She has a pair of navy overalls on, the sleeves tied around her waist, leaving her top half in a white wife pleaser, both of which were covered in motor oil and grease. Her arms are bigger, and covered in tattoos, something you remembered her saying she’d do the second she got the money for it. She’s taller too, and her hair is shorter, gone is the familiar pony tail she always had, instead it stops just at the nape of her neck, messily tossed into a bun while a few strands rests against her skin. her features stronger too, sharper.

She’s so different, yet so similar to the Ellie you remember, your Ellie. She still has the power of taking your breath away with a single glance.

“Well I’ll be damned…is that the dream girl?” She chuckles out with a soft smirk on her lips, pulling a red rag from her back pocket to wipe her hands clean. The nickname leaves goosebumps trailing down your skin.

Dream girl.

You recall the nickname from the many times you were with Ellie. Back when you two dated, she’d go on and on about how perfect you were, how she knew you were the girl of her dreams, animated into real life from the moment she laid eyes on you. You were the girl of her very dreams, and she never failed to remind you of that. Ever.

Hearing her call you that has your lips twitching up into a shy smile as you give her a shrug.

“In the flesh…” you mumble out, biting back an embarrassed giggle as the girl clearly drinks you in, eyes shamelessly raking up and down your body.

“Jesus…come here!” She groans out as she rushes towards you, strong arms wrapping around your middle and pulling you up, spinning you around as she keeps you in her arms. It makes you laugh loudly, a deep guttural laugh leaving your lips, possibly for the first time since your divorce.

The feeling of Ellie’s strong arms wrapping around your body feels like your missing puzzle piece has been given back to you, like you’ve been reunited with a part of you that you left behind far too long ago.

But she’s so much stronger now, and she’s older and…and…

It all just feels so right.

“Ellie stop! Put me down, you’re filthy” you whine out, landing a playful slap to her sweaty arm as she chuckles, finally setting you back down onto the floor.

She chuckles softly, settling her hands on either one of her hips as she lets out a sigh, a soft smile on her face. “I’m surprised the town hasn’t thrown a damn parade when they heard you’d be here…my god” she sighs out, practically in awe with your very appearance.

“Come on back, I’m just finishing some paperwork before I close” she nods her head to the back where she was moments ago, which you quickly follow her as she guides you.

Her garage is empty except for her, most likely working overtime after her employees had gone home, which was very much like Ellie. The walls are covered with the same posters of the bands you knew Ellie loved, as well as a healthy collection of vintage car photos, which isn’t a shock at all since those were always the center of Ellie’s car obsession.

The place seems nice and worn in, it suits Ellie in the best way.

Your thoughts are interrupted when you hear her let out a soft hum. She’s leaned up against her work table, wiping her hands off further with her red rag before she tosses it over her shoulder, crossing her toned arms across her chest as she eyes you fondly, a soft smile on her face.

“You haven’t changed one bit…” she hums out, eyes trailing on your face as she keeps that fine smile on hers. It makes you feel shy, the same way you felt all those years ago when your feelings for Ellie really started to shine through, and every little thing she’d say would have you giggling like an idiot.

You roll your eyes, biting back a smile as your top teeth sink into your bottom lip, shrugging as you move your hands up to loosely rest on your own arms.

“Please…the city has practically chewed me up and spit me out…I’m surprised I don’t have wrinkles yet” you huff softly, bringing your hand up to your forehead to make sure you weren’t frowning again, a habit you’d picked up recently.

Getting cheated on made you far too miserable.

She chuckles, shaking her head as her pink tongue darts out to lick her lips, still soaking you in like she would the sun.

“Nah…a face like that? Not even the city could ruin” she adds, giving you a small wink.

It warms you heart up in the best of ways, finally giving you a moment to stand still and enjoy life without letting the actions of your ex wife consume you. She makes you forget all about it, reminding you of a time where the thought of getting cheated on, didn’t even cross your mind.

You two stand there for a moment, seemingly taking each other in, enjoying the moment. It’s clear that she’s flirting, and it feels so similar to the days of your old life. It feels like the times where you and Ellie would spend hours talking outside your house or hers, when you’d shyly smile and giggle at one another when you were unsure of your feelings, when things were fresh.

You can tell Ellie feels it too, because she’s quick to blink a few times in your direction before she clears her throat, smile dropping as she turns around to busy herself with something on her desk.

“How’s that wife of yours? Sorry I couldn’t make it to the wedding…was um….was busy” she mumbles out.

Although her back is facing you, you can practically hear the way her eyebrows furrow and her lips twitch into a frown. It was a subject that you two hadn’t spoken about much. You’d told Ellie about your ex wife when you two first started dating, and you told her about the engagement and the wedding you’d been planning, because before anything else, Ellie was your friend, and you two shared everything with each other.

But you couldn’t ignore the almost nauseating weight that settled in when you spoke to her about it. The way she tried to seem as happy for you as she could without letting underlying feelings bubble up to the surface.

You could sense that same weight now, as she asked you about the woman that broke your heart.

It rips you away from the little fantasy you’d been given with Ellie, reminding you of the dark reality of why you’d returned, and what it was that had forced you out of the city and back to your home town. Thinking about telling Ellie about what happened and actually doing it were two very different things, and the seconds of silence that passed between you began to turn into minutes, minutes where you silently begged to disappear into thin air instead of admitting to Ellie what it was that happened.

“Um…she…” you stuttered out, struggling for a moment before your eyes fluttered shut, and you took a deep inhale, grounding yourself before you finally spoke once more.

“We got divorced.” You finally manage to get out, your balled up fists finally relaxing down at your sides as your shoulders deflate, the weight of your situation finally releasing itself from your body as you admitted it to her.

You see her still for a moment, movements halting completely as she struggles to comprehend what it was that you’d said, what it was that she was hearing.

Hearing about your girlfriend was a jab to the chest, but it wasn’t like she didn’t see it coming. Plus, it’s just a girlfriend! And you were all the way in the city anyways, who was Ellie to be jealous of that? Hearing about your engagement was also fairly hard, it wasn’t like she spent countless nights at the bar drowning out her sorrows over the one that got away. Seeing your actual wedding invitation though? Man, that was fucking hard. Ellie isn’t entirely sure how she got through that part. Ignoring it was the easiest way how.

Ellie would spend night after night wishing on a single star that you’d get divorced from that woman, knowing deep down she wasn’t the right one for you. Call it a gut feeling or call it jealousy, whatever it was, there was a constant lingering feeling that Ellie had ever since you’d gotten married that left a bitter taste in her mouth, one that she felt wouldn’t end well with that girl.

And now you’re here, standing in the middle of her old car shop, telling her that you were in fact divorced, and one of the countless stars in the sky has listened to her.

But she can’t move. She’s frozen in place as she eyes the papers on her desk, that now have no purpose to her since the only thing she can focus on is your words. It makes you nervous, and you take it was an opportunity to clear your throat, wanting desperately to cut the silence in half.

“Your dad told me you owned this place now…so I thought I’d visit…” you mumble out awkwardly, struggling to find the words to say to Ellie as she simply stood there, back turned to you for what felt like an eternity.

She inhales deeply, finally turning around to face you. You weren’t entirely sure what you expected her expression to read, but you’re surprised to see that she’s frowning, a soft sigh leaving her lips as she leans her palms back on her desk, shaking her head a she eyes you.

“Always knew those city girls were no good…I’m sorry sweetheart” she sighs out genuinely. You give her a shrug, shaking your head as you send a half smile her way.

“I’m just glad it happened sooner than later…saying I have an ex wife is cool though” you snort out, which earns a chuckle from Ellie as she nods in agreement.

“Very cool…makes you sound all grown up” she winks at you before she nods her head at you. “You still staying at your old place? Or did you find somethin’ in town” she hums out, clearly trying to change the subject for your own comfort.

And hers….

You hum softly as you nod, gesturing off to the direction of your home. “Yup…my parents treat the place like it’s a vacation home…I was practically taking it off their hands” you sigh out in fake annoyance, which makes Ellie laugh softly as she nods.

“Man…haven’t seen those two in a couple of years. You’d think they’re on their honeymoon” she adds, making you giggle as well.

The summer breeze blows swiftly against your body, your hair blowing with it, fallen blossoms from the apple trees in town dancing along your feet. It doesn’t help that you’re dressed in the same pair of denim shorts Ellie used to love so much, looking all too familiar to the girl of her passed, yet so different at the same time.

She stares at you shamelessly, smiling fondly as she simply takes you in.

You furrow your eyebrows, biting back a smile as you eye her closely. “What are you staring at, Williams?” You ask her, clearly teasing the girl as she gives you a shrug, biting down on her bottom lip as she gives you a smile.

“You expect me to not stare when a pretty girl is stood in my shop? What do you take me for” she shoots out far too smoothly, making you roll your eyes. You shoo your hand at her, turning around to make your way back to your car, knowing that if you stay any longer, you’ll probably end up getting charmed by Ellie all over again.

As if she hadn’t already done that the moment you laid eyes on her.

“I’m freshly divorced missy…not exactly the top choice at the market” you scold her jokingly, giving her a small wave as you walk out onto the curb, making your way back to your car.

“Just wanted to stop by and say hello…don’t wanna keep you any longer” you hum out, giving the girl a small smile as your hand reaches for the handle of your car.

Ellie is moving before she can think, eyes widening as she quickly follows you out to your car, her larger hand gently resting over your own as she moves to pull your car door open for you.

“My um…my number hasn’t changed…if you still have it and you wanted to talk…or hang out or something…” she mumbles out shyly. For a moment, you see her drop the smooth, suave demeanor she had mere moments ago, saying all the right things and strumming all the right chords. For a moment, she’s Ellie. She’s the Ellie that stuttered and struggled to get the words out when she asked you out the first time, or asked you to be her girlfriend.

She’s the Ellie that you make nervous.

“Do you…have my number still?” She asks nervously, worried she’d been reading into this all wrong. It makes you giggle, nodding as you lean your back against your car, staring up at the girl before you speak.

“Of course I have your number, Ellie…wouldn’t lose it for the world” you hum out as you give her a soft smile, which has her eyes twinkling as she gives you a small smile.

“Good…” she managed out as she watches you get into your car.

She hums as she leans down, pressing her arms against the edge of your window, looking into your car before she looks at you. You feel your insides burning at how fucking close she is at that.

“A buddy of mine s’got a gig down at the Copper Cat this Saturday…if you wanted to come out” she casually invites you, eyeing you closely to try and gauge your response to it.

Your eyes widen a bit at the mention of the old bar, memories swirling into your head like a hurricane. “The Copper Cat?? That place is still opened??” You practically shriek in shock of the old bar still being up and running. Your response makes Ellie chuckle as she nods.

“Yup…and it’s better than ever too. They remodeled last summer” she explains, you don’t miss the proud smile on her face as she practically beams at you. You giggle softly as you nod slowly before you hum, looking down at your lap for a moment as you thought about it a bit. Your ex girlfriend was inviting you to some mediocre show at an even more mediocre bar in the small corner of your town, and you were newly divorced…

What could go wrong with that

You smile up at her before giving her a nod. “Text me and let me know what time you’ll be there” you give her a nod, confirming that you’ll come. You can see the see the way her eyes practically twinkle at that, nodding eagerly as she smiles.

“I’ll pick you up” she quickly replied, leaving no room for you to decline, because she’d already pushing herself up and off of your window, giving you a bright smile as she nods her head in the direction of the main road.

“Go on…before I keep you here even longer than I’m supposed to” she gives you a wink, which sends your heart until a flurry of emotions, sparking it all up all over again before you roll your eyes playfully, and drive off after giving her a small wave goodbye, her smile seemingly seared into the forefront of your brain as you grinned like an idiot while making your way back home.

God…were you fucked.

This wasn’t a date.

This was simply two old friends catching up after a long time! Ellie had asked you to come out because she probably felt bad for you. She could probably see the tears stained into your cheeks and the absolute trail of sadness that followed you around and thought, ‘this girl could use a night out’, so she invited you.

This wasn’t a date.

It was a pity invite! A date would have been some place nice. Ellie was romantic, you knew that. She’d treated you better in your puppy love relationship than most girls did while you were in the city, so of course suggesting to go to the bar was keeping it friendly.

This wasn’t a date.

It wasn’t a date. It was just you going out to a bar because you’re single now and you can do what you want without feeling guilty or wrong for doing fun things. That’s all. It wasn’t a date at all.

But if it wasn’t a date…why were you so fucking nervous.

You visited Ellie at her shop on Monday, you weren’t set to see her again until Friday night, so why was it the only thing you could think of? You could only think of what to wear, how to act, if you should text her or not, would that be pushy? Would that be overstepping? She told you her number hadn’t changed! So obviously that meant she wanted you to text her….right?

Right?

God, who knew at this point. All you knew, was that you were set to see Ellie this weekend. Regardless of it being a date or not, it was nerve wracking. So when Friday afternoon finally rolls around, you find yourself partaking in things that are a steering a bit too close to pre date activities.

Such as making sure your entire body was nice and moisturized, but that was just for you! That wasn’t for Ellie to touch or squeeze…or making sure your hair was cleaned and styled, that’s just because you want to be presentable! You can’t let the people of your town see the mess your ex wife made. Or doing your makeup and picking out the perfect outfit. That was simply because…you wanted to! Nothing more, nothing less.

You settled on a simple yellow sundress with pink flowers, it hugs your middle perfectly and flows down to your calves, making it just enough to look like you put a bit of effort into your appearance. It almost felt like a breath of fresh air to haul on any old pair of shorts or a nice dress to go out, something the city rarely allowed. The city was too into appearances, everyone needing to wear the best clothes and the trendiest styles when setting foot outside, especially on a night out. It was fun, but it became exhausting after a while, all you wanted to do was to wear your comfy clothes without getting nasty looks.

The beauty of living in a small town.

When you’re finally ready, you catch a quick look at yourself in the mirror, more than happy with your overall appearance before you take a deep breath, and send Ellie a text.

Hii :)

I’m all ready whenever you wanna come by

It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for Ellie to read and respond to your messages.

Awesome :)

I’m omw

You smile softly at her messages, heart beating a bit faster at the thought of her coming over as you click your phone shut, and move to sit in your living room to wait for the girl to arrive.

It’s almost comedic how quickly you move to sit on your couch, knee bouncing anxiously as you wait for the girl to pull up to your house. Sitting there gives you too much time to think, too. Because what if this is a bad idea, what if you’re just blinded by the manic excitement that comes with seeing Ellie again, the thrill of being with her, because you’re still very much heart broken, and it isn’t like everything will simply disappear once she’s-

And suddenly you can’t think anymore, because all you can hear is a firm knock at your front door, echoing through your house.

It catches the air in your lungs and practically runs with it, leaving you panicking as your eyes flutter between the front door and the clock, and you realize it’s been about fifteen minutes since Ellie’s texted you, and you’d just been sitting on your couch overthinking as always.

Your feet seem to have a mind of their own as they carry you to your front door, moving to open it before you can even come to terms with opening up for it.

And if you think Ellie looked good when you saw her at her shop? God…you didn’t know what good looked like until now.

The white t shirt she wears hugs her body beautifully, covered by an old leather jacket that fits her even better. Her toned thighs are clad in what you can only assume to be expensive blue denim jeans, simply by how perfectly they fit her. It’s all covered with a fucking cherry on top when you take in her black boots, and a singular silver necklace dangling from her neck.

You’re sure she’ll notice your heart beating out of your chest any second now.

She’s smiling brightly when she takes you in, eyes raking down your form before she chuckles. “Look at you…could almost pass for one of us small town folk in that one..” she hums out, nodding in approval at your laid back outfit.

It makes you roll your eyes, landing a playful nudge to the girls arm as you adjust your bag further on your shoulder. “Please…I dressed like this even when I lived out there” you try to defend yourself, giving her a small frown before you nod your head out to her car.

“Should we get going? Wouldn’t wanna miss the main act” you hum, wanting to get out of your house desperately.

Half of the reason being because you seriously needed to get out of your house and socialize with people that weren’t your mother’s porcelain figurines….

And the other half being you simply couldn’t handle the close proximity of someone as good looking as Ellie much longer.

She hums softly as she nods, stepping to the side and she gives you a bit of space to walk out of your house. “After you, city girl” she teases you once again, earning yet another look of warning from your end, which she simply giggles at.

You can’t contain the gasp you let out when you finally lay eyes on Ellie’s ride. The vintage black mustang practically sparkles in the low light of the afternoon sun. You can’t help yourself from reaching out and running your fingers along the shiny body of the car.

“Jesus Christ Ellie….if I knew you’d pick me up in this, I would’ve dressed nicer” you practically gasp out. Ellie chuckles softly as she watches your reaction closely, nodding slowly as she looks at the car with you.

“Hey…city girl comes to town? I need to pull all the stops” she explains with a nonchalant shrug. It makes you groan in annoyance, because did Ellie truly have to be this perfect? Couldn’t she have grown up to be a moron like your ex wife?

Why did she have to be something out of a fucking romance novel.

You’re too in awe with the vehicle to acknowledge her remark, a soft, dreamy sigh leaving your lips as you bend down a bit to look at the cream colored leather interior. “You fix this up yourself?” You hum out softly, although you already knew the answer to that question, you wanted to hear her gloat about it.

You can practically hear the cocky grin on the girls face as she nods. “Is the sky blue? Come on angel…you know nobody does it like me” she grins out, moving to stand behind you.

“Longer you stare at her, less time you have in her…” she practically purrs out. You have to ignore the way your stomach does flips at her tone, nodding eagerly as you rush to the other side of the car, to which Ellie quickly beats you to it.

“Nu-uh-uh…a lady never opens her own door, especially a city-“ you press your hand to her mouth, silencing her from finishing her sentence as you give her a displeased look.

“Finish that sentence and I’m going back inside” you deadpan, which makes Ellie quickly nod as she gives you wide eyes, opening the door for you in silence. You giggle softly, patting her cheek gently before you get into her car. “Much better” you praise her.

She chuckles softly, waiting for you to get in before she rushes to her side to get in and start driving as well.

The familiar bar hasn’t changed at all since you’d last been there. It’s almost scary how much everything’s frozen in time in the small town, leaving little to no room for changes. It makes you sigh softly, a gentle smile on your lips as Ellie pulls into the parking lot.

“Man….this place really never changes, huh?” You sigh out almost in awe, which makes Ellie chuckle as she shuts the car off.

“What can I say….Our town prioritizes tradition” she teases before she looks over at you, giving you a soft smile before nodding her head towards the building. “Come on, my buddy should be up any moment now” she urges gently before she gets out of the car, prompting you to follow when she opens up the door for you.

Inside, the place is buzzing. Filled to the brim with the people of your town, young and old, all of them eager for a night of fun after a long week of work. The atmosphere differs greatly from what you’re used to, the clubs and bars back in the city always having a strange vibe to them, one that you couldn’t ever really put your finger on.

Being there, with the people that had been born and raised in the same town as you, you were finally able to remember what it was that was missing in the city…

It was that the people here, were actually having fun.

“I’m gonna grab a drink, you want one?” Ellie leans down next to you, her voice raising a bit to combat the loud music that was already playing. You hum softly, trying your best to ignore the way her scent fills your knows and almost makes you feel drunk. You merely give her a nod and a soft smile before leaning in to speak into her ear as well. “A rum and coke if that’s okay!” You shout out to her, which earns a smile and a nod. She gives your arm a gentle squeeze, “find us a spot, I’ll find you when I have them” she urges before disappearing off into the sea of people to find the bar.

You let out a breath you’d seemingly held from the moment Ellie picked you up from your house, exhaling loudly as you look around at the packed room. There are various booths and stools available to sit, but you opt to lean up against a nearby wall, mainly because you seriously needed a time out from the amount of people there.

You truly didn’t expect for so many people to be there, thinking that it would be a barely packed house with a few of Ellie’s friends there to watch the mystery person she’d been boasting to you about. You couldn’t tell if everyone was there to see the performance, or if they were there simply to socialize and drink. You figured it was a mix of both.

Quite a bit of time passes by, and it makes you wonder if Ellie got lost or was having trouble finding you or something. You knew it was stupid to stand on the wall, so you figure you’d search for her instead.

Pushing yourself off the wall and emerging into the sea of people makes you frown, apologizing and squeezing through various people, trying your best to map out where the bar should be. You feel you can just make out the flooded area, when you finally spot Ellie.

And the girl that’s been keeping her from you.

You can see Ellie holding your drink in her hand, and one you can assume is for herself as the girl chats her up. You can barely make out who Ellie is speaking to, but from the back? You can tell she’s a looker. Her pretty hair falling down her back, attractive figure, even the way she leans in and presses her hand against Ellie’s arm whenever she laughs makes it clear that this girl is pretty, because all pretty girls know how to flirt in just the best ways possible.

And it’s the strangest fucking feeling, because even thought you caught your ex wife fucking another woman in the bed you both shared, what you feel when you see another girl touching Ellie’s arm doesn’t come close to anything you’ve ever felt before.

Because you’ve never had to see this. You’ve never had to see someone else throw themselves at Ellie. When you were dating, everyone knew that you were hers and she was yours, and even before you two were dating, everyone assumed you were both off limits anyways. It was something that you never had to face, because in the entire time that you’d known Ellie, she was yours.

But now she wasn’t. And it was clear that everyone knew that.

It makes you want to turn around and go home, ignore the ugly feeling in the pit of your stomach, call a cab and hide in your house for another month. You weren’t ready for this, these feelings that you were faced with were too much, and too fucking confusing. You wanted your bed, and your room, and your house where you were safe and no one and nothing could hurt you, you just needed to turn around and-

“Awe, there she is. Over here!” Ellie’s voice calls out over the loud music, cutting each and every one of your loud, annoying thoughts in half. Your eyes widen a bit when the girl finally turns around, only confirming the point that you had come to earlier. If anything, she puts all of that to shame, because she’s even more beautiful than you could have ever imagined.

You don’t recognize her, but she’s smiling brightly and waving you over as if she recognizes you, beckoning you over as if you’d all been friends since you were babies. You have to stop yourself from frowning, knowing both this girl and Ellie owed you nothing. You put on a smile, inhaling deeply and making your way over to the both of them.

“Sorry I took so long, I couldn’t find you anywhere” Ellie quickly apologizes as she hands you your drink. You quickly shake your head, clearing the lump that had formed in your throat before you give her a small smile.

“Uh…no worries. I was in an awkward spot anyways, so that’s my fault” you assure her.

She can tell something’s wrong just in the way you’re speaking, and it makes her eye you closely, trying to gauge your expression, eager to figure out what’s made the sudden change in your mood. It makes her frown slightly, eyebrows furrowed as she peers down to watch you before she leans in a bit. “You okay?” She questions softly, her hand coming up to squeeze your arm gently.

