#felt a little called out by the ''has at least one unfinished story'' bc i have dozens and dozens and DOZENS of google docs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bigsnzstanacct · 5 years ago

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Richie Robbins

Here’s my first, totally unfinished sneezefic. It’s all about loud sneezes, I haven’t edited it at all and tbh I found it on some random blog that had clearly grabbed stories from the forum bc I didn’t want to dig through all my old computer backups so ya know if it’s screwed up it’s not my fault.

As passionately as he desired to, he knew he wouldn't be able to evade it. It would come, as so many times before: unavoidable, uncontrollable, unstoppable. He closed his eyes, tilted back his head, let the itch like fire at the edges of his nostrils expand to set his whole nose ablaze with a tickle so strong, only a monstrous explosion could expel it. And monstrous explosions were his stock-in-trade.

"hehh...hehh...HEISSSHOOO!" he exploded. His stunned professor stopped her lecture, as the noise rang out through the huge lecture hall, waking up quite a few drowsy (hungover?) students. Flummoxed, she lost her place in her notes, as the boy sitting next to him, a jock, last name Stevens... first name he couldn't remember, muttered, "Nice one, Robbins. You planning to blow any houses down any time soon?"

Richard Robbins waited a moment before he replied, hoping to make sure the one great sneeze had been enough to expel the full magnitude of the tickly sensation in his nostrils. He sniffed before opening his mouth to reply, which was, as always, a huge mistake.

"Yeah, Ste-st... stevens... I... hah... I...iiegh...ieghhh..ihhh...ihhh..." He thought for a moment he'd gotten it under control, rushing a firm index finger to his quivering nostrils, but it was too little, too late: "Y-yeahhhh... ahhhKESHHHHHuuuhh. HEYY-SHEEUUUUEY!" Another of his roaring sneezes rang out through the room, again startling Doctor Renyolds, who had just managed to get herself composed enough to begin lecturing again. And the sneeze came with a brother, a great screaming affair which appeared to have erupted from the very depths of Richie's being, and, luckily enough, had carried with it sufficient force to finally blast out whatever was causing the terrible tickle in his nose.

"My!" Doctor Reynold's voice came, after only a few seconds, "Whoever has been exploding in my has thoroughly put me off my lecture. Were we speaking about Hamlet or 'The Waste Land'?"

Richie sank in his chair. He had hoped to avoid this, this time. All throughout high school he had been known as the school's sneeze factory, variously going by nicknames from Sneezy to Big Bad Wolf to Johnny Tsunami--that particular psudonym coming from a quite unfunny teacher--but in college, he had hoped to avoid being identified primarily by his nose.

Of course, when you had a nose as big as Richie's, it was rather difficult not to notice. It was nearly always the first thing people noticed about Richie, either because he was busy sneezing or because its moderately thin but hugely protruding shape, rather like a right triangle seen in profile, was the most commanding thing about his face. And his nostrils: they were great, wide, massive things, sucking up irritants with an unholy frequency, tickling with an unthinkable burning fury, exploding with almost unimaginable, messy force. There were times when he felt his older brothers' insistence upon calling his nose Mount Vesuvius was not wholly inaccurate.

Not that any of the men in Richie's family had room to complain about his sneezes. While Richie may have gotten a double portion, this was surely a family curse: when the six Ritchie men--three older siblings: Tristan, Adrian, and Sebastian, Richie himself, his little brother Max, and his father--were united in colds and allergies, it was a wonder Richie's mother hadn't gone deaf. All six of them complained of unusually strong itches that developed deep within their nostrils, which could only be expelled by their characteristically loud sneezes. Stifling or containing the sneezes would never do; it would only intensify the tickle--and the resulting sneezes--by several orders of magnitude.

No, there was little Richie could do in such a situation besides let himself sneeze and hope that no one would notice. Which, thus far, had never happened.

"Hey, Robbins," the jock queried, "should I send out the storm warning to little pigs?"

After class, Richie walked out onto the campus, on the way to his dorm room. He was hit full in the face by the bright September sun, and by his furious nasal tickling.

"Nodda... hiihhh... nodahhh... again... HEEEYY-SHEEUU! HISSHHH! ehh... ehhhSHIIEUUU!" He let the sneezes erupt into the open air, giving them free reign to bend him in half, three times, each sneeze bigger and louder than the previous, though, for Richie, they were comparatively light, more like minor aftershocks than the sneeze-quake itself. He wished these would've hit in the lecture hall, rather than the nuclear blasts he had actually let out.

"Well, you can't always get what you want..." Richie muttered to himself.

"But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you just might find...!" Sing-shouted Richie's best friend, Adam, who had, as ever, appeared behind him.

"How do you do that?" Richie asked, "Do you stalk men unawares in the night by custom? I'm beginning to think you're practicing to be Batman."

"Richie," Adam paused to say, mock-serious, "I am Batman. And even if I wasn't, I'd be able to locate those sneezes from halfway across the campus," laughed Adam. "But anyway, what's up?"

"Well, I exploded in the middle of my Poetry and Drama class, and I'm pretty sure Professor Reynolds hates me, but besides that, not much."

"Old Vesuvius come back to life? Well, no shock there. No offense dude, but your nose has been permanently set to stun since high school."

"Yeah, I've noticihhh... ihhhh... ihhyahhhhhhhAAESSHUUU!"

The pair began walking down the cobblestone path of the university, presumably towards the dorm rooms, then cut through the quad, where, of course, the flowers begot a huge tickle in Richie's nose. "Oh! W-waaahhh... ahhh..." He tried to get the tickle under control long enough to utter the phrase "watch out," but Adam had long since learned to gage when Richie was about to embark upon one of his voyages to a Byzantium of Richter-scale rocking sneezes, and had promptly set his fingers in his ears, got down on his knees, and, in a grand military manner, announced, "Cannons are aimed! Target has been acquired! Fire at will! Fire at will!!"

The fact that he had never, frankly, fired at will, passed quickly through Richie's mind before the sneeze washed over him, washing away all thoughts other than the sneezes, and all quiet in the quad: "yyeeaaaaaaHHHCHOOOOOOOSSSHHH"

Several stunned students turned around to locate the source of the booming noise, and Adam thought that he heard a "wow," somewhere in the distance. A few birds, it seemed, started from the trees. Adam wasn't even entirely sure that he had imagined the swaying he thought he saw in a few of the trees. There was no doubt about it: Richie could sneeze. Ever since they met in freshman year of high school, Adam had seen Richie's nose at the epicenter of a daily series of frightful detonations. This particular sneeze had been not only monstrously loud but torrentially wet, leading Adam to celebrate his decision to crouch at Richie's side; he did not want to get drenched, as he had been on more than one occasion. Ever since freshman year.

"Geez, Rich, you done?" Adam asked, after giving Richie a few seconds.

"SHEEEOOO!" Richie exploded, if possible, even louder.

"Guess not." he chuckled. After Richie (and Adam) felt sure that Richie's nose wasn't about to go nuclear again, Adam stood up, began walking, and quipped, "You know, I'm looking for a side-kick; before I swoop in and lock up the baddies, maybe I can get you to sneeze and blow 'em down!"

"Shut up, Adam." Richie joked, giving Adam a playful slap on the head, before the two rushed off trading barbs as they went.

—-

Richie reached the dormroom with comparatively few incidents, although he had to force himself more than once to obey his father’s favorite dictum: don’t stifle your sneezes. Don’t even try. Richie’d heard that particular sermon preached any number of times, along with his mother’s story: “When your father went on our first date, he tried to hold those things back, and when they finally came out”—“when she smothered her spaghetti in pepper,” his father would always interject—“I thought he was going to blow everything off the table! He sounded a little like you, actually, Richie.”

So, with his mother’s slightly nasally voice ever ringing in his ears, Richie forced himself to let out a series of noisy nasal explosions, in order to satiate his nose’s uncontrollable need for relief from its buzzing, burning, incredibly tickly itching sensations. Few people could imagine just how strong the tickles in Richie’s nose got; perhaps the only way to truly represent their magnitude was their own self-expression in his explosive sneezes. He felt fairly lucky that he'd only had to give in to three or four on his way back to the dorms, although the gaggle of women who had clearly bathed in perfume were less than joyous at the sudden, shocking explosion of elephantine nasal trumpeting which had suddenly erupted to their near right, and each had jumped at least a foot in the air, much to the amusement of Adam, who'd laughed almost as loudly as Richie had sneezed.

Adam and Richie had reached their dorm room, and were sitting about, not really doing anything, as college students are wont to do in lazy afternoons, after classes but before the dinner hours. Of course, they could have been studying, but who’d want to do that? Richie was busy plotting ways to avoid blasting the cafeteria during lunch (take an extra dose of Claritin, bring a handkerchief, and always avoid pepper like the plague), while Adam sat on the bed, debating with himself about whether or not to take a nap, when he felt a tickle invade his nose. Adam’s sneezes, while certainly not tiny, couldn’t compare in the slightest to Richie’s nasal artillery, and the “ihh… ihhhh…IT-CHEEOOooey” he released was nothing compared to a Richie sneeze.

But Adam’s nose wasn’t done yet; the tickle returned, the previous sneeze having done nothing to alleviate it, but rather seeming to have augmented it: “nyehhh… hih! hih! hehhh…” Adam’s nose vacillated on the edge of a relieving sneeze, its power building with every hitch of his breath, “nighiiee…hiegh… ighhhiee… iiiaaAAAAAHHH-CHOOO!” Adam sneezed, much harder than normal.

“Woah, buddy,” Richie murmured over his shoulder, “You really let that one go; you aiming to start a sneeze fight?”

“No, no, no, no,” Adam said, still feeling a bit lightheaded from the sneeze, which had taken more out of him than usual, “getting into a sneeze war with your nose is like bringing three sticks and a baseball bat to the Crimeahhhh… Crimeaaaaahhhh… Crimean... aayyYAH-SHEWWWESSH!” Yet another draining sneeze burst from Adam’s nose, this time with some considerable spray. “Yeesshhh,” Adam said, “that would would’ve drenched a tissue almost as bad as you would! I’m turning into a fire hose sneezer like y… you… you… Ah-CHOOeeeyyy!” Adam let out yet another sneeze, although this one was comparatively light, more in keeping with Adam’s usual sub-volcanic sneeze level.

Thus far, he’d been able to avoid it, having long since learned that if he was to ever do anything except sneeze, he’d have to suppress his sympathetic sneezing reaction. But ever since he’d been a teen, Richie’s nose had been envious of anyone who let out too many sneezes around him, and desired to experience such enormous relief as came with his hurricane-strength achooeys. Thus, he felt a slight tickle brewing when Adam had released his fourth sneeze, and when he heard Adam hitching up to a fifth—“ahhh… ahh… am… ah… am I ever gonaaaahhhh stahhh… stahhh… stop… ahhh…”—he feared his nose too, would begin to go into sneezy paroxysms.

“Adam, man, ah… ah… can you get a hold on those sneezes… my n-nose is starting to tickle too… hoohhhh… ohhhh…”

Richie struggled to get a grip on the still relatively slight tickle that had invaded his nose, as Adam did his best to hold back his sneezy nose from the delightfully relieving fifth sneeze that he knew was on its way. “ahhhh… ahhhh… I-I dunno… ohhhh ahhh… hah… It ruhhhh… ruhhhheaalllly tickles. Ahhhhh… AHHHH… AYYY-CHEOOOSHH!” He let out another sneeze, the strongest, wettest, and most forceful of the bunch, although not spectacularly loud.

But anyone waiting for a noisy nose would have little time to wait. Adam’s fifth and final sneeze had sent Richie’s sympathetic tickles into overdrive, and with almost no buildup, he reared his head back, nostrils flaring wildly like a bucking horse, and bellowed out an enormous, “CCHHHHEEEOOOOOOOO!” Followed by two more, slightly less loud but torrentially wet, “PLESSHEWEY! IT-CHEWWW!” Each sneeze was a spectacularly loud, messy affair, though they were commensurate to Richie’s normal sneeze volume, which, of course, approached the ear-splitting at close ranges. It was more than enough, Richie realized sheepishly, to sound throughout the entire dorm room floor, and maybe the floors above and below. He remembered to make a mental note to avoid staying up late nights—a late night tickle could easily turn peaceful dorm-mates into irate potential tormentors, irritated by being woken by Richie’s cannon-like sneeze. He realized, too, that he might’ve shaken people from any number of midday naps.

When Richie’s series of explosions were done, an affair which sent Richie’s body completely out of control, rearing back and exploding forward with abandon, his entire body at the mercy of his monstrously powerful lungs, mouth, and most of all, nose, Adam couldn’t resist making a quip. “See why I don’t want to get in a sneezing fight with you?”

“Yeah, I know. I hate those sympathetic tickles. Gotta keep that under control,” Richie said, as much to chide his nose as anything else.

“Under control? Your nose? That’s like keeping a bull in a china shop from disturbing a single piece of porcelain. Really wish I could find out why I was sneezin’ though. Those were pretty big for me, though for you it’d be like taking an earthshaking thunderstorm and replacing it with a light, pleasant summer rain…” Adam laughed, but paused when his joking was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” Richie shouted, fearing that it was an irate neightbor, awoken from a nap. This had been one of his many fears about college; each of his older brothers had brought home several stories of how they had woken up between one and several fellow dorm-mates, roommates and apartment neighbors (not that the Robbins boys needed to be in the same building with a person to make themselves known by their noses; the family’s suburban neighbors had revealed on several occasions that someone, usually Richie, had been audible through the windows). Tristan, the oldest, who had, after Richie, the second most Vesuvial nose in the family, once told the story of how he had woken up, very literally, his entire dorm with a series of cold-inspired sneezes, and how only the awesomely pathetic sight of his sickly state, ensconced as he was in blankets and almost covered in used tissues and hankies, had prevented him from receiving one of his dormmates infamously cruel practical jokes.

Richie hoped to avoid such a situation, and so it was with apprehension (and desperate attempts to remember his self-defense classes) that he opened the door.

“Hey, dude!” Said the surprisingly pleasant and excited looking young man at the door, “was that a sneeze, or did somebody set of a nuke in the room next to mine?”

Relieved as Richie was by the friendliness of the visitor, Adam slightly sluggishly slid out of bed, laughing as he did, “That’s my man here, Richie, the Nose extraordinaire, the loudest sneeze in the west, superman of sneezes, the titan of ticklish nostrils, Sir Vesuvius himself, the leaf-blower…”

“Richard, just Richard is my name.” Richie cut in, eager to cut Adam off before he got to the detested “Johnnie Tsunami” epithet.

“Well, Richard-just-Richard, I had to come over here to see if that nose actually just came out of a person!”

“Sorry, I can’t help it…” Richie said, suddenly blushing slightly, “I hope I didn’t wake you or anything…”

“Nah. I wasn’t doing anything. But really, you just sneezed that loud? You got some kinda supernose or somethin’?”

“Well, it’s not exactly thin, as you can see,” Adam began, with a professorial air, “and the protruding shape and large nostrils provide some explanation as to its loud-speaker like qualities…”

“It’s just been that way since I was a kid,” sighed Richie, mildly put off by the awkward conversation.

“Dude, I haven’t heard a sneeze that loud since, like, ever, probably. Although my dad sets off some real firecrackers back at home… I didn’t think I’d hear anything like that for another few months. Kinda reminds me of home, actually.”

“Well, anytime you get homesick, just give us a ring and bring the pepper, though you might wanna bring some earplugs actually…”

“Adam. Geez, do you ever run out,” Richie inquired, with an irritated air.

