#thomas müller I AM COMING FOR YOU

[joooonbug]

HOLY FUCKING SHIIIIIIIIIT EEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

#im fucking screaming #THEM THEM THEM #THEYRE COMING TO KOREAAAAAA #EEEEEEEE BAYERN HERE I COME #thomas müller I AM COMING FOR YOU #EEEEEEEEEEEEE #fc bayern #junes rants

[my-deer-history]

Francis Kinloch in Müller's letters to his family: Part 2

These extracts are from Johannes von Müller: Sämmtliche Werke, volume 7 (1810).

My translations here, original German and French transcriptions below the cut. Paragraph breaks added for clarity, and descriptive passages included in full for the Vibes.

19 May 1775, to his family

My situation is the happiest that you can imagine; the view from here is, beside the one from Bessinge, the most beautiful in the area; the clear view over the lake and into Switzerland is better than from Bessinge; my house is on a hill, the banks are covered with meadows, gardens and vineyards and appear to me like a great garden;

my friend is one of the most virtuous and flawless men, and our new occupation is the mutual effort to make each other ever more perfect; our business is that which I would choose from among all the occupations of humankind; everyone, even the farmers of the town, praises our quiet and industrious life.

It is quiet without being lonely, because many of our friends visit us now and then, or we them, for lunch or supper. A few days ago we were in Bessinge, yesterday Mr Tronchin came to me, on Tuesdays we are invited to dine at his home. At the end of the month, Bonstetten will come to me for a few days.

Everyone endeavours to contribute to our pleasure, and never in my life have I enjoyed something so great, so innocent, so full of learning. Although we have only been here for 19 days and are not bored, I feel like it has been 19 weeks: we have worked so much and it seems so improbable that I would be able to do all of this in so few days.

6 June 1775, to his family

An extract of a letter from Mr Thomas Boone, Esq., Mr Kinloch’s guardian: “With infinite pleasure, I assure you that of all the deeds undertaken by my young friend since he left me (and he has not done any that displease me), none have met with so much of my approval as the attainment of your friendship. If he had sought out scenes of luxury and wastefulness, he could have obtained the acquaintance of young people of the highest rank; closeness with the man of merit, genius and learning is not so easily established: planning, a desire to learn and morals are part of this. To attain your friendship, Kinloch must have had merits. As his friend, you will be pleased to hear from me that in his entire life he never made an acquaintance that was not creditable to him. I have sincerely discovered such insight, such cleverness in him, that I have decided to let him be the master of all his future dealings. I ask that you convey this to him; he will hear it with doubled pleasure from the mouth of his friend. Wherever you may be with him, he will, I am sure, learn more with you than at any other place. When he enters onto a larger stage, I will  advise him thus: at present he needs no guidance but yours. I approve of your plan entirely. You made Kinloch and me happy.”

I wrote to Mr Voltaire, who lives very close to us, a few days ago to say that K and I would like to come to him. [...] As he presented Mr Kinloch to the ladies, he said: “Here is a man, who comes from the land of savages but who does not look it!” He asked me where my tutor was? And then said to those present: “this young man with the face of a fifteen-year-old is himself a tutor; but simultaneously a historian of Switzerland; he has, like Aeneas, journeyed to the shade, that is to me.” Soon thereafter we were like old acquaintances. He has published a new text on the existence of god. The tall olive-coloured savage and the young delicate Swiss historian send their friendly greetings.

July 1775, to his parents

After a few days, according to his promise, my friend Mr v. Bonstetten came to me and also stayed with us, to our great joy. Our rooms are currently all occupied and my happiness has naturally been greatly multiplied by the union of my two friends, the white and the brown.*

[...]

My friend Kinloch and I are thinking to leave Chambeisi towards the end of August. From there to Lausanne, to Vivis, through the Bernese highlands to Thun, up along the Thun and Brienz lake to Haßli, over the mountains into the Urfern valley, out to Altdorf, overland to Unterwald, overland to Schwyz, past Gersau to Lucerne and Zurich, along the lake to Glarus, down the Rhine valley to Appenzell and St Gallen, from there to Constanz, and from there to Schaffhausen, through the four forest towns to Basel, through Pierre Petruis to Solothurn, then Neufchatel, Bern, Freiburg in Uechtland, Valeyres, back to Chambeisi through Waat, where we spend the winter with the sciences and Mr Bonnet's friendship.

*Kinloch, who appears to have had a notably darker or more tanned complexion to those around him.  

A map of the route, as best as I could get it to match up. Click for better quality, or view the interactive version here.

19 May 1775, to his family

Meine Lage ist die glücklichste, die du dir vorsstellen kannst; die Aussicht von hier ist nebst der von Bessinge die schönste dieser Gegenden; vor der zu Bessinge hat sie den offnern Horizont den See hinauf und in die Schweiz zum Voraus; mein Haus ist auf einem Hügel, die Ufer sind mit Wiesen, Gärten und Wein bewachsen und fallen wie ein großer Garten in mein Auge; mein Freund ist einer der tugendhaftesten und vollkommensten Männer, und unsere einige Beschäftigung ist die gegenseitige Bemühung, einander immer vollkommener zu machen; unsere Geschäfte sind solche, die ich unter allen Beschäftigungen der Menschen auswählen würde; jedermann, selbst die Bauren des Dorfs, rühmt unser stilles und arbeitsames Leben. Still ist es ohne einsam zu seyn, denn viele unserer Freunde besuchen uns bisweilen zum Mittag oder Nachtessen, und wir sie. Vor einigen Tagen waren wir zu Bessinge, gestern kam Hr. Tronchin zu mir, Dienstags sind wir eingeladen bei ihm zu speisen. Am Ende des Monats wird Bonstetten auf einige Tage zu mir kommen. Jedermann bemühet sich zu unserm Vergnügen beizutragen, und in meinem Leben habe ich nie so vieles, so unschuldiges, so lehrreiches genossen. Ob wir wohl erst 19 Tage hier sind und keine Langeweile haben scheint mir diese Zeit 19 Wochen zu seyn: so viel haben wir gearbeitet und so unwahrscheinlich scheint es mir, daß ich dies in so wenigen Tagen habe thun können. 

6 June 1775, to his family

Auszug eines Briefes von Hrn. Thomas Boone, Esqu. Hrn. Kinlochs Vormund: “Mit unendlichem Vergnügen versichere ich Sie, daß unter allen Handlungen meines jungen Freundes, seit er mich verlassen (und er hat keine vorgenommen, die mir mißfallen) keine bei mir soviel Beifall gefunden, als die Erlangung Ihrer Freundschaft. Wenn er sich in Scenen von Wohlleben und Verschwendung begeben hätte, so hätte er die Bekanntschaft junger Leute vom ersten Rang erhalten können; Vertraulichkeit mit dem Mann von Verdienst, Genie und Gelehrsamkeit ist nicht so leicht errichtet: Plan, Lernbegierde und Sitten gehdren hiezu. Ihre Freundschaft zu erlangen, mußte Kinloch Verdienste haben. Sie werden als sein Freund mit Vergnügen von mir vernehmen, daß er in seinem ganzen Leben keine Bekanntschaft gemacht, die ihm nicht rühmlich gewesen. Ich entdecke wirklich solche Einsichten, solche Klugheit bei ihm, daß ich beschlossen habe, ihn künftig Meister aller seiner Handlungen zu lassen. Ich bitte Sie, sagen Sie es ihm; mit doppeltem Vergnügen wird er es aus dem Munde seines Freundes vernehmen. Wo sie auch mit ihm seyn mögen, wird er, das bin ich sicher, bei Ihnen mehr lernen, als an allen andern Orten. Wenn er ein größeres Theater betritt, so will ich ihm rathen; gegenwärtig braucht er keinen Rath als den Ihrigen. Ganz und vollkommen billige ich Ihren Plan. Sie haben Kinloch und mich glücklich gemacht.”

Hrn. von Voltaire, der ganz nahe bei uns wohnt, schrieb ich vor einigen Tagen, daß ich mit K. zu ihm kommen wolle. [...] Als er den Damen Hrn. Kinloch präsentirte, sprach er: “Sehen Sie einen Mann, der aus dem Lande der Wilden kommt und dem man's nicht ausieht!” Mich fragte er, wo mein Gouverneur sey? und dann sprach er zu den Anwesenden: “dieser junge Mann mit dem Gesicht von fünfzehn Jahren ist selbst Gouverneur; aber zusgleich des Schweizerlandes Geschichtschreiber, Er hat wie Aeneas eine Reise zu den Schatten gethan, d. i. zu mir.” Bald darauf waren wir zu Ferner wie alte Bekannte. Er hat eine neue Schrift von der Existenz Gottes herausgegeben. Der große olivenfarbige amerikanische Wilde und der junge zarte Geschichtschreiber der Schweiz entbieten ihren freundlichen Gruß

July 1775, to his parents

Nach einigen Tagen kam zufolge seiner Zusage mein Freund, der Herr v. Bonstetten, zu mir und blieb zu unsrer großen Freude ebenfalls bei uns. Unsre Zimmer sind gegenwärtig alle vertheilt und meine Glückseligkeit ist durch die Vereinigung meiner beiden Freunde, des Weißen und des Braunen, natürlicherweise sehr vermehrt worden.

[...]

Mein Freund Kinloch und ich gedenken Chambeisi gegen Ende des Augusts zu verlassen. Von da nach Lausanne, nach Vivis, durchs Oberland bis Thun, den Thuner- und Brienzersee hinauf nach Haßli, über die Berge ins Thal Urfern, hervor nach Altorf, anzuländen in Unterwalden, anzuländen in Schweiz, Gersau vorbei nach Luzern und Zürich, den See herauf nach Glarus, das Rheinthal herunter nach Appenzell und St. Gallen, von da nach Constanz, und von da nach Schaffhausen, durch die vier Waldstädte nach Basel, durch Pierre Pertuis nach Solothurn, hierauf Neufchatel, Bern, Freiburg im Uechtland, Valeyres durch die Waat zurück nach Chambeisi, woselbst wir bei den Wissenschaften und Herrn Bonnets Freundschaft den Winter zubringen. 

#francis kinloch #johannes von müller #18th century history #queer history #the german version of the voltaire story was much clearer #god i love a map

[thommi-tomate]

Interview with Thomas Müller

By: GQ Deutschland

Thomas, you are launching a high protein drinkable meal on the market together with ESN. Athletes and healthy eating go together in principle. But how exactly did the cooperation come about?

I was looking for an entrepreneurial project that suited me. That's why I asked around in the industry, because I'm very interested in healthy nutrition - and especially in practical healthy nutrition. As a professional athlete, I naturally find myself in a special situation: I am supplied with the right food every day. But I believe that with the knowledge I have acquired, I can help my friends and family to eat better and more practically at the same time. I wanted to develop good products that I could stand behind and that's how I ended up at ESN. We are not the first on the market with our protein drinkable meal. But it was remarkable that RDY tastes almost shockingly much better than the products I was drinking before (laughs)

How much influence did you have on the finished product in the end?

The product category has been around for a while. It was important to me that we try to optimize the ingredients of the drink and tweak the protein content a little. I had the biggest influence on the selection of RDY flavors. I specified the direction in which the individual flavors should go - whether they should be tart or sweet. We developed this further in many tastings, so that they now have a clear "Thomas Müller note".

You've already said it, as a professional athlete you have experts to help you with your diet. At the age of 34, you are now a senior footballer - how has your diet changed as a result?

Of course! We have great chefs at both the club and the national team who prepare food that is perfectly tailored to us. And a lot has changed in the last 15 years: Today, there's no longer a Leberkäs sandwich on the buffet, but rather risotto, broccoli and fish.

You're more of a wiry type in terms of your build, not a muscle pack - is your diet balanced so that you maintain this?

For me, both training and nutrition are primarily about being fit to play. The older you get, the harder it is for your body to regenerate and the more support it needs to avoid injury. During the season, I don't focus on extreme muscle building. When we play three times a week, my body works best when I put a lot of emphasis on core stability and mobility during training. My protein intake is an extremely important factor here. Many people only associate protein with muscle building, but it is one of the most important building blocks that our body needs to keep our body and skeleton stable.

Staying stable is particularly important for you this year: the euro is coming up in Germany in the summer. To what extent is that already an issue for you at the moment?

It's a big topic, even if it's only buzzing around in the background for me during the current very game-intensive time at FC Bayern

The public mood surrounding the national team was pretty bad for a long time, and after the two test match victories against France and the Netherlands, the experts are once again saying that the title is not only possible, but a must. You've been in the business long enough to be able to put this into perspective - do you do the same with the younger players in the team?

I think one of my strengths is finding the right balance between fun and seriousness. Despite my ambition, I always need a pinch of humor. Even if everything never runs smoothly, it's worth sticking with it with joy and motivation. And that's what I try to convey.

Do you already see your successors in the team who can take on exactly this role for the team?

There are definitely a lot of players who will be fun to watch play football for years to come. At the same time, of course, it's important to show your face. The fans expect a certain amount of interaction from players, so you can't just show yourself on the pitch and then hide away again.

What are your expectations for the mood at the Euros - especially when you compare it to the "summer fairytale" of 2006, when the whole country was euphoric. Can you achieve that again?

Absolutely. I think the potential for ecstasy is there. I also think that a lot of things that have happened in recent years, from corona to the various political problems in the world, have created a great need to be really happy again. It doesn't feel like the easiest of times at the moment, so an event like this can trigger something that gets everyone going. Of course, for it to be like 2006, the key moments for us have to be right, with victories in close games against good opponents.

When do you consider the European Championship a success?

As players, if we can be satisfied with our performance. I know that in the end it's the result that counts, but if we are narrowly beaten in the quarter-finals after a great game against a strong opponent, then I could live with that, because that's the nature of sport. But of course the title is the goal

As a German citizen, I would be delighted if we could once again show our hospitality at such a big event. That the people who attended the games go home happy after the European Championships and have had a great experience in Germany. That would be the greatest success from an intercultural perspective.

