#her name is elizabeth but everyone calls her libby

[rockabillywonder]

i may have made a lisa/roscoe kid 👉👈

#liscoe #dc #my art #her name is elizabeth but everyone calls her libby #shes a huge math nerd and all her cousins ask her to do their math homework #i wasnt gonna make a liscoe kid for my au originally but i saw thekelpies liscoe kid moodboard and it got me thinking djfhdjfhjdf #rogues #technically. even tho she has no interest in being one (no matter how much her cousin leo begs) #hues dc au

[crumbleclub]

Assorted Afton Family Headcanons

All three kids have dimples, which they got from William. They all have cheek dimples when they smile , and Michael has one on his chin, too. Elizabeth has one on her chin that only becomes apparent when she's older.

Elizabeth generally gives of an extremely confident, even arrogant energy. She's copying William.

Michael and Evan both call Elizabeth Libby, but her parents use her full name.

The Bite happens when Evan is turning seven, and Michael is almost fourteen. Elizabeth would have been nine.

Elizabeth disappeared when she was eight. William was actually nearby when it happened. He was still very protective at this point in his life, and he just took her eyes off of her for a moment when someone stopped to talk with him about the grand opening of Circus Baby's.

After that, he changed from being simply the controlling, overly strict type of Not Great parent to alternating between a worse version of that and being neglectful, disappearing for days, etc. He would essentially give up on parenting, panic and change his mind later, and then go overboard to the other extreme, not like the result, repeat.

William also had almost no temper; he wasn't attached enough to most things for that. He could be a very violent person, but it was usually premeditated and with an intended purpose (research, controlling someone's behavior, etc). This changed a bit later on; stressors in his life (mostly caused by himself) built up, moving his baseline from hard to piss off to already close to pissed off all the time.

He can be pissed off about what he IS invested in, which is largely his science and anything to do with Henry.

Telemarketers are an honorable mention. He would throttle them if he could. He is not a patient person.

William and Michael are both very tall due to Marfan Syndrome. In most timelines, they aren't aware they even have it, but I can see them having cardiac complications leading to a diagnosis. I'm not sure whether I think the other two would inherit this or not.

There are a few differences to Mike and William's appearances that aren't due to age. William's hair is wavy, Mike's is curly. William's hair is lighter, and he's one of those people who had blond hair as a kid that darkened to brown as they grew up. Other than that, they're near identical.

On that note, Evan has the curliest hair of them all, and Elizabeth's is very straight. Also everyone who draws her with blonde hair can fight me she is a REDHEAD

In any timeline where William raises the kids, they're all coming out of it with hella trauma disorders. It's pretty much unavoidable.

Michael having BPD is my bread and butter. I'm not sure exactly about the other two since they die quite young in the main storyline, but Elizabeth probably ends up somewhere in the formerly called cluster B range as well.

They present pretty differently in adulthood: Michael internalizes (he acted out as a kid, but flipped the other way after the Bite) and Elizabeth is very Loud about her feelings. Internally, they're pretty similar: rejection sensitive, very intense and volatile emotions, strong desire to be cared for but struggling with a tendency to self-sabotage.

Evan strikes me as more anxiousness predisposed. Mike has a lot of anxiety that presents as anger, and Elizabeth is actually angry.

The crying frequently thing was actually a new development for Evan after Witnessing The Horrors (re:Elizabeth getting yoinked by roboclown). It was a trauma response.

All three of them are extremely lonely.

William himself is probably too hard to categorize and would get labelled Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.

I have no idea what I think William's past before having kids was like but the concept is wildly intriguing to me

Like I think he went to college and stuff, probably for business or even accounting (minored in engineering) but like. He was presumably a baby at some point, wtf is that about

Also William is scared of spiders. Just like, the standard amount. I just find it hilarious for him to commit atrocities and then go home to be like "MICHAEL! COME GET THIS SPIDER IMMEDIATELY"

The most technologically inclined is actually Evan. He would be a much more talented engineer than William if he went that direction

Michael is all arts, but he's learned mechanical things out of necessity. He *has* inherited the Afton Business Sense, but he a. doesn't realize it, b. doesn't like to rip people off, and c. doesn't feel strongly about the field. It's just sort of something he has the ability to do easily but never thinks about

Elizabeth has wit and charisma combined with just enough capacity to be cutthroat that she could be very successful in like. Law, politics, business, any of the sharks in suits professions. She could use it for good obv but she is BRUTAL

Also Evan can juggle. This is very important to me. Nobody knows how he learned but he's really good at it

Also, all of the Afton kids definitely showed super concerning behavior at school and nobody ever did anything about it.

Evan probably asked nice teachers to adopt him. Elizabeth would probably cry if she got an A- on a test. Michael definitely acted like a little shit for attention, + I can also see him being pretty vulnerable to dangerous situations bc of a strong risk taking tendency, and I truly believe the entire town of Hurricane stood by and watched kids act like this without doing anything.

Tbh I have so much of this in my brain feel free to ask questions if u want lmao

#mike's stuff #fnaf #fnaf headcanons #william afton #michael afton #evan afton #cc afton #crying child #afton family #cw abuse #cw neglect #mike's actual writing

[darriness]

Klaine Fic - You’ll Always Be The Home - Epilogue

Author: darriness

Fic Summary: Everything is finally settled in Kurt and Blaine’s life…right?

Link to: Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5

Rating: T

Chapter Word Count: 1653

Chapter Summary: Beginnings

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, liking, reblogging, and just generally being supportive. Could not have done this without my beta @darrenismydarcy. And just a side note: the title of this fic comes from a Backstreet Boys song :) Enjoy!

AO3 Link

*Two Years Later*

“Libby! Come here, Libby! Do you want a cookie? Come get the cookie?”

“Do not degrade my niece in such a way!” Bethany admonishes, picking up the baby currently trying her damndest to walk between the couches. She hugs her to her chest and strokes her hair.

Aiden, who had been the one attempting to get the baby to come to him, laughs from the couch, “What was degrading about what I said? And...I’m pretty sure she’s my niece, too.”

Bethany rolls her eyes, “You called her ‘Libby’.” She shudders at the name like it personally offends her, “That is just so wrong. Right, Bethy?” She says, moving her face down so she can look the baby in the eye, “We Beth’s have to stick together!”

Aiden chuckles, “Coming from a girl who tells anyone and everyone to call her ‘Annie’.”

Bethany advances a couple of steps toward the nine-year-old on the couch before she’s interrupted, “Okaaaay.” Kurt says, walking into the room and scooping the baby from Bethany’s arm, “How about we not trade blows with my daughter in the middle?”

Bethany pouts slightly before sighing, “He called her Libby.”

Kurt laughs, “Yeah...because that’s her name.” He lifts the eleven-month-old over his head which makes her giggle, “Isn’t that right, Libby?” He says to her as she continues to squeal. He brings her down to rest in his arms again before turning to Bethany, “We’ve told you time and time again we couldn’t very well have two official Beth’s in the house.”

Bethany tries to hold her pout but ends up smiling, “But you named her after me.”

“We named her after Kurt.” Blaine says, coming into the room. He sidles up next to Bethany and bumps his hip with her lightly while she looks on in shock, “And you.” He adds, though this isn’t new information to any of them. He makes his way over to Kurt and tickles Libby’s neck which makes her squirm and take refuge by burying her face in Kurt’s chest, “Elizabeth Jane Anderson-Hummel. Named after her Papa and her aunt.”

“And the spitting image of her Daddy.” Kurt finishes with a smile.

It’s a conversation they have a lot and never get tired of. With her chubby cheeks, curly brown hair, and hazel eyes, Libby really is the girl version of Blaine. Almost every day of her eleven months, Kurt and Blaine have tried to find traits that may have come from their surrogate but have yet to find any and as time goes by they look less and less. She’s Libby. And she’s perfect. Even when she’s crying at all hours of the night and keeping the entire household awake.

“Hey, why didn’t you name her after me?” Aiden asks, standing up to join the others in the middle of the room.

Bethany sighs and slings her arm around the shorter boy, “Because, my dear pain in the neck, you have to be in the family for longer than two years to warrant a namesake.”

“I’ve been in the family nine years!” Aiden protests.

Bethany squints one eye closed, “Let me rephrase - we had to have known you existed longer than two years to warrant a namesake.”

Aiden scoffs in mock indignation as Bethany tightens her hold on his neck and brings her other hand up to give him a noogie. Aiden shouts in protest and attempts to wriggle free.

Blaine and Kurt watch on and can’t help but think, despite Bethany’s words, that Aiden feels like he’s been part of the family for longer than two years. 

After their initial meeting, Kurt, Blaine, and Bethany had seen Aiden a few times over the following months. He snuck out of his house every time and, true to his word, never once got caught by their father. Eventually, and neither Kurt, Blaine, or Bethany knows exactly when, Aiden started showing up more and more, to the point where it felt like he spent more time at their house, a modest three bedroom townhouse they bought after their surrogate got pregnant, than he did at his own. He became part of their family.

Bethany, especially, treats him so. Kurt has postulated to Blaine that Bethany’s relationship with Aiden has been shaped a lot by her relationship growing up with Blaine. The fact that they met Aiden at the same age Bethany had been when she and Blaine were left on their own, she has taken it upon herself to fill that role for Aiden that Blaine had filled for her. He may not live with them full-time, or officially at all, but that doesn’t stop Bethany from trying to give him what their father couldn’t possibly.

Though whatever the reason, Kurt and Blaine can both agree that Bethany and Aiden’s relationship has done wonders for both of them. Aiden has loosened up considerably and become a more relaxed, carefree boy. Though he can still hold his own in a judging competition with Kurt (not that they’ve ever tried officially).

Bethany, in turn, has become more focussed, driven, and responsible…

Which brings them to this very day. A day Blaine has been dreading since he and Bethany left their parents’ house all those years ago. Today, Bethany, now more often than not going by Annie, Anderson starts college. And Blaine is not okay.

“All right,” Kurt says, breaking up the mini sibling scuffle, “We should probably head out. The car, and dorm orientation, are waiting.” He gestures with his head out the door before adjusting Libby and making his way out. Aiden jogs after him, asking if he can put Libby in her car seat.

When it’s just Blaine and Bethany in the living room, Bethany sighs as she looks out the open door.

“What’s up?” Blaine asks. The sigh had not been a particularly happy one.

Bethany has been over the moon to start college at Columbia. They may live in the same city as the university, but Bethany and Blaine came to the decision, after she had been accepted, that it was probably best, at least for the first year, for her to experience living in the dorms. She hasn’t stopped talking about it for months.

Bethany shrugs as she screws one of her toes into the carpet.

“Hey,” Blaine whispers, reaching out and grabbing her hand. She turns to look at him and Blaine can see tears swimming in her eyes. He sighs and pouts out his lower lip slightly, “Hey, now. What’s wrong?” He asks, pulling her to him in a hug.

She goes willing and cuddles into his chest, “I don’t think I can do this.” She whispers.

Blaine tuts, “Of COURSE you can do this. You are so ready for this. You are going to have an amazing time. And Kurt and I are just a phone call or subway ride away.”

“But I’m going to miss so much! What if Libby figures out walking or talking or doing her taxes when I’m not here!” The eighteen-year-old moans.

Blaine laughs, “Well, we will definitely call you if she starts doing her taxes.” He assures, before kissing Bethany’s head, “And you really are just a train or car ride away. I promise you, the moment it looks like Libby is going to do anything for the first time, I’ll call you.”

“Do you promise?” Bethany pouts.

“I promise.” Blaine says, even though he knows once Bethany starts her life at college, she isn’t going to be thinking about her niece here at home as much as she thinks she will.

Bethany pulls back, “And what about you?” She asks.

Blaine’s eyebrows go up, “What about me?” He asks, “You sort of missed my first steps on account of you not being born and them happening a good twenty-five years ago.”

Bethany laughs as she smacks Blaine’s chest lightly, “No!” She admonishes, “Are you going to be okay?” She asks.

Blaine gives her a small, sad smile, “I am going to be fine.” He says, “And besides you’re…”

“Only a car or train ride away.” Bethany finishes for him.

Blaine chuckles again, “Right.” He says softly before he looks her in the eyes very seriously, “You and I are not done needing each other, okay? I will always be here for you, Annie.”

Bethany’s eyes swim with more tears even as she smiles, “Right back atcha, big brother.”

The pair hug just as Kurt calls from the street for them to hurry up. They make their way out and Bethany gets into the back of the SUV with Aiden and Libby in her carseat.

Kurt grabs Blaine’s arm before he can get in with them. Blaine turns to him with his eyebrows raised in question.

“Are you going to be okay?” Kurt whispers.

Blaine gives him a sad smile, similar to the one he just gave Bethany, and shrugs, “I think so.” He says, “But...I might need to do some major crying when we get home.”

Kurt pouts his lips slightly and moves to bring Blaine’s hand to his mouth for a kiss, “Anything you need. I’m here for you.”

When Blaine was fifteen, he couldn’t have possibly imagined this moment, this day. He had been more worried about how to put food on the table and how to keep his seven-year-old sister alive for another day. And himself. His world had been irrevocably changed the night their parents abandoned them and yet, as he stands here right now, he wouldn’t change a single thing about any of it.

Not that night, not the two years after as they struggled to figure it out, not the year he and Kurt had broken up - none of it. It all brought him here. And ‘here’ feels like an amazing place to be.

He smiles at Kurt before tilting his head to the awaiting car and everything that still lays ahead.

The End

#klaine #klaine fanfiction #klaine fanfic #my loves #my stuff #you'll always be the home

[elsapheonix]

Wolffe with a halo

“Hey Wolffe, look there's a letter here” Gregor called

“Alright” I called

“It’s for you can I read it?” Gregor asked

“For me? Uhh no I’ll be there in just a second” I said and I left the Bedroom and went the table where Gregor was. He handed me the Letter. My breath caught when I saw the handwriting on the envelope

Return Address:

Wild space Coordinates

G-9 76937-O-930

Commander Wolffe Koon

Seelos

AT-AT Imperial Walker

“Oh my….” I said trailing off and then I tore into the letter before my fear caused me to throw it away.

My Beloved Wolffe Koon,

Kah-ta-yar Wolffe, how are you after all these years? These year go by slow without you here by my side, it’s been so long. I still love you more than anything else. Especially more than my own life. I even discarded rules for you. The Jedi Code was probably the biggest one, but I didn't care and i still don't. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about you, not a day goes by without me missing you, my Angel. It’s so hard being away from you day in and day out. It’s hard to do anything without you. You were, still are, and will always be my everything, my life, my world, my angel and my reason for living, for fighting, for existing. I believe it’s the will of the force that we meet and that I fell in love with you. Too me you are an Angel from the force. I could go on but then I’d need an entire notebook and it’s not easy to put a notebook in a envelope. You would know.

Do you ever think of the good times, Angel? About the Clone wars? I know I do. Almost everyday. The wolfpack was my family, My clan, My Aliit. Although they are not really my Brothers It sometimes felt as they were. Aliit ori'shya tal'din, Family is more than blood. I loved each and everyone of them, no man was just a clone. Losing then was the worst part of Order 66.

I miss everything of the clone wars, i guess when you grow up in a war zone you come too miss it when life changes. I miss taking down clankers, pranking shinnies with boost, leading assaults, hanging out with boost and sinker, destroying astromechs, fighting the sith, disobeying direct orders, Pissing off Rex, being able to use my lightsabers, spending countless hours with you doing ship duties, us breaking rules just so Master Plo would put us on deck duty while they all went down to battle, our countless arguments, even the ones over stupid things, scaring you with my piloting, you spending the night with me when I had the bad dreams, goofing off while doing paper work with you and the time we spent in the med after one of us had gotten hurt. I miss you're singing, and the silly little pet names you had for me. Most of all I miss Master Plo and you. I miss you more than him, Angel.