“Not really.” Adam replied straightforwardly, "I'm a joke machine. And a love machine. Just FYI, let the ladies know..."

“Well,” the visitor declared, “Adam, Richie, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Jerry.” He stuck his hand out, and Richie shook it forcefully, though he found his grasp met with a vice shaking like a centrifuge.

“Nice to meet you, too.” Richie said, wincing slightly from the handshake.

“Hey, dude, we’re headed to lunch soon, wanna come?”Adam asked cheerfully.

“Yeah, totally. I was actually kinda hoping to avoid eating lunch alone,” Jerry confessed, “though I don’t know how you get through lunch, dude. Better warn ‘em: hide the pepper!”

That’s a joke I haven’t heard before Richie thought to himself. But, though not original in his jokes, this new acquaintance wasn’t half-bad, and was certainly an improvement upont the angry neighbor Richie’d feared he’d encounter. And speaking of curing homesickness…

“Are you wearing co-cologne… cologne… ehhhhh… ehhhhhhh… EHHHHHSSSSHOOOO!” Richie erupted another characteristically noisy sneeze, which, at unusually close range, prompted both Jerry and Adam to dramatically cover their ears to avoid the full blast of Richie’s nasal explosion, which was easily a nine on the Richter scale, probably a ten.

“Geez, man, I thought they were loud through the wall!” Jerry said, awestruck.

“Richie’s nose? Man, you haven’t seen anything yet. He’ll blow the paint off the walls before we graduate,” Adam joked, yet again.

“I think I might go ahead and take a shower,” Jerry responded, “I’ll meet you guys in about thirty minutes, alright?”

“Sounds great!” Adam said.

Richie would’ve replied, but Jerry’s cologne hadn’t yet finished with Richie’s surpassingly tickly and tickle-able nose. “hahhhh… HAHHHHH…HEHSHOOOH!” Richie erupted again, thanking his lucky nasal stars that his nose had seen fit, for once, to not let out a great big wet one while he was right in someone’s face. He opened his mouth to say, “nice to meet you,” but what came out was another, “TITCHEWWWEY! SHEWWWWWSH!” It was hugely, horribly wet, and in his zeal to avoid blasting his new compatiot, he had turned and, inadvertently, sprayed a great, big wet one into the face of his good friend Adam.

“Well… um… are you trying to tell me you don’t like my jokes, buddy?”

Now, getting sprayed by a sneeze was usually a messy affair, but getting sprayed by a Richie sneeze was pitched somewhere between “elephant sneeze” and “sprayed by a fire hose”. Adam was drenched, and Richie found himself reflecting yet again as to why he never, never attempted to use a pathetic tissue to hold up against the surpassing force of his all-powerful nasal eruptions, the tickly twin cannons of wind, wet, and sound that had taken up residence on his face, began full-strength operations in high school, and seemed to grow in power alone as their experience increased.

“Well, I think I’ll be taking a shower too.” Adam said, before promptly turning around, grabbing a towel and some clothes, and rushing to the bathroom, letting out an irrepressable, high-pitched, and surpassingly effete “EWWWWWW!” which sent Richie and Jerry into shaking convulsions of laughter.

—

After cleaning himself off from Richie’s hurricane-force discharge, Adam proceeded to the downstairs dining hall to meet both Richie and their new friend Jerry. Of course, he heard Richie before he saw him. “heh… heh… HAT-CHOOO!” It was a comparatively small one for his good friend Rich, but the noise still carried well out of the dining room and into the hallway. Adam often kidded Richie about his sneezes, but half the time he genuinely felt bad for the guy. After all, those massive eruptions that had punctuated almost his entire high school experience weren’t just occasional explosions, they were daily at the very least. Any number of things lit Richie’s sneezing fuse, setting off a chain reaction inside Richie’s nose that led inexorably to a blast of such volume and violence that people often inquired of Richie how such a loud noise could come out of a 45-year old 6’ 10’ two-hundred-thirty-pound ex-logger construction worker with a bad head cold, much less little old Richie Robbins. Every time he sneezed with people around, Richie would blush, shrug, and, Adam knew, mentally wish himself out of the room. It wasn’t easy having a semi-superpower—not that it’d do any good in a fight, Adam mused—for a sneeze. But it was life for poor Richie, and that was simply that.

For Adam’s part, he’d never been particularly bothered by his best friend’s outrageous a-choos. Maybe he just had ears of steel, but the volume didn’t bother him, and it did provide a decent shake-up during lulls in conversation. Heck, he’d been a regular vistor to the Robbins household, and that was an experience unto itself. Multiplying Richie’s sneezes with a father, three older brothers, and one younger made a ruckus that just didn’t make sense. If anyone needed proof that sneezes were hereditary, well, Adam knew where to bring them. He’d heard the same story from all six Richie men: it’s the tickles. The tickles, itches, tingles, and twinges that invaded the Robbins family sinuses were purportedly unbearable, like a thousand invisible brushes sweeping all the way up the nasal cavity. And the only way to get those brushes (temporarily) out was to let out a blast that could be heard across three counties (or at least a small suburban house… and a few of the adjacent ones.) Their sneezes came from their toes and then some. But the big sneezes were just the only way that they could relieve the incredible pressure and the tickle that built up in their large, protruding nostrils, swishing around their noses with an unimaginable irritation. The ones with long build-ups were the worst. He’d seen Tristan and Adrian, Sebastian and Max, even Mr. Robbins, staring up at lights, forcefully fanning under their noses, doing anything to tip the tickle out of the gate and onto the flight ramp, at which point a sneeze would shoot out from their nostrils of which any elephant would have been proud.

It was thoughts like this that preoccupied Adam as he sat down with Richie and Jerry, who were discussing the finer points of eruption-inspiring allergens.

“For my dad, is the dogs that are the worst, man, get him within ten feet of a dog, especially one of those great big shaggy things, and oh man… it’s time to break out the protective earmuffs, I’m tellin’ you…”

“Yeah, dogs get me bad too, but the cats… oh… waay… wait a second… I’b gonnahhhh… ahhh… HASHOOOEY!” Richie gasped out a “’nother… nothaaahhh” before bursting into a second tectonic shift of a sneeze, “YASSSHOOOOOO! Oh, I’m so sorry, that was a big one.”

“They’re always big ones, Rich!” Adam said as he sat down.

“Can’t argue with you there.” Richie sighed. While he often wished he could just get rid of his charateristic sneez-plosions, Richter rockers, or Richie Roars, as his nasal expulsions were variously called, Richie was grateful for friends that weren’t repulsed, shocked, or amazed by his sneezes, and he felt much less self-conscious about lettin’ it rip when Adam, or, as of today, Jerry, was around. Not that he had much (or any) choice.

“So, you two comparing notes?” asked Adam.

“Yeah,” Jerry said, “so far, we’ve mentioned flowers, pepper, animals…”

“Actually, most spices get me, red pepper worst of all.” Richie began, “In fact, the reason I sat down at this table is because it doesn’t even have a red pepper shaker, thank goodness. But I’ve blown back the fur and feathers on just about any pet you can imagine…”

They continued on talking like this, unaware that at the table just behind them, the very jock that had filled the standard role of Richie’s sneeze tormentor was subtly listening in on their conversation. Ashton Stevens was his name, and he, like Jerry, had also had a big sneezer at home. But he didn’t have such generous memories of his parents’ noisy noses. In fact, he had been driven nearly insane by his mother and father’s constant loud sneezes, which, unlike Richie’s, seemed put-on, fake, as if they both just wanted to announce to the world how noisily they could sneeze. The crowning moment had been that day, the day of senior prom… but Ashton tried not to think about it. For his part, he had rather dainty sneezes, somewhat at odds with his large and muscular build. He, of course, had never been plagued with allergies on the level of Richie’s, but he had gone through an allergic phase as a teen. During that time he constantly focused on controlling his sneezes, squelching them down until they were little more than a semi-audible, “chuh”. Richie’s gargantuan gale winds had brought him right back to that moment at the senior prom, and he secretly seethed inside every time Richie’s nose went out of control and spasmed with a silence-smashing sneeze. But he was formulating a plan, in the back of his mind, that would shame Richie into shutting up, as his parents never would.

Meanwhile, as Ashton Stevens seethed, Richie (predictably) sneezed. “yeaaaahhhh, ahhhh… aaaaahpppppSHEWWW! Uh, another one. I don’t know what’s making my nose so itchy!” The sneeze, honestly, had been the lightest one he’d let out in a while, only audible above speaking voices at the end, indicating a comparatively low-level irritation. Probably a stray flake of black pepper. While he reacted to pepper as much as anybody else, Richie had never had nearly as much of a problem with pepper as he did with dander, other spices, and the dreaded perfume and cologne.

“So,” Adam inquired, “what are you boys up to this evening. It’s Friday night, and ah… ah… HAT! CHOO!” Adam let out a neatly segregated sneeze, a firmly punctuated breath drawn in followed by a neat and tidy choo, which, although somewhat wet, was not extremely loud, as per the normal pattern of Adam’s sneeze. “Woah, I don’t know why I keep sneezing.”

“Yeah, come to think of it, neither do I,” Richie added, “do you think you’re allergic to something up here?”

“Nah, I’m as hardy as a bull, allergens can’t get me down. Try as they might, they cannot invade the fortress of my mighty nasal guard. Granted, they don’t have as big of a target on mehh… on mehhhh… me… as…. BAA-shewww!” Adam sneezed again, with a sound that sounded utterly fed-up with sneezing.

“Any chance you might be getting a cold?” Jerry inquired. Adam and Richie exchanged anxious looks. Each knew what the other was thinking: if Richie caught a cold, his sneezes, seemingly impossibly, would grow significantly in strength, volume, and mess.

“No,” Adam said, attempting to laugh away the possibility, “No way! The last time I had a cold was…”

“The camping trip in eleventh grade. And I promptly caught it and nearly blew down our tent on several different occasions.” Richie finished for him, “And I hope it’s not happening now,” he moaned, “because if you get sick, then I’ll get sick, and if I get sick…”

“Don’t worry, Rich!” Adam insisted, “I’m not getting sick! But so you don’t worry, I guess I’ll take some vitamins, and call it an early night, I guess…”

“No way, man!” Jerry interrupted, “we’ve barely been in college for a week. We’re goin’ out tonight. We’re going somewhere, and if you don’t like it, mister, too bad!”

Adam laughed. “Well, can’t argue with a command like that, sir. Where do we go?”

“There’s a nice bar nearby,” Richie offered.

“No, no, no, I mean a real club: loud music, sloppy drunks, and scantily-clad women.” Of course, at the mention of women, all three hormone-addled brains perked up instantly, and any reluctance at club-going was instantly erased.

And, Adam saw another perk:

“Plus, the club’s so loud, Richie, that it’s probably one of the few places on earth where your sneezes can’t carry. You know, places like construction sites… death metal concerts… one of my sister’s shouting—I mean singing recitals…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But that’s actually a good point, and the sneezes have actually been comparatively light...” but suddenly Richie’s eyes got a distant, faraway look. His nose scrunched up, and the itch exploded in his nostrils like a thousand buzzing tiny, invisible flies, sending his nostrils into a rampage of twitching, his upper lip, his entire face swishing and moving with the enormous need to sneeze that had burgeoned so suddenly in his nostrils. This was gearing up to be a real monster; his breath hitched, “hahhhh… hahhhh…,” his eyes bulged. He reached his hand up to try to scrub away the itch, although he knew it was useless. This was shaping up to be the biggest sneeze that had hit him all day… “hih! hih! ah! ah! ah! ooooh, it won’t come ou… outahhhh… ahhhhhh… ahahhhh… ahahhah…” the sneeze stuck for a moment, leaving Richie’s face in a mask of sneezy agony, the corners of his mouth turned firmly down, his eyes tearing and glancing upwards, searching for a light bright enough to send his brewing eruption into its final stages of detonation, his eyebrows severely arched. His watering eyes rapidly blinked for what seemed an eternity, before he gave his nose one more good sniff and gave in to the inevitable detonation: “hhhhaaAAA-AARRSCHOOOhhh! HAAA-HOOOOOSH-SHOOOOEY! Ahhh… igghiee… hah…" He hitched for just a few seconds before absolutely roaring out the thermonuclear explosion of his final sneeze: "RAAH-SCHOOOOOOOOHH!”

“Woah.” Said Adam and Jerry simultaneously.

The sneeze was so big, it left Richie panting a little after. It wasn’t just the biggest sneeze all day, it was the biggest set of sneezes he’d had in a month! Richie had rocked back and forth with each colossal sneeze, giving his tickly nose complete abandon. The sneezes took him over, and each was a nearly-shouted affair that was louder than most people can shout. Those sneezes seemed to come from his whole body, his nose being merely the epicenter of the eruption. He was completely out-of-control for each massive gusting sneeze, his whole frame shaking and swaying at the mercy of his king-sized schnoz and the unbearable itch that had taken three of Richie’s most powerful sneezes to expel. When he opened his eyes afterward, he was half-afraid that he’d blown the table away!

Adam and Jerry, prepared by experience, had covered their ears, but the rest of the dining hall… well, being unprepared, some had dropped forks, plates, and cups, most had stopped their conversations, and quite a few shocked “what was that?”s sounded around the room. Those had been big even for Richie, far too loud, in fact, for anyone to hear the near-simultaneous soft, tickly “chuhh! ch-hoooh! chuhh! ka-chuuhhh!” that had come from the next table over, soft barely-there puffs of air in comparison to Richie’s Kansas twister sized sneezes, which he swore would have been big enough to send Dorothy not only to Oz, but to the other said of Mars.

“Dude,” Adam said, as the dining room slowly went back to normal, after being rocked by Richie’s “You totally shouldn’t have jinxed it.”

“Ha-ha,” Richie said, not feeling exceptionally prepared for laughing after single handedly—or rather, single-nosedly”—overpowering an entire dining room full of noisy college students in volume. “Let’s just get out of here as quickly as possible. I don’t want another one of those to happen… and I think… there might still be the beginnings of a… ah…” Richie quickly clamped his hands over his nose, hoping that he might fight the tiny residual tickle back before it became another of room-rocker, or at least get outside into the open air to release the beast.

Adam, Richie, and Jerry hurried surreptitiously out of the dining room. At the table behind them, sat Ashton Stevens, face upturned, irritated tears forming in his eyes, but a smug smile on his face, nose twitching and jerking with otherwise imperceptible “chooh! chuh! ha-hushh!” sneezes, with a plate of spaghetti practically drenched in red pepper. His little “experiment” confirmed, he threw the plate away, which promptly cleared up his sneezes, and walked calmly out of the dining hall, but not before slyly sliding the red pepper shaker into his waiting pocket.

Richie had, of course, erupted again outside, although once out of the range of the red pepper flakes that were like gunpowder for Richie’s cannon-like nostrils, the sneezes hadn’t registered quite so high on the Richter Scale (“a minor aftershock!” Adam had quipped). But sneezes that huge left Richie concerned; could he be catching a cold? That would be disastrous. Besides feeling bad, he could hardly go to class, detonating another sneeze every few minutes, sneezes that would rock a three hundred person lecture hall and perhaps even send his papers flying down to the row below, sneezes that would throw even the most concentrated lecturer off of his or her game, sneezes that, in a smaller classroom, would probably disturb not only his own class, but all the classes on the floor! Of course, he’d had mega-sneezes like that before, and it didn’t always mean he was catching a cold, but if he was… well, he’d just take a lot of vitamin C that night. But going to bed early wasn’t an option. Richie, Jerry and Adam were going to a nearby club, Club Z, for a night on the town. After running back upstairs to change (again), the threesome left their dorm and headed towards Club Z, chatting all the while.