#thomas müller #german nt #euro 2024

[myimaginarywonderland]

I am not a football fan but I am queer.

As a queer German I have struggled so much with finding myself.

No one in the school system ever taught me about other sexualities or other gender identities. All I knew was that there was straight/gay and that was my knowledge for the first 10+ years of my life.

I was afraid to come out because I had first hand seen bullying of another classmate that did.

The first years of my Gesamtschule (basically a place where you can go from 10-16 for anyone and get different forms of education for anyone not familiar with the various ways the German school system works) everyone thought I was a lesbian and some even went to for as to pressure me to come out. Even if I was a lesbian I would have never come out after seeing a girl in my grade change the school because the bullying was so bad on her for being one.

The first time I really learned how I was (someone that is asexual) and told a friend (the first person I ever told that I might romantically also be interested in girls) I was laughed at and brushed aside.

I saw people like me get killed, shot, attacked every year since I figured I wasn't straight.

Just this year when I went to a pride parade I had slurs thrown at me.

I am sorry but a "we won't be silenced isn't good enough."

That doesn't erase the shooting that just happened this week.

That doesn't erase the person who was just this year attacked at my home town for being queer.

That doesn't erase the fact that anytime I go out, the best I hope for is just some off hand comments.

That doesn't erase all the people who have died because of who they were. Or the people who fought to get where we are and those lost in that fight.

What Thomas Müller said has hurt more than I thought it would. Saying that people can't expect a sportsperson "to give up" their dreams to take a political stance.

How dare he?

How dare the German NT?

How dare you be afraid of what little punishment you might get when everyday people have to hide who they are in order to not get killed?

How fucking dare you try to make us the villains for expecting nothing less than putting on some silly wrist band?

How fucking dare you try everything not to make a direct stance?

I don't have that choice. Neither does anyone else of the community.

The only choice I ever made was be myself and everyday, especially when I am myself openly, I have to endure the hate.

I expect the comments.

I fear the confrontation.

I dread any physical attack.

I feel sick seeing the violence.

I feel terrified of one day being on the news as another person killed because of a hate crime.

Maybe I am more "safe" living here.

But others aren't.

Every day I have to see people of my community fear for their lives.

Every month I hear of another person who died being who they were and loving who they loved.

Every year the lists of names to remember because their lives where taken gets longer.

So I hope from the bottom of my heart that when you had a choice to make, a simple decisions you considered all that.

#german nt #world cup #sorry but I had to get this off my chest

[seraphiism]

— iii. sentence prompts

' i am living. i remember you. ' ( maria howe ) ' & i've turned down every hand that has beckoned me to come ' ( mitski - geyser ) ' i can hear you and see you and love you in every single, single thing in the whole world asleep or awake ' ( dylan thomas ) ' hold me tight, it's getting cold ' ( richard siken ) ' you will freeze in place if you remain this way. you must not, dear. you have to move. ' ( rainer maria rilke ) ' come teach me a kinder way to say my own name ' ( andrea gibson ) ' there's this promise of happiness out there. i know it. i even feel it sometimes ' ( sarah addison allen ) ' we live past hope / if i can find hope anywhere, that's it / that's the best i can do ' ( tony kushner ) ' people do go back, but they don't survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time ' ( jeanette winterson ) ' sooner or later you’ll begin to dream of me. i don’t envy you those dreams. ' ( louise glück ) ' & if you've got a heart at all, someday it will kill you. ' ( rita dove ) ' what will happen to us who want to believe, but cannot? ' ( ingmar bergman ) ' yes, there is a place where someone loves you both before and after they learn what you are ' ( neil hilborn ) ' i am the knife which will slaughter heaven. heaven is full of blood. soon it will snow. ' ( heiner müller ) ' like the moon and the stars / perhaps we were destined to be together '

#thinkin abt opening reqs soon :^) maybe i will use this or change up req formatting if i can think or smth #.: writing inspo #sentence prompts #last one is an orig quote

[luthienne]

Hey, dear! Let me be one [more] follower who asks a few quotes about some things. Could you compile some (just a few, just a bunch) about silence and/or introversion? Thank you dearly. ♡

a compilation v close to my heart ♡

“Solitude: liberation from even the expectation of being seen.”

Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City: Poems; “The Telephone”

“For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of — to think; well not even to think. To be silent, to be alone.”

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“I thought of you—wished you were here with me but I get a keen sort of exhilaration from being alone…”

Georgia O’Keeffe, in a letter to Cady Wells, featured in Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life

“But I love such days—rare lonely days. I love above all things, my dear, to be alone.”

Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to J.M. Murry

“I am, oddly, happiest when alone for weeks on end talking to no one there, talking in my mind to the imagined listener who perfectly hears, perfectly understands, and talks back with equal truthfulness.”

Martha Gellhorn, from Selected Letters

Amélie, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2001)

“For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much, sense too much, am exhausted by reverberations after even the simplest conversation.”

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.”

Herta Müller, from The Hunger Angel

“I don't see much of anybody these days—I feel rather funny with other people—even those whom I care for. While one's heart is being transformed into a little world, one wants to be alone.”

Kahlil Gibran, in a letter to Mary Haskell, from Beloved Prophet: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell, and her private journal

Bella Akhmadulina, Fever and Other New Poems; “Longing for Lermontov” (tr. Geoffrey Dutton, Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin)

“Perhaps I am addicted to solitude and feel safe and easy in it,”

Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

“…because there was too much silence within me. In those days I was alone,”

Clarice Lispector, Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector

“My current silence interests only me. It touches too many parts of my personal life for me to explain it to you.”

Albert Camus, Notebooks (1951-1959), Vol 3.

“People love talking, and I have never been a huge talker. I carry on an inner monologue, but the words often don’t reach my lips.”

Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“And what were they anyway, sprigs of grass, things of blue? For a long time I wanted to use words, then didn’t.”

Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey

“What words? What words can I trust to convey this fragile heart?”

Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries

Keaton Henson, from “How Could I Have Known”

“So much of what we live goes on inside– The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches Of unacknowledged love are no less real For having passed unsaid. What we conceal Is always more than what we dare confide. Think of the letters that we write our dead.”

Dana Gioia, Unsaid

“But I cannot help it. I only want to be alone. I want to be myself and alone and free to breathe, live, look upon the world and find it however it is…”

Martha Gellhorn, from Selected Letters

“… Perhaps love is to give one’s own solitude to others? For it is the very last thing we have to offer.”

Clarice Lispector, Selected Cronicas; “The Gift”

“I’ve never been afraid of loneliness because I’ve never felt the need to justify my feelings to myself. I accept the muteness of feeling too. I have huge respect for my own silence. I let it speak. I allow time to do its trick and lead me back to myself. I don’t want just anyone to share life and myself with me.”

Anaïs Nin, from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5: 1947-1955

“Don’t allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Preserve your solitude. If the day ever comes when a real friendship is bestowed on you there will be no conflict between your inner solitude and this friendship. On the contrary, that is the infallible sign by which you will know it.”

Simone Weil, First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge

“…the most precious thing of all: solitude.”

Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star (tr. Benjamin Moser)

“She naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel herself for ever and ever and ever alone.”

Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Harold Pinter, Old Times

“Le Notti Bianche” (1957) - Luchino Visconti

“Solitude itself is a way of waiting for the inaudible and the invisible to make itself felt. And that is why solitude is never static and never hopeless.”

May Sarton, Plant Dreaming Deep

“O you—my sacred solitude!”

Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems; “Solitude (from Rilke)”

“It is curious for one who has been much alone—this sinking back into silence.”

Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to J.M. Murry

“���I have backed up / into my silence / as inexhaustible as the sun”

Fanny Howe, The Lyrics: Poems; “O’Clock”

“All I want is silence, for myself and for the selves I used to be, a silence like the magical cottage in the forest that lost children find in fairy tales.”

Alejandra Pizarnik, Extracting the Stone of Madness (tr. Yvette Siegert)

Allison Stone, “Persephone’s First Season in Hell”

“…and the heart took shelter behind a parapet of silence;”

Dulce María Loynaz, Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems; “Poema XLV” (tr. James O’Connor)

[Original: “…y el corazón se encastilló en un muro de silencio;”]

“I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.”

Peter Høeg, “Smilla’s Sense of Snow”

“Solitude as necessity, demandable, honorable. Not sinful, indulgent, wasteful, undeserved.”

May Sarton, from a journal entry dated October 18, 1993

“And in that silence, what grace.”

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems; “Savonarola’s Cape”

“and my chest appears translucent, / heart in its center, / cathedral of dust / and silence”

Milagros Terán, Las luces en la sien (tr. Fiona Griffin)

[Original: “y el pecho lo llevo traslúcido, / corazón en medio / como una catedral de pólvera / y silencio”]

Emily Dickinson, “I felt a Funeral in my Brain”

“I want to meet no one; I want to say nothing; / I want to go down and rest in the black earth of silence.”

Robert Bly, Eating the Honey of Words; “Depression,”

“You would rather have gone on feeling nothing, / emptiness and silence; the stagnant peace / of the deepest sea,”

Margaret Atwood, from “Eurydice,” Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986

“I don’t know about birds / nor do I know the history of fire. / But I believe that my solitude should have wings.”

Alejandra Pizarnik, Tree of Diana, tr. Joseph Mulligan & Patricia Rossi

“For language to have meaning there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance.”

Thomas Merton, “Disputed Questions”

“I have a need of silence and of stars. / Too much is said too loudly.”

William Alexander Percy, from “Home”

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems

“—a space of virgin silence, a place of rest where I wait for myself.”

Alejandra Pizarnik, “A Night Shared in a Memory of Escape” (tr. Yvette Siegert)

#ask #anon #compilation #quote compilation #on solitude #on silence #unsayable #long post #i really did try to keep this short.... god #stay with me always solitude

[seventeenlovesthree]

Also sorry if I'm bringing this back but at that time : wc2018 I decided to log off because there was so much drama with the mesut-erdogan thing I remember that there was no conection between some players but why?? Because 2 years later the team still is struggling and they don't have that passion nor conection.. I'm wondering which were the players that caused the division in the wc2018? Do you have some sources on this? Sorry for the 2 long asks😂and thanks, you always give the best answersbtw

Oof, 2018... I’m not saying that it was “worse” than 2020 (because this year is quite a dumpster fire on its very, very own), but... It was a bad time. For the team, for the players, for the fandom. I didn’t reeeeeally see anyone liveblogging yesterday and I 200% understand why. As vile as it may sound, I was not sad about the draw (again). I AM thankful for everything Joachim Löw (and Hansi Flick, do not EVER forget Hansi) did from 2006-2014, but almost everything that happened afterwards (minus the Confed Cup and the WELL DESERVED farewells to the Big 5) was a big, fat disappointment. I think I speak for many, many people on this website (and probably those who have already left) when I say that I feel alienated. The majority of Germany seems to be feeling the same - at least those that are active on Twitter and, like people on tumblr, are asking for a change.

I am sure that I have some (German) sources gathered that’ll explain all the reasons for the downfall, but I’ll be honest with you, anon: I am tired. As mentioned in the previous reply, the divide between WC winners and Confed Cup winners may have played a role in all of this to an extent. Then of course there is Mesut!Gate... Oh boy. I keep looking at the Arsenal Germany picture on my blog, seeing Per, Lukas and Mesut pose together happily with the WC trophy and I would never have expected to get sad over this one day. Mesut!Gate is complicated - I say as he has, once again, posted something political on his social media feed yesterday. The world has gotten more complicated in general. It is very depressing to say the least, wars/conflicts on a global scale, racial and identity related conflicts, a freaking pandemic and all the conspiracy theories coming along with it. There are no easy answers in this. At all. I did log off after WC2018 myself, because it was simply unbearable. Both how DFB had handled the whole situation - and how Mesut behaved. I won’t go into too much detail, some of the players haven’t really put it into words the best way either, it was all very criticism worthy.

And so was the axing of Thomas Müller, Mats Hummels and Jérôme Boateng. For everyone who’s been involved since Löw has been in charge - we are aware that this hadn’t been the first questionable decision in regards of cutting deserved players off. Michael Ballack may come to mind here, along with a few other very deserved players. Personally, I still get sad thinking about more minor names who have simply been forgotten over the years (I made a list, it’s long, trust me). Just yesterday I’ve found an article, an interview by Christoph Kramer and Lars Stindl, where they were specifically adressed as “ex NT players”. It hurts. (Especially since they’re all humble lads about it, look at Kramer saying “[I hope for Jonas Hofmann and Florian Neuhaus to get played, even if it’s just for a few minutes.] So that they can say that they are German NT players. Because that’s what matters, as it is all of our dream since childhood.”)

Either way. The way three deserving players were cut off was terrible. And it is no surprise that fans react to it, to this day, with protest, demanding for them to be brought back to stabilize the team with their experience. We have so much potential, so much talent. But they can’t do this alone. There are just... So many factors playing into this right now that just feel off. I’ll try to sum it up really, really shortly:

The Nations League. Who the hell cares about this? It just feels blown out of proportions to generate more ~money while creating more fatigue for the players (which would explain why they are not 100% motivated), while the fans don’t even have it on their radar. (I, personally, regularly forget that the team even plays.)

Fans feeling generally distanced from the team, not only because DFB’s marketing strategies simply do not feel fit for today’s situation anymore. Ticket prices, merchandise, the way the players interact with fans - it feels like a luxury, distanced, cold. The lads are not palpable (even though I gotta admit that, personally, I feel like the squad feels a bit more likable than it did a while ago).

