#Remember on this blog I said ages ago that I love Bob so much and you guys don't even KNOW

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

There's like at least 3 songs I wanna make fanart of dadler with, this dude is constantly in my brain lol

Really tho, he's a fantastically written character and I love him so much. He's literally my fav oc anybody has made for this fandom (tied only with one other character). Well, writing wise. Art wise, I have way too many favourites.

awwwwwwwwwwwww!

That makes me so happy!

The guy never leaves my brain either. I talk about him constantly in DMs with Ceph.

There are just a lot of facets to the guy and I like shaking him around in a blender.

ALSO FANART?! I always welcome fanart yes plz!!! <3 <3 <3

[oliversrarebooks]

Hi!! so i recently just found your blog and i am literally in love with your work! i recently just saw a prompt that was like a musical villain who has the power to hypnotize their audience (and especially hero) through their stage performance or just by singing, and i was wondering if u you would like write anything based off that? totally fine if not, thanks queen!😁🤍

Excellent taste in prompts!

TW: mind control, imagery of restraints

She had to admit, she was happy to have a night off for a change.

Hero had been working very long shifts lately. Between the glue factory explosion two weeks ago, the string of bank robberies carried out by perpetrators who couldn't remember what they had done afterwards, and the return and subsequent defeat of notorious supervillain Radioface, it felt like she hadn't gotten more than a few hours of sleep in ages, much less time off.

The commissioner had noticed Hero's deterioration, as well. That's why she insisted that Hero take the tickets to the hottest musical act in town, the one that was sold out every night. She'd seen the act a week before, loved it, and decided that the only way to force Hero to take some time off would be giving her tickets she couldn't possibly refuse. After all, they were impossible to get unless you lined up all day or had connections.

So that was why Hero had dressed up in something other than her costume or training sweats for the first time in a long time. She was standing in the crowd near the stage, and everyone around her was buzzing with excitement.

"This is my fifth time here!" said a young woman wearing a bright yellow tank top.

"You're so lucky," said her friend. "I could've never even gotten tickets if it weren't for you."

The anticipation was so thick in the air that Hero felt like she was getting swept up in it too. How often did she just get to be a civilian, dressed in cute clothes among a big crowd, anonymous and mercifully free of responsibility? A night like this didn't come often, so she might as well cut loose and enjoy herself.

The lights cut, and instead of the commotion Hero expected, the crowd immediately went dead silent. The tension hung in the air for a moment before the stage lit up in a kaleidoscope of neon rainbow shapes. Synthwave music was fading in from the many amplifiers, and just as it reached a crescendo, a spotlight hit center stage, illuminating the city's biggest pop sensation, Siren Waves.

Her voice rang out clear and strong above the synths, launching into her first song, and Hero was immediately captivated. Her opening number was an aggressive song about power and control with a catchy beat and a great hook, and her voice was the sort that was borderline addictive to listen to. In her peripheral vision, Hero could see that the entire crowd around her was entranced and hanging on to her every word, and she could see why. She'd have to look up the artist on streaming later so she could listen to this during workouts.

Siren strode across the stage with flashy confidence, her glitter-encrusted outfit sparkling in the multi-colored lights, her cocky grin showing that she knew very well how much the audience was eating out of her hand. She went straight from her first song to her second without a break, this one with an intense, driving bass line that made Hero want to dance. Indeed, a good portion of the crowd was dancing in place to the beat, and Hero felt her own head bobbing before she could stop herself.

It really was fun to lose herself in the crowd, the beat, the colorful light show, and especially Siren's fantastic voice. She was singing about building something, hard work and devotion, and while Hero couldn't follow all of the lyrics, the way Siren sang them just made her feel good.

"Thank you everybody!" said Siren once the song finished. "For this next song, I want to slow things down a little. This is a song about feeling powerless."

A good portion of the crowd cheered.

"We all feel powerless sometimes," Siren continued. "And what a lot of people don't want to admit is that feeling powerless can be nice. It can be nice to have no responsibility, to relax and float along and let things happen to you. This is a song about that very special feeling."

The music started up again, but even though it wasn't loud and intense like the previous two songs, it was no less compelling. The slower song was a fantastic showcase for Siren's versatile voice. It was if all of Hero's cares and worries were melting away, and the only thing that existed was the music, the flashing lights, and the electrifying presence of Siren Waves.

Powerless... Hero certainly had experienced her fair share of that. Tied up, caught in traps, subdued with power suppressants, injured, knocked out... it drove Hero crazy when she had nothing to do but endure and wait for a rescue.

But...

...it could be nice, sometimes, too.

The beautiful voice and the lyrics were stirring up feelings in Hero. Feelings she normally liked to suppress. The idea that it could be nice to be powerless... that it wasn't so bad to be tied up, helpless, subdued... it wasn't as if she hadn't thought that before. She just had to save any of those thoughts and urges for when she wasn't doing heroics, for obvious reasons.

And these days, she was pretty much always doing heroics. No time for any of that.

No time to think about being powerless... bound... relaxing... letting go...

Siren's voice really was impossibly beautiful. Hero could listen to this all day. Hero could listen to this forever, really.

The thought stirred something in Hero's hazy mind. This voice... this song... it sounded familiar, didn't it? Siren was using her amplifiers to turn her voice into something synthetic, but the underlying quality of it... it was something Hero was increasingly certain she had heard before.

Where had she heard this voice? It was hard to concentrate, especially when it was so nice to stop thinking and drift along on the song. It was nice to think about times when she'd been captured and at the villain's mercy, writhing against ropes and waiting for a chance to escape, the villain whispering threats and promises in her ear.

Wait. Hero knew that voice.

Two years back, Hero had faced down a young woman with an irresistible mind control voice. It'd been one of her hardest cases yet, owing in part to the fact that each time Hero failed to catch the villain, she'd captured Hero and put her under her spell. Hero could still remember so clearly how it felt to be bound and gagged, listening to the villain's sweet hypnotic voice, her mind becoming hazy and floaty, her fight fading away as she succumbed to the villain's control. 

So good to be powerless. So good to relax. So good to stop thinking and be guided under a gentle hypnotic spell. 

Hero shook her head, trying to snap herself out of it. This was that same voice, she was sure of it. It was obscured with voice modulation, and the woman had disguised herself in flashy clothes and heavy stage makeup, but that was a voice she could never forget.

But wasn't she still in jail...?

...It was probably fine... she was here to have a nice evening off... she didn't need to do hero work... she just needed to pay attention to the concert...

She shook herself awake again. The amplified music was impossible to escape from, and she was already halfway under its spell. 

Powerless... so powerless...

No...! She wasn't powerless at all. She could storm the stage, take down the amplifiers, even just clamp a hand over Siren's mouth.

She was right in the thick of the crowd, though. All around her she could see glassy-eyed people staring up at Siren with utterly enraptured faces, swaying gently back and forth to the slow song. As she tried to gather herself and get closer to the stage, the zombie-eyed fans were unwilling to budge.

Why fight it...? Why fight it at all? Why fight it when it was so, so nice to just let the beautiful music take her away...

"Hey," said Hero weakly, shaking the shoulder of the woman in the yellow tank top. "You have to let me through. We're all being brainwashed by the music."

The woman managed to tear her eyes away from the stage, blinking slowly at Hero. "Yeah..." she said with a blissful smile. "I just love being brainwashed by Siren..."

Well, that definitely wasn't going to go anywhere. Hero was trapped in the hypnotized crowd.

Might as well give up...

No, she could use her powers to... to...

Sway gently to the rhythm of the music... let her mind relax... give in...

Hero looked up at the stage, the swirling lights, Siren's glittering makeup, and it seemed almost like the singer was singing directly to her. 

And all Hero could think about was how badly she wanted to be captured, to relax helplessly into inescapable binds, to hear that hypnotic voice whispering seductively in her ear. To give up all control, to not have to worry about the fate of the city or the danger she was in, to just let the music...

Let the music in...

A blissful, hazy feeling settled over her as she fell completely under the music's spell, forgetting why she was struggling. Why struggle against something that felt so, so good? The music was filling her head with all sorts of delicious, buried desires. As she stood there watching, letting all the tension drain from her tired muscles, she could practically feel the pull of soft bonds on her wrists, the touch of a hand on her head, the dizzying thrill of being at someone's mercy.

God, yes, this was what she wanted. So perfect.

The mesmeric song came to a close, but nothing was about to break the spell laid on the audience. "Thank you all for listening so very closely," said Siren. "My next number is a song I think a lot of you already know. It's a song about obedience and pleasure."

Hero felt a shiver run down her spine.

"Now, for this song, when I sing 'obey me,' you sing...?"

"Yes, mistress!" called out the crowd in unison. Someone very near Hero was yelling very, very enthusiastically.

"Very good! Let's try that again. Obey me...!"

"Yes, mistress!" 

"Obey me!"

"Yes, mistress!" Hero realized that the enthusiastic yelling was her.

"And we have a very special guest in the crowd today."

Siren was looking right at her and smiling, a wicked Cheshire Cat grin that made Hero weak in the knees.

"Come on up to the stage, sweet thing," she said, beckoning. "That's right, I mean you."

The crowd, which had been completely impenetrable just a few minutes before when she was trying to escape it, parted immediately to let her through. She took a few hesitant steps towards the stage, feeling as if she were sleepwalking, or deep in a dream. Hands were nudging her forward, encouraging.

Siren reached a hand down.

Her touch was electric, being so near to her intoxicating, and Hero helped herself be swept onto the stage.

"My special guest. I'm so glad to see you here," said Siren, and now that she was close, Hero could recognize those sparkling eyes, the ones she still thought about far too often. Without a doubt, it was that same villain. And judging by Siren's cat-that-ate-the-canary face, she knew that Hero knew.

Hero's mind struggled very, very briefly against the chains of trance ensorcelling her, as Siren drew her closer and turned her towards the audience. "Here she is! The city's pride and joy, the most hardworking superhero in the state. Everyone welcome Hero!"

The crowd went wild, and Hero stared out at all the blissed-out smiles, trying to pull her mind into gear. She was in her civilian clothes with no mask, and Siren had just announced to the packed venue that she was Hero. This seemed bad, really bad... but trying to think of how it was bad left Hero's mind hitting a wall of fog.

"I wanted to show my appreciation for everything you've done for the city, Hero," said Siren, pulling Hero in close and petting her hair, and oh, hearing her voice so close, her real voice with no distortion or amplifiers, was like having liquid honey poured in her vulnerable mind. "So this next song is dedicated to you."

Siren wrapped her arms around Hero as she sang the first sweet notes of her melody, and whatever remained of Hero's willpower was gone. Siren was singing to her of obedience, of vulnerability, of the sweet, irresistible pull of submission. 

Hero had been so, so exhausted. So stressed. This was what she needed, what she craved. She needed to rest her mind, let someone else make all the decisions for her. She needed the song to wash all her worries away. 

And she deserved it. She must deserve it, because Siren had brought her up on stage to sing so beautifully just for her.

"Fall to your knees for me," she sang, and Hero sank. The crowd felt like a distant memory as she surrendered to Siren in front of thousands of civilians. It all felt so completely and utterly right.

From her position kneeling at Siren's feet, Hero had the best possible view of the concert. There was nothing between her and the source of her euphoria. Here, she could lose herself entirely in the music, letting her mind ebb away with the hypnotic melody.

Hero didn't know how long the concert went on. She didn't care. As far as she was concerned, it could go on forever, the music driving her further and further into obedient trance, lights flashing all around her as her new master sang.

And then, it was quiet.

"Thank you all for coming!" Siren called out to the crowd, bowing. "Keep an eye on the mail for further instructions or free tickets!"

Hero blinked slowly as the neon light show stopped and the stage lights dimmed. She could hear the crowd shuffling out, far quieter than one would expect for so many people exiting a loud pop concert. 

She felt so disappointed that the concert was over already. It felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. Still, she had to do what her master wanted. She began struggling to her feet, her knees sore from the stage floor.

A hand on her head stopped her. "Oh, no, not you, my little hero," said the delicious voice. "I have a special encore for you and you alone to hear."

Hero's breath hitched with excitement.

"You're going to join me backstage, and I'm going to sing you into being my willing puppet to overthrow the city. Doesn't that sound perfect?"

The music was too deep in her brain for her to say anything else. "Yes, master, yes, it does."

[panelshowsource]

sorry this is so long — i let my inbox back up a little but also some of these are so thoughtful and i hate not responding thoughtfully!

remember to block the tag 'long post' if you hate seeing long posts :')

first of all aww anon thank you so much and second of all you don't watch taskmaster? how can you stand following my blog if you don't? hahahahah especially during taskmaster season i feel so bad the blog ends up being like 70% tm even though if i could have it may way i'd never gif new content and just gif totally random old content like always hehehehehe but it's cute to me how many hog fans are in my inbox these days! i'll try and gif it more for you guys :)

and you should watch taskmaster!!! and come back and tell me what you think!! start with s1!!! it's on the masterpost linked in my bio!

idk anon you'd have to ask them that but generally they would consider themselves to be irish-american; i wasn't trying to make a statement about that when i said that i think new yorkers understand a person like ed, though i think it's far to say that even diasporic communities will retain (at least) a handful of characteristics and nuances from their homelands

yesssss we all love ed! i think a lot of us know him from mock the week and his bffship with dara (i have some of their travel buddy series on my non-panel show masterpost!), but of course he's also an accomplished standup!

actually, just last month in an exclusive with metro he said this:

It seems remarkable Ed hasn’t appeared yet in its 16 seasons. ‘They haven’t asked. If they had, I would,’ Ed said, with a dash of longing. ‘There’s really only one slot per series of someone answering my description,’ he mused. ‘We’re kind of the most overprescribed demographic in the industry. There’s no shortage of people who look and sound like me that are ahead of me in the queue for that slot.’ Even so, it would have been nice… Greg? Are you listening?

(ps. that article claiming 8 out of 10 cats is cancelled... 👀 don't get me wrong, i know it's been a couple years since it's been on, but afaik no cancellation was ever announced 👀)

i know a lot of people are very hung up on the fact david mitchell said he wouldn't do taskmaster — and i'm a sure there are a handful of others who either wouldn't or couldn't when they were asked (jack dee had a scheduling conflict back in the day, right? and alex still desperately wants him?) — but one thing that has been consistently reinforced for years, and especially since taskmaster moved to channel 4, is it is far and away the biggest, most in-demand opportunity amongst comedians and light entertainers (— on network television; of course, if you're standup, your own standup special on channel 4, netflix, whatever has gotta be number one, but i disgress). taskmaster is huge: everyone talks about how comedians play 100-seat rooms, go on taskmaster, and then BOOM sell out massive tours. the show can really change your life, so there is hardly a comedian who wouldn't go on if given the chance — especially someone like ed, who i had mentioned a couple months ago being of the jenny eclair variety (an opportunist; professional jealousy ain't no stranger). i know he's waiting for that damn phone to ring!

and i think he makes an incredible point that not many series are gunning for more than one straight white middle-aged man (though it's happened before, of course). actually, i was just thinking about how that role — the white, middle-aged, experienced senior comedian — is chosen; in almost every single case, it's a very famous comedian who will draw viewers and reinforce legitimacy (frank skinner, al murray, hugh dennis, bob mortimer, rhod gilbert, david baddiel, richard herring, lee mack, alan davies, dara, you get the point) or it's a comedian who alex, whether he's friends with them or not, really really likes (tim key, dave gorman, mark watson, tim vine, mike wozniak, i know they're well-known but even ardal o'hanlon and julian clary who alex personally loves). does ed fall into either of those categories? super famous ratings draw or one of alex's friends/comedy heroes? frankly...i'm not sure...and i think that may be what's keeping him mid-way down the list...

still, very cute of the journalist from this article to be gunning so hard for him to be on the show! i have to admit, i know it might seem like i'm biased because i like him, but i really really think he would be really really good on the show. imo — and it's just imo, people will disagree — the most important aspect of the best series of taskmaster is the banter. it's people who speak up, who fight, who tease, who want to win, who want laughs, who play off the audience, who make quick friends, who talk to greg, who talk to alex. ed TALKS. ed wants screen time. ed wants to fuck around. ed wants to win. so i think he would really take advantage of the format and i'd love to see it!

you are allowed to say i told you so! it was amazing! thanks for reading my bullshit, i tried to take it really seriously so i could just link to it any time someone asks me if i've seen it hahahah who was your fave contestant?

i could write a really long response to this because it's something i have — or could find lmfao — a lot to say about, but knowing this post is already gonna be long (hahah i hate myself) lemme try to boil my brain down

1) i covered my personal opinion of what makes the strongest series of taskmaster in my (very long) recent taskmaster nz s2 post; 2) recency bias — it's in the name! people are biased because it's recent [shrug]; 3) A LOT of people have not seen every series of taskmaster (gasp! i know...) so they won't have the full taskmaster uk canon in mind when they're making such claims; 4) there is a strong divergence between the comedy nerds who watch taskmaster for comedy and the light entertainment viewers who watch taskmaster for general pleasantness, and you gotta consider who you're talking to when you're listening to someone's opinion; 5) i think there's a very long convo you could have about the reticence of a huge faction of taskmaster fans to criticise the show/tasks/contestants/alex — which is why a lot of people like it and its community, because it's often an echo chamber of positivity — but maybe we won't have that convo now haha

^ me being concise!! wow never thought we'd see that day

yes totally anon! i'll make massive gifsets of all of them when the season ends, if that works? :)

wow interesting question! i know a few people who watch taskmaster on and off, and i definitely know people like you who enjoy the odd clip (why is it always bob mortimer on wilty lmfaooo), but otherwise i wouldn't say i spend too much time convincing people to watch stuff. wilty and taskmaster are pretty accessible, but a lot of panel shows are about the uk news, uk current events, have uk c-list celeb guests, etc, and i don't think people would be interested. plus, i have you guys!!! (i don't really have internet friends besides posting here and interacting with you guys :'))

not that long ago, i was at a dinner party and someone said, "have you seen that show taskmaster?" and ... do you know what it's like for me!!! ... i had to take a deep breath and say inside my head 'sarah be cool' and i finally went, "i have! fun show haha" and not start TWITCHING ... they were telling the people around us a little bit about it and getting some of the details wrong and i just sat there nodding like :) and didn't correct them bc being a know-it-all isn't cool and i didn't want to risk it 💀

it's too bad we don't have more of a light entertainment culture here, especially a comedian-driven one :(

(so random but speaking of light entertainment has anyone else been seeing michael barrymore all over tiktok? those kids say the funniest things clips are my wholeeeee fyp)

hahaha yesss we do know suzi around here!! though she's not been on many panel shows recently-ish so i probably haven't posted her in a while. if your fave taskmaster contestants are wide-eyed, smiley people who radiate optimism and go-get-em attitudes then suzi would definitely be the one!

did i mention rick edwards or is this just your sly way of bringing up a sexy man? ...i see you anon😏 he has the face of someone who should have been working on that big wall in games of thrones you know the one where jon tory scum snow ended up? that's a specific compliment but just trust me it's complimentary

i'm sorry about your heartbreak :( it's like me with whites, we've all got that one show :(

yesss it so is! <3

is it weird to imagine joe and mike woz in the same room or is that just me...

—

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[seesgood]

can we very gently talk about call out posts / culture really quick?  not in a judgmental way, but in like a: i just want to pose a thought and explain why i’m never going to buy into it and why i wish it would become less of a trend instead of more of one? and i’ll add the  disclaimer  here: i totally get not wanting certain people around you for various reasons, that is all your prerogative. that’s your comfort level. but in emphasizing “your blog should be a safe space” we’re kind’ve losing sight of the fact that the rpc should also be a safe space, and as much as your comfort and safety matter, so do other people’s. and not just the person who hurt you, but the third parties and other mutuals and 99.9% of people who are not at all involved in any way in whatever happened. so, anyway here goes, read it or don’t, we all have different opinions or reasons, i just want to be heard:

people are allowed to change.  think back to who you were last year. two years ago. think about the stuff you said when you were seventeen, or twenty-one, or hell whatever age you were. current-you would probably cringe at the kind of stuff past-you had to say. because you grew. you learned. you had life experiences. in hindsight you have the freedom to be like “oof yeah that was not the best version of myself right there damn i don’t want to be like that again.” the growing trend of ‘here’s a 10+ page google doc complete with out of context screenshots that sometimes date back to like 2017 or earlier’ makes this kind of change impossible. because right there, you’ve just frozen a person in time, probably not at their best, removed any and all amounts of context, and put it on the internet and let other people judge it for themselves. 

so that leads into another point that i want to just kinda present to the community at large: the act of documenting behaviors and storing them for months / years at a time, in itself creates a super unsafe environment, not just for you, your friends, the people who have hurt you --- but also for anyone else that isn’t at all involved in whatever happened. like, for example, i like to think that i’m a pretty nice person. i actively try to be a nice person. am i sometimes not having the best day? have people definitely caught me in bad moments? oh hell yeah. but am i, as someone who tries really hard to be nice and welcoming, constantly thinking through every message i send to someone knowing that a) i could have a reputation that makes them read into context that isn’t there and that could contribute to them misinterpreting words i meant in a different way, b) very aware that every post i make, ask i send, message i send can at any moment be screenshotted and posted and taken out of context and either serve as someone’s only opinion of me or pile on to someone’s existing opinion of me? yeah. so in my experience, and based on people i’ve talked to, we now have this thing where you can be surface-friends wtih a lot of people, but if you want to survive in the tumblr rpc you should really only have 2-3 people that you really trust that you can actually talk about shit with. 

and lately i’ve been seeing a resurgence of posts on my dash about like “bring back xyz in the rpc” or “the reason the rpc is like this is because of xyz” and i both agree and disagree with a lot of this, but primarily i think the reason the rpc is Off lately is because everyone and their cousin has a DNI, which is --- again --- your decision and i understand and respect that, but while you know the context of every name on that DNI, other people don’t. and to be honest: other people don’t really care and honestly maybe they shouldn’t care. --- and don’t get me wrong, your friends should care if someone has hurt you. that’s important. but joe billy bob who just wants to write their character with yours is going to read through your rules, they’re going to see “do not interact with me if you follow with or interact with these people you’ve never heard of and if you want me to tell you why just message me” (which no one is ever going to do, i’m sorry to say). and say, joe billy bob also followed that other person because they were like ‘omg this blog looks cool’ --- now joe billy bob, who just wants to write cool plots, is suddenly the middle-man in some type of drama that they do not understand, and maybe they’re able to remove themselves from the situation, but even then it’s still in the back of your mind. 

this is getting long. it’ll be longer, but let’s take a brief break for me to remind you that in some cases, it’s definitely good to give your mutuals and friends a heads up when someone has done something really, really bad. like, remember x amount of years ago when some dude was like ‘i’m gonna make up a new person and say they died by suicide as a social experiment’ or ‘hey this person actively tries to force very triggering plots about abuse / rape / incest onto people and has been doing so for years and does not seem to change their ways no matter how many people try to educate them’ that’s shit people should probably know about. and it’s also okay ( in my opinion ) for your friends to be able to message you like ‘hey i saw you’re writing with x and i just wanted to let you know i had this experience with them’ if that’s something they feel comfortable doing. and if they are comfortable with you still having the autonomy to make your own decision regarding the person. 

i’ll be honest, for a second: i’ve been part of friendships and groups that have turned really toxic for one reason or another. a handful of times. there are probably people out there that are like “yeah this chick is really fake and manipulative and etc, i was friends with her back in 2019″ which, okay. yeah. i’ve definitely done shit and said shit that was not the most representative of who i want to be and who i want to become, and you probably have to. because we are human beings and we are a product of our social groups and the community around us. and you shouldn’t be chained to a version of you that isn’t you anymore. people change. they grow. you don’t have to like them, but you should respect that sometimes people don’t mesh, and that doesn’t mean any of them are bad people, it just means the experience was bad. 

a few additional notes i would like to make but i’ve already gone on way too long:

90% of the callout posts that i’ve seen and the DNI’s that i’ve seen can, in my opinion, be classified as a friend group thing. you were friends with x, x did something, now y and z aren’t friends with x anymore. pain is a very, very real thing and people hurting you should never be minimized, but at some point i just want you to remember that not every friendship is going to end happily, but both you and the other party should be allowed to move on and grow better, healthier friendships after. rehashing Friend Group Gone Wrong instances removes that ability for not only person x, but also person y and z.

you putting out a callout says just as much ( maybe more ) about you than it does about the other person. which sucks. because i’d like to think we all have great intentions, and i’m not saying that you should swallow your pain, but it might not be the kind of thing that impacts the community at large, and maybe you should try to find a better way of working through it with a trusted friend(s)

i’m going to be very real and very blunt on this one: literally no one cares. i say that with love. i’m good friends with people who have each other on their DNI’s. establish a baseline of respect and ‘i’m not going to say anything to them about you and vice versa because there’s no need for me to do so’ and move on. but seriously. no one cares. most outside people read callout posts because they like being in the know about the drama, not because they actually care. 

person a and person b who are mentioned in the DNI / callout aren’t the only ones who are going to be affected. your friends, your mutuals, your writing partners are now all put in a weird spot where you have to pick sides on an issue you know nothing about and shouldn’t have to know anything about. you’re asking people to choose sides on an issue they cannot fully understand, and that’s not fair to them or to you. and it drives great people away. and then we all lose out on having more awesome people in the rpc.

you’re entitled to your safe space, but this is a public platform and you are also responsible for maintaining your safe space. you shouldn’t put it entirely on other people to do that for you. you can block, blacklist, make up funny names for, or spitefully erase from your many anything and anyone that you wish. but you shouldn’t make your friends do it for you.

there’s always an inherent power imbalance when any kind of drama occurs between those who have more followers / friends / connections and those who do not. and the smaller blog is always going to suffer a little bit more because they don’t have people blindly coming to their defense. 

bad moments, bad experiences, bad decisions DO NOT equal bad people. 

allow people to make up their own mind about something or someone

anywho, if you read through this whole thing i think i owe you financial compensation. but also thank you for reading / listening / considering. even if you rolled your eyes through the whole thing like “stfu lia” that’s fine. i’m just presenting an alternative thought. i’d like to once again state: i’m not judging you if you’ve made a callout/DNI or if you’re on a callout/DNI. like i literally don’t care. and frankly, in my opinion, i shouldn’t have to. because i, and you, and your friends, and your mutuals, and your non-mutuals should be allowed the space to make up their own opinion and mind on something or someone without being told that there will be consequences if they don’t agree with you. set boundaries. communicate in healthy ways. you don’t have to forgive the people who have hurt or wronged you, but you also don’t get to decide that their actions make up 100% of who they are as a person, or decide that that is the only side of that person people should get to see. 

[junkworldusa]

belated book asks, thank you for indulging me!

1- What book are you currently reading? bros karamazov, 2/3s through atm.

i hate that i’m thinking about pathologic (video game) the entire time but i can't help it. the way characters are constantly bursting into people's houses & going "you’re an angel, you're the best person i've ever met, you're a saint" to someone they just met 5 minutes ago is so. distinct. i joked on twitter that the first half of the book is just alyosha running around completing sidequests, which i still think is true, but once i got to the grand inquisitor part i was like "Okay mr dostoevsky, you’ve got me."

2- What book did you recently finish? "selections from science & sanity" by alfred korzybski, recently featured in the gumby quotes. a while back i listened to a 6 hour long interview with robert anton wilson where he talks about korzybski & general semantics so i gave it a shot. it's an abridged version of a 900 page book & i definitely plan on reading the full work at some point, it's wild. if you’re interested in language, consciousness, the gap between words & meaning, and/or hacking your brain i would recommend it. he repeats himself a lot but that's a side effect of his pedagogy, the goal of which is the eventual re-wiring of your entire nervous system in order to achieve a more rational worldview/healthier reactions to things. (so repetition via words/sounds/actions is necessary 2 engage the organism-as-a-whole.) the most important takeaway for me is that everything & everyone you interact with is a completely unique object, and this necessarily extends to temporality-- Bob in 1999 is NOT the same person as Bob in 2010, and treating them as though they were is a harmful mistake. interestingly enough, im taking a class with J.F. martel (weird studies podcast, author of "reclaiming art in the age of artifice") & last night he said what amounts to exactly the same thing, except he was arguing for like, a soft animism (i-thou vs. i- it) & korzybski was arguing for a more "rational" & secular world. so fascinating.

3- What’s a book that’s been on your to-read list for a long time? ulysses. i know. i know. i have a copy but keep bouncing off of it. idk why, i liked portrait of the artist as a young man. i think i’m worried i’ll turn into this person:

4- What’s the next book you’re hoping to read? i just got "speech play: research & resources for the study of linguistic creativity" in the mail so probably that. i'm on a childlore kick rn & this is like... horizontally related 5- Is there a book you own, but aren’t planning on reading?

around 2 years ago i was walking home after a show high on E & i ran into a guy i had met at work a couple times. went over to his apartment because MDMA is like, "everything is SO meaningful and SO much fun." i barely remember our conversation but he ended up being like "you would like this book, here take it, i have 3 copies." so i now own a copy of "the eater of darkness" by robert m coates. i still haven't read it. the moral of this story is [???]

6- What was your favorite series as a kid? Would you still read it now? so many of you asked this question :P

THE TRUTH: i was obsessed with lotr from age 8 to 13 with a level of dedication that i've never known since. yes, i would still read it now. i reread the silmarillion last year & it was naturally a way more rewarding experience than when i was a kid! 8- Fantasy or sci-fi? i like & have read a lot of older sf/f (le guin asimov pkd etc etc) but im not actively into either nowadays. i read whatever reaches me from the queer sf/f twitter pipeline (like whatever's on wizards vs lesbians) but otherwise dont pay much attention. so the answer is "idk!!!”

12- Have you ever read a celebrity memoir? If so, whose was it? the only memoir i've read in recent years has been "memories, dreams, reflections" so if jung counts as a celebrity, there you go 14- Fiction or non-fiction? non-fiction in both quantity of books owned & what i prefer reading. i almost view them as 2 separate activities bc the motivation for & experience of reading them are so wildly different 15- Favorite fiction genre? i know i said im not "actively into" sci fi but 16- Favorite non-fiction genre? "philosophy" i guess. i also really love any phenomenological/experience-based studies of paranormal stuff, like "the terror that comes in the night" by david hufford or anything by jacques vallée. basically books that both a) take strange experiences seriously & b) examine/catalogue them scientifically (to whatever degree). 

22- How do you organize your books? “poorly” 26- What’s your favorite book? fav non-fiction book: “time loops” by eric wargo. what if freud's career-making "irma dream" was a premonitory dream about the oral cancer that would severely impede his quality of life in his old age? (fantastic blog entry by the author, serves as a kind of intro to this topic: http://thenightshirt.com/?p=4326 )

when i read “time loops” it felt like everything i had ever read (& will ever read future tense) was for the sole purpose of understanding it. “time loops” picks up where J.W. dunne's 1927 "an experiment with time" left off. i won't say too much more about it but everyone should read it. it's so smart & engaging & will totally blow your miiiind, maaaan speaking of "an experiment with time," in 1964 a guy named vladimir nabokov began an experiment of his own following the directions dunne laid out in his book. dunne encouraged readers to write down their dreams in order to test the theory that a later event could generate an earlier dream.

nabokov’s experiment with dreams & time strongly influenced “ada or ardor: a family chronicle” which happens to be my favorite novel. i first read it when i was 18, and i've reread it 3 times since then (with the help of ada online, my beloved http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/ ) i would not recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t already like nabokov & know what he’s about. it’s fucked up & self indulgent & i love it so much

30- What character do you connect with the most? when jung said he was bad at math? i felt that

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

Lover is the Queliot Soundtrack!!

this is 100% true and i have hyena yelled about it at length before and continue to think about it really a bizarre amount... i had a lot of weird feelings about lover when it came out ANYWAY because i have a lot of weird feelings about taylor swift which i like to attribute to the fact that we are astrological mirror twins of a kind (cap sun sag stellium vs. sag sun cap stellium) because honestly i am truly powerless to explain through logic why it is that i think about her so often and in such depth given that my reaction to most of her work is pretty muted in either direction. but like, the thing between me and being really into her as a musician had always been this overall hollowness i felt in her writing, like she has from the beginning definitely had her consistent strengths and her moments of total brilliance, but so much of her lyrical material feels like it was made by a martian whose exposure to humanity was watching a bunch of CW dramas, or whatever (which itself also isn’t necessarily like awful but i always bristled more about it because people tended to praise her specifically for her eye for detail and her emotional insight and i was like ??? that’s the part you like? but where... is it?) (this is all also happening in a context where i encounter her first at age 19 so i’m old enough to think teenagers are children but too young to understand that i’m only very barely not a child and way too young to empathize forgivingly with my teenage self much less take that healing and use it to fuel an expansion of empathy for others and a general diminishment of kneejerk reactivity, also my journey of taylor swift opinions is inextricable from the internet contexts of feminist blogging/tumblr pop talk, and the evolving conversations there and my own shifting ideas about them, i hung around in for a long time... anyway.) (CAP SUN SAG STELLIUM VS. SAG SUN CAP STELLIUM I AM DOOMED TO DISPROPORTIONATE FASCINATION)

the thing she tuned into earliest, the subject matter on which she found her voice first, was heartbreak, right, and it never bothered me the way it did some that to public appearances she’d never had a relationship longer than 3 months; you can get your heart broken in 3 months. artists in general tend to be people who experience feelings strongly, i think less because you need to feel things strongly to make art (which i’m not sure is true) than the other way around: people who experience feelings strongly need to find a way to deal with that, and art, making or experiencing it, is one of the more socially acceptable and productive coping mechanisms around. a certain inner grandiosity can be useful for artists, which is why melodrama is a perfect album. (melodrama manages this very neat balancing act of being wry and self-aware enough to let you know it’s on purpose but also being full-throatedly committed to the affective grandeur of being 19 and on fire; i mention that mostly because another shade of my doomed fixation with taylor swift is she’s a proxy for my issues around sincerity & jadedness & shame &, yeah, where the hell into all of that art fits.) i think this is probably especially true for artists working in a form like music, like pop music, that succeeds viscerally or not at all, that can include an intellectual dimension but can’t rest solely on matters of thought, can be analyzed but not wholly appreciated primarily through the analytical mind. music like emotions is a bodily experience and you can’t instruct your body into what may appear a more proportionate response, so there’s relief in watching someone else skywrite commonplace heartbreaks as big as they always feel inside us. megaphone to my chest: broadcast the boom, boom, boom.

it was her descriptions of love that left me colder, and as her career went on there was something to—i don’t really want to get into the question around her celebrity self and a narrative of victimhood, except i think it’s more complicated than people on either side of the issue tend to acknowledge, but it was a difficult narrative to escape, and it did intertwine for me in noticing in her work a certain... i don’t even know what to call it. “lack of introspection” comes to mind, but obviously taylor swift is no stranger to her own thoughts; the way people talked about it tended to hinge on this idea that she never took responsibility in her music, that it’s alway someone else’s fault, which, see above re: it’s complicated. i don’t think that narrative about her music would have taken hold without the narrative about her public persona, and it’s a weird thing where i see resonance in that critique with the thing i’m trying to name but also think that on its own it doesn’t mean much. there are plenty of great break-up songs that take no responsibility. part of the joy for me of pop (used in one of the broader senses) is precisely that because songs exists as 3.5 minute bursts of sensation it’s a realm particularly suited to indulging pleasurably in the less evolved areas of our psyche. the role of the artist is not to meticulous address across their body of work every emotion a human being can have. it’s never bob dylan’s fault either but who wants to hear that song?

i keep talking about the narrative around her persona and again: complicated. i’m not going to detail the factors, because it’s not 2015. but it’s not like at times she didn’t lean in, right? i mean she can be so annoying. and i think what i was reacting to was not so much her insistence on positioning herself as a victim (i mean, after the initial shock i kind of fell in love with look what you made me do, not despite but because of the fact that it’s so dumb and nasty) but simply that the repeated act of self-positioning over time near inevitably invites a certain calcification. there’s a line between shaping your memories into narrative to make use of the meaning you can find there, and attaching to the story of yourself so strongly that you lose sight of your actual self, which is unfixed and fluid and ever-changing. it’s possible to begin scrambling subconsciously to match your self to your story, rather than the other way around. and a public self, a self which exists in lopsided unrelationship with people you will never meet, exacerbates this tendency for all but the most secure in their true identity. there’s spiritual danger in becoming a brand. there were a lot of reasons i deleted my not even very popular personal blog but one of them was this: i had started to worry that i might be ready to outgrow the self i had built there and not be able to see or actualize it. years ago i read a book about the ancient celts and the only thing i remember was the suggestion that the religion of the druids retained a degree of spiritual potency and mysticism lost to the ancient greeks because the druids didn’t write anything down. i don’t know if that’s true but it stuck with me.

anyway. when reputation came out i called new year’s day the first song she’d ever written as an adult specifically because of how it located the self in the verb of loving—don’t read the last page, but i stay—which felt to me like the first true thing she’d said about love. and then after hammering us with the one-two punch of the two most heinous songs of her career, because whatever else taylor swift she also is a dummy with terrible taste, it turned out that lover was after all an album that mostly lived there too. it was an album where she did cop to bad behavior, no winking or cuteness, and more than that where she named regrets in a way that had weight; i still kind of can’t believe taylor swift came out with something as real as “i never grew up / it’s getting so old.” and it was also the album where she first sounded convincingly besotted, uncomplicatedly joyful; the album where she finally learned years after crossing over how to write a pop song that was actually fun. there was an ease to it, a refreshing and novel sense of not having anything to prove. and it just really fucked me up listening to it and thinking inescapably that these might be linked: that it really seemed like what happened, partly, was taylor swift fell in actual love and it let her give up on some of the frantic posturing that was choking her art. that something really good happened and it made space in her head and therefore in her songs for the beauty and the ache, the ugliness and the joy. i recognize that this has long since passed unhinged territory regarding speculation onto the spiritual journey of a famous stranger. i really don’t get like this about anyone else, including any of the many artists i like a lot more. blame it on the stars.

anyway, so that’s all a dementedly long way of saying that even beyond which the fact that nearly every track on this 18-track behemoth is undeniably Queliot Content, i have these preexisting bizarre and unreasonable feelings about the like meta-statement of lover as an album in taylor swift’s body of work, what it means not just as a collection of songs but as this album coming from this artist, which........... are also, now, Queliot Content???? because that’s all the quentin/eliot thing, right: these are two people who are very, very afraid of their own darkness. they latch onto these narratives of self partly to try to escape the parts of themselves they don’t want to look at. and it’s not even that those narratives are totally wrong: quentin really is brave and loyal and caring and all that hero stuff; eliot really is funny and sharp and fond of the finer things in life. (there’s nothing about lover that is not deeply, absolutely a taylor swift album.) but they’re incomplete. they’re archetypes. they don’t have room for the fullness of their hearts and their lives, the bad stuff and the good. they’re so afraid of their flaws and their pain that they can’t see their strengths or feel their joys. quentin in season 1 can’t see that really and truly alice doesn’t give a shit that he’s not as good a magician as she is, and that will only ever be an issue as long as he makes it one. eliot can’t see the depths of his own enormous heart, or trust margo’s love enough to follow up on her emotion-bottles plea to save their friendship. and this sucks for them, and also for the people around them! they do a lot of bad things in their attempts to protect themselves.

and the very lovely thing the show unbelievably seems to have well and truly done by accident and had no interest in exploring but which remains nonetheless delightful to consider rly is this exact idea of, like: together they find something good and it doesn’t fix anything but it makes space for everything. bleep blorp, beauty of all life. the bad and the good. they find something good and it helps them be brave. it helps them let go of who they’re “supposed” to be, not to reject every piece of it out of hand but to pick and choose: what here serves me still? what reflects who i am today? pruning away the defenses you just don’t need anymore. i used to think “i forgot that you existed” felt like a rep-overgrowth taylor mistakenly thought she needed, over-narrativized context-setting for an album that really stood on its own, and, i mean, it is that, a little bit. she’s still taylor; her version of chilling out is still most people’s frighteningly intense. but i like how weightless it is, how sonically it recaptures the kind of quiet elation of that feeling. how “i thought that it would kill me, but it didn’t” is about the strange distance of that past self so convinced she could never let go, which is to say it’s also about healing. about recognizing your own enough-ness so that you can see what it is you really need. quentin and eliot are both constantly asking this question: what is the thing that is going to fill up the space inside of me where i should have something else? is it school, magic, clothes, wine, a girl, a boy, a crown, a quest? and the answer is—it’s not “each other.” the answer is nothing. but their kind of open-hearted love is the thing they need to see that’s true.

[marvelmymarvel]

Hi just submitted a request and also I was just wondering if you have any tips for new writers on starting a blog and such?

Hello!! I got your request and I am excited to write it! It's very specific and if that means your 20th birthday is coming up then HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Now for the tips... (Aka things I wish I knew before starting this blog!)

Long post ahead so read if you want to know how I set up my stuff and some advice for beginning a writing blog <3

Story Setup and Ideas:

When starting a writing blog, begin writing for one fandom that you are truly passionate about. For me, it was Band of Brothers at the time which is why my blog is heavy with it. Now, I am a multi-fandom blog and knew I would be when I began and if you would like to be multi one day as well don't be afraid of starting small. It's best to start small and with one fandom so you don't feel overwhelmed.

Now that you have your one fandom, find your favorite character or characters and write!! Heres how I write a story:

Figure out the idea, this can come from a moment with a friend, something I saw, or a song I heard. Once this idea is in your head write it down!! I have papers full of ideas and when I get in the mood I will refer back to them.

Figure out the pairing. This should come with the first part but sometimes I don't know exactly WHO I want it to about so play around with the scenes in your head. Who is the reader kissing? Who fits with this song??  Who would fit the feel of this scene? Those are some of the questions I ask myself if I don't know a pairing.

Set up the post. This is something I wish I did in the first part of my blog as it took a long time to fix every post so they look the same. Heres how I have them set up and feel free to use or take from this setup for yourself <3. With the Text Post option:

Title

Pairing (Bolded and with the header size)

Synopsis: It was a rainy day in the park but he kept her warm inside.

Trigger Warnings: Blood (This isn’t needed if you have no warnings but you can have it anyway and just put none)

Song: Song Title - Artist (Link: ---------) (Again, not needed unless you have a song that you wish for people to listen to)

A/n: (Finally the authors note, again, it's not needed but I like to talk a lot lol)

Gif/Banner/Etc (Heres where I add a gif of the character I’m writing for or something else that kicks off the story and drags people in. If it's not your gif, either credit the owner if you can find them or simply say its not your gif. I just now began doing this as I have a lot of gifs that I obviously didn’t create and I want to credit them)

Story (Here I like to put a keep reading after a paragraph that is sure to bring a reader in. Your goal is to make them click that ‘keep reading’ option)

Tags: (If you have people that want to be tagged, add them here) 

Hashtags: #bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky Barnes imagine #bucky Barnes imagines (Basically for your hashtags at the end, make as many as you can but do not, I repeat DO NOT tag a character that is not important. For instance, if you are writing a story for bucky x reader and the reader has no important ties to steve do not include him. If there was a love triangle in which a reader will read both, then it is alright. Don't clickbait, that's all we ask ;) Adding to that, go ahead and just tag the character itself as well as the fandom!!)

That's how I set up my stories but I would like to let all the baby blogs know that Tumblr has this weird thing called an algorithm, and it sucks. You will not see your post show up on any of those tags for at least 48 hours. Once you post multiple things to that tag or they have ruled that you are not a bot then your stuff will show up. This was a stressor so I hope this knowledge calms you down :)

If you have a hard time with scenarios, ask for ideas!!!

Make rules if you are accepting ideas and don’t be afraid to turn down requests you don’t like/feel comfortable with. It will not alert the user that you deleted their ask so do not feel bad!

Stick to your rules and make sure your blog is a healthy and safe environment.

Once you are ready to move on to more fandoms, go ahead and try it out. If it becomes too much cut it back down. Also, don't be afraid to move away from the fandom you started in. Sadly, I am not as ‘intrigued’ with BOB like I once was. That doesn't mean you won't occasionally write for your beginning fandom but tastes change. 

Do what makes YOU happy.

MENTAL HEALTH SECTION:

Because mental health is real and I want all of my baby blogs to be happy, I’m going to let you know some tips and tricks to stay calm.

Remember, this is a blog and you are able to step away for as long as you need if things get stressful.

Remember that the faithful and caring followers will stick around and support you no matter what. You aren’t alone and you don’t owe anyone anything.

I have like 5 requests in my inbox and I know that those who requested know I will get to it but if I don't, I don't. They will not attack me. 

Any follower who attacks you should be reported and blocked immediately. Never let someone make you feel trapped.

When you feel burned out (we have all been there and I still am) do not push yourself. If you are only able to do one story a month then that's okay. Even one story a year is alright, just don't feel like you have to deliver. Your personal life and wellbeing come first. 

If you feel like one of your stories is shit, know that you are putting yourself down and do not delete it. I have one story that has 0 likes and never has that ever happened to me, but I refuse to take it down because I like it. 

Writing should be your escape, not your jail cell. (Something I had to tell myself a lot last year and I wish someone told me)

If you feel stressed and want your followers to know that you’re doing alright just need some time then post a lovely message to your Tumblr and call it good. Most likely, you’ll get messages and comments hoping that you feel better, those are the best followers.

Personal Safety Section:

So my moms a correctional nurse (Aka a nurse at a jail) and she is very protective of me being on the internet. That being said here are some tips I have for you to be safe (Again feel free to ignore some or agree to all, these are just my beliefs and I do not shame anyone who doesn't follow them!):

DO NOT GIVE OUT YOUR REAL NAME UNLESS YOU KNOW YOU CAN TRUST SOMEONE. The name I have on my blog is VERY similar to my real name but for safety reasons, I don't go by my real name. Only like 2 followers know my real name and even then it took a while before I said it. 

DO NOT POST A PICTURE OF YOURSELF: God I sound like a boomer, but really you shouldn’t just up and post a picture of yourself unless you really want to. I have thought about posting a pic but thought “Yeah no...”

DO NOT GIVE OUT YOUR ADDRESS/CITY/STATE: I have only ever said on my blog that I am in the midwest of the US, but that's it. Never ever give anyone your address/city or your state. 

DO NOT GIVE OUT OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT YOURSELF: This can include your school, age (if below 18 because of predators), phone number (unless a friend that you trust), etc. 

BE CAREFUL. When someone messages you, don't be afraid to chat but if things feel fishy stop responding and block the person. 

Okay, my mother side is done ranting... Just be careful kiddos. As a certified adult, I can say that the internet is scary and that as a teenager (a whole year ago) I did stupid shit... So if you are a teen (Especially below 18) just be careful and think before posting anything personal. If you have any other questions or comments, go ahead and let me know. I am open ears. Also dear anon, please tell me this blog when you get started, I’d like to follow you :)

[wickedwritingswickedgame]

Here’s to the New Year (drabble)

//So I wrote this last year around this time. I just didn’t have a blog to share it on. Although some things have changed for my muses in a year I thought I’d upload this anyway. 

Happy New Year!

___

Sometimes ten years makes all the difference. 

That was the thought running through James Xavier’s head this evening. He was seated in the family room—distinct from the living room as this was smaller and almost exclusively reserved for his family as opposed to the growing student body. One of the many changes made over the last decade but not necessarily a bad one. The Xavier family and all extended members had a rough and rocky history: they deserved a space to let their hair down or however the saying went. Be the man and/or woman behind the curtain and just...unplug. On the off-chance someone somewhere needed something, well, that’s what telepathy was for. Mister Xavier to the rescue in record time. James smiled to himself, nestling further against the sofa he currently occupied. He remembered a time his powers caused more trouble than solutions. Another welcomed change in the last decade.

“What’s so funny?” Ventured a voice. James met the gray eyes of the woman seated beside him.

“Ahh, nothin’ Em,” he replied with a lazier grin. “Just reminiscing.”

Emily Clearwater was his best friend and significant other: she was one of if not the first major change in his life all those years ago. When he’d been a boy of fifteen and she a girl near-about that age—her Time Lord DNA made it difficult to tell. It worked out though, he mused, because he too aged at a slower rate. They’d been through hell and back, he and Emily had: sometimes hand in hand, others with teeth bared and bleeding hearts. Here they were now about to start a family.

Warmth filled James’ yellow eyes—eyes like his mother’s, but only the pupils—and he shuffled up just slightly.

“Reminiscing?” Emily echoed as he wove an arm around her shoulder. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you use that word.” She laughed as she spoke, a warm, hearty sound. He couldn’t help but echo it.

“Oh yeah?” James asked, kissing the crown of her auburn hair. “This mean I get some kinda prize?”

“Oi!” A loud and deliberately obnoxious voice belonging to the Doctor cut in. 

“Whatever you’re gonna give ‘im you give in your own private quarters. ‘s nothin’ anyone here wants to see.” The elder Time Lord waved his hand at the two in what looked like a scolding motion. James fought the urge to roll his eyes. He was unable, however, to fight off a blush and by the way Emily’s skin warmed up beneath his chin she’d apparently failed as well.

“Shite dad,” she grumbled and James was very sure he heard an eye roll in there. “We aren’t kids anymore.” Emily slid a hand over her baby bump. At four months, she was just starting to show. “Are you gonna keep the lectures up once the baby’s born?”

The Doctor scowled and leaned forward in the loveseat he currently occupied. 

“I will if you two can’t keep your hands off each other.”

“Seriously, Doc?” James jumped in. He had, in the last decade, managed to score good graces with the older (way way older) Time Lord but that didn’t mean they always saw eye to eye. James placed his hand over Emily’s before continuing. “You don’t think we’d actually—“

“Okay that’s enough of that.” Announced the unmistakable voice of Raven Darkholme. All heads turned as she entered the room, a tray of finger foods balanced in each hand. Haha, James thought and while it was juvenile he couldn’t help himself: mom to the rescue.

“Need help, love?” Asked the Doctor, grabbing the arm rests as if prepared to stand. Raven shook her head: James didn’t miss the slant in her scaly brow.

“You stay put, Mister.” She said, crossing into the center of the room. An oval coffee table with a protective glass top sat there and it was on this glass she at last set down the trays. It was then James noticed she’d dressed up slightly for the evening: nothing flashy but the dark collared shirt and skirt combo (with accessories) were a step above her usual attire. Weird. Not necessarily a bad weird; it was New Year’s eve after all. They’d all gone the extra mile in one way or another. Himself more a half than the full but hey, he was among family. If combed hair and a button-down with jeans didn’t fly, why bother staying in? There were more than a few places around accepting that kind of attire. If James wanted to, he could spend a casual night in a smoke-filled bar, entertaining strangers who gawked at his eyes and marveled at his ‘magic tricks.’ Maybe in another life he did just that. The current James, however, would much rather his present company. He fit right in among the mutants and aliens. A soft laugh dropped from his lips and this caught Emily’s attention.

“What are you smirking about?” She asked, a bemused look on her face.

“Hm? Ah nothing. Nothing important.” Emily poked his shoulder. “Come on, you already used that one tonight. Tell me.” James‘ eyebrow stayed put but his smile widened.

“Fine,” he said. “I was thinkin’ how cute you look with your nose all wrinkled.”

“You were not.” Emily said, a touch of color in her cheeks again. She laughed as well now, a laugh she hastened to muffle behind her hand, lest (he guessed) she subject herself to more paternal embarrassment. The Doctor however no longer seemed interested in monitoring their PDA: attention refocused almost solely on Raven. It used to bother James and Emily both—wasn’t there some kind of rule against courting your son’s-girlfriend’s-father? (Or your daughter’s-boyfriend’s-mother?) Ten years really made a world of difference.

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Asked the Doctor again when Raven returned to the door. She paused, arms crossed beneath her breasts.

“No. Thank you. I’m just waiting on the boys.”

“Oh yeah?” James chimed in, peering over Emily’s head. “Who’d you rope into helping this time?”

Now it was Raven raising a brow. And people assumed he’d inherited that trait from his father. “Why? Looking for a stand-in while you go crusading across the galaxy?”

Way to play left field there. James blinked, temporarily at a loss for words. If the surrounding silence was any indication, he wasn’t the only one. 

“Wh—no.” He sputtered. “I was just—“ and then he caught the smile playing on her lips. That victorious maternal smile when she knew she’d gotten through to him. “...sorry, mom. Wasn’t fair to leave you alone with the holiday stuff.”

“No it wasn’t,” Raven agreed. She paused, yellow eyes roving from what looked like face to face. “Lucky for you all,” she went on suddenly. “I wasn’t alone.” 

Raven looked to the doorway again. “Logan! You said you were right behind me.”

”I am right behind ya,” came the graveled growl of a one Logan Howlett. James ducked his head as the burly Canadian entered the room. The grin he wore would’ve all-too-easily caught Logan’s eye. Was he too old to call his mom a super-hero? Because damn, the way she commanded their rambunctious rag-tag family suggested nothing less.

“Put the bottles over there,” Raven said, nodding to the coffee table and when she did James noticed he was in fact carrying dark glass bottles. At a glance they all looked like champagne, but that was a lesson James didn’t need relearning: since he could remember, or at least for as long as they’d been close, sparkling cider—the kind free of alcohol—was included for the celebration. This year was no exception and thank goodness for it: he might’ve long since reached drinking age but champagne did no good for a mom-to-be. Half Time Lord or not, they’d agreed to play it safe. Besides, his father didn’t drink either.

Speaking of my dad, where is he? James sat up straighter, clearing his view of the doorway. No sooner did he then in limped Charles Xavier, his dad and apparently another extra set of hands. The older man carried with him several champagne glasses. Okay, that was new. Charles slowed as he crossed through the doorway, glancing shyly at Raven as though waiting for instruction. James’ parents had made as much peace with one another as they could but seeing them work together, when had that started? Or had it already and he in his ‘crusading ’ simply missed it?

“On the table, Charles,” said Raven gently and the elder Xavier bobbed his head. James tried his best not to stare. Charles had gradually emerged from his frightened shell since coming home but guilt and self-loathing, these took longer to overcome. Was ten years the time needed to heal all that? To heal the pain between his parents? James felt a finger that wasn’t his push his chin up. He took the hint, closing his mouth.

‘Thanks for that,’ he told Emily telepathically. He felt that same hand slide across his arm.

‘You’re welcome.’

The last two members of their family—Hank McCoy and Alex Summers—entered soon after. Alex almost immediately on Charles’ heels with the rest of the glasses in tow and Hank a little while later with a pretty but very athletic-looking woman James didn’t recognize.

“Hope it’s alright.” He said to Raven. She smiled, patting his shoulder.

“Of course it is, Hank. You don’t have to ask.” She slipped around him as he led his date towards them, closing the living room door. There was a sense of accomplishment in that, James felt it from his seat: a satisfied finality that now, together at last, they could ring in the new year.

‘All set mom?’ James asked, using his powers again. She looked over at him and though she said nothing at first, she didn’t need to: her eyes spoke volumes by themselves.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m all set, James.’ Then she joined the group right as Logan turned the TV on. Dick Clark’s face materialized before them, preparing for the Count Down as he always did. Some things never changed. For the most part though...for the most part they did and, James decided, watching his family interact, those changes often came for the better.

See you later, ‘87. Can’t wait to see what’s gearing up in 1988.

[oldguy56-world]

Do You Hear What I Hear

We set up the Christmas tree yesterday. When I say 'we', my job was to fetch it then get out of the way while my wife decorated it. This system works very well for us. This inspired a Christmas type title for the blog. The actual blog has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. Such is the way my mind works.

A few weeks back I wrote one called 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. (Look at me referencing past works. I am surprised I remember anything past yesterday) There was a small observation in that blog that I want to expand on.  I am not sure if my hearing is going, or people just mumble more, but I don't always hear correctly what is actually being said. This is also spilling over to my wife. The upside is that it has greatly enhanced how funny things are (or we think they are) based on what we believe we heard. Some may say it is because we are not paying attention, but I will lay the blame squarely on those speaking. When both of us are in the room, usually one of us will hear what is said correctly. Usually. The end result is we have had some great laughs about what we are convinced what was said.

It can't be age (no way) since this has been happening since I was young. I vividly recall watching hockey with Bob Cole announcing, and I was convinced he kept saying 'he farted in the corner'. I was amused and amazed as to how great his hearing was to pick up the noise from up in the gondola. It wasn't until much later that I realized what he was saying was ' he fired it in the corner'. Perhaps it was his Newfoundland accent, but then again he doesn't have one. maybe it was wishful thinking on my part.

The problem is not just mine. Have you ever asked Google, Siri, or Alexis something, only to scratch your head about what they answer? I asked how many people there were in the world, only to get a response that there are 17 shades of purple in the world. Who knew? Who cared?

Below are some examples of things we have heard, or thought we heard.

- We were in a restaurant and my wife ordered a pasta dish. Waiter asked if she wanted a 'Super salad' with that. Knowing my wife's love of veggies, I was not surprised when she said yes. Before I could order the waiter asked which one? Soup or Salad. We still laugh about this one.

- Watching the news the other day, I was positive the newscaster stated that this ultra-rich guy owned a personal Jew. I am thinking 'wow! That is so wrong, and what does he need one for.' I did a quick playback (wonders of tv these days) and it turns out he had a personal zoo. Completely different, and almost as wrong.

- Two days ago, my wife asked me to take my pants down. Being an obedient husband I did so immediately. Turns out she wanted me to take the plants down so she could water them. While it may have been wishful listening on my part, she was not thrilled. Neither were our guests.

- I was in a greasy spoon diner, and ordered a burger. (That will come as a shock to anyone who has been with me at a restaurant) I could have sworn he asked if I wanted flies with that. I didn't know that was optional in a place like that. I thought they just automatically hovered over the table.

- Did you know that the Queen is the longest shitting monarch in English history. Apparently that is not quite what was said.

- Finally, if you are working in a store and need to use the intercom, speak clearly. It always sounds like the adults in 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' (See how I tied this up with the Christmas theme I started with.)

I will not get into how many times professional broadcasters mispronounce words. I give them the benefit of the doubt until they repeat the mispronunciation.

There are many, many more, but I am getting tired. If you want to share some you have heard, please don't. Keep them to yourself, or share with your friends.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: If you half listen, and retain 20% of what you hear, you will get it right 10% of the time. That is math. If you never listen, you will get it wrong 100% of the time. That is stupidity, but will not disqualify you from running a country.

[jacobpaulnielsen]

12.28.19

My name’s Jake. 

Most people call me Jake. I’ve never really felt too connected to my name though. I don’t know why. When I think of a “Jake,” I don’t picture myself at all. I’m a 6th-grade teacher with Pink Floyd tattoos and a sizable library of music in my classroom. Maybe part of the reason I’m starting this blog is to feel more connected to my name. 

Years ago, I managed a band called Jack and the Bear. Christina, the remarkable woman that ended up being my wife was (still is) in the band. Her brothers were (still are) in it, too. At the time when I was the most heavily involved, the band was this profoundly beautiful thing. (No, not just because I was involved...) Everyone in the band was all-in. In 2013, Christina and I put all our things in storage, took out an extra student loan, and toured the country with the band. We threw everything we had into a band that we loved. Our goal was to make it to Prairie Sun Studios, record an album, and play shows along the way. I booked the shows, helped the band set up/tear down, got the band paid, and drove.

Christina at Prairie Sun. This path lead from the studio to the guest house. March 2013.

In the live room at Prairie Sun. Jack and the Bear tracked much of "Dreams" together in this room. March 2013.

We had all the things you’d think a bunch of naive kids in a band should have: wanderlust, brotherhood, and a 1994 Chevrolet short bus that ran on diesel fuel. We named him BUS-E. He had no airconditioning, no heat, and no radio. It broke down on us once when we were on our way to California to record Jack and the Bear’s first album, unironically titled Dreams Get You Nowhere.

I remember the day the band drove the bus home. We immediately took out all of the school bus seats and just...placed old van seats in there. No bolts. No straps. Nothing. We just set two three-seater van seats and an old futon in there and called it good. If the driver hit the breaks too hard, the seats would tip like a beam on a fulcrum and send the passengers sailing forward. It’s a damn miracle no one was killed.

As you can imagine, our beloved 1994 bus quickly became a huge money pit. Two years after Jack and the Bear’s big exploration of the western frontier, the band sold the bus. We sold it without a title (because we couldn’t find it) for cash to a guy with only one arm. A fitting end for BUS-E.

Our not-so-trusty steed, BUS-E. Somewhere in Utah. 2013.

Right now, I teach a bunch of middle schoolers about math, reading, and writing. Without a doubt, I love my job. What excites me most about my job though, is teaching my students about music. About once a week, I teach guitar to a couple of kids after school. Last year, I had one student that was way into Nirvana so I coordinated an interview with him and Ron Stone, their former manager. During my first year of teaching, I took the kids to see Third Man Pressing in Detroit. The list goes on. You can see more of that sort of stuff if you follow my Instagram account.

To paraphrase Bob Pollard, when you spend 40 hours a week with 11 and 12-year-olds...you’re basically that age too. He’s really right. Bob used to be a 4th-grade teacher, so it was his job to be imaginative and goofy and creative. (You can hear all that in those early GBV records.) In my free time, I’m still thinking about the stuff that really excited me in middle school; new bands, old bands that are new to me, guitar, the music business, and dreaming of being a rock star. I’ll talk about this stuff to anyone that will listen until they change the subject. Probably the main purpose of this blog is to channel that energy. Maybe that’s what I meant when I said this blog could help me feel more connected to my name.

About a month ago, I stumbled upon this book called How to Write About Music by Marc Woodworth. There’s a lot of prompts in there that I think are a good outlet for someone in my position. So this blog will mostly be me responding to the prompts in the book, but maybe I’ll throw in some anecdotes about my valiant efforts to get paid to talk about music. 

Take care,

Jake

[dentelle-grise]

Your Latest Trick - Chapter 24

Long after everyone has stopped talking about Loki and his misdemeanors, his failed attempt to take over Midgard and his punishment, you meet him at a party.

(Loki x Reader NSFW) - First chapter here (can be read as a oneshot)

All chapters to date at AO3 (58K, NC-17)

Tagging my rebloggers, commenters and other folk who asked. Please let me know if you want in (or out) of the list: @joanbushur, @frenchfrostpudding, @lovely-geek, @wolfsmom1, @sigridlaufeyson, @lokislonelylady, @monitoroutside, @daniissuchadani, @devilbat, @deadlydreamersecrets @helenisabel, @stardustandangelsfanfiction, @ely-seum, @wendyrobson1978, @the-ships-i-ship, @shemart101, @dreamourbrainout, @sadghostomg, @lokilover2000, @blobfishington, @lynneth1968-blog, @deaddecade, @nardo94, @tom-fucking-hiddleston-1981, @ashesandfire, @imagines-of-the-fandom​, @beingrandomisfun​

Chapter 24: Imagine Loki making love to you in public while invisible.

Sometime in the small hours you rise, careful not to wake Loki from where he’s untidily and contentedly sprawled in the middle of the bed, and creep out in search of the bathroom. The light of dawn is only just hinting and you pull the window closed against the cold.

You edge along the wall, back past the bed, looking for a door, it must be here, you don’t remember any other rooms downstairs. But there’s nothing up here either. How come? What kind of house has no bathroom?

A poor person’s.

The wall is rough under your fingers and the air damp. So this was where Loki was hiding out. Better than prison, but desolate in another way.

You’re going to have to go outside, find the outhouse perhaps, the idea makes you shudder. You take a step toward the stairs but at that moment, Loki rolls over and you collide with a leg that he unknowingly stretches out in your path. The bed really is too small. He growls in complaint. “What?”

“I was just going to the bathroom.”

“Over there.” He points blindly, without raising his head and you see it. A door in the angle of the corner you could have sworn wasn’t there earlier. You step through and find everything there is just like home. Why did you doubt?

It’s only when dawn and wakefulness come for real, and Loki’s urging you to ready yourself to go back, scooping you up and pulling you downstairs that you see clearly that there is no door in the corner of the room, merely a table with a washstand and ewer. You don’t ask.

He stops the skiff just outside the city waters, and you float, swaddled in morning mist. The skiff becomes an ordinary vessel, bobbing on the water. Apart from the fog-bleared lights of Asgard, you could be the only beings in the universe. It's chill, but you have the furs. He uncovers a box with bread, cheese and fruit, which you share. The bread is warm, like he just got it from the kitchens. Perhaps he did.

How much of this did he plan? How much did he magic up in an instant? It doesn’t matter. You watch each other eat, a comforting reminder he’s real.

"I wish we could see each other in the day sometime." you say. You were only thinking romantically, it wasn't even a demand. But he sighs and doesn't answer and you feel a new tenseness in the atmosphere.

“What’s going to happen?” you ask,

“I don’t know.”

The most terrifyingly honest of answers.

“What about Thor?” you ask, emboldened. It’s a question you expect him to rebuff “What about Thor?” But instead he bursts out laughing.

“Oh Thor, my valiant brother. As usual, he’s protecting the realm of Midgard against great and terrible foes… its own mightiest heroes, in fact”

With that he has to struggle to stop laughing, while you look on blankly.

“Oh, I couldn't have done better myself!” he says. Then he sees your lost look and starts to explain “Oh. two of Thor’s mortal friends had a baby.” He wipes tears from his eyes. “Or rather a brain child. And now it’s trying to take over the planet and my dear brother is once more saving the day.”

“Does he know you’re alive??”

Loki's gaiety disappears abruptly.

“No.” Loki looks away, into the mist. Not starting at anything, just not looking at you. “Like I said, he’s busy.”

You don’t press. But you wouldn’t put it past Loki to jump out on Thor one day as a really bad joke and there’s not much you can do to prevent it.

You have time to make things look almost normal that morning, the time to return home so you can wash up and change at least. But fear has been growing like a knot in your stomach since Loki left you, setting you down the edge of the high esplanade, before speeding off into the mist.

What about Odin? Your disappearance would surely have been noted.

You open the door to your chambers you notice a familiar smell, sweet, like freesias.

It is freesias.

On the low table there is a broad vase filled with them. You’re confused a moment but then you see there’s a note.

In the same sure hand as the invitation of so many weeks ago, the king apologises for his absence the night before - he was called away on urgent state business.

You want to heave that sigh of relief, want your stomach to unknot, but now there’s something else worrying at it. How did he know you liked Freesias, that they’re your favorite.

You try to start the day as usual, but the question haunts you. Could it simply be because he is the Allfather?

You wonder if Loki will be like Odin in later life.

Sometimes you try to imagine you and he growing old together, but nothing of what you have with Loki has the wisdom of age. Every time you try to imagine the far future, you see yourself alone.

You get the tiniest glimpses of yourselves as a kind of Odin and Frigga. You hope that you would be as elegant as she. You try to imagine Loki's expressions emphasised by time, his hair white, and wonder what you would be to each other. You have never imagined anyone like this. And now you do and it's with one of the most unpredictable, volatile of men. Is that it. You never sought stability and it's not Loki who'll give it to you.

The heat of your relationship is hardly something built to last and there are times when you think it is all you will ever have. When you start thinking like that, the fleeting images of that older couple slip away.

Hornace is leaving just as he promised he would. But he makes a point of coming to say farewell and thank you personally. He’s happier than you’ve seen him since the accident but there’s a clear tension about the future.

“I’ve learnt all I can here, and I can hardly say it’s been boring.” He reflects.

It's true he was here for the attack of the dark elves too, when all he probably expected was quiet study.

“But I hope, for you all" he adds, "that Asgard stays ‘boring’ as long as possible.” He gives a little smile. “But I’m sure you’d be able to handle anything.”

When the flash in the sky shows the bifrost working from afar you realise he's gone and with him another chance. You wish suddenly, crazily that you'd shared your story with him. What harm would it have done? He’s off world now. He would have shaken his head at the craziness of Asgard and certainly not have shared your secret. But you weren't even tempted. Holding your silence has become second nature.

You feel a presence behind you on the balcony and turn but there's no one. You can hear healers voices, not far away just in the next room. But its not that. You know what is it, who it is. Someone very familiar. Invisible, like last night.

“Show yourself!” you say.

He doesn’t, but you’re surer than ever than he’s there. It's in the movement of the air, you’re blocked from the light movement of the wind. And there’s a hint of warmth. Not a sound though and the view is unobstructed.

Thats why you don’t even jump when you feel his arm around you.

And his hand… slipping into your pocket.

Loki leads you away from the healing rooms, guiding you with one arm around your waist, his hand still in your pocket. It feels familiar, affectionate, this closeness, but no one else can see him. So you force yourself to walk as though alone - not leaning into him as you would want, nor leaving too much space to one side as you pass through a doorway. You have to pretend he isn't there, that he's your own personal illusion.

As you make your way across the courtyard, struggling to act normal, who should there be but Asta and Dagny. And from the way they look at you they know something is off. Asta's eyes flick away the instant they settle on you, while Dagny gazes on as though in awe. Your heart stops and your feet freeze. It's like they can see Loki. This is it. Loki makes to step forward, pulling you with him but you stay where you are then falls back by your side, silent.

"Hi." Your voice sounds dead. Asta chances a glimpse at you, her eyes still unreadable, while Dagny smiles nervously.

"Hi." They say in unison, as weakly as you.

Whatever's got into them, it’s something else. It's you Dagny's looking at, not the tall handsome, but totally invisible, figure at your side. They both look troubled. What do they see? You're still standing there and no one says anything. At least they don't try to drag you away for something, to whisper some tidbit of gossip or pushing you for some. There's no pulling on your arm to come see a new dress or enjoy a snack together. You're thankful, but you're worried too, and guilty about how you’ve lied to them, your annoyance at Loki rises a notch.

They embarrassedly try to cover their discomfort, badly. Then pull away, but not before Asta touches your arm and meets your eyes again, this time you read concern. But you are already smiling, brushing them off as you feel they brushed you. You feel a pang as they go, but Loki draws you in closer.

It’s lonelier up on the battlements, just him and you and the wild autumn air.

Against your leg you feel the cold of a blade. He's got a knife and he's cut the fabric at the bottom of the pocket. You want to be outraged, but instead all you feel is rising trepidation. He’s cut a way in. Then the knife is gone and instead there are his fingers, like you knew there would be, delving, exploring, ever so slowly approaching their goal, to reach the core of you without disturbing a layer of fabric on the outside. He’s not standing close enough to you to change the way your dress hangs, but his hand is going deeper. You hold yourself taut, knowing that for appearances you mustn't flinch.

Though he says not a word, though you can’t even hear him breathe, the moves are so familiar. He knows what you like. First he caresses you through the fabric of your underclothes. Then he teases with the tips of his fingers, fighting their way around the cloth. He’s not really going to do this? Is he? But why else are you still here. Why hasn’t he whisked you off already. Because he won’t. He’s going to make you suffer for your pleasure. Experimentally he pushes one fingertip deeper, sliding into your hot wetness. Though you want to gasp you hold it in, hold your breathe. The heat inside doubles. You keep your expression unchanged, unruffled, though the wave of weakness that washes over you makes you think you might faint it this goes any further. Well then Loki would just have to catch you.

He crooks his finger and you repress a shudder, sway on you feet a little and close your eyes a second. Then open them, scared you showed something. But there’s no one here. Not until the next patrol passes.

He lets you calm down, your heart rate slow, your breathing become normal, though nothing will calm the fire within. Then, gently and meticulously, he continues.

To a casual observer you are all alone, but all the time he has you, twisted around his finger. Your world narrowed to that point where his able fingers are undoing you from the inside, while you try to stay as unruffled as a porcelain doll. Your efforts multiply the sensation and he knows it. You are burning up inside, concentrating on breathing normally when it’s getting difficult to remember how.

“Don’t move.” he says.

This is it, he’s going to kill you with this. You’re so wound up standing still is getting difficult.

“Can we go?”

“I thought you were enjoying… the view.” He murmurs in your ear.

You want to curse, you want to throw him on the ground and have your way with him. You might look as though you are standing alone, admiring the landscape and tasting the wild sea air blowing off the waves, but in reality you couldn’t care less about this place or time, and the only purpose of the breeze is to cool your heated blood.

Part of you wants to hold out. Holding out is what’s making it all the better, even though you want release like nothing in the world. You want to hold out longer than him, until he has to take you home without you begging.

Why here?

 I wish we could see each other in the day sometime.

Did you bring this on yourself.

You hear a sound behind you. Footsteps, is it a patrol? It would be expected that they pass here soon or later. Would it be normal that you looked over at them, or would it? Loki has stopped, he withdraws his hand even. You feel its loss with regret, so he doesn't want to play it quite that dangerous - you're almost disappointed, but it helps you calm yourself. Once you feel composed turn your head. And every trace of lust evaporates in an instant.

“Papa!”

The simple sight of him snaps you out of the grip of desire and into that of shame. Though your heart’s still racing.

He frowns at you. Surely its not that obvious, if you are flushes it might be from the wind. No he’s got that worried look, just like Asta. How much did he see? Surely he'd notice something’s amiss if not what it was. Papa simply knows you too well.

And you were going to tell him.

Loki removed his hand like he'd burnt it the second your father appeared but he's still standing there at your back.

"I'm so glad I found you." Papa says and there's his familiar loving smile. But underneath it he looks uncomforatble. Like the girls but a hundredfold worse. He doesn't elaborate and the silence lengthens.

"What I mean is. If there's anything you want to talk about..."

You smile and shake your head, words trapped in your throat and Loki's hand snaking out to squeeze your arm.

"I mean, if you are happy then that’s what’s important, but if there is...something... happening that is not what you want then you can always come to me. However, whenever I will find a way to get you out of it.”

You nod, perplexed, and he reaches forward to take you in his arms. Loki releases you.

You are confused by his words, angry with yourself and angry at the stupidity of Loki’s being there and yet not being there.

There’s a resignation in Papa's face as he pulls back and looks at you.

You were going to tell him the truth and if he already knows it then the chance is lost you are swamped with guilt: you lied to him as you did to everyone with your silence. And now he knows…something. He doesn’t look upset as you might expect or shocked. More like sad. You swear to yourself you will find him later. You have to explain.

It’s then that the patrol themselves arrives, jogging in formation and a change comes over him. You must have imagined the sadness, now he looks more happy, proud.

"I must be getting on."

You make to follow but what more can you say. Loki grabs your wrist. If you pulled he’d let you go. You waver. If this means the truth is out then you have to talk to Loki.

As your father’s shape disappears along the walkway and the soldiers round the corner out of sight on the other direction, you turn toward where Loki must be standing.

"Show yourself." you hiss.

He takes the other wrist in his other hand. He says nothing but draws you to him and then you’re flying through nothingness and landing in a whirl in your chambers.

“Tell me what’s going on. How does Papa know?”

“Love?” Loki whispers, not releasing you but caressing your back. You know he’ll try to seduce you again.

“No.” You say pulling back. "I should have told him myself"

“He knows nothing." Loki says innocently.

“How do you know?”

He trails a caress down your arm.

“You know him, you know I’m right. Everything will be fine.”

You want to trust him but you’re feeling too mixed up, guilty about Papa. And Loki just wants to take you to bed again. And then of course he’ll disappear again. Your anger is rising and you don’t want another fight.

"No, I..." You pull away.

Loki lets you go but, still giddy from the flying you teeter on your feet. He goes to steady you, his gaze heated, but you pull away. Before you can give in, you stumble out though the bathroom and onto the balcony, slamming the door behind you and leaning back on it.

You’re sure he will follow you. You wait for his knock on the inside of the door, trying to gather your resolve not to give in to him.

It never comes.

Chapter 25

[b0stonmanor]

since yall kept fuckin asking heres 1-155. Go ahead and see how fucking lame I actually am

1: Full name: Madison Lyn (I’m not putting my last name on the internet lmao)

2: Age:19

3: 3 Fears: heights, elevators, being alone for the rest of my life 

4: 3 things I love: cats, coffee, sleeping

5: 4 turns on: (I’m gonna make it nonsexual okay): body mods, humor, good vibes, nice laugh

6: 4 turns off: (gonna make these nonsexual too): rude, nasty, conceited, takes days to reply lmao

7: My best friend: girl: @bohoangel guy: @bostonnanner

8: Sexual orientation: pansexual

9: My best first date: haven’t had a best one yet, need someone to change that lmao

10: How tall am I: 5′8

11: What do I miss: lots of things and people both too many too name

12: What time was I born: 2:06am

13: Favourite color: blue

14: Do I have a crush: still crushin on my last man

15: Favourite quote: either some vine or “I’m here for a good time not a long time” I have way too many favs

16: Favourite place: my room, best friends house, or beach house

17: Favourite food: buffalo chicken or alfredo

18: Do I use sarcasm: of course not 

19: What am I listening to right now: music ;)

20: First thing I notice in new person: smile

21: Shoe size: no

22: Eye color: hazel

23: Hair color: naturally brunette currently red

24: Favourite style of clothing: gothic, pop punk or hippie/boho

25: Ever done a prank call?: I havent personally 

27: Meaning behind my URL: I needed to change my url of 8 years and I wanted something short and easy to remember but I also wanted it to be a band so it would fit my blog and surprisingly this one wasnt taken

28: Favourite movie: I have way too many 

29: Favourite song: again way too many

30: Favourite band: AGAIN way too many

31: How I feel right now: I feel fucking exhausted 

32: Someone I love: okay now Im sad 

33: My current relationship status: okay NOW Im crying but single

34: My relationship with my parents: welp my dads dead and my mom and I are okay

35: Favourite holiday: Halloween or Christmas

36: Tattoos and piercing I have: no tattoos yet and I have my nose pierced and first and second holes pierced on my ears

37: Tattoos and piercing I want: too many

38: The reason I joined Tumblr: I was 12 that should be enough

39: Do I and my last ex hate each other?: No. In fact I could never hate him and I dont think I’ll love anyone like I did/do him.

40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?: eh sometimes

41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? last text over imessage yes

42: When did I last hold hands?: I have no idea

43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?: I dont do anything really so not too long

44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?: dont out me

45: Where am I right now?: my room

46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?: @bohoangel

47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?: both

48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?: mom

49: Am I excited for anything?: nah

50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? @bostonnanner

51: How often do I wear a fake smile?: eh

52: When was the last time I hugged someone?: yesterday

53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?: I mean idc but it’d just be fucking weird cause they’re kissing in front of me 

54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?: plenty of people lmao

55: What is something I disliked about today?: I’ll do yesterday since today hasnt really happened. But it was fathers day and my heart was hurting so bad cause I miss my dad more than anything and really wish he was still here

56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?: my fuckin soulmate bitch

57: What do I think about most?: in all honesty, my ex

58: What’s my strangest talent?: I can do this smile thing that nobody else can do and it makes me look like a frog

59: Do I have any strange phobias?: probably

60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?: in front

61: What was the last lie I told?: that I was a child of God

62: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?: video chatting but I dont mind either

63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?: fuck yes and fuck yes

64: Do I believe in magic?: I’m a god damn witch bitch

65: Do I believe in luck?: I believe in karma

66: What’s the weather like right now? according to my phone its currently clear and 61 degrees

67: What was the last book I’ve read?: I have no idea

68: Do I like the smell of gasoline?: eh

69: Do I have any nicknames? Maddie, Mad, Mads

70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?: I had a staph infection in my foot that went back and forth across my foot and then up my leg (doctor said if my mom didn’t bring me when she did I would’ve died cause it would’ve gone to my heart)

71: Do I spend money or save it?: spend it 

72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue?: nope

73: Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me? ye

74: Favourite animal?: cats

75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?: I have no idea

76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?: oh shit I’ve never thought of this

77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?: good question

78: How can you win my heart?: Be Italian 

79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? I honestly have no idea

80: What is my favorite word? bitch

81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr: I get asked this way too much

82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?: probably some hippie bullshit

83: Do I have any relatives in jail?: I’ve had relatives in jail but I dont think anyones in jail rn

84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? theres too many lmao

85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? probably if I’ve smoked or drank or have done anything bad but only if my mom was asking

86: What is my current desktop picture? its just basic 

87: Had sex?: nah

88: Bought condoms?: nah

89: Gotten pregnant?: nah

90: Failed a class?: nah

91: Kissed a boy?: ye

92: Kissed a girl?: ye

93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?: nah

94: Had job?: ye

95: Left the house without my wallet?: ye

96: Bullied someone on the internet?: nah

97: Had sex in public?: nah

98: Played on a sports team?: ye

99: Smoked weed?: ye

100: Did drugs?: nothing hardcore just smoking weed

101: Smoked cigarettes?: nah

102: Drank alcohol?: ye

103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?: I’ve tried

104: Been overweight?: no answer

105: Been underweight? also no answer

106: Been to a wedding?: ye

107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?: ye

108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?: ye

109: Been outside my home country?: nah

110: Gotten my heart broken?: of course

111: Been to a professional sports game?: ye

112: Broken a bone?: ye

113: Cut myself?: ye

114: Been to prom?: ye

115: Been in airplane?: ye

116: Fly by helicopter?: nah

117: What concerts have I been to?: pink, metallica/volbeat, warped tour 2016,2017,2018, jingle ball, some birthday bash, I cant remember if I’ve been to any other ones lmao

118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?: not entirely 

119: Learned another language?: not fully

120: Wore make up?: ye

121: Lost my virginity before I was 18?: I’m a child of god

122: Had oral sex?: nah

123: Dyed my hair?: ye

124: Voted in a presidential election?: not yet

125: Rode in an ambulance?: couldve a couple times but my parents decided to drive me

126: Had a surgery?: nah

127: Met someone famous?: I guess? 

128: Stalked someone on a social network?: who doesnt do this

129: Peed outside?: ye

130: Been fishing?: ye

131: Helped with charity?: I think so

132: Been rejected by a crush?: who doesnt get rejected

133: Broken a mirror?: probably

134: What do I want for birthday?: lots of things

135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names?: I have no idea

136: Was I named after anyone?: No but I have the same middle name as my aunt

137: Do I like my handwriting?: ye

138: What was my favorite toy as a child?: I have no idea

139: Favorite Tv Show?: American Horror Story, Bob’s Burgers, The Office, or Drunk History

140: Where do I want to live when older?: New Hampshire

141: Play any musical instrument?: I can play the violin and piano and can also sing but idk if that counts lmao

142: One of my scars, how did I get it?: its barely noticeable but literally right under my left eye (like right at the edge of my dark circle lmao) I got attacked by a dog and it bit me in the face and I had to get stitches but I bitched out and had it glued instead lmao

143: Favorite pizza topping? cheese

144: Am I afraid of the dark?: depends where I am

145: Am I afraid of heights?: ye

146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?:nah

147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?: haha yeah

148: What I’m really bad at: everything

149: What my greatest achievements are: I fucking graduated from high school. Like I would never wish what I went through on anyone ever not even my worst enemy. It was worse than hell

150: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me: I honestly dont remember 

151: What I’d do if I won in a lottery: lots of stuff

152: What do I like about myself: my eyebrows

153: My closest Tumblr friend: I cant say @bohoangel cause I’ve known her since 5th grade so I’ll say @bostonnanner even though we met on omegle years ago lmao

154: Something I fantasize about: lots of things

155: Any question you’d like?: literally whatever anyone wants to know

[britishchick09]

sherlock ep 1 a study in pink livewatch

for the first livewatch of 2021 (and the first liverewatch), we’re taking a look at something i saw exactly 4 years ago! now that i’ve written my own sherlock holmes inspired story, the show will be a lot more interesting than it was in 2017 (hopefully). let’s dive right in! :D

this starts out with GUNS WAR SCREAMING DEAD NO

poor john :(

what a bleak flat :(

ooh laptop

i hope sherlock will be able to brighten up his life :)

OMG DAS THE BLOG!!!!

dere he is! :D

john has a therapist just like monk! :D

also he and molly’s dad from ag both have ptsd and the blog is to help cope with that... i wonder if molly’s dad had something similar like a journal (he had knitting which would help john’s shaky hands)

john: “nothing happens to me.” oh really? ;)

cool dramatic intro :D

the wheel is a dan and phil reference! :D

REDRUM ALERT REDRUM ALERTT!!!!!

poor wife :(

aww john is alone in the rain! :(

REDRUM RED RUM!!!!!

ooh blackberry! :D

a lady said ‘ignore the texts’ and that makes sense since ya know THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE LISTENING TO LESTRADE

these other people are cool and all but give me more john plz!!!!

ooh john has a friend before sherlock! :o

why does his friend look like his dad

OH HELLO MR

HE’S SLAPPING SOMETHING AND IT’S THE MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER OMG :D

the lady is super confused too like ‘???’

oh he’s checking for bruises it still funny tho ;D

of course he wants black coffee

the first thing sherlock does is ask john for his phone awww :)

that looks like a ds lol :D

aww sherlock wants to know if john plays violin like him! ^_^

john: “we just met and you want to look at a flat” it’s called true luv bby ♥

also wowza sherlock really wants a friend huh

sherlock just infodumped about john and john’s like ‘:o ???’

THE WINK THE WINK!!!!!

ooh coolio! :D

john is about to go inside baker street when sherlock comes out of a taxi what timing!

did sherlock just say florida

ah yes mrs hudson the number one johnlock shipper

aww she hugged sherlock and john! ♥

dere it is!!!!

my computer randomly shut down here GOSH DARN IT COMPUTER!!

it’s back let’s return to baker street! :D

aww john has a cane :(

john: “very nice indeed!” see sherlock is the light in his life already!

mrs. hudson: “there’s another bed upstairs if you’ll be needing two.” sherlock “of course we’ll be needing two” johnlock shippers be like ;)

mrs. hudson scolded sherlock for his messy flat WE LOVE A MOM!!! ♥

oh yeah sherlock had a website once! rip that :/

i almost expected mrs. hudson to call sherlock ‘lockie’

omg 4 murders? DUN DUN DUNNN!!!! :o

sherlock: “i need an assistant!” aww that’s code for friend! ♥

sherlock just jumped around and said “BRILLIANT!!!” first of all ADORABLE and secondly that’s what my own sherlock would do! (but he says ‘smashing!’)

he’s so excited about the murders wtf :’)

sherlock: “it’s christmas!” lol

aaand he’s gone

mrs. hudson said ‘cuppa’ that’s british slang for coffee (as seen in my own sherlock story) the more you know ;)

mrs hudson said ‘i’m not your housekeeper’ to sherlock and now john is that gonna be a running joke with her

oh hey lockie’s back

john: “i’ve seen too many deaths.” sherlock: “want to see some more?” john: “oh god, yes.” ...ok wasn’t expecting his ‘oh god’ to sound like that

i think the version in my story (’would you like to see a murder?’ ‘you mean a flock of crows or a gruesome death?’ ‘yes, we meet at the park every thursday- of course i mean a gruesome death!’) is better sorry sherlock :/

sherlock: “there’s finally something fun going on!” indeed there is! :D

sherlock: “the game, mrs. hudson. is on!!” and there’s the tagline for the series! (jk i don’t think it has one of those)

and off they go! (the theme music is really good btw)

why does sherlock’s voice sound a bit stuffed

john: “the police don’t consult amateurs!” BOI

sherlock said ‘mp3 player’ how very 2010 of you

sherlock’s deduction is cool :D (and a bit scary like how do you do these things)

john: “how can you possibly know about the drinking?’ as my holmes character once said, ‘detectives always know’ ;)

john: “that... was amazing.” indeed it was! :D

some chick just called sherlock ‘freak’ WOAH WOAH WOAH SISTER :o

aww sherlock called john a colleague how cute :)

woah anderson is a cranky perfectionist

why are they talking about deodorant

guy: “who is he?” sherlock: “he’s with me” johnlock shippers be like ;) ;)

yo are they in hazmat suits

credit cards how modern

of course kids found her

the lady’s in pink TITLE REFERENCE!! :D

i love how sherlock randomly says ‘shut up’

ooh sherlock’s thought process being shown is cool :D

as are the floating words!

guy: “got anything?” sherlock: “not much” lol :D

OP THERE BE RACHE!! :D (book reference!)

ooh cardiff that’s the cardiff giant

he wants john to examine the body because it’s fun how nice :)

the shade of pink is ‘alarming’ according to sherlock that’s because it’s so dark!

guy: “you’re just making this up!” boi sherlock doesn’t make anything up ;)

john: “that’s fantastic!” sherlock: “shut up” lol :D

sherlock clapped his hands together like maria in sound of music aww ♥

sherlock: “huston, we have a case!” nice one ;)

sherlock: “PIIINK!” panther!

is ‘rache’ really ‘rachel’ tho? ;)

great sherlock took off now john’s all on his own :/

jerk lady: “you’re not his friend. he doesn’t have friends.” he does now ;)

john: “i’m nobody.” no watson you’re... THE LAST SKYWALKER!!!

john and sherlock say ‘taxi!’ the same way awww :)

yo who’s calling john :o

john: “who’s this?” AN AD APPEARED JUST AFTER THAT WHAT TIMING!

is this guy moiarty or mycroft or whoever the villain’s name is in the holmesverse

he’s definitely a villain that voice is so scar!

the lady in the taxi knows john WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE

the car stopping sounds like tardis

the villain guy has a cane too YEP HE’S A BADDIEE!!!i

john: “you could just phone me... on my phone.” lol :D

john said the villain isn’t frightening BOi

villain: “since yesterday, you’ve moved in with him and now you’re solving crimes together. might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?” johnlock shippers be like :D!!!!!

also my watson moved in with holmes three days after they met so things are going super fast for the bbc lads i see! :)

villain: “he does love to be dramatic.” yeah he sure does!

the villain said ‘221′ as the actual number and it sounds weird

villain: “i worry about him constantly” is this sherlock’s bro?

this guy is creepy wtf :(

and he’s using an umbrella as a cane why

the villain and john held hands i bet people ship them

yep this is sherlock’s bro alright they both infodump!

SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS GUY’S NAME????

he says john misses the war and the ‘oh god yes’ makes perfect sense

yo why does john want to see the taxi lady more SHERLOCK IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF FRIENDSHIP PLZ ♥

yo sherlock has a nicotine patch NO SMOKING

sherlock: “breathing is boring”

he’s lying on the couch with his hands in prayer that’s so sherlock

john: “you brought me here to send a text?” the most 21st century question ever

sherlock about john seeing his enemy: “oh which one?” oh boy...

john: “who is he?” sherlock: “the most dangerous man i’ve ever met” AND HIS NAME IS....???????

sherlock in the text: “i must’ve blacked out...” wtf lockie

aww john called the dead lady ‘the pink lady’

sherlock just hopped up on the chair while holding onto it what a lad

i hope bennedict cumberbatch’s voice isn’t that deep and it’s only because of copyright it’s woah :o

john: “did i just text a murderer?” only in the holmesverse!

sherlock: “you could watch the telly...” OMG MY HOLMES CHARACTER SAID THAT EXACT THING!!! you go subconscious! :D

john: “you get off on this (solving cases)” plz don’t say it like that

wowza it’s so dark outside!

sherlock: “who passes unnoticed?” the cabbie!!

op here’s the diner scene from the sarah z’s tjlc vid!

waiter: “on the house for you and your date!” john: “i’m not his date!” johnlock shippers would like to disagree with you watson ;)

john: “you don’t have a girlfriend, then? do you have a boyfriend? which is fine by the way” OH COME ON

sherlock: “i’m married to my work and am flattered by your interest” OH COME ONNNNN

that lip licking john THAT LIP LICKING

oh boy the queerbaiting was strong with that scene

sherlock: “why a taxi?” cuz the cabbie did it boi!

see i remember things from this ep now!

WOAH SHERLOCK ALMOST GOT HIT BY A CAR WTF

sherlock and john going through town to get the cabbie with the street signs is something i easily remember from my first time watching. it’s so cool! :D

the music is great too!

sherlock: “this way! ...no, this way!” lol :D

and he almost gets hit by a car again! fun times with lockie :)

yo is the cabbie american

THAT WASN’T THE CABBIE MURDERER LOOLL!!!!!

sherlock pickpockets lestrade when he’s annoyed lol (that’s something my holmes would so do)

sherlock: “ready?” john: “ready when you are!” ♥

awww they’re laughing against the wall! :) ♥♥♥♥

imma be honest when i first saw that in gifs i thought it was a bed o///o

john forgot his cane and was able to run through london SEE SHERLOCK IS THE LIGHT IN HIS LIFE!!!

sherlock has said ‘shut up’ three times now lol :D

WHY IS EVERYONE AT THE FLAT

oh so rachel is a person! :o

onto part 2!

the first 10 seconds of part 1 are in the beginning how nice! :)

sherlock is ‘everyone’s favorite psychopath’

awww rachel was stillborn :(

of course the lady would think of her daughter! sherlock’s right!!

sherlock: “that was ages ago, why would she still be upset?” even after 14 years people can still be upset of a loved one’s death (just ask paul and addie) :(

mrs. hudson: “they’re making a mess!” oh mrs. hudson and her messes :)

sherlock: “SHUT UP, EVERYBODY, SHUT UP! DON’T MOVE. DON’T SPEAK, DON’T BREATHE!” gretchen from bob’s burgers: “GIVE HIM SOME ROOM!”

he’s so happy because the dead lady’s clever!! :D

smartphones, emails, online, gps... how 21st century!

mrs. hudson called sherlock ‘dear’ awww :)

sherlock: “who passes unnoticed wherever they go?” THE CABBIEEEEEE

CABBIE CABBIE CABBIE CABBIEEEE!!!!!!!

sherlock didn’t order the taxi THE CABBIE WANTS TO MURDER HIM AND THUS THE CABBIE MURDERED THEMMM!!!!!!!

SEE I REMEMBER THINGS FROM THIS EP!!!! :D

in my own holmes story the cabbie isn’t the killer IT HAS EVEN MORE OF AN EPIC TWIST!!! (although the cabbie twist is pretty epic too)

THE CABBIE WANTS TO TALK TO SHERLOCK AND KILL HIM OOHHHHHH

then the pills will come in

sherlock’s phone ring is old-fashioned awww :)

the others have given up but john won’t!

the cabbie has been on sherlock’s website IF ONLY I COULD TOO :(

sherlock knows all the streets of london coolio! :D

the cabbie knows of a ‘nice quiet spot for a murder’ while the villain guy said something of a quiet place hmm....

YO DON’T POINT THAT GUN AT SHERLOCK MR CAB MAN >:(

john’s gonna save sherlock!!! :D

sherlock’s in the pill room isn’t he

i remember this they sit down and sherlock has to choose the right pill

AND IT’S A RISK!

of course sherlock will choose the right one! :D

is sherlock’s ‘mortal enemy’ also the ‘fan’ that the cabbie speaks of?

cabbie: “this is... the move.” ;)

john in the taxi brings up an interesting question, do people in apartments not have cars or is it just a london thing?

they’re talking so much JUS TAKE THE PILLS!!!!

it’s good explanation, but that’s why i got out of sherlock in the first place- it’s goes on for so long in some places!

THEY TOOK THE PILLS!

and the cabbie died, his last word being the name of his beloved (just like the lady writing the name of her own before she died)...

sherlock: “what’s this blanket they keep putting this blanket on me-“ john: “it’s for shock.” sherlock: “i’m not in shock!” lol :D

sherlock: “i’m in shock, look i got a blanket!” double lol :D

wait does john not have his cane?? :o

john: “he wasn’t a very nice man.” yeah he wasn’t!!

awww they’re laughing about the cabbie :)

john: “you can’t giggle at a crime scene” ♥

moiarty is the bro!!!!

YEP HE IS!

♥

this was such an amazing first ep and i loved it even more than when i saw it in 2017! i’ll definitely be watching more (maybe in another livewatch wink wink). i guess you can say i’m now... johnlocked ;)

[everlarkficquestions]

Sunday Stumped Day 20

It’s another Sunday Stumped Day.

Sometimes we straight out get stumped.  So each week on Sunday we’ll post of a list of asks that we need your help on.

If you have an answer to any of these shoot us a message/ask/reply with the Post number and the fic number and we’ll add it and give you a shout out with our thanks. Any links you can provide will also be super helpful.

Thanks!

Post 1 , Post 2 , Post 3, Post 4, Post 5, Post 6, Post 7, Post 8, Post 9, Post 10, Post 11, Post 12, Post 13, Post 14, Post 15, Post 16, Post 17, Post 18  and Post 19 can be found here - and there are still fics we need your help with.

248.  everlarklucaya said to everlarkficquestions:

Okay so I'm looking for a fanfic that I don't remember the title of but it was like a growing back together one where Katniss and Peeta went to the beach in district 4 and someone tried to shoot Katniss and Peeta hit his head and then all of his memories came back?

249. virgosupremacy said to everlarkficquestions:

could you help me find a post-mj fic where katniss and peeta get together and she starts taking queen anne's lace or something herbal as a contraceptive?

250. ktanissevrdeen said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi hi hi are there any fics where katniss and peeta are still living in 12 when the bombing happens? Also, are there any fics where katniss and peeta are still regular citizens during the rebellion? Like they're not the ones that go into the games and start the rebellion but it still happens? Thanks!!!!!

POSSIBLY!

Hero of the Story by atetheredmind (s_e_irvine)

Thank you @joaquinablog!

The Grass is Always Greener by icbiwf

Thank you @gabzep​!

251.  everythingisprettygood said to everlarkficquestions:

Any where Peeta sees Katniss and Gale kiss?

FOUND!

The Lover and the Best Friend by writersblock700

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams!

252. slytherin-larrie said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I'm looking for a fix where Katniss is pregnant during Catching Fire/Mockingjay. I remember that when she arrived in district 13, the doctors there removed her baby for its protection or something? and they (possibly) lie to Katniss telling her the baby dies and she doesn't find out for awhile and the baby turns out to be alive and okay and after awhile she takes it to her compartment with her mum and prim and looks after her daughter?? I read it ages ago and can't find it :(

FOUND!

More Than Words by OfPearlsAndShoelaces

Thank you @geekymoviemom and @andthisisthewonder!

253.  sunsetsrmydreams said to everlarkficquestions:

I cannot remember the name of the fic where before they send Peeta and Katniss into the Quell, they put Peeta and some others in a victors program that implants them with mind control devices and Portia is in Peeta's head. He makes it to 13 and confesses to Katniss that sometimes he can't control himself.

FOUND!

Swingsets by lollercakes

Thank you @eggplant8 and @jennagill!

254.  thankyouthgproject said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I'm looking for a story where katniss has to decide if peeta should lose his leg or not after an accident. Once he's awake and doing physio he gets really angry at katniss and tells her she's useless and she runs away. Katniss also gets jealous with his relationship with the physio (Lavinia?). Pleaseeee help!

FOUND!

Two Wrongs by JLaLa

Thank you @smartalexy!

255.  everythingisprettygood said to everlarkficquestions:

Hello! Are there any where Gale comes back to District 12 after the war and wants Katniss to go to District 2 with him/his family? Thanks! Love this page

FOUND!

You Look So Good in Love by peetabreadgirl

Thank you @peetabreadgirl​!

256.  wheresoulsmeetbodies said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I am looking for a fic where Katniss and Peeta are dating in high school but then they break up right after graduation. They are at a graduation party and they sneak into the woods to be alone, but then they break up and Katniss runs away from him. Any ideas? Thank you!

FOUND!

Black and Blue by hutchhitched

Thank you @hutchhitched!

257.  fangirlingoverquotes said to everlarkficquestions:

Hey! Do you know some cute fics/oneshots in which Haymitch's really cute with toastbaby's and acts like their grandfather? Thanks!!!

FOUND!

The Grandmentor by silvercistern

Thank you @eggplant8!

258. thatgirlisahurricane said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! Do you know any fics based upon Grace and Tommy's storyline in the first season of "Peaky Blinders"? Thanks in advance.

259.  prettyshirleyann said to everlarkficquestions:

hey! your blog is so helpful and I was wondering if there are any fics wherein katniss and peeta are not together but have a baby or they've kinda seperated and are dividing their time because of their child. Thanks! <3

FOUND!

The Match and the Rock by HPfanonezillion

Thank you @booksrockmyface!

260.  mellarkkeverdeen said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I'm looking for a one shot where peeta is divorced and has a kid with someone else, he and katniss are together and katniss is pregnant with his child, they have a weekend alone and then delly/Madge drops off his child and katniss is upset?

FOUND!

Somewhere in the Middle by SassyEverlarking

Thank you @keytomykingdom!

261.  youmakemyheartpanic said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! First of all, I just love this page and it has helped me finding a lot of my favourite fanfics to date. I was looking for a fic I read on FanFiction.Net. It was set during Mockingjay, but the only thing I distinctively recall is that KP were watching kids from the medical ward as requested by Prim during the bombings to D13. Thanks!

FOUND!

Have Heart, My Dear by monroeslittle

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams!

262.  emmmmma25-blog said to everlarkficquestions:

any find involving the Jabberjay scene in CF? Like reversals where Peeta gets caught in the hour, or Katniss hears Peeta's screams??

FOUND!

By Your Side by geekymoviemom

Thank you @geekymoviemom​!

263.  liabelen10 said to everlarkficquestions:

Caste System! everlark, please. thnx

FOUND!

Know That Your Place Is With Me by titania522

Thank you @arabeth-thea!

264.  seafinnickeyes said to everlarkficquestions:

Hey hello. I don't know if you guys can help me with this, but i'm asking all same. Did you know any everlark fanfic with a great amount of gadge as well? It can be of any type, but preferably complete and set in Panem.

FOUND!

The Bride Swap by titania522

Thank you @titaniasfics​!

265.  jobanana7 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi guys I can't get hold of this drabble and I can't remember the title but, it has a gif on it and is k and p on vacation and k is going to tell p she's pregnant and she has a call with prim whose dating Rory and is babysitting the toast baby girl... And that's as much as I remembered, do you think you can help??? Thank you so much !!!

266.  jobanana7 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I was hoping you'd help me find this drabble of k and p on a vacation and k is going to tell p she's pregnant, and k calls prim and she's (prim) babysitting the toast baby girl and there's a gif of feet on a bed entwined together... As always thanks!!

267.  craftydiva0828 said to everlarkficquestions:

Looking for a fic where in the first chapter Katniss remarks about of course the "star crossed lovers" would end in front of an audience because that's how they started. The scene has all the remaining victors going their separate ways, including Peeta.

268.  winkrookie said to everlarkficquestions:

fics with young toastbaby boy?

FOUND!

The Many and Varied Adventures of Young Fletcher Mellark by Silvercistern

and

The Synchronicity Universe by Everlark_Pearl

Thank you @jennagill​!

269.  bellemelody-blog said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I was was reading story written by kismet4891 "Careless wishes". I wonder maybe it is possible to find something similar, with another reality or dream in story. When a hero can understand that everything is going differently not how it suppose to be. I just fall in love with this story!

270.  adarnalways said to everlarkficquestions:

Is there any everlark fic where katniss is more open with her feelings towards peeta and proves to everyone including gale that peeta is the one she loves proudly?

FOUND!

The Other Mockingjay by MockingJayFlyingFree

Thank you @jennagill!

271.  hellaeverlark said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi I am trying to remember a fic that I read where Peeta burns bread in his house so he stays with Katniss for a few days and then they go into his house again and kiss in the smoke. I was wondering if you knew of it?

272.  thankyouthgproject said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi I read a fic a while ago but can't remember the name of it. Katniss, prim and her mum move to this residence sorta place and K gets a lifeguard job and eventually meets Peeta. They end up becoming friends and enter a triathlon sorta thing and K has to teach P how to swim and he nearly dies?? TYSM!

FOUND!

Under the Setting Sun by janerey

Thank you @icbiwf​!

273.  addygal39 said to everlarkficquestions:

I'm trying to find the name of fic where Katniss lives with Haymitch(?) after the death of her parents. peeta sees her walking one day and takes her home in his carriage. They form a friendship, fall in love and decide to get married but he dissapears only to turn up a long while later after having been sent off to war. They see eachother by accident at a party/gathering and he explains that he didn't willingly leave her but was sent off. Thanks for any help you can provide :)

FOUND!

Peeta and I by Lulubee1234

Thank you @aynako808!

274.  devfame said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I remember a while back I read a fanfic where Katniss goes to district 7 (post-mockingjay). She visits Johanna and ends up spending a week or so with her. They bond, go hunting, Katniss sees a moose for the first time. I believe that Johanna got over her fear of water and now lives by a lake. She also leaves food on the doorsteps of some houses. Sorry if this information isn't much help I can only remember bits and bobs - For all I know it's been deleted. Thanks in advance :D

FOUND!

An Evergreen Forest -  bodylikeabattleaxe

Thank you @kdlovehg!

275.  adarnalways said to everlarkficquestions:

Hey do you have any fic where katniss gets to see how peeta gets tortured and It breaks her?

276. stickymooniverse said to everlarkficquestions:

I don't know the name of this fic or where to find it. Katniss and Peeta in college. Katniss was raised by her uncle Snow (I think). He was (was killed) and she inherited a lot of money, buys a fancy apartment. She uses drugs sporadically, goes to Peeta's family for Christmas. They date. Etc. I'm not crazy, right? Oh also Gale is her weed connection but has a crush. She's not into it

FOUND!

Lost and Wandering by Bemac

Thank you @icbiwf!

277.  hellaeverlark said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I am looking for a fanfiction I read a while ago about Katniss and Peeta growing back together after the war. The scene I remember most is that their first kiss was in Peeta's bedroom, which was filled with smoke because he burnt some bread. Hope you can find it! Thank you so much:))

278.  silent-movements said to everlarkficquestions:

Looking for a fic/drabble that was about a lot of the characters were in and that peeta was a knight? And katniss was probably an archer and they were at the last boss when peeta died because of using a potion too early and they all failed to clear the game? Thanks!

280. lysen5972 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi again, thanks for the help last week. i am now wondering about another fic. In this one there is a separate revolt in district 12 (started i think when they tried to send the peacekeepers that had started lives in 12 away) and there is somekind of trial where katniss and others are being prosecuted because they don't want to follow the new regime and district 13s new law. Any ideas which it could be? Thanks for the help

FOUND!

The Avalanche and Little Pebbles by Dyce 

Thank you @eggplant8 and @icbiwf!

281.  hellaeverlark said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I love your site, and I was wondering if you know any fics that take place during Catching Fire and go into more depth about Peeta's reaction to Katniss suggesting they get married. I have been looking for fics about this for ever and I wanted to ask if you knew some! Thanks a bunch:))

282.  adarnalways said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi.... First of all I want to let you know you are doing an amazing job.. So thank you and second I wanted to ask if you know any fics where peeta sparks the rebellion and snow gets angry with peeta, not katniss!

FOUND!

Either Way by bellissimaanima

Thank you @tsweetyumi!

283.  intensely-melodramatic said to everlarkficquestions:

Ok so I’m looking for an AU fic set in college and Katniss and peeta meet through mutual friends and at one point she spills coffee on him. Later in the story she sings in front of the group which I think includes Finnick and gale etc and peeta is super impressed. I’m sorry I know this is a bit random and all over the place

284.   intensely-melodramatic said to everlarkficquestions:

 I have another one, Peeta and katniss have a baby but she keeps the pregnancy from him and the baby Years later. Katniss gets kicked out along with her daughter from her mums home and moves in with peeta who is a teacher. Can you find this one?

Do any of these ring a bell? Let us know!

[shortqueershakespeare]

ALL QUESTIONS!! ALLLLL (except the one you said you were uncomfy answering ofc)

welcome to my daily essay procrastination (dw it is getting done I've just written like 1000 words and I need a break from literature type writing lol) 

1: Full name - Robin, not sharing the rest (like I said) 

2: Age - 21 

3: 3 Fears - Abandonment, clowns, sleep paralysis 

4: 3 things I love - Theatre, languages, my puppy 

5: 4 turns on - Being dominated, lip biting, gentle physical contact, increasing physical contact 

6: 4 turns off - I genuinely don't know rn can u tell its been a while since I got laid lol, so I guess, being a dick, using certain terms for body parts, 

7: My best friend - Char is prob my best friend!! we currently communicate exclusively through animal crossing post lol 

8: Sexual orientation - Right this is somewhat challenging still but I'm gonna go gay 

9: My best first date - Would you believe I've only really been on two? I can't remember the first one v well but I'd be inclined to say that because all that first love shit was great 

10: How tall am I - 5' 3" i think?? 

11: What do I miss - uni 

12: What time were I born - I actually don't know exactly but it was definitely the afternoon 

13: Favourite color - Baby blue 

14: Do I have a crush - Yup 

15: Favourite quote - "The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to." 

16: Favourite place - I've got a few, a corner in the orchard at Hom, the nook under my window in my room, the bench up on the hill where I walk the dog 

17: Favourite food - Stir fry 

18: Do I use sarcasm - I think I was fluent in sarcasm before I was in English tbh 

19: What am I listening to right now - Right technically I cheated bc I just skipped a couple songs, but Bad Habit by Ben Platt and the puppy's snores 

20: First thing I notice in new person - Smile or voice 

21: Shoe size - 4 i think 

 22: Eye color - blue 

23: Hair color - a literal rainbow 

24: Favourite style of clothing - uhhh does generally gay count?? 

25: Ever done a prank call? - nope 

27: Meaning behind my URL - one of my friends once called me the shakespeare of nicknames as my other friend called my such a slytherin so i mashed them up 

28: Favourite movie - Moana atm, non animated either Let It Snow or Pitch Perfect 

29: Favourite song - Obv this changes a lot but the last few days, Wonderland by Taylor Swift 

30: Favourite band - Stornoway 

31: How I feel right now - Too damn warm and a lil sleepy 

32: Someone I love - my sister 

33: My current relationship status - furiously single 

34: My relationship with my parents - good 

35: Favourite holiday - when my friend and i went to austria at the end of year 13 

36: Tattoos and piercing i have - zero 

37: Tattoos and piercing i want - I want a few transition tattoos, a dodie lyric, something in russian, something watercolour 

38: The reason I joined Tumblr - Originally because it was 2013 and my friends and I were v much the typical tumblr demographic, this one to vent feelings about some shitty situations 

39: Do I and my last ex hate each other? - Pretty sure they both hate me, I don't hate them, but I hate how things worked out 

40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? - Sometimes yeah 

41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? - Nope 

42: When did I last hold hands? - Probably when I last went clubbing? 

43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? - Depends, I have to put T on, once i'm actually out of bed probably 15 minutes 

44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days? - nope 

45: Where am I right now? - on my sofa in my kitchen 

46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? - depends where i am, home city it'd be katherine, clubbing in cam, jules probably or char, drinking just in cam, umme or porters 

47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? - reasonable 

48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad? - usually mostly with mum, currently exclusively with dad because quarantine 

49: Am I excited for anything? - getting this damn essay done and sleeping 

50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? - yep 

51: How often do I wear a fake smile? - not that often i don't think, but i am very good at hiding my emotions if i decide to 

52: When was the last time I hugged someone? - like 6 hours ago? 

53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? - not at all unexpected tbh 

54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not? - not at the moment, i think i've managed to stop trusting the person who would've fit this category 

55: What is something I disliked about today? - my sister got super stressed and cried and i just wanted to make everything okay 

56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? - ben platt 

57: What do I think about most? - rn animal crossing or work 

58: What’s my strangest talent? - i don't think i have one 

59: Do I have any strange phobias? - nope 

60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? - both, i love taking photos and i love having photos of me at important times 

61: What was the last lie I told? - god probably something dumb like no i absolutely did not just steal your cup of tea 

62: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? video chatting 

63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? - no, yes 

64: Do I believe in magic? - no 

65: Do I believe in luck? - yes 

66: What’s the weather like right now? - decent I think?? it's like 2 am so idk 

67: What was the last book I’ve read? - What Is to Be Done? by Chernyshevsky 

68: Do I like the smell of gasoline? - Fuck no 

69: Do I have any nicknames? - Bob, Bobbin, Robs, Rob, Stink, Little'un 

70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? - that would probably be me getting a fish hook stuck in my thumb lollll 

71: Do I spend money or save it? - both 

72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue? - the fact that this said a tongue and not my tongue is... unsettling.. but yes 

73: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me? - yes 

74: Favourite animal? - elephant 

75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM? - writing the essay lol 

76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is? - morningstar i watch too much lucifer lol 

77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? - rain by ben platt 

78: How can you win my heart? - hug me when i'm sad, send me things that make you think of me 

79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? - he was there for me 

80: What is my favorite word? - mousse 

81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr - okay so i have five blogs and am so tempted to just list those but sewing-and-showtunes, aeternumregina, oneoveroneisone, ballym, xx-thedarklord-xx 

82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? - STAY THE FUCK INDOORS 

83: Do I have any relatives in jail? - no 

84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? - shapeshifting 

85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? - do i like myself 

86: What is my current desktop picture? - hamilton and laurens lol 8

7: Had sex? - yes

88: Bought condoms? - yes 

89: Gotten pregnant? - no 

90: Failed a class? - yes 

91: Kissed a boy? - yes 

92: Kissed a girl? - yes 

93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? - yes 

94: Had job? - yes 

95: Left the house without my wallet? - yes 

96: Bullied someone on the internet? - no 

97: Had sex in public? - yes 

98: Played on a sports team? - yes 

99: Smoked weed? - yes 

100: Did drugs? - no 

101: Smoked cigarettes? - yes 

102: Drank alcohol? - yes 

103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan? - no 

104: Been overweight? - no 

105: Been underweight? - no 

 106: Been to a wedding? - no 

107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? - yes 

108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight? - yes 

109: Been outside my home country? - yes 

110: Gotten my heart broken? - yes 

111: Been to a professional sports game? - no 

112: Broken a bone? - no 

113: Cut myself? - yes 

114: Been to prom? - no 

115: Been in airplane? - yes 

116: Fly by helicopter? - no 

117: What concerts have I been to? - dodie, stornoway, show of hands 

118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex? - yes 

119: Learned another language? - yes 

120: Wore make up? - yes 

121: Lost my virginity before I was 18? - yes 

122: Had oral sex? - yes 

123: Dyed my hair? - yes 

124: Voted in a presidential election? - i'm british 

125: Rode in an ambulance? - yes 

126: Had a surgery? - not unless my fish hook extraction counts 

127: Met someone famous? - yes 

128: Stalked someone on a social network? - yes 

129: Peed outside? - yes 

130: Been fishing? - FISH HOOK YES I HAVE I NEVER WILL AGAIN 

131: Helped with charity? - yes 

132: Been rejected by a crush? - yes 

133: Broken a mirror? - no 

134: What do I want for birthday? - a boyfriend lol, or tbh for quarantine to be over 

135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names? - oh lord who knows, i like the name scottie and archie for girls 

136: Was I named after anyone? - my middle name is after my gran 

137: Do I like my handwriting? - ehhhh 

138: What was my favourite toy as a child? - my teddy bear 

139: Favourite Tv Show? - Crazy Ex Girlfriend 

140: Where do I want to live when older? - Berlin, Cambridge or London 

141: Play any musical instrument? - used to play the violin v poorly 

142: One of my scars, how did I get it? - fish hook or pets 

143: Favourite pizza topping? - pepperoni 

144: Am I afraid of the dark? - no 

145: Am I afraid of heights? - sort of 

146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? - don't think so 

147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end? - yes 

148: What I’m really bad at - currently? being motivated 

149: What my greatest achievements are - getting into my uni, finally finding an antidepressant that works, coming out 

150: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me - oh yikes it's way too late at night to open that can of worms 

151: What I’d do if I won in a lottery - pay for my damn top surgery 

152: What do I like about myself - I'm empathetic 

153: My closest Tumblr friend - @oneoveroneisone 

154: Something I fantasise about - going to pride abroad 

155: Any question you’d like? - I'm gonna pass this to the anons, ask me questions?

[dhofberg]

Where does the money go? 11/26/2027

If you have been following the blog, you have already heard some of the stories of the refugees we meet in the clinic. And a bit about the meetings I have been to for Interagency Communication. So by now you probably get it that the flow of money from the EU to the Greek government for the shelter and protection of refugees ( I have heard the number 400 million Euros), is not a stream that is easy for volunteers or refugees or most NGOs to follow.

There are Greek agencies that are set up to help refugees get registered, have health assessments, set dates for asylum interviews. But they ate woefully understaffed. The office in Lesvos that awards asylum seekers an AMKA ( like a social security number), is open a few hours of the day and can process about ten applications a day. There are between 70-150 new arrivals on Lesvos a day, so we are not even counting arrivals to other places in Greece. The medical clinic run by ERCI in Moria can see about 40 patients a day, and if you don’t yet have registration papers, you might have to wait weeks to be seen in a clinic, unless you are deemed an emergency case. Pretty much everyone who has just been through the traumas of fleeing a war torn country, paying smugglers to put them on a perilous journey across the sea, feel that they have some urgent needs. And most of them have some unrealistic expectations about what life will be like when they reach Europe.

Yesterday we finally went back to Moria camp where we had worked in January 2016. You might remember that that was immediately before the transition camp became a detention center because of the Shengen rules applied to asylum seekers when the borders in Europe were closed. We had been told we would never get in there, they no longer allow small NGOs to walk in, so I devised a plan to get in. Because I have been communicating with a dental relief program from U.K. and also a Palestinian dentist at One Happy Family to develop a small dental education program for the children at OHF, I thought she might be able to get me in to the camp the week that her team was coming to Moria to provide emergency dental care there (toothache=extraction).

It turns out the way we got in, was by walking straight in he gate, right in front of three or four Greek policeman, without hesitation, so basically got in on chutzpah. They didn’t stop Michael either who was walking right behind me, so I suppose we looked like we knew what we were doing?

One doesn’t take photographs in the camp as it can endanger refugees, and also probably the reputation of the Greek police and government. It was shocking to see that this place we felt was grim in 2016, was now holding more than three times the number of people ( between 6-7,000), built up with more ISO boxes ( container housing would be a stretch, especially compared with the ones pictured last year in Bremen), small family tents lining every pathway. Some of the areas were orderly and relatively picked up. But many were on a muddy gravely hillside, hopelessly studded with the refuse of living. The cyclone fencing is where clothes drying happens, of that I did take a few pictures.

We made our way through people living their lives in tents, some smiling kids, women carrying basins of water from the bathrooms to wash clothes. We have heard that the water only runs for certain hours, and the shower is usually cold. I can’t think why this is, there is a lot of water on this island. After a quick walk around the camp, we made our way up to the “fourth level”, where the medical clinic has an office. We were able to speak with one of the volunteers there who explained their triage and appointment process. Communication between the health care agencies is really important. We need to know, in Doc Mobiles clinic for instance, if we can refer a patient to a specialist or not. If Doc Mobile is here long enough, and makes the right connections, they might be recognized enough for KEELPNO to accept their referrals. They do accept some from ERCI, so at present, we might refer someone back to the ERCI Moria clinic to be seen and then referred to KEELPNO, who might then be able to do the needed referral. Can you imagine in an American or British health care system, you go to a doctor and they say, yeah you have terrible psoriasis, I’llrefer you to another clinic, where you might have to wait two months to get in, and then they see you and say, yeah, true you have REALLY bad psoriasis, and we will refer you to KEELPNO and they might give you an appointment with the specialist in a few more months.

I use this example, because the fellow I saw with really bad psoriasis, had arrived here a few weeks ago. But he had no medication, and though he had been seen at Moria, they gave home some ineffective low potency steroid creams, which did nothing, and he was near to be kicked out of his tent because his tent mates ( none of them his family or friends, men traveling alone are often forced to share a four person tent with men they don’t know), thought he was contagious.

Doc Mobile has limited funds, but we are seeing 40-50 patients a day and there are times when we can make something work out for a patient like this man. We bought him some of the medication he needs, and on Monday when the pharmacy opens I am hoping to find him the rest. We are trying to find contacts in Kara Tepe ( the camp for more vulnerable persons), and see if there is any way to facilitate his transfer. He needs to be able to bathe his skin regularly to keep it from becoming dangerously infected. I don’t know if we will be successful in getting him relocated, but I know he will get some help from us, and the day after I first saw him he came back to One Happy Family community center and gave me the warmest smile and thanks. There is a gesture that these people use to thank you, the hand over the heart, that is unmistakable in its meaning. And that afternoon I saw him hanging around the construction of the new greenhouse at the center, and by the end of the day he was helping the crew.

One Happy Family Community Center is run and built by and for refugees with the help of Swisscross, Israid, The Hope Project and others. Yesterday they allowed some journalists in on a Saturday afternoon to do some filming and interviewing. There was a photographer from Hamburg, Where Doc Mobile hopes to do some fundraising. I met for the first time in person, Kai Wittstock, the man who conceived and is the main director of Doc Mobile. A gentle, middle aged German guy, with no medical background ( the story of how he started docmobile included in an earlier entry),he successfully persuaded me to stay and see patients on a Saturday when I had planned to stay home to avoid the film crew. The journalist-videographer also put me at my ease when she assured me no patients would be filmed unless they agreed to be and had this explained to them through a translator. I was also interviewed by a journalist from Chicago, I have no idea what paper he works for. He said he’d send me an email letting me know what he wrote, but so far I haven’t heard from him. It will be great if this results in money for Doc Mobile, One Happy Family, Israid.

For my friends and community who have donated money for refugees, this is where it has gone so far. Doc Mobile for medicines I bought in US at Costco and brought with me . Wish I had brought more Prenatal vitamins, melatonin, throat lozenges, things that make people feel cared for when they don’t really need prescriptions. Humans For Humanity for their work bridging the gaps in feeding and clothing new arrivals before they are registered asylum seekers and for being a happy pleasant place for refugees to come and help. To the independent carpenter gang of three who built the Hope Project’s medical clinic at OHF , self funded and now on their way to Serbia to do more ad hoc construction. As more money has come in from home, by Bob’s report, I will also make some donations to OHF especially it applies to the school and dental education, and perhaps to Bashira for contraceptive information. I am honored that I was trusted with these funds, and I feel certain it will all be put to the best use for the benefit of the refugees. ( Okay, the carpenters might use it to fill their truck with petrol to get to Serbia, and maybe a few beers, but that money came out of my wallet anyway).

So that’s where your money goes, wish I could be more clear about where the 400 million Euros goes. Hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving weekend and giving thanks for the roof over your head, a warm bed, a hot shower, and your loved ones close by.