“So, Rich, how are classes going?” Adam asked, to get the conversation started.

“Oh, pretty good, when I’m not busy sneezing through them. Sebastian warned me that his sneezes tend to disrupt standard professorial activities, so I knew mine would probably blow out a few eardrums. Not that I’m not used to that sort of thing.”

“How about you, Jerry?”

“Oh, things are going well for me too. Chemistry is kicking my butt, but besides that I’m doing pretty well. That class is so boring! I almost wish that someone would come in there with a great big Richie-cane kinda sneeze. At least that way things wouldn’t be quite as boring!”

“Oh, you would have loved our high school then,” Adam cut in, “Almost every time I fell asleep in class, Richie’s nose would get an itch and once the nasal volcano got going, sleeping was not an option.”

“Whatever, Adam,” Richie said, blushing slightly at the extended discussion of his nasal… ahem, prowess, even among friends, “I didn’t even have a half of my classes with you.”

“Exactly.” Adam replied, smiling. *** Soon, Richie and company arrived at the club. However, they were still several feet away when the perfume started getting to Richie’s nose: “ah…. ahhhh… agghhha… igghhiiie… AAAA-CHOOOOH! heh… heh… AHHH-CHOOOOOH!” he sneezed, blasting out the tickly perfume smell as hard as he could. When Richie sneezed, his whole body was involved; in fact, Adam was surprised that Richie didn’t have a six-pack from all the forceful contractions of his stomach and chest as he roared out all that sneezy air at obscene velocities, and decibel levels.

“Bless ya, buddy. Are there some flowers around,” inquired Jerry.

“Na… no, nahhh.. ahhhhh WAAAAAASSSHOOOO! ARRRR-CHOOAAAYYYY!” Richie screamed out each sneeze. While not as loud as the true Richie-canes of the dining hall, these sneezes produced more than enough volume to echo loudly off of the nearby buildings and turn quite a few heads. Richie was quite afraid that an irate head would poke out of one of the windows of the high-rise apartment buildings on the street to demand that he achieve the impossible feat of quieting down his great lion’s roar of a sneeze. He’d been asked by more than one teacher (and moviegoer, and theater patron, and restaurant waiter, and even, on one notorious occasion, a few patrons at just the sort of rock concerts that Adam had supposed would be loud enough to drown out Richie’s roars, but then again, not only were all the people there drenched in cologne and perfume, but Richie had left from a friend’s house who had a very furry german shepherd, and Richie had the beginnings of a cold) to control his thunderclap sneezes, but, like the thunder, Richie’s sneezes were a force of nature, and could not be quieted down or controlled any better than the wind.

Hoping he’d gotten his nose under control with that last massive sneeze, Richie ventured to speak, “No… it’s the perfume... oh, wait… ‘nothing one’s cahhhh…. coming…. RAAAAASSSSHOOOOOH! YASSSSSSHHHHHHHH-OOO!” Richie sniffed loudly, as two girls, one of who was probably wearing the sneeze-causing perfume, looked around. The girl wearing the perfume, alright slightly tipsy, half-spoke, half-shouted, “Ugh, I can’t stand it when people exaggerate their sneezes like that! Can’t he control it? That’s just too loud!”

Aside from the irony of the woman commenting on Richie’s loud sneezes with her loud voice (although Richie had to admit that even a trained opera singer would have difficulty keeping up with him in volume when he really got going), Adam was offended by her comments about his friend, and was about to walk up and give the perfume drenched woman a piece of his mind when her friend abruptly did it for him!

“Oh, Charlene, be quiet! They can hear you. Besides, how can you expect a poor kid to control his sneezes when you can’t even control your big mouth!” Adam had to admit that he was impressed, and as Charlene and her assertive friend got in line for the same club as Adam, Richie, and Jerry, Adam made a mental note to “bump into” her at some point that night. Maybe Richie’s wind-machine strength allergies would flare up again and give him an excuse to talk to her?

Meanwhile, Ashton wasn’t far behind the trio, cringing at each of Richie’s elephantine sneezes. He thought to himself, “This is ridiculous! He sneezes even louder than my father! How embarrassing! I don’t even know how those other goons can stand to be seen around him. I’ll teach him not to be so disgusting with his sneezes.” As the perfume got to his nose, Ashton harshly muffled three sneezes by pinching his nostils, “shhhmp! chikkk! ch!” They were barely audible. Ashton fingered the red pepper in his pocket as he watched Richie and company walk into the club. He bided his time for a few minutes, and then, after walking around the block a bit, went in as well.

—-

As soon as the threesome entered the club, Ritchie rushed off to the restroom, hoping to give his nose a good, strong blow to clear his nose of perfume and pollen, so as to head off the sneezes at the pass. But by the time he reached the restroom door, his twitching, tickling nose had had too much, and, bleary-eyed, Richie let it take over for six full-strength sneezes: “HAASSSSSHHHHHOOOooooo… hh… hhhiiiiiIIIIIIIIICHOOOOOOO! Ih-CHOOO! haaahHH-CHOOOOOO! ahhhhhHHH-CHOOOO! HAHH-CHOOOOOOOhhhhheyyy” That last one was a monster, making a gutteral, throat-scraping sound as the normal “choo” was twisted by Richie’s awe-inspiring lung power into a growling, snarling shout of a sneeze, leaving Richie somewhat lightheaded and dizzy. And of course, he immediately connected the number of sneezes (Richie rarely let out so many all in a row like that) to the head cold he was desperately afraid was brewing in his firecracker nostrils, those wide, vacuum-like tunnels where tickles went in, and sneezes came out that were second only to the Big Bad Wolf with a bad cold.

And speaking of colds, Richie was terrified of developing one. Every cold he’d ever had had settled directly in his nose, causing a near-constant tickle that he could only blow out with his biggest, most ear-drum busting, dorm-wall rattling, earthquake-causing sneezes. Even Richie’s biggest sneezes could only provide momentary relief from the tickle; minutes later, the tickle would come back with a vengence, and so would the sneezes, until Richie would deliberately blow them out as hard as he could, just to get the tickle to stop for a few minutes. Richie’s colds were events in the Robbins household (and every house on the surrounding block); he hoped and prayed they wouldn’t become events on-campus too.

Looking around the restroom and finding it (thank goodness) empty, Richie marched to a stall to give his nose a few of his patented, honking nose blows. While not quite commensurate to his sneezes in volume, those bass-note honks of his could certainly send a rumble through any room, and Richie was glad that the room remained empty as he did his best to keep his nose free and clear, so as to minimize sneezing episodes.

Meanwhile, Adam and Jerry were on the prowl, and getting shut down all the time. Jerry had offered to buy drinks for no less than three women, with no success, while Adam’s jokes were falling unusually flat, perhaps owing to the volume of the music and the near-impossibility of hearing anything (except perhaps for Richie) over the thumping bass and wailing noise of the speakers.

So it was that Adam and Jerry had given up and begun dancing their way into the morass of people at the center of the club, when Richie went searching for them. Of course, hidden as they were in the mass of people, Richie had no hope of finding either of his friends, and sat down at the bar, quickly flashing his (fake) ID, and ordered a beer. He figured he’d wait until he found Adam and Jerry to start dancing, and he was sure that his nose would give him ample opportunity before then to test Adam’s theory that the noise of the club would muffle the rumbling explosions of his nose.

In fact, as the bartender slid Richie his beer, Richie felt his nose flaring into life. His breath hitched, his face contorted, his nostrils assuming control of his face, twisting this way and that as though they had a life of their own, reacting to the bucking bronco of itch that had, as always, brushed ferociously against the twitching walls of his sensitive nostrils. And as Richie’s face contorted, his watering eyes slid closed in preparation of the great big sneeze to come…

…and Ashton Stevens saw his chance. He’d been sitting at the bar, plotting how he could cause misery for Richie at the club. Luckily, he’d been at the bar while Richie had erupted in the restroom (especially since the only thing Ashton found more disgusting than sneezes was nose blowing), but now he was sitting not too far from Richie, and had been spying on him out of the corner of his eye since Richie had sat down. Now was his chance. He slid the small shaker of red pepper out of his pocket and sent a cloud floating up into the air, knowing that the strong air conditioning in the room, as well as the breeze from the constantly opening front door, would waft the tickly spice straight into Richie’s all-too-combustible nose.

And he was right. Seconds later, Richie froze, as he felt the tickle in his nose multiply exponentially. The itch in his nose, already monstrous, became a thousand buzzing flies, scurrying through his nasal passages, wreaking havoc on his sensitive sinuses, creating such tremendous pressure in his nose that he knew that the only way to get any relief would be to blast out a sneeze at full-strength. He felt it gearing up to be as big as the one in the dining hall, if not bigger. Out of his watery eyes, he took a quick glance around him: there was no way he’d get to the restroom before his Vesuvial nose gave an eruption that would put Mt. St. Helens to shame, and the way his nose was feeling, it’d be wet enough to outshine Old Faithful. But there were so many people around. Richie had been warned about it time and time again, and he knew he shouldn’t… but he didn’t want to spray any strangers! So… he stifled.

“ahh…. Ahhhhhh… AHHHHHHHHH… AGGGHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAA…” He wound up, with huge, powerful breaths, and then… “chhhmmppppppppppp!” He sneezed, somewhat wetly, but contained, and with nowhere near enough volume to be heard over the noise of the club. Stifling successful.

But his nose was on fire. It was as if he had quadrupled the already unimaginable tickle. If he was going to fire off one eruption before, now he was preparing for a twenty-one-gun salute. Finger struck firmly beneath his nose, Richie rushed to the restroom as fast as he could, pushing past the clubgoers in the crowded club, afraid to give so much as an “excuse me” for fear that speaking would tip the sneeze into the uncontrollable zone. Richie forcefully pushed the door open as he marched into the restroom, which was, of course, filled with people. In the already small, echoing restroom, Richie’s sneezes would probably reach ear-splitting volumes and annoy, if not terrify, every patron in the restroom. But it wasn’t as if he had any choice; he had to let the monsters loose.

Richie quickly swung a stall door open and closed as his breaths became audible, and grew louder, and louder… “iiihhhhhh… HHHHHiiiiIIIHHHHHH… HAHHHHHH… HAHHHHHHH…. HHAAAAHHHHHHHHH…HAAAAAAAAAAAAA-SHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BAAACCCHOOOOOEEYYYY! HASSSHHH! HAHHSSHHHHuuhh… OOOO-SHOOOOOOOH! USSSSHHHHHH-CHHAAAHHH! Ahhhhh… Ahhhh… ahhhhh…CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

They came, sneeze after sneeze after sneeze, outrageous in volume, hurricane like in spray. Richie heedlessly swung backwards and forwards, gulping in air to fuel each massive explosion. He knew now why his parents had warned him to never, never hold in his sneezes, because this was the result: a constantly seizing nose in a fit that would last for minutes.

The reaction of the men in the restroom, as expected had been vocal and noisy. The already somewhat drunken patrons had no trouble voicing their disapproval: “What the hell?! Did somebody drop a bomb in here? Shuddup in there, I can’t hear myself think!”

But Richie, whatever he wished, he no ability to shut up. His nose was in control now, and it was going to blow, and blow, and blow until the pent-up tickle was blasted out, full-strength.

“Hehhhh… ehhhhhh… EEHHHHH-SHOOOOOH! EH-SHOOOH! Eghhhhaaaa… haaaa… haaa… YAAAAAAA-SHHHEEEEEWWWWWWWW! SHIISSSHHHHH! ISSHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH-SHOOOH! AHHHHHHHH-SCHOOOO! AH-SHOOOOH!”

The sneezes just kept coming, unbelievably loud, unbelievably powerful. This was one of the longest fits Richie could remember (though probably not the worst he’d experienced). Gradually, the sneezes grew farther apart: “haahhhh.. hahhhh.. HA-SHOOO! Ahhhhh… HA-SHUU! iiSHHHIIII-OO!”

Each sneeze, though still loud enough to echo through the restroom, was at a more manageable volume. Still, Richie was exausted from firing off sneeze after sneeze, and as his nose finally let out its final “heh… heh-chhh-EW!” Richie just wanted a nice long nap. He sat in the stall for a moment to survey the damage. He had been right about the spray; he could see the glistening drops decorating the entire stall door as though it had been hit with a hose. He still heard the men grumbling and muttering about his sneezes, and he was sure that those who were in the restroom (and probably those near the door) would spread the word to their friends about Richie’s incredible eruption. Sometimes, Richie just wished that his nasal curse could just go away. Why was his family cursed with the world’s most massive sneezes? Why was his nose the epicenter of such eruptions? But, as he sniffed gently, preparing for a nose blow to clear the last bits of congestion in his nose, he was glad for one thing: the tickle was completely gone.

Meanwhile, Ashton had been standing near the door, and had heard Richie firing off sneeze after sneeze after sneeze. He was red with rage; that fit had been exactly like the one his dad had blasted out at Ashton’s senior prom, in the middle of Ashton’s prom king acceptance… all over the prom queen. She dumped Ashton within the week.

Turning violently on his heel, Ashton marched out of the club, certain that he had a new secret weapon to use against Richie: if he could get him to clam up those sneezes, just once, then he knew Richie would fire off a show of sneezes so loud that Ashton could use it to embarrass Richie in front of anyone within earshot; in other words, Ashton grimly laughed to himself, anyone within a five-mile radius.

—-

Ashton, however, had not been the only person close enough to the restroom to hear those gale-force blasts trumpeting out from Richie's nostrils of fury. In fact, just as Richie was beginning to launch into a fit for the ages, Jerry had decided he ought to slip off to the restroom; no need to "break the seal" yet, but Jerry had anticipated he was in for a fairly long night, partying with his newfound friends, and--hopefully--with a few more newfound "friends" from among the club's very attractive female population, and as such wanted to make sure that his tiny bladder would not interfere with his very large-sized dreams---oh, alright, fantasies---of what would go on that night.

But Jerry was pretty far from the door when he heard that tell-tale eruption coming from the men's room. He quickly stuck his head into the restroom and knew immediately the source of the disturbance. He would scarcely have believed that even Richie could sneeze so forcefully. He was putting up a good fight with the music in the club, and that was deafening as it was. Heck, at close range, Richie's nose could have outdone a shotgun, a leafblower, a small nuclear explosion... but in the midst of these musing, Jerry noticed Ashton. Unlike everyone else in the restroom (and nearby), who were scrambling to get away from the noise, Ashton seemed transfixed. He was just standing by the restroom door, not going in, didn't seem to be coming out, and he had the most peculiar, almost devious expression on his face. Of course, Jerry knew Ashton somewhat---Ashton was touted as one of the most talented football players of the freshman class, and at their D1 school, that meant a lot. But this threw Ashton in a completely different light. Why on earth was he just standing there? And what was that strange look that passed across his face each time Richie bellowed out another monsterous, "HHHHHEEEEEESSSSSSSSCHHHHHOOOOOOOOoooooh!" Jerry was not a suspicious person by nature--and as Richie's twenty-one gun salute went on, he knew he had to check and see if Richie was alright--but he filed that instance away in his mind as yet another strange happening of college life.

The more important thing was to check on Richie. When it finally seemed that Richie's nose had calmed down enough that he'd be able to speak, Jerry ventured forth a, "Hey, man, you alright in there?"

"Jerry?" Richie responded, fearing the worst, "oh, god, don't tell me you could hear me all the way out..."

"No, no, man, I was just heading to the restroom when I heard the big bang from outside the door, don't worry. But what happened there? I didn't think you were ever going to stop!"

