#Going to try to write Sunday and queue everything up as normal | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imagine-your-kh · 5 years ago

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✬ I’m Back ! ✬

Oh gosh, it took way more time than what I expected, I’m sorry.

Okay, I have a few things to say, so let’s dive in... !

It will be open this Sunday ! Please check the Rules before sending any !

I will try to use a countdown that will be linked in the post to show how much time is left... ! This will be a test to see how it goes, you’re free to tell me if you like this idea or not... !

I will try a few things, slowly, so if it doesn’t please you, don’t be scared to speak out... !

Like I said before, I will try a countdown system for the MatchUp when it’s open. For now I’m hesitating between 24 hours of open MatchUp or more; we’ll see Sunday. I don’t know if it will stay or not, if I won’t need to close the MatchUp before the end of the countdown or something, depending how the test goes... !

I will try a few things for the design of the blog : changing the Pages of the Global HC (relationship and nsfw), some pictures, the divider, ... I want changes. So don’t be surprise if you notice a few things here and there in the following month(s) ! Again, don’t be scared to give your opinion.

I remembered there was a Chrome extension to change the y/n by your name. I always tried to avoid these ‘code’ because it break the flow of the text to me, but are you interested by more “y/n” to play with Chrome’s add-ons ? I wanted to try the html code to make it possible on my blog (without add-on), but it’s annoying to me to add it in my post everytime and breaking the formatting (that the new design of Tumblr make me upset already). If you know a Firefox version of it, please tell me... !

Long story short : I got little problem after little problem after my huge surgery in August. Next week there will be the (normally) last fix...

On the top of that, we learned that my mother has leukemia. She’s actually on the hospital. She got better and better now, but there were some bad time.

Now if you want the long story, it’s under the cut

It ended that she was waking up late, came in the sofa waiting for the energy to kick in and... It didn’t. She was sleeping all day long in the sofa or in her bed.

My father and I insisted for her to see a doctor, but she hates it, tries to avoid medicines, and she had a very very strong contradictory mind.

She did, the doctor taking blood.

Leukemia.

Since then, she’s at the hospital.

My father and I were left alone in the house and let me tell you a few (shameful) things :

- My mom was taking care of the house mostly on her own. I was helping her here and there, but not much because she wasn’t pleased how I was doing it, the result, “I can do it” or as kindness to give me peace. With the fact she has a very strong contradictory mind, she also become very aggressive when we insist. I grew up with her, my fear of conflict probably came from this, but in any case I never insisted because I didn’t wanted to fight for something so trivial and using energy for a fight I would never win in the end. So what happened when my mom goes to the hospital? I became the housewife. In a house that isn’t organized in my way (fun fact : it’s organized “where I found place” word my mother) and that I can’t reorganized like I want because my mother will come back, of course. But there weren’t just about that, she was also taking care of the papers. The food. The first weeks my father and I were just running everywhere to know where the papers were, what we needed to take care of (my mother knew when she needed to sent papers and wasn’t telling to us so we got a few surprises for example) and the freaking food. I’m ashamed that we ended to throw food away because we were trying to cook what we had, but a few elements were supposed to make a (complicated for us) meal or that we thought we were out of and it wasn’t. This running in circle for weeks was stressful and I ended to do the most. And guess what? I ended at the hospital because I had pushed my limits and got a infection on the result of my surgery. At that time, I had a few request in Queue but I just hadn’t time to write one to add in the Queue. It was stressful to see the number approaching zero but I couldn’t write. When I finally got time in the end of the day I wanted to relax.

- My mother was the mediator between my father and I. Left alone in a stressful situation where I was thinking “I can do it, I can try, let me do it, I’m right” and where he was thinking “you can’t do it, don’t try because you’ll fail, I’m right” it was inevitable that at some point we ended to scream at each other. My father is really affected by my mother’s situation. I had more than one depression in my life. I couldn’t have one right now. I became the support of my father, reassuring him, trying to stay positive, I couldn’t have a depression. I just couldn’t. It’s hard to fight ourselves and supporting someone else at the same time. I could have tried to see the “psychologist” of the hospital, but I have the bad habit to keep everything inside.

-Next to all of this, I was trying to resurrect my Discord Server. I’m not a leader, I try to make everyone happy even if I know it’s impossible, I still tried. Trying to please everyone displease everyone and I was open to make just a little change, not enough. We were something like 30 persons on it, a “fight” happened before between me and the Mods (long story that could be resumed as : lack of communication and I panicked), I asked who wanted to join the Mods to be sure that they were motivated, I reworked the Server.. I won’t enter in the detail of what it was because I don’t want to enter again in the debate, but a few people weren’t happy about a situation. I tried to mediate but the persons wanted just it to be gone from their view so left the Server, and I didn’t wanted to get rid of it because I wasn’t seeing the wrong of it. In the end of the journey, it was 1a.m in my timezone when a friend that was on the Server and left because of it wanted to talk about it with me and it ended in a fight because their anger grew more and more that I wasn’t understanding how wrong it was (supposed to be). When they started to use capital, very upset, it clicked in my mind that this situation was stressful, making me sick and anxious... For a Sever that was already dying. And I couldn’t afford at that time with my mother to have a drop of mood. So I chose my IRL life and abandoned the Server in a rush, something that was in my mind since the first “fight”. It took me a full month to lose all the habits I got from a year to be on the Server. I miss to see all the OCs, all the news and ideas of my friends and people. I miss to not just drop a fanart in it, knowing it will please people without having to come in private and be scared to bother. I don’t miss to be glued on my phone every minute to be sure that nothing wrong was happening on the Server and be on charge. Be a leader isn’t for me.

I just couldn’t bring myself to write for the blog. When I had time, I just wanted to relax and doing nothing. For a long time I didn’t even draw. I love seeing your reactions, reading your ideas, interacting with you, but English isn’t my first language. I’m learning with this blog. I check less and less my translator, but this is still more difficult for me to write a request than what @lucky0stars can do. I’m also a procrastinator, I never was so productive before, but it’s because I’m “forcing” myself to focus. When everything is alright, I still end sometime to slap myself because “dude, you need to write your request. Do at least one”. So you can imagine that in the situation where I’m right now... It just blocked.

So I announced the break, without knowing when it will be done.

A few things happened (like my mother who had a few weeks in an artificial coma) that you don’t need to know, but it seem to calm down. I’m slowly coming back.

I’m here now.

#mun mun talk

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steveramsdale · 5 years ago

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Big dipper Blog - 10.10

This blog is, essentially, the same as last week’s. There are some alternative factual details, but they are superficial. Anyway, you could just reread (or remember) last week’s offering and save yourself a bit of time. If you do decide to read on, we could make it more fun. You could try to decide for yourself the highest high and the lowest low. Remember, it’s just for fun. There’s no prize, so don’t write, text or email.

I think, as people, we are supposed to grow, to learn, to develop. That’s the most startling revelation you’ll read today. Adversity can be, I’m told, an opportunity for such personal growth. It may, in fact, be true, that I have been learning about myself. I wonder if my ‘issue’ is that if one thing is wrong, it affects everything else. See what you think.

On Saturday, my chief goal was to get the car de-registered and get the papers I need for me to be able to export it. The police centre I needed to go to was advertised as opening at 9:30 so I had time to get up and get sorted. I had a wonderful colleague on notice to be available for telephone translation if necessary.

I took a 6am trip to the shop through the park. Many people were already out running, I’d say 100 or more and it’s not a big park. Much of Tashkent has given up on lockdown.

Soon it was time to head off for the simple process of taking my car off its registration here! Google maps took me behind the centre where there was no gate. It was not difficult to find a way round to the front. That was the last time a problem was easily solved on Saturday. When we got the van and went to register it for the first time, the father and son who sold it to us, took me and helped. Even so, when we got there, they accepted the help of a man who was at the centre to do just that - help, for a fee, people through the process. He charged me about £20 but probably saved us 3 or 4 hours by knowing what to do and going to the front of queues. When I returned to the scene of this lengthy but problem-free process, there were, again, these free-lance ‘sorters’ and I decided it would be worth accepting help. The price was about the same. However, the first problem emerged in minutes. The address. I knew, back in September, that this would be a problem one day, would bite me on the bum. Sorry, I forgot to say that this blog would contain strong language and adult themes. I have a credit card-sized, well, card which is my ownership document (log book). It has all of the details about me and my van. So, of course, the address is our old address. Now, in my passport, I have my new address. I did not sort this out. The people at the centre said they could not de-register me until I changed the address (of course I questioned this), and that I could not change he address there but had to go to the centre in Yunusabad. I paid about £2 for something and my assistant asked for (and received) about £5 for his help. I set off for the other centre.

Long-time readers may (won’t) remember that at the original registration, we also went to two centres - the wrong one first. The centre I had to go to now was that ‘wrong’ one. I love symmetry, and here it was. When I got there, again came the offers of help. There were more guys here and they wanted £60. I declined, at this rate. I first drove into the inspection hall. Here they check the car against the ‘tec-passport’ as the credit-card is called. They match up the chassis number, etc. I had the papers from the first centre, so that went through without a hitch. Thereafter, the day was just a big hitch or series of small hitches that’s looked like one big hitch. We return to the Uzbek system, seen at the Kazakh border (remember) of needing to go from window to window, room to room. However, I was soon (a relative term) told that I would not be able to deregister the van until I had proof that I was leaving the country too. This would be in the form of a stamp in my passport given by my landlord! This cuts a longer story short and, by now, includes Miss Viktoriya as my telephone translator. I was certain that this could not be right (by the way, the miss-matched address was no longer an issue. It would mean, for example, that an Uzbek could not export a car to a relative in Russia! I tried explaining this, we went back to the main hall to talk to the boss a couple of times, but no one was changing this story. I phoned Pim, the export guy who has helped with every stage of this van conversion, and he put me on to a colleague. We talked and he also spoke to the officials there but got the same answer. Pim then told me that his people would look in to it more on Monday (yes, this story goes on) and help to sort it. The woman I had been dealing with insisted that I go back to the other centre and get my £2 back - which was an incorrect charge. She even phoned them to arrange it for me. I didn’t go back. Not for £2.

As an aside, there has to be a better way for the authorities to organise this free-for-all. The system is not a system. Queuing is almost non-existent and the mass of people at peak times is ridiculous. The spivs there to help....It is bad enough in normal times, but while a pandemic is still around....

So now I was free, for the rest of Saturday and Sunday to worry and consider the prospect of being unable to send the van (and the ridiculous amount of other stuff) home. Here is where I realised that this one problem took over everything. I heard that cafes and restaurants would be allowed to re-open on Monday and immediately thought of Ecorn. I should have been more happy. I wasn’t. I did decide I would go and have a chicken caesar sandwich after work on Monday.

Monday was a tough day. There quite a lot of end of year stuff at school, practical stuff, which I’m finding stressful. Then there’s this. The rule is ridiculous but it seems to be the rule! Then, some good news - someone offered to help me. I had called Ekaterina, the woman who deals with staff visas and registration. I thought that she would know about this stamp I needed or would be able to find out. She did not know about the stamp but said that she would go with me to the car centre to find out about it. I still had the papers. We went after my last lesson and when she was free. We went to the office of the ‘Saturday woman’. She wasn’t in the office but her colleague remembered me and said I could go to the main room. We went across and up to a free window. Ekaterina spoke to the police officer there. He immediately told us that no such stamp was needed and, had I brought the car, or even just the number plates, he could have done it there and then! We had gone in a taxi. I asked if there was time for me to go and get the plates then, but there was not. I resolved to go early the next day as he said it would take about 30 minutes. And suddenly the world was full of sunlight and joy again. I looked with pleasure upon my fellow Uzbeks, pushing to the front of queues and standing too close to each other.

We shared a taxi as Ekaterina lives quite close to the centre. I enjoyed (really enjoyed) my Ecorn sandwich. Life was good again. As an aside, these were my first taxi rides since The 22nd March. I saw Z—- JB so I’m sure KB is out there somewhere. Will I see it?

On Tuesday morning, as planned, I went back to the Gai. It opens at 8 so I was there at 7:30. The officer from the evening before was the first to arrive and had the key for the room (more of a hall, really). My first lesson of the day is at 9. School is a 15/20 minute taxi ride away away (I was going in to school to do some of the other jobs I have to do), so this would be a doddle. I was the only customer. I had the number plates and the documents and handed them over. The officer began the process. After about 20 minutes we went over to the cassa (the payment room. He took me. It was about £6. The woman there said I should go back to get my refund (I had given her my receipt from the other place). I agreed that I should but did not say I would not. A taxi there and back would be about £4! We returned to the main room. he continued the process. Time continued to move on. More customers began to arrive. Many went to my guy’s window and he flitted between my job and theirs. None of them could see the ‘maintain distance’ stickers on the floor. These were very obtrusive, written in Uzbek and Russian and invisible to local men. As time ticked on, it was clear I would be late for my first lesson. I sent my students an email. I waited. Eventually, my officer moved across the room, to a computer. This is it. he’s going to print my papers. After about another 20 minutes, I saw the ‘printing’ notification/animation appear on his Windows ME screen. And, five minutes later, he was handing me the paper work. It was done. My first lesson of the day was abandoned but I had what I needed.

One more observation here - no one in Tashkent will be getting coronavirus of the chin.

While I was feeling sorry for myself, over the weekend, I saw people collecting rubbish being moved on by the police. I have mentioned previously, that there are always people sorting through the rubbish bin. The mostly seem to be collecting plastic bottles but take anything of value. This group of four had huge bags of plastic and were near ‘my’ bins. I have no idea why four police men were moving them on. I wondered how many plastic bottles you would need to collect in a day to ‘make a living’. I also wondered what these people had done wrong, ‘stealing’ my rubbish. I also wondered why I had been feeling so sorry for myself trying to sort out my ‘huge problem’. Perspective. It had gone. It has returned but I did not know it could be so fleeting.

I did some lessons at school on Tuesday and began all of the sorting, packing and tidying tasks. Mafirat, my TA, was in too. The internet is not great at school! It was good tom see people, but I was not entirely comfortable.

On Thursday, working from home again, I decided to go for coffee out before work. While walking round I saw two kittens playing and stopped to say ‘hi’. One had jumped into a ditch but the other stopped and looked at me. It the looked back at its mother (I’m guessing but 99.9% sure). She came stalking round a bush. She was ready to attack me if necessary. It was not necessary.

The fire engine and disinfectant squad were also back. While I was out, they sprayed all the way up the stairs in my building, so I imagine they were going through all of the buildings.

Thursday was also the day I would take the van. I had loaded everything. I had stuck the paper transit number plate in the front window. I was ready to go. It is a short drive to Pim’s warehouse. Of course I was stopped by a police man. he wanted to know why I was driving without number plates. As soon as I showed him the paper plate stuck in the window, he was fine. At the warehouse, about six guys unpacked everything and re-packed it in their boxes. It was (is) a ridiculous amount of stuff. And so, I left Munisa with strangers, to travel alone on the journey we should have made together.

And if I did stop at Ecorn and have another caesar sandwich, that’s nobody’s business but mine.

There were children playing inside my building. This is the first time this has happened. I could hear three or four playing further up the stairs - laughing and running around. Later, while I was talking to Mairi and Fred, they were outside my door. They were having a good time. I don’t know why they were playing on the stairs and I don’t mind. It was nice to hear voices and laughter.

Also on Thursday, in my last lesson of the day, guided reading, two notable things happened. A high and low (you decide). In our morning English lesson, we had defined some vocabulary, including ‘bittersweet’. We had talked about the meaning, in terms of taste, of the two parts of the word. They said they were happy that they understood it. The guided reading was Kensuke’s Kingdom. I had not realised it was the last chapter. We were suddenly at the end. I can assure you there are no spoilers ahead. As I was reading, I suddenly found myself getting emotional. The two main characters were interacting and I felt that I was going to cry. In fact, I did. The events of the last two or three paragraphs got to me. They are relevant to my situation, I suppose. This has never happened to me before in a lesson. I always tear up at the end of Sister Act 2 (the cinema’s greatest achievement) but this is a new one. One of the students said “Oh Mr Ramsdale, don’t cry!” The postscript didn’t help, but I regained my composure.

We talked about the complex emotions of the ending. One of my brightest students only every joins in through the chat. I looked in the box and she had written one word. -‘bittersweet’. My work here is done.

I know it’s been a longer one, but there are a few loose ends and thoughts.

Returning to an old them, I heard ‘unite together’. I also heard ‘plateaued off’. Unnecessary, people. Perhaps I should have said ‘returning back to an old theme’.

I saw JB. Driving over to the centre, I saw E___JB. So they’ve been out for a little while. Appropriately, the driver got that plate from one of the centres I went to this week!

Let’s finish with Trump. I mean that in both senses of that sentence. This week he again asserted that testing causes cases of the virus, so testing is bad. He also said that if people stop calling others racists, racism will quickly go away. At what age do toddlers acquire the concept of object permanence? He’s not there yet. If we can’t see him, will he cease to exist?

And that’s it. What sort of week has it been? Bittersweet.

See you next time.

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hrhduchessoflancaster · 6 years ago

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Chapter Ninety: Uncharted Territory

Disclaimer: see Prologue.

A/N: I know it’s been a very long time since I posted anything but here it is.Thank you so much for all your comments!! The story is almost over. Only a few more chapter to go. xx Bea.

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The Invictus Games held in Toronto that year game Harry a purpose and a new sense of accomplishment. After all the turmoil that he and Elle had been through the last months, being able to be a part of something he was so proud of and really make a difference, shone in him a new light and perspective on what he could do now that he had more influence and power on his hands. Elle had stayed behind since Arthur was still too young to travel and needed his mother.

When he arrived in Canada, he once again met with the Trudeaus. The trio exchanged pleasantries before proceeding to the Prime Minister's home, where Harry would be a guest until they flew to Toronto on the following day.

" I'm very happy to be able to congratulate you in person on the birth of your son. We are all thrilled for you and Eleanor.", said Justin.

" Thank you. We're both very happy. Arthur really is an incredible child and truly a blessing to us both.", said Harry smiling.

"And... we've all been shocked to hear of the recent changes as well. I'm sorry if that is a sensitive topic, but I wanted to talk to you about some bilateral projects, if I may.", said Justin.

" It's somewhat delicate but I'm happy to talk about improving the relationship between the UK and Canada.", said Harry, giving a brief smile. " But for now, let's focus on the task in hand. This year's Invictus Games.", he continued and the Prime Minister nodded his head, not touching on the subject any longer.

On the following morning, Harry flew to Toronto with the Prime Minister and his wife. He was taken in a black SUV to the Air Canada Center, where the opening and closing ceremony would held. As the car approached the venue, he could hear the music and cheer growing louder and louder. Stepping out of the car, Harry waved his hand at the public gathered. He walked backstage, alongside the Justin Trudeau and waited for his queue. As the teams filled the arena one by one, Harry watched as the speeches were made, getting emotional after each story of endurance and hardships that was shared.

" Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to stand before you tonight and welcome our competitors to this year's Invictus Games. But before we can declare this games officially opened I'd like to say a few words. Your Royal Highness, thank you so much for your leadership, vision and strength in realising and guiding this project, which will allow so many of our brave veterans to keep moving forward and us, the opportunity to cheer them on.", said Justin and loud cheers and claps were heard from the audience.

"... and without further ado, here, to declare the Invictus Games Toronto 2017 opened, our patron and founder, Prince Harry.". Harry was then welcomed onstage and smiled at the audience.