The team structure. Fortunately, we DO have players (again) who open their mouths when it’s necessary, future leader types, smart lads, highly talented. But they just don’t feel... Like a real team yet. Plus, it probably doesn’t help when there are 47253527 new debutants who get their hopes up and get axed in the next game, after the team has struggled ONCE AGAIN and it all gets excused by “We still have to find outselves!” No shit, Sherlock...

Joachim Löw’s general decision making. Look. I know, I know, there is a saying that goes “Look at the 80 million coaches we have in Germany” when it comes to criticizing his way of coaching. There have been countless instances in the past where he made questionable decisions that made us all go “WHAT?!”, but often turned out to be right. Sometimes the criticism gets overwhelmingly irrational - but whenever Löw then gets into defensive mode, it never really worked out well. The three-man-defense that didn’t work out... The fact that he plays players out of position (DOES ANYONE ELSE GET PHILIPP LAHM FLASHBACKS HERE, EXCEPT PHILIPP LAHM WAS ABSOLUTELY EXCEPTIONAL AND COULD DO WHATEVER HE WANTED AND STILL LOOKED LIKE HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING?), the fact that players get called up and played that don’t even play regularly in their clubs (DOES ANYONE ELSE GET MIRO KLOSE FLASHBACKS HERE, EXCEPT MIRO KLOSE ALWAYS PAID BACK THE TRUST THAT WAS PUT IN HIM?). It feels weird. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they did question some of their strategies yesterday, but the usual “blabla” of “We were on the right path, we have a plan” just doesn’t do the reality justice. Especially when you think of 2018. Yes, I agree, the team HAS to find itself. It takes time and we are all spoilt with all the talent we’ve got. But even Bastian Schweinsteiger said he feels like the team wasn’t palpable for the audience - and that means something.

Last but not least, referring to no. 2 and basically all other points: We are in the middle of a freaking pandemic. And now, more than ever before, football feels like it’s in his own little bubble of millionaires playing around. Which is just not attractive. At all. It lacks humility. It feels like they want to “return a bit of normality” at all costs, but it just doesn’t feel right. All the travelling (via PLANES), the physical closeness of the players, the lengths they have to go through to get e v e r y o n e tested regularly. How does that even work? It’s reckless. This “display of normality” just gives people reason to believe that we can act like nothing’s wrong, that it’s all just a hoax, why should we keep distance if a Brandt and a Havertz can have cuddles on the pitch? Corona can’t even be that bad then, right?

You see... There are a lot of reasons why it just doesn’t feel right. This wasn’t short at all, but I guess I really had to let out all the frustrations here. I hope this answered your questions to an extent at least. :)

#anon #mö #jl #one of the things that makes me keep watching is hearing per comment on the stuff that happens #unfortunately he's still very quiet about it #basti has been more vocal so far

[themousefromfantasyland]

The Yule Man (7/7)

Told by ME

This was meant to be a short story, but it became too big, so I separated it in seven parts. I want to turn my blog in a space where I can share my writting every once and a while.

This is the first time I post one of my stories on a public space. This is the first time anyone besides my sister will be able to read, so I'm pretty exciting and anxious. I want honest criticism. I hope you all enjoy it.

The threat of Mr. Müller grew day by day. Mia saw each day up to five to eight men surrounding the mansion. Chris, along with all her siblings continued oblivious to it all.

They kept and kept appearing, not showing to anyone, only her. Franz Müller liked games. The more twisted and sadistic, the better.

Mia and Chris had made a promise of always been honest to each other. On that moment nothing could take him out of the idea that Mia hid something from him. He tried to ignore the feeling. He wanted so much to believe in her.

The nostalgia by the fireplace on those Yule Days eased her mind. Cuddling with Chris, hearing their siblings’ stories. She wanted the world to stay that way forever.

Then the Yule Log turned to ashes.

In the middle of the dawn of Yule's last day, she got up running and invaded her mother's bedchamber. She didn't tell anything to Chris. Not even dared to wake him up. She jumped from bed and went straight to her mother.

"I need help." She started saying frenetically. "They are after me. Mr. Müller wants his money, and I don't have how to pay it."

Mrs. Hayek looked at her with disdain.

"Of all the people in the world, why you choose me to ask for money." She said enjoying each syllable of that sentence.

Mia couldn't resist. She spilled bitterness again.

"Because you're the only one here whose opinion about me doesn't matter."

Mrs. Hayek stood up.

"You aren't helping your cause." She continued saying. "Typical, you only here for my money. If you had been a decent daughter, you would be closer to me."

Mia shouted back.

"It was you who close yourself out of the world. My father struggled to maintain these gates open to the town, to the community. And you closed them off for good. You don’t even know the state that Arnsberg finds itself now."

She shut Mrs. Hayek’s mouth.

“You don’t know nothing what’s happening outside.” She walked near the door. “Sophia is getting married and Fritz will move to another town.” She closed her eyes. “I’m getting married too.”

That took her mother by surprise.

"With that boy. The Yule Man! How?"

Mia said dismissive:

"I don't know. I don't understand his world.

Mrs. Hayek stepped closer to her.

"Magic always leads to trouble."

"He's mortal now. He found a way and now he wants to spend time with me. I don't have the heart to tell him I'm stuck in this mess." She sat by her mother’s bed. “This year was so hard to me. I almost lose my business. I was stupid. And now Cat’s-eye’s men are running around here.

“Are they here?”

Her mother growled like animal, but this time, the unthinkable happened. She sat close to her daughter and did the only thing she believed would never be necessary n her life, to be vulnerable.

"I know what you think of me. Yeah, I was racist when I was younger. I was also foolish and insipid. I wanted his money."

Mia didn’t understood that.

"You didn't changed that much. Why are you telling me that?"

Mrs. Hayek started to yell.

"I want to salvage our relationship. I'm tired of spending the Yule days without you."

She stopped. Her voice sounded lower and calmer now.

“I pushed everyone away. The truth is that I miss your father, I miss the Solstice Eve balls. I miss when you four were little. I miss everything.” Bitter tears flowed down her face. “I am getting older Mia. I have so many regrets. Take all the money you need and fix this mess.” She paused. “And enjoy the short time you have with your Yule Man.

Mia hugged her mother. So much resentment lasted in both of them, but maybe this could be the start of a new beginning for both. Maybe.

A loud rumbled awakened Chris.

“Mia?” He woke up in an empty room.

He heard voices, murmurs, coming from upstairs. Perhaps if she were there, if the room weren’t empty, he would not have the idea to see what produced that sound. The idea of something bad happening with the Hayeks stroked him as the first thought. Inexperience with burglars and robbers also could be the reason for his behavior. He lit a single candlelight and went to check that sound.

The dark still reigned over all the rooms. Looking by the hours marked in the clock, sunrise would not delay coming. He slowly walked upstairs, to the area where Mr. Hayek kept his office. Mr. Müller had sent his five best burglars. For days they studied the Hayek Mansion. They counted each servant, each worker, each resident, and each visitor. They knew even where all of them slept. They burst a sealed vault with the minimum of noise. Yet, there is always someone to hear, there’s always casualties.

They surprised Chris and grabbed him from behind before he could scream. They took out all the money they could put their hands on. When they were ready to go, they release him. They knew he would scream. They knew even a single shot would wake everyone in the house. They proceeded anyway because they wanted them to know that they were there. It was part of the fun.

Chris received three shots when he tried to run. He fell against the floor without at least understanding what had happened to him.

"Tell Miss Hayek this is her late Yuletide present." One of them said before fleeing by the open window.

The fatal sound echoed through all the household. When the servants saw him there, they immediately called Thomas. Mia heard all the noise in her mother’s room and rushed to see what had happened.

The world became slower as closer as she came to her father old office. When she felt the blood on her feet, everything stopped. Mia threw herself over his body, getting on her knees and desperately brushing his face. His body shivered and trembled.

"No. No. No." He screamed and cried on her lap.

He felt the emptiness growing inside him, the nothingness. He knew if it engulfed him there would be no way out.

"Mia, the woods. Take me to the woods." He shouted to her. “Please. I don’t want to go. Not now!” He sobbed.

Mia turned to her brothers.

“I need help carrying him.”

Mrs. Hayek appeared behind them.

"Take the sleigh."

The sleigh had been bought recently, a one-horse open sleigh. Mia and her brothers carefully placed Chris's body over it. Soon she dashef off the golden gates into the winter landscape. Her siblings stood speechless. Mrs. Hayek stayed behind, alone, wishing for a miracle.

Chris fighted to maintain his eyes opened. He knew if he closed his eyes, he wouldn't be able to open them again. The north wind surrounded them. It howled and brushed through their bodies, as if screaming and already mourning.

Chris heard the voices, full of pain and hatred. He cried desperately and shouted.

"It's too late." He sobbed.

Mia stopped the sleigh next to tree large threes near an abandoned road.

She rushed to his side.

"Remember when we stayed in that hotel in Lichthafen City.” He said not holding back the tears.

"No, Chris stop!" She shouted in pure anger.

“I filled our room with sand.” He laughed. “The sand, the sun, the tiny seashells.”

"Stop!" She shouted again.

"I don't want to go."

His vision started to fade away.

"No, no, no!" His body struggled with all strength left in him.

He stopped fighting and stared deep into her eyes. Calmly, he said:

"You changed me."

She landed both hands on his face.

"I love you." He said faintly.

As he said that, the nothingness dragged him back for the last time, never to think or feel anything ever again.

The winds stopped, as if in infinite mourning. The first sun rays started to appear, and she stood by his side, crying, and shouting to the empty.

The sun raised, and the bright beams landed on Chris’ body, that dissolved into snow and ice. Under the first sun rays, the white snow shimmered and glistened before Mia's eyes. The end had arrived.

Mia returned to the Hayek Mansion without Chris, and without a body. She wasn't even sure if anyone would believe her.

Mrs. Hayek turned to her and sadly whispered:

"Magic only leads to trouble."

Mia returned to Arnsberg in the next day. Mr. Muller waited for her near her shop. He dressed as a true gentlemen.

"Hope you had a fantastic Yuletide." He greeted her with a smile. “Hope you don’t mind that my men took somethings away. Those were the correction interest, but you still owe me.

She paid what she owned to him and didn't dared to say more words.

“Happy Yuletide!”

After Chris’ death, Mia closed herself out of the world. She closed her tailoring shop one day and disappeared inside her own apartment. No one of her family could bring her out again. With time, it became their duty to look out for her and her bills. Mrs. Hayek started to believe that if Mr. Müller's men didn't killed Mia, her daughter would finish the job on her own.

The months passed, and Yuletide arrive again. To everyone’s surprise, she dressed in her best clothes and roamed through the streets. That particular Solstice Eve was different. All expected the snow to arrive. When the intense cold started everybody assumed snow would soon come along. This was how it always had been.

Mia searched in all street alleys. Everyone bought their last time presents, blissfully unaware of her existence. She dashed through each possible place for a person to be found. The Yule days ended and with them all Yule logs turned to ashes. The traditional Yule snow was sadly missed that year.

During two more Yuletide seasons she searched through all Arnsberg for any sign of him. Snow stopped falling in the Yule days.

In the third year she gave up. Happy families had supper in their warm and cozy homes. Mia collapsed in tears in the corners where the light of the the lamplights couldn't reach.

She wandered alone back to home. Her house once had a well-lit Yule Tree. Holly and mistletoes once hanged in these walls. Everything felt barren now. She finally started to understand what Chris meant by nothingness. Her house was a tomb, and it opened to swallow her whole.

Her mom entered that place without any problems. Mia often let the door open. Cat’s-eye wasn't a threat anymore, as so with death.

Mrs. Hayek did her best to dress as well as when she was younger. Without her hair, she had to rely on sheets and scarves to decorate her head. Overall, she though she did a great job.

For the first time in fifteen years, the Hayek Mansion would host a Solstice Eve ball. if it depended on Thomas and Sophia, the mansion's doors would never close to the community again.

“Mia, it’s your mother.” She announced before entering.

From the couch, Mia gazed at her with anger.

"Mia, please. Come spend the Yule with us!” She nearly cried. “You can’t spend the holidays here in this state."

"I see him here. In every place, in every corner." She started to cry. "I still see him."

Mrs. Hayek hugged Mia.

"This isn't fair. This isn't fair." Mia sobbed on her shoulder.

"I know how it is." Mrs. Hayek mourned.

Mia jumped out of her mother’s arms.

"You don't know how it is." She shouted.

"Yeah, I don't. It would be foolish to say I was exactly in your shoes.” She sat on the couch and rubbed her forehead. “I loved a man. I thought I would have him forever, then one day, he's gone. Your world is in pieces, and it's your job to clean up the shards."

She started sobbing.

“When your father died I though I would join him soon. The Yule Festival was the worst. Everything reminded me of him. I went to the church. I though the Silver God could help me. It didn’t worked.”

"Does this pain ever pass?" Mia asked.

"I want to say it does, but it doesn't. You learn to navigate through it all."

Mrs. Hayek and Mia hugged again. Not as mother and daughter, but as two women who felt empathy and understood the plight of each other. For a moment, all their differences crumbled to dust.

Mia stared at bright lights of the town through the window of her apartment.

"Nothing lasts forever." Mrs. Hayek said. "I wish I could meet your father earlier. Free of prejudices and interests. He was a special man. I wouldn't give up the moments I spent with him for nothing in this world."

Mia stepped closer to the shelfs in the corner and picked a small bottle. Tiny, and full of white sand and she held it closer. Those memories, Mr. Müller would never take away from her.

And there's no more to my story. All stories come to an end.

#christmas #holiday season #my writting #yuletide #writters on tumblr #my story #The Yule Man

[thomas-mvller]

Tag games x 283129

Hello everyone so uh lately i've started to be more active on my music sideblog which means i've been hearting stuff like crazy for the past couple of months aka all the things i've been tagged in has been buried under all that nonsense SO because i hate leaving things undone i thought on doing them all at once and tagging a bunch of people so they can get a little distraction by doing them (as in, not all of them but whichever they might want to do)

Again: you do not have to do all of them, not even one if you don't feel like doing so! there's a game for everyone so hey!

