#“you should use it to sum up those huge texts so you can study them easier in less time” says my best friend who's technically also anti-ai

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

Love slowly but surely becoming the odd one out in my circle for not using chat gpt even though it would "make my life so much easier and i could spend less time revising stuff" /neg

[oneoftheprettynerds]

Fixed: Dark!Steve x Reader (Mob AU)

Chapter 4 in the Lipstick and Crayons Series.

Chapter 3: Love So Soft

Main Masterlist

A/N: It’s shorter than my usual updates but I’m busy so sorry for the delay. My final exam dates have come and all I can do is pray right now lol. Please pray for me if you can, this sis is out here writing fanfics for yall instead of studying so, haha. ANyways, enjoy babies! Shit happens in this chapter.

Warning: Non-Con, Sickening Threats, Mob Themes, Violence, Death, Manipulation, a mild mental breakdown, Cheap Tricks.

Genres + Characters: Mob AU, Single Parents AU, Steve Rogers x Reader.

Summary: Steve can’t ever repay you for what you did. After meeting you, Steve believes his broken family is the missing piece in the puzzle of your own wrecked one. Indebting the crime lord to you has been the biggest mistake of your life, cause now you can’t get rid of him, no matter what. Loyalty and favours go a long way in the mob.

Word count: 5K

Chapter 4: Fixed

You didn’t sleep that night. Or the next few. Your hands shook every time you got a flashback and even though you were numb to emotions that entire day, tears threatened to spill whenever your mind took to you to that overpriced kitchen again.

Now that he had gone to a dangerous and unnerved assaulter from a Dad trying to take care of his daughter, your mind wouldn’t put anything past him. You knew that in the back of your mind that he was a mobster and your ‘friendship’ was alarming to say the least, but now there was no denying his resources and power and the very obvious threat to your life lingering in the air.

At least before you had the luxury to be oblivious and ignorant, not anymore though. Steve felt even more unhinged and liberal now, even messaging you daily, greeting texts that you obviously ignored. He knew you both were aware that you never handed him your number and he felt no need to hide his pursuit.

You read most of the messages, not bothering with a single reply though. You tried to block him but somehow your phone would still receive messages from his number, even though his contact would always peek back at you from the otherwise empty blacklist.

As if his torment wasn’t ample, another message thread from a different number would forward you alarming images, photos of Grace in her daycare, on a class trip to the park and even her playing in your backyard. You had no doubt that this was another game of his to show you his resources.

You skipped daycare for a few days, your mental health worse than it was after the carnival attack, because now you had a personal tormentor and you cursed yourself for falling into this mess. At times, you believed it wasn’t your fault really, you just helped a kid and this situation spiraled itself but what would pointing fingers now get you? The harsh truth was you were in a calamitous situation now and every step from now on had to be thought out.

So, you let Grace attend her daycare and acted if nothing was amiss or altered, after the few initial breakdown days of course, kept going to your job and earning the bread. You considered your options, you really wanted to go to the cops or a higher fair power but those were few these days, almost non existent in your city. You also vaguely recalled meeting three of the Captains of the PD at Sarah’s birthday, all smiley and doe eyed for Steve. You knew they wouldn’t help, fucking kiss-asses.

Maybe you would have to move somewhere else, perhaps to your hometown, at least till things cooled down or better yet were forgotten? But that trail was very predictable and you didn’t want your parents in this mess.  

You also came to know that Steve had inserted himself in the other spheres of your life. You were sure your location was always being sent to him, the knowledge a courtesy of the black car following you while you travelled to home at some late day’s end.

Aiden told you whereabouts were easy to track, when you inquired ambiguously. Another instance was when you went to the bank to deposit cash for your debit card, you came face to face with an enormous amount already there. Somehow, the limit on your credit card was also extended. How, you knew. The clerk told you about an email you must have gotten in regards to it, you dismissed that justification away and told them to not accept the cash. To sum the discussion, they weren’t helpful and had no policy against anonymous donors.

Aiden, your trusted coworker cum pal, sensed the shift in your aura and fidgety form very easily, pestering you with questions and you decided to turn to him, stressed and tired and ready to do something. His questioning eyebrows made you confess vaguely but you refused to tell him the extent of it. Just that his prediction came true and you needed help. Let’s just say, Aiden was a good man.

With time, Steve’s ‘affectionate’ messages became deranged, and you found it harder to act nonchalant in your daily life. You were thankful he didn’t come to visit you, possibly occupied with the rumored war between the mobs. You just prayed for a few more days of ignorance, just enough time to think and do something.

“What do you mean someone collected her?!” You had a hard time controlling your voice, you were about to burst, in tears or with anger, you didn’t know.

“The man was verified in the emergency contacts and we got a letter signed and approved by you to skip the day an hour into the first activity.”

“A man? Emergen-, wait no! What fucking approved letter?”

You had three emergency contacts, your mom in another state, Aiden, and one of the other kid’s mom you had grown close to. Aiden was with you at work all day, so did someone disguise themselves as him? And what was the deal with the letter signed by you? You surely didn’t remember writing and authorizing one.

The boy, Pietro, who had been the receptionist for as long as you could remember, shuffled through the chaotic piles of paper and presented a letter to you, and your blood froze as your eyes skimmed the font.

Your beautiful cursive stared right back at you and you knew that no one would ever be able to distinguish between this penmanship and the one in the pocketbook in your clutch. No one but you. Even though you knew you had not written it, the slightly different ‘f’ and ‘g’ told you everything.

Your signature at the bottom though, was done quite perfectly and that made you even more scared.

“I did-, I didn’t write this! What the-” Your widened eyes met Pietro’s from above the paper but all he offered you was a meek smile. Your hands shook with rage and for the first time in your life, you had the urge to slap someone really bad.

“Maybe your family had an emergency to take he-”

“No, you don’t get it!” You stopped yourself from getting frantic, willing yourself to take deep breaths and think rationally. Today of all days, things had to mess up.

He didn’t know you had no family in this city, that you had a mobster after you or the subtle threats that his hired spy sent to you.

Was going to the police an option? Aiden already told you that the cops were as good as Steve’s men. But this was about your missing kid! You’d never forgive yourself if something happened to her. And you were giving Steve way too much credit, what if he wasn’t behind this all? Come to think of it, what if the other number wasn’t his?

Relax yourself! Thinking of disturbing theories wouldn’t help anyone. You thought you should go to the cops, just in case. No mentioning of Steve, just a woman with a ‘missing child’ report.

‘Missing Child’ left an acrid taste behind and you were too close to a breakdown, but your whole journey of single-parenthood taught you to kick vulnerability aside, well most of the times.

You turned and were about to leave, but Pietro stopped you. “If you are going to the cops Ma’am, they require 8 hours of inactivity or disappearance time for kids under 5.”

Well look who just read your mind.

You huffed and kept the tears at bay, your mind thinking of what to do then? Grace was obviously taken-

“How could you let a toddler leave without informing the parents?” You knew your anger was channeling out at the wrong man but didn’t he all but hand Grace to the stranger?

You beat him answering and inquired, “What did the man look like? Do you have any footage? Anything?” The wrinkles in your forehead and stress creases on your face paired with the eyebags betrayed your age surely. You were sure you had aged more this week than an entire decade, juggling your normal life with the hovering threat.

“You shouldn’t be this worried Ma’am.”

The fucking audacity.

“Your daughter recognized him, she all but ran to him and this other little girl he came with. You should maybe ask your parent-friends around? A blonde family perhaps?”

As all the emotions drained from your face and terror took over, the young lad in front of you looked smug. You wondered as if you imagined the faintest of smirks on his face.

You crumpled the letter in your hands, seething with rage as you stepped in your car. Oh, you were mad, more wrathful than ever. You could take any hits on you, any threat but not on Grace, never on her.

You were stupid, you had already decided you wouldn’t put anything past him but unknowingly, you did put this past him. You thought this man had a shred of decency to not use your kid in this adult war, being a parent himself and all but what a surprise! You were wrong.

You drove to your home, your thoughts a mix of trepidation, anxiety and fury. You were scared of him and his reach and resources but if he put Grace in any type of danger; whether to teach you a lesson or use her as bait or both, there’d be consequences.

Lord knows you killed a man a month ago Grace was threatened.

You had one thing to do before contacting Steve about Grace but you never got to do it because unexpectedly the bastard was in your home. In your home.

The black sports car outside was a huge giveaway but your suspicions were confirmed when you opened the door with your house key. The banter and giggles from inside alarmed yet calmed you; the dread of confrontation and the assurance of Grace’s safety reigned your mind.

As the door opened painfully slow like a horror movie, the sight that met your eyes made you sick with a feeling of failure. It wasn’t gore or blood or grunge, it was Steve bouncing Grace in the air and catching her while Sarah twirled around in the living room.  

This man was craftier than you thought, every action of his was calculated, each a refined step. You had been so preoccupied to avoid direct encounters with him in your little family’s life that you didn’t think he had other ways. He was always looming around with Sarah and as Grace began to trust Sarah, she consequently began to trust her blonde guardian too.

As you slammed the door behind you, Steve’s eyes snapped to yours and his smirk made you want to punch him so hard. The smugness on his face while he let Grace down without breaking eye contact told you he had no regret, no remorse. In fact, he was loving every second of this cat and mouse chase between you two.

You were a millimeter close to losing your shit, the only check being the kids in the room. But you were mad and he was going to know it.

“What the hell, Steve? Messing with my kid?” You threw your clutch onto the couch, Steve haughty by the reception of his sent message but still holding back because of the kids. He called Wanda and you didn’t really notice where she came from but you did register Steve asking to take the girls to the park for a ‘private discussion’.

As Grace passed by you, you grabbed her arm lightly, making her look at you with doe eyes resembling yours. You gave her a smile trying to ease her, but you knew she was smart enough to sense the change in the atmosphere.

Apparently, the whining Sarah wasn’t.

You looked back to Steve, your hold still on Grace and continued with a frown and raised eyebrows, “She isn’t going anywhere, not out of my sight and obviously not with you or your goons.”

Wanda had the audacity to look offended and you scoffed at her, eyes staring Steve’s down.

“Honey, I don’t think the kids should hear what I think you have to say right now.” He said nodding to Wanda to take Grace.

“You must be deranged to think I trust Grace near anyone even remotely related to you! Take your people and get out.” You held your hand up to stop Wanda and pointed towards the door with the most menacing glare you could form.

Grace looked incomprehensibly between you two, concern and confusion on her face. That might have been the first time such a tone was used in your household. The grumbling Sarah was close to throwing a tantrum, irritated by the change in the playful air or the lack of attention to her, you didn’t know. She was hanging on Wanda’s forearm, her feet slipping on your printed rug. Wanda was trying to not look hurt still by your previous statement, distracting herself by the blonde kid and you were baffled by her obliviousness to all this.

Steve, the beefy blonde Lucifer, was furious and seething. His white knuckles and ticking jaw were the most obvious giveaways, the fingers just itching to beat the shit out of someone no doubt.

Was he imagining striking you into compliance into his weird playhouse game complex? You wouldn’t be surprised given the extent of his attempt to ‘win’ you over.

The ‘get out’ tone and blatant disrespect was a bruise to his ego for sure, and by you, a middle-class woman nonetheless was a worse injury. Steve was the deadly boss to armored men in the vicinity, the kids’ father figure, according to him, and Wanda’s stern yet kind employer.

People had been killed for less and there you were, standing in all your glory, being the only person alive to reject Steve Rogers and now, the only to raise your voice at him.

You almost scoffed at his impudence to look offended, what did he expect? For you to submit to him after the stunt he pulled? His reach was scary he proved today and that any future with him in your life in any way, was a fearsome possibility to entertain but you’d be damned if you went down without a fight.  

“You can’t make me leave; we both know. You don’t have the physical edge nor the mental one. I have no problem drawing out G-U-N-S in front of the kids or to throw the warnings around, although I would prefer not to.”

Your free hand itched to slap him, like how his did minutes ago. It wasn’t a mankind problem about men thinking they were entitled to everything; it was a Steve Rogers’s problem. Of course, with him consent didn’t matter. If he had a ‘housewife, kids and fences’ fixation, he’d make it come true.

“Do you even listen to what I say? Or your own words even? Please, go ahead! Traumatise my kid and also yours in your wooing process! Why are you so obsessed? Leave us alone, you freak! I just ignored few messages!” You had a hard time maintaining your cool, if there was any left. You were sure you were scaring Grace and no matter what happened next, you knew she was already traumatized by this entire ordeal already. You were so sorry, so, so, so sorry to your poor baby caught in this mess.

You knew, no, you hoped, he wouldn’t pull out the gun, his actions at the carnival a proof, you remembered how he hid his gun on finding Sarah. That threat was empty but the next one wasn’t, his words making you freeze in your spot.

“I think you keep on misunderstanding me, sweetheart. I don’t make empty promises,”

Posh word for threats.

“For starters, maybe I should pay my future in-laws a visit in their blue duplex. They might need help with the vast garden they have, it is the season for ‘violets’, isn’t it?”

As you froze with your parents being brought up, he also cooled, albeit differently, smirking once again gaining the upper hand, not that he lost it if you were being honest.

“Isn’t threatening my kid enough for you, Steve?” You hated how your loud voice almost broke, your anger slowly subsiding into helplessness and you hated that. You hated his guts, his entitlement, his claim; everything about him.

“You still don’t see it, do you? Our family of four is the most important thing to me right now and I’m not above doing anything to save it.”

“There is no family of four Steve! I keep explaining and you keep coming back to square one with all this bullshit!” The curse word did tick Steve off but he would correct that later, when bigger things weren’t at ploy.

“Your ignorance makes me a little mad sometimes sweetheart and that is why I have to do all I do. You haven’t realized we need each other yet, but I’m staying until you do and even after that, I promise. You know how much it pissed me off to see your tickets and the packed suitcases after I’ve been nothing but nice? I was so generous to spoil you with my riches but instead I find that in your finances.”

This fucker knew. Of course, he did!

You were wondering in the back of your head what had prompted this visit with so many threats and warnings and anguish. He was pissed even before you ‘acted out’, he tracked the tickets and the plan and that meant he even tracked-

“You have so much to learn, but luckily you interact with quite a few people. I am most tempted to start out with this Aiden guy, trying to be the hero and giving you all the ideas. Maybe I should visit him?” Steve wondered out loud, and you flinched at his suggestion, hating how you were trapped by this man.

You couldn’t live with yourself if anyone got hurt because of you, be it your parents or Aiden or any other possibility Steve would come up with. Of course, Grace was your peak priority but you doubted he would hurt her as he threatened to harm them.

“Steve, please.” The fire was almost out, your hands trembling, Grace worried and Steve smug.

“Let the kids go and I think we can come to a conclusion.”

“Steve this needs to stop.” You said, your breaths heavy and helplessness clawing away at you.

“I won’t repeat myself.” He voiced out with a threatening edge, gesturing to Grace and Wanda, clearly telling you to first get the kids out.

For a deranged fucktard, he sure cared about the kids a lot.

You loosened your hold on Grace, patting her arm softly and nudged her to Wanda. Wanda received her little hand and enticed the kids with the promise of ice-cream. Sarah clapped her hands and as the trio left, Grace did look over her shoulders at you in concern and for permission, majorly in concern though. You nodded and waved, a tear dropping as soon as the door clicked shut.

You were still staring at the door, not wanting to meet Steve’s stormy blue orbs when he began, “Today was a slip up that I won’t tolerate again. Neither the cursing nor the dramatics.”

We aren’t in a fucking play, what the fuck is he labelling as dramatics?

Your eyes slowly flickered to his, and you had a hard time not letting the tears escape except the one traitorous one earlier. The fatigue, the worry of Grace’s disappearance, the threats to your friends and family were all catching up to you. It took all in you to stay strong and not fall down right now.

“Steve this isn’t funny anymore. It’s sick and you know it! I just said no! Was that so inexcusable that you had to follow up with this? You have violated me for that, broken into my home and now kidnapped my daughter! At what extent will you stop?” You broke down finally, arms a flailing mess as fat tears rolled down. Nothing scared more than the helplessness this moment. He won and he knew it. The carnival incident was nothing in comparison to this. The only good thing you could hope in all this was a safe Grace but that too only if you complied, which seemed like what you would do now given your attempts at fighting back and scampering have failed laughably.

