#the spirit of my post at least is cheering for you!! because seven+ months ago I was in a pit of nothingness and just.

[fluffydeoxys]

OC stuff is dangerous wdym you just think about that guy and you feel things. You made that thing and it’s come such a long way like they’ve grown and fleshed out and you’re proud of them. And there’s an indescribable feeling of pride and tenderness and passion and fondness. That ☝️thingie is My Thing and I love them

[violetarks]

Can you please make a happy end part 2 to Let Her In? I literally cried reading it 😭

Let Her In

Anime: My Hero Academia

Character: Bakugou Katsuki

Summary: A break was what they decided on, but it was more easy said than done. But somehow they weren't as confident as they were a few weeks ago.

Song: Certain Things — James Arthur (ft. Chasing Grace)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Y/N woke up, the sun shining towards her through the window. She shifted in her spot, sitting up and wiping her eyes. It was warm this morning, how ever shivers ran up her spine from the feeling of her body waking up. It didn't help that an arm laid on top of her waist.

It had been a week, maybe two, since Bakugou returned his copy of her apartment key. Since they last hugged and were a couple. They made no move to contact each other but didn't delete their numbers, nor try to ignore their social media.

Bakugou saw all the times Mina and Jirou came over to have movies or dinner, just to cheer Y/N up. Or Y/N when Kirishima and Kaminari took him out to drink or try to cook for him. It was nice to know the two of them were doing okay.

She glanced down to the person beside her. Y/N's apartment bed was big enough for at least three people to sleep comfortable in. She got this bed when she and Bakugou slept in the same bed for the first few times. He would toss and turn and squish against her because of their small space. So she got a bigger bed, although Bakugou got lonely and kept her closer to him. It was usually cold on Bakugou's side so he'd go over to hers.

It still smelt like him. The pillow beside her.

It was kind of weird, considering how he hasn't even set foot in her bedroom in the past few weeks.

The arm around her waist shifted as Y/N moved to stand up. She looked behind her and placed a hand on the arm. "I need to get up and make breakfast." She said, a smile on her face.

The arm pulled away from her, hearing a groan in return, "But Y/N, it's only like... 7:30!"

"No, Mina, it's 10:00." Y/N chuckled, standing up and stretching, "Why don't you just cuddle Kyoka?"

"We have separate rooms for a reason, Y/N." Jirou replied, on the other side of Mina with her eyes still closed. She then peeked over her shoulder to Y/N, who was getting a hoodie over her head. "What are you making?"

Y/N replied, walking towards the doors, "My famous omurice. I'll call you when I'm done."

She closed the door behind her before walking into the kitchen.

The girls had been staying with Y/N in her apartment for a while. At first, it was just check ins and such to make sure Y/N was travelling smoothly. And she was for a bit, until Jirou walked in on Y/N just staring at herself in the mirror in her bathroom, just playing with the ring around her finger. When Jirou touched her shoulder, Y/N began crying silently and made no move to stop. Mina and Jirou slept over from then on.

They were afraid Y/N would lose her mind over the 'break-up'. She was so excited to announce to all their friends that they were engaged and ready to be happily married.

The proposal was only three weeks before they separated. If you didn't know the two well, you would've thought they shouldn't have gotten engaged after six months of dating. But Y/N and Bakugou had been friends since UA. They'd been around each other since forever ago.

Bakugou's proposal was more of a spur of the moment decision. Of course he'd been thinking about it for ages, but it slipped out when Y/N was cleaning his wounds with alcohol. He just plainly asked 'do you want to marry me?'. And she replied with 'if you're serious, then I'd love to. But we should wait until we find the right time'.

The 'right time' being once Bakugou had free slots in his schedule, and when he confessed that he loved her. Needless to say, that would be postponed until further notice.

During breakfast at Bakugou's house, Kirishima and Kaminari barged through the door with takeout. They cheered for their friend, trying to lift his spirits.

Bakugou needed a distraction. Something to do. He took out his frustrations on the villains, nearly beating them to a pulp. He would also cook a lot. He was so used to cooking for the both of them so it was weird only cooking... so little. Kirishima and Kaminari picked up on that when they came over unexpectedly and Bakugou had set up two plates of curry. He didn't even realise until the boys asked if someone was coming over.

"Bakugou! We got you some ramen from the place you like!" Kirishima called, placing the meals on the table, "We were gonna' try and cook here, but we decided that it wasn't a good idea."

Kaminari pouted, pulling out chopsticks and napkins. "Y'know, I can make pretty good ramen too." He claimed, placing the bowls on each spot for the three of them, "You just never wanna' try it out."

Kirishima rolled his eyes and placed a hand on his hip. "That's because the last time you cooked, you somehow got your quirk involved and it electrocuted Sero's tongue." He stated before looking around the kitchen and living room, "Where is Bakugou? He said he had a day off today."

Kaminari shrugged his shoulders. They had decided to go check it out and see if Bakugou was anywhere inside the house. The two travelled towards the bedroom, seeing the door half-open.

On the bed meant for two, Bakugou was sitting on his side, flicking through his phone. He was hunched over, obviously stalking her and her friends' social medias. He gave a sigh before falling back into the mattress. It was then that he realised the two standing at his door.

"What the fuck do you want?" Bakugou questioned, wiping his face.

"Bakugou, I don't think it's healthy for you to check her page every few seconds." Kaminari said, rubbing the back of his neck slowly.

"I'm only checking to make sure of something, idiot." Bakugou said, tossing his phone onto his pillow as he closed his eyes.

Kirishima hummed, leaning against the door sill, "And what is that?"

Bakugou opened his eyes and glared at the ceiling. "That she doesn't give up on me." He sighs out quietly.

The last photo he check was the one Mina had posted a few minutes ago. Y/N was wearing a hoodie and shorts, standing in front of the stove with the egg on the pan. She looked at the camera with a soft smile as Jirou looked away. Y/N gave a small wave, letting Bakugou see the band still around her finger. It was still there.

He was worried that she'd give up on him. The first few days were Hell, all the anxiousness of Y/N taking off the ring was clouding his mind. Bakugou put all his trust in Y/N. He needed her to remember that she loved him and she said she'd wait for him.

Y/N hated to admit it but she was scared that Bakugou would never come back. Maybe he'd realise that the reason he never said those words was because he truly didn't love her. Or maybe he'd believe his statement that nobody would wait for him to be ready, and just leave. Bakugou was straight-forward. He wouldn't want to waste time.

Kaminari sat down beside Bakugou, Kirishima on the other side. His hand rested on Bakugou's shoulder as he sat up. "Dude. You sure you don't wanna' move on?" Kaminari asked warily, "You seem... stumped."

It's not that he didn't like Y/N, but Kaminari didn't like seeing Bakugou like this. Y/N and Bakugou were amazing and Kaminari loved their relationship. He didn't know where it was heading and if it should keep going. So he tried to make it better for Bakugou, as he knew the girls were doing for Y/N.

Bakugou glared at Kaminari. If looks could kill. "Fuck off, Dunce Face." He scowled, standing up and walking towards the bathroom, "I'm not gonna' move on from her. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't. We're in this shitty mess because I couldn't just tell her that I..."

Fuck, he thought, too much.

Kirishima sighed once he stopped. He knew the situation. Bakugou had been beating himself up about it for days on end. He even once asked Kirishima for help, whilst saying 'hypothetically' to make it seem like he didn't really need help.

He couldn't leave her. Not when he was addicted to everything she was and is. She was the reason he hadn't gone mad yet and he'd be damned if he wasn't allowed to be in her arms again.

But maybe she'd get tired of waiting.

"What are you gonna' do?" Kirishima questioned, getting up and nudging Kaminari to do so.

"I'm hers." Bakugou whispered softly to himself, staring down at the sink. He wasn't going to cry with those guys in his room. "I don't want to be anyone else's. Just hers."

Kirishima and Kaminari heard it. They only smiled a bit before calling him to eat breakfast.

The first time they fought, like really fought, was after the Bakugou Rescue Mission. Y/N had gone with the group to save him. And he was a wreck on the way back. Y/N stayed with him at the station and walked home to his house before going to hers.

He was angry with her that she went. At the point, they were barely even friends. Well, to Bakugou, as Y/N viewed him as one of her best friends already. She had told him that she couldn't let him go. Y/N wasn't even in his class. She was in the Support Department, one of the students who worked on his suit. Which is how she met him.

He got even angrier. Why was this... person caring for him so much? He was going to yell at her when Y/N just placed her hands on his cheeks, holding his face in her palms. She glanced at him seriously before saying that she adored things and ignored others. She decided that Bakugou fit into one of those categories and it certainly wasn't the ones being ignored.

He was calmed down before heading inside.

A lot more weeks was all it took for Bakugou to finally realise that Y/N was still there.

Really, it had been seven months later. But it felt like just yesterday they had left each other.

At the supermarket, she was grabbing milk and butter. It was Mina's birthday soon and she wanted to practice making Mina's favourite cake. Y/N was determined not to mess up the recipe. Bakugou had turned the corner with his basket to get some yoghurt when he noticed her.

"Kyoka, are you sure she wants red velvet?" Y/N asked into the phone, the voice catching Bakugou's ears. He couldn't believe it. Y/N looked on the other side of the aisle and saw amounts of tubs. "Mina really likes ice cream. How about we make her something with that? What? Oh my God, Kyoka, she's 21, she want an ice cream cake."

She stopped a moment on the phone as people passed Bakugou. He was frozen in his spot, standing in the dairy aisle like a lost kid. Y/N then giggled, "Oh okay, she might. I'll try the velvet and then we can do the ice cream cake. You have sprinkles at home, right?"

He stopped on his tracks. His heart beat increased almost immediately. His eyes felt tired from staring too long. It wasn't until she turned the corner and out of his vision that he snapped back into reality.

He got his things and paid, heading home. He was thinking about Y/N, how she still looked good in her clothes and how she picked the same milk he got. A habit she got from him. Y/N was still so amazingly enchanting.

In his driveway, Bakugou hooked his fingers around the bags and pulled them inside into his house. He set the bags on the table and began to unpack them.

Y/N mentioned something about Mina's birthday party, which meant that he would have to go. It'd be the first time in months that he'd properly see her. She hadn't talked to him in ages. Would her voice still sound the same as it did that long time ago? Would she still light up when she saw him.

He would have to see her again, have to speak with her again. Maybe he would be able to say the things he never said. Bakugou's been working on himself. He really has. Just the thought of her was enough for him to drive forward.

"Was she wearing her ring?"

He mumbled it to himself. A question that drove him insane almost instantly. She was wearing. Of course! She never took it off.

Right?

So why couldn't he remember seeing the ring?

She's given up. Hasn't she?

Another two months and it was Mina's birthday. Also, by this time, it had been nine months since they last spoke or interacted. Nearly a year. It was amazing that he could last that long without talking to her.

The party was held at Mina's apartment. Jirou had reluctantly allowed it because of the last time they had one at their apartment, they spent the next two days cleaning up. Y/N offered to do it at hers, but Jirou declined. She didn't know how Y/N would feel having Bakugou at her place again.

Mina dressed Y/N up in a dress, much to her dismay as she wanted to wear jeans and a nice top. It was down to a few inches above her knees and the sleeves ran just off-the-shoulders. The dress was Mina's, and she said she wanted Y/N to look her best tonight.

Y/N knew Bakugou would be there. They were all friends, of course. She was... nervous.

Maybe Bakugou had made up his mind and said he would move on. He went out more with the guys, Sero even bringing him to the club every once in a while. Kirishima and Kaminari got him drunk a few times. Even more than he did before. But Bakugou was still himself, perhaps just more independent than before.

So he didn't need her, did he?

"Hey, Y/N!" Uraraka and Midoriya called, walking up to her, "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Y/N chuckled, holding her drink to her chest, "Yeah, it has. The last thing I remember was helping Ochaco with her new upgrades." She smiled at the brunette before shrugging her shoulders. "How's it going between you two, anyway?"

Midoriya and Uraraka were married at this point. Midoriya had proposed and they got it sealed only two months later. To say Y/N was a little envious would be true. But she was happy for them.

Midoriya rubbed the back of his neck. "Actually, we're celebrating our one year soon." He claimed, making Y/N widen her eyes at him, "Ochaco said that she wanted to spend it with everyone, so we're planning to have people over to celebrate. You're definitely one of the top people on our list, Y/N."

Y/N giggled in return, covering her mouth a little to make it look convincing, "That's great! I'd love to come, we've been friends so long!" She downed the rest of her drink. "I'm so happy for you, Ochaco, Izuku."

Uraraka held onto Midoriya's arm closely. "Thank you, Y/N!" She laughed happily, rosy cheeks as she rings shone in the light, "Speaking of which, how are you and Bakugou?"

Y/N stopped smiling at that point. Truth be told, she hadn't tried to reach out to Bakugou mainly because of fear. The fear that he would ask why she was contacting him. The fear of Bakugou saying that he didn't want to continue this 'relationship'. The fear that he would... just let her go.

Her throat was tightening up and she felt her head spin. "Katsuki and I..." She began, fiddling with her skirt, "Well, I don't know how to say this—"

"Y/N! It's been so long!" Kirishima called out, walking towards her with his jacket on his arm, "How've you been? You look great tonight!"

Uraraka and Midoriya must've noticed the change in mood, because they quickly excused themselves as Kirishima dragged Y/N away to the balcony. He shut the door behind them, turning around to see Y/N already staring at him.

"Thank you, Eijiro." She said with a soft smile, breeze running through her hair, "I don't know how to tell the others. It's kind of difficult."

Kirishima shrugged it off easily. "It's okay. I know how you feel about Bakugou." He spoke, leaning against the balcony with her, "About that... You know he's here right?"

"Of course I know." She replied, watching the cars rush around beneath them, "You, Denki and Katuski arrived together. But don't worry, it's fine. He doesn't have to talk to me if he doesn't want to."

Kirishima glanced at her before looking away. "I'm pretty sure he does want to talk to you, Y/N." He states, tilting his head to the side, "He saw you already and made an excuse to go to the bathroom. I just think Bakugou won't know what to say."

"He should."

Kirishima looked down to her. "What do you mean?" He mumbled out to her.

A few minutes of silence passed through them.

Y/N stood up straight, hands leaving the balcony railing. She fixed her dress skirt and took a deep breath in, making sure the off-the-shoulder parts were comfortable. Walking towards the door, she looked over her shoulder.

"Because he knows that if he wants to get back together, he has to tell me something."

The door shut behind her and she walked back to get a refill on her drink. Whilst at the sodas, Jirou came up and tapped Y/N's shoulder. "It's nearly time for cake. It's in your fridge, right? Do you want me to get it?"

Y/N shook her head and gave Jirou her cup. "No, I'll get it. Just come and knock at my door if anything goes wrong." She said, making her way to the door. Jirou nodded her head.

Y/N opened the door, waving 'hello' to Yaoyorozu and Ojiro who were on the other side of the room. She failed to notice the vermillion eyes following her moves.

TAGS: @jazzylove @urmomsshousee @multi-fandom-fanfic @shydeepblue @silentw-lkr @bakugousflowerprincess (anyone crossed out was unable to be tagged)

[dreamescapeswriting]

BTS Reaction || You’re A Biology Major [Request]

A/N: If anyone gets the reference in Taehyungs I officially love you more than anyone else in my life.

Seokjin:

Jin was on stage for the night and you were backstage at one of the desks in the changing room, you'd learnt to drown out everything around you. You had to whenever you were on tour and you had an exam coming up, you wanted to be the supportive girlfriend with Jin but you also had to put your studies first and he understood there. At first, he'd tried to keep everyone in the changing room quiet but it was never going to happen because of who they were. They were naturally loud but you told him you didn't mind. The background noise made you feel like you were back in your college classroom trying to work with all the distracting people around you.

"You've been staring at that same paragraph for a long time, coffee break?" One of the stylists - Jihoo - asked when she saw you struggling with something in the textbook.

"Please. It's like my brain won't suck anything up into it." She handed you a brown cup and sat next to you staring at the page, reading through it all and humming to herself, your spirits lifted. If someone else could understand it maybe they could explain it to you but then she slammed the book shut.

"I've got no idea," You groaned and laid your head down on the hardback cover wanting nothing more than to bash your head against it and pray that the words fall into your brian,

"What's wrong babe?" Jin's hands were on your shoulders, rubbing at the knots in your muscles and you whined out at how nice it felt to have his fingers on you taking away all the tension you had.

"I should be giving you a massage, how was the concert?" He sighed knowing that that was your way of avoiding things, quickly trying to switch to another topic.

"Babe," He said in a warning tone and you looked up at him,

"I can't get this chapter into my head, it's like I've broken my brain. Reached a point where I can't remember anything anymore." He chuckled at you and shook his head,

"It's because you've done nothing but study for the last week straight. You need a break, one night off won't hurt okay? I'll go shower and then we'll go to dinner at the hotel and go for a swim?" You thought back to the pool he was in a couple of nights ago, the hotel was stunning and you'd been dying to go swimming there since you arrived.

"One night." You told him as you got more and more excited about the pool.

"One night." He promised, kissing the tip of your nose before standing up straight.

"Then you can go back to being my biology nerdy girlfriend." You stuck your tongue out at him and he rushed off towards the showers while you packed everything up into your bag and waited for him.

Yoongi:

The whole day you'd been a nervous wreck. From the moment you woke up you'd been on edge and so had Yoongi, both of you were waiting for the phone to ring and whenever it did you would both jump before answering it. None of the phone calls being the results you wanted. You were waiting for your biology final grade to come in, it was the grade to determine whether or not you had a career in your dream field. You'd thought you'd aced the test on the day you took it but the longer the results took to come in the more you began to freak out. All of your other classmates had received their results weeks ago and you were told yours could take a few more days, and this was the final date they'd given to you.

"Here, you have to eat." Yoongi slid the sandwich in front of you but your eyes never moved from the phone, scared to look away in case it rang and you didn't hear it. Which seemed impossible since it was on loud.

"Thanks." You mumbled taking the sandwich and biting into it, he sighed looking at you. If he'd known you'd be zombie-like he would have taken the phone away from you but he was just as nervous as you were to get the results, he knew how much this meant to you.

"Hello?!" Your voice came out panicked as you picked up the phone but Yoongi stared at you wondering what was happening on the other side of the phone, your expression was blank and unreadable.

"Thank you, Sir," You laughed down the phone,

"No, yes, I understand. Thank you." You hung up and he stared at you wanting answers but just as you were about to explain what had happened over the phone the front door to your shared apartment burst open and in walked the boys.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" Jungkook screamed blowing on a noisemaker and cheering loudly as Jin carried in a two-tier cake with your name on it, on top of the cake was a microscope and a string of DNA made from the candy you giggled at the sight of it.

"You don't even know what she got," Yoongi said and you giggled turning to look at him.

"I passed, he said it took so long because they wanted to make sure I hadn't cheated. They'd never had someone get 100% on one of their tests before-" You grunted as you were engulfed in a seven-man hug,

"You hear that! She's not only smart she's super smart!" You began giggling as Yoongi pulled away and started kissing all over your cheeks,

"I have to call my mum." You laughed at him and the boys all continued to congratulate you again.

"Thanks, guys, give me some of that cake though. I'm starving."

Hoseok:

Hoseok was just as nervous about the exam as you were, you'd never had to do something like this before. You were so used to going into a classroom and taking a final exam but you have stuck in Korea thanks to the lockdown rules and couldn't get home for the exam.  The college board understood your situation and were allowing you to take the exam there, but sitting in the dorm's kitchen with a laptop and a paper felt weird. A tutor was on the screen watching you and many other people on a zoom call to make sure you weren't cheating, the boys were all silent in the living room while they waited for the next two hours to pass by. This was the written paper which was fairly easier to do from home than the practical exam was going to be. You knew they were just going to arrange that for a later date but you had no idea when that later date would be or how it would work.

"You think she's passed?" Jin whispered to Hoseok, two hours were up and they could hear you talking to your tutor as you packed up the finished exam paper into an envelope no one would be able to reopen once it was closed.

"She's smart, she can pass anything," Hoseok whispered back to him, since staying with them he'd done nothing but brag about how smart you were. Always making your cheeks heat up whenever he'd do it in front of you but he wanted to show you off, show off just how proud of you he was to everyone. The door to the kitchen slid open and you came out holding the envelope.

"I have to post this right away." Hoseok nodded grabbing his keys more than happy to take you to get it done,

"How'd did it go?" You nodded at him and he wondered what it meant, they all did.

"It went okay, I won't know until they grade it." You giggled at them and they all sighed wanting to know now.

"Results will take a month, I swear you'll be more on edge than me." You laughed at them and Hoseok took you towards the front door, eager as ever to post the test off for you.

Namjoon:

Namjoon wasn't worried at the start of the day but as more time passed the more he started to worry. You hadn't answered any of his texts or his calls. He assumed you were too busy studying for your finals that were coming up but it was getting late and you'd normally called to check in with him by now but you hadn't.

"I'm just going to check she's okay and then I'll come back out," Namjoon told Jin as he pulled into your driveway, your car was still there which meant you were home. Namjoon took the spare key you'd given him for emergencies and walked up the front door and let himself inside.

"Y/n?" He called out through the dark and empty apartment, he shut the door and listened out for any sign of you. He could hear the soft lofi music coming from your bedroom so he headed up to try and find you, he pushed the door open and you were asleep at the desk. Blanket wrapped around your shoulders with your head in a textbook, highlighter in one hand and post-it notes in the other.

"Oh shit," He whispered rushing back to JIn to tell him to go back to the dorms,

"She's asleep but I need to move her." Jin nodded and left him there, Namjoon headed back inside and went back up to you. He took the blanket off your shoulders and then picked you up carrying you to the bed where he laid you down and laid the blanket back over you.

"Goodnight baby," He kissed your forehead and headed downstairs to clean up the apartment and make sure you'd at least eaten something that day.

(X)

The next morning you woke up to the smell of food floating through the air, you headed down the stairs to see Namjoon standing in front of the oven and cooking,

"You sure you aren't going to burn my house down?" You teased going up and kissing his cheek,

"Morning, how'd you sleep?" You hummed and rubbed your neck,

"I ache." He chuckled at you and handed you a fresh cup of coffee,

"That'll be from sleeping at your desk."

"I completely crashed, I'd stayed up the night before and thought I'd make it, I was wrong." He sighed and kissed the top of your head.

"I love how smart you are but you need to learn how to take breaks baby." He whispered to you as he began plating up food for you.