"N-neither did... oh, god, h-here ihhhh... here it gooohhhh... ohhhhh... oohhhhhh... ahh... HA-CHOOOOH! Man, thought I was done there," Richie give a liquid sniff, "but the aftershocks just sneak up on me."

"And speakin' of sneakin', there you guys are!" Adam quipped.

"Are you just everywhere?" Richie asked, half-laughingly, half-exasperated. Adam had the strangest habit of popping up everywhere.

"A magician never reveals his secrets, young Richard." Adam gave a sudden gasp before, "Ha-chooOOSH! Huh... hashhhooo! Ugh, must be in the air," Adam said, as he grabbed a tissue from the sink counter to blow his nose. He was a bit of a nasal honker, and his blows were decidedly louder than his generally quiet, gentle sneezes (although, in comparison to a Richie-cane, your average elephant was pretty quiet and gentle), and were much louder when he had a cold---because he didn't have Richie's almighty, head-clearing sneezes, he relied much more on forceful nose-blowing to blast out the itch from his nose, and still had far less success--unsurprisingly--that a full-force sneeze from Richie, even without a cold or that dreaded red pepper.

Richie, however, wasn't so sure that something was "in the air"; the humongous fit he'd just succumbed to made him almost positive: he was catching a cold.

"No, Adam, it's not 'in the air'--we're sick, and I'm going home." Richie declared. Adam was somewhat taken aback at his friend's unusually forceful tone, but he knew that, as always, he could joke his friend out of his resolve.

"Oh, you're not sick---granted, a 300-pound body builder with a bad head cold and a wind machine up his nose probably can’t compare to the ‘ol schozz-cannon you’ve’ got… but those, my friend, were not cold sneezes.”

“How do you know?” Richie demanded.

“I still have hearing in my right ear, obviously.”

#snz story #snz fic #male allergies #male cold #wow I haven't read this in like a decade #I should reread it maybe #old fics

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stupidstubbornbravebitchoftarth · 5 years ago

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Sorry if this is a bit depressing but I just had the most horrible thought & need to vent. We know that GRRM told D&D about some characters’ endings - what if the ending he told them for Jaime was that he and Cersei die together??? And 8x05 was D&Ds Interpretation of that (it was shit and I hated it) but what if it was partly true?? I’m legit panicking rn, I cried for weeks after season 8 finished bc I couldn’t cope I have no idea what I’ll do if Jaime somehow dies with Cersei in the books too..

I know what you feel like and every once in awhile I get depressed about that too. But I am also pretty good at envisioning Brienne and Jaime on Tarth, teaching their little baby girl how to fight with a sword, while the sun sets over dark green meadows and the sapphire blue waters and they are at peace at last – it helps.

Disclaimer my knowledge about the whole GRRM vs. Dumb&Dumber debacle is very superficial – so what I am gonna tell you now is mostly what I can remember having read in other people’s posts lmao.

So for starters I believe having read somewhere that GRRM has been less and less involved in the actual writing process of the show BC he finally started working on the books. Praise God, She is too kind. He actually said he is kind of sorry for it but work e.g books caught up to him and it seemed like he didn’t even like the ending for the show (see the post where people compared his reaction to Marvel’s Endgame vs. The Reaction to his own show – it’s somewhere on my blog but I can’t Tag for shit so yeah just Google it it’s probably faster …. )

So for me that COULD mean that he was less and less contact with the writers and honestly maybe he actually wrote some of what he told D&D but then changed his mind and wrote other endings without telling D&D because a) he felt like it b) it’s his work c) probably thought D&D were fucking incompetent d) it was too late anyway

Also I just think that if he really kills Jaime off, which is always possible but I don’t think is going to happen, it will be way more justified death, a just death not some fucking bricks. Like we know he is looking at Jaime and Brienne as a Beauty and the Beast retelling and Cersei is not of that much importance to him and he literally said that Jaime and Cersei’s relationship disgusts him or something along the lines of that. So I really cannot come up with a lot off GRRM worthy scenarios of Jaime dying with his sister other than maybe he will have to sacrifice his life to take her down or some shit but that is boring … in my opinion. Like I just don’t see a realistic ending that involves both of them dying at the same time for the simple reason that in the books Jaime is way more important than Cersei and I, personally wouldn’t sacrifice such a multifaced character like Jaime for a probably very funny to write but sometimes rather one dimensional alcoholic maniac, powerhungry villainess … like Jaime’s redemption arc is far from complete but Cersei’s plot? Idk I am not that far in the books yet but to me it seems like all signs are pointed towards her demise. Again it’s ASOIAF so GRRM could probably still find a way to redeem her or whatever but I don’t really see the point in it. I always felt like he is writing Jaime and Cersei in a way that, as the story goes on, reveals that they in fact don’t mirror each other but are polar opposites actually pulling away from each other e.g the further Jaime heads towards redemption “the path of light” if you wanna say it like that, the further Cersei heads towards darkness and the only way they are equal can be found in the intensity their characters are involving, showing that House Lannister can be a force of evil and a force of good in equal measure or something going into that direction – it’s just a feeling though.

Also several prophecies and dreams are still unexplained and unresolved as far as I know like why is homeboy dreaming of naked Brienne with a sword in her hand – other than the fact that he is utterly and eternally in love with her

Why are literally all of their dreams revolving around each other

And, this is something I think about at least 435 times a day – D&D are fucking illiterate. While Gwendoline Christie does an amazing, incredible, showstopping, Oscar worty portrayal of everybody’s favorite highborn Ser fucking Brienne of Tarth – D&D’s interpretation of Brienne is …. well the thing you would excpect from two white dudes. They completly left out one part of Brienne which makes her so dear to many – the soft side, the femine side of her, the romantic side. While she is the best fighter in Westeros, that’s not all she is and wants to be. Like tons of better analysts and writers pointed out – People tend to forget that she a) is a HIGHBORN LADY b) had to become a swordswomen to somehow make it in the Patriachy she is living in – which with her being deemed as ugly is even more of hellish nightmare. She didn’t really see another option other than becoming a Knight because everything else would have meant a lifelong endurance of humilation and submission. So at 16 she said, Fuck it, I will FIGHT any man who wants to oppress me for the rest of my life, AND SO SHE DID. Her other option would have been eternal unhappiness and marriage to a man like four times her age. She became who she is because she had to. Unlike Arya who always hated being Lady however, Brienne is in someways way more similar to Sansa – both of them believe in tales of knights in shining amour that save maidens. Like as far as I can remember Brienne doesn’t hate being a Lady – she hates how she is being treated for it, THAT being said I think D&D failed to portray the overwhelming amount of that Brienne, so I am not very convinced that D&D truly interpreted and wrote things in the final episode the way GRRM would have – I mean look at the script lmao.

Also one way Jaime Lannister could potentially DIE is in a not literal way. Like the Death of Jaime Lannister could also be him becoming Jaime of Tarth? “Dying” in the arms of the woman he loves? – When he sleeps with Brienne for the first time on their wedding night or at least for the first time ( I mean having sex pretty much equals marriage in their world and they are both big softies so….) Or him “dying” by doing something extremly heroic therefore complety parting ways with the arrogant, the “evil” character parts of him (obessed with Cersei etc.) , signaling the completion of his redemption arc – like idk he slays a dragon for the lack of a better example so “Kingslayer” dies but “Dragonslayer” lives on. Like I am 90% sure the Kingslayer part of him is going to die and the Oathkeeper lives on.

Also what happens in Beauty and the Beast? The beast dies – or so we think. What if Jaime pulls a Jon and gets murdered and then revived. Honestly we really don’t know how D&D interpreted what GRRM told them.

To sum up

Yeah, Cersei and Jaime could probably end up dying together again and I would probably never know happiness again. Anything is still possible and everybody is entitled to their theories until the books come out and prove all of us wrong anyway. I personally don’t think it is going to happen I am just willing to believe that GRRM is a better writer than D&D and that is not very hard. For one, Cersei is not THAT important, Jaime’s redemption arc is unfinished and several prophecies unexplained. Jaime and Brienne’s arcs are connected and killing one or both of them of would be an extreme huge loss of unique and multifaceted characters as well as potential for the overall history, and also I think hard to pull of. I personally wouldn’t worry that much because yes Jaime could get killed off but if GRRM decided to do that it will make sense. The thing that made me so fucking depressed over Jaimes death is first and foremost the way he left Brienne which book!Jaime would simply not do and even for show Jaime it was soooo fucking out of character that I refuse to believe D&D even watched the other three episodes of Season 8. Like I just refuse to believe that GRRM would even write something like 8x4. Jaime’s death would make me sad because rarely I think you really need to kill a character to tell a good story but at least I know that book!Jaime is going out with a bang not a brick. Also there are not a lot of signs (if any ??) pointing toward Jaime’s death, most signs and prophecies can be interpreted in tons of different ways. Nothing is certain.

If it were upto me he would die in the Epilogue as an old man in the arms of Brienne surrouned by their kids and grandkids. In peace.

So if I were you I would stay out of the theory rabbithole as much as possible. I didn’t join the Jaime Lannister is Alive Clown Club for nothing. Just snuggle up with some snacks and the fluffiest and/or smuttiest Braime fic and have a good time.

Always remember Jaime and Brienne are chilling in the meadows of Tarth, having told the rest of the realm to kindly fuck off unless they are absolutely certain that it will be necessary to call Jaime “ Oathkeeper” of Tarth and a very pregnant Ser Brienne of Tarth to fight whatever creature from the Seven Hells was unleashed onto Westeros now. The only visitors allowed are the Stark Kids. Somewhere in the background Pod is somehow getting chased by a giant dog that stole his sword. The End.

#anon #Braime #that is all i can offer #brienne x jaime #game of thrones

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rckfllrs-blog · 5 years ago

Photo

☁ * ⋆ : aw, look at this photo! it’s ORION ROCKEFELLER with their family! they’re an ARCHITECT, right? this photo must have been before HIS SON WAS BORN, but after HE RENOVATED ROCKEFELLER MANOR. i heard that when they were younger, they used to DRAW/PAINT – i can’t imagine them doing that now! man… i wonder if their family knows they ARE SUFFERING FROM UNDIAGNOSED PTSD. ( c, 18, pst. )

hellllooo everybody! i’m c ( the shawn mendes mascot on the main ) and this is my dorito of a muse, orion rockefeller. i’ve been working him up in my mind ever since we started working on goldstone and i am so freakin’ hyped to be able to finally write him with u all <3 so pls, keep reading for some info about him! ( and buckle up, bc it’s kind of a wild ride! )

tw: death, mentions of ptsd.

orion was born on february 14th, 1979 which makes him an aquarius, and also a valentine’s day baby

he's a GIANT goofball. ever since college, he's always been sort of a social butterfly and a people pleaser

genuinely one of the most caring people on the planet??? as a kid he'd get into fights with bullies who were picking on the smaller kids

has the DEEPEST divide between his private and public life. even his own son is mostly unaware of his childhood/background

he's an architect, and designs buildings/infrastructures for communities and stuff like that. he's won tons of awards for his work and travels a lot for conferences and things like that

his mother passed away during childbirth, so he never got to meet her, but her name was emily rockefeller ( originally adams ) and from what his father told him about her, she was a lovely, kind, but passionate woman and she would’ve loved him fiercely. ( his father also often told orion when he was being particularly stubborn that orion reminded him of emily, and that he has her eyes. )

his father was james “jimmy” rockefeller, a decorated US airforce pilot. he was also a descendant of the rockefeller family ( if you’re not from america/not too versed in american history, the rockefellers are considered the richest family in american history — john d. rockefeller was a stupid wealthy man! )

growing up without a mother was difficult, but he and his father were extremely close, and james made sure that he was close with his mother’s family, especially her sister and her parents. as for his paternal family, he didn’t know much about them growing up, besides the fact that he’s distantly related to america’s first millionaire. he was also pretty close with a lot of his father’s friends from the military and their children as well.

orion had a relatively normal childhood, save for the slight melancholy around mother’s day every year. his father did his best to deter him from any sort of toxic masculinity, and made sure he was getting the best education possible. when his father was away on assignment, he was usually in the care of his mother’s sister. he rarely got into trouble at school except for the occasional fight when he’d stick up for the smaller kids who were getting picked on.

his father was rarely away on assignment, maybe only once or twice, and when he was he usually returned within a few months. in the summer of 1990, he was deployed to iraq to serve in the gulf war, and he promised orion it would be his last deployment.

in february 1991, when orion was about to turn twelve, his aunt picked him up early from school one day, and said they were going to see one of his father’s military friends. orion thought it was odd, but he wasn’t going to complain — what kid doesn’t want to leave school early? when he got there, the home was full of people he didn’t recognize, all with solemn looks on their faces. his aunt had to turn away as they bore the news.

that afternoon, one week before he turned twelve, orion learned that his father had passed away. he was spared the details, but learned later in life that the plane he’d been piloting had been shot down in a freak ambush.

orion doesn’t remember much of the next few years of his life. they were a blur of a young boy learning how to mourn all over again, and trying to grow up at the same time. at first, he was placed with his mother’s sister, but as a traveling artist, she was deemed unfit to care for him. he was then sent to a distant uncle on his father’s side somewhere in rural Iowa who treated him like he wasn’t even there. orion attempted to run away twice, and succeeded on his third try when he made it all the way to chicago. he survived there, somehow, for a few weeks before he was found by a few federal agents — lo and behold, his uncle ( who probably wasn’t even his uncle, but orion doesn’t remember ) refused to take him back. so, orion, at the age of fourteen, was put in the foster care system.

on paper, nobody would’ve wanted him. riddled with the deaths of his parents and a habit of running away, coupled with the fact that he missed the “desirable adoption age” by about thirteen and a half years, most people didn’t even want to try. the ones that did, decided he would be too difficult to handle after they met him and saw the cold isolation in his eyes, and the stubborn set to his jaw.

he was moved from foster family to foster family over the next four years, all over california, and had been re-placed five times by his eighteenth birthday. but all the while, he managed to get through school and save as much money as he could, selling five-minute portraits in downtown LA and getting small gig jobs here and there. by the time he turned eighteen, he was determined to have enough to go to college — or at least move out on his own and finally do something on his own volition for once.

little did he know, someone would come knocking on his foster home’s door asking for him a few days after he turned eighteen. they represented the rockefeller estate, and they wanted to have a chat with him about his father.

james had left him his entire estate. all of it. every penny, everything he’d ever owned, all of his mother’s belongings — and on top of it all, the massive manor passed down through the rockefeller family located just at the edge of goldstone, california. his hometown.

he used some ( a relatively small portion ) of the money to accept his offer at university of california, san diego as an architecture major, and was at the top of his class there all the way up until he graduated as part of the class of 2001.

in his junior year of college, like any other guy, he slept around a bit, and thought nothing of it — up until a girl he’d slept with months ago approached him in the middle of his senior year and told him she was pregnant. she didn’t want to keep it, but it was also too late to terminate the pregnancy, so she was thinking of putting the baby up for adoption. immediately, memories of his entire adolescence flooded back to him, and he begged her not to — instantly, he offered to take full custody of the child, and she could visit whenever she wanted, if she wanted to at all. she agreed, and lo and behold, branwen rockefeller was born. ( he named him branwen after somebody his father had told him about when he was a kid — he doesn’t remember the story, or if he was related to him, but he remembered the name. )

he then went on to pursue a masters in architecture, and his main project was actually renovating the rockefeller manor — obviously, after 22 years of being owned by a bank, and many years before that of no upkeep, it needed some renovation. orion spent his entire MA studies renovating it and actually presented the whole process to receive his masters degree, which he did.

he spent the next few years traveling — with branwen by his side, they’d stay in goldstone for most of the school year, but every chance they’d get to take a vacation, orion would take them somewhere he’d always wanted to go as a kid.

finally, in 2014, when branwen was starting high school, orion figured it would be a good time to completely settle down in goldstone, stop travelling so much and pour his attention into the one thing he’d left unfinished — the manor. it wasn’t unfinished from a construction perspective — it was stunning actually, fully furnished with a gym, a home theater, countless bedrooms, and fully ready to be lived in — but for orion, there was one thing he’d always wanted to do when the timing was right: give kids who felt lost a place to call home. give kids who were like him, back in the day, a place to call home.

so that’s what he did. he spent months gathering the proper licensing and credentials to finally open rockefeller manor to the public. he’s a licensed social worker now, and rockefeller manor offers a place to stay to anybody between the ages of fourteen and twenty one, so long as they display a significant need for help. ( orion often ends up taking the “tougher cases” — the ones with nowhere else to go. and sometimes, kids just show up on their own, nobody to represent them — and who is he to turn them down? )

now, he divides his time between architectural projects for work ( he’s designed countless buildings all over southern california, and is incredibly busy designing new projects all the time ) and taking care of the manor, whether that be the kids that live in it or the building itself.

