#he's the reason that got me interested in tennis in the first place

[mauraeyk]

domi retiring...

i saw it coming yet i'm sobbing right now, this man truly deserved better. i'm going to the generali open in july but only from wednesday on. i hope he's still in the tournament then, i really wanna see him play one last time.

[moondirti]

blue collar simon x gn! reader. implied cnc.

Simon finds a journal on his lunch break.

It's inconspicuous. A5 black moleskin with an elastic holding it's contents together, bits of paper sticking out like nails on a poorly constructed house frame. He only notices it because his cooler slips off the bench when he blindly places it atop the fat book, sandwiches and packets of crisps now strewn across the dirty pedway.

The day's already been shit. A motley of blows, each made worse by the torrid sun overhead, sweat to cling to his grievances. An uptight site manager. A near loss of life after some tenderfoot got caught in between an excavation truck and the wall. Even his too-long hair, which curls around red ears – having not had a chance to buzz it off since being called in for this job. It's no wonder, then, that the tiny mishap stirs as severe of a reaction as it does; he chucks his hard hat across the road, satisfied only when it finds its fate mid-lane, an obstruction to inevitably fuck the tires on a white collar's new car.

When his rage settles as smouldering ash in his chest, he picks his food off the floor and cracks open the source of his animosity.

With no name or number, the first page holds just a chicken-scratch address. Interesting. Its owner hasn't made this easy on him, crafting it like one would a game. A skewing of traditional acquaintance. Granting nothing of their superficial identity, yet unrestricted access to their innermost thoughts. Thus he's forced to paint his own picture of the figure behind the words.

And what a picture indeed.

The first entry is brief.

13.02 – My therapist expects at least three pages a week. I'm not doing any of that, so don't get your hopes up.

It's evident that you don't stick to your guns. Though the next one is dated several months later, so he see's the attempt had been made. Written in a whole new hand, like you'd picked a dry pen off the floor and practiced your non-dominant grip:

08.05 – I broke my arm playing tennis. The umpire called a match-point in my opponent's favour and I threw the racket at his head.

I am no longer allowed to play tennis. What good is that resolution? My radius has a greenstick fracture. I'm already out of the game.

His laugh is abrasive and sudden, like it'd been pried from his chest by a pair of careless hands. Or as close to that analogy as it can get – your anger is intoxicating and only grows more potent across the pages. Inadvertently amusing. Simon chews through the tough crust of his torpedo roll as he reads, time wearing away under the stiff comb of your words.

There's hardly any variation in your cataloguing –

10.06 – The universe must need more bad people in it, because it tests my limits everyday. Can the fuck next door snore any louder? It's 2 am, goddammit. I wonder if it'd be overkill to ship nasal strips to his mailbox.

26.06 – Dad called today. Didn't pick up.

04.07 – I'm close to killing Kathleen. There's a reason the food in the fridge is labelled as MINE. GET YOUR GRUBBY PAWS OFF OF IT!

13.07 – The world is a shitty, stupid, crappy, icky, lousy, rotten, stinking, stinky, bad place. I hate my coworkers and friends and parents and landlord and etc etc. It's like everyone is out to get me.

– so it's like the honed curl of a hook. Whiplash-inducing, reeling his attention so quick that his neck strains in phantom pain. Simon stops everything, elbows settling onto his knees as he fixates on one entry in particular.

30.07 – I stand by what I said. The world is uniquely horrible. I think that's because I make it that way for myself. Whatever this exercise was meant to do for me, rage relief or introspection or whatever, it's clearly not working. I'm just as angry as I was before. Maybe burning these pages would help. I wish I could play tennis again. I don't know what to do with my hands anymore. I got fired last week. Need groceries. Eggs, spinach. Spinach always goes bad and I never make use of it. I keep buying it though. Dad keeps calling. I've got a migraine and I've run out of advil.

I just need someone to put me in my place.

And it ends there. No more entries after the fact, just a handful of blank pages before the journal wraps to a close.

He flips back over to the address at front. Looking at it a second time, he can tell the ink is still fresh.

Perhaps he misinterprets it. Perhaps it hits a little too close to home. It wouldn’t be the first time he looks for salvation in the empty lines someone leaves behind. Perhaps it’s just been a bad day, and he should go home before he does something he’ll regret. Perhaps it’s nothing at all.

Or–

Perhaps he sees it for what it is.

Here are all my colours. What you choose to do, or think, is no longer my concern.

[egcdeath]

life's a beach

pairing: patrick zweig x reader request: @diorrfairy: i can't stop thinking about patrick x reader who's an introvert, kinda shy but with a fiery temper just like him. and she knows it's better not to get involved with guys like him but she can't help it. and he's constantly teasing her trying to get on her nerves like … summary: a chain smoking tennis player disrupts your day on the beach and uproots your entire summer vacation. word count: 6.5k warnings: enemies to lovers (kinda… the reader folds like a paper airplane pretty quickly), smoking, no use of y/n, low speed police (pool security guard) chase, mentions of smoking, brief mention of alcohol, so much exposition, vague descriptions of sports, some kissing, patrick and reader are spoiled rich kids author’s note: this fic definitely got away from me, but i hope that you all enjoy it! also, i apologize in advance for any characterization issues, since i’ve only seen the movie once. with that being said, i’m still taking requests if you want to send me anything!

For all your life, the beach has been your happy place. The soothing, repetitive push and pull of the water and the endless crashing of the tide was a guaranteed way to make your loud mind quiet down. Next to the endless ocean, you were just a tiny little dot–not a girl who was a golf prodigy, or someone whose parents' financial power caused everyone around you to treat you like a delicate doll. In fact, that was part of the reason why your parents purchased the lot in the first place, as you insisted that the comfort of a semi-private beach was necessary for you to properly enjoy your vacation.

That was also what made your smoking companion on the beach all the more jarring.

You were fully reclined on a beach chair and deeply immersed in the novel in your hands when you first caught a whiff of the strong, putrid scent, which immediately left you annoyed. Turning your head to follow the scent, your face somehow fell further when it fell upon the culprit of the foul cigarette smell. The side profile of a man who was about your age, casually smoking as he stared out at the body of water across from you.

Perhaps you had become so immersed in your book that you’d failed to realize that only a few steps away from you, someone new had joined you on the sand. After all, when you sat down just an hour ago, you were completely alone. Somehow, that managed to make your mood sour even more. There was all this space on the beach, yet this man decided to sit down right next to you and smoke a cigarette!

You were sure that you were gawking at him at this point, if at nothing else, his sheer audacity. When he finally seemed to sense your seething gaze, you quickly looked back at your book as if it was the most interesting thing in the world—despite you completely losing your spot.

After a moment of pretending to resume your reading, the stale scent of the cigarette had lessened, indicating to you that the man next to you had finally stopped. Good. Maybe your simple glare had been more effective than you realized.

But nearly as soon as a self-satisfied smirk could find itself on your face, the scent returned in full force. You practically had to physically restrain yourself from uttering, “Seriously?” aloud.

Seeing as your first passive aggressive attempt at getting him to stop was futile, you decided to pull out the big guns.

With your all but abandoned novel in hand, you curled your unoccupied arm around your mouth and began to cough profusely. You put all your might into pulling out the most atrocious sounds you could muster from your lungs, and when you decided you were satisfied with this passive aggressive approach, you glanced over at your beach companion, only to find him looking back at you.

With him looking straight at you, you felt your stomach trip over itself. You’d always been a sucker for pretty men, and with one pointed look, you were sure that this would be no different. Yet, armed with the knowledge that you were the one who started this, you willed yourself not to give in to someone with good looks and cigarette breath.

You continued to stare him down, hoping that you were coming off as intimidating, rather than swooning. Though, the longer the two of you glared at each other, you swore you could see his lips mold into the look of a smirk, particularly as he took a pointedly long drag from his cigarette.

It quickly became abundantly clear to you that he wasn’t interpreting your gaze to be anything near threatening—if anything, he saw it as a challenge. Unluckily for him, you were incapable of backing down to a challenge.

As soon as you opened your mouth to form some sort of sassy remark, you were surprisingly beaten to the punch.

“Want one?” he asked, the smirk unwavering on his stupidly attractive face.

“Ew,” you replied, then immediately regretted it. Seriously? Ew? That was the best that you could do? You would think that years of dodging and delivering verbal daggers over family dinner would’ve better prepared you for this moment, but leave it to you to be tripped up by a pretty face.

You paused for a beat too long before retorting, “You can keep your lung disease, thank you very much.” You readjusted the book in your lap, still not feeling completely satisfied with your reply, but anything was better than your first statement. “Maybe go smoke somewhere that’s not right next to me, like,” you paused to gesture to the widely empty beach. “Literally anywhere else.”

“I didn’t realize that you were queen of this strip of beach. My apologies, Your Highness,” he shot back snarkily. You swore you could feel your blood boiling as it pumped through your veins.

“I’m not saying you can’t stay here,” you could feel your volume increasing as more adrenaline pumped through you, “I’m just asking that you don’t smoke.”

You watched as his brows raised questioningly the longer you spoke. “Or at least, don’t smoke next to me,” you clarified, folding under the pressure of a set of rather piercing blue eyes.

“Fine,” he agreed with a shrug, to your surprise. That hadn’t been so hard after all. Maybe he wasn’t all that bad. You bit back the part of you that wanted to feel triumphant at your clear victory over this random, pain-in-the-ass man.

Once more, you pretended to read your book while in your peripheral vision you watched him grab his few items, including his box of cigarettes, and stand up to move. What you weren’t expecting to see was him plant himself just a few feet further from you, sit down, then begin to aggressively tap his box of cigarettes, just loud enough to grab your attention. Naively believing that he wouldn’t actually have the audacity to begin smoking again, you were slightly scandalized when he pulled a stick out and returned to happily chain smoking.

He briefly glanced back over at you, the smug look on his face telling you that he was eagerly awaiting your reaction. As much as you didn’t want to humor him, you clearly couldn’t hide your annoyance.

“Oh my god,” you huffed, grabbing your tote bag and towel and standing up to head back towards your beach house. Maybe the beach just wasn’t in the cards for today. At least that man couldn’t bother you in your sunroom.

——————

One of the benefits of owning and spending your summer at your vacation home was being able to have your friends stop by and spend a few days with you. Seeing as your parents were utterly uninterested in spending any of your summer break together, it was also nice that you were basically able to do whatever you wanted over the summer.

As a teenager, this mainly meant parties and intense summer flings, but as your time in college began to mature you and your friends, the novelty of doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing began to wear off. What never seemed to wear off was your love for the local ice cream shop, with its sweet dairy scent lingering in the air and a waffle cone that was nothing short of to die for.

With one of your friends’ visits coming to an end, the two of you sat on the patio of this shop, racing against time and heat as you worked on your cones. In between gossip about which one of your classmates had to attend graduation with a baby bump, you caught your eye on someone exiting the shop to join you on the patio.

You practically had to hold back your groan as you processed who it was. Unfortunately, your enemy from the beach hadn’t felt nearly enough shame, and he openly waved at you.

Upon seeing your eyes wander, your friend turned around to see what it was that caught your eye. Just as quickly as she turned around to view the asshole, she turned right back to you with a newfound excitement.

“Oh my god, you know him?” your friend asked you, shock and elation written all over her face for a reason you couldn’t understand.

“Unfortunately,” you replied, taking a bite of a bit of exposed cone. “Do you know him? Did he go to your high school or something?”

She scoffed at your words as if you were missing the most obvious point in the world. “‘Did he go to my high school or something?’” she repeated in disbelief. “That’s Patrick Zweig. He’s about to go pro.”

You tilted your head and furrowed your brows, as if to ask for more context.

“In tennis? He’s like, the thing right now,” she explained.

“Maybe that’s why he’s such an asshole,” you glanced back over at him, only to find that he was unabashedly staring at you as he licked his own cone of ice cream. If you hadn’t had such a ridiculous encounter a week ago, you would’ve thought that he was being suggestive towards you.

“What happened that made him such an asshole?” she prodded, and you swore that she leaned forward as she asked.

“Please try to look a little less excited,” you laughed, entertained by your friend’s investment in your story about someone who was a celebrity in her eyes.

“Sorry,” she apologized disingenuously. “Go ahead.”

“Well, I was just trying to do some reading out on the beach, when he sat like, two feet away from me. Mind you, the entire beach was empty. He could’ve gone anywhere else.”

“Dick,” she interjected, though the unsubtle glance over in Patrick’s direction and her overzealous body language suggested to you that she might’ve meant the words less than she thought she did.

“Right,” you agreed. “But that clearly wasn’t enough. So he starts chain smoking. Right next to me.”

“Rude,” she added, doing her best to validate you as you told the story. Her ability to only add commentary in a monosyllabic manner was entertaining you, but you couldn’t focus too much on that now.

“So I called him out. I was like, ‘Hey, you dick. I know that you want black lung, but not everyone else does,’” you explained, embellishing your story to disguise your lackluster responses.