"I will when I pass." He knew there was nothing he could say to change your mind so he was just going to have to make sure he was there to remind you to take breaks as you did with him.

Jimin:

"Jimin I can take myself," You giggled as he handed you a cup of coffee in bed. He'd woken up extra early so he could make you breakfast in bed and bring it up to you. It was results day which meant going down to the college to pick them up in front of everyone. Everyone would be exchanging what they got and talking to one another about what was next for you all,

"Well, I wasn't there when you took the exam or had your first-year results so I'm going." He kissed your head and you didn't fight him on it. You didn't want to upset him by telling him you didn't want him to take you because you did. You wanted him to you were just nervous what other people would say. They were the nicest to you in class when they found out you were dating him and they'd never really spoken to you after they found out either, not that it bothered you. You wanted to keep your head down and work instead of getting involved in childish-like drama, you were supposed to be adults in college not teenagers in a classroom. Jimin knew that they hadn't been the best to you which was one of the other reasons he wanted to take you, he wanted to show his support of course but he also wanted to show them how much neither of you cared about their opinions on him.

(X)

The silver Porsche rolled up into the carpark and immediately all eyes were on you, you weren't stupid you knew what Jimin was doing. He got out of the car and wrapped his arm around your shoulders,

"Let's go get your results." You shook your head at him and he smirked at you, you already knew what results you'd gotten this was just protocol to go and collect them.

"What? Nothing wrong with this is there?" You ignored all of the stares you were getting as you walked through the courtyard and towards the main entrance.

"No. Not at all. But just remember that they already hate me, I don't need them thinking I'm with you for the money." You quipped back at him and he laughed bringing his arm around your waist and pulling you closer as you walked through the halls.

"Let them think what they want, I'm just showing my support to my beautiful and smart girlfriend." You scoffed at him,

"Wait here, I have to go in alone." You stood him beside a wall where he couldn't get in trouble and headed into the room for your results, ignoring all of the looks once again.

When you finally came back out Jimin was surrounded by guys and you assumed he was talking about the car but as soon as he spotted you,

"There she is! My brainiac." You groaned at him playfully and he continued bragging to the boys about how smart you were.

Taehyung:

Taehyung knew how smart you were and he didn't need the benefit that your research facility was throwing to tell him that but he went along with you anyway. It was being held in a giant hotel, it looked like something the boys would stay in when they went on tour.

"Dr Brennan, let me introduce you to Taehyung. My boyfriend." The lady who owned the building turned to you and Taehyung and bowed before talking to Taehyung in Korean. She was gifted in every language and subject which was one of the reasons you'd wanted to work for her for years. She was exceptional, the very best.

"I'm very proud to be working alongside Y/n on a lot of our projects here." While they were in an in-depth conversation you walked away to get another drink for you and Taehyung. The facility held these events so the beneficiaries that helped the place run could meet the people that they were paying, it was also an excuse to dress up really fancy and show off your husbands, boyfriends, wives and girlfriends for the night.

"Hmm Hi," You giggled as you felt Taehyung wrap his arm around you from behind, your leant your head back against his shoulder and he smiled,

"Dr Y/l/n." His arms dropped and you turned to look at another co-worker,

"Hi, this is Taehyung, my boyfriend, Tae this is Dr Addy another brilliant biologist at the lab."

"She's too kind. She's the brilliant one." You smiled softly and looked down at the wine glass in your hand as they began exchanging stories about you with one another. Taehyung's smile growing wider and wider as he heard more and more stories about you that he hadn't before, each of them making him prouder of you with every passing second. He couldn't wait to get home and tell the boys everything about it, they knew how proud he was anyone but now he had more stories to tell which meant more bragging rights about how you were the smartest one out of them all.

Jungkook:

At first, you thought it was just your imagination playing tricks on you. You were just too focused on your studies to even realise but now you'd finished all of your exams and had your results you realised that Jungkook was getting distant with you. He'd spent all of his time at work and then his free time was spent with the boys, when he eventually did come back to your shared apartment you were either asleep or at work and barely had time to see him. It was worrying you. Your graduation was coming up and you'd asked him to go with you but he told you he was busy and couldn't, but he wouldn't tell you what you were busy with though.

"You're probably just overreacting. Isn't comeback season soon?" One of your best friends in your class asked as you lined up to get your diplomas, you knew she was right but it still didn't make you feel any better about it.

"I just wished he'd come, it would have been nice."

After graduation, you headed home to find Jungkook on the sofa. You took off your shoes and walked towards to kitchen without greeting him.

"I don't get a hello?" He chuckled but you didn't find anything funny,

"I thought you were busy today?" You didn't mean for your tone to come out so harsh but you were upset that he told you he was busy when he clearly wasn't.

"I was. Come with me?" You stared at him and he nodded over to the front door,

"I'm tired Jungkook-"

"Just come with me." You sighed at him and followed him out towards the front door again, you slipped into your shoes and he took you over to his car.

"Where are we going?" He stayed silent and sat you down in the passenger seat before going to his side and started up the engine.

(X)

"Jungkook! We're not allowed in here! It had a sign-" You were cut off when bright lights came on and people screamed surprise at the top of their lungs.

"What- Jungkook did you do this?" You looked around the room, it was filled with all of your classmates, teachers and tutors from your college and banners along the wall.

"I've been planning a graduation party for a while,"

"This is why you've been so distant?" He nodded sheepishly at you,

"I can never lie to you. I figured I'd been distant for a while and it'll all make sense." You wrapped your arms around him and he started laughing as you cried softly against his shoulder.

"This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." You whispered to him, pulling away from the hug and giving him a long lingering kiss.

"I have to show everyone how smart my baby is don't I." He winked at you and kissed you once again.

Tagline: 

@writingdreamsnottragedies​ @yoongisdumplingcheeks​ @snowy-meowl​ @lynnthevirgo​ @jooniesdarlingdimples​ @fan-ati--c​ @lyoongx​ @mitzwinchester​ @callingmyangel​ @rjsmochii​ @btsmutandstuff​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @taestannie​ @supresoo​

[bee-kathony]

Blue Christmas | Jamie & Claire one shot 

a/n: Merry Christmas! I wrote this a few weeks ago, so I thought I’d finally post it. Comes in at a whopping 13,154 words so you’ll need to brew a cup of hot chocolate and settle in for this one! Now... this will probably be my last fic for awhile, possibly ever, we’ll see how I feel after everything has settled. I hope you enjoy and Merry Christmas! xx and thank you @julesbeauchamp for the moodboard! 

December 23rd, 2019

Oxford, England

The wine glass in her hand was becoming dangerously low. Dangerous, because without the warm liquid filling Claire’s belly, she’d remember just exactly why she was drinking alone.

Christmas was a time of celebration and joy. A time for families to come together, laugh and exchange presents. Everyone would gather around the fireplace and tell stories or watch a classic Christmas film.

Claire was celebrating in her own way two days before Christmas. Her divorce had been finalized this morning, which was a good thing, but not exactly something that would lift the spirits.

Her ex-husband, Frank Randall had been a kind man, emphasis on had. They’d been married a short five years, and during that time, Frank hadn’t been faithful — at all. When Claire found out about one woman, it led to another and another… and another. Frank seemed to have a string of women lined up all around the city. It made Claire feel like a fool for trusting him and believing that he truly loved her.

So, with her divorce final, Claire was celebrating Christmas alone for the first time in her life. The first several years of her life she barely remembered, and until she had married Frank, she had spent every Christmas with her aunt and uncle in London.

Uncle Lamb insisted she come and join them this year, but the thought of having to pretend she was okay was mind-numbing. Being around her family would be nice, but seeing all the cheer and jovial faces wasn’t something she could handle.

A quiet meow came from her left, and Claire looked over to see her cat Adso licking his feet. Well, she wasn’t quite alone, at least she had her cat.

“I’m becoming a crazy cat lady at the ripe age of twenty-seven,” Claire said wistfully, petting Adso on the head, making him purr gently. “Just you and me now.”

There wasn’t even a Christmas movie that Claire could watch because they usually all ended with two people falling in love, and love was not something Claire wanted to think about. It killed her to know that Frank was probably screwing some blonde university bimbo right now, while she sat alone in the dark, not a decoration in sight.

Thankfully, she had the next two weeks off to wallow in self-pity. Claire worked at the local library, where she was able to read to her heart’s content. Her best friend Geillis also worked with her, although she didn’t read all that much, which always made Claire laugh. Why take a position at a library if one didn’t like to read?

Gathering enough energy to get off the sofa, Claire set her now empty glass down in search of a new bottle. If she had to spend this Christmas alone, she certainly wouldn’t be spending it sober.

As Claire grabbed a new bottle, she passed by the fridge, which was still littered with the odd bits and pictures of her and Frank’s life. A yellow post-it note caught her attention. It read, “I’ll be out late, eat without me!”

She yanked it off, crumpling it into a small paper ball before tossing it in the trash can. “You bastard,” she said to the post-it and to Frank.

Sooner or later, she would need to get rid of all his things. The process had begun two months ago when she’d found out about his affairs. Claire had gathered up as many clothes of his that she could carry in her two arms and tossed them out the second-story window, much to Frank’s complaints.

Laughing at this memory, Claire grabbed a packet of biscuits before plopping back down on the sofa.

“Another glass for the woman who’s destined to be alone,” Claire said to herself, watching the dark liquid fill her cup.

Just as she picked it up, a loud knock came from the door, making her spill it all over her pajama pants. “Shit!” Claire stood up quickly, checking to see if any had got on her couch, and thankfully (or not so thankfully) it had all landed on her.

Another knock came from the door, “Open up!”

“Geillis?” Claire raced to the door, patting at her pants. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Her friend held up a bottle of wine and a box of pizza. “Solidarity? I wasn’t going to let you spend tonight alone. I canna be wi’ ye on Christmas, so I thought tonight would suffice.”

“Get in here,” Claire grinned, hugging her friend as she passed. “I should make you buy me a new pair of pajama bottoms! Spilled half my glass of wine all over them when you knocked.”

Geillis looked her over, wincing as she saw the dark red stain. “Och, Christ, Claire. I’m verra sorry about that.”

“You should be,” Claire crossed her arms as she leaned on the counter, the smell of the pizza making her mouth water. “But you brought sustenance so all is forgiven!”

“Go make yourself at home, I’ll just go change out of these,” Claire rolled her eyes, laughing as she went to her room. It should’ve been hard to be in the bedroom that Frank and she had shared, but he was barely home towards the end. The reason for that was clear now. They had moved into this house only two years ago after Frank accepted the teaching position at Oxford. Most of the memories Claire had made here, had been on her own.

Returning with a freshly washed pair of fuzzy bottoms, Claire sat down next to Geillis who was already on her second slice.

“So ye really didna decorate for Christmas, huh?”

It was true. The room was dark with the lack of twinkling lights and not a bauble in sight. “I didn’t feel like decorating just for myself. Not this year at least.”

“I get it,” Geillis nodded. “But I wish ye wouldn’t spend the whole holidays wallowing in self-pity. Ye should put on a fancy dress and go get yerself laid,” she winked. “Now, that will lift yer spirits, ye ken?”

“I ken,” Claire smirked. “But I don’t think anyone would want to get with this sorry lump of coal.”

“Excuse me?” Geillis nearly spit out her wine. “If yer a lump of coal, then what am I?!”

“Oh, you’re gold darling, absolute gold,” Claire laughed. “I appreciate the encouragement, but I’d rather not wake up in a strange bed with a strange man.”

“But that’s often the best kind,” Geillis nudged her in the side. “Well, if ye willna go get laid, please dinna stay here in this miserable depressing house. Go see yer uncle or go take a trip somewhere. Ye’ve earned it, Beauchamp.”

That hit her like a gut punch. Beauchamp. Her maiden name. “Guess I’ll have to get used to saying that again. A trip you say?” She sipped her wine. “But it’s two days before Christmas, where on earth could I go that would have availability?”

“Try Scotland, my homeland,” Geillis grinned and ran her finger gently down Adso’s back. “Tis just a quick hop on a plane, gets ye out of England at least.”

“I’ve never been to Scotland,” Claire said. “Do I just find a bed and breakfast in some quaint village?”

“Aye,” Geillis nodded and then whipped out her phone. “Or ye can search for a cute holiday spot in Scotland. Let’s say the highlands somewhere.”

As Claire let Geillis search for a place for her to go, she looked around at her house. While she could wallow, the idea of sitting in the dark wasn’t exactly appealing. She had the next two weeks off, and she might as well try and enjoy herself a bit. After all, she should be celebrating the fact that she’s no longer married to Frank who took every opportunity to cheat on her.

“How long do ye want to stay?” Geillis asked.

“Umm, I don’t know. Maybe four days? Five? I’ll have to find somewhere for Adso to stay,” Claire smiled as her cat purred beneath her hand.

“Oh, I’ll watch the wee cheetie,” Geillis mumbled. “So, in the highlands… with availability.”

“Oh and make sure it’s not some romantic getaway destination,” Claire added.

“Lassie,” Geillis laughed. “It’s Scotland. The whole damn country is a romantic destination! But dinna fash, I’ll find ye a good spot.”

“While you do that, I’m going to turn on the fireplace,” Claire said as she stood up. She flicked a switch that turned on the gas and immediate heat came to life. Claire stood in front of the fireplace, trying to get warm.

There was something rather exciting about traveling to a country she’d never been before. Claire fancied herself as a bit of a gypsy — her home was wherever she was. And Scotland was a place she’d always wanted to visit, it seemed like now was as good a time as any.

“Oh, I think I found it,” Geillis stood up from the sofa to show her the phone. “Tis called Fraser’s Ridge. A collection of cabins of all sizes up in the Highlands.”

“Fraser’s Ridge,” Claire repeated and began to flick through the pictures. The cabins looked very cozy and inviting. “They have availability?”

“That’s what their website says,” Geillis said. “Want me to book it? It’ll be my Christmas present to ye… since I may have forgotten to buy ye a gift,” she winced.

“You don’t have to do that, Geillis!”

“I do! Ye need to take time for yerself,” Geillis slid her arm around Claire’s waist, squeezing tight. “Ye’ve had a rough year, and now ye can go up to a cute wee cabin and relax.”

Claire looked through the pictures again, noting how charming they looked. “It says here that each cabin was hand-built by the owner and his father.”

“Oooh, the crafty type,” Geillis winked. “Ye should make sure ye get a good look at the owner then. If he’s good wi’ his hands…” she made a lewd hand motion.

“Geillis Duncan!” Claire laughed, nudging her friend in the ribs. “There will be nothing of the sort. I bet he’s in his 60’s, overweight and balding.”

“Are ye picky then?”

Claire shot her friend a look, then laughed and moved back to the sofa. “Fine, if you want to book it, then go for it. It’ll be better than me and Adso rotting away like Miss Havisham while I sit in my wedding dress.”

“Ye should give that away or somethin’,” Geillis said as she typed Claire’s details into her phone to book the holiday. “I mean, I ken it’s full of memories and such, but surely those have all been tainted.”

“I guess you’re right,” Claire sighed, leaning her head back on the sofa. “I could give it to charity. Or you. Would you like a used wedding dress, Geillis?”

“Not a chance,” Geillis smirked. “Okay, I’ve put yer name as Claire Beauchamp. It’s five days, and you leave tomorrow.”

“Christmas Eve,” Claire ran her hand through her curls. “Guess I’d better pack!”

“Will ye promise me ye’ll bring somethin’ sexy to wear? Just in case the owner turns out to be a mysterious highland hunk?”

“God, you’re insufferable,” Claire chuckled and tossed a pillow at her friend who narrowly dodged it. “For you, I’ll pack it, but it will get no use.”

“We’ll see,” Geillis smirked, forwarding Claire the confirmation email.

++++++

After Geillis went home that night, Claire went into her closet and packed a travel bag full of everything she thought she’d need. The owner said he would have a car come and pick her up at the airport, and then to get some groceries if she needed them. Besides that, she wouldn’t even need to leave the cabin. Cozy sweaters and loungewear were all that she intended to wear, but she did pack a sexy silky pajama set she had yet to wear just so when Geillis asked her about it later, she could say she brought it.

She felt nuts to be boarding a plane on Christmas Eve, but she wasn’t alone. The airport was packed with other holiday travelers flying all over the world. Claire loved to people watch — coming up with stories for people.

There was a little girl Claire had been watching for the last several minutes while she waited for the plane to take off. She sat two rows in front of Claire and kept popping her head over the seat to look back at her.

“Hi,” Claire waved. The little girl ducked back down with a shy smile before popping her head up again. This pattern went on several times before the girl’s mother told her to sit still.

The flight was a short one, but Claire always got motion sickness on flights or in cars and so she took a Dramamine to help ease the nausea she was already feeling. She was also slightly nervous to be going to a place she’d never been on her own. Every vacation in the past had been with Frank, so now she was venturing out, and so far things were going well.

Nearly two hours later, Claire woke up to the sound of the pilot telling them that they would be landing shortly. Her head felt foggy, and she stretched in her seat the best she could.

“Couldn’t have sprung for first-class, Geillis?” Claire chuckled to herself.

She only had a carry-on duffel and a large purse that held her laptop and a few books for the trip.

The email said that one of their employees would be picking her up and would have her name on a sign. So it wasn’t a surprise whenever she walked out of the gate to find a tall bearded man, holding a sign that read, “C. Beauchamp.”

“Hi,” Claire smiled at the man. “Are you from Fraser’s Ridge?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “I’m Murtagh FitzGibbons. I take it ye are C. Beauchamp?”

“That’s me. I don’t have to wait for a bag so I’m ready when you are,” Claire said.

The man made a Scottish sound in the back of his throat and then took her duffel. A slight panic crept in as she followed this stranger out to the car. She was a woman traveling alone on one of the busiest holidays. This would be the time that she could be taken advantage of, perhaps taken to some remote place and murdered.

“Christ, Beauchamp,” she shook that murderous thought out of her head and told herself everything would be fine.

“Do ye need to stop at the grocer’s for any food for yer stay?” Murtagh asked as he started the car.

“Um, yes please, if there’s one on the way,” she replied.

“Aye, there is. The Ridge is about an hour away from here, so best get comfortable,” Murtagh smiled at her as he turned on her seat heater. Fraser’s Ridge did have five-star reviews, and so far, she knew why.

Murtagh drove her to the grocery store where she picked up snacks and food she could easily prepare. Wine of course, and a bottle of whisky… two bottles of whisky. The rest of the drive was silent, as Claire took in the beautiful Scottish landscape. The rolling green hills, covered in snow as they drove further north.

By the time they reached Fraser’s Ridge, the sun was beginning to go down, even though it was just the afternoon. The air was crisp and cold, making Claire shiver as she stepped out of the warm embrace of the heated car.

“The owner, Jamie, my godson, is out tonight and tomorrow to be wi’ his sister and her family. But, I’ll help ye check-in and then see ye safe to yer cabin. Jamie will probably stop by to welcome ye properly when he gets back,” Murtagh said as he picked up her bag again.

“You’re his godfather?” Claire asked. “Why aren’t you spending Christmas with them, if you don’t mind me asking?”

He grunted, “Och, well, I’m no’ much of a holiday man. And someone had to see to the place over the holidays. Jamie did it last year and I kent he wanted to spend time wi’ his sister, Jenny.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Claire smiled warmly. “I look forward to meeting this Jamie whenever he comes back. This place is absolutely beautiful.”

“Aye, lass,” Murtagh smiled as he walked up a trail towards a small building that must be their offices.

“There’s a wee book that tells ye a bit about the place,” Murtagh said as he wrote her name down. “It also has information about wifi, if that’s somethin’ yer interested in.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a gold key. “Cabin 2,” he handed it to her. “If ye’ll just follow me.”

They walked back outside, and it was beginning to snow lightly. On the way up here, Claire noticed that they really were in a remote part of the highlands. Although, it seemed most of the highlands was remote compared to the busy streets of Oxford or London.

“Are there other people here? Or is it just me being a complete and utter loser on Christmas?” Claire chuckled sadly.

“There are a few other folks,” Murtagh looked back at her. “A few families that like to spend the holidays up here. We have ten cabins in total, and this season only three are vacant.”

“Wow,” Claire was impressed. It was an ideal location, but most people stay at home with their family’s at Christmas time. “Well, it’s really lovely.”

Her cabin was just a short walk from the office, with its own trail that led to the door. Claire could tell that it was built with skill and precision. Everything looked so intentional and yet still had that rustic element that all cabins had. Murtagh walked up to the door, waiting for her to unlock it.

She turned the key, opening the door to a dark room. Murtagh flicked on the switch and Claire gasped.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” Murtagh smirked and then set her bag down. “Jamie insisted on decorating every cabin for Christmas. I told him ‘twas a bit much, but,” the man shrugged.

There were lights strung around the room, making it sparkle. A large tree stood in the corner, fully decorated, with cranberry and popcorn and every bauble to go with it. The fireplace had greenery on top, fit with knitted stockings. It wasn’t cheesy or tacky. Claire wasn’t trying to escape Christmas, just her depressing home she had shared with her ex-husband. This… this was perfect.

“Well, I’ll leave ye to it,” Murtagh said. “Our office number is listed in the book as well if ye need anythin’. Enjoy your stay, Miss Beauchamp.”

“Thank you,” Claire smiled as Murtagh shut the door, leaving her on her own. The first order of business was to get the fireplace going, and upon first inspection, it wasn’t a gas one like Claire’s.

There was wood already set up, as well as kindling and a box of matches on top of the mantle. “Here goes nothing,” Claire muttered as she struck the match. At first, nothing happened, but soon the kindling caught the flame and began to fan out to the logs.

“First try,” she clapped her hands together.

There was a small kitchen connected to the living room, stocked with all the appliances one could need. The master bedroom was spacious, with a cozy king-sized bed that Claire was very much looking forward to getting into later. A bathroom connected to the bedroom, with a shower and clawfoot tub.

“The pictures don’t do this place justice,” Claire sighed as she walked back into the living room which was warming up nicely. There was a ladder that led up to a small loft area with plush seating. A cute little reading nook for later.

Claire continued her curious look around as she opened up the back door. There was a fire pit outside, with logs set up around it for seating. She managed to get the inside fire lit but wasn’t counting on her skills with an outdoor pit.

Before she settled onto the comfy looking sofa, Claire took her bag into the room and unpacked it. Then she put her groceries away, grabbing a packet of crisps and a plaid before snuggling in for the night.

The remote was on the coffee table and when she turned it on, The Holiday was playing.

“I can’t turn this off, now can I?” She rolled her eyes but smiled as Jude Law’s character put on his glasses.

