#Every time someone draws him skinny a great one loses its child

[daxwormzz]

Yeah I am also an Alfred guy. Behold a look into my twisted mind

[turnmeintoastar]

“ the Fur Coat Woman ”

summary: Kaeya adored that painting, it later brought him together with his husband.

There is a mystery in every rich-man-house; that is an unspoken rule. So there is no surprise that the Ragnvindr family has a pile of its own. ‘Where was the lady of the house?’ or ‘How did they gain such wealth?’ or ‘Where does the door on the left wing of the estate lead?’ or ‘Who is the woman on the portrait, that is placed right over the glorious marble fireplace?’ were the biggest.

Kaeya has not been an art enjoyer. But even he could not keep his eyes off the portrait. Whenever Kaeya had a chance to escape his studies with Diluc, he observed the portrait. It was an explosion of colours: the pale beige of her skin meeting the burgundy-ish black of her hair, bright, sepia orbs drawing all of the attention to them, thin brows forming a sad frown

--- resembling  Pierrot from the Buratino film ---, head turned to the side, exposing her pearl, dangling earring and a part of her delicate neck, crimson lips slightly parted in shock, and a grey fur coat thrown messily over her red, tight dress. But what drew Kaeya’s attention the most, was her necklace. A white gold chain with a round locket, embedded with an incomprehensible ornament, surrounded by shiny gemstones on its surface. If Kaeya knew anything about jewels, its cost could buy the whole Ragnvindr estate -- including the people.

As the years went by, that portrait was the only thing that has not changed. His adopted father has died -- been murdered, to be exact --, but the mole just below her left eye was there; he now had to survive on his own, earn money by himself, but the terrified glint in her eyes was exactly like the last time, and time before that; he had a fight with his brother, received a vision, became a knight, but her earring were just as shiny and her pendant just as mesmerising.

Years passed, but the portrait remained the apple of his eye. He did not care, not in the slightest, that he had to fight his brother to take it home. Did not care that it was too big of size to be put on any wall of his new house. The only thing that mattered, was that the painting was with him.

He tried reaching out to the painter, someone named Oleg Sokolov, but had given up. The painting was there when his great-grandfather was born, he recounted, so it was a waste of time. But he couldn’t stop wondering, just who was that woman? Maybe, some lover of one of his adopted ancestors or just a model that caught their eye or she, herself, was one of the ancestors. As time went on, he lost hope in ever uncovering the mystery.

On a particularly gloomy morning, a carriage made its way into Monstadt. Three passengers; a boy of seven years, a woman in her forties, and a young man. He held a book in his hand. Reading in such a position was not easy, but it was better than dealing with his annoying nephew. Always drooling and talking and breathing loudly and stealing his jewelry.

Speaking of which, [m/n] was now dealing with that. Evgeniy, Zhenya for short, snatched his pendant and ran away. Where to, was the problem. The pendant was a relic, yes, but the boy’s life was even more important. And [m/n] was about to lose both. Almost.

When [m/n] found the ginder, Zhenya was cornered by a bunch of sailors. Skinny legs and twiggy arms, nothing he could not handle. [m/n] walked towards them, keeping a hand over the hilt of his hidden dagger.

“Gentlemen, why don’t you leave the boy alone?” he spoke, a heavy Snezhnayan accent could be detected.

“And who might you be, boy?” The spit flying on [m/n]’s fur was not welcomed. He prised his possessions and would not let them be ruined.

“ A kind stranger,” he was now standing in front of them, shielding the trembling child with his form.

“ the stranger should mind ‘is own business, then,” [m/n] rolled his eyes. Violence was always the key, was it not?

“ Vozmi, TAKE,” he slid the coat off his shoulders, exposing the navy blue dress shirt neatly tucked in his brown, leather pants, “Uhodi, GO, v karmane est dengi, THERE IS MONEY IN THE POCKET, kupi sebe chayu von tam, BUY YOURSELF SOME TEA, THERE,” he finished, pointing to an empty table, just outside of Angel’s Share. Nodding, the boy ran off, after [m/n] took away the necklace, of course.

“ I am feeling generous today, I give you ten seconds to rethink your actions,” the man spoke, now turned to  the group, the thin blade glistening under the sun.

“..2,1,” he yawned, eyes then quickly catching a movement on his right. With a swift motion, he ducked the punch headed his way, sliding behind the assaulter, proceeding to hit the back of his head with the dull side of his weapon.

“ I am waiting,” [m/n] raised a brow.

The men ran into the ship. [m/n] has been told that he can get rather intimidating, but such a reaction was a first. Just as the man was about to leave, he felt a presence behind him. Reflexes got the best of him, and the next moment he had his blade lightly pressed to the stranger's Adam's apple.

“ Speak your name,” [m/n] ordered.

“Kaeya Alberich, some call me ‘sir’, M’Lord,” he grinned. A flirty answer, from an exually flirty person. That did not do good.

“ From where I am from, we rip your tongue out and fill your mouth with shit and stitch it up for such sayings, pervert,” the blade pressed into his throat a little more.

“ You wouldn’t want to miss out on the wonders of this tongue,” [m/n]’s eye twitched, he did not like to be spoken to like he was some girl on the street, he was a noble, he held a high place in his home country.

“ You die, now,” his blade rose, ready to slice whatever came in the way. Kaeya was now scared, he heard that the man before him had a short temper, but this was just too much, people liked when he flirted with them! He had women and men ready to pay just to be flirted with! Maybe [m/n]’s didn’t like… no, ridiculous!

“W-wait, wait, hey! Okay, I submit!” he yelled, laughing as he ducked the incoming silver.

“Where did you get this from?!” His laughter came to a quick end, as soon as his eyes landed on the necklace. The same chain, the same pendant, he could see the design, now; a combination of letters O and [first last name letter].

“ Get your hands off,” the owe-ner yelled. Just what was happening to this man? Creeping up, flirting, and now trying to steal his relic?

“ Wait, no, how did you get this?” Kaeya asked, slightly recovered. Not much, though, the key to the mystery he was trying to uncover was just in front of him.

“ It is passed on in our family,” [m/n] reluctantly answered. “If it is all, I would like to return, I have someone waiting,” [m/n] eyed the man in front of him. Sure, he was pretty, but [m/n] was too, nothing new on that side. The quicker he got away from the man, the quicker the slight offness on his heartbeat ended. He turned and walked away from the place.

Kaeya’s mind rushed, dread flowing through him. ‘Someone’ as in a lover? No, it cannot be, not when he has -- maybe, just a little -- developed a crush through the things that the drunkards said. If he had to be honest, [m/n] hasn’t had justice by the rumors.

“ Oh, god.. I-I’m sorry, please. Just don’t go away just yet. I have, like, a billion things to ask you.”

“ Then invite me in for a tea, Sir Kaeya,” [m/n] smirked to himself, he liked to flirt, huh, two can play that game. “ But be careful, I bite,” he was now standing behind KAeya, hands hovering above the man’s hips, mouth dangerously close to the shell of his ear. It was Kaeya’s heart that skipped a beat, this time. The hearty laugh that followed [m/n]’s sentence only made it worse.

“ But I have to pick my nephew up first, and please keep the jokes to yourself; as much as it’s cute, I don’t want a toddler hearing them,” [m/n] said, chuckling a little.

‘He thinks it’s cute! I’m cute!’

It was a torture to answer all of Kaeya’s question. Varying from the name of the woman, to who she was to [m/n] and the cause of her death. Kaeya, after getting the answers and throwing a hit because of them, offeren [m/n] the painting. Whilst the greedy nephew eagerly agreed, the final word was negative. To which Evgeniy poute, hopped off his uncle’s lap, and ran into Kaeya’s kitchen. [m/n] has apologised endlessly for the trouble his nephew caused. Kaeya just laughed and told that it was his soon-to-be nephew-in-law, so it was only natural for him to learn to tolerate him. [m/n] did not apologize for the hard smack he delivered to Kaeya.

Kaeya could also see the vivid similarity between the painting and [m/n]; their eye shape, cheekbones, noses, lips, chin -- it was a carbon copy, just the masculine version. Kaeya’s former crush on the painted lady had also flared his feelings for the [hair color] haired man.

[m/n] was not doing any better. The way he looked, the way he spoke, the way the little skin was teasingly exposed, the way his voice would get higher when [m/n] managed to fluster the man -- everything about the bluenett was enamouring [m/n].

“ From where I’m from,” [m/n] spoke. One of their many meetings, this one in a restaurant, [m/n] picked it, a beautiful sunset view in front of them. “We ask people we l.., he cleared his throat, “love.. The people we love to marry them.” Kaeya held his breath. Throat going dry. Yes, they had been together for.. How long.. He could not remember. It felt like they had always been together. But being proposed was not something Kaeya had expected.

“So would you grant me the honour of being your husband, Kaeya Alberich,” Kaeya felt stranger to his surname at that moment. Kaeya [l/n].

“Yes..”

And that was enough.

[harrywritingsbyme]

So I’m a dark skin girl and I always wonder is Harry gets involved with women that are not white skinny tall blonde model like all his exes. Can u write something about that? Maybe they are friends but reader is into him but keeps us to herself cause she is sure he only date the same type of girls.

Feelings

A/N: I really needed and wanted to write this one. I feel like us chocolate girlies can be a bit left out some times, and it sucks. So I want to do/write more things that are specifically tailored to us black girls because we need to see and read more of it. Also, I don’t want this to be a thing where it’s putting anyone down or being melodramatic towards things that are at the end of the day out of our control. But this is just the way that some people (including myself at times) feel, and everyone should be aware of this. I did made sure that there is something in here that everyone can relate to in some way. So I hope you guys enjoy🙃 

4.5k Words

You rarely opened up. Most of your relationships were surface level, and you never fully expressed yourself the way that one would normally. For the longest time, even since you were a child, you never fully opened up to anyone. You would just go about your normal routine as if everything were fine, and bottle up everything you were feeling. Even when you were going through some of the worst times of your life, you still managed to keep face and put on a display of being okay, even though you were on the verge of dying inside. Still, you were able to get through most of your life like this and you were fine with things being the way they were. That is, until a certain someone fell into your life. 

When you first met Harry, it was like a breath of fresh air. Even though you still had your wall up and didn’t feel the urge to fully express yourself, you still felt like you could come to him with everything if you wanted to. He was just like the other people you’d met in the past who were nice and willing to get close to you. But at the same time, he still managed to be different than anyone you’d met in the past. You felt a sense of closeness to him that you couldn’t readily explain and that was unlike anyone you’d met before. He made you want to express yourself and release all of the emotions you had pent up inside of you for what felt like forever. It was like he was the person that you needed in your life who could draw out these things out of you. And after a period of time, he was in fact able to do this. 

At first, you were beyond anxious to be open and honest to someone about your feelings. But over time, the wall you’d built began to come down and you just allowed yourself to be vulnerable with Harry. And he was able to do the same. You both were able to lower your guards around each other and actually be free. The two of you were able to create a strong and solid friendship that would span across almost 3 years. Whenever something happened in each others lives, you both were each others first call. It was a friendship that neither of you wanted to take for granted. And you both, especially you, made sure to appreciate every moment and each other. 

Your appreciation for Harry went a bit deeper though.  

 You guys’ overall dynamic in the past year hadn’t changed at all. You two still did just about everything together and had a great time in each others company. It was your personal flow that had undergone a drastic change. You began to develop feelings that had gone far beyond the boundary of being platonic. They’d grown to be something beyond the scope of a simple camaraderie. You started to develop romantic feelings for your best friend. It wasn’t uncommon for this to happen, it was normal for someone to develop these feelings towards a person they spent a lot of time with and are close to. It was just that the success rate for transitioning out of a loving, close, and healthy friendship to a loving, romantic, and healthy relationship was slim to none. And for you and particular, you felt like your chances were in the negatives. 

It’s already a rough thing to deal with when you find out that the person you have feelings for doesn’t feel the same way towards you. But these pangs of rejection are on a completely different level when you realize that you’re not even their type. Now you didn’t know for a fact what Harry’s “type” was. You’d asked him on separate occasions and his answer was always the same. He’d simply tell you that “if somethings there, then it’s worth a shot”. And you’d always respond with a “that makes sense”, deciding to not go there all together. Even though he said that he didn’t have a type, you knew that in his subconscious, he did in fact have one. There were things about you that didn’t at all align with his exes as a whole. If you had to be blunt, you weren’t skinny, tall, blonde, and white. You were a thick, average in height, dark haired, dark skinned, black woman. The differences between the two were uncanny and that was perfectly fine. You welcomed and celebrated everyones differences. And so did Harry; when it wasn’t his love life.

He just didn’t venture out into other things when it came to his love and personal life. You could honestly say that this was true because you watched it all from the sidelines. You were a bystander and sounding board to Harry during his most recent relationship, and just in general. You recognized the pattern in the women he’d choose to pursue. You’ve even seen in the magazines and on the internet, the people he’d been involved with in the past. And they all were extremely similar. 

Seeing all of this made you think that something was wrong with you. What made them so special? You just wanted him to look at you the same way he looked at them. Developing all of these newfound feelings caused you to begin to slip back into your old ways. You began holding in and internalizing everything when it came to this. You’d put on a brave face and act as if everything was okay. You were putting all of your energy into making Harry believe that you were fine. And you successfully did that. He had no clue as to what and how you were feeling, and you wanted to keep it that way. The last thing you wanted to do was lose the person who not only you cared deeply about, but the person who cared deeply about you. You couldn’t lose your best friend.

This endless cycle went on for months. You kept these feelings to yourself and you just kept things going. You hated doing this, but it was what you thought was the best for you. You hated the thought of losing Harry over this. But at the end of the day, you could only take but so much. You could relate this entire thing to a sponge. It takes in all the water it possibly can and eventually, little drops will begin to spill out when it’s reached its maximum capacity for water. You were the sponge. You had been internalizing or harboring all of these feelings for such a long period of time that eventually you were going to reach your tipping point. It was going to get to a place where you’d have to release all of it and tell Harry how you truly felt. And you really wanted to do that. In the past, talking about your feelings was something that you tried, and eventually swore you’d never do. You even tried therapy, but it just wouldn’t work for you. But with Harry, you wanted to talk to him and tell him how you felt. So keeping this inside for so long after not holding it all in for a little over two years was a definite struggle. 

In all of this though, you had no idea that the struggle you faced in holding everything inside was nowhere near the level of struggle you faced when you finally let it all out. 

The end of the week had finally came which meant that it was you and Harry’s night to hang out and talk about you guys’ week…even though you two talked just about everyday. This just gave you two an excuse to hang out. After you two made and ate dinner, you two decided to head outside and sit by the pool to enjoy Harry’s view and watch the sunset. The conversation between the two of you seamlessly bounced from subject to subject, and it managed to bounce all the way to relationships. 

“Any hot dates comin’ up?” Harry asks beside you, taking another swig from his glass of wine.

  “No. None that I know of at least. You?” You reply, redirecting the question back to him. 

“Me neither, but I have been talking to someone for the past couple of days.” Harry replies. 

“And you haven’t told me this?! As your best friend, I feel offended.” You joke with him, sitting up from the chair to get a better look at him. 

“Don’t be offended, you’ll always be my number one.” Harry coos with a laugh. “It’s nothing major or serious I guess.” He continues. 

“Got a picture?” You ask. Asking him this was a big mistake. 

“I think so.” Harry replies, pulling his phone out of his pocket. After a few seconds, he hands the phone over to you and there it was. A girl who looked exactly like everyone else he’s dated.