“Gosh, I forgot how theatrical women are. You are smart darling; you know what I want from day one, just a happy family. Nothing that horrendous has happened and especially not as badly as put it. I’m just looking out for you and me in the long run.” Steve slowly treaded towards you, his hand extended to pat your arm comfortingly but you involuntarily flinched at contact and stepped back. Steve clearly didn’t like that as he caught your arm in a bruising grip and jerked you towards him. Manhandling you as your wet hands rushed to ease his grip was not a tough task for Steve, a surprise to none.

“Stop trembling like I’ve actually done something to harm you!”

Steve clearly didn’t know how to comfort women and it showed.

You stopped with the cowering away, even though it disgusted you to be this much in close proximity with your assaulter. He clearly had anger issues and no clue how to solve them. You needed to steer the conversation right and get him out. You could see your hands visibly shake as you put them on his chest, just to create some distance and in a way of surrendering to not fight. The tears slowed but you don’t think they stopped; it was hard to tell with a million other things on your mind.

As your eyes made contact, Steve loosened his grip, clearly a bit satisfied by your submission, as he began counting to help you breathe. As much as you hated to admit, it helped you and you got a flashback to the time when you freaked out on him about Grace at that extravagant dinner date. That was a sweet gesture then, not so sweet now. Funny how drastically things change with time.

It wasn’t so much Steve’s help as it was your own mind telling you to be fucking smart about the whole ordeal right now.

“Good. Better. Now let’s talk. Why were you planning to run away? I’ve been busy and coming home to find out that wasn’t joyful, you know.” His smile suggested a better mood than before but his voice, his husky voice always had this daring edge that almost challenged you to defy him but at the same time warned you of unpleasant consequences if you did.

“Steve, I’m scared.” You spoke with utmost honesty. “The part of the world you associate yourself with scares me. You can’t blame me for not wanting that life for Grace, I mean you have a kid of your own. Wasn’t the carnival attack specifically on Sarah?”

The reasoning was right but you knew you triggered him the moment his smile evaporated. He either felt insulted as a parent or disrespected in his profession or probably both.

He was fighting his inner demons already and you pointing it out was a slap to his face, a hit he didn’t want to take.

“That was a slip up, I admit. Never again. I’m only human, okay?” He convinced himself and you, his grip tightening a bit again.

Oh no, not the right direction to take.

You reckoned he still had nightmares about it like you, he really did love Sarah a lot, all things aside.

“Besides, I am looking out for you! Out for you and Grace and Sarah. I remember my promise of never putting either of them in harm’s way ever again.”

You definitely didn’t trust his security or his people because what sort of a mobster let his daughter get targeted and possibly abducted? You definitely didn’t know the whole story or if it was just a bad day but he wasn’t a person that deserved some slack. Despite all this, you knew what all he held above you, above a common man. He might not be ‘Kingpin’ skilled but a threat to you nonetheless.

Before you could stop yourself, you blurted out, “Is that what you call following me around, huh?” which you immediately regretted.

“Trust the process, baby. Everything is just to protect you.”

Is that what he called stalking even Grace around and twistedly enough, sending you proof of that? The anonymous thread of photos was another nightmare of yours, thanks to him. The last being a candid photo inside Grace’s room, her sleeping in her bed this morning and that’s when you decided you needed to get out. Of course, that didn’t go as planned.

“How am I supposed to do that when you have cameras in my house?!” You scoffed and he reeled back at the accusation, having the nerve to look impressed at being uncovered and caught red-handed.

“Oh my fucking God, it was you! You sick pervert!” You jumped out of his grip, your eyes wide and horrified. “I wasn’t aware of what to make of it but of course, it was you! Who else would be sick enough to do that?” You let out a humorless chuckle. You always put things past him even when you keep telling yourself you shouldn’t. When will you ever learn huh?  

You were full on panicking yet again, this man was an assaulter, a stalker and a creep too. It would have made a good dark, psychological thriller for you to watch if you weren’t the protagonist about to suffer his obsession.

He reached out to steady you again, but you whipped and stumbled back, realizing too late that you elbowed Steve’s nose so bad that there was a crunch. That, right there, was the look a man real-fucking-furious on Steve’s face and now you could see the feared mobster, the man who was personally terrorizing you under the beautiful, Greek God façade.

Steve reacted so fast even with an injury that in a split second, your view of his face turned into a view of his crotch.

“You do realize that there are others ways for me to teach you obedience? I think it’s fucking time you show me your gratitude for my care and attention and apologize for your misconduct and unkind response.” Steve spoke with a hoarse voice, a voice running out of patience and just about done with defiance.

His hand fisted your hair, maintaining eye contact while he nodded between you and his crotch. You knew what he wanted, what he was expecting as ‘thanks’.

“Steve, please no, you don’t-”

His other hand grabbed your jaw, stopping you from speaking as he warned, “I think you have done just enough talking for today, so why don’t you put that tongue to a better use and show me how sorry you are. Better make it convincing because I’d hate to pay one of your friends a visit and then bitch about a nasty blowjob.” He smirked at the end of his monologue, eyes shining with triumph and amusement.

You wouldn’t let him harm anyone else, you couldn’t. You and your daughter were already knee-deep in a pit and at this point, it’d just be cruel to drag someone else in. With shaky hands opening his pants, you just hoped you could get Grace out before you eventually were buried in it.

“Now that’s a good girl. Submissive is a sexy look on you.” His hands patted your hair, playing with your tresses while yours pulled his pants and then briefs down.

His member jerked out, almost slapping you in the face as you recoiled at his insolence to get hard and erect at your torment. Your disdain must have shown which he took as admiration and derision to take his affluent cock in.

“No need to get shy, I have faith you’ll be able take it just as well in your pretty pussy as you will right now. Open up-”

“Steve, I beg you-”

Just as you had cut him off, he interrupted your pleading. Your gag reflex was probably the most efficient in the world but that turned this narcissist on. It had been years since you had done it, never with a man as beefy as Steve.

His taste was salty and if you had to put it into better words, it was the like overpriced sea salt flakes that you never bought. High and pricey and for the entitled.

Your hands clutched at his thighs as you blacked out multiple times; your jaw aching, uvula swaying and tears escaping. Him forcing himself on you brough a new sense of vulnerability as your body trembled. Steve relished like a sadist, practically rutting into you all by himself as you just sat there with your jaw unnaturally open.

His obscene moans and groans were crass and nauseating and you just prayed for this to be over soon and for no one to walk in on this, especially your kid.

It seemed like it would never end, your body dehydrating with all the spit it produced, the drool dribbling and landing just beside your knees on your printed rug. You would have to throw that out.

The tears stooped after some point, the sobbing an unnecessary action that just tired you out more on this eventful day. You moved your tongue around to prevent your teeth from scratching him when he shifted angles. If this was what he did on slightly mad, you didn’t want to find what he did for a more serious punishment.

Apparently, that action was something that turned him on even more, his breath hitching as neared closure. In broken whispers he demanded that again and you complied, wanting to get done with it.

He growled in the moment of his release and you tried to lean back but his grip didn’t relent. “Swallow.” His grainy, exasperated voice said out loud and you knew better than to defy.

He released you and you fell on to the rug, hip bruising by knocking into some furniture and tears coming back again after being hydrated by his seed. He packed himself, his smile smug and content as his expressions truly resembled ecstasy being personified.

“You be a good fiancée from now on and maybe you’ll have all your friends alive and present at our wedding. No cheeky business from now on, got it?” Steve hummed then and strutted out, not even bothering to listen to your reply.

As soon as the door slammed, your eyes closed and your demons danced again.

There was no right direction to take when you were stuck in a loop.  

[srbachchan]

DAY 3880

Jalsa, Mumbai                 Oct 30/31,  2018                Tue/Wed 12:27 AM

... the night approaches .. the need to rest beckons .. but the fear of a non connect lingers and troubles the countenance .. thoughts and words come when the Page is opened and the day date time is registered ..

.. it took a while today for it form .. the text the meaning and the expression .. it does not normally .. during the early years of the Blog it took a lot longer .. there was the need to think what should be conveyed, what kept back and what put out in some deliberate attempt to gather meaning ..

.. and the realisation came that the writing on the top that rests on the lap is greatly more fluent than getting the wrists to work a pen .. and the realisation came along with it too .. the pen writes faster .. the black squares take longer .. and while you punch in the right blocks to form the word, the next word gets greater time to form expression .. than if the written pen were to be deployed .. that’s purely my own disability finding explanation .. the single finger typing is my worth , many others write with greater speed .. many use just the other talking utensil .. which is hugely with more speed than this that I work on .. the dexterity of the mobile and its smart sister are indeed the boon of the century .. destructive too .. but then each invention has its limited life line .. soon to be overcome and destabilised with time ..  

.. a coloured life despite similarity in expression is what we are all about .. no one can ever tell or assume or picture or predict what holds inside the real .. colour me pink or blue or purple .. and yet there shall ever be that one undisclosed colour which shall prevail .. for prevail it shall even if undesired ..  

.. there are too many of me .. in too many shades .. and moods .. they disturb, do not evolve a story .. they be of similar uselessness .. devoid barren and bankrupt .. a situation no one wishes for .. yet it comes and comes to us all, in various shapes and forms .. mine today came in the above .. tomorrow it could be another ..and another .. and another ..

Ok .. so enough philosophising .. get to be now and in real .. there is more and much more in that than any other .. 

.. preparations abound for the KIFF and the visit to the town of first job and many memories .. a quick one .. in and out , but with great respect and feel .. there is the KBC that needs attention .. it augers well now .. for, it shall invite the Junior KBC contestant now .. now till its end by the middle of the month that begins .. and then birthdays in the family and of important age .. there is the next venture in Nagpur perhaps with JHUND .. there is the 26/11 completing 10 years of its occurrence and its event by the Gateway of India .. there is honour in Baroda .. there is the much looked forward to the UP farmers, of 860 in number who shall be absolved of their bank loan by me .. 

the farmer on KBC that could only feed his family a single meal a day from a yearly earning of a mere 60,000 rupees .. a yearly earning .. half of which went in the cost of the seed to grow the ‘fasal’ .. was sent sufficient earnings for several years .. his gratification bringing tears in the eyes .. 

.. that dedicated lady from Bengal that has taken up the cause for the mentally ill on the streets of Kolkata and about , a guest on KBC Karmveer has been sent a large sum of finance and cartons filled with my unused clothes for them that have no shelter, no clothing of their own ..

.. the strength and will of that single minded husband and wife duo from Varanasi that exposes and saves victims of forced prostitution upon young girls .. has been given support with funding from me to give care and relief to them that have been salvaged from those ‘red light areas’ ..

.. manual scavengers that have to work in devastating and obnoxious conditions in cleaning the sewers of the city, manually, have been picked out and cleaning mechanical machines are being purchased by me - around 50 of them - so they do not have to physically enter the drains and risk their lives .. so they never have to face discrimination .. so they never have to be relegated by caste compulsions for the kind of jobs that they do .. 

.. that village uneducated Jallauddin Ghazi from KBC Karmveer, who was denied study beyond the 2nd standard because his Father could not afford to pay the fees .. lived uneducated, begged on the streets of Kolkata, pulled the hand rickshaw to earn his meal, learnt how to drive a Taxi, ran it and giving the earnings to build a School in his village so no one would have to go through the condition that he did .. taught 10 others to drive a Taxi and asked as fee just Rs 5 .. five rupees, so he could feed himself and save for the building of school .. was sent a large financial contribution from me , so he could build another School and open an orphanage for children abandoned on the streets ..

.. he now runs two schools in his village .. over 400 students .. 18 to 20 teachers that run the School for him .. he, who could not read or write created an environ so many others could .. 

... these be stories that disturb and  keep one awake .. 

.. sufferings of another can never be rightly understood until God forbid you find yourself in similar .. how do they survive .. how do they make ends meet .. what does a future hold for them .. and for their children .. it is difficult to imagine or even conceive .. 

.. AND then you wonder ..

.. why does it happen to them .. 

.. and each piece of that extra that lies with you unused, unattended, forgotten, suddenly relives the gravity of the other ..

GIVE THEN TO THEM .. OF YOUR EXCESS ..

.. and praise the creator of your present presence ..

Amitabh Bachchan ; yes I have unabashedly spoken that which may sound immodest and in aggrandisement .. think what you may, for that is far from my thinking .. my thinking be to perhaps example, so many others could come forward and bring relief and succour to the underprivileged and wanting .. 

[strikenow5210-blog]

Trade Show Present Achievement Strategy

Having the best trade show show graphics is one important factor that will establish if your trade show advertising attempts are a enormous success, or whether your trade show marketing efforts really are a large waste of money. Making the proper trade show present graphics so that your trade show present may stay out from all the other trade show shows suggests thinking "big image ".

STEP 1) Believe Major Photograph - FIGURATIVELY

First, to produce your trade show show graphics successful, believe huge photograph figuratively. What's the general purpose of your style? What are you currently offering? Why must someone get it? Who can purchase it? You wish to solution these issues and then build your most of your advertising message. Your present will need a definite concept that may be study in seven seconds or less, and shows a possibility that which you have to supply them (remember, they probably have several hundred trade show booths to check out). Your concept wants to inform then WHO you are, WHAT you are offering, and WHY they need to get it. More, you will need to share with your probability why they ought to get from you and maybe not the man two unit spaces down (that is, what are your unique advantages). Your concept must take big, bold, easy to learn text - select a simple font. This is simply not the time to be "cute" or "different ".You need them to concentrate on the message, perhaps not question what the font is.

STEP 2) Believe Major Photograph - LITERALLY

To create your trade show screen design successful, you will need to also think huge image literally. A photo shows a thousand words, and a huge picture screams them! Do not use twenty or thirty small photographs, do not try showing every thing but your kitchen sink. Choose one daring, eye-catching, attention-grabbing large photograph which will get the interest of a possibility wandering by your booth. The image should also back up your primary advertising message, of course. If you believe it's difficult or high priced to develop that photograph, think again. Head to istockphoto.com and always check it out. They've over a million stock photos accessible, and you can get a high-resolution picture suitable to cover a complete trade show display for approximately $20. It's extremely simple to search for images on their internet site - so you can find a picture of a "cute pup" or a "screaming supervisor taking out his hair" - whatever shells up most of your marketing message. Trade Show Displays

STEP 3) Do not forget the OVERALL Major Image

While this informative article is targeted on making certain your trade show present graphics are a hit at the show, don't your investment OVERALL Big Picture for trade show marketing success. Successful trade show marketing indicates choosing the right show, sending out pre-show mailers, contemplating having trade show giveaways handy out at the show, subsequent up with your prospects after the show, ensuring you have an internet site that comments your trade show marketing efforts, and significantly more. But covering all those ideas is probably really the work of the many different trade show advice posts here at Ezine Articles.

So for the time being, when you're designing your trade show exhibit graphics, determine your main marketing meaning, and consider that image of a "cute dog" or the "shouting boss taking his hair out." If you prefer your display to stay out of all of the other trade show features, it must be easy and concise. It needs an obvious information that sums up your primary advertising concept quickly and clearly. It requires one big, striking history picture that draws your prospect's interest and reinforces your message. And your exhibit needs to fit into your overall trade show achievement plan... you have a plan, correct? Just remember, Believe Huge Image when it comes to trade show features, and make the next trade show a striking accomplishment!

[ellison46scott-blog]

Protein Shake Weight Loss--lose A Few Pounds, Lose Even More

Thirdly, take note of your goals. What is it you plan? Why are you so motivated to study a new skill, pour in hours of the time when a chunk of income? What an individual been willing to conduct to keep your life different to what appeared today, and what's for you to keep you on track for making sure you achieve your being successful? Write those things down at this moment. Mainly, milk is a great source of calcium and required protein. Calcium is vital for your bones' health and for that reason a main issue with your body height. Because you grow taller, your bones' growth progress eventually defines your personal height. Moreover, your bones need calcium to stay strong and healthy. Protein is an additional very important nutrient, considering buying anything . your muscles. Both your muscles and bones determine the body's overall visual appeal. Finally, milk also provides you with vitamin D, which optimizes the relieve calcium and phosphorus in your body. You will desire to make sure that you've got clothing on that probably will not be stained once you use these types of herbal remedies to reduce swelling, simply because the smell is strong. That's part in the charm. Seniors also tend to not get enough essential protein. You might not need to butcher home cow, but try to that you are receiving your meat. While not perfect answers, supplements such as Ensure can help you get protein and other nutrients if you find yourself not sure. Beautiful slate is available in tones of gray, green, purple and black. It's certainly much further away for roofs or floors anymore. Slate is definitely becoming a favourite choice with the food prep. Its beauty and strength make it a durable and stylish option. The problem soapstone, regular treatment with mineral oil will produce the fantastic thing this type of material. Any scratches can usually be removed by rubbing with a damp cloth or sponge. Deeper scratches can be buffed out by using steel fleece jacket. https://www.gaiaonline.com/profiles/hardisonkure01/43244781/ It's important for execute ab exercises the appropriate way to assist you to lessen the potential risk of accident for the rear. Place a swiss ball along with a bath towel roll using your reduced rear and you will obtain the exact same effect. Sit-ups can injured your decrease back with excessive pressure should you them the old-fashioned way, anchoring ft beneath huge item. Erase his phone sum. The longer his number remains with your phonebook, superior terms the higher chances you do try to make contact with him however. Curing a broken heart starts with ending any communication utilizing person. Maintain your heart in the more pain by not torturing yourself anymore over sending him text messages or calling him hoping he'll treatment. Learn to forget him for positive.