The tone of her voice and the hand on your arm makes you want to explode. It makes your head spin and it makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs, because Ellie does not owe you anything! She isn’t your girlfriend, and this is simply two friends catching up after not seeing each other for a long time, and it was absolutely doing your head in that she was speaking to you like that wasn’t the case.

So you give her a smile, nodding quickly as you shake her hand off of your arm. “I’m fine, just a bit flustered with the crowd…um…is this your friend?” You as gently as you gesture towards the girl that was politely standing there as you and Ellie had a moment, not daring to intervene as she quietly sipped on her drink and people watched, as to not make things even more awkward than they already were.

Ellie’s frown deepens when you shake her grasp off, eyeing the way her hand falls from your arm. It leaves a bitter taste on her tongue, not used to this far off, separated feeling that’s settled between the two of you. She wants to dwell on it further, but your question makes her blink out of her confused daze, looking over at the girl standing in front of her.

“Fuck…right, yes. This is Lilac, she moved into town a few years ago” Ellie explains.

Great, even her fucking name was beautiful.

You’re met with the prettiest pair of eyes when Ellie says her name, the girl smiling brightly as she hears Ellie introduce her.

“Ahh no need to be formal, darlin’. Ellie has told me so much about you” she practically squeals out.

You’re a bit taken aback when instead of shaking your hand, she tugs you in for a hug, arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you close, nearly making you spin your drink. Your eyes widen, using your free arm to wrap around her shoulders and hug her back. You catch Ellie chuckling softly as she brings her drink to her lips, trying to hide her smirk.

Lilac pulls away, pretty glossy lips pulled into a smile as she eyes you, a gentle sigh leaving your lips as she takes you in. “I was wondering when I’d get to meet you…I promise you, I’d hear at least half the town going on and on about you the first month of living here” she giggles out. You smile softly as you nod, taking a sip of your drink before you shrug.

“Sorry about that…I’ve been hiding I guess” you mumble out sheepishly, lips ghosting over the rim of your cup as you desperately try to take in as much of your drink as you could without slugging it down like an animal.

There was no way you’d be getting through this night sober.

Ellie watches as the two of you interact, smiling softly as she takes a sip of her own drink ever so often before she intervenes.

“Lilac works on the daily paper….came in and made it all fancy for us” Ellie chimes in. Her words make Lilac giggle softly, leaning in and pressing her hand against Ellie’s arm, giving her a gentle push.

You try your best to ignore how much that fucking annoys you.

“Oh please. All I did was order in some new printing paper and add pretty fonts. Don’t let her fool you” she chirps, leaning into you with raised eyebrows as she gives you a giggle. You don’t even have time to respond to her before she’s asking you another question.

“I hear you’re from the city…I’ve dreamed of being there all my life, can’t imagine what would bring someone back to a little town like this” she sighs out almost dreamily.

Although there’s no malice or blunt force to her words, you can’t help but take it that way. It’s clear she’s simply making conversation, trying to get to know you better. Maybe it’s the liquor slowly but surely making its way through your system, making you feel looser, making your tongue looser.

“Wasn’t really my plan” you make out, eyes drifting elsewhere as you bring your cup back to your lips.

God….you just wanted to go home.

She doesn’t quite catch the bitter tone in your words, because soon enough there’s an announcement echoing through the bar, and you know it’s time for that friend that Ellie had mentioned earlier to get on stage and perform.

Lilac squeals excitedly, jumping up and down as her hand grips Ellie’s arm, the girl clearly over the moon for whoever it was that was performing.

Great….she knew the guy too?

You have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes, the foreign feeling of jealousy tapping on your shoulder, reminding you of all those intense feelings you’d once had for Ellie. Bringing your cup to your lips to occupy yourself makes you realize the drink was done, making you groan softly.

Your eyes drift over to Ellie and Lilac, both of them enamored with the man that was beginning his on stage. It makes you sigh softly before you lean into them, shouting over the loud music.

“I’m gonna get another drink, you guys want anything?” You barely make out over the loud guitar riff, the both of them denying before they brought their attention back to the musician. With that, you swiftly make your way through the crowd over to the bar.

The second you’re pressed up against the bar, it feels like you can breathe again. Your cheeks felt hot, your chest felt hot, hell, your entire fucking body felt hot. And the worst part of it all, is you could barely decipher the feelings that were plaguing your mind and body.

You sighed softly as you thanked the sweet bartender for the drink. There was enough space at the bar for you to turn around and gaze at the crowd, eyes drifting along the sea of people as you simply sipped on your drink, trying your best to regroup after the entire situation with Lilac.

Because it was weird. All of it was so fucking strange and it was doing your head in. The feeling that sank to the bottom of your stomach when you first laid eyes on them was one you couldn’t recognize. It was rare that you ever felt jealousy in your last relationship, which was honestly something that made you feel quite secure in your marriage. Your wife never truly gave you any reasons to feel that way, her attention always on you, never failing to make you feel like the only girl in the room. Thinking back to all of it, the way your marriage ended was almost comedic.

So seeing Ellie, your ex girlfriend of almost five years, and Lilac, one of the most beautiful girls you’d ever laid eyes on, simply laughing and touching one another as friends do? It made you want to rip the entire building you stood in, brick, by brick.

The thoughts alone make you frown, a gentle sigh leaving your lips as you stare down into the fizzy cup of ice, alcohol and soda in your hand. You felt…so conflicted, so wrong for allowing these feelings to fill you up and make you feel so intensely about someone who didn’t even feel that way about you anymore, and did you even feel that way about her anymore? It was just Ellie. She was your best friend before anything else, so what if she flirts with a pretty girl! You’d be stupid to think she didn’t have other people in her life after you left. What? Did you think she’d simply sit around waiting for you-

But when you finally lift your eyes up to scan the crowd again, what you find brings all of those thoughts to a halt once again.

Because now you’re seeing Ellie’s hand placed on Lilac’s middle, leaning in as the pretty girls lips ghosted along Ellie’s ear, giggling as she whispered unknown words to her.

And that’s when you realized, you couldn’t do this.

You quickly down the rest of your drink, shoving your hand into your purse and grabbing a fistful of money, sliding it over to the bartender and telling him to keep the change in a low voice. You pass the glass over to him, and begin making your way out of the sea of people in the dimly lit room.

You were stupid to think this was a good idea. Your emotions were so scattered, so messy and cluttered in your head. You were going through a fucking divorce, and now you were getting angry over the mere thought of your ex girlfriend standing next to another girl, let alone going further than that. You needed to get your shit together, and if that meant cutting newly mended ties with Ellie, then so fucking be it.

And it’s as if the once crowded bar isn’t able to cover your escape, because you can faintly make out the sound of someone calling for you. You cross your fingers, and hope that it’s someone from high school that just so happens to be there, recognizing you and trying to get a moment with you before you’re able to pounce out of the building.

But unfortunately for you, it’s not. You keep going anyways, hoping that Ellie will drop it or get caught up with someone or something else along the way of her high speed chase for you, but of course, she doesn’t.

You let out a loud sigh when you finally push past the heavy metal doors of the bar, the cool summer breeze wafting against your clammy skin, cooling down your warm cheeks. You hadn’t even realized it before, but you were practically covered in sweat from all the excitement that had washed over you in such a short amount of time.

Ellie is quick to wrap a gentle hand around your wrist, stopping you from running further.

“Hey…where you runnin’ off to? Shows barely even started” she pants out, her own cheeks flushed from pushing and shoving through people to get to you.

The ugly little monster that is jealousy dies immediately when you turn around to look at her. Partially because you know you need to quickly make up an appropriate excuse to your sudden departure, because surely you couldn’t tell her the true reason behind your disappearance…

And also because just looking at Ellie makes you feel whole again.

You let out a gentle sigh before giving her a half smile. “I’m uh…I’m pretty tired and I feel a tad drunk. You and Lilac looked like you were having fun so I didn’t wanna bother…” you explain, ignoring the way the sweet girls name leaves a rather bitter taste on your tongue.

Ellie nods, her expression gentle and understanding as she fishes her keys out of her pocket. “You should’ve told me. Come on, let’s get you home” she affirms with a soft smile, nodding her head towards her car as she begins leading you over.

Her words make you quickly shake your head, stepping in front of her to stop her from getting closer to her car.

“No! No Ellie it’s fine. You were really excited to come tonight and I don’t wanna stop you from having fun so just go back in and-“ you’re rambling at this point, a common habit you’d developed since you could speak. Ellie knew this, because every time you were flustered, or scared, or even happy, your emotions would get the best of you and you’d spew out words like a sprinkler.

So she chuckles softly, bringing her hand up to your arm and giving it a gentle squeeze as if to stop you.

“Slow down, peach” she hums out smoothly. The pet name makes your insides burn, her voice sounding like fucking butter as she soothes you, instantly calming you down and shutting you up just as she wanted.

“There you go…breath” she gives you an encoring nod, paired with another firm squeeze to your arm before she finally lets go, giving you a soft smile before she speaks again.

“I was excited to come out with you tonight. I see that guy perform every Friday” she explains with a soft laugh before she nods her head to her car once again.

“So, let’s get you home and in bed. Your parents would kill me if I let you roam around at night….even though your house is and ten minute walk from here” she shrugs before she presses her hand to the small of your back, leading you to her car without a choice.

It makes you whine softly, throwing your head back like a child as she opens up your door and helps you into the car. You aren’t even that drunk, a bit warm and tipsy, sure, but you were fine to make it home on your own.

However…her warm hand on your skin, paired with the babying, was nice.

Damn her for being so fucking perfect.

A soft huff blows past your pouted lips as she settles into the drivers seat next to you, which makes her snicker as she starts the car. “Quit pouting…it was getting too crowded in there anyways, was gonna suggest we head out right before you tried to ditch me” she shrugs nonchalantly, which earns a playful swat to her arm from your end.

“I was not ditching you! I really am tired” you protest, which only makes Ellie chuckle as she puts her hands up in her defense before she expertly pulls out of the parking lot, one hand on the steering wheel of course.

“Uh-huh….lets get you home then” she affirms as she gives you a wink before she makes her way to your house.

The summer breeze is cool against your skin, the windows down on Ellie’s car, soft music playing through it as you two simply enjoy the comfortable silence that falls between you both. It reminds you of the parties Ellie would drive you both home from, only for her to sneak up to your room with you and pass out in your bed, cuddled up into each other. Sneaking was a stretch, as your parents always knew she’d be spending the night when you two were out late.

The memories make the heart ache, and your throat swell, that familiar melancholy feeling filling you up at the reflection of the past staring at you in a pool of your memories.

You barely realize you’ve pulled in, the gentle hum of the car coming to a stop as Ellie lets her palms fall to her thighs, a gentle sigh leaving her lips as she stares up at your dark home, nothing but the porch light on to greet guests.

“Well…I hope you had fun tonight, peach…” she hums out softly when she finally turns to you, gentle green eyes shining in the dim lighting of her car, barely illuminated by the light beaming down from the moon in the clear night sky.

And you know you shouldn’t do it. You should just thank her for the night out, wish her a good night and go inside your house. You were tipsy, and you were extremely emotional, and you were lonely. All of it was a recipe for disaster, and you knew it.

But somehow, you don’t stop the words that fall from your lips.

“Do you wanna come inside?” You ask quickly, watching as the girls eyebrows raise in surprise at your sudden burst of hospitality. You inhale deeply before you continue.

“It’s late and…the least I could do is give you something to eat, or drink after making us leave early” you explain further, your hand gripping the edge of Ellie’s leather car seat as you stare at her.

When she doesn’t say anything, you feel like an idiot. She’s just staring at you and you suddenly feel like you’ve read into this all wrong, it’s been years! Why on earth would she want to come inside and hang out with her ex girlfriend, she probably has much better things to do.

“I’d love to” she beams out, giving you a bright smile before she opens her car door, gets out, and makes her way over to open yours to let you out.

You can practically feel the weight lift off of your chest when she agrees, a soft sigh of relief leaving your lips as you lead her to your front door, making your way up the steps and unlocking it before letting her in.

Ellie hums softly when you turn on the lights, eyes wandering around the familiar home as you toss your purse onto a nearby hanger, as well as kicking your shoes off near the front door.

She hangs her jacket up on the coat rack near the door like muscle memory right after she shuts the front door behind her, a soft smile on her lips as she watches you make your way to the kitchen and open up your fridge.

“I have water, iced tea, lemonade….” You list off the various contents in your fridge before you look over at the girl behind you, watching as she stands in the middle of your living room. “Water is fine” she hums out with a smile, which you nod and grab for her.

Your home is like a breath of fresh air compared to where you and Ellie where not even an hour ago, the two of you quickly falling into old habits as it takes no more than ten minutes for the two of you to make your way out to your back porch, taking a seat on the comfy outdoor couches your father had added in right before you moved out.

Another guttural laugh passes through your lips as you toss your head back, listening to Ellie catch you up on all the small town mishaps and shenanigans that you had missed, and yearned for oh so much since you'd gone.

"Are you kidding me? They fought over a decade old prom crown? I would have paid big money to see that shit" You gasp out, wiping a tear from the corner of your eye as you finally manage to catch your breath.

Ellie chuckles as she nods, bringing her water to her lips before she shrugs. "I'll tell you one thing, I had no idea those old ladies could move like that" She adds with a snort, ripping another burst of laughs from your sore chest.

You don't catch it, but Ellie simply watches you fondly as you toss your head back and laugh, a gentle smile playing on her lips as you struggle to find the words. It warms her heart even further to know that she was the one pulling that out of you, making you smile so big, laugh so hard.

You groan softly, exhaling tiredly as you place a hand on your chest as if to calm yourself. "Man....I seriously cannot remember the last time I've laughed this hard" You add, a soft, satisfied smile on your lips, unaware as to how sad your words may have sounded.

It hits you when you notice Ellie's gentle frown, the one that she gave whenever she was disappointed or when she knew something wasn't right.

"That's a shame...you used to laugh all the time when you were with me" She says matter-of-factly.

Her words catch you off guard, mostly because it was true. Being with Ellie was filled with nothing but smiles and laughs, the ones that had you keeling over and holding onto your belly as you shed a tear or two, unable to control the laughter that left your body, the happiness that filled you up when she was able to pull it out of you.

You hadn't even realized it, but you were pretty sure the last time you laughed like that, was with Ellie.

You hum softly, staring down at your lap as you toy with the frills of your dress, thinking back to all of those times, wishing so badly you could be that girl again.

Wishing you could live that life again.

It's getting late at this point, the warm summer breeze growing colder the higher the moon rises into the sky. It blows onto your skin, goosebumps littering your arms. You feel it's time to tell Ellie to leave, the air growing heavy as you both sit there in silence, her words hanging between you, begging to be responded to.

When you open your mouth to tell her that you're tired, and that she should probably head home, you're interrupted by the feeling of her calloused fingers gently gripping your chin, pulling you to look into her eyes.

"I....I don't know what happened...or why you two decided to split up..." she mumbles softly, and you know she's referring to your ex wife without even saying her name.

She inhales deeply, pink tongue darting out to wet her plump lips slowly before she speaks again. "But I couldn't imagine ever letting someone like you go....no matter what" she sighs out, her eyes staring into yours intensely.

And suddenly, you aren't you anymore. You are, but....you're a different you. You're the you that's filled with hopes and dreams, the you that wrote in her diary every night about everything she was going to do once she made it, the you that would peek her head out of her window to see her girlfriend standing out on her lawn, waiting to pick her up, take her out, and simply drive with the music on and the windows down, enjoying each others company.

You're the you, that's in love with Ellie.

Her green eyes sparkle like gems in the moonlight, the white light illuminating half of her pretty face, making a lump form in your throat as you struggle to find the words to say. You can feel her hand gently creep up to cup your face, and it makes your skin burn even hotter beneath her touch.

The familiar sound of the wind chimes rings through your ear, transporting you back to that very same night, five years ago when you were splayed out on the lawn that was a mere few feet away from you, kissing and loving on your girlfriend that you adored with all your heart.

Ellie hears them too, her eyes glancing up at them above your head. She chuckles softly, hand still caressing your cheek gently before she speaks. "Haven't heard those since the last time I saw you..." She hums out.

With that, it's as if your body moves itself for you, deciding your faith before you can, because you waste no time in leaning in and pressing your lips to hers in a kiss that can only be described as longing, having gone far too long without feeling the pair that they so desperately wanted pressed up against.

Ellie melts into you almost immediately, her other hand coming up to cup your cheek as she kisses you back passionately. Both of your hands come up to hold onto either of her wrists, keeping her close as you lean further into her, wanting more of the girl.

You need her more than air, easily letting her grip your thighs and tug you down to straddle her lap, your hands going up to tangle themselves in her soft hair. When she finally does break the kiss, her lips are on your neck, and your jaw, and your cheeks, and the corner of your mouth, eager to feel any part of you on her needy mouth as her hands roam your body eagerly.

"Missed you so fuckin' much...my dream girl" She moans out, making you whimper as you tug her hair back, angling her face back up towards yours before smashing your lips against hers.

"Let's....let's go inside...." You moan into her mouth, the kiss messy and sloppy as she nods eagerly before the request has even fully escaped your lips.

You waste no time crawling off her lap and tugging her inside, the two of you giggling and moaning as you stumble over your own feet in a dance of need and desperation, the both of you clearly in need of one another.

Ellie is tugging off her shirt as you two make your way through the door, helping you tug off your dress as she stumbles out of her jeans quickly after.

A pile of clothes leads the both of you to your bed, the girl laying you down and crawling over you, strong hands caressing your soft body, tugging at your bra and your panties, mouthing away at your newly exposed skin.

"You don't know how many times I've thought about this...thought about you like this" she admits, needy hands gripping at your waist, pulling you flush against her half naked body as she kisses up to your lips again, slowly pushing her tongue into your mouth as she groans against you, strong hands massaging your skin, kneading it between her fingers.

You moan into her, nodding eagerly as your hands tug her closer, wanting her as close to your body as possible.

"I have to..." you admit mindlessly.

You don't realize it then, but it's the first time that you've allowed yourself to admit that to someone, even to yourself. Those were secrets that you're buried down so deep into your mind, you weren't even sure they were true anymore.

Ellie was able to pull them out thought.

"Gonna...fuckin' worship you...like you deserve, baby.." she moans out, her lips pressing against your boobs that were spilling out of your bra, nipping and biting at your exposed skin.

But when she says that, it's like all the lights suddenly turned on.

It all comes weighing down on you in an instant, what happened, what you'd been through. Your wife had cheated on you with another woman, she promised you everything, the world at your feet if you asked for it, yet she still threw it all away as if none of it was real, as if none of it mattered.

Who's to say Ellie wouldn't do the same?

Your body goes limp beneath her, and Ellie catches onto it immediately, frowning gently as she pulls away to see her suspicions were confirmed.

"Baby? Hey...you with me angel?" She calls out as she watches you staring up at the ceiling, your eyes glossing over as if you weren't even there.

Because you weren't, you were back in your bedroom, in your apartment in the city, watching the woman you thought loved you back, fuck another woman into your mattress as if she were you.

You weren't ready for this.

"I...I can't do this.." You mumble out, voice cracking as your throat began swelling up from the tears pooling in your eyes.

Ellie is quick to sit up with you, tugging the blankets on your bed up so that you were able to shield your chest from the cold air that circled your room, her hand coming up to your back as she peered down at you, brushing your hair out of your face.

"Sweetheart, what is it? did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you?" she urges, desperately trying her best to understand what happened, what caused the sudden shift in the atmosphere.

You feel sick to your stomach, shaking your head as the tears begin spilling out onto your cheeks, keeping the blanket tugged close to your chest as you brush Ellies hands away from your face.

"I can't...you need to leave...please leave!" you sob out, shaking your head as all the images of your ex wife come flooding in.

Ellie frowns deeply as she watches you push her away, shutting her out and putting those same walls up that she could feel even when you were miles and miles away from her in the city.

She knows she can't get through to you, not now at least. So she simply gets up off your bed, tugs on her t shirt and jeans, goes downstairs and walks out of your house, her heart breaking as she hears your sobs echoing through the house, following her as she left you there.

And as you laid there, crying in your bed once again, ugly images run through your mind,

it isn't the thought of your ex wife cheating on you, that hurts, but its merely a dull blade to your side now that you've felt Ellie again, those feelings coming back the second her lips were on yours.

No...it's the thought of Ellie doing those things. It's the thought of her promising you the world and still throwing it away, even after she put a pretty ring on your finger.

Because love is ruined for you now, and you aren't entirely sure you could trust anyone to give it to you again.

Even Ellie.

#ellie williams smut #ellie williams #ellie williams x y/n #ellie williams x you #ellie tlou #ellie williams x female reader #ellie x y/n #ellie the last of us #ellie x you #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams angst #ellie williams fluff

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whateverisbeautiful · 3 months ago

Text

♥️Reveling in Richonne - TOWL

#21: The Getaway Plan (1.03)

gif cred: @nat111love

I love how Rick is the only man Michonne happily lets take over. He’s the only one she’ll ever defer to and trust to go with his way over her own. It’s why she never even second-guessed his escape plan. But then, y'all, Rick's getaway plan threw Michonne and me for a loop😢...

So once he’s alone in the apartment, Rick gets right to work laying out everything he needs for this getaway plan. I like how he always keeps all his secrets in the couch cushions. And both times the stuff he has inside the couch has so much to do with Michonne.

Rick is thorough with it laying everything out like paddles, wire, and a consignee jacket, going over maps, writing out stuff, and drinking to numb the fact that he’s also making a plan that means he may never see Michonne again after this. 😢 But I love this scene of seeing him so determined to figure out how to save his wife and get her safely home.

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

Then we see Michonne sitting at lunchtime with the consignees and it is a drab set up I must say. Like the area was giving prison yard. And it makes me sad to think this is how Rick spent so many lonely lunches for years.

As Michonne eats, she sees Rick coming over in his CRM uniform, which is all she’s seen him wearing thus far. I feel like it illustrates how the CRM has a constant hold on him.

Since Richonne can always communicate without words Michonne immediately knows Rick is coming over here to give her a note.

