#<- words I said to myself throughout ages 13-19

[thebleedingeffect]

It's one of those nights where I can feel the childhood neglect, isolation, and loneliness creeping up on me like some kind of familiar, hungry wolf

[captaincravatthecapricious]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks @bluejayblueskies for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 

58!

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 

463,287

3. What fandoms do you write for? 

Malevolent! But I do have a tma long fic going on that I am still working on and updating regularly.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

After the Circus (tma)

Can't Get Up (tma)

Broken Ribs (tma)

Things You Said When You Were Scared (tma)

Cold as the Rain that Falls in December (Malevolent)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! Comments mean a ton to me so I try to respond to them!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? 

Oh man either Things You Said Through Your Teeth (tma, a little study on Martin grieving everyone throughout the seasons, ending with him pushing Jon away) OR I Don't Want to be So Sober So (Malevolent, that ended up with Arthur possibly drinking himself to death. I mean you could chose to believe that John got him back home. I don't think I've actually decided, even when I wrote it).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? 

I mean... all the rest of them, probably. I write happy endings. Angst with happy endings. Maybe the Jumanji fic? The first one ends up pretty happy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? 

Not that I know of? Am I popular enough to get hate?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? 

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

GODS, okay so this isn't published. Hell it's in an old NOTEBOOK, but once I wrote a crossover between Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog and Bones.

Of the things published, I do have a tma Jumanji au, but I wouldn't call that a crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

I don't think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

Not that I know of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? 

I was going to, once upon a time, but it fell through. That was a very long time ago.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? 

I'm not sure. I like queerplatonic ships over anything else. I really like playing around with the inbetween relationships of Jon and Tim (tma) and Arthur and Parker and John (Malevolent). But I'm not sure if I really write or ship any of them romantically. I like the messy inbetweens. And being aro ace, I kind of explore the plasticity of relationships through that lens.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? 

I'm pretty methodical with things so I don't have a lot of projects left undone. I would like to write a third chapter for my oneshot fic called Coffee. And I would like to fix up the second chapter enough that I can actually post it.

In a wider sense. I have so much more I want to do in the Parker Lives AU, but I have no idea what I'll be able to do with time/work/mental health constraints. I'm certainly not done with the AU. But will it ever be truly finished?

16. What are your writing strengths? 

rambling. Endlessly. Which is also a weakness. But I sure can do whump and stream of consciousness.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? 

I haven't the foggiest idea how video games work and I am writing a video game au.

In a more serious sense. I have a lot of trouble with pacing. I fill everything up with my rambling and I have no idea if I am getting the original point across or if it's gotten lost along the way. It also tends to make it hard to stick in important details in a longer form work. I get too busy with tangents.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? 

I don't think I know other languages well enough.

19. First fandom you wrote for? 

Ice Age 3, Dawn of the Dinosaurs. And it was written in marker in a plastic spiral bound notebook. And it will never see the light of day.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

For tma, probably If That's What it is

For Malevolent... I'm not sure. I love of Cold as the Rain (and that might be my top pick overall) but I am also really proud of myself for finishing Phosphenes and Pasts. I guess my readers will have to be the judge of that once I finish posting it!

Tagging @genderfluid-druid @thisstableground @cannibalthoughts @cappurrccino @sokkas-first-fangirl @breannasfluff @acewithapaintbrush @late-to-the-magnus-archives

[steves-on-a-plane]

No Place Like Home (pt 30)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3  / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 /Part 16/Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 /  Part 20 / Part 21 / Part 22 / Part 23 / Part 24 / Part 25 / Part 26 / Part 27 / Part 28 / Part 29 / 

Words: 1642 Pairing: Ted Lasso x Reader                   Summary: Ted, Reader & Roy all face the consequence of Michelle leaving and Lasso’s impending divorce. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to already be up.” Roy commented as he shuffled into the kitchen Monday morning. He was wearing charcoal grey pair of sweatpants but had forgone a shirt. He wasn’t expecting it, because in the week or so since you’d been staying with him, Roy had risen before you almost every day.

“It’s hard to sleep with my arm.” You told him.

“And the Taylor Swift playing on the homepod, that cause of your arm to?” He nodded to the wifi enabled speaker that was currently blasting the song My Tears Ricochet throughout the kitchen.

“It was hard enough seeing him when his wife was here.” You confessed, wrapping your fingers around your tea mug. “He’s going to be miserable with her gone. She left me a mess and I basically promised to clean up after her.”

“You don’t owe either of them nothing.” Roy insisted.

“He’s still my friend, despite whatever else is happening. I’d do the same for you or Keeley.” You assured him.

“I’d never expect you to.” Roy argued. “Neither would Keeley. We’d take care of ourselves. Friends are for support, not for building a whole new fucking person.”

“Sometimes it’s both Roy.” You disagreed. “I’m gonna go get ready for work.” You caught the last of the Taylor Swift lyrics as you headed out of the kitchen. “And if I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake? Cursing my name wishing I’d stayed. Look at how my tears ricochet...”

Ted was the last of the coaches to arrive to work that morning. You were about to ask Beard if someone should call him when the Head Coach came barreling into the office half dressed. He tossed his backpack onto his desk and began riffling through it for clothes.  

“Sorry I’m late.” He said as he tugged a Richmond cardigan over his polo shirt. “But you know, now I’m here. And Beard’s here and Nate’s here and [Y/N]’s here too. Which is great because the world can be a sad and lonely place but hey, c’mon now, let’s get to work, shall we?”

“Your shirts on backwards, Ted.” You told him as Beard whispered something to Nate.

“Michelle.” He’d said because Nate had looked entirely confused by the Head Coach’s odd behavior that morning.

“Which is fine.” Ted commented, having heard Beard’s no so quiet whisper. “You know, it’s okay.” He took his arms out of his shirt sleeves and attempted to right his rumpled sweater. “It’s a great time now for me to burry myself in my work. Although, I’m not crazy, I don’t love, the word burry. It has a negative connotation to it. What’s another word I can say?” He asked, now fiddling with the collar of his polo shirt.

“Bath?” He suggested. “Everyone loves a good bath right? So that’s what I’ll say. I’m gonna bathe myself in work. How about that? That’s good. Nate, you got a favorite bath balm, Buddy?”

“Oh no.” Nate frowned. He hadn’t known there’d be a pop quiz at the end of his boss’ ramblings. “I don’t really enjoy baths, just ‘cause my skin gets really wrinkly and I’m deeply worried about aging.”

“Okay. I get that.” Ted nodded. “What about you, Coach?” He looked to Beard. “You got a favorite bath bomb?”

“Crème brulee honey.” Beard answered without hesitation.

“Honey?” Ted repeated. “Is that an ingredient or something you just calling me right now?”

“Ingredient.” Beard clarified.

“Shoot. I was kind of hoping it was the other one.” Ted confessed. “But that’s kind of a fun idea. Maybe we start calling each other little pet names. You know? Like Honey or Babe? It might be nice right?”

“No.” Beard disagreed.

“Hey, Nate, will you just do me a favor and help Coach here plan practice for today?” Ted asked. Nate agreed to help. To which Ted replied. “All right, thank you, Sweetie. Okay, I’ll see you all in a little bit.” And then he walked out of the locker room.

“Is he alright?” Nate looked between you and Beard.

“No.” You both said at the same time. Beard even laughed at the idea that anyone behaving that way could be perceived as all right.

“Any idea where he’s off to?” You asked Beard.

“I think he’s got a press conference he’s late for.” He answered.

“How long are we supposed to let him be like this?” You asked him.

“Give him some space for now.” He told you.

Players began to arrive while Ted was at his press conference. You, Nate and Beard worked together to plan that day’s training. It seemed there would also be a new player arriving that afternoon, Dani Rojas from Mexico. He had joined Richmond during a summer transfer period and was immediately injured so no one had really seen him play yet.

Ted returned an hour later from his press conference. He still looked out of sorts, but the press conference must have gone well. The usual gentleness had returned to his voice. Beard almost hesitated to relay the news to Ted that Jamie was claiming he was too hurt to join practice. Ted opened the door the Manager’s office and stepped out into the locker room without saying a word. He stomped over to Jamie.

“Hey Jamie, I heard you’re not gonna be able to run with us today. That true?” He asked the young player.

Even with the office door open you couldn’t hear Ted and Jamie’s full conversation. Jamie’s locker was too far down the line. But you could see Jamie’s body language through the glass that separated the office from the locker room. You could see his smug smirk as he answered one of Ted’s questions and the shrug of his shoulders as he replied to another.

Ted began walking back to the office. You didn’t know what was said offer that, but Jamie had mouthed off. He’d said something that made the entire room go quiet. Ted turned on his heels and marched back to Jamie’s locker. No one missed a single word of what he said now.

“Hey, you can’t practice, you can’t practice. If you’re hurt, you’re hurt.” Ted nodded. “It’s as simple as that. But it ain’t about that…at all. You’re sitting in here; you’re supposed to be the franchise player and yet here we are talking about you missing practice. We’re talking about practice.” Every time Ted said the word “practice” his voice raised slightly. “Not a game. Not the game that you go out there and die for, right? We’re talking about practice. Practice! You know you’re supposed to be out there. You know you’re supposed to lead by example. You’re just shoving that all aside.”

“And so here we are, Jamie.” He was shouting now. You stole a glance at Beard who’s one look back told you not to interfere. “We’re talking about practice. With your teammates. The only place that we get to play together, that we’ve got control over. Rest of the time it’s us eleven against those eleven. We’re talking about practice, man! I’m talking about practice! And You can’t do it, ‘cause you’re hurt! Right?” Ted took a breath.

“It’s fine by me.” He added, no longer yelling. “Tell you what, do me a favor. When you get out there, set up the cones so the other reserves can do a little passing drill.” Ted started towards the office again.

“You want me to set up cones?” Jamie questioned. Jamie Tartt didn’t set up cones.

“I really appreciated it.” Ted shouted over his shoulder before entering the office and shutting the door behind him.

Later that day, Roy was reading a book while walking on the treadmill in the workout room. Some of the other players were lifting weights and using the various machines. Other players were even still out on the field practicing drills. Keeley Jones sauntered into the room. Her all black outfit looked like something out of the matrix, complete with ridiculous looking stiletto heel boots. She climbed on to the treadmill next to Roy.

“It’s lovely weather we’ve been having don’t you think?” She asked him. “I love this time of year. All the smells and fresh leaves.” Roy marked his place with his finger before looking over at her.

“Sorry, what’s happening?” He demanded.

“I was just pretending that the two of us were on a walk.” She explained.

“I’m trying to read.” He flashed his book at her.

“I’ve been doing a lot of reading myself, actually. Recently.” She said, perfectly segueing into the reason for her visit. “I read this mad story about a kid who grew up in a shit part of South London and who got sent off to play as a child in Sunderland of all places! And later was forced to wrap his own verse in a charity single which was called Winner Winner Football Diner.” She laughed.

“That was for world hunger.” He smiled back.

“And I believe it was the cure.” She teased him.

“How do you know all this anyway?” He asked, his book now forgotten. “What are you doing now? Stalking me?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m reading all the player’s bios. Part of my new job helping with the team’s PR.”

“You can leave me out it.” He told her. “I’m not one of your show ponies.”

“Hmm.” Keeley offered him a noise of disagreement. “You wear a number and you trot around while people clap so I wouldn’t be too high and might about it.” She slowed down her machine and prepared to get off. “Later Roy.” She told him with a smile. His sister. Pheobe. Keeley Jones. [Y/N]. The women in his life were determined to kill him. He decided. The preferred way of torture seemed to be annoying him to death.

TAGS: @ponyboys-sunsets / @captain-starks / @garbinge​ / @darshs​ / @companionjones​ / @fanaticalfantasist​ / @svndancekidd​ / @uhohmando​ / @cedricscoffin​ / @hellohauntedturnstudent​ / @busybeingtrash​ / @stankface​ / @avengerslover-yee​ / @marjoherbo​ / @the-fanfic-fangirl​ / @cloudedbreath​ / @lovely----------------notlovely​ / @grippleback-galaxy​ / 

[vindicatedvirgil]

soulmate september / day twenty-two: glow-in-the-dark stars

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Day Twenty-Two: When you close your own eyes, you can see what your soulmate sees.

Summary: Logan was positive that he didn’t have a soulmate, or that everyone around him was making up the whole thing. Virgil kept his eyes closed as much as he possibly could, because when he did, he saw what his soulmate saw.

Ship: Analogical (Virgil x Logan)

word count: 847

(big thanks to Danni from Discord for helping me figure out what ship to write for this and for the idea with the glow in the dark stars on Logan’s ceiling. i heart you both with my heart.)

@tsshipmonth2020

---

Logan was taught from a very young age that when you close your eyes, you see what your soulmate is looking at. His parents would use this to their advantage when doing grocery shopping or attending school productions or events. But whenever Logan closed his eyes, all he saw was darkness. Nothing was there, and as he grew older, he began to think that he didn’t have a soulmate.

Perhaps the whole concept of soulmates was a trick told by parents, like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, to make their children believe that love was real and that there would always be someone out there who loved you, who was meant for you. Maybe Logan was doomed to never have someone love him more than life itself, to have someone to hold in the middle of the night as they gazed at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling.

Those stars followed him throughout his whole life, from his childhood bedroom to his college dorms and finally into his bedroom of his own apartment, one he moved into once he began working at the local observatory. Every night, he’d lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling of intricately organized glow-in-the-dark stars, mimicking the way the sky looks on his birthday, and hoped that maybe his inklings were wrong. That maybe the stars would be kinder to him tomorrow, that he’d close his eyes and see what his destiny would be.

-

Virgil was born blind. He didn’t mind it too much, since his dad was always there for him and when he focused on the movements of closing his eyes, he saw stars. Specifically, glow-in-the-dark stars on his soulmate’s ceiling. His soulmate spent a lot of time looking at those stars on their ceiling, at stars in books, at doodles of stars in the margins of his school notes. As Virgil and his soulmate grew older, he noticed the stars followed them everywhere.

He wanted to meet the man he had watched grow up through the mirror. The man was tall, thin, and had black framed glasses around his bright blue eyes. He wore lots of button-up shirts and ties and sweaters, and Virgil loved him for the encouraging smile he would give himself as he adjusted his tie every morning.