( as for his secret, he’s experienced symptoms of ptsd ever since his dad passed, but never really knew what it was. it worsened when he began moving around, unable to ever really call one place home, and now that he’s completely boxed away the memories of his adolescence, he’s completely compartmentalized it and honestly made it worse whenever he does get around to thinking about what he’s been through. he’s also never told anybody about his background -- the furthest he’ll go is that his father was an air force pilot, and he grew up in goldstone. he’s always just tried to push through it and ignore it, but when he’s under significant stress or there’s a lot on his plate, he’ll tend to shut down or even spiral into a panic attack. he keeps himself so busy because he can’t be by himself for too long, as his past has drilled into him an innate fear of being alone. during these episodes, he’ll often shut himself in his office with the door locked until it passes, terrified that one of the kids will see him like this — too stubborn to let any of them, especially the ones who look up to him, see him as weak. )

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

obvs, the kids from the rockefeller manor !! he's definitely a parental/paternal figure to them and runs a pretty tight ship to keep everybody in line, but he also knows when it's time to just let them be.

childhood friends?? he lived in goldstone until he was twelve and then disappeared after his father passed until he was in his thirties, essentially. so it would be interesting if there was somebody who knew him as a kid and can see the huge difference in him now (he used to be really irreverent and rambunctious and is now a Certified Gentleman)

his personal assistant !! this one is on the wc page on the main, but he has an assistant that helps him organize his work as an architect. they're probably the closest person to him other than his own son, so maybe they've caught glimpses of his ptsd episodes??

friends!!! he def has a lot of friends around town, he's a pretty familiar face throughout goldstone

perhaps??? a past love interest??? he swore himself off from dating after he had branwen, at least for a while, bc he wanted to focus on being a dad and taking care of the manor, but uh .... love doesn't work like that buddy pal ! hehe

literally anything else i am a heaux for plots

#goldstoneintro #this got ... agregiously long !#i apologize #it's also very sad #am sorry

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startofamoment · 6 years ago

Text

to all the WIPs i’ve loved before

rules: post your favorite parts of 3-5 fics that have been sitting abandoned in your drafts for ages. (for extra shame, throw in when you last worked on each thing.) tag 5 other writers to reflect on their life choices.

a pen pals au of sorts in which jake and amy share a desk and communicate via post-it notes (last edited: december 2017)

Amy is going to murder her deskmate.

The literal trash heap that greeted her last Monday was one thing, the sticky orange soda stain from last month was another thing, but this – this blatant disregard of property and boundaries and the sanctity of office supplies – is the Last Straw.

Spread out across her entire desk is a good fourth of the Post-it notes from the brand new assorted set she got from her brother Tony. They’re all arranged to look like various Star Wars icons, and a few of them are filled in with marker for apparent color correction. It’s horrifying.

Grumbling, she begins taking apart Post-It Yoda, keeping the salvageable pieces in a stack and throwing out the rest. When she’s cleared her entire table, she grabs her favorite pen and a fresh sheet then writes:

Hi, Please refrain from wasting my Post-its in the future. Thank you. - Det. Amy Santiago

She stares at it for a moment and decides, since this is probably the only passive aggressive note she’s going to write her deskmate, she might as well add:

PS: I would appreciate it if you would leave our desk clean at the end of your weekend shifts.

After checking it over once more, she places it in the center of her desk, ready to be read the following Saturday.

a dianetti cake shop au in which rosa owns and runs a store called arlo’s (last edited: june 2017)

Gina takes a moment to look over some of the cakes on display before clearing her throat and leaning over the counter. “’Scuse me, can you help me get a custom cake order started?”

“Sure.” The baker wipes her hands on a dish towel before grabbing a small notebook and pen from one of her pockets. “What’s the occasion?”

“Some old geezer’s leaving our precinct to enjoy retired life, or something like that.”

“Retirement party? Cool. Tell me about this guy.”

“Oh, sweetie, I don’t know or care about him. I’m just here cause my boss told me to order a cake.”

A smirk forms on the baker’s lips. “Ha. Do you wanna just do a standard cake order then? I usually do the custom cakes for more personalized, special events.”

“That’s probably smart. Which one of your standard cakes say: ‘Congrats on being old and rich enough to never work another day in your life, but sorry you’re almost dead’?”

She snickers. “I don’t know about that first part, but how ‘bout an angel food cake as a ‘hope you go to heaven when you die’ sort of thing?”

Gina grins and fishes through her purse for her wallet. “Oh, you should know my expectations on this cake are out of this world high. I’m only here because Yelp told me you’re the Beyonce of baking.” (Actually, she’s here because at least three reviews claimed the baker-slash-owner was “terrifying” and “gorgeous.” – They were right, on both accounts.)

a sequel to i could listen to you all day // the “after ever after” story in which jake and amy navigate their first year together as soulmates (last edited: march 2017)

Jake’s phone buzzed on his desk, breaking him out of his happy daydream. He picked it up and opened a new message from Gina.

“god, quit making heart eyes at the new girl!! your conscience would be v disappointed, kiddo.”

Gina, who had been watching him like a hawk from her desk, expected him to get all flustered and to text or yell back something overly defensive. She raised a single eyebrow when his face instead broke into a goofy grin and he straight up giggled.

Across from him, Amy looked up from her case files. “What’s so funny?”

He shook his head and mumbled something about memes and the internet.

She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips curled up into a smile. After he redirected his attention to his computer screen, her expression morphed into the same openly adoring look he had on his face the entire morning.

And then it all clicked.

If Gina had stopped to think about it, she would have recognized the new disappointment she felt in both herself (for taking this long to put two and two together) and her childhood best friend (for not keeping her in the loop). As she had not stopped to process anything, she instead yelled across the bullpen: “OH MY GOD. JAKE AND AMY ARE SOULMATES!”

All work stopped, and everyone fell silent. For a good minute, all that could be heard was the faint snoring from Captain McGintley’s office.

“Gina,” Rosa half-snarled, half-whispered. “You can’t just say that.”

“Oops, my b. Y’all know I have no conscience now so…” She giggled, winked at the leather-clad detective, and went back to her game of Kwazy Cupcakes.

Jake let out an awkward laugh. “Well, uh, that was -”

Out of nowhere, Charles appeared right in front of their desks. “Is it true, Jakey? Was Amy the voice in your head all this time?”

“I -” He glanced at Amy for help.

She bit her lip and shrugged.

This wasn’t at all how he envisioned making the announcement, but there was no use denying it. Still looking straight at her, his face softened into a smile. “Yeah… We’re soulmates.”

Charles squealed loudly. “You said the S word! Does that mean it’s official?” He gasped. “Have you said ‘I love you’? Have you met each other’s parents? When’s the wedding? What are you naming your first child?”

pretty much a crack fic inspired by the media’s post-olympics obsession with tessa and scott // my spin on a vm au bc i still refuse to write jake and amy as ice dancers (last edited: may 2018)

Like many of the other bizarre situations he’s found himself in, this all started with Gina. Over the last year or so, she’d been posting random photos and videos of all of them at the precinct. (“I’m devoting my energy to my new project, Ginazon,” she’d declared to the entire bullpen. “It’s a one-stop online portal for my legions of followers. I’m just giving the people what they want!”) Given that this was Gina of all people, Jake wasn’t at all surprised to find out that each post garnered hundreds of likes, but he’d never bothered to venture into the comments section. He’d never known about the apparent niche following that had formed, the group of fans – for lack of a better word – waiting with bated breath for him and Amy to get together.

Charles had only spurred them on, what with all the various Easter eggs on his culinary blog. (“This place has everything,” he’d written once. “My co-workers Jake and Amy even gave it their stamp of approval after they’d shared a quick lunch there before a long stakeout. Make sure to ask for the winter salsa; it’s wonderful!”) He’d sworn that none of it was intentional and that he would never do anything to sell them out, but everything he’d written had still been catalogued and analyzed by the pseudo-experts of the fandom. At this point, Jake’s main regret is not reading Charles’ weekly email blasts.

Their downfall – or rise to viral glory – came when someone from the so-called G-Hive happened to be in just the right place at just the right time, catching their (second) completely-platonic, spur-of-the-moment, done-in-the-name-of-justice kiss on camera. By the next morning, “Undercover Cops Lock Lips Before Locking Up Wanted Criminal” had been viewed on YouTube over a million times.

With everything about the entire situation already being so weird, they’d decided to just ignore their newfound fame in the same way they’d pretended the kisses never happened. (“We’re a great team. We work great together. Nothing should mess that up,” he’d said, repeating nearly his exact words from the night before.)

Evidently, there was no escaping this though. A formal press conference was set up, which wasn’t too out of the ordinary for cases that caught the general public’s attention, except they’d ended up having to say more about their dating lives than the investigation or arrest. He can still feel his heart lurching in his chest at the first relationship-related question, still hear Amy loudly stammering out some vague answer about being “very professional.”

a smutty soulmate au in which jake and amy unknowingly share dreams every now and then (last edited: november 2017)

At this moment in time, Amy Santiago is undeniably, incomparably, drop dead gorgeous.

More specifically: she’s in the hot red dress Kylie convinced her to buy on their last post-trivia night celebratory shopping spree; she’s wearing a matching killer shade of lipstick picked out by her fashion-forward, shockingly sexual 13-year-old niece; and she’s got her hair swept into that one elegant yet fun side ponytail that caught her eye in a magazine a few weeks back.

Normally, she’d be proud of herself for managing to pull off such a look, except–

It’s been a good several hours since she tossed her dress into the hamper, wiped the makeup off her face, and tugged the elastic tie from her hair. She’d buried her head into her pillow and wheeze-cried herself to sleep shortly after changing into her pajamas, so overwhelmed with shame and disappointment over the night’s party-gone-wrong.

The thick haze shrouding her current surroundings tells her she’s in another one of her soulmate’s dreams, which helps a tiny bit in explaining her current appearance but really opens up more questions than answers.

tagging: @santiagoswagger @three-drink-amy @do-me-decimalsystem @arnie-santiago @sergeant-santiago

for the record, this was inspired by @disruptedvice and @elsaclack’s responses [x,x] to the writing meme!! i thought it was super clever of them to feature little snippets from various works and felt this would be a good way to give unfinished/abandoned fics some love!

#writing meme #wip meme #tag game #b99 au #i'm honestly shookt at the last edit dates on these #why am i like this #ngl i just wanted an excuse to post some of these bc i'm fairly certain they won't ever be finished RIP #if anyone else wants to do this pls feel free!!!#my stuff

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crazygreatwords · 5 years ago

Text

Monster Mat v2

Fandoms: Escape The Night Warnings: past character death, corruption, plus the usual ETN stuff AN: this is a separate universe from the Lazarus AU. I started this as a varation from the Monster Mat theme, with Lazarus being “the thing that comes back from the dead isn’t Mat” and with this being “Mat comes back from the dead but is corrupted by it”. Actual characters AU. This is an unfinished fanfic, even if it doesn’t seem for the first part, it’s not betaread and it has notes in the middle of this. More info here. Characters: Mat, Ro, the rest of the cast is there too Summary: Mat comes back from the dead ao3

Mat looks at the church. Is the same one they saw from the distance, just outside the city. He can see two figures in front of it, standing like guards. They look like a man and a woman, dressed in what seems some kind of brown uniform.

Mat tries to approach them, but he's stopped by a voice. He turns and there's a beast in front of him, horns sprouting from his head and grey skin. In his chest a glowing gem.

Mat listen to what he says, and it makes sense. He reaches out to the instrument that the monster is holding out, a music faintly echoing around him.

The second he touches the Harp a red smoke comes out of it, and he screams.

----

Mat stumbles and grabs a table just in time to avoid falling face first on the floor.

He can hear commotion in the other room and soon enough Ro and the others are all coming to make sure he's okay.

He's back.

He doesn't know how but he's back.

He knows he isn't dead anymore because everything looks so defined, everything feels so solid.

The others help him sit down on the couch, but the second nobody isn't touching him anymore he realises that he missed them so much. He missed feeling stuff.

He immediately gets up again and proceeds to hug every single one of his friends, thigly, to make sure that they're here, they're real. They're alive. He's alive.

A new wave of drowsiness hits him and Safiya, who he's currently hugging, helps him back down on the couch.

Ro immediately plop down next to him and smiles at him, offering back his badge. He gladly takes it back, and uses the opportunity to lean again against Ro, trying to get as much human contact as he can. He had always been a huggy person, but being dead for a couple of hours left him needing even more human warmth.

Nikita grabs everyone attention and immediately get everyone working on the new clue. Mat doesn't mind the distraction. He's happy to be back.

----

Joey at one point asks out of nothing: "So, if you're okay talking of it, how was- you know, death?"

Memories flash. The church, the people.

"You weren't lying. There was the church, the one outside the city. And there were two persons, a man and a woman."

"Did they give you a contract too? How did you came back."

Mat thinks hard about it. He's in front of the church, standing on grass. The fog doesn't let him see any other building around. At the front door, a table with a bag and a piece of paper on it. At its sides, a man and a woman, dressed in similar clothing. The Society Against Evil, Joey had said.

Mat tries to move towards them and then-

And then what? He can't remember. He tries to think. What did bring him back to life?

"There was a faint music, I think?" He says, unsure.

The others look at each other. "The Harp!"

They explain to him how they found the other coin, and when they opened the box they found the instrument that brought him back. Joey points to where the Harp is standing, and Mat has one of the strongest DejaVu he ever had.

He's sure he as already seen that harp somewhere...

----

//Blackout, after a second Mat can see in the dark. The light comes out too quickly for him to question it.

----

//Someone is corrupted, and Mat just knows that Calliope is lying.

//"Do you feel funny?"

"Wha-" He starts to answer but he feels something cut him off. He pushes it back down "Why do you think it's me?"

LIELIELIELIE

I'm not lying, I'm not on the Carnival Master's side

Only thinking it hurts, so he just lets the thought drop to focus on the matter of hand

----

Screaming felt good. He screamed at Nikita and Nikita screamed back, and it felt so good to let his anger target someone. He screamed and screamed and would have kept screaming, but Joey put himself between then to stop the fight.

That's when Mat realised that it wasn't normal. Nikita had only done what she could to stay alive, he had done the same against Manny during the Stongman's challenge. She couldn't know that that would kill Safiya. No one could know. And yet, it had felt so good to scream at someone with the intention to hurt them. Mat passed an hand through his hair. He had never felt so aggressive towards someone. What had gotten into him?

