#other fun fact: europe is actually said to be one of the biggest heads for abilities in the world

[ratsbanes]

I love it when bsd crossover fanfiction say "and abilities are only in Yokohama" or something. When... most of the cast is not from Yokohama?

The decay of angels (including fukuchi, I don't think we know where he's from)? Not from yokohama

The guild? Not from yokohama

Mimic? Not from yokohama

The order of the clock tower? Not from yokohama

Even some of the agency and port mafia.

Dazai? There's implications that, just like the author, he's from northern more rural Japan. Probably not from yokohama.

Kenji? He *is* from northern more rural Japan. Not from yokohama.

Ranpo? We don't know where he's from, but he mentions traveling away from his home city, so not from yokohama.

Atsushi? Similar to Ranpo, we don't really know where he's from but it's, say it with me, probably not from yokohama.

Chuuya? Has an entire arc about how he's not from yokohama.

Most of the cast is not from yokohama, so it's just such a weird story choice? But my god is it funny.

[harryskalechips]

Illicit affairs

A/N Hellooooo! I haven’t written in a while but enjoy this little sad piece inspired by Taylor Swift! Thank you for all the love! I hope you guys are doing well! Feel free to leave a kind message in my inbox ❤️

Y/N was a new intern at Colombia records when she met Harry Styles. Their relationship takes a turn however, when they start an affair.

Tw: Cheating

Thank you @harrysleftchelseaboot for letting me participate in your writing challenge! For any writers out there who want to give it a go make sure to check it out! I would love to read some new work. 

Prompts:

“Be a good girl and spread your legs for me.”

“I’d punch you, but that would ruin that pretty little face of yours.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Leave.”

Note: I do not condone cheating whatsoever! Please mind that this story is fictional! As much as it makes me sad to paint Harry as a cheater, it’s part of this storyline I thought of as I listened to Taylor’s album, Folklore.

Word count: 5k / Masterlist

Y/N never knew she was going to be in this type of predicament. Falling asleep every night in a man’s arms, only to wake up alone in her cold sheets at dawn. For some odd reason, his vanilla scent smothered her atmosphere every time, leaving her in a subspace-like condition. She found her thoughts easily shifting to him or feeling the need to touch him. She’s whipped but sadly also clingy. 

Does she have an excuse to feel this way? She was only 21 when she began working as an intern at this man’s record label. He was her first serious relationship and although he was married -there always seemed to be a weird tension between them.

It all started when she was assigned to follow Rob Stringer through his meetings in 2017...nonetheless she met Mr. Harry Styles. One of the members of the biggest boy band, One Direction. She knew exactly who he was, especially since he was sexualized by the media too often at an early stage of his career. She knew his first solo album was a hit and that in her job description, she had to be present at every interview he had. She also knew that the ring on his finger was a symbol of love for his wife that he married a year ago. 

Months on end, she barely spoke to him. She was shy -feeling as if her personality would bore Mr.Styles. One night however as the team went out to celebrate his last show for live on tour, he himself invited her. 

They were at a club in New York -A very private one to be exact when Harry found himself too interested in the quiet intern. To be honest, his life at home (when he was there) wasn’t what he planned for. His wife was too busy, only fighting him whenever he stepped foot inside. She barely had any more interests in his music or his life -and suddenly, it felt like two strangers living in that mansion. It wasn’t an excuse for him to keep glancing at the girl as she danced with her co-workers nor was it an excuse for him to buy her a drink. Funny enough, he always thought of himself as a hopeless romantic since he was waiting for that particular someone to love him back once again and save his marriage. But before he could stop himself, he was already walking towards the girls dancing on the floor and getting to know them.

After that night at the club, Y/N felt different towards Mr. Styles. Of course, she was still intimidated but she now knew him on a more personal level, leading her to call him Harry instead. That night as they sat in one the booth upstairs, she listened to his jokes and stories and it made her start to have a little crush on him. But hey, he was married and she would never want to ruin a relationship. 

As her days became busier at Columbia -sorting papers and running for Coffee, She always glanced at the elevator hoping Harry Styles would come out and was in need of a conversation with Rob in person. She knew he probably called her boss though the phone but her brain was rummaging for ideas why he would start appearing in her life once again. That was until one day she heard Gina and Louise in the staff room during break talking about Harry coming in tomorrow. Boy, did her heart began to beat fast. Maybe, it was manifestation but she was a bit too excited to see him again as it’s been a couple of months since she last saw him. 

~

“Y/N,” Rob calls out for her as he plays with a pen in his hand. “Meet me in the main conference room in five minutes. I need you to note down my meeting today.” He gives her a small smile and quickly walks off. She knew full well that this meeting was about Harry Styles. 

As she sat beside Rob at the long table, she realized that the whole table was filled with people from publicity and other departments. Right in front of her was the man she’s been thinking of, beside him was his manager. It’s not like she was deeply infatuated with him but she did love thinking about his pretty eyes. 

Matter of fact, as she first glanced at him, her eyes already met his. He was smiling and staying quiet as the meeting immediately began but his fingers played with his pen as he watched her. She was too focused on the shittier details of what they were discussing. He wanted to tell her so badly that she didn’t need to write some things down but he was having fun watching her bite her lip in stress. He wasn’t smooth though. Since she was already feeling his gaze burning through her. 

As the meeting went on, Harry became a bit more serious about why he came into the office. They were in the talks of his new second album and now, they had to plan publicity and tour. Some of the staff even asked how his trip to Japan was and although he was so excited to share his fantastic experiences, it was sad to mention how his wife didn’t even bother coming along. 

“Are you not going to say hi to me?” Harry teases Y/N as they’re the last ones to leave the conference room after their long meeting. She had to clean up the table while he chose to sit in his chair, pretending to do important things on his phone. When he waved bye to everyone as they left the room, he pointed at his phone, explaining he needed a few minutes to send “important emails” -he just wanted to catch up with his new friend, Y/N.

“Hi.” She tries her best to act normal and unaffected by his presence. “Sorry, I couldn’t say hi earlier. When Rob said five minutes, I didn’t know the meeting was already taking place.” Harry laughs at her apology since he wasn’t petty at all for her lack of greeting today. 

“I was just teasing. How are you?”

“I’ve been good.” She smiles back at him as she tosses the last remainder of paper cups in the bin. “I think the last time I saw you was last year. Where have you been?”

“Why did you miss me?” He raises his brow as he spins his chair a bit. He gives her a smirk as he watches her lean herself on the table. 

“Just a bit. I loved watching your interviews.” She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms against her chest. “At first I wanted to sleep through them but now I rather go through those back and forth instead of, filling random sheets out for Rob.”

“Heyy, I think I’m pretty interesting during interviews.”

“Oh no! Don’t get me wrong you are! It’s just you have such a raspy voice and you talk so slow! You can literally put me to bed anytime.”

“Am I talking slowly right now?”

“Just a bit. I haven’t seen you in a while. I kind of forgot!” She laughs. “ What else did you do other than Japan? Spent some time with your wife?” Y/N wasn’t going to lie… bringing up his wife kind of made her uncomfortable but she knew this was a good way to get to know him in a friendly way. 

Harry couldn’t help but give out a humourless scoff as he rests his head back on the chair. His eyes, however, meet her’s again. She couldn’t help but watch his adam’s apple bob up and down. 

“Marriage is hard you know. If I’m being honest with you, I haven’t spoken to her in a week. She’s been on vacation, travelling in Europe I think with her best friends.”

“She’s a model, right? She must have a lot of free time. I’m sure she can make space for you.” Harry slaps his knee in sarcastic humour as he shakes his head at Y/N’s innocent idea of who his wife truly is now. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s more complex than I thought. I haven’t really been in a relationship at least a long term one.”

“Are you free tonight?” Harry asks her out of the blue.

“Yes.” 

“Can I come over? We don’t need to do anything but I would love to hang out with you and I don’t know... forget I have all these responsibilities.”

“Sure.” What Y/N didn’t know that this night would forever change her relationship with Harry.

~

It was late in the night as Harry sat on Y/N’s couch talking to her about everything. His life, his career, his marriage. Usually, it wasn’t easy for him to open up so quickly to a stranger but for some odd feeling, his gut was telling him that he could trust this pretty girl beside him. It’s like he knew she was trustworthy and non-judgemental. 

Ever since he first noticed her during his meetings, he found himself involuntarily glancing at her. That was until he grew some balls and invited her to his after-party. Maybe, He did find her pretty and a bit too hot but even if his marriage is going through the rocks, he did not want to cheat. He didn’t want to be that type of guy. Yet during his time in Japan, he found himself thinking of what would happen if he was single right now? Would he actually make a move on her?

“What are you thinking of?” The same woman calls him out as she takes a swing of the wine bottle into her mouth. 

Yes, the found themselves enjoying Harry’s expensive red wine so now they’re passing the bottle. 

“You.” He was a bit tipsy and so was she but they were still sober enough to choose their words properly. 

“Me? Why me? Why not that hot model you call your wife.”

“She left my mind before I even met you.”

“Yet you’re still with her. Why?”

“I don’t know.” He looks at her as he takes a sip of wine. 

“Okay, so why are you thinking of me? Are you happy you have a new friend?” Her cheeks were very red at his confession but she was trying to make herself believe it was because of the alcohol. 

“I’m happy that I finally got to know the girl who sat quietly in the corner during my interviews.” He smirks at her as he watches her try to hide a smile. 

“I was intimidated by you!” 

“Why was that, love?” Y/N was not expecting him to call her that. She places the almost empty wine bottle on her coffee table and sits back in her same position as she’s wrapped in the same blanket Harry is.  

“You’re Harry Styles. Every woman is head over heels for you and Every man wants to be you.”

“Are you head over heels for me?” Harry squints his eyes as he says the first thing that comes out of his mouth. It wasn’t his intention to flirt with her but they both knew they had overpowering chemistry. The only thing holding them back is well… Harry’s marriage. 

“No.” She bluffs. He continues to look at her. “Fine, a bit but you’re married so I know how to control myself.” 

“What happens If I can’t?” his tone drops as he mumbles to himself. “I’m sorry what?” Y/N chokes as she looks at him. 

“I know I’m married fuck.” He sits up and rubs his face in frustration. “It’s just I never wanted a girl so bad after my marriage. I shouldn’t! I should be happily married but for some shit reason, I can’t get my mind off of you.”

“Harry, there’s consequences about what we’re talking about right now.” Y/N sits up as well as she watches him. Does it still count as cheating if his wife is barely in his life anymore? 

“I know. I’m sorry. I know you aren’t that type of girl. I would never disrespect you like this. I should leave.” He begins to stand up immediately. Y/N says nothing as she follows him to the front door of her apartment. 

“Thank you for coming, Harry.” She opens the door to let him out. He simply nods as he walks past her through the door. As she watches him walk down her hallway, she closes the door. How was she feeling? Well, she was trying her best to not feel regret but instead relief. She leans her body on the wooden surface, trying to make herself feel happy that nothing happened between them -Yet her heart was beating too fast for a guy she had just met.

The loud pounding on her door, however, makes her head shut up. She immediately opens it to find no one other than the curly-haired man who had just left her apartment a minute ago.

He immediately grasps her face into his hands as he kisses her eagerly, making her shut the door behind him. His body quickly pushing her’s against the wall, as his lips attack her jaw down to her neck. Her hands resting on his shoulders as she leans her head back to give him more area to leave his soft licks and kisses. 

“Shit Y/N. You’re making me go crazy.” 

“Harry.” She moans as he rubs himself against her centre. He whispers a command to her, making her jump and wrap her legs around his waist and he carries her to the first surface in his line of sight, which is her dining table. It was a dark wood wooden table that was meant only for eating purposes.

He helps her take off the sweater she was wearing as she throws it behind it her without a care. With her hand, she guides his mouth back to hers, making them both moan as this sexual tension is finally being relieved. Her nipples became hard in an instant as they felt the cold temperature. 

“Where’s your bedroom?” He pulls away as he’s unbuttoning his shirt. His mouth was open a little bit from their heated makeout and his lips were juicy pink after kissing her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. 

“You want to fuck me right here?” Y/N blurts. She wasn’t the type to have sex with a new partner for the first time on her dining table but her room was a mess and she was a bit shy letting him in there. 

“Are you that eager baby?” A smirk plays on his lips as he tosses his shirt. “Well If you’re that needy, why won’t you take off my pants?” Y/N’s cheeks turn red as she reaches forward to unbuckle his jeans. “You know, how fucking long I’ve been jerking off with my right hand?” Harry asks as his hand runs through her soft hair, letting his thumb rub against her pink plump lips. 

“For a long time, Daddy?” She murmurs against the pad of his thumb as she lets his thumb enter her wet mouth. 

“Look at you, you’re a little devil.” Harry pushes his pants off until they reach mid-thigh. He quickly helps her out of her tights, pulling them off her almost instantly that she had to hold onto him. “Should I get a condom?” He pants as his hands involuntarily run themselves against her soft thighs.

“I’m on the pill and I’m clean.”

“I’m clean too.” He looks down at her closed legs as he pumps himself a bit. “I promise.” Y/N nods as her hands guide his body back closer towards her.

 “Be a good girl and spread your legs for me.” He whispers as he watches her show him her wet needy sex. “Fuck, you look so good right now.” He leans in to kiss her more. His mouth going south as they reach her breast. His mouth sucks on her nipple as the other grabs and rolls her the other one.

“Fuck stop teasing me. I need you.”

“Beg for me, Y/N. I know you want to.”

“Harry please!” She feels his hand directing his wet cock to her centre. Teasing her and playfully slapping her entrance. “Daddy!” His eyes immediately stop looking down as he grabs her hair, making her look at him. 

“You okay with this love? Do you like it rough?” Y/N nods her head as she stares into his eyes. 

“I need you to use your words, baby.”

“Yes, I want it rough.” 

“What did you call me earlier?” A cheeky smile forms on his face as he watches this little girl about to crumble in his hand. 

“Daddy.”

“You’re going to keep calling me that or what?”

“Only if you want me-” Harry inserts himself in her, making her choke on her sentence. 

“What do you call me?” He leans a bit further downs so their bodies rub against each other as his arm supports her back while the other hand chokes her neck. 

“Daddy! Fuck, I call you daddy!” 

“I know I’ve been deprived of some good sex but you feel so fucking tight! Do guys not know how to fuck you?”

“Only you can.” Harry pulls his hand away from her neck and instead grasps her face so she can watch their centres connecting. 

“You like that view? Is it turning you on? You’re fucking clenching me, baby!”

“Harder, daddy.” Her arm wraps around his shoulder as he pulls away and turns around, making her bend on the table.

“You want it harder baby? I’m going to fuck you so hard, you’ll never be able to sit at this table without remembering how I fucked you so good.”

~ The day after their first time sleeping with each other scared Y/N. As much as she tried to avoid letting Harry see her messy room, they ended up in there anyway. They participated in a couple more rounds and a deep conversation too until they fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms. 

What Y/N was scared of was how Harry would react when he woke up in her sheets. Of course, they weren’t too drunk last night but the alcohol did give them a confidence boost. Now it’s the day time and they have to deal with this new boundary they had just crossed. 

“Good morning.” A raspy voice speaks up as she sets her head on her hand. Her elbow putting all its pressure on her pillow while she watches the man who’s laying on his stomach smile at her.

“Hi.” She gives a soft smile back. Harry immediately notices the hickeys on her neck, making him not guilty but a bit more proud.

“I marked you.” Y/N’s eyes widen as she sits up and wraps her hands around her neck. “Why you don’t like them?” Harry fixes his position too so he can rest his back against the headrest. He rubs his eyes for a few seconds before helping her straddle his waist. “What’s wrong, Baby?”

“You’re married.” Her finger mindlessly traces one of the sparrows on his chest. 

“I know.”

“You think she’ll get mad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think she cares.”

~ Y/N and Harry’s affair went on for months that they even reached his tour and new album reveal. Although they never said the three most important words, Y/N already knew it was there.

What she loved the most these past months with Harry was their privacy.  The secret hookups in changing rooms, the knowing glances in a room full of strangers, and their affectionate touches when they had to pass things to one another in front of her boss. 

She knows he’s married and there was no doubt, they fought about his relationship status. But Harry explained that divorces in Hollywood were more complex than for a regular couple. And while Y/N pretended to understand, she truly didn’t. She didn’t understand why he had to keep up this act of being in a happy relationship when he can simply leave his wife -not for her benefit but for his own happiness. Still, every time this fight occurred, they chose to sweep it under the rug. Maybe it was because she wasn’t ready to lose him. He had always been so persistent on his reasoning why he’s been delaying that action. She was scared that he would leave her during another fight only to run back to his wife. What she didn’t know was that she may be a bit too right, after all, he wasn’t ready to admit that his marriage was over. 

“Hi, Baby!” Y/N opens her door to find her “boyfriend” with a bouquet of flowers. 

“Hi!” She wraps her arms around him in a hug as she lets him enter her apartment that they know too well. If she had to be truly honest... despite having so much alone time with Harry, she’s never been on a date with him but you know -that’s something she had to let go when she decided to get involved with a famous married man. Yet it still didn’t stop her heart from feeling envious when she would be in the restaurant with her friends watching a random couple have dinner together.

Harry takes his hood off and hands her the flowers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t text you this past couple of days. You know that woman who lives with me.” He sighs and gives her a kiss on the lips before continuing on, “We were having lunch together and she noticed I wasn’t wearing my ring anymore so we fought.”

“So you’re wearing it.” Y/N places the flowers on the table and crosses her arms.

“I have too.”

“No, you don’t Harry. She’s only wearing her’s for show. You’ve been cheating on her for seven months!” Y/N snaps at him. She hated it when he wore his ring. It was just a real sign that maybe he was lying to her during the times, he said he was over their marriage and he was going to leave her when things become less complicated.

“Baby, hey stop yelling.” He walks towards her so he can wrap his arms around her. “I’m sorry. You know I care so much about you. Please don’t cry.”

“I can’t stand that you’re married to another woman. Please leave her Harry.” Y/N pulls away as she holds onto his shoulders, begging him. “Please.”

“I’ll try.” He breathes out.

“You’ll try?” She pulls away immediately looking at him. “What do you mean? Have you not been trying to do that these past few months!” He rubs his face in frustration. 

“It’s hard Y/N. I told you countless times.” “I know it’s hard but what’s stopping you from doing it! You told me that you don’t want to lose me but for some odd reason, it seems like you don’t want to lose her!”

“She was my first love Goddammit!” He finally yells back at her. 

And that's the thing about illicit affairs

And clandestine meetings and stolen stares

They show their truth one single time

But they lie and they lie and they lie

A million little times

 They both found themselves caught off guard as the silence screamed in their ears. How could this safe space where they spent their nights rolling in the sheets feel so… indifferent? “Harry please be 100 percent honest with me.” Y/N backs away slowly as she reaches a few feet apart from Harry. “Do you want to leave her?” 

Silence.

“You told me you did? Did you change your mind?” Her eyes widen as she watches the man in front of her absolutely speechless. “I’d punch you, but that would ruin that pretty little face of yours.” She lets out a sarcastic laugh. 

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”  He stares at the ground with his hands in his jeans. “Of course, I want to leave her! It’s just-”

“Leave.”

“What Baby no!” He quickly looks up and tries to make his way towards her. 

“Harry, stop. What we have is over! I’m not going to let you use me until your stupid sick marriage fixes itself!”

“Y/N that wasn’t my intention I swear! You know what marriage means to me! I can’t simply-”

“Fuck what you think of marriage! You don’t want to leave her but you rather continuously hide me while you go to awards with her -While you go on fucking dates with her!”

“It’s for publicity-”

“I don’t care!” She screams. “I realized that this isn’t working out and we should stop!” The pressure in her chest was making her hyperventilate. “We should have stopped months ago!”

“Fuck I don’t want to lose you, please. You’re the only thing that’s been making me so happy.” He reaches out to take her hands but she simply pulls away.

“Harry! Listen to yourself! You’re married! I’m starting to think you have a fear of having a failed marriage like your mom and dad! But please for the love of God, don’t drag me around because I won’t let you!” Harry’s faces change into anger as he gives her a cold look.

 “Well don’t drag my parents’ marriage into this! I told you that because I trusted you not so you can use it against me!”

“That’s not what I was trying to do!” Y/N pleads. “You won’t lever her Harry! You won’t!” 

“How do you think people will react!” He gestures with his hands. “ After three years of marriage, Harry Styles is getting divorced!” He mimics a random news reporter.

“So-” “I’m not going to let myself be categorized under Hollywood’s failed marriages!” “It was already failing before you met me! Can’t you see I just want you to be happy!”

“I am happy when you’re with me!”

“Well, I’m not!”

“You don’t mean that.” Harry scoffs as he runs his hand through his hair in frustration. 

“How can I not? I’m hearing stories every day about your fights at home. This isn’t even a relationship Harry! It’s an affair! An illicit one! And I-I’m a secret!”

“I don’t want to share you with the public! They will judge us and they’re going to ruin you as they ruined me!” He rambles on. “I’ve been stalked and judged for things I didn’t know matter!” 

“I would rather go through that with you -than to watch you from far away and only have you with me when we’re here inside this apartment.” She points at the floor. 

“I can’t Y/N. I can’t let that happen and I won’t.”

“Then this is over then.” She quickly wipes her tears as she notices Harry doing the same. The yelling seemed to die down as they finally realized that this problem they tried to ignore wasn’t going anywhere.

“You know… for some reason, you taught me a lot of things.” Harry clears his throat as he wipes his wet palms on his pants. “Despite only letting you have one half of me. You somehow took over my whole mind. God, I would love to fight for you Y/N.” He looks at her as he feels tears forming in his again. “I do - I truly would.” A pause happens before he continues, “ For you, I ‘d ruin myself a million times but I would never let you do the same.” He emphasizes to her. “ I don’t want to let you go but I know I should because even if I go get that divorce, I’d still want to keep you as my secret -and that’s not what you want.” 

“I-” Y/N stops herself. She wanted to tell him that she loves him but she knew it wouldn’t help them at all. “I’ll still see you for a while. After my internship though, I’ll be gone.”

“Do you think we’ll stay in touch.”

“I don’t think we should.” She blurts it out as her eyes glance at the fresh bouquet sitting on her table. 

“Alright. I guess that’s it.” Harry sniffles a bit before walking to the door. “I’ll see you.”

“Goodbye.”

And Y/N thought she wouldn’t have to see him again after her internship. Although her heart was broken, she found herself counting the days until she can find a new job. After their unexpected ending, she no longer found herself lonely in the mornings but during the nights too. 

The days he came by the office were more difficult than she thought. She would still feel his gaze on her during their meetings but he no longer greeted her nor gave her any attention. He would walk right past her desk when he visited the office but he would act as if he never knew her in the first place - Not a glance or a wave. 

And that was fine with Y/N, at least she tried her best to think it was. Until her meeting with Rob a week before Harry’s album release. 

~

“Y/N, I would love to offer you a job here at the company. I  will give you a position in Marketing for Harry Styles.” Rob hands her a manila folder across the table. “ You know a few months ago, he spoke about your hard work and how much potential you have and he’s right. This would look great on your resume and the pay will be better here than if you were to start off at another company.” 

Days of thinking and non-stop anxiety flooded Y/N’s mind. She knew her plan was to cut all ties with the pop star but the career that had just been handed to her had so much potential. Potentiality can help her with her student loans and give her a more comfortable life. She would be stupid if she passed the offer because of him. So with no more hesitation, she took her phone and called Rob.

“I’ll take the job offer.”

Part two here!!

[medical-gal]

Death by a thousand cuts

I have been thinking about writing this for months now. Even before I decided to quit the residency at my previous job.

COVID has been kicking our ass, true, but that was (is) true for most healthcare providers all around the world.

No, my struggle started a bit before that actually.

First some background, I have been working at one of the biggest most famous ID clinics in central Europe. The clinic is in a different country than I am originally from so there was a bit of cultural accommodating at the begging. But we were a big group of ID interns/residents/fellows and specialists.

I don't actually remember that much from my first year working there. And I couldn't figure out why, but then I read in some study that when u experience a high dose of stress and/or sleep deprivation for a long time, your brain kinda stopps being able to transcribe short term memory into a long term.

I was working 100hours/week, sometimes less, sometimes more. After a year and a half, when the last half I worked in the ID ER for five months, I always stayed after working 24 hours, sometimes over 36hours, and I would see and treat 70ish patients. Nobody from the older docs would help me out, nobody from other interns either bc usually they would have their own kind of hell to take care of.

The fact that basically, inexperienced doctors are taking care of patients never really phased my ex-boss. Her mantra was that if there was a problem that you cannot resolve, you can call her and she would advise you. Which most of the time was true, I must say that.

But we all have been young docs, barely out of our medical school garments, and sometimes as it happened, we could not recognize there IS a problem that maybe needs a more experienced opinion.

I am often confronted with this idea or more like a culture, of pretending that once you are an MD you don't need help and asking for it is a kind of weakness and that then you are forever on the list of WEAKLINGS.

And let me say this only once.

That's absolute bullshit.

Anyway, the first time I decided to quit I worked there for about a year and a half, I went for a long-expected holiday, I took three weeks off, had interviews and talked with my bf about my options.

Second thing...my man, bless his beard, would support me no matter what. He is almost 10 years older than me, so he has more work experience and I find it reassuring to discuss stuff like this with him bc I know he will not sugarcoat it. He said that I should dig my heels in and last at least one more year till the end of my "internship". As a "resident" who worked at this specific department, I wouldn't have a problem finding another job. We r basically the equivalent of a french legion of medical professionals (when u work in this specific department and everyone knows it, I will come back to that later).