[jimmielancaster1796]

The Tajweed Course

A Muslim’s faith is incomplete without knowledge of the Holy Quran. We know that the Holy Quran was brought to light in Arabic and that the Arabic verses of the Holy Quran are Allah Almighty’s statements. As Arabic is not our mother language, we should try to learn Quran with appropriate Arabic grammar. So that, the words of Allah Almighty must be recited in the proper way to avoid any misinterpretation.

The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said:

"Truly, the one who has one of the finest voices among the people for reciting the Quran is the one you think fears Allah when you hear him recite."

For the proper pronunciation of the terminology of the Holy Quran, Tajweedscience is used. It is the art of reciting the Holy Quran. By mean, it implies "proficiency," and by definition, it focuses on giving each word of the Holy Quran its “due right and respect” when recited. There is a huge difference in the rank of people who recite the Holy Quran with Tajweed rules and those who don’t imply Tajweed during recitation.

Being a Muslim, when you learn Quran with Tajweed, you will be better at understanding and discovering the hidden message of the Holy Quran.However, getting any education is not difficult anymore as technology has influenced every field of our life. It has become a powerful tool to support and transform education in several ways.

Several internet platforms are readily available to assist you in learning Quran online.http://www.tarteelequran.co.uk/ is one of the dedicated portals to provide you with the utmost Arabic comprehension. We strive to deliver our services worldwide, including Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, London, and Nottingham.

 Importance of Tajweed

The Holy Quran is more than a book explaining the story of the creation of this universe and human beings. It is also more than the script of the laws that Muslims are to follow. The primary purpose of its revelation is the guidance of humanbeings and the preservation of the Arabic language that Allah Almighty chooses to deliver his final message to humanity via Muhammad (PBUH).

When you study the HolyQuran, it will improve your language skillsand help you understand the text's complexities. The Holy Quran was meant to be read aloud. To execute it correctly, you must be familiar with Tajweed. You will be able to communicate the text effectively when you learn how to read the Quran with proper Tajweed pronunciation.

It is considered an essential pillar of the Arabic language. The significance of learning Tajweed increases when you will come to this point as Allah Almighty states in the Holy Quran:

“ Recite the Holy Quran (aloud) in a (slow and melodious) Style”(73-4)

Tajweed can help you establish a more profound spirituality and greater connection with God by better understanding and respecting His words.To sum up, Tajweed is more than just mastering accents or dialects. If you don’t find a local tutor nearby and are determined to understand the Holy Quran with Tajweed rules, then you can learn Quran online with Tajweed.

http://www.tarteelequran.co.uk/ always fascinate the Quran learners to learnQuran online with them. Our teachers are committed to their work, and they fulfill their jobrequirements with a particular responsibility.They are always concerned with clarity of language, precise syllable timing, and a knowledge of how a single letter may alter the way a word is spoken.

How can you improve your Tajweed skills?

The Holy Quran is the discourse of Allah Almighty,a great message, mercy, and recommendation from Allah Almighty to all Human beings. It incorporatesproficiency, rules, and propositions about all facets of life and considerations to the Hereafter.

In the upper section, you have read about the importance of Tajweed in the reading of the Holy Quran. Knowing the Tajweed rules, which govern how to pronounce different letters in Arabic, improves memorizing, reading, and reciting the Holy Quran. Here are a few Tajweed pronunciation suggestions to keep in mind while learning Tajweed.

 ·        Pronounce each letterof the Verse correctly.

The initialrestriction of Tajweed is that every Arabic letter of the Holy Quran must be uttered correctly. It implies knowing the pronunciation of the letter and knowing which letters are vowels and what role they perform in pronunciation.

·        Don’t Rush

One of the major mistakes that people often make while reciting the Holy Quran is rusting through it without paying attention to the proper pronunciation and meaning of the words. In contrast, Tajweed demands you to read slowly with fullattention. It involves staring at each word to ensure complete understanding before going to the next.

·        Practice

The best way to improve your Tajweed skills is to practice. You can learn the words of the Holy Quran and understand their meaning and recitation guidelines, but until you practice pronouncing them out loud, your reading will be inaccurate. With consistent practice, pronunciation improves with time.

·        Contact a Tutor:

Out of many directions, one of the best recommendations to improve your Tajweed is by hiring a professional teacher. You can also learn Quran online with Tajweed from a professional from around the world. They'll guide you through the course of action and make sure you understand everything before moving on. It's critical to select a teacher you like and have the correct kind of learning environment, where you can ask questions and make mistakes without fear of being judged.

·        Speak Arabic:

When you speak more in Arabic, it will help you find an encouraging Quran teacher so that your reading skills also improve. It would be best if you made a daily habit of speaking Arabicand tried to engage yourself in the language as much as possible. These steps will help you improve your Arabic language skills and, ultimately, Tajweed.

[bestdigitalmarket23]

Must Do's To Improve Your Seo Rankings

Gigantic heaps of data is created on the World Wide Web ordinary. To guarantee whether people are showing up at it you need to know whether your blog/site is being recorded properly through web crawlers and are showing up in a decent circumstance there. This is where Search Engine Optimization comes in.

Here is an overview of Citiesagenciess you can execute to construct the SEO score of your site:

1. Watchwords as Links

Embeddings watchwords in your page URLs, page titles, heading names ( <h1> to <h6>, with <h1> being the most huge ) and picture alt text is a remarkable idea to help your digital marketing company Mumbai. Additionally, if you haven't started it now, it's a glad opportunity to start now. That being said, one thing that web crawler enhancers don't pay a ton of focus on is making joins out of expressions. This is a critical piece of SEO and can on a very basic level further foster your SEO rankings at whatever point acted in the right manner.

The above picture is a piece on an article from Searchengineland.com about Google App Indexing. Here 'Application Indexing and Deep Links' is made as an association (with a do-follow quality), and as it ought to be because it's a solidly related watchword for the article which spotlights to another article on App Indexing and Deep Links. This way when web search devices creep the page they'll pass significant association juice to the associated with page, which accordingly will determinedly impact your SEO score and will essentially chip away at internal interfacing of your webpage.

2. Page Load Speed

Other than making huge and quality substance for your perusers, a nice site speed is fundamental to gain traffic. Site speed clearly impacts your customer responsibility, bounce rate, gatherings per visit and your overall SEO score. 2 – 2.5 seconds. Without a doubt, that is the best time your site should stack in. Advance the going with on your site to chip away at its speed:

a. HTTP Requests – Minimize the amount of sales your program makes to convey the site by clubbing all of the styles in a solitary external layout. This will decrease the size of your code, make it look smooth and in a general sense further foster site execution.

b. Pack Images – Images address the most bytes downloaded when a page loads in a program. Ceaselessly consolidate 'stature' and the 'width' quality. This way the program won't need to reload your page numerous events to choose the right sizes and overlap text over them. Use JPEG plans as bigger piece of the projects support them. Yield your photos to right gauge according to your page.

c. Program Caching – Browsers need to download a couple of substance, layouts and various parts when you visit a page strangely. Enabling project putting away will save all of them, due to which your program won't need to set a couple of HTTP expectations in resulting visits.

Here's Google's actual statement of using site speed as a factor in search situating. While Matt Cutts has clearly communicated that further creating site speed impacts under 1% of the pursuit requests, it's not absolutely unessential. Let us not neglect to recall that any business exists since people need its organizations, and that is what your consideration should be on – further creating customer experience at every movement. In like manner, when SEO experts like us are endeavoring to break every single situating variable, why leave out site speed then? Who knows Google's next computation update gives site speed significantly higher weightage. You'll express profound gratitude to us then!

In case you need to make a dive further with Page Speed assessment, read encounters from this Moz blog on page speed.

3. Astonishing Your Title and Meta Description

More than 70% of a webpage's traffic is made from the web search apparatuses. This makes it principal to propel your page titles and meta depictions as new as could really be expected. The Title length should preferably be of 45 – 55 characters and should consolidate the most customary and most examined expressions for your business. Concentrated investigation ought to be coordinated preceding choosing this. The most key expressions ought to be put first, followed by various watchwords and should be detached by vertical lines. Do whatever it takes not to use more than 2-3 expressions in it. Then, at that point, there should be a good sync between the page content and the page title. For eg., If your article examines obtaining mass anyway proteins then don't make the title as "best food hotspots for working out" or relative. Hold it frank.

Likewise, the best length of meta depictions should be around 140 – 150 characters and should decisively portray your page content pretty much. Endeavor to utilize somewhere near 2 – 4 watchwords in it. You should get this right as it's the primary asset among customers and your site. It's where a sharp customer closes if to visit your site. So guarantee you kickass!

4. Adding to a blog, YES!

Talking about your business is a nice practice for customer responsibility and SEO, both. Incredible publicists reliably share musings and articles with their group which are appropriate and affluent in information. Doesn't have any effect if there 100 destinations adequately on a comparative point out there, customers have come your site which is as it ought to be. They appreciate your picture.

Keep expression densities two or three long-tail watchwords up to 1.5 – 3 % and guarantee you use reciprocals and close varieties of those watchwords as well. This extends the significance of your article as indicated by the web crawlers. Some splendid sources to discover most close varieties of your expressions are from the Google's Keyword Planner device, examining social occasions on your industry strength and by looking out for Subreddits on Reddit regarding your subject. Not a lot of people significantly research on these focal points for watchwords.

Click for more: - What is the function of domain name in SEO?

The sum of this clearly doesn't mean you stray from the certified objective of creating your blog – which is to connect with your customers and offer important substance with them.

5. Zeroing in on Local Keywords

Region express zeroing in on has become a fundamental piece of SEO in the past couple of years. According to SE Leads, "43% of web glance through performed today use a close by expression and 86% of those endeavors convert to a call or visit to the genuine region". This example is basically going to increase later on.

For example, a Google search for "wellbeing rec focuses" shows multiple million rundown things, while a watchword search for 'health rec focuses in Bangalore' shows simply 723K site pages. This proposes that there is fundamentally less challenge for neighborhood watchwords and consequently, it's much less complex to rank for them in normal results. Hence your point should be to target long-tail watchwords having region assurance. This will through and through influence your SEO rankings.

6. Backlinks through Social Sharing

Social channels are gold mines for each modernized publicist out there making a pass at brand care in the current time frame. Regions like Facebook, Google, Quora, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc among others own a nice bit of the web's group. Facebook itself has over 1.55 billion customers reliably with people from all parts of the world endorsed in. Tap into the power of electronic media by making profiles on these associations and attracting with your customers. See what they need to say about your picture/thing and gain from them. The more you attract with them, answer their inquiries and get them to examine your picture, the more respect you secure in the automated circle. Lively customers will therefore confer their experience to your picture, which will make significant backlinks for your site. These customer reviews and social proposals as thought to be as significantly critical and dependable by the web crawlers, which subsequently will assemble your SEO score. Guarantee you impact all of the social channels open.

7. Flexible Responsive Design

Mashable's bits of knowledge on adaptable chase designs show that over portion of Google's traffic is made through mobile phones. This is a BIG number considering the world's most extensively used web crawler on the web today. Similarly, all through the drawn out the amount of flexible customers has beated the amount of workspace customers and they rely upon their PDAs currently more than ever. Customers are searching for information on associations and organizations on their mobile phones continually. Google's Mobile Friendly Update conveyed in April last year undeniably displayed to combine flexible responsiveness in your site to hold and further foster your digital marketing agency Pune.

Making a flexible updated site should be a central arrangement for additional fostering your SEO score. I've found this intriguing gadget that helps you with study and manage your compact responsiveness. It gives an undeniable and new idea viewpoint on how your site is displayed on standard PDAs like iPhone, Google Nexus and that is only the start, and where you need to carry out appropriate enhancements.

[veterveter]

Hey hey, it's gay bike anon again! I'm more than honoured to get my own tag!!! I definitely would like to keep talking to you <3 And only love for you too <3

I'll gladly wait for your response to my ask (or asks??? we'll see one day ehehehe)! I feel you, when people cite some of my text messages from a few months (or more) ago I'm often like "nope, nah-ah, that's not me, you're wrong". Same for older essays, I often can't believe I wrote those. And even with things I wrote late at night a few weeks ago, sometimes I'm like "I wrote that? That monstrosity??? Okay, I need more sleep before writing". (My capacity of writing in correct English grammar usually goes to sleep before I do, same goes for varied word choice). But sometimes I'll see this project I've worked on YEARS ago and exactly recognize the pieces I wrote? Since the ask would be fairly recent, I suppose I would recognise my writing style and word choice and since I didn't wrote it whilst sleep deprived (I hope??) I'm setting my chances of recognising it pretty high. But we'll see one day, the mystery will marinate for a while... [I am rereading this in the daytime, and this is EXACTLY what I meant, at night I make the weirdest word choices?? I’m definitely not changing it though because I might find it kinda funny]

I snorted so hard about the way you talked about your almost-name, I'm giggling here like crazy. Apparently my name means something alike 'dedicated to God', but my parents aren't really believers, so gotta love that. The meaning of my sibling's name is 'summer', but I'm the one born in the summer, whilst my sibling is born in autumn, oops. Guess my parents never checked one of those sites/ books where you can find the meaning of a name hahaha.

I love how my ask was so weird and chaotic that you sent a screenshot to a friend. I LOVE that she had no idea what was going on. Then again, I watched the semis (obviously hahaha) but I had no idea what was going on either... But honestly it was peak Dutch culture, water and bicycles, I would just add an ode to 'hagelslag' and voila, the entirety of Dutch culture summed up... [Also: if you don't know: 'hagelslag' is just sprinkles which we eat on bread, yes, on bread, we do not not only eat sprinkles as on cake or on donuts, like in any other country, no, we put it on bread. It's actually a really popular sandwich topping here. My ultimate favourites are the chocolate ones, but you also have them in several fruity flavours (like forest fruit) and anise flavour.] Thank you, perfect chaotic energy is an ultimate goal I strive towards *bows like I'm Victorian royalty or something*

You're absolutely right, it went EXACTLY like that. Specifically, I would be studying for my exams, explaining topics to myself like I always do, so I'd tell myself "The six possible origins of economies of scope are indivisibility, specialisation, marketing, research and development, GUESS WHAT.. SUBWAY DRIVER GANDÍA... ehhh... what was I doing again??" OR: "one of the most detailed and most used models of responsive regulation is Brathwaite's piramid. His enforcement piramid visually shows, nope not important, SUBWAY DRIVER GANDÍAAAAAA" And I'd laugh, continue explaining theories and calculations to myself until my focus started lessening again and my thoughts would wander off again. I am VERY glad I'm not the only one who thinks about it from time to time, and I'm glad you're not suing me for any mental harm yet.

Yess, those pictures I saw from Promising Young Woman look so beautiful and aesthetic!! I'll probably watch it somewhere after the 16th, because I'll most likely have finished my last exams by then. I'll tell you what I thought about it! Thank you SO SO SO much for all the luck wishes!!!! I had an exam last Friday and I absolutely rewarded myself, because it went better than I expected and I passed an earlier exam and a paper too! I didn't buy myself a tricorne (yet), but I did buy funko pops (my inner economist said it was 100% rational because it was a really good deal hahaha). I still have two exams to go, so I could always buy a tricorne for finishing either of those, OR. EVEN BETTER. I'll ask my parents (or my grandparents) for one for my birthday. I mean, that would be hilarious. They'd be so confused. They've never seen S3 and S4 of LCDP so they'll have no idea, even if I tried to explain it. It would be so incredibly funny (and really really weird for them), I am laughing like crazy just at the thought of it.

