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spilled-some-blood · 4 years ago

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Dating The Slashers Include

Includes: Bubba Sawyer, John Kramer, Billy Loomis, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Stu Macher, Amanda Young, and Tiffany Valentine

Warning: Slight smut warning for Freddy (but are you shocked?), but mostly just fluff

Dating Bubba Would Include: -Starting off as probably best friends -laughing and walking around a lot together -becoming very close, somewhere in between friends and lovers -you making the first move -maybe by accident -you’d probably be talking to him and Choptop -“Why don’t you ask that guy out?” -“Because I like Bubba, remember.” -“You do?” -luckily, he likes you too -going on a first date -it not being awkward at all -if you go out on the town, you end with a hot cup of tea and new clothes, wanting to get him out of the blood covered apron -back at home, laughing and hand holding, forgetting it was actually a date -you end with a soft kiss -both of you blushing madly -the two of you will sit on a sofa and Bubba mumbles about anything -being the last ones awake -Bubba falling asleep on your shoulder -you are smiling -you also falling asleep, not wanting to wake him up -the next morning, you greet with a kiss, as if it has been done a hundred times already -every night, before bed, cuddling on the sofa and cuddling together -searching for Choptop with him -just to please him -always being amazed at how smart he is even though he can’t talk -he knows everything about you -just on his own way -stroking his hair in a calming manner -always holding hands -quick kisses -favourite place is his room, where you can sit close and lay your head in his lap while in a puddle of happiness -spending holidays with each other -one time by him, one time with you -just being cute together -always thinking of each other -general love and sweetness

Dating John Would Include: -Reading books together in the living room with a blanket draped over you. -Laying your legs on top of his whilst attentively looking over the pages. -Him playfully starting to trace patterns on the bottom of your feet, fully knowing that you’re the most ticklish person ever. -It eventually became a full-on tickle fight. -But when you’re starting to scream for mercy he’ll stop so you can breathe again. -Making traps together as well. -Him giving you tight hugs every time you remind him you love him. -Snuggling into his jigsaw robe. -It kind of smelling like him. -He gives you neck kisses and collarbone kisses and doesn’t matter what kind of kisses… -Cause they’re loving and soft and gentle just like him around you. -He looks at you with sleepy puppy eyes and it melts you every. single. time. -Over all, he is so very happy about being with you. -Because you’re kind and amazing and loving towards him, and he can’t quite understand what you see in him. -But you make sure to remember him, very often, that he’s just as lovable as you. -And he will never appreciate someone more than his beautiful girlfriend/boyfriend.

Dating Billy Would Include: -Him coming up with pick up lines and always strolling up to you casually, looking you up and down, as he bites his lip and says something stupid -Billy dragging you to see a movie he loves -Going to see it with him but him smiling the entire time -Acting up together -You're concentrating on something and he'd look at you and forget to breathe -Nose kisses -Neck kisses -Changing study locations due to the seasons/weather -Quiet 'I love you's' -Cheek kisses -Trips to the kitchen to bring a worrying amount of sweets back to the room -Stu forcing you to share -Having a competition to see who can scream 'I Love You' the loudest -Having a very public relationship -Seeing each other across the hall or corridor and running dramatically into each other's arms and hugging -Stu would tell you off but you could see a twinkle of laughter in his eyes at your escapades -Sudden passionate kisses when you realise you’re alone -'It's been 1 day, 5 hours, 12 minutes and 6 seconds since I’ve seen you' -Comforting him when his dad hurts him -Stu always laughing when he sees him zone out because he's thinking of you -Spending most of your time together -Your family loving him instantly -Warm, comforting hugs to keep each other stable -Sitting in peace, tracing patterns on each other's skin -Having a very goofy relationship -You almost never stop laughing -Cuddling almost constantly -Whispering 'I love you' against your neck as he places soft kisses against it -Playing with his hair -Being the 'It' Couple -Braiding his hair even though it's short so it ends up being multiple little random braids in his hair -Him laying his head on your lap -His HAIR -Soft sighs falling from his lips as you lightly scratch his scalp -Him putting his cold feet on you when you're in bed -You shrieking and kicking him off -Wearing his Ghostface outfit -Double dates with Stu and his dates -You brushing his hair -Him attempting to brush yours -Watching the stars -Lazy days cuddling on the couch -Playing with his hair. A LOT -Putting flowers in his hair -Just loving his hair -"Sometimes I think you're only dating me for my hair" -"I am"

Dating Michael Would Include: -Him being extremely protective over you -No one daring to pick on you because of this -Shy smiles and glances -Believing in him -Him opening up to you and showing you his kind vulnerable side -Sharing secret kisses -Getting unexpected gifts -Him smiling when he sees you wearing his stuff especially his jumpsuit -You bring out the better side of him -Sitting by the couch and leaning on each other -Teaching him out to act out rationally, not on anger -Holding hands in public with your hands locked tightly by your sides -Him getting jealous of other guys and you teasing him about it -You being the big spoon because even though he acts really proud, he likes to be held at night -Sneaking around a lot -Midnight rendezvous -Neck kisses -Him calling you stupid nicknames to annoy you -"How are you, my sugar-drop?" -You hit him on the shoulder and him acting as if it didn't hurt but oh my god it does so much -Lazy Sunday mornings where you just sleep the day away -You wrap your arms around him from behind and hugging him tightly -Waking up to him tracing patterns on your skin with light fingers -Always trusting you with absolutely everything -Lots of giggles -Midnight dates -Deep talks in the middle of the night, either in bed or over anything. Him always playing with your hair -Him always being able to be himself with you -Suggestive grins during class -Sending animal-shaped notes to each other -Him being a perfectionist -So much sarcasm -Him laughing at you when you won't admit that you're a bit jealous of all the female and male attention he receives -You hiding his stuff to tease him -But him not being able to be upset with you -Arguments about minor things but both of you not meaning it seriously -Stolen kisses -Lots and lots of neck kisses -Sneaking into each other's homes -Back rubs -Cuddles

Dating Freddy Would Include: -Sometimes starting conversations but loving the silence of the moment. -At night he never lets you roam around without him. -After he tells you about how everyone hate him, understanding why. -But still doing after and it becomes a thing for you. -Starting to let you in more about his plans. -But carefully -Loving (ssshhh) your curious side and how you wanted to know more about all his slasher friends. -"So If that's the most painful place for a man where is it for a woman?" -"Well aren't you a curious little thing dear." -The other slashers not minding you. -He obviously had told them not to harm you. -You getting along with Chucky after you get to know each other a little more. -"Okay, now I know why he is your favourite. He is really interesting under his arrogance and big ego," you say and Freddy smirks. -"Hey, I heard that f-! " *Freddy looking disapprovingly* "......lovable normie" -Taking a stroll with him in the nightmare realm. -Gripping his hand tightly. -Playing it cool but when a bird scares you, you scream and fall into his arms. -"You know this is kinda ironic right? I can probably harm you more than anything in this forest. " -"Oh hush! " you say. -Kisses in secret places. -(Getting closer sentimentally to you.) -Seeing him battle and win his opponent is a total turn on (Sorry not sorry) -Mostly rough sex -Like taking his time with you -Slowly approaching the pain-pleasure subject especially after he founds out that you like spanking and choking (sorry not sorry again). -Blowjobs for sure. -Like when he is feeling pissed and generally needs to feel like a powerful man you are right there. -You feeling sometimes that he might not do some things because he might not think you are good enough -But he kissed you to shut you up -Talking back to him one day while going to hang out with Bubba and Jason. -Telling him not to blame the others. -Pinning you to the wall. -"Listen to me, dear. You don't tell me what to do. Also, someone has to be blamed." his hands lowering to your waist and leans to your ear. " You have to get used to it love if you want to be with me." his hands slowly trailing up your thighs. "So now shut your pretty mouth because it's not going change anything," he says smirking to you now caressing you. -Sighing and accepting that there is nothing that you can do. Kissing him while he leads you to your room too pissed to be around anywhere now.

Dating Stu Would Include: (Oh look, it’s two Scream imagines)

-where do I even start? He’s a kinky rat, everything to him is a kink -him falling completely in love with you, and never want to see you hurt in any way, especially by himself -he’d spoil the shit out of you -and he’d protect you to death -people would know not to touch you, those who have tried disappear -he’d take you shopping with full security -he’d be the guy waiting outside the change room to tell you how gorgeous and sexy you are when you come out -his hands go anywhere they want to, that’s just him. So if you wear a dress, you can guess where his hands are going -he’s the guy with his arm over your shoulders when you walk -very possessive -rough and VERY kinky sex lets are honest -but he spoils the shit out of you. wait I legitimately already wrote that but it's so true. -he’d love when you sit on his lap -especially with nothing on or in his room ;) -it throws other slashers off because they know to respect you and not look at you too long or Stu will flip and stab them -he’s the guy that can growl that sexy growl when he’s angry -but purr that sexy purr when he’s happy -you like both sounds. so sexy -he’d take you to the most expensive places and buy you the most expensive outfits and jewellery, although some of the outfits can’t even be called outfits ;) -date night is the best -ride or die. -him driving you places and speeding to make you laugh and scream. -rough ‘you’re mine’ kind of kisses -but the way he grips your waist when he kisses you is 100% -I mean, I wouldn't say he would be the best boyfriend, but it would be an experience

Dating Amanda Would Include: (Oh look, another Saw imagine) -Looking out for each other -Playing with her hands -Her being a real getlewoman -Her getting embarrassed and flustered when people ask her how she managed to get an 'an amazing person like you' -You tell her you're the lucky one to have a girl like her -Her getting clumsier when you make her nervous -Smiling when you notice Amanda getting more comfortable in your relationship -Opening up to each other -Meeting John and him adoring you -Her telling you all about her favourite fictional characters and how the pretty ones remind her of you -Her getting you the 'pretty’ characters toys as a gift -Lots of hugs -Her watching you talk, write or anything else -Blushing furiously when you catch her staring -Quick pecks in public at first -Watching anything together while cuddling -Her depending on your emotional support a lot -Light touches -Teasing each other -Amanda going on and on about basically anything and you just listening because you like seeing her happy -Picking a single flower and placing it in your hair -Sweet cheek kisses just whenever -Catching her looking at you and looking down and catching her eye and blushing furiously -Sitting by the lake and doing your work -Helping her out with her rehab sessions -Always standing up for her and vice versa -Spending a lot of time in her room just talking to her -Her heart fluttering all the time when you're around -Warm hugs where neither of you wants to let go -Helping him overcome her drug addiction -Comforting her when she feels useless -Gentle kisses -You aren’t a fan of a few a things she likes but you still listen because the excitement in her voice when she talks about it is so freaking adorable! -Cute nicknames -Spending entire days together -Letting Amanda play with your hair -So many inside jokes -Falling asleep under the stars -Food fights -Reminding her about what she's forgotten -Piggyback rides

Dating Tiffany Would Include: (You already know I freaking love Tiffany so you know this will be a long one) -God, she’s so fucking dramatic. -There would be multiple public declarations of love a week, without a doubt. -Crybaby™ -You’ll be goofing around together and say something jokingly rude, like how annoying she is, or some shit like that -And she’ll just deflate -She’ll start pouting, and a small crease between her eyebrows will appear -So, of course, you feel bad -So you’d take her face between your hands, and just start placing little kisses all over her face -On the cheeks, the nose, the forehead (if you can reach, that is) -After a minute you stop, looking Tiffany in the eyes at last after brushing her curls behind her ears -And they’re just filled with amusement, and she also has a shit-eating grin on her lips -She’d trick you into giving her extra affection because she’s a whiny little baby she loves you so much -So you smack her across the head -After a while, this little trick wouldn’t work, so she’d start finding other ways of getting what she wants -It’s not that you don’t show her enough love, it’s just that she needs excessive amounts -Because Tiffany never does anything halfway -It’s all or nothing -And with her, it’s often all. -She’d always show you off as ‘her girl’ and literally never shut up about you -And at first, people found it cute, because ‘aw, look how in love they are!’ -But now everybody just wants to put duct tape over her mouth -(they all still find you two cute, but, God, does Tiffany ramble) -You’re constantly talking about the future. -“What’d you think our wedding will look like?” -“How many children do you want?” -Pranks. So. Many. Pranks. -You turn it into your own little competition to see who can get the other better. -This was fun until the paranoia set in. -“Why are you looking at me like that..?” -“Because I love you.” -“Tiff….” -“Mmm.” -“What have you done?” -*Cue you chasing her down the house whilst screaming profanities, both of you laughing as you do so* -Her taking you on adventures around the town -She would teach you how to be a sassy bitch -Or, if you already knew how you’d have small games together. -Just you two, one-on-one. -You’d either: A) kick her ass, and she’d insist that she let you win, or B) be so damn terrible, but look so adorable trying that she would let you win - although she’d never make a joke about it, she’d support you and help you get better. -Throwing stuff to each other while the slashers are arguing. -Her aiming the paper so it hits your head, so you decide to make her get in trouble with Freddy -Mean Girls puns. -“You dropped your coffee? Get in, bitch, we’re getting more” -“How dare you!” -Tiffany laughing because of how terrible the jokes are. -Also, just horrible jokes in general. The type that makes you cringe, but also giggles. -Her being so open with you. -This girl will literally share anything with you. No fuss, at all. -She believes that trust is the foundation of every relationship, so why should she keep secrets? -She has so much faith in you, so the thought of you ever telling anyone something private has never even crossed her mind. -She hates it when you’re sad. -It physically pains her to know that you’re hurting. -So she’ll do everything she can to make you happy again. -Want to cry it out? She’ll hold you, murmuring words of comfort as she does so. -Feel like eating away from your problems? She’ll take you down to the kitchen so you can both have as much food as you want. -Just need to let it all out? She’ll take you by the hand and walk you down the lake so you can throw stones into the water. Or she’ll just take you up to the bedroom so you can scream into a pillow until your voice stops working. -Constant physical contact. -Even if it’s just holding hands, or feeling your shoulder brush against her: she likes to know that you’re there, and you’re safe. -Because in such a short amount of time, you’d become so important to her. -And she couldn’t bear to live without you by her side.

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infinitelytheheartexpands · 4 years ago

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Responses from the Opera Screencaps Captioning Quiz

Hello, everyone, and thank you for taking my quiz! I had SO MUCH fun reading your captions-- there were several times I literally started crying from laughing so hard at the amazingness of your work! With that in mind, the captions (which I will continue to add onto as more people take it):

(also, thank you to @dichterfuerstin for translating the German captions I got)

originally taken from: the Wiener Staatsoper’s 2020 production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, featuring Regula Mühlemann (center) as Blonde, Michael Laurenz (right) as Pedrillo, and an unnamed extra (left) as the Grim Reaper

Responses:

(Backstage warm-up) “ok so someone dropped the pulse”

me and my friends watching the fire burn after doing arson

Introducing the polycule to the parents

*boom* ... did...you guys hear that too?

Ma Signor !

Knight in whinging armour gone wrong, look at how he holds the egg. Polyamory with weird knight and death.

the father, son and the holy ghost are very gay

the gays meeting for brunch, 2021, colorized

chicken lady forces death and a very flamboyantly homosexual anthropomorphized pink bird to be parents of her egg (they dont want to be)

That’s just me and my friends on our night out (before covid rip)-- closest

A Good Friday night

good omens (2019)

["the pocket guide to boy/girl/mischief" meme] who's the boy and who's the mischief though????

Papageno and Papagena take their first-born egg trick-or-treating

Angry Birds - The Musical. A pig stole an egg and the bird unites with death to take revenge.

I love my bird wife

Someone got murdered during the funky chicken dance

throuple murders child and steals sibling of said child

When you and your friends have widely different tastes in literature

angel leading twink to his rightful place (hell)

draco malfoy from a very potter musical and a death eater are very much in the wrong show

What have I gotten myself into

Mlm/wlw solidarity but I’m not telling who is who

A woman stands with a pink dipshit with an egg and a reaper.

A bird-couple makes a pact with Death, sacrificing their first-born bird-child in order to bring good luck upon their unborn bird-baby

There are three types of people on Halloween:

Uh oh, I don’t think the mother hen is very happy about this...

oh god, they’ve invented seussical. It’s too early!

gay brunch

Three little maids from school are we

guys maybe if we dress gay enough we can distract everyone from the dead flapper bee in the back

those three killed a duck for her egg and are facing the conswquences.

Duck has egg with human, shocked and upset due to biological impossibility

When you bout to make a banging omelet so you invite your fellow queers

"No mortal man could pass that egg, but heaven shall repair your rectum."

originally taken from: the Salzburg Festival’s 2007 production of Hector Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, featuring Maija Kovalevska (left) as Teresa Balducci, Laurent Naouri (center, in chimney) as Fieramosca, and Burkhard Fritz (right) as Benvenuto Cellini

Responses:

“In this same interlude it doth befall That I, one Snout by name, present a wall; And such a wall, as I would have you think, That had in it a crannied hole or chink, Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby, Did whisper often very secretly. This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show That I am that same wall; the truth is so: And this the cranny is, right and sinister, Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.” - a midsummer night’s dream, act v scene 1

"ah yes a prime specimen. see here, right in this box is our one of a kind hob goblin that can be all yours for the low low price of your soul"

what, YOU don't have a special eavesdropping chimney window?

Hänsel und Gretel plotting against the witch

man takes a wrong turn and ends up in a chimney, catches his girlfriend cheating-- closest

when you end up third wheeling the straight couple

lady cheats on her leather jacket wearing scummy boyfriend and when he unexpectedly comes home she hides the lover in the chimney

A straight girl and her gay best friend gossip about stuff idk

Idk Shakespeare?

experimental couples therapy feat. the chimney mf from mary poppins

Area Couple Inadvertently Traps Santa-in-Training in Chimney as they Attempt Rooftop Flirting

Landlords laugh over student renter's misfortune

I never asked for this

Ay yo lil mama lemme whisper in your ear

voyeurist listens to sandy and Danny from grease

Psssst! Did you hear about Susan? You won’t believe it!

lady and the tramp meets beauty and the beast?

human trafficking

And for just $30 you too could have your own tiny brick cage!

Psst I’m wearing assless chaps under this dress

A couple tortures a man in a box.

It's all fun and games being stuck in a chimney until your greasy uncle steals your crush from right above you-- okay ngl this could actually be a great Don Pasquale concept

Taking eavesdropping to the next level

Will you two stop being lovey dovey and let me out? SUMMER LOVIN, HAPPENED SO FAST—

overhearing how people talk about you when they think they're alone puts you in the shithouse

Does he know we can see him?

dear god, i am so fucking hungry, yall please just do whatever heterosexuals do so i can go eat a popsicle

the human version of the trash man from sesame street is realizing that those two are going to fuck on his trash can

Tmw you capture an angry short dude and start trashtalking him where he can hear

Omg what if we kissed but we actually kissed the lil goblin man under us

"Remember, don't feed him after midnight"

originally taken from: the Théâtre de Capitole du Toulouse’s 2017 staging of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le prophète, featuring Leonardo Estevez (right, on fake horse) as Le Comte d’Oberthal

Responses:

“When I said we needed to drain the swamp I didn’t think there were people actually living there”

horse? what horse? no sir i dont know what horse youre referring to.

definitely don't have a napoleon complex going on

King stole La Scala‘s Lohengrin set

king breaks all his horses, has to use statue dragged by servants as transportation because he’s too kingly too walk

Emperor Söder and his subjects on a carnival procession

man on horse makes a big deal out of being on a horse

That’s not Zeffirelli because the horse is not alive

Who the fuck put a horse on the stage

isn't this that picture of napoleon on the horse

Area Count Thinks Citizens will be Intimidated by his Extremely Fake-looking Horse Statue-- closest

Everyone wants their turn on the giant plaster horse. Police are there to make sure everyone waits their turn.

Night out with the lads

Local royalty horrified at the state of his own damn kingdom

gay army fights different gay aesthetics-- hi author how does it feel to be the funniest fucking person on this quiz

Well at least I LOOK badass

ceasar if he hadn't gotten stabbed (colourised)

some soldiers jumped out of my kindergarten fairytale collection book to burn the don carlos flemish deputies at the stake

It’s just a model

Is that how you feel pulling up in your Honda Civic, Madge?

Someone rides a horse statue in public.

Just a normal party with the bros.

what is this, some kind of crossover episode?

Terribly sorry for all the fuss, it’s just, that is, my horse is afraid of neck ruffles. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but he’s—whoaaa there—he said he was a french courtier in a past life and he’s allergic to English fashion

Horse seller, listen to me! I am riding into battle. I need your strongest horse. - We have horses at home. - The horses at home:

All hail Incitatus the king

we are not ripping off shakespeare’s henry viii. what the fuck. this is about lenny xi you uncultured swine, go drown in a pit of your own farts

oh god is that hamilton

Guy Removed From Art Museum For Sitting On Statue, more at eleven

Gay <3

Officer: This horse... is a virgin! Crowd: *cheers*

originally taken from: the Parma Verdi Festival’s 2017 staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s Stiffelio, featuring Maria Katzarava (left) as Lina and Luciano Ganci (right) as Stiffelio

Responses:

That One kid in class

its a mEntAL BreAkDowN *final countdown but kazoo*

*record scratch* yeah, that's me. you're probably wondering how I got here-- closest

Dad keeps monologuing, teenager is done

left: all of my concerned friends, right: my emo ass having a very public mental breakdown

the demons in the corner of my room when im just trying to sleep

lady gets mansplained to (do i need to say more, we've all been there)

It’s probably an area baritone telling off an area soprano-- sorry; it’s a tenor. soprano is right though.

That was a fake horse in the last photo right?

child comes out as gay to father at a particularly bad time

dissociation solves everything

I can't believe it's not butter

Honey we talked about this

My sleep paralysis demon is Crowley from supernatural

child has nightmare of boring job

When you start dating a singer but he won’t stop practicing at night

just an average day in a hetero marriage

what do i do my wife's having period cramps again

Stop having an existential crisis. It’s time to sing!

“No son of mine will kin Gomez Addams under MY roof”

Crowley stares into space while a teen has post nut clarity.

When he wont stop reciting jordan peterson monologues!!

Do you realize how effed you are?

Ugh, not this lecture again! Dad’s Practicing For His Experimental Indie Band Again

asking your parents for help with your own personal situation and them just ranting off about what they went through instead of helping in any way

Will he shut up already!

no one tell him he’s yelling in the wrong direction, no one tell him plnsbdjddhdj

this kid is tired of his dad listening to rush limbaugh (a man who claimed to be pro life but died anyway)

Me internally vs externally

Daddy issues

originally taken from: the Grand Théâtre de Genève’s 2020 staging of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, featuring several chorus members

Responses:

It’s the deadly eye Of Poogley-pie. Look away, look away, As you walk by, ‘Cause whoever looks right at it Surely will die. It’s a good thing you didn’t … You did? … Good-bye. - shel Silverstein

why the fuckith? my good sir, i beg of you to put your pants back on

I hate this itchy hat

Titanic Extras hear that they have to do extra hours

people waiting to board the titanic watch someone fall off the plank

pov: you’re a time traveler

guy in the flatcap is embarrassed by patriotism and pathos

No idea. For some reason Le Marseillaise comes to mind

Is this from Harry Potter?

disneyland main street usa workers on strike

local tries to hide behind Newsies cap to avoid unpleasant but inevitable conversations. meanwhile, some very fashionable ladies look on.

"Thank fuck, 2020 was just a dream after all"

“We gather here today because this bitch got exactly what she deserved” “heaven!” “Stfu Stephanie she’s going to hell and we all know it”-- not quite but this basically happens later on in the opera (and act) so yeah (except the person in question very much Did Not Deserve It)

dc movie filter on bridgerton

america?

looks like my history teacher paused the prohibition documentary again

Who still wears page boy hats bro?

Coming out to a room of people who Already Knew That

Bitches are relieved at some party.

Several drunk people exiting getting off the subway attempting to seem sober and rational but realizing they have somehow lost all of their possessions

How tf do I act natural in this situation-- closest

“do you think any of them noticed that I don’t know the pledge of allegiance”

It's too fucking hot outside for this outfit

when hyyh yoonkook ending just hits different

pedestrians watch in horror as the triangle shirtwaist factory burns and the workers throw themselves out of the windows from a dozen stories up

Starting the pledge of allegiance be like

He's having a heart attack oh no oh god oh fuck

originally taken from: if I remember correctly, the Semperoper Dresden’s 2018 semi-staging of Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus, with Jonas Kaufmann as Gabriel von Eisenstein

Responses:

“William Shakespeare wrote: "To thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man" I believe this wise statement best applies to a woman A blonde woman Over the past three years she taught me And showed us all That being true to yourself never goes out of style Ladies and gentlemen Our valedictorian: Elle Woods!” - legally blonde the musical

eat ass, suck a dick, and sell drugs

woooooorrrrd

Finally Jonas has graduated! It’s about time, considering he’s an international star.

what my professors think they look like

Prof. Dr. Dr. When someone tells him there are more than two genders

'and since you've now graduated high school, you'll be entering college etc. blablabla' .........meanwhile, there's a whole row of graduates daring each other to chug the cheap vodka one of them has brought in gallons (yes that happened at my graduation, lol)

Jonas darling baby <3-- can’t argue with that

I just realized I have no idea what the actual fuck happens in an opera

ok this one is just what jonas kaufmann always wears you can't fool me.

"as valedictorian i will share with you the importance of loving the floor"

"Yes, mother, my art degree will make me money!"

Graduation speakers are out, singers are in

Senior year takes a new meaninbg

mansplainer professor explains the concept of feminism to women

Your Prof when you finally turn in that missing assignment be like

younger boris johnson (derogatory)

jonas kaufmann retires from opera and takes up motivational speaking

What a fine graduation evening we’re having today

-70 points for slytherin you all have no swag

A man with a college hat sings.

An obviously greying actor trying to play a university student in a low-budget porn parody

How it feels to graduate high school after being held back for years

East High is a place where teachers encouraged us to break the status quo and define ourselves as we choose. Where a jock can cook up a mean crème brûlée, and a brainiac can break it down on the dance floor-

I may not have been "cool" in high school, but in ten years you will all be working for me!

I finally got my GED!

that one guy in ur intro to cultural anthropology class who mansplains to the professor somehow fucking graduated

he;s just graduating and taking his speech too serously idk

Graduation speeches with that one dude who got held back 3 times

Smrt

originally taken from: the Metropolitan Opera’s 2011 staging of Gioachino Rossini’s Le Comte Ory with Joyce DiDonato (left) as Isolier, Diana Damrau (center) as Countess Adèle, and Juan Diego Florez (right) as Le Comte Ory (disguised as a hermit)

Responses:

There is something very [disturbing grunts] About polyamorous couples - polyamorous, Chris Fleming

jinkies

femme fatale (including to herself)

I’ll have a threesome soon !

Hot guy walks by, everyone swoons.

thirdwheeling friend does not realize the other two are having sex

When your girlfriend had „just two beers“ again

jesus is exasperated about having to drag the two ladies towards doing what he needs them to do instead of purple dramatically declaring suicidal intent over the smallest trivial matters and red being equally dramatic about declaring that it's not the way! stay alive! i love you!!

The throuple is thriving

Get off the milf

orgy

my last three braincells because im a horny slut

countess receives too much love and is confused on how to react

Rasputin's lesser known romp with a much older czarina of russia

Woman's soul leaves body

Jesus and co. are worried after another woman gets pregnant without having sex

bisexual looks at photos of celebrity couples

When you go to the party to socialize with new people but your weirdo friend group starts getting clingy

Jesus cumming

one of those weird church christmas pageants but everybody's drunk

What have I done

Hozier??????????

Jesus assfucks some purple lady being hugged.

This time, the chick IS the magnet

An affair/threesome gone awry (2019 colorized)

What do you mean they canceled GLOW?

“I TOLD you it was cashmere!”

Are you wearing the - - The Gucci dress? Yes I am.

It's not what it looks like!

jesus is fucking that one cheerleader who grew up to be a suburban mom with one (1) super cool dress she stole from her kid who is desperately hugging her middle begging for it back because the spring fling is coming up and jason might actually make eye contact with her for more than three seconds.

jesus and mary magdaline and some other bitch

I’m at a bar and these drunk girls are flirting with me, do I lOOK GAY?!

Shrek 5, jesus's return

c. 2025 First attempt of an Officer and his Wife with a Handmaiden (colourized)

just about all of these are close lol

originally taken from: the Bolshoi Theater’s 1993 staging of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orléans, featuring Nina Rautio (left) as Joan of Arc and Vyacheslav Pochapsky (right) as Thibaut d’Arc

Responses:

Don’t look, I’m still pooping

yall, the audacity of this man. he fuckin talked to me

*i can't even tell you how wrong you are* *it would be insulting to ME*-- closest

Cospeto!

