#french class is pain

[dear-ao3]

[gretagator]

Silly little school doodles.... Just a glance in the mind of a whimsical being

[alex-just-vibing]

[skitskatdacat63]

2005 French Grand Prix - Fernando Alonso (ft. Kimi Räikkönen & Michael Schumacher)(my personal post-race highlights)

+ bonus uh...whatever Michael's doing here

[fleetwoodmacarthistory]

The Golden Legend by Rene Magritte // "Dissatisfied" by Fleetwood Mac

[wisdom-and-such]

"the distinction ....[of] kings and subjects … how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into"

-- Thomas Paine in his Essay (or Political Pamphlet) ‘Common Sense’

[yeyinde]

I’m not sure if this question is going to make a lot of sense (im kinda drunk whoops) but do you have a sort of thesaurus/dictionary you use? I’m absolutely in love with your imagery, I’ve been trying to get back into writing lately as a way to help with mental stress and your writing just has this vibe to it that feels like it heals my soul. is it possible to learn this power? Have you just picked up all these gorgeous synonyms from years of practice? Granted English isn’t my first language so finding these words myself seems to be extra hard for me, if you have a tool that could help a girl out I’d be infinitely grateful lol

Hiya!!

I mostly learned this in primary school, I'd say! We had this amazing French teacher who would assign us words each night for homework and we'd have to find as many synonyms and antonyms as we possibly could, so it sort of carried over from that!

Also, I get distracted very easily when I'm writing, and most of the ones I found were through procrastination because I'd look a word up, and go down as many synonym rabbit holes as I could just to avoid finishing a fic 😅

I don't have any particular app I use (mainly because most of them are seldom updated/poorly maintained). I've tried a lot of them but nothing beats the instant answer of word + define in google and its etymology page on Wikipedia.

To keep track of them all, I just add all the words that look/sound pretty to me on a massive Google doc. It makes things so much easier because you can categorise them however works best for you! I keep them neat by just adding little keywords I can search up. (Like, emotions and then a list of subcategories; or actions; or words for "x, y, z."). I found most of the words I use by just clicking random words and their synonyms or by seeing a word in a fic or a poem, or a novel that stood out to me.

And ahhhhh, you have no idea how incredibly happy it made me to read the lovely things you said! 'Just has this vibe to it that feels like it heals your soul'?! Stop!! Nice things are not allowed to be said about me and my sloppy writing! 😭

Thank you so much!!! 🖤 I really hope this helps!

[outlying-hyppocrate]

imagine being like. human. i'm just a silly little creature. happy cryptid. occasionally a very sad cryptid who ponders its own existence and questions his sanity but. that's mostly during the winter months. we do not speak of the winter months. except for the fact that we are in them and. fuck never mind. i just need some tea and a bit of will wood to ensure my serotonin levels go back to normal and i can be. happy cryptid

[cleocatrablossy]

“Yeah, don’t we all wish we could live on the bottom floor. You get to be lazy and don’t have to deal with stairs”

My legs are menaces and can make stairs hell. When I said I’d rather have a room on the bottom floor in case my legs throw a fit it’s because I do have the occasional day where walking fucking hurts.

[kazuromi]

finals are the ultimate life is soup i am fork moment

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

oooh I have an idea for a modern!jace fic. I am a sucker for academic rivals to lovers so something like that. maybe reader finds out that jace is struggling (I thought a foreign language class since he struggled with valerian) or the teacher makes reader tutor Jace. I hope that made sense!

thank you xoxo

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

You despised above everything anyone who was from a sports team. They were loud, entitled, arrogant, and made college all about them. You had a special hatred for that one guy from the football team who was banging at your dorm door at 11pm on a Thursday, thinking he was at his ex-girlfriend's dorm. 

But when Mr. Perron had asked you to tutor the center player of the hockey team in exchange for extra credits, you couldn’t refuse. 

You thought it would be easy and that he would take your tutoring seriously — his place in the hockey team was on the line —, but Jacaerys Velaryon was a pain in your ass. He had difficulty concentrating after twenty minutes and kept arguing over the spelling of words. 

