#god i miss being 16 and loving this more than life itself

[steviescrystals]

my tags on the post i just reblogged got me thinking so here’s my current stream of consciousness

[shoyoist]

rekha :(((( just to torture ourselves what kind of angsty scenario do you imagine would bring hanma to tears if he’s in a relationship with you? sobs or is it only the death of those few he cares about that can break a man like him :(((( bye i’m so sad over him now pls

content: fem!reader (feat. my selfship content), established marriage, papa! shuji, angst. accidental pregnancy. mention of not wanting kids, family-related insecurities. thank you for indulging me rivvy<3

note: ok listen! i've been thinking about this all day. shuji isn't much of a crier, but when he does cry, it's over the people he loves.

shuji always says to you that he doesn't wanna have kids. and hey, you're cool with that. you don't need kids to make a family and a home with him.

just the two of you is plenty enough<33

but you get one accidental pregnancy after the other, and you find yourselves with two or three kids that shuji ends up loving more than life itself.

he jokes to you every now and then about how he doesn't know why he was so apprehensive about the idea before.

he's so happy! he loves his little kids, they share his and your features so evenly, their bubbly giggling at his silly faces are so adorable, taking care of them is so fun and god, he's just so full of love and joy.

until he's painfully reminded of why he didn't want to have kids— when they grow older and their personalities start clashing with his.

as a father, shuji jumps from too easygoing to too overprotective real quick. he finds something like their secret cigarette stash, that they've been drinking at parties, or they miss a curfew or two and it gets him irrationally mad at them — and when shuji's angry, he yells </3

he's just concerned for his kids because he knows full well what a reckless, dangerous childhood is like. and while he wants to be the chill parent so bad, he gets scared sometimes.

and his fear for his kids' safety comes out as anger and yelling. and his kids take after him, so his anger only makes their tempers flare up — which often results in a shouting match between father and children.

and while shuji tries to stay kind, sometimes, his kids say the meanest things at him.

(credits to my gf for these lines btw! this is actually from my selfship 🤭) one time, shuji is trying to confiscate his son's phone and ground him for a bit for staying out of the house a whole day and night after a prior argument, and it goes like this ↓

“give me your phone”

“what the fuck, you're not serious- i'm a grown ass adult!”

“give me your phone. you're not fucking grown. you're grounded, and i'm keeping tabs on you from here on out. now hand it over or i swear to god, i will take it from you”

his tone is threatening enough, and your son has no choice but to hand over his phone and shuji shuts it down and pockets it.

your son hisses under his breath like “this is bullshit”

and shuji retorts with a “this is how being a parent is”

and then his son says, in the meanest tone he could muster— “yeah, because you and mom were sooo smart for having so many fucking kids while being world's most wanted.”

and for a tense moment, there's a silence before shuji just heads to the front door and his shoes on, takes helmet and jacket and storms out, slamming the door shut behind him. he drives somewhere like yokohama wharf and just. breaks down and cries. all by himself. imagine ;( </3

he lights himself a smoke for the first time in years, tears rolling down his cheek and hanging for a moment at his jaw before they fall and stain his jeans with tears, and he's just wondering if he's a good father at all in the end.

he cries and cries and cries— and when he finally comes home to you late at night after everyone else has gone to bed, his eyes are puffy and red, and his hair is dishevelled. he looks so sad.

and when you hold out your arms for a hug, this big, 6'6 (because he was 6'4 at age 16. he's grown at least a couple of inches since then!) tall man, smelling of cigarettes and tears in his leather jacket and ripped jeans just slumps into you, his wife that he loves so much and just wants to be good to.

he's silent as you lead him to bed and help him undress, and while you're in bed, wrapped up in eachother's arms under the blankets, he asks you in a raspy, hoarse whisper, “am i... am i a good father to the kids, baby?”

and god, you kiss him, kiss his forehead and his face and his hair and you tell him yes, yes shuji you're such a good father to our children, and you're so good to me! so good to me and so good to the kids, shuji. you're okay.

he can't help but cry again after he hears that. he cries quietly but he sobs out loud, body racking and shaking your shoulders along with his own each time he takes a ragged breath in.

shuji knows he's not a family man. but god, god he wants to be one so bad. he wants to be good, for you and for his children that he loves so fucking much. and it makes him cry, whenever his fear overtakes him and convinces him that he may not be enough.