I've never been in Finland before, but those temperatures do not sound legal indeed. I have no knowledge of Finnish law, but maybe article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the prohibition of torture, would work? If I was the judge I’d 100% agree, so we should all sue the weather sksksks. I'm glad to have brought you rain though (and that I apparently possess the power to do so - magic weather controlling pirate seems like a nice enough job to me)!!! I hope the temperature has become at least somewhat lower. You're right, climate change should just... stop... right away. The weather is pretty weird here, right now: one day it will be super sunny and (at least) around 27 degrees and almost melting away, and the other day it will be raining and I'll be wearing my warmest sweater. Like, why the extremes??

I love that I am able to make you lose your coherent thoughts (that's probably why we have one brain energy about Underwater, because I, too, have the ability to make myself lose my coherent thoughts). I'm glad for your faith in my impersonation of Martín. I even started Duolingo Spanish again, and now know the phrase, "Yo bebo leche" (I drink milk) which obviously would be very important to him. Now I'll just need an Argentinian accent to go with it. Leaning menacingly on a cane would be GREAT, I love the idea. I'll open job applications for a Denver. Maybe my cat could help me, she, much like Denver, is super loud and she is super aggressive towards other cats, so there is potential there. And guiding dogs and even tiny guiding horses exist, why not a guiding cat?

I always assumed I would follow a more... you know… legal... career path, maybe even literally a career in law. But, my accounting professor also showed us how to manipulate financial statements ("so you can notice when people are doing this", uh-huh sure, sure that’s why) and another professor of mine also said that a criminal career sometimes could be the more rational, rewarding choice over a legally acceptable career. So, I suppose I should not be surprised by this sudden change of career plans. I should have seen this coming. And what better way to be able to avoid the laws than by knowing exactly what they are and how far you can go. And if that plan doesn’t work out, the books of law I have (they’re combined in two huge hardcover bundles) are really heavy and you could probably harm someone with them if you hit hard enough… Well, I suppose you can even leave “hard” away, just by hitting someone softly with those books you can bring serious harm to them… Ah, and like that one professor would say: in this scenario it would be a rational choice to become a pirate instead of a privateer. Oh dear, not Arturito :/ Mutiny would seem like a good option, I’ll take over the ship and become Palermo the Pirate. Sounds much and much better than “Arturo the Pirate”, since that isn’t an alliteration, sooo mutiny is reasonable even for that reason. And then there’s the fact that it’s Arturo, I mean, that says enough.

YOU LOVE UNDERWATER TOO????!!!! I completely forgot that you posted that! It seems we do indeed already have one shared braincell energy my friend <3

Last week has been pretty good (except for having to make a test at 9:30, what a godless time, I’m usually barely awake by then ehehehe), I think I aced the test I had, got back some good grades and finally got my first Covid vaccination (and only shortly slight dizziness as a side effect, so that's pretty great). And thanks so much!!! For now I’m safe from Gandía, but somewhere in mid-July I’ll have to take an exam on campus, so I’ll might be able to bring out my inner Palermo then.

How was your week? If the weather is still unkind to you (well, also if the weather *is* kind to you), treat yourself to your favourite ice cream and a break every now and then <3 Do you already have holidays or hasn’t your academical year ended yet?

You’re also right - this is conversation and we’re friends now <3 And I absolutely do like cookies! I would say my favourites are american cookies (though stroopwafels are reaally good as well) but honestly there are only a few kinds of cookies that I don’t love that much. And anything with chocolate in it is GREAT. I do also love apples and bananas, though grapes (which I just had) are even better! What’s your favourite kind of cookie?

Also, I know I have been giving you so many prompts already, but I saw this one in that list you reblogged and it gave me so much Berlermo energy: you live in an apartment with your best friend. the two of you always fall asleep in each other's arms, but one day, your friend isn't there. they've fallen in love with someone else. it's your other best friend, who recently moved in with you. and that's when you realize, that those nights you spent together, weren't so platonic after all. I would love it if you’d write it, but if you decide not to that’s absolutely fine too, no worries <3

By the way, I was going to post this quite a bit earlier, but my laptop (unlike me) decided yesterday night, when I was finishing writing this, that it was time to sleep, so I had to quickly dump this whole rant in Google Docs (it’s almost two and a half pages what the heck) and I was busy all day so I only was able to upload it just now. I swear I can ractually espond faster than after a week :) Have a lovely evening, much love from the gay bike country <3

Heeeeeeey you are back!!! How happy am I to see my favouritest gay bike anon return to my inbox!!! 💕 [Author's note: You can tell I started this reply right away because you've sent me three or four asks since this one and one can tell you are indeed back hahaha]

Yeeeeeees this is how one makes friends!! You know, I was just thinking the other night of how "gay bike anon" shortens to GBA, like the Game Boy Advance, you know. Make of that what you will, but it pleases me to know that you can also have a cute nickname for your cute nickname. Nicknameception.

Yes, exactly that, "I did not write that, and if I did in fact write that.. No I did not." Also, "the mystery will marinate"??? That's an amazing word choice and some day I will absolutely use it for something, just you wait. I think it just goes to show that you should write everything while tired, haha.

Haha I love that naming convention for you. It may make very little sense, but....... but. Also, happy birthday for whenever it is, presumably in the nearby past or future!! Lots of love!! You're the summer child while your sibling is... a summer child, but like, different.

Since you appreciated my almost-name story, I'll reward you with the rest of it: so my name is Tuuli, which is Finnish for "wind". My mum originally wanted to name me Pilvi, which means "cloud". And then she was like oh no this child is not at all serene and cloud-like??? and thus, a new me. I'm glad she had second thoughts, although I wonder if having such an ill-fittingly chill name would've done anything to alter my personality? Nomen est omen and all. There's some kind of an alternate universe where all of that played out, but I'm glad it's not this one.

Yeah either you watched the semis and have no idea, or you didn't watch them and have no idea. There is no way to get what was going on there, I'm certain they themselves also didn't get it. I had no idea about hagelslag but thjipgnhefjpihjo that's amazing, I love that for you!!!! There was absolutely no reason to go there but you as a country just... did that. Amazing. Please have some and report to me so I can live through you. And also, you are absolutely legit Victorian royalty [or something] *bows in return*. Also, I do love how you say "I watched the semis (obviously)." Imagine if you didn't and this entire time I was tragically misinterpreting the nature and intentions of your ask and you were just rolling with it because you've no idea what I'm on about but are also too polite to tell me that. Khhhhhhh

Your brain has priorities!!!! And they're honestly beautiful. Well done, brain. Subway driver Gandíaaaaaaaaaa~~~ My brain is filled with Berlermo quotes that come @ me at random times during the day and leave me just a tad shell-shocked, remembering how it all went down. I'm eating my morning yoghurt and my brain goes yo te propuse fundir oro juntos, and I'm just there like :)))))) Real nice, brain.

Have you had the opportunity to see Promising Young Woman yet? Hhhhh it's so pretty, every time I work on this reply [it's a lot of times, okay, I'm very diligent about this, I stare at this ask and craft snazzy replies in my head all the time, that's why I'm so slow in... actually replying] I'm reminded of that. I'm not a very visual person but the colours and the framing... that was really nice.

I am somewhat glad you've not been to Finland yet, you must hit me up when you come visit, I'll take you for coffee!!! It's actually cooler now (bless!!!!!!!!!!!), the last... four days have been reasonable 14-20 degrees, after four consequtive weeks of 25+. Kkhhhh thinking back to it makes me feel a little ill, but now beret weather is back. I own a lot of berets, dear gay bike anon. I'm going to my university city for the weekend and I'm already wondering which beret(s) I should bring with me. This is an important decision with potential long-lasting consequences. I don't know if you've played any of Telltale's games (The Wolf Among Us and the first two seasons of The Walking Dead are the best ones, fight me), but when you make a decision and the game goes "This character will remember that." and you instantly go oh no what have I done??? That's how I feel about choosing the perfect beret for my city outing. But yes, weather extremes are just the worst. We've been having the longest drought I've ever seen here (it's still not properly rained, for the record, on Tuesday it rained for an hour or so) while in other places there's awful flooding. That's awful.

Ahhh I'm so happy you're continuing your Spanish-learning!! I took a beginner's course at uni in the spring semester, I'm going to take the next one when uni resumes in September. And yes, I'm studying it for LCDP. I mean I love languages in general, but I never had a particular need to study Spanish, until this year I suddenly did. I'm also Duolingo-ing it! Very slowly and steadily. Also, I adore the idea of your cat being your Denver. What's your cat's name??? What do they look like?? Tell me everything, you can't just leave it at my cat, you simply must allow me to meet them. Also, you know why guide cats aren't a thing? Because cats are the worst. I love cats, but you can't just teach them to do useful things. They'll do them if they want to. As I type this, my cat is trying to catch flies at my feet. Her name is Muusa.

I studied accounting for my undergrad!! So I can join you in [[[preventing]]] tax fraud and [[[recognising]]] tampering with financial statements. We can make a totally legitimate business out of it. No but truly, I'm certain we were taught some of those things with the expectation that our future employers would expect it of us. Capitalism is so fun :)))))) And you shouldn't be surprised, academia is but a stepping stone to crime, honestly. Any dark academia book will tell you this. You start out learning Latin and wearing turtlenecks, you end up with murder. That's just how academia works. And you seem to have already chosen your weapon... you're well on your way. :) Palermo the Pirate sounds great!!! I support your mutiny. I don't think I said, but this is my favourite word of the English language. Mutiny. Mutiny????? It doesn't sound very serious. It sounds cute, actually. I love it.

I'm so happy to hear you got your covid vaccine!!!! I had mine a month ago or so - I typed you a reply to the subway Gandía thing on the train ride back, actually. I was really stressed about getting it on my right arm, because I'm left-handed, and last time I got a vaccination (like a decade ago) they insisted on giving it on my left arm and I was sad :( But this time!! I got it on my chosen arm and was very pleased. So anyway, that was a segue. I'm glad you got your covid shot and were side effect -free!!!

My week has been good, thank you!! I went to my uni city for my niece's birthday on Monday, and as said I'm going back on Friday (tomorrow). So this time in between has felt like exactly that, time in between. I started reading Call Me By Your Name. I had my Korean class last night. Now I'm hanging out with my cat (she has stopped chasing flies and climbed to my lap) and talking to you. My holidays started already in May! And uni resumes in the beginning of September, but I'm a tutor for new students so I need to show up three weeks earlier for the orientation weeks. Yes, we do three weeks of orientation (read: three weeks of drinking). It's a bit insane.

Now I need to ask you again how your week has been, since I'm so slow. How has your week been?? Are you free from your exams?? When does your uni resume?

Stroopwafels are so good ahhh I'll have to buy them when and or if I see them. Possibly when I'm in central Europe but haha I can hope to be lucky and see them at a store with imported stuff, you know. My favourite cookies??? Omg maybe these ones - they have this truffle filling, and they're fun to eat (this is important in cookies, you see):

And of course they're Fazer. Because Finnish people have only one setting, apparently. Or maybe that's just me. But all cookies are great, honestly. I like making American cookies, that's always a fun pastime (and you get to have cookie dough, that's like half the fun). I've actually not made them for a lifetime??? Maybe I should, soon. I'll keep you updated. Also, brookies. I love making brookies, they're great.

I really really appreciate being given prompts, I hope you know that!! Thank you!! Consider me pocketing this prompt and maybe eventually some day theoretically getting back to you about it!! You're right - it has Berlermo energy. Insofar as either of them actually have other friends. :)

Thank you for this kind message, dear gay bike anon <3 I'd apologise for my slowness in replying but I think I'd rather you just assume that I'll get back to you, and thank you for your patience <3 Your kind and funny and chaotic asks always brighten my day. I hope you'll have a great rest of the week and just... all the nice and fun and good things and great vibes in life. All the best, dear gay bike anon <3 Take care!! And greetings from Muusa as well - she just yawned and I presume that means "greetings".

[dicecast]

The Core Realms of the Outer Planes

-Introduction of the Planes, as written by Sigil Scholar “First Dawn” as punishment for a great crime she committed against nature itself.  She can be found in Sigil University giving extremely grumpy lectures about the multiverse until her community service is entirely over.  

Part 1: The Core Planes

The most famous Planes are of course, the Outer Planes, so much so that they are quite frankly, over done, and I find this assignment to be entirely beneath my time and dignity to have to explain.  The popularity of these monuments to limited imagination isn’t surprising, after all each of them represent a facade of a simplistic, reductive, and all together uninspired morality that shackles this world to the corpse of absolutes.  Each of them is dramatic and superficially excited, and for the average prime I imagine it must be quite exciting to discover that not only is Hell real, but that it is build upon metaphorical representations of Lawful Sins. But for those of us wordly enough not only see the larger framework but also to challenge base assumption, the unimpatnative nature of these 9 planes isn’t just uninteresting, it is actively detrimental to true planar study. These 9 planes are so overly studied so that all other fields of Planar examination are left woefully understaffed, with more and more time and effort being dedicated to 9 realms which frankly weren’t very interesting to begin with.  This is similar to how the four “Classical” Elements (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water) have become popular that there are more scholars dedicated to the Plane of Water than their are to all of the other 17 elemental planes combined.  This planar brain drain is not just frustrating and tedious, it’s also dangerous as the denizens of say, the Middle Planes are actually just as threatening as Demons but lack the symbolic residence to have people make the proper preparations.  There are more paladin demon hunting orders than I can caught, but the designs of the PLane of Dreams can evidently walk freely, as their machinations are not laced in the mask of objective morality.  Even within the Outer Planes, the vast majority of scholarship goes to the Lower Planes, the realms of Evil, likely because of how ultimately simplistic they are.  Discarding cultists, nobody likes demons, and so there are book upon tedious book written about their evil, their depravity, and their lack of complexity, all of which boil down to “Demons are bad, we should kill them.”  The Upper Planes, far more challenging in their conceptions, have little in the way of scholar, because defining what is evil is easy, defining what is good is challenging.  Seriously can I write about anything other than this, I mean god, this is child’s play stuff?  

Ok Fine

   There are 9 “Core” Planes, which embody, as you might imagine, personify one of the Night Alignments.  I might as well mention now, the Outer Planes have a creepy obsessive fetish with symmetry, which will get tiring very very quickly I assure you.  These nine planes can be subdivided into the “Upper” “Lower” and “Central”  Planes, personifying Good, Evil, and Neutrality respectively, and it’s all very nice and neat and infantile.  Let’s do the Lower Planes First, which as the personification of evil, are utterly overdone in terms of the popular imagination.  There is nothing more tedious than the many many texts on the Lower PLanes, so I will try to sum them up as quickly as possible. One thing first, these planes are the largest infinite planes in the multiverse ,because evil is the most powerful force in the multiverse, luckily they are always fighting each other in The Blood War so we don’t have to deal with it, and I’m sure you know this already.  

   The most overrated of them all are The Nine Hells of Baator, Home of the Devils, Beings of Law and Evil, and every layer of it has been so particularly scrutinized that I suspect many of the scholars (such as those who wrote the Gates of Hell manuals) are actually in the pay of the Nine.  Hell is a land of rigid unyielding law, but I want it duly noted it is not in fact, fascist.  It isn’t absolute, mindless dehumanizing law, instead it is the most evil aspect law can possibly have, namely Feudalism.  The Law of Baator is strict, unyielding, and inhuman, but above all it is unfair and arbitrary.  The laws are contradictory, inconsistent, and utterly self destructive but they are literal law, even if they make no sense.  This is law to such a demented degree that they don’t make any sense, a hypocritical system which is absolute in its incompetence and inhumanity and yet stills frustrate continues to exist.  The Hells are not realms of absolute obedience and conformity to an absolute law, they are an incomprehensible set of rules and obligations that pretends to be a realm of absolute obedience and conformity, which is even worse.  The Hells are ruled by the “Lords of the Nine”, 9 freakishly powerful Devils who serve as Feudal Lords, lead by the “Lord of the Nine” the enigmatic and entirely overplayed Asmodeus, who if you read his news briefs, is the most clever, intelligent, funny and sexy entity in the world, but everybody else sees him as a prat.  