‘’You can’t pronounce it like that,’’ you said for the third time since you sat at a table in the tutoring center. 

‘’Why not? It’s written that way,’’ Jace argued back, pointing to the word in the textbook.

‘’Because that’s not how you pronounce ‘croissant‘! I don’t make the rules.’’ You held back an exhausted sigh, your patience wearing thin. ‘’If you go to Paris and say it like that, they’re gonna laugh at you.’’ 

‘’They’re gonna be too distracted by my charming smile to hear my wrong pronunciation.’’ He flashed his signature smile at you, the one that made most people swoon, but you shook your head, refusing to engage in anything other than what you were there for.

‘’Unfortunately for you, your charm will not work on Mr. Perron,’’ you said, making his smile disappear. ‘’And it definitely won’t work on the exam.’’

Forty-five minutes later, Jace still couldn’t seem to get the translations right. You felt like he wasn’t even trying, but he actually was. French was just not sticking. 

‘’Look, I’m here to help you, but if you want to waste my time—’’

Panic set inside Jace. ‘’No. I really need your help,’’ he insisted, his eyes wide with desperation. ‘’I swear I’m trying. If I don’t pass, I’m gonna get kicked off the team. There’s five games left, and we are so close to the play-offs. Please, don’t let me fail.’’ He looked at you intently, almost like a puppy dog begging for a treat.  

You stayed at the tutoring center for another hour. There was a slight improvement, but Jace would need a lot more hours of tutoring to pass his exam. 

So, that’s what you did. Everyday at 7pm, he would meet you at the tutoring center and bring snacks from the campus café, claiming studying on an empty stomach was proven less effective by studies. You hated how he made crumbs on the table and how casually flirty he was, but his charming smile was growing on you and making you less indifferent by the day, much to your annoyance. 

You quickly shook those growing feelings out of your heart, refusing to fall for a hockey player. He already had a ton of girls at his feet. The chances he would reciprocate those growing feelings were too slim to even consider.

‘’Thanks for helping me. It means a lot to me,’’ Jace said on your last tutoring session. ‘’I’ve improved a lot this week, and I would not have been able to get this far without you.’’

During your time together, you got to know him a little and no longer saw him as just an entitled college athlete. He was sweet and thoughtful, and a true mama’s boy. You tried so hard to cover your fondness when he answered his mother’s call during a session. He even had a cute picture of his family as his lockscreen. 

You gathered your stuff, putting everything into your backpack. ‘’Can I ask you something? Why did you take French if you struggle with foreign language?’’ 

Jace groaned, embarrassment filling his body. ‘’Because it seemed easy…and girls like it when a guy speaks French,’’ he admitted, his cheeks pink as he covered his face with his hand. 

‘’Watch them all fall for you when you pronounce ‘croissant’ correctly.’’ 

A small laugh left his lips, amused by your teasing. 

The sound of his laugh made your heart flutter, but you played it off by facing the other way.  He couldn’t know that his charm was getting to you.

‘’There’s one week left until your exam. You gotta keep studying if you want to pass,’’ you said to him. ‘’No relenting.’’

You slung your bag over your shoulder and walked to the door, preparing to exit, but Jace called your name.

‘’What do I get if I pass?’’ 

His voice made you slowly turn around to look at him. ‘’You get to stay on the hockey team?’’ 

Jace pulled back on his Wolves hoodie, making you daydream about wearing it and smelling his woody cologne and something that was just him. ‘’No. What else do I get? I need something to motivate me.’’ 

A smirk curled at the corner of your lips, the words leaving your mouth before you could stop them. ‘’If you get above 80%, I’ll suck your cock.’’

To you, it was a joke — just a joke —, but Jace never studied this hard before. He spent all his free time with his nose in his french textbook, and even brought it to the gym so he could study while running on the treadmill. His teammate made fun of him, but he didn’t care. The reward would be worth it.

