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mrs-harkness · 4 years ago

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Run To Me (Part 4)

Pairing: Diane Sherman x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

TW: Brief mention of vomiting. I don’t want anyone getting triggered, so I would rather be overly cautious!

A/N: If you would like to be on a tag list for this fic, please add a comment below or shoot me a message! Excited about the next chapter, things are coming. Again thank you for the love. I am having so much fun writing this and it means even more when you have people who enjoy reading it!

Even though it had been four whole days since the accident, you were not feeling better. Diane had said that the day after was supposed to be the worst, but it seemed like you felt weaker each day. Diane was keeping a close eye on you though, making sure you weren't running a fever and that the road rash and cuts weren't getting worse. She said if you got any weaker, she would bring you to the local urgent care to make sure something serious wasn't going on.

Though you weren't feeling well, you enjoyed the days spent with Diane in the quiet little house, just the two of you. You had learned a lot about each other in the past few days, developing a routine with one another that always ended the day with a cup of that nasty ass tea, but deep and sweet conversation.

You hadn't gone into too much detail about your past quite yet, about your mother or father or what it was like in the foster home. You shared mainly surface level things and funny memories that were light hearted. You knew the heavier stuff would be discussed eventually. Although you were choosing to keep the painful memories of your past to yourself for the time being, Diane had opened to you almost immediately.

You found out she didn't have parents either, her mother dying when she was a child and she was married when she was very young, to an abusive husband that left her for another woman only a year and a half into the marriage. Soon after she found out she was pregnant and she decided to not reach out to her ex-husband and to just raise the baby on her own. Unfortunately she developed high blood pressure and delivered the baby too soon, and she died in Diane's arms before she even had time to discuss options. Her name was Chloe and Diane chose to live a quiet life after that. She moved to Washington only a few years ago and put herself into teaching, science, and her garden. She always wanted a child, but she was just never able have one again.

When she told you that, your heart broke for her. Of course she was so willing to take you home with her. She was lonely! She had promised to take care of you, but you knew as soon as you were back on your feet, you were going to try and care for her too. In whatever way she would let you. You weren't Chloe, and you could never be Chloe, but you could love her with all your heart.

It had been another rough day, as you had suddenly developed a bad headache and had felt queasy for most of it. You didn't really eat much of your dinner, pushing it around your plate. You didn't want to tell Diane you had vomited up breakfast. If she knew you were barely keeping things down, she may get worried.

Diane cleared the plates from the table and brought them to the sink. She noticed you didn't eat more than a few bites. She didn't say anything but turned to you and smiled.

"How about you go ahead and sit on the couch? I'll be there in just a minute," she said quietly. Her voice had seemed to grow more gentle towards you each day.

You smiled wearily and went to the living room, lazily sitting down on the couch. It could have only been a few minutes, but you somehow managed to fall asleep. You were constantly tired and wanting to nap. Diane said it was a good sign because it meant your body was trying to heal itself.

You were woken up by the couch dipping under Diane's weight. You opened your eyes and saw her smiling at you, holding a bowl of something brown. It smelled sweet and you looked at her suspiciously.

"What's that? No tea tonight?" you asked, hopeful.

Diane chuckled and pulled out two spoons, sticking it into the bowl.

"No, no tea tonight. I don't want you to get too much of those herbs and vitamins. And this, it's brownie batter. Me and my friends as teenagers would make a bowl of it and eat it as we talked about boys and school and our dreams," she said, picking up a spoon and licking off the chocolate from it.

You couldn't help but smile as you took a spoon and licked at it cautiously. You had never had the stuff and it was intoxicating. You shoved the whole spoon in your mouth, ready to inhale the entire bowl.

Diane laughed and pulled the bowl towards her.

"Alright, alright speedy... don't eat it too fast. You'll get sick."

You forced yourself to go slower, but the moment Diane turned around you would be sure to put as much of it in your mouth that would fit. This was worth getting sick over. Diane stared at you, drinking up the image of you enjoying the treat she had brought.

"You know," Diane hummed, "I always thought I'd do this one day with my daughter. Make it a tradition and she'd tell me her secrets and we would be best friends."

You're heart ached in your chest. You knew she meant Chloe and you knew she would rather her be on the couch than you. Suddenly the batter didn't taste as sweet. You put the spoon into the bowl and left it there. You looked up at Diane and saw she was almost beaming at you though.

"I'm glad I get to do it with you," she said, picking up the spoon with her other hand and letting you eat off it.

You felt really confused, but happy at the same time. You knew you weren't her daughter, but sometimes the way she said things or looked at you, it was like she wanted you to be. As if that's how she saw you. You weren't sure if you saw her as a mother though, you didn't really know what that felt like. It was complex for you.

"So, Y/n, tell me. What did you do with your friends? Did you have any special traditions with the girls?" Diane asked, eating another spoon of the batter, it dripping onto her lips.

It broke you from your anxious thoughts and had you now thinking about your past. It wasn't that much better but at least it would keep you talking.

"Well, I really wasn't in one place long enough to make any traditions with my friends. But me and my foster sister, the one who lives in town, we would go and sneak out of our group home and head to the woods behind it. The woods had fireflies in them and we would go see the 'light shows' and talk about a bunch of different things. What our families could have been like, what we were going to do when we aged out, the issues we had at the home."

You remembered those nights fondly, some of the few good memories you had growing up. You wondered if there were any woods in the area and if they had fireflies. Maybe you could go and see a 'light show' for old times sake. You would ask your sister when you saw her. But you needed to call her first.

"Uh Diane, could I possibly use your phone?"

Diane suddenly stiffened, the spoon thudding back into the batter. Her face seemed to harden just for a moment before quickly returning to the warm look she often gave you. It took her a moment to respond, making the air between you thick for some reason.

"Sure. Are you okay?" she said, her voice sounding concerned.

She seemed like she was worried and you wondered if she thought she had upset you.

"Oh yeah! I'm fine. I just actually wanted to call my sister and let her know I made it here and that I'm safe and see when she wanted to meet up," you said in a confident tone, hoping to ease her mind.

Her face seemed to twitch and she swallowed hard, clearing her throat. She smiled at you though and you just shrugged off her strange reaction. She pointed to the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall. Diane had phones with chords still in her house, which you found charming, but also a little inconvenient that you couldn't step outside.

"You're welcome to call your foster sister," she said, saying the word 'foster' strangely, "I'm going to go upstairs and get ready for bed to give you some privacy."

She smiled at you and brushed your hair behind your ear before getting up and heading to her room. You waited until you could no longer hear her footsteps before leaning over the brownie bowl and quickly stuffing your mouth with as much batter as you could. As soon as you swallowed it all, you realized you may have made a mistake, but you could regret it later.

You walked over to the phone and pressed the buttons to the number you had memorized by heart. You felt nervous suddenly even though nothing had changed and you had just talked to her a week ago. Your heart race increased with each ringer, anxious to hear her voice.

"Hello?" a sleepy voice on the other side of the phone croaked.

"Mandy? Mandy, its Y/n."

There was some rustling on the other side of the line and you were pretty sure you had woken Mandy up, but you knew she wouldn't mind.

"Hey! I was wondering when I would hear from you. I was a little worried. You were supposed to call me like two days ago," she yawned.

"Yeah I'm sorry. I had a little set back. But I'm here in town and I'm staying with a woman I met-"

Mandy cut you off with a very obnoxious "Ooooohhhhhh!"

"Shut up. It's not like that. She's just a really good friend that I was lucky enough to meet. Now before you say anything else stupid, when and where do you want to meet?"

Mandy chuckled on the other end. She knew you hated being picked on and anytime she sensed even the possibility of making you uncomfortable, she had to crack a joke.

"Well, I have class tomorrow, but I am free after lunch. There is a nice little coffee shop book store on Howard. You can meet me there at like 2PM. Does that sound good?"

"Yeah, that's perfect. I can't wait. I've missed you so much Mandy," you said, tears prickling at your eyes.

"I've missed you too lighting bug. So tell me, who is this lady you are-"

Suddenly Mandy's voice cut off. You pulled the phone away from your ear, not even hearing a dial tone. You messed with the phone for a moment before realizing the line was dead.

"Diane?" you called out, sticking your head around the corner.

Diane was right there, breathing heavy as if she had been running. She startled you and you stared at her, mindlessly passing the phone to her.

"Your phone line went dead," you mumbled.

Diane put the phone to her ear and pressed a few buttons before hanging up.

"I'll call the phone company in the morning. Sometimes someone hits a line and the whole thing goes dead. Were you able to call your friend though?" she asked, leaning against the wall.

You noticed she said friend this time, but you brushed it off. She didn't know the bond you and Mandy shared.

"Yes! I did. I'm going to meet her tomorrow for lunch."

Diane didn't hid her discomfort this time.

"Y/n, I don't think that's a good idea. You're still very weak. You didn't even eat dinner. I don't think you should go out by yourself. Maybe I should go with-"

"No. It's okay. I'll be fine for a couple of hours. I won't be running a marathon, just having a coffee with my sister."

You wanted to spend time with Mandy by yourself and while you appreciated the thought of Diane going with you, you were still an adult no matter how young you looked. It didn't help that at the moment the brownie batter was now fighting against you and you were hunched over slightly.

"Well maybe consider letting me drive you to town? I need to run some errands anyway so I can drive you and that way if you feel like you need to lay down or rest I wouldn't be far."

You would need a ride to town, but you just weren't sure.

"Let me sleep on it. I hate to think I would be using you just for a ride. And-" before you could finish, you start having a coughing fit. Coughing was nothing new to you thanks to the asthma, but this wasn't that. This was the batter.

You tried to keep it down, but it was too late. You threw up, all over yourself, all over the floor, and even on Diane's slippers. You expelled everything you had eaten that day and more and it took a moment before you stopped gagging, laying in a ball on the floor.

Suddenly fear over took you as you saw yourself and the floor covered in vomit. You know your mom would be so mad when she saw it and you would get punished. You didn't want to be punished. You began to cry and you scooted away until your body hit the wall.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to," you cried. You forgot where you were and suddenly you were back at home. You didn't like going back.

Diane quickly ran over to you, not phased by the vomit and held you in her arms. You fought her off at first but she shooshed you and smoothed your hair, holding you close to her. She knew a flashback when she saw one. She held you and whispered in your ear. It took a moment but eventually you came back to present day. You still felt sick, you now smelled awful, your head hurt, and you were embarrassed. For the first time since you had met Diane, you felt tears prickle you eyes and instead of hiding them, you let them flow.

You cried in Diane's arms as she rocked you back in forth, and you apologized over and over again. You weren't sure if you were saying sorry because you had thrown up on her or if it was because she lost her daughter or because you were the mess of a person she felt fate brought her. She kissed your head and took your face in her hands. She wiped your tears with the pads of her thumb and looked at you with tears in her eyes too.

"Hey. It's okay. Stop apologizing. You're safe now Y/n."

She pulled you back to her chest again and wrapped her arms around you tight as if she would never let you go.

"I've got you," she whispered, over and over.

"I've got you, and I'm not letting go."

#sarah paulson x reader #sarah paulson fic #sarah paulson #diane sherman #diane sherman x reader #run film

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fallingforyou123 · 4 years ago

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You Will Never Be A God-Une

Warnings: Slight language, implied smut, alight angst

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: Here is the official part one! Hope you'll like it, reblogs and feedback are always appreciated!

Series Masterpost

The sheets hung loosely around her frame, the only thing keeping her from being exposed to the cold air. The stranger laid beside her in a dazed out state, chest rising ever so slowly. A small cloud of smoke engulfed the both of them, a bad habit Stevi had picked up from an ex of hers.

“Those will kill you one day.”

“No more than sleeping with strangers will.”

“Touche.”

Stevi moved to get dressed, keeping quiet to avoid another conversation. Leaving was always bad, but leaving when there was still so much to be said was the worst. She couldn’t quite place it, but there was a feeling, something small sitting in her gut. It worried her, she’d never felt like this with a stranger. So safe and comfortable.

“Stay. Just till the morning, I’ll have my driver take you home.” Came the voice from the other side of the bed.

“No, definitely no. I have rules, no names, no staying. I can’t”

“What a lonely life you must live, to disconnect so much from those around you.”

Stevi looked at him, truly looked at him. He looked so much different than the man she met a couple hours ago. His perfectly gelled hair was nothing more than a brown mess atop his head, his eyes were clouded with a sleepy haze, and his suit had been replaced by a very thin sheet. He looked like someone she could see herself falling for back in university, she had to remind herself that this was a man with a lot of money, someone she’d probably dig up dirt on for an article.

She shook her head, she needed to leave.

After she finished dressing, she grabbed her bag from the front room and slipped out the door. Checking her phone she saw a couple missed calls from Brooke and an enthusiastic ‘be safe!’ text from Poppy. She quickly both, ensuring them that she was not dead in a ditch somewhere, before ordering an uber and hoping in the elevator.

***

The rest of the weekend had gone by in a blur. She’d spent all of Saturday nursing her hangover with ice cream and old reruns of Golden Girls in bed. Then Sunday was brunch with the girls at a little cafe where she was forced to share every detail of the events that unfolded Friday night, only leaving out how weird she had felt in the strangers' company. And then all too soon she was getting ready for a week of meetings and interviews.

Walking into the office, Stevi was greeted by her boss informing her that her 11am was now Stevi’s and ‘oh, look, he’s early.’ She mentally groaned, there was not enough caffeine in the world to make this worth it. Don’t get her wrong, Stevi loved her job, but god did she hate her boss. She was flakey, and whenever anything didn’t appeal to her, she’d simply give it to Stevi with barely any notice. There were far too many nights that she had to stay late because she was given a column to write only hours before it was due.

With a heavy sigh, she walks into the conference room, hoping that this won’t last long. “Good morning, my name is Stevi, I’ll be doing the interview today since Diane couldn’t be here.”

“Rule one.”

She whips her head up towards the man, “What?”

It’s in that moment that she realizes who this is, the man from Friday night. And coincidentally, Tom Holland. She should’ve known the other night who he was, his name and face had been plastered on the bulletin board for weeks, one of their most anticipated interviews this year. Tom was not only a pretty face, but the youngest CEO to be running an international company in decades. His father had started Holland and Co. Publishing almost 30 years ago, and only a few months ago he handed it over to Tom.

“I said, rule one darling. You’ve broken it.” She’d forgotten how lovely that voice was, remembering how captivating it was to have him whispering in her ear.

“I heard what you said, Mr. Holland.”

“Call me Tom, you’ve more than earned that privilege.”

“This is my place of work, not some stupid nightclub, I keep things professional here.”

Neither of them take their eyes off the other, a silent war taking place between the two of them.

“Well, if you’re such a professional, stop looking at me like you’re wanting to fuck me.”

A small gasp leaves Stevi. She stands up to leave, gathering her things, and looks at him with venom in her eyes, “Mr. Holland, I’m afraid that this interview is over, if you would please talk to the receptionist she will reschedule you in with someone other than me.”

A small look of shock crosses Tom’s face before he too stands, reaching out to grab Stevi’s arm, “Wait, I'm sorry. Sit down, I’ll be civil.”

Reluctantly, she does. Placing her notebooks in front of her and pulling out the recorder. Before she begins she gives Tom a warning look, “One word, one single word out of line, and this is over.” To which he nods and sits back, hands folded in his lap, looking like a true business man.

***

The rest of the interview goes by smoothly, only a couple of suggestive looks being thrown her way before he bites his tongue. Stevi’s never been more relieved to finish something in her life, the tension between the two becoming almost unbearable as the interview went on. “Okay, I think that’s all we need for the article, a draft will be sent to your assistant to go over before we publish it in next week's business column.”

Stevi stands quickly, ready to put everything behind her and spend the rest of her day hiding in her office. Before she can leave, a hand is wrapped around her arm once again, and body right behind her. “Let me take you to dinner, darling. A reward for being good.”

The voice in her ear sends a shiver down her spine, and for a second she debates it, “Tom, I can’t. I don’t mix business with pleasure, this is already a conflict of interest.”

“More of those damn rules. Live a little, let your guard down for once.” He looks at her with pleading eyes, something that makes him look more like his true age. That feeling sneaks its way back into again, and for a moment, while she stares into his eyes, nothing else exists. Just the two of them and a world of possibilities.

“If I say yes, this stays between us. The people we are here, and the people we are then are not the same. My job may not seem dangerous to you, but it could be very bad for me if someone gets the wrong idea.”

Tom nods, he knows all too well what she means. “Tonight at 7, meet me at The Garden on 22nd, I’ll make the reservation.”

She agrees, lets him put his number in her phone, and gives Tom one last smile before heading down the hall to her office.

She jumps when she sees someone sitting at her desk, “James, what are you doing here?”

“What, can’t check in on my favourite captain?”

“Not without a secret agenda, and last I checked, I have nothing to report to you, I’m off duty.” Stevi walks towards him, pushing his legs off of her desk.

“Ah, sweetheart, you’re never off duty. Not when you’re talking to men like that.” James points out the door, to where Tom can be seen talking to the receptionist.

“That is none of your business, James.”

“I want details, everything you can find out about him, on my desk by Friday, you know what’ll happen if it’s not. Have a good day Stevi.” And with that, James walks out of the room, leaving a chill hanging in the air.

Stevi suddenly can’t breathe, the four walls surrounding her feeling like a cage. She quickly grabs her things and walks to Dianes’ office, telling her there’s a family emergency and she’ll work on the article at home. Within minutes she’s scrambling to get into her car, dialing Poppys’ number, needing someone to calm her down.

She spends the rest of the day on Poppys’ couch trying to recover from her near mental breakdown. This life was never something she wanted, she’d been dragged into it by her ex. After he failed to complete a simple task, he was killed in their apartment, and she was responsible for finishing it out. But it’s never that simple, one task turned into two, and then four, and now she was too far in to be able to leave.

All too soon, it was 6:30 and she was leaving for her date with Tom. She’d left Poppys an hour ago, promising her that there was nothing to worry about, it had just been a bad day. She drove in silence, not wanting to focus on anything but the road. She got to the restaurant right on time, quickly being seated in one of the private rooms. She’d been here once before with her parents when she first moved to the city. They’d taken her out to celebrate and they’d spent the night drinking fancy wine and eating more food than they could’ve ever imagined.

Lost in her memories, she didn’t realise how much time had passed since she’d arrived. Checking her phone she saw that it was now quarter past, and no sign of Tom. She tries texting him, thinking maybe he’d gotten off of work late. By 7:30 she starts to panic, she’s 2 glasses of wine in and still no sign of him. To no avail, she calls him, worry turning into anger when it goes straight to voicemail.

It’s almost 8 when the waiter informs her that Tom has called, he won’t be making it, but to order whatever she likes and he’ll pay for it.

And so she sits there, wine glass in hand, wishing she’d never even met Tom.

#tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland series #tom holland x oc #mob!tom holland x reader #tom holland and co

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michelles-garden-of-evil · 3 years ago

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Episode 46 Review: 2 Theories About Jean Paul, Erica, and the Locket

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

In this great house on Maljardin, evil lives, even amongst the dead, and the poison this evil spreads threatens Erica Desmond, who lies frozen in this cryocapsule until the day a scientific miracle returns her to the living and back into the arms of her husband Jean Paul Desmond, who has defied powers real and imagined to assure his wife’s return from beyond the veiled curtain of death. Strange happenings are forcing a decision that could doom Erica Desmond...forever.

Hello and welcome back to my Garden of Evil, where today we will examine Jean Paul’s reaction to Dr. Alison Carr’s new discovery about her sister’s bloodied locket and two possible explanations of what it may say about Erica’s death and Jean Paul’s state of mind. I could do an entire recap of this episode if I wanted to, but I'd rather narrow the focus of this entry to the theories that have been floating around my head for a while (one since before I started this blog, in fact).

A brief summary of the important stuff that happens in this episode: Alison learns that the blood on the locket is human blood, type AB-, which leads her to conclude that it must be Erica’s, because both she and Erica have that rare blood type[1]. She also tests the poison found in the glass of wine that Holly drank from two episodes ago and finds that it’s not the missing cyanide, but an unknown poison of vegetable origin. Elizabeth defends herself to Matt, telling him that she has no motive to kill Holly, not even her inheritance--and, surprisingly, he believes her. And then Raxl and Quito steal the rabbit from Jean Paul’s room and stumble upon that wonderfully sinister skull, which will co-star with Jacques in Episode 47.

Jean Paul receives irrefutable proof that the locket found around the rabbit’s neck belonged to Erica.

Outside of those plot points, this episode focuses primarily on Jean Paul’s confusion over how a bloodied locket even ended up in the cryonics capsule with his beloved Erica to begin with. When Alison shows Jean Paul the blood sample under the microscope, he's skeptical at first and tries to convince her that she either bled on it or someone else somehow put her blood there to confuse him. I would say it boggles my mind how someone with an IQ of 187 like Jean Paul can conceive such a ridiculous theory, but, honestly, it doesn’t. The popularity of conspiracy theories and other misinformation in our time has convinced me that human beings of any intelligence level can trick themselves into believing anything, no matter how patently absurd, if they want to believe it enough.

Subtle Dark Shadows reference?

I can’t tell how much of the next part where Jean Paul continues speculating about the locket is actually in the script and how much is just a particularly bad line flub. Listening to his dialogue, it sounds like a combination of both, but it’s hard to tell given that the character is supposed to be very confused already. Here’s an exact transcription of what he says:

Jean Paul: "Well, maybe I-I-I put the necklace on her neck without realizing it. I perhaps didn't put it on her when I put it in the capsule. It could have happened that way very easily. You see, I had thought I had. You didn't see me do it, did you, Raxl?" Raxl: "No." Jean Paul: "Quito, did you?" Quito: *shakes head* Jean Paul: "Well, there you are. You see? She could have cut her finger a while before she died, and so the blood got on the locket, and maybe I put the locket in the, uh, dresser drawer, and it was left there, and in my grief I didn't know what I was doing and I gave her another piece of jewelry which I put around her neck. Don't you think that probably is what has happened?"

Vangie isn’t convinced of any of these theories, and neither is Raxl. The latter believes that the locket appeared because of evil, “slimy like a snake, ugly like a black rabbit.” (WTF? The rabbit is adorable!) Jean Paul accuses Vangie of suspecting him, but she insists she doesn’t. Of course, he doesn’t believe her and he takes out his anger by breaking Alison’s microscope in half, throwing it to the ground, and accusing Erica of mocking him.

In the next scene, he ruminates in his room over the likelihood that he killed Erica, intentionally or otherwise:

Could I have killed my Erica? Could I have slain my love? That's impossible! Oh, you would like it, Jacques Eloi des Mondes, my bloody murdering ancestor. If it was so, how you would rejoice! But then, if I didn't put the locket in the cryocapsule with Erica as I thought, what other things that I believe as facts--things which are part of my life and experience--may be no more than creeping, malicious, lying fancies? Perhaps I didn't love my Erica at all. Perhaps I hated her!

Jean Paul pondering whether he truly loved Erica.

Getting dramatic!

Later, while lying on his bed in shirtsleeves, he realizes that he genuinely loved her, but that his memory is still faulty:

Jean Paul: "I loved her. I remember how I loved her. There was no world but the world outside, and then there was another world and that was us. Oh, how I loved her, so good, so beautiful, but what happened at the end? I can't…was the necklace with Erica when she was sealed in the capsule? I can't remember."

But later on when he visits the Great Hall (inadvertently giving Raxl and Quito the opportunity to retrieve the Rabbit of Evil), Jacques torments him by implying that Jean Paul, like him, is a murderer. “Think there’s a chance you may have murdered your sweet Erica?” he asks. “That blood was very interesting, wasn’t it?”

Jacques hinting again that they’re the same man, or just that the apple doesn’t fall far from the proverbial tree? Or perhaps this is like that one line from Game of Thrones: “You can’t kill me, I’m a part of you now.”

Then we get this exchange which acts as a segue into the next scene:

Jacques: "So maybe you killed your little love before you put her in that tin coffin, hm? Maybe there is no pristine, pure body to revive. That's what's been on your mind all day, isn't it?" Jean Paul: "Even if it has been, I certainly wouldn't tell you." Jacques: "You can have no secrets from me, anyhow. You know, if you ever are thinking of murdering again…" Jean Paul: "I did not kill her!" Jacques: "All right!" *laughs* "But whether you did or not, you might want to kill someone else one of these days." Jean Paul: "Good night." Jacques: "All right, run away, but you might find an example of my skill nearer than you know and sooner than you think."

After he storms out of the Great Hall, Raxl and Quito return, the latter carrying the rabbit. Before they can sacrifice the rabbit in an effort to rid the house of its evil, it jumps from Quito’s arms. While trying to catch it, he bumps his head into a painting of mysterious ancestor Étienne des Mondes and knocks it off the wall, revealing a hidden cupboard with a skull swinging from a rope through its jaws.

We’ll discuss this skull in the review for next episode, where it becomes the focus. For the rest of this review, however, let us turn our attention to two possible interpretations of the Jean Paul and Jacques scenes in this episode. My theories are as follows:

Theory #1: Jean Paul killed Erica and is living in denial

Jean Paul’s reaction to learning that his deceased wife’s blood is on the locket and especially Jacques’ comments about it seem to imply that Dan Forrest’s theory about murder may not be a red herring after all as Ian Martin would have had us believe. Remember that, although Jacques is evil and Martin’s episodes portrayed him as the Father of Lies, he and Jean Paul may or may not be the same man. That could mean anything from Jean Paul having a split personality to Jacques having transported himself forward in time to live as Jean Paul Desmond before the events of Episode 1, but I’ll save those ideas for another essay. The point is that Jacques seems to know Jean Paul as well as he knows himself, and as such knows things about him that the other characters don’t.