But Virgil didn’t know how to find him. How do you find someone you’ve only seen when your eyes are closed, and you can’t see when they’re “open”? He finally asked his friends Janus and Remus (who were lucky to find each other in elementary school) for help in finding his soulmate. He would focus on the surroundings of his soulmate, trying to read the signs and describing everything he saw to his friends. Finally, they realized it was an observatory, so they started by going to the one closest to them. Maybe they’d be lucky.

Virgil described him in as much detail as possible, down to the exact things the man was wearing that day, and the trio walked around the observatory for a bit when Janus finally came to a halt.

“Virgil, focus. What does he see right now?” Janus asked, eyes focused ahead.

“I see…” he took a deep breath, focusing on what his soulmate saw. “Three guys, one on each side of…”

“Does the one on the left have a mustache? And the other is wearing a hat?” Remus asked quietly, for once not making jokes or saying inappropriate things.

“He’s here,” Virgil breathed out. He decided to step forward, towards the man. “Excuse me, do you work here?”

Logan’s eyes focused on the man in front of him. “Yes, I do. How can I help you?”

“This is going to sound really weird, but… I’m pretty sure you’re my soulmate. I can see myself right now,” he said. 

“I don’t have a soulmate,” the man said coldly. “When I close my eyes, I see nothing.”

“I’m blind,” Virgil explained quietly. “You have glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling. You have ever since you were a child. I know because I’ve been looking at them for my entire life, too.” Logan thought all of the air would be forced from his lungs as the words hit him at full force.

“What’s your name?” He asked the man standing before him. He watched as hands gripped his arms, and a smile crossed the man’s face. 

“I’m Virgil,” he said, and Logan thought the name was the most beautiful he’d ever heard. “And you are…?”

“I’m Logan.”

-

Logan slipped into bed beside Virgil, his arms wrapping around his boyfriend gently. “You still awake, starlight?” He asked quietly, and he felt Virgil nod, then snuggle closer into his chest.

“Will you look up at the ceiling for me?” Virgil asked, as he did every night. Logan smiled, adjusting so he looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, but during the day he had changed them around. Virgil shifted, and then a gasp left his mouth. “Logan… what did you do?”

In the stars, Logan had spelled out Will You Marry Me?

[ehyeh-joshua]

God of Dragons

@greater-than-the-sword - rather than dragging your post further off-topic, I decided to finally get around to writing this up.

If you honestly want to grapple with the Bible, it becomes essential to consider our ancient scaled friend/enemy the dragon. The Scriptures leave no alternative but to declare that man walked with dinosaurs.

The Hebrew word that we translate as “dragon” is Tannin, and like all ancient Hebrew thought, is not a specific species, but a genera – to us, we categorise things by qualities – we use “pencil” and “pen” and “quill” to describe specific classes of objects; to the mindset of Biblical Hebrew, they are all the same; you write with them.

What Tannin refers to is any large, dangerous reptile, whether on land, at sea or in the air, and while it would include them, it doesn't actually mean our modern understanding of dragon, which having being split from it's roots in historical creatures, is now mythical. (although such creatures are mentioned)

In the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was considered the Old Testament for the Greek-speaking early church – the word Tannin is translated by “Drakkon” which is the root for our word “dragon”.

The word Tannin is used 23 times in Scripture:(note-all the citations are quoted in full at the end, truncated here for brevity)

Singular form:

Nehemiah 2:13; Psalm 91:13; Isaiah 27:1 and 51:9; Jeremiah 51:34; Ezekiel 29:3,  Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12,  and Genesis 1:21.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33,  Job 7:12 and Job 30:29, Psalms 44:19, 74:13; and 148:7, Isaiah 13:22 Jeremiah 9:11, 10:22, 14:6, 49:33 and 51:37 and Ezekiel 32:2.

The second word we need to have in mind is Leviatan – this is the creature we think of when we think of dragon. This word is used five times in four verses:  Job 41:1, Psalm 74:14 and 104:26, and twice in Isaiah 27:1. Like Tannin, Leviatan is translated in the Septuagint by “drakkon”.

Leviatan has the longest description, having nearly a whole chapter devoted to describing it at the end of Job – this is the strongest evidence, as this is God Himself describing this creature as an example of His own power.

One of the reasons I like Dragons so much is that God has set them as a testimony to Himself.

Sadly, this is perhaps the most mistranslated word in modern English Bibles; most English Bibles insert jackals into these verses wherever the Scriptures undeniably mean literal creatures, doing so because of the wrong belief that dragons are mythical.

The thing is, Hebrew has a word that actually means jackal; it is the same as that for “fox”, and for good reason, as they are known to be able to interbreed, and are therefore the same baramin. That word is “sha’ul”.

Nehemiah 4:3 for example; 'Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”'

He’s trying to say that despite the fact that the fox/jackal is such a small and weak animal, it could crush the walls the Jews were building; he’s insulting them. By contrast, a dragon smashing down a wall is kind of what you would expect to happen, and throughout the Prophets, the threat of dragons overwhelming a city is used to express judgement.

Compiling all these references gives us a huge amount of information about these creatures, some of it (most of it in fact) directly from God describing what we would understand as a water drake.

Firstly, that the purpose of these creatures is to give glory to God.

Secondly, it tells us that these are huge reptiles that are very dangerous; enough that the mere threat of them is enough to put a city of people to fleeing for safety – a quarter of the times Tannin is used, it is referring to this terror.

If a city got overrun with jackals, a single person could chase them out; a decent thickness stick as a club, and they scatter. A host of people working together could do it easily. They are mildly dangerous, but they have absolutely nothing on levyatan, which the Scriptures equate to Tannin. A Dragon however? An armoured, fire breathing dragon?

That is dangerous; one dragon is enough to be a risk to an entire region, they are apex predators, there is absolutely no shortage of stories of the danger dragons possess.

Now, if you had an entire city overrun by dragons? You’re not going to reclaim that. Not on the Bronze/Iron age technology possessed by Ancient Israel. Roman Ballistae might have a chance, and a Macedonian Phalanx could make a melee fight in the open stick, but I wouldn’t want to try that kind of a battle without at least trebuchet, if not cannon. And this is from a guy who knows how to solo a T-Rex; T-Rex has one primary weapon, the bite. The solution is a fuck-off amount of three feet long spikes covering your whole body, that way it can’t bite you without facing it’s own mortal peril. You could probably win with a spear, but I’d rather have the spikes.

Dragons? Fire. The accounts of dragons possessing fire-breathing capability are nearly universal, and it is far more reasonable than you might think; using the Bombardier Beetle as a baseline, to breath fire a dragon needs the reaction of hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, catalysed by catalase and peroxidase; the reactants are ejected from separated storage areas into the front of the open mouth, where the reaction begins in conjunction with the rush of oxygen from heavy breathing out, causing both the reaction and the expellation of the reactants. Range could be comfortably over ten metres and still sufficient to cause burns and scalding on the victim.

Coincidentally, but rather obvious when you think about it, dragon stories generally stop after the invention of cannon, and by the 1800s, almost stop completely outside of Native American tribes.

It is therefore plain that reading the text and allowing the text to explain itself leads to the conclusion that Tannin/Levyatan are a race of immense and dangerous monsters, usually serpent-like but again not always, who’s presence is like the judgement of God, and which God Himself uses to say how awesome He is that He made them and controls their fates. Note also the contrast - the Babylonians had their gods being scared of these monsters, but right from the beginning God takes ownership of them.

The Bible tells us how these creatures lived, where they lived, their diet, their habitat, to an extent their way of life; and it exists as part of material from all over the world that shows that man and dinosaur coexisted. And if humans and dinosaurs coexisted, evolutionary beliefs about ages collapse.

----

Nehemiah 2:13;  “I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.”- presumably, the Dragon spring was a well or spring that was named for a resident/visitor dragon.

Psalm 91:13; “You will tread on lion and viper; you will trample young lion and dragon.” - the point is to talk about the protection of God; the claim about jackals makes no sense, and using serpent instead has already been covered. Further, the Septuagint uses Drakkon here.

Isaiah 27:1; “In that day GOD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent with His fierce, great, strong sword, Leviathan the twisted serpent! He will slay the dragon in the sea.” Again, entirely pointless unless it refers to either a real animal, or a mythologised version of a real animal. 

Isaiah 51:9; “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of GOD, awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not You who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?” Again, a pointless exercise if not referring to an actual event.

Jeremiah 51:34; “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, crushed me, set me aside like an empty dish, swallowed me up like a dragon, filled his belly with my delicacies, rinsed me away.” Jackals cannot eat even a whole arm, and certainly cannot swallow a whole man as the similie depends on; whereas plenty of large carnivorous dinosaurs could.

Ezekiel 29:3, “Speak and say, thus says the LORD GOD: ‘Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon lying in his rivers, who says: “My Nile is my own—I made it for myself.” The idea is to convey that Egypt believes itself to be extremely powerful, before it is cast down in judgement.

Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12; “So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and did as Adonai had commanded. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a dragon. Then Pharaoh called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they too, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. For each man threw down his staff, and they became dragons. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” Not much to say here, although the Septuagint again uses drakkon both times, instead of one of the words that means a snake.

Genesis 1:21; “And God created the great dragons and every living soul that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their nature, and every winged fowl after its nature; and God saw that it was good.” This is one of the few times the Septuagint uses keytos (whale) to translate Tannin, however, dragons are traditionally associated with the sea and sky, so it makes sense that they are created on day 5.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33: “Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.” This also informs us that some dragons were poisonous, a feature noted of certain dinosaurs, and never with jackals.

Job 7:12; “Am I a sea, or a dragon, that you set a watch over me?” Again linking dragons to the sea.

Job 30:29; “I am a brother to the dragons, & a companion to the ostriches.” By this, he is continuing his theme, and he means he is alone, ostracised from the community. Jackals however, operate in packs. 

Psalms 44:19; “Though you have broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.” Doesn’t tell us much this one, as it’s relying on the nature of tanninim to convey the situation.

Psalms 74:13; “You split open the sea by your strength; You broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.” Possibly a reference to the Flood.

Psalms 148:7; “Praise the LORD from the earth, you dragons, and all deeps:” An intriguing statement, given extra-Biblical documentation of dragon intelligence, which some sources put as near-Human.

Isaiah 13:21; “But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance.” while it doesn’t say dragon, it says howling creatures, Wycliffe was happy to write dragouns as his translation solely from the sound identified, and it has to be inquired why he did so if humans could not have encountered dragons to record the sound.

Isaiah 13:22; " And the wild beasts shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.” Given the reference is about animals being used as tools for judgement, it’s no surprise that dragons are mentioned.

Jeremiah 9:11; “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.” Again, a judgement making the city uninhabitable.

Jeremiah 10:22;  “Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.“ again, dragons used as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 14:6; 2and the wild asses stood in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes failed because there was no grass.“ This gives us information about how dragons breathed, which is something very difficult to know unless you either witnessed it or heard from someone who had.

Jeremiah 49:33; “And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.“ Again, using dragons as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 51:37; “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant.” Jeremiah again uses the presence of dragons as a judgement.

 Ezekiel 32:2 “ “Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: “You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers.”Not much to say here.

[bobbystompy]

91 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2020

Below are my favorite quotes from 2020. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “You don’t have to be new to make new.” - Rick Rubin

2) “He put the beat on and go to sleep then wake up with a verse.” - The Lox

3) “Every opinion is bad.” - Blink-155

4)

(via Twitter)

5) “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored.”

6) “Be brave enough to suck at something new.”

7) “Comedy is the only job you can have where you can use everything you know” - Robin Williams via Dave Chappelle

8) “What’s the worst swear word where you live?” - Josiah Hughes

9) “Cookies are a really great way to get everybody to like you for a short period of time” - YSAC

10) “The worst dancer at a wedding is the one who’s not dancing.” - John Mulaney

11) “I never saw the end of the tunnel. I only saw myself running out of one." - Kobe Bryant

12) "A good movie begins as you're walking out of the theater" - Ethan Hawke

13) “When I was young and starting in cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is, 'The most personal is the most creative.’ That quote was from our great Martin Scorsese.” - Bong Joon-ho

14) “Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow” - River Phoenix via Joaquin Phoenix

15) “Thank you -- I will drink until next morning.” - Bong Joon-ho

16) “Men will bury their emotions for decades and then take it all out on children tubing while they drive the boat.” - @krauter_

17) “They help you with the dumb face stuff, but they don’t tell you how to fix it” - Adam (Nate’s friend), on having older sisters

18) “We all had our connections, but it’s not the details themselves that matter, it’s the feeling behind them. There are a million coming-of-age tales. Lady Bird’s secret sauce is how deeply its creator gave a shit. The older I get, the less I care about anything but the sense of a filmmaker’s personal connection to the material. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, what genre it is, or whether it’s genre at all. I only really care that it feels like something the filmmaker had to tell me, and that it was that filmmaker in particular who had to tell it. It has to answer the ‘why are you telling me this’ question, and not just why are you telling me, but why are you telling me.

Lady Bird is a movie that feels like only Greta Gerwig could’ve made. And it’s only because it’s so specific to her that it can be so meaningful to so many people.” - Vince Mancini

19) "I have cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns. But I do not feel lonely now.” - Bernie Sanders

20) “Ever hear a Beatles song you haven’t heard before?”

21) “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.” - Charles Bukowski

22) “You shouldn’t have to hear a band to know if they’re good or not” - Josiah Hughes

23) “I was raised by OGs.  Some of you were raised by IG.  I understand.” - Ice-T

* * *

[Here is where I note the line of demarcation that was the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the US, pushed forward by Tom Hanks’ announcement, the NBA and NCAA shutting down, and, then, the nation itself.]