On the day of the exam, he asked Mr. Perron if he could grade his exam immediately, needing to know if he could play tomorrow night. Jace waited impatiently as the man checked everything, nerves bubbling in his stomach. When Mr. Perron handed him his exam, he walked out and started looking for you.

He found you sitting in the quad, reading by yourself. He ran over to you, and shoved his exam in front of your face. At the top right corner was a bright red 81%. 

—

House of the dragon taglist: @khaleesihavilliard@domoron @ididliquorice @lover-of-helios@lover-of-helios @shine101 @tanyaherondale @mikariell95 @serrendiipty @lantsovheiress @gilliananderfuckme @shine101 @tetgod @clayzayden @memeorydotcom @tnu-ree @futuregws @blackravena @winxschester @mysteriouslydelightfulchaos @xxlaynaxx @secretsthathauntus @pilarxxxaguayo @emmavan39 @stargaryenx @erylilly @bbblackmamba @rainedrop97 @dreamer087 @gothicgay14 @ashlatano7567 @superkittywonderland @justaproudslytherpuff @evesolstice @buckysmainhxe @padfootsvixen @scarletmeii @evesolstice @dkathl @kaywsworld @tetgod @padfootsvixen @domoron   @weird-addiction @angeliod @xjennyx2 @adaydreamaway08  @mymultiveres  @secretsthathauntus  @puffycreamcakes @thirsty4nonlivingmen @naty-1001 @katiepie67 @moshpot24x @hc-geralt-23 @lovelynerdytraveler @saturn-sas  @zgzgh @sssjuico10 @tabloidteen @timetoten @deekaag @wondxrgurl @aerangi @strmborns @astridyoo15 @daemonslittlebitch @queenbeestuffs @severewobblerlightdragon @agentstarkid @msliz @vane1999-blog @fairyfolkloresposts @todaywasafairytale07 @otomaniac @zgzgzh @thebeardedmoon @golden-library @kikyrizuki @hnslchw @camy85 @winxschester @armstrongscommentsection @withfireandbl00d @randomstory56 @JudgmentDays-Girl @darylandbethfanforever9 @darylandbethfanforever9 @aegonswife @dakotapaigelove @jays-bullshit @blublock404 @Icefyre19 @paulilvsremus @mfedits @aemondwhoresworld @angrybirdxx @YarianyIrizarry

All and more taglist:  @kenqki@hawkegfs@gillybear17@black-rose-29@fudge13 @cece05 @laylasbunbunny @gemofthenight @beautyb1ade   @mellabella101 @vxnity713  @bisexualgirlsblog @queenofslytherin889 @thatbxtchesblog @softb-tterfly @ethanlandrycanbreakmyheart  @xyzstar  @graceberman3   @mikeyspinkcup @jackierose902109 @daisydark @laurasdrey @mischieftom @fanatic4niall @peterholland04 @idkwhattonamethisblogs  @lexasaurs634  @notasadgirlipromise @zoeynicolas @thejuleshypothesis @multi-fandom-bi-bitch @lexasaurs634  @notasadgirlipromise @thejuleshypothesis  @katherinejess  @rafesgirlstuff   @lafleshlumpeater @iamluminosity  @Anouk nani-2305 @books0fever @papichulo120627 @qardasngan @ghostlyvoidydragon @M0rgans1nterlud3 @dahlia-blossom21 @Spacexdrago

[writteninkat]

What made you fall for these MHA men?

w/ Bakugou, Kirishima, Midoriya, Todoroki, Kaminari

warnings: none, just some good ol' fluff

a/n: idk man i feel like most people(me) goes straight to the fucking stage and skips the adorable crush stage

navigation

KATSUKI BAKUGOU

this man is so fucking smart it turns you to goo

whenever you're having trouble with schoolworks/projects/assignments, you sit yourself next to him just to get the work done fast (and he smells and looks good so plus points ig)

find long math problems difficult? mans will take one look at it and immediately start scribbling. probably witchcraft, you don't know.

one moment you're complaining to mina about how your teacher can suck dick after giving you the assigment, the next katsuki has the answer in a box

chemistry problems? mans has the entire table memorized.