It’s possible even that Jacques has observed and interacted with Jean Paul since long before Jean Paul freed him by removing the silver pin from the conjure doll’s temple. Think back to Jacques’ introductory scene in the pilot, where he responds to Jean Paul’s proclamation of “on this island, from this moment forward, I am God” with “bravo.” He could speak through the portrait and even give characters visions before Jean Paul freed him! Also think of all the things he’s referenced that a man from the 17th century wouldn’t be aware of: merry-go-rounds, bus time tables, the figurative expression “jack up by the bootstraps,” and whatnot. Assuming Jacques is a spirit like he claims, he’s been observing and learning things on Maljardin for a very long time! Sure, he looked confused about that fountain pen in Episode 4, but perhaps that was only because he hadn’t had a chance to practice using one before Jean Paul set him free. If Jean Paul killed Erica, Jacques would know about it and may even have encouraged it by communicating with him through the portrait. There’s no indication that the scene in the pilot is the first time he made contact with his descendant. It could be the second time, the fifth, the tenth, the thousandth, or more.

Also note that the exact cause of Erica’s death is never made clear. Jean Paul claims in Episode 5 that she died of eclampsia, but the Lost Episode summary for Episode 47 from the CBC program log indicates that Dr. Menkin’s missing notes would have eventually revealed her to have “died attempting to gain eternal youth.” The latter could have meant anything from plastic surgery complications to swallowing gold à la Diane de Poitiers. It’s not even clear if the attempt at eternal youth is truly the cause of her death, just what she was doing when she died. This leaves the possibility of homicide open.

But did Jean Paul (or Dr. Menkin) intentionally kill her, or could it have been an unpremeditated, spur-of-the-moment decision? I believe the latter is more likely. Jean Paul seems genuinely confused by her death, and even by whether he loved or hated her. It’s possible he already wasn’t in his right mind before her death and may even have blacked out during it (although probably not because of possession, as he had not yet freed Jacques). Perhaps the artificial intelligence hinted at by the reference to W. Grey Walter’s “Imitation of Life” factored into this: for example, the implant inside Erica’s brain may have malfunctioned, causing her to become violent and attack Jean Paul and/or Dr. Menkin.

SPOILER WARNING FOR THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961)

Another thing to consider: Strange Paradise shares many plot points in common with the Roger Corman/Vincent Price movie The Pit and the Pendulum. In the film, we have (1) a husband whose wife recently died under mysterious circumstances, (2) whom he comes to suspect he accidentally murdered. (3) His doctor is living at the castle with him, when (4) a sibling of his deceased wife comes to investigate her death. Among the ghostly happenings in the house, (5) a portrait of the wife is slashed. Finally, (6) the husband goes mad and (7) is possessed by an evil lookalike ancestor, in this case his father. While I don’t think that we can accurately predict planned revelations in Strange Paradise using the events of a film written by someone unaffiliated with the show’s production, it is interesting to note that Vincent Price’s character accidentally buried his wife alive. This connects to the events of Episode 44, where Erica’s spirit possesses Holly and tells them to “let [her] out,” although in Erica’s case it’s more likely that she’s just been resurrected from death instead of being buried alive.

END SPOILERS

Theory #2: Jean Paul is imagining things

Another possibility is that he didn't kill Erica and is using the new (apparent) evidence to construct a false memory of killing her. Although most of us like to think of memory as infallible, numerous studies have proven that it's anything but. This can occur on a collective level, such as the famous Mandela effect where, prior to Nelson Mandela's actual death in 2013, many people misremembered him as having died in the 1980s. More often, however, individual people remember false versions of events from their own lives.

In the late 20th century, numerous psychological studies identified the way that even changing small details of a story--changing a stop sign to a yield sign, for example, or adding the detail of broken glass to the story of an accident--could alter a subject's memory of it, creating a "misinformation effect." During one such study, researchers used a fake advertisement showing Bugs Bunny in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland to trick their subjects into believing that they could meet Bugs at the park (despite Bugs being a Warner Brothers character and Warner Brothers being affiliated instead with Six Flags). For 16 percent of the subjects, it worked, and they described further false memories of meeting Bugs at Disney, adding details like that they touched the ear of his costume[2].

Speaking of false memories of amusement parks, I swore for years that I remembered visiting a dinosaur theme park in the northern Ohio woods back in 1998 or 1999, when I was five or six. I never questioned whether the memory was real until one day when my family drove past a drive-through dinosaur exhibit and my dad said to my mom, "They didn't have anything like that when Michelle was a kid." Skeptical of his claim, I did some Googling and discovered that there was a dinosaur-themed park in the woods near Sandusky called the Prehistoric Forest that looked much like what I thought I remembered[3]. When I sent my parents the link to the article about the Prehistoric Forest, both of them denied ever taking me there or even having heard of the place. Nevertheless, I swear I've been there or somewhere very similar. I think the most likely explanation is that I dreamt about it, but that the memory of the dream was so vivid that I mistook it as one from my waking life.

Much as a researcher can convince their subjects to believe that Bugs Bunny appeared at Disney or I convinced myself that I had visited a place like the Prehistoric Forest, Jean Paul is capable of brainwashing himself into thinking that he murdered Erica. This isn't even the only time he speculates without clear evidence that he’s guilty of murder. We'll see something similar in Episode 137 regarding the murder of a different character, whom Jean Paul will successfully convince himself he killed despite hazy evidence at best.

Note that these two theories are not one hundred percent mutually exclusive. It’s entirely possible that Jean Paul killed Erica, but misremembered specific details about her death or how he felt about her. Also note that this show contains quite a few retcons, one of which we saw last episode. Just as the trajectory of this show has changed significantly from Ian Martin’s original plot, the truth about Erica Desmond’s fate is currently in flux within the show’s universe.

The contents of the secret compartment that Raxl and Quito discovered.

Coming up next: A delightfully chilling episode where Jacques uses the skull that Raxl and Quito found to further terrorize his guests.

{<-- Previous: Episode 45 || Next: Episode 47 -->}

Notes

[1] While rabbits can have type AB blood (or type ZY blood, using the system from this 1954 study) and they cannot tolerate injections of Rh-positive blood, they have different antibodies in their blood from those of humans.

[2] Elizabeth F. Loftus, "Memories of Things Unseen," in Current Directions in Psychological Science 13:4 (2004), pp. 145-146. There are other examples from other studies, including one involving false memories of witnessing a demonic possession, but the Bugs one is my personal favorite. Also, this period of Strange Paradise puts me in a rabbity mood.

[3] Coincidentally, the Prehistoric Forest's entrance appeared in the 1995 film Tommy Boy, which also featured Colin Fox and Pat Moffat (Irene Hatter) in supporting roles. There was also an animatronic dinosaur attraction at Sea World Ohio called Carnivore Park that operated in the late 1990s. Despite having visited that Sea World many times as a kid, I couldn’t have gone to that exhibit because we couldn’t afford to go there in 1998 or 1999.

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alexandrablake · 4 years ago

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a happy ending

Prompt: 47. “I’m fine.” “You don’t look fine.” “Then stop looking.” from this prompt list! Pairing: None, this is a gen fic Show: Criminal Minds Word Count: 1,699 Warnings: Slight allusion to suicide. Mentions of death. A/n: I’ve never written anything like this, so please, if you are going to comment on any of these things, do it on this one. Also, see my reply because I explain a few things about this because I figured it would be little confusing and the explanation would be long.

How many victims have we seen? How many crime scenes? Hundreds? Thousand?

It was both a blessing and a curse to have an eidetic memory. Yes, he could recall even the most minute detail from any of his experiences which proved to only benefit him in this line of work, but he could not forget either. Thus, Gideon’s parting words to him echoed through his mind, chanting and imprinting in every nook.

There was no escape.

Just as they always do, he and his team caught the “bad guy.” It did not really matter, though. Gideon was already dead. He never had a chance.

Just as they always do, he and his team were cleaning away the evidence of a case solved. They took down the newspaper clippings, the photos, the maps, the triangulations- they took down it all. It was almost as if the heinous crimes they had seen had never happened.

Just as they always do, he and his team piled into government-issued SUVs leaving the crime scene for one final time. In most cases, they would never return. For most of them, they would forget about it in due time. Not him, though. He could never forget.

The problem was that this was not just some case. There was no way there could be “just as they always do”s.

So, as he climbed into the SUV- license plate 90VFA4- he looked around at his colleagues, his friends, his family. He had worked with some of them upwards of ten years; he could say with much confidence that he could read them well.

None of them cared. They were treating this like it was just another routine case. That was their mentor, their colleague, their friend, their family, that they had just solved the case for. It was not just a random person. It was… Gideon. And they didn’t care.

JJ was staring back at him when he pulled himself from his thoughts. Her brows were ever so slightly furrowed, and she examined him with the look of a concerned mother.

“Are you okay?”

Her words were light and sweet like syrup on pancakes. They coated not just a question but a gentle offer for a conversation where he could relinquish his thoughts to her.

“I’m fine.” His words were brisk, harsh, and cold like wind on a November night. They were rejection in its finest form. Two words that held so much more meaning than seemingly possible.

Her eyes bore holes into him, and it felt like she could peer into his mind. “You don’t look fine.”

“Then stop looking.”

She seemed taken aback by his statement, shoulders tightening and eyebrows raising. But, she got the message loud and clear: Back off. JJ turned back around so she was facing away from him and towards the windshield.

He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

In this line of work, I was afraid I would lose the ability to trust, but I’ve realized I can’t really look at anyone without seeing their death. And as bad as losing your faith in humanity seems, losing your faith in happy endings is much worse.

His eyes flitted open, and he had to raise a hand to shield them from the sudden brightness that greeted him. The contrast dimmed as his eyes adjusted, and he found himself not sitting in the SUV as expected, but rather a dingy diner booth. The seat in front of him was empty, but there was a basket of fries and a glass of water. It was as if he was expecting someone.

He knew it was a dream. He researched them when his mother first started to show signs of sickness. Maybe there was some sort of link when it came to dreams and the reality distortion that she was experiencing. It was a desperate attempt, even he knew that, but he found comfort in the words that surrounded him in the endeavor.

The doorbell clanged, and he moved his attention to the front of the diner. A figure approached his booth, but that would be all he could describe about it. It was almost as if JJ had changed the office television to the wrong channel and the screen was filled with a black-and-white static. He squeezed his eyes shut once, twice, three times, before the figure came into focus.

Gideon was sitting down across from him, that same omniscient smile that so often spread across his face gracing it now.

“Hello, Spencer.”

His mouth fell open. Even if it was just a dream, having his late mentor speak to him as if he was still living was something that was hard for even him to compute.

He mustered every word in his vocabulary to greet the still smiling man across from him. “Hi.”

That aforementioned grin grew into more of a smirk. “You look like hell. I’m sure this is a trying time for you.” The initial shock was beginning to wear off and anger began to bubble within him. “You could say that.” Gideon raised a knowing brow, cocking his head to the side a little. “Got something to say?”

Biggest trap for a profiler to fall into is pride. Forgetting that, for all your skills, profiling is just a tool.

“A few somethings.” Reminiscent of all those times when they would just sit after a case, Gideon leaned back into the booth and looked at him expectantly. He would never verbally invite his protege to speak but would always have an air about him that just invited the confidence to do so.

Speak he did. “Why would you chase after Mallick, fully knowing that you no longer had the arsenal of tools you did the first time you attempted to do so? Why did you leave? Well, I know why you left. You did leave that letter explaining but I know that is not actually why you left. Why-” The older man held out his hands in front of him. “Slow down, I can hardly understand you when you go on these tangents.” The smile never left his face.

“I chased after him because I knew I would never be able to live with myself knowing that I had just let the one lead that emerged in thirty years just…” he splayed his fingers in the air before clutching them into a tight fist, “slip through my fingers.”

He nodded. After Maeve, he had thought over every possible way that he could have talked Diane down. He knew that there was no chance, if he could do it all over again, that he would let the obvious clues of her identity pass by him again.

Gideon was still talking. “I figured I could do basic reconnaissance and get the information I needed about the new developments. I didn’t think that this Tara would be the same Tara Barnett from nearly forty years ago.” He paused for a moment and time seemed to freeze around the pair.

“So you decided to lure him out because you knew he was active again?” he asked, trying to push the explanation along.

Gideon didn’t respond immediately but stared at him before speaking up with a smile, “I like your hair like that. Much better than the old greasier stuff you used to have to try and seem older.”

He reached up and touched his hair gently, wallowing in the old profiler’s praise.

“Yes, I tried to lure him out,” the former agent said, rather noncommittally. “It worked better than expected. But that’s not what you’re really worried about.”

He didn’t ask if it was. He knew.

“No. No, it is not.”

There was a heavy sigh from across the booth. “I left because I needed to. I had to or you wouldn’t have found a letter in an empty cabin, but rather a gun with its bullets used.”

The images of what would have been flashed through his mind rapidly and he took a sharp breath to will them away.

“I told the truth in that letter. I had nothing. I didn’t have the belief in the job I used to have, and I didn’t have the belief in myself that I needed.”

A pregnant pause filled the diner after Gideon fell silent again. He cleared his throat. “Did- did you find it?”

“Find what?” “In your letter, you said, ‘I guess I’m just looking for it again. For the belief I had back in college. The belief I had when I first met Sarah and it all seemed so right. The belief in happy endings.’ Did you find it?”

Once again, he was examined by Gideon. “It’s not a tangible thing, belief in yourself. It’s more of a construct, if you will.”

“That is not really an answer.”

Gideon slid out of the booth and stood over him. He glanced at the clock hanging over the doorway and sighed. “It’s time to go. You need to wake-up, you’ll be getting back soon. And I… well, I have people to see.”

He stood up so they were face to face. Even in this dream, he was taller and had to peer down at the smiling man.

“Look, Reid. I know me leaving was hard on you. It was hard on me, too. But, I really think it was necessary for both of us.”

He answered in a small voice, and he felt like that twenty-two year old kid all over again, “Yeah, I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

Those as his final words, Gideon stepped away and towards the exit. The doorbell clanged as he swung the door open. Before he stepped through, he paused, his knuckles whitening on the doorknob. He looked back, a glassy look in his eyes. “Would you tell Stephen I’m sorry?”

He received a light nod, and that smile came back. Then, Gideon was gone.

Spencer had that same smile gracing his lips as he woke up.

Is death ever worth it? Was the world always this gray? Is it only in the movies that it’s black and white? Was that just an illusion?

#eva's 25 days of christmas #advent calendar of fics (ACoF)#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #angst #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #jason gideon #nelson's sparrow #uhhhhh idk guys #hey hey queue queue #eva writes occasionally

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rhetorical-ink · 4 years ago

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Rhetorical Ink Reviews: Seven Deadly Sins, Season Two/Three

** SINFUL SPOILERS BELOW **

My younger brother and I continue our journey with “sibling streaming” and watching the Seven Deadly Sins. My brother convinced me to skip the four OVA’s that Netflix refers to as “season two,” because he said they were mostly filler, and knows I’m not a fan of filler anime. So, with that said, we dived into the next season! Here are --

My Top Ten Thoughts on Seven Deadly Sins, Season Two Three:

10. Okay, so right off the bat -- if you had told me Hendrickson, the main villain of our last season, was immediately going to be back in the show, AND turn heel and join forces with the SDS and Holy Knights AND be a relevant part of the show...I would not have believed you. It’s one of the aspects about the season I do enjoy -- little surprises like that. I also like, despite being confused as to how it happened, that Hendrickson is placed in charge of Dreyfus’s son, who’s mysteriously reverted to a child-like state. It’s a nice visual and connection for those two characters, especially since Dreyfus has been possessed and unleashed arguably the best part of the season:

9. The Ten Commandments. I find it interesting that normally anime pit player vs player on even terms; though here, its 10 vs 7 really. I am a big fan of the weird designs of these characters. I’m not a fan of “little miss resurrection” above, but her plot line does lead to some interesting moments (detailed below), but I DO get a HUGE laugh out of her being charred for a short period when she returns later on in the season. It was a very satisfying moment.

In terms of my favorites, the pairs of Estarossa and Zeldrus are very cool, especially being Meliodas’s “brothers,” but probably my favorite duo is the Jesse/James “Team Rocket” equivalent that is Monspeet and Derieri. Monspeet’s suaveness is sooo deliciously villainous, especially in contrast to his counterpart’s aggressiveness. The group proves to be menacing as a whole and a nice villainous “squad” to take on our SDS group.

8. Ban’s utter devotion and love for Elaine has been one of my favorites in the series, and this second season has really upped the ante for how much I love their characters. King’s return to the Fairy Kingdom and Ban’s protection of Elaine was beautiful, and then we have “little miss resurrection” trying to revive Elaine and use her against Ban -- and yet, their love triumphed. It was so sweet to see them back together, and I appreciate that the anime, especially being a Shonen, lets them kiss and be a couple.

Of course, it all comes to a head when to save his best friend from losing his soul, Ban has to basically sacrifice the faux-revived love of his life. He vows to get her revived permanently, though, and I think I’m with the fandom in that I want this to happen so bad. If there’s any couple I root for in this show...it’s Ban x Elaine...well, them and:

7. Uh, yeah, so I hardcore love Diane and King in this show. I love how King’s character has gone from being a snot-nosed brat the first time we meet him to actually revealing his utter love of his friends and family. Diane and his relationship is SO SWEET and it’s been heartbreaking this season with all of the near-misses and moments where you think they’re going to be together, only for it to be completely upended. Besides Ban and Elaine, I’m really hoping these two characters can end up together. I mean, Merlin’s magic has made it to where Diane can be “human sized,” so why wouldn’t it work?! I love, though, that King loves Diane for who she is as a person, not by any definition of her physical self, similar to Ban’s love for Elaine. Maybe that’s why I ship them so hard, because the parameters of their relationship are so similar.

6. Oh, hey, remember in Season One, when I said Gowther was one of my favorites of the Seven Deadly Sins? Yeah, he was...until he basically wiped the memories of Diane (HOW DARE HE) and Gila’s little brother, and on multiple occasions nearly ruined the entire plot.

I love that Gowther’s character, along with Meliodas, turn out to be two former Commandments -- it makes sense with Meliodas being of the demon race himself, and Gowther’s basically a puppet, so of course he’s going to be on whatever side is controlling him more. Gowther is such a neutral, chaotic character -- but in the quietest, most subtle way possible. It’s something we don’t normally see, to see the chaos from a character being created in such a simple, cool fashion. Still, Gowther...you got some catching up to do before you’re back in my good graces after all the havoc you brought this season!

5. Then we have Escanor and Estarossa -- two seemingly invincible forces. I feel there’s going to be more with Estarossa in the next season, so I’ll wait to talk about him, but Escanor is both delightful and OP as all get out -- at least, when it’s noon, he’s nigh invincible. I love his little doting crush on Merlin -- two of the most powerful SDS’s, though they aren’t quite a couple like Ban x Elaine, Diane x King, or Meliodas x Elizabeth.

Still, it was impressive to see Escanor hold his own against Estarossa...rematch?

4. Speaking of couples, I would be remiss to not talk about Meliodas and Elizabeth. Yes, Meliodas is still sticking his head where it doesn’t belong...except, now we know he’s a demon...so I guess...that...excuses it points to why he’s like that? At least we get more of his backstory and of COURSE Elizabeth is a reincarnated goddess child that he keeps encountering and falling in love with...I’d say their coupledom is the most “creepy” to me, since he’s watched her since she was a kid...then again, she keeps reincarnating...so....what do we do with that?

I at least still like the angel and demon motif that’s set up between them.

3. Honestly, Meliodas’s confrontation with the Ten Commandments and then his later fight against Zeldras and the demon possessing Dreyfus were two of my favorite parts of this season -- I like that we’re seeing the always confident and smooth Meliodas literally confront his demons, and FINALLY, we get some confirmation that each time he’s brought back to life -- he’s cursed with immortality, kind of like Ban only worse -- he loses more and more of his compassion and “human-like” self and regresses back to his former demon state.

It’s an interesting twist, and one that I’m really glad the show made at the end of the season; the tension between Meliodas, Gowther, and the other SDS’s definitely made me want to see where it goes next season!

2. Oh, by the way, if you told me that I’d be ROOTING for Hendrickson at the end of season one, I would have said you were crazy. Yet, somehow, I was. I am honestly amazed that they took a main antagonist and did a complete 180 with him...and it worked.

What also worked VERY well was the moment that the demon Fraudrin, once separated from his host Dreyfus, realized that he was actually upset that Griamore wasn’t recognizing him as his father anymore, since he’d “played” the part for ten years. That scene was incredibly well done, and I actually felt sorry for the demon...of course, Meliodas ended up wiping him away, but it was one of the more well-executed (no pun intended) scenes in the season, and a great lead to the climax.

1. All in all, this season had higher highs than the last, especially towards the last three to four episodes, which I thought the last two were the best of the series so far.

That said, I still have problems with the show: It takes sometimes FAR too long to explain certain plot points -- nearly half a season later -- and some of the reveals seem a little forced or weakly explained.

My main critique is that no one’s death really feels “final.” Heck, Gustav, Jericho’s brother, was one of the only characters that legitimately died in the show so far that we’ve spent any time with. Yes, I know a lot of people, my brother included, were sad that Zhivago, Ban’s “Father” died, but I couldn’t find it as emotional because we spent so little time and buildup with him. It’s probably my only major concern with the show and getting invested, but I do still enjoy the characters and am curious to see what they will do in the season to come.

So, with Season Four about to be released on Netflix, it seems like good timing that I started catching up with this series!

Despite my frustrations with the series at time, the characters and their shenanigans do make me want to come back and see what happens to them! I’m sure it’s only going to get zanier from here -- let’s hope, anyway!

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lia-jones · 4 years ago

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Growing Pains - Chapter Two - Victor, not Sir

After the meeting with the CEO, I got a call from Goldman to inform me of the department I would be assigned to: the financial department. As a part of my internship, and as investigation for my thesis, I was assigned three French companies to assist with the investment. Besides that, I would help in any way I could, taking someone’s work if they were absent or just assist my supervisor.

They assigned Ted Kasey as my supervisor, one of the top people in LFG investment team. He and the CEO were usually on good terms, having regular lunches and meetings, and it was obvious he had Victor’s consideration. Ted Kasey was a charismatic red headed guy, with a hearty laugh and a slightly prominent beer belly under his suit, hinting at how he enjoyed drinking socially. Probably in his forties, he was a genius in investments, only matched by the CEO himself. And because of that, and also because everybody loved him, he was deeply respected.

Victor Lee’s reputation in the company was very different. He was also respected, but the kind of respect you conquer from fear. He was known to have very little patience to those that didn’t meet his standards, and for being incredibly standoffish, not letting anyone come close to him, at risk of being insulted.

Every morning he arrived to the office he would mutter a quick “Good morning” and head immediately to his office, unless he had to scold anyone in the room. In that case, he would drop an angry “In my office immediately”, and whoever he summoned would come out red as tomato and barely speaking. Fortunately, the CEO had yet to speak to me since I started working in LFG. My first day started with introductions over coffee and a welcome cake, and I found on my desk a personalized mug with my name and LFG logo and some company stationary. That day, the CEO spent all day in his office, not bothering to come say hi. Goldman made excuses for him, but I couldn’t care less. If what people were saying was true, if he was that ruthless and overbearing, I’d rather keep him as far as possible from me.

For that same reason, I was more than happy when Ted offered to present my first report on my behalf. And it sort of became a habit, Ted going to talk to Victor every time I was summoned, claiming it was his responsibility as my supervisor. I couldn’t be happier with the arrangement. I didn’t have to deal with the vicious CEO and I didn’t have to interrupt my work, so that suited me just fine.

Two months had already passed, and I seemed to think of Daniel less and less, the memories fading along with the pain. It still hurt sometimes if I focused too much on the subject, but the fact that no one there knew what I had been through made things incredibly easier, since I didn’t have to deal with the shame. I could be just me, without the stigma of a fate I did not chose for myself.

To be honest, the moment I decided to move to Loveland for the internship was the moment I decided I would leave Portugal for good. My savings were enough to make a deposit to rent a beautiful one room apartment in the most traditional part of town and to get myself a used car to commute. I immediately made friends with my front door neighbor Levi, and I learned he was a Krav Maga instructor, so I started taking his classes. I also had Diane as a friend, a co-worker in the same department that was a domestic account manager. One day, in the coffee room, I made a joke about Goldman being the bravest person in the world for working that closely to the CEO, and Diane overheard me and just poured her heart out. It turns out she had a major crush on Goldman, and judging by the number times Goldman would drop by her desk, always with a feeble excuse, he was crushing on her too. We became good friends right there and then, united as girls often become when they start talking about their crushes.

I had friends, hobbies and a good job. I was well settled, and life seemed pretty good. I was on my way to happiness. I could feel it.

But, of course, no good deed goes unpunished, and no rose is without its thorns, and all the things people say when they have a good thing going but it starts to go sour, so it wasn’t really surprising when my car decided to break down in the middle of Loveland’s main avenue, on my way back home, at 8 pm, under pouring rain. I managed to pull it to the curb, and opened the hood from inside, talking myself into getting out and get heavily rained on to take the usual precautions.

The umbrella I took with me outside didn’t help a bit, the wind blowing on it and turning it inside out. It took me less than two minutes to get drenched, while I tried to signal that my car was parked there and needed assistance. Distracted by the conversation I was having with my insurance company, trying to have my car taken to a mechanic, I didn’t even notice the black sedan that stopped right in front of my car.

When I turned to face the road, I was startled by a tall man in an expensive suit, standing right beside me, holding an umbrella. I jumped back with the scare.

“Do you need help?” The arrogant cold voice gave away his identity even before I had a chance to look at his face. It was LFG’s CEO, Victor Lee. I sighed loudly in relief.

“No, Sir, I just need to call a mechanic. I got it, don’t worry.” I said, trying to be polite while I wished for him to go away fast. I didn’t need to cuddle the CEO on top of my predicament.

