#but the thing is I don’t know if Norway should be living in london or stockholm

[pvffinsdaisies]

It’s very late and I cannot sleep as I plot out an in-depth ScotNor break up where they get back together after a few months bc they’re my stupid lil blorbos who cannot resist one another <3

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

"I always just rode the waves,” Rebecca Ferguson says with a shrug. The comment hangs in the air, as if the Anglo-Swedish 37-year-old is only now processing that a combination of currents and tides has led her not just to an acting career but to the brink of big-screen stardom.

“I’ve never been ambitious,” she says. “I’ve always thought that that was a bad thing.” She’s seen others in the industry consumed by constant striving and asked herself why she hasn’t hungered for fame since childhood, slept in cars outside castings, barged into directors’ offices or thrown herself in the path of a producer. “But should I not be burning for this? Out meeting people and networking for the next job?” says Ferguson, who has chosen the sort of quiet, private life outside the big city that so many actors claim to crave. “My life just took another turn. But I’ve always thought: Am I where I should be?”

At the moment, on this late July day, Ferguson is slumped in the backseat of a Mercedes-Benz sedan, crawling through rush-hour traffic on the M4 out of London. She is capping off a hectic week during a particularly busy period. Most immediately, she’s coming from a table read for Wool, the Apple TV+ adaptation of Hugh Howey’s bestselling postapocalyptic trilogy. Ferguson is both the star and, for the first time, an executive producer. “I’m sitting in all the different rooms, listening and learning like the students,” she says. She’s filming Mission: Impossible 7, her third tour of duty in the long-running series that first brought her widespread recognition. She’s also promoting the film Reminiscence, the sci-fi noir written and directed by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy in which Ferguson stars opposite Hugh Jackman. And now she is starting a press push and festival prep for her role as Lady Jessica ahead of the much-delayed release of Dune (in theaters October 22), director Denis Villeneuve’s reimagining of Frank Herbert’s novel. “After this film, I think everyone will see what I see in her,” the filmmaker says. “She has a beautiful, regal, aristocratic presence, elegance. But that was not the main thing: The most important thing for me was that depth.”

After tracing a long, meandering path, Ferguson has landed in a rare and rarified position: ascendant in her late 30s (still an anomaly for women in the film industry) and sought after by some of the biggest names in the business. “When you meet Rebecca, you just see it. She’s very open, candid, collaborative, hardworking, funny—and not pretentious,” says Tom Cruise, who handpicked Ferguson to star opposite him in the Mission: Impossiblefilms, which are known for their demanding shoots. “She just rose to the occasion every single time.”

In February 2020, when the pandemic began, Ferguson left Venice, where she’d been shooting Mission: Impossible 7, and hunkered down with her husband, their 3-year-old daughter and Ferguson’s 14-year-old son from a previous relationship at their farm in Sweden. After four months, Ferguson returned to the M:I set and basically hasn’t stopped working since.

Dune has sat idle for far longer. By the time the movie premieres, more than two years will have passed since it wrapped. Ferguson recently asked to screen the film again: “I miss it,” she says. She ended up bringing along her Mission: Impossible co-star Simon Pegg. After the credits rolled, Pegg broke into a smile and wrapped her in a congratulatory bear hug. “That’s all I needed,” she says.

Despite being a sci-fi epic based on a novel from 1965, Dune feels “very timely,” Ferguson says, pointing to its handling of environmental issues, religious zealotry, colonialism and Indigenous rights. The plot of the film, which cost an estimated $165 million, centers on occupying powers battling for the right to exploit a people and their planet, named Arrakis, for melange (or spice)—the most valuable commodity in Herbert’s fictional universe, a substance that provides transcendental thought, extends life and enables instantaneous interstellar travel. “Spice,” Ferguson says, “is equally about the poppy and oil fields.”

Ferguson’s Lady Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit, a powerful secretive sisterhood with superhuman mental abilities. She defies her order by giving birth to a son, Paul (played by Timothée Chalamet), who may be a messianic figure. “She basically just f—s up the entire universe by having a son out of love,” says Ferguson. In her hands, Jessica is equal parts caring parent, protector and pedagogue. Among the skills she wields and teaches Paul is “the Voice”—a modulated tone that allows the speaker to control others.

The movie was shot in Norway, Hungary, Jordan and Abu Dhabi, whose desert landscape stood in for Arrakis. Filming there was particularly arduous, as temperatures exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit, limiting the shoot window to only an hour and a half each day at 5 a.m. and again at dusk. “We were running across the sand in our steel suits being chased by nonexistent but humongous worms,” Ferguson recalls, referring to the sand-beasts later rendered in CGI. “To be honest, it was one of the best moments ever. It was the most beautiful location I’ve ever seen.”

Back in London, Ferguson is approaching home. She leaves the following day for a small town on the coast of England, where she plans to spend her first vacation in two years and to do some surfing. “Let’s hope it’s good weather,” she says. “If not, I’ll surf in the rain.” Not that she’s the sort to paddle out into storm swells. “I think I’ve managed to stand on a board once in my entire life,” she says. “But it was quite a high. Complete surrender to the waves and total control all at once.”

Born Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström to an English mother and Swedish father, Ferguson grew up bilingual in Stockholm. She immersed herself in dance from a young age, enjoying ballet, jazz, street funk and tango. Despite being shy and prone to blushing and breaking out when forced to speak publicly, Ferguson found she was at ease in front of the camera. She dabbled in modeling and then, at 15, attended a TV casting call at her mother’s urging. Ferguson ended up getting the lead role in Nya Tider (New Times), a soap opera that became wildly popular, splashing Ferguson’s face into Swedish homes five times a week.

When her role ended about two years later, Ferguson was adrift. She had no formal acting training to fall back on, no clear sense of how to steer a career and no major connections to the industry. She had a short run on another soap and appeared in a slasher flick and a couple of independent shorts, then…nothing. “I was famous in Sweden, but I didn’t really have an income anymore,” she says. “So I went and I worked in whatever job I could get.” That meant stints at a daycare center and as a nanny, in a jewelry shop and a shoe store, as well as teaching tango, cleaning hotel rooms and waitressing at a Korean restaurant. She eventually landed in a small coastal town named Simrishamn, where she lived with her then-partner and their toddler son, content to be a where-are-they-now celebrity.

When fame again came calling, Ferguson ran away. She was at the flea market when she recognized the acclaimed Swedish director Richard Hobert, and he saw her. As he shouted her name, Ferguson grabbed her son, who lost his shoes and sausage, and fled. “I panicked,” she says. “I don’t know why.” When Hobert eventually caught up to her, Ferguson tried to act nonchalant as he proceeded to tell her he’d admired her work and pitched her on the lead role in his next movie: “I’ve written this role, and I think I have written it for you. Do you want to read the script?”

Her work in Hobert’s A One-Way Trip to Antibes earned her a Rising Star nomination at the Stockholm International Film Festival. She quickly got an agent in Scandinavia, then one in Britain. On her first trip to take meetings in London, she read for the lead in The White Queen, the BBC adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s historical novels about the women behind the Wars of the Roses. Ferguson got the part, and her portrayal of Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of England, earned her a Golden Globe nomination and the admiration of at least one Hollywood heavyweight.

Ferguson was in the Moroccan desert filming the Lifetime biblical miniseries The Red Tentwhen the assistant director whisked her off her camel. “We’re going to have to pause shooting,” he said as he asked her to dismount. “Tom Cruise wants to meet you for Mission: Impossible. We’re going to fly you off today.”

Cruise had seen Ferguson’s work in The White Queen and her audition tape and couldn’t believe she wasn’t already a major star. “What? Where has this woman been?” Cruise recalls exclaiming to his new Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie. “She’s incredibly skilled,” Cruise says, “very charismatic, very expressive. As you can tell, the camera loves her.” Ferguson landed a multi-picture deal to star opposite Cruise in the multibillion-dollar franchise. He and McQuarrie built out the role of Ilsa Faust for Ferguson, creating the anti-Bond girl, an equal to Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. “We could just see the impact she could have,” he says. “She’s a dancer. She has great control of her body, of her movements. She has the same ability to move through emotions effortlessly.”

Ferguson threw herself into the films and quickly found a shorthand with the cast and crew. “There was a dynamic that worked very well with all of us,” she says. “One of the things I absolutely love is doing all the stunts.” That physicality has given her a reputation as an action-minded actor. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve done 20 other films where I don’t kick ass,” Ferguson says. “Mission comes with such an enormous following. That was what made my career.”

Ferguson’s M: I movies bracket a number of films in which she played opposite marquee names: Florence Foster Jenkins, with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant; The Girl on the Train, with Emily Blunt; The Greatest Showman, with Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams; Life, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds; Men in Black: International, with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson; The Snowman, with Michael Fassbender; Doctor Sleep, with Ewan McGregor. And now Dune, opposite Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Zendaya and Chalamet, whom she calls “one of the best actors, if not the best actor of his generation—of this time.” She was similarly impressed by Zendaya, who plays the native Fremen warrior Chani. “She’s quite raw and naughty and fun,” says Ferguson. “She has an enormous f— off attitude.”

When Ferguson first spoke to Villeneuve about appearing in the movie, “he started telling me about this woman who was a protector, and a mother, and a lover, and a concubine,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘I’m sorry. You want me to play a queen and a bodyguard? And you want me to kick ass and walk regally?’ I was like, ‘Denis, why would I want to do that? That’s the last thing I want to do.’ ”

After the call, Ferguson says, “I went downstairs to my hubby and said, Oh, my God, he’s amazing, but I’m not going to get the job. I just criticized the character.” Ferguson worried she was being cast as a stereotypical “strong female character,” where “it’s constantly, ‘She looks good, and she can kick.’ That is not what I want to portray.”

Ferguson hasn’t always been able to work with collaborators who’ve given her the space to question or opine. “I’ve been bashed down. I’ve been bullied,” she says, though she opts not to say by whom. That was never a concern with Villeneuve, who welcomed her critique. He and his co-writers had already decided from the start to make women the focus of their screenplay adaptation, and he promptly offered her the part.

“I want Lady Jessica to be at the center, the forefront. For me, she’s the architect of the story,” Villeneuve says. “I needed someone who will convey the mystery and the dark side of the film in a very elegant and profound way. Rebecca was everything I was hoping for. She’s so precise. She brought a beautiful, controlled vulnerability—it becomes very visceral on-screen.”

Ferguson vaguely recalls trying to watch the 1984 version of Dune, directed by David Lynch, in her youth, but she fell asleep. And she had never opened Herbert’s novel until being offered the part in the new adaptation. As she dug into the book, she says, she learned that her character was subservient and far more like a concubine, forced to eat alone in her bedroom, not spoken to and not allowed to speak. Ferguson ended up relying primarily on Villeneuve for her research and prep—his notes and comments, his references and the pages in the book he suggested she focus on. “I would feel ignorant not to have read Frank’s book at all,” Ferguson says, though she admits there are parts of the sprawling novel (which Villeneuve is splitting into two films) she’s only skimmed. “I have to finish it.” That will not happen on her upcoming vacation, however. “Absolutely not,” she says “I am surfing.”

By the way, if you saw, I am snaking on the ground, snaking around my room to get good Wi-Fi—it’s not some dance or yoga thing,” Ferguson says. “You have to do that in this old house.” It’s a week and a half after our first meeting, and Ferguson is at her new home, a more than 500-year-old property southwest of London that has, over the years, been home to numerous English Royals. It’s more spartan than stately now. “Empty except for a rock star,” she says, turning her phone’s camera to reveal a framed duotone poster of Mick Jagger that’s leaning against the wall. “We haven’t even started renovating.

Ferguson has returned from her holiday fortified and with renewed confidence, thanks in part to her success on the surfboard. “I went up nearly every time,” she says cheerfully, “but the waves weren’t very high.” She shrugs. “I was proud. I was up. I rode them, not the other way around.”

After years of going with the flow, Ferguson is eager to replicate that sense of control in her career. She values her role as an executive producer on Wool, she says, “because I am, for the first time, a part of it from the beginning.” She relishes weighing in on every aspect, from casting (the show recently added Tim Robbins) to cinematography to her character—which has not always been easy for her. “Why do I feel it’s difficult to speak up? I still battle with these things,” she says. Alluding to those times she was pushed around in the past, Ferguson says, “I was angry, but it was more me getting off at ‘How can I let that happen? Why am I letting myself react this way?’ And I take it with me to the next thing where I go, ‘OK, how do I stop that from happening?’ ”

She is learning that she can ride on top of waves without giving up her agency or maybe just let them break against her. “I want to feel I can go home and think, That was a hard day or that pissed me off—and that’s OK,” Ferguson says, with a nod and tight smile. “Because I still stood there as Rebecca. I didn’t shift.”

[lihikainanea]

Heyy ^^ i found ur blog yesterday and ive been ADDICTED to ur BFF!Bill stories!! they're so so good! I was wondering if you could write something about them both being on a plane, and when turbulence starts to happen tiger is just freaking out and bill has to calm and comfort her. omg that would be so adorable. also maybe them being cute at the airport before the flight, because tiger is all sleepy and soft. as you can tell, i've been desperate for some fluff hahah xx

HELLO NEW FRENN.

First of all, welcome bubs. Welcome welcome welcome to my crazy little corner of the interweb universe, I’m so happy that you stopped by and I’m so happy that you enjoy my insane babbles! do you have a favourite? I love hearing about your favourites.

Second of all, it’s strange to me that the people who are only starting to follow me now--ya’ll know a really special side of me. You know a weird, out of normal side of me. Because my job--I don’t talk about it--but normally, my job is 90% travel. Before this zombie virus hit, for years I was away for about 250-300 days a year. In 2019, I visited LA, Egypt, Iceland, London, Paris, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Japan, Cyprus, Ghana, Colombia, Phuket, Qatar, Milan, Bali, Stockholm, Abu Dhabi, Denmark, Norway--and that’s just to name a few. I was never home. I lived my life at 35,000 feet, in hotel rooms, never quite sure what continent I was on or what time zone I was in--and I loved it. That was the life for me.

And then 2020 hit and I just haven’t been the same since. In fact--because I think it’s important to talk about these things--this has hit me really hard lately, this nostalgia, this longing. And the main topic of my therapy sessions these days has been allowing myself to grieve for a life that I loved, that I may never get back. It’s rough, it’s really intense, and therapy has left me totally drained lately.

I have a few airport-comfort pieces on my #vacation bill tag on my Masterlist, because it meant so much to me at one point in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I was always treated very well when I flew and I had a lot of perks--but sometimes, sometimes it was hard too. When I was on malaria pills and only a few weeks out of a yellow fever vaccine, suffering from an insanely sensitive stomach in Ghana? I was curled up at the airport as my boss slowly gave me carbonated water, and I wanted to die. Curling up and just wanting to pass out on my 5th flight that was trying to get me to Vietnam, when I had no idea what day or what time it was, and all I wanted was to sleep--knowing that when I landed, I had 28 working hours ahead of me. That trip was hard. It was a lot of planes rides for short periods--so right as I started to drift off my seat would be slammed back into upright position, we were landing, and I had to shuffle out and shuffle onto another plane.

In any case, please let me indulge a moment in this because I am always here for Bill comforting tiger in all scenarios.

Bill flies a lot, so he’s used to all of it. He knows airports are chilly, and airplanes are often even more chilly. He knows that tiger errs on the side of cold always anyway, so he packs a few extra sweaters just because he knows that like...she doesn’t. She doesn’t think of it. And make no mistake, the extra sweaters are for him--because he always gives her the sweater off his back. She’s more comforted that way, it’s warm and it smells like him and she always huddles into it. 

And it’s not that travelling stresses tiger out--she quite enjoys it actually--but it’s all just so thrilling, that sometimes she has a hard time focusing. Bill is a high roller, man he has access to all the lounges and always either flies business class, or is ballin’ enough to be bumped to business class just when the airline agents see how many points he has. And tiger is just taking it all in--the wine in the lounge, the fanciness of it all, the prestige. She’s all up in ends and Bill has to help kind of ground her--just be that steady presence that keeps her in check, tells her to eat. He fixes a plate for her always, because tiger is like a kid in a candy store and there’s just so much to be amazed about. He thinks it’s adorable, god she makes his heart skip a few beats, but he knows she’s also looking for a bit of stability, some anchor that she can hold onto amidst all the excitement--and that’s what he is. 

They, obviously, always sit together on the plane. She always gets lots of head scritchies to help her relax and fall asleep. And listen, if turbulence should hit? He’s all over it. I, low key, really love turbulence--man that shit will just rock you right to sleep. I’ve been on a few flights where I have legitimately been scared--I’ve been on flights where an engine blew out after take off and we had to emergency land, or a flight where the tail of the aircraft split clean in half about 3,000 ft above ground and we had a crash landing, I’ve been on flights where the back wheels hit the runway and then the pilot had to take off again at almost a 90 degree angle because an aircraft was too close in front of him and I’ve nearly passed out from the G force. And actually the flight to Bali from Qatar was very turbulent--but I’ve mostly been able to retain my calm. No plane in history has ever been downed by turbulence alone. 

Bill knows that. He’s used to it. But tiger? Tiger has all of her claws dug into his forearm the minute the plane starts to shake even just slightly. It rouses him from a deep sleep--his goofy eye mask on and all--and he lifts it and squints at her. He’s a little grumpy, but the minute he sees the pure panic etched on her face, he morphs into caretaker mode immediately.

“It’s okay kid,” he says, “It’s just a rough patch.”

Sure enough, the seatbelt sign dings and the announcement from the captain comes on.

“Bill...” she says, and there’s a hint of a whine in her voice. He wishes he could just squeeze in close to her, just envelop her in his arms but the centre console between their seats separates them. He reaches his arm around her anyway, cranes so he can kiss her temple.

“We’re okay tiger,” he says into her ear, “Turbulence is normal. Nothing to worry about.”

She whines again, reaching a hand and she balls it into his t-shirt. He moves his hand to her hair, scritching lightly.

“Just breathe kid,” he says, “It’s okay.”

He can’t ding the flight attendant because they can’t move during turbulence anyway, so instead he reaches for his water bottle and uncaps it, offers it to her.

