#Truly a great tragedy such as this will send anyone down a dark path

[scentedwonderlandpoetry]

The True Origins of Mr. Dark

(Thank you @autisticlio for this commission as well)

[scarletarosa]

Demeter

Greek goddess of agriculture, harvest, grain, nourishment, and fertility

Demeter is the Olympian goddess of agriculture, and a daughter of Kronos and Rhea. She presided over the foremost of the Mystery Cults for women, which promised its initiates the path to a blessed afterlife in the realm of Elysium. In Rome, she was known as Ceres. Demeter was depicted as a mature woman, often wearing a crown and bearing sheaves of wheat or a cornucopia (horn of plenty), and a torch. 

Perhaps the most famous of Demeter’s myths is that of her beloved daughter, Persephone, being kidnapped by Hades, the god of the Underworld. This occurred when the young Persephone was out in a meadow with nymphs, and Hades suddenly came crashing towards her in his chariot. She ran, but Hades grabbed her and took her off towards the Underworld, with Persephone crying out for help. Here, Hades is said to have tricked Persephone into eating the pomegranate, forcing her to remain with him for a portion of each year for all time.

Apollodorus in the following passage summarizes the contents of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 29-33 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.):

“Plouton [Haides] fell in love with Persephone, and with Zeus' help secretly kidnapped her. I begin to sing of rich-haired Demeter Semne Thea (Reverend goddess) - of her and her trim-ankled daughter [Persephone] whom Aidoneus rapt away, given to him by all-seeing Zeus the loud-thunderer. Apart from Demeter Lady of the golden sword (khrysaoros), Giver of glorious fruits (aglaokarpos), she was playing with the deep-bosomed daughters of Okeanos and gathering flowers over a soft meadow, roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also and hyacinths and the narcissus, which Ge (Earth) made to grow at the will of Zeus and to please the Host of Many [Haides], to be a snare for the bloom-like girl...The girl was amazed and reached out with both hands to take the lovely toy; but the wide-pathed earth yawned there in the Nysion plain, and the lord, Host of Many, with his immortal horses sprang out upon her...

Hades caught her up reluctant on his golden car and bare her away lamenting. Then she cried out shrilly with her voice, calling upon her father, the Son of Kronos [Zeus], who is most high and excellent. But no one, either of the deathless gods or of mortal men, heard her voice, nor yet the olive-trees bearing rich fruit: only tender-hearted Hekate, bright-coiffed, the daughter of Persaios, heard the girl from her cave, and the lord Helios (the Sun), Hyperion's bright son, as she cried to her father, the Son of Kronos [Zeus]. But he was sitting aloof, apart from the gods, in his temple where many pray, and receiving sweet offerings from mortal men. So he, that Son of Kronos [Haides], of many names...was bearing her away by leave of Zeus on his immortal chariot--his own brother's child and was all unwilling.

And so long as she, the goddess, yet beheld earth and starry heaven and the strong-flowing sea where fishes shoal, and the rays of the sun, and still hoped to see her dear mother [Demeter] and the tribes of the eternal gods, so long hope calmed her great heart for all her trouble; and the heights of the mountains and the depths of the sea rang with her immortal voice: and her queenly mother heard her.

Bitter pain seized her [Demeter's] heart, and she rent the covering upon her divine hair with her dear hands: her dark cloak she cast down from both her shoulders and sped, like a wild-bird, over the firm land and yielding sea, seeking her child. Demeter roamed the earth over in search of her, by day and by night with torches. When she learned from the Hermionians that Plouton [Haides] had kidnapped her, enraged at the gods she left the sky, and in the likeness of a woman made her way to Eleusis. But no one would tell her the truth, neither god nor mortal men; and of the birds of omen none came with true news for her. Then for nine days, queenly Deo wandered over the earth with flaming torches in her hands, so grieved that she never tasted ambrosia and the sweet draught of nectar, nor sprinkled her body with water. But when the tenth enlightening dawn had come, Hekate, with a torch in her hands, met her, and spoke to her and told her news: ‘Queenly Demeter bringer of seasons (horephoros), giver of good gifts (aglaodoros), what god of heaven or what mortal man has rapt away Persephone and pierced with sorrow your dear heart? For I heard her voice, yet saw not with my eyes who it was. But I tell you truly and shortly all I know.’ So, then, said Hekate. And the daughter of rich-haired Rhea [Demeter] answered her not, but sped swiftly with her, holding flaming torches in her hands.

So they came to Helios, who is watchman of both gods and men, and stood in front of his horses: and the bright goddess enquired of him: ‘Helios, do you at least regard me, goddess as I am, if ever by word or deed of mine I have cheered your heart and spirit. Through the fruitless air I heard the thrilling cry of my daughter whom I bare, sweet scion of my body and lovely in form, as of one seized violently; though with my eyes I saw nothing. But you--for with your beams you look down from the bright upper air Over all the earth and sea--tell me truly of my dear child, if you have seen her anywhere, what god or mortal man has violently seized her against her will and mine, and so made off.’

So said she. And the Son of Hyperion answered her: ‘Queen Demeter, daughter of rich-haired Rhea, I will tell you the truth; for I greatly reverence and pity you in your grief for your trim-ankled daughter. None other of the deathless gods is to blame, but only cloud-gathering Zeus who gave her to Aides, her father's brother, to be called his buxom wife. And Aides (Hades) seized her and took her loudly crying in his chariot down to his realm of mist and gloom. Yet, goddess, cease your loud lament and keep not vain anger unrelentingly: Aidoneus, the Ruler of Many, is no unfitting husband among the deathless gods for your child, being your own brother and born of the same stock: also, for honour, he has that third share which he received when division was made at the first, and is appointed lord of those among whom he dwells.’

So he spake, and called to his horses: and at his chiding they quickly whirled the swift chariot along, like long-winged birds.

When Zeus commanded Plouton to send Kore [Persephone] back up, Plouton gave her a pomegranate seed to eat, as assurance that she would not remain long with her mother. With no foreknowledge of the outcome of her act, Persephone consumed it. Askalaphos, the son of Akheron and Gorgyra, bore witness against her, in punishment for which Demeter pinned him down with a heavy rock in Hades' realm. But Persephone was obliged to spend a third of each year with Plouton, and the remainder of the year among the gods.”

This tragedy hurt Demeter so deeply, that every time Persephone is forced to return to Hades, all of life fades from the planet; creating Autumn and Winter. It is also said that Demeter is the creator of the Sirens, the bird-women who sing sailors to their deaths. In myth, the sirens were once nymphs who were the friends of Persephone. Two versions exist which tell of how they became as deadly bird-like women: one, where Demeter granted them wings in order to find her daughter, and another in which Demeter cursed them for not trying hard enough to rescue Persephone.  

In my personal experiences with Demeter, she is motherly, wise, empathetic, and deeply protective. She values generosity, honesty, and humility in her followers, and does not tolerate anyone who harms the Earth or is simply neutral towards its treatment by humans. Demeter is strongly connected to women and watches over them, even having the ability to sense their own sufferings. She herself has trauma due to what had happened with Persephone, since she had been kidnapped and taken advantage of for many ages by Hades, but she eventually escaped him. Hades learnt the error in his ways and seeks to mend what he has done; for he had taken the young goddess not out of sadism but out of deep loneliness, but this does not excuse his actions. Zeus however, is not to be blamed for this in any way, for he took no part in what had occurred; only being added in by the Greeks later on. When working with Demeter, you may ask her for whatever advise you need, and she will seek to teach you in the ways of compassion, patience, and nurturing emotions towards yourself and others.  

Some of her epithets:

Æratí (beloved)

Afxithalís (granter of growth)

Aglaódohros (bestower of splendid gifts)

Aglaókarpos (giver of fruit)

Agní (holy)

Dræpaniphóros (she who carries the scythe)

Éftæknos (bestowing children)

Iærothallís (blooming in holiness)

Kourotróphos (nurturer of children)

Mægála Mítir (the Great Mother)

Olviodóhtis (she who fills souls with bliss)

Pammíteira (mother of all)

Polýphorvos (feeder of many)

Prostásios (protector from evil)

Timáokhos (the honourable)

Vrimóh (the terrible one)

Koura (maiden)

Khrysáoros (bearing a golden sword)

Offerings: white wine, milk (all types), wheat, seeds, nuts, honey, cheese (all types), fruits, loaves of bread, butter, agricultural produce (all types as long as they are from the first ones harvested), cornucopias, white quartz, brown obsidian, calcite (all types), sunflowers, lilies, margarita, lemon trees (and all fruit bearing trees), incense of mastic or pine resin.

[renaer-is-allegedly-hot]

session 15 notes

Ok true crime as in my new addiction is true crime podcasts specifically about serial killers

Back to the session

 After getting a bit of a reality check from durnan about the supposed strength and power of the xanathar guild…

Protected our home w glyphs of warding

Last day of our contract

Spell is set to fade soon

Asyna is feeding ot

Ot looks at asyna like he's a cornered animal

"ot here's some meat"

Why is krystal roasting me about my lover

He wants poison

Ot is calling his jailers idiotic

Oh no aerana might be spilling beans

I really shouldn't be allowed to play games

Because I will always turn to the chaotic evil character

Aerana isn't giving anything up

Theo tells us about the plumbers who came over last night

Aerana is going to typ, rest of party is staking out house

Shifts to watch ot, adam takes front, asyna tower lookout (it's foggy tho so perception check at disadvantage, 9; city looks a little eerie in the fog)

Cel puts immovable rod across cellar door

Ot is suspicious whenever cel comes in

"you cannot fool me xanathar"

Cel making theo a new cloak

Ot asks cel when he'll turn him into dust

The xanathar can turn ppl into dust

Flare ?

Is flare the brain boy ?

