#you have my heart you are the only sane person in your bracket

[runningheadless]

Im sorry i keep reblogging that poll so much. Its like sports. To me.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, hi

I choose to ask you this because you’re one of the most sane voices here. I got into BTS and KPop very recently (2022 Dec) and was consuming all kinds of available content (Run BTS, fancams, concert videos, shipper narratives) and fell in love with Jungkook and Jimin. You can say I am double bias.

From what I saw in the content I consumed, both JK and JM are very popular but JM was more popular (Idols bible, face of Kpop being some titles given to him). But then, I started seeing him diminish around dynamite era? And I have lurked on few blogs here who think the same. They think that the company forced Jimin to step back.

After what I’ve seen happen to Jimin during and post Face release, I am inclined to believe that the company actually never wanted him but only retained him because they also could see his power. Now that BTS are the best boy band in the world, Jimin doesn’t really matter and it breaks my heart so much to see that. I am Happy for Jungkook getting all these opportunities but it leaves such a sour taste in the mouth because everything evil that was hurled at Jimin is kind of what could apply to JK (I’m really not saying he should be targeted, I love Jungkook. but his fans literally collaborated with pinks to hate on Jimin).

Sorry, this is turning into a long ask/vent post. I have no hope that Jimins second album will get any kind of support and he will still get as much hate and it makes me wish he wasn’t a part of BTS, a group I got to love.

***

Sigh Anon,

You say you're a new fan so I'll skip most of what I want to say and be extra brief. I'll ask you three questions.

Did you know that until very recently, many people in the fandom, solos and not, were absolutely convinced PDogg had it out for Jimin? Yeah, P - "Park Jimin will end k-pop in 2023" - Dogg. They somehow reached the conclusion that BTS's main producer secretly hated Jimin and sabotaged him with hard-to-sing lines or hatefully prevented Jimin from singing at all. You'd often see them cite PDogg refusing Yoongi's offer of gifting People to Jimin for him to sing as a solo track. I've lost count of how many PJMs hated PDogg's guts based on those theories who are now singing PDogg's praises (though a faction still hate him for the autotune use, because we know Jimin had absolutely no say in the creative process and it certainly wasn't his idea, based on his interviews /s). I wonder what you think about that fan theory now and if that tells you anything about how fan theories are made.

With the little you've seen and know of Jimin so far, do you think he would sign up (a second time) for a work situation and relationship which is hostile to his growth as an artist and as a person? You say you've been following the FACE promotions so I wonder if you've watched all Jimin's interviews where he talks about the process and how the company/producers got involved.

Are you old enough to work in a corporate setting? Because even watching BTS's official content might not be enough for some people to get the full picture if they have little understanding of what healthy team dynamics look like in a work relationship to begin with. I think it's unlikely you're in this bracket of people Anon, but I'm asking just in case because most of the questions, theories, or concerns about mistreatment and favouritism in BTS can be dismissed just on the knowledge of how teams work. This ask I responded to on the 2022 Festa Dinner shows as much.

Feeling discontent with Jimin’s roll-out is totally valid. But it’s also possible you’ve found your way into the fandom spaces that traffic in mistreatment theories for the members you bias, typically solo stan and manti spaces, that new fans tend to fall into. I suggest you spend more time listening to Jimin, not his stans and not me. (But if you have follow-up questions I’ll try to answer.)

Goodluck.

[hasspartacusdoneanythingwrong]

The Flame-Soaked City, Part 5

With CasCu joining them, the master triad and co. head deeper into the heart of the Fuyuki singularity. What will they uncover as they approach the source of the altered history? (I mean if you play FGO you probably know this already, but hush. We’re hyping up the mystery here!)

TW: implied body horror, villain that would hurt a child, Lev Lainur

If it’s between <triangle brackets>, that’s a mental note between masters, and if it’s between {whatever these are} it’s the viewpoint character.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

{Jeanne}

With the arrival of the new caster, we not only gained a powerful ally, but knowledge about this singularity. What started as a Holy Grail War quickly became a fight for survival as the Saber converted the other servants to her side somehow.

Spartacus was very happy to find out there was a "tyrant" taking control of the situation. If it means he will actually help us from here on out we won't fight it. The best news however is that our caster friend knows healing magic! We're so close to being able to see again!

Kat: <Hey Jeanne, why are you saying all that stuff that just happened?>

Jeanne: <Because Cris never pays attention, and we don't need them getting lost next time they front.>

Cris: <Oh come on, I'm not that bad!>

Jeanne: <Really? What is Caster's name?>

Cris: <So you were saying about our eyes getting healed?>

Cu: Alright, we're all set little lady! Let's see what we can do about those eyes of yours.

Romani: Your vitals are good on our end, Hannah. We'll probably have to do this again when you get back, but the less time spent wandering in the dark the better.

Cu: I don't need you to tell me my magic works, mage.

Marie: Go ahead with the procedure, Caster.

The runes surrounding us lit up, infusing with mana as.... nothing happened.

Cris: Oh, you have got to be shitting me.

Cu: It's quite alright, you're not the first maiden to be taken aback by my-

Cris: No jackass, I still can't see anything!

Mash: But the spell worked, senpai! Your eyes look perfectly healthy!

Cu: You wouldn't happen to be cursed, would you?

Romani: It's more likely one of two things. Either we need to heal Hannah in the present, or the problem is psychosomatic. Either way, it's not a problem we can solve now.

Jeanne: That's unfortunate, but at least we're not any worse off for trying. It gave us plenty of time for a break, at least. We should get moving towards- As we stood up to move, our foot caught a rock in the worst way, and we took a spill.

--- {Cris}

Cris: Agh, motherfuck... er...

Holy shit, I can see again! God, blasted hellscape never looked so good. Wow Mash does not look comfortable in that armor. And that old guy in blue must be caster.

Cris: Wait, were you flirting with me? You're like 40, what the hell?

Mash: This is wonderful! Thank goodness!

Marie: We might just have a chance now.

Jeanne: <Maybe switching reset something?>

Kat: <That doesn't make any sense.>

Jeanne: <I know, I am just spitballing here.>

Cu: It's a step in the right direction, but her eyesight is clearly off. I'm still plenty young.

Cris: We can argue on the way. <Jeanne, you remember which way we need to go, right?>

Jeanne: <Leave it to me. We should travel much faster now.>

---- {Jeanne}

And with that switch, we are back in darkness.

Jeanne: That is less than ideal.

Marie: What happened now?

Jeanne: Hold on, I need to test something. <Kat, do you mind?>

--- {Kat}

We can see! Everybody's starting to look a little freaked out.

Kat: <Wow, those hassans really aren't wearing much, huh? They're pretty!>

Cris: <That's enough ogling, I'm turning this body around.>

--- {Cris}

Jesus, why the hell was Spartacus standing right behind us?

Cris: <Jeanne, why are you blushing? ...God, I can't take you two anywhere.> I pull us away from the big lug and back towards the sane part of the party.

Cris: Okay, tests done. The good news is I can see. Mostly. The bad news is that while we mostly have control over when it occurs, we might go blind at random, or if I get like, surprised or highly emotional.

Marie: And how, exactly, did you figure all that out by gawking at your servants?

Kat: Intuition.

Romani: You'll have to deal with it for now. After we get you back here we can work on a more permanent solution.

After we got on the road things went pretty smooth. The skeletons were pretty much a joke now that we could see them coming, and Caster even found time to teach Mash some new tricks. We barely managed to keep Spartacus from picking a fight with that berserker that's running around. Kat chatted with Saber and the assassins (I kinda zoned out for that tbh) and eventually we reached our destination. We hadn't even entered the cave yet, and already we could feel the raw energy pouring out of the thing.

Mash: Senpai, look out!

Mash threw herself in front of us as a sword, twisted, almost to the point of being unrecognizable, embedded itself in Mash's shield.

???: Sorry, but that's as close as you'll be getting to Excalibur.

Cris: What the hell?

Cu: I was wondering when you'd show up, Archer. I see you're still Saber's faithful knight, as always.

Archer: I don't know anything about that. All I'm sure of is there's an old pain showing up again.

Cu: You lot run on ahead. I've got some personal business to take care of.

Spartacus: Let him deal with the gatekeeper, we must strike at the heart of this tyranny!

Cris: Wait wha-

Spartacus grabbed us like a sack of potatos and ran into the cave. As we were getting dragged along, the opening salvos of their duel lit up the entrance behind us.

Jeanne: Assassin! Keep a couple personas near the entrance, and let us know if we'll have to deal with Archer.

Most of the remaining Hassans peeled off from the main group. Mash and the other servants were able to easily keep up with us, though Marie had to be carried on one of the larger hassan's shoulders.

Finally our bumpy ride ended in the opening of a large room. In its center stood a crater, with a massive beam of coalescing energy running from the floor to the ceiling.

Marie: The greater grail... what's that doing in Japan?

Spartacus: Face your end, oppressor! We have come to finish your reign of-

Before he could finish his sentence, a beam of energy burst forth from near the crater. It sucked the light out of whatever it touched, and when the dust settled, less than half of Spartacus' torso fell to the ground. I took a step closer to Mash.

Saber Alter: I have no patience for fools.

A servant clad in black platemail calmly strode forth, her sword still crackling with energy. With the veins on her armor pulsating, the entire thing almost seemed alive.

Saber Alter: You there, girls. You both have an interesting noble phantasm. I would like to test them.

With no other fanfare, she rocketed forwards, and her sword met Mash's shield. Mash and Saber Lily settled into their routine again, but Mash's training was already paying off. The older saber clearly wasn't used to fights against someone who could block her sword, and Mash took advantage of that to force openings for Lily to strike.

Alter was clearly going to lose, so she disengaged and fired off another beam from her noble phantasm. Mash responded in kind, and the black energy dissipated against the shield of light.

However, Alter expected this. and was simply using the beam as cover to get in closer again. Mash never saw the kick to her side coming, and she was easily sent flying, leaving Saber Lily alone with the experienced swordswoman.

It should have been a bloodbath. It was definitely one-sided, but for some reason Alter was holding back. Lily was mercilessly beaten down to the ground, but there was the slightest bit of hesitation that grew with each attack.

Kat: <Hey Jeanne? Do the scanny thing. Trust me.>

--- {Jeanne}

Jeanne: <Okay? I don't know what you- oh.>

We could no longer see the action, but we could still feel their spirit origins. Alter's was twisted by several things, much like the shadow servants we faced up to this point, but at her core, one thing was obvious. The saber lying on the ground and the saber standing over her were the same person.

Kat: <You guys seriously didn't notice they have the same face?>

Alter: It is useless, child. I am inevitable. I am what it means to be king.

Lily: Even if that's true... even if I'll be like you one day... I'm not you now, and I won't stop fighting you here!

Lily struggled to her feet, and focused all she had left into one final attack.

Lily: Sword of Selection, grant me your power!

Alter: Vortigern, Hammer of the Vile King reverse the rising sun.

Lily: Cleave the wicked! Caliburn!

Alter: Swallow the light, Excalibur Morgan!

The energy of their swords clashed, light and dark twisting around each other before it was all unleashed in an explosion that shook the cave.

--- {Cris}

Both sabers landed heavily. Alter lands in a heap near Spartacus' body, armor cracked from the impact. On the opposite side, Lily lays still, her spirit origin already starting to come apart. Alter pulls herself to her feet.

Alter: I will make this quick.

Before she can take a step, however, a large hand grabs her foot. Spartacus' body hasn't reformed enough to move yet, but he's alive, and that's enough.

Spartacus: HAHAHAHA! Come oppressor! Break your sword against my love!

Cris: Fuck yeah! I totally knew he was okay.

Jeanne: <Are any of us good at lying?>

To her credit, she damn near tried to do exactly what he said. Saber Alter launched blow after blow into the arm hold her in place. Each swing of her sword pulling energy from the greater grail and forcing it directly into Spartacus. We took this chance to run over to Lily. Mash had finally pulled herself from the wall she got launched into and was already there.

Mash: Senpai, your orders!

Cris: Just get your shield up and be ready!

Finally, Spartacus' body had enough. The energy stored within it writhed and began to break through, covering the cave in a bright purple light. Spartacus himself never stopped laughing the entire time.

Alter, and everything else that wasn't behind Mash's shield, was devastated by the explosion. When the dust settled, Spartacus was alone, collapsed on the ground, still smiling. ---- {Kat}

Kat: Lily? Lily it's over, you did it!

Lily barely stirred, her spirit origin was falling apart.

Lily: You were right, Master... Our journey was a lot shorter than I thought.

Kat: No! No, no, just hang in there. We can go get Cu, and he can... do something, I don't know!

Lily: I know this wasn't the best place to meet, but it was fun, right?

And then she turned to dust in our hands.

----- {Cris}

Kat was completely inconsolable, so I had to take over to keep things stable.

Marie: That was unorthodox, but well done. I guess even a third-rate mage can produce first rate work when pushed. Several points are still unclear, but we can call this mission a success.

Marie: If it is any consolation, now that Saber Lily has been recorded by Chaldeas, you should have an easier time resummoning her. She won't have any memory of this place, but that'll be true of any servant you summon in Chaldea.

???: Well, well, well. I did not expect you to get this far, Master of Chaldea. You've performed well beyond our expectations. And survived beyond the limits of my patience.

The voice came from everywhere at once, a cacophony that could barely be called speaking.

Cris: <Jeanne?>

Jeanne: <I'm on it!>

--- {Jeanne}

Suddenly, it appeared, standing over the remnants Alter left behind.

Jeanne: <what is that. what is that. what is that what is that>

Kat: <Jeanne?>

Jeanne: <what is that what the fuck is that What The Fuck Is That What. Is. That.>

---- {Kat}

It was Lev. We couldn't hear what he was saying over Jeanne's... whatever was happening to her. Mash put herself between us. Marie ran straight for him. Then hellfire opened beneath her feet. Olga's voice cut through.

Marie: No! Stop! I haven't even accomplished anything yet! From the moment I was born, I've never been accepted by anyone!

And she was gone. Jeanne finally calmed down.

Lev: You fool, Romani! You haven't figured it out yet? The future isn't "missing". It's been incinerated. It, and everything else outside of Chaldeas' protection. You lost the grace of our king, and this is the natural result.

The ground beneath us began to rumble.

Lev: Ah, the singularity is collapsing already. Farewell, Romani, Mash, Candidate #48. I have many places to be.

He was gone.

Mash: Doctor, perform an emergency rayshift, now!

Romani: This will be close, I might only be able to pull one of you out.

Mash: Senpai!

Jeanne: Mash!

Romani: You're not helping!

Mash and I joined hands. The world fell apart, and everything went black.

{Cris} We came to with a start, on the floor of the command center. Already some of the hassans were leading a cleanup effort to make the place more presentable. Mash is still alive, thank God, and Romani's also here.

Romani: Good, you're awake. I'm sorry to dump so much on you already, but time is of the essence. Are you alright with a briefing right now?

Cris: I mean it's not like I'm going to feel better any time soon, let's rip the bandaid off.

Romani: The main topic: Lev was right. Human history has been incinerated. Almost no space nor time on earth has been spared, culminating in the end of time at the end of 2018. The few points that still exist are these:

With that, Chaldeas lit up with seven bright points, each one with data pouring out of it.

Romani: These seven singularities are turning points in history that have been altered to change humanity's present. Chaldea is protected from this effect for now, but that protection won't last forever. Here's what we need to do: We need to fix these singularities if we're to have any hope of saving humanity. You are our only master, and the servants you've summoned are our best bet. I know you don't have much of a choice here, but I have to ask: are you willing to do this?

Cris: Of course.

Kat: <We will.>

Jeanne: <For Marie.>

Romani: Excellent. Well then! Our object is to protect and recover human history. Our opponent is history itself. To challenge our fate is an act of blasphemy against the past itself, but this is our only chance of survival. This is now the highest and only priority of humanity: a Grand Order.

Cris: Well, Spartacus? How's that sound? A rebellion against fate itself? Spartacus simply grinned, but for the first time it seemed almost genuine.

[mackwritess]

Westwood Road

Word count: 3k+

Summary: It’s your average high school romance. The boy meets a girl who accepts him despite his hidden secret, and in turn he changes her. But what happens when she’s got her own little secret?

A/N: Hi! This story represents a lot of milestones for me as this is both my first commission and my first attempt at romance! I hope you like it!

He’s running late. It’s a character flaw of his, really. A problem he’s never been able to correct, no matter how many alarms he set to go off in time. This time though, it isn’t just some unimportant thing he’s late for, oh no.

Today, he’s meeting her parents.

He takes a sharp turn down her street, the street people normally avoid. He doesn’t have time to think about the warnings he’s gotten about this old gravel road. He has somewhere to be.

He finally decides to slow down a bit in order to ensure he doesn’t pass up his destination by mistake. Slowing down to what feels like a snail’s pace, he pays close attention to each disheveled home he passes by, looking out for the house that was described to him.

Luckily, he didn’t have to look particularly hard, as she was standing outside the very place he was looking for, waiting for him to arrive.

He slows his vehicle to a stop and jumps out immediately, trying to make up every second he may have lost. Running over to where she stands, he tries to rush out an apology, explaining his situation. Instead of lashing out as he fears, she offers him a serene, almost eerie, smile. She assures him he’s right on time, and takes his hand to lead him inside.

~

How they met was something straight out of a romantic comedy.

He was running late, of course, to a special event at his local video game store. He insists it’s not his fault this time, really, it’s not. He’s got a reputation to uphold, he can’t be caught hanging out with a bunch of people who’ve never even been to prom without a group of friends rather than a date, he rationalizes. He’s ducking around corners and hiding behind telephone poles in a borderline cartoonish manner, hoping he won’t run into someone from school, specifically anyone he’s on a team with.

After finally arriving at the store, he can finally drop his elaborate manner of movement, certain that he’ll run into no trouble here. Upon arrival, he spots the table set up for the event he’s attending, already surrounded by others who are there for the same reason he is. He scans the scene quickly, looking for a place to sit, and his eyes find an empty seat next to a girl.

He thinks nothing of it and takes a seat next to her, offering her a small smile when he does. It’s only when she turns to look at him that he realizes he knows her from somewhere. Perhaps he’s seen her in the store before, though he isn’t quite sure.

Today’s event is for a game tournament. It’s a relatively popular game, if the attendance of this event is anything to go by. After the order of the tournament is decided, he’s careful not to take his eyes off his other opponents' game play, hoping to catch on to any tricks they may have.

The girl he had sat next to doesn’t appear to have any particular strategy. Unlike her more animated competitors, she remains calm, her expression blank.

Eventually, after making his way up the tournament bracket, he finds himself facing her in the final. He’s nervous, having been unable to learn anything about her potential, but can tell that she’s skilled.

“I’m nervous,” she says suddenly, “You’re really good.”

He’s caught off guard. She hasn’t spoken a word this entire time, and he’s certain he’s only gotten this far by luck. All he can do is offer her a sheepish smile, before the game begins.

He’s feeling a little misled by the time their turn concludes. Not only was he utterly destroyed, but their match was the shortest out of all the others, lasting a measly two minutes. She’s given her prize, a gift card to be used in the store, and immediately stands from her seat, presumably to begin her shopping with her newly earned funds.

He finds himself following after her, not to berate her or accuse her of cheating like some people his age might do, but rather to ask how the hell she managed to do what she did in such a fashion. He finds her looking at the old used games, likely because of their relatively low price range compared to the rest of the items in the store.

He’s unsure how to approach her, the first time he’s ever been nervous about such a thing. He can’t quite place it, but something about her is making him feel sheepish and insecure in a way. It’s when he finally decides what he’ll start with, a simple “hello” that he sees her pick up an old game he recalls from childhood. Immediately, he calls out to her, seeming to startle her, and explains the relationship he has with the game.

“It’s one of the first games I ever owned,” he elaborates. “I’ve never even gotten to complete it. Haven’t seen the cartridge in years.”

The girl seems to consider his words. “What if I let you borrow it? After I’m done with it, of course.”

He lights up at her offer. “I would love that!” He says, albeit a little loudly, attracting the attention of other patrons in the store. Taking note, he lowers his voice. “But how would I know to get it back from you, and how would I return it?”

“Well, it is the twenty-first century after all. I could just give you my number.” He cringes at himself, realizing how clueless he must seem.

“Right, yea, we could do that.” He moves to take her phone to enter his number before pausing. “Wait. Do you mind keeping this a secret?”

“I mean, sure,” she says, clearly confused by his odd request, “Can I ask why?”

“No one knows I do things like this, it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. If people found out, my reputation would be ruined.” He expects her to get angry. To tell him he has no respect for the hobby or the people who play professionally.

Instead, she laughs.

“What year is this? Dude, everyone plays video games these days. What, do you think you’re gonna get bullied if you tell your friends you like Mario?” She laughs again, and he decides he likes the sound of it.

“It’s a long story, alright? Just promise me you won’t say anything,” he says, trying to preserve what little dignity he has left after today.

“Fine, fine. I’ll keep your dirty little secret,” she says. She hands him his phone, and he quickly inputs his name and number. Upon finishing, he looks up and hands the phone back to her. Though, he’s afraid to make eye contact, so instead he finds himself watching the fly that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

“How long do you think it’ll take for you to finish?” He asks, trying to shift the conversation back.

“Not sure,” she says with a shrug. “I’ve never played, could be weeks, months even. But I’ll get back to you as soon as I finish.” He nods, already eager to talk to her again.

Three days later, he receives a message.

~

What had begun as a simple exchange had quickly turned into a friendship between the two of them. The two of them clicked better than he had ever expected. Upon talking more to her, he realizes she looked familiar because they have a few classes together. He worries that she’ll be upset that he didn’t know her, but instead she laughs it off.

They’ve made it a weekly tradition now to meet once every week at the game store where they first met. They talk about their favorite releases, look at new equipment that the store has gotten in, and comb over the clearance section, hoping to get their hands on a cheap game or two.

This time, though, his luck appears to have run out.

The two of them are making their way around the store, looking for a particular pair of headphones that professional gamers swear is the best product in the business. Upon examining them, deciding they won’t look at the price tag just yet, he hears a familiar voice call out his name.

He looks up, and is met with the confused expression of his teammate.

“What are you doing here?” He asks.

“I’m looking for some game for my brother, he’s got his heart set on it so I’m getting it as a Christmas gift. What are you doing here?”

He stutters, trying to come up with an explanation, when she peers from behind him to see what the sudden commotion is about.

“It’s a game store, can’t you read?” She asks, obviously irritated by the interruption. “Why don’t you look for what you came here for and mind your business?”

He’s shocked by her sudden outburst, and when he turns to look at her, she’s back to browsing the shelves as if nothing happened.

“You’re here with her too? Man, you really must be desperate for something to do,” the other boy responds, unphased by her words.

“What’s wrong with her?” He lets slip immediately, wanting to return the favor.

“You’re telling me you haven’t heard? She lives on Westwood Road. You know, that old freaky abandoned road at the edge of town?”

“So what?”

“What do you mean, so what?” The boy balks. “That place is haunted, no sane person would ever live there, besides, even ignoring the fact that she’s probably some undead weirdo, this place is for nerds.”

He moves to say something, but a fearful expression briefly moves past the other boy’s face, and he’s backing away.

“You know what? Forget it. I won’t tell anyone I saw you, just keep that freak away from me.” He turns around and quickly moves to another part of the store.

“Well,” she says, drawing his attention back to her, “that was something.”

He profusely apologizes to her, which she brushes off and insists is fine. She continues her shopping, deciding she’ll buy the overpriced headset she’s heard so much, and he asks when he’ll be allowed to borrow them.

~

It had been a few months since the incident, and rather than growing farther apart like he feared, they’d actually grown much closer. They spend almost every day together now, whether it be just goofing off or working on school assignments together. With spring break underway, today is one of their goofing off days.

He decides that today he’s going to ask her to go to prom with him.

He doesn’t really have a plan, deciding he’ll keep it simple and wing it rather than some big display of affection. He’ll wait for the right moment, and then he’ll ask her and hope he doesn’t get rejected.

They’re at a local diner now, having decided after last time that if they get confronted again that they can handle it. He’s listening to her explain the plot of a game she’s been struggling with lately. She’s clearly frustrated, having never struggled with a game before, and he finds it endearing.

“Will you go to prom with me?” He asks, not realizing he’s said anything until she stops ranting, a shocked expression appearing on her face.

“What did you just say?”

“I was just thinking, since we’ve been hanging out so much. I don’t know, I don’t really talk to any other girls and I really like spending time with you and I just thought-“

She cuts off his rambling by throwing a napkin at his face, a small smile gracing her lips.

“Relax, already. I just wanted to see you freak out a little,” she chuckles lightly. “I’d love to go with you.”

He lets out a sigh of relief, pulling another laugh from her.

“I really thought you’d reject me for a second there.”

“Do you really take me as being that heartless?”

“Heartless isn’t the word I’d use.”

“Intimidating?”

“That’s the one.”

They continue to talk for hours on end, until the street lights outside the diner turn on. Another fly appears in his field of vision, though his focus this time is entirely on her.

~

“What are you smiling about?” She asks, having stopped at her front door, waiting for him to snap back from whatever thought he was having.

“Remember prom?” She laughs immediately.

“Yea, how could I forget the wonky chocolate fountain they had that got all over everyone’s clothes?”

“I still can’t believe I talked you into going to an after party.”

“Listen, I heard there was a pool, I wasn’t about to say no.”

The two of them laugh again, reminiscing on the night they decided to make their relationship official.

“C’mon,” she says, suddenly much quieter, “let’s head in.”

He follows her through the door, and is met with a surprisingly nice house compared to the disheveled appearance. There’s a few paintings hung up on the wall, and an old fireplace lit in the living room.

He makes his way through the house, curiosity overtaking his thoughts that he may be acting a bit rude for digging around. He finds a decently sized kitchen, and a dining room straight out of a centuries old painting.

While he looks around, she’s following him slowly, hoping the old furniture is enough to distract him from her presence. She lifts the weapon above her head and, right as he moves to turn around, brings it down on his head.

~

He wakes up after what feels like days, when in reality it’s only been about an hour. His head is throbbing, and when he tries to move, he finds himself unable to, his hands having been tied behind him. He’s in a dark room, barely able to see anything as his visions adjusts to the lack of light. The smell of sulfur invades his nostrils, worsening his headache.

“You’re awake, I see. I thought you’d be out for at least another hour or two.”

He hears her voice before he sees her. When she steps forward, he notices something is different. Her demeanor has changed, and he finds himself sitting up in the chair he’s tied to.

“What happened? Where are we? Are you okay?”

“How sweet, you’re worried about me?” She sighs, “Don’t do that, my dear boy. You’re starting to make me feel a little bad for what’s about to happen.”

He’s about to ask her what she means, when she speaks again.

“Oh, have you not figured it out yet? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This has been one of my most successful catches, after all.”

“Catches?” He asked, still not understanding.

“Must I explain everything?” She shrugs. “Fine, I suppose I can tell you how you’ll be dying.” His eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to scream when she interrupts him. “Don’t bother, we’re underground. No one will hear you.”

“What the hell is going on? Who are you?”

“I have many names. It’d be easier if you think of me as the one I already gave you.”

“Why am I tied up? What are you doing?”

“Well in order to get to that, we’ll have to start from the beginning, wouldn’t you agree?” He doesn’t respond. “Why don’t we play a little game? Did you notice anything strange when we first met?”

He thinks back. Nothing particular stands out to him, except for one thing.

“There was a fly, that was pretty weird.” He finds himself laughing, despite his situation. “I was too afraid to look at you, so I watched the fly.”

“Judging by the way you’re laughing right now, I assume you don’t know what this means.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

“Anything else you noticed? A certain smell perhaps?”

“Sulfur. I smell sulfur.” She says nothing. He’s deep in thought. “So you’re a demon?”

“Ding ding ding! Smart boy, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

“Why me? Why did it have to be me?”

“Oh, it’s nothing personal, really. You just seemed the perfect target. Looks like I was right.” Again, she’s met with silence. “I know it’s hard for you to accept, but I never loved you. You’re a food source for me, nothing more.” Still, he says nothing.

“So now what happens? You eat my soul or something?” He asks, finally.

“Precisely! And since you’ve won the game, I've decided to let you have your last words. Go ahead.” He looks her directly in the eye.

“You’re lying.”

“W-what?” She stutters, caught off guard. “I’m not lying, why else do you think your loud friend ran off that day?”

“No no, I believe that you’re a demon. What I don’t believe is that you never loved me.” It’s her turn to stay silent. Taking note, he continues. “It’s not hard to tell when feelings are real, and yours clearly were, whether you’re ready to admit it or not.”

“They weren’t!” She yells, beginning to shake.

“Now that I think about it, I’ve heard of your kind before. Your death relates to lost love, and now you live as a demon, breaking hearts and feeding on the souls because this is how you survive. How you get your revenge.”

“Stop it,” she screams, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you love me, really, but I know you no choice.” She’s crying now. All she can do is shake her head violently in denial. “But it’s okay. Because I still love you. And I forgive you.”

~

She leaves the house covered in his blood. She found herself unable to consume his soul, as even after all she’d done, she was still unable to break him. Out of anger, and sadness, she had ripped him apart, leaving his body scattered across the room.

For years, she’s been living on this road. She’d never encountered any problems, and she never had to think too much about what she would ultimately end up doing to her victims. This time was different.

She was suddenly disgusted with herself, after doing what she’d done to so many people. Maybe she’d find some other way to sustain herself. Perhaps one day, she’d reunite with him, one day when she felt she was worthy of a love so pure.

For now, though, she would leave Westwood Road, and start somewhere new.

[avatarsarny]

Post S8 Arya/Gendry? With a cherry on top?

Well, anon, since you asked so nicely. Just in time, bc I really needed to get this out of my system. This is for @gendrie, @gendryadempsie, and @starrynightshade, whose blogs and fics have kept me sane over the past few weeks of D&D’s clownery. Thank you guys for feeding us with that sweet sweet Gendrya content throughout :)

For context: In my head, everything ended similarly to D&D’s bad fanfic version with some notable adjustments: Jon is not exiled to the (nonexistent) Night’s Watch; he decides against being king and goes to bring the Wildlings back down to the North with Tormund (bc the lands beyond the wall are a barren wasteland wtf) and thereafter settles at Winterfell to be Hand to Queen Sansa. Bran is made King of the 6 kingdoms as he was in the show, with Tyrion as his Hand and ruling with his council. Jaime did not turn on Brienne in the last moment, didn’t erase years of character development, and instead left to kill Cersei himself, finally realizing the disease she really was, and became Queenslayer for the good of the realm. He survives Daenerys’ attack on KL and is serving Bran in the new Kingsguard, under Brienne the Commander. 

Finally, Arya does not randomly decide to become Christopher Columbarya and sail the ocean blue, erasing years of her own journey to finally be home with her family again, no sirs, she finds Gendry after the sack of KL, after she realizes what Sandor was trying to tell her to do, to choose life, and tells him to ask her again. You can guess the rest from what you read below :)

And in keeping with the pack survives narrative (bc that’s what good writing is about!! Consistency!!) the Starks remain closer than ever, visit each other often, and don’t end up alone and separated! Hope yall enjoy!

P.S… Okoye. You’ll see why soon. definitely not taken straight outta black panther Ahem. Continue.

“And reinforcements from the Stormlands will arrive tomorrow, Your Grace, if I’m not mistaken. Lord Buckler of Bronzegate sent me a raven saying twenty ships worth of food and supplies will be here just after sunrise.”

Bran nods in approval and looks up at the sunlight streaming in through the windows of the newly - reconstructed King’s solar. Daenerys’ rampage had left little of the Red Keep standing, but some of the personal chambers had remained mostly intact, so the new King and his council lived in close quarters for the past three months while they supervised the city’s recovery. There were still many injured and many more starving, so Bran called upon every Lord and leader in Westeros, high and low, to contribute whatever they could to the city’s smallfolk; who had suffered the most.

Bran glances over at the man across him. His blue eyes are bright with belonging and purpose, his dark hair is gradually breaking free of the short crop he had sported when Bran had first met him, and he wears fine leathers in same way his father and uncles had, only this time adorned with clawlike marks on the shoulders of his tunic.

The young King smiles at this observation. Stags don’t have claws. But he can think of another animal that does. 

Gendry catches his King’s gaze. “What is it, Your Grace?”

Bran’s smile grows ever so slightly. “When is my sister returning, my Lord? It’s been a fortnight since her last raven.”

Gendry sighs and looks out a window, where the city gates rise from the sea of ruined buildings far out in the distance on one end, and the azure waters of Blackwater Bay lay calm and still. “I’m not sure. She said she wouldn’t leave Queen Sansa at Winterfell until she’s made sure she’ll be well protected.”

“Won’t Jon be there soon?”

Gendry blinks. “Yes - er - I didn’t know that until this morning - got a raven from Tormund. How’d you find out?”

Bran throws him an unimpressed glance. “Well I am the three eyed raven. I flew over Jon and Tormund’s group last night. They’ve settled the Wildlings in some unoccupied lands about a day’s ride from Winterfell. Sansa wants Jon to be her Hand, and it looks like Jon’s agreed to it.”

Gendry nods slowly, trying to process the King’s extraordinary statement in a way he can understand. “I’ve heard of your abilities, Your Grace, but forgive me, I’m not sure how one flies when they can’t even walk. But if what you say is true, then you can see where your sisters are, too, can’t you?” He grins then, and maybe in front of a different King he’d be punished for his audacity, but Bran is no ordinary King. And Gendry has never been one to worship the ground at a highborn’s feet. 

But he’ll fight for any one of the Starks. Arya and her family time and again showed kindness and mercy to the common folk, and beneath their ferocious direwolf fangs they shared a gentleness for the innocent that Gendry had rarely seen among the rich and powerful. Even Sansa, the Red Wolf of the North, held a great tenderness concealed beneath her icy, calculating exterior, and people everywhere adored her for it.

Bran’s smile widens into a true grin, then. A feat so rare Gendry thinks he should get Grand Maester Samwell to check on their King’s health. 