history? which one? japanese? american? french?

ah, he also butts in your conversations whenever you get the date wrong.

yeah he teaches you stuff you're having trouble understanding, but he will yell the entire time.

yeah, he teaches the topics worlds better than the teacher ever could but at the cost of your hearing

seeing his name listed along the top students with high marks has you inspired to do just as better as him

you tried confessing by giving him a love letter and he returned it to you with corrections TT (and a note that said: rewrite this and read it to me in person, then I'll take you out for some ramen)

EIJIRO KIRISHIMA

he's the sweetest ever, who wouldn't fall for him?

you're having terrible period cramps? this man will have a 'period aid box' filled with sweets, sanitary products, pain relievers, a heating pad, and more of your favorite things delivered to your door

it's pouring and you forgot your umbrella?

if he has an umbrella: will obv share it with you and doesn't care if half his body gets drenched, what matters is you're dry

no umbrella: takes off his uniform jacket/vest and drapes it over you. you'll end up damp but hey, he tried his best

whenever there's a new place, (restaurant, fair, amusement park, etc.) you're the first one he's asking to join him. and you always go. and he always pays.

hurt yourself? scraped a knee, got a bruise, muscle ache? he has a first aid pouch in his bag just for you

always walks you to class, always struggles with you when doing homework, always brings you your favorite food/drink

problem? he does all of this and will still call you a 'friend'. 'best friend' if you're lucky.

yeah, this adorable boy has no idea all the shit he does has you falling head over heels in love for him

IZUKU MIDORIYA

the way he's so passionate about what he loves, then catches himself being so open about it, then blushes, has you swooning

it was a normal day when you asked him about all might. you ended up listening to him for two hours ranting and sharing

you thought, 'how cute.' and then remembered you had piles of homework to do. and then he offered to help you with them while still talking about all might

he's also incredible passionate about being a hero

the way he talks about keeping the weak and needy safe has your heart clenching

whenever you get hurt during quirk training? he drops everything to take you to the nurse

feel insecure about yourself? he goes on a never ending tangent about how you're enough and how amazing you are

whenever you feel like you aren't gonna reach a goal, he's right there to pump you back up

whenever you tease him about being handsome or cute, he gets all flushed and shy, he makes you wanna just nibble on his cheeks!

problem here? he does that with everyone.

he's an inherintly good person, so you can't blame him for it, you can only blame yourself for thinking you were special to him.

or are you?

SHOTO TODOROKI

you're a yapper. you're running your mouth twenty four-seven. and twenty four hours every day, he listens. quietly.

at first you thought he was just ignoring you, but he brings up what you babbled about from time to time.

you talked about your mom being in the hospital. the next day, your mom's calling you to tell 'your classmate i said thank you for the fruits'.

mmhmm. he gave your mom fruits as a 'get well soon' gift.

shoto listens to every word you say, even when you don't realize you're saying them

"i heard the smoothie at that new diner was good." next day, there's a take out smoothie on your desk

"remind me to get pads tomorrow." your desk is filled with every single kind of sanitary product you could think of, from wings, non wings, long, dry, thick, thin, day, night.

"does anybody have an extra pen-" he places his pencil case on your table.

you don't even have to ask him and he's already working on getting you whatever you want. swoon.

another thing that made you fall? he'll let you do anything to him

class is boring and you wanna draw? he'll give you his hands

wanna practice some hairstyles? his hair is incredibly soft and tame for that.

how about make up looks? wanna practice that? he's sitting cross legged on the floor of your dorm as you brush on whatever color on his face

he's totally fine with letting you do whatever you want. and you wanna know the best part? he only lets you do it.