“Oh, she looks just like everyone else you’ve dated.” You hum amusedly, handing the phone back to him. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t have said that. But you had a pretty good buzz going from the drinks Harry made, and the glass of wine you were currently working with. So your lips were a little bit looser than normal. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asks with a very confused tone.

“No offense, but she looks like most of your exes.” You repeat, thinking back to the picture Harry just showed you.

“No she does not.” Harry says adamantly, brushing off your comment. 

“It’s okay Harry, we all know that you have a type.” You softly laugh. You were only teasing him...right?

“I do not have a type Y/n! Where is this coming from?” You could hear in his voice that he was genuinely confused. 

“This is coming from your best friend who’s seen you in a relationship with someone who not only looks like the girl you just showed me, but also girls before her.” You explain. 

“Well tell me these similarities because I’m still not following.” 

“Tall, skinny, blonde, and-“ You didn’t even think about the last and final one before saying it. “white.” You finish, listing off every last similarity. 

 “No they’re no-“ Harry couldn’t even finish his own sentence. He realized that it was in fact true. He didn’t know why he’d never seen the pattern before. He also couldn’t wrap his head around why you were so up and arms about it. When he looked at you, he could tell that you weren’t feeling the best about this conversation. He didn’t know if it was the alcohol or him just being really bad at comprehension. He just wanted to make sense of it all and where it was coming from. 

“Can you honestly say that I, or anyone that looks like me for that matter would have an equal shot at being with you?”

There it was. The crazy thing about it all was that the question you just asked him, wasn’t even the bulk of what you really wanted to tell him. You weren’t even expecting to talk to him about this at all. You thought that you’d have a little bit more time to collect your thoughts, but all of this came completely out of left field. 

Asking Harry that question, along with the entire conversation in general was like stabbing yourself in the heart. It wasn’t even a full conversation and you were already dying inside. Every second of silence from Harry that went by was like a twist to the knife that was already buried inside you. You wanted to blame Harry for the horrible way you were feeling, but you couldn’t. You wanted to blame yourself for even bringing it up, but you couldn’t do that either. All you could do was sit there and try your best to muster up the tiniest bit of strength to pick yourself up and leave. Your body felt extremely heavy and you just wanted to get out of there.

Without uttering a single word to Harry, you finally pick yourself up and you walk away from him and the entire situation. Harry was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that he did in fact have a type, but seeing you walk away from him like that crushed him. He felt like you were not only walking away from him, you were also walking out of his life. He felt absolutely crushed and completely helpless. He was all alone. He had so many thoughts and feelings running around in his head that he couldn’t even chase after you to help him figure them out. And by the time he would finally build up the strength and courage to go after you, you would’ve already been gone. 

When you walked back into the house, you didn’t waste any time gathering your belongings that you’d brought with you before leaving out the front door. Since you were drinking, you decided to just call an Uber and just come back to get your car in the morning. For the next 5 minuets, you just stood outside Harry’s home. Staring blankly at whatever was around, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill from your eyes, and trying to take your mind off of everything. 

You were so glad that the driver wasn’t trying to engage in a conversation with you because you weren’t in the mood at all. You just wanted complete silence. If you were to talk, you were going to burst into tears. And the last thing you wanted to do was permanently scar your Uber driver, so you decided to just stay silent. 

When you finally got to your building, you rushed out a quick thank you to the driver and you sprinted through the building and up to your apartment. The moment you stepped foot inside was the first time you breathed in the past two hours. As soon as you shut your front door you just collapsed into a heaping pile of tears. You were pretty much sobbing against your front door. This was the worst you’d ever felt in a really long time. You felt a mixture of anger, sadness, and pain. This was one of the sole reasons why you hated letting people in. Bringing those walls down meant that you were exposed and vulnerable. You had no defense what so ever. You tore those walls down just to have someone tear you apart, and leave you to pick up the pieces. You were torn apart by the person you needed the most. 

While you were at home bawling your eyes out, Harry was still wrapping his mind around what you said and what he didn’t say. The buzz he once had going was now gone, and his mind was all over the place. He didn’t even move from where he was sitting. He just sat outside and thought about it all. Harry realized that he not only had a type, but you had feelings for him. He thought that you only considered him to be a close friend and nothing more. But when you said “I, or anyone who looks like me…” he was able to read in between the lines to understand that you were mainly talking about yourself. It crushed Harry even more when he thought about the possibility of you not thinking that you were good enough for him. Simply because of his “preferences”, that were unbeknownst to him from the past. The fact that he made you feel this way was beyond gut wrenching and he just wanted to go back in time and tell you that the only type he has is you. That was one of the reasons that he clung to you the way he did. He looked to you as the model of what he could ever want in a partner. He always looked to you for your opinions and guidance because you were one of the best people that had ever came into his life. But instead of saying all of this, what he truly felt deep down, he didn’t say anything at all. He let you slip out of his grasp, and he didn’t know how to get you back. He didn’t even know if he was going to get you back. In that moment, he realized that his love for you went way beyond the general scope of being best friends. It wasn’t until 2 am that Harry was able to pick himself up from the lounge chair outside and go upstairs to bed. And even then, he still felt horrible. He was numb. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t end up going to bed until 5 am because he couldn’t stop crying and worrying. What made him completely break down was the fact that he couldn’t even call you. He couldn’t talk to the one person that always helped him through his dark times and picked him up. He knew what it was like to hit rock bottom, but this was an all-time low for Harry. 

That night was officially at top of the list for the worst nights of you and Harry’s lives. 

The next day was just as bad, if not worse than the last. You ended up falling asleep on the couch, and Harry couldn’t even get out of bed. The both of you were a mess and you didn’t know what to do. You avoided any type of communication with each other. The only time you and Harry interacted was to tell him that you were using the gate code to get your car from his driveway. After that, there was radio silence. The simple thought of each other could bring you both to tears. This entire ordeal didn’t last for just a day or two. It lasted for almost a week. The both of you were too emotional and broken to even function. You were using the time you saved up on your job to sulk around at home and stay inside your bubble sadness and heartbreak. And Harry was neglecting all of the things that he needed to do so that he could stay in bed and try to take his mind off of you. But after what was going on to be day 5, Harry couldn’t take anymore of this. It wasn’t because he was feeling horrible. It was because Harry knew that he broke your heart. He had the clearest picture of you at home, completely broken up because of him. He could almost feel your pain and he hated it. He needed to tell you his true feelings and beg you to forgive him. He couldn’t sit around anymore and not talk to you. You were not only his best friend, you were also the woman that he loved. In the days of him sitting at home and thinking, he realized that he didn’t give it a shot. He didn’t give you a shot. He was constantly chasing after something that was already his and right in front of him. 

After a long much needed shower, Harry got himself dressed and ready to go over to your place. On the way over, Harry made a stop to the florist that was in your direction and picked up the biggest bouquet of sunflowers he could possibly buy. Not only were they your favorite flower, but you always seemed to gravitate towards the yellows because “they make my skin tone pop.” And they certainly did. Even remembering those little things could make Harry want to just burst into tears. For the rest of the drive to your apartment, Harry practiced all of the points he wanted to make out loud. He made sure that he remembered every last thing he wanted to say…and there was a lot. He was also preparing for the moment where you’d tell him that you didn’t want to talk to him ever again. Even though it may have seemed a bit extreme, he could understand why. He hurt you, and that’s the consequence that he’d have to pay. As he got closer and closer to your building, Harry could feel the butterflies in his stomach intensify and his lunch slowly make it’s way back up. He wasn’t feeling good at all, but he couldn’t turn his back on you and not try at all to redeem himself.

Between the time Harry got out of his car to when he was finally standing at your door was rough. As he got closer, his body got weaker. He was feeling a combination of embarrassment, sadness, anger, and worry. These feelings were so strong that he had to take two minuets before knocking on your door to stop himself from either throwing up or crying. Eventually he was able to get himself somewhat together and finally knock on your door.

When you hear the knock, you were sitting on your couch with your fluffy bathrobe on (that just so happened to be the one Harry brought you during one of his trips to Italy) with a pint of ice cream in hand, watching whatever was on the tv at the moment. You wanted to ignore the knock all together and just focus on your ice cream and the tv but you didn’t want to leave the person at the door hanging. So you reluctantly sit the cup down and you drag yourself to the door. When you look out through the peephole, your anxiety in that moment skyrockets. What in the world was Harry doing at your front door?! Even though you looked like an absolute mess and you didn’t want to talk to him in that moment, you still open the door for him.

When the door swings open and he sees you the waterworks begin all over again. He could see how puffy your face was from crying and how disheveled you looked and he hated it. He could feel the warm tears bubbling up in his eyes, but he was trying to do his best to keep them back. The two of you just stand there before Harry decides to talk. 

“M’so sorry Y/n.” That’s all he could say. He wasn’t just apologizing for what he said or didn’t say. He was also trying to say that he was a sorry person. It took him losing you for what felt like an eternity to really see how amazing you are and how much you contributed to his life.

“Wanna come in?” You ask him, stepping to the side to let him into your apartment. In that moment Harry just wanted to scoop you up into his arms and never let you go. He wanted to feel your warm and happy disposition that was now being clouded because of him. He wanted his Y/n back. When he walks inside, he quickly kicks his shoes off at the door and follows you into the kitchen.

“I got these for you.” He whispers, sitting the large bouquet on the counter and sitting on the other side.

“Thanks.” You whisper back to him, sending a soft smile his way. You wanted to almost to reassure Harry that you weren’t mad at him anymore. You were just sad and heartbroken. You never had feelings like these in such a large magnitude before. And because of this, you weren’t expecting any of what happened.

You silently turn away from him to grab the two vases you had in the cabinet and you sit them down on the counter in front of Harry. 

“I’m sorry if I overreacted on Friday. I just…” you mumble, beginning to unwrap the pretty flowers that were laying on the counter. You were trying to get your thoughts together but it was so hard. 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. It was all my fault for not saying anything or acknowledging you.” When he says that, your breaths become shakier and a tear slips from your eye. You continue to keep your focus on the flowers as you try to compose your next sentence in your head. You’re so caught up in your thoughts that you don’t even notice Harry coming around to your side of the counter. He softly pulls your hands away from the flowers and he pulls you into his body.

 That was the moment you needed. You thought your release was over the past few days but they were only building up to this. Feeling his arms securely wrapped around you was the only thing you wanted or needed from him. Feeling and hearing your cries only made Harry cry too. The both of you just stood there in your kitchen holding each other as you both poured your hearts out to each other through your tears. This time, not saying anything was saying everything. The both of you could feel what the other was feeling and wanted to say. It was like a large weight was lifted off of you both. After a few more moments of crying and being in your arms, Harry needed to get one thing off of his chest. When he pulls away from you he cups both of your cheeks in his hands and he looks right into your eyes. He wanted to make sure that you knew that he meant every last word that was coming out of his mouth. 

“I can’t even explain how sorry I am Y/n. You mean the world to me and I can’t even fathom the idea of not having you in my life. Seeing you completely broken the other night haunts me everyday and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for that. After not having your in my life, even if it was only a few days, I realized that I can’t live without you. I’ve spent so much time and energy looking for my match when I didn’t even bother to look right in front of me. The only type that I have is you. You’re absolutely stunning, inside and out. I feel like a proper dick for making you feel like you weren’t good enough for me. It’s me who’s not good enough. I let you down and I’ll never forget that. You’ve never left my side in the past 3 years and I couldn’t even give you a simple answer. I love you so much and I’ll never stop.” When Harry says this, the knife that was once burrowed in your heart was gone and the wound is patched up as if it never happened. Sure it’ll take time for it all to completely go away, but this was a hell of a good start. 

“I love you so much.” You whimper, feeling another heavy round of hot tears cascade down your face. Harry then pulls your head towards his and presses a long, warm kiss right onto your forehead. That, along with his previous words got rid of the clouds. You were happy again. Your once full sponge was now empty. This meant that you could fill it up again, only this time with feelings of love and happiness. You could finally retire from building walls around yourself and continue experiencing the good that came from being vulnerable. 

Masterlist

[shieldedbythunder]

Okay, but AU where Steve is a Viking and no one takes him seriously as a fighter because he's so small, but he prays every day to Thor to make him strong and Thor is impressed by Steve's determination, so he decides to help him and gradually falls in love with this fierce, scrappy fighter who jumps into fights to protect others in danger without thinking avout his own safety.

Matt, I am SO sorry for taking so long to get to some of your asks!! This one sounds especially cool!

Thor’s heard countless prayers in his name over the centuries, asking for protection, for strength and glory, for the blessing of a child. And usually, he finds it easier to maintain a distance from the mortals who call upon him - he can’t help everyone, after all. But over time, he starts hearing the same prayers for courage and strength from a young warrior, so skinny and small that Thor almost took him for a child the first time. His curiosity winning out over his better judgement, Thor travels to Midgard and visits the young man unseen.

The villagers may scoff at the idea of him fighting in battle, but in truth, Steven (Steve to his friends) has been fighting all his life. To make it through the first night after his birth, to draw a full chest of breath on his bad days, to provide for himself and his mother, and later just himself, after losing both of his parents. While he may never fight for his people, Steve still holds his head high and trains as best he can with his father’s shield. All he wants is to be useful to his people, to protect others. And though it often earns him a black eye or split lip from somebody twice his size, he never backs down from a fight if it keeps somebody else safe.

Thor finds himself impressed by Steve’s resolve and spirit, and decides to grant his prayers. Steve remembers almost nothing of it; the faintest impression of a dream one night, of a tall warrior with golden hair and a hammer at his belt laying a hand upon his forehead with a benevolent smile. But he wakes the next morning, awestruck at the knowledge that he has the Thunderer’s favour on his side.

Usually, that would be the end of it for Thor. Once a prayer is granted, he’ll return to his place in the ether and eventually forget whichever mortal he’s just visited. But there’s something about this man, with a heart too big for a body twice his size to contain, that beguiles him, and he finds himself returning to watch over Steve more and more frequently as the years pass.

Thor’s blessing makes itself evident in Steve’s body, slowly but surely. It starts small at first; he’s amazed to find he finds he can breathe more easily as time goes on, the illnesses that have plagued him since childhood finally starting to clear. By the time he goes into battle with his tribe for the first time, he’s grown a little taller and stronger, easily able to wield a shield and sword where they would have fatigued him within minutes before. Little by little, Steve continues to grow and change, until he stands tall and broad-shouldered with the best warriors in his village, a figure of great admiration to all. And yet, he remains the same kind and humble man that he was before, as Thor proudly notes.

Steve still offers daily prayers of thanks to Thor, his heart overflowing with gratitude for being given this gift. And Thor still visits him in dreams from time to time. At first he says nothing, merely nodding his thanks. But as time goes on, he and Steve begin to talk in the few minutes they spend together in dreams. They find amusement in how similar they are, stubborn men who just want to do what is right, and to the amazement of both, they begin to form something of a friendship. One that only strengthens and deepens as time goes on, leaving them both feeling empty and lonely when Steve wakes up alone and Thor returns to the ether.

Steve knows there are many who would like to see him wed. Pretty women from prosperous, influential clans, who would love to take a warrior of his renown as their husband and bear his children. But when he thinks of sharing his heart with someone, he finds his thoughts turning to bright blue eyes and strong hands on his shoulders, a warm laugh rumbling like the summer thunder. It’s laughable, perhaps even blasphemous to think, but he’s fallen in love with Thor. 

Little does he know that Thor feels the same for him; he’s come to realise that, in truth, he began to love Steve when he first looked into his soul and saw his spirit shining brighter than any star. But he’s left anguished at the thought that Steve’s life will be as brief as a mayfly’s. They say nothing of it when they meet in dreams, but savour every moment and touch that they share, letting themselves believe that what they long for is possible for a few short minutes.