“Drink,” he instructs. She takes a small sip, but she tenses the minute the plane starts to rock again.

“We’re okay, I promise,” he says, “Turbulence isn’t dangerous kid. Not in the slightest.”

She looks unsure, everything about her is tense and worried.

“Hey,” he says and he taps her nose “You trust me?”

“Of course I trust you.”

“And you know how much I fly?”

“Yes.”

“It’s nothing kid,” he reassures, “Try and relax. Come here, I’ll rub your tummy.”

“I don’t need my--”

But listen, he manages to combine their blankets and creates a cocoon around the two of them. He reaches over and reclines her seat back a bit, boosts up the foot rest so she’s comfortable, and then under the blanket he lifts her shirt a little--and his warm hand just rubs back and forth, massages on her lower stomach just how she likes. He puts a pillow on the centre console, pulls the blanket up a little and pulls her over so she can lean across it--and then he rests his thumb on her lips.

“Billy--” she mumbles, but he hushes her.

“No one can see kid,” he kisses her nose softly, “I promise. Go on.”

[comrade-meow]

A great deal of the transgender debate is unexplained. One of the most mystifying aspects is the speed and success of a small number of small organisations in achieving major influence over public bodies, politicians and officials. How has a certain idea taken hold in so many places so swiftly?

People and organisations that at the start of this decade had no clear policy on or even knowledge of trans issues are now enthusiastically embracing non-binary gender identities and transition, offering gender-neutral toilets and other changes required to accommodate trans people and their interests. These changes have, among other things, surprised many people. They wonder how this happened, and why no one seems to have asked them what they think about it, or considered how those changes might affect them.

Some of the bodies that have embraced these changes with the greatest zeal are surprising: the police are not famous social liberals but many forces are now at the vanguard here, even to the point of checking our pronouns and harassing elderly ladies who say the wrong thing on Twitter.

How did we get here? I think we can discount the idea that this is a simple question of organisations following a changing society. Bluntly, society still doesn’t know very much about transgenderism. If you work in central London in certain sectors, live in a university town (or at a university) or have children attending a (probably middle-class) school, you might have some direct acquaintance. But my bet is that most people don’t know any trans people and don’t have developed views about how the law should evolve with regards to their status.

So the question again: how did organisations with small budgets and limited resources achieve such stunning success, not just in the UK but elsewhere?

Well, thanks to the legal website Roll On Friday, I have now seen a document that helps answer that question.

The document is the work of Dentons, which says it is the world’s biggest law firm; the Thomson Reuters Foundation, an arm of the old media giant that appears dedicated to identity politics of various sorts; and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Youth & Student Organisation (IGLYO). Both Dentons and the Thomson Reuters Foundation note that the document does not necessarily reflect their views.

The report is called 'Only adults? Good practices in legal gender recognition for youth'. Its purpose is to help trans groups in several countries bring about changes in the law to allow children to legally change their gender, without adult approval and without needing the approval of any authorities. 'We hope this report will be a powerful tool for activists and NGOs working to advance the rights of trans youth across Europe and beyond,' says the foreword.

As you’d expect of a report co-written by the staff of a major law firm, it’s a comprehensive and solid document, summarising law, policy and 'advocacy' across several countries. Based on the contributions of trans groups from around the world (including two in the UK, one of which is not named), it collects and shares 'best practice' in 'lobbying' to change the law so that parents no longer have a say on their child’s legal gender.

In the words of the report:

“'It is recognised that the requirement for parental consent or the consent of a legal guardian can be restrictive and problematic for minors.'

You might think that the very purpose of parenting is, in part, to 'restrict' the choices of children who cannot, by definition, make fully-informed adult choices on their own. But that is not the stance of the report.

Indeed, it suggests that 'states should take action against parents who are obstructing the free development of a young trans person’s identity in refusing to give parental authorisation when required.'

In short, this is a handbook for lobbying groups that want to remove parental consent over significant aspects of children’s lives. A handbook written by an international law firm and backed by one of the world’s biggest charitable foundations.

And how do the authors suggest that legal change be accomplished?

I think the advice is worth quoting at length, because this is the first time I’ve actually seen this put down in writing in a public forum. And because I think anyone with any interest in how policy is made and how politics works should pay attention.

Here’s a broad observation from the report about the best way to enact a pro-trans agenda:

“'While cultural and political factors play a key role in the approach to be taken, there are certain techniques that emerge as being effective in progressing trans rights in the "good practice" countries.'

Among those techniques: 'Get ahead of the Government agenda.'

What does that mean? Here it is in more detail:

“'In many of the NGO advocacy campaigns that we studied, there were clear benefits where NGOs managed to get ahead of the government and publish progressive legislative proposal before the government had time to develop their own. NGOs need to intervene early in the legislative process and ideally before it has even started. This will give them far greater ability to shape the government agenda and the ultimate proposal than if they intervene after the government has already started to develop its own proposals.'

That will sound familiar to anyone who knows how a Commons select committee report in 2016, which adopted several positions from trans groups, was followed in 2017 by a UK government plan to adopt self-identification of legal gender. To a lot of people, that proposal, which emerged from Whitehall looking quite well-developed, came out of the blue.

Anyway, here’s another tip from the document: 'Tie your campaign to more popular reform.'

For example:

'In Ireland, Denmark and Norway, changes to the law on legal gender recognition were put through at the same time as other more popular reforms such as marriage equality legislation. This provided a veil of protection, particularly in Ireland, where marriage equality was strongly supported, but gender identity remained a more difficult issue to win public support for.'

I’ve added my bold there, because I think those are very telling phrases indeed. This is an issue that is 'difficult to win public support for' and best hidden behind the 'veil of protection' provided by a popular issue such as gay rights. Again, anyone who has even glanced at the UK transgender debate will recognise this description.

Another recommendation is even more revealing: 'Avoid excessive press coverage and exposure.'

According to the report, the countries that have moved most quickly to advance trans rights and remove parental consent have been those where the groups lobbying for those changes have succeeded in stopping the wider public learning about their proposals. Conversely, in places like Britain, the more 'exposure' this agenda has had, the less successful the lobbying has been:

'Another technique which has been used to great effect is the limitation of press coverage and exposure. In certain countries, like the UK, information on legal gender recognition reforms has been misinterpreted in the mainstream media, and opposition has arisen as a result. ….Against this background, many believe that public campaigning has been detrimental to progress, as much of the general public is not well informed about trans issues, and therefore misinterpretation can arise.

In Ireland, activists have directly lobbied individual politicians and tried to keep press coverage to a minimum in order to avoid this issue.' (Emphasis added).

Although it offers extensive advice about the need to keep the trans-rights agenda out of the public’s gaze, the report has rather less to say about the possibility that advocates might just try doing what everyone else in politics does and make a persuasive argument for their cause. Actually convincing people that this stuff is a good idea doesn’t feature much in the report, which runs to 65 pages.

I’m not going to tell you what I think of the report, or the agenda it sets out. I’m not going to pass comment on it or its authors. I’m just going to try to summarise its nature and contents.

A major international law firm has helped write a lobbying manual for people who want to change the law to prevent parents having the final say about significant changes in the status of their own children. That manual advises those lobbying for that change to hide their plans behind a 'veil' and to make sure that neither the media nor the wider public know much about the changes affecting children that they are seeking to make. Because if the public find out about those changes, they might well object to them.

I started my first job as a researcher in the Commons in 1994. I’ve been studying and writing about politics and policy ever since. And in my experience of how changes in the law are brought about, the approach described in that report is simply not normal or usual. In a democracy, we are all free to argue for whatever policy or position we wish. But normally, anyone who wants to change the law accepts that to do so they need to win the support or, at least, the consent of the people whose authority ultimately gives the law its force. The approach outlined, in detail, in the Dentons report amounts to a very different way of lobbying to get the laws and policies you want. Even more notably, it suggests that in several countries people have been quite successful in lobbying behind a 'veil' and in a way that deliberately avoids the attention of the public. That, I think, should interest anyone who cares about how politics and policy are conducted, whether or not they care about the transgender issue.

I’m going to conclude with an observation I’ve made here before, but which I think bears repeating in the context of that report and the things it might tell people about other aspects of the trans issue: no policy made in the shadows can survive in sunlight.

[mtltranscripts]

Season 1: Episode 1-The Curse of Dethklok

Summary: The band is sponsored by coffee and also accidentally maim their chef.

Characters: Dethklok, Jean Pierre,

Special Thanks: @offdensmith​ for helping out! <3

Pastebin  

JEAN PIERRE: I am a gear in the hands of the clock. I fear not my mortality.

NATHAN: Approach us. 

JEAN PIERRE: Everything to your liking, my lords?

PICKLES: Are you aware of the fate of our last restaurant helicopter chef?

JEAN PIERRE: His face was-

MURDERFACE: His face was smashed!

JEAN PIERRE: Yes, I know.

TOKI: He slipped his hand and face on the slohovercroft.

SKWISGAAR: Holbercraft...

TOKI: Hov…

SKWISGAAR: Homo...

PICKLES: Hovercraft.

TOKI: Hold me...

SKWISGAAR: [unintelligible attempt at saying hovercraft]

TOKI: [unintelligible attempt at saying hovercraft]

PICKLES: Hovercraft.

SKWISGAAR: [unintelligible attempt at saying hovercraft]

TOKI: [unintelligible attempt at saying hovercraft]

PICKLES: Hovercraft. They’re trying to tell you that a guy got his face smashed in with a hovercraft. That’s what they’re trying to tell you.

JEAN PIERRE: Yes, I know.

TOKI: And then, from the sorrow...fatoo! He blow he brain in.

SKWISGAAR: He blow he brain out.

TOKI: Whatever.

SKWISGAAR: Out.

TOKI: It make a great album cover.

SKWISGAAR: Yeah that-yeah all of our chefs they has died a horrible death. What of that’s do you think?

JEAN PIERRE: I would rather have my brains scooped out with a melon baller, than to miss the opportunity to deliver the various cheese snacks to my beloved Dethklok.

PILOT: Sorry, my lords, we’re chewing through a few thousand doves up here! Don’t worry, these rotors will grind them into paste in no time!

JEAN PIERRE: From the prime minister of Norway. There are several cases. The finest wine-

NATHAN: No! We never drink before a show! Never!

MURDERFACE: Well, I’ll just have a little drink!

TOKI: Me too!

SKWISGAAR: Me too!

PICKLES: Me too!

NATHAN: Me too.

 ♪ Do anything for Dethklok ♪

 ♪ Do anything for Dethklok ♪

 ♪ Do anything for Dethklok ♪

 ♪ Do anything for Dethklok ♪

 ♪ Do anything for Dethklok ♪

♪ Dethklok' Dethklok Dethklok Dethklok ♪

♪ Skwisgaar Skwigelf, taller than a tree ♪

♪ Toki Wartooth, not a bumble bee ♪

♪ William Murderface, Murderface, Murderface ♪

♪ Pickles the Drummer, doodily doo ding dong doodily doodily doo ♪

♪ Nathan Explosion ♪

REPORTER ONE: Live from Batsfjord, Norway, where over 300,000 fans have traveled to the Arctic Circle to see the legendary metal band Dethklok perform just one song.

REPORTER TWO: Surprisingly the song itself is a jingle, a coffee jingle. Never before have so many people travelled so far for such a short song. 

REPORTER THREE: A jingle for international coffee moguls, the Duncan Hills Coffee Corporation. Is Dethklok selling out? “No!” says band frontman, Nathan Explosion.

NATHAN: We’re here to make coffee metal. We will make everything metal. Blacker than the blackest black, times infinity.

REPORTER TWO: They’re called pain waivers. Fans are literally signing their life away, releasing Dethklok from any and all liability.

FAN ONE: My eye got tore out and force fed to me at a show. Dethklok rules!

FAN TWO: In London some dude chopped off my fingers and threw ‘em up onstage. Murderface rolled them up and smoked them! Murderface! 

REPORTER ONE: Dark clouds have rolled in. Static electricity’s in the air. Wait! Wait! Wait a minute! It's Dethklok! It's Dethklok!

 PILOT: Dethklok rolling.

♪ Do you folks like coffee? ♪

♪ Real coffee ♪

♪ From the hills of Colombia? ♪

♪ The Duncan Hills will wake you ♪

♪ From a thousand deaths ♪

♪ A cup of blackened blood ♪

♪ Dying, dying ��

♪ You’re dying for a cup ♪

♪ Guatemala blend ♪

♪ Ethiopian ♪

♪ French vanilla roast ♪

♪ Dying, dying ♪

♪ You’re dying for a cup ♪

♪ Prepare for the ultimate flavor ♪

♪ You're gonna get some now ♪

♪ And scream for your cream ♪

♪ Duncan Hills, Duncan Hills, Duncan Hills coffee ♪

SENATOR STAMPINGSTON: As you can see, Dethklok is no laughing matter. They’re the world’s greatest cultural force. The short time since the Duncan Hill Coffee Batsfjord Massacrefest, every other coffee company has been obliterated. Completely blown out of the water.

GENERAL CROZIER: Freaks.

SENATOR STAMPINGSTON: These freaks as you call them are currently worth billions. Gentlemen: Skwisgaar Skwigelf, taller than a tree. Toki Wartooth, not a bumblebee. William Murderface, Murderface, Murderface. Pickles the Drummer, doodily doo ding dong doodily doodily doo. Nathan Explosion. I’m afraid that’s all we know, gentlemen.

CARDINAL RAVENWOOD: I will remind you again of the Sumerian artifacts. The resemblance is indisputable.

GENERAL CROZIER: If they’re the ones that we think they are, we should exterminate them immediately.

MISTER SALACIA: No. We wait.

NATHAN: Well, I don’t think all of our employees are cursed!

PICKLES: The chefs. The chefs.

NATHAN: Oh the chefs are cursed, yeah! Yeah.

PICKLES: Yeah.

TOKI: Actually, he’s stills alives. Yeah.

NATHAN: Well I mean he’ll be dead soon. That’s what I meant-that’s what I meant to say.

SKWISGAAR: Oh, come on. He could probably hear that. Oh wait no he can’t ‘cause he ain’t got no ears.

PICKLES: Hold on. It says here that keeping this guy alive is costing us $10,000 a day?

DETHKLOK: [overlapping exclamations]

MURDERFACE: Well here’s an idea. Why don’t we Yankee-doodle-dandy, you know, pull the plug? Kill ‘em!

PICKLES: Let’s just fire him. Look at him. He ain’t cooked a damn thing all day long. Let’s face it, he’s bringing me down.

SKWISGAAR: What is wrong with this dumb dildo, they give all all the free coffee in the world but no instruction on how to cook it!

TOKI: Whew, I might need to take five, six, personal days for all this griefs gonna have to do.

MURDERFACE: Aw, here we go again! You took two personal grieving days last week!

TOKI: Yeah, well, I was depressed about color. Don’t hassle me about thats, deals with thats-

MURDERFACE: You’re depressed?! You’re depressed! I’m fat! I’m the fat one!

TOKI: Come on-

MURDERFACE: Yeah, I’m fat!

SKWISGAAR: Aw, come on, you’re like a male model-

MURDERFACE: We know that! The one good thing about Jean Pierre being dead is that maybe I won’t eat so much, and lose these flabby deth-handles!

TOKI: No!

MURDERFACE: No, I’m fat!

TOKI: Welp, I’m starting to get a hungries, but it looks like we starves.

PICKLES: Well, great. What are we supposed to do now?

TOKI: What’s this place called?

SKWISGAAR: This is I believes called food libraries.

TOKI AND SKWISGAAR: [overlapping saying “Food library”]

PICKLES: It’s called a grocery store, ya douchebags! I’m sorry about “douchebags” I got-I got low blood sugar. 

NATHAN: Alright, here’s the deal. We have to do our own shopping so we can make our own dinner like regular jack-offs do. Now you’re all in charge of putting together one dish, and don’t just buy booze! That ain’t food!

MURDERFACE: What do you mean “booze ain’t food?” I’d rather chop off my ding-dong than admit that!

TOKI: You’d rather chop off your ding-dong than not drink?

MURDERFACE: Yeah!

TOKI: Wowee!

MURDERFACE: Hey grandma, is there olives in it?

OLD LADY ONE: In what?

MURDERFACE: Lemon tart wrinkled tits! Geeze!

OLD LADY ONE: Oh!

MURDERFACE: Good! Then it’s pee-pee time!

PICKLES: Hey, chief, this stuff good for soup?

WORKER ONE: No-

PICKLES: Ahh! That’s a yes!

TOKI: Who is walnuts?

SKWISGAAR: Ah, Toki, look inside of your basket. Guess whats you’re in such a crappy mood you have lady’s tampons inside of it and you buy them for yourself! Go have a conversation with all the ladies and tell them your problem!

TOKI: You lady, Skwisgaar!

SKWISGAAR: No I’m not!

NATHAN: Two cups of rice. Brutal.

PICKLES: Okay, hold on now, so you’re telling me that you put these little guys in boiling water and they shriek and they turn red and they die?

WORKER TWO: Yes, sir.

PICKLES: That is the most metal thing I ever heard in my whole life. High five!

NATHAN: Price check! Clean up aisle six! Rotted body landslide!

SWKSIGAAR: Oh that’s greats!

NATHAN: And don’t forget our special sale on every bone broken chicken! Hurry!

SKWISGAAR: Go get ‘em, Nathan!

NATHAN: Enjoy our tasty Hammer Smashed Face! Uh, aisle three!

SKWISGAAR: I loves to laugh. Hi.

OLD LADY TWO: Hi.

SKWISGAAR: Guess what? You are a GMILF. That is a grandmother that I would like to-

PICKLES: See, I told you guys we don’t need no chef!

NATHAN: Put in the ingredients into that thing there.

TOKI: Oh no, we leaves all the food at the food place!

NATHAN: What?!

MURDERFACE: Jean PIerre! Jean Pierre, cook something! Come on don’t be a dick, be a dude!

NATHAN: Yeah, come on!

SKWISGAAR: Yeah be a dude, don’t be a dick!