DENKI KAMINARI

this man cracks you up with no fail

the way denki's so easy to talk to and have fun with makes you feel so safe and secure

he's got every kind of humor in his chamber

dad jokes? "what did the blanket say as it fell off the bed? oh sheet!"

corny jokes? "how many lips does a flower have? tu-lips."

dark humor? "why can't orphans play baseball? cause they don't know where home is!"

yeah- the last one you two whisper to each other during class and get sent out of the room for laughing too loud

you don't remember a day where you spent with him and you weren't laughing. you just feel so light and happy, he's like a drug to you

this dynamic between the both of you confuses people. some look at the both of you and think you're a duo misfit who constantly gets called out during class, and some give you teasing looks

when you started to notice these feelings for him, you couldn't help but grin at the thought of marrying your best friend.

what made you really feel for him though?

when you were sick for a day, your classmates came back to the dorms begging you to fet better quickly cause apparently the room was depressing

even katsuki cursed you out for being sick

apparently denki's mood affected everybody. and that mood was-

"today was tiring without you there." denki sighs, staring at nothing while the heat of his body beside you comforts you completely. it's always like this with him- warm, peaceful, happy.

"awe, did you miss me you big baby?" you tease, poking his side.

denki turns his head towards you, eyes holding a million words he wants to say, but for some reason, can't.

"i did." his eyes trail down your nose and to your lips. "so much."

your lips part, heart about to beat out of your rib cage. your mouth feels dry and you can't help the desire to tell him everything you feel for him- but you can't. you don't wanna risk ruining your friendship.

"yellow," he calls. ever since you laughed at his joke for the first time, he's been calling you yellow. he says your laugh magically brightens the room, the sight of your smile lifting the heaviness on his shoulder. "smile for me?"

and you do.

and he does.

and you know you're extraordinarily, remarkably, so very fucked when it comes to this man.

[transgaysex]

okay okay okay okay okay okay im fine

[louisupdates]

INTERVIEW: Lottie Tomlinson: we lost our mum and sister. Louis saved me

At the age of 20, the sister of One Direction singer Louis had already lost her mother, Johannah, and sister Félicité. Now 25, the social media star has written a book about how they coped

Alice Thomson | Tuesday July 23 2024, 5.00pm BST, The Times

Losing Mum was so hard. I was only a teenager but at least I knew that her death was a possibility, even though she didn’t accept it. She was 47 and had cancer. But when my sister died three years later, I was on this hotel balcony in Bali and I was screaming, ‘No, my baby sister, no.’ The pain was indescribable. I kept thinking, ‘Why me? This can’t be happening again. When is this going to end?’ ”

We are sitting on Lottie Tomlinson’s immaculate white sofa in her pristine white house in Chislehurst, southeast London, where she is curled up in tiny shorts with a perfect tan and impeccably applied make-up. But her French manicured nails are digging so hard into the sofa I think they might snap, the heart tattoo on her minuscule wrist is throbbing and her eyelashes are clogged with tears.

Her life sounds blessed. The influencer has 4.8 million Instagram followers waiting for her to dispense advice on how to apply mascara; the fake tan brand, Tanologist, that she launched at 19 has gone global; and she has a devoted fiancé, Lewis Burton, who runs a luxury concierge business and whose former girlfriend was the late Caroline Flack. They have an adorable son called Lucky, who is dripping ice cream on her marble counters. Her new book is also called Lucky Girl; her older brother is Louis Tomlinson of One Direction and she was touring the world with the band as a make-up artist at 16.

But after her mother died when she was 18, Tomlinson was left looking after her younger sister and two sets of twin siblings, aged eight and two, while creating her businesses, and trying to process her grief. Her father had left their home in Doncaster years before after a battle with alcohol. “Dad had a drinking problem. We’d see glimpses of his good side but he let us down,” she says. “I ended up trying to take care of him rather than the other way round.”

When her mother died, life felt bleak, “I lost the one person who loved me unconditionally, and then when my sister Fizz [Félicité] died of an accidental overdose, I thought I could never be happy again,” she says. “I found the lead-up to Mother’s Day devastating without my sister as well. It was a constant reminder that I was now different from my friends. In my dreams, my mum was still there; she was alive. I woke up feeling comforted, only to realise that she’d gone.”