I don't like the energy we've created around the word "enlightenment"

Cel rolls 18 insight check

Ot doesn't think cel is cel

Cel is gonna just vibe witth him

"WHEN U SLAY ME I WILL THINK NOTHING BUT HATEFUL THOUGHTS"

Sorry didn't mean caps but too lazy to fix

Everyone else

Adam in front hissing at neighbors and cats, 7

Hears pavement scuffle, someone approaches and reddish gtray beard person w non-descript gray cloak approaches; trench

Doesn't remember cellar and plumbers guild coming by night before

Trench says he can help

Help get bar open

Used to drink there a lot

Gets parchment and quill with ink

Rolls insight to see if bar was only thing he wasd interested in, 13, trench seems v interested

Works in surveillance, protection

Gives him cel and theo's name "5 copper please"

Gets 5

Adam picks his nose

Theo patrols entrances

13 for perception

Overlaps path w adam's

Aerana to typ

Afternoon when there

Similar pattern to those there; frequent patrons

"if I'm making up words, it's not really hitler"

8 perception

Place feels open, not as packed as it usually is

Still feel sensation of cold from the well

Wizard w pointy red hat a regular

You see goliath wizard talking to a dwarven woman

Aerana sees an elven man (bard) w "ugliest guy you've seen in your goddamn life" dom says but only after we point out he looks like legolas, tuning a lute

Sense you've seen him before

The wellllllllllllllllll

It is better told by a bard

Some patrons old and strange, others just like to drink

But ritual in the storytelling

Durnan built

Gwyliam

Talking in elvish

Place formerly not too populated

But one of durnan's ancestors came over to build upon it and discovered the well

Network of tunnels underneath

20 for history check

Familiar with some of what he's saying

Parents would throw you into the undermountain if you were bad

Undermountain = stirs weird memory in your head

Being told as a child stories of undermountain

Deep dark fearsome place

Mt waterdeep wizard came here once named hallister the black cloak

Hallister - ppl don't know where he was from / if he was real but legendary

Brought apprentices trained in magical arts

Tunneled on peak of mt waterdeep

Legend of undermountain could not be verified as truth

Durnan's ancestor came to typ

Climbed into well

"I wouldn't bring this up around him" - doesn't talk abt

When ancestor returned was fabulously rich

Split money with best friend

Built typ

Occasionally engages in ritual of going

No one truly knows what lies in undermountain but there's something there bc some return but most do not

"it might just be the sewer" - "but don't tell anyone I said that"

Differing renditions

Some say durnan was the one with magical powers and killed everyone in there, or more nuanced speaking only of tragedy of those who return who come back fearful or returning with smaller parties; others talk more of hallister and argue over his life; every night a different story

Ask if he knows anyone who's come back

Gestures to half-orc in corner playing variation of solitaire; great celebration when he returned, he came back with riches

He is a regular

21 history check

Undermountain

Familiar name

"Deepest dungeon of them all"

When sewers were built many passages abandoned bc other halls + passages found, many teams from cellars and plumbers guild died during construction of the sewers

Prisoners often thrown into "undermountain"

Says even tho he's here most days there's still stuff he doesn't understand about it; new community reforged every night

At some point durnan talking to wizard and having a conversation which is odd ? Eventually wizard looks at aerana (old man) skinny pointy red hat

Wizard squinting at aerana then turns back to conversation

Try talking to half-orc

Interesting plated beard almost like that on dwarves wrt ornamentation; jewelry running through it

Wiry half-orc

Not skinny but muscled

Weird tattoos covering one side of his face looking like they change a little bit

Balanced a little precariously

Ask if he wants to play a two-person card game bc he's playing solitaire

Ask for his favorite game, Skipper (slapjack)

Dexterity check

5, 20, 10

First round you lose, his fingers have strange looking rings beautiful but rough-worn bands of steel or other heavy metal

Second you win

Third round he takes

"say not many people can beat me in that game"

"luck favors the bold"

In the well

Hell but now look at him can gamble all he wants

City of balder's gate

Large city rough place to grow up

Turned into rough child living on streets

Says his name is Sand

Balder's gate warlords make life difficult so he decided to leave

Was found in youth by someone who turned his anger into smth holy

Ran into thieves and plunderers of forgotten relics, became brother and sister and decided to take on deepest dungeon of them all

Horrible things - asks if you've heard the song

The yawning portal song

Not many people know the full tale

Was taught to be skeptical (it's in his nature or maybe his name)

Not sure how long he was in there or didn't know when he was in there

No light

Tunnels are confusing and without it would've been lost; found room with throne with snakes for arms

Great hallway with ancient trap

Living things also in there; all manner of beasts and creatures; ppl don't come back bc of those

Killed goblins down there but after the things he's seen and after the things he'd had to do could've gone with killing a few more goblins

Advice ? Some will sell maps of what they found or what they think they've seen; anyone can tell u abt beasts down there

Durnan wouldn't lower us down

Durnan doesn’t send ppl to their deaths

Durnan lowers people he deems worthy

Strong brave smart fast bold enough or some combo

But even then not everyone comes back

It's a place of death

Not buying him lunch lmao

Has broken into dangerous old elf dungeons like in the ones up north and would do it again if he could unsee some of the things he saw down in the well

A place of death but things move in the shadows w tombs down there and tunnels for miles hallways great and tall, treasures, beasts keeping it for themselves

Ask about tattoos

Gift from master

The person who saved him in balder's gate

Steeped in magic of shadows

Powerful bc he is strong but qi is stronger still

Aerana gets back home but starts to rain heavily

Ppl still patrolling

Adam

Sees drow ? W purple colored eyes silver-ish hair hiding weapons under his cloak steps up and says "pardon me" and asks if adam's seen a cat

Large cat - would've know if saw it

Adam sends drow to trench

Adam gives him good up and down look, can he see weapons ? Carrying two cinotaurs ??? Sinotaur ???? Adam rolls insight for cat

14, seems like he's talking abt a cat

Heads off to trench

Asyna in watchtower guessing ppl's names

Cel and theo switch

Theo says hi to ot, ot curled up in corner

Whispers "hey ot what's up"

Says he should've gone with his gut on the day theo arrived

"dark elegance" "the way you glided into the room" - ot on theo

Ot says he knows how the xanathar pays theo

"I guess seeing you was a realization of my deepest fear" a fear he couldn't name or place or knew he had but out of the darkness theo stepped forward

"I'm curious . How long do you leave your victims like this"

Ot starts to cry and says he would beg her to keep him in this place

"this voice you're using I find it sweet"

"I just don't want to wake up before the end"

Theo is gonna get him food

"the poor dead tiefling told me yesterday"

7 insight

Theo does not know what's happening

Says the water theo gives him looks real

Looks at the wall drinks some water

"and it tastes real"

We kinda fucked ot up LMAO OOPS

"I know that you don’t have a heart… but if there's any chance that anything I've ever said or thought about you could take root in your soul"

Theo says she'll consider his request

Sits there for a half hour then asks if that's her real name

"nithlur" or smth like that

Nihloor

"where'd you hear that"

In his head lmao

What if this is like

A tapeworm

In his head

"what does knowledge taste like"

Asks if it's a feeling or a thought

Theo says it's a feeling

Ot says whatever knowledge is it's valuable to the right thing

Wonders if he can take a nap

Gonna take a nap

Adam forgot he made ott think he was dead

Aerana is taking over for theo

Adam takes first watch

Perception check, 22

Raining ohp so at disadvantage gotta do it again

New roll, 12

Rain is still falling

Hears a weird noise coming from outside the house

Uses thaumaturgy to boom voice saying "wake up"

Everyone sleeping wakes up

Goes toward sound

Hears weird growling noise

Goes semi-toward noise w pyrotechnics prepared; darkvision does he see anything

Sees shape

It's not the cat

Unfamiliar, looks like it's flying but more like it's floating

Bobbing up and down in air

Creature w large glassy eye and sagging mouth w lots of sharp teeth

Sticking out from form are eyes attached to a slug protruding off it w glassy eyes hanging off it

Intense stench making icky moaning noise

Adam shits his pants

It's big

The size of its mouth is human size

I've been listening to serial killer podcasts all day

[agarserv]

Adversary | I

Summary: After a tragedy becomes too much to bear, Clementine moves off from the lessons she's learned from those who helped her and those who also betrayed her. Living on her own without a care for what might happen to her, Clementine becomes a force to reckon with. Only proving her point when a group of kids meet the one way mirror in an experience that sets off her quest for vengeance against the person who caused her so much pain, without a look past what she's broken along the way, or how broken she truly is herself.

Word Count: 5341

Read on AO3 or Wattpad

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                                                  Act I                                                     Δ                                                Autumn

There's a calm breeze through the vast abandoned city. Brushing past the bright greens that lace up and down each building. Leaves and moss spreading like tendrils up the tallest skyscrapers to the lowest roads. Water seeping into the old entrances of tunnels and subways, whilst also partially flooding around half of anything to knee height until it reached the higher-level roads. Where once more the lush foliage took over the city. Nature taking over the human-made landscapes for miles, just as the dead had done to the living now.

From the buildings that collapsed years ago to those that were simply crumbling by the second. A shadow of what anything had been before. When people would be found within every square inch of it, only now part of the shell of the auras of walkers, or some of the many bandits and scavengers willing to do anything for any bit of scrap they could find. Searching for those like the wrecked cars that lined the streets to the shelled out interiors of buildings whose roofs had collapsed since the beginning of the end. Now covered in the same nature that would engulf the rest of the city. And come night, would plummet it into darkness. Without a source of light other than what the moon was willing to give. And, if those searching within it were lucky, a light source they could hold. Something temporary that could help prevent something permanent such as death.

It was where it landed a young survivor and scavenger now. As she gently listens to the breeze around her as she steps up and over the cracked surfaces in the age old asphalt. As she kicks the small pebbles laid out past the water that was just reaching at the surface as if it'd come from a natural lake, rather than a man-made flood from the chaos that ensued when the dead started walking. From the events that led her to where she was now. Alone and a shell of her former self. No better than the bandits that were killing to help themselves survive just a little bit longer.

She keeps her grip tight on the strap of her faded black backpack. Almost to the point her palm was raw front began fabric running back and forth across it roughly. Her worries of losing everything was not even just from sentimental, but the essence of her life as well. Doing it to make herself feel just a little safer in a world where she could only trust herself.

She remembers the lessons that someone had taught her. Those of warning of places like the city she was in and specifically how she could avoid them. But with the changing world she found herself straying from those...and the rest...more and more. Because everything was dangerous. Everywhere was too. And it wasn't like there was much you could really differentiate from them when one had more walkers, while another location could have more people.