„No I’m not talking to you, you keep cracking bad jokes!“ - „But I got another!“

when you’re mad at him but he says he’ll buy you food if you cheer up

When I’m wallowing in self-pity but my friends won’t comfort me

right: wanna fuck ;) left: yeah, fuck OFF lmao

Her face is screaming “don’t tell me what to do”

Yeah I got nothing

gay man tries to hit on a lesbian bc he thinks she's a twink. she's not amused but she's watching this happen anyway

me tired of MET's bullshit and them organising a Netrebko, known blackface apologist, a recital during Black History Month. (sorry im still fucking salty lol)

"stop smiling at me like that I'm trying to pout over here"

"I got fleas, you got fleas... wanna fuck?"

I have the best idea!

Haha nooooo don’t hit me with that bat you’re so sexxyy

lesbian is bothered by dilf

Me trying to flirt

if call me by your name was hetero and set in america

how many more dad jokes can i take before i explode

So. You’ve gotten yourself in a little pickle again.

What if we fought in the Russian revolution together ✨???????... unless??

Two people flirt in a poor place of town/

"If you ask me what I've got under this dirty, shapeless tunic one more time I swear to god I will kick your rotting teeth in"

You look like ur gonna kill me but ok

Really? You again?

Okay, I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes, do you think it’s safe to—oh god, he’s still there.

Have you seen Godot?

she is tired of everyone’s shit. she has done so many derivatives it physically pains her to see a variable. dont test her. ur icarus rn.

idk pick better pictures-- I HAVE DIED THE SHEER AUDACITY AND HUBRIS I LOVE THIS

200% done with your crap

Homeless man has fucking legs of steel n is gonna show off his Russian dance moves

originally taken from: the Théâtre de Capitole du Toulouse’s 2019 staging of Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-bleue, featuring Sophie Koch (right) as Ariane and I don’t remember who the person on the left is rip me

Responses:

The knight who wore this into battle sure was swaggy

dear god its hiddeous

Capitalism

Knight in shining armour gone even more wrong.

ghost contemplates the safety of spiky motorcycle helmet

„Stop! He feels bullied!“

'this is my newest take for jesus's crucifixion crown ...... what do you mean they already put him up'

That’s probably a really expensive magic helmet idk. IDK-- closest

Omg I love the adventure zone!

minesweeper (windows xp)

"Okay whatever you do don't touch the shiny spiky ball" "It's so shiny I wanna touch it"

Taking down the trash way too late

IT'S NOT A PHASE MOM

Darth Vader got stuck in the freezer.... again. Leia isn’t happy

Star Wars 2030

“And here is the very latest in motorcycle helmet trends” “Look, I only came to the mall for a pair of socks “

futuristic kkk

long-suffering jewelry store attendant really wants to retire

Put it down put it down put it down

“Hmm no you should see a doctor about that”

A weird ass crown is presented

The creation of sars-cov-2: an experimental Eurotrance nightclub art piece gone horribly wrong

How it feels to want something that u cant have

AND WE WILL CALL IT—SPIKE MAN actually do you think that’s too obvious?? Because of the—yeah, because of the spikes?? See, that’s what I’m worried about. I want it to be SCARY

I know it's risky but... lube me up

use the force luke.

that is a weird fleshlight

When you get an ugly gift and need to find a way to get rid of it, so your family member/friend offers to smash it

Touch the orb

originally taken from: the Opera Vlaanderen’s 2019 staging of Fromental Halévy’s La Juive, with Nicole Chevalier (left, with bottle) as Princess Eudoxie, Enea Scala (center, under table) as Prince Léopold, and Roy Cornelius Smith (right) as Éléazar

Responses:

When no one comes to your birthday party :(

fantastic, day 487 of mischief and they have yet to find my masterful hiding spot

i really wonder who he thinks he's playing footsie with

Marriage crisis. Reason sits under the table-- closest but not in the way you think (after all, the man under the table IS a tenor).

the last supper afterparty after jesus left

When you order the last supper on wish

espionage at the Politischer Rosenmontag

Probably the wrong opera but is that Leporello under the table

Now THIS is a Good Friday night

this was every birthday party i went to between the ages of 5 and 11

that awkward moment when you drop your fork under the table but when you re-emerge everyone else has left except one drunk lady and the guy trying to deal with her

After the last supper

Tfw you arrive to the dinner party too early and have to hide until a more fashionable hour

When the cishets aren’t home

waiter hides from customers

Nobody: My dog every time I’m eating:

what's left of the homies Jesus had dinner with

university chem lab experiment gone terribly wrong

I’ve been under the table FOR 30 MINUTES

Set your friends up by tossing them off under the table, they’ll think it’s each other n fall in luv

Someone hids under a table

"You're about to see an surreptitious-under-the-table-dick-sucking master at work"

5 yr old me trying to eat the desert under the table without my parents finding out be like:

They never invite me to their parties!

Just another girl’s night in

Oops! Didn’t notice you the table.

dionysus - bts (2019, colorized)

just a normal episode of eric andre (eric is the one under the table)

Just a normal day with the boys

Thievery

originally taken from: the Théâtre de Capitole du Toulouse’s 2017 staging of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le prophète, featuring Kate Aldrich (left, surrounded by women in white) as Fidès and John Osborn (center, looking like a Jesus doppelganger) as Jean de Leyde

Responses:

Hold up, is that Eggman above Jesus?

holy disco

Looks like Tannhäuser. Our lord and saviour Richard Wagner. Now I need to be saved from that.

catholicism

me defending pineapple on pizza (THANK YOU)

jesus but hes about to be abducted by the alien ufo above him

Emmmmmmm Heaven? Idk

Lord of the rings?

ewww christianity gross

"behold, I am Important"

"Seriously?? It's not ACTUALLY pyjama day? Fuck you guys!"

Jesus at the Disco

Jesus Finds The Molerat People Who Live Under Bethlehem

disco is heaven

Want to join my new religion?

the kkk

church christmas pageant where everyone's sober but it's based on the director's fever dream

Am I the only one who sees the giant demon? Just me? Okay...

“Oh god I think I’m starting my period”

A party is held with a priest in the middle

"Let's get this secret Vatican sex party rolling!"

The new avengers endgame set is looking great!!

You know, guys, I try not to be a bother but...I can’t help but feel like I missed a dress code memo for this wedding??? It’s cocktail, right??”

Jesus visits Hogwarts

I must really stink if no one will even come close to me

the extra ass funeral i DESERVE

star wars life day

A cult at it’s best-- closest

Shrek 5, Jesus is still there I guess

originally taken from: the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden’s 2013 staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes, featuring Bryan Hymel (left, standing) as Henri, Lianna Haroutounian (center, kneeling in the black gown) as Duchess Hélène, and Erwin Schrott (kneeling to her right) as Jean Procida

Responses:

When the director’s like “great rehearsal guys, just a few notes before I let you go” but it’s already 9:13 and your mom’s waiting in the parking lot

loyalist of subjects

bow before your queen

They forgot to take down the stage boxes after the Vienna opera ball but the show must go on.

somebody forgot to book chairs for this funeral

Me sharing God’s (Hayley koyoko) word on the discord server

mass execution bc the oboe solo sucked ass-- closest

That’s too many black suits I can’t see shit

I can’t even tell what’s going on here

8th grade school assembly about how it's uncool to shit on the walls at school

let's all get fancy so we can go to the opera and sit on the stage (idk this one's hard lol)

"Yes i am a time traveller, now don't freak out"

Tfw you forget to pay your lighting bills

White guys make decisions that will benefit them and screw someone that’s not a white guy over-- OUCH but that is too real (although not really in context here)

dead man gives speech at his own funeral

brotus and the boys ??? last meeting before the stabbing

high society social function ends in mass murder-- right opera, wrong scene

Someone walks into the talent show stage with a dog

Black-dressed bitches worship a man.

Worst school assembly of all time

POV:You're the window in the classroom and someone said "its snowing"

When the conductor shows up fashionably late to the orchestra concert

That's what you get for choosing the cheapest ticket option, get back in the mud where you belong

theyre just trying to jump into a grave at a funeral leabe them alone this is normal

oh my god he really whipped his dick out in front of everyone, this is just like in 1776 guys, except some women are actually in the room this time,

A funeral, stop wearing so much black

I want to slap their bald heads like rice

originally taken from: the Teatro Real Madrid’s 2018 staging of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, featuring Roberto Tagliavini (right) as Raimondo

Responses:

Crowd “haha!! Looks like someone missed the all-black memo!! Now it’s laugh-in-your-face time! / Guy on the floor (whispering to guy against wall): go, save yourself! I’ll hold them off...”

if i leave now i wont be a witness and can tell the police i had no idea

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Guy in the back pretends to help but is to far away to even know what’s going on.

priest walks in on beginning of an orgy, contemplated joining but is too scared-

when someone brings up capitalism but you’re just trying to play minecraft

lol lets trample this guy while the judge isnt looking

Again. Too many black costumes

Loved this Dostoevsky novel

i would know if opera directors were more creative with clothing choices ngl

me on parties lol

"imma just sneak out of here while everyone else is distracted"

"Where did he get this flooring!? Amazing!"

Everyone act normal!

The tell tale heart but they got REALLY drunk

man tposes to ward off vampires after being caught undercover

boys ???? night

the priest really shouldn't have visited the insane asylum-- closest

He’s FINE everyone’s been hit by a car before

Something happens in a room.

Perks of being a wallflower

There's always that one person in the fight whos trying not to get involved when they really wanna

Oh good, they’re all posing for a Rembrandt painting, I can just sneeeeaaak out the back here...

The gamer livestreaming Resident Evil + everyone watching the stream ? waiting for him to open the door just knowing it will trigger a chase scene

Quick!

the guy t posing in the back is regretting his every decision.-- also accurate

the us senate jumps ted cruz, some other wack ass gop senator is trying to sneak away

...I spoke too soon, however this is a James Bond mission

Queers help fellow queer do math but it's a struggle

#opera #opera tag #results #screencaps #captions #caption #caption this #caption contest #this seems to have gone over well and I am Pleased

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prorevenge · 4 years ago

Text

Neighbours refused to be quiet, so I played the long game and made them move out

A few years ago I got hired at a job in a big city with expensive rent. I slept on my brother's couch for a few months while I struggled to find a place, but eventually found someone in an old building who wanted to get out of their rental agreement. The apartment was pretty close to work and in a nice area, so I took it, almost too good to be true...

It didn't take long for me to realize I made a big mistake. The building was old, and the walls were made of plaster. Any sound reverberated like crazy, I could hear people cough and sneeze like they were standing in my place. What's worse, I shared one of these thin walls with my neighbours, who were absolutely fucking insane. They just would not shut up. I would hear a man and woman argue constantly, often until 2 or 3 in the morning. And by arguing I mean literally screaming and shouting and throwing things against the wall. When they weren't arguing they were always just LOUD, shouting and whining at each other like little kids constantly. Pretty much the quintessential toxic, obnoxious couple. And the shit they would argue about was so stupid! I remember hearing an argument about who's turn it was to steal shampoo from the drug store. One time the boyfriend decided to yell "THE BIBLE SAYS WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS" over and over again for some reason. Almost every day it would be something different and uniquely annoying.

The first real incident happened when I was woken up by screaming and banging against my wall at 1am. I did what I usually did (blasted Kenny G through my speakers at the wall until they shut up), but this time it didn't work. The banging got louder so I stopped the music, but then it got worse and sounded like a fight. It was hard to describe, but it sounded like the woman was getting beaten up. At this point I was more concerned than mad so I called my superintendent, who told me to call the police (not the US). The police came, the neighbours told them everything was fine, the police left, it was quiet, I went back to bed.

Literally the next night I am woken up again at 1am by my neighbours having another argument. This time I heard a BOOM, then the woman say "oh my god" in an weird voice, and then banging and what sounds like someone being strangled. The noises were freaky and way more concerning than even last time so I called the police again. The police came, the neighbours told them everything was fine again, the police left again, and it was quiet again, but this time the police called me back and basically told me I was an idiot for wasting their time. They said there was no evidence of any fight and both neighbours denied anything even happened. Even the superintendent said that no one else on the floor complained and intimated that I was starting to become a nuisance. I decided from this point forward I was going to go full Spielberg with video evidence.

The noise was bad for the next 6 months, and I would get woken up at least once a week after midnight by yelling and screaming. I made a few written complaints, a few videos as evidence, and sent them to the property manager. There was enough to serve them an eviction notice and go to the landlord/tenant board, but somehow the property manager fucked up the date for the hearing and it never actually took place. Thankfully the noise stopped anyway (for now...), so I assumed the neighbours finally got the message and would be quiet from now on. I didn't fight for another hearing because the eviction notice gave the neighbours an opportunity to be quiet, which they sort of did.

As an aside, the video evidence I gathered during this time was BEAUTIFUL. I was pleasantly surprised that my phone was very good at picking up their voices. It got to the point where I would get excited when I was woken up in the middle of the night, because I would run out into the hallway and film their door and room number as the noise blasted out and echoed down the hall. I gathered some damning, unambiguous evidence, pure gold, and it was all timestamped at around midnight or 1am. But because the hearing got cancelled I didn't get to present my evidence (at least not yet...)

For a few months, everything was reasonably ok. They were still loud as fuck during the day. and there were a few times after 11pm on weeknights where I went to their door and asked them to keep it down, but other than that things were mostly better, and I was starting to be able to relax in my place for once. Yet again it was too good to be true...

One day around 2:30 in the afternoon I start hearing this weird, high-pitched screeching coming from my neighbours place. And it doesn't stop for hours. I'm sitting on my couch trying to figure out what it is. It sounds like a giant fucking tropical bird moved in next door.

Well it turns out, after all the shit we went through a year ago with the noise complaints and eviction notice, my neighbours decided it would be a good idea to get a dog.

And of course these obnoxious assholes couldn't just get a quiet, normal, well-behaved dog. They had to get a completely untrained, 4 month old, tiny, yappy Pomeranian that was INCAPABLE of being quiet. This thing would yap and screech and bark over and over and over EVERY DAY for HOURS.

While I'm still coming to terms with how miserable my life is about to become, I get a note under my door. On it, my neighbour writes that she just got the dog as an emotional support animal for her mental health, and asks the whole hallway to please try to tolerate the noise.

Fuck that shit. I'd already been living next to and listening to these neighbours scream at each other for over a year. They were confirmed fucking morons; two insane, toxic assholes in a mutually abusive relationship. I knew with CERTAINTY that they weren't capable of taking care of this dog properly and the noise situation would go to complete shit.

And regarding the mental health, I was going through my own troubles during this time (in part due to lack of sleep) and was seeing a therapist. The last year of complaints should have made it clear to anyone that noise was a problem for me, especially getting woken up at night. Of all the things this neighbour could have chosen to help their mental health, they chose the most obnoxious thing possible. They knew getting a loud dog was going to be a problem and they did it anyway. It was time for WAR.

I realized if I wanted this noise to stop, or to be even taken seriously, I needed a mountain of evidence against my neighbours. I researched the evictions process and everything that was required. I checked the forms my superintendent would have to send out for an eviction notice. I read threads on reddit about slumlords and neighbour disputes. It became clear to me the only way to win was to be religiously disciplined both in gathering evidence and refusing to retaliate (no more Kenny G). I became a noise-complaint monk, taking a vow of disciplined log taking, and relying on mantras like "shut the fuck up... shut the fuck up...."

Once I submitted my first written complaint, things got bad. My neighbours flipped out when they realized I was complaining again. I heard stuff like "OF ALL THE APARTMENTS IN --- WE HAVE TO LIVE NEXT TO THIS FUCKING GUY?!" for a few days. Then the loud arguments in the middle of the night started all over again. And one of the neighbours got into the new habit of SLAMMING their chest of drawers against my wall at 2am.

The barking also got much worse. The emotional-support-animal letter said that the barking would get better once the dog was trained, but from what I could hear my neighbours methods of training began and ended with screaming at the dog just like they screamed at each other each day. "NO! BAD DOG!", "BE QUIET!", "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" came through my wall in new and varied combinations every day. And every time an argument started between my neighbours the dog would always join in, even in the middle of the night. The constant level of noise was insane.

For over a year, l logged every instance of yelling, shouting, and barking coming from my neighbours apartment. It didn't matter if it was after 11pm or not at this point, I was trying to demonstrate how I can't get peace at any time of day. And when I say every instance, I mean I had minute-to-minute logs of every loud noise and every word I heard from my neighbours wall. If I was woken up in the middle of the night it went in the log. If I heard the dog bark from 12pm-1pm on February 2nd it went in the log. If I heard someone yell "YOU PEED ON THE FLOOR AGAIN, FUCK!" at the dog it went in the log. Honestly it sucked and made me almost lose my fucking mind, but by the time I was done I had pages and pages of notes

Obviously written logs wouldn't be enough. I already had a decently fat stack of video evidence to demonstrate the true character of my neighbours, but I needed current evidence if there was going to be another hearing. Fuck Spielberg, now I was Coppola in the heart of darkness. I got more videos of screaming and shouting coming out of their door. I got videos of banging and barking against my shared wall. I got videos of screaming, shouting, banging, and barking all at the same time, or in any combination. I had amassed a war-chest of video evidence to be deployed at the next available hearing, but I was getting war-weary

At this point I was like 6 or 8 months into the complaints process and I could barely take it anymore. I was getting woken up like 2 nights a week and would be a zombie at work (I complained about my neighbours at work often). I was finding it harder and harder to keep myself from blasting music, or banging on their wall, or kicking their fucking door down. But I managed to stay strong, and I followed the eviction process like it was my religion. I sent in a second written complaint, then a third which resulted in an eviction notice, which gave the neighbours an opportunity to be quiet. This time they didn't give a fuck, if anything they were louder than ever before. I was looking for other places to move into when I finally get good news from the property manager: there's a hearing date!

There was light at the end of the tunnel, but once the neighbours heard about the hearing date they did everything they could to fuck me up. There were no attempts to stop the barking anymore, it was constant. The screaming matches were back in full force, and when they started yelling and screaming the dog would go nuts! It was just an insane amount of noise.

And the drawers were ridiculous! Honestly I never expected the slamming drawers to be that bad but they easily eclipsed the barking and the shouting. They would SLAM and SLAM and SLAM the drawers over and over again against my wall. And because of the plaster it would BOOM BOOM BOOM and echo through my whole place. These assholes were definitely doing it on purpose.

3 days before the hearing date I go to bed at 9:45pm. At 10pm I'm still not asleep but I'm startled by BOOM BOOM of the drawers, I log it and go back to bed. At 11:30pm I wake up to BOOM BOOM BOOM again, and I'm pissed off. It takes me half an hour but I fall asleep again. Then at 12:45am BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM there it is again! I call my superintendent, tell her what's going on, the super calls them and tells them to stop. I fall back asleep. Then at 1:30am BOOM BOOM BOOM I wake up super fucking angry, it's obvious they're doing this on purpose to piss me off before the hearing and get a reaction out of me. I call the super again, and go back to sleep again. Then at 2:45am BOOM BOOM BOOM I can't take it anymore. I scream "DO IT AGAIN!!!! DO IT AGAIN!!!" I lost it, I couldn't help myself. My discipline broke. My superintendent calls me and tells me my neighbours just said I yelled a death threat through the wall (what the fuck?) and that they're calling the police (WHAT THE FUCK?). Everything just feels fucked now, I can't sleep so I just wait until morning. No police show up and I go to work. I realized I couldn't even stay at my place anymore until this hearing was over, so I went back to my brothers couch for the next 3 days.

Finally the big day arrives. I gather my evidence: Over a year of meticulously logged noise complaints, 6 instances of video evidence (I cherry picked the gold out of 20 good ones), the previous eviction notice the neighbours received, 4 written noise complaints (including the 2 from the previous eviction notice), a letter from my co-worker about poor work performance due to lack of sleep, and even a letter from my therapist about how my neighbours' excessive noise was affecting my mental health.

I got there and met the property manager and superintendent, who were there with the owner of the property management company and a slick looking lawyer. I handed the lawyer all my evidence. I gave him a usb stick with the videos. I even handed over my big bluetooth speaker to make sure the videos were loud enough to hear (laptop speakers suck).

I look over to my neighbours and they are wide-eyed. They look scared! Finally!

We all go into the landlord/tenant board room with everybody. The adjudicator first asks if anyone wants to mediate instead of going through with the hearing. My neighbour's hand immediately shoots up. I say in front of everybody "I don't want to mediate!" but apparently it's not up to me and the lawyer takes me aside.

The lawyer tells me if it goes to mediation, the neighbours and the property management create an agreement (e.g. no more noise at x o'clock), and if that agreement is broken once it results in an immediate eviction. He explains if we go in front of the board instead it's a 50/50 chance they either get evicted or get off completely. Obviously mediation is the better way to go, I know these idiots are already incapable of keeping quiet, so I agree with the lawyer. We go out to find the neighbours and they're nowhere to be found. Turns out they opted for the free legal counsel ( I wonder why) and won't be available until the afternoon.

While waiting I explain to the property manager, owner, and lawyer what happened a few days ago with the slamming drawers all night long. When I made my complaints before no one really took them seriously, but today everyone is very interested in everything I have to say.

The afternoon comes, and I'm excluded from the mediation meeting because it's between the neighbours, the lawyer, and the owner. I can't hear what they're saying but I can hear my neighbours yelling and shouting from inside the room so I know it's not going well for them.

Everyone leaves the room and the lawyer comes up to me. He tells me the mediation failed, the neighbours refuse to change their behaviour and won't accept any terms. The lawyer says they have to go in front of the adjudicator again but by now it's almost the end of the day.

I wait another hour or two and everyone comes out. I see my neighbours leave as the lawyer comes by again and explains. Apparently, after the mediation failed, the property management owner offered my neighbours 2 months rent FREE if they agreed to move out in 2 months. The neighbours agreed, but when they all went in front of the adjudicator the neighbours changed their minds and said no! And apparently a second offer was made, which they said yes to, and then no again, all in front of the adjudicator! They ended up running out of time and the adjudicator cut the hearing short and said it would have to be resolved in a second hearing. I was disappointed, but the lawyer assured me that because of how capricious and insane my neighbours behaved in during the hearing, they would almost certainly be evicted during a second hearing. I was dismayed that it wasn't over, but hopeful the end was coming soon. I also felt vindicated, it was finally clear to everyone that my neighbours were actually insane and I wasn't just making this up.

The next two months weren't as bad as before. I continued my long steady march of logs and videos. But the noise definitely let up, especially the drawers. One day near the end of the second month I started to hear insane barking, it would not stop. It went on for hours and hours and hours. I called the superintendent to complain when they told me it was probably because the neighbours were moving out today. YES! HAHAHA! FINALLY! Apparently she couldn't tell me earlier because of privacy reasons. As they were moving out I blasted 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye' on loop, put in some earplugs, and took a 2 hour bath.

My apartment is quiet now and I can finally sleep. It wasn't exactly the satisfying crushing blow I wanted but my discipline paid off and now I can live in peace.

(source) story by (/u/ZapoiBoi)

#prorevenge #by /u/ZapoiBoi #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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venusxxlangdon · 6 years ago

Text

Garden of Eden

summary: beware of your wishes when you wander in the Garden of Eden, especially if the Antichrist has the keys.

pairing: outpost!Michael x fem!reader

words: 8.9k

warnings: smut, fingering, oral (female receiving), dirty talk, choking

To Katherine, Sofi, Sam & Caitlin

A big mansion loomed proudly behind the iron gates, flanked by the rows of green freshly-trimmed trees crowned in crimson blossom, swaying gently in the summer breeze. Ivy and fern grew through the crevice of the white marble of the walls that kept the secrets of the mysterious owner of the house. Michael Langdon was an exquisite neighbor, and if one dared to ask what he did for a living or who he was, nobody would be able to answer. Numerous rumors ghosted around his persona because Mr. Langdon himself was a very private man. He never honored any of the public events with his presence, for what he was deeply disliked by others. It was the paradox of life when one chose his own path, detached and aloof, and was strongly judged for it.

“He thinks he is better than us,” an old lady with her wrinkled hands adorned with heavy rings and pearl bracelets thought to herself when she stopped by Michael’s house and complimented his wonderful garden. In fact, she did not really want to say it aloud because it would squeeze her into admitting that his tenure was superior to any other yard in the neighborhood. However, the beauty of Langdon’s garden was so conspicuous that it would make anybody confess their trepidation before it and fall victim to its unbelievable excellence. The sweet, almost sickly smell of roses cut through the soft scent of the July summer. Red, pink, and white buds scattered on the bushes and ignited them with burning flames of vivid colors. In the middle of it, there was a big marble fountain with sculptures of Aphrodite, Hera, Athena, and Artemis around it. They stood like guardians, keeping a watch over the crystal flows of water that sounded like a giggle of a young nymph in the peaceful silence. No wonder everybody wanted to get inside just to look at the worldly Garden of Eden.

“Mr. Langdon?” The woman called his name again after he did not respond to her question.

A tall, stately man was sitting on a patio with his legs crossed and a volume of Voltaire in his right hand. He was holding a glass filled with blood-red wine in his left hand; the heavy bands of his rings clicked against the fine glass every time he brought it to his lips to take a sip. He slowly took his gaze off the book and dragged it to the lady who suddenly felt like an annoying schoolgirl, hungry for his attention. She shivered uncomfortably when two topazes of his piercing blue eyes stared at her. It felt like he was looking right through her, paralyzing every muscle of her decrepit body. Michael slightly tilted his head to the side, letting the sunlight caress the smooth, silky locks of his licentious hair. He found it amusing that the old cranky twat, who had spent years ruining the life of her daughter in law (she found the young girl absolutely unworthy of her son’s attention) in the most revolting ways, even dared to speak to him.

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Shepherd,” the velvet baritone if his voice reverberated through her bones, “but it’s the roses you should address your compliments to. I don’t own their beauty.”

Despite the fact she had been working in public relations for thirty years, Mrs. Shepherd found herself at loss for words. Surprisingly she felt so small and vulnerable that her only desire was to leave. She nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it again, pressing her thin lips into a tight line. Trying to gather the remaining of her confidence, she adjusted the cuffs of her dinner jacket, as if it could help her stay grounded, and lifted her chin up a bit too high than it was necessary.

“I am just wondering how you manage to keep your garden in such an impeccable state. Pardon my bluntness, Sir, but I have never seen you weed or water it.”

The corners of Michael’s lips twitched, and he put his book aside on a small table next to him, folding his hands neatly on his crossed thighs.

“You are not the Lord to see everything, are you?” He smiled, showing her his perfect white teeth.

“Excuse me?” She nervously started playing with a pearl necklace around her slender neck. It was very uncomfortable to talk to him like that when he was still sitting on a patio, and it seemed like he did not have any intentions of approaching her for a chat.

Michael ran the tip of his tongue along his bottom lip; a faint smirk was ghosting across his lips as he kept wandering around Mrs. Shepherd’s hectic mind, looking through her entire biography, which he could read like a picture book. What a pathetic soul stood before him! He had no interest in her; what was alluring in the lost essence of her elderly being if she had not learned a thing in her life? Nothing. There was someone else who piqued his interest a long while ago. Ignoring the awaiting expression on Mrs. Shepherd’s face, he looked away at the neighboring house. When his eyes landed on a second-floor window, he saw a shadow that flashed behind the sheer curtains. Michael smirked.

His rose was spying on him again.

Your heart skipped a beat when you noticed that Mr. Langdon turned his head in the direction of your bedroom, and you hurried to fall to your knees and crawl under the windowsill, praying that he did not see you. With the trembling fingers, you reached for the jacquard drapes and pulled them, trying to cover up the transparent organza of your curtains. You had no idea why you were doing it again after you had promised yourself not to spy on your neighbor anymore. It was wrong and creepy, and you felt embarrassed and, what was more terrifying, aroused by it. You bit on your knuckles in an attempt to suppress a whimper that got you all aflutter.

What an idiot.

You drew your knees against your chest and wrapped your arms around yourself securely, trying to calm down a swirling vortex of anxiety in your head. The effect that beautiful man had on you was indescribable: you felt strangely attracted and intimidated at the same time. The mysterious aura of Mr. Langdon kept you awake at night and made you sneak on your tiptoes to the window to look at the dim light in the window across the street every midnight. You wondered why he was always awake at such a late hour.

Asking your parents about him was pointless because they truly had not been the biggest fans of Langdon, since you moved into a new house, and wanted you to stay away from him. When you asked your dad why, he shrugged and said “He’s no good” through his gritted teeth, but could a man of no good grow such beautiful flowers in his garden?

Everybody seemed to either hate or love Michael Langdon, so the rumors about him were on the two opposite poles accordingly: either extremely notorious or suspiciously celestial. You tried to do your own research, but the only thing you managed to find out was the fact that his parents had abandoned him when he was a child, and it was his grandmother who had raised him. He was believed to have property somewhere in England, or Romania, which would be a strange choice in general.