* * *

24) “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” - Vladimir Lenin

25) "Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious." - Peter Wehner

26) "Epidemics have a way of revealing underlying truths about the societies they impact." - Anne Applebaum

27) “A funny thing about quarantining is hearing your partner in full work mode for the first time. Like, I’m married to a ‘let’s circle back’ guy — who knew?” - Laura Norkin

28) 

(Jojo Rabbit)

29) “The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. - Deadwood: The Movie

30) “All bleeding stops eventually.” - Deadwood: The Movie

31) “Our Father, which art in heaven… / Let him fucking stay there” - Deadwood: The Movie

32) “It’s like a power outage, but we still have power” - Ryen Russillo, on the pandemic

33) “Whenever Sox baseball returns, it’ll be weird to not have Farmer on the call any more. The relationship between a fan and longtime announcer is always built in the little moments. One afternoon, he’s the soundtrack as you clean the garage. On another night, he’s your bookmark for the game as you stand in line for churros or walk down the ramps at Sox Park to try for better seats in the 100 level. A voice like Farmer’s becomes so familiar that you only really notice when it’s no longer there.” - Kevin Kaduk, on the passing of Ed Farmer

34) 

(via Twitter)

35) “In my songs, I try to look through someone else’s eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message” - John Prine

36) “Observe everything. Admire nothing.” - Generation Kill

37) “Trump, by that definition, has always been a wartime president -- always willing to sacrifice people he doesn’t know to things he only sort of cares about” - David Roth

38) "Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen." - Michael Jordan

39) "Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach." - Hunter S. Thompson

40) “Airlines sending me “we’re in this together” emails. When my suitcase was 52 pounds I was on my own.” - Mike Dentale

41) “Sometimes you can be the worst source of your own story” - Ryen Russillo

42) “Family is not necessarily blood, but instead who you would bleed for.”

43)

(via Twitter)

44) "This is the deal that Jordan made, knowingly or unknowingly — that he would trade everything he had for everything he wanted. And then, when he won all those things, he found that he had nothing but that.” - David Roth

45) “I’m brand loyal, but the brand doesn’t matter” - Caitie Miller, on why she doesn’t like generic peanut butter

46) “NOBODY shitposts Gene Hackman!!” - Mark Dehlinger

47) “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with—that is when he picks up a boomerang.” - G.K. Chesterton

48) “You can be appalled forever, but shocked only once.” - Jeff Weiss, on early Eminem

49) “Whether I’m pessimistic or optimistic, the fight’s the same” - David Simon

50) “Freedom can never be completely won, but it can be lost.” - Bernard Simon

51) “Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.” -Kareem Abdul Jabbar

52) “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist -- we must be anti-racist.” - Angela Davis

53) “Start as close to the end as possible” - Kurt Vonnegut, on creative writing

54) “You can’t stay woke all the time — that’s insomnia.” - Dr. Cornel West

55) “No, I get it. I’ve dated a lot of Geminis.”

56) “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” - John Krakauer, Into The Wild (via Tyler Keller)

57) "I couldn't show them my For You because it's pretty much just lesbian stuff and depression memes" - Maggie Loesch, on showing TikTok to her coworkers

58) "It's 1 a.m. in Slovakia and I've already had one bottle of wine and I don't know how long this press conference will go, so good luck to me." - Marian Hossa, following his NHL Hall of Fame announcement

59) “All I want in life is to go on an Anguilla group trip” - Mandy Gilkes

60) “You miss old friends when you don’t see them, but you miss them more when you do.” - Chuck Klosterman

61) “The only way to appreciate the present is to pretend it’s already the past.” - Chuck Klosterman

62) Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth Until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

(”Everybody's Free [To Wear Sunscreen]”)

Second time that essay’s been quoted on this list.

64) "I mean, it's just human nature to suck up to the people above you, crap on those beneath you, and undercut your equals” - Brian, Family Guy

65) “You never quit a job. You quit a manager.” - Brian Bedford

66) “All the pictures in my house are of people I’m not friends with” - Tracy Cunningham

67) “In order to leave something behind, you have to leave.” - Dr. Herman, Grey’s Anatomy

68) 

(via Twitter)

69) “You can obsess about death if you don’t have to obsess about dying.” - Brendan Kelly via “White Noise”

70) “If it’s right to do, it’s wrong to wait.” - Andy, doorman 

71)

72) “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

73) "America is mostly people who’ve never left their state saying we have the best country in the world." - Billy Wayne Davis

74) “A writer is someone who knows at least 80% of their writing sucks.” - Gabe Hudson

75) 

(via Twitter)

76) “You’re dead twice” - Brendan Kelly

77) “Perfect is the enemy of good” - Voltaire (via Zach Lowe)

78) “I don’t want to be a savior, I want to be a mirror.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

79) “I get bad Twitter FOMO but not real life FOMO. That just goes to show I need to get off the Internet.” - Josh Thomas

80) “Is there anything you love in life that you engage with seriously that you don't also engage with humor?" - Sam Sutherland, on his relationship with Blink-182

81) “My favorite genre of music is my friends' bands" - Josiah Hughes

82) “Let’s fall in love like both our parents aren’t divorced.”

83) “Seabiscuit may be the only earthling that was on both sides of the stamp.” - Brendan Kelly

84) “There’s no shame in coming in second, except in, like, wars.” - Family Guy

85) “I feel like I experience writer’s block 100% of the time, and when I do write, I have impostor syndrome.” - Phoebe Bridgers

86) “We teach based on what we most need to learn.” - psychologist on Grey’s Anatomy

87) “Having too many choices is the leading cause of stress” - Grey’s Anatomy

88) “I think we've all gravely underestimated the extent to which this year has changed all of us, permanently” - Kelli Maria Korducki

89) 

(via Twitter)

90) “I wonder if people understand why they don’t have polio” - Sandra E. Garcia

91) “Ending songs is terrible, so let’s keep singing” - Dave Hernandez

[oingo233]

By The Lake* Part One

Summary:  A family friend offers you a place to stay to get away from an abusive past.  Her home is a place that you are familiar with, an old town with a large lake you spent many days in. You went there years ago for one full summer, where you became close friends with a very young Daryl Dixon.  You two were inseparable until you had to leave.  But now you’re back, escaping from a past much like his.  You will need to weave your way through the town's problematic people, your own problems, and above all the confusing Dixon.  Will you two find your way back to each other again?  Or will he push you further away?  And above all, will your past cease to haunt you?

Part Two * Part Three * Part Four * Part Five

Pairing: Young Daryl Dixon x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of abuse and violence(potential triggers), cussing, more mature themes(not smut or anything tho), slow burn romance

Authors Note: Daryl Dixon is a character from the amazing show The Walking Dead, but this story is modern AU so not with all the walkers and everything.  I don’t own and I didn’t create his character.  Also this story is in no means meant to romanticize abuse, that stuff isn’t romantic. It is such a terrible, terrible thing, but it is sadly a very common thing as well.  Throughout this series I only hope that I can spread awareness about the matter, and let people know that they aren’t alone, things will get better, and that no one is deserving of any kind of abuse. Ever. Anyways, I’m done with my rant, I hope y’all like it, and if not please send in some constructive criticisms I’m always looking to improve.

Word Count: 1.7k

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 I can’t help the dumb smile that spreads across my face, and I can’t help but think of all that is changing.  It felt like I could breathe again, that maybe everything will turn out alright. It has been weeks with nothing bad happening, weeks of trying to stop the burning question of “but for how long?” from ruining my mood.

“What are you smiling so big for?”  Cherry, my moms best friend and my god mom, stared at me from the drivers side.  Before I could answer she cut me off.  “Excited to see Daryl again?”  She sent me a large wink, and her smile almost matched mine.  I shake my head with a loud laugh, and turn to look out the window again. Hopefully she won’t see me blushing.

“God Cherry, we were 13.”I say. She laughs too, her shoulders lazily move up into a shrug.  

“Whatever you say.”  I glare at her jokingly, and she pokes my side, the car moving dangerously close to the right.  She laughs nervously and a small “oops” slips from her lips, before she continues on torturing me. “Well, he is real cute now.  A bit quite though, but then again, he always kind of was huh?”  You nod silently, watching the tall trees pass in a blur.

  Daryl always was so quite, it took you nearly the whole summer to get him to string together a whole sentence.  But once you did, nothing could stop him from being with you.  Sure, he’d never rant to you or anything, but he’d hold good conversations and what he didn’t tell you, you found easy to pick up on how he acted around you.  But this was years ago.  You wonder how much has changed, and if you’ll ever be that close with him again?

“Mark ask’s him over sometimes, to work on this old car he bought, ya know just for some help.  He’d always ask about you.”  We share a look and I stare at my lap soon after, a blanket wrapped around me for the long drive.  She must have noticed my behavior because she quickly kept going, enjoying making me blush.  “Cute lil thing he is, he’d always work up a blush.  ‘How’s (Y/N) doing?’ or ‘(Y/N), she alright?’”  She shook her head with a wide smile, but I stare at her with something like horror on my face.  I try to calm myself before asking.

“What did you tell him?”  He smile drops, her grip on the wheel tighter than before.  

“Not the truth.  Said you were doing good.”  It was silent, her knuckles turned white. “He’d ask about you and Carter...”  Her voice trailed off venomously, before giving me a comforting look. “We tell him it’s nothing he has to worry about.” I nod my head.  It felt weird for me to thank her for lying for me, but I do anyway.  Daryl knowing bout everything, when we haven’t seen or been close to each other in years seems weird, like it would be a burden.

I’m 18 now, Daryl would’ve just turned 19.  You blush of thinking of how good looking he must be now. You always found him cute, but 13 was too young to do anything bout it.  Although you’d never admit it out loud, you always liked him.  He was good to you.  Better than your actual boyfriend...

“You okay, honey?”  Cherry’s voice breaks the silence, and thankfully your thoughts.  You run a hand down your face with a tight smile.

“Just tired, that’s all.”  Her smile faded faster than you would have liked it too.  You looked into her eyes just in time to catch the glistening pity in them before she faced the road again.  She knew your situation, everything you’ve been through.  

“I’ll tell the kids not to bug ya then.  Let ‘cha rest up first, yeah?”  I thank her but decline and face the window once again.  I hated sleeping in the car, always preferred watching out the window and thinking bout things instead. But maybe I should try, I wouldn’t want to make the kids sad.  I loved those two boogers.  Cherry had two little kids with her husband Mark.  One little boy named Monty, and a little girl they named Rosie.  I don’t even know how old they are now.  When I was there for the summer with my family so many years ago, Rosie was just born.  

“How old are they now?” I blush, almost ashamed of not knowing.  But I can hardly keep track of my life, let alone everyone elses.  She puts a hand on my knee, and squeezes it.  Instantly, I feel better, and talking about her kids obviously made her feel better too.

“Monty is 8, and Rosie is 5!  Monty just got super into dinosaurs, and we can’t keep Rosie out the lake.  She just learned how to swim, she got so big...”I listen to her drawl on about her kids with a sweet, unbothered feeling.  My excitement grows as she continues to tell me about them, and we are getting closer to their house.  Finally we pull into the familiar town, only about 15 minutes from her house now, which would mean we are only 26 minutes from Daryl’s.  I try not to think of him, or how nervous I am to see my old close friend, or what goes down in that house.  

I knew about what his father did to him, or I think I did.  He never told me about it but sometimes he’d stop by the old cabin on Cherry’s property where my mom and I stayed, and he’d be crying.  We’d sit by the lake in silence, sometimes I’d be hugging him and tracing the lumps and scars under his clothes, other times I’d catch a glimpse of a bruise on his face in the moonlight.  But whenever I’d ask, he’d push me away and I wouldn’t see him for a few days after, or until he seemed alright and I was dumb enough to believe that.  At my age and time in my life I never knew how bad it was.  Not until the same thing happened to me.  I never should have left Daryl there, knowing all that I did.  How can I face him again with all this guilt?  I was a terrible friend...

I feel an unwelcome burn in the back of my eyes and throat right as we pass the ice cream parlor, the car pulled into the parking lot and I smiled brightly.  Wiping at my eyes for a brief second before looking at Cherry with raised eyebrows. 

“Thought I’d treat ya.”  She chuckles at my expression.

“Giving me a place to live isn’t enough?”  I laugh out, she laughs too and we climb out of the car.  I leave the blanket in the seat, I’d rather die than have anyone here see me with a baby blue fuzzy thing wrapped around my waist.  

We step inside and Cherry says a few quick hello’s, and introduces me to some of her friends in there.  We grab our ice cream but I recognize an older couple from that blissful summer.

“Mr.Henderson right?”  I stop a older looking man from walking out the door, I put my hand out and he takes it with a hint of uncertainty.  His eyes scan me for any familiarity.  They land on my hair, and then deep in my eyes, his face lights up, before I could tell him who I am he beats me to it.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N)!”  He pulls me into a hug, careful not to get chocolate ice cream in my hair.  “I don’t believe it!  Look at how grown you are!  Sharron get over here.”  He waves his wife over joyfully from the car, she gives him a loving smile before shaking her head at me.

“I’m sorry dear, I don’t reco-” She gasped mid-sentence and pulled me into a hug.  She looked back at Mr.Henderson.  “This is (Y/N) honey!”  He nods at her and she looks back at me grabbing at my hair and twirling it around her finger.  I flinch when her fingers first reached for me but she didn’t seem to notice, I’m glad.  “Look how beautiful...”  She hugs me again.  

Mr. and Mrs. Henderson are Cherry’s neighbors, about half a mile out.  I used to drag Daryl over there with me so we could grab some of their infamous lemonade every afternoon.  We’d stay there for hours and hang out in their tire swing, and their side of the lake has a huge flat rock by the shore.  Daryl and I used to lay on it in the hot sun.  Mrs.Henderson used to joke that if we weren’t careful we’d cook like eggs.  I haven’t seen them since that last summer day, when I went looking for Daryl to say goodbye.

Cherry politely pulled her off me, and gave them a stern look.

“(Y/N)’s a bit tired, I was just about to take her home.”She said.  Mrs.Henderson looked at the empty ice cream cup in my hand and frowned. 

“Well she can’t sleep with a tum full of ice cream.  See Cherry, this is why your kids never sleep on time.  You ain’t feedin’ em right.”  Cherry raised an eyebrow and looked at her wordlessly, lips pulled tight.  

“Well, it was so nice to see you again.  But we really should be going, and Mrs.Henderson, this ice cream never gave me any problems before.”  I wink and pull Cherry away from them before they start brawling.  Mom always got along better with the Henderson's than Cherry did, and they weren’t even our neighbors.  I guess that could be why.  

Mrs.Henderson grabs my elbow making me tense up.  “oh but don’t go.  Daryl just got here...look.”  Her hand left my elbow and she pointed down the street to a young man that I don’t recognize, walking stiffly towards us.  He’s tall, with broad shoulders and arms that looked good in his sleeveless shirt.    