But she recalls most of what she was taught. Those from good people and those who took care of her, to the others she saw just as monstrous as the walkers around them. As their lessons might still have some malice and truth to them, for better or worse she found it possible to follow them more than she had before.

A pair of amber eyes glance upwards at one of the many collapsed buildings. Counting the broken windows up until she reaches the fourth one —which is more on its side and easier to reach because of it, before she starts climbing some of the wreckage. Wet and muddy footprints from her boots visible in areas she needs to continue to step near. As one mistake could land her into a plummet downwards.

Which would definitely not be a great way to go.

Almost there she tells herself, easing herself as she reaches relatively flat surfaces, keeping her grip steady before she finally reaches the broken window and steps inside.

Her boots crunch down on some of the small pieces of glass beneath them, shattering them down to even smaller pieces before she moves past them. Glancing inwards at the old apartment and the broken furniture inside. As well as what she has stocked inside a possibly temporary home.

She sighs to herself, relaxing her shoulders and joints as the sun begins to set outside, marking another one of her scavenging trips and journeys around the city as over...as well as a success for once.

Her muscles ache as she rummages through her bag again, pulling out the extra ammo she'd found for her weapons, as well as a few, but nearly destroyed, cans of food.

But something was better than absolutely nothing.

She smiles to herself as she tosses the can between her hands. Knowing that at least she'll get something in her stomach rather than absolutely nothing or something small like the previous nights. Something simple that'll literally keep her going another day. Something small that she can look forward to.

Especially the little face on the front of the can. How they'd said it looked just like her. How they told her she was exactly like the little girl there. Smiling and a signal of hope.

Yeah, right.

It wasn't like that at all anymore. Not as she kept her hat facing backwards, knowing it was too painful to see that blood stain on the front of it anymore. Her denim jacket ripped at the sleeves from so many close calls she'd simply cut them off slightly past her shoulders. Letting her dirtied off-white, thin hoodie trail past and end to the lengths of her arms. Showing through to the unzipped part of her jacket as well.

The scar that ran diagonally across the bridge of her nose. The matching one above her brow that showed past the darkened amber eyes that only looked to the can blankly. The mark of The New Frontier —her last attempt at hope, all still there in what was once the burnt flesh in her arm. A reminder of another failure, and another reason she could hardly look at herself in the shattered mirror nearby. Not through any of the pieces, and certainly not the can anymore.

Even if she did look similar to it.

The brunette makes a grab for her knife, looking into the old red stains still clearly marked across it, glinting off and through the small amount of light they emitted from a nearby lantern.

Just as quickly, she brushes it off on the edge of her navy blue jacket before she stabs it into the top of the can, pulling at it to open it forward before carefully taking the top off, minding the fact that it could have rather sharp edges and cut her palm, she opens the can. Glancing down at the peaches laid within as her mouth practically waters at it. Easing herself to not eat it all too quickly. The fear of getting sick from her own indulgences was definitely something Clementine was keenly aware of.

Which each tentative bite, the brunette gets memories to when she was younger. To when she was in a Christmas cabin and ski lodge, unknowingly going to be led down a darkened path that would only lead her to where she was now. Alone and a shell of her former self. Even pushing it further as she remembers the lessons she'd learned. The ones she could hear so clearly. Ringing in her ears from two separate people. Both of whom she vowed to never trust again. Both of whom had been there since the very beginning.

Lee was wrong. Lilly was wrong was all that repeated in her head. Knowing the conflict between the both of them and how both of them caused her so much pain. Leaving her in the solitude of her own silent night as she takes another bite of the peaches. Squeezing her eyes tight as she feels a pang of exhaustion reach its way through her joints. Her stomach not fully content with the food it's gotten, but it was all she could gather if she didn't want to puke. And it was enough to tell her to get some rest. Easing back into the hard flooring and nearing the small blanket she usually rested upon, Clementine thinks back to those moments.

To the ones she had with the people she cared about. The ones she learned from. And how she trusted them even as the world changed. Even as she remembers and wishes she could tell one of them just how wrong they were. How their lessons were wrong and didn't help you in this world. and how neither of them truly brought her to where she was now.

She had to create her own rules. From revising old ghosts' teachings or making things up as she scavenges every day. She would do it. It was what she told herself each night and what truly kept her going with nothing else left.

It's all Clementine thinks about as she nearly falls asleep. Her exhaustion sleeping into the floor below just as she hears the noise of glass shattering down below. Sending the pools of amber to open quickly and readjust to the faint light in the distance. Listening closely and silently for anything else, as well.

Her whole body tenses as she tries to figure out what had caused it. Knowing it could've simply been an animal or some sort of walker roaming nearby. Merely messing with what was left of the decrepit environment around them.

Or it could be something more dangerous…

Clementine holds a breath as she gets up on her feet. Eyeing the old bow and arrow off to her right, nearly one of the dressers that was blocking a nearby door from anyone curious enough to want to wander in, or a walker that was going to come into a new snack just resting in front of it.

The brunette knows her circumstances as she takes tentative steps. Making sure each and every one is silent. That the water that’d moved in from the incoming rain currently picking up within the night wouldn’t make even a splash across the old wooden floors, or the ripped up rugs and carpets Clementine currently relied on. Hoping that the old wood wouldn’t creak or break beneath her as her hand grips across the smooth wood of her bow. Her grip tight and secure as she brings it and a handful of arrows her way before looking back across the broken windows she’d entered from. Where the shattered glass and the remaining shards across the sill still reflected off a small amount of light. Flickering as her amber eyes did the same, knowing this wasn’t an ordinary encounter.

Those were flashlights, and whoever was out there was certainly human. Not necessarily the dead or something waiting to sink its teeth into her neck, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t a monster.

It only proves its point as Clementine peers her head slightly out, trying to keep herself stiff and quiet as she attempts to look through the sheer-sharp edges of the broken glass on the window.

Her face is shadowed by the nearby storm clouds as the rain begins to pelt the area around them. Cascading on each and every surface it could find from the flooded areas of the city across the subway entrance, to the now hooded figures the amber irises caught standing across the way. Nearby a contingency of wrecked vehicles, where their actions and words soon after are what truly catch Clementine’s attention.

One of the hooded figures reaches down near one of the obscured wrecks, pulling a small figure out and towards the center by their neck as Clementine watches them attempt to flail and cry out.

“You all thought you could run away after stealing our supplies, is that right?!” He shouts. His voice deep and contorted as Clementine watches more figures be dragged into view. Counting a multitude that are scattered within the dying flashlight’s vision, and she is certain there are more simply by the way the other hooded figures are looking back towards the ground and near the wrecked vehicles rather than towards the figure in the center of view.

“W-we didn’t think anyone lived there!” One of them tries to answer for themselves, keeping an arm in front of their trembling body as they look up and to the main ‘leader’ of whatever this group was. “We just needed some supplies, we didn’t use any of it! You can take it back!”

“Oh? And what makes you think we’d simply just…’let you go’?” One of them retorts, and Clementine can just imagine the sneer the man must be having as he sarcastically chuckles to himself. “Last time we did that...our own got killed. Now we ain’t just gonna let that happen again...even if yer’ just a buncha’ kids roamin’ round here.”

“Everything is in our bags!” Someone else cries out. “You can just take it!”

“Oh we’ll definitely be taking your stuff, don’t you worry my dear. We just need to take some precautions with all of you here...we can’t exactly let you go.”

Clementine feels her heart quicken at those words. Knowing that if it was her down there they’d do the exact same thing. If not would have already. Her teeth grind together as she pulls her bow in front of her. Listening to the whimpers and pleads the random group is calling out within the wind and rain as her fingers wrap around the string of the bow. Her other  hand pinching the edges of an arrow, ruffling against the feathers behind it as she pulls it back. Wincing at the sound it makes --though luckily clouded by everything else, and the way her arm stretches past the soreness as she holds a breath. Waiting for the right moment to let go of the arrow.

“Now what do you say, kid?” The man speaks up again, his voice thick and tearing through all the other noises as his southern accent seems to shine through even further. “Knife to the gut and let it all trail out of ya? Or hang you up by the ol’ lampposts out here? Or the-”

His voice cuts off as it there’s a rush past the air and rain. A gurgling sound emits from his throat as the others turn to him, shining their flashlights onto him as his hand is on his neck, a burst of red liquid floods from where the arrow is now sticking out, right as he falls limp to the floor, still alive and choking on his own blood and the sharp arrow that pierced his neck.

“What the fuck?!”

“Johnathan’s down!”

“Get down!”

“Find whoever the fuck had shot that arrow!”

Clementine hides herself behind the wall adjacent to the window, barely peeking out far enough to glance at whatever else was happening. Watching the way one of the men was already off in a sprint, running and abandoning the last two who were left. But those two were definitely set out for trouble.

“Whoever you are out there! I suggest you come on out and show yer’self! It’ll make it easy for all of us!”

Clementine prepares another arrow as she looks out again. Watching one of the men reach out to grab whoever they were holding as captives and at their mercy, releasing the arrow as it piercing through their forearm. Sending him back with a scream in agony.

“Stupid bitch! Phillip, they’re up near tha’ window!”

A gunshot goes off as it slams into the bricks next to where Clementine was standing, sending bits and pieces of it flying as they scrape at her face and send her flinching back. Enough to hear a shotgun be picked up as they speak up again.

“I’m gonna go around em’! You stay here, make sure they don’t move!”

The brunette looks out again, watching as the man with the gun stays near the wrecked vehicles. Crouched too low for her to get a good shot off with her bow as she hears someone climbing the meticulous route it takes to get to her ‘home’.

Shit.

She turns her attention away from the armed man as she looks to the siding, watching as a man catches her glance, and as lightning strikes, an angered glare passes on his face right as he charges at her swinging a knife her way as Clementine is quick to dodge it, hearing the thrashing of the knife right over her before she sends a hard kick to the back of the man’s knee. Forcing him down just as she grabs at his knife, digging her nails into his wrist as he shouts something else. All coming out as foggy and unmemorable to her as her hands finally clench around the blade, enough to pull it back and free while tearing deeply into the palm of the older man beneath her.