" Hello Toronto! Merci beaucoup pour votre hospitalité. And thank you Prime Minister for this warm welcome. Invictus is about the dedication of the men and women who served their countries, confronted hardship, and refused to be defined by their injuries. Invictus is about the families and friends who faced the shock of learning that their loved ones had been injured or fallen ill - and then rallied to support them on their journey of recovery. And above all, Invictus is about the example to the world that all service men and women - injured or not - provide about the importance of service and duty. I wanted to find a way for veterans to be a beacon of light, and show us all that we have a role to play; that we all win when we respect our friends, neighbours, and communities. That's why we created Invictus. Not only to help veterans recover from their physical and mental wounds; but also to inspire people to follow their example of resilience, optimism, and service in their own lives.", said Harry.

" Sadly, my wife could not join us here since she's at home with our little one...", he said and cheers erupted from the crowd. "... but she too wanted to pass along the message of hope we all share today.", he continued and a video appeared on the screen behind him. In it, Elle was dressed in her Invictus Toronto 2017 shirt and had a little Arthur, napping on her arms, dressed in the Invictus baby grow they had been gifted a few months ago.

" Hello Toronto! Hello competitors! It saddens me not to be able to see you compete fiercely in these coming days and cheer you on as I did last year in Florida. But as you can see, I have a very small person that needs my full attention.", she joked and there was a sound of laughter from the crowd. " These games were created so that each an every one of you can see and experience change and teamwork. You are all winners for having reached this far. For cheating death and overcome emotional and physical challenges. I hope you embody the spirit of this games by showing courage and determination that will inspire generations to come. You are proving to the world that everything is possible, even under the most impossible situations. Good luck to you all!", said Elle. As the video ended, another cheer and applauses were heard and Harry grinned.

" Well, as my wife has said, I hope you are ready to inspire, to challenge, to work together, and to change your lives in the next coming days. You are Invictus! Let's get started!", he concluded, to a resounding cheer.

When Harry came back from Canada, he felt invigorated. He was ready to resume his public activities with full force. And so was Elle. With them both back at work, which had had some new additions to their normal workload since the singing of the Abdication document, Harry and Elle spent a lot of time on their engagements around London and the UK as well as working on their side projects. Elle had once again started writing her book, meeting every now and then with Melissa and Trevor to catch up and talk about academia. As for Harry, he was working on expanding Sentebale's work across other African countries.

A new Royal Tour was set for next year, on the Caribbean, which they hoped to bring their son along. Most of the times, if they’d be staying for more than a day, they’d bring Arthur with them. But he did spend a good deal of time with his grandparents, who, on both parts, doted on the little boy, dearly. Even though Charles and Camilla were estranged from Harry, Elle made a point to take baby Arthur to see them from time to time. As for her own parents, Victoria and Rupert adored babysitting their grandson and were completely at his mercy. Elle once caught her father bouncing the infant on his knee as he did with her when she was a child and it warmed her heart to see how much her son was loved by her family.

Not to mention the staff. The entire McClaire gang doted on the little boy. Brandon and Olivia were delighted to have a child on the home again and usually commented on how much they had missed the joy of children whenever Elle was around. Jane and Gregory took upon themselves to play with Arthur whenever they could. As for Margaret and Thomas, they’d school the little boy about everything around the kitchen and garden, respectively. Now that he was starting to eat solids, Maggie was particularly fond of cooking small portions of baby food for Elle to take home with her to see if Arthur would enjoy it. And it had never failed to please the infant, to the chef’s delight.

Once winter arrived, and Elle’s birthday came to pass, she received the best gift she could ever wish for: hearing Arthur properly say his first couple of words, such as mama, dada and lan, which, of course, translated to the three most import things in his life: his parents and Lancelot. He had also mastered his tummy time and could roll on it and then upwards again, as well as sitting without either Harry or Elle helping him. They had a good routine going on of naps, playtime and feeds, with now a few solids introduced as well. The new parents quickly discovered Arthur’s fondness for bananas but his distaste for papaya. Little by little, the three of them were entering new territories.

On the second week of November, Elle and Harry prepared for Remembrance Sunday, as many other members of the Royal Family. That’d be the first big and meaningful event without William and Catherine. They had moved back to Anglesey with the children and Elle had heard weekly from Kate. Dressed in a black dress and matching black hat, she stood beside Camilla, Anne, and Sophie on the balcony and watched as Her Majesty, Charles, Harry, Andrew and Edward all placed the red poppies wreath on the Cenotaph. A tear or two fell down her cheeks as she thought about all the suffering that still went on around the world; about the fight and the people, military and civilians alike that were caught in the numerous conflicts.

That day at the Cenotaph had been the first interaction Harry had had with his father since the Abdication. After the ceremony, once they were all inside, she saw them talking in hushed tones and Harry, although stone faced, was talking back to Charles and even gave a small, tight smile to his father when he showed his phone to him. Elle imagined they were talking about Arthur. On the mend… slowly, but surely., she thought observing father and son.

“ I’m so glad to see them taking again.”, said Camilla, coming to stand beside Elle. The young duchess nodded her head, agreeing with the older woman.

“ Indeed. There’s much work to be done, but the first steps have been taken.”, said Elle.

“ I hope he can do the same with his brother.”, commented Camilla. “… William… it’s been hard on him too. He misses Harry. They all do. Will you talk to him, Eleanor? See if he can, maybe, call him again?”, she asked.

“ I’ll try. I promise. I don’t like this situation anymore than you do, but Harry needs to be allowed to get over the anger and resentment he’s still feeling before he can forgive both his father and his brother.”, said Elle.

************

Long before the whole ordeal with the Abdication had come to pass, it had been decided that Harry, Elle, Arthur and Sir Lancelot would spend Christmas with her family that year, stopping by at Sandringham, to make a quick visit to the Queen and other members of the family, on Boxing Day. So when December came, Elle was more than happy to take all of the Christmas decorations from storage and start giving their apartment the very best of seasonal cheer.

As this was Arthur’s first Christmas, she had outdone herself by making sure he was featured every step of the way, dressing him in the cutest outfits: from little Elf to Rudolf, a Snowman and Father Christmas himself. Harry would often sneak on her and take several pictures of her and of Arthur and sometimes he too would get into them. The album Elle had given him years ago was filling up quickly. Soon another one would have to be bought so they could be cataloging their lives together.

When he went to their bedroom that evening to shower and change while Elle fed Arthur downstairs, he opened one of his drawers to look for that particular photo album when he saw the binder Elle had given him on their first anniversary, a few months ago. In it, there were the unopened letters she had written to him, each for a different occasion. Going through them, he found the one he was looking for: for when you feel lost. Carefully detaching it from the binder, Harry took the small envelope in his hands and opened it. Elle’s elegant penmanship came into view.

My love, my darling Harry,

If you’re reading this letter, then it means something horrible has happened in yours or our lives and you need to keep yourself grounded, to find a path to keep going forward. I may not know what it is since I’m writing this in the past with no hindsight whatsoever about the future. But, I do know that you’ll always find a way to see the light at the end of the dark tunnel. You are one of the strongest, most kind, good-hearted and positive people I know. You’ll find a way to see past whatever is troubling you because you know, deep down, that it’s not the edge of a cliff, or the end of journey. There’s so much more to be lived! You may be at a crossroads or maybe a very big challenge is what you’re facing… and although it seems like a big deal now, it will be nothing more than a little bump on your path towards a great and happy future. You can do it, Harry. You can face whatever challenge is put in front of you and you can find your path again. I hope I’m there by your side, through thick and thin, as we have vowed to each other. I hope you don’t need to read this letter because I’m going to be there by your side telling everything that is written here. But, in the case that I’m not for whatever reason or that you need to hear it again, and again, again… You can and you will be found. You will see clearer. You will overcome the darkness and the desolation you might have been feeling. Take a deep breath, focus on the good parts of your life, on the people who love and support you no matter what, find your inner strength to battle the urge to

shut everyone out… forgiven and forget, my darling. The storm is scary but it always ends. And the result is a beautiful and clear sky. You may be lost in the middle of a storm right now, but it will end. I’m sure of it.

All my love,

Elle.

Harry eyes were glossy and unshed tears threatened to fall down his cheeks as he read the letter another time. He let her words sink in his brain and heart, reassuring him yet again, that he could do the task that was set for him and that she, his wonderful wife, his marvellous Elle, would be with him, beside him, every step of the way. Sighing, Harry folded the letter and put it on his nightstand. A hot shower was in need.

He was mid shower when he heard the bathroom door open. Harry didn’t turn his back for he knew who was it. Soon, a chilly air invaded the box and a pair of arm encircled his waist. He felt Elle’s breathe on his back, her lips gently kissing his warm skin.

“ Arthur is asleep.”, she said in between pecks. He placed his hands over hers, giving it a gentle squeeze before turning his body to face her. Looking deeply into her eyes, Harry cupped her cheek and lowered his head, molding his lips against hers. They pulled each other closer, basking in the passion of the moment, as the hot water fell on their bodies. Kissing turned into touching, pressing and gasping and soon, Elle had her back against the tiles, moaning. Their love making became more and more intense, the shower long forgotten. Panting, the entangled their bodies and leaned their foreheads together, faintly smiling.

" It's been a while since we've done that, hasn't it?", said Harry, giving her his signature smirk.

" In the shower? Most definitely.", she replied chuckling. Pecking his lips, she reached for the towel and draped around her body before exiting the bathroom. Harry remained there for a few more minutes then joined an already dressed Elle in bed. He got under the covers and pulled her against him, nesting her in his arms. Gently, he began running his fingers through her hair, which earned him soft moans of content from her. In a matter of minutes, Elle was fast asleep. Harry smiled at the sight before him and placed a peck on her temple before closing his own eyes and drifting off into sleep.

************

As Christmas week came, Harry, Elle, Arthur, Lancelot, and their RPO's made their way to Woodenford Castle. Passing through the snowy fields of Wiltshire, they drove during late morning arriving at the familiar majestic site of the 13th century stone castle on early afternoon, just in time for a healthy lunch provided by Ms. Martin, the fabulous chef. As soon as they were past the gates, Elle could see her family eagerly waiting at the front door. Once the car was pulled into a stop, they jumped out of the Range Rover, took Lancelot out and pulled Arthur from his car seat, who greeted his parents with a bubbly smile. The family was soon engulfed in warm hugs and kisses on the cheek offered by Victoria, Rupert and Edward, who soon whisked his nephew away, whispering promises of fun and mischief in his ear, while Logan helped with their luggage.

" I'm so glad you're here!", said Victoria, still holding Elle's shoulders.

"We are very glad to be here.", said Elle. " Specially since it's Arthur's first Christmas. And nothing can compare to our Christmas tree...", she continued as they stepped inside. Warmth and the smell of pine and spices filled her senses, making her instantly more relaxed and happy. As they too off their coats and headed to the Drawing Room, she held her breath in excitement. And she wasn't disappointed. The 25ft Norway spruce was up, its ornaments glistening under the lights.

" Oh wow...", said Elle in wonder.

" We haven't finished decorating it yet. We know how much you love doing it.", said her father smiling. She smiled back at him and nodded her head with enthusiasm. She walked over to the with Arthur in her arms and browsed over the many different ornaments, their shapes and colours twinkling in the light, catching the infant's eyes and sparkling his curiosity. The family around them smiled lovingly at the scene and Harry even snapped a few pictures of mother and son, who seemed to be immersed in their own little bubble of Christmas cheer. They all joined in to decorated the tree. Little by little, the magnificent decor was complete. Harry snuck behind Elle and warped his arms around her, pulling her and Arthur close to him.

" Now this... is what I call a proper Christmas tree.", he said in her ear.

" Couldn't agree more.", she replied, turning her head to the side and pecking his lips. They smiled to each other then looked down at Arthur who was looking amazed at every little thing around him. Elle kissed his chubby cheeks and Harry tickled his belly, earning them both a giggle from the toddler. His smile, a toothy one now, lit up the room. It was contagious and made everyone else smile too.

For the next few days, Elle and Harry took the time away from the city to decompress and have a few dates, just the two of them. Since the snow wasn't deep and they decided to take the horses for a small walk near the river. Bundled up in puffer jackets and very warm mittens and caps, they walked over to the stables, greeting the familiar faces they saw on their way.

" Ahh Lionheart.", said Elle stepping close to her horse's stall. He neighed and threw his mane around, reaching for her hand. She chuckled and caressed his nose. "I've missed you too, buddy.", she said to him. Harry was given Percival to ride, just like on the first time he had been to Woodenford, all those years ago when they reconnected.

They saddled up their horses and slowly trotted side by side, the chilly breeze cutting through their skin, making theirs cheeks red. "Race you to the river.", he said to her and galloped past her. Elle chuckled, remembering how she was the one to do the same last time they did that. She soon caught up with him and they laughed to each other as they reached the riverbank together.

" Even with a head start, you can't seem to beat me, Major.", she said, winking and grinning at him.

" What can I say, you've always been better at it than me...", he replied. Harry then got off his horse, tying him to a nearby tree. He then helped Elle out of her horse and did the same. Elle then picked up the the small basket with water and sandwiches she had brought and hand in hand, they walked to a stone bench that overlooked the river. Sipping on their bottles and nibbling on their snacks, they quietly observed the flow of the water and the breeze on the pine trees, listening to the sounds of the nature around them. Snuggling up to him, Elle sighed happily.

" Feels so good to be here, in the peace and quiet after the months we've had, doesn't it?", she said.

" It really does.", replied Harry. " Sometimes I can't believe all that has happened to us...", he continued, holding her close, playing with her wedding ring.

" I know, darling. It's been a crazy couple of year, filled with good and bad things, and we've faced them all together.", said Elle, looking up at him.

" I have no idea what I'd have done without you by my side, Elle.", he said cupping her cheek. "You bring out the best in me. You're my saving grace and shining light at the end of a dark and rocky road.", he finished.

" Oh Harry...", she whispered, smiling gently at him, teary eyed after his declaration. Leaning in, she pulled him closer and brought his lips towards hers. They kissed slowly, savouring the moment, but eagerness and passion flowed through their mouths and soon they were feeling much hotter than before. Once they finally pulled away from each other in need of breath, they rested their foreheads together, breathing in and out, eyes closed, feeling the heat coming from one another's bodies.

************

On Christmas Eve, the family gathered in the Great Hall of the castle for the Foundation brunch. A tradition that her parents had started as a way of thanking the staff and key members of the community who are a part of the Duke and Duchess' foundation. Cassandra was there and was delighted into meeting the new addition to the family. As were a few other staff members, coordinators and representatives of the small associations connected to the Foundation. Harry was soon whisked away by some veterans that he had met before while Elle was engrossed in talking to new mothers and their children about the literacy projects she had been developing and the work that had been done in the county. At dusk, they took part in a soup kitchen, delivering food and blankets to the homeless and less fortunate of Salisbury.

" I think that doing this, helping other people, really shows what Christmas is all about.", commented Elle as they gave out blankets to the people. Harry smiled at her and placed a kiss on her temple.

When finally came time for dinner, they returned to the castle for the much anticipated festivities. Dressed in a burgundy red dress and black pumps Elle patiently fed Arthur while Harry took shower. With only a towel around his waist, he come out of the shower and gave her a peck on the lips, walking towards the closet to get dressed. Smirking, Elle bit her lips and settled Arthur on his Moses basket. She tiptoed to the closet, finding her husband wearing only his underwear. Sneakily encircled her arms around his waist, running her hands up and down his torso, leaving a trail of kisses along his back and neck. Harry groaned and she smirked to herself, nibbling his earlobe.

" Someone's in a mood...", he said huskily.

" Oh darling... you have no idea what awaits you later tonight...", she whispered back, before leaving him alone in the closet.

" Looking forward to it... you tease!", he said, catching sight of her wink and smirk towards him just as she exited the room. Shaking his head, Harry dressed quietly, feeling a little discomfort on his trousers. That little temptress..., he thought. He heard her talking to Arthur and soon he was all alone in their room, which gave him plenty of time to get her gift from his suitcase. Smiling to himself as he looked at it, he pocked it and left the room as well, rushing down the stairs to meet the rest of the family.

The McClaire family was gathered in the Hall, the Christmas tree sparkling bright and under it, a selection of different sized boxes, mostly filled with toys and clothes for Arthur no doubt. The table was set with candlelight and ornaments along its length; a selection of roasts and mashes filled them all and warmed their bodies. At the stroke of midnight, the clinked their glasses in cheerful and joyful harmony, wishing each other a very happy Christmas. Once dinner was over, they pulled crackers and in a selections of colourful paper crowns, gave each other their gifts. As predicted, Arthur was spoiled to bits by their grandparents and uncle. Her parents exchanged comical gifts such as a new pair of glasses for her father and a new crocheting kit for her mother. Her brother gave everyone gift cards to Waterstones, which pleased most of them. Elle and Harry gave them framed pictures of Arthur with each family member, which brought her mother to tears. Finally, it was their time to exchange gifts.

" Mine is a little bit late, but with everything that has been going on, I thought it was actually fitting to give it to you now.", said Harry handing Elle a small, squared package. She tore the paper and inside she found the familiar red box with the logo of the House of Garrard in golden letters. She carefully opened it, finding an eternity band ring, surrounded by tiny diamonds. Picking it up, she noticed that on the inside that was something engraved: Little Bear it read and she looked up at her husband with misty eyes.

" I wanted to give you that for a long time but...", said Harry. Elle smiled and shook her head. "No, no... it's perfect timing... oh Harry... it's beautiful. Thank you.", she said, pecking his lips. She then reached to her side to give him his present. Similar to her own, it was wrapped in a square brown paper. He, like her, tore it to pieced and found a small circular container.

Opening the lid, he chuckled and looked at her. Elle smiled and waited for his reaction. He took the silver and leather bracelet from it and payed closer attention to the marks on it:

51°31'02.0"N 0°10'23.0"W, 19.04.17. Harry instantly knew what it meant.

" It seems I'm gonna start a collection with these ones...", he joked, pointing out to the bracelet. Elle chuckled and smiled.

" Well... it's only fitting since you have one for every part place in our shared history.", said Elle.

" I love it. Thank you, my love.", he said, kissing her cheek.

That night, once everyone was asleep and Arthur was properly placed on her old bedroom which had been converted into a nursery, Elle kept her promise to Harry. She teased him, and toyed with him until he had enough of it and pushed her against the wall, on the bed, in the shower, and on the floor. They released all their bottled up tension making passionate love to each other again and again.

************

On the very early ours of Boxing Day, they made the four-hour journey from Salisbury to Sandringham. With a sleepy Arthur in the back and Ingrid beside him, they drove to the familiar red bricked estate.

" Are you ready to see them?", asked Elle.

" I am. Do I still feel hurt? Yes. Am I going to wallow in it? No. I think I should, no, need to move forward. For my own sake.", replied Harry. Nodding her head, Elle smiled and took her hand in hers, joining their fingers.

" It will be great. And we'll start mending bridges by greeting them properly, alright?", said Elle, and Harry nodded his head in agreement. They parked outside and were greeted by William, Catherine and a very sleepy looking George. Taking a step forward, Harry smiled gently and embraced his brother.

" Hi Will. Happy Christmas.", he said. William, who was a little shocked, embraced his brother back and smiled widely at him.

" Happy Christmas, Harry.", he replied then hugged Elle as well.

" Hello all. Merry Christmas!", said Kate, hugging them. " Had a pleasant trip?", she asked.