Eventually, the day Thor’s been dreading comes. Invaders sail in from England, seeking to take the land from these savage heretics, and Steve, naturally, is on the front lines defending his home. It happens when he’s trying to cover an escaping family as they flee from a group of soldiers. Even outnumbered five to one, Steve manages to hold them off long enough for the family to get to safety. But one of the last to go down uses his last strength to run Steve through with a sword, a terrible, blinding pain that whites everything else out and leaves him certain that not even Thor will be able to save him now. Little does he know as he falls to his knees, clutching the hacked remnants of his father’s shield, that Thor has already made up his mind.

Everything’s going dark, his last thought one of relief that the family made it to safety, when Steve feels arms around him, lifting him up. When he can finally see again, he’s greeted by the sight of Thor, looking nervous as he clasps something between his hands. Even in his confusion and shock from knowing he’s dead, the sight of his old friend and love puts Steve’s mind at ease.

Thor’s words are halting when he welcomes Steve to the halls of his ancestors, his rightful resting place in Valhalla. He tells of what an privilege it has been, to see Steve grow into the mighty, honourable warrior that Thor saw inside him all those years ago, and to call him a friend. But there’s something else he’d like to call Steve, something infinitely dearer to his heart if Steve would permit him. Words failing him, Thor opens up his hands, and Steve is left speechless as he’s handed one of Idunn’s golden apples, the secret to godhood and immortality.

He is under no obligation, Thor stammers, uncertain for the first time in his thousands of years, and it would be a great deal to ask of him when he has already given so much in Thor’s name. But if Steve would just give him the chance to give him the happiness he deserves - he never gets further than that. In three steps, Steve closes the distance between them and kisses him, hands framing his face, strong and sure in that way that’s so Steve that Thor wants to laugh and cry with happiness all at once. 

To live forever in Asgard would be no hardship at all, Steve laughs as he bites into the golden apple, as long as Thor would always be by his side. And so they are remembered in legend, side by side, hand in hand, brothers in arms and love.

This was lovely to think about. I’d really recommend Slatgjof and its sequel if you want a fic with a similar prompt, it’s a wonderful story!

[lastcrystalwitch]

4/11/21

Curbing frustrations due to stopping smoking, *I am constantly reminding myself to be a decent human being, and be decent to others. Its been a while since I stopped smoking. But this is the first time I did so willingly.

I had my heart broke. A close friend of mine turned out to be an enemy. Someone who didn't believe in me from the beginning, lied to my face countless times that I am just finding out about, and told others bad things about me. All I can do, and all I could ever do, however, us just accept this distrust, because that is the person that they want to be and I cant change that. I can only just keep being myself, wishing good for everyone and understand what it is that makes me tick, and focus on my needs. I spent a year and a half doting on that person, taking care of them, bringing them gifts, and trying to make them smile when most of what they did was talk bad about me behind my back, lie to me, and prove to me that they don't respect me, don't care about me, and they are stuck in a childish mindset.

Honestly early drug use in young teens prevents their brain from developing. So perhaps that's the case. You're a lost boy from neverland. And If you want to grow up and stop acting spoiled and entitled, and super selfish, you'll have to try harder than everyone else. But small steps first starting out.

Spirit told me not to burn my bridge with you. That you will grow up, that you will learn, but only after you lose your entire family, people disown you because of your cowardly negligence, and you lose everything. I don't keep liars as friends. And I should have been more careful. They say love is blind. But only the ancients understood it fully. This is why I still love you. I see you for you, and not what everyone else sees. Let me explain.

There are many forms of a persons soul. Spirit, soul, essence, and physical outer spirit, what you show everyone else, are all radically different things.

To help explain this a little bit I borrowed the following list from Wikipedia, which does a fair job at explaining most things. However, there was an exceptional volume written by one of my favorite authors so far, in the early 1800's - and his name unfortunately escapes me. He was a scholar, professor, archeologist, and preserver of ancient history. He had traveled to many many sites from ancient cultures, mainly Egypt, and it is because of his work as a linguist that we were able to get this list together to help others understand there is more to a person than just their spirit and their soul.

1Khet (physical)

2Sah (spiritual body)

3Ib (heart)

4Ka (vital essence)

5Ba (personality)

6Shut (shadow)

7Sekhem (form)

8Ren (name)

So, each one of these is its own separate element that makes up a person. And in this book from the 1800's, the one that escapes my memory - he goes into each of these, and If I am remembering correctly, this is not an exhaustive list; there are more elements to a person. But he goes into each one and breaks it down. I can do my best to explain these, but I feel like I wouldn't do half as much as a good job.

But when I look at a person, I don't know if it is my vision, but I don't see someone's KHET. I see their "ihb", Thier "Shut", and their "Ka."

But that is because as someone who was constantly bullied in my life, by all types of people, beautiful people, ugly people, faking nice people ... I don't look at the way that they dress, or how skinny they are. That is the least important part of a person. The most important part of a person is the part that they show to no one when no one else is there, how they interact with strangers, and how they interact with animals and their environment. Spencer might have broken my trust, but I see his KA, I've always seen it. And his Ka is beautiful, RARE, and so strong. He asked me what I see in him. Many people have asked me what I see in him. He has broken BA, and a very interesting Sekhem. He hates his own Ren as much as I do, and opened up to me as to why. And I know he wasn't lying about that. I enjoy his company because I see who he wants to be. And I see his Shut, (shu*ot) or his shadow. But behind every Shut, there is a light side. And he has the capability to become one of the most successful and influential people I know. He has endless potential which he hasn't even scratched the surface with, and he can change so many peoples entire lives, and doesn't even know it yet. I love his Sah, which isn't easy to explain to someone who has never heard these terms before.

And without which is why I see lots of growth needed for him to do. And he'll get there. It might take him 20 years to stop being afraid of himself, and I say that with so much love. Afraid, not calling him a coward, he is very brave, but he runs away in fear of getting hurt, and in fear of people letting him down, like so many people have done so many times in the past. Your Ka is beautiful. One of the most rare and strongest I have ever seen. As shocking of a presence as being very tall. Someone with a beautiful Ka will always influence others. Always draw attention. They are so rare and unique of a person that instantly others are attracted to them. Instantly they get noticed.

You know what is cute? Someone so tall trying to be invisible. ^-^

They are able to be someone that others depend on, feel safe around, and look up to. People want to be around others with a Ka like that. Always. Even when you're feeling blue. Because when that Ka feels better, when its not sad, when you get out of your comfort zone, set a goal for yourself and get it done, the sun comes out of the darkness. And that Ka starts emanating happiness. People with strong Ka's are like superweapons. They can be the back bone of families. Someone who everyone loves and cherishes. I don't think they know it, but that Ka is the most beautiful part of someone. And it drives me insane to think that he doesn't even know his own worth!

I forgive you for lying to me. I don't accept it, lying isn't good. But I understand why you did it. They were selfish reasons, and I don't use the word selfish in a negative way. Selfish in the fact that you were just looking for a way to get what you wanted, to make yourself happy. So you could have fun, enjoy the day, and smile like you do sometimes.

But you are still a child when it fully understands what it is that makes a person happy. And that's not your fault. You never learned the secret. No one told you because it doesn't exist in your family. It doesn't really even exist in mine, its something that I had to figure out and struggle through myself growing up, and dedicating 15 years to bettering myself and doing everything I could to become the best version of myself;

In order to be happy with the decisions that you make, in order to feel comfortable with you decisions and be proud of yourself, you have to know yourself. When we spend so much time hiding and looping pain around in our heads we spiral down into a circle that never ends. This leads to depression, drug abuse, alcoholism, lying to your friends, lying to your family, and lying to yourself. You'll look in the mirror and not know/not like who you are. To not know yourself.

Take time to practice healthy practices for you. Become an adult. Become who you want to be. You say you wished she'd come out of the blue and make you be someone who you wished you were: Someone confident. Someone happy. You wished you were okay. You said that she'd come into your life and make you stop drinking, stop doing all the drugs.

Be careful what you wish for, Giant. She came into your life. She adored you. She tried to show you how to love. You pushed her away, thwarted her efforts to help you, shamed her, disrespected her, hurt her feelings, tore her soul, made her spend entire nights crying over you and your decisions. She just wanted to trust you. And you broke that trust. YOU destroyed your relationship with select few who really were expecting great things from you.

Because you still need to learn. You still need to try. There is a point, and it is possible. Everything that you want, you can achieve. The only person who is stopping it is yourself. Grow up.

I see your pain. You can't understand that because you can't empathize with others like I can. I know your heartbreak. I can say that because I have a very big heart.

But seriously, grow up. Set a goal. Get it done. You're sitting and rotting in your own filth and its no ones fault but yours. You can blame anyone you want to. Anyone. I can think of seven people you'd probably blame instead of yourself.

Take responsibility for your actions. This is a part of growing up. Accept that you made a mistake. Say your sorry, and try again. When you do something wrong, admit it. When you go out of your way to hurt someone, tell yourself that it is bad. Be a god damn decent human being and the world will be yours. Stop living like a pathetic thief. You're better than that. You're stronger than that. I see your Ka, and I believe in you. Seriously, stop your shit. Just stop. This is bigger than your deep seeded sadness. This is about the rest of your life.

I can't force you to change. You'll either change, or stay the same miserable self you are and end up being hated and shamed by everyone in your family. But its up to you. Its only up to you. She came into your life. You got what you wished for. You had the lock, and she had the key. But you have to be the one that turns the key and opens the door to your own success and future. Sometimes you have to help yourself. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself.

I know you can do it. I believe in you. But it doesn't matter what I say or think, or how I feel. You'll never see it that way, unless you grow up and get your head out of your ass. <3 Be a man, know yourself. Learn what it is that makes you tick. Stop the drugs. They're just a guaranteed trip to self sabotage and unhappiness. Seriously dude, you're going the wrong way on that, and I CAN SEE. So I'm giving you a heads up. It doesn't make you feel better

STOP LYING. Mostly stop lying to yourself. Drugs don't solve anything. What do they make you do? Well, they mess up your kidneys, which always hurt and only feel better when you apply pressure to them. You're rotting your kidneys. You've only got two, and a rare blood type, so the more you drink and the more you do drugs, the higher your creatinine level will be and it becomes like a cutter. You are injuring yourself to the point of self harm. And you do it deliberately to TAKE THE PAIN AWAY.

I know this because I can see your spirit. And there were so many conversations that we have had. So many that I know you don't remember. And after finding out how much you lie, I can't believe all of it anymore. I can't trust you. YOU DID THAT. No one else. And it sucks, but even behind all the lies, the Ka was still there. I could feel your actual hurt as my own, so those 5am talks we had, all those conversations, and the times that you were there for me, weather you were to blind to know that you were there for me and if you even realized it or not, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and hanging around me sometimes. Thank you for sitting with me on the couch, while I cried because my soul hurt and the world didn't make sense. Thank you for showing me what a kind person and loving friend you actually really are, even if it is hidden under layers and layers of pain and guilt and self loathing. Thank you for letting me get to know a little bit of you, and thank you for making me smile when you know I didn't feel good. Thank you for making me laugh when things were getting too serious. Thank you for sharing your joy with me in my life. You don't know how many times you made me feel better just by being able to forget about all the worlds problems and sing in the car. Thank you for saying things without saying them, and showing me that you are so genuine and unique, there really isn't anyone like you in this world. You are super special, and you've literally saved my life the night you let me come into your room and sit there and watch the fishes. You don't know how much pain I was in. And you were there for me. You helped me not end my life that night. I only walked away with a couple scars. YOU HELPED ME. YOU did. Just by letting me in. We didn't talk. I couldn't. I was crying too much and my Ba and Ka were in absolute shambles. You didn't do anything except be in the right place at the right time, but your energy, as confused as it was at that time, helped me know that I wasn't the only one alone and suffering. And it was okay. and YOU had given me another reason to keep breathing. You'll never know how much you mean to me. Thank you for what you have helped me though.

I hope you can learn and know the Wisdom, not knowledge, that you can do anything you set your mind to, if you want to. I have proved to myself and to you, that you are the only one that is making your life miserable. I have done everything for you. And unless it is served to you on a silver platter, you reject it. You are the only one stopping your life progress. And you've convinced and lied to yourself so much about it that somehow you actually believe it is true.

I wish you could see through my eyes.

Even better, I wish you the courage and strength it takes to change you life and want to succeed better. Because you have all the tools. Shit, I gave you EVERYTHING. The only excuse is yourself. You are what is stopping you.

Life goes on. We never forget them. But we have to live our lives. They forced themselves to be a memory. Force yourself to live. Go live out your own story. Stop lying to yourself. Your a fricking great person! You lie, sure. You manipulate, sure. But I see you! That isn't who you want to be and the time in your life right now is merely a stepping stone for all the endless things that are out there. There are layers of things that you don't understand. I'm not trying to be mean, but trust me when I say there's a lot out there.

Maybe someday we will meet again when you turn into an adult. Because right now I see you as a boy. There is so much out there to look forward to. There are SO many fun things out there in different cultures. You have a journey ahead of you, and I just wished that I could have been part of it with you.

I forgive you. You really really hurt me. And it absolutely is your fault and no one else. But at the end of the day, its You who has to live with who you are. And you can CHANGE and Grow. I have all ready seen the person you are 20 years from now. And you wouldn't believe it if I told you. Rv's, dual citizenship, backpacked across the grand canyon, visited MT St. Helen, been to Yellowstone 3 times, had lots of fun there with friends. Married, divorced. Someone who is comfortable in his own skin. Someone who doesn't feel the need to impress everyone, and who is happy. Someone who has become comfortable in his own skin. Someone who doesn't get offended by what other people think.

In 20 years I see you happy. I see you deciding you're a product of your environment and you wanted to change because everything is not set in stone. Its just what you knew. Past tense.

You can learn from your mistakes.

Just because you've never won the lottery, doesn't mean its not possible. People are winning the lottery all the time. There is hope. Just because you have never felt comfortable in your own skin doesn't mean that its not possible. It just means that you can experience it, and LIVE it, and KNOW it, for the first time, and for the rest of your life.

In 20 years you have more money than you know what to do with, and you have your own place, and like 3.5 cars, 2 that run 2 that don't. Projects. You have goals. You have your own family. You have your own life. People look up to you. You smile more. Your mouth doesn't hurt anymore because you stopped saying, "It doesn't matter." Instead you say things like, "Its possible."

But you have to try. And you have to keep trying.

But first you have to stop with the drinking and stop with the drugs, because you're literally hurting yourself and everyone around you, and you are going to be the only reason that you end up alone and unhappy. The truth hurts. Just like when I found out how much you really did lie to me, after I really didn't deserve it. I did everything I could to help you. I spent hours doing paperwork for you to help you get free dental, researching schools for GEDS, looking at loan and credit repair options, screening background checks to help you find out if you were really hung up locked out of states and not allowed to come back. You're actually not banned from Florida or Texas. There are no warrants out for your arrest by the way, because you never actually did anything super terrible. Otherwise you would have been thrown in jail instead of told to get the hell out of dodge.

There are people out in this world that really do care about you, and really want to see the best for you. But you have to want the best for yourself. You just want to be happy. I don't know how high or drunk you were when we had that conversation, but you just want to be you again. You just want to be happy again.

You can be. You have to do it though. I can't hold your hand like a little boy and do it for you. I tried. YOU were the reason that it didn't work. I did my part. YOU were the one that let yourself down. Literally all you had to do was to sign it. And I see this pattern with you.

Really, lets go ahead and break this down.