He turns his head to the opening, about to shout something to the man outside, but Clementine is quicker. Just as she slams the knife down into the top of his head. Sealing his fate and preventing him from becoming a walker like the rest of them.

Clementine looks away from the bloodied blade as she takes it out of his head, her grip tightening on it just as it did her bow earlier. And as a piercing and deafening shot goes off, it only tightens further. Worrying her that whoever was left out there had begun killing those they were holding to rob. But as her darkened and angered eyes look out, he’d done it to the man she killed earlier. Out of mercy in the worries that they would’ve turned otherwise.

“Bill?! You out there?!” He calls out, desperate and emotional --almost human if he hadn’t been robbing a group down below. “Fucking- I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill all of you! Starting with these right here!”

He makes a grab for a nearby teenager, holding them and wrapping an arm around their neck as they let out a surprised gasp. His grunts in anguish finally relaying as a lightning bolt highlights his figure, and a blonde teen he has in a steel tight grip. Not enough to use them as a human shield, but not enough to risk a shot, either. And as Clementine determines her options, she deems herself lucky enough to not have been seen by this final hunter just yet.

He also doesn’t hear it through shaking hands holding his shotgun as one of the other teens hidden near the wrecked vehicles lunges out, tackling the man at his knees as all three of them are sent toppling to the ground. Where more seem to flood it in an attempt to help whoever he’d been holding, as the man gets overwhelmed much before Clementine even gets to him. Watching and listening to the hits he’s taking, even if she knows it isn’t enough.

Her footsteps become more audible as she reaches for the shotgun that’d been thrown across the wet asphalt. Holding it heavily in her palms before she looks to the man as he attempts to fight back at those he’d tried to rob and kill. And as her hands move across the wet and cold metal of the shotgun, her finger etching on the trigger finally tightens. And a loud and ringing sound soon encapsulates any chance of hearing she had. And the rain soon filled the reddened blood spilling out quickly from the head wound the now dead man had.  While the many pairs of those nearby soon caught her attention. A plethora of colors in irises looking to her in fear.

In horror. Even if she saved them. They didn’t trust her, and she couldn’t trust them. They could be a threat, just like the others.

Even if she didn’t believe they needed to die --much less deserved it, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t threaten them to keep them in a safe distance. Especially as she kept the shotgun raised their way. Watching the way they’d cower and hide behind someone else for safety, while others moved their hands out to stop her. A collision of voices mixing with the rain like a slick oil.

“Wait! Don’t hurt us!”

“We aren’t one of them!”

“We’ll just leave!”

Clementine merely sighs, letting the gun rest on her shoulder as she gets a slight glance to them. Still hidden within the darkness against the wet steel of the old vehicles. But her eyes remain pierced on the others in front of her.  Watching them, as if they were going to move or their faces would turn from horror and fear into the unbridled anger the hunters and bandits previously had.

But they didn’t. Instead showing a sign of innocence to her as her grip loosened. Listening to the cracks of thunder and feeling the way her muscles ached beneath the cold rain battering them over and over. Knowing the teens in front of her were probably feeling the exact same way.

It wasn’t ever easy, was it?

“Fuck…” She mutters under her breath, shaking her head as she finally points back up to her home. To a small location that is barely lit by one of the lanterns she’d left on before her attack on the now bloodied bandits. All but the singular one who’d escaped. “Follow me. We’ll be safe up there.”

She watches for their reactions. More notably when a singular one had their face etched in skepticism. The blonde from before. Now soaked in the rain and the blood of the bandit Clementine had ...disposed of. Her face and fierce emerald eyes staring right into Clementine’s amber pair. As if she was reading her, only coming confused and conflicted, just as Clementine felt.

“We can just get our stuff and be on our way-”

“Trust me.” Clementine interrupts, rummaging her hands through the pockets of the jacket from the nearly headless robber now, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and what looked to be a candy bar. A smile forming on her face before she wiped it away, facing them again with a serious expression. “They’re all around here. And chances are after those gunshots and my own murders of these fuckers? They’ll be all around town, I advise you don’t stick around.”

With the thrash of an arrow out of the arm from one of the men she killed, Clementine hauls her findings over her shoulder once more, and begins to head back towards her home with no hesitation. Wondering which path of fate the others might as well take, even if she seemed rather unsure herself if it was even wise of herself to offer it up. Sure she could be wary, but so could they.

Though, she did have a shotgun against them if anything were to happen. Plus some arrows...and her knife. Even if they had the numbers, she was confident and unnerving. She knew what she was getting herself into now.

And she didn’t even care what the outcome may or may not end up as. Whether it was life or death, she’d accept either. Besides, what was the saying now? Anything to change the pain? Yeah right, like that was even possible.

She doesn’t even look back to the teens behind her. Not even caring to listen to anything other than the storm outside as she makes her way back inside the relatively warm room --her “home” if you will. Not as she eyes the old can of food down and beneath the cabinet, the one she’d been peacefully enjoying before she went out and killed a couple of hunters. How quickly and in a snap it’d changed it all. Almost to a point of reflection.

And now, instead of her lonesome, she was letting a group of kids inside of her safespace. Where they could simply kill her in her sleep without another moment’s notice. Or maybe they were worse than the hunters themselves, she didn’t exactly care. Whatever was left to happen, and whether she’d see the light of day? She just didn’t think it mattered anymore.

And it hadn’t for a while.

Yet here she was, listening to the sounds of whispering and boots hitting the old trucks as they made their way to the high opening to Clementine’s self proclaimed home. Shivering and rubbing at their soaking wet clothes as they entered the otherwise barricaded room. Glances to the signature warmth and feeling of comfort the lantern provided them. As their well-worn faces looked back to Clementine’s in curiosity and in hesitation.

“So uh...thanks for letting us stay here. I think.” One of the other teens finally speaks, Wiping at a long and brown trench coat before running his hands through his dark dreadlocks, as the droplets pass by an array of freckles. And for some reason, he smiles.

Now that was what confused Clementine the most. And for fairly obvious reasons considering she just murdered and practically decapitated some random robbers outside. But alright, sure...she totally thought that a smile was called for.

She doesn't say anything back however, as her lack of care is the primary fuel for that stone faced expression she’s able to keep as she lays back against the leather couch in the center. Letting out an exhausted exhale before placing her hat over her face. Relaxing as her body delves deeper into it, even as she listens to the others who are definitely still standing around.

“So uh...where do...we go exactly?”

“Anywhere. Find a spot. It’s better than out there.”

There’s a bit more shuffling as she hears more of the group enter. And a collaborative whisper echoes among them, none of which she even bares any mind to. Until a singular voice is pointed out like a knife thrown across the room.

“Better here than Delta.”

Clementine suddenly stands, her hand on the holster of her knife as she stares at the group ahead. Her eyes furious and her hat falling across the room as she’s gritting her teeth. Confusing them all as she waits for them to answer themselves.

“What was that?”

There’s a pause as the kids look behind them. And as a taller girl walks forward. Both her and Clementine’s eyes widen. Realizing it by the mark on their wrists. By the group they’d both been a part of.

The group  that caused Clementine so much pain.

“You.” She glares, starting for the redhead and not stopping amidst the worried eyes as she grabs her by her collar, pinning her to the wall as the girl merely looks at her in fear. Not in seething anger or revenge as the others wait to step in. Their faces dimming and growing angered instead, ready to jump and help their friend.

“You’re with Delta.”

“Sophie-“ one of the others attempts to call out to her. Scrambled in the yells and talking amongst the others for Clementine to let her go. But the two girls staring each other down instead blur them out as they stand there momentarily. And Clementine’s gaze flickers back upon hearing the name, but she only fully pauses when she looks back to the girls, who’s more than happy to speak up.

“Not anymore. I escaped there ages ago. Unless that’s already what you need to know considering you have the same mark on your wrist!”

Clementine shakes her head, not releasing her grasp on the girl as she still glares forward “I found my way out. And I’m never going back there or so help me-“

“So I did the same.” She tells her. Eyeing her friends who were getting rather close to the girl, not realizing it might just spin around the danger into the rest of them if they were to step in on someone else trained as a soldier. “So neither of us are still with Delta, it’s okay.”

Clementine’s grip shakes as she gets a good look at the girl in front of her. Glancing at the features like the faint freckles across the redhead’s face, and the longer hair trailing past her shoulders. All to the icy blue eyes that she’d recognize as someone else had they not called her Sophie.

Sophie. She knew that name. In fact, she knew exactly who this girl was. Someone she was told was dead. Some fate Clementine would share the same if Lilly had truly been that angry with her. Which in all honesty she hoped for. Two of her ‘Star’ soldiers escaping didn’t exactly look good on their morale. But to be in front of the sister of someone she do purely hated certainly caused Clementine to stare off. Realizing that she could be different. That she wasn’t Minerva. She wasn’t the girl she’d been at odds with for so long and was practically rivals with.

She slowly lets go of the girl the more she thinks of it. Looking to her with surprise considering everything she’s heard of this supposed dead traitor. Knowing she was probably labeled as the same thing to them all. Though that wasn’t exactly a bad thing.

There’s a silent nod from Sophie as she puts a hand up to get the others to stop. Glancing and staring at the amber eyed girl in the middle of the room as she is still practically shell shocked by such information. And the blonde can practically read her face as she starts to turn into a widened expression as well.

“She knew Minnie…” she says, piecing it together.

Clementine only nods back.

Sophie’s eyes stay lowered in sorrow. “Is she the same?”

“The same?”

“Has she- is she still like a model soldier? To Lilly?”

Clementine’s eyes lower at that name. Almost clenching a fist before she realizes she has a question to answer. “Yes. Has been when they took me there. Was when I escaped.”

“Fuck…” the blonde mutters, running her sleeve across the rest of her wet and dirtied face. Looking to the old blood that is now staining the rest of her shirt with forlorn.

“It’s what we expected, Vi.” Sophie whispers, nodding to the tall dread headed boy as well while he merely comforts what must be a good friend of his. “I’m just glad more of those child soldiers are escaping. I wanted to from the get go, what about you?”

Clementine crosses her arms, looking to her muddied boots in hopes that the girl would just simply drop it, considering none of them exactly had a great past.