After the movie ended, and Claire had eaten her weight in crisps, she groggily made her way to the bedroom. Not bothering with pajamas, she flopped down onto the bed face first and within moments fell fast asleep.

++++++

On Christmas morning, Claire treated herself to a cup of coffee and store bought croissants. There were no presents under the tree to open, and no one would call. Maybe her uncle Lamb, but later once his own children had opened their gifts.

“Another day of movies and crisps,” Claire sighed as she took up the corner spot on the sofa.

Hours passed in that order. One movie would end, and another would begin. She had given up on trying to avoid cheesy Christmas movies, as that seemed to be the only thing playing on virtually every station.

Claire felt herself drifting off to sleep during Elf, but was startled when a loud knock came from the front door. “What the bloody hell,” she yawned and jumped off the sofa. Grabbing the plaid, she wrapped it around her body as she shuffled to the door.

A very tall, very large, red headed man stood on the front porch. He had an axe in one hand, and a bag in the other.

“Um, are you going to murder me?” Claire glanced at the axe.

The man followed her gaze and burst into a laugh. “Oh, Christ! It does look like that. No, God no. I came to see if ye needed any wood cut for the place.”

“Perhaps,” Claire said, eyeing the man. She had to admit that he was very attractive, and his accent had that deep burr of someone who had lived in the highlands all his life, the r’s rolling off his tongue.

“Yer probably wonderin’ who this strange man is on yer front steps,” the man said as he took off his gloves and stuck out his hand. “I’m Jamie Fraser. Of Fraser’s Ridge.”

“Ah,” Claire smiled and shook his hand. “That makes a lot of sense,” she laughed. “I’m Claire Beauchamp. I just got in last night. Your godfather, Murtagh, was it? He said that you wouldn’t be around today.”

Jamie put his gloves back on his large hands. “Well, I wasna supposed to be, but then my sister Jenny’s daughter Maggie got sick after the festivities and so I was freed. Thought I’d just come back to check on everyone and to wish them a Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Claire grinned. “I must say, this place is wonderful. Did you really build every one?”

“Aye,” Jamie’s cheeks blushed. “With my Da before he passed a few years back. We ran this place together. It was a way to show the beauty of Scotland, and remind everyone to take time for themselves. What brought ye here?”

“Oh,” Claire paused, not sure how much of her personal life to disclose to a near stranger. “Just needed a break from my life back in England.”

“I kent ye were a Sassenach,” Jamie smiled warmly.

“Sassenach?”

“English person,” he replied. “More or less.”

There was still snow falling, and Claire began to shiver in the doorway. “Would you like to come in Mr. Fraser? It’s bloody freezing out there!”

“Och,” he shook his head. “I’ll just go and chop the wood for ye and bring it back. I wouldna want to impose on ye.”

“It wouldn’t be an imposition,” Claire said, and realized that she really wouldn’t mind spending more time with this man. He had a kindness to him, one that instantly drew her to him.

“I willna be long,” Jamie turned to leave. “And call me Jamie please, Sassenach.”

She waited until he had fully gone to shut the door. He would be back.

Racing to her bedroom, she tossed the plaid on the bed and began to root around in the drawers for something more suitable to wear. Of bloody course she had only brought oversized sweaters and lounge wear. “Didn’t think you’d be meeting a handsome Scot, now would you? Didn’t listen to Geillis,” she mumbled.

Pulling out a green sweater, Claire thought it was the most presentable option and replaced it with the old t-shirt she had been wearing. She only felt a little foolish to be primping herself for his return. Licking her fingers, she tried to assemble the bird’s nest called her curly hair into order.

She was not certain how long it would take him to chop down fresh wood. An image of the man Jamie holding the axe in his hands, droplets of sweat on his brow as he struck down with force on the wood filled her mind. Claire let her eyes closed as she pictured how he would grunt with every strike, again and again. He was clearly well built, so his muscles would flex.

“Christ, Beauchamp,” she shook her head, looking back at herself in the mirror. “Would you get a bloody grip?!”

She knew she shouldn’t have changed her appearance for a man. There was nothing that would come of this, so why did she want to look good for him? After Frank, Claire thought it would take her a long time to be open to any kind of relationship, let alone whatever she was imagining with Fraser.

He said he was going to chop down wood for everyone that needed some, so it could take awhile. The sofa called to her, and Claire sat down, grabbing a book off the coffee table. Her ear was tuned to any slight sound outside, waiting for Jamie’s return.

It took several tries for Claire to focus on the pages before her. She must have read the same paragraph nearly ten times, as her mind was picturing running her fingers through Jamie’s red curls.

“My God woman,” Claire muttered, feeling herself growing flushed. “This is not a cheesy Christmas movie. You’re not going to get laid by the owner of the place who kindly brings you wood.”

If Geillis were here, she would tell Claire to be open and take risks. But Claire had exchanged a few words with the man, and while she assumed he didn’t have a wife or family of his own, there was no way of knowing he wasn’t promised to some other woman.

Soon, Claire’s attention was hooked by her book, and as the minutes turned into hours, she had nearly forgotten about Jamie coming back. One look out the window showed her that it was still snowing, nearly a blizzard too. It was also growing dark outside, and she knew enough to know that chopping wood in the dark was a recipe for disaster.

Her curiosity sparked, Claire rose from the sofa and went to find her boots. Her gut told her that she should at least check that he was okay, if she could even find him out there. Once her shoes were tied, Claire grabbed her coat off the hook near the door. The fresh cold air hit her face, making her gasp as it took her breath away.

The steps were icy as she descended slowly. Obviously, she should look in the woods behind the cabin first. What would she do if she couldn’t find him? Go to the offices, demanding to know where he was? She would look insane and probably desperate. However, he did say he would come back and it’d been nearly four hours.

As she turned the corner round the back of the house, a flash of red caught her eye and she made her way carefully over.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!”

She wouldn’t have to venture out into the icy woods after all. Jamie was lying in the snow, clearly stuck and unconscious. His axe lay nearby as did a pile of wood. He didn’t have any signs of bleeding, so he must have slipped on the ice and passed out.

Claire bent next to his body, her fingers instantly checking for his pulse at his neck. His skin was chilled, but she felt a steady thrum under her fingers, echoing her own. Jamie’s lips were a light shade of blue — he must have been out for hours. And all this time, she sat warm and inside, none the wiser.

“Jamie,” she rubbed her hand over his cheek. He didn’t stir. There was snow covering his body and she began to wipe it off. If he didn’t wake, she wasn’t sure she could lift him into the cabin to warm him up. “Jamie, please wake up!”

Rubbing her hands together for warmth, she then placed them on his cheeks to warm them up. She had no idea what else to do save strip naked and put her body next to his. Things hadn’t gotten to that point she thought sadly.

“Jamie,” she said again loudly. “Mr. Fraser, you’ve got to wake up.”

Finally, she saw a twitch near his lip, and soon his eyes slowly opened, snowflakes falling down his cheeks. “Sassenach?” He said with a dry voice.

“Oh thank God,” Claire sighed, leaning her head briefly on his chest. “You must have slipped on ice and passed out. I think you’ve been out here for hours, and the snow has really picked up.”

“Have I?” He blinked rapidly. “Aye, I can barely feel my fingers so I must have.”

“Do you think you can stand?” Claire asked, “I might be able to help get you inside.”

“Let me try,” his mouth quirked up into a smile. It seems even freezing temperatures couldn’t dampen his spirit. Jamie sat up stiffly, flexing his gloved fingers out in front of him. Rising to her feet, Claire offered him both her hands to pull him up. It took all the strength she had to lift him up. And when she did, he nearly toppled them both over again.

“Okay, let’s try walking,” Claire wrapped one arm around his waist to steady him. They took slow steps and thankfully they were very close to the cabin. The steps took a little bit longer, but with the promise of warmth inside, Jamie managed to make it.

“Och, Christ, I’m freezin’,” Jamie shivered as Claire shut the door behind them.

“Come and sit by the fire,” Claire led him over. “I’ll get you a blanket.”

She walked quickly to her bedroom to grab the plaid she’d tossed there earlier. When she came back to the living room, Jamie was standing in nothing but his trousers. His chest was gleaming, with a tuft of auburn curls, and Claire froze in her tracks as she stared at him.

“Um,” she said, her eyes greedily taking him in.

“I need to get out of these cold wet clothes,” Jamie blushed, bringing color back to his cheeks. “I’m sorry to appear so indecent before ye, but…”

She waved him away and moved closer, holding out the blanket. “No, it’s fine. You’re right, anyways. You can’t be sitting in those clothes.”

Jamie held the blanket in his hands gingerly, staring back at her. “Would ye perhaps look away for a bit just so I can get my trousers off? I swear I willna flash ye or anythin’,” he chuckled.”

“Oh, that’s fine!” Claire blurted, wondering if she meant it would be fine if he flashed her. Feeling heat creep up her chest, she turned and walked to the kitchen to heat up a cup of tea for him.

Jamie’s clothes made up a wet pile near the door, and he now sat by the fire, presumably naked.

“I’ll hang these up in the bathroom so they can dry out a bit,” Claire set his cup of steaming tea before him.

She now had a nearly naked Scotsman in her living room, clothed in a plaid with no dry clothes. What had she gotten herself into?

As Claire returned to him, she was pleased to see that his color was already returning, his skin no longer showing a startling sign of blue. “You really scared me out there,” she said as she sat down across from him on the carpeted floor.

“Who knows what would have become of me had ye not found me,” Jamie sipped the tea. “Were ye comin’ to find me or was there another reason ye were out in the blizzard?”

“I was worried,” Claire admitted freely. “It’d been nearly four hours and you hadn’t returned.”

“Tracking the time, eh?” He teased her, clearly loving to watch her squirm. “I’m glad ye did.”

“I suppose I’ll have to go back later and fetch the wood,” Claire pointed back outside. “I don’t want you to go outside until you’re fully warm and your lips are no longer blue!”

“Are they?” He touched them with his fingertips. “Christ, my balls are blue too,” he laughed.

Claire couldn’t help but laugh, and tried her hardest not to let her eyes wander down to that part of his anatomy. She had heard that old joke about how Scotsmen don’t wear anything under their kilts and she wondered…

“What’s yer story, Claire Beauchamp,” Jamie said a moment later, startling her out of her thoughts.

“My story?” Claire grabbed another plaid from the chair nearby, wrapping it around her shoulders. “I’m quite plain really, there isn’t much to say.”

“Och,” Jamie scoffed. “I dinna believe that. A beautiful English woman such as yerself is far from plain, and besides, everyone has got a story.”

“Then what’s your story, Jamie Fraser,” Claire asked, feeling completely at ease.

“Agh, that’s not fair! I asked ye first,” he laughed.

“I’ll tell you once you tell me yours,” she nudged his bare foot with her fuzzy sock clad one.

Jamie eyed her suspiciously, and Claire noticed for the first time how strikingly blue his eyes were. A stark contrast to her own dark amber ones. Everything about his was a stark contrast to her — his flaming red hair to her dull brown, his tanned skin to her pale, and his largeness to her smaller frame.

He set the cup of tea on the coffee table, careful not to let the plaid slip. “Well, ye ken about how I built this place wi’ my Da. I mentioned he passed a few years ago, and my Mam passed a few years before him.”

“I’m so sorry, Jamie,” Claire said.

“Tis hard sometimes,” he shrugged, giving her a warm smile. “Not always, as most days ye think of them randomly and wi’ a happy memory. Holidays are hard, especially this time of year for me.”

He began to tell her about his life. How he had lived in Scotland all his life, but gone to university in Paris, and earned his degree in business. He had one older sister, Jenny, who was married to his childhood best friend Ian and they had three children. As Jamie talked about his family and his childhood home, Lallybroch, Claire could picture it in her mind. His knack for telling stories was unmatched, and she figured that would be the Scottish-ness of him. Geillis was quite good at telling stories of her own.

“I’m a simple man, who only needs a few things,” Jamie continued. “I remember when we first found this land. I’ve always thought that I needed a mountain to live on, a space to call my own and this is it.”

“You live here on the property then?”

“Aye, just a five-minute drive down the road though,” he nodded, pulling the plaid tight around him. “My Da and I built that first to see if we could even build anythin’,” he laughed.

“But it was somethin’ special once we finally finished it. The first night there was everything I thought and more,” he said dreamily. “There’s somethin’ about building yer own house wi’ yer own two hands. It makes ye appreciate the walls around ye that keep ye warm and safe.”

“It’s amazing what you’ve created here, Jamie,” Claire reached out and placed her hand on his. “I’m sure if your father were here, he’d be proud of all the success.”

“I’d like to think so,” Jamie moved his fingers over hers, squeezing lightly. “Ye said that ye were plain,” he sniffed. “I feel my story is quite plain and boring.”

“It’s not,” Claire shook her head slowly. “It’s yours and that’s what matters.”

He cocked a brow at her, and she rolled her eyes playfully. “Alright, I get it. My story is important too. Although once I tell it to you, you’ll find it’s rather depressing.”

“Well, spit it out, Sassenach,” he rubbed his thumb over her fingers, still clinging on. “Dinna leave me in suspense.”

Claire took a deep breath, deciding that she would be truthful with him — after all, he had told her all about his life, it was the least she could do.

“For starters, I should tell you the real reason I’m here… alone, on Christmas,” Claire began. “I just recently got divorced, and quite frankly, I didn’t want to spend another second in my house that wasn’t decorated and that reminded me of my ex.”

“Who was daft enough to let a lass like ye go?” Jamie smirked, not making her feel pitiful like she usually did when she told people.

“Frank Randall,” Claire groaned. “That’s who. He cheated on me with nearly half the population of Oxford. I was the fool who found out five years into our marriage. I really thought he loved me, and that he was different, but I guess all men are the same deep down.”

Jamie cleared his throat at this, causing her to look up.

“Perhaps not all men,” she corrected. “But the Frank’s of the world are all cut of the same cloth. It’s a relief to not be married to him anymore, but I never thought I would be a divorced woman at the age of twenty-seven.”

“Frank Randall is an idiot,” Jamie said sternly. “He had a wonderful wife, and he clearly didna pay any attention to her. A wife is someone that should be cherished, kissed every day and respected.”

“Are you married?” Claire gulped as she asked. She had seen no ring on his finger, even now as he gripped her hand.

“No, no I havena been so lucky,” he smiled sadly. “But I watched how my parents were. I saw the love between them, the partnership they shared, and I ken that one day I want to have a love like theirs.”

Claire could see that he loved his parents very much, and was sad for him that he had lost them both. “I lost my parents when I was about five,” she said. “I don’t remember what their marriage was like, but my uncle whom I lived with told me they loved each other deeply.”

“There’s hope for ye yet, Sassenach,” Jamie grinned. “Ye’ll find a man who will treat ye as ye  deserve, I ken it.”

With stories exchanged, a hush fell upon the room. Claire’s hand was still held between Jamie’s fingers, and she had no intention of letting go. She looked out the window to see that the snow was still falling, adding to the already high pile of fluff.

“It looks like you may be here for the night,” Claire said and he followed her gaze to the window. “The roads are probably covered with the stuff, and you’re still shivering.”

Jamie’s teeth chattered, proving her right. “You should take the bedroom, you’ll be much warmer in a cozy bed than on the sofa. I don’t want to be held responsible for the owner of Fraser’s Ridge losing all his toes!”

“Nah, Claire,” he shook his head. “I canna take yer room. Ye paid for it, and I wouldna feel right puttin’ ye out. I’ll sleep by the fire if I must.”

“No,” Claire stood up and held out her hand to him. “You were passed out in the snow for hours, Jamie! You’re obviously still cold, and there’s a small fireplace in their too. You would know after all.”

He seemed to be weighing his options. While the sofa was comfortable, it was nothing compared to a pocket of warmth one found in a big bed. Jamie was a large man, and Claire bet that his feet would hang off the sofa.

“If you feel so guilty, then you can comp me the night for putting me out of the room,” Claire smirked, her hand still stretched out for him to take.

With a deep grunt, Jamie took her hand and stood up, keeping the plaid wrapped tightly over his body. Claire wanted to slip her hands inside to touch him but pulled her hand away as soon as he was stable.

“There’s also a hot water bottle under the bathroom sink,” Jamie sniffed. “Would ye mind fixin’ it up for me? It seems I still canna feel the tips of my wee fingers,” he wiggled them in front of her.

“Of course,” Claire grinned. “And I’ll bring you another cup of tea once you’re settled. Who knew I would be tucking a very large scot into bed on Christmas night?!”

“Certainly no’ me,” Jamie chuckled. He turned then to go to the bedroom, leaving Claire alone to fix up a fresh cuppa.

There was no way she could fall asleep tonight knowing that he was sleeping in her bed. As she waited for the water to boil, her thoughts turned to his long limbs under the sheets — his freckled arms reaching out to pull her close while she curled into his chest. Claire had never particularly been one for physical touch, but even now, her fingers missed his touch, and it was as if her body was longing to be next to his.

Claire went into the bedroom quietly, seeing that Jamie was already in bed, his eyes closed, but she knew he wasn’t asleep. She found the hot water bottle exactly where he said it’d be, and returned to the kitchen to fill it with the hot water. With that in hand, as well as the cup of tea, she went to him.

“Delivery from Santa’s elf,” Claire whispered, and his eyes popped open, a grin on his lips. “This ought to warm you up.”

Jamie took the tea from her, his hands curling around the cup. The covers were tucked under the bed and Claire pulled them up to tuck the hot water bottle at his feet, making sure it didn’t burn him. She had to admit that it looked awfully cozy in there, and she wanted to hop in next to him.

“Ye ken tis no’ that late,” Jamie said as he sipped. “There’s a TV in here as well, we could put on a Christmas movie?”

“You mean… get into the bed with you?”

He blinked, owl-like up at her. “Aye, yer no’ goin’ to sit on the floor while I have the whole bed to myself, Sassenach,” he gave a loud pat to the spot next to him. “We’re hardly strangers, since ye saved my life, ye ken.”

She probably should have hesitated far longer than she did, but with a shrug, Claire walked around to the other side and climbed in, still quite far away from him as it was a rather large bed. The remote was on her side, and she pressed the power button, bringing It’s a Wonderful Life to the screen.

“Och, this is one of my favorites,” Jamie grinned and wiggled deeper under the covers. Claire laughed at that, and he glanced over at her with a matching smirk. “I love the old black and white ones, don’t ye?”

“Oh yes,” Claire sighed happily, and pulled up the covers. “There’s something so nostalgic about them.”

Geillis would be happy to know that Claire did, in fact, have a man in her bed. It wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but Geillis didn’t need to know all the details.

The two of them laughed at the funny parts, and were silent as George Bailey went along with Clarence the angel. The heat from the fireplace was comforting, and the bed was soft beneath her tired body. Claire’s eyes were fluttering shut, and while her brain knew she shouldn’t fall asleep next to him, the rest of her body didn’t seem to respond. Sleep washed over her, and she heard the distant ringing of bells as she fell into a deep sleep.

When she woke a little while later, she was surprised to find it was still dark outside. She must have drifted off for only a few hours. Claire was also surprised to feel a heavy weight — Jamie’s arm — wrapped around her stomach. As Claire’s senses came back to her, she realized that her body was curved with his, and his face was nuzzled into her neck.

There was no way she could get out of his embrace without waking him, and she knew he needed to sleep. No wonder she’d woken up, his body was radiating heat now and she was now covered in a thin layer of sweat. His breathing was deep and heavy, his arm tight around her, so she went limp and tried to relax herself into going back to sleep.

But her senses were on high alert now. Her imagination running wild as she felt with her mind his body against hers. With her knees bent, he had his legs pressed against hers. They were spooning. She was the little spoon of course. It was such an intimate position to be in with someone she’d only just met that day. Although, Claire had never slept like this with Frank. He was always on the other side of the bed, with only a kiss on the cheek before he fell fast asleep.

Perhaps, Claire had been craving someone’s touch all her life, and had never found it. Jamie lightly snored and the vibration ran throughout her body. Shifting to get more comfortable, Claire froze and gasped.

Her bottom was pressed snugly against his crotch, and there was no mistaking the hardness she now felt. Claire couldn’t suppress the laughter nor the arousal she felt. Any warm-blooded male would surely get turned on with a woman’s arse wedged between his thighs.

If it was anyone but Jamie, she would have been disgusted and jumped out of the bed. But she felt safe here in his arms, and the idea that she could turn him on even while he slept was erotic.

With that part of his anatomy reminding her just what she wanted to do to him, she gave up on sleep, and simply enjoyed being in his arms, as this would most likely not be a repeat occurrence.

“Sassenach,” he mumbled sleepily, startling her. Her body was now tight as a bowstring, waiting for him to realize what position they were in.

“Oh,” his arm around her stomach slipped away, allowing her to turn and face him.

“You know what they say about body heat,” she grinned, her face barely visible in the dim glow of the dying fire. “It’s the best way to get warm. Don’t worry about it, Jamie.”

“I dinna want ye to think I was takin’ advantage of ye,” he rubbed his hand over his eyes to better see her. “I must have drifted over to ye in my sleep w’out knowin’ it.”

“Jamie,” Claire laughed softly. “We’re still on your side of the bed. If anyone drifted, it was me.”

“I do feel much warmer now,” Jamie observed as he stretched his legs. “I can go out to the sofa now so ye can sleep.”

He made to move, flipping the covers back, and without thinking, Claire grabbed his arm to pull him back.

“I want you to stay,” she whispered, as her heart hammered in her chest.

Answering her plea, Jamie fell back into the bed and turned on his side to face her. He moved his hand to settle on her waist, waiting to see if it was okay. With a slight nod from her, Jamie pulled her closer until she fit against his chest. She looked up at him, meeting his blue eyes only inches from hers. There was no going back now.

“I dinna have any mistletoe,” Jamie said softly, his arms cradling her body.

“What?” Claire laughed, not expecting him to say that.

“Mistletoe,” he said again. “The wee green stuff ye hang over yer head at Christmas so ye can kiss someone.”

Claire buried her head against his chest, laughing. “I think we can manage without the mistletoe, don’t you think?”

“Aye,” one hand came to brush back the curls from her face. Their bodies were pressed so close that kissing didn’t even seem like an intimate idea.

They found each other in the dark. Jamie cupped her cheek reverently as he pressed his lips to hers. His jaw and neck were covered with scruff that itched pleasantly against her skin, and Claire wanted to purr like a kitten as he kissed her deeper.