You wanted to talk to him, but for the past six months you had spent in the new neighborhood, you did not have the guts to say hi when he was out in the backyard. You found yourself blushing and embarrassed, unable to form such an easy question as “how are you doing, Mr. Langdon?”, so what sort of a small talk one could expect from you? He looked no older than thirty, yet he made an impression of someone experienced, tempting, and even sinister.

Biting your lower lip, you reminisced about his gorgeous chiseled face, framed with the soft blond curls that reached his shoulders. He was always dressed irreproachably perfect, with no wrinkles on his ironed shirt in sight. Instead of going out with your friends and doing whatever mirth your young soul desired, you often stayed home in your small bedroom to watch his silhouette behind the thick curtains. Around 8 pm he liked to go to his garden, and you could see his lips move as if he was talking to someone, but you did not see whom. Michael most certainly did not have a dog, or a cat, although some people rumored that there were snakes in his garden, but you never had a chance to witness them. He always moved graciously around his flowers, brushing his gnarled fingers against the petals, and you once caught yourself imagining what his touch would feel like. That was a point of no return when you realized that you were unconditionally fascinated by the insanely beautiful man across the street. You felt like a stalker but could not fight the desire to keep eyeing him.

xxx

It was a regular lazy Sunday you decided to spend doing nothing in particular, especially due to the unbearable heat. Even the trees looked defeated: the leaves that should have been crispy and firm looked flaccid instead. Whenever you went outside, you felt like the sun was going to melt you as if you were nothing, but a cube of ice, so you hanged out in the kitchen with AC turned to the maximum, reading books and watching whatever there was on TV.

“I swear Langdon does something to his roses,” your mom said, wiping the drops of sweat off her forehead. Your head flew up immediately at the sound of the familiar name. “His garden looks like an oasis in the desert.”

You looked through the window, where you could see the blooming roses, irises, and hydrangeas behind the gate. She was right; it looked wonderful indeed despite the temperature.

“I’ve never seen him watering it,” you mom continued, not paying attention to an absent look on your face. You frowned when two white heaven-bound birds ricocheted as soon as they appeared in the radius of Langdon’s property. It seemed like there was an invisible shield around it. Surprised, you pulled the curtains aside to take a closer look. What the hell was that?

“Maybe he does it at night? When it’s not so hot,” you said slowly, without taking your narrowed eyes off of the door of his house.

By 9 pm the heat started to cool down, and you decided that the whole day at home was enough for you, and it would be nice to ride a bike before going to bed. Moreover, you needed an excuse to get closer to Mr. Langdon’s garden and do some investigation. You had no idea what exactly you were looking for and if there was something wrong with his mansion, but your mother’s comments and the two birds kept rewinding in your head, causing major anxiety.

“I’ll be back soon!” you shouted from a garage, hoping that your dad could hear you through a loud tv noise.

Riding a bike was one of the greatest pleasures of summer when even though you pedaled, the iron monster with a little wicker basket automatically took you down the street. The wind tangled its warm fingers in your hair and toyed with your white sundress with cherry print on the linen fabric. Your legs remained in motion, as your thoughts stayed in the moment, and you allowed them to get back to Michael.

If he were home, he would definitely notice you, and then what? You would have to explain your business and it would involve having an actual conversation with him.

You pressed the breaks, stopping the bike. Fuck. Just the thought of it made your palms sweaty. You looked across your shoulder, spotting the white walls of his mansion in the distance.

You did not know how much time you spent staying in the middle of an empty road, contemplating your plan, but eventually, it felt like your bike started living its own life, taking you back to Langdon’s property, and all you could do was to keep pedaling and trying to breathe steadily.

His imposing figure was visible from the distance way before you approached him. He was standing with his hands behind his back, his long hair tied up in a low ponytail with the loose strands of it framing his defined face. You took a tight grip on the handlebar and slowed down the bike.

“Good evening, Mr. Langdon,” you could not recognize your voice that sounded so high-pitched it made you scrunch up your nose in disgust. As your feet touched the ground, he looked up at you with a hazy smile across his full lips. He stepped forward, and your breath hitched at his appraising glance. Michael did not even try to hide the curiosity he was looking at your sundress with, examining your naked legs.

“Ah, what a great surprise,” he said in a singsong tone and outstretched his hand. You nervously gave him your palm, and he took it with just the tips of his fingers. He gently turned your hand downwards and bent at the waist until his lips were inches above your skin. He never touched it with his lips, just let his breath ghost over your hand before letting go of it. You could feel the heat spreading across your cheeks, painting them in scarlet hues. “Good evening, Ms. Y/L/N.”

You smiled, trying not to stare at the man before you. It was the first time you saw him so close, and his vibe was overwhelming. You could feel the power radiating from him in hot waves that had nothing to do with the summer heat. He towered over you despite the distance and the bike between you two. He was handsome from the depth of his cobalt blue eyes to the gentle expression of his smooth voice. You could swear he was inhumanly beautiful. Mr. Langdon was probably used to the sudden pauses in people’s natural reactions when they fell silent and just admired him.

“I’m sorry, I just...,” you stuttered, nervously tugging a piece of hair behind your ear. “I just wanted to look at the roses.”

You nodded in the direction of the beautiful flowers flowing and swaying around the men. He chuckled softly, unable to take his eyes off of your blush that accompanied your words.

“Your garden is so beautiful,” it felt like you could not stop bubbling, “even in this horrible heat. It seems like you really love it, Mr. Langdon,” you mattered. The delicate, blooming petals stood out in the grass, bathing in the radiant sunlight; the air was perfumed with the exuding scent of the flowers.

“I surely do, my dear,” Michael said, his voice low and honey-like, encapsulating your entire being. His long, aristocratic fingers brushed against the tight buds, where inside the layers of green, there were colors that, eventually, would ignite the new roses into the vibrancy of life. He slowly dragged his fingertips down a stem and picked one.

“My garden keeps a lot of secrets,” he looked at you through his heavy lids and extended his hand to give you the flower. “You know, all our desires that we wish we could hide in the darkest corners of our souls.”

A faint smirk across his full lips made your stomach flip as your mind rushed to the memories of you watching him through the window of your small bedroom. You hesitantly took the flower from his hand, and when your fingers accidentally touched his, your body jolted as if lighting pierced through you. Michael pretended that he did not notice it, gazing at you hazily with an unbothered look on his face. The only thing that could indicate his interest was the waves of a deep aquamarine polling in his eyes. Each hue seemed brighter in the reflection of the sunlight.

“Thank you,” you whispered under your breath and put the rose in the basket. You did not know what to add, especially after his remark. Was it a hint that he knew what were you doing? You put your right feet on a pedal as if you were about to leave.

“I hope you’ll have a good night, Mr. Langdon.”

Michael shook his head and made his way to the antique gate, holding a key you had not noticed in his hands before. He opened it with one swift motion of his wrist and leaned against the ornate door.

“What about the garden? I thought you would like to see it.”

You looked at him with wide eyes.

“Oh, are you sure, Sir?” You asked hesitantly, “I don’t want to be a bother, plus it’s getting late, you probably have other plans...”

“It would be my pleasure to show you around,” his velvet voice cut you off in the middle of the sentence, and you froze, enchanted by his eyes that were looking right through you.

You hopped off your bicycle and leaned the handlebar against the gate.

“That’s really nice of you, Mr. Langdon,” you smiled, stepping closer. You thought he would move, so you could follow him inside, but he waited until you were inches away, almost pressed against his chest in the small space of the doorframe.

“Please, call me Michael,” for a second it seemed like the world froze around you. As if someone in charge of winding the Great clock of time pressed the button, and everything stopped moving. All you could feel was the scent of Michael’s cologne. It was surreal. You parted your lips to say something, but his eyes got you hypnotized; you realized that you were holding your breath all that time.

Langdon was the first one to break eye contact.

xxx

Walking in Michael’s garden was one of the greatest pleasures you had ever experienced in your life. It seemed like the farther you went, the more beautiful it became. Numerous flowerbeds painted the lawns in vivid shades of watercolor. The miniature shrubs were trimmed neatly, and everything one could desire was to run among them, breathing in the exquisite sent of flowers.

He was watching you amusingly: how you bent over to brush your fingertips against the delicate petals and smell the roses, the way your cheeks turned crimson every time you caught him staring at you.

Michael could not help himself and let his magic wander around you, making its way into your radiant ephemeral mind. From the corner of his eye, he noticed his snakes crawling under the marble bench and flicked his wrist, ordering them to stay in place.

“So red and white roses are your favorite?” You asked curiously, spinning around to face him, and he hurried to fold his hands behind his back as if nothing had just happened. His eyes traveled down your body, catching the sight of your skirt flowing in the wind.

“The red rose whispers of passion,” he answered, stepping closer to you, “and the white rose breathes of love.* Yes, there are,” he took a pause, thinking if God had decided to mock him by sending an actual angel. An angel with devilish desires. “But I also have a penchant for lilies,” Michael nodded at the flowerbed next to you.

“You sound like a poet, Michael,” you said, still a bit embarrassed to call him by his name. Langdon, on the contrary, shivered every time it rolled off your tongue. His mind painted pictures of the situations where he could make you repeat his name like a mantra.

“Well, thank you, but I will have to disappoint you,” his lips curled into a fake pout, “the author of these beautiful lines is an old chap O’Reilly, not me.”

The yellow ball of the setting sun merged with the sky, changing it to the hues of orange, and then almost red. Summer sunsets, a prelude to a warm night, were well-known for being beautiful. The sun cast its golden rays down upon Michael’s blond ponytail, illuminating it like a halo. It cascaded onto the trees and his house like the glory of paradise.

“You definitely used them for the right occasion,” you chucked, “oh my God,” you sighed in pure delight, “how amazing it must be to own such a beautiful garden and wander around it every day. I think I would get lost in it!”

“Not all those who wander are lost, darling.**”

For the reasons unknown to you, your mind went back to your fantasies about Michael. You considered yourself lost in them, but what if you just wandered?

xxx

Time dissolved into itself in a blink of an eye. You did not notice how one topic of conversion flowed into another, and you most certainly missed the moment when Michael invited you into his house. Even though you understood that it was not right to abuse his hospitality, you could not say “no” to his invitation.

“Would you like some wine?” he asked you, as you walked around the dining room, observing the luxurious interior. From your location, you could also see the fireplace in the living room, the family crest adorned with the ruby red needlework hanging on the wall, the antique furniture that cost more than your college tuition. Michael was standing by the cabinet, considering his wine choice for the night.

“Yes, please,” you nodded, brushing your knuckles against the gliding surface of the oak table. On top of it, there were exquisite sets of the finest silverware. “But I’ll have to rely on your taste because I’m no expert when it comes to wine.”

Michael took a bottle out and opened it. A gold-colored Moselle was poured in two crystal glasses.

“A well-chosen wine, my dear,” you still could not understand if he really meant that nickname, or if it was his regular way to address everyone he knew. You looked away, hoping that he would not notice your wide grin. “Either sets a great mood or ruins the impression,” he took the glass and made his way to you. “Forever.”

You nodded, wrapping your fingers around the stem and bringing it to your lips to take the first sip. Michael watched you attentively, waiting for your reaction. The liquid tasted beautiful and rich, coating your taste buds like acerbic honey.

“That’s a really great wine, Michael,” you said, feeling the warmth spreading through every cell of your body. He smirked, and you found yourself staring at the wine drop on his bottom lip.

His lips, plump and pink, looked million times more beautiful than any rose in his garden. You bit the inside of your cheek, hoping that the pain would help you to remain sane, but the longer you looked at him, the cloudier your mind got. It was impossible to say what exactly made your head dizzy: the scent of the fine wine or Mr. Langdon who looked like the Eighth Wonder. The thoughts you had been trying to suppress all the time, were suddenly unleashed like demons and flooded your subconsciousness with the vivid images. Your breath hitched, and you had to take another sip of wine, pretending that you were enjoying the taste when instead you used it as an excuse to look away.

“I knew you would enjoy it.”

Your mind tried to come up with any topic that could cut through the electric tension between you two, but all you could think was him. Him. Him. Kissing you, savoring every inch of your exposed skin — it was an all-consuming obsession. You cleared your throat, suddenly feeling extremely hot as if the temperature increased by several degrees.

“I have noticed your family crest over there,” you nodded at the living room, “does your family have a long history?”

Michael tapped his fingers against the glass and put it aside on the dining table.

“Not really,” he scoffed, and you wondered if the topic about his family was not his favorite, “my grandmother was so obsessed with the idea of being one of the nobility that she made it come true,” he glanced over the enormous dining room.

“Your mansion is beautiful,” you said honestly, looking up at him, “so is your garden, and...oh my God, there is a snake!” You cried out at the sight of a green snake that was slowly making its way to Michael along the perfectly polished floor. The intruder was so unexpected that you knocked his glass off the table, and it shattered into pieces with a loud noise. You gasped and immediately fell to your knees to collect the remains of the wineglass in your palms. Embarrassment washed over in tides, and you felt tears welling up in your eyes, ready to spill out from the humiliation you had put yourself through. Everything felt wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” you whined in a broken voice, “Michael, I did not mean to...oh God, I am so sorry... I will pay for the glass, I promise...I just...”

“Y/N,” he interrupted you softly, but stern. Still being on your knees, you left your gaze up at him to meet the icy fire of his eyes. “Stand up.”

You gulped heavily, but obeyed, slowly standing up on your wobbly feet. He carefully took the pieces of the broken glass from your hands, making sure not to leave any cuts on your tender skin. Michael put them aside on a thick cotton napkin and grabbed a clean one to wipe off the wine off your palms.

“It’s okay,” he said, examining your skin carefully in case there were micro cuts he did not notice, “no big deal.”

The feather-light touch of his fingers was soothing. You looked across Michael’s shoulder, trying to spot the reptile, but did not see any.

“I saw a snake,” you whispered, “over there.”

He put the napkin aside but did not let go of your hands.

“I believe I have not introduced you to my pets,” the plural form made you look around as if right after his words numerous snakes would crawl out of nowhere.

“So it’s true,” the rumors sprang on your mind, and you squeezed his fingers instinctively, not actually realizing what you were doing, “you do have snakes.”

Michael’s lips curled in a smile.

“Three of them,” he took a step closer, the crystal beads of glass crunched under his shoes, but he did not seem to care. “Don’t worry, there are not poisonous,” he answered your silent question. “However, they always come where there is fear.”

You frowned. His fingers snaked up your palm to wrap around your slender wrists. You looked at him in confusion. What if other rumors were true? The snake you had just seen looked way too terrifying to be harmless, and fear creeping up on the back of your neck indicated that the worry was not pointless.

“Michael, I don’t think I understand what you mean,” you started slowly, trying to break free from the steel grip of his fingers, “It’s getting really late, I better go...”

You fell silent when the fingers of his left hand ghosted over the contour of your face, but never touching it. He hummed approvingly when you stopped talking and just stared at him in fluttering admiration.

“You talk too much, my dear,” he said, finally honoring you with his touch, dragging his fingertips along your cheekbones and a sharp line of your jaw, “but you don’t say what you really think,” his eyes twinkled in the dim light of the room.

You took a step back, but the corner of the table prevented you from moving farther. You were trapped. Michael was so close; it felt intoxicating. You looked down at the skirt of your sundress, which unfortunately got stained with wine as well.

“What do your fear, Y/N?” he caressed your cheek, the cool metal of his rings left burning kisses on your skin. They bloomed like revolutionary fire, destroying the remains of your self-control.

You closed your eyes, leaning into his touch. The question was confusing, and Michael did not seem to care to elaborate. Human beings were cowardly by their nature, so it was impossible to understand what exactly he meant when he had asked you that. Did he want to know about your phobias or the insecurities? Or the dirty little secret of yours that you hid from him?

“Yes, that one,” your eyes fluttered open when Michael called you out on your thoughts. Again.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” you said without looking at him. Your heart was drumming so fast, you could feel the blood pumping in your temples. Michael reached for your wineglass.

“You know, darling,” he cooed, dipping his fingers into the burgundy liquid and bringing them to your lips. His every movement was dripping with mannerism and erotica. “I don’t tolerate lies,” he whispered, his breath scorching your face, as he smeared the wine across your lower lip, firmly pressing on it for you to open your mouth. You parted your lips and he slid his thumb right into the awaiting warmth, smiling devilishly when your eager tongue wrapped around his digits. The acid taste of wine burned on the tip of your tongue.

He tugged a loose strand of your hair behind your ear and leaned forward to whisper:

“Tell me, kitty, what are you scared of right now? Why are trembling, huh?” his body was pressed so close to yours you could feel the decor of his jacket living ornamental imprints on the bare skin of your arms. You were shaking with anticipation for the beautiful man before you. Dazed, you felt his lips brushing softly against your ear and sliding to the sensitive spot behind it. Your breath hitched when he left a soft kiss, and your knees buckled. If you had not clung to the lapels of his jacket, you would have probably slid down and melted into a puddle before Michael.

“I’m scared of myself,” you whispered, tilting your head to the side and letting Langdon’s lips travel to the sinew on your neck. His right hand slid up your leg, folding your dress around your waist. His palm rested on a soft flesh of your thighs.

“Why?”

His fingers wandered over the outer part of your thigh and then maneuvered between your legs to pet the inner part of it. Instinctively you tried to close your legs that Michael had possessively spread a second before to cover up the embarrassing wetness of your panties, but his firm grip prevented you from doing so. You looked up at him pleadingly.

“This is all wrong,” you could hardly form the sentences when the gorgeous men started bending over to continue kissing your neck and moving down to your cleavage, “I should not be so attracted to you, we have just met...I don’t even know you.”

Michael seemed to ignore your protests. Your body language and thoughts were telling him completely opposite things, and he drank off the euphoria that was clouding your mind. He wrapped his right arm around your waist and the next moment you were placed atop of the table with him between your legs.

“I think you know me better than anybody else,” he smirked, playing with the straps of your dress. His fingertips ran along the cotton fabric of them, making your skin crawl. “You’ve been spying on me a lot lately, haven’t you, Y/N?”

He thought it was impossible for you to blush even more, but you proved otherwise. You bowed your head low, biting the insides of your cheeks in embarrassment. There was no point in denying the truth.

“I swear I’m not a stalker,” you whimpered, shifting on the table uncomfortably. Michael carefully placed his fingers, /those goddamn fingers you wished could work you open/, under your chin forcing you to look up at him.

“I could care less about that,” he said, circling your mouth with his thumb, “it’s what you do afterward has piqued my interest.” His eyes were getting darker with every word that rolled off his tongue; the black abyss was savoring the ocean blue hues of his iris. He took your hand in his and dragged it to your core, under the folded skirt of your dress. “I want you to tell me who you think of when you touch yourself late at night.”

Your eyes widened at the vulgar words; the stern tone of his voice made you speechless. All you could do was to watch him take your hand and guide it to your core. Your knuckles brushed against the damp fabric right in the center of your panties and you knew that Michael felt the wetness too.

“Who are you?” you asked, your mouth fell open when he messaged your clit through the thin cotton.

“A man of sin, a liar and deceiver whose natural abilities Satan enhances by supernatural power in order to confuse people in the end time***.” Michael confessed.

It all felt unreal, you were falling down the rabbit hole with no chances for salvation. The trap sprang shut — you were caught between opposing needs. Your common sense was knocking on the remains of your subconsciousness in a pathetic attempt to reason you, but your soul, a detached essence of your true being, was longing for Michael. No way was he lying: every weird thing about him made sense, forming a complete picture in your head like a puzzle. There you were, locked in fear and reverence, servility and obsequiousness. His words rocked your mind, leaving you unaccustomed to a mix of emotions swirling in your head.

What if he was a maniac? A psycho?

You put your hands on his chest, trying to push him away, but none of his muscles moved.

“Haven’t you always considered yourself special?” He spoke in an alluring tone, and his words pinned you to the table. You raised your eyebrows at him, and Michael scoffed. “You have always longed for something exclusive, a big mystery that would open only for you, an immortal being,” he cupped your face in his hands, looking you in the eye, “You thought your loneliness was an omen, that something greater was coming...”

“Stop,” You pleaded, shutting your eyes.

“Look at me,” Langdon demanded, taking a fistful of your hair and slightly tugging it strong enough to get your attention, yet gentle not to hurt you. “When I’m offering you what you have wanted, you reject it. Why? Unleash the desire, darling.”

He was everywhere: his hands roaming around your body, lifting your dress higher, his lips covering yours in a passionate kiss, the scent of his cologne around you ghosted like a silvery mist. His lips were like silk, kissing you softly, but with so much confidence and determination that you were taken aback. You did not have time to comprehend what was happening. He was heaven and hell at the same time, drawing you deeper in the pond of lust and desire. You moaned into his mouth when his tongue entwined with yours, fighting for dominance and immediately winning. You were putty in the skillful hands of Michael Langdon. Surrendering to him felt wrong, especially if he was an actual Antichrist, but at that moment you were a helpless puppet in his hands.

“Michael,” you moaned, wrapping your arms around his neck. He grinned into the kiss when you admitted your defeat and presented yourself to him. Sliding the straps of your dress off your shoulders, he stroked your soft skin, making his way to your breasts and squeezing them firmly.

“Shhh, keep still, pretty girl,” you shivered when he tucked your bra along with your dress down to your waist and covered your nipples with his palms. You were like a low-voltage coil, receptive of his touch. It was impossible to find out if he used his powers on you to help you relax in his arms when you suddenly felt brave enough to run your fingers through his soft locks and guide his head down to your breasts, hungry for the sensation of his wicked tongue. A velvet ribbon that was holding his hair in a ponytail helplessly fell on the floor beneath his feet.

Apparently, Michael was extremely good at multitasking. As he savored the pink buds of your nipples, he placed one of his hands between your thighs, pulled the panties aside and ran the tips of his index and middle fingers up and down your wet folds. You whimpered, clawing on his shoulders. He was still dressed in his perfect dinner jacket and a dress shirt as if it had not been incredibly hot all day, while you were sitting in front of him half-naked. You were practically shaking when he easily inserted the index finger inside of you, working you open for him.

“You look for this special something in everyone you meet,” he whispered in your skin and bent his finger, rubbing the knuckle against the spongy spot inside you. You gasped, your body jolted from a sudden impulse. “What is it that you need? Divine connection?” He added the second finger, stretching your tight walls out. You hissed at the unpleasant feeling that was quickly flooded with pleasure. It had been a while since you let a man touch you.

“You,” you breathed out, throwing your head back and leaning into his touch. Your hips were sliding against the polished surface of the table, meeting Michael’s fingers.

“Hm?” he arched his eyebrow and grabbed you by your chin with his free hand, brutally forcing you to stay in your place. “What was that?”

“I might have been waiting for you...oh my God,” you arched your back, bucking your hips up, letting his fingers pierce through you. Hard. Simultaneously, he pressed his thumb to your swollen clit and started massaging it in a circular motion, drawing another moan from your chest. He kept teasing the sensitive bud by rubbing, stroking, pressing on it until you turned into a soft, pliant mess beneath him.

“She might have been waiting,” he smirked. “Darling, I’ll make sure to fuck the doubt out of you,” he caught your earlobe between his teeth and playfully bit on it. He ran the tip of his nose against your scarlet cheek, and you almost lost your mind from how intimate it felt. The tight knot in the pit of your stomach swelled in anticipation.

To your disappointment, his fingers left your warm core with an obscene “pop.” Michael’s large hands hooked the crumpled fabric of your dress and pulled it down your legs, tossing it aside and leaving in you in nothing but your bra tugged under your breasts, and a pair of panties. You blushed, bowing your head low and letting your hair fall onto your chest to cover the hardening nipples. He undid the clasp, and the bra followed the destiny of your dress. Agonizingly slow, he kneeled before you and placed his palms on your kneecaps, spreading your legs. Instinctively, you shifted closer to the edge, giving him a full display of your wet undergarment and a glistening pussy pocking through it.

“I have not dined yet. What a lucky coincidence, isn’t it?”

As he spoke, his fingers drew loose patterns on the bare skin your legs. He stroked the undersides of your knees and went up to your awaiting thighs. Your heartbeat raced at the view of such a gorgeous man standing before you on his knees, yet still managing to hold great power over you. He leaned forward and trapped the hem of your panties between his teeth, slowly dragging them down your legs, his eyes never leaving yours. Michael wrapped his fingers around your ankles and helped you bend your legs, placing your feet on the table, so your pussy was on a full display for him. His face was so close to your throbbing center, you could feel his hot breath ghosting over it.

“Ah, Michael,” your head lolled back when he stroked your folds, slightly parting them with his fingers.

“The most beautiful rose I have ever seen,” he whispered mostly to himself. The second his tongue licked a wide stripe from your entrance to your clit, you were a goner, knocking the expensive silverware off the table in an attempt to get ahold of his hair. Langdon hummed in satisfaction, clearly giving zero fucks about the mess you were making. He began lazily encircling your clit, closing his plush lips around the sensitive bud and lightly sucking on it. You reeled forward, moaning plangently and spreading your legs wider.

“Better than any wine,” he noted, licking the beads of your arousal off your puffy folds. He placed his right hand on your stomach, stroking your lower abdomen and brought the fingers of his left hand back into your aching core. He was impossibly good at locating the most sensitive spots within you. You choked on air and your own saliva when he brushed against your g-spot, making you cry out his name. Waves of pleasure rippled through your body, becoming more and more intense with every swirl of Michael’s tongue and a push of his fingers. You started grinding against his mouth, whimpering like a bitch beneath him; you could already feel the release building up inside you.

“You feel so good,” you moaned brokenly, tugging on his hair. The feeling of euphoria was engrossing, impossible to resist. You were so touch-starved that it seemed like the tiny bit of attention to your private parts was enough to send you over the edge.

Michael pulled away, hungrily licking your juices off his lips. You moaned at the sight of him: to witness such a beautiful man giving you head was definitely worth dying for. If he ordered you to take a bullet, you would gladly do it on that very table, which was your personal deathbed. He leaned forward to kiss you and let you taste your own sweetness. While he was kissing you, Michael slid the jacket off his shoulders and started unbuttoning his shirt. You sighed heavily, pressing your forehead against his and helping him get rid of the unnecessary clothes.

“What an eager girl I’ve got here,” he teased and left a quick kiss on your lips. “Gotta be patient, kitty.”

You let your hands wander over his naked torso that looked like as if it was carved by angels and gods out of the finest marble. Michael was watching you amusingly, excited for what you could do next.

“How long has it been since you let a man touch you?”

“A while”

Michael quickly undid his belt, quickly discarding his black slacks. You ran your fingers along the prominent outline of his cock through his boxers and looked up at him as if you were seeking his permission. He nodded and you snaked your hand inside his boxer briefs, wrapping your fingers around his erect shaft.

Michael inhaled through his nose and closed his eyes, concentrating on the ethereal feeling of your soft palm around him. A deep sigh escaped your mouth when you saw him in full glory, hot and heavy with a glistening tip and beads of precum covering his glans. Your pussy quivered when you imagined how good it would make you feel, and you stroke a prominent blue vein on the underside of his shaft. Michael growled at the filthy thoughts in your head.

“Alright, sweetheart,” he impatiently slapped your hand away from his cock and spit on his palm, “as much as I would like to let you play a bit longer, I need to fill you up right fucking now,” as he spoke, Michael started smearing his saliva along the length. He could not wait to bury his cock inside you.

Langdon took ahold of your hips and pulled you a bit closer, positioning himself right between your legs. The head of his dick was pressed against your clenching entrance. He leaned forward, slowly pushing it inside and never forgetting to shower your neck and bare shoulders with kisses. You moaned at the burning stretch and clanged to Michael’s biceps, leaving crescent marks on his sweaty skin.

“You are so big,” you sobbed, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. He pressed a soft kiss to your temple.

“It’s okay,” he cooed stroking your cheek, “you are taking me so well, baby. Such a good girl for me.”

He froze when the last inch of his cock was savored by your pussy, giving you time to adjust. You had never felt so fucking full before. Looking down at where he and you were connected, you thought that Michael might have actually split you in two. He picked up the pace, drawing himself in and out of your pussy, leaving just the tip of his cock, and then filling you up to the hilt again. Your soft whimpers were making his head spin, and soon enough, when you fully adjusted to his length, he started slamming into you at animalistic speed.

“Michael!” You cried out and bit his shoulder to suppress your scream, even though it was too late and it escaped your throat, echoing through the dining room. He could not help himself. He needed you right there on that table. Hard and fast.

“I bet you could not reach your sweet spots with your fingers when you were playing with that pretty pussy of yours,” he growled in your ear. His voice and the wet sound of his balls slapping against your ass were the only things you could hear. Michael lifted your hips a little, forcing you to wrap your legs around his waist.