So I took his advice. Thankfully as a part of our training, one of those parts is a year-long internship at the internal medicine department, which I did shortly after we had that conversation and guys, that was a revelation of how medicine and just...work and life can be experienced. There were enough docs for a floor, an attending who had the time to manage and advise us. I´ve grown that year as a doc so much. Other internships were mandatory so I could have become (equivalent of) a resident, and it was a general surgery, anesthesiology, radiology, microbiology etc. But I did them all and became a resident.

The moment I came back to our clinic, my boss would put me in our outpatient department. Which I have never worked on before. The head of the department has quit a few months before, and I had no idea what to do there, bc it's a very different type work. The only thing my boss told me when I spoke of my concerns were "you will learn".

Thankfully the previous head of the department was a good friend of mine and she would always answer my questions and requests. Suddenly I no longer had to deal with the hectic life of an ID floor or ER, no sepsis, meningitis, etc.

Most of my patients were the chronic type...Lyme, chlamydia, mycoplasma... let's say it literally drained the life out of me. But I managed. Also, I started to work for their outpatient office which takes care of patients with chronic hepatatis. That I enjoyed more.

I also started to dip my toes in vaccinology, either planned like for travel but I started to be more interested in preventive care in the immunocompromised and my own phantasmagoria was to make a palliative care team in our hospital. Bc, we had none. And then a wonderful thing happened, other docs, older experienced, great at their work, started to refer their patients to me specifically.

There were more examples of the utter a complete FUCK U(s) which were kindly provided either by the system or by the head of the department or the hospital.

Then covid hit and the shit hit the interstellar space.

I still can't make myself remember the first few months bc it actually causes me to go into a rage fit, and honestly, I am done with that kind of negativity.

I hold out for a year. Year of such shitty treatment from the chief and our hospital head. No thank you- s or you are doing a good job or we r all on the same ship.

No.

People will say that I quit bc of the money. And that's not true, tho it did irk me a bit. All the other ID specialists working at different hospitals would get covid bonuses every month. We got jack shit. Again, the best biggest most know ID clinic. We were the first and oftern the ONLY ones who would test for/diagnose/hospitalize/treat a patient who had covid FOR MONTHS in the beginning.

I mean, the medical community is small, the ID community even smaller so yes, we were able to compare and contrast the work at different ID departments in other hospitals bc our friends worked there. And all of them would go speechless when they would hear from us what we were living thru.

At one point at the beginning of the pandemic, ALL the ambulances would go thru our ER department and we were supposed to decide where the patient should go.

AN EXAMPLE

Ambulance with a woman who has known colon cancer, had a fever, stomach as a rock and is projectile vomiting. I was supposed to decide where she should go and the surgeon would be super pissed when I said that I don't think she has COVID but without PCR I can't be sure but I think there is a bigger pressing issue. I remember him saying:

"well if anyone else gets infected at our department and dies, it's on you."

fun.

There were other examples of seriously stressful episodes which I and my coworkers lived thru, for which we were not trained for, advised, or properly supervised. At a certain point, I started to take anxiolytics before and during my all-nighters bc I didn't know what I would do with all that stress which was so callously shat on me and my coworkers.

For a few months, I stopped working nights, only thru the mercy of my coworkers who saw how exhausted I was and would take my shifts.

Anyway, after only two months I had to start working nights bc I needed the money. The basic pay for docs was just not enough without the extra from night shifts. Talk about exploiting.

The moment however when I decided to QUIT, when I was DONE, when I actually heard my heart break, was the moment at the end of the previous year. They decided to start vaccinating in our tiny small vaccination centre. Let's say a "shit storm" brewing is the light version of events that ensued.

But basically, as I was trying to discuss with my boss that we are all exhausted, that this wave is not slowing down and that throwing more work at us, the docs and nurses and other staff, who are overworked, is not a good idea,

What she basically said to me is that who says things like that is lazy and that if she can handle it everyone must be also.

The thing is..most of us were at the bring. Some would handle it with casual and calous sex, drugs (legal or not), a bottle of wine before sleep. A coworker ended up with antipsychotics.

But u know,

we were all lazy apperently.

I realized there is no way out of this other than quitting. I could not continue being so tired and sad all the time. I took two weeks off, really thought about it. Had diarrhoea and nausea for a week as I realized I will have to quit :D

On a Monday I came back, handed in my notice. Basically what she told me and how she reacted made me realized how right the decision was.

I had to stay there for another three months bc that's the law, but my mood changed significantly.

I got another job in a smaller ID department, working with amazingly kind people, but that's another story.

But that was the only interview I actually looked for and did. I, however, did get several job offers from different types of medicine. From heads of different departments in my old hospital to smaller general medicine chain offices who are looking for ID specialists, to insurance companies.

Like I said, french legion.

Or Runway and your boss is Miranda Pristley. Once u survive that, u survive anything.

But at my old work they would keep hitting you with wave after wave of passive agressive comments about how if u quit, u wont be able to find anything as"prestigious" as this.

There were many other exmaples of a shitty and questionable situations which were treated as "normal" but there is not point on getting on that rage train.

Contrary as it might seem, I am greatful I got to live thru this, good and bad, bc now I know what I am and am not willing to sacrifice for a job. No matter how much I might love it.

[catboymingi]

wish

navi/masterlist

pairing: hongjoong x reader

genre: some angst if you try really hard, fluff

word count: 4k

warnings: mingi being bad at halloween (this is FLUFF and fluff ONLY)

a/n: would you believe this, something that’s not mingi... who would’ve thought this day would ever come

six years and three months have passed since you last talked to hongjoong. five years and ten months have passed since you moved in with mingi. five years and seven months have passed since you gave birth to your daughter. not even a day has passed since you last missed the man that had once been your everything.

this was your first halloween with your daughter, and it had been neither your nor her idea to celebrate, actually. instead, ‘the best uncle on earth’ (as mingi commonly called himself) had insisted that she now was big enough and that she deserved the candy. you knew, though, that he wanted to dress up more than her, and that he’d most definitely steal your candy, at least. he had a massive sweet spot for your child, so her candy might be safe. might. or you might just have to lock it away. 

you couldn’t be mad at him, though - he was the only one that had been there for you when you got pregnant, that had been there when you’d given birth, that had made it possible, through rigid scheduling and his parents’ money, for you to finish your degree even though you had a daughter at home. it was weird because you hadn’t even really been close before your world came crashing down, but he proved himself to be the biggest help you could ever have asked for. so maybe, he was actually the best uncle on earth.

“are you ready?” of course it was mingi screaming, not your daughter. you’d insisted that she wouldn’t get to go trick-or-treating until she was five, because you knew not everyone was sensible enough to remember that there were small children outside that would get deadly scared at the kind of decoration some people found to be appropriate, and you wanted to prevent her from getting traumatised by random severed hands. but that had also meant that mingi had had to wait for five years to get to have a good excuse for why he got dressed up and excited like this.

“you look ridiculous”, you laughed at the tall man who had proudly told you he’d be a werewolf but looked more like a werepuppy.

“i don’t need your approval when i have toive’s!”, he told you, sticking his tongue out at you despite being 27 years of age. “and she said i look very scary and that she trusts me to protect her from all the bad and evil vampires! now get ready, we want to go!”

you smiled contentedly as you put on your black lipstick, the last little touch needed for your witch costume. you really were glad to have mingi, to have someone that could at least somewhat fill in the role of toive’s father. he made sure that your daughter never lacked anything and, admittedly, spoiled her a little much sometimes, but it was okay because it was done with love.

“done. let’s go?” both the werepuppy and the little piratess that barely reached up to mingi’s waist nodded enthusiastically, and you grabbed the big plastic bags that you’d spent the day painting to look more halloween-y and less grocery store-y.

going trick-or-treating was more fun than you’d expected it to be, your daughter scoring more candy than mingi and you combined by threatening every single person on whose doorbell you rang with having them go on the plank if they didn’t hand over all their candy.

“it’s unfair”, your best friend whined out when toive had once more scored twice the amount of candy as him and you combined, “when she threatens people it’s cute but if i threaten people i bet they’d call the police!”

“that’s because you’re a giant that could break my arm without effort”, you explained to him, laughing at his exasperation. it was just candy, but you knew he had a sweet tooth - she’d probably gotten it from him, even though they weren’t even related. bad influence. but it was cute, too, how happy and excited they both were, the excitement carrying over to you even though you’d insisted you weren’t a fan of halloween at all. but how could you not get excited when both of them were near vibrating with joy? your two favourite people were having so much fun and seeing them happy was all you needed to be happy yourself.

that happiness didn’t last long, however, when you rang on another doorbell, not thinking much of the surname ‘kim’ - near half of south korea’s population was called kim, so it didn’t even occur to you that it might be a very specific kim, a kim whose condom had ripped six years ago and had subsequently caused you not only the hardest time in your life but also more happiness than you’d ever thought possible once your little darling was born. a kim whom you’d never even told, because he’d had to move away before you even found out you were pregnant, and whom you didn’t want to hold back from his dream, so you just broke things off with him instead, claiming you were going back to finland. but it was this very specific kim, it was kim hong joong who opened the door for you and sent your heart into a frenzy.

“shit!”, you cursed out as soon as you saw his face, recognised him even behind his eye patch and fake beard, momentarily forgetting that your daughter very much should not be hearing curses yet, but luckily mingi got your back.

“shiny lights!”, he chimed in as soon as he heard the first few letters of the inappropriate word leaving your lips, successfully distracting toive from the fact that you were incredibly out of it, pointing to all the little lanterns in hongjoong’s garden. her eyes lit up, admiring the pumpkins he’d carved, and you were grateful that he’d put so much effort into decorating his lawn because it distracted her enough for you to have a few moments to collect yourself.

“y/n?” of course he’d recognised you, too, it would’ve been too good to be true if he hadn’t. and then his eyes went to mingi and toive, and you started panicking. he couldn’t accurately guess how old she was, but your reaction and the way you’d broken things off without ever even having hinted at you wanting to go back to europe back then made him suspect that she was his.

“your daughter?”, he asked, and you thanked the heavens that he had enough common sense to be silent so she’d not hear. you just nodded, not trusting your voice right now, and his next question sent even more panic jolting through your body.

“mine?”

now you had to talk, because she was here and mingi wouldn’t be able to distract her forever, and you couldn’t sort all this now. you couldn’t.

“not now. i’ll give you my number and you can text me, and we’ll meet tomorrow or something, but please, for her, not now.” and because he was still as kind and understanding as he’d always been he nodded, getting out his phone and saving your contact before getting your darling’s attention, pretending he didn’t have any kind of connection to you or her.

“hey, little pirate! have you found a treasure yet?” she turned around with so much energy that she’d have landed on her butt if mingi hadn’t caught her, then she came back to where you were still standing at the door.

“you’re a pirate, too!” she admired his big hat and the plastic sword dangling from his side, and he nodded.

“the scariest pirate in all of the seven seas. i have so many treasures i don’t even know what to do with them all. would you do me a favour and take a little gold from me, mate?” and he leaned down with a smile, holding the bowl filled with chocolate gold coins out to her.

“can i?” she looked up at you with the biggest puppy eyes and you couldn’t help the smile spreading on your face. and hongjoong noticed it, too, noticed the fond expression and his heart hurt a little at the thought that this precious little gem might be his daughter, and at the memory of the heartbreak he’d gone through back then.

“but you need to ask the captain how much you can take”, you told her and her little head bobbed up and down as she nodded enthusiastically.

“captain, sir, how much gold may i take?” and she was so precious that he was about to just hand her the entire bowl. but the last little bit of reason left in him told him that then he’d not have anything for the other kids that would inevitably come, so he had to restrain himself.

“how about you two swordfight and the winner decides?”, mingi suggested, mainly just wanting to buy you some time to check up on you. he knew that hongjoong was the father, of course he knew, and he knew that the man didn’t know. so this situation had to be really hard on you.

he didn’t know if it was because hongjoong sensed what he wanted to do or if he really just wanted to play more with toive, but he immediately agreed, getting out his sword to fight the little piratess, ‘arg’s and ‘urg’s to be heard from them while mingi put his hand on your shoulder before pulling you into a hug.

“you okay?”, he asked quietly, and you nodded, even though you weren’t sure if you actually were.

“he didn’t make me talk it out now, so that’s all i could ask for. i’ll probably have to tell him tomorrow”, you all but whispered into his shoulder, holding his biceps tightly to ground yourself a little as you felt the panic hit you again.

“you know he’s nice. and if he isn’t, i’ll beat his ass.” and had it been anyone else you’d thought this threat was just to make you feel better, but because you’d lived with this man for so long now you knew that he absolutely would.

“thanks”, you said before disattaching yourself, walking back to where the two pirates were still fighting. but when hongjoong saw you come back he took the final blow, sinking to the ground as if he’d received a deadly hit.

“you were a worthy opponent, little pirate. now it is up to you how much gold you will take from me.” and toive’s eyes shone brighter than the lamps surrounding you and the fake gold in his bowl as she put both her little hands in and grabbed as much as she could take - which, admittedly, wasn’t much, so mingi decided to help out because his hands were about as big as your head.

“you won, you deserve the reward”, he told your daughter as he scooped an entire handfull into her bag. he glared at hongjoong as he did so, a warning to not fuck up, and suddenly he did look like a werewolf rather than an adorable werepuppy. but his expression softened as soon as he looked at your darling that was his darling just as much, and the other man could tell that he cared. so at least the girl hadn’t had to miss out on anything.

you left for the next house soon after, your daughter and her costume twin ‘arrr mate’ing at each other, and again the tall man proved to be your hero as he pointed at another decoration to get her attention away from you and your ex-love for a little so you could decently say goodbye, because he could tell you needed that.

“i’ll text you soon”, hongjoong told you, and you nodded.

“thank you.” he knew for what. for not causing a scene even though he had all right to, technically, because your daughter didn’t have to see that. shouldn’t have to see that. and then you left, again, and he felt his heart break just a little as your form disappeared.

it was thanks to the werewolf that the night continued to go smoothly until it was time to head home, and he tucked toive into bed while you took a moment to yourself in the bathroom, wiping off your makeup as you tried to calm your rapid heartbeat. then you joined the two of them in her room, pressing a little kiss onto her forehead and promising that you’d hexed all the bad dreams so they couldn’t haunt her, and mingi promised her that he’d bite any vampire that tried to come close.

once she’d fallen asleep you left for the living room, him staying by your side as you grabbed your phone, knuckles white from the force you used as you gripped it. he put a hand on your leg in comfort as you unlocked it, and of course hongjoong had already messaged.

[unknown]: this is hongjoong

[unknown]: tomorrow, 10am, playground?

[unknown]: /location/

you sighed, then replied.

[y/n]: you know im not bringing toive

and his message appeared almost immediately after, as if he’d been staring at his phone ever since he first texted you.

[unknown]: yeah

[unknown]: but i remember you liked them. said they were calm

he was right. even before your daughter had lit up the playground with her bright smile you’d loved spending time there, sitting on the swings and staring up at the sky whenever you had something to talk about. that feeling had never left, even though you now had yet another reason to love playgrounds.

[y/n]: ill be there

and even though hongjoong wanted nothing more in that moment than to tell you that he missed you he knew he shouldn’t, so he left you on read instead, though both his thoughts and his heart were racing.

while he hadn’t been able to await the next day it came all too soon for you, and mingi once more promised that if hongjoong pulled any shit he’d beat his ass into next week. he was babysitting toive today, had promised her a movie and candy day so she wouldn’t miss you, and you couldn’t be more grateful to have him. maybe she didn’t have a father, and you didn’t have a partner, but the two of you had him, and he more than made up for it, even though it had cost him several dates. you were his priority, and you loved him for that.

the man was already waiting at the playground when you arrived, early as always and beautiful as always. he wasn’t wearing the pirate costume today, but neither were you dressed up as a witch, both of you looking casual but differently so. he looked purposefully casual, while you looked like you’d rolled out of bed and just put on whatever, dressed just to not be naked. and that was a pretty good representation of your emotional state - you just came here completely unprepared, you came because you had to. and you were scared.

“hey”, he greeted you quietly, but instead of greeting back you just burst out: “she’s yours.”

there was a moment of tense silence before he replied.

“i already guessed so. from the way you were acting.” you nodded; there wasn’t really anything to say to that, anyway.

“you’re doing alright? mingi’s taking care of you?” of course he remembered mingi, the goofy tall guy that you’d spent quite some time with, but he knew you hadn’t been as close to him back then as you obviously were now. he got an explanation though when you began talking.

“yeah, he’s been there ever since i found out. big scary guy, threatening aura, keeping me from the worst when i couldn’t really hide it anymore. he let me move in right away and he’s basically like a dad for toive now.”

it was a lot of information to take in at once, so he tried to find something small to focus on.

“her name’s toive?”

“it means ‘wish’”, you elaborated. “i was horrified as shit the entire pregnancy, so i hadn’t even come up with a name yet when i delivered. but as soon as i saw her i knew she was a wish come true. so i just called her that.”

“it’s a beautiful name.” you knew it was. it reminded you of the home you’d left behind to build yourself a new one, and it reminded you that sometimes the most unexpected things could be what your heart wished for. it reminded you to keep going, because you wanted to make her every wish come true. it was a very fitting name.

“she’s a beautiful girl.”

you saw him smile at that, smile at the memory of the little piratess he’d fought with the night before. but then he asked the question you’d dreaded most.

“why didn’t you ever tell me? you know i would’ve been there for you.”

a sigh left your lips, because of course you knew. and that was exactly why you hadn’t told him.

“when i found out you’d already moved. you were thriving and i couldn’t bring myself to hold you back like this. you deserved to live your life as you wanted to without having to worry about a family you never asked for.”

“did you ask for it?”, he asked you, and you shook your head. as much as you loved the little family you’d built with mingi, you hadn’t asked for this to happen.

“and would you want to go back to change this?” you shook your head again, and he grabbed your hand.

“so why do you think i would’ve regretted it? would’ve not wanted to know?”

you had no answer to that. maybe because back then you’d still been convinced the pregnancy would ruin your life, so it didn’t occur to you that he might not feel the same way. that he genuinely might want to be there.

“can i be there now?”

“you can get to know her, if you want to. but she doesn’t know you, doesn’t know who you are, and i’ll have to figure out how to tell her. so you can’t be there as her dad, not yet and maybe never, if she doesn’t want you in her life. if you can’t accept that, if you can’t put her first, i don’t want you there.”

he took in your words and nodded. he’d last seen you six years ago, so obviously she’d spent quite some time without knowing about him at all, and he knew he couldn’t just barge in and act like he’d been there all her life. he was a stranger, even though that hurt a little.

“does she have a dad?” and even though his phrasing was a little weird you understood what he meant. he wanted to know if mingi was her father, if not legally or physically then emotionally.

“she has an uncle that would lay down the world for her. and that won’t hesitate to break a few bones if she gets hurt, just so you know.” but you were smiling, finally starting to relax a little.

“i don’t doubt it for a second”, he chuckled, “he seemed about ready to kill me at the door. he really cares about you two, doesn’t he?”

you nodded, smile growing bigger at the mention of the taller man, and hongjoong felt a small sting when you told him how you’d never want to miss him, how mingi was as much a part of your life as toive was, how it was so clear that you belonged together.

“do you love him?” he didn’t know why he asked. he didn’t know why he hoped you’d say no. he didn’t know why he cared and he didn’t know why the thought of you being with mingi made his chest feel tight. he hadn’t seen or talked to you in years, so why did he hope that he still held a place in your heart? why did you still hold a place in his?

“i do, of course i do”, you told him, at least as surprised at his question as he was. “he’s like a brother, he’s been there all this time and it’s only thanks to him that i’m where i am today. but i don’t love him the way i loved you, if that’s what you meant.”

“you loved me?”

you didn’t understand why he sounded so startled about that. the two of you had gotten together pretty much right after you started university, and you’d been together for more than a year when he moved, planning to stay together for many more until life decided that it had other plans. of course you’d loved him. part of you still did.

“you were the first person i ever wanted a future with like that. of course i loved you. you meant everything to me.”

“i wish you’d never left.” his voice was very quiet, pained, made you want to hold him and apologise, but you didn’t know if that’d be okay with him.

“i missed you everyday. even yesterday, i still missed you. it’s dumb, but even though it’s been six years i still hoped you’d somehow come back into my life. and here you are, so maybe it’s not that dumb.”

now there was no stopping your arms from going around his waist, your face pressed to that one spot between his neck and his shoulder that had always felt like it was made for this purpose only, as you quietly told him you’d missed him too.

“it was so hard to watch toive grow up to be more and more like you but not having you there to see it, too. when she’d start asking about her dad and i could only tell her stories even though i knew she wanted a real dad, like all the other kids. and all the stories i told, they kept me from ever getting over you, but i knew it wouldn’t be fair to keep even that from her just because i was hurting.”

hongjoong was holding you tightly, a hand in your hair and the other pressing you against his chest because he didn’t want you to go again.

“let me be a dad. and let me be there for you too.”

his words made you look up at him in surprise, because they sounded so soft and gentle and full of an emotion you didn’t think you’d ever get from him again, not directed towards you, at least.

“for me?”

and he was looking at you, eyes wandering from your forehead to your chin, not leaving out a single detail. you’d matured, but you were still just as beautiful.

“i didn’t stop loving you. still haven’t.”

his words surprised you, even though you hadn’t stopped loving him either. you didn’t know what to make of them, what he wanted you to do now. what he’d expected to happen now that he’d said this.

“can i kiss you?” of course he asked. he was still the same hongjoong, the same gentleman, the same man that always made sure whatever he was doing was okay with you before he tried, and he still caused the same butterflies to fly around in your stomach. but now you had someone else to put first, you couldn’t risk falling back in love with him, hopelessly so, only for it to end badly. you couldn’t risk that when you had a child.

“only if you mean it. and not just now, but every single day. only if you can promise that you won’t hurt me and, most importantly, that whatever happens between us won’t ever hurt my daughter. our daughter. can you promise that?”

“i promise.” and he’d never been more sure of anything.

“then kiss me.”

he did. he kissed you like you were the most precious thing in the world and he kissed you as if he wanted to prove that he meant it, that he loved you and had already fallen in love with his daughter and that he’d even learn to love mingi as part of his family. he kissed you as if to make up for the past six years when he couldn’t, and you kissed him back as if to make up for every moment you’d kept his daughter from him. you kissed each other like you were in love, and you were.

and finally, you got the happy ending you’d been wishing for ever since you first saw the positive pregnancy test. finally, you got a family with the love of your life. and finally, he got to stay with you.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 18: Summers In Florence] [Series Finale]

A/N: If it doesn’t end with a wedding, is it even my fic??! 😂 For those who somehow haven’t yet read Baby You Were My Picket Fence (my most popular series), you might be a tiny bit confused during this chapter. Just roll with it. 😉 Also, COVID-19 doesn’t exist. What a wonderful world. Thank you so much for sticking with me and BYCNL. I love you all. 💜

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @loveandbeloved29​ @maggieroseevans​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @joemazzmatazz​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @namelesslosers​ @inthegardensofourminds​ @deacyblues​ @youngpastafanmug​ @sleepretreat​ @hardyshoe​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @sevenseasofcats​ @tensecondvacation​ @queen-crue​ @jennyggggrrr​ @madeinheavxn​ @whatgoeson-itslate​ @brianssixpence​ @simonedk​ @herewegoagainniall​ @anotheronewritesthedust1​ @pomjompish​ @writerxinthedark​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​ @allauraleigh​ ​@deakydeacy @bluutac​ @johndeaconshands​ @nyxaura​

It’s May 25th, 1984, and Roger and John are in Perth, Australia to promote Queen’s eleventh album, The Works.

Interviewer, daytime television host Ronald Inglewood: “Good morning and welcome to our viewers across Australia! We’re sitting down this morning with Roger Taylor and John Deacon, respectively the drummer and bassist of Queen, who are here to talk about the band’s brand new album called—quite self-assuredly, if I may say so, gentlemen—The Works. Hello to you both.”

Roger: “Good morning, Ron!”

John: “Hello.”

Interviewer: “And this latest album has been rather well-received so far, is that right?”

Roger: “It has, yes, and we’re enormously proud of it.”

Interviewer: “Now, The Works is a very different album than Hot Space, Queen’s sort of notorious foray into disco...do you think the back-to-basics, classic rock and roll feel of The Works has been the driving force behind its success?”

Roger: “Well, you know...I think experimentation is very important. We’ve always been an experimental band. The single Bohemian Rhapsody was hugely experimental, and that’s why it was such a phenomenon. We were experimenting long before A Night At The Opera, and I suspect we’ll keep on trying new things until we run out of ideas, whenever that is! I didn’t love every song on Hot Space, I’ll be completely transparent about that, but I certainly don’t think the album was a failure or a waste of time. It was an experiment. And The Works is an experiment as well, just one that runs in a different vein, I suppose.”

John: “Some people did actually enjoy Hot Space.”

Roger: “I think I know one or two.”

Interviewer: “Of course, it did have its bright spots. Under Pressure remains one of Queen’s biggest hits, doesn’t it?”

Roger: “Yes, and John wrote the bassline for that one!”

Interviewer: “Really?!”

John: “And Roger has his own hit on The Works, at last. We’re all very happy for him.”

Roger: “Only took ten years.”

John: “Fourteen, actually.”

Roger: “I’m going to murder you as soon as we get backstage.”

John: “You’re welcome to try.”

Interviewer: “Now this hit of yours, Roger, is Radio Ga Ga. And I’m sure we’ve all seen the famous music video, the hovercraft, the futurism, the clapping...we’ve all seen it, right? Where on earth did you get the idea for that song?”

Roger: “It actually originated from something I heard my daughter Violet say.”

Interviewer: “Fascinating! And you’ve just welcomed another one recently, haven’t you?”

Roger: “Yes, last month, in fact. A little girl named Nora. “

Interviewer: “Congratulations!”