Tagging: @havertsz @foreverbayern @germanynts @sherlockisonfire @debushit @sadiiomane10 @miasanmuller @elishamanning @abcde-fc @bbjim @littletentaclemonster @tamtam-elizabeth @minimalloss @pearfight and whoever wants to do this! if you see it, consider yourself tagged >:))

Alright, here we go:

1) I was tagged by @/tamtam-elizabeth and @/sadiiomane10 to post a capture of my lockscreen, homescreen and last song i listened to. Thank you both <3

I used to be very annoying when it came to changing my lock/homescreen so now i just don’t do that often anymore (previous to that my homescreen was a pic of lfc winning ucl OBVIOUSLY) also i haven’t really been listening to music lately but i did have a depeche mode phase like two weeks ago and this was the song i replayed the most so hey!

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2) “Get to know me” tag

Tagged by the always thoughtful @/tamtam-elizabeth , thank you and i’m sorry for taking so long ;-; <3

Name: Cloud

Birthday: sometime in november

Zodiac Sign: scorpio

Height: 5′4′’ or 1.65 (last time i checked..... which was like seven years ago)

Hobbies: lately it has been sewing facemasks 😂 that aside i like watching movies, random videos on yt, baking and crafting sometimes

Favorite colors: black, red and teal

Favorite Book: don’t think i have one :o

Last Song Listened to: barrel of a gun by depeche mode

Last Movie Watched: currently watching prince of egypt. if that doesn’t count then ben hur 😂

Inspiration or Muse: i really don’t know what to say here 😂

Dream Job: i still haven’t given up to my goal but at this point i just want a job that gives me stability and zero worries

Reason Behind my URL: Thomas Müller (German pronunciation: [ˈtoːmas ˈmʏlɐ]; born 13 September 1989) is a German professional footballer who plays for Bundesliga club Bayern Munich. A versatile player, Müller plays as a midfielde- okay no in all seriousness yess this url is bc of a football player 😂

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3) Ten songs playlist tag

Tagged by the joy that is @/foreverbayern and the always sweetest @/havertsz . thank youuuuu <3

Rules: We’re snooping through your playlist. Put your entire music library on shuffle and list the first 10 songs and then choose 10 victims.

Some months ago I made the mistake of transfering the songs i had in my old computer to my current laptop and there are some stuff that just........ should not be acknowledged so i can’t do shuffle HOWEVER i will choose ten random songs i’ve listened to/discovered this year (technically speaking is the same) so here it is:

art-i-ficial by x-ray spex

sunny afternoon by the kinks

desire lines by lush

paper cuts by incubus

pure love by hayley williams

spirit by bauhaus

no one knows by screaming trees

let’s love by suho

all we need is a dream by cheap trick

cosmonauts by fiona apple

bonus: you’re so close by peter murphy (god i adore this song)

I wouldn’t be surprised if these aren’t your cup of tea tbh 😂

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4) “Core aesthetic” tag

Tagged by @/havertsz - i’m sorry for the delay ;-; and thank you <3

rules: search your name + "core aesthetic" on pinterest, get a moodboard & select a few photos that come up

i can’t really use pinterest so i googled it instead, as you might’ve guessed this is what i got 😂

ps: i’ve been informed not to use pinterest so if you wish follow this post’s indications

ah this is so pretty, i loved doing this!

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5) 

Tagged by @/germanynts @/havertsz and @/elishamanning to do this tag, thank you all <3

rules: describe yourself with pictures you already have saved. no downloading or searching for new ones. then tag 10 people.

if you want further explanations for each pic... ask ahead 😂

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6) “bold what applies” tag

Tagged by the always enJoyable @/foreverbayern, thank yoooou <3

rules: bold what applies to you and tag a bunch of people

- Appearance

I am over 5’5 // I wear glasses/contacts // I have blonde hair // I prefer loose clothing over tight clothing // I have one or more piercings (had three...) // I have at least one tattoo // I have blue eyes // I have dyed or highlighted my hair // I have gotten plastic surgery // I have or had braces // I sunburn easily // I have freckles // I paint my nails // I typically wear makeup // I don’t often smile // I am pleased with how I look  // I prefer Nike to Adidas // I wear baseball caps backwards

- Hobbies and interests

I play a sport // I can play an instrument // I am artistic // I know more than one language // I have won a trophy in some sort of competition // I can cook or bake without a recipe // I know how to swim // I enjoy writing // I can do origami // I prefer movies to tv shows // I can execute a perfect somersault // I enjoy singing // I could survive in the wild on my own // I have read a new book series this year // I enjoy spending time with my friends // I travel during school or work breaks // I can do a handstand

Relationships

I am in a relationship // I have been single for over a year // I have a crush  // I have a best friend I have known for ten years // my parents are together // I have hooked up with my best friend // I am adopted // My crush has confessed to me // I have a long-distance relationship // I am an only child // I give advice to my friends // I have made an online friend // I met up with someone I have met online

- Aesthetic

I have heard the ocean in a conch shell // I have watched the sunrise // I enjoy rainy days // I have slept under the stars // I meditate outside // the sound of chirping calms me // I enjoy the smell of the beach // I know what snow tastes like // I listen to music to fall asleep (i did that for a long time and i sicnerely don’t recommend it) // I enjoy thunderstorms // I enjoy cloud watching // I have attended a bonfire (quick story time: one time when i was 12 my friends and i sneaked into our seniors’ school anniversary activities and they lit this huge bonfire near the football field, it was nuts) // I pay close attention to colours // I find mystery in the ocean (spoopy shit) // I enjoy hiking on nature paths // Autumn is my favourite season

- Miscellaneous

I can fall asleep in moving vehicles // I am the mom friend // I live by a certain quote(s) // I like the smell of sharpies // I am involved in extracurricular activities // I enjoy Mexican food // I can drive a stick-shift // I believe in true love // I make up scenarios to fall asleep // I sing in the shower // I wish I lived in a video game // I have a canopy above my bed // I am multiracial // I am a redhead // I own at least 3 dogs

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my god this is getting embarassing i had stuff long due ;-;

7) 

Tagged by @/tamtam-elizabeth. think you for thanking on me when doing tag games, i mean it :-: <3

How old are you?: 24

Surgeries?: one

Tattoos?: none yet ://

Ever hit a deer?: i have never seen one so... no 😂

Sang karaoke?: yeah... years ago 😂

Ice skated?: nope

Ridden a motorcycle?: had the chance but nope

Ridden in an ambulance?: nope

Skipped school?: a handful of times

Stayed in a hospital?: for a few hours

Broken bones?: nope

Last phone call?: i haven’t called anyone in ages 😂

Last text from?: my mom

Pepsi or coke?: coke but i don’t mind having pepsi

Favorite pie?: haven’t had one

Favorite pizza?: chorizo + corn + red pepper

Favorite season?: autumn

Received a ticket?: don’t even know how to drive

Favorite color?: black, red and teal

Sunset or sunrise?: both!

Favorite Christmas song?: don’t think i have one, maybe universe by exo?

Cupcakes or cookies?: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh good q, cookies?

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8) “find your match” tag game

Tagged by @/tamtam-elizabeth, you’re allowed to punch me in the face at this point

Rules:

Take the test

Reblog this post with what type you got

Tag 7 mutuals to do the same!

I got the Dreamer and my ideal partner would be The Innovator ?)

Seek out opportunities to collaborate with INNOVATOR types, who combine your lofty idealism with a focus on pragmatic solutions. The grounding energy of the INNOVATOR can inspire you to apply your imagination to real-world change.

that’s deep fam 😂 but okay!

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9) “get to know me tag”

Tagged by: @/littletentaclemonster . thank you and sorry for the delay ;-; <3

nickname: cloud zodiac: scorpio height: 5′4″ / 1.65 last movie I saw: can you believe i managed to watch another thing while making this? anyway it was The celluloid closet last thing I googled: block site extension favorite musician: as of right now? depeche mode song stuck in my head: you’re so close by peter murphy other blogs: @/brltpop and @/s-lay-ing amount of sleep: as long as i can get (usually 7 or 8) lucky numbers: don’t think i have one dream job: whatever gives me stability what am I wearing: pajamas  favorite food: chinese, mexican and italian language: which ones do i know? spanish and english somewhat. i want to learn japanese and german :c can I play an instrument: nope favorite song: atm is YOU’RE SO CLOSE (8) random fact: my nails usually grow sort of square except for my thumb and index fingers, they grow round for whatever reason describe yourself in aesthetic things: ?????????? idk man, messy room? loose clothes? football? cd’s on a shelf, posters on the walls ?????

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MY GOD WHY AM I LIKE THIS????????? 

10)

Tagged by @/littletentaclemonster you too can punch me in the face

Rules: Bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations, then tag nine people.

AIR: I have small hands • I love the night sky • I watch small animals and birds when I pass them by • I drink herbal tea • I wake to see dawn • The smell of dust is comforting • I’m valued for being wise • I prefer books to music • I meditate • I find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE: I don’t have straight hair • I like to wear ripped jeans • I play an organized sport  • I love dogs • I am not afraid of adventure • I love to talk to strangers • I always try new foods • I enjoy road trips • Summer is my favorite season • My radio is always playing

WATER: I wear bracelets on my wrists • I love the bustle of the city • I have more than one set of piercings • I read poetry • I love the sound of a thunderstorm • I want to travel the world • I sleep past midday most days • I love dimly lit diners and fluorescent signs • I rewatch kids’ shows out of nostalgia • I see emotions in colors not words

EARTH: I wear glasses/contacts • I enjoy doing the laundry • I am a vegetarian • I have an excellent sense of time • My humor is very cheerful • I am a valued advisor to my friends • I believe in true love • I love the chill of mountain air • I’m always listening to music • I am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER: I go without makeup in my daily life • I make my own artwork • I keep on track of my tasks and time • I always know true north • I see beauty in everything (sort of) • I can always smell flowers • I smile at everyone I pass by • I always fear history repeating itself • I have recovered from a mental disorder • I can love unconditionally

Water an aether huh, i don’t know what to do with this information 😂

/////////////

if you ask me i would very much appreciate it if you do the songs playlist tag bc i need recommendations thanks. Also massive apologies to the ones that were due since last year I had them in my drafts i swear!

Stay safe everyone :D

#ask games #yaay! #FINALLY #THE GUILT........ GONE #well this was fun

[revolutionary-demosthenes]

The Bonstetten-Gray relationship

Most of this information comes from “Thomas Gray (A Biography)” which can be found here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.226086/page/n289/mode/2up.

Thomas Gray was an English poet born in 1716. He had many siblings, but the was the only one who survived childhood. According to poetry foundation, he “is generally considered the second most important poet of the eighteenth century” behind Alexander Pope.

Charles Victor de Bonstetten was born in 1745. He was a Swiss writer, and stayed with Francis Kinloch, John Laurens’s ex-boyfriend, (I will post more about him soon) when Johannes Von Müller and Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1st Baron, St. Helens were also staying with him, in what I call Kinloch’s Gay Retreat. (I will be posting about that very soon.) This relationship is pre-Kinloch, however something interesting is that Alleyne Fitzherbert also knew Gray, who wrote about Fitzherbert, “the little Fitzherbert is come as pensioner to St. John's, and seems to have all his wits about him.” 

Bonstetten met Gray near the end of the latter’s life. There was a 30 year age difference between them, but they were both adults. Bonstetten knew about Gray, but how they first came into contact is pretty hilarious. Here is the excerpt from the biography (Norton Nicholls was a friend of Gray’s): “So the November of 1769 wore uneventfully on, until one even- ing Norton Nicholls, who was concluding a rather protracted absence from his parish with a visit to Bath, happened to go to a ball at the Assembly Rooms. Light-hearted as ever, the youth- ful rector scrambled on to a table in order to have a better view of the dancing, and presently another young man did the same. They clutched one another for fear of falling, an unceremonious introduction which led to a lifelong friendship between them. The young man's name was Charles-Victor de Bonstetten, and he was the only son of a prominent member of the little group of patrician families which ruled the canton of Berne.” In other words, Nicholls and Bonstetten both stood on a table during a ball, holding each other so they wouldn’t fall! What a way to meet someone... They became friends, and either Bonstetten realized that Nicholls knew Gray, or Nicholls found out that Bonstetten revered Gray, but either way, Nicholls wrote a letter of recommendation for Bonstetten to be taught by one Thomas Gray. 

Side note: Bonstetten was going to marry an heiress, but wrote to his father that he was very happy he had not done so. Very, very happy. The he had not married a woman. He wrote in French, but the rough translation is, “O my dear father, I will now be admirably cheerful, and sing and dance all day like a man who woke up from a bad dream” Wow.

It appears that Bonstetten and Gray became fast friends after they met in London, December (of 1769, I’m assuming. The book is not terribly clear.) Bonstetten stayed in a coffee house often used by Gray and his friends. It seems that the affection Bonstetten felt for Gray came on quickly. He wrote Nicholls, after two weeks of being in Cambridge, “I never walk but with even steps and musing gate, and looks corner- cmg with the skyes ; and unfold my wrinkles only when I see Mr Gray, or think of you Then notwithstanding all your learnings and knowledge, I feel in such occasions that I have a heart, which you know is as some others a quite profane thing to carry under a black gown,” Gray wrote at the bottom of this letter, of Bonstetten, “I never saw such a boy our breed is not made on this model He is busy from morning to night, has no other amusement, than that of changing one study from another, likes nobody, that he sees here, and yet wishes to stay longer, tho’ he has pass’d a whole fortnight with us already His letter has had no correction whatever, and is prettier by half than English.”