As if sensing our eyes on him, he looks up.  My mouth slacks as I stare back into his startling blue eyes, the same ones that belong to Daryl Dixon.  Daryl stops walking and stares at me, his eyes trail slowly down my body, and back up to my eyes. His face wide with shock, quickly morphs into a scowl.  He shakes his head bitterly, brown hair falling on his forehead, and turns around, walking away from us in quick strides.  

Out of all the ways I imagined us meeting again, that was not one of them.  I can’t help myself from wondering what the hell that was all about?

[kingspoetrysoc]

Interview with Basmah Mohamed

Basmah is a first-year undergraduate student studying English at King’s. She writes spoken word poetry as well as free-verse poetry, publishing it on her Instagram account @basthepoet. Basmah is a SLAMbassadors Finalist and Speak Out Regional Finalist, writing for publications like Young Writers CW and Exposure. The King’s Poet’s Ishita Uppadhayay speaks to Basmah about her creative process, the ‘purpose’ of poetry, and more.

When did you first start writing poetry? Was there a specific moment when you felt it became an established interest?

I started writing poetry when I was in Year 8, so quite young. I had experience writing short stories prior to that. There was a defining moment, sort of. At my secondary school, we had an opportunity to do a 2-day workshop with Joelle Taylor, who ran the SLAMbassadors competition, and Deanna Rodger. I had never written poetry before. The competition was on the theme of ‘Identity,’ and we had to write a poem in a day, and then film our audition clips. Two other poets and I were chosen to go on to the next round. Then we performed at the Arts Theatre in the West End.

Can you imagine? At the age of 13, having never written poetry before, I got the opportunity to delve into it on stage. I remember going back to school afterwards and everyone asked, ‘How was it?’ I was just like, ‘I killed that.’ We ended up being highly commended out of three schools nationally, and after that experience, I knew poetry was something I wanted to pursue. I had the pleasure of performing my spoken word poetry for many years throughout secondary school –- moments I’ll cherish forever.

I started off writing spoken word poetry, but for the past couple of years, I’ve gone away from that and started writing lyrical and free verse poetry. As of now, I don’t have many opportunities to perform on the stage, so that’s also why I’ve switched my focus to written poetry. But yeah, I’ve been writing poetry ever since I was 13, and I’m 19 now.

Do you prefer spoken word poetry to written poetry, and do you feel there’s a different process to writing each one?

There’s definitely a different feel to writing each of them. I don’t prefer either one, but I feel more experienced in written poetry as of right now and wouldn’t necessarily say I’m exclusively a spoken word poetry artist anymore. I definitely believe they’re two separate art forms with different creative processes behind them.

I love watching spoken word performances – there’s something so special and unique about the form. I could listen to them for hours and hours. Joelle Taylor once said that spoken word poetry is about showing, and not telling. I think this is completely true – with spoken word poetry, there’s an emphasis on ‘showing,’ through gestures, emotions, or visual imagery.

What’s your creative process when writing poetry? Do you have any writing rituals? 

I tend to write my poems digitally, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Usually, I just sit down at my laptop and write whatever comes to mind. Over the years, I’ve compiled a sort of master document full of ideas, scraps, fragments, and shorter lines of poetry I’ve thought of. I split my computer screen into two, and on one side I have a fresh document, while on the other, I have these fragments to use for inspiration that I can just pick and choose.

If I force myself to write a poem, it just doesn’t work out, so I don’t set aside time for it. I just write whenever inspiration strikes me, or when I feel like it. I’ve collected quite a few poetry journals over the years, and write all my poems down to have written copies.

Is there anything you’ve studied while at King’s that’s inspired your writing?

In our first semester, we did the Reading Poetry module, which I absolutely loved. Not only were my tutor group so inspiring and creative, but I was also able to find my new style away from spoken word poetry through the module. It inspired me to write shorter, more powerful poems – a style I’m proud of.

Who’s your favourite poet?

I always get this question, and I never know how to answer it! I feel like I’m someone who writes more poetry than I read. One of my biggest inspirations is Poetcurious, he was my former teacher and writes a lot of spoken word poetry. Poetcurious was the one who provided me with various poetry opportunities throughout my time at secondary school and really helped me grow into the poet I am now. I couldn’t be more grateful!

Some of my other inspirations are Akala, Hollie McNish, Solomon O.B, Zena Edwards, Deanna Rodger, and Joelle Taylor – of course, this is also because I’ve had the pleasure of working with them and seeing them perform live. I’ve also been inspired by George The Poet more recently. I look up to Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes a lot, I really enjoy reading their poetry. I love Lucille Clifton as well. I read a lot of Middle Eastern poetry too, which has inspired my own poetry that I’d love to share in the future.

Do you think poetry is sometimes perceived as an inaccessible art?

I wouldn’t use the word inaccessible. I think poetry is very misunderstood. I think there should be more opportunities to learn about poetry in secondary school, as well as more of an emphasis on various styles of poetry – going beyond the canon and diversifying into teaching and learning about spoken word poetry.

Do you think poetry is meant to have a specific purpose?

There’s no one purpose of poetry – it can be anything you want it to be, which I find really inspiring and beautiful. Poetry is expressive for me: it lets me share my feelings with the world, and can also be a way of capturing a moment. The significance of poetry is subjective, so it truly can be anything you want it to be.

Does a poet need to have natural talent? How important is constant writing practice?

I think there are definitely good and bad writers. I know I said earlier that poetry is subjective, similar to how art is, but there are some boundaries. I don’t think writing poetry should be a tedious task where you have to write every day. If it helps you grow as a writer and a person, that’s great – it really is up to the poet.

Reading and thinking about what inspires you is the most important thing, across all different forms of media, whether that be painting, reading, listening to music… You don’t necessarily need to be very strict with yourself as a poet. At the same time, you need to edit your poetry and receive constructive criticism for it. Otherwise, your work won’t improve.

You publish some of your poetry on Instagram. Why this outlet?

I’ve been published before, and have done competitions. At a point during lockdown, I realised I had been writing more and wanted a way to showcase it. Instagram is the easiest way to do this. Using it as an outlet feels freeing, but also, I want to keep certain poems to myself. Sometimes poetry feels really personal and posting can feel like revealing aspects of myself.

I’m not looking to go viral. It’s just my hobby, what I love, and I’m really proud of it. I want to showcase it because I know people might feel how I feel, or even feel different. I love getting feedback from them too, it helps me improve my writing for the future.

Do you think publication in a journal or poetry collection is more intimate than self-publication on Instagram?

When I publish poetry online, I choose poetry I’m not too vulnerable about, and usually, work that I’m more open to criticism on. There is a different feel to both mediums. I do question using Instagram to publish poetry because of how exposed it feels. Instagram is freeing, as I said earlier, but it is also restrictive because I don’t want to expose all of my poetry – I’m not ready to share all these different parts of myself with the world.

What advice would you give to aspiring poets?

As cliché as this is going to sound, just write. Just keep writing. No matter how critical you are of your work, just write whatever comes to your mind. If inspiration strikes when you’re outside, or walking, catch it immediately and write it down. As passionate as I am about poetry, it’s not my future career. A lot of people think you can’t do anything else if you write, but you definitely can.

Also, always edit your work. It can sometimes be a difficult process, and no one really wants to do it, but it helps fine-tune your writing and gather inspiration for future work. Poetry is whatever you want it to be, and there are a lot of opportunities to publish or work with poets, so keep an eye out for these on social media. Just keep writing and keep going.

[skekheck]

30 Days of the Dark Crystal Challenge

Decided to do poultry-blocks Dark Crystal challenge because it looks like a lot of fun to do. However I’m cheating and I wrote all of this within a couple of days. Warning: fairly large post with pictures and fan ramblings. 

EDIT: I FORGOT TO INCLUDE DAY 16 WHOOP. It’s in there now. 

Day 1. Your favorite skeksis

Idiot, feral, wildman who stole my heart. How? Why? Who knows. *chef kisses* Beautiful stinky bastard.

Day 2: Your favorite gelfling

Bless her and her skeksis cosplay. What a queen.

Day 3: A character that you love that everyone seems to hate.

The tides are changing for her it seems. I think people are appreciating her more, but she still faces her fair share of controversies. Not that I don’t think it warrants discussion nor am I excusing her actions. But she’s way more complex than what a lot of people are making her out to be.

Day 4: A character that you hate that everyone seems to love. 

Hate is a strong word as I don’t hate him, but I don’t really care for Amri. He feels like a bootleg Deet mixed with a little bit of Kylan and Gurjin. Wasted potential and honestly shouldn’t have been the POV for Tides of the Dark Crystal. Seems I’m alone in this opinion, though. Maybe the book warrants rereading?

Day 5: Movie or TV Show? Why?

TV Show by miles! I think the series accomplishes way more than the movie does, like establishing lore,  better written characters, and a more engaging story. I actually cared about the gelfling and it really fleshed out the skeksis in an interesting way outside of “oh they do evil things because they’re evil!”. Doesn’t mean it does everything right, but I’ll get into that later.  

Day 6: Something you wish that happened in the series but didn’t.

Just a few things. I miss the gelfling intermingling with the mystics, particularly urVa. I love everything that happens with urGoh and skekGra, but some of the bonding moments Naia had with urVa are precious and I wish we had more of that. I also wished the gelfling got the message out to the other clans like they did in the book where Kylan dreametched their message onto the Santuary Tree’s blossoms and scattered them all throughout Thra. I also wished Tavra and Onica were an established couple, but maybe it’s not too late for that.

Day 7: Favorite gelfling clan

The Sifa! It was the Dousan at first, but the more I learned about the Sifa the more I grew to love the clan. If I were a gelfling I would probably be a sifa myself LOL. 

Day 8: You opinion on Aughra

She’s a fun and fascinating character! Aughra puts a unique spin on the whole beautiful, wise earth goddess trope by making her ugly, old, and cranky. She’s also a character with her own flaws, even having a mini arc about neglecting to take care of her planet and doing whatever she can to make amends. Not to mention she’s wildly entertaining. Much love for Aughra!

Day 9: Skeksis or Gelfling?

Both!

Day 10: Your opinion on podlings?

They’re just funky little potato people who just want to have fun, dance, and drink all day and I respect them for that. They’re great. Also Hup exists and he’s just an amazing character so there’s that.

Day 11: Your The Dark Crystal unpopular opinion

I think it’s okay to sympathize with the skeksis as long as one is not excusing their actions. I see a lot of people say you shouldn’t because they’re evil and they commit atrocities. Which, yes, it’s true, but I think both can co-exist. I mean, skekTek’s whole cycle of abuse is written very sympathetically yet the show doesn’t coddle him. It shows the ugliness of his character and what happens when someone isn’t capable of cutting off from said cycle. Also the writers consider the skeksis as tragic characters due to their broken nature so I don’t think it’s wrong to be a little sympathetic. But once again with great emphasis, sympathy is fine as long as their actions are judged. They are awful bastards and no amount of sympathy will change that. 

Day 12: Something you dislike about the series

I think the stuff I don’t like about the show is a result of its pacing and cluttered cast. There are so many stories going on and while I liked how they handled it for the most part, you can also see how the show rushes to get through all of them. A lot of important moments where a character should reflect or something that should simmer more is pushed aside for the next thing. Maybe if the show was given more episodes and time to breath it would have been better off. 

Day 13: Most disappointing thing about the series

SkekMal and urVa didn’t have enough screen time and we were honestly ROBBED. 

Day 14: Your OTP

Speaking of which... . Its a crack ship, but I’m all about that allegory for self love (and I just want these two to be alive). Day 15: Favorite quote

Listed plenty of my favorite quotes before, but I’ll pick this one:

“ Life is my paint. Death is my canvas”

Day 16: Rate the skeksis from least favorite to favorite OR rate the gelfling from lest favorite to favorite [or both!]

And if you want my gelfling hot takes, here’s this list (just backwards in context to this post)

Day 17: Opinion on Raunip?

Raunip is a fantastic character. I loved him in Creation Myths and I can’t wait to see what role he’d play in the resistance. And I absolutely love the parallels between him and the urskeks it’s great. 

Day 18: A character that is most similar to you.

I too am a dark-dwelling gremlin who constantly forgets where I put things and crack a few dark jokes at my expense. 

Day 19: Which character do you strongly dislike, why?

This is entirely based on the books, but I find Mera to be awful.  I think it’s because she’s so fake and condescending? When Naia arrived in Sami Thicket, she was acting nice and polite but when the Drenchen asked her why the skeksis never visited Sog Mera responded  “It’s only worth counting what’s valuable”. She continuously disrespects her by calling her pet names even when Naia became maudra. It doesn’t come off as cute, it’s gross. I don’t recall Mera ever apologizing for any of the shit she did to Naia... or Kylan for that matter. She was a pretty neglectful step-mother to him. She doesn’t have an excuse being busy with Maudra stuff because Laesid was a kickass mom to her kids. So in conclusion, fuck this bitch.

Day 20: What do you like so much about the Dark Crystal?

The better question what’s not to love about the Dark Crystal? It has amazing creature design, an expansive world that feels real and alien from our own, having complex and interesting characters as well as villains, the fact that it relies heavily on practical effects a.k.a puppetry... . There’s nothing like it and that’s what makes it so wonderful and unique. It needs to be appreciated more. 

Day 21: Favorite music piece from the soundtrack?

Can’t beat that opening theme. 

Day 22: Your opinion on the sequel comics [Power/Beneath the Dark Crystal]

They have cool concepts and ideas, but they’re not written well. Power is just the movie if it was put into a blender and shredded and ignoring a large portion of established lore for the sake of plot. And Beneath is just a generic fantasy story with the Dark Crystal logo slapped on it. 

Day 23: Which character from the YA novels/comics do you wish we would see more of?

There are plenty of characters that are a given to appear in the series at some point (skekSa, skekLi, urSan, etc). And of course I want to see them, but I really hope Periss shows up (and his brother too). He is one of my favorite characters from the book series and we could use some more Dousan rep!

Day 24: Your opinion on the Age of Resistance comic?

I have yet to read the comics. I’m waiting on them to be part of a collection so I don’t have to buy all of the volumes at once (I prefer owning physical copies). I’ve heard good things about them, especially the story with Hup and the current Mayrin arc. I’m excited to get my hands on them. 