[clumsiestgiantess]

Erica pov of chapter 16; new love is in the air!

[A love larger than life]

There was nothing left for me in the mansion; I was so sure of it.  However, shortly after finishing a wonderful breakfast made by the box I’d come up with for her, Alexis dug through the rubble regardless.  I was about to tell her to just leave it alone, when I noticed the large wooden dresser she’d cast to the side, still intact.  “Hey, wait!" I called, "That’s my dresser!”  I know that must’ve been obvious, but I was so shocked to see it in one piece.  Alexis pulled away from the cliffside to let me across.  Once I got over, I yanked the drawers open wide.  Inside, a few sets of old clothes sat pristinely untouched.  

“Finally!” I cried out, holding up one of my shirts, “I can wear my own clothes!”  Oh how badly I’d missed wearing decent things!  Sure, I was given plenty of options in the hundreds of empty houses left in all the subdivisions that surrounded the cliff, but they were unnerving, really.  I could never quite shake the unease of wearing a person’s clothes who may or may not be getting tortured somewhere by some insane giants from the portals.

Putting together a decent outfit from the items in the drawer, I clambered back across the rubble to a small part of my house that was still standing.  “Ok, I take back what I said.  Maybe there are some useful things in here,” I noted as I ducked behind the single wall to change.

Once I’d finished, I stepped out from behind the rubble to examine myself.  “Damn, I haven’t worn this in forever.  Probably because I stashed it in there,” I said, gesturing to the dresser.  After that miraculous find, I helped Alexis dig through the rest of the junk left from the hazmat giants’ destructive pillaging.  I couldn’t do much with the bigger pieces of rubble, but Alexis was happy to push them aside for me.  With a few hours of searching, we collected a fair amount of my things that I’d assumed had long been lost.  Most of the items I was glad to see; they reminded me of my life before all of this, when things were more normal.  However, after Alexis cast aside one piece of rubble in particular, I recoiled away from what I’d found underneath.  “Oh, it’s.. that,” I addressed it in disgust.  

The safe where my infinite supply of money had been stored sat eerily pristine beside the rest of the torn up pieces of my house.  This was taking me on a trip a bit too far down memory lane — all the way back to the months Alexis had controlled me.  Curiosity hummed in the back of my mind, wondering how much money was still left.  But I had to remind myself that it didn’t matter.  Money’s basically worthless now, which is a crazy notion in itself.  Why would I even need to buy stuff anyway?  Alexis and I go out and sort through all the free things left in houses all the time.

Alexis and I both glanced warily at each other, immediately turning away as our gazes briefly met.  “I.. should get rid of that,” Alexis stated nervously, reaching down to snatch the safe from the rubble in front of me.  I stood in silence, recalling all the days I spent wondering if I would ever have my freedom back.  “You seemed so horrible back then,” I said quietly.  “I thought you were some invisible being from another dimension, playing god with creatures beneath yourself, using me like a character in a game to interact with my world.  Seems silly, huh?” I laughed bitterly.  “I really believed I’d never have control over my own body again.”  

Alexis hadn’t meant to torture me; she was only trying to give me her slightly twisted version of a normal life after watching me royaly fuck mine up a few different times.  She’d swore left right and center that she’d never do it again, so I wasn’t worried I’d ever end up like that.  In fact, Alexis would probably tear apart any giant who even tried to control me.  A lot had changed in those four years she was gone.  To think there was a time I was afraid of her — just yesterday I kissed her, and she kissed me!  And wow did it feel good!

I shook off the memories and turned back to Alexis.  Her cheerful expression had fallen into a look of despair.  I could only imagine the internal struggle Alexis constantly had to face, always haunted by her past mistakes.  Once she dared to look at me again, I held out my hands, palm up.  This was our signal to call the other person closer.  Alexis would offer me her hand so I could step onto it, and I would offer up my hands as a gesture for her to get more level with me.  If I was lucky, she would place her chin squarely in my upturned palms — close enough I could feel the breath on her lips.