The new angle allowed him to penetrate you deeper. You watched him going harder, fucking the living force out of you. You ran your fingers across his jaw, outlined the shape of his nose, adoring the perfectly sculpted features. He was so inhumanly beautiful. When he leaned forward to kiss you, his long blond hair brushed against your breasts, and you pulled him by the roots against your flushed chest, wishing to melt into him.

“Michael, please...” your plea contained everything you would never admit even to yourself. Michael, please, be my lover. Michael, please, do not stop. Michael, please, hold me in your arms forever.

“You are mine,” he rumbled, wrapping his hand around your throat and applying just enough pressure to make your toes curl and your eyes roll into your head. “Do you understand it? Mine.”

He whispered the last words into your open mouth and tightened the grip on your throat. You were so pliant and vulnerable, he felt like he could break you in any moment. Your pussy throbbed at his possessiveness, clenching around his cock and driving him crazy.

“Yours,” you gasped, arching your back. Skin on skin. Your bodies were moving in sync. The heavy air in the room smelled like sex and Michael’s cologne. With every sway of his hips and every thrust that aimed right at the sweet spot inside you, you were getting closer to your release, and he felt it too.

“I can feel you clenching around me,” he brought his palm to your clit and started circling it ruthlessly. “Are you close?”

He looked you in the eye, and you nodded, surrendering to the overwhelming sensation that was piercing through you. Michael was merciless, fucking you so hard that at one particularly deep thrust the table beneath you shifted.

“Y-yes, Sir.”

You felt his dick started pulsing deep inside you, and the thought that you were not using any protection crossed your mind for the first time. You looked up at him, and before you could even note it, Michael hushed you:

“Don’t worry about that,” he flicked your clit between his thumb and middle finger, “Just come for me, kitty.”

He did not have to repeat twice. Your arousal licked by the swell of pleasure finally unrevealed, crushing everything in its wake. Every cell of your body was engulfed in the burning heat of pure lust and desire for Michael who was protectively holding you in his arms. When the fireworks before your eyes started to fade away, you brought your focus back at him. He pulled out, and you whined at the empty feeling inside you. Michael pumped his cock a few times, concentrating the pressure around the bright pink head, and with a low groan came all over your stomach. His beautiful face was countered in pleasure: brows frowned, and lips slightly parted. To some extent, you even felt unworthy of watching him fall apart like that before you.

For a while, the sound of your rapid, shallow breathing was the only thing interrupting the silence between you two. With a deep sigh, Michael pulled you closer, resting your head against his chest. You still clanged to him with a death grip, afraid to burst the comfortable bubble enveloping you like a shield. Suddenly you felt so tired as if silvery fatigue was poured into your veins. Michael’s radiant warmth and the overall state of being completely fucked out made your head heavy, and you closed your eyes tiredly, nuzzling into his chest.

Michael absentmindedly ran his fingers through your hair, inhaling the scent of it. Never had he felt so calm and content. He pressed his lips to the top of your head and closed his eyes, enjoying the light touches of your fingers dancing on his bare arms. At that moment nothing mattered, his ruthless demonic nature was in peace.

“I think I should go home,” you whispered. As much as you hated yourself for ruining the mood, you remembered that your parents had been waiting for you, and to make them worry was the last thing on your list. You looked up at Michael, who brushed his knuckles against your cheek, thinking how wonderfully innocence and depravity entwined within you.

“You can spend the night with me.”

He reached for the napkin to wipe off the white stripes of cum painted on your stomach. You closed your legs wincing at the throbbing sensation in your pussy; it felt like Michael was still inside you.

“My parents will be worried,” you were genuinely sorry, and he could read it in your thoughts.

Michael took his jacket and wrapped it around your shoulders. You blushed, but tugged it tighter, nodding at him in a sign of gratitude. Your skin instantly absorbed his warmth.

“Please, come visit me tomorrow,” he pleaded. If it had not been for the sincere look in his eyes you would have never believed that a man such as himself wanted to see you again. You looked at him in awe, and it all seemed like a dream to you. Just the day before he was your neighbor you had been spying on for months. You needed time to think everything over and talk to him without lust clouding your vision about what he had told you moments before.

“A man of sin, a liar,” his words echoed in your head.

Michael could sense your doubt.

“Y/N,” he sighed, bringing your hand to his lips and kissing every knuckle. “Sleep it all away tonight, okay? And tomorrow I’ll tell you everything, just come to me.” His voice flowed out like a fragrance released in rain.

Of course, you would come to Michael. All he ever needed was to call for you, and you would be there, ready to present yourself with your whole being to him. You would run into his arms like a river that flowed inside the ruins of your chest; the ruins Michael left with his presence. He shattered your inner world into pieces but gave you the hope of building a new one.

The next morning when you woke up there was a white rose on your nightstand with a small card attached to it.

“Tonight at 8 pm. I will be waiting for you, my rose,” said intricate handwriting, and you smiled, pressing the piece of paper to your chest.

A single flower he sent me, since we met.

All tenderly his messenger he chose;

Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—

One perfect rose.

Dorothy Parker

*The White Rose by John Boyle O’Reilly

** Tolkien

*** Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

Taglist: @langdons-rep @babypinkstyles94 @sammythankyou @kaigitana @ms-mead @sebastianshoe @langdonsdemon @iloveziggystardust @chaoticevillangdon @sojournmichael @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26 @theghostoflangdon @divinelangdon @americanhorrorstudies @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @bbyduncan @ticklish-leafy-plant @1-800-bitchcraft @wroteclassicaly @starwlkers @ccodyfern @nightsblackroses @langdvnshepherd @ccodyferns @ritualmichael @isoldedax @coloursunlimited @micheallangdons @omgsuperstarg

#michael langdon smut #michael langdon fanfic #michael langdon x reader #ahs apocalypse #duncan shepherd smut #michael langdon imagine

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lady-olive-oil · 5 years ago

Note

Chris and Roxie kissing for the first time tho!!! I might cry!

I got you nonnie! So with this i broke it up into 3 parts, the phases of which Chris x Roxie went through from the very first time they kissed. Hope you guys like it!!!

Word Count: 1,889

Warnings: none, maybe a minuscule. just gotta squint

SN: if you’d like to be included in Choxie stuff, let me know and ill add ya to my list, i opened it back up!

____________________________

My First, My Always

As Kids:

It all started when they were younger, about 8 and 9, they were inseparable. What began as a long and beautiful friendship expanded into a tight bond, a bond that can never be broken. What made Roxie kiss Chris first in the 3rd grade was that he shared his box of crayons with her. The big Crayola 64 count box, with the built in sharpener, she was over the moon “in love” with him and no one could tell her otherwise.

She made sure everyone knew that Chris was her “boyfriend” and no one else could have him. It was sharing time and Roxie didn’t have any crayons because, everyone took the boxes and paired off which made her sad.

“Uh Roxanne, you can share with me if you want?” Chris’ tiny but mighty voice helped ease her pain of not being able to color, in her Jungle Book coloring book. With a sweet smile, she nodded and say next to him.

“Thank you, Christopher. You can call me Roxie.”

“Ok, Roxie it is. You can call me Chris.”

A gleam in her eye sparkled as she came up with an idea. “Ok! Oh can I give you something since you’ve been so nice to me?”

“Uh yeah sure.” Chris looked up from his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coloring book, and was shocked when Roxie gave him a quick kiss. His cheeks were flushed in embarrassment, the whole class oohed and awed at the action and it made Roxie giggle.

“I like you Chris.”

“I like you too Roxie.”

After all that happened, their teacher called both their parents in for a conference to discuss what happened during coloring time. It was a surprise to Mrs. Farwinkle, that both Lisa and Monica were also childhood best friends and vowed to stick together no matter what. Even when it came to their kids and marriage as well.

“Thank you for your concern Mrs. Farwinkle but, it was a sweet gesture from my daughter.” Monica, Roxie’s mom, reassured the middle aged woman that it was ok and kinda cute actually. The pair was getting ready I head home and finally relax.

“See? No harm done, it was just an innocent kiss amongst new friends.” Lisa smiled and nodded in agreement, as she walked with her son towards the door to head home.

“Well, since you both have an understanding about it. I guess it’s no issue then. Thank you ladies for coming in.” Bidding the two moms a fond farewell, Lisa and Monica chuckled gently as they headed towards their cars.

“So dinner tomorrow night right? Andre is making pasta salad and I have the red velvet cake.” Monica asked after strapping Roxie in her car seat.

Lisa nodded enthusiastically. “Yes ma’am. Gorton and I will be there tonight. Why don’t we have the kids get together?”

“That could work. Getting them all together at whatnot and bonding. Just like we did growing up.”

“Sounds good. See you tonight.”

As the mothers drove to their perspective homes, the kids were fast asleep due to the soothing feeling for the car. Little did they know that this was just the beginning.

As Teenagers:

“Roxie! What are you doing? We gotta go to Lauren’s party.”

“But what about the chemistry exam we have in a few days?”

The bond never broke at all, and these two stuck like superglue by any means necessary.

“Oh come on, live a little. You’ve been studying all weekend, let’s go have fun. You’ve earned it.”

“Ugh fine.”

Growing up together, made them both appreciate the power of their friendship and how strong it was to keep it. Despite the fact that they both have had small crushes on other people here and there, they managed always come back together.

At the party Roxie felt like an outcast given that Chris was the life of every event; football game, social club and gathering. Yet Chris made sure Roxie was always good. So during a game of truth or dare, Chris was on the lookout for any dirty business happening to her.

“Ok so Evans, truth or dare?” One of the boys, Tye, had outed him during the 5th turn around.

Eyeing him up and down he sucked his teeth, he got that from Roxie. “Dare.”

A smirk on Tye’s face was was pure evil, making Roxie shudder. “I dare you to go into the closet with Roxanne and kiss her for 10 min.”

Within the group of kids oohed in unison, that is until Tye plucked a nerve with Chris. “What’s the matter Evans? You chicken? Too scared to kiss your best friend in a linen closet?”

The look on his face was pure adrenaline and determination, mixed with annoyance. “Tye, you and I both know I’m anything but chicken.”

“Then do it. Kiss your best friend in the closet.”

Roxie was caught off guard, when Chris pulled her up from the couch and into the closet which locked from the inside.

“Remember, 10 min!” Tye yelled from the other side of the door.

“Chris, we don’t have to do this.” Roxie’s voice was small, but enough for him to hear.

“Roxie. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now but I couldn’t think of a way to do so. Ever since you gave me my first kiss, at a very young age, I knew I had to make it right.” He rested his head on hers, taking in the moment.

“Even if it meant in a closet at a party?” Roxie asked curiously.

Chris chuckled gently. “Even if it’s at a party.” Running his thumb against her cheek, he kissed her gently and the memory came flooding back. Holding her against him, he didn’t want to let go.

Locking her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss a bit, Roxie felt her face heat up. It was as if her nerve endings were electrified and brought to life. It was as if the world stood still and no one else mattered to her, just like the day she kissed him first.

“10 mins! You can come out now love birds!” Tye’s voice broke the heated moment, causing the tension to rise and fall between the pair.

Slowly coming out of the closet, the two felt awkward and yet closer together, while sitting back on the couch.

“This doesn’t change how I feel about you, ok? If you ever need me I’ll always be there for you.” Chris reassures her with a gentle smile, and a tender hug.

What did he mean by ‘this won’t change how he feels about me?’ She thought to herself as she hugged him back. “And I will be there for you too Chris. Through thick and thin.”

Only time will tell how long that pact will last. And yet it did but blossom into something more promising and worth while. They were each other’s first time, as well and it set the tone for how they’d still be friends. They had other moments with other people, and yet their friendship was still intact. Maybe it wouldn’t change after all.

Current Time Frame, As Adults:

And boy were they both wrong. The older they got, the feelings grew and the thoughts kept shifting, especially for Roxie. She held it in on how much she liked her best friend, more than just a friend. The fact of the matter is when Chris met Delilah, she knew she had competition.

Over the years when he was involved with Delilah, they butted heads constantly. That is until she met Carter, who looked like he could do no wrong but his face said otherwise. The more she got to know Carter, the more Chris got annoyed with him. The more Chris got involved with Delilah, the more Roxie got annoyed. It was a never ending struggle until Roxie broke it off with Carter for good.

The days got better when Delilah was reminded of the unbreakable bond between the two best friends, when she would pop up unannounced. Not even the premiere day for Endgame could rally in her favor, seeing as though it was tradition for the Chris and Roxie to spend the night with each other the day before any premiere of theirs.

That fateful weekend was all a blur, but grand. The night before changed something between the pair and it was magical. When Chris heard Roxie moan, he thought he was in a trace let alone a dream of sorts.

When he finally kissed Roxie for the first time in years, it was like the gates of heaven opened up and the angels sung in harmony.

It was as if he got his wish and was willing to do anything and everything to keep her by his side. So in the middle of the night after the kiss of the century and a snuggle, around midnight, he woke her back up to just talk to her. He felt around the bed but didn’t feel her there.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Her voice rang through the darkness. But only the moon shined through windows. She slid back into bed next to him snuggled back into his side.

“Well yes, but I wanted to ask you something important.”

Looking at him with curiosity, she sat up a bit against the headboard. “Ok what’s up? Something wrong?”

“Not really. I’m just curious about something: do you really want to pursue this with me? We’ve been friends for years and I don’t want to mess this up.” Sitting up next to her, he took her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

“Chris, we were each other’s first kiss; we were each other’s first time and so many other milestones that I don’t regret. You mean more to me than anything else in the world. We’ve done things “just friends” don’t do, and I wouldn’t mind taking it a step further.” She slid back onto his lap under the covers, draping it back around her hips, scooting closer on him and held his face in her cocoa butter infused hands.

“I’m ready for the leap if you are.”

He rubbed her hips gently and held her right against his chest. “You know I am Roro. I just needed to hear you say it before I did this again.”

He shut her up immediately with a heat searing kiss, Earth shattering to her very core. He had to hold her hips still to not rock against him so much because he wouldn’t control himself if the situation arose, to something else that neither of them were ready for just yet.

She tugged in his hair graciously, edging him on to kiss her deeper and not let go. A moan shattered the back of his throat, skating his fingers up her back in an effort for her to know how he was feeling.

“I’m not gonna let you go. I let you go before and I don’t plan on doing so now.” He whispered against her lips softly.

She whispered back to him. “I don’t plan on seeing you leave me either.”

The pair spent the rest of the night cuddled on top of one another, drifting back to sleep with lazy kisses. With hopes of an amazing premiere day, these two were thicker than ever.

_________

#choxie writings #chris evans imagine #chris evans imagines #chris evans fanfiction #chris x roxie #chris evans x poc oc #chris evans x roxie alexander #so into you #so into you asks #my first my always

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crvmsdecorum · 5 years ago

Photo

"sᴏᴍᴇ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ᴊᴜsᴛ ʙᴏʀɴ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʀᴀɢᴇᴅʏ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ.”

( chris wood, 30, male, he/him ) Have you seen DANTE PIERCE around ? I hear they’re an CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATOR who can sometimes be CALLOUS & MANIPULATIVE. But I also heard they can be METHODICAL & CREATIVE if you catch them on a good day. They’re usually hanging around CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT in their spare time. I sure hope they’re alright !

tw: incest, tw: blood, tw: gore, tw: murder, tw: violence, tw: asylum, tw: death.

Meet Dante Theodore Pierce -- oh? You don't know him by that name? That is no surprise, the media knew the man as the 21st Century Ripper.

No body has come to know Dante being the Ripper and he would like it to stay that way. Besides, it’ll be hard for the authorities to link him to it since y’know -- Dante Pierce doesn’t exist technically.

Let’s go all the waaaay back to when he was born under the name Eugene Bartholomew Kline Jr. Horrible name, right? Yeah, Dante thought so too. It just didn’t scream him.

Dante was the product of a little affair between James Kline and his niece, Bethel Kline. Not only was it incestuously, but there was also their ten year gap.

Fourteen years old and now pregnant, Bethel came for to her parents of this great sin of her’s she barred with her half Uncle -- Mr. & Mrs. Kline RAGED. Of course with them being pillars of their small town and what a scandal this can lead too -- they kept it all under wraps.

Bethel became pulled from school and resided on the family estate for the next nine months while James himself, went far, far away under the order’s of his older brother (Bethel’s father) Eugene Kline.

Time came and Bethel went into labor during the middle of a nasty thunderstorm and at the end of it, she gave birth to only one child but two. Bethel had twins: a boy and a girl. This shocked the house even more just as much as her affair with her own uncle did.

After the birth of the twins, the Kline family came up with a cover story claiming they adopted twins and have sent Bethel off to boarding school. The town believed and everything settle back down, finally a clearing after this long nine months for the family. Or at least they thought.

They given the girl a beautiful name while they gave the son a family name -- Eugene Jr. Again, terrible name to bestow on a kid. It’s like they were expecting the kid to be dark or something.

At the age of three is when little Eugene began to show a darkness to him -- one that horrified the family. What did a little three year old do? Simple. He killed his mother’s pet bird and his reason? The bird wouldn’t shut up and nipped at his finger. With his tiny hands he snapped the neck of the feathery animal.

He didn’t stop this dark side of him, it only grew with age. Not long after turning seven Eugene shoved his sister into the pool and kept her head underwater simply because he was jealous the attention their parents were giving him. Thankfully they came in just in time for their daughter to be saved. Eugene was punished for this, but this was just the beginning of his reign of terror.

By the end of that year he has ran off four housemaids due to his behavior and each of them being sent to the ER. The last woman was found with glass in her shoes from Eugene. His reason? He didn’t like the way his room was cleaned.

Having enough of the terror he placed on the household due to his sadistic pranks, Mr. & Mrs. Kline sent him away -- far away. They knew they couldn’t place him in a boarding school or military one or he’d be a danger to others there so what did they do? Easy. They locked him up in an asylum where the Kline family are secret charity donors for the facility.

When arriving to the facility Eugene raised HELL to the staff and to himself, shoving the inner monster that he kept buried at the Kline residence. Though slowly over the years Eugene became more mellow and soon didn’t cause any trouble to the staff members. At the age of twenty they’ve informed the family that he is CURED and is able to return home. Of course they were hesitate at first, but they figured it was time for him to come home.

Soon Eugene Jr. was brought home and obviously didn’t look like his child self. He was all grown up, puberty had done its deed. Due to the constant solitary he faced while at the nut place he really didn’t exactly keep up with facial hygiene. He allowed his beard to grow up, same with his hair. Mr. Kline instructed he would like the facial hair to be gone and something Eugene never has done, he quietly declined and said he will get rid of it in the morning.

Dinner time soon came for the household with Eugene sitting at the end of the table, all acting as if one big happy family -- all of them except returned Kline. He broke his silence when he asked if Bethel will be joining them and told them she won’t. The man scoffs as he wasn’t surprised and just like that his quiet persona fell and from that rose, a familiar look the whole family knew.

Eugene revealed to his so called parents he had learned a few things while stuck in that mad house, he had used his connections and learned a certain DARK secret. Seeing where this was going, Mr. Kline had ordered his son to his room and ended family dinner early. Before the family went to sleep and in fear of what he could reveal, Eugene Sr. had the deranged son locked up in the family basement. “Your a rat, so you are staying where a rat sleeps.” He said. Little did the father knew the rat wasn’t planning on staying there long.

Shortly after midnight the deranged man managed to pick the lock and escape the gloomy basement. It wasn’t long until the family home became filled with the screams of someone dying. First though before all of that Eugene made his way onto his twin sister. He wanted to try to persuade him to her side and in doing so, told her the truth of their origin. They are INDEED Klines, but Eugene and Elisabeth Kline were their grandparents not their parents. Eugene revealed they were the product of a incest affair between their Uncle James and their older sister, Bethel. His sister’s reply? I KNOW. He soon became quickly filled with rage and lashed out his sister, giving her a deep wound to the stomach and leaving her there in her bedroom for now.

It didn’t take long for screams to be heard through out the house soon as he brought a blade to Elisabeth Kline’s neck and gutting her like a fish. He quickly than moved on to Eugene Kline Sr. and oh it was something worth the wait of rotting in that asylum throughout all those shock therapies, the endless torture -- ALL OF IT.

By the time the morning rose, the Kline estate was burned to the ground with everyone in it with authorities believing Eugene himself too had died. Or did he?

After the “death” of his family, Eugene went and changed himself completely. Having a fascination for Dante’s Inferno, the sociopath came up with the name Dante Pierce. Changing his name and ridding himself of the hair he had grown up for certain reasons (looking unrecognizable). Though as if karma wanted to come bite him in the ass it did -- HIS SISTER SURVIVED. His work was far from done, that he knew since Bethel was still out there, but now someone else has been added to the list with a few certain others.

Fast forward to a him recently turned thirty and had earned a Master’s Degree in Forensics. With that and his new identify, Dante has searched out in the world for what is left of the Kline family and in doing so had came across his Uncle -- his Father and put an end to the man, knowing that James has has contact with both Bethel and his sister. Since that night of the family fire til now, Dante hasn’t stopped killing. Whoever get’s in his way he doesn’t hesitate for a second in slaughtering someone.

Prior to the man’s death from his son’s tortures, James revealed that they had fled to Chicago for a fresh start and that is where Dante has gone too. He knows he needs to end the family line to start a new one. Kill the past.

Personality;; Dante is a guy who oozes with charisma. To the world he appears as this kind hearted soft young man who works as a CSI, but to certain few people they know his true colors, the blood on his hands. He does have a heart even though it is buried deep under all that darkness and blood he has spilled.

Wanted Connections;; rivals, fwbs, drinking buddies, friends, he can use all the connections tbh! i

#crimson.intro #intro ; dante #tw: violence #tw: blood #tw: murder #tw: death #tw: incest

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iblue-kitzune · 5 years ago

Text

Of Rising Calamities Beyond the Cosmos: Chapter 1

There was a great storm approaching—one big enough to cover all of the islands that were scattered across the vast deep blue sea.

At least, that’s what the travelers and the wildlife had said not too long ago.

Even within the depths of an eerie dark cave, one that she was currently exploring at the moment, their whispers reached her sensitive ears. She immediately stopped her in her tracks.

And despite being in the middle of discovering something in this mysterious dungeon that was incredibly too damp and filled to the brim with god knows what, aside from the occasional wild animals or monsters that came out of nowhere to attack her—interrupting her search on nearly every floor she went through only to piss her off when one of the bastards got a lucky hit in and ripped a hole through her favorite sleeveless jacket, which earned him a quick ticket to hell, the young woman listened.

She listened to their warnings, their calls of distress that were laced with fear and worry. With a disappointed sigh, the young woman flicked her right hand and made her ruined jacket disappear into one of her many dimensional pockets.

‘I will come back here and try again next time,’ she promised in her mind right before she vanished from the cave in a flash of blue-white light.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chaotic streaks of white lightning danced across the midnight blue sky in waves, bringing along its rumbling call of thunder that spooked those roaming around down below into action, and a downpour rain that soaked them to the bone.

A sudden flash of lightning struck, hitting the boulders on an empty port near a beach covered in coconut trees that stood tall in the very back where the exit was, shattering it into pieces with its powerful force. Unfortunately, this scared off the many critters and birds hiding up in the trees into the forest, heading right for the valley that was connected to this place.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fighting against the sudden force from a gust of wind that came and nearly swept them off their feet, the animals on ground floor ran on —a bit with slight difficulty— while those up in the crackling air flew on and on. Their high-pitched cries, roars, and caws echoed across the valley filled with shimmering huge trees, giant boulders, and stonehenge pillars that glowed lavender underneath direct light, colorful wildflowers that danced from side-to-side in timing with the blowing of the wind, bright blue rivers that sparkled ever so radiantly at night whenever the full moon or stars came out to play, and a mountain with snow covered tops that stretched far and wide over an area where a beautiful silver-blue and white citadel lay in waiting at the bottom near a waterfall.

It was a place that not only held an entire city inside, but it was a city that housed a couple of special schools and academies too—with at least eight of them being well-known throughout the whole world. However, out of those eight, only four of them taught both academics and magic. The type where students can receive their education and learn how to fight all in the same building.

And because of that, these institutions were considered by many to be one of the best. Why, some of the most brilliant people and warriors have graduated from here—some even came back years later and tutored here or taught classes here, after they went on and got their doctorate’s degree out of the way, elsewhere, that is.

Unfortunately, due to the location of this place, considering where it’s situated at and all, the fortress tends to get attacked by the local wildlife and monsters living in the area or get hit with thunderstorms and blizzards every once in a while.

ZZZOWP!

“Caw!” startled cries escaped from a flock of birds when a bright bluish-white light appeared above their heads. Then with wide beady little eyes, they watched the light disappear only for a human woman with long dark brown hair and golden brown-amber eyes to appear out of it and fall past them, heading for one of the high tower bridges of the citadel below them.

“A thunderstorm huh? That’s odd,” she commented once she grabbed a hold of the bridge’s railing and lifted herself up and over it...

Only to get hit by something small and hard.

“Ow!” she looked up with a grimace and paused. “What in the—hail too?! Yeesh! This is just not my day huh?” the young brunette complained, wincing in pain when she felt a few more drops of hail hit her on the head just as she ducked underneath the surface and took cover on the third’s highest floor she was on.

“It’s a good thing I choose this floor and not the damaged one with cracks in it above me...” she mumbled. “Or the top floor where I definitely could’ve gotten more soaked.”

BOOM!

“Caw! Caw!” more birds flew past her vision overhead.

However, she was concerned about other things at the moment.

‘Let’s see...’

The young woman took the time to make sure her clothes didn’t get ruined any further then they did earlier during her scuffles with the monsters.

‘Hmm…it’s not too bad I guess...’ she said, eyeing the tiny creases mixed in with the stains of dried blood —not hers— on her wet tube top. ‘I’ll have Darcy wash it and fix Friday since it will be her turn for laundry day,’ she added and continued her inspection.

Once she was satisfied and found nothing else amiss, the young woman turned and made a beeline towards the nearest pillar that came with a bench.

“Much better,” a relieved sigh left her mouth as she sat down and closed her eyes.

It was quiet for the first two minutes—save for the small occasional boom of thunder and whispers of the wind, but she didn’t mind any of that at all. She was just glad to be out of the weather for now. Well, at least before she had to go back out there again and head—

“Hey Dr. Foster!”

Damn. So much for peace and quiet.

“Jane!”

“There you are!”

She opened her eyes and looked over to see two of her friends and an old familiar face, one that she hasn’t seen in years, heading in her direction.

The first one to stop in front of her sitting form was a semi-tall woman with shoulder-length black hair, heterochromia eyes –with her right one being red while the left one was blue—, and a small scar running across the bridge of her nose. She wore white and black clothing with gold accents, some rider goggles around her neck, which sat over the red jeweled necklace she had on, and was armed from head-to-toe.

Next to the woman, a young man stood tall with spiky faux-hawk like white hair, blue eyes, and a cybernetic arm. He wore a dark blue hooded jacket over a dark crimson red shirt, black pants, and some black military-style combat boots.

Like his friend, he was also armed, but not as much as she was.

And finally in the back, an older man stood there in some kind of purple collared shirt and golden color tie underneath a dark blue business suit with his arms crossed against his chest. He had spiky brown hair, brown eyes, and a small beard forming under his chin.

And unlike the two in front of him, he was not armed at all.

But that didn’t mean anything seeing as not everyone carried some type of weapon or weapons on their person, and if they did, some of them wouldn’t even choose to have them hanging out in plain sight.

This is something that Jane knew all too well.

In fact, she, too, carried a few weapons on her person.

“Lady…” she finally spoke, nodding at the dark haired woman, “Nero…” and white haired man in greeting. “Alvin…” the young woman gave the brown haired man a quick nonchalant glance, ignoring his sudden slouched stance, and turned her attention back on her friends. “You two were looking for me?” she asked curiously.

“Yeah! Lady and I thought you were still out there in that cave you told us about over the phone earlier,” Nero answered. “But seeing as you’re here now, safe and sound from the storm, I guess there’s no point in coming to look for you anymore.”

Jane laughed at the small sheepish look on his face, “No, I guess not.”

“Told you, Nero! I knew she’d be fine,” Lady teased and gave the young man next to her a smug look.

Nero lightly glared at her. “Oh now you’re going to lie, huh, Lady? Admit it! You were worried too! That’s why you wanted to come with me.”

“I—I was not that worried.”

“Yes, you were!”

“No, I wasn’t!”

Jane hid a nostalgic smile behind her hand, silently laughing at the two as a small argument broke out between them. Even if she hadn’t seen these two and the other devil hunters back in Red Grave City in a long while, they were still just like how she remembered them.

Well, at least these two were. She didn’t know how Dante, Vergil, Trish, Kyrie, and Nico were doing or what they were up to these days, aside from slaying demons and all that.

‘Guess it’s time I pay them a visit in the near future. Maybe I’ll even run into Erik while I’m over there too.’

Though speaking of visits...

Jane ignored Lady and Nero’s ongoing friendly argument for the moment and turned her sights on the older man who observed the “fight” in front of him with slight amusement.