“You shouldn’t be alone this late, especially with this weather. And in any case, it will be very hard to find an open shop at this hour.” He spoke like I was stupid to want to fend for myself. “Get in my car and warm yourself, while I make some calls.”

I nodded sheepishly and went inside my car to get my purse, cursing the Gods for putting me in such a situation. Seeing he had a bad temper, I avoided the CEO like the plague, wanting my work to speak for me more than myself. I sat on the passenger front seat of his car and fidgeted awkwardly, while he turned up the heater.

“Take your blouse off.” He asked. I blinked at him, horrified. He looked at me, offended. “This is not a seduction tactic, I just don’t want you to call in sick tomorrow because of a pneumonia. You have a top underneath, you’ll remain decent.”

I nodded, dawning on me that now that my shirt was wet, he could see through it. And with the heater, my top and skin would dry faster without a wet shirt of top of it. I removed my shirt awkwardly trying to move the least possible, not wanting to bother him. But to my dismay, he was getting more aggravated by the minute.

“Why are you moving like that? Did you leave your motor skills at LFG?”

I took a deep breath and finally removed my shirt, unable to avoid a wet sleeve to slap his nose.

“That’s what I was trying to avoid.” I said, my voice flat. He turned to retort, but his eyes fell on my hands and widened, and he quickly turned his face the other way. I immediately looked down to see what made him turn away so fast. And I could dig a whole, crawl there and die. My nipples were hard from the moist and the cold, and were perfectly noticeable under my wet top. I immediately crossed my arms in front of my chest, the sudden movement seemingly noticed by him and making his cheeks blush slightly, by the little I could see from his face.

As I prayed to God to send a lightning to strike me, or a hurricane, or perhaps a nuclear bomb, he removed his jacket and put it over my crossed arms.

“Here. You look cold.” He said, his poker face back on. And the embarrassment was such I almost whimpered in agony. “Let me make that call.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to forget where I was and what just happened, while he spoke with what seemed to be his insurance company, basically ordering them to come get a car that they didn’t insure and take it to their mechanic. He finished the call abruptly, and remained silent, staring at the rain hitting furiously on the windshield. After a minute, or maybe less, his phone vibrated. He picked it up immediately.

“Yes? (pause) Yes. First thing in the morning. (pause) Then make it happen. (another pause) Good.” He hung up and turned to me. “Give me your car keys.”

I handed him the keys as quickly as possible. He took his umbrella from the back seat and went outside. In a matter of seconds, the headlight of a motorcycle was visible in the night, stopping near my car. Victor handed him the keys and quickly returned. He turned to me again.

“Your car is being taken by the mechanic shortly. You will have it fixed tomorrow, first thing in the morning. I’m taking you home.” And with that, the CEO started the car and we drove away. I was dumbfounded at how quickly he solved my problem, but what confused me the most was the fact he was doing it in the first place. If he just kept driving, instead of stopping to help me, he would be having a fine meal at his luxurious home, dry and pristine as he always was, possibly surrounded by concubines that looked like supermodels. But here he was, looking like a drowned rat, his coat wet and starting to wrinkle due to my wet top, taking me home.

We drove without a word, until he broke the silence.

“Are you… enjoying your work at LFG?” He asked, like he didn’t care much about the answer, just making small talk to stave off the awkwardness.

“Very well, Sir, I’m learning a lot.” I answered, happy to think about something other than my hard nipples.

“Enjoying your life in Loveland? I see you made friends already.” His voice was still stern, but a bit softer. As if he was glad I was making friends.

“People are very friendly here. It wasn’t hard.” I answered shortly.

“Just pay attention to the people you interact with. You’re alone, don’t have any family here… It could be dangerous.” Why did he care? I shrugged it off, probably the polite thing to say to a girl living alone, I thought. The comment didn't sit well with me though.

“You don’t need to worry, Sir. I can take care of myself.” I said, trying not to be rude.

“Good.” He swerved the car to the right, stopping at the curb. “We’re here.” I noticed we were near my building’s entrance.

“Wait, how did you know this is where I-“

“Can you please get inside so I can go home?” He interrupted me, annoyed.

“Thank you, Sir.” I said, closing the door and running to my building. I heard him from behind.

“It’s Victor. Call me Victor, not Sir.” He shouted through the open passenger window.

I turned and nodded in understanding, and went inside immediately. It was only when I was already inside my apartment that I noticed I was still holding his jacket. And how the hell did he know where I lived?

#Growing Pains - Series #growingpains #victor mlqc #victor x oc #mlqc #mlqc li zeyan #love and producer

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kimabutch · 6 years ago

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JLCR: kimabutch edition

To celebrate somehow reaching 1000 songs on Jam Like Critical Role, the giant fan-created playlist that I’ve been curating since February, I’ve decided to put together a mini-playlist of own, featuring two of my favourite songs for each member of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein! Each song has a YouTube link, but you can find the whole mini-playlist on Spotify here.

By mini-playlist I meant that there are “only” 36 songs, and also that I’ve pulled out my favourite lines and explained why I associate the song with them, so that this whole thing is approximately 5400 words long. I tried to restrain myself, but, well, Jam Like Critical Role is a testament to my lack of self-restraint. If it helps, I’ve tried to incorporate a diversity of artists, eras, and genres, from folk-punk to techno, country, dream-pop, classical, and beyond. I hope you find something you enjoy.

Grog

We’re Going To Be Friends, Jack Johnson (cover of White Stripes), for Grog and Pike’s incredibly wholesome childhood friendship. While many of the lyrics describe friends at school, which is not totally accurate for them, I can just imagine the two weirdos playing among the bugs:

“Walk with me, Suzy Lee/ Through the park and by the tree/ We can rest upon the ground/ And look at all the bugs we’ve found”

Not to mention Pike teaching Grog his ABCs:

“Tonight I’ll dream while in my bed/ While silly thoughts run through my head/ Of the bugs and alphabet”

I just love these two silly monstahs.

Giant, Juno Reactor: to balance out that last song, have some techno that makes me want to yell “Vox Machina, Fuck. Shit. UP!” and split Kevdak in half with a nat 20 from the sky. Appropriately named for our goliath friend, this song always temporarily convinces me that I, too, am a seven foot tall barbarian (which is not recommended while you are trying to do anything that requires brainpower.)

Keyleth

I Lost Myself, Lauren Mann and The Fairly Odd Folk, for Keyleth’s self-doubt about whether she can do her Aramente (or whether she even wants to) and fear that she’s hurting everyone:

“I’ve got voices in my head Making me think that this is where I end Hey, what do you see, if anything What do you see in me”

This specifically reminds me of her Aramente, and how it taught her so much more than she was expecting:

“You and me we made a plan To travel from here to there and back again Somewhere on that weathered road I found the dreams that I’d been looking for”

And “Hey, we’ve got the world to see/ So let’s forget our anxieties and get on our way” makes me think of Keyleth and Percy’s friendship, and how both of their stories are about trying to figure out what to do once you’ve achieved your goals. I want to think that after the story ended, they were still occasionally able to leave behind their responsibilities and travel the world together.

Take Us Back, Alela Diane, for a post-canon Keyleth, reminiscing on the old days and eventually outliving the rest of Vox Machina. I get a strong image of Kiki coming down from Zephra to see her friends:

“Atop the crags and cliffs the air is thin/ So we’ll find a mountain path on down the hill/ Meet me where the snowmelt flows/ It is there, my dear, where we’ll begin again”

And of her listening to Scanlan’s music, centuries later; they’d be the last two alive: “I’ve a friend who lives out by the river’s mouth/ He knows the fiddle’s cry is an old sound”

And then Keyleth, alone, listening to a river’s gurgle or the wind’s howling, and almost thinking she hears her friends: “Muted voices, just beyond/ The silent surface of what has gone.”

Percival

The Devil Spoke Here, Chicken Little, which I think is actually about the aftermath of a protest, but which I feel works eerily well for Percy’s development following the Briarwood arc. The beginning reminds me of his guilt, feelings of brokenness, and anger issues after he’s cast out Orthax — right down to his guilt about guns:

“There’s bullets in the streets/ and broken dishes on the floor/ enough anger in my heart/ to take the blame for it all/ I could take every bullet back/ if I could never feel like that”

It also covers Percy’s realization, after his conversation with the Raven Queen, that he’s free from the judgment of the gods, and acceptance that he’s the one who has bad thoughts for the greater good:

“I have no god for guidance/ still I’m praying all the same/ may everything I do/ be done for everybody’s gain”

And then this, for a reason that I can’t quite explain, feels so much like Percy’s forgiveness of Ripley at Glintshore, and his death at her hand:

“May we always fail/ with the best of intentions/ with our hearts always pure/ and our souls only human”

Wandering Star, Portishead: the weird trip hop vibe to this song somehow feels appropriate to Percy, and in particular to his darkest thoughts. The song addresses the possible punishments for these thoughts: “Wandering stars, for whom it is reserved/ The blackness, the darkness, forever.” It helps that this is an allusion to a Bible passage about atheists.

The second verse makes me think both of Percy’s relationship to the concept of eternity (because of the “needle’s eye” — a parable about the entrance of heaven for the rich) and his raven mask:

“Those who have seen the needle’s eye, now tread Like a husk, from which all that was, now has fled And the masks that the monsters wear To feed, upon their prey”

Additionally, “Doubled up inside/ Take a while to shed my grief” is reminiscent of Percy’s revelation, in the last episode, that he just really fucking misses his family. This whole time, something inside of him has been curled up into a little ball like the teenager he was five years ago, grieving his family.

Pike

Holy, Jamily Woods: a song about self-love and self-assurance, underscored by Christian imagery:

“Though I walk through the darkest valley I will fear no love/ Oh my smile my mind reassure me I don’t need no one […] Woke up this morning with my mind set on loving me”

Many of the lyrics can be interpreted either as the singer being self-sufficient because her god is there — or being sufficient even beyond her god: “I’m not lonely, I’m alone/ And I’m holy by my own.”

I think both interpretations work for Pike: that she has found (or is attempting to find) peace when she’s not with her friends, or that although she worships Sarenrae, the Everlight doesn’t necessarily interfere in her day-to-day life and she makes her own happiness. Either way, the song makes me feel at peace in the same way that Pike does.

The Otherside, Ohbijou, for Pike’s feelings about Scanlan during the year gap. Particularly, I’m reminded of Pike’s attempts to talk to Scanlan on the earring: “With things left unsaid so unsatisfied/ And a burning to hear your voice just one more time.”

And in these lyrics:

“And it’s so silly for me to worry/ About situations that don’t exist/ We create these problems and try to solve them/ Why waste each passing moment?”

I hear Pike trying to figure out her feelings for Scanlan, but shooting herself down because he’s gone, why even try?

Scanlan

The Pilgrim - Chapter 33, Willie Nelson (cover of Kris Kristofferson), which really encapsulates, for me, Scanlan’s complex relationship with religion: the fact that a guy who regularly produces lightning from his dick, messes with people’s memories, and actively attempts to cultivate a drug habit finds himself praying to the Everlight at night and eventually becomes Ioun’s chosen:

“He’s a poet, he’s a picker/ He’s a prophet, he’s a pusher/ He’s a pilgrim and a preacher/ And a problem when he’s stoned”

The lines “He’s a walking contradiction/ Partly truth and partly fiction” reminds me of all the identities he’s taken on, both for fun and to shield his emotions from his friends, whereas “Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home” makes me think of Scanlan’s long road back to Vox Machina after leaving them.

Handle With Care, Traveling Wilburys: almost every single song on this album works for Scanlan, so choosing just one was a real challenge. But this song is so good for all the shit that Scanlan’s been through (and all the shit that he’s been), and his relationship with Pike through all of that:

“Been beat up and battered around/ Been sent up, and I’ve been shot down/ You’re the best thing that I’ve ever found/ Handle me with care […]”

“Everybody’s got somebody to lean on” reminds me of Scanlan’s feeling, in episode 85, that he’s the odd one out in Vox Machina.

The last verse encapsulates Scanlan acknowledging his own fuck ups, working to make them right, and eventually, having a healthy relationship with Pike:

“I’ve been uptight and made a mess/ But I’ll clean it up myself, I guess/ Oh, the sweet smell of success”

Taryon

Father and Son, Cat Stevens, for Tary’s relationship with his father and his decision to leave home; the song is a duet of sorts. I think the father’s part of the song is a little generous for Howaardt Darrington, but retains the message of (somewhat condescendingly) trying to keep his son at home and have him reconsider his far-reaching plans: “I know that it’s not easy to be calm/ When you’ve found something going on.”

The son’s part, though, captures Tary’s frustration with his father’s strictness and inability to actually understand his passions:

“How can I try to explain?/ ‘Cause when I do he turns away again/ It’s always been the same, same old story/ From the moment I could talk/ I was ordered to listen/ Now there’s a way and I know/ That I have to go away”

And the last verse is some real closeted gay feelings that always make me tear up:

“All the times that I cried/ Keeping all the things I knew inside/ It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it”

What’s It Gonna Be, Shura, not so much for the song’s lyrics, but for its music video, which is all about falling for a different gender than you expected, and which is incredibly sweet and beautiful.

That being said, you could definitely take the lyrics to be about his crush on Percy and his obliviousness about who in Vox Machina is sleeping with whom:

“Do I tell you I love you or not?/ 'Cause I can’t really guess what you want/ If you let me down, let me down slow”

Vax’ildan

Glorious, Muse, for Vax’s early relationship with faith. He can’t help but feel drawn towards Sarenrae’s light, even as he has doubts and perhaps even anger towards the gods:

Faith: It drives me away/ But it turns me on/ Like a stranger’s love It rockets through the universe It fuels the lies and feeds the curse And we, too, could be glorious”

He wants that glory that he sees in Pike, but he doesn’t know how to approach it or reconcile it with his life experiences. And then he finds his whole world shattered as he’s chosen by the Raven Queen, and he once again has to find faith, though in a way that he never expected:

“I need to believe But I still want more With the cuts and the bruises”

Fields of Gold, Sting: a song from Vax to Keyleth. I can imagine them so perfectly in this scene, perhaps during their year of downtime, with the winds of Zephra blowing through the fields and their hope beyond hope that they’ll be able to stay together:

“Will you stay with me? Will you be my love?/ Upon the fields of barley/ We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky/ As we lie in fields of gold”

“See the west wind move like a lover so/ Upon the fields of barley/ Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth/ Among the fields of gold”

Years later, Vax knows that Keyleth will see those fields again and think of him: “You’ll remember me when the west wind moves/ Upon the fields of barley.”

Vex’ahlia

Half Jack, The Dresden Dolls: a truly haunting song about the pain and unavoidability of being her father’s daughter — she’s always half Jill (her mother) and half Jack (her father.) The whole song is incredibly painful for Vex, and the lines:

“It might destroy me But I’d sacrifice my body If it meant I’d get the Jack part out”

always makes me think of “If I could pull the blood of you from my veins and give it back, I would.” Also,

“But if you listen/ You’ll learn to hear the difference/ Between the halfs and the half nots”

reminds me of her asking Percy if she looks like she comes from money — or a younger Vex, in Syngorn, gradually realizing why everyone looked down on her and Vax. Lastly, isn’t “I see my mother in my face/ But only when I travel” absolutely heartbreaking for her?

Fall Down or Fly, Lindi Ortega, only partly because Lindi Ortega strongly resembles my headcanon for Vex. The other part is because of my abiding love for how Vex learned to fly, and how that worked with her character arc: from the first time, in the Briarwoods arc, that she discovered her love for flying, to her flaunting convention and stealing the broom, to Percy modifying it for her, to her friends cheering her on with chicken target practice, and finally to her soaring through the skies with confidence. And the song captures that so well for me, as well as her decision to keep going even when her father, Saundor’s words, and her own self-doubt bring her down:

“This is your life/ You can fall down or fly/ You can burn out a shot if you want/ This is your life/ You can live it or die/ You can quit now or try if you want/ But don’t you give up, don’t you give up”

This also reminds me of how much all of Vox Machina adores and supports Vex (and I will join them in crying about how awesome she is):

“You said what is there to lose?/ Do it if you choose/ I got faith in you/ Everything you do/ I know you are gonna make it to the top”

(I also maintain that a modern Vex would be really into country music, particularly the genre of country song in which women tell people to fuck off.)

Vox Machina

Call Them Brothers, Regina Spektor feat. Only Son, for Scanlan’s departure from Vox Machina and the whole team’s attempts to deal with it. I first heard this song in an absolutely heartbreaking TAZ animatic, and my pain increased exponentially when I realized how much it also worked for Critical Role. It’s perfect, in my opinion, for the sense that their family, which has seen them through so much, is irreparably broken — “That’s it, it’s split, it won’t recover/ Just frame the halves and call them brothers.”

But then you also get “Over and over, they call us their friends/ Can’t we find something else to pretend?” for Scanlan’s insistence that Vox Machina doesn’t really care about him, and “Find your fathers and your mothers/ If you remember who they are” for “what’s my mother’s name?”

Maybe this should go on Scanlan’s playlist, but I think “The hunt is on, everyone’s chasing a shot” also works for the way that the rest of Vox Machina independently searched for Scanlan during their year of downtime… and the feelings of defeat in the song just feel appropriate to the whole group.

(I actually have a playlist full of songs for episode 85, because I enjoy making myself sad; it took a lot of effort not to put them all here.)

Freaks, The Hawk in Paris: I can never decide whether this is a Mighty Nein or Vox Machina song, but I’m putting it here mostly because “If you come along with us, the doors are never ending” is absolutely hilarious in for Vox Machina’s single greatest enemy.

That, and there are a lot of lines that work for individual members of the group: “We have a flair for the shade and the inbetween” (Vax); “We like to run with the wolves from the darker scene” (Keyleth); “When we turn the safety off, the shots are automatic” (Percy); “All our friends tell their friends we’re so dramatic” (Scanlan); and “We’ll make you swoon, make it hurt just a little” (Vex).

Additionally, “We have a plan, we’ve got the means for your liberation/ You’ll only have to blur the lines on a few occasions” makes me think of the Briarwood arc, and I makes me think of Percy dramatically revealing his identity to the priest — and cut to Grog pulling out a guy’s tongue.

Anyways, if I learn to make AMVs by the time that the animated series is released, this will be the first that I’ll make.

Beauregard

Saint Simon, The Shins, for Beau’s escape from the Cobalt Soul. The song expresses frustration at weighty intellectualism and how much it doesn’t teach you — which i think is something Beau felt strongly with her monk teachers:

“After all these implements and texts designed by intellects/ So vexed to find, evidently there’s still so much that hides […] Since I don’t have time nor mind to figure out the nursery rhymes/ That helped us out in making sense of our lives”

So she tries not to care about anything because it’s safer that way (“The cruel, uneventful state of apathy releases me”), and she runs away:

“I’ll try hard not to give in, batten down to fare the wind/ Rid my head of this pretence, allow myself no mock defence/ Step into the night”

I think the last part of the song could also work for her meeting the Mighty Nein and starts understanding friendship and love: “Mercy’s eyes are blue when she places them in front of you/ Nothing really holds a candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside you.”

Jonas and Ezekiel, Indigo Girls, because what kind of lesbian would I be if I didn’t put at least one gay-written song on Beau’s playlist? This one is about road trips, wandering, and looking for a purpose:

“I left my anger in a river running Highway 5 New Hampshire, Vermont, bordered by College farms, hubcaps, and falling rocks Voices in the woods and the mountaintops”

But also contains one verse that I think fits her strict family, her new family in the Mighty Nein, and the “devils” — or tieflings — of which her family would certainly not approve:

“Now when I was young my people taught me well/ Give back what you take or you’ll go to hell/ It’s not the devil’s land, you know it’s not that kind/ Every devil I meet becomes a friend of mine/ Every devil I meet is an angel in disguise”

And something about this reminds me of her journey into Xhorhas and attempts to uncover conspiracies and work out the truth: “In the war over land where the world began/ Prophecies say it’s where the world will end.”

Caduceus

Born at the Right Time, Paul Simon, for Caduceus’s belief in destiny and his place therein. The chorus describes his occasional naïveté, and the happiness of his life in the Blooming Grove, with his family:

“Never been lonely Never been lied to Never had to scuffle in fear Nothing denied to”

And then gets into his conviction that his goddess and the world itself put him where he is:

“Born at the instant/ The church bells chime/ And the whole world whispering/ Born at the right time”

The very chill vibe of the song is also very Clay, to me.

Happy All the Time, Danny Schmidt: the singer himself has said that he doesn’t know whether or not this song is ironic and/or melancholic, so I’m going to go with a sincere and cheerful interpretation for Caduceus, with maybe a hint of nostalgia for more peaceful days among his family. It’s got some incredibly lush and occasionally strange nature imagery that I think is perfect for him:

“I took the time to breathe cause I was happy all the time/ Among the rootbuds and the weeds cause I was happy all the time/ But the peat moss and the leaves took turns with both my feet/ Until my toes took root and I was happy, I was happy all the time”

I think Caduceus is still happy, but he was definitely at peace as a hermit.

Caleb

I Miss That Feeling, Tennis: a song about panic attacks and how the physical effects, when described, almost seem like falling in love. It works not only for Caleb’s panic attacks, but also, relatedly, his relationship with fire, which scares him, even as he likes the way it feels — “Something like pleasure, you’d never believe it.”

The fiery way that the singer describes panic attacks is also very Caleb:

“I miss that feeling/ Flicker hot and hovering/ Like my own discovering/ Eagerly, tenderly/ I miss that feeling/ Flicker spread into an itch/ Into a burn, into a twitch/ Slow and even”

It brings me back to the first time we saw it, in the gnoll mines. Also, “Every little thing starts trembling/ Recorded by the needle of an EKG” feels very reminiscent of his hospitalization, though from a modern perspective.

Putting the Dog to Sleep, The Antlers, for Caleb’s very tentative trust in the Mighty Nein, and in particular his friendship with Beau. I think this song really encapsulates Caleb’s pain and skittishness, especially near the beginning of their campaign, as well as his desperation (unknown even to himself) to love again:

“Well, prove to me I’m not gonna die alone/ Unstitch that shit I’ve sewn/ To close up the hole that tore through my skin/ Well my trust in you is a dog with a broken leg/ Tendons too torn to beg for you to let me back in”

And this feels like something that Beau would say to Caleb — upfront and caring all at the same time, reminding him that his actions affect everyone else and asking him not to run:

“You said, ‘I can’t prove to you you’re not gonna die alone/ But trust me to take you home/ To clean up that blood all over your paws/ You can’t keep running out […] Kicking yourself in the head/ Because you’re kicking me too.’”

By the end of the song, Caleb is starting to believe her, and even asking her to trust him: “Put your trust in me/ I’m not gonna die alone… I don’t think so…”

Fjord

Release the Kraken, The Daysleepers: I added this to Fjord’s playlist back when everyone was speculating that his patron was something kraken-like, and even now that this is clearly not the case, I think it still works for Uk’otoa (Uk’otoa) and his attempts at freedom: “It pulled the ships down/ It’s rising from the deep below.”

But also for Fjord’s relationship with Avantika — for his attempts to get close to her in order to save himself and his friends:

“Turn the lights down Careful as a serpent’s tongue Move without a sound Gentle as the cold wind moans”

I think “When you sold love/ Your heart becomes a monster” is some of what Fjord felt after those encounters: like he gave part of himself away.

21st Century Child, Daggy Man, for Fjord’s self-hatred and the masks he puts on. Many of the lyrics could fit several characters (particularly Beau, Caleb, and Scanlan), but

“I hate the sound of myself/ When I’m being honest/ Sounds like somebody else/ And I don’t wanna listen/ To the whinings of a 21st century child”

just perfectly captures his feelings about his voice and his past self — weak and whiny, and not who he wants to be. And then we get these lines, which feel like a good summary of his issues with identity and deception:

“And I’ve struggled with how/ Others perceive me/ And I can’t tell if I’m better/ Or just better at deceiving And I’ll keep going until I’m called out”

Jester

The Sweetest Sounds, Ella Fitzgerald (cover of Richard Rodgers), for pre-stream Jester barely waiting for her exciting life to begin. I first heard this song in Rodger & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and while there is something fairy-tale-like about Jester, I think this upbeat, jazzy cover fits her well:

“The most entrancing sight of all Is yet for me to see And the dearest love in all the world Is waiting somewhere for me”

I can just imagine a 10-year-old Jester listening to the band at the Lavish Chateau play this song, dressing up in Marion’s clothes, and pretending she’s in a storybook romance.

One Hand in my Pocket, Alanis Morissette, which really captures her beautiful complexity:

“I’m free, but I’m focused/ I’m green, but I’m wise/ I’m hard, but I’m friendly/ I’m sad, but I’m laughing”

because Jester is so many things all at once, and none of them negate each other. It’s so hopeful (“What it all comes down to/ Is that everything’s gonna be quite alright”) and comforting (“What it all boils down to/ Is that no one’s really got it figured out just yet”) in a way that really reminds me of my favourite blue cleric.

The whole song has such a fun, free, summer vibe that always makes me smile — just like Jester.

Mollymauk

Carnival Overture, Antonín Dvořák (Leonard Bernstein & New York Philharmonic Orchestra): one of my favourite pieces of classical music ever — when I hear it, an entire music video about a carnival plays in my head. The exuberant theme that bowls you over from the start reminds me of Molly’s effervescent, ostentatious personality.

The slower and quieter part in the middle with the violin and woodwind solos gives me a picture of Molly and Yasha sitting alone in the evenings just outside the carnival encampment, cuddled together — Yasha talking about her wife, Molly telling jokes, and the both of them making up names for constellations and flowers. Then the quick-paced minor section makes me think of the bloodhunter tiefling in combat, deadly with his swords and vicious mockery — before the return to the joyful, triumphant original theme.