Roger: “Thanks so much, Ron. Our eldest, Violet, turned two in January, and the idea for Radio Ga Ga came about when she was first learning to talk. She would always stumble around—you know how babies do—clapping her hands and squealing the most nonsensical things, and one day she started trying out ‘radio’ and then adding random words to it, ‘radio goo goo,’ ‘radio mama,’ ‘radio dada,’ etcetera. Well ‘radio ga ga’ got stuck in my head and I started sort of lamenting how television had begun to eclipse the radio as a medium for music and entertainment. We were on vacation in California at the time, and I locked myself in a hotel room with a keyboard and a drum machine to get it written. I initially thought it might end up on one of my solo albums, but then John heard it and wrote a bassline, and Freddie really thought it could be a hit and pushed to have it on The Works...and here we are today!”

Interviewer: “That Freddie Mercury has awfully good instincts about these things, doesn’t he?”

John: “Oh, he’s a genius, no doubt about that.”

Interviewer: “And John, I understand you wrote the other single released from The Works, I Want To Break Free. Any deep philosophical messaging in that one?”  

John: “Well I suppose we’ve all been in situations that feel...rather constraining or hopeless. And then things that bring us back to life again. So this song is about a character going through that process and coming out on the other side.”

Interviewer: “Indeed.”

John: “But we wanted to keep things amusing and lighthearted in the music video, hence the dressing in drag bit. And to our absolute horror, Roger was very alluring as a schoolgirl.”

Roger: “It’s true. I have irresistible legs. I was born to wear miniskirts.”

Interviewer: “Ah, this is the music video that is beloved in Europe and here in Australia but has stirred up so much controversy over in the States. Has the hullabaloo dampened your enthusiasm for the song, or even the entire album, somewhat?”

Roger: “We’re not bothered much at all, to be honest with you. It’s like I said, Queen is always going to have fun and experiment and take creative risks. And if people don’t like it, then they’re welcome to not listen.”

Interviewer: “Yes, yes, I suppose you could say that.”

Roger: “Americans, you know, they can just be so bloody puritanical. It absolutely takes all the enjoyment out of life. All the humor. Americans these days can be very difficult for us to connect with.”

John: “Well, not all of them.”

Roger: “No, of course, not all of them.”

John: “But we’ll start touring at the end of August, and we’ll be spending several months in the States, so they have time to come around to us. We’re all really looking forward to being on the road again.”

Interviewer: “It has certainly been and will continue to be a very eventful year for Queen. And for the four of you personally. A new baby for Roger, and you’ve just gotten married, haven’t you John?”

John: “I did, yes. And Roger was in attendance! No miniskirt that day, though. Sadly.”

Roger: “The whole band was there. And my girlfriend and children too. It was quite a party.”

Interviewer: “That’s wonderful to hear, considering the...the...well, not to bring up tabloid gossip, but the complexity of the situation. It was a destination wedding, wasn’t it?”

John: “Yes, we were married in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. It’s breathtaking, the largest Franciscan church in the world, built in the 1300s. And we filled it with friends and family and live music and flowers and food...all the trappings. Took about a million photos. Celebrated until dawn.”

Roger: “It was a very sentimental occasion. Everyone really enjoyed it. John cried.”

John: “I did, it’s true.”

Roger: “He promised he wouldn’t and then he did.”

John: “Well, you don’t have to bring it up all the time!”

Roger: “It was touching, really.”

Interviewer: “It must have been a magical time. You’re positively radiant, John! Marvelous. And some much-needed good news, I imagine. I understand you’ve recently gone through an exceptionally antagonistic and protracted divorce.”

John: “Well...uh...I suppose that’s...uh...”

Roger: “How about we ask you the same thing? How was your divorce, Ron?”

Interviewer: “What?”

Roger: “You’re on your third marriage, is that right? And I think I heard that the latest Mrs. Inglewood is very young indeed, almost thirty years your junior. How did your former wife take that news? How did your adult children? How was your goddamn divorce?”

Interviewer: “That’s a rude question.”

Roger: “Yes, you’re right, it’s an extremely rude question. So you shouldn’t fucking ask it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s December 25th, 1986, and the children are tearing open presents under a fifteen-foot-tall Christmas tree in the living room of Garden Lodge.

Freddie and Jim Hutton are serving cookies and milk and clapping their hands as they tower over tiny shoulders, cheering the kids on as they litter the floor with wrapping paper and bows and scatter their new toys everywhere: Care Bears, Magic 8 Balls, My Little Ponies, Mr. Potato Heads, Barbies, Etch-A-Sketches, Transformers, miniature Lukes and Leias and Chewbaccas, View-Masters with scenes of oceans and deserts and forests and stars. With so many fragmented families, there was only one logical approach to handling major holidays: convincing everyone to celebrate together on neutral ground.

Mary and Veronica are chatting by the roaring fireplace. Phoebe, Joe Fanelli, John, and Roger are embroiled in a brutally competitive Scrabble game; Dominique, smirking stealthily, leans over Roger to read his tiles and periodically whispers ideas to him. Brian and Anita are circling the flock of giggling children—Laszlo, Anna, Teddy, Evelyn, Lena, Antoni, Violet, and Nora—and snapping photos with your Canon between long, yearning gazes at one another, wearing matching Christmas sweaters that are a deep, passionate crimson. Chrissie’s husband Denny is admiring Freddie’s extensive vinyl record collection as he sips a hot chocolate and compulsively strokes his green-and-red striped tie. Tiffany the cat rolls around between his feet and occasionally hisses or gnaws on an ankle, which Denny takes in stride, as he does most things.

Meanwhile, you and Chrissie are camped out by the wet bar, drinking mulled wine and nibbling on cookies shaped like snowmen and reindeer. You give Veronica a wide berth with the children anytime you’re in the same space; she hates you, and she’ll probably always hate you, but she loves her children too much to poison them with that reality. Their happiness is her whole life, her purpose. And that’s the only thing that finally convinced her to come to the bargaining table.

“She seems...nice,” you tell Chrissie, gesturing to where Anita is crouching to wrestle a Yoda piggy bank away from Antoni before he can lob Teddy on the head with it. To John’s children, Veronica is “mum” and you’re the distinctly more American “mama”; and no one ever really taught them that, they just started doing it somewhere along the way.

Chrissie rolls her eyes and shifts Stevie to her other hip. For two and a half years after leaving Brian, Chrissie made it her mission to date at least one man from every country in Europe. She managed to cross off Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Poland, and Greece before meeting professional archer Dennis Clarke at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. They got engaged at Christmas, eloped on New Year’s Day, and had a daughter that Chrissie named after Stevie Nicks nine months later. Stevie Clarke has adorably chubby baby legs, wide blue eyes, and blonde hair without a single spiraled ringlet.

“My therapist said I needed to cultivate a rapport with Brian for the good of the kids,” Chrissie says. “You know. Be the bigger person. Get amnesia and forget about how he made my life a living hell. Act like I don’t want to freaking decapitate him. So I, trying to be nice, trying to rise above and make polite small talk with my nauseating ex-husband, made a comment about how much I liked EastEnders. So he starts watching EastEnders. Then he begins to fancy one of the actresses. Then he meets her at a movie premier in Beverly Hills and invites her to the concert at Wembley. Then he ends up in love with the woman. What the fuck. You couldn’t write this shit.”

“Love is a roulette wheel,” you agree.

Chrissie scoffs sardonically. “Yeah. Russian roulette, maybe.”

After his marriage fell apart, Brian bounced between New Orleans and London, liberated bliss and aimless, disgraced, black depression. Whoever Peaches is as a person, she couldn’t tame Brian’s demons. You worried about him almost constantly until he started seeing Anita. She’s cheerful and magnetic and persistently hopeful in a way that reminds you of Roger. She’s good for Brian. She’s good for all of you. Well...Chrissie is still coming around to the idea.

“I do like that she wasn’t fucking my husband behind my back,” Chrissie muses. “So that’s something.”

“And she’s good with the kids.”

“True...”

“And her hair matches Brian’s.”

Chrissie laughs. Her sparkling ornament earrings jangle, and Stevie paws for them with minuscule, uncoordinated, wrinkly hands. “Okay. You win. I don’t despise her.”

“That’s the Christmas spirit.” You knock back the rest of your mulled wine. “I’m gonna go search the refrigerator for cheese cubes, you want anything?”

“Yeah, a Valium.”

“Slavic Jesus would be horrified. And on his birthday!”

Chrissie grins. “Surely drugs would be the least of our sins.”

Freddie’s sunshine-yellow refrigerator is enormous and a labyrinth of shelves and crevices without a single tray of cheese cubes in sight. You sift through jars of olives, bottles of champagne, a glazed ham waiting to be put in the oven, a sack of yams, eggnog, rising bread dough, and numerous pies—apple and cherry and lemon chiffon, naturally—swathed in aluminum foil.

“Damn,” you mutter, and then you try a mysterious drawer beneath the double doors of the refrigerator. Lo and behold, it contains a sprawling tray of cheeses. “Yaaaaassssss.” You lift the tray out, set it on the kitchen counter, and peel back the clear, clinging saran wrap. As you spear cheese cubes with a decorative toothpick—the handle is a little plastic Christmas tree—and plop them onto an appetizer plate, you hear the click of heels on the hardwood floor behind you.

You glance back. “Hi, Dom. Can I offer you any of Fred’s extremely expensive and exotic cheeses?”

“Sure,” she replies in that effortlessly elegant French accent; but that’s not why she’s here. She’s wringing her delicate hands, which are bronzed from her last holiday to Ibiza and ringless. Dom divorced the husband she had back in France—or maybe he divorced her, who knows, that’s not your business, although Roger would tell you if you ever asked—and she and Roger signed papers for the good of their daughters. But being Roger Taylor’s wife is not always such an easy thing.

“He’s getting bad again, isn’t he?” you ask softly.

Dominique nods; but you already knew.

Roger was perfect for years after they had Violet: attentive, content, startlingly domestic. He rarely popped pills. He went to physical therapy. He quit smoking six months ago at Dominique’s insistence, around the same time John quit for you. But since the Magic Tour ended in August—and with no new tour in sight, considering Freddie’s seeming reticence about scheduling another—he’s started to drink more, stay home less, disappear at night citing dinners or parties or recording sessions that Dom isn’t invited to. He’s edgy and irritable. He’s rarely home when John calls. And you can see all those immortal shadows of imperfection creeping back into him like storm clouds, like smoke.

“I’m going to tell you something,” you say. “It’s very similar to what somebody else once told me. I wasn’t ready to understand it yet, to really let myself feel it, to believe it, but you might be able to.”

She watches you with those vast oil-well eyes, biting her lower lip, waiting.

“Roger is wildfire. He’s bright, yes, he’s warm, but he’s reckless and insatiable too. He always has been. He always will be. And that has nothing at all to do with you. It’s not your fault. He’s wonderful, of course, and you already know that; he dazzles people, he makes life so exhilaratingly beautiful that you forget what it felt like without him. But he’ll always disappoint you. He’ll relapse, he’ll cheat, he’ll come home late, he won’t come home at all. And he’ll hurt you. He’ll do it as many times as you’ll let him. But here’s the thing other people won’t tell you.” You smile at her, with empathy, with sorrow, with hope. “It might still be worth it.”

Dominique blinks, not understanding.

“It might be enough for you to only ever have part of him, because that part is so incredibly brilliant. It was almost enough for me. And I would never blame you for leaving Roger. But I wouldn’t blame you for staying either.”

And then you embrace her, and she latches onto you, her long manicured nails nipping through your sweater, her Coco Chanel perfume a plume that fills the kitchen. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. You hold her until she pulls away, swiping at her tearing eyes with slim fragile fingers, sniffling, looking away to hide her heartbreak behind her shock of glossy bangs.

“Here.” You pile an appetizer plate high with cheese cubes and shove it into her hands.

Stunned, she giggles. “All my woes have vanished.”

“That’s exactly how stolen cheese works,” And then, seriously: “Don’t be sad on Christmas, Dom. There’s plenty of time for that later. And I’ll do everything I can to help him.”

“That’s why you’ll never leave the band, isn’t it? You can’t leave Roger alone. You can’t let him destroy himself.”

“I owe him,” you say simply. “Without him I never would have followed Queen to London. I never would have found this family. I never would have married John. Roger took things from me, yes, of course he did. He took until I felt empty. But he also gave me the world.”

She nods slowly, thoughtfully.

“Please, Dom. Go enjoy yourself.”

“Alright. Joyeux Noël.” She gives you a parting wave and slips back out into the living room, where Freddie is now playing the grand piano and signing Thank God It’s Christmas. Roger is assisting in an increasingly hoarse falsetto.

A moment after Dominique leaves, John strolls into the kitchen, humming merrily. He stops dead when he sees your somber face, your shining eyes. “Who do I have to fuck up?”

You chuckle and shake your head. “No one. I just heard something sad.”

“Not about you, I hope.”

“No, I don’t have many sad stories anymore.”

“Yeah, me either.”

He reaches out to take your hand. A sapphire glints on your left ring finger, and it means everything.

“You sure you don’t need me to torment anyone for you? I could get drunk and plow my Benz into their house. Or write a scathing diss track about them. Was it Brian? Please tell me it was Brian.”

You laugh and twirl a lock of his fluffy hair. “That won’t be necessary.”

“In that case, you’re needed in the living room immediately,” John says, smiling. “Antoni climbed halfway up the Christmas tree and says he won’t come down for anyone except his mama.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s November 3rd, 1999, and Roger, John, and Brian are promoting Queen’s upcoming compilation album, Greatest Hits III.

Interviewer, daytime television host Brad Chenoweth: “Today we have a very special treat for our viewers. Here with us in our London studio are the men of Queen: guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist John Deacon. Good morning, and thank you all so much for being here.”

Brian: “It’s our pleasure.”

Roger: “I do screams as well as drums, Brad.”

Interviewer: “Hahaha, yes, of course. Now Queen has had an extremely busy year, and this Greatest Hits album has a few new selections on it, right? Take us through that process.”

Brian: “It does have a few new tracks, that’s correct. You know, ever since Freddie...ever since we lost Freddie Mercury, I mean, you know, it’s impossible to fill a space like the one that he left in the world.”

Roger: “Yes, yes.”

Brian: “But as difficult as it was, after finally finishing Made In Heaven in 1995 and getting it just right, feeling as if we had really done Freddie justice...we were left with this distressing feeling of ‘what’s next?’ What are the three of us supposed to do with ourselves? Split up and never work together again? Retire to the seashore? Open up some corner store to putter around in until we die?”

Roger: “A clog shop, perhaps.”

Interviewer: “You were thinking, ‘well hell, we’ve got plenty of talent ourselves!’”

Roger: “Well, talent, yes, but also energy. Drive. We’ve been working at being one of the best bands in the world for almost thirty years now, Brad. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to stop.”

Brian: “None of us wanted to stop, we came to that realization. And so we’ve done a tremendous amount of benefit concerts and recording sessions with some of the best artists of our time, and I think people who listen to this album are really going to appreciate that. We’ve got a live version of Somebody to Love with George Michael, and The Show Must Go On with Elton John, he’s just lovely to work with...oh and a rap version of Another One Bites The Dust with Wyclef Jean, which John was not exactly a fan of. But we all have to learn to give and take, don’t we?”

Interviewer: “Absolutely, and I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this record. Is there any chance Queen might settle on a permanent new front man one day?”

Roger: “If we can ever find somebody John likes enough!”

Interviewer: “But, truthfully...none of you wanted to quit after Freddie passed away? It was a unanimous decision to keep with it?”

Roger: “Essentially, yes. I mean I think it was an all or nothing deal, wasn’t it? If one of us left then that would throw the whole thing off. I was always adamant from very early on in the band’s lifetime that I wouldn’t be interested in continuing without John. And I couldn’t imagine him and Brian being left alone together, my god, there’d be literal bloodshed, someone’s throat would be cut within the hour, believe me.”

John: “We might have lasted a day or two. But yes, it was more or less unanimous.”

Interviewer: “Now you’ve always been known as the quiet, domestic one, John. You weren’t tempted by the thought of retirement? Not even for a moment?”

John: “Well...I think it depends on the circumstances, really. I like working, and I like touring and traveling a good part of the year. But I imagine I’d get very homesick if I was alone on the road. Fortunately, that’s not the case. So the thought of retirement didn’t appeal to me nearly as much as it might have otherwise.”

Interviewer: “That’s right, I understand that your wife has been Queen’s touring nurse for...how long now? Twenty years?”

John: “Since 1974, so that’s twenty-five years.”

Roger: “Wow. It’s been that long?!”

Brian: “Feels like yesterday, doesn’t it?”

Interviewer: “How lucky for you, John. And look, you’re beaming!”

Roger: “Get it together, Deaks.”

John: “I’m an astronomically lucky man. It’s like having home with you anywhere in the world.”

Roger: “She’s good for curing hangovers as well, so that’s useful. And she knits everyone hats.”

Interviewer: “And you’ve got children, haven’t you John?’

John: “Four from my first marriage, yes. They’re all adults now so they come to visit us quite often, especially when we’re travelling. It worked out beautifully really, because they’re very close to their mother, of course, but my wife and I got together when they were all still fairly young, and so she’s always been there for them as they’ve grown up. My youngest especially was a rather...how would you say it diplomatically? A spirited child. But he warmed to her right away.”

Brian: “All the children are still friendly with each other as well, mine and Roger’s and John’s.”

Interviewer: “One big happy family, huh?”

Roger: “There are still a good amount of screaming matches between us dads, to be completely forthcoming.”

John: “You have to keep things interesting.”

Roger: “Exactly!”

Interviewer: “Yes, one can sense that there are still plenty of egos in this room, even after all these years! Tell me, Queen is nearly three decades old now, a worldwide phenomenon, the second-bestselling artist in the UK of all time behind the Beatles...how have you stayed together for so long when most bands last only a fraction of Queen’s lifespan?”

John: “Well I think we’ve all, you know, for the good of the band we’ve all had to grow towards each other to bridge the disagreements and keep peace. For example, I’ve had to learn to be more communicative, more open to collaboration and change. I can be someone who’s very comfortable being in the background. But then I’m resentful if people don’t see my point of view, even if I haven’t properly expressed it. So I have certainly had to work on that quite a lot.”

Brian: “Yes, John, I think that’s very true. Personally, I’ve had to learn to not get lost in the details so much. I have a bad habit of getting so fixated on something that I cause a massive row over a vanishingly small aspect of a song that no one else will ever notice. It’s just not worth the strife. So I’ve really tried to avoid that. Although, I’ll admit it, I still occasionally cause my share of drama.”

John: “Oh, sure.”

Roger: “And I’ve had to work on being less...”

John: “Annoying?”

Brian: “Combative?”

Roger: “Fiery.”

John: “That’s one word for it.”

Interviewer: “Was there ever a time when Queen’s existence was in serious jeopardy? And if so, how did you pull through?”

Brian: “Well, to be perfectly honest, as a band we went through quite a difficult time in the early 80s. And then we did again in the early 90s. And on both occasions there was a real worry that Queen might be over and we would all go our separate ways. But what kept us together through that...and feel free to disagree, Rog, John, if you have a different perspective...but what I feel kept us together was this profound sense of family. Queen predates all of our marriages, our children, our successes in the music industry or otherwise. It has become a constant place of belonging in the midst of professional and personal turmoil. And now our partners and children have been integrated into that network as well, so even if an individual relationship is strained or falls apart, the gravity of the band keeps us all in a perpetual symbiotic orbit. And I don’t see that ever ending.”

John: “Yes, well, I suppose that about sums it up, doesn’t it?”

Roger: “Bleeding christ, Brian. ‘Perpetual symbiotic orbit.’ Just say we’re friends, you pretentious twit.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s August 19th, 2020, and John’s 69th birthday party is winding down as the sun dips lazily into the rust-colored western horizon.

You’re standing on the cobblestones in the garden behind the Surrey house. You had always thought it was too extravagant, too massive; it wasn’t until Roger sold it to you and John in the spring of 1982 that you realized it was the perfect size after all. Six bedrooms meant one for each of the children, one for you and John—the one with the blue-grey wallpaper and nautical decorations, to be exact—and the last for when Chrissie and Denny or Roger and Dom stay the night, which is fairly frequently. Your vacation home, where you and John spend most of the summer when Queen isn’t on tour, is a little country cottage in the sunlit Alpine hills of Florence, Italy. John designed it himself, every last detail; right down to the white picket fence grown over with ivy.

“Look what we got in the mail.” You hold up the invitation to show your husband, grinning, raising your eyebrows. “Guess we have to buy him another toaster.”

He reads the names on the shimmering cardstock patterned with jungle ferns and dinosaur footprints. Interesting choices. “Is Ben actually going through with it this time?”

“John!”

“Wasn’t he supposed to marry some Italian heiress or something?”

“Love can be complicated, Mr. Deacon,” you remind him.

When he smiles, crinkles spring up around his eyes. “Yes, I suppose it can be.”

“Ben Hardy’s having another wedding?” Chrissie calls over from where she’s shooting arrows at the archery targets set up in the backyard. Denny periodically steps in to correct the angle of her wrist or elbow. “And Queen’s invited this time?”

“Apparently,” you reply. “You could go too if you were still married to Brian.”

“Ha!” Chrissie cackles and looses an arrow. It hits damn near the bullseye. “Not worth it.”

“I’ll bring back all the scandalous gossip I can scrounge for you.”

“You better. What do the kids call it now? Spilling the tea? Spill all the tea, bitch.”

“Oh, kettles and kettles’ worth.”

“So a teapot,” John says. “Not another toaster. Maybe decorated with...” He squints at the invitation again. “What’s the theme? What do they like? Fossils? Brontosauruses?”

“Bizarre people,” Chrissie mutters.

“I’ll figure something out,” you say. “Something special. Something old.”

“John?” Brian shouts from the doorway that leads into the kitchen. Inside the refrigerator is covered with sketches and birthday cards and photographs curling and fading around the edges. “Anita and I are heading out now, can we get a hug goodbye?”

“Ugh,” John jokes. “Well, alright.” He gives you a wink as he trots off.

The Surrey house isn’t exactly roaring—John has never been one for crowds, and incidentally neither have you—but it is alive with his children and grandchildren and life-long friends. Not just his, you correct yourself. Ours.

Veronica—once Tetzlaff, then Deacon, then Tetzlaff again, and finally Kowalski—is not in attendance. You see her only at holidays and birthday celebrations for the kids and grandchildren, and even then only in passing. She is still cold towards you, resentful, extremely Catholic...although somewhat less dogmatic since her second husband Ivan, a former priest, left the Church to marry her. When the last of her children were grown, Veronica got certified to be a doula and now primarily serves unwed mothers seeking assistance from Catholic charities in London. She mentioned to Chrissie, who later told you, that something you had once done for her had inspired her to pursue it. That’s the only nice thing you’ve heard her say about you in almost forty years.

Roger wanders over to meet you, nursing a Heineken, stroking his white beard with his free hand. He and Dominique have always been off and on—including a few years in the late 80s when he moved out of their three-story Kensington townhouse and had a daughter called Adeline with some leggy, platinum blonde supermodel—but these days they’re mostly on. He and Dom had two children after their reconciliation: a son, Blaise, and a daughter named by Freddie after the Japanese word for tiger, Tora.

You gaze out into the sunset. Half of the garden is flooded with white calla lilies, a new bouquet for every February 15th since 1978.

“You’ll be sending back an RSVP in the affirmative?” Roger asks.

“Of course! Any excuse to visit the States. And I like Ben. Although he doesn’t look anything like you.”

He groans. “Those wigs, bloody hell.”

“It’s like they produced a whole movie just to have an excuse to make fun of your atrociously crunchy bleached hair.”

“And I bet you enjoyed that.”

“You deserved it.” When Freddie’s health began to fail and Queen stopped touring, you went back to school to get a degree in physical therapy. You and Roger have sessions three times a week, provided he’s on the wagon; and he usually is, nowadays. When he’s not, John’s the one to get the call from Dominique, and he hunts Roger down, convinces him to come home, works whatever quiet, soothing magic he carries around in his deep pacific blood. But right this moment, Roger is awfully quiet himself. His large, pale eyes—like clear water, like unraveling delphiniums, like the harmony that only comes when age burns away all those last entrenched talons of bitterness, of fear—skate over the calla lilies.

“Do you think things would have been different for us?” Roger asks softly. “If she had lived.”

It took you a long time to understand why Roger was in no hurry to get a divorce, to move you out of the Surrey house. They were the only ties he thought he had to anchor you to the band, to him. They were the only cards he thought he had to play to keep you in his life in any capacity. But John fixed that dilemma. He can fix just about anything, you’ve learned.

“No,” you tell Roger. “You would have worn me down eventually. You and your drinking and drugs and late nights and interminable recklessness. It might have taken longer, but we always would have ended. And John always would have been my home. She wouldn’t have kept us together. She just would have lived. And I wouldn’t have loved her for being a part of you. I would have loved her for whoever she was, whoever she grew up to be. But now I’ll never know who that would have been. I love the children I have, Roger, I do. But I still miss her, miss the person she would have been. It’s like chasing a shadow. It’s like a page of a book written in a language I can’t read. And it’s a feeling that never quite goes away.”

He smiles at you wearily, immensely sad, full of perfect understanding. “I know.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s October 10th, 2020, and the reception is held under shedding autumn leaves the color of rubies and imperial topaz and amber and yellow jade. The exuberant bride and groom weave through the crowds milling about the quaint farm, which is nestled in the hills of a small town in Northern California called Zenia. It belongs to Gwilym, apparently, and he and his flame-haired girlfriend Shiloh are shuttling tirelessly this way and that making sure everything goes according to plan. They don’t speak much to Ben or his new wife directly—there’s a stiltedness there, an uncomfortable period of readjustment that reminds you of how John and Roger were for a while after all the secrets came out—but there is undeniable kinship as well. Love can be complicated, you find yourself thinking, for the innumerable time. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Making the rounds with the bride and groom is a strikingly beautiful, dark-haired boy who wears a miniature suit and a perpetual, mischievous grin. The new Mrs. Hardy almost always has her hand on his shoulder, his back, wiping cake frosting from his cheeks, ruffling his hair.