She puts her plate away and then casually walks pass him as he slips a note in her hand and of course, they do the pass off smoothly because they’re just a well-oiled machine like that. 👌🏽

Part of me was like wouldn’t it sorta be odder to the other soldiers if the two don’t acknowledge each other at all when they pass each other considering their story is she saved Rick from an attack? But they’re not taking any chances I guess. And the way Richonne can’t be subtle about each other it’s probably for the best they just walk on by. 🙂

gif cred: @nat111love

When Rick walks off after passing the note he takes a breath and even looks teary because if all goes according to his plan that really was his last time being able to see and feel his wife - another final hand moment like how their last real moment side-by-side in TWD was a hand moment. 🥺

I know right now Rick thinks this is for the best but it also has to be so painful for him knowing that he’s about to be without her again. And knowing Michonne doesn’t even know that this technically would be their last moment together is just...☹️😢

Michonne reads the letter as we hear Rick’s fine voice say what’s inside it. He starts by saying, “This is it, tonight. We gotta move fast.” And I love Michonne’s little smile as she reads that. She fully trusts Rick to get them out of here and so she’s ready and willing to follow his lead with this…which is why what comes next is so heartbreaking.

gif cred: @nat111love

But first, we see everything Rick did to ensure Michonne would have the smoothest escape possible. It is so sweet that despite Michonne being super capable, Rick still wanted to take care of everything he possibly could for her. 😊 That’s a good man, Savannah, a good man. 👏🏽

As Rick’s walking in a tunnel he sees writing on the floor that says ‘Tell them I’m sorry I lied’ and it’s very intentional showing that because I feel like that is essentially what Rick will want Michonne to tell Judith (and RJ) after he lied to get Michonne out of this place.

Also, I once again need to note - Rick in all-black. ❤️‍🔥😋

gif cred: andy-clutterbuck

It’s interesting because while those words written on the ground should have been a clear sign to us viewers that a lie is afoot right now, eye fully believed Rick was really intending to escape with Michonne with this plan. So Michonne and I were very caught off guard when that wasn’t the case.

Rick tells Michonne all the details of where to go and what to do to escape, laying it out step by step to make it as easy as possible, and she’s following what the letter says.

And then my favorite part of this letter moment arrives when he says, “I love you.” 😍 Rick is gonna earn that Ultimate Loverboy title every chance he gets. It’s also sweet cuz he knows this could be one of the last times he gets to tell her. ☹️

gif cred: richone4life

I love that he always wants to be sure that if nothing else she knows he loves her. While his decisions right now are going to upset Michonne (and me 🙋🏽‍♀️), it is all being done because of how much he loves her.

And then I absolutely adore Michonne’s response to reading her husband say I love you in the letter. The sweetest. 🥰And that smile was an 'I love you back' from Michonne. Again, it really is so clear that he makes her feel so safe and loved and like they can truly pull this off together.

gif cred: @riickgrimes

(Side note: I love the softening of Michonne over the seasons in TWD and that Rick brought out her softest side. Like it makes so much sense that she had a rougher exterior when she was introduced in season 3 because being a woman in that world is so dangerous, especially a woman traveling alone for a long period of time. I can legitimately name about 8 woman characters in TWD who were SA'ed or at risk of that. and so as women, it probably feels like you have to hide any part of yourself that is softer just to stay safe. But as each season progressed, Michonne got to tap back into that part of her, especially as she found a true safe space in Rick. She knows how to be fierce and intimidating when she needs to be but with Rick her heart just melts like when she reads his letter with the escape plan and she sees that he wrote I love you)

Then I absolutely love the cute flirty delivery of Rick saying “...and I left you a little something” as they then do a perfect cut to Michonne slicing a walker with her katana. 👏🏽

Y’all, of course, Rick 'Man of the Year' Grimes would make sure Michonne didn’t leave here without her signature sword. The best. 😊

Once again I love Michonne’s proud smile as she’s about to take out more walkers only to realize Rick has already got it covered and tied them up for her. The world might be riddled with dead but chivalry is alive and well cuz of that man Rick Grimes. 👌🏽

And I’ll forever appreciate that Rick never treated Michonne like a weapon with a weapon. As the woman he values, he wants to take it upon himself to handle everything to make her escape and travel a smooth and successful process.

gif cred: @richonne4life

Rick’s also walking through the same spots Michonne is and it was clever to have his scenes intercut with Michonne’s because they really had me fooled, thinking they were both headed to the getaway boat - not realizing all his scenes are actually occurring ahead of time as he sets everything up for Michonne’s escape.

Normally I would be suspicious that something is up, especially cuz when is a plan ever that smooth but idk, me and Michonne just really believe in Rick Grimes i guess, so like her, I didn’t question anything lol.

gif cred: @nerd4music

I thought the complications might come once they got to the boat and tried to escape together or something, however Rick had us in for a sad surprise.

I honestly feel like had this getaway plan been given to Michonne by anyone other than Rick, her intuition would have sounded a few more alarms that maybe something is suspect with the plan. It was so smooth to get out, and I know part of it is because Rick sweetly made sure Michonne could walk right through with little to no hurdles but with how easy it seemed, Michonne might have been inclined to wonder how it could be this smooth to escape and yet Rick was trapped for years.

Cuz the way her getaway was going, it was looking like Rick should've been able to escape in time to be there for RJ’s birth lol. But Michonne trusted his plan wholeheartedly because she wholeheartedly loves and trust Rick more than anyone. That’s another reason why it’s gotta be so hurtful knowing that he knew she’d trust his lead and he used that to try to get her to leave alone. 😞

But still, I really like this whole escape scene and the intercut between the two. It felt like the way an escape scene should be executed in an epic love story because it was all still so rooted in Richonne’s love. And the parallel shots of their silhouetted selves walking through the tunnels with red and blue light were nice.

gif cred: @chaoticroad

So then Michonne makes it to the designated destination and seeing her smile in anticipation to see Rick makes me so sad rewatching and knowing he’s not coming.

gif cred: @richonne4life

She was really looking forward to reuniting with Rick here and heading home together. Her smile was giving....

But then that happiness just gets crushed. 😔

She calls out for Rick but he’s nowhere in sight. She looks suspicious when she notices a walker in a consignee jacket, which little does she know Rick planted there to fake her death.

Then, as she searches through the boat she finds another letter that just makes my heart break. 💔

gif cred: @nat111love

Rick's letter says, “I’m not coming. And if you don’t go, you’ll never get away and we both die here.” It’s painful knowing he’s basically like 'I’m the only one that should die here.'

Then I like that he mentions getting Michonne back to their daughter specifically when he writes, “The only way to get you back to Judith is that I stay here to make sure.”

gif cred: @nat111love

You can hear the sadness in the way Rick is talking out what’s in the letter, he knows Judith needs her mom and so even tho he needs Michonne too he’ll always try to choose his kids needing Michonne above himself. And then you really feel his emotions as he tells Michonne, “I love you forever.” 🥺

First of all; I absolutely love that he wrote that to her and that we now get to add Rick saying “I love you forever” to the many romantic things he’s told Michonne. It’s so heartwarmingly worded for him to want her to know that while this is essentially goodbye he will forever be in love with her even as they're apart.

gif cred: @nat111love

Then the most problematic part of the letter is Rick saying “If you love me, you’ll go.” 😓 And for so many reasons...

I know Rick means well but it’s weaponizing love to say something like that. He knows she loves him. He knows how hard it would be for her to leave him here hence why he had to lie to even get her to go along with the plan in the first place. And now he’s essentially attempting to make her feel like she doesn’t love him if she stays. When deep down Rick knows full well Michonne doesn’t leave people behind let alone the love of her life.

And if the roles were reversed Rick would never just leave her someplace that has her clearly trapped and miserable. But it’s been a minute, so maybe Rick got a little foggy on just how much he and Michonne are cut from the same cloth which means she would never leave him either.

gif cred: @nat111love

And just the 'if' gets to me cuz there is no if, Richard. That’s exactly why she can’t go. Because she loves him.

Saying that line puts Michonne in an unfair position. She either goes back home, just having to live with the knowledge that Rick is out there and hurting and her kids will never get to meet their dad who is alive and she’ll never even get to tell Rick about his son. Or she stays and has it be deemed a lack of love for staying. When again it’s the ultimate act of love for her to stay in this place and still fight for Rick even when he doesn’t think he’s worth fighting for.

I remember one of my thoughts when I first heard this letter was "What did Rick want Michonne to tell Judith?…like should she say 'yeah, I found your dad. He’s alive but he’s never coming home so let’s just move on and live our lives??'" That was never gonna be an option. But I guess he’d want her to tell Judith and RJ what he saw in the tunnel - “I’m sorry I lied.”

gif cred: @taiturner

I also had this moment of wondering - why does Rick seem to think leaving him or moving on from him is so doable? And then it hit me that it might be because he’s had it happen before. 🥺

He was in a coma for just a few months and by the time he saw Lori again she was pregnant with his best friend's baby and his best friend was fully playing house with his wife and son.

But Michonne cannot be compared to the wife and BFF of Christmas past.

No, now Rick has a wife and bff rolled into one who hasn’t moved on from him for almost 8 years so she’s def not about to move on from him now.

It’s almost like Rick doesn’t think this relationship is an equal win. An equal gift. He understandably feels extremely lucky that a gem like Michonne is his wife. She’s the ultimate treasure to him and brings his life so much value. It’s harder for it to hit him that he is a special treasured gift to Michonne too. That she needs him and feels safest with him and can’t ever move on from him the same way he feels about her.

Plus, this isn’t just a wife's mission, it’s a mother's mission for Michonne. She’s doing this for her kids too. Which takes this to a whole other level. What Rick doesn’t know is when he tells her to go, Michonne also hears the voice of their sweet daughter saying mom go get him and bring him home.

She hears the adorable voice of RJ confirming that Michonne would do anything for them and their dad.

And she hears Carl on his deathbed saying she has to be strong for Rick and Judith.

That’s running through her head always I’m sure and motivating sacrificing time with her kids to bring their father home. She’s not letting her kids down.

When Rick tried to get her to leave without him he didn’t just get in the way of the mission she has for herself and for him but for their kids and that’s when you’re going to get a pissed Michonne because now you’re interfering with what the kids need which is both their parents.

And no one stops this mother from doing what needs to be done for her kids, not even Rick. It reminds me of The Distance and how that also was Michonne on a mission to provide what her kids needed.

So it was already so sad to see Michonne alone realizing she’d essentially been duped into leaving without Rick after trusting him and his plan wholeheartedly - but then to see her have to be confronted with this idea that Rick thinks the way she can best show her love is just to leave him behind was just such an added layer of painful.

Michonne makes my heart hurt seeing how sad this all is making her. She truly looks shocked, hurt, and heartbroken over this. And understandably so. After everything she’s been through there’s no way it ends like this.

The acting Danai does is great at this moment as all Michonne can do is stand teary-eyed and repeatedly shake her head with silent bewilderment that Rick would even pull something like this when the Rick she knew would never.

gif cred: @nat111love

I think something important to note is that while Michonne is the first time Rick’s had a wife who can protect herself, Rick still absolutely feels like it is his job to protect her. Like yes her competence and capability means he can rely on her and lean on her more than his former partner but that doesn’t mean Rick ever would take a backseat to being his wife’s protector. He still wants to keep Michonne safe just as fiercely as had she been someone more defenseless.

We see this throughout the main series in the way Rick always looks out for and checks on Michonne and panics whenever he thinks she’s in danger.

Again, she’s not a weapon with a weapon to him. He loves and respects that Michonne is strong and a leader, and he also knows that doesn’t mean she’s incapable of being harmed, especially around the CRM. So it is one of his biggest goals to protect her and keep her alive even if she’s capable of doing that herself. As competent as Michonne is, she does need him and feels most safe with him and Rick takes that seriously.

The way it caused conflict in TOWL tho is Rick became so hyper-focused on protecting her that he almost started to treat Michonne like a fragile sculpture that could break at any moment and he started acting like it was only up to him to keep the sculpture intact even if it means leaving her out of the loop and breaking her heart. Which seeing him pull this just had me like...

Rick knows Michonne is strong but he stopped believing that her strength and his strength and especially their strength together could be a good thing - it just makes them a target hence his actions that were so steeped in fear.

It’s like he overcorrected and while many just see Michonne as some powerful force rather than a person with vulnerabilities, Rick started mainly seeing her as potential vulnerable prey for the CRM rather than a person who also should have a say in how the two of them proceed.

With Rick's beautiful letters that he’d been writing to Michonne the whole time he'd been away, it’s almost like in an innocent way he got used to one-sided communication with his wife. But when Michonne reenters his life he has to relearn that this relationship is very much a two-way street where she can now weigh in and step in as well and he can't make executive decisions like this for her. Just like Rick...

And her choice is him and their family.

But also thinking about how he’ll later admit how scared he was seeing her return into his life, it hits my heart because I think part of Rick felt scared because he doesn’t think he’s still the same man who could protect her like before. He no longer fully believes he’s the fighter he knows she fell in love with. So he’s still going to try to save her of course, but he's doing so by sending her away rather than figuring out how to break away with her.

Fortunately, Michonne has enough belief for the both of them. And since Michonne went on this mission to find her Rick, she can’t possibly go home because the job is not finished. She found Rick but not her Rick yet, and so she knows she has to stay. And she also has to give Rick a piece of her mind without even saying a word. 👌🏽😅

#richonne #towl #reveling in richonne #1.03 #RIR (21)#the ones who live #twd towl #michonne grimes #rick grimes #rick x michonne #twol #michonne #rick and michonne #twd: the ones who live #twd #richonnefandom

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utilitycaster · 2 months ago

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How can Molly's death be considered a major mistake? It's the crux of the entire campaign.

so I think about this a lot, because you're right, and it really comes down to like...a lot of factors in how people interact with fiction, and some stuff I feel about fandom.

The short answer is that Molly is some people's favorite character, and they really wanted to watch him for 141 episodes and not just 26, and they didn't get to, and so it's valid to feel sad about that. But I think what personally grinds my gears is the idea that it's a mistake and because this is a Fan Favorite character he SHOULD have come back. Setting aside the fact that he had both his fans and his detractors from the start and a lot of people (myself included) who found him irritating didn't say much for a good chunk of C2 because, well, he was dead, this isn't a fucking competitive reality show. You don't get to vote on your phones to decide who wins a resurrection.

I think the longer answer is that there is a certain type of person in fandom, born of a certain type of person in social media communities, who just...is not willing or interested in considering not just that their experiences, preferences, and philosophy are not universal, but also that they are not objectively best and correct and that everyone who disagrees is wrong. It's often really common in, though not exclusive to, people who have particularly limited experiences - young (like, teenager/early 20s), people who haven't lived in a diverse area or in multiple different areas, people who for whatever reason do not get out much - which both makes sense (haven't been exposed to a ton of different perspectives irl) but also means that you get people who, for all they may talk about global politics, kind of unconsciously seem to act as though everyone they interact with online is a variant of someone from the same 3000 person town in the United States in which they've spent all 21 years of their life. ANYWAY getting back to the main point I feel like Molly attracted a lot of that kind of person, who just...doesn't get that while Molly is, to them, a deeply validating expression of gender identity, for many people he is "guy you meet at your friend's birthday party in a two-bedroom 6 floor walk up and within 5 seconds he has pissed you off so profoundly with his overfamiliarity that you go into the kitchen and mainline as much vanilla vodka as possible to not stab this guy with a secondhand knife that says "CHEESE!" on it even though you hate vanilla vodka and it's summer in NYC and you're on the 6th floor in a small apartment with too many people so it's approximately 117 degrees Fahrenheit in this kitchen and the vodka isn't much cooler, and you succeed in this goal, and then after sending your friend who couldn't make it because they were at a family thing that weekend a picture of a rat on the tracks of the 3 train with a caption "this u?" at 1:54 in the morning you're like "so this guy Molly was there" and they're like "oh my god I met him at Cameron's last party, he SUCKS" and you're like "I KNOW". Like a lot of people just do not get that Molly was very popular with their circle, and also a lot of people either were neutral-to-not-feeling-it. This is before we get into the post-death idealization of who he was that takes him from "irritating but I think he'd have grown on me in some ways eventually had he lived" to "horrible and insufferable fake-ass bitch."

And then we get to the true impasse: the idea that something that does not fulfill every single one of your personal wishes might still be a great story.

I'm certainly not perfect, and there's things I thought I wanted for the end of C2 that I didn't get, and there's some things I do wish we'd have gotten to see (or that we'd have done in C3), but I like to think that I try to remain at least partially open to the possibilities. I like to think that my enjoyment of a story isn't contingent on whether one single character survives, even if they are my favorite (and I say this as someone whose favorite ASOIAF character was immediately Ned Stark, a statement that should surprise no one who follows me) nor that the story precisely reaffirms my existing worldview. I want stories to tell me something new and interesting that wouldn't come from my own head, and I want them to sell me on it. I think that a lot of people lost the thread of the importance of representation, namely, they forgot that while it's great to see people like you in a story, you should also be trying to see people not like you and perspectives that aren't yours. I am extremely defensive of my and other people's right to say "I didn't like this story and here is why" without someone being like "Give it a chance! Here's why I think it's good" but at the same time, there is a difference between "I really wish Molly had stayed alive and I don't like that he died," and "everything that happened after he died was A Mistake because it wasn't what I Wanted, and someone should fix this." Like that's what toddlers do. That's not an adult way of interacting with narrative.

So those people don't even get to the point of "the entire campaign is deeply influenced by the loss of Molly; that is what binds the rest of the Nein together and makes them what they are; the fact that Lucien wears the face of a departed friend is crucial to the entire final arc comprising about 20% of the campaign; and the fact that he does not come back, but someone new, with new chances and new choices to make does is emblematic of a campaign about people who find that they cannot undo their pasts, but neither are they trapped or damned by them." They're stuck at "guy I liked died and I'm throwing a tantrum 6 years later."

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

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anxious-witch · 4 months ago

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Results and analysis of this survey I did few months ago about the perception of Eurovision among young people. I know some people were interested so here it is. I couldn't post it sooner so it wouldn't look like I plagarised a random tumblr account so! Here we go. These are more or less directly translated from the research part of my thesis.

I apologize for any mistakes made since the whole thing, including graphs and tables were originally in croatian, and given tumblr format, it's bound to be messy.

The age of the participants was 18+ due to ethical rules, but most of the them are young people in the age bracket 18-35, precisely because the opinion of young people who cannot physically be present at the event itself is often ignored. The research question was "How do young people perceive Eurovision?", and the goal of the research was "To see what kind of view young people have of Eurovision, and what they consider its most important aspect, entertainment, politics or something else entirely."

Considering all of the above, the participants, who were 559 in total, were asked 22 questions through an anonymous online survey that was conducted in the period from March 21, 2024 to April 5, 2024.

From this, three hypotheses were distinguished before the actual research;

H1: Young people view Eurovision more politically than the older generation.

H2: Young people focus more on the performance and the message of the song than on the quality of the vocals.

H3: Young people think that Eurovision is a competition for the audience, not for the jury, and that the winner should be decided by the audience.

For the sake of transparency, most of the data is expressed in percentages and due to the amount of data, some of the questions are additionally crossed referenced and compared to see how they interact.

Graph 1 shows the age of the participants, which was important for determining the dominant age group. As can be seen on the graph, the largest number of respondents are aged 18-24, followed by 25-35, which corresponds to the aim of the research, as the focus was on the opinion of young people about Eurovision.

Graph 2 shows the gender of the participants, in which it can be seen that the largest number of them were women, over 65%. The data on the second largest group of respondents was unexpected, as over 20% of them declared themselves non-binary. This percentage was certainly contributed by the fact that the respondents received the survey via social networks, especially Tumblr, and considering that the topic is Eurovision, which is known for its openness towards the LGBT community. Men made up less than 10% of respondents, and the Other category referred to respondents who either did not want to share information about their gender identity, or their gender identity was not part of the first three categories.

Table 2(changed it to graph here because of tumblr) shows the countries from which the participants come from, and this answer to this question was open, that is, the participants had to write it themselves. To make it easier to navigate through so many different answers, they are presented in a table.

Table 2 shows that the majority of respondents are from the UK, Finland, and Germany. USA and Croatia. The number of responses from Finnish respondents is at least partly caused by last year's competition, where their representative was the crowd favorite. As for the large number of respondents from the USA, it can be assumed that with the inclusion of voices from the rest of the world, they became more active in the Eurovision virtual spaces last year.

Graph 3 shows the answers to the question "Are you part of the LGBT community", where participants could answer with "Yes", "No" or "Other" in case they did not want to declare themselves.

As shown in Graph 3, it can be seen that the percentage of respondents who are part of the LGBT community is also influenced by the collection of data from social networks where the LGBT identity is more pronounced, but it does not deviate much from the Eurovision name "Queer Olympics". This is also important information that can be obtained through an anonymous survey, as most of the previous research was conducted on respondents from live events, so this question was often avoided due to doubts about the sincerity of the answers. Thus, over 80% of respondents identify themselves as part of the LGBT community, which confirms previous research on the importance of connecting with other queer people through ESC as an event.

Graph 4 shows the answers to the question "Do you watch Eurovision" where there were three answers; "Yes", "No" and "Ocassionally".

According to Graph 4, it can be seen that the majority of respondents (over 70%) watch Eurovision regularly, while another 23% watch it occasionally, probably depending on external factors. Only 6% of respondents do not watch Eurovision at all, which is logical in the context of solving the questionnaire about Eurovision itself.

Graph 5 shows the three associations the participants had to Eurovision. Sets of three words each were divided into positive, negative and mixed associations, and for the sake of simplicity of presentation, thus entered in the graph. It should be noted here that the majority of respondents still have positive associations related to Eurovision, while slightly less than 17% have negative associations, and only slightly less than 2% have mixed associations. It is also important to note that each association was separated before sorting, so it is possible that someone had both positive and negative associations that were added to one or the other, but if the separate ones were not in a mixed category, then they were not added.

The full question for participants was to choose from 30 songs in the last 10 years (with 3 answers offered for each year) who they thought won that year. The real winners each year are highlighted in yellow in Table 3.

Regarding the recognition of winners in the last ten years, Table 3 shows that the majority of respondents knew the winners. However, it should be taken into account that these are respondents who mostly follow Eurovision regularly, and for this reason every artist who was not the winner that year and has more than 10% of the votes is relevant. This group includes Zlata Ognevich from 2013, Dami Im from 2016, but also Sergey Lazarev from 2016 (most likely because the predictions were in favor of Russia that year, and Austria was the original audience favorite), Kristian Kostov from 2017, and Käärijä from It will be in 2023. Therefore, it is important to look at this table with the predictions of the winners for each year, and to compare it with the difference between the votes of the jury and the audience, but every passing of 10% in this survey is significant.

The full question for the participants was; Did the backstage content (i.e. preparties, interviews, socializing between contestants that is published on social networks) influence their decision on who they voted for. Answers were offered on a scale from "It had a lot of influence" to "It had no influence at all".

Considering the fact that Eurovision organizers invest a lot of money and time in the organization of content even before the competition itself, especially in their famous preparties, it is relevant to see that according to Graph 6, as many as 37% of respondents admit that watching this content directly affects who they vote for, although it is to a lesser extent. Of course, it should be taken into account that 31% of respondents are not influenced by this content at all in their decision to vote, but if we add neutral respondents and respondents who were not influenced by this content, we get about 53%. On the other hand, the total number of respondents on whom the content had an impact in general is about 47%, which means that the content is still quite relevant and good marketing for Eurovision itself, but also for the contestants.