Wonderful Everyday, Chance the Rapper & The Social Experiment**: this is sort of a cover of the Arthur theme song, but in the absolute best way possible. The meandering, loose, and extraordinarily happy vocals always remind me of Molly’s way of living.

Although some of the lyrics are more optimistic than Molly (I think he’d laugh at “Everybody that you meet/ Has an original point of view” and say that their points of view are usually bullshit), the message of appreciating every single day is just wonderful for him.

And the last bit hits me like a ton of bricks:

“And when I go down/ I'ma go down swinging/ My eyes still smiling/ And my heart still singing”

“Eyes never shut,” indeed.

**not on Spotify, sorry!

Nott

The Sore Feet Song, Ally Kerr: at first it appears to be a simple song about traveling long distances to find your love, which certainly describes Nott’s search for Yeza: “I walked ten thousand miles, ten thousand miles to see you/ And every gasp of breath I grabbed at just to find you.”

But the second verse is where it really gets into Nott’s thieving, rat-eating, badass ways:

“I stole ten thousand pounds, ten thousand pounds to see you I robbed convenient stores cause I thought they’d make it easier I lived off rats and toads, and I starved for you I fought off giants bears and I killed them too”

I love this strange little goblin.

Fox in the Snow, Belle & Sebastian: this song has always been a bit of a mystery to me, but the lyrics remind me of Nott’s intense vulnerability after she was transformed into a goblin — and in particular her self-image as something animalistic:

“Fox in the snow, where do you go/ To find something you could eat?/ Because the word out on the street is you are starving/ Don’t let yourself grow hungry now/ Don’t let yourself grow cold”

The second verse, which switches to describing a human girl, reminds me of pre-transformation Veth, more acceptable in body but no less socially ostracized than Nott:

“Girl in the snow, where do you go/ To find someone that will do?/ To tell someone all the truth before it kills you/ Listen to your crazy laugh/ Before you hang a right/ And disappear from sight/ What do they know anyway?”

I can just see that exact scene play out with a young Veth, right down to the “crazy laugh.” I’m glad she found Yeza, but she must still have been pretty lonely without any other friends.

Yasha

Into the Barrens, Grizfolk, for Yasha’s years of blank wandering after Zuala’s death. This song fits Yasha so well that for months, I somehow tricked myself into believing that Ashley had put it on her playlist. But I feel like this encapsulates her hopeless feelings, away from all society, not living for anything or anyone:

“Cast me away, my shadow’s cold/ Into the barrens where I will grow old/ Well, I’m not looking for answers/ And I’m not looking for gold”

And I can see this verse for the beginning of her relationship with the Stormlord, following voices she can’t understand as she wanders, barely alive:

“The voices in my head/ They echo in the wind and I begin to sway/ I follow what they say/ I can’t see their eyes, but I hear howling through the haze”

Dreams, Fleetwood Mac: technically a break-up song, but I can’t help but think of Yasha’s ever-present guilt and her memories of Zuala when I hear:

“Listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness/ Like a heartbeat drives you mad/ In the stillness of remembering what you had/ And what you lost”

The storm imagery also works for Yasha — “When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know” makes me think of her fight with the Stormlord on the boat, which allowed her to open up to her friends. And it touches on Yasha’s opaque dreams (“Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions/ I keep my visions to myself”).

(Ally and Stevie also have a lesbian mash-up of Dreams and Rhiannon, two of the gayest Fleetwood Mac songs, that I associate strongly with Beauyasha.)

Mighty Nein

Old Black Train, The Blasting Company (from Over the Garden Wall): trains don’t exist in Exandria (yet! — Percy or Taryon should get on that) but this is more of a metaphor for life. It reminds me of the Mighty Nein setting out from Alfield, not knowing the twists and turns they were going to face, the places they’d go, nor the family they’d become:

“This journey is a long one/ It will take you all around/ Life rushing by your window/ Before it lays you down”

Then there’s this verse:

“Oh come on now young stranger/ Weren’t you someone’s son? How’d you find this depot 'Cause it ain’t where you belong”

which feels very appropriate for many members of the Mighty Nein, separated as they are from their families and wandering in lands that aren’t welcoming to them. There’s also a verse that’s reminiscent of the graveyard they passed on the way to Zadash, which more and more feels like a portent of things to come:

“You will pass a graveyard/ Stones worn by the years/ The train’ll stop a minute but don’t let it leave you here”

Sailing, Leisure Cruise: another song about transportation, although this one is a little less metaphorical. As you can probably guess, I associate it with their adventures on the Mystake and the Ball Eater, which begun by total accident but which, in my opinion, was a turning point for the group, and ultimately helped them grow closer together:

“And to our surprise we’re sailing The high seas in the middle of the ocean […] We’re sailing the wildest mystery And to our surprise we’re happy and free”

Okay, so maybe “happy and free” is a bit of an exaggeration for that arc (particularly for poor Nott) but I think there were a lot of moments in which the Mighty Nein learned unexpected lessons about themselves.

And I think this is a good summary of the Mighty Nein’s modus operandi: seize every passing opportunity, because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring:

“Maybe it’s today Maybe it’s tomorrow But we have to make a play Or the chance will fade away”

And that’s a wrap! Thanks for listening and reading. Love you all <3

#critical role #Cr music #my stuff

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siamesesouls · 6 years ago

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I finally made this fic of my Kiane babies meeting Howzer, oh boi this is gonna be sweet. Hope ya’ll love it <3

It's been a long time since the Boar's Hat hosted a Sin's Reunion but it was a really special day, one worth the preparation. It was early morning when the sunny rays of light gently caressed the rosy cheeks of the young kids' faces as they hopped onto their parents' bed, giggles came out of the oldest one, Magnolia as she clung to her father's neck in an attempt to wake him up from his beauty sleep, the calm snoring he produced abruptly stopped as his first child violently stomped on his chest with her tiny body.

—"FWAAAAA" He yelled while the air on his lungs escaped from his chest in a painful manner.

—"Mooornin' Papa!" Magnolia cheerily exclaimed while his father still tried to catch a breath with his kid suffocating him.

—"Magnolia, I've told you sweetie not to sit on your father's chest, he can't breathe like that!" The Giantess sighed while being gently hold by their little boy.

—"And you...how are you my little cutie pie?" asked while she started to tickle her son, Cloud.

King began to cough as the little child unseated herself of his chest, soon noticing it was getting late for their friends' reunion, he put Magnolia on the ground and thank her for waking him up. Just as her tiny feet touched the ground she pointed her index finger and ordered her little brother to leave their parents alone so they could get ready for today with a demanding, almost cocky attitude, Cloud obeyed almost immediately and exit their room quickly.

—"God, she likes being bossy" King told his loved one with a grin on his face, proud of what they've made together.

They got out of bed to check on their little daughter; Rosa lying on her beautifully made cradle, the sheets touching just to her tender face was truly a divine sight for them.

A family, something they’ve only dreamt of having has been made true thanks to their efforts; they couldn’t believe how lucky they were of being with each other and of course the children by their side.

The air was way denser than before as their rosy cheeks turned into a beet red color, getting close for a kiss when…

—“Papa, Mama, stop flirting! We are gonna be late” Magnolia totally killed the mood for them. Well, some things can’t be helped.

Once they were ready they didn’t waste a single moment as King prepared the Chastiefol transforming it into his signature pillow for his whole family to reach Liones as soon as possible.

It was such a beautiful sight, the hills covered in thick green foliage rushing passed their eyes in one fluid motion, although they could still see the Sacred Tree from miles thanks to its colossal height it was a fun trip for the children since they had never taken a single step out of the borders of their home.

—“We are here” that single word made by their father was more than enough to make their little hearts go wild, despite their excitement they didn’t act rashly as they were careful enough with their dear mother and both the baby on her arms and their unborn sister.

Still holding tightly onto her, the children were left awestruck by the lively and crowded streets of the capital kingdom.

—“We’ll have plenty of time to travel around the city but for now we need to go to the Boar’s Hat” said the mighty Fairy King in a warm tone while pointing his family into the direction of the bar.

They don’t remember the last time they were this outside of the forest but both King and Diane could still remember when they’d given birth to their first two children in that same bar.

Nostalgia hit both of them in the face as they were already at the entrance, that place was filled with so many good memories for them; they even celebrated their honeymoon in there. The calming sighs of the wind along their kids’ tender voices were enough to wake them up from their daydreaming.

They were received by Elizabeth who noticed someone standing in front of the door, as she invited them to come in she noticed the two kids hidden behind their mother’s legs, at first they were nervous specially Cloud who was petrified under the thought of meeting someone new, he’s always been the shy little boy who never played around with anyone other than his golems. Magnolia stepped out of her hiding spot first giving a huge smile to Elizabeth as she gently hugged the pigtailed toddler.

Immediately crushed by his older sister’s bigger personality and charisma, the brunet little boy realized he was so useless at that type of meetings, how could he meet someone new without ruining it up? As he looked at her he couldn’t help but feeling hopeless at the sight of her getting along with someone so quickly, it was excruciating and painful, albeit he didn’t want anyone to feel pity for him not being able to relate to someone who wasn’t his family, he just stood there at the verge of tears when Diane took him and suddenly bringing him into her embrace.

—“There’s no need for you to force yourself to do anything you don’t want to” She said with such a soothing tone, making him feel safe, protected and warm. He could feel his tears drying up as he felt another hand caressing his hair, it was Elizabeth’s, suddenly apologizing for not realizing sooner what she did, or better, didn’t do. With his tiny hands he held onto her fingers while looking into her eyes, he was so happy feeling his cries were understood.

Just as he was getting comfortable with the tender warmth of his mother he immediately felt another presence closing in, it was Gilthunder and Howzer getting ready for their drinking hour.

Cloud felt threatened at the sight of more people he didn’t want to meet, luckily Gilthunder stayed at a safe distance saluting Elizabeth then the fairy and giant couple, while Howzer didn’t respect the space as he went right on to Diane’s side.

—“Wow, Diane it’s being a really long time since we’ve seen each other li―” just as he was getting closer and closer, Cloud gave him a cold killer glare in an effort to keep him as far as possible from the cheery Giantess.

—“Sorry Howzer, this is my son Cloud, he’s a little shy but I hope you get along pretty well” those words fell harshly at Howzer’s ears, who didn’t even stopped to think that his love rival would rise so triumphantly against him to win Diane’s affection. He couldn’t process the idea of someone so unmanly and crybaby like King actually winning his love interest’s heart, it was so unfair according to him. Cloud was still looking at him with a bit of disdain.

“Who was this man? And why was he looking at him almost jealously like? Was he-?” His train of thought suddenly halted by Howzer coming back to the cruel reality of King and Diane being together; well he tried to be the bigger man and showing his right hand to the little boy as a sign of peace between them, albeit the almost busting vein in Howzer’s forehead said otherwise. Cloud wasn’t happy either, he was looking straight at the grown up fingers of his hand getting close to him while moving away as fast as possible from his fake act.

Diane was getting worried about Cloud, so she decided to quickly excuse herself and face away from Howzer while trying to calm her little boy down.

Howzer was at a loss for words after being ignored yet again by Diane and her child; well he wasn’t going to let that sour moment ruin his drinking hour so he seated himself onto one of the wooden stools near the entrance and ordered a beer while Gilthunder was waiting to talk to Meliodas. His aggravated stare at the sight of the Fairy and Giantess couple while clenching his teeth was more than enough to catch Magnolia’s attention, the orange haired toddler was looking at Howzer’s face while hugging her little teddy bear, Harlequin.

—“What do you want?” he asked with a dry, rude tone.

She didn’t answer with words yet she let her glare do the talking, it was an awkward moment for both of them, as he brushed her off with a bit of attitude like nothing, a tsk was emitted from her tiny lips as she suddenly threw a bottle she found on the ground right at his side face.

—“What the hell!?!?” he shouted right back at her on a menacing stance.

—“What the hell is with you? She is just a child” Gilthunder replied to his infuriated friend, as Howzer let a sigh of bitterness out of his lungs. He was right, why was he getting so worked up over a brat? He needed to keep his cool.

She was still there looking at him and when their eyes met she took advantage of the circumstance sticking her tongue out at him.

—“You should know that I’m the Chief Holy Knight as thus you should be more respectful with me” He clarified with a mighty yet presumptuous like voice.

—“I don’t care, my father is way stronger than you” she cut him out faster than he would’ve expected it, his patience was beginning to show its edge as he got up of his drinking spot just to trip up with a raised ledge of the floor made by Cloud’s earth magic, hitting his face to the ground.

He exclaimed angrily at her waiting for retaliation, surprisingly for everyone around she began crying at his words calling for her mom to come save her from the apparently bad man.

Diane was closing in as Howzer’s heart stopped beating at the menacing sight of her murderous intent, he reacted a little too late to explain things up as Diane didn’t heard a word of his excuses threatening him to stop harassing her daughter, just as she turned her back at him Magnolia looked straight at him with a wide grin on her face fully knowing her plan worked.

Howzer was left numb at the sudden threat she made, asking himself why she did that.

—“Because she is an amazing mom” Cloud proudly told, puffing his chest alongside his older sister Magnolia doing the same.

—“We won’t let you do as you please with her you sad sack” Magnolia answered in a cocky voice definitely insulting Howzer, as he was so close to using his magic against the children when Gilthunder approached him certainly disappointed at the sight of him being angered by mere toddlers.

Howzer froze completely by the kids running into their father’s side, as he was holding the newborn Rosa on his arms asking what was going on.

—“I-it’s nothing of your concern” he said while having a zip of his drink.

King noticed something was wrong but instead decided to tell his kids they were to get going back to the Fairy King’s Forest.

As they both hopped joyfully to their father’s arms ready to leave the tavern so they parted ways with a tender hug to Elizabeth, which she invited them to stay any time they wanted much to the kids excitement for coming back to the Boar’s Hat again soon.

Just as they were leaving Howzer couldn’t help but look at them with a tender glare. They were kids after all; maybe he was wrong at judging them so quickly. He went to apologize for all the troubles he caused, as the kids were heavily surprised at first, he sounded sincere though so they gave him a handshake as a true peace sign. Just for now. He’ll rue the day he tries something funny with their Mama, somehow they were looking forward to make him suffer even more.

#kiane #diane x king #king x diane #fanfic #fanfiction #nnt #next generation #howzer #gilthunder #elizabeth liones

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forasecondtherewedwon · 6 years ago

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Can I request number 44. “I don’t know why I’m crying” and number 30. “Can I sit here? The other tables are full?” For Sweet Pea. Like the reader has been a rough day and Sweet Pea notices and wants to cheer her up. But you can write whatever you would like, just an idea 😬

Thanks for the request! I tried to steer the thing in that direction, though it took a detour through many a Broadway musical reference haha

44. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

AND

30. “CanI sit here? The other tables are full.”

The floor beneath your feet is not the puke-y beige linoleum of theRiverdale High cafeteria, but the uneven, sun-bleached, cobbled steps of astruggling Greek hotel. The outfit you wear is not the standard t-shirt andjeans you’ve more or less been donning since September, but the result of astylish 1962 makeover or a promotion to the ranks of the cardigan-clad PinkLadies. The noise in your suffering ears emanates not from a roomful of yourfellow high schoolers, but from the raucous backstage of the Palais Garnier, ora besieged Parisian barricade, or maybe a rowdy Chicago bar, minutes beforeRoxie and Velma take the stage.

You stare at the uninventive sandwich in your hand, swashed a little on oneside from riding in your backpack with your History binder. Nope, you’redefinitely still toiling your way through Tuesday.

Existing somewhere between reality and the land of musical make-believe isthe bare fact that there isn’t a free seat in the house―great news in atheatre, total shit when your teacher lets you out of class late and all youwant to do is park your butt and eat lunch.

Of course, you realize, eyes skimming just above the heads of your academicfriends and foes so as not to catch anyone’s gaze and read it in how patheticyou appear standing here clutching the world’s saddest sandwich, there is onespot you could sit. One spot you haven’t dared to sit, though it’s almostalways open.

Now you find that you are glancing around, taking in the sights, so yoursudden arrival at the Serpent Table (a near-official,read-it-in-capitals-in-your-mind type thing) may seem like the result of ahapless wander rather than the intention of desperation. Cafeteria mural’s flaking, you observe to yourself, studying thewall harder than most ever would or ever have. Studying up for the art test on 20th Century Americanphotographers, I see, you note, spotting a blurb and accompanying photo of Diane Arbus over theshoulder of a classmate. BLT, huh? What,you think you’re better than me? You swerve around the sandwich snob beforethe urge to tear your own sandwich bag open with your bare hands and use it tosmother the offender can overwhelm you.

And here you are. You stand silent, like one of those rare mannequins yousometimes see dressed in an ensemble that doesn’tappear to represent the fashion sense of an alien newcomer to the planet tryingto blend in. You clear your throat.

“I see ya,” says the reason people avoid this table. He doesn’t look up atyou and you feel affronted, annoyed, avoided, ashamed.

“Can I sit here,” you ask, though it comes out as a flat demand. For somereason, your voice is making it sound like you’ve asked the question over andover, receiving nothing but denial.

You brush your hair back from your face, if only to offer one of your hands atask alternate to sandwich holding.

“Maybe,” he says, biting an apple and focusing on the textbook he has openin front of him.

“What, are you saving someone a seat?” you snap, feeling the attitude clickinto place like the shoved down lever of a toaster. Burn, baby, burn.

He―the guy―the Serpent―Sweet Pea, looks up at you like you’re out of yourfreaking mind. Which is about the same moment you’re able to remind yourselfthat this is not a role, you are not on a stage, and there is no script tooffer you that peaceful, predictable assurance of knowing what kind of dialoguecomes next.

You drop the stiff shoulders and what you believe to be aggressive look inyour eye (which is probably closer to profound, horrified backpedalling) andfeel a little bad. Serpent or not, maybe the guy’s lonely. You know who hisfriends are and where they’re currently sitting, Toni with Cheryl and Fangswith Kevin.

Sweet Pea’s looking up at you and you share just enough classes with him toknow how unlikely it is that he’s about to willingly lead off a conversation.You sigh and muster your default niceness. Maybe it’s as unoriginal as yourt-shirt and jeans, but it’s you and it’s real.

“Can I sit here?” you inquire. “The other tables are full.”

You watch his tongue slide around his teeth, probably freeing a rogue pieceof apple skin. So maybe the reason you avoid this table isn’t the same aseveryone else’s.

“Yep.”

“Is that permission to sit or an acknowledgement of the cafeteria indeedbeing packed to capacity?” You’re trying to understand him, really you are, buthis dark eyes are frustratingly indecipherable, making you feel like you’vewandered into a carnival’s house of mirrors. Disoriented and struggling to findyour way back out.

“Sit,” he insists, and kicks out the chair across from him.

Honestly, it’s more invitation than you’d expected to get, so you do like hesays. Sweet Pea goes back to the crunching of the apple/reading of the textbookroutine―a real thrilling one-two―and you eat your sandwich and ignore thefolded, stapled papers you’ve laid on the table.

By the time you’re done and mostly but not totally full (in that way thatyou’re feeling you may not outgrow until your 20’s), with your cheek leaninghard on your fist, you have started to concentrate on the papers―just notreading them. You stare and wonder if you could levitate them with your mind.You wonder if, were you in possession of a magnifying glass, you could burnthese pages like ants under the unnaturally harsh glare of cafeteria lighting.

In fact, you are concentrating so well that you miss the cessation of theapple crunching and the subtle but shudder-inducing sound of slick textbookpages a-flippin’.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like hell,” Sweet Pea remarks.

Without raising your head, you let your eyes move to his face. Disarmingly,you find its expression reads as inquisitive, not mocking as his words wouldsuggest.

“I’m struggling,” you say. Privately, in your head, you congratulateyourself for confusing yourself. What did you mean, you wonder, to shut down aforay into casual socialization or to roll out the welcome mat between him andyour troubles?

“With what?” Immediately, a hand with a ring for which you believe the term‘statement jewellery’ was specifically designed reaches out and taps yourpapers.

You narrow your eyes and assess his face, possibly, probably, definitelylong enough to weird him out. Because you don’t know what the hell else to do,you sigh.

“I don’t know why I’m crying,” you confess. You’ve lowered your voice andhe’s leaned in to hear you, which is not an unpleasant progression as far as you’reconcerned. He smells like the apple he just ate and, uh, you should quitstaring at his lips.

“Not here,” you say, gesturingcircularly at your tear-free face. “Here.”You lift your drama class script from the table and give it a punishing smackwith the back of your hand.

“What’s this?”

You turn sullen. Sweet Pea gives you a stern look. His hand beckons for thepages and, defeated, you hand them over.

“A play?”

You nod, rubbing your hand along your cheek like that can hold off theblush. Pretty ridiculous how being on stage in front of people doesn’t scareyou, but telling anyone about it does.

“Look at this,” you complain, reaching over the page he has turned to(because the lines you highlighted yourself clearly show through, drawing hisattention) and point from memory at where your monologue begins.

He meets your gaze over the top of the script, then suddenly he is rising,coming around the table, and sitting down next to you, scraping the chair to benearer to your side. Your heartrate has a lot to say about this.

“I’m gonna need more information than that,” Sweet Pea informs you, handingyou the script and linking his fingers, exposed forearms resting on the tableeven as the rolled up sleeve of his shirt brushes your arm.

“Aren’t you doing homework or studying or something?” You gesture vaguely tohis abandoned textbook. Where dotextbooks end up, you wonder. Then, Hashe written his name inside the front cover? What does his handwriting looklike?

“You would not believe the amount of homework I have not done and still managed to look happier than you do right now.”

You snort out a breath. Sounds about right.

“The problem,” you explain, deciding to get on with it while trying to lookmore at the page in front of you than at Sweet Pea’s attractive brown eyes, “isthat it’s a student-run production for class, meaning that a student isdirecting it. The director hasn’t clarified any of my character’s motivationsand I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off.”

It’s a crisis of epic proportions, as far as you’re concerned. Musicaltheatre is what makes sense to you. It’s easy to comprehend and access thoseemotions. You don’t believe a person alive could sing Fantine’s lament tobroken dreams and not cry, or fail to laugh as Tanya baits and teases a much youngerman. Theatre without the music―that external ebb and swell―to guide you leavesyou feeling lost. Not that you’re quite ready to put all that into words for this near-stranger.

Sweet Pea doesn’t say anything, forcing you to look at him. With a shrug anda smirk that becomes a grin, he props an elbow on the table and slides it out,moving into your space.

“You’ve got this.”

Your eyebrows raise.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because of what you said. You said,” he lays a finger to your lips beforeyou can interrupt, “‘I’mgoing to pull it off.’”

The bell rings above and around you, but it’s kind of surreal because you’rejust staring at this guy who has totally surprised you. He gets up and reachesover to snap his textbook shut and pull it over to himself.

“If you’re still worried, hit me up for a good luck kiss,” he suggests,heading for the door. “SAME TABLE EVERY DAY,” Sweet Pea shouts back over hisshoulder.

You laugh to yourself before realizing you’re going to be late if you don’tget a move on. Whatever else he did, that Serpent certainly unsettled somethingin you. Maybe that’s exactly what you needed, for more than just the play.

#my writing #drabble #riverdale drabble #riverdale #riverdale fanfiction #southside serpents #southside serpents drabble #southside serpents fanfiction #sweet pea #reader #sweet pea x reader #sweet pea x reader drabble

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iseakarsli · 3 years ago

Text

Photography Critique

For my exhibition critique I decided to attend “ HOW SHE SEES: SEVERAL EXCEPTIONAL WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS 1919 - 1970” at Robert Mann’s gallery. I have always been inspired by women behind the camera for my photography and having the chance to see some usually less shown works was actually really nice to gain some new perspective.

The exhibition was located in a sort of apartment, and I am half minded about this being a winning point or not. When you get into someone’s house and it is overly clean and untouched you don’t feel cozy, but rather kind of uneasy. So, I believe the same happened here: even if the apartment should have conveyed immediate “coziness” for the exhibition, the fact that is was so real-not real didn’t make me feel so invited. I believe the forniture was a bit excessive for the kind of hyper clean environment that they have created - at this point it was better to have only white walls with the pictures hanging to don’t distract the viewer and “mix their feelings” through non-emotional extras.

The gallery receptionist has been really kind to made me though, she let me enter without an appointment. However, she didn’t really informed me. I just entered and she let me look around - that I found nice because I don’t like when the people working in a place try to interact with me the whole time - but in the case of an exhibition I think you have at least to ask if the customer wants to know the concept/artists/some history behind the show. You should at least let the viewer decide if she/he wants some additional info or not.

Regarding the pictures themselves and exhibition flow wasn’t clear where to start from (so that I actually also asked this question to myself). However, I notice afterwards that it wasn’t important. Those stories where connected-disconnected in a way that you could start from any point and understand their power and flow as whole. Moreover, the division arrangement was simply made according to the artist - the narrative wasn’t unfolding according to the images (even if they had an overall good flow) but divided in section per artist. In regards to this I’d like to say that I prefer way more when the display is arranged according to a storytelling. Photo editing is a powerful visual tool to make any story way more interesting through juxtaposition, combinations ecc. So for my taste this kind of division limitates the power of some works.

Going further, the framing wasn’t original but it’s the kind of framing that I like - big, thick, white borders with a simple black or white frame.

I believe everything had been kept clean to make the gaze of those women stand out more than the environment itself. However, I believe it was lacking that burst that would made you feel immersed in those women’s histories. I could have seen a perfect architecture photography exhibition here, while “women behind the camera” would have necessitate a stronger or more unique environment I guess. More intimate, also. We are talking about humans showing humans, one of the most powerful types of photography in terms of emotions conveyed. And this is a problem also because none of those women could be there to assist the curation of their works, so, many curators just care about lining up pictures in a sequence but this so reductive because the medium DO influence the content a lot. And in this case, I found it just poorly made. The point of views of the photographers weren’t there. It was the exhibition of their works without their point of view; and even this is not strictly a bad thing, is just not my favourite type of show arrangement.