        The opposition to the Nine Hells is the realm of Chaos and Evil, The 666 Infinite Layers of the Abyss, is a realm of absolute paradox, staying with the fact that it supposedly has infinite layers but in fact has 666 (scholars have counted 667).  Populated by the Demons, this realm is crawling with every horrific evil imaginable and is the largest plane in existence, for every one Devil, there are at least a million demon, likely more.  A single Lawful Evil Mortal soul can create 9 devils, while a single Chaotic Evil soul can create a huge amounts of demons.  This is fundamentally and explicitly unfair...and that’s the point.  The Abyss is a realm where rules don’t work, in fact any attempt to even conceive of rules are folly, and trying to put it into a box is futile in itself.  All generalizations are proven wrong and all trends fail because the Abyss actively rejects it, and the plane itself almost seems to delight in thumbing its nose at conventional understanding, occasionally producing good demons just to confuse everybody else.  As a rule demons are sadistic, cruel, and anarchistic but of course...that’s a rule.  The Abyss is forever in a war against themselves, each layer has a Demon Lord who wishes to claim the title of “Demon Prince” but only three really have a shot and they have fought for millenia, Grazz’t Lord of Lust and the Triple Realms, Orcus the master of Undeath and Divnity, and of course Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons.  However combat is tedious and so is the Abyss, so let’s move one.

   The least appreciate Lower Plane is Abaddon, the realm of the Daemons, who are in many ways the more moderate evils and thus less focus is paid to them, which I think is largely unfair, because that makes them the most human.  Daemons are oriented around 4 principles of evil, Hypocrisy, Bigotry, Vindictiveness, and Ignorance, and individual Daemons will drift between these as if they were wearing hats. It is very hard to sum up Daemons because they are evil in a very relatable way, they are most famous for their vast corporations of soulless bureaucracy, but Daemons also can have a great deal of personality individually, though almost always in as needlessly dickish a way that they can.  Daemons are all hypocrites who lack any core or foundation other than circumstances, and so what type of viciousness they represent varies from moment to moment, and unlike their extreme counterparts, it’s never ideological.  Daemons are at their core nihilists, and are evil without justification, logic, intention, or even knowledge, they are the random everyday evil of your average man.  Which is why I find them superfluous and am going to move one.  

Editor's Note: I have to also mention they are ruled by The Four Horsemen. There, moving on.  

Moving on to the perpetually overlooked “Central Planes”, these are the realms of neutrality and really don’t have the scholarship they deserve.  They are not in constant war, while Law and Chaos disagree, each mostly acknowledges the necessity of the other, but instead try to find a balance, which is of course, extremely difficult.  

    First are The Outlands, the great patchwork that connects the Outer Plane, and at the center of this infinite plane is the Spire, on top which lies Sigil.  Every square mile of the Outlands is different, almost a patchwork of aspects of other planes, and you could walk through a forest into a desert into a great mechanical wasteland in the span of three minutes.  This plane has the largest mortal population, and is responsible for many of the fundamental rules of reality, and keeping the Balance of the Planes intated.  Ruling over this are The Aeons, mysterious cosmic entities who keep the illusion of the world intact, or possible weave a new one, enematic and unknown.  Their ruler the Monad has as far as I can tell, never been seen and likely doesn’t exist.   

   Next to the Outlands is The Maelstrom, supposedly the origin of life, and an ever shifting realm in its own right, but this is a realm of creativity, language, and the senses, things that fundamentally reject any limitations placed upon them.  The realm is one of potential good and bad, independence and free will, and the native Proteans, strange snake like creatures who seem to wish to push against all restrictions, and offer up radical visions of what could yet be.

      Next one is Mechanus, the realm of Gears, which maintains the universe itself.  This gigantic endless system of  gears and systems is the realm of math, shapes, physics, and systems, consistency and understanding. It has little interest in societal rules, which it finds all together too inconsistent and self serving, but instead cosmic rules, like the notion that 1+1=2 unless you can prove otherwise mathematically.  The natives are known as Modrons, and each resemble different forms of law, most look like shapes (Cubes, Pyramids, squares) but other are equations, and the greatest resemble strangely enough different forms of dice.  

Next are the Upper Planes, where the forces of good dwell, and are some of the smallest realms in the world, for here dwell the forces of absolute good.  And as much as the edgelords out there like to claim otherwise, they aren’t well intended extremists, they cannot be anything other than absolutely good, they are defined by their very good nature on a fundamental level incomprehensible to a mortal.  These planes are on the verge of destruction, barely holding their own against the vast hordes of evil, but despite this, they stayed strong and part of that is through their unity, these planes have difference but they work together and help each other, their differences make them stronger and allow them to prevail over the forces of evil.  Also i want to make this clear, they are not ruled by Gods, Gods are entirely different things, these are secular realms.  Just assholes.  

The most famous are the Seven Heavens, where Law and Good come together as one, ruled by the Archons.  Built around a Celestial Mountain, the seven layers are all built around the theme of betterment of the self, souls come here and improve steadily, ascending the layers.  The natives here believe strongly in goodness as the result of governance, and hope to build institutions, orders, and structures to allow good to flourish.  Militarily, they are armies, which is why they get the most attention, the Archons go forth in hoards to try to stymie the forces of evil where they can, and when they do show up, it is indeed magnificent.  

Next is the Realm is the Blessed Fields of Elysium, ruled by the kind Aasimons, creatures of love, relationships, and community.  This realm is idealism, understanding, and goodness as the result of personal happiness.  The souls here try to find joy in themselves and those around them, for those who are happy will turn away from cruelty.  The Aasimons are the least known of the Good Exemplars, for they focus not on dramatic heroism whenever possible, but instead on the smaller acts to try to make good have a chance.  Childcare, helping broken homes, providing medical aid or psychological care, first responders to disasters, grief counselors, or simply a mysterious women in a bar who is willing to lend a sympathetic ear, Aasimons go often in secret the Material Plane to help keep the spark of hope alive in what little way they can.  To them, depression is where evil emerges, and joy is what allows the goodness within you to come forth.  

The Transcendent Glades of Arborea is where Chaos and Goodness come together, with the Azatas serving as its manifestation.  Aborea is a vast wilderland except more wonderful and magical than any that exists, colors, sensations, and pleasures exist as no mortal co comprehend them, and seriously they throw the best fucking parties you have no idea.  This is a realm where man’s base nature is good, and without limitations and restrictions placed upon it, they can come forth and enjoy the morality that lies within us, and Azatas hope to tear down the institutions and systems to force mortals to choose selfishness rather than compassion.  Azatas, like Archons, go forth and fight evil ,but they do so as individuals or small bands, of scouts and infiltrators.  Many times a force of evil has suddenly fallen apart due to the secret machinations of the Azatas, and more than a few times villians have found they prefer getting really high in Arborea than taking over the world.  

Once these 9 realms were balanced equally but ever since the actions of mortals have determined their power, evil has been winning, and so much so that Good as a force is no longer a factor.  If the legends are to be believed, this new circumstances was created by the Upper Planes themselves as the price to give mortals true choice of their actions, thus condemning themselves to their own destructions.  The Upper Planes by all right should have been wiped out long ago, destroyed by the forces of evil, and yet they prevail, because in a world seemingly resigned to darkness, there is just enough kindness that the light stubbornly refuses to go out.  

There you go, 9 overdone, over analyzed, over handled bullshit system which isn’t worth any respect, and I think that the whole thing is a colossal waste of time.  

[msclaritea]

~Napoleon, Nietzsche & TFP~

A Study In Holmesian Iconoclasm: Masks & Images P.2

This is the final part of a series that looked into the canon story The Six Napoleons, resulting in mary-resurrects-lucretia & sherlock-on-the-ocean-when-neitzsche-wept. In the story, someone is running around, smashing Napoleon busts. Strange enough, but even more so when you find out that this has all happened before. Arthur Conan Doyle was masterful, it seems, at embedding real-life people and true tales of History in the Holmes stories. Iconoclasm is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of usually religious icons and other images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons…In Political and revolutionary iconoclasm, revolutions, and changes of regime, whether through uprising of the local population, foreign invasion, or a combination of both, are often accompanied by the public destruction of statues and monuments identified with the previous regime.

During the French Revolution, the statue of Napoleon on the column at Place Vendôme, Paris was the target of iconoclasm several times: destroyed after the Bourbon Restoration, and during the Paris Commune.

Napoleon loomed large as a political figure in the 19th century. The artists of subsequent periods were a mix of elevating his image…or smashing it. Napoleonic Iconoclasm is an actual known trope, as he evolved into a mythical figure during the Romantic Period.

“Such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks them is influenced by any general hatred of Napoleon. Considering how many hundreds of statues of the great Emperor must exist in London, it is too much to suppose such a coincidence as that a promiscuous iconoclast should chance to begin upon three specimens of the same bust.“  

The Adventure of The Six Napoleons touches on true political history, and the image of Napoleon intertwines with the enduring quality of Holmes. Moriarty was not called ‘The Napoleon of Crime’, for nothing. He was created as a nemesis to Holmes; his mirror image, for his eventual death. But whereas Moriarty died, Sherlock Holmes, like Napoleon, was ‘banished’, only to return, and be celebrated, while once again, taking control of ACD’s career. 

“Privately, he has become something of a villain, over time, tyrannically taking control of Doyle’s writing, and his endlessly-replicated heroic figure invited smashing.” This quote, from The Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmes:  "Shattering the pedestrian image of reason is Holmes’s great iconoclastic gift.“ "His reasoning is obsessive, impulsive, unpredictable, astonishing.” Holmes displays much enthusiasm and dramatic flair in The Six Thatchers, and “When the blow of the riding crop shatters the image so long sought, and reveals the pearl inside, all subsequent explanations seem a footnote. That blow is this story’s symbolic representation of reason’s power, and that single gesture sums up the transvaluation (re-evaluating of the values) of reason’s image that Sherlock Holmes has wrought.“ It’s part of my theory that BBC Sherlock is engaging Holmesian Iconoclasm; in a literary sense, breaking the man down to his most basic parts, taking him into dark places in an experiment of re-integration, using the teachings of Nietzsche in Season 4, as a way of aligning his moral code for the world we live in now. What ARE the sum of his parts?

The Question: Sherlock and Theseus’s Paradox by Dennis O’ Neil

"An Ancient Greek named Theseus…builds a ship. Over time the ship needs repairs and pieces of it have to be replaced and finally everything has been replaced. Not a single splinter of the original craft remains. Which brings us to what is known in some circles as Theseus’s Paradox. We ask: Is the ship our man Theseus ends with the same one that he built years earlier?”

In The Beginning: Birth & The Bi-Part Soul                       

Below is an excerpt from a thesis The Influence of Duality and Poe’s Notion of the Bi-Part Soul’ on the Genesis of Detective Fiction in the Nineteenth-Century by Stephanie Craighill. It is a lengthy, beautiful piece on the genesis of the creation of what we refer to as the Mirrors. Like Nietzsche, Poe and Doyle held strong belief in Duality/Dualism/Balance, and used that belief, NOT just when structuring characters, but the stories themselves.

"Observing him in these moods, I often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin; the creative and the resolvent." Poe‘s explicit reference to the double‘ directly intertwines with the theme of duality which resonates throughout the Gothic novel and the Romantic Movement in nineteenth century fiction; this paradigm is evident in texts such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe‘s Faust, Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein…This motif has been extensively examined by scholars and has been defined using numerous but vague classifications which include the fictional double‘, the evil twin‘, the alter ego‘, the antithetical self‘, the fragmentation of self into dual‘ and the twin soul‘. Dupin reproaches the Prefect of the Parisian police for being too cunning to be profound‘,

(which mirrors the game of chess where what is complex is mistaken for what is profound‘. The detective, also, rebukes the Prefect‘s wisdom‘ for being all head and no body‘ which relates to the detective‘s earlier supposition that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic‘ The Prefect‘s reasoning is too fanciful‘ to be successful.  It is through the combined use of both aspects of the Bi Part Soul‘, the head‘ and the body‘ and their associated faculties of the imagination and reason, that the detective was able to outwit his opponent.)

Duality is implicit in the structure and characterization of The Murders in the Rue Morgue‘.  It is visible in the tale‘s twin plot, the divided self which is the narrator and Dupin, the doubling of the criminals, victims and detective and most prominently the detective‘s creative and resolvent‘ Bi-Part Soul‘.  Dupin‘s dual psychology is associated with moral ambiguity and a blurring of boundaries which, consequently, has shaped a compelling psychosomatic template for a genre of multifaceted and complex detective protagonists. Holmes‘ inherent dualism is summarised by Iain Sinclair and Ed Glinert who state that:   Holmes is the classically divided man that the age required: alchemist and rigorous experimenter, furious walker and definitive slacker, athlete and dope fiend.  He could, as the mood took him, be Trappist or motor mouth … Holmes is forever lurching between incompatible polarities. From the beginning Holmes was a double figure, first in himself as the mixture of scientist and poet and even more significantly in the double figure of Sherlock Holmes Doctor Watson‘. Conan Doyle‘s implicit doubling of Poe‘s detective trilogy extends further; like Dupin who doubles the criminals in The Murders in the Rue Morgue‘ and the thief Minister D. in The Purloined Letter‘, Holmes represents a doppelgänger for his arch nemesis, the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty.  Moriarty only directly appears in two of the sixty Holmes accounts; in the short story The Final Problem‘ and the novella The Valley of Fear, though he is mentioned in a selection of the other narratives. In these two accounts we learn that Moriarty shares a number of common characteristics with Holmes. He is of similar physical appearance, has a phenomenal mathematical faculty‘, is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker‘ and a scientific criminal‘ Moriarty conforms to the same Bi-Part‘ mould as the detectives Holmes and Dupin; he is both reasoned and artistic. In The Final Problem‘ Holmes refers to Moriarty as the organiser of half that is evil. Moriarty could characterize an inversion of the values embodied by Holmes‘ and, as a result, the criminal represents the detective‘s doppelgänger who is equipped with an identical skill set but motivated by an evil purpose."

Context: Paralleling the Works of Nietzsche and Sherlock

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

Thus Spake Zarathustra: Sherlock On The Ocean:

"The above piece was written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley. Perhaps most famous is Henley’s closing statement: “I am the master of my fate:/I am the captain of my soul.” The poem is a declaration of the triumph of the human spirit - the refusal to bend to a universe Henley called “a place of wrath and tears. Holmes was an unprecedented sort of hero. Emerging from a culture enthralled by scientific progress, he was a superhero who relied almost entirely on his powers of deduction…Holmes was and is the sensationalized personification of Henley’s captain of the soul. His powers of deduction are presented as the triumph of reason, a triumph open to all of humanity if we’d only try a little harder. In this way, Sherlock Holmes is Nietzsche’s “superman” (a term coined in Thus Spake Zarathustra, written a few years before A Study in Scarlet). He is the moral, observational and logical evolution of mankind.

The Übermensch is Nietzsche’s concept of the ideal, and it can translate to overman, superman, above human, and probably some other things. The Übermensch doesn’t have incredible physical abilities. Instead, his power is mental and spiritual. The greatest power in the world, according to Nietzsche, is freedom, and I’m about to make a huge and tragic over-simplification of Nietzsche’s theory as to what that means. It is that complete human freedom is achieved by radically breaking with all forms of guilt, shame, and external authority. It combines many qualities of a completely naïve and fearless toddler with those of an experienced and wise elder."

Sherlock: Isn't that...one of those Law things?

"In the first or second episode a minor character calls him a sociopath, and the show really delves into the question of what actually makes Holmes and Moriarty (a really evil criminal who is as good at crime as Holmes is at solving crimes) different from each other aside from pure occupational interests. The sociopath comment was my first clue. Critics of Nietzsche’s philosophy have always contended that his Übermensch would really be a sociopath who just looks out for number one. What is useful in making the connection between Sherlock Holmes and Nietzsche’s work is that I think the Holmes series provides a picture into how the Übermensch doesn’t necessarily play out as a sociopath.“

"He can’t stand the boredom of the day to day, the absurd. And it is just like any good German existentialist to value present experience over the longevity of life. Furthermore, he is completely open about his habit with Dr. Watson, who is initially very concerned. His openness about it shows that Holmes gives no credibility to prescriptions other than his own as to what constitutes a good life.

His passion happens to be for forensic science, or the “science of deduction,” as Holmes calls it. The key, though, is that he throws everything he has got into what he truly cares about, leaving no room for time wasters like social obligations, civic engagement, parties, etc. Dr. Watson even finds that Holmes isn’t aware that the Earth revolves around the sun, since it has no use for his forensic studies.”

“There is an old illusion—it is called good and evil. Around soothsayers and astrologers hath hitherto revolved the orbit of this illusion.

Once did one believe in soothsayers and astrologers; and therefore did one believe, "Everything is fate: thou shalt, for thou must!”

Then again did one distrust all soothsayers and astrologers; and therefore did one believe, “Everything is freedom: thou canst, for thou willest!”