NATHAN: Make us some food!

DETHKLOK: [overlapping]

PICKLES: He can’t hear you, he can’t hear you! It’s over! By the power of all that is evil, I command you to awaken, and make me a sandwich!

MURDERFACE: There’s only one thing left to do...kill ourselves!

SKWISGAAR: Dudes, we would, like, have to sew him back together to get him to cook for us!

TOKI: Yeah, but we such screw ups that he would be sewn back together wrong.

 NATHAN: Whoa! That's a good song title.

♪ Sewn back together wrong ♪

♪ Back together Sewn back together wrong ♪

♪ Back together Sewn back together wrong ♪

♪ Back together sewn ♪

[tarunsaravana]

BRAINWASHING CHILDREN THEORY

Now I’m warning you the next theory is pretty dark and probably one of the most unsettleing ones we have talked about in this Blog.

This theory starts with subliminal msgs in kids shows.

SUBLIMAL MESSAGES

By far Spongebob square pants has the most messages that are clearly hidden in grown ups.

There’s jokes about prison “Don’t Drop Them”

Patrick licking sand.

Those are all just jokes, clearly hidden for adults

But there are lot of jokes, some involves suicide.

In a 2001 episode , squidward is being sad the entire time. There is scenes of him walking around dazed stage. There is a scene of him putting in a oven. By far the most darkest moment of them all is sponge bob looks after him thinking his okay. And then he’s says “at least we know he’s alive”. Yeah that might be the darkest line I have ever read in a kids cartoon show. There are plenty of suicidal messages left in other episodes. As I was looking more into it , I found out suicide was in a lot of cartoon tv shows. The ending of looney tunes.this one really gave me chills down spine, in one of the cartoon characters from looney tunes jumping off the bridge shouting “IM FREE”. Once again glorifying suicide. And its not just these clips. Bunny , Daffy Duck, woody woodpecker, daisy and a bunch of cartoon characters ending their life with gun for no reason. the strangest of them all how they made it look exciting to kids.There is a cartoon where mickey gets depressed over Minnie. In that cartoon 3 ways of killing yourself is shown gun, petroleum and for some reason jumping off a bridge. Now I’m not saying this to scare you or not to watch cartoon. These are all just theories none of them are “facts” and they are not meant to hurt anyone/anything. I mean the daisy cartoon where daisy is shown depressed , in that cartoon almost 5 ways of killing yourself is shown and poured into youngsters mind. Gun, grenade ,knife, hanging and bomb.

THEORY(just speculations)

Now why would they put suicide on younger generations brain some people think control of over growth of population, some people think to keep society weak and depressed and fearful state. Because the more younger you are between 1 - 5 years your brain develops and everything you see on your favourite cartoon shows killing themself and also make it exciting. The more society, the more power control over weak society. Think about it kids are depressed , we’re medicating them and putting them on pills and sitting in front of TV while their watching their favorite cartoon character kill themself and also making it seem exciting to kids. I mean the global antidepressant market is estimated over 11.6 BILLION dollars. The government and the economy love depression. We also glorify things like money, fame, success. And of course if we can’t afford things we were told it will set us “free”. That’s why back of our heads teens think suicide is an option. YES , people have severe depression,OCD ,suicidal thoughts me too included in the past. But it is wondering who started all of these negative energy. Think about it your child entertainer Logan Paul filming a dead body in the suicide forest. The nickelodeon shows who show unessasacery content to kids.it involves talking about feet a lot. Even think about the board game which targeted to us as kids.

“THE GAME OF LIFE”. The goal is to succeed or you’ll lose. To win the game of life you need to make money. You should be better than those who are playing against you. Literally the commercial says “Be A Winner in the Game of Life”. I MEAN , COME ON. And the original version of the game of life in 1860 ,created by Milton Bradley ,it literally had suicide on the board as a option. Now its not just suicide being poured into kids pure brain.there’s darkness in every single form. I mean think about the games we used to play as kids. I mean just google “Ring around the Rosie meaning”A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and "all fall down" was exactly what happened. Again a another event where people die and has shown as exciting to kids. London Bridge. A song about a huge bridge falling down.“London Bridge is Falling Down” could be about a 1014 Viking attack, child sacrifice, or the normal deterioration of an old bridge. But the most popular theory seems to be that first one. More specifically: the alleged destruction of London Bridge at the hands of Olaf II of Norway sometime in the early 1000s. There’s even a darker line singing iron parts will bend and break , bend and break.

Ouija board, a game that makes fun to contact evil spirits in your house.Twister , a game that is marketed to tight teenagers up and down. Imagine the creepy uncles wanna play the game at thanksgiving.and then we have the darkest of them all Hangman , game where you have to choose the correct word or your little stick figure gets hanged. And the darkest part of them all is that , this classroom game is actually based on real life game in the 18th century, prisoners that were sentenced to death by hanging should guess the word, the exicutioner will give and if they guess the word right they’ll live or if not death. The most messed up part of all of this ,that almost all of the prisoners were illiterate which means they didn’t have a chance , that game was to just publicly humiliate them before they died.

NURSERY RHYMES

And it’s not just games which have a darker turn , what’s the first thing you remember as a kid, nursery rhymes. rock bye baby , a song which a baby’s cradle is in the branch of a tree and the branch breaks and the baby falls to the ground. Humpty Dumpty , he sat on a wall and suddenly “had a great fall” and nobody can save him because he’s dead.”its raining and pouring” a song where a old man hits his head on the wall and then dies, “he couldn’t get up in the morning “

Now one of the most disturbing is Peter peter pumpkin eater. A song about a guy who he’s wife doesn’t want him and puts her in a pumpkin and again, song which normalizes holding women against your will. I mean looking back at London bridge there’s a reference to something along the lines of “LOCK HER UP,LOCK HER UP” “LOCK HER UP,LOCK HER UP “(lyrics from London bridge).

INTERNET

Now on the internet kids start watching YouTube kids but don’t worry there’s bunch of dark messages hidden there. Murder,suicide, violence and for some reason lot of vomiting. Then when you’re a teenager you watch plenty of violence movies, tv shows and now internet challenges like momo challenge and blue whale challenge.

DISCUSSION

Everyone on society questions how much evil, death, hatred, depresssion, destruction but do we even have to question it? By looking back at our childhoods what was being put into us and right in front of our eyes. So what’s the overall theory ,”the way to keep a society in large is by fear, chaos ,the only way to make vote for them is to through destruction”” the only way to unite is through tragedies.”

“The only way to keep people happy , is by showing constant realistic expections that don’t really matter”” money, success”. The society that’s peaceful is not a society that can never be controlled.

CONCLUSION(spreading awareness)

So ,what do you do to make sure that chaos doesn’t appear continuously , well make sure to SHOW children how scary and dark the world is at very young age.

News

A mother bought a toddler this princess wand in the dollar store. Imagine the curiosity , shock and surprise when the child carefully peeled the foil to find a image of a another little girl cutting her wrist full blood.

“If you looked close enough its not a joke ,its actual image of a child slit her wrist, I want to know , what they think,how that’s suitable for a child.

Tarun

[naturallytom]

Law of Conservation (Tom Holland x reader)

a/n: i love love love this concept and i hope u all do too!! this is also my first holiday oneshot hehehe

warnings: lil bit of angst, fluff, implications of cheating

au: we broke up almost three years ago but you message me out of the blue saying that my gift is finally done and you… you built me a house? [or choose your own gift!]

gif not mine! // please leave feedback or reblog!!

In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time. This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. 

In your experience, love, like energy could not be created nor destroyed, only transformed or transferred from one form to another. 

You first fell in love with Tom Holland after one month of dating. It was January and the bitter cold air of London made you shiver and your teeth chatter. You had severely underestimated how cold it would be and only wore a jean jacket, something you deeply regretted. Tom noticed your shivering and guided you into a small cafe, wrapping his arm around you. 

“Here,” He mumbled, taking his jacket off and placing it around your shoulders. “Should keep you warm.” 

You thanked him softly as you found a seat, Tom guiding you to sit down as he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead before he mumbled a ‘be right back.’ He came back with your favorite drink and sat down across from you, taking your free hand in his to try and warm you up. 

Tom fell in love with you the first time you spent the night at his apartment. You looked so peaceful, your hair spread out all around you, your chest rising and falling slowly. He pushed some of your hair out of your face, smiling softly as you cuddled closer to him until your head was resting against his chest. 

It was then that Tom knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. 

You and Tom showed your love for each other in different ways as your relationship evolved. Sometimes it was giving the other person a kiss before you left, sometimes it was making them lunch. Other times it was leaving them a cute note when you had to leave early or simply listening to the other talk about their day in bed or on facetime, or on facetime in bed. 

Unfortunately, life had different plans. The two of you were so sure you were gonna get married and have kids together, that was, until you fell out love. The ‘i love you’s’ became forced and the kisses really only happened because they were so engrained in your daily routine. The love you had for each other was slowly being transferred towards other people. 

“We need to talk.” You told Tom, who nodded in response. “This isn’t working out.”

“Not anymore.” He agreed quietly. “I think we’ve fallen out of love.” 

“Yeah.” You nodded. “Did you, um, did you ever..”

“No.” Tom’s eyes widened as he shook his head. “No I would never do that.” 

“Okay.” You breathed. “Um, my stuff is already packed so uh, I guess I’ll just head out.” 

“D’you need help?” Tom asked. You hesitated before shaking your head. 

“No.” You whispered, your voice cracking. “No I’ll be fine doing it on my own.” 

That was the last time you saw Tom. Nearly three years ago. You moved out and into a better apartment than the one you had when you first started dating Tom. You loved your job, you were happy. The love you once had for Tom had been transferred and transformed towards your friends and family even though you were convinced the love you had solely for Tom was destroyed. However, every now and then there was a small void in your heart that you longed to fill. You blamed it on the fact that you and Tom had dated for three years and there’d always be a part of you that cared about him, even if you weren’t together. 

Tom lived in the same apartment. It felt empty without you in it, so Harrison moved in and him and Tom spent their days doing what they usually liked to do when they weren’t filming. Play video games, have friends over, watch movies. They both still traveled for their jobs, going all over the world. The love Tom once had for you was transferred and transformed towards his friends and family as well as girls he thought he loved, though he too, thought it was destroyed. But just like you, every now and then he felt an ache in his heart but blamed it on the fact that he’d always care for you. 

It was Christmas time, people out shopping and spreading holiday cheer. You were watching Elf in your apartment when your phone buzzed, signaling you got a text. Picking it up, you were shocked to see the one person in your contacts you never thought you’d hear from again. 

Tom❣️: Can you meet me at my place? Your gift is ready x

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What on earth was he talking about? The two of you had been broken up for nearly three years- you weren’t exactly shopping for him anymore. You were convinced he texted the wrong number, but how could he text the wrong number when you hadn’t spoken in years? You chuckled to yourself- Tom wasn’t the most technology savvy, he probably found a way to text the wrong person. 

You: think you got the wrong number there, tom hahaha

Tom❣️: oh shit is this not y/n?

You: No...it’s me. 

Tom ❣️: Oh good ahahaha can you meet me at my place? 

You: I guess so? 

Tom ❣️: Awesome see you soon x

You could barely focus on the drive over to Tom’s apartment. Dozens of thoughts filled your head. You were so confused as to what the hell Tom got you. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding as you pulled up to the familiar building. 

Time moved in slow motion as you made your way up to the door you used to just let yourself into for so long. Taking one last breath, you knocked on the door, waiting for him to answer. 

He looked the same. Same brown eyes, same brown curls. The same face you loved for so long. 

“Hi.” He breathed, his eyes taking in the sight of you. 

“I didn’t get you anything. I-I’m sorry.” You blurted out, making Tom chuckle. 

“‘S fine, love. Come in, please.” He let you in, closing the door behind you. 

“Thanks.” You glanced around the familiar apartment, smiling at the things that never changed. Your eyes spotted the tree in the corner, all decorated with a single present under it. “Is that..”

“It’s for you, love.” Tom let out, wiping his hands on his jeans. You took a seat on the couch, taking in the medium sized box. 

He placed the box in your lap gently, his eyes wide as you opened it slowly, shock coming over your face as you realized what it was. In your lap was a box with snow globes from the different places Tom had been for work. In particular, one from the US, Norway, and Paris, among others. 

“I- You remembered?” You gasped, thinking back to when you first mentioned snow globes. 

“And what would you like for Christmas this year, my love?” Tom asked, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his head on your shoulder. 

“Hmm snow globes! From the places you’ve been to for work!” You said excitedly. 

“Any place in particular?” He chuckled as you turned around in his arms. 

“The US. And Norway. And Paris.” You told him, tracing patterns on his arm. 

“Might take a little while, lovey.” He responded, making you nod. “And Norway?” 

“What? I always wanted one from there!” You defended. “And that’s okay, I don’t plan on leaving you. We have all the time in the world.” 

“Of course I remembered.” He whispered. Tears filled your eyes as all the memories came crashing down on you. Your heart clenched and ached as you came to a realization: you never stopped loving Tom. The love you had for him was never destroyed. 

“Um, maybe this is a bad time,” You chuckled through tears. “But I still love you.” 

It was like something had been awakened in Tom. His eyes widened at your confession.

“You do?” You nodded, avoiding eye contact. “I still love you too.” 

“I don’t think I stopped.” You whimpered, Tom nodding in response. 

“I don’t think I did either.” He whispered. “Can I kiss you?” 

You placed the box down on his coffee table as you nodded, Tom pressing his lips to yours softly, his hands cupping your cheeks lightly while you leaned into his touch. 

“I’m still sorry I didn’t get you anything. Thank you for this, Tom.” You mumbled once you pulled away. 

“Don’t worry about it, lovey.” He replied. “‘M just glad you’re here with me again.” 

“Me too.” You smiled. “I really really missed you.” 

“I missed you so much more.” He muttered. “My mum kept asking about you.” 

“What’d you tell her?” You chuckled. 

“That the love between us was never destroyed and I’d find a way to get back to you.”

_______________________________________________________________________

tags: @karlitabi-rrito​ @boredombesson @spidermansmj14 @tomhaz​ @i-ship-it-okay​ @holland-osterfieldx @you-makemethisway​ @xxtomxo​ @shadowyartcutebiscuit​ @spideyyypeter​ @xxxxdelenaxxxx​@sparklyhomeworklovecloud @tomzfrog​ @sparklyhomeworklovecloud​ @starbirks​ @soccerstud004​ @importantfireeaglefish​ @livininwinteriamyoursummer​ @miraclesoflove​ @keithseabrook27​ @maybemona​

mutuals (who might me interested!!): @sunshinehollandd​ @plushparker​ @spideypeach​ @angelic-holland​

[highway-to-helltalia]

Love, Rose (nyo!NorEng)

Author’s note: A little late submission for @hwsyuriweek2020 

Not set in any particular year, but kind of a Victorian au. 

Characters: Nyo!England (Rose)/ Nyo!Norway (Lotte), Denmark (Magnus), America (Alfred), Prussia (Gilbert) 

Word count: 1800 

If there was one thing Lotte disliked above all else, it was parties. The constant music and chatter, and the hustle and bustle of the people parading about on and off the dance floor overwhelmed her. She would have much preferred to sit at home with her younger brother, but her parents had insisted that she come along. To help the family’s reputation after moving to England from Norway so recently, her mother had said, by showing what a lovely and sociable daughter they had. Perhaps she might even find a nice man to marry.

Lotte crinkled her nose at the thought, and at the stench of the champagne she swirled around in her glass. The bubbles tickled her face as she stared into it rather than watching the other people in the room. She had no interest in them, if she had it her way she would stay at the table in the corner by herself the whole night and not converse with anyone.

“Hello there.” A voice came from over her shoulder, haughty and regal in nature, though there was nothing unkind about the tone.

Lotte started at the sudden noise, almost upsetting her drink as she fumbled to set it down on the table.

“Oh dear, I didn’t mean to startle you. I do apologise.” The speaker glided around the table to stand in front of Lotte. She bowed her head in apology, her long blond hair falling over her face. It fell back as she straightened up to show a gracious smile and kind blue eyes the same azure shade as her dress.

“It’s perfectly alright,” Lotte amended quietly, twirling a lock of her own pale hair around her finger. She glanced away from the other woman, inwardly cursing her own shyness.

The woman pulled out a chair next to Lotte and primly sat down. “I just wanted to check you were alright. It is not often that I see someone seated alone at one of father’s parties.”

Lotte waved a dismissive hand. “There’s nothing wrong. I just prefer to be away from crowds, is all.”

“Ah, I see,” she inclined her head towards the dance floor where Lotte’s friend Magnus was causing a ruckus with two other noblemen’s sons who she knew as Gilbert and Alfred. “I do not blame you.”

The corner of Lotte’s mouth quirked into a small smile, then her brow furrowed. “Sorry, you said this was your father’s party?”

“Yes. Rose Kirkland, at your service.” Rose slid a hand through her blond locks, tossing them over her shoulder.

“Lotte Myhre.”  She nodded as she introduced herself, keeping her hands clasped on her lap to avoid a handshake if possible.

Rose seemed to sense her wish, and lowered her own hand to her side, though her expression remained amiable. “Oh, Myhre. You moved to England recently, if I am correct? How are you finding it?”

Lotte shrugged, beginning to play with her hair again. “It’s nice, the countryside is lovely. Though the cities are busier than I was expecting.”

Rose considered this. “I suppose it is rather busy here, though I have grown up with it so I barely notice it now. And I’m afraid London is the worst place for that.” She glanced at something over Lotte’s shoulder, her eyes widening. “Alfred, don’t-” She began to stand, pausing to look back at Lotte. “Excuse me, I must go and deal with this. It has been splendid to make your acquaintance.” She smiled pleasantly before marching towards the refreshments table with a thunderous expression.  

----------

Several days passed after the party, in which Lotte would occasionally smile as she recalled her brief interaction with Rose. She had seemed very nice, outwardly what others would describe as the perfect English lady, but she had a sharp wit and sarcastic humour. She could perhaps be a good friend if they ever met again, but Lotte wasn’t expecting that to happen any time soon. She certainly wasn’t expecting Rose to try and contact her.