" It was pleasant enough. Not much traffic at this hour.", replied Harry.

" How was Christmas at Woodenford? I don't think I've been there since we were teenagers.", said William.

" Oh it was great. You know hoe my mother is with decorations... Arthur was delighted to see everything.", said Elle smiling at her brother-in-law.

" I wonder where Elle gets the crazy Christmas fever from...", said Harry and the adults chuckled. The light atmosphere was enough to settle the animosities and bring back, a little of he camaraderie and love that was severed between the brothers. The sleeping toddler on her arms twitched a bit and they rushed inside, to warm themselves up. Once there, they were greeted by the rest of the family who were about to get breakfast. Charles and Camilla were among the first ones to greet them. Cautiously, Charles approached Harry.

" Son... Merry Christmas.", said Charles, smiling faintly. Harry smiled back and took a step forward to hug his father. Elle could see that Charles was visibly relieved to be hugged by his younger son.

" We're delighted that you've come here.", said Camilla, greeting them with hugs and kisses. " Would you like to have breakfast with us?", she asked. Famished as they were, they joined in and Arthur was soon whisked away from Elle's arms and passed along cousins and doting family members.

" Oh he's so big!", commented Anne smiling.

" He's gonna be a tall lad!", said Edward.

" I reckon he's gonna go into the family tradition and join the military.", said Andrew.

" Now now, he's not even a year old. Let the poor baby be.", said Bea.

The banter and conversation flew joyously and Elle took the time to look around the room. Elizabeth and Philip were still absent but, considering the time, she thought they would both be changing for church. Soon enough, they appeared on the doorstep and smiled at the sight of the new arrivals.

" About time you got here, boy. Lost your way, ye?", joked Philip.

" Let us see the baby...", said Elizabeth, taking Arthur into her arms. The baby cooed and smiled at his great grandmother. "Oh he's just as adorable as I remembered.", she said., making his parents beam with pride. " Oh, that reminds me... I have something for him. Come with me you two.", she said pointing to Harry and Elle. Following her into the living room where the Christmas tree was, she handed them a rectangular box. Opening it, they found a glass bobble with Arthur's name in it, surrounded by glittering green specks.

" Now he has one too.", said the monarch. " We've hanged yours now you can put his next to them.", she continued. Smiling to the older woman, Elle took the ornament and looked around the tree to find hers and Harry's names, placing his it just under theirs.

" Now the tree is complete.", said Elizabeth.

" Indeed, it is. Family should stick together... and I'm happier than I can possibly say to have you here, my dears.", she continued looking at the small family in front of her.

#FATES INTERTWINED #royalfanficcentral #phff #prince harry fanfiction #prince harry fanfic #prince harry #duke of sussex #fanfic #fanfiction #Prince Harry x OC

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stahlop · 6 years ago

Text

Must Love Dogs (3/?)

It’s time for chapter 3! Thanks again to @profdanglaisstuff for being my beta, especially since she posted like 3 stories this week and was being a beta for so many others. I really appreciate all your help.

Chapter 1 2

Also on Ao3

Chapter 3

“So,” Mary Margaret started as she dished some spaghetti and meat sauce onto Emma’s plate. Emma was thankful that Mary Margaret had invited her over for dinner, as her cabinets and refrigerator were woefully bare. She would have to make a much needed shopping trip tomorrow.

“So…” Emma said back. David gave a snort from beside her, as if he knew exactly what his wife wanted to talk to Emma about. Mary Margaret shot him a dirty look.

“So, I talked to Ruby,” Mary Margaret said, composing her face back to normal. She sat down at the table after dishing out dinner to David as well and began to serve herself. David started to pass around some garlic bread.

“And?” Emma huffed. She knew exactly where this was going, knew it would be a topic of conversation regardless, but she also secretly liked torturing Mary Margaret.

“She said you had some news to share?” Mary Margaret said even more delicately.

“Well...I did catch my skip the other day. Idiot decided to go visit an ex -girlfriend who did not want to be visited.” Emma smiled smugly knowing this was not what Mary Margaret was fishing for.

“Oh,” Mary Margaret said, blowing out a puff of air that made the brown bangs of her short pixie cut fly up slightly. “Ruby said that you might have some other news.” David was having a hard time suppressing his laughter.

“Oh,’ Emma said coyly, “You mean about the guy I met online?” she asked as if it were an afterthought.

Mary Margaret squealed in a register that Emma was sure that if Ditie was there, only she would be able to hear.

“We want to hear everything!” Mary Margaret said finally taking a big bite of her spaghetti.

“Just for the record, some of us don’t want to hear everything.” David said pointing his garlic bread at Emma before biting into it.

Emma rolled her eyes, “We emailed through the site and he asked me for my number and personal email.” She tried to get her face to stay neutral as she said it, but she couldn’t help the corners of her lips from turning up slightly. She started to twirl her spaghetti so that her mouth might be full for the next barrage of questions Mary Margaret was going to ask her. But Mary Margaret just stared at her with the biggest grin on her face that Emma felt guilty for trying to avoid her questions.

She pulled out her phone and brought up his profile before handing the phone over to Mary Margaret to read.

“I knew that site would help you find someone Emma! Oh, he’s cute!” Mary Margaret exclaimed earning a sound of indignation from her husband.”What? He is. But don’t worry, I only have eyes for you, David.” Mary Margaret mockingly pinched his cheeks, making him blush.

“The email is already pulled up.” Emma stated taking a bite of spaghetti.

Mary Margaret swiped over to the email she had received from Killian. Emma could swear there were tears in Mary Margaret’s eyes.

“Oh, Emma, he sounds perfect for you.” Mary Margaret said in a watery voice. Emma rolled her eyes again.

“I haven’t even met him. He could be all talk. He could be a serial killer.” Emma protested but even she knew she didn’t mean it. She’d known from the minute she saw his profile that this man could be the one, and that scared the hell out of her.

“How can I be this head over heels over a profile and an email? I’m not that girl. I don’t do relationships. Even if my past online dating experience hadn’t been awful, it’s doubtful that any of those guys would’ve made it past a night in the sack.” Emma said exasperated.

“That, for instance, is one of the things I don’t want to know about.” David said with a mouthful of bread. Emma and Mary Margaret ignored him.

“There’s something about him, the way he writes and the way he describes things, that gets me all shy and nervous. I feel like he could really be the one,” Emma looked up and saw the foolish grin plastered on Mary Margaret’s face, “which is really dumb because I haven’t even met him yet.” she finished quickly.

“Send him your email and your number,” David advised. Emma gave him a bewildered look. “I know it seems a little personal, but he sounds pretty direct. And you’re usually more direct when you’re not playing this weird damsel in distress thing you’ve got going on right now.”

Wow! Emma hadn’t expected David to be doling out the dating advice. He tended to treat her like his little sister most of the time, even though she was Mary Margaret’s friend. So pushing toward a guy she met online was really not in character for him.

Emma’s expression must have given all that she was thinking away because David continued with, “Emma, all we want is to see you happy. Plus, we all know you could kick his ass ten ways to Sunday if he pulled any crap on you.” He finished with a huge bite of his garlic bread and then grabbed another from the plate.

Emma grabbed her phone back from Mary Margaret. David was right (who knew she’d ever think that?). She’d been looking at his profile and email as if he were a relative who lived far away and she wanted to show off his picture, but he wasn’t. He was a living, breathing, man who was interested in her.

“Excuse me.” Emma said, backing up her chair from the table and heading over to the couch. “I just need to send him an email real quick with my information.”

Mary Margaret looked over at her husband, a huge smile on her face. Then she and David continued to eat while Emma sent her message to Killian.

EKEKEK

Killian eased the key into his apartment door and was practically run over by Jolly rushing to greet him.

“Sorry, girl.” he said as she jumped up to try and give him kisses, eventually just licking his hands instead.

“I know I’m a little late getting home. Did Henry from across the hall take you out?” Killian checked the leash and saw that it was laying on the front table instead of hanging on the wall, his and Henry’s code so that Killian knew that Jolly had been taken care of. Henry was a good kid. Killian would usually give Henry $10 anytime he needed Jolly walked because he was running late from work, like he was today.

He walked over to the kitchen table and set down his laptop and Chinese take out he’d brought home. He preferred to cook, but it was already 7 o’clock. Too late to get something defrosted, so Chinese it was. Besides, who could argue with egg rolls and Orange Chicken (no one, that’s who)?

He lived in a small one-bedroom apartment, though it was barely more than a studio. His bedroom barely fit his queen-sized bed and a dresser. But the rest of the place had lots of windows and a balcony, and it was an open floor plan, so it really wasn’t so bad. He could also see the ocean from his balcony, so that was a plus. In the summertime he could open all the windows, and the breeze coming off the Atlantic was amazing.

Killian grabbed some dog food from it’s container in the pantry and poured some out for Jolly. She immediately went over and started chowing down, even though he was sure Henry had given her some earlier as well. He added some water to her water bowl as well before settling himself down to eat his own food.

He wondered what Emma was up to tonight. She had said she worked in bail bonds, so maybe she was on a stakeout tonight. Maybe she had a late night class at BU (he wasn’t sure if she was taking online courses or regular courses), or maybe she was studying more for the police exam. Was she wondering what he was doing as well?

He finished up his meal and threw the rubbish away, packing up the leftovers for his lunch tomorrow. Then he walked over to his recliner intent on catching up on some of his shows. He hadn’t heard from Emma in two days. Maybe he had spooked her by asking for her personal information so soon. He just wanted to cut to the chase, cut out the middleman, so to speak.

Jolly, having finished her dinner, came over to get her ears scratched, one of her favorite pastimes. Killian absent-mindedly scratched her ears while flipping through his queue of shows, trying to decide which one to watch. It was then he realized that his backside was vibrating.

“Bloody hell!” he grumbled, realizing that he hadn’t taken his phone off of silent since leaving work. He grabbed it and began looking at his notifications. It looked like Will had been texting him to see if he wanted to grab dinner.

“Too late for that, mate” He texted back to him. He then noticed he had an additional notification.

He had another email from Emma.

In his actual email account.

Not from the MustLoveDogs website.

Killian got up and grabbed his laptop from where he had left it and quickly pulled up his email. He preferred responding to emails on his laptop than from his phone.

Killian,

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous that you asked for my email and phone number. The other dating websites I’ve been on usually had an instant messaging feature, so it was a lot easier to communicate without giving out personal information. Not that I’ve been on a lot of dating websites. They all suck by the way. A story for another time. But I’ve realized through just your profile and email that I’d like to get to know you better. I’d prefer email over texting as texting is basically meant for small talk. I have included my phone number though. Do with it what you will. I’d definitely like to know about your time in the Navy and boxing and how you ended up in Boston and with Jolly.

Hope to hear from you soon (I really hate these lame ways of basically saying write back),

Emma

She had also attached a picture of Aphrodite asleep in a dog bed.

“What should I do, Jolly? Call her tonight or send her an email?” He showed Jolly the picture of the sleeping Aphrodite. Jolly gave him a ridiculous look which Killian took to mean “How would I know, you idiot, I’m only a dog.” Killian liked to imagine that Jolly had a British accent like himself and sounded like Helen Mirren from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. She then padded over to the bed and laid down to go to sleep.

Killian snapped a picture of Jolly on his phone and decided that he would send it to Emma since she’d sent him one of her dog. It was amazing how similar their dogs looked. A beautiful, strong woman with the same taste in pets, how much more perfect could she be?

Emma,

Jolly is sleeping too. She was not as impressed by your correspondence as I was. But then again, she is only a dog. Maybe she’s jealous that I have another dog on my phone. Even though her profile said she wanted a doggy friend, she’s only had me for the past year and a half. I hope our dogs get along as well as we seem to. I prefer talking on the phone to email or texting (I completely agree about texting), so expect to hear from me some time tomorrow. I hope the rest of your night is satisfactory.

Killian

EKEKEK

“I can’t believe we’re finally meeting,” Emma said as she sat down in an oversized, plush armchair.

“I know. It feels like we’ve been emailing forever,” Killian said to her as he set down his coffee on the long table and sat down in another armchair. His did not look as comfortable as Emma’s.

Anticipation fluttered in Emma’s stomach. It seemed like they had been missing each other left and right. It had taken weeks to align their schedules to actually get to meet up. But something about this didn’t seem right.

She looked over in the corner to see two black and white dogs tussling with each other.

“Did you bring Jolly with you?” she inquired.

Killian nodded, taking a sip from a comically large cappuccino mug. Except that there was a flowery teapot on the table.

“You brought Ditie too,” he added. She looked back over at the dogs and noticed that one of them was indeed Ditie. Something still wasn’t sitting right. She wondered why she would bring her dog to a coffee shop.

“Do they allow dogs in here?” Emma inquired, and then she realized, “How do you know I call my dog Ditie, I never mentioned it.” Her bail bonds instincts were starting to kick in.

She looked over at Killian who was now pouring an obscene number of sugar cubes into his cup. He opened his mouth to respond but all she could hear was The Police singing “Every Breath You Take”.

What the..?

That sounded just like her ringtone.

It was her ringtone.

She searched the long table for the phone but didn’t see it anywhere.

Killian was still putting sugar cubes into his tea and singing her ringtone.

And that’s when Emma finally realized she was dreaming.

She rolled over, still half-asleep, to try and feel her phone on the nightstand. Someone was obviously calling her. By the time she felt the phone, it had stopped ringing. She checked the time. It was 8 AM.

“Who the hell is calling me at 8 AM on a Friday morning?” she wondered. She checked the number. It wasn’t work or anyone whose name was saved in her phone. The number looked slightly familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. Well, if it was important they would leave a message.

“No more Alice in Wonderland before bed,” Emma thought, realizing that the tea party from the cartoon was featured heavily in her dream. She had come home from Mary Margaret and David’s late last night after watching the aforementioned movie, along with copious amounts of wine, because Mary Margaret was insistent that if they were going to eat somewhat Italian food, they had to have wine with it as well. Emma’s head was not happy with that. Thank goodness she’d decided to Uber it to their apartment rather than drive her bug.

Emma was debating whether to lounge around some more or get up (she only had to put in half a day today, just filling out paperwork) when Ditie padded in and started to whine.

“Ok, girl, I know what that means.” Emma said getting out of bed and scratching Ditie’s head. She quickly grabbed her workout clothes from off the floor and put them on. She and Ditie headed to the door so she could attire Ditie for the walk. Emma also grabbed a lightweight hoodie as the weather had a bit of a nip to it in the mornings now.

When they got to the dog park, Emma grabbed a cup of coffee, per usual, and brought out her phone to check her email and see if whomever had called had left a message. They had.

“Hello Emma Swan. This is Killian Jones, from the Must Love Dogs website.” Emma quickly paused the message. Her heart was about to start beating out of her chest.

He’d called!

He’d called and he sounded incredibly nervous. Coupled with his accent he sounded adorable.

And then it dawned on her.

He’d called and she missed it!

She dragged the message back to the start and pressed play.

“Hello Emma Swan. This is Killian Jones, from the Must Love Dogs website. Sorry, that sounded really doltish. I had said I’d be calling you in my email last night, so hopefully you’re not screening my telephone call. I had hoped to catch you before I got into work. You’re probably getting ready for work. It’s Friday, so I’ll be getting off at 4 today, so…. I’ll try you again later. Bye.”

“Shit!” she gasped looking at the phone. Killian Jones had called her and she’d missed it because she’d been sleeping. And it was still too damn early to call anyone to talk about it! And then she remembered that he had said he’d emailed her the previous night.

“Shit!” she said again, because she hadn’t checked her email last night or this morning. She opened her email app and saw, that yes, indeed, he had responded to her email at around eight the night before. And he’d included a picture of Jolly sleeping.

“Awww!”

Normally, Emma would lounge at the park for a little while longer, but now she was a bundle of nervous energy. She just wanted it to be 4 o’clock so Killian would call her back. She should have put his number in her contacts when he gave it to her, then this would not have happened. She felt like the biggest idiot. Of course, the wine and late night Disney had not helped the situation. She immediately added his number so she would know it was him when he called later.

“Ditie! Come!” she yelled over the thrum of the dog park. Ditie looked at her and whined as if to say “But we just got here”. “Ditie!” Emma said a bit more impatiently this time. Ditie bowed her head and slunk over to her owner. She knew when Emma meant business.

“Good dog!” Emma said kneeling to clip the leash to Ditie’s harness and scratching behind her ears. Ditie gave her a half-hearted lick.

“I know you didn’t get as much playtime as usual, but mama’s got things to do.”

The day seemed to drag on forever. After getting home from the park, Emma got dressed for work. She knew she only had half a day of work to do, but she needed to keep her mind off of the fact that Killian was going to call again.

Her mind started drifting while she was doing some of, what she considered, pointless paperwork. She really hadn’t dated much. Growing up in the foster system had not left room for relationships. Any time she’d made a friend, she’d end up leaving. And living in a world before email and the internet, it wasn’t easy to keep in touch. So she’d stopped trying. When she’d ended up in Boston and meeting Ruby, friends had started to come more easily. Ruby wouldn’t take no for an answer when she’d invite her places. Asking didn’t mean she had a choice. Emma was thankful for that now. Without Ruby she wouldn’t have met Mary Margaret, who had been a good friend of hers in high school, and had moved to the big city with Ruby to go to college while Ruby waitressed in her grandmother’s diner. Ruby’s grandmother had called them the Three Musketeers, but after awhile Mary Margaret met David and Ruby had met Dorothy. Sure they had tried to set Emma up, but just because they knew people who were single didn’t mean they were the right person for Emma (she grimaced when thinking about Graham, a friend of Ruby’s, who happened to be in law enforcement, and that was all they had in common).

But Killian, there was just something about him. She hoped it wasn’t all a facade. Something constructed for his online persona. That his picture wasn’t a fake and everything he wrote was copied from somewhere else. Her bail bonds instincts were not screaming at her that she was being catfished though. Her heart was practically singing and telling her this guy was it. Something she never thought she’d ever think in her life. Not after life had let her down so many times before.

“Hey, Emma!” The voice of her boss broke her out of her trip down memory lane. He was a short, grumpy man named Leroy, but he’d taken her under his wing when she was tired of waiting tables and taught her everything she knew about bail bonds. “Are you done with that paperwork yet? You’ve been staring at your laptop for the past half hour and you haven’t moved a muscle.”

“Um, yes. Sorry. Just thinking,” Emma said. She finished printing out everything that was needed and handed it to Leroy. She checked the time: a little after noon. She decided to text Ruby to see if she was available for lunch. She was.

“Bye Leroy. See you Monday.” Unless something important came up, Emma had most weekends free. The weekends were for committing crimes, not jumping bail apparently.

Emma entered the diner and saw Ruby in their usual booth in the back that was usually reserved for the manager during lunch. Ruby now managed the diner that her grandmother owned. Emma slid into the booth and immediately started to freak out.

“I missed a phone call from him this morning. I was asleep and I missed his damn call,” she lamented. Emma banged her arms and head on the table.

Ruby, with her wolfish grin, said nothing, just motioned for the server to come to the booth.

“Give me the roast beef sandwich with french fries and a Coke, and my friend here will have a grilled cheese, onion rings, and a hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon.” Ruby turned back to Emma as the server walked away to prepare the order.

“Thanks.” Emma said.

“Look, Emma, I know you have it bad for this guy, which is so weird because you never fall for men like this, but you have to get yourself under control.” Emma attempted to interrupt at this point but Ruby gave her a look which shut her down. “Did he leave a message?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say he’d call later?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you getting all out of sorts about?” Ruby asked taking a sip of the soda that had just been placed in front of her.