I had thought I had lost you forever after the purge, I wish I had not left you Angel, it has bothered me for longer than i can remember. I was a fool when I thought we were better a part, when in reality we are always better together. I had an harder time hiding from the empire on my own, I actually have been captured and escaped many times each time changing my name. I now go by Elisa Koon and have not been captured since Ahsoka and I started the rebels. I’ve made many reckless and stupid decisions. Some of them i’m sure would had been prevented had you been with me or had I stayed with you. I was a coward for leaving you and running like i did. I was afraid. I didn't even thank you for saving my life, Didn't even say goodbye. I abandoned you and I’m so so sorry.

I would like to see you again even if you don't look the same as you did before. It’s been so long and Rex says I need to stop pushing people away, I haven’t let anyone get close to me. He’s right I need to stop pushing people away and locking them out, Especially my Angelic Riduur. Speaking of Rex he couldn't figure out who I was and I eventually had to tell him who I was then he told me that you and gregor were camping out in an Imperial Walker on Seelos hunting Juppa's. That doesn't seem like a good way to spend the rest of your days.

Personally I think you’d be better off here with me Angel. I know you don't want too join our fight against the empire and you don't have to if you don't want too. I would never make you do anything. If you were to come I will protect you, I won't let anyone hurt you, never again. You remember that promise I made too you after Kholum right? Well, I’ll still stand too it. No one is ever going to hurt you again on my watch, not if I can help it, Angel.

I don't use my Lightsabers much anymore unless I have too, but I do keep them on me at all times, hidden of course. I mentioned I had to use a different name right? Elisa Koon, I have it as the shortened version of my real name Elizabeth Koon, Force how I hate that name. I’ve lost count of how many I have had. All have been shortened versions of my real one. I’ve used a different last name every time. I’ve been El Vizsla, Eliz Diana, Lily Uma, Lisa Tiana, Lisbeth Bonjo, Ela Vila, Izzy Tuttle, Libby Gulo, Beth Di Angelo, Bess Lupus, Bette Kyzie, Bessie Humble, and once I even used my full name Elizabeth Phoenix. Now I am Elisa Koon.

I decided it was time that I went back to my married name. I have even started to wear the diamond band you gave me again. If you do come I would like to redo our vows or even do a public wedding since the one we had was private. I’m sure you’d like that to.

We have found many of our Vods, Angel. Several of them, like yourself, don't want too fight so we provide them shelter and protection, I’m over that part of the rebellion. Some of them fight only as a last resort if we are really in a pickle, actually that's how all of them are. They like to help with planning and spare small jobs we have that need to be done, Comet, Sinker and Boost are some of the ones that are around.

The rebellion is lead by Ahsoka Tano, Separatist leader Commander Sato, Hera Syndulla and myself. We have been helping many systems who are in need because of the empire. Oh yeah, Senator bail Organa and princess Leia Organa secretly lead us in our fight while pretending to support the empire. I’ve edited my Armor, added extensions to it and made it bigger so it would fit me, I also changed it’s color from purple to grey. It’s markings match the ones on you're clone armor.

If you and Gregor do come I’ll find a cure for your fast aging. We’ve found cures for the ones that are here, aside from Rex, but it’s different for every clone, we have a serem but it has to be altered for every clone, we are currently altering it for Rex and I’m sure we could alter the serum for gregor. Not so sure about yourself since at one point you were a Werewolf. We may have to unblock the werewolf part of your blood, which would make you a wolf again.

I know you might not be too keen too that Idea but I highly doubt the serum could be altered for you seeing as you have wolfblood in you still. It wasn't actually removed like you thought I just used the force to contain it and make it inactive. We will try to do the serum but if we can't i’m going to free the wolf-blood. I don’t want you to die on me anytime soon. I don’t think I could live without you my beautiful Angel. It’s not fair that we are the same age yet you're near the end of your life.

It’s boring here, some of these guys have less personality than some of than some of the shinnes fresh off of Kamino did. And that’s saying something.

After battles were always fun with you and the wolfpack. Especially if Rex and the 501st were involved. Those boys were always having a party. I remember Rex’s favorite phrase at those times “It’s always a party in the 501st”

Master Skywalker is not Darth Vader like we thought he was. So the mystery of who Darth Vader is, is still open. Master Skywalker is currently being held at an imperial complex. Highest security one. I think the emperor is keeping him alive too use his force signature too give to whomever darth vader is too make it seem as if master Skywalker is Darth Vader.

I know for a fact he’s not I came across files, imperial files of where he is being kept and his cell number. That's not information I can put in this letter. I have a few guesses at who Vader is.

I think he is Master Jrul, Master Pong Krell, or Master Quinlan Vos. Though he could be another fallen Jedi I think these three are the most likely. This would be a conversation best for comms or better yet being face to face.

I really wish you were here with me Angel, I need someone who understands me. I need you more than I ever thought my Angel.

If you decide to come you can write and I’ll come pick you up or you can just call Rex, I’m not in the command center often so the chances of them getting a comm message to me is slim.

Hope too see you again Angel,

Love,

Elsa Phoenix-Koon

“I...She….” I stumbled over the words I wanted to say. Gregor took the letter from my hands, I was in complete shock and could feel my eyes starting to water. “She still loves me” I finally choke out

“Of course she does Wolffe, she’s your wife, she’ll love you no matter what” Gregor says

“She’d be safer finding someone else” I say

“You don’t really belive that do you?” Gregor says

“I miss her, but I don’t want to risk hurting her” I say

“I doubt you could ever hurt her, she’s a strong kid” Gregor says, “We should go, sounds too me that she really wants you there”

“But…”

“No buts” Gregor says “I’m comning Rex”

“Wonderful” I say when Gregor leaves the room.

[justforbooks]

The Best Spy Novels to Read While Stuck at Home

Forty, page-turning spy novels, to Keep you on the edge of your seat. Marked by an exhilarating pace, plenty of dramatic twists, and richly drawn complex protagonists, spy novels are about as riveting as it gets in the library. And while all the excitement of double agents and espionage keeps you at the edge of your seat, these books also offer insight into fascinating and troubling historical periods.

In the name of thrilling reading, no matter what time of year and to wrestle with larger philosophical questions of betrayal, human connection, and the legacy of international conflict, I rounded up 40 of the best spy novels around, to read while stuck at home. Written by former CIA and other intelligence agents and some of the most prolific literary minds of all time, get to know the best spy novels below.

Here are my picks for the best spy novels you have to read while stuck at home.

Rosalie Knecht, Who Is Vera Kelly?

1962 in New York City's Greenwich Village and Argentina. A radio show host is struggling to make ends meet and fit into the underground gay scene when she gets recruited by the CIA to wiretap a crooked congressman in Argentina, and works her way into a radical group of students planning a coup. Think coming-of-age meets historical fiction with a strong female protagonist.

Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

Modern-day Russia. Dominika Egorova is forced into becoming a secret agent that uses her sultry beauty to seduce an American CIA officer. When she develops genuine feelings for him, her loyalties begin to shift and the plot thickens.

Gina Apostol, Gun Dealer's Daughter

1980s Marcos-era Philippines and modern-day America. Though this book doesn't follow a linear chronology, it reflects Sol's fragmented memory and trauma. As a young woman limited by the comfort of her wealth, she seeks to overthrow the Marcos regime. Spying on the American generals and Philippine elite from her own fancy dinner table, Sol's loyalties struggle between her family, homeland, and her insurgent student friends. Politically charged, lyrical, and eye-opening, this is a must-read.

Helen MacInnes, Agent in Place

New York, Washington, D.C., and the French Riviera during the Cold War. When a Russian spy who's expertly infiltrated Washington society gets his hands on a top-secret NATO memorandum, a high-profile CIA officer's cover is blown in Moscow. Now, everyone is racing against time to uncover who the Russian spy actually is.

Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

1975 Vietnam and Los Angeles, A half-French, half-Vietnamese double agent relocates to America after the fall of Saigon, and betrayal, both personal and political, ensues. At once a love story and a spy novel about the legacy and evils of colonialism, the Vietnam War, and ensuing refugee experience in the U.S. you won't soon forget The Sympathizer. It's satirical, sharp, suspenseful, and poignant.

Joseph Kanon, Leaving Berlin

Post-WWII Berlin, Germany. Alex Meier is a young German Jew who fled to America at the onset of WWII to escape Nazi persecution. But with the Cold War underway, it's the peak of the McCarthy era, and he's pigeon-holed into working undercover in East Berlin for the CIA. It's the only way he won't be deported. But when he gets there, he finds out that his target is the woman he loved and left behind before the war. It's a thought-provoking and action-packed love story.

Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

London, late 1800s. A shop-owner gets wrapped up in an anarchist scheme to bomb the Greenwich Observatory, but the plan goes wrong and throws his life into chaos. It raises philosophical questions and is a literary masterpiece, but that doesn't keep it from being a thrilling, entertaining read.

John Le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Post-WWII Britain. Unhappily retired after a failed mission, an aging officer sets out to catch a traitor who has worked their way into the highest ranks of British intelligence. Full of political and social commentary with a fast-paced plot, there's a reason this is such a classic.

Ian McEwan, The Innocent

Berlin, 1955. A young Englishman living in American-occupied Berlin is commissioned to install the tape recorders that that will wiretap Russians in Soviet-occupied East Berlin. He begins spying on the Americans for the Brits while helping the Americans spy on the Russians. But, he fails as a spy, and the plot becomes more complicated when he falls in love with an older German with a violent, possessive ex-husband.

Lauren Wilkinson, American Spy

Burkina Faso. In the FBI, Marie Mitchell sticks out as a young black woman. In American Spy, Marie wades through a sea of a mostly white male intelligence community, and an assignment to Burkina Faso, where she meets Thomas Sankara, revolutionary president of the landlocked, West African country.

John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Cold War-era Germany. British intelligence agent Alec Leamas should be on his way back to London, but one more job—an undercover mission to topple East German intelligence, leads Leamas back into dangerous territory. In an interview with Electric Literature, author Lauren Wilkinson (author of American Spy) calls this spy novel "terrific."

Susan Hasler, Intelligence

Post-9/11 America, during an election year. Intelligence trails Maddie James, a CIA counterterrorism analyst as she pursues an al-Qaida operation with an eccentric team. Meanwhile, the Administration is more interested in maintaining the message that America is winning the war on terror. According to author Susan Hasler, a former member of the CIA, writing the novel was a way to cope with residual 9/11 period anger.

Valerie Plame, Blowback

Cyprus. Young, blonde CIA operative Vanessa Pierson assumes the identify of a financial adviser in Cyprus on a reconnaissance mission. Her target: An international arms dealer, Bhoot, who is believed to be aiding Iran to bolster its nuclear activities. With an assassin on her trail, Blowback is full of fast-paced action scenes, as well as intimate details that the Washington Post describes "might elude a male writer." Blowback is co-authored by former CIA agent Valerie Plame, and Sarah Lovett.

Stella Rimington, At Risk

Britain. British intelligence taps Liz Carlyle, a scrappy counter terror agent to stop a terrorist attack. And the person of interest is traveling under a British passport, an "invisible." Author Stella Rimington relies on her former life as a high-ranking spy to author At Risk, Rimington's debut novel.

Patricia Wentworth, Hue and Cry

London. Before Mally Lee's wedding in six months, she accepts a position as governess to a shipping magnate's young daughter. Upon entering the Peterson grounds, however, Lee will be accused of being a thief and spy. Mally flees, leaving her fiancé in emotional shambles and private investigators in hot pursuit. What has Mally stumbled into?

Irène Némirovsky, The Courilof Affair

18th century Russia. Léon M, son of Russian revolutionaries, is tasked with assassinating the ruthless Valerian Alexandrovitch Courilof, Russian Minister of Education. Fronting as Courilof's personal physician, Léon M works his way into Courilof's summer house, and as his relationship with Courilof grows, learns things are more complicated than they seem.

Stephenie Meyer, The Chemist

United States. A page-turning tale of an ex-agent on the run from her former employer (a clandestine, unnamed agency). To clear her name, she accepts one more job that will put her in an even more precarious position. But, the job goes south. What now?

Jennifer Chiaverini, The Spymistress

Civil War-era America. Elizabeth Van Lew is a Union loyalist living in the Confederacy, and she will risk it all to help build the Richmond underground, break free inmates from Confederate Libby Prison, and gather military intelligence under the pretense of humanitarian aid. In this historical novel inspired by a true story, Van Lew's contributions during the Civil War comes alive.

John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps

Over a century old, and Buchan’s adventure novel still passes muster. The first of five novels featuring an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip, Richard Hannay, this is unpredictable, exciting fare – and will keep you guessing until the last page.

Graham Greene, The Quiet American

A novel depicting French colonialism being uprooted in Vietnam may not sound like the most thrilling you’ve ever heard, but in the hands of English literary giant Graham Greene, anything is possible. Featuring British journalism, undercover CIA agents, illegitimate marriage and a light smattering of car bombs, there is action balanced with considered philosophy – and the book is all the better for it.

Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal

Telling the tale of a professional assassin – tasked by a French dissident organisation to kill the President of France – Forsyth’s novel was met with praise when it was first published, and remains so to this day. Of course, the 1973 film adaptation starring the suave Edward Fox did nothing to help with the stories success...

Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

We all know Matt Damon’s award-winning portrayal of Ludlum’s most famous character, but how many of us have read the novels? If not, you’ll be glad to know that these tales of amnesia, backstabbing and action are just as thrilling on the page – and that Eric Van Lustbader has added to the cannon, with an additional 11 Bourne books available to read.

Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October

Tom Clancy’s debut novel remains his best. Introducing Jack Ryan, the CIA analyst throw into the field, it one again tackles Soviet themes and the adventures of a group of US Navy officers taking possession of a nuclear submarine. It’s thrilling fare, and Clancy’s talent to bring the appeal of classic espionage into modern-day storytelling is impressive to say the least.

Len Deighton, The IPCRESS File

Len Deighton’s first spy novel, like Tom Clancy’s, is also his best. More famous for the Michael Caine-fronted film spun from its pages, this original novel involves Cold War brainwashing, a United State atomic weapons test and an extended sequence in Lebanon – and makes use of spy novel trope to be employed for years to come: that of the nameless protagonist.

John le Carré, The Tailor of Panama

He is Harry Pendel: Exclusive tailor to Panama’s most powerful men. Informant to British Intelligence. The perfect spy in a country rife with corruption and revolution. What his “handlers” don’t realize is that Harry has a hidden agenda of his own. Deceiving his friends, his wife, and practically himself, he’ll weave a plot so fabulous it exceeds his own vivid imagination. But when events start to spin out of control, Harry is suddenly in over his head—thrown into a lethal maze of politics and espionage, with unthinkable consequences...

Eric Ambler, A Coffin for Dimitrios

A chance encounter with a Turkish colonel leads Charles Latimer, the author of a handful of successful mysteries, into a world of sinister political and criminal maneuvers. At first merely curious to reconstruct the career of the notorious Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an Istanbul morgue, Latimer soon finds himself caught up in a shadowy web of assassination, espionage, drugs, and treachery that spans the Balkans.

Ken Follett, Eye of the Needle

“His code name was “The Needle.” He was a German aristocrat of extraordinary intelligence—a master spy with a legacy of violence in his blood, and the object of the most desperate manhunt in history... But his fate lay in the hands of a young and vulnerable English woman, whose loyalty, if swayed, would assure his freedom—and win the war for the Nazis...“

Olen Steinhauer, The Tourist

Milo Weaver has tried to leave his old life of secrets and lies behind by giving up his job as a “tourist” for the CIA―an undercover agent with no home, no identity. Now he’s working a desk at the agency’s New York headquarters. But when the arrest of a long-sought-after assassin sets off an investigation into a colleague, exposing new layers of intrigue in his old cases, he has no choice but to go back undercover and find out who’s been behind it all from the very beginning.

Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana

MI6’s man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true...

Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands

The classic spy novel by Erskine Childers, credited as the first work of modern espionage fiction. Set in pre-World War I Europe, two British subject, Carruthers and Davies, uncover secret German activity suggesting a prelude to war.

Tom Bradby, Secret Service

What if your next national leader was secretly a Russian spy? Kate Henderson is a high-ranking officer of England's MI6—and a recent undercover operation has revealed explosive intel. Russia has infiltrated the upper levels of UK politics by co-opting a senior politician. To make matters worse, there may be a mole moving through the halls of England's Secret Intelligence Service. With an election looming, Kate is in a race to expose the double agents and save those she holds dear. But who can be trusted? Acclaimed British author and journalist Tom Bradby excels at crafting pulse-pounding narratives set against the backdrop of true-life events. In Secret Service, the author delivers a tense and timely spy thriller where the greatest threat comes from within.

James Grady, Condor: The Short Takes

In this novella, the iconic CIA operative Condor is back in a series of new adventures. New York Times-bestselling author James Grady brings back his famous spy but in a surprising setting. Six Days of the Condor was popular during the paranoid era of the 1970s as Condor was a spy in his prime who ruthlessly and heroically deals with a conspiracy within the United States government. In Condor: The Short Takes, Grady presents an aged Condor who finds himself in a modern setting and with 21st century threats. The original framework is present but the stories are far more intimate and less straightforward. Condor finds himself involved in cyber threats and the 9/11 aftermath; perhaps an even bigger scandal than the Cold War. The master of intrigue brings you six stories that are sure to leave you on the edge of your seat; can Condor soar over the obstacles or will he falter and fall? This is perfect for any fans of the hit original series, Condor!

John Lawton, A Little White Death

A social and sexual revolution was had throughout most of the world during the 1960s, and England was no exception. John Lawton's novel implants remnants of this revolution into the third book of his Inspector Troy series. This novel follows Inspector Troy—despite many career set-backs—as he rises to the head of CID at Scotland Yard. However, before the chief detective can celebrate, he finds himself deep into a scandal reminiscent of the Profumo affair. Troy becomes entangled in a web as he attempts to battle illness, police politics, and the Establishment. He must focus on protecting those affected by the aftermath of the scandal and discover who murdered the two key players in the scandal.

Brian Freemantle, Charlie M

Charlie Muffin came into the British secret service in the early 1950s, when the desperate government was in search of more foot soldiers in the impending Cold War. They decided to look into the middle class for the first time and found what they were looking for in Charlie. Even though he is a working-class, state-educated man from Manchester, Charlie has been one of the most effective agents of the secret service. However, times are changing as Cambridge and Oxford graduates are ready to take over again. They have decided it's time to sacrifice Charlie, but he won't go down easy. This exhilarating novel of double-crossing is excellent for fans of le Carre or Deighton!

Patricia Wentworth, Dead or Alive

In this suspenseful tale by British crime author Patricia Wentworth, Meg O'Hara's husband Robin disappears on the day she plans to divorce him. A year after the presumed body of her dead husband is found, someone breaks into her apartment to leave a shocking message. Now Meg is left to uncover if her husband is dead or alive. As more cryptic messages appear, Meg is certain that someone—maybe even her husband—is trying to get to her...but no one takes her seriously. Well, except for Bill Coverdale. For years Bill has been deeply in love with Meg, so he sets out to get to the bottom of things. Together, they find themselves embroiled in blackmail, forgery, and murder all while facing an unstoppable criminal mastermind.

John Altman, A Game of Spies

In preparation of Germany's invasion of France, England needs to gather classified information on Germany...and there's only one highly skilled spy who can get the job done: Agent William Hobbs. During the bleak winter of 1940, Hobbs meets the naive Eva Bernhardt and seduces her into working for the British secret service. Smitten with Agent Hobbs and disenchanted by Hitler, Eva agrees to seek information from the Führer’s inner circle. As Hobbs and Eva plunge into the world of espionage, intrigue, and deception, Eva quickly transforms into a tough and cynical operative, using her feminine guile and manipulative skills to obtain crucial knowledge. A Game of Spies is a thrilling tale with an even more electrifying conclusion as Eva holds her future, and the future of the entire war, in her hands.

John Lawton, Then We Take Berlin

Meet Joe Wilderness, orphaned by World War II - and certain that this fact will allow him to operate outside of society's bounds and rules for the rest of his life. But when he gets recruited into MI6, he discovers a fast-paced life in Berlin that will force him to go to extremes to accomplish his missions. This stylish thriller is a beloved read, best for fans of Eric Ambler.

Helen MacInnes, The Salzburg Connection

MacInnes may be best known for her first novel, Above Suspicion, but in The Salzburg Connection, written over 20 years later, she had become an expert in espionage beyond compare. In this spy vs spy vs lawyer tale, Richard Bryant, British agent, is one of the few who knows about a secret cache of Nazi information. When he’s found dead, an American lawyer gets caught up in the quest to find the information, before it gets in the wrong hands.

Gayle Lynds, Masquerade

Lynds became popular thanks to a collaborative series with Robert Ludlum, Covert-One, but she had been honing her craft long before The Altman Code’s debut. Like Jason Bourne, Liz Sansborough wakes up one morning to discover that she no longer remembers her life as a CIA agent. Luckily, her lover, Gordon, is there to explain what she has forgotten. But can Gordon–or the world–be trusted? There’s an international assassin after Liz, and she’ll need to figure out whom she can trust quickly.

Chris Pavone, The Travelers

A more recent addition, but one worthy of the list, The Travelers by Chris Pavone sees travel writer Will Rhodes is on assignment for Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina when a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Drawn into a tangled web of international intrigue – like so many thriller protagonists before him – this is a standout in a modern world of throwaway poolside paperbacks.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #COVID-19 #My Lockdown Diary

[devil-in-those-eyes]

What’s Gotten Into You Part 2 Roger!Ben Imagine

Omg don't worry, this is not over yet!!!

Y/N-

           You woke up the next day with the memories of last night flooding back to you as soon as sleep slipped away from you. First it was remembering seeing Roger standing in the bar with his friends, then it was the smiles and the tiny touches, the dancing and laughing. Then you remembered how you went to bed curled up to him, your hand feeling his heart beat underneath his bare skin. You pried your eyes open when a sense of loneliness filled your bedroom and you rolled over and found the spot that Roger had slept in was empty and cold. You sat up in your bed and listened for him, wondering if he was up and making you both tea, but you caught sight of your clock on the bedside table and realized it was late and Roger was probably long gone. Especially if he had a gig tonight.

           You sighed. Rubbing your eyes you laid back down in bed, pulling the sheets over you.

           “Y/N?” you heard your close friend, Libby, call out from somewhere in your apartment.

           “In here,” you called back and after a couple silent seconds, Libby pushed your door open.

           She raised her eyebrows at you, “Late night, babe?”

           “Yeah,” you groaned and moved to your side of the bed so she had room to get in.

She laid against the headboard with you before putting a note in your lap, “Looks like Roger left you a note.”

           You lifted the note and quickly read over it. Love, had a great time last night. Hope to see you at the gig tonight. Love, Rog. You sighed as something heavy settled in your stomach.

           “Everything alright, Y/N?”

           “I don’t know,” you answered simply, laying the note down in your lap as you and your friend curled up in your blankets. “Rog was acting weird all night.”

           “As in how?”

           “Touchy,” you answered, “really touchy.”

           “He always is with you, like you are with him.” Libby was completely right, both you and Roger were touchy. Lots of cuddles, lots of forehead and cheek kisses but there was something different about last night.

           You turned your head to look at Libby, “there was something different last night. It was… more.”

           Libby’s eyes narrowed in at you, “you don’t think he’s gotten feelings for you, do you?”

           “No,” you laughed and shook your head but soon your laughter died down when you realize Libby wasn’t laughing with you. Your eyes widened, “Oh, dear, you do?”

           Libby grimaced, almost as if you were blaming her for smashing her mum’s best china. “Well, it makes sense and it’s been a long time coming.”

           “Elizabeth,” Her nose scrunched up at her full name, “you really don’t think that do you?”

           “Well, you’ve known Roger for what? Four years and in those years he’s always been like this, right?” You nodded, almost wanting to throw out there that it was just who Roger was but you kept your mouth shut and let her continue. “He’s always calling and checking in on you, always goes home with you to see your mum and dad.”

           “Because he loves them,” you reminded her.

           “He spends holidays with you and not his family, you two are always keeping physical contact.” She ignored you and then said softly, “what would be the problem if he did love you more than a friend?”

           You crossed your arms over your chest, “No… but it’s Roger.”

           “You told me yourself that you were attracted to him at UNI.” Libby huffed and you found her smiling at you.

           “Why wouldn’t I find him attractive? Have you seen the man?” Roger was created by the gods in your opinion. He was baby faced, but his long hair and deep voice gave off anything but innocent vibes and sometimes the way he looked at you left you wondering if he was having thoughts dirty enough to make a prostitute blush, but you always brushed it off as Roger being Roger. Now, after last night, you felt like it was more than that but you didn’t want to assume anything and ruin a perfectly good friendship.

           “Are you coming to their show with me tonight?” You asked her, assuming she already knew because she had been a fan of Roger and Brian since their Smile days.

           “Why not?” she answered nonchalantly, “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

           You laughed and she pulled you out of bed. Until the concert you two decided to have a quiet Saturday, sitting in your front room ordering take out and eating while watching whatever was on the telly and popping in a couple movies.

           When it came time to get ready, you threw on a black dress and pinned your hair up at the base on your neck, it was simple look but you felt comfortable in it. You needed comfort since your feelings seemed to be all over the place and thinking about Roger just made it worse. You didn’t know what you were going to do when you saw him, or what you would say but you couldn’t deny the way he made you feel last night and how he was acting different at the bar last night.

           You made it to the pub just before they went on stage but you didn’t bother trying to find him backstage because it was too close to the gig starting so you and Libby found some beers and stood among the crowd waiting patiently.

           The group around you had been somewhat quiet but when Brian walked across the stage with his guitar, followed by Freddie, John and Roger, everyone started cheering. Especially the college girls for Roger. He looked so good in his skinny jeans and black t-shirt, making his blond hair look blonder and his blue eyes shine brighter.

           “Hey, Roger!” One of the college girls cooed from behind you and you looked back to see her top was pulled down a bit and the hem of her shorts barely covered her vagina.

           You felt your heart plummet into your stomach when you looked back at Roger to see him smirking at the girl and you knew that smirk, it was the I’m about to be up so late undressing you smirk. Maybe he didn’t have feelings for you. Brian was in the middle of introducing the band when you were about to lower your eyes from Roger, but then he finally looked away from the girl and found you.

           His face split into a grin and he looked genuinely happy to see you. His little wink made your heart lift out of your stomach and you found yourself forgetting about the way he looked at the girl when he kept his eyes on you during Brian’s introduction of him. You bit your lip and looked at his bandmates, already seeing John watching you two and your cheeks burned.

              The band started playing and the crowd started to jam along to the music. Their band was selling out bars and every crowd was getting larger and larger, but their music was still new and at the almost known stage. As Roger started hitting the drums harder, his eyes left yours and settled on other girls as they danced and enjoy themselves and you saw that look again. Dealing with Roger was basically asking for a rollercoaster specifically for your heart, it was amazing how quickly your went from soaring to sinking real low.

           You tried enjoying yourself with Libby, trying to ignore Roger’s wandering eyes but it was hard because you almost convinced yourself that he might have started to have more than friendly feelings towards you.

           Libby saw your distress and grabbed your hand, “Come on, have fun!”

           You tried to smile as she swung her hips to the music, “I am!”

           Her eyes narrowed because she knew you were lying. She wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you to her, “when was the last time we went out and danced together, had some real fun?”

           You sighed as she swayed to the music; she was right it had been way too long since you two had a night out together. You could ignore Roger and the way he was looking at the other girls and still enjoy yourself. So you did for the rest of their gig, dancing and swinging your hips to the rock and roll band, pretending it wasn’t Roger banging on the drums.

           When the band finished their song, you and Libby drifted off to the bar and put your empty glasses on the bar top, asking for two more. You had been around Roger long enough to know that when he got that look in his eyes, you had a very slim chance of even catching a glimpse of him after a show, so you expected to not see him and just decided to continue on enjoying your night with your best friend as the pub started playing some softer than rock and roll.

           You laughed as some guy started hitting on Libby, your back to the stage. You nestled your chin in the palm of your hand and looked over Libby, trying to see the younger guy hitting on her and failing miserably. With your back to the stage, you didn’t see Roger hand his drum sticks to Brian before jumping off the stage and beelining for you. It wasn’t until he caged you in against the edge of the bar, pressing his front to your back that you tensed. Having no idea it was Roger, you straightened up and tensed, unsure of what to do.

           “Enjoy the show, love?” The voice grumbled, his lips touching your earlobe. The second he spoke, you looked down at the hands and saw the familiar veins running over the back of his hand. You knew those hands, and the voice, because you had been watching him bang on the drums for the last couple years and every time you watched him play, it really fucked you up.

           “It was okay,” you answered, keeping your voice calm and relaxing into his hot body.

           He hummed and a hand left the bar to touch your hip, bunching up the fabric and making it rise on the skin of your thighs. “The way you moved your hips says otherwise.”

           His breath tickled your ear and goosebumps rose on your arms and legs. “I’m shocked you noticed, what with all your groupies basically begging you to undress them.”

           “Is that… jealousy?” He asked, sounding amused but it only fueled your annoyance and slight pang of hurt.

           You quickly looked to your right to see your best friend had drifted off to talk to friends of hers, leaving you alone with Roger. You turned in his arms, expecting him to move and give you space, but all he did was stare at you with a very smug and entertained smile. Your anger bubbled over again, “I’m not jealous.”

           Roger’s eyes raced over your body, taking in the swell of your boobs that seemed to want to spill over the top of your dress more and more with every breath you took, before sinking down to take in your bare legs. He was taking you in and enjoying every second of it, but all you could think about was him looking at those other girls, so what made you so different?

           Your eyes narrowed, “Do you have to be such a pig?”

           His eyes shot up to yours at the sound of pure annoyance in your voice, “Pardon?”

           You rolled your eyes and pushed against his shoulder, shoving him away from you. “I’m going home.”

           “Y/N,” Roger started as you started walking away from him. “Babe,” he started again but you weren’t listening so he gripped your wrist and tugged you around to face him, “Love, what has gotten into you?”

           “Nothing!” You exclaimed a little too loudly and twisted your wrist until he let you go, “I’m tired. I’m going home.”

           You turned away from Roger and headed straight for the door, not even attempting to find Libby and tell her your night was over. It was late fall, almost winter, but you still hadn’t worn a jacket so the second you stepped outside the midnight air wrapped around you and you regretted not wearing a coat.

           You shook your head, you should have never let Libby convince you Roger had feelings for you. Your apartment was a fifteen minute walk away from the bar so you wrapped your arms around your chest and started walking, hopefully you’d start warming up when you started moving.

           You heard heavy footsteps behind you and you walked closer to the buildings, making room for whoever was rushing towards you, but those footsteps slowed down when they closed in on you and you felt the warmth and heaviness of a jacket. You turned your head and saw Roger walking beside you in nothing but his black t-shirt to shield him against the cold.

           “Cant leave a girl alone, can ya?” You asked him but pulled the jacket closer to your body.

           “You may be mad at me, love, but I’ll never let you walk home alone at this hour.” He answered simply.

           “I am twenty-four, I can make it home on my own.” You argued.

           “You’re right, you’re more than capable, but it doesn’t change my decision.” He dug his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as he gave you his stubborn answer.