Hesitantly, Alexis stepped forward, resting her chin on the lawn in front of me to get closer to my height.  “You weren’t the first person to make me feel like that,” I told her once she settled.  It was true.  During my horrific time with John and the others, I’d had about as little control over my body as I had while being actually controlled by her.

“However,” I added, “you were the first to apologize for it.”  Alexis stilled as I stepped up to her, eyes darting away from me and back again.  When we first befriended eachother, I’d thought that she was always distancing herself from me to stop us from getting too attached to one another — that way she could freely leave me without too much guilt.  However, over the last few weeks, I've come to realize her hesitation stemmed from an awful fear that she might hurt me in some way or another if she even physically came too close to me.  

So, if Alexis wouldn't fill the space between us — which was almost always the case — I made it my job to do so instead.  Closing my eyes, I took the final step forward and leaned against her trustingly, my forehead coming to rest on her brow.  “Thank you,” I whispered.  My voice was so quiet, I feared Alexis might not hear it.  “for letting me rely on you.  Stay with me, please.  Y- You probably want to go home by now, but I’m not ready for you to leave yet.”  

God, why can’t she stay here with me?  Or, better yet: why can’t we just go back to the way things used to be?  Before our little picnic by the lake that ended up driving us so far apart?  However, Alexis had warned me not to keep thoughts like that in my head.  She wants me- needs me to be here, not in the past.  If she’s ever going to get home, I have to be ready to take care of myself without her.  The thought of being without her now that I found out she loved me was cruel.  It practically tears out my heart whenever I think of it.

I took a shuddering breath as Alexis pulled away from me.  Moments later, her lips pressed lightly into the left side of my face.  Warm ecstasy spread through me from the spot where her very large kiss covered my head.  I still can’t believe she loves me.

“I wouldn't trade your company for the world, Erica,” Alexis told me lovingly.  I blushed, absentmindedly brushing my hand over the place where her lips touched my skin.  Before Alexis could retreat back over the cliffside, I rushed forward and hugged a few of her fingers in a strange embrace.  It’s unbelievable that this was how much of her I could hold — only a few fingers.

Alexis seemed a bit shocked at first, but she soon came around to the odd gesture.  The rest of her digits slowly folded in around me, creating a soft all-encompassing embrace.  Screw a normal hug; this was infinitely better.  My eyes teared up and I nearly gave in to the temptation to pull myself further into her hand.  I so badly wanted to curl up and let her hold me, but it just wasn't the time.  I have bigger plans on my mind.

Pushing away Alexis' fingers, I stepped off to the side of her hand just slightly as I quickly brushed the tears from my eyes.  "I'll finish sorting this out," I said once I composed myself, nodding at the lopsided pile of my things that we'd collected.  "But once I'm done I'd like to practice balancing myself on your shoulder."  The very second I announced my plan, Alexis looked ready to shoot it down with something along the lines of 'Erica, it's too dangerous, you could fall'.  

Before she could deny me, I held up a hand to silence her.  "Don't ruin the mood," I chided, "Last night you promised me I could try it again.  How am I going to get better if I don't practice?"  I watched Alexis' expression shift in thought while hopefully awaiting some sort of approval of my antics.  In the grand scheme of things, I understand why Alexis would be so protective of me.  I mean, I have been kidnapped twice now.  Add on the fact that she has feelings for me, making her doubly protective of me.  I'm certainly not complaining, though.  I need someone like that in my life; I've always needed someone like that — someone who could stop me from making bad decisions before it was too late.  Or just.. stop bad things from happening to me, period.

I began sorting through the pile of my things as Alexis still mulled over my request, clearly lost in thought.  Though all of these items brought back pleasant memories, some of them were a bit annoying.  Like my cell phone charger, for instance.  My phone is long gone — god knows where that thing is — but my stupid charger was still miraculously unaffected by the damage inflicted on my house.  I quickly got bored messing around with my stuff and wandered back over to the cliffside where Alexis stood.  I tried to be nonchalant about it, but I did really want to ride on her shoulder.  It's such a neat vantage point — almost like I’m a giant too — and I feel so much closer to her sitting there.  