It isn’t every day that the so called ex-mercenary –which he told her this in one of their old letters and among other things, such as the friends he made and how his life had finally turned around for him— comes down here to pay her a personal visit unless he had some information on him that he wanted to share with her.

“Alvin.”

The professional tone of her voice drew all of their attention towards her.

“Yo?”

“I know you usually don’t frequent visits to Earth unless you either have something to give to me or doing business down here, so which one is it?” she asked with crossed arms. “Actually, how did you even know where to look for me? I could’ve been back at home in London for all you know, so how?”

Alvin slowly yet nonchalantly corrected his stance and slipped his hands in his pockets. “Well you can thank your bubbly, little lovely lady friend with the sunglasses and the good-looking, eccentric rich guy with a nice beard and an ego the size of Texas for me. I told them I was an old friend of yours and was looking for you, and they so kindly directed me towards this nice little island here!” he chirped with a grinning smile.

Despite the urge to face palm or roll her eyes, the young woman kept her composure.

On the inside, however…

‘Damn it, Darcy! Tony!’

The smirk on Alvin’s face dipped a bit when he caught sight of the change of Jane’s expression on her face. “Hey Jane, what’s wrong—”

“Alvin?” Lady interrupted, immediately catching the man’s attention. “That’s your name, right?”

“Yep! That’s right!”

“Okay, Alvin. For one, you never told us your name when we ran into you earlier. And number two, you never told us that Jane was an old friend of yours other than “she’s someone I know” and “I’m here to see her too”…”

The spiky brown haired blinked. “Ah well…” he paused and gave the young black haired woman a small charming grin. “You never asked,” he stated, casually shrugging his shoulders.

Jane could see the irritation starting to settle in both Nero and Lady’s eyes. So before any of them could blow up on the man even though he probably deserved it for playing his usual games on people that he meets, she decided to jump in and save the poor guy.

‘Just this once,’ she sighed heavily, which ended up attracting all of their attention back on her again.

“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you, Alvin?” Jane gave the man a pointed look, and he just laughed in response. “Oh good grief. I see you haven’t changed that much in that department,” she shook her head, much to the confusion of her two friends who looked so lost and didn’t know what was going on between her and Alvin.

“Jane—”

“Don’t worry about it, Nero…” Jane reassured the white haired devil hunter with a smile when he turned to look at her in question. “Alvin was just messing you and Lady. That’s all,” she clarified for him.

“…O…kay?” poor Nero still looked confused.

And as for Lady, she wasn’t even going to question it.

“Alright, enough of the fun and games you guys. Shouldn’t we discuss the weather situation at hand here?”

BOOM!

All of them suddenly jumped from the loud sound then got startled by the multiple flashes of lightning, which struck a top part of the mountain nearby. And the thought of being way up there, anywhere near that area, made them flinch a bit.

‘That could’ve easily been one of us.’

They were now suddenly thankful for being down here instead, where they would at least be safe and out of striking distance.

Alvin hummed, a somber expression growing on his face as he turned to look at three, although his eyes were more so locked onto Jane’s. “She’s right you know,” he said in a murmur. “And as a matter of fact, I do actually have something for you, Dr. Foster.”

Jane returned his expression.

“Let’s hear it then.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Taking the Tesseract sounded brilliant in his mind at first. When he and the others saw Stark grab his chest in pain and crumble to the ground right in front of them, he immediately became puzzled…and a tiny bit suspicious. The injured god had no idea if this was some sort of trick, but he ignored them as soon as his faux brother and his new band of mortal friends, along with a few others, ran to the Man of Iron’s aid. Instead, he, without turning around, focused a little bit of his attention on one of the mortals behind him and the soldiers, calling out something along the lines of “Help!” and “Can someone get this guy here a medic please!”.

Then, before he could even comprehend what the hel was going on, a bang went off in the background and something flew across the floor and hit his boot, making him look down. And he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the Tesseract! It was just...sitting there! Sitting oh so innocently on the floor and not in that strange metal looking case like it should’ve been earlier.

He couldn’t ignore the temptation, and immediately took action. The God Mischief looked around to make sure that no one was looking at him, and when they weren’t, he bent down to retrieve the glowing cube in his cuffed hands and activated it, immediately blinking out of their existence.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Well that went surprisingly…well, the raven haired god mused in his mind as he traveled through space and time. He thought for sure his little plan would blow up in his face considering that he hastily threw it all together in like, what, a split few seconds. But it didn’t! And, honestly, it shocked him.

Oh well, he wasn’t going to give any more thought to those incompetent fools now that he’s escaped from their hold.

‘Wait a minute...’ and the realization of something else, something incredible, flew through his mind just then.

There was no going back to Asgard now…

No going back to The Other or the Black Order…

And, most definitely, no going back to Thanos and his Chitauri army to deliver the news of his failed mission, which he was sure by now that the Titan knew and will more than likely punish him for it—but still!

He was free!

For once, he was actually happy. And although he couldn’t remember the last time something had gone right for him, the god wasn’t going to let his own pessimistic thoughts or the “what-ifs” –that were currently flowing through his mind right now— ruin the rest of his day.

He could go wherever he pleased and they wouldn’t be able to catch up with him—not without Tesseract though, which was in his possession now. So with that in mind, he willed the powerful glowing blue cube to take him somewhere to safety and slowly closed his eyes.

‘Just a quick rest,’ he thought to himself as the cube glowed in response to his wish and teleported him out of the area.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The raven haired god knew something went wrong the moment he sensed a couple of hostile auras in the area, and so, he opened his tired, weary eyes only to come face-to-face with an army of familiar alien battleships with their weapons aimed directly at him.

Oh for Valhalla’s sake! He knew it was too good to be true! Stupid Loki for believing that sweet, sweet victory and freedom was within his grasps! And damn the Tesseract for dropping him here in the heat of fire instead of somewhere else.

Somewhere that’s safe.

Bah! Trust that blasted cube to betray him now. It’s like the thing wanted to get rid of him or something.

And now these fools demanded that he hand over cube unless he wanted to become space dust? Ha! Do these people really think they could—

“Quit trying our patience, false Asgardian prince! Surrender the Tesseract now or we will fire!”

He sighed. ‘You really are a lot of trouble you know that right?’ the god looked down at the infinity stone in his hands and pondered over this new situation he landed himself in. Even though Loki resented the cube at this present moment and wanted nothing more than to rid himself of it, that didn’t mean he wanted to hand it over to Thanos’ cronies.

There was a reason why he made sure he purposely failed his takeover of Midgard and still made it look like it wasn’t his fault that the mission went south. He knew the Mad Titan wanted the Tesseract, and wanted it badly. He knew that Thanos wanted the other stones too. The guy and his army were still searching for them—and have been for a long time now. Sure, he didn’t know why they were looking for them in the first place, but Loki had a feeling that it wasn’t for anything good at all.

And he trusted that gut feeling of his, so maybe it was sort of a good thing Thanos never told him what his true plans were.

‘Trust...and loyalty... He never had mine to begin with and I never had his. Good. I didn’t need it or wanted it anyway. Only a fool would give either of the two away and expect me, in return, to fully hand over mine, especially over a deal or a promise.’

The god sighed once he finally made up his mind. He just hoped to Gods that he wasn’t going to get killed for this since his seidr was severely low at this point.

He closed his eyes once more and shook his head.

They didn’t seem to like that response as their cannons started glowing with built-up energy, and they demanded through the intercom, for the final time, to give them the Tesseract.

Instead of shaking his head again, Loki opened his green eyes and took a page out of the Midgardians’ hands—something that he’d witnessed before during his time in the void when he was spying on Midgard. He lifted both of his cuffed hands up—while letting the Tesseract go to hover in place before him— and shoved them forward with his middle fingers raised high up in the air.

And to add further insult to injury, the God of Mischief stuck his tongue out at them and waved good-bye before he quickly grabbed the glowing cube and bolted.

When they realized what the god had just done—let alone have the nerve to do it without even speaking to them telepathically, which they knew Loki was quite capable of it, the group chased after him in pure rage.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

‘Oh shit…’ he suddenly and uncharacteristically cursed in his mind when the battleships quickly caught up to him and started rapidly firing at him.

Despite his weakened appearance, Loki managed to dodge all of the blasts and with the little bit of seidr he had left, willed his body to change.

In a flash of green light, he transformed himself into a griffin and transferred his hold on the Tesseract over to his tail and flew off. ‘What the—’ the god narrowed his eyes in deep annoyance when he realized that the blasted contraption attached to his beak was still on. He thought for sure the muzzle would break under the force of pressure due to his body changing, but it didn’t.

In his exhaustion and rage, he completely forgot to dodge the next set of beams and got bombarded from all sides.

BOOM!

Before the battleships could proceed forward, a bright blue light exploded from within the smoke cloud and blinded everyone.

ZZZZZPPT!

When the light in the huge receding smoke cloud died down and the Black Order along with the Chitauri inside opened their eyes and looked out the window of their ships, they found the Tesseract and Loki Laufeyson, who they’d once thought was dead, no longer there.

They were gone now.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

‘Where…a…are…y…ou…ta…taking me?’

The cube was silent.

‘Fine…whatever…’ he truly wasn’t in the mood to try and argue with an inanimate object that held some form of sentience and a lot of power.

With his energy completely spent and his body slightly numb from the waist down, he couldn’t move.

He couldn’t do anything!

Then his vision blurred, and Loki found himself falling for a second time.

Why was he not surprised by this? He thought he would be. But then he remembered something, something so minuscule that really shouldn’t matter at all. Why should it?

But still...it was something so important that it should never, ever, be forgotten.

The Norns hated him. They always did. And that will never change. He was sure of it.

So in conclusion, this must be their doing. They must want him to fail and perish.

……….

.....

Well then, if he died during the fall—or after, this time around, so be it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“—So it’s like that in other parts of the world other than here, on Snow Lunar Island, and London huh?”

“Yeah, pretty much, Kid.”

“That’s a bit concerning to hear then...”

Jane stayed quiet as her two friends spoke up after Alvin just got done explaining the news he had for them. She had to agree with Lady though. It was one thing for the island to experience frequent thunderstorms such as this, but for places such as Puente Antiguo, New York City, Stuttgart, Sokovia, Wakanda, Norway, and many others to experience this same kind of storm, and mimic its intensity at the same time too, was —she wasn’t going to lie— a little alarming.

It was practically unheard...

And to make matters worse, if she recalled correctly, it stormed the day she got here. Hard. Really hard. And sure, she was a couple of days late because of delays and all, but at least she and the other passengers on the ship made it to Snow Lunar Island, safe and sound.

That happened about six months ago, and since then, it has stormed over a total of four times already—with this one being the fifth, Jane realized with a start.

It just now dawned on her that the storms never really went away. At best, they lasted for about a couple of days before they died down, only to pick right back up where they left off again, a few weeks later.

It was an ongoing chaotic cycle. Rinse and repeat until...

‘Today...’ she said, looking uneasily at the sparks of white-blue lightning running along the thick dark clouds in the rainy sky, mixed in with the hail that fell through the cracks within.

“I don’t know if Mother Nature’s been PMS-ing lately or whatever, but this, THIS, I can guarantee you is not normal! All of the animals and other creatures I’ve come across lately have been going stir crazy! Hell, even the demons that Lady, I, and everyone else have slayed on our past missions gone bonkers! More so than usual in fact! It’s more than a little nerving I will admit, but I shit you not, the last mission I went, the Old Man, Pops, and I witnessed a fucking Blitz —which is an elite demon in terms of being the strongest of ranks mind you— running around in circles like a damn headless chicken. And you wanna know what it did next? It fucking kamikazed itself with us right there! And while I’m sure it definitely noticed our presence there, it didn’t care enough to turn around and attack us!” Nero’s shouting broke the young woman out of her thoughts.

Lady was shocked, “That’s...”

Nero continued, “Let me tell you...that was undeniably one of the most bizarre-st of things I have ever witnessed in my entire career of demon hunting. Seriously, you know something’s gone wrong when even the blind one ignores the Sons and the Grandson of Sparda in favor of something else and decides to off itself.”

“You know...I think I remember witnessing something similar a while back like that out here...except, it was a behemoth arctic dragon and not a demon. The poor thing looked so scared too. I literally witnessed the dragon throw itself off a cliff and into a pool of hot lava in the other cave I was exploring not too far away from here. It was awful,” Jane threw her own two cents in.

Nero and the other two turned to her, horrified.

“Yeah! See what I mean guys?!”

“Okay, that is disturbing...” Alvin and Lady said in unison. “I can’t even begin to imagine...” they trailed off, unable to finish their thoughts.

Jane nodded solemnly, and turned away. In a way, she supposed it was a good thing that neither one of them weren’t there to see and hear the reptilian monster’s shrieks of agony as it was burned alive...

Or experience the horror and helplessness she felt after when its body finally melted and sunk under the lava, cooling its boiling surface as a fog of mist rolled up and covered the area.

...That image gave her plenty of nightmares. And still does to this day, but not as much, thankfully.

“Every monster, animal, and creature out there, except for the majority of us “humans”, knows what’s up. They sense...something. I think it’s about time we should do the same because I don’t think this weather is going to get better anytime soon. At the rate this storm’s going...if it continues to get worse...worse than what’s happening right now, then I’m afraid we’ll all be in real big trouble,” Nero finished.

Alvin and Lady nodded.

“There’s also the issue with increased activity of anomalies happening up there that we need to worry about too,” Jane pointed out.

Nero looked and blinked at her, “You mean up in space?”

Jane nodded.

“You’ve been keeping track of them, haven’t you? I thought you were supposed to be on break?” Lady gave her an exasperated look. “Wait...? Are you even on vacation or...”

The young brunette frowned, “Of course I’m on vacation. But that’s not going to completely stop me from doing work or making new exciting discoveries out here!”

The men shook their heads with a sweat drop while the devil huntress put hers down with a sigh.

“Oh Jane, what are we ever gonna do with you...”

Before the young scientist could come up with some kind of sarcastic response or retort, her body tensed up.

And so did Nero’s.

‘What in the world...’ their eyes went wide in shock when they felt an overwhelming amount of energy appear on their radar, and it nearly crippled them to their knees not only because of how raw and powerful it was, but because of how darn close it was too. Like it was heading towards—

Lady narrowed her eyes and placed a hand on the shoulder strap holding up her Kalina Ann —that was placed on her back— when she saw Jane and Nero turn their attention to the sky.

“You two sense something?” she asked, following their lead with her own eyes.

Without looking away or say anything, the two nodded.

“What the hell is that?!” Alvin blurted out, pointing a finger at the changing colors of the dark sky.

“Is that an aurora borealis forming?”

“I believe so.”

They couldn’t believe their eyes. Right before them, the rainy sky glowed once, then twice, and thrice. And suddenly, one by one, a stream of blue, green, yellow, purple, and white lights appeared.

This, combined with the crazy weather that was still going on in the background, made the whole image look so...surreal. Like something straight out of a fantasy visual novel or videogame. It was hard to believe that something like this was happening right now.

“Whoa!”

“Hey look at that you guys!”

“It’s so pretty!”

And from the commotion they could hear a few floors down, it seems like the people shared their thoughts as well as they all came out and formed a single long line along the railing of the tower bridges below theirs to watch the strange phenomenon from their own respective floors.

‘Brother is coming...?’ the faint whisper of a long, dormant feminine voice, one that Jane hasn’t heard in a long time, spoke up. ‘But something’s off... He feels...different...this time.’

‘Huh?!’ she uttered in complete surprise and confusion.

‘Brother should’ve been gone like the others...except for Mind and Time...but...’

Before the young woman could even begin to question the remnants of the Aether, she heard the sound of incoming footsteps.

“Auntie Jane!”

Jane and her friends turned to the side to see two people with black hair and brown eyes —one being in his early twenties while the other one was in her late twenties— running toward them.

“Hey Kagome... Hey Sota,” she said when the two stopped in front of her friends. “Aren’t you two supposed to be in class by now?” Jane looked at the siblings with furrowed brows, and crossed her arms.

“Yeah...” Kagome said. “But we got an email earlier from all of our professors saying that classes are cancelled for the rest of day. Power outage and all of that,” she explained with a small shrug.

“And you two thought it was a bright idea to come out here where it’s pouring like cats and dogs, and risk catching a cold or getting struck by lightning, instead of going back to your dorm rooms where it’s warm and cozy inside?”

The two flinched at that.

“Well, when you put it like that...” Sota trailed off when he saw the dark look on the older woman’s face. “Nevermind! It was a stupid idea,” he quickly bowed his head in apology, his eyes filled deep shame.

“Yeah, we’re sorry, Auntie...” Kagome quietly said, fiddling with the end of her shirt’s sleeves.

Jane sighed, “Just don’t...don’t ever do something so reckless like that ever again, okay?”

Sota nodded, silently, while Kagome looked at the woman, worriedly.

“You’re not going to tell Dad are you?” she asked with slight hesitance in her voice.

Jane uncrossed her arms and closed her eyes with a heavy sigh, “I should, but I’m not going to...” then opened them back up and looked away. “Not this time at least,” she mumbled that last part like it was an afterthought.

The two black haired siblings looked a little relieved at.

“Umm...what is that?”

Everyone looked in the direction where Alvin was pointing at and saw what looked like a meteor falling from the sky.

“Is that a meteor?”

“It looks like it—”

BOOM!

The loud rumble of thunder startled everyone standing within their own respective tower bridge floors so badly that some fell back on their butts while a few almost went over the railings if it hadn’t been for those nearby who pulled them back up.

BOOM!

Seconds later, a sudden giant flash of lightning appeared, nearly way too close for comfort, and light up the whole sky, blinding the crowd who let out surprised screams and covered their eyes. Because of this, they missed the second flash of lightning, and this time, it struck something.

KABOOM!

The crowd opened their eyes and looked up just in time to see the ball of fire get knocked off its course, and instead of getting destroyed upon contact like they thought would happen, the meteor flew to the side.

And much to their surprise, it was now hurtling itself straight towards the ground at an alarming speed.

‘Oh no…’

Before anyone could shout out a warning, the meteor flew out of sight behind the trees and landed somewhere in the valley with an explosive crash, sending out a massive shock wave of energy that rippled through the earth along with a bright blue light that engulfed them and the area whole.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Pain…so much pain…

Deep and agonizing…

He could feel it in his tail…

His legs…

His groin area…

His chest…

His arms and shoulders…

And finally, along the wings on his throbbing back, which felt like they were on fire.

No matter which way he turned, or even if he moved just less than a centimeter, his body roared in protest. And he bit back a whine, nearly biting his own tongue off in this process, as he flopped back to the ground, which smelled like burnt grass, and the strong stench of it nearly made him gag behind the muzzle that was still somehow attached to his beak.

It, along with the pain, brought him to tears. A surge of anger and frustration burned through him as they leaked from his eyes and ran down his furry cheeks and over his bleeding cuts, stinging the hell out of him.

As the defeated god continued to lay there on the wet ground, broken and bleeding in a pool of his own blood, only one thought ran through his aching mind as his muted green eyes surveyed the lightning flashing so ominously —almost mockingly at him it seems— in the dark rainy sky before they slowly shut closed.

Why…? Why was he still alive?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Nothing but silence filled the air. Questions flew through the minds of everyone standing or sitting completely still in their spots, eyes shut closed behind arms that came up to cover their heads from the blast that occurred a minute ago.

Right as the people were beginning to give up hope, wondering if they were still alive or not, their ears picked up a new sound.

“Oh my god...!” Sota whispered in awe.

Slowly, everyone’s eyes fluttered open and they looked up to see Dr. Foster along with Stark’s Eldest Daughter hovering in the air a few feet away from the citadel, with their arms stretched out, behind a dome of swirling energy that hummed and glowed bluish-white.

Alvin along with everyone else gasped in realization at what the two ladies had just done.

“It’s a barrier,” Lady confirmed.

Whispers broke out amongst the people as Jane Valerie Foster and Kagome Higurashi Stark lowered their arms and lifted the barrier up.

“I think a small group of us should go check out what crashed down there.”

Alvin along with Sota and Lady frowned at Kagome’s suggestion.

“Uhh, Little lady, I don’t think—” the ex-mercenary trailed off in shock as an explosive burst of mana in the shape of bright purple and white flames erupted from the young scientist’s body and engulfed her whole. “What the...!” then within mere seconds, a newly transformed Jane broke free from the veil of mana-like fire.

No longer was there a human hovering in front of them all, but a canine-vulpine spirit with flowing waist length orange hair and yellow-red highlights, large fire colored wolf ears, and four fire colored fox tails with black tips at the ends.

“She’s right, you know…” Jane looked over her shoulder at the crowd, her purple eyes encased in the black sclera staring intently into their own orbs. “Someone’s gotta go down there and make sure it’s just that, a meteor.”

The frown on Lady’s face deepened.

“And if it’s a threat?” she asked, crossing her arms.

It was at this point Nero knew what he wanted to do, so he made his first move. He stretched and placed a hand on the devil huntress’ shoulder, making her look up at him in surprise. “Then we will get rid of it,” the spiky faux haired devil hunter said as he gave Lady a reassuring look and a single pat, released her shoulder, and walked past her. “It’s just as simple as that,” he grabbed a hold of the railing and leaped over it.

“Nero…” Lady watched the young quarter demon transform in a flash of blue light with a gleam of worry in her heterochromia eyes.

“Don’t worry, Lady! We’ll be fine,” Nero threw a confident smirk over his shoulder, his voice a bit gruff and demonic due to him being in his Devil Trigger form, as he joined Jane and Kagome in the sky.

“You better, Nero!” Lady gave him warning as she and others waved at them. “And you too, Jane! Kagome!”

The transformed devil hunter chuckled in response while the two ladies smiled. “Okay...” Jane looked between her friend and niece figure and motioned the two to move closer to her. “Ready?” she asked when they both grabbed her hands.

“I am.”

“You betcha.”

“Alrighty then.”

In a flash of bluish-white light, all three of them disappeared.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

While he waited for the inevitable—or for something to happen, Loki dreamed.

He dreamed he was in a grassy field surrounded by darkness and filled with a lot of white noise. There was chit chatter flowing all around him. It took up the majority of his attention, and he wanted to know what it was all about.

So he concentrated, and listened, blocking everything out of his mind such as the downpour of rain and some kind of balls of ice hitting him —not that he could feel them of course, but he can definitely hear them make contact with his body— and the sensation of...something...entering his numbed body. He focused on the words and not their meanings.

He heard three voices. One male and two females. The god didn’t have a clue on what their identities or origins were, although one of them did sound slightly familiar to him.

How strange...

“—Can’t believe this one griffin caused all of this damage here.”

“Well, thankfully he didn’t crash into the ocean; otherwise, he would’ve drowned. And I’m sure something like that would’ve made it into the news on TV too.”

“Yeah...”

“Still, it’s incredible that he not only survived the fall, but survived getting struck by lightning too. Tough little guy he is.”

“Mhmm... When’s Nero coming back?”

“Hopefully soon. That powerful surge he and I felt earlier...I hope he finds it and recovers it before anyone else does. A power like that should not be left unattended. It would be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands if anyone with...questionable intentions were to get a hold of it.”

Shit... They were talking about the Tesseract. How did he not realize he’d drop it?!

“You...you have an idea of what it was, Auntie?”

“Sort of...” the female voice —the one that sounded vaguely familiar to him and had a slight melodic tone to it— paused. “It had the feel of an Infinity Stone, I think. Not sure which one just yet.”

“Unless Nero finds it and brings it back, right?”

“Right.”

Oh that’s just fantastic now. He was on this dreadful backwater planet. On freaking Midgard. Where? He didn’t know and didn’t care. But still, it made sense that he would get found by some Midgardians sooner or later. The only thing that confused him though was how in all of Yggdrasil do they know about the Infinity Stones?

“You can take over from here, Auntie. My ki energy is getting pretty low...” the other female panted in a low voice.

Suddenly, that sensation he felt earlier—and promptly ignored, which he didn’t know why he did it in the first place— changed. It felt much warmer than the first one now. More powerful. And much more different, but still felt soothing all the same.

Almost like—

Loki’s eyes snapped wide open, and he wildly looked around the area, completely ignoring the tired black haired Midgardian woman sitting off to the side, for the one who—

“Stop! You’ll hurt yourself more if you continue doing that!”

Small yet warm delicate hands —that were dark blue in color. Odd?— held his face still and a wave of some unknown energy that felt almost like magic washed over him, clearing both his mind and emotions. Calming him down even.

In fact...his fear was now gone, much to his shock.

How...? How did she even manage to...

“Better now?”

Despite his vision being somewhat blurry, Loki slowly looked up and paused at the sight. He blinked in...surprise? Awe? Confusion? He truly didn’t know.

Shiny purple eyes, which glowed like amethyst gemstones from the bright greenish-yellow and white light coming off her hands, surrounded in a pool of black stared back into his green ones.

And that hair...it reminded him the colors of an evening sunset, which complimented the fire colored ears on top of her head quite nicely—huh?

What...was that?

Something in his peripheral vision moved, and one quick glance down with his eyes told him exactly what it was.

Four beautiful long fire colored tails with black tips—that looked so fluffy and so soft that if he even remotely had the ability to move right now, he would touch them and test them to see if they were as soft as they truly looked, sat curled around the woman’s waist and ran along the length of his body from each side.

And wait a minute... Was he...? Actually, what was he sitting on? He could’ve sworn he saw...

His eyes darted back down again and...oh. He froze in shock at the sight of himself lying on his back in the woman's lap. How in the world did he get there?!

And more importantly, why did it take him this long to realize this sort of thing?!

“There! You should be fine for now.”

He blinked when the glowing light from her hands disappeared. And somehow, he felt better.

Not completely better...

But a little bit better than he did a few minutes ago.

This was definitely one of the weirdest dreams he’s ever had in a long time.

“Jane! Kagome! I found the source of the power!” a young Midgardian man with shocking white hair, to his complete astonishment, ran in holding a familiar glowing object in a transparent case of some sorts. “This is what we felt earlier, Jane!” he held it up for them to see.

“Nero! You’re back!” the woman with black hair, called Kagome, spoke.

“It’s the Tesseract...” the strange sunset haired woman, the one called Jane, uttered in shock.

Jane...

That name...

Why did that name sound so familiar to him? Could it be possible that he heard that name before from somewhere? There were so, so many questions he had flowing through his mind like crazy now...

Damn...if only his head didn’t hurt so much right now...if only he didn’t feel so bloody tired...

Or dizzy at the moment—

“Oh hey! The little guy's awake,” the Nero guy said and stared at him. “He actually looks ready to pass out at any second now.”

The two women looked at him, and sure enough, he could hear the darkness calling out to him.

“Oh no...”

“Hey little guy!”

“C’mon! Stay awake, Little one!”

Their expression of concern was the last thing he saw before his whole world went black.

And because of this, the God of Mischief missed the chance to see Nero storing the case away in one of his dimensional pockets and transforming back into his DT form, missed the way Jane and Kagome picked him up and held him in their arms, and he definitely missed the way the three gathered around him in a circle, holding onto each other and him, before all four of them teleported out of the area.

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spookyspemilyreid · 6 years ago

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Happy Anniversary “What I've Done”!❤ (April 2, 2007)

"What I've Done" is a song by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released as the first single from their third studio album Minutes to Midnight (2007). The song is composed in the key of G minor. The song was released as a radio single on April 1, 2007, as a digital download on April 2, and as a CD single on April 30. The live version of "What I've Done" from Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 52nd Grammy Awards, but did not win. It also serves as the main theme of the 2007 science fiction film Transformers and also appears on Transformers: The Album (2007). Being certified five times platinum by the RIAA, it is the band's most commercially successful song, though not necessarily most well-known, due to the fact that singles in the US used to have higher sales in general during the second-half of the 2000s.

"What I've Done" was featured in the video game Guitar Hero World Tour. In January 2011, it was released in a Linkin Park DLC pack for Rock Band 3, along with a PRO mode update, which allows use of real instruments such as guitar, keyboards and electronic drumkits. The song is also a B-side to the UK single of "Iridescent". An instrumental version of the song is currently used by Sky UK as background music for their interactive services.

Chester Bennington described the track in a March 2007 interview with MTV:

Joe [Hahn] came up to Mike and me and asked us to take the whole idea of Minutes to Midnight and apply that to how the band has changed. So, in a way, it's us saying goodbye to how we used to be...The lyrics in the first verse are 'In this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi,' and right away, you'll notice that the band sounds different: The drums are much more raw, the guitars are more raw and the vocals aren't tripled. It's just us out there .... and that's how Rick Rubin wanted it.

The single and video appeared in the iTunes Store shortly after midnight EST on April 2, 2007. It became available the day after on iTunes in the UK and Australia. On April 2, the song was featured streaming on the front page of their official website, with the video being added to the site shortly thereafter.