The question for the participants was what they perceive as the main point of Eurovision. Answers to this question were offered, but respondents could also add their own answer. The responses "A mixture of more than the above" and "Political/economic gain" were written by respondents.

According to graph 7, most participants believe that the main point of Eurovision is entertainment (36.31%), and almost the same number think that the main point is for the competing countries to unite around something fun through the competition. While only about 8% of people think that the political and economic part is the main point of the competition. Considering the age of the respondents and the fact that many say that Eurovision is a very political event, it seems that most still focus on the main point as a kind of entertainment and unity between countries.

Graph 8 shows the answers to the question "What should voting look like?".

The answers confirm one of the set hypotheses, which is that young people think that deciding on the Eurovision song should have primarily been the decision of the viewers who vote, and not the jury. It should be noted that the answers offered to this question were "Only viewers should be able to vote", "It should be half-and-half", "There are different winners for the jury and the audience" and "I don't know/Neutral/On my own". In other words, the answer that both of them vote, but that the votes of the audience have more weight, is the answer that 20.57% of respondents wrote under "Other" in different forms.

The question shown in Graph 9 was what participants think the current Eurovision slogan is. There the answer was open and they had to write it themselves. Graph 9 shows that the majority of participants know the Eurovision slogan, which coincides with the number of respondents who regularly watch ESC. It is important to note that for the first time the slogan is the same as last year, which certainly contributed to the respondents' accurate recall of the slogan, which was the goal of the organizers when they decided on this move.

The question presented in Graph 10 logically follows on from the previous one, where participants had to answer which slogan they think best describes the idea/meaning of Eurovision as a brand. In Graph 10, it can be seen that the majority of respondents also agree that the current, permanent slogan of the ESC is the most suitable for representing Eurovision as a brand. Here the answers were already offered, and the slogans offered to the respondents were those that had been used in the last ten years, most of which alluded in some way to community. "United by music", however, incorporates both music and togetherness in one slogan, and it seems that it is precisely because of this that it is memorable and easy to associate with Eurovision.

In Graph 11, participants were supposed to express their general opinion about ESC. Here the answers were also offered on a scale from "Very positive" to "Very negative".

In Graph 11, it can be seen that the opinion of the respondents is mostly positive, over 50%, and even 22% of them are neutral about the view of ESC. Given that these are respondents who mostly watch Eurovision regularly, the assumption would be that their opinions are more polarized, either to one side or to the other. However, through the questionnaire, it can be seen that respondents gravitate more towards "predominantly positive/negative" when the more accurate answer would probably be "strongly positive/negative" when comparing their answers with the other associations and answers provided. When the divisions are narrowed down to positive/negative/neutral, the ratio of positive view of ESC is even more prevalent, and despite a lot of talk about political aspects and contest rigging, less than 1% of respondents have a very negative opinion about Eurovision.

In this question, participants had to answer what they consider the most important part of the contestant's performance, which is shown in Graph 12. This question touches on another hypothesis, and from the answers received, that hypothesis can neither be fully confirmed nor rejected. The answers confirm that the performance is a very important aspect, as predicted in the hypothesis, but the second most important aspect for the respondents is the melody of the song itself, which we assumed would not be so important and that the message of the song would be more important, which is not the case with the respondents . It should also be noted that the answers to this question were again only semi-structured and the respondents could write their answers. "A mixture of all of the above" and "Be a special feeling" are answers that were not offered, but were included by the respondents themselves as their answers.

Graph 13 shows participants' answers to the question of whether they prefer competitors from neighboring countries. Answers were offered on a scale from "Yes, I strongly prefer songs from neighboring countries" to "No, I never have a preference for songs from neighboring countries".

This question was relevant due to the media's frequent reference to the preferential voting of certain countries for their neighbors. The respondents show that this is a rare case, and that only about 11% of them had preferences for neighboring countries. This also coincides with the selection of the song for its performance, as most of the similarities between neighboring countries come through the melody of the song.

This question showed for how many participants the contestant changed their view of the country they represented, which is shown in Graph 14. The offered answers to this question were only "Yes" or "No". There are several studies on Eurovision as a mega-event and an event through which better diplomatic relations can be achieved. (Zahavi, Ariely, 2024) It can be seen that here the distribution of influence is more balanced, but almost 60% of respondents, most of whom regularly watch the ESC claim that their view of at least one of the countries has changed by watching their performance at the ESC. In other words, the large investment of countries in their representatives has its purpose.

This question is a continuation of the previous one, that is, if one of the contestants changed their opinion about a country, was it a positive or negative change of view. Answers are offered on a scale from "Strongly positive" to "Strongly negative".

As can be seen from the presentation on Graph 15, if the 42% of respondents who were not influenced by the competitors are put aside, the positive influence prevails again. However, it is important for which countries there are which impressions, for which reason these data were compared with the following question, which was: "If this influenced your opinion about a certain country, for which country was it?" Then we divided the countries that were repeated the most and compared the positive/negative impressions. For the sake of clarity, strongly positive/negative and mostly positive/negative are added together in the same column and put in percentages.

In Table 5, the data on the positive/negative opinion and on the countries for which the participants changed their opinion are cross-referenced. From Table 5, it can be seen that Slovenia and Finland are the countries most often cited by respondents as those whose opinion has changed to a positive one. Also, a large number of respondents left the country for which they had a positive change of opinion unspecified. It is important to add the popularity of Finnish and Slovenian competitors from last year to the very context of the analysis. As for the negative impression, it is evident that Israel is in the lead, even though 4.29% is still much lower than 11.45%, which is the biggest positive impression, that is still important data. It is an important fact that despite the large investment, Israel has such a negative level of impression, especially as the main sponsors of the ESC. However, this can be added to the hypothesis that young people still see Eurovision through its political aspect, and that the recent conflict between Israel and Palestine has only increased this negative view.

Graph 16 shows the answers to the question of how many respondents discovered a performer through Eurovision, and that they continued to listen to him after Eurovision. From Graph 16, it is clear that this was exactly the case for over 90% of respondents. The answers offered were only "Yes" or "No".

Table 6 shows which performers the participants continued to listen to after Eurovision. The answer to this question was free, and most respondents answered with more than one contractor.

These answers also confirm that positive impressions about the country are closely related to its representatives and fans who follow them even after Eurovision. Here again, you can see the huge influence of the Finnish and Slovenian representatives from last year, who greatly raised positive impressions for those countries. Måneskin also greatly raised the rating of Italy after his victory in 2021, but it should be taken into account that after a few years, fans of a band or an artist have a smaller association of them with that country. It should also be noted that many of the aforementioned artists are not winners, and many of them were not even in the top 3 at Eurovision itself. From this, it can be concluded that there is a difference in what is considered a Eurovision song, and what the interviewees consider in their everyday life to be the songs they want to listen to.

Graph 17 shows the answers to the question about what the participants think about the direct passage of the "Big Five" to the finals. Answers were offered on a scale from "Strongly positive" to "Strongly negative".

From the answers shown in Graph 17, when separating the answers into only positive and negative views about having a direct passage to the final, it is evident that about 55% of respondents have a negative opinion about it, and slightly less than 40% a neutral opinion. This confirms again that the majority of young people do not have a positive opinion about the privileged position of some countries, which is a direct influence of politics.

Graph 18 shows the answers to the question "Do you plan to boycott watching Eurovision this year" with the answers offered "Yes", "No" and "Maybe/I haven't decided yet." Here, of course, it was meant boycotting specifically because of the participation of Israel and the current conflict between them and Palestine.

The question about boycotting Eurovision was deliberately put last, so as not to affect associations and positive and negative impressions. The question could have been more properly asked in the form "Are you planning to watch Eurovision this year" as the word boycotting still came out as suggestive. As can be seen from the responses from Graph 18, more than 50% of the respondents said that they would boycott Eurovision, which does not fit in with the majority's positive impressions about the event itself, which we analyzed in the previous responses. In any case, this supports the hypothesis that young people view the ESC more politically than the older generation, as the majority of younger respondents were more inclined to answer the question about boycotting in the affirmative.

However, it was interesting to compare some of the responses with the respondents' decision to boycott. That is why in Table 5 we have combined the data of the General opinion on Eurovision presented in Graph 11 and the data from Graph 18 on boycotting watching the ESC.

Table 8 shows that almost 30% of participants with a positive opinion of Eurovision planned to boycott watching because of Israel's participation, while only slightly less than 10% of those with a negative opinion planned the same. It can be seen that this trend continues with other answers as well. The fact is that a positive opinion about Eurovision prevails among respondents, but almost 10% more of those with a positive opinion plan to boycott than those who plan to watch. For the same reason, data on respondents' viewing consistency were combined with their response on boycotting in Table 9.

Table 10 compares the age of the participants with their answers about boycotting. The percentages were taken from the number of each of the age groups, and not the total sum, as there were the most respondents in the first two groups, that is, from 18-24 and from 25-35. Nevertheless, this table is important to us because we can see a reconfirmation of our hypothesis that young people look at Eurovision more politically than the older generation.

Now, this is of course, very, very brief look into the whole thesis, without literature citation to back it up and without discussion because it's already way too long. That said, I don't wish to imply that people who said they are boycotting on the survey lied about it, I just thought it was an important look into why someone with generally good opinion on the event would decide to boycott and if age had anything to do with it.

If anyone has any questions, regardless if it has to do with smth being translated confusingly or about the data itself, please let me know! Also consider that this data, while it was overwhelming done via tumblr, also took participants via facebook and instagram and ofc people I know irl and people those people know, so this is not only tumblr mentality reflected either. Hope this satisfied everyone's curiosity!

#eurovision #survey #käärijä #joker out #putting it in the tags if anyone who saw it there the first time wants to read it #y'all!!! I am graduating on the 10th I am shaking fr

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landhoe-norris · 4 months ago

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i know i said i was gonna leave f1 alone for a while, but things are weighing heavy on my soul right now and i need to get them out. they're jumbled so just bear with me.

first of all, i'm gonna put it very plainly that i did not and i will not celebrate piastri's win. it feels incredibly hollow, and i don't think a single driver would be happy about a win where your teammate had to slow down for you to jump a 6,2 second gap.

there's always the same thing when it comes to lando, and him saying that he's faster on the radio. people comment on every single social media that he should "be faster then, race harder." well, do you know what happened yesterday and what oscar should've done? he should've been faster. it's a fact that he does not have Lando's race pace and that he still has so much to learn, especially regarding tyre management.

they're in the same car. according to social media, piastri is the better driver out of the two: more mature, faster, more reliable, more level headed, more of a championship material. let's just ignore the fact that he came into a team on the up and up and after only six months had a car capable of getting podiums (although that was mostly just lando, you know). luckiest driver in years.

what happened yesterday was a travesty. it showed how incapable of running a good strategy mclaren are, and how they are still always looking backwards instead of looking forwards.

and don't even get me started on the caps. who the fuck brought them? it better be piastri's team cause if it was mclaren it is one of the most disgusting things i have ever witnessed.

if oscar was allowed to fight at the start, then why was lando not allowed to fight til the end? why did mclaren decide before the race how it would end? why was lando told 25 laps before the race was over, that he should give back a place that he was then not allowed to gain back by racing oscar? why was lando pitted first? why was he not told how things would go before he was called into the pits? why did will and andrea emotionally manipulate and blackmail him into giving up his win?

i am beyond disgusted with the way this has been handled and brown and stella's refusal to acknowledge the way the team behaved towards lando (especially on the radio), and stella's "oscar is the youngest on the team, but the wisest" comment which must be a fucking kick in the stomach to lando's mental health.

lando is an incredible teammate and team player, and i don't want to hear a single thing about how piastri has been shafted time and time again because fuck that. they have been shafted the same amount of times (also welcome to mclaren, who have been fucking lando over for years. deal with it).

i don't believe piastri will repay lando for this weekend, the man didn't even publicly thank him post-race. i have zero expectations of mclaren cause they have clearly decided who their number one is, and who they want to lead the future. and it's not the guy who could've been 69 points behind verstappen after this weekend (a verstappen who is furious to his team cause they're fucking up left, right and centre). red bull is in a crisis, they only have one driver who is doing shit at that team and even that driver is barely getting on podiums lately so lando absolutely has a chance for that wdc. well he had a chance, let's see how mclaren and piastri will fuck that up for him as the season progresses.

how in the hell has someone who has given his heart and soul to the team for the last 5.5 years, someone who has given them 21 podiums and a win, many poles and fastest laps and is 24-fucking-years-old being relegated to the back for someone who has been there for 18-months?

how has the communication at mclaren dropped so badly since stella took control? and how in the fuck do we justify will plainly lying to lando about the condition of his tyres to make him slow down?

how are they going to repay him? cause i have not seen a single thing from them since 2019 that shows me that they will ever support lando in a 1-2 situation like they have with their aussie drivers.

i have zero respect for anyone at mclaren, except lando. i will never root for this team again, and they only have one driver as far as i'm concerned.

if you in any way feel that lando was at fault for anything that happened yesterday, you're a shit person. that's it.

#f1 #lando norris

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anotherhumaninthisworld · 3 months ago

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How close Desmoulins and Fréron were? And what did they think of each other? I'm asking because I discovered they managed a journal together, La Tribune des Patriotes.

The seventeen year old Fréron was enrolled as a paying boarder at the college of Louis-le-Grand on September 30 1771, and just a day later, the eleven year old Camille was as well. I have however not been able to discover any evidence indicating the two were friends back then, or even an instance of one referring to the other as ”college comrade,” something which Camille otherwise is proven to have done with a whole lot of other fellow students. Perhaps this should be read as a sign the two did not know each other back then, six years after all being a rather big age difference for kids. They also don’t exactly appear to have been the same type of student, Desmoulins winning a total of four prizes during his time at the college and Fréron zero, and their teacher abbé Proyart admitting (despite his massive hostility) that student Camille had ”some success,” while Fréron ”showed few talents” and ”was cited as a rare example when speaking of laziness and indolence.” (for more info on the school days of them and other Louis-le-Grand students, see this post).

Fréron graduated from the college in 1779, Camille five years later. I have not been able to find anything suggesting they had anything to do with each other in the 1780s either. But on 23 June 1790, one year into the revolution, we find the following letter from Fréron to Camille, showing that the two by this point have forged a friendship. Judging by the content of the letter, said friendship was probably much grounded in their joint status as freshly baked patriotic journalists (Desmoulins had founded his Révolutions de France et de Brabant in November 1789, Fréron his l’Orateur du Peuple in May 1790):

I beg you (tu), my dear Camille, to insert in your first number the enclosed letter, which has so far only appeared in the journal of M. Gorsas; its publicity is all the more interesting to me as I have just, I am assured, been denounced to the commune as one of the authors of l’Ami du Roi. It is a horror that I must push back with all the energy I can. If you cannot insert it in full, in petit-romain, at the end of your first number, at least make it known by extract; you would be doing me a real service. It’s been a thousand years since I last saw you; I have had a raging fever for more than a fortnight which has prevented me from returning to Rue Saint-André; but I will go there next Saturday. Ch. de La Poype came to your house with a letter from M. Brissot de Warville, but he was unable to enter. It was to talk to you about a matter that you no doubt know about. If patriotic journalists don't line up, then goodbye freedom of the press. A thousand bonjours, my dear Camille I am very democratically your friend, Stanislas Fréron.

l’Orateur du Peuple has unfortunately not gotten digitalized yet, so we can’t check if Fréron wrote anything about Desmoulins there that could tell us more about their relationship. But in Révolutions de France et de Brabant we find Camille listing Fréron among ”journalists who are friends of truth” (number 37, August 9 1790), calling him a patriot (number 33, July 12 1790), protesting when national guards were sent to seize the journals of Fréron and Tournon (number 63, February 7 1791) and when the numbers of Fréron and Marat got plundered (number 83, July 4 1791), as well as republishing parts of the journal he finds inspiring (number 83, number 85 (July 18 1791). In both number 1 (November 28 1789) and number 65 (February 21 1791) Camille republished a poem he had written in 1783 that mocked Fréron’s father, the famous philosopher Élie Fréron, as well as his maternal uncle Thomas-Marie Royou, him too a member of the counter-enlightenment (and who, as a sidenote, had also been one of their teachers at Louis-le-Grand). Given Fréron’s open hostility towards both his father and uncle, it does however seem unlikely for this to have had any negative effect on their relationship.

Just a few days after the letter from Fréron to Desmoulins had been penned down, we find the two about to enter into partnership. On July 4 1790 the following contract was signed between Camille, Fréron and the printer Laffrey (cited in Camille Desmoulins and his wife: passages from the history of the dantonists (1874) by Jules Claretie), establishing that from number 33 of Révolutions de France et de Brabant and onwards, Fréron will be in charge of half the pages of the journal, while he from number 39 and forward will be in charge of an additional sheet particulary devoted to news:

We, the undersigned, Camille Desmoulins and Stanislas Fréron, the former living on Rue du Théâtre Français, the latter on Rue de la Lune, Porte St. Denys, of the one part; and Jean-Jacques Laffrey, living on Rue du Théâtre Français, of the other part, have agreed to the following: . 1. I, Camille Desmoulins, engage to delegate to Stanislas Fréron the sum of three thousand livres, out of the sum of ten thousand livres, which Jean-Jacques Laffrey has bound himself, by a bond between us, to pay me annually as the price of the editing of my journal, entitled Révolutions de France et de Brabant, of three printed sheets, under the express condition that said Stanislas Fréron shall furnish one sheet and a half to each number, and that during the whole term of my agreement with said Laffrey. 2. I, Stanislas Fréron, engage to furnish for each number of said journal of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, composed of three sheets, one sheet and a half, under the direction of the said Camille Desmoulins, with the understanding that this sheet and a half shall form one half of the three sheets of which each number is composed. I engage to deliver a portion of the copy of this said sheet and a half on the Wednesday of each week , and the rest during the day on Thursday, and this counting inclusively from the thirty-third number until the close of the agreement between Camille Desmoulins and Jean-Lacques Laffrey. 3. I, Jean-Jacques Laffrey, accept the delegation made by Camille Desmoulins of the sum of three thousand livres, payable, in equal payments, at the issue of each number, to Stanislas Fréron, to the clauses and conditions hereinunder; and I engage, besides, to pay to said Stanislas Fréron the sum of one thousand livres, also payable in equal payments, on the publication of each number, which thousand livres shall be over and above the said salary of three thousand livres on condition that the said Stanislas Fréron shall furnish to the journal an additional sheet per week which shall be devoted to news to begin from the thirty-ninth number, which commences the approaching quarter. And I, Stanislas Fréron, engage to furnish , at the stipulated periods the said sheet over and above, in consideration of the sum of one thousand livres, in addition to the three thousand livres delegated by Camille Desmoulins. Done, in triplicate, between us, in Paris, July 4, 1790. Stanislas Fréron, Laffrey, C. Desmoulins.

According to Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république (2018) by Hervé Leuwers, nothing did however come about from this contract, Révolutions de France et de Brabant continuing to rest under the authority of Camille only, while Fréron instead kept going with his l’Orateur du Peuple. Why this project never saw the light of day one can only speculate in…

When Camille and Lucile got married in December 1790, Fréron neither signed the wedding contract on the 27th, nor attended the wedding ceremony on the 29th. Following the marriage they did however become neighbors, the couple moving to Rue du Théâtre 1 (today Rue de l’Odeon 28), and into the very same building where Fréron had gone to live a few months earlier.

In number 82 (June 27 1791) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Camille writes that he a week earlier, the same night the royal family fled Paris, he left the Jacobins at eleven o’clock in the evening together with ”Danton and other patriots.” The Paris night comes off as so calm Camille can’t stop himself from commenting on it, whereupon ”one of us, who had in his pocket a letter of which I will speak, that warned that the king would take flight this night, wanted to go observe the castle; he saw M. Lafayette enter at eleven o’clock.” According to Hervé Leuwers’ biography, this person was Fréron, though I don’t understand exactly how he can see this…

A little less than a month later, July 17 1791, Fréron and Camille find themselves at Danton’s house together with several other people discussing the lynching of two men at the Champ-de-Mars the same morning. At nine o’clock, Legendre arrives and tells the group that two men had come home to him and said: We are charged with warning you to get out of Paris, bring Danton, Camille and Fréron, let them not be seen in the city all day, it is Alexandre Lameth who engages this. Camille, Danton and Fréron follow this advice and leave, and were therefore most likely absent from the demonstration and shootings on the Champ-de-Mars the very same day (this information was given more than forty years after the fact by Sergent-Marceau, one of the people present, in volume 5 of the journal Revue rétrospective, ou Bibliothèque historique : contenant des mémoires et documens authentiques, inédits et originaux, pour servir à l'histoire proprement dite, à la biographie, à l'histoire de la littérature et des arts (1834)).

In the aftermath of the massacre on Champ de Mars, arrest warrants were issued against those deemed guilty for them. On July 22, the Moniteur reports that the journalists Suleau and Verrières have been arrested, and that the authorities have also fruitlessly gone looking for Fréron, Legendre, Desmoulins and Danton, the latter three having already left Paris. Both Fréron and Camille hid out at Lucile’s parents’ country house in Bourg-la-Reine, as revealed by Camille in number 6 (January 30 1794) of the Vieux Cordelier. The two could resurface in Paris again by September.

On April 20 1792, the same day France declared war on Austria, Camille and Fréron again put their hopes to the idea of a partnership from two years earlier. That day, the two, along with booksellers Patris and Momoro, signed a contract for a new journal, La Tribune des Patriotes, whose first number appeared on May 7 (they had tried to get Marat to join in on the project as well, but he had said no). In the contract, Fréron undertook to each week bring 2/3 of the sheets, Camille the rest. According to Leuwers, Camille did nevertheless end up writing most of it anyway. The journal did however fail to catch an audience and ran for only four numbers.