“Husband and Wife at Nudist Camp” by Diane Harbus 1963

The first image that I’ve chose made me laugh at first. The subjects seemed almost “cartoony” and today taking a picture like this wouldn’t be possible. Not that much because of the nudity itself, but that easiness of being portrayed naked among nature by a random human being is kind of weird today. Even the composition is incredibly easy - no weird point of view, no judgment - the subjects are not naked human beings, they are just people with interesting features happened to be around a camp in the moment Arbus was as well. Of course at that time was normal going to nudists camps so probably it wasn’t such a big deal to be portrayed in a normal daily activity.

I believe the technicality here is totally balanced with creativity because the picture is perfectly taken but the storytelling is so coming across as well. The pictures is very well designed in its cleanses and composition, but powerful at the same time because the emotions conveyed through the body position and the face expression are enough to fullfil the aim of the photographer.

“Porthole (The Ship)” Ellen Auerbach 1948

This second image captured me for the weird satisfying feeling that conveyed me. This is actual design, there are principles, textures and shapes that put together give birth to a nice, “simple-not simple” shot. The subject is a ship, probably hold in a pier, right after the war ended. Who knows the story of this ship, it could be something emotionally related to the artists, as not. However, it is able to make you think and recall personal experiences because, I believe, is the caption of a little detail - a sort of an icon - that builds up memory instead of showing a whole, an obvious and specific object.

“Badeszenen” Elisabeth Hase 1932-33

The third image that capture my attention is this picture taken by Hase. The emotion captured here is so genuine that it’s impossible to don’t share an emotional moment with both the photographer and the subject. Again, it’s impossible for us to know what was really going on in this moment of time, however we can relate to this girl’s “shock” moment, broadly, but also specifically having the immediate feeling of that water on our skin, as every time we turn on the shower.

I imagine a girl after a swimming class or completions here, who just finished and it’s “unpacking” from all the stress and the fatigue running under the shower. Her expression is a combination between a scream and a “ahhhhh”.

Even here the design is very well done, the shutter is at the perfect speed to capture the drops and she is the absolute protagonist of the photograph - able to tell a story on her own, without, however, external elements explaining too much.

“Puppernaufnahme” Elisabeth Hase 1931

The last pictures I’ve chosen is this one, again by the same artist. This one I believe is way more personal as a subject. Maybe that was her doll when she was a kid - or maybe not - however, I believe that if the first one wanted to express a shock in a more “relieving” way, this one wants to out you at unease, somehow. It might be the reconstruction of her being, of the different bricks forming her identity and the different understanding of her own emotions. I interpret those two photographs as a growth - this one reflects her kid self with the gaze directioned to her young girl self in the other picture. Maybe she was less open as kid but learned how to process her emotions in a different way while growing. It’s something that I feel as well, that happened to me as well. I feel like my kid self is way more “creepy” than my adult self in expressing emotions.

In terms of composition is really simple but the eyes stand out and I believe is the only part that was supposed to actually capture the viewer’s attention. In terms of design is well done but it is more the storytelling than the formalities of this picture that are important here I guess.

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reddieaddict · 7 years ago

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You’re Gonna Live Forever In Me (Part 5/6)

Prequel to Richie’s Eulogy

Official Cast

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

A/N: Oh and just a reminder, in my fic Richie is hispanic, his full name is Ricardo Alonzo Tozier, and he speaks fluent spanish. Why? Because it’s MY fic, fuck off! jk I love you.

Pairings: Reddie

Warnings: Mostly fluff, but with plenty of angst and mentions of abuse, death, homophobia, suicide, drug use and suggestive themes.

Summary: It’s senior year and Eddie has began to notice Richie exhibiting strange behavior. He is worried he might be hiding something, but doesn’t know how to confront Richie about it without setting him off and making matters worse.

Father’s Day 1995

“Dude, I’m high as fuck!” Eddie Kaspbrak was never really much of a smoker, but Father’s Day was always rough for him and he needed some form of escape, which Richie was more than happy to accommodate. He and Richie lied on their backs in opposite directions with their heads meeting at the center of Eddie’s bedroom floor, similar to the soon-to-be infamous upside down kiss shared by Mary Jane and Spiderman in the yet-to-be-released first film. [KINDA LIKE THIS] Sinuous streams of smoke swirled deviously through the air, marbleizing the space above them. They studied the ceiling unsure how they had ended up in that position, having been sitting cross-legged facing one another when they had begun to smoke, but they didn’t really much care at that moment.

Had it been a typical year, Bev would have been right there with them getting smoked out, but (un)fortunately this year Ben had invited her over to his house for a celebratory dinner with his parents. This left the two boys on their own, not that they had any problem with that. Neither of them ever had anything to do on Father’s Day, since Eddie’s father had passed away twelve years ago, and Richie really had nothing to celebrate his dad for.

Besides every father’s day since freshman year, Eddie had only been high a handful of times, every single one with Richie. He hadn’t really made a hard stance on how he felt about it. He never could get used to the burning sensation he felt when he smoked and he feared that, one day, it all would catch up to him in the form of lung cancer. Yet he continued to do it, because he liked the way time seemed to ripple and fold in on itself- moments and memories bleeding into each other like a kaleidoscope- and he loved how his senses felt heightened and numbed simultaneously. Every single one of his nerve endings tingled, making everything feel as if it was vibrating against his skin. Most of all, he adored how uninhibited and unburdened he felt for those few hours. It was a taste of how he had always longed to feel, but could never achieve without assistance from some kind of substance, and he savored it blissfully.

“Me, too. That guy said this was some good shit, but I thought he was just blowing smoke up my ass (no pun intended) to justify the higher price. He wasn’t kidding, though. This is some GOOD weed,” Richie said with a dopey grin, his eyes never deviating from the celling above him. He laced his fingers together atop his stomach with his legs extended, one crossed over the other. One of his favorite mixed tapes played in the background on Eddie’s humble but functional cassette player. “I am glad it’s just us two, today. Like, don’t get me wrong, I love Bev and she’s always a good time, but I really like when it’s just us two. Like you’re really cool and adorable and hot and you make me feel relaxed. Oh my god, I think that’s why I made you my boyfriend.”

“Okay, you are REALLY high.” Eddie giggled at his boyfriend’s ramblings.

“Oh yeah . . . I’m up there.” Richie said nodding with a smirk as he turned his head to face Eddie. “I really mean it, though. Father’s Day sucks ass, but I kinda look forward to it every year cause it’s just you and me . . . and Bev . . . sometimes.”

“Isn’t it ironic that the two guys with the most daddy issues in the Loser’s Club ended up together?” Eddie gasped dramatically and then paused with an exaggerated expression of feign realization. “Oh my god! Is it ironic, or is it WHY we’re together? Dun! Dun! Dun!” Eddie cackled, finding his own joke hilarious, and Richie, instead, laughed at Eddie’s ridiculous behavior.

“You’re dumb,” Richie said turning back to face the celling and became entranced by the celling fan and the fuzzy shapes it created as it whirled above them.

“Whatever, you just feel threatened be cause I’m funnier than you when I’m high.” Richie could practically hear the smirk on Eddie’s face as he teased him.

“Oh, you coming for me, Eds?” Richie challenged “You think you can dethrone me as the funniest member of the Loser’s Club?”

“I know I can, but I don’t wanna hurt your feelings, Ricardo.” Eddie said condescendingly as he turned and placed a sloppy kiss onto Richie’s stubble riddled cheek. Surprised by the sudden pricks against his delicate skin, he then pulled away with a grimace. “Ow! Babe, you need to shave!”

Richie scoffed, then turned and nuzzled his nose against Eddie’s smooth plump cheek, igniting a blush that spread across the bridge of his nose and then onto his other cheek. “Awe, You’re just jealous, mijo. (baby boy)”

The smile that had spread on Eddie’s lips as a result of Richie’s affection evaporated from his face and was replaced with a questioning leer and an arched brow. “Jealous of what, exactly?”

“That you can’t grow any facial hair, yet.” Richie confronted Eddie’s intense glare with a teasing smirk, which irritated Eddie even more.

“Yes I can!” Eddie exclaimed with a sneer, but the tone of his voice betrayed him, dripping with insecurity. “I’m just not lazy and shave everyday, unlike you.”

“Eddie Spaghetti, I know for a FACT that you don’t shave because you never have any razors in your bathroom. I always have to bring my own from home when I spend the night,” Richie said matter-of-factly. Eddie shot his gaze back up to the celling, embarrassed. A smirk tugged on Richie’s full lips, knowing he had Eddie against the ropes, before delivering the finishing blow. “I can even see peach fuzz still on your cheeks! If you DID shave, you wouldn’t have any. Your face would be completely smooth.”

“Beep, Beep! . . .You’re an asshole.” Eddie voice was low and faint, but the hurt it contained was loud and evident. Richie realized he had gone too far and immediately guilt began to pool in his stomach.

“I’m sorry, bebe! (Baby) I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It-it’s not even a bad thing! I think its adorable that your don’t have any facial hair, really! It means your face feels soft when I kiss it like this!” Richie sat up and took Eddie’s face, which was upside down to him, in his hands and began to pepper what felt like hundreds of kisses all over it, in rapid succession. Eddie giggled, no longer upset, then used his own hands to grab onto Richie’s face and pulled him in for an upside down kiss that started off gentle but quickly evolved with passion. Richie pulled away smiling contently and lied back down where he once was, his limbs sprawled out dramatically, exhaling blissfully upon impact. “Wow!”

Richie and Eddie had always bickered like this; it was one of the hallmarks of their relationship, present since it’s conception. People often wondered, because of their explosive dynamic, how they could possible be a couple, but what they mistakenly overlooked was the love, respect and loyalty that tethered the two to each other. They were complementary, but unlike yellows and violets, they didn’t muddle when they collided, but rather created a new color all their own.

“Richie?” Eddie reached up with is right hand and began play with Richie’s thick dark curls, occasionally gently scratching his scalp with his immaculately manicured nails. The feeling felt so soothingly pleasurable that Richie almost wanted to purr, but quickly decided against it, realizing it would be kinda weird. “What’s up, Eds?”

“Who-um,” Eddie hesitated. “Who taught you how to shave?”

“Oh!” Richie knew what Eddie really wanted to know was if his father had taught him how to shave. He understood where the curiosity came from, since Richie’s father was a total dick and teaching him would be totally out of character. “Well- um- It was Stan the Man.”

“Stan!?” Eddie exclaimed; his face riddled with a shocked grimace.

Richie chuckled softly under his breath at Eddie’s reaction. “Yup! Yup!”

“How the fuck did that happen?” Eddie interrogated expectantly after pausing for Richie to elaborate, only for the taller boy to sit there looking back at him blankly.

“Okay! So- funny story- one morning, after I had spent the night, we were getting ready and he caught a glimpse of me shaving. Apparently I must have been doing a really shitty job, because he decided to stop me and then took it upon himself to give me some ‘pointers.’ Well, as you would expect from Staniel, those pointers turned into a forty-five minute lesson in the Art of Shaving, as he called it.” Richie made air quotes as he chortled at the memory. “Honestly, I lucked out cause before Stancine taught me the proper way to shave I kinda had to figure it out on my own and I was always nicking the fuck out of my face.”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed with skepticism. “I don’t mean to be rude, but-“

“I’m sure you’ll power through,” Richie interrupted sarcastically.

Eddie rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Shut up asshole! Seriously, though, who made Stan such an expert on the art of shaving?” He said the last the works in mockingly low tone.

“Okay, settle down Diane Sawyer,” Richie said teasingly. “I guess his dad had taught him a long time ago, but you know how meticulous Stan is. He took it to this whole new level with his own special technique and this long ass skin care routine. It was nuts.”

“Hm, well that’s cool.” Eddie hummed wistfully. “I’ve always been afraid to do it. I mean I don’t have to yet, but I am afraid that whenever I do, I am going to cut myself and get some kind of infection on my face. I know it’s a stupid irrational fear, but still it’s a sharp blade against your face. Just the idea of it frightens the shit out of me!”

“Well, I can teach you- if you want me to. O-or you can ask Stan! I’m sure you’d probably prefer him teaching you, since he’s, like, better at explaining things and-yeah,” Richie offered apprehensively, marred with self-doubt.

“No! I-I would like that! You teach-you teaching me, I mean. I would prefer it if YOU taught me.” Eddie said with a little too much enthusiasm, stumbling through his words. “Sorry, let me start again . . . I would be honored if you, Richie Tozier, taught me how to shave.”

“Dude, I would be honored to teach you! We can even practice on OTHER parts while we wait for your facial hai-“ Eddie’s hand clasped onto Richie’s mouth, preventing him from spewing out whatever disgusting perversion he was about to say. “Well, great Trashmouth. You ruined another moment by being a total perv. Cochino! (Nasty)”

Richie pulled Eddie’s hand down, just enough for him to be able to speak. He smiled mischievously. “You LOVE me!”

“For reasons known but to God.” Eddie admitted begrudgingly. He looked into Richie’s rich molasses eyes and felt himself lost within them. They were dark but still managed to sparkle with life and warmth. Eddie loved when Richie didn’t wear his magnifying lenses; it was like seeing a whole new side of him. When he wore his glasses, Richie was adorable and charming in a juvenile way, but when he stripped himself of them he seemed mysterious and dapper, yet enchanting just the same. Richie had a lot of unconventionally beautiful features, but his eyes were Eddie’s absolute favorite. He smiled amorously. “I love you, Trashmouth.”

“I love you too, Eddie Spaghetti! Since the first day I met you, until death do us part and even after that! Forever and for always.” Richie lips caressed Eddie’s again and Eddie smiled at the sensation. Richie shamelessly flirted with Eddie all the time, but rarely was he so . . . romantic. He professed his love for him frequently, but when he spoke with such daring sincerity (in a way that he reserved for just Eddie and only in intimate moments like this), it made Eddie’s heart swell and his chest burn with love, so much so he feared he might combust at any second.

Whenever Eddie was enraptured in moments like these, it was hard for him to believe the two of them hadn’t always been like this- been together, but at one time that was the case. Their love for one other had always been effortless but that was exactly the problem. All their lives, they had been force fed this ideal archetype of what a family should be and anything that deviated from it was shameful, if not an abomination. They were two people (or, more accurately, two children) that loved each other without intending or wanting to, but did so fiercely. It was confusing and daunting, but no matter how much they tried, it could not be denied.

“When did you know?” Eddie asked with reluctant curiosity.

“When did I know what? That I loved you? I just told you, since the day I met you.” Richie responded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“No, not- I don’t know how to phrase it. Like, when did you KNOW, not when did you first feel it? Do-do you get what I mean?” Eddie stammered. He began to get frustrated with his inability to articulate what he was thinking. In his head it made perfect sense, but it just wasn’t translating how he hoped. Maybe it was cause he was so high.

“Nuh-uh.” Richie shook his head as he looked at Eddie blankly.

“I guess-Okay, so- let me try again! When did admit it to YOURSELF for the first time? THAT- the way you felt that way about boys- or about me.” Eddie eyebrows furrowed with uncertainty as he asked Richie what felt like a very personal question. He wasn’t sure why, though.

“Oh!” Richie exclaimed, dragging out the “o.” His eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up, almost meeting his hairline, finally grasping what Eddie had been trying to ask. His eyes darted around the room as he gathered his thoughts and contemplated how to best approach the question. “I dunno. Always, I guess.”

“No you didn’t!”

“Yes I did, Eds!” he assured, “I always knew you were the one!”

Eddie paused with narrow eyes and pursed lips, disbelieving of Richie’s response. “Then why did it take you SO LONG to ask me out!? Why did it take you until the end of junior year to finally kiss me?”

“Why are you asking? W-Whe-Where is this coming from?” Richie questions came across like a counter, but Eddie could tell Richie didn’t mean any of it in an offensive way.

“Well, you and I have never talked about it. Like, we just got together, and never talked about our sexuality, other than the superficial stuff. I mean, you told me you’ve loved me for a long time and that you identified as Bisexual, but you’ve never told me HOW you realized it or how you came to terms with it. Like, was it hard for you? Were you afraid? I dunno- I-I guess I am just curious, but it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal.”

“Honestly Ed’s I thought we were already together. I just thought you were taking it slow and I didn’t want to push you. I assumed you didn’t want to kiss me cause of your hypochondria, or whatever, but then I got impatient and went for it. ” This was a half-truth.

“Oh my god! Nevermind, if you’re not gonna answer honestly then forget it. We can just talk about something else!” Eddie complained.

“Eds, honestly! You can’t tell me that after the summer of 89 you and I were ever JUST FRIENDS!” Richie exclaimed, exasperated. “Friends don’t act like we did! We crossed a lot of lines . . . especially at night! All that cuddling!? Come on!”

“I’m not arguing that we didn’t have a . . . weird friendship, but I don’t believe that you really thought we were together.” Eddie contended. “If that was the case, then why did you go out with Heather freshman year or Amber during sophomore year!?”

Richie rolled his eyes at the mention of his past relationships; he had always considered them too brief to hold any insignificance. “Those relationships weren’t even serious. We barely even kissed!”

“That’s not the fucking point! You asked THEM out, which means you couldn’t have thought we were together, UNLESS you were okay with cheating on me! To some extent you must have felt a little ashamed, if you felt the need to try and date girls when you were allegedly already into me!”

“I was not ashamed, Edward!” Richie exclaimed embittered. His contemplative eyes flickered away from Eddie and then back to him intently. “My dad wouldn’t get off my case about not having a girlfriend . . . not since he caught me being too “friendly” with you.”

Eddie frowned in startled confusion as he sat up to face Richie properly. Once the older boy saw this, he too sat himself gloomily across from his boyfriend. “What do you mean? You never told me that! . . . W-when was that?”

“ 8th grade.” Richie answered, sullenly.

Pressing his lips into a thin line, Eddie ruminated, with furrowed brows, on one-sided memories that had long befuddled him. “Is that why you were so awkward around me for, like, half of 8th grade? I-I remember you started coming over more at night, but wouldn’t be caught DEAD here during the day. I had always just assumed it had something to do with my mom or something she had said.”

Richie’s face turned pained and stern with eyes that darted around the room pensively, but also avoiding of Eddie’s. “My dad never- NEVER comes home early, right? I mean, i-it’s a fucking miracle if he even comes home more than two nights in a row, you know? But, one day he did JUST THAT!” Richie chuckled dryly. Eddie sensed this was much harder to talk about than he led on. “I guess on his way home he had driven passed your house, which could only means he was coming from one of his mistresses’ houses, cause it’s not even on his route home from work. Well, as luck would fucking have it, he drove by right when I was giving you a kiss on the forehead, after walking you home. He just, um, he-he just lost it.”

A thick coat of guilt layered itself over Eddie’s chocolate eyes, threatening to spill down his reddened cheeks. “Richie, I’m sorry- “

“No-no-no-no! Don’t do that! It’s NOT your fault!” Richie interrupted, leaning in purposefully, tenderly cupping Eddie’s cheek. Their gazes intermingled with heartfelt intensity. “He’s an asshole and it has NOTHING to do with you, so don’t you dare feel guilty. That is exactly what he would want, and I refuse to let that prick win.”

Richie instinctively hid behind his characters and voices during moments of extreme emotional duress, like this one, but with Eddie those tactics were not an option. Eddie was Richie’s best friend first and foremost and through the years he had developed a deeper understanding of him, easily seeing right through his defense mechanisms. This forced Richie to be himself- his REAL self, much to his chagrin. Those formative teenage years are usually when people try to find themselves, but all Richie wanted was to be someone else- anyone else. His voices were those of characters he imagined were stronger than him, unaffected by fear or heartache, and he preferred to hide behind them, forever if he could.

That was the thing about Eddie, though. He wasn’t in love with the invincible characters, but rather the sensitive boy that created them. Sure, he found them amusing, but he knew they were just fabricated illusions intended to camouflage Richie’s true feelings. He wanted Richie for who he really was, not an “easier” version of him. Where other could only handle Richie in small dosages, Eddie was willing to overdose. He loved and revered his boyfriend profoundly and sincerely believed he could change the world with his hands tied behind his back, if only he could stay out of his own way.

“Look, if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t want to love you, but I DID! I tried not to love you, but it had nothing to do with shame. It wasn’t that I thought it was wrong. I-I jus-“ Richie’s voice began to quiver and break with emotion, as tears began to stream down his face. “I just did want to give my dad anoth- another reason to hate me. How fucked up is that?”

“That is not fucked up, Richie! You do-“

Undeterred by Eddie attempted to comfort him, Richie continued on with his self-deprecating rant. “Not only is it fucked up, but it’s also pathetic. How could I admit that? That is something you feel unwillingly, but should never admit to yourself and you CERTAINLY don’t say it aloud- to anyone! That’s so fucking pathetic! I’m . . . pathetic.”

“Don’t say that!” Eddie interjected. He hated beyond expression whenever Richie spoke so vehemently about himself.

“After everything they’ve done . . . after every tear and every bruise . . . I still- I- I still want them to love me.” Richie confessed resentfully between sobs. His despairing eyes finally met with Eddie’s empathetic ones after shamefully evading them up to this point. “I- I want them to love me, Eds. What’s wrong with me?”

With overflowing tears of his own, Eddie urgently took Richie in his arms as tightly as he could. Overwhelmed by Eddie’s act of compassion, Richie wrapped his own arms around his boyfriend, grasping onto the back his shirt for comfort. The smaller boy consolingly caressed Richie’s head as he buried his face into the crook of his neck with heaving sobs. “There is NOTHING wrong with you, Richie! You deserve to be loved!” he assured, passionately. “You are not pathetic! You are the most beautiful, intelligent, loyal, amazing human being I have ever met. I love you and I refuse to let you say that! They might not have the capability to love you, but I do! And I will love you twice as hard for every person that doesn’t! Okay?”

“Okay.” Richie answered, weakly.

“Look at me!” Eddie pulled away and ardently glared into Richie’s eyes. He asked again, this time more pleadingly. “OKAY!?”

Richie eyes flickered around Eddie’s features with a melancholic smile; he wondered how he got so blessed with such an altruistic boyfriend. “Okay, Eddie Spaghetti.” He answered with more certainty and sincerity.

“Good!” Eddie nodded with a teary eyed smile before leaning in to place a chaste kiss onto Richie’s plump lips; the older boy melted contently into the kiss. Fatigued by the arduous conversation, Richie moved to lay his head on Eddie’s lap, which the other welcomed eagerly.

“I’m sorry I ruined our day together with my depressing bullshit,” Richie apologized, sheepishly.

Eddie gifted Richie with a soft, understanding look. “Richie, you didn’t ruin anything,” he assured, raking his fingers through Richie’s thick waves. “You have nothing to apologize for! You can talk to me about anything and I will always be here for you. Don’t feel ashamed.”

“Okay Spagheddie.” Richie smiled gratefully up at Eddie as he took his free hand and pressed an earnest kiss onto it. “Okay-okay! Let’s talk about something else. Something lighter.”

“Like what?”

“Literally ANYTHING else, Eds.” He insisted with raised brows.

Eddie took in a long dragged out inhale before exhaling dramatically. “Hmmm, well, there is this thing I’ve always wanted to ask you, but haven’t cause I thought you might think it’s weird,” he said, voice soaked in reluctance.

“What is it?” Richie asked with a mistrusting tone and furrowed brows. “Does it have something to do with your secret kink?”

“Ew, no dumbass!” Eddie smacked Richie’s forehead as to chastise him, but still chuckled at Richie’s perverse humor. Laughing, Richie looked up at him with a scrunched nose and furrowed brows as he rubbed soothingly on his forehead, indicating that it actually did hurt a little. “If I ask you, do you promise to answer honestly?”

“Of course, Ike Turner!” he teased.

“Pinky promise?” Eddie asked holding out his tiny pinky finger for his boyfriend, a wry smile adorning his lips.

“Fucking hell, Eds . . . YES!” Richie rolled his eye and begrudgingly linked his pinky with Eddies. “I pinky promise, you dork.”

Eddie smiled wide with a crinkled nose, which Richie found adorable, before proceeding tentatively. “Okay! Um, so, I know you’re bi, but, like, do you have a- uh- I dunno . . . a preference?”

Richie tiled his head slightly as he tried to decipher Eddie’s question. “Are you asking if I like one gender more than the other?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

“Y-yeah,” Eddie answered, abashed.

Richie chortled. “Why would you be afraid to ask me that?” he asked, incredulously. “Well, I guess . . . um, honestly I like both almost equally, BUT if I had to choose I guess I like girls a little more.”

“Really!?” Eddie asked, flabbergasted. “Well we all have our flaws.” The tone of his voice was dismissive, but it was obviously intended to be taken as a joke.

“That’s not a fucking flaw!” Richie laughed. “But, it’s not like it matters cause I like you more than anyone other person in the world, besides your mom.”

Eddie cautiously contemplated whether or not to ask the question that hovered about in his head. He knew if he did, it would make him seem insecure, but it wasn’t like he didn’t actually struggle with insecurity. “Fuck it!” he thought. “Is that why you like that I don’t have facial hair?”

“Wha-“ Richie was taken aback by the question. “No!”

Eddie continued, despite Richie’s futile attempt to dispel his insecurities. He had come this far, might as well trudge on. “So, are you not going to find me attractive when I finish puberty? Are you not gonna want to kiss me when I have a stubble of my own? What about when I have a full beard?” Eddie had always felt insecure about his place in Richie’s heart. Richie was tall, dark, and handsome with charisma and charm to boost, and Eddie felt he paled in comparison. Eddie believed himself to be average (at best) in appearance and annoying in personality; he couldn’t understand what redeeming qualities Richie saw in him. He fearfully expected Richie would get fed up with him and his attitude someday; god knows he would have years ago.