“Eli is kind of a demon kid,” Joe Mazzello warns you. “But in the best possible way.”

“Hm. I have somewhat of an affinity for demons myself.”

“Clearly,” Roger quips, sipping pink champagne. The snack table is Halloween-themed and extremely casual: Cheetos and pumpkin pie and caramel apples and dinosaur-shaped brownies. Per usual, you’re grazing through an orange paper plate stacked high with enough nibbling material to keep any undesirable small talk at bay. But strangely, in all of the times you’ve crossed his path since Bohemian Rhapsody’s filming began, you’ve never minded chatting with Joe.

“Yeah, you two were married at some point, right?” Joe asks. Then he immediately blanches. “Oh my god. That was so rude. I did not just say that. I’m so sorry. I saw it on Wikipedia. I’m gonna go drown myself in the stream now.”

“No, you’re right!” you admit in a peal of laughter. “Briefly and disastrously.”

“It wasn’t that disastrous,” Roger protests, thieving a Cheeto off your plate. He misplaced his prescription sunglasses on the flight over and is thus relatively helpless.

“Rude. Get your own. They’re over on the other end of the table.”

“I can’t see that far—!”

“Dom?” you call as she sashays over in a flowing white dress and licking a stick of orange rock candy. “Please control your husband.”

She smiles. “If I haven’t managed it yet, I don’t think there’s much hope.” She nods to Joe. “It’s so nice to see you again. Meeting you people was the only bright spot of that whole movie ordeal.”

“What, you didn’t fancy it?” Roger jests.

“At least they included you,” you tell Dom, smirking. “They ignored my existence entirely. They threw in some random woman with zero lines and called her Veronica in the credits. Whatever.”

Dom rolls her expressive umber eyes. “Yes, how flattering, I was in two scenes and one of them involved a joke about Roger cheating on me.”

“You’re a star, baby,” you say. “Deal with it.”

Dom smacks your arm playfully. She may be annoyed, but it doesn’t pain her the way it used to. She’s had decades of practice.

“The script could have been better,” Joe concedes. Then he spies John as he approaches, almost drops his caramel apple, waves frenetically. “Hi, Mr. Deacon! Hi!!”

“Wonderful job with all of this, Joe.” John shakes his hand as Joe gapes at him, starstruck. He’s always like that around John, appreciative, in awe, acutely aware of John’s legendary place in rock and roll history; and you love that someone besides you and Roger look at him that way.

“Thanks, I did it myself. Just kidding. It was 99% Gwil.”

“Well, I’ll still get you front row seats at the next Queen + Adam Lambert show.” It had taken a long time for John to find a front man he liked...a long time. He drove Roger and Brian insane. He kept saying he wanted someone who was like Freddie and yet simultaneously not trying to be Freddie, someone genuinely kind and charismatic and empathetic, an otherworldly talent, a natural performer. And then, on an unassuming spring night in 2009, they found him.  

Joe claps a palm on John’s shoulder and grins, his eyes glistening. “I’m obsessed with this little old guy! Obsessed, I tell you!”

“You want to see how old he is?” Roger teases. “Lift up that hand-knit hat and see what’s underneath. I’ll give you a hint. Not much.”

“At least I made it through the 90s without requiring hair plugs,” John counters.

“It was from all the bleaching!!”

“Hi, Rog!” Ben shouts as he rushes to embrace Roger, nearly knocking him off his feet. Mrs. Hardy is still across the field, talking to Brian, Anita, Rami, and Lucy, and trying to convince Eli not to crawl into a chocolate fountain.

Ben Hardy has always been somewhat of an enigma to you, mostly because he’s nothing at all like Roger. He’s subterranean-voiced and emerald-eyed and brooding and guarded and seems so much older than his twenty-nine years, and then every once in a while someone will come along and light him up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Unlike Roger, Ben doesn’t light up for many people. He does for his son Eli, of course, and for Joe Mazzello...and for his new wife. He lights up for her like fucking wildfire.

“Ben,” you say, holding out a bag speckled with black cats. “I have our gift for you.”

“You shouldn’t have! Thank you so much.”

“You can’t thank us until you open it,” John chastises.

So Ben does. Inside is an album of hundreds of photos you’ve taken of Queen since Roger bought you your first Canon for Christmas in 1974: pictures that have never been released publicly of the boys at the Rainbow, at the Budokan, in Rome, in Boston, in Japan, in New Orleans, at Montreal, at Madison Square Garden, at Live Aid, at the Surrey house, at Montreux. Interspersed are some of John’s sketches, the only ones you can bring yourself to part with: close-ups of a long-haired Freddie drawing on messy eyeliner, Roger adjusting his sunglasses with a cigarette smoldering between his fingers, Brian tuning his Red Special.

“Oh my god,” Ben whispers.

“Most of those are very old,” you explain. “And I heard you both like old things.”

“We definitely do.” He hugs you, suddenly and fiercely and warmly; and you catch a glimpse of what it must be like to be one of the few people that he allows to truly know him, those shadowed depths to balance Joe’s uncomplicated light.

Maybe that’s it, you realize. Maybe Joe is more like Roger and Ben like John.

The wedding playlist is exclusively classic rock songs: the Doors and Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin and Queen. As A Kind Of Magic ends, the eerie opening notes of Hotel California ripple out over the breezy autumn fields.

“Not this fucking song!” Roger cries.

Joe turns to you, confused.

“LSD,” you inform him. “1977. I would not recommend it.”

“Noted.”

Roger continues, rubbing his forehead: “It makes me think of...freaking...weird, creepy shit...like swimming at night through cold water. But I just keep swimming and can’t get anywhere.”

“It makes me think of sharks,” you say. “Maybe they’re related.”

“Freddie always said it made him think of birds,” John sighs. “And the color blue.”

The three of you pause, nodding, remembering.

Joe frowns solemnly, peering down at his shoes. “I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”

“He would have adored you,” you say.

“Really?”

“Are you kidding?! You would have been best friends. Always looking out for people. Always plotting the next escapade. That charming chaotic energy. The utter inability to bake anything.”

“Awwww.” Joe beams, delighted. “I fucking love you guys.”

“That’s the thing,” Roger says. “People don’t realize it. We’re more of a family than a band. We find people we take a shine to like ancient treasure, snatch them up, sand away all their rough edges, show them everything the world has to offer. And if they can survive the casualties of stardom, that trial by fire, they become permanent. They grow like roots into our blood, our bones...and perhaps we claim a part of theirs as well. They become things we can’t live without.”

“And once you’re in the family,” John tells Joe with a fond, crafty smile. “You can never leave.”

[alonely-dreamer]

Dangerous Creatures | Chapter 36: Dangerous Friends

Summary: Mackenzie and Elijah go to Marcel’s party

Pairing: Elijah x OC

Words: 3314

A/N: Please, note that I am French so there might be some mistakes here and there. I’d like to thank @eywizard for beta reading this chapter for me!

Masterlist

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23: Part 1 | Chapter 23: Part 2 | Chapter 23: Part 3 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 (Part 1) | Chapter 25 (Part 2) | Chapter 25 (Part 3) | Chapter 26 (Part 1) | Chapter 26 (Part 2 & 3) | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32  | Chapter 33 | Chapter 34 | Chapter 35

On her knees, the seamstress focused on the needle, touching up the pants of her client’s suit as he admired himself in the mirror on his right.

“Damn, I do look good in a suit,” he said, making his friend in the cap laugh.

It wasn’t unusual for the seamstress to answer house calls, no, the only thing unusual about this client was the odd things he said. She felt weird as she focused on her work. She could hear the two men, but not quite comprehend what they were saying to each other, as if the words wouldn’t stick to her brain, turning into an alphabet soup she couldn’t read.

She thought she had heard names, Tina McGreevy and Joshua Rosza. What was the TV saying about them? Perhaps they were missing. No, it wasn’t that. Wait… who were they talking about again? Her mind was foggy and the more she tried to focus, the foggier it got.

“My guy at the docks is gonna come forward as an eyewitness, say he saw those two drunkenly fall into the Mississippi. They’ll be dredging for weeks, no one will come looking around here,” said the man in the cap, whose name she thought started with a ‘T’… Theo? Thibault? No… It was that.

“That’s good, considering one’s dead in a dumpster behind the county morgue and the other one’s a vampire now,” her client said with a chuckle. “Anything else?”

The words danced in her brain, refusing to form a correct sentence, refusing to make sense. As she tried to think back to what had just been said, she inadvertently pricked herself with her needle.

“Ow!”

She sat back on her knees and looked at her bloody finger. The man, whose name she thought might be Mark, crouched before her with a smile.

“Allow me, darling,” he said as he took her hand and brought the injured finger to his mouth.

She let him do it, even though her entire body was screaming at her to get up and go. Her mind was loud with alarms, screaming at her that it wasn’t safe, but she couldn’t say anything, couldn’t do anything but smile. His friend spoke up again.

“I sent four nightwalkers to look into a werewolf sighting in the Quarter. I haven’t heard from them since.”

Mark, or whatever his name was, lost his smile as he let go of her hand and sighed.

“That makes ten dead nightwalkers in the last week. You think the werewolves are back in town trying to start some trouble?”

“Look. I know you and Klaus are friends, but the fact is, since the Originals showed up…”

“Oh, come now, Thierry, you’re not still upset about that little toxic werewolf bite I gave you, are you?”

The seamstress barely registered the stranger who had just come into the fitting room. She felt like she was supposed to ignore him, to ignore them, to silence them out, and so she did.

“I see you’ve given him free rein of your compound now, too,” Thierry said with disappointment and disapproval.

“Yes. Well, seeing as my family and I lived here, built the place, in fact…”

“All right, come on,” Mark, or perhaps his name was Maxwell, interrupted their argument calmly, “you know the drill. Thierry is my guy, inner circle. Klaus is my old-time friend and sire. He’s also a guest here,” he reminded his friend. “Peace, all right?” he asked Thierry who nodded with a grimace. “All right,” he nodded as well. “What do you need, my brother?”

“I don’t need anything, just wanted to let you know Elijah accepted your invitation.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he smiled. “I hope you told him the rules.”

Klaus laughed. “He knows the rules, though I can’t promise he’ll follow them.”

“What about the witch?”

“Mackenzie? She used to love rules, would rather die than break them, actually. Now… not so much. But, no worries,” he added quickly to reassure his friend, “tonight is a party, no one expects a fight.”

“Right,” Marcel smiled unconvinced. “Let’s just have fun, eh?”

 ***

 “So, how’s Matt?” Mackenzie asked, picking up a strawberry from the bowl on the kitchen counter right in front of her.

The cooks were busy cooking food no one asked, or wanted, compelled by Klaus to act like they were serving kings and queens. The kitchen was filled with desserts that Hayley was convinced would make her fatter than her pregnancy.

“Sleeping,” Rebekah’s voice came through the speaker.

“Where are you again?”

“We reached Amsterdam a couple of days ago.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It is actually.”

“So, I guess you’re not gonna be there for my birthday, then…”

“My gift is already in the mail, it should be there in time.”

“I was hoping to see you.”

“Aw, do you miss me?” the Original vampire mocked over the phone.

“Don’t you miss me?”

“Of course, I miss you, but let me tell you, the phone system is definitely one of the best creations in the past century.”

“Yeah, well I was actually hoping to spend my birthday with my friends, you know, but Katherine said she had no intentions of coming anywhere near Klaus ever again, so…”

“So what? I’m your backup friend?”

“I’d have loved to have you both here but since you guys all hate each other, I think it would have just ruined the day.”

“You’re probably right. Just spend the day with Elijah, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to do anything you want. Birthday or not…”

“Fine, don’t come, it’s not like we can actually have a party anyway, in our secret hiding place away from Marcel…”

“Why don’t you just come join me in Europe? Leave Nik alone, he doesn’t deserve your help…”

“Well, that’s true, but I can’t just leave Hayley here alone with him…”

“You’re right, that sounds like a particularly cruel thing to do.”

“Anyway, have fun in Amsterdam then.”

“And you have fun at that party of yours, show Marcel what you’re capable of.”

“And how do you suggest she does that, Rebekah?” Elijah asked as he entered the kitchen.

Mackenzie smiled as she saw him, and leaned into him as he went to place a kiss in her hair.

“Brother, finally, you deign to talk to your poor sister…”

The Original rolled his eyes. “You’re always so dramatic, sister.”

“That bastard little thief stole our city and declared himself King, maybe you should show him he’s nothing but an ingrate little…”

“Alright, alright,” Mackenzie cut her off with a chuckle. “It’s a charity dinner, ‘bekah. We’re expecting champagne, good food, and dancing, nothing more.”

“You’re so boring. No wonder Kol hasn’t come around to visit you.”

“Ouch,” Mackenzie frowned. “Now you’re just being mean.”

“Heard from him recently?”

“He’s somewhere in Brazil, I believe,” Elijah answered.

“What the bloody hell is he doing there?”

“Who knows what our brother’s got in his head.”

“You got that right… Well, Matt is waking up, I have to go.”

They said their goodbyes before hanging up, Mackenzie still eating from the bowl of strawberries that was almost empty now.

“Do you even want to go to this thing?” she asked.

“No. But Marcel must have something in mind, and I’d hate to go against his plans.”

She smirked. “That’s so nice of you,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I am very nice,” he whispered before placing a kiss on her lips. “In fact, I have many nice things I want to do to you right now.”

“Ew, please, stop.”

The couple turned towards the kitchen doorstep to find Hayley standing there with a look of disgust on her face. Mackenzie rolled her eyes playfully as she took a step back from the vampire.

“What can we do for you, Hayley?” Elijah asked the newest member of the Mikaelson family.

“Nothing, I just came to stuff my face with the biggest cake I could find…”

“We’ll leave you to it then,” he nodded before he gently took Mackenzie’s hand and led her out of the room under Hayley’s uncomfortable gaze.

 ***

 So far, everything was going well. Elijah and his witch were behaving remarkably, the Original had already signed a check, and had been dancing with his companion ever since. Klaus was right. They looked unbearably in love. The silver satin dress she was wearing was remarkable as well, no doubt a gift from Elijah, and it complemented her set of diamond jewelry best. A swiss blue topaz gemstone rested above her cleavage, the necklace looked ancient, royal, almost, as if it had belonged to a generation of royalty and had somehow found its way to her. He figured many “lost” jewels had found their way in the Mikaelson collection over the years. He watched them carefully, tried to eavesdrop on them too, but they were smarter than to believe they’d get any privacy in a room full of vampires, and kept their conversation as polite and as normal as possible, as if they knew they had an audience. Eventually, Marcel had better things to do than to spy on the two lovers, and even managed to completely forget about them as Cami had finally joined the party.

“They spend their nights and days with Klaus - you’d think they’d be used to the presence of an Original by now,” Mackenzie complained about the pairs of eyes that hadn’t left them ever since they had entered the compound.

Marcel had gone above and beyond for this party. Dancers, acrobats, the finest chefs and the finest champagne… All the guests were having a great time and were happy to open their wallets to the charity of the night.

“I don’t think they’ll ever get used to us,” Elijah replied. “After all the stories they’ve heard about us, we were a myth to them until we arrived here.”

Mackenzie scoffed, wondering how long it would take for her irritation to turn into something more dangerous.

“If only they knew…” Elijah started.

“If only they knew what?”

“If only they knew they were worrying about the wrong person,” he grinned with pride.

She smirked back and nodded as she looked around at Marcel’s nightwalkers. “Indeed.”

That’s when she saw it, or rather him, a vampire she had come to learn was named Diego, entering the party wearing a shirt and jeans and an unhappy look on his face.

“Looks like something’s wrong,” she said as she watched him approach Marcel, obviously nervous about interrupting his time with Cami.

Diego whispered something into Marcel’s ear, and they could see on his face something was wrong indeed. Marcel started looking around and stopped as he found Elijah and Mackenzie surrounded by dancing couples. He frowned before he made their way to them.

“Something wrong, Marcellus?”

“Yes, actually, Elijah, something is wrong. Where’s Klaus?”

“I’m right here,” the hybrid said as he appeared behind him.

“Good, come with me.”

The three Mikaelsons looked at each other with an amused curiosity. Whatever was wrong, it wasn’t their problem, and if it bothered Marcel that much, it meant it was probably a good thing for them.

They followed him out of the compound, heard him order Diego to find as many nightwalkers as he could and join them at a place he called the Traps, which is where he was taking them.

“For a week now, my guys have been dying,” Marcel started his explanation. “There’s a werewolf in town who’s been killing my nightwalkers, and a witch or two have been helping it, using magic, undetected,” he informed them, barely concealing his anger.

“How is that our problem?” Elijah asked, not bothering to hide his lack of curiosity.

“Rumors are you’re at fault.”

“If we were killing your people we wouldn’t make a secret of it,” Mackenzie said in all honesty.

Marcel stopped in his tracks and turned towards her. Unbothered by his anger, almost bored, and definitely annoyed, she raised an eyebrow at him, defying him to attempt anything.

“Is that so?”

“That is so,” she confirmed, her eyes falling on Thierry standing behind him. “Want me to prove it?”

Marcel stared at her, put all of his anger in his eyes, tried to see something as she stared back, anything on her face, even just a little bit of fear, but he saw nothing. What the hell could she have gone through that had made her so tough? Or maybe it was arrogance? No, it wasn’t just that. She had something, she was someone, someone powerful, who wasn’t afraid of him, because he was no threat to her. Not only did she have Elijah’s protection, but she also didn’t need it, and that was scarier than Klaus himself, and as he finally found fear, it was unfortunately not hers, but his own.

“You were taking us somewhere?” Elijah eventually said after a minute of silence.

Marcel was trying to calm himself down, trying not to let the smirk that had appeared on the girl’s face get to him. He regained his composure, and his usual bright smile came and replaced the angry look on his face.

“But, as you are here, now I know you had nothing to do with the attacks on my men, and I thought we could go and see for ourselves who’s been causing so much trouble in my town,” he said as if he were offering them something.

“Sounds like a party,” Klaus smiled maliciously, encouraging Elijah and Mackenzie to relax.

Diego and a dozen nightwalkers had found them before they had even reached the Traps, and signs of a fight could be heard from down the street. Mackenzie could sense a werewolf and at least two witches inside, and vampires, dying one after the other.

Marcel gave Diego the order to attack, to kill whoever it was that was killing his own men in his own town. Among the screams of rage and fear were laughs - laughs Elijah and Mackenzie thought they recognized. She looked up at him and the look on his face confirmed her doubts. He heard it too, but she also felt it. A smile creeped onto her face.

“Call back your men before they all get killed,” she said, and he heard the amusement in her tone.

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s only advice.”

“Advice you should seriously consider,” Elijah added.

But Marcel shook his head no and ordered more of his men to go in with him. They couldn’t even see what was happening inside. The bar had no window, only a door that was now broken. But they could hear everything that was happening and that was enough to give them an idea of the scene. Mackenzie chuckled, seriously debating whether or not to intervene.

“Perhaps we should do something,” Elijah suggested.

“What is going on?” Klaus asked, obviously irritated he was left in the dark.

Mackenzie smiled as she moved to go inside. She snapped the necks of every vampire there with a wave of a hand, and they all fell to the ground. All but Marcel. The bar was completely destroyed. Only a couple of chairs and tables were still standing, but most of them had been used as a stake and were now resting in the hearts of a dozen vampires. She walked past a temporarily dead Diego and took in the scene.

A man, the werewolf, was standing at the end of the room, with blood dripping from his mouth, holding a stake in his right hand, the broken chair he had ripped it off of in his other. He smiled at her as he saw her, the blood on his face made him look funny and she held back a laugh. A blonde witch was near him, waving at her, her free hand magically pinning a vampire to the ceiling. The last witch sat on the bar, her hair, her face, her outfit spotless, as if she hadn’t been part of the fight at all, but Mackenzie knew she had the highest body count.

“Mackenzie!” they all greeted in unison.

Her smile grew bigger and a laugh escaped her. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We came for your birthday, of course,” Olivia said as she jumped off the bar.

God, Mackenzie thought. She looked so much like Margo.

“Mom says hello.”

“Does her Majesty know you’re here?” Elijah asked as he stepped inside the bar with his brother.

“Of course,” Felicity answered as she let go of the vampire she was holding against the ceiling. He fell with a cry, and her boyfriend seized the opportunity to stake him.

Marcel would have stopped him and killed them all, or died trying, if Mackenzie didn’t have him pinned to the wall.

“Lying to Margo is a very bad idea,” Oliver said.

Olivia gave Mackenzie a hug and whispered in her ear: “Heidi says hi.”

Mackenzie’s heart skipped a bit and as she backed away to look at the Princess, the witch winked. Elijah frowned.

“We have so many gifts,” Felicity said as she hugged the elemental.

“You don’t turn twenty-years-old every day,” Oliver continued as he approached them.

“Who are you?” Klaus asked dryly, tired of being left out.

“Klaus, these are my friends from Germany,” she introduced them, “guys, this is Klaus.”

“Well, you definitely picked the more handsome brother,” Oliver winked at her and was rewarded by his girlfriend’s elbow in his ribs.

Elijah chuckled. “You’ve been here for a week?”

“Yeah, we got here early, we wanted to meet the um…” Oliver stopped himself. “You know…”

“How do you know about it?” Mackenzie questioned.

“The oracles told mom. I mean, it’s not something you see every day.”

Of course the oracles would know about Hayley and the baby. It made them wonder who else knew, and if they needed to be more cautious.

“It’s just werewolf curiosity,” Oliver shrugged.

“Are Heidi and Alexander going to be joining us?” Elijah asked.

“And are they going to kill more of my guys?” Marcel worried.

“Not their type,” Mackenzie informed him.

“To be fair we wouldn’t have killed anyone if they had left us alone,” Felicity said.

“But they went on about how werewolves are forbidden in the Quarter, and that really pisses a werewolf off, if you know what I mean,” Oliver growled.

“Werewolves are forbidden in the Quarter,” Marcel snarled.

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“And you are?”

“I suggest you stick to giving your own men orders,” Olivia said with royal authority, “you are no match for us, as you can see.”

“We don’t take orders from vampires,” Oliver added salt to injury.

“I heard witches weren’t allowed to do magic in their own town,” Felicity continued, “another one of your rules, I suppose?”

“Shall we kill him?” Olivia wondered.

Klaus laughed. “Please, my friend here has been ruling over the Quarter for decades now, he’s just doing his job.”

“If his job consists of stopping witches from practicing their craft and hunting werewolves, then he is an unfit ruler and a change of leadership is needed,” Olivia said. “A good ruler promotes peace among all, and if you’re unable or too weak to achieve that, then you must be replaced.”

“I think there’s been enough killing for one night,” Elijah tried to defuse the situation. “Why don’t we take you to our place, so you can rest?”

“As you wish,” Olivia nodded. “We could use a home for the remainder of our stay.”

“I’ll let my brother show you to our place,” Klaus showed them out of the bar. “I will stay and help my friend clean up this place.” He gave them an obvious fake smile that neither of the three companions paid any mind to.

Mackenzie and Elijah looked at each other knowingly. Here went Klaus’ good mood.

**********

[manychocolatefactories]

CatCF Dark Chocolate: Part 2, the tour

Willy Wonka and his factory:

For the Factory in this version, I wanted to give a feeling of the factories of the 19th century. Something between a place where a mad scientist would work and a steampunk fantasy. Willy Wonka himself is based on Jules Vernes.

Willy Wonka himself is a man with an "impressive beard", a solemn but kind air on his face, and an overall feeling of knowledge and wisdom. Wearing a thick and tight jacket, a black top hat and a dark green coat, his appearance actually gives mixed signals: his short hair is fluffy and shaggy, like a man of free spirit, of amusement and not much care, but his beard and mustache are neatly trimmed and cut, like any serious and respectable man. His hair is brown, chocolate-colored, but with touches of white and gray here and there. His eyes are kind and twinkling, but his mouth is a harsh thin line. He is the kind of man that will say the most extravagant things perfectly seriously, but treat serious and common business as a joke. Don't think however that is an extravagant or funny man. Again, he rather gives the feeling of a kind mad scientist.

As for the Factory itself, actually the locals, the people of the town over which the Factory looms, dislike it. Sure, the Factory is admired by people wordlwide - tourists come to see it, painters come to paint it, it is a landmark admired in foreign countries. But the locals do not like it at all. It is a tall, dark, cold and stern building, with no color of beauty, only locked doors, metallic fences, thick walls and high chimneys. The Factory does not employ anyone of the town, in fact no one ever saw the Factory workers arrive or leave. Wonka himself has never left his factory for decades now. Couple that with strange white silhouettes seen at the windows, and the ramblings of the local homeless man who apparently hates the Factory and keeps insulting it, and quickly a bad reputation was built for it. Adults believe Wonka is trying to hide a shameful secret, the kids tell tales of "the haunted chocolate factory"...

In fact, I wanted an air of creepiness for the Factory. I took back the original idea of Dahl that all the workers are regular humans dressed in white, and I pushed it a little further: they are basically so covered in white you can hardly see them anymore. They have white blouses and jackets, white gloves, white masks, white caps, white helmets... After each kid's demise, a mysterious poem is recitated (like in Dahl's original drafts), mysterious voices that could be eithe the worker's or something else... In fact, with each kid demise there is an element of sppokiness which may be the kid hallucinating out of fear, or not (Augustus in the river thinks something is tying to catch him or drag him down  ; Wilbur and Rice in the dark hear and feel creepy things...). And Wonka himself keeps making ominous references to "selling your soul to the devil"...

But in truth the Factory isn't a death trap at all. Behind the scenes, the workers are just normal people with their own life and their usual office routines, and who happent to leave very discreetly the Factory. The Factory is also based a lot on the Menier chocolate factory, which is the "real-life" Wonka factory. I may speak more about it one day.