“I’m just...nervous. This is not me. You’re right, I don’t get nervous over men. David said I was playing the damsel in distress the other night and to cut it out. What if I meet him and he’s nothing like I thought?” Emma asked slightly anxious. She restlessly swiped her finger through her whipped cream and licked it off.

“And what if he’s better? What if he’s the ultimate perfect man for you, Emma?” Ruby challenged back. “You need to stop asking ‘What if?’ because that will lead you down a path you don’t want to go.” Ruby stared at her until Emma nodded her understanding.

“Now stop freaking out so we can eat lunch together, because I have a feeling that once you two meet, I’ll never get to have you to myself again,” Ruby said with a huge grin on her face.

It was two by the time Emma and Ruby finished lunch. Emma headed back to her apartment and then took Ditie out for a walk. She might have gone back to the park, but she had too much nervous energy to work off. They walked around the neighborhood. Emma wondered where Killian’s work was. Most likely near the shore since it was a boat touring company. Although, maybe he worked out of a corporate office somewhere else. Technically, she could just look up the address, but she wanted to find things out organically, rather than research.

After an hour of wandering around, Emma and Ditie finally headed home. Ditie immediately lapped up the water in her bowl and then padded over to her dog bed. She huffed a few times while she circled around and then flopped down for a nap.

Emma would have loved to take a nap as well, but she was not going to risk missing Killian’s phone call. Instead, she put on the Food Network and mindlessly watched one of their many cooking competition shows.

At exactly 4 o’clock, Emma’s phone rang.

“Be cool, Emma, be cool.” she said to herself. She let it ring twice before she picked it up, not wanting to come off like she was desperately waiting for his call.

“Hello?” she said casually.

“Emma Swan? It’s Killian Jones. It’s great to finally hear your voice,” he said.

“Yours too. I’m so sorry I missed your call this morning. A little too much wine last night and some weird dreams had me completely out.” She said.

“Weird dreams?” he responded. God, his voice was so much better than on the voicemail. She could only imagine how it would be in person.

“My friend, Mary Margaret, and I decided to watch Alice in Wonderland, while drinking wine. So, I dreamed that we were on a date and it had some overt tea party themes going on.” Emma said.

“Dreaming of me already?” Killian responded with a slight hint of arrogance, but nothing too off-putting. She did just tell him he was in her dream. Emma responded with an eye roll but also and embarrassed giggle.

Killian thought that giggle was the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Look, Emma,” Killian began, “I know this is extremely short notice, but would you be interested in going out with a dashingly, handsome man tonight?” He held his breath.

Emma paused thinking of how to respond, “Is George Clooney in town? I thought he was married?”

Killian let out a barking laugh. “Ok, I deserved that.” He paused to regroup, “But seriously, are you available tonight?”

“Yes, “ Emma began, not even giving any pretense that she might have to think it over, “I would love to go out with you tonight, Killian.”

Please leave comments and reblog! Also, let me know if you want to be tagged when other chapters post.

@profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @mariakov81 @hollyethecurious

#cs au ff #cs online dating #cs pet dating #are they every going to meet #guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out #and yes I did sleep through the first time my husband called #no way was I awake at 8 in the morning on the weekend

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laketaj24 · 7 years ago

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Ragnarssons Headcannon: The Jealous Brother

Author’s Note: This is as requested, catching up with the queue! It was fun to write! One of these will become a series, or at least a three part fic! Please Reblog your vote or comment below!!! Thank you!!! Polls will close Sunday!! And I’ll post the first part next week!! Taglist open!!

Requested by Anon: Okay for the possible angst headcanons how about the Ragnarssons being in love with someone but they like one of the other brothers?

Vikings Masterlist

Bjorn

It would eat at Bjorn to watch you desire his younger brother and not want him.

He would watch from afar at first. He like his father would be the one willing to be patient and watch what Hvitserk done to irritate you.

But the watching wouldn’t last soon because Bjorn is the brother that conquers foreign lands he’d have to have you

The night you and Hvitserk has the fight in the hall he would allow it to escalate to a point where you can’t stand the site of Hvitserk

Bjorn would laugh as Hvitserk, drunk and oblivious sent you home to sleep by yourself and he would make his move.

Under the onyx night sky of Kattegat he would walk behind you for a certain point and join you as the sounds of the Great Hall fade

“Is that how he normally treat you?” He’d ask. “It appears my younger brother learned no manners.”

He would make you laugh at his impersonations of his brother, swaggering drunk like him until you reached your doorstep and there he would stop. “You don’t have to be with someone like that, there are plenty of other men who would love to have you.”

“Are you referring to yourself, Prince Bjorn?”

“Is that what you want Y/N? Because if so, yes.” He’d shrug as if he had not planned the suave stroll into your heart. He’d give you one kiss on the cheek. “Sleep well.”

At the grab of his wrist he would stop his turn cornering you against the wall of your home. “What is it?”

“You should come in, my husband tends to find the bench of the Great Hall comfortable enough on nights like these. I’d rather not sleep alone.”

And under you wishes he’d enter the home and make you forget the woes of his younger, drunkard brother.

Ubbe

Ubbe is not okay with watching you gallivant around with Ivar. But Ubbe is not outward, he’s sneaky in his movements

He had noticed you were fond of animals, and he’d meet you down at the stables as you sprinkle the feed to the small goats. “Y/N imagine seeing you here?”

“It’s not hard to imagine, Ubbe you have been watching me have you not?” “It’s hard not to watch you.” He’d admit reaching into the sack of feed grabbing a handful of and tossing it to the ground

“I am not yours to watch.” You would say watching his brow furrow. “Now am I?”

Ubbe would stop his attempt that time noticing your irritation, he’s not shocked to find you not easily swayed after being with his younger brother for so long

The months would pass and Ivar would ready himself for the raid, ready to depart the attention he paid to you would dwindle as his attention would advert to what pleases the gods, rather than you.

Ubbe would fetch you the softest silks bringing them to you as an apology for his actions a few months back. “I saw this at market.” He would smile touching to purple cloths. “The beauty reminded me of you, and I was brought to realize I never apologized to you for my actions.”

You’d delight in the looks of the fine cloth holding it up. “Ubbe this is too much.” He’d smile at you. “Not too much for you Y/N, one thousands silks would never be enough to satiate my need for you.”

You would watch him walk away and head back to your hut where Ivar would planning with generals, as he done day in and day out. Then you would leave rushing through the lively streets of Kattegat until you found Ubbe resting against the stables, talking to the animals.

“Ubbe!” You call getting closer. “I should thank you properly.” He’d know that he won and try to hide his happiness with the illusion of confusion. “You mustn’t thank me at all.”

You would step into the stable covered by the roof. “But I want to.”

Hvitserk

Hvitserk was upset Ubbe had gotten you first, but not surprised. His older brother had a tendency to swoop in on new women.

You and Hvitserk are friends first and unlike the brothers he would respect your relationship with Ubbe. “Have you asked Ubbe if it is okay for you to come with me fishing?” You’d pout resting your hands on your hips. “I mustn’t ask him anything. He does not hold my hand like a child.” Hvitserk would laugh. “Still ask him.”

Hvitserk is playful. He teases you about Ubbe but he doesn’t do it with malice. “I’m sure Ubbe will buy you and all his other wives everything your hearts desire.” It was well known he planned to covet wives, as many as Odin will send. “They will all bow to you, the first wife of course.” You’d laugh. “Shut Up Hvitserk.” “Wouldn’t you want to be someone’s only wife?”

The thought did stick with you as you watched Ubbe smile at the sheildmaidens arriving from Hedeby. “Must you do that in front of me?” You gripe. Ubbe shrugs his shoulders. “I am just polite.”

You’d only watch the charade of his politeness for a while before you would find your own table at the back of the hall, wallowing your sorrows in your fifth pint of ale.

“I thought I would join you.” Hvitserk sits close to you placing his hand on you or leg. “Are you okay?”

“I would be better if he would be a little more respectful.”

“True he is undeserving of you.” He grimaces. “But it’s up to you to find the courage to leave him.”

Hvitserk wouldn’t push you into something with him, he’d be the friend to you and for that you would love him more.

Ivar

When you’d returned from the Mediterranean with Bjorn you had changed. Your eyes had seen something new, the glory of the bloodied battlefield had made you wiser, prouder to be of Kattegat

“Welcome back Y/N.” Ivar would greet raising the curved horn to you. “I see you have earned your scars.” He would reach out to you touching the healed line down your face.

Ivar is not okay with your attaxhment to Bjorn. He doesn’t agree with it or understand it.

“It seems my brother has gotten his claws in you.” He would say once Bjorn left the table. “He’s not the smartest of us, you know?” You’d roll your eyes. “And you are Ivar?” “Of course I am, my father knew. Everyone knows.” You’d smirk. “I think perhaps your arrogance exceeds your wit.”

Ivar would keep his distance mad that you insulted him but he knows his brother well enough to know that very relationship he has crumbled at the weight of his own ambitions. Bjorn would start planning the next raid, and though it is your intent to travel with him he wouldn’t listen to your ideas, telling you to remain quiet during pans with his brothers.

“I would never silence a pretty mouth like yours.” Ivar would say appearing next to you. “Not when it has so much logic. I think your plan was right.” You’d turn to him noticing the sincerity in his voice. “Thank you, Ivar.”

To your surprise he wouldn’t make a move on you just listen to your complaints, until Bjorn was unable to be understanding and the one person you find yourself running to Ivar.

It would then be over as he laid his claim to you not caring what Bjorn would say.

“Y/N, let’s leave.” Bjorn says. “No, she’s good and comfortable here.” Ivar places his fork down smiling over at you. “You can go Bjorn, it appears Y/N has found a new one to love.”

Taglist: @ivarsshieldmadien @equalstrashflavoredtrash @whenimaunicorn @akamaiden @siren-queen03 @titty-teetee @sparklemichele @oddsnendsfanfics @imgoldielikehawn @greennightspider @tomarisela @scumyeol @raindrop-dewdrop @naaladareia @vikingsmania @readsalot73 @amour-quinn @wheredidallthedreamersgo @unsure-but-trying @ceridwenofwales @leaderradiante @microsmacrosandneedles @valynsia @captstefanbrandt @therealcalicali @lol-haha-joke @b-j-d @cinnabearice @tephi101 @grungyblonde @ivarswickedqueen @honestsycrets @ivarslittlebadgirll @igetcarriedawaywithyou@loveviera @wilddrabble @earthsmightiestasses @sincerelysinister @dangerousvikings @queen-see-ya-in-valhalla @ivaraddict @tgrrose @pixiedustandfairywings @luci-her @wakanda-inspired @thevikingsheaux @lil-lit-bit @im5ftbutmythroat66 @nik-writes @funmadnessandbadassvikings @riottkatt @athroatfullofglass @boo-youwhoreee @honeyofthegods

#vikings #laketaj24 #ivar the boneless #ubbe #laketa j writes #ivars heathen army #ivar ragnarsson #hvitserk #bjorn ragnarsson #bjorn lothbrok #bjorn ironside #ivar #ubbe ragnarsson #ubbes wolfpack #hvitserks heathen feast

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canaryatlaw · 6 years ago

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Alright so we’re somewhere on the Ohio turnpike and I’m writing in the notes section on my phone because we should be getting to the Airbnb sometime soonish so I wanted to get a jump on writing this out. Today’s been pretty decent. The plan for this weekend was initially wake up early Saturday and drive to Cleveland, do Con, stay overnight at Airbnb and drive back Sunday, but concert tickets for one of Jess’ KPop bands went on sale this morning and she really wanted to have the best chance of getting them so we changed the plan to drive there Saturday evening, stay overnight, do con Sunday and drive back Sunday evening. So I woke up at 8:45 because the concert tickets went on sale at 10 am New Jersey time (because it’s in New Jersey) with a pre-queue opening 10 minutes beforehand, and if you were in the pre-queue you get randomly placed in the actual queue, whereas if you just join the queue afterwards you get put at the end. So I just woke up and leaned over and got my laptop and got on the website without doing anything else.

Now, yesterday there were tickets for BTS, who is the KPop band you’ve probably been seeing everywhere because they’re really popular, and the concert is at a football field that has 50,000 seats, so there were plenty to go around. This is a lesser known band that’s playing a concert hall with like, 3,000 seats, so when you get randomly placed in the queue and it just says the typical “2,000+ people in front of you” for one that’s supposed to be expected, the other it’s a big oh fuck. Jess is at her place doing this on her phone as well, and we both get “2,000+” off the random queue at which point we were like UGH. Mine started moving relatively quickly though and I got in at like 9:20 but at that point there already wasn’t anything left that you could actually get two seats together, and like we spent a while trying, but it just wasn’t happening, so we had to say oh well and move on.

After we gave up I got dressed and ready then we met for brunch at the usual place. It was busy so we got seated in the secondary section we’ve only been in like, twice, which was fine lol and we still had our normal waitress who knows our orders. The waitress also happened to notice we both had our nails done since we got gel manicures in New York a few weeks ago and she came back over with a pamphlet for the nail place next door that she also works at and offered to give us a discount, which was perfect because we were looking for a place to get them done like next weekend before C2E2 and it hadn’t even occurred to me that there was a place around the fucking corner from us, so that was awesome and we’ll probably do that next weekend along with seeing Captain Marvel. After we finished eating we sat for a bit so Jess could continue drinking coffee (with refills) before paying and leaving (we also always tip well so they actually really like us there because I’m a strong believer in decent tipping because being a waiter is Hard).

So once we left we walked back to our respective apartments so Jess could shower and pack and such before we left. I didn’t really have anything I needed to do because I packed last night, so I mostly just sat with my laptop and watched a few episodes of Reign, which I’m still in the first season of, but MAN has that show gotten wild. Like first they actually have her marry one of the brothers instead of everlasting love triangle like I expected, and then the king loses his fucking mind and like forces the girl he’s sleeping with to marry his other son and all sorts of wild stuff, so that’s been crazy. I am definitely enjoying it though.

Around 2:30 or so Jess came and picked me up and we started the drive to Cleveland (this is for Wizard World Cleveland if I didn’t mention that at some point). It had started raining a bit when we were leaving but it wasn’t very bad, the gps was being annoying so we had to configure that so that it didn’t take us on a route that’s 4 hours longer to avoid tolls. So we ended up putting in the address of a Cracker Barrel that’s just over the Indiana border that we knew of and drove to there. Once there we proceeded to eat at said Cracker Barrel because much like old people, we love Cracker Barrel. Everything was very good, except initially they brought me green beans instead of Mac and cheese as a side with my meal which was fine because they brought the Mac and cheese like two minutes later, but there were SO MANY GREEN BEANS on my plate 😂 like they were taking up half the fucking plate, but I mostly just found this amusing and not something to actually get peeved about.

So after we finished we paid and left, got gas and headed out to cross Indiana. As we drove at one point the rain got very, very intense, which was Scary, but thankfully we weren’t in it for that long and it let up soon after. We stopped at a rest stop a while ago to use the bathroom and get Starbucks because we wanted caffeine, and we stopped at another one like half an hour ago to refill gas just to make sure we had enough because we had like just less than what we would’ve needed to get there so we might as well just fill up and be good with it. And since then we’ve been driving and I started writing this. We lost an hour driving into another time zone and of course tonight is also daylight savings because of course it is, so we lose another hour from that which is annoying, but oh well. We just paid a toll and we’re like half an hour out, so I’ll probably stop here for now and do a quick catch up right before going to sleep.

Ok, we’re at the Airbnb after some slight stress about getting here but we made it, since we are losing hours I am going to sleep now. Goodnight peeps. Hope you’re having an awesome weekend.

#daily journal #March 2019 #Jess tag

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soporis · 2 years ago

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31/01/23

Ok I’m also going to count this as journalling because just because it’s stream of consciousness doesn’t mean it doesn’t count!! it just doesn’t have the physical structure of the prompts when I’m writing them down but sometimes you just need to brain dump

I also like the trend I started in the sault of writing free form the plan for everyday so maybe that’s what I’ll do here on sundays, so that’s at least 52 journal entries right there for the bingo

anyway ok today was normal and will be chatting to mar in 20 mins while watching stuff and making my queue. had a matcha so I’ll be awake for hopefully two episodes but maybe not that long. want to also transfer all my vitamins, eat, and fix my nails (hand and foot) during this call. bedroom cleaning got a little tidied but really needs a full day dedicated to it

wednesday: normal day but not really. in the office until 2:15, off to wisdom teeth consult, then back home and maybe finishing up the work day. shower, maybe try to tidy a bit more, and then off to caro’s for sewing. pack a bag with your sewing projects and everything you need to stay at nick’s for possibly like 3 days. caro’s then nick’s after. peaceful.

thursday: wfh at his house, probably go home that night? kinda undecided but if you’re home take a bath despite JUST taking a shower that day bc friday drinks are happening and saturday table building is happening.

friday: wfh (probably at your own home. thinking I won’t spend the night at nick’s after all because I will be spending this night at his and then also sunday night, so kinda chaotic) then drinks with caro + cassa at helm. cassa is bringing cards despite this being my event. should you maybe actually sleep at your house tonight bc it is so close? hm. mystery.

saturday: luckily you’ve budgeted out the morning routine to only be home for sunday morning so you actually have this flexibility here. you’re gonna be at his to build a ladder and that will be two hobbies in one week started!! try to go home tonight, spend some time with cassa and maybe NOW take a bath.

sunday: regular morning routine, dnd in the day, probably some meal prep in the afternoon, going to his in the night. this week is a lot of time spent together but next week will be less bc of IUD and rachel visit, so is hopefully forgiven. this week is looking up to be pretty peaceful actually. try to stick to your wake up times, and also clean inbetween every moment if you can. that being said, the 8th and the 10th are days off and you might want something to distract from the pain on the 8th and there is no way that cleaning the house is actually going to take more than like 6 hours, so even if you procrastinate it ALL until day of the party people still won’t be like wow this house is disgusting.

#i want to tag this to track it #oh back to #personal #bc thats where I had other stuff #from teenage years

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winterune · 7 years ago

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A Persona 5 Fanfiction - Something Perfectly Normal

Word count: 3838

Summary: The second week of Ren’s transfer, the second Sunday. It’s his birthday and he doesn’t know what he should do.

A/N: a self-indulgent fic I write for my birthday. So, this is a present from me to me, featuring Ren^^ (since Ren doesn’t have an official birthday). Set right after Ren transferred to Shujin Academy, so he’s still adapting to his new environment. It also contains some allusions to another p5 fic I’m currently writing about Ren’s past (the mentions of his mother and foster parents), and it’s my headcanon of who Ren is (helps me in writing his character too). I don’t delve too deep about them here though.

The hum of the television filled the background. Another recap news of the recent psychological breakdowns. Ren was sitting on the counter with the usual serving of curry Sojiro gave him every morning.

“Do you have plans for today?” the middle-aged man asked from behind the counter.

The same question he posed last Sunday. Ren wasn’t sure if he meant well or he just wanted him away from café every day he had off. But his reluctant guardian hadn’t once looked at him, and he had his back to him. Indifferent. As long as Ren didn’t create any trouble, Sojiro didn’t care less what he did.

Ren shrugged. “I’ll go somewhere,” he said quietly.

Sojiro gave a noncommittal grunt.