But it doesn’t work.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I wouldn’t blame you for believing them ...they're rather persuasive.”

“If I was on my own I wouldn’t have.” Clementine mutters. Barely enough for them to hear as they slightly freeze. Looking around the room as they notice she is alone. But the answer soon hits them like a brick as Clementine explains it away. “We all lose people at some point.”

“Yeah… hey listen I-“

There’s suddenly a slamming noise as Clementine feels something hit her head. Her knees buckle quickly as she hits the wooden floor. Letting out a groan as her vision quickly begins to darken and the sounds around her slowly begin to drown out. Staring up at the ceiling as she tries to get some of her strength back, but it’s of no use. She’s only able to listen to what they’re saying as her heart pounds inside of her chicest, and her head begins to ache. Unable to tell who’s saying what, as all the voices collectively sound the same. And through her fogging vision, she’s able to see a figure crouch next to her, shaking her shoulders roughly before everything soon fades to black.

[scrcndxpity]

                                                      BEN HANSCOM → IT

                                            ❝ you guys are still the best friends i ever had, ❞ ben said.                                    ❝ no matter how this turns out.                                                    i just… you know, wanted to tell you that.  ❞

           ❝ i’m glad i remembered you, ❞ he added.

⌜ •°  ✦  °• — this is your stop . welcome to 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒 .  you must be BEN HANSCOM. a little birdie told me you’re looking for SIREN’S BAR, it’s not too far from here and i’m sure your ANALYTICAL, SENSITIVE + DETACHED self will lead you down the right path. you’ve had TWENTY-THREE years of experience anyway. what were you saying? you DO remember GETTING A LITTLE TOO DRUNK AFTER RECEIVING A FATEFUL PHONE CALL FROM YOUR FRIEND? oh well, good luck with that !! hey, before you go, has anyone ever told you that you give off an INK STAINS ON THE TIP OF YOUR FINGERS, THE SOUND OF SNEAKERS AGAINST PAVEMENT, NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK BURSTING OUT OF CHEAP HEADPHONES and SELF-WRITTEN NOTES SCATTERED ACROSS THE WALL vibe? i better get going, enjoy your stay !! ── sar , she+her,18+ , gmt+2. 

trigger warnings ── bullying, body-image issues, alcohol abuse

+ for the vast majority of his childhood ben was A LOSER; a shy little boy desperately trying to hide and disappear behind his favourite books and unfortunately, being too chubby to do so. it didn’t help that his family moved a lot, travelling after a father who lived the military, and thus leaving ben without the chance of ever making real friends.  he was ALONE a lot in those days, always the new kid standing by himself, uncomfortable in his own body and too afraid to speak up in case it’d draw the bullies’ attention to him. it’s the reason he started reading — fictional stories at first and as the different school libraries ran out of intriguing authors to offer, ben switched to historical books; true and truly interesting stories which had passed the test of time... and, of course, poems. their beautiful way of playing with words fascinated him.

+ for a long time nothing ever changed, except of the names of the towns he stayed in. however, as fate would have it and right as ben had accepted the apparent inevitability of his, the hanscom family moved to DERRY, MAINE and ben soon realised that this town wasn’t like any of the ones he’d been in before. instead, it was struck by tragedies, provably leading the national charts in missing people cases and most absurdly? none of the adults seemed to care enough to see. 

+ now, what happens in derry stay in derry, and here’s what happened in short:

henry bowers harasses ben to the extreme which has actually left ben with physical scarring on his abdomen, making him to this day ( as well as years of being called the ‘ fatboy ‘ in various schools ) uncomfortable to take his shirt off

the loser club is being created and ben is developing the most adorable crush on the only girl in the group, sending her a poem because we know he loves those, but alas his heart burns alone which he reacts shockingly mature to

pennywise probably gets jealous no one writes poems about his winter fiery red hair and proceeds to scare the living shit out of the losers while also killing other kids

we know the drill: we have a fight, the clown gets defeated and the losers promise to come back in case it ever does — but until then everyone’s moving away, including ben.

+ honestly, it was only a matter of time until the hanscom family would decide to move again and as his father died in the war and with the most recent development – her baby boy? in the sewers? hurt and injured? – ben’s mother chose to leave sooner rather than later. needless to say, it was difficult to say good bye to the losers club and thus to the best friends ben had ever had, but in all the sadness which came with leaving them behind, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t the least bit excited about leaving derry behind as well. he had bled and cried, lost and hurt, loved and not been loved back for long enough in this tragic small town. it was time for a new start and at last, it was a good one !!

+ as a matter of undeniable fact, puberty has done ben well. his final growth spurt in the summer before his start at the new school, alongside with better and healthier eating habits he’d already adopted, allowed him to lose any and all remains of his baby fat — and when he then also joined the school’s TRACK TEAM? we had ourselves a handsome, healthy and most importantly happy young man on our hands, who stood with confidence in his bones and was no longer afraid of the power his own voice held.

+ without having to worry about what your bullies might do or wondering where they might be lingering to get a hold of you, school was suddenly easier than ever. his grades still weren’t fantastic – he still liked to read; less poems now for some reason and most preferably everything and anything that wasn’t on the school’s schedule – but his graduation was successful enough that the adult world welcomed him with open arms and an infinite amount of opportunities to follow whichever dreams his heart desired. so that’s what he did — or at least tried to do. as a kid he had always been a great engineer and builder who could create tree houses, even underground construction from nothing, and it must’ve been a childhood dream come true as he became an ARCHITECT and a successful one at that !! unfortunately, if the lack of happiness which came with it was any indication, it wasn’t his childhood dream.

+ he had been trying to fill the hole in his chest – with work most of all. with women, for a while, but none of them truly interested him. and with alcohol whenever desperate times seemed to call for desperate measures. however, nothing quite managed to rid him of the LONELY feeling buried deep inside his heart. something was evidently missing from his life ( and from his memory ) but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was —– beverly was his best guess, but even she was just a name on a book page he had carried in his wallet for as long as he could remember, and the scar on his chest was though oddly resembling the letter H nothing but a childhood injury he’d probably forgotten. that is, until the call came and with it, mike reminding him of times long forgotten. pennywise was back in derry, which meant the losers club would have to come back as well to defeat it once and for all. 

+ terrified and shaken by the memories of childhood trauma, ben walked into the closest bar to give himself the LIQUID COURAGE he couldn’t find within himself to face it again. he may or may not have overshot his goal, his sight going black and the memory of the night fading into blurry darkness. now, as the story goes, he would wake up in the morning, drive to derry to fight pennywise and lose some of his friends, but it doesn’t quite feel like a memory to him. instead, he is in twinrivers, twenty-three again like his whole life has been a nightmare playing out in front of him or existed merely as a shit story in a book he read, and he’s got another shot at finding whatever will make him feel a little less lonely before he’s vegetating. 

q . from what part of the canon did you take your character from ?

it’s a mixture of everything, tbh. there’s a whole lot of influence from the movies, because ben is such an adorable bean in it ( as well as all the other kids, like don’t get me started swooning about this cast ) and probably the original miniseries? because child!me watched that so many times. but there will also be some details from the book !! though, it’s been forever since i read it so my memories are a little hazy on that one.

q. what gender is your character, what pronouns do they use and what do they identify as sexual / romantic orientation speaking ?

ben is a cis-male who uses the pronouns he & him. regarding his sexuality and romantic orientation, it isn’t something he ever truly wondered about. he was eleven the first time he fell in love with someone and it just so happened to be the last time as well. 

˙ ˖ ✧ — 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘: ben hanscom

˙ ˖ ✧ — 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖗: ben hanscom

˙ ˖ ✧ — 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖈𝖆𝖓𝖔𝖓: ben hanscom  

˙ ˖ ✧ — 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓: ben hanscom  

˙ ˖ ✧ — 𝖆𝖓𝖘𝖜𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖉: ben hanscom

[gffa]

I AM READY TO CRY ABOUT STAR WARS IN APPROXIMATELY A WEEK FROM NOW, so here in the meantime have some crying about fic because, oh, I REALLY LOVE THESE SPACE NERDS. STAR WARS FIC RECS: ✦ The Dark Path Lit by Sun and Stars by A_Delicate_Fury, obi-wan & anakin & luke & leia & han & ahsoka & cast, time travel, 27.7k wip    After a disaster on the cosmic scale that Obi-Wan is still trying to wrap his mind around, he finds himself back in the early days of the Clone Wars, Commander Cody loyally at his side, Anakin at his back, and Sidious plotting against the Jedi at every turn. He’s been given an unasked for chance to do everything over again. And with the Force as his ally, he intends to set the galaxy on a brighter path than the one it’s currently on. ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 59.4k wip    During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone. ✦ Time To Go by light_mantled_albatross, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, 35.2k wip    A version of the “Anakin doesn’t find Ventress at the end of season 5, with the result that Ahsoka gets Dramatically Sentenced To Death” plotline. Obi-Wan makes choices, Anakin freaks out, the Jedi Council behaves somewhat questionably, Darth Sidious behaves completely reprehensibly, and Ahsoka is generally her bad-ass self. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, anakin & rex & mace & cast, 2.3k    “General Skywalker, we have an incoming transmission from Coruscant,” Rex says, standing straight and with his arms crossed behind his back—stiff and formal. Anakin’s eyes narrow; that kind of posture generally means a transmission from the Council… ✦ Lose Myself Tonight by sinosei, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, mild d/s, sith!obi-wan, 1.5k    Anakin cannot help but test Obi-Wan. ✦ To Stand Before the Council by Raven_Knight, depa & mace & yoda & cast, 3.7k    This is the story of how Mace Windu and Depa Billaba became Master and Padawan. ✦ Rescue on Stygeon Prime by BarbaraFett, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & luminara, 4.3k    When Ahsoka Tano uses her newfound freedom as a Force spirit to explore obscure corners of the galaxy, Anakin Skywalker will have to confront a nearly-forgotten piece of the Sith’s legacy of darkness. ✦ River at Dawn by Lalijinx, obi-wan & padme (& background anakin), 1k    Obi-Wan goes to confront Padme about Anakin’s location. Instead, his emotions get the better of him, and everything spills out. ✦ A striking resemblance to the embers of the past by victoria_p (musesfool), luke & leia & rey & finn & kix, 3.6k    Leia insists Rey have a DNA test to make sure she and Finn are not related. The results are not what anyone was expecting. ✦ a gift with a price by wreckageofstars, obi-wan & anakin, 1.8k    Miscommunication is the soup of the day, and Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t fully understand the power that he holds. ✦ Tumblr Prompts by Darlings (FromDreamstoEmpires), obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 3.8k (collection of prompts)    A collection of prompts that I’ve filled on Tumblr. ✦ Starrunner by rinzukodas, obi-wan & jedi & oc, 17.3k wip    n what would have been the year 17 BBY, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine is found slumped over his desk, dead to rights and emitting a foul odor. The coroners declare the body victim to a heart attack and the smell a result of a lack of a timely embalming—a bit of bowels humor, the head coroner says with a nervous laugh when interviewed by the Galactic Enquirer. ✦ Sanctuary by shadowsong26, anakin & rey, 3.1k    Rey wants to find her place in all of this. When she finds a reference to Mortis in one of Luke’s books, it seems as good good place as any to start looking… ✦ Talking Points by victoria_p (musesfool), luke & rey, 2k    Rey knows there’s a connection between them–something more than the Force, more than destiny. ✦ this is unexpected by MarbleGlove, obi-wan & palpatine & cast, 4.4k    a self-indulgent response to the many, wonderful time-travel Star Wars stories that send a more experienced and more knowledgeable Obi-Wan Kenobi back in time to change the many tragedies to come full details + recs under the cut! 