Day 25: The best moment/scene in the series?

There are a lot of great moments, but Rian and Ordon’s fight with skekMal is still my favorite in the entire series. The "Speak For the Dead” scene is a close second.

Day 26: The death of a character that hurt you the most?

He did not deserve this. Fuck you, skekMal. 

Day 27: Your favorite episode from the series?

It’s got to be 4. Not just because a number of my favorite characters debut in this episode, but it’s an important one for the plot. Stakes are being raised, we’re seeing set ups to major story elements and character arcs, and events that impact the rest of the series. It also has a handful of my favorite character moments and interactions. 

Day 28: Your favorite non-skeksis and non-gelfling character? Why?

I’ve come to realize the reasons why I love urVa are the same as why I love skekMal (incredibly appropriate I might say). There’s enough information about him that we get a good understanding on who he is as a character, but still mysterious enough that there’s interest in wanting to know more. Much like his skeksis, he’s unique from the other mystics and thus giving him unique experiences that are fun to speculate. However, the YA novels are responsible for my current fondness of him. 

Day 29: Do you like the urru and skeksis apart or like them as urSkeks together?

A main theme of the Dark Crystal is unity and balance. The main conflict of the franchise are the skeksis, the broken fragments of their urskek self who, according to the writers, “...[have] a dire need for the qualities they lack”. Their only salvation is to become urskeks again and unfortunately many of the pairs never achieve this.  They’re basically a giant allegory for the self and self-love. While we don’t really know what they were like when they were an urskek (aside from SilSol perhaps), we can get some understanding when we look at their pairs and see what traits they share. Speculation is also fun! So as much as I love the skeksis and mystics as individuals, I prefer them to be whole again.

Day 30: What are your wishes for a possible season 2?

A whole bunch of things. I want to see them explore more about the mystics and their lifestyle, having Raunip play a big part in the plot, seeing more of skekSa’s fall from grace from her perspective, the beginning of the Garthim Wars, and more. 

[sirduck45]

Book 10

Hey this is just a chapter from a book I’m writing I hope you enjoy. I was also told that someone actually enjoyed reading something of mine???? Im gonna push through and finish the other half of that story for you, thank you for supporting me!!!

1 “Ok you need to tell me what’s going on right now,” Rebel demanded as she slammed the cellar door behind her.  

2 “What do you mean?” Fly said nonchalantly leaning up against a few crates full of booze.  

3 “You know damn well what I mean! You don’t drink, you said you had problems with these guys!  How do you even know them?” Rebel sputtered her fists clenched, she just hoped that the men in the bar wouldn’t hear her yelling.  

4 “Here,” Fly sighed and extended her arm which held out her almost empty glass. Rebel’s nose scrunched up in disgust, she wasn’t about to let the person who dragged her across the country for the past few months get her wasted when they were supposed to be in hiding. If Fly wouldn’t protect them then it was up to her.  

5 “Just smell it,” Fly groaned. Rebel stood for a second with her arms crossed, but soon gave in to her curiosity and stepped forward cautiously. With two short sniffs she couldn’t smell anything. One step forward, nothing. With another step forward and another deep breath she could almost taste it: lemons.  

6 “I told you I didn’t drink anymore,” Fly took a sip from her glass. “Something happened with these guys and I promised myself I’d never let it happen again. So, this was the solution.” Her gaze seemed to be fixed on something far away as the terrible memories replayed in her head. At times like these, her age showed through her young exterior. All the pain and suffering could be seen in her eyes as she recalled all the mistakes she made, all the people she left behind.  

7“What happened?” Rebel asked cautiously. Hoping her leader might divulge her in a bit about her past. Fly looked up at her breaking herself away from the daze that she caught herself in.  

8 Right, like Fly would tell her. But in Rebel's eyes, there was something else. An almost understanding, but how could she possibly understand what it was like to be her, to be a...  

9 Fly shook her head and looked away. This wasn’t happening. Introducing all the other girls to the guys who ran the bar was a trip enough down memory lane.  

10 Rebel took a small step forward, not wanting to let her leave without knowing what had happened to her. “Fly? You can tell me.”  

11 Could Fly even do this? Tell her about what she did? About him? All of it? Fly looked up into Rebel’s eyes, the same soft green eyes that she had, stared back at her. How could the two of them be so alike and so different at the same time?  

12 After a moment of pause Fly spoke, “It all started... back in World War II.” She hesitated for a moment, allowing all the bitter memories to come back. They bit at her like Hellhounds come to take her back to where she belonged. “It was just a regular mission; I was leading a small group to go take down a Nazi official.”  

13 “Well, I say leading but –uh- you know, they had these -uh -handlers, to- um... keep me in check.” She paused remembering what happened when she got home. Fly stood up a bit taller, now looking at the wall past Rebel. Her fists clenched remembering the crack of the whip, the blood, the scars. “They never really could trust something like me.”  

14 “But uh...” Fly smiled remembering the only reason why it was worth it all. The only memory that wouldn’t cause her this pain. Rebel captivated by this indulgence into Fly’s past leaned up against an adjacent crate.  

15 “There was this guy,” Fly explained slowly as she recreated his face in her memory. “He was a bit of an asshole at first but uh... we um...” She paused unsure of how to explain the feeling without sounding like an idiot.  

16 “You fell in love?” Rebel’s voice was quiet. Fly nodded not wanting to admit anything out loud.  

17 Rebel’s eyes softened as she looked upon her leader in a new light. Her fearless leader has never shown such insecurity before, and most likely never will again. After months and months of being dragged around this was the most that Fly had ever talked about herself.  

18 “We... had a few nights together, never really thinking about the future, which I guess was for the best,” Fly’s smile quickly faded. “Last day of the mission we were meeting at the rendezvous but there was an ambush and...” The blood was all over her hands again. The pounding of the gunshots in her ears. The screaming and crying. Unable to see his face as tears blurred even her memories.  

19 She took a ragged breath and continued, “I got back to the states and in all honesty, I was lost. One day I wandered out here and found these guys.” She chuckled at the memory, “They had made a bar based on me when I was a cowboy.” Rebel had figured that when she saw the theme of the bar, every old man up there was saying that everything on the walls was once hers. From the cowboy hat to the Harley in the garage.

20 “Things were great for a while, you know, taking our hogs for rides, they even gave me the nickname Lady. But after Nam we were all changed, the ones who were left anyways. I guess I was... drowning my mistakes seemed better than facing them you know?” There was a brief pause as Fly thought back to those dark days of blackout drunk men and her just sitting alone with a half-empty bottle.  

21 “... I don’t know why or how but we ended up having like a little fight club at the bar. Really it was just them getting drunk and trying to wrestle me as a bear or a gorilla or something.” Fly forced a small laugh as her free hand gripped the crate she was leaning up on.  

22 “But um... one night we all got wasted, like borderline blackout, and I got rough... really rough.”  

23 “How bad was it?” Rebels voice seemed loud as it echoed in the small dark cellar. A twinge of regret spread through her as she hated making Fly remember all this pain.  

24 “He ended up in the hospital,” Fly’s eyes glistened, but no tears fell. “When he got back nothing was the same. They all said it was fine, but I knew it wasn’t... I... I feel like I can’t control it sometimes. This monster inside of me... I just decided to leave. On my own, things would be better.” Fly sniffed as she rubbed her nose, she probably looked so pathetic. With a small cough to clear her throat, she composed herself and stood up straight.  

25 Rebel stood there ashamed. Ashamed for accusing her. Ashamed for not trusting her. Ashamed for blaming everything that went wrong with the ship on her. Rebel took a step forward, but Fly put up her hand.  

26 “I don’t need your sympathy,” Her head was still down, but her voice cracked. “I-I don’t need-” But before she could protest Rebels arms were wrapped around her. She tensed up and didn’t move, not used to close contact. But it felt ...nice.  

27 Slowly Rebel could feel a pair of arms gently embrace her. No words were spoken. Both girls had been broken by this world and the next. Their worlds had been taken from them. Friends killed before their eyes. It was at this moment Rebel realized how similar they were.  

28 Fly let go, her voice hoarse, “don’t tell anyone about this.” All of her respect from the others upstairs would be lost if anyone knew about this exchange. With a small smile Rebel nodded at her leader.  

29 The two girls moved towards the door, but Rebel had paused. An old picture that was lying on a crate had caught her eye. Black and white unsmiling faces stared back at her. Fly stood in the picture in front of a line of four men, looking the same as she did today.  

30 Fly picked up the picture and inspected every face. Jaqu, the French sniper who barely talked. Morgans the medic who would faint at the slightest mention of blood. Patell, Fly’s handler who was supposed to keep her in check throughout the missions. Then there was...  

31 “Is that him?” Rebel asked as Fly’s finger brushed against the picture. His laugh, and sarcastic comments, the way he would show off, it all came flooding back to her. She had been alive for nearly three hundred and fifty years. Memories of her parents, homeland, all the other people who have helped her on her journey had faded away with time. But not him, only three days she had known him, and yet she would never forget.  

32 Fly nodded as her fingers curled around the frame.  

33 “What was his name?”  

34 “Mark.”

[purplesurveys]

883

1. What kind of textures do you enjoy most in your food? Crunchy, crispy, soft, hard, grainy, slimy, etc? I love chewing on any meal that involves rice. Born and raised with it, can’t feel full without it. I’ll give a special mention to slimy too, because I love seafood.

2. Do you keep up any seasonal decorations outside of their season? No. My mom removes our Christmas decor by late January, which is when Christmas season ends here. We don’t decorate for other holidays.

3. Can you remember the most awkward situation you've ever been in? What happened? Ugh god. Any time I’m left alone with Gab’s dad is bound to be awkward because he’s very quiet and stoic and I tend to be a vibrant, cheery people-pleaser and nothing I do will muster more than two words out of him...but our most awkward moment has to be when I was at their place and he had to leave to run some errands. I stood up and walked over to give him a hug, but for some reason the floor was slippery and I started to do the world’s clumsiest and longest stumble. As an instinct, I held on to his arm and shirt so that I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. It was terrible and nothing I could’ve done or said would’ve saved that situation. EUGH I’m wincing right now lmao

4. Can you remember the most scary situation you've ever been in? What happened? [trigger warning] Would have to be the time when my grandfather got too drunk off his ass that he physically assaulted one of my cousins, then a toddler. My aunt (cousin’s mom) is a little on the delicate and petite side and couldn’t do anything to confront my grandpa, who went on his rage for like 10, 15 minutes. Certainly felt like forever. Nothing has traumatized me more and that’s saying a lot, considering it’s been 13 years and I’ve been through tons of shitty situations.

5. Do you do anything unusual to help you concentrate? It’s not very weird but I did install an extension on my browser that would let me list certain sites (usually social media) I’d want blocked whenever I have work. I suppose not everyone has that kind of program so it kinda counts as unusual.

6. Do you ever wonder what your parents were like as children/teenagers? With my dad, yes. My mom tells me enough stories. I know her family hit a rough patch when she was a teenager and they had to sell a bunch of their stuff, including a grand piano. She went from living a comfortable life to having to skip meals in college because she only had enough money for her daily commute.

7. Do you think suicide is ever "okay?" Groan, this is so triggering. I’m not elaborating on this, soz.

8. Would you rather a close family member/close friend/significant other die of suicide or murder? Why is this? “>> I think having to deal with a murder investigation would be terribly messy and intrusive, and would add more trauma on top of what I’m already dealing with.” < All of this. You don’t always get closure with murders, too. And I would hate that.

9. In your opinion, what is the worst thing someone could ever do? Raping an infant is definitely up there for me.

10. In your opinion, what is the best thing someone could ever do? Be a positive change or impact in someone’s life. Idk, I’m easy to please.

11. Do you think about any fellow xangans outside of xanga? I’ll change the context of this question to Tumblr so I can answer it. And yes I do, sometimes. Not in a creepy way or anything; it usually happens when I encounter something in real life that I know another survey-taker likes.

12. What military installation is the closest to you? Fort Bonifacio.

13. Do you still open your windows during winter? We don’t get winter but yeah, December is the best time to leave the windows open throughout the night. It’s also a great time to be able to save on electricity haha

14. How cold is too cold? How hot is too hot? I’ve lived in a tropical country all my life so I’m a big-ass wimp when it comes to the cold, even though I love it more. I start shivering at around 23ºC. Too hot is anything reaching the 40s.

15. Would you rather lose both legs or both arms? Why? Legs. I use my hands a lot more, so it would be slightly more difficult if I suddenly had to move about without them.

16. If you committed a crime that landed you in prison for the rest of your life, but were given the option to receive the death sentence instead, which would you choose? Why? Death. I get to have the infamous ~last meal~. Lol in all seriousness though, I’d pick it because it would be a quick release for me, I guess. It’s a big reason why I’m not a fan of death penalty...it’s too easy an escape for criminals who deserve a lot worse.

17. Is there any specific album you can listen to in its entirety and enjoy every single song? After Laughter - Paramore

18. Would you rather be a famous movie star, television star, or musician? I don’t have talents that would make me succeed in any of these fields...I guess it’d be fun to be a movie star though.

19. If you are not religious, have you ever eaten dinner with a group of people that were and said grace before eating? How was this for you? If you are religious and say grace before dinner, have you ever eaten dinner with a group of people that weren't and didn't say grace before eating? How was this for you? Yes. I’m from a Catholic family, so we pray before every meal. I do a sign of the cross but barely, just so my mom sees I move my hands when we start the prayer; but I haven’t recited grace since I told myself I was going to be atheist.

20. Do you think an evil Santa or an evil Easter Bunny would make a better villain in a horror movie? I’d go with Evil Santa mostly because I have no attachment to the Easter Bunny whatsoever, and because it’d be hilarious to see a man with reindeer be mean.

21. Did you ever think any fictional story-book character was creepy as a child? Do you still think any of them are creepy? Yes. That girl who wears a ribbon around her neck still gives me the fucking creeps.

22. Would you rather wear nothing but white or nothing but black? Is there any color you'd actually want to wear head-to-toe? Black. I’ve done that many times, so it wouldn’t feel weird.

23. What physical/mental health problems run in your family? Do you have any of the same problems? I’m almost certain there are underlying issues on my mom’s side but seeing as none of us have ever gotten ourselves checked (and most of them don’t believe in mental health problems anyway) I doubt I’ll ever find out what exactly’s wrong.