At first, the Gray seemed to only see Bonstetten as a student, “But as the weeks went by, and his protege still stayed on at Cambridge, Gray grew ever more fascinated by him. He insisted that he should visit him at all times of the day, dine with him, work in his rooms. Together they read the English poets, went over the botanical lessons of Mr. Miller, played on the new pianoforte — a present from Stonhewer — and talked on and on until the college gate was about to close” They spent a lot more time together, which seems to have been initiated mainly by Gray. 

But it is this next passage in the biography that really hits me the hardest. It also is pretty clearly implying gay, which seems amazing to me, as this book was written in the 1950s, when being gay was still unjustly taboo. The book says that when Gray first met Bonstetten, he just saw him as a good student/an opportunity to impart knowledge onto someone deserving. But, “by now he realised that this newcomer was arousing in him emotions such as he had never experienced before, emotions obsessive and overwhelming. All his defences were swept away — the life so carefully organised, the formal and deliberate manner, the refuge which he had sought in books and antiquities and the interleaved Linnaeus. He was filled with disquiet, for he understood the secrets of his own nature he knew the existence of temptations which could not for one moment be contemplated by one who had been, all his life long, a strict observer of the laws of God and the laws of man. At the same time the very presence of Bonstetten brought him unimagined happiness. For a few short weeks he enjoyed once more what he had never known since his childhood days...” 

This appears to me like an intense internal struggle for Gray. He knew how society looked upon homosexuality, and as a respected poet, it was a big risk for him to be accused of this. As for the ‘secrets of his own nature’ I cannot honestly think of any other meaning of this but attraction for other men. Additionally, why would Gray. be ‘filled with disquiet’ about an intimate friendship? This strongly implies that Gray felt that the intimacy their relationship reached a level that was not accepted by society in that time. This passage especially makes me feel so bad for Gray, Bonstetten, and everyone who was/is not straight but are/were not allowed to be their true selves. Gray loved this man so deeply, yet if anyone found out about it, he would possibly be sentenced to death! An impossible situation, truly. But Bonstetten and Gray seemed willing to take the risk. Oddly, the biography says, that when Gray refused to talk of his personal life with Bonstetten, “Bonstetten concluded, a little surprisingly in the circumstances which then prevailed, that [Gray] had never been in love.” I would say very surprisingly... But of course this would also be an excellent cover for a romantic relationship. It is also worth noting that if Bonstetten only saw Gray as a mentor, why would he care if Gray would not talk of his early life when Bonstetten did?

However romantic their relationship got, it is clear that they both, though Gray especially, were very happy around each other. It was not to last, sadly. Bonstetten’s father wanted his son home. Gray made fun of this, and Bonstetten made a heart-felt appeal to his father, “Quand j ’ai enfin trouve un ami c'est pour le perdre et pour retomber dans cette sombre solitude ou je reste la proie des vices et de toutes les miseres humaines” which translates to “When I finally find a friend it is to lose him and to fall back into this dark loneliness where I remain the prey of vices and all human misery.” This was quite a smart and logical appeal, since Bonstetten’s father was worried about his son disgracing himself in some way or another, as many fathers worried about in those days (Henry Laurens...).

But even this was not enough, and Bonstetten departed in late March. As the biography says, “Gray was quite inconsolable All the warmth, the con- tentment, the affection that had lately filled his life would be drained out of it once more, and nothing but loneliness and emptiness lay ahead. And apart from his desolating sense of personal loss, he was deeply anxious about Bonstetten’s future He had tried so hard to sober the volatile creature, to control the fantasies and aspirations that filled his brain What dangers, what pitfalls of licentiousness and atheism now awaited him in France? What would happen to him when he returned to the domination of 'his cursed Father ’? As the dreaded day of separation drew near he tried to confide in Nicholls, but despaired of conveying to him the extent of his distress 'He gives me too much pleasure, and at least an equal share of inquietude. You do not understand him so well as I do, but I leave my meaning imperfect, till we meet I have never met with so extraordinary a Person God bless him ! I am unable to talk to you about anything else, I think.’ He went to London with Bonstetten, and said farewell to him on 23 March at four o’clock in the morning, when the Dover coach rumbled away into the cold and darkness.” The phrase “too much pleasure” also seems to suggest a relationship beyond friendship. As well as the phrase, ‘I leave my meaning imperfect’ perhaps he left it imperfect because he could not dare to write his real feelings.

Every single one of Bonstetten’s letters to Gray after leaving London are missing. Every. Single. One. One cannot even begin to speculate the sorts of things written in those letters! Three letters survived from Gray. These letters are pretty heartbreaking. It is clear that Gray missed Bonstetten deeply, despite only having known each other for a few months. “Never did I feel, my dear Bonstetten,” he wrote “to what a tedious length the few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and expectation, till you had left me nor ever knew before with so strong a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude of the mind I am grown old m the compass of less than three weeks, like the Sultan in the Turkish Tales, that did but plunge his head into a vessel of water and take it out again (as the standers-by affirm'd) at the command of a Dervish, and found he had pass'd many years in captivity and begot a large family of children The strength and spirits that now enable me to write to you, are only owing to your last letter, a temporary gleam of sunshine Heaven knows, when it may shine again I did not conceive till now (I own) what it was to lose you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own condition, before I possess’d the happiness of your friendship.”

Poor Gray! We do have a hint, however, later in this letter, what the letter Bonstetten had previously written had contained. Gray writes, “I return to your letter, it proves at least, that in the midst of your new gaieties, I still hold some place in your memory, and (what pleases me above all) it has an air of undissembled sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable Friend , to shew me your heart simply and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to weep over it (as I do now) no matter whether from joy or sorrow.” Well, Gray was a poet, but this is just so beautiful... and so sad! This letter betrays such genuine grief and love over Bonstetten... if this letter survived, what must Bonstetten’s (which did not) contain? Bonstetten’s letter must have contained sadness about the separation as well. The line ‘without the shadow of disguise’ also strikes me as a particularly gay line... if they were just friends, why would there even be talk of parts of their heart ‘disguised?’ Also, Gray is saying that Bonstetten’s true heart makes him weep, which is basically saying, ‘You love me so much but that you love me so much is painful because you are away from me. But this is not the end of the tear-fest, my friends. Gray wrote Bonstetten again soon after, 

“Alas! how do I every moment feel the truth of what I have some- where read Ce n’est pas le voir que de Fen souvenir , and yet that remembrance is the only satisfaction I have left My life now is but a perpetual conversation with your shadow — The known sound of your voice still rings in my ears — There, on the corner of the fender you are standing, or tinkling on the pianoforte, or stretch'd at length on the sofa — Do you reflect, my dearest Friend, that it is a week or eight days, before I can receive a letter from you, and as much more before you can have my answer, that all that time (with more than Herculean toil) I am employ'd in pushing the tedious hours along, and wishing to annihilate them; the more I strive, the heavier they move and the longer they grow. I can not bear this place, where I have spent many tedious years within less than a month, since you left me.’ 

Time had obviously not softened the blow of Bonstetten's departure. Gray also repeatedly emphasizes that he is not living his life in the way that he was before Bonstetten entered his life. Again, we do not have any of Bonstetten’s letters, so we must only speculate what they could contain. But it seems clear that whatever they said, they did nothing to alleviate Gray’s pain, and perhaps even made Gray yearn ever more for his departed pupil. 

About a month later, Thomas Gray and Norton Nicholls went to Suffolk together, and had hoped to see Bonstetten while there, but when Bonstetten was there (I do not the know the reason why he was not or why Gray expected him to be) Gray wrote another plaintive letter:

“I am return'd, my dear Bonstetten, from the little journey I had made into Suffolk without answering the end proposed. The thought, that you might have been with me there, has embitter'd all my hours. Your letter has made me happy; as happy as so gloomy, so solitary a Being as I am is capable of being. I know and have too often felt the disadvantages I lay myself under, how much I hurt the little interest I have in you by this air of sadness so contrary to your nature and present enjoyments, but sure you will forgive, tho* you can not sympathize with me It is impossible for me to dissemble with you Such as I am, I expose my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal a single thought from your penetrating eyes — All that you say to me, especially on the subject of Switzerland, is infinitely acceptable. It feels too pleasing ever to be fulfill'd, and as often as I read over your truly kind letter, written long since from London,* I stop at these words La mort qui peat glacer nos bras avant qu’ils soient entrelaces.”

The French at the bottom of this letter translates to, “Death that can freeze our arms before they are intertwined.” 

There is also a line in this letter which raises the question “Did Gray love Bonstetten but Bonstetten not love Gray?” The aforementioned line is, “tho* you can not sympathize with me” which seems to suggest either that Bonstetten is not having as hard a time away from Gray, or that they loved each other in different ways. But this could also just mean that Bonstetten has other friends, or really anything along those lines. I also feel we should be extremely careful when claiming that love is one-sided when we only have one sides’ recollection of the relationship. People try and do this with the Laurens-Hamilton relationship... many of Laurens’s letters that survive are not as gushing as Hamilton’s but we are missing a great deal of them, and what we have was edited. But some people try to dismiss the relationship because of this. Also, this is one line out a letter that basically screams “I LOVE U!!” so...

I have found a list of all the Bonstetten letters, though there is no content. There are dates of the letters, though. Here is the link: http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?collection=letters&author=Bonstetten,+Charles+Victor+de,[phone]&sortby=placelet_up.

There’s a letter to Norton Nicholls in there too, and the only reason I’m mentioning it is because Bonstetten uses the phrase ‘methinks’ which is just wonderful.

But it seems that this relationship would die down soon afterwards. The biography says, “Such intensity of emotion could not last for very long It exhausted Gray's vitality at the time, and may well have had a permanent effect upon his health, but as the weeks went on he began to view the whole affair in a more reasonable light He saw the absurdity of his relationship with Bonstetten as well as its sadness; and indeed the absurdity, for all his over- mastering charm, of Bonstetten himself. Even at this early stage he began to find the style of the letters from Paris * un peu trop alembique', affected and over-refined. They were not to grow less so with the passage of time. Bonstetten made uncon- vincing excuses for not writing more often, and 'he seems at present to give into all the French nonsense and to be employ'd much like an English boy broke loose from his Governor ' It was the natural reaction of a high-spirited young man after those sober months at Cambridge, months of serious reading and celibate living and an unequal friendship between youth and age; but it displeased Gray, and the pangs of separation began to torment him less.”

We can tell from this that Bonstetten was the one who really began to separate from Gray once their geographic distance and cultural distance (to some extent, because Bonstetten was adopting more French manners, which displeased Gray,) grew too great. This parallels the Kinloch/Laurens relationship to some extent, I feel, because Laurens and Kinloch relationship deteriorated once Laurens was in London and Kinloch was still part of the Geneva social circles.

At any rate, this is what I have been able to find on the Bonstetten/Gray relationship. In conclusion: Bonstetten and Gray were likely lovers, despite a very large age difference, (Bonstetten was abut 24, and Gray 53) but the relationship did not last long. (If you want to think of it as a summer fling in December, I won’t stop you.) Gray appears to have been the more gushy letter-writer, but we have none of Bonstetten’s so it is really impossible to say. Bonstetten died in 1771, while Bonstetten was in Geneva. I’m trying to figure out what Bonstetten did, and if he stayed in Geneva or traveled between 1771 and 1775, when he went to Kinloch’s Gay Retreat.

Hope you enjoyed!

#Charles Victor de Bonstetten #Thomas Gray #we need a ship name for these two #queer history #Norton Nicholls

[chrsitophwaltz]

MICKEY MEETS FC BAYERN (PART 2/4)

for the entire houston clownery experience click here

psa: excuse my face and the pic qualities. up until this happened i haven’t really taken pictures of myself (less than 10 in the past two years for family and work purposes and NEVER selfies) and when you meet people you’ve only seen on TV in a very unexpected circumstance, then don’t expect your brain and motor functions to work 100%.

in the meantime, The Queen kathleen krüger showed up dragging a little carry on-sized bag. i really wanted a pic but i knew she always likes to be in the background so i just settled for a cheery greeting. she was shy-ish but super nice!

me: *trying to speak german again after 5 years* guten morgen!”

kathleen: *surprised that i recognized her but was super nice* morgen! wie geht’s?

me: sehr gut, danke. und dir? ( i used dir since she used informal and she didn’t look like it offended her or anything dsjfsdjf)

kathleen: oh, sehr gut auch. tschüss!

bless her heart! too bad she might lock niko up and issue a restraining order against me when we see each other next though sndmfbdsmnfbsnmdf

shortly after javi and kathleen left, thiago was next. it took a little while for him to get to me since other people also asked for pics and autographs. when he finally got to me and was signing my shirt, i really just had to tell him “hey thiago, you’re so good! you make it look so easy!” he laughed at that and said thanks. so nice and such a 🐐

i heard a distinct chuckle and Mr. Bayern himself came out. he was doing his usual thomas müller thing (it’s hard to describe but y’all prolly know what i mean) and was gamely eating a big banana when i asked for another autograph and picture (i got his autograph and picture at the hotel reception on friday already; this is the second time).

me: “hi thomas! could we take a picture again and have you sign my shirt?”

thomas: “ofhrjhf sjdjshfueh” (i’m positive he said “oh sure” or something, but with a mouth full of banana)

so nice! (and he didn’t show his usual cheeky müller grin, incisors and all, because, well........banana)

okay, here’s a tricky part. sven and leon came out almost simultaneously. sven was slightly first and i asked for the usual combo, and we were both already posed for the picture when i saw leon trying to zip by. greedy binch that i am, my intention was to get both of them in the frame. two birds, one stone. so i said “leon!” to call him over. B U T sven probably thought i was ignoring him and didn’t want his pic at all!!!!!!!!!! he mumbled “oh.....leon” and walked away (i think he probably meant “oh you wanted leon...”) NO SVEN!!!!! I WANTED YOU BOTH COME BACK!!!!! he was gone though and while i was excited to see leon and his beautiful curly hair again (idk if he recognized me but he had this look like “hmmmm...?” and he retweeted me just the night before sdbdmnbnd), i was panicking about the sven incident. it was bittersweet and i decided to really go to that t-mobile thing later on in the day so i could apologize to sven.

this is also prolly why i had this fugly half-assed smile (S VE N!!!!! ;__;)

(also note that leon is wearing lewy’s training shirt sjfbanmfbsahdfd idk why i didn’t ask)

O K A Y.

around this time was the part where i met niko. but since that whole shebang is a whole other experience in itself, i’m dedicating the entirety of part 4 to it. maybe it’s for the best too since it was just........g o d!!!!!! (kathleen krüger, i really hope you aren’t ever gonna see this blog, but in the off chance that you do, i’m sorry you had to see all that sdnfbndmfabnmfnd s o r r y)

anyway, that niko incident led me to run out of the hotel like it was on fire (told y’all, long story) so it was outside that i got to meet The Chef! he still looked kinda sleepy and was nursing a cup of coffee but was still nice enough to indulge me with a pic and autograph! 