Finally, Alexis lowered her hand to the lawn where I stood.  I could tell by the cute little expression on her face that she'd given in to my silent begging.  "You're adorable," I whispered under my breath as I climbed up and into her hand.  She obviously didn't hear me; she never did.  Alexis was far too big to ever hear me whispering to myself, which is probably a good thing.  I've occasionally made fun of her under my breath simply because I know she can't hear me.

"Hold on tighter this time, alright?" Alexis asked as she lifted me up to her shoulder, "I don't want you to fall over backwards like you did yesterday."  I nodded freverently, excited to get going.  "I know, I will."  Staying true to her protective ways, Alexis began walking agonizingly slowly.  “Come on!  You went faster than this yesterday!” I complained.  “Yeah, and you also fell off yesterday.”  I hate it when she’s right, but she is right.  However, after a few walkarounds of proof that I could handle that speed just fine, Alexis did steadily pick up the pace.  Over the next few days, we practiced at a faster and faster speed until I could sit comfortably on her shoulder with her normal gait.

Surprisingly, there were very few mishaps.  Most of the time I managed to right myself before I fell too far.  Only once did I completely fall off of Alexis, and it was partially her fault.  She’d pointed out how the creepy ruined water tower in the distance kinda looked like a satellite crashed to Earth.  I had to lean out fairly far to see it around Alexis’ neck, which was a bit too far past where I was safe from falling.  

One moment I was clinging to her shoulder, the next I was free-falling through the air, plummeting to the ground far below.  I barely had time to cry out before I was firmly pressed between two surfaces, both of which were pleasantly warm and soft.  Knowing that Alexis had caught me, I took a brief moment to calm myself down.  I assumed I’d been pinned between Alexis’ hands, so I hugged myself deeper into the surface below me, assuring my racing mind that I was safely in her grasp.  However, once I was nestled into her skin, I realized the surface was a lot more plush than it usually was.  Wait.. is this clothing material?

It took me a few moments to figure out what had happened.  Alexis had quickly pinned me between one of her hands and her chest to catch me, pressing me firmly onto one of her breasts.  I immediately flushed deep red as I realized what I’d just snuggled into.  Trying not to be too conspicuous, I pushed myself away from her slightly, only blushing harder as I watched my hands sink into her skin.  Seconds later, I fell backwards onto Alexis’ outstretched palm.  She’d finally released me.  

I sat dumbfounded in her hand as she scolded me to be more careful.  Her words were lost in my own thoughts.  I’ve never been held that close to her before.  I stood and stepped carefully over to Alexis’s chest again, placing a single hand over the place I’d been moments before.  I barely even processed what I was doing.  I was too mesmerized by the rhythm of Alexis’ heartbeat, mixed with the offbeat swish of air rushing to her lungs.  It was a strange sensation, feeling the thundering of her heartbeat beneath my fingers as her chest rose and fell with each breath.  This was proof that she wasn’t some impossible being, but rather one gigantic living thing.  It’s insane how impossible that seems.

Suddenly, I became aware of what I was doing.  “Your heart’s beating really fast,” I said awkwardly, pulling my hand back in embarrassment, “I can feel it, it.. sounds.. nice.”  What are you acting so embarrassed for? I internally scolded myself.  Do you want her to realize that you enjoyed snuggling up to her like that?!  A part of me responded with a ready ‘yes’, but I turned away and played it off as best I could.  Though she had confessed she liked me, I didn’t think Alexis was quite ready for that kind of intimacy yet.

I waved a hand nonchalantly at the cliffside where my house used to be.  “I’m ready to go back now.  I- I think that’s enough practice for today.”  Alexis gave me a curious look, but said nothing and headed for home.  The moment we got back to the remains of my house, I quickly changed the subject by complaining about my dirty clothes.  Alexis and I came up with a plan to visit the one house in the subdivision that still had power.  Hopefully the washing machine actually still works.