She giggled as you explained and you continued on. “Obviously, he was embarrassed that I called him out. So he looks me right in the eyes, and-“

“And what?” she asked, her eyes practically glimmering, as if you were about to tell her a story about some wild tryst that left you with a negative impression of him.

“Babe, I don’t think this story ends the way you think it does.”

“We’ll see,” she said with a shrug and a wink.

“Well, he got his ass up and started walking away. Internally, I’m celebrating. But then, he sits down pretty close to me… and starts smoking again. And he’s staring me down the whole time he does it.”

“Ugh! He is an asshole,” she shook her head as you wrapped up your story. “But like, isn’t he kinda…?”

“He could be the sexiest man alive and couldn’t seduce me with that personality,” you replied confidently, although you weren’t completely sure of your words.

“That’s certainly not stopping him from trying,” she glanced over her shoulder once more, where he was still looking at you while very intently eating his ice cream cone.

“Gross,” you replied, feigning a full-body shudder. “You couldn’t even pay me to go anywhere near him.”

“It’s probably for the best anyway. A friend of my friend said there was some super messy relationship drama with him recently.”

“Lovely,” you replied, trying your best to look and sound disinterested, but feeling curious regardless. “I feel bad for whoever has to spend any extended period of time with him,” you popped the bottom of your ice cream cone into your mouth, then crushed a paper towel in your hand. “Wanna head out?”

——————

After that, you truly tried your best to avoid Patrick. Like clockwork, he seemed to appear on the beach in your backyard during the late afternoon. You weren’t ashamed to admit that you had watched him through the windows of your bedroom more than a handful of times, and you could almost swear that his head was on a swivel, as if he were looking for someone before he settled into his spot.

Unfortunately for you, it felt like he seemed to pop up wherever you were. As you evaluated boxes of strawberries at the grocery store, you noticed him eyeing bunches of bananas not all that far away from you. Midway through a hike, you noticed a familiar set of distractingly muscular thighs and tried your best to hide, much to your friend’s confusion. While drinking a fruity cocktail at a bar, you noticed him and finished off your drink and threw down a bill at record speed.

You guessed that you never realized how small a town was until you were actively attempting to avoid someone. In a way, it was a little bit exciting to be dodging him so vehemently, though you’d never really admit that to yourself. At least, it was exciting until it became an utter annoyance, much like it was becoming at that very moment.

After you’d decided that you’d spent enough of your summer lounging around without practicing any golf, you decided to take it upon yourself to head to your local country club and take on the familiar course. Of course, you couldn’t play any golf without fueling up first, which left you in the restaurant of the club snacking on a cup of fries when you spotted the one person you had been trying desperately to dodge.

You averted your gaze down to your phone and acted as if you were reading the most interesting thing in the world, but not even that farce lasted long, as you were met with the sound of a chair scratching the floor across from you. You looked back up and were met with Patrick’s intense, searing stare.

“Are you following me, or something?” he asked, his brows furrowed at you as he looked at you with concern.

“What?!” you asked with disbelief. “You’re the one who keeps showing up around me and keeps licking ice cream seductively at me!”

“Seductively?” he laughed right in your face, and you could feel your face immediately warm up in embarrassment.

“Shut up,” you replied weakly, though you knew what you saw. “Who even are you?” you asked, despite now having the displeasure of knowing exactly who he was, thanks to your friend and a Google search.

He began to smirk, and it took everything in you to not want to wipe that smug smile right off of his face. “I’m Patrick, and you are?”

You introduced yourself while mentally berating yourself for the butterflies erupting in your stomach over his intent gaze. Unfortunately, Patrick was even better looking than you could’ve imagined up close, with sunkissed skin and freckles that seemed to go on for miles.

“Well if you’re not stalking me, what are you doing here?” he questioned, though it was clear from his crooked, goofy smile that he wasn’t being serious.

“I play golf,” you explained with a casual shrug, though the feelings you were having inside were far from casual. “So I’m here to do that. You?”

“I knew I’d heard that name before,” Patrick began before stealing a french fry from you and popping it into his mouth. “You won a championship recently?”

You nodded with what you hoped was a neutral expression on your face, hoping to brush him off despite the fireworks going off in your stomach and the heat returning to your face. Sure, it wasn’t the first time someone had recognized you for your accomplishments out on the golf course, but it felt different coming from him.

“I did,” you replied as casually as possible, not acknowledging his fry thievery or reciprocating your knowledge of his athletic achievements. It was always better to be more mysterious with the type of person who seemed to love the chase, and it seemed clear to you that Patrick was one of those people. “Anyway, I need to go practice so I can win the next championship.”

You pushed your unfinished dish of fries towards him and stood up before grabbing the golf bag propped up next to your feet. You pushed your chair in and didn’t even spare him a glance back in his direction as you walked away, secretly hoping to yourself that he was still watching you as intensely as he’d been watching you at the table.

You tried your hardest not to ruminate over your conversation and feelings too much, but as you walked out to the first hole, you couldn’t help but over analyze everything. The first and most confusing of which being your feelings towards Patrick. Clearly, you were attracted to him. Despite your terrible first impressions of each other and having what could arguably be described as a meet-ugly, you couldn’t pretend like his good looks and charming, yet cocky demeanor didn’t have an effect on you. It was clear from the way that the butterflies in your stomach decided to stop lying dormant every time he was in your vicinity.

What you still couldn’t quite place were his feelings towards you. It was obvious that he was getting some kick out of teasing you. Hell, it was obvious from the first interaction you had with him. And it seemed like he might be interested in you, based on the way he seemed to be magnetically drawn to you, and his less than appropriate treatment of his ice cream cone, which he could deny all he wanted, was definitely a shoddy attempt at flirting. Even your friend had noticed.

Just as you began to try to make sense of your previous interaction, you looked up to find a golf cart headed your way. The cart was manned by none other than the subject of your deep thoughts, and as Patrick got closer to you, you swore you could see a fiery excitement ignited in his body.

“Play with me?” Patrick asked once he parked, despite already being off the vehicle and reaching for his rented golf bag.

You paused for a moment, as if you were considering his proposition, despite you already knowing your answer. “As long as you don’t mind getting your ass whooped.”

You made sure to deliver on this promise, beating Patrick with ease. In a way, it felt like comeuppance for him being a nuisance towards you just a few weeks ago. But that didn’t mean your mini tournament was without its downsides for you. You tried desperately to fight the urge to giggle like a schoolgirl when he said something stupid and snarky, and to quiet your screaming brain during the many, many, times you corrected his stance.

What you were also surprised to find was that Patrick wasn’t all that terrible of company to keep. He seemed to know exactly what to say to make you laugh, despite your effort to be unimpressed with him, or how to throw you off right before you swung at a ball. More than once, you had to remind him that no amount of teasing would change the fact that he had a terrible score, but it certainly didn’t stop him from trying.

With your landslide victory clear and your game over, the two of you made your way back to the rental station.

“You definitely cheated,” Patrick commented as he put his equipment back.

“You’re such a sore loser,” you replied with a roll of your eyes and a laugh. You’d been doing a lot of eye rolling and laughing while playing golf with him, and it was oddly quite pleasant.

“I’m not!” he insisted, turning back to face you as if that would somehow prove his point.

“You are, though! You’re a dirty player, too. I don’t think anyone has ever come up behind me and yelled for me to focus before.”

“Whatever,” he dismissed you casually, “You would be eating your words right now if we were playing tennis.”

“Yeah?” you questioned with raised brows.

“Yeah,” he parroted back, taking a step towards you and locking that intense gaze on you once more.

Feeling bold, you matched his step forward, practically getting in his face. “Fine then. Let’s play.”

“Really?” he sounded shocked by your proposition, and looked utterly unintimidated by the fact that your faces were practically touching.

“Sure. There are some courts over by the pool,” you turned to look in the direction of the pool, taking that as an opportunity to step away from him. You feared what you might do if you stayed that close to him for any longer than you needed to. “Isn’t that what you came here to do anyway?”

“So you are stalking me?” he joked, referencing your earlier conversation.

You rolled your eyes once more. At this rate, your eyes were going to be stuck at the back of your head. “Do you want to play or not?”

If you were a beast on the golf course, Patrick was a sight to behold on the tennis court. The brief article you read online simply did not do the man across from you justice as he served balls at you that probably would have wiped your head clean off of your body if you had any slower reflexes.

While you were able to get a few good hits in, courtesy of the lessons your parents put you in before they realized that golf was your calling, none of them remotely compared to the man across the court.

But your embarrassing loss was rewarded by hearing the repetitive loop of grunts and groans from your competitor. It was somewhat of a miracle that you were able to keep it together without bursting out laughing or squeezing your thighs together. You were also handsomely rewarded by seeing those muscular thighs in action. To be completely frank, there were more than a few moments where you lost momentum due to distraction from Patrick’s good looks.

While Patrick had proved himself to be a sore loser while playing golf, he wasn’t a terrible winner. He only gloated about crushing you once the two of you had finished playing, but he did happen to revel in his win for the entire walk from the tennis courts to the locker rooms.

Surprisingly, you weren’t that annoyed by him. In fact, you were pretty sure that you were hovering around the feeling of endearment.

You sat out in the lobby, freshly showered and playing on your phone when a familiar presence joined you once more.

“Are you hungry?” Patrick asked you as he made himself right at home and sat down across from you.

Was he about to ask you out on a date?

“I could eat,” you replied, trying to ignore the butterflies in your stomach once more.

“Let’s get dinner, then,” he suggested, and you tried your best not to look too excited. He was asking you out on a date. What an unexpected turn of events.

“Sure. There’s a place just up the street if you want to walk?”

The diner was slightly further than you remembered it being, but the time passed by quickly as the two of you divulged stories of your sports accomplishments on your trek over. Over dinner, the two of you instantly bonded over a similar upbringing of wealthy parents who couldn’t really be bothered to raise you, and backgrounds in boarding schools that prioritized your athletic skills over anything else.

After spending way too long at your booth and working through a spread of food that would send a shiver down your coaches’ spines, your waiter finally stopped by your table with an exhausted look on their face.

“One check or two?” they asked you.

“One,” Patrick replied before you had the chance to pipe up. The waiter turned around without inquiring anything more, clearly tired of having to serve the two of you.

“Wow,” you said with a giggle. “Chivalry is not dead.”

“I’m single-handedly keeping it alive,” he joked right along with you.

Feeling emboldened by your day of camaraderie and teasing each other, you decided to ask something. “Does that make this count as a date, then?” you asked it as a joke, though you were genuinely curious about the answer. While you’d previously found yourself intrigued with his looks, you’d now learned that he was far more than that. It was safe to say that you’d developed a full-blown crush over the span of the day.

“Do you want it to count as one?” he asked almost earnestly, and despite the fact that you were sitting, you swore you felt your knees go weak.

You shrugged nonchalantly, but the grin on your face was anything but. Fortunately, he was wearing a matching grin, and you almost swore there was a dusting of pink on his cheeks. You buckled under his gaze, and looked down into your nearly empty cup of water. “Sure.”

“Then it’s a date,” he confirmed.

“It’s so hot,” you huffed as the two of you stepped outside and into the humid night.

“Wanna cool off at the pool?” he suggested after holding the door open for you.

“Wow, you just don’t want this date to end, huh?” you teased. “The pool is definitely closed by now.”

“So?” he replied.

“So you want to break in?”

“Why not?” he shot back.

You stared at him for a moment with a mostly blank expression.

“You’re such a bad influence. Let’s go,” you conceded, heading in the direction of the city’s pool.

Once the two of you arrived at the locked gate, you stood expectantly, waiting for the next part of Patrick’s plan. You didn’t have to wait for too long, as with a brief confirmation that you were ready, he hoisted you up and over the fence. You then watched as he flung his own body over the fence, and you bit your lip as you attempted to distract yourself from how that image made you feel.

With both of you on the correct side of the fence, you took it upon yourself to shuck off your clothes—save for your underwear–before you dipped your toe in the cold water.

“How’s the water?” Patrick asked as he approached you, taking his shirt and shorts off in the process. You tried your best not to ogle too much, but his six-pack was definitely staring at you. Yeah, you were definitely ogling, and he was definitely noticing.

“You tell me,” you replied, then pushed him into the pool without really thinking. You probably wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t just been caught looking at the man like he was a piece of meat, but you had been doing exactly that, and panicked.

After a moment, he resurfaced and spat out the water that he’d swallowed from your surprise movement. Yet, as he came back to the surface, he didn’t say anything to you.

You eyed him nervously while he began to approach you in the water, and you opened up your mouth to apologize just as you felt a hand wrap around your ankle. With a yelp, you were dragged down into the water, luckily dodging the ledge on your way down.

Coming back up, spat out the chlorinated water and coughed out what you’d swallowed. “I deserved that.”

“You definitely did,” he agreed, lightly splashing you with water from where he stood.

You splashed him right back, putting a little more effort in and splashing him with slightly more force. “But you also deserved that.”

“And why is that?” that overconfident look appeared on his face once more. Just twenty-four hours ago, if you’d seen that look, you’d probably want to knock it right off of him. Now, you were tempted to keep prodding.