24. What is your mental and physical health like right now? They are both doing surprisingly well considering how long I’ve had to stay home and how much everything has turned upside down. I’ve only had two bad breakdown in four months and I’ve since recovered from that nasty fever I got, so I can’t complain.

25. If you found a suitcase (with no information about the owner) with a million dollars inside of it , would you turn it into the police or keep it? Be honest. ;] “>> See, a million dollars is an exorbitant sum. There is no way I could just casually make off with a missing million and not suffer repercussions. It's just too much goddamn money, and in this particular scenario, it's highly likely that it's a trap of some sort (whether set for me, or set for someone else and my dumb ass just happened to stumble across it). I'm not dumb enough to try it.

Neither would I necessarily want to turn it in, because that might cause me to get involved in something I didn't want or need to be involved in. The most logical course of action for me would be to leave it the fuck alone.” < Yeup.

26. Would you rather gaze at the stars or clouds? Stars. The fact that they’re so much farther away makes them more fascinating to me.

27. Are they any foods you used to enjoy but no longer like? Are there any foods you used to dislike but now enjoy? There’s a certain brand of frozen sisig that I used to looooove and would have multiple servings of every time I had it. But I had it one too many times and now I can’t even stand the smell of it. On the other hand, I hated chicken curry as a kid, but I can’t get enough of it now.

28. Do you feel much older or younger than you are? Why? Neither. I just feel 22.

29. Did you get along with kids that were older or younger than you? I mostly got along with kids of the same age. I found younger kids too rowdy and being around older kids always felt intimidating.

30. Do you know any magic tricks? Nopes.

31. How much would life suck for you if you had a wheat allergy? A lot.

32. Are you able to watch gory scenes in movies? Why or why not? For sure. I always want to see how far FX artists can go; and if used correctly, gory scenes can be super integral to the movie. Midsommar is a really good example.

33. Do you constantly check the time? Does time seem to move quickly or slowly for you? Not anymore. I used to check it a lot while I was still in school. Sigh, I miss that life so much. Anyway, time definitely felt slower during the first few weeks of the lockdown, but now that I’m used to it days just fly by. I can hardly believe we’re nearly in the middle of July. So much of this year has been wasted. It’s miserable.

34. Would you rather live in a nice house in a bad location, or a less-than-nice house in a great location? I’m taking the great location. I don’t know if I can last living in a shady area, no matter how beautiful my house is.

35. Have you ever been a witness to a horrible crime? What happened? Domestic violence is the worst thing I can think of. I enumerated one of them in one of the earlier questions, but I witnessed several other cases as a kid.

[jdkicked]

My battle with what may have been abuse

I am still trying to figure out if this was abuse or not. I am still trying to figure out if it was really sexual assault or not. There is too much for me to ever be able to put into words or to be able to process. This isn’t going to go into a ton of detail and will probably be pretty ramble-y. The situation was complicated to say the least. It started when I was 13, I was in a chat room and hit it off with a guy, Ryan, who said he was 16. He was great for a while, we really got to know each other but my life was on the rocks so I frequently had to stop mid-conversation to do something to please my strict parents and then return to the conversation, and he always got really mad about that, even after I explained what was going on. I figured he was well within his rights to be mad when I dropped out mid-conversation so I thought nothing of it. When I was around 14, we started dating. This is when it got bad.

It started off pretty innocently, but it quickly escalated to me sending semi-nude (bra off) photos to him fairly regularly, despite me expressing to him that I wasn’t comfortable with this, but every time I tried to tell him “no” it would escalate to him threatening to leave me (he knows how attached I get to people and he had twisted the words of my friends and family to convince me that he was the only one who cared, so he was the only person left in my life) and threatening to kill himself, so I sent the photos, as well as numerous videos of me doing things through my underwear and doing things with my feet (he had a foot fetish). He wanted me to send full nude but I was completely uncomfortable with that and never sent them to him. Him threatening to kill himself happened whenever I said “no” to ANYTHING or disagreed with him. And when those threats started to work less, he resorted to not talking to me for a week and then coming back with proof that he had been admitted into the hospital for a suicide attempt. Every argument was my fault because I chose to disagree with him or not do what he wanted. Every time we disagreed on something, even something minor, he would leave for a week because he knew my anxiety would take what happened that one time and run with it. He never landed himself in the hospital again but rather was taking that time to “cool off” and he knew how much it scared me, he didn’t care. The fear was my punishment for not doing what he wanted. When we weren’t fighting, he seemed to be what I wanted and felt I deserved in a person. So I stayed. And the cycle of him leaving over something minor, me apologizing for something that wasn’t my fault, me worrying for a week that he was dead, and him coming back and acting like he was a saint in the situation, continued.

He had admitted to me when I was about 16 that he lied about his age, and was in fact 19 when we started talking, not 16. This shook me a bit but by this point I was so attached to him that I didn’t even consider leaving due to that. At one point I left him, after my few remaining friends telling me how bad my relationship was (they didn’t even know all of what was going on), but I ended up returning to him after just a month or two since by that point I was mostly on my own and I hated it, I had no one. The cycle of threats and him leaving and me apologizing for questions continued until a few months before I turned 17, when we had our first phone call (we were finally in the same country so I wouldn’t have to explain a long distance call to my parents) during that call he admitted to me that he was 28. And when I brought up how big of a lie that was, he told me that  he had claimed since a few months into us knowing each other that he was his real age (late 20s) and that my concussions had caused me to forget that (I actually had a doubt in my mind about if it really had been my concussion for about 8 months after I left before I looked through everything he sent me and discovered that he had never brought that up). Throughout our relationship, I frequently found my mental health at its worst, I fell badly into my eating disorder, my self harm really picked up, and my gambling started. Shortly after his claim about my concussions, I started to realize how bad my situation was, so I started to reconnect with old friends, and most of them said that they were realizing what had happened when I first left and that they were happy to welcome me back because they were worried about me, but some others were unwilling to let me back into their life after I left out of the blue, and I don’t blame them for that at all. And then I tried to leave him, only this time I wasn’t told the normal “I’m going to kill myself” but rather I was told, yet again, how worthless I was and how no one would ever want me (he had said things like this during almost every argument and I believed him) and then he said the words that pissed me off to no end: “You’re not allowed to break up with me, that has to be something I want to do”.

At this point, I was fed up with him and I had a support group behind me telling me to leave and never look back, so I started being an absolute dick to him. I brought up everything I knew would make him hurt, it seemed fair to me since that’s what he always did. I took days to text him back. I rejoined all the things he told me I wasn’t allowed to do since they took my time away from him. Finally, while I was at prom, he sent the text to end it all. He finally let me go. After months of me trying to leave. I immediately told everyone I could and they were all so happy for me. I didn’t talk to him again until roughly 8 months later when he messaged me asking how I was, at this point I was scared of him because he had proven to me that he knew what town I lived in and which house was mine, despite me never telling him anything other than that I lived in Minnesota and he had threatened to hurt my friends and family, and based on what I knew of his criminal history, he would do it with next to no regrets. I, terrified of what may happen if I ignored him, answered back as politely as I could but made sure not to encourage any conversation with him. This seemed to please him enough for him to leave, he may have tried to message me since but I wouldn’t know since I finally got the courage to block him on every social media I had him on.

Do I regret leaving? Of course not. The time since I have left has been so much happier than when I was with him.

But he still has power over me and I hate that. He’s the reason I got rid of my split-dye hair (which I loved, but unfortunately so did he so it just reminded me of him since my hair was the only thing he would ever compliment me on). He’s the reason I now view feet as the most repulsive thing on the planet and I wish no human had them. He’s the reason I am scared to ask questions (my parents also played a role in that). He’s the reason I will never again paint my toe nails (he loved that) it took months for me to even want to wear any nail polish after I left and it is still something I struggle with. He’s the reason I want to move so badly out of this town. He’s the reason I will NEVER go to Maryland (where he owns a house and lives now) but if I have to I will never go outside of a large city (he hates those with a burning passion). He’s the reason I will never go to non-touristy parts of Dublin (his home town that he frequently goes back to). He’s why I don’t really trust any more (my other ex’s also played a role in that, but a pretty minor one. My family also played a good role in destroying my ability to trust). He’s why I swore to never send a full nude without multiple identity verifications. He’s why I feel disgusting after doing anything truly consensual with my partners now. He’s why I don’t ever expect my partners to care about my consent. He stole years of my life and filled them with pain. I am still scared everyday that he will some how find me or those I care about and hurt them. He had been known to take revenge years later, and I am scared of that. I am scared. And I still battle with myself as to whether or not it was abuse or whether or not it was consensual since he pressured me and lied.

[whiskynottea]

An Interruption in the 1st Law of Thermodynamics

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27,  Chapter 28, Chapter 29, Chapter 30, Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33, Chapter 34, Chapter 35,  Chapter 36, Chapter 37, Chapter 38, Chapter 39, Chapter 40, Chapter 41, Chapter 42, Chapter 43, Chapter 44, Chapter 45, Chapter 46 

AO3

Huge thank you to @theministerskat, for betaing this story!

Chapter 47. Pictures

“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” My muttering continued at the lack of Jamie’s voice at the other end of the line. That invisible line that kept us connected since he had left. “Come on…”

It was ten o'clock in the morning in rainy Edinburgh. And that meant… Five in the morning in Michigan. He was asleep, of course he was.

Still. I didn’t want anyone to know before him. Jamie would have been the first person to hear the news if he had stayed in Scotland and I was determined not to let the bloody ocean change that.

I didn’t care for the damned time zones. Or this stupid distance between us. He was just one click away, anyway.

“Come on…”

Nothing. I tried again and waited, willing him to wake up.

“Mmm?” I was sure he had opened an eye, saw my picture on the screen and accepted the call closing said eye again. I could feel him on the verge of sleep.  

“Jamieeeeee!” My voice was too high and loud, the last letter of his name turning into an elongated cheer. I wondered if he had ever heard me squealing like this. Well, he couldn’t see me, at least. Because I was sure that he would never stop laughing if he’d seen me moving in my happy and frantic stationary run.  

I couldn’t help it. I was excited. I was bursting with happiness. Every inch of my body vibrating with energy, strong currents seeking a release.

“I got accepted – I got accepted – I got accepted!”

A moment’s silence, as if he was taking the news in, and then, “That’s amazing! Congrats, babe! I was sure Oxford wouldn’t miss this opportunity!” It was a coarse whisper, a restrained cry, and I belatedly remembered that Jamie had a roommate. One that would very likely be asleep - if my shrill voice hadn’t reached his ears.

I rolled my eyes at his comment, wished the roommate was a heavy sleeper, and continued. “Oh my God Jamie, the letter was so small I couldn’t bring myself to open it. I stood there, looking at the envelope for a good while, doubting myself, doubting how good I had been during the interview. But then I opened it and…”

“And ye got into Oxford, Sassenach. Christ, I’m so proud of ye!”

“I did!” I paused, smiling. “I got into Oxford,” I repeated, my voice back to normal now, and plumped down onto my bed. “I’m sorry for waking you up. I just… I just wanted you to be the first one to know. Now go back to sleep!”

“Claire.” His hoarse voice squeezed through my ribs, engulfing my heart. “Thank ye. Thank ye for telling me first.”

I chuckled, trying to drive away the emotional weight carried by his words. As if I would ever tell anyone else first. As if the distance between us made any difference. My voice was soft when I spoke again. “Nothing has changed, remember? Although I had never thought you’d thank me for waking you up at five in the morning. Go back to sleep.”

“I love ye,” he whispered, adding another warm, fuzzy layer of him around my heart.

“I love you too. Goodnight!”

“Kiss?” 

I sent him a ridiculous “Mwah!” and hung up with the stupidest smile on my face. 

It was the ninth of January. After a quick call to Lamb to tell him the news, I made myself some breakfast, sank into the sofa and ate, absentmindedly looking at our Christmas tree. There was nothing but Oxford in my mind. 

By the time my granola disappeared from my bowl I had decided to search for cheap tickets to Michigan. Now that I knew what I was going to do the following year, I had to see to some more pressing matters.

Like visiting Jamie. 

I had to have a date to look forward to. To count the days until I could hold him again. Until I could crush against his chest and get wrapped up in his arms. Until I could taste him again. 

I needed to have a date. 

Rising from the couch, the tiny lights and ornaments on the tree looked back at me. Judgemental. Waiting.

I had promised Lamb that I would take care of all our Christmas decorations once the holidays were over. He didn’t want to have the tree to begin with. “Too much trouble,” he’d said. But I had insisted, and here I was now looking at the beautiful green branches sprinkled with baubles, wishing the holidays would last a bit longer. 

One week more. Or two. Maybe three?

An hour later, I had all the ornaments back into their boxes. The tree, now bare, was patiently waiting for Lamb to discard it. But the house felt empty in a way. Less…cheerful. Normal.

I looked around, let out a loud sigh as if someone was around to take pity on me, and took the boxes to the storage room. I always disliked the end of the holidays and decided to hurry back to my room to find those cheap tickets to the US after I put everything away. That would definitely cheer me up.

I had been almost done when I tried to squeeze the last bag of garland between two boxes of ornaments. The empty space on the shelf proved to be more narrow than I had thought, and a small brown box fell down from its perch at the end of the simple wooden plank, spitting out almost all its contents.

Damn!

At least nothing had broken. Crouching on my knees I realized it contained photo albums. My parents’ photo albums. We had never unpacked all of them after moving into this house. There wasn’t enough space, so I had kept my favorite ones – with pictures of the three of us – on the bookshelf of the living room. 

I loved going through those albums. Their pictures were the only tangible connection with my parents. They filled the gaps of my memories. When my mind blurred their images, the pictures where there, showing me how their faces glowed, how wide their smiles were, how happy we all were together. 

But the albums lying on the floor were from a time before me. The pictures from their wedding. There was a period in my life, when I was around five, when I couldn’t stop looking at my mom in her long white dress, the lace covering her arms, the flowers on her head. The rest of the albums were even older; from my parents’ time in college. I hadn’t gone through them for a while.

Gathering the albums in my arms, I walked back into the living room. I spread them on the coffee table and the couch, and began to flip through them, one by one.

The house wasn’t empty anymore.