“Yes, I can see everything. Anything, anywhere, at any point in time. But sometimes it’s nice to put it all away for a while, and be a normal man. Or at least act like it,” he replies. “I did see Arya, by the way. It appears she’ll be staying in Winterfell for a few more weeks before she starts her journey back here.”

Gendry’s face falls, but he catches himself and hopes the King doesn’t notice. The least she could do is send a raven, but she’s been oddly silent since her last message to him, and he’s getting worried. If she doesn’t send more word soon, he’ll go off to Winterfell himself.

Bran quirks a brow at him. “Storm’s End needs someone like you, someone who will take care of the people. Your uncles left the Stormlands in such disarray, but the Stormlords are willing to follow your command. Don’t worry about my sister, she can handle herself.” He smiles serenely at the former blacksmith.

 But what about me? Gendry thinks. Does she not understand that every day we’re separated feels like an eternity to me?

None of it will mean anything, if you aren’t with me, so be with me…

It will be nearly four months since Arya left to help Sansa settle into her role as Queen in the North. Four months since he last held her in his arms, since he tasted her on his lips and felt the warmth of her smile, since he saw the heat and tenderness in her gaze she reserved only for him. 

She had sought him out after the Dragon Queen had stormed King’s Landing, after Jon drove a dagger through his aunt’s heart and liberated all who would come under her tyranny. She had been covered in ash and blood and he’d never felt more fear in his entire life, that he would have to watch her die like this, but she was mostly unhurt, the blood had not been hers, not all of it.

“Ask me again,” She’d rasped, coughing out grey soot and clutching at him for dear life. “I thought I wouldn’t come back from Kings Landing. I was going to die there, and I couldn’t do that to you, I had to refuse,” She whispered, tears falling from her eyes and down her grimy face. “I couldn’t hurt you.”

And oh, she had never looked more beautiful, he had never loved her more fiercely than he did in that moment, not even on that night they thought would be their last, when she had kissed him down in the Winterfell stores and made breathless, frantic love to him. “You could never hurt me, love,” he’d said, wiping her tears away and crushing her to his chest. “I know you don’t want to be a Lady, I’ve always known. We can go wherever you like. Do whatever you want. I’ll follow you anywhere you go, till the end of my days,” he promised, and released her so he could kneel before her in the ash and dust. “My life means nothing without my family. Please be my wife. Please be my family, Arya of House Stark.”

And with that, she’d tackled him into the rubble with all the strength she could muster, and kissed him senseless. “I love you,” She’d breathed against his lips, “I will be your family. Your - your wife,” she broke off in a quiet moan, as he moved to press searing kisses down her throat. She held his face in her hands, stilling his sweet movements to look earnestly up at him. “And I will lead by your side, Gendry of House Baratheon.”

He stared at her in shock, his hands coming up to bracket her own. “You - you want to rule the Stormlands with me?”

Arya smiled at him, even though it hurt to do so and her face was bleeding. “I want to be here for the people who can’t protect themselves. I want to make our world a better place than the one we grew up in…I couldn’t save them in King’s Landing,” she’d paused as more tears trailed down her cheeks, and he dutifully brushed them away with the pads of his calloused fingers. She would tell him about the girl and her mother, later. The little family that had saved her from the stampede, only to end up burnt beyond recognition in the end. “I have to make sure this never happens again.”

Gendry kissed her forehead, the bit of it that wasn’t cut open. “As m’lady commands,” he’d murmured, threading their fingers together. “Now let’s get you a maester.”

“I also need to teach you how to use a fork, none of those idiot lords will respect you otherwise.”

He laughed and scooped her up into his arms. “I’ll need all the help I can get. I don’t know any other rich girls willing to teach me.”

Part 2 coming soon :)

[gretvvvnfleet]

Familiar Faces (Ch. 3)

Josh Kiszka x Fem Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

A/N: Texts sent between characters will be written between brackets [ ] Thank you for the patience with these updates and all the feedback! Much Love.

Chapter 1     Chapter 2

You realized that you had your mouth hanging open and hoped no one else around the table had noticed. Feeling the heat creep up from your neck and to the core of your cheeks, you quickly averted your eyes back to the messy crust bits upon your plate. No one else at the table seemed to pay any mind to the conversation with Jimmy, with your father returning to his paper and your mother cooing at Ollie to finish his food.

“You alright, sis?” Robert smirked while shoving a fork full of salad into his mouth. Your tension only amused him, but he was the only one who really ever seemed to pay any attention to you.

“Just gotta,” you began scooping your scraps and silverware onto the center of your plate, rising from the table and taking a final big gulp of the soda in your cup.”Gotta call Mags. See you in the morning”. You swiftly maneuvered yourself around the table, tossing the trash away and dumping the cup into the sink.

“Will you work again tomorrow, y/n?” your dad called as you started towards the front door and rounding the mast of the corner of the stairs.

“Sure thing!” you began hopping the stairs, skipping each step in between.

“Goodnight?” your mom called out.

“Night!” and with one swift motion you closed the door and hopped down on your bed, sitting at the edge and holding your phone gently within your hands. You reached into your front pocket and retrieved the crumpled scrap of notebook paper that Josh had handed to you earlier. Observing the simple little numbers, everything started to feel too surreal to you. You ran the interaction from earlier through your head over and over again until is seemed like none of it had even happened. You sent yourself into a spiral, not sure if you were even sane or completely overreacting. 

“Hey”, Robert knocked on the door twice as he opened it, not giving you much time to hide the evidence in your hands. You jumped and scrunched the paper within your sweaty palm, placing it behind you on the bed and leaning back to try your best and look naturally comfortable.

“Hey”, you smiled. Your heart pounded in your chest, so desperate to break free from your rib cage and hide away forever.

“Just wanted to make sure everything is okay. I’m sorry about the table, I was just teasing, yanno”, he only stuck his head through the crack in the door, never releasing his tight grip from the doorknob.

“I know”, you smiled again. You just wanted him to leave more than anything but the last thing you ever wanted to do was hurt Robert or give him any inclination that you were mad at him.

“Okay… just checking. Night”, he nodded with a weak smile and backed away from the door, slowly closing it. He was probably hoping you’d stop him and confess everything that had happened that day, but you didn’t. You stared at the door intensely until you heard the click of the knob and jumped up to lock it immediately. 

With a sigh, you returned to the bed and released the slip of paper from your sweaty grip. The numbers smudged slightly from the sweat mixing with the pencil markings but everything was still legible enough to type the number into your phone. 

“Shit…” you stared at the cursor blinking within the text bar, not really sure what to say. You typed out multiple versions of the same thing, but overthought every ��hey’ and ‘hi’ and didn’t want your exclamation points to seem too overbearing. Laying back onto your bed, you held your phone over your chest, feeling it move with every rapid heartbeat pounding its way through your rib cage. 

“It’s now or never, y/n”, you sighed, lifting your phone to finally type a text to Josh.

          [ Hey Josh, it’s Y/n ]

With bated breath, you watched the blue bar scroll across the top of the screen and a small ‘delivered’ appeared just beneath your text. You watched the screen for another few minutes, hoping that maybe he’d have his read receipts on, but nothing ever changed. You threw your arms down on the bed, outstretched on either side of you in a T position. Your phone fell from your hand and onto the floor, but you didn’t care. You were exhausted. This day had been more eventful than you could have ever imagined. You closed your eyes, once again dreaming of the events that had occurred only hours before, as you lightly drifted off to sleep.

           Buzz Buzz

           Buzz Buzz

You jolted awake at the sound of your phone buzzing against the hardwood floor of your bedroom. Flipping yourself over you tried to reach for your phone from your bed but only ended up falling completely on your stomach and onto the floor, causing a loud thud to fill the house. You weren’t sure how long you had been asleep for, but the call out from your mother across the hall assured you that it wasn’t too late.

“Y/n? You alright?” you heard her call from her room, presumably sat up in bed and reading.

“Yeah mom! I’m okay!” you hastily grabbed for your phone and flipped it over, the bright light momentarily blinding you. Only 45 minutes had passed since you had first texted Josh and you fell asleep. Now, on your screen, a text notification with his name on it appeared before you. You unlocked your phone with a shaky hand and eagerly read the text.

          [ I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number… ]

Your heart dropped and a clump formed in the back of your throat as you panicked. You got up from the floor and rushed to the scrap of paper left on your bed, scanning the number numerous times and checking the contact you had entered earlier. The numbers matched but you thought maybe the smudged 1 you had entered was actually a 7.

          [ Oh, I’m sorry to bother you. Wrong number. Sorry. ]

You replied and felt so embarrassed. You knew this person would never know who you were, but the thought of them making fun or showing the conversation to their friends or spouse made your stomach churn. You wished it had gone better than this. That you hadn’t smudged the page, that you had given Josh your number in return, or that you had called instead. Maybe you could ask Jimmy for Josh’s number, but you didn’t want to be questioned or found out.

Your phone buzzed again in your hand and a notification from “Josh” popped up again. Turning your face in confusion, you opened your phone again to read the message.

          [ Gotcha ;) Sorry, I had to ]

          [ Joshua! You had me thinking I couldn’t read numbers for a sec there. Screw you. ]

          [ Hahaha, you made it too easy y/n! ]

          [ Now how can I even trust you? I’m still not even sure it’s you. ]

          [ I can prove it ]

Instantly your phone started buzzing with an incoming Face Time call from “Josh”. Your heart jumped and you looked around your dresser for your headphones. Plugging them in, you sat against the headboard of your bed, fixing a piece of hair behind your ear before hitting accept. It took a moment for the call to connect, and you eagerly looked to your phone, hoping it was actually Josh who was calling.

“Well hello there pretty lady”, Josh appeared on your screen with a huge grin spread across his face. He appeared to be in the same position you were in, sitting up against his headboard with an arm bent and resting behind his head.

“Oh thank god”, you laughed in exhaustion. You were so glad it was actually Josh and should have known he would have pulled a joke like that.

“Well I’m glad you’re happy to see me. You seemed a little down when I first texted you”, he teased.

“Well of course! I Thought you were some random person getting an annoying text late at night. I was so embarrassed”, you covered your mouth as you laughed at yourself. Seeing you this way made Josh spread the biggest smile across his face. His laugh rang through your ears and you admired his face as his eyes scrunched in laughter. Each laugh causing his phone you bounce within his hand on his chest. 

“I know, I know. And I’m sorry for texting so late, I had to get some shit together for the trip tomorrow”.

“Oh, about that”, you hardened your face and cocked an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t tell me you were going on your trip with Gerald, Tim, your brothers, and my brother”.

“Your brother? Who the hell is your brother?” he sat up in his bed, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Well, by process of elimination, Dingus… the only member of the party I didn’t name-”

“Jimmy?!” his eyed widened as he realized who your brother was. He moved his hand from behind his head and slapped it against his forehead.

“Ding ding ding! Tell him what he’s won!” you teased, laughing at the still shocked look on his face.

“How is that even possible, he was one of the youngest in our class and you were only a year behind”. Watching his face contort in confusion was amusing to you and you only laughed more.

“We’re ten months apart, Irish twins”, you laughed. “Come on dude, we look the most alike out of any of my brothers”.

“Wait… Oh shit, you’re the L/n sister? Wow it all makes sense now. Wow I’m an idiot”, he laughed at himself. You could tell he was blushing behind his hand over his eyes.

“Yesssss”, you laughed along. You covered your mouth with your hand again and just admired his face through the screen.

“Shut up in there”, you heard Jimmy’s voice followed by pounding on your door that caused you to jump. 

“Sorry!” you called back. “Fucking snake”, you mumbled and rolled your eyes. You leaned over to the light switch by your bed and flicked it off, returning to Josh who was chuckling to himself.

“A little harsh there?” he teased.

“Me or him?” you shot back laughing. “He’s just tired and has a big adventure ahead of him tomorrow”, you teased.

“I can relate”, Josh began to stretch his arms out, letting out a loud moan. You felt heat rising in your cheeks at the mere sound of his primal noises being released from his body as he stretched and sunk deep into his bed.

“You should, uh, go to bed then”, you rolled your eyes, trying to play it off as if you hadn’t just internally lost your mind.

“Why don’t you go to bed”, he asked in a tired voice. Hearing his voice like this returned the heat to your cheeks and you shook your head to laugh and avert any gaze upon your face growing red.

“I’m not tired”, you stuck your tongue out at him. 

“Oh excuse me. I just figured the hardworking camera shop lady would have been tired after a productive day”, He returned the gesture, sticking his tongue out and laughing. His face was simply irresistible and he knew it. You chuckled and stretched your arms out, actually feeling your eyelids grow heavy in the darkness. You slumped down into bed and rested your head on a pillow and propped your phone up against the pillow next to you. He did the same, making it seem like you were each lying next to each other.

“I mean, I do have work tomorrow, I guess I should go-”

“No”, he blurted out. “No”, he chuckled, noticing how aggressively he had said it the first time. 

“Well are you just gonna lay there and stare all night?” you teased, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear that had escaped as you got comfortable in bed.

“Wouldn’t that be nice”, he winked, and immediately reached for something off screen. Fumbling for a few seconds in the dark, he pulled a small cassette player into view and began inserting a cassette into the port. “Before you go, I want you to hear this song. It’s been stuck in my head all day and, I dunno, I think you’d like it”.

He fumbled with the volume and a few buttons before a song began to play. Wild World by Yusuf/Cat Stevens began to play into your headphones. You had heard the song sometime before among the records your dad used to play throughout the house, and it brought a smile to your face.

“You know this one?” his head perked up a bit.

“Kind of. My dad used to play it, I’m sure. I like it”, you rested deep into your pillow and took one last look at Josh’s face before you felt your eyes grow heavy and you drifted off to sleep to the music and an occasional rustle of the blankets coming from Josh’s side of the call.

You woke up in the morning to your alarm. Your phone was still perched up against your pillow but the screen was black. You turned off the alarm on the clock upon your desk and took a few moments to fully wake up. Looking back down at your phone you noticed a text notification from Josh a few hours earlier.

          [ Hope I didn’t wake you with the ding… You drifted off to the song last night. I’m headed out now with the boys, super cool manly shit. Won’t have service till we get back Monday. But I'll keep you updated when I can :) ]

You smiled at the text and felt butterflies start to move around within your stomach. You thought better than to reply and run the risk of Jimmy seeing his phone or whatever other stupid scenario played out in your head at the thought of Jimmy finding you both out. 

You began to get ready for work that day and dreaded the next few days that would be empty without talking to Josh until he got back.

[flourchildwrites]

Ooooh, I saw Havolina on the tags :D :D :D 66 and 77.

A/N:  Thank you for the ask, @lessonsfrommadamexmas !  You requested numbers 66 (it’s not you, it’s my enemies) and 77 (in vino veritas) with a havolina ship.  I will admit, 66 was a tough concept for me.  I had to sleep on it, and I hope you’ll like what I came up with.  And since I’m a “show, don’t tell” kinda gal, I’ll just write a little bit out for you.  I may have gone a little overboard…  This earns a solid “M” rating.

Please keep in mind I know very little about Call of Duty and video game tournaments in general.  Forgive the inaccuracies and suspend your disbelief as this fic will focus on what happens around the tournament as opposed to the gameplay itself.

Read on AO3

“This is bullshit, and you know it!” Rebecca screeched.  With furrowed brows and nostrils flaring, she stared down Roy Mustang, captain of the front runner team in the Call of Duty tournament.  How dare he try to poach Riza, Rebecca’s actual friend, her teammate and the best damn sniper in the amateur bracket, right under Rebecca’s nose!  She wouldn’t have it, and that pretty boy had another thing coming to him if he thought she’d let Riza go on her merry way without a fight.

“This isn’t poaching.  It’s a couple after dinner drinks, Becks,” Roy said with amused exasperation.  “Riza’s not my mark.  She’s my girlfriend.”  As if to make some salient point - that Rebecca was completely uninterested in, the dark-haired man slipped an arm around Riza.  His fingers stretched, seeking purchase on her slender waist as he pulled the blonde closer, too close.  In the darkness of the hotel bar, Rebecca’s equally dark eyes flashed dangerously.

“She’s not your girlfriend during this competition,” Rebecca lectured.  To drive her point home, she brandished her pointer finger in Roy’s direction and thrust it toward the center of his chest.  “While both our teams are in the running, she is an important member of the East City Strikers, and this year we will see you in the finals.”

“Enough,” Riza interjected.  Ever the picture of poise under pressure, she wiggled out of Roy’s arms and grasped Rebecca’s bicep, leading her down the long granite bar.  When Riza began to speak again, her voice was just above a whisper.  

“You two got off on the wrong foot, I admit; however, Roy has been nothing but friendly toward you since we started dating,” Riza stressed, “Also - I say this with a lot of love - you are starting to sound like a deranged lunatic.  This is just a game.”  

“No, it’s a 500,000 cenz grand prize,” Rebecca retorted defensively, not caring to control the volume of her voice.  “You promised there would be no fraternization during the tournament.”

Riza rolled her eyes and sighed, heavily.  “The tournament starts tomorrow morning.  After the opening ceremony I will be 100% committed to the East City Strikers, but tonight-” Riza paused; she glanced over her shoulder in Roy’s direction, gazing at her insufferable boyfriend with a pair of soft eyes that she wore only for him.  “I’m going to have a few drinks with my boyfriend.  And before you ask, yes, I intend to spend the night with him.  And furthermore, because we are not in kindergarten, you are going to back off and act like an adult about it.  Okay?”

Becca crossed her arms with an agitated huff, barely able to meet Riza’s pointed look.  She hated Roy and all of Team Mustang.  She hated that, after the East City Strikers’ crushing defeat in the semifinals last year, Roy had gone to great lengths to talk to Riza, inexplicably seduce her and then, just to add insult to injury, ask her to be his girlfriend.  The very notion of this grievous injustice gnawed at Rebecca’s pride.  For as certain as the sun would rise, she believed it to be a long con to ensure Team Mustang’s supremacy at the tournament this year.

“Fine,” Rebecca muttered.

She watched Riza cross the glitzy hotel bar, hand in hand with the competition and did the only thing a well-adjusted hardcore competitor with a grudge to maintain could do.  She ordered another pinot noir and told the bartender to leave the bottle.

…

One by one, the other members of the East City Strikers attempted to lighten Becca’s mood, except for Olivier who suggested they turn in early for the evening to leave Rebecca alone with her anger management issues.  Sheska followed Olivier’s lead, hopping to the tune of her command like a pup adhering to its master’s will.  Maria stuck around the bar for a few more minutes to offer Rebecca a few well-worded pieces of advice.

“When Olivier tells you to lighten up, it’s time to rethink your strategy, my friend,” Maria opined, knocking back the rest of her cosmo.  “Ri is a smart girl.  She knows how to compartmentalize.”

Rebecca took another sip of the dark wine that matched her lipstick to a tee.  “I care too much, Maria,” she explain.  “Unless everyone’s plans change, this will be the East City Strikers’ last tournament.  I want to go out at the top of our game.”

“Then just play the best you can,” Maria stated matter-of-factly like it was a simple thing to do.  “If the best we can do is to get beat in the semifinals again by the team that goes on to win it, I’m satisfied.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s why you’re team captain, and I’m just your average first-person shooter enthusiast.  Ri brings the deadly accuracy, Sheska’s got that crazy agility, Olivier gets us the little real life luxuries that keep us sane, but you have the fire.  You inspire us to go up against the boys every year and spank ‘em until they beg for their mama. We’ve come a long way from East City, Becks.  We couldn’t have gotten here without you.”

With a flushed face, Rebecca grinned, comforted by her teammate’s thoughtful perspective.  “And what would you say you do for us?”

Maria sat back from the bar and smirked in a way that crinkled the beauty mark under her eye.  “I give the good advice, and my advice for you tonight is to take advantage of the fact that your roommate isn’t coming back.”

…

Rebecca struggled to take Maria’s words of wisdom to heart, but the emptier her bottle of wine became, the easier it was to let her guard drop.  Her taste buds drowned in the tart tang of cranberry with hints of tobacco.   Her competitive glare grew blurry around the edges as the pop music funneled in through the speakers went straight to her hips.  As the time ticked by, the hotel bar became flush with men of all models and makes, but like a hunter taking stock of the available prey, Rebecca waited patiently for signs of intelligent life.

As it turned out, she wasn’t the only one on the prowl.

“Hey, you’re Catalina, right?”

Rebecca swiveled on her barstool to better view the owner of the husky, baritone voice.  The sight that met her was definitely easy on her eyes.  The fair-haired stranger’s frame was muscular, especially his well-defined arms which extended from the unseasonable short sleeves of a black graphic tee.  Rebecca’s eyes flitted over his figure in a flirtatious manner as she swirled the wine in her glass and finally met his blue stare.

“Maybe” she shot right back at him.  “Who’s asking?”

The young man chuckled lightly under his breath and shuffled his feet.  “I’m really no good at this am I?” he said, scratching the back of his head in a way that flexed his chest muscles through the flimsy cotton.  “My name’s Jean.  I couldn’t help but notice that your friends left a little while ago, and seeing as mine ditched me too, I was wondering if you’d like some company.”

Rebecca’s head tilted to the side as she fought the urge to bite her bottom lip.  She patted the seat next to her casually, inviting Jean to sit.  “You’ve got me at a disadvantage, Jean,” she said, relishing the way his name rolled off her tongue.  “I’m Catalina, though I prefer Rebecca.  Have we met before?”

“No,” he replied, sliding onto the stool.  “Not formally, anyway.  I’ve seen you play a few times, and I’ve always meant to talk to you.  I remember your name Catalina_the_wine_mixer.  It’s unique, a Step Brothers reference, right?”

Rebecca groaned playfully, covering her forehead with her free hand.  “It is,” she admitted sheepishly.  “The name sounded so cool when I first started playing, and after my first tournament, it stuck.  I’d change it if I could, but you know… name recognition means something.”

“Tell me about it,” Jean sympathized.  “Between this year and last, I found my way to the gym and kicked a few bad habits.”  Jean scratched at the nicotine patch peeking out the sleeve of his shirt.  “Now, it’s like I’m a complete stranger.”

“So what’s your screen name?” she asked with genuine interest.

“TheJeanMachine.”

Rebecca laughed so hard snorted.  “Don’t take that the wrong way.  It’s cute and… a little familiar.”

“Oh, I agree.  It’s terrible, but I can’t change it now,” he stated.

“Why not?  Name recognition?”

“Because it made you smile.”

Rebecca Catalina was smitten.  Between the gregarious crinkle framing Jean’s baby blue eyes, his adorable country accent and their witty banter, she’d never stood a chance.  All things considered, Rebecca thought it was nothing short of kismet that their paths had crossed on this, the calm before the storm.  The one and only time she’d ever dared to let her hair down at the tournament.

“Maybe I’m too hard on my team,” Becca mused, allowing maudlin emotion to taint her giddy buzz.  “We haven’t made it official, but this is probably going to be The East City Strikers’ last year.  Riza, our sniper, is good enough to go pro if she wanted to, but the rest of us… We’ll have to give this up and focus on boring, practical careers when we graduate.  Except for Olivier, the scary one.  She’d be the first to tell you that her trust fund lets her do whatever the hell she wants.”

“Your sniper’s good,” Jean admitted, “but she’s got competition.  That sniper from Team Mustang, for example.  I think he’s pretty good.  You ever heard of that team?  I think they won the amateur bracket last year.”

“They did,” Rebecca confirmed.  “I know of Team Mustang.  I mean, I don’t know any other them personally, except their captain, Roy…  He’s dating Riza.  We lost to them in the semifinals last year, and one of those guys tried to congratulate me after, but I blew him off.”  Rebecca frowned at the memory. “I- I’m not a gracious loser.  I called him scrawny and said he reeked of cigarettes.  It was terrible of me.”

“Everyone has their bad days,” Jean said.  “And, come to think of it, you weren’t wrong on either account.  But let’s talk about something else.  You said you weren’t good enough to be a pro.  Why?  I’ve seen you rack up crazy amounts of points.  Low on deaths and high on kills every single time.”

“Thanks,” Rebecca offered.  Suddenly, she wished she could place his username and compliment Jean on his gameplay in return, but the gears in her mind wouldn’t turn properly, influence by red wine and those blue, blue eyes.  “My record’s good, but I’m not twitchy enough. You know?”

Jean smirked.  The expression that flashed across his face made her toes curl.  “Don’t be so sure,” he said low and slow, “with the right technique, I bet you’d be very twitchy.”

Any other day, Rebecca would have rolled her eyes and walked away.  But her empty hotel room beckoned and Maria’s advice ricocheted through her mind.  Becca told herself that she deserved nice things from time to time.  She needed to let loose, and Jean seemed nice, respectful even.  If he wasn’t she’d ask Olivier to kick his pretty boy ass all the way back to his family’s rural grocery store.

“Wanna show me your technique?” she chanced flirtatiously.  “It just so happens my roommate’s not coming back tonight.  I’d like to see your moves.”

“What a coincidence,” Jean responded.  He slid from the stool and stood.  His head ducked downward to capture Rebecca’s plump lips in a searing kiss.  “I’d like to show them to you.”

…

It was a great day to be alive.  The sun was shining.  The birds were singing, and Rebecca’s morning mountain dew tasted like victory.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” Riza observed, popping a piece of fresh fruit into her mouth.

Becca didn’t deny it.  TheJeanMachine had certainly lived up to his name.  And if her uncharacteristic good mood didn’t give away the fact that she had gotten laid the night before, the trail of hickeys on her neck and chest, artfully concealed by one of Olivier’s vintage Hermes scarves, would have cleared up any lingering confusion.

“Wonder why that is,” Maria quipped with a playful nudge.  Even the stoic Olivier grinned at Rebecca over the brim her morning cup of Earl Grey. Sheska giggled scandalously as she polished off her turkey bacon.

“Alright ladies,” Rebecca declared.  She straightened her custom team jersey, and stood, ready to tackle the day.  “I checked the brackets this morning.  Our first game is in the Shambala conference room against The Ishvalan Supremecy.  They’re good, especially that Scar guy, but we’ve got this!  Let’s get there early and get a feel for the room.”

“Can we stop by the Aruego room first?” Riza asked hopefully.  “Roy’s team is playing there in a few minutes, and I’d just like to wave hello.”

“Sure.  Why not,” Rebecca merely shrugged to the collective astonishment of the East City Strikers.  “We can scope out the competition.”

The quintet of gamers made their way through the crowded hotel lobby and took the elevator to the fourth floor.  There, on the Aruego stage, Riza spotted Team Mustang, decked out in dark blue shirts opposite another formidable team dressed in black from head to toe, the Briggs Bears. A small audience had already gathered.  Starry-eyed fans and fierce competitors sat in between the two teams, gazing up at a huge monitor that showcased the player’s screens and scores.

It was easy to get lost in the sea of old and new faces, but Rebecca focused in on Team Mustang with a confident smirk.  Roy and the rest of his boys were going down, and Rebecca only hoped that the East City Strikers would be the ones to finally knock them off their pedestal.  Sure, the Briggs Bears were also good, but Miles2Go’s reaction time was notoriously wanting, and that wasn’t even considering…

A familiar face caught Rebecca’s eyes, sending a shockwave along the length of her spine.  Rebecca craned her neck, shifting in the crowd to get a better view of an unfamiliar face amongst Team Mustang.  And when, finally, she saw the fair hair and toned muscles of the man she’d spent the night with wearing Team Mustang blue, Becca’s temper flared.  The name… That familiar name… TheJeanMachine.  The puzzle pieces sickeningly fell into place in a way that made her stomach drop.

“Oh, is that blond guy new?” asked a nearby girl with equally blonde hair.

Her companion, a short boy with a braided ponytail and a sophisticated automail arm scoffed.  “Shows how much you know, Winry,” he said.  “That’s Jean Havoc.  Team Mustang’s sniper.  He’s been with them from the start but went on a health kick after last year.  Stopped smoking like a chimney and put on some muscle.”

“I bet he drinks his milk,” Winry responded, albeit under her breath.

Rebecca didn’t want to hear another word.  She tore from the room, breath coming hard and fast as she weaved through the crowd.  Last year’s events flashed before her eyes enhanced by adrenaline, caffeine and the early morning light.  Jean had been the guy who tried to talk to her last year, and he’d most certainly known that last night when they’d…

“Ugghhhh!” Rebecca exclaimed, overcome with anger and ashamed of her impulsive behavior.  The young woman was so wrapped up in her internal conflict that she didn’t hear her teammate approach from behind.  Rebecca shrieked as she felt the pressure of Sheska’s hand on her shoulder.

“Good gracious, Becks,” Sheska said, straightening her glasses.  “I didn’t mean to scare you.  Are you alright?”

Rebecca looked back at her bespectacled teammate with a cold gleam in her dark eyes.  She vowed to get her revenge on Team Mustang at all costs.  “It’s not you,” she said intently, narrowed eyes darting to the screen now prominently displaying TheJeanMachine in his element.  “It’s my enemies.”

Like what you read?  Send me a FANFICTION TROPE MASH UP ask. 

[tkmedia]

Forget the past, England want to make history against Germany

10:00 AM ETContained within a video montage shown to the England squad on their first day at St George's Park this summer was the moment that defined manager Gareth Southgate's playing career. His decisive penalty miss against Germany in the semifinals of Euro '96 gave the centre-back an unwanted place in the catalogue of disappointment that has stretched back 55 years since England won their only major international trophy, the 1966 World Cup.Southgate has meticulously attempted to redefine the national team's relationship with its past, deconstructing his personal experience by underlining why penalty shootouts are something to be prepared for rather than pathologically feared.But one of Southgate's biggest challenges during his time in charge has been to instigate a mental shift from the burden of the weight of history to creating their own in a high-pressure environment.2 RelatedSouthgate took over from Sam Allardyce (who was in charge for one game) after Roy Hodgson's England were knocked out of Euro 2016 by minnows Iceland at the round-of-16 stage, with Tuesday marking a five-year journey to the same point. The occasion takes place against a backdrop of countrywide Euro '96 nostalgia, which has taken on greater prominence since it was confirmed Germany would be England's opponents (noon ET; stream LIVE on ESPN/ESPN+).In many ways, contests against Germany down the years encapsulate the eternal struggle in the English sporting consciousness, with the joy and lasting hope created by winning the 1966 final balanced against tournament exits in 1970, 1990, 1996 and 2010.Germany certainly revelled in the moment 25 years ago, appropriating England's "Three Lions" anthem by singing "Football's coming home" on the balcony of Frankfurt's Civic Centre when celebrating with the trophy. The song reached No. 16 in the German charts that summer and could be heard ringing out in Berlin as recently as 2014, when around half a million fans celebrated as Germany paraded the World Cup.- Euro 2020 on ESPN: Stream LIVE games and replays (U.S. only) - European Soccer Pick 'Em: Compete to win $10,000 - Euro 2020 bracket and fixture scheduleHowever, the general perception is that Germany view this sporting rivalry differently. England's lack of pedigree in the latter stages of tournaments -- they have won just one knockout match in the Euros, compared with Germany's 11 -- means the four-time world champions winners place greater importance on those in closer proximity, such as Netherlands, France and Italy.And while the English public has spent the week stirring up images of Southgate's miss, Sir Geoff Hurst's 1966 hat trick and Frank Lampard's "ghost goal" of 2010, the squad have appeared somewhat bemused by the entire conversation.Southgate has placed great stock in reconnecting with the fan base after acrimony created by past underachievement, but this is one instance where he will be more than happy that his players are seemingly able to emotionally disengage from the noise around them.play1:19Marcus Rashford says that Jadon Sancho's experience in Germany will help England on Tuesday at Wembley.Dominic Calvert-Lewin put it bluntly, when asked by a reporter approaching 50 years old, how he perceived the dynamics of England vs. Germany. "It's not as personal as perhaps someone of your age," said the Everton striker with a smile. He isn't wrong: Eleven players in England's 26-man squad were not alive during Euro '96.Many of this group have cited memories of Lampard's strike in 2010, though. England were 2-1 down in their round-of-16 match in South Africa when the Chelsea midfielder's shot hit the crossbar and bounced down over the line, only for the officials to wave play on. With FIFA resisting the implementation of goal-line technology, England were left with a sense of injustice as the match slipped away, eventually losing 4-1.For today's England players, it was merely an isolated incident, rather than the latest entry in a long-running German grievance, but Southgate & Co. can learn from their worst performance at Euro 2020, which was against another team where the intensity of the rivalry was supposedly confined to the stands.Scotland came to Wembley and deserved a 0-0 draw, with England seemingly inhibited by their tactics or the event itself. Since then, Southgate has publicly claimed that the "unique occasion" may have been a factor; if so, there is an element of uncertainty how the second-youngest squad at these finals will handle a similar environment of booing anthems and disparaging songs.Yet hostility from the assembled 45,000 -- twice the number present against Scotland -- will be weighted heavily in England's favour and it is undeniably an advantage to play in their home stadium for the fourth consecutive game, one that some in Germany believe has been exacerbated by UEFA's decision not to allow Joachim Low's side to train at Wembley before the game.The governing body insists this is down to the amount of rain expected in London in the 36 hours before kickoff, but it counts as another small win given England have two exact replicas of the playing surface at St George's Park.Conditions look inviting for England, then, down to the chaotic feel of Germany's qualification from undoubtedly the toughest group: losing to France, hammering Portugal and scraping a draw against Hungary. The structure Southgate has instilled in England looks serene by comparison, even if it has come at the expense of some attacking intent. It should therefore come down to a question of whether England can truly inhabit the moment. Germany have a habit of peaking when the serious stuff starts; England, categorically, do not.The FA has sought to address in recent years by arranging high-profile friendlies. Since Southgate took charge in October 2016, England have played exhibition games against Spain, Germany (twice), France, Brazil and Netherlands, with one won (1-0 vs. Netherlands in March 2018.)There was further progress in the inaugural UEFA Nations League, defeating Spain away from home and beating Croatia at Wembley, with the ultimate aim being that England acclimatise themselves to the toughest challenges so the gap does not feel as big when tournament football comes around.Marcus Rashford, who scored in that Nations League victory in Spain, believes the approach has reaped dividends and was perhaps a key factor in England reaching the 2018 World Cup semifinals."I think it has helped massively," the Manchester United striker told ESPN. "I remember a few years ago, we were performing well but we weren't getting results against the big teams."It was something that we had to concentrate on and try and change. In recent times, we've got that a bit more, we've got better results and played better against them. It is the fact that we've been exposed to these games which is probably why we feel calmer going into this game and ready for the game. Germany are obviously a top team with top players but we are not going to let that hold us back in any way. We are just going to go and try to win the game; try and be positive."play0:50Gab Marcotti feels Gareth Southgate may lose his job if England are knocked out of Euro 2020 by Germany.Both sides have key decisions to make. Low is facing calls to replace Ilkay Gundogan with Leon Goretzka in midfield after his match-saving contribution against Hungary, while Leroy Sane's place on the wing is under threat from Thomas Muller as he continues to recover from a knee injury.Germany are likely to retain their 3-4-2-1 shape, posing the conundrum for Southgate whether he switches from 4-2-3-1 and matches up with something similar -- as England did in many of those preparatory friendlies -- to give greater control in midfield.Phil Foden is pushing for a recall alongside Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling, but forwards Jack Grealish and Bukayo Saka performed well against Czech Republic, as did centre-back Harry Maguire on his return to the team following an ankle injury.Whatever he plumps for, Southgate says he gives his players the same message before every game.Writing on The Players' Tribune, Southgate said: "The reason that I repeat it is because I really believe it with all my heart. I tell them that when you go out there, in this shirt, you have the opportunity to produce moments that people will remember forever. You are a part of an experience that lasts in the collective consciousness of our country."He knows that better than most. Read the full article

[pocketprinter]

Charlie Munger on the psychology of human misjudgment

Speech at Harvard University Estimated date: June, 1995 Transcription, comments [in brackets] and minor editing by Whitney Tilson

Moderator: ...and they discovered extreme, obvious irrationality in many areas of the economy that they looked at. And they were a little bit troubled because nothing that they had learned in graduate school explained these patterns. Now I would hope that Mr. Munger spends a little bit more time around graduate schools today, because we’ve gotten now where he was 30 years ago, and we are trying to explain those patterns, and some of the people who are doing that will be speaking with you today. 