“Because you were being a dick about smoking not that long ago,” you replied, getting a little closer to him and matching his look with your own confident gaze.

“Huh,” he hummed. “Fair enough.”

“So why’d you do it?”

“Who knows. Maybe I just really wanted a smoke. Maybe I wanted to catch the attention of the cute girl on the beach.”

“Shut up,” you replied with clear disbelief. “I like how you try to flatter your way out of every sticky situation.”

“I mean it.”

“So you thought annoying me was the best way to get my attention?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

You couldn’t argue with that.

“What if I was allergic to cigarette smoke?”

“You weren’t.”

“What if I just didn’t react, then?”

“You did,” he said.

“Must’ve been fate,” you replied dryly.

“Must’ve,” he agreed earnestly. Immediately, you felt a tension in your chest, and you wondered if he felt the same way. You didn’t have a witty or sarcastic comeback, and his face was dangerously close to yours.

Unsure of what to do, you splashed him once more.

“What was that one for?”

For making me fall for you in the span of a day, you idiot.

You shrugged, unable to come up with a coherent answer with you realizing just how physically close the two of you were. Now that you were beginning to have a bit of clarity, you could hear the pounding of your heartbeat in your eardrums. Or maybe it was Patrick’s. With your bodies this close to each other, you couldn’t be too sure.

You wondered what was going through his mind, but if the quick glance to your lips and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he gulped was any indication of his thoughts, you were sure you were on the same page.

You found yourself in somewhat of a standoff as the two of you stood there, wordless and hearts pounding as you stood together in a freezing cold pool. You shut your eyes for a moment, and when you opened them, Patrick’s nose was practically pressing against yours. But just as you began to follow his lead, you were met with a blindingly bright flashlight.

“Hey!” a new voice yelled out, pulling the two of you out of your trance. “What’s going on here?”

Patrick’s eyes widened and you were sure yours did too.

“Shit, security,” you muttered to yourself as it occurred to you what was happening. The two of you immediately scurried to the side of the pool. “I don’t think they saw us, but they definitely heard us,” you whispered.

“Do you think you could outrun them?” he asked, matching your low tone as the light of the flashlight moved across the pool without

“What?”

“Come on,” he hoisted himself out of the pool and you did the same, trying your best to be quiet as the two of you grabbed your discarded clothes.

“Patrick…” you trailed off, glued to his side.

“Come on,” he repeated as he shepherded you to the fence. “I won’t let them get you. Now,” he gestured for you to come over so he could help you climb over again, and you did. As he climbed over, the security guard’s flashlight had finally caught up with the two of you.

“Hey!” the guard repeated, lunging in your direction just as Patrick made it over.

“Run!” you yelled at him as the two of you took off. All of that tennis training clearly paid off, as he was far faster than both you and the security guard.

“Get back here!” the guard shouted as he chased the two of you.

The two of you sprinted, your bare feet screaming at you as pebbles and sticks poked your soles. Running on pure adrenaline, you swore you could hear Patrick laughing as he ran ahead of you.

The two of you ended up by his car, parked safely at the country club. You desperately tried to catch your breath as you leaned against his car door, now completely sure that you’d lost the security guard who was chasing you.

“I hate you so much,” you got out in between panting heavily.

“No you don’t,” his chest rose and fell quickly as he corrected you.

“No I don’t,” you confirmed, taking satisfaction in hearing his heavy breaths next to you and knowing that you weren’t the only one affected by the chase.

It felt as if the two of you had been transported right back into the moment you were having in the pool, a heavy, undeniable tension settling over the two of you, with the adrenaline of the chase and your hearts still rapidly pumping blood from all that running. It was almost as if one second you were standing next to each other, and the next you were pinned up against his car door, kissing like your lives depended on it.

With one of his hands up your shirt, you somehow found the willpower to use the logical part of your brain. “Wait, stop,” you reluctantly said as you pulled away for air. “I don’t want another security guard chasing us.”

“They won’t,” Patrick insisted before leaning back in to kiss you.

“They will,” you disagreed, exerting all of your willpower to dodge his advance. “Take me home?”

Patrick’s hand sat securely on your thigh for the entire ride back to the beach house. With the tension between the two of you crackling and the excitement of successfully running away beginning to die down, the two of you were mostly quiet on your way over.

After he pulled into your driveway, he looked over at you with hesitance. If you didn’t know any better, you might even say that he looked a little nervous.

“Wanna come inside?” you broke the ice, knowing that was what he was surely thinking about, and just as you predicted, he seemed to light up at your invitation.

The heat of the moment seemed to have passed, with the two of you now safely in your home, and not coming off the heels of being chased down the street. Patrick sat on your living room couch while you poured two tumblers of a criminally expensive whiskey.

You returned to the living room and sat down on the far end of the couch, passing him one of the cups before extending your legs out. You were pleasantly surprised when he positioned your legs over his lap and began to soothingly rub up and down your calves.

“What a day,” you sighed, taking a long sip from your cup.

“You’re telling me,” he chuckled in response.

As you laid there, you realized that you were actually quite exhausted. A silence settled over you once more as you yawned, then Patrick yawned not too long after you.

“You know, you’re nothing like I expected you to be,” he said randomly.

“Oh?” you replied questioningly. “Should I be offended or flattered?”

“Up for interpretation,” he looked over to you to gauge your reaction, and you playfully pushed his thigh with your foot.

“Then I’m gonna interpret it in a good way.”

“I meant it in a good way,” he said after a beat.

You smiled softly as you peered at him. “I didn’t expect you to be like this, either. I actually had a lot of fun beating you in golf and running from security guards.”

“No way you’re still talking about golf after I absolutely demolished you in tennis,” he laughed, a sound that you’d grown rather fond of throughout the day.

“It was pretty amazing watching you play golf with such bad form. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone use that many strokes on that course.”

“You wanna talk about bad form?” Patrick laughed again. “It’s a miracle you didn’t pull something when we played tennis.”

“Hey! My form is not that bad. You know I was in tennis lessons as a kid, right?”

“And how long ago was that?” he probed, looking at you with a suspicious raise of a brow.

You tried your best to do some mental math, but you were far too tired to be precise. “I mean, it was a while ago…?”

“Clearly,” he shook his head.

“Rude,” you replied, though your tone carried across you not really caring. “I’m still here for a few more weeks. Maybe you could teach me.”

“Only if you teach me how to get better at golf. I’m gonna have to impress my fellow board members someday.”

“Deal,” you agreed. Part of you wanted to leap for joy after establishing that this wasn’t some sort of one-and-done thing, and that you could at least see Patrick until you went back home.

You watched as he leaned further against the couch and tilted his head against the cushioned back of the piece of furniture, his eyes fluttering shut as he did so.

“Want to go sleep on a real bed? The guest room is clean,” you offered.

“No, I’m comfortable here,” he yawned and patted your calf. You didn’t believe him in this slightest, with his long limbs and less than ideal sleeping position. But you were quite comfortable, so you didn’t bother with insisting he leave the couch.

In the morning, you woke up in the same position that you’d fallen asleep in, with your legs draped over Patrick’s lap as he sat up and snored.

You did your best not to disturb him as you got up and went about your morning routine, taking a shower and changing into something comfortable before heading back downstairs. You were surprised to find Patrick somehow still upright and asleep on your couch, but you didn’t question it too much. It had been a long day and night.

You brewed some coffee in the kitchen, making sure to leave a portion for your guest, before you grabbed the book you’d been reading and headed out to sit on your portion of the beach.

You’d lost track of time while sitting out there, listening to the sound of the ocean and getting caught up in the contents of your book. In fact, you’d gotten so lost in your book, that you hadn’t even noticed that you’d gained a presence on the beach.

After Patrick cleared his throat, you turned to look at him. A smile grew on your face as the two of you locked eyes, and you scooted to the left on your oversized beach chair. Surely, there was enough space for both of you.

He took your invitation and sat down next to you, glancing between you and the ocean as he settled in. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and occasionally peered down at your book, but otherwise didn’t bother you. The two of you fell into a comfortable rhythm, your chests rising and falling in sync with each other as the two of you lost track of time.

Maybe Patrick wasn’t such a terrible beach companion after all.

[grimsonandclover]

inspired by @artdcnaldson

He Might Not Be the Best, But He Beat the Best.

My chat with Patrick Zweig, the man rumored to be responsible for tennis player Art Donaldson's sudden retirement. There's more to the story than meets the eye, though. By Grimson Clover PUBLISHED: NOV 13, 2019

Patrick Zweig, a man of both few and many words. He’s shaking my hand eagerly as we meet at a familiar spot for him: the same tennis court he played on two months ago against the legendary Art Donaldson.

We’re in New Rochelle, and if you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry because I hadn’t either (it’s a suburb in New York City, in case you were wondering). We sit on fold-out chairs by the net– the very one Art Donaldson soared over at that now iconic match, Patrick stunned with arms wide open and catching him. We all gasped, right?

Despite the steadily declining temperatures, it is November in New York, Patrick Zweig presents himself before me in a pair of plaid, red and gray, knee-length shorts to pair with a black quarter-zip sweater. An interesting combination I point out to him, and he gives me a good and friendly laugh. “My closet is ninety percent shorts, five percent jeans, five percent sweats.”

Clover Grimson Sweater from The Gap; shorts from Old Navy; shoes by New Balance.

“No sponsors? Most athletes I talk with are covered head to toe in logos like walking billboards.” Surely enough, his clothes are bare of any obnoxious or out-of-place brand insignia. He gives me another good chuckle and a shake of his head, and I’ve never felt better about myself. “No, no. I used to– earlier in my career– have a few sometimes. Not nowadays though, haven't gotten any emails yet!”

Some readers may be wondering why I’m sitting here today with this seemingly random tennis player. Though he’s undoubtedly skilled, and won the Phil’s Tire Town challenger against tennis god and heartthrob Art Donaldson (occasionally referred to as Mr. Tashi Duncan, his wife and coach, by some fans), he’s also only ranked 227th in the world compared to Donaldson’s impressive place at 13th. They’re worlds apart, and yet Patrick won and Art announced his retirement to the world last week.

“It’s not so shocking.” Patrick reasons to me, one well-loved New Balance sneaker resting on top of the other as he gets comfortable in his chair. “The retirement, I mean.” He adds quickly with a sly smirk, and I begin to wonder if that’s really all he meant. I push him to elaborate, and that smirk of his grows even wider. He doesn’t want to explain further, but he lets me know that he knew it was coming. Something about him knowing Art like that.

He asks if I smoke (I don't) as he pulls a pack of blue Camels. Athletes are meant to treat their bodies like sacred temples, but he’s far from the first I’ve met who shared his vice.

Initially, I was trying to interview the current topic of our conversation. Unfortunately for me, my email was simply replied to with: “Thank you for the invite, but Art and Tashi Donaldson are declining any press and interviews at the moment as they focus on their family.” When I turned to his opponent, I got a response almost right away. Some might think in an act of desperation or want for attention, and to trash talk the man he beat, but I don’t get that impression when I speak with Patrick. He’s almost hesitant to speak about Art, only giving away bits and crumbs of info for my journalistic fingers to scramble and grasp at. Patrick tells me how they went to the same tennis academy as kids, a boarding school of sorts. “Mark Rebellato Tennis Academy,” he says with an air of nostalgia. "It's in Florida, we were roommates."

Perhaps it's because I'm personally not a tennis mega-fan, but I was unaware that the two knew each other previously, let alone went that far back. I ask him what it was like, and he tells me stories of late-night pranks amongst the boys' dorms, first crushes and first injuries, and intense coaches. "It was great, truly. I'd never trade those years for anything." Patrick concludes along with his cigarette. "Art was a little dork back in those days, but you'd never be able to tell looking at him now." He confesses to me with a chuckle, and he's right-- you wouldn't. I struggle to picture the man before me any bit dorkish, either. When I ask him if he knew Tashi Donaldson (née Duncan), a former tennis star before a terrible knee injury in 2007 and now renowned coach that players kill for a chance to be in the same room as, as well, and he shrugs. "I've talked to her once or twice."

He refuses to talk about her further than that, and we move on to the match itself. From what I know, Art Donaldson was a wildcard entry coming in last minute. "I had no clue he was gonna be there. Chance encounter, I guess." Patrick tells me as we walk around the court and surrounding lawn. He's lit a second cigarette and it dangles from his lips as he speaks. I'm about to ask him about how it felt to suddenly find out he was going to compete against a U.S. Open winner at a place like Phil's Tiretown, but he was already ahead of me. "When I found out, which was the morning before, I was a little shocked. Not really the kind of thing you'd expect a guy like him to be at."

For good reason. Art has been to Wimbledon, won a Juniors title at the US Open in 2006 (With Patrick, actually. They were doubles partners), and later again in 2017. He's rumored to have a room just for his countless trophies, though that's a rumor his wife dispelled in an Architectural Digest video last year. When asked why he joined the challenger, Art Donaldson simply stated he needed the confidence. Fan theories online suggest this lack of confidence and losing the challenger led to his retirement announcement, though no official comment has been made about why.