“A letter for you, miss.” The maid held an envelope to Lotte as she reached the bottom of the stairs one morning at breakfast time.

Still in her silk nightgown, Lotte yawned, blearily taking hold of it. The paper was good quality, enough to indicate that it must be from another noble family, though there was no seal on the back. After she fetched her breakfast, she almost forgot about the letter, and it lay on her desk for a good part of the morning. After all, she wasn’t expecting anything important. It was only when she sat down to do a little writing before lunch that her eyes landed upon it again.

“Just who are you from?” She enquired softly as she opened the envelope. The scent of roses wafted from the paper when she removed it, and grew stronger when it was unfolded.

Dear Lotte Myhre,

It was wonderful to meet you at my father’s party last week. I would be delighted if we could stay in touch.

Regards,

Rose Kirkland

Lotte’s lips parted in surprise as she read through the words. Concise though it was, this was a bold declaration of friendship, perhaps one that was secret from Rose’s parents given the absence of a seal on the back.

She picked up a quill and dipped it in the pot of ink which rested beside a stack of paper on her tidy desk. The quill hovered above the page as she considered how she should begin her reply, for so long that a spot of ink dripped onto the paper. Cursing as she would never do in company, Lotte screwed up the paper and picked up a fresh sheet. Since Rose had used dear, it would be proper for Lotte to do so as well.

Dear Rose Kirkland,

She paused again. It was rare that Lotte wrote to anyone other than Magnus, her childhood friend with whom she could be as informal as she pleased. She had no idea how to word such a letter. Rose’s had been short, so perhaps she wouldn’t mind a reply of a similar length.

It was lovely to meet you. I too would like to converse further.

Yours,

Lotte Myhre

She deliberated over whether or not to add a seal, since Rose had not done. In the end, she opted to go without. The prospect of receiving an unmarked letter, yet knowing exactly who it was from and opening it in secret almost added a romantic air to the situation.

The reply arrived several days later, in an identical envelope.

Dear Lotte,

Many thanks for your response. I am pleased to be able to discuss matters with another lady. I hope it is not too presumptuous for me to state that we could become good friends yet.

Yours,

Rose

From then on, her letters appeared in much the same fashion. Sprayed with the same rose-scented perfume, always starting with dear Lotte, and ending with yours, Rose. They wrote at least once per week, occasionally more often, and over time the letters grew longer, involving more personal details as the two women became closer.

On a September day, the post was delayed by a rainstorm, and Lotte sat in her room to open the most recent letter by candlelight in the evening.

Dear Lotte,

My apologies for my delay in replying. Life has been busy in my household as of late; while Fiona’s wedding is next month, my parents are encouraging me to follow in her footsteps. Needless to say, it is proving difficult to find a suitor, they all seem to think I am too bold and several have privately said that I am impertinent. Life would be so much simpler if the world was filled with only women. While the company of men can be enjoyable, the ones I have courted are severely lacking in romantic aspects in several areas. Though they are prioritised in education, they do not understand the power of the written word as we do. I would be hard pressed to find one who writes as eloquently as you, my dear.

A small smirk graced Lotte’s face as she read the paragraph, replaced by a blush at the last sentence. After reading the letter, she clasped it to her chest as a sigh escaped her lips. Reading Rose’s tender words brought a warmth to her heart that she could neither describe nor understand. She was sure no man could ever make her feel this way. A soft smile on her face, she began to write a reply.

Dear Rose,

There is no need to apologise, my parents have much the same attitude. A girl with your beauty and intellect should have no trouble finding a suitor, and perhaps it is a testament their suitability rather than your own that they would turn you down. Were I a man, I would be able to think of no greater partner.

They continued to exchange similar letters for several months, until one day in December. Lotte opened the letter as she would any other, sliding the knife under the flap and carefully removing the paper. But this time her eyes settled on the first two words.

Dearest Lotte,

She stared at the page, suddenly short of breath. It was such a simple change of tone, yet it struck something in Lotte’s heart. Rose wasn’t one to put such sentiment into a letter. She was formal and straightforward, but a wordsmith nonetheless, and seemed to know the exact implications of each phrase she used. She wondered if Rose could possibly be proclaiming that she, Lotte, was the person dearest to her heart…

After minutes of careful consideration, she picked up a quill and began to scribe a reply.

My dearest Rose…

----------

Lotte felt as if she was holding her breath for a week until a reply was finally delivered to her house. She opened it with slightly trembling fingers, and sighed when she read the first phrase.

My darling Lotte,

Lotte could barely focus as she read over the paragraphs updating her on the events of Rose’s life. When she reached the last one, her heart almost stopped. She sat down on her bed, a hand clasped against her heart.

My dear friend, I am glad that we have become so close. Though we have lived not far from each other for several months, I regret that we did not speak until the party. I often noticed you at church, and occasionally you would take a hiking route which just so happened to pass my window. I should inform you that our friendship is the dearest thing in my life, and I pray that our hearts may remain entwined as they are for the rest of our lives.

Love, Rose

[tefanfics]

Changes

Chapter 25

“You did what?” My eyes were wide, my hand covering my mouth and the other holding a slip of paper. “I-I can’t accept this, Taron.”

“You can and you will,” he answered firmly.

I shut my eyes for a second, trying to compose myself. When I felt like I could open my eyes again, I let myself read over the paper again. It was two tickets for a plane in which the destination was my home town. “I really can’t…”

Taron took the tickets from my hand and placed them on his kitchen counter before taking my hands. “I know how much you miss them, love. The holidays deserved to be spent with your family.”

I fought hard to keep my eyes dry but it was hard not to. I figured it’d be another six months or so before I’d be able to see my family but now I was just a couple days away. “They have no clue, do they? Oh man. Mom’s totally going to cry,” I finally managed to say, a grin forming. “Hell, I’ll cry.”

“Babe, you’re crying now,” Taron laughed, wiping the wet streams on my cheeks.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “God, I have to pack. Wait. Work! I-I need to call Matthew.”

“Take a deep breath!” Taron urged. He was smiling at me as he cupped my cheeks now. “I’ve already talked to Matthew. We’ve got time off with Christmas around the corner. I took care of everything, okay?”

I nodded, forcing myself out of his hands on my face by wrapping my arms around him. “Thank you so much,” I whispered, shutting my eyes and taking a deep breath. “But you better not have gotten me anything for Christmas after this.”

Taron chuckled. “No promises.”

I sighed and let go of him, looking around. “I’d better go home and pack then,” I frowned.

“Could wait till tomorrow,” he suggested. “I can cook us dinner and we can curl up with a movie, if you’d like.”

I contemplated, looking at him. I couldn’t help but to smile. He was so handsome. His sandy blonde hair and his blue-green eyes, that sharp jawline. “How’d I get so lucky?”

“I ask myself that all the time.”

I kissed him before disappearing to the kitchen. “Dinner and cuddles sound great,” I agreed.

Our usual routine took place. I sat on the kitchen counter as Taron cooked. We ate and talked, mostly me as I went on about how excited I was to get home. Taron listened, seeming just as excited to meet my family. I cleaned up as he picked out a movie and we curled up in bed together like always.

The next morning I headed back to my studio apartment and dug out a suitcase from the closet. I packed some clothes and essentials, though I had a lot of this at my parents’ house still. I wanted to call my parents and tell them that I’d be seeing them soon but surprising them sounded so much better.

So that’s what I did. I tried to sleep on the plane but I struggled, even with Taron holding my hand. I knew I was going to be exhausted by time we landed but between the anxiety of being on a plane and being excited to get home, I couldn’t rest.

We caught our layover and boarded. Taron took the window seat again, for which I was grateful. I played on my phone for the most part. I mostly just wanted to be distracted. I hated flying.

When we finally landed in my hometown, I was so happy I could’ve cried. Taron and I retrieved our luggage before getting a rental car to head to a hotel. We ordered pizza and used the hot tub, though I could hardly keep my eyes open after a full day of travelling. Once I was in bed, it took no time for me to fall asleep.

The next morning was a blur. I was a mess. Trying to figure out what to wear, if I should put on makeup, how to do my hair. And of course, none of it truly mattered. It was my family I was about to see.

In the car with Taron, my hands were shaking. “I’m nervous to see them,” I said quietly.

Taron looked up from his phone, taking ahold of my hand. “I’m the nervous one,” he answered. “I’m about to meet your parents for the first time.”

A smile erupted as I looked at him. “My dad might look scary but he’s a big softie.” I took a deep breath, realizing we were growing closer and closer to their house. Thankfully it was a Sunday morning, which meant my parents and my younger brother would be home. We came to a stop and I reluctantly took off my seatbelt. “Ready?” I asked.

Taron nodded and shut off the car. We climbed out and walked through the front gate of my parent’s house. I took out my phone and called my dad. It rang twice before he answered.

“Hi, Rose. What’re you doing sweetheart?”

“Hey Dad. Just was checking in. I sent a package out to you guys for Christmas but it just gave me a notification that it was delivered. I thought that was a bit strange since it’s Sunday.”

“Weird. Guess I’d better check,” my father answered.

“Well get Mom and Sean. I don’t think I selected the gift wrapped option and it is a present after all.”

My dad chuckled on the other end of the phone. I heard him call for my mom and brother. A moment later, the front door swung open. “Well, Rose… I don’t see a package on the porch.”

“That’s really odd. I’m looking at the screen that says delivered. Maybe it’s in the yard.”

“This is a lot of work for a present,” my dad laughed. He stepped onto the porch with the rest of the family on his heels before he finally looked up. His eyes landed on me and Taron before he started smiling. He hung up the call and pocketed his phone as the three of them hurried down the downs and walkway to me.

I don’t know who hugged me first and I don’t know who was crying harder but the four of us were a bumbling mess as we stood there embracing. When I finally caught my breath, I wiped my eyes and reached for Taron and introduced everyone.

“Let’s get inside,” my mom said, her arms crossed over her chest. “It’s cold out here.” She led the way inside. My dad walked to the fireplace and started a fire as I fell into the leather sofa and let out a happy sigh. “Welcome back, sweetheart.”

“I thought you weren’t going to be back for a while,” my brother spoke up, standing there with his hands in his hoodie pocket.

“I thought so too,” I answered then gestured to Taron. “But someone wouldn’t let that happen.”

“She kept talking about how much she loved the holidays and all of the family traditions. I couldn’t let her miss it,” Taron spoke up as he reached for my hand.

“Thanks for bringing her home for a little while.” My dad gave his signature thin lipped smile before disappearing into the other room. He came back with a couple strands of Christmas lights. “Go get the ladder, please, Sean.” My brother nodded and retrieved the ladder before they came back.

“The lights go on the ceiling,” I explained to Taron as we watched. The ceiling had a high arch and a beam down the middle. It had small hooks on the beams that my dad was looping the strands of lights in. While they were busy, my mom and I gave Taron a small tour of the house.

“Where’s your room?” Taron asked as my mom disappeared from our sides.

“I never actually lived at this house,” I answered, leaning in the doorway of the kitchen. “After my parents moved out of my childhood home was right around the same time me and what’s-his-name got our first apartment.”

Taron gave a small nod before moving past me and looking at photos on the wall. I stood and watched as his eyes travelled over each photo frame.

“There’s a million more where those came from,” I spoke up.

“I want to see them all.”

I laughed and shook my head. We found the living room again and sat with my family. I told them all about London and the night at Abbey Road, then about the movie and how we were in Norway now. I told them about the Northern Lights and the locket, sparing no detail anywhere in my stories. Then listened as my family explained the last few months to me, giving me updates on extended family and everything else.

It was growing late and I was starving. I followed my dad into the kitchen, leaving Taron with my mom and brother. Dad got his phone out and started playing music as he started dinner. It was always one of my favorite things about going over for dinner. Dad always turned on classic rock and we talked about it as we cooked. We’d share favorite songs that we had heard a million times but never got tired of.

Once dinner was ready, we all took spots at the dining room table. My dad asked question after question to Taron, who answered all of them with ease. I had been nervous about my family meeting him but there was absolutely nothing to be worried about. They got along better than I could have ever expected.

I cleaned up dinner before finding everyone in the living room. Mom had plugged in the Christmas tree and Dad was starting some Christmas music. I knew what was happening next. Sean hit the light switch and the room was dark except for the sparkling Christmas tree and the gleaming lights overheard.

I urged Taron to move down to the floor with me, grabbing pillows from the couch. I laid on my back and soaked in the lights and smiled as Please Come Home for Christmas by the Eagles started playing. This was by far my favorite tradition. Being here with my family and Taron, enjoying the pure happiness that was Christmas felt like bliss.

[parasighting]

Top 20 albums of 2020

New place for Parasighting (here you can find the old blog), as it seems that Facebook and several social media platforms in general don’t very much agree with Blogger. Oh well, if we don’t change we die, isn’t that what they say? So, this will be the new place for posts from now on, including the Rodon Underground playlists (that is, if I manage to wrap my head fully around how Tumblr actually works). For now, and as a fitting starting post, here are the best 20 albums of 2020, always in my opinion and always in a mood for fisticuffs:

1. Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death

This normally shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it’s not like we haven’t had our fair share of scares in our lifetime when we’re dealing with a sophomore album following after an explosive debut. Last year’s Dogrel gave everyone what they wanted/expected, since basically it was, more or less, a gathering of all the great singles Fontaines D.C. had released in a 2-year period prior to that. As it seems, we are indeed dealing with an absolute gem of a band that, this time around, did anything but staying safe with an already tried-out and successful formula. Instead, they chose to give all weight to feeling, proving their songwriting genius at the same time. A Hero’s Death doesn’t contain intended typical radio hit songs (although it plays a lot on today’s radio, something hopeful for the music industry in general), instead it’s full of meaningful introvert compositions saturated in melody and atmosphere, while Fontaines D.C. themselves, despite their huge and abrupt success the last years, keep a low profile and support their material exemplary. This record is music history, and one to be mentioned for years or even decades from now in music in general.

Listen to A Hero’s Death

2. C.O.F.F.I.N. - Children Of Finland Fighting In Norway

Many have wondered about the air in Australia. Or the water. Or maybe it’s the crazy wildlife that makes one either to be on their toes all day or to “yolo” it like there’s no tomorrow. These lads right here sure seem to be the latter. It would be futile to try and get right now into the history of Australian music and what this country has offered the world, especially when it comes to garage/punk. So, it shouldn’t surprise us that C.O.F.F.I.N. have released this record this year but, then again, uncontainable excitement gets usually mistaken for surprise. It’s not that they had been under the radar or something until now, but Children of Finland Fighting in Norway is the flag all Turbojugends around the world should gather behind this year. This album is the Apocalypse Dudes of the band and, mind you, I’m not talking about copying Turbonegro or anything like that. I’m talking about the spontanity and the pure energy that is emitted here throughout. The band, although they surely step on the foundations of (especially the scandinavian) rock ‘n’ roll history, the final result can’t be mistaken with any other band. A look on the videos the band has put out will give you a total idea that here we’re dealing with original Aussie craziness, and that is something not to be messed with, if you ask me.

Listen to Children of Finland Fighting in Norway

3. Napalm Death - Throes Of Joy in The Jaws Of Defeatism

I don’t think that the name Napalm Death needs much introduction, even to those who have little contact with the extreme sound in general. Pioneers of hardcore punk, grindcore and so many sub-genres at their birth, they have been shaping much of the contemporary extreme music scene through the years. And, in order for this to be achieved, it couldn’t be without constant musical unrest and experimentation. Shane Embury & co returned in 2020 with their 16th album, in which they push their (and music’s in general) boundaries to new territories. Of course, this in no way means that it is a soft or mellow record, even for Napalm Death standards. Instead, the band incorporates even more diverse elements from bands that one could say have been their followers, only to prove once again that they are the true pioneers. Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism is a full record where something exciting happens each minute, and this is the chance for any listener that (maybe has been living in a cave up until now and) hasn’t yet captured the grandeur that a band like Napalm Death exhales.

Listen to Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism

4. All Them Witches - Nothing as the Ideal

What is “rock” anyway? If there was a faceless recipe, then everyone would be able to just follow the rules and do it. Instead, through the over-production in today’s music, it’s damn hard to find something original and spontaneous, as most bands can’t do anything better than copying a “recipe” or reverse-engineering their idols, at best. And this is why bands like All Them Witches shine brightly and justly from within the pile. Nothing as the Ideal elegantly showcases that this band basically carries a significant amount of all the weight of today’s rock music. Yes, they started off having been labeled as “stoner” or “desert” or whatever, but the signs were always there. Dying Surfer Meets His Maker was the first blast, but, with this one, All Them Witches establish themselves among the leaders. After all, how can you go wrong with a band that sounds better playing live than on their studio recordings?

Listen to Nothing as the Ideal

5. Hurula - Jehova

It’s safe to say that the name Robert Petersson is nothing short of a landmark when it comes to Swedish punk. Showcasing some fine moments of hardcore skate-punk with Epileptic Terror Attack, hardcore rock ‘n’ roll with Regulations, melodic punk with Masshysteri (among others), finally Hurula is his personal musical vehicle, where he is in absolute command of everything. And, although this is already his fourth full-length release and, thus, it’s not like we had no idea about the potential, Jehova proves to be his grand opus so far, in a sort of unexpected way. The general orchestration remains “rock”, but the multiple melodic layers all over make for a unique experience for the listener who is not limited within specific musical genres or styles. The Swedish lyrics throughout might make it a bit unaccessible to many, but don’t let this minor detail keep you from discovering an incredible record.

Listen to Jehova

6. Wailin Storms - Rattle

Wailin Storms are a “where had they been hiding up until now?” case. Although they released their debut album not before 2015, Rattle is already their fourth one, and what a kick in the head it was for me discovering them last year! Going through their discography in retrospect, one should not be surprised, of course. The North Carolina rockers always carried their certain and specific type of lyricism amid their heavy and, at times, almost noise/sludge guitars. Fitting all this alongside the mystical atmosphere and Justin Storms’ agonizing vocals, the speakers exhale a strangely attractive as well as condemning dark beauty through the speakers. Many things come to mind as to what one could say Wailin Storms sound like through their definitely personal identity; in my ears, it’s kind of like the Black Angels jamming with Unsane and smoking whatever Electric Wizard passed them through. If this doesn’t make you want to check out Rattle, I have no idea what could.