So I think he thinks of his specialty as the Psychology of Human Misjudgment, and part of this human misjudgment, of course, comes from worrying about the types of fads and social pressures that Henry Kaufman talked to us about. I think it’s significant that Berkshire Hathaway is not headquartered in New York, or even in Los Angeles or San Francisco, but rather in the heart of the country in Nebraska. 

When he referred to this problem of human misjudgment, he identified two significant problems, and I’m sure that there are many more, but when he said, “By not relying on this, and not understanding this, it was costing me a lot of money,” and I presume that some of you are here in the theory that maybe it’s costing you even a somewhat lesser amount of money. And the second point that Mr. Munger made was it was reducing...not understanding human misjudgment was reducing my ability to help everything I loved. Well I hope he loves you, and I’m sure he’ll help you. Thank you. [Applause] 

Munger: Although I am very interested in the subject of human misjudgment -- and lord knows I’ve created a good bit of it -- I don’t think I’ve created my full statistical share, and I think that one of the reasons was I tried to do something about this terrible ignorance I left the Harvard Law School with. 

When I saw this patterned irrationality, which was so extreme, and I had no theory or anything to deal with it, but I could see that it was extreme, and I could see that it was patterned, I just started to create my own system of psychology, partly by casual reading, but largely from personal experience, and I used that pattern to help me get through life. Fairly late in life I stumbled into this book, Influence, by a psychologist named Bob Cialdini, who became a super-tenured hotshot on a 2,000-person faculty at a very young age. And he wrote this book, which has now sold 300-odd thousand copies, which is remarkable for somebody. Well, it’s an academic book aimed at a popular audience that filled in a lot of holes in my crude system. In those holes it filled in, I thought I had a system that was a good-working tool, and I’d like to share that one with you. 

And I came here because behavioral economics. How could economics not be behavioral? If it isn’t behavioral, what the hell is it? And I think it’s fairly clear that all reality has to respect all other reality. If you come to inconsistencies, they have to be resolved, and so if there’s anything valid in psychology, economics has to recognize it, and vice versa. So I think the people that are working on this fringe between economics and psychology are absolutely right to be there, and I think there’s been plenty wrong over the years. 

Well let me romp through as much of this list as I have time to get through: 

24 Standard Causes of Human Misjudgment. 

1. First: Under-recognition of the power of what psychologists call ‘reinforcement’ and economists call ‘incentives.’ 

Well you can say, “Everybody knows that.” Well I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther. 

One of my favorite cases about the power of incentives is the Federal Express case. The heart and soul of the integrity of the system is that all the packages have to be shifted rapidly in one central location each night. And the system has no integrity if the whole shift can’t be done fast. And Federal Express had one hell of a time getting the thing to work. And they tried moral suasion, they tried everything in the world, and finally somebody got the happy thought that they were paying the night shift by the hour, and that maybe if they paid them by the shift, the system would work better. And lo and behold, that solution worked. 

Early in the history of Xerox, Joe Wilson, who was then in the government, had to go back to Xerox because he couldn’t understand how their better, new machine was selling so poorly in relation to their older and inferior machine. Of course when he got there he found out that the commission arrangement with the salesmen gave a tremendous incentive to the inferior machine. 

And here at Harvard, in the shadow of B.F. Skinner -- there was a man who really was into reinforcement as a powerful thought, and, you know, Skinner’s lost his reputation in a lot of places, but if you were to analyze the entire history of experimental science at Harvard, he’d be in the top handful. His experiments were very ingenious, the results were counter- intuitive, and they were important. It is not given to experimental science to do better. What gummed up Skinner’s reputation is that he developed a case of what I always call man-with-a-hammer syndrome: to the man with a hammer, every problem tends to look pretty much like a nail. And Skinner had one of the more extreme cases in the history of Academia, and this syndrome doesn’t exempt bright people. It’s just a man with a hammer...and Skinner is an extreme example of that. And later, as I go down my list, let’s go back and try and figure out why people, like Skinner, get man-with-a-hammer syndrome. 

Incidentally, when I was at the Harvard Law School there was a professor, naturally at Yale, who was derisively discussed at Harvard, and they used to say, “Poor old Blanchard. He thinks declaratory judgments will cure cancer.” And that’s the way Skinner got. And not only that, he was literary, and he scorned opponents who had any different way of thinking or thought anything else was important. This is not a way to make a lasting reputation if the other people turn out to also be doing something important.

2. My second factor is simple psychological denial. 

This first really hit me between the eyes when a friend of our family had a super-athlete, super-student son who flew off a carrier in the north Atlantic and never came back, and his mother, who was a very sane woman, just never believed that he was dead. And, of course, if you turn on the television, you’ll find the mothers of the most obvious criminals that man could ever diagnose, and they all think their sons are innocent. That’s simple psychological denial. The reality is too painful to bear, so you just distort it until it’s bearable. We all do that to some extent, and it’s a common psychological misjudgment that causes terrible problems. 

3. Third: incentive-cause bias, both in one’s own mind and that of ones trusted advisor, where it creates what economists call ‘agency costs.’ 

Here, my early experience was a doctor who sent bushel baskets full of normal gall bladders down to the pathology lab in the leading hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. And with that quality control for which community hospitals are famous, about five years after he should’ve been removed from the staff, he was. And one of the old doctors who participated in the removal was also a family friend, and I asked him: I said, “Tell me, did he think, ‘Here’s a way for me to exercise my talents’” -- this guy was very skilled technically -- “’and make a high living by doing a few maimings and murders every year, along with some frauds?’” And he said, “Hell no, Charlie. He thought that the gall bladder was the source of all medical evil, and if you really love your patients, you couldn’t get that organ out rapidly enough.” 

Now that’s an extreme case, but in lesser strength, it’s present in every profession and in every human being. And it causes perfectly terrible behavior. If you take sales presentations and brokers of commercial real estate and businesses... I’m 70 years old, I’ve never seen one I thought was even within hailing distance of objective truth. If you want to talk about the power of incentives and the power of rationalized, terrible behavior: after the Defense Department had had enough experience with cost-plus percentage of cost contracts, the reaction of our republic was to make it a crime for the federal government to write one, and not only a crime, but a felony. 

And by the way, the government’s right, but a lot of the way the world is run, including most law firms and a lot of other places, they’ve still got a cost-plus percentage of cost system. And human nature, with its version of what I call ‘incentive-caused bias,’ causes this terrible abuse. And many of the people who are doing it you would be glad to have married into your family compared to what you’re otherwise going to get. [Laughter] 

Now there are huge implications from the fact that the human mind is put together this way, and that is that people who create things like cash registers, which make most [dishonest] behavior hard, are some of the effective saints of our civilization. And the cash register was a great moral instrument when it was created. And Patterson knew that, by the way. He had a little store, and the people were stealing him blind and never made any money, and people sold him a couple of cash registers and it went to profit immediately. And, of course, he closed the store and went into the cash register business...

And so this is a huge, important thing. If you read the psychology texts, you will find that if they’re 1,000 pages long, there’s one sentence. Somehow incentive-caused bias has escaped the standard survey course in psychology. 

4. Fourth, and this is a superpower in error-causing psychological tendency: bias from consistency and commitment tendency, including the tendency to avoid or promptly resolve cognitive dissonance. Includes the self-confirmation tendency of all conclusions, particularly expressed conclusions, and with a special persistence for conclusions that are hard-won. 

Well what I’m saying here is that the human mind is a lot like the human egg, and the human egg has a shut-off device. When one sperm gets in, it shuts down so the next one can’t get in. The human mind has a big tendency of the same sort. And here again, it doesn’t just catch ordinary mortals; it catches the deans of physics. According to Max Planck, the really innovative, important new physics was never really accepted by the old guard. Instead a new guard came along that was less brain-blocked by its previous conclusions. And if Max Planck’s crowd had this consistency and commitment tendency that kept their old inclusions intact in spite of disconfirming evidence, you can imagine what the crowd that you and I are part of behaves like. 

And of course, if you make a public disclosure of your conclusion, you’re pounding it into your own head. Many of these students that are screaming at us, you know, they aren’t convincing us, but they’re forming mental change for themselves, because what they’re shouting out [is] what they’re pounding in. And I think educational institutions that create a climate where too much of that goes on are...in a fundamental sense, they’re irresponsible institutions. It’s very important to not put your brain in chains too young by what you shout out. 

And all these things like painful qualifying and initiation rituals pound in your commitments and your ideas. The Chinese brainwashing system, which was for war prisoners, was way better than anybody else’s. They maneuvered people into making tiny little commitments and declarations, and then they’d slowly build. That worked way better than torture. 

5. Fifth: bias from Pavlovian association, misconstruing past correlation as a reliable basis for decision-making. 

I never took a course in psychology, or economics either for that matter, but I did learn about Pavlov in high school biology. And the way they taught it, you know, so the dog salivated when the bell rang. So what? Nobody made the least effort to tie that to the wide world. Well the truth of the matter is that Pavlovian association is an enormously powerful psychological force in the daily life of all of us. And, indeed, in economics we wouldn’t have money without the role of so-called secondary reinforcement, which is a pure psychological phenomenon demonstrated in the laboratory. 

Practically...I’d say 3/4 of advertising works on pure Pavlov. Think how association, pure association, works. Take Coca-Cola company (we’re the biggest share-holder). They want to be associated with every wonderful image: heroics in the Olympics, wonderful music, you name it. They don’t want to be associated with presidents’ funerals and so- forth. When have you seen a Coca-Cola ad...and the association really works. 

And all these psychological tendencies work largely or entirely on a subconscious level, which makes them very insidious. Now you’ve got Persian messenger syndrome. The Persians really did kill the messenger who brought the bad news. You think that is dead? I mean you should’ve seen Bill Paley in his last 20 years. [Paley was the former owner, chairman and CEO of CBS] 

He didn’t hear one damn thing he didn’t want to hear. People knew that it was bad for the messenger to bring Bill Paley things he didn’t want to hear. Well that means that the leader gets in a cocoon of unreality, and this is a great big enterprise, and boy, did he make some dumb decisions in the last 20 years. 

And now the Persian messenger syndrome is alive and well. I saw, some years ago, Arco and Exxon arguing over a few hundred millions of ambiguity in their North Slope treaties before a superior court judge in Texas, with armies of lawyers and experts on each side. Now this is a Mad Hatter’s tea party: two engineering-style companies can’t resolve some ambiguity without spending tens of millions of dollars in some Texas superior court? In my opinion what happens is that nobody wants to bring the bad news to the executives up the line. But here’s a few hundred million dollars you thought you had that you don’t. And it’s much safer to act like the Persian messenger who goes away to hide rather than bring home the news of the battle lost. 

Talking about economics, you get a very interesting phenomenon that I’ve seen over and over again in a long life. You’ve got two products; suppose they’re complex, technical products. Now you’d think, under the laws of economics, that if product A costs X, if product Y costs X minus something, it will sell better than if it sells at X plus something, but that’s not so. In many cases when you raise the price of the alternative products, it’ll get a larger market share than it would when you make it lower than your competitor’s product. That’s because the bell, a Pavlovian bell -- I mean ordinarily there’s a correlation between price and value -- then you have an information inefficiency. And so when you raise the price, the sales go up relative to your competitor. That happens again and again and again. It’s a pure Pavlovian phenomenon. You can say, “Well, the economists have figured this sort of thing out when they started talking about information inefficiencies,” but that was fairly late in economics that they found such an obvious thing. And, of course, most of them don’t ask what causes the information inefficiencies. 

Well one of the things that causes it is pure old Pavlov and his dog. Now you’ve got bios from Skinnerian association: operant conditioning, you know, where you give the dog a reward and pound in the behavior that preceded the dog’s getting the award. And, of course, Skinner was able to create superstitious pigeons by having the rewards come by accident with certain occurrences, and, of course, we all know people who are the human equivalents of superstitious pigeons. That’s a very powerful phenomenon. And, of course, operant conditioning really works. I mean the people in the center who think that operant conditioning is important are very much right, it’s just that Skinner overdid it a little. 

Where you see in business just perfectly horrible results from psychologically-rooted tendencies is in accounting. If you take Westinghouse, which blew, what, two or three billion dollars pre-tax at least loaning developers to build hotels, and virtually 100% loans? Now you say any idiot knows that if there’s one thing you don’t like it’s a developer, and another you don’t like it’s a hotel. And to make a 100% loan to a developer who’s going to build a hotel... [Laughter] But this guy, he probably was an engineer or something, and he didn’t take psychology any more than I did, and he got out there in the hands of these salesmen operating under their version of incentive-caused bias, where any damned way of getting Westinghouse to do it was considered normal business, and they just blew it. 

That would never have been possible if the accounting system hadn’t been such but for the initial phase of every transaction it showed wonderful financial results. So people who have loose accounting standards are just inviting perfectly horrible behavior in other people. And it’s a sin, it’s an absolute sin. If you carry bushel baskets full of money through the ghetto, and made it easy to steal, that would be a considerable human sin, because you’d be causing a lot of bad behavior, and the bad behavior would spread. Similarly an institution that gets sloppy accounting commits a real human sin, and it’s also a dumb way to do business, as Westinghouse has so wonderfully proved. 

Oddly enough nobody mentions, at least nobody I’ve seen, what happened with Joe Jett and Kidder Peabody. The truth of the matter is the accounting system was such that by punching a few buttons, the Joe Jetts of the world could show profits, and profits that showed up in things that resulted in rewards and esteem and every other thing... Well the Joe Jetts are always with us, and they’re not really to blame, in my judgment at least. But that bastard who created that foolish accounting system who, so far as I know, has not been flayed alive, ought to be. 

6. Sixth: bias from reciprocation tendency, including the tendency of one on a roll to act as other persons expect. 

Well here, again, Cialdini does a magnificent job at this, and you’re all going to be given a copy of Cialdini’s book. And if you have half as much sense as I think you do, you will immediately order copies for all of your children and several of your friends. You will never make a better investment. 

It is so easy to be a patsy for what he calls the compliance practitioners of this life. At any rate, reciprocation tendency is a very, very powerful phenomenon, and Cialdini demonstrated this by running around a campus, and he asked people to take juvenile delinquents to the zoo. And it was a campus, and so one in six actually agreed to do it. And after he’d accumulated a statistical output he went around on the same campus and he asked other people, he said, “Gee, would you devote two afternoons a week to taking juvenile delinquents somewhere and suffering greatly yourself to help them,” and there he got 100% of the people to say no. But after he’d made the first request, he backed up a little, and he said, “Would you at least take them to the zoo one afternoon?” He raised the compliance rate from a third to a half. He got three times the success by just going through the little ask-for-a-lot-and-back-off. 

Now if the human mind, on a subconscious level, can be manipulated that way and you don’t know it, I always use the phrase, “You’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.” I mean you are really giving a lot of quarter to the external world that you can’t afford to give. And on this so-called role theory, where you tend to act in the way that other people expect, and that’s reciprocation if you think about the way society is organized. 

A guy named Zimbardo had people at Stanford divide into two pieces: one were the guards and the other were the prisoners, and they started acting out roles as people expected. He had to stop the experiment after about five days. He was getting into human misery and breakdown and pathological behavior. I mean it was...it was awesome. However, Zimbardo is greatly misinterpreted. It’s not just reciprocation tendency and role theory that caused that, it’s consistency and commitment tendency. Each person, as he acted as a guard or a prisoner, the action itself was pounding in the idea. [For more on this famous experiment, see http://www.prisonexp.org.] 

Wherever you turn, this consistency and commitment tendency is affecting you. In other words, what you think may change what you do, but perhaps even more important, what you do will change what you think. And you can say, “Everybody knows that.” I want to tell you I didn’t know it well enough early enough. 

7. Seventh, now this is a lollapalooza, and Henry Kaufman wisely talked about this: bias from over-influence by social proof -- that is, the conclusions of others, particularly under conditions of natural uncertainty and stress. 

And here, one of the cases the psychologists use is Kitty Genovese, where all these people -- I don’t know, 50, 60, 70 of them -- just sort of sat and did nothing while she was slowly murdered. Now one of the explanations is that everybody looked at everybody else and nobody else was doing anything, and so there’s automatic social proof that the right thing to do is nothing. That’s not a good enough explanation for Kitty Genovese, in my judgment. That’s only part of it. There are microeconomic ideas and gain/loss ratios and so forth that also come into play. I think time and time again, in reality, psychological notions and economic notions interplay, and the man who doesn’t understand both is a damned fool. 

Big-shot businessmen get into these waves of social proof. Do you remember some years ago when one oil company bought a fertilizer company, and every other major oil company practically ran out and bought a fertilizer company? And there was no more damned reason for all these oil companies to buy fertilizer companies, but they didn’t know exactly what to do, and if Exxon was doing it, it was good enough for Mobil, and vice versa. I think they’re all gone now, but it was a total disaster. 

Now let’s talk about efficient market theory, a wonderful economic doctrine that had a long vogue in spite of the experience of Berkshire Hathaway. In fact one of the economists who won -- he shared a Nobel Prize -- and as he looked at Berkshire Hathaway year after year, which people would throw in his face as saying maybe the market isn’t quite as efficient as you think, he said, “Well, it’s a two-sigma event.” And then he said we were a three-sigma event. And then he said we were a four-sigma event. And he finally got up to six sigmas -- better to add a sigma than change a theory, just because the evidence comes in differently. [Laughter] And, of course, when this share of a Nobel Prize went into money management himself, he sank like a stone. 

If you think about the doctrines I’ve talked about, namely, one, the power of reinforcement -- after all you do something and the market goes up and you get paid and rewarded and applauded and what have you, meaning a lot of reinforcement, if you make a bet on a market and the market goes with you. Also, there’s social proof. I mean the prices on the market are the ultimate form of social proof, reflecting what other people think, and so the combination is very powerful. Why would you expect general market levels to always be totally efficient, say even in 1973-74 at the pit, or in 1972 or whatever it was when the Nifty 50 were in their heyday? If these psychological notions are correct, you would expect some waves of irrationality, which carry general levels, so they’re inconsistent with reason. 

8. Nine [he means eight]: what made these economists love the efficient market theory is the math was so elegant. 

And after all, math was what they’d learned to do. To the man with a hammer, every problem tends to look pretty much like a nail. The alternative truth was a little messy, and they’d forgotten the great economists Keynes, whom I think said, “Better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.” 

9. Nine: bias from contrast-caused distortions of sensation, perception and cognition. 

Here, the great experiment that Cialdini does in his class is he takes three buckets of water: one’s hot, one’s cold and one’s room temperature, and he has the student stick his left hand in the hot water and his right hand in the cold water. Then he has them remove the hands and put them both in the room temperature bucket, and of course with both hands in the same bucket of water, one seems hot, the other seems cold because the sensation apparatus of man is over-influenced by contrast. It has no absolute scale; it’s got a contrast scale in it. And it’s a scale with quantum effects in it too. It takes a certain percentage change before it’s noticed. 

Maybe you’ve had a magician remove your watch -- I certainly have -- without your noticing it. It’s the same thing. He’s taking advantage of contrast-type troubles in your sensory apparatus. But here the great truth is that cognition mimics sensation, and the cognition manipulators mimic the watch-removing magician. In other words, people are manipulating you all day long on this contrast phenomenon. 

Cialdini cites the case of the real estate broker. And you’ve got the rube that’s been transferred into your town, and the first thing you do is you take the rube out to two of the most awful, overpriced houses you’ve ever seen, and then you take the rube to some moderately overpriced house, and then you stick him. And it works pretty well, which is why the real estate salesmen do it. And it’s always going to work. 

And the accidents of life can do this to you, and it can ruin your life. In my generation, when women lived at home until they got married, I saw some perfectly terrible marriages made by highly desirable women because they lived in terrible homes. And I’ve seen some terrible second marriages which were made because they were slight improvements over an even worse first marriage. You think you’re immune from these things, and you laugh, and I want to tell you, you aren’t. 

My favorite analogy I can’t vouch for the accuracy of. I have this worthless friend I like to play bridge with, and he’s a total intellectual amateur that lives on inherited money, but he told me once something I really enjoyed hearing. He said, “Charlie,” he say, “If you throw a frog into very hot water, the frog will jump out, but if you put the frog in room temperature water and just slowly heat the water up, the frog will die there.” Now I don’t know whether that’s true about a frog, but it’s sure as hell true about many of the businessmen I know [laughter], and there, again, it is the contrast phenomenon. But these are hot-shot, high-powered people. I mean these are not fools. If it comes to you in small pieces, you’re likely to miss, so if you’re going to be a person of good judgment, you have to do something about this warp in your head where it’s so misled by mere contrast. 

10. Bias from over-influence by authority. 

Well here, the Milgrim experiment, as it's called -- I think there have been 1,600 psychological papers written about Milgrim. And he had a person posing as an authority figure trick ordinary people into giving what they had every reason to expect was heavy torture by electric shock to perfectly innocent fellow citizens. And he was trying to show why Hitler succeeded and a few other things, and so this really caught the fancy of the world. Partly it’s so politically correct, and over-influence by authority... 

You’ll like this one: You get a pilot and a co-pilot. The pilot is the authority figure. They don’t do this in airplanes, but they’ve done it in simulators. They have the pilot do something where the co-pilot, who's been trained in simulators a long time -- he knows he’s not to allow the plane to crash -- they have the pilot to do something where an idiot co-pilot would know the plane was going to crash, but the pilot’s doing it, and the co-pilot is sitting there, and the pilot is the authority figure. 25% of the time the plane crashes. I mean this is a very powerful psychological tendency. It’s not quite as powerful as some people think, and I’ll get to that later. 

11. Eleven: bias from deprival super-reaction syndrome, including bias caused by present or threatened scarcity, including threatened removal of something almost possessed, but never possessed. 

Here I took the Munger dog, a lovely, harmless dog. The only way to get that dog to bite you is to try and take something out of its mouth after it was already there. And you know, if you’ve tried to do takeaways in labor negotiations, you’ll know that the human version of that dog is there in all of us. And I have a neighbor, a predecessor who had a little island around the house, and his next door neighbor put a little pine tree on it that was about three feet high, and it turned his 180 degree view of the harbor into 179 3/4. Well they had a blood feud like the Hatfields and McCoys, and it went on and on and on... 

I mean people are really crazy about minor decrements down. And then, if you act on them, then you get into reciprocation tendency, because you don’t just reciprocate affection, you reciprocate animosity, and the whole thing can escalate. And so huge insanities can come from just subconsciously over-weighing the importance of what you’re losing or almost getting and not getting. 

And the extreme business case here was New Coke. Coca-Cola has the most valuable trademark in the world. We’re the major shareholder -- I think we understand that trademark. Coke has armies of brilliant engineers, lawyers, psychologists, advertising executives and so forth, and they had a trademark on a flavor, and they’d spent the better part of 100 years getting people to believe that trademark had all these intangible values too. And people associate it with a flavor. And so they were going to tell people not that it was improved, because you can’t improve a flavor. A flavor is a matter of taste. I mean you may improve a detergent or something, but don’t think you’re going to make a major change in a flavor. So they got this huge deprival super-reaction syndrome. 

Pepsi was within weeks of coming out with old Coke in a Pepsi bottle, which would’ve been the biggest fiasco in modern times. Perfect insanity. And by the way, both Goizuetta [Coke's CEO at the time] and Keough [an influential former president and director of the company] are just wonderful about it. I mean they just joke. Keough always says, “I must’ve been away on vacation.” He participated in every single decision -- he’s a wonderful guy. And by the way, Goizuetta is a wonderful, smart guy -- an engineer. Smart people make these terrible boners. How can you not understand deprival super-reaction syndrome? But people do not react symmetrically to loss and gain. Well maybe a great bridge player like Zeckhauser does, but that’s a trained response. Ordinary people, subconsciously affected by their inborn tendencies... 

12. Bias from envy/jealousy. 

Well envy/jealousy made, what, two out of the ten commandments? Those of you who have raised siblings you know about envy, or tried to run a law firm or investment bank or even a faculty? I’ve heard Warren say a half a dozen times, “It’s not greed that drives the world, but envy.” 

Here again, you go through the psychology survey courses, and you go to the index: envy/jealousy, 1,000-page book, it’s blank. There’s some blind spots in academia, but it’s an enormously powerful thing, and it operates, to a considerable extent, on the subconscious level. Anybody who doesn’t understand it is taking on defects he shouldn’t have. 

13. Bias from chemical dependency. 

Well, we don’t have to talk about that. We’ve all seen so much of it, but it’s interesting how it’ll always cause this moral breakdown if there’s any need, and it always involves massive denial. See it just aggravates what we talked about earlier in the aviator case, the tendency to distort reality so that it’s endurable. 

14. Bias from mis-gambling compulsion. 

Well here, Skinner made the only explanation you’ll find in the standard psychology survey course. He, of course, created a variable reinforcement rate for his pigeons and his mice, and he found that that would pound in the behavior better than any other enforcement pattern. And he says, “Ah ha! I’ve explained why gambling is such a powerful, addictive force in this civilization.” I think that is, to a very considerable extent, true, but being Skinner, he seemed to think that was the only explanation, but the truth of the matter is that the devisors of these modern machines and techniques know a lot of things that Skinner didn’t know. 

For instance, a lottery. You have a lottery where you get your number by lot, and then somebody draws a number by lot, it gets lousy play. You have a lottery where people get to pick their number, you get big play. Again, it’s this consistency and commitment thing. People think if they have committed to it, it has to be good. The minute they’ve picked it themselves it gets an extra validity. After all, they thought it and they acted on it. 

Then if you take the slot machines, you get bar, bar, walnut. And it happens again and again and again. You get all these near misses. Well that’s deprival super-reaction syndrome, and boy do the people who create the machines understand human psychology. And for the high IQ-crowd they’ve got poker machines where you make choices. So you can play blackjack, so to speak, with the machine. It’s wonderful what we’ve done with our computers to ruin the civilization. 

But at any rate, mis-gambling compulsion is a very, very powerful and important thing. Look at what’s happening to our country: every Indian has a reservation, every river town, and look at the people who are ruined by it with the aid of their stock brokers and others. And again, if you look in the standard textbook of psychology you’ll find practically nothing on it except maybe one sentence talking about Skinner’s rats. That is not an adequate coverage of the subject. 

15. Bias from liking distortion, including the tendency to especially like oneself, one’s 

own kind and one’s own idea structures, and the tendency to be especially susceptible to being misled by someone liked. Disliking distortion, bias from that, the reciprocal of liking distortion and the tendency not to learn appropriately from someone disliked. 

Well here, again, we’ve got hugely powerful tendencies, and if you look at the wars in part of the Harvard Law School, as we sit here, you can see that very brilliant people get into this almost pathological behavior. And these are very, very powerful, basic, subconscious psychological tendencies, or at least party subconscious. 

Now let’s get back to B.F. Skinner, man-with-a-hammer syndrome revisited. Why is man- with-a-hammer syndrome always present? Well if you stop to think about it, it’s incentive- caused bias. His professional reputation is all tied up with what he knows. He likes himself and he likes his own ideas, and he’s expressed them to other people -- consistency and commitment tendency. I mean you’ve got four or five of these elementary psychological tendencies combining to create this man-with-a-hammer syndrome. 

Once you realize that you can’t really buy your thinking -- partly you can, but largely you can’t in this world -- you have learned a lesson that’s very useful in life. George Bernard Shaw had a character say in The Doctor’s Dilemma, “In the last analysis, every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.” But he didn’t have it quite right, because it isn’t so much a conspiracy as it is a subconscious, psychological tendency. 

The guy tells you what is good for him. He doesn’t recognize that he’s doing anything wrong any more than that doctor did when he was pulling out all those normal gall bladders. And he believes his own idea structures will cure cancer, and he believes that the demons that he’s the guardian against are the biggest demons and the most important ones, and in fact they may be very small demons compared to the demons that you face. So you’re getting your advice in this world from your paid advisor with this huge load of ghastly bias. And woe to you. 

There are only two ways to handle it: you can hire your advisor and then just apply a windage factor, like I used to do when I was a rifle shooter. I’d just adjust for so many miles an hour wind. Or you can learn the basic elements of your advisor's trade. You don’t have to learn very much, by the way, because if you learn just a little then you can make him explain why he’s right. And those two tendencies will take part of the warp out of the thinking you’ve tried to hire done. By and large it works terribly. I have never seen a management consultant’s report in my long life that didn’t end with the following paragraph: "What this situation really needs is more management consulting." Never once. I always turn to the last page. Of course Berkshire doesn’t hire them, so I only do this on sort of a voyeuristic basis. Sometimes I’m at a non-profit where some idiot hires one. [Laughter] 

16. Seventeen [he means 16]: bias from the non-mathematical nature of the human brain in its natural state as it deal with probabilities employing crude heuristics, and is often misled by mere contrast, a tendency to overweigh conveniently available information and other psychologically misrouted thinking tendencies on this list. 

When the brain should be using the simple probability mathematics of Fermat and Pascal applied to all reasonably obtainable and correctly weighted items of information that are of value in predicting outcomes, the right way to think is the way Zeckhauser plays bridge. It’s just that simple. And your brain doesn’t naturally know how to think the way Zeckhauser knows how to play bridge. Now, you notice I put in that availability thing, and there I’m mimicking some very eminent psychologists [Daniel] Kahneman, Eikhout[?] (I hope I pronounced that right) and [Amos] Tversky, who raised the idea of availability to a whole heuristic of misjudgment. And they are very substantially right. 

I mean ask the Coca-Cola Company, which has raised availability to a secular religion. If availability changes behavior, you will drink a helluva lot more Coke if it’s always available. I mean availability does change behavior and cognition. Nonetheless, even though I recognize that and applaud Tversky and Kahneman, I don’t like it for my personal system except as part of a greater sub-system, which is you’ve got to think the way Zeckhauser plays bridge. And it isn’t just the lack of availability that distorts your judgment. All the things on this list distort judgment. And I want to train myself to kind of mentally run down the list instead of just jumping on availability. So that’s why I state it the way I do. 

In a sense these psychological tendencies make things unavailable, because if you quickly jump to one thing, and then because you jumped to it the consistency and commitment tendency makes you lock in, boom, that’s error number one. Or if something is very vivid, which I’m going to come to next, that will really pound in. And the reason that the thing that really matters is now unavailable and what’s extra-vivid wins is, I mean, the extra- vividness creates the unavailability. So I think it’s much better to have a whole list of things that would cause you to be less like Zeckhauser than it is just to jump on one factor. 

Here I think we should discuss John Gutfreund. This is a very interesting human example, which will be taught in every decent professional school for at least a full generation. Gutfreund has a trusted employee and it comes to light not through confession but by accident that the trusted employee has lied like hell to the government and manipulated the accounting system, and it was really equivalent to forgery. And the man immediately says, “I’ve never done it before, I’ll never do it again. It was an isolated example.” And of course it was obvious that he was trying to help the government as well as himself, because he thought the government had been dumb enough to pass a rule that he’d spoken against, and after all if the government’s not going to pay attention to a bond trader at Salomon, what kind of a government can it be? 

At any rate, this guy has been part of a little clique that has made, well, way over a billion dollars for Salomon in the very recent past, and it’s a little handful of people. And so there are a lot of psychological forces at work, and then you know the guy’s wife, and he’s right in front of you, and there’s human sympathy, and he’s sort of asking for your help, which encourages reciprocation, and there’s all these psychological tendencies are working, plus the fact he’s part of a group that had made a lot of money for you. At any rate, Gutfreund does not cashier the man, and of course he had done it before and he did do it again. Well now you look as though you almost wanted him to do it again. Or God knows what you look like, but it isn’t good. And that simple decision destroyed Jim Gutfreund, and it’s so easy to do. 