“The hell . . .?” Richie wondered out loud. It was almost a whisper; and although it was both phrased and said as a question, it was clearly more of an exclamation indicative of bewildered exasperation. “Eddie, are you fucking serious!? I’m BISEXUAL, not bi-curious! I’m not dating you as some sort of-of experimental phase! I love you, Eds! I think you’d look hot with facial hair . . . if you had hair all over or-or even if you were bald! It makes no fucking difference to me. You could stay cute and petite, or get all buff like a dwarf Schwarzenegger and- I’m telling you- it would make absolutely no difference to me. Trust me, babe, you have nothing to worry about!”

“Oh. Okay . . . Good!” Eddie nodded, relieved and embarrassed. “Well, don’t get your hopes up, cause I’m not planning on getting buff anytime soon. I’m way too lazy to that shit. I mean track? Cool! Weights? Fuck that shit,” he joked, trying to distance them from the awkwardness that lingered in the air just seconds ago.

“That’s fine with me.” Richie insisted. “I like you just the way you are, Spaghetti Man! . . .even if you are extremely ticklish.”

“What does that have to do wi-“ Before Eddie got the chance to finish his question, Richie sat up from his lap and lunged towards him, fluttering his fingers up and down his clothed ribs. Surprised by the unexpected attack, Eddie cackled involuntarily and threw himself back onto the floor in an attempt so squirm away. Richie swiftly climbed atop the smaller boy and sat himself over his lower stomach, then proceeded to pin both of Eddie’s arms over his head. Both of Eddie’s slight wrists fit effortlessly within Richie’s giant claw, leaving his other hand free to continue gleefully torturing his boyfriend.

“Stop . . . it!” Eddie begged between fits of laughter.

“What’s wrong, Eds?” Richie asked mockingly, his fingers still tormenting Eddie’s sides. “Can’t handle a little tickling?”

“Stop! Stop . . . fucker!”

Richie laughed maniacally. “Nope, not until you admit you like your nicknames!” Eddie helplessly writhed and convulsed beneath him, trying fruitlessly to get away, but to no avail. “NEVER!”

“Then I guess I can’t stop!” Richie warned with faux remorse.

“Seriously . . . Richie . . . Please!” Eddie pleaded, panic beginning to set in. He desperately wanted to get away, but Richie was much stronger than his gauntly physique would lead one to believe.

“Nope! Sorry! Cant!” Richie chanted cheerfully.

“RICHIE . . . I CAN’T . . . BREATHE!” Eddie howled with tears running down the sides of his face, which was entirely fire engine red.

Richie chuckled skeptically. “Nice try, Eds.”

“I’M . . . SERIOUS!” Eddie began to wheeze and cough between laughs. ” . . . CAN’T . . . BREATHE! . . INHALER!”

Richie’s fingers abruptly ceased their onslaught at the sound of Eddie’s labored breaths and rough coughs. “Oh shit, you’re serious?”

“YES, YOU DUMBASS!”

“Oh fuck! I’m so sorry, babe!” Richie lifted himself off of his boyfriend and scrambled towards his backpack. He rummaged through the sack, searching for the spare inhaler he carried for Eddie. It had been years since Eddie had used it or even carried his own, but Richie still hauled it around in case of an emergency- like this one. Richie could hear Eddie continue to wheeze and cough on the floor, and he cursed his inability to move quicker. Unable to locate the aspirator, which was lost in the abyss that was his bag, he flipped the entire sack upside down and emptied its contents all over the bedroom floor. There, between his notebook and pencil case, was the teal green apparatus. He picked it up and hastily clambered over to his boyfriend and inserted the opening into his mouth. Eddie wrapped his lips around it and Richie pressed down, releasing the medication into his mouth, which then traveled into his struggling lungs. Immediately Eddie’s labored breath became stable, much to Richie’s relief.

As a precaution, Richie pressed down one more time before pulling the inhaler away. He remained close, incase he needed it once more and continued to monitor the smaller boy’s breathing. Eddie’s breaths were deep and could have easily been mistaken for consecutive sighs. “I honestly thought you were kidding!” Richie was beyond apologetic. “I thought your asthma was fake! What the hell was that?!”

Eddie remained silent as his eye retreated away from Richie’s. His face became blank and Richie, knowing Eddie so well, began to suspect it might have all been a ruse. Eddie knew he was on to him and if he tried to lie his way out of it, Richie would immediately figure it out. There was no point; lying would only make things worse. Fuck, he knew Richie was about to be super pissed at him. The jig was up, though. “Okay, fine! I was faking it.” He admitted warily.

“You dick!” Richie exclaimed, fury written across his freckle spotted face. “That’s not fucking funny, Eds! I was seriously scared!”

“Well, what the hell was I supposed to do? You wouldn’t fucking stop!” Eddie argued.

“NOT THAT!”

“Okay, I’m sorry.” Eddie apologized, resigned. “I promise I won’t do it again.”

“Whatever,” Richie grumbled bitterly, as he sat himself against the side of Eddie’s bed, a bright red aura of fury radiating from him. Eddie was sure if he tried to touch him his finger would burn on contact.

“I’m sorry, Richie!” Eddie begged. This time his apologies came out more whiney and supplicating than before. “Please forgive me?”

“No, that was fucked up!” Richie asserted loudly, his face displaying a look of resolute indignation.

Eddie paused, realizing Richie was genuinely upset and passively asking for forgiveness would get him absolutely nowhere. When Richie got like this, Eddie knew there was only one way for him to quell his anger. He had to pull out the big guns. Smiling mischievously as he locked his now half-lidded eyes with Richie’s, he got on all fours and sensually ambled his way over to him, resembling a cheetah stalking it’s prey, ready to pounce at any second. The lanky boy gulped loudly as Eddie erotically climbed his way onto his boney lap, straddling him. Richie threw his head back, shutting his black orbs as Eddie weaved his fingers into his curls and began to trail soft kisses from his cheek down to his neck, slowly increasing in intensity. Eddie worked his way back up from his neck to his ear and began to nibble on it gently, inciting a sigh of contentment from his boyfriend. Eddie knew he had Richie right where he wanted him, so he leaned in and in a low seductive whisper pleaded once more. “Will you forgive me? Please . . . Daddy?”

Richie’s cheeks emblazed with an intense flush and his breath hitched deep within his throat. Eddie always did this! Every time he wanted to get his way or wanted Richie to do something he knew he wouldn’t want to, he would use that triggering word and Richie would melt into a compliant idiot. Richie would leap head first into the mouth of a volcano if Eddie asked him to- like THAT. He pulled away with an annoyed sigh and gave him a look that clearly stated “Goddammit, Eddie! That is NOT fair!” before smiling dopily in enthusiastic defeat. “You’re lucky you’re so adorable, you little brat.”

Eddie chuckled loudly, wrapping his arms around Richie and taking him into a tight joyful embrace, and pressed a firm beholden kiss onto his temple. Leaning back and sitting on Richie’s upper thighs, Eddie looked into his eyes with his own bloodshot ones. “Dude, I am so stoned, it felt like you were tickling me for hours.”

“For real?” Richie asked, leaning back onto the palms of his hands.

“Yeah, it was intense.” Eddie replied with wide red eyes.

Richie chortled mockingly. “You sound like such a stoner.”

Eddie gasped, horrified. “Okay, I’ll stop.”

As Eddie straddled his lap, Richie reached for the cherub-faced boy’s hands. He wrapped his massive hands around Eddie’s smaller ones, engulfing them protectively, and began to play with them absentmindedly. He ghosted the tips of his fingers up and down Eddie’s palm, tickling him slightly. His gaze met Eddie’s at the sound of his faint giggle, biting his lip as he smiled at the smaller boy. Eddie’s hands looked elegant and dainty, but were actually quite dry and somewhat rough due to his constant washing and scrubbing. His palms were plump and spongy with translucent pale skin and often times were clammy due to his anxiety; but his was not one of those times.

Thinking Eddie had grown tired of it, he stopped playing with his hands and tried to let go, but Eddie immediately reached back for them and began to massage his hands from his knuckles all the way down to the tips of his boney fingers. Where Eddie’s digits were smooth and tapered longingly, Richie’s were blunt and knobby, with dirt underneath his fingernails. Eddie admired their stark differences in physicality. One would expect Richie’s hands to be rough because of their masculine appearance, but, while they were large with square palms and some callouses, his hands were surprisingly soft and smooth. Freckles spotted the pale skin on the back of his hands and Eddie ran the pads of his thumbs over them. Richie’s hands were strong and logical, and Eddie felt safe within them.

“Hey so you never told me how it was for you.” Richie commented, nonchalantly.

“What?” Eddie asked still admiring his hands.

“When you realized you were gay, or whatever! You never told me what it was like for you.” Eddie froze, but didn’t look up at Richie.

“Oh . . . Um . . . C-cause you didn’t wanna talk about it anymore.” He explained unconvincingly.

Richie chuckled at Eddie’s inability to conjure up a believable excuse. “I didn’t wanna talk about ME, anymore. I love hearing about YOU!” he insisted.

“You really wanna know? It’s kinda a depressing story,” Eddie warned apprehensively, his amber orbs were still avoiding of Richie’s. Anxiously, he set Richie’s hands back down, resting them atop of his thighs.

“Of course I do, amor (love)!”Richie maintained with less enthusiasm, but still very much sincerely. “Only if you want to, though. If it’s too hard you don’t have t-“

“N-n-no-no, it’s okay!” Eddie interjected. “It’s only fair. You showed me yours, now I show you mine.”

“Eddie, careful with those kinds of jokes!” Richie warned with narrowed eyes as he wiggled his brows suggestively. “Don’t start something you aren’t willing to finish.”

Finally confident enough to meet Richie’s gaze, Eddie leaned in dangerously close once again, near enough in proximity that he could whisper and still be fully heard by his boyfriend. “Who says I’m not willing to finish it?”

“Well then, lets get to it right HERE . . . on this floor . . .” Richie challenged lewdly. “I want YOUR body all over MY body!”

Eddie’s face contorted in shock. “No, it’s dirty!”

“I knew you wouldn’t want to.” Richie griped, shaking his head tauntingly. Eddie’s cheeks burned as they became crimson, both abashed and annoyed because of Richie’s barb. “You’re a fucking tease.”

“I don’t want to fucking do it on this filthy ass floor, DICK!” Eddie retorted, offended. “Later, when we go to your house . . . I promise.” Richie’s smile widened so much that his cheeks actually started to hurt. Eddie was so stubborn and plagued with pride that it made embarrassingly susceptible to reverse psychology, and Richie knew how to use this to his advantage.

“Okay, fine. Well, how about we kill some time until then by listening to you tell me about your childhood traumas.” Richie suggested jokingly.

“Beep beep, Richie.” Eddie’s voice turned soft, almost defeated.

“Okay, sorry. Not funny.” Richie admitted, remorseful of his insensitivity. “Seriously, though. I am all ears.” Eddie, clearly unsure, paused hesitantly. He climbed off of Richie’s lap and sat himself against the bed, next to the taller boy. He stared off at nothing in particular, but clearly avoiding Richie, as he began to speak, while his hands began to fidget nervously.

“Well, you know how you said that you never felt ashamed or thought that being gay or bi was wrong? I-I feel that way, too- most of the time, but I didn’t always feel that way.” Eddie’s licked his lips nervously before releasing a ponderous sigh. “My mom always said horrible things about people like us and- I- dunno- I didn’t want to be gay.” Eddie scoffed dryly with watery eyes. “You know, I HATED going to church on Sundays, I always felt even more disgusted with myself whenever I was in there. I-I used to sit though the service and just pray in my head- I would ask God why-“ Eddie’s voice began to break, but his demeanor remained almost placid. “Why me? O-Out of all the people in the world, wh-why did I have to be gay? There are literally BILLIONS of people in the world, but-but-but I had to turn out this way. I used to ask, genuinely expecting an answer, but . . . I-I never got one. You would think I would take this as a sign that there was no God, but nope. Instead I believed that He didn’t want to answer me. I started to believe that because of my-my perversions I was unworthy of His response.”

Richie’s heart felt as if it had suffocated and withered dry behind his sternum. He had known Eddie struggled with his sexuality, but he had no idea to what magnitude. He felt unbearable guilt for not noticing how much pain his Eds had been in for years, so selfishly wrapped up in his own. “Do you still feel this way?”

“Sometimes.” He answered blandly. “I never question the way I feel about you, though. My love for you is the only thing in my life that feels . . . right. It’s just- sometimes when my ma says things- she gets to me. I get confused.”

“What does she say?” Richie asked with cautious concern.

Eddie paused pensively as his eyes darted around, his tongue poking out the slightest bit. “Richie, you know how I never talk about my dad?”

Richie hesitated. “Yeah?”

“I know that you guys all assume that I don’t remember him because I was so little when he died, and-and I liked it that way because then you guys would never ask me about him or force me to talk about him.” Eddie began to fidget more with his hands as he spoke. “I do remember him, though. I remember a lot, actually. I remember we used to play catch in the backyard.” Eddie smiled nostalgically, despite his tears. “I remember how he used to carry me on his shoulders on the fourth of July so I could see the fireworks. We even used to watch cartoons together every Saturday morning, while eating sugary cereals. Then when he started working more, we couldn’t play together as much, but he would tuck me into bed every night and we would talk about our day. He said that even though he wasn’t able to be there, he still wanted to know everything I had done or learned that day. It became my favorite part of every . . . single . . . day.” Eddie let out a melancholic chuckle. “I always wanted to try something new or do something fun so I would have a new interesting story for my dad at night. I used to look forward to it all day.”

“Eddie . . .” Richie felt an unbearable pressure within his chest as a flurry of intense, conflicting emotions accumulated in it with no form of release to alleviate their burden.

“After he got sick- after- a-a-after he . . . died . . .I started to get scared of the world and I-I didn’t want to try new things anymore. I began to think the whole world was-was dangerous and my ma only reinforced those fears. But-bu-but I still wanted to talk to him, though. So, every night I would lay in bed and l would talk to him until I fell asleep. I would- uh- tell him about my day, about all the new friends I made- about you. I would tell him- I- I-” Eddie’s small voice began to tremble and break as be stammered through his story. Richie’s heart felt like it was trying to violently claw it’s way out of his chest. “I- I-uh– I would tell him how much I loved him and . . . and how much I missed him. It was still my favorite part of the day, because I still felt like he was there, e-even if I could see him.” Eddie sniffled as tears cascaded down his rosy cheeks. His eyes seemed distant and full of unimaginable sorrow. “I did that every night until I was 12 . . . until that summer . . . until . . . the leper.”

“Why?” Richie asked apprehensively.

“What the leper said- It made me start t-to suspect I was . . . different. I didn’t understand how, or-or, you know what, maybe I did be-because I knew enough to be ashamed. I was SO afraid to talk to my dad after that. I-I was afraid he would find out about me-I was TERRIFIED to tell him about what I felt- how I felt about you.” Small sobs began to develop in Eddie’s voice, which he desperately tried to will away. Even though tears were streaming freely down his face and sobs were escaping his chest, Eddie seemed oddly calm and collected- emotional, but not hysterical. “I was afraid I would disappoint him. I-if God was disgusted with me, then how could my father not be? I began to hate the nighttime, as STUPID as that sounds! . . . I would to cry myself to sleep every night.”

Richie began to deduce Sonia’s role in Eddie’s story. “Is that what your mom- does she talk about your dad?”

Eddie hummed and nodded in agreement. “S-she says that my dad- my dad would’ve hated me, if he saw the person that I became. That he could-could’ve never loved a-a . . . a faggot.”

Richie lifted himself off the floor and kneeled himself in front of Eddie, who seemed completely unfazed, and cupped his cheek, looking deeply into his eyes. “You know that isn’t true right?”

“I just- I think about how much my mom loved me, before I came out. I wonder sometimes if she’s right- if he would- if he would have reacted like her. D-does he hate me, too?” Eddie’s eyes burrowed into Richie’s after evading them for most of the conversation, darting around as he tried to extract coherent words from the jumbled thoughts in his head. “I keep going over all the memories I have of us together, his face- his voice. I don’t want him to hate me, Richie!” he said in a hoarse whisper, tears continuing to fall without any sign of stopping.

“Eds, if your dad truly loved you, he could never hate you for being who you are- for something you can’t control. AND, from what you’ve told me, it seems he really loved you UNCONDITIONALLY! I’m sure wherever he is, he is happy that you’re happy. He must be so proud of you for facing every day with such bravery. All these people hate us for loving each other, and it would be so much easier to hide- to deny who you are, but you DON’T. You face the world and all it’s hate and hostility valiantly!” Richie said, as he leaned in, cradling Eddie’s face in his warm hands. “You are such an astounding person, Eds. You just can’t see it, but I can . . . and I’ll be here to remind you whenever you forget.”

Without hesitation, Richie leaned in and closed the gap between the two of them- soft plush lips colliding with dry chapped ones. The kiss was intense, as if Richie was attempting to draw out all of Eddie’s pain and suffering through his lips and adsorbing them into himself. It was passionate, but also with purpose, not just to coax but also to heal.

“I dunno how I could have made it this far without you, Richie Tozier.” Eddie whispered as he pulled away, but immediately leaned back in, pressing their forehead together. A faint, but sincere smile began to creep onto his lips. “I forget how secretly brilliant you are, sometimes.”

“Awe, shucks!” Richie mumbled as he scrunched his nose with a lopsided smile, as if to say “Stop! You’re embarrassing me!” He paused briefly. “Wait, but I used to come over all the time, and I never heard you crying.”

Tilting his head slightly, Eddie smiled and looked at Richie tenderly through his tear soaked lashes. “That’s because I didn’t cry when you came over. The nights we spent together were the only nights I slept. I, kinda . . . used to hope you would come over every night because you made them easier.”

Taken aback by Eddie’s confession, Richie looked away with raised brows, nodding to himself. “And that fucking whole time I though I was annoying you!”

“Oh no!” Eddie chuckled. “You were the only reason I even made it through my early teens!”

Richie’s eyebrows furrowed at Eddie, who immediately regretted what he had just said extemporarily. “What do you mean by that?” Eddie’s eyes retreated anxiously and Richie’s chased after them, but, due to Eddie’s determined evasiveness, never caught up.

“Sometimes I- I wasn’t always in the best headspace.” Eddie said, scratching the back of his neck nervously. He allowed it to drop back onto hip lap only to immediately begin fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “It was just a lot to deal with. I mean, we joke around about it now that we are on the other side of it all, but before I accepted who or what I was- whatever- I was really depressed. I felt a this-this hopeless despair and I didn’t know how to get out of it. I had all this shit going on inside my head and I thought I had no one I could talk to. I was afraid everyone would hate me- I was afraid YOU would hate me, so I had to handle it all on my own . . . I was just a kid . . . It was just too much, sometimes.”

“Do you still feel that way?” Richie asked attentively as he reached for Eddie’s hand, massaging his knuckles with the pad of his thumb.

Eddie deliberated for a moment. “Sometimes.”

“You’re not alone, though. You know that, right?”

“I know.” Eddie stated blandly, his eyes fondly admiring their intermingling hands.

Richie leaned it and proceeded to affectionately nudge at Eddie’s jaw with his nose, making way for himself to press soft kisses onto his neck. An amorous smile began to break through Eddie’s somber visage. “I am here for you, no matter what . . . and so are all the others.”

“I love you, Rich. I don’t know how you always manage to do it, but you are always saving me!” Eddie confessed as he tilted his head back, granting Richie more room for his lips to roam. His eyes fluttered shut as he continued, “I’m not certain when I fell for you, but you’ve always been the most important person to me. I know I don’t say it often, because we are always bickering, but you are everything to me.”

When they were children, Eddie immediately felt drawn to Richie, much to his perplexity. He was everything his mother had taught him to fear: dirty, defiant, foul-mouth, and reckless. Despite this, Eddie cared deeply for the raven-haired boy. Richie lived his childhood the way Eddie believed one should, carefree with skinned-knees and bruised elbows in all their filthy glory. He envied Richie, but was also happy that he got to experience the youth Eddie knew he never would.

Eddie fondly remembered little Richie, with his adorable buckteeth, wild mane, and massive frames that made his eyes look cartoonish in size. Richie had a smile that could light up the night and Eddie thought it was (ironically) the most breathtaking thing he had ever seen. Richie always managed to get dirtier than any of Eddie’s other friends, but when it came to him it didn’t matter (and with Eddie’s mysophobia, that spoke volumes). If anything, he felt it added to his charm. Eddie loved Richie with all of his little heart and, even then, knew he always would.

Richie grinned smugly as he continued to press soft kisses down the length of Eddie’s neck. “Mmh, Tell me more words!”

“Seriously!” Eddie pulled away to get a proper look at Richie for emphasis. “If anyone else- any other guy- would have kissed me that night, I would have ran away. And I CERTAINLY wouldn’t have come out of the closet, but because it was you- because I already trusted you and had loved you for so long . . . because it felt so right, I did it. Before you, I was fully ready and willing to live the rest my life in the closet.”

Richie’s cheeks illuminated with a rosy glow. “Really!? How could you admit to yourself that you were gay, but be willing to DIE in the closet?”

“I figured if I was going to lie to the rest of the world, I might as well be honest with myself.” Eddie confessed with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. ”I didn’t need act on those feelings, especially if no one else felt worth it. Whenever I thought about dating a guy, it just seemed wrong or only made me feel worse. Not with you, though. It was all worth it for you. I am willing to face all these homophobes, my mother, my fears, the fucking clown- for you.”

Richie couldn’t help but beam euphorically. Eddie had always felt Richie could light even the darkest night in December with that beautiful lopsided smile. “You’re worth it too, Spaghetti head! I would do anything for my little munchkin! Mi bebe henanito preciosos! (My precious little short baby!)”

“Okay seriously don’t call me that!” Eddie complained with an all too familiar roll of his eyes.

“Don’t call you what? I just called you a bunch of shit, baby.” Richie asked tauntingly with a cheeky smirk across is sharp features.

With a deadpan expression, Eddie responded flatly. “You pick.” Eddie began to list each of his complaints with the use of his fingers. “They’re all humiliating! 1. I’m not a baby, I’m a man! 2. I’m not a fucking munchkin and 3. I certainly don’t have a head made of spaghetti!”

“Don’t lie, you love my nicknames!” Richie retorted as he pinched Eddie’s bright pink cheeks.

“NOT THOSE!” Eddie yelled, swatting away his boyfriends hands.

“AHA!! SO YOU FUCKING ADMIT IT!” Richie cheered, earning an irritated sigh from Eddie. “Ugh, okay so some of them aren’t THAT bad. ‘Eds’ and ‘Eddie Spaghetti’ are kinda cute, but not ones where you’re making fun of me, asshole!”

Richie’s smug grin fell- replaced with a frown of sullen disappointment. “You- you think I’m making fun of you?” The dynamic of his voice disintegrated into a soft mumble.

“Yeah! You tease me for my height, for looking young, my fucking shorts, and a bunch of other shit!” Eddie asserted.

“Ssshhh . . . Shut your pretty, pretty, pretty little stupid mouth.” Richie cooed as he pressed the length of his finger against Eddie’s lips, silencing him on contact. Rolling his eyes, Eddie giggled underneath his digit. “Eds! I don’t do that cause I am making fun of you! I do it because I love you. All those things you hate about yourself, I genuinely adore. I like that you’re short and that I can easily wrap my arms around little body! I love your adorable baby face! AND I don’t think you’re just cute, I think you’re fucking hot ESPECIALLY in those little shorts! I love you, mijo! (baby boy)”

Richie really did love Eddie with all of his broken heart. On the surface, Eddie could seem like a snob, but Richie knew that Eddie was just a person who had been burn to many times to let his guard down. Eddie didn’t like most people, but Richie understood that he is just scared, not evil. Richie saw things in Eddie that most people chose to ignore or overlook because of his aloof demeanor. Richie believed Eddie was kind and nurturing with unwavering loyalty. He often wondered how such a tiny body could house such a giant heart.

Bravery was not something Eddie was known for, but Richie knew, when it mattered, he had it in spades. In fact Richie wished to be more like Eddie in that regard. Richie was fearless, but Eddie was brave. Richie wasn’t afraid of spiders, heights, bullies, or monsters; he was afraid of much more intangible things and whenever forced to confront them, he would cower and retreat. Eddie was the exact opposite. He had many fears that plagued him all throughout his life, but unlike Richie, Eddie never ran away. Eddie would face anything head on, no matter how frightening or menacing. Richie grew to believe fearlessness was the trait of a fool and only truly strong people could be brave.

Warmed by Richie’s heartfelt declaration, Eddie climbed back on to his lap and linked his arms behind his boyfriend’s head, leaning atop his shoulders. He leaned in and softly grazed his lips without actually kissing the taller boy, whose breath hitched in his tensed throat. “You really mean that?”

From such a close proximity, Richie could see every breathtaking detail of Eddie’s face, from his dark, impossibly long lashes to the constellations of freckles that danced across his smooth caramel skin. He felt his heart raced in his ears as he nodded like an idiot, struggling to articulate a response. “Of-of course I do! You a-are the most perfect bo- MAN in the entire world and I-I-I love you!”

“I love you too, Trashmouth.” Eddie whispered before finally closing the small gap that divided their lips. Richie snaked his arms around his boyfriend’s waist and pulled him flush against him; Eddie giggled but didn’t break away from the kiss. Richie murmured and smiled at the dulcet tones of Eddie’s little laugh. After a brief but very heated mini-makeout session, he pulled away with a sly grin. Eddie knew from plenty of experience Richie’s trashmouth was about to ruin the moment.

“Plus, I love how red you get when I piss you off. It’s such a fucking RUSH!”