L M A O

okay. so, after serge got up on the bus, and while i was studiously avoiding kathleen’s stare (huehue s o r r y), manu came out. a lot of fans had already gathered behind the barriers outside and manu was a crowd favorite so everybody was screaming for him. i was still near the bus entrance and was standing in front of the barrier and two guys behind me were jumping and asking manu to autograph their replica world cup trophy. manu got to them first and stupid lil me was trying to take a pic with him while he was doing his thing. this giant man is about 6′4, and me a ruler and an inch shorter, so when he reached for the trophy, he nearly knocked me out gonzalo-higuain-in-the-2014-world-cup-final style.

(below is me before i nearly died a sweet, happy death c/o manu’s huge ass fists)

manu, teddy bear that he is, was like “oh no, sorry!” i didn’t mind at all sjdfhsdfsdj (i would’ve gladly let him knock me tf out lmao) so i said “it’s okay!” as an apology, he gamely signed my shirt and we finally took a decent, safe photo dsfbjksdfbsfnsbdns

*kill bill sirens* WEW! then The Polish Hitman, Mr. 5-in-9, The B O D Y himself, robert lewandowski came out. he was sporting that cursed beard again (sorry lewy, but in this very rare case, i say no stubble for you lmao). he still looked hot af tho and signed my shirt. and took this photo! (thank you to my phone for magically making this HDR)

there wasn’t anyone after him for a while and the team bus left already so i went back inside (thank you hotel A/C! it was hot as hell and i was shaking and overheating from being so close to them.... and embarrassing myself in front of all those people and Queen Kathleen lmao).

then, coco came out! i guess he’s gonna do individual training since he didn’t go with the team bus. he also did this lil massage thing on my left shoulder sdhbjdfsdn thanks for scoring our first goal the night before, coco! (he was hella cute too)

i think all the players were gone since the only ones left for the next 15 minutes were the entourage and media people. but one last parting gift! loddar himself came out. took a while for him to get out since he chatted with someone else for a few minutes so i settled for videoing him for my instagram story. then he finally got up and walked to the exit and that’s where i got him.

me: hi lothar, can we take a picture? (only a pic since he looked like he was in a hurry)

loddar: *with that perennial cranky look on his face but was still nice lmao* “ok sure!”

had to leave shortly after this to go to the mall since @simplyirenic messaged me that there were only 100 tickets for the adidas meet-and-greet, but hey! almost a full haul!

here’s 75% of the total spoils:

(i’ve maxed out my 10 photo per post limit again so stay tuned for part 3: the mall meet-and-greet with josh, sven (there’s a redemption arc! i’m not a total bitch!), benji (a surprise addition to the lineup), manu 2.0, and thomas 3.0!)

#HERE'S PART 2 KIDS!!!!!!! don't judge me!!!!! :((((( #manuel neuer #robert lewandowski #thomas müller #fc bayern #bayern munich #fcb #*my crappy shit #mickey meets fcb #thiago alcantara #leon goretzka #serge gnabry #corentin tolisso #lothar matthäus #💀💀💀 #IM SO SORRY AGAIN KATHLEEN

[thommi-tomate]

Interview with Robert Andrich

By: Sport1

Mr. Andrich, there is currently a more positive mood around the national team. What is your impression?

I have a good impression of the team. The team spirit was never a problem anyway. We've also got a few new boys - older and younger. We are now trying to work out a game idea and hope that we can achieve our first successes in the game against France on Saturday. The big goal, of course, is to deliver at the European Championships. We still have four games before that, which are very important for our development.

The focus is currently on Toni Kroos, who is returning. What has changed with him? What does he bring to the table and how does he lead the team?

I haven't been around the national team for that long myself, but of course I've known Toni a bit longer through his brother Felix, with whom I'm very, very good friends. Toni isn't some kind of zampano (pompous and overbearing) who comes here and wants everything to go his way. He does exude authority, but in a calm way. That's what sets him apart. He simply tries to use his footballing quality and knowledge to make the team better. I am sure that he will succeed. On top of that, we have other good players who can contribute to a good overall picture.

Kroos wants a midfield center that includes all facets. Strong tackling and healthy aggression should also play a role. You fit the bill. It sounds like we'll soon be seeing the Kroos/Andrich duo in the DFB squad. How does that sound to you?

It's great to be mentioned in the same breath as Toni. It used to be the Andrich/Felix Kroos duo, now it might be Andrich/Toni Kroos. (laughs) That would be a good number. I think it's important that it works between the two of us, but also for the team. It's my job to present myself in such a way that the national team coach will consider using me. Everything else is not up to me. But basically it could be a good fit.

What individual qualities would you like to particularly recommend yourself to the national coach? Where do you see your strengths?

Of course, I know that I have my qualities when it comes to tackling and mentality. It's also important that we have a certain stability in defense. These are things that I can and must contribute. But that's not all. The days when you just needed a kicker in the six-man position are over. I can also play the odd good pass. But yes, first and foremost it's about providing stability and having a good feel for dangerous spaces.

There are some "loudspeakers" in the squad - where do you currently see your position? Have your successes in Leverkusen helped you to move up the hierarchy?

Success at the club doesn't really help you in the national team hierarchy. But of course they make you self-confident. You certainly don't have to hide. The basic character of a player doesn't change just because of success. I bring a lot to the table just because of my age and experience. I'm a guy who likes to be loud on the pitch and likes to talk. I try to help my teammates accordingly. But it's important to find the right mix. It's not about shouting in every situation just to get loud.

Your self-confidence is also based on your very successful season with Bayer Leverkusen so far. How is the exchange with the Bayern players here with the national team?

Of course, the one or other funny remark is made in turn. Thomas Müller is also a guy who likes to tease and perhaps wants to make us Leverkusen players a little nervous. From time to time we talk about the constellation in the Bundesliga, but at the moment the focus is on the national team. That's why we mainly talk about football here - that's more important than club football right now.

You became an international player relatively late. Is it perhaps an advantage that you joined the DFB squad as an "adult", so to speak? Is there less pressure on you than on a very young player?

Basically, I would have liked to have been invited to play for the national team as a 19-year-old. (laughs) But of course, all those years as a professional have certainly shaped me and contributed to my development. Some of the steps I've taken in my career weren't ordinary - but they've helped me as a person and brought me to where I am now. I now perhaps know more about what football is all about. I value things differently.

How have you personally experienced your previous appointments to the DFB squad?

I was called up to the national team for the first time when my limited playing time didn't really suggest it. I might have wished for a call from the national team coach a little earlier. But it was meant to be and I've earned my place in the squad. I've resolved to prove myself again and again and to keep at it in order to be nominated. Since the international matches in November, I've played more games in Leverkusen and earned the invitation

You mentioned your physical presence and your mentality. You are often referred to in the media as a "plow horse" or "chain dog". Are these terms you can live with or would you prefer a softer image?

Because of the way I play and all my tattoos, I can probably say goodbye to a soft image. Journalists are welcome to come up with nicknames, but I don't really care about that. In any case, I've never come up with a nickname that I'd say is absolutely great.

You didn't only have good times in Leverkusen and were injured in between. Nevertheless, you never complained, but subordinated yourself to success. To what extent can that also help you with the national team?

It's not easy when the team is warming up and preparing for the game and you're sitting outside in your winter jacket. You can't help much at first, but you can try to support your colleagues with little things and motivating words. With regard to the European Championship, it's important to have a positive squad beyond the first eleven players, in which everyone wishes each other only the best. That's the key to a functioning team - one is sporting, the other is human. It should never be the case that you hope for a yellow card for your team's rival so that you are more likely to play yourself. I've often had the experience of sitting on the bench in recent years, but in the end, the success of the team is the decisive factor. It's above everything else.

What influence does Xabi Alonso have? What is his message to the players, who are not having an easy time at the moment?

You can't always have lots of one-on-one conversations and give everyone a big hug. You don't have time for that in the football business. Xabi Alonso always says: "I'd like to field 22 players. So give me arguments that I can no longer do without you." If someone were to make a fuss if they didn't play, they would stay out all the more. That's how he manages to spur everyone on to top performance. That is the key to success.

What makes Xabi Alonso tick as a person?

He thinks about football 24 hours a day. He is incredibly meticulous and focused. He always radiates a hunger for success.

Leverkusen have been unbeaten in 38 competitive matches. Was there a point in time when you knew that anything was possible this season?

The first moment I believed in the realistic possibility of the championship was after the win at home against Bayern. We knew that if we won the game, we would be five points ahead. That's quite a house number. But it's more of an ongoing process in which the belief matures that you can win everything. One thing is certain: no matter how much we rotate, and we did that to an extreme at times, we have the belief that it will all work.

With Leverkusen, you have the chance to win the German championship, the DFB Cup and the dream of winning the Europa League is still alive. Where do you place the European Championship in your personal ranking?

I'm now here with the national team and have two games ahead of me. I want to prepare and present myself in the best possible way. My full focus is here. Then it's on to the really, really hot phase in the championship, the cup and the Europa League. And then the priority is completely on club soccer. In the end, I just want to hold up a trophy again. The last one was the championship in the 3rd division. That could be very special this season. I'll give it my all, both in Leverkusen and here with the national team.

You're a very fashionable guy yourself. What do you think of the DFB's new away kit?

I was a bit skeptical at first, but now it's slowly becoming normal. Every time I see it, it gets better. It's definitely something different. I'm still a fan of the home jersey though.

#robert andrich #german nt #bayer 04 leverkusen #thomas müller #xabi alonso #interview

[verdiprati]

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES BY DAME SARAH CONNOLLY

[NOTE: this post is now out of date. Check the schedule tag on my blog for the most recent version of this list.]

After the jump: an unofficial schedule of Dame Sarah Connolly’s future performances. Those of you in Britain may catch a performance in London, Cardiff, Leeds, Oxford, Gloucester, Bath, or Chipping Campden. Those on the Continent may see her in Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Geneva, Zeist, or Baden-Baden. And finally, those of us in North America have a recital in Philadelphia to look forward to! Don’t live near one of these places? Take in a concert from afar: I am adding online broadcast and livestream details as they become available.

This is not an authoritative list. These are the upcoming performances by Dame Sarah Connolly that I have been able to learn about from Dame Sarah’s agent's website (Askonas Holt), Operabase, Bachtrack, Dame Sarah's Twitter, and generally ferreting around the web.

I sometimes list concerts that are not yet officially confirmed; you should of course check official sources before making plans and be aware that cast changes and cancellations can happen at any time.

I have added links to venue, ticketing, and broadcast information where available. Tips on new information are always welcome! Please contact me via email (verdiprati [at] selveamene [dot] com), Tumblr messaging, or ask box (plain prose only in the ask box; anything with links or an email address will get eaten by Tumblr filters) with corrections or additions.

[Masterclass] Public masterclass at Wigmore Hall, London, September 19, 2018. Part of Dame Sarah’s residency at the Wigmore. 

Wagner, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (Fricka in both) at the Royal Opera, London, September 24 through October 28, 2018. A revival of Keith Warner’s Ring Cycle, with Antonio Pappano conducting. For cast and date details, see the ROH web pages linked above. The October 28 performance will be livecast to cinemas; the October 18 performance, also marked “Filming,” is presumably a dry run for the camera crews and/or a chance to gather additional footage for promos and perhaps an eventual DVD release (we can hope). Rheingold dates: September 24; October 2, 16, and 26. Walküre dates: September 26; October 4, 18, and 28.

[New! Broadcast] There will be an audio-only broadcast of Das Rheingold by BBC Radio 3 on Saturday, October 27—conveniently timed to prime listeners for the livecast of Die Walküre the following day. If you can’t listen at the time of broadcast, though, you should be able to find the Rheingold audio archived on the BBC website for a month following.

[Cinema livecast] As mentioned above, the October 28 performance of Die Walküre is scheduled for livecast to cinemas. You can use this page to search for a screening near you. Oddly, no screenings are being shown in the US at the time of this writing, but I know of at least one deferred screening in New York, at Symphony Space on November 25.

[New! Broadcast] There will be an audio-only broadcast of Die Walküre by BBC Radio 3 on Saturday, November 3. As with all BBC Radio 3 programming, I would expect it to stay online for a month after broadcast. It seems like a fair guess that the other two Ring operas will be broadcast on subsequent Saturdays; check the Radio 3 website when the time gets closer, if you are interested.

Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde at the Royal Festival Hall, London, September 29, 2018. With Stuart Skelton and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. In a concert with Mitsiko Uchida playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27.

Appearance at “Opera For All” anniversary show at the English National Opera, London, October 10, 2018. The exact program has not (to my knowledge) been announced, but a blog post from ENO says “The performance will feature moments from operas that have played an important part in ENO’s history, including Britten’s Peter Grimes, Handel’s Alcina, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe Verdi’s Rigoletto and Wagner’s Ring Cycle.” Dame Sarah has sung roles in Alcina, Iolanthe, and the Ring Cycle, but I believe Alcina is the only one she has performed at ENO, and my hunch is that she will offer one or two of the Handel arias she has sung to such acclaim at ENO over the years.

Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde at the Philharmonie Berlin, October 14, 2018. With Torsten Kerl Robert Dean Smith and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

[Broadcast] The concert is scheduled for live broadcast on Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Recital of English song at the Oxford Lieder Festival, October 22, 2018. With Eugene Asti. Songs in English by numerous British composers including Rebecca Clarke, Muriel Herbert, and Sally Beamish. There is a good deal of overlap with the selections on Dame Sarah’s recent album “Come to Me in My Dreams.”

Concert with Tenebrae at Wigmore Hall, London, October 24, 2018. Part of Dame Sarah’s yearlong residency at the Wigmore. The mostly English repertoire centers on a new piece by Judith Bingham setting poetry by Ivor Gurney. The choir throws in some Schoenberg at the end.

Purcell, Dido and Aeneas (Dido) in concert at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, November 3, 2018. With the Early Opera Company conducted by Christian Curnyn, in a concert also featuring John Blow’s Venus and Adonis (which does not include Dame Sarah in the cast). Dame Sarah’s co-stars are Jonathan McGovern, Lucy Crowe, Dame Felicity Palmer Avery Amereau, and Rowan Pierce.

[New! Broadcast] Thank you to the astute reader who pointed out that, as mentioned on the Early Opera Company’s website (and less explicitly on the Concertgebouw site), this concert will be broadcast live on NPO Radio 4 as part of the NTR Saturday Matinee series. Recordings from the series seem to be kept available online for quite a while, so you should have ample chance to hear the concert even if you cannot tune in at the hour of live broadcast.

Tippett, A Child of our Time at the Paris Philharmonie, November 7 and 8, 2018. With Michelle Bradley, Mark Padmore, John Relyea, and the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Thomas Adès in a concert also featuring symphonic works by Berlioz and Adès.

[New! Broadcast] The Orchestre de Paris website says, “Concert du 7 novembre enregistré et diffusé sur France Musique en différé et disponible à la réécoute sur le site internet de France Musique en streaming pour une période de 3 ans.” I never took French but read that to mean that we can expect a deferred broadcast of the November 7 concert, available for replay for three years. I have not been able to find a date of broadcast yet but I will keep an eye out for it. 

Recital at the Bath Mozartfest, Guildhall, Bath, November 13, 2018. With Joseph Middleton. Repertoire to include “Deh, per questo istante solo” from La Clemenza di Tito as well as songs by Schubert, Ravel, Debussy, Gurney, and Ireland. UPDATE: Dame Sarah withdrew from the concert and was replaced by Louise Alder.

"L’invitation au voyage,” song recital at Wigmore Hall, London, November 16, 2018. With James Newby and Joseph Middleton. The repertoire is Ravel-centric but not all by Ravel himself. Part of Dame Sarah’s residency at the Wigmore and also part of a Ravel song series being presented by the venue over the course of the year.

Beethoven, Missa Solemnis at deSingel, Antwerp, November 21, 2018. Part of a tour by Le Concert Olympique and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. With Malin Hartelius, Steve Davislim, and Hanno Müller-Brachmann; conducted by Jan Caeyers.

[New! Deferred broadcast] Recital at the Schubertíada Vilabertran. With Malcolm Martineau and Jonathan Brown. Works by Brahms, Mahler, Gurney, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Frank Bridge. Recorded at the live performance on August 18, 2018; scheduled for broadcast [PDF] on Catalunya Música November 23, 2018. 

Beethoven, Missa Solemnis at the Philharmonie Berlin, November 23, 2018. Part of a tour by Le Concert Olympique and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. Tickets appear to be on sale here. With Malin Hartelius, Steve Davislim, and Hanno Müller-Brachmann; conducted by Jan Caeyers.

Beethoven, Missa Solemnis at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, December 1, 2018. Part of a tour by Le Concert Olympique and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. With Malin Hartelius, Steve Davislim, and Hanno Müller-Brachmann; conducted by Jan Caeyers.

Appearance at the Glyndebourne Tour: Golden Anniversary Celebration at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, December 4, 2018. Sir Thomas Allen and Sir John Tomlinson are also appearing at the concert, and the Glyndebourne website says “More performers will be announced in the coming weeks.” The program has not been announced yet but I will be surprised if Dame Sarah does not reprise an aria or two from Giulio Cesare. This event does not yet appear on the Southbank Centre’s calendar, and I don’t see a way to purchase tickets online, but they apparently are available by phoning the Glyndebourne box office.

Wagner, Das Rheingold (Fricka) at the Teatro Real, Madrid, January 17 through February 1, 2019. In a production by Robert Carsen; conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. Co-stars include Greer Grimsley (Wotan) and Sophie Bevan (Freia) among others.

Berlioz, L’Enfance du Christ with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, February 15, 2019. Sir Andrew Davis conducts; the other vocal soloists in the all-Brit, all-excellent lineup are Andrew Staples, Roderick Williams, and Matthew Brook.

Recital with Julius Drake at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, March 5, 2019. Works by R. Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, A. Mahler, and Zemlinsky.

Recital with Julius Drake at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, March 7, 2019. I don’t see the repertoire mentioned on the theater’s website as of this writing, but presumably it will be similar to the works presented in Amsterdam and Philadelphia in the duo’s other recitals this month.

Recital with Julius Drake at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid, March 11, 2019. Works by Brahms, Wolf, Roussel, Debussy, and Zemlinsky.

[New details!] Recital with Julius Drake at Wigmore Hall, London, March 15, 2019. Contrary to my earlier guess, Connolly and Drake are not repeating material from their recitals in Amsterdam and Madrid, but rather are preparing a completely different program for the Wigmore. It is described by Dame Sarah’s agency, Askonas Holt, thus: “On 15 March 2019, Sarah offers Dominick Argento’s cycle from Virginia Woolf’s posthumously published A Writer’s Diary, which won the composer the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, and Schumann’s moving late settings of texts attributed to Mary Stuart. She is partnered by pianist Julius Drake and actor Emily Berrington, who will intersperse the songs with reading from Woolf’s diaries and also from Schiller’s ‘Mary Stuart’, in a new translation made especially for the event.” Dame Sarah adds on Twitter, “There will be more songs in the second half.”

Recital with Julius Drake at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, March 22, 2019. Sponsored by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Repertoire includes works by Brahms, Wolf, Roussel, Debussy, and Zemlinksy.

[New!] Berlioz, Les nuits d’été at the Chipping Campden Music Festival, May 21, 2019. In a program with orchestral works by Fauré and Mendelssohn. Thomas Hull conducts the Academy Orchestra. As of this writing, the 2019 program has not yet been published on the Festival’s website, but the season brochure is available upon request, and that is how I obtained these concert details.

[Details TBA] Appearance at the Internationaal LiedFestival Zeist (Netherlands), late May, 2019. The festival dates are May 17-26. Programming details have not yet been released as of this writing, but Dame Sarah is mentioned as one of the performing artists.

Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius with the Hallé and three choruses at Victoria Hall, Leeds, June 1, 2019. Barry Banks and David Soar are the other vocal soloists; Simon Wright conducts.

Mahler, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (extracts) and Janáček, Glagolitic Mass at the Maison de la Radio, Paris, June 20, 2019. With the Orchestre National de France and the Choeur de Radio France, conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. The other soloists for the Glagolitic Mass are Simona Šaturová, Mati Turi, and Christof Fischesser.

[Broadcast] This concert will be broadcast live on France Musique.

Recital with Malcolm Martineau at Wigmore Hall, London, July 23, 2019. Part of Dame Sarah’s yearlong residency at the Wigmore. Repertoire TBA. Listed in the season preview brochure [PDF].

Berlioz, La damnation de Faust (in concert, presumably) at the Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester, July 27, 2019. With Peter Hoare, Christopher Purves, and David Ireland. Tickets go on sale to the general public on April 24.

Bob Chilcott, A Christmas Oratorio (premiere) at the Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester, August 1, 2019. With Nick Pritchard and Neal Davies. Note that this is an afternoon concert, not the main evening concert for August 1. (Multi-mezzo fans may want to stick around to hear Anna Stéphany do Les nuites d’été in the evening.) Tickets go on sale to the general public on April 24. 

[Unconfirmed / details TBA] Handel, Agrippina at the Dutch National Opera. In June 2018, opera critic Hugh Canning tweeted the news that the Royal Opera is planning to offer Barrie Kosky’s new production of Agrippina with Joyce DiDonato in the title role during the ’19/’20 season; in a reply that has now been deleted, Dame Sarah mentioned that she and Alice Coote would do the same production in Amsterdam and Munich. (If you are a member of the Sarah Connolly fan group on Facebook, you can scroll back in time to June and see a screenshot there.) Subsequent discussion revealed that Coote would get the Munich gig (in July 2019), so Connolly must be the Amsterdam Agrippina. The DNO has already announced its ’18-’19 season and Agrippina isn’t in it, so presumably we’re looking towards ’19-’20 or beyond.

[Unconfirmed / details TBA] Brett Dean, Hamlet (Gertrude) somewhere in the United States. Allan Clayton, who starred in the title role of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at Glyndebourne in 2017, mentioned in a recent interview with the Telegraph that he would be reprising the role at an unspecified date and venue in the US. When prompted on Twitter, Dame Sarah indicated that she would be participating in the revival, too (“I shall be misunderstanding my confused boy again”). Hat tip to Christopher Lowrey, who sang Guildenstern in the original production at Glyndebourne, whose tweet praising Allan Clayton brought the Telegraph interview to my attention. (No indication whether Lowrey will also be cast in the American revival.)

[Details TBA] A future appearance at the Opéra national de Paris is mentioned in the current bio that can be downloaded from Dame Sarah’s page on the Askonas Holt website (click “Publicity Pack”). I cannot find her name mentioned anywhere in the 2018-2019 season, so I suppose we must wait until at least the fall of 2019 if not later.

Previous versions of this list can be found under the schedule tag on this blog. This list published September 10, 2018. Edited September 15 to add the live broadcast of Dido from the Concertgebouw and to update the program details for the ENO concert. Edited September 18 to fill in details of Dame Sarah’s recital with Julius Drake at the Wigmore Hall in March. Edited October 16 to add the Chipping Campden concert and the Rheingold radio broadcast. Edited October 18 to update the cast list for the Concertgebouw concert with the Early Opera Company. Edited October 25 to add the radio broadcast of the ROH Die Walküre. Edited November 8 to add the radio broadcasts of A Child of Our Time and the Vilabertran recital. Edited November 19 to reflect (very belatedly) Dame Sarah’s withdrawal from the Bath Mozartfest recital. I may continue to edit this list as I receive new information.

#sarah connolly #schedule #performances

[fxndom--trxsh]

On Display part 5 - Manu ( a Manuel Neuer series)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

"So you have their numbers?" Emilia asks me from the laptop screen.

Emilia is one of my best friends from University. She graduated from Sports Journalism in the same time as I did from Media and Communication Management. We share the passion from football (as if it wasn't obvious), although she is a little bit more outgoing than I am. Being a good student as well, she got a job at Kicker-Sportmagazin in Berlin, so now we only talk on skype.

"Yes, I have their numbers" I tell her, as I'm looking for something to wear tonight.

"That's awesome! You're friends with the players from Bayern München. How awesome is that? Very awesome indeed."

Indeed one of Emilia's problems is that she sometimes can't shut up.

"And Manuel Neuer, oh dear God, how close are you two?"

"He called me his Leila." I say, smiling as I remember the moment.

"Oh gush, there's definitely a thing!"

"Nah, it wasn't like that, Em, he was just trying to calm me down. I bet he says that to a lot of girls."

"Well anyway, he's single right now"

"I know" I admit.

"You've been checking on him, haven't you?" she asks me.

"Yes of course I've been checking on him, you know me!"

"I think you're catching feelings again" she claps her hands together as she speaks.

"Yes I know" I sob, "and I hate it. Because this time I'm not 15 years old and he is in a way my workmate."

"How is that a bad thing?" she inquires.

"Well, obviously I stand no chance."

She opens her mouth to contradict me but I cut her off before she has the chance to.

"And it's only gonna be more painful seeing him everyday. Oh, Em, please don't let me fall in love with this guy!" I whine.

"Shush now, Leila, don't be a big baby. Now show me what you're wearing!"

"This" I say as I flush my black jeans in front of the camera, "and I need to find a pretty blouse."

"That's it?" she asks in disbelief.

"We're just going out, it's nothing that posh."

She glares at me, but she doesn't say anything.

"You should get going" she tells me after a while, after she watched me doing my best with my make-up."Have fun. It's an order"

"Bye, Em! I'll talk to you later"

"Bye Leila!"

*

"We're going to win this match, we're going to be the best, we're going to win this season!" everybody chants in the small restaurant, who miraculously emptied when the Bayern team got at its doors.

I sit in a corner packed between Thomas Müller and Melissa, sipping from my Cola Light and enjoying the show.

"What's up, boss?" Melissa half asks, half shouts to cover the noise. "I see you've calmed down."

"I'm still thinking of something" I mouth to her.

And as I see everybody at different tables, from photographers to website editors, from medical assistants and physiotherapists to fitness coaches and nutritionists, I actually think I got a pretty solid idea.

"We'll talk at work" I tell her.

"Sure boss."

"I'm going to the bathroom" I tell her, as I make my way through people.

When I return, the chants are being conducted by the one and only Manuel, who gets excited to see me and throws one of his heavy arms around my shoulders, basically screaming in my year.

"C'mon Leila, sing with us!"

Oh great, an almost 2-metre-tall giant who is slightly inebriated and counting on me for support. I look at the Coach and I can tell he's not really happy. He doesn't need his players recovering from a hangover at the first match of the season.