On June 23 1792 Lucile starts keeping a diary. It doesn’t take more than a day before the first mention of Fréron, in the diary most often known as just ”F,” appears — ”June 24 - F(réron) is scary. Poor simpleton, you have so little to think about. I’m going to write to Maman.” One month and one day later Camille tells Lucile, who is currently resting up at Bourg-la-Reine after giving birth, that ”I was brought to Chaville this morning by Panis, together with Danton, Fréron, Brune, at Santerre’s” (letter cited in Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république). Lucile returned to Paris on August 8. In a diary entry written by her four months later it is revealed that both Fréron and the couple were at Danton’s house on the eve of the insurrection of August 10 — ”F(réron) looked like he was determined to perish. "I'm weary of life," he said, "I just want to die." Every patriot that came I thought I was seeing for the last time.” She doesn’t however, and can in the same entry instead report the following regarding the period that immediately followed the successful insurrection:

After eight days (August 20) D(anton) went to stay at the Chabcellerie, madame R(obert) and I went there in our turn. I really liked it there, but only one thing bothered me, it was Fréron. Every day I saw new progress and didn't know what to do about it. I consulted Maman, she approved of my plan to banter and joke about it, and that was the wisest course. Because what else to do? Forbid him to come? He and C(amille) dealt with each other everyday, we would meet. To tell him to be more circumspect was to confess that I knew everything and that I did not disapprove of him; an explanation would have been needed. I therefore thought myself very prudent to receive him with friendship and reserve as usual, and I see now that I have done well. Soon he left to go on a mission. (to Metz, he was given this mission on August 29 1792) I was very happy with it, I thought it would change him. […] F(réron) returned, he seems to be still the same but I don't care! Let him go crazy if he wants!…My poor C(amille), go, don’t be afraid…

Following Fréron’s return from his mission, he hung out with the couple quite frequently. On January 7 1793 we find the following letter from him to Lucile:

I beg Madame Desmoulins to be pleased to accept the homage of my respect. I have the honour to inform her that my destination is changed, that I shall not go to the National Assembly because I am setting out for the countryside with MM Danton and Saturne (Duplain). Will she have the goodness to present herself at the assembly, before ten o’clock, in the hall of deputations; she is to send for M. La Source, the secretary, who will come to her, and she will find a place for her by means of the commissary of the tribunes. I renew the assurence of my respectful devotion to Madame Desmoulins. Stanislas Fréron. Kindest regards to Camille.

Two weeks later, January 20, Lucile writes ”F(réron), La P(oype) came in the evening.” The day after that Fréron writes her the following note: ”I beg the chaste Diana to accept the homage of a quarter of a deer killed in her domains. Adieu. Stanislas Lapin.” This is the first known apperance of Fréron’s nickname within the inner circle — Lapin (Bunny). In Correspondance inédite de Camille Desmoulins(1834), Marcellin Matton, friend of Lucile’s mother and sister, writes that it was Lucile who had come up with this nickname, and that it stemmed from the fact Fréron often visited the country house of Lucile’s parents at Bourg-la-Reine and played with the bunnies they had there each time. In her diary entry from the same day, Lucile has written: ”F(réron) sent us venison.” The very next day she writes the following, showing that Fréron, as she already put it in December, ”appears to still be the same”:

Ricord came to see me. He is always the same, very brusque and coarse, truly mad, giddy, insane. I went to Robert’s. Danton came there. His jokes are as boorish as he is. Despite this, he is a good devil. Madame Ro(bert) seemed jealous of how he teased me… F(réron) came. That one always seems to sigh, but his manners are bearish! Poor devil, what hope do you hold? Extinguish a senseless r [sic] in your heart! What can I do for you? I feel sorry for you... No, no, my friend, my dear C(amille), this friendship, this love so pure, will never exist for anyone other than you! And those I see will only be dear to me through the friendship they have for you.

One day later, January 23, Lucile writes: ”F(réron), La P(oype), Po, R(obert) and others came to dinner. The dinner was quite happy and cheerful. Afterwards they went to the Jacobins, Maman and I stayed by the fire.” The day after that she has written the following, and while it’s far from confirmed Fréron is the one she’s alluding to here, it would fit rather well with the previous entries:

What does this statement mean? Why do I need to be praised so much? What do I care if I please? Do you think I’ll be proud of a few attractions? No, no, I know how to appreciate myself, and will never be dazed by praise. To you, you’re crazy, and I’ll make you feel like you need to be smarter.

Lucile’s diary entries abruptly end on February 13 1793, and a month later, March 9, Fréron was tasked with going on yet another mission by the Committee of Public Safety. This time, it would be a whole year before he was back in Paris again. It is probably during this period the following two undated letters from Fréron’s little sister Jeanne-Thérèse, wife of the military leader Jean François La Poype, were penned down and sent off to Lucile (both cited within Camille Desmoulins and his wife… (1874) by Jules Claretie. I also found a mention of a third, unpublished letter with the same sender and receiver):

Coubertin, this Monday morning. How good you are, my dear Lucile, to take such pains to answer so punctually, and to relieve my anxiety! I rely upon your kindness to let me know any good news when you know it yourself. Neither my husband nor my brother has written to me; but, according to what you tell me, M. De la Poype will be with you immediately. Scold him well, I beg, my dear Lucile, and beat him even, if you think it necessary; I give him over to you. Goodbye, dear aunt; I embrace you with all my heart. Do tell me about your pretty boy; is he well? We shall, I hope, see him at some time together. Be the first to tell me of my husband's arrival ; it will be so sweet to owe my happiness to you! Fanny is perfectly well. I received most tenderly the kiss she gave me from you. My compliments to your husband. Fréron de la Poype.

Here I come again, beautiful and kind Lucile, to plague you with my complaints, and the frightful uneasiness by which I am tormented. The letter your husband had the kindness to write to me does not allay my grief; he tells me that my brother has given him news of my husband, but he had not heard from him before his departure. He has not been absent long enough to have had time to give us news of himself since he set out. I do not hide from you, dear Lucile, state; for pity's sake, try to restore composure to my heart; let me owe tranquillity to you. They say the enemy is within forty leagues of Paris; if this is so, the country will not be safe. Will you promise to warn me of danger, and to receive me into your house? I count upon the friendship you have always been willing to show me, and I shall throw myself into your arms with the greatest confidence. I beg you to give my compliments to your dear husband. Fréron de La Poype. Coubertin, near Chevreuse. The 5th. Madame Desmoulins.

On October 18 1793, Fréron too picks up his pen again and writes the following two letters, one to Camille and one to Lucile. He is at the time in Marseille preparing for the siege of Toulon, a subject which he spends the majority of the ink on discussing, but also blends this with nostalgic remarks. Fréron addresses Camille with tutoiement, but Lucile with vouvoiement. The parts in italics got censored when the letters for the first time got published in Correspondance de Camille Desmoulins(1834):

Marseille, October 18 1793, year 2 of the republic one and indivisible Bonjour, Camille, Ricord will tell you about a lot of things. Our business in front of Toulon is going badly. We have lost precious time and if Carteaux had left La Poype to his own devices, the latter would have been master of the place more than fifteen days ago, but instead, we have to hold a regular siege and our enemies grow stronger every day by the way of the sea. It is time for the Committee of Public Safety to know the truth. I am going to write to Robespierre to inform him about everything. You may not know everything that has happened to me; I have upheld my reputation as an old Cordelier, for I am like you from the first batch; and although very lazy by nature (I say my fault), I found in the great crises a greater activity than I would have believed. But it was a question of saving the south and the army of Italy; because I am not talking about my skin; for a long time [unreadable word for me] have been an object of [unreadable word] for the counter-revolutionaries without [unreadable word]. I will prevent Toulon from forming its sections and consequently from opening its port to the English and from dragging us, at the onset of winter, into the lengths of a murderous siege. La Poype commands a division of the army in front of Toulon; you have no idea how Carteaux makes him swallow snakes: he had seized the heights of Faron, a mountain which dominates a very important fort from which one can strike down and reduce Toulon. Well! Carteaux left him at this post without reinforcement, and he was obliged to evacuate it. Carteaux would rather have the capture of Toulon delayed and missed twenty times than allow another to have the glory. Speak, thunder, burst. La Poype did not contradict himself for a single moment; you know him, he has not changed. I am perhaps a little suspicious: that is why I abstain from writing on his account; but ask all those who come from here and they will tell you what the patriots think. Did you learn from Father Huguenin that I had printed in Monaco six thousand copies of your Histoire des Brissotins which I distributed profusely in Nice and in the department of Var? You did not think you would receive the honors of printing in Italy. You see it's good to have friends everywhere. I have been very worried about Danton. The papers announced that he was ill. Let me know if he’s recovered. Tell him and give him a thousand regards from me. I look forward to seeing you again, but this after the capture of Toulon; I dream only of Toulon; it’s my nec plus ultra. I will either perish or see its ruins. Is Patagon (Brune) in Paris? Remind me of him. Farewell, my dear Camille, tell me the story of Duplain Lunettes. Is it true that he is in prison? Attacking Chaplain! ah! he is such a good man! Tell me the reasons for his detention. Has he really changed? This is inconceivable. We are doing a lot of work here; we are impatiently awaiting the troops which were in front of Lyon and the siege artillery which we lack; without that the only thing we would make in Toulon would be clear water. Answer me in grace; Ricord will give you my address. I embrace you. Fréron. PS. You have known for a long time that I love your wife madly; I write to her about it, it is indeed the least consolation that can be obtained for an unhappy bunny, absent since eight months. As there is a fairly detailed article on La Poype, I invite you to read it. Adieu, both of you, think sometimes of the best of your friends; answer me as well as Rouleau (Lucile).

Marseille, October 18 1793, year 2 of the republic one and indivisible How lucky Ricord is! So he is going to see you again, Lucile, and I, for a century, have been in exile. Communications between the southern departments with Paris have been closed for more than three months. Ever since they’ve been restored, I have wanted to write to you. A hundred times I have picked up the pen, and a hundred times it has fallen from my hand. He is leaving, this fortunate mortal, and I finally venture to give him this letter for you, the content of which he is unaware about. May it convince you, Lucile, that you have always been in my thoughts! Let Camille murmur about it, let him say all he wants about it, in that he will only act like all proprietor; but certainly he cannot do you the insult of thinking that he is the only one in the world who finds you lovable and has the right to tell you so. He knows it, that wretch of Bouli-Boula, because said in your presence: "I love Bunny because he loves Rouleau."

This poor bunny has had a great deal of adventures; he has traversed furious burrows and he has stored up ample stories for his old age. He has often missed the wild thyme which your pretty hands in small strokes enjoyed feeding him in your garden in Bourg de l’Egalité. Besides, he was not below his mission, exposing his life several times to save the republic. In seeking the glory of a good deed, do you know what sustained him, what he always had before his eyes? First, the homeland, then, you. He only wanted and he only wants to be worthy of the both of you. You will find this romantic bunny and he is not bad at it. He remembers your idylls, your willows, your shrines and your bursts of laughter. He sees you trotting around your room, running over the floor, sitting down for a minute at your piano, spending whole hours in your armchair, dreaming, letting your imagination travel; then he sees you making coffee at the roadside, scrambling like an elf and cussing like a cat, showing your teeth. He enters your bedroom; he stealthily casts a longing eye on a certain blue bed, he watches you, he listens to you, and he keeps quiet. Isn’t that you! Isn’t that me! When will these happy moments return? I don’t know, I am now pressing the execrable Toulon, I am determined to either perish on its ramparts or to scale them, flame in hand. Death will be sweet and glorious to me as long as you reserve a tear for me.

My heart is torn, my mind devoted to a thousand cares, My sister and my niece, little Fanny, are locked up in Toulon in the hospital like unfortunates; I can't give them any relief and they may lack everything. La Poype, who adores her, but still more his homeland, besieges and presses this infamous city; he cannons and bombards it without reserve, and, as the price of such admirable devotion, he is calumniated, he is hampered, his efforts are paralyzed, he is left devoid of arms, cartridges, and artillery; they water him with bitterness, they cast doubts on his civism; and while Carteaux, to whom Albitte has made a colossal reputation, but who is in a condition to take Toulon no more than I am the moon, seeks, through the lowest jealousy, to lose him in the mind of the soldier, sometimes by passing him off as a counter-revolutionary, sometimes by spreading the rumor that he has emigrated and fled to Toulon. He alone attempts daring blows, and having made himself master of a fort which dominates Toulon, he would have taken that town in a week, if Carteaux had sent him the reinforcements he in vain asked for. One thing that must not be forgotten is that in the army of Italy, the traitor Brunet, the federalist Brunet, made La Poype pass for a Maratist and an outraged montagnard. Why? Because the staff of which he was the chief, had been composed by him only of Marseillois from the 10th of August and of Cordeliers. This is the truth. Make it known to your husband. Prevent from being oppressed the most patriotic general officer perhaps of all the armies, who has never contradicted himself; who has sacrificed his wife and child to the homeland; who began by besieging the Bastille with Barras and me; who since has not varied; who has worked for a long time with l’Orateur du Peuple; who was decreed in the affair of the Champ-de-Mars, etc, etc. I leave it to your so persuasive mouth to assert these titles.

I embrace you, divine Rouleau, dearer than all the rouleaux of gold and crowns that could be offered to me. I embrace you in hope, and I will date my happiness only from the day when I shall see you again. Remind me of your dear maman and of citizen Duplessis. Will you answer me? "Oh! no, Stanislas!” Please answer me, if only because of La Poype. Show my letter to Camille, for I do not wish to make a mystery of anything.

Lucile wrote a response to Fréron that has since gone missing, but it was clearly satisfying for him judging by his next letter, dated December 11 (incorrectly September 11 in the published correspondance) 1793 and addressed to Lucile:

No, my answer will not be delayed by eight months as you put it; the day before yesterday I received, read, reread and devoured your letter; and the pen does not fall from my hands when it comes to acknowledge receipt. What pleasure it gave me !... Pleasure all the more vivid than I dared to hope! You think, then, of that poor bunny, who, exiled far from your heaths, your cabbage, your wild thyme and the paternal dwelling, is consumed with grief at seeing the most constant efforts for the glory and the strengthening of the republic lost... They denounce me, they calumniate me, when all of the South proclaims that without our measures, as active as they are wise and energetic, all this country would be lost and given over to Lyon, Bordeaux and the Vendée. I did not deign to answer Hébert (Fréron (and La Poype) had been denounced at the Jacobins on November 8 by Hébert, who said he ”was nothing more than an aristocrat, a muscadin”). I thank your wolf for having defended me, but he, in his turn, is denounced. They want to take us one after the other, saving Robespierre for last. I invite your wolf to see Raphaël Leroy, commissioner of war for the Army of Italy, who saw me in the most stormy circumstances and the most critical situation in which a representative of the people has ever been. He will say if I am a muscadin, a dictator and an aristocrat. This Leroy is one of the first Cordeliers. Camille knows him; no one is in a better position to make the truth about La Poype and me triumph.

I dare say that never has a republican behaved with more self-sacrifice than your bunny. The fact that La Poype is my brother-in-law was enough for me to make it a rule to keep him away from all command-in-chief, albeit his rank and his seniority, but even more his foolproof patriotism called him there. From then on I foresaw everything that malevolence would not fail to spread. I’d rather be unjust towards La Poype, and make obvious privileges, than I’d give arms to slander, and make people suspect even that the most vicious motives of ambition or of particular interest were involved in my conduct for some reason. When Brunet was dismissed, what better opportunity to advance La Poype? He came to command naturally and by rank. He was the oldest officer-general of the army of Italy. Well! I dismissed him and we named the oldest member of the same army, a man who had only been a general of division for a fortnight, and yet La Poype wanted to sacrifice his wife and his child, saving the national representation, with the certainty that both were going to be delivered to the Toulonnais, which did indeed happen. And these are the men that the most execrable system of defamation pursues! Vulgar souls, muddy souls, you have lent us your baseness; you could not believe, still less reach the height of our sentiments; but the truth will destroy your infernal machinations; we will do our duty through all obstacles and disgusts; we will continue to be useful to the republic, to devote ourselves to its salvation; we will sacrifice our wives and our sisters to it; we will make to our fellow citizens the faithful presentation of our actions, our labors and our most secret thoughts, and we will say to our denouncers: have you produced more titles than us to the public esteem?

Dear Lucile, tell your wolf a thousand things from me; make sure he puts forward these reasons based on notorious facts. Pay him my compliment on his proud reply to Barnave; it is worthy of Brutus, our eternal model; I am like you; a gloomy uneasiness agitates me; I see a vast conspiracy about to break out within the republic; I see discord shake its torches among the patriots; I see ambitious people who want to seize the government, and who, to achieve this, do everything in the world to blacken and dismiss the purest men, men of means and character. I am proof of that. Robespierre is my compass; I perceive, in all the speeches he holds at the Jacobins, the truth of what I am saying here. I don't know if Camille thinks like me; but it seems to me that one wants to push the popular societies beyond their goal, and make them carry out, without them suspecting it, counter-revolution, by ultra-revolutionary measures. What has just happened in Marseille is proof of this. The municipals who had dared to give the order to two battalions of sans-culottes whom we had required to march on Toulon, not to obey the representatives of the people, and who, for this audacious and criminal act, were dismissed by us, were embraced and applauded in the popular society of Marseilles, as the victims of patriotism. Fortunately we have stifled any counter-revolutionary movement; the largest and most imposing measures were taken on the spot. Many intriguers who only saw in the revolution a means of making a fortune, or of satisfying revenge or particular hatreds, dominated and led society astray, all the more easily because they are interesting in the eyes of the people through the persecutions of the sections and a few months in prison. Do you believe that there were secret committees where the motion was made to arrest the representatives of the people? Within twenty-four hours, we have mixed up all these plots: Marseille is saved. It must be observed that this new conspiracy broke out the very day when the English pushed three columns upon our army before Toulon, and seized the battery of the convention, from which they were repulsed with a terrible loss on their side.

It is not useless to notice again that the aristocrats, the emissaries of Pitt, the false patriots, the patriots of money who see their small hopes destroyed by these acts of vigor, repeat with affectation what has been said about me by Hébert at the rostrum of the Jacobins. But the vast majority of true republicans do me justice. This is the harm produced by vague denunciations, made by a patriot against patriots. I see it well; Pitt and the people of Toulon, who doubt our energy because they have tested it on more than one occasion, want, by all possible means, to keep us away from the siege of Toulon, because it is known that we are going to strike the great blows. Well! let us be reminded; we are ready. The national representation did not cross our heads like so many others. Don't come here, lovable and dear Lucile, it's a terrible country, whatever people say, a barbaric country, when you've lived in Paris. I have no caves (cavernes) to offer you, but many cypresses. They grow here naturally. Tell your glutton of a husband that the snipes and thrushes here are better than the inhabitants. If it weren't so far from here in Paris, I would send him some, but you will receive some olives and oil. Farewell, dear Lucile, I am leaving immediately for the army. The general attack is about to begin; it will have taken place when you receive this letter. We are counting on great successes and to force all the posts and redoubts of the enemy with the bayonets. My sister is still locked up in Toulon. This consideration will not stop us: if she perishes, we will give tears to her ashes; but we will have returned Toulon to the republic. I thank you for your charming memory; La Poype, whom I do not see, because he is in his division, will be very sensitive to it. Farewell once again, madwoman, a hundred times mad, darling rouleau, bouli-boula of my heart; this is a very long letter; but I gave myself up to the pleasure of chatting with you, and I took the night for it. Tell loup-loup to write to me; he's a sloth. With regard to your reply to this one, it will probably take a year to arrive. What does it matter to me! On the contrary. It's clear as day. I remember those unintelligible sentences; I remember that piano, those melodies, that melancholy tone, abruptly interrupted by great bursts of laughter. Indefinable being!... Farewell. I embrace the whole warren and you, Lucile, with tenderness and with all my soul. Stanislas.

PS - Don't forget me to the baby bunny (Horace) and his pretty grandmother Melpomène. I would also like to hear from Patagon (Brune), Saturn (Duplain) and Marius (Danton). The latter must have received a letter from me. I will write to him again. Make sure Camille communicates the parts of this letter regarding La Poype, and that his eloquent voice pleads the cause of a friend always worthy of him, always worthy of the Cordeliers. Remind us of his memory, for we love him and are attached to him for life. Consternation is in Toulon. We have killed the English, at the last incident, all their grenadiers. The Spaniards are assassinating them with their stilettos. They have already stabbed thirty of them. It’s now or never to attack. So I am leaving; the cannonade will begin as soon as we will have arrived. We are going to win laurels or willows. Prepare, Lucile, what it is you intend for me.

In the fifth number of the Vieux Cordelier, released January 5 1794, Camille did like Fréron had asked and defended both him and la Poype, clearly using Fréron’s letter as a source:

Note here that four weeks ago, Hebert presented to the Jacobins a soldier who came to heap pretentious praise on Carteaux and to discredit our two Cordeliers Fréron and La Poype who nevertheless had come close to taking Toulon in spite of envy and slander; because Hebert called Freron, just as he called me, a ci-devant patriot, a muscadin, a Sardanapalus, a viédasse. Take note citizens that Hebert has continued to insult Fréron and Barras for two months, to demand their recall to the Committee of Public Safety and to commend Carteaux, without whom General La Poype would perhaps have retaken Toulon six weeks ago, when he had already seized Fort Pharon. Take note that when Hébert saw that he could not influence Robespierre on the subject of Fréron because Robespierre knows the Old Cordeliers, because he knows Freron just as he knows me; note that it was then that this forged letter signed by Fréron and Barras arrived at the Committee for Public Safety, from where no one knows; this letter which so strongly resembled one which managed to arrive two days ago at the Quinze Vingts, which made out that d’Eglantine, Bourdon de l’Oise, Philippeaux and myself wanted to whip up the sections. Oh! My dear Fréron, it is by these crude artifices that the patriots of August 10 are undermining the pillars of the old district of the Cordeliers. You wrote ten days ago to my wife ”I only dream of Toulon, I will either perish there or return it to the republic, I’m leaving. The cannonade will begin as soon as I arrive; we are going to win a laurel or a willow: prepare one or the other for me.” Oh! My brave Fréron, we both wept with joy when we learned this morning of the victory of the republic, and that it was with laurels that we would go to meet you, and not with willows to meet your ash. It was in the assault with Salicetti and the worthy brother of Robespierre, that you responded to the calumnies of Hébert. Things are therefore the same both in Paris and Marseille! I will quote your words, because those of a conqueror will carry more weight than mine. You write to us in this same letter: I don't know if Camille thinks like me; but it seems to me that one wants to push the popular societies beyond their goal, and make them carry out, without them suspecting it, counter-revolution, by ultra-revolutionary measures. What has just happened in Marseille is proof of this. Oh well! My poor Martin (this could be a reference to the the drawing ”Martin Fréron mobbed by Voltaire” which depicts Fréron’s father Élie Fréron as a donkey called ”Martin F.”), were you therefore pursued by the Père Duchesnes of both Paris and Bouches-du-Rhône? And without knowing it, by that instinct which never misleads true republicans, two hundred leagues apart, I with my writing desk, you with your sonorous voice, we are waging war against the same enemies! But it is necessary to break with you this colloquium, and return to my justification.