Anyway... now let's go on with the tour!

# The Labyrinth. Behind each entrance, before each exit of the Factory, is a labyrinth, a maze Wonka designed after the works of Penrose and Möbius. Only he and his workers know the way out of them. This is merely a security measure.

# The Edible Garden. For this garden, I wanted to insist on the idea of it being fake and artificial - Wonka didn't try to create a perfect replica of a landscape. This room doesn't even have any real sense in the Factory, it is merely a piece of art he created so that he could come in here to relax and mediate. There are no windows, all the lights come from spots on the far-away ceiling and the ground is grey stone (because Wonka is revolted at the idea of making grass out of candy, it would be too dirty). There are trees of hard caramel and mint candies, orchards where the fruits are made of gummy, lollipops shaped like flowers and numerous sculptures of sugar - none of this is to be eaten however. At the back of the garden, there is the Chocolate River. The River serves a double use: on one side, it is merely an aesthetic addition to the Edible Garden. On the other, it is a source of energy for the Factory - it used to be a water mill, and Wonka kept the ancient structures but replaced water with chocolate. As such, the production of chocolate actually helps create energy back - and the river ends with a series of different pipes, each one leading to a different room where the chocolate will be used.

This is where Augustus Pottle meets his demise. The competitive  glutton tried to empty the river of its content, and fell into it. Sucked up by one of the glass pipes, he did a long travel through the tubes and pipes of the factory, which crushed and reshaped his fat into a cylindric body - before he fell into one of the boiling vats. There, the heat was enough to have all his fat melt, like in a super-intense sauna. Hopefully, he was rescued before being boiled alive - but Augustus left the factory as a mass of sagging, extra-skin, his wrinkled folds dragging on the ground, like a skeleton wearing a bride's dress made of human flesh.

# At the back of the Edible Garden, there is a long hallway that passes by a balcony. Said balcony allows one to see the "Mosaic room", a place where Wonka makes mosaics out of pralines - and since the room is really vast, he can make giant mosaics.

# The Vanilla Fudge Mountain. While it looks like a miniature mountain kept inside a giant room, this titanic hunk of vanilla fudge is actually a fragment taken out of the Honeylaya mountain range (located somewhere between the great Black Thunder chocolate mines, and the sugar marshes of the Sea of Marmelade). [References to the Himalaya, the Black Thunder coal mines, the Black Thunder chocolate bars, the Sea of Marmara and salt marshes ]. This room is basically a copy-cut of Dahl's deleted chapter of the same name, with workers breaking down the mountain, piling the fudge in wagons and then sending it to the Cutting and Pounding Room.

This is where Wilbur and Rice meet their demise. Unruly, and tired of having all their pranks and "fun" sabotaged by Wonka and Bertie Upside, they decide to ride the wagons. Of course, they are sent down the Cutting and Pounding Room - hopefully for them, Wonka has installed an intelligent wire strainer/net that can catch all impurities detected, to clean the fudge. So the kids are saved, right? Well the thing is that, while waiting on the wire strainer for someone to save them, the kids, bored and gluttonous, ended up eating all the fudge that fell down around them. They ate so much of it, that the machine ended up identifying them as "fudge" instead of "impurity" (since they were basically 80 percent fudge after their gorging Xp). So they where sent down in the Room, thrown on a conveyor belt... ready to be pound and cut into slices. The workers realized this of course and stopped the conveyor belt before the knifes - but the kids still got pounded. Wilbur, who was lying on his side when he got pounded, became tall and thin ; while Tommy, who was standing up, got pounded on the head and became small and large. In fact, when they got out of the Factory, their angry parents ended up mistaking one for another and going home with the wrong boy.

# After the Vanilla Fudge Mountain, the tour goes by another hallway, this one with numerous tall and colorful windows - stained glass made of sugar. Each window illustrates a famous chocolatier or candy-maker, but in the style of saints in churches. You have Philippe Suchard (the grandfather of Milka), Henry Isaac Rowntree (the maker of the Fruit Pastilles and Fruit Gums), the Menier family (the biggest chocolatiers of 19th century and first half of 20th century Europe, and distant relatives of Wonka) ; the Murrie family (creators of Hersheys) and the Mars famly (bheind the Mars bars, the M&Ms, the Snickers and the Milky Ways). "All families" Wonla notes with an air of sadness. Indeed, Wonka always wanted a family - or rather at this point in his life he regrets to not have a family and an heir, isolated that he is in his factory.

# Inventing Room number 3. There are numerous "Inventing Rooms" in the Factory, dedicated to developping, inventing, testing, studying products or just do crash tests. The number 3 is clustered with huge, squat and heavy dark machines, with vats, cauldrons and ovens, and all sorts of other structures dragon-like due to the steam and fire they spill out. It quite a grim and sinister place, but it is also where Wonka tests his most fantastic inventions, like the Rainbow Drops, the Luminous Lollies or the Three-Course Meal Gum.

As you guess, this is where Violet Beauregard will meet her demise. I set myself a rule to avoid all blueberry transformations when dealing with the demises of the Violets, so here I rather use the tomato soup: after chewing (not only did Violet took the gum due to her "talent" but also because she misheard Wonka and thought it was a "tasting" room), her face becomes red and chubby, her skin smooth and glossy, her cheeks puff out, her nose bulges, her forehead bloats, her throat becomes big, her lips thick and her ears thin, pointy, green. Result? Her face looks like a mass of tomatoes. Tomatoes for cheeks, a tomato for a forehead, tomatoes instead of eyelids, a tomato for a nose and two for the lips... Think of the Arcimboldo paintings, how he made faces out of flowers and vegetables. It is the same thing here. And while her parent is furious at first, they end up actually realizing it might be for the better - because now she is truly unique and attention-attracting, and that's what her parents always wanted...

# Follows a long hallway with a series of different rooms: two are taken from the original book, the Fizzy Lifting Drinks and the Squares that Look Round. One I changed slightly: the Chocolate Milk Room, where Wonka keeps special cows that have a chocolate-flavored milk.

# The Heating Room. A room taken from Dahl's deleted chapter "The Warming Candy Room".

This Heating Room looks like the negine room of a submarine or a freighter, filled with turbines, pistons, pipes, wheels and pressure gauges. This is where Wonka creates all of his heat-related products: hot ice-creams to fight chilling days, hot ice-cubes to give back warmth to a cold drink, and finally the warming candies (see the original deleted chapter). Marvin Prune, absolutely outraged by what he perceives as Wonka breaking all laws of science and physics, tries to prove that he is a quack by stuffing himself with handfuls of warming candies. Which results in him over-heating: he becomes red, sweaty, thirsty, removes all of his clothes (save for his underwears) and screams to death.

Wonka will have him put in the freezer, and also covered regularly in water, to avoid him drying up to death or combust. But even as he is leaving the factory, he is still red, sweaty, steamy and in underwears - the falling snow melting as it touches him.

# The Nut Room. Another classic piece of the original factory that I wanted to reinvent. Basically, here the kids do not visit the Nut Room proper, but the Under-Nut Room, or Sub-Nut Room. You've got the Nut Room where the white-clad workers separate good nuts from bad nuts Then the "bad" batch is then in this under-room, where trained squirrels will sniff out any potential "good nut" the workers may have missed. All the nuts are on a conveyor belt, that is getting then thrown down a chute.

Of course, Elvira Salt meets her demise here by trying to take one of the squirrels by force, resulting in a squirrel attack. However, the squirrels do not push her down the chute. Rather, she climbs on the conveyor belt to avoid them and has her fur stuck in the belt. She could have escaped if she had let go of it, but she refused to let it go, so she fell down the chute... and Wonka cannot remember if this particular chute leads to the compost vat he uses to grow his fruits, vegetales and berries   - or to the furnace...

But don't worry, she actually falls down in the compost. Elvira will leave the factory extremely dirty, unbearably stinky, so much not even an entire week of baths and showers can remove it, and probably with one or two diseases, but alive.

# The Television Room. I did not had time to clearly prepare this one, but it will be where Michael (Mike) T-V meets his demise. Discovering he can go inside television, he is more happy to oblige, and is absolutely thrilled to be in his favorite shows. But as soon as he leaves the television, he realizes that he is now as small as a television character! No bigger than the screen! He will be sent back to his home, now only able to play with his toys and figurines, the only things at his doll-like size.

# The Molding Room

This room is also taken back from Dahl's original draft. Basically, it is where Wonka creates many of his chocolate sculptures - he has an entire zoo of chocolate animals, and very recently created a machine able to form men, women and children out of chocolate. And this is also where Bertie Upside will meet his demise.

You may be wondering: Bertie? What has he done wrong? He is kind, gentle, generous, perfect. He helped Charlie on numerous occasions, he stopped the mischief of the brats... Isn't he a good kid?

HE IS NOT. Grandpa Georges was right all along: if he appears better than the others, it means that he twice as worse.

Bertie Upside truly has a heart of gold. Which means a heart of cold and hard metal, not of flesh.

Bertie Upside is a psychopath, a sociopath, an evil little boy. Sure he knows how to put on a nice and gentle facade, but it is just manipulation. If he is orphaned, it is because he killed his own parents, and now that he is left alone with Charlie (Wonka being busy elsewhere), Bertie will try to kill him, just for fun, by putting him in the "Chocolate Boy" mould so that he would be smothered in a chocolate statue.

However (I have to admit this part is a bit blurry), Charlie will resist and Bertie will end up thrown inside another moulding machine... A piñata-creating machine. When Bertie will get out of the machine, he will still be a living boy... but now with a flesh as fragile as papier-mâché, and insides filled with candies. Now he is really a sweet kid inside as he is outside. And  he will have to be really gentle... if he doesn't want to break.

And of course after that Charlie gets the factory, as it turns out that Wonka was looking for an heir with this tour. Happy end!

   Now, as I mentionned a poem forms itself through the story, rhymes being added after each kid's demise (an idea originally taken from Dahl's first drafts of the story). It goes like this:

"Nine little children, in the garden they went,

But one fell, and then they were eight."

"Eight little children, an unruly mix,

Two rode to Chicago, and then they were six."

"Six little children went into a room as busy as a hive,

But one did not listen carefully, and then they were five."

"Five little children, less and less at every door,

One had a fever and then they were four."

"Four little children saw squirrels down the tree,

One fell down the squirrel hole, and then they were three."

"Three little children, and none are new,

One went to play and then they were two."

"Two little children, we are soon to be done,

One got his trickandtreat, and then there was one."

"One little children, everything he won,

He lived ever happily, and now we are done."

[sisoyyoalgunproblema]

Muslim attire in the EU

This is gonna be a guide to the bans (or lack thereof) on muslim attire in the European Union, country by country. Why am I doing this? Well, I’ve seen a discussion between  that you can read here about the ban on hijabs in public institutions in Belgium and France and how that’s done in the name of “secularism” (it was all brought on because of a gift-set of  Yasmina from wtfok, a hijabi muslim girl in a public school from Antwerp, Belgium) .

First of all, a disclaimer. I’m in no way shape or form an expert on this, I just have way too much time on my hands and want to understand the continent I live in and its relationship to Islam a little bit better. The information on here might be inaccurate or just wrong, I’ve spent only a few hours doing research, I know it’s not enough so if you know more be free to add your own info to this. 

I wanted to do a European list in general but there are A LOT of countries in Europe, so I’m limiting myself to 28, I might do the rest of countries another time, this is just to give you (us?) a general view of the continent.

I’m gonna put links to EVERYTHING so that if you wanna read the whole articles you can do so, the info there is gonna be much more specific, for I’m only doing a summary of it. Most of my links are gonna take you to articles in English, but some of them will be in Spanish, French and Italian, for those are the only languages I speak, I’d love to read the articles about Germany in German because they are usually more accurate than those in English, but I don’t speak the language, so I haven’t. 

Also, even though I feel pretty comfortable and confident in English it is not my first language (nor my second), so bear that in mind, there are gonna be some spelling and grammar mistakes, I’m sorry.

First of all, what is “secularism”? There are a couple definitions of the word that change it’s meaning, but I’m gonna use the definition presented by the Cambridge Dictionary, for I think it might be the most “european” one and we are talking secularism in the European Union, so, the Cambridge Dictionary defines “secularism” as:  “the belief that religion should not be involved with the ordinary social and political activities of a country”.

Having said this, I’ll tackle each country alphabetically in English (I’m including the UK because they haven’t left the Union yet). A lot of the info is gonna be based in this article. So brace yourselves:

AUSTRIA

Islam in Austria is the first minority religion. 8% of the total population declared themselves muslim in the last census.

In 2017 the Austrian Parliament banned all those items of clothing that covered the face, a law that mainly affects those muslim women who wear hijabs and niqabs.

In 2019 the Austrian Parliament passed a law banning young girls (up to 10 yo) to wear hijabs at school. The fine for going against this law goes up to 440€.

You can read more info about Islam in Austria here and about the hijab ban here.

BELGIUM

Islam is the second religion of this country after Christianity and the muslim population of the country represents the 7% of the total.

(I want to note here that the Wikipedia page in French makes close to no reference to the hijab bans in the country)

I think this is the country who’s hijab ban is making more head-lines as of late because of their last ban on hijabs in Universities (as of 2020) but the first hijab bans in schools in the country were seen in 2005. 

In 2017 the European Court ruled against two niqab-wearing (I couldn’t find the right terminology, if I’m not using this right, please tell me) Belgium muslim women who’d brought their country to court saying that the ban went against Human Rights.

The fines for not upholding this laws can go up to 150€ and can result in incarceration.

You can read about Islam in Belgium in French here and in English here. If you want to know more about the recent protests I’d recommend this article and if you wanna know about the ruling of the EU Court on the face-covering ban in Belgium, you can read this article.

BULGARIA

Islam in Bulgaria is practised by 15% of the population, it’s the second biggest religion in the country after Christianity.

On 2016 the Parliament of Bulgaria passed a law banning Bulgarian citizens from wearing burqas in public spaces, those who choose to oppose it will face fines up to 770€.

I haven’t seen much about Islam and Bulgaria, but the Wikipedia article is fine (you can find it here) and I also loved this article about how the Bulgarian government benefits from this ban (it could be applied to all the countries).

CROATIA

Islam is the second largest faith in the country after Christianity, but according to a 2011 census it only represents 1.47% of the population.

I haven’t been able to find any info about bans on either face-veils (burqas, niqabs) or hijabs, but the Wikipedia article if pretty good.

CYPRUS

Can I just leave it at “Cyprus is complicated af”, pretty please? Okay, the thing with Cyprus, without getting too deep into International politics, is this will vary depending on what you understand by “Cyprus” because if you ask a Turk, they’ll say there are two countries in the Island, but I’m gonna make this from the European POV, so the whole island is one country (please don’t murder me).

Islam makes up 18% of the population of the country (most muslims are in the northern part of the island, the Turkish part). There are no bans on muslim attire in the country that I know of.

If you wanna know more about Islam on the country I’d recommend this article, if you wanna know about the dangers of Imperialism and what the fuck is actually going on in Cyprus, this is nice. Oh! And this article about religions in Cyprus is good as well, but it’s in Spanish.

CZECHIA

So, Czechia (why is it spelled like this? why? I’ve had to check it over and over again!) so… Not much to say about this country (other than the fact that Prague might be my favourite city ever). Muslims only account for 0.1% of the population and I couldn’t find any bans whatsoever.

Oh! And its political leaders have proposed a ban on Islam itself, which isn’t Islamophobic at all!!! (according to their wonderful president refugees are colonizers, I love my continent :))

Okay, if you wanna read more about the whole Islam ban, this is a wonderful article to do so. And if you wanna know about Islam in the country in general, well, this isn’t the best Wikipedia article in the whole world, but it’s nice enough.

(I know my sarcasm is starting to show, I’m tired and I’ve only done 5 out of the 28 countries.)

DENMARK

And we’re finally here! The country with the little island for their muslim migrants!

Okay, joking aside, the muslim population of this country accounts for 5.4% of the total.

In 2005 the Parliament passed a law allowing businesses to ban women from wearing hijabs and on 2009 judges and jurors were forbidden to wear religious symbols. Some schools ban the use of head-scarfs. The fine for refusing to do so is of 1000 konner or 140 €. On 2018 they passed a law banning garments that cover the face.

This article is good for general information. And, if you want to know about the island, this article is good.

ESTONIA

Estonia has a very, very, very small Islamic community (0.1% of the total) and there’s not even one (1) Mosque in the country, although they practice in a Muslim Community centre.

Sorry I couldn’t find more info, you can read this, but it isn’t much.

FINLAND

Finland, 2.7% of the country’s population is Muslim. And… That’s all I could find? I’m sorry, really, if you want more info I can throw in the fact that “The Baltic Tatars” are a thing and they sound super cool.

Here’s the article.

FRANCE

Oh, France, the first country that used secularism to hide islamophobia, the land of Moliere, Champagne, my favourite cheese, Simone de Beauvoire… And the birthplace of the European hijab ban.

Okay, so things didn’t happen over night, in 1989 the French Minister of Education stated that it was up to the educators to accept or refuse the use of head-scarfs in their classrooms. In 2004 the French government banned religious symbols in schools and public places altogether (something that somehow only affects muslim women).

In 2010 dresses that covered ones face were banned (something that, again, mainly affect muslim women).

In 2016 there were very strong attempts to ban burkinis that were overthrown.

Oh! Muslims account for 8.8% of the total population in France.

To read more about Islam in France this article is good. And I’ve loved this article about the hijab in France. If you want something in French you can read this.

GERMANY

Muslims in Germany account for over 11.6% of the total population of the country.

In 2017 the government passed a law banning the covering of the face for soldiers and state-workers during work hours.

This article is great to get a superficial view about Islam in Germany.

GREECE

Muslims in Greece account for 4.7% of the population, I haven’t found much else other than the fact that there are two distinct groups, those who have been there since the Ottoman Empire and those who came in the late 20th century, early 21st.

I really liked this article, it’s not wikipedia.

HUNGARY

Muslims in Hungary make for less than 0.1% of the population. I haven’t found any information on bans on veils, but the country right now is ruled by the far-right and they won’t take any refugees (I know not all refugees identify as muslim but, believe me, in Europe everyone views them as muslim).

I got the info from this article, but I liked this article on Islam in Hungary much better, it just didn’t have the info I was looking for.

IRELAND

Ireland has a muslim population of 0.9% of the total of the country. Ireland is a fun country to do on this list because of the declaration from their Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, in 2018, about weather to ban veils or not, stating: “I don’t like it but I think people are entitled to wear what they want to wear. […] I believe in the freedom of religion. I don’t agree with the doctrine of every religion or necessarily any religion, but I do believe in the freedom of religion.”

You can read more about Ireland and Islam in this article.

ITALY

Muslims in Italy represent 2.3% of the total population, in 2015, Lombardy (a region in northern Italy) banned the use of burqas in hospitals and local governament buildings. Anyway, this article gives you a pretty good overview on Islam in Italy and this one on the Lombardy burqa ban.

LATVIA

Muslims make up around 1% of the population in the country, I couldn’t find anything about bans on veils in the country, or Islam in  general, but this article is an overview and this one talks about the experience of a muslim man in Latvia.

LITHUANIA

The only thing I’ve been able to find is that Lithuanian Tatars make for 0.1% of the population, but I couldn’t find anything about other Islamic families living in the country. You can read more on Islam’s history in the country in this article.

LUXEMBURG

The muslim population in Luxembourg accounts for 0.02% of the total population of the country, as fas as I know, there are no bans on veils, either hijabs or face-veils. So… Yeah, here’s a link, I couldn’t find much info on Islam in the country.

MALTA

Malta’s muslim community represents less than 1% of the country’s population.

In Malta, muslim women have to remove their veil when taking identification photos, but other than that, they can wear whatever they want, even though there was a proposal to ban burqas and niqabs in 2015, it was overthrown.

I couldn’t find much about Islam in Malta, mainly this article and this one about the proposal to ban full face veils. 

NETHERLANDS

5% of the population in the Netherlands practice Islam according to a 2018 census.

In 2019 the Netherlands passed a law banning the use of burqas and niqabs, but not without controversy, Amsterdam’s mayor has opposed the law since the beginning and the actual enforcement of such law is in question.

You can read more about the history of Islam in the Netherlands in this article and about the ban on burqas in this one.

POLAND

Today, less than 0.1% of the population of this country declares themselves as muslim, but it’s one of the most Islamophobic countries in the continent, although I haven’t been able to find any bans on veils, probably because the majority of muslims are Lipka Tatars and the women of that group traditionally don’t wear hijab.

You can read more about this in this article.

PORTUGAL

The muslim population of Portugal represents less than 1% of the total, I haven’t been able to find any info on veil bans, but I got everything from  this article.

ROMANIA

Muslims in Romania make up for the 0.3% of the population. As far as I’ve seen, there are no bans on veils in this country.

You can read more about Islam in Romania here.

SLOVAKIA

Less than 0.1% of the country’s population practice Islam and the country does not have a mosque. I haven’t been able to find anything about veil bans in the country, but they did ban Islam from becoming an official religion on 2016 and mosques in general (people worship in the Islamic Centre of Cordoba).

This is what I’ve been able to find about Islam in the country, this article is about the ban on mosques.

SLOVENIA

Muslims make up about 2.4% of the country’s population. I couldn’t find much else, and nothing on bans on veils. I got my info from this article.

SPAIN

Islam is practised in Spain by 4.5% of the country’s population. 

Some cities in the country (such as Barcelona, Tarragona and Lleida) have banned the use of burqas and niqabs since 2010 and, although the Senat has pressured the government to do so nation-wide, their proposal didn’t pass the Parliament nor the Government itself, no no action has been taken.

(Also, I’ve seen people in both burqas and niqabs in Barcelona, so I don’t know if the law is being applied)

Finding info on Islam in Spain is tricky because most articles talk about the 12th century and things like that, but this one in Spanish is pretty good.

SWEDEN

Sweden’s muslim population makes up for 8.1% of the total. In 2019 a few municipalities banned the use of the hijab in educational institutions.

You can read more about all of this here.

UNITED KINGDOM

Muslims represent 4.4% of the total population in the UK and there’s no law banning islamic dress.

You can read more about this here.

THE EUROPEAN UNION AND ITS VALUES

I know many defend the banning of such items of clothing stating that secularism is a European value, so I took the liberty of going into the EU official site and look up its values (you can find it all here). This are the values of the EU:

Human dignity

Freedom (yeah, freedom of religion and expression are included within the EU’s definition of freedom)

Democracy

Equality

Rule of law

Human Rights (again the right to be free of discrimination because of religion is here)

So, no “secularism” isn’t a European value, freedom of expression and of religion and faith are. So, although the EU has ruled in favour of this bans multiple times, those are not upholding European Values.

Also, I’ve been very careful to put the years all this bans have been approved because, if you look closely, you’ll see that these bans are the outcome of the Islamophobia, xenophobia and radicalism that has taken Europe (and the west) by storm after 9/11 and the Mediterranean Migratory Crisis.

OTHER RANDOM THINGS I’VE SEEN, LIKED BUT DON’T KNOW HOW TO WORK INTO THIS LONG ASS POST

I really liked this article about how Europe banned veils and now face-masks are mandatory in most places.

This article also touches on Turkey, Russia and other European countries.

I love this article about how wearing a hijab in a lot of places of Europe has become a symbol of resistance. 

A LITTLE NOTE FROM ME TO YOU

If you have gotten this far, I’m honestly surprised, I did this more for myself than others, but I really wanted to share it once it was done. Hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned something from it. I love you all 💜

[emmettblack]

“ Dear Blackthorne and Gallagher,

I guess, thank you for shaping me into the person that I am today. During these four years, especially this last one, I’ve become someone that not only my family could be proud of, but a person who others could trust. I’ve grown up, especially a lot during my last semester. I’ve met people who won’t just be allies in the future, but genuine friends. And I even met someone important to me, something that I wasn’t expecting to happen until... I guess never. But I have someone and it’s thanks to you, Gallagher. Thank you, for everything. I’m glad that I’ve been able to attend my family’s sister school.

- Emmett Blackthorne  “

With the letter in hand and lighter in the other, Emmett stood before Gillian’s statue, smiling at it. With the flick of a switch, he set ablaze to the letter, watching as his short note burned before him and Gilly. “This begins, a new era,” he said to the statue, as if she was there, as if she was listening. “For both Blackthorne and Gallagher.”

graduation & state fair

To hear his name called and his walk up to get his diploma, it was everything that Emmett was expecting. To gathering his fourth year friends to get a picture with him, a picture that would be placed in a frame next to his bed. To getting a picture with just him and Vida ( @venividavici ), that would soon become his phone background for two weeks before he changed it to just Vida. To his family, that all stood tall and proud, all eyes of the graduation attendees on the notorious family that pulled their youngest member into a huge hug. Emmett Blackthorne has become the first in their family to attend both Blackthorne and Gallagher, thus marking the start of a new era.

His family’s manor wasn’t that far from Gallagher, it was actually an hour away from Blackthorne. Driving past his old school, he remembered how as child he believed that he would go there and graduate from the place just like those before him. Now, he was happy that no one else had to be subjected to what the school had to offer, even if it pained him to admit to it. Maybe that was why his father and uncle worked hard to show him love and compassion, so that when time came for him to attend Blackthorne, that the school would affect him deeply like it did for many others. After all, Emmett was the start of a new era, history could not repeat itself.

He didn’t come home alone, there was Landon ( @specdracers ) who showed up a week later with his belongings and a huge grin on his face. His grandmother welcomed him without a problem, always loving the idea of having more grandchildren. It was always a wonder how someone like her met his grandfather, a man so emotionally unattached and distance. “Your grandfather is a good man,” she said to him once after the older man yelled at a sixteen year old Emmett for slacking during training. “He just wants what best for you. And unfortunately, how he shows that isn’t in the best way.” Even she was aware of the cycle that his grandfather was forced into, how the older man was trapped and couldn’t his way out. Or maybe he did find an opening and it was his grandmother, the first person to show him compassion and to give him a chance. A tunnel that would lead him to freedom.