----

//Mat steps out for a while to think. His arms are twitchy and so are his cheeks, plus the whole "I can see in the dark" thing happens again.

//He goes back and searches for a mirror, and notices that his eyes are yellowish and that he's starting to look sick: his skin is slightly yellowish too and his eye bags and lids are starting to turn black. He blames it on dying and hopes that the glasses will hide it.

//I guess there goes a challenge here, four people left

//As the night progresses Mat realises that he's getting worse. Not only his physical aspect, but also his mood. He's always ready to attack someone and he's starting to lose his temper more and more. The worst part is that he enjoys it when the others are hurt by his words.

//He found out the twitching was something growing under his skin. Which of course freaked him out. Not enough to tell the others yet, making him need to hide it even more. But he tried to pluck the small feathers growing on his arm, and it hurt like hell, so for the moment they stay.

//Something keeps telling him to take the Harp and hide it, every time they get to the lounge. Mat doesn't understand what it is. He knows that it's the same instinct that makes him attack the others, the same instinct that tells him when something is true and something is false. It's starting to hurt more when he says something false.

//The feathers on his cheeks are starting to come out, but they still seem small enough that he can cover it with his glasses.

His eyes are now completely yellow, with some wisps of red irling into them. He tried to look in the mirror in the dark, and the pupils almost drowned the whole eye. That explained the night vision at least.

His skin is way too pale now, his eyes and cheeks a bit too sunken. He hopes that the others won't notice, in the dark of the night. In the lounge it's a bit more difficult to hide but he can always blame it on the whole dying thing. He hopes that the others won't draw parallels to Joey, looking alive and fresh even after weeks of coming out of his tomb.

Mat passes his hands over the few plumes growing on his face. He can't see the feathers very well yet, small as they are, but he knows that they're going to be the same brown as his hair, with some flecks of yellow at the base, the same colour as the ones that grew on his arm. (He's glad they stopped, they're still short enough to be hidden under the jacket without breaking them. He already found out that it hurt and he would not like to repeat the experience.)

He's still examining his face when he sees with the corner of his eye the door open. He jumps, scared and surprised, and he's face to face with Ro, who had just entered.

She's looking at him, the room small and well lit letting her see him clearly. Mat's aviators lie forgotten on the small counter near the mirror.

Ro stays still for a couple of seconds, shocked, while Mat panics.

"Mat-" she starts, and he can't tell if she's scared or angry or horrified and that worries him.

"I can explain" he interrupts her, holding his hands out. His new lie-detector let's him know that he can't, making a small fit of pain shot through his body, but he needs to do some damage control quickly before she goes out there and tells the others.

"What happened to you? Are you okay?"

//Mat and Ro talk, Mat lets it all out and cries a little, Ro is the best mama bear ever

//they go back to the others and Ro helps him cover (even if it hurts to lie to the others, both emotionally and physically for Mat). They go on with the challenges.

//here's another challenge. Three people left. Time for the confrontation

//aka Mat is losing his fight against his new monster-self/whatever you wanna call it. Uuuh climax of the story? Mat has hidden the thing to cleanse his artifact sometime before, only that he didn't realise he did. So now they're looking for the last thing and Mat is trying to help them while also trying to keep control of himself. Of course they manage to find it, just in time for Mat to lose against the monster. Final confrontation against Monster Mat (without the challenge bc they already have the purifier)(Joey still can't die and I'm not killing Ro). Bam purification and Mat has some final moments of clarity before dying. His body turns to dust. Infinity War's soundtrack starts playing

#unfinished fics

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mandareeboo · 6 years ago

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Unfinished Work #24: “Opposite Axes”

Wellll this is less ‘unfinished’ as it is ‘I’mma have to rework the SHIT out of this bc of the special and I can’t NOT put my beautiful Sunstone and co in there somewhere’ so I’mma probably scrap this part of my third in line of the Steven and Fam Fusion Musical Show and redo from step one.

Title: Opposite Axes

"Absolutely not. There's growth and then there's insanity."

"Oh, let's give it a chance, Yellow," Blue pleaded, one hand cupped over her mouth thoughtfully. "Steven's already brought us so many interesting proposals. What's wrong with this one?"

"Interesting?" Yellow repeated dubiously. "Era 3 has been a massive failure so far. Production has gone down by over forty percent!"

"Yes, but they're so much happier."

"They won't be happier when we have no more planet to live on!"

Steven's ears were ringing as the Diamonds' voices began to lift. He puckered his lips and whistled. "Look, I know I'm no good at stats like Pearl is- who, by the way, really wanted to do this presentation, and the fact that you won't even let her in the room is extremely rude-"

"Do you know how undignified it'd be if we-"

"But," he plowed over her. "This will expand production enough to make up for lost time. Pearls are far less destructive to create, and they can be beneficial in so many fields! Just imagine how many happy faces with pointy noses we could make!"

Yellow sighed and pinched the junction of her nose. "It concerns me that we've come to a point where this is making sense," she said wearily. "Listen, Steven. Having an Era 3 Pearl being made without typical refineries and allowed to run wild can cause a lot of trouble for all of us. Especially compared to the older models. We could face a full-on revolution."

"It'd kind of be one we'd deserve, don't you think?"

"Perhaps. But you know as well as I do that there are many Era 1 and 2 Gems who would still leap at the chance to be shattered to protect us. We'd be causing dustshed all across Homeworld."

"I wonder," Blue said, "What an unrefined Pearl would look like?"

"It doesn't matter what they look like," Steven stressed. "What matters is that this is the safest option- for us and for the rest of the galaxy."

"How do you know what's safe or what isn't?" Yellow challenged. "I understand that you were raised with different values, but you can't force change overnight and expect it to right everything."

"I've been working with Homeworld for three years!"

"Three years?" The Diamond stood up, running her fingers through her hair. "Stars help us, it's only been three years. How did we manage to go from galactic superpower to galactic embarrassment in three years?"

Blue took her arm. "Perhaps we should adjourn for now."

"That might be for the best," she reluctantly agreed. Yellow clapped her hands. "That will be all, Steven."

Steven saluted the typical Earth salute, turning away. Frustration bubbled just below the surface, but yelling at Yellow and Blue rarely seemed to do much good. It usually just made it all drag out more.

"He's so different from her," he overheard Blue murmur on the way out. "Yellow, what if he never remembers being Pink?"

Yellow's eyes fluttered shut. "I'm not willing to consider that option, Blue."

Overall, Steven spent the least amount of time on Homeworld as physically possible. As important as maintaining connections was, especially as the fully realized Ambassador of Earth (and, as some Gems felt the need to tack on, Keeper of a Diamond's Stone), there was something about the hard planes and structures that had never quite sat right with him. Unfortunately, Steven couldn't stay away very much anymore, seeing how pivotal his voice was for Era 3.

It had been two weeks since he'd stopped by the beach house, and it was of very little surprise to him that no one else was around when he warped inside- save for Bismuth, of course, who even after almost half a decade of peace refused to even contemplate returning to Homeworld. She tended to the house while they were away, drawing up plans and designs for various Gem machines designed more for safety and protection than war. Not that her impressive sword collection ever had the slightest chance to grow dusty, as she built and sculpted them in her free time.

"Hey," she said, sequestering over half the couch with her size. "How'd it go?"

Steven groaned. "Politics are horrible."

"Yellow being a butthead again?"

He flopped down beside her. "I get why she does it. I do. She asks the questions, I answer, nobody can pull them out later and blindside us. But does she have to be so mean about it?"

"Sounds rough, buddy." Bismuth leaned over to nudge his shoulder. "Hit me up if you ever get sick of hurdles, alright? I'll make you something nice and sharp."

Steven smiled. Homeworld seemed like it was constantly moving in some way or another- hustle and bustle, destruction and construction, who White Diamond was not pleased with that particular day- but the Gems themselves didn't change. He hadn't changed. "Thanks, Bismuth."

He doesn't recall falling asleep.

Connie's official title was Protector of the Ambassador- which is overtly long and means almost nothing to anyone; but, in Homeworld's defense, the Gems have always gone by their type. They've never needed official titles before the Crystal Gems brought them home with them- but most of them just referred to her as The Connie. At thirteen, that had bothered her greatly. At sixteen, she hardly even noticed.

But a lot had changed in three simple years. Connie had nearly tripled in height, finding herself at the same height as Pearl. Her arms and face held a scattering of scars from various violent exchanges as debates had gone on- scars that Steven could have healed up, of course, but Connie had demanded they stay, noticing that the discolorations intimidated Gems. Maybe they were reminded of Jaspers when they saw the scratch that went from her lip and over her eye, or the deep line on her shoulder she had tattooed over with a single star- and, if so, they'd have every right to be frightened. Her sword, made by Bismuth, was swirled with pink and white like a Cookie Cat, tapered to her specific height, and hung carefully from her hip.

Another sign of change was the Gems who met her at the door- not Agates, but an Amethyst and a Ruby, who gave her a respectful salute and sheepish smiles. Connie saluted them back with the signature diamond shape before going inside.

"Diamonds," she greeted, not particularly worried by how they both snapped to attention as she strolled into the room. Connie felt bad for interrupting whatever private moment they'd been sharing, but duty is duty. "I just wanted to stop by and tell you Steven's gone back to Earth for a visit."

"Of course," Yellow said, bitter, as she rubbed at her eyelids. "Make a big speech before vanishing off the planet to goof around with his rebel friends. That's so typical."

"He wants us to bring Pearls into the workforce," Blue explained, as if Connie didn't already know.

"I'm aware, ma'am."

"You were trained by one, correct? What do you think of all of this?"

"I give the proposition my full support, ma'am," Connie said firmly. "No one has the right to tell anyone what they should be, and that's what Homeworld's done for centuries now. If you really wanna change, you have to go all the way."

"Where does that put us, then?" Yellow challenged. "Diamonds are created to rule. If we break all the barriers, what happens to our system?"

"No one ever said it wasn't going to be messy, ma'am."

Yellow seemed to sink under the weight of that statement. For once, it's Blue who says that's all. Connie saluted again and walked back out, wondering with a shake of her head if there had ever been a point to any of this.

Lion seems to enjoy hopping between her and Steven, taking random Ruby ships from Homeworld to Earth and back. Today he's waiting for her outside the palace, eager to get back to what could technically be called an apartment, if apartments didn't require rent or have basic plumbing. In it's own right, it's an honor they even built a room semi-suitable to human cohabitation in the first place for them. It was just a shame that they had such limited knowledge.

The apartment is a perfectly set rectangle in the wall of one of Homeworld's many spires. It's an ugly, washed out shade of blue- like the ocean but ten times less beautiful- and contains exactly one lump that she expected was supposed to be a bed or couch or both. Her parents had insisted on getting her a comfy armchair, which was a brown smudge in the corner. The cherry on top of the horrifyingly ugly color-nightmare was Captain Lars, snoring in said ugly brown chair, in said ugly blue room, his pastel pink skin glaring.

"Back from shipment?" she asked, dismounting Lion.

"Hmm?" Lars tipped his head back, reluctantly opening his eyes. "Oh. Hey. Yeah, I'm back."

"You sound ever so pleased about that."

"I'm bored. Whatever happened to cool boss fights and daring space chases?" He flicked his cape over his shoulder dramatically. "Now I just haul cargo. You're basically a door-holder, and Steven spends his days telling giant Diamonds that maybe people should be allowed to actually think for themselves."

"The cool boss fights and space chases didn't do as much as we hoped, I guess." Connie shrugged, setting her sword aside. "It just kind of evolved into this."

"Hey, I got my buddies to Earth just fine."

"I know, and it was awesome." A giggle erupted from her, remembering her involvement fondly. "They still tell stories about you in the public octagon. Especially the Emeralds."

Lars clicked his tongue and shot some finger guns her way.

#Unfinished Work #Fanfic Preview Monday #Opposite Axes #Steven Universe #Steven Quartz Universe #Yellow Diamond #Blue Diamond #Lion #Connie Maheswaran #Lars Barriga #Bismuth

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rosethornewrites · 2 years ago

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Wednesday-Saturday NR, E, & M reading

The usual

Finished

Not Rated:

the good things in life, by retts

When the first reports of zombie attacks flashed on TV, Jiang Cheng immediately called Wei WuXian and shouted, ‘Is this your doing, you piece of shit?’

Explicit:

can't get enough of you, by justdoityoufucker

It really is his last-ditch effort, or at least that's what he tells himself as he shucks off his shirt and peels off his trousers, slipping under the simple but plush quilt on Lan Wangji's bed.

Mature:

When Can You Suck Dick Again After Gum Grafts?, by PaPaYa_Bites

Lan Zhan has just had gum surgery and all he want's is a little bit of cock but nooooo, everyone is being so mean to him. Poor Lan Zhan :(

Unfinished

Not Rated:

Why a notebook hidden under my brother's bed?, by lilpuffs3

Lan Xichen had always believed that his brother had a great life.

He was the second in command of connected and firm enterprise, and had a long and happy life ahead of him.

Of course, he knew that his brother did feel lonely, and tried again and again to introduce him to good people, but it seemed like Lan Wangji simply wasn't interested.

So, what was a highschool notebook, that clearly wasn't Wangji's, doing under his brother's bed?!

Aka, the one where Lan Zhan and Wei Ying go to the same highschool but loose contact when Wei Ying is disowned by the Jiangs. So, Lan Zhan keeps his notebook, and maybe also his feelings for him.

Explicit:

the fire in your stare, by WhatTheOwlHears

He buried one hand in Lan Wangji’s hair, dragged his lips over the corner of his mouth. “Come on, Lan Zhan, stop me.”

Lan Wangji—shivered. It was a faint motion, something he might not have detected if he hadn’t plastered them so close together, hadn’t had his lips and fingertips against his skin. It set Wei Wuxian on fire, to feel that chink in his armor.

“Does Wei Ying want to be stopped?”

Imbalance, by blueingaround

In hindsight, Wei Wuxian should probably have known something like this would happen. But he was the first person to really invest so much in demonic cultivation and the only way to find out more about how things worked was to simply try them out. The thing about having to deal with ghosts and often harvesting their anger for power is that you can’t really choose which ones are the best fit, especially when you’re desperate and need all the help you can get.

aka Wei Wuxian has an imbalance of yin energy and can't deal with it on his own bc he doesn't have a golden core anymore, he needs to dual cultivate with someone, but in the middle of a war, he has no time and trusts no one, things escalate from there

most barren peak and bleakest winter, by WhatTheOwlHears

He drank. Set the cup down. “I understand Wei Ying would not choose to behave that way ordinarily.”

Well that was certainly true, but it felt like a lie anyway. “Haha, yeah.” Wei Wuxian put his elbow on the table so he could put his face in his hand. “Definitely would not normally make attempts on the virtue of my dear dear friend Hanguang-jun.”

Mature:

Bloodsport, by SkullFeather3063

Before Jiang Fengmian could find him an orphaned Wei Wuxian was rescued by Baoshan Sanren. He was raised up in the celestial mountains by people who loved and adored him, looking forward to the day he got to descend and follow in his mother's footsteps.

Confident in his abilities but lost in his knowledge of this new world, Wei Wuxian decided to attend the educational event at Cloud Recesses to integrate himself into the Cultivation World.

Here was where his story began, where love first blossomed, and a new world was forged for the two youths.

This is a story about love and what people will do to get a taste of it...