Ren brought another spoonful of his curry into his mouth. It melted immediately and it was a struggle not to finish everything so quickly. Despite his attitude toward him, Sojiro’s really was the best curry Ren ever ate. Not to mention the coffees he brewed.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Sojiro seemed to notice Ren’s reaction to his breakfast. His lips stretched into a small smile though he didn’t comment on it.

On the floor to the side, Morgana was eating his own breakfast from a bowl Ren had bought at a nearby pet store. Filled with more of Sojiro’s cooking, of course. The cat had also preferred it to the cat food Ren had bought.

“You know…” Morgana said between mouthfuls. “I can never…get tired of this.”

Ren grinned. “Don’t talk while you’re eating, Morgana,” he said.

“Yeah…”

Sojiro chuckled. “Seems like he loves it.”

Ren’s grin faded. “He does.”

Sojiro glanced at him. “Make sure you bring him with you when you go out.”

“I will.” Ren finished his food and drink. “Thanks for the food.��

***

“Where are you going?” Morgana asked from inside Ren’s bag as they headed outside. The café had just opened but it was still too early for anything else to be open—except for the local stores.

“Somewhere,” Ren mused.

“Aren’t we going to head to the Palace today?” Morgana asked again.

“Not today.”

Morgana was silent for a moment, before asking again, “Then, what are you going to do today?” just as Ren stopped before the stairs up to a batting cage in the neighborhood. Morgana popped his head from Ren’s bag and peaked his head over his shoulder. “A batting cage,” he read the sign. “You’re going to a batting cage?”

Ren shrugged. “No harm in it.” He walked up the stairs, only to find the door to the batting cage closed.

“It’s closed,” Morgana commented.

I can see that, Ren thought to himself. There was a sign posted on the door. “Opens at noon,” he read.

Ren didn’t move. To be honest, he didn’t have anything in mind—where to go, what to do. The Palace? They hadn’t prepared enough. Maybe he should just spend the day preparing for their infiltration.

“So, what are you going to do?” Morgana asked again.

Ren glanced at the cat staring at him from behind his shoulder. “Do you have fun riding in my bag?”

“Wha—”

Ren smirked.

And maybe because Morgana wasn’t exactly a cat, but Ren could see the slight stretch of his mouth to a reluctant smirk as he huffed. “Well, I’m going wherever you go,” he said and went back inside the bag.

“You’re heavy, Morgana,” Ren commented again.

“Shut up!”

***

His phone vibrated as Ren waited at the station for a train to Shibuya. It was Ryuji, asking when they were going to go to the Palace. Why was everyone asking him that?! Ren replied it wouldn’t be today.

“I’ll be hanging out in Shibuya if you changed your mind,” Ryuji replied Ren’s text.

Well, good thing Ren was going to Shibuya too. Maybe he’d see Ryuji for a while.

It didn’t take long to reach Shibuya and even in the morning, these parts were already so crowded. It had been two weeks since he moved here and he hadn’t had the chance to explore much of the city. With everything that went on at school, Kamoshida, and the discovery of the Metaverse, not to mention how everyone kept bugging him when to go, when to go, when to go every single time they saw him… Maybe he should take the time to explore today.

The stairs from the subway led to an underground station and somewhere in it, Ren saw a crowded drink stand. He had noticed the drink stand a couple times but it was never as crowded as it was today. As he approached it, he saw how the people behind the counter looked so busy and the queue was so long. A sign read “Sunday Special Drink”—and it was expensive. Not worth it.

Ren spent most of the day wandering aimlessly, Morgana sometimes giving unnecessary comments on whatever caught Ren’s interest. Unnecessary, but still a welcome nonetheless. It made him feel less lonely. He hadn’t felt this lonely in years. On this particular day. Maybe he should just buy something and be done with it. He could spend the rest of the day in his room. Sojiro wouldn’t mind that, right?

He did just that and went inside the first store he saw in the underground mall. A music store. Racks of CDs lined the wall. The store clerk greeted him as the door slid open for him. There were only a few customers beside him inside. He took a look around, but didn’t find anything that interested him.

“Do you have somewhere you want to go, Morgana?” Ren asked as he exited the store.

“Hmm… nothing in particular,” Morgana replied. “Though I wouldn’t mind going to Mementos.” Even from behind his shoulder, Ren could feel Morgana narrowing his eyes at him. “You promised you’d help me recover my memories.”

Ren sighed. “I promise, but not today, okay?”

“Hmph, yes well, it’s still a while before your expulsion. There’s no harm in taking a break once in a while.”

Ren nodded. “It doesn’t do well to rush things.”

Still, that didn’t answer his initial question. Where should they go? Ren wandered around the mall for a while, checking every store. Everything was so expensive. He had noted a store that sold things that might be helpful for their Palace infiltration. But he didn’t have that much money. Maybe he should look for a job? There was some part-time job adds outside if he wasn’t mistaken.

He was just finished looking around a flower shop when he spotted a familiar face walking down one of the corridors. Ann… in casual clothes. At the same moment, Ann noticed him there and her face broke into a grin.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, right hand reaching high in a wave.

Ren smiled and wove back.

Morgana, hearing Ann’s voice, immediately popped his head from the bag and climbed onto Ren’s shoulder. “Lady Ann!” to which Ren cringed slightly but couldn’t help the grin on his face every time he saw Morgana reacted to Ann.

“Hi, Morgana,” Ann returned his greeting with a bright smile, then shifted her gaze back to Ren. “What are you doing here, Ren?”

Ren shrugged. “Just walking around.”

“This guy can’t make up his mind where to go,” Morgana added.

“Oh! You haven’t had the time to explore, have you?” Ann asked. “Want me to take you around?”

“Where do you have in mind?”

“Umm… well…” Ann thought for a moment. “There’s a sweet shop, and a diner in Central Street… a buffet that’s rumored to be super good but super expensive, so that’s out of the question. Oh! They sell the best crepes just outside the diner! It’s really good. You have to try some!”

Ren chuckled. “Everything you’ve listed are all food.”

“Sweets, mind you,” Ann corrected. “And deserts.”

“Aren’t they the same?” Ren laughed.

“I’m interested in those crepes,” Morgana said. “What are they?”

“Oh, they’re—”

“You just ate, Morgana,” Ren said. “You’ll get fat if you eat too much.”

“Say what?!”

Ren laughed again. Really, it’s so easy to forget everything and enjoy himself when he was with his friends. “Do you know some place where you can just stroll around?”

“Hmm… there’s this park that I like to go to,” Ann began. “But it’s a ways away. Not anywhere near Shibuya. You need to take the train there.”

“Oh…” Ren thought for a moment. A park sounded good. “What’s this park called.”

“Inokashira. Want me to go there with you?”

Going there with Ann… if anyone saw them together, no doubt more rumors would spread. Half of him thought adding more false rumor to the already existent false rumor wouldn’t change his situation. But another half of him just wanted all this crap to die down soon and for people to leave him alone.

“I’ll pass. Maybe I’ll look around Central Street.”

Ann nodded, but she looked unconvinced. “Well, I’ll be here if you need anything. Just text me.”

Ren nodded. He waved her goodbye.

“You okay, Ren?”

Her question caught him off guard. Did his face betray his emotions? Or was Ann that observant?

Ren put on his usual smile. “I’m fine.”

***

Central Street was as packed as ever. Ren monitored his way through the sea of people and found himself in front of a bookstore. Just the thing he was looking for.

“Don’t you still have that book you borrowed from the library?” Morgana asked.

“I’m just going to browse,” Ren said before he entered the store.

That was indeed his initial intention. But being in the bookstore itself was another thing all together and in no time, he already had several books he wanted to buy in his hand.

“Aren’t those too many?” Morgana asked.

Three books. Not really. But maybe Morgana was right. He didn’t have that much allowance to begin with. It was easy to lose himself when he’s shopping for books.

“Why don’t you choose this for the moment?” Morgana asked, nodding at the cheapest one. It was thin—probably not even two-hundred pages. He’d finish it in a day.

“Nah, I’ll choose this one,” Ren said, going with a book about a dog. He didn’t really know what present to give himself. This should do.

***

“Oh! An arcade!”

Ren eyed the building, then eyed Morgana. “You can’t even play it.”

“Shut up, Ren!” Morgana snapped, but his eyes glowed again as he looked at the building in red. “Let’s go inside.” His eyes were practically bulging out.

Ren sighed and did as he was told.

Well, Ren had never played in an arcade before either. Never wanted to. Never had the time to. Never had a friend who asked him to. He never went inside one—had only just looked at it from outside. And… inside was exactly as how he imagined it to be. Aisles of game machines, children and teens of all ages—even adults—were using every single one, loud.

He didn’t like the place. Morgana didn’t seem to.

“Let’s go,” Ren said. And Morgana nodded his assent.

And just as they turned around to leave, they spot a slouched figure leaning against the vending machine. Purple jacket, blonde-dyed hair.

“Ryuji?”

Ryuji looked up at Ren’s voice. His eyes grew wide.

“What are you doing here?”

Ren approached his friend as he shrugged. “Just walking around.”

“He’s been walking around since morning,” Morgana popped up from the bag.

Ryuji jumped in surprise. “Dude! You’re still carrying the cat in your bag?!”

“Mor-ga-na!” Morgana emphasized each syllable of his name. “I’m not a cat! How many times do I have to tell you until you understand, blondie?”

“What was that?!”

“Can you two please quiet down?” Ren hissed. “Look!”

There was a sign on the wall that clearly said no pets allowed. Both boys looked at Morgana simultaneously. Despite what the cat said, it was still a cat, and it was meowing quite loud. So Ren decided to pull out before anyone could catch them and Ryuji followed suit.

“You shouldn’t have yelled so loud, Morgana!” Ryuji complained.

“What? Who was picking a fight in the first place?!”

“Gaahh!! Now they’re going to keep an eye on me for sure!”

“You weren’t even playing anything in there!”

“What were you doing there?” Ren asked.

Ren noticed Ryuji’s slight stiffening of his body. “Nothing.” His voice was unusually quiet.

Morgana poked his head over Ren’s shoulder again. “Let me guess!”—and he was grinning from ear to ear in a way a cat would grin—“You were bored so you just decided to go someplace in random.”

“Hey! I wasn’t—” Ryuji shouted, to which Ren immediately shushed. “—bored…”

His voice trailed off and Ren could detect the desperate attempt to hide his embarrassment. He couldn’t help the slight laugh that escaped his lips.

“Oh, come on! Not you too!”

And that just made Ren laugh louder. Ryuji looked exasperated, but no sooner did he join Ren’s laugh and even Morgana was chuckling.

Both of them had nothing to do and it was nearing lunch time. Ren had actually planned to go to the Inokashira Park alone and enjoy his present, but Ryuji invited him to go have lunch. A ramen restaurant he knew that had the best ramen Ren just had to try it. The price was also very affordable for a high schooler’s wallet.

Morgana was hungry too, though he wasn’t that enthusiastic for ramen either. “They probably won’t allow pets in there, either,” he mentioned. He was right.

As they were musing where to go and what to do, a call drew their attention to an incoming figure, rushing down the street and through the crowd, blonde pigtails flying in the air.

“Heeeeyyy!!!”

Ann was running toward them, waving her hand high up.

Ann had a sudden craving for those crepes she’d talked about when she spotted them across the street. Hearing their story and their plan to go to a ramen restaurant, Ann agreed they wouldn’t let Morgana inside.

“I think there are no pet restrictions at the diner,” Ann said.

“The one in Central Street?” Ryuji asked.

Ann nodded. “Want to head there together?”

***

The diner wasn’t much, but it was a really nice place to hang out. A nice place to study too, Ren noted. The warm atmosphere, the polite hummed background noise. It would be the perfect place to retreat when it rained too, said Morgana.

It was fun being with them. This was probably the first time the four of them ever hung out like this. And Ren watched as Ryuji and Ann laughed and joked about as if nothing weighed their mind.

His phone vibrated. It was his foster mother.

What are you doing? Are you having fun? Did you get our present? Happy birthday again! We love you.

Present…

Even after what Ren did to them, the trouble he had caused… they still thought of him as their son. And they went to all the trouble to send a present to him. And despite the guilt he was feeling, he couldn’t help the smile spreading across his face.

He didn’t realize Ryuji and Ann had stopped joking around. He didn’t realize they had a funny look on their faces. And he didn’t realize Ryuji had sneaked up beside him. And just as Ren was about to type something, Ryuji grabbed his phone from his hand and flipped through the email.

“Hey—”

“Let’s see, what made our leader smile so bright like that…”

But Ren was too late and his phone was already in Ryuji’s hand and Ryuji had already read his foster mother’s email.

He caught the word Ryuji was mouthing.

Birthday.

Saw the understanding clicked in.

Saw the surprise registering as he whipped his head at Ren and Ren wanted to shut his eyes and turned back time.

“Is it your birthday today?”

“What?” Ann whipped her own head at him.

“Birthday?!” Morgana did too.

And Ren would have laughed but he had no energy to laugh and he wanted to hide from the embarrassment.

The silence stretched on.

“Dude!” Ryuji exploded. “Why didn’t you tell us it was your birthday?”

“Because there’s nothing to tell,” Ren said, grabbing his phone from Ryuji’s slackening grip to hide his embarrassment. “It’s just a birthday.”

“Just a birthday?” Ryuji was aghast. “Dude! It’s your birthday! Of course we should celebrate it!” And he called in a waited.

“So that’s why you didn’t want anything to do with the Palace today,” Morgana mused.

“Happy birthday, Ren!” Ann said, beaming.

“Yeah! Happy birthday!” Ryuji was clasping his shoulder and beaming too.

Everyone was beaming and Morgana was grinning and the aura was toxic and Ren found himself beaming back.

The waiter came and asked for orders.

“We should splurge a bit,” Ann said as she scanned the menu.

“Don’t worry. We got it covered, okay?” Ryuji was following Ann’s example.

And Ren wanted to stop them, because this was embarrassing and there was no stopping them both as they began adding one order after another.

He never had friends. The only celebration he had ever done was with his mother, and his foster parents after his mother passed away. Even then, they had always had a simple celebration. More so when his mother was still alive, because his mother was always busy though somehow she had managed to always be there with him on his birthday with a small cake and slightly more extravagant dinner.

And seeing Ann and Ryuji doing this, as if they had done this countless times, as if this was perfectly normal…

He felt something small pressed against his side when the waiter finally left. Morgana was pressing his body against him, a small warmth, the most comfort the cat had ever given him ever since they met.

And Ren couldn’t help the smile as he said, “Thanks, guys.”

And he meant it.

***

Even with the splurge, they still had a lot of money to spare. They insisted to buy him a present, to which Ren declined because them being with him that day was already a present for him. Ryuji consented, but Ann wouldn’t take no for an answer. So in the end, Ann brought them to the underground mall and there was a photo booth there. And Ryuji was reluctant though and Ren was just watching from behind as Ann forcefully pushed Ryuji into the box.

“Ren?” She looked back and Ren grinned at her scowl. He rose both hands and entered the box without a fight.

They took some photos, which turned out surprisingly good.

It wasn’t much. But really, this was the best thing he had ever received from a friend.

***

He arrived at LeBlanc that night, exhausted from being dragged around by Ann. There were still customers inside—the old couple and someone who claimed to be a critic—so Ren immediately made his way to the stairs at the back of the store after greeting Sojiro. But Sojiro called him back before he got past the counter and said there was a package for him today.

“Your parents sent you something,” Sojiro said.

Foster parents, Ren wanted to say, as he set his bag down and Morgana poked his head out.

“Thank you.”

A small box. Seemed fragile. He’d look inside it later. But then he noticed the letter written on the box. And they were clearly spelled “Happy Birthday”.

Damn it. Does that mean Sojiro now knows too?

Well, he probably wouldn’t care even if he saw it.

He took the box upstairs without another look at his guardian.

He set the bag on the table and Morgana leaped out. He stretched his body. “Finally I’m free!”

“That’s why you should walk on your own once in a while,” Ren commented with a laugh.

Morgana acted like he hadn’t heard and Ren scoffed.

“What did they send you?” the cat inquired as Ren took a seat on his bed and began unwrapping the simple brown box.

A locket. And inside was a photo of his mother, his real mother, tucked neatly into the crevices. And his mother was smiling. Beautiful.

There was a note inside.

You may have only been our son for four years, but we have watched you grow since you were small. We love you, Ren. And we want you to know that it wasn’t your fault. It never was. You did the right thing helping that woman. And we want you to remember that. Just like your mother would have wanted you to.

It had broken their hearts when they found out about Ren’s trial. And it was the only thing they could do to stop him being sent to the detention center. Sent to probation. And Ren couldn’t stop feeling guilty yet grateful for all they had done for him.

“Hey, kid!”

It was probably an hour or two later when Sojiro suddenly called him down. All the customers were gone and Sojiro had cleaned the place up. Yet on the counter was a slice of cake and a candle on top. And Ren stopped on his tracks.

Sojiro noticed his pause. And a rare smile graced his lips.

“What are you doing? Come on and sit down here.”

“What…is this?”

The old man scoffed. “Today’s your birthday, isn’t it? Have a sit and have your birthday cake.”

Ren was still unsure. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. At least, he didn’t think it was.

Noting Ren’s hesitation, Sojiro sighed. “For the love of—sit down!”

The stern tone caused Ren to quicken his footstep and take the seat before the cake.

“How old are you today?”

“Seven...teen,” Ren replied warily.

Sojiro grunted. And maybe it was because of the sudden change of attitude, but Ren suddenly found the grunt was Sojiro’s way to show his affection.

Ren didn’t do anything. His gaze kept shifting from the cake to Sojiro to everywhere else, wondering if maybe this was a dream or he was imagining things.

“Well? Make a wish and blow the candle.”

“Oh—uh—yeah…”

Ren stared at the glowing candle. The fire dancing. It was a simple slice of chocolate cake with a single candle. Feeling nothing would go wrong with blowing the candle, Ren did just that.

And as the fire sputtered out, Sojiro smiled. A genuine beaming smile Ren hadn’t seen before.

“Happy birthday, kid.”

“Uh…thanks…”

Sojiro snorted. “What kind of response is that?”

“It’s just… not like you.”

“Did you think I was some kind of cold, heartless bastard?” his guardian asked with a scoff.

“I…did, actually.”

A silence. Then Sojiro laughed. A hearty laugh that came from his stomach. And it made Ren want to laugh too because maybe this was who Sojiro really was.

“I’m sorry if I gave you that impression, kid. But a birthday is a birthday. It’s perfectly normal for us to celebrate it.”

And Sojiro smiled again, a warm smile this time, and maybe, Ren could learn to love this place.

~ END ~

Thanks for reading^^

More of my Persona 5 fanfic here

#persona #persona 5 #p5 #ren amamiya #ryuji sakamoto #ann takamaki #morgana #sojiro sakura #writing #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my story #persona fanfic #p5 fanfic

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digitalvisualdiary-blog · 7 years ago

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BYE BYE, SAN FRANCISCO

I can’t believe May is already coming to an end! I feel like since this is my last week my days have been passing by me so fast. There is just so much happening right now! Don’t get me wrong – I love to keep busy!

On Monday I cycled all day. I took the chance to take my last photos here. I have been getting lots of use out of my bike. But this week I will really have to sell it. I will miss this bike. It took me everywhere!

The other days of the week I spent at the studio. When I got there on Tuesday, there was a birthday card and little present waiting for me… It was a shell filled with lip-gloss all the way from China! I loved it!