Later we ate dinner together, and all traces of my awkwardness had disappeared.  While I finished my meal, I watched Alexis patrol the abandoned neighborhood for signs of her own kind.  I'd told her how upset I was about them.  Could they control me like Alexis could?  She was adamant that it wasn't possible, but she couldn't know that for certain.  

Once she finished her search, Alexis came to rest on the cliffside to my right.  I absentmindedly drew a bit closer to her, rattled by the thought of the hazmat giants taking over my world.  Alexis must've noticed me move closer, because she shifted to the side, letting her head rest on the top of the cliff, level with me.  I know her well enough that this was a silent ask for me to move closer.  Normally, Alexis won't get too close to me thanks to the fear I may or may not have vested in her by scaring her off four years ago.  However, on occasion, she'd offer herself over to me.  My favorite times spent with her often come from these moments, where she would let me get as close to her as I dared.

I stood suddenly as a brilliant idea struck me.  Striding up to the place where she settled down, I lay back on the side of Alexis' face, sinking into her soft cheek.  The feeling was akin to sitting on a heated bean bag chair.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially since the nights were getting slightly colder every day.  I was distracted from her by the flickering of lights out in the yard.  For the briefest of moments, I thought they’d come from flashlights further down the road and gasped, causing Alexis to tense beneath me.  However, they were only fireflies.  I pointed them out to Alexis to put her back at ease.

In slight amusement, I watched her try, and fail, to catch the little bugs.  They were tiny compared to me.  I could barely imagine how small they’d be to Alexis, and how impossible they would be for her to catch.  She sighed longingly; I stood up, slightly concerned.  Alexis began a small story about her childhood — how much she loved catching them when she was younger.  Aww, now she’s literally too big to catch them.  Though, I’m not.

Moments later, I was out in my old front yard, stepping through the dark to capture the tiny floating lights, which mostly didn’t seem to care that they were being taken.  When I’d caught a few of them, I returned to Alexis with a smug smile.  “I got you something,” I told her nonchalantly.  “What is it?”  Her voice sounded curious, but I know she already knew the answer.  She’d watched me gather the little bugs.  “Hold out your hand and find out,” I replied, playing along.  

My heart skipped a beat as her right hand slid up to me, resting the tips of her fingers on the bottom of my cupped hands.  For a moment, it was jarring.  I mean, she can hold me captive between her palms just like the little fireflies crawling around in mine.  Despite her obvious ‘dangers’, the risk of befriending, then loving, her came with too many benefits for me not to risk it.

With the gentleness I’d want her to use with me, I released the fireflies into her cupped hand.  They drifted through the space between her fingers for a moment before floating up into the night.  Alexis’ look of pure awe reflected their light as they left, and I watched her as pride swelled in my chest.  I did that.  I made her so happy!   Then her pupils darted to me.  Her look softened with a small smile that made me giddy under her loving gaze.  Using a gentle grip I hadn’t even experienced from someone my own height, Alexis brought my hands into hers, pressing them softly between two of her fingers.

“Thank you.  I have something for you, too.”  God, how’d her voice get so hot all of a sudden?  Alexis leaned over the cliffside, her face coming up beside mine as lips longer than my forearms slid softly against my cheek, drifting down over my neck.  I froze for the briefest moment — my mind overwhelmed by everything.  Then, I practically melted against her, pressing deep kisses into her bottom lip.  I tried to give more, but she didn’t even move.  Was I not enough?  Or was it another one of Alexis’ moments where she somehow believed that she would be too dangerous for me?  Likely, it was the latter.

Sighing with loving annoyance, I stepped away from her just slightly, and her eyes fluttered open.  “I- I don’t want to sound greedy,” I began quietly, “but can I have a bit more?  It’s so.. big.  But I can tell you’re holding back.”  Her confused look soured into confliction.  “I don’t want to hurt you.”  I knew it.  She’s holding back to keep me ‘safe’ from herself.  When will she learn that she’s the safeguard, not the danger?  Shaking my head pityingly, I reached for her chin, which rose just below my face while she spoke.  “You won’t,” I told her sternly.