           You raised your eyebrows, “wont miss the chance to chase some skirts?”

           You never liked sounding petty, or catty, but you couldn’t help it. You wanted his attention, you didn’t want to watch his attention be elsewhere.

           You heard the flick of the lighter and turned your head just in time to see him sucking in a deep breath of smoke before speaking and let it out, “Wanna tell me what’s really going on, love?”

           You took the fag out from between his fingers and took a drag. You weren’t a smoker, by any means, but he was stressing you out and you had no wine in your apartment. You blew out the smoke as you both stood on the sidewalk, he was staring at you with a soft look in his eyes. You breathed in before answering, “Not particularly, no.”

           You took another drag before handing it back to him and answering swiftly while turning away, “I can make it home from here. Night, Rog.”

           But he didn’t leave you alone. He followed closely behind you, not giving up and seeing to it that you got home okay. You realized your best bet was to just ignore him and let him trail behind you, so you just continued to walk home.

           When you reached your apartment building, you were positive he was going to walk away and head back to the bar, but instead he walked inside with you. “Going to follow me up to my door?” You breathed out.

           “I’m hoping you’ll be honest with me about something.” He answered as you climbed the flights of steps.

           “About what?” You grumbled after climbing five flights of stairs.

           “About being jealous.” He answered.

           You whirled around a couple doors from yours. “Excuse me?” You asked, “I already told you I wasn’t.”

           “Oh please, Y/N,” he chuckled, hanging his hands on his hips. “I know what the green monster looks like when I see it.”

           You scoffed and turned around heading for your door. “And what is it you think I’m jealous of?” you asked as you dug in your purse for your keys. “Watching some bimbo nearly strip on the dance floor for you? Oh yes, Roger, I’m so jealous.”

           “You know, I usually find this side of women terrifying, but I find this side of you charming.” Roger answered your sarcasm without missing a beat.

           You shoved your door open and turned around to face him, only to find him smirking and prowling towards you, “You are the most arrogant…”

           His hands touched your face while his hips pushed you into the doorframe, the second you hit it his lips were on yours. Your hands gripped his hips and you relaxed against him, his lips were soft and his hands were gentle as he held you too him but the swipe of his tongue was anything but.

           With a nibble of your bottom lip he pulled away. You opened your eyes and found him grinning at you. He groaned as he stared down at your mouth, “You have no idea how long I’ve fucking waited to kiss that mouth.”

TAGLIST:

oxuminaa 

screechinghumanrebelangel a19103

hardyhoe68703

finnbalortrash21

ginabaker1666

#ben hardy #ben hardy smut #ben hardy imagine #roger!ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #roger!ben hardy imagine #roger taylor #roger taylor imagine #roger taylor smut #bohemian rhapsody #bohrhap #brian may #gwilym x reader #gwilym!brian #joe mazzello #john deacon #disco deaky #john deaky

[belphegor1982]

Thought I’d make a the Mummy/Returns fic recs posts for @counterwiddershins (EDIT: whom I can tag now!) because they asked for recs. So here are my favourite (complete) Mummy stories under the cut in alphabetical order, title-summary-why it’s on my list style. A few are Old, because I discovered this fandom in 2003 and there’s some great oldies. Hope you - and anyone else looking for great fics - enjoy them!

As Sweet as This / Coming Clean, by robot-iconography

Summary:  Evelyn reflects on the changes Ahm Shere has wrought upon her brother, husband, and son. /  Rick takes his life in his hands as he faces his greatest challenge ever: fatherhood.

Comments: I put these two in the same bag because they’re basically a diptych. They’re like two sides of the same coin. On one hand, you have a lovely story in Evy’s voice, on the other, a hilarious one in Rick’s. Both stories are sweet and more touching than they sound.

Circumstantial Evidence, by robot-iconography

Summary: “She could be damnably silly at times; she dressed like a spinster and carried herself like bloody royalty; but she was my baby sister, the only one I’d ever have. I’d been through hell to get her back, and now I was going to lose her anyway.”

Comments: Probably my favourite Mummy story ever. I love it so much I translated it into French in 2004, and even more so now I’ve read PG Wodehouse. Basically, there is canoodling, funny misunderstandings, and the closing scene is adorable (and made me discover Ella Fitzgerald’s “Always”, which is perfect as Ella Fitzgerald always is). Peak Carnahan siblings shenanigans and a great Rick.

Deeper Within Darkness, by Laurie M

Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that wherever Rick O'Connell and Evelyn Carnahan are, trouble is not far away. What begins as an innocent night out soon leads to danger that threatens all of Egypt.

Comments: a great follow-up on the 1st film, with still-developing relationships, a mysterious medallion, and ghostly (sort of) crocodiles. The main four are very well written. 3rd person limited POVs alternate with 1st person POVs in a very natural way, allowing us glimpses into the characters’ heads. Sometimes a little bit sombre, but a lovely story.

A Favour for a Friend, by queueingtrilobite [orphan account]

Summary: Roped into doing a favour for a friend, Jonathan finds himself in charge of an antiques shop in Cairo. This is honestly the very last favour he's going to do for anyone. Ever.

If you ship Ardeth and Jonathan, there’s plenty of fun and/or feelsy stories for you! Like this fun little romp, which features a hilarious style, a Jonathan who is equally good at thinking on his toes as he is as making disasters happen (being a bit of a disaster himself).

Finding Ma’at, by exchequered [orphan account]

Summary: “Hamunaptra Cruises.” Ardeth’s tone was thoughtful. “Do you not fear a curse upon your enterprise, for naming it thus?”

Another Ardeth/Jonathan fic - and boy, this one is *chef’s kiss* I mean, the only three tags are Tourism, Pining, and denial is a river in Egypt :D

Hereafter, by Marxbros

Summary: After TMR. Imhotep has raised Ancksunamun and conquered the earth. Rick, Evy, Ardeth, Jonathan, and some new characters must find each other to defeat Imhotep once more.

Comments: ooh, this one’s a monster to tackle (134k words), and it gets pretty epic - and is worth every second of reading. The OCs are great, necessary, and everyone gets their chance to shine.

Never Spellbound by a Starry Sky, by robot-iconography

Summary: Strange goings-on mar Rick and Evelyn's wedding preparations. Can they and Jonathan solve the mystery?

Comments: another follow-up on TM, as Evy and Rick navigate their relationship and how much they should wait before any sort of hanky-panky. Life interferes in the form of a mysterious object (though NOT the obvious one) and the three are thrust into adventure again. There are battles with the mosquito netting, someone getting a few stitches on their arse (again, not the obvious choice), and all the chapter titles come from dialogue from Elizabeth Peters’ Crocodile on the Sandbank. It’s often hilarious and the dialogue is to die for.

The Mummy: Curse of the Seven Scorpions, by Jac Danvers

Summary: Libby O’Connell hasn’t heard from her brother in years. The word ‘mummy’ meant nothing to her. But when a tiny gold scorpion is revealed to have much greater value, she is thrust back into her family’s life, and the life of a man she once hated.

Comments: back in the day, the “Rick’s sister tags along and falls in love with [usually Ardeth]” trope was a staple of Mummy fanfic, and one I didn’t have much interest in. This little story, mostly set after TMR, is a fun romp; Libby is a good character, well handled, and the little developing romance with Jonathan is fun to watch.

Sidekick, by madsthenerdy girl (on FFnet here)

Summary: Jonathan honestly tries to be a big brother. No, really.

Comments: Fantastic portrait of Jonathan through the years, warts and all, and his relationship with Evy (and later Alex). It’s heartfelt, often funny, and honest (sometimes painfully).

Take That, Bembridge Scholars!, by seren-ccd

Summary: The world has been saved and there's really only one thing left to do. Evy writes a strongly worded letter to the Bembridge Scholars. Oh, she gets married, too. 

It’s a great look at Evelyn, Rick and Jonathan in a few scenes, from the night after Hamunaptra to the start of Rick’s and Evy’s life as a married couple, interspersed by extracts from the aforementioned strongly-worded letter (and it’s great).

The Tenth Plague, by Khedi (on FFnet here)

Summary: Did anyone while watching The Mummy wonder about what would have happened if the tenth of the Biblical plagues had come to pass?

Not a death fic (well, not quite) but a great little look at (again, I’m nothing if not predictable) the Carnahan siblings just after they get back to Cairo after The Mummy. It’s a punch in the feels and a hug. I love it.

Travelers by Night, by 20thcenturyvole

Summary: Very quickly, Jonathan weighed the odds. On one hand, potential death, whether by armed bandits, a mummy’s curse, or people who looked like bandits and who were very angry about someone unleashing a mummy’s curse. On the other hand, potential riches, home ground, and topics of conversation other than what happened at school fifteen years ago and who got it in the neck where.

A great look at Jonathan post-first film and a great take on Ardeth, too. Can be shippy if you tilt your head and squint, or not. Your call.

We Three Together series, by Tinydooms

Basically a series that can act as a novelisation for The Mummy, mostly “missing scenes” and character studies. A joy to read if you like Evy, Rick, and Jonathan.

The Witches’ Library, by jones2000 (on FFnet here)

Summary: He would like to state emphatically for the record that none of this was his fault, thank you very much. It was all entirely coincidental. He should know by now that these things have a tendency to snowball. Or, Jonathan doesn't need the O’Connells to find trouble.

Comments: I read this last year and it immediately made my shortlist of favourites, on top of hitting me in the heart and over the head with the subtlety of a freight train. I even made a rec post about it. The writing is so sharp it might as well be written with a bloody scalpel, the OCs are fascinating, and Jonathan is somewhat jaded but still wonderfully entertaining. It’s the only post-WW2 Mummy story I’ve ever loved (read?), and certainly the only one that incorporates Tomb of the Dragon Emperor elements I’ve ever loved. Give it plenty of reviews, it deserves them.

Edited to add a few and make it more dash-friendly :o)

Also, I wrote a few things if you’re interested:

After the Sunset: What’s left to do, after saving the world and riding triumphantly into the setting sun? A lot, as it turns out. Our Heroes ride camels, negotiate the shift from acquaintances and allies to something like a family, and encounter a couple of surprises good and bad on the way back from Hamunaptra. (Or, the one where Evelyn and Rick discover the contents of their saddlebag, Jonathan finds out that whiskey doesn’t quite cut it when a scarab has burrowed its way into your hand and arm and out your shoulder, and Ardeth gives his name and saves the day. Well, night.)

Long one-shot set just after “the end” of The Mummy.

Fairy Tales and Hokum: 1937: Two years after the events of Ahm Shere, the O’Connells are “required” by the British Government to bring the Diamond taken there from Egypt to England. In Cairo, while Evelyn deals with the negotiations and Rick waits for doom to strike again, Jonathan bumps into an old friend of his from university, Tom Ferguson. Things start to go awry when the Diamond is stolen from the Museum and old loyalties are tested...

This one is looong. It’s 160k+ words. (also took me 16 years to finish but shhh)

Carnahan-O’Connells musings and snapshots: Headcanons and one-shots about the disaster family.

Like it says on the tin - mostly headcanons with a few actual stories with dialogue.

I know, there’s not a lot of them, but they’re my very favourites. If you have other recs, feel free to add them!

#fic recs #the mummy films

[libbyngrace]

( DOVE CAMERON, FEMALE, SHE/HER ) – wait a minute, wasn’t that 23 year old ELIZABETH “LIBBY” GRACE walking through the town square? i heard that they’ve been living in augusta for THIRTEEN YEARS and they live at #26 BEAUMONT ROAD. i often see them at THE GYM where they spend their time as A YOGA INSTRUCTOR. the people closest to them say that they are EXPRESSIVE & KINDHEARTED but can also be SENSITIVE & OVERLY TRUSTING ( claire & est ) « [ muse c in plot 16 ] »

hi y’all! i’m back w this cutie and cannot wait to get home from work later to start interacting!! i’d love to plot in the meantime tho if she calls to anyone!!! feel free to message me while i’m bored out of my skull doing insurance work. anywaaaay here’s more about libby grace !!

libby is an only child and was born march 2nd, 1996 (making her a pisces sun, scorpio moon, virgo ascending) to jonathan and carolyn grace in san francisco, california

her parents were loving to her, but their marriage, brought on by the fact that they had gotten pregnant with her at 22 and 20, respectively, was always rocky. the year she turned ten, it completely fell apart after her mother discovered her father was cheating on her for the third time – she served him divorce papers and moved across the country to augusta, maine, where she was originally from, and took libby with her.

the court ordered a custody agreement to be written up, and so until she turned eighteen, libby would spend school years in augusta with her mother and then travel to california to live with her father for nearly the entire summer.

her dad ended up marrying the woman he cheated with, and though she does love her father and even grew to love her stepmother over the years, watching her mother deal with the pain and betrayal tore libby apart. she had always been more attached to her mom and the two of them moving across the country only strengthened their bond, so she still harbors a lot of unrealized resentment towards her dad and stepmom for the whole thing.

because of this, libby is nervous to move too fast into relationships. in spite of this, she is also an intensely hopeless romantic. she’s in love with the idea of being in love but is terrified of putting all her trust into someone only to have them turn around and betray it. 

and when it comes to sex, the fear of ending up in the same position as her parents led to the decision that she wouldn’t give that part of herself to someone until she was sure they were the the right one. it’s just unfortunate considering not many people, at least at her age, are willing to wait, so she hasn’t ever had a real adult relationship that lasted more than a week.

aside from all of that, libby is a very kind, very dreamy, very empathetic soul. she cares deeply for everyone and everything, even going so far as to save worms stranded on sidewalks after it rains, and for lack of better terms is a huuuuge hippy. she wishes everyone could just love one another and be at peace, but since that isn’t realistic, she’s a huge advocate for things from human/animal rights and climate change prevention to personal wellness and healthiness and happiness.

normally you can find her outside writing or sketching in her journal, or at the local gym where she teaches yoga classes. she currently still lives with her mother and has a pug named percy whom she adores with her whole heart.

overall libby is a total pisces and a huge sweetheart and i’d love to get some plots or even just pals for her because i love her so much already, so seriously feel free to message me or like this or whatever!! i’ll be home in a few hours :’) love y’all

#aughqintro

[listenxtoyourxheartxseries]

Listen To Your Heart part 10

@prettyinpayne @ohnoitsthebat @queenofsprongstyle

Chapter 10: Home Sweet Chicago

Word count 2,841

“So how was the trip to Brooklyn?” Casey asked Kelly as they walked into the locker room, Libby had separated from them and went into the office to get settled in her new role. “It was intense, her family wanted to know all about our relationship and if she was living with me and Shay. And why. Her oldest nephew wanted to know if we were going to get married.” “And are you thinking about it?” Kelly looked around to make sure Shay and Dawson weren’t around anywhere. “I thought about it. But now it scares me, she was so fragile Case.” “She has a right to be. But she is getting stronger again. Just keep being there for her.” Kelly nodded his head as Shay came into the locker room shutting down the conversation for the time being.

**

“Morning Chief.” Libby commented as she glanced up from the notes that were left on the desk by headquarters. “Morning Libby. Good trip home?” he asked pausing by her desk. “Yes sir.” she answered, “it was nice being home. But I am glad we are back.” Boden nodded his head and stepped into his office.  The youngest member of the firehouse licked her lips and looked back at the paper work.  Her eyes drifted from the paperwork to the pink cast that was still on her left wrist. She had spent a lot of time when Kelly and her family weren't distracting her staring at it. Wondering if she could have done anything at all different if it would have changed things at all.

“Hey Libs, is chief in?”  Casey asked shaking her out of her thoughts. “Yeah go on in.” She answered. He nodded his head before he paused. “You okay?”  “I am okay, just a little sad.” She said, “I am still working through a lot of this stuff.”  “You know we all will listen to you if you need us too.” He said, “You aren’t alone with this.” “I know thanks Matt.”