Guiding her hands into his curly locks, she held on tight as she parted his lips with her tongue. The heat seeped from his body to hers, but a shiver went over her body as his hand snaked down to grip her arse, squeezing lightly.

“Mmmm,” she moaned, pressing her hips against his.

Claire was not entirely certain this wasn’t just a dream, and that she would wake up alone in bed. But for the moment, Jamie felt very real and his flesh under her hands seemed to yield to her touch.

They broke apart, only so that they could push the covers out of the way before coming back together. Jamie pulled Claire on top of him, his hands finding her hips and anchoring her against him. Sadly, she found out that he had not been naked the entire evening as her fingers skimmed the edge of his boxer briefs.

Her hips moved seductively, rolling against his groin. He was hard again, and with every snap of her hips a small sound left Jamie’s throat. His hands moved from her hips to her arse to push her closer. The kiss was so deep that she could hardly breathe.

“God, Sassenach,” Jamie sighed. “I’ve never wanted anyone so badly in all my life!”

Claire peppered kisses over his neck and chest, not wanting to part with the low lusty sounds he was making.

“Jesus, lass,” he muttered between breaths as he realized what she was doing. Claire shimmied down his body, leaving a trail of kisses in her wake. “Ye dinna have to…”

Looking up at him through long thick lashes, she smirked. “I appreciate the choice, but I’m willing, that is if you are?”

He cocked a brow at her, almost as a challenge. “As long as I can return the favor,” he said smugly.

Heat flashed over her body as he stared at her. She had to tear her gaze away from him to settle to the task before her. His body was sculpted to perfection. She ran her fingers over the grooves of his abs, swirling around the wiry hairs at his belly button. His breath hitched as her hands rested on the tops of his boxers.

Claire held his gaze as she pulled them slowly down his legs. His cock sprang free as the material was removed. Her belly quivered at the sight of his impressive thick length jutting upwards towards his stomach. Reflexively, Jamie’s legs widened and she slid down further to fit herself between them.

“Sassenach,” Jamie said with a hoarse voice. “I dinna feel that ‘tis fair that I’m the one naked and yer still covered up.”

“Oh,” Claire glanced down at herself. “I didn’t even realize.” She reached for the hem of her sweater, but two hands stopped her. Jamie pulled her to straddle him again. Now his hands crept up her sweater, his skin warm on her flesh. His fingers tickled her stomach before finally pulling up the material and tossing it over the side. She saw his tongue snake out and wet his lips as he looked at her breasts, covered only now by her black bra. With his skilled fingers, he unhooked it in seconds, tossing it to join the pile of growing clothes.

“May I?” His hands drummed a tattoo against her hips as he held her body over his.

“Yes, please,” Claire blushed and threaded one hand through his hair, following his movements as he leaned down and took one of her pink nipples into his mouth. His pull was insistent, and he began to suck, his cheeks hollowing. Claire’s head fell back as he pressed her against his mouth, sucking harder. A deep cry left her throat as he flicked his tongue back and forth over the sensitive nub.

“Aye, that’s it, Sassenach,” Jamie kissed the underside of her breast. “Make those wee noises for me!”

His mouth moved to the other breast, repeating the same process. His tongue was warm and he swirled the tip around her nipple, and they puffed up, now engorged and swollen from his lips. Before she could move back down his body, Jamie’s hands found her tights and began to pull them off as well as her panties.

“I wish I could see ye in the light,” Jamie said quietly as she pulled the material off her foot, letting it fall to the floor.

“No you don’t,” Claire snorted unflatteringly. “This is enough light so you don’t see all my bumps and squiggles.”

“Bumps and squiggles,” Jamie laughed adorably and pressed his lips against her stomach. “Claire, yer so beautiful. I feel I dinna deserve to be here wi’ ye, holdin’ ye in my arms.”

“You’re one to talk,” Claire ran her finger lightly down the slope of his straight nose. “It’s like making love to a god.”

“Tcha!” Jamie rubbed his hands slowly up and down her sides. She began to rock her hips against him, feeling his length grow between her thighs.

“I’ve never felt like this, Jamie,” Claire admitted. “With anyone.”

He picked up her hand and entwined their fingers, bringing their joint hands to rest over his heart. “Neither have I, Sassenach. I think ye are my Christmas wish come true.”

At that, she shyly buried her head against his neck, her body still gently rocking against his, the friction building. Her arms wrapped around his neck, as his arms settled on her hips. Claire gasped as the tip of his cock brushed against her clit.

She felt his hand move between their bodies as he took hold of himself. Jamie pumped his cock once before sliding it along her wet center. Claire shivered, biting down gently on the padded flesh of his shoulder. He was teasing her entrance with his cock, and just the tip entered her and she clutched his hair tightly.

Her body was shaking with the need to sink down on him, and she pulled back to look into his eyes. One hand came to rest on her lower back, his other still between their bodies. From just the tip, she knew that he was huge, and would fill her completely. Her stomach tightened in anticipation, and she couldn’t help but roll her hips, hearing the sound of the wetness their bodies made.

“I must take ye, Claire,” Jamie said as his grip tightened on her. “I must or I’ll die!”

Claire felt the same, as her heart pounded fast and hard in her chest. She wanted to explode, and as she sank down on his cock, she thought she just might. Their moans mingled together in the air as he filled her.

“Christ,” he whispered. The hand that had been holding his cock found her hand and he gripped it tightly as she began to rock her hips. Claire had never felt so close to someone, not just physically but emotionally. No one had ever looked her in the eyes as they bared their soul with her. There was nothing left unsaid as they gave over to one another.

Claire kept up the slow and steady rhythm of her hips, and overcome with emotions, she pressed her face into his neck, feeling tears spring to her eyes. Jamie held her close, his other hand rubbing slowly up and down her back. He thrust upwards, hitting a spot so deep inside of her, that Claire didn’t know such pleasure existed.

“Oh God,” she panted.

“Oh Claire,” Jamie breathed heavily.

She was close, and she began to grind down faster and harder, feeling his body begin to tremble. Quickly, she pulled back so that she could watch him fall apart. His length throbbed inside of her, and his mouth opened and closed, as the words failed to come out.

With a sharp snap of her hips, Claire felt her own orgasm coming, as she clenched around his cock. Jamie’s hands squeezed her hips, helping her ride him. His eyes flicked back and forth from her bouncing breasts to her face as she came.

Jamie cried out, “Claire!” before spilling inside of her, his body spasming. Tingles shot down her spine, and she held onto him for dear life. Carefully, Claire adjusted her position so she could wrap her legs around his waist and she clung to him, almost like a monkey.

His hands were soothing on her back, lightly stroking. He stayed rooted inside of her, reluctant to leave her body.

“I didn’t know it could be like that,” Claire said softly against his chest.

“I didna either,” Jamie echoed. “Perhaps it depends on who yer wi’.”

Claire chuckled, but sighed happily at this. Whatever it was between them… it wasn’t usual.

After time passed and they both were sated, Jamie shifted and then moved Claire to lay in his arms, her head comfortably against his chest as she looked up at him.

“When I first met ye, all those hours ago,” he snorted. “I felt a… a sort of draw to ye, Sassenach. Like I just had to be close to ye. To hear yer voice, touch yer skin. I thought I’d do anythin’ to be near to ye.”

“Really?” Claire ran her fingers lightly over his stubbled chin.

“Aye,” he smiled. “Twas the strangest thing. While I was out chopping the wood, I found myself thinking about ye, and I’d known ye all of five minutes!”

“I felt the same,” Claire smiled, pleased that she hadn’t been crazy. “I was waiting for you to come back with the wood. I even changed my clothes,” she laughed quietly. “When you didn’t come back, I grew impatient and that’s when I decided to look for you. I just knew I had to see you again.”

“I dinna wish my niece any ill tidings,” Jamie stroked her cheek. “But I’m verra glad that she got sick after lunch and I came back here. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here wi’ ye in my arms. Ye see, Claire, and this may sound hasty, but I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning her face to him. He reached down and cupped her cheek, fingers light on her temple.

"And, Sassenach," he whispered, "your face is my heart.”

Claire closed her eyes as he kissed her, feeling like something opened up inside of her at his words.

“I certainly didn’t expect this,” she said. “I thought I would never be able to recover after my divorce. That my heart was used and not able to be loved again. But, with you, Jamie… I feel things I’ve never felt. A closeness to you, as if I could tell you anything and nothing would surprise or scare you.”

He pressed their lips together once again. “I feel as if our souls have belonged to each other far longer than our bodies have.”

“I don’t think I can part from you, Jamie,” Claire said sleepily, yawning.

“Shhh,” Jamie kissed her forehead and slid further into bed, pulling the covers around her. “Sleep, a nighean donn. When ye wake, I’ll be here.”

“Mmmm,” Claire nuzzled against him, and fell asleep to him muttering something in a language she recognized as Gaelic.

++++++

When Claire opened her eyes, she did wake in his arms. The sun filled the room, and she wasn’t shocked to see that the snow still fell outside. The fire had gone out long ago, but Jamie’s body heat kept her warm. In her sleep, she had shifted to lie curled against his body, and she placed a soft kiss to his neck, rousing him.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” she kissed his jaw.

“Yer insatiable,” Jamie groaned, all while keeping his eyes shut. His hands were locked around her back, and they slid down to rest over her arse.

“The same could be said about you,” she poked him playfully in the chest.

Before the morning could unfold like the previous night, however, a loud gurgle came from Claire’s stomach, making Jamie’s eyes pop open.

“I guess all that activity made me hungry,” she nipped at his bottom lip.

Jamie laughed and then rolled her body on top of his. “First we shall eat, and then I plan to devour ye,” he nibbled on her ear lobe, making her squirm.

Another loud gurgle sounded in the room and this time from Jamie.

A cold breeze drifted across her naked body as Jamie pushed off the covers. She rolled off his body and stood up, grabbing the plaid to wrap around her. Jamie opted for his boxers, tugging them on as he yawned.

They ventured out into the kitchen, sitting on two stools. Claire placed a bowl in front of Jamie and poured cereal into it.

“Tell me when to stop,” Claire said as she poured the milk.

“That’s good,” he smiled. “Breakfast of champions.”

“If I knew I would have company, I’d have bought proper breakfast,” Claire said as she sat down at the counter next to him.

“I dinna think this will be our last breakfast together,” Jamie’s foot nudged hers, making her grin sheepishly.

“No, I dare say it won’t.”

They ate quickly, impatient to return to each other’s arms. Food was necessary to continue making love, but Claire was shoveling the cereal down her throat as fast as she could, with only one strange look from Jamie.

“Dinna choke, Sassenach,” Jamie laughed as Claire wiped the milk from her lips. “I canna make love to ye if yer dead.”

“Sorry,” she blushed.

Jamie pushed his bowl aside, and grabbed her hand. “Dinna apologize, ’tis charming for some reason. But now that yer belly is full, I can have my way wi’ ye!”

He stood up, spinning her on the stool until she faced him. Jamie’s arms wrapped around her stomach and he lifted her into the air, plaid and all. She landed over his shoulder, and her bum was given a nice firm pat, making her giggle.

“You better not drop me, Fraser!”

“Not a chance,” he chuckled, bouncing his knees as if he was dropping her. Claire shrieked, but laughed, letting her arms dangle over his back. She slid her hands over his arse, giving it a firm squeeze.

“Enough of that,” he smirked, walking into the bathroom where he set her on her feet. His hands reached for the plaid around her shoulders and pushed it off of her. Claire returned the favor by removing his boxers, enjoying the sight of his erect cock on her way back up to kiss him.

“Just what are we doing in here?” She hooked both arms around his neck.

“I’ve fed ye,” Jamie kissed her nose, “and now I need to wash ye.”

“Do I stink?” Claire blushed, self conscious as she put her arms down.

“No,” he shook his head. “But ever since I set eyes on that curly wig of yers, I’ve wanted to get my hands into it. If that doesna sound too weird,” he bit his bottom lip.

“Oh,” she said. The shower was certainly big enough for the two of them, and she moved out of his grasp to turn on the hot water, watching as the room began to steam up.

Claire grabbed his fingers, pulling him into the shower after her. They stood under the water, letting it drench them. Once her hair was wet, Jamie grabbed the shampoo and drizzled a fair amount into the palms of his hands, lathering until suds formed.

Spinning until she faced the shower wall, Claire sighed as his hands massaged her scalp. He had large strong fingers — fingers that had explored her body the night before. Fingers that made Claire moan as she imagined them inside of her.

“Feel good?”

“Hmmm?”

Jamie laughed, still rubbing the shampoo into her hair. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Feeling like she was floating, Claire allowed Jamie to move her under the water to rinse out the shampoo. He then pushed her back against the wall, his mouth landing on her neck. The water poured down his back, cascading down his skin.

Claire’s eyes sprang open from her dreamy state as she felt his lips nibble on her breast briefly before moving south.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” Claire muttered as she looked down to find Jamie on his knees looking up at her. His hands settled on her waist, making sure that she didn’t fall down on top of him.

“I told ye I would devour ye, Sassenach,” he growled before licking slowly up her center. Claire’s legs buckled, but his hands squeezed her hips. The tip of his tongue flicked out against her clit before two of his fingers spread her lips. His tongue darted inside of her, and Claire’s head fell back against the wall.

Her hands found his head, holding on tight to his hair as he began to bop his head. Like a kitten lapping at milk, Jamie began to lick and suck her folds.

“Oh God,” Claire sighed. Jamie lifted her right leg to rest over her shoulder and he adjusted the angle, now able to insert a finger inside of her. Her thighs involuntarily clenched around his head. Jamie chuckled against her skin, sending shivers over her body.

Glancing down, she could see that his cock was hard and throbbing. His other hand left her waist to take hold of himself, the thumb moving slowly up and down his cock. Watching his head move between her thighs as well as his hand pump himself made Claire’s orgasm come quickly, her body trembling under the water.

Jamie lapped up her juices, his mouth greedy for her taste. Peppering her thighs with kisses, he stood up, watching as she swayed slowly, her body still given over to pleasure.

“I could do that all day,” Jamie kissed her gently and she tasted herself on his lips.

“And I want you to,” Claire kissed him harder. “But not before I return the favor.”

Before he could say anything, she was already sliding down onto her knees. His cock was still hard, resting against his stomach. Finally able to see all of him in the light, Claire gasped. He was bloody huge and she was impressed that he managed to fit inside her so snugly the night before.

“Like what ye see, then?” He was watching her, grinning at her fascination with his member.

“I’m just trying to work out if you really are a god,” Claire said and kissed the tip of his cock, watching his thighs clench.

“Jesus,” Jamie grunted, placing one hand against the wall to steady himself. “Ye sure ken how to flatter a man.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Claire smirked, running one finger down his cock. Her thumb rubbed slowly over the head, pulling back the foreskin. Moisture dripped down and she moved her lips around the tip, tasting him.

Jamie’s buttocks clenched, and moans left his lips as Claire took more of him in. Her fingers were skating lightly down the backs of his thighs. She enjoyed the shivers that ran down his body at her touch. With one hand she cupped his heavy balls, squeezing them firmly as her other hand pumped his cock.

Her tongue snaked out, flicking quickly over the head. Jamie’s eyes were shut, but they opened, dark blue and he watched her take him in her mouth. Her cheeks hollowed, and as he hit the back of her throat, she gagged, but was too eager to please him to stop. Claire bopped her head, moaning as his hand found her hair, not pushing or forcing her, but just moving with her motions.

She felt his balls draw up close to his body, and looked up, seeing how he was breathing quickly. Claire pulled him out of her mouth, now only sucking on the tip of his cock. His head bent down to watch her again, and as she flattened her tongue against his shaft, he came in long hard spasms. She milked him, her eyes focused on his face as he spilled into her hand and she licked the head clean.

Claire stood up, her body gliding along his. She placed her hands under the water, washing his seed off.

“I could do that all day,” she smirked, returning his sentiment from moments before.

“I guess if ye bed a vixen,” Jamie leaned his forehead against hers. “Ye have to expect to get bit.”

Claire laughed as he kissed her. They finished showering with wandering hands. They simply couldn’t get enough of each other.

Not bothering with clothes, Jamie and Claire dried off and stumbled towards the living room. Claire laid down near the fireplace as Jamie lit it. The twinkling lights shined above them. Jamie rolled against her as he laid next to her.

“How much longer is yer stay?” He asked, sighing contentedly against her neck, his breath warm.

“Three days,” Claire said, her fingers brushing through his curls at the nape of his neck.

“Hmm, three days. Would ye really leave before New Year’s Eve?” Jamie smirked.

“Only if I had a good reason not to leave,” Claire looked at him.

“Do ye?”

Did she? Jamie was certainly not someone she expected to fall for, but she had. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since they met, but already her heart belonged to him. This Christmas would be one she would remember forever, always thinking back to the day she met the love of her life.

“Yes,” she kissed him. “I do. Is that a date?”

“Aye,” Jamie grinned. “I can show ye what a proper Hogmanay is like, Sassenach!”

“I thought this would be a blue Christmas, but the only thing that was blue was your frostbitten skin,” Claire laughed.

“And my balls,” he added, laughing.

“And those,” Claire snickered. “I’m glad you fell down in the snow.”

“So am I,” Jamie rolled his body on top of hers. “What were those lyrics again… I’ll have a blue Christmas without you. I’ll be so blue just thinkin’ about you…”

There on Fraser’s Ridge, two strangers met, and fell in love on Christmas Day. They laughed as they never had before, loved with a passion they didn’t know existed, and had a very very merry Christmas.

Five days later, after spending day and night in each other’s arms and getting to know everything there was to know about the other, Claire packed up her things and said goodbye to Fraser’s Ridge.

She wasn’t headed home just yet, however, as Jamie was eager to take her to his childhood home, Lallybroch, for a Hogmanay celebration.

“Is your sister going to be very shocked at my being there?” Claire asked as they drove. She’d called Geillis a couple of days ago to ask if she could keep watching Ados. Of course, Geillis had given her hundred questions to answer, but Claire told her she’d give her all the juicy details when she got back to Oxford in a few days.

“Probably,” Jamie chuckled, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on Claire’s thigh. “I havena brought a lass home, so she’ll want to interrogate me. The good thing,” he smiled over at her, “is that we’ll be arriving shortly before the rest of the guests do, so she willna have time to do that!”

“Ahhh,” Claire laughed. “All part of your master plan, I see. So that’s why we didn’t arrive there yesterday or the day before.”

Jamie squeezed her leg. “Tis no’ that I dinna want her to meet ye, but I still want to keep ye all to myself. Plus, I dinna want to subject ye to a million questions that she’ll ask ye. There’s no need to rush this.”

“My lad,” Claire sighed happily. “I think it’s a bit late for that.”

Jamie smiled in agreement, and they drove on. Lallybroch wasn’t too far away, and within the hour, they were pulling up to the large stone estate. Jamie was right, as there were other cars pulling up at the same time as them.

“This place is not at all what I imagined,” Claire said in awe as Jamie turned off the car.

“Tis quite charming,” Jamie smiled. “Lallybroch means lazy tower, ye ken? I suppose it does lean a bit.”

Claire tilted her head to the side, admiring the house. She left her bag in his car, they would come out later to get that to stay the night in Jamie’s old room. Sliding his fingers through hers, Jamie pulled her close and together they walked up to the house.

People were milling about inside, and the atmosphere was electric with the air of celebration. The room smelled of meats and pies and Claire’s stomach growled with the need to be filled.

“Jamie!” Came a loud voice from their left. A short, raven haired woman came running towards them and Jamie let go of Claire’s hand to embrace her. “Ye finally made it ye numptie.”

“Aye, sorry we’re late,” Jamie said, giving his sister a kiss on the cheek.

“We?” Jenny craned her neck to look behind Jamie at Claire. Her eyes went wide, and her brows shot up to her forehead. “Hello, there.”

“Janet,” Jamie eyed his sister as he wrapped an arm protectively around Claire’s waist. “This is Claire Beauchamp.”

Claire noted how he didn’t explain where or when they’d met, and she though it best to keep it that way for now. She offered Jenny her hand, and waited awkwardly before his sister wrapped her arms lovingly around Claire.

“I’ll yell at ye later for no’ tellin’ me ye were bringin’ a lass,” Jenny said to Jamie as she hugged Claire. “But I’m happy that ye did. ’Tis nice to meet ye Claire. Sadly I dinna have much time to talk wi’ ye, but we’ll have plenty of time for that tomorrow. Ye are stayin’ the night?” She directed this question at Jamie who nodded.

“Good,” Jenny squeezed Claire’s hand. “Ian is around here somewhere with the bairns. He’ll love to see ye.”

“Oh aye,” Jamie took Claire’s hand again, pulling her out of Jenny’s grasp. Jenny smirked at her brother before leaving them alone, off to fulfill her hostess duties.

“Well, that went better than expected,” Jamie sighed. “Ye must give a good first impression, Sassenach.”

“I’ve never been told I give a bad one,” Claire tapped his nose. “Now that that is out of the way, can we please get something to eat?”

“Aye,” Jamie grinned. “And to drink!”

They found the table of food easily, and filled their plates high with mountains of savories and sweets. While Claire carried their bounty, Jamie grabbed two full glasses of cider and they made their way outside into the chilly air to get away from the noise.

The sound of laughter and music could still be heard outside as they sat down on a wooden bench.

“This is lovely, Jamie,” Claire took a bite of a mince pie. “Thank you for bringing me.”

“I’m glad ye are enjoyin’ it,” Jamie grinned over his cup. “It’ll get rowdy as the night wages on. Swords dances and the like.”

“Sword dances?” Claire questioned.

“Aye,” gulped. “Ye place two swords crossed over the other, and ye dance atop them. Highlanders used to do these types of dances for celebration or before a battle to predict the outcome. It’s a tradition now.”

“Will you be partaking in these sword dances?”

Jamie’s cheeks turned bright red. “I do every year,” he took a bite of haggis. “But this year I’ll have ye to cheer me on.”

They kept eating until their stomachs were full, and while Claire wanted more of the delicious food, she felt ready to pop.

The music was drawing them back inside, but Claire took Jamie’s hand, rubbing her fingers lightly over his, not wanting to leave their peaceful cocoon.

“I didn’t expect to feel this way about someone I met only a week ago,” Claire said softly. “I came to Scotland to get away from my old life, and to make myself forget the pain.”

Jamie was silent, but his eyes were focused on her as she spoke.

“I came to escape my old life, but I found something new,” Claire grinned. “Something worth holding onto.”

One of his large hands came up to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing off a bit of snow on her skin. “Something worth holdin’ onto,” he repeated. “Yer worth getting frostbite for, Sassenach. Yer worth shiverin’ until I canna feel anythin’.”