✦ The Dark Path Lit by Sun and Stars by A_Delicate_Fury, obi-wan & anakin & luke & leia & han & ahsoka & cast, time travel, 27.7k wip    After a disaster on the cosmic scale that Obi-Wan is still trying to wrap his mind around, he finds himself back in the early days of the Clone Wars, Commander Cody loyally at his side, Anakin at his back, and Sidious plotting against the Jedi at every turn. He’s been given an unasked for chance to do everything over again. And with the Force as his ally, he intends to set the galaxy on a brighter path than the one it’s currently on.    Oh, this fic is so gorgeous and wonderful and beautiful already! It’s everything I could ask for–the characterization is spot on, it has a lot of plot and worldbuilding that grabs from canon and builds something really cool with them, and MOST IMPORTANTLY it has satisfying resolution to some things (while other things are just kicking into gear) that has me absolutely hooked. What I mean is–the plot and the fallout of this are just getting started, there’s still the whole future looming over them, but we’ve also gotten some reunions that left me with that happy, satisfied, emotionally touched feeling. Obi-Wan and Luke’s first meeting here is absolutely everything I could have asked for from it, it’s one of those that could have been glossed over too much and I would have felt cheated, or it could have been overdone and I’d have felt like the fic was trying too hard. But instead every moment of it absolutely worked for me, it found the balance it needed to find, where shit’s still happening around them, but there’s this gorgeous moment of stillness between them, this gorgeous moment of meaning and connection, that just reminded me of every single Obi-Wan & Luke feeling I’ve ever had.    But there’s more! There’s an escape off a desert planet where they have to go Full Jedi Of Old and seeing it from Luke’s point of view, getting to see the Jedi as they were is so incredibly satisfying, it takes a fun action sequence and gives it emotional resonance. It’s got incredible Obi-Wan characterization, as he struggles with what to do about all this, but also is so kind and warm, that it’s these little touches with Luke, the way he leaves his hand out if Luke wants to touch him, the way he makes himself available for Luke to lean against his side, the way he doesn’t get bothered by these scared kids being kind of snappish at him, because he has an idea of what they’re going through. As much as I love everyone here–Han and Luke and Leia’s are all SO GREAT, Ahsoka is BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT, Asajj actually gives me FEELINGS, especially the way Obi-Wan treats her–for me, Obi-Wan is the real star of this show.    Which isn’t to say the plot part isn’t interesting, because I am so here for how it happened, what it means with Palpatine’s fingers digging into everything, the use of the Force that’s mixed up in all this, the way OH MY DARLING ANAKIN is talked about in Obi-Wan’s relating what he knows, the way Obi-Wan feels a little spun around, because he’s both his clone wars self and his future self, it’s a bit of deja vu, which isn’t a tack I’d seen taken before. All of it is just really, really a great read already! ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 59.4k wip    During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone.    Chapter 11: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter rather than the fic as a whole. This is the aftermath of the Shadow (or whatever it is) having sneaked in and curled around Obi-Wan, which I still find to be an intriguing choice, that the one that has the strongest sense of balance and surety of himself is the one that it also pulled whatever from and I love the use of that, because it shows so much of where Veris comes from, while not taking away that Obi-Wan Kenobi truly is a good person with such a strong sense of self. And this chapter follows up on that, where the fic does this really great thing of playing around with the different interactions, how these different versions of the same person are running around, so it’s both a character piece and a relationship piece, that it’s all about highlighting things that are true down to the foundations of Obi-Wan and Anakin, whatever form they take. Not that the Sith versions are them, per se, because they’re not, but that they’re small, tiny aspects given life, which means that it’s like staring at part of yourself, but alsosomething different, which isn’t always a fun thing when looking at yourself–but when looking at the person you love? Suddenly the undercurrents shift.    Which is illustrated so well for me in the Obi-Wan and Isten scene, where Isten may be a Sith version of Anakin, but he’s still Anakin, an Anakin who will always love Obi-Wan, in whatever form he’s in, and so when the Shadow passes by them in a dream/vision/whatever, of course he turns his face to Obi-Wan and hides it, of course Obi-Wan shelters him and pulls him close and takes on the heavy weight of watching this terrible thing, because that’s what Obi-Wan does, whenever he can, for Anakin. I loved the Veris and Anakin scene as well, the groundwork that’s being laid for Anakin to see just how much this man with Obi-Wan’s face, who is connected to Obi-Wan, but isn’t him, loves his own version of Anakin, how he can be polished and smooth, but also at the same time the cracks in his shell are all about Anakin, Anakin, Anakin. The need to work together, to touch minds, the way this prickles at Anakin and yet will obviously linger with him is so much fun to watch! But, oh, that scene with Obi-Wan and Isten. It really was the standout for me–but, then, just about anything with Isten is a standout for me in this fic, because he’s so perfectly written. Wild and fey, yet settled in his skin. Bratty and arrogant, yet there’s something that is almost calm. And you can see that it’s because of Obi-Wan, that trust he has and how much he’s able to not have to worry about things. It’s such a good complement to every single other character in this fic! I will gleefully read about him with ANY of the other characters!    But, then, there’s the Shadow and whatever it’s doing and, oh, the scene with the party was so creepy. Like, it’s almost a bit understated (while also being very directly horrible), like there’s this shimmer of glitz and elegance over the terrible thing that’s happening, and that makes it so much worse, the feeling of body horror as the Shadow takes over the people and hurts them. The way the sense of something large and looming is moving through the space around Obi-Wan and Isten, how it could so easily see them and would rip them to shreds. It’s such a lovely character piece, but also SUCH A GOOD HORROR FIC, TOO. But also!! Isten waking up and, oh, the way Veris just seems to calm and you really get to see how much he loves this version of Anakin, that the actual Anakin sees this and of course we cannot help but compare and find the parallels between the two! And such good cliffhangers! And I have NO IDEA where any of this is going! And yet I’m so, so engaged! Just, ugh, what a wonderful, perfect fic. ✦ Time To Go by light_mantled_albatross, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, 35.2k wip    A version of the “Anakin doesn’t find Ventress at the end of season 5, with the result that Ahsoka gets Dramatically Sentenced To Death” plotline. Obi-Wan makes choices, Anakin freaks out, the Jedi Council behaves somewhat questionably, Darth Sidious behaves completely reprehensibly, and Ahsoka is generally her bad-ass self.    Chapter 7: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter, rather than the fic as a whole. It’s been a long while since I read the previous chapters, so I can’t judge how much it does or doesn’t get the Jedi, but I remember thinking that a lot of it could be down to the point of views of the specific characters and the places they’re in (since this is during The Wrong Jedi arc) and I mention this only because it’s a thing I almost always mention, and also because I love this fic. The author just absolutely, utterly nails the banter between the characters, all three of them are a scream, but especially Obi-Wan and Anakin who just cannot stop bickering, in really sharp and genuinely funny ways! Like, read this fic for that alone! But I do enjoy Padme when she shows up here (and that she doesn’t care about Anakin’s approval for what she’s going to do!), I enjoy the way Anakin uses the Force, I enjoy that the writing is really smooth and I very much want to know what happens, I enjoy that the author is really good at building up a plot, a mystery that I want to know how it ends up! But, seriously, read it for the banter, it’s so much fun. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, anakin & rex & mace & cast, 2.3k    “General Skywalker, we have an incoming transmission from Coruscant,” Rex says, standing straight and with his arms crossed behind his back—stiff and formal. Anakin’s eyes narrow; that kind of posture generally means a transmission from the Council…    Note: This is part of a series that should be read in order by this point, but this rec will focus on this fic in particular. Ahhh, it was so hard to finish this one, because now I want more immediately and I just want to read 100k of this all in one sitting! But I love this piece, I love Anakin’s panic attack and how it builds and builds and builds until he can’t breathe, because he just connected wtih Obi-Wan again and now he found out that his Master might die, might be dying right that minute, and, oh, it really just makes me feel so much for the character. Mace understanding that Anakin needs more gentleness right now, him having the reserves and room to be able to give that, is spot on and so wonderful. For all that this is an angsty piece (in an absolutely delicious way) it’s also a really good and kind one. ✦ Lose Myself Tonight by sinosei, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, mild d/s, sith!obi-wan, 1.5k    Anakin cannot help but test Obi-Wan.    Oh, this was such a good read! It’s one of those that’s both well-written andhits every iddy button I have–that Anakin is impatient and cannot help testing Obi-Wan, that he wants the reassurance, wants the attention, while also wanting to be taken seriously, while also wanting that heavy hand to come down on him and keep him in place. That Obi-Wan is gentle with him, is kind and caring with him, but also will not be disobeyed, is perfect here, that it’s what Anakin responds to and thrives under, that he’s turned on by it when his Master and his Emperor tell him how to dispaly himself. And, oh, the sex was so good, it was beautiful in the way Obi-Wan had him stretch himself while watching, that he’d been so insolent that he would only get his Master’s hand today (and, of course, he’s so beautiful and perfect that eventually he gets to ride his Master’s cock anyway), that it’s about the dom/sub relationship in how it gives Anakin structure and works for him so well. And is scorchingly, ridiculously hot when Obi-Wan won’t let him otherwise touch himself, when Obi-Wan tells him that he loves him, that Anakin is his, that Obi-Wan ordering him to sit on his dick was used as a way to show that unbreakable connection and love between them. And so, so ridiculously hot, that Anakin can’t touch himself while he’s touched and is so spread open and willing for his Master, so content in this place where he has no questions. I maybe kinda lost my brain a little to this one! ✦ To Stand Before the Council by Raven_Knight, depa & mace & yoda & cast, 3.7k    This is the story of how Mace Windu and Depa Billaba became Master and Padawan.    