You are the cause of your own unhappiness.

Others can literally do EVERYTHING for YOU, and you come up with some kind of excuse and you LIE to YOURSELF, of why it won't happen. You do this to yourself. You are what they call, "A product of self fulfilling prophecies."

That's because you make it happen.

Your success: YOU make it happen.

Your failures: YOU make it happen.

Its really up to you to decide who you want to be. Not the other way around. Really. I'm not joking. I'm being honest. I'm not lying.

You can do it.

But you have to want it.

And you don't have to be alone.

And as shitty as you have treated me, and as terrible as a human you've been to me, doesn't make it ok. That was a really really mean, unnecessary and childish thing you did, for the past year and a half. Manipulating me like you did.

It still hurts because I trusted you, and you shit on me. YOU did that. That was YOUR choice.

But its MY choice to give you a heads up and let you know what you've been wanting to know this whole time, You are the way to your future. If you want to be miserable for the rest of your life, I cannot stop you. If you want to be treated like a little boy, who lies, and who is mean for the rest of your life, I cannot stop you. You are the only one who can change you.

Your entire future and happiness is up to you.

Choose your attitude. Choose your future. Choose to be someone you can be proud of. For once, stop lying to yourself. Its stupid.

[the-symbiote-army]

If this covers your feed I'm sorry idk how to do cuts on a phone, but also its about Venom 2 so theres that.

Alright with the second Venom movie coming up, I wanted to mention what I very personally think would wreck this movie for me. And a few good things too.

Note: Hardly any of this will be as bad as I make it out to be. Army is very dramatic alright? Army is so dramatic that she once made this fan page at two am while crying because Donny hurt Red. I'm dramatic. 

1: Just be our frenemy.

Anyway first off this is bound to be a difficult movie to write because, well, fandoms aren't the easiest to please. But I do not want this movie to be in any way fanservice. There's this very delicate balance between fanservice and fanhatred. 

For example let's look at two writers we got in the Venom series. We got Mike Costa, and Donny Cates. To pick between them you're most likely going to pick Mike Costa. Because he does some great fanservice, but, is it not a bit slow? Or boring in some ways? If not that's fine too, but you might find it boring because things are a little too perfect. There's not enough going on that makes you feel a thrill. 

However, the other side of the coin, Donny Cates. Here we have too much going on. He's taken the perfect life of Mike Costas run, and screwed around with it too much. There's no real fan service, which drives us away. 

I think an example of balance would be The Hunger. You've got both that fanservice happening with twists and moments of panic. Will Eddie kill Venom?! You think it just for a moment, drawing you far enough away from the perfection. Then when he doesn't the relief is there. Because there was some actual worry. 

I want them to do this with the movie. I don't want it to be some perfect life between Eddie and the symbiote. That's just too boring and not their real character. They need their bumps and I hope the movie can add those without going too far and demolishing the dynamic or making the symbiote out as evil. Would I like a kiss? Yes. Would I like an argument between them? Also yes. 

2: The Carnage connection.

Don't mess up the Carnage bond, please. Now it shouldn't be hard to do this. Its been mentioned multiple times that the bond between Cletus Kasady and Red, is one stronger than that of Venoms. This is why you have Venom saying "We" while Carnage says "I", so if somehow they mess this up and show Cletus like Lee whose just using Red, I'm going to be very upset. I mean, they really shouldn't because follow me through the interwebs guys. Hang with me. 

You go on to Cletus Kasadys fandom wiki, you scroll down and, ah... There it is. The quote that tells you exactly how they are. So if they mess this up, then honestly I got no words.  

3: Shriek and Carnage

Please, please, pleeeease don't do this cliche

Shriek: *Gets hurt because she's in Carnages way*

Shriek: *Gasp* but I'm your lover!

Carnage: I was just using you! I don't actually care! Hahahaha!

Shriek: *Screams and attacks him*

I swear I'll heavy sigh. 

4: Carnage Design

please do not mess up his design. When you all think of Carnage, I 100% guarantee you do not think of a giant monster who has the buffest of muscles. No, you think of the small but fast and clever red and black symbiote. So help me God, if I click the trailer when it comes out and I see a giant muscle boi I am going to be angry.

A good statement from the Lethal Protector book, Carnage does not have muscles but he's got creativity. Meaning he does not need muscles we don't have to give him muscles. Just make the skinny one really creative with how we murders people.

Also, if I see, even for a second, a single swirl on this symbiotes head, I am going to be the new wrath of Knull and destroy someone's bloodline. We do not need 5,000 different designs from all the past comics in this one movie. I just want the classic Carnage and maybe, maybe, we can get another design like Carnage 2016 design or something like that.

5: Dan the destroyer of toxin masculinity man

please do not ruin Dan as a character I kind of love him, because the way he handles Eddie in the first movie, is just really what we need. I do not need the jealous man stereotype. I just need Dan to be a good man. I just need him to continue his journey of yeeting toxic masculinity.

And and if you delete another scene, of this man carrying a very dazed Eddie Brock out from a restaurant, I will cry.

6: Pronouns

all right this one is one that I kind of expect. So I'm not going to completely lose my mind, just a little bit lose my mind. If I go to that theatre and I'm having a great time through this whole movie, then Cletus kasady, calls Red "He" or "Him", I'm going to be really disappointed. And before someone yells at me it is definitely female pronouns for her. I do not have the time to go through every single comic, and grab all the different times he has said she, or her, or girl, or missus, but he hasn't done it so I don't want them to throw that away. 

Also fun note: my favourite comic is the Superior Carnage Annual, which is one of the times he uses female pronouns. but I also just love this comment because it is a good representation for them and it was a fun read.

Anyway honestly it wouldn't take too much research to know this, so I don't think they can really mess this one up that bad. Just a few reads in the comics where Cletus addresses Red, and you know she's got female pronouns. 

Also on to that nickname Red. I believe he only uses this once in the comics and we just as a fandom kind of stuck to it, but a proper call out to her actual name would be great. (I don't count calling Cletus Red)

7: Sleeper

I think the avocado child showing up would be a little too much. I know I know we all love Sleeper, but honestly I don't want him to show up just yet. This kind of goes back to the fanservice one but I feel like that would be too much right away. 

I'm definitely going to get yelled at for that note but I don't care.

But I will happily take a mention of him. for example if Red is in fact born from Venom like she should be. And Venom tells Eddie that he's going to spawn and Eddie responds with "What if this child looks like an avocado or something?" They win the whole movie. That's it the whole movie is done. That's all they need for this movie to be successful in my book.

Now let's give a really positive note, if at some point in this movie Cletus kasady picks up a baby and then throws that baby, this also means that it gets an instant win in my book. It's very easy all he has to do is throw a child. They can do this.

[ultralifehackerguru-blog]

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The 55 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time

There is no “best” romantic comedy. Something is funny when someone laughs, or romantic when their heart swells, for better or for worse, and we have no right to say why one of these should top another. Your uncle, or cube-mate might say, “That’s stupid. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is obviously the best rom-com of all time.” And they may not be wrong. But maybe you have some reservations about the horrifyingly racist overtones in some of that movie’s scenes, even though you can’t help loving Audrey Hepburn. Maybe it’s the best for a certain time period. It’s tough. Comedy is subjective. So is romance.

It’s for this reason that we had such a good time making this list, at least initially. And lots of help. People keep a special place in their heart for romantic comedies. They talk about them differently than other movies, and they like to talk about them a lot. When the call went out, we heard from writers, editors, friends, moms, therapists, bartenders, people we hadn’t talked to since high school; the list goes on. The initial gathering of candidates was great fun; the subsequent reaping less so.

First, we had to limit the category. We love Dazed and Confused and it contains plenty of romance, and comedy, but we can’t be sure it’s a romantic comedy per se. Same with Secretary, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, My Girl, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and about 500 other films. We don’t have enough space here to get into exactly what makes a romantic comedy, but let’s agree that the fact it is not a tragedy or a history is not enough. Somewhere we have to draw the line between the actual rom-coms and the coming of age movies, or mysteries, or adventures.

It’s for this reason we need to apologize in advance: A number of your favorite romantic comedies will not be on this list. Some of them didn’t fit the mold. Others—and this part got a little heated—we just couldn’t get on board with. Decisions had to be made. Hopefully, as a benefit to any disappointment of missing favorites, you’ll find some new ones you didn’t yet know you liked. After all, that’s the message from Pretty Woman, right? It’s important to keep an open mind. Otherwise, you could be making a big mistake, big, huge.

These are the best 55 rom-coms for every situation. We hope you love them.

The Best Rom-Com . . .

. . . to put your one-night stand in perspective:

Obvious Child (2014)

Photo: Everett Collection

The hardest you’ll ever laugh about abortion. That’s right, abortion. Talk about playing with fire, but this tender, deeply human comedy from director Gillian Robespierre finds entirely new ways into the story of losing Mr. Wrong, then Finding Mr. Right (by having our hero, a struggling comedian—played by the irrepressibly honest and infinitely endearing Jenny Slate—get drunk with Mr. Right, sleep with Mr. Right, get pregnant by Mr. Right, and then deal with the consequences). While riotously funny, Obvious Child set a new standard for intimacy, and Robespierre’s ribbed, tone-perfect writing and Slate’s raw but intelligent performance managed to shape a millennial mirror more reflective than anything Girls could put forward in six seasons. And give us the abortion comedy we didn’t know we needed.

. . . to deal with your workplace crush(es):

Broadcast News (1987)

Photo: Everett Collection

In the mid to late ’80s, there was nothing bigger than TV news and James L. Brooks, and Broadcast News was their meeting ground. After the slaphappy, very silly, and very male comedies of the late ’70s and early ’80s (think Animal House, Porky’s, and Revenge of the Nerds), and alongside the epic big-budget projects like Ghostbusters and the original Indiana Jones, James L. Brooks continued to redefine what rom-coms could be with this sprawling, occasionally dramatic but never self-serious, workplace comedy. We root for Albert Brooks’s Aaron Altman, the brainy, nervous, serious journalist who competes for the affections of neurotic producer Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) against the impossibly polished (and intellectually inferior) Tom Grunick (William Hurt). Brooks is the producer behind films like Bottle Rocket, Say Anything . . ., and Big, and TV series like Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, and The Simpsons. No one knows how to get at our hearts—thoughtfully, gracefully, and with humor—like James L. Brooks. And this is him at his peak.

. . . to see past a gruff exterior:

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

“Tale as old as time . . .” It really is. Lonely, powerful dudes have been making off with damsels and then hiding them away since at least Greek mythology and probably before. Where Disney scored with its animated musical was in—pardon the pun—reanimating that classic story line in a way that was appealing to our eyes and ears, and that of our kids’, while maintaining some real danger in the narrative. It’s a triumph they repeated with Aladdin and The Lion King, but is especially notable with a romance—making the stakes high enough—and real, even when accompanied by singing teapot—that we root for these characters to end up together.

..for when you’re in the mood for first love, Wes Anderson-style.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

“I will meet you in the meadow,” writes bespectacled Sam (Jared Gilman) to serious Suzy (Kara Heyward) as they prepare to run away together. Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, a whimsical tale of a romance betwixt a pair of wise-beyond-their-years 12-year-olds (beautifully art-directed and accessorized as always), is a tonic to the jaded palate. The children, with their barely sexual, pure-hearted affection for each other, could teach the misbehaving adults around them a thing or two about love. Who wouldn’t want to dance on the beach in their underwear to Françoise Hardy?

. . . to get you over getting over your ex:

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Courtesy Everett Collection

The credits of The Philadelphia Story read like something out of a dream: Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart vying for the love of Katharine Hepburn. It’s produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (writer of All About Eve and Cleopatra), and directed by George Cukor (who made 1954’s A Star Is Born, Justine, and My Fair Lady, and once told Marilyn Monroe, “That will be just fine, darling” when, about to film a skinny-dipping scene for Something’s Got To Give, she expressed her concern that she only knew how to dog-paddle). The Philadelphia Story relies on some dependable tropes—lovers who’ve fallen out; will-they-or-won’t-they-get-back-together—that have provided romantic tension from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Crazy, Stupid, Love. But it’s Hepburn, aiming for a comeback following some serious bombs, and her witty repartee with her two love interests, Grant (her yacht-designing reformed bad boy of an ex-husband) and Stewart (a tabloid reporter), that is the movie’s bread and butter. The Main Line has never been so well represented.

. . . to take on a trip:

Lost in Translation (2003)

©Focus Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

There was never any doubt that Scarlett Johansson was going to be a mega star, but Sofia Coppola’s movie—about the lonely wife of a photographer who befriends an over-the-hill movie star (Bill Murray) while visiting Tokyo—is what made the world stand up and realize we were dealing with a serious actor. Like many of the films on this list, Lost in Translation takes place in a bourgeois universe, where the greatest thing at risk is someone’s heart, or future emotional happiness, but few films have so effectively crystalized the alienation of both travel and marriage, as well as the difficulties of postcollegiate, and then midlife, malaise. The older man and the younger woman don’t so much meet-cute as crash into each other, picking up each other’s pieces, redeeming each other’s lives as they navigate their surreal setting. It’s a match made in heaven—and without spoiling anything, their goodbye scene is among the best in Hollywood history.

. . . to reevaluate your checklist:

Clueless (1995)

©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

The motherless daughter, caring for her father and looking for her prince, is a trope that goes back to the fairy tales, but how Alicia Silverstone (who plays our hero, Cher) and writer-director Amy Heckerling contemporized that narrative is what made what could have been a silly teen flick into an instant classic. They imported a Jane Austen story line of a meddling would-be matchmaker (Emma) into a bright pink, plastic, kids-are-adults world of Beverly Hills privilege populated by overly dramatic in-talk (“Whatever!”; “As if!”), lunatic high fashion, and decidedly un-relatable problems. At the same time, they maintained a storybook sensibility, and somehow kept our sympathies with the lovelorn Cher, whose insipidness is overshadowed by her charity, loyalty, and genuine goodwill. We believe she deserves love, and if she gets smart enough to stop looking for it in the “right” places, we want her to find it.

. . . to help you sort out what to do with the rest of your life:

The Graduate (1967)

Courtesy Everett Collection

This is the film on this list that is least certainly a rom-com; it caused a bit of a row, in fact. Some of us believe that this movie is ultimately too sad to give the viewer the warm fuzzies they depend on this genre for. Others argue that this line of thinking may confuse what’s depressing with what’s complicated. The story of the listless Benjamin Braddock, recent graduate of Williams College, who begins an affair with his father’s partner’s wife, and ends up falling for her daughter, did more to advance the critical value of comedy than perhaps any other film. (Not to mention the sexual viability of Williams grads.) There may be no more iconic line than Dustin Hoffman’s “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce” but this movie is so much more than dialogue. (Note: Hoffman might have been playing 21 when he said this line, but the actor was 29; Anne Bancroft, the supposedly senior Mrs. Robinson, was all of 35.) Oft-quoted, ripped off, referenced, and discussed, Mike Nichols’s 1967 romp through Braddock’s postcollegiate uncertainties was released a few months after the Summer of Love, as the counterculture had peaked and what Hunter S. Thompson called the “high and beautiful wave” was getting ready to roll back. Young America was, and to some extent still is, Benjamin Braddock, which reveals the power of this film.

. . . to ask for assistance in the ol’ love department:

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

©TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Tom Hanks had been responsible for some ’80s hits—Splash and Big—but with Nora Ephron’s 1993 film about a widower whose son calls in to a radio show in an attempt to find him a new wife, he cemented himself as America’s favorite, well, person. Meg Ryan, his competition for that title (at least in the ’90s), plays an unhappily engaged Baltimore Sun reporter who writes Hanks’s character on a whim, asking him to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building (cue: An Affair to Remember) on Valentine’s Day. Utterly contrived, but utterly charming, this quick, silly, funny film is pabulum superfood for anyone who believes in second chances and true love.