Claire smiled, “I know that you live here, and I live back in England, but I hope this won’t be the end.”

“Nah,” he leaned in close, resting his forehead against hers. “’Tis no’ the end, Claire. I reckon… it’s just the beginning.”

Snow began to fall harder, forcing them to move inside. They danced hand in hand, sang loudly and rang in the new year with a kiss, sealing their fate forever.

[elecman108]

Man, I forgot to post 90% of my art here for the past while. I’m gonna do an art dump in this post under the cut. Enjoy the bonk emoji if you don’t click the read more, and man am I dumb and forgetful lmao.

Includes: OCs getting names, a Sonic impression, a D&D map, homosexual energies, a sheep floating in the astral sea, a birthday drawing I already posted, Hex Maniac Ender, D&D Characters, D&D Characters as Miis in Miitopia, Little Hater Axel, local Demon in the consciousness of my D&D character yelling at him, illegal plants, a necromancer being cute, an actual event that happened in a D&D game two days ago, and Mermay drawing.

That’s everything in here as a TL;DR, I guess. Enjoy your day!

I’m gonna try and sort of have them in chronological order, oldest first, but I may end up putting them in the wrong order. If I do... Whoops, I guess?

[04/14/21] - This isn’t really new art, but I started to work on giving the four OCs of mine without a full name full names... I have not finished this bit, though. So Hunter and Akira have full names, and Warlock and Assassin only have temporary names. This may end up like Seven where I put in their names as a temporary name (7th OC I’d made at that time) and it just kind of... sticks. Lmao.

[04/20/21] - Alone on a Friday Night? God, you’re pathetic. I didn’t colour this one because it was a half-attempt at a meme image I still like it, though, so I might end up colouring it. It’s gonna appear again whenever I do my “unfinished drawings art dump” at some point probably in... June? I know I said I’d post them last month but forget it, lmao, it’ll happen eventually.

[04/20/21] - A D&D Map! This was to help me visualize the layout of my D&D character’s ship he used to be on. Also for my DM if they ever put us aboard the ship. The little fella in the corner is just there to vibe. This map is made of free to use assets from This Website, so while I’m gonna say DONT USE MY MAP WITHOUT PERMISSION, feel free to make your own!

[04/26/21] - Lesbian Day of Visibility drawing of yours truly, the disapointment! That’s... really all I have to say about this, honestly. It was just for that one day and that was it, lmao. I mean, I accidentally lined it in dark pink, so.. .That’s different, I guess?

[04/30/21] - Do Astral Seas dream of Ensorcled Sheep? Does the City know what Sheepleb is going to do? What crimes he may commit? Who knows! This was fan art of Critical Role ep. 134 if I remember correctly, right at the end when they jumped into the portal into the astral sea and Caleb was a sheep. Using my knowledge of the German language, I knew the word for “shit”, and had to use it.

[05/07/21] - This was already posted, but it’s going in here to dilinuate that it was drawn at this point. Also, aside from playing Miitopia, this is all I have to show for myself until the 12th.

[05/12/21] - Hex Maniac Ender challenges you to a Pokemon Battle! WIll you win against my team? My sis, who loves fairy types, pointed out to me that there’s a fairy girl and hex maniac duo, so I’d be the hex maniac. I spent... Over a week drawing this, because I basically had to redraw the Hex Maniac art from scratch in a higher quality size, and then draw myself over it. So... You can excuse the low-effort background for once. It was basically this, and then my birthday doodle from May 1st to May 12th, and then I took a break to draw up several D&D characters quickly for fullbody references.

[05/12/21] - Remember this art I made several months ago? I finally added my other two completed characters! I have three more named but without character sheet D&D characters, so for now this is just Kara, Axel, Golden Shadow, Kau, Cecillia, and Miri. Kress, Tempest, and Melia will have to wait until I make character sheets for them to be posted, and... For when I probably make more D&D characters. I have at least 9 additional, incomplete character ideas floating around, so... I’m never gonna be done this art, huh?

[05/12/21] - Speaking of D&D characters, did you know I’ve been making them as Miis in Miitopia? So here is their finished full body art next to their Miitopia self! Some of them look a little off (Golden Shadow, Cecillia) because of limitations of the editor and shading issues, some of them look a little off (Kau, Kress) because this is a human face canvas that I’m using to make a non-human face, and some of them (Melia, Axel) look REALLY GOOD. Common traits among my D&D characters include green eyes and tall. You wanna know why? Because I am tall and... despite having red eyes, I do have green eyes under the coloured contacts.

[05/15/21] - More D&D stuff! This is based around my D&D group’s current Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where our Goliath Fighter, Nioh, ends up getting a little bit of hate for being cocky, and our little (well over 6′) hater, Axel, is just a man full of irritation. These are the tallest two characters of the group at the moment. Someone send help. Nioh belongs to one of the other D&D players, Axel (and his stupid additude) belongs to me.

[05/15/21] - This is what me playing D&D feels like. Me, the demon entity trapped inside the head of my D&D character, yelling at them to do things while the dice decide that they’re gonna get bopped a hundred times by a yeti and somehow still survive. This is also a reference to our first or second game where I just ran off like sixty feet to one side of the battle map to fight a Crag Cat and was just in Gay Baby Jail until like two turns later when I could run back to the others. I also drew him not in his winter gear even though this is a bit from when we were atop Kelvin’s Carin in an icy cave, so maybe that’s why he’s at low HP.

[05/15/21] - Melia has good gardening tips, such as Use A Mars Mii Trap To Hide A Body Because They Are Endangered And It Is Illegal To Dig Them Up. I love her a lot, because she’s the youngest of four, all four sisters based around the different seasons. She’s based around Autumn, so she’s all orange and yellow and brown and is so cute. Also she’s Chaotic Neutral, as if she didn’t need to be mildly more threatening.

[05/15/21] - Cecillia is my Tiefling gal who lived in a very northern town plagued by cold weather and snow, and Axel is my Pirate guy who spent most of his time further south on the high seas and warmer weather. So, naturally... I’ll use the guy more acclimatized to the hotter weather in the campaign where we spend 99% of it in the snow. She uses Tarot Cards as her spell focus, and I decided to sneak my other D&D characters onto her Tarot cards so naturally, Axel is The Hanged Man, given his backstory and personality. She’s a very cheerful and friendly Tiefling Necromancer of the Hexblade, so she’d for sure take care of those around her to ensure their success. Especially if they’re on her Tarot Cards, and their spirit comes to her aid when she asks for them.

[05/16/21] - Content Warning; Ryma thinks too much into local stupid moron’s lack of knowing how to answer a question and thinks too much into the reputation of Pirates. Poor Axel, man doesn’t know how to socialize with people who aren’t pirates and is used to being hostile towards everyone, so when he’s asked a question that his answer to is “uhh... no?”, he panics and ends up making a mistake that leads him to think that Ryma can read his mind. Ryma belongs to another of the D&D players. I guess me drawing all those spicy Cow Costumed OCs earlier just brought me to drawing Axel being a bottom in this, huh?

[05/16/21] - It’s Mermay, which means more OC drawings! Here’s Theo after drinking some potion that turned him into a mermaid, and Seven, tiredly, collecting his stupid boyfriend so that Lailah can fix the fact he’s turned into a mermaid. Mer!Theo is based around his sword’s colours of indigo-purple with red accents, which looks a little weird since Theo is the Blue one of the group, but... it looks cool, I guess. Seven’s just the same outfit as always, just no gloves this time.

--

And that’s it for the art dump! This was, frankly, MASSIVE. I’ll try and remember to upload both on Twitter and Tumblr at the same time, but... Ah... I have been drawing a fair bit. Just mostly sketches and linework that I haven’t finished and may not actually finish. If they’re not completed, I’ll dump them all into something at the end of the month or whatever. Maybe you’ll get the old sketch of the Axel face in panel 3 because in the sketch phase it was an Ahegao face, in the clean sketch it was a lip bite, and in the linework and final it’s just horny face. lmao.

Top ten things I have to remember for drawing: AXEL HAS A SCAR AND GREEN EYES. I remember his eye colour now, but if you look at his fullbody ref, he’s got brown eyes. And, naturally, I keep forgetting to put in his scar. He has more, but most of them are located in areas covered by his clothes. So if I ever draw him shirtless I guess I’ll have to place them somewhere.

Also maybe finish the reference sheets I have left to finish so I can post more of them, since I have two “Pets” completed (Roko and Mona’s nameless pet), but I have to do up Hunter, Warlock, Assassin, Akira, Myuut, and Stella. I’m betting when I do complete two more, it’ll be Hunter and Akira. Those two are the most fun to draw, at least.

[skgway]

1832 Nov., Mon. 12

9 1/4

12 1/2

Pickles came at 9 1/4 which roused me up – To see him after breakfast at Lower place or he to call here again in the evening – Letter 3 pages and ends from M– [Mariana] (Lawton) vide line 27 page 285. Inquiries about Miss W[alker]. Smokes what is going on. Writes with implied affection, true and great as that of former days. Is unhappy and carless off living long, and has made her will and …… the tears started to my eyes and all my own affection burst upon me again –

Breakfast at 10 40/.. with my aunt – George Robinson came almost immediately for near an hour – Settled with him for stone leading for James Smith’s road etc. – He proposed some means of getting rid of Lower Brea lane footpath – To see about another day –

Breakfast at 11 40/.. – Told my aunt of M– [Mariana]’s letter – Came to my room at 12 20/.. – Fire in my room and from 12 25/.. to note 2 pages of 1/2 sheet from Miss Walker at 1 10/.. in consequence of which off in 1/4 hour to Lidgate and there in 25 minutes –

Home again in 1/2 hour at 5 20/.. – At my desk in about 10 minutes – Wrote the last 1/4 of page 3, and the ends and under the seal and finished my letter to Breadalbane MacLean – Began yesterday – Thanks for her letter and the willows (sent off Monday 29th instant from Coll house) 

"which I am very anxiously expecting, not only for their own sake, but because they are associated with many remembrances that I value most highly" –

Should have written some days ago, but waited in the hope of announcing the arrival of the cuttings – Shall write by tonight’s post to Glasgow to inquire about them – Bavardage amical – Wonder how her people did without her so long (5 weeks away) 

"Your life is one continued benefit to them; and a five week’s arrear of such services is hardly to be made up" –

Sorry her father is so dead to the world and that Sir Hector’s health is so failing – Mention the death of old Lochiel on the 19th September – Only known to Lady S– [Stuart] on the 6th ultimo and not known to Vere on the 24th ultimo the date of her last letter to me (from Turin) – Hope 

"if Lochiel is obliged to come over immediately surely V– [Vere] will remain with her friends till he can return for her – I should quite dread her being hurried across the alps at this season of the year …. You would all be pleased at dear Vere’s having got her rank – Surely, it has some value in a world of vanities like this" –

Civil congratulations on  Mrs. Maclean’s being again about to increase her family and sorrow at Mrs. Hunter’s having lost her youngest daughter – The loss of my steward and my aunt’s suffering health have kept me so long here or I should have been on the continent again before this – But my aunt so very much recovered, no longer uneasy about her – She herself spirits me up to get off, and I hope to leave here about the end of January but all things here so uncertain never think much of plans very long beforehand – Kind regards to all I know "and believe me always very truly yours A Lister" –

Had written the following 2 1/4 pages to M– [Mariana] just before being off to Lidgate –

"Shibden Hall – Monday 12 November 1832 

Mary! I have been late this morning, and have done nothing but see and speak to Marian, and breakfast, since reading your letter – It would be difficult to describe the effect it has upon me – It is many months since I have basked beneath the beam of happiness, and without courage to think of the past, or hope to calculate the future, I am attempting to answer your letter –

Your account of yourself unnerves me – I grieve over your leaving Lawton, and tho’ I could, and would, see good in your going to Leamington, if you would let me, I am now uneasy at the thought, and little out of sorts than you can be – The only thing I rest upon, is the manner in which you mention coming here for a few days –

It makes me fancy, nay almost hope, my scheme is not quite impossible – You would have been agreeably surprised, and satisfied to hear what Marian said about it – Say I am not well (God knows I am sick enough at heart) or, which is true, that I am in great perplexity, or that my aunt is poorly (tho’ she is very much better, and probably in no danger) or say what you please, but lose no time in coming to me for at least a few days –

I really do want to see you – I will take the carriage and meet you at Manchester – Do pray make an exertion and get off – At any rate, answer my letter by the second post after you receive it, and tell me if you cannot come off immediately – Nothing like the spur of the moment –

You will get my letter tomorrow afternoon – and, if your answer is off on Wednesday morning, at night on that day I may hear whether I may be off for you on Thursday or Friday morning at seven, or not – Bring merely a few things and yourself – I will take care of you from and to Manchester –

You will see from my manner of writing, that I am not likely to relax my interest while it is yet necessary to your happiness – Your pages of Saturday make me fancy, I may have been mistaken, and that, in the bitterness of disappointment and regret, I may have miscalculated what it was my interest and desire to estimate most correctly 

This here written after dinner –

It is needless to write more – I shall anxiously and impatiently wait your answer – I would give worlds to hear of your being in better health and spirits – I had a letter from Eugénie last night – I consider her engaged; and she is to wait my orders till January –

I cannot enter upon the subject of my friend, as my aunt and sister laugh and call her – I am too much thinking of the interests of other days – Come if you can – You might be almost ride over to Manchester –

But cheer up, my dearest Mary – Time was when I had power to charm you into pleasure-stirring thought, and almost into happiness – I am what I was – And yet this power is gone, – Parted like Aynt never to return? 

God bless you! The heart knoweth its own bitterness – ’Tis harder than you think to break the spell of twenty years – Entirely and very especially yours AL –

Sent off at 8 by John my letter to Miss Maclean of Coll, Coll house Aros North Britain and my letter to Mrs. Lawton Lawton Hall, Lawton, Cheshire and my letter to the “Reverend T. Ainsowrth, at Miss Bentley’s, 1 crescent, Salford, Manchester”

George Robinson then came and staid till 9 – Said Ramsden, now the constable of H–x [Halifax], bought the last ground sold adjoining my Northgate land at 11/6 [shillings/pence] a yard – and Stancliffe bought his ground fronting into Broad street the street given at 12 /. [shillings] or 12/6 [shillings/pence] a yard but then it was cleared, or sunk down ready for building –

Had seen Bates of Washer Lane who said that I might build a good corn mill at Mytholm with saw and goit and wheel and machinery for £1500 and might have 7 to 7 1/2 percent for my money tho’ people in general did not look for much for their money now – 

Some man (Brook?) of Brighouse is letting a mill had 10 percent on his money for the 1st ten years, and then 5 percent rent afterwards – The Embargo on Dutch vessels has already made a great difference – Has stopt the German trade –

Went into the other room for 1/2 hour till 9 1/2 – π [Mariana] thought I might have gone from York to Langton 

"Is it Miss Walker of Crow Nest with whom you seem so suddenly to have formed an alliance? You mention her twice as "my friend" and as you were not wont to bestow this title lightly I am puzzled to unders[t]and, not having ever heard you mention her name,  how Miss W[alker] has so quickly succeeded in adding herself to the list so designated.

You say, "I shall be glad to hear your friend was etc. etc." I am glad to hear anything that gives you pleasure, and so far shall be pleased to hear all possible good of Miss Walker, but as I don't remember ever having seen her. 

She must be satisfied with secondhand interest for I cannot fancy her at all one of those who could herself awaken it. So far as her better health can contribute to your comfort, I rejoice that it is likely to improve and hope by this time she has somewhat recovered the loss of her particular friend" –

You say ‘I always tell you how much better Mr. Lawton is,’ because you always ask me. In bodily health he is certainly better than I have known him for years, but in mind and temper he is infinitely worse. As he improves I fall off, and I have been weak enough to fret and discomfort myself about this Leamington plan until I have almost made myself ill –

M– [Mariana] in very bad spirits about going to Leamington – "and if I could get to you, I should come for consolation" – Should be glad to spend a few days with me but does not know how it can be managed –

Watson more philosophical than π [Mariana], thinks she shall get all her mistresses things off to a place of safety   

"Made my will the other day, and told Watson where to find it – I do not fancy, my dearest Fred, that my health or happiness will claim your attention 20 years longer, so dont relax your interest while it is yet necessary to my happiness. I live in so much discomfort that it cannot be expected that I should covet living forever”

Concludes with 

God bless you Fred. Whatever I have said or may say, trust me, there is not much warmer affection bestowed upon you than that which flows from the heart of yours, very entirely, Mariana –

Poor π [Mariana].

Vide line 4 of today –  The following is Miss W[alker]s note

I have received a letter, which you shall see, but we must meet on different terms. Oh that I had taken you at your word last Monday, and as you said finished the matter on that day.  I should then have spared you this additional bitterness. 

I did hope when my word was once given to you that I should have felt at rest and satisfied, but in reflecting on all you have said and trying to turn it to my own advantage   I cannot satisfy my conscience, and with such sufferings as I have endured since Wednesday, I feel I could not make you happy. That I should only bring misery upon you,   for misery I am sure it would be to you to see me in the state I have been in for several days.

It was this sort of wretchedness that was expressed in my note on Friday. It was these miserable feelings that prompted my request

(that is I suppose for me not to send to York for the ring)

For your own sake, fly whilst it is yet in your power, 

(I smile as I copy this sentence)  

and believe that I will never intrude myself in any way upon you (unless it is your wish) whenever you revisit the neighbourhood. 

Nov[embe]r 12 eighteen hundred and 32 writton [written] on the outside of this half sheet but under cover,

Read this alone

–

Off I set. Found her twenty minutes ago returned from Cliff hill and lying on the bed in tears. Kissed and soothed her till in a few minutes she went down to dinner. I remained in her room a little while read overMr. Ainsworth’s letter pathetic appeal to her feelings, making sure that she must be engaged and hoping that her choice would do all he, Mr. A[insworth], had hoped to have done.

Begging her to take the scrapbook as a friend and to condescend  to write in answer to say if he might send the book and a narrative of himself. And if this business should be the death of him, he would only pray for blessings on her. But much bad tact and the whole ill done, tho better than I expected. 

I went down before dinner was over. Agreeablized and amused both Miss Parkhill and Miss W[alker]. Then pretending business letters for Miss W[alker] to answer, Miss P[arkhill] left us, and I talked the poor girl into admiration of my conduct and into thorough approbation of my writing and sending (I wrote there and shewed it to her) the following to Mr. Ainsworth,

Lightcliffe Mon[day] 12 November eighteen hundred and 32. 

Sir, I am commissioned by Miss Walker to acknowledge immediately the receipt of your letter of Saturday and to inform you that she has given me for the future, at least for some time to come, the surveillance of all her letters and parcels.

I am Sir your obedient servant, Anne Lister

Before writing I had asked if it was her heart that had changed towards Mr. A[insworth]. No, it was all her conscience. She owned she was not in a fit state to judge fairly and tho she had felt great affection for him, yet she did not know how it was, now all seemed dead. And if she felt at liberty, she did not know or think he was quite the man she should choose, in spite of the two great things, his being a clergyman and liking to live at Cliff hill. 

‘Well, but what would you have done had I not been here?’ She said she would certainly have exone[ra]ted herself now. Would have gone to her aunt Ploughs in London and then brought down the Chapmans with her. She would not have been alone and would have kept out of the way and done the best she could.

This, said I, is enough. In answer to her note said I did not think her at liberty to marry anyone without my consent, in which she agreed, and that Wednesday had given me a power over her which I was determined to use in her service. She would be better by and by and more able to judge for herself, and then she might try again, but now I should not let her.

She might safely trust to my honour, but I pledged myself to nothing. She brightened up and owned how much better she was. I even brought away, with her full consent, and A[insworth]’s letter, and the book of prayers he gave her with a long rigmarole written on one of the flyleaves promising to get her another of the same from London, and on asking for my dirty night things to bring back she said no till I promised to send clean ones, and we parted very good friends. 

She agreeing with me that she had reason to be thankful for the great event of Wednesday – Who could have anticipated such a result as the consequence of her note?  She likes me. But my affections are not so fearfully and I irretrievably hers as she thinks, and I shall manage well enough, tho I really will do her all the good I can –

Writing the above till 11 – Came to my room at 11 20/.. and then wrote note to Mrs. Holroyde

“Mr. T. Holroyde Esquire Solicitor Halifax” in answer respecting the land at Northgate – Not in any way anxious to sell, but would sell lot A as marked in the plan if his client would give my price – But before naming any terms I wished to know what sort of buildings it was proposed to erect –

Wrote to desire Booth to get me Gilpins practical hints on Landscape gardening and theform of family prayers published by Hatchard and Son Piccadilly London 8 edition 1828. 12mo. [duodecimo] pages 159 and 2 bottles of Albin and Chapman’s chemical writing ink – 

Did my clothes for the wash. Very fine November day – Fahrenheit 49º now at 11 40/.. – Sent off my note written last night to Mr. Holroyde –

[in margin] vide line 12 page 286

nothing like the spur of the moment

very fine November day

[theproseccopalace]

Red For Education! - Arizona edition

A letter to my kids’ teachers.

Hello and good morning. I trust you all had a great weekend spending time with your families and loved ones. I hope the memories you made were pleasant and fun, weaving them into the fabric of your lives as you also have to prepare for this momentous week - April 23-27, 2018.

I am a parent. I have never been a teacher. I have followed the news as best I can and with all the information and propaganda to weed through, i admit it’s tough. Especially these days with how inexplicably there is a deranged suspicion of facts, and distortions to the truth. 

I grew up in a household that valued the facts above all else. But how to understand them was a subject of some debate. We always understood that there were three sides to every issue - A side, B side, and the truth, which is somewhere between the two. My father, a lifelong Republican, was passionate about educational opportunities available to his children, and made sure we had healthy talks around the dinner table about history, current events, and how to interpret them. As a robust family of seven, you can imagine these were usually  spirited discussions. There were rules: no speaking out of turn. No harsh language. No getting up from the table. Winning a debate was never an assumption. And if a topic was revisited, chances were the opposite side might present new evidence and would win. As we were raised in a small farming community in the middle of Texas about 30 years ago, you can believe that educational options were limited, and opinions were plenty.

However, there was one thing we all had more consensus on - and that was the kids needed a decent education. No one could agree what exactly that meant, or how to give it. And the community faced lots of opposition from those who could not see that investing funds into the school meant better opportunities for the kids and their future - in fact, the entire communities’ future. So there were plenty of battles over budgeting. Over directions. Over values.