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #cql #mdzs #chen qing ling #untamed fanfiction

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secrets-and-cockroaches · 4 years ago

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I just finished reading the Mortal instruments and I won't go as into detail of this but yeah this kind of sums up how I felt about it, getting more angry and disappointed but having to finish it so you could write a bad review..

anyways

**spoilers**

first and formeost. I could never get over the whole relationship thing between Jace and Clary. so when they originally met each other they thought were not siblings right, but they had some kind of love at first sight thing which seemed really cheesy especially since Clary was like 15. and then throughout the whole time that they think they're siblings (not even half siblings or step-siblings they think they have the same two parents), they are still in love with each other!?!? and Cassandra Clare does that thing where you can tell the author has no siblings because they call each other names like Jace says "hello little sister" or something. not sure why but unrealistic sibling relationships bother me so much. and then!??! they turn out not to be siblings at the end which one of the major plot twist in the first book was finding out that they are and then that just ends up being reverted!? I didn't think that that whole relationship really made sense it mostly seemed Clary just like Jace bc he was pretty and they also got off on knowing they weren't allowed to be together (ew). also when they're in near-death situations, thinking of each other's faces somehow gives them the power to survive.

the only characters that I genuinely really like were Luke and Magnus. Magnus was honestly really cool and I think that him and Alec's relationship should have gotten a little more to it so it didn't just seem like Alec was added to be the "gay cousin." Luke I liked because I'm a sucker for found family tropes and he was a pretty good father figure for Clary. I thought it was a little bit weird when Valentine was talking about how Luke was in love with clary's Mom and he never would have helped her "just for friendship." it did make sense that they ended up together, but I would like to think that people care about their friends enough to help them escape an abusive relationship. there was no reason Luke wouldn't help clary's Mom get away from Valentine, even if he wasn't in love with her so yeah that part made me feel a little eh.

I did like some of the magic, the modern setting of New York worked with old magic was pretty well done.

the other problem I had was Simon. after the first time he died and came back (as a vampire) it kind of made sense and was relevant to the plot, but then the second time it just seemed old and overdone, how he still somehow survived being killed twice. also he leaves a bit of an unfinished story because we know he's going to live forever whereas Jace and Clary will live normal length lives (is he just supposed to forget about her?) (I'm guessing these questions are probably answered in the other series but I don't feel like reading them) (sorry I'm a hypocrite)

I also didn't like the unrealistic injuries/blood it seemed very cliche. every chapter at least one character randomly started bleeding or was injured or broke something, and then two pages later they would draw a symbol on their arm be magically fine again. the way it was so easy for them to cure themselves made it so injuries couldn't be important to the plot, so I felt it the characters are just unnecessarily bleeding all the time.

so there was some stuff that was good but honestly throughout the book I just found myself wanting it to be over

now I realize that this is totally unrelated to the post that I'm reblogging it from but my phone won't let me copy and paste it to make a new post and I'm not going to go rewrite the whole thing

also this ended up getting so long what

At last: my review of the Snow like Ashes trilogy. aka I shit on some bad fantasy setup. Under readmore will have mild spoilers fyi

Spoiler-free summary: Meira, along with future king Mather, are part of a band of refugees who fled their kingdom of Winter following its downfall at the hands of Spring. While there were some creative elements, the worldbuilding was shitty and the characters lackluster. The magic was boring, confusing, and inherently trans-exclusive. The twists, while predictable, were pretty good toward the beginning of the trilogy and frustrating at the end. The love triangle was also predictable in a bad way. The added POVs made no sense, just like grammatically. There was a ridiculous amount of character death, but there were so many minor characters that I couldn’t bring myself to care. Yikes! Plus I hate the name Mather.

Keep reading

#idk why im so mad #but #i did not like this series #dont really want to read other ones by Cassandra Clare #the mortal instruments #jace lightwood #clary fray #clary fairchild #jace whatever #bad review #cassandra clare

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heiligenscheiss · 4 years ago

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POWER OF THE SHAMAN:

--------------------

Where Does It Come From, How Does It Work?

"I do not deny that White Light Shields are protective. I simply maintain that Shamans channel what I call heavy voltage. Ordinary people may NOT have the power to draw upon sufficient 'voltage' to produce the desired effect." (source)

PRESENTED BY

the Wanderling

PROLOGUE:

In the fall of 1991, in the remote part of an ancient mountain range, high above the tree line, a group of modern day hikers stumbled across the body of a man frozen to death in the snow, fully dressed in clothes of a tribal nature, his body nearly intact and almost perfectly preserved. Incredibly, tests showed the man had been frozen 5000 years years before, sometime between 3350-3140 BC. After a rather intensive investigation over a period of years by a team of scientific experts from a variety of fields, it was concluded that the man appeared to have been a Shaman, presumably dying of exposure when caught out in the open during a mystical retreat on the side of the treacherous mountain.

Several associated facts presented themselves for such speculation. Like many shamans from many cultures the body was tattooed; his weapons, consisting of a roughly-hewn bow made of yew, several unfinished arrows, and an all wood dagger, resembled dummy weapons associated with shamans in other cultures; he carried a medicine bag containing, among other things, a leather thong on which was threaded two pieces of a common birch fungus Piptoporus betulinus which contains polyporic acid C, an effective antibody, especially against stomach microbacteria, which would indicate, if not a specific knowledge of herbs and natural ingredients, at least a general acceptance of their use. A similar fungus, also closely associated with the birch, Amanita muscaria, is not only hallucinogenic but has been used by various shamans cultures as an aid to ecstasy before the dawn of history. It is possible that, if not authentically hallucinogenic, the ones the frozen iceman carried, could at least have been believed to be so; he also carried with him, and unusually so, a copper-headed axe. A very rare object for the time, and because it was metal, for the most part quite valuable in those days, marking him as an individual of high status. Last, an item not discussed at any length in the numerous reports on the frozen man was a net he carried, an object not typically found in hunting as much as used to trap spirits and seen in various forms as a dream catcher and such. Taken together, the fact that he carried only what HE needed and not a variety for wider shamanistic use, again underscores his mountain sojourn as having a more "mystical retreat" aspect to it.

And finally, while it is true the frozen man's location was somewhat close to ancient trade routes and trails which ran through passes nearby, he was NOT actually on one. Aerial photographs of the area show that the site he was found is not in easily accessible terrain, thus it is thought unreasonable he simply strayed there from one of the passes. The body was well above known trails, high in the mountains above the 10,400 foot level, and alone it seems, suggesting the possibility that he had traveled there to be closer to the gods.

The problem most people had with the situation was not that the man might have been a Shaman, because a preponderance of the evidence seemed to implicate nothing other than that, but where he was found. Not in the tundra of Siberia or the ancient ice path of the Rocky Mountains in North America, but the Oetzaler Alps between Austria and Italy, a location that eventually became modern day Europe, an area NEVER thought of in the present era for any sort of a background in things Shaman or even of tribal people. Yet there he was, a 5000 year old frozen Shaman right in the heart of Europe.[1]

INTRODUCTION:

Shamanism is truly an ancient cross cultural world-wide phenomenon, albeit sometimes lost to those of the modern era in the murky reaches of time, as the above story on the Iceman might attest. For many of us though, there remains a thread, however slight or however tenuous, whether it is linked to Early European Tribes, Native American Tribes, African Tribes, or elsewhere, that ties us to that past. As things have unfolded in my life the viability of that thread has been made clear, not just by me on my own, but by those who have never lost touch with their specific cultures or beliefs. In my adult years my practicing backround in things Shaman is primarily based on Obeah, the Shamanistic beliefs found in some of the countries in and around the Caribbean. However, in earlier years, as a very young boy, I traveled, as will be mentioned below, somewhat intensively with my Uncle in similar "circles" throughout various indigenious cultures of the desert southwest. It is admitted I am unable to speak specifically to or of Shamanistic beliefs of ALL Shaman related cultures. I can however, because of my background of having been apprenticed to a Jamaican man of spells called an Obeahman for many years, speak of where the power of the Shaman he exhibited, and from which I learned, is drawn. From that same experience I can speak as well of the results of what happens when that "power" is used, misused, or implemented, and where I learned, regardless of what culture a Shaman resides, the "power" of the Shaman "comes from."

For the most part and for those most truly involved, in the end Shamanism is a calling. How does one know if they have a "calling?" It is not so much YOU that determines such a thing, but the "selection out" that occurs from or by another Shaman that senses an innate ability that is somehow radiated or felt. You yourself may not even know per se' although your whole life you may have had "this feeling." It just needs to be focused and that is what another Shaman can do. That is what happened in my case and to countless others like me throughout the centuries.[2]

ANIMAL TOTEMS: Your Selection or Their Selection?

My Father's brother, my Uncle, spent nearly sixty of his eighty-four years in the desert southwest, having moved to the Taos, Santa Fe, New Mexico area sometime in his twentys. I was quite young when my mother died and when my Father remarried my new mother, or Stepmother as the case may be, brought my Uncle in to "oversee" me. My Uncle had been married at one time as well, but, although he maintained a loosly related association with his wife, he was for all practical purposes, divorced. The woman he was separated from was a Native American of the Little Shell Plains Ojibwe and a fourth level Midewiwin, a secret Ojibwe Medicine Society. She was a very powerful curandera that I had met only in passing, and initally, for the most part, she never payed much attention to me one way or the other, although I sensed something very extraordinary or "different" about her. She reminded me of a lightning or thunderstorm raging in the distant mountains. You only felt safe because you weren't there, although you knew if you were, the storm had the power to wash you away or destroy you by the might of it all.

One day, when I was around ten years old or so, I went for a hike deep into the desert unescorted. When my Uncle discovered I was gone he went looking for me. During my walk I happened across the carcass of a dead rabbit and was fascinated by it for some reason. When my Uncle found me after cresting a small hill he saw me squatted down with the carcass. Joining me quite comfortably in a circle with the rabbit were three what were, because of this incident, to eventually become my Totem Animal --- VULTURES. From what he was able to discern from his initial vantage point I was neither afraid of them nor were they remotely afraid of me. As well, and he swore this to be true --- although I have absolutely no recollection of it and construe it as a possible total misinterpretation of facts --- that the vultures and I were sharing meat from the carcass between us.

When my Uncle told his estranged wife about the incident she suddenly was very interested in me. You see, for some reason, in today's neo-Shaman environment there has been a stress placed on finding one's "power animal." The contemporary neo-Shaman workshops blind people to the fact that real animals are also spirit and power, and every bit as important, or even more so, than than a spirit guide that appears in some vision. The medicine woman knew that.

Where there is carrion lying on the ground, meat-eating birds circle and descend. Life and Death, seemingly two, become one. The living attack the dead, to their own profit. The dead lose nothing by it. They gain as well, by being disposed of. Or they seem to, IF you must think in terms of gain and loss.

--Adapted from "Zen and the Birds of Appetite"

During those years my Uncle spent a lot of time traveling in and about some very isolated sections of the desert and interacting with the indigenous populations thereof because of various, as he called them, "art" related ties he had with them. During many of those travels I went along. It was on one of those trips, at the suggestion of his wife, as a very young boy, I was introduced to things Shaman:

We were on one of our excursions deep into a remote part of the southern New Mexico desert to visit a very strange man my Uncle was somehow associated with. After arrival the two sat together in the shade outside the man's shack and talked for a good part of the day while I either played with the dogs or sat in the cab of the truck fiddling with the radio.

Just as we were leaving the man came up to me and handed me a huge long black with white feather, the biggest, longest feather I had ever seen.

It was nearly as wide as the span of my hand and it's length was as long as I, a ten year old boy, was tall. Tied to the quill shaft, which was much, much bigger around than any piece of schoolroom chalk, was a small, double strand of leather string with ten colored beads attached, one for each of my years he said.

He told me the feather once belonged to a very magnificent bird that was very important to his culture and the desert's well being, but now it belonged to me.

Soon my Uncle and I were on the long dusty road back, and, as kids are wont to do on occasion, I was leaning out the window, flowing the feather in the wind as we sped along. Suddenly the feather was whipped out of my hand and I watched it as it blew high into the sky, caught first in the turbulance from the truck, then by the desert breeze itself, only to disappear from sight altogether. True, it was only a feather, but for some reason it's loss affected me in a deep, sad sort of way.

The next morning my Uncle and I got up and went out to the truck to do a few errands. Laying alone in middle of the pick-up bed near the back of the cab in a very fine smooth layer of dust was a long black with white feather, with a small, double strand leather string with ten colored beads tied to it's quill. Left in the dust also, were what appeared to be several very large, clear footprints of a huge bird along with scratches and talon marks on the tailgate as though, if even for a short time, a giant avian had roosted or landed there. (see)

(click image)

What is trying to made apparent in the above is that I did not select the feather. It was given to me after I had been selected out. The feather was a very rare and important symbol, a giant feather as long as I was tall, of which I immediately lost. However, and this is the point I wish to make clear, I saw the feather fly high into the sky to be gone I thought, forever to the desert winds, only to somehow, mystically, reappear overnight placed carefully in the back of the pickup truck where it would be sure to be found by either myself or my Uncle the next morning. If you follow the links regarding my Uncle and the Obeah you will see later both the original feather and a present day heir to that feather, my Totem Animal, played very important roles in my experiences of things Shaman. [3]

A couple of quick comments regarding the giant feather, estimated to have been nearly as large as a wing feather from the twenty-five foot wingspan Teratorn type bird Argentavis Magnificens, with a feather length of 1.5 meters (60 inches...that is, FIVE FEET) and a width of 20 centimeters (8 inches). When the feather was first given to me, even though it was of a huge size, I, as a young ten-year old boy with a vivid imagination, did not fully grasp the ramifications of it all. For me at the time, it did not seem impossible that a bird could not be of any size, so a feather as long as I was tall did not seem at all that improbable. It was only into high school and beyond that it came to me that I had been in the presence of something truly remarkable. I never saw the bird the feather came from, nor have I ever seen a second or other feathers of such large size, but for a bird to have required such an enormous feather in the first place, it would have to had been truly a giant creature. For the Shaman to have imparted something so rare, meaningful, and valuable to me, a mere ten year old boy with then no history or background, speaks volumes. To learn the fate of the feather, that is, what happened to it, please visit Meditation Along Meteor Crater Rim. See also the home of the ancient ones of the desert southwest, Pendejo Cave, and tales of the sacred Native American site The Sun Dagger.

For those who would question the validity of the existance of a feather of such size in the first place, as stated in the closing sentence of the Legend of the Giant Bird:

The loss of the Buffalo would have a devastating effect on the migratory habits of birds of such size. Not everybody makes the connection, but it is pretty simple stuff, without the herds, migration became very difficult and many of the young birds as well as some of the adults died on their way south. We are talking twenty-five foot wingspan Teratorn type birds, animals so huge they couldn't hunt in woodlands or heavy foilage. They needed large open area suchs as the Great Plains or the Argentine Pampas to navigate and hunt.[4]

In any case, by the time I was old enough for high school my Father had divorced and remarried and my Uncle had long ago gone back to the Taos, Santa Fe, New Mexico desert he loved. It was during those high school years I met a person that had studied under a venerated Maharshi in India, and he, like his teacher before him, was Enlightened. It was he who introduced me to things Zen. Years later I was to travel to and live in Jamaica where through a series of events I met a Shaman man of spells called an Obeah. It was under the auspices of the relationship between the Obeah and myself, after he looked deeply into my eyes and saw that the Shadow of Death had brushed across my soul, that I truly learned of Shamanistic "power," what that power could do and where that power "came from."

The Wanderling's Journey

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THE SHAMAN'S POWER: From Whence Does It Come?

"An Ally is a power a man can bring into his life to help him, advise him, and give him the strength necessary to perform acts, whether big or small, right or wrong. This ally is necessary to enhance a man's life, guide his acts, and further his knowledge. In fact, an ally is the indispensable aid to knowing."