I had my last day on Thursday. I can tell you that the feeling was bittersweet. I am happy that I finished my internship. But it feels weird to leave the studio knowing that I might never come back here. I am so happy that I was able to work with such great artists with interests similar to mine. I feel like I lucked out. I have had a great time!

I’m leaving tomorrow, so I spent my Friday finishing up some work, packing, and organising things for my flight back home. So, everything is quite bare, at the moment. My room is almost empty! There was quite a lot that needed to be packed. My suitcase barely closed! But now that I’m all set, I’m ready to go home!

I left really early on Saturday morning because I had to take public transport to the airport. Getting there was an adventure of its own! I spent quit some time in the bus. But I love road trips. I love driving for hours. I just love everything about it! And the stunning scenery made it even better.

When I arrived at the airport I had some time to kill, as my flight was in the afternoon. I was there way too early! Fortunately, SFO it is a very large airport, so after queueing up for bag drops and security I just did a lot of shopping. There were so many fun shops and places to have lunch. This was also my last opportunity to buy some souvenirs!

Now I am on a plane, making my way back home. And I can’t wait to see everyone again

I landed on Sunday morning. My parents and sister were at the airport ready to pick me up with a balloon! On our way back home, we used our time in the car to fill each other in on what has been going on while we were apart. So much happened!

My time is all messed up. But I am trying my best to go back to ‘normal’. I tried to fight the sleep but earlier I gave in. I could not handle the time difference. But I tried!

Now I’m back in Roosendaal, writing this diary. I still cannot believe that it has been three months already! Time goes by way too fast!

As I said, this trip really was an adventure. I’m sure that the memory of the wonderful things I have seen and experienced will stay forever. I’ve completed my goals, which were finishing my amazing internship at the Jim Goldberg Studio, my photography project for school and I started on a project for The Mix.

I’m excited about everything I’ve done, and even more, about the fact that I did it all alone.

Before I leave, I just wanted to say thank you for all the support! This was my first time writing about my daily life. I hope you liked it!

#travel #Travelblog #travelphotography #blogger #blog

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systemfailuresunshine · 8 years ago

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A Long Time Coming... - Elsa Chapter 18

Author: @systemfailuresunshine

Summary: Year-round fluff for a soldier who just needs a hug, starting at Christmas! A chapter for a character I’ve only recenty learned to love...

Word Count: 1834

Warning(s): Swearing

A/N: At the bottom :)

The next morning you woke up first. You left a sleeping Bucky to gain a little more strength for the day by letting him have a lie-in. You tiptoed out of the room, pausing to grab a cardigan from the cupboard to wrap round yourself. It may nearly be June but in your opinion, that didn’t mean that the air conditioning needed to be on. Making your way quickly down to the kitchen, you paused to say good morning to Sam who was sitting on one of the bar stools drinking orange juice.

“You and Elsa sleep well last night?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

“Is everyone going to end up using that nickname?” you retorted.

“You didn’t answer the question,” he smirked.

“Bucky,” you emphasised. “and I slept fine, thank you.”

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” he said, putting his glass down and turning to face you.

“Is there something you’d like to ask?” you smiled.

“No, nothing,” he said.

You walked over to the fridge to grab yourself a muffin.

“Only,” Sam’s voice caused you to turn round, nearly dropping the muffin back into the fridge.

“I headed past your room last night on my way to bed and poked my head in, only to find you weren’t there.”

There was a teasing tone in his voice, though his face remained blank. Only the slight pull at the side of his mouth let you know he was testing you.

“Why were you checking up on me?”

“Maybe I wanted to take awful pictures that I could use against you,” he paused but the pull at the side of his mouth grew so that he was nearly smiling.

“Or maybe,” he continued. “Steve asked me to check on you to see if you were getting enough sleep. Either way, you weren’t there.”

“I slept in Bucky’s room last night,” you admitted, your cheeks growing red as you remembered the warm feeling of his arm around you, and your back pressed against his front. “Saves me having to travel down a few floors to check on him every couple of hours.”

Sam’s face dropped slightly but he regained composure. The hint of teasing appeared again.

“You worry too much,” he nudged your shoulder.

“It’s my job,” you shrugged as Bucky wandered into the kitchen.

“What’s your job?” he asked, walking over to kiss you.

“Worrying,” your tone was light as you set your muffin down and began pouring some water for him.

He grabbed you round the waist as you made to put the water on the counter. The contents slopped but miraculously stayed in the glass. Sam shuffled off the stool and backed out of the door.

“I’m going to the gym,” he said quickly, winking at you before leaving.

You rolled your eyes but became distracted by Bucky spinning you round to face him.

“Someone wasn’t in bed when I woke up,” he smiled, chuckling as you wriggled in his arms.

You placed your arms round his neck and kissed him before answering.

“I wasn’t aware you were expecting me to be. It isn’t my room,” you said.

He dropped his arms and picked up the glass of water, taking a piece of the muffin as well. You frowned at him but the look of fake innocence in his eyes made you laugh. Grabbing a piece for yourself, you mused out loud.

“FRIDAY, what day is it?”

“It’s Monday, May 29th,” came the answer.

“Shit!” you exclaimed, causing Bucky to put the glass down.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, worry lacing his words.

“It’s Tony’s birthday,” you said, thumping the heel of your hand to your forehead. “And I forgot. I feel awful.”

“I didn’t know,” his voice was soft.

“Not many people do,” you smiled sadly. “He doesn’t like to talk about it. For all the show and pizazz he puts out there, he's quite closed off when it comes to personal things."

"How come you know about it then?”

“I found him a few years ago, sitting in his workshop. He wasn’t focused on anything and he was mumbling about it being another year without them, another year alone. My heart broke just standing there. Somehow I managed to ground him, get him back in the room, but he wouldn’t talk about what had just happened. It was only a few days later he came and told me it was his birthday that day and he felt guilty about still living when his parents were dead,” you trailed off, seeing Bucky’s eyes darken.

“Hey,” you rushed over to him and placed your hands on either side of his face. “Look at me,” you instructed.

Hesitantly, he looked up at you. He was biting his bottom lip and almost as soon as his eyes had connected with yours, he looked away.

“Love, I’m here,” you said softly. “It was a long time ago, James, and it wasn’t your fault.”

His eyes softened and he looked back at you.

“It’s okay,” you stroked his hair with one hand, while brushing your thumb against his cheek with the other.

“Today is not about the past. Today is about the future. And today, we need to get a birthday present for Tony.”

Bucky leaned into your touch and closed his eyes, breathing deeply for a few moments before opening them again. He smiled lightly and turned his head to kiss your palm.

“I love you,” he said, as you pulled him close.

“I love you, too,” you whispered. “Now let’s go.”

You held out a hand to him and he took it gratefully, snatching the rest of the muffin in his other hand.

A few hours, and much deliberation, later, you returned to the Tower with a present and some wrapping paper in tow. Steve had bumped into you as you entered, surprised by the results of your shopping trip.

“Wrapping paper?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

Bucky shuffled slightly and you squeezed his hand.

“Tony,” you replied.

Steve nodded slowly and held out a rolled up piece of paper tied with brown string.

“My contribution,” he said.

“Why don’t you come with us?” you asked. “We’re just heading up to the workshop.”

“Are you sure it’s not gonna be too much?” Steve was hesitant.

“I do this every year,” you countered. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. We’ll take it slow.”

You found Tony in the workshop with his head in a cupboard: a normal occurrence for a Monday afternoon. You had helpfully stopped in the kitchen to grab some water and an energy bar because he probably hadn’t eaten all day.

You called out to him as you entered, and heard the familiar crash as something fell down behind him.

“Present,” he said, straightening up and cringing slightly at the crash. “It’ll be fine,” he brushed off. “How may I be of assistance today?”

“Well, despite the fact that you don’t want to acknowledge it, it is in fact your birthday today,” you smiled.

“It may be,” he replied, avoiding your gaze and instead eyeing the energy bar.

“And because you don’t want to acknowledge it, we’re coming to see you in here,” Steve said as Bucky made his way to your side.

You held out the energy bar, which he gratefully took, and put the water on an empty part of workbench. Tony nodded gratefully as he took a bite of the energy bar. He hummed thoughtfully as he took another bite.

“We can leave if you don’t want us here,” Bucky looked down. “I can… I can understand if you don’t.”

Tony swallowed the rest of the energy bar and placed the wrapper next to the glass of water.

“It’s alright, Barnes,” he said softly. “I’m glad...” He stopped and tried again.

“Thanks for being here.”

“We… we got this for you,” Bucky handed Tony the present, carefully wrapped in colourful paper.

"I’m presuming you didn’t wrap this," Tony smirked, his bravado reappearing.

"Nope, all them," Bucky replied, squeezing you closer, as he also found his footing.

Tony tried, and failed, to save the paper by peeling at it so ended up just ripping it. He chuckled, pulling the paper off fully to reveal a self-help book.

"This your idea?" he asked you.

You looked down but the edges of your mouth upturned. He crossed the small gap between you and pulled you close, one hand around your neck, the other around your waist.

"Thank you," he whispered in your ear.

You rubbed his back with one of your hands and squeezed his middle.

"We love you, Tony. Don’t forget that."

He pulled back and smiled warmly at you, his eyes crinkling at the sides.

“I also have something,” Steve held up his paper.

Tony untied the knot of string and uncurled the paper to reveal a charcoal drawing. His face softened before his trademark smirk broke through.

“You know you can’t just do this every time you want to get out of buying someone a present.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck.

“I can try,” he laughed. “I could also do this as well, but I might just have to reserve it for you.”

Tony’s face screwed up in confusion as Steve made his way closer to him. He pressed his lips to Tony’s cheek, causing a blush to creep up both of their faces.

“All that flirting in missions and you finally do something about it.”

Tony’s sarcasm defence mechanism came through quickly.

“I was starting to think you weren’t paying attention.”

Steve draped his arm round Tony’s waist and he smiled at you. You beamed at him and then remembered what you were about to say.

"I know you don’t want a fuss made of you,” you said, as Tony glanced up at Steve in almost disbelief. “When it’s anyone else, you bring out the confetti, but when it’s personal, you clam up. So we’re not going to make a thing out of it, but we are going to say ‘happy birthday’, order some Chinese, and have a nice time. Sound okay?"

He ruffled your hair, and you grumbled.

"Have I told you lately how great you are?"

"Not recently, no."

You stuck your tongue out of the corner of your mouth and he kissed your cheek.

“Happy birthday, Tony.”

A/N: 1288 hits on AO3! Thank you :) (I forgot about the queue function so this is me from Sunday night speaking). So this is a chapter I never thought I'd write because up until I started writing Elsa, I didn't always see eye to eye with Tony. But after everything I've seen him go through, and all that I've written about him, I think we've come to some kind of understanding. I wanted both him and Steve to be happy and I don’t think they’d mind too much if they ended up together so Stony exists! And this is just the beginning!

I am on holiday now! Steve’s birthday chapter has been written and will be uploaded in due course (tomorrow) on AO3. This chapter is especially for my best friend @itscooltobefanficy because she is wonderful and Tony is her fave. There are 11 chapters of her story Feeling Alive up on her Tumblr and they are all great! Also, check out her masterlist for more treats!

Thank you all, as always. Please like, reblog, share, etc if you liked and have a good week everyone x

Taglist: @buckyywiththegoodhair, @buckys-shield, @justkeeplaughing-nevergiveup, @itscooltobehappy, @the-renaissance

If anyone else wants to be added (or removed), just message me on here (@systemfailuresunshine) or on @story-prompt-lyrics!

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #avengers #avengers imagine #my writing #elsa

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sydneytorome · 8 years ago

Text

Where the lemons grow

My dearest friends, family and readers

I guess I’ve officially turned into an Italian stereotype: I once again didn’t keep my promise of writing a new blogpost on time. I’ll no longer keep you waiting by writing an unnecessary long introduction, so enjoy reading part two of my Italian journey!

The first week of April started off calmly. I have the feeling all of us are a little bit stuck in a rut right now, so the general atmosphere around school wasn’t all too cheerful. Most of us were going to be on a two week Easter break starting from this weekend and the prospects of seeing friends and family again or going on a nice trip away from Rome probably didn’t help either. With the few of us that were not flying back home over the weekend, we came up with the idea to organise a little road trip to Pescara, a sleepy beach town in Abruzzo. I was more than excited, because I really felt the need to just be on the road with good friends and ‘breathe’, away from the ever so busy streets of Rome. Quite soon, however, we figured I’d be the only one with a legal driver’s license, so I’d be the only one driving. How cool the idea may seem, I wasn’t ready yet to carry that responsibility. There goes my ‘Paper Town meets Eat, Pray, Love’ teen movie scenario.

On Tuesday, I visited the MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma after classes. A lot smaller and not as impressive as the MAXXI, but nevertheless an ideal way to spend a sunny afternoon!

On Wednesday, I booked a spontaneous train ticket to Montecarlo, a Tuscan town right between Firenze and Lucca to visit Allegra and her family in their Italian house from Friday to Saturday. I seriously couldn’t wait and looked forward to just get away for a while, visiting a friend and thus a little piece of ‘home’. Besides, who could say no to a weekend getaway in Tuscany?

On Thursday, we went out for dinner for Claire’s and Florence’s last dinner somewhere near the Pantheon. It’s so crazy how fast time flies – I can still remember Florence’s warm welcome when I first arrived here like it was yesterday, or I genuinely had the feeling Claire had only been here for a week instead of a full month. Florence was like my big sister here, and Claire was a whole lot of ‘woop woop’ fun. Goodbyes are never fun, especially when you’re saying goodbye to people you grew sincerely fond of.

My weekend began early, because on Friday early morning, I was already sitting on the train towards Montecarlo. The three-hour train journey was actually somehow relaxing – a cappuccino, a bottle of ice tea and my travel journal by my side, enjoying the green scenery the train kept riding by. Around lunchtime, Allegra and her cheerful mom came to pick me up at the tiny train station. I got welcomed by the entire family and got handed a glass of divine champagne made in their own fattoria as everyone was busy setting up the table on the terrace to dig into Tuscan specialities for lunch. Little to say, I was so overwhelmed by all this kindness and warmness – something you can really only find in Italy.

Allegra and I spent the day talking about everything and nothing, enjoying the splendid view over the Tuscan valley and walking around the grounds of the house until it was time for dinner. It was so heart-warming and amusing to see how they were all just chatting along and bickering about the latest news; it made me long for my own family yet made me feel so grateful that for a moment I was seen as a part of theirs. After dinner, we drove up to the closest village that still had an open gelataria to enjoy Italy’s best dessert, gelato!

On Saturday morning; Allegra, her mom and I did some shopping in Lucca. I vaguely remembered a few streets, as I had been here with my parents a few years ago, but I had honestly forgotten how lovely and picturesque it was. We were back in Montecarlo at lunchtime and after another nice lunch on their splendid terrace, it was already time for me to head back to Rome.

On the train ride home, I had the biggest smile on my face. I was so proud of myself, because the past two days I had seen a Marie I hadn’t realised I had the potential to be yet. I was chatty, open and enthusiastic; never feeling nervous or not at ease. Moments like these just really show how far I’ve come. One last time; I want to thank Allegra, her parents, her grandparents, her brothers and her cousin to be so welcoming and amazingly kind. This weekend has meant the world to me.

On Sunday; I finally found the time to meet up with Nikolaas, Emma and Jens; who were here on their ‘Italy trip’ with school. They didn’t have a lot of time as their lunch break was short, but it was nice to catch up with them. Afterwards, I quickly said hi to a few of my old teachers before they started the infamous queue to get into the Colosseum. So surreal to see all of them here, in ‘my’ Rome! After saying goodbye to everyone, I hurried to the metro station where I had met up with my friends to go to Ostia where we spent the afternoon picnicking on the beach. A Sunday well spent brings a week of content!

The second week of April already marked my last week in the A2 level, so that meant I’d have to take a level test to go into B1 by the end of the week. Fair to say I’m learning quickly! On Tuesday evening, we went to a dinner/drink/party event on a boat which was part of club called Lian. The food was surprisingly good, the drinks surprisingly cheap and we all had – not so surprisingly – a really, really good time.

On Wednesday, I basically used the free time I had to revise for my level test, which would take place the next day. So yes, EF students do study. Sometimes.

On Thursday afternoon, we explored Monti, a part of Rome right between the train station Termini and the Colosseum that’s known for its more laid-back and alternative atmosphere. We treated ourselves with some pastries and coffee before looking around some thrift shops in search of some edgy piece of clothing. No luck, but at least I had eaten a gluten free brownie, so I wasn’t complaining.

On Friday, we got the results back from our tests, which went well for pretty much all of us. B1, baby! As it wouldn’t make sense to have actual lessons today, the weather was nice and it was Friday; we had both our classes outside today. We did some photography activities around Piazza del Campidoglio and walked around the Ghetto Ebraico di Roma. The nice thing about doing those classes outside is that you find out so much about small, hidden spots in Rome thanks to your teachers – like a stunning rooftop terrace belonging to the Musei Capitolini and offers an incredible view over the city, yet is completely free!

After school, we walked to Villa Borghese and enjoyed the sun for a while. I still remember how wintery the park still looked the first time I went there in February, and now all the trees and bushes had blossomed, turning the park into nothing but luscious greenery.

On Saturday morning; Andrea, Valentina, Thomas and I left for Verona to spend the Easter weekend in the infamous city of Romeo and Juliet. We had our train at seven in the morning, so we got there early enough to still enjoy an entire first day in this beautiful little city. After eating lunch in our AirBnB, we immediately started to explore the city. We walked around the Arena of Verona and Piazza Bra, found our way through the bustling shopping street and made it to Casa di Giulietta. In Juliet’s House, we were overwhelmed with romantic notes everywhere along the outside walls, rusty locks, couple pictures and long-lost love letters. The museum itself wasn’t really worth it in our opinion, but at least we each got our dreamy balcony picture. Has my Romeo already arrived, though? After enjoying a fresh fruit salad at the market at Piazza delle Erbe, we walked alongside the river for a bit until the sky coloured pitch-black and it started to rain like crazy. We had to sprint back home, but the damage had already been done: all four of us were literally soaking wet when we arrived back in our apartment. We were all so tired and just in the mood to curl up on the couch with some comfy clothes that we ended up ordering Chinese take-away. I know, it’s an Italian horror story, but we’re not gonna lie that it felt kind of nice to eat something else for a change. Besides, our apartment is so damn cosy, we just couldn’t not enjoy a nice night inside. It all made us want to start studying and have our own student dorm so badly!

On Sunday, we slept in a little before having a nice Easter breakfast. It felt weird not to celebrate Easter with our family, even though it’s normally not that special of a holiday anyway. Still, at that moment, I just wished I could be enjoying my family’s Easter brunch. Afterwards, we visited the Giardino Giusti, which was absolutely beautiful. It was so calm and peaceful, and the top of the garden granted an incredible view over Verona. It all left us speechless!

In the afternoon, we walked around Castelvecchio before enjoying the sun alongside the river. We spent some time coming up with background stories for the kids who were lazily trying to let the pebbles bounce on and over the water surface, enjoying the serenity of it all. On the way home, we walked past a book store and decided to buy ourselves some children’s books in Italian to start reading. I opted for stories I knew all too well in my mother tongue, such as Peter Pan and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. The nostalgia is real! In the evening, we had dinner somewhere at Piazza delle Erbe to enjoy our last evening in Verona. Cheers!

On Easter Monday, we took our train back to Rome around noon, so we were back in the city around the late afternoon. Although we were all really happy we’d spent the busy Easter weekend outside the city, we were happy to be back. As nice as Verona is, it’s nothing compared to Rome!