Tomlinson, who is now 25 and a patron of the bereavement charity Sue Ryder, moves easily between telling you how to apply the best tan and how to talk about death. She cares passionately about both subjects and takes them equally seriously, worried that I’ve never tried a bronzer or used foundation before asking how I coped when my mother died during the pandemic. Her soft Yorkshire accent is both reassuring and no-nonsense.

Born near Doncaster, she was only two when Fizz was born and six when the first twins arrived. “I’ve always been the big sister — Fizz and I each got one and then more twins six years later.” While Louis had his own space, the girls all shared one room with bunk beds. “It was chaos, but my mum, Johannah, was a midwife and loved being pregnant and having so many babies,” she explains. “I used to be in awe of the way she could feed the twins at once, one on each hip. She would do the night shifts, while I held the fort at home.”

Within a few years, Tomlinson would be touring America, Asia and Europe, flying first class with Louis, part of the biggest boy band in the world, but until she was 15, the family had only ever gone to France once a year all packed into a seven-seater car, with her mother’s new partner, snacks laid out in the middle. They stayed in a caravan park. On a Sunday, a treat was to go to their mother’s hospital to see the babies.

While Louis just wanted to sing, play the guitar and listen to Oasis, the girls were obsessed with make-up. “From the age of 12, I struggled academically, but I loved cropped clothes and my mum’s highlighters and mascaras.” She learnt how to apply everything from YouTube tutorials, rather than doing algebra. “We didn’t have much money — we sometimes couldn’t afford to top up the electricity meter so used candles — but everything my mum earned she spent on us. We all looked immaculate — I remember her being horrified when I dyed my hair orange. So it was lovely later when we could treat her.”

Saturday nights were spent watching The X Factor. “My mother and brother kept applying; in 2010, he got in and the whole family went for the audition. We believed in him, but we never thought it would go that far.” One day the family were going to the live shows, the next the boy band was formed with Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Liam Payne. “He was 18. For my mum it was a big shock. It was all so sudden. The press and fans were in our front garden every day.”

The older twins had already made their first TV appearances — they sound like Doncaster’s Von Trapps. “My mother was gently pushy,” Tomlinson says, smiling at the thought. “When I didn’t get good enough GCSEs to stay at school, she sent me off to join Louis on tour as work experience. I was so scared. I remember her ringing up Lou [Teasdale], their hair and make-up artist, and saying, ‘Lottie has not got through to sixth form; she’s going to come and assist you.’ I was in the car going, ‘No, please don’t.’ But it ended up being the best thing that happened to me. I went for a week and stayed two years. Lou and I are still so close.”

Suddenly, the two eldest Tomlinson children were circling the world, eating room service and ducking the paparazzi hanging out of helicopters taking snaps. “At first Louis didn’t really want his little sister gate crashing his new rock-star life, but now it feels like the best time of our lives — we experienced that craziness together,” she says.

The teenage Tomlinson found it harder to cope with being photographed wherever she went. “I had some puppy fat which made me very self-aware, and the filler culture was coming in and I felt I had to look perfect.” She had her lips done first at 17. “Then I became addicted: cheek filler, jaw filler, more make-up, blonder hair, slimmer and more tanned. My mum thought I looked perfect, but I was always searching.”

Five years later, when she became pregnant with Lucky and her lips started to swell and crack, she realised she didn’t need the enhancements any more. “I had everything removed, the false eyelashes too. It was liberating.” She kept her boob job, however. “That was just enhancement,” she says laughing. “The rest radically changed the way I looked. My breasts also got huge when I was pregnant and it was a bit painful. But I still breastfed. I loved carrying my child. I felt fantastic even when I was sick and exhausted.”

She leans forward, wraps her bronzed arms around her stomach and whispers, “I am pregnant again. We don’t know yet if it’s a boy or girl. It’s only 13 weeks, so this is the first time I’ve said it publicly. I think I want a big family. I loved having Lucky but after a year I wanted to give him siblings.”

Tomlinson’s influencer career began once she established herself on tour. Soon everything she did, even dying her roots rainbow-coloured, went viral and fashion companies from Asos to Dior wanted in on it. “I was just going for it. I couldn’t believe the money I was making and spending — money I didn’t know existed as a child.”