**

3 days later

***

Kelly and Libby were in the mists of having their first major fight as a couple and it sent Shay down the street to Starbucks to wait for Kelly to take her to work. Libby wasn’t going to work that day, she was going to meet with her sister and brother in law about the grand jury that was coming up in the next week. She leaned against the counter and folded her arms under her chest and looked away from him.

“You know sometimes you drive me crazy!” Kelly said moving to where he was standing in front of her his hands bracing on either side of her. She swallowed roughly and raised her eyes slowly to meet his.  “But that is one reason why I fell in love with you to start with.” “You love me?” She asked shakily. ‘Of course I do silly girl.’ He said raising his hand and running it down her cheek.  A bright smile broke out on her face, “I love you too.” He pressed a kiss to her mouth as his fingers tangled in her blonde hair.  “You should go. Before Shay comes back here and yells. I will stop by after I am done with Erin and Jack.” She said softly. He groaned before pressing another kiss to her mouth. “Fine.’

***

4 days later

***

“You ready for this?” Chief Boden asked going over to Libby who was standing in front of the court house. She was testifying that day against Michael. And then from there no one knew. Mary who had stayed behind with her wanted to take her home to Brooklyn mostly so she wouldn’t be alone while everyone was on shift. “Yeah I need to be. I am scared to death but I need to do it.” Boden nodded his head as Kelly and Shay came out of the court house, “Your brother in law is a prick.” Shay said. “I know I tell him all the time. That and I don't like him. Most lawyers in general I don't like.” Kelly nodded his head, “your mom is getting anxious.” “I know she wants to go home. She misses my dad.And my brothers.” She answered,  “But at the same time she doesn’t want to leave her baby.”  Kelly put his arm around  her and lead her into the courthouse .

**

“The defense calls Elizabeth Reagan to the stand.’ Libby released Kelly's hand and stood up. She could feel all the eyes on her and it made her even more uncomfortable. Her brother in law Jack gave her a smile and offered her a wink. She gave him a timid smile in return. She stepped into the witness stand and chewed on her bottom lip. Her fingers wanted to curl into the material of her skirt. “Raise your right hand.” The plaintiff said. Libby placed her hand on the Bible and raised her right hand in the air. “Do you swear to tell the truth? The whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god?” “I do.” “Take a seat:” she sat down and crossed her ankles and curled her fingers into her palm. “State your name for the record.” Jack said coming around the table.

“Elizabeth Rose Reagan.” “but you liked to be called Libby correct?” “Yes.” Jack nodded his head, he could tell she was tense and she wouldn't relax until she was done. Public speaking and Libby never mixed. “what are you doing in Chicago?” “I am attending Northwestern. I am working on my bachelor's degree in American History and I am also a paramedic candidate at firehouse 51.”  she glanced away from jack and met Kelly’s and then Shay’s eyes both of whom gave her smiles. “Why here?” he asked. “I fell in love with the school and the atmosphere. I went to some many schools and what not with my dad. This is where it kept going back too.” “How did you get involved in being a paramedic? I mean you are what 21?”

“Almost. I did extra courses in high school that transferred over to a paramedic course here. I interviewed with CFD and they placed at 51. Said I would learn from the best.” “And have you?” “Yes sir.” she answered. Jack smiled, “now can you tell us what happened 2 weeks ago?” Libby licked her lips and looked at Michael and then at her brother in law. “Michael showed upset that I dumped him and wanted to stay here. When  I went home for my grandma’s funeral, he wanted me to leave Chicago.  And I thought about it and I couldn’t see myself not being here and not being in Northwestern or being at Firehouse 51. Being here has helped me find myself and become someone that I like.” “And you weren’t someone you liked when you with him?” “No, I let him take advantage of me and beat me down.” “How so?” He asked. “He beat and raped me.” She answered. “When did that start?” “When I was 16. I wasn’t ready to have sex and he made me do it.” Michael leaned over and whispered something to his lawyer. His lawyer who also happened to be his older brother’s best friend and had known Libby since she was a little girl.  She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breathes.

“Oh no.” Mary muttered to Cindy. “What?” “She needs to get down now.” “They aren’t done with her.” Christopher said leaning over his wife to look at Mary. “She is going to lose it. And it’s not going to be pretty.” mary said, Libby rarely lost it and when she did it was ugly.  

It was Danny times 10.  

Jack asked her a few more questions before moving to sit down. Rodney, Michaels attorney stood up. Libby started trembling in fear. “Libby.” “Actually to you it's Ms. Reagan.” the members of the firehouse chuckled, that sass was the libby they all knew and loved.

“Ms. Reagan.” Rodney amended, “can you tell us exactly what happened that day since Mr. Boyle didn't let you finish.” “I had gotten home from my shift at 8:30.” “Is that a normal time for you to get home?” “Yes, it is. Kelly, Leslie and I grabbed breakfast at a local diner then they dropped me off.” “Now do you spend a lot of time with Kelly and Leslie?” “I do. They kind of picked me and brought me under their wings.” “And does it bother you that Kelly is a man?” “No it doesn't. He's a good guy. Why don't ask your client if it bugged him me hanging out with a bunch of firefighters.” Libby paused, “Wait I can answer it for him he was jealous. He told me all the time that he didn't like me being there and having friends.”

Rodney nodded his head, “Now tell us what happened after kelly and Leslie dropped you off at your apartment.” “I went inside, did some homework and then fell asleep.” “At say 10 in the morning.” “Yes we work 24 hours shifts and that particular shift we were in and out of the house on calls most of the shift. So the first thing I did after I finished my paper was take a nap. Before Christopher picked me up for Sunday dinner at his house.”  

“Is that a common occurrence?” “Yes it is. Cindy, his wife decided to do it after I told her about how my family had Sunday dinners every Sunday since I could remember.”  Rodney nodded, “but what happened?” “instead of Christopher coming. Michael showed up.” “And you two had a nice chat?” libby laughed bitterly, “a nice chat? Are you kidding me? He beat me! Do you think I did this to myself?” “No.” “Well the way you are acting, makes me think you think that. Do you think I deserved this? That I deserved to be beat and raped? That I deserved to lose my baby? That I deserved to be lead to believe that I wasn't good enough for anyone?” Libby's voice rose as tears started coming down her cheeks.

“Ms Reagan.’ the judge said. “I'm sorry your honor.’ “let's take a 10 minute recess. You may step down Ms. Reagan.” libby nodded her head and stepped down. She walked out of the courtroom quickly.

The rest of 51 and Mary followed her quickly. “Libby.”  Shay said turning her head right and left. “I am right here.” Libby said from where she was sitting on the bench, her cheeks tear stained. Mary moved around them and went over to her daughter’s side. “You did good.””They are going to put me back up there and I don’t want to do it again. I can’t face him again.” “Yes you can.” Matt said kneeling down in front of her, “You are strong Lib, so strong, you survived everything that he put you through and found the will to carry on. And you are going to do that. Not you only have your family but you have all of us. We will have your back no matter what.” Libby nodded her head, “Got it Lt.” He laughed, “Matt is just fine Lib.”  She laughed and wiped her cheeks off, “I am going to go clean my face off.”  Matt squeezed her hand and let her stand up. “Shay, go with her.” Mary said softly, she knew even though she was playing off like she was fine, she would probably go cry in the bathroom before going back into the courtroom.

Shay and Gabby followed Libby into the bathroom and watched her splash cold water on her face. “I wanted to punch Rodney in the face.” Gabby said. “I have, that’s Michael’s older brother’s Francis’s best friend. He made me mad one night and I slugged him for it’ “You slugged a lawyer?” Gabby laughed. “Yes I did and I slugged 3 cops and kicked an ADA in the nuts.” Libby laughed, “Everyone i grew up with either became lawyers or cops. So yeah.” “And you are paramedic.” “Yep, I have my own ways to serve.” She said as Kelly peaked his head in, “They are ready for you Lib.” Libby nodded her head, “let's get this over with.” She muttered. Kelly put his arm around her and lead her back into the courtroom. Michael’s eyes were on her in an instant, she chose to ignore him and sit closer to kelly who wound his arm around her.

She rested her head on his shoulder wanting nothing more than to curl up on his lap just stay there but she knew that she couldn’t do that. “Ms. Reagan we are ready for you again.” The judge said. Libby nodded her head and stood up from her seat and went back the front of the courtroom. “I am sorry your honor.” The kind man that reminded her grandpa Henry smiled at her, “You are quite alright.” He said, “Mr. Smith, go ahead with your questioning.”  “Why not end it before it got too far?” “I was young and scared. I didn’t know any better, he had me all twisted up. He had me believing that I wasn’t good enough for anyone including my family.” “And what gave you courage to end the relationship?”

“My family at Firehouse 51. After he beat and raped after my grandmother’s funeral i worked up the courage to finally tell my family and my co workers what had been happening.” “Who did you tell you first?” “Outside of my twin brother and my grandma?” Rodney nodded his head. “Matt Casey, Kelly Severide, Andy Darden and Leslie Shay.” “Why them?” “Because Matt told me my first day that if I ever had a problem that i could come to him. So I did. They sat with me while I called my family and told them.”  Rodney nodded his head as Libby’s eyes widened. “Ms Reagan?” He asked. She didn’t answer, she just pointed her finger at the approaching man that was reaching into his pocket. “You pushed my daughter to her death you son of a bitch!” The man shouted pulling a gun out. Libby frozen in her spot she knew that Michael was no angel but this part was too much for her to handle.

“Libby! Get down!” Kelly yelled as he and Matt tried to get to the man that was waving the gun around. Three loud bangs went off  followed by a loud thump. She looked up and saw that Michael was slumped on the floor. The paramedic side kicked and she rushed down from the stand and over to her ex boyfriend. “Michael.” She said her hands pressing against the bullet hole in his chest.

“Shay! Dawson! Rodney was hit too!” She called over her shoulder as Hermmann came over to her side and applied pressure to the other wounds. He wanted to just let him die for all the pain he caused Libby but seeing the distress that she was made him and the other firefighters jump into action. “I am sorry Lib.” Michael said reaching his bloody hand up and grasping her uncasted wrist, “You are too good for me. I am sorry for this.”

‘No. Michael don’t you dare.” She said tears streaming down her face. Kelly came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder, “Lib, baby, the paramedics are here, let them work.’ He said softly. Michael’s blue eyes landed on Kelly. “You take care of her. She deserves better than me.” He said his hand going lax around Libby’s wrist. “No! No! You keep your eyes open damn it.” Libby ordered as Kelly started pulling her back. The other paramedics rushed forward to try and revive him. He kept his hold strong on her. Shay and Dawson went over to his side and watched as Crawley pronounced him DOA. “No! No! No!” Libby repeated as Kelly turned her around in his arms and let her bury her face into his chest. “Shh. baby. Shh.” He said softly.

**

“Everything looks good here Lib.” Hallie Thomas, Matt’s girlfriend said smoothing down the last piece of tape of her cast. “Thanks Hallie.” “You’re welcome. Matt told me what happened are you going to be okay?” “I don’t know, he is the only guy that I have seriously been with and now he is gone.” Hallie nodded her head putting the roll down.

“Is it bad that i feel like i didn’t do enough to save him? I could have done more to save him.” “Libby, sweetie, the bullet hit his heart there was no way you couldn’t saved him.” She nodded her head before lowering it so she wouldn’t see the tears. Hallie sighed and went over to her put her arms around her letting her cry. She knew that she needed to let it out before she walked out of the room and went back around the family.  

#libby severidex #listen to your heart seriesx

[punk-in-docs]

The Rose & the Nightingale, Chapter 1

Benedict Cumberbatch x Female OC, AU. Set in the 1920's, This tells a story of love, jealousy, friendship and desires. Set in the backdrop of 20's Britain, as the ages begin to shift, and Friends realise their lifelong preference for one another could turn out to be the beginning of a simmering romance... (eventual smut) - also on AO3 Chapter number: Chapter 1 Author: punk-in-docs (Here is my Masterlist for more chapters… Don’t laugh at me cause it’ s so, ridiculously tiny) but do take a look if you feel so inclined… Triggers/warnings: Meet cute, no warnings.

They had met, on a heavy and disappointing night, at a debutante party in a crowded London Townhouse in the chilling winter of 1918.

Britain was not all that far from just having won a world war with Germany, and subsequently everyone delighted in their social calendars livening up again, like a busy forest after its inhabitants had hibernated all winter. Out came the silken dresses that had been stowed away in musty trunks during the conflict, once again parties and drinks and dressing up became the norm, and the new age of technology gripped every household that dared to embrace it.

Packed to the rafters was the state of the elegant Knightsbridge home of the Kingsley’s. One of London’s leading families of social elite. The reason being for the ball, was that The Kingsley’s daughter, a one Kitty Kingsley, was blossoming into womanhood at the ripe and unsullied age of sixteen, the age in a girl’s life when frivolous parties, and extravagant dresses would start to become a necessity in their life, overtaking the rare presence of responsibility and smart conversation, that was permanently lacking to any young girl nowadays. The expectations for a girl of this naive age were to be seen and absolutely not heard. Something of which, she’d never been comfortable with.

Perhaps that was why Miss Elizabeth Jones rarely dared to dip her toe into the ‘cesspool’ – as she so often called it, much to her mother’s displeasure – of debutante dowager mama’s and stiff upper lipped father’s aswell as their nauseatingly dim children, who were trying in vain to be sensible, alas she certainly had no desire to blend in with the wallpaper, she was making a point of being both heard and seen.

The first over spoken incident of the evening that resulted as a consequence of her desire to be no demure wall -flowered miss, came when she was introduced to one Mr and Mrs Grey, and their 19 year old son, Jeremy Grey. She had done every polite etiquette correctly. Smiling and averting her eyes to the floor for the risk of being a flirt, commenting reservedly on the number of guests, and the delightful décor of the Kingsley’s home. And as the conversation had dried up thereafter, Mr Grey, and Elizabeth’s father, were engaging in a long winded political debate whilst everyone else smiled and remained in mute, but socially polite, silence.

Elizabeth took the time to scuff the sole of her shoe quietly onto the Victorian black and white tiled floor. Wishing she could be where she wanted at home with her sketchbook, and anywhere on god’s green earth than in this ballroom, with its suffocating atmosphere, in a dress she had yet to grow into and shoes that had been stuffed with tissue paper to help her fit them better. Instead she had to ‘guard her tongue’ as per her mother’s suggestion as she listened to the two men discuss the treaty of Versailles in regards to the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. She bit the inside of her cheek as she struggled not to be heard.

“I fail to see why we’re not demanding more from Germany. All the reparations we have to make to our economy and our businesses, we should bleed their economy dry for what they’ve done to us!” spouted Mr Grey, angrily raising his voice to a passionate degree.

“Because clearly over 20 billion gold marks isn’t enough.” She murmered quietly, sarcastically.

“Elizabeth!” Her mother scalded quickly, an embarrassed blush decorating her cheeks as she berated her daughter using her preferred name to usher her into silence and decorum.

Mr Grey looked at the young girl in a strange manner, gaping at her in wonderment, as were Mrs Grey and Jeremy.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Jones?” Mr Grey stammered, taken aback that the young girl was corralling him over matters of politics.

“Over $5 million has been demanded from Germany to pay reparations, in gold, commodities, ships and other forms. Surely that will go towards the majority of Occupation costs to the Allies in Europe. And as for the reparations to be made to England, surely France, and Belgium, both of whom have been half obliterated by this conflict must take some precedence and priority in restoring their lands and economy.” Libby argued, seeing Mr Greys face grow more and more shocked by her words. And her out of place attitude that made her sound like she was defending Germany.