On Wednesday, I had an admission interview for University College Maastricht. I had prepared it well-enough, so I wasn’t all too nervous. I suddenly felt so grown-up having to go through all these things all by myself, though! Anyway, I have a good feeling about the interview so fingers crossed! On Thursday evening, I went to a jazz bar in Trastevere called Lettere Caffè, where each night a local jazz group hosts a small set before the actual jazz jam session starts. I love jazz, but I had never been to such a thing before, so I was completely amazed by the atmosphere and the beauty of the music. Nothing better than enjoying damn good music in the company of damn good friends. To more nights like these!

On Friday morning, I joined an EF activity to Gelataria del Freddo Giovanni Fassi, one of the oldest and biggest gelatarie of Rome. We could take a little peek inside the kitchen where the actual ice cream magic happened as they explained us the whole process of making artisanal ice cream. Afterwards, we could all choose a cup of ice cream with three flavours. I like to call myself an ice cream expert, so trust me when I tell you guys it was one of the most delicious and flavourful ice creams I ever had.

On the way back to school, our teacher Elisabetta got a message from one of the people that work at Fassi that someone had left their IPhone on a table. Panicking, we all checked our pockets and handbags, and I ended up being the one who had been clumsy enough to forget my phone. An ice cream brain freeze, I guess? I ran back all the way to the gelataria, where they handed me my phone back with a big grin. Yes, not my smartest move, I know. Yet I can’t help but think someone is guarding over me, ‘cause I always end up being lucky enough to find either my phone or wallet again. In the evening, we went out for dinner to celebrate Rodolfo’s (Rodolfiiiito) last evening in Rome. I wasn’t planning on going out afterwards, but a few drinks later and I ended up having one of the nicest nights!

On Saturday, I slept in before kicking a hangover work-out and having lunch with Andrea close to our house.

In the afternoon, I met up with Thomas to go to Villa Ada, a park a little further away from the usual city centre, but definitely worth the visit. It was packed with locals enjoying their Sunday afternoon, yet felt a lot quieter than the always-busy Villa Borghese. We spent the afternoon reading, gossiping and people-watching. Productive enough, right?

In the evening, our hostdad Vincenzo taught Andrea and me to make our own ricotta cheese. So easy, and so damn good!

On Sunday, it was time for another day of picnicking and tanning at the beach. This time, we hit Santa Marinella, which is a billion times more relaxed and cleaner than Ostia. I’m seriously so happy I can still go to the beach from time to time now, otherwise the Sydney withdrawal symptoms would be oh so real.

On Monday, the Easter break was officially over and the school was completely packed again. Plus, a lot of new students arrived as well, so let’s just say things got a little bit chaotic. Because there’s also a tiny lack of teachers for the amount of students EF Rome is currently hosting, they combined my B1 class with the B2 class until they will have found an adequate solution. So, as it was the first day after Easter break for a lot of us, our teacher took us on an outside activity all morning. We had to spot some clues all over Piazza Navona and the Campo Marzio area, and afterwards she told us a lot of fun and interesting facts about the buildings and statues we’d never had known otherwise! School’s hard, you guys. After class; Valentina, Thomas and I went to La Feltrinelli to start some sort of small book club. Each week, we’d get together and pick a book for us to read before the next meeting. At each meeting we’d start with discussing the previous book before choosing the next one and starting to read the first chapters out loud. A really good exercise to practice speaking and reading comprehension, and it’s a nice thing to do with friends!

On Tuesday, we had a day off as it was La Festa Della Liberazione D’Italia. Everyone, and by everyone I mean literally everyone, was gonna go to the beach again to have a day of fun and picnicking. Even my host parents were doing something. Somehow, I woke up in the worst mood. I wasn’t up to do anything, let alone do something so social and busy. I felt like I really needed a day to myself. And so; I slept in, had a nice work out and ate breakfast in all quietness and prepared for an essay assignment I would have to take on Wednesday morning for the Hotelschool of Maastricht. In the afternoon, I took my beach towel and my book with me, and walked all the way up to the Gianicolo Hill to sit back and relax in the sun while reading and enjoying the magnificent view over the city. It felt so peaceful to just enjoy sometime being all alone, not having to talk to anyone. This was exactly what I needed to get out of the rut I felt like I was stuck in!

On Wednesday evening, we all went out together in a club in Testaccio, a part of Rome we don’t frequent so often. We tried to change things up a little instead of always going to the same places! I was initially planning on only joining for some drinks – I was even wearing a simple pair of jeans and my oversized knitted sweater – but I ended up joining to the club as well. All in all, I had a really crazy and fun night. You always have the most fun when you least expect it!

On Thursday evening; Valentina, Thomas and I went to The Space Cinema Moderno to watch “Famiglia all’improvviso”, the latest film with Omar Sy. It was honestly one of the nicest films I’d ever seen in a while, but maybe that’s also due to the fact that I was so happy I had not a single difficulty with watching it in Italian without subtitles! And maybe also because I literally had popcorn for dinner.

On Friday, I woke up wishing I could already press forward to the evening, because that’s when Laurine would arrive to spend my birthday weekend with me! I had been waiting for her visit for weeks and weeks now, and I couldn’t believe I’d finally see her again. It was so nice to find her waiting for me when I arrived in the bed and breakfast at night, and to be able to hug her again! I immediately started talking about everything and nothing, about all the things that had been going on here. Of course, she already knew half of those things I had been telling her, as I usually talk to her on the phone weekly. However, I just wanted to enjoy the moment I had to be actually really talking to her. Just two sisters, giggling and sleeping in the same room together, just like when we were young.

On Saturday morning, we started the day early. We had a quick, Italian-style breakfast before hitting the city. And boy, what a day it was! When I think about it, I have no clue how we ever managed to walk so much and so much in one single day. We started with the Museo Dell’Ara Pacis, where my inner Latin enthusiast marvelled at the sight of this beautiful altar dedicated to the goddess Pax and offered to Emperor Augustus. In my fifth year of high school, I’d also done a whole essay about several architectural pieces in Rome which were built in favour of Emperor Augustus, so I was pretty excited I could finally see it in real life.

Afterwards, we walked up the Spanish Steps and visited the neighbouring Chiesa della Trinità dei Monti, where we lit a candle for Oma and Opa, our grandparents who both have passed away. Then, we obviously couldn’t restrain ourselves to do some shopping alongside Via Borgogna and Via del Corso. Girls will be girls! Before lunch; we walked inside the Pantheon, past the Tempio di Adriano and around the Fontana di Trevi before finally ending for a break at Piazza Navona where we enjoyed a well-deserved lunch at the beautiful Vivi Bistrot. It’s an all organic restaurant that serves the yummiest dishes!

Even though I had seen all these places I had guided her through so many times, I never got bored of seeing the ‘same’ city over and over again. Even I discover new things every day, and I notice how I know much more about the city with each passing day. Maybe I could become a tour guide one day, who knows? After lunch, we bought some strawberries for dessert and ate them overlooking Largo di Torre Argentina, the forum where Caesar supposedly got murdered and is now also known as the ‘Cat Forum’, as a lot of cats seem to always hang around the area. Afterwards, we walked around Palazzo Venezia all the way along the Fori Imperiali to end up at the Colosseo. As I personally find it more impressive on the outside than on the inside, we decided to not waist our time and wait in line to get in. We continued our tour to Piazza del Campidoglio, where I showed her some secret spots from where you can marvel at the Foro Romano from above. Afterwards, we took a break on the rooftop terrace of the Musei Capitolini and snacked on freshly-cut melon and ice coffee. Surprisingly, we still had the energy to walk towards the Circo Massimo and to smell the roses in the beautiful Roseto Comunale di Roma. Last but not least, we enjoyed the view over Rome from the Giardino degli Aranci before peeking through the famous keyhole of the Buco della Serratura Priorato dei Cavalieri di Malta, where you have a special view on the Saint Peter’s dome. So, if you wanna see the best parts of Rome in a single day, call me!

In the evening, we enjoyed a really nice and relaxing dinner at Il Margutta RistorArte, that fancy vegetarian place I had already been to once. Cheers to Rome!

On Sunday, we planned on visiting the Vatican. Apparently, there was some sort of catholic gathering going on, so the entire Piazza San Pietro was closed off and we couldn’t get inside the San Pietro either. On the plus side, we did see the Pope cruise around in his Pope Mobile and we heard a tiny part of his speech! Afterwards, I thought we could probably get in the Vatican Gardens for free to walk around for a bit, but they were closed off to the public for some unknown reason. Besides, you can apparently only visit them if you have a ticket for the Vatican Museums as well, but the line to get in there was so mind-bogglingly long we didn’t even bother trying.

Instead, we walked back to the city centre to stroll around the Campo de’ Fiori morning market and have a nice lunch at Ginger, a healthy salad and panino place we usually go to during lunch breaks at school. Afterwards, we walked towards Piazza del Popolo, from where we went to visit the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. The building itself is so impressive, and the art collection as well! Towards the late afternoon, we strolled around Villa Borghese before treating ourselves to a few scoops of the real gelato artiginale.

In the evening, on the eve of my 19th birthday, we had an apéritivo at Freni e Frizioni, a bar that used to be an old garage and is known for its buffet with all kinds of yummy, atypical Italian food from 19:00 to 22:00. We ordered an Apérol Spritz and joined the many people sitting outside with a drink in one hand and a tiny plastic plate full of food on their laps. For dinner, we went to Tonnarello, a restaurant in Trastevere that’s already been in Rome since 1876. We had to wait outside for a bit before we could get a table for two, but we did get tiny glasses of prosecco to keep ourselves busy. The food was divine, and served in cosy-looking old school pots and pans. Tonnarello’s motto? “Le persone che amano mangiare sono sempre le migliori.” We couldn’t agree more!

After these two really intense days, both of us were so exhausted. So, we decided to go back to our bed and breakfast and fall asleep before midnight instead of staying up to see the date shift from the 30th of April to the 1st of May. One more night of being 18 for me then at least!

On Monday, I woke up, well, as a 19-year-old young adult. How crazy! It’s actually the first time I ever feel genuinely different, so it was the first time I could actually come up with a reasonable reply to the typical question “And, how does it feel to be one year older?” Because wow, it has been a year of a lifetime... I opened up my presents and cards in bed before we went out to enjoy a long breakfast at Ginger. We all know breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, so you might as well do it right! Afterwards, we returned to the Vatican again so that Laurine could at least see the Piazza San Pietro from up close. As we had already done most of the visiting (I mean, all the visiting) on Friday, today was all about relaxing and enjoying our last day together. I had the idea to go picnic on top of the Monte Mario, Rome’s highest hill, around the afternoon. A lot of people had told me it’s really nice there. Unfortunately, due to it being a national holiday in Italy, the public transport network wasn’t running very smoothly and to get there by foot, it takes quite some effort. Besides, the neighbourhood around it is quite sketchy. We both got a little frustrated at the situation and thus at each other, as we were walking around a busy road with no nice place to sit for a long time and it didn’t seem like we were gonna reach the hill anytime soon. It’s a shame I hadn’t looked it up better and that we had lost some precious time together. We decided to turn back and catch the first bus that would bring us to Villa Borghese, where we enjoyed the rest of our afternoon. We had a really fun time watching all the people and families around us, and coming up with background stories for each and every one of them. It even made us a little nostalgic!

Around 4 o’clock, we enjoyed one last drink together at a bar around Piazza del Popolo. While drinking highly-overpriced gin and tonics, I suddenly started tearing up. It felt so weird that I had to be here in Rome on my birthday, and I just wished I could be able to spend it with my friends and family at home. Although I have so many nice people around me here as well, it never ever could feel the same. But hey, I know I’ll see them all again very, very soon!

At 6 o’clock, Laurine took the taxi back to the airport, and so I was alone again. Somehow, the reunion had been less intense than the one in Sydney; because we had such an easier time keeping in touch while I was here in Rome, and maybe also because we had already learned from the previous experience of me being away for a long time. But that didn’t mean the farewell wasn’t just as hard!

On Wednesday evening, I had dinner at Juul’s apartment together with two of his Italian friends. There’s nothing better sometimes than a good pasta pesto and a glass of wine! Talking in Italian with the two girls was still way out of my league, but at least I could understand everything they were saying. And trust me, they were talking at the speed of light! Juul and I also came up with the idea to write a short story together, as we both like writing and feel like it could be a good project to work on during out free time. I’m looking forward to it!

On Thursday, we had a SPIN class outside again. This time, we had to interview random Italian tourists and ask them about fashion. Nothing all too exciting, but I did positively surprise myself by how ease it was for me to address complete strangers. A year, hell, even 6 months ago, I would have never ever seen me doing it so comfortably. Every day, I discover new parts of myself I never thought I could ever recognise myself in. In the evening, I had my very last evening with my roommate Andrea and housemate Jemima. My parents were arriving tomorrow morning, and the girls were leaving this Saturday, so I’d have to say goodbye to them now. For me, it was especially hard to say goodbye to Andrea. She has been with me ever since I arrived here in Rome, so without her it’s not gonna feel the same to live in the house!

On Friday, I woke up extra early to work out (I had forgotten how nice it is to work out in the morning) before heading over to the hotel where my parents were waiting for me. Loaded with an extra suitcase full of winter clothes I’d send back home with them, my tiny suitcase for the weekend and a handbag, I huffed and puffed my way through the city. Although Italians are generally nice and helpful, in a touristic city like Rome you hardly find anyone who’s willing to give you a hand. I often have moments where I miss Sydney terribly, and moments like these definitely remind me of the many things I loved about that city. The friendliness, the surf, the sweet potato fries and avocado toasts; oh how I feel ‘homesick’ sometimes! I arrived at the hotel when my parents just had finished breakfast, talk about perfect time. I felt like their little girl again when the both of them hugged me really tightly the second I entered the room. It had been since September that it hadn’t been ‘just the three of us’, so we were all looking forward to this weekend together. I surprised my mom with a leather jacket she really wanted, and she had brought some Belgian Easter chocolate with her! After a quick catch up; we started the day by visiting the Pantheon and Fontana di Trevi, where we of course threw a little coin over our left shoulder. Afterwards, we walked passed Via Del Corso, where we did some shopping in a store both my mom and me really love. You gotta give dad some credit for his patience. When we were done, we walked around Piazza di Spagna and along the small pavestone streets until it was time to lunch at Vivi Bistrot. We finished off our lunch with a creamy cappuccino before walking up the Spanish Steps and all the way over to Villa Borghese. We walked around the park for a while, which was surprisingly quiet for a Friday, before enjoying the view over Piazza del Popolo on the Passagiata del Pincio. Around the late afternoon, we enjoyed an ice cream while walking back to the hotel. We got ready, because around 6’o clock, we walked over the Ponte Sant’Angelo and to the Vatican. The sun was already turning a little paler, so the Piazza San Pietro was covered in a beautiful kind of glow. At 19:00, we entered the Musei Vaticani, which is only open at night on Fridays during spring. I have no words to describe how beautiful it is to walk around the few parts of the garden while the sun is slowing setting and radiating its golden light over the dome of the San Pietro. The museums itself are also breathtakingly impressive. I have never ever seen such an incredible art collection in such a majestic building! In the Capella Sistina, I could have easily been banned from ever entering the Vatican again, as I started taking a few pictures of the ceiling even though you’re strictly not allowed. Woops, my bad.

Afterwards, we headed to Trastevere to have dinner at Tonnarello. I couldn’t not take my parents to this awesome place. The end of a very lovely day!

On Saturday, we started off a rich breakfast at Coromandel, a cool place close to Piazza Navona that kind of looks like you’ve walked in into your grandmother’s house. At 10 o’clock, we had booked a bike tour that would guide us all the way through and along the Via Appia Antica, one of Rome’s most important ancient roads that led all the way to Brindisi, in the south of Italy. It might ring a bell for some of you who’ve watched Spartacus (or just have a kick-ass history knowledge), because it’s also the road where in 71 BC, 6000 slaves were crucified along the part of the road that led to Capua. In the beginning of the day, the weather wasn’t really that good. It was really humid and we often got a little rain shower. Besides, I had been feeling a little under the weather myself lately, so the biking was harder than expected. But, all along the Via Appia Antica, you come across impressive and very well-preserved remnants of old, old Rome; such as the baths of Caracalla, ancient catacombs and mausoleums. Plus, the area around the Via Appia Antica is absolutely stunning. Giant pine trees are perfectly lined up on both sides of the road, accompanied by beautiful fields filled with poppies. Around noon, the weather finally cleared up completely and we enjoyed the rest of the day biking with the sun on our face and the wind in our hair. Special thanks to our tour guide from Roma for You, by the way!

In the evening, we strolled around Via Margutta, a street known for its many art galleries and exposés. Unfortunately, this time the artists weren’t displaying their artworks, so it was unusually quiet. We found some time to pop by the Trollbeads store, a brand known for being the first to start making bracelets you could personalise with several little charms, where I bought a special edition charm dedicated to Rome: a tiny, silver Colosseum! This way, I’ll always have a little part of Rome close to me. And thanks to a friend in Australia, I’m soon getting a special edition charm dedicated to Sydney as well, representing the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge! Afterwards, we had a delicious cocktail and apéro at a trendy bar called Salotto 42, which literally means ‘living room’. It did have a really cosy atmosphere! We snacked on homemade sushi (it has been ages!), mini foccacie and bruschette; before going to a restaurant close to the Pantheon, but well-hidden on a tiny square, called Osteria Delle Coppelle. We scored a table outside, close to the heating lamp, and enjoyed a delightful meal. For me, personally, this has been one of the best restaurants in Rome I’ve been to! We enjoyed the special flavours of gelato at Gelateria di San Crispino for dessert, the sweetest and best way to end the day!

On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at Vivi Bistrot. Who can’t say no to a gluten free carrot cake, fruit salad and a cappuccino for breakfast?

Afterwards, we walked around Piazza Navona and the impressive church of Sant’Agnese in Agone. We made our way to Piazza Venezia and Piazza Campodoglio, where we marvelled over the views of ancient Rome before enjoying the smell of roses at the Roseto Comunale. As we didn’t have enough time to visit the Giardino degli Aranci nor the Keyhole, we immediately went to the Colosseum instead. Even though it’s probably Rome’s most touristic place, it’s definitely always gonna be one of the most impressive as well. We headed to Monti for our last lunch together. I had read about a nice panino place, where they make original sandwiches in the shape of a flower, called Zia Rosetta. And the best part? They also make them gluten free! Sadly, it’s more of a grab and go kind of place, so we couldn’t sit there and relax comfortably. We decided to just go for a traditional trattoria, where my mom could finally have a real Italian pizza and my dad enjoyed a good plate of pasta. I, on the other hand, had to settle for a caprese salad, which wouldn’t be enough judging by the fact that I was so incredibly hungry. And knowing that I couldn’t eat the bread that comes along with it, literally made me cry. I’m not kidding. I actually started crying because I miss eating bread, because I’m so tired of having a gluten allergy while being in Italy – the land of the holy carbs – and that I don’t get why people who voluntarily stop eating gluten because they think it’s healthy and cool. Okay, in all honesty, I also started crying because I was gonna miss my parents like crazy. It’s just easier to blame the damn gluten. Eventually, my dad came with the idea for me to just go grab one of those sandwiches at Zia Rosetta while we would wait for out food, and I seriously think that sandwich may have been the best thing that has happened to me so far in 2017. Thank God for carbs!