Then suddenly her mum came home from holiday with flu. “She didn’t want to get out of bed. The doctors quite quickly told her she had leukaemia and she went straight to London for treatment. It all happened so fast. I remember being in London at work and getting a call from her partner — she couldn’t say the words herself, it was too hard for her.” The family were told it was treatable. “We kept so much hope.”

Her mother asked the family to keep her illness secret. “It was hard because you feel so isolated, but I understood. Louis was in the public eye and she didn’t want him questioned. She was determined to fight it and didn’t want everyone pitying her. My friends noticed I was acting differently for a few months. But I wanted to respect her wishes. It was her one request.”

She also dropped everything to go back to Doncaster to help her grandparents with the twins. “The younger ones were two and I wanted to keep everything as normal as possible. I can’t imagine what my mum was feeling leaving her kids to go to hospital.

“I would take them down and treasure seeing her — we tried to keep it light, no serious conversation. The only way Mum could cope was to keep it normal. Then, when the doctors said the transfusions hadn’t worked, she came home to die.”

Tomlinson tries to sound matter-of-fact. “We went to see her in hospital in Sheffield and the next morning we woke up and were told she had died. We felt numb. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Now I am involved with the Sue Ryder charity, I am surprised we were offered no support or counselling at all, from the GP, the teachers, the professionals. They all kept away.” Her nan and grandad picked up the pieces.

It’s not surprising she can’t remember the funeral. “I just remember getting really drunk to numb the pain. I couldn’t come to terms with it. I can’t even remember how we organised it. My instinct was to take over as the eldest girl and step into my mum’s shoes so that is what I did.” Meanwhile, her older brother, who was launching his solo career, ensured there was enough money. “He’s incredibly generous. We looked after each other.”

Tomlinson returned to London months later, after her grandmother said she needed to become a role model for her siblings. Her younger sister Fizz worried her most. “She was very academic — she got straight A’s without trying — but she always said she felt different. She was bottling her grief for so long; it was too much and made her turn to other things. I think Mum’s death destroyed her. Only my mum seemed to understand her. If she had been offered some help at the start, things might have been different.”

Meanwhile, Tomlinson’s self-tanning brand was soon being sold in Los Angeles, New York and Australia, while her own fanbase grew; she hardly ever needed to pay for drinks, meals or holidays. However, she finds the term influencer obnoxious. “I don’t want to act like I tell people what to do. I am more of a content creator,” she explains. “I get paid by brands to create content for their clothes or beauty products and promote that to my followers. I also wanted my own business. I was quite aware that, at the end of the day, I was just working with an app. That’s why I started Tanologist with my business partner. I was always using tanning treatments that would end up turning my sheets orange and my face would break out in spots — this is more natural.”

Louis was also forging his career as a solo artist, eventually creating the song Two of Us about his mother’s death. “We were always so proud of Louis and what he was doing. We were not going to match up to being a global superstar, but we didn’t want to — ‘successful’ looks different for everyone,” she says.

But her sister Fizz was slipping and struggling. “She was old enough to do what she wanted at 19; she was partying and taking stuff to numb everything. She did go into rehab but to me it didn’t feel like an addiction problem, but a way to blank out her grief.” When Tomlinson was invited to Bali, she asked Fizz whether she wanted her to stay behind. “She said she was OK, and then it happened while I was away,” she says. (Fizz accidentally overdosed on cocaine, an anxiety drug and painkillers, her inquest found.) “Louis called me…” She stops talking.

The shock of a second death must have been devastating. She doesn’t speak for a minute while she twists her huge diamond engagement ring. “We weren’t mentally prepared,” she eventually says. “I can’t even remember if the two funerals were in the same church. I think grief has affected my memory a lot and that’s quite common. Grief is such a powerful emotion; it takes up a lot of your brain.”