. . . to leave the past behind you:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

Courtesy Everett Collection

No one has stolen more hearts than Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn). Based on Truman Capote’s 1958 (harsher) novella of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffany’s—the story of a friendship struck between a rarely employed writer, Paul Varjak, and his neighbor, the naïvely beautiful Golightly, a freewheeling party girl whose lifestyle is paid for by the rich suitors who surround her—is a building block of our Hollywood romantic fantasies. It has the unclassifiable, magnetic object of affection, the reliable underdog who pursues her, expectations dashed, new friendships formed, true selves discovered, and an undeniably racist portrayal of an Asian landlord (by Mickey Rooney). Yes, it was a different era, but this detail can be difficult to ignore. That said, there are generations of viewers who consider this the greatest rom-com of all time.

. . . to get past that one little (or gigantic) flaw:

Moonstruck (1987)

©MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

Cher plays a widowed bookkeeper in Brooklyn Heights confronting her parents’ infidelity (and fallibility) who—whoops!—falls for her fiancé’s younger brother (Nicolas Cage), who sports a prosthetic wooden hand after an accident with a bread slicer. Their first night together produces one of the great moments in the annals of rom-coms: When Cage tells Cher he loves her, she slaps him, saying “Snap out of it!” The film portrays a New York that doesn’t really exist anymore—for one thing, Brooklyn Heights is full of bankers now. It’s a window to another time, when marriage meant something different in male-dominated second-generation immigrant families and the challenges Cher’s character places against the social order are both important and revelatory (she won an Oscar for her efforts). You end up cheering not just for her romance, but also for an entire insurgency.

. . . to put the fuckboys behind you:

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

Courtesy Everett Collection

Hollywood does this silly, shitty thing when they want to make it clear that a woman is “funny”: They make her clumsy. “Did you see that? She fell down in front of the boss she has a crush on while carrying many things! What a wit!” Thankfully, this film is actually funny, and so is Renée Zellweger, the titular Bridget Jones, who is 32 and a bit clumsy, and believes herself to be both a tad overweight and running short of romantic options. She confesses to her diary her feelings about the men in her life: her caddish colleague, Daniel (Hugh Grant), and her pill of a childhood friend, Mark Darcy (if that surname sounds familiar from one of your favorite literary comedies, that’s not by coincidence), who begin vying for her hesitant affections in their respectively charmless ways. Who will win—the nice guy or the jerk? The clumsy, funny, openhearted girl, of course! The story has a classic but important lesson to share: First impressions aren’t everything (and a fashion-related takeaway—never judge a man by his Christmas sweater).

. . . to make you even more neurotic about your love life:

Annie Hall (1977)

Courtesy Everett Collection

Like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, this is one of those movies that any list of top rom-coms would be remiss without. Yes, Alvy Singer’s (Woody Allen) story about how he met, and then lost, and then maybe regained, the love of his life, Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), is a wonderfully funny underdog-meets-girl story. But Allen’s uniquely observational humor also introduced some pioneering tropes and storytelling devices to the annals of rom-coms. The moment his grade school classmates stand up and give short peaks into their future (“I used to be a heroin addict; now I’m a methadone addict”). Or when Alvy interrupts a pedantic professor in a movie line—lecturing his date on Marshall McLuhan—by bringing the actual Marshall McLuhan out from behind a sign to set the man straight. These established entirely new directions for comedy. Moreover, Allen’s confessional style and the monologue with which he begins telling his warts-and-all fictional tale established a new paradigm for romantic storytelling, one that continues to influence rom-coms today (same for Diane Keaton’s outfits, but that’s a topic for another list).

. . . to get you pumped up:

Bring It On (2000)

©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

This is the pregame of romantic comedies. It’s a love story—between millennial hotties Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Bradford—packed into 98 minutes of jokes, rivalries, teen romance, and ridiculous cheers. (“Hate us ’cause we’re beautiful—well, we don’t like you either. We’re cheerleaders. We. Are. Cheerleaders!”) Some of us have defended this movie since it bowed (and then cartwheeled into an aerial walkover) in 2000 as a sharp appreciation of teen culture and teen cinema, both devoid of cynicism and long on wordplay. If you agree, welcome to the squad. If not, please keep in mind, “This is not a democracy; it’s a cheer-ocracy.”

. . . to take an break from yourself:

Roman Holiday (1953)

Courtesy Everett Collection

There’s a wonderful moment in Roman Holiday—the story of a European princess, played by Audrey Hepburn, who tires of her duties and runs away from her handlers while visiting Rome—when Joe (Gregory Peck), a reporter showing her the city, puts his arm in the Mouth of Truth (a statue that supposedly bites off the hand of liars) and removes it with his hand missing. The princess screams—Hepburn was apparently not acting here—and then recovers. It’s a metaphoric yawp for all that a romantic comedy should be. It’s being taken by surprise, taken by a stranger, the discovery a new side of oneself while falling for someone else. And that’s just one moment!

. . . to get him into rom-coms:

The Princess Bride (1987)

©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

“Is this a kissing book?” Fred Savage’s little boy asks his grandfather, at his bedside to read him The Princess Bride when he’s home sick from school. Sure is, but it’s also a tale of swashbuckling, cruel kings, giants, swordsmen, poison, monsters, rebels, and knights—without a dull or unfunny moment. The kid, and the viewer, is quickly on board. More than anything, it’s a tale of true love, and fantastic as it might be, the adventure that leads the stable boy, Westley, back to his mistress, Buttercup (played by an impossibly beautiful Robin Wright), has left few hearts unmoved, and few faces without with smiles.

. . . to consider what you could have done differently:

Groundhog Day (1993)

©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

One of the few rom-coms that comes with both a stamp of approval from your philosophy professor and the Tony reaches of Broadway. A cynical Pittsburgh weatherman (Bill Murray) is sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, with his producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell) on a dead-end assignment: to cover Groundhog Day. And boy, is it a dead end. Murray gets stuck there, not just in a snowstorm, mind you, but in a continuous loop where no matter what he does—including suicide—he wakes up in the same hotel, on the same day. At first, the weatherman is predictably bummed, but eventually he uses all the information he’s picked up living the same day over and over to better himself and the lives of those around him, eventually impressing Rita with his change of personality. Watching Bill Murray is fun, watching Bill Murray struggle is really fun, and watching Bill Murray caught in a space-time logjam, wrestling with moral philosophy while pursuing Andie MacDowell is the most fun.

. . . to find “our song”:

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008)

Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo

There’s something almost quaint about Norah’s search for her orgasm. The high schooler, played by Kat Dennings, is demeaned by her fellow classmates for having yet to experience the big O. It may sound tawdry, yet this plot point harkens back to a sweeter, John Hughes–era teen comedy (with a few switches flipped) wherein the search for a simple sex act was enough motivation for a number of scenes, if not an entire film. Norah’s lack of fulfillment isn’t what moves the action here; instead we’re on a search for her best friend and an oh-so-cool band’s secret show, with Nick’s (Michael Cera) hapless band, in his hapless car (a Yugo), through downtown New York City’s music scene. It’s a good-time flick, with cheerful performances and the kind of supporting cast (Ari Graynor as the beyond-drunk best friend) that make 90 minutes seem like a brisk 30. One of these is Alexis Dziena, who plays Nick’s very recent ex-girlfriend: She toyed with him and never appreciated the music mixes he made for her (spoiler: Norah loves them). Her “sexy” dance, in the glaring light of Nick’s high beams, to Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” is one of the great falls from grace, and worth the price of admission.

. . . to inspire some big changes:

Pretty Woman (1990)

©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Is there a rom-com list that doesn’t include this movie? What’s left to say about the 1990 tale of the beautiful, charming prostitute and the Wall Street corporate raider who meet and fall in love? Here’s director Garry Marshall’s (and Julia Roberts and Richard Gere’s) genius with this film: They make us forget about the various horrors of sex work and instead convince us the whole thing is kind of a lark. This film takes place in the late 1980s; a high-water mark in terms of the HIV crisis. Those things aren’t on our minds when we watch this movie (barring an early scene discussing methods of birth control); we think about stomping divots and Richard Gere conquering his fear of heights. So what? The Great Escape doesn’t exactly feature the horrors of World War II. That’s not the story they’re telling. Exactly our point. That’s how delightful this movie is.

. . . to make your arguments a little sweeter:

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Courtesy Everett Collection

Here’s how cute rom-coms were in the 1930s: The entire plot rests on a dog burying a bone of a brontosaurus. Katharine Hepburn, whom the movie was written for, plays a whimsical, adorable socialite who has become besotted with an otherwise engaged (literally and figuratively) paleontologist, played by Cary Grant, and is trying to keep him around so he won’t go marry some pill. Her strategy for doing this is to invite him to her house so that he can help her bring a baby leopard to the city. (Later, the dog and the leopard wrestle.) This is what we call a screwball comedy. It’s also priceless, with Hepburn peppering Grant in her sweet, Gatling gun style, and Grant, playing stiff, as if any man, never mind a mild-mannered paleontologist, could ever resist such wiles.

. . . to make it a girls night:

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

©Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Why is there no actual Shakespeare on this list? Because often a three-hour production: (1) is rarely funny, and (2) doesn’t really fit into a modern romantic comedy structure. Instead, we have movies that are actually fun to watch, like Shakespeare in Love, and this one, a teen-ready take on The Taming of the Shrew. There are some cute turns from youngsters Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julia Stiles, and Larisa Oleynik, but ask most women and the performance that sticks out is Heath Ledger’s, whose thuggish Patrick Verona made many of us weak in the knees. Like Bring It On, and unlike most films, especially teen films, this one is female focused. They’re the moral centers. The heroes we cheer for. And they are active in as much as the narrative as they are subject to it (rare!).

. . . to better understand your parents:

Beginners (2011)

©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

“The History of Sadness” is a sketchbook drawn by Ewan McGregor’s Oliver, a graphic designer who is dealing with the recent coming out of his septuagenarian father, Hal (Christopher Plummer—who won an Oscar for his performance). Hal’s new openness about his own life inspires Oliver to reevaluate his own sadness and pursue a lovely French actress, Anna. It’s an incredibly touching, difficult story, told mostly in flashback, that involves Oliver coming to grips with his father’s past, his parents’ relationship, his own choices, and his art. But it’s ultimately a love story. A story about how our parents love us, and each other—despite the difficulties imposed society, time, and work—and how in turn, we learn to love, or not. We’re all beginners, in all our loves, and to think otherwise is foolhardy.

. . . to freeze some already cold feet:

The Wedding Singer (1998)

©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection

Millennials might not realize from Adam Sandler’s recent descent into perennial schlock (some of it racist and sexist)—like The Ridiculous 6, Blended, Jack and Jill, and Grown Ups—that his movies were, at one point, very funny. Billy Madisonand Happy Gilmore are ’90s classics, and The Wedding Singer, his only rom-com from that era (there’s some debate over whether P. T. Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, released in 2002, qualifies as such), is a hilarious, touching ode to traditional values. Set in the ’80s, Sandler’s Robbie Hart is a wedding singer (and hopeless romantic) recently left at the altar who helps Drew Barrymore’s Julia plan her wedding to the wrong man. Sandler and Barrymore’s chemistry is off the charts, and this film—not Mad Love, sorry—established the actress as rom-com gold (see Never Been Kissed, 50 First Dates, and Fever Pitch). The romance is great, the jokes are great, the costumes are great, and not to ruin anything, but Billy Idol is pretty great too.

. . . to get you singing and dancing (and maybe moving to L.A.):

La La Land (2016)

©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection

The highway scene. Ryan Gosling hunkered over the piano. Emma Stone embodying “irrepressible.” His dance on the boardwalk. Her spins. The way she pulls at her dress. The way he grins while he smolders. Their love. It’s a panacea for the reasons we go to the movies. At no point do we believe they won’t end up together, but we stay transfixed, in fact we tap along. For younger viewers—those of us who might not have drank down the moving magic of Singin’ in the Rain, West Side Story, or Gigi—Damien Chazelle’s La La Land forgives those lapses. It embraces their greatness as it embraces us in its giant, vibrant arms. We lean closer to the screen, not to learn but to feel for the whole experience of youth and performance: all that hope, drive, sweat, and love. Can’t forget love.

. . . to kick-start your career goals:

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Courtesy Everett Collection

Here’s the thing: You’re not really allowed to like La La Land if you don’t like Singin’ in the Rain. Or, you at least have to watch it; it’s the original musical about making it in Hollywood. The story of a sellout leading man (Gene Kelly) who falls for the chorus girl (Debbie Reynolds) who might just change his life (and he hers), this 1950s romp through 1920s Hollywood really has it all: singing, dancing, and bedrock songs like “Make ’Em Laugh,” “Good Morning,” and of course, “Singin’ in the Rain.” It’s cute as hell and tap-happy to the extreme.

. . . to unplug from the office (and get your due):

How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)

©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

The movie that inspired 90 percent of vacation hookup jokes since 1998 (but seriously, we need to talk about Taye Diggs in a puka shell necklace; the man can make anything look good). Workaholic executive and single mom Stella (Angela Bassett) finds more than she bargains for when her best friend, played by Whoopi Goldberg, convinces her to take a much-deserved Caribbean vacation. Cheeky, subversive, and sexy as hell, this movie turned the tables on so many male-dominated rom-coms (courtesy of one very hot and heavy matchup between Bassett and Diggs, playing some 20 years her junior)—and passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. One of the very few rom-coms to do so.

. . . to get dressed up for:

Tootsie (1982)

©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) is a New York actor who is such a perfectionist, no one wants to work with him. So he does what any rational man would do: He dresses as an entirely different person—an older woman who goes by then name of Tootsie—and lands a role on a soap opera where he becomes a sensation. Problems arise when he falls in love with his costar (Jessica Lange) and a fellow castmate, an older man, falls in love with him. It’s madcap and zany but also profoundly funny, with insights aplenty—it sends up television, sexism, and New York society—and performances that were Oscar-worthy (Lange’s in particular—of Tootsie’s 10 Oscar nominations, she’s the only one who walked away with a statue).

. . . to reevaluate the nice guy (and the bad boy):

Something Wild (1986)

©Orion Pictures Corp/Courtesy Everett Collection

Before Johnathan Demme decided to win an Oscar and scare the pants off an entire generation with The Silence of the Lambs, he was an ’80s funnyman. And this is his best work. It’s the story of a mild-mannered exec (played by Jeff Daniels), whose sedentary life is turned upside down by the wildly adventurous, somewhat grifting Lulu (Melanie Griffith)—whose checkered past includes a roustabout, criminal ex-boyfriend played by Ray Liotta. The idea of a “crazy” girl coming in and turning a straight man’s existence topsy-turvy is repeated countless times in this genre, from Bringing Up Baby to The Girl Next Door. Demme’s alchemy here is to infuse the trope with unpredictability. The comedy keeps us on the edge of our seats by compounding the will-they-won’t-they question with sudden breaks into violence, threats, or chase. Rom-coms don’t get more exciting than this.