Listen to Rattle

7. The Hawkins - Silence Is A Bomb

All those that know me, also know what a huge sucker for swedish rock ‘n’ roll I am. But, ever since the great scandinavian rock ‘n’ roll revolution by Gods like the Hellacopters and Gluecifer started to happen, a lot of things have also happened in the meantime. Especially to the younger rockers, the aforementioned bands now carry a “classic rock” label, but then again that kind of makes sense if you were born around the years Supershitty to the Max! was released. Time for the new generation to show what they’re worth, then. Through the flood of copycat and mediocre bands (justifiably, in a way), luckily from time to time there will be one or two cases to stand out, and these four kids from Arboga, Sweden surely make the cut. Although their debut album three years back was definitely a beautifull high-energy record, Silence Is a Bomb is what adds a special kind of maturity in rock ‘n’ roll, while still maintaining its edge. The Hawkins take their Hellacopters, but they also add several doses of Queen in them, maybe making the final mix too soft for purists; but who cares about them anyway?

Listen to Silence Is a Bomb

8. Chubby & the Gang - Speed Kills

It feels like nothing short of a fresh breath of life, a feeling that there is still hope in this damn world, when debuts like this one right here appear out of nowhere. Chubby & the Gang are just some kids from West London who, with Speed Kills, give you, if not something else, a feeling that here we’ve struck pure gold. Carrying a hardcore tone, apart from that they’re just a bunch of absolutely fresh and fun punk rock ‘n’ rollers, and, if this is not exactly what we need these days, I just don’t know what is. With gang vocals throughout the whole record and with the average running track time below two minutes, this band has automatically climbed near the top of my bucket list of bands I want to see live at first chance.

Listen to Speed Kills

9. This Is Nowhere - Grim Pop

Plainly put: In a fair world, This Is Nowhere would be globally greeted as one of the greatest bands of today’s psychedelic heavy rock; and this is not an exaggeration. Then again, them being from Greece and their members being scattered in three different countries are not factors that objectively help. Even at that, it’s astonishing how they’ve obviously achieved a certain chemistry between them through the years in order to achieve such a feat, like Grim Pop definitely is. Their two previous albums contained a significant amount of all the mystical energy the band emits on stage, but, if you ask me, there was always something missing; something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Well, with Grim Pop, it’s like everything is finally falling into place. This Is Nowhere have irrevocably and definitively left terms like “stoner” or “psychedelic rock” behind; instead they have unrepentantly dived into the ‘60s, distorted everything they found there through their personal prism and created an inviting sound vortex ready to suck you into its very own black hole. Who cares if we never return?

Listen to Grim Pop

10. Στράφι (Strafi) - Παραδομένοι στη Γιορτή (Paradomeni sti Giorti)

If you asked me some years back, I could never imagine myself including a street punk record in a yearly music list. I have to admit that Strafi being from my hometown Larissa played its role; but this role played a part only for me to take note of them. Because genre-wise, the band’s sophomore release is just perfect. Having gone over the somewhat general “shyness” of their beautiful debut album, here the band presents an absolutely confident and sturdy face. The sound production contains no faults, the compositions are meaningful and inspired, the lyrics carry a level of poetry rarely found in the genre (and yes, one would have to speak Greek in order to enjoy them, unfortunately for many). Really, this is one of the cases that there’s not much to be said, as music takes over all the talking. We need more music coming straight from the heart, and Strafi are here to deliver exactly this.

Listen to Παραδομένοι στη Γιορτή

11. Minerva Superduty - In Public

Another Greek entry, one that the world definitely has to discover. I find it a bit strange how Minerva Superduty started their discography, which was with an instrumental metal record that, amid its creativity, left the listener with a somewhat lack of closure and fullness. 2016′s Gorod Zero came to showcase a new potential for the band, and In Public, coming just days before last year’s end, fulfilled this potential to the fullest; well, until their next album, at least. Minerva Superduty merge their mathcore foundations with Converge-like hardcore and, under just 20 minutes, they deliver the absolute soundtrack for the chaos 2020 has left the world with. Do not let this gem pass by.

Listen to In Public

12. Yovel - Forthcoming Humanity

Blackmetal is a genre that has been through a lot. Of course, through its extremity, it has given way to experimentations that could never have taken place within other kinds of music but, on the other hand, this very extremity has always served as a twisted fortress for far-right and generally fascist ideologies. Yovel emerged in 2018 to rectify this problem and restore part of blackmetal’s infamy. Hɪðəˈtu had made clear of these intentions of the band, but Forthcoming Humanity drops like a milestone to declare that this was anything but a one-time wonder. Yovel take blackmetal forms and orchestrations but add atmospheric (not shoegazey) elements borrowed from folk music and create a concept album that speaks loudly against racism, fascism, bigotry, oppression. Interludes dressed with poetry and melody give place to wrecking sound outbursts and, if there is one thing they do, that’s passing on the message clearly and successfully. Yovel are here to stay, and that’s one encouraging thing about extreme music today.

Listen to Forthcoming Humanity

13. Oily Boys - Cro Memory Grin

Ahh Australia again. And a debut that has surely turned heads. Oily Boys come from Sydney and this is their hopeful debut, that being an understatement. This new band delivers an outburst of a record, bringing to mind New York hardcore at one time, taking you to sick psychedelic noise rock at the next. It all feels so cold and unhospitable in here, yet something urges you to look at it straight in the eyes. Of course, there are a lot of Converge elements in here, but this never stays in that place, as, before you know it, it jumps to post-punk and to other experimental lengths, always maintaining a chaos that may be baffling but, then again, you don’t exactly want for it to fall into order. Fans of Old Man Gloom will also find many things they like in here. Bizarre listen for bizarre times. It’s an uncomfortability we just cannot ignore.

Listen to Cro Memory Grin

14. The Good the Bad and the Zugly - Algorithm & Blues

The Norwegians with the funny and long name (one can only wonder after how many beers it was conceived) struck for the fourth time in 2020. Although their debut Anti-World Music in 2013 made an impact in the scene breathing Turbonegro with a hardcore twist, personally I can’t say the same for the next two albums; it always felt to me that something was amiss. Maybe it was that humor was taking over a bit too much or something. Mind you, the Good the Bad and the Zugly are not a joke band by any chance, but the playful sarcastic elements were always a basic ingredient in their overall sound. Coming on to Algorithm & Blues then, I think this time around thay have managed to balance it all out perfectly. With Ivar Nikolaisen being the lead vocalist of the mighty Kvelertak for a couple of years now, this might be a factor that has made the band mature compositionally. Algorithm & Blues is more melodic, more substantial, more sing-along-y, but it never loses its humorous charm, preserving the band’s identity. And with song titles like “Fuck the Police” and “The Kids Are Alt-Right”, you know they’re also on the right side.

Listen to Algorithm & Blues

15. Pallbearer - Forgotten Days

One of the most tired genres of extreme music is definitely doom metal. Ever since the “stoner” plague came into existence, the world has been saturated with kids that, discovering the pentatonic scale, thought they were the new messiahs drowning us in a sea of boredom. It was not all bad of course, but, having to surf through oceans of mediocrity in order to find something that stands out, can be quite tiresome. Pallbearer from Little Rock, Arkansas surely did stand out at the start of the last decade but I think it’s taken them a while to perfect their craft. Alas, Forgotten Days. The monster riff that starts off the opening title-track is more than enough to set the mood straight. Black Sabbath riffology, Candlemass atmospheres, even Electric Wizard and Cathedral hooks; all done in a modern manner breathing life into the genre which, with bands like Pallbearer, can look hopefully into the future. The incredible cover artwork and the lamentful lyrical themes revolving around family loss surely add to the big picture. This is the definite release of 2020 for doom fans.

Listen to Forgotten Days

16. Video Nasties - Dominion

Another debut of another band to definitely watch out for. Video Nasties from UK start off looking like they know exactly what they’re out for. The whole image is brought out from ‘80s horror video tapes and this is enhanced by the movie samples all over the place paying homage to John Carpenter. Musically, here we have some exceptional death/black ‘n’ roll, and what a pleasure it is when done right. Yes, the band takes a lot from Swedish melodic deathmetal but, to my relief, they surely sound like they detest metalcore and its sub-genres as much as I do. Dominion is an absolutely enjoyable record that flows beautifully, always maintaining its theme and atmosphere and calling for repeat plays. Fans of death, black, thrash and extreme genres in general will surely feel at home here. Sometimes it’s as simple as that.

Listen to Dominion

17. The Frights - Everything Seems Like Yesterday

The Frights from San Diego, California started in 2013 as garage surf punks carrying their own distinct feeling and melody. They were always enjoyable with the lyrical themes being more esoteric, something that set them apart from the usual stuff in the genre. At first, the songs of Everything Seems Like Yesterday were intended to be released by the band’s main man Mikey Carnevale as a solo effort, but something apparently changed his mind. Many were obviously surprised by this new acoustic direction the name Frights has taken, but, setting aside specific expectations, the best thing one has to do is appreciate the artistic worth independently. And how rewarded they’ll be doing that with this album! Everything Seems Like Yesterday is a beautiful introvert, substantial and entirely acoustic album, ideal to keep you company after a hangover or through many types of hard times. It’s one of those times that this type of quiet sounds just liberating.

Listen to Everything Seems Like Yesterday

18. Umbra Vitae - Shadow of Life

With Jacob Bannon from Converge and Jon Rice from Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats on board, here we’re dealing with nothing short of a super project. And especially when Bannon (apart from all his many other musical projects) decides to venture into death/black metal areas, this is absolutely something you don’t want to miss. Shadow of Life is anything but your average deahmetal fix, and it demands your undivided attention throughout. Explosive in its grim and dark temperament, and with stunning artwork dressing it perfectly, this is an album that grabs you by the throat. Not that you haven’t offered it willingly in the first place.

Listen to Shadow of Life

19. Idles - Ultra Mono

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for many years, there is no way that you’re ignorant on the Idles phenomenon. After Brutalism and Joy as an Act of Resistance, I don’t know what we all expected from them. It’s not the easiest task to surpass two albums that have set new standards in today’s punk music (”punk” being used as broadly as possible, as a term). And, to put it bluntly, Ultra Mono doesn’t do anything like that, like, it would be something impossible, especially so soon. Then again, Idles are a band just incapable of releasing a bad record and, although it didn’t make it to the top spots of 2020′s list, Ultra Mono is an Idles-trademarked sharp and edgy album (musically and politically) that preserves them at the top where they indicate to the rest of the world where music is going.

Listen to Ultra Mono

20. Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today

Protomartyr from Detroit have always served their unique blend of post-punk. In Ultimate Success Today, they continue their gloomy journey in symphony with this dark world. Joe Casey, always carrying a Nick-Cave-like vibe in his tone, delivers his grim lyrics atop the heavy basslines, the strange drumbeats and the almost free-jazz saxophone. Always melancholic and dystopic, Protomartyr is the band this world needs and deserves.

Listen to Ultimate Success Today

[srwestvikwrites]

Privilege is the Haven of Thorns

I wrote this post the week George Floyd was murdered. I was angry, and tired, and confused, and increasingly more apprehensive in my capacity as a person and as a writer as I was drawn in to the immense whirlpool of the zeitgeist gripping the internet and society. 

It was such a complicated and emotional time. I was wracked with guilt at not going to the BLM protest in Madrid because we had just opened up into Phase 2 of the desescalada and I was scared of COVID. I was furious at the denial of individuals in my home country of Singapore who refused to believe that just because our race riots were in 1964 and not 2020 that it meant we had no more issues of systemic discrimination or privilege to challenge. I was exasperated and uneasy and inspired at having been drawn into a massive shitshow about race that rocked the Tolkien fandom within the same timeframe.

All of this made me question my place and my purpose as an author writing a story like Haven of Thorns. It doesn’t dwell on these issues, but it draws on them, in the same way that my life doesn’t linger on the colonisation of my home country or the country of my ancestors (India) and yet is irrevocably shaped by this history. 

Haven of Thorns was always going to be a story taking place in the strange rivers of colonial legacy. It is a story of drowned histories and ghosts that reside in the very stones of a city and demons that linger inside people who were happy enough to let them back in. All of it is pushed along by the current of time, where history is not stagnant but forces change. It is about war, and it is about subtle discrimination, and it is about what we choose to do when we’re so hung up on our independence story that we refuse to acknowledge the rot in our roots.

I’m reproducing the post as I wrote it all those weeks ago, even though there are better ways I could have expressed my thoughts, and indeed some of these thoughts have new nuances now as I have drafted pivotal scenes in the story. There are other things I’d rather have focused on. The haven of thorns is more than mere privilege now. And perhaps one day I’ll expand on that.

But for now, this is a historical record of what I was thinking as it was all going down and I was trying to decide what sort of story I wanted to tell in the world I lived in as the person I am.

_________________________________________________

I’m not going to be coy about the metaphor anymore. This book was always going to be highly political. It has just become even more political. I cannot begin to describe how apt and how heartbreaking it is to be drafting my novel right now.

Some context should perhaps be given as to the kinds of politics that are informing this story. I began outlining the earliest iterations of Haven of Thorns at the height of the European migration crisis. While migration itself is not a main theme of the story – and where it does feature, it’s from a rather inverted historical power dynamic – the backlash against it was always present in the telling of the tale. The rise of the European right terrified me. I had never experienced open racism before until one incident when I moved to Norway in late 2015, where I was lucky enough to have an ally at the time, though I never learned her name. I have seen far too many swastikas misappropriated from their holiness to represent hatred, spraypainted on neighbourhood walls in Trondheim, London, and Madrid.

For many years, I likened racism and xenophobia and white supremacy to a contagion, even to possession (which may have been down to the title of this book I read during high school). My view on this has changed, now. For those raised into these ideas, sure, the demon metaphor may still apply. But for many, these corrupted values take root and fester because we allow them to.

The old first draft of Haven of Thorns was begun in the first week of November, 2016. I feel I have no need to elaborate on why this timing is significant. Globally, the sense of the triumph of ignorance and vitriol was palpable. Over the next few years, partially because I became more active on social media and partially because of the degree I was studying for, every day required exposure to injustices very often predicated on culture, ethnicity, language, and/or race.

Then in 2019 Singapore commemorated the bicentennial – our 200 year anniversary of being colonised. And once again I was confronted with the bizarre lack of acknowledgment of how blatantly race relations had been directed and segmented by the British, and how whatever the government line says, we have not bounced back from the wounds that gouged in our society. I interned at an NGO dealing with race relations, and it only illuminated what we’d rather cover up – the value judgements we make of people based off their skin colour, the god(s) the pray to, or the language they speak. When COVID-19 reared its head Singapore was lauded for their response, until it hit the migrant worker dormitories. That was a powder keg waiting to explode. And it is false and unjust to pretend that the conditions they are living in do not have their own origins in the petulant protests of those who unfairly profiled and characterised the workers and robbed them of better conditions, resulting in the tragedy that has taken place now.

Even climate justice and its link to ethnicity began to seep into the story, particularly during the early 2020 fires in Australia and how severely the Aboriginal peoples were affected.

As I write this post Minneapolis is up in arms, and Americans are out in the thousands across the country protesting for justice for George Floyd and the countless other black Americans who have been victims of the system and of police violence.

Growing from childhood to adulthood in the 2000s-2010s has meant growing up in a time when discussions about race, ethnicity, culture, and the legacies of our most backward perceptions and prejudiced notions have come to the forefront, both of activism and of violent action taken against others. How could I not be impacted, for example, by the horror of the massacre in Norway on 22 July? How could I not have felt the shadow of the War on Terror through the rampant Islamophobia in the media and in society?

The extent to which all these disparate ideas of politics and power and race and xenophobia and colonialism actually manifest in Haven of Thorns isn’t perhaps measurable in the amount I’ve discussed them here. But the core of this book is that the haven is privilege, and thorns are both the barrier of our ignorance and the spears upon which we sacrifice those who challenge it.  White privilege in the West. Chinese privilege in Singapore. Yes I fucking said it. To refuse to see that is privilege, in and of itself. One can feel hurt, to be associated with the violent ways these ideas manifest. Or, one can choose to acknowledge that feeling implicated by despicable acts is perhaps the spark to challenge one’s own biases.

This story is about breaking that thorn barrier and letting in the light, in all its unbridled blinding glory, to burn away the festering hatred we’ve allowed to take root in our flesh.

In the end an important theme in Haven of Thorns – perhaps the most important – is the power structures and prejudices that prevail when colonisation has ended, along with its associated forms of exploitation, and a state becomes self-governing. It’s about who remains in power, why they remain there, and what it means for those who do not have an equal share in that power. I’m not just talking about physical force. I’m talking about value judgments that disenfranchise people based on their inherent qualities. Things like language, religion, or skin colour. Having a voice and having the power to exercise and sustain what you advocate for are all very different things, and this is why these stories cannot be apolitical. A person’s life, their right to life, and their rights to liberty and equality should not be a matter of politics – and yet they are. Because politics is about power. And power is far too often exercised unjustly.

Blaming the old oppressor only works up to a point. At some stage, a country has to face what it has done and continues to do to itself, and whether they are going to choose to make collective, powerful, and perhaps jarring value changes for the sake of basic human rights and justice. After all, prejudice is learned. It can be unlearned.

While this tale focuses on the legacy of colonisation, these same principles lie behind the abuse of authority and the untended wounds of what has happened to the black community in America for centuries, itself founded upon ideas of racial superiority. The police brutality coupled with endorsement from the highest offices in the land is a horrific ugliness – but worse, is those who choose not to see it for what it is. Those who tweet #alllivesmatter. Those who say they don’t see colour. Those who question why race has to be dragged into everything. To quote Moses in Dreamworks’s The Prince of Egypt: “I did not see because I did not wish to see.” This is privilege. This is us inviting contagion into our societies and refusing to mask up and letting it kill us from the inside out. But unlike a contagion, this is discriminatory. That is the essence of it. The differential treatment is the point. If you question why people are burning and looting, why they aren’t being “peaceful”, why they don’t comply (they do – it doesn’t work, as anyone who watched the clip of the CNN reporter would know), why they are so angry – then you are in the haven of thorns. You just refuse to acknowledge it, because the only light seeping into your little puddle is filtered, screened, and you’d rather ignore the shadows cast by the thorns.