Mr Grey narrowed his eyes at the young girl. Mrs Grey and her son looked horrified. Libby’s mother looked about ready to faint from mortification. And her own father actually looked to be quite proud and pleased with her.

“Are you saying you’re sympathising with Germany?” he asked dangerously.

“Not at all Mr Grey. I’m simply stating my opinion that a payment of over 20 billion in gold marks from a war torn state would be not only incredible, but also inconceivable in the face of a country that is facing an annex of its military and just about every other commodity it possesses, down to the raw iron in the ground, and the coal in its mines. Not to mention that the harsh demand can only be adding insult to injury to Germanys History and sooner or later someone is bound to rally the countries broken spirits, and kick up a fuss only made greater by the fact they are a rising industrial leader of this century and are successively being, as you put it… ‘Bled dry’ “

She finished, seeing Mr Greys hand grow slack on his glass, threatening to spill it over the floor and all over his shoes.

Suddenly in a wave of self-consciousness and the sheer unassuming ability of knowing she had just been incredibly rude and condescending, and not to mention severely outspoken. A temperament her mother told her was ugly, frank and impossibly brutish. And not only did she look like she sympathised with an enemy country, she also looked like a loud mouthed know it all. And suddenly, she felt utterly foolish, and very much wished she had just made a lame comment about the weather, and blended nicely in with the baroque wallpaper.

“Excuse me. I think I need to go and fetch myself a drink.” She spoke with the quiet and shy demeanour of a tame dormouse.

She slipped away, through crowds of black satin and formal evening dress with guffawing laughter erupting all around her in the room. She felt defeated, humiliated and just a tiny bit angry. Feeling shamed for having an opinion, was as illogical to her as being ashamed for having arms and legs and a pair of eyes.

Her escapade from the dreadful conversation, however, did not go unnoticed. Perhaps it was the bright colour of her midnight blue velvet dress as she streaked through the crowd that caught his attention amongst the sea of black dresses and suits, black was deemed a safe and quickly popular, modern, colour now, rather than an indication of old fashioned Victorian mourning. Perhaps maybe it was the way he had been stood within earshot of her when she had spouted all her intelligent and upstanding argument about reparations from Germany. And perhaps it was the way he had to try and hide his smile on hearing her passionately degrade a senior in her years with just a few lashes of her educated and eloquently remarkable tongue. But whatever sight or sound it was, that made Elizabeth Jones capture the attention of Benedict Cumberbatch, he knew he liked and thoroughly enjoyed it.

She was tall for her age. And slender too, with that delicate and pale British skin that every prim young miss ought have. Her hair was a short and wild curly array of off red, chestnut hues, impossible to decide between the shocking sight of red or brunette. Given her vibrant and resilient nature, he rather favoured to lean towards red as a common denominator for her hair colouring. Her dress hung off her in an ill-fitting manner, and her noted with nothing but primal curiosity in a way that only a 17 year old male could, was that while she was slender and willow like in height, he could go some way as to say that her bust was of an agreeable size, a size not deemed fashionable in today’s society, and her hips and rear filled out the back of her dress rather well, aswell as showing a Dias cut out on her back where the material fell away, he quite thought he liked the sight of her bare back and the splay of her refined neck. As she turned to weave her way past Mr Ramsgate, he saw that as she turned so lightly in his direction, the soft details of her face was just as pleasurable for him, as the rest of her. Her lips were plump and looked as if they offered and promised soft warmness, in her kiss and in her smile. her nose was, petite and button like, arched softly at just the right size, between two almond shaped dazzling blue eyes, that were also deemed rare and unfashionable, like the fiery flame shade of her hair, that looked big and sensuous when bordered by a fan of impossibly long eyelashes that spilled onto her slightly reddened cheeks as she looked down, steering her feet under her too long dress. She looked up again, walking towards the door, and he could see that her eyebrows were softly bowed on her forehead, arched like angels wings. Altogether, from the look of her, and from the sight of her, the more he saw, the more he was intrigued to know.

The final ‘Perhaps’ that raced through Benedict’s mind when he was looking at this elegant, beautiful and vibrant girl, was the perhaps that maybe she was different to the other blushing empty headed debutante girls who he had been dragged here, and forced by his parents, to meet and eventually wed. This girl was highly unfashionable judging by her looks, short auburn hair and blue eyes, not long brown or blonde hair and brown eyes that were favoured exotic and currently ‘all the rage’, and by her manner, berating a middle aged man over his crass opinion in politics and foreign affairs, and this. This is what made him want to go and introduce himself to her.

He excused himself politely from talking to Felicity Warrington, who had just commented on the lavish décor of the Kingsley’s home. He rather inclined to favour that the word ‘lavish’ was the only eloquent word in her vocabulary, and walked quietly and fairly quickly through the house to try and find theflame headed pariah who had distanced herself from the party.

Eventually, he came to a quiet, unlit corridor near the front of the house close to the cloakroom. And there she sat on the windowsill that overlooked the moonlit bathed front garden that faced the quieting street.

She had tugged off her shoes and left them in disarray on the floor, and her legs were pulled up and crossed in front of her, her bare feet rested on the deep window ledge. And her forehead was touching her knees, making her vivaciously coloured curls spill over her knees, and shroud her face from view. Her hair this way, however, revealed her ears and the small sapphire earbobs that were pinned into them. Her arms were linked around her legs, resting just below her kneecaps, and her saw that the moonlight that was streaming in from the window, was touching her skin so freely, and illuminating it in a manner akin to goddesses in pre Raphaelite paintings, that he suddenly envied the slice of light to be able to caress her skin at liberty without question or permission.

He suddenly felt he had to say something and stop invading her privacy in a strictly unforgivably rude manner.

“Pardon me, but. Are you, all right?”

She startled at the timbre of his soft baritone voice breeching her silence and solitude. Her head whipping up to bestow upon her intruder a surprised gaze, with her full lips parting and her blue eyes blinking in adjustment to the tall boy stood near the shadows of the doorway, peering at her worriedly.

She was struck by how old-worldly he looked. His face was thin and long, but not unpleasantly so. In fact, she thought to herself quietly with apposition, handsomely so. His was an unforgettably striking face, which she could tell, in an – unbeknownst famously to her - sense of prediction, that was destined to grow even more strikingly handsome as he got older. He had dark hair resting between black or brown, she couldn’t tell in the unforgiving shadow of the doorway where he stood. But he had softly placed feline shaped eyes that were awash in Mediterranean blue irises, residing under fairly curved eyebrows. She had never seen the Mediterranean Sea, only had she read about it in books, likening its soft, salty blue depths to the colour and warmth of his eyes. She has also learnt from books that this particular ocean was the temperature of a boiling hot bath after it had been left half an hour, resulting in a lazy warmth that instantly recalled her to think of the hsade this strangers eyes. His nose was, as far as noses go, button like and well suited to his face, she wasn’t sure if ‘button nose’ really constituted itself as a compliment, but, on having had to talk to Lawrence Finch for some portion of the evening, a boy whose nose had yet to grow into his face, and probably proceeded his body several seconds before he physically entered the room, again, when comparing that unfortunate trait to this boys nose, she decided that ‘button like’ was indeed a soft and graceful compliment. But the thing that drew her attention most was the fact that the shadows carved away his face in stark contrast, so that sharp cheekbones dominated his well-structured jaw. Nearly going all the way to say the darkness that cut away his features framed the cut out of the hillside shape of his cupids bow lips that were both feminine and masculine all in one.

She decided that it would be polite to speak as she had spent far too many seconds evaluating his appearance in her head. Seeing his brows twitch upwards in an awaiting gesture, as he pulled out of the shadows of the doorway, so she could see he was lean, tall and well built.

“I, must learn to watch my tongue better. I fear my, outbursts and prejudiced comments land me in veritable swamps of trouble more often than not.”

She commented, her toes curling on the window ledge in embarrassment. As he came to rest in front of the wall opposite her, hands in his pockets as he inspected his shoes in a shy burst of insecurity. She saw how the moon that was beaming in from behind her was plastering his figure to the wall, bathing him in godly illusion. He liked that her voice was adamant, pleasant sounding and resolute. Like the soft song of a nightingale.

“Well. Without meaning to appear in favour with popular opinion, I think you should in actual fact guard your tongue less, only. It’s far more amusing that way.” She raised her brows in disbelief.

“Are you arguing with me?” She ascertained lightly. He smiled shyly.

“I wouldn’t dare to, or dream of, saying yes. Wanting not to sound like a pansy here, I think we can safely agree it is an argument you’d win.” He smiled, his smirk shining through twinkling moonlit eyes.

And they examined each other for a moment, watching how the moonlight could simply strip away all their inhibitions, and leave them bare and unguarded to one another in an age that was so wantonly cloaked and kept under strict lock and key. He liked how he was stood directly opposite her now, and the light was framing every inch of her from this newfound angle, making her hair look like red strands of silk, and warranting her skin to look ethereal and enchanting, along with the brutality and vibrancy of her eyes and the shade of her dress, that blended beautifully with the night washed sky behind her out of that window. She is a magical, exotic, ethereal wood nymph hailing straight  from the pages of Greek mythology. She could write sonnets about the magical way in which the light transformed him into a man rather than a boy.

She laughed lightly at his comment, before remembering what age of etiquette she lived in.

“Elizabeth Jones. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She stood, and offered her hand.

“Benedict Cumberbatch. It is a pleasure, Elizabeth.” He spoke easily taking her hand and smiling all the more. He then gestured to the spacious room by her side on the window seat. She was a delightful creature. He liked the feel, the taste, of her name on his tongue.

“I beg your pardon, and the sordid intrusion of your solitude, but, may I join you?” he asked, placing a hand to imitate where he wished to sit.

She smiled. “But of course, but, on one upstanding and not to be contended point, Benedict…” she started.

“That point being?” he enquired before he sat. Still stood adjacent to her, and thoroughly enjoying the sight of her.

“You call me Libby. Elizabeth is the name I get called by my parent’s when I forget to bite my tongue.”

He smiled widely.

“But of course, and, can I press a request of my own, Libby?”

“I am so agreeable as to let you offer an appeal of your own, so yes?” She asked, interested.

“Please call me Ben. Benedict does rather make me sound like a breakfast dish.”

They both laughed in time with each other, and that was the incredibly easy start of their firm friendship… The sensible debutante, and the kind, eligible boy. and what a fine pair they made.

~ Chapter 2 ~

@frenchfrostpudding @heavymist @echantedbytwh @totallynotasmutblog @wolfsmom1 @damageditem any fans in? tell me to sod off tagging you if you don't like it :) x

#benedict cumberbatch #1920s #historical fiction #romance #friends to lovers #strangers #Meeting #debutantes #party #ww1 #elizabeth jones #original character #original story #punkwrites #BC x OC #rose & the nightingale #20's style #20's fashion #20's au #i love the 20's #i love these two

[w0ebeeg0ne]

2017 Reading Challenge

1. A book recommended by a librarian: Lolita // Vladimir Nabokov 2. A book that’s been on your TBR list for way too long: We Were Liars // E. Lockhart 3. A book of letters: The Screwtape Letters // C.S. Lewis 4. An audiobook 5. A book by a person of color: Disappearing Acts // Terry McMillan 6. A book with one of the four seasons in the title: The Summer I Turned Pretty // Jenny Han 7. A book that is a story within a story: The Blind Assassin // Margaret Atwood 8. A book with multiple authors: Never Never // Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher 9. An espionage thriller: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy // John le Carre 10. A book with a cat on the cover: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe // C.S. Lewis 11. A book by an author who uses a pseudonym: The Cuckoo’s Calling // Robert Galbraith 12. A bestseller from a genre you don’t normally read: Bridget Jones’s Diary // Helen Fielding 13. A book by or about a person who has a disability: Mockingbird // Kathryn Erskine 14. A book involving travel: Eat, Pray, Love // Elizabeth Gilbert 15. A book with a subtitle: Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person // Shonda Rhimes 16. A book that’s published in 2017: Carve the Mark // Veronica Roth 17. A book involving a mythical creature: The Lightning Thief // Rick Riordan 18. A book you’ve read before that never fails to make you smile 19. A book about food: It Was Me All Along // Andie Mitchell 20. A book with career advice: Yes Please // Amy Poehler 21. A book from a nonhuman perspective: The Tale of Despereaux // Kate DiCamillo 22. A steampunk novel: Clockwork Angel // Cassandra Clare 23. A book with a red spine 24. A book seet in the wilderness: Into the Wild // Jon Krakauer 25. A book you loved as a child 26. A book by an author from a country you’ve never visited: We Should All Be Feminists // Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie 27. A book with a title that’s a character’s name: Emma // Jane Austen 28. A novel set during wartime: Slaughterhouse-Five // Kurt Vonnegut 29. A book with an unreliable narrator: The Catcher in the Rye // J.D. Salinger 30. A book with pictures: Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One With the Universe // Yumi Sakugawa 31. A book where the main character is a different ethnicity than you: Born a Crime // Trevor Noah 32. A book about an interesting woman: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? // Mindy Kaling 33. A book set in two different time periods: The Time Traveler’s Wife // Audrey Niffenegger 34. A book with a month or day of the week in the title: The Door to December // Richard Paige 35. A book set in a hotel: Suite Scarlett // Maureen Johnson 36. A book written by someone you admire: My Two Elaines // Martin J. Schreiber and Cathy Breitenbucher 37. A book that’s becoming a movie in 2017: All the Bright Places // Jennifer Niven 38. A book set around a holiday other than Christmas: A Long Way Down // Nick Hornby 39. The first book in a series you haven’t read before: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone // J.K. Rowling 40. A book you bought on a trip: Race Across Alaska: First Woman to Win the Iditarod Tells Her Story // Libby Riddles and Tim Jones 41. A book recommended by an author you love 42. A bestseller from 2016: The Woman in Cabin 10 // Ruth Ware 43. A book with a family-member term in the title: American Wife // Curtis Sittenfeld 44. A book that takes place over a character’s life span: Life After Life // Kate Atkinson 45. A book about an immigrant or refugee: Americanah // Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 46. A book from a genre/subgenre that you’ve never heard of: A Dirty Job // Christopher Moore 47. A book with an eccentric character: The Rosie Project // Graeme Simson 48. A book that’s more than 800 pages: Anna Karenina // Leo Tolstoy 49. A book you got from a used book sale: The Man Who Loved Jane Austen // Sally Smith O'Rourke 50. A book that’s been mentioned in another book: Peter Pan // J.M. Barrie 51. A book about a difficult topic: Room // Emma Donoghue 52. A book based on mythology: Norse Mythology // Neil Gaiman

#updated #2017 #reading #challenge #books #literature #love

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

It OCs

Name: Adeline Brown

Story: Worth The Fight

Face claim:  Ciara Bravo & Lauren Cohen

Summary: tbd

Name: Brittany Uris

Story: Worth Dying For

Face claim:  Sabrina Carpenter & Reese Witherspoon

Love Interest: Richie Tozier & Bill Denbrough

Summary: tbd

Name: Caitlin Watson

Story: Houses In Your Heart

AO3 | FFNet | Wattpad

Face claim:  Rowan Blanchard & Crystal Reed

Love Interest: Stan Uris & Bill Denbrough

Summary: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Pennywise The Dancing Clown wishes he were as scary as Caitlin Watson.” - Bill Denbrough Caitlin Watson was a Loser, she’d always been a Loser, ever since she met Stanley Uris when they were four.  And then she met Bill, Richie, and Eddie, and the five became inseparable.  And Caitlin, always the toughest of the bunch, would do anything to protect her friends: blackmail Greta Bowie, punch Henry Bowers, fight a fucking clown, Cait would do any of it.  And Pennywise is going to have to learn what happens when someone messes with her boys.