I ask Patrick about his plans regarding his career. He's young, only thirty-one, but that's retirement age in tennis. He stops under a tree, and with the afternoon sun filtering through the leaves onto his face, I almost forget he's not actually a male model. "I'm trying to find a good coach, and I think I've found one. I don't plan on retiring until they stop letting me onto the court."

[libraford]

I know I’m a rando so apologies if this is over familiar but your work situation sounds a lot like what my friend was going through in grad school. She had been doing really well the first year, then the second year her advisor suddenly started finding all sorts of “fundamental issues” with her research project. He discouraged her from applying for grants and said her submissions were too poor to even consider. All sorts of really harsh criticisms that often contradicted each other and were hard to follow. She felt like she was going crazy. Then she learned he found a different student that he would basically be able to pay much less to do all his lab work for him, and he was clearly trying to force her out to make room for the newer cheaper student. Trust your gut, I don’t think this situation is your fault at all. Something fishy is happening with your company for sure. I’m sorry for all this trouble.

Yikes that's harsh.

Part of the reason that my crits have been so numerous and harsh is that this year I was expected to learn something new. And I understand it in concept, but I have been making mistakes that are typical of new learners. But because there was no SAFE place to make those mistakes, the pressure is on to do them correct the first time and every time.

Like with groups, right?

My first groups job I was doing really well, I thought. Up until we got to the football team, which was 45 minutes late to the location. And they lined them up by number even though we asked for tallest to shortest. And the coach said he wanted to do them by number. So I did them by number. When we got to the end of it, he saw how terrible it was to do them by number and we had to redo it by height. At this point, they're frustrated with me for not doing it right the first time. I am frustrated with them for not listening the first time and also being 45 minutes late. The tennis team was waiting for me on the other side of the school, so I did my best. I showed the photo to the coach before leaving. Boss didn't like what I made for the football team and had to go back and do it again because I fucked up. I told her all of this and she said that I should have accommodated them because they're the football team and they have to have the best, even if that means waiting 45 minutes for them to arrive and making the tennis team wait 45 minutes.

My second groups job was a middle school that was asking me to do the team photo AND in between teams do candids for the yearbook. The kids were not behaving well and did not seem interested in taking a good photo, so I did my best even though the kids were fighting. Unfortunately, I made the completely reasonable mistake of leaving my aperature on too low between tasks and they ended up a little bit out of focus- which was not apparent in the camera but WAS apparent on the computer screen. This is a mistake that other people have made. I showed each photo to the coach before letting them go.

My third groups job was a class groups job, which all I had to do was follow the guide given to me. Which I did, up until about the 4th grade classes, which had their special classes going on at that time. Because of this, the number the teacher gave me was incorrect and I had to add students to rows in ways that did not reflect the guide because the other option was to disassemble the class group and reassemble it so that it reflected the guide. Teachers were rushing me to hurry up, so I made executive decisions. This was unfortunately the wrong decision. I also posed them in a way that was consistent with what my boss wanted, but not what the district specialist wanted.

On my fourth groups job, I was told all of the mistakes I had made in the previous jobs and that I need to take consideration all of the details and guides that were there for me to use because my previous jobs required her to go back and do them again, so I had better not make the same mistakes (all of which were different mistakes each time). I am upset. So to make it easier on myself, I asked the coaches if they had a specific way they would like to have them posed. The coaches, delighted that I asked, gave me their feedback on previous years and what they would like to change. And I, delighted that they had preferences, obliged. I showed the photo to the coach before leaving. My boss said I did well! She was very pleased with my work. The district specialist was not! He said that I needed to follow the guide because the numbers were incorrect and that I needed to follow the numbers. He tapes a guide to the back of my slate to use. I ask my boss if she could help me next time.

On my fifth groups job, I am disheartened by the amount of criticism I've gotten but I am determined to get it right this time. My boss is present. I am placing the students with the order given to me by the specialist. I walk away to double check. She tells me that its wrong- that I shouldn't have 9 people in front. I tell her that I was using the guide. She shows me her guide. The guides are different from each other. I ask her which guide I'm supposed to use and she says 'whichever one is correct.' I ask her how I'm supposed to know which one is correct and she tells me the theory of how the placement is supposed to go instead of giving me an answer. I get a little shirty. She tells me that this is my 5th job like this, I should know how to do this by now. I start crying. She goes away for the rest of the day to do admin stuff and I handle the rest of the day fine.

My critique says that I am unable to adapt to change and I am inflexible, struggles to take criticism well or think under pressure.

So I'm expected to do well because its my third year. But I have two different supervisors who don't agree on what 'doing well' is and my progress is not seen as progress so much as 'another mistake.' If my mistakes were consistent, then that would be indicative of refusal to take criticism. But because the mistakes are different every time, that's not the case. I WANT to learn. But I would like everyone to be on the same page about what they want from me.

And when I pointed this out, I was told I was being confrontational.

So I am feeling the rage right now.

[sinvilles]

Gathering my thoughts: Danielle Stopframe analysis

also like. I'm not concerned with whether any character in the series was "redeemed" or not. the show was cut in half, and so was every character arc. hence we end up with a show that got cancelled when all the main characters were at their lowest point of development in the narrative, and all the surrounding characters getting half developed to a point of mild satisfaction.

Danielle seems to get the least amount of interest when it comes to what makes him tick. He's a favorite of mine because of all the characters in Moralton, he's one of the few who is very unashamed of who he is and wears it on his sleeve. And I like that his weird presence is built up from the very start of the series. He's over the assumptions of others, and chooses to be himself, which in a show where the major theme is repression juxtaposes him as a foil to the rest of the town.

I wanted to make a mental inventory of this character, starting with some of his personality traits:

The Coach

Danielle is a body builder, and athletic coach to both adults and children. He's coached tennis, track, plays golf, figure skates- he understands discipline, long-term goal setting and is patient enough to work with others to achieve what they're trying to get. Being good with kids has nothing to do with it- its all about being consistent and doing it every day. He seems to approach everything like this- more of that obsession quality. Though he's not beyond trying to perform witchcraft to speed thing up a bit when he gets impatient.

He doubles as your typical gym bunny gay man. Self eroticized, willing to do anything to achieve that romanticized ideal. This brings us to the next bit.

Narcissistic qualities (classic + clinical)

Stopframe is obsessed with appearances. Good appearances means discipline to him, which might be what attracted him to Clay in the first place. But its all very surface level of course. When he sees people without discipline- like the hedonistic satanists, many of whom were overweight- their indulgence, both sexual and gluttonous, turned him off so hard he called it a night and went home. Which is funny coming from the guy with a piss kink.

"Sorry Clay, its just not worth it."

It echoes back later, when he throws out Clay's picture the moment he calls him up for a nightcap at midday. It seems he was either unaware of the extent of Clay's alcoholism or that it had never been that bad up until that point. I think the latter is more likely, since Clay's drinking isn't as pathological throughout the series until we get to Nature. Also suggests to me that Clay, while already having drinking problems prior, started drinking more after he met Danielle. We do see Stopframe say he's "better when he drinks" at least once, and Clay can only really go out and see him at Forghetty's. But this is a tangent for a Clay alcoholism analysis.

He cares very little for his family- Shapey is little more than a long distance trophy to him. I guess. I think. Shapey hugged him that time so I wonder if he ever gives him presents or comes to his birthdays (he was at Orel's). He only spends time with Joe when he's foisted upon him, otherwise ignoring him. He assumes he isn't any good with children, I think because he dislikes Joe's attitude.

A big reason I think his development is unfinished- and this is under the lens of character arcs as want vs need, where getting something they needed makes the character whole- is that we don't see him own up to the fact that he's as flawed as anybody else. He admits he has a problem, but he didn't find the root of it- namely that real love involves accepting the flaws of others and choosing to be there for them anyway. He didn't even own up to disrupting the Puppington home, which he had done intentionally and calculatingly for years. All interesting paths for his character.

Person Addiction

Danielle, much like Clay, has an addiction. It's a lesser known thing called Limerence, or "Person Addiction". Not everyone is aware it's even a thing- some people go through it once in their life, some people cycle through it over and over. There are people who mistake it for love. Scott Adsit once mentioned in a promo that Stopframe is "obsessed with Clay because he hasn't slept with him"- it's one way to describe it, specifically the way a lot of men tend to experience it. Having been through it once I can say with full clarity that it makes you feel temporarily insane and can mirror both anxious attachment and OCD. Realistically, it only feels much creepier than it actually is, because very few who go through it in real life ever want to indulge it the way Stopframe does- pictures everywhere, seducing the guy's wife, fathering a child with her just to insert his DNA into their family, so that Clay raises HIS son alongside his own... absolutely cuckoo bird. Even the part where he says Bloberta is only sexy by her association to Clay- that is the logic that person addiction runs on. Because Clay is literally a hit to him, he gets an oxytocin high from being near him or thinking about him. When he's away from Clay he goes through a withdrawal, sitting alone in the shower and holding himself. Clay is his worst habit.

So, walk with me… his plan to sleep with Clay involves sleeping with his wife first. Because if she commits infidelity, what's to stop Clay from doing it? and then he just has to wait years for the ball to drop and for Clay to eventually walk out. He has no problem fixating on this for almost a decade, but actively puts off ever interacting with Clay until the first episode of the series- even then its just to watch him piss on the wall, and then walk away. He avoids knowing Clay, because I think for a long time he's afraid of ruining the idea he has of him in his head- the idealized Clay that doesn't exist, the built up image. This is not to say that Limerence doesn't happen if you know the person well (its worse somehow), but he's able to easily quit him the moment that Orel tells him what Clay is really like.

Loneliness

It's not easy being queer in a place like Moralton. For one, the gay dating pool must be tiny since so many would be in the closet, or move out altogether. The culture is so 50s adjacent he might have to limit himself to cruising public bathrooms or exchanging letters long distance- its no wonder he fixated on Clay. Something about it might feel "safe" to him, compared to actively getting to know somebody. I don't think he has a problem getting laid so much as a problem connecting to others, which was why it was so sweet to see him make an effort to have a fun day with Orel in the finale.

Family

I might be in the minority on this but I don't think Stopframe is related to Bendy. If the Secondopinionsons wanted to keep Joe's mother a secret they needed to fully cut ties with anyone in her family- and she was a child at the time, so some hush money was definitely involved, maybe enough to send her to nursing school. For Stopframe to be babysitting Joe, he'd have to be in the immediate family of his father- the fact that he has a different name is of interest to me, and the fact that he's so much younger than Dr. Secondopinionson. He could very well have been a bastard child who either changed his name later or was raised primarily by and named after an unwed mother- perpetuating the cycle with Shapey so to speak.

The Romantic Agnostic

He's a big fan of Gothic Erotica, and vampires. Big on fantasizing. Open to trying anything. He is wishy washy on the topic of religion, switching from worshipping God to Satan on a whim. Makes sense, if God loves all his children, but hates homosexuality, and Satan hates all humanity, and loves homosexuality- you've got a 50% chance of pleasing either. I think he probably loves Halloween.

andddd thats all I got

[serve-cunt]

HI!!! okay so I’m only three chapters into so what are you waiting for and having a great Sunday morning tbh!!! Im gonna get more tea and crack on but please!! Tell me more about sincaraz f1 drivers who “might be fucking” I’d love to hear the lowdown!!!

AHH I'm so glad you're enjoying!!! it's crazy how that fic took over my life for a good five months, I secretly sometimes still watch tennis and wonder where oscar is LOLL any w a y ....

[[okay hi again @bakingblues I had to private this briefly because I SOO did not answer your question but I have edited in my answer for f1 driver headcanons. I'm going to pretend that I wrote everything with that in mind in the first place lmao here we goOOoooo.... ]]

to answer your wonderful question I feel like some irl sincaraz context might be nice! ;) so let me start there! ;)) I love to completely read asks and not make assumptions!!! ;)))))

SO!! sincaraz. the main players are: carlos alcaraz, 21, spanish, SUUUPER smiley, baby-faced beautiful muscular delight of a human

and jannik sinner, 22, italian, carrot-topped stoic-faced bambi-legged carrot-cult runner

they are both next-gen (new gen??) tennis players, i.e. coming after the era of the "Big Three" — Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic. Carlos was an immediate and breathtaking wunderkind, ranked in the top 35 male players by 18 and beat both Nadal and Djoko at a masters 1000 (his second masters 1000 title) in 2022 like. three days after his 19th birthday. already wild!! THEN he goes on to win the US Open same year!! he finishes 2022 the youngest ever no. 1 ranked ATP player and goes on to win a bunch more titles in 2023 including Wimbledon where he beats Djokovic in a fucking inCREDible match (I watched 30 minutes of that in the pouring rain and then had to escape to a cafe where I made them turn on the tv and had the best day of my life lmao)

carlos initially appears to be very much of the max verstappen mold, i.e. a nerd, fairly single-minded, incredibly talented, seemingly breaking the rules of physics at times. basically by the end of 2023 he's the Guy To Beat, plus everyone loves to watch him ... he's got style and variety and power and he LOVES the game, he smiles the whole time, he has FUN, he's just!! a joy to watch!! he's the elephant in the room at every tournament, he's the "future of tennis," and nobody can talk about anybody else.