I see that today, in another state and decades later, things have not changed so much. Even in the years I have spent overseas, the arguments are the same. The stakes are just as high. The passions just as inflamed.

When my son was born, educating him became my next challenge. Not only would it open doors to his future, but I was excited to share my world with him - my experiences, all that I had learned in all my travels, and how my schooling helped me make sense of it all. When he was diagnosed as autistic, access to different and focused education became paramount. The teachers he had were specialized in their fields, and got him from a non verbal, no eye contact, no touching child, to a socialized, verbal child who was ready to enter kindergarten in America in EIGHT MONTHS.

Teachers can do what some of us parents cannot - reach our children. They have attended years of instruction to be able to present in front of a class of sometimes unruly, tired, mood swinging kids - and not only cram information they need to know into their minds, but to hold their attention, to inspire them to read, to get them to pass standardized tests, to care about this world and their place in it. This is not an easy job, and the fact that many people seem to think it is, is a testament to the teachers’ skill in making it appear that way.

And some of these teachers are doing it with LESS supplies or current technology and textbooks than what our kids deserve - in this country, with our resources. And yet some lawmakers, parents and even corporations DEMAND that this be done with inadequate funding. How now, say wha-?

I have heard the naysayers. With the advent of the internet, how can you NOT hear them?

*30+ kids in a class? So what?

*My kid is a senior and how can you do this to them? Now prom is canceled!

*I went to school with less/same and I turned out just fine!

*Teachers signed a contract! Why can’t teachers just shut up and teach?

*Teachers don’t teach for the summer. They are technically part-time!

My kid doesn’t need anymore teachable moments!

Oh. Dear.

See, this is where I can’t understand how anyone can be opposed to BETTER funding and access to resources and materials for the teachers and kids - at any stage of their development. I want all these kids to not just be educated to live in the Arizona world of opportunities, or even the broader United States. I want these kids to be competitive in the global marketplace. Because whether you can see it or not, our world is becoming very small. The education we give our kids casts a wide net that can prepare them for what’s shifting in the winds of the world, not just as near as their own backyards and communities.

I threw in the comment about my father being a Republican because I don’t think this is a partisan issue - and he doesn’t necessarily either. We should not let it devolve into one. Both parties have parents and educators that care equally and deeply about our public education. When this becomes an issue of arguing for argument’s sake, as our social media has turned many people into, we lose the ability to listen, and to think critically without the temptation to try to color this issue a red or blue one, or to find a solution. After reading the worst and least constructive comments on the various posts I follow, by far I’d say our greatest challenge is simply being heard, listening without judgement, understanding when our point is wrong, or of least importance, and moving forward together constructively.

I support #RedForEd Arizona. As professionals, teachers should have everything available to them that the great state of Arizona can provide so they can be successful in their goals, because they then pass those resources on to our kids. It should be a source of great pride for us all! I see the three sides at play here in this battle: the state’s, the teachers’, and the inevitable compromise that is to come.

Let us hope that the thing being compromised is not our children’s futures.

I support you. I’m here for you. I support my kids, their classmates, and their opportunities to come.

Thank you, and I look forward to the future.

Cheers.

PS: See you at your rallies. Red just happens to be my favorite color. <3

[fayewonglibrary]

THE ICE QUEEN OF CANTO (2002)

Faye Wong was known for her scalding temper as much as her singing but now she’s cool, collected and very much in control. Don’t believe the hype, she tells Vivienne Chow.

“The truth doesn’t matter any more,” intones a calm and collected Faye Wong, when she is asked whether her relationship with Cantopop star Nicholas Tse Ting-fung is on the rocks. She leans purposefully back in her comfy chair, snaps a bite out of a square of French toast and summons her assistant for another packet of Mild Seven cigarettes. It isn’t so easy to rile Faye Wong any more.

Three years ago, it would scarcely have been noteworthy had the pop diva launched herself at me across the table and jammed the toast into my eye. At a press conference at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in 1999, Wong lost her temper when an inquisitive journalist from Singapore submitted a question about her divorce from Beijing rock star Dou Wei. She screamed at the reporter, told her it was no one’s business but her own and stormed out in the kind of dramatic huff only stars seem able to carry off.

All I get is a cheerful, perhaps defiant smile and a puff of cigarette smoke. Wong appears only too happy to consider the question, despite the over-anxious butt-in from another assistant, who says: “Would you please cancel that question!” - intent on smothering the 32-year-old singer. Quite obviously, however, she can take care of herself.

“I’ve already answered it,” Wong cuts in. Well, actually, she hasn’t. What she has said is this: “The main function of the entertainment press is to get stories that are entertaining but sometimes the truth may not be as juicy as you imagine. Even if I answer the questions honestly, they still make up stories. They have their own ideas on how my private life should be. I have no desire to change that image so I choose not to answer. In this way they can continue to write whatever they want to.”

So she’s answered by questioning the question’s validity - that old celebrity trick - but at least that toast is staying on her side of the table. “Sometimes the entertainment news about me covers details I have never heard before,” she says. “I quite enjoy reading the stories myself. I’m just so fascinated by this. But I’m not keen to tell people who I am or explain to people what I have or haven’t done. Now I don’t really mind what has been written about me.”

That’s about as close an answer as anyone’s likely to get from Wong on the state of her relationship with Tse, who is 11 years her junior. Not that you can really blame her. Since the couple walked out of a private function, hand in hand, two years ago, they have been pursued relentlessly by the paparazzi.

And that’s hardly surprising, given Wong is the undisputed queen of Cantopop and Tse, a Cantopop star himself, is also the son of 1960s heart-throb actor Patrick Tse Yin and actress Deborah Lai. That was more than enough star quality to send even the most haggard entertainment hack into a frenzy when the couple’s romance was first revealed. Now there are rumours of a parting of ways, the gossip machine is again moving into overdrive.

But Wong has learned to be philosophical following the often fanatical media interest surrounding her marriage to Dou in 1996 and divorce three years later. “I’m more open-minded now,” she says. “At the beginning, I got upset quite often by the way I was portrayed in the newspapers and how people saw me. But since I can’t ask the entire world to change for me, I now look at these matters in a positive way.”

Until, that is, her five-year-old daughter by Dou, Ching-tung, is added to the mix. Ching-tung has been the subject of cut-throat press clamour since even before she was born. The battle to publish the first photograph of Wong pregnant resulted in a court case between rival newspapers Oriental Sunday and Apple Daily. The Oriental Sunday snapped the slightly swelling singer in the baggage lounge of Beijing Airport in October 1996 - the first confirmation that the star was expecting - and took Apple to court after it printed a spoiler story on the front page, including the picture, on the same day.

Since then, even the little girl has had to run the press gauntlet. On February 1, Chinese-language entertainment magazine Sudden Weekly published photographs of Ching-tung at the Hong Kong International School and ran an interview allegedly conducted with her on her way to the school in Repulse Bay. The interview claimed the youngster said Tse hadn’t visited her mother for some time. Wong was understandably furious. And for a moment, as she recounts the episode to me, the expression that darkens her face would, I know, have been terrifyingly familiar to the unfortunate reporter at the press conference three years ago. Wong leans forward. She’s more serious now. The interview never took place, she says. “I checked with my maid and spoke to my daughter. She has never done this kind of interview before. Sure, she might have said hello to someone but there couldn’t have been enough time for her to tell a reporter so many details.

"I understand people want to read about her and she cannot escape from being harassed because she is my daughter. It is not harmful if they make up stories about me but she is only a five-year-old child. Can’t the public sacrifice a little bit of their curiosity so the child can grow up in a healthy environment? Can’t they at least just wait till she’s older?”

Up close, it’s easy to see why Wong’s face graces so many magazine covers. She has beautiful, big round eyes. She says her tall and slender figure requires little maintenance, even after she gave birth to Ching-tung. And Wong is a trend-setter. What she wears will often become the hottest fahsion items of the season - even though she seems to be the only person able to carry off what are often quirky designs.

Born in 1969, Wong moved to Hong Kong with her family from Beijing at the end of 1987 when she was 18. Her enthusiasm for singing led her to the respected voice coach Tai Sze-chung and , at just 20, she was recommended by Tai to Cinepoly, with which she secured a record deal.

In 1989, Wong released her debut album, Shirley Wong Ching-man, a stage name she then used, which won her Commercial Radio’s Ultimate Female Newcomer(Bronze) award. In 1991, she left for the United States to study music. When she returned the next year, she released the album Coming Home, which became her first platinum record. She retrieved her real name, Wong Fei - Faye Wong - in 1994 and has so far made 22 studio albums.

In 1997, Wong announced she would make no more Cantonese albums when she left Cinepoly for global giant EMI. But she does sing the occcasional Cantonese song in addition to the records in Putonghua. “It is a marketing decision,” she says. “To sing well, one has to master the language in order to deliver the best sound. Putonghua is my native tongue so naturally I’m more confident with this language. But records are considered a commodity and we must take sales into account.”

Wong’s singing and songwriting talents, if widely recognised, are often tagged under the “alternative” label, although she has been voted best female singer on numerous occasions in Hong Kong, the mainland and Southeast Asia, and took the best alternative song composition trophy last year at the CASH Golden Sail Awards in the SAR with Han Wu Jie.

This kind of success usually brings a measure of satisfaction, so how does Wong still find herself singing songs she deosn’t particularly like? “I enjoy performing my own compositions but my taste in music is too off-mainstream and only a few people appreciate that,” says Wong, who has covered songs by Tori Amos and collaborated with Cocteau Twins. “I know what the masses like and I know they skip my compositions and listen to the commercial tracks. Hong Kong is not like Japan, where it accomodates various musical styles. I have too many business partners and I must consider their interests as well. I’m more mature now and I strike a balance between my personal interests and commercial value.”

Thus, she is promoting her new film. It is the Lunar New Year crowd-drawer Chinese Odyssey 2002, her fourth film, in which she plays opposite Tony Leung Chiu-wai. It is also a testament to her new, more-mellow attitude. When she last played opposite Leung in Chungking Express in 1994, Wong barely spoke to her co-star. This time, in a hectic two-month shoot over Christmas, she says the pair got on well. Leung told the South China Morning Post she “seemed like a different person this time. She is very cheerful and friendly.”

Wong plays the role of Princess Wu Shuang, who escapes from her palace for fun, often disguising herself as a man, only for both a man and a woman to fall for her. “Filming Chungking Express was painful for me because I had no idea what I was doing at all,” she says. “But Chinese Odyssey 2002 was an enjoyable experience - though I didn’t have time to sleep. The team spirit was fantastic.”

But it’s not just her character that changed between the two movies, she insists. Wong Kar-wai, the director of Chungking Express, and Jeff Lau Chun-wai, who wrote and directed Chinese Odyssey 2002, were two extremes. “As I am not confident and experienced with acting, I need demonstrations on how to act,” she says. “Jeff gave me very clear direction: he is willing to teach, whereas Wong Kar-wai did not want me to understand what was on his mind. I just had to perform what he told me to and some of the situations were quite embarrassing. Sometimes I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It was good for me because there was no need for me to analyse the character. But now I want to know more about acting.”

In Wong’s 1994 song Exit, she describes herself as having a lack of patience. That’s one thing that has not changed. After 30 minutes, a clutch of cigarettes and a snack attack of toast, she gets up with an “Is that OK?” and has exited left before even her hovering assistants can pretend it was their idea.

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

SOURCE: THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

[jillmckenzie1]

A Game of Numbers

So, I’ve been dating. It’s a rather obvious statement, but I’m saying it here with a real air of assertiveness that lets you know that I’m “for real,” because dating is what I should be doing if I am blatantly putting out into the universe that I’d like a partner in crime.

And, as painful as dating can be (and, take my word for it, it can be unbelievably painful), the only way to get better at anything is by doing it. Over and over and over again. So, I’ve spent the last few months committed to putting myself out there more as a means of sharpening the side of me that would rather gauge out my eyeballs with a rusty spoon than go on yet another date with a guy who is either too confused or too feminine or too vegetarian or too horny to even see past my backside in yoga pants (feel free to reference this previous dating rant for verification).

Fact. Dating is a game of numbers. You have to weed through a lot of toads to find Prince Charming (at least this is what they tell me).

I, personally, liken dating to Groundhog Day. You know, the movie where Bill Murray wakes up and repeats a sequence of events over and over and over again until he finally transforms from being an arrogant asshole into a good-hearted philanthropist? Yep, that one. Because every first date is essentially the same series of questions, actions, and reactions. The two of you are simply sizing each other up to come to some type of conclusion in regard to whether or not you’d like to do it again sometime.

Sidebar. I’d like to think that Prince Charming breaks the first-date mold. That he asks me for drinks at a college basketball bar where I spend far more time directing my body towards him than Saturday’s primetime matchup. And that we don’t even have to think about asking all the generic questions because the conversation just is. And he whisks me away to a sold-out concert where I’m scalping a ticket from a guy named Chicago in an effort to have another excuse to be next to him. And, at the end of the night, after one kiss that is more electric than the band’s encore, I’m wearing his alma mater shorts and Nike t-shirt to crawl into the left side of his bed and fall asleep next to the warmth of his body.

Unfortunately, this, here, is not that story.

So, let’s return to the vegetarian. Correction. Let’s return to the vegetarian that I met on Bumble. Truly, how else do you meet people these days? It’s altogether mind-blowing. Yet, I’m also living this quasi-nomadic life that warrants the use of technology in order to both make connections and stay connected. So, I jokingly call Bumble the place where we go to die (the ratio of ghosting to non-ghosting has got to be hovering in the 90th percentile); and yet, I am also on Bumble (and last time I checked, I’m not dying).

I digress. The vegetarian. When we started chatting, it happened to be snowing in Breckenridge. I had just landed with the Airstream by way of Texas. And he had just landed at the local hostel by way of New York, quitting corporate America to try on the ski bum life for a winter. We were both new. Great. We were both into powder. Great. And the next day promised lots of the latter. Even more great. Naturally, we agreed to meet on the mountain. And, while this was a risky move on my part (since I knew nothing about his ability level), I felt that I had enough scapegoats for a day date to politely abort the mission (hard rule of first dates is that you always have scapegoats).

We skied. We asked questions. And, surprisingly, I was able to avoid any scapegoating.

The next night, Vegetarian asked me to grab a drink with him to meet some guy that could be his potential roommate (remember, homeboy is living in the hostel while waiting for some housing to open up). He actually pulled the “but I’d much rather be sitting there with you” card, which, as a sucker for words, I found rather endearing. To be honest, I found a few things about him rather endearing.

Until I didn’t. Until, in transit to date two, I find myself sitting in his passenger seat on the side of Main Street while having a passionate discussion about my current diet and my affinity towards eating animals.

That’s right, folks, it’s all fun and games until you disclose that you’re a meat-eater.

If you follow my Instagram Stories, then you know that I’ve been dealing with stomach issues for almost a decade, and I recently engaged in a six-week metabolic reset that was rather strict in regards to the types of foods that I could eat and the portion sizes of those foods. Yes, meat was involved (as it has been involved in my diet for the vast majority of my life). And, yes, I presented this information to him so that he could understand why I wouldn’t be gorging on pizza that evening. Immediately, my diet became the epicenter of our conversation (while still sitting on the side of the road).

Allow me to preface this next bit with two statements. One, I have tried being a vegan and a vegetarian. Two, I don’t actually believe that anyone needs to justify his or her diet choices. Regardless, I opened the door for him to engage in conversation with me about my obsession with being a meat-eating member of society.

Because, I’ve tried everything, dude. Because I’ve been dealing with gut problems for seven years. Because I’ve seen over ten doctors. Because I am more educated on this topic than 97.4% of Americans. Because you call yourself a vegetarian and eat pretzels with fake cheese; meanwhile, I call myself an omnivore and only consume organic meats, fruits, and vegetables.

So, there we were. For an hour. Literally. And all I could think about was how thankful I was that his BMW X3 had a functional passenger-side seat heater.

In hindsight, what I learned about myself through this experience is my ability to detach from commentary that is merely someone’s opinion and recognize that it is in no way a personal attack on my character, an area where I truly struggled just a couple years ago.

Me: “Look, I would love to have a more detailed discussion with you about the pros and cons of vegetarianism, but I don’t feel educated enough on the topic to continue to disagree with you. I don’t even disagree with you. Because if it works for you, then great. If it doesn’t work for me, then great. But, as a whole, I don’t have any plausible data in my back pocket to support that eating meat is neither better nor worse for a human body.”

And, if I’m being honest, I didn’t care. I still don’t care.

In that moment, all I cared about was him driving me home. Because, good gawd, we’re two dates in and he’s already not listening. Disagree with me on something? Totally fine. Try to convince me that my opinion is completely false, or even stupid, without even really knowing me? Totally not fine.

But I stayed calm and talked myself into persevering (it is dating, after all, which is borderline rocket science). I reasoned that he was coming from a good place. I could feel the sense of urgency in his voice. He was imparting a knowledge on me that he believed could help me. At the core of my being, I could not fault the man for speaking his truth. The difference was that the conversation was not directed towards vegetarianism as a whole. The conversation was directed towards me and what I should do and how I should be leery of a program that suggested eating meat as a means of balancing myself. He just didn’t have enough knowledge about me as a person to so passionately preach to, what he seemed to believe, was my ignorance.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt. It was only our second date, after all.

We walked into the pizza place – me maintaining an aggressively safe distance between the two of us. Sports were on TV. I looked to the Nuggets for a little respite from the previous conversation.

Me: “Do you like the NBA?”

Vegetarian: “I don’t really like sports. I don’t really get them.”

Well, shit. Strike two, buddy. Strike two in two hours (if I’m still being generous). Seriously, sports, you don’t get them? So, we return to the food conversation. Again. Because he has to know what I would eat off the menu of this dive pizza place in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Nothing, dude. The answer is nothing. Mostly because I’ll get sick (hello, glu-tard over here). Mostly because I don’t know from where they’re sourcing their ingredients. Mostly because I would order a Tito’s and soda from the bar but not a salad in this kind of establishment.

Sure, I’m a damn food snob. And, sure, I’ve passed over caring what other people think of my food choices. Because I’ve been too damn sick for too damn long to sacrifice feeling good so that someone else can feel comfortable eating next to me.

At this point, I’m managing every verbal volley without any defensiveness or predisposition towards a specific response. But, inside. Inside I am screaming. I just want to cheer for the Nuggets and drink my Tito’s and soda and laugh until my cheeks feel like they’re going to explode. Is that too much to ask?

Seriously, where is Chicago and the sold-out concert and the alma mater shorts?

Somewhere. The answer is somewhere. But, most certainly not on this night with this guy at this local pizza joint. It took everything inside of me to not tell him to just let me jump out of his moving vehicle while he rolled past my RV park on the way home. Because, yes, I did in fact make it home. Alive.

But don’t worry, it gets better. Post-drop off, he proceeds to immediately text me and ask me to define the relationship. And I gather that this sense of urgency is spurred by the fact that he needs a place to live and my Airstream seems like a plausible solution (his words, not my assumptions).

Is this real life? Was he on our second date? Or did I just wake up from a really bad dream?

Nope. Date happened. He was there. This is actual real life. And, in the spirit of extreme bluntness, I euphemistically explain that hell will freeze over before we see each other again.

And, just like that, back to that desire to gauge out my eyeballs with a rusty spoon than experience anything resembling a date in the near future.

But I know better. Vegetarian is just another story. And I don’t mean that in some sluttish laundry list of dating have-dones. As a metaphor, I simply mean that I took him for a test drive and I didn’t like the car (at all), so I left it on the lot. To date is to simply be open to making the purchase.

As a non-metaphor, I liken it more to the softening of one’s heart. Dating is creating spaces of vulnerability for someone to show up. And I’m pretty convinced that you can find out in no more than three dates whether or not a person is going to show up in a capacity that makes you want to be enveloped in their presence over and over and over again. The challenge is that it requires brutal honesty, both with yourself and with the other person. And I’ve come to the conclusion that this fear of honesty is what propels most people into settling. Because we do not want to do the work to know ourselves. And beyond that, when we do challenge ourselves to do the work – when we sit inside ourselves long enough to understand how we receive love – we are then scared to articulate boldly to another human what is that we need based on that knowledge.

Because, what if we are too needy?

My answer. We all have needs; therefore, we are all needy. The right person will never put this label across your chest and ask you to carry it as if who you are is altogether too much. The right person will hear you, really hear you, and he most certainly will not keep you parked on the side of Main Street for an hour to defend your eating habits.

So, here’s to more swipe rights, and random chairlift conversations, and Instagram messages, and phone number exchanges, and actual dates to all different types of food establishments (organic or not). Because I just have to keep playing the odds. Yes, there are a hell of a lot of toads in this world, but Prince Charming, he is out there (and he’d better know how to snowboard).

from Blog https://ondenver.com/a-game-of-numbers/

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Math is hard – The Panthers have spent much of the last year pushing back on analytics and numbers geeks. Apparently, that includes stuff like "When you pull the goalie you should probably end up with an additional skater on the ice."

The second star: Johnny Boychuk is frightened – Luckily he plays for the Islanders, so he won't be on top again for a while.

The first star: Jaromir Jagr is back – While we mourn the loss of a potential Jagr Draft, we'll welcome his return to the league for what will probably be one of his final half-dozen seasons.

Be It Resolved

The season has started, which means you've made your Stanley Cup pick by now. If you're smart, you kept it to yourself, so that you can just deny it ever happened. But if you're dumb—or worse, a professional sportswriter—you have gone and made your pick public. You fool.

Ah well. What's done is done, and you can't take it back now. At least we can use this as a teachable moment to learn something about ourselves. So in that spirit, be it resolved that this is what your Stanley Cup pick says about you.

Pittsburgh Penguins – You are punting. In the age of hyper-parity, nobody stands out as a good pick so you're just taking the defending champions because your editors weren't going to pay you to just write "pass." You will receive no credit for being right and will be brutally mocked for being wrong. (This was me, by the way.)

Tampa Bay Lightning – You thought you'd get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and by the time you realized everyone else was also picking the Lightning it was too late.

Dallas Stars — You thought you'd get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and forgot that the Lightning would be a way better pick.

Nashville Predators – You believe in second chances, and that we can all become our better selves when given the opportunity to learn from the past. These beliefs will come in handy when the Predators miss the playoffs and you pick a new team in April.

Washington Capitals – When you watch a nature show and the gazelle has been caught by the lion, brought down, and had his carcass picked clean, you figure he's probably due.