Name: Cathy Tozier

Story: No Good Deed

AO3 | FFNet | Wattpad

Face claim:  Malina Weissman & Jenna Louise Coleman

Love Interest: Stan Uris & Bill Denbrough

Summary: When the summer of 89 began, Cathy Tozier knew three things with absolute certainty: she would protect her twin brother with her life, she was absolutely, undeniably in love with Bill Denbrough, and she would go through hell and high water if he asked her to. And, well, he asked. Three months, three new friends, and three near death experiences later, Cathy Tozier knows one more thing with absolute certainty. It's time to kill a clown.

Name: Cheryl Baines

Story: Failed Youth

Face claim:  Winona Ryder

Summary: tbd

Name: Cindy Atkins

Story: The Best Of Things

Face claim:  Bailee Madison & Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Summary: tbd

Name: Dakota Foster

Story: Irrevocable Decisions

Face claim:  Anna Cathbert

Summary: tbd

Name: Emmanuel

Story: God Of A Girl

Face claim:  Danielle Campbell

Summary: tbd

Name: Erin Baldwin

Story: The Curse Of Expectation

Face claim:  Raffey Cassidy & Katie McGrath

Love Interest: Stan Uris

Summary: tbd

Name: Felicia Cox

Story: Streets Here Are Cemeteries 

Face claim:  Sadie Stanley & Karen Gillan

Love Interest: Stan Uris

Summary: tbd

Name: Gina Dabney

Story: Learning How To Live

Face claim:  Emily Blunt

Love Interest: Mike Hanlon

Summary: tbd

Name: Heather Marsh

Story: The World Is Quiet Here

Face claim:  Annalise Basso & Rose Leslie

Love Interest: Richie Tozier & Bill Denbrough

Summary: tbd

Name: Lacey Hunt

Story: We Will Stand

Face claim:  Claire Holt

Love Interest: Stan Uris

Summary: tbd

Name: Lauren Kaspbrak

Story: You’ll Never Get Free (Lamb To The Slaughter) & Everything’s Not Fine

Face claim:  Millie Bobby Brown & Natalie Portman

Love Interest: Bill Denbrough

Summary: Lauren Kaspbrak spent most of her days in the hospital. The rest of her time was meant to be spent at her mother's beck and call, taking care of the Kaspbrak household while her mom watched TV; it definitely wasn't meant to be spent running around with a group of boys, getting dirty and breaking a different bone every month, but, well, Lauren had never been one to do what she was supposed to. She wasn't supposed to fall in love with her brother's best friend, but she did; and she definitely wasn't supposed to fight a demonic clown, so of course, what else could she have done with her summer?

Name: Libby Denbrough

Story: If We Fight & We’re Still Standing

Face claim:  Elle Fanning & Amy Adams

Love Interest: Beverly Marsh

Summary: Libby Denbrough was many things; a twin, a big sister, a caregiver, the most self-sacrificing of the Denbrough siblings, a writer, exhausted, and absolutely determined to find her baby brother.  Although Georgie has been missing for months, the twins haven’t given up on him.  So when summer begins, they’re quick to drag their fellow losers into the sewer - into a walking nightmare.  As their summer goes from bad to worse, and she begins to lose all hope, Libby finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew about the world.  But despite that, there’s one thing that she can confidently add to her list: Libby Denbrough is going to have to kill this fucking clown.

Name: Mara Milton

Story: The Only Thing We Have To Fear (Is Fear Itself)

Face claim:  Kaya Scodelario

Summary: When Mara Milton was a little girl, her best friend died. Within a year, everyone in Derry seemed to have forgotten about Georgie Denbrough - everyone except Georgie's brother and his friends. But the Losers refused to answer her questions and Mara found herself incapable of moving on. Son her need for closure grew into an obsession with cold cases and Mara became the best of the best in cold case detectives. But she never forgot about her long lost best friend. And when, twenty-seven years after losing Georgie, more children start disappearing from her hometown, Mara knows in her gut that it's related. So she packs her bags and gets on a plane home, ready to solve the case no matter the cost. Only this time, she's going to make sure that Bill Denbrough tells her the truth.

Name: Megan Denbrough

Story: Summertime Sadness

Face claim:  Mackenzie Foy & Anne Hathaway

Love Interest: Richie Tozier & Stan Uris

Summary: tbd

Name: Melanie Clinton

Story: Stand By You

Face claim:  Sofia Wiley

Love Interest: Mike Hanlon

Summary: tbd

Name: Shelley Marsh

Story: My Sister’s Keeper & A House Is Not A Home

Face claim:  Sadie Sink & Bryce Dallas Howard

Love Interest: Bill Denbrough

Summary: Shelley Marsh was living a nightmare every day. Between her father's abuse, taking her twin's punishments on a daily basis, and Henry Bowers' obsession with her, she didn't think that things could get any worse. And when she finds herself with six new friends, she's even foolish enough to think that things are getting better. But in a town like Derry, nothing good will last.

Name: Sydney Hanscom

Story: Get Busy Living

AO3 |  Wattpad

Face claim:  Meg Donnelly

Summary: In 2019, the Losers left Derry.  They decided to grow up and leave It in the past.  In 2030, Beverly Marsh and Ben Hanscom found each other again, and Sydney Hanscom is born.  By the time she’s ten, her parents have both died, and when she’s sixteen, mysterious disappearances start up in her parents’ childhood down.  That’s when the Turtle shows up, and Sydney learns the truth.  It’s been twenty-seven years, and this time Pennywise will be too powerful to stop.  The only hope is the Lucky Seven.  So Sydney is given a choice: go back to 2019 and get the Losers Club - all of them - back to Derry to fight, or watch a demonic clown alien destroy the universe.  It’s an easy choice, and in the blink of an eye, Sydney finds herself in 2019; in Atlanta, Georgia, with just one goal.  Do not let Stanley Uris take a bath.

Name: Tammy Hanlon

Story: We’re The Losers (And We’re Winning)

Face claim:  China Anne McClain

Summary: tbd

Name: Tessie Hanscom

Story: Welcome To The Losers Club Asshole & Welcome Back To The Losers Club Asshole

Face claim:  Chloe Grace Moretz & Jennifer Morrison

Love Interest: Bill Denbrough

Summary: tbd

#randomestfandoms construction #masterlist #it oc

[thisdaynews]

The 2008 Class that Explains Elizabeth Warren’s Style

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-2008-class-that-explains-elizabeth-warrens-style/

The 2008 Class that Explains Elizabeth Warren’s Style

In the middle of the volatile fall of 2008, with foreclosures skyrocketing and companies failing and unemployment spiking and the stock market sinking, 80 rattled first-semester Harvard Law School students stood outside a classroom and watched the Dow plummet yet again. Then they stepped inside and took their seats for their contracts course with professor Elizabeth Warren.

“And professor Warren’s like, ‘We’re actually not going to talk about contracts,’” former student Danielle D’Onfro told me. “‘We’re going to talk about what’s happening in the world.’”

Story Continued Below

Warren ditched the syllabus and instead gave a lecture on the cratering economyand its causes, encapsulating the collapse as she understood it. In interviews over the past couple weeks, her former students described it as “riveting” and “engaging” and “eye-opening.”

“She basically proceeded to explain the financial crisis as it was happening,” Nigel Barrella said. “It was pretty amazing—at a time when no one else, really, seemed to have answers like that—that she would come in and talk about credit default swaps and collateralized mortgages, junk mortgages, carved up into tranches, and sold to financial institutions as high-quality financial products.”

Her impromptu primer on the crisis spanned two days, November 12 and 13, according to the calendar of one of her students, and their takeaway was twofold: (1) Professor Warren sure had a knack for talking about this stuff, and (2) this skill might take her somewhere beyond even the august confines of HLS.

“I think for all of us sitting there at that moment,” D’Onfro said, “we realized that, you know, this person is not just going to be our contracts professor.”

They were right. Warren’s gift for explication has led her almost inexorably from there to here—from explaining at Harvard, in classes, in a reading group, on a blog and on panels of academics and in the popular press, to explaining in Washington, where she came to prominence as a piercing watchdog before she was elected to the Senate. And on a historically crowded presidential campaign trail, she has steadily distanced herself from most of the field with her grasp of detail and capacity to break it down, standing as the top-polling Democrat not named Joe Biden heading into this week’s curtain-raising debates.

Warren’s professorial background, and her history as a Washington player on an issue as complex as financial regulation, has led some political observers to ask of late whether this particular gift could be a mixed blessing—a talent that also defines her ceiling, especially with the working-class voters who could make the difference in a presidential election.

“She’s lecturing,” David Axelrod, the top Barack Obama strategist, recently said of Warren in theNew York Times Magazine, wondering how that approach would play with non-college-educated white voters. (“I regretted that the rest of my thoughts were excised,” he told me in a subsequent conversation, saying Warren has “phenomenal strengths.” But still: “I think this is the last big hurdle for her,” he said.)

He’s not the only one who’s consideredthis. “It’s a fascinating question,” former Jeb Bush senior adviser Michael Steel told me. He called it “a huge challenge … figuring out how to explain her policy positions, the problems they purport to address, and how it fits in with her theory, in a way that somebody sitting on a stool in a Waffle House will understand and agree with.”

Others, though, push back on just the basic terms of this conversation. Progressive consultant Rebecca Katz said in an email, “Let’s call the attack on her ‘lecturing’ what it really is: sexist.” Added Boston-based political analyst Mary Anne Marsh: “She’s beendefiningthis race.”

On the debate stage Wednesday night, facing off against nine other contenders, Warren will have a platform, if a narrow one, to make the kind of vivid and persuasive case that grabs voters. In the Democratic Party, at least, there are footsteps for an expert explainer to follow: Obama had a professor’s demeanor and rhetorical tics, and Bill Clinton laid out big ideas and policy nuances at length, all while forging personal connections with a wide variety of audiences.

Some who’ve gauged her as a candidate think Warren is honing these same skills. “I thought at the beginning of the campaign watching her that she was lecturing,” longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shrum told me, “and then as time has gone on, and she’s done these town meetings, she’s gotten better and better at explaining and relating what she’s saying in human terms.”

Republican consultants I contacted concur. “I think she’s a much more formidable politician than a lot of people, especially, on the right, think,” Liz Mair, a communications strategist who’s worked for Scott Walker, Rick Perry and Rand Paul, said in an email.

If Warren grabs the spotlight on that crowded stage, there’s a group of former law students who can explain why.

***

“Will the Middle Class Survive?”

In the fall of ’08, that’s what Warren called her reading group, a quasi-extracurricular klatch of a dozen students who had signed up to explore the topic at the heart of her life’s work. The reading: some chapters from a book about class, some chapters from a book about health care and some chapters from a book of her own—The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke, which she wrote with her daughter and was published in 2003. “I’m looking forward to this,” Warren wrote to the students, according to emails one of them shared with me.

It took no time at all for current events to scramble the group’s schedule.

“Class Mattersis beginning to feel a bit dated,” Warren wrote to the group ahead of its first real get-together.Class Mattershad come out just three years before. “Would you like me to talk with you about how the subprime crisis started and what might be done about it? If that would be more timely, I’m glad to do it.”

The students made plain what they wanted. “Your responses overwhelmingly favored talking about the mortgage meltdown,” Warren wrote.

The rest of the semester, meeting on intermittent Thursday evenings at Warren’s dark green Victorian house with a wrought-iron fence, Warren served them salmon and ribs and ordered in Redbones along with peach cobbler that almost every student I talked to mentioned without prompting. They drank herbal tea and talked, taking turns petting Otis, Warren’s convivial golden retriever. They discussed the reading—but their conversations, members of the group told me, couldn’t help but veer away from the pages of the texts and toward the topsy-turvy economy.

“There’s a tendency in elite law schools to just remove yourself from the realities of the world, and it was a really strange time to enter law school, when the economy was collapsing around you,” Rachel Lauter said. “And I remember feeling incredibly lucky to have her on the ground floor explaining what was happening.”

“She can talk to normal people and explain complicated things in a way that’s comprehensible,” Jad Mills said.

“That’s not always how law professors communicate,” Libby Benton said.

Neither is this: Throughout that fall, Warren penned op-eds (families losing their homes were “casualties of a financial system that saw them not as customers, but as prey,” she wrote in theChicago Tribuneon September 22), she blogged at creditslips.org (the $700 billion bailout was “keeping me awake at night,” she wrote on September 23), fired off quotes on network news shows (she called a credit card “a poisonous snake in your wallet” on ABC’s “Nightline” on September 25) and lit up panels with fellow academics at Harvard.

At one, “The Financial Crisis: Causes and Cures,” she proved to be “an audience favorite,” according to the student newspaper, describing subprime mortgages as “35-cent bananas” that should’ve cost 15 cents. She was the only woman on the panel with five men.

“They were talking, just trying to explain the basics of, like, credit default swaps, and what a securitized trust was, and what had happened generally,” one of Warren’s former students told me, “because no one really understood what was going on, period. And so I remember that other people on the panel would speak and everyone would sort of tune out. … But then Elizabeth started speaking, and it just, like, made so much sense, and people were, like,cheeringandstanding up, and it’s hard to get a crowd on their feet when you’re talking about credit default swaps! … It was one of the most incredible things that I had ever seen in terms of somebody being able to take these really arcane concepts and make them feel relevant, accessible andoutragingat the same time.”

Back in the classroom, in another meeting of students, Warren asked what they would do if they were in charge of a big financial institution. Hunker down, some said, and tighten up. She made it clear that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. And then students’ hands started to shoot up. The answer, actually, was the opposite. “You grow as fast as you can. You buy as much as you can with borrowed money. And you lend and borrow from as many other large institutions as possible. Because then the government can’t afford to let you fail,” Warren would recall a student saying. “It took my students about two minutes,” as she put it later, “to see how to build a bank that would be Too Big to Fail.”

Warren’s teaching style was amped-up Socratic, fostering lightning-quick dialogue one student I talked to likened to dodge ball and another compared to machine gun fire. Her teaching assistants kept index cards to track who’d been called on how often, and it was standard, according to former students, for every one of them to be called on once if not twice every class. “Very demanding,” Marielle Macher said. “It was the class that we were all the most prepared for,” Caitlin Kekacs said. Warren’s classes, Charles Fried, her Harvard colleague who served as one of Ronald Reagan’s solicitor generals, told me, were “electric,” and her student evaluations were effusive. And she was known, at least inside the law school, specifically forneverlecturing. So what happened on November 12 and 13 was decidedly different from what she usually did. Mainly, on those days, she just talked—and her students just listened.

In its way, many students told me, Warren’s lecture was strangely comforting.

“The world’s ending,” Dan Mach remembered. “And here was a professor who knew a lot about it and could explain it better than other people,” Dave Casserley said. It was something they mostly weren’t getting from their other professors.

Larry Tribe, the preeminent constitutional scholar and Warren’s Harvard colleague, told me he heard this sentiment from students that fall. “That has stuck with me,” Tribe said. “It’s also stuck with me partly because of my own memory when I was a law student at Harvard when dramatic, terrifying things would happen. I mean, I was actually a first- or second-year law student when Kennedy was assassinated, and I remember coming to class the next day, barely able to hold myself together. And the professor, who was someone I really liked and admired, not only then but years after, barely paused. He basically said, ‘Terrible things are going on, but we have our work to do.’ And then he went right back to discussing complicated issues of civil procedure. And that was kind of an inhuman and inhumane environment. And in some ways Elizabeth Warren is … the absolute opposite of someone who would treat legal education as an insulated bubble separate from the world.”

Tribe told me, too, about the way Warren at the time helped the woman who would become his wife. Elizabeth Westling was going through a divorce, riddled with worry, when her therapist gave her … books—The Two-Income TrapandAll Your Worth—by Warren. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, this is ridiculous. What would I need this for?’” Westling told me. “But I went home, and I read them, and lo and behold, it really transformed my psyche, I think, because what it did was give me a sense of empowerment and confidence.”