Now let’s think it through like the bridge player, like Zeckhauser. You find an isolated example of a little old lady in the See’s Candy Company, one of our subsidiaries, getting into the till. And what does she say? “I never did it before, I’ll never do it again. This is going to ruin my life. Please help me.” And you know her children and her friends, and she’d been around 30 years and standing behind the candy counter with swollen ankles. 

When you’re an old lady it isn’t that glorious a life. And you’re rich and powerful and there she is: “I never did it before, I’ll never do it again.” Well how likely is it that she never did it before? If you’re going to catch 10 embezzlements a year, what are the chances that any one of them -- applying what Tversky and Kahneman called baseline information -- will be somebody who only did it this once? And the people who have done it before and are going to do it again, what are they all going to say? Well in the history of the See’s Candy Company they always say, “I never did it before, and I’m never going to do it again.” And we cashier them. It would be evil not to, because terrible behavior spreads. 

Remember...what was it? Serpico? I mean you let that stuff...you’ve got social proof, you’ve got incentive-caused bias, you’ve got a whole lot of psychological factors that will cause the evil behavior to spread, and pretty soon the whole damn...your place is rotten, the civilization is rotten. It’s not the right way to behave. And I will admit that I have...when I knew the wife and children, I have paid severance pay when I fire somebody for taking a mistress on an extended foreign trip. It’s not the adultery I mind, it’s the embezzlement. But there, I wouldn’t do it like Gutfreund did it, where they’d been cheating somebody else on my behalf. There I think you have to cashier. But if they’re just stealing from you and you get rid of them, I don’t think you need the last ounce of vengeance. In fact I don’t think you need any vengeance. I don’t think vengeance is much good. 

17. Now we come to bias from over-influence by extra-vivid evidence. 

Here’s one that...I’m at least $30 million poorer as I sit here giving this little talk because I once bought 300 shares of a stock and the guy called me back and said, “I’ve got 1,500 more,” and I said, “Will you hold it for 15 minutes while I think about it?” And the CEO of this company -- I have seen a lot of vivid peculiarities in a long life, but this guy set a world record; I’m talking about the CEO -- and I just mis-weighed it. The truth of the matter was the situation was foolproof. He was soon going to be dead, and I turned down the extra 1,500 shares, and it’s now cost me $30 million. And that’s life in the big city. And it wasn’t something where stock was generally available. So it’s very easy to mis- weigh the vivid evidence, and Gutfreund did that when he looked into the man’s eyes and forgave a colleague. 

18. Twenty-two [he means 18]: Mental confusion caused by information not arrayed in the mind and theory structures, creating sound generalizations developed in response to the question “Why?” Also, mis-influence from information that apparently but not really answers the question “Why?” Also, failure to obtain deserved influence caused by not properly explaining why. 

Well we all know people who’ve flunked, and they try and memorize and they try and spout back and they just...it doesn’t work. The brain doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to array facts on the theory structures answering the question “Why?” If you don’t do that, you just cannot handle the world. 

And now we get to Feuerstein, who was the general counsel with Salomon when Gutfreund made his big error, and Feuerstein knew better. He told Gutfreund, “You have to report this as a matter of morality and prudent business judgment.” He said, “It’s probably not illegal, there’s probably no legal duty to do it, but you have to do it as a matter of prudent conduct and proper dealing with your main customer.” He said that to Gutfreund on at least two or three occasions. And he stopped. And, of course, the persuasion failed, and when Gutfreund went down, Feuerstein went with him. It ruined a considerable part of Feuerstein’s life. 

Well Feuerstein, [who] was a member of the Harvard Law Review, made an elementary psychological mistake. You want to persuade somebody, you really tell them why. And what did we learn in lesson one? Incentives really matter? Vivid evidence really works? He should’ve told Gutfreund, “You’re likely to ruin your life and disgrace your family and lose your money.” And is Mozer worth this? I know both men. That would’ve worked. So Feuerstein flunked elementary psychology, this very sophisticated, brilliant lawyer. But don’t you do that. It’s not very hard to do, you know, just to remember that “Why?” is very important. 

19. Other normal limitations of sensation, memory, cognition and knowledge. Well, I don’t have time for that. 

20. Stress-induced mental changes, small and large, temporary and permanent. 

Here, my favorite example is the great Pavlov. He had all these dogs in cages, which had all been conditioned into changed behaviors, and the great Leningrad flood came and it just went right up and the dog’s in a cage. And the dog had as much stress as you can imagine a dog ever having. And the water receded in time to save some of the dogs, and Pavlov noted that they’d had a total reversal of their conditioned personality. And being the great scientist he was, he spent the rest of his life giving nervous breakdowns to dogs, and he learned a helluva lot that I regard as very interesting. 

I have never known any Freudian analyst who knew anything about the last work of Pavlov, and I’ve never met a lawyer who understood that what Pavlov found out with those dogs had anything to do with programming and de-programming and cults and so forth. I mean the amount of elementary psychological ignorance that is out there in high levels is very significant[?]. 

21. Then we’ve got other common mental illnesses and declines, temporary and permanent, including the tendency to lose ability through disuse. 

22. And then I’ve got development and organizational confusion from say-something syndrome. 

And here my favorite thing is the bee, a honeybee. And a honeybee goes out and finds the nectar and he comes back, he does a dance that communicates to the other bees where the nectar is, and they go out and get it. Well some scientist who is clever, like B.F. Skinner, decided to do an experiment. He put the nectar straight up. Way up. Well, in a natural setting, there is no nectar where they’re all straight up, and the poor honeybee doesn’t have a genetic program that is adequate to handle what he now has to communicate. And you’d think the honeybee would come back to the hive and slink into a corner, but he doesn’t. He comes into the hive and does this incoherent dance, and all my life I’ve been dealing with the human equivalent of that honeybee. [Laughter] And it’s a very important part of human organization so the noise and the reciprocation and so forth of all these people who have what I call say-something syndrome don’t really affect the decisions. 

Now the time has come to ask two or three questions. This is the most important question in this whole talk: 

1. What happens when these standard psychological tendencies combine? What happens when the situation, or the artful manipulation of man, causes several of these tendencies to operate on a person toward the same end at the same time? 

The clear answer is the combination greatly increases power to change behavior, compared to the power of merely one tendency acting alone. 

Examples are: 

• Tupperware parties. Tupperware’s now made billions of dollars out of a few manipulative psychological tricks. It was so schlocky that directors of Justin Dart’s company resigned when he crammed it down his board’s throat. And he was totally right, by the way, judged by economic outcomes. 

• Moonie [as in Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church] conversion methods: boy do they work. He just combines four or five of these things together. 

• The system of Alcoholics Anonymous: a 50% no-drinking rate outcome when everything else fails? It’s a very clever system that uses four or five psychological systems at once toward, I might say, a very good end. 

• The Milgrim experiment. It’s been widely interpreted as mere obedience, but the truth of the matter is that the experimenter who got the students to give the heavy shocks in Milgrim, he explained why. It was a false explanation. “We need this to look for scientific truth,” and so on. That greatly changed the behavior of the people. And number two, he worked them up: tiny shock, a little larger, a little larger. So commitment and consistency tendency and the contrast principle were both working in favor of this behavior. So again, it’s four different psychological tendencies.

When you get these lollapalooza effects you will almost always find four or five of these things working together. 

When I was young there was a whodunit hero who always said, “Cherche la femme.” [In French, "Look for the woman."] What you should search for in life is the combination, because the combination is likely to do you in. Or, if you’re the inventor of Tupperware parties, it’s likely to make you enormously rich if you can stand shaving when you do it. 

One of my favorite cases is the McDonald-Douglas airliner evacuation disaster. The government requires that airliners pass a bunch of tests, one of them is evacuation: get everybody out, I think it’s 90 seconds or something like that. It’s some short period of time. The government has rules, make it very realistic, so on and so on. You can’t select nothing but 20-year-old athletes to evacuate your airline. So McDonald-Douglas schedules one of these things in a hangar, and they make the hangar dark and the concrete floor is 25 feet down, and they’ve got these little rubber chutes, and they’ve got all these old people, and they ring the bell and they all rush out, and in the morning, when the first test is done, they create, I don’t know, 20 terrible injuries when people go off to hospitals, and of course they scheduled another one for the afternoon. 

By the way they didn’t read[?] the time schedule either, in addition to causing all the injuries. 

Well...so what do they do? They do it again in the afternoon. Now they create 20 more injuries and one case of a severed spinal column with permanent, unfixable paralysis. These are engineers, these are brilliant people, this is thought over through in a big bureaucracy. Again, it’s a combination of [psychological tendencies]: authorities told you to do it. He told you to make it realistic. You’ve decided to do it. You’d decided to do it twice. Incentive-caused bias. If you pass you save a lot of money. You’ve got to jump this hurdle before you can sell your new airliner. Again, three, four, five of these things work together and it turns human brains into mush. And maybe you think this doesn’t happen in picking investments? If so, you’re living in a different world than I am. 

Finally, the open-outcry auction. Well the open-outcry auction is just made to turn the brain into mush: you’ve got social proof, the other guy is bidding, you get reciprocation tendency, you get deprival super-reaction syndrome, the thing is going away... I mean it just absolutely is designed to manipulate people into idiotic behavior. 

Finally the institution of the board of directors of the major American company. Well, the top guy is sitting there, he’s an authority figure. He’s doing asinine things, you look around the board, nobody else is objecting, social proof, it’s okay? Reciprocation tendency, he’s raising the directors fees every year, he’s flying you around in the corporate airplane to look at interesting plants, or whatever in hell they do, and you go and you really get extreme dysfunction as a corrective decision-making body in the typical American board of directors. They only act, again the power of incentives, they only act when it gets so bad it starts making them look foolish, or threatening legal liability to them. That’s Munger’s rule. I mean there are occasional things that don’t follow Munger’s rule, but by and large the board of directors is a very ineffective corrector if the top guy is a little nuts, which, of course, frequently happens. 

2. The second question: Isn’t this list of standard psychological tendencies improperly tautological compared with the system of Euclid? That is, aren’t there overlaps? And can’t some items on the list be derived from combinations of other items?

The answer to that is, plainly, yes. 

3. Three: What good, in the practical world, is the thought system indicated by the list? Isn’t practical benefit prevented because these psychological tendencies are programmed into the human mind by broad evolution so we can’t get rid of them? [By] broad evolution, I mean the combination of genetic and cultural evolution, but mostly genetic. 

Well the answer is the tendencies are partly good and, indeed, probably much more good than bad, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. By and large these rules of thumb, they work pretty well for man given his limited mental capacity. And that’s why they were programmed in by broad evolution. At any rate, they can’t be simply washed out automatically and they shouldn’t be. Nonetheless, the psychological thought system described is very useful in spreading wisdom and good conduct when one understands it and uses it constructively. 

Here are some examples: 

• One: Karl Braun’s communication practices. He designed oil refineries with spectacular skill and integrity. He had a very simple rule. Remember I said, “Why is it important?” You got fired in the Braun company. You had to have five Ws. You had to tell Who, What you wanted to do, Where and When, and you had to tell him Why. And if you wrote a communication and left out the Why you got fired, because Braun knew it’s complicated building an oil refinery. It can blow up...all kinds of things happen. And he knew that his communication system worked better if you always told him why. That’s a simple discipline, and boy does it work. 

• Two: the use of simulators in pilot training. Here, again, abilities attenuate with disuse. Well the simulator is God’s gift because you can keep them fresh. 

• Three: The system of Alcoholics Anonymous, that’s certainly a constructive use of somebody understanding psychological tendencies. I think they just wandered into it, as a matter of fact, so you can regard it as kind of an evolutionary outcome. But just because they’ve wandered into it doesn’t mean you can’t invent its equivalent when you need it for a good purpose. 

• Four: Clinical training in medical schools: here’s a profoundly correct way of understanding psychology. The standard practice is watch one, do one, teach one. Boy does that pound in what you want pounded in. Again, the consistency and commitment tendency. And that is a profoundly correct way to teach clinical medicine. 

• Five: The rules of the U.S. Constitutional Convention: totally secret, no vote until the whole vote, then just one vote on the whole Constitution. Very clever psychological rules, and if they had a different procedure, everybody would’ve been pushed into a corner by his own pronouncements and his own oratory and his own... And no recorded votes until the last one. And they got it through by a whisker with those wise rules. We wouldn’t have had the Constitution if our forefathers hadn’t been so psychologically acute. And look at the crowd we got now.

• Six: the use of granny’s rule. I love this. One of the psychologists who works for the Center gets paid a fortune running around America, and he teaches executives to manipulate themselves. Now granny’s rule is you don’t get the ice cream unless you eat your carrots. Well granny was a very wise woman. That is a very good system. And so this guy, a very eminent psychologist, he runs around the country telling executives to organize their day so they force themselves to do what’s unpleasant and important by doing that first, and then rewarding themselves with something they really like doing. He is profoundly correct. 

• Seven: the Harvard Business School’s emphasis on decision trees. When I was young and foolish I used to laugh at the Harvard Business School. I said, “They’re teaching 28-year-old people that high school algebra works in real life?” We’re talking about elementary probability. But later I wised up and I realized that it was very important that they do that, and better late than never. 

• Eight: the use of post-mortems at Johnson & Johnson. At most corporations if you make an acquisition and it turns out to be a disaster, all the paperwork and presentations that caused the dumb acquisition to be made are quickly forgotten. You’ve got denial, you’ve got everything in the world. You’ve got Pavlovian association tendency. Nobody even wants to even be associated with the damned thing or even mention it. At Johnson & Johnson, they make everybody revisit their old acquisitions and wade through the presentations. That is a very smart thing to do. And by the way, I do the same thing routinely. 

• Nine: the great example of Charles Darwin is he avoided confirmation bias. Darwin probably changed my life because I’m a biography nut, and when I found out the way he always paid extra attention to the disconfirming evidence and all these little psychological tricks. I also found out that he wasn’t very smart by the ordinary standards of human acuity, yet there he is buried in Westminster Abbey. That’s not where I’m going, I’ll tell you. And I said, “My God, here’s a guy that, by all objective evidence, is not nearly as smart as I am and he’s in Westminster Abbey? He must have tricks I should learn.” And I started wearing little hair shirts like Darwin to try and train myself out of these subconscious psychological tendencies that cause so many errors. It didn’t work perfectly, as you can tell from listening to this talk, but it would’ve been even worse if I hadn’t done what I did. And you can know these psychological tendencies and avoid being the patsy of all the people that are trying to manipulate you to your disadvantage, like Sam Walton. Sam Walton won’t let a purchasing agent take a handkerchief from a salesman. He knows how powerful the subconscious reciprocation tendency is. That is a profoundly correct way for Sam Walton to behave. 

• Ten: Then there is the Warren Buffett rule for open-outcry auctions: don’t go. We don’t go to the closed-bid auctions too because they...that’s a counter-productive way to do things ordinarily for a different reason, which Zeckhauser would understand. 

4. Four: What special knowledge problems lie buried in the thought system indicated by the list? 

Well one is paradox. Now we’re talking about a type of human wisdom that the more people learn about it, the more attenuated the wisdom gets. That’s an intrinsically paradoxical kind of wisdom. But we have paradox in mathematics and we don’t give up mathematics. I say damn the paradox. This stuff is wonderfully useful. And by the way, the granny’s rule, when you apply it to yourself, is sort of a paradox in a paradox. The manipulation still works even though you know you’re doing it. And I’ve seen that done by one person to another. 

I drew this beautiful woman as my dinner partner a few years ago, and I’d never seen her before. Well, she’s married to prominent Angelino, and she sat down next to me and she turned her beautiful face up and she said, “Charlie,” she said, “What one word accounts for your remarkable success in life?” And I knew I was being manipulated and that she’d done this before, and I just loved it. I mean I never see this woman without a little lift in my spirits. And by the way I told her I was rational. You’ll have to judge yourself whether that’s true. I may be demonstrating some psychological tendency I hadn’t planned on demonstrating. 

How should the best parts of psychology and economics interrelate in an enlightened economist's mind? Two views: that’s the thermodynamics model. You know, you can’t derive thermodynamics from plutonium, gravity and laws of mechanics, even though it’s a lot of little particles interacting. And here is this wonderful truth that you can sort of develop on your own, which is thermodynamics. And some economists -- and I think Milton Friedman is in this group, but I may be wrong on that -- sort of like the thermodynamics model. I think Milton Friedman, who has a Nobel prize, is probably a little wrong on that. I think the thermodynamics analogy is over-strained. I think knowledge from these different soft sciences have to be reconciled to eliminate conflict. After all, there’s nothing in thermodynamics that’s inconsistent with Newtonian mechanics and gravity, and I think that some of these economic theories are not totally consistent with other knowledge, and they have to be bent. And I think that these behavioral economics...or economists are probably the ones that are bending them in the correct direction. 

Now my prediction is when the economists take a little psychology into account that the reconciliation will be quite endurable. And here my model is the procession of the equinoxes. The world would be simpler for a long-term climatologist if the angle of the axis of the Earth’s rotation, compared to the plane of the Euclyptic, were absolutely fixed. But it isn’t fixed. Over every 40,000 years or so there’s this little wobble, and that has pronounced long-term effects. Well in many cases what psychology is going to add is just a little wobble, and it will be endurable. Here I quote another hero of mine, which of course is Einstein, where he said, “The Lord is subtle, but not malicious.” And I don’t think it’s going to be that hard to bend economics a little to accommodate what’s right in psychology. 

5. Fifth: The final question is: If the thought system indicated by this list of psychological tendencies has great value not recognized and employed, what should the educational system do about it? 

I am not going to answer that one now. I like leaving a little mystery. 

Have I used up all the time so there’s no time for questions? 

Moderator: I think that what we’re going to do is we’re going to borrow a little bit of time from the end of the day questions, and we’re going to move it and allocate it to Charles Munger, if that's acceptable to everybody.

Munger: By the way, the dean of the Stanford Law School is here today, Paul Brest, and he is trying to create a course at the Stanford Law School that tries to work stuff similar to this into worldly wisdom for lawyers, which I regard as a profoundly good idea, and he wrote an article about it, and you’ll be given a copy along with Cialdini’s book. [The article Mr. Munger is referring to is called "On Teaching Professional Judgment" by Paul Brest and Linda Krieger. It was published in the July 1994 edition of the Washington Law Review.] Questions? 

Audience Member #1: Will we be able to get a copy of that list of 24 [standard causes of human misjudgment]? 

Munger: Yes. I presumed there would be one curious man [laughter], and I have it and I’ll put it over there on the table, but don’t take more than one, because I didn’t anticipate such a big crowd. And if we run short, I’m sure the Center is up to making other copies. 

Audience Member #2: If I had listened to this talk I might have thought that Charles Munger was a psychology professor operating in a business school. Every once in a while a micro-issue -- you told us how you would’ve deal with one of these issues, for example with the unfortunate lady See’s -- but you didn’t tell us how these tendencies affected you and what’s probably the most important, or one of the most important elements of your success, which was deciding where to invest your money. And I’m wondering if you might relate some of these principles to some of your past decisions that way. 

Munger: Well of course an investment decision in the common stock of a company frequently involves a whole lot of factors interacting. Usually, of course, there’s one big, simple model, and a lot of those models are microeconomic. And I have a little list of -- it wouldn’t be nearly 24, of those -- but I don’t have time for that one. And I don’t have too much interest in teaching other people how to get rich. And that isn’t because I fear the competition or anything like that -- Warren has always been very open about what he’s learned, and I share that ethos. My personal behavior model is Lord Keynes: I wanted to get rich so I could be independent, and so I could do other things like give talks on the intersection of psychology and economics. I didn’t want to turn it into a total obsession. 

Audience Member #3: Out of those 24, could you tell us the one rule that’s most important? 

Munger: I would say the one thing that causes the most trouble is when you combine a bunch of these together, you get this lollapalooza effect. And again, if you read the psychology textbooks, they don’t discuss how these things combine, at least not very much. Do they multiply? Do they add? How does it work? You’d think it’d be just an automatic subject for research, but it doesn’t seem to turn the psychology establishment on. I think this is a man from Mars approach to psychology. 

I just reached in and took what I thought I had to have. That is a different set of incentives from rising in an economic establishment where the rewards system, again, the reinforcement, comes from being a truffle hound. That’s what Jacob Viner, the great economist called it: the truffle hound -- an animal so bred and trained for one narrow purpose that he wasn’t much good at anything else, and that is the reward system in a lot of academic departments. It is not necessarily for the good. It may be fine if you want new drugs or something. You want people stunted in a lot of different directions so they can grow in one narrow direction, but I don’t think it’s good teaching psychology to the masses. In fact, I think it’s terrible.

[writingthingsisdifficult]

Shifting perspective

(Horrible title, I know. I suck at naming stuff.) I don’t know what this is. It came to be from my strong wish to have Norwegian swearing in one of my fics (don’t know why. Don’t ask.) Anyway, this is what grew; one OFC called Oline (nicknamed Oli), one pining Sam, and a bunch of asshole shapeshifters. Enjoy.

The translations are in brackets right after the Norwegian, so you don’t have to scroll so much, but most of the translations aren’t literal, partly because of my limited knowledge of the English language, and partly because I tried to make it flow.

For example: Faen is used a lot. It’s a common Norwegian curse word, and it’s quite versatile, kinda like fuck, but the meaning is of religious origin, not sexual. Faen is a shortened version of Fanden, which is another (old) name for the devil (or a demon, depending on where you’re from).

Please let me know what you think, but also keep in mind that English is not my first language.

My tag lists are open, if you want to be included (or if you want to be removed). Just drop me a line.

Word count: 7392 (sorry not sorry)

”Good morning!” Oline came waltzing into the kitchen like she owned the place, wearing a pair of black pyjama pants with cartoon puppies printed along the side, and a light blue t-shirt with a band name no one could determine, because the print was so faded.

Her hair was still wet from the shower, and she hadn’t put any make-up on, but still Sam’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to hide the fact that his body was more awake than his mind was.

She had been on and off hunting with them for almost four years, and lived in the bunker for one and a half of those, but her looks still took his breath away – even looking all dishevelled and tired. It was as if her skin glowed on its own, and her hair… well, Sam would’ve done pretty much anything to run his fingers through it.  Quickly, so she wouldn’t catch him staring, he cast his eyes down and kept them focused on the bowl of cereal. “Mrn.”

She didn’t notice the slight breathiness to his voice – or if she did, she was polite enough to not comment on it. Sam smiled into his spoon. She was too nice. If Dean had been there, he would never have heard the end of it.

Daring a glance up, he caught her just as she reached for something on the top shelf; exposing a small line of skin along her hip and back. He could just make out the tips of the points on her anti-possession tattoo, and then decided that he didn’t trust himself enough, so he grabbed his notepad and jotted down a few words just to keep busy.

“Ready for the road?” Her voice sliced through the bubble he’d buried himself in.

“Huh?”

She laughed. “Still not awake, huh? I asked if you’re ready for the road.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess.” He smiled back at her. “Never seen anyone so eager for a shifter job before.”

Oline shrugged. “ They’re not all that common back home. And those that I did come across couldn’t hide their true identity completely. A tail here, patches of green skin there… Or maybe they were just bad at what they did. I don’t know.”

“Tail? Green skin? I don’t think that’s what we call shapeshifters over here?” Sam said, tilting his head and squinting. His earlier embarrassment was forgotten; always eager to learn about new monsters.

“Really? Ooh! Is that coffee?” She snatched his cup and gulped down half of it before he could even blink. “Yeah,” she said, inhaling the word. “Norwegian shapeshifters live underground, or inside the mountains. Most of them have green or blue skin, and at least the females have tails that resembles cows’ tails, but they change to look more human to lure unsuspecting victims to their deaths. They don’t do that here?”

“Wow, no. What we call shapeshifters are humanoid creatures that can take on the appearance and memories of any living person they decide to mimic. Some can even change into animals. We can kill them with silver through the heart. Or even decapitation.”

Oline tilted her head slightly and smiled upside down. “Huh. Interesting. Gotta read up on them before we get there. Everything is so different over here.” Tapping the side of the cup she’d hijacked, she thought for a second. “I’ve been here for what, four years, and still your country is so foreign. You don’t even have proper brown cheese.”

Getting himself a new cup, Sam blew a silent chuckle through his nose. “Technically, you’re the foreign one, you know.”

“You better have coffee in there!” Dean shuffled through the door, looking very much like he just woke up, and wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. “Ugh, I’m getting too old for this shit. Who decided we start this early?”

“You did,” both Sam and Oline replied, watching as Dean bumped into the counter with half closed eyes, both grateful that he offered some distraction from the disaster waiting to happen. Some times Sam could’ve sworn Oline looked at him like she wanted to eat him up – now that was an interesting thought, and then the next moment she seemed totally uninterested. To be honest it drove him mad, never knowing which way to interpret her language.

They ate the rest of their breakfast in comfortable silence. Sam continued to scribble on his note pad, Oline stared into the air, dreaming about an alternate reality where she had the guts to tell Sam how she felt with actual words he’d understand, and Dean slowly sipped his coffee, generally regretting his recent life choices.

“Road trip!” Oline suddenly called, getting to her feet and dumping her plate in the sink.

“How can you possibly be this cheerful so early?” Dean asked gruffly after he refilled his cup.

Oline waved her own cup around. “Because coffee,” she replied with a short giggle. “Og fordi han der er spesielt søt når håret stikker ut til alle kanter. [And because that one is incredibly cute when his hair is sticking out like that.]” She said it deliberately not looking at Sam, because her insides squirmed at the thought of him suddenly understanding her.

“Hey, no fair,” Sam protested. “We don’t speak Norwegian.”

She shrugged with a mischievous grin spreading across her face. “Dean lukter som en geit, [Dean smells like a goat]” she teased in a sing-song voice, causing Sam to chuckle. “Men Sam lukter som epler og solskinn. [But Sam smells like apples and sunshine.]”

“Be nice!” Dean replied. “I may not understand the words, but I recognise a non-compliment when I hear one. Would you at least wash your dishes?”

Dancing towards the kitchen door, Oline shook her head. “Sorry, Dean. You know I love you.” She stuck her tongue out and leapt through the doorway. “Meet you by the car in an hour.”

Sam laughed to himself. “Dude.”

“What?”

“I think… she, uh…” He could barely get the words out, laughing so hard. “I think she called you a goat or something. I don’t see the lie, though,” he added, flicking some crumbs at his brother.

“Shut up! You’re… a goat.” There was a moment of silence. “Wait… you know Norwegian?”

Sam ducked his head, his ears turning crimson. “No. Just a couple of words. I’ve been trying to teach myself, but it’s is a friggin’ hard language to learn – I wanted to surprise her.”

Dean stared dumbfounded at him for a few seconds before a big grin cracked over his face. “You’re in love! Oh my god! You are!”

Hiding his face in his hands, Sam shook his head, but he couldn’t hide his own grin. “Shh! I’m… I’m not… shut up.” He got to his feet, grabbing his notebook, and left.

“Great. I live with a couple of slobs,” Dean muttered, grabbing the cereal bowl Sam had left on the table. “We gotta get a maid or something.”

“Good news,” Dean said with a shit-eating grin. “They only had one available room.” He dangled a single key in the air, getting scowls in return. Sam sent him a look that stated: “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I don’t like it.”

Oline groaned. “At least tell me there’s three beds.”

Dean shook his head.                    

“A sofa? Or a… a chair?”

“Nope. Looks like we’re gonna have to share.”

She rolled her eyes and poked Dean in the chest, lowering her voice. “Du må ikke tro at jeg ikke har gjennomskuet deg! [Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing!]” And then after a brief pause she added: “Fucker!”

Hoisting her bag over her shoulder, she snatched the key from his hand. “Hey, Sam, your brother is disgusting. Mind if I bunk with you?” It was an opportunity after all. She had to make the best of it.

“Sure,” Sam replied with an easy smile, following her inside with his own bag.

When Dean finally got inside, Oline had claimed the bed closest to the window, and she’d already spread her books and papers all over it, and sat cross-legged on the pillows with a pen in her mouth, scrolling down her laptop. Sam had taken his spot on the floor, with his back against the bed, also scrolling on his laptop, but more aware, alert. Like a watchdog. He looked up briefly as Dean closed the door, but seeing no threat, he ignored his brother as best he could.

How these two didn’t realise they belonged together was beyond Dean. He shook his head with a tiny scoff and dumped his duffel onto the other bed. “Got anything yet?”

“Nah. I’m thinking we gotta go government on this. There’s at least one witness who’s sane enough to interview.” Suddenly, Oline dropped her laptop, sending papers rustling to the floor. “Faen! [Shit!]” She breathed the word with her eyes scrunched shut and punched the mattress.

“What is it?” Sam asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”

“Um…” She looked at the Winchesters with utter despair in her eyes. “I forgot my duvet.”

“What?” Dean burst out laughing. “Damn, I thought you’d found something

She grabbed a fistful of the fabric covering the bed. “Your stupid, American motels only have blankets. I’m gonna die of hypothermia.”

She looked so heartbroken even Sam had to laugh. “Relax. It’s like 68 degrees outside.”

“Yeah, but my feet still get cold in the night. And my duvet is so soft,” she pouted, fiddling with her knitted socks.

“Don’t worry,” Dean said once he had dried his eyes. “Sam’s a virtual fire place. He’s gonna keep you warm. Aren’t you, Sammy?”

His brother’s eyes said “Don’t!” but he nodded to Oline. “I’m always hot. And I don’t mind you poking your cold toes on me.” He thought for a second, the stretched and flexed ever so slightly. “Can’t help you with the softness, though.”

“Dude! You’re gross!”

Oline tossed a pillow on Dean. “Hey, he’s no grosser than you. Thank you, Sam.” She smiled and hopped down from the bed. “I’m gonna change into my FBI gear.”

“Smooth,” Dean nodded appreciatively once the bathroom door closed.

“You set this up, didn’t you?” Sam growled through gritted teeth.

“Maybe…”

“Just… just stay out of this, okay? I really don’t want to screw up our friendship.”

“Well, maybe that’s just what you need to do,” Dean grinned and ducked just in time to avoid a second, zooming pillow.

It took two days of investigating and interviewing more or less willing people to figure out where the shapeshifters were hiding. There were four of them, and as far as Oline could see, the shifters were young and inexperienced, filled with new ideas and not too bright on how to pull it off. But still: shifters were dangerous no matter what, and the three of them went through the safety check behind the Impala.

“Silver knife?”

“Check.” Both Sam and Oline held up theirs.

“Shifter gankin’ bullets?”

“Yup.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

“Wait, wait. What’s the plan?”

“The plan?” Dean resembled a big question mark.

“Yeah, dumbass. The plan. There’s four of them and three of us. We can’t just barge in like we normally do.” Oline winked at him, making Sam snort and turn away so Dean wouldn’t see him laugh.

Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You want a plan, børk børk?”

“Yeah. And the chef is Swedish, by the way.”

“Oh, Sor-ry! I didn’t mean to step on your toes. Not my fault that it’s practically impossible to see the difference.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute, Winchester. Else I’d have to kick your butt.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s how it is. And you know I could do it. Sure, you’re a bit stronger than me, but I’m almost as tall as you –“

“Yeah, and those years spent trudging through the snow,” Sam added with a wink, “means her endurance is high.”

Oline blushed. “Thanks, Sam. But I’m not too fond of the snow. I can’t ski to save my life. But I climbed a lot of trees when I was younger. And I’m faster than you.”

“Not likely,” Dean growled, crouching down to pounce on her.

She squealed and ran to hide behind Sam. “Save me!”

With her hands on Sam’s hips, he almost forgot how to breathe. “Alright you two. You can fight it out later. We’ve got a case here. Remember?”

“Sorry, boss,” Oline said in mock regret, turning to Dean. “Truce?”

“Truce. Let’s do this. And quietly.”

The moment they were inside, they split up. Dean took to the right, through the kitchen. Sam went left, heading for the living room, while Oline took the stairs, slowly sneaking along the wall.

She peered around the corner and spotted a shifter. He clearly hadn’t understood the danger yet, so she tip-toed up behind him, ready to stab him, but just as she raised her knife, he turned. Faster than she expected, he leapt to his feet and rushed past her, knocking her over in the process.

Another shifter appeared above her, and she kicked out, hitting him in the ankles. He landed crookedly on a chair, and it broke with a loud crash. It wasn’t enough to take out the shifter, of course, and a couple of seconds later he got to his feet and charged. But that was all it took for Oline to get ready, and with a massive exertion and a loud groan, the knife pierced through the ribs and into the creature’s heart.

The shifter fell heavily to the ground and Oline listened to the air rasp through the punctured lung to make sure she got him properly.

Sam managed to sneak up on the shapeshifter without being discovered, and swiftly and soundlessly drove his silver knife into the creature’s chest. Unfortunately the ruckus made by the dying shifter attracted another one, who hit Sam over the head, then ran away. He staggered back and forth, seeing double from the impact, but as soon as his vision normalised, Sam ran after him, raising his gun in defence.

The sound of Dean’s gun rang through the house, and Oline mentally counted the kills. Dean had one, she had one, and Sam probably had one going by the sound of it. One left, then, and this one had escaped downstairs, unless there was a secret doorway somewhere.

At the bottom of the stairs, she bumped into Dean. “One left,” they said simultaneously.

“Yeah,” Oline panted. “He got past me and ran downstairs before I could get him.”

“I’ll go,” Dean began, but she stopped him.

“No, I got this. He owes me the satisfaction of dying. Besides, Sam’s still there. Two of us: one of him. Piece of cake. Go get the shovels. “

“Anything to get some alone time with my brother, huh?” Dean replied, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Dean! Don’t make me slap you. I’m more than capable of kicking your ass. I wasn’t kidding earlier.”

“Alright, alright. Calm down. Go help Sam or whatever. I’ll be back in a few.”

When Sam skidded through the doorway he came face to face with Oline, and lowered his gun. “We got them all?”