. . . to escape it all:

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Sony Pictures Classics/courtesy Everett Collection

The love story here is as much between writer-flaneur Gil Pender and Paris as it is between Gil and any of the women in this film. While visiting the French capital with his uptight fiancée, Inez (a sublime Rachel McAdams), and her parents, each night Gil goes walking and finds himself in the City of Light of the 1920s, complete with Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, the Fitzgeralds, Man Ray, Josephine Baker, Cole Porter . . . and a beautiful woman named Adriana (Marion Cotillard). It’s a writer’s fantasy made real (Stein volunteers to read his novel), but it’s also Woody Allen at his most effective: taking the vicissitudes of relationships and turning them into a mirthful, if neurotic, journey. This one just happens to also navigate through another time and place as well. And a beautiful one, at that. There’s a reason this is Allen’s highest-grossing film of all time.

. . . to escape the friend zone:

When Harry Met Sally. . . (1989)

©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

If this list were a top 20 instead, this film would still be on it. Same with top 10—and five. It’s in the running for the best rom-com of all time because it is sassy, sultry, snappy, cinematic perfection, thanks to words from Nora Ephron and direction from Rob Reiner. It’s something of an epic of the genre, spanning over 10 years of the kind of friendship (between Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal’s characters) where no one can help but ask, “Why aren’t those two together?” Should friends ever sleep together? If they do, what happens next? This movie should be watched by every college student on the planet. Bonus: Watch this movie with a boyfriend, and pay attention to what happens to his face during Meg Ryan’s most famous scene, in which she illustrates just how easy it is for a woman to fake an orgasm.

. . . to unite with your crew:

Bridesmaids (2011)

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Who ever thought getting food poisoning in a wedding dress could be so funny? Bridesmaids is as much a buddy comedy (think Old School or Twins) as it is a rom-com, proving that female actors can be just as bawdy and into gross-out humor as their male counterparts in The Hangover. This is about the love between friends, yes, and the agony that comes with maturing at different paces, but what ultimately drives the film is the desire of Annie (Kristen Wiig, who also wrote the script, with Annie Mumolo) to catch up. This movie isn’t as much about what we have as about what we’re missing, and how a wedding can bring that to the fore. Along with nonstop laughs, we get a powerhouse performance from Wiig—even as Melissa McCarthy steals the show.

. . . to remind you that guys will try anything:

There’s Something About Mary (1998)

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Before we had a president who bragged openly about grabbing women “by the pussy”, this is what qualified as a gross-out film. Amid scenes of semen being used as hair gel and testicles jammed in zippers, the Farrelly Brothers managed to concoct an amiable story about a nerdy Ted (Ben Stiller) hiring a private detective to find Mary (Cameron Diaz), the object of his unrequited love in high school. Despite the over-the-top locker-room gags, the movie has virtually no sex, and manages to emerge as hilarious, sweet, and satisfying.

. . . to make up your mind, dammit:

Manhattan (1979)

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Elephant in the room: Yes, this is Woody Allen pursuing a high school student (a luminous Mariel Hemingway). It was also made in 1979, and that didn’t carry quite the same connotations as it does now. The year is important, because as the film’s title suggests, this movie is as much about New York as it is about the lovers who collide inside of it (Allen’s character, Isaac, begins the film dating the high schooler, but leaves her for his friend’s mistress, played by Diane Keaton). In the mid-to-late 1970s, New York was a bit of a cesspool: Crime was out of control, repeated requests for federal aid were denied, and the city was on the edge of bankruptcy. It’s in the wake of this tumult that Allen pens his black-and-white love note to his fair city. The film opens with a montage of New York’s skyline and street scenes, revealed to “Rhapsody in Blue,” and Allen’s voice-over as Isaac, writing about his romantic love for the city. That’s where he gets us with this film; Allen crystalizes the outsize feelings that can swell with romance, despite any and all evidence that should temper them. It’s a movie about indecision, bad choices, and falling for the wrong people, but it celebrates the impetus for all of these. We love the things we shouldn’t. That’s life. That’s Manhattan.

. . . to know if he’s worth the trouble:

Say Anything. . . (1989)

Photo: Courtesy of © 20th Century Fox Film Corp./Everett Collection

If for no other reason, you need to see this movie so you’ll understand what it means when someone holds a ghetto blaster over his head outside the window of the woman he loves. Like most of the teen romance flicks on this list, Say Anything. . . doesn’t end at the Big Dance. This movie, from director Cameron Crowe (and produced by James L. Brooks) is far too sophisticated for such a middling finale. It’s too busy diving into the angsty, all-consuming, awkward challenge that is young love, as embodied by consummate underdog Lloyd Dobler and his attempts to woo the beautiful valedictorian Diane Court.

. . . to get him back:

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

If The 40-Year-Old Virgin was evidence that Steve Carell could be a romantic lead, this was the proof. Alongside Julianne Moore, as the cheating wife he wants to win back, and with Ryan Gosling, who plays his cad coach, as well with a terrific performance from a teenage son who loves his babysitter, who in turn loves his nice-guy dad, Carell is well matched. Throw in Kevin Bacon as a romantic rival and Emma Stone as a law student just out of Gosling’s reach, and we’re ready to go. It’s a comedy that’s as much about accepting the facts of life—be they middle age, the people we can’t have, or the people we don’t want others involved with—as much as it is about a pursuit, or any one relationship. It’s about how love really is, sometimes, which can be romantic in its own right.

. . . to fall in love with literature:

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

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People forget about the competition Shakespeare faced, and we don’t mean the other plays. In the late 1500s, one could go to the theater, or one could go watch some people be executed or a bear be torn apart by dogs. That’s how entertaining Shakespeare’s work had to be! In 1998, this film competed with Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth, and Life Is Beautiful for Best Picture and managed to come out with the Oscar. What drew the academy to the fast-paced mash-up of Romeo and Juliet with a very loosely interpreted history of William Shakespeare’s life was the film’s ability to capture exactly what Shakespeare did back in his day: the urgency of love and the power of its expression—its ability to consume us and change lives.

. . . to tell your real friends from the sham ones:

Muriel’s Wedding (1994)

Everett Collection (13649)

Muriel (Toni Collette), a daydreamer and the target of the bitchy girls she considers her friends, wants nothing more than to get out of her small town and away from her awful father, move to Sydney, and get married. When she makes off with her parents’ savings, reunites with a fellow outcast from her town, and is offered the chance to marry a gorgeous South African swimmer who needs a visa, she can make her dreams come true. As much of a coming-of-age story as a rom-com (Muriel may be in her 20s, but she has much growing up to do), this film does a brilliant job of cutting the legs out from underneath our expectations by giving us exactly what we’ve always wanted, and tying us up in the strings attached.

. . . to relive high school (or what you wish high school was like):

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)

Netflix’s most popular entry into the rom-com genre (based on the novel by Jenny Han) was for many an instant classic—not least for blessing the world with Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo), the Jake Ryan of the Internet era. Lana Condor stars as Lara Jean, a quiet high school kid who relieves her romantic pressures by writing never-to-be-mailed love letters to the objects of her affection—including her older sister’s ex-boyfriend. Until, of course, one night they get sent out. Hijinks—and a fake turned not-so-fake relationship—ensue.

. . . to remind you how much better it gets after high school:

American Pie (1999)

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A teen sex comedy with a heart of gold, this story of four high school friends determined to have sex before they graduate was the surprise hit of 1999. But underneath all the masturbating with pastry and accidentally ingested semen cocktails, there’s real sentiment to the adolescent boys trying to find their way with women, and vice versa. The reason we can safely call this a rom-com is that, while it doesn’t exactly pass the Bechdel test with flying colors, the objects of the guys’ affections are far from just objects. They have goals of their own we’re brought on board with. The girls aren’t just out for the boys, they’re out for themselves—as disappointingly rare in a rom-com as it is in a teen comedy, and the reason we love this one.

. . . to learn how far to take it:

Rushmore (1927)

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This is Wes Anderson’s most completely stylish movie, and perhaps his best, made before stylized fuckery got in the way of things like writing (like all his best work, this was cowritten with Owen Wilson). Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is a scholarship student at a private school. His academics are dismal, but he’s game for any and all extracurriculars, especially the over-the-top plays he produces and directs. He gets into a contest for the affections of a widowed first grade teacher with local industrialist, and his newfound mentor, Herman Blume (Bill Murray). Several phenomenal executions come together in this film, including the ensemble cast, the just-on-this-side of believable production design, and an absolutely killer classic rock soundtrack. But what pushes it above the rest is the utter drive of both Max and Herman, as love and competition gains primacy over every aspect of their lives. They’re both willing to burn the village to save it, which is simultaneously hilarious to watch and cathartic to anyone who’s ever had a crush.

. . . to locate your other half:

Jerry Maguire (1996)

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Cameron Crowe has a couple of films on this list (Almost Famous was close, but ultimately more coming-of-age than comedy) with good reason: He understands people and how they tick. Despite its memorably demonstrative, over-the-top lines, like “You complete me,” and “Show me the money,” this is ultimately a movie about how people really fall in love. Sure, Renée Zellweger loves Tom Cruise from the beginning—it’s a movie after all, and he is Tom Cruise—but what Jerry Maguire gets to is what happens after that first kiss, after the honeymoon period, when we have to learn about the other person as a person, and not just see them and their adorable puppy (or in this case, an adorable son, played by Jonathan Lipnicki) as an escape or alternative from our own lives.

. . . for a dose of realism (and Paris!)

Two Days in Paris (2007)

For sheer hilarious, messy, complicated realism, Two Days in Paris takes the prize. The brilliant and surprising Julie Delpy writes, directs, and stars as Marion, a young Frenchwoman who has brought her American boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) to her hometown en route from a trip to Venice. They struggle through misunderstandings, language barriers, cultural clashes, encounters with Marion’s many ex-boyfriends, and her unruly parents (played by Delpy’s real-life mother and father, actors Marie Pillet and Albert Delpy,) and barely come out the other side. The moral, as Marion paraphrases Jack: “It’s not easy being in a relationship, much less to truly know the other one and accept them as they are with all their flaws and baggage.” It may not be easy, but it’s highly entertaining to watch them try.

. . . to get you through the holidays:

Love Actually (2003)

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Is this? Not really. But that’s not why we go to the movies. Love Actually is, actually, a rather clichéd Christmas rom-com, but jeez, we love it anyway. How can we not, with this ensemble cast of British romance all-stars (Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, and Keira Knightley, among others)? The prime minister (Grant) falling for a junior staff member? A quiet suitor in love with the new bride (Knightley) of his best bud (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who is apparently one of three people of color in London? A cuckolded boyfriend (Firth) rebuilding his shattered life with the help of his shy housekeeper? Balderdash. All of it. But it’s irresistible. Come on, what are you, made of stone?

. . . to fall for his funny bone:

Top Five (2014)

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Think of it as Before Sunset meets Funny People, with New York taking the place of Paris. If that notion produces a little eye roll, get those peepers back down, and then on to the screen before you miss some laughs. Rosario Dawson plays a New York Times journalist tasked with interviewing a hugely famous comedian, played by Chris Rock, who is attempting to take his career in a new direction (courtesy of an ill-advised serious film about a Haitian revolutionary). Like Roman Holidaybefore it, this is a film rooted in our society’s placement of, and expectations for, certain figures (a celebrity and a princess, respectively). In both cases, the journalist finds the human being inside of their famous subject, falling for them while trying not to fall for their shtick, or what they represent. As the pair make their way through Manhattan—with visits from Jerry Seinfeld, radio hosts Opie and Anthony, Whoopi Goldberg, and a fantastic supporting job from the ageless Gabrielle Union, playing a reality TV starlet—we can’t help but get on board with their journey.

. . . to look past his neurotic, potentially mentally ill exterior:

As Good as It Gets (1997)

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There are few actors who can go toe-to-toe with Jack Nicholson. Director James L. Brooks found a suitable sparring partner with Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment and struck gold again nearly 15 years later with Helen Hunt. Hunt plays a waitress with a sick child for whom Nicholson—a mean, racist, homophobic, obsessive-compulsive writer and her regular customer in the restaurant where she waits tables—has some affection. Bring in Nicholson’s neighbor, a gay artist (played by Greg Kinnear) who has to lean on the Nicholson’s character for help (beginning with care for his adorable dog), add a road trip, and you’ve got yourself one of the most delightful, well-thought-out comedies of the ’90s. The movie takes it time, but it’s to our benefit—Brooks allows us to get to know each of these people, and them each other, intimately, which means when the jokes, and the romance, land, they land hard, and then stay around. (Plus, who among us could resist Nicholson growling, “You make me wanna be a better man”?)

. . . to confirm that, yeah, he’s probably cheating:

Shampoo (1975)

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There’s a lot going on in Shampoo—the story of an L.A. hairdresser (Warren Beatty) who is sleeping with, well, everyone (including Julie Christie, who plays a prime target of his affections)—which, at first glance, could just be another ’70s sex comedy. Keep in mind, it’s directed by Hal Ashby, the king of thoughtful, offbeat romances, and was both written by and featured, Warren Beatty, a major voice of the Hollywood Left in the 1970s. The film, released a year after Nixon’s downfall, takes place during on the eve of Nixon’s election in 1968, so there’s a good deal of interplay between the politics and the sexual politics that were in the air as the counterculture died, the pill became mainstream, and the country saw itself in a whole new, darker light. That said, Beatty’s portrayal of the harried, discursive, libidinous George is irresistible even without context, as is the performance given by a young Goldie Hawn, who illuminates every frame—and perfectly counteracts Beatty—with blonde California light, and a heart-melting, downy innocence.

. . . to get you on board with AI:

WALL-E (2008)

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There are more epic Disney romances (one of them is on this list), but none more thoughtful. What we love about this futuristic tale of a little trash compactor, WALL-E, who falls in love with his technological better, EVE, is the considered environmental, anti-consumerist message that suffuses the dystopian love story. With barely a word, only whirrs, between them, EVE and WALL-E convincingly fall in love. His efforts to save her, once the megacorporation Buy-n-Large (their maker) comes for her, is as authentic as Hawkeye’s return for Cora, or Jack’s sacrifice for Rose. Forget Finding Nemo, this is writer-director Andrew Stanton’s Pixar masterpiece.

. . . to justify your May-December romance:

Harold and Maude (1971)

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There’s a question that lingers throughout most of Harold and Maude—the story of a death-obsessed young man (he enjoys driving a hearse, attending funerals, and faking his suicide) who falls for a much, much older woman—are these two going to get it on? It sounds sophomoric, but it’s actually essential. Harold and Maude are separated by approximately 60 years; for the movie to hit home, for us to believe that love is truly about what we share, not what we look like or other aesthetic values, we have to believe a genuine attraction has formed. No one prodded existentialism (especially in films deemed “romantic”) like director Hal Ashby, and Harold and Maude is no exception. The darkly funny tale will leave you questioning just what is important to you in your own conception of love—and, moreover, in your life.

. . . to give comic books their due:

Chasing Amy (1997)

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A comic book artist (Ben Affleck) with an inseparable best friend (Jason Lee) falls for a beautiful gay girl (Joey Lauren Adams)—who then falls for him—only to discover he can’t handle it. Comic books? Lesbian conversion? Best buds? Sounds like a romantic comedy made by men, for men. And it is! But Kevin Smith also managed a somewhat nuanced exploration of friendship and art, as well as of contemporary romantic standards in his rejiggering of the love triangle. Simultaneously, at a time when every other joke on Friends involved gay panic, he was portraying three-dimensional concepts of lesbian identity. What could be identified as a typical male-driven fantasy could also be seen as a ’90s Torrents of Spring.