Before heading back to the hotel, where a taxi would pick my parents up at 4 o’clock, we had one last ice cream together. An ice cream a day… When I came back home, I was all alone. It was so weird knowing that I would have no housemates for the rest of the week! Plus, the clothes I had left out to dry over the weekend were lying on my bed, still moist and smelling like cigarettes. Safe to say I had one of those “God, I wish I was home” moments.

Monday and Tuesday were just regular school days. The weather here is getting warmer and warmed each day. I love how it just feels like summer in the beginning of May! On Tuesday afternoon, we had our second book club meeting at La Feltrinelli, where we ended up discussing our previous book for the entire afternoon instead of choosing a next one to read. Oh well, the conversation was really, really interesting. It’s nice to have such good friends with whom you can be ridiculous yet also serious with when you feel like it. In the evening, we went out for drinks to celebrate the last night of one of our friends. You always realise how much value someone adds to a group when you come to the day they’re gonna go back to their own life. It’s a funny thing, this EF bubble.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we had two Global Career Days at school. It meant we had class from 9:30 until 16:30, with lectures from Italian professionals and workshops with our own teachers in between. Although the days were long, they were really interesting and flew by in no time! One quote I heard during one of the lectures, was the following: “Italia, la terra dove crescono i limone.” The whole poetic sound and the feeling this sentence evokes, couldn’t be more accurate. I think it’s the best and most sentimental way to describe Italy. We also had longer lunch breaks, so we could enjoy our afternoons much more.

The past 2 weeks, I’ve been having some strange and tense pains in my right foot again. I’m hoping it’s not a tendinitis again, like the one I had in my last week in Sydney. I’m trying to cut back on working out and walking, but I get so restless if I don’t do any sports. I’ve also struggled more and more with the feeling that I’m just so tired of everything here. I feel like my time to go back home has come, and I’m constantly counting the days. Let’s just hope all of this negativity blows over quickly…

On Friday evening, I met up with Juul again to go out for dinner at Mama Eat, that one place with really good gluten free pizza’s. We discussed the plot and characters of our upcoming story, but we also talked about life in general. I lately had been feeling the need to talk about a few things with a really good friends, and this night was just the perfect one for it!

On Saturday, we all fled the warmth and humidity of the city centre by going to Santa Marinella. It was the first time since Sydney that I actually swam in the sea, and boy did it feel good! I’m just as much a city gal as I am a beach bum.

On Sunday, I was planning on going to the beach again, but I got quite sunburnt on my back, so I decided to sit this one out. So, Thomas and I had lunch at the Vivi Bistrot restaurant in Villa Doria Pamphilj. Afterwards, we found ourselves a nice bench under the shadow of some trees and each enjoyed the afternoon writing. I was updating my travel journal and he was writing cards to his relatives. A relaxing day in one of the most beautiful places in Rome!

In the evening, I finally met my new roommate, a really sweet girl from Austria. I had a really nice week with my host parents, being just the three of us, but I was happy I finally had someone with me again.

On Monday, we finally started with a SPIN course that’s bound to prepare us for taking the CILS exam. It’s kind of like the Cambridge for the Italian language, so it’s pretty serious. I’m not taking the exam here, as I only wanna pass it at a higher level than B1-B2, but I was allowed to join the preparation course anyway. After the first class, my brain was going to explode. It’s pretty hard stuff! I’m also receiving the exercise and preparation for someone who would take it at a C1 level, even though I’m only in B1. But I have to say I’m pretty proud of myself that it’s going kind of well.

Because we were all so tired after such an intensive lessen, our book club meeting ending up in us trying to read and understand the book we had chosen, but completely failing. Enough Italian for one day!

In the evening, we went out for drinks at Freni and Frizioni for Emma’s birthday. The temperature was still so nice, we even ended up buying our own alcohol and sitting alongside the Tevere at the Isola Tibertina. Once again, another amazing night, mainly because I keep on getting to know people in a much more different way!

On Tuesday, I did nothing more than go to class and relax at home. I was still a little tired from going out, and I wanted to prepare for my admission interview at Hotelschool Maastricht I would have the day after. Fingers crossed!

Before dinner, I did my daily work out outside on the square close to my house. At some point, a few of the toddlers that were playing around there, were starting to work out with me! I couldn’t stop smiling, that seriously was the cutest thing I had ever seen! Maybe it’s a good idea to start my own aerobics class, no?

Today, I woke up extra early to have a nice and calm morning run before I had my interview for Hotelschool Maastricht. All in all, it went really well, so let’s hope I get it! I’m really excited to finally start studying now, so I can’t wait to hear the news in a few days. But that’s not the only thing that makes today special. Froukje, my famous roommate in Sydney, is arriving in Rome this afternoon. I’m finally go see her again! And tomorrow, Chantal, another really good friend is arriving as well. I’m so looking forward to a weekend with my Dutchies. On Saturday and Sunday, Chantal and I are even going to visit Venice together with Reina and Thomas. Safe to say I’m feeling completely energised again to make the most out of my last weeks in Rome!

A presto!

With love,

Marie

#rome

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hyperfashionist · 8 years ago

Photo

RDC3 Memory Palace: a nonlinear update

So it’s high time I did another write-up, eh?

Shock and Awe

Now that I think about it, I realize just how little spare brain bandwidth I had, because I was *really* not taking in certain stuff that normally I would have. It was just that much of a shock to the system.

Have You Seen This Ravenstag?

The first picture is a case in point. I did try to post this picture of @clownspecimen as soon as I took it, but Tumblr was doing that thing where it’s like “no you have no posts, tabula rasa” and it swallowed my draft. I only just now managed to figure out their Tumblr handle again. Hi, @clownspecimen!

But, see, that’s *not even* the thing that proves my head wasn’t on straight all weekend. The proof is actually that I had ALREADY PHOTOGRAPHED THIS RAVENSTAG AND DIDN’T REMEMBER DOING SO.

Everything Happens So Much

See, under normal circumstances, you would remember photographing a life-sized Ravenstag with furry shorts and blood on its teeth, wouldn’t you? I would. But these were not normal circumstances.

And I was in this queue with these three amazing Pushing Daisies characters for all those hours and not only did I not take pictures or even remark on how great they looked (which I regret, but hey I’m remarking on it now) I didn’t even properly register that that’s what I was seeing. And I repeated this lacuna of experience dozens of times.

Just in general, the quality of everybody’s contributions was about 10 levels higher than at RDC2, and people were pretty spectacular at RDC2. Everywhere I looked there was something incredible to see. And here’s another example of how I was not taking things in very well: in the costume competition, there was a Great Red Dragon (and it wasn’t even @gangletwatcosplays who had dropped out of the musical because apparently his wings broke) and the only thought in my head, when I saw this Great Red Dragon, was something like:

[static noise]

that’s not red

that’s peach

somebody should let them know that before they go out in front of the audience

[static noise]

and I didn’t even *see* that costume from the back until I came across some photos later on. (Which I now can’t find.) So it was only *then* two weeks later I realized that this was a LIFE SIZE RENDITION OF BLAKE’S GREAT RED DRAGON?!!? And they LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THE REAL THING?!?

I’m still not sure what I’ve seen. But it haunts me

WHAT ELSE WAS GOING ON RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME THAT I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT?!?

I mean… people. I don’t want to alarm you. So I’m not saying we were being recruited into a cult. But I think we were being recruited into a cult. I think more people should join our cult. We need the ingredients. turn two the rest is food

The Autograph Queue; or, Numb, Except for Dreading the Loss of Numbness

I don’t remember really how long we were in the autograph queue for Hugh and Bryan on the Sunday evening, but it was really quite long. I mean really, really quite long. I guess the tweet for my range of ticket numbers went out at around 5:10pm? And we were queuing until definitely at least half past nine, because that’s when management insisted the closing ceremony had to finally take place. And then we went back into the queue again.

Updates are tweeted via StarfuryNews so you need to set up alerts and make sure they appear on your lock screen. You also need to eat at every opportunity because the restaurant service operates in a realistic Earth timeline whereas the con operates in a realm where time and logic do not apply. And, to the person who was handing out candy skulls in the autograph queue: thank you. I owe you my life.

And @clownspecimen‘s Ravenstag, the thing about their hooves, they were high heeled shoes with the heels cut off. Not the ready-made ones that are manufactured that way so are at least somewhat balanced. I mean ordinary heeled shoes that they literally just removed the heels from and stood on tiptoe all day. And in the queue. For HOURS.

Tips on footwear for RDC4

About the standing on tiptoe thing. Nowadays I wear comfort shoes as often as possible, and the way comfort shoes work is they redistribute your weight so it goes back on the heel instead of just leaving the ball of your foot to take the pressure. Which means @clownspecimen was wearing the opposite of comfort shoes.

As for me, I had been wearing a pair of 3-inch M&S Insolia comfort shoes all day and they were reasonably comfortable throughout the day even though I was standing a lot of the time. It was only after some time in the queue that I had to take mine off for a bit. And a tip for others - the floors of the Radisson Blu Edwardian are very very hard underfoot, so I do recommend M&S Insolia if your character wears the plain black pumps that are so often seen on the show. However, last time, my shoes didn’t have a platform whereas this time, they did, and that made the difference between a painful experience and a less painful one. In fact, even though the heels were an inch higher this time, I was pretty comfortable right up until those hours of queuing at the very end.

And when she developed the film there was no-one there

So yeah, for various reasons including spending 5 hours on bag-check duty and also having an older-model phone, I did not take nearly as many photos as I wanted to, but these are the two I took while queuing for autographs at the end, followed by a triumphal panna cotta in the Bijou Bar afterwards. (I’ll cover the autographs themselves in another post.)

#rdc3 #hannibal con #hannibal #after action report #cosplay #nonlinear narrative

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canaryatlaw · 6 years ago

Text

okay it’s midnight and I should get writing because I can’t sleep in all day tomorrow which would afford me the ability to stay up later (that sentence was horribly phrased but I’m too lazy to fix it so oh well). today was pretty great! some stuff not ideal but overall still pretty good. I woke up to my alarm at 9 and got dressed and got prepared for our first quest of the day, which was trying to get yet another pair of concert tickets for a KPop band Jess wants to see. This was one she cares slightly less about so we weren’t under quite as much pressure to get the good seats, we were just aiming for the cheap ones. So I put our usual breakfast order in on ubereats and it arrived shortly after she did at around 9:30, the tickets went on sale at 10. Since we’ve had not great experiences trying to get tickets up to this point we wanted to try to maximize our chances of getting them by using multiple accounts (which is probably cheating but tbh idgaf I’m sure the ticket scalpers are doing much worse with many more tickets) so I had my main one up in my main browser and then the one attached to my old email up in another one (it was funny, I logged onto it and it was under the name “Ann”- my mom’s name- and the credit cards stored on it expired in like, 2012 😂) and then Jess had hers up on the chromebook. Unlike the other ones thus far this one wasn’t doing the thing where they had a virtual queue form 10 minutes beforehand, so it was just whenever they decided to let you in. The lack of a virtual queue was objectively a good thing because it meant there weren’t as many people trying to get tickets, but it also meant it was just totally random with everyone who was there at that minute. But thankfully we got in after not too long and Jess was able to snag two tickets before anyone else clicked on them (because it does this really annoying thing where the page with refresh with the available tickets and you’ll click two but when you try to go forward it says somebody else already got them and then refreshes your page and it’s a pain in the ass) and after some slight panic over getting the right credit card the tickets were ours for the least amount of money, so we were pleased with that result. May is gonna be crazy, as it stands we have at least 2 concerts (well 3 for Jess being that she’s going to BTS twice) in the same week and are very likely going to end up with another when the Monsta X tickets go on sale on Friday (and of course for them we’re trying for Chicago and New York, so it might involve a NY trip as well). so that’s gonna be a lot, but nothing we’re not used to haha at this point I think we thrive in chaos. So once we had that taken care of we grabbed our things and headed out to Jess’ car. In case I forgot to mention this up to this point we were cosplaying as Ariel and Snow White in their pajama outfits from Wreck It Ralph 2 which is 100% a lazy cosplay but I really give zero fucks because it was comfy and easy. So we drove down to the convention center, this isn’t in the one that most of the Chicago cons are in out by the airport (northwest of downtown in the top corner of the city) but rather C2E2 is in the convention center that’s adjacent to the loop that happened to be the place that they used for my law school graduation and bar swearing in, so I’ve had some very different experiences in this building, lol. I did my make up in the car and was fairly pleased with how it turned out. Once we got there there was some confusion about parking, we were originally planning on parking in one of their lots that’s right connected to the place so we didn’t have to walk in the cold (we were leaving our jackets in the car so we didn’t have to carry them all day; I was in shorts but was wearing my extra thick ice skating tights underneath them so it wasn’t terrible) but that didn’t end up happening so we had to walk in the cold a little bit but we managed. Later in the day Jess mentioned that apparently all of their parking had filled up and there were people with tickets who couldn’t get in because they didn’t have anywhere to park, so the con probably oversold their tickets in that sense. So we got in fairly easily, it was already opened at this point since we were doing the tickets that delayed our arrival a bit. So we start walking the show floor a bit and then decide we should check out artist’s alley first, but try not to buy anything on our first walk through, just consider stuff. the issue of course is that artist’s alley is generally full of great art, but I have literally no room on my wall for anything haha and I still have to hang up my 3 photo ops from London (though they are only 6x9′s instead of the standard 8x10′s so hopefully that will make it easier) and my Matt Ryan one from Cleveland. so I could really only consider very small things, lol. but there was a lot of cool stuff, always a pretty great assortment of different art styles and subject matters. I spotted a few things I may come back and get tomorrow, we will see. I really wanted to see if they had any art from The Cursed Child but I didn’t see anything, besides one drawing that I’m pretty sure was supposed to be Draco but could conceivably be Scorpius from the way he was drawn (but he was with drawings of the original trio so probably not). still a cool drawing though. so that took a while, though definitely less time than it did last year. So after that we went in search of anybody we might know that was there but didn’t see anybody, so we started wandering the show floor. Now, in terms of not needing to buy anything, this was even worse because the solid majority of it is clothing, and we both already own way too much clothing, especially comics related lol. so we made our way through most of everything, some cool stuff, not managed to refrain from buying anything up till that point. We had checked the schedule for panels at one of the smaller stages (their main stage panels are super crowded and there wasn’t anyone we cared that much about) and Colin Donnell (aka Tommy from Arrow) was doing one at 1:30 and it was like 12:50 at this point, so we went over to the little row of food vendors they had and managed to get some decent food for lunch that we sat and ate before returning to the panel stage and managing to find seats right before it started. It was pretty entertaining, he is very pretty in person, though that’s probably not a shock to many. He talked about Arrow of course but also about Chicago Med being that that’s his current show and it is after all filmed and set in Chicago. He also talked about his background doing Broadway which I wasn’t aware of so that was cool to hear about. one of the questions they asked him was like “if you’re on jeopardy, what category would you want the final jeopardy question to be from?” and I was like “musical theatre trivia” (answering somewhat for myself but also for him) and right after I said that he was like “broadway trivia” haha so I felt validated, that is definitely what I would choose given that question. So that lasted about half an hour and was pretty fun. After that we went back to wander the rest of the show floor that we hadn’t made it to yet, most notably a few KPop/Anime/etc. themed booths that were wild, Jess ended up getting into a conversation with these like high school girls about going to BTS and they were like, unironically fans of them when Jess is only a very ironic fan, and they were like “oh who do you stan??” and then the girl said she stans the one guy Jess hates and I busted up laughing at all of it, I couldn’t stop myself, it was truly hilarious. they were talking about the concert and what nights they were going and the girls were like “oh yeah Sunday’s gonna be tough you know because it’s a school night!” and I just fucking died because they’re clearly like 15. So that was very amusing. Jess ended up convincing me I needed one of the hats they sold at that booth, they were the snapback style with the big plastic letters attached across the top which said “THICC” in pink and I got it for the pure reason to wear to ClexaCon next month and it’s gonna be great, I of course put it on as soon as I bought it too. We then went upstairs to where they host the main stage panels just to check it out, there were a lot of people in very long lines, and I was glad I wasn’t in one of them. So we hung out up there for a while just to chill out a bit. We ended up heading back downstairs to see if we could locate an internet friend who’s working the con but we weren’t able to find her today (probably will see her tomorrow) and ended up finally seeing some people we knew, so we sat with them for a while until they ended up heading out, and after that we did a little more wandering before deciding to call it a day, it was a little earlier than we’d normally leave but Jess was feeling kinda crappy and there wasn’t really anything else we were dying to do so it made sense to just go home. Drove back and got dropped off, I changed into comfortable clothing and didn’t really have anything I needed to take care of so I ended up sitting on the couch and watching the last four episodes of season 5 of The Americans, stopping somewhere in there to make two eggs for dinner (which was a bad plan, I go through weird phases with food and I had convinced myself that I was fine eating eggs but I really wasn’t), and then before the last episode to shower before returning to finish it. This season happened to have a fairly brutal finale, in my opinion at least- trigger warning here for self-harm/suicide. So the plot was basically that they had befriended this family that had just defected from the Soviet Union and for some mildly important reason they wanted at least the wife and their son to go back, so one of the methods they employ is using their fake spy son (not their actual child) who had originally befriended him make things at school really bad for their son to the point where he would be so miserable that his mother would want to return to Russia with him. Well, it didn’t look like it was working, and their fake son ended up advising his friend to “slit his wrists” in order to get his parents attention enough for them to take him back, and the spy apparently “showed him” how to do it without hitting an artery, and the spy is calmly recounting this to his fake parents, saying he was going to do it at 7 pm that night, right when his parents were supposed to get home. Of course their majorly alarmed but were split on what to do because they didn’t want to compromise the mission, but the dad ends up storming out of their fake home and walking to their friend’s home and are trying to get in when his parents arrive, and so they get into the house and sent the spy son up to the other son’s room, and a second later you hear him yelling for help, so they storm upstairs to find the boy unconscious on his bed with blood all over his arms and bed. And I mean, I knew going into this episode I would probably see this (they left the previous episode at a cliffhanger about them intervening) but I really was not prepared for that image. And then of course his parents start freaking out and his mother is just next to him sobbing while everyone is scrambling to call 911 and try to bind his wounds the best they can until the paramedics get there and like.....the whole thing just made me so mad. To be fair, the main characters were very alarmed that this was used as a tactic and think their fake kid way overstepped in doing telling him to do this, but the whole idea of basically risking sacrificing the life of a child for a part of your mission that was not even very critically important meanwhile you go home to your own children.....like how as a parent could you ever live with yourself?? And I mean, I know these are spies that regularly just shoot people, some innocent some not, but like, interfering in this boy’s life to make him absolutely miserable and it culminating in something as horrible as this really just pissed me tf off. and I mean that’s for obvious reasons, this is an intersection of two issues I care deeply about, mental health advocacy and the wellbeing of children. So that whole storyline left me pretty angry. And I mean I know, it’s fiction, this didn’t actually happen, but just to see the callousness to the life of a child portrayed like that was really disturbing to witness. But I finished the episode and then turned the tv off for the night and started getting ready for bed, and shortly after I started writing this and now I am here. It’s almost 1 am and I have an 8:30 alarm set, so I think it is time for me to go to bed. Goodnight babes. Hope you’re enjoying your weekend.

#daily journal #March 2019 #Rachel's cosplay adventures #Jess tag #hit almost 2500 words with this #had a lot to say clearly

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