She grinned widely and took a few steps towards him, but just then he heard her yell “Duck!” somewhere behind him, before something shiny zoomed past him, lodging itself in Oline’s chest. She collapsed on the floor, lifeless and cold, and Sam cried out, dropping to his knees. He was interrupted by Oline’s arms around his shoulders.

“I’m me,” she said calmly. When he didn’t answer right away, she moved around him, pointed to the blood soaked pile of human remains on the floor and said “Shapeshifter!” then at herself and grinned: “Oli.”

His eyes narrowed, and he remained still.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, reaching out to him again. When he recoiled, she wanted to scream. To see him unsure and almost afraid of her hurt more than anything else she’d experienced since she came to the US, but she swallowed the grief, telling herself she would probably react the same way.

“It really is me. I promise.” She pulled the knife from the body on the floor, wiped it on her jeans, and ran the edge over her arm. The blood was dark red against her pale skin. “See? It’s me.”

Sam took a few moments to react, so Oline decided to try another approach. “Remember when we got drunk in Seattle and I kissed your eyelid better after you got in a fight with that douche. Over… over… what was it?”

“He insulted your accent,” Sam replied with a smile, neglecting to mention that a shapeshifter would’ve had access to her memories; he was satisfied that she was the Oline he knew. To be honest he just wanted to hold her close. “We laughed so much on the way back from the bar…” He could still feel her lips on his skin, and the memory woke the slumbering butterflies in his stomach.

“Heh, yeah. We must have looked like lunatics.” She thought back to that intensely intimate moment, and felt her ears burn. She’d managed to blame it on the alcohol, but she knew that was just an excuse.

Taking her outstretched hand, Sam pulled himself from the floor.  “Come on. Let’s go help Dean.”

“He’s gone to get the shovels,” Oline grinned. “We’re done here.”

He marvelled how quickly she could change; from gentle and caring one moment to bubbly and cheerful the next. And now he had that eyelid kiss stuck in the front of his brain. He wondered if it was possible to love someone more than he did Oline. He doubted it, but still he said nothing.

She let go of Sam’s hand the moment they were outside. More than anything she wanted to keep him close, but with the recently surfaced memory from Seattle, she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t say or do something stupid. There was no way Sam felt the same way, and she didn’t want to risk heartbreak.

When she let go of his hand, Sam breathed out slowly, both in relief and disappointment. The electricity and heat spreading from her hand made him dizzy, but it felt good. And the lack of contact made him feel cold, but it made it easier not to do or say anything stupid.

They buried the bodies in shallow graves in the field behind the house, salting them for good measure. It was starting to get dark when Dean dropped the last shovel of dirt onto the very last grave, patting it a couple of extra times before kicking a layer of grass and sticks and leaves over it.

“Whooo!” Oline yelled and pumped her fist in the air, making Dean jump in surprise. “Who’s awesome? Oh yes, we are!”

Sam couldn’t help but smile too: her enthusiasm and joy was contagious.

“Damn straight we are,” Dean replied, and they high-fived, causing Sam to groan loudly.

“Really, how old are you?”

“Aw, Sam, you jealous?” she pouted, offering her hand up. “Come on then, don’t leave me hanging. I’ve been told it’s rude.”

“Fine.” He slapped her hand, and she laughed, mostly to drown the squeal that built in her throat every time they touched.

Her laughter rippled through Sam’s body like waves of pure sunlight, and he suspected he could probably live on that feeling alone for the rest of his days. To mask his urge to pull her into a bone-crushing hug, he grumbled a little extra, muttering about acting like teenagers, before throwing the shovel over his shoulder and setting course for the Impala.

“Hey, gimme a break. I never had an American childhood. This is all still pretty new and shiny to me. We typically never touch each other back home. Let me have my moments of physical contact?” She wiped sweat and dirt from her face before following Sam. “We are the champions,” she sang, high-fiving Dean again on her way past him. “Gotta celebrate this. What do you say, huh? The three of us and a pile of beer bottles?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dean grinned. “Remind me why I haven’t married you yet?”

She faked a gag. “Um, because that would be gross and considered wildly inappropriate, Winchester. You’re not my type.”

Dean laughed loudly. “Oh yeah, there’s that.”

Her eyes flicked over to Sam, and the short gesture wasn’t lost on Dean, but he said nothing this time: he’d tried to push her before, and that nearly ended with a black eye, so he kept to light teasing and inside jokes now and then.

Sam, however, was completely oblivious to the look he’d just received – lost in his own thoughts.

“You in, Sammy?” Dean clapped him on the shoulder.

“Hm?”

“Beer, burgers, babes… Celebrate our success. Come on, bro. Have a little fun. Even you can’t be boring all the time.”

“Yeah, I’m up for a few beers,” Sam said eventually. “But I’d like to wash off this gunk, though.” He wiped the blood from his hands on his jeans.

“Oh yeah,” Oline nodded enthusiastically. “Shower. Definitely.”

The bathroom door opened, and Sam emerged like he was in a cheesy rom-com. Steam billowed around him, and he wore nothing but a pair of jeans.

Oline stopped mid-scrolling. Her brain lost all function, she lost the ability to speak; she just stared with her hand hovering over the mouse pad on her laptop.

When her brain regained consciousness, she quickly averted her eyes and swore silently. “Faen. Skulle tro du gjorde det med vilje. Hvis du fortsetter sånn, kommer jeg til å selvantenne – eller drukne! [Fuck. I could almost think you’re doing it on purpose. If you continue like that I’ll spontaneously combust – or drown!]”

“What was that? He looked up, still with the towel in his hand.

“Uh… nothing,” she lied quickly, rubbing the embarrassment from the back of her neck. “Hope you left some hot water for me.”

They found a table close to the exit and plopped down on the chairs, ignoring their slight stickiness. And after the first sip of beer, Oline sighed happily. “Nothing like a good beer after a hunt,” she smiled, gazing around the crowded room to hide her frequent looks in Sam’s direction.

“Never met anyone who enjoys her beer more than you,” Dean grinned, clinking his bottle against hers.

“Well, how can I not? I mean, beer is so cheap here. It’s like… $4 for a bottle? It’s crazy! Back home you’re lucky if you find one under $10.”

“I’m drinking to that.” Lifting his bottle, Dean toasted the air. “Hey, you never said why you left. Don’t you ever miss home?”

She nodded and smiled sadly into her glass. “I do. But I can never go back. I’ll tell you sometime. Another time. Let’s talk about something else?”

“Sorry.” Dean fell silent, and they all sat just listening to the music and sipping their drinks for a while.

But after a few minutes, Sam put his hand on Oline’s knee. “Hey, you okay?” He’d caught her sighing deeply. She nodded, blinking rapidly a couple of times, and he could have sworn he saw tears glittering in her eyes, but they disappeared so fast he wasn’t completely sure.

Her answer came as a whisper, and it hit him in the gut. “Yeah. I just miss my family. It hurts that I’ll never see them again.”

“I’m here if you want to talk,” he replied, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her knee. “When you’re ready.”

“Thank you, Sam. It means a lot.”

Dean looked up, studying Oline’s face, but said nothing.

After a long silence, she dragged her hand across her face and leaned back in her seat. “I first decided to leave when it became clear to me that I couldn’t stay without killing them – my parents, I mean,” she began. Hesitantly, fearing shock and judgement in the brothers’ faces.

Dean frowned slightly, but kept quiet: she could see the dozens of questions bubbling on his tongue, and how he swallowed them down. Sam’s gaze softened, and he squeezed her knee gently, giving her courage and strength to continue.

When they didn’t show any signs of wanting to run away, she grimaced what could have been an uncertain smile, and spoke again: “…six years ago I think it was, when my parents were bitten and changed. And they embraced their new lives with delight. Soon the small hunting community we were a part of demanded I’d take care of them. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it: even knowing the chaos and destruction they brought. I just couldn’t. My guess is they’re dead now anyway. I don’t know.”

She sighed and breathed out a short laugh. “Pathetic, I know. Running away from my responsibilities like that, but I… so I left. Got away. Travelled for a bit. Eventually I got on a plane and landed in Boston. Did a bit of sightseeing, but the hunter’s life never lets you go, yeah? Hunting new monsters over here became sort of a healing process, I guess. Then I ran into you guys. Best coincidence in my life.”

The three of them fell silent, before Oline spoke up again. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to deflate the balloon like that. Let’s talk about something else. Like that woman over there,” she said after looking around the room searching for a topic. “She’s been ogling you since we got here, Dean.”

Picking up on her intentions right away, Dean sat up straighter. “Who?”

“The one over there with the bouncy, red curls. Don’t look now. I’ll let you know when…”

And so the next few hours flew by in a fog of discussing old and new conquests, women – and a few men, alcohol, music, and even more alcohol. Eventually Dean decided to go say hello to the redhead, bringing her over to the table, and making Oline and Sam uncomfortable.

“I’m gonna get another drink,” Oline declared after a few minutes of being forced to watch Dean’s moves, standing up faster than she ought to, knocking over her chair. “You want anything, handsome?”

“No thanks,” Dean replied, quickly ducking from her hand swatting the back of his head.

She swayed slightly. “How ‘bout you, Sam? Another?”

He measured what was left in his glass and shook his head. “I’m good.”

“Suit yourself,” Oline replied defiantly and made her way over to the bar.

Sam followed her with his eyes, memorising how she moved; still elegant, even now when she was drunk and had to use other people as support to not wobble too much.

“Dude!” Dean said, punching his brother in the arm.

“Ow! What?” Rubbing the forming bruise, Sam scowled back.

“That girl’s got it bad for you,” the redhead said, earning a nod and affirmative grunt from Dean.

“Shut up!” Sam looked back at Oline, who was talking to a guy at the bar. She was laughing and leaning close to him, and he recognised the look in the guy’s eyes: stars and dark lust – he’d hit jackpot.

Once again Sam failed to notice the longing look Oline gave him before she turned around and unleashed her smile on the gentleman next to her. But he did see the effect she had on the stranger. Within a minute of talking to him, he was completely under her spell. And it made Sam feel nauseous.

“I’m… gonna head back to the motel,” he muttered. “Don’t feel too good.”

Looking up from the woman sitting in his lap, Dean raised an eyebrow. “You sure? Need me to come with you?”

Sam shook his head and downed the rest of his drink. “Nah. I’ll be fine. You have fun now.” He nodded once to the woman and left the bar.

When Oline turned back to look at Sam again, she was devastated to find him gone. Devastated, but not surprised. He was bound to find a lady to spend the night with – half the bar practically threw themselves at his feet when they entered, but it hurt nonetheless. She so wanted to be the one he took home.

It wasn’t until Dean slammed the bathroom door and shook his wet hair over him that Sam woke up. Flopping sleepily, he rolled over on the side and pulled the blanket over his face. Silence reigned for a few seconds before he warily emerged from his cocoon. “Ugh. What time is it?”

“Good morning, little brother.” Dean was positively beaming. “It’s…” He checked this watch. “6.15 – and I just got back! Oh man! You missed out last night. Daisy, you remember Daisy? She had a friend, and since you weren’t there, I was feeling generous…”

And with that he launched into a monologue so filled with confidence and smugness that Sam couldn’t wait for Oline to finish in the shower so he could get away. He only hoped she left some hot… water… There was no water running and the door was cracked open.

“Hey, Dean?”

“…and let me tell you: she wasn’t shy. Oh no –“

“Dean. Did Oli –“

“Neither of them were, if you know what I mean –“

“Dean! Will you shut up for a goddamned minute?” Sam almost yelled, causing Dean to smack his mouth shut with a betrayed look on his face. “Thank you. Did Oli leave to get breakfast?” Best to play it casual.

“Don’t think so,” Dean replied with a slight shrug. “Looks to me like she didn’t come back here last night. Her stuff is untouched.”

Sam sniffed her pillow, concealed as a yawn. It still smelled like the motel’s detergent. She definitely hadn’t slept there, but he patted it just to make sure. It was cold. “You’re right,” he muttered.

“Good for her. She needed a good lay. Not surprised she took off when she faced a night in bed with you.”

“Screw you!” Sam grabbed his phone. No messages. Good morning. Will you be long? Dean’s going to get breakfast. What’cha want? We’re rolling in a couple hours. He sent it more to calm the growing unease in his stomach, then got out of bed and into the shower, letting the running water massage his sore muscles.

The first thing he did when he got out was to check for a reply. Nothing. Hey, sleepyhead. Time to head north again. Still nothing. Oli? You OK?

“Dean, I don’t feel too good about this. Oli’s not answering my texts.”

“So she’s busy. I wouldn’t answer your clingy ass if I was in the middle of a good time either.” When Dean put a hand on his shoulder, Sam looked up: seeking some sort of comfort in his brother’s face. He got none. Instead, Dean asked: “I’m getting us something to eat. Want coffee?”

“Please. And a bagel.” Sam didn’t really feel hungry, but he needed some time to think.

Dean nodded. “And don’t worry about Oli. She’ll be fine.”

“Mhm.” Sam automatically glanced down on his phone, then flung it on the bed, picking up his laptop instead. Didn’t take long before he reached for his phone again. Still nothing. Sam sighed.

“Listen, if this bothers you so much, why don’t you talk to her? Tell her –“

“Yeah, alright, Dean. Thank you. Get out of here.” He had a point. But Sam just didn’t know how to begin. And the what ifs were piling high in his brain. This was not how he imagined it though. Sure, he’d been annoyed as hell when Dean conned them into sharing a bed, but it was an opportunity he just had to take. But now he realised he was too late. What if she had found someone? What if she decided to leave the life? He couldn’t blame her. Once he would’ve abandoned everything for a shot at a normal, boring life too.

When Dean came back thirty minutes later, Sam had worked himself so up he was convinced that Oline had already eloped to get married to some random dude. And it didn’t help that Dean thought it was hilarious.

“She’ll waltz in here in an hour, glowing and smiling shyly, and then we’ll carry on like usual.”

The hour came and went. Sam became more and more nervous. Even Dean was becoming a little antsy. “Maybe she just needs some alone time,” Dean said. “Remember when we first met her? I was convinced she didn’t like me, ‘cause she was so hard to get to know. Besides, Oline’s basically a Viking. She can take care of herself.”

“Yeah,” Sam replied with a grimace. “But I still think it’s weird she hasn’t replied to my texts.”

Ping. Sam’s phone chimed happily, but he snatched it with force, staring at the message on the screen.

Dean grinned. “See? She probably just woke up a bit late.”

“No text,” Sam replied silently. “Only this.” He held out his phone. The message was just a link to a video. Nothing more.

Dean cocked his head. “Huh. What –“

Sam groaned. “What if she… what if she says she wants out? That she doesn’t want … I mean, she’s been gone since last night.”

“Come on,” Dean said with a reassuring smile. “Oli would never do that. She’s probably just, I don’t know, lost track of time or something. It happens,” he added with a grin.

Not the answer Sam wanted, and he glared at his brother. “Not helping.”

“Just doing my duty. Let’s see what she has to say before you panic, okay?” He grabbed the phone and opened the link.

The video was dark at first. They could barely make out a dark figure in the middle of the shot, but nothing else. Occasionally shadows flitted across the screen and they heard soft feet pitter-pattering over concrete floor. Somewhere out of the shot they heard running water.

“What the hell?” Dean began, but Sam interrupted him.

“Shhh! Something’s happening.” His stomach felt like he’d swallowed a rock.

Suddenly the light was switched on, and Sam felt like throwing up. If Dean hadn’t been holding the phone too he would’ve dropped it: the dark figure was Y/N. Slumped over in a chair, she looked bruised and beaten, and her jeans were stained dark red.

“Wakey wakey,” a coarse voice said from behind the camera.

Oline groaned and stirred, slowly lifting her head, to reveal a swollen, bloody face, and a split lip.

“Oli,” Sam breathed, gripping the blanked he was sitting on tightly. Dean growled in agreement.

It took a few minutes before she regained full consciousness, blinking and swallowing; wincing when her skin stretched and moved. Then, as if the floodgates had opened, she started yelling. Her voice was raw and somewhat diminished, but her meaning was clear enough. “I helvete?! Hva faen er det dere driver med? Kom her din jævla feige kukskalle, så skal jeg faen steike meg sparke deg så hardt i ballene at du kjenner smaken av dem i halsen! Din forbannade forpulte pikk! Slipp meg løs for faen! Jeg skal faen meg gi deg deng, din helsikes forbannade demonjævel! [What the hell? What the fuck are you doing? Come here you fucking cowardly dickhead; I’ll fucking kick you so hard in the nuts you’ll taste them in your throat. You damned, fucking cock! Let me fucking go! I’ll fucking kick your ass, you goddamn fucking demon bastard!]”

She continued to yell, both while exhaling and inhaling, making Sam’s mouth twitch. At least she still had her wits. But the fuckers were gonna pay for what they’d done. He looked over at Dean who just stared at the screen. Sonofabitch!

“Wow. Didn’t expect such language from a lady.”

Both men whipped around, drawing their guns in fluid motions, but when they realised the intruder was a minor threat, they relaxed somewhat.

“What are you doing here, Crowley?” Sam asked, slouching back on the bed.

“I’ve missed you too,” Crowley replied with an air kiss. “Can’t a King check on his favourite nightmare subjects?”

Sam scoffed. “We’re not your… argh! Forget it!” He grabbed his phone and leaned on the headboard, flicking the phone back and forth between his hands.

“I’m not too proud to admit it: Hell bores me. So I came up to see if you had something exciting going on. What’s up with Samantha? I haven’t had a welcome this icy since I came for Prince Albert. Victoria could be quite stern when she wanted to. Makes me feel all sorts of nostalgic.”

Dean clenched his jaw and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oli’s been kidnapped.”

“Ah,” Crowley nodded, “that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Sam’s dread – seriously, the stench fills the whole room – and Oline’s colourful phrasing. She got quite the razor tongue when she’s pissed.”

“Wait, you understand this?” Sam gestured with the phone.

“I’m the king of Hell, you moron. It’s in my job description. Wouldn’t be much of a King if all it took was a foreign language to keep secrets from me. Now what did I miss?” He held out his hand and Sam handed him the phone.

With the video playing in the background, Crowley started translating. “Well, they certainly aren’t my demons. In fact I rather think they’re something else entirely.” He tossed the phone on the bed, where it bounced a couple of times before settling. “I think I’ve seen enough. Shall we?”

“Shall we, what?”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Go rescue the damsel in distress, of course. Get her safely home so Sam can go back to pining after her. Really! How thick are you?”

Squinting, Sam got to his feet. “You’re just gonna help us like that? Out of the kindness of your heart?”

“I’m nice like that,” Crowley smirked. “All I want in return –“ He paused dramatically to think, “– is your undying gratitude and a couple of favours to cash in when –“ Sam looked like he was ready to launch himself at the demon. “Alright, I’ll help you for a bottle of whisky; the good stuff, not that gut-rot you usually poison yourself with.”

“Done,” Sam said quickly.

“…and you have to address me as Your Majesty until we get her.”

“Eat shit, Crowley!” Dean spat, looking like someone had suggested painting his beloved Impala neon pink. “You… that’s… you...”

“Appappapp! What are you forgetting?”

Sam looked at Dean, and they both pursed their lips. “It’s a deal,” he said through gritted teeth. “Let’s go.”

“It’s a deal…?”

“Ugh, for the love of… It’s a deal, Your Majesty,” Sam added, apparently struggling to speak without self-combusting.

Crowley clapped enthusiastically before catching himself and reverting back to his dignified, solemn self. “Oh, I gotta get this on tape,” he giggled. “This is going to be the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

“So… your… Your Majesty, gonna tell us what we’re dealing with? Ugh! Do I really have to call you … that?”

“I fully intend to enjoy this as long as I can, yes,” Crowley replied with a nod. “It’s not every day you two morons show me the respect I deserve.”

“Oh, come on!”

“As for who has Oline,” he continued, ignoring Dean’s outburst, “look.” He paused the video and pointed to two tiny, but very distinct flares on the screen.

“Shifters,” Dean muttered.

“But we got everyone,” Sam began.

“Then you did a poor job, because there’s most definitely some left. And they look pissed. I would be too,” Crowley added with a shrug, “if some half-wit hunter burst through my front door and killed most of my family.”

Dean drove like a maniac, more so than usual. Normally Sam would’ve told him to calm down, but now he sat in silence, with a murderous look on his face. In the backseat sat Crowley, starting to feel a bit green around the eyes. He seriously debated whether or not he should just teleport to the hideout, but then he’d miss the opportunity to bother the boys, so he bit his teeth together and focused on the road ahead.

“Well, that was tense,” he said after the Impala screeched to a halt outside the large building. He stretched his legs and gulped down the cool evening air. “This is where you screwed up last night?”

Sam’s lips were straight and his eyes almost shot lightning bolts. “Shut it, Crowl – Your Majesty. Let’s just find these bitches. My patience is wearing thin.”

It didn’t take long to take care of the last two shifters. Although pissed and strong, they were no match for Crowley, who seemed to find it relaxing and therapeutic to kill. By the time the second one hit the floor, he was grinning from ear to ear. “Ah,” he sighed. “There’s nothing like a little bloodshed in the evening. Pity there weren’t more of them.”

Oline didn’t even look up when he started to untie her; just flexed her jaw and furrowed her eyebrows. “Få de jævla hendene dine vekk fra meg! Jeg sverger: når jeg kommer meg løs hefra så er du en død mann! [Get those fucking hands off of me! I swear: when I get out of this, you’re a dead man!]”

Crowley chuckled and ran a hand through her hair. “You’re not gonna kill anyone, darling. There’s no one left TO kill. But I’m sure there’s other ways for you to use all that pent up rage and energy.”

“Crowley? Du er ikke virkelig. Bare en drøm. Faen… [You’re not real. Just a dream. Fuck…]”

“Some people have been known to call me a dream, yes, and I do travel with a pair of plaid nightmares –“

Sam pushed past Crowley and sank to his knees in front of the chair. “Oli, sweetie, look at me. Can you do that for me, please?” He lifted her chin up with his fingers, and smiled softly when her eyes slowly opened.

“Sam? Is it really you? It’s not just an illusion?”

He sighed, sniffing the tear that slid down the edge of his nose. “No, sweetie, it’s really me. And Dean is here too. Even Crowley.”

“I knew you’d come for me. Just hoped it would be before it was too late.”

“Of course we came for you. It’s not the same without you.” He swallowed. He had to lighten the weight on his chest. “I don’t know what I’d do if you – I’m crazy about you.”

Dean coughed and grabbed Crowley’s sleeve. “Let’s give them a few minutes. Help me bury the bodies.” Crowley raised his eyebrows, making Dean sigh loudly. “Alright. Help me bury the bodies, Your Majesty. But this is the last one, I swear!”

“I’m gonna miss it,” Crowley sniggered, but he followed Dean outside.

Oline looked from the door to Sam.

“I know,” he replied to her silent question. “It’s a long story, but a small price to pay, really.” He took her hands in his, rubbing the cold from them. “I’m sorry, Oli. I really am.”

“For what?” Her voice cracked as she let out a short, nervous breath.

“That it took something like this to make me say something. I mean… with the life we lead, you’d think we’d understand how fragile that balance can be. But I’d like to… I mean… Can we try to…”

“Yes! I’m… I’m crazy about you too. Just didn’t know how to…” She reached up and put her arms around Sam’s neck, and he swooped her up, giggling like a teenager.

Carefully Oline pressed her lips against his, but withdrew quickly with a hiss. “Ow! Stupid monsters ruining my dream even when they’re dead.”

“Your dream, huh? Well, luckily this isn’t a dream you have to wake up from. There’s plenty of time to live it.” He searched her face for an unharmed spot, and kissed it tenderly.

“Aww… Aren’t you cute?” Crowley cooed from the doorway.

Oline leaned on Sam’s chest, and he rested his head on her shoulder. “Should think so yeah,” she grinned. “I’m adorable and he’s only the most handsome man in the world.”

Dean stuck his head around the corner and grimaced. “Ew, come on, Crowley. Oli clearly got hit on the head or something.”

Tagging these magnificent people:

@aiaranradnay @awesomeahwu @brynleewolfe @funwithfanfics @babeinthebowtie @savingapplepie-eatingthings @winchesterprincessbride @savvythedork @littlegreenplasticsoldier @youtubehelpsmesurvive @blackcherrywhiskey @mrswhozeewhatsis @schwarzwaelder-kirschtorte @iamreadinginsecret

[uberchain]

Rewind 2017: Post-Thoughts

I flew back in from California a few days ago after the last stage of filming for Ready Up, and the first TF2 LAN of 2017. In the past live Team Fortress 2 events I have been privileged to have been flown out to - i55, Tip of the Hats 2015, DHW 2015, DHS 2016, i58, and Tip of the Hats 2016 - I’ve never felt post-LAN blues like the seventh event I’ve attended thus far. 

LAN, aside from a competition to see who is the best team out of all the teams competing in an equal playing ground, is a social gathering. A coming together of a community that has followed each other for a combined purpose. A forging of relationships with each other over a common passion, to know not simply players as players but players as people - as friends, as comrades, as partners, and as Redeye said: as family. This is something I would like to convey through Ready Up as we wrap up the filming stage and move forward into the editing stage from here on out. This is why me, Dashner, and Sideshow were flown out to Rewind.

Once it’s released, Ready Up may be my last major competitive TF2-related contribution. I’m in no rush to finish it, though. We’re going to take our time with it, most likely extending the date from early 2017 to late 2017 - we just want to make sure we do our best for our sponsor, the competitive community, and everyone who will watch. I am thankful for Dashner’s passion and knowledge for co-direction. I am thankful for Sideshow’s eloquence and confidence for co-interviewing. Both have taken time out of their jobs with OW for this.

I personally always want to show this community that they’re appreciated and loved, despite our differences and frustrations in how we view the same game we play. I work hard, because I feel like the community counts on me to deliver. I know I’m not obliged to do so, but I like to do so. I’ve been told numerous times that this in particular, this is not worth my energy. This is not worth my time for a community that in love is equal in hatred when you make a misstep. Some people have gone as far to tell me I’m clinically insane. These people could be right for all I care.

So what of my family then? The family one of the strongest figureheads in the esports community notices and praises fondly? When Dashner and I caught Redeye literally in the middle of ESL NY’s hallways amidst the tough and scary security, right outside the arena where the sound of matches bled out - standing in this hallway interviewing him then and there, we felt touched by his words. We were thankful for him remembering us past his stardom and status. Redeye has always tended to check in every now and again to smaller esports scenes, to see how they’re doing. It’s sweet and sincere, and knowing this was his nature made those words he gave us feel genuine to me.

ESA Rewind this last week was when I realized that I had said Ready Up would be my last major contribution to comp TF2. Like many others, bills are piling up. I owe debt. I’m rebuilding my design portfolio and figuring out the plan for 2017. There’s a lot of money I’ve invested into other future TF2-related projects I won’t ever see a return on from Valve or the TF2 community. I want to stay, but only if I can afford it (as do most sane people). As expected, the idea of never seeing my friends and family from here again is something I’m not readied up for.

Filming was wrapped on Friday after we arrived early for the European and Australian bootcamping and interviews, and B-roll was left to shoot on Saturday and Sunday, the actual game days. Dashner was manning the big guns for Ready Up (aka our expensive rentals), so I chose to focus on photo coverage for Teamfortress.tv. (There was a lack of photo coverage from i58 due to focus on Ready Up. I recruited Jasbutts and we went ham.) What I also chose to focus on was my international friends from Europe, and that’s when I got to learn more about Se7en.

Kaidus had approached me a while back to talk about his new organization and team he wanted to bring to America for Rewind, as well as future events and LANs. I recognized the Crowns champions, as well as my Full Tilt’s boys and the launching legend. He had named them Team Seven, a tongue-in-cheek response to the criticism Crowns Esports Club had faced back when Kaidus was more heavily involved in coaching it. 

I like the storyline FROYOTECH presented for this LAN’s victory: they came back from their 3rd Place slump at i58 and proved that they were still one of the strongest teams to be reckoned with. Habib’s mother was there, who kept asking Jasbutts about how the game worked as she spectated it, and finally watched her son win. Nursey has successfully shut up a good narrow-minded portion of the community and became the first female TF2 player to win an international LAN in the highest bracket. Paddie and Freestate finally became part of the FROYOTECH victory roster. 

As it usually goes, though, I root for the teams I’m asked to be involved with. This was on another level. I screamed my lungs out for Se7en. I knew their flaws and their criticisms. I didn’t care. It was like i55′s Ascent and i58′s Full Tilt. And some of these were Full Tilt. I liked Crowns way back then too. These were my boys. This was my team. I wanted them to win. This time, I knew their history and their players the most out of any team I had rooted for. European Prem TF2 was the scene I was watching the most at one point in my time here. FROYO got it in the end, and of course I didn’t want Se7en to lose, but I had a worse fear - I didn’t want them to leave. 

Again, coincidentally - Rewind was the seventh TF2 live event I flew out to. It might be the last TF2 live event I see them at too. I didn’t realize how much I actually gave a shit about this until it hit me, that this could be the last time I’d see them play TF2. It could be the last time I’d see them attend a LAN, or go pro in another game. CS:GO or OW, maybe? I don’t know, I want them all to keep going and not...disappear? Jasmine Tea is disbanding, one of them is going off to focus on school. That also hurt, it’s always amazing having the Australians at a TF2 LAN. Yet this one for Se7en, why? My colleagues & friends feel similarly, but it’s like why do we feel like that? People come and go all the time. And underneath it all, I’m just a fan who does more shit than I should out of my love for this game and this community. What worth is my opinion? 

Every time I run into Sideshow IRL, it’s uplifting to know he’s still around somewhere else. When we say our goodbyes, I usually make it a point to tell the dribbler, “let this not be the last time; we will see each other again”. It might be because we also cross paths in OW things, but it’s something I make a point to tell everybody in TF2 for my farewells, as an incentive. A promise. 

I went to Blizzcon. Aside from the interviews we got there, I’ve talked to the ex-TF2 pros who have fire re-lit in their eyes, who are being appreciated, rewarded, and shine on in OW. I can’t be upset. I too was treated very well by Blizzard while I was there, to the point of tears. I don’t want to be another one of those TF2 fans who wants to hold back somebody from moving on to other opportunities, or telling them not to quit. If it’s outside of their priorities, then I’m not important, and TF2 is not important. 

I understand more than ever after Blizzcon and Tip of the Hats when people need to go. There are other priorities in life. There are other things to pursue. This is why I remember telling him, “wherever your journeys may take you”. So why is it that - almost selfishly, as though I have rejected any concept of what I just learned about not holding people back, especially if I tell myself I have no significance to this player, this person I realized I ended up looking up to more than I thought - I wish I’d said, “please don’t leave yet”? 

And it went similarly for many other people that I realized that, how much I looked up to them as players and colleagues, then as friends and family - and it’s like...the idea I might never see these people represent again. That I might never see these people again. That sense of absolute finale, knowing that all things eventually come to an end; knowing that people that you are proud to say are part of your life, your passion, your hope, could be temporary due to the distances you might not be able to bridge...

That every farewell hug I shared, every departing Uber I waved at, even my own Uber I was escorted to by the last friend I’d see before my flight as he turned around and walked away while my car drove off - 

Fuck me, no. Not yet. It seems ridiculously melodramatic for real life. It’s almost laughable, the fact I haven’t learned. None of us have learned, to be honest. The idea of leaving for good, even on my end, never seeing those people again - I haven’t readied up for that at all. 

Rewind it all for me. Take me back, remind me of why we fight so hard to attend these things. Whether you’re a player, a former pro, a production crewmember, LAN organizer holy shit the LAN organizers, or a spectator. The post-LAN blues and the LAN high that just overwhelm any sense of practical reasoning you had. And then we end up going back when we thought we were out, and we don’t learn - because we love this game too much. We love each other too much. 

You desire the friendships and the relationships you’ve forged stronger together in the real world. Your heart aches to hear the laughter and see the smiles of the people you’ve befriended beyond the internet. You say shit like, “let this not be the last time, we’ll see each other again” so you can fight not just for the game, but for them. For your community. 

LAN, aside from a competition to see who is the best team out of all the teams competing in an equal playing ground, is a social gathering. A coming together of a community that has followed each other for a combined purpose. A forging of relationships with each other over a common passion, to know not simply players as players but players as people - as friends, as comrades, as partners, and as Redeye said: as family.