So many of the choices in Haven of Thorns hinge upon deciding whether to preserve or whether to overturn these vicious cycles of hatred. It’s so painful to see these struggles continue to be mirrored in the real world, happening to real communities at this very moment. Part of me wants to stop writing this, because I cannot begin to capture the true agony of what is happening, no matter how much I empathise. But another part of me knows that I am in a position of great privilege, and perhaps it is time I put my voice to something that truly matters. Add another line to the anthem that advocates for these deep-set value changes that we need to make on a domestic and an international scale.

In the first very first chapter of this story, the royal palace burns. It may just as well have been a police station.

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Alex Recommends: May and June Books

I must apologise for the late arrival of this post. It should have been up days ago but I’ve been struggling to read much for the last month or so. My head has been very foggy and dark with all of the confusion, anxiety and hate that has been filling my news feeds and I’ve been filled with a desire to combat it. Before this month, I’d have run in the opposite direction from any kind of confrontation but recent events have given me the kick up the butt to actively do better. I’ve been calling out bigotry when I come across it and I’ve noticed that some people, notably my older relatives, haven’t necessarily reacted favorably to the changed, more outspoken Alex. It has been pretty daunting and I’ve worked myself up into fits of rage and tears several times over the last couple of months.

A lot of things have changed for me since my last Alex Recommends post. I’m currently temporarily living in Staffordshire with my boyfriend because my depression got too bad for me to stay at home for much longer. I missed him unbelievably much and I knew that spending some prolonged time with him would help -and it has. Both him and I have spent 12 weeks religiously following all of the rules, so we’re both extremely low-risk for catching and spreading COVID-19 and being together was something that we simply really needed to do. Please don’t hate me for it! In other news, I have also started writing again, which feels amazing. I’m now a few thousand words into a queer Rapunzel retelling that I have lots of ideas for. Maybe I’ll even post an extract or two, when I feel it’s ready to show you.

In the centre of the renewed energy of Black Lives Matter and the undeniable exposure of the horrors that is police brutality, the book blogging and BookTube worlds vowed to uplift Black voices. I wrote a very long, in-depth blog post full of Black-written books and Black book influencers. Please check it out to diversify your TBR and educate yourself on Black issues, which is what every white person should be doing now and always.

June was Pride Month and I tried my best to compile a series of recommendation posts in honour of it. These included gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, ace, pansexual and intersex lists. I’ve had some great feedback on this, so I hope you find some fantastic new reads. It felt especially poignant to put them together the same year that one of my childhood heroes came out as an ignorant trans-exclusive feminist. As a lifelong Harry Potter superfan and someone who has repeatedly publicly supported Rowling in the past, I feel the need to clarify where I now stand. I do not support or agree with a single thing that she has said in recent times with regard to transgender people. I’ve never felt my own status as a cisgender female threatened by trans people wanting more rights or believed that children or women were at risk due to their existence. 

I read her words more than once and struggled to find any semblance of the woman who wrote the books that have most defined my life. I’m hesitant to say that we can always successfully separate the art from the artist but I will say that it makes sense to me that the Rowling of 2020 is not the same Rowling that wrote Harry Potter. She was a destitute single mother when Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997 and of course, she is now a million worlds away from that lifestyle. It breaks my heart but it makes sense to me that she has changed beyond belief because her life has changed beyond belief. I’m not and never would make any excuses for her recent behaviour and I have stopped supporting her personally but I will not be getting rid of my Harry Potter books and I will undoubtedly re-read them several more times. However, I am now hugely reluctant to buy any more merchandise or special editions of the books, which saddens me but at the moment, it feels right. There is no coming back for her from this and I will make a conscious effort to keep Harry Potter and Rowling away from my future content. It can be really tough to admit that the people you once really admired aren’t great humans but it’s something that we all have to acknowledge in this case, in order to move forward with our own quests to become our best selves.

It didn’t feel right to post my May recommendations last month as I didn’t feel comfortable promoting my own content in the midst of boosting Black voices. So today I’m bringing you a bumper edition of Alex Recommends. Here are 10 books that I’ve enjoyed since the start of May that I’d love to share with you. Enjoy! -Love, Alex x

FICTION: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Set in the affluent neighbourhood of Shaker Heights, Ohio in the 1990s, two families are brought together and pulled apart by the most intense, devastating circumstances. Dealing with issues of race, class, coming-of-age, motherhood and the dangers of perfection, Little Fires Everywhere is highly addictive and effecting. With characters who are so heartbreakingly real and a story that weaves its way to your very core, I couldn’t put it down and I’m still thinking about it over a month after finishing it. 

FICTION: Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

When coding nerd Chloe Brown almost dies, she makes a list of goals and vows to finally Get A Life. So she enlists tattooed redhead handyman and biker Red to teach her how. Cute, funny and ultimately life-affirming, this enemies-to-lovers rom-com was exactly the brand of light relief that I needed this month. The follow-up Take A Hint, Dani Brown focuses on a fake-dating situation with Chloe’s over-achieving academic sister and I can’t wait to get my hands on that.

FICTION: The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart by Margarita Montimore

Just before her 19th birthday at midnight on New Year’s Eve 1983, Oona Lockhart finds herself inexplicably in 2015 inside her 51-year-old body. She soon learns that every year on New Year’s Day, she will now find herself inside a random year of her life and she has no control over it. Seeing her through relationships, friendships and extreme wealth, this strange novel has echoes of Back To The Future and 13 Going On 30 with a final revelation that I certainly never saw coming.

NON-FICTION: The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

Atmospheric and engaging, The Five details the previously untold stories of Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Kate and Mary-Jane -the women who lost their lives at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Full of fascinating research and heartbreaking accounts of what these women’s lives may have been like, Rubenhold paints a dark immersive portrait of Victorian London and gives voice to these tragic silenced lives. Although we can’t know for certain if these accounts are entirely accurate, they feel very plausible and in some ways, The Five exposes how little time has moved on, when it comes to the public portrayal of single, troubled women.

NON-FICTION: Unicorn by Amrou Al-Kadhi

From a childhood crush on Macaulay Culkin to how a teenage obsession with marine biology helped them realise their non-binary identity, Unicorn tells the story of how the obsessive perfectionist son of a strict Muslim Iraqi family became the gorgeous drag queen Glamrou. Packed full of humour, honesty and heart, this book will give you the strength and inspiration to harness what you were born with and be who you were always meant to be.

MIDDLE-GRADE: The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates by Jenny Pearson

When fact-obsessed Freddie’s grandmother dies, he discovers that the father he has never met may actually be alive and living in Wales. So he has no choice but to grab his best friends Ben and Charlie, leave his home in Andover and go to find his dad! I laughed so many times during this madcap adventure and I know the slapstick crazy humour will hit the middle-grade target audience just right. It’s also a wonderful depiction of small town Britain with a focus on the true meaning of family.

MIDDLE-GRADE: A Kind Of Spark by Elle McNicoll

When Addie learns about her hometown’s history of witch trials, she campaigns tirelessly to get a memorial for the women who lost their lives through it. This wonderfully beautiful novel gives a unique insight into the mind of an 11-year-old autistic girl with a huge heart. Busting myths about neurodiversity while tackling typical pre-teen drama, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry but most of all, you’ll close the book with a huge smile on your face. 

HISTORICAL FICTION: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

In 16th century Warwickshire, Agnes is a woman with a unique gift whose relationship with a young Latin tutor produces three children and a legacy that lasts for centuries. This enchanting, all-consuming account of the tragic story of Shakespeare’s lost son, the effects that rippled through the family and the play that was born from their pain will send a bullet straight through your heart. Wonderfully researched and beautifully written, Hamnet is worth all of the hype.

HISTORICAL FICTION: The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

When a vicious storm kills most of the men of Vardø, Norway, it’s up to the women to keep things going but a man with a murderous past is about to come down with an iron fist. At the heart of this dark tale of witch trials, grief and feminism, two women find something they’ve each been searching for within each other. Gorgeously written with a fantastically slow-burning queer romance, Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s first adult novel is an addictive, atmospheric read with a poignant, tearjerker of an ending.

SCI-FI: Q by Christina Dalcher

When one of Elena’s daughters manages to drop below the country’s desired Q number, she is sent away to one of the new state schools and Elena is about to find out something she’d really rather not know about the new system. Packed full of real social commentary and critique of life as we know it while painting a picture of how things could be even worse (yes, really!), this pulse-racing, horrifying sci-fi dystopian gripped me from the first page and refused to let me go. 

[doctor-who-hears-a-horton]

As It Should Be

TentooxRose

All ages

Read it on AO3 here!  

I’m sick of seeing Untagged Tentoo angst.  So here’s fluff.  Bite me.

***

He holds her, but that’s getting ahead of things.

When they got to the little hotel in Norway, it was assumed that the two of them would share a room.  Why not?  Jackie got a room to herself, begging off that she actually needed sleep and didn’t want to be exposed to anything they’d get up to.  The Doctor had blushed furiously at the comment and hadn’t made eye contact with Rose for several minutes.

Once they were alone in the room though, things could hardly be avoided.  

“Are you mad at me?”

She turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. “No, I’m not mad at you.  Should I be?”

He shrugged, his hands in his pockets. “You should feel whatever you’re feeling.” Rose knew he was the Doctor. He’d already said things that made it very clear.  He knew things about her that he would only know if he were the Doctor, so of course she believed him.  Maybe she should’ve been more wary of his words, but she’d missed him.

“I feel… I feel like I missed you, and I have you back, and for the moment that’s all I’d like to think about. Is that alright?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course.  Could I-” he cut himself off and snapped his jaw shut, looking away from her.

“What?” she asked.

“Could I just give you a hug?”

Her heart nearly melted.  She nodded.  “Yeah, ‘course.” 

He took a couple hesitant steps towards her, but when she reached up to him he wrapped his arms around her waist instantly, tugging her against him and settling his face in the crook of her neck.  She linked her hands together behind his neck, allowing her eyes to flutter shut at feeling his touch and knowing that he was actually here.  

They stayed in the same bed, though nothing happened. Neither of them were ready for that.  When Rose woke up with his forehead pressed to her temple and arm around her waist, though, she wondered how she had ever been uncertain about his feelings for her.

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

Rose had her own flat back in London, not wanting to live in a huge mansion with her parents and Tony.  Not that she didn’t love them, of course, but she needed her own space that she wouldn’t get living in the same house with them.

It wasn’t even up for discussion when they went home: the Doctor would stay in her room.  Part of her felt like she’d accepted this too fast, but God, she’d seen him regenerate.  This was almost less weird than that.  

“Are you sure?” The Doctor asked for what had to be the eighth time as he put the clothes they’d just bought him into his own dresser.  He turned to look at her with a worried expression on his face.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Rose said, sitting on the bed. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, you’ve always slept in your own room, except sometimes on the TARDIS, but that wasn’t-” he blew out his cheeks and set down the t-shirts he’d been folding up.  Sitting down in front of her on the bed, he picked up one of her hands in both of his. “I want to make my intentions clear.”

“O-okay,” She replied, her voice shaking.  

“I don’t want to be mates. I know that’s obvious, but I want to openly belong to you.  Be your boyfriend.  So that anyone will know that we belong to each other.” He wrinkled his nose. “It is strange that adults refer to each other that way, isn’t it? Seems juvenile, really.”

Rose smiled, her cheeks aching with the force of it.  “Really?” She said softly, “You wanna be my boyfriend?”

“Rose Tyler, I want to be everything to you.”

She wrinkled up her nose and smiled widely.  “That’s really sweet,” she said softly, squeezing his hand.  

He shifted a little awkwardly and grinned up at her. “Is that a yes, then?”

“I mean, yeah,” she said, giving him back the same goofy grin. “But we’re gonna need to… I dunno, re-learn each other for a bit too, so I don’t know if we should-”

“Oh! No, no, I’m not insinuating that at all! Not that I wouldn’t want- no, forget I said that, but I would want… Anyway, I just want it to be clear, who we are, what we are to each other.”

She bit her lip to keep herself from smiling too big.  “So, are you jealous?”  

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I really try not to be.” “But you are?”

“Oi, you’re jealous too,” He said, and she tugged his hands, forcing him to sit next to her as he finished,  “I’ve seen you.”

Rose lifted her shoulder.  “I mean, yeah.  I’m jealous mostly because of…  Well, you know, with Jimmy, he didn’t mind not staying… Faithful.”  She dropped her gaze from his, toying with his fingers. 

The mirth drained out of the Doctor immediately. “Oh, no, Rose.  I would never- you’re it for me.”  She still wouldn’t look up at him, and he put a knuckle gently under her chin and urged her to make eye contact again.  “Rose.  You are the only one for me.”

She leaned forward to hug him, which was a little awkward with their position of sitting side by side, but she held onto him, leaning into him.

He squeezed her back with a vengeance, and whispered her own words back to her.  “I’m never gonna leave you.”

And suddenly, all the emotions that Rose had been hiding and pretending didn’t exist exploded and she burst into tears, and the Doctor said nothing, just holding her close, rubbing her back and pressing kisses to her temple.  

“You should be the one cryin’, not me,” she said after several minutes, pulling back and rubbing her eyes.

“Why?”

“You’ve had more of a change, I’ve just come back home, but you- everything you’ve known has shifted and changed.”  She threw herself back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.  “It’s nothing in comparison.”

He lay down next to her. “You gave up everything to find the Doctor and you got me.”

She touched his face. “You are the Doctor.”

They ended up falling asleep that way, laying next to each other sideways on the bed, the Doctor’s arm over her waist, and his nose in her hair.  

When they woke up the next morning, Rose cried again, but then the Doctor kissed her and for a minute, it was all better.  

Looking up at him, she realized that someday it would all be okay.  Because it was the Doctor and Rose Tyler.  As long as they were together, nothing else really mattered at all.

[hamlets-ghost-zaddy]

queen of peace

Part 1/10

Shifty Powers x Reader

Summary: He fights with a rifle, you with a needle. When the toll of taking lives grows too high on him, you’re there to stitch his ripped seams and patch him together again (after all, you’re awfully good at taking what’s old and giving it new life)

You think of the War as bolts of fabric clustering the high shelves of Mother’s workshop—that first warm, dry September is silk, when politicians blustered over the radio, spewing threats and spittle, but women would turn down the volume knob so they could order simpering cocktail gowns with a slit up to there. Wool is the following winter, dyed peacock blue to stain your fingers as you coaxed the boring needing in-and-out, in-and-out to attach a fresh fox fur from the autumn hunts for a New Year’s Eve cape. Then, spring bathed hot breaths on the snow and ice, and the radio buzzed so loud with news bulletins—the Netherlands invaded! Norway invaded! France invaded!—that no one dared reach for the knobs. It’s cotton, repressive in its purest form, and undesirable as the summer months swallowed you, Mother, and all of Europe whole. The months after, you’ll admit, you don’t think of as fabrics: instead, you see the receding stack of order slips on Mother’s desk, the bolts wound down to their cardboard bases and never replenished as those months of huddled terror bleed into years of exhausted fear. A fear so continuous, so daily, it has become a mundane reality: German bombs may rain down at any moment, even on tiny Aldbourne.

More pressing, it seems, is the grasping fingers of hunger digging out your stomach, of worry gnawing at your bone marrow, always wondering where the coin may come from to by next week’s groceries or pay this week’s bills. What did it matter if hellfire and fury choked out your life? You and Mother face down the reality you’re too expensive to live, anyway.

Then, the Americans come.

You know they came a week before—you’d need to deaf to not hear the procession of snorting Jeeps and grumbling transport trucks creeping underneath the workshop and your bedroom windows at all hours—but you don’t see evidence of them about town.

“It’s because they’re doing How to be English classes up at the base. I’ve met an American, and that’s what he told me,” Margaret informs you, eyebrows waggling, as she leans over the postmaster’s counter, elbows braced and shoulders hunched conspiringly. As the postmaster’s daughter, Margaret often lingers around the office, feigning offering her ‘help’ as an attempt to sniff out tidbits of town gossip. Yet, back when bolts of snow-white muslin, soft as a springtime breeze, or real China silk, shimmering and canary yellow, arrived for you and your Mother’s orders, she’d insist of squealing over it with you. She’s a good friend. “They’ve got mountains of letters back there, you know. Dad’s going bonkers.”

Knowing Margaret’s definition of ‘bonkers’ encompassed both good things—like the annual Midsummer Ice Cream Social—and bad things—like pop arithmetic classes back when you were in grammar school together—you ask, “Is he all right?”

“Well, he has me, doesn’t he? Free labor and all that.” Frowning, she squints at you, adding, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m all right? I’m doing all the heavy lifting, here!” Laughing, you shake your head, and Margaret seems pleased to have caused a laugh and contents herself to a conspiring wink: “I’ve been meaning to tell you, some American officers are being housed in the village . . .” Another eyebrow waggle that, frankly, ought to be illegal.

Eyeing Margaret’s grin, you point out, “Your dad would have a conniption if an American officer got within ten feet of you.”

Obviously imaging her father’s temple vein bulging worryingly, Margaret frowns. “You’re right.” She sounds more disappointed than she has any right to be. She puffs a breath, her bangs fluttering. “Then there’s Tommy Beale, of course.”

It’s your turn to roll your eyes; Margaret and Tommy have been dancing around each other since first grade, gifting each other with shiny baubles, hurried kisses on the cheek, and brilliant blushes. It reminds you of a nature program you once listened to on the BBC as you sewed a kimono (a pink pearl silk confection, ordered after a particularly luxurious London socialite returned from a steamer-ship trip to Japan and was ‘dying’ for her own kimono) that described how a certain type of bird in the Amazon would ritualistic dance around its desired mate in great, skittery hops, never truly engaging. You doubt Margaret would appreciate the metaphor.