Except Carlos.

Because Carlos talks about Jannik.

It's very funny that carlos talks about jannik so much at this point!! like, it's a point of discussion how many times carlos brings jannik up in conversation. very much 'hyping my friend up' vibes. 'oops talked about my crush again' vibes. because Jannik is sort of .. following? carlos at this moment? He's doing well, but he's a year older and only starting to get to the same level of matches as carlos, even as carlos does it himself. (there's a funny clip of jannik making it to the semifinals at wimbledon and the on-court interviewer says: "youngest to do it since 2007!" and jannik says, "yeah but carlos..." and sure enough carlos immediately went on to steal that honor and, in fact, win the tournament lmao)

and also people just aren't talking about jannik in the same way! his tennis isn't as immediately interesting to watch as carlos's because he doesn't come to the net as much, he likes to play from the baseline. also he isn't as reliable as he should be, esp on serve, for somebody not taking those alcaraz-esque risks up the court. but— when he's on he's ON: super clean strokes, super powerful, and he has really excellent movement for somebody so tall. beautiful, dependable backhand. Still, not everyone is like. entranced by jannik in the way they are by carlos. i remember listening to a Tennis Podcast episode as jannik was starting to get serious momentum through the top of the atp rankings and be considered a real next-gen challenge for carlos (for reasons I'll get to) but otherwise kind of flying under the radar, and one of them (Catherine lol) said something along the lines of "I don't really see what other people are seeing in sinner, he leaves me cold, I just don't really like watching him". (Which is SO funny to me. I saw one sinner match in 2021 (miami) and thought "this guy's MINE" lmao)

BUT! by the end of 2023 jannik actually has a winning head-to-head with carlos which is unusual enough to remark on, ALSO, they have a series of incredibly interesting and thrilling matches under their belts.

They meet for the first time in 2021 in Paris, (well on the atp tour anyway. they also met in this challenger match, they're 15 and 17 respectively and so cute and dorky). in paris the match is great, they both seem to have fun, but what's really lovely (and important for The Lore) is that after the match —which Carlos wins— Jannik leans in real close and intimate and says: "I hope we play some more" and Carlos gets uhh. SO supremely happy about it. in his on court interview he says "we will both be in the top" which!! prescient...

From that 2021 meeting they go on to have banger match after banger match, namely the quarterfinals at the US Open in 2022 (which Carlos won) and an insane Indian Wells match in 2023 (which Jannik won). what's really special is that you can see how push-and-pull they are with each other: they learn from each other, they play their best against each other, jannik's tennis is more interesting against carlos, carlos is really tested with his movement against jannik, like he can't just run him around. THIS is why carlos can't shut up about jannik. they play CRAZY tennis against each other, and both of them have FUN. guaranteed good match-up, everyone rooting it for it in every tournament. so even though people aren't talking about JANNIK in the same way as they're talking about carlos, they're definitely talking about the combination they make on court. As is. Carlos. :)))

so if you're delusional like me this is when you start to think about the Shipping Narrative ... like.... look at this....

LOOK AT THAT DOUBLETAKE. insane... and the rivalry they have going at this point... carlos's obsession with jannik ... jannik still trying to measure up to carlos... I mean!! think of the potential ! they are talked about in relation with each other at ALL times (if people aren't talking about carlos v djoko, anyway) and they are nothing but sweet about it.

they're also so cute TT_TT the brain rot begins ... the ship name is formed ... sincaraz is here to stay

okay. So. at the end of 2023 jannik goes through a life changing experience.

he pukes in a bin.

this happens in beijing in Oct 2023, in a match he played against grigor dimitrov. he's looking BAD all match, clearly unwell, and then during one of the changeovers he asks for a bin to be brought out and uh. well. see above

he stands back up, looks a lot better, goes on to win the match and then immediately goes on an INSANE run of victories. this tweet pretty much sums it up but he essentially looks unbeatable for the next five months. he beats djoko three times, only gets beaten by him once. he wins his only match-up with carlos. he wins against a bunch of other top 10 players on his way to several titles. he beats medvedev FOUR TIMES (who was ranked 3rd in oct 2023, currently ranked 5th, sorry meddy :// ) . he wins the AUSTRALIAN FUCKING OPEN.

this is the post-puke sinner era. he wins 16 matches in a row, an astonishing run, and he just. Looks. So. Good. He barely dropped a set to get to the australian open final (one, to djoko) and he is playing beautiful —stunningly beautiful— tennis. his serve is FIXED. now HE is the only person anybody can talk about. new future of the atp, people are WATCHING. his carrot fan club is going insane. who can beat him??? when he looks THIS GOOD??

yup. of course. carlos beats jannik at Indian Wells to defend his own title from 2022, ending Jannik's winning streak and cementing the rivalry for a lot of people: i.e. even at jannik's best, even when carlos is in a bit of a slump, carlos still throws jannik for a loop. it's NOT that interesting of a match overall, honestly, although some great points and a tournament beset with Problems, including ... bees!!! what's most interesting about this match imo is the several lovely moments of sincaraz we got from it, some jumping around together beforehand, jannik doing some fairly atypical showing of emotion, and the famous walking off together during the rain delay (rivals don't really do that???) They're just so cute the whole time, a beautiful day for tennisblr tbh. jannik can be so STOIC and carlos just!! brings out the boy in him!!!!!!!!!

^^ rivals!! :)) enemies even!! :)))

jannik goes on to win the other half of the sunshine double, at miami (does not face carlos to do so), making them the SUNSHINE DOUBLE BOYS and deservedly so.

and that pretty much catches you up on the basics of sincaraz!! basically they are each adorable individually, they are adorable together, and they have a chewy fucking rivalry building that EVERYONE is enjoying rn. tbh my ship manifesto gets a lot less fun from here on account of some inane-making thoughts re: the (un)requited & one-sided nature of this ship but let me rec some fics real fast:

umiltà which is INCREDIBLE

Phoenix which is a wonderful character study for jannik, truly beautiful writing

also THIS HUNGER GAMES AU MY GOD

okay so as f1 drivers

first of all, they HAVE to be in the mclaren car, obviously. to me they are an obvious mctwinks parallel: clearly friends, very compatible, same age, but with some fun mentor/mentee dynamics thrown in

Carlos gets signed first, very young — the lando equivalent! he has maybe one or two teammates before jannik but they're all older and it just doesn't exactly click. he likes everyone, even gets along well with them (as well as the rest of the grid!) but he's not quite at home yet. not helped by the fact that he's in one of the fastest cars on the grid, and wins WDC in his rookie year! (maybe helped out a bit by a few djoko DNFs ... I feel like that could be equivalent to djoko being out of some major matches in 2021/2022 for novax reasons) anyway carlos gets an aura which makes it hard to connect w the others, maybe. he's a lil lonely!!!

Jannik gets signed a year later and they click as a teammate pair pretty well. I see a VERY similar trajectory as landoscar: carlos is much more comfortable with the press, knows the team really well, shoulders much of the burden of marketing etc. Jannik comes in to a team that has a fave driver already, but he's ALSO a good driver, and carlos likes him so so so sosososo much, so the team welcomes him with open arms. At first he performs okay... not great... he has a slower learning curve. He's improving, but incrementally. he and carlos get closer as they share tips about the car and training etc.

Then one day he pukes in a bin. this part is essential. HOW it happens doesn't matter ... he gets food poisoning?? heatstroke??? doesn't matter, who cares, the point is, this is his turning point in terms of hoisting himself up the driver rankings. He starts making it into the top five drivers every race, gets some podiums, wins his first race. carlos is RIGHT THERE NEXT TO HIM. they celebrate together !! they kiss that very night!!!!!!

now they are fighting for WDC. things get tense. this is where I have to stop I get too anxious LMAOO anyway!!

so those are my broadstrokes headcanon re: how would sincaraz work as f1 drivers. I do think about it quite a lot ....... they all live in my brain now probs forever 🤪🤪 sorry to make you read all that. maybe you didn't lol but ENJOY ANYWAY AND THANKS FOR THE ASK ILYYYYYY <3 <3 <3

[otakween]

Digimon Adventure 02: Revenge of Diaboromon

Wow...somehow this one just completely fell off my radar, otherwise I would have watched it a long time ago lol. I seriously thought I was all caught up with pre-Tamers anime until I saw this on the 02 TV Tropes and was like "oop..." It was a good surprise though, I can never get enough of these Mamoru Hosoda style shorts! (Looks like he didn't actually work on this one though).

I watched this dubbed first to take screenshots and then subbed. It's hard to find a non-crunchy version of the subbed short. The OG Japanese was a lot stronger imo because, as usual, the dub ruined some stuff with it's jokey tone and music choices. Still decently faithful though. Full thoughts below.

Notes:

So this is like a midquel, I guess. I don't know if there's an exact place within 02 I was supposed to watch this, but I didn't feel like my immersion was wrecked or anything haha.

While the aesthetic of the short was great, I felt the story was pretty redundant and eye-roll worthy. "Oh Omegamon/Omnimon is back for some contrived reason and the OG chosen children's digimon can't defeat him like they did last time...for some contrived reason. This looks like a job for the 02 protagonists!" Whatever, it doesn't have to be deep to be fun.

The early 2000s CG looked pretty good actually. I thought it added a fun otherworldliness to the Kuramon.

Kuramon look a lot like Takodachi (Hololive fans know what's up). I wonder if there was some inspiration there on a subliminal level.

I wonder if Daisuke's character designer intended him to be from a southern part of Japan. His tan skin sticks out more in this art style.

I feel like Diaboromon got uglier somehow compared to Our War Game lol. Armagemon's design was deliciously creepy though. He looked like something out of an Alien movie. His entrance was epic and probably would have freaked me out a lot as a kid. Weirdly, they never actually said Armagemon's name so I just assumed it was Diaboromon until I googled it just now lol

Sora and Mimi were like two sides of the same coin in this. Mimi was useless, but in a delightful way. Sora was useless, but in a boring way lol. Seriously, she didn't need to come all the way home from her tennis club trip to just go "I'm here!" and then do nothing. I'm not saying there was much she could do anyway, but I get really pissed that they never gave her character a real point aside from "bland love interest" in any Digimon show/movie.

Loved Mimi's interactions with Koushiro. Their awkward "we're in the same friend group but have nothing in common" chemistry is so fun.

Yamato seemed extra cool with his rings and stoicism. I do kind of wish he and Taichi got a little more dialogue though.

Really didn't like the direction of the fights inside the internet. They were either animated too up close or too distant so I felt like I couldn't really follow what was going on half the time. Also, the choreography wasn't that inspired. The IRL fight at least had a cool Evangelion vibe going for it. The harbor was a really aesthetic setting for a final fight.

I've started shipping DaiKen for funsies (there's some really cute fanart) so it was nice seeing them together in the elevated art style hehe.

Daisuke has a Yamato phone strap! So cute and supportive

It's funny how the digimon sizing suddenly changes when we're in movie-mode. Angemon and Angewomon were huge in this! I was excited to see the 02 digimon, but they mostly looked the same as they looked in the show tbh.

The Shibuya vibes, complete with Hachiko statue, were fun. Was 02 set in Tokyo? I honestly don't remember...

Seeing all those children running around at night without any worries about safety...must be nice, Japan.

When Omegamon "ran out of energy," I had the thought of like "can a jogress digimon die in the real world or would they always just de-digivolve??" I guess they'd never go that far for plot reasons anyways

Imperialdramon gets a new mode! Paladin mode, according to Google. Were these names in the credits or did they just decide things later for the TCG or something...?

We got the 02 theme inserted towards the end and even the OG show's theme as a ring tone. Really cute touch. (I was a little triggered to hear Bolero again for the millionth time though).

All in all I'm glad the 02 kids got their due in this style. Was it groundbreaking? No. Was it worth 30 minutes of my time? Absolutely!

[dropthedemiurge]

15 people, 15 questions

Got tagged by @xagan (you're amazing and I already knew it but what is Lima Lama?!) and @istilldontunderstand (all hail being jack of all interests and useless to capitalism! very relatable) and @non-binarypal7 (didn't know you eanted to do environmental activism! That's so cool)

1. Are you named after anyone?

No, I have one of the most typical names in my country. But it's good that every person has several nicknames here, I have more than 15! 😆 And I love my name because it's unisex.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I don't usually cry in life beside RSD triggers so I allow myself to feel things while watching movies and reading fanfics... Probably shed a tear recently during 5th episode of Twins (hello to exhausted, overworked and underappreciated Sprite)). Honestly, some good angst fics do make me cry, I love angst fics and catharsis.

3. Do you have kids?

No, and I'm not good with them until they are the age where I can teach them many hella cool nerdy things. But I'm learning now with my sister's toddler, I'm out of my comfort zone but she says he likes me already so I win xD I can definitely see myself as a good mentor to kids/teens later but parent? Probably a bad one.

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

I have ADHD so I have tried swimming, martial arts, ballet and gymnastics. I was kicked out of 2 of those xD But I do love table tennis, like volleyball and I was acrobatic cheerleader for a few years!