Each picture was a story. I knew them all. I had made Lamb tell me each and every one of them, again and again, throughout the years, that I had memorized them - they were my tales. 

And because I knew, I caressed the pictures with timid hands, afraid to alter the stories behind them. Afraid to leave my fingerprints in places they didn’t belong.

God, the way they laughed. How young they were. How carefree.

There was a mirth in these pictures, different from the family warmth and elation the later pictures held.

These pictures held limitless possibilities. 

I cherished each one of them, feeling self-conscious for having my mother’s hair, my father’s eyes. 

I had decided to make myself a cup of tea and continue until Lamb came home, when a picture fell into my lap, free from the plastic constraints of the album.

It was tucked between the last page and the cover, and didn’t match any of the others. It showed my mom, hair wild and eyes glinting, surrounded by children. Children with black skin, skinny limbs, eyes full of joy and the brightest smiles I had ever seen. 

My mom had been in Africa?

She was young, very young. And my dad was nowhere around. I had never seen that picture before. I didn’t know its story. 

I flipped the picture, desperate for any information. 

Zambia, 1993

Zambia? My mom had been in Zambia? 

I made the calculations. She had been eighteen years old in 1993, the same age as I was now.

I sat with the picture in my hands for a long time, studying every little detail on it. The dirt on the path, the prefab building behind them, something that looked like children‘s drawings glued on the windows. At last, I sat the picture on the coffee table and went to the kitchen to make a chai latte. My throat was dry. When I came back, hands warm from the hot mug and thoughts running wild, I continued with the photo albums needing to root myself to the stories I knew. My gaze, however, was falling on the lone picture on the coffee table more often than I would like to admit. 

I was eager to learn its secrets. To find the piece of my mother’s life that I had missed.

In the afternoon, when Lamb entered the front door with a light whistle, I almost jumped at him. 

“Lamb! What’s this?” I asked, bringing the picture inches away from his face.

“What’s what?” he asked in response, and took the picture away from me. His raised eyebrows lowered considerably as he studied the picture. “That’s your mother.”

“Duh!”

He shot me a look and his eyes immediately returned on the picture. “Where the hell is she?”

I let out a disappointed sigh. He didn’t know anything more than I did. “She’s in Zambia,” I said, and seeing his questioning glance I added, “It’s written on the back.”

Lamb turned the picture around, exactly as I had done a few hours earlier, and read the only information we had. “Ninety-three,” he murmured. “She was – ” “Eighteen years old,” I continued this thought. “Right after high school, then.” Lamb handed the picture back to me to remove his coat. “This means… It’s taken before she met your father and me. We met in college, and during the second year, that is.”

“So you didn’t know that she’d been in Africa?” I asked as we moved towards the living room. “She had never talked about it?”

“No. At least not to me. I’m rather sure your father would have known, they told each other everything.” Lamb sat slowly on the armchair and ran a hand through his black and grey hair. “This woman will never stop surprising me.” His voice was soft, and I knew he said it more to himself than to me. His eyes were loaded with emotion as he bent and took the picture from the table, where I’d left it. 

“It looks like a school,” I said, providing any information I thought was valid. 

“It does.” Lamb smiled. “She was a great teacher, your mom. Her students loved her. Your dad always said that she was almost as patient as I.” A chuckle left his lips, and I felt my heart clenching inside my chest. I was always thinking of how much I missed them, but it rarely crossed my mind that their absence was vast from Lamb’s life too. They were the only family he had - apart from me.

I rose from the couch and walked to him, placing a soft kiss on his cheek. Lamb looked at me for a good while saying nothing. Then he sighed, called me lamb and ruffled my hair, so like my mother’s in the picture. 

“You think she volunteered?” 

“Sounds like her,” Lamb said, his eyes trailing back to the picture. When he finally took them away, he looked at me again. “I’m sorry I have nothing to tell you about it, lamb. I wish I knew more.”

I kissed him again, keeping for myself that I wished he would, too. “It’s okay,” I said, instead. “Are you hungry?”

Our stomachs growled in sync at the mention of food. We both laughed and headed towards the kitchen to cook. 

--

That night, as I was waiting for Jamie’s video call, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom and what a beautiful, brave thing she had done. How she may have changed those children’s lives. How her impact might still be here, alive, even when she was gone. 

When I saw Jamie’s beautiful face, his clear blue eyes looking at me with so much love, I didn’t know from where to begin. So I told him everything, with my heart drumming in my chest and the words forming in my mouth faster than I could talk them out. 

“Now I start to understand how genetics work,” he said when I finished. 

I bit my lips so hard to stop from crying, that they almost bled. “I wish I was as good as my mom.” I rolled my eyes to hide the fact that I truly did.

“Ye are, Sassenach,” he said with a conviction that made me smile. “Ye are,” he repeated, as if to plant the idea in my mind. 

I shrugged and changed the subject, asking him about his day. He was so enthusiastic every time he talked about the college and his new team, that I could listen to him forever, if only to see him shining with glee. A good while later, when I’d heard every little detail of his day, I finally interrupted him and asked him if a month would be enough for him to get familiar with the place.

“A month?” He frowned in thought. “Why?”

“Because I’m coming in a month!” I exclaimed, my grin so wide I looked like the Cheshire cat. 

His eyes got wide and the screen shook so much I could only see the top of his head for a few seconds. “Whaaaaaaat?” His whoop earned him a “Shut up Fraser!” that made me burst into laughter. 

“I’m coming! I booked the tickets today!” I assured him when he rearranged the laptop so he’d be in the frame again. 

“And why haven’t ye told me that from the beginning? Ye cruel thing! I canna believe ye’ll be here!”

I laughed again, my heart so loud I could hardly listen to my thoughts. “Happy?” I asked, my eyes fixed on the smile that covered almost half his face.

“Are ye kidding me? I’m the happiest man on earth!”

“Glad to know!” The voice was heard again and I saw the side of Jamie’s long, straight nose as he turned his head to talk to his roommate. 

“Shut up, Grey!” he admonished him and turned to look at me again. “If he keeps interrupting, I’ll throw him out before I call ye next time.”

“You wish! You have no right to do so, sir!” I heard the voice again, bold and pompous. 

Jamie rolled his eyes at that. “Claire,” he said then, smiling. “May I introduce you to Lord John Grey?” He turned the camera and I saw a beautiful man, lean and slender, with blond hair and light blue eyes. 

“Madam,” he said, faking a bow. “Glad to make your acquaintance. And here I thought your name was Sassenach.”

I laughed at that, and the camera turned back on Jamie, who was now grimacing. 

“Be sure I heard a lot about you, Claire!” John’s head popped just above Jamie’s.

“Oh! Good things I hope, my lord!” 

“Too many good things. I thought he had made you up! And you can call me John. You’re a civilized English subject after all, not a brut like some Scots I’ve come to know lately.”

“Okay, enough, you two!” Jamie shoved John off and gave me a grin. “See, Sassenach? I always have an English ass next to me!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” John and I said in one voice, both equally incredulous. 

“See?” Jamie glanced at him and then back at me. I was still laughing when Jamie looked at me in a way that made my skin crawl. “As ye see mo chridhe, it’s impossible to talk right now.”

I checked my screen and was surprised to find that we had been talking for almost two hours. “I have to go to bed, anyway.”

“Ye are in bed,” Jamie whispered, glancing at his right to check on John. “Christ, Sassenach, the things I’m thinking, looking at ye.”

“Isn’t John listening to you?” I asked concerned, my voice low.

“He has his headphones back on. But tomorrow I’ll make sure he gets his arse out of the room before I call ye. Don’t laugh!”

“I’m not! But you do that, tomorrow!” Still laughing, I blew him a kiss and slipped under the duvet. “Goodnight, Jamie.”

“Goodnight, mo ghraidh. Dream of me, aye?”

“I will,” I promised, ended the call, and closed my eyes thinking of my wonderful Scot.

Chapter 48

[bobbystompy]

68 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2019

Below are my favorite quotes from 2019. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “I don’t bitch about Millenials.

John Entwistle once complained that he didn’t understand rap. Pete Townsend said, ‘It’s not our job to understand it. It’s our job to get the fuck out of the way.’

New generations come of age. The older generation’s job is to shut up and adapt.” - @danagould

2) “I can’t do drugs with you until we kiss.”

3) “If you pay me $50 I'll show up to your funeral but stand really far away, holding a black umbrella regardless of the weather, so that people think you died with a dark and interesting secret.” - @DanaSchwartzzz

4) “A human being is a dangerous thing to let loose in a room with itself, when it cannot think.” - Roger Ebert

5) “There are no bad bourbons, only better bourbons.” - Dave Hernandez

6) “You can’t put a dollar in a kimono.”

7) “This is how it was.” - rampant takeaway from watching ‘Superbad’ several years after its release

8) “What if I had been born fifty years before you in a house on the street where you lived / Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike / Would I know? / And in a wide sea of eyes, I see one pair that I recognize” - Ben Folds, ‘The Luckiest’

9) “Learn the rules so you can break them.”

10) “Nobody makes chili for two.” - Stacy Massey

11) “‘Best city in the world,’ I mutter to myself, as i adjust my ‘driving blanket’.” - Chicago resident Deanna Belos, during the 2019 Polar Vortex

12) “Dude, no one’s ever got arrested for listening to Counting Crows.” - Ricky O’Donnell, justifying late night music volume at his party

13) Bill Belichick: We’re going to have fun tonight. Rob Gronkowski: Yes we are. We deserve it. Belichick: You’re damn right. Gronk: I haven’t stepped out in like eight months. I gotta step out tonight. Belichick: I’m with you, man. I’m even going to step out. Gronk: Oh, I like it!

A Super Bowl winning exchange.

14) Center David Andrews thanked Bill Belichick for giving him "a shot".

Belichick disagreed with it.

Andrews: Thank you for giving me a shot. Belichick: A shot? I didn't give you shit. You earned it! I don't give anything.

Another Super Bowl winning exchange.

15) “We elected one of the very worst living human beings to be President, and it's exhausting. Each and every day, it's an exhausting slog, just to exist in a world where that's true.” - Michael Schur

16) “Some of y’all always picked Odd Job when you played Goldeneye and it shows” - @thedad

17) “Any app is a dating app if you try hard enough.” - Z.W. Martin (though he says it’s lifted)

18) "Once you're as woke as I am, you learn to feel bad all the time.”

19) “Everything’s a balance beam when you’re 90.” - John Dingell

20) [I wake up in a world where The Beatles never existed]

Me: Check out this song I just wrote

[I begin playing “Ob La Di Ob La Da” without having first built up years of goodwill]

Crowd of people: Wow, this sucks ass

-- @seanoneal

21) “People change people.” - Corey Matthews, Girl Meets World

22) “The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.” - William Goldman

23) “Dan could be like a difficult uncle. I didn’t love his fire-breathing conservative politics. I didn’t love the transformation that came over his novels. In Semi-Tough, he created two benighted Texas jocks and laid their prejudices bare. He was declaring himself a member of the Mark Twain coaching tree. In later books, Dan seemed to be trying to prove he could still tell a racist joke. He insisted that his memoir—the last truly immaculate piece of writing he delivered—include a tirade against political correctness. When his editor said people might be offended, Dan said, ‘Fuck people.’

There are certain writers whose style you pilfer. Certain writers whose moral fiber you try to inherit. For me, Dan represented a third category: a writer whose aura you replicate—or, failing that, try to stand in for a while.” - Bryan Curtis, on Dan Jenkins

24) “Never marry anything. Never choose. Even in love, it's better to be chosen.” - La Dolce Vita

25) “An uncluttered, uncomplicated happy ending might sound wonderful, but it’s hardly ever satisfying. Because the value of great stories lies in the tension between desire and need, between the yearning for the ideal, and the unshakable conviction that ideals don’t really exist, at least not the way we want them to. A great story should hurt a little when it leaves us. There should be some hope, but that hope should remain somewhere just an inch beyond our fingers, because that’s the truth. Even if you had all the perfect moments in the world, you’d still be reaching.” - Zach Handlen, on the Futurama series finale

26) “You can’t see him because he has sunglasses on.” - Alissa Levy

27) “The cinema is the greatest art form ever conceived for generating emotions in its audience. That's what it does best. (If you argue instead for dance or music, drama or painting, I will reply that the cinema incorporates all of these arts).” - Roger Ebert

28) “‘Are you gonna let politics ruin a friendship?’ 

Yes tf I am

People talk about politics as if it’s this isolated, abstract concept that only matters at election time. Somebody’s politics is their world view. It’s whether they think certain human beings deserve rights. It’s how they think the world should be. And if somebody thinks that the world should be colder, meaner, less accepting and downright hostile to people that are different to them, then sure as fuck is the friendship over.”

29) “Can the Supreme Court get me mushrooms?” - J-Papp

30) “Any song under two minutes already has a head start on its way into my heart. Just scream at me and then leave me.” - Drew Magary

31) “Long neck cold beers never broke my heart.” - Clemson Tom

32) “I’d just like to point out that the last spoken words of Game of Thrones were: 

‘I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel.’”

- @Authoroux

33) “Just once before I die, I want to toss my keys to someone and tell them ‘Bring the car around’.” - Mike Skully

34) “For all the weight they're given, last words are usually as significant as first words.” - Grand Maester Pycelle, Game of Thrones

35) “The best remedy for unrequited love is a trip around the world.” - Cheers

36) [on switching from a hotel to a motel]

Manny: I don't like the sound of that. A lot of amenities disappear when an H turns into an M. Jay: Hey when I met you, you were eating cereal out of a bucket.

-- Modern Family

37) “You and Lindsey don’t want to be ‘estranged’. Estranged is the relationship we want to have with our mothers.” - MegFil

38) “Cigarettes are undefeated.”

39) “My toes are like my fingers on my feet. I can pick stuff up with them.” - Tracy Cunningham

40) “Republicans govern without shame, Democrats shame without governing.” - Bill Maher

41) Sam: I don’t understand the vagaries of the Internet Josiah: Post often, without thought, and you’ll either get cancelled or cancel someone else.

-- Blink-155

42) “Hang a lantern on your problems.”

43) “What a weird web we weave.” - The Situation, The Jersey Shore: Family Vacation

44) “Let the ocean worry about being blue.” - Alabama Shakes, ‘Hang Loose’

45) “Honesty without tact is cruelty.” - Shelley Rokos

46) “My whole life is the wrong porn link.”