O my brethren, concerning the stars and the future there hath hitherto been only illusion, and not knowledge; and therefore concerning good and evil there hath hitherto been only illusion and not knowledge!" Thus Spake Zarathustra

”On Nietzsche: While most of his contemporaries looked on the late nineteenth century with unbridled optimism, confident in the progress of science and the rise of the German state, Nietzsche saw his age facing a fundamental crisis in values. With the rise of science, the Christian worldview no longer held a prominent explanatory role in people’s lives, a view Nietzsche captures in the phrase “God is dead.” However, science does not introduce a new set of values to replace the Christian values it displaces. Nietzsche rightly foresaw that people need to identify some source of meaning and value in their lives, and if they could not find it in science, they would turn to aggressive nationalism and other such salves. The last thing Nietzsche would have wanted was a return to traditional Christianity, however. Instead, he sought to find a way out of nihilism through the creative and willful affirmation of life.“

The Gay Science: Nietzsche’s first consideration of the idea of the eternal recurrence

“What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ […] Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”

This was one of the themes of Shakespeare’s No Fear Sonnets 1-60, some of which have been found embedded and acted out in the show. 59 is heavy with this theme and found in The Six Thatchers. “Not only does Nietzsche posit that the universe is recurring over infinite time and space, but that the different versions of events that have occurred in the past may at one point or another take place again, hence "all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet…” And with each version of events is hoping that some knowledge or awareness is gained to better the individual, hence “And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like me and a woman will be born, just like Mary—only that it is hoped to be that the head of this man may contain a little less foolishness…”

The Antichrist, originally published in 1895

MARY: Hm. Now you’d think we’d have noticed, when she was born. JOHN: Hm? Noticed what? MARY: The little 666 on her forehead. JOHN: Hmhmhm, that’s The Omen. MARY: (lifts her head to look at him with a frown, stays like that though John’s entire answer) So? JOHN: Well, you said it was like The Exorcist. They’re two different things. You can’t be the Devil and the Antichrist.

“Nietzsche writes scathingly about Christianity, arguing that it is fundamentally opposed to life. In Christian morality, Nietzsche sees an attempt to deny all those characteristics that he associates with healthy life. The concept of sin makes us ashamed of our instincts and our sexuality, the concept of faith discourages our curiosity and natural skepticism, and the concept of pity encourages us to value and cherish weakness. Furthermore, Christian morality is based on the promise of an afterlife, leading Christians to devalue this life in favor of the beyond. Nietzsche argues that Christianity springs from resentment for life and those who enjoy it, and it seeks to overthrow health and strength with its life-denying ethic. As such, Nietzsche considers Christianity to be the hated enemy...Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious."

Sherlock: This hospital is full of people dying, doctor, why don’t you go and cry by their bedsides, see what good it does.

Nietzsche claimed that the Christian religion and its morality are based on imaginary fictions. Concept of morality is falsified. Morality is no longer an expression of life and growth. Instead, morality opposes life by presenting well–being as a dangerous temptation. Priestly agitators “… interpret all good fortune as a reward, all misfortune as punishment for disobedience of God, for 'sin,’…The sacred book formulates the will of God and specifies what is to be given to the priests. Priests become parasites.”…All things of life are so ordered that the priest is everywhere indispensable; at all the natural events of life, at birth, marriage, sickness, death. Not to speak of 'sacrifice’ (meal–times)…Natural values become utterly valueless. The priest sanctifies and bestows all value. Disobedience of God (the priest) is 'sin.’ Subjection to God (the priest) is redemption. Priests use 'sin’ to gain and hold power. 

Sherlock: …And contrast is, after all, God’s own plan to enhance the beauty of his creation. Or it would be if God were not a ludicrous fantasy designed to provide a career opportunity for the family idiot.

*Interesting footnote about the first part of this statement. Goethe, from whom Nietzche gets the word Ubermensch, apparently actually invented the Color Wheel. THIS video shows how he used light, shadow and a color to enhance the beauty of another.

“The Truth’s Boring!”

“Nietzsche is critical of the very idea of objective truth. That we should think there is only one right way of considering a matter is only evidence that we have become inflexible in our thinking. Such intellectual inflexibility is a symptom of saying “no” to life, a condition that Nietzsche abhors. A healthy mind is flexible and recognizes that there are many different ways of considering a matter. There is no single truth but rather many.”

“Because You’re an Idiot”

"Nietzsche thought that the word idiot best described Jesus. According to Walter Kaufmann, he might have been referring to the naïve protagonist of  Dostoyevsky’s book The Idiot. “The fable of Christ as miracle–worker and redeemer is not the origin of Christianity..Jesus did not want to redeem anyone. He wanted to show how to live. His legacy was his bearing and behavior. He did not resist evildoers. He loved evildoers. Nietzsche claimed that the Christian faith as practised was not a proper representation of Jesus’ teachings, as it forced people merely to believe in the way of Jesus but not to act as Jesus did, in particular his example of refusing to judge people, something that Christians had constantly done the opposite of."

Human, All Too Human: On Becoming

JOHN: Don’t pretend you’re not enjoying this. SHERLOCK (not looking round): Hmm? JOHN: Being back. Being a hero again. SHERLOCK: Oh, don’t be stupid. JOHN: You’d have to be an idiot not to see it. You love it. SHERLOCK (turning to face him): Love what? JOHN: Being Sherlock Holmes. SHERLOCK: I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.

"Nietzsche wrote that Heraclitus "will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction”. Nietzsche developed the vision of a chaotic world in perpetual change and becoming. The state of becoming does not produce fixed entities, such as being, subject, object, substance, thing. Ephesus, who in the sixth century BC, said that nothing in this world is constant except change and becoming." Sherlock, at this point, is still in a state of becoming.

 "Reptile!"  

"But wherever ye would ascend with me, O my brethren, take care lest a parasite ascend with you!                                                                                    A parasite: that is a reptile, a creeping, cringing reptile, that trieth to fatten on your infirm and sore places.                                                                      And this is its art: it divineth where ascending souls are weary, in your trouble and dejection, in your sensitive modesty, doth it build its loathsome nest.”

“Enemy” shall ye say but not “villain,” “invalid” shall ye say but not “wretch,” “fool” shall ye say but not “sinner.”

And thou, red judge, if thou would say audibly all thou hast done in thought, then would every one cry: “Away with the nastiness and the virulent reptile!” Thus Spake Zarathustra

 Why  All The Pain? The Birth of Tragedy

“Artistic creation depends on a tension between two opposing forces, which Nietzsche terms the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian.”

"Apollo was the god of light, reason, harmony, balance and prophesy, while Dionysus was the god of wine, revelry, ecstatic emotion and tragedy.

Nietzsche uses this duality for discussing the artistic process which relate to either Apollo or Dionysus.   Apollo and Dionysus symbols of this duality which he further distinguishes with the terms of “dreams” and “drunkenness.”  For Nietzsche, dreams represent the realm of beautiful forms and symbols, an orderly place of light and reason. Drunkenness, on the other hand, is that state of wild passions where the boundaries between "self" and "other" dissolve.  (This may strike as odd, but Nietzsche seems to make the assumption that, when dreaming, one is aware of the fact that one is dreaming and so still able to separate appearance from reality.  I believe that he would claim those who are entirely caught up in their dreams are experiencing Dionysian ecstasy, not Apollonian beauty.)"

                                        Meet Nihilism

”The nihilist believes in nothing, has no loyalties and has no purpose in life. Some are left with only an impulse to destroy.“

EURUS: Am I being punished? MAN (offscreen, faintly): You’ve been bad. EURUS (almost sing-song): There’s no such thing as ‘bad.’ MAN (offscreen): What about good? EURUS: Good and bad are fairytales. We have evolved to attach an emotional significance to what is nothing more than the survival strategy of the pack animal. We are conditioned to invest divinity in utility. Good isn’t really good, evil isn’t really wrong, and bottoms aren’t really pretty. You are a prisoner of your own meat. MAN (offscreen): Why aren’t you? EURUS (raising her head and looking directly into the camera as she speaks the words slowly and clearly): I’m too clever.

"Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism, is the meta-ethical view that morality does not exist as something inherent to objective reality; therefore no action is necessarily preferable to any other. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is not inherently right or wrong. Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value."

Eurus is most definitely a Sherlock mirror; a Bi-Part Soul. She doesn’t even know 'if something’s beautiful or not; only right’. Eurus is pure Nihilism. A Brain without a heart; an actual calculating machine, attempting to show that making a supposed 'morally-right decision can actually create the opposite result, so that moral codes don’t matter. She used tests, like sherlocks-paradox, tests he has been put through before. As we witness, Sherlock succeeds.

This is still the same journey many have pointed out, just using the Nietzschean Method to do so. Growing from a great man…a Superman into a good one; flawed and very much human, with a Moral Code to match.

"Friedrich Nietzsche believed that the corrosive effects of nihilism would end up destroying all moral constructs, religions, and metaphysical convictions...that nihilism would be the most corrosive force in history.”

Fun Note: On Mustaches & Military Kinks

“Nietzsche lived with the mustache most of his adult life, and it represented for him the military life. He served briefly in the military, and always held certain admiration for military discipline. In him we get a sense that the military attitude is very important towards living a proper, fulfilling life. If you ask most people what does Nietzsche look like, what they will immediately say is: ‘oh that’s the guy with the huge mustache’. And if you ask: ‘well, what about the eyes? the nose? what about the chin? what about the hair?’ They will probably draw a blank. And Nietzsche himself points out that when you see someone with a big handsome mustache, what they see is: the mustache. It is a mask, it allowed Nietzsche in effect to hide.”

To conclude, through the eyes of Nietzsche, the show is smashing the previous images of Sherlock Holmes, using the Philosopher’s works, in addition to Freud and Josef Breuer, to take him through a journey of self-discovery, and yes, love. Given the strong hints to a troubled childhood and suppression of feelings, the philosophies of these men, together, are employed, just as presented in When Nietzsche Wept. This meta cannot even begin to cover the full scope of Nietzshe’s works or his strong influence on the blueprint of Sherlock Holmes. His presence is found throughout canon; sometimes, in the form of other characters. I will say that Nietzche’s ideas are many, profound and important. Considering his influence on Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sherlock Holmes, who has in turn, been so important to 21st century, in many fields, Friedrich Nietzsche should always be held in high regard. Not bad for a guy who in the good old days would have been labelled a Heretic, and burned at the stake. So maybe he’s right; we can be better.

“I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous — a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite. Ecco Homo

(Don’t you just love some of his book titles?)

Read also the-reptile-in-221b &  sherlock-denying-the-devil

 @brilliantorinsane @simpleanddestructivechemistry @shylockgnomes @possiblyimbiassed @raggedyblue @rinkagaminesstuff @artfulkindoforder @radogost  @asherlockstudy  @fellshish @multivariate-madness @madzither @yorkiepug @loveismyrevolution @consultingidiots @tjlcisthenewsexy

Full text of Thus Spake Zarathustra

 X X X X X X X X X X X

[blackmilshake]

REQUEST: MISUNDERSTANDINGS PART TWO || H.S.

Part one: http://blackmilkshake.tumblr.com/post/161574395887/misunderstandings-harry-styles

Sum: You had meet with an old male friend that was in town and let Harry believe he was a female friend. You being with a male friend made it to the news and Harry saw it, flew to where you were and broke things with you in a wave of rage “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. We’re through. Don’t look for me, don’t call, don’t text. Cause for me you no longer exist.” 

His words killed a part of you so obviously you disappeared out of the map with the help of your best friend and he could not find you to fix things. Months later he sees you in a bar, drunk and catches how a guy almost takes you by force, which leads to him taking your drunk ass to his house. 

He takes care of you, makes you shower and then the two of you sleep in the same bed, his arms around you, afraid you will slip from his fingers again.

When you woke up in the morning, next to the only man that had the power to have you at complete bliss and misery, you felt somehow confused. Your head was telling you to go away but your heart wanted to stay, fight for him.

But so many people had told you that maybe being apart from Harry was something good. He was famous, known by pretty much all the world, always busy, almost never there when it came to special occasions, always leaving you behind with a bittersweet taste on your mouth.  Without him you no longer had to be afraid of stalkers, paps, gossip articles, hate, the pressure to be perfect or good enough to be with him. The hate you had received had stopped weeks ago, you were forgotten and that was a relieve.

Of course, the pain was still there, his face everywhere as a constant reminder of what once you could call yours, the memories of what you could say were the happiest moments of your life. Your first kiss under the moon, your first Christmas together, both of your birthdays, those trips with awesome landscapes, the fun games you would play to hide from the media. His smile, his hair, the way he embraced you every time he saw you and the sweet kiss that came afterwards. How content and secure you felt when he was around and his self-confidence boosting speeches.

And now you had to choose which was better for you, and the headache in the background was not helping.

You slowly stood up, not wanting to wake Harry up. It was five am, your time to pee. Luckily Harry was hard to wake up, his snores slightly filling up the silence of the room.

You went to the bathroom and could not help but notice how your toiletries were still there, your shampoo, your perfume and even your toothbrush. You washed your hands and brushed your teeth.

When you entered again to the bedroom saw his sleep figure there, his face with a frown. And your heart started to beat faster. Maybe you needed a cup of tea.

It was seven o’clock when he woke up, expecting to have you in his arms, with a huge grin on his lips that soon disappeared when noticed that he was holding a pillow instead of you.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Tears started to drop when he found himself alone again, on the verge of another panic attack. His first thought being that you left him, until he heard something in the kitchen and the smell of pancakes filled his nostrils. He stood up fast- almost too fast, and ran to were the smell came from.

And there you were, standing in front of the stove, flipping one of the pancakes, with your headphones on, humming slowly, hair up in a ponytail. And everything was back to normal, mornings with pancakes, milk and fruits, sometimes if lucky an organic sandwich or a toast, you humming, singing or dancing along with what was in your playlist. A playlist he had learnt by heart on your absence.

He took a seat in the countertop, watching you, and you had felt this stare, but did not look back, everything that had happened last night still playing in your head, all as a blur. But he had saved you, he took you to his house, made you shower, take a pill and eat bread, did not have sex with you being drunk and holding you all night. All that definitely added up some points, and breakfast was a small way of showing gratitude for that, plus he did seem a little skinner and you did not like it a bit.

Once all the pancakes were done, you turned around to watch him, hand in chin and glossy eyes and you wondered what was going on that mind of his.

“Morning.” You whispered, not wanting to be too loud, as you turned off the music.

“Morning lo.” He almost said love, but did not want to risk it and she let it slip.

There was a long talk waiting for them, but for now you wanted him to eat.

“It is so delicious.”

“Thank you.”

But you were not eating the pancakes, you were just drinking coffee.

“Did you eat already?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, eating everything you had prepared, waiting for the moment to start apologizing.

But you just could not stop thinking about his words “Don’t look for me, don’t call, don’t text. Cause for me you no longer exist.”

You were trying to heal, to be the person you were before meeting him, the thing is you don´t remember how. It was like life began when he appeared.

But you will try harder.

When he was done he washed the dishes and went to the living room where you had been waiting for him, sat down at a proper distance from you. He was being careful.

“So…” He started, and your plan was to let him talk but you felt the urge to let it all out first.

“I never cheated on you, I know I should not have lied to you, ironically I did not wanted problems with you- you let out a dry fake laugh- but I never cheated.”

“I know…” you interrupted him.

“Please, let me talk. I do not think I deserved the way you treated me nor the things you said, I am not… I was not your mascot, or a daughter of yours and you should have listened, yes, it is my fault too and I am sorry for that, for ruining what we had, for breaking our bubble, for taking away the little trust you had in me. Maybe that’s how things were supposed to be. We did not trust each other enough to tell the truth or to listen beyond what people were saying, and a relationship without trust can never work.”

You wanted to keep talking but your voice broke.

“NO! I was blinded by the rage, the jealousy because you can do so much better, get a man that can be there when you need him, a shoulder to cry on all the time, I was taking my insecurities on you, I trust you, I do a hundred percent, I would put my life in your hands, I gave you my heart, you have it, I love you and HELL I REGRETTED WHAT I SAID THE MINUTE IT CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH BUT I WAS TOO MAD TO GO BACK AND APOLOGIZE.” He was crying between sobs, remembering how he took the first flight back to where he was, far from you, wanting to go back when he reached the airport, but his ego winning the battle. And he could never blame you, he was the one who broke up with you anyways.

Both of you were crying, you on the couch, he with his forehead against the wall, trying to breath.