“Ugh! Nevermind, I hate you.”

taglist: @bloggingandstruggling @bitchardtozier @purejaeden @breakmyreddieheart @reddieformeerkat @greywatertozier @11stayradstaybad11 @julietissue

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tinymixtapes · 7 years ago

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Feature: 2018: Second Quarter Favorites

TMT’s Musical Innovation Summit, now in its 14th year, is the oldest meeting of its kind in the industry. Like last quarter’s summit, roughly 10 music professionals from TMT gathered in New York to discuss the latest musical breakthroughs and make predictions on which releases will spark future awe-inspiring innovations. To help make the predictions, we interviewed 45 random fans, 30 venture capitalists, and a handful of media who cover the music industry across the country to get their collective thoughts on what’s imminent. That list is then honed by eliminating long-shot candidates, followed by a double-elimination round to get rid of shitty artists. Nominees are thoroughly vetted, and the groups eliminate candidates throughout the process. Today, we are proud to present the results: the BEST 26 releases of the last three months (with a shortlist at the end). We predict that these releases will change music forever. --- SOPHIE OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES [Future Classic] [WATCH · READ] Now’s raw doubt flanges in this memory’s mercury, and we’re back in the basement dark, floor paved with silver marbles. We will shine a light on one, outline the floor with reflecting. I ask are you sure of this? and you say no, never not of any thing. You squeeze your foreign-feeling shoulder, slim quick doubt. Then you hold a marble up to your eye, unclipped cuticles before corneas, a silver pearl. It’s okay. Flashlight on. We gape. There is no neat sequence. No light is set Surface contorts seeing. The shining is bent in coils. There is no straight path, just what we can move into in this whole new world. Roll the flashlight, and it’s a world warping, brilliance refracted, reflections re-membering. The world we built in the dark teaches us how being between might be. Our un-insides, SOPHIE’s sound, teaches us that brilliance doesn’t diminish its self, that light and self and is what we call it. And you say call me Vivian. Becoming who we’re becoming, “no matter where I go, you’ll be here in my heart.” –Frank Falisi --- Playboi Carti Die Lit [Interscope/AWGE] [LISTEN · READ] The arrival of Playboi Carti’s debut album proper, following last year’s crucial self-titled mixtape, could seem like a mere victory lap, an easy cop-out that plays up to the well-established framework of overstuffed rap albums in the streaming age. What a pleasure, then, that Die Lit implodes that logic. The heady balance of mood pieces and out-and-out anthems that characterized Playboi Carti is further refined here, but even without that baggage, Die Lit is a success on its own terms, a flickering visage that compounds Carti’s most enticing impulses — barely-there vocals, Reichian repetition, knotty Pi’erre Bourne beats — with all the best facets of the album form. And if Carti is only incidental on the mic, the tracks left in his wake are anything but. Herein lies a set of real Ohrwürmer, the inner soundtrack to your day, long after the album subsides. The cloud bursts forth; lightning really does strike twice. –Soe Jherwood --- DJ Healer / Prime Minister of Doom Nothing 2 Loose / Mudshadow Propaganda [All Possible Worlds] [LISTEN · LISTEN] On DJ Metatron’s 2 The Sky, the anonymous artist threaded a Jake Gyllenhaal interview through intricate waves of house music that helped give rise to this enigmatic and highly gifted producer. This year, his efforts have come twofold, with a double release under two new monikers that plot the same channels of intricacy but through two very different means. In place of the Donnie Darko reflection that deepens the narrative of 2 The Sky is a 2002 Whitney Houston interview with Diane Sawyer, where the troubled singer discusses her drug problems and an unnerving sense of optimism that inevitably collapsed 10 years later. Essentially, the music that accompanies both of these otherwise unrelated samples is the atmospheric gel that binds them together; an actor speaking about his fascination with a perplexing story line, and a generational icon battling with herself, fighting to overcome the very thing that took her life. That disparity lies at the heart of this joint release, which merges two highly distinctive personalities while linking them through religious and personal overtones. Mudshadow Propaganda is perfect in its projection of minimal techno tracks that build on the traits of our secretive producer’s expired alias, The Prince of Denmark, while Nothing 2 Loose is almost confessional in the sincerity that it lays bare. But where both records celebrate the dexterity and imagination of a single producer, they also paint a picture of human existence at its most conflicted, from the carnal and the primitive to the haunted and the divine. –Birkut --- Grouper Grid of Points [Kranky] [LISTEN · READ] In seven tracks and less than 30 minutes, Liz Harris sought to take us nowhere. So she stranded us anywhere. Giving up on finding anything instructive or stabilizing in the passing moan of a stray vocal, the odd cluster of muted piano keys, or the occasional sharp gust of static, it became clear that the only place where anything “new” could happen was in a place where nothing old and familiar was left. “Where are we?” started to sound more like “Where aren’t we?” It might have been some heavenly shoreline where the water was the same perfect gunmetal color as the sky, but it might just as likely have been the vacant parking lot of some long-since-demolished Disneyland. It didn’t really matter. Anyplace we chose to stand and look from was just as good (or bad) as another. “Might as well call this the center,” we figured. Gotta start somewhere. –Dan Smart --- Seth Graham Gasp [Orange Milk/Noumenal Loom] [LISTEN · READ] A symphony of perversions and memories that ignites every time you rapid-fire through your Instagram stories. Refried beans left over from the camping trip you took to a closed beta somewhere off the coast of Spy Kids 4D. A million splintered renderings of classical text that you half-scrawled onto the back of your hand before you realized that you were actually just passed out on the keyboard again. Gasp is like a raw feed of how music itself operates in 2018; brief bursts of genius materializing right before us, only to be swept away and digested into something unrecognizably new. The entire sum of human history rubbing elbows with that ASMR video you had to rush to minimize before your roommate could ask you what the fuck you were just watching. A guy as unassuming as Orange Milk label head Seth Graham conjuring up untold universes of possibility from his home in Dayton, OH, his bank of MIDIs a window into our gentle, distraught, and hilarious world. –Sam Goldner [pagebreak] Klein cc [Self-Released] [LISTEN · READ] “Oh my god! Who’s actually going to listen to this?” asks Klein, lounging with friends, reflecting on her last EP, Tommy and a still-emerging network of diasporic black art and sound. A year and new EP later, cc sees Klein more comfortable in the discomfort, pushing further with her collages of confrontational intimacy. “You have to squint” as the voices build and spiral, like an endless loop of out-of-office replies, a pitch-bent dawn chorus, singing to each other, but listening too. Klein made us think: about blackness, about opacity, about femininity and Disney princesses, all at once. Feelings too, and a lack of language to convey them; anxiety, elation, mania, but less medical, sometimes an incantation, sometimes an exorcism. In cc, Klein created a space of unique and disarming affect and mood: a deeper, darker stage in the process of “me being my own therapist,” the sound of someone finding a plurality of voices, of listening to yourself. –Joel White --- Beach House 7 [Sub Pop] [WATCH · READ] Attempting to describe what dreams are seems like a task both impossible and pretentious. But, as it floats like a wandering mind, drifting from thought to thought with each track, 7 certainly feels like a dream. Alex Scally plays guitar, but it sounds like an unfamiliar squall from another universe. Victoria Legrand sings, but it comes out in French. Look at the clock, you’ll be unable to tell how much time has passed. You know, dream stuff. For a genre that gets its name from something as complex as the random images our brains send to us while we sleep, “dream pop” music can often be very formulaic. That’s why, seven albums into their career, it’s remarkable that Beach House have found a way to not only completely refresh their sound, but make perhaps their best album yet. Awash in a chaotic darkness that’s been lingering in different forms throughout their entire discography, 7 hurtles towards oblivion: beautiful, glorious, infinite. –Jeremy Klein --- Eartheater Irisiri [PAN] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] I keep losing track of Irisiri; it keeps slipping away from me. This isn’t meant as the insult it might scan as. An elegiac spin on the cyber-cyborg-meat-machine kick that everything relevant is twirling toward, this series of sad little processed ditties and twisted car jams charts a swerve back-and-forth between evasiveness and directness. Its unnerving stuff, giving the impression of solidity while remaining impossible to hold. Flirting with hip-hop and electro-acoustic, bedroom pop and sexed-up sopping wet plastic, it keeps moving out of view, even as I keep returning to it. Listening to the album is like chasing an object out of reach, an object I desire without knowning, a body I want without seeing. Also, C.L.I.T. fucking slaps. –Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli --- THE HIRS COLLECTIVE FRIENDS. LOVERS. FAVORITES. [SRA/Get Better] [LISTEN · READ] For a few decades now, raw musical aggression has been underpinned with a lot of unintelligible vocal sentiment. Just steam on in with howling, power riffs and punishing beats please. But what’s that on the edge of the blast radius, dashing in headlong through the smoke? Clear sentiments that uplift, testify, and provide some sharp kicks in heteronormativity’s floppy old dick? Yes please! Even with its closing remix section, the album’s corroded (and collaborative) essence remains triumphantly tight. The perfect way Lilium Kobayashi’s quick stomping techno pop take on “Murdered by a Woman” flits to “Wake Up Tomorrow” when this album is on repeat further dispels any sort of tacked-on/bonus trax superfluousness. The cultural constant of immediate, frothing punk rage is obviously not going anywhere. It’s essential to have an album, in fuck-this-shit 2018, where that rage is specifically righteous, even with its eternally itinerant self-laceration (i.e., humanity). –Willcoma --- Delroy Edwards Rio Grande [L.A. Club Resource] [LISTEN · READ] Delroy Edwards has made the funk (in its many different strains) the connective tissue of his intrepid, joyful, and often perplexing work. It’s an approach never as explicit as in his latest LP, Rio Grande. That might indeed be its greatest success. In Rio Grande, keeping the raw, hissy, determinedly idiosyncratic credentials that first introduced him to the world, Edwards lets the funk take center stage; sometimes riding grimy techno beats, other times pushing beyond the ridiculous-by-design minimalism of the grooves. The goal is simple: to provide his audience with interesting jams to dance to. Edwards takes pride in the anonymous efficiency of that pretense, as the name of his label L.A. Club Resource indicates. He is happy to be the reliable supplier of a service, the invisible demiurge leading patrons to delirium; slipping in some eccentric turns here and there for the kick of it, to the enjoyment of all but mostly because… why the hell not?. And, let there be no doubt, Rio Grande is the most effective toolkit he has yet assembled in pursuit of that goal. –jrodriguez6 [pagebreak] emamouse X yeongrak mouth mouse maus [Quantum Natives] [LISTEN · READ] Hey, not to bring this up here, but borders, am I right? Why do we even have these invisible lines dividing my side from yours? We can get so much more done without them, not to mention the added benefit of not having to split up families in real life as they cross the imaginary demarcations. Who on earth has the chutzpah to enact stupid shit like that? Not emamouse — no way. No, emamouse had the opposite in mind as she commented from her Tokyo base of ops, “What’s this thing keeping me out of New Zealand? An ocean? Screw that!” And thus, the BORDER between Japan and New Zealand was erased forever — whether through the magic of the internet or the ocean suddenly turning into a jello trampoline is anyone’s guess. But emamouse was no longer separated from NZ sound slinger/cartoon centipede yeongrak, and together, through the magic of Quantum Natives, mouth mouse maus was born, a sticky, gooey, sugary, epilepsy-inducing strobe blast of video-game grit and played-with-too-much pink slime from a plastic egg. Cookcook, in her review, inferred that utopias can emerge from collectivity, highlighting the compatibility of these two artists. I think what she meant was “Fruitopia,” which someone obviously spilled all over the mouth mouse maus backup hard drive. Remember Fruitopia? That was Coca-Cola’s own attempt to eradicate borders, except they were the borders between taste and… OK, between them and your money. –Ryan Masteller --- Félicia Atkinson Coyotes [Geographic North] [LISTEN] I once went to New Mexico but mostly stayed inside. Reasons why. Félicia Atkinson’s Coyotes, inspired by her own trip to New Mexico, maps a journey I may have taken, among other wonders. The crafted narrative and its exploratory form gestures toward an experiential unknown. Her travel log collages echoes, maps, receipts, dried leaves, sand stuck in the crevices of shoes, plaques, diary entries, signposts, mythology, spirituality, and the facts and facets of the land’s native and colonial histories into a total atmosphere, something approaching a direct translation of a lingering impression. It’s so effective and affecting, because the whole is actually a scrap: “a slip of paper, something/tiny & torn off/lifted by the wind” writes poet Christian Hawkey in Citizen Of. Atkinson lineates her memories into similarly moving verses. –Cookcook --- Pusha T Daytona [G.O.O.D. Music] [LISTEN · READ] DAYTONA by Pusha T is hard work. It’s this blurb being written at 5:20 AM on the 7-train to “the office” a day after having led 46 tweens on a non-stop four-day Boston field trip. It’s teaching about heterosexism and female empowerment, leading sixth grade field day, and handling logistics for eighth grade graduation in a single day. It’s your body feeling like a crash-test dummy on a Wednesday, having left in the early, early morning, putting in 12 hours of sweating gallons for money, and arriving home at 8:30 PM. It’s wearing Terminator shades on 125th Street talking Spanish to people you never met. It’s the endurance of confidence while facing every fear you’ve experienced — focused — diving straight into the freezing water. DAYTONA proves Pusha T and Kanye are relentless professionals that continue to transcend literary and sonic aesthetics in space and time. We need role models like these, forever. –C Monster --- DJ Koze Knock Knock [Pampa] [LISTEN · READ] Many publications have referred to Stefan Kozalla as a “trickster” or a “prankster.” While there are freckles of truth on the face of that assessment, much of his affability comes from his most mistaken quality: his earnestness. It’s what makes him such a delightful musicmaker. Being earnest, of course, is the perfect foil to the kind of negativist universalism that plagues the psychedelics/mindfulness landscape in which DJ Koze so often finds himself (and, also, finds himself). Koze’s House is perfect (see: “Pick Up”) and his plunder-pop turns weird into sublime and vice versa (see: the wails incorporated into “Scratch That”), but it’s his unpresuming and gracious approach to influences, samples, and collaborations that push this record into extraordinary territory. It’s not alien; it’s absolutely Earthly, and it reflects so well the modest subject that is Koze. After all, Koze never changes, except in his affections. –E. Fosl --- Elysia Crampton Elysia Crampton [Break World] [WATCH · READ] Elysia Crampton opens in media res, with a nativity. And then it revs up, restlessly — its machinic gears grind like plant medicine visions; water flows and burbles; disharmonic chords take us in unanticipatable directions. And through it all, the oscollo, the feline guardian of people outside gender binaries, oscillates wildly. Elysia Crampton’s maximalist approach takes it beyond the strings and cackles of 2016’s Demon City, yet Golgotha remains always present. Standout track “Moscow (Mariposa Voladora)” was inspired by Ofelia, a Bolivian mariposa (“femme revolutionary”), and it judders roughly, darkly. Crampton’s Aymara and trans identity are her displaced subjects, particularly in light of the gestural movement between her origins in Bolivia and her current home in the US. But this is not any straightforward folk music revival — rather, it’s a deconstruction that reconstructs. The difficulties and contradictions of critical theory, in particular writers such as José Muñoz and his exploration of queer brown-ness, are braided into the work. The first written reference to queers as mariposillas (“little butterflies”) is from Pedro Cieza de León, in the 16th century, in which he compares “sodomites,” subject to punishment by burning at the stake, to moths drawn to the flame. The suffering of our ancestors can’t be recuperated, but through art, we may yet dance grotesquely but triumphantly on the pyre. –Rowan Savage [pagebreak] The Caretaker Everywhere at the end of time - Stage 4 [History Always Favours The Winners] [LISTEN · READ] The late hauntologist Mark Fisher once cruelly noted that the OED lists one of the earliest meanings of the word “haunt” as “to provide with a home, house.” And now that we live in a world that has lost the very possibility of loss, we have also lost the one who can lose, cohabiting with oneself in the present’s presence. Ghosts no longer have a home to haunt in any case, and their yearning and lingering voices are consigned to a past that can never pass away. Although it is haunting and horrifying to behold Everywhere at the end of time’s fourth installment pass from memories to their source — what Kirby calls “the post-awareness stage” — perhaps we must be grateful that someone can forget (for (us)). For, the source of memory must remain, even after all memory has been stripped away from it, even though this source can never be aware of itself. Yet, this source is not, strictly speaking, an identity. What it may be I do not know, but The Caretaker allows you to hear, what, behind those eyes, devoid of any recognition of life; we hope, we plead to be someone who remembers us, yet the only bliss, as transient as it is empty, is the wry smile that, for an instant, says, “Do not save me.” –Evan Coral --- Lucrecia Dalt Anticlines [RVNG Intl.] [WATCH · READ] OK, Hoag. You wake up in 1925, in a different place but with the same objects. Lucrecia Dalt’s Anticlines is playing on the victrola. She sings, “Skinless others/ Oils on waters,” and you realize you’re in the same room as the killer. The only other person in the room is dressed exactly like you, and that person’s talking up the other place — the one you believe you are still in — saying, “I think you’d like it there.” Where again? Both places go out of view. Now possibly dreaming, in a time and place before flight, Gein or radio, you wait at a blue-dipped railway platform as trains roll by on their way to Oclupaca and Ortseam. You’re hoping to catch a ride to somewhere similar but elsewhere, more elemental, past the unseen concupiscence between thermosphere and exosphere, out there where you don’t have to wonder, anymore, what the toys do while you’re away. –Rick Weaver --- Tierra Whack Whack World [Self-Released] [STREAM] In the face of incomprehensible excess and stream-gaming nonsense, Tierra Whack — yes, that’s her real name — provides a grotesque yet charming response with the wonderfully weird “Whack World.” Rather than dragging the tempo or chopping the tracklist, the 22-year-old Philly rapper embraces something like a skip-button aesthetic of preview clips and non-member samples, unceremoniously cutting off her songs as soon as they hit the one-minute mark. With 15 songs in just 15 minutes — an absurdity further heightened by its surreal video — traditional payoffs are just beyond reach, forcing us to sit through a goofy, lighthearted romp of youthful innovation and bizarre genre play that includes everything from slow jams and trap bangers to country parodies and kids pop. It’s delightfully ridiculous and sometimes annoying af, but it arrives with undeniable energy and child-like wonder, bursting out confetti-like from a singular, captivating voice who’s on one of this year’s quickest and most unexpected come-ups. Blink and you’ll miss it. That’s the point. –ミスターおしっこ --- GAS Rausch [Kompakt] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] I consumed the hour-long experience of Rausch, blaring through my headphones, as golden hour became twilight and the mosquitoes started biting. Luckily, my timing was great; 2017’s Narkopop, with its penchant for forlorn ruminations, ultimately owed a lot to its namesake: pop music. Now, those hopeful moments of liquid sunlight are far away. Rausch finds GAS staying true to its typically ascetic atmosphere, but any strand of accessible melodicism is replaced by shattering layers of dissonant drone upon drone, Doppler effect-synths, and percussive textures that pierce through it all — shimmering cymbals, palpitating kick-snare rhythms. As each funeral march bleeds into the next, the delirious effects of Rausch take hold. My arms are covered in bites, and temperatures still haven’t dropped below 90. For the superimposed intensity of Rausch, a more fitting listening environment couldn’t be created. –Rounak Maiti --- The Body I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer [Thrill Jockey] [LISTEN · READ] It’s so much to bear. We’re expected to carry more than our own weight. The pain and suffering of our past traumas, the present crises, the future uncertainties. More and more, any attempts to alleviate the pain, to share the burden, are undermined. All we ever wanted, all untenable. They demand purity (in lieu of that, submission by “privilege”), individuality, personalization, subscription. They won’t cry for us. Everything must be on you and you alone. Time will not notice you are nothing. You are already hatred as an abstract to someone else. The pull of the personal must end. The allure of ontology and self-indulgence must be shattered in the face of those who leer lewdly into its mirror and contort on the floor in false ecstasy. But it is a painful burden. “I lower my guilty-looking eyes. I’m afraid of looking people in the eye.” War is necessary and proper, to shatter illusions. But it’s all so much to bear. –Ze Pequeno [pagebreak] serpentwithfeet soil [Tri Angle/Secretly Canadian] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] It’s crazy to think that soil is serpentwithfeet’s debut album. The queer, pagan singer, a former choir boy from Baltimore, emerged in 2016 with blisters, a set of mesmerizing slices of new age R&B delving into faith, superstition, and love. His voice and composition live up to the lofty themes; delicate and meandering, serpent recalled the acrobatic opulence of 90s R&B with brooding, industrial production from The Haxan Cloak. The most visionary artists are those who sound like nothing other than themselves and exhibit a gravitational aura that inspires imitation, lust, and disbelief. soil lurches and waltzes, while Josiah Wise, who prefers to go by “serpent,” remains fully exposed in the mix, employing innovative vocal stacks that whisper, conjure, and croon behind him like a choir of restless spirits. Despite the divine quality to serpent’s voice, which is at times shellacked with layers, often battling against static noise and its own quivering vibrato, the subject matter of soil is immediately relatable and quotidian: the navigation of a shifting dating landscape, the sublime essences of individuals, intimacy and grace in heartbreak, the projection of sorrow onto the world. serpent doesn’t want to be “small sad,” but “big, big sad,” to the point that he’s sure his friends are “tired of him talking.” The domesticity infects us all: How can we properly grieve? How can we redeem ourselves? The occult instrumentation falls away to reveal a queer individual who is merely describing their personal desires. –Ross Devlin --- Sara Davachi Let Night Come On Bells End The Day [Recital] [LISTEN · READ] I walked through the streets barefoot, clothed only in a robe. The bells were ringing, playing their ancient song, letting the world know that the night had begun. My feet were bleeding from the cobblestone streets, which is how they found me in the morning, just outside of town in the woods. I didn’t drink that night. The evening swept me up, and some tribal instinct forced me outside in virtually nothing. My neighbors looked and closed their curtain as I kept walking, holding the hand of the force that was dragging me. I remember parts like my head hurting and my eyes watering. I remember spinning in the center of town underneath a street lamp. I don’t remember why I left town and headed toward the woods. I don’t know why I left my house. I remember being woken up by the police and being embarrassed to face to my neighbors. They took me home and put me in bed, because the medic cleared me at the site. I’ve never spoken of it since, and I still clench up when the night comes on and the bells end the day. –Sam Tornow --- Jenny Hval The Long Sleep EP [Sacred Bones] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] Roping in some of her favorite jazz musicians to explore ideas, Jenny Hval has managed to escape the noose of her recent collaborative concepts and delve within to produce yet another stunning act of imagination. The pure reach and weight of The Long Sleep is extraordinary. Hval moves across emotional ground with certainty and delicacy, capturing the subtlest of feelings. Like a soundtrack to a brilliant short, Hval plays with recurring motifs first presented in the “conventional” “Spells,” but then swerves genre expectations along the way, through the piano-led clap frappe of “The Dreamer Is Everyone in Her Dream” to the blissful title track drone. On “I Want to Tell You Something,” her presence is so powerful, as she attempts to express trance closure through an oblique narrative before realizing simple words are all she needs. Fecund, savage, and irresistible, The Long Sleep demonstrates once again why Hval is so intriguing. –David Nadelle --- Gemini Sisters Gemini Sisters [Psychic Trouble] [LISTEN] How does one describe something so beautiful and uplifting — a beacon of light in a shroud a darkness. I was wallowing deep in the muck and mire, desperate to claw out of it rather than sinking down into it. But that tar pit of sorrow and defeat is thick, and it cares not about your will. But I saw the light and followed it. It led me to two helpful, outstretched hands. Jon Kolodij and Matt Christensen met my palm with a hardy grasp and a hefty pull. And I felt the warmth of Gemini Sisters. The sprawling, uplifting sonic aura of the duo’s debut speaks to energy from whence Kolodij and Christensen are christened: the two having their daughters born on the same day of the same year (and those offspring being Geminis). It shows with the delicacy of their aural attack. It is spiritual, reaching toward the heavens to pluck the constellation and bringing its brightness to our darkest places. Right now, the flesh is weak and the mind wavers. But our essence remains pure and chaste. Thanks to Kolodij and Christensen, I have traded the hastened quicksand for a tether to the sprawling galaxy. –Jspicer --- Christina Vantzou No. 4 [Kranky] [LISTEN · READ] When you’re in a vehicle moving at a slow, constant speed, sometimes you can convince yourself that you aren’t moving at all. No. 4 moves me like that. I know how tired that metaphor is, and if you listen to gentle drones like “At Dawn” and “Remote Polyphony” and think I’m a hack for digging the spatial metaphor up once again to describe slow, deliberate music, I understand. But I feel that uneasy compromise between motion and rest deeply and at every strange, shimmering moment of the album. It’s in the bells of “Percussion in Nonspace,” ringing in a sort of dual presence and absence; in the little arpeggio that creeps up through “Doorway;” in the pitch-affected choral chant that closes out “Sound House.” Whether we interpret track titles as thematic hints or as mere word games, the names of the tracks on No. 4 suggest, along with the music, that Christina Vantzou wants to domesticate and eventually upend and denature space through sound. Usually a device for ordering abstraction, she turns that hackneyed spatial metaphor into one for abstracting order. This record moves at no speed, in no direction, and toward no goal, except maybe to suspend us temporarily in a kind of beauty without dimension, not far from terror. –Will Neibergall --- Kanye West ye [G.O.O.D./Def Jam] [LISTEN · READ] Just because an album sparks cathartic conversations doesn’t mean it’s good, and not all good albums invite candid dinner table discussions concerning their mercurial merits. Kanye, however, has just as big of a reputation for arousing furor as he does for leaving listeners speechless. Meanwhile, critics scramble for thoughtful words that won’t get them blacklisted for being associated with that black magic that has been infiltrating every aspect of daily life since Cain murdered Abel, thus birthing division. Calling ye a divisive document at TMT would be an understatement, and attributing its inclusion here to justifying countless hours of collectively unpacking just over 23 minutes of noise would obscure what ye actually contains: disturbing spoken word admonitions about premeditated murder, breathless bars on prescription drug addiction, ironic fantasies about butts of sex scandals, gorgeous gospel keys and beautiful dark twisted harmonies, celebratory reflections on fame and success, spectral arena rock vibes, and staggering room for growth cleared out by fear and love and loyalty. Regardless of our own individual feelings, ye keeps reminding us that this music shit that gets us through each day often requires plunging into dark places and reemerging with our own beacons of light. Believe it or not, I still love it, and like watching a bright-eyed child grow up in a world this dark, I’m terrified and excited for what’s next. –Jazz Scott --- The Shortlist: King Vision Ultra’s Pain of Mind, Shygirl’s Cruel Practice, Oneohtrix Point Never’s Age Of, Ashley Paul’s Lost In Shadows, James Ferraro’s Four Pieces For Mirai, Larry Wish’s How More Can You Need, Jon Hassell’s Listening To Pictures, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement’s Red Ants Genesis, Parquet Courts’s Wide Awake!, The Carters’ EVERYTHING IS LOVE, Bernice’s Puff LP, Carla Bozulich’s Quieter, Pinkshinyultrablast’s Miserable Miracles, Duppy Gun Productions’s Miro Tape, DRINKS’s Hippo Lite, Valee’s GOOD Job, You Found Me, and Frog Eyes’ Violet Psalms. http://j.mp/2Kt2EKx

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derieri · 7 years ago

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Seven Days of Christmas

Leksi! I’m super mega extra majorly LATE! I am so sorry! Shame on me! I have reasons and excuses and whatever else, but that’s not the point. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year’s Eve, and I hope you will have a phenomenal 2018. Have 3,000 words of my happiest holiday wishes for you and yours (including all your fictional faves). Love, Trinity ♡ ♡ ♡

On the first day of Christmas, Secret Santa gave to me, a very merry Christmas Leksi!