Landon’s stay was appreciated in the household. The two boys played video games, hung out outside of the manor, helped his grandmother cook, trained with his uncle, and played D&D. An activity that was kept under wraps after a year of playing, it was now known to at least seven people. Four out of the seven he didn’t even tell himself! Despite not knowing how to play, Landon fit right into the group. From his grandmother’s pleas for not attacking murderous trees, his uncle wanting to fight the murderous trees, his grandfather’s grunts, and his mother’s snide comments. This was the side of the Blackthorne family that people didn’t get to see unless they were trustworthy enough, and his friend fit into the category of being trustworthy.

Of course, he couldn’t forget about Vida. The pair who texted every single day, FaceTime until late at night, and who made plans to meet before Berlin. Trips were made to see each other, to hold on and act as if this was their first time in a relationship. To the many pictures that he constantly took of her, kisses left on top of her knuckles, kisses that turned into more in the back of his car, and then quickly having to get themselves back together before heading back inside. It was then that his hand would find it’s way to hers, fingers locking together to show that he wasn’t leaving her, that he was here to stay. Maybe he realized it before, months before the beginning of their relationship, that Vida made him feel safe and at peace. That being with her was the best thing that could’ve happened for him and when it did, he was set for life.

To spend time with his two faves, Emmett tugged the two into his car and drove the trio to the state fair. It had been years since he last attended so it was the perfect to come back. With someone who represented his new allies and the other who represented a future full of happiness, this was a new era. They played games and won prizes. ate a lot of food, got on a few rides, and even got on a ferris wheel cart. The three walked around as if they were normal civilians, that they weren’t hiding the fact that in less than a month, they were heading to Berlin for more training. As if the didn’t know how to break a person’s arm or know how to hot wire a car. No, they were just three young adults enjoying themselves and their youth. Something that they deserve to have; peace.

This was his last semester before adulthood truly began. Berlin was his last chance to see his friends before he had to say goodbye to them for whoever knows how long. For now, he was going to bask in his youth, in the fun, in a life that he has known for so long before he had to grow up. And honestly, he was happy to be the person that he was today.

birthday trip to greece

After seeing Landon off, Emmett was back to being the only grandchild within his family’s home. It was then that his stomach churned with having to tell his family the truth about his future, a decision that he made for himself just a few weeks ago. It was nerves that ate away at him, telling him that he needed to say something or else he would forever be deemed a coward. A cowardly Blackthorne, the first of his family. And maybe he was acting cowardly as he sat at the dinner table, silent despite the words sitting at the tip of his tongue. No matter how much he wanted to say it or how close to the edge the words were, nothing was said as he heard those words from his grandfather. “One day, you will be the next leader of our family and you will continue to uphold family traditions.” He felt like shit after that.

The best part about time before Berlin was the planned birthday trip for Vida, since her birthday was the week prior to their internship. The couple decided that spending time together in Greece would be a lot of fun, a week with just them and no interruptions. So, they packed up for both Greece and Berlin, saying bye to their families a week earlier than expected. It felt like they were on their honeymoon trip, going to Europe together and being in love. Was he in love with Vida? Honestly, Emmett wasn’t sure. Love has always seemed like something that he would never experience. While his parents were able to find each other and were so deeply in love, the concept never seemed like something he could obtain. But then he met Vida and like, really met her. Not just someone from another well off family who he knew of. But as an actual person who he could open up in front of and be himself, his true self. It was… nice.

When they arrived, of course they went straight to the hotel and fell asleep due to their long flight. But as soon as they woke up, that was when the fun began. Sight seeing, shopping, going to different restaurants, taking pictures together, making out, having sex, and just that couple shit. With her hand in his, Emmett felt so safe and on cloud nine. Being able to walk and talk like normal people, well, rich normal people, was out of the ordinary for them. No need to look over their backs or having to worry about watching someone, they were two young adults enjoying their “honeymoon” together.

At night, the duo tried to stay up as late as possible. Because as soon as they fell asleep and woke up, they were one day closer to going back to their regular lives. That shouldn’t have been a problem but Emmett found himself loving this side of them, not wanting to let it go. But alas, they only had two more days left before having to fly off to Berlin. Don’t worry, those days were spent accordingly with romantic dinners and him being the biggest simp out there.

During their last night in Greece while Vida was sleeping soundly, Emmett got out of bed and picked up his phone, heading straight for the balcony. Well, this was his moment to finally say something. Clicking on the name of his desire on his phone and placing it up against his ear, he stood there, waiting for the other person to answer.

“Emmett,” came his grandfather’s voice. “Why are you calling me so early in the morning?”

He swallowed his spit, trying to figure out the right words to say. “I, um—”

“Is everything alright in Greece? No one has attacked you?”

“No, sir.”

“Has the Torres girl done anything to you?”

“No sir and her name is Vida.”

“Then what is the problem?”

Once again, silence took over, his nerves from just a week ago making an appearance. He was never the nervous type, whenever he was, it was rare and only during such crucial moments of his life. Such as anything that had to do with grandfather’s genuine approval. And this very moment, was probably the most that has ever been nervous. “Grandfather,” he began, finally finding something to say. “I haven’t been honest with you or anyone in our family really.” Or even with himself for that matter.

“Well, what is it? We both know that I—”

“I have decided to work elsewhere instead of with the family.” Silence on the other line as Emmett just let the words out and free. “I know that I’ve been training for this day and that everyone has been looking forward to it, but I just want—”

“Emmett…”

“— to try something out on my own without my name—”

“Emmett…”

“— being the reason why I got a job and because my family—”

“Ji-Hun.”

Emmett froze at the sound of the Korean name that his mother’s family gave him. It was only ever used by his mother, her side of the family, and sometimes his grandfather. But only when his grandfather was being serious (honestly, when wasn’t he serious?). “How long have you wanted to say this?”

“I’ve had these thoughts for a few months now,” he answered honestly, back leaning up a against the wall. “Didn’t really give into the thoughts until last week. And I wanted to tell all of you, I really did, but… I don’t know, the fear of disappointing you just took over.”

“Disappointing— why would you think that you would do that?” Once again, he was silent, not sure of the right words to say. It was his grandfather’s sigh that filled in the space. “Ji-Hun, I am not disappointed in you because you want to do other work, but I am disappointed in you for keeping it a secret for so long. We’ve raised you better than this.”

It was during this that the act of smoking seemed appropriate, as it would fit the mood and settle his nerves. “I know and I’m sorry. I just didn’t know how to bring it up without feeling like a traitor to the family,” he said, expecting to have the older man stop him but was met with silence on the other line. “You’ve been preparing me every single day since I was child to work in the family business, it’s my destiny to work with everyone.” There was a hard ‘but’ that could be felt at this point. “And don’t get me wrong, I’ve been waiting for this day to come because I’ve wanted to be just like you, I wanted to make you out of everyone proud of me. But I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to. Or maybe I was doing it for myself but as the years went by... it just didn’t feel right anymore. I want to do something for myself, no one else. I’m not doing this for you, grandfather, I’m doing this for myself.”

There was silence for a few seconds, but it felt like hours had gone by. Until his grandfather finally spoke up and he... was so understanding. It was a shock, listening to the older man tell him that it was okay, that Emmett was okay and that he wasn’t a disappointment. This was his way of breaking the cycle, the never ending cycle of forcing someone to do what the family believes to be right. Maybe it was his because of his father and uncle’s influence, the two older man wanting Emmett to live a life different from their own. Or maybe it was his grandmother who didn’t like Blackthorne’s influence over her husband and sons. Or maybe, deep down, his grandfather has always wanted to break away. He just never had the chance to do so. Not until the birth of his grandchild, that was when he knew, that this could all end. 

From there, his grandfather asked him questions. Where did he want to work (”MI6, going there with Vida.”), is he prepared to work from the bottom up (”Of course, I can do anything, I’m a Blackthorne of course.”), and his plans with Vida (”You’ve been spending a lot of time with her.” This was the first time that he has heard his grandfather tease him.). The call lasted for an hour, the two opening up to each other for the first time in forever. Genuinely listening and expressing their feelings, laughing with one another, joking, JOKING with each other. Who would’ve thought that the head of the Blackthorne family could joke around, Emmett didn’t. 

It was his grandfather who had to end the call, realizing that it was nearing almost two in the morning for Emmett (fun fact: he is NOT a night owl, he only stays up if he’s going out.). Just before ending the phone call, his grandfather said one last thing, switching over to English. “I love you, Ji-Hun, and remember, I’m always proud of you.”

A line that Emmett has grown up saying for years and years saying, but hearing it from his grandfather made him emotional. A single tear fell down his cheeks, followed by a chuckle. “I love you too, grandfather.” With that, the two hung up, leaving him alone at night. Alone where he let more stray tears fall, a smile on his face. It was then that a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders, something that he has been struggling with for some time now. Once all of the tears had fallen, he went back inside to a still sleeping Vida. 

Getting into the bed, he pulled the other into him, the two molding together. All was well with him as he laid beside someone who reminded him of home and a family that was supporting him in his decision. 

It was Emmett Blackthorne who was the beginning of a new era for both Blackthorne and Gallagher. 

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

OED Word of the Year expanded for ‘unprecedented’ 2020 (BBC) This year has seen so many seismic events that Oxford Dictionaries has expanded its word of the year to encompass several “Words of an Unprecedented Year”. Its words are chosen to reflect 2020’s “ethos, mood, or preoccupations”. They include bushfires, Covid-19, WFH, lockdown, circuit-breaker, support bubbles, keyworkers, furlough, Black Lives Matter and moonshot. Use of the word pandemic has increased by more than 57,000% this year. Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Dictionaries, said: “I’ve never witnessed a year in language like the one we’ve just had. The Oxford team was identifying hundreds of significant new words and usages as the year unfolded, dozens of which would have been a slam dunk for Word of the Year at any other time. “It’s both unprecedented and a little ironic—in a year that left us speechless, 2020 has been filled with new words unlike any other.”

Jury duty? No thanks, say many, forcing trials to be delayed (AP) Jury duty notices have set Nicholas Philbrook’s home on edge with worries about him contracting the coronavirus and passing it on to his father-in-law, a cancer survivor with diabetes in his mid-70s who is at higher risk of developing serious complications from COVID-19. People across the country have similar concerns amid resurgences of the coronavirus, a fact that has derailed plans to resume jury trials in many courthouses for the first time since the pandemic started. Within the past month, courts in Hartford, Connecticut, San Diego and Norfolk, Virginia, have had to delay jury selection for trials because too few people responded to jury duty summonses. The non-response rates are much higher now than they were before the pandemic, court officials say. Judges in New York City, Indiana, Colorado and Missouri declared mistrials recently because people connected to the trials either tested positive for the virus or had symptoms. “What the real question boils down to are people willing to show up to that court and sit in a jury trial? said Bill Raftery, a senior analyst with the National Center for State Courts. “Many courts have been responsive to jurors who have said that they’re not comfortable with coming to court and doing jury duty and therefore offering deferrals simply because of concerns over COVID.”

The next few months could be rough for the U.S. economy (NYT) The next few months have the potential to be very unpleasant for the American economy. Many states are reimposing coronavirus restrictions, which will likely lead to new reductions in consumer spending and worker layoffs. As Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, recently said, “We’ve got new cases at a record level, we’ve seen a number of states begin to reimpose limited activity restrictions, and people may lose confidence that it is safe to go out.” Adding to the economic risks, several of the government’s biggest virus rescue programs are scheduled to expire next month. It isn’t clear whether Congress will renew them, because congressional Democrats and Republicans disagree on how to do so. A lack of government support, Powell has said, may lead to “tragic” results with “unnecessary hardship.” The longer-term picture is more encouraging, though. There is reason to hope that the next economic recovery, whenever it comes, will be stronger than the frustratingly weak recovery after the 2007-2009 financial crisis. “It’s a good guess that we’ll get this pandemic under control at some point next year,” writes Paul Krugman, the Times columnist (and Nobel Prize-winning economist). “It’s also a good bet that when we do, the economy will come roaring back.”

Student loan repayments (WSJ) The U.S. government stands to lose more than $400 billion from the federal student loan program, an internal analysis shows, approaching the size of losses incurred by banks during the subprime-mortgage crisis. The Education Department, with the help of two private consultants, looked at $1.37 trillion in student loans held by the government at the start of the year. Their conclusion: Borrowers will pay back $935 billion in principal and interest. That would leave taxpayers on the hook for $435 billion, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The analysis was based on government accounting standards and didn’t include roughly $150 billion in loans originated by private lenders and backed by the government.

Brazil’s local elections (Worldcrunch) Brazilian local elections can be fun to watch. Candidates come from every walk of life, and are notably allowed to use nicknames on the campaign trail—and there have been some true gems over the years: a loud man with thick sideburns and bushy hair campaigned as “Geraldo Wolverine”; an elderly man in army uniform and full beard was “Bin Laden for Governor”; and we’ve also seen a tropical, chubby Spiderman, an old Robin, and Jesuses in various shapes and sizes. Earlier this month, as Brazilians headed to the polls to elect local leaders in the country’s major states and cities—including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro—there were exactly 78 candidates who chose to run as some form of “Bolsonaro,” and even one as “Donald Trump Bolsonaro.” Results are in and 77 of them failed to get elected, including the president’s ex-wife, who campaigned as Rogéria Bolsonaro. The Brazilian leader personally chimed in on his social media accounts to endorse the 59 candidates (with and without familiar nicknames) he favored—only nine of whom got elected, according to Estadão de S. Paulo daily. Centrist and moderate parties made gains in the local contests, which also came at the expense of the other massive political force in the country, the leftist Workers’ Party.

Reporter Gatecrashes EU Defence Chiefs’ Video Call After Login Details Posted on Twitter (Vice) A Dutch journalist managed to join a video call for EU defence ministers, much to his and everybody else’s surprise. Video posted on Twitter shows Daniël Verlaan, a technology reporter for broadcaster RTL Nieuws, in disbelief as he realises he’s actually managed to jump on the call. RTL said that Verlaan was only able to do so because of information tweeted by Dutch defence minister Ank Bijleveld, including a photo (since deleted) showing five digits of a six-digit PIN needed to join the call. Defence ministers representing EU members and foreign policy chief Josep Borrell were on the call. When Verlaan joins, Borrell asks, “Who are you?” After exchanging pleasantries, and as laughter is heard in the background, Borrell asks the reporter if he knew he was “jumping into a secret conference.” “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m a journalist from the Netherlands,” Verlaan says. “I’m sorry for interrupting your conference, I’ll be leaving here.” A spokesperson for the Dutch ministry of defence told RTL a staff member had accidentally tweeted the picture containing information that allowed Verlaan to join the call. “This shows once again that ministers need to realise how careful you have to be with Twitter,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

France’s Dragnet for Extremists Sweeps Up Some Schoolchildren, Too (NYT) Armed with assault rifles and wearing balaclavas, dozens of police officers raided four apartments recently in a sprawling complex in Albertville, a city in the French Alps. They confiscated computers and cellphones, searched under mattresses and inside drawers, and took photos of books and wall ornaments with Quranic verses. Before the stunned families, the officers escorted away four suspects for “defending terrorism.” “That’s impossible,” Aysegul Polat recalled telling an officer who left with her son. “This child is 10 years old.” Her son—along with two other boys and one girl, all 10 years old—was accused of defending terrorism in a classroom discussion on the freedom of expression at a local public school. Officers held the children in custody for about 10 hours at police stations while interrogating their parents about the families’ religious practices and the recent republication of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the magazine Charlie Hebdo. The fifth-grade classmates are among at least 14 children and teenagers investigated by the police in recent weeks on accusations of making inappropriate comments during a commemoration for a teacher who was beheaded last month after showing the cartoons in a class on freedom of expression. As France grapples with a wave of Islamist attacks following the republication of the Charlie Hebdo caricatures, the case in Albertville and similar ones elsewhere have again raised questions about the nature of the government’s response.

France’s Sarkozy goes on trial for corruption (Reuters) Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy goes on trial on Monday accused of trying to bribe a judge and of influence-peddling, one of several criminal investigations that threaten to cast an ignominious pall over his decades-long political career. Prosecutors allege Sarkozy offered to secure a plum job in Monaco for judge Gilbert Azibert in return for confidential information about an inquiry into claims that Sarkozy had accepted illegal payments from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt for his 2007 presidential campaign. Sarkozy, who led France from 2007-2012 and has remained influential among conservatives, has denied any wrongdoing in all the investigations against him and fought vigorously to have the cases dismissed. Next March, Sarkozy is due in court on accusations of violating campaign financing rules during his failed 2012 re-election bid. Next March, Sarkozy is due in court on accusations of violating campaign financing rules during his failed 2012 re-election bid.

Merkel, Germany’s ‘eternal’ chancellor, marks 15 years in power (AFP) In power so long she has been dubbed Germany’s “eternal chancellor”, Angela Merkel marks 15 years at the helm of Europe’s top economic power Sunday with her popularity and public trust scaling new heights as her remaining time in office ticks down. With the coronavirus raging around the world, the pandemic has played to her strengths as a crisis manager with a head for science-based solutions. Merkel, 66, has said she will step down as chancellor when her current mandate runs out in 2021, and leave politics altogether. Assuming she finishes out her fourth term, she will tie Helmut Kohl’s longevity record for a post-war leader, with an entire generation of young Germans never knowing another person at the top. The brainy, pragmatic and unflappable Merkel has served for many in recent years as a welcome counter-balance to the big, brash men of global politics, from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin, as liberals have looked to her as the “leader of the free world”. A Pew Research Center poll last month showed large majorities in most Western countries having “confidence in Merkel to do the right thing regarding world affairs”.

China tests millions after coronavirus flare-ups in 3 cities (AP) Chinese authorities are testing millions of people, imposing lockdowns and shutting down schools after multiple locally transmitted coronavirus cases were discovered in three cities across the country last week. As temperatures drop, large-scale measures are being enacted in the cities of Tianjin, Shanghai and Manzhouli, despite the low number of new cases compared to the United States and other countries that are seeing new waves of infections. On Monday, the National Health Commission reported two new locally transmitted cases in Shanghai over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to seven since Friday. China has recorded 86,442 total cases and 4,634 deaths since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

Singapore, a City of Skyscrapers and Little Land, Turns to Farming (WSJ) In this skyscraper-studded nation of nearly six million people, all the farmland combined adds up to about 500 acres—an area roughly the size of a single American farm. That explains why more than 90% of the city-state’s food comes from abroad, a feat of globalization that plays out every day as beef is brought from New Zealand, eggs from Poland and vegetables trucked in from Malaysia. But recent developments—from Covid-19-related border closures to international trade fights—have shown that near-total dependence on the outside world may not be the best strategy in a shifting global environment. The Asian financial hub long focused on growing investment is turning to growing food. It can’t be done the traditional way, however. Land is so scarce in Singapore that the government continually reclaims territory from the sea to build new urban infrastructure. Instead, businesses are trying to reinvent agriculture. Industrial buildings are being converted into vertical farms with climate-controlled grow rooms. Rows of lettuce and kale are nourished not by soil, but via automated drips of nutrient-infused water. LED lights substitute for the sun. The government’s goal is to have 30% of the island’s nutritional requirements produced in Singapore by 2030, up from less than 10% today. Earlier this year, it shipped 400,000 seed packets to households to encourage home cultivation of leafy greens, cucumbers and tomatoes. In September, it announced about $40 million in grants to expand high-tech farms.

Reports: Israeli PM flew to Saudi Arabia, met crown prince (AP) Israeli media reported Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia for a clandestine meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which would mark the first known encounter between senior Israeli and Saudi officials. Hebrew-language media cited an unnamed Israeli official as saying that Netanyahu and Yossi Cohen, head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, flew to the Saudi city of Neom on Sunday, where they met with the crown prince. The prince was there for talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A Gulfstream IV private jet took off just after 1740 GMT from Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, according to data from website FlightRadar24.com. The flight traveled south along the eastern edge of the Sinai Peninsula before turning toward Neom and landing just after 1830 GMT, according to the data. The flight took off from Neom around 2150 GMT and followed the same route back to Tel Aviv. While Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates have reached deals under the Trump administration to normalize ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia so far has remained out of reach.

Cyclone Gati hits Somalia as country’s strongest storm on record (Washington Post) Tropical Cyclone Gati struck the arid nation of Somalia on Sunday as the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds, making it the strongest storm on record to hit the country. The cyclone made landfall after undergoing an extraordinary period of rapid intensification, which may have set a record for the entire Indian Ocean basin, at one point attaining the strength equivalent to a Category 3 storm, with 115 mph maximum sustained winds. Its landfall was farther south than any major hurricane-equivalent cyclone on record in that part of the world as well. Landfall occurred near Xaafuun, a small community about 900 miles northeast of Mogadishu, where the land juts east near the northern tip of the country. Hordio and Ashira, both desert communities, were also directly affected by the core of the storm. A broad four to eight inches of rainfall accompanied the system through northern Somalia, the driest part of the country, drenching desert regions with a year or two’s worth of rainfall in just a matter of hours to a couple of days. Rains also swept through the Gulf of Aden and brushed up against Yemen.

[ofhenri]

hellllo i’m hayley n i’m from london so natuRALLY i’ve got the love/hate relationship with gmt. anyway i’m super excited to introduce you all to my dumb but well-meaning son, henri ! 

BIO // PINTEREST // STATS 

first off i, much like henri, never know when to shut up dkjfdfdsf so!! a word of warning is that his bio is LONG but worthwhile if u would like to read some dumb boy antics !

ABOUT 

so. it really all starts with a mamma mia styled adventure to europe in 1998. henri’s mother, tabitha, was just out there living her best life as an artist and sleeping with her muses ( i wouldn’t be surprised if it was still complete with musical numbers bc she’s That bitch ). until she returned back home and realised a big oops... the big oops being henri ofc. 

i said it in his bio but he really is a bit more of a concept than a person!! tabitha named henri after her favourite artist, henri talouse-lautrec, but also guessed the last name of one of the potential dads based on the fact she liked paris most from her trip so henri came to be known as henri rousseau as more of a reminder to the trip than anything. kinda like a keychain or a snowglobe but y’know. a baby. 

he was actually born in the obx!! but his mum was only there for a lil trip so they moved to chicago when he was two weeks old. very much a ‘they didn’t have much, but at least they had each other’ kind of situation in a one-bedroom apartment for his early years. 

up until the time he was nine things were pretty idyllic! he had a little too much freedom to explore potential hobbies and his mother really wanted him to follow in her footsteps with painting, but all he really liked doing was making his mum smile ( a Sweet boy what can i say ) ... and playing pranks on his classmates ( not so Sweet )

then his mum met his step-dad, bill, when he was nine at an art show. bill was always a little sterner than his mother, he was an art critic, with a six-year-old daughter called meaghan. henri slowly saw his mum put aside her dreams, albeit in the form of taking down pictures and replacing them with new dreams of having a family. and it hurt! because his entire being is based off his mother’s dreams. by the time henri turned eleven, his mother and bill decided to move in together, and so they moved from their familiar little apartment into a much fancier townhouse in chicago with bill and his daughter.

henri didn’t really adjust to moving schools too well, especially with trying to make new friends and kinda took to just goofing around as that’s totally how you make friends, right? except it came at the cost of his grades n when his report card arrived by the summer he was told something straight out of the fresh prince - go stay with theo in the outer banks as they both thought that being around the other boy would be good for henri. calm him down a little or inspire him to do better. his mum gave him a camera as a parting gift and the rest is history. 

after that things passed without much note. his summers were spent in the outer banks and the rest of the year he’d be in chicago trying to discover what he was good at to no real avail. classrooms always felt a little too limiting and he was honestly more interested in joking around than taking academics seriously. 

( tw: miscarriage ) then when he was sixteen his mum became ill. except he didn’t quite understand why she’d grown distant and sad? or why bill and she were suddenly arguing so much? so he just did what came naturally to him! JOKES a plenty! until one hit badly at the dinner table causing bill to snap at him and his mother to tell him that she’d suffered from an early stage miscarriage. 

and so after that he just got worse as he blamed himself for the continued arguing! he spent more time out of the house, partying, skateboarding around the city n just generally fucking around.

until it neared applying for college and suddenly everyone was more serious about it and honestly he was just like wtf?! about it but uh! he told everyone it was all Gucci - he’d just apply to art school in paris. pay homage to his roots y’know. except he never ended up applying as he got too scared to be so far from home without a familiar face around and instead settled on going to the university of illinois urbana-champaign to study art and design bc not going to college was also just.... not an option? 

and he was due to graduate this year! except uh, surprise surprise! he dropped out!!  because the prospect of getting a real job? growing up? terrifying. but he’s told absolutely no one that he’s done this. like... to the extent he’s probably done some photoshop sorcery to keep up appearances. 

PERSONALITY

okay but that grilled cheese aspiration on the sims is him in a nutshell and i’m not even sorry about it. 

very indecisive. the person to pick up a hobby on a whim one week and then when you ask them about it, will be like ‘aw no, dude, gave that up.’ he spent a long time deciding what he wanted to do at college and wondering if he would grow tired of it. 

takes everything Too Seriously and Not Seriously enough simultaneously. he has a big bucket of emotions that he doesn’t really know what to do with, so the best thing to do is just laugh ‘em all off! lots of humour to mask the fact that he’s v. terrified about the future. 

trusting and Soft. especially when it comes to the gang because he has so much faith in them all. probably greets them all each year with a bear hug and snaps impromptu photos of them all when they’re off having fun or asks them to take part in photoshoots just because. 

with the gang, he’s a bit of an impartial entity. he’s Switzerland. he was raised by his mother to be quite diplomatic and to treat everyone’s views with kindness n respect even when he doesn’t agree, and it’s very much something that’s carried through with him! so he’s the first to diffuse some tension with a joke or by doing something dumb. doesn’t mind if people laugh at his expense, ya know. just wants them all to be happy. 

enthusiastic with a million-watt smile at each and is very willing to support every idea that comes to anyone’s head! even when he doesn’t necessarily agree, he also doesn’t shoot an idea down straight away. 

little bit of a peter pan energy to him, ngl. visiting the outer banks is a bit like his neverland as it means that for the summer he can put aside a lot of his ‘at home’ concerns. 