"Okay, everybody, I think we've all had enough" he says. "Let's go home and rest for tomorrow"

Slowly, people started saying goodbye and leaving.

"Manu?"

"Yeah Coach?" he answers, with his arm still around me.

"Please tell you're not by car"

"No Coach, I'm just gonna take a taxi"

"Perhaps I should take you home" I suggest.

"Thanks Leila" I heard the Coach sigh. He clearly is relieved his most prized goalkeeper won't roam around the streets of München alone.

"C'mon Manuel, let's go!" I tell him as I almost start dragging him to the parking.

"Coming Leila! This is your car?!" he exclaims when he sees my little Volkswagen.

"Yes, what's the problem?"

"It's so small! I can barely fit in here!" he says loudly, as he's arranging his feet inside my car. "But then again, I guess it's suitable for a young girl like you"

"I'm not young!" I snap.

"Yes you are" he chuckles.

I'm tempted to tell him that his last girlfriend was younger than me, but I stop myself. He's gonna think I'm jealous or something. You are, Leila, you totally are.

"Shut up and tell me where to take you, you big baby"

"Fine, fine. Start driving, I'll guide you along"

I sigh and I try to keep quiet during the drive, as I listen to his directions.

"This is a really small car, how do you function like this? You're going home after you drop me? Do you have a boyfriend?"

"No I don't have a boyfriend" I can't help but snap at him again.

"So what are you going to do? Are you gonna watch a movie? What music do you like? I like U2. What do you think about them? I want to know more about you..."

"Gosh, Manu, you talk hella much when you're drunk!" I say exasperatedly.

"What did you say?" he asks, looking at me.

"What did I say?" I ask him as well, confused.

What if he's pissed off that you told him he speaks too much?

"You called me Manu" he says.

"Well yeah, I guess I did. Is there a problem? I shouldn't have? I thought everybody calls you Manu?"

"They do, it's alright, it's fine." he chuckles. "You've never called me Manu before. I like it."

Oh, of course you had to make me blush. Thanks a bunch.

"Take another left and we're here"

"This is it. Good night, Manu! Get some rest for tomorrow, okay?"

"Sure. Good night, Leila!" he waves at me as he stumbles out of the car.

Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

request | masterlist

#manuel neuer #fanfiction #football imagine #bayern fc #germany nt #on display

[matshoemels]

Since you allowed me to – Neuller + 11! :D

Sets during the training camp before Euro2016.

Neuller + things you said when you were drunk.

In allfairness, Thomas realizes that all of them will remember this night with thegreatest regret the moment Basti and Lukas gather in one of the empty rooms thehotel reserved for them to use. The room has an enormous coffee table in the middle,is surrounded by bean bags and fluffy pillows on the ground. On the coffeetable, expensive bottles of whiskey, vodka, and tequila, and almost a hundredof shot glasses are visible.

Aftereveryone is present in the room, Basti announces that he and Lukas come up withan incredible activity that will help them to get into the spirit of theupcoming tournament.

It is sucha bullshit idea, really, considering they’re already in the spirit of theupcoming tournament. He’s completely sure that the only motive behind Basti andPoldi’s master-plan is that they are the ultimate busybodies. Of course, theyare curious about the latest gossips inside the team, want to know who bangswho and all the other juicy stuff the newbies may or may not be hiding. So whatcould be a better plan to achieve this than making them all drunk as hell anyway?

It isalready 4 in the morning when the relatively sober members of the group decidethat they should call it a night and help the wasted ones to their rooms.Thomas declines all the offersfrom the others to help him carry a completelywasted Manuel Neuer back to their room, lifts Manu up from the ground and makestheir way to the sixth floor.

“Damn youand your genius ideas, Schweinski,” hegrumbles while he’s been trying so hard to not get knocked down by the weightof Manu, completely slumped down on him. “I’m never going to let them decidewhat to do as a team bonding activity, ever, ever again.”

Don’t gethim wrong, because Thomas Müller’s definitely not a man against breaking therules time to time, hell, on most occasions he’s the one encouraging thisparticular activity. However, he should admit that playing “Never Have I Ever”for three hours is the worst thing that’s ever happened to them. And it willprobably be worse in the morning, when all of them are going to wake up with atleast a terrible headache and have to live through the pain during the tacticalmeeting.

Man, theyare so screwed and will be much more screwed the moment Jogi finds out that twothirds of his team were about to have an alcohol poisoning instead of sleepingthe night before.

It’s aparticularly tough job for him to their room while he, himself, is also drunkeven though he is in a better state than his other half. The whole hotelresembles a maze to him at the moment, all those floors and staircases leadingto different parts of the building as if it is not a 5-star hotel but Hogwarts.Also, a drunken Manuel clinging on to him and trying to start a heated make-outsession is making his quest in finding their room visibly more complicated.

Way backwhen they first started dating, Thomas would never think that Manuel Neuercould be this needy and, well… horny.

He wasnever this wrong in his entire lifetime. And if that’s possible, a drunken Manuis a thousand times more of an attention-seeker, sex-driven human being thanthe sober version of himself.

They’reabout to reach to the privacy of their room when Thomas sees three men leavingthe room at the far end of the corridor. Even though his vision is blurrybecause of the amount of alcohol he took all night, Thomas has no trouble ofidentifying them. He makes a mental note of murdering Basti and Poldi in thenear future if they miraculously survive from the hands wrath of a middle-agedSwabian.

He standscompletely frozen in the middle of the corridor, unable to move or try to comeup with a solution to save them both from the mess they’re about to be in. Hejust nudges Manuel a little to warn him about the situation, but that giant hecalls his boyfriend pays no attention to his efforts. When he fails in makingManu to behave a little more sober, Thomas completely gives up and just gentlylowers Manu to the ground. At least this way he can kind of have a control uponManu’s horniness.

“Thomas…and Manuel,” their coach acknowledges them with exasperation in his voice. “Ihope you two have a valid explanation of this late night stroll.”

BeforeThomas can open his mouth and try to get them out of trouble, Manu, who happensto be completely silent, save for the majority of their kinda-walk of shame, decidesto say something on the matter.

“’eeeeyyyCoach,” he exclaims loudly. It’s so obvious in his voice that he’s drunk thatthere’s no way they can come back from this. “We’re jus’ playin’ a game withthe others. Wanna join???”

“Hmm, whatgame is this actually, Manuel. Care to tell us?”

Manu triesto get up from the floor before answering his coach’s question, but failsmiserably and falls down. The companions of Jogi, Andi and Olli, help Manu toget up, and honestly, Thomas just wishes that they wouldn’t do that.

“Is adrinkin’ gaaaame, Schweinski foundit.”

He’s aboutto fall down once again, but this time it’s Thomas who catches him before hereaches to the ground and injuring himself severely. And once Manuel gets hishands on Thomas, he definitely doesn’t let go. As if he has no idea that thereare people watching them, the goalkeeper puts his head on his shoulder andpresses soft little kisses to his neck. “ ‘ello, love. You smellsoooooo nice.”

“Love? Didhe just say ‘love’?” Jogi asks while arching his eyebrows in surprise. He’sbeet-root red by now, but Thomas isn’t so sure whether it’s because of shock oranger.

Thankfully,the beautiful soul named Andreas Köpke interferes before Thomas can come upwith a reasonable response. “He probably thinks he’s his girlfriend, Jogi. Lookhow wasted both of them are.”

“You dealwith that fools, Andi.” Jogi responds while pinching the bridge of his nose. “Idon’t have the energy for them right now. And reschedule today’s tactical from1 pm to 9 am. I guess we have more stuff to talk with the squad than weoriginally planned.”

***

Andi helpsthem to find their room and opens the door with the room card Thomas fishes outof his pocket. Manu’s still clinging on to him as if his life depends on it,but thankfully, Andi is no stranger to their little secret. It is such a greatthing to have an ally inside the tactical staff in situations like this becauseThomas has no idea how they would deal with Jogi by themselves.

They’reabout to go in their rooms when Thomas turns back to thank Andi for histroubles. However, before he can say anything, Manu beats him to it.

“Mülliiiiii,c’me ‘ere, ‘is important,” he bends down to his ear to whisper something. Butinstead of whispering, he just says what he wants to say in his normal voice.

“Mülli, Iwant a dick up in my ass.”

Before thatmoment, Thomas could somehow be convinced to not kill Poldi and Basti. However,those chances are all blown away the moment he makes eye contact with agreenish-looking Andi Köpke after Manu clearly declared his request. Yep,Thomas will definitely commit murder those two the minute Euro 2016 is over. Hejust has to come up with a way to cover up the whole thing.

#neuller #i'm so sorry that it took me 154646 weeks to write this #but it was so hard #phewww #and it's so shitty too #I'm srry meg #prompts #my fic

[manuelmueller]

broken dreams

God, it hurt.

Thomas hadn’t accounted how much it’d hurt when he missed his final chance, how much it would clench his stomach, put needles in his heart, a sinking weight into his stomach.

It wasn’t his first big loss, but this was not something you ever got used to.

He ignored everyone on his way to the cabin, didn’t even react when Mats clapped him on the back with a tired, crooked smile. He sat down next to Joshua but had no idea how to comfort him when he felt just as bad himself. 

In all honesty, he was surprised he hadn’t shed a tear yet. But he guessed it was different now, when he was the captain.

The flight back home was torture. They were exhausted, they were angry. Some people lashed out against each others while others got pissed because they wanted to do nothing more than sleep.

Thomas just leaned his head against the window, trying to ignore it all. He hadn’t checked his phone, too tired for seeing all the consolation texts he’d get from friends and family. Sure, they were only trying to help, but right now, it would achieve the opposite effect.

He was glad when he fell asleep and only woke up again when the plane rattled as it touched back down.

None of them said a word as they walked through the deserted airport, as they boarded the bus. By now, everyone just felt beaten down. Sven hadn’t said a word ever since the whistle had blown, Joshua’s eyes were red and bloated from crying.

Thomas hadn’t expected anyone to wait for him. Most of them didn’t, knowing that their wives and partners would expect them at home.

Everyone stopped short when they saw their captain leaning against the wall as they pulled into Säbener, but somehow, Thomas could see in the faces of his teammates that it was a good thing. Manu had always been a rock for them, grounding them in a way that no one else could.

Quietly, he greeted every player with a handshake or a hug as they got out of the bus. When he got to Joshua, he placed a kiss on his hair before letting him go again, and when it was Sven’s turn, he pulled him into a short hug before talking to him quietly, insistently.

His understudy still didn’t say a word, but when they parted again, there was a tiny, almost unrecognizable smile on his lips.

Thomas was the last to get out, having taken his time. The bus driver was just leaving as everyone made their way back to their cars.

“Hey,” he said, hating how unsteady his voice was, how much it wavered.

Manuel didn’t say anything, instead he just stepped up to him, opening his arms. He was a good hugger, always had been, what with his big, long arms and his broad chest, engulfing him in a tight, strong embrace.

He smelled like sleep and like the cold air surrounding them, and Thomas stifled a sob as he buried his face in his chest.

For a few minutes, they simply stood there, entangled in each other, standing so closely that in the shadows of the night, it was probably hard to tell their figures apart. Thomas had started to tremble, but before he could actually start to cry, Manu gently pried him away from his body.

“C’mon,” he rumbled in a low voice, “let’s get you home.”

The car ride was silent, but whenever the gear allowed it, Manuel took Thomas’ hand, squeezing it. The lights of the city thinned out in the occasional flicker of a small suburban town, and then into the empty fields of the countryside. Thomas stubbornly stared ahead, refusing to blink because he knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to hold back his tears any longer.

He managed to hold out until Manuel closed the front door behind them. He buried his face in his hands, letting out a sob.

“God, I fucked up. I fucked up so bad.”

“Shhh, shh, babe, no.” Manu’s voice was gentle as he pulled him back into his arms, carding his big hand through Thomas’ hair, the other one caressing his back where he was holding him.

“No really, I ...” another series of sobs shook Thomas’ body, wrecking him. “I am their captain! I’m supposed to be there for them and what do I do? Nothing, that’s what! I’m such a failure.”

He hadn’t even noticed how Manuel had walked them over to the couch, but he didn’t have to be asked twice when the blond gently pulled him down with him.

They didn’t spoon often, and when they did, Thomas was usually taking up the role of the big spoon, but at that moment, there was nothing better than laying down on Manu’s comfortable broad chest.

“You are no failure.” He didn’t offer anything more than that, that denying their mistakes would only make everything worse, but still, as he run his hands over Thomas’ shaking shoulders again and again, repeating these three words again and again, somehow, the scrawny forward started to believe them.

When he had calmed down enough, Manuel pushed away enough to look him directly into his eyes.

“I love you, Thomas Müller, don’t you ever forget that. I love every piece of you, every goal, and every loss. I know this might sound strange coming from me of all people” – Thomas snorted quietly. Yeah, Manuel was known for beating himself up after a lost game – “your mistakes don’t define you. Your achievements do. And on my page, getting to the semifinals is already pretty darn good.”

“You’re only saying that cause you didn’t play yourself.”

Manuel’s grin was crooked. “Maybe. But it doesn’t make it any less true.”

Their first kiss was sweet, and Thomas once more marveled at how much he missed it, even if they had only been separated for a bit more than a day.

“C’mon, let’s go upstairs,” he whispered, sniffling, wiping away the last of his tears, but Manuel softly shook his head.

“We can sleep here.”

Since Thomas was too tired to protest, they did. And when he woke up again, the sunrise outside of their window and his beloved’s arms around himself, he didn’t find it in himself to regret it. Even if his neck hurt like a bitch.

@sportsliebe @leonhoeretzka

#idek what this is #have a shitty h/c drabble #neuller #my writing #this is closure maybe #the one time i support this team fully ... #*drabbles