Oh, I just practically wanted to wrap myself up in the adorable warmth of this story, how absolutely cute it is, as little Depa stands before the High Council to try to deliver a message she wants to tell them, but can’t quite get the words out. I love the building of Jedi traditions (since canon gives us almost nothing! I need more!) and that the Council takes the time for Depa to gather her courage, to help explain themselves to her, to encourage her, to find her adorable, how likable everyone is in this. It’s one of those stories that puts a warm smile on my face to have read, I love the thought and care given here, I love how I can just picture all of it, too. Such a fun read! ✦ Rescue on Stygeon Prime by BarbaraFett, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & luminara, 4.3k    When Ahsoka Tano uses her newfound freedom as a Force spirit to explore obscure corners of the galaxy, Anakin Skywalker will have to confront a nearly-forgotten piece of the Sith’s legacy of darkness.    It would probably help to have read at least The Apprentice Returns Homebefore this one, to understand why everyone is where they’re at, but also you could probably just know that Anakin helped Ahsoka become a Force Ghost and know they’re wandering around the universe and fixing stuff. I am so very into how good everything is there, that Anakin and Ahsoka have returned to the Jedi, but that their journeys weren’t without their narrative weight and importance, that they can still be something a little different, even as they’ve found their way home again, I guess is what I’m feeling more than anything. That they go to help Luminara here, that they put something right, that I get to see my favorite Jedi being good and happy and at peace in their afterlife, was like being in a nice, warm bath all over again. ✦ River at Dawn by Lalijinx, obi-wan & padme (& background anakin), 1k    Obi-Wan goes to confront Padme about Anakin’s location. Instead, his emotions get the better of him, and everything spills out.    I really enjoyed this fic for doing exactly what it set out to do–have Obi-Wan’s reserved nature break because Padme wasn’t believing what he was telling her about what Anakin did. It works for me because I have a lot of really intense feelings about Anakin’s actions at the Temple and this fic really gave them the weight they deserved, that it wasn’t just turning to the dark side, but the actions he did were truly monstrous and should be given this kind of narrative weight. It was cathartic as hell and I enjoyed it for being so! ✦ A striking resemblance to the embers of the past by victoria_p (musesfool), luke & leia & rey & finn & kix, 3.6k    Leia insists Rey have a DNA test to make sure she and Finn are not related. The results are not what anyone was expecting.    Oh, I love fics like this, that take an interesting theory about Rey’s background and give me a fic that shows the immediate fallout of it, that reveal that I’m looking for (I love reveal moments!) and some great build-up tension to that reveal, plus some really lovely, touching character moments. The highlight of this fic is the way Luke and Leia look at Rey once they discover who she is, the weight and legacy she carries just because of her birth, the struggle that they allface because of it and to find out what it means. It’s poignant and painful and, most of all, hopeful. And that is exactly in the spirit of Star Wars! ✦ a gift with a price by wreckageofstars, obi-wan & anakin, 1.8k    Miscommunication is the soup of the day, and Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t fully understand the power that he holds.    This was such a good, cute fic! Obi-Wan and Anakin early days are some of my favorites and I love how much Obi-Wan reaches out to Anakin, even though he’s been through so much shit lately himself, that he cares very deeply in his non-effusive way, that that’s just how he is. And the fic is really good-hearted and kind, there’s something almost a little sweet about it, that Anakin this being sick will get him sent away and Obi-Wan and everyone care so much about the little moppet and of course Obi-Wan reassures him that that’s not going to happen, but it’s so hard to reach through all those layers Anakin has even back then, but it’s still so good here, that Obi-Wan finds a compromise that moves them forward, and then hugs!!! It’s one of those fics that gets me right in the feelings place in the best way, but then was also like slipping into a warm bath, which is my favorite. This was wonderful and so lovely to read. ✦ Tumblr Prompts by Darlings (FromDreamstoEmpires), obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 3.8k (collection of prompts)    A collection of prompts that I’ve filled on Tumblr.    I’ve recommended at least one of these on tumblr before and I’ll probably continue to rec them individually in the future because a) it’s my blog and I do what I want and b) because wow do they hit my id straight on and I want to flail about that! And I love this collection because it really does hit those iddy wants just perfectly, it embraces them whole-heartedly and clearly enjoys the hell out of itself as it does. Anakin getting fucked while being ordered to watch himself in front of a mirror, a fantasy AU where they can’t be together and it embraces the quiet angst, and then a modern AU where Anakin wears lingerie and is a bratty sub who wants to get bent over the desk and fucked. Like, SIGN ME UP, it’s just pure fun and sexy times that know what they’re about and are having a blast writing them and are great for when you just want some lightly kinky porn that’s full of love and care and everything is soft and sweet and loving and all of it hits that OTP place hard. ♥ ✦ Starrunner by rinzukodas, obi-wan & jedi & oc, 17.3k wip    n what would have been the year 17 BBY, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine is found slumped over his desk, dead to rights and emitting a foul odor. The coroners declare the body victim to a heart attack and the smell a result of a lack of a timely embalming—a bit of bowels humor, the head coroner says with a nervous laugh when interviewed by the Galactic Enquirer.    I have two brief caveats before I begin–the first is that I felt like this fic sort of dropped me into the middle of things in a way that I went to look and see if I was missing an earlier story (this is the only one the author’s written, though!) and that sometimes the sequence of events/context for them is a little unclear, especially when dealing with an OC that we don’t know much about. The second is that I don’t have a good feel for whether or not the fic is going to go the attachment = any kind of love thing that doesn’t work with the canon Jedi, because most of it is really, really great at showing the Jedi, but there have been a few moments that have made me wonder. But also I’m hypersensitive, so take it with a grain of salt! OKAY THAT SAID I fucking love this fic, it’s so sharp and good, the characterization of Obi-Wan is absolutely fantastic, he’s perfectly his canon self! And I really enjoy the OC, she’s got her own personality and she’s got narrative weight, but the fic doesn’t try to make her exactly like everyone else in their snark. She has her moments, but instead she’s more quiet and reserved, but with deep care and kindness and quietly delightful. She feels like she fits with the canon!    There’s a plot brewing here–she and Master Kenobi are tasked with investigating the Chancellor’s death, one that’s genuinely interesting to me and has new characters being brought in in a way that, again, feels like it fits with canon, with genuinely good storytelling! And there’s such great banter, like it’s so very easy to picture Obi-Wan in my mind’s eye, it’s so very easy to imagine everyone here! And, oh, the life this breathes into the setting it uses, that this is a living, breathing world it inhabits, that there’s history between Master Che and her patients, that there’s details about the Jedi life/culture and their Temple, it feels very much like this fic loves the characters and world that it’s writing, that there’s this warm glow of affection through the whole thing, that combines with the legitimately sharp writing, so that I tore through the whole thing and will look forward to future chapters. ✦ Sanctuary by shadowsong26, anakin & rey, 3.1k    Rey wants to find her place in all of this. When she finds a reference to Mortis in one of Luke’s books, it seems as good good place as any to start looking…    Rey finds herself on Mortis and winds up having a conversation with a spirit there and, oh, it’s such a lovely, engaging read for it! It captures that sense of how weird Star Wars can be at times, especially a place like Mortis, but the conversation between her and Anakin, the weight of the history there, but also that it’s Rey’s story going forward, that this touches on what came before, that the journey of Star Wars has led us all here, but it’s hers going forward, is really well done. And I love this more reflective Anakin who may still be angry in some ways, but has gained so much balance, has come back, has gained so much wisdom. It’s a perfect little fic as a point on the journey to wherever Rey is going and I loved it. ✦ Talking Points by victoria_p (musesfool), luke & rey, 2k    Rey knows there’s a connection between them–something more than the Force, more than destiny.    I really enjoyed reading this, there’s something so warm and lovely about every single moment of it! It’s a collection of smaller moments with Rey and Luke during her training, just all these quiet little touches that form a more detailed picture between them, and it’s just so good, everything feels hopeful and bright, even in the greater darkness of the galaxy. It felt like this is the core of who I see these characters as and what I want for them, the best for them without breaking SW to do it. And that made this a treasure to read! ✦ this is unexpected by MarbleGlove, obi-wan & palpatine & cast, 4.4k    a self-indulgent response to the many, wonderful time-travel Star Wars stories that send a more experienced and more knowledgeable Obi-Wan Kenobi back in time to change the many tragedies to come    This was a delightfully cracky piece with a few serious moments! I admit, I almost turned around at that Obi-Wan wouldn’t train Anakin, but then Anakin had stars in his eyes for Obi-Wan, who was basically playing chess with Palpatine and wiping the floor with him, sure, it’s not how things would seriously go, but it has that sharp sense of gleeful fun, it was so satisfying to the id, that I had a smile on my face the whole time and it was a great read!