The bell above the office door tinkles, Margaret straightening and her eyes sparking. “Private Vest!” she greets. You turn, eyebrows raised.

Evidently, the boy with a rounded nose and an easy grin, currently moving in great strides to belly up to the post counter is the one American Margaret has met. Only, it’s not one American in the office; a second lingers by the door, a dark-haired young man who seems unsure if he should follow Vest, swiped-off cap worked into a crumpled wad in his nervous hands. His eyes flit to you—and it may be your imagination, Lord knows it runs awry when you’re sewing for hours—but pink seems to trickle into his cheeks. “Heya, Maggie,” the first American greets.

“Nice of you to show your face, Vest,” Margaret—since when has she ever introduced herself as ‘Maggie,’ you wonder—returns. To you, she adds: “Y/n, be friendly, why don’t you, and say hello. This is Private Vest, the post officer for the Americans.”

Offering his hand, Vest says, “Pleasure to meet you, but I’m not the only mail boy.” He jerks his chin to the other American boy. “Of course, lucky Shifty over here has only been assigned to help me for the day. Word is you’ve got quite a backlog of mail for me, Maggie?” His eyes dart back to her.

“An understatement,” she intones before waving Vest around the counter. As the two disappear into the sorting room, the door swinging in their wake, Margaret says: “Come witness the horror yourself.”

You watch the door, creaking on its hinges, until it eases to a stop, slightly ajar and allowing Vest’ exclamation over the sheer amount of post awaiting him to slip out. Yet, without Margaret, the post office feels stilled—silent and tense—and your skin prickles with the knowledge of the other American lurking at the door, somewhere behind you, unseen unless you pointedly turn around. It’d require you breaking the palpable awkwardness. A blush creeps up from beneath your collar at the mere thought.

The creak of weight moving over floorboards. Then, the American leans against the counter at your side. You try very hard not to squeak in surprise (you’re fairly sure you don’t succeed).

Your eyes dare to dart to his sleeve—olive green, an eagle patch, two puckering, pinky-sized holes—and away, as if you might be caught staring. Silence; he stands still at your side. You dare to look at the uniform’s shirtfront—a silver pair of wings, medals—and away again just as quickly.

A cleared throat. Measured words, as if the American isn’t sure he should speak at all—as if he’s been mightily debating it and still doesn’t quite agree with his decision: “Pardon me, ma’am; I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable . . . I, uh,” He fumbles to a stop, apparently stricken with a thought. “I’m sorry, but are you uncomfortable? I shouldn’t have assumed, I suppose, um . . .” As he talks, you focus on your fingers, half-curled on the counter, to keep from getting hot all-over at the thought of the boy’s liquid eyes on you, darker than a nighttime sky.

His accent softens his voice, melting the vowels and blurring the consonances, and you’re reminded of sticks of butter, set out for baking. You feel the warm sigh of an oven door opening in his words, and at the edge of the air, you can almost taste sugar cookies fresh from baking. It’s been years since you’ve had real butter or white sugar, since you could afford such luxuries as baked goods. You wistfully dream of sweets, speculating if you truly remember the taste, before your eyes involuntarily dart to his lips. A thought flits through your head: Would he taste just as sweet?

Blinking away your daydreams, fighting the sinking horror at yourself and your own silliness, you reply, “Um, no, that’s all right—err, that is, I’m all right. Unless, are you uncomfortable?”

It strikes you briefly that this is a ridiculous conversion, exchanged more to the counter you both stare determinedly at than to each other. He replies, words tripping over each other in their rush: “Of course not! I just thought I ought to say something since we were both standing here and . . .” His rush leaves him winded and unsure how to continue.

Smiling, taking pity on him—you can imagine that earlier blush you saw him wearing deepening now, but you’re too shy to peek and confirm—you offer, “We could always get to know each other with some questions.”

“Oh!” he exclaims, relieved, “Yes, that’s a good idea. So, um, do you, um, live here? In Aldbourne, that is?”

“Yes, I do, with my mother. We’re seamstresses,” you reply. “What about you? Where are you from in America?”

“Virginia,” he replies, and you note the glow of pride in the single word, the puff of his chest you register in your periphery.

Hoping to elicit the same reaction again, you prod, “What did you do in Virginia?”

“Worked for a few years before all of this, but I spent my younger years hunting. I ran all over the forest and mountains, pretending like I was the first one to ever see it. Like I was in one of those adventure books my Pa read to me at night.”

“My Mother read Treasure Island to me when I was a girl,” you share, smile soft at the memory.

You feel him smiling at your smile. “That’s one of my Pa’s favorites, too, though I always wanted him to read Huckleberry Finn over, and over, and over again. He read it so much it began to fall apart!” Pause, then: “Have you read it?”

“No, I don’t believe so?”

“Well, you ought to; maybe I’m inclined to liking it because I like the idea of a barefoot boy being the hero, but I think it’s real good.” He says it with enough conviction, that you’re half-tempted to scamper to Aldbourne’s modest library that very second. He hums thoughtfully. “You know, even though I read all those adventures, I’ve never actually been farther than fifty miles from home before now.”

“This must be some change, huh?” you ask, coaxing yourself to look at him at an angle, hiding behind your fluttering lashes. It’s easier to look at him sideways, to pretend like you’re still talking to the counter, than face this strange American boy with a soft voice and nervous hands and hurrying words. Somehow, and you can’t say why, looking at him squarely seems like too much too soon.

“Yeah, I reckon so.” Silence, and you track how his fingers wring his cap. You want to snatch it from his hands, to hurry home to the workshop and take the iron—always hot and ready to press a sewn piece once it is deemed finished—to the wrinkles the boy is working in to it. “I’m Shifty, by the way. It’s my nickname, so if you don’t want to call me that, my real name is Darrell.”

“Does anyone call you Darrell?” you ask, though you like turning his nickname over and over in your head, pretending to say it in varying tones and registers, fascinated with the warmth it sends, flooding your limbs.

“Um, well, no, ma’am.”

You grin, finally prompted into meeting his eyes and a soft ‘oh’ escapes your parted lips. Darker than nighttime, his eyes met yours steadily. A depth makes them appear to gleam—a liquid night—yet the brown isn’t monochrome: light catches from the scones on the walls, the overhead fixture, sending twinkling stars into those eyes, a constellation with more unknowns and mysteries than the cosmos.

Suddenly, it becomes very pressing to think of something to say. You point to his sleeves, managing to squeak out: “Holes!”

“Huh?” Your insides tighten, shriveling into themselves, because he tilts his head ever so slightly in confusion and you could faint under that angle of those inquiring eyebrows.

You train your eyes on the holes in his uniform, focusing hard on formulating a coherent sentence. “The holes in your sleeves: I can fix them for you; patch them and have it good as new.”

“Holes?” he repeats, alarm coloring the word as he grabs at his sleeve, raising the fabric for his inspection. His face blanches. “Ah, gee, Sobel is going to murder me,” he mutters.

You repeat your offer, tacking on: “I can get it done before tea time, even.”

“Would you?” Shifty exclaims, dropping his sleeve to snatch up one of your hands. Every nerve in you sings with the contact—his hard callouses from soldiering slotting against yours from sewing; you’ll later think the sensation is quite lovely, really—while your muscles stiffen, screaming with panic. “I’d be really in your debt, ma’am; you’d be saving my skin from a hiding, I’m telling you.”

And something about the plains of his face—boyish softness disguising, and not very well, the hardness of manhood that training has meticulously chiseled in his face—something about how you’re sure the War will finish sculpting a man from the boy in front of you, prompts you to let Shifty hold your hand. Prompts you to politely excuse yourself when Vest and Margaret reappear, asking for Shifty’s assistance, the holey jacket in hand a promise left in your wake. As you hurry home, tossing waves and hellos to neighbors you’d usually linger with, you feel purpose ballooning your chest.

You feel purpose you haven’t known since before the orders dried up and, for the first time in a month, you forget entirely about your hunger.

. . .

True to your word, you send the jacket to the American base an hour before tea time, holes patched with neat, minuscule stitches. You even cleaned up the threads around his patches, starched and pressed the fabric, and you toy with the fanciful idea of seam-ripping the patches off and realign them. You wish you could back the jacket-liner with the last of your olive satin and replace the buttons with real brass instead of the cheap, brass-foil kind. But, you restrain yourself, remembering your promise.

Before dinnertime, a package appears in the mailbox. Mother fetches it and stares down, confused at the nameless delivery, a book swaddled in brown paper in her hands. When you peer over her shoulder and see The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you don’t need a signature for proof of sender.

[7deadlycinderellas]

The Starks at War, ch3

Ao3 Link

1940 begins. At the end of January, Arya turns fifteen, and along with her birthday comes the start of food rationing.

Hot Pie is outraged. He says nothing of quality can be baked with the butter and sugar they are allotted. Bran misses bacon terribly. But the day before her birthday, the greengrocer in the village has apples in stock, and Hot Pie whips up a fairly decent apple pudding.

Even the things that aren’t on ration seem to be getting harder to get. Shopping involves waiting endlessly in long lines.

And with the end of winter, comes the first casualty of the war.

It doesn’t really seem right to call it a casualty, but that’s how it feels. After Old Nan doesn’t show up for a few days, Arya rides down to the church to check on her.

Her sister says it looked like an apoplexy, in the night.

It’s a blow to the whole family.

“Nan was our nurse when I was a child too,” Ned says when they leave the church after her memorial. “I knew she was old, but I didn’t ever really think this would happen.”

“What are we going to do about Rickon?” Cat wants to know.

Rickon, the youngest, who less than ten minutes after the memorial has already taken off to play football with the evacuee boys.

Cat gazes after him.

“Gilly seems to be good enough with him, but I don’t know if there’s really anything we could do about Rickon that would change him,” is Ned’s take on it.

“I know I used to worry about Arya,” Cat muses, “too much probably. But I never worried she might slip away, just one day sneak away through a spot in this world and slip free.”

Slip free, Ned thinks, does sound like something that might explain Rickon.

As soon as the ground starts to thaw in early spring, Catelyn throws shovels at all of them with packets of seed and pamphlets on digging for Victory.

Arya groans. Some of the Guides in her patrol had helped type and print those.

Bran rolls himself outside to watch them dig up the roses and rhododendrons to replace them with potatoes, and carrots and turnips.

He reads the back of the packet of carrot seeds and tosses it to Gilly to take a look.

“It doesn’t say that there are other colored carrots too. We mostly eat the orange kind in tribute to William of Orange.” he comments.

Gilly laughs at him,

“I don’t know how you remember all of this.”

“Well it’s more interesting than remembering who William of Orange was,” Bran insists. Bran has been spending more time with Gilly in the new year. The realization that the girl was borderline illiterate had been a shock to him he had desperately wanted to correct.

“I don’t understand, don’t they make you go to school in London?” he asks her.

“No one really pays attention,” Gilly says, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, “And it’s not like I can’t read anything, I can write my name and do all my letters. But I don’t understand how you can look at all those words on that pamphlet and make sense of it.”

And so Bran embarks on a quest.

Ned asks Arya every week what her and the guides are doing. She’s already finished her first aid badge, and her electrician badge, and next week their starting on the signalling badge. She’s been looking forward to that one, she’s still terribly jealous of Meera’s proximity to boats. She doesn’t tell her father that their even talking about doing riflery badges too.

In the springtime, Bran helps her get her telegraphist badge. The requirements are that she build her own receiver and be able to transmit in Morse code at at least 30 letters per minute. Jojen and Bran both manage it easily, and eventually, she can too.

They all listen to the wireless more.

The news of the invasion of Norway is hard to listen to, it’s far too close to Scotland.

“You don’t think Robb and Jon…” Cat starts off.

“I don’t think so, “ Bran comments, “Their more recent letters say their squadrons have only been over France.

Jon in particular, has waxed poetic about how France looks from above. His letters he’s sent to Sansa in Kent are mostly recounts of what he has seen of the country.

Sansa tries not to be jealous when she reads them at school.

“You’ve never been to France?” Margaery asks her one day when she’s recounting what he’s written. They’re stretched out side by side on her bedspread in the dormitory, most of the other girls outside in the warm spring day.

Sansa shakes her head.

“I’ve been to Scotland a few times, but never overseas. Have you?”

Margaery nods.

“My grandmother is French, she lived in Paris as a girl, she spoke French to all of us as children. We’ve gone back multiple times. We can’t anymore, obviously, especially with the way things are going, but..”

Sansa doesn’t really notice her pause. She’s done all the things they say she should to support the war effort, but sometimes it feels like she doesn’t grasp it.

“I’ve been to where my mother’s from, but Suffolk isn’t really anything like a different country.” And no one in the family was terribly close to Uncle Brynden, who was a career soldier, or Uncle Edmure, who didn’t really seem to know what he was.

“Maybe I’ll take you someday,” Margaery tells her quietly. When Sansa turns seventeen in early May, she gives her a pair of gramophone records of a singer her grandmother had spoken to her about being one of France’s greatest.

When France falls, school has already let out for summer, so Sansa doesn’t have to see her cry.

Olenna scolds her for it.

“Don’t get upset, get angry. You should be angry that your homeland has been taken over by those lousy krauts.”

She doesn’t correct her that she was born in Britain and that it is actually what she would call her homeland, but correcting her grandmother has never gotten Margaery anywhere in life so she just wipes her cheeks clean and goes on.

After France falls, Gendry’s letters to Arya transform from belligerent to sorrowful.

 There were so many fleeing, the Navy didn’t have enough ships to take them all. We had people piled up on top of each other across the channel. There were fishing boats and cruise ships trying to rescue people who were fleeing, and there still weren’t enough. I saw people trying to swim...I don’t even want to try and imagine if any of them made it. And then we had to go back, again, for eight days straight.

 I haven’t felt like this since hearing about Norway. Stories of pilots whose planes couldn’t even take off because everything was frozen. It was only weeks ago,

 Our ship was moored early because of a special assignment. We were escorting a small group of civilians, patients from Institut Pasteur. One of them was the ten year old daughter of some high up politician. The girl was there for experimental treatment of leprosy. Leprosy! As if her life wasn’t going poorly enough, there has to be a war on.

 Even though we brought the patients on board first, we packed the ship to the gills before leaving. Soldiers packed in like sardines, sweaty, bloodied, scared out of their minds. Don’t tell Robb and Jon, but I heard a lot of men cursing the RAF because the sky was too thick with gunfire to see if the planes were doing anything to help.

 The leper girl- her name’s Shireen something- somehow seemed perfectly happy through it all. She has big patches all over the side of her face, and some of the others onboard seem wary of being near her, but she didn’t pay them any mind. She was singing songs and reading from a book she had carried with her the whole trip. Oh to have her heart in the face of horror.

France falls and summer comes, and thank God Sansa’s returned home. Because over the summer comes the bombardment.

Robb not only doesn’t get leave for his birthday, he doesn’t even get to write letters home during it. The RAF is trying to fight off the attacks on the Channel Islands shipping lanes. They aren’t succeeding.

Meera had been stationed in Devonport, near Plymouth, which starting in July, begins to take a beating. She writes as frequently as she can. Her letters from earlier in the year had been mild by comparison. She had spoken of her training, and the other women on her ship. She’s always had a mild temperament, and took orders easily enough. The other women it seems, mostly think of her as distant and aloof, or the more charitable ones, like she has her head in the clouds. The ones who are intrigued by her title are put off when they realize she really isn’t that grand.

 I guess I should accept that I never have really felt like I fit in. I don’t pick fights though, so most of others just ignore me. I’ve never thought myself unfriendly, but apparently I keep to myself more than most. It was strange, before the war I didn’t really know who I was. I’m hardly some fine lady, born for a life of theater and socials, and many of the upper class would think me no better than a street urchin. But the working class girls spot my accent immediately, and I have far more schooling than them. Even here. But at least here we’re all Wrens, we know who we are here. My bunk mate, Dacey is nice though. She’s from up north, her father owns a mine. Sometimes when we have time off we ride bikes around the town. I miss swimming, I miss fishing too. It’s hard to remember families use to holiday in Devon. The beaches are blocked off now, with thick rings of barbed wire. We helped place mines there too. I hope we can clear them easily enough when their not needed.

Plymouth begins being struck from the air first. She can’t write as often then. When she does, Jojen begins bringing by pieces of paper marked with just Bran’s name. He doesn’t understand why, and Jojen doesn’t seem to either, fixing Bran with looks that are somehow both curious and suspicious.

Reading them it’s understandable.

 I marked these for you Bran because I didn’t really think I should tell some of this to Arya. The letters she writes me are hot blooded as it is. You can share with her if you want.

 Seeing the after effects of the bombs is harrowing, both the buildings and the people. I was upset that I didn’t get stationed in Portsmouth at first, but I don’t think I could watch this happen to something so close to home.

 I was partially right. We may not be at sea, but as soon as the bombs started to fall, those first ones in Cardiff, they asked for volunteers to learn to crew the anti-aircraft guns.

 The guns we have fire so fast you can barely keep track. It takes four of us to fire the damn thing, and if you’re not careful it can knock you on your arse. If we bring any of the Luftwaffe down, I like to imagine it was me.

After Plymouth, Portsmouth is next.

Winterfell’s not that close to Portsmouth, the Stark children had always though, not really anyway. Arya could have made the journey by bike, but her legs would ache and her chest burn with exertion by the time she reached the outskirts.

But now it is somehow both far away and right outside the window.

Every day it seems, the roads are packed with the injured, clutching bundles of possessions, fleeing their destroyed homes. If anyone’s outside when the sirens blare, they can see the sky filling with smoke and fire. Any time of day RAF pilots might pass over head. One morning, when the all-clear blows, Arya sees the red-orange glow of the city on fire over the far horizon, and thinks that it looks frighteningly beautiful.

It’s too far away for most of the volunteers from the village, yet Arya’s guide patrol still makes the journey by bus a few times. They try to clear some of the injured from the first aid stations. She’s growing surprisingly numb to the sight of blood and burns, the sounds of children and grown men screaming. The smell is another story.