Carlos Castaneda, "THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way to Knowledge."

Gloria Feman Orenstein, "Toward an Ecofeminist Ethic of Shamanism and the Sacred."

Again, continuing to refer to White Light Shields Orenstein writes, only this time in The Woman Shaman and Shamanism:

"Moreover, it is to trivialize the spirit world, to demean and negate its authenticity, to think that if you concentrate on manifesting a White Light Shield, that what you get will be beneficent. This is so naive as to be sheer folly. You must have enough power to call upon enough White Light to protect you."

Gloria Feman Orenstein, "The Woman Shaman and Shamanism."

WHITE LIGHT SHIELDS

Carlos Castaneda apprenticed under a Yaqui Indian Shaman named Don Juan Matus that Castandeda refers to interchangeably as a sorcerer and man of knowledge. In lineage his teacher's teacher was a Shaman-sorcerer known as a Diablero, an occult spell-master with evil powers said to have the ability to shape shift. There is some controversy if Don Juan Matus was a real person or a composite of several different people, but one or several, most agree Castaneda's observations regarding Shamans and Shamanism still remain valid. In his works Castaneda writes that a sorcerer's power, that is, a Shaman's power, is "unimaginable." He goes on to say in a copyrighted interview in Time Magazine (March 5, 1973):

"The full use of power can only be acquired with the help of an 'ally,' a spirit entity which attaches itself to the student as a guide. The ally challenges the apprentice when he learns to 'see,' as Castaneda did in the earlier books. The apprentice may duck this battle. For if he wrestles with the ally - like Jacob with the Angel - and loses, he will, in Don Juan's slightly enigmatic terms, 'be snuffed out.' But if he wins, his reward is 'true power the final acquisition of sorcery membership, when all interpretation ceases.'"

However, Castaneda had written previously in his first book THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge (1968):

The idea that a man of knowledge has an ally is the most important of the seven component themes, for it is the only one that is indispensable to explaining what a man of knowledge is. In my classificatory scheme a man of knowledge has an ally, whereas the average man does not, and having an ally is what makes him different from ordinary men.

An ally is A POWER capable of transporting a man beyond the boundaries of himself; that is to say, an ally is a power which allows one to transcend the realm of ordinary reality. Consequently, TO HAVE AN ALLY IMPLIES HAVING POWER; and the fact that a man of knowledge has an ally is by itself proof that the operational goal of the teaching is being fulfilled.

In reality, the "full use of power can only be acquired with the help of an 'ally'", that Castaneda speaks of, like the use of medicinal plants, drugs, or herbs (Aushadhis) --- which he used intially, but denied the necessary use of later --- is a second level of use between the Shaman and the actual power source, the same source the "ally" would draw upon for power. The key here is, in relation to the 1973 interview, and what most people miss when they start discussing an "ally" is "a spirit entity which attaches itself to the student." A STUDENT, not a full fledged Sorcerer or Shaman. While what Castaneda is trying to impart from his first book rings true "... a man of knowledge has an ally, whereas the average man does not, and having an ally is what makes him different from ordinary men," the "having an ally" should really read "having power." People think that an ally is an entity of some sort, when in reality it is an euphemism --- a euphemism for the POWER of THE POWER OF THE SHAMAN. Castaneda actually says so when he presents in his first book that "An ally is a power" and "...to have an ally IMPLIES having power." However, and this is the clinker, either you have it or you don't, it is NOT implied or garnered from another. The true Power of the Shaman is not divisible, the power and the Shaman are ONE. It is not held and shared with or by an ally then metered out in some fashion.

However, ally or no, Sorcerers and Shamans using powers to call up answers, predict the future, facilitate or induce spells, or garner assist or knowledge from planes other than the conventional were thought to have a spiritual servant, a "familiar spirit," in obeisance from other realms. The word "familiar" is from the Latin familiaris, meaning a "household servant," and was intended to express the idea that Sorcerers and Shamans had spirits as their servants, ready to obey their commands. Having a "familiar" as a servant is a far cry from a ally as outlined above. Just the same, the punchline is Sorcerers and Shamans "were thought to have familiars." That doesn't mean they HAVE one, only thought to have one. Basically what you have here is a word-based description shaped around the phenomenon. It is a verbal explanation by the layperson to make sense of how any unexplained form of the Power of the Shaman manifests itself. (see)

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In the essay Star Wars, Castaneda, and the Force, discussing the Shaman and any potential allies they may or may not have, meet, or battle, the author writes:

"Tests and trials are commonplace in the quest for knowledge: a pre-requisite in fact. One such trial occurs when the aspirant sorcerer (shaman) has accumulated enough personal power to meet the entity referred to as the ally. This encounter cannot be avoided - it is a mandatory, transitional event. Allies are essentially shapeless and featureless forms - all differing and quite terrifying. The aspirant must confront the ally, grab onto and overcome it."

Star Wars, Castaneda, and the Force

Any of you that are familiar with the massive trials and tribulations faced by the Buddha as he reached toward Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree battling the three Daughters of Mara and a host of other demons will recognize the same elements in the statement above. Once defeated, as done so by the Buddha, they no longer are, although the power remains, albeit as it were, inherited.

Jose Maria Poveda in his rather extensive book on shamanism, citing another, offers in his very first chapter something similar to the following:

"Don't allow yourself to be directed by an identity that calls itself your guide. Why? Because invoking infinity is much larger, much more satisfying, more valid for the experience of the soul than being directed by an external entity."

"Because invoking INFINITY is much larger, much more satisfying, more valid for the experience of the soul than being directed by an external entity." By 1998 and Castaneda's last book allies are beginning to take a back seat and he goes on to write in The Active Side of Infinty speaking of INFINITY and the importance of INFINITY:

Infinity is everything that surrounds us: the spirit, the dark sea of awareness. It is something that exists out there and rules our lives.

My steps and yours are guided by infinity. The circumstances that seem to be ruled by chance are in essence ruled by the active side of infinity: intent. What put you and me together was the intent of infinity. It is impossible to determine what this intent of infinity is, yet it is there, as palpable as you and I are.

Of course the infinity of which Castaneda speaks is synonymous with the "emptiness" refered to in ancient texts as Sunyata, and it is not just "out there" as Castaneda implies. Sunyata is the WHOLE, encompassing, encompassed and THE encompassing.

The majority of the people reading this will probably be familiar with the meaning of the word limousine. A limousine is usually considered something like a large luxurious automobile usually driven by a chauffeur. The word limousine is a french word and there is really no english equivalent. That is, if you call it anything else, a town car or whatever, it is either a limousine or it isn't. In the same sense, for those of us who speak english there is no single, specific word that encompasses the full the meaning of the power of the Shaman. There is a Japanese word, like many words that have come to us through other cultures such as patio, tomato, karma, carburetor, and kayak, which have no other real specific english equivalent, that has become assimulated into our language. The word of which I speak is Joriki. Joriki roughly translates into: the power or strength which arises when the mind has been unified and brought to one-pointedness. This is more than the ability to concentrate in the usual sense of the word. It is a dynamic power which, once mobilized, enables us even in the most sudden and unexpected situations to act instantly, without pausing to collect our wits, and in a manner wholly appropriate to the circumstances. One who has developed Joriki is no longer a slave to his passions, neither is he at the mercy of his environment. Always in command of both himself and the circumstances of his life, he is able to move with perfect freedom and equanimity. The cultivation of certain supranormal powers is also made possible by Joriki, as is the state in which the mind becomes like clear, still water.

There is another word, Siddhis, from the truly ancient, ancient language Sanskrit that hasn't fallen into the everyday lexicon that carries with it a similar meaning. There are differences, however. If you have ever focused the sun to a pinpoint on your skin using a magnifying glass and felt how quickly and powerful the burning sensation is, that is more like Joriki. Siddhi is more like the power of ocean waves. You may be able to stand against a mild wave or two, but even giant mountains are eventually turned to nothing but sand or even less by their power. In the end the Power of the Shaman is akin to a longer reach or extension of the Shaman, focused through his own abilities or level of expertise. That level of expertise can vary from being very minuscule and tiny to beyond scope --- with the results depending on the abilities, will, and intent of the individual. Jeffery Ellis, a Buddhist-Shaman of some reknown and co-founder of The Toltec Mystery School in Boulder, Colorado, writes in his book DreamingAwake:

"Power is one of the first barriers the warrior (Shaman) must pass in becoming a Man of Knowledge. Power is intoxicating. Magic and Siddhi create a drunkenness that is very tricky to sidestep. What you wish for comes true, like Aladdin and the Genie."

THE "POWER"

There is an axiom that goes:

This being present, that arises; without this, that does not occur.

Which is elaborated on from very ancient texts:

Acts do not perish, even after hundreds and thousands of years. On meeting the right combination of conditions and time, they bear fruit.

Vasubandhu the great Indian Abhidharma master wrote:

Material and mental elements uniterruptedly succeed one another in a series, a procession that has action as originating cause

He continues to write, and this is the punchline:

The successive moments of this procession are different; therefore there is an evolution or transformation of the series.

The successive moments are different, that is they are not the same. If they were the same they would not be different. On a fine grain level the differences are practically imperceptible. On a coarse grain level the differences manifest themselves more readily. Take those differences and place them into their operating field of conditions and the evolution or transformation compounds itself. Conditions? The word conditions is an english word used in context from the Sutras for the Sanskrit word Pratyaya which means (roughly): "the pre-existing conditions that allow primary causes to function." Which basically means if the conditions are absent, then the causes are prevented. Conditions are the milieu, stage set, or playing field where acts or impulses unfold. They can be increased by other conditions, decreased by other conditions, or replaced by other conditions to accelerate or postpone results in the stream of events. Which means that conditions can, but not necessarily DO modify. They arise primarily on a broader scale from causes in the distant past. When conditions do manifest themselves they are for the most part not defined, that is, they are undefined or spent, meaning they cannot create or impact figuratively further downstream responses. However, even though they are spent, they are still extremely powerful in how they impose themselves on the immediate circumstances in which they are operating. To wit:

Any shift in any fashion in the conditions up or down or across the stream relative to the cause will impact the resultant outcome of that cause.

It is IN those areas of conditions that the Shaman operates, where small yet powerful well aimed Shaman directed impluses ever so slightly nudge the conditions which inturn modify the outcome.

Sometimes the flow from the past is so strong that little can be done except to stand fast, but there are also times when the flow CAN be diverted in almost any direction. (source)

And that is true, sometimes the flow IS strong or stronger relative to the Shaman, but that is where the knowledge of the Shaman comes in. Often they must bide their time and wait, other times their abilities and power can overcome the "flow." Remember, from the quote above:

ANY shift (that is ANY shift no matter how large, small, or imperceptable), in any fashion in the conditions up or down or across the stream relative to the cause will impact the resultant outcome of that cause.

It should be noted that on the scientifc side of things, no matter how complex any system may be or appear to be AND, even though it may not be able to be determined or known, they rely upon an underlying order. To that extent very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events. This latter idea is known as Sensitive Dependence On Initial Conditions, a circumstance discovered in the early 1960s by Edward Lorenz the scientist usually credited with the discovery of the Butterfly Effect --- making reference to the fact that small, almost imperceptible happenstances or events, over time, can have huge and momentous consequences.

Shamans and others of the same propensities or ilk develop the abilities needed to use the key that allows them to interact with conditions, thus allowing a change that would otherwise NOT transpire or occur in the normal flow of events if they had not interceded. However, Karma-wise, the resultant outflow from that or any change does not fall on the back of the Shaman IF he is acting in the stead of another person. It is as though the Shaman does not exist and is in effect merely an extension or limb of the person perpetrating the change. The person wanting the change or perpetrating the change catches all the resultant outcomes from that change. See: Good and Evil In Zen Enlightenment and attendant links.

Some people would argue quite stringently that Buddhism and Shamanism are for the most part nowhere related and to draw an anology would be creating a thin line. However, the coincidence of characteristics and striking similarities between Buddhist adepts and ShamansShamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy. For example, the abilities of the Arhat relating to the sixfold knowledge of the worthy ones that includes not only the ability similar to the Cloud Shaman to appear and disappear at will, but also the oft cited case in Buddhism and Zen by the Venerable Pindola Bharadvaja where the venerable Arhat was adomished by the Buddha for flying and performing miraculous acts infront of the faithful.

Somewhat interesting is the fact that the word shaman, used internationally, has its origin in manch-tangu and has reached the ethnologic vocabulary through Russian. The word originated from saman (xaman), derived from the verb scha-, "to know", so shaman means someone who knows, is wise, a sage. Further ethnologic investigations shows that the true origin for the word Shaman can be tracked from the Sanskrit initially, then through Chinese-Buddhist mediation to the manch-tangu, indicating a much deeper but now overlooked connection between early Buddhism and Shamanism generally. In Pali it is schamana, in Sanskrit Sramana translated to something like "buddhist monk, ascetic". The intermediate Chinese term is scha-men. (source)

A few years out of high school and traveling in Mexico with a high school friend of mine we had made our way south through almost the whole county when we decided to turn east toward the Yucatan to see the ancient Maya temple ruin complex of Chichen Itza. In the process of our travels we went to Oxkintok, one of, at least in those days and may even be so today, most unheard of and seldom visited Mayan ruins. Having done so, unbeknownst to either of us we crossed over the then unknown and yet to be discovered asteroid-caused 65 million year old 112 mile diameter outer rim of the Chicxulub crater, given credit now for the total extinction and demise of the dinosaurs.

On the first night inside the boundary of the impact's dry land portions outer ring onto what would be the crater floor, I had for some reason, become so uneasy and uncomfortable I wasn't able to sleep. We were planning to go to the Maya ruins of Dzibilchaltun, famous now for the Temple of the Seven Dolls and it's importance to the equinox, none of which either my buddy or I knew about at the time, the next day. Thinking I would be up most of the night I unpacked my telescope and set it up primarily to look at the Andromeda galaxy, spending most of my time trying to stay with the spiral's relative movement caused by the Earth's rotation without jiggling the scope so much I couldn't see it. Concentrating all my efforts on doing so, especially after installing a Barlow lens that doubled the scope's power, I completely lost track of time and place. Suddenly a chilling breeze or what was not quite a full wind caused from afar came up out of nowhere snapping me back to reality. Standing up to straighten my back and get the crick out of my neck as well as relax my eyes for a second, just as suddenly right in front of me and just as much out of nowhere as though she had been swept in by the sudden burst of wind, was an old woman. Short in stature with straight, pulled-back, nearly pure white hair and appearing to be of Maya extraction, she carried a gunnysack-like shoulder bag slung across her chest and back and under her arm filled with sticks as though she had been out collecting kindling wood or something. We just stood there looking at each other for what seemed the longest time.

Although what happened next between me, an unworldly just 20 year old boy-man not long out of high school and a little old Maya woman wielding unknown spiritual powers, ended in startling results --- only to repeat themselves again, albeit even harsher in my adult years. See:

ALTUN HA'S SACRIFICIAL ALTAR AND THE CHICXULUB IMPACT

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TRAVELS IN THE YUCATAN

ASTEROIDS, SHAMANS, AND THE HIDDEN MAGIC OF MAYA TEMPLES

MAYA SHAMAN AND CHICXULUB

THE NINE MAIN SIDDHIS

INCIDENT AT SUPAI

A SHAMANIC JOURNEY OUTSIDE THE TRADITION

WE DO NOT HAVE SHAMANS

The Case Against "Shamans" In the

North American Indigenous Cultures

THE BEST OF

CARLOS CASTANEDA

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