The song starts out with a short 3-second guitar part and then a piano motif, before adding a hip hop-inspired drum line, and then introducing a raw-sounding guitar riff. When the song is played live at Linkin Park's concerts, Mike Shinoda plays the piano intro and the guitar after that. This song differs from most of Linkin Park's songs from previous albums in that it features almost no lead vocals from vocalist Mike Shinoda, with the exception of a brief "na na na" refrain at the end. "What I've Done" was the last song written for Minutes to Midnight. The song also has a downbeat exactly once every second, consistent throughout its entirety.

Mike Shinoda created a remix of the song, which is called "What I've Done (Distorted Remix)", which is included as a b-side to "Bleed It Out". The remix was then included in the international tour edition of Minutes to Midnight, as well as a track in the Linkin Park Underground-exclusive CD Underground X: Demos.

The music video for "What I've Done" was filmed in the California desert and was directed by Linkin Park turntablist Joe Hahn. It features footage of the band performing in the desert, interspersed with stock footage reflecting on a variety of social and environmental issues including pollution, global warming, racism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, abortion, starvation, terrorism, Holocaust, warfare and nuclear warfare, deforestation, poverty, drug addiction, obesity, destruction, rising gasolineprices and crimes committed by humanity. The video also features brief depictions of important historical figures, such as (in order of appearance) Leonardo da Vinci, Mother Teresa, Robert F. Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautama Buddha, Mao Zedong, Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Husseinand Benito Mussolini. Some cutscenes, such as the traffic scene and the napalm exploding. The video premiered on April 2, 2007 on MTV and Fuse. It premiered on MTV Asia, MTV Germany, TMF Netherlands and Canada's MuchMusic on April 3, 2007.

The video starts off with some grass sinking down into the dirt, causing it to turn wet. It then cuts to a scorpion walking to where Linkin Park are performing. It explores the many ironies of humanity and its ill-effects on the earth and the environment (see above). It juxtaposes various pieces of footage: a large, well-fed man eating fast food, a woman measuring her waist and a man who is so malnourished that his ribcage is visible through his skin; African Americans being hosed down by the Ku Klux Klan; nuclear explosions, the World Trade Center collapsing as a result of the September 11 attacks, children waving American flags (one of the children being Brad Delson), a Middle Eastern child holding an AK-47, clips of oil tankers torn in half and birds covered in an oil slick. The video ends with the same grass at the beginning growing out of the dirt, causing it to dry up.

The video clip was featured and won on MTV's Battle of the Videos against videos by Evanescence ("Sweet Sacrifice") and Lil' Mama ("Lip Gloss"). The video also marks the first appearance of a Linkin Park video in the #1 spot on MTV's TRL, hitting #1 six times so far. The video has over 350 million views on YouTube as of July 2018. AOL currently has a live performance of "What I've Done" on their website. MTV's James Montgomery called "What I've Done" the "biggest, baddest and best Linkin Park video of all time," praising the visuals as well as the numerous political figures and events occurring within the video. He summarized the video's message: "Hahn was smart — or brave — enough to inject a message here: the destructive power of man versus the unyielding beauty of nature, and where it all will undoubtedly end (hint: we lose)."

A second video, made exclusively for Australia, features a considerably different scenario from the first; instead of clips of human sin and the grass sinking clip, the video tells the story of a woman (played by Emma Mullings) working at a government-run pharmaceutical company learning of a plan to develop a deadly new virus for "social control", and – with the help of several people dressed in black hooded sweatshirts with Linkin Park's logo on them – smuggles out several blood samples of a human test subject of the virus to expose the conspiracy. The video can be seen on YouTube and Linkin Park's Australian website.

The song made big debuts on the US charts during the chart week of April 21, 2007. The song debuted in the top 10 of the US Hot 100 on April 10, 2007, at #7. It is the band's second highest debut to date on the chart (this title was previously held by "Somewhere I Belong" which opened at #47), earning "Hot Shot" debut of the week, and subsequently becoming the third highest position for a Linkin Park single to date on the Hot 100. The song was their highest debut until they released "New Divide" in May 2009. At the time of its debut it was only the eleventh song since 2000 to debut at #7 or higher on the Hot 100, and only the third song to do so by an artist not from American Idol. The song was partly fueled by digital sales, debuting at #4 on the digital chart. The song was certified 2×Platinum by the RIAA on November 13, 2008. It reached 3 million downloads by early 2011, making it their most successful digital song in the US. As of January 2015, the song has sold 3,700,000 copies in the US.

In addition the song became only the third song ever to open at #1 on the Modern Rock chart, also becoming the band's seventh number one on the chart. It held the #1 spot on Alternative Songs for 15 consecutive weeks, at the time tying it with Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy" The song also reached #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, where it stayed for 8 consecutive weeks. In the iTunes music store, the song had reached number two. It was kept out of the top spot by "Give It to Me" by Timbaland. The music video is the first to reach the number 1 spot on TRL for Linkin Park video history. It has also become a moderate hit on the Adult Top 40, and Pop 100 Airplay charts, peaking at number 21 and 17 respectively on those charts. The song hit #6 in the UK once the physical format was released, making it Linkin Park's highest-charting UK single.

#linkin park #what i've done #single #minutes to midnight #2007 #2000s #mike shinoda #brad delson #rob bourdon #joe hahn #dave phoenix farrell #chester bennington

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sanny-chan5 · 6 years ago

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BNHA “ask me” game

So... I know this is not how this game is suppossed to be played, but I love making this kind of decisions/opinions and I just can’t wait for someone to ask me, so yeah 💪🙌😆🤗

OK this will be cool but long:

💫- What Quirk would you want (your own or existing in BNHA), and why?: One with heal power. Like “light” quirk, but not the physical type, instead, the kindness type one that reaches other’s souls and heals them from within <3 (I don’t think this is possible in BNHA world due to the lack of moral guilt villains have. It’s usually Deku who reaches other’s hearts and “others” are good people- who need to be rescued/heroes more often than not).

❇- Best quirk: OFA, of course. It gives you strengh and you can do a lot of things with that (so, speed too). Even better now that we know what he really stores, iykwim (last manga chapters, 213-5). The problem is how difficult it is to control...

🚫-Worst quirk (except Mineta): LOL. This is really difficult, they all can be used for something... Mt. Lady’s gigantification seems a little... how to say it? uncomfortable? Aoyama’s Belly Laser sounds like a pain: difficult to control and makes your belly hurt 😖 (it’ll be useful, but I wouldn’t like to have it).

😳- BNHA harem? 5-10 people: Not my thing, sorry.

👨‍❤‍💋‍👨- Fave gay ship/s: In this anime, I don’t have one (if the ship isn’t canon, I don’t ship it even if I like them, like what happens with Todomomo: I like it, but it’s not canon).

👩‍❤‍💋‍👩- Fave lesbian ship/s?: Same as last question. Until it’s canon...

💑- Fave straight ship/s?: Izuocha. Obviously (they are somehow canon. At least from Ochako’s part, but you know... pretty obvious they’ll be a thing by the end of the series...💗).

👌- Fave OT3?: Not my thing, sorry.

✨- Most underrated ship?: there aren’t many canon ships, but... I dare say Inko x his actual husband 😂😂 (yes, she has one, sorry, Toshinko shippers :c).

🎎- Most overrated ship?: Pff. Most homo “ships”, TBH x’D We all know fujoshis will conquist our world some day, just as cats are doing it...

👅- Most cancerous ship/ Shipping fandom: I don’t think there is a worst shipping fandom, ‘cause BNHA is one of the anime with more ships there. I think we all respect each other in that aspect even if we don’t like other’s ships, I guess (?)

🔫- Who would you kill?: MINETA. LMAO not really, but it’s the only character I truly dislike u.u

💍- Who would you like to marry?: Todoroki. His personality fits with mine, I’m like a mix of Deku and Ochako BTW. But I wouldn’t care if it was my cinnamon roll Deku 💗 Just, things would be very awkward if it’s just the two little shy emotional frikis we are (him being hero otaku and me just otaku in general) xDD

🥂- Date with?: Mmmm, Bakugo? I want to see that part of him X) (But I don’t think we get along very well, at least from his part, you know how he is... xD). Maybe Kaminari-chan. It’d be very fun 😄

🔭- Gaze with the stars with?: DEKU & AM. At the Seaside Park. Or with Ochako, she’d like it... :) Ahh, sweet moments...

🌸- Fave BNHA theory: I don’t like theories and I don’t want to know anything about them. I also have my thoughts, maybes & possibilities but I don’t like to speell them ‘cause they can become some sort of lucky spoiler (?).

🏞- Fave Arc in BNHA: Still soon, but I liked the Summer Camp + Rescue Bakugo Arc very much (I don’t take into account the arcs that are only part of the manga yet because if I dont watch them in the anime, I won’t know if I’ll feel the same about them. It usually gets better in the anime, with the coloring, special effects, music and acting, though).

🏝- Stranded on an island with?: Deku. He’s SO CREATIVE. He’ll totally think about how to go out there or just how to survive, at least. I’d helped, of course, but he’s so utterly dependable with making solutions for situations apparently imposible to overcome... O.O Bless him 🤗💫💓💓

🅰- Fave student in Class 1-A: DEKU (I think you all know by now). I also like Ochako very much. They’re my cinnamon rolls, so sweet, gentle and... just the best cuties out there c:

🅱- Fave student in Class 1-B: KENDO. She’s like an elder sister to Class 1-B, but also know their kids and help Class 1-A when Monoma is harrassing them LOL, she’s so mature and I’m very interested in her. She’s totally the supportive kind of girl <3

💪- Best boy?: Deku/Midoriya Izuku.

👄- Best girl?: Uravity/Uraraka Ochako.

🐼- Fave animal-related quirk: Mmmm... Hawk’s Fierce Wings, at least for the moment. I love birds and the freedom flying seems to make you feel.

⚠- Flaws of BNHA that you hate: It’s very fast sometimes, and also a little convenient at times (but it’s pretty easy to fall into this kind of flaws when you’re writing a shounen manga, yk).

🔱- Most fave class: Class 1-A. Our class! :)

⚓- Department/Team: I don’t really get what this refers to (sorry English is not my mother tongue). Like... the Big Three, the Wild Wild Pussycats, the Villain League...??? Like those groups? :( Maybe the Deku or Bagugo team/squad?

♣- Fave non-hero/villain character (civilian): If we’re talking about NOW, Toshinori, if he can be considered a civilian because, you know... But I always loved Deku’s mom and now I’m also interested in Tsukauchi with the Illegals manga going on <3 (Still, Dad Might surpasses all of you guys, haha, sorry not sorry).

🔝- Who is your top?: Not going to answer this u.u’. I don’t really have one! I don’t think about these kind of things while watching a shounen, really xD

⬇- Who is your bottom?: Same as last question.

🚿- Who would you like to take a bath/shower with?: A girl, of course. Whoever it was, but Tooru would be strange and interesting... LOL. DEFINITELY NOT MINETA, out of the guys.

👶- Best kid: Kid? ERI-chan hands down.

👀- Who has the most beautiful eyes?: I like Deku’s and Ochako’s ones’ design. Deku’s are the brightest and Ochako’s the most girlish. Both are the cutest ones.

💀- Fave Villain?: (Bakugou? LMAO jk). Mmmmm. Gentle & LaBrava? Not really crimminals though... I’ll go with Kurogiri then... He looks like the father figure of the Villain League LOL He always try hard to help others staying calm and reasoning, particularly Shigaraki Tomura. It makes me feel guilty but I lowkey like that kind of relationships even if they’re bad news.

💯- Best Female Teacher: ... Not Midnight (not very interested in)... so... is any other woman teacher in the series yet?? xD The poor Masegaki Gakuen one seems like an underdog, gotta support her LMAO

👏- Best Male Teacher: Aizawa, if we don’t count All Might. If we do, then him :) <3 (though he’s not very good at this work... It’ doesn’t matter LOL)

💉- Fave Pro-Hero that is not teaching: Fat Gum is really cute... I also kinda like Kamui & Hawks.

💐- Best mom: Izuku’s one. She’s the absolute best!! (Bakugo’s one is the funniest tho LMAO, poor kid, RIP)

😎- Best dad: Dad Might, I’m sorry but not really x’DDD Actual Dad, I guess Ochako’s one?

🔪- Worst dad: ENDEAVOR. And I know he’s trying to change, I want and encourage him to... but he’s still the worst dad that has appeared in the series yet, you know...

💦- Who’s your daddy/mommy (kink)?: Not my thing, sorry.

🖤- Who’s your father and mother figure?: Dad Might. Also, my mother is very similar to Deku’s one, so I think I feel her relationship with Deku very close to mine with my mother.

💬- Fave BNHA quote: “Kimi no chikara janai ka?!”/“It’s your power, isn’t it?!”. I had problems to accept myself back then until I found MBTI. I’m an INFP and value authenticity and one’s quirkness (this is perfect xD “individual characteristics”) very much, so...

👠- Best female fashion/costume: We could say Mina’s the most fashionable out of the girls. But I prefer Tsuyu and Hagakure‘s cute fashion (whenever one of them is wearing something LOL), being my favourite her cat-ears-hoodie from the movie.

About hero costumes, Ochako’s one is the cutest (special mention to the Fantasy RPG Game ending one. That’s the cutestest).

👞- Best male fashion/costume: Bakugo. GoD, He’S sO sTyLiSh. I lOvE ThaT aBoUt HiM <333

About hero costume, Deku’s one is the cutest and seems to be one of the most comfortable ones. Particularly the Betta one or the Gamma with the new airfoce support gloves. I don’t like the large ones design (but I know they’re important to protect his arms).

⏺- Worst fashion/costume: Mineta.

🗑- Who is your trash?: Mineta. I’m sorry, but... just, no. LMAO.

♨- Ship that you would go down to: “Go down to” = stop shipping them or support them even in the darkest moments?

If it’s the first, I don’t think I can do that until one of my ships show affection towards another person (for example, Kyoka-chan falling in love with someone who’s not Kaminari = I’d instantly stop shipping them if the other guy will be canon with her. If not, then there’s still a chance for KamiJirou, an so on). I stopped shipping ToshInko when I realized Deku HAS a father, almost instant moment I began shipping it LOL. (Still, Dad Might’s my favourite for Deku).

If it’s the second, Izuocha FTW 💗!

🌌- BNHA AU: I can’t think about an AU world that’s better than the original, so I’ll just answer with my favourite fanfics here (not really AU) and run.

Favourite BNHA fanfics from:

Sevi007: Pure Dad Might +Deku fluff. We all need more of that in this our precious world.✨

Black Fuego Rio: IzuOcha, very IC, fluffy & awkward and has little sunshine Eri & AM/Toshinori in many of them! Perfect 👌

For if you wanna take a look. Totally recommend you to. They’re well written too.

💇- Weird hairdo: almost all the cast.

🎖- Hangout with in real life: Ochako & Tsuyu <3

📝- If you were given a chance to make a request to Horikoshi, what would it be?: I mean 😂😂 MAKE MORE IZUOCHA MOMENTS PLEASE??? Or more DadMight fluff. Or show Eri more :3 <3 Other questions/plot holes will be answered in time, so... just show me fluff :)

🎶- Sing you to sleep?: Awkward. Umm, Midnight? ñ.ñ 💦

🐻- Cuddle with?: ERI-chan.

🐰- Too pure/innocent character: My sweet bean Deku. Bless him.

Eri, oc.

Kirishima too?

Somehow, Toshinori also seems to me as the awkward innocent type. He’s very extroverted, so I don’t really know why I feel like that about him, but he’s still “idealistic” towards his world’s vision, maybe? (And he’s still cute X)).

🌻- Deserve better: Shinsou, I suppose. Poor guy has felt feared and rejected just for being him most of his life.

Also, Ingenium :c

🌷- Wish to have a no tragic background: If I’d say Deku, we wouldn’t have series xD

Where do I begin with?

Deku

Todoroki

Nana (so do Gran Torino & AM enter too?)

Eri

Mirio

Shinsou

Ingenium too

🦋- Most likely to be a gentleman:

From Class 1A:

Iida? Ojiro? Maybe Kirishima?

Kouda

SHOUJI

DEKU

From Class 1B:

Maybe Awase & Tetsutetsu. MAYBE (susprisingly enough), Monoma.

Others:

Tamaki & Inasa? GENTLE (yeah, shock). Maybe Toshi (God, that would be cute x)).

⌚- Fave old/middle-aged character (30+): Goodness, we don’t even know everyone’s age yet (yes, Toshi, that goes for you). We can always guess, you know? 😂😂

So, here’s an iluminating list:

Under 30s:

Cementoss

Mr. Joke

Masegaki’s teacher

Kamui

Mt. Lady

Manual

Fat gum

La Brava

30s or more:

Hound Dog.

Aizawa (so, AM... 7u7)

Mic (so, AM... x2)

Midnight

Ectoplasm

Power Loader

Vlad

Endeavor

Best Jeanist

Edgeshot (the ninja-like paper hero)

Gang Orca

Rock Lock

Pussycats: Mandalay - Tora - Pixie Bob - Ragdoll

Ingenium

Nighteye (so, AM... xD)

Centipeder

Snatch

Knuckleduster (illegals)

Tsukauchi & Samsa

Mera (the sleepy man of the License Exam)

Tsuyu’s, Kacchan’s & Jiro’s parents

Inko

Stain

Gentle

Teruo Hazukashii (wow, great character, greater quirk LMAO)

AfO (100+ LMAO)

Guesses (+)30:

AM & David Shield

Recovery Girl & Gran Torino (duh).

Snipe & Takeshita (rather secondary heroes)

Crimson Riot, Gunhead & Forth Kind

Selkie & Mick (from Tsuyu’s first practice)

The Samurai-like hero, Nana & Knuckledust (Illegals), very probably.

Captain Celebrity :v (Illegals idiot)

Uwabami, Crust (no 6), Wash & Kota’s parents maybe not.

Miyage (newcaster)

Koichi’s mom (Illegals)

Deku’s dad & Todoroki’s mom

Most of Clas 1A’s parents (and Class 1B too)

Wolfram

Kurogiri

Gigantomachia

Giran

Twice, probably.

Mimic

Maybe Muscular, Magne (BTW, he is a she, or likes to be called like that, so maybe she’s transexual), Spiner, Moonfish, Mr. Compress, Chronostasis, some of the 8 expendables.

Tomura & Overhaul probably not.

So I’m between Tsukauchi & Aizawa if we ignore AM’s probable age 😂😂

⭐- Fav opening song: Peace Sign ✌

🌈- Fave ending theme: Long Hope Philia 🌺

🎙- Fave voice actor: Yamashita adorable DAIKI. He’s such a dork. Yet still he can play Deku very well, maybe because he’s so alike him. He can shout too (which is like a must for a shounen hero xD).

🎤- Fave character song: There isn’t yet. Probably someday we’ll have BNHA CS...

🎧- Fave OST: Yuki-san’s perfect as a composer for this series. My favourite one is “You Say Run”, duh.

💥- Fave battle/s: Cliche, but Deku vs Muscular & AM vs AfO. In terms of character developement, Deku vs Todoroki & Deku vs Kacchan 2 were perfectly written.

The fight vs stain was great too (and we’ll have to watch the Overhaul one in anime to judge it...).

🕳- Most shocking plot twist/unexpected scene: Deku freaking standing up against Muscular when he should be finished for right. It was indredible because I didn’t realized how much he had improved until then (even if it’s a typical emotional power up, I really didn’t expect him to have the energy, I swear O.O).

The first episode with AM’s true form was a comical one for this too, LOL.

And the king of the unexpected sceces: the Mirio’s introduction one x’DD

📷- Selfie with: Ochako, Mina or Hagakure :)

📚- Study in a library with: MOMO. Deku and Ochako (I’d feel more comfort with her around 'cause it’d probably be too silent until cinamon roll Deku started mumbling. The cute little dork 💗💗💗). Definitely not with Bakugo 😆😋

❗- Most underrated character: The Class 1A forgotten ones, maybe?:Aoyama, Koda, Ojiro & Sato

❕- Most overrated character: Todoroki or Bakugo, for sure, Well, I’m not even sure if they can bhe considered as “overrated” or just they deserve that position...

Maybe Hawks, because we don’t know him that well yet and he has so many fans already. Guys, calm down.

🔮- If you desire to see one’s ending? Who would it be?: Ending? Like, death? Or how he/she would end up?

✍-Change character design?: No. 13 & Shouji. I don’t really like it, OK? >.<

😇-Looks like a cinnamon roll, but it is a cinnamon roll.

☺- Cinnamon roll but would actually kill you

😬- Looks like would actually kill you, but it is a cinnamon roll.

😈- Looks like would actually kill you, and would actually kill you.

🤚- Over sexualized character

🍳- Cook with?

🤡- Funniest character

⚪- Best hardening quirk: Tetsutetsu/Kirishima?

🖕- Whose penis would be painful to be fucked? (LOL)

🦇- Best Goth character

💰-Shop with?

🎈- Fave OVA

♀- Would you let Momo spoil you with her quirk?

👋- Villain that you’d wish to be a hero

🤤- Needs to calm down

2 notes · View notes

multifandom-hoes · 7 years ago

Text

The Witch’s Hut

Member: MoonBin // ASTRO

Genre: Horror, Adventure, Dark, Fantasy

Words: 6,7k

Once upon a time, when superstitions were held at higher stakes, on the lands where monsters and devils roamed, there was a little village so old its name was long forgotten, but by the myths that surrounded its never-ending summer, the valley was instead renamed the Witch’s Hut.

Sun blazed down on its occupants all year round, growing healthy crops and providing clean supply of water, yet just outside of the Witch’s Hut there was an eternal white blanket of winter forest. It became one more reason for the people living outside to name the village what it was.

Standing proud on the valley between two grand mountains, the people of the village had been shut out of the outside world entirely and so the superstitious belief grew and manifested into something more. It came to the point where crows cowed on the old crones’ shoulders as the old women cackled, calling themselves seers of all things and trying to make a coin or two for their living with their prophecy. It worked all the time and the eldest woman was believed to be the descendant of a real witch.

Peasants, all of them, the crones with their home-bound crows and the villagers with their stupid fear of the winter forest. What drove the superstitious belief was the fear of the outside world and what it might entail. They believed it was the mercy of the gods that gave them year long summer to enjoy and in turn, they were to be locked down in that little Witch's Hut, cut out from the world.

Yet, even as a child, the boy of ethereal beauty, with his curly brown hair and clear skin, caramel eyes and plump little lips, had never believed in a word of the old crones- never even stumbled at the sight of the crows on their shoulders as how other people had flinched and scurried off. But as his unflinching belief was strong, so were the old women’s words as they crowed along their black birds:

“Don’t go out into the forest, little boy, for the witch of winter will take you away. Out of your pretty brown locks she will sew herself a blanket to keep her warm in the winter’s frost and her long, bony fingers will stroke those sewn locks day in and day out, taking their softness to her pleasure.” The smile on their face was terrifying, yet little Moon Bin had not flinched, even as a drop of sweat slid down his brow.

And so, the years rolled by, each with plenty of sunshine and children playing. Moon Bin was a happy child with a loving mother, a loving father, and plenty of friends he had managed to make. Since the village was a small little thing, he was sure he knew all and more, striding down the hut-lined streets with his head held high, both as a little boy and a grown teen.

It was nearing the annual summer fest, which was usually set by the old crones themselves, since they claimed to read the cycles of the moon and listen to the whispers of the gods that told them the day of the fest. So the villagers let them do their thing while they went on harvesting the crops with even more vigour, abandoning their children to their mischief.

With more embarrassment towards the fact that he had yet to find his date rather than the fear of the old women’s prying, Moon Bin had been restless for weeks. He had someone in mind. Of course he had, and he was quite certain that the lady would agree to his offer to attend the fest together, yet his stomach had knitted tightly every time he was near her.

With his looks, those soft curly locks grown straight and silky, caramel eyes catching a shine of a youth and lips as plump and sensuous as ever, he had tried to boost his confidence, and the knowledge that he was possibly the most handsome man in the valley was certainly reassuring, but when the girl, whom he claimed he loved, was near him, the reassurance was gone in an instance and an ugly blush always managed to steer him away from her.

As he pushed and pulled himself away from her, he missed his chance entirely, to a friend of his own nonetheless. Sulking and kicking the pebbles off the road as he walked back home from yet another scouting day around the village, he had stumbled and nearly knocked one of the crones off the road leading to the winter forest. He stuttered an apology, but received no word of acknowledgment apart from the cowing of the crow as the crone spoke:

“Don’t go out into the forest, little boy, for the witch of winter will take you away. Out of your beautiful brown eyes she will make herself a midnight snack of crunchy delight, and as she devours one after another, you will be there, seeing yet unable to move since you will serve to her delight and nothing more.” He had only sighed at the old woman’s words, too used to hearing them with each crossing they made.

It was barely days to the annual fest when the intangible happened, something that had his mother almost passing out, crying in his father’s arms as she blamed their hut for not giving enough attention to the gods and now having to face their wrath. A blight had struck, as she had said, due to their paying too much attention to the crops rather than thanking for each of the day they had spent in the sun. A blight so terrible the crops were wilting too fast to be saved and now the village was running short on supplies.

A mass meeting had been called, each head of family gathered at the centre of the Witch’s Hut, conversing in loud shouts and trying to figure out as to how they were going to produce the supplies to provide for their families and keep the village going as if nothing had ever happened. They also needed to set out a new schedule exclusively for thanking the gods and asking for their mercy.

Moon Bin knew that the meeting had not went well as his father had returned pale, quite a big contrast to his usual tan physique. He did not ask questions, as it was considered inappropriate and outright disrespectful towards his parents. Howwever, his eyes had asked all the questions his mouth could not and would not say. Yet his father stayed silent and only embraced his mother, whispering something into her hair. He then patted Moonbin's head and gave a troubled smile before ascending the creaking wooden stairs, disappearing until nothing was left but his fading shadow.

As it turned out later in the week, after missing the annual fest to instead spend it praying for mercy, the crones and their crows had decided that it was the best time to send out both men and women into the winter forest to hunt, as the better of the farmers would try and save the land from the blight, tending to their gardens and producing any crop they possibly could.

The children were kept inside the village, too young to go anywhere near the winter forest and too scared to wander into it anyway. It was due to all the myths and lies they were fed, about children-eating forest that would spare no one in its stead, and yet Moon Bin had always wandered too close when his father had went hunting, had watched too attentively out of curiosity, and had been caught by the same crone that had threatened him all the time :

“Don’t go out into the forest, little boy, for the witch of winter will take you away. Out of your plump little cheeks she will make herself a bun for the settling of her raging heart, a bun so sweet a normal man would get a cavity, yet she would be delighted by it, soothed by it, and you would be there, feeling her teeth sinking into your cheek, tearing flesh from bone, and would do nothing for you could not move against her shackles.” He wondered just how wicked the witch had to be in the crone’s imagination before shaking his head and walking back to his hut to help his mother.

If his mother thought that the blight had been a curse from the gods for their lack of attention, then what happened following that must have been wrath so bad even the gods lacked such horror. A person had wandered into the winter forest and since then there was silence from him. The man, the father of the girl he liked, never returned and the terror that settled over the village was like nothing before.

Even the eternal summer seemed to freeze over, not bringing any pleasurable warmth but instead making everything tensed. His skin crawled every time he looked into the forest, and though hatred settled in his stomach, he did not join the searching party that was pulled out for the lost man. His shins were trembling in fear at even a thought of stepping anywhere close to the winter forest and the cackles of the old crones paired with the crows had finally begun to settle into his head- he had come to believe and fear them.

The search party found nothing - no footsteps, no threads on the trees, no sign of any human life besides the wandering animals that were now hunted as the villagers’ food since the crops had yet to be cured from the blight. The hope for the man was lost and together with that hope went down his funeral, with prayers towards his mourning wife and daughter, a close friend whom he adored so much it hurt to be near her.

But the days seemed to continue, time not waiting for anything but itself, and the man’s doom had been but only a whisper of promise to gods' wrath if they dared to forget their daily plead of mercy. Moon Bin had none of the peasants’ talk and stupidly refused to beg and plead for forgiveness for something he had no hand in. A stubborn fool, he was called every time he walked by the bulk of the old seers jeering in his direction with their teeth missing and blackened. He spoke nothing back. He dared not to. Since it was only the witches that seemed to go back and forth between the forest and valley without any harm done to their withered bodies and minds.

Maybe they truly were the witches, then, Moon Bin thought, or even worse, gods disguised as witches, the old crones. Knowing every step the villagers took, whether they prayed or not. Their prying nose into others’ business had always seemed less than necessary and even annoying, but now Moon Bin questioned even that- maybe it was them who made the man disappear, and yet as he lay in bed that night, about to fall asleep, somewhere from the corner of his mind he heard a soft tune accompanied by a voice of a young lady singing, smelled a delicious smell of sweets making him salivate from the lack of food he had for the past couple of months. But amidst all that goodness he heard the old crone’s voice:

“Don’t go out into the forest, little boy, for the witch of winter will take you away. Out of your beautiful little head she will peel away the scalp and then clean your skull with your own clothes, making your skull into her drinking vessel so that she will sit poised like a queen on the bones of those she captured and skinned while drinking liquid thick and red, smelling of rot and decay. You will be there, helpless and shackled, doing as how she tells you to do.”