Twice, the guides have to take shelter themselves in town, when the sirens announce daytime strikes.

Bran spends his own birthday in the cellar. It’s not like they’re going to be able to have a cake anyway.

They’ve dragged bedding and pillows down, they’re all in the cellar so much. Having been dragged down the steps by both of his parents, and one memorable occasion by Arya and Gilly, Bran’s beginning to think he ought to just find a way to set up a cot or something and sleep down here. Maybe do his schoolwork. Never leave the cellar.

That particular day, Ned is in the village, sheltering at the station where he had gone to refill the petrol with their remaining ration. Cat, Sansa and Gilly are knitting socks, and Arya is pacing.

There’s a loud whistle and a crash that feels far too close. There’s no explosion.

“That was an incendiary,” Arya mutters while pacing, “It won’t explode, it will burst into flames and shoot out bits of metal-”

Bran cuts her off. Sansa is crying and their mother’s face is tight.

“How do you tell the difference?”

“It’s the sound.”

Arya stops herself from telling them about the incendiary charges went off the last time her patrol had been in town. It had set the house next to their shelter on fire, and provided light for the next charge to be aimed at. It had flattened the block. Had they been in one of those pop up shelters instead of a proper underground one, they would have all died.

In the middle of August, Arya is shocked to discover Sansa’s planning to return to school the beginning of September.

“How can you leave? Bombs are falling from the sky!”

“Bombs are falling all over the country, Arya,” This isn’t entirely true, but it remains that the entire southern coast is taking a beating and dogfights are happening over Kent every day as well.

“But if you stay, you’ll be able to be with all of us.” Arya’s eyes are welling up. Her and Sansa were never close, but this whole war has made her heart feel tender in ways it never had. After losing Robb and Jon, and Gendry and Meera, Arya had no desire to let anyone else in her family get away from her.

“It’s my last year of school, I have to finish. If I don’t, it’s like we’re letting the Nazis beat us. It’s not like I can just stay home forever.”

Arya clenches her fists. Is that what this is about? Sansa’s always talked about leaving Winterfell, going to London or Paris or New York, and meeting glamorous people and having some grand romance. Did she still want that, even when she might lose everyone?

“You just want to get away from all of us. We’re not good enough for you anymore are we? You just want to fuck off and leave us all behind.”

Her language is harsh, and her sentiment more so. Sansa has tears running down face, and turns to run away.

Her mother scolds her that night, and when everyone has gone to bed (thankfully, free of air raids for the night), Arya sits up in the parlor by herself.

Ned joins her, offering her a cup of newly rationed tea.

“You were cruel to your sister.”

Arya hangs her head.

“You should apologize before she leaves, or you might regret it.”

“She wouldn’t even care.”

Ned sighs, and wraps an arm around his daughter.

“Sansa loves you, she loves all of us. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have cared what you said to her.”

“Then why does she want to leave again?”

Ned looks at her carefully,

“Arya, what do you want from life?”

Arya tilts her head,

“I don’t really know. I’d like to learn to drive a car. I’d like to swim in the ocean. I’d like to try riding my bike further north, maybe over several days.”

She pauses, for a long time.

“I’d like to get a job, see what it’s like to support myself. I want to go swimming with Meera and Jojen. I want to take rides with Robb, I want Jon to explain everything to me that’s happening in the newspaper. I want to fight with Gendry over Weird Tales, then bring it home and read it with Bran anyway.”

“You want to stay at Winterfell.”

You want things to stay the way they used to be, is what he means, but doesn’t say.

It all sounds strange on Arya’s tongue. She’s always wanted adventure, read stories of jungle expeditions and space flights. Listening to her father’s stories from his days in the Navy as a young child, she’d once asked if she would ever do something so great. Ned had laughed, and the next day brought home a copy of 20,000 League Under the Sea.

The Nazis had stolen that from Arya. Now she longed for the war to end, and for her family to return home. She longed to help bring them home.

Arya nods, eventually. That really is the rub.

“Your mother’s always wanted the same for both you and Sansa what she had. She wants you two to marry well. To marry men of means who love you. For you to be good ladies, who live lives of ease. That would always involve you leaving, and I think that’s one of the reasons you’ve always fought so hard against it.”

Ned suddenly looks very sad.

“I don’t think any of that will happen any time soon. Sansa’s always been more open to the life your mother’s wanted. She’s seen life outside and wants more of it. There’s a lot of wonderful things in the world, outside of Wintefell. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, or her home.”

Ned leans over the squeeze Arya’s shoulders.

“I’m going on the train with Sansa tomorrow, to spend a few days in London.”

“What? Why.”

“Got a call from the foreman. Emergency he needs me to deal with.”

“Why doesn’t he ever call Robert with these?”

Ned laughs. Robert Baratheon, longtime friend, was part owner in the factory. Part owner, but Ned would be pressed to find if Robert gave it any thought whatsoever.

“Because Robert is all the way out in Cheshire, God’s knows how he spends his days.”

Arya still looks terribly downcast.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I understand what you were trying to tell Sansa, but you should still apologize for making her cry. I want to be together with all of you just as much as you do.”

And with that, Ned sends his daughter off to bed.

Sansa and Ned leave the next day on the same train, an hour later disembarking and parting ways.

Arya had watched the two of them leave, and try as she might, couldn’t take her father’s advice. Sansa hadn’t even looked her in the eye over breakfast.

Bombs fall again that night, and in the cellar, Arya feels empty.

The next day, Bran is listening to the wireless and tells her,

“They’re bombing London now.”

Arya feels her insides seize.

A few days he’d said. For once, Catelyn looks as upset as Arya. Ned had telephoned the first day, and the second, but they hadn’t heard from him since.

“They’re aiming for the docks, and the East End,” Bran tells everyone on the third day. “

Gilly chokes a bit, but doesn’t cry.

“My sisters- I hope some of them at least fled.”

“What about your father?” Bran asks.

“He can burn for all I care”.

On the end of the fourth day, Catelyn finally dials the telephone of the factory office.

They haven’t seen Ned since the day before. She tries again the next day. And the next.

Finally, someone gives them the answer.

Arya has never seen her mother collapse before. She’s making noises, like she’s gasping for air. She drops the phone.

Arya picks it up, and demands to know what her mother has just been told.

Parts of her feared, perhaps parts already knew.

Eddark Stark, believed deceased on the 9th of September in structural collapse of the Hotel Guilford….

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

All the things I want to tell you

It has been long weeks. Long weeks with hiding and finding their way back to each other. Nico tried to be there for his boyfriend, tried to give him all the love he was feeling in his heart. But it hasn't been easy. As soon as they stepped out of the safety of their homes, Marti distanced himself from Nico.

They always tried to ignore the glances at them, when they showed a little more affection for each other and with that Nico thought about small, normal things like holding hands in public or giving his boyfriend a little peck on the cheeks as a greeting, but since the fight Marti was insecure, anxious about any person looking at them. It broke Nico's heart seeing his boyfriend like this, not able to help him. It was as his words not really came through to him. And even at home, in their safe-zone Marti distanced himself. They cuddled and kissed, but nothing too passionate. Every time Nico tried to be intimate, Marti found an excuse to interrupt his attempts. He never complained, but he knew he needed to talk about it. It wasn't that Nico was just a horny teenager, but he was worrying about Marti.

Right now they were watching a movie at Marti's place. It was a Saturday evening and Nico was allowed to stay over. He was looking forward to spent the night with Marti, holding him as they fall asleep and wake up next to him in the morning. Of course he was hoping for a little bit more than just kissing, but he won't push his boyfriend. They had every time in the world to find back to each other.

Marti had himself curled up at his side and Nico was holding him in his arms. As usual he was playing with his hair. It has grown out a little bit and Nico loved running his fingers through this full and soft hair, sometimes closing his eyes, just focusing upon the tickling feeling.

Nico heard Marti's constant breathing, felt his body becoming limp and heavy in his arms. His boyfriend must fell asleep. He placed a soft kiss on top of Marti's head. He wasn't tired at all. Haven't been for the last weeks, always ready if Marti needed him. He was resting his head lightly on his boyfriend's and watched the movie.

After it finished he stayed like this. He didn't want to change his position, afraid it might wake up the sleeping boy in his arms. But instead of playing another movie he decided to talk to him. There was so much going on in his head, he needed to talk about. He doesn't want to bother Marti right now, so he thought this might be a good place to start, to let his thoughts out of the cage of his own mind.

“Hey you, I hope you know, you're safe with me. I saw you shutting off the last weeks and it broke my heart. You are my sunshine, the light of my life...God, that sounds so cheesy, but I love being cheesy with you. You are bringing out the best of me. You made me understand what love, what trust is. I know we can't be like other couples out in public and that makes me sad sometimes. I wish we could just hold hands when we are out for a walk or kiss when we want to. And damn, I always want to kiss you,” while he was speaking to Marti his hands were wandering over his sleeping boyfriend's arm, gently sliding up and down, “I want to dance with you when we're partying with our friends. This is so fucking unfair. But you know right now, I just want to be able to touch you and it feels like you're shutting me out, with every step I take towards you, you find another excuse to not let me near you. And I understand that, but it hurts me. I love you so much Marti and I won't push you, but I hope you allow me to be near you again,” he bend down a little to kiss the top of the red messy hair, that was tingling his neck, “And I hope we can go on a vacation together during the summer. I've dreamt about this for a while now. I see us two standing in front of St. Paul's Cathedral in London or lying in a tent in the wilderness of Norway, just the two of us and only the stars over us as our witnesses. I want to explore the world with you. I want to amble with you along the channels of Amsterdam, holding your hand, not thinking about homophobes throwing shit at us” he paused for a moment, tried to shake off the thoughts about all the hate they had faced until now, gulped back his tears and continued his speech. It felt so relieving to be able to tell Marti everything what was on his mind.

“I can't wait until the apartment is finally ready to move in. I never asked you, because I thought it would be too early, but I wish you could move in with me. You and me together, building our own safe place, where nobody can hurt us. Sometimes I lay down on my bed and daydream about it and it makes me so happy. You make me so happy. And I know I scare you sometimes. I am sorry for that, you know that. But I need to tell you, you are always there with me. Even on my lowest point everything I could think of was you. We never really talk about Milan and I get why, but I want to talk about it. I want you to understand that there wasn't a moment I was not thinking about you. Until you, when I got a really bad episode, there was only me. I was the last man on earth, left alone on this stupid planet. But since I met you I wasn't alone anymore. And thinking about spending the rest of my life with you doesn't scare me at all. I want to live with you, grow old with you, maybe have kids together, who knows. As long as you are by my side, I am not afraid of the future.”

As he finished he noticed the tears on his cheeks. He was so full of love for this boy in his arms, sometimes he wonders how it was possible to feel so much love for one person without suffocating from it.

Martino was holding his eyes closed as Nico spoke. He woke up a while ago, but felt so safe in his arms, not wanting to leave his spot and so he stayed silent. But now he needed to say something. Something he wanted to tell Nico for so long, but wasn't able to. Not just because Nico never asked, but he didn't want to scare him away, bringing this topic on the table.

“Then lets start with living together, because I really would love to live with you,” he whispered and looked up, a big smile on his lips.

“How long have you been listening?” Nico was caught off guard, his green eyes staring a little bit scared at the younger one.

“I heard everything. Every word, every thought. Why didn't you talk to me before?” there was no anger in his voice, just honest worry and sadness, because he made Nico shut off, made him hide away his feelings.

“I didn't want you to suffer more than you already did. I didn't want to push you into something you didn't want to do. I thought it might be counterproductive to speak about vacation or living together after what you had experienced or about the fact, how I feel when you cut me off, when you didn't want any intimacy.” Nico was avoiding looking him in the eyes. “I feel like a fool. I know sex isn't the most important thing in a relationship, but things were different before the incident and I miss you, I miss feeling you close to me, I miss you feeling safe with me,” he sighed.

Marti knew what Nico was talking about. He wanted to be close to him too, but there was something holding him back. He reached out, cupping Nico's face with his hands, carefully as if he was holding his whole world in them. “Nico, my love, I want to be near you, I want it so bad, but...I don't know what it is...it is like there is a voice in my head...his voice, telling me this is wrong, disgusting...” he was trembling and Nico put his arms around him, holding him tight to his chest. “I want you so bad...” Marti's voice nothing but a whisper.

“What can I do? How can I help you?” Nico mumbled into his hair.

“Stop this voice in my head, make me feel safe again,” Marti responded with a pleading voice and a shiver run down Nico's spine. Nico slid next to Marti, caressing his face with his fingers, tracing down the soft outlines of his cheekbones and tilting up his face so he could meet his lips with a tender kiss. “Does this feels wrong?” Marti could only shook his head in respond, closing his eyes again as soon as Nico's hand slowly moved from his face to his neck, pulling him closer to deepen the kiss. He could feel Nico carefully parting his lips, waiting for Marti to make the decision, how this should go on and Marti answered with his tongue sliding into Nico's mouth, meeting his tongue, nudging against it.

Nico broke away “Does this feels wrong?”

“No,” Marti answered out of breath and with rosy cheeks. As they turned into another kiss, Nico's hand, until than just focused on Marti's face and hair, moved downwards and Marti could feel it burning all the way down along his shoulder and his side until it settled at the end of his t-shirt. A feeling he had missed so bad and yet it was different this time. He wasn't able to respond to the touches as he was used to. Nico slowly got under the light fabric and Marti could feel soft fingers exploring every inch of his back, carefully brushing along the side, leaving a pleasant tingle.

Nico pushed himself up and rolled Marti on his back, pressing their bodies together again, still separated by their clothes. Nico's hands again up on Marti's face, his own face just centimeters away. Their eyes locked and Marti could see so much love and adoration in them, it washed away a fraction of the guilt, of the insecurity.

Nico leaned down, meeting Marti's lips with a soft kiss before he set up to kneel over Marti. Carefully and ready to stop at any moment he got his hands back under the t-shirt, starting to push it up and he whispered “Does this feels wrong?” and Marti replied with lifting himself up to help Nico take off the shirt, “No,” more a breath than actual voice.

After the shirt had gone, Nico sat up, tracing down a line between all the freckles on Marti's chest with his fingers up to his shoulder and carefully, as if he didn't want to miss a single line, he outlined his tattoo. Marti didn't stop him so he leaned down and followed the way back with his tongue. Slowly starting at his shoulder, wandering down his chest, pausing at his nipples. He glanced up and Marti, who was not able to make a sound, only nodded, assuring him, that this was what he wanted – what he needed.

With every touch of Nico's fingers on his body, with every little kiss he was loosing more and more of his fear, of his memories of that fateful fight. Nico was letting his tongue gliding around his right nipple, playing with it, soft and without any rush before he got a little bit more courageous and tenderly bit in it. Marti couldn't repress it any longer and a silent moan left his mouth “Ni...”.

“Does this feels wrong?” Nico smirked up at Marti who was finally able to move. He grabbed his neck and pulled Nico in a hot kiss, not thinking about anybody else than the boy on top of him, pressing their bodies together. It was only them, the last men on earth. Nothing else mattered anymore. And he needed to feel more of Nico so he let his hands slid under the shirt he was still wearing. “Take it off,” he commanded and Nico sat up, smiling as he took it off over his head. Again he let his fingers sliding over Marti's chest, but this time Marti's hands were on him too.

Nico's hands wandered down to the soft skin right over the waistband of Marti's jeans and Marti could feel his skin reacting to this touch with a long missed and pleasing shudder.

“Kiss me again,” Marti begged with a breathy voice, a wish Nico was only too happy to fulfill. Lying down on top of him, Marti could feel Nico's skin on his own and he pressed himself up, pulling Nico down with his hands against his body to cover every free spot with his warmth.

The kiss was messy and hot and open and it was difficult to breathe, but Marti didn't mind. Soon Nico's lips found their way back to the precious spot under Marti's ear. He loved kissing, licking and sucking his boyfriend's neck, the soft skin under his ear, the way he could feel Marti's pulse at his lips and tongue. “Does this feels wrong?” Nico asked with hoarse voice next to Marti's ear, gently biting his way up to Marti's helix and letting his tongue play with it. “Hmmm...no,” Marti's voice was deeper than usual, transporting his arousal with it.

“Good,” Nico replied and made his way back down, leaving kisses on Marti's collarbone, the soft skin next to his armpit, along the sensitive side of Marti's chest, all the way down to his pelvis.

Carefully, he started unzipping Marti's pants.

Marti looked at him with big eyes, putting one hand on his to halt the movement.

Their eyes met and Nico let go of the pants and laid a hand on his cheek. They looked at each other for a long time before Nico spoke again. "You are so beautiful and sexy and so fragile. If you feel safer then we can just lie here, cuddle and look into each others eyes."

A smile appeared on Marti's lips, "I'm just so overwhelmed by everything. Nowhere do I feel as safe as in your arms and I want you Ni, more than anything else. I didn't realize how much I missed that, how much I missed feeling you so close, not just in the physical way,” he smiled and lifted his head up to catch Nico's lips in a soft and tender kiss, while his hands went down to complete what Nico had begun.

He took Nico's hand in his, leading her down to rest on his crotch so Nico could feel his erection.

“This doesn't feel wrong,” he whispered in Nico's ear and with a smile he added ”this feels right in every fucking way.”

They loved each other the whole night, only interrupted to gather strength and whisper to each other tender confirmations of their love.

In the end, they lay on the bed wrapped around the other, holding each other as close as possible.

“You really want to live with me?” Nico asked insecurely.

“Of course I want to! I thought about it since you mentioned your parents were allowing you to live on your own. Oh well, to be honest, I thought about living with you before that. I have built up our complete home in my mind. What our living room would look like and our bedroom. I have a picture of it in my head down to the smallest detail. But in the end all of this doesn't matter. Our home is going to be wonderful, because it will be ours and you are there with me. That is all what matters to me.”

Nico was happy and overwhelmed as so often thinking about how lucky he was with a partner like Marti on his side to spent the rest of his live together.

“Than lets do this,” he said. “Lets do this,” Marti smiled back at Nico, leaning over to seal this promise with a kiss.