The very same day, Fréron wrote a third letter to Lucile. Again, the parts in italics were censored when the letter was first published in 1836:

You did not answer me, dearest Lucile, and my punctuality has so dumbfounded you that your astonishment still lasts. You had deferred my answer to eight months; you see if you are a good prophetess. I inform you with a sensitive pleasure (which you will share, I am sure) that my sister and my niece did not perish; that they found a way to wear themselves out in the dreadful night which preceded the surrender of Toulon. She is about to give birth. I informed her of the interest you took in her sad fate; she was very sensitive and asks me to show you her gratitude. Answer me then, lazy that you are, and ungrateful, which is worse. One breaks the silence after a year, after centuries, and one gets, as thank you, a few words written in distraction, Bouli-Boula, what does it do to me? The bunny is desolute; he thinks of you constantly; he thought about you amid bombs and bullets, and he would have gladly said like that old gallant: Ah! if my lady saw me! I realize with sorrow that you are upset, since Camille has been denounced by the same men who have pursued me at the Jacobins. I hope he will triumph over these attacks; I recognized his original touch in a few passages from his new journal; and I too am one of the old Cordeliers. Farewell, Lucile, wicked devil, enemy of bunnies. Has your wild thyme been harvested? I shall not delay, despite all my insults, to implore the favor of nibbling some from your hand. I asked for a month's leave to recover a bit; for I am exhausted with fatigue; afterwards I fly back into the bosom of the Convention, and I stealthily amaze myself on the grass with Martin on the paths of Bourg d’Égalité, under the eyes of la grande lapin? and in spite of your pots of water. You'll have neither olives nor oil if I don't get a response from you. You can tell me whatever you like but I love you and embrace you, right under the nose of your jealous loup-loup. Goodbye once more. Do not forget me to our shared friends. What has become of citoyenne Robert? A thousand things to your old loup-loup; I wanted to write to him, but time is short and the mail rushes me. Tell him to keep his imagination in check a little with respect to a committee of clemency. It would be a triumph for the counter-revolutionaries. Let not his philanthropy blind him; but let him make an all-out war on all industrial patriots. Goodbye again, loveliest of rouleux. My respects to your good and beautiful maman. Give my regards to the baby bunny (Horace). The letter reached Lucile within a week, but it’s with a tone less playful than Fréron’s that she answered it with on January 13 (cited in Camille Desmoulins and his wife (1874) by Jules Claretie):

Come back, Fréron, come back quickly. You have no time to lose; bring with you all the old Cordeliers you can meet up with; we have the greatest need of them. If it had pleased Heaven not to have ever dispersed them! You cannot have an idea of what is going on here! You are ignorant of everything, you only see a feeble glimmering in the distance, which can give you but a faint idea of our situation. Indeed, I am not surprised that you reproach Camille for his Committee of Clemency. He cannot be judged from Toulon. You are happy where you are; all has gone according to the wish of your heart; but we, calumniated, persecuted by the ignorant, the intriguing, and even by patriots; Robespière (sic) your compass, has denounced Camille at the Jacobins; he has had numbers 3 and 4 read, and has demanded that they should be burnt; he who had read them in manuscript. Can you conceive such a thing? For two consecutive sittings he has thundered, or rather shrieked, against Camille. At the third sitting Camille's name was struck off. Oddly enough, he made inconceivable efforts to have the cancelling reported; it was reported; but he saw that when he did not think or act according to their the will of a certain number of individuals, he was not all powerful. Marius (Danton) is not listened to any more, he is losing courage and vigour. D'Eglantine is arrested, and in the Luxembourg, under very grave charges. So he was not a patriot! he who had been one until now! A patriot the less is a misfortune the more. The monsters have dared to reproach Camille with having married a rich woman. Ah! let them never speak of me; let them ignore my existence, let me live in the midst of a desert. I ask nothing from them, I will give up to them all I possess, provided I do not breathe the same air as they! Could I but forget them, and all the evils they cause us! I see nothing but misfortune around me. I confess, I am too weak to bear so sad a sight. Life has become a heavy burden. I cannot even think - thinking, once such a pure and sweet pleasure alas! I am deprived of it… My eyes fill with tears… I shut up this terrible sorrow in my heart; I meet Camille with a serene look, I affect courage that he may not lose his keep up his. You do not seem to me to have read his five numbers. Yet you are a subscriber. Yes, the wild thyme is gathered, quite ready. I plucked it amid many cares. I laugh no more; I never act the cat; I never play my piano; I dream no more, I am nothing but a machine now. I see no one, I never go out. It is a long time since I have seen the Roberts. They have gotten into difficulties through their own fault. They are trying to be forgotten. Farewell, bunny, you will call me mad again. I am not, however, quite yet; I have still enough reason left to suffer. I cannot express to you my joy on learning that your dear sister had met with no accident; I have been quite uneasy since I heard Toulon was taken. I wondered incessantly what would be their fate. Speak to them sometimes of me. Embrace them both for me. I beg them to do the same to you, for me. Do you hear! my wolf cries out: Martin, my dear Martin, here, thou art come that I may embrace thee; come back very soon. Come back, come back very soon; we are awaiting you impatiently.

In number 6 of the Vieux Cordelier, released January 30 1794, Camille responds to Fréron’s critique regarding a committee of clemency while informing him that his father-in-law has gotten arrested:

Beware, Fréron, that I was not writing my number 4 in Toulon, but here, where I assure you that everyone is in order, and where there is no need for the spur of Père Duchesne, but rather of the Vieux Cordelier's bridle; and I will prove it to you without leaving my house and by a domestic example. You know my father-in-law, Citizen Duplessis, a good commoner and son of a peasant, blacksmith of the village. Well! The day before yesterday, two commissioners from Mutius Scaevola's section (Vincent's section, that will tell you everything) came up to his house; they find law books in the library; and notwithstanding the decree that no one will touch Domat, nor Charles Dumoulin, although they deal with feudal matters, they raid half the library, and charge two pickers with the paternal books. […] An old clerk's wallet, which had been discarded, forgotten above a cupboard in a heap of dust, and which he had not touched or even thought about for perhaps ten years, and on which they managed discovered the imprint of a few fleur-de-lis, under two fingers of filth, completed the proof that citizen Duplessis was suspect, and thus he was locked up until the peace, and seals put on all the gates of this countryhouse where you remember, my dear Fréron, that we both found an asylum which the tyrant dared not violate after we were both ordered to be seized after the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars.

Fréron was back in Paris by at least March 14, less than a month before the arrest of Camille and Lucile. He is not confirmed to have tried to do anything to save his friends. Following their death, he does however appear to have laid low. He is not proven to have spoken at the Jacobins following March 26, and so far I haven’t found any recorded apperances at the Convention either. I don’t think it would be completely out of the blue to speculate in whether his choice to play an active role in the fall of Robespierre (he was one of nine deputies designated in the thermidorian pamphlet Conjuration formée dès le 5 préréal [sic] par neuf représentans du peuple contre Maximilien Robespierre, pour le poignarder en plein sénat (1794) to on May 24 1794 have formed a plan to stab him to death, and also spoke against the robespierrists during the session of 9 thermidor) to some extent was motivated by the urge to avenge his dead friends, especially since I can’t find any instance of Robespierre openly denouncing Fréron or anything to that effect.

When Fréron shortly after thermidor revived his journal l’Orateur du Peuple, he used it to rehabilitate Camille’s memory, but also used said memory as a weapon against the Jacobins. These are all mentions made of Camille and Lucile in the part of the journal currently digitalized:

[The Jacobin Club] threw from its bosom and sent to the scaffold the unfortunate Camille Desmoulins, who was guilty of no other crime than of having wanted to uncloak and put an end to those of this detestable faction. Number 7 of l’Orateur du Peuple (September 26 1794).

Camille Desmoulins to the Jacobins of Paris: Citizens, I come to open your eyes to the abyss that is growing under your feet. I have just lifted you from the lethargic sleep into which it seems that a genius enemy of our joy and your safety had plunged you. Frenchmen, wake up! Never have the scroundels that do not show themselves, but who make their numerous beutenans act, according to the expression of Legendre, been more, in labor of the counter-revolution. They feel themselves lost, carried away, like in spite of themselves and tears; so to speak, in the tumbril of public opinion. [”Camille” then goes on to conduct Fréron’s politics for approximately seven pages, most of the entire number.] As it’s Robespierre who signed my passport for the other side, and who had the attention to send my wife there too eight days later, it’s him I must thank him for the good that I have now. […] Number 9 of l’Orateur du Peuple (September 28 1794)

Have they (the Jacobins) overlooked and denounced the abhorrent tribunal of Robespierre and his co-dictators? No, they’ve even sent innocents there, such as Phelippeux [sic], Camille Desmoulins and many others. Number 28 of l’Orateur du Peuple (October 19 1794)

In Réponse de Fréron, représentant du peuple, aux diffamations de Moyse Bayle (1795), we also find the following passage:

You (Bayle) who plunged the dagger (for your pen was the knife of our colleagues) into the bosom of Camille and Phelippeaux [sic]: your features cannot freighten me; I am stronger than your insults. […] A constant truth today, in Toulon, is that at most there were a hundred and fifty rebels immolated in the national revenge. In this regard, I appeal to my colleagues Barras, Ricord, Crevés, Rovére and all the inhabitants of the Medi: if I had only told Moyle Bayle this small number, we would have been recalled and guillotined as moderates and as being necessarily the same as this poor Camille, of the indulgent faction.

And in Mémoire historique sur la réaction royale et sur les massacres du Midi (1824, published posthumously?) he writes:

During a dinner at citizen Formalguès’ where I found myself together with Legendre, Tallien, Barras and other deputies, the conversation fell on Camille Desmoulins, this child so naive and spiritual, murdered for having proposed a committee of clemency. I tell Lanjuinais, whom Camille had pleasantly called le pape of the Vendée, and who was sitting in front of me: ”But, Lanjuinais, if the poor Camille had lived, would you have him guillotined?” ”Unquestionably,” responded the jansenist. As I was very glad that other witnesses heard, from Lanjuinais' own mouth, this sweet monosyllable, in which his beautiful soul was depicted, I turned a deaf ear and began my sentence again. "Without difficulty, there is no question," resumed the holy man in an impatient tone; and thereupon one rose from the table, he made the sign of the cross, joined his hands, and said his graces.

Furthermore, Fréron stayed in touch with Lucile’s mother Annette Duplessis, helping her get back the objects confiscated by the state after Camille and Lucile’s execution, obtaining the pension their son Horace in 1796 had been promised by the Council of Five Hundred, and making sure Horace got a good education at the Prytanée Français (former Louis-le-Grand):

I have just written to Fréron, as we agreed. This is what I think you ought to ask of him: 1. Being your children’s friend, that he should take all neccesary steps in Horace’s favour with the committees. 2. That he should claim for him the family papers and his father’s manusscript. 3. That he should claim for Horace the family books; they also will be useful for his instruction; they are indispensable for the supply of his wants; besides, this justice has already been done to Citizen Boucher’s widow, therefore there is a precedent for it. Committees composed of the friends of justice ought to be proud to being useful to the orphans of patriots. Fréron and his friends cannot refuse to act in concert with you. Greetings and friendship. Brune in a letter to Annette Duplessis, March 3 1795

22 vêntose year 8 I’ve spoken to the Minister of the Interior, Madame, about your (votre) position and that of Horace with so much interest that you inspire in me. He finds it right that the son of Camille Desmoulins enters the Prytanée Français. He told me about it, but it is essential that the child knows how to read and write perfectly before his admission. I will have the honor of seeing you over the next décade, and we will discuss together the procedure to follow; I do not doubt for a single moment the success, based on the way the minister responded to me. You personally have not been forgotten. I told him (because he was unaware) that the National Convention had granted you a pension, which was not paid, and has never been paid, I fear. He is equally prepared to make you receive it. You must send me, 1. the Convention’s decree or the copy of it; 2. your demand or petition, without forgetting to specify since when your pension has not been paid. Citizen Omae? will arrive in 15 days. Yesterday I saw his wife who had just learned of the news through a letter he sent her this Thursday. A thousand hugs to the charming little Horace, and a thousands attachments to his good maman. On the first fine day I’m going to early in the morning read and re-read all the packages from Bourg Égalité and the idyll of the most lovable woman I have known. Salut and respect. Fréron. Fréron in a letter to Annette Duplessis, March 13 1800

Aside from these two letters, there’s also several unpublished ones, one dated February 20 1795 through which we learn that Fréron, with the help of deputies Aubry, Tallien, Ysabeau and Rovère obtained a reprieve on the sale of Camille’s confiscated bed and libary, which they managed to save for Horace, one dated March 1 1795 and co-authored by Fréron and Laurance to the commissioners handling the sale of the property of convicts of the section of the Théatre-Français, one dated June 17 1800 from Fréron to Annette regarding Horace’s schooling (all of these were mentioned in Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république), and finally one dated April 27 1800 Fréron adressed to Duplain, promising his support to Napoleon so that Horace could enter the Prytanée Français (mentioned in Journaliste, sans-culotte et thermidorien: le fils de Fréron: 1754-1802 (1909).

Finally, according to Marcellin Matton, Fréron named his two children Camille and Lucile in honor of his dead friends. However, I’ve not found any information about said children (which, if they existed at all, must have been illegitimate since Fréron never married) anywhere, neither in Fréron’s family tree nor in the 1909 biography, so perhaps Matton is mistaken here…

#fréron helping take care of horace and selling his soul to naps so that he could get a good education is like his 1 redeeming quality #guy srs wrote ”i dream about banging you in that bed you’ve got there lucile” 🤤#desmoulins #camille desmoulins #lucile desmoulins #fréron #stanislas fréron #horace desmoulins #frev friendships #frev #ask #fréron having the dead camille guest write in his journal though…#brings a whole new meaning to the term ghost writer

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altraviolet · 10 days ago

Note

'remembered how he used the groundbridges on the Nemesis'. any chance you still remember/have the notes for whatever slice of detailed sciencey explanation worldbuilding you came up with? that sounds interesting, pls elaborate. what do you meaaan :D

I didn't worldbuild anything sciencey for it, but I can talk about it a little bit

here are the times it's mentioned/hinted at in the fic (that I can find easily/remember atm):

The ability to summon/make space/ground bridges is a fundamentally powerful one. SW associates it with his "mythological" self- his hypercompetent self on the Nemesis. So when you trace this thread, you will find it's interwoven with how SW regards himself.

First mention/hint in Ch 4:

Soundwave had never made a habit of sleeping... 2) it contributed to the mythology the crew of the Nemesis developed about him...

That mythology was based in truths. No, Soundwave couldn't read minds. But he could patch into any part of the Nemesis to access its audio/visual feeds. ... And, no, he couldn't generate his own ground bridges. He wouldn't have been stuck in the shadowzone for years if that were true. But he had been able to direct the Nemesis's considerable power for that purpose- a feat undoable by any other.

Soundwave is a master at information manipulation, but masters work better with tools: Soundwave was a master, but masters needed tools to reach their fullest potential. The Nemesis had been his finely crafted tool. He used the Nemesis to create ground/space bridges. He did this in the show several times- even sending Airachnid REALLY far away into space. This is an incredible power. In order to nerf SW for the fic, I made it so he specifically needed the Nemesis to do this. And also, wouldn't he have gotten out of the shadowzone, if he could do it himself? So yeah, it's not explicit in the canon, but I think he needed the Nemesis. It's not a thing he can just do on his own. But! It implies that he knows how the bridges work, and were he to get the right materials, he could build/use bridges again.

Anyway. He almost spills this secret (that he can make ground/space bridges, (with tools)) to Rodimus in Ch 21:

[Rodimus] "So, mythological Soundwave. What... what did you do?” “Complete access to all communications.” “Oh.” “Complete access to all security systems.” “Ah.” “Complete control of deep space navigation and sp- other technology.” “What other technology?” Soundwave said nothing.

"sp-" is "space bridges" cut off

The concept goes away for a while as Soundwave turns into a person.

Then in Ch 37 SW remembers he was able to do the groundbridge thing. This part also mentions Astrotrain's song! which we touched on in your last ask.:

Not to mention the other part of the mythological Soundwave. How could he have forgotten it? He had been too focused on his previous areas of competence: the all-seeing optics, the all-hearing audials. But face to face with enemies, those things had never been his greatest asset.

Astrotrain's song brought that which simmered at the back of Soundwave's processor to the forefront. A fascinating possibility. Not the focus of his great work, but a diversion that would serve him well nonetheless. If it manifested beyond the theoretical.

The other part is using the Nemesis to create ground/space bridges.

the but a diversion part is literally Soundwave thinking on the possibility of making a portal to return to 0001

I didn't spell it out because I didn't want to be too blatant with where the story was going -> that SW would build a portal to return to 0001.

Actually wait yeah, here we see that Astrotrain's song helps nudge SW's old Nemesis-bridge knowledge back to the forefront of his mind, and therefore he goes "oh! I can do my great work, but I could also make a portal"

yeah yeah. it was there in the fic. I remember having a hard time keeping everything in my brain, so yeah, sometimes things are a lil nebulous. but it's there xD

Sooooooo yeah! That's all I can recall at the moment. Going back to your original question: If I had written "SW makes the space bridge" in the story, I would've used music as an abstract way to describe it, as Soundwave does with other things.

It's really good people are asking questions about this now because I'm sure eventually I'll forget all these little details xD we're only a few months away from it having been finished for a whole year! wrow :u

thanks for the ask :)

#nyctocryptid #ask #echo garden related #space bridge #I hope that made sense I'm really tired

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libra-stellium · 7 months ago

Text

Venus Transits I tracked!

Descriptions from Planets in Transit - Robert Hand

Venus opposite Moon (Apr 17 - Apr 21)

Any problems under this transit are likely to come from doing something to excess

Did I drink a whole bottle of wine on 4/20? yes. Was I feeling it the next day? yes lol Do I regret it? nope! I was trying to have a great night in and that's exactly what I had!

This transit arouses your affections and makes you willing to give and receive love, relationships with women are meaningful

I made this really good pasta with mussels and I invite my aunt to have dinner with me which is simple but I don't usually do that lol

The rest of this transit description was talking about problems in romantic relationships but I'm single soooo N/A

Venus opposite Mercury (Apr 18 - Apr 22)

Favorable time for communication about love and relationships

If you watch 911 you know how it's been this month lol but I've been enjoying watching people watch the show for the first time! Idk which day exactly but it had me thinking about how I used to write fics when I was younger and make fan videos of shows lol such a fun time! Then I had a convo with my bestie about her love live bc she's a late bloomer and naturally is scared of everything lmao

The mercurial side of your personality does not take emotional matters seriously

I forgot to pay attention to this lmfao but I know I was a joker this entire time! lmao I tried to cut back but everything was just toooo funny!!

Be careful what you say about friends and loved ones under this transit , someone may take it seriously

I made a separate entry about the last time this transit happened for me in 2021 so this time around I was very intentional to not talk about anybody lmao about to make myself a shirt like "My friends and I survived my Venus Opposite Mercury transit <3"

One of the most unemotional of all Venus transits

I don't know lol is laughter not an emotion? I was intrigued by this when I wrote it but maybe I would have experienced this if I didn't know it was happening? Or maybe it was something small like me laughing during the serious situation in a show bc the drama was just toooo much I had to laugh lmao

Venus trine MC (Apr 18 - Apr 22)

Good time for any kind of creative activity/getting involved in the arts

I randomly started cooking this pasta with mussels and I've never made it before and it came out so good!!

Excellent time to redecorate your home and make your personal surroundings more attractive, you are much more sensitive to the aesthetic nature of your surroundings

I did do my dishes and clean my kitchen!

Time when you feel very affectionate and have a great need to express your affection, you are pleasant to be around, others can sense how you feel about them which makes them feel good

I didn't really feel thisss? I'm usually pleasant to be around anyway lol but I did text a couple more friends during this time and we were laughing a lot

Transit makes you feel peaceful and anxious to avoid conflict

Bro this bc after my job messed up my pay last week they asked me to update my timesheet again and I was on that email and had it fixed in 2 minutes lmao just for my supervisor to be like oh she doesn't see it on her end like girl....i texted her pictures of my screen like it's there! Don't stress me out!

Venus square Neptune (Apr 21 - Apr 25)

Transit stimulates your romantic imagination making you somewhat unrealistic

As a libra with a pisces rising this was just another regular day lmao but I was more in my synchronicity bag because on 4/25 I started reading this book that I stopped reading last year on May 19 bc I left it in my friend's car for months and I was reading something else by the time I got it back buttttt the back of the page I stopped on the main character was talking about how the only place she had visited in Europe was Amsterdam and i was like ohmygod??? What are the odds that i was so close to reading that last year and it's now almost a year later and I travel to Amsterdam ON MAY 19???

Daydreaming and creativity are high

Idk if that counts but I stitched a tiktok on 4/23 and it's still getting engagement and it's at 50k+ views rn on 4/28 and like 7k+ likes lolll

Venus square Uranus (Apr 24 - Apr 28)

You seek excitement and stimulation through love relationships

single as a pringle lol

Tendency to flirt under this influence, don't make anything more out of an encounter than what it really is

I didn't go anywhere bc work had me working for real during this time and now it's the weekend and I have my period but one of my friends posted a story about how her outfit made her look like a teacher and I commented "What's 5x5? Twenty Fine!!" lmfaoo the corniest pick up line and I still think I was so funny for saying that lol

You are likely to be impulsive with money

yeah Sweetgreen has had me in a chokehold ngl lol every year I go through a phase where I get obsessed with a salad from there! $18 is absolutely wild but so so good! Just writing this makes me want to order again omg

#astrology #astro #astro tumblr #learn astrology #astro community #pisces rising #libra stellium #venus transits #venus opposite moon #venus opposite mercury #venus trine MC #venus square neptune #venus square uranus

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saspitite · 4 months ago

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The Hint

On February 6th, 2024, a thread on KauKoBoard made by user HedoniSt0rm had been suddenly updated after going silent for nearly five years.

[24/02/06 19:13] HedoniSt0rm: Hello everyone. Sorry it's been a bit, I got busy with life and had to distance myself from online matters. I hope I didn't worry anyone, though- I know there's only like, 80 people here? So it's pretty easy to remember most everyone and notice when somebody leaves. Either way, I'm back, and with something I think you guys might like. [24/02/06 19:22] Milli_Best_Pilli: TORILLE PERKELE!! welcome back man, we missed you so much! :D you doing alright? [24/02/06 19:24] HedoniSt0rm: Doing just fine, thanks! :]. [24/02/06 19:25] notawolf: what did i miss??? hedoni's back???? talk about the second coming of christ lol [24/02/06 19:25] notawolf: in all seriousness i'm happy you're back dude. what's the thing you wanted to show us? [24/02/06 19:26] HedoniSt0rm: Glad you asked. Hope everyone still has their detective bones in them like the good ol' days, because this was an interesting encounter. Remember what I said before I left? It was the last update I made in this thread. [24/02/06 19:27] notawolf: no fucking way. [24/02/06 19:27] Milli_Best_Pilli: ...do i need to grab some popcorn [24/02/06 19:27] HedoniSt0rm: Yep. I talked to the Kauhukorppi. [24/02/06 19:28] notawolf: DUDE [24/02/06 19:28] HedoniSt0rm: Sit tight, I still have to upload all the photos to my computer- then I'll explain. [24/02/06 20:14] HedoniSt0rm: Alright, everything's done uploading and nothing got corrupted (too much). So, I had gone to a Hevisaurus concert earlier and remembered my hypothesis of potentially communicating with the Kauhukorppi. It felt a bit strange in practice, continuously taking photos while the band wasn't even playing, but I'm sure nobody noticed me amongst all the excited kids. My plan was to keep taking photos periodically until I "caught" him, and then find ways to communicate from there. Yes, it sounds extremely unplanned, but it turns out I didn't really need much of a plan at all. It turns out that the Kauhukorppi can read minds, too. Below is the first photo I had taken which captured the Kauhukorppi. What was interesting was the "..." clearly visible above his head, along with the fact that he wasn't staring into the camera like he usually does. He was definitely aware of me- but specifically aware of the fact that I was trying to get his attention...