The years passed, and together with them had risen the number of those who wandered into the forest and never returned, the winter giving their head a claim of a lifetime. The boy’s circle of friends had lessened, since the ones claimed by the winter had been young and healthy, kids of youth and happiness. Now the happiness was gone and dread settled over the village- even the crones seemed to stop their cackling. There was no more snarky remarks and toothless grins full of vileness.

Moon Bin’s mother had gone gray only in an instance of a year, the stress and mourning getting the best of her, weakening her frail body and putting her on a sick bed all together. Not only the young ones were claimed- men and women, though few, had gone missing during the years the blight had taunted the Witch’s Hut’s crops. Among the grown men was his father, gone to hunt and reported lost to the forest’s thick winds full of snow. As the last time when the father of his now lover had gone missing, Moon Bin had not joined a searching party that was thrown every time a person was claimed by the forest. He revelled in the fact that he had to care for his sickened mother, yet in reality the fear was too great for him to even move anywhere beyond the threshold of his family’s hut.

Yet he had to force his legs to move daily- day in and day out, getting out of his skin to help and keep his mother well and healthy, to try and better her health. He had to and so he did. He had joined the hunting party and with dread over his heart, he had stepped his foot into the winter.

The cold was far worse than whatever he had ever imagined as a child, biting at his feet, fingers, and nose, sending a sheen of red over his cheeks almost instantly. The cold wind did not help any bit as even his hair got coated by thin ice. As a child who grew up in eternal summer, winter seemed like death itself, but he pressed on anyway, for the sake of his mother and his lover. He pressed on and tried to see the usables through the snow; a track of paws, the droppings of some animals- anything to keep their belly full and warm.

The day seemed to move too fast to his liking and just as the winter had seemed like another antic of the old crones coupled with familiar smell of sweets and voice, he had to get back home and prepared food to take care of his mother. His plans crumbled out of his head as he approached his family’s hut, the heavy winter coat on his arm as the winter cold was replaced by the sudden summer evening heat. His lover was standing at the veranda of the crumpling hut, her skirt fluttering in the breeze and on her face he saw regret and grief of the worst kind.

He was quick to push past her, stumbled into the shadows of the second floor, and kick open the door leading to his mother’s bedroom. It was empty. Bed long gone cold, as it had seemed. His mother was gone and the terror was crawling on Moon Bin.

“Where is she?” he asked quietly, his cracking voice hard to control. The only answer he got was a hand on his shoulder before he crumpled to the floor and tears spilled over his cheeks. The only words in his head was the crooning of the oldest crone:

“Don’t go out into the forest, little boy, for the witch of winter will take away from you. Before you’ll get a chance to notice it, she will already have someone in her grasp, someone you know and love dearly, be it father, mother or lover. Out of their skin she will make herself a rug and gift it to you so you could sit on it like a good puppy you will be, unable to speak or argue, sitting on the remains of your loved ones as she sat on the throne of bones.”

There was no more search parties. The peasants of the Witch’s Hut had accepted their fate, begging for mercy daily from their gods who had long turned their backs at their forsaken valley of death. Summer no longer brought joy into Moon Bin’s eyes and the only place he had found peace had been in the winter forest, where he smelled the sweets and listened to the beautiful singing as he hunted for the sake of his lover and his unborn child.

His time spent in the forest had grew longer and longer. He dreaded returning into the village in fear of his lover being long gone, his child together with her, and him finally being all alone in the wide world. He didn’t want that and to avoid such confrontation, Moon Bin camped out in the forest.

The chanting of the seers had stopped bothering him long time ago- years ago when his mother had gone missing. His fate had left together with his mother, and though he loved his lover truly and faithfully with everything he had and possibly more, his heart had long been buried in the cold plains of the forest.

His worst fear came true, together with the rest of his family had went his mind. He set up the searching party himself and though nobody joined, Moon Bin proceeded with scouting the forest. He cared about nothing for he had lost everything anyway.

As he walked into the unwelcoming dark of the forest, the blizzard had seemed to turn against him, begging him to turn back and return into the hut, to huddle himself in warmth and a shredded heart of all he had once been. He ignored the warning of the wind and instead settled into his haunches, pushing himself farther- now stronger than ever as all hope was lost.

He wandered for hours and though he felt as if his nose had not been a part of his body anymore, his fingers so cold and numb from the frost he was sure he had lost them, he couldn’t go back either. There was no path leading back. The blizzard had buried his steps, leaving nothing behind.

His eyes swam with unshed tears of frustration, yet he held himself from crying, knowing that the contact of liquid against his skin will only make his remaining lifespan shorter, cutting him off from surviving entirely.

Moon Bin was foolish to believe he wanted death. As much a stupid peasant as he claimed everyone in the valley to be. Nobody wanted to die and he was no exception. The face of death had been a scary one, a feminine one. Huddled by black so thick it seemed to blend into the night, it made him sure he was seeing things, the cold getting into his head, but before he could close his eyes he saw the cold beauty smile with hunger.

The man’s eyes had yet to be opened when he smelled the familiar scent of sweets wafting through the air, drowning him in all that was good and peaceful before the dark times when he prowled the winter forest or when his father had gone missing. The heat of summer surrounded him as he jittered in the fluffy bed of fur.

His eyes had been flooded by light as soon as they cracked open and what greeted him was the back of his lover cooking him dinner, humming that same familiar tune he had heard when he hunted for rabbits and foxes. Moon Bin’s eyes squinted- his loved never hummed or sang, not after her father and then mother had both gone missing, not with her terrible voice.

His voice was small and raw as he spoke, “Where am I?” A meek attempt at conversation, voice trembling with pain of being used. Then the fear settled in- he had been searching for his lover in the forest, shuffling in the snow like a lost lamb divided from its pack trying to find his way back home before seeing the face of cold beauty with hungry smile in front of his face.

But as the woman turned to face him, his heart stopped, caramel eyes going wide as he took in his lover’s face, the pregnant belly nowhere in sight and only a soft, graceful, and regal smile on her small face. “You’re home, honey…” Her velvety voice purred, settling the dishes onto the table between himself and the kitchen, the stoves nearby bubbling over.

Though her face was so familiar, so missed, and the relief that flooded him was real as well, there was nothing of his lover, his wife, in that cold face of the woman in front of him. He shook his head and caught a glimpse of his surroundings in the process. He was not home. It was a wooden hut, simple and small, crammed with little toys carved out of wood, stuffed with dried garlic and flowers, herbs, skins of animals. It was not his home. “Where am I?” he asked again, his voice now a little stronger, fire burning in his eyes.

The woman only sent him a sheepish smile, pouring soup into the dishes she had laid out on the table between them. “You’re home, honey…” she had repeated, her eyes surprisingly calm at his silent accusation. Yet he knew deep down, it was not his home, not his wife, and not his village at all. He was far, far away, possibly already dead and seeing things. He didn’t know what else to believe as he stood from the bed and swayed towards the table.

The warm food looked inviting as he sat down, breathing in the smell of fresh mushroom and meat, seeing the cut potatoes floating in the soup. He stuffed himself full, asking for seconds and then thirds, casting a wary glance in the direction of the stranger bearing the face of his lover, his wife.

His hunting knives that he took with himself to the searching party were stripped from him when he had slept, he concluded after. His knife being gone from view entirely made him feel exposed and vulnerable.The small hut had no crows and no black cats, meaning the woman was no witch, he had hoped. He needed not any knife- he was safe. He tried to reassure himself, but failed to do so.

Days passed and the winter outside the hut had not seemed to relent in its blizzard. The snow was falling endlessly and the dark clouds were getting darker and darker, making Moon Bin believe that there was not only eternal winter in the forest, but also eternal night. It was that same winter that did not give him any opportunity to leave the strange, warm, and lovely smelling hut. He continued asking, day in and day out, where he was, and the answer was always the same “You’re home, honey…” in that velvety voice of his wife.

It wasn’t long before Moon Bin lost count of days, lost all grip on time. He ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner plentifully, getting back his strength that he had lost during the months of the blight in the Witch’s Hut, his real home. Sometimes, he wondered whether there were still villagers in the valley or not, picked away one by one by the witch in the forest. He shuddered to think that the witch who ate children and adults alike was the one whom he was living with, the one who bore the face of his wife.

More time passed and Moon Bin was allowed to all the little rooms of the hut in return of his own service, cleaning the steps and paths of the clearing towards the forest from the flooded snow. As he wandered around that clearing, he understood just how the woman managed to get all of that food into her small house- traps stood all around the trees, some with prey already caught, some only waiting to be stepped into. At the sight of such mundane thing, his nerves eased, yet he still questioned why he saw his wife every time he looked at the woman.

He dared not ask the woman for her name, for he knew she would answer with his wife’s. It seemed like the woman took him as a joke, nothing more and nothing less, and though it annoyed him to no end, to not get a proper answer and be mislead all the time, he dared question nothing although he was curious as to why the woman let him stay there at the first place.

He feared of being kicked out into the cold winter forest, left with no knives and no food- left to starve and became the food of the animals living in the deadly forest. So he lived, like a quiet bug listening to the woman’s singing and being fed by her delicacies. It was on such a day when he gave her his service, cleaning the steps that he heard the jingle of bells from somewhere within the forest and for once the humming and singing stopped, only the smell of sweets remained in the air and around him, reeling him back inside with hurried steps, shutting the hut’s door.

The woman barely motioned her hand towards the table, meaning for Moon Bin to settle down and keep quiet as he was trained to behave anytime the woman had visitors- which was an unusual sight. It was rare moments that a man dared approach the hut in the winter forest, but every time it had been a magnificent sight. Sleighs of red wood and oak, the material so sublime it was a miracle to even catch a sight of such a thing. They were pulled by deers, wolves, or dogs, some even by snowy white mare. The people riding were incredibly rich and full of show off, with rubies on their fingers, emeralds binding their clothes, trading wealth for information and favours. It was in time like this that Moon Bin realized that the woman allowing him to stay in her hut had indeed been a witch.

What was more queer was that the men never called her a witch, but all the different names of women he never knew, never heard of- all queens and princesses of kingdoms far beyond his valley. They called her delicate little house the `Witch’s Hut`- the same name as his valley was called, and a shiver raked down Moon Bin’s back every time he thought of the witch’s age- how old and wise must the woman be, to be sought after by kings, lords and princes.

As he sat in front of the table, munching on his breakfast, he spoke to the witch again, this time with no fear and only curiosity. “Where am I?” his voice had become stronger through the days, though talking had been awkward since there was so little conversation going on between the two of them.

She kept quiet, her back turned to him as she tended to the boiling kettles and smoked meats. As her shoulders twitched, Moon Bin braced himself for the usual answer, yet he got none of that as she spoke, no more velvet in her voice, “You’re in the Witch’s Hut, honey…”

His head fell to the side, hand unwillingly abandoning the bun in his grasp as he leaned onto his forearms. “And what is that?”

“My home, a hut of miracles and curses, a place to avoid and a place for mortals to not step a foot in.” Her voice was calm, no longer his wife’s lovely velvety voice, but an old crone's drawl, meant to terrify children and scare them into oblivion. A chill snaked down his spine as he realized the meaning of the witch’s words.

“But then---“

“One can ever only leave if granted access. You can go, if you want. Go and never return, but where will you go if your village is no more, your wife and still-born long buried in the snow and you’re all alone in the whole wide world?” Her voice turned stone cold and instead of fear, pain struck his heart.

The old crone was right, he had no one anymore. All alone left in his grief and blind wandering. He was a fool for stepping into the winter forest, and yet it was one of the two possible ways he had to die. Either die of hunger from the blight that had struck his village, or die after living a pointless life in the real Witch’s Hut. It was his world now, the witch and her hut, cleaning the steps and paths of the clearing, observing her work from afar and keeping quiet- like a dog, he realized with a shiver- like the dog he was promised to be by the oldest crone in his village, years and years ago.

Nightmares began to plague Moon Bin’s sleep, so vivid and real he had decided against sleeping altogether. He spent his nights perched on the window sill, staring into the dark of the winter and the raging blizzard that never seemed to get old. Watching the yellow eyed wolves as they prowled just outside the closed door of the Witch’s Hut. Always so close yet so far, so human yet so wild.

The energy that he had managed to get back from the good food had begun to plummet again. The breakfast’s sweets, lunch’s soups and meats, and dinner’s snacks were no longer welcomed as there was a knot of fear in his stomach. Fear of what, he could not place- maybe it was the hunger in his wife’s eyes, maybe it was the fear of abandoning all that was left and giving up to the seemingly empty threats of the old crones back in his village. He could not place himself on only one kind of fear, being surrounded by a lot.

Anxious, sleepless, and restless, Moon Bin had begun spending longer times out in the woods all over again, yet the scent of sweets never left his nose, the soft humming ringing in his head as he saw her cooking over the pots and kettles, ovens full to the brim with cooking meat. They never left him. She was the witch that the old seers had talked about. She was the reason for the blight. She was the one who marked his father, his mother, and then his wife and child. She was the demise and fall of their village, as much as she was the beginning of the summer valley.

He despised her, feared her, and worshipped her all along. Worshipped her for his fear of being eaten, of being fed to the wolves outside her hut.

He returned each evening to the same phrase out of her plump lips as a greeting, “Welcome home, honey.” He gritted his teeth in defiance- he was not home, he never would get back home, there was no home anymore- yet he nodded in solemnity and simply strode towards the bed, abandoning the dinner and pretending to sleep, listening to her soft voice carrying him to a land far away.

Yet days passed, his legs not carrying him farther away than a border of trees around the plains, where wolves howled what almost sounded like a pleadingly painful promise. But he prowled on, returning to the Witch’s Hut each day, shivering at the hungry glances of the witch and praying for his end to be a painless one. What was the point of running, he had asked himself, when there was nowhere left to run? So he had hoped to die at her hand, eaten as he had once been promised, and all that would be left of him would be his bones on which the witch would sit on. So be it. It was his final moments of strength and he was contented with them.

So it went, on the night of his nightmares, he stirred awake, yet his body could not move. Pinned by shackles of silver shimmering against the moonlight, Moon Bin cried and pleaded to all known gods to be spared, yet the witch only grinned, her hunger evident not only in her eyes but her face, her posture. It was the first time he resented his wife with everything he had, there was love no more and all he could think was to pierce one of his long lost hunting knives through the witch’s heart.

But she bit into his cheek, ripping flesh from bone as was once promised, and he felt no pain, only crumbles of bread falling along his skin and down to his neck. She bit into his fingers and he screamed in terror as she ate him as if he was made of sweets himself, the familiar scent wrapping around him like a candy, the bread of his fingers became crumbles on her plump lips and face. “What have you done to me?!” Moon Bin had screamed, thrashing around the chains, crying in terror and grief, not understanding a thing that was happening.

The witch only cackled, the face of his wife scrunching into a terrifying grimace. “One does not enter a witch’s hut without getting cursed, foolish boy. One does not eat from a witch’s table without becoming food himself.”

She had cursed him, made him food, and now she ate him. There will be nothing there left to remember, no bones, no clothes, not even a strand of hair as she would consume him whole.

And so she bit into him, one by one, tearing each finger off with a delightful hum of pleasure, and he cried silently, watching out the window as the wolves howled, greeting a little pup surrounded by furs of a coat studded with emeralds, so like the coat of the king who had visited the witch only weeks ago. Nobody stepped into the Witch’s Hut and got out of there without an access to do so- no kings, princes, and lords had ever stepped out under her command to leave. They were all fools for believing otherwise- all cursed to wander the forests.

With a terrified pang, Moon Bin realized that the howlings of those wolves outside the ring of trees and forests had indeed been pleadings, begging him to leave and save himself, and a promise- a promise that no good will come out if the boy stayed in that cursed hut of hers.

Yet he was a fool and stayed all on his own accord. Listening to his own selfish wishes, and staying by his wife’s side, getting fed by the animals of the forest, wolves of the forest- he screamed right where he was, but all that came out was a wheeze. Without a sense to realize what was happening and what was being fed to him, Moon Bin had thankfully ate the wolf meat that was presented to him, the cursed meat of humans turned into animals. Moon Bin was no longer surprised at being cursed- he deserved to be cursed.

And still the witch paid no mind to the crying and retching boy made out of sweets. She bit into him, leaving nothing but white bones behind, leaving his eyes behind- the soft caramel now looking molten from the heat of fire in the oven.

As much as she ate, the witch seemed to never lose appetite, and by the time there was nothing but bone and eyes left of Moon Bin, she relented. With her stomach full and a grin on her face of cold beauty, no longer his wife’s but somekind of vile character from a tale of monsters, she had fed his bones to the fires in the oven, making them burn bright and scalding. She put the seeing eyes into a jar of water and set it on a mantle above the ovens, letting him see but not speak- not argue against the wishes of a witch.

He was a manipulated fool, for stepping into the forest for the first time, then the second, and a third, for getting himself lost as he searched for his wife, and most importantly he was a fool for believing that the village where he was from had been long gone, because as his eyes had been left to see, he saw his best friend, the one he had lost to in the annual fest all those long years ago. He was being dragged into the hut by a wolf of grey fur, placed on the same fluffy bed where Moon Bin himself once lied, and lived through the same fate. It happened over and over again, everytime with a new familiar face.

Yet he could do nothing against the witch, only listen to her beautiful humming of a wretched song, her face taking on the face of the woman the men loved, each different and each beautiful, each a lie and a curse.

Moon Bin could only curse himself for his stupidity.

And yet to this day, rumours of a cursed man with skin as pale as snow, locks as soft as the finest silk, and eyes of the purest caramel had been the tales to scare children. It became bedtime stories for most and a joke between adults for others.

The tale of the all-seeing eyes being placed atop the mantle of the ovens was so powerful it became a whole new peasant superstition, albeit a working one - told to bring luck into one’s house.

Around some more clustered villages, on the borders of forests surrounded by eternal winters, people could only whisper of such superstitions as some swore they could still hear the cries of a man who lost everything he loved and was devoured by the witch of winter. The cries of pain and terror, of realization and shame. No one dared step foot into such forest in fear of being devoured by the gluttonous witch in her little Witch’s Hut.

And yet kids continued to go missing, adults after them. What was left of the lost were the scent of sweets flowing around the house and a lingering woman's voice singing a tale of the fallen ones, of a throne of bones atop which she sat.

#astro #astro scenarios #astro ficition #astro moonbin #moonbin #dark #fantasy #horror

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beautifulrzilience · 7 years ago

Quote

And suddenly you know...It's time to start something new and trust the magic of [new] beginnings.

Spiritual Guide Book

Hey everybody! 😘

I hope you’re doing well on this beautiful Sunday! It’s 10:40 a.m here on the East Coast and I’m getting settled in so I can write about this last week, which has been quite the warm and soul nurturing one for me.

For those of you who know me, know that I am a very organized person. I have a big calendar hung up on my wall of my desk, a planner in where I divide up my homework for the week, and then I have my Passion Planner, which serves as a birds-eye view of my goals (both personal and academic) for the week.

Now, what I really love about Passion Planner’s is that not only can you break down your hour by hour schedule, but if you notice (below) on the left hand side there are boxes that say “This Week’s Focus,” “Good Things That Happened,” and a little quote with some kind of challenge or mantra for the week, to incorporate a mindfulness for your mental health wellness. I really appreciate it and have found myself taking up these mental health challenges seriously.

For this week (4/15-4/21), the quote was “Never say ‘no’ to adventures, always say ‘yes,’ otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life” (Ian Fleming) and the challenge was to say ‘yes’ to five new experiences and to reflect on what I learned by the end of the week.

As you all now, Sundays at 11:00 am on the dot, I go see my therapist, Michelle, and this past Sunday was no different. As usual, our session was beautifully profound, enlightening, painful, and eye-opening. There was definitely a lot of crying. The focus was on re-claiming how I define strength, vulnerability, and finding closure for myself to continue on my path towards radical self-care, self-love, and healing.

One huge take away I had was that many times we have this understanding that to be strong is healing, however, Women of Color have time and time again redefined healing as strength. And while I was writing this letter to my former partner, pouring out some of my most painful childhood memories, in the hopes of shedding some understanding of some of the choices I had made in our relationship, I was feeling like I was actually falling deeper in love with him, as opposed to simply writing to find closure in our relationship. I was having a hard time figuring out the fine line between how much to share (for transparency and honesty) and protecting my heart.

But in this session, Michelle helped me have 4 important epiphanies: 1) remind myself that I actually don’t have a problem sharing my personal life, 2) while most people fear sharing intimate details of their personal life because they fear that it will be used against them (which makes the process of healing a little more complicated), I actually fear being vulnerable with people because I am not confident in their ability/care to actually listen and/or empathize with my pain, 3) the times that I have tried to be vulnerable with people, I have felt uncomfortable with people’s responses because they are not used to seeing me in pain, I am the friend who (for the most part) listens and empathizes with my friends’ pain and suffering, so I really live in this box of either I am happy go lucky or broken, but don’t have the people to hold space to hold me in my in between of happy and broken, and finally 4) realize that I can be strong and (rather than state ‘but’) cry; I am strong and I have gone through pain; I am human; and it doesn’t take away from me being a ‘strong Xicana.’

I know. Some deep shit.

Now usually post-my 45 minutes of soul searching and understanding with Michelle, I go home and write my post-therapy notes in my journal to decompress and process everything that I said and felt in Michelle’s office, all the while burning either some sage, cedar and tobacco, or some palo santo.

Interestingly enough, the day before, while I was perusing on Instagram, I had come across this flyer for a writing and wellness workshop for “Woke women and girls of all ages” hosted at Cafe Con Libros (one of my favorite coffee shop/book stores in Brooklyn), curated by a woman named Leah Hart (@her_musing). Whether it was already written in the universe or was coincidental, the theme for this workshop was to explore Personal Truths while tackling the tough question: When did you last belong to yourself? Granted, it was going to take place at 7pm in Brooklyn on April 15th (my therapy days). Knowing that I usually like to sit with myself in my apartment on those days, I was debating on whether or not to buy the $10 ticket to attend.

But for whatever reason, when I got home, wrote up my post-therapy notes, I felt this urge to go. Something about the theme of the workshop and asking myself “When did I last belong to myself” was so relevant to me, especially post my break up with my former partner.

Then I got a text from my homie Beto, “What are you doing?” So I let him know I was heading to Cafe Con Libros, to which he responded, “I’ll meet you there.” So I hopped on the 4 train and within 45 minutes, found myself beating the rain, sitting comfortably perusing through some of the new books that had arrived and were carefully placed on the shelves of CCL.

So, this workshop became my first yes and my first adventure of the week.

1. {Personal Truths} When Did You Last Belong to your Self?, HerMusing

[SIDENOTE: So you may be wondering, why is Beto’s bald ass doing in the picture and in the workshop? He actually had no idea that the workshop was exclusively for WOC, but as his mom always says, “The universe always provides,” and dealing with some of his own hurt and pain of this particular week, maybe without even realizing, he needed a safe space with WOC to work out some of the challenges he was dealing with, guided by the workshop question. I’m glad Leah didn’t boot him out when he joined our circle because I learned how crucial it is for men of color to also have spaces to meditate and heal.]

It was beautiful to sit in a circle with all these Women of Color (of all ages) to talk about our reflections on the question Leah had posed for us to write about during the workshop. Although I found it difficult to write in the journal she provided, I just pushed myself to write. Maybe I wasn’t ready. Maybe I would’ve preferred to have written in my own personal journal. But Leah was so encouraging and patient with us. Reminded us that it is our duty to write our personal truths so that we could share with others and the power that is in the act of writing. It reminded me of Audre Lorde’s quote “Your silence will not protect you” and Zora Neal Hurtson’s “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

One thing I found so interesting during the workshop, was that although there was diversity in age in our group, a lot of the women were in their mid to late 20s, which Beto and I later wondered if that spoke to the kind of healing and soul-searching that people in our age/generation are experiencing as a collective. Serves as a reminder, that you-I-we are never alone. One thing I really appreciated was that Leah, at the beginning of her workshop asked us to thank ourselves for showing up for ourselves, because by showing up to the event, on a NYC rainy day, spoke to our commitment to reclaiming ourselves and our space. I was so grateful for all the stories, words of encouragement, and love that all the women (and Beto) shared with one another in what became more than just a workshop, but a healing circle that was guided by all the ancestors and inner children that folks said they brought with them to the space when Leah had asked us to introduce ourselves.

After getting treated by Beto with some Jamaican Jerk chicken (my favorite) and hanging out at his place, I took the 4 train at midnight back to my home in Harlem. I was having a hard time staying up on the train, so hearing my own inner voice and intuition, and perhaps Leah’s voice, I pulled out my journal, and really began to reflect on the question, when did you last belong to yourself? And I came to the conclusion, that I never really have. And it dawned on me, me being 26 (going on 27 this May! Go Gemini Baby’s!) in the city of New York, is the perfect place for me to be on my journey towards finding radical practices of self-love, self-care, and healing.

2) Decolonizing Memory Studies Graduate Panel, Columbia University

One of the members of my dissertation committee had (months ago) let me know that Columbia University (which turns out is literally a 27 minute walk from my place) was hosting this graduate student panel on Decolonizing Memory Studies. Given that I am interested in this kind of work, I had set my heart to attend the event. However, due to the snow storms in NYC, the event had been postponed a couple of times. Finally, when the day arrived, I had made sure to plan accordingly to attend the event. Funny enough, the world tested me to see if I was really committed to this being one of my 5 adventures for the week. I had originally thought that the event started at 6:30, so I had left the Graduate library at 5:15pm. But when I was looking at the event flyer, I quickly realized that it actually started at 6:00pm. I arrived to 116th St. Harlem at 5:40pm. I was tired, it was cold, and I was hungry. To go or not to go? With the weeks challenge ringing in my head, I started power walking. I was hoping that even though the event was supposed to begin at 6pm, that the introductions would buy me time.

After climbing more than these 100 steps that I did not know I would have to climb to get to Columbia, sweating like a little meatball, I found the building where the event was taking place. I saw this side door with a doorbell. I started ringing it only to find this Latino man coming towards the door. When he opened it, assuming he was Latino, I said “Hola!” and had asked him if this was the entrance to the campus. He said that I actually had to keep walking up towards the gate to the university to get in. I’m sure he could read the dissappointment on my sweaty face and with some compassion, he said he would let me go through the worker’s corridors, but to hurry because he could get in trouble. I was so thankful! Asked him for his name, to which he responded, “Luis.” So with a huge smile, I thanked him and said “La Raza siempre tiene que unirse!”

So with his help, I was able to make the event and as I stepped in the room, filled with all these white and old academics, they were barely about to start the event! Winning! Even though the event wasn’t what I expected, I enjoyed my walk to the campus and was inspired to come back just to enjoy the quiet and peacefulness of the university.

3) Neuyorican Poets Cafe

NEUYORICAN POETS CAFE! I had been itching to come to this famous poet’s cafe but never had anyone I wanted to go with. So I kept putting it in the back of my head, but since I had gotten back into writing poetry, I was itching not only to see other people perform, but I wanted to speak my truths into a mic in this space. So last week I had asked my friend J if he wanted to join me, which he had responded with an eager yes. However, me havin issues with commitment, was proloning on buying the tickets. Not sure why I was being so hesitant! It was actually annoying me. So when Friday rolled up, one of my new homies, Martin had hit me up to see what I was up to. At that moment, I was like, man fuck it, I’m going to this event, and invited him to come through. I didn’t think he would say yes but when he did, I ended up getting ready, hopped on a train to J’s house, and from there we took an Uber to NPC. The tickets had to my horror sold out online, so we made sure to get to the cafe by 9pm. As the line grew, I worried that I would disappoint J because I dropped the ball in getting the tickets and that we wouldn’t be able to get in. But to my wonderful surprise, we were so close to the front, and were able to get in! Man! As we walked in the building, African dance hall, old school hip-hop, the new hip-hop was blaring off the Dj’s set. The place was bumping!! Turns out it was the Grand Slam Finale so it was no ordinary Friday. We got to see some amazing poets and it definitely inspired me and J to come back this upcoming week.