[networkingdefinition]

Dating Quotes

Official Website: Dating Quotes

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• A lot of people wouldn’t feel miserable in this environment. A lot of people aren’t dating my girlfriend. – Dov Davidoff • About age 30 most women think about having children, most men think about dating them. – Judy Carter • After a number of years dating, we decided we were good partners. – Melinda Gates • Are you kidding? I’m a terrible cook, but John is a really great one. Literally, I never cook. The whole time we were dating, I prepared two officially romantic meals. Both of them were such disasters that he begs me never to go into the kitchen again. – Rebecca Romijn • At the time that I knew them, they were not living together. They began dating again after their divorce, so I didn’t really see fighting. – Kato Kaelin

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Dating', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_dating').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_dating img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Bill Clinton is a man who thinks international affairs means dating a girl from out of town. – Tom Clancy • Busy’ is another word for ‘asshole’. ‘Asshole’ is another word for the guy you’re dating. – Greg Behrendt • Celebrities say they date other celebrities because they have the same job. But I think they just like dating famous people. Celebrities attract each other, like cattle. – Jason Lee • Computer dating is fine, if you’re a computer. – Rita Mae Brown • Dating a new man is like holding a strawberry milkshake; first the taste, then the pleasure. – Marilyn Monroe • Dating is a give and take. If you only see it as “Taking,” you are not getting it. – Henry Cloud • Dating is a place to practice how to relate to other people. – Henry Cloud • Dating is about finding out who you are and who others are. If you show up in a masquerade outfit, neither is going to happen. – Henry Cloud • Dating is just awkward moments and one person wants more than the other. It’s just that constant strangeness. I think it’s a very real thing. – Jason Schwartzman • Dating is like pushing your tray along in a cafeteria. Nothing looks good, but you know you have to pick something by the time you reach the cashier. – Caprice Crane • Dating is pressure and tension. What is a date, really, but a job interview that lasts all night? – Jerry Seinfeld • Dating is primarily a numbers game…. People usually go through a lot of people to find good relationships. That’s just the way it is. – Henry Cloud • Dating is probably the most important aspect of a single person’s life. – Linda Sunshine • Dating is really all about sex. In the conventional context, this means that the man invites the woman to go through a social encounter, the ultimate purpose of which is sexual engagement. – Alexander McCall Smith • Dating now is a lot like going shopping when you don’t have any money. Even if you find the right thing, you can’t do anything about it. – Joshua Harris • Dating should be a part of your life, not your life a part of dating. There is more to life than finding a date. – Henry Cloud • Dodi got a lot of criticism when he began dating Princess Diana. No one seemed to think he was good enough for her. – Lorna Luft • Encourage your children to come to you for counsel with their problems and questions by listening to them every day. Discuss with them such important matters as dating, sex, and other matters affecting their growth and development, and do it early enough so they will not obtain information from questionable sources. – Ezra Taft Benson • Envy is what makes you, when an acquaintance is lustily telling you that she’s dating a Greek god of a guy, ask, ‘Which one, Hades?’ – Gina Barreca • Everyone was like, “Why do you need to meet someone on Match.com?” My response was, “I certainly don’t need to meet more of the same broke, acting class guys that I’d been dating my whole life.” I needed to change that whole paradigm. So, I decided to meet some corporate guys and see how that worked. So, I went on Match, but I didn’t put a picture up, because I’m on television, and I didn’t want anybody contacting me for the wrong reasons. So, I had to do the hunting, as it were. I didn’t anticipate meeting my husband online, but there he was. And it all worked out! – Essence Atkins • Gay men should not adopt the sophomoric model of heterosexual dating; gay men should always have sex first. – John Rechy • Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury. – Martha Beck • Here’s the funny thing about the response I’ve been aware of to my dating famous people: It’s been very negative. I’m either not good-looking enough, not a good enough actor or not successful enough for these people. – Dax Shepard • Honeymoon: A short period of doting between dating and debting. – Mike Binder • How many of you have ever started dating because you were too lazy to commit a suicide? – Judy Tenuta • I also find it interesting that a lot of people in their 30s are not married and don’t have kids. There are a lot of people in this age bracket that are out there dating and trying to find love. And I never thought that at my age I would be. – John Stamos • I came to the realization that I started dating my now-wife junior year of college, before you actually went on a date. You didn’t take girls from college out to dinner. I’ve never been on a date. I’ve never been on a date where I didn’t know the end game. I’ve never casually dated someone. I’ve only been out to dinner with the woman who would eventually be my wife. – Jon Gabrus • I can’t imagine dating a boy, meeting him only outside the home. What’s a home and family for if it’s not the center of one’s life? – Loretta Young • I can’t wait for my little sisters to start dating, because it will really be fun to pick on their boyfriends. – David Gallagher • I could be a party girl, dating whoever I want and being reckless, but I like being in a relationship. When you have somebody who grounds you and keeps you sane, it helps. – Eva Longoria • I do like dating cynics – they tend to be incredibly funny. – Chris Pine • I don’t have the best dating track record. – Lauren Conrad • I don’t know the first real thing about the dating game. I don’t know how to talk to a specific person and connect. I just think you have to go to person by person and do the best you can with people in general. – Jason Schwartzman • I don’t really comment on my personal life because I feel like any comment at all is opening up a whole can of worms. I’d just rather not talk about who I’m dating. – Josh Hartnett • I don’t think courting and dating is a liability. I actually think it can be a blessing. – Rebecca St. James • I don’t understand the whole dating thing. I know right off the bat if I’m interested in someone, and I don’t want them to waste their money on me and take me out to eat if I know I’m not interested in that person. – Britney Spears • I feel like I’ve always had gay fans, I don’t think my dating a woman has changed my demographic, but it certainly changed the way I feel about politics. – Sia Furler • I got that experience through dating dozens of men for six years after college, getting an entry level magazine job at 21, working in the fiction department at Good Housekeeping and then working as a fashion editor there as well as writing many articles for the magazine. – Judith Krantz • I grew up between the two world wars and received a rather solid general education, the kind middle class children enjoyed in a country whose educational system had its roots dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. – George Andrew Olah • I grew up in the world of bad television, on my dad’s sets and then as a young schmuck on dating shows and so on. – George Clooney • I have been dating someone that treats my heart like it’s monkey meat. I feel like a delusional, invisible person half the time so I need to learn what it’s like to be treated well before it’s too late for me. – Hannah • I just can’t fathom tweeting, and I’d rather spend my time writing a book than a blog, but I rather grudgingly agreed to a Facebook page. I had a brief, intense romance with Facebook. It’s weirdly addictive, but anything that time-sucking is a danger for a writer who writes as slowly as I do. Now I post only occasionally and nothing very confessional. I think I’m carbon dating myself as I speak. – Debra Dean • I just don’t like when there’s a rumor that says I’m dating someone who is below my standards. But when I got divorced, my ex-wife said I was spending all my time with Lindsay Lohan and Angelina Jolie. I was like, ‘Thank you for the big ups!’ – Marilyn Manson • I knew dating the son of Satan would turn out badly – Darynda Jones • I like the idea of dating, but I’m not dating anyone exclusively, particularly right now. It’s hard to be in a relationship unless you’re ready to go public with it. So it’s a lot easier for me to not be in a relationship. I really don’t want that part of my life to be tabloid fodder. – Cory Monteith • I love being a single mom. But it’s definitely different when you’re dating. – Brooke Burns • I prefer ordinary girls – you know, college students, waitresses, that sort of thing. Most of the girls I go out with are just good friends. Just because I go out to the cinema with a girl, it doesn’t mean we are dating. – Leonardo DiCaprio • I started dating older men, and I would fall in love with them. I thought they could teach me about life. – Daphne Zuniga • I stopped dating for six months a year ago. Dating requires a lot of energy and focus. – Daphne Zuniga • I think a man’s dream woman changes as he goes through different stages in his life. I’m fortunate to be dating my dream woman now. – Wissam Al Mana • I think I should date a normal girl. I am tired of dating heroines. While I believe in marriage as an institution, I am also petrified of it. – Shahid Kapoor • I think I’m definitely more open. You know the thing is I wouldn’t have said I was closed before, but like, it’s the kind of thing that you don’t even think of other options. I’ve been dating black men for really, for like, I don’t know, 10 years. You know, I haven’t really dated outside of that. Now I think I’m probably am more open to the idea. – Sanaa Lathan • I think more dating stuff is scheduling. It’s needing people who understand your work schedule. – Jennifer Love Hewitt • I tried to tell them about the dating process because I’m single now and how horrible it is and how many foolish experiences I had had dating. So I was really selling him hard, but the whole time he really wanted me! – Andie MacDowell • I want my audience to know me for my work, not because of who I’m dating or what drugs I’m on or what club I went to. – Shia LaBeouf • I want to start dating the man that I’m gonna marry. I want to start having some fun with someone that I know I’m gonna be with. I don’t play any games. I’m too old for that. I’ve been there, I’ve been around the block. – LisaRaye McCoy-Misick • I was dating a guy that was a huge wrestling fan and I’m embarrassed to say it now but I used to make fun of him for watching it. – Torrie Wilson • I was dating this guy and we would spend all day text messaging each other. And he thought that he could tell that he liked me more because he actually spelt the word ‘YOU’ and I just put the letter ‘U’. – Kelly Osbourne • I was thrown into the fashion world, dating models – and you’d read about me dating a new starlet every month. That’s just where my life was. But I’ve grown up a lot. – Stephen Dorff • If you want me to be straight, gay, into monkeys, dating Kylie, whatever, I’m happy for people to project whatever onto me! – Darren Hayes • I’m a bad dater – I’m just not good at it. It’s so weird dating in this town. It’s like high school. I get a lot of people who have their publicist call my agent to ask, ‘Is she dating anyone? – Jules Asner • I’m dating a girl who’s pretty levelheaded. She’s a nurse. She’s a real, normal girl. Which is what I need because my life isn’t normal. – Kenny Chesney • I’m dating a homeless woman. It was easier talking her into staying over. – Garry Shandling • I’m dating a woman now who, evidently, is unaware of it. – Garry Shandling • I’m friends with a lot of my exes, but it took time. We didn’t just get into it. I don’t think you can be friends until you’re cool with them dating someone else. That’s when you know. – Rashida Jones • I’m much more interested in what an actor has to say about something substantial and important than who they’re dating or what clothes they’re wearing or some other asinine, insignificant aspect of their life. – Ben Affleck • I’m not cynical about marriage or romance. I enjoyed being married. And although being single was fun for a while, there was always the risk of dating someone who’d owned a lunch box with my picture on it. – Shaun Cassidy • I’m not great at dating, but I need to do it to relax. – Lena Dunham • I’m not interested in serial dating; I’d honestly rather be single. – Tamsin Egerton • I’m not very experienced with boys or the whole dating thingy. – Vanessa Hudgens • I’m not with anybody, I don’t have time for dating. Not to get too personal, but it’s weirdly harder to meet new people now. But for the first time in my life since I was a little kid, I’m not so concerned about it. – Justin Vernon • I’m of the belief that dating “potential” is almost always an exercise in frustration. – Mallory Ortberg • I’m so an all-or-nothing person in dating, always. I’m big on not wasting time. And so, yeah, if something’s not working, it’s time to not hold people back. – Ginnifer Goodwin • In its purest form, dating is auditioning for mating (and auditioning means we may or may not get the part). – Joy Browne • Is it a bad sign when someone asks you about the person your dating and a tear falls from your eye as you leap into oncoming traffic? – Dov Davidoff • Is it a bad sign when you see the person you’re dating and get the same feeling as if you just saw police lights in you’re rear view mirror? – Dov Davidoff • It was funny actually because that was still during the time we were dating. He would get all these calls because supposedly before we broke up, we had already broken up in the trades, in the rags or whatever. – Rosario Dawson • It was really shocking to me that when I was dating a dude I could get married and my taxes were 8 grand less, blah blah blah. – Sia Furler • It was V-day and I was stuck at home while the guy I was dating was at an Anti-Valentine’s Day party. How wrong was that? It was one thing to be totally alone on V-day, but another to want to be with someone who would rather spend the evening protesting love instead of making it. – Kate Madison • It’s always been my personal feeling that unless you are married, there is something that is not very dignified about talking about who you are dating. – Luke Wilson • It’s amazing how much time and money can be saved in the world of dating by close attention to detail. A white sock here, a pair of red braces there, a gray slip-on shoe, a swastika, are as often as not all one needs to tell you there’s no point in writing down phone numbers and forking out for expensive lunches because it’s never going to be a runner. – Helen Fielding • It’s so easy to misuse social media as a dating tool. I think it can be useful but it’s scary when you think about who can access this information and what they’re doing with it. – Justin Long • I’ve been dating since I was fifteen. I’m exhausted. Where is he? – Kristin Davis • I’ve been dating younger men since my 20s, When I was 29, I dated someone 21… younger men are just more fun. I like their energy. I’ve always been kind of young for my age. – Dana Delany • I’ve been in plenty of situations where someone I’m dating had more time for a console than me. – Josie Maran • I’ve done a number of studies with speed dating and Match.com and what’s interesting is that you know we still walk into a speed dating event, you know, thinking about what it is we’re looking for in a mate and so you ask people, like women will say “I’m looking for somebody who is really kind and sincere and smart and funny.” – Sheena Iyengar • I’ve had a little bad, bad media luck the new year. Well, apparently I’m dating Bill Clinton, which makes me nervous. I didn’t know, though. – Julie Bowen • I’ve learned that I don’t want to be as open or public about relationships anymore. In my first relationship, I thought I could hold on to the normalcy of just being like “Yeah, we’re dating,” just like if it were high school and I was telling my friends. But in high school, there aren’t articles written everywhere when you break up and you don’t have everyone in the school coming up to you and asking what happened or sharing their opinion with you. It didn’t feel like ours anymore, it felt like everybody else’s. – Camila Cabello • Just because times change and alot of people think that dating multiple people is the thing these days, it just isn’t a solid foundation at all in matters of the heart. I still believe in marriages that have a physically powerful foundation. – Angela Merkel • Like the guy I was dating. White, liberal, educated. I went to meet his family and I think that they probably didn’t know they had a problem with it until he walked in with me. And they definitely had issues. Mom had issues with it. Could not, didn’t want to see her son. And I don’t think she had anything against me. But it was about her son bringing me home. And I felt that for the first time. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s deep.’ It’s really simple: I don’t fit their picture. – Sanaa Lathan • My husband is the only guy I’ve ever dated where I’ve never been drunk around him. I couldn’t handle dating without drinking in the past. – Alison Rosen • My mom always complains about my lack of a boyfriend. Well, next time she asks, I’m going to tell her I’m dating two different guys-Mr Duracell and Mr Energizer. – Michelle Landry • My mom is going to kill me for talking about sleeping with people. But I don’t want to put myself in the position where I’m in a monogamous relationship right now. I’m not dating just one person. ‘Sex and the City’ changed everything for me because those girls would sleep with so many people. – Lindsay Lohan • My original inspiration was my mom: a few years after the death of my dad, she started dating one my teachers! – Meg Cabot • My philosophy of dating is to just fart right away. – Jenny McCarthy • My wife and I have been together since 1986. I graduated in ’86 and she graduated in ’88. We began dating when she was 17. Actually she turned 18 when we started kissing and stuff. – Cuba Gooding, Jr. • No one knew me until I met my wife Lulu. Lulu’s mother used to ask, Which one is Maurice? For six months she thought Lulu was dating Barry. – Maurice Gibb • Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. – Scott Adams • Of course, a lot of courtship and dating is about sexual attraction. If you’re an attractive person, you have that sort of interest from people, whether you cater to it or not, but when you get older, that’s not really the leading thing anymore. – Patricia Arquette • Oh, my dating skills are the worst. No, I pick the wrong men; it’s amazing. I am awful, the worst dater. – Paget Brewster • On girls night in we talk about dating; the ups and downs of the previous week. Our collective laughter is uncontrollable and tearful, even the most disappointing dates become meritorious on girls night in. – Cilla Black • On the Hugh Grant romance rumours: We’re not dating and I’m not pregnant. We have not kissed or touched. We have not fought and broken up. – Sandra Bullock • One of my best friends is dating my other best friend, Lena! – Taylor Swift • Pamela Anderson Lee released a statement confirming that she has had her breast implants removed. Doctors say that Pamela is doing fine and that her old implants are now dating Charlie Sheen. – Conan O’Brien • Rumors about me? Calista Flockhart, Pam Anderson, and Matt Damon. That’s who I’m dating. – Ben Affleck • So if I was dating somebody now and the relationship didn’t work out, I’d take that as failing – Gavin DeGraw • Some burns,” Clary said. “Nothing that matters” “Everything that happens to you matters to me.” “Well that certainly explains why you haven’t called me back once. And the last time I saw you, you ran away without telling me why. It’s like dating a ghost.” Jace’s mouth quirked up slightly at the side. “Not exactly. Isabelle actually dated a ghost. She could tell you–” “No,” Clary said. “It was a metaphor. And you know exactly what I mean. – Cassandra Clare • Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that no one can go so far as to say “good morning” in public without being liquored up. – Amelia Gray • That’s the advice I would give to women: Don’t look at the bankbook or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul. Look at how the guy treats his mother and what he says about women. How he acts with children he doesn’t know. And, more important, how does he treat you? When you’re dating a man, you should always feel good. You should never feel less than. You should never doubt yourself. – Michelle Obama • The global economy is becoming a place where women are more successful than men, and these economic changes are starting to rapidly affect our culture – what our romantic comedies look like, what our marriages look like, what our dating lives look like, and our new set of superheroes. – Hanna Rosin • The Google algorithm was a significant development. I’ve had thank-you emails from people whose lives have been saved by information on a medical website or who have found the love of their life on a dating website. – Tim Berners-Lee • The inspiration for this movie [Something New] was this Newsweek article that came out a couple of years ago that talks about 42.4 percent of black women in America aren’t married. Black women are shooting up the corporate ladder way faster than our black male counterparts. And (black men) are either dating outside their race, in jail or dying. And so if you want to have a family, you want to be married, you have to look at other options. – Sanaa Lathan • The learned are not agreed as to the time when the Gospel of John was written; some dating it as early as the year 68, others as late as the year 98; but it is generally conceded to have been written after all the others. – Simon Greenleaf • The love is so powerful that both people have to surrender. I think that’s the funny thing about dating somebody for the first time, it’s kind of a question of who wears the pants, or who’s gonna text you first, how much am I supposed to put myself out there, and it makes you feel a little bit crazy. But at the end of the day, it’s not about that. And if it’s the right person you don’t have to worry about that. – Zella Day • The most difficult part of dating is the initial invitation. – Janell Carroll • The number of people who have either gotten married or had kids or started dating or just made great friends over Instagram is countless. I think we’re the only platform that continues to be successful in bringing people together in real life for these real relationships. – Kevin Systrom • The United States is now relearning an ancient lesson, dating back to the Roman Empire. Brutalizing an enemy only serves to brutalize the army ordered to do it. Torture corrodes the mind of the torturer. – James Risen • The whole dating ritual was different when I was a kid. Girls got pinned, not nailed. – Bill Maher • The woman I am currently crazy about was a vegetarian for a year until I started dating her. As is the case with most vegetarians, she had never eaten properly prepared meat, only commercially packaged or otherwise abused flesh. – Steve Albini • There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. – Judith Martin • There is no golden rule of dating, except to make sure that it engages both of you; too many people go to a cinema for a first date and of course don’t say a word, that’s a bad thing! – Steven Hill • There’s an interesting story around that [“Heaven Without a Gun”], because the girl I was dating at the time got into a bike accident and couldn’t make it into the studio, and the gentleman Dave Hamlin who worked on this record along with Ohad sort of took it, rearranged it. Dave went and sonically changed it and changed the keys so that Andy could sing it better. All these pieces came together that suddenly displayed that the song was meant for Andy [Kim] to sing. And he always said, “I’ll never understand it, but I’ll sing it with all my heart.” – Kevin Drew • There’s no way to get around it; online dating is work. And some people are more skilled at this kind of communication than others. – Rachel Martin • We had two rules growing up in my house: If you’re going to take a shower, do it with whomever you’re dating so you don’t waste water; and if you buy one for yourself, buy six, because everybody’s going to want one. – Moon Unit Zappa • Well, dating has become a sport and not about finding the person you love. – Rashida Jones • Whats nice about my dating life is that I dont have to leave my house. All I have to do is read the paper: Im marrying Richard Gere, dating Daniel Day-Lewis, parading around with John F. Kennedy, Jr., and even Robert De Niro was in there for a day. – Julia Roberts • When I had been dating my husband for a while, the president Obama said to me, “When is he going to put a ring on it?” And I was like, “Oh, come on. We are so busy. We don’t need to think about that.” He said, “He needs to put a ring on it because you’re worth it.” And the thing is, I’m not even kidding you, it was about a week or two later that we got engaged. – Alyssa Mastromonaco • When I met Nathan, I told my tour manager he was too good-looking for me. I don’t have a history of dating good-looking men. I’ve always complained that girls don’t get male groupies, and now I’ve married the first groupie I’ve ever had. – Nina Persson • When I saw music as a means to an end – more fame, more money, dating celebrities – that’s when things have gone terribly wrong. Now my life is focused on just trying to keep making music. Because when it’s really good, it’s just the most remarkable feeling on the planet. – Moby • When someone is good, but it doesn’t seem like their world will collapse if they don’t get the part, it’s more appealing. It’s like dating someone: You don’t want someone who’s too into you. – Steve Carell • While she could hardly fathom what had just happened to her that night, she reached some conclusions before she fell asleep, certain things now made perfect sense; Moon River didn’t sound so syrupy, mistletoe wasn’t such a bad idea, and perhaps dating was not such a frivolous waste of time after all. – E. A. Bucchianeri • With my husband it was never like “omg, should I text him?” or “he didn’t call me for two days.” So, I think I knew it was right because it just happened so naturally. That’s one piece of advice that I would give to women who are struggling in this crazy world of dating. – Lindsay Ellingson • Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people. – Douglas Coupland • Would a dating service for people on the net be “frowned upon” by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don’t let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one. – Richard Stallman • You know, I had my mother and my father convincing me that he would be going back to Hollywood and he’d be back with the actresses and dating them and that he wasn’t serious about me at all. So I had him saying one thing to me and my parents telling me something else. – Priscilla Presley • You shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t make you completely happy and make you feel whole. And if you’re in that relationship and you’re dating, then my advice is, don’t get married. – Michelle Obama • You’re talking to someone who has been married to various people for the last 40 years of her life. Dating is not really something familiar. I’ve never really been a dater. – Stockard Channing

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Dating Quotes

Official Website: Dating Quotes

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• A lot of people wouldn’t feel miserable in this environment. A lot of people aren’t dating my girlfriend. – Dov Davidoff • About age 30 most women think about having children, most men think about dating them. – Judy Carter • After a number of years dating, we decided we were good partners. – Melinda Gates • Are you kidding? I’m a terrible cook, but John is a really great one. Literally, I never cook. The whole time we were dating, I prepared two officially romantic meals. Both of them were such disasters that he begs me never to go into the kitchen again. – Rebecca Romijn • At the time that I knew them, they were not living together. They began dating again after their divorce, so I didn’t really see fighting. – Kato Kaelin

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Dating', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_dating').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_dating img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Bill Clinton is a man who thinks international affairs means dating a girl from out of town. – Tom Clancy • Busy’ is another word for ‘asshole’. ‘Asshole’ is another word for the guy you’re dating. – Greg Behrendt • Celebrities say they date other celebrities because they have the same job. But I think they just like dating famous people. Celebrities attract each other, like cattle. – Jason Lee • Computer dating is fine, if you’re a computer. – Rita Mae Brown • Dating a new man is like holding a strawberry milkshake; first the taste, then the pleasure. – Marilyn Monroe • Dating is a give and take. If you only see it as “Taking,” you are not getting it. – Henry Cloud • Dating is a place to practice how to relate to other people. – Henry Cloud • Dating is about finding out who you are and who others are. If you show up in a masquerade outfit, neither is going to happen. – Henry Cloud • Dating is just awkward moments and one person wants more than the other. It’s just that constant strangeness. I think it’s a very real thing. – Jason Schwartzman • Dating is like pushing your tray along in a cafeteria. Nothing looks good, but you know you have to pick something by the time you reach the cashier. – Caprice Crane • Dating is pressure and tension. What is a date, really, but a job interview that lasts all night? – Jerry Seinfeld • Dating is primarily a numbers game…. People usually go through a lot of people to find good relationships. That’s just the way it is. – Henry Cloud • Dating is probably the most important aspect of a single person’s life. – Linda Sunshine • Dating is really all about sex. In the conventional context, this means that the man invites the woman to go through a social encounter, the ultimate purpose of which is sexual engagement. – Alexander McCall Smith • Dating now is a lot like going shopping when you don’t have any money. Even if you find the right thing, you can’t do anything about it. – Joshua Harris • Dating should be a part of your life, not your life a part of dating. There is more to life than finding a date. – Henry Cloud • Dodi got a lot of criticism when he began dating Princess Diana. No one seemed to think he was good enough for her. – Lorna Luft • Encourage your children to come to you for counsel with their problems and questions by listening to them every day. Discuss with them such important matters as dating, sex, and other matters affecting their growth and development, and do it early enough so they will not obtain information from questionable sources. – Ezra Taft Benson • Envy is what makes you, when an acquaintance is lustily telling you that she’s dating a Greek god of a guy, ask, ‘Which one, Hades?’ – Gina Barreca • Everyone was like, “Why do you need to meet someone on Match.com?” My response was, “I certainly don’t need to meet more of the same broke, acting class guys that I’d been dating my whole life.” I needed to change that whole paradigm. So, I decided to meet some corporate guys and see how that worked. So, I went on Match, but I didn’t put a picture up, because I’m on television, and I didn’t want anybody contacting me for the wrong reasons. So, I had to do the hunting, as it were. I didn’t anticipate meeting my husband online, but there he was. And it all worked out! – Essence Atkins • Gay men should not adopt the sophomoric model of heterosexual dating; gay men should always have sex first. – John Rechy • Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury. – Martha Beck • Here’s the funny thing about the response I’ve been aware of to my dating famous people: It’s been very negative. I’m either not good-looking enough, not a good enough actor or not successful enough for these people. – Dax Shepard • Honeymoon: A short period of doting between dating and debting. – Mike Binder • How many of you have ever started dating because you were too lazy to commit a suicide? – Judy Tenuta • I also find it interesting that a lot of people in their 30s are not married and don’t have kids. There are a lot of people in this age bracket that are out there dating and trying to find love. And I never thought that at my age I would be. – John Stamos • I came to the realization that I started dating my now-wife junior year of college, before you actually went on a date. You didn’t take girls from college out to dinner. I’ve never been on a date. I’ve never been on a date where I didn’t know the end game. I’ve never casually dated someone. I’ve only been out to dinner with the woman who would eventually be my wife. – Jon Gabrus • I can’t imagine dating a boy, meeting him only outside the home. What’s a home and family for if it’s not the center of one’s life? – Loretta Young • I can’t wait for my little sisters to start dating, because it will really be fun to pick on their boyfriends. – David Gallagher • I could be a party girl, dating whoever I want and being reckless, but I like being in a relationship. When you have somebody who grounds you and keeps you sane, it helps. – Eva Longoria • I do like dating cynics – they tend to be incredibly funny. – Chris Pine • I don’t have the best dating track record. – Lauren Conrad • I don’t know the first real thing about the dating game. I don’t know how to talk to a specific person and connect. I just think you have to go to person by person and do the best you can with people in general. – Jason Schwartzman • I don’t really comment on my personal life because I feel like any comment at all is opening up a whole can of worms. I’d just rather not talk about who I’m dating. – Josh Hartnett • I don’t think courting and dating is a liability. I actually think it can be a blessing. – Rebecca St. James • I don’t understand the whole dating thing. I know right off the bat if I’m interested in someone, and I don’t want them to waste their money on me and take me out to eat if I know I’m not interested in that person. – Britney Spears • I feel like I’ve always had gay fans, I don’t think my dating a woman has changed my demographic, but it certainly changed the way I feel about politics. – Sia Furler • I got that experience through dating dozens of men for six years after college, getting an entry level magazine job at 21, working in the fiction department at Good Housekeeping and then working as a fashion editor there as well as writing many articles for the magazine. – Judith Krantz • I grew up between the two world wars and received a rather solid general education, the kind middle class children enjoyed in a country whose educational system had its roots dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. – George Andrew Olah • I grew up in the world of bad television, on my dad’s sets and then as a young schmuck on dating shows and so on. – George Clooney • I have been dating someone that treats my heart like it’s monkey meat. I feel like a delusional, invisible person half the time so I need to learn what it’s like to be treated well before it’s too late for me. – Hannah • I just can’t fathom tweeting, and I’d rather spend my time writing a book than a blog, but I rather grudgingly agreed to a Facebook page. I had a brief, intense romance with Facebook. It’s weirdly addictive, but anything that time-sucking is a danger for a writer who writes as slowly as I do. Now I post only occasionally and nothing very confessional. I think I’m carbon dating myself as I speak. – Debra Dean • I just don’t like when there’s a rumor that says I’m dating someone who is below my standards. But when I got divorced, my ex-wife said I was spending all my time with Lindsay Lohan and Angelina Jolie. I was like, ‘Thank you for the big ups!’ – Marilyn Manson • I knew dating the son of Satan would turn out badly – Darynda Jones • I like the idea of dating, but I’m not dating anyone exclusively, particularly right now. It’s hard to be in a relationship unless you’re ready to go public with it. So it’s a lot easier for me to not be in a relationship. I really don’t want that part of my life to be tabloid fodder. – Cory Monteith • I love being a single mom. But it’s definitely different when you’re dating. – Brooke Burns • I prefer ordinary girls – you know, college students, waitresses, that sort of thing. Most of the girls I go out with are just good friends. Just because I go out to the cinema with a girl, it doesn’t mean we are dating. – Leonardo DiCaprio • I started dating older men, and I would fall in love with them. I thought they could teach me about life. – Daphne Zuniga • I stopped dating for six months a year ago. Dating requires a lot of energy and focus. – Daphne Zuniga • I think a man’s dream woman changes as he goes through different stages in his life. I’m fortunate to be dating my dream woman now. – Wissam Al Mana • I think I should date a normal girl. I am tired of dating heroines. While I believe in marriage as an institution, I am also petrified of it. – Shahid Kapoor • I think I’m definitely more open. You know the thing is I wouldn’t have said I was closed before, but like, it’s the kind of thing that you don’t even think of other options. I’ve been dating black men for really, for like, I don’t know, 10 years. You know, I haven’t really dated outside of that. Now I think I’m probably am more open to the idea. – Sanaa Lathan • I think more dating stuff is scheduling. It’s needing people who understand your work schedule. – Jennifer Love Hewitt • I tried to tell them about the dating process because I’m single now and how horrible it is and how many foolish experiences I had had dating. So I was really selling him hard, but the whole time he really wanted me! – Andie MacDowell • I want my audience to know me for my work, not because of who I’m dating or what drugs I’m on or what club I went to. – Shia LaBeouf • I want to start dating the man that I’m gonna marry. I want to start having some fun with someone that I know I’m gonna be with. I don’t play any games. I’m too old for that. I’ve been there, I’ve been around the block. – LisaRaye McCoy-Misick • I was dating a guy that was a huge wrestling fan and I’m embarrassed to say it now but I used to make fun of him for watching it. – Torrie Wilson • I was dating this guy and we would spend all day text messaging each other. And he thought that he could tell that he liked me more because he actually spelt the word ‘YOU’ and I just put the letter ‘U’. – Kelly Osbourne • I was thrown into the fashion world, dating models – and you’d read about me dating a new starlet every month. That’s just where my life was. But I’ve grown up a lot. – Stephen Dorff • If you want me to be straight, gay, into monkeys, dating Kylie, whatever, I’m happy for people to project whatever onto me! – Darren Hayes • I’m a bad dater – I’m just not good at it. It’s so weird dating in this town. It’s like high school. I get a lot of people who have their publicist call my agent to ask, ‘Is she dating anyone? – Jules Asner • I’m dating a girl who’s pretty levelheaded. She’s a nurse. She’s a real, normal girl. Which is what I need because my life isn’t normal. – Kenny Chesney • I’m dating a homeless woman. It was easier talking her into staying over. – Garry Shandling • I’m dating a woman now who, evidently, is unaware of it. – Garry Shandling • I’m friends with a lot of my exes, but it took time. We didn’t just get into it. I don’t think you can be friends until you’re cool with them dating someone else. That’s when you know. – Rashida Jones • I’m much more interested in what an actor has to say about something substantial and important than who they’re dating or what clothes they’re wearing or some other asinine, insignificant aspect of their life. – Ben Affleck • I’m not cynical about marriage or romance. I enjoyed being married. And although being single was fun for a while, there was always the risk of dating someone who’d owned a lunch box with my picture on it. – Shaun Cassidy • I’m not great at dating, but I need to do it to relax. – Lena Dunham • I’m not interested in serial dating; I’d honestly rather be single. – Tamsin Egerton • I’m not very experienced with boys or the whole dating thingy. – Vanessa Hudgens • I’m not with anybody, I don’t have time for dating. Not to get too personal, but it’s weirdly harder to meet new people now. But for the first time in my life since I was a little kid, I’m not so concerned about it. – Justin Vernon • I’m of the belief that dating “potential” is almost always an exercise in frustration. – Mallory Ortberg • I’m so an all-or-nothing person in dating, always. I’m big on not wasting time. And so, yeah, if something’s not working, it’s time to not hold people back. – Ginnifer Goodwin • In its purest form, dating is auditioning for mating (and auditioning means we may or may not get the part). – Joy Browne • Is it a bad sign when someone asks you about the person your dating and a tear falls from your eye as you leap into oncoming traffic? – Dov Davidoff • Is it a bad sign when you see the person you’re dating and get the same feeling as if you just saw police lights in you’re rear view mirror? – Dov Davidoff • It was funny actually because that was still during the time we were dating. He would get all these calls because supposedly before we broke up, we had already broken up in the trades, in the rags or whatever. – Rosario Dawson • It was really shocking to me that when I was dating a dude I could get married and my taxes were 8 grand less, blah blah blah. – Sia Furler • It was V-day and I was stuck at home while the guy I was dating was at an Anti-Valentine’s Day party. How wrong was that? It was one thing to be totally alone on V-day, but another to want to be with someone who would rather spend the evening protesting love instead of making it. – Kate Madison • It’s always been my personal feeling that unless you are married, there is something that is not very dignified about talking about who you are dating. – Luke Wilson • It’s amazing how much time and money can be saved in the world of dating by close attention to detail. A white sock here, a pair of red braces there, a gray slip-on shoe, a swastika, are as often as not all one needs to tell you there’s no point in writing down phone numbers and forking out for expensive lunches because it’s never going to be a runner. – Helen Fielding • It’s so easy to misuse social media as a dating tool. I think it can be useful but it’s scary when you think about who can access this information and what they’re doing with it. – Justin Long • I’ve been dating since I was fifteen. I’m exhausted. Where is he? – Kristin Davis • I’ve been dating younger men since my 20s, When I was 29, I dated someone 21… younger men are just more fun. I like their energy. I’ve always been kind of young for my age. – Dana Delany • I’ve been in plenty of situations where someone I’m dating had more time for a console than me. – Josie Maran • I’ve done a number of studies with speed dating and Match.com and what’s interesting is that you know we still walk into a speed dating event, you know, thinking about what it is we’re looking for in a mate and so you ask people, like women will say “I’m looking for somebody who is really kind and sincere and smart and funny.” – Sheena Iyengar • I’ve had a little bad, bad media luck the new year. Well, apparently I’m dating Bill Clinton, which makes me nervous. I didn’t know, though. – Julie Bowen • I’ve learned that I don’t want to be as open or public about relationships anymore. In my first relationship, I thought I could hold on to the normalcy of just being like “Yeah, we’re dating,” just like if it were high school and I was telling my friends. But in high school, there aren’t articles written everywhere when you break up and you don’t have everyone in the school coming up to you and asking what happened or sharing their opinion with you. It didn’t feel like ours anymore, it felt like everybody else’s. – Camila Cabello • Just because times change and alot of people think that dating multiple people is the thing these days, it just isn’t a solid foundation at all in matters of the heart. I still believe in marriages that have a physically powerful foundation. – Angela Merkel • Like the guy I was dating. White, liberal, educated. I went to meet his family and I think that they probably didn’t know they had a problem with it until he walked in with me. And they definitely had issues. Mom had issues with it. Could not, didn’t want to see her son. And I don’t think she had anything against me. But it was about her son bringing me home. And I felt that for the first time. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s deep.’ It’s really simple: I don’t fit their picture. – Sanaa Lathan • My husband is the only guy I’ve ever dated where I’ve never been drunk around him. I couldn’t handle dating without drinking in the past. – Alison Rosen • My mom always complains about my lack of a boyfriend. Well, next time she asks, I’m going to tell her I’m dating two different guys-Mr Duracell and Mr Energizer. – Michelle Landry • My mom is going to kill me for talking about sleeping with people. But I don’t want to put myself in the position where I’m in a monogamous relationship right now. I’m not dating just one person. ‘Sex and the City’ changed everything for me because those girls would sleep with so many people. – Lindsay Lohan • My original inspiration was my mom: a few years after the death of my dad, she started dating one my teachers! – Meg Cabot • My philosophy of dating is to just fart right away. – Jenny McCarthy • My wife and I have been together since 1986. I graduated in ’86 and she graduated in ’88. We began dating when she was 17. Actually she turned 18 when we started kissing and stuff. – Cuba Gooding, Jr. • No one knew me until I met my wife Lulu. Lulu’s mother used to ask, Which one is Maurice? For six months she thought Lulu was dating Barry. – Maurice Gibb • Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. – Scott Adams • Of course, a lot of courtship and dating is about sexual attraction. If you’re an attractive person, you have that sort of interest from people, whether you cater to it or not, but when you get older, that’s not really the leading thing anymore. – Patricia Arquette • Oh, my dating skills are the worst. No, I pick the wrong men; it’s amazing. I am awful, the worst dater. – Paget Brewster • On girls night in we talk about dating; the ups and downs of the previous week. Our collective laughter is uncontrollable and tearful, even the most disappointing dates become meritorious on girls night in. – Cilla Black • On the Hugh Grant romance rumours: We’re not dating and I’m not pregnant. We have not kissed or touched. We have not fought and broken up. – Sandra Bullock • One of my best friends is dating my other best friend, Lena! – Taylor Swift • Pamela Anderson Lee released a statement confirming that she has had her breast implants removed. Doctors say that Pamela is doing fine and that her old implants are now dating Charlie Sheen. – Conan O’Brien • Rumors about me? Calista Flockhart, Pam Anderson, and Matt Damon. That’s who I’m dating. – Ben Affleck • So if I was dating somebody now and the relationship didn’t work out, I’d take that as failing – Gavin DeGraw • Some burns,” Clary said. “Nothing that matters” “Everything that happens to you matters to me.” “Well that certainly explains why you haven’t called me back once. And the last time I saw you, you ran away without telling me why. It’s like dating a ghost.” Jace’s mouth quirked up slightly at the side. “Not exactly. Isabelle actually dated a ghost. She could tell you–” “No,” Clary said. “It was a metaphor. And you know exactly what I mean. – Cassandra Clare • Tess realized one of the great modern dating sadnesses: everyone is so used to the comforting glow of the computer screen that no one can go so far as to say “good morning” in public without being liquored up. – Amelia Gray • That’s the advice I would give to women: Don’t look at the bankbook or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul. Look at how the guy treats his mother and what he says about women. How he acts with children he doesn’t know. And, more important, how does he treat you? When you’re dating a man, you should always feel good. You should never feel less than. You should never doubt yourself. – Michelle Obama • The global economy is becoming a place where women are more successful than men, and these economic changes are starting to rapidly affect our culture – what our romantic comedies look like, what our marriages look like, what our dating lives look like, and our new set of superheroes. – Hanna Rosin • The Google algorithm was a significant development. I’ve had thank-you emails from people whose lives have been saved by information on a medical website or who have found the love of their life on a dating website. – Tim Berners-Lee • The inspiration for this movie [Something New] was this Newsweek article that came out a couple of years ago that talks about 42.4 percent of black women in America aren’t married. Black women are shooting up the corporate ladder way faster than our black male counterparts. And (black men) are either dating outside their race, in jail or dying. And so if you want to have a family, you want to be married, you have to look at other options. – Sanaa Lathan • The learned are not agreed as to the time when the Gospel of John was written; some dating it as early as the year 68, others as late as the year 98; but it is generally conceded to have been written after all the others. – Simon Greenleaf • The love is so powerful that both people have to surrender. I think that’s the funny thing about dating somebody for the first time, it’s kind of a question of who wears the pants, or who’s gonna text you first, how much am I supposed to put myself out there, and it makes you feel a little bit crazy. But at the end of the day, it’s not about that. And if it’s the right person you don’t have to worry about that. – Zella Day • The most difficult part of dating is the initial invitation. – Janell Carroll • The number of people who have either gotten married or had kids or started dating or just made great friends over Instagram is countless. I think we’re the only platform that continues to be successful in bringing people together in real life for these real relationships. – Kevin Systrom • The United States is now relearning an ancient lesson, dating back to the Roman Empire. Brutalizing an enemy only serves to brutalize the army ordered to do it. Torture corrodes the mind of the torturer. – James Risen • The whole dating ritual was different when I was a kid. Girls got pinned, not nailed. – Bill Maher • The woman I am currently crazy about was a vegetarian for a year until I started dating her. As is the case with most vegetarians, she had never eaten properly prepared meat, only commercially packaged or otherwise abused flesh. – Steve Albini • There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. – Judith Martin • There is no golden rule of dating, except to make sure that it engages both of you; too many people go to a cinema for a first date and of course don’t say a word, that’s a bad thing! – Steven Hill • There’s an interesting story around that [“Heaven Without a Gun”], because the girl I was dating at the time got into a bike accident and couldn’t make it into the studio, and the gentleman Dave Hamlin who worked on this record along with Ohad sort of took it, rearranged it. Dave went and sonically changed it and changed the keys so that Andy could sing it better. All these pieces came together that suddenly displayed that the song was meant for Andy [Kim] to sing. And he always said, “I’ll never understand it, but I’ll sing it with all my heart.” – Kevin Drew • There’s no way to get around it; online dating is work. And some people are more skilled at this kind of communication than others. – Rachel Martin • We had two rules growing up in my house: If you’re going to take a shower, do it with whomever you’re dating so you don’t waste water; and if you buy one for yourself, buy six, because everybody’s going to want one. – Moon Unit Zappa • Well, dating has become a sport and not about finding the person you love. – Rashida Jones • Whats nice about my dating life is that I dont have to leave my house. All I have to do is read the paper: Im marrying Richard Gere, dating Daniel Day-Lewis, parading around with John F. Kennedy, Jr., and even Robert De Niro was in there for a day. – Julia Roberts • When I had been dating my husband for a while, the president Obama said to me, “When is he going to put a ring on it?” And I was like, “Oh, come on. We are so busy. We don’t need to think about that.” He said, “He needs to put a ring on it because you’re worth it.” And the thing is, I’m not even kidding you, it was about a week or two later that we got engaged. – Alyssa Mastromonaco • When I met Nathan, I told my tour manager he was too good-looking for me. I don’t have a history of dating good-looking men. I’ve always complained that girls don’t get male groupies, and now I’ve married the first groupie I’ve ever had. – Nina Persson • When I saw music as a means to an end – more fame, more money, dating celebrities – that’s when things have gone terribly wrong. Now my life is focused on just trying to keep making music. Because when it’s really good, it’s just the most remarkable feeling on the planet. – Moby • When someone is good, but it doesn’t seem like their world will collapse if they don’t get the part, it’s more appealing. It’s like dating someone: You don’t want someone who’s too into you. – Steve Carell • While she could hardly fathom what had just happened to her that night, she reached some conclusions before she fell asleep, certain things now made perfect sense; Moon River didn’t sound so syrupy, mistletoe wasn’t such a bad idea, and perhaps dating was not such a frivolous waste of time after all. – E. A. Bucchianeri • With my husband it was never like “omg, should I text him?” or “he didn’t call me for two days.” So, I think I knew it was right because it just happened so naturally. That’s one piece of advice that I would give to women who are struggling in this crazy world of dating. – Lindsay Ellingson • Workshops and seminars are basically financial speed dating for clueless people. – Douglas Coupland • Would a dating service for people on the net be “frowned upon” by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don’t let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one. – Richard Stallman • You know, I had my mother and my father convincing me that he would be going back to Hollywood and he’d be back with the actresses and dating them and that he wasn’t serious about me at all. So I had him saying one thing to me and my parents telling me something else. – Priscilla Presley • You shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t make you completely happy and make you feel whole. And if you’re in that relationship and you’re dating, then my advice is, don’t get married. – Michelle Obama • You’re talking to someone who has been married to various people for the last 40 years of her life. Dating is not really something familiar. I’ve never really been a dater. – Stockard Channing