On the second day of Christmas, Secret Santa gave to me two tradition-keepers and a very merry Christmas to Leksi!

Elizabeth was at a loss. It was the deepest part of winter when the chilly weather outside made the shortest days of the year feel even shorter. Inside the home Elizabeth shared with Meliodas, the cold made it seem extra cozy, the firelight extra warm and the company of friends even more precious than usual. At least, it ought to have. But instead, the winter seemed to have crept inside the house as well and made its home in Merlin. Elizabeth glanced over at the girl curled up in a chair, a blanket wrapped around her as she paged through a book and radiated gloom. She let a frown pull on the ends of her mouth. She had not wanted to pry – even if she was only a child, she deserved her own privacy, particularly since the destruction of Belialuin. But she did not know what else to do without discovering what was bothering her little sis-sis.

“Merlin,” Elizabeth said from the kitchen. Merlin glanced up from her book. “Merlin, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do.” Her voice was gentle but firm. She had no intention of letting her slip away from explaining her doldrums again. “You’ve been down in the dumps for the last week or two. You are not ill. I want to help you feel better, but I can do nothing unless you tell me what is bothering you.”

Pregnant silence welled up between them. Merlin’s eyes did not twitch from their fixture on the corner of her book’s pages for several long moments. Elizabeth began to wonder whether she would tell her after all. Then, with a sigh of resignation, she closed the book and looked up, meeting her in the eyes.

“I am sad about Yule,” she said simply.

Elizabeth paused for a moment to rack her memories for anything about Yule. As hard as she tried to recall ever hearing of such a holiday, however, she came up empty-handed. This Yule, whatever it was, was not something that the goddess clan celebrated.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard of Yule. Is it something you celebrated with your father?” Merlin nodded.

“It used to be that we decorated every building in the village with wreaths and candles. It was always so pretty. Then on the day of the winter solstice, everyone would make sweets. At dusk, they brought them to our house, and then the village celebrated together all night long because it is the longest night of the year,” she explained. Elizabeth felt her heart lanced with a pang of pity. No one would ever decorate the village of Belialuin again, not unless they felt inclined to wrap tinsel around scorched beams that crumbled to ash at a strong gust of wind. And that was if they felt inclined to continue the tradition at all – Merlin was the only survivor, and possibly the only person left who would celebrate Yule like this.

She put a thoughtful finger to her chin. Her eyes roamed around the room in silence as she surveyed all the beams and shelves and windows in her and Meliodas’ humble cottage home.

“What sorts of decorations would you like to do this year, Merlin?”

“Eh?” Merlin looked up from where her gaze had fallen once again, her eyes wide.

“I wanted to know what decorations you’d like to put up for Yule this year. We will not have very many decorations, unfortunately, as we will have to make do with what we can scrounge up from the forest, but I want to carry on the tradition with you.”

And so it was that they soon found themselves bundled into layers upon layers of down coats and cold-weather accessories, hands securely wrapped in mittens and boots laced on their feet. They waddled through the snow like fattened penguins. Slowly, but surely, the baskets on their arms filled with curious sticks and attractive cuts of holly and pine boughs, red winter berries and thorny brown pinecones. Merlin found brown and scarlet feathers caught in a bush. Elizabeth discovered a tiny, spunky flower poking through the leaf litter beneath a copse of sheltering branches.

They filled the house to bursting with their festive decor. Feathers and berries studded a beautiful wreath over the hearth, pine boughs braided together to make ropes that they wrapped around the backs of the kitchen chairs. They set candles on every open surface. Magic helped them fill the gaps of light and color that were left.

For Elizabeth, the most important and beautiful thing, however, was simply that she saw Merlin smile again.

On the third day of Christmas, Secret Santa gave to me three festive sisters two tradition-keepers and a very merry Christmas to Leksi!

Elizabeth could all but taste the gingerbread. She sat up tall in her chair and took a deep breath of the scented air. It smelled exactly like Christmas should, with the tingle of spices entangled in the rich warmth of sugar and butter in the oven.

Her eyes shot wide at the sound of a clatter. She practically flew off her chair to rush over to Margaret pulling the gingerbread out of the oven’s heat. Elizabeth kept her distance – she wasn’t allowed to touch the oven or anything that came in and out of it, the castle baker had insisted. If she hurt herself he would never allow them to bake here again. So she obediently folded her hands ever-so-prim behind her back and grinned as she watched her elder sister pull on a pair of quilted oven mitts and reach into the heat.

The smell that before had merely floated in whiffs through the air now permeated Elizabeth’s nose. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, basking in it. Ooh, she was excited about the holiday! And, more immediately, she was excited about the gingerbread house.

Another clang told her that Margaret had closed the oven door, freeing her hands and body to move around as close to the gingerbread as she liked. She clapped her palms in her enthusiasm as she shuffled up right next to Margaret. She could still feel the warmth radiating off the pan as Margaret lifted each piece of the gingerbread on to the rack with her spatula.

“Hey Eli, Margaret!”

They both turned in surprise at the sound of another small voice shouting their names from the door. Elizabeth spotted her other sister Veronica charging towards them just an instant before a fuzzy hat shoved over the top of her head obscured her vision.

Elizabeth pushed the brow of the hat up just enough so she could see. She giggled at the sight of Veronica hopping on her toes to pull a jangling elf hat over Margaret’s head.

“There,” Veronica declared once she successfully hatted their older sister. She pulled the third hat from the loop of her belt and stuffed it atop her short crop of hair. “Now we’re all outfitted right for making gingerbread houses!”

They made up icing in several colors while the gingerbread cooled, and each sister picked out some of her favorite candies from the cabinet. The castle’s baker helped Margaret cut the sheets of gingerbread into the perfect size and shape for a little house while Elizabeth and Veronica watched on with eyes round as moons.

Finally, finally, everything was ready. All three sisters had a hand on the icing tube as they piped it into the seams between gingerbread walls, then sealed the roof on to the house. Once they built the basic structure, it was time for Elizabeth’s favorite part: decorating! Margaret drew shingles on the outside walls with thin lines of red and green icing; Elizabeth followed her path with tiny pea-sized gumdrops pressed into the joints between the little loops. Every now and then she put a candy in her mouth instead of on the gingerbread house. Veronica made big icicles dripping from candy-crusted eaves and sprinkled coconut over the rooftop.

After what felt like hours and hours of labor (at least to little Elizabeth it did), the three sisters stepped back from their handiwork with big grins.

“Father will love it!” Margaret said. Elizabeth nodded in agreement as she snuck a few more candies from the dish.

“What do we do with the extra candy and stuff?”

“I suppose we should leave it to the baker. I’m sure he can use it somewhere.”

“Ooor,” Veronica said from behind them, mischief in her voice, “we could do… THIS!”

Just as Elizabeth faced her, Veronica slapped a big glob of icing right on to the center of her nose! Elizabeth shrieked and jerked backward. Her arms flailed as she tumbled out of her seat and on to the floor. Margaret leaped to her feet with protective big-sister worry etched across her face. But she didn’t need to be too concerned – Elizabeth lay there red-faced but giggling as she tried to lick the frosting off her nose.

On the fourth day of Christmas, Secret Santa gave to me four perfect pies three festive sisters two tradition-keepers and a very merry Christmas to Leksi!

“Alriiiight, what do we have left to make? ♫”

“Umm…” Elizabeth set the masher down in the half-pulverized bowl of potatoes and shuffled to the end of the counter to check the scribbled list. She had checked off each dish as she, Ban, Elaine, and Diane made each of them – or, well, more when Ban declared each dish acceptable eating. Elizabeth herself was not allowed to have anything to do with mixing ingredients or moving pans in and out of the oven. Initially, Ban tried to keep her out of the cooking process altogether.

“You’re almost as bad in the kitchen as Capn’, an’ do ya see him in here anywhere?” he’d said when she offered help. She remembered flushing red until Diane bounced up behind her, holly sprigs stuffed in the ties of her pigtails.

“Aw c’mon, Ban! You’ve got another pair of hands, so you should use them!” Diane said, and then shoved Elizabeth under his arm and into the kitchen behind the bar. He put them to work on clean-up duty and incredibly simple preparation tasks, like mashing potatoes and updating the list when they finished.

Eli scanned the paper, searching for the few dishes that were not already scratched out. Stuffing, beans, and rolls already sat cooling, and Ban slid a steaming pan of casserole next to the others as she looked at the list. All that was left were the potatoes she left on the counter, the turkey turning golden in the oven, and—

“Just the pie for dessert!”

“Oh, really?!” Diane poked her head around the corner, holding her sudsy hands out in front of her to avoid soaking the walls. Elizabeth nodded.

“Just the pie. And I think we should probably leave that to Sir Ban.”

“You should definitely leave it to me,” Ban piped up from inside the kitchen. “It’d be a shame to ruin dessert ♫.”

Diane disappeared for another moment and reemerged with her hands wiped clean of dish soap. She helped Elizabeth finish with the potatoes, then snatched her wrist and dragged her from the kitchen.

As the two of them thumped away, Ban set out the ingredients for four different pies. He gave Elaine the job of rolling out the crusts while he mixed up the fillings and put together the whipped cream. They worked together well, silent except for his soft humming to fill the space. It was pleasant and simple and warm, and the two of them were in perfect harmony. She thought she could live in this moment forever.

“Oh, hey,” Ban murmured suddenly. She paused in pressing down the edge of a pie crust and glanced up to find him looking at something above her head. She followed his gaze toward the rafter above the bar’s counter and promptly turned a little pink when she found the subject of his interest. Someone had tacked a little sprig of green leaves and pale berries into the wood.

“That’s mistletoe,” she said softly. He hummed an agreement. Whoever pinned it situated the mistletoe just so so that only a person standing inside the kitchen could really see it.

Both of them were still for a moment, anticipation thick in the air between them. Elaine was so fixated on watching his face that she barely noticed him absent-mindedly sticking his finger into the bowl of whipped cream. His eyes did not move from the mistletoe until he extended the dollop he’d scooped up toward her, smiling softly.

“Give it a taste,” he prompted. “Tell me how it is.”

She opened her mouth sucked the cream off his finger. Its flavor filled her mouth, rich and sweet. Even sweeter, however, was the taste and feel of his lips pressed against hers only a heartbeat later.

“Ban! We’re in the middle of cooking— something will burn if we do this now!” she pulled away and protested with a giggle. A languid grin crept over his mouth as he leaned close again.

“Nah. All the best cooks know that kissin’ in the kitchen only makes a meal better.”

On the fifth day of Christmas, Secret Santa gave to me five Christmas trees four perfect pies three festive sisters two tradition-keepers and a very merry Christmas to Leksi!

Elaine made her way down the stairs carefully, eyes fixed with stubborn determination on the precarious tower of presents in her arms. By the time she reached the landing, she had not lost a single gift, and she was really quite proud of herself. She turned the corner and made to start down the last flight to the dining room. With one foot on the first stair she paused, stock still, and her mouth parted in a little o at the sight of what awaited her at the bottom: a literal forest of pine trees.

How… odd.

She readjusted her hold on the presents and descended the rest of the stairs. She squeezed between the door jamb and the prickly boughs blocking most of it, cautious not to let a single needle of the tree touch her presents lest it destabilize her. On the other side of the Christmas tree was… more Christmas trees. In fact, she realized as she skipped her eyes around herself to count, there were five Christmas trees in the dining hall of the Boar Hat. Five Christmas trees and, sitting at the bar with a glass of alcohol, one visibly disenchanted mage.

“Merlin!” Elaine said, starting toward the bar. She maneuvered the gift tower on to the countertop and hopped up on the seat next to Merlin’s facing the tree-filled dining room. They both remained silent for a moment apart from the faint noise of Merlin sipping her drink. Elaine’s curiosity overwhelmed her.

“Merlin, why are there five trees inside the Boar Hat?”

“‘Go fetch the Christmas tree, I told him,’” Merlin sighed in answer.

“Told who?”

“Your brother. And when he folded his arms and looked at me obstinately, I assumed it wasn’t going to happen. So, I requested that Ban and the Captain take care of it instead...” She dipped her head and smiled ruefully. “I should have known that was a foolish decision.”

“I’m not sure I understand… how does that explain five trees?”

“I coaxed the story from them a few moments ago. As they were poking through the woods for a tree to bring back, they both found one that they thought would be perfect, or look best, or something equally ridiculous. They started to bicker and took so long in doing it that I decided the most efficient course of action would be to simply get one myself. In my absence, they returned not with a Christmas tree, but two, each decorated extravagantly, and when I arrived with a third they demanded I choose which of their choices was superior.”

Elaine cupped her palm over her mouth and giggled. “I’m sure that must have been entertaining. But where did the other two come from?”

“Escanor overheard and took it upon himself to realize my heart’s desire.”

“And… the fifth Christmas tree?”

“Well… your brother either became involved in the Christmas tree pissing contest between Ban and the Captain or he started to feel guilty for turning me down… either way, he went and fetched a tree of his own. And picked up this along the way.” A twist of her hand and a twirl of her fingers summoned an extremely pathetic-looking sprout to hover in the air before them, so limp and bedraggled that King had propped it up with a chastiefol in miniature. “So in reality, we have six Christmas trees.”

On the seventh day of Christmas, Secret Santa gave to me seven smooching sinners six trees for Christmas five proper trees four perfect pies three festive sisters two tradition-keepers and a very merry Christmas to Leksi!

“FIVE!”

Diane’s fist plowed into Howzer’s gut with the force of a horse kick. He doubled over and his face turned almost as green as his hair. As he choked on breathlessness, chest heaving in a vain attempt to catch his wind back, he decided he regretted asking her for a New Year’s kiss.

“FOUR!”

Ban slung a muscled arm around Meliodas’ neck, capturing his Captain in his elbow and squeezing him close. The ale in his tankard sloshed around from his haphazard handling and splashed Meliodas’ surprised face with foam. Elizabeth put a hand over her mouth to hide her giggle as she tapped Diane on the shoulder so she could see the fun.

“THREE!”

Escanor rocked side to side, eyes closed as he sung for auld lang syne. Merlin caught him by his waist and tipped him over backward, bringing her their faces mere inches from one another as his cheeks burned with a crimson blush.

“TWO!”

Ban released Meliodas and tugged Elaine closer by the wrist so he could press his nose against hers. King’s hands settled anxiously on Diane’s hips as hers held his shoulders, her confident grip mirrored by the look in her eyes.

“ONE!”

Smiles – nervous and assured, toothy and thin, small and wide – turned each of their lips as they prepared for their New Year’s kiss.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

#I'm so late I'm so sorry rip #10 days! aCK!#in any case. as late as it is here is your Secret Santa gift #I hope you like it!#♡♡♡♡♡♡♡#my fanfiction #elizabeth #elaine #Seven Deadly Sins #merlin #ban #banlaine #margaret #veronica #diane #king #elizabeth liones #my stuff

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12/13/2017 DAB Transcript

Obadiah 1-21, Revelations 4:1-11, Psalms 132:1-18, Proverbs 29:24-25

Today is the 13th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It's good to be here with you today. And that from the Old Testament today, we will read in its entirety, the book of Obadiah before moving onto the next step forward in the book of Revelation.

Obadiah:

The book of Obadiah has but 21 versus, making it the shortest book in the Old Testament. And, yet, it deals with a very long-running family issue. Contained in this one chapter is a prophecy of the complete destruction and doom of the Edomites. And if we look back on the beginning of our adventure through the Bible, we’ll remember the story of Jacob and Esau. And Jacob's descendants became the children of Israel. Right? Jacob's name was changed to Israel. He had kids. They were children. The children of Israel. Esau's descendants became the Edomites. And they were often in conflict. When God delivered the children of Israel from slavery and bondage in Egypt, the Edomites wouldn't allow them to pass through their land on the way to their promise land. And at other points in history, when Israel was being attacked and overrun, the Edomites stood by silent just watching it all go down. And God reached the end of his patience. And, through the prophet Obadiah, predicts destruction. We have good application for this today too, for although we've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and have been made children of God, therefore making us all family, all too often we see brothers and sisters at war with one another. We’re standing by silently as brothers and sisters are destroyed before our eyes, often on the Internet. And perhaps they're getting what they deserve in our judgment. The book of Obadiah shows us a very clear picture of how God feels about this. And, so, we begin Obadiah chapter 1 verses 1 through 21.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we need to talk about this proverb for a second because Proverbs 29:25 is worth committing to memory, is worth carrying around with you, is worth having at your fingertips. Because heeding it can change the path that your life is on. It can change the trajectory of where you're going. It can shift your orientation to what you think is going on around you, inside of you. Because, for the most part, as a culture, as a people, even as believers in Jesus, we don't heed this proverb's wisdom. And when we look starkly at what not paying attention to what this proverb is saying is doing to us, it becomes pretty clear how profoundly this is affecting us. And the proverb says, ‘the fear of man is a snare, but the one who trusts in the Lord is protected.’ Now this word fear, as it's translated into English here, is a word that means trembling, anxiety, care, dread, as well as fear. And we all seem to carry that as sort of like a base layer of a motion somewhere down inside of us, this anxiety that's just always on the alert. And its deep within us. It touches our identity. Our fears can speak that deeply. And then to gauge how anxious we should be in a situation, we begin the comparison game. How I am I doing compared to him or her or them? And then it feeds into all of this anxiety. And because it's uncomfortable or painful, it feels true, and it shifts our identity and value of ourselves, and it becomes for us exactly what the Scriptures say, a snare, a trap. And all we have to do is kind of look back over the last 24 hours. Look at our interactions and find the point at which anxiety was rising up in us, fear was coming up inside of us, and for the most part we’ll find that there attached to a fear of man, fear of others in some way. And so, we’re being counseled from thousands of years ago that this is a trap. It's exposing where our trust truly lies. And as the proverb goes on, ‘the one who trusts in the Lord is protected.’ So, when our identity is rooted in the trust of the Lord, that's a totally different outcome than when our identity is rooted in the fear of man. And if we’ll just go through the next 24 hours, watching ourselves when we were feeling anxious, when fear seems to be overwhelming us, we can detach from that for a second just to observe - where did this come from, why is this happening, how can I follow the trail back - and we’ll find where our fears lie, and we’ll find that we’re not trusting the Lord in it.

Prayer:

Father, we take this counsel, we heed it, it's true, and it certainly can change things. So, we begin to observe ourselves and invite Your Holy Spirit to show us how so many of our fears are connected and are trapping us, are snaring us, because we’re ultimately afraid of each other or in competition with one another, rather than resting in the fact that we are Your children and You’re protecting us, and that we can, should, must trust You. Come Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what's going on around here.

A few things are going on around here. Today is about the last day to call in your holiday greetings for the annual Daily Audio Bible family Christmas that we do each year, our kind of virtual Christmas party that we have together. So, definitely, definitely don't delay anymore. If you're planning on participating, all you have to do is call one of the prayer lines. So, for example, here in United States, 877-942-4253 is the number to call. And, like I’ve been saying, the only rule about this is just don't combine a holiday greeting and a prayer request in the same call. If you have a prayer request, certainly, certainly call that in, but if you also have a holiday greeting, call that in separate. And we’re going to get to work on putting our Christmas party together. So, don't delay anymore. If you want to be involved, call that in.

The Daily Audio Bible Christmas Boxes are going fast, as they do. We still have some available. If you're in the United States and you want to get the Daily Bible Christmas Box in time for Christmas, because it is full of things that you'll…some things you’ll want for yourself and some things you'll want to give away…if you want that to arrive in time…then Monday December 18th is, kind of the cutoff date for that. You can certainly order after that and we will certainly ship, but it's kind of…we’re looking at the delivery schedules and…thinking that's about where we’re getting close. So, keep that in mind.

Early registration for the More Gathering for women is open right now. And early registration pricing will last until the end of the year. This makes a wonderful gift idea. So, take advantage of that. And all the details about the more gathering can be found at moregathering.com or in the Initiatives section at dailyaudiobible.com. All of your questions and the details that you would want to know about it are there.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible as we approach the end of the year then, thank you humbly and profoundly, like every day, with a heart full of gratefulness that this community exists and that the global fire burns on, and that we keep taking steps forward together. Thank you for making that possible. So, there’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always if you have a prayer request or comment or holiday greeting, at the moment, 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports:

Good morning Daily Audio Bible community. This is Diane O. B. in Newburg Indiana calling. And this is a prayer call and a praise report. And first of all, I want to say I am praying for this lady in California that is studying for her board exams, that had some really tragic things happen to her because her parents wanted a boy rather than a girl. I’ve been praying for you honey, every single day, and the Lord has been giving me a heart to pray for you and I believe you have the mind of Christ and you do think the thoughts of Christ. And when you take these board exams, I believe you are doing them at the end of December, you are going to pass with flying colors. And I thank You Lord for granting this wish and desire and prayer of mine. I’m going to be praying for you every day, that you have peace and no anxiety. And I’m praying for all of the others in the community. I thank you for hearing my prayer requests and lightening my load. And I just want to say do not be discouraged do not be disheartened. God loves you and He’s with you. He made you and He will take you back to heaven with Him if you have invited Him into your heart. So, God bless everybody and that’s what I wanted to say. Amen.

Hi DAB family. This is Marked as His. I’m calling from Balsam Lake Wisconsin. I haven’t called in probably over 4 months now but I hope you all are doing well. Two praise reports. My mom, who was diagnosed with breast cancer around Easter time just successfully finished up both chemo and radiation and her prognosis looks great. So, that’s awesome, and thanks. We did get all off our corn harvest in on time and our soy bean harvest. So, thank you again for that. Right now, I am struggling with feeling very overwhelmed and attacked by anxiety and self-doubt. My cousin, who abused me as a child is getting married. And I feel very betrayed because getting married is something that I’ve always wanted and I feel like God is playing a huge joke on me, giving that gift to my cousin first. And I know I’m supposed to trust in God’s wisdom and His sense of timing but right now it is really hard. It seems like I’m getting the raw end of the deal again. So, I hope all is well with you. And thank you so much for being a family to me too. I’m so glad I turned here than other really bad coping mechanisms, that they soon pass. So, anyhow. Thank you all. Bye.

Good morning my DAB friends. It’s Margo from Australia. We have this morning had a bit of a miracle and I thought I would love to share it with you guys and you could share our joy and excitement. I’ll have to talk quick though. Some of you may remember, my husband and I are applying to join the mission aviation fellowship and as part of that my husband had to pass a class on medical for his pilot’s license. And he’s been having a bit of trouble with his blood pressure. His diastolic blood pressure needs to be under 90 and he’s been up to the doctor multiple times getting it checked and just can’t seem to get that number below 90 despite the fact that he’s quite slim and quite fit and healthy. It’s just some unfortunate reason. And he’s also been getting quite bad headaches. So, this morning he woke up with a really bad headache and we thought perhaps it might be associated with the blood pressure. So, we went up to our local pharmacy to get it checked and the diastolic blood pressure was 97, which is upsetting. But, just after that the doctor phoned and said, you have to come up today and get that blood pressure checked. It’s the last day we can do it for your pilot medical. So, we thought, oh no, we already know it’s really bad, this does not look good. So, we just straight away prayed, asking the Lord for a miracle and he went off to the doctor and guess what the number was? It was 85 and he even checked it twice. And we just praise in God because He is a God who works miracles. I can’t actually remember the last time his diastolic blood pressure was that low. It truly is a miracle and He is a God who answers prayer. And just Glory to God. He loves us. I hope that encourages you as it’s encouraged us. Bye for now.

Hi Joyce in California. Hey, this is mom Annette in Oklahoma City. And little sister, little girl, I wanted to wish you the most happiest of birthdays on December 20th and I wanted to call you and sing [singing] Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Our beautiful DAB daughter, Happy birthday to you. [singing stops]. You know, we can’t always pick the families that we’re born with but we can pick the families that we surround ourselves with. And, I’ll tell you, I know around my job, I've made many daughters and sons and I would wish nothing more than to have you be my honorary daughter. And I wish you the best. I wish you the success that you are looking for. I pray that your studies go well and your examinations are exemplary, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Joyce, I love you and I'm giving you a great big hug, all the way from Oklahoma City. Have a beautiful birthday December 20th, a day we will honor from now on.

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