4. Women of Color in Solidarity: Transnational Resistance as Healing, 2nd Annual Conference, April 21st & 22nd, NYC

When I had started opening up to my close friend’s about my breakup, one of my former students then-turned friend, Diana had let me know she was coming to NYC for this Women of Color Conference which was being hosted by WOC for WOC. When I started looking into the event, it had definitely peaked my interest, but I wasn’t completely sold. I wanted to see the itinerary. The ticket was only $7 so I should’ve just bought the ticket, but I kept pushing it back. Until the week of, 4 days before the conference, Diana had forwarded me an e-mail with all the workshops that were being hosted. With titles like, “Altar Building as Storytelling to Reclaim Ancestral Knowledge,” “Regular Degular Feminism: A Hood Feminist,” and “Women of Color in The Academy,” I realized that I needed and wanted to attend this conference! So I immediately scrambled to see how I could get a hold of ticket. Thankfully, I was able to do so and on early Saturday morning, rushed out the door to head to the conference.

However, since I had stayed out late the night prior, attending the Grand Slam Finale of Neuyorican Poets Cafe, I had arrived home at 1:30 am and woke up at 7:45 am. This resulted in me quickly showering, making myself a shake, realizing I had forgot my headphones at J’s house, and not have a meal prepped to take to the conference. Consequently, I was hungry at the conference, and there was no lunch provided by the conference, it was beginning to be hard to stay present during the workshops. Eventually, Diana and some of the other women, and I left the conference to get some food. My body was really shaky and wasn’t feeling too well. After getting some sushi, I hopped on the 6 line to head back home. I made myself a quick bite and took a nap. I thought my night was going to be over. I definitely wanted to get rest for Sunday.

[One of the workshops I attended was how to make yourself an altar. The curator of the workshop was Amanda Everich (@amandapoints), a Brooklyn teacher, and naturist. She encouraged us to pick whatever earth materials we were drawn to and build ourselves an altar. I ended up building one for myself. Mine is the one with the black and red felt. She later encouraged us to make a story out of our collective altars. My group and I noticed that our altars carried the theme of youth and ancestors, life and death, symbolizing the cyciclical nature of life. I decided to take my altar with me and put it in my personal altar at home. Really appreciated getting to sit down and go with the flow of my ancestors.]

5. Hanging with my A Squad Papis: Beto & Nick

[Beto, Matt, Nick and I ended up at one of “Nick’s” bar spots, called La Marcha Cocina, Dominican owned grill & bar. There were a lot of beautiful people, great music. Definitely makes me want to come back again!]

Now on that same Saturday night of the conference, I had had it in my head that I was going to stay in and rest. I didn’t want what had happened to me on Saturday to be the case for Sunday. I didn’t get to work out, didn’t meal prep, felt rushed out the door, which resulted in me feeling off balance. So again, when I finally got home, I made myself a quick shake to appease my growling stomach, and took a two hour nap. Earlier in the day, my homie Nick had invited me to go out with his friend who was visiting from London. I wanted to go because when my girl Tatiana had come, I had invited Nick to come out and he did. I wanted to show that same reciprocity, but when I woke up and saw his messages asking me if I was coming, when I looked at the price of the Uber, it was going to be $40 roundtrip! So I let him know that I was going to stay in. Turns out he had invited Beto out too and when I had sent him that text, Beto and he insisted I go. I let them know that it was too expensive to Uber. This is where my heart kinda melted. “I got a dub on it,” I read in my text message from Beto. “Do you want me to spot ya,” replied Nick. These fools clearly wanted me to come. Now usually, I don’t like taking money from friends let alone asking for it. But since my contract ended with one of my side hustles, I don’t have much cash flow coming in, and NYC is no joke in terms of living expenses! So I said, “Ok fuck it!” So I got ready, got an uber, and headed out to Nick’s. Got to meet his friend who had come from Japan (who was NOT Japanese haha) and we all went to this really cool Dominican food spot/bar. I enjoyed some witty British banter and shit talking and by midnight, took an uber back home.

So what did I learn this week?

As the week progressed, I started noticing I was having a hard time committing to doing the very things that I was interested in! It was so annoying lol. And the more I pushed myself to say yes to adventures, I realized how much fun I was having, and how quickly the week was zooming on by. I think the huge take away for me was that I need to stop second guessing myself and just commit to saying yes to new people, things, and experiences in my life! If not, I am going to be missing out on all this fun and laughter, and personal growth that I have been seeking to have. I am only young and 26 once in NYC, it’s time I take the city by its reigns, and go about with my bad self. By saying yes to these adventures, I was really saying yes to myself.

what i like about her is that she blooms. whether you water her or not. whether you give her light or not. she exists without your existence

-@Counseling4AllSeasons

BTW!

Don’t think I haven’t been keeping up with my fitness challenge! This marks Week 4!

While it hasn't been easy, having constant internal battles of whether I really want to love myself or not and not loosing motivation, here are the results:

4 more weeks to go!

Can't believe I'm at the halfway point of this fitness challenge.

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elementalgypsyheart · 7 years ago

Text

Creeping Flames

Summary: There was always something...off about Nana Kuromori. It was nothing she did specifically just a weird creepy feeling about her. Is it little wonder her son is the exact same way and seem to just natural scare people off without doing anything? Not like Tsuna care though. Who need normal human friends when he can just play with Grandpa Slendy’s Creeps?

(Or the one where Nana is the half human daughter of Slenderman and Tsuna have some interesting friends and family that make the Mafia seem like Saints).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1: A Princess? Or a Psychopath?

The small town of Kiri-no-Yama all agreed there was something wrong with the Shrine Priest Granddaughter. It wasn’t something the girl did herself, at least at first, just something off about her. Then again there was always something off about Nana Kuromori. Perhaps her wrongness to their senses began with her mother Senhime and how she came to become pregnant with Nana.

Senhime Kuromori was known as the town beauty. She was a traditional Japanese beauty and ideal wife. Being small and slender, fair skinned, big doe like caramel brown eyes, and long straight shiny caramel hair. She carried a perfect mix of gentle and submissive air around her and was well known to be an excellent cook and housemaker. Yes Senhime was many ideal spouse and had many suitors after her hand, all of which she turned away.

That was the odd thing about Senhime. Despite all the suitors she had and how it was the norm of the town for men and women alike to marry as soon as possible to have as many children as they can Senhime was not interested. Not to say she didn’t want children or a husband, in fact she told everyone who listened on how she wanted such, but she always said she could not accept anyone suit for she was already married….to the Kami of the forest surrounding their town.

Most scoffed at the idea. Saying how she should stop living in dreams and be an adult and do her duty as a woman. Others though….the more older, superstitious, and traumatized ones recalled legends and faint childhood memories of something living in those woods, praying on the unwary who venture into it depths believed her and made sure to leave her alone. For if such a creature have claimed her as their they had no wish to anger it by interfering and as if to confirmed their choice on leaving her to be in peace some of the more… forceful suitors for her hand disappeared only for their mutilated bodies to be found much later.

On one particular bright Spring day Senhime was seen entering that dark foreboding forest by a young village boy working the fields. He said how she enter with nothing but the clothes on her back and the shoes on her feet deaf to all his calls toward her. The boy told his father when he could no longer see her which led to all able body men to go into it depth to search for her yet...no one could find her. It was like the girl had vanished into thin air. Most curious was how the girl parents reacted to the news of their missing daughter. Both Hirofumi and Masahime where sad but expective of the news as though they knew this would happen. Neither one bother to look for their child saying, ‘When she want to she will return home and no sooner’, and left it at that to the bafflement of most of the town.

Indeed true to their word Senhime returned one warm Autumn day looking almost exactly as she did when she left. Only she came back not just with longer hair but with her stomach having a barely there bump. She had come back pregnant by an unknown man….or thing child. A once words spread of the girl scandalous state. Most of her suitors lost interested in a ‘sullied’ girl while others thought they could pressured her into accepting their suit due to her predicament. They, like others before them, suffered a gruesome end.

As for Senhime she was ecstatic with her pregnancy. She often sang and spoke to her unborn child. She seemed to practically glow with motherhood. Oddly enough she took to sitting as near as the forest as she could while still being in town whispering it seem to the trees once a day. What unnerved many was the realization of how….quiet everything became when she did this. No bird chirped, no leaves rustled, and no insect buzzed when she whispered to those trees. Not Even the wind dare make a sound. As soon as stopped though all sounds would start again as though someone had unmute them like a TV.

Senhime went into labor at the stroke of midnight on March 31st. For reason she nor her family ever explained she opted for a home birth instead of going to the small town clinic. Even odder? Neither the town Doctor or either of the two Midwives attended the birth but a strange dark reddish brown haired man was seen that day. To be precise he was seen leaving from the direction where Senhime family Shrine and home was. Whatever the case at 2:44 PM on March 31st Nana Kuromori was born.

Nana was a beautiful child...inhumanly so. Oh there was no doubt she was Senhime daughter. They shared many of the same features but Nana was paler. Much more paler than her mother, bordering on an unnatural shade in a human. Her lips contradictory was a dark red than her mother’s own...almost looking like fresh blood. Her Caramel brown hair and eyes despite being exactly the same as Senhime seemed more darker somehow on her.

As Nana grew the more things seemed off with her. Like something trying to act human but couldn’t truly pull off the act. As a baby she hardly cried or made any noise. Her gaze was too intelligent for most people comfort. They watched as she grew and learned and then began acting like those around her. Yet her laughter were too hollow, her grin too wide, her eyes too calculating, and the air around her too sinister to truly pull off an innocent little girl act.

Even more unnerving where the ‘mysterious’ deaths that happened around her. Anyone, no matter their age or gender, who crossed Nana and her family ended up dead. The matter of how changed always. Some were impaled, others torn apart. Some died by fire while others by water. A few were stabbed and one memorable occasion they were found hanging….by their own entails. What they all had in common where how the day before they had mistreated Nana and her family. Each time Nana had an...almost pleased expression when news of their death reached her ear.

Time passes in Kiri-no-Yama and people passed on to the afterlife. Some more violently than others. One of these deaths sadly was Senhime. Nana was 12 at the time and her mother had went into the forest to take a walk after breakfast. Hours later near lunchtime Nana was playing with one of her many toys that she somehow owned despite neither her or her family ever buying any toys for her and not having anyone else in her life gifting them to her when the screams reached her ears. Curious due to the fact no one had crossed her family went to see what had caused the screams. What she saw will forever be engraved into her mind and will awaken a deep hatred and desire for revenge in her towards the one who did it. The screams had belong to her grandmother and the caused? It was Senhime barely covered and mangled body. Her body had been torn open and cut into pieces. Her face was contorted into pain and horror, her eyes gouged and her tongue cut out. The only clue on who Senhime killer was? He comes carved into Senhime back.

For weeks afterward NO ONE but Nana dared enter the forests for it had a much more angry and sinister feel to it. Nana would enter during the day with murder in her caramel eyes and a frying pan in hand and would be back by nightfall covered in blood and pan dented but a bit more calmer than before each day. Those weeks were the only time Nana true self that everyone suspected was there were confirmed. Only no one was quick to point out the truth of the matter in fear of turning the angry and bloodthirsty girl onto them. After those terrifying weeks past everyone pretended they never saw or knew the truth of the monster hidden among them.

By the time Nana was 18 both her grandparents had died. Her Grandmother barely a year after her mother, her old heart unable to take the burden of her mind from how she found her daughter dead body. Her Grandfather managed to hold out a few more years before he too passed away in his sleep. Nana by then had not only learned but surpassed in the skills her mother had before her and thus was able to care for the shrine on her own. Still despite being a much better catch than her mother in looks and skills she had no suitors for they all recalled those dark day when she shed her human skin. It would seem Nana would never married or have children...until he came.

Iemitsu Sawada was a stranger in town. Just passing through on business when he meet Nana. Despite his instinct and near dead Intuition all but warning him to get FAR FAR AWAY from Nana he ignored it and chose to pursuit the shrine beauty. Everyone watched in bated breath as the stranger pursued the town deadly beauty. It came to many surprised when the man not only didn’t end up dead but had convinced the girl to marry and leave with him. Whatever the case may be Nana Kuromori became Nana Sawada and left Kiri-no-Yama behind for Iemitsu hometown of Namimori. As the two left the small town hidden in the misty mountains surrounded by tall dark trees with an old Shrine at the edge the people of Kiri-no-Yama sighed a collective sigh of relief for the first time in nearly 20 years now that their monster was leaving them and becoming Namimori own murder.

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The Weekend Warrior November 6, 2020 – LET HIM GO, JUNGLELAND, KINDRED, PROXIMA, THE INFORMER and More!

It’s November, which under normal circumstances, would be the holiday season, the thick of awards season, the beginning of the end to the Oscars, but this year? Not so much. Instead, we’re suffering the after-effects of a hugely close and contentious election, although thankfully, there’s quite a few decent movies to check out as we still wait for the whole COVID pandemic to settle down with no end in sight. (And as promised, I got this down to six reviews this week. I wouldn’t expect that next week.)

The biggest wide release this weekend (into 2,200 theaters plus) is Thomas (The Family Stone) Bezucha’s thriller LET HIM GO (Focus Features) starring Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Montana ranchers George and Margaret Blackledge, who after losing their son James, must try to rescue their young grandson Jimmy, who has been taken to North Dakota to live with his stepfather’s dangerous family, led by matriarch Blanche Weboy (played by Lesley Manville).

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie. The commercials I’ve seen sell it like a straight-up revenge thriller ala the recent Honest Thief, which also isn’t necessarily a straight-up genre film. (Odd coincidence is that this one also has Jeffrey Donovan playing a jerk – I hope it’s not type-casting.) The movie was adapted by Bezucha from a novel by Larry Watson, and it puts Costner into another role where he’s able to ride horses. If you’re a fan of Costner, that might be enough to watch the film, but he gives also gives a typically strong performance as does Lane, as Bezucha reunites Ma and Pa Kent from Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.

At first, this is more of a family drama where we don’t learn too much about their son before he’s killed – nor do we ever find out who actually killed him. Instead, this is about caring grandparents who worry about how their young grandson might be raised by his new stepfather and his family. It’s particularly suspect when Jimmy’s stepfather leaves for North Dakota in the middle of the night, taking his new wife and stepson with him. It’s enough to make anyone suspicious.

It starts fairly slowly as things are set-up but it leads to more than a few crazy and violent moments including the last act where things really come to a head. Oddly, it isn’t Costner acting like the “tough guy” so much trying to get back Jimmy, despite his background as a sheriff. Instead it’s Lane who impresses with her ability to act super-sweet one moment in order to get results but then fully throwing herself into the film’s violent climax. Oddly, I wasn’t that into Manville’s performance as a malevolent matriarch, and that really surprised me. I do have to call special attention to the amazing Booboo Stewart who plays a Native American lad who helps the couple, this being his second great role/performance of the year after The Grizzlies.

Despite Costner’s presence, Let Him Go feels much more like some of the recent Clint Eastwood movies, and while it has a few issues in terms of tone and pacing, Lane and Costner are more than enough to make this quite enjoyable for what it is.

Even so, that isn’t this week’s “Featured Flicks”…

No, that would be Max (Ceremony) Winkler’s JUNGLELAND (Paramount), an amazing drama starring Charlie Hunnam and Jack O’Connell as brothers Stan and Walter “Lion” Kaminski, the latter who is a brilliant bare knuckle boxers who is constantly dealing with his older brother Stan getting them into trouble with his gambling debts that have left them near to poverty. When Stan gets further into debt with the loan shark Pepper (Jonathan Majors), he agrees to go on a road trip to a big underground no-holds-barred boxing match in San Francisco, but along for the ride is a young woman named Sky (Jessica Barden) who the brothers need to drop off in Reno to the despicable man from whom she ran away in the first place.

This ended up being a far more complex and emotional movie than I expected, although as a huge fan of the movie Warrior, I was interested in seeing how this one diverged from what was one of my favorite movies the year it was released. Well, Winkler does not disappoint, as he finds a way to create a “boxing movie” that’s unlike any other due to a number of elements. We’ve certainly had a few “brother fighters” movies, but what separates Jungleland is that it’s the younger brother played by O’Connell who does all the fighting, his brother acting more as a domineering manager who makes all the decisions for them. You can really feel the love between these brothers and the interesting dynamic that Barden’s Sky brings to the mix.

Maybe you can figure out that there will be some sort of romance between Lion and Sky, but they’re such unique individuals due to the performances by always great O’Connell and an actress who I’m not as familiar with but insures that Sky is not just introduced merely as “love interest.” Sky is bratty and sassy, and she isn’t going to just do what Stanley says even though he always acts like he’s the smartest of the trio, and it’s that attitude that brings so much to the dynamics between the three of them.

There’s a lot of tension leading up to the final fight, as well as a lot of emotion, all enhanced by a gorgeous score from Lorne Balfe that bolsters the performances rather than overpowers them. The way Winkler uses Bruce Springsteen’s cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” is the perfect punctuation to a film that keeps you enthralled from beginning to end.

This is just a wonderful film from Winkler, one that really shows his tremendous growth as a filmmaker, and it’s very much the kind of movie that I absolutely love, especially because it’s always going in different directions from the typical boxing movie.

Another nice surprise this weekend was Joe Marcantonio’s psychological thriller KINDRED (IFC Midnight), starring Tamara Lawrence as Charlotte Wilde, who discovers that she’s pregnant by her boyfriend Ben, but when he dies suddenly, Charlotte finds herself trapped in the large estate of Ben’s mother Margaret (Fiona Shaw) and Ben’s creepy half-brother Thomas (Jack Lowden). She soon realizes that Margaret plans on keeping her trapped there in order to keep control of her son’s baby.

I went into this British thriller not really knowing much about it other than its small cast including the generally decent Shaw and Lowden. I wasn’t familiar with Tamara Lawrence at all, but she does a pretty amazing job carrying the film as a woman trying to deal with some sort of pre-natal depression on top of mourning for her ex while also feeling trapped, probably rightfully so. The dynamics between the three people – this is very much a three-hander – is what keeps Kindred so interesting, because Margaret probably blames Charlotte for her son’s death, but Thomas seems to have more lecherous intentions. The whole time, Charlotte has dreams and visions, sometimes horrifying ones, about birds.

Over the course of the film we learn more about Charlotte’s background and her own mother’s issues dealing with “perinatal psychosis,” which could be a big clue to what is happening with Charlotte. Lawrence is absolutely amazing at giving the film a strong heroine who works hard to try to outsmart her captors, and it’s a film that never really goes far into the most expected realms. Marcantonio’s direction works well at maintaining a steady pace, and the musical choices greatly add to the tension even the few times it’s using overused stock classical musical themes.

Kindred works quite effectively as a tense psychological thriller in the vein of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I expect we have not seen the last of either Lawrence or director Marcantonio.

Eva Green stars in Alice Winocour’s PROXIMA (Vertical) as Sarah Loreau, an engineer and astronaut who has gotten the plum assignment to spend a year aboard the International Space Station. Unfortunately, that would mean being apart from her young daughter Stella for a year, and the film deals with Sara’s tough battle to get through the training necessary while dealing with her emotions over being separated from her daughter.

For some reason, I had lost track of Winocour since her amazing breakthrough film Mustangs, and though it’s odd that this would premiere at the same TIFF as Natalie Portman’s Lucy in the Sky, it’s quite a different movie despite a few similarities, mostly that they’re both about women astronauts. Oddly, Lucy in the Sky is based on a true story, although Proxima feels far more grounded, both literally and figuratively. Much of that is because we only see Sara’s journey before getting on the rocket into space.

In many ways, Proxima means to show how tough training for a space mission is on women, particularly having to leave their children behind, and Green does an amazing job in the many demands of the role. Part of Sara’s issue is that she’s dealing within a very heavily competitive male-dominated environment, as typified Matt Dillon’s Texan astronaut Mike, but there’s also the aspect of her not wanting to show any signs of weakness. (It’s a rarity for women, particularly a French one, to have this opportunity.)

Much of what’s keeping Sarah from giving up is because she wants to be a great role model for her daughter, and honestly the scenes between Green and young Zélie Boulant are so wonderful they almost make the movie in themselves. It’s to Winocour’s credit that she continually shows how well she does at casting younger and newer actresses. I’d be neglect if I didn’t mention the gorgeous score by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who seems like such a great get for Winocour, being that he hasn’t scored as many movies in recent years.

Winocour has created another beautiful film, one that really sticks with you because she and Eva Green manage to convey the story of a woman we rarely get to see in movies in such a truly authentic and emotional way. Sadly, Proxima isn’t getting a theatrical release, but it will be on digital and VOD this Friday.

Bryan Bertino, director of The Strangers, returns with THE DARK AND THE WICKED (RLJEfilms/Shudder), an eerie horror thriller mostly set on a farm where sister and brother Louise and Michael (played by Marin Ireland and Michael Abbott Jr.) return to see their dying father only to find their mother (Julie Oliver-Touchstone) behaving erratically. They soon learn that there’s something dark and wicked (hence the title) holding sway over anyone who enters the place.

I was pretty excited to see this movie, because while I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Stranger, I could see from his debt that Bertino definitely had talent as a director in terms of creating a mood and tone that can keep an audience on edge. While I haven’t seen his other two films since then, The Dark and the Wicked proves that my earlier instincts were correct. With a fairly simple premise, location and relatively small cast that’s usually one or both of the two main actors, Bertino has created an enigmatic and eerier horror-thriller that does both the two elements that makes for good horror – create interesting characters with depth and then proceed to totally fuck with them in any way possible.

In this case, the set-up might seem slow to match its Southern setting, but this is one of those rare cases where slow isn’t necessarily bad. Ti West’s The Innkeepers and House of the Devil is a pretty gauge for whether this is your kind of horror. If you liked those, you’ll probably like this.

Once the gory and quite disturbing stuff starts happening, Bertino rarely lets up. Although some of the imagery isn’t as original – a woman chopping off her fingers for the third time this year! – there’s just a lot of things that are done in such clever and unique ways. There’s little question that Bertino knows how to creep viewers out and put them on on edge, but it’s all greatly helped by the two main actors who really sell the scares. I won’t get too into what the evil is that’s causing people who enter the house to savagely mutilate themselves, but it is of a demonic nature

While at first, this might seem to be in the vein of the recent Relic, of which I wasn’t too big a fan, it also delves into territory ala The Witch (without the historical setting), and that might in fact be the best barometer to decide whether Bertino’s latest is for you. Be warned that like this year’s The Lodge, The Dark and Wicked lives up to its title because you witness a lot of truly awful things, and you should not expect it to end cheerfully. (I also want to give credit to Bertino’s DP, since I’ve watched so many horror movies this year that are so dark, you cannot make out what’s going on, which isn’t the case here.)

A movie that was supposed to be released way back in March by Aviron Pictures is finally coming back via Vertical, Noriva as Andrea Di Stefano’s THE INFORMER finally sees the light of day in the U.S. after being released all over the world. It stars Joel Kinnaman as Peter/Piotr Koslow, a Polish assassin and mercenary, who has been working as an undercover FBI inside man to help them bust criminals. Rosamund Pike plays his handler, Agent Wilcox, while Clive Owen is her immediate supervisor. After a drug bust that gets an undercover cop killed, Piotr finds himself being investigated by a local detective, played by Common.

The Informer starts as as a fairly typical crime-thriller that seems to be inspired a little too much by Breaking Bad, but in fact, it was adapted from a Swedish crime thriller called 3 Seconds, written by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellström. What’s interesting is that it transforms itself from being a passable but bland entry in one of the most overused movie genres ever into something halfway interesting when Peter is sent back to jail to get closer to the drug kingpin known as The General.

If you’re a fan of Joel Kinnaman, then maybe you’ll enjoy this, but I don’t think Kinnaman has very much charisma as an actor and that really hurts the first half of the movie where he’s required to do a lot of heavy-lifting, especially opposite Pike. But it takes a while to adjust to the fact that everyone in this movie, other than Common – showing less range than usual – has taken on some sort of accent. It’s certainly a decision, though I’m not sure it’s the best one.

I have to admit that I didn’t fully understand the dynamics between the characters, and it didn’t get much easier once Peter goes back to prison, but in general, I felt like there was a lot of talent wasted here, particularly Ana de Armas as Peter’s wife. It also is a little devoid of thrills, but again, that’s mostly through when the movie turns into a prison drama, which is where it gets quite a bit better. That said, I’m still not sure if Common is supposed to be one of the good or bad guys…

The Informer may not be the most inspired crime-thriller, and Kinnaman’s typically stiff performance doesn’t help, but there’s some good moments towards the end that makes it not feel like wasted time to watch it.

Opening in 200 theaters this Friday is True to the Game 2 (Imani Media Group), which as you might guess is the sequel to movie called True to the Game, which I have not seen. It’s a street level gangster crime thriller that begins with a lot of black people shooting at each other, which seems rather ill-timed for the current situation in the country (and New York in particular). The movie stars Erica Peeples as Gina, the love interest of Quadir Richards, a drug dealer murdered in the first movie, who decides to leave Philly to recreate herself as a New York journalist. While in L.A. on an important assignment, her past in Philly follows her as Quadir’s killer Jerell (Andra Fuller) wants revenge for a hit against his crew in revenge for them getting revenge for Quadir. Oh, the movie also stars Vivica A. Fox as a woman named “Shoog.” I’m not going to review this, partially because I don’t think I’ll have much to say without having seen the first movie, but this is also not my kind of thing nor am I the target audience for it, so writing a review might just be a waste of all of our time. (Hint: It isn’t a good movie.)

Jeff Roda’s 18 to Party (Giant Pictures) is set in a small town in 1984, as it deals with a group of 8th graders who have been dealing with UFO sightings, missing parents and recent suicides as they try to get into a club despite being underage. Boy, does this have a lot of ‘80s references, so it should really be my thing. Sadly, it’s very talkie and not particularly well-written while being derivative of so many other things like Stand By Me and the It movies as filtered through Richard Linklater. Roda does get some points for his choice in music that includes Big Audio Dynamite and one of my own ‘80s favorites, The Alarm. (And yes, U2 DID steal much of its sound and schtick from the Alarm, so kudos for the movie acknowledging it.) Unfortunately, it’s used as awkwardly as most of the interactions between the kids, and yet, I still didn’t hate this. 18 to Party will open via virtual cinemas on Friday through the Laemmle in L.A. in Alamo on Demand (New York and other cities) but then will get a VOD release in North America on December 1.

From Sweden – running the gauntlet of almost every single genre festival since its release overseas in the summer of 2019 -- comes the dark fantasy-horror Koko-Di Koko-Da (Dark Star Pictures) from filmmaker Johannes Nyholm, about a couple terrorized by a sideshow artist and his entourage in the woods. I honestly didn’t get too far into the movie, because like many Swedish movies, this one is so dark and grim that it starts with the couple losing their 8-year-old daughter in the first ten minutes and when the horror element shows up, I just couldn’t get too far. Maybe I’ll give this another chance when I’m in a better head.

Similarly, I saw but don’t have much to say about Alastair Orr’s Triggered (Samuel Goldwyn Films). It’s a stylized horror-thriller in the Saw vein where a group of nine friends are out camping and partying in the woods when they wake up to find suicide bombs strapped to their chests with different countdown clocks, but in order to survive, they need to kill their friends to get more time on their clocks. It’s another high-concept thriller ala the recent No Escape and considering how much I hated that movie, I knew this wouldn’t be my thing either. I’m a little surprised that it’s being released by Samuel Goldwyn since they normally focus on more arty films and not C-level genre fare.

At my beloved local theater, the Metrograph, which I miss deeply, they’re continuing their “Robert Kramer Retrospective,” now showing Milestones from 1975, while Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli’s So Pretty will run through Thursday night. This Friday, the terrific doc Decade of Fire, directed by Gretchen Hildebran and Vivian Vazquez Irizarry, will debut as part of Metrograph’s Live Screening series, and I have to say tht this is quite a fantastic doc about the series of building fires that decimated the Bronx in the ‘70s. Monday will see the debut of the 1974 doc Frame-Up! The Imprisonment of Martin Sostre, directed by Steven Fischler, Joel Sucher and Howar Blatt, and I remind again that the Live Screening series can be accessed with an annual Metrograph membership, which is still just $50 a year or $5 month-to-month, and you cannot get a better deal right now within the world of Virtual Cinema with the number of movies being offered for that price.

Metrograph has also begun a “Ticketed Screening” series where you can pay per film, and the second one in that series is the 1965 French anthology Six in Paris (Icarus Films), that has the likes of Chabrol, Godard, Pollet and Rohmer telling short cinematic stories set in Paris, which is a must-see for fans of the French New Wave of the ‘60s. That’s available for $8 for members and $12 for non-members, so being a member is STILL a pretty good deal.

Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema continues King Hu’s Rain in the Mountain, Frederick Wiseman’s City Hall and more, joined by a double feature of Fellini’s Toby Dammit (1969) and Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962) (the basis for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys) starting Friday.

Also, just want to throw a quick shoutout to my much-missed neighbors uptown at Film at Lincoln Center, who also have a fairly hearty Virtual Cinema going with new and repertory offerings.

Also, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #LetHimGo #TheInformer #Proxima #Kindred #the dark and the wicked #Jungleland

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