[24/02/06 20:16] HedoniSt0rm: My suspicions that the "..." held significance ended up proving true with my second photo. He was now communicating with me directly, stating that he could "hear me"- my thoughts.

[24/02/06 20:18] HedoniSt0rm: I then asked the Kauhukorppi if I could speak with him. He stated that he would be delighted to. I'm unsure what the "just don't blink" statement specifically meant, but it was possibly referring to the photos I'd be capturing from then on.

[24/02/06 20:21] HedoniSt0rm: I began by notifying him of his presence in the real world, and how he had garnered a community online. I was surprised by his answer- he was aware of it, and even went on to say it was his "purpose" to be known.

[24/02/06 20:24] HedoniSt0rm: Upon asking for more clarification, it seems the Kauhukorppi became a bit agitated, mentioning some kind of nebulous "them".

[24/02/06 20:25] HedoniSt0rm: I took a wild guess and asked if he was referring to the Sony vs Hevisaurus incident. What I got in response was, bizarrely, silence. He had looked away again.

[24/02/06 20:28] HedoniSt0rm: I took another photo and he finally answered. It seems I surprised him.

[24/02/06 20:30] HedoniSt0rm: And then, he made a shocking offering to me. There seems to be much more we don't know about the Kauhukorppi.

[24/02/06 20:33] HedoniSt0rm: And as I asked just how much there was to uncover, the distortion of the photos began to strangely lessen, and he said this:

[24/02/06 20:35] HedoniSt0rm:

[24/02/06 20:37] HedoniSt0rm: This last photo unfortunately still has issues with excess corruption. I am not sure how to decipher the meaning left in this one, as it's too broken on my end to understand. Help would be appreciated. Thank you. I will be signing off, now. -Hedoni

#sas stories #the kauhukorppi #original writing #my writing #creepypasta #original creepypasta #unreality #unreality tw #unsettling #eyestrain #bright colors #glitch effects #eye contact #paranoia inducing #hevisaurus #a hint: the last photo is actually a gif that doesnt loop #anyways yeah im back with my stupid hevisaurus creepypasta. someone out there has to be cringe and weird after all #no its not necessary for someone to ''solve'' the broken photo but i just thought id give a hint anyways teehee

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saltygilmores · 1 year ago

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Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls, Season 2, Episode 21- Lorelai's Graduation Day, Aka The Best Episode That Ever Episoded, My Heart Will Soon Be Asploded. Part 2

Read part 1 and all other commentary here

Yesterday I realized I've been doing these little insane ramblings of mine on Tumblr for over a year now! If it took me a year to watch two seasons, I guess I'll see ya'll in September 2024 for the conclusion of season 4. Anyway, Lorelai is about to have the Consequences Of Her Actions thrown in her face in just a moment, which is something I enjoy seeing.

Luke and Lorelai have to kiss and make up in this episode or the next, I would think? I don't remember any unresolved animosity between them going into the third season. But what do I know after not seeing this show for 3 years.

How's that "Trying to avoid someone in a small town" thing working out for you, dear?

Lorelai: "I guess it was inevitable we'd run into each other. It is a very tiny community." Ya think? Lor: How's the diner? Luke: It's still there. Except in your absence, an extra table opened up for somebody who will actually pay for their food. Lor: Hey Luke, do you think we could talk? Luke: No, I gotta go. Although I haven't watched Teach me Tonight in years, I can still go off of what other people have told me about what went down and Luke is pysssssed.

There has GOT to be some kind of Emmy award for fake food presentation. Rory has shown up on Gramma and Grammpa's door step wanting to talk about something. Seems as if she's going behind Lorelai's back to invite Emily and Richard to her graduation ceremony and she makes a pitch to them. Again, my memory is foggy but I do know they attend the ceremony, I think Emily arrives with a professional photographer? Which annoys Lorelai., and pleases me. Rory: As you know, Mom's been going to business school for three years. What??? Huh? 3 years? Someone please school me on whether this "Lorelai goes to night school" was actually mentioned any time before the last few episodes, or if this is just something that was made up in the name of TV Convenience.

Debatable. Later that day, back at the Gilmore abode... Lorelai mentions she is going to Hartford Community College. Did I google whether or not such a school exists? You bet your sweet bippy I did. The answer: there is no such place (although there are two community colleges in Hartford).

I'm at a payphone, trying to call home, all of my change I spent on you... Let's just enjoy little bit of Literati On The Phone apprecation.

ARGH! My little lovesick stepcousins!!! 💔🐶💔🐶

The next day at Chilton, Rory is so lovesick for her long distance stepcousin that her mind is completely lost in outerspace even while her local lover Paris Geller rambles on about authors and half eaten bananas. It matters not, but how did Rory ever get away with playing hooky?

NO NO NO NO. NO. WHAT? NO! WHY! NO!

Going years between viewings is a game of Memory Roulette for me and honestly that's what makes this fun. Like, what insipid detail will I remember at the same time that I'm forgetting something vitally important? More importantly, what horrible surprises have I let lapse in my memory? When should I be wary of Dean/ and or Crusty lurking around the corner? The answer is always. As you can see, you can never let your guard down and say "Huh, I haven't seen Dean and/ or Crusty in a while", because they can strike at any time.

Okay, okay, calm down Salty. The future is incredibly bleak on the Christopher front after this episode, but in this particular episode, he Lores his way through a 1 minute phone conversation and that's the end of him.

Look, Lore, I know we're often at odds with each other and normally I'd say something like "I hope you open the basket and a nest of angry hornets flies out at you", but this time LORE, I'm imploring you, do not open a box from Crusty Hayden.

Michel says he refused to touch the package which is good because you don’t want to get your fingerprints on it and become an accomplice in a CrustyCrime.

So, a bowling ball or a human head.

A BOMB? No, no, he's not that smart. All I know is it better not be a fucking engagement ring or something (a heavy one)

Other contents of the CrustyBasket: A youth hostel card, a disposable camera, a manual for job hunters, an application to join the Army (She really could use some humbling by a nasty drill seargant who doesn't put up with her crap, so I'd advise she keep that), a DVD of The Graduate. Okay, okay, I get his shtick here. Haha, Lorelai is an adult graduate so it'll be a hoot to give her stuff that's like, for a teenage graduate instead. So funny. (oh the irony that a high school graduation is something she barely scraped by on realizing for no other reason than you planting your Crusty Sperm in her).

However, based on Lore's reaction to the necklace, this thing is still emotionally weighty and she is not amused. To her shock and dismay, (He claims) it's even real pearl and not just something that dropped out of a gumball machine like the QuarterOnAString Dean gave to Rory.

THE NERVE. He can't come to the graduation because of reasons and we will take it and not question his motives, as this may be one of the last (nearly) Crusty free episodes in a while. Ugh. But with him and Dean both out of the picture for the rest of the episode, the Stepcousins can finally begin their big city adventure. Stay tuned for part 3!

#denise rewatches gilmore girls #jess mariano #rory gilmore #gilmore girls season 2 #lorelais graduation day #crusty #milo ventimiglia #hot dog #stepcousins in the city #stepcousins eating hot dogs

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sugudoe · 4 months ago

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1, 6, 7, 9, 14, 18, 21, 24, 30, 32, 40

emy, love, i got too excited and started babbling .ᐟ ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ🪷་༘

what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

morbid as it is, i believe my depression and anxiety are the two major factors, specially this last few months, it’s getting difficult as of late, but fortunately i have the third thing, which is love. i might have problems with loving my own life, but i love others and it makes worth living. there are greater things expecting me, so i keep being this optimistic, gentle and try hard person.

what’s the best and worst part of being online/a creator?

the best thing, without a doubt, it’s this whole community of strangers that follow me, likes my stuff and interact with it. any time i see a comment it turns into fuel for my writing, and therefore i keep making more and more non stopping. the worst part for me, would be my strong desire to keep getting better than what i was yesterday, so i burn my brains and my eyes with editing a new theme every night, writing until my fingers and arms go numb and the feeling of believing no one likes it. i had a talk with another creator this week, about this fear of never growing or making people hate what i do, it’s silly, but it has been plaguing me for a few weeks now.

what scares you the most and why?

be stuck. i have many goals, had always been a wanderer in my own mind, creating the life of my dreams, and it petrifies me the idea to never conquer them. to see myself in the future living something i did not plan or created, to be unhappy and grey, makes me very very scared.

tell a story about your childhood.

i don’t remember much of it, so i’ll tell you this one from before my birth. my mother was on her way to clip her tubes, and found out she was pregnant with not only me, but a boy as well, her biggest dream. she then decided to trick my older sibling, saying if the baby is a girl, my sibling can pick the name, if is a boy then she will. i guess whatever divine creature in the sky didn’t enjoyed her lying to a six years old, and then i ended up “eating” my twin. any opportunity, my mom tells this story and she says “you ate my boy!!”. sukuna aah story.

what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but maybe been to scared to do?

to live by myself, actually. not in a house setting way, i actually mean i fear doing things by myself, i avoid wasting my money with me or going out alone. i thrive on having company, that’s why i like to interact with people.

do you believe in ghosts and/or aliens?

yes for both! all the woman in my family could be considered mediums, specially my mom. we have always been followed by weird things. we have lived in three houses, the first one had a weird atmosphere to it, in the dark. the second one was were i grow up, constant nightmares, one person died and showed up demonically to two people, it scares me to be anywhere there, to look somewhere for too long and know you will see something. my current house, though, it’s fucking creepy as well and unfortunately i’m the most affected one. i’ve seen a girl on my siblings bed, something white jumping towards me, a black shadow following me, sounds of chains, screaming, footsteps and yet, the second one scares me the most. for aliens i believe in them, astronomy is my favorite thing in the world, my dad and i use our telescopes to see the astros and keep saying “you see that? that’s an ovni, for sure.”

are you a spiritual person?

i don’t know, my parents have never imposed religion on me, so i learned for myself. have always believed in the universe, i studied lots of religion and when i found all those similarities i started to believe that there is something that is behind all of this, and it presents itself for others with different names and faces.

what’s one thing you’re proud of yourself for?

i’m proud of mini me, she was really pure and really smart. i learned english by myself when i was seven years old, i learned of astronomy, arrows and bows, of the history of the world, to write and to read and to talk freely of what i think. gosh, she was amazing.

what’s one thing that never fails to make you happy/happier?

as of later, you guys. anytime i see an ask, a comment, a follower, serotonin is released. and also music, to sing and dance when the emotions are too much. my favorite song is a nova vida, by carter burwell.

how many tabs do you have open right now?

110 on safari and if asking about apps, it’s 6.

any bad habits?

bed rotting, and i used to smke, but it’s been a long time, yay!

#⭒ 𓈒 𐙚ㅤׂ singing duo ! ꒱#emy <𝟑

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literatemisfit · 1 year ago

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Hi! I don’t have a subscription so I can’t read this full article you posted.

https://www.tumblr.com/literatemisfit/720928934490980352/david-tennant-on-his-wife-georgias-cancer-scare

Could you possibly give a summary or copy/paste what it says (if you’re comfortable with it)? Especially that last part you mentioned as being especially sweet?

Somehow when I went to open it I also got stuck behind a paywall so they must have added one. But I was able to use incognito mode and get access to it anyway. I've copy pasted the entire thing for you so you can see what I mean by sweet ;)

See below:

Georgia Tennant is recalling the moment, at the start of the pandemic, when she realised she was going to be locked down with her husband. ‘David was supposed to be filming in South Africa,’ explains the 38-year-old actor and producer. ‘But then there was a series of phone calls, South Africa shut down, and he turned to me and said: “I’m not going back”.’

Georgia and I share a look that speaks volumes: about the slo-mo dawning experienced by wives all over the world when it became clear they would be trapped with the man they’d promised to love and cherish – but not, crucially, have lunch with every day for weeks on end. About what became more like the premise of a twisted reality TV show when those weeks turned into months

‘I remember having this sudden realisation…’ Glancing at her Scottish stage and screen star husband, Georgia pauses, blue eyes wide, and at this point I’m already smiling because I think I know what’s coming. ‘That, oh my gosh, David’s just going to be here, the whole time.’ I nod compassionately. ‘Which obviously I’d never had before.’ Another nod. We’ve all been there.

‘And just thinking: that’s really exciting!’

Oh… It’s a needle-across-vinyl moment and I stop mid-nod and stare. Georgia and I are not on the same page. In fact, she seems to be reading an entirely different book: this wife can’t think of anything nicer than being holed up with her husband of 12 years.

‘We just really like each other,’ she says once all three of us have stopped laughing. ‘Even now, we like hanging out with each other more than we like hanging out with anyone else.’ Some might say that’s a pretty good basis for a marriage. ‘Exactly. And when all the kids are around it’s like a commune here, which I love.’

With a semi-apologetic shrug the 52-year-old Doctor Who and Broadchurch star confirms, ‘It’s true.’ There’s no way around it: he too just really likes his wife. ‘In fact, the more time we spend together the more we get on,’ he says. And although I’m not sure I can deal with any more bombshell revelations so early on in an interview, this is probably just as well. Because the Tennants didn’t just end up marooned on the couch together for the duration of the pandemic – with their five children, Ty, 21, Olive, 12, Wilfred, 10, Doris, seven, and Birdie, three – but filming a lockdown TV comedy series, Staged, which became the surprise summer comedy hit of 2020.

The whimsical meta sitcom follows David’s fractious friendship with Welsh actor Michael Sheen as they plan various ill-fated ventures from either side of the world on Zoom. Only this isn’t reality TV, but a hammed-up version. Its two actors forever making a drama out of a crisis, as their partners watch, bemused, occasionally stepping in when things get out of hand.

Georgia and Swedish actress Anna Lundberg’s attitude is probably best described by the bumper sticker quote: ‘Behind every successful man is a woman rolling her eyes’, and audiences liked them so much that their roles get progressively bigger with each series.

Amazingly, Staged outlived the pandemic premise it was built on and I’m here today, in a sleek home office at the back of the couple’s west London home, to talk about the third and final series, which is currently airing on BBC One. Having spent the past 24 hours binge-watching six episodes of the show, I’m slightly thrown by how dialled-down the real David and Georgia are compared with their on-screen personas. He’s far less wild-haired and neurotic in real life – perhaps in part because after a trip to the dental hygienist this morning, he’s not yet been allowed his coffee – and she’s just as beautiful, with the same poise she maintains throughout Staged, but more amused than exasperated, today, by her man.

‘This wasn’t our first project together,’ David reminds me when I ask whether working on the show together over three years didn’t tip this perfect partnership over the edge. ‘After all, Georgia and I did meet on set.’

It’s true that it was while he was playing the Tenth Doctor in 2008 that he met his future wife, who was cast as his genetically engineered daughter in the BBC show. Does Georgia still get endless joy from that? ‘Oh, I’ve had 15 years of joy from that,’ she flings back. ‘Of course, I was already 900 years old at the time,’ David deadpans.

After the Doctor Who years, the pair went on to co-star in the 2017 film, You, Me and Him, which Georgia also produced. Still, when it came to filming Staged, he got ‘incredibly nervous’, he admits. ‘I think we were quite anxious about what that would… do, weren’t we?’

His wife murmurs her agreement, although like her Staged character she seems serene and in control and it’s easy to imagine her talking David down from various ledges in daily life.

For all their harmony, they seem quite different. Certainly, they come from different backgrounds. As the daughter of actors Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson, Georgia was born into the profession, making her debut at 15 in ITV’s Peak Practice, before going on to appear in shows such as Where the Heart Is, Like Father Like Son and The Last Detective.

Bathgate-born David, meanwhile, is the son of a Presbyterian church minister, who attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and established himself with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre early on. After winning the game-changing role of Doctor Who at 34, he has continued to demonstrate his versatility as an actor, flitting from hard-hitting TV dramas like Des in 2020 (playing serial killer Dennis Nilsen) and Litvinenko in 2022 (as the former Russian spy) to playing a demon in Amazon’s ongoing fantasy series Good Omens. Then there’s his stage work: the recent West End play Good, in which he played a professor drawn into Nazism, and a forthcoming stint as Macbeth at London’s Donmar Warehouse in December.

Despite his success, the actor has suffered from acute anxiety ever since he was a boy, fretting about everything from ‘not being good enough’ and ‘being found out’ (as he told one interviewer in 2019) to the loss of anonymity he knew he’d experience back in 2005, when he was cast as a TV hero he’d idolised from the age of three. ‘Because with a show like Doctor Who,’ he tells me, ‘it’s on a different scale.’

As anyone who suffers from anxiety knows, the primary, all-consuming worry is that everything ‘probably will go wrong’ at any given moment. In 2018 something did go very wrong when Georgia was diagnosed with cervical cancer – something she shared in her blog, despite usually being a private person. ‘I thought it was easier than having to phone everyone and tell them,’ she explains today.

‘It was a very weird experience,’ muses David. ‘Because we found out the bad news after it had been dealt with, so we had the relief at the same time as the horror.’

Following an abnormal smear test result, Georgia had a biopsy and a cervical excision to remove the tissue causing concern. It was only after that procedure that test results showed the cells had been cancerous. David pauses, looking at his wife. ‘At least we were spared the prospect of living with, “You’ve got this, and can it be caught?” But I still have these flashbacks of “What if you hadn’t…?”’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t think I acknowledged at the time how serious it could have been.’

The couple were too busy ‘just dealing with each stage’, David goes on. ‘The slightly funky test and then going in and having the biopsy.’

‘But I did make you answer the phone, when we were waiting to hear [the results],’ Georgia cuts in. ‘I obviously knew there was going to be something, so David got the news first: that it was bad but that they’d got rid of it. And then he made me get on the phone so that I could hear it from the doctor myself, because he knew that was something I needed to do.’

Afterwards, ‘both of us were just numb,’ David murmurs. ‘It was such a Sliding Doors moment. Even a few months later it could have been too late.’

‘Which is why now,’ Georgia concludes wryly, ‘I’ll tell everyone with a cervix: go and get yourself checked.’

With the couple’s eldest son Ty now a successful actor – having starred in the TV series War of the Worlds and HBO’s House of the Dragon – and Olive, then 10, making her big-screen debut in Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning film Belfast, two years ago, I’m curious to know how they both feel about their brood following in their footsteps? ‘I just want them to be happy and to be able to survive in the world,’ Georgia says. ‘So if acting is what they want to do…’

It helps that the industry feels fairer now in almost every way, they believe, and we segue into a discussion about inclusivity and ‘real representation’ in acting – meaning, for example, that only LGBTQ actors should play LGBTQ roles. Until we’re all caught up, David maintains, ‘you have to protect those spaces for actors who come from those communities’.

It also helps that the industry is a safer place for women now than it was 10 years ago, says Georgia. ‘Because it

definitely is,’ she adds. ‘Things happened to me when I was younger that I now realise were not great, but at the time I thought it was all part of it – that I had to laugh them off. I’m talking about situations that made me feel uncomfortable,’ she explains. ‘Now I would be able to say so, but at the time the dialogue just wasn’t there. And I don’t think any of our kids would have to feel like that now. Even if they did, they would have the words and the people behind them to say: “that’s not OK”.’

David is currently filming the Disney+ series Rivals, based on Jilly Cooper’s famous bonkbuster, he tells me. ‘And there’s an “intimacy co-ordinator” on that because there’s quite a lot of shagging, so everyone’s being very appropriate and careful.’

But doesn’t it feel strange having your sex scenes ‘co-ordinated’? ‘Oh, it’s ludicrous.’ He grins. ‘Because it means you’re making the most intimate, private moments very compartmentalised and that there’s someone there asking the embarrassing questions nobody did historically – but that’s because you’re not doing these things with your actual partner. So that’s another thing that has got better over the years.’ He tilts his head to one side, narrows his eyes: ‘That said, there are still lots of reasons not to become an actor.’

This seems as good a place to end as any, and as the Tennants take me back through the garden to a side gate, Georgia tells her husband she’s ‘going for a manicure – and you have to come with me’. When I leave they’re still bickering gently, with David asking: ‘Why do I have to come?’ I don’t catch his wife’s reply, but I suspect it’s just because she really likes him.

#david tennant #georgia tennant #interview

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alexbkrieger13 · 14 days ago

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https://www.fotbollskanalen.se/sverige/kafaji-inte-varit-mina-basta-prestationer/

Kafaji isn't hyped in Swedish media. And she's well aware of her performance wasn't good enough these two matches. She may come across as cocky but that's her having self confidence and believing in her own abilities all the time (kinda like Pernille), which is great in comparison to Blackstenius who's a confidence player. It's not that she goes around thinking she's all that, that's a misconception. I find it refreshing she's not so damn Swedish in her mentality. To hell with the jante law!

Kafaji: "Not my best performances"

Sweden (Women)

GOTHENBURG. Rosa Kafaji played in both matches against Luxembourg. But the 21-year-old is not completely satisfied with his effort. - I didn't reach my highest level, she says to the Football Channel.

Rosa Kafaji had to start the match against Luxembourg. She also got playing time in the return match. But afterwards she was not completely satisfied with her efforts, even though Sweden won the doubles meet with a total of 12-0.

- I would say that it was fun to play, it was fun to start, but it hasn't been my best performance. I feel that I can do better and that I didn't reach my highest level, she tells Fotbollskanalen.

- But I still came in with confidence. Just go home to Arsenal, train and do better.

In Friday's away game against Luxembourg, Kafaji got the chance to start for the first time since February.

Is it a frustration not to get what you want when you get the chance? - Of course. You want to do so much at once, show everything. But I think that the more I start, the more I play, the better it will be, she says.

She develops the parts where there was more to be desired, according to herself.

- My creativity and my attacking play. We still scored a lot of goals now, but I would like to contribute with assists, good passes, maybe goals. I am of course super happy that we scored so many goals, that we got six points. But of course you also want to do well yourself.

Kafaji has been selected for the last six national team meetings. If she were to get the chance during the Serbia gathering, she knows what she wants to do.

- Then I want to take care of myself, come in with confidence and talk and communicate a lot.