47) “One parent can take care of 10 kids, but 10 kids cannot take care of one parent.” - Joe Gestetner, via “an old Yiddish saying”

48) “There are no heroes in the room.” - Classics of Love, ‘Gun Show’

49) “If I am a little dismissive, it's only because of my harrowing backstory.” - Mitchell, Modern Family (on why he doesn't like sports)

50) “Every time I’m wearing black, I meet a dog.” - Tracy Cunningham

51) “Shower sex? Why would I fuck in my crying chamber” - @chridollarsign

52) “My theory about quarterbacks, having written about some of them, is you either have to believe in god or think you are a god.” - Mina Kimes

53) “The contradictions of capitalism always manifest in our lyrics if you look deeply.” - Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker, Riot Fest 2019

54) “Got a ‘hang loose’ from the weakside bartender.”

55) “It’s Jennifer’s birthday always.” - Eric Hutchinson 

56) “I can’t think of a less relevant artist in 2019 than Kanye West. A Jesus freak in a MAGA hat. Yeah, congrats dude -- you’re every grandma who watches ‘Young Sheldon’ and mails checks to Joel Osteen now.” - Dan Ozzi

57) “The past and future are in the mind. I’m in the now.” - Tom Brady, via someone else

58) “Sometimes you walk around boring places and you feel like the most exciting thing in it.” - Drew Magary

59) “Sitting is the new smoking.” - Modern Family

60) “I'll straight up fight folks at a book club and discuss books at a fight club I really don't give a shit anymore.” - George Wallace

61) “Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.” - Rose Garvey via wine country

62) “It’s all ‘ok boomer’ until you need someone who can drive stick shift.” - @OrdinaryAlso

63) “He likes the result of the math.” - Dad, talking about my worst subject frustrating during the process but satisfying in the end

64) Stepmom: Do you want a Bears urn or Alabama urn? Dad: Ask me after they play Auburn.

65) “A cold body carries a warm heart.” - Stefanos Tsitsipas’ Instagram, after his Iceland sabbatical

66) [preparing a dish called the Sandwich of Justice with his friend’s recipe]

"The fun thing about it is when you give it to someone, you can say 'Justice is served.’ That's, uh, Ryan's line. I built my whole life on the backs of my friends." - You Suck At Cooking

67) “Usually three people can keep a secret only when two of them are dead.” - The Irishman

68) “An artist can't control who consumes their content any more than a chemist can control how their chemicals are used once they're created.” - Brian Crooks

[dailyofficereadings]

Daily Office Readings October 10, 2019

Psalm 131-135

Psalm 131

Song of Quiet Trust

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. 2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.[a]

3 O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

Psalm 132

The Eternal Dwelling of God in Zion

A Song of Ascents.

1 O Lord, remember in David’s favor all the hardships he endured; 2 how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, 3 “I will not enter my house or get into my bed; 4 I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, 5 until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

6 We heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar. 7 “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool.”

8 Rise up, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. 9 Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your faithful shout for joy. 10 For your servant David’s sake do not turn away the face of your anointed one.

11 The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: “One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. 12 If your sons keep my covenant and my decrees that I shall teach them, their sons also, forevermore, shall sit on your throne.”

13 For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation: 14 “This is my resting place forever; here I will reside, for I have desired it. 15 I will abundantly bless its provisions; I will satisfy its poor with bread. 16 Its priests I will clothe with salvation, and its faithful will shout for joy. 17 There I will cause a horn to sprout up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one. 18 His enemies I will clothe with disgrace, but on him, his crown will gleam.”

Psalm 133

The Blessedness of Unity

A Song of Ascents.

1 How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! 2 It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. 3 It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.

Psalm 134

Praise in the Night

A Song of Ascents.

1 Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord! 2 Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.

3 May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.

Psalm 135

Praise for God’s Goodness and Might

1 Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord; give praise, O servants of the Lord, 2 you that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. 3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing to his name, for he is gracious. 4 For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession.

5 For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is above all gods. 6 Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. 7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

8 He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both human beings and animals; 9 he sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants. 10 He struck down many nations and killed mighty kings— 11 Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan— 12 and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to his people Israel.

13 Your name, O Lord, endures forever, your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. 14 For the Lord will vindicate his people, and have compassion on his servants.

15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 16 They have mouths, but they do not speak; they have eyes, but they do not see; 17 they have ears, but they do not hear, and there is no breath in their mouths. 18 Those who make them and all who trust them shall become like them.

19 O house of Israel, bless the Lord! O house of Aaron, bless the Lord! 20 O house of Levi, bless the Lord! You that fear the Lord, bless the Lord! 21 Blessed be the Lord from Zion, he who resides in Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

Footnotes:

Psalm 131:2 Or my soul within me is like a weaned child

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

2 Kings 23:4-25

4 The king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the constellations, and all the host of the heavens. 6 He brought out the image of[a] Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem, to the Wadi Kidron, burned it at the Wadi Kidron, beat it to dust and threw the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. 7 He broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord, where the women did weaving for Asherah. 8 He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city. 9 The priests of the high places, however, did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but ate unleavened bread among their kindred. 10 He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech. 11 He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the Lord, by the chamber of the eunuch Nathan-melech, which was in the precincts;[b] then he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12 The altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, he pulled down from there and broke in pieces, and threw the rubble into the Wadi Kidron. 13 The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 14 He broke the pillars in pieces, cut down the sacred poles,[c] and covered the sites with human bones.

15 Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin—he pulled down that altar along with the high place. He burned the high place, crushing it to dust; he also burned the sacred pole.[d] 16 As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed,[e] when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the festival; he turned and looked up at the tomb of the man of God who had predicted these things. 17 Then he said, “What is that monument that I see?” The people of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.” 18 He said, “Let him rest; let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. 19 Moreover, Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the towns of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lord to anger; he did to them just as he had done at Bethel. 20 He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

The Passover Celebrated

21 The king commanded all the people, “Keep the passover to the Lord your God as prescribed in this book of the covenant.” 22 No such passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, even during all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah; 23 but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

24 Moreover Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim,[f] idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the Lord. 25 Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.

Footnotes:

2 Kings 23:6 Heb lacks image of

2 Kings 23:11 Meaning of Heb uncertain

2 Kings 23:14 Heb Asherim

2 Kings 23:15 Heb Asherah

2 Kings 23:16 Gk: Heb proclaimed, who had predicted these things

2 Kings 23:24 Or household gods

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Spiritual Gifts

12 Now concerning spiritual gifts,[a] brothers and sisters,[b] I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

Footnotes:

1 Corinthians 12:1 Or spiritual persons

1 Corinthians 12:1 Gk brothers

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Matthew 9:18-26

A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed

18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue[a] came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.

Footnotes:

Matthew 9:18 Gk lacks of the synagogue

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[british-order-of-thelema-blog]

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The 9th day, March 29th, looks at Atu XII - 'The Hanged Man' which corresponds to the path of 'Mem'. Todays reading is Liber LXV Chapter 3.

The Hanged Man occupies the path Mem which connects Geburah and Hod, directly opposite the Wheel of Fortune. The latter, ruled by Jupiter had a sense of positivity and ‘good fortune’ about it, something this card does not share. This card is on the Pillar of Severity on the Tree of Life and so we have this idea of restriction inherent in the cards meaning which is evident in the symbolism

Mem = the ocean, the water connection is the sea of Binah, the third sephiroth representing the field of potential experience available in a human body. This is part of a Trinity with 'The Fool' which represents air and 'The Aeon' representing fire.

Liber LXV Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente sub figûra אדני

A∴A∴ Publication in Class A

III

1. Verily and Amen! I passed through the deep sea, and by the rivers of running water that abound therein, and I came unto the Land of No Desire.

2. Wherein was a white unicorn with a silver collar, whereon was graven the aphorism Linea viridis gyrat universa.

3. Then the word of Adonai came unto me by the mouth of the Magister mine, saying: O heart that art girt about with the coils of the old serpent, lift up thyself unto the mountain of initiation!

4. But I remembered. Yea, Than, yea, Theli, yea, Lilith! these three were about me from of old. For they are one.

5. Beautiful wast thou, O Lilith, thou serpent-woman!

6. Thou wast lithe and delicious to the taste, and thy perfume was of musk mingled with ambergris.

7. Close didst thou cling with thy coils unto the heart, and it was as the joy of all the spring.

8. But I beheld in thee a certain taint, even in that wherein I delighted.

9. I beheld in thee the taint of thy father the ape, of thy grandsire the Blind Worm of Slime.

10. I gazed upon the Crystal of the Future, and I saw the horror of the End of thee.

11. Further, I destroyed the time Past, and the time to Come— had I not the Power of the Sand-glass?

12. But in the very hour I beheld corruption.

13. Then I said: O my beloved, O Lord Adonai, I pray thee to loosen the coils of the serpent!

14. But she was closed fast upon me, so that my Force was stayed in its inception.

15. Also I prayed unto the Elephant God, the Lord of Beginnings, who breaketh down obstruction.

16. These gods came right quickly to mine aid. I beheld them; I joined myself unto them; I was lost in their vastness.

17. Then I beheld myself compassed about with the Infinite Circle of Emerald that encloseth the Universe.

18. O Snake of Emerald, Thou hast no time Past, no time To Come. Verily Thou art not.

19. Thou art delicious beyond all taste and touch, Thou art not-to-be-beheld for glory, Thy voice is beyond the Speech and the Silence and the Speech therein, and Thy perfume is of pure ambergris, that is not weighed against the finest gold of the fine gold.

20. Also Thy coils are of infinite range; the Heart that Thou dost encircle is an Universal Heart.

21. I, and Me, and Mine were sitting with lutes in the market-place of the great city, the city of the violets and the roses.

22. The night fell, and the music of the lutes was stilled.

23. The tempest arose, and the music of the lutes was stilled.

24. The hour passed, and the music of the lutes was stilled.

25. But Thou art Eternity and Space; Thou art Matter and Motion; and Thou art the negation of all these things.

26. For there is no Symbol of Thee.

27. If I say Come up upon the mountains! the celestial waters flow at my word. But thou art the Water beyond the waters.

28. The red three-angled heart hath been set up in Thy shrine; for the priests despised equally the shrine and the god.

29. Yet all the while Thou wast hidden therein, as the Lord of Silence is hidden in the buds of the lotus.

30. Thou art Sebek the crocodile against Asar; thou art Mati, the Slayer in the Deep. Thou art Typhon, the Wrath of the Elements, O Thou who transcendest the Forces in their Concourse and Cohesion, in their Death and their Disruption. Thou art Python, the terrible serpent about the end of all things!

31. I turned me about thrice in every way; and always I came at the last unto Thee.

32. Many things I beheld mediate and immediate; but, beholding them no more, I beheld Thee.

33. Come thou, O beloved One, O Lord God of the Universe, O Vast One, O Minute One! I am Thy beloved.

34. All day I sing of Thy delight; all night I delight in Thy song.

35. There is no other day or night than this.

36. Thou art beyond the day and the night; I am Thyself, O my Maker, my Master, my Mate!

37. I am like the little red dog that sitteth upon the knees of the Unknown.

38. Thou hast brought me into great delight. Thou hast given me of Thy flesh to eat and of Thy blood for an offering of intoxication.

39. Thou hast fastened the fangs of Eternity in my soul, and the Poison of the Infinite hath consumed me utterly.

40. I am become like a luscious devil of Italy; a fair strong woman with worn cheeks, eaten out with hunger for kisses. She hath played the harlot in divers palaces; she hath given her body to the beasts.

41. She hath slain her kinsfolk with strong venom of toads; she hath been scourged with many rods.

42. She hath been broken in pieces upon the Wheel; the hands of the hangman have bound her unto it.

43. The fountains of water have been loosed upon her; she hath struggled with exceeding torment.

44. She hath burst in sunder with the weight of the waters; she hath sunk into the awful Sea.

45. So am I, O Adonai, my lord, and such are the waters of Thine intolerable Essence.

46. So am I, O Adonai, my beloved, and Thou hast burst me utterly in sunder.

47. I am shed out like spilt blood upon the mountains; the Ravens of Dispersion have borne me utterly away.

48. Therefore is the seal unloosed, that guarded the Eighth abyss; therefore is the vast sea as a veil; therefore is there a rending asunder of all things.

49. Yea, also verily Thou art the cool still water of the wizard fount. I have bathed in Thee, and lost me in Thy stillness.

50. That which went in as a brave boy of beautiful limbs cometh forth as a maiden, as a little child for perfection.

51. O Thou light and delight, ravish me away into the milky ocean of the stars!

52. O Thou Son of a light-transcending mother, blessed be Thy name, and the Name of Thy Name, throughout the ages!

53. Behold! I am a butterfly at the Source of Creation; let me die before the hour, falling dead into Thine infinite stream!

54. Also the stream of the stars floweth ever majestical unto the Abode; bear me away upon the Bosom of Nuit!

55. This is the world of the waters of Maim; this is the bitter water that becometh sweet. Thou art beautiful and bitter, O golden one, O my Lord Adonai, O thou Abyss of Sapphire!

56. I follow Thee, and the waters of Death fight strenuously against me. I pass unto the Waters beyond Death and beyond Life.

57. How shall I answer the foolish man? In no way shall he come to the Identity of Thee!

58. But I am the Fool that heedeth not the Play of the Magician. Me doth the Woman of the Mysteries instruct in vain; I have burst the bonds of Love and of Power and of Worship.

59. Therefore is the Eagle made one with the Man, and the gallows of infamy dance with the fruit of the just.

60. I have descended, O my darling, into the black shining waters, and I have plucked Thee forth as a black pearl of infinite preciousness.

61. I have gone down, O my God, into the abyss of the all, and I have found Thee in the midst under the guise of No Thing.

62. But as Thou art the Last, Thou art also the Next, and as the Next do I reveal Thee to the multitude.

63. They that ever desired Thee shall obtain Thee, even at the End of their Desire.

64. Glorious, glorious, glorious art Thou, O my lover supernal, O Self of myself.

65. For I have found Thee alike in the Me and the Thee; there is no difference, O my beautiful, my desirable One! In the One and the Many have I found Thee; yea, I have found Thee.

Blessed workings on the 9th day of Thelemic High Holy Season!

Love is the law, love under Will.