Chicago Blackhawks – You work for the NHL's marketing department.

Toronto Maple Leafs – You were the sort of kid who started asking what dessert was before you'd even eaten three bites of your actual meal.

New York Rangers – You're sick of arguing with the guy next to you at the bar who keeps insisting the Rangers are "too old" and "need to start over" and that "the window is already closed," and are also slightly concerned at how much he looks like New York GM Jeff Gorton.

Montreal Canadiens – You figure everything else in the world is terrible right now so why not.

Anaheim Ducks – You're not someone who buys into cliched hockey narratives like "clutch" and "handling pressure" and "having a healthy blueline" and "not building your team around a bunch of 30-year-olds."

Edmonton Oilers – You think it's about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you're damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you figure it's OK to have a questionable blueline as long as you're solid in goal.

Calgary Flames – You think it's about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you're damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you think it's OK to have questionable goaltending as long as you're solid on the blueline.

Los Angeles Kings – You do not understand how the passage of time works.

Minnesota Wild – This is a perfectly valid and reasonable pick, which came to you while you were enjoying a glass of tap water and some plain yogurt.

Columbus Blue Jackets – Literally nobody picked the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Somebody else that everyone thinks has no chance – You're probably right.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Connor McDavid, Alexander Ovechkin, Brandon Saad, and Wayne Simmonds all had hat tricks in their team's opener this week. Thanks to hockey-reference's play index, we can learn that there have been 22 other times that's happened since 1987.

Three players scored four times—Auston Matthews last year, and two Obscure Player alumni, Greg Adams and Chris Kontos. Among the players with three goals, we see plenty of future Hall-of-Famers, including Brendan Shanahan (twice), Luc Robitaille, Teemu Selanne and Jari Kurri. Cam Neely did it twice in the same calendar year, and I'll leave it to you to figure out how that's possible. And then there's this week's obscure player: Marc Chouinard.

Chouinard was a big center whose uncle Guy was the first ever Flame to score 50 goals. He was selected by the Jets in the second round of the 1995 draft, one pick after Georges Laraque. He never made it to Winnipeg; a few months after the draft, he was traded to Anaheim for Chad Kilger and Oleg Tverdovsky (with the Ducks also getting a throw-in winger in the deal). Chouinard wouldn't crack the Ducks roster until 2000, eventually playing 44 games and posting seven points. He'd stick around for two more years, posting single-digit points but developing a solid two-way game, and he scored a goal for the Ducks in the 2003 final.

He'd head to the Wild as a free agent that summer, where he enjoyed an 11-goal, 21-point season in 2003-04, and followed that with a career-best 14 goals and 30 points in 2005-06. It was that second season that saw him start the year with three goals on opening night; he scored two minutes in (assisted by Alexandre Daigle of all people) and completed the hat trick with an empty-netter with four seconds left.

That would end up being his last year in Minnesota, and after signing with Vancouver he'd play just one more NHL season before heading to Europe. Most of his YouTube highlights are just him losing fights, but he made enough of an impression on one fan to earn this heart-tugging tribute video.

New Entries for the Hockey Dictionary

The Muzzin Spot (noun) – I'll explain.

I love NHL home openers. Sure, it's a chance to see a team's new players in meaningful action for the first time. And yes, there's a refreshing wave of optimism washing over the entire league, even though we know it won't last.

But that's not the best part. No, my favorite aspect of every NHL home opener is the now-traditional buildup to the player introductions. There's loud music and laser beams, and it all leads to the highlight: The intimidating faces of each individual player flashed onto the scoreboard or projected onto the ice, one at a time, in order of importance.

That's the key. Once the faces start flashing, it becomes clear that we're going from best to worst. The star player gets the leadoff spot, and we work our way down to the scrubs.

Granted, not every team does this. Plenty still go to a copout like using alphabetical order, or going by jersey number. Those teams are cowards and we should all unite in rejecting them. But some teams do it right. And when you think about how the hockey mindset works, it's remarkable that anyone does it this way at all. Nobody in the NHL wants to ever rank anything. When the league did it's top 100 list, it wasn't ranked. They got rid of the all-star draft because being the 40th best all-star made players sad. When you ask coaches and players about who they need to worry about on the other team, they almost always mumble something about how it's a team a game. Hockey players are all equally important, we're relentlessly told, from the stars down to the fourth-liners.

And then comes the home opener, and suddenly the team itself is ranking its entire roster from best to worst. I love it.

And I especially love the guy who gets stuck being the last face. That's the Muzzin Spot, named after Los Angeles defenseman Jake Muzzin. He's pretty good, and would probably be near the top of the King's list. But last year he was on Team Canada for the World Cup and, well, you can imagine where he wound up when the intros started flashing on the ACC ice.

So if you're lucky enough to attend a home opener this week, cross your fingers that your team is one of the good ones that serves up its pregame face-flashes in order. And if they do, remember to save your loudest cheer for the poor soul who gets the Muzzin Spot. They could probably use it.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Now that the games matter again, the offseason is officially over. And not a moment too soon, since all those trades and transactions can take a lot of time to sort through.

How long? Well, I'm still getting caught up on 1986. Luckily, there's a video clip to get us up to speed.

Our clip begins the way all sports clips from the 80s must, with some sweet brass horns. We also get a look at the key moment of the 1986 playoffs, Steve's Smith's infamous own goal (which we broke down in detail a few months ago). Yep, still traumatizing to watch.

That leads us to our host, Hockey Night in Canada's Brian McFarlane. He's going to walk us through the offseason moves of all 21 teams. Yes, the NHL was significantly thinner back in the mid-80s. Weren't we all.

First up: The defending champion Habs. We find out about Mario Tremblay, and also a goalie trade. I'm sure that's the last time those two things will appear in a sentence that matters to Montreal fans.

Next up are the Nordiques, who have a pair of blue chip wingers incoming in Ken Quinney and Jason Lafreniere. Spoiler: Those two will go on to score 30 goals for the Nordiques. Total. Over both of their entire careers.

The Bruins are next, and they'll have slightly better luck with their new winger, a kid named Cam Neely who came over from the Canucks. He seems like a guy who could be dominant for decades to come, and really fills a kneed. Wait, I meant to type "need." Ah well, probably not important.

The big news for the Sabres is the return of Gilbert Perreault, which was a weird story that doesn't last. But the main takeaway here is that you'll be seeing this in your nightmares for the next few months:

The Whalers round out the Adams. Pro tip: It's rarely a good sign when your goaltending is referred to as a "workaholic." But speaking of goalies, I'm thinking that Flyers rookie with "the famous hockey name" turns out to be OK.

The Caps haven't done much, and the main highlights of the Islanders clip is Terry Simpson making the same face every Islander fan makes when they think about John Tavares leaving in free agency. Well, that and Brian Curren's extremely subtle "How you doin'?" eyebrow move. But the Rangers have big news, as Phil Esposito arrives to start what will go down in history as quite possibly the most entertaining GM stint ever. He keeps the job for three years and makes 43(!) trades, including one for a coach.

So…uh…Steve Guenette sure seems happy to be a Penguins, doesn't he? Enjoy the two games you'll appear in this year, Steve. Meanwhile, we close out the conference by learning that the Devils haven't really done anything, because they're still a year away from going on miracle playoff runs and fat-shaming referees.

The Oilers have lost Dr. Randy Gregg but added Danny Gare. The latter earns a defiant "Who said he wouldn't make the team?" Uh, he lasts 18 games and scores one goal before heading for the broadcast booth, so…somebody who was pretty much right?

The Flames section is a bit of a downer, as first-round pick George Pelawa has recently died in a car crash. At the time, Pelawa was widely rumored to be the subject of the Tom Cochrane classic "Big League," although that's apparently not the case.

We also get a look at a Flames prospect named Brett Hull, who we're told once hit the post in a playoff game. He does see some action during the 1986-87 regular season, but scores only one goal. Bust!

In Winnipeg, a Finnish forward named Hannu Jarvenpaa is "a real find." He manages just 11 career goals, although the Jets do slightly better on another Finnish forward a few years later. Meanwhile, the Canucks are excited about Barry Pederson, who came over in the Neely trade. He actually does OK in Vancouver, posting back-to-back 70-point seasons, but it's fair to say it's not quite enough.

The Kings' section may be my favorite. They've got two prospects, and for once both turn out to be worth the hype. Jimmy Carson scores 50 goals as a teenager and gets traded for Wayne Gretzky, while Luc Robitaille becomes the highest-scoring left winger ever. So yeah, not bad. But the highlight is a baby-faced Robitaille's deadpan and slightly cross-eyed stare into the camera, ending in a smile that lasts a nanosecond.

Finally, it's on to the Norris Division, starting in Chicago where Behn Wilson is hurt and Everett Sanipass "looks good." Also looking good: Those old Blackhawks uniforms without names on them, which we get a look at while hyping Minnesota's Frantisek Musil as a Calder favorite. (He received zero votes; Robitaille won, followed by Hextall and Carson.)

The Blues have lost Jacques Demers to the Red Wings and replaced him with "little-known Jacques Martin." It's fair to say Martin turns out alright. Here, he looks exactly like 2017 Jacques Martin wearing a fake novelty mustache.

The Leafs have Vincent Damphousse, who turns out to be really good, and John Brophy, who turns out to be really fun. In related news, as a young Maple Leafs fan at the time I pronounced Damphousse as "Damp House" for the first few years of his career. And I pronounced Brophy as "the scary old man who looks like he wants to crawl through the TV and eat me."

We close with the Red Wings, where first overall pick Joe Murphy already looks like a bust (he was, at least in Detroit) and Demers needs to pull off a miracle to improve the team. He more or less does, becoming the only coach to ever win back-to-back Jack Adams in his first two years with the Wings.

And that wraps up our look at all the changes NHL teams had made during the 1986 offseason. It all ended up being pointless, as Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers decide to stop scoring into their own net and cruise to the next two Cups, losing just seven playoff games in the process. But don't worry, I'm sure that won't be the case this year!

(There's, uh, not a dominant dynasty with the world's best player out there, right?)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Math is hard – The Panthers have spent much of the last year pushing back on analytics and numbers geeks. Apparently, that includes stuff like “When you pull the goalie you should probably end up with an additional skater on the ice.”

The second star: Johnny Boychuk is frightened – Luckily he plays for the Islanders, so he won’t be on top again for a while.

The first star: Jaromir Jagr is back – While we mourn the loss of a potential Jagr Draft, we’ll welcome his return to the league for what will probably be one of his final half-dozen seasons.

Be It Resolved

The season has started, which means you’ve made your Stanley Cup pick by now. If you’re smart, you kept it to yourself, so that you can just deny it ever happened. But if you’re dumb—or worse, a professional sportswriter—you have gone and made your pick public. You fool.

Ah well. What’s done is done, and you can’t take it back now. At least we can use this as a teachable moment to learn something about ourselves. So in that spirit, be it resolved that this is what your Stanley Cup pick says about you.

Pittsburgh Penguins – You are punting. In the age of hyper-parity, nobody stands out as a good pick so you’re just taking the defending champions because your editors weren’t going to pay you to just write “pass.” You will receive no credit for being right and will be brutally mocked for being wrong. (This was me, by the way.)

Tampa Bay Lightning – You thought you’d get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and by the time you realized everyone else was also picking the Lightning it was too late.

Dallas Stars — You thought you’d get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and forgot that the Lightning would be a way better pick.

Nashville Predators – You believe in second chances, and that we can all become our better selves when given the opportunity to learn from the past. These beliefs will come in handy when the Predators miss the playoffs and you pick a new team in April.

Washington Capitals – When you watch a nature show and the gazelle has been caught by the lion, brought down, and had his carcass picked clean, you figure he’s probably due.

Chicago Blackhawks – You work for the NHL’s marketing department.

Toronto Maple Leafs – You were the sort of kid who started asking what dessert was before you’d even eaten three bites of your actual meal.

New York Rangers – You’re sick of arguing with the guy next to you at the bar who keeps insisting the Rangers are “too old” and “need to start over” and that “the window is already closed,” and are also slightly concerned at how much he looks like New York GM Jeff Gorton.

Montreal Canadiens – You figure everything else in the world is terrible right now so why not.

Anaheim Ducks – You’re not someone who buys into cliched hockey narratives like “clutch” and “handling pressure” and “having a healthy blueline” and “not building your team around a bunch of 30-year-olds.”

Edmonton Oilers – You think it’s about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you’re damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you figure it’s OK to have a questionable blueline as long as you’re solid in goal.

Calgary Flames – You think it’s about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you’re damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you think it’s OK to have questionable goaltending as long as you’re solid on the blueline.

Los Angeles Kings – You do not understand how the passage of time works.

Minnesota Wild – This is a perfectly valid and reasonable pick, which came to you while you were enjoying a glass of tap water and some plain yogurt.

Columbus Blue Jackets – Literally nobody picked the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Somebody else that everyone thinks has no chance – You’re probably right.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Connor McDavid, Alexander Ovechkin, Brandon Saad, and Wayne Simmonds all had hat tricks in their team’s opener this week. Thanks to hockey-reference’s play index, we can learn that there have been 22 other times that’s happened since 1987.

Three players scored four times—Auston Matthews last year, and two Obscure Player alumni, Greg Adams and Chris Kontos. Among the players with three goals, we see plenty of future Hall-of-Famers, including Brendan Shanahan (twice), Luc Robitaille, Teemu Selanne and Jari Kurri. Cam Neely did it twice in the same calendar year, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out how that’s possible. And then there’s this week’s obscure player: Marc Chouinard.

Chouinard was a big center whose uncle Guy was the first ever Flame to score 50 goals. He was selected by the Jets in the second round of the 1995 draft, one pick after Georges Laraque. He never made it to Winnipeg; a few months after the draft, he was traded to Anaheim for Chad Kilger and Oleg Tverdovsky (with the Ducks also getting a throw-in winger in the deal). Chouinard wouldn’t crack the Ducks roster until 2000, eventually playing 44 games and posting seven points. He’d stick around for two more years, posting single-digit points but developing a solid two-way game, and he scored a goal for the Ducks in the 2003 final.

He’d head to the Wild as a free agent that summer, where he enjoyed an 11-goal, 21-point season in 2003-04, and followed that with a career-best 14 goals and 30 points in 2005-06. It was that second season that saw him start the year with three goals on opening night; he scored two minutes in (assisted by Alexandre Daigle of all people) and completed the hat trick with an empty-netter with four seconds left.

That would end up being his last year in Minnesota, and after signing with Vancouver he’d play just one more NHL season before heading to Europe. Most of his YouTube highlights are just him losing fights, but he made enough of an impression on one fan to earn this heart-tugging tribute video.

New Entries for the Hockey Dictionary

The Muzzin Spot (noun) – I’ll explain.

I love NHL home openers. Sure, it’s a chance to see a team’s new players in meaningful action for the first time. And yes, there’s a refreshing wave of optimism washing over the entire league, even though we know it won’t last.

But that’s not the best part. No, my favorite aspect of every NHL home opener is the now-traditional buildup to the player introductions. There’s loud music and laser beams, and it all leads to the highlight: The intimidating faces of each individual player flashed onto the scoreboard or projected onto the ice, one at a time, in order of importance.

That’s the key. Once the faces start flashing, it becomes clear that we’re going from best to worst. The star player gets the leadoff spot, and we work our way down to the scrubs.

Granted, not every team does this. Plenty still go to a copout like using alphabetical order, or going by jersey number. Those teams are cowards and we should all unite in rejecting them. But some teams do it right. And when you think about how the hockey mindset works, it’s remarkable that anyone does it this way at all. Nobody in the NHL wants to ever rank anything. When the league did it’s top 100 list, it wasn’t ranked. They got rid of the all-star draft because being the 40th best all-star made players sad. When you ask coaches and players about who they need to worry about on the other team, they almost always mumble something about how it’s a team a game. Hockey players are all equally important, we’re relentlessly told, from the stars down to the fourth-liners.

And then comes the home opener, and suddenly the team itself is ranking its entire roster from best to worst. I love it.

And I especially love the guy who gets stuck being the last face. That’s the Muzzin Spot, named after Los Angeles defenseman Jake Muzzin. He’s pretty good, and would probably be near the top of the King’s list. But last year he was on Team Canada for the World Cup and, well, you can imagine where he wound up when the intros started flashing on the ACC ice.

So if you’re lucky enough to attend a home opener this week, cross your fingers that your team is one of the good ones that serves up its pregame face-flashes in order. And if they do, remember to save your loudest cheer for the poor soul who gets the Muzzin Spot. They could probably use it.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Now that the games matter again, the offseason is officially over. And not a moment too soon, since all those trades and transactions can take a lot of time to sort through.

How long? Well, I’m still getting caught up on 1986. Luckily, there’s a video clip to get us up to speed.

Our clip begins the way all sports clips from the 80s must, with some sweet brass horns. We also get a look at the key moment of the 1986 playoffs, Steve’s Smith’s infamous own goal (which we broke down in detail a few months ago). Yep, still traumatizing to watch.

That leads us to our host, Hockey Night in Canada’s Brian McFarlane. He’s going to walk us through the offseason moves of all 21 teams. Yes, the NHL was significantly thinner back in the mid-80s. Weren’t we all.

First up: The defending champion Habs. We find out about Mario Tremblay, and also a goalie trade. I’m sure that’s the last time those two things will appear in a sentence that matters to Montreal fans.

Next up are the Nordiques, who have a pair of blue chip wingers incoming in Ken Quinney and Jason Lafreniere. Spoiler: Those two will go on to score 30 goals for the Nordiques. Total. Over both of their entire careers.

The Bruins are next, and they’ll have slightly better luck with their new winger, a kid named Cam Neely who came over from the Canucks. He seems like a guy who could be dominant for decades to come, and really fills a kneed. Wait, I meant to type “need.” Ah well, probably not important.

The big news for the Sabres is the return of Gilbert Perreault, which was a weird story that doesn’t last. But the main takeaway here is that you’ll be seeing this in your nightmares for the next few months:

The Whalers round out the Adams. Pro tip: It’s rarely a good sign when your goaltending is referred to as a “workaholic.” But speaking of goalies, I’m thinking that Flyers rookie with “the famous hockey name” turns out to be OK.

The Caps haven’t done much, and the main highlights of the Islanders clip is Terry Simpson making the same face every Islander fan makes when they think about John Tavares leaving in free agency. Well, that and Brian Curren’s extremely subtle “How you doin’?” eyebrow move. But the Rangers have big news, as Phil Esposito arrives to start what will go down in history as quite possibly the most entertaining GM stint ever. He keeps the job for three years and makes 43(!) trades, including one for a coach.

So…uh…Steve Guenette sure seems happy to be a Penguins, doesn’t he? Enjoy the two games you’ll appear in this year, Steve. Meanwhile, we close out the conference by learning that the Devils haven’t really done anything, because they’re still a year away from going on miracle playoff runs and fat-shaming referees.

The Oilers have lost Dr. Randy Gregg but added Danny Gare. The latter earns a defiant “Who said he wouldn’t make the team?” Uh, he lasts 18 games and scores one goal before heading for the broadcast booth, so…somebody who was pretty much right?

The Flames section is a bit of a downer, as first-round pick George Pelawa has recently died in a car crash. At the time, Pelawa was widely rumored to be the subject of the Tom Cochrane classic “Big League,” although that’s apparently not the case.

We also get a look at a Flames prospect named Brett Hull, who we’re told once hit the post in a playoff game. He does see some action during the 1986-87 regular season, but scores only one goal. Bust!

In Winnipeg, a Finnish forward named Hannu Jarvenpaa is “a real find.” He manages just 11 career goals, although the Jets do slightly better on another Finnish forward a few years later. Meanwhile, the Canucks are excited about Barry Pederson, who came over in the Neely trade. He actually does OK in Vancouver, posting back-to-back 70-point seasons, but it’s fair to say it’s not quite enough.

The Kings’ section may be my favorite. They’ve got two prospects, and for once both turn out to be worth the hype. Jimmy Carson scores 50 goals as a teenager and gets traded for Wayne Gretzky, while Luc Robitaille becomes the highest-scoring left winger ever. So yeah, not bad. But the highlight is a baby-faced Robitaille’s deadpan and slightly cross-eyed stare into the camera, ending in a smile that lasts a nanosecond.

Finally, it’s on to the Norris Division, starting in Chicago where Behn Wilson is hurt and Everett Sanipass “looks good.” Also looking good: Those old Blackhawks uniforms without names on them, which we get a look at while hyping Minnesota’s Frantisek Musil as a Calder favorite. (He received zero votes; Robitaille won, followed by Hextall and Carson.)

The Blues have lost Jacques Demers to the Red Wings and replaced him with “little-known Jacques Martin.” It’s fair to say Martin turns out alright. Here, he looks exactly like 2017 Jacques Martin wearing a fake novelty mustache.

The Leafs have Vincent Damphousse, who turns out to be really good, and John Brophy, who turns out to be really fun. In related news, as a young Maple Leafs fan at the time I pronounced Damphousse as “Damp House” for the first few years of his career. And I pronounced Brophy as “the scary old man who looks like he wants to crawl through the TV and eat me.”

We close with the Red Wings, where first overall pick Joe Murphy already looks like a bust (he was, at least in Detroit) and Demers needs to pull off a miracle to improve the team. He more or less does, becoming the only coach to ever win back-to-back Jack Adams in his first two years with the Wings.

And that wraps up our look at all the changes NHL teams had made during the 1986 offseason. It all ended up being pointless, as Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers decide to stop scoring into their own net and cruise to the next two Cups, losing just seven playoff games in the process. But don’t worry, I’m sure that won’t be the case this year!

(There’s, uh, not a dominant dynasty with the world’s best player out there, right?)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Math is hard – The Panthers have spent much of the last year pushing back on analytics and numbers geeks. Apparently, that includes stuff like "When you pull the goalie you should probably end up with an additional skater on the ice."

The second star: Johnny Boychuk is frightened – Luckily he plays for the Islanders, so he won't be on top again for a while.

The first star: Jaromir Jagr is back – While we mourn the loss of a potential Jagr Draft, we'll welcome his return to the league for what will probably be one of his final half-dozen seasons.

Be It Resolved

The season has started, which means you've made your Stanley Cup pick by now. If you're smart, you kept it to yourself, so that you can just deny it ever happened. But if you're dumb—or worse, a professional sportswriter—you have gone and made your pick public. You fool.

Ah well. What's done is done, and you can't take it back now. At least we can use this as a teachable moment to learn something about ourselves. So in that spirit, be it resolved that this is what your Stanley Cup pick says about you.