. . . to make you fall in love with your friends:

Reality Bites (1994)

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In what was then a cult hit and is now a piece of ’90s nostalgia catnip, a post–Edward Scissorhands (and post–Johnny Depp) Winona Ryder plays Lelaina, an aspiring documentarian assisting an obnoxious TV host in Houston. She and grungy, Generation X friends—played by Steve Zahn, Janeane Garofolo, and a simmering Ethan Hawke (who may be more than just a friend)—are just trying to figure out who they are, and what they want in life. In Ben Stiller’s feature directorial debut, he also plays a TV executive whose budding romance with Lelaina and interest in her work brings the real world crashing into their postcollegiate hipster existence. Aside from a nonstop ’90s fashion buffet that is Winona’s wardrobe (mom jeans, crop tops, baby doll dresses, cardigans, men’s shirts, blazers), there’s also love and heartbreak, sex, betrayal, Lisa Loeb, Dickies, pizza, and lines like “He’s so cheesy, I can’t watch him without crackers.” What else do we want, really?

. . . to dance your troubles away:

Grease (1978)

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The ’50s nostalgia of the 1970s culminated with this unreal musical about the return to high school for summer lovers Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John). It’s hard for current viewers to understand just how big John Travolta was at the time; the year this film bowed, 1978, the two top-selling albums were the soundtracks to Saturday Night Fever (another Travolta film) and this one. And that was in a year when the Rolling Stones released Some Girls and Bruce Springsteen dropped Darkness on the Edge of Town. In this irresistibly playful film, Travolta embodies the bursting sexuality of the newly emerged teen culture, but at the same time, he’s a tampered-down throwback—we buy him drag racing cars and singing with his gang, the T-Birds, whose rivals are the Scorpions, and making clumsy moves at the drive-in. Similarly, the Pink Ladies, a popular clique headed by Rizzo (Stockard Channing), deliver their wiseacre lines with a fair dose of irony. These skirts know what’s up, and that’s what makes us interested, and invested, in their outcomes. We’re locked in from the first frame: There may be better musicals, but none more fun.

. . . to get you through wedding season:

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

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For anyone who’s ever been encumbered by the beautiful, annoying, expensive ordeal that is a wedding, how can we not love a wedding movie whose first pages of dialogue are just the word Fuck? As much as we commiserate, this is ultimately Hugh Grant’s movie. And a little Andie MacDowell’s movie. But mostly Hugh Grant’s. It’s the film that introduced us to his stumbling, bumbling, yet confident Etonian charms and wit, which we’d witness again and again in Nine Months, Notting Hill, Music and Lyrics, About a Boy, and more). The story of Grant and his friends attending their friends’ weddings—and one funeral—perfectly captured the romance of nuptials as well as all the stress, commitment, and emotional . . . what do the British call it? . . . oh yes, bother that comes with that period in your life where your friends are tying the knot. The question this rom-com dares ask is this: In all this wedding madness, can you be the odd man out and still be happy?

. . . to find your prince:

Coming to America (1988)

©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

It’s unfair that Eddie Murphy only has one entry on this list. The guy ruled the ’80s and made some of the era’s great comedies—Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hrs.—but this is really the only one where the romance narrative rules supreme. In short: Murphy plays the prince of a fictional African nation who is unsure about his arranged marriage, and so heads to what he suspects will be greener pastures in search of his queen. So where better to start that Queens, New York? Essentially slumming it with his best friend (a terrific Arsenio Hall), Murphy’s character finds work at a McDonald’s-type restaurant where he falls in love with the owner’s daughter, a woman who just might fit the bill. It’s a super simple story that elicits big laughs in every scene, but it’s also a clever send-up of class and race that simultaneously owns itself as perhaps the ultimate Reaganite comedy: If you are rich and follow your heart, you can be even richer!

…remind you that life doesn’t always go as planned, but sometimes that’s okay.

Juno (2007)

Life’s not perfect, but it can be most endearing— that’s the takeaway, anyway, from Jason Reitman’s nuanced teen comedy, Juno. Ellen Page gives her breakout performance as the titular pregnant-by-accident teen who soldiers on through high school while preparing to give her baby up for adoption to a painfully needy rich couple (or “baby-starved wingnuts,” as her father calls them.) Juno’s honesty and her backward love story with the adorably nerdy Paulie (Micheal Cera) reminds us of the true meaning of being cool, and that heartache can resolve itself into a tender, resilient future.

. . . to get your boss’s job:

Working Girl (1988)

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First, consider the cast: Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford—who owned the ’80s in Hollywood and made this his only rom-com—Sigourney Weaver, Joan Cusack, Oliver Platt, Alec Baldwin (at his douchiest), and Kevin Spacey. Next, look at the director: Mike Nichols—if there is a pantheon for romantic films, he probably has Zeus’s seat. Finally, the shoulder pads; my god, the shoulder pads. Were doorways made wider in the 1980s? Adventures in Babysitting aside, this movie is really as feminist as mainstream movies got in the ’80s. Melanie Griffith plays Tess McGill, a wily business school graduate working as a secretary at an investment bank with such memorable one-liners as “I have a head for business and a bod for sin.” When her boss (Weaver) steals her idea for a merger and then ends up out of commission (temporarily bedridden after a ski accident), Tess rises to the occasion: scheming with the support of her friends and maybe-lover (Ford), conniving, flirting, and using some good old-fashioned elbow grease to outwit her superiors, beat the boys, and claim the position she’s rightfully earned. Griffith is miraculous (one critic compared her to Marilyn Monroe; younger viewers might see a mold for Alicia Silverstone’s Cher), taking a role that could have just been “cute” and elevating it to nuanced and beguiling. That’s what this film is—so much so, we’ll forgive you if, after watching it, you suddenly have a soft spot for shoulder pads.

(C)

[cityofbundledbones-blog]

Chapter 1 - Part 2

Read from Beginning

Having completed the morning rituals, a quiet routine was obeyed. Such was the case throughout the house. The morning passed, the house awoke, and as a maid, the day became a list of compulsory obligations punctually upheld.

Her masters house smelt of the lacquer polish that young boys used to give sheen to the walls. Its purpose was utterly lost on Martinet, who drank the scent once again, as she did twice a week, in hopes of finding the deeper subtitles of odor that would guide her down the hall.

It was a simple enough layout from the servant’s entrance beside the kennels. Following the growls, one was led inevitably to the sound of chopping blades, the quick but distinct screech of two chitin surfaces meeting at high speed. The ripping of the pig meat, backed by the beating of dough for meat cakes later in the day.

Martinet entered the kitchen, but dared not dally. The children that serviced the cook were vile things, subhuman and given to little acts of disorder that were most untimely in a room full of knives. Being blind, she found herself a more alluring target than she wished for the little wretches, but dared not speak on it. The Madam of the house was known to dote on the children, offering them sweets for their smiles. The cook saw this as an entitlement to put on airs, and she was for the most part correct.

Still, when no one was likely to care, she made a show of brushing past the nine-year-old boy’s outstretched leg, kicking just enough to knock him off his feet.

Martinet, though not entirely through this ritual, had grown to utterly despise children.

On occasion of this mild retort, she caught the cook’s attention.

“You mind yourself, ya bleach-ed cripple.”

She got the impression the obese cook was pointing at her.

Martinet found a blade descending in the hand of a butcher, stopping it in mid-swing at the hilt. The butcher child obligingly surrendered it. She felt the heft, a light blade, a cleaver rotting from poor maintenance.

“Did you not hear? I am killer now.”

It was a juvenile attempt at retort, and the cook punished her summarily.

“Aye, and may you fare as well as the last one. Dear Mulhaney,” she cooed, “whose cock is feast for the Lenco.”

From what Martinet recalled of Mulhaney, she doubted it would’ve been a feast for anything, save perhaps a cesspit rat. But she held her tongue, if only for respect to a man otherwise vile, but nevertheless right with her in life, and lost through the redundancy of the ill sickened by the labors of devotion. Still a pastor’s child, she was, and obligingly she counted as hers the flock even slaughtered.

She proceeded out from the kitchen and eventually to her post within the scullery, where the young gathering women held the piles of white sheets. It was too cold to dry them in the night, and the morning sun did little to abate. To dry the sheets they were forced to take them to the ramparts of the second floor and fan them in the wind until they dried. It was an arduous process and left many young ladies in line waiting for a place to settle their morning chores.

There would be beatings, decided Martinet, with a simple judge of the line’s depth gathering how many young rears would be tanned for the unmade beds of the master’s family.

There was a certain debauchery about the house. The sheets were its record, and thus the maids of the scullery were given an exceptional amount of responsibility. The mistress of the house was barren, or perhaps merely fickle, and gave no fuck to her husband. Her sheets were always clean, but her demand to sleep alone always kept a separate three sheets every morning, as well as all her other linens, and oh how she piled them on. Madam Sophie was an absolute terror too, were it not white as the pale moon.

Her master, and the master of all within the manor, had his habits to weather the indifference of a frigid wife. They were not so hard to account for, from the stains various and numerous on his linens every morning. He was a debauched man, but his regularity and openness garnered him many friends on the staff. He did not make trouble for the help. He expected a cleaning of what he sullied, an unquestioning obedience in act, and the dutiful silence of a slave. Beyond that, and there those irrational enough to demand the world, he was the easiest to deal with.

The hardest, and that was the way she was described, was the child of the house. A young lady, a compulsive scribbler, reader and rabble-rouser in her own dreams; all these things could describe Mademoiselle Charlotte, the young mistress. The staff singularly loathed her. She spoke to them as equals, if only to play with the boundaries of their class. It was a thing easily understood to all adults that they had nothing to say to her, and likewise she could tell them nothing they cared to know. But to clarify this was an offense that dare it be overheard, was death. Death with a pleading child for mercy, but still death. Death, because there were no doors from the manor of Master le Sang. All were traps falling down off the Temple Hill where the manor lay. True there were other places to live, other manors, and great councilors, judges and influence peddlers all forever seeking slaves. But it was the devil unknown, the impossible evil of ignorance when faced with the bottomless infamy of the well-heeled, bored, and frustrated.

For Charlotte, anything was alright so long as the slaves were not put out. This was a quietly terrifying prospect for any slave. It meant she was impossible to truly please, and that no standard of cleanliness could guarantee proper reception. Charlotte could be happy one time, but quietly disappointed the next. And while she said nothing, and no servant to her had died for this quiet fickleness, it did infect her mood in some small way the suspicion that she was not fully enabling the course of her charges. She wanted to be helpful.

Martinet, for her part, wished her mother would beat her. In one daring moment a year past, she had replied with this very statement while gathering the lady’s clothes.

Sophie had been sitting at her night table, brushing her hair and talking. Martinet never wondered what she looked like. The very institution did nothing for her, having been blind most of her life. The lady was sufficient, she imagined. She bred offspring that brought the eyes of young men, and endangered young servant boys all along the ward. She had responded to a question about the girl’s demeanor. Without thinking, she’d said it.

“She should be beaten,” she had said.

“Beaten.” The mistress merely tasted the word. “Yes, most likely.” She paused to think about it. “Yes…I suppose it would be a mother’s duty. Make a proper person of her, yes?”

“Such is my understanding,” she explained, reciting briefly her forbidden history as a freeborn woman.

The mistress had been neither impressed nor offended by the admission.

“I see. Well, would you like to do it?”

“It’s not my place,” she’d said, wishing to add…though it would’ve been, were the Petrarch’s fickle whims with me.

What she had followed with was a statement that hung in Martinet’s mind. The mistress had risen, and stepped to her. The blind girl was led to her side, to face her as the mistress leaned back against the table.

“I have a question for you. Are you untouched, girl?”

“You mean regarding men, I presume.”

“You presume correctly.”

She was and admitted so. Were she otherwise, it would have been at the expense of her dignity. Most young women she knew who were not, were either subject to the master’s appetites, the crude rape of the male slaves, or some other sensual leaning that had been briefly mislabeled affection between consenting property stakes.

The mistress gave a brief explanation of the penetration her dear daughter had yet to feel. She knew, for instance, what sort of man would do it, and under what circumstances. “He will be crude,” she said flatly, distant, “And he will be rich. He will lose interest long before he realizes her potential. She really is quite pretty, I will admit. She would make a decent lover, but only if she’s made one. She won’t, though. She’ll be like her mother, bored with her body, haunted by the memory of a souring string of loveless fucks, and the distending expulsion of a child taking that last shred of vanity from her life.”

“Will you not warn her, instruct her to this?”

“Not a chance,” said the mistress.

“Mistress,” she said, realizing both that she had asked a question that was not hers to ask, and then dared to ask a further one. To the mind of a slave, this is not a habit to form.

“I was simply point out, Martinet, that there are many ways to beat an unruly appendage. I will…I will let life do it for her. I will let her find out on her own.”

Martinet passed the den in present time where the mistress had her morning coffee. Their moment was swiftly forgotten by the lady of the house, but the quiet villainy she betrayed lived in her servant’s mind. This was the justice of the house, and perhaps of the city itself. Owing no explanations, and not a single courtesy, it existed to take pleasure in the pain through which the unallied individual found his way.

There was someone with her in the morning room, but while she heard the lady’s voice, the other one was softer, to the point of being muddled by the creaking of the stairs. Another maid, skinny, breastless though pubescent, darted past with a hamper full of browned, sanguine-drenched sheets.

The master, in the drawing room, gave a small noise of acknowledgement as the girl passed. Like his wife, he entertained morning company who did not speak, but heard his recount of the night’s prior. Martinet did not allow herself to hear the details. The intricacy of her master’s sadism was sometimes unbearably interesting, a hypnotic spiral of inward-turning teeth in a way, a sundering, drawing litany on the subtleties of intolerable cruelty.

“And the secret,” unfortunately filtered through, “Is that if you do it right, they’ll beg you to continue even as you’re doing it to them in front of their eyes. There’s something sublime, a divine unity to hearing those words…’fuck me to death, master, so I may scream your name in nirvana’.”

She highly doubted the last part was a genuine quotation, but were it counted as crime, sadism or falsehood, hyperbole was on any scale relatively minor an infraction.

Upon her entry, both the master and the visitor fell silent.

“Yes, slave?”

It was in the master’s character never to remember the name of a slave. For this reason, for his lack of pretense, she plainly preferred him to most any free man in the city.

Still, pride required her to bristle, and she obliged. She stiffened to the part. It was enough to be unforgivably attired. A sheet-toting maiden’s stained whites were not for the guests to see, and her presence made the staff look small, incompetent, and poorly tended.

“The madam requests you for a morning tea, master.”

Master le Sang said nothing at first. He did not oblige his wife’s requests without reason. She had a love of arguments, public spats, and embarrassing him in front of guests that he’d grown to resent. Clear, even to the ears of the blind slave, was an additional tension found in his own company.

“Well then, we can hardly refuse my lady bride, can we?”

The man made a sound akin to a vaguely noncommittal humph, but at half volume and in quarter time.

“Now, now…don’t be mush mouthed around the help. Ladies are to be treated with kindness,” he said with some regret.

Again, the guest said nothing. But he had grown conspicuous in his silence, so noticeably avoiding the use of his voice.

Oh. You again.

“Have it your way, my friend. No words of wisdom for the help. Save them for my wife, who dearly needs your council.”

She was dismissed forthwith, though with a halt at the door as the master recalled the formality of it.

“Oh yes…about your new duties. Mulhaney will no longer be handling the affairs of the meats. Hereafter, you will accept the duties full-time, and take up whatever work is best suited to you thereafter. But no more work in the laundry, child. It’s unsanitary for hands so soaked in lye to handle the pigs.”

She muttered something not unlike a thank you but with less feeling. When safely beyond the threshold, she sealed the doors with both hands, and braced herself. having no tear ducts, it was easy to hold back what welled inside, but still the nerves complaints of a raw, affectionate nerve could reveal her. Such weakness, the fear of it, drove herself to a small alcove in the servant’s undercarriage where the duties were tended. There, betwixt the tensions and emotion of a day’s labor, she was momentarily invisible, long enough to lean against the wall in a small room with no door and pray to her near-forgotten god.