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Yeah, I love using it in a very playful manner among friends - which is not a typical thing, as I know. On the other hand, when I get angry or someone hurts/attacks me, I actually turn to a very cold, official and diligently spelled out style. Hurt my feelings? I am writing you a letter aka A.Burr :D

6. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

Their vibes! I might not remember how they look or what's their name later, but I'm definitely noticing and reading you through vibes. Same with discords, most likely.

7. What’s your eye color?

Grayish blue. I get told that I have really nice eyes (even strangers in foreign countries keep telling me that for some reason unprompted). My friends, tho, say I have drugged eyes with large pupils so i guess, that's compliment too xD

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Horror movies are porn substitution, and I'm ace so the answer is obvious. Deserved happy ends are good!

9. Any talents?

Hmmm being always curious and hence, learning many new awesome skills? It's something I always encourage others to do, too.

10. Where were you born?

Russia unfortunately or fortunately? i'm still figuring it out

11. What are your hobbies

Creating media+tech things (ranging from IG filters to making my own mini games), translating (Russian, English, Korean and currently learning Thai), drawing fanarts (one day hopefully webtoons...), writing fics (currently learning nice storytelling in English)

12. Do you have any pets?

Yes, a very fluffy black-white Cheshire Cat. He's as mischievous as you can guess ^W^

13. How tall are you?

1.65

14. Favorite subject in school?

Informatics, Arts, sitting in school library and reading everything after classes

15. Dream job?

I have a bucket list of all skills/professions that I want to try, and I've currently crossed off most of them, except for gamedev. I ever wrote articles about K-pop and Thai BLs professionally!

I keep changing jobs every year oops but I still manage to be not bad at them. I think I can suit some place that needs brainstorming, making art and coding together! But it's a career that I'm trying to kickstart now Тт For now I'm a bit too busy with returning to Korea...Hopefully, one day I'll stop getting bored of jobs ^^'

That was fun, thank you guys! Not tagging anyone to save from pressure but you can tag me to read through yours or tag yourself with my blessing :]

[gunsli-01]

Thanks @good-beans for tagging me in this. These are always really fun and I hope it tells people a bit more about me.

I was reading your answers after answering again myself and I forgot about The Clue Movie while answering but Star and I just re-watched it recently and it was still as good as ever. It's also interesting you liked dance as well. My mom says she put my sister and I into ballet when we were younger but like most places had a tendency to close down back then which it did. Still really love ballet and dance in general.

I answered these before because @ludwigoat909 tagged me in it as well and the answers here are probably different but similar. Because when they tagged me I was a bit overwhelmed with life stuff and just answered pretty quickly. Don't even really remember answering more than vaguely to be honest sorry bout that.

Do you make your bed?

Yes. I try to make it every day even when my mood is bad (depressed). The only time I don't make it is when my mood is super bad (distraught). I have ocd so I'm not comfortable with spaces being out of order.

Favorite Number?

Thirteen, two, and three.

What's your job?

Though I'm not paid I work as my father's caretaker. I've worked in loans, and at a college library before. My father can get incredibly stressed/distraught each time I'm out for long periods of time. To the point of having medical issues. So, he's not interested in me getting a job outside the home in contrast he has immense anxiety about it. Though I'm going through the process of applying for disability and have been for several years now. This is what happens when the psychiatrist that diagnosed you retroactively changes your records a year after cutting ties with her. Well the diagnosis was still nice to have because it explained the social issues at my first several jobs.

If you could go back to school, would you?

If I could I would. It would definitely be fun since I do like to learn. Yet my attention is bad when it comes to online classes and I can't go in person at the moment due to a lack of transportation.

Can you Parallel Park?

I don't drive!

Do you think Aliens are real?

Yes.

Can you drive a manual car?

No. I don't drive.

Guilty Pleasure?

Hm, like a show or something I just enjoy doing. Right now I've been really enjoying writing. I guess a guilty pleassure currently like something that makes me go hm I wouldn't want to share this with anyone is like I found out about this game called Class of '09 and it is very American and soo well... Honestly pretty amazing and while I didn't go to a high school like that one it certainly does remind me of how high school could be.

Favorite Type of Music?

I tend to like all music. In the oc milgram I'm writing music taste is really important because a lot of people in the states at (at least while I was in school) tended to make broad assumptions about others based on their music tastes/define themselves through the music they like. I try to listen to a little bit of everything but I swing more alternative. Right now I'm really into The Wrecks and I Don't Know How But They Found Me. I guess the way I listen to anything and everything was a byproduct of not wanting to pigeonholed into liking only one genre to fit into a certain scene. I always found that sort of thing pretty stifling.

Do you like puzzles?

I like mysteries and putting together puzzles can be fun. Yet it can take me awhile to grasp things like riddles and spatial reasoning puzzles. So it's a mix.

Favorite Childhood Sport?

I was really into Detective Conan as a kid still am. As a result for a point I got really obsessed with the idea of playing soccer and also tennis. Due to prince of tennis. Though if I had to pick a favorite that I legitimately wanted to practice I'd say ballet. Though I tend to really enjoy dance in general.

Do you talk to yourself?

Yeah, but I know I shouldn't do that aloud or anything. Sometimes I do anyway but I'm working on not letting that slip out as much. Plus it tends to stop naturally when I'm not super stressed.

Tea or Coffee?

Tea.

First thing you wanted to be when you grew up?

Oh well I think it was a musician like I wanted to write music. Ultimately I ended up enjoying writing thought if I was good enough at it I could combine all my interests together. Writing, animation, and music. Though since I always had an interest in writing and settled on writer at like ten I tend to just say writer.

What Movies do you Adore?

The Empire of Corpses along with Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart. I really like both of those movies.

[sunburnacoustic]

Matt Bellamy answers fan questions for the Australian Triple J magazine in 2007.

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

Mighty Pomgolian rockers Muse have some of muse’s most hardcore fans, so we let them call the shots. Frankly, we were afraid not to.

WORDS: Samantha Clode

“Salt Lake City tends to be one of those places where people go berserk,” says Matt Bellamy. “Maybe it’s all the salt plains surrounding them…” jmag finds the prodigious 29-year-old Muse frontman in the US, where he’s just finished up a stint with the tour physio. “I’ve got mild tennis elbow, I was playing squash and I think I stretched my arm or something,” he says. “But it’s nothing serious, I’m just sitting here with an ice pack on my elbow. Not too many Pete Townshend guitar swings tonight, I don’t think.”

With a second tour in 12 months heading our way in November, the trio from Devon are bringing their huge, prog rock stage spectacular down under following a stint on the 2007 Big Day Out. Rather than us throw a bunch of questions on Muse’s frontman, we asked you guys to tell us what you wanted to know…

Muse have some obsessive, dedicated fans. Where do you think the line is between being in the spotlight and having your privacy invaded? Bronwyn, 17, Bungendore, ACT

Everyone should be entitled to be at home, relaxing away from it all and not have people knocking on their door. I get a bit, yeah, and that's the place to draw the line. When we're out on the road we try to meet people and generally be friendly, but I'm glad that we're not super famous people where we're chased when we're going to the supermarket. I expect to be able to go there without having any hassles like that. I don't want to be caught buying toilet paper!

Have you seen Museslash? (Fan stories about the band, usually involving sex.) Becky, 15, Woodford, Vic

Museslash? No, I definitely want to check it out though, it sounds good, entertaining. I haven't heard of it until now, but I'll definitely be checking it out now, that sounds very interesting (laughs).

Who's your fave pianist of all time? Lachlan, 16, Ashfield, NSW

Firstly [Russian composer Sergei] Rachmaninoff. It's a close call between Franz Liszt [Hungarian romantic], Rachmaninoff and [Polish prodigy Frederic] Chopin. Some people argue that Liszt is up there, but Rachmaninoff has some kind of weird, dark edge to his music, which I don't think I've heard with any other kind of music before. So for that reason I give it to him - he's got a dark heard.

Do you think your friendship has helped you three guys deal with your success? Rachelle, 23, Brookvale, NSW

I wouldn't say success has been a problem, but I'd certainly say that issues come up with being away from home for eight months at a time. Especially Chris, who has kids and a family. But having a really close friendship helps us through tough times. I wouldn't define success as being a touch problem; I've enjoyed it very much. It's more the touring side.

So, any fisticuffs?

(Laughs) Yeah, well... I'm glad I don't try it because Chris would probably take my head off with one hit. We've had a few chairs thrown around and a lot of drum kits being smashed, I think me and Chris both attacked Dom and his drum kit a few times... but with friendly intentions!

If you're in Australia and you've only got $20, how are you going to spend it? Luke, 16, Devonport, Tas

You should be able to answer that question better than me, what do you recommend I do? Can you get, like, a bus journey to the outback for that much money? I'll pretend to be on the dole and get a rail ticket to the outback and go and live in the wild for a couple of years.

What was your first trip to Australia like? Marina, 25, Brunswick, Vic

It was brilliant. We loved all the sunshine, it blew us away. We're used to the grey, miserable depression of England, so being there was a breath of fresh air really. I remember getting freaked out by all these massive bats that were flying around our hotel. We were staying on the top floor in Sydney, and we were hanging out on the roof having a gathering with a couple of bottles of wine, and we noticed we were surrounded by massive bats. That's the first time I'd ever seen bats in my life - we all shat ourselves and ran away.

Is there any specific place you would want to be at the end of the world? Orri, 18. Reykjavik, Iceland

On a yacht, actually. It would be nice to be on the sea, away from all the chaos, just chilling out an relaxing. Depends... if the end of the world was a massive tsunami, then you definitely wouldn't want to be out on a boat, but if it was carnage and chaos and everyone was going mental, then I think it might be nice just to chill out on a boat. Go round the Maldives or Indonesia, cruise around, swim in the sea and pretend everything's find. You could probably live off fish for a while. Get one of those little water purification systems so you could just chill out and get away from it all...

You've said seeing an image of Hendrix setting his guitar on fire opened your mind to what music could be. What was it about that scene that turned you on? Anthony, 22, Bundamba, Qld

I suppose it was the chaos and the edge, the new idea that you can do whatever you want in your life and in your music. When I was that age, being in a rock band seemed like it was going to give me that opportunity, to be loose and pretty much do whatever I wanted, both on stage in music and in my life. I always loved music, but it wasn't until I saw that that I realised it could actually change your whole lifestyle.

I heard a rumour about the recording of 'Plug In Baby' [from 2001's Origin Of Symmetry]. involving mushrooms, nudity and a sauna. What's the story? Tim, 20, Riverview, NSW

(Laughs) Uh, yeah. It was in between recording takes. In England every now and again, certainly when it rains, loads of mushrooms grow. You take them to open your mind up to a broader dimension - you get to see the world from a different perspective. I'm sure you get them over there as well, but in England they grow in fields, you can find them anywhere. They often grow near cow shit, unfortunately. We found ourselves... not full naked, but definitely partially naked, in a bathtub rolling around. The mixture between that and doing the takes... I can't actually remember recording the songs to be honest, but I remember listening to it and saying, "Whoa, man, this is cool!" But a week later we listened to it and thought it was all a bit crap, so we had to spend a week fixing it up. But for writing and exploring new ideas, I'd recommend mushrooms. God put them there for us to use! It's nature's drug, you shouldn't make nature illegal.

Is it true Muse once supported the Spice Girls? What was that like? Lucy, 27, Blackburn, Vic

I've no idea where this came from! I think someone stuck it on the internet for a joke and everyone believed it; it's completely false. I've never played with them or met them. I wish I did - I would've loved to have supported them... ideally on the same bus as well.

How does it feel to be the biggest little man in music? Andrew, 21, Koolewong, NSW

(Laughs) It's quite good. With the guitar on stage you get to feel quite: "Hey man, I'm not too bad after all! I'm 5'7 but I can play some good riffs so it's all right. Everything's okay." (Can't stop laughing.)

Are you easy to work with? Jesse, 18, Gympie, Qld

(Ponders) Um... no, probably not, I'd say. I'm easy to work with people who know me, but with strangers I'm quite difficult. Just because there are ways I'm used to doing things: it's probably the disadvantage of being in a band for so long, you become very connected together and have certain ways of working. I've noticed that when you bring other people into the equation they can misinterpret the way you are as being very aggressive or very forward. But when you're working with your own bandmates you're used to dealing that way.

Do you crack the whip, then?

We all crack whips with each other, depending what it is. They all crack whips with me when I'm playing the piano too much! I generally crack the whip at them when they're playing cheap drum riffs. Between the three, somewhere we find a balance.

Is the Paul McCartney song 'Mr Bellamy' written about you? (It depicts a delusional 'Mr Bellamy' sitting on a roof and refusing to come down.) Marty, 26, Hawthorn, Vic

I don't think so! I'll check it out. I seriously doubt it's about me but... I'd be very surprised if it was, that would be a funny situation.