OTHER TID BITS 

note: i paraphrased some of these from his bio bc :’) 

john! hughes’!! biggest fanboy! henri likes to capture moments of youthful energy in his photography and hughes is defINITELY his artistic inspiration. he makes ferris bueller jokes, he references breakfast club too much. and i’m sorry but he’s definitely the person to ask ‘HoW haVE yoU neVER seen IT’ and then try to force you to watch them with him lmao

his Style is very much Baseball Cap toting, flannel-wearing, Tourist-looking chic with a camera strapped around his neck. it’s low effort at its finest ( but he does spend hours picking out the specific caps to pack for his obx trips so is it...... is it really )

former theatre nerd. yes he can sing. but he won’t bc he’s too shy (!!!!) 

could talk about anything for hours but particularly cryptids. pls talk cryptids with him 

massive chicago cubs fan and hasn’t missed a single televised game in five years and it’s become something like a bit of a bragging right to him at this point tbh.

skateboards everywhere and this should be a relief to everyone bc he’s a terrible driver

is fluent in french as his mother really wanted to have Something of his potential dad’s. if he’s particularly angry sometimes he’ll swear in french as he thinks it sounds less aggressive 

took sea monsters too seriously as a child and is terrified of the ocean as a result. he would rather linger on the beach and take photos of everyone. 

his jokes are terrible n i apologise in advance. bc you all will have to suffer through them w/ me. he tries. he really does. they’re still bad lmaooo 

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision  2010s: 25 - 20

25. Francesca Michelin - “No degree of separation” Italy 2016

Man, we’re deep into the endgame and at this point every elimination starts to mentally hurt. 

“Nessun grado di separazione” is a fantastic song. it is a moody, melodic, genuinely touching showcase of palpable social anxiety, brightened up by frivolous jiggles and Animal Crossing-inspired staging. 😍 Its lyrics tackle the subject of “falling in love” with disarming accuracy and poetic justice. When you fall in love with somebody, it really is a question of resistance, of trying to stay level-headed and rational, of trying to not speak from the mind, not the heart, and then flare of emotion lights up from the inside, carving a path in your chest, until

THERE IS NO DEGREE OF SEPARATION

THERE IS NO DEGREE OF HESITATION

THERE IS NO DEGREE OF SPACE BETWEEN US

WE ARE STARS ALIGNED TOGETHER

DANCING THROUGH THE SKY, WE ARE SHININ’

Hands down my favourite language shift ever. Each time Francesca delivers it, time stands still, as you take in the expanse of the universe, the beauty of love and the profoundness of life. 

Naturalmente, Francesca is also a fantastic performer for me. It really pains me that she was less good in the Grand Final, because her SF performance was genuinely worthy of a top five spot on this ranking. Yet, at the same time, Francesca is clearly upset at herself that she was worse and god my overthinking, underachieving perfectionist-with-a-crippingly-fear-of-not-being-good-enough self can RELATE SO HARD to that. 😭

*YOU* ARE PRECIOUS, Francesca. Grazie.

Easily the best entry Italy have ever brought at Eurovision...

________________________________________________________________

24. Mahmood - “Soldi” Italy 2019

...until “Soldi”. Alessandro is mah MOOD

What a delight “Soldi” was. Shame on me though. Between, all the madness of Hatari’s assholery, Serhat’s qualification, ZalaGasper’s interview gold, Bilal’s revamp, Michela & Miki’s staging miracles, Sergey’s struggles to keep his homosexuality under wraps, Duncan’s staging disaster, Jurij’s bedroom eyes and 2019: A Kate Oddyssey, I had completely forgotten about Mahmood.

Which made the rediscovery of “Soldi” all the greater. 😍 THIS 👏 SONG 👏 FUCKING 👏 SLAPS. 👏 even the B-material things such as the snappy camerawork, the arabic middle-eight and rhyming “Ramadan” with “Jackie Chan” are mindblowingly awesome. 

It hard to pick a favourite aspect though. The backdrop, the beat, the dancing, Mahmood’s vocals and miming all come together in a song that is supereffective in getting the pain across while also simultaneously remaining fun, addictive and highly energetic. Mahmood completely DISMANTLES bad parenting while also clowning the xenophobic pieces of shit that tried to bully him off Eurovision. It’s that combination of genuine emotional pulling, righteous ownage and let’s face it, a fucking amazing song that makes coming back to Mahmood for another listen the easiest decision ever. *CLAP*CLAP*, motherfuckers. 👏

________________________________________________________________

23. Lea Sirk - “Hvala, ne!” Slovenia 2018

[2018 Review here] (shared with ZiBBZ)

HVALA SLAY SLAY

Best moment of 2018: Lea Sirk becomes the best shock qualifier of ALL TIMES. Honestly, a trash fairy with a trap song that she wrote in under two hours has NO BUSINESS being this good, but it is. 😍

 Remember the Israeli’s that cheered for Hatari? “Hvale, ne!” is the jury equivalent to that. It’s a song that righteously calls out the FAKENESS of the music industry <3 THAT WAS ALSO LIKED BY THE JURIES <333332456 😍😍😍

Besides this “Hvala, ne!” is a wild ride taking us to lands of cotton candy braids and trashbag couture with an impeccable, show-stopping choreography, an earworm of a beat and just general kick ass energy. Lea operates on a near-inhuman level of pure CONTENT. Every second she delivers something of value, be it choreography or a snarky note or a hilarious facial expression “Hvala ne!” is riddled with little nuggets like that, which are hard to list in text, so here are a  couple of gifs:

and yes, of course, the “break”. 😍

Being able to pull that off not ONCE, but TWICE and STILL making it look fresh and novel <3 “Hvala, ne!” is effortlessly sleek, unapolegetically non-conformist, shamelessly gimmicky and 100% pure awesomeness. Slovenia may be a tiny country geographically but they burst with raw TALENT. Obrigado sim! 

ps: Slovenia reportedly hating Lea now because she was trashtalking ZalaGasper’s victory over RAIVEN <3  lmfao Lea <3 ANGELS <3

________________________________________________________________

22. Who See - “Igranka” Montenegro 2013

💃 Vodim te na IGRANKU 💃 💃 Na na na na  IGRANKU 💃 💃 Ku ku ku ku IGRANKU 💃 💃 Vodim te na IGRANKU 💃

I should not get ahead of myself, but jesus fuck, what a TRIP. 

So anyway, are Who See dressed like austronauts to signal that “Igranka” isn’t of this fucking planet, or? “Igranka” a fun party song, in which Who See tramp about dressed like Armstrong and Lightyear, flanked by 2013′s ubiquitous dubstep. Good? Sure.🤔 Funny? Certainly. 😁 However, nothing superexciting so far.

Until... 

Who See go from a weird heteronormative rap effort that is lowkey fun to an utterly unhinged acid trip the SECOND Nina Zizic is lifted onto the stage by a dumbwaiter and then proceeds to collect every scalp in the gaylaxy. Remember how I said 2013 had EPIC female entrances? This is a top five entrance probably in the history of live performances. SLAIN, DECEASED, EVAPORATED every single time. 

Europe’s cyborg seraph.

and I mean, you’d think this one-time gimmick would get stale over time, but “Ingranka” actually gets better with every listen. I’m at the point where I can NO LONGER resist the ululating siren call to don a visor and a pair of pvc wings, and make overdramatic shouty entrances everywhere just like Nina the few times I choose to leave my mother’s basement. VODIM TE NA IGRANKU. 

________________________________________________________________

21. Cleo - “My Slowianie”  Poland 2014

CLEO... Donatan?

Is this Donatan shade for not being there? GOOD! We at BorisBubbles (so basically, I) believe in gender equality and since the wymyn do all of the work here, I’ve decided to not credit him. 🤭

Anyway, let’s just JUMP right in because dammit “My Slowianie” is such a RIDE. It’s entire objective appears to be... to convince everyone that ~Slavic Women~ are better, at everything than non-slavic women and, well, being slavic myself this message speaks to me. Not to mention that Cleo teaches us this paramount interculteral lesson in the most hilariously blunt fashion ever. 

SPECIAL THINGS WE HAVE IN OUR GENES

MAKES US PROUD OF OUR NATURAL SHAPES

CREAM AND BUTTER TASTE SO GOOD

WE PREPARED FOR YOU DELICIOUS FOOD

OUR BEAUTY’S FAMOUS ALL OVER THE WORLD

YOU GOTTA SEE FOR YOURSELF AND THEN YOU WILL KNOW 😉

and dammit Cleo doesn’t underdeliver, doesn’t she? Three minutes of loud in your face SUPERIORITY. 😍 One could argue that “My slowianie” is SOCIALLY REPRESSING WOMEN, like many terfs did but like... get over you -- Sophie Ellis-Bextor, BorisBubbles. I don’t think any of us have the right to tell (other) women what they can or can’t do because of their breasts and oestrogen. These ladies agreed to do this song/act and are completely facetious while doing it. It’s a spoof. Laugh. or don’t laugh, I don’t care, really. Be a humourless non-slavic frump if you must. As far as I am concerned, “My slowianie” is a thing of CHARMING BEAUTY :shakes what his momma gave him:/ :claps his hands to this music:

and in this update we say goodbye to Italy, Montenegro and Poland. Read my thoughts on them below:

ITALY

Italy before their return is one of the biggest snoozefests in Eurovision and now look at that chart. They were near impeccable in this decade and hopefully can win a third time soon (honestly the fact that they came so close to winning four times in this decade and still didn’t is one of the biggest mysteries of 2010s Eurovision imo.)

MONTENEGRO

Montenegro are the Georgia of the Balkans: they often go for experimental shit, just cuz they can. Unfortunately, their shit often is just that: shit. 

POLAND

Poland at Eurovision is a big ball of meh, mostly because they can’t, at all, select songs or entrants that sound good. Cleo and Michal are forever though, so it’s not completely without merit. 

[umichenginabroad]

I can’t believe week 2 is over!

Hey Everyone!

Last weekend I went on a BeMadrid day trip to Segovia with Unity. Unity is the group that tries to ‘unite’ ICAI (us engineering nerds) with ICADE (the business and law students). They organize nightlife activities for international students as well as tourist trips. The trip to Segovia was absolutely great, beautiful views and beautiful weather. The trip was very well organized, and they gave us pretty much the whole afternoon (at their lunchtime which is like 2pm) to explore the city on our own. It was very nice not to have to organize it for myself, so I knew I would make it home. I think the price was great for what we got out of it, and would not have wanted to spend more than one day in Segovia. The biggest highlight of that trip for me was definitely climbing to the top of the palace because the view from there was great, and it was honestly just fun climbing the single, narrow, spiral staircase with people going in both directions (would not recommend for the elderly or anyone with small children if you plan to go with family members). I also loved the views of the aqueduct, especially considering how amazing it is that people were able to build them with such limited technology so long ago. 

This week was the first week of classes. I am taking 5 classes here, including Intro to Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Spanish Culture Through Film, Spanish Language for Exchange Students, and Christianity and World Religions. (Although I am still waiting to hear back about my TCAFs or Transfer Credit Approval Forms for both Fluid Mechanics and Intro to Dynamics, so cross your fingers for me that I will get credit! That being said, the best piece of advice I can give to anyone studying abroad through UMich is to submit your TCAF forms WAY WAY WAY in advance so you’re not stressing about it last minute like I am!!!) Anyway...I am actually really lucky and have Fridays off, and on Monday I don’t have class until 4pm. This means I can travel on weekends and not miss classes if I leave Friday or come back Monday. This weekend, however, I spent time exploring Madrid a bit, searching for some greenery near my house, gawking at Spanish architecture like classic tourists, and heading to the beautiful Retiro park. I was very surprised by how much of an effort the neighborhood of Malasaña makes to stay green during their winter, and in an especially funky way.

The Retiro park was absolutely beautiful and huge as well. I definitely plan on spending a lot of time there as soon as the weather is warmer. In addition to monuments, greenery and lakes (complete with ducks and boats) in the park,

there are also several museums and art displays, one of which was an entirely glass building that housed modern art, and another was a modern art display centered around the Fibonacci Sequence (which of course was the only part of the display I understood, as don’t understand modern art at all).

The other exploratory thing we did this weekend was shopping on Calle Gran Via on Friday night. This last tidbit also comes with a warning note. This was my first shopping experience in Europe (barring food) and I thought I was an expert shopper, (I can shop circles around all my friends and family at home) but shopping on a Friday night in Madrid was an absolute madhouse. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t even pick anything up to try on. This may be due to the fact that we went into the really big stores, including Primark which has 5 floors, and Zara which I barely made it in the door before calling it quits, but even the few smaller ones we went into were so crowded and disorganized it was overwhelming. I highly recommend you pick a different time to shop or avoid popular areas if shopping is something you like to do, or just don’t buy new things altogether because consumerism is currently not so great for the planet :) but instead try thrifting! This is something I plan to do here in Madrid soon if possible.

Thanks for reading!

-Leah Webber

Civil Engineering

Engineering - IPE: Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, Spain - UP Comillas

[qqueenofhades]

So dare I ask what the nightmare in detail is regarding Brexit right now?

@tollers-and-jack said: I’m asking for the rant…

@rhymeswithtessa said: I’m a big fan of your rants gimme your thoughts on brexit

@onlymorelove said: Ahem. I am interested in your rant. If you feel like sharing. 💗

Ahaha wow. Apparently this is something the people really want to hear about. Disclaimer, just remember that you asked for this, and that this is, as Captain Holt would say, a trigger for me. So if this periodically devolves into incoherent screaming/application of capital letters and exclamation marks, and what have you, just know that.

So… I wrote these posts soon after Brexit in 2016 explaining what a spectacularly stupid idea it was even then. If I said anything optimistic in those posts, in a sort of grasping-at-straws-maybe-this-will-work sort of flailing way, please disregard it. We have had empirical evidence of how this played out. Spoiler alert: it failed. It failed so comprehensively on every possible level that it seems almost ludicrous for a supposedly modern political system, but this is 2019, the world is dogshit, and we are all retreating into our little late-capitalism xenophobia bubbles with our right-wing strongmen and our populist rhetoric and the UK is now a global laughingstock. Which believe me, the ex-British Empire richly deserves, especially given the part that anti-immigration paranoia played in this whole debacle, but also, I live here and really would Rather Not.

I do not even know how to sum up the ridiculousness of the past few months, where – almost at the end of the two-year period of triggering Article 50, with just a very short amount of time to the original exit date (29 March 2019) – the UK finally managed to secure a withdrawal deal. Mind you, it was a shit deal that both sides hated, but by golly, It Made Brexit Happen, and since the Theresa May-bot has only been able to repeat over and over that she will Make Brexit Happen, there you have it. Not surprisingly, it proceeded to be comprehensively defeated in Parliament by the largest majority ever seen since World War II. It then was subject to surface-level makeovers and cosmetic tinkering about the backstop in Northern Ireland (since among many other things, the ardent Brexiteers forget that oh yeah we share a land border with an EU country and peace in Ireland is kind of a thing that should be paid attention to). The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) of Northern Ireland, whose 10 MPs prop up the minority Tory government, absolutely hated it and would not support it, since it would effectively introduce different regulations for NI than the rest of the UK and thus jeopardise the, you know, United Kingdom. Plus it would require the EU’s assent to end the arrangement, and also we can’t have that. Because reasons.

The deal was then thumpingly defeated for a second time, people got worried because uhhhh aren’t we supposed to leave the EU in like a week, Parliament had to institute emergency measures and hold a series of votes on Brexit alternatives, those also got defeated and May would not even commit to honouring the will of the House, 6 million people signed a petition asking for Article 50 to be revoked and the Brexit process cancelled (the biggest in parliamentary history) and got ignored. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage led a pathetic procession of 200 diehard Leavers against literally 1 million people in London calling for a new referendum, the deal got defeated for a third time after they had to do all kinds of fancy-dancing to get it back for yet another vote, they got the EU to agree to a crunch extension to 12 April, and now that that is three days away with absolutely no consensus in sight, have sent May back to Europe to beg Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron to extend the deadline to 30 June. They actually had to pass a bill (by one vote) forcing her to do this in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit. The EU is justifiably exasperated with this utter, unbelievable incompetence, the fact that the hard right wing of the Tory party pulled this absurdly irresponsible jackshit without any clue how to do it, and the way the UK still thinks it can just pick an a la carte deal where we’re great and the EU sucks and blue passports and blah blah Great Britain is Great!!! And there has been absolutely no collective awareness from either major party that maybe, just maybe, trying to undo a legal and political and cultural alignment that has existed since at least 1973 when we were a founding member of this project, in two years, with no idea how, to please a xenophobic lying campaign, WAS A STUPID FUCKING GODDAMN IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!!

(we pause while the blogger breathes and drinks heavily)

Anyway, that is the short version of Nobody Still Knows What The Fuck Is Going to Happen. Technically if we stayed in the bloc past 22 May, we’d have to hold elections to the European Parliament, which bitch bitch whine whine, the Brexiteers don’t want to do. Maybe we think we’re entitled to more special treatment (no scratch that, we definitely do) because we can’t sort our heads from our asses and have been so wildly and bogglingly arrogant and incompetent that it would almost be funny if people’s lives and livelihoods and futures weren’t at stake. And we have the goddamn European Research Group (aka the hard Brexit wing) yapping about how no deal wouldn’t be that bad and we should just take it on the chin because Blah Blah Blitz Spirit, Nationalism Patriotism Our Freedom From The Tyrannical EU. (Sidenote, if someone just punches Jacob Rees-Mogg in the elitist Little Britain face, you don’t know where I was, God I hate him so much.) Every single business, manufacturer, industry, finance, medicine, food, education, you name it outfit has been warning that no, actually, no deal would be catastrophic and the UK is not remotely prepared for it. To the point we have the military on standby to deliver basic goods if it happens??! How. How is this acceptable??!?!? I don’t understand??!?!

(And the Brexiteers who are like “this is Britain let’s all just hunt hares and grow food in our back gardens,” which, yes, is something I heard actually said, are out of touch to a truly stupendous degree. Yes I’m sure that a modern first-world country wants to resort to subsistence farming to feed its 66 million people. Do they. Even. Hear Themselves. Racism is a hell of a drug, my friends! And if you want to be like “oh no it’s not about racism/anti-immigrant sentiment, it’s about the economy,” let’s just say that the newsreader covering a Brexit march said that he’d never seen so many white people in one place and was forced to apologize, because racist white people don’t like it being pointed out to them that they are racist white people. That tells you a lot. And the Leave campaign has been convicted multiple times for breaking electoral law and just flat-out Lying to the public, so the people who voted Leave thinking they were in fact getting a better economic deal were deceived outright and have indeed often expressed regret that they were so wildly and deliberately deluded. So anyway. Fun!)

I cannot emphasise enough the sheer, staggering arrogance and delusion of the people who proposed this project and then forced it through, because the British public has believed throughout its entire history that it’s better than the whole world (see again: imperial nostalgia and Oh No The Foreigners Are Coming and etc) and has been fed for a good 25 years on this point on a lot of bullshit stories about how terrible and Liberal and Anti-British the EU is, because the British popular press is a flaming dumpster fire (you think Fox News is bad, and it is, but so many of the tabloids are basically Fox News UK). So the Brits feel as if they’ve been so unfairly repressed by the EU and need to Take Back Control (once again, there is a very long history of this  rhetoric of the English being supposedly attacked and repressed by foreigners, dating back to the idea of the “Norman Yoke” resulting from the Conquest, which became a big deal in the 19th century – I am a historian, I can pull receipts for days on this). Once again, they think they can just do whatever they want, the EU is the bad guy for not giving it to them, that we should set ourselves on fire and jump out the window rather than sit at the table like grownups with the rest of Europe, and just take our ball and go home and yet still think we are entitled to preferential treatment.

I just…. I don’t even. I DO NOT EVEN. I seriously lack the words. 

So we may get another rolling series of short-term extensions, we may not, nobody can come to any agreement on what should be done, May promised to resign to get the deal through, the deal did not get through, the whole setup is so unsustainable that it feels like a general election is an inevitability, and the obvious solution would be another referendum to see if the people even still goddamn want this. But the Brexiteers, for all they bluster about upholding the will of the people to leave, resist this with all their might (what are you fucking afraid of? If you’re so confident that you’re still the majority, you should WANT another referendum to confirm it, but you’re cowards and you know you’d lose and you’re tied to this stick of dynamite for Ideology Reasons, god damn it). The message has been always that We Must Deliver Brexit and This Is What The People Want, while the people are breaking records saying that no, actually, we’d like another say, because everyone has now seen that this is an absurd shitshow that cannot be accomplished (and ONCE AGAIN WAS NEVER! FEASIBLE! IN THE FUCKING FIRST PLACE!!!!) and it hey, actually was not a bad idea to be in the EU. 

This is again, the alignment of the entire post-WWII political and legal world. It confers countless benefits, freedom from tariffs, the single market, a customs union, visa-free travel, no roaming charges, the right to live and work in 27 other countries, etc. But because the ex-British Empire (which really wishes it was still the British Empire) has its fragile racist panties in a bunch about other people coming to live here (when as ever, the problem isn’t immigrants, it’s austerity budgets and the Tories absolutely gutting government and NHS funding and social programmes and thinking that the solution to knife crime is to punish teachers for not noticing their students getting into it), they have decided this is actually the best course of action. Because we don’t want those Non British People telling us what to do. Ew gross.

As people have said, it’s like trading a gourmet three course meal for a bag of crisps and feeling self-satisfied about it, because boy we sure showed them. It has been bungled to a degree truly stupefying to everyone who isn’t a marching Brexiteer ideologue, Labour have…. really not inspired any confidence whatsoever that they’d be able to handle it better (since they have wildly see-sawed between what they will and won’t support, if they’d revoke Article 50 or support a new people’s vote or so on) and the Prime Minister has failed on an utterly fundamental degree to build cross-party consensus or engage with other European leaders or display any ability to consider alternatives. The Tories have truly felt that they can ram this through without any reference to anyone or anything else, and fuck consequences, I guess. The British economy has already lost approximately £66 billion as a result of Brexit uncertainty and loses more every day, every major firm is moving its headquarters to somewhere they can take advantage of EU law, this will leave us poorer, more isolated, less secure, with fewer options, and generally a worse deal in every imaginable way, and yet, because again, racism and xenophobia is a hell of a drug, there are still some factions who feel like yes, this is absolutely what we should do. 

It is truly a slow motion car crash of nightmares, it’s completely avoidable and yet nobody has the backbone to do that, Parliament and the PM have completely broken down, nobody is listening to the British people for whom they are supposedly doing this, and once again, the British Empire absolutely 100% deserves this. But as someone who lives here and would actually kind of like to get a job here, Jesus Christ. Jesus. Christ. JESUS. CHRIST.

[artsistory]

Budapest more like BudaBEST (8.24-25.19)

The last 2 days have been a weird mixture of doing nothing and doing a lot so I thought I’d just combine it all. Saturday we spent the day chillin. We cooked a little at home for lunch and breakfast and then went out for dinner at this place that was recommended by our air bnb host. The menu was really strange... It was like vietnamese food and hungarian food and mexican and Mediterranean? I ordered a salad that had a weird dressing on it that tasted like strawberry sugar jam (the menu said lemon vinaigrette). Brandi ordered chicken tacos...

After our weird dinner we went to check out the first ruin bar in the city, Szimpla! Ruin bars started in the early 2000s in the jewish quarter. This area used to be the Jewish ghetto and many of the buildings were left dilapidated after WWII. The story goes that some young guys were tired of the expensive prices at other bars and set up their own in one of the abandoned buildings. Now ruin bars a big thing in Budapest! They are very popular and we definitely wanted to see this one as it’s the biggest. 

They are pretty wild inside! Covered in decorations and very crowded. I found this picture on google so you can get an idea of how cool it is on the inside! It looks like a whole little village or something and this is just a small part.

After getting a drink we left to meet up with our pub crawl! This was my first pub crawl and it was fun to get to meet a bunch of people! Brandi and I have had a goal to get “space” together. This is because 5 years ago we got drunk together for the first time at an italian club called Space (pronounced spah-chay). We have never quite managed it since then. Partially due to the fact that we didn’t live close together but also because neither of us drink very often and rarely get drunk. But tonight we went to 5 different bars! So we went full “space”. The last place was a ridiculous club that was a labyrinth of underground dance rooms all featuring different genres of music. At one point we accidentally stumbled into a pizza parlor?The club is open until 7 but we only made it to 3:30ish. 

We had no idea how much we spent because Hungarian money is trash nonsense. Brandi and I figured we must have at least spent around $80 dollars on drinks. We came home we counted up our change and found out that we only spent $23 COMBINED. HOW?? Budapest is buckwild. 

The next day, when we finally got up, we went to get some lunch. Brandi got a burger and I tried some paprikash! It’s not exactly the traditional preparation of it but it was a similar idea and very tasty.

After our extremely heavy mean we headed to check out the synagogue. It’s the largest one in Europe! The largest in the world is actually in New York. It was really beautiful and refreshing to see a big religious building that isn’t all jesus oriented. 

After that we were totally pooped again. Brandi in particular completely melted in the hot sun. She really pulled a Danni. So we went home and face-timed our friends for a bit.