I worried that she might never want to be too intimate with me — fearing for my safety and whatnot.  However, she exhaled a slight chuckle.  “It’ll cost you extra.”  I was midway through rolling my eyes in exasperation when my chin was gently raised by a finger so big it took up the entire space of my neck.  Irrational, or actually, rational fear lit up my veins.  Any sane person would run or at least struggle feeling their throat pressed against something so heavy.  But I practically craved it.  

Alexis bent down over me.  Her lips were still slightly parted when I shifted up to kiss her.  My heart raced wildly in my chest as a tongue wider than my head slid over my lips.  I inadvertently made a small noise and pulled myself closer, sloppily kissing the gigantic slick muscle.  I know she’s big but holy shit, she’s big.  Her tongue slid into my mouth while I kissed her.  Because of its sheer size, all I could do was sit there and take it as Alexis worked to love me.  My jaw began throbbing as I opened it wide, disbelieving that only the very tip of her tongue was somehow all it took to make this happen to me.  Only for a second did I find myself frightened that my jaw would break loose, but then Alexis pulled away for a breath of air and I fell backwards, gasping for breath.

Saliva dripped off my face in globs that somehow made me queasy and horny at the same time.  “That was-”  I had to take another breath mid-sentence, still not fully recovered.  “That was a really good gift.  Mine kinda sucks in comparison,” I chuckled.  Alexis brushed a finger slowly down my arm before reaching out with a bit of the fabric of her shirt to wipe away the stuff left on my face.  If only we could go to bed together.  We do, but I always have to leave because she might crush me if I sleep with her.   …but what if I don’t sleep with all of her?

The moment Alexis was done cleaning me off, I ran to my sleeping bag.  Before she could take back her hand, I grabbed her pinky and dove into bed with it tucked to my chest.  I slid around it almost protectively, silently pleading with her not to take it back as I got comfortable with it.  The single finger was nearly the same size as me, and I treated it as if it were all of her, twinning it slowly between my arms and legs, finally resting my head on its side.  

After ensuring she couldn’t get out of my grasp, I glanced up at her.  Alexis stared down at me in shock, and I suddenly got the notion of how strange it all must look and feel to her.  “I- I know it’s not normal, but I uhh.. don’t think anything between us will be.  Not that that’s a bad thing!” I added, catching myself.  Shit, she’s going to think I’m weird, or.. or she’ll think I don’t like it!

“You can have your hand back if you want-”  I began to back off her, but Alexis quickly shook her head.  “Keep it,” she replied, moving her finger so it fit snugly against my chest.  “At least until you fall asleep.”  I felt as if I’d burst from joy as she curled up on the cliffside right beside me, gently pulling my sleeping bag closer until it was only a foot away from her chest.  The rumble of her voice was all-encompassing as she spoke, making me shiver.

“I don’t care what we have, as long as we have it together.  I’m so glad you confessed.  It was probably hard for you.  I don’t think I ever would’ve said anything if it weren’t for that.”  “Why?” I joked, “Were you scared of me?”  Alexis’ laugh sounded incredulous, and I frowned.  Is it really that impossible for you to be scared of me?  Haven’t you been scared of me? 

“Don’t take that the wrong way,” she assured me gently, “but it was the opposite; I was worried you would be afraid of me.  I didn’t want to end up forcing you into something you weren’t ready for or didn’t want… again.  I do love you, Erica.  I never want you to feel helpless against me.  Not ever.”

Oh Alexis.  My eyes began to tear up the moment her rumbly soft voice had told me she loved me.  The rumble in her voice only grew stronger as she spoke, more seriousness placed behind it.  “If you ever feel like that, tell me, ok?  I’ll stop whatever I’m doing.  I promise.”  Giddy with joy, I sprung out of bed and raced over to Alexis, hugging her as best as I could with her being so much bigger than me.  I pulled myself into the fabric of her shirt, breathing in her mostly earthy scent.  