Is it true you're thinking of working with an orchestra next? Amelia, 22, North Perth, WA

If Dom and Chris let me! No, I definitely wanted to do the whole "we've blown it and become a total pop band" and I'm sure we'll do some more bits that are a bit more groovy and more dance. More up-tempo. There's definitely a few bits and pieces lying around that have been unfinished for so long that I just think we should lay them down. We certainly wouldn't do a whole album but definitely a couple of pieces that we might be able to release outside of an album might be interesting.

How did your father's band (the Tornadoes) influence you as a musician? Jervis, 18, Mornington, Vic

Dad introduced me to music when I was very young, and played me a lot of '50s and '60s records that I probably would never have heard of if it wasn't for him. I definitely got that more sci-fi... well, not sci-fi, but I guess what people like to call the more "spacey" sound from his band. The band he was in before the Tornadoes did this song called 'Telstar' - that song was the most well known. [The instrumental, named after a satellite, was the first British song to hit No.1 in the US.] For the '50s it did sound very futuristic, and very kind of spacey, so that element of the band definitely came from him.

Is it true you live in the house of former opera composer Vincenzo Bellini and you're trying to conjure up his ghost? Amanda, 23, Ferny Grove, Qld

I don't actually live there. The band were building a place where we could rehearse and live while we were rehearsing, and it's in the grounds of an Italian opera composer's house. I tried to get some of his vibes going because I listened to some of his music and I think it's brilliant stuff. It definitely feels like it's got some kind of musical ghost hanging around. If I was ever going to get a house and it was haunted, I'd want it to be haunted by a great composer, that's kind of ideal for me (laughs).

Do Muse fall into roles in the studio? Chris, 17, Glenelg, SA

Dom tends to take the role of the pedantic devil for the detail; he goes mental for absolutely every little detail. Chris is more the person who moderates the vibe and says, "Look, this isn't happening, take a break and wait for a day, wait for a few hours until it's going to happen." Dom would play the same song 20 times a day and get it wrong 20 times, whereas Chris would say, "Let's just take a break and come back." Dom would be all, "No, let's keep playing." I pretend to be behind the desk. I'm always drawn to being with the producer. I should be on the other side of the glass singing and playing, but I'm always behind the desk trying to control things - I always end up getting told to fuck off and get back in where I belong!

So are you into recording other artists?

Yeah, definitely. It's frustrating when we're making our own records, because I want to be involved in the production myself but I can't do it when I'm actually playing, you know? It's something I'd like to do when I'm older, too old to tour or something. So maybe in about 10 years when I'm slowing down a bit and I've got tennis elbow - tennis everything! - I'll start producing records instead.

What's one of your most memorable moments visiting Australia? Dom, 22, Preston, Vic

There's been loads. The Big Day Out is always loads of fun, I got to hang out with a lot of great bands there. This year was good: it's a bit of a blur, but I remember trashing someone's house. We had an amazing party in this really expensive flat in Melbourne. Some crazy guy decided he would let a few bands part there. By the end of it I remember seeing Mike [Skinner] from the Streets holding a couch in the air - he was surfing the couch while taking paint off the wall! I feel sorry for the guy whose house it was, but he certainly should have known what was going to happen when he invited us!

If there's a colour for sex, what would it be? Caitlyn, 15, Chirnside Park, Vic

(Pause) Well it's got to be red hasn't it, surely? Blue's a bit too boring.

It's pretty obvious from Black Holes And Revelations you're disillusioned by the current political climate. Does public apathy get you down? Or do you hold out hope for a revolution? Tegan, 17, Banara Point, NSW

I'd say I'm generally optimistic about people, but I'm pessimistic about society, and the way it's all been put together. But generally I'm very optimistic that people will pull through and come out shining at the other side. I think w're likely to see some heavy shit over the next 50 or 100 years, but if you look forward 100 years there's going to be a group of people having a laugh somewhere.

A couple of big bands have joined together lately - Audioslave, Velvet Revolver. If you had to start another band who would you have in it? Josh, 22, Waverton, NSW

Speaking of Audioslave, Tom Morello would certainly be the guitarist; Flea from Chili Peppers on the bass. Drums... who's brilliant? Maybe Jimmy Chamberlain, the guy who played for the Pumpkins. Singing would have to be Tom Waits, I'd say. I think that would be an interesting grouping.

Everyone is impressed by the XY synth pad on your guitar in 'Invincible' Do you do all the work on your guitars yourself? Dan, 19. Armidale, NSW

I've just always fancied something and gone, "I can't believe no one thought of that before." I had this effects unit I was using, the XY controller, and I thought, well, why don't I just stick it in the guitar? Luckily I've got a friend who makes guitars, so I said, "Can you stick this in the guitar for me?" and he worked on it for a while. It took us a couple of goes to get it right but it was quite decent. So it's just a case of imagining something and having a mate who can built it. So a lot is custom made, not personally by me but invented by me, if you like.

How difficult is it to use a jetpack? Kieran, 20, Waurn Ponds, Vic

(Laughs) I wouldn't know, because I've never used a jetpack. I think I saw one once, didn't Michael Jackson use one to get on stage? I've got something that's a bit like that, but it's not actually a get engine. It's a 50cc engine with a propeller attached. You just take a sort of parachute to jump off a hill, and you use the engine to push you higher and higher, It's not really a jet, though - "jet" makes it sound a bit more exciting!

Will you be using this device on stage?

The problem is it's very weather dependent, so it could go terribly wrong. It's 50/50 that I could hit the stage - there's a chance I could accidentally go in to the crowd and the propeller would probably mince up about 100 people! So maybe I'll save save that for when we're playing a super massive outdoor venue. "Everyone stand back!"

Lastly, jmag wants to know what's the question you'd most like to be asked?

You're going to ask me that now, aren't you? I'm trying to imaging someone coming in to an interview and just saying, "Ah, fuck it - do you fancy a pint?" If you ever meet me, instead of doing the interview just say that and we'll go down the pub, have a drink and have a much more relaxed time.

Well, next time, that's what we'll do.

Sounds good to me.

———///——///———

Track Record : Muse Formed: Back in the early ’90s, three students at Teignmouth Community College in Devon, UK, were in separate bands before forming Muse in 1997. Original name? Rocket Baby Dolls Members: Matthew Bellamy (guitar/keys/vocals), Chris Wolstenholme (bass) and Dominic Howard (drums) Albums: Four to date: Showbiz (1999), Origin Of Symmetry (2001), Absolution (2003) and Black Holes And Revelations (2006) Random facts: Gold Coast act the Sick Puppies covered ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

Justin Timberlake described Muse as “the best band there was” at the 2006 MTV European Music Video Awards

2004’s Glastonbury’s set would be described by Bellamy as “the best gig of our lives”. Sadly Dominic’s father, Bill, suffered a heart attack immediately after, and died

Muse’s ‘Space Dementia’ is the soundtrack to the latest perfume ad by cosmetics giant Christian Dior

[pink-bird-30]

Titans 4x10

SPOILERS AHEAD

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!

Oooooooohhhhhhhh what an interesting episode indeed!

I knew that we would get a fun episode when they decided to have a crossover with Doom Patrol.  I have not had the pleasure of watching Doom Patrol yet, but I have loved these characters since Titans season 1.

“Mowing Mother nature’s Bush”

Cliff lines are always out of pocket, but this one was honestly great.

I thought it was interesting how Gar created this “home” and made it half nature and pulled Cliff, Larry, and Victor into his version of Doom Manor.

But I was so happy for how excited Gar was to see Cliff and Larry, his little jump hop into Cliffs arms was too cute!

Oh, and the playfulness between Gar and Vic, it was really fun to see.  I felt like I was watching an episode of Teen Titans with those two.  I’m really glad we got to see them on the screen together, even if it was for a short while.

Okay, we gotta talk about Connor Luther, aka Anti-hero Era Connor.

I gotta say, I like that Connor was being straight forward with Sebastian, giving him an out from doing something that he doesn’t want to.  Although I for sure knew he had ulterior motives from the second he sat down at that table with Sebastian, but damn.  Anti-hero Connor is something else.  Straight up taking over Lex Corp, taking the throne as CEO…wow.

What a man.

But the next scene between Sebastian and Mother Mayhem was brutal.  We all knew she was using him since day one, but the hurt on Sebastian’s face when he hears her degrading words,

“You are nothing”

My soft spot for Joseph Morgan had me jumping from my seat ready to fight.  All I knew is that Mother Mayhem was NOT going to have a good mother’s day and I’m glad he burned her to a crisp.  She honestly deserves worse.

But ding dong, the witch is dead….at least for now….

As I have mentioned before, Bernard always has great one liners,

“Bald headed psychopath”

Too good.

The scene with Kori, Dick, and Rachel was interesting.  I think this is the first season where this trio sticks together the most.  But when Rachel tells Dick she was better off dying than Kori, and Dick saying no one is dying, does this mean Dick has finally comes to terms that maybe someone will die?

First it was him denying prophcies,

Then it was denying more prophecies,

And now he thinks no one is going to die.

My man, we have 4 seasons of batshit crazy situations, you’re telling me at this point where the Titans are on the losing side of things you don’t think that someone will not die? *eye roll

Now we have Kori entering Gar’s World and Dick and Rachel running off to dabble in dark magic.

What is this show?!

We have Kori entering “the red” and popping Vic in the face, which was hilarious.  I’m glad Gar and Kori reunited again, that made me very happy.  My little mother son duo back together again.  

But honestly, I bet when Kori realized she was stuck in another random place again, she must’ve been sooooo over it.  She just escaped Caul’s Folly and now she’s stuck in this house Gar created.

Can we agree that Vic is 100% smitten with Kori?  Like look at that man gazing at her when she hands him the bag go cold peas.

Same, Vic.  Same.

The conversation between Kori and Gar was important.  We can see Gar told Kori she was there for a reason and that there is something she needed to work through.

Alright,

The tennis scene, absolutely amazing.  Gar and Kori were kicking ass while Vic and Larry were struggling big time.

But they brought up that thing.  The thing in the DC universe that a lot of us don’t talk about because it is a touchy subject and has always been up for debate….

But why did Cliff need to bring up the p*nis debate, just whyyyyy.

Moving onnnnn,

Kori and Gar’s heart to heart,

“I love what he’s trying to destroy”

I-

I teared up, I won’t lie.  That entire scene hit me right in the heart.  Kori needed to forgive herself for not killing Sebastian and I’m glad we were able to acknowledge it.  I trust Kori’s judgement and her not killing Sebastian may or may not be the best thing, but I guess we will find out.

Now let’s go to the deep dark hell Rachel and Dick are dealing with while Kori and Gar are having a grand ol’ time.

First off when that witch says,

“Your weapon is your love for this child”

*Screams into the void

OOOOMMMMMGGGGG

LISTEN, THE UNHOLY SOUND THAT CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH WHEN THE WITCH SAID THIS UGH.

I ceased to exist.

And then the black goop that Rachel threw up and turned into a creature I’m pretty sure I’ve seen on Buffy the Vampire Slayer…girl.  I cannot.

We have Kori and Gar off in lala land, and Dick is fighting a demon, pure chaos and I am going to miss this so much.

Over at Lex Corp,

Sebastian tainted his game and now everyone is a martyr for his cause?  Bernard is in a coma from this game and I am unwell.  Poor Tim.

Going back to Kori and Gar.  When the room starts to close in on them, and Gar and Vic start to go at it, I had a moment where I was so sad that this was the only interaction between these characters.

Ryan and Joivan have such great chemistry, and I wish we had more time with them on screen.  But the few moments they are arguing and then bonding over a movie were awesome.

And of course, Vic saying “booyah” was icing on the cake.

Side note, does anyone else think Dick’s friend in London was Constantine? 

Anyone?  Just me?  Okay.

I love Connor’s face when he realizes he fucked up.  Like he is witnessing Sebastian take over the world and can do absolutely nothing about it.  For a hot moment, I really thought we lost Connor, but when Tim tried hacking into Lex Corp’s firewall, I was so happy Connor had enough sense to help out the Titans.  This gives me hope we will have Golden Retriever Connor back soon.

Also, the way Tim waited for Kori’s permission to commit a felony, top tier respect for mother.

Finally, Dick was able to slay the monster which woooo, but I cannot shake what the witch said to Dick about Death not forgetting him…I pray that is not foreshadow….

When Sebastian realizes the connection between him and Rachel is severed, 

“I can’t feel Rachel”

and then the words from Mother Mayhem echoing

“Without Trigon’s power, you are nothing.”

Shoooooo Today’s episode is going to be wild…

Let’s see how 4x11 goes.  And then there is only the Finale left, I cannot believe we have been on this journey since 2018…

Until next time, let me know how you guys felt about the episode!

[flowers-of-io]

Eris and Toland for the character ask thing?