[voguemadrid]

Now it’s November and I’m really starting to get into the festive spirit I wanted to share some of my top picks for Christmas 2019. After compiling a few gift guides over the year, I have been really excited to work hard on this one, and it’s taken a lot.

In fact, as you’re reading this it’ll be 2 months after I first started working on it. 2 months of photos, bits of writing, product testing and email after email. It has been such fun spending 2 months compiling the perfect gift catalogue, and some not so fun writing for 9 hours straight to get it up and ready for you with plenty of time to do your own shopping. I’m feeling hopeful that I’ve found some of the most wonderful gifts to appease even the most awkward of recipients.

I’ve decided this year to share the products with photos and a review of each product, of course, there is also a direct link so you can find out how much each product costs and add them to your basket if you feel compelled! These are just standard links, they aren’t spam and they are not affiliate links so I don’t make any money should you purchase.

I’ve not been paid to share these products neither will I make any profit should you click the link. I have however received press samples of some of the products in exchange to review. I haven’t shared all of the press samples that I received – only the ones that I believed were suitable gifts for the gift guide.

I’m hoping this Christmas gift guide will suit all of you, I know the majority of you have an interest in beauty, fashion and travel so I’ve made sure to target those categories. I also know a lot of you have children and grandchildren of your own, so I’ve made sure to include a few bits and pieces that might be suitable for those too! Here’s to hoping I haven’t missed anything!

Let’s get into the Christmas spirit and start Christmas shopping!

Diptyque – Ambre Félicité Candle (Blissful Amber)

I must say, when I first got into blogging I would see people with such beautiful Instagram accounts sharing their Diptyque candle and I would always wonder if they smelt as wonderful as they acclaimed they did. Hand on heart, if the Blissful Amber is anything to go by, they certainly do. This spicy fragrance is one that I can’t get enough of.

This Christmas, diptyque has the most inviting of candles which promises to give your home the festive smell topped with protection, luck, and harmony to bring you the most joyous of Christmases and for all your 2020 wishes to come true. With the scent and colours of three candles, it’s rich in amber, geranium, and lavender, which are all known for their relaxing and calming virtues. You’ll be breezing through the Christmas period with the calming essences which are bound to please your neverending guests.

The dipytque candle is undoubtedly outstanding, the intricacy and the detail of the candle is absolutely stunning and it will guarantee to look gorgeous amongst the Christmas decorations or as a present over christmas. After all, who doesn’t love a relaxing atmosphere? Whether that’s for your other half, your mum, your grandma or your teen daughter, they’re for sure going to love a dipytque candle on Christmas Day.

The stunning colour blue also symbolises wisdom and peacefulness for the festive season and the year to come, which is something I think all of us are hoping for, for 2020 and beyond.

The SUB

Introducing Dad’s new favourite gadget, The SUB by Beerwulf. What better than relaxing after work with a nice chilled pub-quality pint whilst lounging back playing Clash on the iPad and watching the TV? And they said men can’t multi-task!

Who wants to trudge out to a pub on these dark and dreary nights when you can enjoy the great same taste and quality in the comfort of your own home? The sleek and stylish design means that the SUB looks sleek and professional, whilst not taking up too much space at home. The small, compact home draught appliance will be the envy of all your friends when you tap premium beer from your countertop.

You’ll be able to indulge on all of your favourite beers like Heineken, SOL Birra Morreti and more crafy beers available in 2L kegs. Perfect for sports nights, lazy Sundays and Christmas get together, plug in and get ready to chill, to the max.

You’ll love that the beers keep fresh for 15 days and chills all the way down to 2 degrees. With over 30 different beers to choose from, it’s bound to be the ultimate treat for any beer lover!

BaByliss 9000

You might want to take a seat for this because this is about to get real. A new era of hair straightening has arrived and I am welcoming it with the widest of open arms. Let’s face it, busy has become our default function these days. Whether it’s dashing on the tube to get to work or running between one meeting to another. We just don’t seem to have enough time in the day.

If like me, you’re constantly on the go, who has the time for a hair dilemma? BaByliss has introduced the perfect companion for those who value power, performance, and efficiency and, quite frankly, the 9000 is the future.

How many times do you do your hair in the morning, only to brave the wintry weather to find that your once styled hair has transformed into a frizzy and puffy bush? Sounds all too familiar, I know. It’s bothersome. It’s annoying, and without a doubt, it knocks our self-esteem. Thanks to the cordless BaByliss 9000, you’ll be able to touch up your look anytime, anyplace. Yes, you read that right. CORDLESS.

How many times do you find that you’re travelling to a beautiful new country and the last thing you want to do is waste time in the hotel in the morning? Now, you don’t have to. Just charge the lithium-ion battery beforehand and enjoy the benefits of cordless straightening. The ultra-fast heat up and instant heat recovery means that you can pop the BaByliss 9000 in your bag and do your hair as and when.

The BaByliss 9000 is going to be my absolute best friend when it comes to summer. With the humidity and the heat, it’s far too uncomfortable to wear my hair down, but when it comes to photos, I hate having them taken knowing that I’ll look all head and no hair when I look back at the pictures. Now, I can pop my hair up in the messiest of buns, take it down, straighten it a little on the go and be ready for all the photos! It will be bye-bye to flicks, kinks and flyaways and hola to effortless stunning hair.

The 9000 comes in the most beautiful of carry cases, the ‘Feel the Freedom’ printed travel storage case has a heat-protective lining which means that you can pop the straighteners back in whenever you’re ready.

I seriously thought these straighteners would make an ideal second pair, perfect for on-the-go, but I love them so much that they’ve actually replaced my previous straighteners and turned into my new favourite pair. They have a sleek design, which is lightweight and they’re comfortable to hold. With them being cordless, you aren’t fiddling around trying to avoid the cord. They’re super fast to heat up, taking only seconds, with three temperature settings: 160°C, 180°C, and 200°C. There is a sleep mode and auto-safety shut off for extra peace of mind. Included is the 3-Pin UK and 2-Pin Europe charging adaptor, so your straighteners are ready to travel, whenever you are!

Mr. Wonderful Stationery

I have been a massive fan of Mr. Wonderful stationery for quite a while now. Being one of the leading stationery brands here in Spain, it’s exciting to see them branching out into the UK. Not only have they released a whole host of English products, like the calendar and the desk calendar, but they have also rolled out some of their leading products from the Spanish collection.

I’ve always loved the lovely streets collection from Mr. Wonderful so I knew they’d make great gifts for Christmas. Not only is the collection of high quality, but they’re all visually pleasing to look at, with complete functionality. There is always an element of skepticism when you reach out with a new stationery brand, sometimes they look absolutely gorgeous, but don’t actually do the job you want them to do. Whereas with Mr. Wonderful, they not only appeal to all ages, but they’re long-lasting and of a really high standard. You just know that the products you order online will be as beautiful in real life as they seem.

I picked out some of my favourites to share and here’s what I thought would make great gifts for Christmas 2019:

Mr. Wonderful Lovely Streets New York City Powerbank

How often does your phone die when you’re travelling and you reach for the trusty power bank? I’m guessing pretty often. This power bank really ups the game though, not only does it have an adorable design, but it has amazing features too. Holding charge for up to 6000 hours and having an awesome feature meaning it can’t overcharge or overheat, you can charge your power bank knowing that you’ve got hours of charge to make use of. Perfect for travelling around a new city without worrying about your phone losing charge.

You can snap photos and videos and upload to Instagram non-stop with this trusty companion by your side. What I really love about the power bank is the design is the same on both sides. The extra care to duplicate the design I think shows attention to detail on Mr Wonderful’s part. It also feels super soft too!

Mr Wonderful Bullet Agenda

With absolutely zero exaggeration, I’ve been looking for this product for about 4 years. A bullet agenda that is already made for you, ready for you to fill in and use as you please. I’ve always loved the idea of starting and maintaining a bullet journal, but for one reason or another, it always seems to fizzle away. The biggest problem is that I’m just not that great at setting them up. Cue Mr Wonderful.

The Bullet Agenda is one of the most awesome gifts you can give to someone who likes to write, get creative, be organised or wants to get into bullet journalling. If like me, they aren’t great at the initial setup, this bullet agenda is perfect. The pages are already laid out with heaps of different designs meaning that you can get started straight the way. The pages are of thick quality and you’re able to use fine-line pens without it seeping through to the next page. It also has a handy bullet dictionary at the back to help you keep on top of your journalling.

The journal is a hardback book and guaranteed to put a smile on somebody’s face who wants to get into a bu-jo!

Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets London Umbrella

Heading back to the Mr Wonderful x Lovely Streets collection which is focussed around travel, I wanted to share one of my all-time favourites from the collection. Perfectly practical and the most gorgeous umbrella design I’ve come across, the London umbrella from Mr Wonderful has me hoping for rain so I can get a chance to use it often, though not too often, I still love the sun!

The wind-resistant umbrella has such a gorgeous colour complimented by the most lovely of designs. They certainly live up to their name. Adorned with a gorgeous pattern around the edge of London, it certainly pays homage to the capital of England. With a light lilac colour, vibrant pattern and a solid handle, it’s the perfect companion for popping in your handbag. Perfect for battling the British winter, spring, autumn… well and summer. The umbrella has been carefully designed that it appeals to not only the young but the older generation too.

Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets Madrid Bottle

In a world where we are all trying to be a little more conscious and environmentally friendly, the Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets Madrid Bottle is a gorgeous choice for a reusable bottle. I had been talking about how I wanted to make a conscious effort to stop using so many throwaway bottles. Every day I walk to work and pick up a drink and I’m aware of what kind of damage this is doing. I wanted a bottle that made me want to fill it up and make a change.

I also wanted one that I knew was going to be of good quality and not start smelling or lose its pattern after five minutes. After all, what’s the point in making a change if all you’re doing is buying more reusable bottles to throw away?

The Lovely Streets Madrid bottle is exactly what I was looking for. It has a beautiful Madrid design, covered with different Madrid iconic spots and cute little Spanish captions to go with it. For anybody who loves the city of Madrid or Spanish culture, this is the bottle for you. It is airtight and the design is vibrant and clear. Just be careful to always hand wash it!

Mr Wonderful Lovely Streets Reusable Bag

We absolutely adore our Disney Parks reusable bags and make sure we pop them in the car to do our weekly shop with every time, though I am a little mad that we didn’t get one for every park now! I was in two minds whether we needed another bag to pop in with it, but after I saw the London reusable tote, my mind was made up. The bag actually exceeded well beyond my expectations of it, which I probably shouldn’t have doubted knowing the Mr. Wonderful quality, but wow, it certainly went above and beyond.

The pink bag has so many gorgeous icons on it that resemble all your memories of London. The colours are bold and bright and really capture the essence of London. One of my favourite bits is how it has a fox icon which reminds me of Leicester and home. The bag though is of such high quality, the fabric is thick and feels like it can hold and endure an awful lot. Even better still, it has a zip pocket inside and a popper to close it. I really expected it to just be an open bag so the fact it comes with all these little extras makes it even better. It would make a great gift alongside a few Mr. Wonderful bits and pieces.

Slip Silk

I’ve spoken about how much Slip has revolutionised my sleep pattern, so I was over the moon to get my hands on the new marble pattern pure silk sleep mask by Slip. The price tag might make you second guess it for a minute or two, but let me tell you, it’s worth every penny. Waking up after a night of deep, satisfying sleep is worth its weight in gold.

How often do we find ourselves trudging through the day feeling like a zombie from the afterlife? I know I have many times. All too often I was waking up and relying solely on caffeine to get me through. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and toss and turn every hour. But after introducing the slip pillowcase and a slip pure silk mask, I’ve found that my routine is untouchable. Sure, I still have the odd nightmare, or the odd times I can’t sleep, but it’s far less common. It’s now a rarity to have a bad night’s sleep, rather than a rarity to have a decent night’s sleep like before.

The super-soft mask keeps the light out and therefore lets you sleep in peace. It is absolutely invaluable on long-haul and short-haul night flights. Flying back from New York, I slept peacefully and comfortably with my slip pillowcase. It also doesn’t pull off your make-up, so if you are a make-up wearer, you’ll sleep peacefully knowing that your eyelashes will still be in place when you rise.

I cannot recommend a slip silk mask enough. Give the gift of a gorgeous night’s sleep. After all, we all need our beauty sleep! Puppy cuddles not included.

Penguin Random House

Over the past decade, Anthony Joshua has fought his way all the way to the top of the boxing world. After facing the legendary Klitschko, labelled the heavyweight fight of the century, Joshua battled through gruelling rounds to ultimately defeat the champion and find himself at the top.

When he first stepped into a London gym back in 2008, his rise to the top might have been unimaginable to those around him. Reading about his rise to stardom and his spectacular victories, like the Olympic Gold to a home crowd at the Olympics 2012, is bound to interest aspiring boxers and sports enthusiasts. Whether that’s somebody who is aiming for the top themselves one day, or those who enjoy the sport, Joshua is a figure that many admire.

As Oliver has taken an interest in boxing, I’m hoping he’ll enjoy reading about Joshua and finding out more about his history and backstory in which the intimate biography retells the story of his journey and development. Retold by a writer who has seen Joshua’s development and growth from the very beginning, it highlights his early amateur bouts up to his major title fights.

Shop on Amazon: Joshua

Tesalate

Christmas in the sun is one that many of you might be doing, especially those of you heading out to the Costa Blanca over the festive period. Many of us will be spending Christmas sitting out on the beach, or if not, probably thinking about the countdown for our next beach holiday once the festive period is over. Why not beat the blues and get them a gift to get them excited for their next beach holiday? Or get them prepared for Christmas on the beach with the revolutionary Tesalate towel?

What is the most annoying thing about the beach? Hands down, the sand. No question about it. Most of us love to lounge about on the beach for an hour or two, but the majority of us can’t stand sand. Especially when it travels its way back to the apartment and the bed later on too. Well, the Tesalate towel is perfect for you, or your loved one, who hates the sand.

Introducing Sand Free Beach Towels by Tesalate. The groundbreaking new type of beach towel that’s large yet lightweight, super absorbent and fast-drying and yet, completely sand-free. You’ll love laying out on the beach knowing that the sand will shake off straight the way! Sold in over 130 countries, there are thousands of happy customers and I have no doubt that you’ll be the next.

The Body Shop

There are so many things to love about The Body Shop, the cruelty-free brand is one that I think we could all raise our hands and say we love it. Whether that’s the beautifully smelling fragrances or the delectable hair products or the kind to skin skincare. There’s something that everybody is sure to love.

Boasting a wide range of vegan products, alongside its pledge to be cruelty-free, I’ve loved trying out the pieces from The Body Shop and I’m certain that your loved ones are sure to love it too. With bits and pieces from The Body Shop bundled together to make a homemade hamper, or added to a gift bag or box or tucked away in a Christmas stocking, they’ll make great gifts either for a secret Santa, friends, or family. Who doesn’t love smellies at Christmas? After all, you can never have too many!

I find that I get lots of smellies over the Christmas period which means I don’t have to shop for them for absolutely ages, meaning the money I’d be splashing on showers can be splurged on trips instead! Result.

The Body Shop Carrot Wash

One word: YUM. If there was ever a scent that makes you want to eat your greens, (or oranges), it’s this. Healthy never smelt so good. Enriched with organic carrots, which are too crooked to sell to the food industry, the vegan delight leaves your skin feeling cleansed, smooth and, energized. Knowing it’s vegan makes you feel good on the inside too!

We all love to take some time away to relax and pamper, which is why the carrot face cleanser is ideal as a daily facial wash to swipe away the daily buffers from the outside world. Enriched with 93% ingredients of natural origin, it is reassuring to know that you know exactly what you’re putting on your skin. After all, if you can’t understand most of the products, it’s probably not the best. But, with The Body Shop, you know exactly what you’re putting in.

Don’t forget that the packaging is 100% recyclable!

The Body Shop Juicy Pear Hand Wash

Let’s have a show of hands, who here loves soft and smooth hands? That’s all of us right? Though most of us probably find that we tend to neglect our hands for far too long over the Autumn/Winter period and find that it’s too late before we realise it. Well, with The Body Shop, you’ll be lathering up in no time and feeling the benefits of soft, supple hands.

As part of the Juicy Pear collection for 2019, this cleansing hand wash is perfect for the festive season. Not only will your hands be soft and sweet-smelling, you’ll be right in the mood for unwrapping presents feeling clean and indulging in the long-lasting festive scent.

It would make a perfect gift inside a beautiful handmade hamper, or as part of a gift bag. Or popped next to the sink for your guests to enjoy over the busy visiting period. Enriched with pear extract from Italy and Community Trade organic sugar from Paraguay, this gorgeous handwash won’t be around for long so tell Santa quickly!

The Body Shop Drops of Gold

This place about to GLOW. The illuminating Drops of Gold is ideal as an instant brightener, which can be added to your foundation or daily face cream. Great for use on its own or as part of a mix, it will be loved by those who need an extra boost of glowiness over the Christmas period. Giving you an instant pick me up, you’re just one drop away from light and bright. Kick away the dullness and kickstart your look in just seconds.

I’ve found its ideal for popping on your cheekbones to give a gorgeous accentuated look or added around the eyes to brighten up your eyes on those less than glamorous day.

The Body Shop Tea Tree Anti-Imperfection Peel-Off Mask

DIY Face Mask, coming right up. Who doesn’t love a face mask before bed? Pop on a festive film and have the most relaxing evenings filled with self-care with the Tea Tree peel-off mask by The Body Shop.

Simply add water to the vegan formula, mix and apply to skin. You’ll love how soft it leaves your skin without being harsh in the slightest. Enriched with Community Trade tea tree oil from Kenya, this delectable face mask will instantly give skin a clearer appearance and make you feel decongested. Perfect for those unavoidable winter bunged up nights.

I absolutely love the tea tree scent. Lounging out on a Friday night with a face mask is one of the ways I love to welcome in the weekends, so chilling out with the tea tree mask was an absolute delight. I just know that anybody who already loves facemasks is going to love a peel-off mask as part of a gift set.

The Body Shop Juicy Pear Body Yoghurt

Another piece from the limited edition Juicy Pear collection, the light-weight body yoghurt is a delightfully festive formula that treats the body with up to 48 hours of moisture. After showering, it’s a gorgeous treat to slather on to moist skin to leave skin smooth and fresh, without that awful sticky or greasy feel. Made with pear extract from Italy and Community Trade organic almond milk from Spain, it certainly has the Mediterranean infusions.

The Body Shop Warm Vanilla Hand Cream

You can’t get many worthwhile gifts for a fiver anymore, but at The Body Shop, you’ll find lots of thoughtful bits and pieces and the Warm Vanilla hand cream is one of them. Battling the elements is inevitable over the winter period, so why not give them a helping hand with the Warm Vanilla Hand Cream?

They’ll be rubbing their hands with delight thanking you for the gift of soft hands with The Body Shop’s special edition Warm Vanilla Hand Cream. I’ve always adored vanilla-scented products and this one is certainly no exception. This non-greasy formula will leave hands feeling soft and smooth whilst leaving behind a long-lasting fresh fragrance of Madagascan vanilla extract, that smells so good you’ll want to eat it. Or at the very least, reach for a tub of Madagascan Vanilla ice-cream!

Reminiscent of winters gone by, this sweet appeasing scent, like its Juicy Pear friends, aren’t around for long, so get yourself to The Body Shop fast to fill up your basket with lots of festive goodies!

The Bradford Exchange

After Jane, one of my lovely readers gave Alex and me these beautiful ornaments I had to share them on my blog so you could see how lovely they are. They make a gorgeous Christmas ornament and they’re going to look beautiful on the Christmas tree.

With such an intricate design, these ornaments are hand-painted beautiful collectibles for those who love Disney!

They’re a unique and officially licensed Disney collection which are only available from The Bradford Exchange. The magic of Disney never stops in our house, but over Christmas, it gets even more… yes, it’s possible.

Our Christmas tree is mainly focused around Disney and travel so they’re going to look absolutely perfect adorning our tree this year. The Once Upon A Slipper Christmas Ornament set makes a charming and delightful gift for anybody who loves the magic of Disney and Christmas.

Pixi Beauty

With more colours than they’ll know what to do with, you can’t go wrong with a selection of goodies from Pixi Beauty, better still the Pixi Pretties collection is absolutely gorgeous and for sure going to be a huge favourite for Christmas gifts 2019. I have liked everything that Pixi has ever sent me, and the Pixi Pretties has been no exception. Filled with bold and bright colours the collaboration has been one of their best yet.

I’m always so flattered to receive bits and pieces from Pixi, from their personalized Vitamin C collection, their delightful skincare, and their beautiful palettes, I just know your loved ones will adore the Pixi Pretties collections just as much as I am. The colours will be perfect for creating Spring/Summer 2020 looks and will work just as nicely to create a flattering New Year’s Eve 2019-2020 look.

Brighten up their Christmas with a hamper filled with Pixi pieces. Velvety matte lip colours, bold eyeliners, flattering eyeshadows, and gorgeous highlighters will give you a brownie point or two when they open these!

Missguided Chill Babe

Now, I was a little apprehensive about the Missguided eau de parfum for one or two reasons. I am a sucker for a beautiful bottle and I like my fragrances to smell luxurious and be long-lasting. I didn’t think Missguided would match up at all. But, it does hold its own as a lovely daytime fragrance.

I love switching my perfumes around and I’ve mentioned it loads before. I love collecting fragrances and switching up my scent. But, I do sometimes hate putting on a gorgeous fragrance just to go to work, it feels like a waste. But, on the other hand I still want to smell lovely and fresh, let’s face it, I work with these people!

Well, the Missguided perfume certainly exceeded all of my expectations. Coming in a can, it’s an interesting design. The floral fragrance comes to life with bursting scents of raspberry and pear sorbet combined with uplifting citrus. It combines with jasmine and rose topped off with a woody tone of vanilla and amber crystals giving a long-lasting fruity yet floral fragrance. I absolutely love wearing the Chill Babe in the day. It’s such an economically friendly fragrance too so makes a perfect gift for friends or as a stocking filler.

Universal Pictures

Is there anybody out there who doesn’t love curling up on the sofa, with a candle burning, watching movies and eating snacks? Even me, somebody who loves being on the go also loves to chill-out once in a while with a good movie on. As long as there are some hot chocolate and cream to go with it, I’m happy.

There are some fantastic films being released this year which are going to be ideal for a home cinema night.

The Grinch:

Illumination and Universal Pictures presents The GrinchThe Grinch, based on Dr. Seuss’ beloved classic. The Grinch tells the story of a cynical grump who goes on a mission to steal Christmas, only to have his heart changed by a young girl’s generous spirit. Has anybody noticed that The Grinch didn’t not like Christmas, he just didn’t like people at times? Let’s face it, that’s kinda perfectly acceptable! The loveable Dr Seuss classic is perfect for getting in the Christmas spirit! The DVD also includes 3 mini-movies.

The Secret Life of Pets and The Secret Life of Pets 2:

The Secret Life of Pets 2 Box Set tells the story of Max and his pet friends. Relive The Secret Life of Pets before continuing Max’s adventure in the Secret Life of Pets 2 as he battles with more trials and tribulations in the Big Apple.

From Illumination Entertainment comes The Secret Life of Pets 2. In the sequel, Max encounters canine-intolerant cows, hostile foxes, and a scary turkey when he visits the countryside. Get the whole family together for a family movie night, or pop it in their stockings for a Christmas Day surprise. I can feel a movie marathon coming along.

Soul Analyse

Show them you believe in them this Christmas by getting them an affirmation band from Soul Analyse. The empowering bands part of the I AM collection are a wonderful gift, especially for those who find the Christmas period especially difficult or are struggling with their mental wellness.

The I AM collection has a beautiful selection of bands with varying affirmations that are sure to be a thoughtful pick-me-up for many who will need to hear it this December. The band reminds me of the Cartier band and looks gorgeous on.

With YOU’VE GOT THIS printed on the band, it will be there as a little reminder that you have the power to accomplish what you want to accomplish. It reminds you that you have the power. You have the strength within yourself to achieve whatever it is you want and need to achieve. Whether that’s taking the first steps to building an empire or just getting out of bed today, the affirmation will be there to remind you. After all, we all need a reminder every once in a while.

Elago Charging Hub

The Elago Charging Hub isn’t as white as I’d hoped it to be, instead is more of a dirty creme. The Elago Charging Hub was created to be a handy little extra either on your bedside nightstand or at your work desk. Keeping your phone, Airpods and Apple Watch together, it creates a little space to charge them neatly and together. Made with non-toxic silicone material it is made to last a while. For tech fans, it will be a nifty little gift for them to be able to charge their Apple products. Available in four colours.

Hotel Chocolat

Christmas is a time of… chocolate. And at Hotel Chocolat, delectable treats are aplenty. With plenty of festive goodies available online and in-store, you’ll be spoilt for choice with all of the mouthwatering offerings.

Why not mix and match the terrific trio on the 3 for £20 range? The Jolly penguin, Jolly Santa, and Jolly snowman trio will go down a treat in anybody’s stocking. For those on the nice list, indulge on the milk chocolate, caramel chocolate and white chocolate set for the sweetest of Christmases yet. So cute, they’re almost too good to eat… almost.

Thinking more about the Christmas dinner than the Christmas stocking fillers? No problemo. The Yule Log Classic for £20 at Hotel Chocolat is as real as it can possibly get. How? Because it was made with a real log! 3D scammed elm log branch transformed into a festive yule log is as authentic as it can possibly. With 50% milk praline, hazelnuts and crisped rice, you and your family can indulge in the great taste of Hotel Chocolat from early morning present openings to double dessert servings.

Happy Shopping!

Pinterest:

              Christmas Gift Guide 2019! Featuring: Mr Wonderful, BaByliss, Diptyque, Hotel Chocolat and more. Now it's November and I'm really starting to get into the festive spirit I wanted to share some of my top picks for Christmas 2019.