“I always knew you wouldn´t do that, please, forgive me for my words, for hurting you, for hurting us, I just cannot keep trying to live like this, half complete, half alive, I need you. I need you today, tomorrow and every other day, your smile, your laugh, your tears when you see a sad movie, your singing and dancing around the house, you are the air I need to keep going on, you are the reason I wake up every day.”

You went from crying to fully sobbing. You wanted to forgive him but there was not enough air in your lungs for you to think rationally so you ran, ran out of his house as fast as you could with the little air you could take, leaving him behind before he could react.

You hid behind a big old tree, head against your knees, trying to breath and think. All came at once, the memories you built with him, the love that was still there like the cow in the room you had been trying to ignore, but also the hole in your heart he made, all the people who told you that you were better without him.

But then, they don’t know about your happy times, the way he makes you weak at your knees, how your tummy twist nicely when he is around, the way your heart skips a beat when he says he loves you as soon as he wakes up, without opening his eyes, a huge smile on his face, like if it was his first thought in the morning. How jealous he got whenever a guy was looking and you more than needed and his hands flew to your waist, lips on the edge of your lips. How proud he talked about you, your studies and just everything.

His smile when he saw you, the laugh he lets out at your lame jokes, his scent.

And you cried more, how could you run away from that after all he said.

You walked back to his house, looking at your bare foot, but he was not there. His car was gone and the door opened. You assumed he went looking for you so you dialled his number. And you noticed how the coldness was not only from the weather outside but from within.

“Kitten, is this you, petal?”

His breathing was irregular, sobs clear between his words and it broke you more.

“Yes Harry, please, come back”

And he was there in less than five minutes, hair all over his face, puffy red eyes and nose, tears still falling down because he thought you had left him, bare foot and without a coat, alone in the street at almost 8 in the morning.

He ran to your arms, holding you as if you were going to leave him again, holding you as if you were a buoy in the sea and he didn’t know how to swim, like a little lost kid.

“I am sorry, H.”

“Don’t. Please, don’t leave.” His tears running down your hair to your neck, your tears running down his shirt.

“I am not leaving, handsome.”

“Does this mean…?” He looked at your eyes, breaking slightly the embrace.

“We will have to work on his, hard to go back to how we were, but I am not going anywhere unless you want me to.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.” He lifted you up, and you laughed, you had missed this too. “Can I kiss you, my lady?”

You nodded, feeling the dead butterflies coming back to life as your lips touched.

How much you had missed that happiness.

------------------------- NOT MY GIFS. Sorry, I had totally forgotten I had it done and was/ am too lazy to re-read it so, I am so sorry for any mistakes.  

ATL

[jimmielancaster1796]

The Tajweed Course

A Muslim’s faith is incomplete without knowledge of the Holy Quran. We know that the Holy Quran was brought to light in Arabic and that the Arabic verses of the Holy Quran are Allah Almighty’s statements. As Arabic is not our mother language, we should try to learn Quran with appropriate Arabic grammar. So that, the words of Allah Almighty must be recited in the proper way to avoid any misinterpretation.

The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said:

"Truly, the one who has one of the finest voices among the people for reciting the Quran is the one you think fears Allah when you hear him recite."

For the proper pronunciation of the terminology of the Holy Quran, Tajweedscience is used. It is the art of reciting the Holy Quran. By mean, it implies "proficiency," and by definition, it focuses on giving each word of the Holy Quran its “due right and respect” when recited. There is a huge difference in the rank of people who recite the Holy Quran with Tajweed rules and those who don’t imply Tajweed during recitation.

Being a Muslim, when you learn Quran with Tajweed, you will be better at understanding and discovering the hidden message of the Holy Quran.However, getting any education is not difficult anymore as technology has influenced every field of our life. It has become a powerful tool to support and transform education in several ways.

Several internet platforms are readily available to assist you in learning Quran online.TarteeleQuran.co.uk is one of the dedicated portals to provide you with the utmost Arabic comprehension. We strive to deliver our services worldwide, including Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, London, and Nottingham.

 Importance of Tajweed

The Holy Quran is more than a book explaining the story of the creation of this universe and human beings. It is also more than the script of the laws that Muslims are to follow. The primary purpose of its revelation is the guidance of humanbeings and the preservation of the Arabic language that Allah Almighty chooses to deliver his final message to humanity via Muhammad (PBUH).

When you study the HolyQuran, it will improve your language skillsand help you understand the text's complexities. The Holy Quran was meant to be read aloud. To execute it correctly, you must be familiar with Tajweed. You will be able to communicate the text effectively when you learn how to read the Quran with proper Tajweed pronunciation.

It is considered an essential pillar of the Arabic language. The significance of learning Tajweed increases when you will come to this point as Allah Almighty states in the Holy Quran:

“ Recite the Holy Quran (aloud) in a (slow and melodious) Style”(73-4)

Tajweed can help you establish a more profound spirituality and greater connection with God by better understanding and respecting His words.To sum up, Tajweed is more than just mastering accents or dialects. If you don’t find a local tutor nearby and are determined to understand the Holy Quran with Tajweed rules, then you can learn Quran online with Tajweed.

TarteeleQuran.co.uk always fascinate the Quran learners to learnQuran online with them. Our teachers are committed to their work, and they fulfill their jobrequirements with a particular responsibility.They are always concerned with clarity of language, precise syllable timing, and a knowledge of how a single letter may alter the way a word is spoken.

How can you improve your Tajweed skills?

The Holy Quran is the discourse of Allah Almighty,a great message, mercy, and recommendation from Allah Almighty to all Human beings. It incorporatesproficiency, rules, and propositions about all facets of life and considerations to the Hereafter.

In the upper section, you have read about the importance of Tajweed in the reading of the Holy Quran. Knowing the Tajweed rules, which govern how to pronounce different letters in Arabic, improves memorizing, reading, and reciting the Holy Quran. Here are a few Tajweed pronunciation suggestions to keep in mind while learning Tajweed.

 ·        Pronounce each letterof the Verse correctly.

The initialrestriction of Tajweed is that every Arabic letter of the Holy Quran must be uttered correctly. It implies knowing the pronunciation of the letter and knowing which letters are vowels and what role they perform in pronunciation.

·        Don’t Rush

One of the major mistakes that people often make while reciting the Holy Quran is rusting through it without paying attention to the proper pronunciation and meaning of the words. In contrast, Tajweed demands you to read slowly with fullattention. It involves staring at each word to ensure complete understanding before going to the next.

·        Practice

The best way to improve your Tajweed skills is to practice. You can learn the words of the Holy Quran and understand their meaning and recitation guidelines, but until you practice pronouncing them out loud, your reading will be inaccurate. With consistent practice, pronunciation improves with time.

·        Contact a Tutor:

Out of many directions, one of the best recommendations to improve your Tajweed is by hiring a professional teacher. You can also learn Quran online with Tajweed from a professional from around the world. They'll guide you through the course of action and make sure you understand everything before moving on. It's critical to select a teacher you like and have the correct kind of learning environment, where you can ask questions and make mistakes without fear of being judged.

·        Speak Arabic:

When you speak more in Arabic, it will help you find an encouraging Quran teacher so that your reading skills also improve. It would be best if you made a daily habit of speaking Arabicand tried to engage yourself in the language as much as possible. These steps will help you improve your Arabic language skills and, ultimately, Tajweed.

[yukipri]

Main Home Floor Plans

(of the poly family in my YOI Future!Verse ABO AU)

So! Here they are the floor plans of the big poly family's main home.

NOTE: I know jackshit about architecture or real floor plan drawing, and this was meant to just be a fun imagination exercise/reference for myself for my comics, so just roll with it ^ ^;;

Headcanons beneath cut! Also full view to see the teeny ass text...

For an easier to view version of this post + my earlier draft of their home, please check out my Patreon!

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IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS AU: It’s a Yuri!!! on Ice AU, Yuuri-centric with end-game polyamory in an ABO setting, Yuuri gets married to four mates (Victor, Yurio, Phichit, Minami) and they have OC kids.

BASICS and timeline of this AU

INTRO to how ABO works in this AU

A SUPER DETAILED world-building headcanons post on ABO+ in this AU

OTHER POSTS (comics + illustrations) in the Future!Verse ABO section of my YOI Masterpost.

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Please keep ship bashing out of the comments/tags. Don’t like, just skip <3 Thank you.

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PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, EDIT, TRANSLATE, OR OTHERWISE USE MY ART. More detailed rules available on my Rules & FAQ Post.

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Headcanons below!! VVVVV

I say "Main Home" here because they do have multiple homes, at least one in each mate's home country (pretty hugeass ones in St. Petersburg and outskirts of Bangkok), but this is their "home base" so to speak.

It's located in Hasetsu, and without researching too much into Karatsu's actual layout in rl, I'm placing it somewhere within long but manageable jogging distance to both the Ice Castle and Yuuri's parents' inn. A lot of Japanese rural towns (including my own hometown) have slowly been losing their traditional single storey homes and ricefields and have been turning them into apartment complexes to maximize money yield. In this AU, I HC that Victor and Phichit bought one of these lots and turned it into a huge ass fancy mansion for their family. Again, in this AU those two are filthy rich (though Minami also comes from money), and given the very rural location of their home, the location should be comparatively affordable. Given their family's fame and the amount of frequent travel they do, I figure it's okay for them to want their main home away from big cities and in a place harder for fans/paparazzi to stalk them.

In general, their home is modern but homey, more cream and natural wood colors over pure white, with areas that are more traditional Japanese. Each personal area is customized to its inhabitant’s liking.

While I think most of the rooms are pretty self-explanatory/I haven't thought that much about them myself, here's a floor by floor breakdown of some of the important rooms and what they're used for.

F1 (G) - Ground Floor

Main Entryway - Is traditional Japanese style, very large area where people can take off shoes, big ass shoe cubies on both sides where both family and guests can store their shoes. Inside the home, in general no shoes except in the basement floors.

Living Area - Main area to entertain guests/chill. Tons of couches, super plush carpets to roll around in, huge ass glass doors with a great view of the back yard to watch kids through. Small movie theater screen can descend from the ceiling in front of said glass doors.

Kitchen - Pretty big but manageable domain, everyone considers it Phichit's domain whenever he's home but Yurio spends a lot of time in there too. Also has a small corner for kids to watch parents cook/help if it's a task that requires some extra table space.

Bar - Victor and Chris especially like chilling here, another great guest entertaining spot. Tons of alcohol beneath counter.

Dining Area - Has a huge round table that can fit all of their main family members and a few guests. Because it's so large and therefore impossible to reach around, it's Chinese dim sum table style, with a center that can rotate. It's fantastic because plenty of room for everyone, but it can also be pretty lonely when a lot of people are away, in which case the present family members may choose to dine in another area.

Chill Area/Music Area - Another place with lovely carpet and nice couches, also a grand piano bc every Rich House needs one of those right AHAHAH (of the kids, Arisa plays most).

Study Room/Library - Has lots of tables and computers and books in every language. A good place to chill, but also where Minami likes to tutor the kids. Sitting at the tables gives a great view of the back yard.

Back 2nd building (with kitchen/dining/living) - Second entirely unnecessary smaller building in the back, most important feature is the elevator, which goes through all the floors.

Back yard - Lots of pretty lawn and nice cobbled paths. Is completely enclosed by a stone wall high enough to discourage trespassers but low enough to not feel cut off from the rest of the world (and allow in neighborhood cats, but keep the dogs safely in when they're romping free). Yurio is half-assedly attempting a vegetable garden in the corner with varying levels of success. They like having barbecue parties in the summer, followed by mini fireworks <3 Victor and Chris like skinny dipping in the pool in the middle of winter, Yuuri and the others will watch from the balconies thanks. There's also an area in the back that has a retractable cover, which can look down into the giant communal bath in basement 1.

F2 - 2nd Floor

The "Parents' Floor," also has open areas that look down into the 1st floor and up into the 3rd floor, makes the ceiling feel super tall in those areas :'D

Nest - The biggest main feature of this floor. A huge room with an enormous round bed, it's heavily padded and shaped a bit like a very shallow and plush bowl filled with blankets and pillows. Any of the family can sleep there, and it's usually the favorite place to sleep. Can fit all the main family members including the kids when they're a bit older comfortably. Also has some nice lil tables and desks and a huge veranda overlooking the backyard if people just want to chill. Absolutely no sex allowed in this room because kids can come in at any time.

Other Communal Sleep Room - Also known as "The Icky Room" by the kids, aka the communal room for when the adults are feeling frisky >.>; If people are doing stuff in that room, it's okay for the other adults to assume it's an open invitation to join. Also has a very big bed that can comfortably fit most of the adults at once, and also a very large jacuzzi bath for cleanup...The kids have all had their own Experiences TM, but in general have learned to steer clear if they hear Noises.

Yuuri's Room - All bedrooms are the private domains of the individual, and everyone needs to knock and get permission to enter. Most of the time people prefer to sleep in the Nest, but it's important to have a private space too. Also holds personal belongings, personal closet, etc.

Yuuri doesn't have as many belongings as some of his mates (other than merch of Victor which he absolutely won't get rid of HAHA) and has a relatively small closet as someone who doesn't particularly care for fashion. That being said, he's the most likely to invite a husband or more to come join him, so his private bed is the biggest.

Phichit's Room - While he can't be at home as much of the others especially when he's younger, he needs access to all of his work when he happens to be home, so has a decently sized office attached to his room. Has a big walk in closet and shares a bathroom and veranda with Yuuri, reliving their good ol days as roommates. Also has 3 enormous glass tanks for his hamsters, which Yuuri and the kids take care of when he's away.

Victor's Room + Yurio's Room - These two honestly don't spend that much time in their own rooms except to access their huge ass wardrobes, but again having a private place to retreat to when needing space is important. They share a bathroom and veranda.

Minami's Room - While he assumed he was a guest, he intentionally asked for a room close to the nursery so he could sprint in to take care of the kids before they bothered their parents. He, like Yuuri, has comparatively little in personal belongings (except for Yuuri merch, which he also stubbornly refuses to let go of). Has his own private bathroom, which is nice because he frequently stains it with hair dye...

Chris's Room + Otabek's Room - While technically "guest rooms,” they stay so frequently and for so long that they more or less naturally became "their" rooms. They're across the wing from Victor and Yurio and mirror their rooms in most ways.

Nursery - Easily accessible to both Yuuri and Minami, though the kids weren't there often as they often sleep next to their parents in the Nest or their respective rooms. Also partially taken over by cats, who think the cribs make excellent cat beds...

F3 - 3rd Floor

The "Kids' Floor," pretty much has the same cut outs looking down into the first floor as the 2nd floor.

Big Chill Area - Directly above the Nest and is very open, with a veranda that overlooks the veranda of the Nest. Good place to chill and roll around in. Also connects to several other pretty big rooms for specialized activities for the kids.

The Twins' Rooms - Were offered separate rooms but they asked that the wall be torn down so they could share the space. They have a hugeass walk-in closet honestly bigger than any of their parents' because they haven't learned moderation. They also like having their beds pressed together into one larger bed. Their veranda overlooks Phichit + Yuuri's. Share a bathroom with Arisa and Yuuji.

Arisa + Yuuji's Rooms - Relatively moderate rooms, Yuuji has to go through Arisa’s room to access the bathroom but they don't mind.

Play Room + Study Room - More places for the kids to chill, though adults are in there sometimes too.

2nd Kitchen/Dining Room - Because sometimes the main kitchen is occupied and it's easier to go up a floor? Arisa also likes experimenting with baking here.

Corner Chill Area - 'Nuff said, why you rich people need so much space, gods.

Big Guest Rooms - Some nicer bigger guest rooms, including a fancy one with access to a jacuzzi bath. For Important Guests like Yakov and Lilia.

Window Glass Hall - Big hall with all glass walls that goes over the back yard. A refreshing place to practice dancing, but if anyone wants to do anything there they generally have to shoo off the occupying mass of sunbathing cats.

R - Rooftop

Rooftop Ice Rink - Because of course they freakin' have one. Generally only iced during the winter, and they can skate right up to the edge where they can look down on the back yard and also Hasetsu and probably the ocean. In the summer is a nice flat field for other things.

Track - "Go run some laps on the track," Victor can command and they don't even need to leave the house...

Living Area - Another nice place to chill.

Dining Area - How much do these people eat...

Misc Room - Why do rich people have so much space.

B1 - Basement 1

Aka, Exercise Floor

Ice Rink - The indoor one, available all year round because of course they have one. Not nearly as big as a full size rink, but large enough for some decent solo practice, is great for when weather sucks and they don't want to go out to the Ice Castle. Yuuri especially loves going to it at bizarre times of night when he can't sleep and wants to meditate on the ice.