#rosa kafaji #woso #swewnt #arsenal wfc

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discluded · 1 year ago

Note

Hey, same anon that talked about BOC distancing themselves from the LGBTQ+ community. My post wasn't meant to dampen the excitement of them doing new projects with a broader audience. Just saying BOC is shitty for what they're doing. They drop the LGBTQ+ community once they want the eyes & money of homophobes. I hope MileApo's Chinese project is amazing af because they deserve it (& if BL related, it's censored as little as possible).

Thanks for clarifying! Yes, I'm just... tired of BOC right now. To me, I'm happy to throw them away with any other company that practices rainbow capitalism until it's time to stir up my ire again. My main anguish was the impression that BOC had a tight stranglehold on MileApo's potential future success by creating this ceiling with their own incompetence and we're finally free of that concern.

About whether or not it'll be BL and Chinese censorship:

First of all, I'm going to say: I'm excited either way. I don't want their work to be confined to romance, which it sounds like Man Suang will not, and while it will be lovely that queer couples are treated the same way as straight couples (In that they just sort of appear in series as leads and the primary plot is the focus while them having a relationship is background/secondary like Mabel's second season personal plot line in Only Murders), I do understand that's not the media capacity in China.

Either way, we do know they played brothers for the lolz once and it was... um, uncomfortably sexually charged.

That being said, lol this insane drama is gonna come out in China supposedly:

youtube

RIP to you if you watch, you might need brain bleach after. I'm not even sure how something like this going to pass censorship review but 😵 I guess we're see.

As far as I'm aware, I saw discussion within danmei fandom that there was potentially some loosening of the censorship rules because apparently capitalism rules all, but I can't seem to find anything about that lately so who knows. I actually saw that TGCF's drama supposedly passed censorship review last year, but it's been almost a year now and no updates.

Finally, a word about LGBTQ censorship by the CCP -- I know not everyone here lives in America or the west (thank God) but I often see comments on Tumblr and Twitter to the effect that people living under governments with human rights abuses share the same beliefs as the government. While there is definitely manipulation of public sentiment through propaganda, please remember that places with such restrictions on human rights hurt the people living in their country first and foremost. (And yes anon, I know that is not what you're saying! just my rant!!!)

The behavior of the government does not reflect the sentiment of individual citizens who live in China ( who don't get to choose their government at all lol )

Article from Feb 2022 about public outrage about the lesbian plotline in Friends being censored

A September–October 2016 survey by the Varkey Foundation found that 54% of 18–21-year-olds supported same-sex marriage in China.[124]

An online opinion poll from Phoenix Network in December 2019, which garnered close to 10 million votes, showed a 67% majority in favor of same-sex marriage in China.[46]

Again, I known anon this is not what you meant or said at all, but if I see anyone in fandom saying racist ass shit about Chinese people, I'm going to start publicly calling them out because fandom is my fun safe space and I don't need people to bring racism into my life 😊🔪

Finally, about what MileApo committed to: a full version can always air on iQiyi internationally while a sad cut version airs domestically (I think what happened with La Forte). Queer storytelling that circumvents censorship to tell the stories of queer people to a wider audience even if maybe not the full version isn't bowing to censorship - it's showing the resilience of LGBTQ people in spite of the attempts to quash out our light.

#be on cloud #censorship #chinese censorship

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dark-night-star-light · 1 year ago

Text

Spirit Animals: Fire and Ice (Reread pt. 4)

DISCLAIMER: WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BOOKS ONE THROUGH SEVEN IN FIRST SERIES AND BOOKS ONE TO FOUR IN SECOND SERIES (AND VERY, VERY MINOR SPOILERS FOR BOOK FIVE IN THE SECOND SERIES).

Masterpost

Chapter 1

I remember Gerathon’s chapter only because of the excessive use of the word life, which is of course the point.

Also, is the youngish guy the same guy that freed her? I think so . . .

A lot of adjectives in this first chapter.

She killed a Niloan woman for no reason??? But the motive for Kovo and Geratthon was to stop the Wyrm??? I don’t really remember them doing anything else?

Chapter 2

“ . . . relentless pace through Zhong and now Northern Eura . . . ” (4). Wow, they didn’t even stop by Greenhaven.

“The Great Crocodile . . . ” (4). Didn’t Dinesh specifically say the crocodile wasn’t a Great Beast??? Plot hole???

“‘And I only tell you this story as a warning because, you know, you do have that unfortunate habit of licking lampposts’” (5). This book is the real beginning of Rollan and Meilin’s ~more than friends~ relationship.

“ . . . certain the girl had been disappointed in her spirit animal, as Meilin had been with her panda” (7). Didn’t Meilin begin to accept Jhi’s talents in the last book, though??? She’s regressed?

“‘ . . . there was any town between here and Arctica’” (8). I genuinely thought Samis was on Arctica. Did Suka swim across the ocean?

Ironic that Rollan stopped a robbery. (Yes, I know he has a code.)

MAYA TALKING TO HER SALAMANDER IS TOO ICONIC.

“‘I’m sorry, Rollan,’ said Meilin. ‘You probably think I’m bossy and pushy, and you could have handled him yourself, and I shouldn’t interfere all the time and-’” (14). This is so out of character for Meilin??? She doesn’t ramble like that???

“Meilin had never been so aware of the beating of her heart” (15). The Rollan-Meilin book.

Chapter 3

“Not forgotten or forgiven” (16). But??? They did??? They literally had a moment in the third book where they forgave him??? I thought this was over???

“ . . . Conor went on about sheep, the different breeds, asking in-depth questions about caribou eating and sleeping habits” (18). He’s so awkward . . . I imagine the caribou herders just staring at him like What is with this guy and sheep?

“‘Look,’ Meilin whispered. ‘The stones have names but not dates’” (21). I didn’t know Chinese people had tombstones, so I searched it up and apparently Chinese gravestones do have dates and other inscriptions. Guess you learn something new everyday.

THE FOUR! SWAPPING SONGS!

“‘Could you perhaps explain the “other end” bit? I find it confusing’” (22). I love how, despite the fact that they speak so formally, they show how they are really just eleven/twelve-year-olds with potty humor.

“‘The emperor’s daughter had such toys . . . ’” (23). Song and Meilin were confirmed to have met as far back as the fourth book???

“Briggan sniffed the air and sneezed” (23). I love how they managed to make that sound ominous.

Chapter 4

“Abeke thought it was unforgivably stupid of these villagers to risk their children by refusing to allow a Greencloak in the village” (25). Just in the last book we were introduced to the rhino riders, who never bonded to spirit animals??? How come Abeke didn’t feel weird about them?

“Something in Abeke warned that she shouldn’t be quite so trusting, but she just didn’t believe bright smiles could hide dark hearts” (26). I talked in my very first post about how Abeke and Rollan had opposite character developments. This is a perfect example. In Hunted, Rollan mentions he doesn’t trust people that smiled brightly, because smiles could hide wicked thoughts. Here, Abeke has the opposite philosophy.

Abeke and Rollan have opposite philosophies when it comes to respecting elders as well . . .

ABEKE AND ROLLAN FOILS???

Why did it take me so long to realize . . . they are literally foils . . .

“Now she allowed herself to soak in that title, to feel community with the water before her . . . ” (29). It’s still strange how Uraza’s appearance makes Abeke a Rain Dancer. Leopards don’t have anything to do with water, and Uraza even hates ships and water, so how???

I like that each of the four played a part in figuring out Pia’s lie. It really cements the theme of teamwork.

“He surprised her by meeting her halfway, his arms open” (35). Shane’s so manipulative, he’s the perfect example of a toxic friendship.

“‘Touch Abeke again and I’ll knock you flat on your stink-stained Conqueror behind!’” (35). I love how you can tell this line was said by Conor because of the awkwardness of the words. It’s not, like, smooth like Rollan? I’m not doing a very good job of explaining this-

“The panda sat calmly behind her, investigating the grass, looking entirely unthreatening, but Meilin smiled, lifted her fists . . . ” (36). Not even thirty pages ago, Meilin was complaining about how useless Jhi was? Meilin’s opinion of Jhi is so inconsistent in this book already.

“‘You imagined punching [Shane’s] face in over and over again.’ ‘Pretty much,’ said Conor” (38). Where exactly is Conor’s hatred for Shane coming from? I know that he’s a Conqueror and whatnot, but Conor’s anger seems almost . . . targeted toward him in particular? Like they’ve also seen Tahlia and Ana, but Conor’s anger doesn’t seem to be as much for them as it does for Shane. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t like that Abeke still trusts him?

“‘[Shane] almost always keeps his spirit animal in passive state when he meets us’” (38). When have they ever met before this??? In the first book, they met during battle. “Shane’s” wolverine was out. Second book, Shane wasn’t even there. Third book, they meet during battle again? They have never met in a peaceful way before? Another plot hole?

“‘He. Is. The. Enemy’” (38). She’s . . . not wrong.

“Abeke began to question the sincerity of the smile” (40). Development.

Chapter 5

“‘I had no father, no family besides a mother who lived with a bottle in her hand . . . ’” (45). Aidana’s mother was an alcoholic???

“He thumbed a clash of old scars on his wrist and wondered if Wikerus had caused those as well” (47). Would’ve been cool if these scars had been mentioned before now as foreshadowing. Like if Rollan had a habit of tracing over them while he was worried or something, while he mentioned that he had no memory of how he had gotten them.

Aidana genuinely thought Rollan had grown up with a nice family? Huh . . .

“Something in her face made him think she was about to lie to him” (51). Rollan literally sniffed out the fake compass before she even gave it to him or mentioned it???

Oof, Rollan was literally so close to finding out Pia’s lie.

Rollan hugging his mom and Abeke hugging Shane parallels? More fodder for the foil theory.

Chapter 6

“The idea of a family - his own family, his mother - was a greater draw than any talisman in the world” (57). This is pretty much the equivalent of Rollan admitting he would do what Conor did at the end of Hunted, isn’t it? He values his mother over a talisman. Conor valued his family over a talisman, and Rollan judged him over it.

Oop, it was in fact foreshadowing: Rollan apologizes to Conor the very next paragraph.

“‘And that sheep joke you tell to everyone new we meet . . . ’” (57). I wonder if Conor told the sheep joke to the caribou herders.

“Certainly [the spy] wasn’t Rollan himself” (59). This feels like foreshadowing . . . the use of the words “certainly” and “himself”.

“ . . . only a narrow channel of the sea separated Eura from Arctica” (59). That’s not what it looks like on the map??? This is the second time the map has seemed inaccurate.

I’ll bet anyone that the creature that just tried to capsize the boat was a- *lowers voice* -walrus.

Huh, only Marked people can live up North? That’s a detail I don’t remember.

THEM THINKING A REGULAR POLAR BEAR WAS SUKA, I CAN’T-

“He turned, feeling surprisingly hurt . . . ” (66) and “He tended to keep Meilin in the corner of his eye a lot lately” (67). *obnoxiously* Ooooooooh.

Aw, Rollan-Essix brother-sister relationship! (Though that is somewhat creepy.)

With the way the four are describing food, they honestly could be writers.

“This was not a street crew, ready to abandon him at the first sign of trouble” (73). This book is very much a Rollan book, just like Hunted was a Conor book.

“Essix stayed on his shoulder for the rest of the day” (74). SLAY.

Rollan witnesses Aurora Borealis!

Chapter 7

“To Abeke, family meant a father and a sister who lived in the same house, ate with her, scolded her, wished her different” (77). Abeke’s clearly unreciprocated love for her family is so sob-worthy.

“In one way, a boy her own age was rubbing her foot and that made her want to dig a hole to crawl in and die” (78). Not one page ago, Abeke referred to Conor as like a ��brother”.

Also, I still believe in Conor-Abeke queerplatonic supremacy.

“‘What camp? How?’ Rollan said. ‘We’re on the side of an ice mountain!’ Tarik handed him what looked like a nail used to build a house for a giant” (79). I think Conor should have been the one to suggest this, just like he was the one to suggest doing something similar during the first book.

“‘Rollan, use the Slate Elephant!’ . . . ‘It’s in my pack’” (81). That seems incredibly stupid, when you consider that during a crevasse fall, Meilin lost her pack. They could easily lose the talisman. Instead they should do what Abeke did in Blood Ties and knot it tightly around their necks.

I didn’t realize how treacherous the icy cliffs and crevasses were during my first read-through. It does make the compass reveal even more excruciating.

Chapter 8

Conor has the energy to sing a whole-ass song while he’s literally starving and freezing? Respect.

“And the morning they ate the last rations of food, someone began to cry” (87). This is actually so heartbreaking.

It’s funny how fast Conor thinks of the fox as food, then as a destination.

“So the four of them followed the hunters . . . ” (91). Four? Seems like a mistake. There should be six.

“‘Mine could take yours,’ Abeke whispered. ‘No way. Dog beats cat,’ said Conor” (91). Good to see them acting their age again.

“It might have sounded to her like he hated the task, but he really just didn’t want her to get frostbite again. He cringed behind his fur collar and waited” (92). Awkward Conor superiority.

“ . . . the violence of the hunting bothered him” (93). Didn’t he kill sheep as a shepherd, though?

LMFAO the seal-eating woman’s seal spirit animal.

Okay, so only four of them went? Meilin and Maya stayed back? Why?

Tarik singing about the seal brains makes me wonder if this is the first time that the authors had thought about a second series. We’ve already had two references to events that take place in the second series, which are Meilin’s reference to Song, and Tarik’s songs. Both appear in this book, which makes me think that the authors were hammering out their final plan for the second series while writing this book.

Chapter 9

This book definitely has longer chapters than the others.

Abeke using her wits to find the location of the hidden Ice City based on the location of the villages is honestly so cool of her.

“Besides, it would feel really great to be a hero for once, to run back to camp and let everyone know she’d found Suka!” (101). I usually hate characters that try to be the hero and take on a bigger burden than they can handle when no prior experience shows that they have any skill to back up their cockiness. But Abeke’s ability to find the location of the Ice City is test enough, so I feel this is an okay action.

“Abeke let the corner of her mouth rise a little. Meilin’s smile twitched in response” (103). Abeke and Meilin bonding without even a word is actually so slay of them.

The frozen city has frozen people??? I don’t remember this-

Chapter 10

“She believed in their mission” (113). Meilin has gone through so much development already. At the beginning she didn’t believe in the talisman hunt at all.

“‘I’ll carry your pack for three days if you lick it.’ ‘Boys,’ Meilin muttered” (114). Hey, that’s actually a solid deal. Also Rollan and Conor's relationship! Mended! Also also, they’re acting their age again!

Chapter 11

Great Beast Essix! Slay!

“Essix’s talons seized him again, this time by the coat on his shoulders” (120). Why doesn’t Essix just toss Rollan onto her back? That’s so much more stable and leaves her with two free talons.

“‘Jhi’s a panda!’ Meilin yelled. ‘A panda bear! . . . ’” (123). Honestly, the logic fits the age group.

“They ran in lockstep, side by side the whole way, her hand in his” (125). Awwwwwww.

Chapter 12

“My father’s death weakened me, she thought vaguely” (126). Not according to Abeke: “ . . . since her father’s death, Meilin seemed to be pure, quivering energy” (106).

Jhi-Suka bear bonding!

“‘When a healer joins a war, all should take notice . . . ’” (129). So true.

“‘We Great Beasts have a stewardship over Erdas . . . ’” (131). So Great Beasts are supposed to protect Erdas, not just be godlike figures? I badly want a fic of the Four Fallen returning to their original states and talking about their time being bonded to humans.

Meilin had a panda stuffed animal??? Why? First book Meilin seems like she’d have a tiger or ox stuffed animal instead?

“But when Rollan said ‘us,’ she heard ‘you and me’” (134). Rollan and Meilin are going strong without even being official.

“She bowed to him . . . ” (134). Something, something, this is symbolism for how Meilin sees Rollan as an equal instead of as underneath her now, something, something.

Chapter 13

ROLLAN THOUGHT A WALRUS WAS A DOG . . . *sounds of laughter* *sounds of choking* *sounds of heavy breathing*

“‘And how are we going to get supplies for our journey out of here?’” (139). I was literally thinking the same thing.

“‘If you two are done playing kissy-face’” (141). Real. Also, I imagine an eyebrow wiggle to accompany the statement.

Chapter 14

Chapters are getting shorter again.

“Maya flushed. ‘Thank you, but to me, what you do, what all of you do, is magic’” (142). I lowkey forgot Maya existed up until this point? Is that bad? She doesn’t contribute too much to conversations and I only remembered she existed during the fight with Suka.

This last minute attempt to build a connection with Maya feels like the writer is intentionally trying to prepare us for what happens to her next. I think a better way to execute this would’ve been to have Maya joke with them here and there during their journey, maybe save their lives a couple times and think of some ideas to get them out of tough situations as the four did. Spread out through the book, it would’ve felt more natural and emotional when Maya’s injuries take place. But it feels rushed trying to build a practically brand-new relationship just before the climax.

“‘I never really get too cold anymore . . . ’” (143). An example of this is how we’re just finding out more about Maya’s powers more than 80% into the book.

I wonder if Meilin could’ve sleepwalked out of the Great Bamboo Maze. Gerathon wouldn’t’ve let her spy die, would she? It would’ve been interesting, except for the fact that Gerathon probably had no idea how to navigate the maze, either.

“‘ . . . the sun rises everywhere on Erdas . . . ’” (145). Conor has two kinds of lines: awkward lines and banger lines.

CONOR’S DREAM. HA.

Chapter 15

“ . . . for fear of losing a finger to the thing’s inevitable teeth” (149). LOL. This book is definitely a relationship building one. There are so many silly scenes, like the otter attack and Conor’s dream.

“‘I’m sorry to take your life, friend. My . . . my family here needs your meat to survive. I took a shot I knew was true and would give the least amount of pain. Thank you; in your death you have saved our lives’” (152). THE PARALLELS. The parallels to first book-first chapter Abeke.

Huh. They successfully get off Arctica and make it to Northern Eura??? I don’t remember that . . .

“‘This is a bad idea,’ Conor growled. ‘That guy is a weasel’” (156). He’s not wrong . . . Shane is ridiculously manipulative.

“‘I want to punch that guy in the face’” (156). This is the second time Conor has expressed a specific desire to punch Shane in the face. I think he should go for it. It would be pretty satisfying. (Yes, Shane is still my favorite character, but I do think Conor deserves a chance to punch him in the face.)

“‘We will return Uraza, after we have cut her from the Niloan’s flesh. Perhaps the Greencloaks can bind the wound and make the union fresh, if you are quick about it’” (158). This is possible??? Also this talk of breaking and reunifying Abeke and Uraza . . . seems like foreshadowing. This is the third reference we’ve had to possible events in the second series.

“ . . . [Conor] rammed his shoulder into Shane’s middle, knocking him away from Abeke” (158). It’s not a punch in the face, but I guess it’ll do.

Rollan accidentally possibly killing Tahlia’s frog is hilarious. Like he didn’t even mean to, he just stepped on it and it went splat.

Chapter 16

“Shane had promised he could get the Conquerors to leave in peace if they traded him the Crystal Polar Bear for the Iron Boar” (161). It’s still unclear whether Shane truly meant to do this. Did he send Ana and Tahlia to receive the talisman to distract them? Was he actually holding Abeke’s arm to cut Uraza out of her? He did yell “Wait!” but it was unclear which side he was talking to. I don’t think Shane would’ve willingly hurt Abeke . . .

“‘Are you okay? You’re bleeding,’ he said, pointing to her right temple with a finger that looked like it had been bitten by a crocodile” (162). Realistically, I know Shane would never release his thirty-foot long crocodile in an open battle like this . . . but that seems to be what this is hinting at?

It’s unclear to me whether Shane is trying to stop the arrows . . . or giving the order to shoot them. Obviously, Abeke thinks he’s trying to stop them, but she sees him as good and pure, always.

“A great maned lion pounced” (165). So with Bile, you can bond to animals the same species as a Great Beast?

“The Zhongian . . . ” (166). The Zhonigan??? Thought it was Zhongese? Is this a typo?

“‘Louder!’ Tahlia spat” (166). Does Tahlia enjoy war or something?

“‘STOP IT!’ the voice shrieked . . . ” (168). I’m pretty sure it’s Maya, but I’m not sure?

Chapter 17

“‘FORM UP!’ [Shane] shouted” (171). So it is possible that Shane was giving orders to shoot arrows, not trying to stop them? (Still not sure, though.)

“‘Someone in your party told the Devourer you had Suka’s talisman and where you would cross back into Eura . . . ’” (172). She referred to the Devourer as the Devourer, not the Reptile King. Does that mean she left the Conquerors?

“‘Not with Shane, not with the Greencloaks, let’s just go somewhere and be a family . . . ’” (172). So she did leave the Conquerors. I wonder what she saw to make her leave?

Wow, Rollan actually goes with her? He actually abandons his friends for a hot minute?

I forgot Gerathon’s control turned the controlled’s eyes yellow.

Aidana asks Rollan to kill her??? I don’t remember this in the slightest.

The way the whole section after Aidana is written makes it so obvious Rollan is in shock. The style changes??? I don’t know how to describe it but it was great.

I kind of want a single Tarik perspective chapter. Just one.

Rollan and Meilin are kind of foils, too, in how they dealt with loss. Rollan just shut down, while Meilin let it fuel her.

Passive state Essix . . . yayyyyy . . .

Final thoughts and rating:

I think this is the best book yet. It’s definitely a relationship-building book, which are set up so perfectly to be torn apart in the next book with the knowledge that someone is working against them. Set in the middle, it’s also a turning point for the direction of the series. Rollan’s relationship to his mom being explored and almost convincing him to abandon the Greencloaks was a good choice, showing that everyone has a weak spot. The Bile’s healing power and consequences being revealed in the same book was also a good choice. The way the trek through Arctica is written to be this long, impossible, treacherous nightmare felt like it enhanced the story and the betrayal that came with it. Rollan’s shock after almost getting killed by his mother was written so well. Conor’s hatred for Shane almost reads like jealousy? I don’t know how else to describe it. He seems to hate Shane more than the other Conquerors and appears to want him dead more than the others. The kids acting their age was also a nice touch, which I enjoyed a lot.

I thought Maya was a good addition, but the way they used her was a waste, in my opinion. As I mentioned, I think it would’ve been better to have her try to form a bond with the team over several small moments rather than one long conversation with just Abeke right before the climax. That was definitely a cop-out and I didn’t like the way it was done. Meilin’s thoughts about Jhi are wildly inconsistent and feel manufactured, almost? I’d also thought that Rollan had forgiven Conor during Blood Ties when the four had their moment, but apparently they decided to scrap that for a whole other plotline, which was . . . questionable, in my opinion.

Rating: 9/10

P. S. Rollan and Abeke foils may be something I explore in a later post.

P. P. S. I think I'm getting better at this! Personally, I think I see an improvement in quality between my Blood Ties reread and this one.

#draeyem rereads spirit animals #fire and ice #spirit animals series #spirit animals books #spirit animals #spirit animals thoughts

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