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[allgamesaside]

NAICCON 2017: RAD LAN Party

The very first official LAN party I attended. I added the word official there because back in campus we had this sort of ‘unofficial’ ones where we would crowd in a friends room with our laptops and play CoD 4 till one by one we got tired or salty or both & quit. Now here I’m talking about LAN parties that are planned weeks prior which, apart from NAICCON, I’ve never heard of any other... well actually I did hear iHub had LAN parties and I have no idea what happened to them but anyway….

This RAD LAN party that NAICCON had set up was something else. Cheers to all those who were involved in planning for it coz the thing was no joke, and it was all free might I add, well it was for a specific bracket of time but I didn’t hear a single person saying they had paid for it. First of all, the internet they set up for us was insane! At some point I was clocking 400Mbps & there were like 50 of us connected to that network, how those mchawis from Liquid Telecom managed that I have no idea. Everything else was on set, it’s like the organizers accounted for everything, well apart from how cold it would get at night and parking but anyway, there was energy drinks close to the gaming area for when you were running low, I did feel like the drink booth also needed to sell some snacks but who needs food when you are gaming at 200Mbps?

I’ve decided to relay my experience in a chronological order so here goes:

Checked in at around 8:45am on Saturday the 29th of July, it was a simple process really, just showing your e-ticket from the invite e-mail they sent (which you had to do every time you stepped out & came back for security reasons) and you were set. By this time there were like 3 people who had checked in before me, there were a bunch of additional people on the console side but who cares about those peasants. 2 of the guys already there had these Asus laptops that looked insane, they also had laptop mounts and peripherals that said they meant business. I thought about my potato Acer laptop in my bag & just felt like crying so before setting up I decided to go & check what the console peasants were up to.

After I set up people now started coming in, before then & 10:00am I would see guys pushing trolleys & in them were these enormous, insane rigs! I was lost for words, green with envy, I tried to act cool but honestly I was in new territory here. Never had I met people who were more serious about their PC gaming than I was, I was legit anxious.

As I was staring at the glorious PC gamers with their rigs blessed by the PC gods themselves, I was told to move coz apparently I was in the competitive area. I felt bad coz that would mean starting afresh the hustle of looking for a power source but again I needed not worry, NAICCON had taken this into account & purchased extension cables for us. God bless their resourceful hearts. So after I set up on my new spot I decided to do a speed test &I was astonished, 300Mbps my fren, wut??

Shortly after people started walking around asking what people were playing, I discovered I was the only one there who’d planned to play CS: GO. If it wasn’t League of Legends people were either playing CoD: MW3 or Paladins (Poor man’s Overwatch) So I decided to download LoL coz I didn’t think my potato laptop could handle Paladins. Also, there was a flash disk going around that had MW3 provided by a mzungu from Gamersnights & I booked my spot in line for it.

As I was waiting to get these 2 games I decided to watch some MW3 friendly, local matches & I got hooked. I had to join in. So I went ahead & forgot about LoL got the MW3 flash & started copying it but there isn’t ever enough time when you are gaming is there? It was now 1:00pm & I had to prepare to go to work from 2:00pm till 9 so I just waited for it to finish copying & left, but I would be back.

And back I was, it was now 9:00pm & again had to show my invite e-mail when getting back in & this time I knew I was set for some serious gaming. Unfortunately this time round no one was playing MW3 for fun. The competitive matches had started & all that were not there to play competitively were either playing something else or having their supper, and also I had to move coz my previous spot was taken. The thought of just going home to my bed & pillow crossed my mind but I thought of the 200Mbps internet & I was quickly in a new spot.

I decided t if no one there was going to play MW3 with I’ll just go ahead & join some random servers where I met some Russians who literally shit on me, well not literally but it felt like it. Some TDM matches I had like 5 kills & about 30 deaths (lol) So like any other sane person, after more matches ending with similar results, I quit (Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?) The only comfort I could then think of was YouTube gaming videos and downloading as much as I could & soon enough I was running out of disk space (that’s how insane the internet speeds were)

When my laptop could take no more I stood up, went round & watched people play LoL, Paladins, Blur and after some time I managed to convince a handful of guys to play MW3 with me locally. Alas! My confidence was back coz I whooped those boys asses, and the funny part was they didn’t know who was whooping them. Kept hearing, “huyu ||timonn|| ni nani?” & would just chuckle to myself. After they got tired of getting their asses whooped (didn’t even last 30 mins) they quit & decided to go back to their games that I couldn’t play. It was now around 2:00am.

I started to get bored. I could feel the cold getting to my bones & was trembling like hell. My self-destructive nature kicked in & I was back in the MW3 online servers getting my ass whooped. This one guy I 1v1d got so bored whooping my ass & would send messages like, “please please please kill me” on chat. My confidence had never been so low.

3:00am now, looked around & no one had blacked out yet. Guys were chain drinking Monsters. No one wanted to be the first man down but at 3:50am (yes, I checked my watch) we had our first casualty. 4:00am I decided to crash myself & went on to wake up at 5:00am still trembling from the cold even though I was wrapped around my maasai blankie so I decided to end my misery, call a cab & go home to the warmth of my bed

Day 2:

I didn’t even plan on coming back the next day but lucky for me I was around Westlands after church & decided to drop by check how things were even though I didn’t have my laptop & guys were still at it! People were still awake at 2:00pm the next day playing Paladins & Insurgence. I was genuinely impressed by the commitment. We had like 4 people taken by sleep but what’s that to about 50 people?

Anyway, after kuchungulia on the gamers I went to the expo part of the convention, bought some merch & checked out some gear & peripherals from Redragon Kenya which were amazing. I am definitely getting my peripherals from them once I set up my rig.

After that I reluctantly left & thought to myself what a glorious weekend it was. 10/10 would do again.

[ryanellisphoto]

#67 — Saturday, May 27th, 2017 — Detroit Street Photography Session #67 — Ryan Ellis Photography — Walk and Talk to Tyros #003 — DEMF / Movement / Underground — Street Portraits

10:30 AM until 9:30 PM — 11 admirable hours in the city I am learning to appreciate — 913 photos — 66 videos — 166 “keepers” among photos (18.18% success rate [10% success is my minimum goal]) — I wanted to somewhat evenly capture people, places, and things, but since the city had an event with so many interesting folks in attendance, I found myself chasing the best photos (portraits) as opposed to the most photos of my preliminary targets. — Inspirational track this week: Andrew Luce - “Trouble”

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First things first, I shot on Friday (yesterday), and that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Needless to say, I was tired today, and I could only muster the strength to come into the city by 10:30 AM. I do not think I have mentioned this before. All of my nerves are longer than their encasing areas, which makes me double jointed everywhere. It also means that it is easier to injure myself, and some injuries will never heal (nerves may become painfully entangled) without surgery. It is called “Morton’s Neuroma.” Hahaha. It makes for odd physical experiences. Sometimes when I walk, my knee gives out. It is quick enough to make me look a bit crazy. Haha. The same goes with my jaw. It will lock often when I am eating, and I have to reset it. Well, long story long, I stubbed a toe on my left foot a few years ago, and it never healed. An X-Ray showed that the nerve was bunched up, which is when I learned about the condition. It is a common condition to be found alongside my Marfan’s Syndrome (which makes me so tall and boney). The pediatrist said it was as if my foot was broken. He said my options were either surgery or a molded shoe insert. I went with the insert, since surgery risked worsening the situation. I only have one pair of inserts, and to walk for very long without them makes me want to cut off my own toe, so I had to stop by the shoe store (Red Wing Shoes), which had both my pairs of boots in for reconditioning (one of which had the inserts in them), to get my shoes for today’s shoot.

Another thing that I am not sure whether I have shared on here before is part of my core way of thinking. My favorite book in the Bible is Proverbs. I also love its lesser (in my opinion) “sequel” Ecclesiastes. I love the terseness of the verses as well as the self-contained nature of their hermeneutical structure. The Proverbs live in my brain like the words of Christ lived in sanitarium-ridden Friedrich Nietzsche’s mind as he wasted away. I cannot shake them, and they hang over my head despite my best efforts at times to do other than what they command.

Ecclesiastes 9:8 (ESV) — 8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

I was always intrigued by this verse from Solomon. I remember my time with the smartest person I have ever met. She had an IQ of 170 at age 14. We tested together. Mine was good but not that good (at age 16). Statistically, at the time, there were 300 others as smart as her in the whole of America. We had wonderful conversations over countless days and nights. We shared a similar story from our lives. When I was young, I shared a room with my brother. Our parents stupidly put up lithographs of early 1900’s circus posters in our room. I am talking about candlelight-uplit smiling clowns. I am not afraid of clowns and have never been afraid of them, but I never looked directly at the posters. They just did not sit right with me as a little kid. Months later, my birthday was coming up, and my mother asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told her, without hesitation, that I wanted the color orange. She said she could not give me a color for my birthday and walked away. The day finally came. She threw me a clown-themed birthday party. Needless to say, I felt I had been betrayed by the color orange, though I did not want to do away with it entirely, so I had to pick a new favorite color to unseat it. I heard that blue was for boys, and since I was a boy, I chose blue. A decade later, I was talking to this smart, smart girl, and she told me the same story, except she had asked for the color white. Knowing her vastly-superior intellect, I secretly committed that white would be my third favorite, respective, color, behind blue and orange. I put forth from then on to make myself appreciate the color white more.

Uniting the almost boundless wisdom of Solomon with the exquisite intelligence of this girl, I chose to wear a white shirt today in the city. Many times, I have bought bright and colorful clothes in keeping with that verse from Ecclesiastes. I want to look happy and be happy and spread happiness. Like the color white, often that goal is something to adjust myself to. I am not, per se, a naturally happy individual, but it is an apex that is not sanely despised when pursued in purity, which is a yet higher zenith to conquer.

Hahahaha. Oh, how long my posts are when they are written quickly!

So, to recap, I wore a white shirt and went to the store for my shoes—I have not even arrived in Detroit yet! Hahahahaha!

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John Owen (a man in my top ten folks of the last 2000 years), eat your heart out. I can ramble with the best of them.

I arrived in Detroit at about 10:30 AM. The perfectionist that I am, I decided to continue the Walk and Talk series instead of returning to a structured lesson. This is because I want to keep doing it while it is fresh on my mind, and I want to find a voice in its approach that I know how to replicate time and again before I am comfortable returning to the other approach.

Between last week and this week, I have spent at least nine hours hand sewing my new (old) camera strap I was given for my new (old) camera (Nikon D600). I am trying to work on a video for this. It is wonderful. It is really good. I should sell straps like it online, except it takes nine hours (for me) to sew one! I am going to be camping this coming week with my best friend since Kindergarten (we embody the Proverb of a friend that sticks closer than a brother; we are David and Jonathan [he can be David for all I care]), which means I will possibly not produce a video next week, since next Saturday is when I leave to come back home.

Oh boy…

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So, I arrived in Detroit at 10:30 AM (“we’re doing it live!” [I hope this unedited lengthiness gives an insight into what hair-brained rabbit trails are otherwise routinely cut when I write]).

My second and I stopped at a local bar with an outlet and ate fried food as my batteries recharged. We used that time to refine the plan for the day. I wanted another go at shooting nouns. I knew there was a music festival in town for the day, and with the good chance of there being many more interesting folks to photograph than anything else, I still kept the other two subjects (places and things) in the intro, because I figured I would be forgiven for straying from my starting plans if the “story” of the day with the people overshadowed all else. Maybe I was too unknowing or too safe to not have forced my stated (on video) plans to overtly coincide with the event for the day from the beginning. Presumption is not wise, so I started from a more achievable place with the nouns target.

Since the D600, which my assistant uses for video, is a worthy stills camera, my assistant was photographing my day out. She has a very good eye for composition. It certainly translates through her winding camera pans in the most recent videos. I have had a bunch of different people come with me through the past several months, and my evergreen joke is that people inevitably get better at photography and videography when they come out with me, but it is a long process. Certainly, she has improved over the past months when she has been with me. I always laugh when I have a new assistant with me that complains of the difficulty of our long, winding days out. Things always get better over time. If you stay with me, you will adjust for the better. Then, the real fun begins. Being able to express yourself through the camera is fulfilling.

I played chess with a man that went by “CDK.” He never elaborated on what it meant, and we had a few nice discussions on art and history and civilization among other things. He beat me at chess and bought my assistant and I each a Pepsi afterwards. What a good man! I will return to face him again in a couple weeks. That chess board is the Philippines, and I am General Douglas MacArthur.

Wanting to parody the flopped Pepsi ad, where a celebrity gave away a Pepsi, I gave away my Pepsi to one of the concert-goers just outside Hart Plaza, where the event was happening. There, I took many portraits while being filmed. I shot bracketed and with my exposure compensation up a stop to make up for the bright backlighting present at that time of the day. Later, I realized my camera was set to meter for a different focal length, and I was shooting at 1000 ISO instead of the proper 100 ISO. This made my photos look like they were on fire, hence some of the heavy use of monochrome in the pictures above. I always joke that when all else fails, make a blown photo black and white to “save” it. I had the ISO so high for photographing the chess game from before.

Last summer, I made this same mistake a few times; I forgot to dial down my ISO after leaving a shaded place. I told myself that I wanted to include some sort of physical indicator on my camera or lens to remind myself to change my ISO again. I still have to come up with what that might be. Maybe a bright hair tie that I will put on the focusing ring? Maybe a bright piece of tape on the lens or body? Basically, I want to get in the habit of putting a reminder on my camera when I raise my ISO that will tip me off that I should lower it when I leave a dark scene.

My assistant was pretty sunburned already after our first round with the attendees of the festival, and I was starting to get dizzy from lack of water, so we retreated to the shade for a spell to have water and a small meal. There, I spilled my coney dog on my white shirt! I went to a nearby bathroom and tried to scrub the stain with soap, but the damage was done. Haha.

When we returned for the second (and last) round of portraits with the concert goers, the police had arrived en masse to control rowdy folks. With the men were also drug-sniffing dogs. The cops had drugs on them that they kept hiding to continually test the dogs’ accuracy. When I finished the portraits and had crossed the street to leave the area, I saw an ambulance race to the festival grounds. A minute later, it was leaving, this time, with a police escort. Someone must have overdosed on drugs.

It had been a joke between my assistant and I all day to guess which folks we saw around us were on some sort of substance just by their clothes and posture. The ambulance brought a sad reality and end to the joking for the night. Not wanting to stay late in a city full of loaded youngsters (some of which, likely, drove there themselves), we drove home early to be safe.

I know that I could have gotten some amazing photos of the kids as the night went on, but we got worthy shots as it was. My desire for completeness will probably always bug me about leaving early. And that is where today’s story ends.

[avatarsarny]

and summer comes again

ao3

The finished version of this. How GoT ended in my head, because D&D's bad fanfic version can go in the dumpster where it belongs. For @gendrie, @gendrywatersseaworth, @gendryadempsie, and @starrynightshade, whose blogs and fics have kept me sane these past few weeks of clownery and terrible show writing lol. Thanks for feeding us so well with that good good Gendrya content throughout!

For context: In my head, everything ended similarly to the show version with some notable adjustments: Jon is not exiled to the (nonexistent) Night’s Watch; he decides against being king and goes to bring the Wildlings back down to the North with Tormund (bc the lands beyond the wall are a barren wasteland wtf) and thereafter settles at Winterfell to be Hand to Queen Sansa. Bran is made King of the 6 kingdoms as he was in the show, with Tyrion as his Hand and ruling with his council. Jaime did not turn on Brienne in the last moment, didn’t erase years of character development, and instead left to kill Cersei himself, finally realizing the disease she really was, and became Queenslayer for the good of the realm. He survives Daenerys’ attack on KL and is serving Bran in the new Kingsguard, under Brienne the Commander. 

Finally, Arya does not randomly decide to become Christopher Columbarya and sail the ocean blue, erasing years of her own journey to finally be home with her family again, no sirs, she finds Gendry after the sack of KL, after she realizes what Sandor was trying to tell her to do, to choose life, and tells him to ask her again. You can guess the rest from what you read below :)

And in keeping with the pack survives narrative (bc that’s what good writing is about!! Consistency!!) the Starks remain closer than ever, visit each other often, and don’t end up alone and separated! Hope you guys enjoy.

P.S. - can you spot the Okoye reference? Definitely not straight outta black panther

“And reinforcements from the Stormlands will arrive tomorrow, Your Grace, if I’m not mistaken. Lord Buckler of Bronzegate sent me a raven saying twenty ships worth of food and supplies will be here just after sunrise.”

Bran nods in approval and looks up at the sunlight streaming in through the windows of the newly - reconstructed Royal Council solar. Daenerys’ rampage had left little of the Red Keep standing, but some of the personal chambers had remained mostly intact, so the new King and his council lived in close quarters for the past three months while they supervised the city’s recovery. There were still many injured and many more starving, so Bran called upon every Lord and leader in Westeros, high and low, to contribute whatever they could to the city’s smallfolk; who had suffered the most.

Bran glances over at the man across him. His blue eyes are bright with belonging and purpose, his dark hair is gradually breaking free of the short crop he had sported when Bran had first met him, and he wears fine leathers in same way his father and uncles had, only this time adorned with clawlike marks on the shoulders of his tunic.

The young King smiles at this observation. Stags don’t have claws. But he can think of another animal that does.

Gendry catches his gaze. “What is it, Your Grace?”

Bran’s smile grows ever so slightly. “When is my sister returning, my Lord? It’s been a fortnight since her last raven.”

Gendry sighs and looks out a window, where the city gates rise from the sea of ruined buildings far out in the distance on one end, and the azure waters of Blackwater Bay lay calm and still on the other. “I’m not sure. She said she wouldn’t leave Queen Sansa at Winterfell until she’s made sure she’ll be well protected.”

“Won’t Jon be there soon?”

Gendry blinks. “Yes - er - I didn’t know that until this morning - got a raven from Tormund. How’d you find out?”

Bran throws him an unimpressed glance. “Well I am the three eyed raven. I flew over Jon and Tormund’s group last night. They’ve settled the Wildlings in some unoccupied lands about a day’s ride from Winterfell. Sansa wants Jon to be her Hand, and it looks like Jon’s agreed to it.”

Gendry nods slowly, trying to process the King’s extraordinary statement in a way he can understand. “I’ve heard of your abilities, Your Grace, but forgive me, I’m not sure how one flies when they can’t even walk. But if what you say is true, then you can see where your sisters are, too, can’t you?” He grins then, and maybe in front of a different King he’d be punished for his audacity, but Bran is no ordinary King. And Gendry has never been one to worship the ground at a highborn’s feet.

But he’ll fight for any one of the Starks. Arya and her family time and again showed kindness and mercy to the common folk, and beneath their ferocious direwolf fangs they shared a gentleness for the innocent that Gendry had rarely seen among the rich and powerful. Even Sansa, the Red Wolf of the North, held a great tenderness concealed beneath her icy, calculating exterior, and people everywhere adored her for it.

Bran’s smile widens into a true grin, then - a feat so rare Gendry thinks he should get Grand Maester Samwell to check on their King’s health.

“Yes, I can see everything. Anything, anywhere, at any point in time. But sometimes it’s nice to put it all away for a while, and be a normal man. Or at least act like it,” he replies. “I did see Arya, by the way. It appears she’ll be staying in Winterfell for a few more weeks before she starts her journey back here.”

Gendry’s face falls, but he catches himself and hopes the King doesn’t notice. The least she could do is send a raven, but she’s been oddly silent since her last message to him, and he’s getting worried. If she doesn’t send more word soon, he’ll go off to Winterfell himself.

Bran quirks a brow at him. “Storm’s End needs someone like you, someone who will take care of the people. Your uncles left the Stormlands in such disarray, but the Stormlords are willing to follow your command. Don’t worry about my sister, she can handle herself.” He smiles serenely at the former blacksmith.

But what about me? Gendry thinks. Does she not understand that every day we’re separated feels like an eternity to me?

None of it will mean anything, if you aren’t with me, so be with me…

It will be nearly four months since Arya left to help Sansa settle into her role as Queen in the North. Four months since he last held her in his arms, since he tasted her on his lips and felt the warmth of her smile, since he saw the heat and tenderness in her gaze she reserved only for him.

She had sought him out after the Dragon Queen had stormed King’s Landing, after Jon drove a dagger through his aunt’s heart and liberated all who would come under her tyranny. She had been covered in ash and blood and he’d never felt more fear in his entire life, that he would have to watch her die like this, but she was mostly unhurt, the blood had not been hers, not all of it.

“Ask me again,” She’d rasped, coughing out grey soot and clutching at him for dear life. “I thought I wouldn’t come back from Kings Landing. I was going to die there, and I couldn’t do that to you, I had to refuse,” She whispered, tears falling from her eyes and down her grimy face. “I couldn’t hurt you.”

And oh, she had never looked more beautiful, he had never loved her more fiercely than he did in that moment, not even on that night they thought would be their last, when she had kissed him down in the Winterfell stores and made breathless, frantic love to him. “You could never hurt me, love,” he’d said, gently wiping her tears away and crushing her to his chest. “I know you don’t want to be a Lady, I’ve always known. We can go wherever you like. Do whatever you want. I’ll follow you anywhere you go, till the end of my days,” he promised, and released her so he could kneel before her in the ash and dust. “My life means nothing without my family. Please be my wife. Please be my family, Arya of House Stark.”

And with that, she’d tackled him into the rubble with all the strength she could muster, and kissed him senseless. “I love you,” She’d breathed against his lips,“I will be your family. Your - your wife,” she broke off in a quiet moan, as he moved to press searing kisses down her throat. She held his face in her hands, stilling his sweet movements to look earnestly up at him. “And I will lead by your side, Gendry of House Baratheon.”

He’d stared at her in shock, his hands coming up to bracket her own. “You - you want to rule the Stormlands with me?”

Arya smiled at him, even though it had hurt to do so and her face was bleeding. “I want to be here for the people who can’t protect themselves. I want to make our world a better place than the one we grew up in…I couldn’t save them in King’s Landing,” she’d paused as more tears tumbled down her cheeks, and he dutifully brushed them away with the pads of his calloused fingers. She would tell him about the girl and her mother, later. The little family that had saved her from the stampede, only to end up burnt beyond recognition in the end. “I have to make sure this never happens again.”

Gendry kissed her forehead, the bit of it that wasn’t cut open. “As M'lady commands,” he’d murmured, threading their fingers together. “Now let’s get you a maester.”

“I also need to teach you how to use a fork, none of those idiot lords will respect you otherwise.”

He'd laughed and scooped her up into his arms. “I’ll need all the help I can get. I don’t know any other rich girls willing to teach me.”

“Lord Gendry?” the King addresses him, drawing his attention away from the cloudless sky, out of his reverie.

Gendry starts. “Sorry, Your Grace. I didn’t catch that. I was just - thinking about how we could allocate the food to the city once it arrives tomorrow. I’m thinking we should just set up the distribution points along the docks, that way we won’t need to spend half a day hauling it all through the streets to get to everyone. Most of the needy are already down there, which makes our jobs easier.”

He said all this rather quickly.

Bran smirks. “Well, I hope this helps you see why you’re the best man for the job. You grew up here. You know the people. And you care, which is the only qualification that matters, in the end.”

Gendry turns to his King. “I still don’t know what I’m doing, not really. I know nothing of ruling or leading people, or throwing fancy feasts, or running castles.”

“But you remember what it’s like to live as an outcast, among the very worst of men, to live in the dirt and the muck, and what it’s like to go hungry for weeks on end. You want a world where the powerful protect the weak.” Bran says quietly. “My sister knows this, too. The realm could use more people like you.”

Gendry lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in. “I..well, thank you, Your Grace.” He straightens up then, and smooths out the map of King’s Landing he’d been going over before King Bran had entered the room. “Then I will give the realm everything I have to make it a better place. I won’t hesitate.”

Bran nods in affirmative. “I’ll be depending on you a lot, Lord Baratheon.”

Someone knocks on the doors of the solar just then; Ser Brienne walks through the threshold and bows her head in greeting.

“Your guest is here to meet you, Your Grace. Shall I bring them in?” Her eyes slide over to rest on Gendry, a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “It’s good to see you, Lord Gendry. You look well.”

“As well I could be, Ser Brienne,” he smiles at her. He nearly admits that he could look better, much better, if only his little she-wolf were here with him, and not a thousand miles beyond his reach. But given Brienne’s fierce protectiveness over Arya, he thinks better of it. He’s not sure he could best the formidable Lady Knight in a fight, even with a hammer.