A quiet thanks escaped my lips.  “God, it’s so nice to have someone I can trust again.”  I don’t think I’d been properly hugged in a long time — unless you count our reunion in the city while I was drugged up on who-knows-what.  Suddenly, I felt something press lightly against the backs of my legs.  Realizing it was Alexis’ cupped hand, I let myself lean backwards, tucking my legs up into her palm.

Again it struck me just how massive she was.  Her grip was all-encompassing as her fingers slid around me, tucking me against her chest.  I snuggled deeply between them, wholly uncertain of what to even do with such an overwhelming mixture of relief and comfort.  I pressed her fingers tightly against me, as if the pressure would calm away such a giddy feeling.  Their textured pads slid down my legs and across my body, holding me tight.

Alexis’ heartbeat sounded so close too — just like earlier.  Only, instead of the quick pulsing throb of her calming down from near disaster, it was slow and rhythmic and loud, but in a weirdly quiet way.  The sound itself was soft and muffled, but the sheer scale of it made my bones rattle.  I would listen to it the rest of my life if I could.

There was something indescribably comforting in the way she could hold all of me in the palm of her hand.  It was terrifying at first, but now it just makes me feel cared for in a way I never really have before.  Confessing my feelings for Alexis had been a long-debated internal argument that went on from the moment I realized she’d actually returned, not just in my desperate imagination.  I don't doubt for a moment that I made the right decision.

Past her fingertips, I watched Alexis’ expression.  It flickered in a myriad of miniscule ways that you could never have noticed unless a person’s face were so much bigger than your own.  Her loving gaze grew into a little lopsided smile, which grew into a wide grin.  Heat crept across my cheeks seeing her look at me like that.  It suddenly felt a lot warmer than it did a few moments ago.  I stifled a nervous laugh, “You look so happy for once.”  Stretching out of her grip, I tried to shake off the flustered warmth.  “I am happy.  Are you?”  I nodded without a second’s hesitation.  “Never been happier,” I told her confidently.  “You think we can make things work this time?  I’m feeling really good about all this, which.. isn’t actually normal for me.”

I know what ‘normal’ is supposed to be: love unconditionally.  Or maybe it’s just a pipe dream for someone like me.  Yet.. with Alexis it’s different.  She- She really does love me.  There was really a time I told myself this was impossible; now look at me.  I was lifted up steadily until I sat in front of her face.  Alexis rested her lips on me, just beginning to kiss me again, but I stopped her with a light shove.  “Just-”  I paused, trying to think of what to tell her — how to tell her.  “Stay like this.”  I let her lips fall back across my body again.  It felt heavenly — the texture, the plush surface. 

My giddy adrenaline spike crashed into a wave of tiredness, and I gently sank against her.  “I love you so much.”  The last thing I remember feeling before I fell asleep was the slight curve of a smile against my side before I couldn’t stay awake any longer.

[steveezekiel]

THE TIME OF RELEASE

“CAN A WOMAN FORGET HER NURSING CHILD, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? SURELY THEY MAY FORGET, YET I [God] WILL NOT FORGET YOU."

Isaiah 49:15 (NKJV)

* God has concern for His children. If a child of God did go astray, He would chastise him or her with the compassion and motivation to bring such back to Himself.

- God was saying, the Jews would be punished, but they would be restored after a while:

26 AND SO ALL ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, AND HE WILL TURN AWAY UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB; 27 For THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS” (Romans 11:26,27 NKJV).

- If you, as a Believer, a child of God, misses it, and God chastises you; He surely would bring you back to Himself after a genuine repentance. God would not totally forsake you. He will turn your captivity after a genuine repentance.

* God would restore whatever you had lost through the Captivity: "THIS IS WHAT THE SOVEREIGN LORD SAYS: “See, I will give a signal to the godless nations. THEY WILL CARRY YOUR LITTLE SONS BACK TO YOU IN THEIR ARMS; THEY WILL BRING YOUR DAUGHTERS ON THEIR SHOULDERS" Isaiah 49:22 (NLT).

READ: Psalm 126:1

- If you offended God and He did punish you, He would not abandon you in that state that you are. Thus, Accept God's chastisement (Proverbs 3:11,12; Hebrews 12:5,6).