Weights/Mat Room - 'Nuff said, gym at home keep those muscles ripped yo.

Cardio Room - All them runnin' machines. Also has access to a multi-stall bathroom.

Dance Studio - Pretty darn big, honestly bigger and nicer than Minako's ballet studio. So Minako teaches the kids here. Walls can change between mirror mode or multiple solid color modes, and door seams are near invisible. Also has drop down poles.

Sound Proof Practice Rooms - For all your deafening screaming and instrument shrieking needs...

Communal Bath - Because apparently being jogging distance to an actual free onsen wasn't enough. Big ass bathing area, sure most of the bathrooms come with baths but why bother when you have this masterpiece in the basement. Has a changing room and multi-stall bathroom for after various exercise, opens into a cleansing/shower area, and then nice big private communal bath. The main bath area has a section of the ceiling that can roll back so they can bathe beneath the open sky/let the snow fall on them which is honestly the best type of onsen experience. Even has a small waterfall that Victor can sit under in comfort however long he wants. On the other side, there's a small area with even hotter water and a sauna, along with a pretty lil rock garden.

*Note, while some people wear shoes on this floor because of the various exercise rooms, they all have pairs of shoes that they only use here. In other words, it's relatively clean, no outside dirt, and people generally also feel comfortable padding around barefoot or with slippers only.

Heat Room/Emergency Room - Where Yuuri goes when his heats are strong and he wants more privacy than the 2nd floor rooms. Is separate from the rest of the house and has multiple pheromone blocking doors that keeps his scent mostly inside. Has a big bed, a fridge, and a bathroom for his mates to care for him. They clean up really well after each heat, and because of how isolated the room is, how well equipped it is with sustenance and a bathroom, and how sturdy the walls are, it can double as an "emergency room" in case of threat. Built so it can survive a bombing, and the hall door can close seamless. Helps that only family members know this room even exists, as heat rooms aren't usually openly talked about ^ ^;

EDIT, added: Washing/Drying Machines Room - BECAUSE IT WAS DRIVING ME INSANE that I forgot to add one in the first time round because yes it's a small detail but NECESSARY. It's a big room that has a ton of machines so everyone can do their loads separately, with plenty of counter space for folding and racks for things that can be air dried indoors. It's Japan though so they like to dry their things outside when it's nice out. Located conveniently right next to the elevator.

B2 (P) - Parking/Garage

Ramp - Leads down from the ground floor, is very wide and can comfortably fit 2 large cars side by side.

Parking Lot - Can hold all the family cars (Victor's hot pink convertible, Yurio's custom tiger-print Jaguar convertible, Phichit's cutesy hamster-themed Volkswagen, Minami's painfully plain but honestly most useful family van, Yuuri's also very normal energy efficient car, and a handful of motorcycles courtesy of Otabek and Yurio's growing collection) plus that of guests.

Basement Recreation Room - Called that, but honestly mostly a garage/tinkering area. Generally considered to be Otabek's domain when he's around, he likes bringing in bikes and sometimes cars through the big ass doors they can drive through so he can fiddle with them. Nice couch area for people to watch.

Boiler Room - Bc every bigass house needs a bigass one right? *squints* IDK ARCHITECTURE MAN, just say it works 'kay...

~~

Aaaaand that’s it folks! Thanks for reading ^ ^ I may or may not draw how it looks externally bc I freakin’ HATE drawing buildings but eh, this should be a decent enough reference for now imagining where they live ^ ^

[justlistenuniverse]

Sterek Headcanon

So Stiles is the 24-year-old son of a successful company and a foundation owner

His mom died pretty early in his life but he still remembers her (and yes, he misses her)

He's expected to take over the company once he turns 30 but he always misses important meetings and seems to spend too much money and no-one knows what he buys

When he misses a foundation-event (which is very unusual because Stiles absolutely loves playing with kids and trying to get them to be happy for a little while), he's called into an emergency meeting as tabloids and internet blogs have picked up on his absence and are publishing articles about him being drug addicted

The most important people of the company, including his dad, demand for him to explain where he always spends his time and since his father picked up on his frantic excuses that are getting more obvious lies every day he's not amused my Stiles' stutters

But when his dad says that Stiles is the future of the company and should learn to take responsibility and maintain a positive image he snaps

He yells at them that it's his life and they can't tell him what to do and that he doesn't want the future they want him to have and runs

He takes a random flight of a random country and ends up somewhere in the Alps in Switzerland, booking into some hotel and spends the first day curled up in his room, phone off, TV showing some documentary about wolfs

The next day Stiles decides to go for a walk, managing to get lost when it starts snowing heavily

He's hopelessly running through the woods, clothes all wet from the snow, not seeing a thing and calling for help when he stumbles over a cabin

The door isn't locked, so he walks in and collapses on the floor

When he wakes up he's lying on a couch, staring at a huge, handsome man, who's scowling down at him

Stiles yelps and falls off the couch

"What the fuck, dude? What's your problem?"

"You are the one that broke into my house."

"I... the door was open."

"Doesn't give you permission."

And the guy won't stop glaring and frankly, it's getting on Stiles' nerves

"Alright, grumpy cat. No need to glare me to death. Just let me use your phone and I'll be out of your hair in a minute."

"I don't have a phone."

"Uhm, E-Mail?"

"No Internet-connection."

"Then would you consider driving me to the next town?"

"I don't have a car either."

"And hooow am I gonna get back to civilization?"

"There's nothing out here. The next town is several miles away. Walking would take a whole day."

"And how do you stay alive out here? Do you hunt down innocent rabbits or something? Steal eggs from birds? Look for berries? Get water from the lake that must be around here somewhere?"

The guy scoffs at Stiles. "I have someone who brings me food and other stuff once a month."

"And when is their next visit scheduled?"

Cabin-man (who kinda looks like Superman. If Superman would wear henleys and dark jeans and won't shave for some weeks. Stiles is a tiny bit intimidated) sighs like Stiles is the worst thing he ever encountered. Which, rude.

"In two weeks."

"Great, I'll stay here for the time being."

"No way. That's not happening."

"And where do you suggest me to stay instead? Think one of your many neighbors has a guestroom he doesn't need?"

The guy sighs again - honestly, doesn't he know how to use words? - and rolls his eyes

"Fine. Two weeks."

"Great. Do you have a second bed or will I take the couch?"

Stiles gets to take a shower - how is it that grumpy cat has a huge house (seriously, it's huge and beautiful, all woody and glass) and hot water but no phone or internet? - and caveman lends him clothes that aren't dripping with melting snow (and are only a little bit too wide because Stiles and he share the same high but the guy also has the build of Superman and not just the face and that's so unfair)

Caveman introduces himself as "Derek" and raises one impressive eyebrow when Stiles offers a "Stiles Stilinski"

They drink coffee and Derek shows Stiles a surprisingly comfortable guest room. He even gets two blankets because yes, it's damn cold even inside the house

The next day, Stiles wakes up to Derek chopping wood outside and they silently eat breakfast together

Stiles is pacing around, drumming beats on every surface when Derek snaps at him to please keep quiet or read a book

Stiles snaps back that he can't stop it because he hasn't had his Adderall (and nearly pulls out his hair when he realizes that he'll go into withdrawal in the next few days)

Derek snorts and is all "Nice, so I'm stuck with some Idiot who managed to get lost in the middle of a snowstorm and to top that off, said Idiots has ADHD?"

"Woha dude, you seriously need to lighten up."

"Don't call me dude."

"Alright, grumpy cat, you really don't have a phone or a laptop? Fax? Light symbols? An owl?"

"No. You have to play Harry Potter somewhere else."

"Ha, so you  know pop culture!"

"I choose to live like this. Doesn't mean that I always did."

Stiles spends the rest of the day asking Derek tons of questions - "Who's your favorite character? Do you know Star Wars? Can we please talk Sherlock?" - and only getting one-word answers

Most days go like this until Stiles starts cooking because he already read half of Derek's (impressive yet boring) library and needs to keep his hands busy

Derek mostly reads or work on texts and keeps to himself and it's bugging Stiles because there's nothing to do around here

"Seriously, can't you answer one of my questions with more than two words?"

"No."

"Why are you here anyway? I mean you clearly aren't from Switzerland."

"What gave me away."

"Mark the date! Derek said more than two words! And your ability to speak English with an accent that sounds a bit like mine."

"Derek. Deeerek."

"What."

"It's so quiet."

"Yes."

"It's too quiet."

"No."

"Derek!"

"Hey, grumpy cat?"

"Stiles."

"Don't you have anything to do for me? I'm really bored."

"... Do you play chess?"

Turns out that both of them are really good at chess (and that Derek hasn't played in ages because "it's a two-person game, Stiles.")

Derek starts to open up a bit more. At one point, he talks two hours about why Remus Lupin is his most-favorite character. And another two hours on why John Snow is boring.

Stiles tells him about his life (born in Beacon Hills, moved to New York after his mom's death). He also tells him that while he loves the foundation of his family, he hates the company and secretly studies at Columbia University which is where the money goes everyone thinks he's spending on drugs and why he misses some events

(Derek is actually impressed)

Derek quietly tells him that he used to be a middle-school teacher but won't tell why he moved out there

They actually get along well with Stiles finding himself falling for Derek because the guy may glare more than laugh but he's a huge marshmallow underneath

But then Stiles stumbles into Derek's room one morning to lend another shirt and Derek's not there so he goes to the closet and finds a small box under the shirts

It's filled with old articles cut from magazines, a picture of a huge family (Derek had to be around 13 on that photograph) and a small stuffed wolf

And when Stiles sees the picture it clicks

Because Derek is Derek Hale from Beacon Hills who's family died in a fire (Stiles only knows this because he stayed in contact with his kindergarten friend Scott who told him about that)

Derek comes into the room when Stiles is staring at the photo and loses it

He yells at Stiles for touching his stuff and why he can't just leave Derek alone

And Stiles accidentally lets the picture fall because Derek scared him

He runs out, quickly getting lost again in the wood and are those wolfs he hears?

He's running around for hours, not knowing where he is and slowly freezing because he didn't take a jacket with him

But right when he thinks that he'll die out there, Derek's there, pulling him into his arms with a breathless "Stiles." when he sees him

Back in the cabin Stiles gets covered with every blanket Derek can find

And while he drinks tea and a fire is crackling away in the fireplace, Derek tells him his story

His family, the Hales, were pretty famous in Beacon Hills. Thalia Hale was a well-known advocate, her brother Peter owned a wolf sanctuary and her husband Dave was an author

When Derek was 15, his mom managed to frame one Gerard Argent who had killed several people as a doctor in a hospital by poisoning them and watching them slowly die ("Like that guy in Sherlock?" "Yes, like that guy in Sherlock.")

Thalia got several threats against her life and that of her family but finished the case and Gerard Argent was charged with murder and had to pay a huge sum to the families of the victims and also faced a life imprisonment

The Argents were in the papers for months even though Gerard's kids didn't have anything to do with it

When Derek was 16 he met Kate, an older woman who was clearly interested in him and he dated her, kissed her and slept with her

She always asked about his family but he thought it normal since he got many questions about them anyway

But One night, when his whole family was gathered due to his dad's birthday, there suddenly was a fire. It spread fast and they couldn't make it outside because all the doors were looked

Laura, Derek, and Cora where the only survivors

Laura took them to New York were she finished her degree and managed to pick up Thalia's job while Derek decided to study to become a teacher once he finished High School

But some years later, when Derek was 25 ("Wait, how old are you now?" "I'm 32." "Holy shit."), they started to get threats

Cora went missing the next day

When Derek was 27, Cora's remains were found. Evidence led to one Kate Argent, Gerard Argent's daughter who wanted revenge for her dad.

Before the police could catch her and before Derek could tell Laura, Kate managed to crash her cars into Laura's, killing both of them on impact

Derek fleed to Switzerland, believing that it was his fault because he didn't see the danger Kate displayed or the person she really was

"Why Switzerland, though?"

"My mom loved snow and peace. This was our family getaway because here, no-one knew us."

"Oh, that's why this place is so huge?"

They talked some more about everything and anything and when they parted for the night, Stiles hugged Derek close

"You aren't at fault, Derek. Kate Argent is the villain here. I hope you know that."

And if Derek pulls Stiles a little bit closer and buries his face in his neck, no-one has to know but them

The next couple of days were filled with a new kind of warmth

Derek chopped wood while Stiles made breakfast, they played chess and somehow, Derek started to read Stiles some of his favorite passages from his favorite books (which aren't as boring as Stiles thought)

The day before Stiles is set to leave, they cook together and make s'mores over a candle. And they laugh a lot and Stiles doesn't know how he ended up so close to Derek but there's this gorgeous face of this gorgeous man and Stiles kisses him

It's slow and sweet and Stiles doesn't want to stop

They don't have sex but they cuddle and kiss the whole night on Derek's bed, falling asleep shortly before the sun starts to rise

Waking up in Derek's arms makes Stiles want to stay but when he tells Derek so, the man tells him to go because he can't stay with him forever

They fight because Stiles doesn't want to go and also doesn't think that Derek should tell him what to do because that is the thing that made him run from his own dad in the first place and it ends with Stiles leaving with the delivery guy

When he looks back through the window, he swears he can see Derek crying

When he reaches the hotel his dad is there

Turns out he got really really worried when he couldn't get a hold of Stiles after the fight that he let someone trace Stiles' credit card and followed him to Switzerland

Stiles never hugged his dad so hard in all of his life

Back in New York - and after he let Scott know that he was fine and alive - he calls a meeting himself, telling everyone who has something to say about the company that he doesn't want to take over the company and that he's studying at Columbia

They settle on Stiles taking over the foundation because he always loved it and him helping them to find someone suitable to take over the company once his dad had plans to retire

Stiles get's to go to Columbia without having to make up some lies and the press quickly picks up on it. There are still scandals about him but he has a pretty positive image now

A month later, Scott comes to visit him

And it takes the man all but two minutes to see that Stiles isn't happy at all

Stiles tells him the story of Derek and Scott smiles at him

"You are in love with him."

"What?! No! No way!"

"Stiles. Go get him."

And maybe Scott is right. Scratch that, Scott is definitely right and Stiles needs to mark this date on his calendar because Scott is rarely right about something

But he won't go to Switzerland because Derek wanted him to leave

Three days later, Stiles gets picked up by Derek once his classes have finished

The fucker just leans against a really beautiful Camaro, wearing that red thumb-hole jumper Stiles really loves and looks all hopeful when he spots Stiles

Funnily enough, Stiles first question isn't what Derek is doing here

"Where did you get that car?"

"I left it here when I run to Switzerland."

"And what made you come back?"

"I don't know."

"Well, we better make you find a good reason then."

And they kiss against the Camaro

"Wait, how did you know when I have classes?"

"I googled your company - yes Stiles, I know how to use the internet, don't look at me like that - and went to see your dad-"

"You went to see my dad? Holy crap, you love me."

"I... I do. I love you."

"Good. I love you too."

Bonus:

Derek decides to move in with Stiles. He ends up applying and getting accepted as a middle school teacher for English and history. Stiles is not surprised.

Stiles' dad loves Derek and vice versa. The two of them like to watch baseball together. The "Call me John, son." wasn't a surprise to anyone

The Company chooses one Lydia Martin as Stiles' "lifesaver", as he calls it. She's a young, beautiful, incredibly intelligent woman. They hit it off immediately, two clever people finally having someone to challenge them

Stiles graduates with honors and several job offers. No-one but Derek knows what exactly he studied but they are all extremely proud of him.

"Sterek" become the Dream-couple of charity work. Whenever Stiles does something, Derek is there too and when Derek starts to work with kids who lost their family, Stiles is there to support him along the way

Derek cries when Lydia asks him to be the godfather of her first child ("No Stiles, I haven't forgotten about you. But Jackson really wanted Derek to be the godfather and I have no idea why but he was the second one on my list so he'll get the job this time.")

They sometimes have bad days. Derek is in therapy now but it resulted in the worst nightmares once he started going. Stiles one day finds a letter from his mother addressed to him in one of the books she loved and he wanted to give to Derek. He isn't able to leave the bed for days. But they are always there for each other.

The tabloids ship them. So does everyone else.

Derek is 36 when he finally realizes that he found a new family. It's Christmas and he ends up in the center of a massive group hug, carefully of his goddaughter sleeping in his arms, when he tells them he loves them.

Stiles and Derek still use the cabin as a getaway.