He’d only gotten two days, just two measly days with Arya, before she’d gone north with Sansa. When he sees her again (if ever, he thinks just a little sourly, for she may decide to stay in Winterfell for good, and forget about him, and marry a handsome Northern Lord who knows exactly what he’s doing, especially how to eat with proper utensils.)

Seven hells, he is pathetic.

Bran nods, his smirk growing wider than ever. “Please bring them in.”

Gendry takes this as his cue to leave, and starts gathering up his things. Maybe he’ll seek out Ser Davos and convince him to grab a large jug of ale with him. The Onion Knight always knew what to say.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a small figure stroll into the solar, clad in a floor-length gown, with a sword at her hip.

“My King,” the young woman says softly, kneeling in front of Bran, before turning to Gendry. “My love.”

Gendry’s jaw drops to the floor, and so do the maps he holds in his arms.

He wheels around to see Arya Stark rushing forward to squeeze Bran in a tight hug.

“I missed you, little brother. Sansa is happy and safe, Jon is with her now.”

Bran seems to lighten up ever so slightly at the sight of her, a ghost of the boy he used to be flits across his normally blank features, the boy who had looked upon his warrior sister with awe and immense pride, who had wanted to be as good a fighter as she was, well before they knew what fighting really was. He wraps his arms around Arya to squeeze her back.

Gendry stands there, taking his betrothed in for the first time in months. She’s wearing a dress, Gods help him, the long skirts billow out from her waist and clings to her petite figure in a way that sharply forces him to remember he’s in the presence of civilized company, and he immediately tries to control his breathing.

Her hair is just a little longer than the last time he saw her, falling loosely down her back, save for the Northern braids woven at the crown of her head. For once, she looks like the warrior princess she is, and Gendry couldn’t tear his eyes from her if he tried.

Bran releases his sister. “I’m happy to hear. It’s been quiet here without you. Although I’m sure Lord Baratheon here felt that more than anyone.”

Arya turns to him then, raising one dark brow and raking her storm - grey eyes over him. Just as she’d done back in Winterfell, watching from the shadows as he worked the dragonglass into weapons against the dead, before she had made him hers forever. Gendry barely suppresses a shiver.

“Have I surprised you, my Lord?” She laughs, her eyes bright and glinting with mischief. “I’ll bet you thought you’d have a few more weeks of peace without me.”

Peace? He thinks incredulously. He’s felt anything but in her absence.

Gendry moves to open his mouth in a retort, but their King interrupts.

“Ser Brienne, I must go off to the upper floors and survey today’s reconstruction progress, and Lord Tyrion has called a council meeting after lunch. If you would be so kind as to take me there?”

Brienne looks from Arya to Gendry to the young King, and valiantly attempts to conceal her knowing grin. “Of course, Your Grace.”

On their way out, Bran pauses and looks to the pair still standing in the solar. “I’ll be waiting to hear all about Winterfell and how Queen Sansa is faring at dinner tonight. For now though, I suggest you take care of the pressing matter before you. See you in the Great Hall later.” He waves his sister goodbye, and Brienne hastily converts her snort into a cough as she pushes his wheelchair out the doors.

Gendry flushes beet - red as he stares after the King. Arya flashes her betrothed a wolfish grin and steps closer to him. As a girl, she’d loved to rile him up and annoy him till he’d chase her through the forest and muss her boyish locks in revenge. Now, she gets an even bigger thrill simply seeing him blush like a maiden, because of her.

She must do it more often.

“I like this,” she says, bringing her small hands up to run along the clawlike marks in his leather tunic. “What inspired this break from Baratheon clothing tradition?”

“What inspired yours?” He breathes, bringing his own hands to circle her waist, and pull her even closer. “Who forced you into wearing this?” He grins, gesturing to the garment that hugs her form and fans out from her hips, embroidered with leaves and direwolf motifs all over the sleeves and skirts.

Arya scowls just a little. “Sansa. She made it for me and ordered me to wear it on my journey home. Does my Lord like it?” She asks coyly, scanning his gaze for his reaction.

She needn’t have asked.

His eyes are dark and wanting as they travel over her form, and she suddenly feels so, so warm. Gendry, for his part, makes a mental note to send the Queen in the North a large pile of gold upon his return to Storm’s End.

“You’re always beautiful,” he murmurs, “No matter what you’re wearing. Or when you’re wearing nothing at all.” She presses herself flush against him at that, and he has to shut his eyes to keep his thoughts coherent. “I’m very thankful to your sister right now. Hail Queen Sansa, first of her name. May she make you many more dresses to wear. I’m a grateful man.”

“I’m glad. I have suffered so in this gown. At least one of us is pleased,” she quips, rolling her eyes.

Gendry can’t quite take it anymore, he moves to capture her lips with his own; he needs to taste her once again, needs to breathe in her scent of wildflowers and leather and the spring breeze of the outdoors. He’s just about to close the gap between them when she suddenly wriggles out of his arms.

Oh, Arya has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at the utterly woebegone expression that crosses Gendry’s face as she pulls away.

“Arya,” he nearly whimpers in exasperation. He looks so forlorn that she almost loses her resolve, but she steels herself and moves away.

“Spar with me,” She asks breathlessly.

“What?” He blinks down at her, dumbstruck.

“I’ve gone four months without a worthy opponent. No one at Winterfell is good enough to best me, except perhaps Jon. And I managed to throw him on his back just before I left to come here.” She says, just a little smugly.

Gendry quirks a brow at her. “And you think I’m the one who could best you, my Lady? I’m not a soldier, as you know.”

She locks her dark gaze with his own and moves so that they’re mere inches apart, once again. “No,” She says softly, her hands come to cup his cheeks, stroking the rough stubble that grows there, “But you’re a fighter.”

He smiles at the reference, and leans into her touch. Her hands are soft and cool against his burning skin.

“Meet me in the garden courtyard later. The one with the view of the sea. Bring your hammer. But feel free to leave your leather shirt behind, as lovely as it is.” With that, she pulls his face down to her own, kissing him deeply, her sweet mouth hot and wet, melting against him and causing all sense to leak out of his mind.

Their kiss is over far too soon for Gendry’s liking, and she saunters out of the solar. “I’ll be waiting, Milord,” she says, grinning at him over her shoulder, and then she’s gone.

Gendry sighs and stares up at the high, vaulted ceiling. “I’m a dead man,” he chuckles to the empty room.

The sun is high overhead as Tyrion and Jaime stroll past the balconies overlooking the vast palace gardens. There’s a warm breeze coming off the sea, signaling the winter’s end, and the encroaching summer.

It’s enough to put a spring in nearly everyone’s step. After the wars ended and Bran was made King, peace descended upon Westeros, and people everywhere watched with cautious optimism in their hearts as the summer flowers began to bloom and the winter chills slowly faded away.

The charred remains of the Red Keep’s gardens had been replaced with exotic plants from every known part of the world, and were open to all who wished to enter, be they the poorest smallfolk or the King himself. But today, the paths and courtyards criss-crossing the greenery were mostly empty, with the rebuilding efforts taking up most of the city’s free time.

Tyrion pauses to look over a particularly scenic vantage point. “I’d say winter is well and truly over, brother.”

Jaime smirks, and nods. “Strange that the Starks, who never shut up about winter, would be the ones to end it.”

Tyrion chuckles. “I’m not in the least bit complaining.”

Jaime smiles down at his younger brother. “Neither am I.”

The relative quiet is broken then, by clashes of steel and shouts of triumph. Jaime and Tyrion throw each other bewildered glances, before starting off in the direction of the commotion.

“D’you think someone’s trying to break into the Red Keep again?” Tyrion wonders aloud.

“Just another day on the job,” Jaime drawls.

The Lannister brothers turn a corner before skidding to a halt on a landing overlooking a large circular courtyard.

“Well well! It appears our Lady Stark has returned from the North.” Tyrion pants, bending over to catch his breath. “I’m very glad I was informed beforehand of her arrival.” He deadpans. “I do love being in the know of what goes on in this city.”

Jaime squints curiously down into the courtyard. “It also appears she’s challenged her own betrothed to a duel.” His eyes widen at the sight below him.

A panting Arya Stark, brandishing that skinny little sword she refused to part with, circles a much larger - and barechested - Gendry Baratheon, who wields a warhammer and stares his future wife down, trying to calculate her next move.

Tyrion looks upon them with great interest. “It’s like looking at a pair of ghosts,” he says quietly.

Jaime throws his brother a questioning glance. “What d’you mean?”

“Look at them. Really look. Who do they remind you of?”

Jaime turns back to the sparring pair below them. And then it hits him.

“Robert and Lyanna,” he breathes. He doesn’t know how he missed it before, but now the resemblance is jarringly uncanny.

Gendry - broad shouldered and muscular, looks every bit like young Robert once did, with thick black hair that falls into trademark Baratheon blue eyes. He even wields a hammer in the same way his father did, though he’d never laid eyes on the former King, much less seen the way he’d fought.

Arya, with her dark hair falling wildly about her face, the gleam in her grey Stark eyes, and the grace with which she moves as she swerves away from Gendry’s blows with ease reminds Jaime sharply of how the late Lady Lyanna, the wild Northern beauty, had moved on horseback, with her bow and arrows.

Tyrion smiles sadly at the realization on his brother’s face. “They were a match doomed, and Robert began the war that changed the entire continent for his Lady Lyanna. But the future for these two appears much brighter. This Baratheon isn’t at all like his father, and she possesses the foresight her aunt never had. One generation had thousands die fighting in the wars they started, the next helped save many thousands more.” He says, watching them pensively.

Jaime only hums in agreement, still intently observing the pair below. The play-fight between the young couple is getting more intense by the second. Amid the flurry of steel and limbs, they’re clearly taking care not to actually hurt one another, but they’re just as certainly not going easy on each other, either.

Gendry swings his hammer at the girl with all the famed Baratheon strength he inherited from his father, but Arya is far too quick for him, and she laughs at his attempts to disarm her.

“You’re too slow,” she taunts, darting left and pretending to cut him across the belly with Needle. “Dead.” He swipes at her.

Arya dodges his blows again, then smacks her blade harmlessly against the back of his neck. “Dead again, Milord,” she grins up at him.

Gendry circles her, growling in frustration, catching her eye and nearly making her gasp at the raw desire she sees burning in his gaze.

She focuses her attention on the way his raven hair is long enough now to fall across his brow, and watches the play of muscles in his broad chest, slick with sweat, as he draws in rapid breaths and sneaks heated glances at her when he thinks she isn’t looking.

She’s missed him so much.

Her guard falls just long enough to be her downfall, as Gendry seizes her momentary pause to grab Needle from her hands and toss it aside, and proceeds to tackle her onto the painted mosaic floor of the courtyard.

Up on the terrace, Jaime and Tyrion look on in stunned silence. Arya Stark, the Princess that was Promised, the she-wolf who had slayed the Night King, taken down in a mock fight by non other than a former Baratheon bastard.

“What’s got you two so suddenly interested in the gardens?”

The Lannister brothers whirl around to see the new Master of Ships walking curiously toward them.

“His Grace is looking for you both to take lunch with him. Have either of you seen Lord Gendry? I’ve been meaning to ask the lad to come eat meals with me, he’s been looking a little - er - overwhelmed lately.”

Tyrion chortles. “Your lad has just managed to knock Azor Ahai herself to the ground in a duel, Ser Davos. It was quite a thing to see.”

The Onion Knight’s eyes widen in surprise. “So she’s back, then?” He looks down from the edge of the balcony to see Gendry pin Lady Arya beneath his arms. “I guess he won’t be eating with me, now.” He watches them wrestle with a fond, sad smile.

Jaime smirks down at the pair again. “I’m not sure this match is quite over yet.”

Gendry straddles one of her legs and lays an arm across her chest, securing her beneath him so that she can’t move from his grip. He grins cheekily down at her, pupils blown so wide his eyes are nearly as black as his hair. “You should’ve stood sideface, M’Lady.”

Arya stares defiantly up at him, before the mask is dropped completely, and she breaks into a giggle. “So I’ve heard.”

The sound of her bubbling laughter is the sweetest music to his ears. “Although I’m not sure how much smaller a target I could get than you,” he murmurs.

Their resounding laughter echoes across the deserted gardens, and while Arya’s got him distracted, she twists her hips and flips Gendry onto his back in a swift, deadly maneuver, her Valyrian steel dagger presses up against his throat in a flash.

Check and mate.

He blinks dazedly up at her, mesmerized by the way she straddles his waist, her triumphant victory gleaming in his she-wolf’s eyes. The sight brings back wonderful memories of that first night, when she’d pushed him atop those sacks of grain and made him lose himself over and over in her.

“I win,” she whispers, breathing hard, and she releases her hold on his wrists to sheath her dagger.

“You’ve won,” Gendry agrees. “Show me how you did that.”

She smirks down at him, crossing her arms over her chest, her legs still wrapped around his hips. “Not before I claim my prize,” she says, and the lilt in her voice makes his heart hammer in his chest. He suddenly remembers how long they’ve been apart. Too damn long.

“And what’s that?” He inquires softly, gazing up at her astride him.

Arya hums, innocently tilting her head and shifting her hips just so against him, and his eyes flutter shut in bliss.

Far above them, the three men watching quickly avert their eyes and turn away in varying degrees of mortification.

Jaime snickers, shaking his head. “That wasn’t a fight we were watching. That was foreplay.”

Tyrion loudly clears his throat. “Well, Ser Davos, you’re welcome to take lunch with us instead, seeing as Lord Gendry is rather occupied at the moment.”

The Onion Knight smiles ruefully down at the King’s Hand as the three of them make their way to the Great Hall. “They grow up too fast.”

Arya flicks her gaze up to the balcony overlooking the courtyard. Their adoring fans are gone.

Good, she thinks. Not that she will ever be ashamed to show her love for Gendry, to touch him freely in front of others, but this moment, here in the warm sunlight as the sea breeze ruffles through their hair, belongs to them and them alone.

She trails her hands slowly up over the hard planes of his glistening chest, biting her lip as she admires the sight of him flushed beneath her, in broad daylight.

“I missed you, love.” she admits in his ear, emitting a low gasp when Gendry reaches up to grasp her hips and press her down onto him.

He’s firm and throbbing against her belly, and the blush spreading over Arya’s face does nothing to help calm the fire coursing through his veins.

He tenderly brushes her hair away from her face. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back. That you were going to stay at Winterfell and forget me.”

She smiles softly and leans down to press her forehead against his. “As though I could ever forget you. Not even the House of Black and White could erase you from my memory. And they tried, believe me.”

He trails warm fingers against her cheeks, down to her chin, and guides her mouth to his. “My family, my wife,” he breathes against her lips, kissing her as though he were a man dying of thirst in a desert, and she’s the life-giving oasis that saved him.

Arya brings her fingers up to tangle in his hair. “Not yet,” she reminds him breathlessly between kisses. “A whole three months to go until I meet you in the godswood.”

“Aye, that’s true,” he mumbles, his tongue coaxing her lips apart and swallowing her moans, “but you’re my wife, even so. And you’ve been my only family for years now.”

Because Gendry can’t bring himself to give a shit about the ceremonies. He is hers, and she is his, and they’ve been married ever since she stumbled into his arms after the burning of King’s Landing, as far as he’s concerned.

She pulls away from their kiss to regard him with large eyes. Suddenly, Arya seems much more like a shy doe than the fierce she-wolf he’d been sparring with, and a wave of protectiveness washes over Gendry.

Arya swallows. “I never imagined I’d ever get married. I didn’t want to just be a womb for some stupid old lord to produce sons. So many women have been chained into it by our society, I didn’t want to be one of them. I never thought I’d fall in love, not before I met you.” She pauses.

Gendry nods, kisses her knuckles, and waits for her to continue.

She leans in to brush her lips against his. “You always protected me, you could’ve been a bully like all the rest but you were kind and good. I was just a scared little girl, but you made me feel less alone. You were such a stubborn bull, but you were my best friend in the whole world.” She blinks rapidly, trying to clear the tears welling up at the memories. “I would’ve died back then, had it not been for you.”

There’s a lump in Gendry’s throat. “Arya,” he breathes, and he surges forward to kiss her more fiercely than ever. “You saved me too, so many times,” he says roughly. “I never would’ve left you on your own, I should’ve listened to your distrust of the Brotherhood. After Davos helped me escape the Red Woman, I tried so hard to find out where you’d gone. A part of me did die that day, when I heard you’d been killed at the Twins. I never forgave myself for my stupidity.”

Arya hugs him close. “I’m here. I have you, now.”

Gendry holds her tight, and he’s never letting her go again. “You have me, now and always.” he promises.

Arya smiles against his mouth, and she pulls away to beam at him. “I need a bath.” She whispers, running her hands down his bare torso. “I’m very sweaty, and tired from my long journey. Help me wash, husband mine?” Her eyes grow large again as she looks at him imploringly.

Gendry moves to stand, but he keeps Arya in place when she tries to climb off him. He grips his hammer and holds his Lady in his arms, and she lets him carry her back to the Red Keep.

Hours later, Arya wakes up to the late afternoon sun streaming through the curtains of the chambers she’d lived in the last time she had been in King’s Landing, when her father was still Hand to King Robert Baratheon, and she and Sansa were still mortal enemies, back when she was still learning water dancing from Syrio Forel. Before her world and family were torn apart by Cersei, before she’d run into Hot Pie and Lommy, before Gendry had come to her aid and asked her where she’d stolen her Needle.

All of it seems like another lifetime ago, like the past few years have been a dream, like she’ll wake up any minute now, in the same bed, and she’ll be 11 again and still have a Father and a Mother, and Robb and Rickon.

Arya turns to her side; the sheets are cool against her bare skin, but she is very warm, thanks to Gendry who is wrapped around her, with his nose buried in her hair as he sleeps on.

Had she been told, years ago when they were still being hunted through the Riverlands by Lannister men, that she would be married to her stubborn Bull, and that she’d be waking up next to him in the Red Keep not as a prisoner waiting to be killed, but as the Princess (however much she loathed that title) of the Six Kingdoms and the North, and that her crippled little brother would be the Sovereign himself, she would have laughed in their face and pushed them into the dirt for spewing out such a nonsensical lie.

That Sansa would be Queen in the North, and love Arya enough to want her little sister to sleep in the same bed as her every night after they reunited, to make up for the years of lost time, the years when sisters become friends.

That she would see her beloved Jon again, her brother for always, no matter whose son he was, and that she’d see him happy at Winterfell, supporting Sansa’s rule as her most trusted advisor.

That Gendry would look at her like she’s his sun-and-stars, with gazes full of awe and love and unending hunger, instead of the grubby little girl he’d spent two years protecting, mussing up her hair and teasing her and perpetually getting on her nerves.

Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.

Gendry shifts in his sleep, and instinctively moves closer to her warmth, securing her fully in the circle of his arms.

Arya leans back, ever so slightly, so that she can get a better view of him. She reaches out to trace a finger lightly down the bridge of his nose, over his rough, stubbled jaw, over his lips, which are still pink from her kisses hours before.

Blue eyes, bluer than the famous Braavosi canals she’d spent so long near, crack open to regard her, and the lips she’s tracing press a gentle kiss to her fingers.

“Hello,” Gendry croaks, and he stretches a little before smiling tiredly down at her. “Did you sleep well?”

Arya flashes him a satisfied grin. “Better than I’ve had in four months.”

She sighs into his mouth when he leans down to capture her lips for perhaps the hundredth time that day, but it still feels as thrilling as the first time. She melts beneath him as he rolls over to gently press her into the sheets.

He’d been feverishly attentive to her during their bath, taking care to wash every inch of her skin and pressing searing kisses all over her. His strong hands had held her hips still as she sat in his lap and washed his hair for him, trying unsuccessfully to deter her sweet, torturous movements above him, but he’d groaned in defeat when Arya reached down between them.

“Wait,” Gendry had hissed when her fingers closed around him to take him inside her. He kissed down the side of her jaw to suckle her earlobe. “Want to take care of you,” he’d mumbled, his warm breath tickling her neck, his fingers reaching between her legs to stroke her slick heat, rubbing lazy circles around her clit and sending tidal waves of sweet pleasure coursing though her.

“Gendry…” she’d tossed her head back in pure bliss as he slipped a calloused finger into her, and then another. The hot coil in her belly wound tighter and tighter as he worked her, and she whimpered against his lips as he stroked against something that made her see stars.

He’d grinned up at her. “Yes, love?”

“Gendry, I want…” she’d panted, “I want…”

He kissed down her throat, curled his fingers inside her, and suddenly the tight coil deep in her belly snapped, and Arya fell over the edge crying out his name.

Gendry laughed softly, holding her quivering body against him, helping her come back down to earth. “That?”

She’d grabbed his chin to kiss the smirk from his lips, and he instantly melted into her mouth.

“You. I want you,” she’d corrected, “I’ve wanted nothing else but the feel of you inside me and your taste on my lips for months, husband.” She admitted sweetly, and he’d never been so damn hard in his life.

He’d flushed at her confession, and gazed up at her in pure adoration. He couldn’t deny her anything, not anymore.

“As M’Lady commands,” Gendry breathed, and made love to her over and over, until they collapsed into bed hours later, utterly spent and sated.

They’re just reacquainting themselves with each other when a low growl rumbles from Arya’s stomach, and they break apart, bursting into laughter.

“And here I was, thinking I’d finally satisfied you,” Gendry sighs, pushing himself off her and holding out a hand to pull her up with him.

“Nonsense. To gratify me in the way you’re insinuating, you’d have to have me like this three times a day, every day,” Arya smiles, her eyes glittering with mirth.

Gendry’s mouth falls open at her words. “Gods, Arya. Don’t tempt me.” His hands come up to trace the scars crossing her belly, the scars he’d spent ages lavishing his attention and his warm lips upon.

She hums in reply, and kisses his cheek before leaping off the bed to pull on her breeches.

He watches her from his perch against the pillows. “What would you like to eat? I’ll go bring whatever you want from the kitchens.”

Arya pauses to pull her tunic over her head. “Thanks, but I think my brother wanted us to take supper with him.”

Gendry nods, and looks out the windows to see the sun starting to sink closer to the edge of the horizon, casting deep orange bands of light over the sea in the distance. “Then we should get going.” He climbs off the bed in search of his discarded clothing.

He manages to find his breeches and his undershirt, but his leather tunic is nowhere in sight. He turns around to find Arya holding it, she's smoothing it out on the bed, running her fingers over the jagged slashes on its shoulders, an immensely soft expression on her face.

Gendry moves so that he’s pressed up behind her, and winds his arms around her middle. “Those weren’t there originally,” he says quietly, and he dips his head to kiss the back of her neck. “I wanted everyone to know I was yours without actually saying it. I think they got the message well enough, because the other Stormlords haven’t brought up marriage proposals ever since.”

Arya turns in his arms to peer up at him with tender eyes. “I should wear something of yours, then. Make it even.” She whispers.

Gendry kisses her forehead, then her nose, then finally her lips. “Always trying to one-up me,” he teases, and dodges when she aims a smack at his head.

“You’re getting better at that, I see.”

“M’lady’s a good teacher,” Gendry quips back. He takes her hands in his own. “I’d give you my cloak to keep, but tradition says I must save it until our wedding.” He grins and tilts his head, considering her. “I’ll make you a new hilt for your Valyrian steel dagger. Make it black and yellow, if you like,” he murmurs.

Arya reaches up to plant one more lingering kiss to his lips. “I’ll hold you to it.” She smiles, and pulls him by the hands out the door.

Daylight still lingers in the sky outside as Arya pushes open the large oak doors to the Great Hall, a clear sign of winter’s final death. The days during the last few years had steadily declined in length, growing shorter and shorter until the entire world had only a handful of hours in which their candles and lanterns remained unlit.

Until the end of the Long Night, when Arya thrust her dagger deep into the Night King's frozen heart, and destroyed Death himself.

Dawn had returned to shine down upon the world, and the warming rays of the sun brought life and greenery and hope back to Westeros.

Arya and Gendry walk in to find the newly-rebuilt Hall deserted, the long tables empty, save for a few members of the Royal court on the far end. Gendry glances at her, his brows knitting together in confusion. She wordlessly shrugs at him.

“Excuse me Milord, Princess Arya,” (the Princess in question grits her teeth at the title) says a kitchen boy carrying a large platter of fruits and cheese. “His Grace wished to take a private supper out on the upper terrace. He wants you to join him there. Please follow me.”

The kitchen boy leads them up through the castle, up many flights of new stairs, until they reach an unfamiliar landing that faces two intricately carved wooden doors.

Gendry pushes them open to help the kitchen boy pass through, and they find themselves standing on a vast open balcony, high over the rest of the Red Keep, with candles and lanterns glittering everywhere as the sunset turns the sky around them pink.

There’s a single long table in the middle of the terrace, and there Bran is seated, along with Brienne, Podrick, Davos, the Lannister brothers, Samwell Tarly and his Wildling wife Gilly, and (to no one’s great pleasure) Lord Bronn of Highgarden. The young King looks up and smiles at the newcomers.

“Welcome, sister,” he pats the empty seat next to him at the head of the table. “And Lord Gendry,” he nods. “We had a bit of a change in dinner plans, so I sent Terry here to fetch you.”

Arya smiles at her brother, and takes her place beside him, and Gendry seats himself on her other side. Terry the kitchen boy sets down the enormous platter with some difficulty, and for his effort, Arya slips him a large strawberry pastry from a nearby plate. “Thank you.” she tells him kindly, and the young lad blushes furiously at being directly addressed by the Bringer of the Dawn herself, taking the sweet from her with slightly shaking hands, and he all but flees from the room.

Gendry watches the exchange with a fond smile. “You highborns aren’t so bad after all,” he concedes. Arya elbows him in the ribs, and he laughs.

The bright orange-pink of the sinking sun fades to pale purple dusk, and the candlelight casts warm glows all around the table as they all tuck into their food, engaging each other in familiar conversation over the clatter of plates and cutlery.

Halfway through the first course of creamy soup Bran inquires Arya about their sister in the North.

“Is Sansa happy, there?” Bran asks slowly. “I know she didn’t want our family separated.”

“She is,” Arya assures him, “She’s already had Winterfell and Winter Town rebuilt, and she’s overseeing the allocation of lands to the Windlings, with Jon’s help. I think,” she pauses, looking out at the city over the edge of the balcony, “I think this is what she was always meant to be. A Queen. She’s never felt more at home than she does now.”

“She was,” Bran agrees. “I try to check up on her when I’m flying as a raven. She looked happy the last time I saw her, but also a little down. I’m sure it’s because she misses you.”

“She misses you too. She worries for her little brother down South, in what she describes as a rotten nest of vipers.”

Tyrion, who had been listening in ever since their conversation turned to Sansa, now spoke up. “She wasn’t wrong, Lady Arya,” he says with a sad smile, “She’d suffered the most while she was trapped here as my sister’s prisoner. It’s because of this that I, and the rest of us sitting here, are trying our best to rid this capital of those very snakes. We want to do our part to leave that world behind us, and amend for our pasts.”

Arya looks out over the others eating at their table. Once upon a time, she would have felt in danger among them, especially with Jaime Lannister, but so much has happened since then, so much has changed, that she not only feels comfortable sitting here with them, but at peace.

With a pang, she thinks of how scared Sansa must have felt, during those years she was held in this very castle, and what horrors she went through. Arya wishes her sister could see the Red Keep now, under their brother’s rule, and how it’s nearly unrecognizable from those days when it was ruled under tyranny and greed, and the Lannister Queen’s insatiable lust for power.

“Sansa didn’t want me to leave,” Arya whispers, then. Bran gives her a small smile, for he’d known this, too. “She didn’t want me to come back down here, she’d wanted me to stay in Winterfell with her and Jon.”

Gendry puts down his fork, and Arya feels his eyes on her. “I told her, that my family wasn’t just in Winterfell. I needed to come back and watch over you here,” She tells her brother softly, and reaches beneath the table to grip Gendry’s hand. “And I made a promise, to be Lord Baratheon’s wife. I’m his family, too.”

Gendry’s heart swells, and suddenly it’s too big for his chest, and he squeezes her fingers in return.

“We know,” drawls Jaime Lannister nearby. “No one here is in doubt of that. Incidentally, when is the happy day? We’re all dying for a bit of merriment, although this afternoon seemed plenty merry for you two.” His eyes flash with a hint of a smirk over his goblet of wine.

“Were you impressed by our fighting skills that much, Ser Jaime, to watch us for as long as you did?” Arya replies coolly. Jaime’s eyes widen in shock.

Gendry nearly spits out his ale. “He saw us?” He sputters. He hadn’t merely sparred with his Lady in those gardens, they’d also… he flushes at the thought. This gods-damned castle really did have eyes everywhere.

“Oh, it wasn’t just Ser Jaime,” Arya informs him brightly. “I believe Lord Tyrion and Ser Davos were present, too.”

Gendry whips his head around to throw Davos a look that could have roasted him.

The Onion Knight feverishly shakes his head in denial. “No no, my boy, I only happened to stumble upon you two by accident, believe me lad, I had no intention of - “

Arya leans across to place a hand on the old smuggler’s arm. “It’s alright, Ser Davos. Don’t worry about it.” When the anxious expression still doesn’t leave the Knight’s face, she smiles. “Come eat meals with us from now on, Ser. Gendry doesn’t admit it, but he’s missed you these past few weeks.” She’s grown rather fond of the man who had taken such good care of her beloved Jon and her Gendry.

Gendry drops the act at once, and nods at his now-father figure. “It’s true. I’ve been so busy running between here and Stormlands, but I’d be lying if I didn’t miss your company and your considerable wisdom.”

Davos bursts out into laughter, smiling at the best Baratheon he’s ever known, after his little Shireen. “Not sure about the wisdom part, but I’d be glad to provide you with my company and bad jokes for as long as you want.”

“Still, you haven’t told us when your happy day is,” wheedles Jaime, who has since recovered from his shock and has now gone right back to being a thorn in Arya's side.

“In about three months, Ser Jaime.” replies Gendry, looking at Arya. He squeezes her fingers again, her hand so small and warm in his own. “We’ll be married at Winterfell. When’s yours?” He shoots back.

The entire table hides their grins, and even the King himself spoons more stew into his mouth to keep his expression neutral.

Brienne turns pink, and Jaime’s face bypasses it entirely to burn scarlet. Arya decides to rescue them, if only because she loves the tall, blue-eyed Lady Knight across her.

“Sansa would be happy to see you married at Winterfell, too.” She gently tells Brienne. “She misses you a lot. Come North with us when we go.”

The Kingsguard Commander looks over at her King. “If Your Grace will allow, it will be my honor to see Queen Sansa again.” She turns to cast Jaime a shy smile, “and if you have no objection to it,” she says softly.

Arya swears she’s never seen Jaime look at anyone so tenderly. “I will go wherever you go, Ser Brienne,” he says simply. “Anywhere, as long as I get to marry you, and call you mine.”

Brienne blushes as red as Jaime does, unable to keep the joy off her face. Podrick pats her hand beside her. “Your Grace, I will be happy to remain here with the other Kingsguard while Sers Brienne and Jaime go North.” He pipes up.

Brienne swiftly turns to her former squire, now a young and capable Knight whom she loves like a little brother. “But I want you to be there too, Podrick,” she says quietly. “You can’t miss your own commander’s wedding, after all,” she declares, and Podrick beams at her.

Bran waves his assent. “You may come with us to Winterfell in three months’ time. The Grand Maester and our Master of Coin will manage affairs here until our return.”

Samwell nods eagerly. “Worry not, Your Grace, Lord Bronn and I will take care of everything.” He wilts a little then, as Bronn shoots him a withering look.

“Yes yes, you all go ahead and run off to your weddings and your celebrations, we’ll do all your work for you and run the Six Kingdoms in the meanwhile,” drawls the Master of Coin. “At least the North will be paying for these things, Highgarden can’t afford to be doling out gold for parties and funding the realm at the same time.” He grumbles under his breath.

The rest of the conversation fades into jumbled words in Arya’s ears, as she leans back in her seat to watch the twilight blanket the city and the sea in the distance in purple hues, and the stars are beginning to wink into existence far above them. The night air is cool, but the numerous candles provide warmth, and the weight of delicious food in her belly is a welcome feeling after nearly three weeks of riding down the Kingsroad from Winterfell.

Arya blinks slowly, her eyelids becoming heavier by the minute. She’s not sleepy, she will stay awake and alert to pay attention to the very important discussions taking place, she’s a damned Faceless assassin for gods’ sake…

Gendry feels something small and warm press into his side, and he looks down see his wife-to-be leaning against him as though he were a particularly comfortable pillow.

Arya’s pulled from her doze just long enough to register Gendry’s arm wrapping around her. “Shall I take you to bed, M’lady?” He whispers, his breath warm in her ear, his smile clear in his voice.

She hums softly in protest, her eyelids refusing to remain open any longer. “M’ awake,” she mumbles, “M’ just resting my eyes for a while.” A yawn promptly betrays her words.

Little Arya Stark would have never allowed herself to fall asleep in the company of anyone but her family, would rather have died than expose such vulnerability, but she isn’t worried tonight. The people at this table are her pack now, too. The Lannister lions sitting nearby are tame.

This place is no longer the den of venomous snakes where her family had suffered so much. It is a stronghold that protects the ones she loves the most, her old friends and new, and as long as she lives, she will honor her promise to Sandor Clegane. She will choose her family, her life, and give everything she has to ensure their happiness. But for now, Arya Stark will rest.

Gendry presses a kiss to the crown of her head, like her Lord father used to, every night before he tucked her into bed.

During moments like these, she can swear her Father sent Gendry to watch over her in his place.

“Awake. Of course.” Gendry chuckles into her hair. “With your eyes closed. Don’t start snoring on us, M’Lady.” Arya mumbles an incoherent retort, aiming a kick to his shin with all the accuracy of a drunken archer firing arrows into the night, and her leg meets nothing but air.

Gendry now laughs in earnest, the sound reverberates deep in his chest and gently lulls her to sleep, nestled in his arms.

The others at the table smile at the sight, and take care to speak in hushed tones for the rest of the evening.