Eris:

favorite thing about them: there's an endless list of things I love about her, but one of the main ones is that "recovery is a spiral, not a circle" aspect of her. How sometimes your experiences change you so much that you can never return to the way you used to be, but that doesn't mean you can't heal. How these shadows will always remain with you, but you can use them to your advantage and draw something good out of them. It gives me a lot to think about, what with my own journey of wrestling with mental disorders for almost 8 years and slowly moving towards the realisation that maybe I will never recover = revert to the time before the illness

least favorite thing about them: there are a few instances of her just... forgetting fun exists? Like she *does* have a quite dry sense of humour and she can be witty, but at a few moments in the game she berates other characters for joking around in a way that doesn't feel natural at all to me, as if only to keep the veneer of her being the Serious One. It's odd, and a bit cringe

favorite line: "Be safe, Gensym Scribe. A storm is coming. And I will not be at your side when it finds its way to our shores."

brOTP: asher <3

OTP: toland probably, lol. tho I like drifteris and eris/sav a great deal as well

nOTP: eris/guardian, if only for the reason that I've never seen it done in a way that's interesting to me personally. But there *is* potential there

random headcanon: she lost a toe in the hellmouth

unpopular opinion: fireworks (among other things) send her into a panic attack because ptsd from mare imbrium

song i associate with them: oh I have a whole (albeit short) playlist!

favorite picture of them: that artwork in Grimoire vol 1 of her with Touch of Malice..... I want it framed on my wall

--

Toland:

favorite thing about them: probably his eagerness to help us slay oryx as the proof of his devotion to the sword logic. I'm so !!! about it!

least favorite thing about them: his eagerness to fuck with people's minds to get what he wants

favorite line: his monologue in the Awakening mission!! "You walk blind above an abyss, full of trust for a friendly voice" and the rest of it <3

brOTP: eriana and sai and sjur!!!!

OTP: eris. and ir yût, of course :p

nOTP: tbh I've never encountered a *bad* toland ship, maybe because there are so few toland ships out there in the first place, so I dunno

random headcanon: he is/was being haunted by the nightmares of his fireteam on the moon as well

unpopular opinion: before the hellmouth, he'd told eris and eriana point blank that he was not here for crota and he'd be showing himself out to ir yût's dwelling place the moment he got the chance

song i associate with them: I have a playlist as well, but if I had to choose just one it would be Firelight by Young the Giant OR Leave My Body by Florence + the Machine

favorite picture of them: lol kek imagine having pictures of toland. Tho there is that one drawing someone made of two guardians playing tennis with him as the ball

[winterandwords]

15 questions, 15 mutuals

Thanks to @k--havok for the tag!

Are you named after anyone? Nope. My parents just liked the name and my mum, who was a teacher, had a never taught a kid with it before so it didn't come with any preconceptions.

When was the last time you cried? A couple of nights ago. My dog freaked out because her foot went to sleep and she tried to get up and the noise she made fucking broke me. Terrible things happening to humans in my presence? Totally calm, stop the bleeding, whatever. An animals being mildly distressed over a extremely minor non-problem? TEARS.

Do you have kids? No. Never. Completely by choice. Team happily child-free here.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Not as much as people think I do. Unless I'm in hardcore masking mode, I can come off as kind of cold and unemotional, so when I say genuinely supportive or appreciative things, people don't realise I'm being serious and assume I'm being an asshole.

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Their…vibe?? I don't know how to explain it. Their innate them-ness, the way it feels to be around them. I usually pick up pretty much immediately if someone is going to be very significant in my life. When I first met the person I've now been married to for twenty years it was like "Holy shit, you are going to matter so much" even though I didn't know how or why.

What’s your eye color? Blue, but not like all one colour. They're very pale around the pupil with a much darker ring around the outside.

Scary movies or happy endings? Yes. Violent revenge fantasies, please.

Any special talents? I'm hypermobile, so I can do all sorts of ill-advised party tricks with my stupid joints. Also I have a knack for picking up on people's fears and insecurities very quickly and easily via completely unrelated conversation and often hardly any conversation at all. I've never tried to do that. It just sort of happens. I'm not entirely comfortably with it tbh.

Where were you born? Ireland.

What are your hobbies? Writing, but that goes beyond being a hobby. Also learning French, reading, yoga, absorbing information about special interests (usually various aspects of religion and cultural mythology), baking, playing computer games, and BDSM.

Have you any pets? Yep! A black greyhound lurcher called Shadow. She's a rescue and we adopted her from her foster human last October. Before that she'd been raised in a racing kennel but couldn't race because she has a wonky foot, so she'd mostly been tied up in a concrete yard for all ten months of her little life. Also, Silver the cat. He's five, adopted in a "my cat had kittens and they need homes" situation, and he's had the most charmed life ever. It's a total coincidence that they're both named after characters from Sonic the Hedgehog.

What sports do you play/have played? I used to play hockey (field hockey, for those of you who live in places where ice hockey is the default) and did competitive gymnastics in high school. I played tennis and badminton casually, had a weight lifting gym bunny phase in my early twenties and went running late at night a lot for reasons of sanity. After that it was mostly mountain biking, because what's even the point if you can't hurl yourself down ridiculous hills on two wheels and hope all your body parts get to the bottom at the same time?

How tall are you? 5ft 2in

Favorite subject in school? I loved art, but hated art classes because I always had really shitty teachers who were very "I will only dedicate time and energy to people who make exactly the kind of art I personally like".

Dream job? I was a professional photographer (it's what I went to college for) and ran a studio before my body crapped out on me, so that was pretty cool and I'm glad I got to do it while I could. Writing isn't my job as such, but it's The Thing I Do now and I love it too.

Tagging some newer mutuals here. No pressure at all to take part! @felixwriting, @frankiesaysrelaxx, @superfangirl2789, @mawcegoblinwrites, @marthawrites, @danijameswriter and @make-them-scream. Fifteen people seems like a lot to tag, so I'm going to leave it at that and include an open tag, so if you'd like to take part feel free to @ me so I can see your answers.

[gillianthecat]

Fahlanruk - episode 7

I don't know if the show is getting better or my expectations have dropped, but I'm enjoying Fahlanruk more. Maybe it's just that it's the perfect sort of trash television to watch in bed while sick. I'm still not that interested in the main relationship, or even either of the main characters especially. But that's ok. It's the kind of show that depends on the couple's chemistry, and theirs isn't that interesting to me, but it's also stopped bothering me. Its relaxing, in a way, to watch a show where I don't really care about them. I am still invested in 💙PingTap💙, however.

A selection of reactions while watching:

Fah's death glare at Ping and Tap when they crash his date. And Ping's response - we just want to be around you when you're happy. Aww. I (and Fah!) can't be annoyed at his nosiness after that.

This sensual slow motion cooking scene! This is hilarious. I don't know if it's supposed to be sexy, but it's hilarious.

Is spaghetti carbonara the meal you cook your date to impress them in Thailand? I feel like I've seen it in a few other shows too.

Sick boy + caretaking + sensual wet white towel. This scene actually succeeded in being sensual. Although that position didn't look to comfortable for either of them. I love that Gaga translated the verb as "wipe"

Ok. I was intrigued by Pai at the beginning, but now I'm just annoyed. All of these outside characters trying to interfere are annoying. I'm not even that invested in Fah and Sher's relationship, but I wish everyone (even the twin brother) would leave them alone to figure it out by themselves.

Speaking of which, Sher looks too happy this episode; he's going to get his heart broken soon.

Tle! Already broke up with the new guy and had returned, trying to win back Fah. Ok dude. I had some sympathy for you before this for dating a cheater, but now I think I just don't like you. Although you are pretty.

If I went to a school this gossipy I think I would throw myself off a cliff. Or at least run away to the woods and never interact with another human being again. Fah, Sher and Tle are three meters away from you guys. They can hear every word you're saying 🥴

Who choose "ratchet" for the translation?!

Aww, here come Gear and Prince. I was wondering if they'd show up this episode. I admit I'm not particularly invested in them, but I hope they get their happy ending.

Yay Anna! Unfortunately every time we see her Pink and Tar are there. I want to like you two, you have the potential to be cute together, but every time we see you you're being awful in some new way.

Why is Prince upset about Gear asking him if he and Sher were dating? Was there some implications to the question in Thai that got lost in translation? Is he just annoyed because people keep asking him that? To me it seemed a reasonable question for people as close as these two, especially since he knows Gear is interested in him.

Is this grocery store a sponsor? Is that why there's such a focus on shopping and cooking? (Ingredients did it better. No offense.)

Aww this whole coffee/water bit was cute.

Ping you adorable disaster child. I love you. You didn't want Tap to think you cared so much so you pretended to go to the tennis match (despite his begging you to stay), except that you didn't want to be far so you went to a cafe nearby so you could be close if Tap needed you, except then you fell asleep so you didn't do either. And now you're finding out the results of the tennis match so that you can pretend you went to it instead of sleeping in a cafe all afternoon. My favorite disaster.

Do we recognize this house (Sher's? Fah's? It looks like the living room from where Fah was talking about his dad, but I thought they bought groceries for Sher's place?) Is it one of the commonly used locations that keep popping up?

Oh it is Fah's place. They just stopped there first for some reason.

Aww. Sher knows he's starting to care and is worried about what will happen when Fah gets bored of him. (He even sort of says it, in the guise of talking about stuff to do at his house.) Which, I don't blame you dude, I suspect Fah of the same thing.

Apo? 👀 Who are you? I would have guessed an ex that broke Sher's heart and made him scared of intimacy, but Sher looked just as confused as me. I guess I'll find out in 15 minutes, as soon as I move my laundry and start episode 8.

[eviesessays]

22. What have been some of your life's greatest surprises?

In my advanced age I thought nothing surprised me but on further reflection I decided almost everything surprises me.  That I am in my 88th year is one of my greatest surprises.  I remember once when I was in my early teen years I had pleurisy and every time I tried to take a breath I had such a pain in my chest, I was certain I was soon going to die.  I knew how sad everyone would be and how they would miss me and wish they had been kinder to me.  Well, the biggest surprise was that I recovered in a few days and nobody seemed to notice my distress or my recovery.

I am surprised that I live in New Hampshire.  When Kip and Carl and I were young we kept an account of all the license plates we saw from outside Ontario.  Most were from the United States.  Sioux Lookout was a small town in the North of the province.  It had many beautiful, pristine lakes and therefore many fishing lodges and camps that attracted fishing enthusiasts.  Most cars we counted were from the nearer border states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and  Michigan.  I do not remember a car from New Hampshire.  That stood to reason since it was 1000 miles away and at that time had beautiful, pristine unpolluted lakes of its own.

That I now live in this beautiful but presently very cold state was the result of a broken promise. When I married Phil Pahl he was the chief engineer of the SR71 at the Pentagon.  He was a colonel and promised this was his last assignment and we would not leave Washington.  In early 1974 he was assigned to Hanscom AFB in Bedford, MA.  That Easter vacation we flew space available to Germany and Spain since we were  going to be spending our summer vacation moving.  He went on to Bedford and house hunted and I stayed behind til the school year ended.  I resigned my wonderful job and prepared for the move.  In June we moved into our home on Wildwood Drive in Bedford, MA.  We found Boston a beautiful, historical and interesting city.  We also found weekend trips to New Hampshire beautiful in all seasons.  We all became skiers.  We bought a cottage near Wolfboro, NH.  It was one of the most idyllic places. It was peaceful beyond words. We canoed and swam in Lake Winnipesaukee in summer and skied at Ossippee and Gunstock. in Winter.  The cottage was not so much a surprise in my life but one of the greatest joys.  

In 1984 Phil retired from the Air Force and by then we were dedicated New Englanders.  We bought a farm in Warner, NH.  I remember walking along the river and seeing the property for the first time.  Heather and her friend Rachel were with us.  It was a magnificent find.  The piling of the Waterloo covered bridge was one of the boundary markers for the property.  There were 22 acres on one side of the river and a strip of 5 miles that ran along the other side of the Warner River.  There was a large barn, an in-ground swimming pool, a lovely modern home and a small building near the river bank.  It had a wood stove and was currently used as a woodworking shop.  There were two large meadows and a large vegetable garden.  It was perfect and I knew immediately was a place where my spirit could soar and my heart could rest.  

Life moved at rocket speed.  We bought the farm, sold the Bedford house and sold my most loved cottage. I turned 50 and Jaylyn got married. Phil retired and took a part time civilian job. Peter graduated from college and then I got cancer. It was also at this time that Phil admitted to me that  he had a long standing affair with his tennis partner in Bedford.  I knew I would be divorced again. I would not be very tolerant of an impulsive, “tussle in the hay”,  but this was a long standing, calculated affair.  We were divorced in 1988.  I bought the farm and spent 22 very happy years there. Now in my 70’s, I had to admit I could not keep up with all the needs of this very happy place.  In 2007 I sold the farm and moved to Mountain Road in Concord.  

After two failed treatments for my Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, I decided to go into Dana Farber in Boston.  I did an experimental treatment and have been cancer free since.  

Today is March 4, 2023 and we are having a huge snow storm.  I am at my desk writing a story about life’s greatest surprises and the truth is most things surprise me.  My granddaughters, Anne and Hillary have each given me two great grandchildren who are delightful, charming and full of wonderful surprises.

I still hear from classmates but half my high school class is now gone and almost half of my nursing school class has also passed away.  Considering all things I guess one of life’s greatest surprises is that I am still here to tell the story.