No more laundry. Did he know? Did they know?

Martinet worked as a scullery maid in the city of bundled bones. It was a simple sentence, superficial descriptions of a longer, larger institution of life. To rise at dawn. To set one’s head long into the night. This was her way, but a single ray brought her through.

That ray was named Marianne, and she was a friend.

It was at the question of her virtue that she first felt suspected. Marianne was her intimate, in small, quiet ways. Simple gestures. Subtle entrancing sensations. The sort of thing two girls in white smocks could do briefly, carefully, and only rarely as the steam and commotion momentarily hid their concert from prying eyes.

Marianne was very kind to Martinet, and did not care to tell her lies. She told her always that their lives meant nothing. It was their souls that counted. Marianne sought value, above all other things. She wished to be of purpose and value, two things not generally accessible to a slave.

“Why do you care so much,” Martinet would ask her.

“Because I know I’ll never get it.” Her voice always took a darker tone. Marianne was pleasant, but she never spoke of her past. She could have been born in the slave pens of the wild Ten-Thousands, downtown by the river of filth, or had come from some far away land as a war bride’s first and only issue.

In either case, it was unimportant by her own admission.

“I’m very pretty, Martinet.” She pronounced it as a confession. “I’ll be…used when the time is right. I’ll be…the master will likely do it.”

She’d offered to help her get away. Marianne had laughed.

“And go where?” They’d kissed after that, and returned to work. That was their last conversation.

She passed the polish boy in the foyer, where he practiced his abominable trade. She caught a faint whisper that sounded like her name, and it struck her oddly how much envy there was in the air. to slaughter pigs, to touch the blood…no, to have the blade. No wonder the cook resented her so. it was a task that had taken the sow years to earn, the right to wield a cleaver. But now, she was among them.

The revelation came alongside that tense, spiritual breach possible only when you realize you are now seeing beyond space and time, but in this one place and time you are too late, and there is no return.

Martinet pushed her way down the hall, past a thickening crowd. No one screamed, but the murmurs were telling in their density. She needn’t even get inside to know what they were staring at, but they wanted her in there. Someone wanted her in there, the dirty girl who was going to wield the knife instead of the corrosive water that bleached their skin and blinded their eyes.

Someone lifted a large, stringy object from the main vat as she entered. The head laundress whispered to another, clearly directing the sotto voce remonstration towards her.

Martinet looked to her, although her eyes were only of her heart.

“Is it her?”

The laundress scoffed.

“Never you mind who it is,” she spat, “she’s going upstairs and suddenly we all answer to her.” The wet whatever-it-was was cast from the catwalk to the ground, landing with a wet thud. “Get this thing out of here.”

“Be sure to trim the fat,” someone whispered in her ear, “We won’t want the master eating fat soaked in lye.”

Another one whispered a cruel name for her friend.

“In the end, we must all feed the banshee.”

A cold silence slowly blossomed in the room. The maids were at her sides, her back, and before her, but at a distance. They were in a great circle of breathing, panting women, at the center of which she surmised was the body.

Again, she assembled the pieces. Her morning work was the slaughter. But Mulhaney’s other duties had been the burning of compost, the tending of rot and carrion, and even the occasion disposal of a dead slave.

Martinet wrapped her darling in a sheet and placed it in a wheelbarrow, leaving the scully without another word.

Martinet ran her fingers down the face. It was her. No doubt lived in her mind. It was her dear Marianne, drowned, cold, hair in thin, matted clumps clinging to her hollow cheeks.

She lay stripped on a table outdoors built of an old door on a piles of stones. Back at the house, she was assured that slaves were watching her, the way she laid the body out before the mid-morning sun, preparing the ax against the grinding wheel. Burial was uncommon, and forbidden to slaves. Mausoleums were for the wealthy, and cremation was a function of a fuel no longer in existence. All bodies, as with the entrails of pigs, were committed to the rot, to the river, or to the sky.

To the sky, she decided. Marianne deserved that much, and besides it was too much meat.

Martinet stood before the door that was a table, and considered the ax. She knew precisely where to let it fall. It was quite good that she could not see. It would make her miss. She would fall to memories of the face she needed now to sever from the neck.

She did so, knowing that the girl felt no pain.

She extended the left arm. She’d held that arm. What was her name again? She forced it from her mind. She was dead. Her name did not matter. Her silly joys were all as dust, and the ax severed her lovely left arm at the shoulder, followed by the right. Martinet stacked them together. Her leather apron was already soaked in blood. She wore the long black dress of a formal slave, long white sleeves ending in the shoulder-length gloves of rough hide. She wore boots, inelegant but effective, and over them the apron. She was somewhat Puritan in dress, but it took the blood well.

The blood did not spew, thankfully, when she began the legs. The thighs were too thick to cut with the ax. She took them at the knee, forming the neat stack of four appendages. They would be split with a knife and cut into fillets. The fillets would be cast off the eastern wall, to where the crows waited at the gates of this never-ending human charnel fortress.

The head, she set aside. It would require careful handling, to soundly end this affair.

The chest cavity she tended with a prayer that the killer was watching. She holed they would see how little it mattered. Flesh. It was all. She had fallen in something not unlike love with this girl, but she was not any less the woman they knew. She pulled the entrails of her beloved from her torso and let them spill into the bucket. Guts. Stomach. Lungs. Colon. Just meat. Meat and viscera. It amazed some how she accomplished this by touch, but the regularity of forms negates the challenge. To heal requires sight. To butcher takes only a deft hand and a confident, loving stroke.

She removed the heart, held it up and gave it a squeeze until it popped.

“We do not love with this,” she said coldly, wiping the cardial viscera on her smock.

She landed a chop to the thigh bone, and another to the clavicle, splitting the large bones.

Preparations of the remaining flesh involved a mixture of rough scraps brought by the snickering assistant to the abominable cook. The assistant was one of the children, those whom she dared call Hyenas for the laughter when she was certain no one would hear. It was a story of the old times, parables of the laughing dog gods of the plains. There with bones beneath her feet, lacquered to a consistency of porous marble, she recalled the old way and superimposed the cackle of a wild dog over the giggle of a mad child.

“You did this, didn’t you?”

“No,” he said, “But I know who did…”

“The cook.”

He giggled.

“Call the other ones,” she said, sending the little monster darting off.

She ground the scraps of bread dough in with the entrails. The meat grinder was of poor quality, a scraper of wicker teeth set into the bone of a dead animal in a drum. It was a dirty work, and the sound brought to her mind the mastication of bones in the mouth of a Lenco.

She considered Mulhaney, sickness, and her future.

Her hyenas came, each carrying an oblong scuttle for the scooping up of the viscera. Each scuttle was edged, and clawed the hard ground. By then she had the body in pieces, strewn out upon the ground. She’d forgotten the name all-but-completely. She had adored her, but that was then. What could the dead do but haunt. The memory of her parents, the haunting voices that superimposed their authority over the actors of her life. She needed no more of those ghosts. Let them pass. Let the head she took by the scalp be forgotten by all. Let its grinning skull be dashed.

Martinet unwrapped her leather apron, discarding it but for the long strap that wound through the neck and down along the back. Each beastly child she bound at the free wrist into a daisy chain which she held.

She cracked it slightly, as a matron would, and lead the carrion children off, holding scalp and leather in one hand, raising the meat hammer high in her other as they danced on in a merry sing-song line past white sheets held aloft by twine. The children smeared the white sheets with bloody hands, long streaks of red like markers as they were led through the labyrinth of white to the plinth. The great mound lay exposed just past the plantation’s edge. She could sense it by the wind, the way it spiraled around, trapped between the low valley, the high hill and the wall beyond.

The crows also gave the signs. The circle of the reports in flight, the flutter of wings was the attitude of her travels. She danced around where the bone and creosote ground grew smooth from windswept years, calling the children into a circle as the limbs and scuttled flesh were spilt out beneath their feet.

She raised the hammer as the children danced around in a circle about her. The game redeemed all animosity. She was fun after all. She swung a head and a hammer and laughed at the crows overhead..

“Sing a song,” she commanded them. They cheered, spinning round and round, mashing viscera to pulp with their little feet, grinding it down to make an easier meal for the birds. “That’s right, kids. Sing a song to make it go faster.”

“Ring around the rosey—“ and rosey they were, rosey with the forgotten love’s gore

“Pocket full of posies—“ maybe not, but she could smell the spices, those strange concoctions the cook used to poison the girl, improvable of course except to the poor soul who cut her stomach open to find the pits and seeds.

Crows spun round in a spiral gyre folding inward, black against the lead gray morning sky. Inward folding, again and once again, inward and down, the gyre become a tornado descending, hourglass thin at mid-sky, and widened to the kill as the carrion eaters fell upon the banquet.

“Ashes, ashes…” sang Martinet. She found herself wishing, perhaps for the first time since childhood…even after all the time with Marianne…that she could see them fall. They sounded so beautiful, the vacuous cawing, the flutter of wings.

As a black hand they swept across the children, a flurry of scream and hunger.

Hundreds of them, summoned to the banquet, and Martinet at the center, untouched, still, the blade Falchion in her belt, the hammer in her hand descending to shatter the sully of her beloved, annihilating the memory once and for all.

In the distance, barely drowned by the sound of it, a banshee at her back and a screaming cook at her side, twin shrieking matrons to bear witness to the slaughter.

The banshee howled for you, Marianne. Now you may go to heaven, though I fear you will be the last.

The children ran, fleeing with bloody bodies from the ravenous carrion eaters. Some remained to attend the feast, others sitting at her shoulders. She regarded these brave birds calmly, almost lovingly as they searched her vacant eye sockets for the feast that was not there.

“We all fall down.”

In the distance, the roar of the Lenco called the hour of her life. It was a new hour, a final hour. Possessed, she had done the unthinkable. At her back, in the distance across the plane of bone and creosote tar, a distant wall and a ruined temple. But somewhere between, betwixt and between, the Lenco.

The banshee roared once more, holding her note to the long, thin whine of a beacon.

Martinet knelt, retrieving the cleaver and ran towards its voice.

[jrdnmllns-blog]

23

In order for me to become, I need to control. Becoming is a natural occurrence of events, control is wisdom. In order for me to take control I will have to deplete myself from substance. Easier said than done. Substance has brought me down a path of adolescence and misunderstanding. I’ve lived my life in a shell disconnecting myself with contents, psychedelics and ignorance. 

Thinking that something or someone else would come to my rescue and take me from this place called society. It makes me different. In a way that is not positive. I’ve never been able to take control of myself. This is going to be the greatest challenge to decide if I have what it takes to make it. 

To me making it is being able to do what you want to do every single day and be happy. This thing happiness is a funny thing to me. I don’t naturally feel accepted in places I go. I always feel as if people don't like me, or that I want them to like me. This happens in the moment, something that makes me uncomfortable. A majority of the time, I’ll be high.

This habit and using came from my early childhood when I was assess by doctors, physiologists, paediatricians and others I’m not aware of. Multiply times a day I would take medicine to control my rambunctious, and hyper stamina. Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder. The “mentally disorders” that were labelled upon me. “A mental disorder that doesn’t allow one to control the hyper impulses.”I’m a bit fed up with that ideology. I feel like I'm capable of accomplishing anything I put my mind to. Its the discipline that hinders me.

They say It’s hard for a boy to become a man without his father. “I don't really have time for that” I say ignorantly. As a child I was always distracted by the things around me. I was a born runner, I didn't walk as a child my mother says. I always had the ability to learn something I was interested in and possibly become great at it. But halfway through I would lose interest and crave the attention of another activity. This was easy for me as a child because I was never able to stay in one place. I was always moving around between my mother and father, and once he was out of the picture I was passed around through family members and siblings and different neighbourhoods. 

Once I started school, moving become habitual, for traveling with your mother, her sisters, and their children, getting comfortable doesn’t happen over night. Every year I would go to a different school, and each experience was traumatic and looking back gives me an uncomfortable feeling. Besides not being able to fit in, I was just different. I was a skinny, goofy kid, who had skill, but was never serious enough to utilize it. I was always questioning, a naive little fuck in my truest opinion. I should’ve gotten beaten up more. But eventually that did happen a couple times. 

High school is where it all started. The year that everything changed. I joined a group that had developed its own style of expression. In some formats used in a form of praise some people would say, others look at in a darker definition. I look at it as a tool that is good for youth at one point in time, but personally I think I should’ve had the audacity to put my time into something more that would’ve benefited me in my new age of (Refer to title). 

While spending time with my father. I learned about the man I’d been searching for my entire life. He has a warrior mentality. He expects me to be able to figure it out all on my own. And I haven't. He says he thinks about me, but he’s never been here. It’s hard for me to take him serious. The worst part is that I still let it effect me. I wish things could’ve been simpler. I have to take advantage of my abilities. 

For some reason I’m drawn to certain activities. I have skills in certain areas that  I can't explain. Most of which may or may not be relevant in this time. I feel like I’ve been predestined to do certain (great) things. I have skills that I honestly can't explain, that consume me. When it comes to things like fashion. I relate it to survival. Being able to move, and have an aesthetic that defines functionality, mobility, stealth, but most importantly in a visually appealing manner that lets you know it comes from the streets. Survival. Thats our predominant instinct. 

As a child movies were an escape. They brought me into different worlds (which is actually a real thing. Don't get too close to your screens.). I would experience different possibilities, escapes, our world, fantasies, adventures, and my horrors. I’ve always told my own stories. When I would read a book and it would come to its end, I would continue writing the story on the blank edges of the book. Telling a story, sending a message, sharing an experience. That to me is what makes me human. This world is filled with so much information, and theirs always a ton of shit going on at once. As living creatures we crave to live in a comfortable place. And every opportunity we get we try to update our lives. New, better and more things. This is how society works and this is how it will always work. I want to share my stories. 

When I think about studying the arts I get excited and then I get hesitant. I dropped out of high school very early and while I was there I never participated to my full ability. This may have had something to do with the curriculum, or their methods of teaching. But at the end of the day it comes from my inability to focus on one to multiple tasks at a time in a efficient manner. 

The temple, consists of mind and body. But the soul is something that is easy to disconnect with. It comes from developing habits that create hinderance. The things you do that diminish your health, lifestyle, etc. The thing that is stopping you, from being the best you. In order for me to become all I need to become. I have to enforce discipline. This will teach me how to focus. With that focus I will develop control over my abilities. My ability to learn things at an accelerated rate without losing focus or interest. 

1. Cannibus - Needs to be reduced. Currently a couple times a day. Start with once a day. 

2. The gym. I need to exert physically to allow my body to adapt on its own. Starting with 3 days a week I will focus on the primal movements. This will contribute to the Muay Thai I will be contributing 1 - 2 - 3 times a week after every 2 weeks. 

3. I have to spend more time reading so I can become more intellectually engaged. Cannibus relaxes my brain to a point where I can't function without it. The withdrawal process will be intense. But I aint no bitch. I need to start developing patterns. Drawings will help with cognitive function on an exterior scale. 

The reason I’m doing this is because I want to be the best I can be. I’m tired of not being taken seriously, but I’m even more tired of having nothing to show for myself with all the opportunities and resources that lay before me. I refuse to waste another day of my life questioning my past. I need to take advantage. 

There’s this one special character that inspires me greatly. My muse. Though she probably doesn’t take this seriously I do. She’s been a light to my darkness and has allowed me to se this is a great image. I hope that one day we get what we always wanted. 

Jordan Mullins