Pittsburgh Penguins – You are punting. In the age of hyper-parity, nobody stands out as a good pick so you're just taking the defending champions because your editors weren't going to pay you to just write "pass." You will receive no credit for being right and will be brutally mocked for being wrong. (This was me, by the way.)

Tampa Bay Lightning – You thought you'd get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and by the time you realized everyone else was also picking the Lightning it was too late.

Dallas Stars — You thought you'd get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and forgot that the Lightning would be a way better pick.

Nashville Predators – You believe in second chances, and that we can all become our better selves when given the opportunity to learn from the past. These beliefs will come in handy when the Predators miss the playoffs and you pick a new team in April.

Washington Capitals – When you watch a nature show and the gazelle has been caught by the lion, brought down, and had his carcass picked clean, you figure he's probably due.

Chicago Blackhawks – You work for the NHL's marketing department.

Toronto Maple Leafs – You were the sort of kid who started asking what dessert was before you'd even eaten three bites of your actual meal.

New York Rangers – You're sick of arguing with the guy next to you at the bar who keeps insisting the Rangers are "too old" and "need to start over" and that "the window is already closed," and are also slightly concerned at how much he looks like New York GM Jeff Gorton.

Montreal Canadiens – You figure everything else in the world is terrible right now so why not.

Anaheim Ducks – You're not someone who buys into cliched hockey narratives like "clutch" and "handling pressure" and "having a healthy blueline" and "not building your team around a bunch of 30-year-olds."

Edmonton Oilers – You think it's about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you're damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you figure it's OK to have a questionable blueline as long as you're solid in goal.

Calgary Flames – You think it's about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you're damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you think it's OK to have questionable goaltending as long as you're solid on the blueline.

Los Angeles Kings – You do not understand how the passage of time works.

Minnesota Wild – This is a perfectly valid and reasonable pick, which came to you while you were enjoying a glass of tap water and some plain yogurt.

Columbus Blue Jackets – Literally nobody picked the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Somebody else that everyone thinks has no chance – You're probably right.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Connor McDavid, Alexander Ovechkin, Brandon Saad, and Wayne Simmonds all had hat tricks in their team's opener this week. Thanks to hockey-reference's play index, we can learn that there have been 22 other times that's happened since 1987.

Three players scored four times—Auston Matthews last year, and two Obscure Player alumni, Greg Adams and Chris Kontos. Among the players with three goals, we see plenty of future Hall-of-Famers, including Brendan Shanahan (twice), Luc Robitaille, Teemu Selanne and Jari Kurri. Cam Neely did it twice in the same calendar year, and I'll leave it to you to figure out how that's possible. And then there's this week's obscure player: Marc Chouinard.

Chouinard was a big center whose uncle Guy was the first ever Flame to score 50 goals. He was selected by the Jets in the second round of the 1995 draft, one pick after Georges Laraque. He never made it to Winnipeg; a few months after the draft, he was traded to Anaheim for Chad Kilger and Oleg Tverdovsky (with the Ducks also getting a throw-in winger in the deal). Chouinard wouldn't crack the Ducks roster until 2000, eventually playing 44 games and posting seven points. He'd stick around for two more years, posting single-digit points but developing a solid two-way game, and he scored a goal for the Ducks in the 2003 final.

He'd head to the Wild as a free agent that summer, where he enjoyed an 11-goal, 21-point season in 2003-04, and followed that with a career-best 14 goals and 30 points in 2005-06. It was that second season that saw him start the year with three goals on opening night; he scored two minutes in (assisted by Alexandre Daigle of all people) and completed the hat trick with an empty-netter with four seconds left.

That would end up being his last year in Minnesota, and after signing with Vancouver he'd play just one more NHL season before heading to Europe. Most of his YouTube highlights are just him losing fights, but he made enough of an impression on one fan to earn this heart-tugging tribute video.

New Entries for the Hockey Dictionary

The Muzzin Spot (noun) – I'll explain.

I love NHL home openers. Sure, it's a chance to see a team's new players in meaningful action for the first time. And yes, there's a refreshing wave of optimism washing over the entire league, even though we know it won't last.

But that's not the best part. No, my favorite aspect of every NHL home opener is the now-traditional buildup to the player introductions. There's loud music and laser beams, and it all leads to the highlight: The intimidating faces of each individual player flashed onto the scoreboard or projected onto the ice, one at a time, in order of importance.

That's the key. Once the faces start flashing, it becomes clear that we're going from best to worst. The star player gets the leadoff spot, and we work our way down to the scrubs.

Granted, not every team does this. Plenty still go to a copout like using alphabetical order, or going by jersey number. Those teams are cowards and we should all unite in rejecting them. But some teams do it right. And when you think about how the hockey mindset works, it's remarkable that anyone does it this way at all. Nobody in the NHL wants to ever rank anything. When the league did it's top 100 list, it wasn't ranked. They got rid of the all-star draft because being the 40th best all-star made players sad. When you ask coaches and players about who they need to worry about on the other team, they almost always mumble something about how it's a team a game. Hockey players are all equally important, we're relentlessly told, from the stars down to the fourth-liners.

And then comes the home opener, and suddenly the team itself is ranking its entire roster from best to worst. I love it.

And I especially love the guy who gets stuck being the last face. That's the Muzzin Spot, named after Los Angeles defenseman Jake Muzzin. He's pretty good, and would probably be near the top of the King's list. But last year he was on Team Canada for the World Cup and, well, you can imagine where he wound up when the intros started flashing on the ACC ice.

So if you're lucky enough to attend a home opener this week, cross your fingers that your team is one of the good ones that serves up its pregame face-flashes in order. And if they do, remember to save your loudest cheer for the poor soul who gets the Muzzin Spot. They could probably use it.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Now that the games matter again, the offseason is officially over. And not a moment too soon, since all those trades and transactions can take a lot of time to sort through.

How long? Well, I'm still getting caught up on 1986. Luckily, there's a video clip to get us up to speed.

Our clip begins the way all sports clips from the 80s must, with some sweet brass horns. We also get a look at the key moment of the 1986 playoffs, Steve's Smith's infamous own goal (which we broke down in detail a few months ago). Yep, still traumatizing to watch.

That leads us to our host, Hockey Night in Canada's Brian McFarlane. He's going to walk us through the offseason moves of all 21 teams. Yes, the NHL was significantly thinner back in the mid-80s. Weren't we all.

First up: The defending champion Habs. We find out about Mario Tremblay, and also a goalie trade. I'm sure that's the last time those two things will appear in a sentence that matters to Montreal fans.

Next up are the Nordiques, who have a pair of blue chip wingers incoming in Ken Quinney and Jason Lafreniere. Spoiler: Those two will go on to score 30 goals for the Nordiques. Total. Over both of their entire careers.

The Bruins are next, and they'll have slightly better luck with their new winger, a kid named Cam Neely who came over from the Canucks. He seems like a guy who could be dominant for decades to come, and really fills a kneed. Wait, I meant to type "need." Ah well, probably not important.

The big news for the Sabres is the return of Gilbert Perreault, which was a weird story that doesn't last. But the main takeaway here is that you'll be seeing this in your nightmares for the next few months:

The Whalers round out the Adams. Pro tip: It's rarely a good sign when your goaltending is referred to as a "workaholic." But speaking of goalies, I'm thinking that Flyers rookie with "the famous hockey name" turns out to be OK.

The Caps haven't done much, and the main highlights of the Islanders clip is Terry Simpson making the same face every Islander fan makes when they think about John Tavares leaving in free agency. Well, that and Brian Curren's extremely subtle "How you doin'?" eyebrow move. But the Rangers have big news, as Phil Esposito arrives to start what will go down in history as quite possibly the most entertaining GM stint ever. He keeps the job for three years and makes 43(!) trades, including one for a coach.

So…uh…Steve Guenette sure seems happy to be a Penguins, doesn't he? Enjoy the two games you'll appear in this year, Steve. Meanwhile, we close out the conference by learning that the Devils haven't really done anything, because they're still a year away from going on miracle playoff runs and fat-shaming referees.

The Oilers have lost Dr. Randy Gregg but added Danny Gare. The latter earns a defiant "Who said he wouldn't make the team?" Uh, he lasts 18 games and scores one goal before heading for the broadcast booth, so…somebody who was pretty much right?

The Flames section is a bit of a downer, as first-round pick George Pelawa has recently died in a car crash. At the time, Pelawa was widely rumored to be the subject of the Tom Cochrane classic "Big League," although that's apparently not the case.

We also get a look at a Flames prospect named Brett Hull, who we're told once hit the post in a playoff game. He does see some action during the 1986-87 regular season, but scores only one goal. Bust!

In Winnipeg, a Finnish forward named Hannu Jarvenpaa is "a real find." He manages just 11 career goals, although the Jets do slightly better on another Finnish forward a few years later. Meanwhile, the Canucks are excited about Barry Pederson, who came over in the Neely trade. He actually does OK in Vancouver, posting back-to-back 70-point seasons, but it's fair to say it's not quite enough.

The Kings' section may be my favorite. They've got two prospects, and for once both turn out to be worth the hype. Jimmy Carson scores 50 goals as a teenager and gets traded for Wayne Gretzky, while Luc Robitaille becomes the highest-scoring left winger ever. So yeah, not bad. But the highlight is a baby-faced Robitaille's deadpan and slightly cross-eyed stare into the camera, ending in a smile that lasts a nanosecond.

Finally, it's on to the Norris Division, starting in Chicago where Behn Wilson is hurt and Everett Sanipass "looks good." Also looking good: Those old Blackhawks uniforms without names on them, which we get a look at while hyping Minnesota's Frantisek Musil as a Calder favorite. (He received zero votes; Robitaille won, followed by Hextall and Carson.)

The Blues have lost Jacques Demers to the Red Wings and replaced him with "little-known Jacques Martin." It's fair to say Martin turns out alright. Here, he looks exactly like 2017 Jacques Martin wearing a fake novelty mustache.

The Leafs have Vincent Damphousse, who turns out to be really good, and John Brophy, who turns out to be really fun. In related news, as a young Maple Leafs fan at the time I pronounced Damphousse as "Damp House" for the first few years of his career. And I pronounced Brophy as "the scary old man who looks like he wants to crawl through the TV and eat me."

We close with the Red Wings, where first overall pick Joe Murphy already looks like a bust (he was, at least in Detroit) and Demers needs to pull off a miracle to improve the team. He more or less does, becoming the only coach to ever win back-to-back Jack Adams in his first two years with the Wings.

And that wraps up our look at all the changes NHL teams had made during the 1986 offseason. It all ended up being pointless, as Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers decide to stop scoring into their own net and cruise to the next two Cups, losing just seven playoff games in the process. But don't worry, I'm sure that won't be the case this year!

(There's, uh, not a dominant dynasty with the world's best player out there, right?)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Math is hard – The Panthers have spent much of the last year pushing back on analytics and numbers geeks. Apparently, that includes stuff like "When you pull the goalie you should probably end up with an additional skater on the ice."

The second star: Johnny Boychuk is frightened – Luckily he plays for the Islanders, so he won't be on top again for a while.

The first star: Jaromir Jagr is back – While we mourn the loss of a potential Jagr Draft, we'll welcome his return to the league for what will probably be one of his final half-dozen seasons.

Be It Resolved

The season has started, which means you've made your Stanley Cup pick by now. If you're smart, you kept it to yourself, so that you can just deny it ever happened. But if you're dumb—or worse, a professional sportswriter—you have gone and made your pick public. You fool.

Ah well. What's done is done, and you can't take it back now. At least we can use this as a teachable moment to learn something about ourselves. So in that spirit, be it resolved that this is what your Stanley Cup pick says about you.

Pittsburgh Penguins – You are punting. In the age of hyper-parity, nobody stands out as a good pick so you're just taking the defending champions because your editors weren't going to pay you to just write "pass." You will receive no credit for being right and will be brutally mocked for being wrong. (This was me, by the way.)

Tampa Bay Lightning – You thought you'd get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and by the time you realized everyone else was also picking the Lightning it was too late.

Dallas Stars — You thought you'd get some contrarian credit for picking an underdog who missed the playoffs last year, and forgot that the Lightning would be a way better pick.

Nashville Predators – You believe in second chances, and that we can all become our better selves when given the opportunity to learn from the past. These beliefs will come in handy when the Predators miss the playoffs and you pick a new team in April.

Washington Capitals – When you watch a nature show and the gazelle has been caught by the lion, brought down, and had his carcass picked clean, you figure he's probably due.

Chicago Blackhawks – You work for the NHL's marketing department.

Toronto Maple Leafs – You were the sort of kid who started asking what dessert was before you'd even eaten three bites of your actual meal.

New York Rangers – You're sick of arguing with the guy next to you at the bar who keeps insisting the Rangers are "too old" and "need to start over" and that "the window is already closed," and are also slightly concerned at how much he looks like New York GM Jeff Gorton.

Montreal Canadiens – You figure everything else in the world is terrible right now so why not.

Anaheim Ducks – You're not someone who buys into cliched hockey narratives like "clutch" and "handling pressure" and "having a healthy blueline" and "not building your team around a bunch of 30-year-olds."

Edmonton Oilers – You think it's about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you're damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you figure it's OK to have a questionable blueline as long as you're solid in goal.

Calgary Flames – You think it's about time Canada won another Stanley Cup, you're damn sure not going to pick the Habs or Leafs, and you think it's OK to have questionable goaltending as long as you're solid on the blueline.

Los Angeles Kings – You do not understand how the passage of time works.

Minnesota Wild – This is a perfectly valid and reasonable pick, which came to you while you were enjoying a glass of tap water and some plain yogurt.

Columbus Blue Jackets – Literally nobody picked the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Somebody else that everyone thinks has no chance – You're probably right.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Connor McDavid, Alexander Ovechkin, Brandon Saad, and Wayne Simmonds all had hat tricks in their team's opener this week. Thanks to hockey-reference's play index, we can learn that there have been 22 other times that's happened since 1987.

Three players scored four times—Auston Matthews last year, and two Obscure Player alumni, Greg Adams and Chris Kontos. Among the players with three goals, we see plenty of future Hall-of-Famers, including Brendan Shanahan (twice), Luc Robitaille, Teemu Selanne and Jari Kurri. Cam Neely did it twice in the same calendar year, and I'll leave it to you to figure out how that's possible. And then there's this week's obscure player: Marc Chouinard.

Chouinard was a big center whose uncle Guy was the first ever Flame to score 50 goals. He was selected by the Jets in the second round of the 1995 draft, one pick after Georges Laraque. He never made it to Winnipeg; a few months after the draft, he was traded to Anaheim for Chad Kilger and Oleg Tverdovsky (with the Ducks also getting a throw-in winger in the deal). Chouinard wouldn't crack the Ducks roster until 2000, eventually playing 44 games and posting seven points. He'd stick around for two more years, posting single-digit points but developing a solid two-way game, and he scored a goal for the Ducks in the 2003 final.

He'd head to the Wild as a free agent that summer, where he enjoyed an 11-goal, 21-point season in 2003-04, and followed that with a career-best 14 goals and 30 points in 2005-06. It was that second season that saw him start the year with three goals on opening night; he scored two minutes in (assisted by Alexandre Daigle of all people) and completed the hat trick with an empty-netter with four seconds left.

That would end up being his last year in Minnesota, and after signing with Vancouver he'd play just one more NHL season before heading to Europe. Most of his YouTube highlights are just him losing fights, but he made enough of an impression on one fan to earn this heart-tugging tribute video.

New Entries for the Hockey Dictionary

The Muzzin Spot (noun) – I'll explain.

I love NHL home openers. Sure, it's a chance to see a team's new players in meaningful action for the first time. And yes, there's a refreshing wave of optimism washing over the entire league, even though we know it won't last.

But that's not the best part. No, my favorite aspect of every NHL home opener is the now-traditional buildup to the player introductions. There's loud music and laser beams, and it all leads to the highlight: The intimidating faces of each individual player flashed onto the scoreboard or projected onto the ice, one at a time, in order of importance.

That's the key. Once the faces start flashing, it becomes clear that we're going from best to worst. The star player gets the leadoff spot, and we work our way down to the scrubs.

Granted, not every team does this. Plenty still go to a copout like using alphabetical order, or going by jersey number. Those teams are cowards and we should all unite in rejecting them. But some teams do it right. And when you think about how the hockey mindset works, it's remarkable that anyone does it this way at all. Nobody in the NHL wants to ever rank anything. When the league did it's top 100 list, it wasn't ranked. They got rid of the all-star draft because being the 40th best all-star made players sad. When you ask coaches and players about who they need to worry about on the other team, they almost always mumble something about how it's a team a game. Hockey players are all equally important, we're relentlessly told, from the stars down to the fourth-liners.

And then comes the home opener, and suddenly the team itself is ranking its entire roster from best to worst. I love it.

And I especially love the guy who gets stuck being the last face. That's the Muzzin Spot, named after Los Angeles defenseman Jake Muzzin. He's pretty good, and would probably be near the top of the King's list. But last year he was on Team Canada for the World Cup and, well, you can imagine where he wound up when the intros started flashing on the ACC ice.

So if you're lucky enough to attend a home opener this week, cross your fingers that your team is one of the good ones that serves up its pregame face-flashes in order. And if they do, remember to save your loudest cheer for the poor soul who gets the Muzzin Spot. They could probably use it.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

Now that the games matter again, the offseason is officially over. And not a moment too soon, since all those trades and transactions can take a lot of time to sort through.

How long? Well, I'm still getting caught up on 1986. Luckily, there's a video clip to get us up to speed.

Our clip begins the way all sports clips from the 80s must, with some sweet brass horns. We also get a look at the key moment of the 1986 playoffs, Steve's Smith's infamous own goal (which we broke down in detail a few months ago). Yep, still traumatizing to watch.

That leads us to our host, Hockey Night in Canada's Brian McFarlane. He's going to walk us through the offseason moves of all 21 teams. Yes, the NHL was significantly thinner back in the mid-80s. Weren't we all.

First up: The defending champion Habs. We find out about Mario Tremblay, and also a goalie trade. I'm sure that's the last time those two things will appear in a sentence that matters to Montreal fans.

Next up are the Nordiques, who have a pair of blue chip wingers incoming in Ken Quinney and Jason Lafreniere. Spoiler: Those two will go on to score 30 goals for the Nordiques. Total. Over both of their entire careers.

The Bruins are next, and they'll have slightly better luck with their new winger, a kid named Cam Neely who came over from the Canucks. He seems like a guy who could be dominant for decades to come, and really fills a kneed. Wait, I meant to type "need." Ah well, probably not important.

The big news for the Sabres is the return of Gilbert Perreault, which was a weird story that doesn't last. But the main takeaway here is that you'll be seeing this in your nightmares for the next few months:

The Whalers round out the Adams. Pro tip: It's rarely a good sign when your goaltending is referred to as a "workaholic." But speaking of goalies, I'm thinking that Flyers rookie with "the famous hockey name" turns out to be OK.

The Caps haven't done much, and the main highlights of the Islanders clip is Terry Simpson making the same face every Islander fan makes when they think about John Tavares leaving in free agency. Well, that and Brian Curren's extremely subtle "How you doin'?" eyebrow move. But the Rangers have big news, as Phil Esposito arrives to start what will go down in history as quite possibly the most entertaining GM stint ever. He keeps the job for three years and makes 43(!) trades, including one for a coach.

So…uh…Steve Guenette sure seems happy to be a Penguins, doesn't he? Enjoy the two games you'll appear in this year, Steve. Meanwhile, we close out the conference by learning that the Devils haven't really done anything, because they're still a year away from going on miracle playoff runs and fat-shaming referees.

The Oilers have lost Dr. Randy Gregg but added Danny Gare. The latter earns a defiant "Who said he wouldn't make the team?" Uh, he lasts 18 games and scores one goal before heading for the broadcast booth, so…somebody who was pretty much right?

The Flames section is a bit of a downer, as first-round pick George Pelawa has recently died in a car crash. At the time, Pelawa was widely rumored to be the subject of the Tom Cochrane classic "Big League," although that's apparently not the case.

We also get a look at a Flames prospect named Brett Hull, who we're told once hit the post in a playoff game. He does see some action during the 1986-87 regular season, but scores only one goal. Bust!

In Winnipeg, a Finnish forward named Hannu Jarvenpaa is "a real find." He manages just 11 career goals, although the Jets do slightly better on another Finnish forward a few years later. Meanwhile, the Canucks are excited about Barry Pederson, who came over in the Neely trade. He actually does OK in Vancouver, posting back-to-back 70-point seasons, but it's fair to say it's not quite enough.

The Kings' section may be my favorite. They've got two prospects, and for once both turn out to be worth the hype. Jimmy Carson scores 50 goals as a teenager and gets traded for Wayne Gretzky, while Luc Robitaille becomes the highest-scoring left winger ever. So yeah, not bad. But the highlight is a baby-faced Robitaille's deadpan and slightly cross-eyed stare into the camera, ending in a smile that lasts a nanosecond.

Finally, it's on to the Norris Division, starting in Chicago where Behn Wilson is hurt and Everett Sanipass "looks good." Also looking good: Those old Blackhawks uniforms without names on them, which we get a look at while hyping Minnesota's Frantisek Musil as a Calder favorite. (He received zero votes; Robitaille won, followed by Hextall and Carson.)

The Blues have lost Jacques Demers to the Red Wings and replaced him with "little-known Jacques Martin." It's fair to say Martin turns out alright. Here, he looks exactly like 2017 Jacques Martin wearing a fake novelty mustache.

The Leafs have Vincent Damphousse, who turns out to be really good, and John Brophy, who turns out to be really fun. In related news, as a young Maple Leafs fan at the time I pronounced Damphousse as "Damp House" for the first few years of his career. And I pronounced Brophy as "the scary old man who looks like he wants to crawl through the TV and eat me."

We close with the Red Wings, where first overall pick Joe Murphy already looks like a bust (he was, at least in Detroit) and Demers needs to pull off a miracle to improve the team. He more or less does, becoming the only coach to ever win back-to-back Jack Adams in his first two years with the Wings.

And that wraps up our look at all the changes NHL teams had made during the 1986 offseason. It all ended up being pointless, as Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers decide to stop scoring into their own net and cruise to the next two Cups, losing just seven playoff games in the process. But don't worry, I'm sure that won't be the case this year!

(There's, uh, not a dominant dynasty with the world's best player out there, right?)

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Frightened Boychuk, Infinite Jagr, and the Muzzin Spot published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv