#a world where george visited and that's when they first met in person

[pistachiotalenti]

with all the knowledge we have now of dnf's relationship can you imagine the alternate timeline in which they actually went through with marriage for sneaky immigration purposes. can you imagine the frog boiling of it all. the frog boiling !!!!!

[godinvent]

So I saw this post about how in the books, Dracula is actually an old man and I always imagined Dracula looked like older Christopher Lee, who played him while he was a kid. While looking him up I accidentally discovered that Christopher Lee was the coolest person in the universe and there is a non-zero chance he was actually Dracula in real life

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (May 27th 1922 - June 7th 2015), Sir because he was knighted in 2009 for his charity and his contributions to cinema

So first of all, I saw that he actually knew 8 LANGUAGES (English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian and Greek) and was also a staggering 6 feet 5 inches in height. Born in Belgravia in London, one of the most Dracula sounding places I’ve ever heard of, here’s some insane facts about him

•His father, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, fought in the Boer War and World War 1

•His mother, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano) was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, Oswald Birley, and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Sheridan

•Lee's maternal great-grandfather, Jerome Carandini, the Marquis of Sarzano, was an Italian political refugee

•Jerome’s wife was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess), meaning that Lee is also related to famous opera singer Rosina Palmer

•His parents would divorce when he was four and his mother would marry Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, banker and uncle of Ian Fleming, making the author of the James Bond books Lee’s step cousin. Fleming would then offer him two roles as the antagonist in the film adaptations of his books, though he was only able to land the antagonist role in The Man With the Golden Gun. It’s believed his role in the film is significantly better and more complex than his book counterpart, played as “a dark side of Bond”

•His family would move and they lived next door to famous silent film actor Eric Maturin

•One night, before he was even 9 years old, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, THE ASSASSINS OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN, WHOM LEE WOULD GO ON TO PLAY MANY YEARS LATER

•Lee applied for a scholarship to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M.R. James, who is considered one of the best English language ghost story writers in history and who widely influenced modern horror

•He only missed by King’s Scholar by one place by being bad at math, one of the only flaws God gave him

•Due to lack of working opportunities, Lee was sent to the French Riviera and stayed with his sister and her friends while she was on holiday, and on the way there he stopped briefly in Paris with journalist Webb Miller, a friend of his step father. Webb Miller was an American journalist and war correspondent and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the execution of the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, also known as BLUEBEARD. He also helped turn world opinion against British colonial rule of India

•While staying with Miller he witnessed Eugen Weidmann’s execution by guillotine, the last public execution ever performed in France

•Arriving in Menton, Lee stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families

•When World War 2 began, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish Army against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, and a year later, Lee would join the Home Guard. After his father died, he would join the Royal Air Force and was an intelligence officer and leading aircraft man and would later retire as a flight lieutenant in 1946

•While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted only three days later

•After nearly dying in an assault on Monte Cassino, Lee was able to visit Rome where he met his mother’s cousin Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian Resistance Movement. Nicolò would later go on to be the Italian Ambassador to Britain. Nicolò was actually the one to convince Lee to become an actor in the first place

•Oh yeah Christopher Lee was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects where he was tasked with HELPING TRACK DOWN NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

•Lee’s stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps

•He was actually told he was too tall to be an actor, though that would honestly help him considering one of his first roles was as The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein

•He was cast in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N (1951) as a Spanish captain due to not only his fluency in Spanish but also he knew how to fence!

•Lee’s portrayal of Dracula had a crucial aspect of it which Bela Lugosi’s didn’t have: sexuality, a prime aspect of the original novels.

•While being trapped into playing Dracula under Hammer Film Productions, Lee actually hated the script so much that he would try his best to sneak actual lines from the original novel into the script

•Ironically, he was rejected from playing in The Longest Day because “he didn’t look like a military man”

•Christopher Lee was friends with author Dennis Wheatley, who “was responsible for bringing the occult into him”. He would go on to play in two film adaptations of his novels

•His biggest regret in his career is not taking the role of Sam Loomis from Halloween when offered to him

•Christopher Lee was the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings movies to have actually met J.R.R Tolkien

•When playing Count Dooku, he actually did most of the swordsmanship himself

•Christopher Lee was the second oldest living performer to enter the Billboard Top 100 charts with the song “Jingle Hell” at 91 years old. After media attention, he would get No. 18, and Lee became the oldest person to ever hit the Billboard Top 20 chart

I really am leaving some stuff out here and I may go on

[1waveshortofashipwreck]

hi!!! 🩷 i've been a lurker for a little while but i LOVEEE your writing and when i saw you were doing ship requests i just had to send in an ask. if ship requests are closed though, totally feel free to ignore this hehe

i'm a female (she/her), my charm point is probably my thicker eyebrows and my personal/dress style is androgynous but leaning a little towards masculine. my myers-briggs is ISTP, i'm a bit of a realist but i love making people laugh and i'm quite laidback. for weaknesses, i can be stubborn at times and get a little too defensive. but in terms of personal strengths, i'm crafty, loyal, the dad friend, and a tough egg to crack. i like living slow, so a few of my hobbies include art, lounging around, and visiting new places :)

my love language is probably physical touch first and words of affirmation second. i'm not picky about looks, but i'd like someone reliable, someone who would be there through thick and thin. they'd probably also be as laid back as i am...i wouldn't mind someone who puts me on a pedestal gomez addams style hehehe. i'm fine with any of the boys, but a few of my faves from bob include bull, toye, luz, and malarkey!

thank you so much for opening up ur requests and i cant wait to read what you write next!!! 🩷🩷🩷

AAAAAA thank you so much for the kind words anon!! I’m sorry this took so long lmao 😅 Thank you for requesting and hope you're having a great day!!

I ship you with…

George Luz! What would we do without George Luz!

A song from my liked songs that reminds me of y’all - A Kind of Magic by Queen

How you met

Ok so I picture you being an NCO in Luz’s platoon

Very much have the respect of your men and they would follow you off a cliff if that’s where you were going

In Taccoa with Luz first saw you he was just

In absolute awe

The way you handled Sobel’s bullshit while keeping up the morale of your men just… He was in love with you from day 1 but he never acknowledges it, he just thinks he really admires you

Also he loved having someone else to joke with and banter, he’d never admit it but in places like Eindhoven and Bastogne Luz felt a weight lifted off his shoulders, like, he wasn’t the only one trying to make the others laugh to help them through it

So y’all get to the Eagle’s Nest and you and George are sharing a bottle of wine on a couch just vibing and having a lovely time

And then quietly Luz asks “what do you think you’ll do when we get home?”

Then you realize that you and George aren’t gonna be together every day forever

“I’m honestly not sure George, what about you?”

“Well I’m probably gonna go back to Rhode Island, but I’d love to bring a certain someone back with me…”

“...you mean that?”

“Of course I do.”

This whole time your voices are getting quieter and y’all are leaning closer to each other until finally your lips touch and holy moly both of y’all are on tOP OF THE WORLD

How he knew he loves you

Ok so I know he said he’s in love with you from day 1 but goofy boy Has No Idea

Sure he realizes he has a crush on you at the Eagle’s Nest but he still has a ways to go lol

So you two are in your apartment on a lazy saturday just relaxing and doing your own things

You’re doing some drawing on the couch and you don’t see Luz just PLOP and glue himself to you

The two of you start laughing and you try (not really) to push him off but you both wind up laying on the couch him spooning you close and tight and you both just feel so happy and safe

And Luz just realizes… this is where he wants to be

Not necessarily on the couch (even though y’all’s couch is mega comfy) but just goofing around with you and snuggling you and talking about everything under the sun

So he turns you around in his arms and looks into your eyes and

“You’re my best friend, I’m in love with you”

And in that moment everything is just Perfect

A conflict and how y’all resolve it

So both of y’all have had hard times at work recently

Nothing too awful, just a bunch of little things and they’ve been piling up for both of y’all

So Luz just got home and went to the kitchen to get you and him a couple glasses of water

And you just hear a glass break followed by a “shit!”

You go into the kitchen and see George trying to sweep up all the glass with a hand broom and dust pan

You crouch down to help him but inadvertently let an aggravated sigh slip past your lips

“I didn’t do this on purpose y’know…” George mutters to you

“I never said you did?”

The two of you start bickering and it grows into something that has you both yelling at each other over you don’t even know what

You go to grumpily put the broken glass in the trash but accidentally get a small cut on your hand in the process

Of course now it’s your turn to shout “shit!” and you make your way over to the sink

George just grows quiet and follows you

He gently takes your hand away from the cut and wordlessly starts cleaning and bandaging the cut for you

“I’m really sorry about all that, work has just been shit this week, every day it feels like there’s something new going on,” his voice is almost a whisper, but you can still detect the sadness and regret

“I’m sorry too… work hasn’t been great for me either…”

You both just quietly vent what’s been going on at your jobs and it ends with Luz engulfing you in one of his trademark Hugs

“I love you so much doll,” he says before placing a gentle kiss on your forehead

The two of you spend the rest of the night just holding each other and watching a funny movie in peace

Your Happily Ever After

Y’all are just the epitome of being with your best friend

You’re always doing things together and it becomes so silly and SO CUTE

It could be anything from being on a fancy dinner date and starting a food fight to playing pranks on each other at home

Like even grocery shopping y’all will just… turn it into this hilarious, wholesome chaos that only comes from being soulmates with someone on your wavelength

Also you two ALWAYS go out together, like, all your friends know they’re getting both of you or neither of you and it’s adorable

Like, everything y’all do with each other is just so easy (heheheheh)

Even when you have the worst days you’re able to fall into each other’s arms and it’s just a breath of fresh air

A silly headcanon about your relationship

Ok so

Y’all talk on the phone to your Easy Boys all the time

But on more than one occasion they’ve mixed up y’all’s voices

Like you’ll pick up the phone and Malarkey will just “Hey George!” without missing a beat

So now y’all have made it into a game

Whenever one of you picks up the phone and it’s an old Easy Buddy you both purposefully try to imitate each other and both of you just get an absolute kick out of it

Perconte has been the only one so far to see through it but everyone else is totally clueless

It backfired a little when you were on the phone and Guarnere went “so how’s engagement ring shopping going?” but that’s another topic for another day

Aaaaa I hope you like it Anon!! Please don't be afraid to message me telling me you saw this lol, I know the feeling of submitting an anon ask and then forgetting about it 🤣 Thank you again for requesting love!! ✨

[thephantomcasebook]

It's 6AM in the Morning and all I can think about is Mary and Matthew as grandparents.

There's a scene in the story I'm developing that takes place in the early 1950's where George arrives at dawn after a terrible and horrifying case which he hunts down a psychotic former Nazi surgeon turned serial killer. George's face is all bloody and cut up from the fight and he's got a really bad shiner. The guy is absolutely wrecked after seeing the absolute worst of humanity and the horror's of the war and concentration camps visited upon a rural English county.

He trudges into Mary and Matthew's room and he finds his twin son and daughter (Ronin and Romana) sleeping in between Mary and Matthew. Matthew has an arm around Romana cause Matthew discovered early that he is a girl grandpa. Mary is snuggled closely with Ronin, because, she and George didn't get along when he was a boy and have had a toxic relationship his entire life and she wants to make up for it by being as close as she can with his son.

George just thinks about how prim and proper Mary used to be, how insufferably fastidious and cold she was when he was a child, habitually unmaternal . But now that Matthew returned from the dead right before the war, and after everything that happened to them during the war, Mary's like a new person - a better person.

That no one would've thought that there was a time that the cold and robotic Lady Mary Crawley that idolized Lady Violet to the detriment of her relationship with her own children, would be found with her young grandchildren sleeping with her in her bed with such contentment.

And Matthew, who never got to see George as a child or grow up and only met his son when he was young man of eighteen, finally gets to be important to a baby, a small child. That he gets to walk into a room and see two little faces light up and love him unconditionally as they run to him. A little girl with his eyes and a young boy that's the spitting image of Mary with black waving curls and cerulean eyes. He gets to be a grandfather - which is like being a father with all the perks and none of the disciplining.

Matthew and Mary get that happy ending - Mary running the house and Matthew teaching agricultural business at the local college in Ripon. They walk their grandchildren to the town school every morning. Matthew comes home at luncheon for food and sex with Mary, and then he comes home in the afternoon for tea with the grandchildren. And they go to bed with smiles every night, cause they've known 18 years of what it is to be without one another, they've lived through two World Wars - the second worse than the first - and everyday that they awaken in each other's arms is a gift they won't waste again.

[reyphorian-art]

Coming Out

hey so fun fact i'm also getting back into writing so y'all get snippets of what i'm working on now

Turning away quickly, wanting to give him a little bit of privacy, Rey started to pull their shirt up, then hesitated. They hadn't come out to anyone in Pelican Town or East Scarp yet, outside of Lewis who had known about them since they were a child. Granny Evelyn and George were old and Rey wasn't sure if they even remembered them from the few times they'd visited their grandpa with family, or even put it together that Rey was the same child they met. They had no idea how Sterling or Mia or anyone else would react but… neither of them seemed like the kind of people to reject or make fun of him for who he is. Won't know unless I try it. He told himself, taking a deep breath and pulling the shirt off the rest of the way.

After peeling off the rest of his sopping wet clothes and laying them over a branch, he sat down next to Sterling in the sun on a large rock beside the stream. Rey pulled their knees up to their chest and hugged them loosely, lost in feeling anxious and wondering if Sterling would notice the scars or say anything.

"Hey farmer, you doing okay?" Rey looked up at hearing Sterling’s voice, seeing mild concern in his expression.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. I'm okay," they replied.

"You sure? You’ve been kinda quiet."

"Uh… Just some stuff on my mind I guess." Rey wasn't sure how to say it, telling him outright, 'I'm trans,' felt too strong and straightforward. There was never an easy way to bring it up any of the times they had done so before but at least they could decide when they wanted to come out to someone. This time it was completely unplanned and they were running every possibility through their mind, hoping to find the best way to bring it up.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" he asked. “It’s okay if you don’t.”

"Well, I uh. I guess I'm feeling a little bit self-conscious right now," They started to say, looking across the creek to avoid eye contact. "Nobody else knows about it but Lewis, and that's because he knew about me as a kid from my grandpa. He figured it out after I got in contact with him about moving here and realized I was the same grandkid he'd been told about all those years ago."

They paused, taking a deep breath, "I dunno if you figured it out already or not but um. I'm trans. I grew up raised as a girl and one day I realized I never really felt like one and that the self-image issues I had weren't just the "normal" ones everyone around me said girls going through puberty get. Not even being a tomboy felt right like they said it would. So I got my name and gender changed, had top surgery, and I take hormones to feel like my body and my identity finally belongs to me."

Things were quiet for a moment before Sterling spoke up, "I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You're being you. Sometimes I wish I could have half the guts you do about some of the things that go on in my own life." He laughed, then continued, "It means a lot to be the first person here that you've told."

"You don't see me any different from before, right?"

"Nah, you're still the cute farmer boy that always brings me the best field snacks in the world whenever he pops by Pierre's. Nothing's gonna change that, and I doubt for a second that Mia's gonna feel any different when she gets back with those dry clothes," He grinned. Rey blushed at the compliment and looked away but felt themself relaxing enough to stretch their legs out and lean back against their hands resting on the rock.

“Hey, Sterling,” Rey paused for a moment, “Please don’t tell anyone else about this and if anyone asks please don’t answer. Part of why I haven’t told anyone is because I wanted to know what it’s like to be in a place where nobody knows who I am or who I used to be, only the me that’s now. I don’t want people to see me for something that I’m not.”

"Hey, no worries, I get it. I promise I won't tell anyone else," Sterling smiled at him.

[covenofwives]

Hi Coven! I’ve been following your blog for. A while. Hello. Llama and I were chatting about your XD vs canon!XD and came up with a pretty interesting idea? And I need to introduce myself somehow so I guess I’m telling you about it now.

So, as per the ask I sent a few days ago (yes that was me lol) coven! and canon!XD are VERY different. And something interesting about how canon!XD acts is that. He’s not really HUMAN — he doesn’t really react like one at ALL. Where your XD is a fully fleshed out character (who I love very much) canon!XD is the one character in the whole series that I might actually pin down as Pure Evil. He has his moments, sure, but a lot of the time it almost feels like a mimicry of life instead of an actual example of it. Not to mention his whole thing about literally feeding off of misery and pain, to the point where he’s created this whole Limbo space to act as his digestive system. For context, there’s this person I follow on Dreblr (the-final-sif, she’s incredible, highly recommend) who often talks about “viruses” as they would exist in a world made entirely of code. And it kind of got me thinking: what if canon!XD was a virus?

Consider: Dream and coven!DreamXD have a falling out of some sort like you’ve indicated before, something about Dream pushing XD away as he grows up and then feeling rejected when XD reluctantly isn’t as affectionate with him anymore. Point is they don’t talk so often nowadays: XD is off doing other things, and Dream is now making his very first server and he’s so EXCITED :3 Because this is going to be a Happy Place for him and his One Big Happy Family :33 And hey, if he does a good job then maybe XD’ll come back someday — who knows??

And then a virus somehow latches onto the world’s code.

As the Admin, Dream is kind of…connected to the world. And in most circumstances he’d probably be able to detect the virus and get rid of it immediately. But, as luck would have had it, this is a virus that is INCREDIBLY advanced — advanced enough to be able to avoid detection. And it does this by — basically feeding off of Dream’s memories, taking his memories of coven!XD and becoming a caricature of how he remembers his older brother. And it tampers with those memories in the process, making them fuzzy and hard to recall, so Dream can’t see the difference.

And then, with a body stolen from Dream’s memories of coven!XD, the virus becomes canon!XD and starts feeding off of the server like a parasite.

It creates the Three Lives system, and instills it in the memories of the server members. It creates Limbo as a place where it can eat off of the players’ codes. And it does all of this while remaining near-invisible to those within the server’s borders. Dream can’t detect it, and can’t even really remember his brother much anymore — and the memories he still does have are caricatures of who coven!XD actually was. Some of the other players, those who’ve met coven!XD before, they can tell that something’s off — George, mainly — but it’s. Well. Who’d suspect something like this? It would mean suspecting that reality itself is bending in around them.

Bonus: canon!XD’s existence is feeding off of Dream a LOT. At first it’s barely noticeable, but as the plot progresses and he becomes more and more unstable the parasite gets a firmer grip, and by the time someone finally notices he’s kind of. Mentally destroyed. Even moreso than in canon, somehow. Maybe his motor functions have begun to give out or something, I dunno.

Bonus x2: coven!XD comes to visit after a while and is horrified at 1) the state of his little brother, 2) the parasitic bundle of code that has ruined the server his baby brother was so excited to make for him and his friends and 3) that…is THIS really how his little brother sees him?

Soup. Soup...soup...first off. I am honoured. I see the stuff you and Llama have created and I am just so blown away by the talent of you both. Now to find out you know of me and my blog AND you have sent me an ask is amazing. I am just flooded with feelings right now. You are like this to me 😎 I forever see you as a cool, sunglasses wearing anon who is just so much cooler than me.

pls, take my feelings under this cut

Virus XD is such an amazingly dope concept I love it so fking much. Not only does it beautifully tie in with canon!XD but it's such an amazing character design because XD does, in canon, sort of act like a virus. Messing up peoples lives and taking them to feed. That's actually an incredible idea.

And then XD morphing and pretending to be coven!XD 😭 omg omg using Dream's own feelings towards his brother so the creature morphs into that. An aloof, uncaring, maybe downright mean version of coven!XD and Dream just can't tell the difference from the corruption. I'm so imagining a scene between Dream and canon!XD arguing, and XD is loving it. He's loving the misery off Dream (and maybe with the more intense negative feelings from Dream it gets canon!XD stronger like there's more to feed on) and Dream is so enraged but sad because he's saying "Why are you like this?? You were never like this!" and canon!XD can just answer "Wasn't I?" and Dream can't deny it because his memories are already messed up beyond repair but he remembers some good feelings from XD. He remembers feeling safe and happy with XD but he has no memories of it actually happening. Which just confuses and frustrates Dream more.

AND I LOVE how it feeds of Dream makes dream more unstable. Mentally. Physically. EVERYTHING. Which I think fits perfectly to dream's predicament and plans. His mind is being messed with and he's mentally all over the place, so he acts out negatively to those around him. Which in turn makes everyone react hostile to Dream, which makes Dream act hostile to them in return again, giving virus!XD more to feed off of. A cycle the virus is deliberately making to grow stronger. Maybe it's full power can only be taken when Dream is so mentally and physically drained. Maybe (say after the prison break) Dream is just so unused to his own body he cannot move for long. Like he's forever with pins and needles all over his body, it all doesn't feel right.

AND THEN coven!XD coming back and seeing whats happened. I just it kills me to imagine him finding Dream first, so limp and weak in his body but when coven!XD goes to help, Dream is crying and telling him to get away and XD is just "???" so confused. Meeting the virus!XD 😭omg cause the first thing he'd probably think of is "how did Dream ever think that was me?" and then realising that that is how he's been acting to Dream. Of course it's all overexaggerated but that's how Dream saw it and maybe it isn't far off from the truth. But firsts things first, he has to absolutely go and kick a virus ass.

[katieskarlette]

Between having Covid and then being laid off from my job (sorta...long story), I’ve had a incredibly shitty time lately and I needed a new mindless distraction.  After watching CallMeKevin on YouTube play Stardew Valley, and talking to a couple RL friends who have played it, I decided to give it a shot.  Instant addiction.

Cut for off-topicness.

The game appeals to my love of collecting stuff, organizing stuff, and exploring.  I’m too ace to care about the dating aspect, and so far I suck at fishing, but the rest is right up my alley.

I haven’t even visited the desert yet despite unlocking the bus ages ago because there’s just so much to do.

I started with the beach farm because A.) tropical beaches are my favorite aesthetic (even though it turns out this one isn’t tropical), and B.) that’s the one I watched CallMeKevin play.  I’ve learned since that it’s an annoying choice because you can’t use sprinklers on the sand terrain, but since I’ve never known anything else I don’t mind it that much.

I have cows, goats, pigs, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and a horse.  I want ostriches but haven’t gotten to the place where I can get them.  I named my rabbits after Watership Down characters, and my ducks are named for Donald Duck’s family members.  I had to turn off breeding for my goats because they kept having babies.  I tried to be patient and wait for my pig to reproduce because they’re so expensive, but after a year in-game I gave up and bought a second one.  Yay, Truffle$!

I made the tier list here, but excluded characters I haven’t met yet.

Linus is a pure cinnamon roll.  Krobus is the cutest sewer-dwelling shadow creature I’ve ever met and now I feel bad any time I have to kill one of his kind in the mines.  Marlon gives me serious World of Warcraft character vibes for some reason...possibly the beard/’stache combo. Evelyn is everyone’s grandma and she sends me baked goods in the mail.  Willy is super nice, too, and I have to like someone who’s that obsessed with fish.

Harvey is shy and socially awkward in an endearing way, even if he’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.  Penny is a sweetie who homeschools (er...librarymuseumschools) other people’s kids out of the kindness of her heart.  Robin built most of my farm and was nice enough to sell me a catalog that essentially puts her out business as far as furniture making.  Abigail has gorgeous hair and I like how early on she has some grouchy interactions and some friendly ones instead of being all grouchy or all cheerful like some others.  Gus is super friendly and helpful.  I’m still a mage at heart even when I’m not playing WoW, so I have a soft spot for the wizard, plus he’s mysterious so I can imagine him being cooler than he probably is.  Elliot is a pretentious snob but in a fun way and reminds me of an old OC of mine.

Lewis is an interesting character but he’s a politician...with all that implies.  Emily was the first person to start sending me random gifts in the mail and her smile is infectious.  Gunther has my dream job, running a combination museum/library.  George ranks this high because grumpy old men in video games are much more fun that they are in RL.  Marnie provides me with adorable animals. Vincent is one of those rare child characters who isn’t cloying or annoying.  Alex is nicer than I expected a jock to be.  I liked Clint to begin with but after he turned up his nose at several gifts that I thought he’d like, had a pity party for himself at every holiday gathering, gave off incel vibes, and closed his shop stupidly early in the day...yeah, not such a fav anymore.  Gil doesn’t say much but I have to respect a guy who  sits back and orders others to kill huge numbers of slimes...Khadgar vibes, you could say.  ;)

Demetrius is smart and gave me ‘shrooms.  Leah seems nice but I don’t know her that well.  Sam is pretty nice but I can’t take him seriously with that anime hair.  Caroline is pretty boring except for that whole rumor about her having an affair with the wizard.  Pierre charges an arm and a leg for inventory upgrades and is kind of cocky.  Kent is okay, if standoffish for understandable reasons.  I feel guilty ranking Grandpa so low, but he looks like Santa Claus went through a machine spraying fake snow, and he didn’t cut me any slack for not having a perfect farm on my first playthrough.  Shane is rude, and although I’ve read up on his backstory and his demons I still don’t like him, and I hate his frayed hoodie.

I haven’t interacted with Maru much but haven’t really been inspired to, either.  Pam is okay but I can’t condone drunk bus driving.  Sebastian is a cliche emo kid and that’s never been my thing.  Jas has stupid hair, and I gave her a nice gift once but the next time I interacted with her she said she’d never met me...ungrateful brat.  Haley is vain, said I was smelly, and has outright ignored me multiple times.  I don’t know why Jodi annoys me, but she does.  I ranked the Governor so low because he didn’t like my contributions to the stew the first two years, when I was actually trying, and the third year when I almost forgot and just threw in a random item he actually liked it.  The dwarf ranks low because I sold off all the scrolls I should have given to him, and of course now they won’t drop for me again.  

Morris is an evil corporate scumbag and has a stupid bowtie.

[sergeant-spoons]

51. April Showers Bring May Flours

Leslie Sheppard

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Nothing of much excitement had come to pass since Leslie and her friends bade farewell to London and returned to the Airborne. They reminisced about their trip often; where the boys missed restaurant food, the girls missed comfortable beds, and everyone missed having a break from their training. George sang the concert's entire repertoire on the daily. Don found it a bit hard to fall asleep without Leslie beside him for the first few days. Tink prayed less but attended mass more often. Still, these were all small effects, and relatively private and personal.

Then mid-April came to pass and brought an unexpectedly welcome visitor to the town.

It was two days after Easter Sunday when Captain Eades' niece and grandniece came to visit her in Aldbourne. The niece, Pearl, was married to a Scotsman who'd been on furlough the past week. She and her daughter had gone down to Plymouth to visit him, and now they were heading back northeast to Perth. Mama E had arranged to have them stay for two weeks with Mrs. Witchetty, who was more than happy to take on the small family for a short time—it had been a long time since she'd heard young laughter pealing through the house.

As soon as little Beth arrived, she became the darling of the household. Everyone down to the cats adored her, and she delighted in being doted on so dearly. Beth was only four years old, but she had already acquired the motor skills to run about like she was constantly in a race against herself. Her energy was only matched by Meatball, who seemed to have come alive ever since meeting Beth. They ran throughout the house as they played, and from his behavior, one might have inferred that Meatball was a small dog (and not a cat) if they didn't look closely enough. Socket, on the other hand, slept more, and if Beth was by some miracle sitting still, Socket could be found dozing at her side or with her warm, furry body tucked around Beth's back.

When she met Tink, Beth thought she was her de facto sister because they shared the same pale blonde hair. Tink didn't bat an eye and immediately went along with the imagination, and when she was home, Beth followed her reverently. Adorable hijinks ensued more often than not, and Tink always took the blame, pretending not to hear Beth giggling into her hair as Tink carried her around piggyback-style. The little girl liked Tink's friends, too. She was especially fascinated by Kiko's curls. She once asked her mother if she could keep the color of her hair but have curls like Kiko, and the three mechanics boarding with Mrs. Witchetty spent the rest of the afternoon curling her hair as close as they could get to Kiko's (which wasn't very close at all, but Beth was more than satisfied). Leslie, meanwhile, snuck her treats from the cookie jar and showed her how to fly a kite, and it wasn't long before Beth was asking her mother for a pair of overalls like Leslie's, too.

The only person who visited Mrs. Witchetty's more than Mama E had to be George. He showed up almost every day, and Beth squealed every time he walked in the door, scampering to hear whatever joke he'd prepared for her this time. She'd fall over herself giggling, and if her mother was busy, Tink would scoop her up and tickle her as she greeted George with a broad smile. Leslie could tell just by looking that George was falling in love all over again, watching Tink interact with this little girl who looked like she could be Tink's daughter. Having a little one in the house also got her feeling some kind of way, all fluttery and bittersweet and hopeful. She mentioned that to Don once, and though she'd meant it a bit offhandedly, he almost choked on his breakfast.

"I like the name 'Beth'," she mused once he was sipping at his water, mostly recovered. "What would you name a daughter, if you had one?"

"Helen," Don answered after some thought. "Helen, for my mother."

"That's sweet," Leslie replied with a smile. "I don't think my Ma would want me naming my kid 'Mildred', though. Maybe Merle, for my Dad. Yeah, I could make Merle work."

"Maybe as a middle name?" Don offered a bit weakly.

"Yeah, there you go! Hmm, 'Helen Merle'."

Leslie scrunched up the side of her mouth, and Don shrugged with feigned nonchalance.

"We'll workshop it."

"Yeah," she laughed, bumping her shoulder against his as if this was just another one of their jokes, unaware of how she'd made his heart pound with the implication of this imagined daughter being theirs. "We'll workshop it."

Tink left for Cardiff at the end of the first week. Her request for a six-day furlough had finally been approved, and her brothers and cousin Janie were just as eager to see her as she was to see them. She'd be there in Cardiff for four days with two more on either end reserved for travel. The day of her leaving, practically everyone and their mother (in Beth's case, quite literally) stopped by for the send-off. That morning in the garage, a few friends of theirs in the Mechorps gave Tink a small toolbox they'd assembled to give to her brothers. Around noontime, Beth, Pearl, and Mama E said their goodbyes; they needed to run an errand in town and wouldn't be back by the time Tink was gone. By mid-afternoon, when Tink finally had to leave to catch the train, they'd assembled so many friends that they had to borrow a car from the garage in addition to filling every available seat (and then some) in Mrs. Witchetty's car. Leslie drove with the guest of honor in the passenger seat, and she had to keep swatting away hands that reached forward from the back to pat Tink's shoulder, offer her a party horn, or get her to hold a pinwheel out the open window and let it spin in the breeze.

After they all came back from the station and dispersed, Leslie went into the kitchen for a snack and found George sitting at the table. She'd thought he'd gone back to the base with the others, and when she came in, he only hummed a hello, lost in thought. There was clearly something on his mind, so Leslie made no mention of her surprise and asked him instead if he'd like a few crackers while she had them out.

"Can I talk to you about something, Leslie?"

She slowed, looked at the cracker box where she'd taken it halfway out of the cupboard, and put it back.

"Of course." She came around to the other side of the table and drew up a chair beside her friend. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm in love with Tink."

"Ah." She clasped her hands before her, understanding the gravity of the matter. "And that means...?"

"It means everything is not all that okay."

"Gotcha."

George sighed, sagging in his chair and indenting his cheek as he leaned it upon a loose fist.

"I know I can't do a damn thing about it," he said morosely, "but I just had to tell someone."

Leslie blinked. "Whoever said that?"

"Said what?"

"That you couldn't do 'a damn thing' about it." She leaned sideways against the table, turning to meet George's gaze more fully. "You love her," she said, "and he-" They both knew who she was referring to. "-doesn't."

"You know that," George refuted sadly, "and I know that, but she doesn't."

"But she will!"

"Sparky-"

"Don't lose hope, George." Leslie reached over and took his hand, squeezing it in reassurance. "I know patience is hard when it comes to this kind of thing-"

He barked a laugh, interrupting. "Says you!"

Leslie, reasonably puzzled, drew her hand back and replied, "Yeah, says me."

Something seemed to dawn on George, and he sat up straighter, eyeing her with what almost seemed to be excitement.

"Says... you."

"Yeah, George, that's what I've-"

"Is there something you're not telling me, Leslie Sheppard?"

Leslie's freckles creased up as she emphasized the confusion of her expression.

"No..."

"I think there is." George was grinning by now. "I told you a secret..."

Finally realizing just what he was implying, Leslie put on a pitying face and quickly diverted the conversation.

"A secret? Oh, George—I, uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news..."

His eyes went wide.

"She knows?!"

"She's just about the only one who doesn't," Leslie confessed, grimacing sympathetically, and George harrumphed.

"And you're just about the only one who-"

He broke off, looking guilty, but such a strange and bitter retort was so unlike him, and Leslie was so taken aback that she pressed him to tell her what he'd been about to say. She'd only gotten the first few words out, though, before Beth came racing into the room, skidding across the floor in her socks, and Leslie had to jump up to keep her from colliding with the oven. Unphased, Beth grabbed Leslie's leg and hung on, looking up at her with a wide, curious grin.

"Leslie?" That was Pearl, poking her head through the kitchen door. "There's a soldier here with-"

"Cimanim!" Beth shrieked excitedly. "Cimanim hair!"

Leslie relaxed. "That's my friend, Donald Malarkey."

Beth released Leslie and dashed over to George, grabbing his sleeve and tugging. "Marky's here!" she announced as if it was the most serious thing in the world, and beamed when George nodded just as gravely.

"Why don't you stay here, pumpkin?" Pearl suggested, then added to Leslie in a lower voice, "Your friend's got something for you. Thought you might want the chance to open it yourself."

Beth did have a habit of tearing open gifts that weren't meant for her. She still associated the word 'present' with herself and only herself, and she was still learning that just because something was in a box, a bag, or wrapped with newspaper didn't mean it was that kind of 'present'. Accordingly, Leslie went with Pearl, but not without shooting George a look over her shoulder—This conversation isn't over. He pretended not to see, now sitting on the linoleum floor with Beth as they played patty cake.

"You wanna know a secret?" he asked, and she nodded happily.

"I keep secrets good!" she exclaimed. "Mommy says so."

"I'm sure you can," he agreed, still patting his hands against hers, talking with the same rhythm to make her giggle. "Well, here's the secret: I have two friends, and they love each other very much, and they're going to live happily ever after."

Beth burst into raucous laughter, rolling onto her side, then popping back up just as soon as she'd gone down.

"Why's that a secret?!" she gasped with wide eyes.

"Because," he told her, giving in to her contagious laughter, "they don't know it yet!"

Beth tumbled about a little more, still giggling, and then stumbled to her feet and dashed out of the room to find her mother. She nearly ran into Leslie in the doorway and latched onto Leslie's pant leg, chattering about how 'Uncle George' told her secrets and how good she was of a secret keeper. Declaring for all the world to hear that she wanted applesauce, she ran off to ask her mother if she could have some from the 'refwidawader', a word she was still learning to say. Leslie quirked a brow at George, and he, smiling fondly—and a bit secretively—shook his head. So he hadn't told Beth about his feelings for Tink, then, it was another secret, no doubt a harmless one. 

"You've got a spring in your step," he remarked as she came fully into the room, and she beamed, presenting the lidless, octagonal box in her arms.

"Look! Don bought me a new hat."

"Oh," George mused, peering at the handsome russet newsboy cap. "Very nice."

"He bought it when we were in London, he said—I didn't even notice him slipping away, he was so quick about it—and it just came in the mail today, so he brought it by to surprise me." Still grinning, she cradled the box in her arms, looking at the cap in its bed of tissue paper. "I'm going to send it home, of course, for safekeeping, seeing as the war's still on—not to mention, Mama E's already a little unhappy with the girls and I keeping so many personal things, even when we're not on the base, so..."

Though he was clearly listening, George had started chuckling as if he knew something she didn't, and Leslie trailed off with a mild frown.

"What?"

"He bought you a hat?"

"Yes!"

Her smile returned, but then George smirked, and it waned again.

"A hat."

"Yes, a hat."

"Not a ring?"

Leslie could feel the heat blooming pink across her cheeks, and she cleared her throat, squeezing the hatbox as she looked aside. George was plainly amazed by her reaction, but she was saved from having to explain herself by Beth hurtling back in, unstoppable in her mission. While Leslie went through the bowls and helped Beth pick the nicest one (only the best for her applesauce), George watched them, shaking his head, his smile one of incredulity.

Sheesh. Maybe I'm not the most hopeless case after all.

"No, three!" Beth insisted when Leslie tried to hand her a spoon, holding up three little fingers. "You eat, too!"

Leslie looked over at George, and when he shrugged, she turned back to Beth and reached back into the silverware drawer.

"Three spoons it is."

Although April might have been a slow month, a great deal happened in May of '44. Tink returned from Cardiff on the 2nd completely rejuvenated, loaded with stories, jokes, photographs, and love from her family. To all those who knew her well, it was evident in her lightness of spirit that Charlie Hammond and his tomfuckery—as Leslie referred to it—hadn't crossed her mind once while she was away. Pearl and little Beth left a few days later. Beth was so distraught at leaving Tink so soon after getting her back that she was only assuaged by Tink gifting her a locket with a curl of her own hair inside, then going with her all the way to the station and waving from the platform until the train was well out of sight. Though Tink's uplifted heart noticeably boosted the moods of her friends for the next several days, their shared delight was soon overshadowed by the announcement of Operation Overlord. Some internalized the news better than others, but they all understood the same that this was really it. They'd be seeing real warfare in a matter of weeks, and it didn't matter all that much how prepared they were—no one could know just what lay ahead.

Over the course of the month, their training was increased, bolstered, and specified. Easy Company and the Mechorps saw each other less and less; on the days their schedules aligned to share a lunch hour in the mess hall, they dragged out that time as long as they feasibly could without making trouble. Though everything seemed a bit more solemn, they still found their ways to have fun, and not everything felt serious—at least, not until the mutiny. Those two days were tense beyond belief. Men all throughout Easy camped out at Mrs. Witchetty's for a few hours, hiding from a vengeful Sobel and a furious Sink. By evening of the second day, still with no news from Regiment, at least half of the Company had cycled through, some more than once. Every single non-com involved in the mutiny had showed up, most of them in pairs; if Leslie found one of them crying from the stress in the upstairs bathroom, she never told.

Fortunately, the most stressful period of the entire Spring turned into the highlight of the season when the news broke that Captain Sobel would be transferred to a new jump school at Chilton Foliat, effective immediately. Two of Easy's sergeants had been demoted, and one of the same was borrowed out to the Pathfinders Division, but otherwise, the non-coms were released with no repercussions but a slap on the wrist. This stroke of luck took a great deal of weight off everyone's shoulders, and there was even a little bit of a party at Mrs. Witchetty's that night after supper. There was a general air of satisfaction, and Leslie was not the only one practically delirious with relief, not by a long shot. As soon as she found Don in the crowd, she kissed him square on the mouth, but she did it so quickly that he didn't have time to respond. She jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his torso, and as he held her up, he buried his face into her neck, hoping she would hear his laughter and miss the tears suddenly pricking at his eyes.

The following day, a Tuesday, dawned bright, clear, and warm, a nice change from a previously cloudy and cold week. Leslie and Kiko left the garage early and went into CP, nodding politely at a few officers in the Intelligence division as they crossed the hall into the lounge adjacent to Mama Eades' office. They settled into chairs by the phone on the wall, waiting to hear from Mrs. Witchetty, who'd gone into Swindon for a doctor's appointment and needed someone to come pick her up and drive her back to Aldbourne. The girls had volunteered, and though only one of them needed to go, it was such a nice day for a drive that Leslie wanted to take her motorbike and follow Kiko into town just to enjoy the sunshine. A few officers came and went throughout the next half-hour, exchanging small talk and cigarettes as they poured their morning coffee. The only ones to pay any mind to the girls by the office door were Lieutenants Winters and Speirs, who each greeted them with a nod and returned their genial salutes. Just after 10:00 that morning, a familiar face from Easy popped in just as Leslie started on her third mooched cup of coffee.

"Hey, Sparky, you hear the news?"

Both Leslie and Lieutenant Speirs looked up, then at each other. Noting the shared nickname, they exchanged a slight smile—Huh.—then turned back to Skinny Sisk, who Leslie was just now noticing seemed unusually jittery.

"Sergeant Sheppard," the private corrected, turning a little red in the face at the thought of calling an officer such a friendly nickname. "Have you heard the news?"

"What news?" Leslie asked, chewing on the end of her pencil as she squinted at the newspaper on her knee (she'd never been much good at crosswords).

"We're moving out."

"We're moving out," Leslie mumbled absentmindedly, then bolted upright, her pencil pitching to the floor and her elbow nearly sending her coffee to the same fate.

"We're moving out?!"

Kiko rose from where she'd been sitting by the phone, amazement and curiosity creasing her brow.

"When?" she gasped.

"Yeah, when?" Leslie echoed.

Speirs gestured with his coffee at both women.

"What they said."

Sisk told them what he knew, sprinkling in a few 'sirs' just in case. He said that their drop zone would be in France but he didn't know where exactly, that there would be a lecture about it tomorrow morning for all of the 506th, and that they'd be leaving for some airfield further south by the end of the week. When Leslie asked if "all of the 506th" included the Mechorps, too, Sisk could only shrug. Speirs supposed it was likely, and as Leslie turned over the new information in her head, he turned to Sisk and sent him to deliver the news to the rest of Easy. The lieutenant himself went to inform Dog Company, and Kiko started after him, but she'd barely gotten a foot out the door when the phone rang. Kiko looked between it and Leslie, torn, and Leslie shook her head, darting past her friend to catch the door before it shut.

"You handle that. I'll go tell her."

As Kiko backtracked to the phone, Leslie jumped back inside, realizing she'd forgotten her jacket and cap, then hightailed it out the door as Kiko cupped the receiver to her ear.

"Hello? Yes, Mrs. Witchetty, it's Kelani- No, Mrs. Witchetty, I can hear you just fine-"

Leslie burst into the garage like a hurricane was on her heels and nearly ran right into Danny Huff. At the commotion, Tink and Eli Shackley looked up from the project they had splayed across their workbench. Tink wore a bandana to keep her hair back and thick sautering gloves on her hands; as she tilted her head inquisitively at Leslie, she moved to wipe sweat off her forehead and smeared a bit of grease there instead.

"Where's the fire?" she teased, but her smile quickly fell when she saw how wide her friend's eyes had gone and how her chest heaved from a greater pressure than the exertion of her brief run.

"France," Leslie panted in reply, "in France."

The whole room went quiet. Danny, Eli, Sal McDermot, and seven or eight others looked over at Leslie with bated breath. Even Kent Hudley, who had steered clear of the girls since the misunderstanding at the bar, couldn't help but poke his head up and listen in.

"It sure is France," declared Captain Eades as she came in the side door, dropping her keys into her upturned cap and tossing them as one onto her desk as she broke the silence. "I sure hope you lot like baguettes."

That next morning, Don arrived at Mrs. Witchetty's before the sun had finished cresting the horizon. He wedged himself between two hedges to get around the side of the house and threw pebbles at Leslie's window until she let him in. In the two hours before he had to get back to the base for the start of the day's training, they sat on the carpet in the upstairs sitting room and made a bundle of letters for their families. Nibbling on Mrs. Witchetty's heavenly lemon biscuits as they wrote and arranged, they included well-wishing notes from their friends, several paper boats made by Leslie (flattened to fit into an envelope), a few British pence and bottlecaps from British beers as souvenirs for their younger siblings, and two photographs. The first image featured the two of them plus Skip and Penkala, standing on the road that led up to the Aldbourne base, and the other of Leslie, Tink, and Kiko, standing on the front steps of Mrs. Witchetty's. Leslie pressed a kiss to the envelope once they'd sealed it, then had Don do the same. She went alone to the post office in town but passed by Easy Company on their morning run on her return route and waved to her friends, laughing as they cheered for and whistled at her mere existence.

That afternoon, training was canceled for all the enlisted men and women in order for the officers throughout the 101st to use the time for a long meeting. Accordingly, Leslie, Skip, Tink, and George spent the afternoon making gingerbread cookies for the entirety of Easy. Mrs. Witchetty had read in a newspaper column that there was going to be a shortage of molasses, but as it turned out, the report had been entirely incorrect; there was to be a shortage of mustard seed instead (whoever wrote the column seemed to have gotten their grocery list 'M's mixed up). Unfortunately, Mrs. Witchetty had already panicked and bought an exorbitant excess of baking ingredients, which was where Leslie and her friends came in. Don, who'd come along with Skip and George, was suffering a biting headache and had taken to petsitting upstairs while he waited for it to pass. In the kitchen, however, things were not going quite so easily.

"What's this for?" Skip asked, holding up the mixer, and Leslie, tying a floral apron around her waist, looked at him funny.

"To... mix things."

"And this?" chimed in Tink, waving a thin whisk around.

"It's a whisk."

"Okay...?" Tink twirled it again as if Leslie hasn't answered her question at all.

"And you... whisk with it."

"What about this?" Skip poked himself with the cake tester and winced. "Ow."

Leslie slowed down from where she stood whisking some of the dry ingredients and looked over at her friends.

"I feel like I should help you two," she said without moving to do anything. With a sigh, she turned and looked at George on her other side to see how she was doing, and discovered he was, miraculously, cracking eggs one-handed into a bowl with the rest of the wet ingredients laid out before him.

"George!"

"Hmm?" He looked up, tossing the eggshells into the trash bin as he went to the sink to wash his hands. "What?"

"Since when do you bake?" Skip asked, leaning around Tink to eye their friend.

"Since I was a kid," George answered with a shrug, drying his hands on a linen towel heavily embroidered with figs. "Why?"

"Have I ever told you how amazing you are?" Leslie exclaimed gratefully, grabbing his arm and dragging him over to where Tink and Skip were trying to figure out all of their tools. "I'm putting you in charge over here."

"You're the boss."

As George tried to combat the chaos of their baffled friends, Leslie grabbed the cinnamon and returned to her dry ingredients bowl. Less than a minute had passed before Don wandered into the kitchen to see how things were going with Meatball lounging and Socket trotting curiously after, her whiskers wiggling as she sniffed the air.

"What's going on in here?" he asked, quirking his head at George teaching Skip and Tink how to operate simple baking machinery, then grinned at Leslie's floral apron. "You look nice."

She snorted, squinting into the mortar in which she was grinding cloves with a pestle.

"I look like my Granny."

"Nah." Don chuckled, then paused. "Well..."

"Oh, hardy-har-har."

"Put some flour in your hair, and maybe."

"You silly." She stuck her tongue out at him just to make him laugh. "And to answer your question, about what's going on in here?"

She caught the handle of the whisk just before it would have slipped down the metal sides of the bowl and sent up a cloud of flour, sugar, baking soda, and various spices.

"Havoc."

"Sounds like my idea of fun," Don decided, setting Meatball down on the couch before he came around the counter, grabbed an apron from the hook by the oven, and went to wash his hands. "How can I help?"

Relieved, Leslie dusted her flour-spotted palms on her apron, then leaned on Don's shoulder, wrapping her hands around his arm and giving a gentle squeeze.

"What would I ever do without you?" she sighed, and he pointed at their friends right as Skip turned the mixer up to the highest setting.

"Have to explain to Mrs. Witchetty why it looks like her kitchen went through the apocalypse!" Don replied, raising his voice about the noise, and Leslie stifled her giggled against his sleeve.

"But really," he added once George had unplugged the mixer and Don himself had recovered from the sudden tidal wave of fondness he felt toward Leslie, "what can I do to make this run a little more smoothly?"

Don had baked a dozen or so times with Leslie over the years, so he knew the ropes well enough to get the gist of things without much direction.

Leslie situated him right next to her at George's abandoned wet ingredients station, and he got right to work. Their elbows kept bumping as they mixed and reached for ingredients, and every time, they'd look at each other and laugh with cheeks just a little bit pinker than usual. Meanwhile, George managed to corral Skip and Tink by giving them the task of sorting through Mrs. Witchetty's extensive cookie cutter collection to find some good shapes.

"Well, shit," he said gamely as he came back around the counter. "Malark's taken my spot."

Don grinned and tossed his hair back a bit clumsily, unable to tuck it back with his fingers covered in batter.

"You know it."

"Don!" Leslie bumped her hip against his. "Be nice."

"S'alright," George chuckled, "this is a much nicer domestic picture."

He framed them with his thumbs and pointer fingers as if he was taking a photograph, and when Leslie and Don turned to look at one another, they were both surprised to discover the other blushing. Don glanced aside, flustered, only to notice Socket clawing at her namesake across the room. He rushed over to stop her, wiping his hands on his apron, and inadvertently gave up his place to George.

"Hah! Score!" George happily picked up where Don left off but made sure to mutter to Leslie out of the corner of his mouth, "I know I'm not quite as good company as darling Don there-"

She wrinkled up her nose and flicked batter at him, and a playful fight would have ensued had a grinning Tink not skidded up to George to show him a cog-shaped cookie cutter that she insisted must be used for all of the cookies.

"All of 'em?"

"All of 'em."

Knowing full well that George couldn't say no to Tink's smile, Leslie pressed her lips together to try and suppress a smirk and teased, "Kiss him and you'll get your wish."

Tink laughed. "I thought you had to rub the lamp!"

As Leslie turned aside to hide her laughter and George turned beet red, both of them hearing the accidental innuendo Tink had just made, Tink, oblivious, grabbed George's face and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. He melted, and Leslie didn't bother to hide her smirk any longer as she went to fetch the cookie sheets from the cabinet over the oven.

"Told you so."

The majority of the cookies did end up as cogs, save for a dozen that Skip managed to steal away for his own designs when Tink wasn't looking. He preferred the robin cookie cutter and used the cap of a pen to indent eyes into each bird. He might have gone on to find a way to texture the feathers had they not needed to get the cookies in the oven, and by then, a crowd was gathering outside. Leslie put Skip, Tink, and George in charge of distributing the cookies while she and Don finished baking the rest. Meatball and Socket slipped outside at one point, but they didn't go far, staying close to Tink as they eyed the crowd. By the end of the afternoon, the friends had managed to collect a sizeable donation without ever asking for the money. As they sat around the kitchen table, looking at the bucket of change without a clue what to do with it, Tink suddenly leaped to her feet, swinging her fist with the excitement of her idea.

"We'll ask Mrs. Witchetty! She bought all the ingredients, so in part, it's her money, too."

The group hastened into the living room and clustered around the old widow, who was knitting in her favorite armchair. She looked at their smiling faces and squinted through her glasses, thinking they were up to some mischief. Then they posed their question and her frown turned into a look of fond pride.

"Oh, you darlings," she hummed, wiping away a tear. "Give it to the Red Cross. They need it more than we do."

And that's precisely what they did. Leslie volunteered to deliver the donation, and Don was quick to join her. They took her motorcycle for the drive into Swindon and found the Red Cross outpost without much difficulty, as it was two doors down from the hospital.

"You know, Don," Leslie said, thumbing her belt loops as she and Don returned to the warm May evening, "I think we've done a good deed today. Good enough that we deserve dinner on the town—my treat. Don't you think so?"

Smiling, Don looped his arm around hers, and when she immediately tucked herself against his side, he pecked the side of her head in a kiss.

"You know, Les, I couldn't agree more."

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[alyosiuscreightonward]

Dear Diary. Random thoughts.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ Ugh. If you could just please give me a moment to explain.

I’ve been trying to shed the fact that I’ve had some exposure to politics. It started at a young age when LBJ (see MTG’s recent remarks about LBJ), now I may not have fully aware nor fully understood what was happening, however years later, I’ve a different perspective.

The Vox Populi all have chimed in.

Yet the consensus is that there are several camps: Love, Hate, Like, A Definite Maybe and I’ve Never Ever Voted, but from my recliner I’ll complain about everything.

This is not uncommon. Since history is now becoming a trigger word for many people, it exists regardless. I know that in my experience and what happened in my life is now a moot point; yet I grew up in a space that was very reminiscent of the United Nations. I had folks such as Barbara Jordan, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Benjamin Netanyahu come into my home and break bread and have some fellowship. I was ignorant. I thought that it was normal to have these people orbit my world.

Meanwhile as I was going to school, I didn’t give it a second thought that I would be able to meet kids and their families from Japan, Korea, England, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Israel, Ghana and Russia. I thought it was perfectly normal to have Black and White living together.

Then in March of 1974, I saw first hand the ugly face of Racism, Bigotry and Hatred when I moved to NYC from Boston. At that moment in time, desegregation was happening and children were being bused from one school to another school. I knew some of the characters involved such as Louise Day Hicks. I had met her once and I was flabbergasted.

At William Cowper Junior High School in Maspeth, Queens, NYC, I had been physically assaulted several times by four boys who were of the view that I was the sole reason for the rioting in the streets due to busing and integration. They all believed that I had moved to NYC to escape the violence and school integration.

Uh…William Cowper was racially diverse. Yet I was positively discriminated against because I was from Boston and I must have had a finger in the desegregation movement. Dude.

As I mentioned earlier, everyone has opinions about what did happen and what is happening. Folks have complained about LBJ through JRB.

Folks rant and rave about each and every President yet not one person has ever said that they had a personal visit from The President who had deliberately singled them out and then destroyed their lives. The Mayors nor The Governors have come out to your house and knocked on the door and said, “I don’t know you but I’m going to ruin your life because I can.”

Your Grandparents don’t need Medicare/Medicaid. You like me have been employed since 1977 and you don’t need Social Security. You can’t have Clean Water from the municipality but you can have water from the culverts that run along the highways. You can’t have Clean Air because of the Chemical Plant we want to build next to your house. Here in the United States, we can say that the government sucks however in some countries you can’t. In those countries where you can’t say anything about anything, you can and will absolutely disappear never to be seen again should you ever utter a word about the government or the people in power.

I’m pretty sure that none of you had read George Orwell’s book 1984, but you want to actually live life like those depicted in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. Apparently you have a dream that like the movie Soylent Green is a goal. The subplot was that if you were considered undesirable etc you’d vanish and then lo and behold Soylent Green.

In some of those totalitarian countries, yes, there’s universal healthcare but it’s not what you think. One person has been riddled with bullets, they just might be first in line and then maybe not. One person may have infection and may need antibiotics, but they just might not get those antibiotics. Malaria can be controlled like Polio but like Leptospirosis, we don’t need or want a vaccine because there are nano bots and microchips in them.

We need more incidents like Columbine, Parkland and Uvalde. We need more heartbeat bills in place in order to deny women prenatal care and after they give birth, we need to abandon them altogether. We need to stop telling men that masturbation is a heinous crime and that all women need to get pregnant just because. Women absolutely should be seen and not heard and women like Margaret Thatcher, Corazon Aquino, Benazir Bhutto and Angela Merkel are all ruining it for women. There shouldn’t be women like Wilma Rudolph, Babe Didrikson Zaharias or Billie Jean King.

Biden wants to make an attempt to bring folks together in order to have things like clean water, clean air and a healthy debate about a plethora of issues that could actually help us.

Yet the Orange Palpatine wants me dead because I said, hey now, Florida is disappearing and I don’t like that. I said, hey now, they’re strip mining the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River is polluting the drinking water of Texans. He says that’s okay. The water is only becoming more polluted by erecting more fracking sites in people’s backyards. Then on TV and in Movies, diversity, equality and inclusion are crimes against humanity. Ed Sullivan should never had introduced us to Diana Ross and The Supremes. Why is there a Bruce Lee or Yakov Smirnoff? Why on God’s green earth would anyone ever want to go see the remake of The Color Purple or even just acknowledge Crazy Rich Asians. Harvey Korman as Mother Marcus on Carol Burnett show is acceptable as Milton Berle in a dress but RuPaul or Tyler Perry, two black men who practically pass as women. Kill them immediately. We absolutely need more shows like Make Room for Daddy, Father Knows Best, The Honeymooners and Leave It To Beaver. We never ever should have heard about Norman Lear, Flip Wilson and we must absolutely get rid of America’s Got Talent Show because they promote diversity, equality and inclusion.

Erasure of James Brown, Rick James and Bad Bunny is a great example to show us that Andy Williams, Perry Como and Pat Boone is the only way to go. I mean erasure of Judy Garland, Adele and Taylor Swift together would make an awesome impact for saying women need to be barefoot and pregnant and they should be able to do everything for their men including breathing.

In conclusion, if Joe Biden is doing such a horrible job then why do have the ability to change the channel and look for a different perspective? Yet the twice impeached, twice indicted and liable for sexual harassment retiree in Florida wants to give you only one channel to watch and no chance at all for a counterpoint? Yeah that Governor in Pennsylvania should never had fixed that portion of the highway. Every single dog, cat and animal should have the ability and right to have rabies and there’s no need for veterinarians. Thank goodness Rodney King is dead because once he uttered, why can’t we all just get along was his downfall.

[thorntonkrell-blog-blog]

Pilgrims from around the world journey to Charlotte, North Carolina. They come to visit the home of Billy Graham. It's a very big deal.

We live in Charlotte. We weren't exactly pilgrims when we went on a senior center sponsored bus trip to the Graham library. As A catholic boy growing up in New York, i was aware of Graham but didn't know what to make of him. There was something very cool about the guy. He had a message about repentance and the transformative power of God's love that I liked. The problem is he wasn't Catholic. I was kinda afraid that if I paid too much attention to him, I would go to hell.

Billy Graham was a renowned American evangelist who played a significant role in shaping American religious life in the 20th century. He was born on November 7, 1918, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and passed away on February 21, 2018.

Graham rose to prominence through his large-scale evangelistic crusades, which he conducted throughout the United States and around the world. He preached a message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and aimed to bring people to a personal relationship with God. His charismatic speaking style, combined with his humble demeanor, helped him connect with diverse audiences.

Throughout his career, Graham held numerous evangelistic events, attracting millions of people and making him one of the most recognized religious figures of his time. He presented the Christian message in a straightforward manner, emphasizing the need for repentance and the transformative power of God's love.

Billy Graham also had a significant impact beyond his crusades. He authored several books, including "Peace with God" and "The Journey: Living by Faith in an Uncertain World," which became bestsellers. He also hosted a weekly radio program called "Hour of Decision" and appeared on television, reaching a wide audience with his messages of hope and faith.

Graham's influence extended beyond religious circles. He served as a spiritual advisor to numerous U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama, and provided counsel during times of crisis and national mourning. His commitment to racial integration and his involvement in social issues such as civil rights earned him respect from people across different backgrounds.

Billy Graham's legacy as an evangelist and Christian leader is profound. He preached to millions, counseled world leaders, and left an indelible impact on American Christianity. His commitment to spreading the Gospel and his unwavering faith continue to inspire many people today.

We arrived shortly before the Library opened. A few people with backpacks were waiting outside the gates when we arrived. After passing through the gate, our bus stopped and we departed in front of the Graham family homeplace. We met our tour guide who provided some history. 'The farmhouse at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, is not the original Graham family home but a reconstructed replica. The original Graham family home was located on a dairy farm in Charlotte and has been moved several times over the years.The original farmhouse was first relocated to the Graham family's current property in Montreat, North Carolina. Later, it was moved to a different location within Montreat and served as the Graham family retreat center. In 2006, the farmhouse was moved again, this time to its current location at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, where it was reconstructed as part of the museum and library complex.The reconstructed farmhouse at the Billy Graham Library provides visitors with a glimpse into the environment and setting where Billy Graham grew up, offering insights into his early life and upbringing. While it is not the original structure, it has been designed to replicate the Graham family home and serves as an important component of the library's exhibits and displays.'

The place is beautiful. It reminded me of the George Eastman house in Rochester with its roped off rooms. I've seen this kind of thing before.

We passed through the house and made our way to the library. Before entering the library, we strolled down a lovely path which led to the grave site of Billy Graham and Ruth Graham The site features a simple stone marker for each of them, with their names and birth and death dates inscribed. Billy's marker reads "Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ" and includes his birth and death dates. Soft music played in the wooded prayer garden. Within the serenity, I could feel a spiritual breeze in my soul that I had not expected.

When we entered the library, we were greeted by a cow. Of course, when we saw the cow in this location I had to say "Holy Cow" which Lynn didn't appreciate. Lynn asked our guide if the the cow was real. The guide said no. Lynn said it certainly looked real. The guide said then we did our job. We approached the animatronic cow and it began to talk about Billy's childhood during which he rose every morning to milk the cows.

After the cow, we entered the Journey of Faith which is a multi-media presentation of film, photographs, memorabilia and interactive displays accentuating Graham's life, family and evangelist missions all over the globe. Three pieces of memorabilia were particularly impressive; the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II and a Navajo head dress.

The photos include Billy with many US Presidents including Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, and both Bushes. For me personally, the most impactful photo was of Billy chatting with Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali, the legendary boxer, and Billy Graham, the renowned evangelist, first met in the 1960s when Ali was still known as Cassius Clay. Their friendship developed over the years, and they often had discussions about religion and spirituality.

Muhammad Ali and Billy Graham had a notable relationship that was characterized by mutual respect and friendship. Both individuals were prominent figures in their respective fields and shared a deep commitment to their faith.Ali, who converted to Islam and became a member of the Nation of Islam in the 1960s, valued his friendship with Graham despite their theological differences. Graham respected Ali's convictions and supported his religious freedom. He recognized Ali's influence and the impact he had on society both inside and outside the boxing ring.

In the 1970s, Ali and Graham collaborated on several occasions. They participated in a joint television interview in 1977, where they discussed faith, social issues, and the importance of spiritual values. They also worked together on humanitarian efforts, such as raising funds for relief projects in developing countries.

Both Ali and Graham were known for their strong convictions and their ability to connect with people from different backgrounds. They shared a belief in the power of faith and used their platforms to promote unity, peace, and social justice.

Their relationship continued to grow over the years, and Graham was among the prominent figures who eulogized Ali at his memorial service in 2016. He spoke of their friendship and the impact Ali had on his life and the world.

The friendship between Muhammad Ali and Billy Graham exemplified their ability to transcend differences and find common ground in their shared commitment to their faith and their desire to make a positive impact on society.

One of the last stops on the Journey of Faith is a model of the Berlin Wall. In June 1961, just a few months before the construction of the Berlin Wall began, Billy Graham conducted a series of evangelistic meetings in West Berlin. His crusades attracted large crowds, including both East and West Berliners, who were able to freely cross the border at that time. Graham's messages of hope and faith resonated with the people, especially those living in the tense environment of a divided city.

However, during Graham's visit, tensions between East and West Germany were escalating rapidly. The East German government, fearing the influence of Western ideologies, began constructing the Berlin Wall in August 1961 to halt the mass migration of its citizens to West Germany. The wall physically divided families, friends, and communities, and became a symbol of the Cold War. After the wall's construction, Graham continued to express his concern for the people affected by it. In subsequent visits to Germany, he emphasized the need for unity and reconciliation, calling on individuals and governments to work toward peaceful solutions.

During the Cold War era, Graham's messages of faith, hope, and reconciliation resonated with many people living under the shadow of the Berlin Wall. While he did not have a direct role in the wall's history, his visits and teachings served as a reminder of the importance of compassion, forgiveness, and spiritual freedom, even in the face of political divisions.

When we left the Journey, we were offered the opportunity to visit a prayer room where a guide would be happy to pray with us. Once again my Catholic upbringing reared its head. I declined the opportunity.

The Catholic Church's view of Billy Graham has been generally positive, recognizing his efforts in spreading the Gospel and his commitment to promoting Christian faith. While there may have been theological differences between Graham's evangelical Protestant beliefs and Catholic teachings, the Catholic Church acknowledged his impact and respected his dedication to proclaiming Jesus Christ.

Throughout his career, Billy Graham maintained a respectful relationship with Catholic leaders and expressed his desire for Christian unity. He sought to work alongside Catholics and other Christian denominations in shared efforts to spread the message of Jesus Christ.

Pope John Paul II, during his papacy, met with Billy Graham on several occasions and expressed appreciation for his evangelistic work. In 1993, during Graham's visit to Rome, Pope John Paul II said of him, "We today bear witness to the joy of Christian hope... May your evangelistic work continue to bear fruit for the building up of the Kingdom of God in the hearts of countless men and women throughout the world." Even though the Catholic Church recognized Graham's contributions and respected his ministry, theological differences remained. The Catholic Church has specific doctrines and practices that differ from many Protestant traditions, including those espoused by Graham. These differences made it impossible for me to pray even as I felt a silent prayer singing in my heart.

I most definitely under rated the power of our "Field trip". I plan to return maybe next time as a pilgrim.

Graham continuously spoke of death but not as something to be feared. The last message that I read from Graham was his thought about his own death. "Some day I'll feel a gentle tap on my shoulder and a voice saying 'come home'.

I like that.

Today I feel less afraid.

I've learned that you don't have to travel thousands of miles to make a pilgrimage.

Sometimes, it's just down the road apiece.

[ginniemcknight]

Busted.

An Essay on my 1st experience of discovering the missing representation of full body statues for Black Historical Figures in High Value Public Art/Domain Spaces.

Spring break 2001 our newly formed / revived Black student Union spent our spring break in Washington, DC. This was my first return to DC after choosing DePaul for my studies in Political Science. My 1st visit was during thanksgiving and my swiftly approaching sweet 16 birthday. It was love at first site when initially visiting DC and Howard University’s outdoor track. As a varsity track and field runner, this was my first visit to a Division 1 University track.

Years later the Spring break trip to Washington, DC was a return visit as a student from a different university. With our newly formed DePaul Black Student Union, We met with Howard’s Black student Union as well as George Washington University’s. Our goal was to understand the culture from an HBCU and PWI perspective. We wanted to know which matters each wanted to bring attention to, and which pressing issues each university approached in their Black lead student organizations.

We also spent a significant amount of time on Capitol Hill meeting with the congressional leaders of our district. DePaul University is located in the legislative district that Rod Blagojevich was elected in. Blagojevich took the opportunity to introduce himself, and announce his then intentions on running for Governor. Our focus was more on the Representative that we were already meeting.

Jessie Jackson Jr. was elected US representative of the south Chicago and suburban district I spent my remaining years of elementary, junior high, and my 1st year of high school. Our visit as students and constituents was only intended to last for 30 minutes. However we arrived with some pressing matters and wanted more guidance on steps, beyond voting, to better serve and civicly engage our community. The youth vote was still considered a non factor at the time, and voter registration was the direction and advice focused on the most by the older generation. The next election cycle a huge upward surge in youth voting was already underway, and has been climbing ever since.

For me something more poignant happened during that visit that has informed my career as a visual artist. During the tour of the Capitol Representative Jackson showed our group the only statue of a black person inside the main corridor of the Capitol building, the bust of Dr. King. The statue was only of his upper torso; in comparison to the full body statues of several slave holding members of the confederacy, and other white men political figures that were given full body statues.

The torso bust was insulting. Representative Jackson brought our attention to an even more disturbing aspect of the capital tours. Each tour guide shared the acoustic phenomenon of the US Capitol building. Historically, there was a spot where if you bent over and directed your voice to the floor, people on the opposite side of the room could hear everything that was being discussed.

This phenomenon was a popular occurrence to share by all the tour guides we witnessed. Congressman Jackson had us step back to recognize something else. The spot that was chosen to display this acoustic ease drop was right in front of the Dr. King torso statue. Without acknowledgment, each tour guide would bend over with their back side facing the only statue of an African American Historical figure in the Capitol building at the time, the torso statue of Dr. King. As a group of concerned black students we were stunned and angered. We then reconvened in Congressman Jackson’s conference room and voiced our concerns of what we saw.

As a Visual Artist when brainstorming the conveyance of a black historical figure dignity, reverence, and amplification of their unique imprint of inspiration is top of mind. Dr. King gave more love to this world than we deserved, and was heartbreakingly murdered. Dr. King was a full man, and outstanding Global leader. Dr. King’s commemoration is deserving of a literal and figurative representation of his full body in every iteration affiliated with his name, image, and likeness. The Dr. Martin Luther King National monument took a long time to build because careful consideration went into his image, what was being conveyed, the lasting impression beyond this generation, and fundraising efforts. These are all healthy steps when considering art in the public domain to avert provocation for a life with such meaningful, yet interrupted, impact.

[bitchymentalitysweets]

5 Tips For Using Relationship To Leave Your Competition In The Dust

Whether your marriage was a whirlwind romance or a slow boil that took years of dating before engagement, it's a good idea to take things slowly when dating after divorce. נערות ליווי בבת ים Molly Weasley, who was a Prewett before her marriage to Arthur, is related to the Black family through the marriage of her brother, Ignatius to Lucretia Black. There's the quirky patriarch Arthur, whose love for Muggles has caused him and the rest of his family to be labeled blood traitors, the fierce Molly Weasley, whose love for her children, Harry and Hermione included, is as legendary as tale of the Boy Who Lived. We had Fred and George, the twins whose legacy will not soon be forgotten through the halls of the castle, Ron Weasley, prefect and keeper of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and Ginny, the only girl in the Weasley family in generations. He was sorted into Gryffindor. After Voldemort's defeat, Charlie went back to Romania to study dragons. I made this drawing back in 2016 when i broke up with my x.

Charlie worked in Romania, Bill in Egypt and Percy, Ron, Arthur, Ginny and the twins in Great Britain. Luckily, when Bill was injured by Fenrir Greyback, one of the most vile werewolves in the Wizarding World, he did not develop the ability to transform into one of them. Taking causation one step further, the type of attribution a person provides influences their future behavior. Our love grew over time, with one person feeling it way before the other. Again, this won’t be the case for every clever person out there, but often a smart guy will lack awareness of time. If you found out your best friend was spreading gossip about you behind your back, what would you do? Charlie came home for the summer of Bill's wedding to be his best man. Charlie has always been obsessed with dragons. There's the first-born son Bill who set the high standard as to what should be expected of the Weasley children, Charlie who followed in his footsteps and Percy, the most ambitious of all the Weasley kids.

Bill and Fleur's home, Shell Cottage, can be found on the outskirts of Tinworth, a small town in Cornwall. Working through grief during the day can help take the edge off sleep problems. Additionally, Ruess has been working as a songwriter and producer. Between taking care of kids or working extra hours to pay the bills, day-to-day life wears us down, making us forget about showing our loved ones that we care. Religions have brought the comfort of belonging and companionship to many who would otherwise have passed through this life all alone, without glory or adventure. The main difference is that I have a better clothes budget. In fact, Madonna didn't come out and confirm the two were a couple in the '90s until 2015. Better late than never? Tell us, and we'll figure out what sort of patriot you are! Tell us all about yourself, and we'll reveal whether you're more Billie or Ariana. All you have to do is tell us the truth about how your relationships are going. Going to a political rally. It was given to Bill by one of his aunts. Following his graduation from Hogwarts, Bill became a Curse Breaker at the Gringotts Bank in Egypt.

With the money Arthur Weasley won in a Daily Prophet draw, he took the family on a vacation to Egypt where they visited Bill, who worked there as a Curse Breaker at Gringotts. When Percy was promoted by Cornelius Fudge, Arthur tried to talk some sense into him. Later on, he was promoted by then Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, to the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects. Then invest some time and effort into describing yourself, your hobbies, and your goals. We met the Weasleys after Harry befriended Ron and since then (most) of them could do no wrong. All the Weasleys were Gryffindors. The Burrow was the name of the dwelling that belonged to the Weasleys. Rumor has it that her name stems from Guinevere- the name of King Arthur's wife. He started sneaking into the Forbidden Forest to try to find one, sold items to try to buy an egg and was extremely excited when a rumor that there may be a dragon in Hogwarts was being spread. However, if the relationship was modified, and the reference property on the dependent object points to a different principal object that is loaded in the object context, Entity Framework will try to create a relationship as it is defined on the client.

[lboogie1906]

Robert George Seale (born October 22, 1936) is a political activist and author. He is known for co-founding the Black Panther Party. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", the Party's main practice was monitoring police activities and challenging police brutality in African American communities. After moving around to Dallas, then to San Antonio, and Port Arthur, his family relocated to Oakland when he was eight years old. He attended Berkeley High School, then dropped out and joined the Air Force. He was discharged for bad conduct three years after he joined for fighting with a commanding officer at Ellsworth Air Force Base. He worked as a sheet metal mechanic for various aerospace plants while studying for his high school diploma at night. He attended Merritt Community College where he studied engineering and politics. He joined the Afro-American Association, a group on the campus devoted to advocating black separatism. Through the group, he met Huey P. Newton. He began working at the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center in their summer youth program. His objective was to teach the youth in the program African American History and teach them a degree of responsibility towards the people living in their communities. He met Bobby Hutton, the first member of the Black Panther Party. He wrote an autobiography titled A Lonely Rage. He wrote a cookbook called Barbeque'n with Bobby Seale: Hickory & Mesquite Recipes. He advertised Ben & Jerry's ice cream. He appeared in the television documentary series Cold War. He began dedicating his time to Reach!, a group focused on youth education programs. He taught black studies at Temple University. He moved back to Oakland, working with young political advocates to influence social change. He appeared in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon. He has visited over 500 colleges to share his personal experiences as a Black Panther. He has been seeking to produce a screenplay he wrote based on his autobiography, Seize the Time: The Eighth Defendant. He co-authored Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/CkAfM3Vupes/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[hp-soulmates]

💞 HP Soulmates 2022: Week 4 Roundup 💞

This is it… the last of the fics! You don’t want to miss out on any of these reads/art!

💞 [FIC] The thin line 💞 (M, Draco/Harry, 10.1k)

After the war Harry felt different t. His heart was lighter. Or that what he thought. Seeing Draco Malfoy in the train to their eighth year did something to his soul. And he'll learn that there is a thin line between hate and love.

💞 [FIC] This Could Be Good 💞 (E, Draco/Harry, 6.7k)

As a child, Draco had always loved his mother’s tales of soulmates, but he never thought he’d experience it himself. The universe, apparently, has other plans. Or, the one where Draco saves a dog and gets a soulmate.

💞 [FIC] As the Moon Knows the Stars 💞 (T, Remus/Sirius, 48.7k)

On the day Sirius Black turned seventeen, he had his soulmark removed in order to protect the soulmate he'd never met from the wrath of his own family. In the eight years since, he's managed to make his peace with living the rest of his life without falling in love. Though he mourns his lost soulmate every day, he's confident he made the right choice to protect them, and no one has ever made him question that. 

 Until, of course, Lily Evans brings her childhood friend along for a pub night, and Sirius finds himself utterly enamored with the kind, mysterious stranger. But Remus Lupin surely has a soulmate of his own waiting out there somewhere, and Sirius won't let himself get in the way of that. 

He just wishes Remus weren't so damn easy to love.

💞 [FIC] The Art of Revealing Secrets 💞 (T, Neville/Pansy, 25.6k)

Pansy has known since their days at Hogwarts that she and Neville were fated. She never told him, never told a soul. Now, years later, faced with an unbearable choice, she finds herself reaching out to her unwitting soulmate out of pure desperation. She can only hope that he's the sentimental man she always envisioned him to be and not the cynical auror he seems to have become... 

 Or, the story of how Pansy learns there is no evading fate.

💞 [ART] How to Charm a Squib in 10 Days 💞 (G, Hermione/Ron, Digital)

Ron is a Squib and for the most part he's living a happy life in the Muggle world with occasional visits to the Burrow. He accepted his fate to never be a part of the Wizarding World a long time ago, and on most days he doesn't even think about it anymore. Then, as he had just ended a round of beer pong with his new dorm mates on their first day back at Uni, Ron's soulmark appears. And even though he doesn't really have anything to do anymore with the Wizarding World, Ron knows one thing for sure: This never happened before. Muggles and Squibs can't have a soulmark. Everyone thought this was the nature of things...until now.

💞 [FIC] Near Enemies 💞 (T, Draco/Hermione, 6.5k)

Returning to Hogwarts for eighth year, Hermione Granger has the great misfortune to save Draco Malfoy's life.

💞 [FIC] Carve Your Name on Hearts 💞 (T, Remus/Narcissa, 1.8k)

When Narcissa Black finds herself in a bind and facing a future she doesn't want, she goes to the one person she thinks might be able to help her - her soulmate, Remus Lupin.

💞 [FIC] Written In The Stars 💞 (G, Sirius/Severus, 7.4k)

Sirius screws up a potion and it messes with his soulmate bond.

💞 [ART] At First Sight 💞 (G, Severus/Harry, Traditional/Mixed Media)

Harry is born seeing only in black and white like every other child waiting to lock eyes with their soulmate. He never expected the first bit of colour he sees to immediately drain from his new professor's face.

💞 [FIC] Double Booked 💞 (M, Fred/George/Hermione, 6.1k)

Everybody in the wizarding world has soulmarks, it's part of their core magic. However, there are multiple types of soulmarks: Platonic, Romantic, and Nemesis. Soulmarks can show up anytime after 5 yrs old, but Romantic ones usually show up in the late teens. Twins always developed their early, but it is VERY RARE to be born with one. Platonic soulmarks show up on the top of the right wrist, romantic on the left. Rivals, nemisis, etc. soulmarks show up under the wrist. Multiple soulmates are possible due to polyamory or death. When your soulmate dies it fades to a light grey scar, but if you are lucky enough to have another soulmate the new soulmark overwrites the old one, however, the scar tissue remains. If your Platonic and Romantic soulmate happen to be the same person(s) the mark will constantly circle their wrist.

One day in the fall after graduating their eighth year at Hogwarts, Hermione wakes up to a new romantic soulmark, and even though it is not who she expected, she definitely doesn't mind. She had always admired the twins for their daring and smarts when it came to their inventions and they were glad that she was always able to tell them apart.

And that’s all folks!  We’ll be posting the anon masterlist shortly… and a surprise!

[vicea]

dream merch discord recap (june 12, 2021) - disclaimer: i may have missed some things or mistakenly heard other things, apologies in advanced for that!

he has not played the new minecraft update

dream “knows” the date george is coming to florida but he’s not saying it :p

dream doesn’t have anyone muted on twitter

dream guesses his favorite disney princess is belle

sapnap has seen dream’s feet before

he’s not actually connor’s dad in the dsmp lore

dreamnap do not have nicknames for each other D:

dream likes olives but especially black olives

his mother makes homemade pickles

he doesn’t have a phone case

he has dropped his phone from his ear onto concrete in the parking lot before and the screen didn’t crack

dream has six fingers /j

he pours cereal first not milk when making cereal

dream calls sapnap nick most of the time :D

what’s your dream car? “idk the one that gets me to point A to point B consistently”

he finally fixed his sleep schedule, woke up at 8 am today

mrbeast owes dream a tesla because he never sent dream the audio file

dream is a very analytical person - he thinks with numbers/data

creativity is one his strengths that he is the most proud of

3 to 4 years ago, dream used to say george looks like shawn mendes a lot, now he doesn’t resemble him as much

patches is currently sleeping <3

swimming is very relaxing to dream, he swam the other day!

many houses in florida have pools than other places, even the cheapest houses in orlando have pools

dream has merchendise defects (misprints on merch) + milestone merch and he wants to give them away to those who live in orlando (probably to anyone but the event will be held in orlando) though he doesn’t want it to be a covid super-spreader thing so once you pick up your item you gotta dip. just all an idea though

he has been donating them to charity too though :)

dream has likely read Heroes of Olympus before a long time ago

he says that he’ll do a give away of his childhood books with his signature on it

he was obsessed with the series (Percy Jackson) 

he really liked the Alex Rider series

has all of Maximum Ride books, 39 clues books

has read the legend series, the twilight series, and the maze runner

has all/read of the harry potter books, divergent, eragon

he would read all the time, to the point he would read more than one book a day (a book worm he says)

dream had a goal to read 200 books in a year and he wind up reading about 150

he doesn’t want to call it a library but- growing up he had something like that that had 600 or 700 or more books in it (privileged he admits it)

he has not read a book since he started youtube (about 2 years)

dream has a folder called Book that has his own writing in it

word count: 76000 words for one of his stories 

another one he wrote 5 chapters of

he sounds very excited/embarrassed talking about the stories he wrote he’s so endearing

the very first paragraph of one of his stories (he was young when he wrote this) “What exactly is darkness? is it the lack of light? is it a pit of nothingness? ... your mind is full of darkness...” then he couldn’t continue.

the story is about a kid who wakes up in a cell and has no idea where he is with other people who are in the same situation

dream has a world building document

he has a sequel to the first book he has ever written

he found a query letter that he wrote because he wanted to get his book published- he finds it very funny

he’s calling himself a nerd but idk it’s kind of endearing

“as you can tell i’ve always been incredibly cool and not a nerd at all! ever.”

he cringes at his own old videos

dream took a lot of inspiration from witches and wizards by james patterson for writing

the story is written in a way where the main character is actually writing the story so you’re getting input from the main character during it. there’s a lot of sarcasm in it and it’s making dream laugh

very first person narrator

he feels like it’d be very cool if he were to publish his works he wrote when he was 16 on amazon or something but he probably never would because he’d have to read through all of it and it’s just embarrassing for him

dream used to video call sapnap fairly frequently- even before youtube

he strictly remembers, a very long time (at least 7 to 9 years) ago he was at his old childhood house he video called sapnap. he was wearing a (technically) suit and he remembers specifically that he was giving sap a tour... 

“snazzy in a suit”

he had no reason to put on the suit (wow time is a flat circle huh)

drista is pretty close to sapnap’s height, she’s like 5′7″ but sap is still taller than her

dream filmed the whole thing when he and sapnap met but... it’s... gone because when he was clipping that one clip for twitter... it edited the whole video

he’s sure when they meet up with george they will film that too :D

DREAM IS PRETTY SURE THAT HE AND GEORGE WILL MEET THIS YEAR-- HE SAYS A 95% CERTAINTITY the five percent is like either restrictions or visa issues

dream does not play any instruments but he had a guitar hanging on his wall when he was younger...

dream is convinced they’re the same height but also sapnap is probably taller??

they had george compare his height to a door frame and dreamnap were googling for any doorframes to find any possible chance that george is taller than 5′8″ ... nothing came up

there’s a chance they’re both lying about being 5′8″

sap and george will literally just show up in stilts to prove they’re taller than each other /j

dream without shoes is between 6′2″ and 6′3″ with shoes he’s 6′3.5″

dream is talking about awesamdude’s fake height arc again LOL

dreamnap are very private people so they don’t bother each other but george doesn’t care and would just barge into their rooms and start bothering them- they were all joking about that over a voice call

he will visit europe

he thinks that greece would be a cool place to visit because sapnap’s family is from there :) so it’ll be like a nice “treat” to go back with sap :D

dream isn’t entirely sure that the dream team meet up will happen this year but he’s working out the details because he wants to make sure it’s safe

he’s talking to youtube about his face reveal

it’s up to george if he wants to eat healthy when they finally move in

dream just has a lot of meat and vegetables in his house

spinach with chicken is good

not much fruit (only apples and tomatoes)

“DRISTA IS 5″ is trending on twitter LOL (her height got cut off)

dream doesn’t want people flying to different places because he doesn’t want to encourage travel so he wants to do all of the meet ups with a two day heads up at most

he thinks that it’s awesome that ranboo and tubbo are meeting soon !! :D

it’s very cool to dream to see how far everyone’s has come since the beginning of the dsmp. everyone has done so much

dream finalized his youtube plan a couple weeks before he uploaded his video and he was talking to drista about how he was gonna be a big youtuber in a parking lot :”)

she was the first person he really ever talked to about it

dream would love to teach george how to drive it’d be really funny :D (a very good video or a livestream idea) 

dream knows how to ride a bike, he used to have to bike to school

he can’t explain dnf.gay he has no clue he is not responsible. sapnap was the one who found it LOL. he is adamantly exclaiming that it was not him

dream doesn’t worry about views/likes/dislikes a lot- mainly views but that’s for the new uploads

he hasn’t uploaded in like a month and a half (*cries*)

he wants to stream at some point but he doesn’t know when 

he wants to play geoguessr but not now... he doesn’t want to alt stream rn- maybe tomorrow!

he is insisting that the splash text on his minecraft home screen is by callahan

he asked callahan to send him bunch of text files that are dream team related so that the splash can rotate through it but callahan thought it was funny (it is) to put only dreamnotfound <3 so it doesn’t ever change at all and dream doesn’t even know how to change and he has asked callahan to change it but he said no (even though dream pays him LMAO)

the video referenced in the padilla’s video is still in the works, it might be handed over to sapnap though !

he has no idea if he will be in MCC pride yet

padilla got dream’s input for the video, dream found him to be a very nice guy ! :) it’s the first interview that dream did that wasn’t by a person with a negative opinion of dream

dream felt relaxed doing the interview with padilla 

?????? he’s blaming callahan for his “dnfisreal” nickname in bedwars 

he’s blaming callahan for a lot of dnf-related stuff

callahan runs the dream fanart account thus the liking of dnf content

he’s so insistent that it was callahan

dream admits that he was lying about the twitter and other stuff but for sure callahan did code the splash text in LOL

dream liking that tweet “the chances of george doing a hot tub stream is the same of dnf dating” was “funny” he wasnt trying to do any commentary...

the inside joke of “oh it’s all just a joke to you” originates from george and sapnap actually always fighting (like them yelling and shouting at each other) and george said something really mean and sapnap was hurt then geroge said “it was just a joke” and sapnap replied with that line and ever since then it’s been a meme LOL

he says that everyone does the hand-on-the-passenger-seat-while-reversing thing

dream is offline raiding with his chat with 6k people

dream appreciates us and will talk to us soon! 

[killmebythebeach]

A bunch of head cannons (Maybe too much). Also in talking about the characters.

I think Dream is that one design where his skin is just the static tv screen. He just constantly emits that fuzzy noise, Sam crafted him the smile mask that he can see through so he doesn't scare people.

George is just kind of the server itself. He's the same species as Hannah, but a mushroom and more powerful. If he stays awake too long, the server just kind of freezes. This is also a reason XD keeps him sleeping, it's his way of talking to George and he thinks the server is like his soap opera of mortals.

Callahan is sort of like the person who makes sure George doesn't get killed or dies while asleep, making sure he's surrounded by mushrooms and such. Deer hybrid <3

Alyssa joined the server because she knew all her friends were idiots and didn't want them to die immediately. But once the elections rolled around, she felt the pressure of choosing sides and ran away to the desert, only keeping contact with Ponk. She actually lives just a couple miles from Foolish's summer home. Her communicator actually died after a couple months and she had no way of charging it, so she lost contact with everyone.

Sapnap is a magma cube hybrid and can jump higher than most, his natural temperature runs hotter, and is fire proof. Bad found him in the nether when he was maybe 10-15 years old.

Sam was actually a normal creeper, but gained player like sentience from being struck by lightning. Instead of becoming charged, he gained intelligence and met the others on the server. Callahan taught him some Redstone, but from there he figured out a lot on his own. He's also a creeper centaur.

Ponk is actually a descendant of a fairy, a lemon tree. Their mask was also a gift from Sam because after the second or third time their tree was burnt, their immune system was weakened a considerable amount. Alyssa also wore her mask for them.

Bad is a size shifting demon from the nether, more specifically soul sand desert. He uses soul fire to gain strength, so because the egg died when near it, he was just a little weaker than normal. Because he's a demon he needs a tie to the overworld to stay there, he tied his soul and lives to Skeppy.

Tommy was grown in a lab to be a hero, project: THESEUS. The lab gave him small enhancements, like slightly stronger and just a bit more resilient, to make the Above Average Boy (TM). He then ran away to meet Wilbur. When Dream asked Wilbur if he wanted to come to the server, he asked if Tommy could go first to see what it was like. He also actually really likes gardening and making up funny songs to Wilbur playing guitar. He also made funny lyrics for his discs, but he's still a bit scared to take them out of his ender chest. Other than bringing attachment, Dream also exiled Tommy to see what his lab enhancements could do.

Tubbo is an adaptive hybrid! His hair was blond, shifting to brown when Wilbur found him, getting blue eyes from Tommy, growing small horns under Schlatt, parts of his skin being static when Dream was "helping" him with his presidency, and parts of his scars tinging black and green from Ranboo and Micheal. Tubbo also helped Wilbur write part of the anthem. He likes living in the snow because the Manberg flag had magma blocks on it, casting a heatwave over the country, and after L'Manburg blew up it got really hot from the exposed stone in direct sun.

Fundy can actually hold his breath for a very long time and swim very well because of Sally teaching him and his salmon genes. The yellow things on his hat are actually shells, and the stripes on his jacket are trans colors. Also with his dreams, he saw Eret was going to betray them but didn't think it was real, or didn't want to. He also saw Wilbur blow up L'Manburg but chose not to believe it, thinking his father could still be saved. He actually saw pretty much everything, but didn't quite understand what they were until after doomsday.

The necklace Punz wears is one of those picture lockets, but he lost the picture and can't remember what it was. The first time Dream paid him was when Dream asked for help and Punz made an off hand joke about getting money, and then Dream thought he was being serious. Him, Dream, and Sapnap were like brothers, and Punz got sadder every time he saw Dream pushing people away and diving deeper into darkness.

Purpled is an aliensent to see if the planet was colonizable, but then crashed and was stranded, all his communications down and his ship barely able to hover fifty feet off the ground. When Quackity blew it up, he essentially got rid of his chance of ever going home. Purpled's species can shapeshift, so he turned himself into the first person he saw, Punz. Eventually before trying to communicate with the native life forms, he edited his form a little so they weren't identical, keeping purple eyes and antennae, changing the colors slightly, and changing the voice up. When he moves away from the main SMP, Ponk makes sure to check up on him and that he has a way to check his communicator.

Wilbur came a month after sending Tommy. His father being a patron of life and his mother the goddess of death, he met in the middle being born as a human. The only reason Ghostbur was as active and present as he was was because he was so connected to both life and death. Since his corpse was decaying for as long as it was, Wilbur is now super weak, his flesh is thin and his eyes are rotted and gone. Much like Ghostbur, Wilbur in limbo saw what people said about him, and Ghostbur could hear that from the back of his head. Now Wilbur can hear what people say about Ghostbur and he hates it, not wanting to be connected to what he thinks like a shell of himself.

Schlatt is a ram (duh) and actually does the fainting goat thing. So when he died of a heart attack, no one knew at first if he was actually dead or not. His alcoholism stems from the revive book, as the possibility of tampering with death made him existential and scared, so to cope he drank. There are also a ton of other stuff other than revival in the book, but it's in galactic.

Skeppy was just a normal human, but after making the pact with Bad, Bad put a spell on him. Parts of him turned into diamond, protecting both his and Bad's lives. He however, is unaware of this. With the egg, he would just sit on it, the diamonds chipping away to make room for the vines.

Eret was cursed by the Wither Cult, giving them white eyes and a slowly deteriorating memory. Not sure what to do, Foolish dropped them off at the SMP. Sometimes they would dream about old memories from before the curse, but it was just glimpses so he could never tell what they meant. Once they were king, they made the Herobrine shrine subconsciously, not really sure what it was after. They also had a strange affinity of beacons and resurrection, some of their memories resurfacing when they tried to help Phil and Ghostbur revive Wilbur after doomsday. The reason people are more scared of their eyes than any other wierd eyes was because he generally looks like a normal human, but the wither along with their Herobrine origins creates an uncanny valley that people are shocked by.

Jack had red and blue irises before crawling out of hell, but after coming back the whites of his eyes also turned red and blue. He always wears 3d glasses so no one noticed, but he just thought no one cared enough to mention it. He also has a bunch of scars and burn marks that no one but him can see, therefore no one asks about them or thinks something is wrong, cementing the idea that no one cares about him.

Niki is a blaze hybrid (stole this from @/420technoblazeit) whose fire hair color changes based on strong emotion, something she bond with Tubbo for as a fellow shifter. A soft yellow in L'Manburg, brighter orange in Manburg, hot pink on Doomsday, a soul fire blue with the syndicate (which Techno hates), and a dead grey when she found out Wilbur was alive. She was also old child hood friends with Ranboo and Eret, leaving Ranboo for the SMP. Ranboo, unfortunatly, doesn't remember much more than her name. She also knows galactic from Ranboo, so she talks about her troubles to Shy the Enderman. She doesn't really know how to talk to Puffy anymore after Doomsday or finding out how she wants to protect Tommy.

Quackity can perfectly replicate someone's voice and, with a lot of effort, can completely change his form to another player. He also has very small yellow wings, too small to fly, so he almost always hides them. He used to constantly change his voice for jokes with Karl, Sapnap, and George, but he doesn't like doing it now in Las Nevadas, as he sees it as unprofessional. However, sometimes he uses when he visits Dream, changing his voice to people like George and Sapnap to make torture more effective.

In the In Between and Other Side, Karl actually looks like his old skin, or his natural state (the big purple one that inspired his sweater). But most of the time in the normal world, he looks human. With effort he can bring out the interdemential being thing, something only Quackity and Sapnap know about. The more he time travels, the easier it becomes to change, and he's even started defaulting to the other form.

HBomb is actually just a normal news reporter, sent to interview and record what's going on in the server, his first big story being the election. Upon Doomsday, the stress of seeing everyone alone, fighting, and disconnected, he ran away from the world, essentially becoming a cat lady. His undercover reporter persona is actually the cat maid. He eventually came back to the server to see how he could help after Doomsday, befriending Niki again and living with her in the underground city.

Techno is a piglin, so he's scared of soul fire. He forgot to tell Phil before he decorated the syndicate room, so he just suffers in silence. He also does better when around a lot of gold, like in the nether, and he feels drained and slightly weaker without it. Instead of just putting gold around the area (it would ruin his property value), he just hibernates. He has an emerald earing, like all of the syndicate, but his is a locket that unfolds into pictures of the syndicate.

Ant always wears a red hoodie, now ruined by the egg, that used to be Red's. On Red's death anniversary, him, Bad, Skeppy, and Sam would make cake and put flowers on his grave. He missed the last one because it was during the egg, but for a brief moment after Puffy killed him he saw Red. Red then promptly and bluntly told him to stop being a pussy (haha, cat) and that he shouldn't do all this just to get him back, one of Ant's motivators to make amends with the people he hurt while with the egg. Ant is also a shapeshifter, but can only turn into a cat.

Phil actually used to work under Foolish as a patron of life but then he had a son with the goddess of death, so his title was removed so he could be with her and he became an Angel of Death. Kristin noticed how sad he was after being released, so she gifted him wings. They were however, destroyed on November 16th. His chat also serves as messenger pigeons, which were used to send letters to Wilbur.

Connor is actually just a hedgehog who somehow befriended Schlatt. Even before the haunted mansion, Karl vented to him about his time travel troubles, not knowing he was a sentient player. As a hedgehog, no one really cares where he goes, so he goes outside the server limits to meet his friends from the haunted mansion.

Puffy is a distant relative of Schlatt, but instead of politics she went into piracy. With her mom, she went travelling the seas. One say, a storm came and wiped out her ship, her crew, her mom, everything but her. The reason she survived was because Foolish saw her and saved her. Unfortunately, Puffy hit hee head in the crash and doesn't remember anything.

Vikkstar is the equivalent of a big time celebrity, so of course his endorsement of POG2020 was a big deal.

Lazarbeam is literally just a ginger bread cookie.

Ranboo has actually met a lot of the smp before actually joining. He's met Niki, Fundy, Eret, Punz, and Dream at least. He also sees the inverted colors Enderman see. His suit was actually a gift from Eret before they forgot how to tailor. He got the crown from Techno after joining the syndicate, claiming he didn't want any syndicate members to look like trash.

Foolish came to the server most recently to check up on Eret, but he couldn't bring himself to leave again. When Puffy adopts him, he can't say no because he remembers saving her. His initial goal was to kill an ender dragon to claim the XD title and become a full god like DreamXD, but after realising someone already killed it he went into his totem if death phase. Upon meeting Eret, he got over it and they went on some silly adventures, Foolish now taking a more peaceful route.

Hannah is essentially a weaker George, as her power is tied to the plants themselves and not the entire server. She however has a lot more physical power because rose dryads like to fight because they have thorns. Since roses can be taken out a lot easier, she is essentially a glass canon. Also when around any plant, she can make it grow faster than normal.

Any guest on the server? Corpse, Pokimane, Lil Nas? They were all Slimecicle. That's how he knows where everyone is from, even outside of Las Nevadas. No one else knows this. He's also ancient, if he met Phil they would probably recognise eachother. There was an actual Charlie Slimecicle who was not a slime, but after being launched into orbit this Slimecicle decided to impersonate him.

Michael Mcchill is a sort of bounty hunter. He came to the server after hearing of all the crime, assuming there'd be a lot of bounties to collect. However, he soon learned that no one really cares if you commit a crime. He then took to reading news articles made by HBomb to see if there were any past open bounties. But after reading for a while about the server's wronguns, mostly Dream, he began to sympathise with them. And he's also a speedrunner, so maybe he could help with some bounties across other servers!

This was a very long post and i apologize, but it was so fun to finally write all these thoughts down! I hope you liked them! I can't even fit all the tags I want.