Five years later, she now knows how to remain positive. “I had an amazing mum for 18 years. I have the most amazing family, my little boy and my career, and that is because of her. The same with Fizz — I had an amazing sister. It’s heartbreaking they aren’t with us any more, but they are together and they are looking out for me,” she says, sounding as though she is repeating a mantra.

Having a baby made her feel closer to them both. “He was a boy — it’s funny, he actually looks a lot like Louis did — and I thought, this is what my mother must have felt. But then I had so many questions I couldn’t ask, even more because she was a midwife.”

Her biggest problem was her terror that something terrible would happen to her son. “I became fixated [on the idea that] something bad would happen to him, so I couldn’t sleep. You go to the worst-case scenario, because that’s happened to you twice, to two of the closest people in your life. I couldn’t turn the lights off at night; I needed to see him all the time. Luckily, it calmed down quite quickly.”

We are still flitting between her story and advice on make-up, exercise and clothes.

“I like sharing advice. If a child lost their mother, I would say there is no magic answer. But the point of this book is to show that you can have tragic things happen and still keep going.”

What would the 25-year-old now say to her younger self, struggling at her second funeral at the age of 20? “I would say, ‘You are going to be OK; you will live a nice life.’ I didn’t think I could. I thought this will be a really sad, lonely life without my mum and sister. I wouldn’t have believed then that I could be happy again. But it would have been nice to hear.”

Lucky Girl by Lottie Tomlinson (Bonnier, £22). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members

[nosebleedclub]

September Prompts

1. Back to life

2. Strange kid next door

3. Final weeks of summer

4. Garage

5. New frat boys

6. Grand exit

7. Laboratory

8. Labrador

9. Typewriter

10. Distance between us

11. Stuffed animals

12. Maneuver

13. Back pain

14. Porcine

15. Commitment to darkness

16. Marsh Hawk

17. Business class (train)

18. London fog

19. The last of the flower garden

20. French

21. Healing lamb

22. Stained glass

23. Jealousy

24. Poisoned water source

25. Pleading

26. Belief in ______

27. Expensive furniture

28. Silver pitcher

29. I couldn’t say it

30. Everything you’re worth

[jo-the-bass-stealer]

"But he had to try, really try, to make sure that he did not stop dreaming in his native tongue."

— from Babel by R. F. Kuang

i feel like a fraud sometimes. i harp on about the importance of the irish language, of speaking it if and when you can, of making it easier to learn. but is it really my native tongue if my first language is english, like most of the irish population? are we really irish if we have never gone to sleep and dreamed as gaeilge?

i think about it a lot when i write. i write in english, because i am not fluent in irish. i fear i will never be fluent. even now, i'm typing this post in english. i feel like a liar. i feel like i'm spitting on the graves of people long gone, who lived under laws banning the irish language. people that taught the language in hedge schools. people that wrote our declaration of independence, and were shot dead for it, never living to see an independent ireland.

i think about my classmates in school. how they hate irish. they hated it as much as maths and french and history. i think about a kid that declared in front of the entire class (and the teacher) that it was a useless, pointless, needlessly difficult language. i remember the pain on her face and the sickness in my gut.

i think of the future too. how ireland's population surpassed five million people for the first time since the 1840s, when a famine destroyed our crops and the english crown sent starving, monolingual farmers bags of corn, with cooking instructions written in english. i think of my mother's cousin and his wife, who despite being in the majority of irish people with english as a first language, speak exclusively irish to their toddler. that child will learn english as a second language. that child dreams in irish. i think of the phrase 'in my lifetime.' a united ireland, in my lifetime. i wonder how many people have fallen asleep and dreamed of that? in my lifetime, in my lifetime, in my lifetime...

i think of another phrase too. a seanfocail. "is fearr gaeilge bhriste ná béarla cliste." broken irish is better than clever english.

i may not dream in irish, and i may never. but i might. and while i wait, i dream of a united ireland, of children in the far-flung future ag caint as gaeilge, ag cannadh as gaeilge, ag gáire as gaeilge. speaking, singing, laughing in irish. then i dare to imagine like so many before me, in my lifetime, in my lifetime, in my lifetime.