[wickedvalentine-blog]

- Accursed Blessing I. -

Act I – Tribute of the Divines

A child was born, pure of human senses of judgement, duty and knowledge. At his cradle came to give their pledge, three goddesses of heaven, sisters of Celestis.

The child wandered in dreams as the sisters gathered around. Intrigued by the purity profound; the lost treasure of kings and queens.

The youngest sister stepped out, caressed his head, her snow-white hair gently touched his joined hands. Her name is Alba, an angel of forsaken lands; it was a goddess of words staying at his bed.

“Sleep, child, while there is still a dream to cherish. Once you are awake, a dreadful path you will tread, pained and lonely, you will miss your warm bed. But do not fear it, you will neither fail nor perish, for we will watch over you. I, Alba of the lands forsaken, will be with you as you reawaken, to guide your hand through the world written anew.”

The goddess of book and quill, ever so bold, leaned forward and kissed the child’s cheek. He is small and frail, but no longer weak, the gift of writing would shine down on his dark road.

Alba... her realm is travelled only by few, for who would willingly wander alone? Wanderer explores the land forlorn, forever old and forever new. Still the goddess uses all her might to help her children on the forsaken road, at its end, the promise of joy tenfold, the divine delights dwell, for which mortals fight.

Although she is youngest of the three, Alba’s powers exceeds all and any. With her thought a world is created, and with it many as well faded.

-

The eldest looked at the sleeping boy wondered whether she gives her pledge. “Another gift would make his spirit foil, but his senses sharpened like an edge.”

Aura, goddess from the house of melodies, full of friends, free of enemies, doubted her decision more than ever, wished to save the child from painful endeavour.

“Can we make a perfect human of this child? One wild of nature and calm of mind? There will always be a price to pay for talent, that is the way of fate, unwanted and ambivalent.”

Aura knows more than anyone how success is failure’s son. Her fair hair and voice angelic... although divine, she is a cursed relic. Through pain and loss the voice goddess rose. Now at the cradle she stands fighting her own moral laments.

She looked at the middle sister blankly expecting her move to provide a decision. She approached the child and watched, her eyes saw more than a kid, a dreadful vision.

-

Atra, the goddess of visions and memory, her blood red eyes saw a lot of pain, war, love and treachery, her torment never was in vain.

Her gift is to see more than meets the eye, and remember the stillness of the world around. Once the time of art is nigh, a memory to a canvas is eternally bound.

“Alba’s gift was more than enough. We already interfered beyond our limits. His life will be dangerous and rough should Fate ever hear of this.”

-

Unfortunate this sentence was, an unexpected turn of the cause. Fate made her appearance in the room, a failed progeny of doom.

Strange powers bound the sisters powerless as the Fate took over their place. She came here to curse the child, not to bless, to turn his righteous pride into disgrace.

“So it is a gift you wish for... Fear not, I shall provide a suitable one. As for the gift you received before, keep it, your life had just begun.

I give you a gift of eternal pain, knowledge of what could have been had your trying not end in vain and your dreams so close to be seen but never close enough to grasp, I promise you will cry and gasp in agony begging me to help this useless insignificant whelp! And I grant you the curse of the soul-wrecked; you shall know and fear of being imperfect! Go now, Alba’s young apprentice, the gifts of her sisters you shall forever miss.” Fate and the goddesses faded away, left the child a high price to pay for a life neither asked for nor wanted. What lies ahead is a story, tragic and haunted...

Act II – A kiss, my beloved...

The child grew up in great haste, his gift is still unfound but not in waste. Alba, in her kingdom imprisoned by fate, grieved and cried, forced to watch and wait.

She wished to help the kid right away, to banish the dread and dismay. Alas, there was nothing in her power to escape the heavily guarded prison tower.

-

Six times the winter came and went, bringing sadness in every moment spent. Loneliness sank its vicious teeth into the skin, and the kid started thinking: what could have been?

Laments sent out a silent cry, thus far the child did not wish die. Once upon time, on a lonely wintry night, the child went to sleep, only to wake as a knight.

In a dream, often shrouded in mystery, he met a girl – to his life the greatest victory. The moon shined brightly upon those two, love-struck, they immediately knew this encounter is above fate and nature, an adventure for the chosen ones to tread and wager. The dream was coming to an end, no more than their eyes have met. Yet, they both knew what was in their mind, a wish for kiss, the sweetest of its kind. The sealing of lips was nearly made, but alas, sooner this dream had to fade.

The child woke up cast out from heaven once again, back into reality, the hell’s harsh and dissonant den. But this time he entered without a frown. In tears of joy he could swim and drown.

For years the child wandered the halls of hell, what he was thinking, no demon could tell. His heart like the one of a dog, loyal, relentless and lost in a monologue, awaited his mistress with tempered belief, his heart hidden well from any thief.

Sixteenth winter had passed since his birth, the child started doubting his true worth. No miracle brought the two lovers together, from angel’s wing falls the last feather.

Fate smirks and grins at her triumphant trickery, douses the flames of hope to induce misery. Alba still trapped along with her siblings, sends her children to do her biddings.

“Go forth, daughters of affection, I place my apprentice under your kind protection. Go forth, be swift! Free him of the guilt and unveil my gift!”

So the two daughters hurried, hardly breathing, the two muses emerged in the world of the living. In a place once filled with love and light, they found the child, wounded from the fight.

Act III – Honour turns to horror / Monarch of Hell

Now they were three on this journey of tragedy. The muses told him of the gift in his soul, a way to fend off his perilous agony, one that is worthy of its toll.

With quill and blood he wrote, but never ceased to wonder: where is the colour and where is the note? Doubts slowly started ruining his mind asunder.

“Unneeded or unwanted am I? I break down for no reason why. As if cursed was this gift weighing me down, As if fate itself wanted me fall and drown.“

The muses looked at each other anxiously, to them he was still like a family. They revealed fate’s curse, unknown to him, laments turned his feelings dark and grim.

-

Fate has won both the battle and war, swept away his hopes with no remorse. When there was no place to go anymore, the child shut himself behind iron doors.

There his mind fell into dark depths into hatred, lust and laments. No more did he wish to live and create, no more time to waste, no more time to wait. “There’s a battle to be waged once again, this time all my anger I shall unleash along with pain! Brace yourself fate, I will tear apart your wings! You will regret the day you moved my strings. And should I die, I care not. Life never was the place I sought. Death walks with me as a friend, who sees to it that I shall end with a smile on my soul and face as I slay the one who upon me bestowed disgrace.”

Fate and the child - each other they still loathe, a war’s end needs the death of both. They have yet to cross swords and blades, and when the child´s life-light fades the Pale Lady takes them both to hell where their story I can once again tell as I did so many times before, and yet, you all read and listen without bore.

Act IV – The Chaos Walker

“Alba... heed my words, for I can no longer heed yours. I, the chaos walker of the real worlds, have lived through enough wars. Your gift I will no longer use, your ideas I will no longer follow. Find another child to abuse with your hope that brings sorrow.”

Is this what I really wish for? Anxious and uncertain chaos doth be... It is both all and every and neither, nor, a spiral of colour which no one can see.

I wish to be no more the fire that heals and water that burns, bloody peace and merciful war, the kindness given and meanness that returns, silent cry of a loud, deaf person, white pawn on a square of a black king, the remedy that will worsen and the venom that can heal everything.

Here I stand – the chaos walker. I, the child who in darkness grew older, and swore vengeance upon the thread weaver and the strong currents of fate’s river.

Years passed, tears were shed. To nought but darkness my path led. The light of my long lost heart is hidden in the words of my art.

Alba, answer me, for your cursed child became a monster most unkind. Would you let this weary soul yield as it threw away pride and kneeled?

Act V – Archdemon Faust

Many times I stumbled just to survive. My actions like thorns on a rose, will hurt those who wished to adore, and all who upon me wearily repose.

How can I ever undo my mistake? Welcoming the body and heart of a dame different from the one fated... All just to survive and keep sane...

This thorn... I don’t want her to bleed, nor by a fact that I find it not a mistake. It was to remain sane - and the same person whose name I used to take.

Perhaps it is too late for me to see another day, even if a brighter one. I had to become the evil side of nature - by losing to the truth, I have truly won.

As a demon, I’m seeing only myself. I gaze upon my own needs neglected, and mercilessly follow what it needs to have one’s life corrected. And now less than a human I am called? The same shadows we all bear inside; what they suppress and neglect I decided to no longer hide.

Tempered by confinement remade by a dystopian world; I have taken on a new name - Faust the archdemon of nature. Still I am a mirror to whom you vent, the same lover to whom you’ve curled when you realised love is just a game that gets better the further in you venture.

 Come see me in the darkness where you needn’t light to see that body gives us joy regardless of poor ugly me.

Embrace the evil of freedom where in mind you can find that we’ll get what we want and still remain in heart kind; for it is now we know what is true - the nature’s call we no longer heed. In life upon lust we want to feed, and by death, we’ll have all we need.

[stoweboyd]

Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Gallier Hall address, 19 May 2017

Immediately before New Orleans removed a statue of Robert E Lee -- the fourth Confederate monument to be removed in recent weeks -- Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a remarkable speech, one that will have, I hope, a major impact on the US going forward. And, presages what I expect will be a national presence for Mayor Landrieu in the future.

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way – for both good and for ill.

It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more.

You see: New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures.

There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one.

But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy.

It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

He said in his now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it.

President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone – one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored.

As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought.

So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.

Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?

Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?

We all know the answer to these very simple questions.

When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong.

Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence.

To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.

Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place.

Here is the essential truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world?

We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures.

Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity.

We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it!

And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.”

But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.”

We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain.

While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side.

Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.”

Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue.

Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces … would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations.

And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.

In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals.

We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America.

Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way.

It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes.

Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed.

So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved  Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it  is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.”

So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.

As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.

[chchcherish]

Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Address on Removal of Four Confederate Statues

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way – for both good and for ill.

It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more.

You see: New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures.

There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one.

But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy.

It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

He said in his now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it.

President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone – one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored.

As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought.

So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.

Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?

Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?

We all know the answer to these very simple questions.

When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong.

Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence.

To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.

Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place.

Here is the essential truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world?

We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures.

Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity.

We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it!

And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.”

But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.”

We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain.

While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side.

Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.”

Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue.

Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces … would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations.

And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.

In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals.

We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America.

Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way.

It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes.

Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed.

So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved  Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it  is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.”

So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.

As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.