It’s something I heard from many of the 19 former Warren students I talked to for this story. What they got from her in 2008 was not only edifying but also eased their anxieties about the economy. She helpedthembecause they felt she maybe could be a part of helping to fixit.

And on the evening of November 13, hours after finishing her lecture on the economy to her contracts class in Pound Hall and minutes before hosting a third of them for the first of three straight nights of dinners with students at her house, she got a call from Harry Reid. The Senate majority leader asked her to take the oversight position. And she was off to Washington. “Harry Reid,” she would say, “forever changed my life with that phone call.”

The next day, Reid made the announcement about Warren’s new role.

That afternoon, she sent an email to her students. One of them shared it with me. It was … not about her new role.

“Some of you have met Otis, the 100-pound golden retriever who lives with us,” Warren wrote. “He’s sweet and he’s lonely right now—desperate for someone who would like to play. If you are around and would like to have some puppy love, would you drop by to get Otis?”

***

Midday this past Saturday, in Columbia, South Carolina, I stood near the rear of the main hall of the convention of the South Carolina Democratic Party and took in what quickly turned into an episode of the prosecutor versus the professor.

Kamala Harris was first up among the catalog of 2020 Democrats, and she gave a spirited personal statement to the near-capacity crowd of 1,800. She said she knew how to “take on predators”—she didn’t need to say the name of the person she was talking about—and then built to a crescendo. “I’m going to tell you we need somebody on our stage when it comes time for that general election who knows how to recognize a rap sheet when they see it and prosecute the case!” she said. “Let’s prosecute the case!” Her speech elicited raucous cheers.

Warren came on some 20 minutes after Harris. She introduced herself as a practically accidental politician, self-identifying from the start as a teacher, although she didn’t mention Harvard. “Teachers,” she said, “understand the worth of every single human being. Teachers invest in the future. And teachers never give up.” In a checklist rundown of her “big plans,” she said her proposed 2 percent tax on net worth above $50 million could pay for universal child care and pre-kindergarten, tuition-free college, zap student loan debt, make billion-dollar investments in historically black colleges and universities, and provide higher pay for teachers. But her seven minutes on stage felt a little rote and a tad flat. As Warren spoke, I stood next to the raised platform made to be an MSNBC set and watched Harris get interviewed live.

Something that’s helped Warren vault past Bernie Sanders and others in the polls and into that second slot behind Biden? Her town halls. In Iowa and New Hampshire and other early states. Even in places like West Virginia. And on CNN and MSNBC (but not on Fox News). She’s generally better, most observers and analysts agree, interacting with voters rather than delivering speeches. “I’ve seen her be very effective in small groups,” Axelrod told me. It’s the sort of setting that allows her to delve more deeply into her myriad detailed policy proposals.

An hour or so after her convention appearance, just across the street, Warren bounded into the homier, more intimate environs in the building hosting Planned Parenthood’s “We Decide” forum. In front of a gathering perhaps a quarter of the size, sitting between two women asking her questions instead of standing behind a lectern, Warren was kinetic in a way she simply hadn’t been at the convention. Here, she answered questions from people in the crowd. Here, she came off as a teacher but also as a fighter. Asked aboutRoe v. Wade, she was nothing if not animated. “The truth is,” she said, “we’ve been on defense for 47 years. And it’s not working. … I say it is time to go on offense!” She held her microphone in her right hand and gesticulated energetically with her left. She sat on the edge of her seat. She dropped a “by golly.” She left to a standing ovation.

A little later, up one floor, Warren darted into a small room set aside for candidates to talk to reporters if they wanted to and plucked a grape from a picked-at tray. She popped it into her mouth and faced the hasty half-moon of cameras. She was asked about Donald Trump. She dinged him for his “ineptitude.” She was asked about Pete Buttigieg and his trouble at home. She said she wasn’t going to criticize her fellow Democrats. And then she was asked why people should trust her. She gave an answer that would have sounded familiar to her first-semester law students in the fall of ‘08.

“This is a fight I’ve been in for all my life, long before I ever got engaged in politics of any kind,” she said. “I’ve spent my whole life on exactly this issue. What’s happening to working families in this country? Why is America’s middle class being hollowed out? Why is it that people who work hard every day find a path so rocky and so steep and for people of color even rockier and even steeper? And the answer is a government that works better and better for billionaires and giant corporations and kicks dirt in everyone else’s face. Well, I say: In a democracy, we can change that. And that’s why I’m in this fight.”

At that, it was time to go. It was her 70th birthday. She had a flight to catch to get home to continue to prepare for Wednesday’s debate. She reached for another grape.

“We got cake in the car,” a staffer said.

“We got cake in the car!” Warren said.

Read More

#Foreign #Politics #Style #Warren

[marviinmelton]

This summer’s most inspiring design books

Summer is a time for creative renewal, and for many of us, that means new books. 2018’s most exciting new design books have something for everyone, whether you just want to peruse coffee table eye candy or you finally have time to pore over the essays you didn’t have a chance to read during the winter. We’ve compiled some of the most compelling new and forthcoming releases, from significant design research to pure, unadulterated fun. Find the first 10 titles below, and stay tuned for part two.

Architects’ Houses

By Michael Webb

[Cover Image: Princeton Architectural Press]

What happens when an architect becomes his or her own client? That’s the premise of the projects in Architects’ Houses, which looks at the stories behind homes designed by architects for themselves. Take the husband and wife team, Antón Gargía-Abril and Débora Mesa, whose studio spent more than a year on structural calculations for their remarkable balancing act of a home. When the architect is in the driver’s seat, the typical process–and timeline–for finishing a house can easily go out the window. Often, that’s what makes these buildings so worthy of our attention.

$41.82 on Amazon

California Captured

By Marvin Rand, Emily Bills, Sam Lubell, and Pierluigi Serraino

[Cover Image: Phaidon]

Marvin Rand is the most famous architectural photographer you’ve never heard of. Like his better-known peer Julius Shulman, Rand chronicled the aspirational architecture of mid-20th century California, but his work remained largely unknown until 2012, when journalist Sam Lubell discovered an archive of more than 50,000 of the photographer’s negatives and transparencies. California Captured (Phaidon) showcases nearly 250 of these images. Sleek, single-family homes by architects such as Richard Neutra, Craig Ellwood, and John Lautner figure prominently, in addition to Googie landmarks like the Theme Building at LAX and Tiny Naylor’s drive-through–all rendered in Rand’s crisp, unfussy style.

$40.19 on Amazon

California Crazy: American Pop Architecture

By Jim Heimann

[Cover Image: Taschen]

Almost 40 years ago, Jim Heimann published a book called California Crazy. It brought the state’s folly-filled pop architecture to the mainstream, documenting its theme parks, fast-food stands, and roadside buildings. In June, the book is being republished anew. It still features page after page of rich, archival photos of countless SoCal typologies–from buildings shaped like pumpkins, cameras, and ice cream cones, to studio sets and faux castles. But Heimann also reflects on what makes California such fertile ground for architectural experimentation and the “dicey business” of preservation, including how the first edition inspired new research into many of these formerly obscure structures (some of which no longer exist). Here’s hoping that the 40-year-update will become a regular thing.

$60 preorder on Amazon.

Coffee Lids: Peel, Pinch, Pucker, Puncture

By Louise Harpman and Scott Specht

[Cover Image: Princeton Architectural Press]

Did you know the Smithsonian has more than 50 coffee cup lids in its permanent collection? Thanks to the work of architects Louise Harpman and Scott Specht, who have been collecting lids for years, this form of “invisible” design will be preserved forever. The duo’s new book about the typology, titled simply Coffee Lids, is a glimpse into the depthless variation and ingenuity of an object that few people have ever even considered. “Looking something as simple as a humble coffee lid is an entry into that conversation,” Harpman told Co.Design‘s Katharine Schwab, “to slow down, take notice, wonder, ask questions–what is that, how is it made, who designed it?”

$18.08 on Amazon.

How To Make Repeat Patterns: A Guide for Designers, Architects and Artists 

By Paul Jackson

[Cover Image: Laurence King Publishing]

Channel your inner M.C. Escher with How To Make Repeat Patterns (Laurence King). The guide, by paper artist Paul Jackson, reveals the rules of symmetry that undergird complex patterns and offers tips for producing your own designs, whether for wallpaper, architectural facades, or digital products.

$24.33 on Amazon

Inside North Korea

By Oliver Wainwright

[Cover Image: Taschen]

The humans in Oliver Wainwright’s photos of North Korean buildings look like scale models: Tiny figures, invariably dressed in drab tones, that serve only to underline the yawning size and shimmering jewel-tones of Pyongyang’s architecture. “It looks as if someone has emptied a packet of candy across the city, sugary pastilles jumbled up with jelly spaceships,” writes Wainwright, the Guardian architecture critic who visited the country on a tour in 2015, when he shot the photos in this Taschen tome that will be released in August. Unlike most accounts of the city, Inside North Korea (Taschen) offers a thoughtful analysis of Pyongyang’s urban history, situating its widely photographed architecture in context with the Kim dynasty and the way it seeks to articulate its goals through building. It’s sobering, and mesmerizing, at the same time.

$60 preorder on Amazon.

Lorna Simpson Collages

By Lorna Simpson

[Cover Image: Chronicle Books]

The collages in this monograph are a revelation. Artist Lorna Simpson takes models from vintage Ebony and Jet ads and gives them elaborate new hairstyles, using ink washes, geological formations, and other mysterious imagery. The book features 160 artworks that, together, form a meditation on the language of hair and black identity. As poet Elizabeth Alexander writes in the introduction: “The repetitions in these images suggest that we are thought of by some as a dime a dozen: undervalued, yes, but also, abundant. Black women are everywhere glorious and unsung.”

$29.95 preorder on Amazon.

Shakespeare Dwelling: Designs for the Theater of Life

By Julia Reinhard Lupton

[Cover Image: University of Chicago Press]

This inventive book by an English and comparative literature professor at UC Irvine examines the spaces that bring Shakespeare’s tales to life. Author Julia Reinhard Lupton analyzes dwellings in five classic works–Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter’s Tale–and draws on theory from the likes of Martin Heidegger and Don Norman to offer insight into everything from “the ethics of habitation and hospitality” to “the literary dimensions of design.”

$27.50 on Amazon.

Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours: Adapted to Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Anatomy, and the Arts

By Patrick Syme and Abraham Gottlob Werner

[Cover Image: Smithsonian Books]

Skimmed-milk white. Arterial blood red. Celandine green. In the 19th century, naturalists were struggling to standardize the colors they observed in nature–without the utility of post-Industrial Revolution digital precision of CMYK or RGB. Werner’s Nomenclature Of Colours, published in 1814, gave scientists, artists, and naturalists a common language to talk about color–even Darwin famously used the color dictionary on his travels. This spring, the Smithsonian re-released the book in a small, pocket-sized version, perfect for travelers or anyone who spends time outdoors. It’s an evocative creative document–and a lovely antidote to life lived online.

$13.46 on Amazon.

Women Design

By Libby Sellers

[Cover Image: Frances Lincoln]

Women Design (Frances Lincoln) assumes the Herculean task of highlighting women’s contributions to design–including architecture, industrial design, digital design, and graphics–from the 20th century to the present day. It has no business being just 176 pages, but author Libby Sellers, a prominent British gallerist and curator, manages to pack a wealth of information in profiles of 21 women designers. Historic pioneers such as Denise Scott Brown, Ray Eames, and Lella Vignelli get their due, as well as contemporary stars like Neri Oxman, Patricia Urquiola, and Kazuyo Sejima. “Women have always been, and remain, a significant part of the design profession,” Sellers writes. “…Yet, if asked to name the design world’s greats, most people would produce a list of predominantly male names.” This book attempts to correct the narrative, and it tells some rollicking stories along the way. Be sure to check out the section on the “Damsels of Design,” a group of women industrial designers GM hired to address what a 1957 press release described as “woman driver’s problems” like “anything in cars that might snag their nylons.”

$30 preorder on Amazon.

This summer’s most inspiring design books published first on https://petrotekb.tumblr.com/

[purplestarkatz93]

Hetalia Christmas 2.0 Day 7 by purplekatz93

Here’s my day 7 of my Hetalia Christmas Project on DeviantArt.

Old version here: https://purplekatz93.deviantart.com/art/Hetalia-Christmas-7-341661483

Everyone here looks much better. I kept the color scheme of the outfits, but change the styles. Everyone's hair looks better. Though I'm still not happy on the way Nyo Russia looks. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Performed by Nyo France, Nyo England, Nyo America, Nyo Russia, & Nyo China Nyo England: God rest ye merry, gentlemen let Nyo England W/ Girls: Nothing you dismay Nyo England: Remember Christ our savior was Nyo England W/ Girls: Born on Christmas Day Nyo England: To save us all from Satan's power When we were gone astray Nyo England W/Girls: O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy Nyo England: O tidings of comfort and joy (Girls: tidings of joy) Nyo America: From God our heavenly father Nyo America & Nyo France: A blessed angel came Nyo America: And unto certain shepherds brought Nyo America & Nyo France: Tidings of the same Nyo America: How that in Bethlehem was born The son of God by name Nyo Russia W/ Girls: O tidings of comfort and joy Nyo Russia: Comfort and joy O tidings of comfort and joy Nyo France: Oh, "Fear not" said the Angel (Girls: Ahh-ahh) "Let nothing you affright" This day is born a Saviour (Girls: This day) Of pure Virgin bright (Girls: Virgin bright) To free all those who trust in Him (Girls: To trust, in Him) From Satan's power and might (Girls: Power and might) O tidings of comfort and joy, (Girls: Comfort and joy) O tidings of comfort and joy Girls (Nyo Russia): Of joy (Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy) Of joy (Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, comfort and joy) Girls: Joy, joy, joy, joy Nyo China: Now to the Lord sing praises All you within this place And with true love and brotherhood Each other now embrace (Girls: Each other to embrace) Nyo China W/ Girls: This holy tide of Christmas All other doth deface O tidings of comfort and joy Comfort and joy O tidings of comfort and joy Nyo China: Oh joy (Girls: Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy) Of joy (Girls: Tidings of comfort and joy) We have gone astray Nyo China W/Girls: Oh tidings of comfort and joy

I really love how they harmonize in this song. About the picture: It's the Allies all together. And before you say anything, no I did not forget Canada! They were only 5 solos in the song. But don't worry I have 2 pics coming soon, one with the normal Canada, and another with Nyo Canada. And now I would like to explain what I call each of the girls, and please don't correct me about it because and I quote "Although the Japanese fandom have given the characters names and used the surnames from their opposite gender, others are apt to come up with completely new names themselves, both given names and family names. Himaruya has listed some names that he liked for several Nyotalia characters, however in a post following that one, he'd stated that they were unofficial and that fans should feel free to chose whichever names they preferred for the Nyotalia characters." Yes, Himaruya did have some names in mind, but they aren't official. So you can basically make up any name you want. If you think Nyo England looks like a Gertrude, then by all means call her that. Here are my names: Nyo France is Genevieve Antoinette Bonnefoy. I think it's pretty, and I don't like names that look exactly like their male counterparts, but with the feminine spelling. Nyo England is Alice Elizabeth Kirkland, like in Alice in Wonderland. Nyo America is Amelia Emily Jones, (I like both those names for her so I combined it) But my special nickname for her is Libby, short for Liberty. Nyo Russia is Anya. Nyo China is Chun Yan. And that's my 2 cents.

Characters belong to Hidekaz Himaruya

Song belongs to Glee

Art belongs to @purplestarkatz93

#hetalia #nyotalia #aph nyo france #aph nyo england #aph nyo america #aph nyo russia #aph nyo china #hetalia christmas 2.0 #day 7 #glee #fan art #my artwork