- When you are being chastised by God, accept it with a good heart, because He has done it for your good. He did it that you might partake in His Holiness:

"FOR our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. BUT GOD'S DISCIPLINE IS ALWAYS GOOD FOR US, SO THAT WE MIGHT SHARE IN HIS HOLINESS" (Hebrews 12:10 NLT).

- God would surely restore a child with the penitent or repentant heart, because such is precious to Him: "THE SACRIFICES OF GOD ARE A BROKEN SPIRIT, A BROKEN AND A CONTRITE HEART—THESE, O GOD, YOU WILL NOT DESPISE" (Psalm 51:17 NKJV).

- The most important thing is, the Heart with which the erring child receives the discipline or chastisement: "FOR ALL those things My hand has made, And all those things exist,” Says the LORD. “BUT ON THIS ONE WILL I LOOK: ON HIM WHO IS POOR AND OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT, AND WHO TREMBLES AT MY WORD" (Isaiah 66:2 NKJV).

READ: Psalm 34:18

* The punishment and the suffering would be for a while, If the erring Believer had a repentant heart.

- God promises to bring the Israelites out of their Captivity, back to their land of inheritance. A chosen vessel of God would not be outright or completely forsaken:

16 SEE, I HAVE INSCRIBED YOU ON THE PALMS OF MY HANDS; YOUR WALLS ARE CONTINUALLY BEFORE ME. 17 Your sons shall make haste; YOUR DESTROYERS AND THOSE WHO LAID YOU WASTE SHALL GO AWAY FROM YOU" (Isaiah 49:16,17 NKJV).

- Note:

a. When you are out of the predicament or Captivity, learn from your past mistakes, and do not allow it to repeat itself.

b. Appreciate God for your deliverance.

c. Tell others about God's goodness and love.

d. Let God have His way in your life.

e. Be more dedicated to God than you were before.

* The turning of captivity is usually like a dream: "WHEN THE LORD BROUGHT BACK THE CAPTIVES [who returned] TO ZION, WE WERE LIKE THOSE WHO DREAM [it seemed so unreal]" (Psalm 126:1 —Amplified Bible, Classic Edition).

- There is hope for whoever belongs to God, but finds himself or herself in one Captivity or another.

- If you had been going through ordeals, It is my Joy to announce to you, As you read this piece, now is the season of release. Believe the news. The time of emancipation; unloosen or freeing, has come.

- The devil who is the captor might not be happy with the news of the release or freedom, but there is nothing he can do about it:

24 Who can snatch the plunder of war from the hands of a warrior? Who can demand that a tyrant let his captives go? 25 BUT THE LORD SAYS, “THE CAPTIVES OF WARRIORS WILL BE RELEASED, AND THE PLUNDER OF TYRANTS WILL BE RETRIEVED. FOR I WILL FIGHT THOSE WHO FIGHT YOU, AND I WILL SAVE YOUR CHILDREN" (Isaiah 49:24,25 NLT).

* It is reiterated again, God will not forsake you, His anger is only for a moment: "FOR HIS ANGER LASTS ONLY A MOMENT, BUT HIS FAVOUR LASTS A LIFETIME! WEEPING MAY LAST THROUGH THE NIGHT, BUT JOY COMES WITH THE MORNING" (Psalm 30:5 NLT).

- There is a hope of restoration for God's children who are willing to change, those who open and respond positively to corrections and chastisements.

- If you are under God's discipline, punishment, or chastisement, there is hope for you. If you are permitted to be in any Captivity, in order to be corrected and learned, your time of release is here, as you pay attention to the principles shared in this piece.

- The truth is; God would not outright forget or forsake His son or daughter who erred and repented genuinely. Repentance; a change of mind and of your ways, is the key factor.

* You will not fail in Jesus' name.

- I have the urge to always pray for those who are ill or sick. If there is any ailment in your body, I release the healing power of God on you, and I declare your healing now, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.

- Your afflictions come to an end in Jesus' name.

- Your time of release has come, you are deliver from that Captivity of sicknesses and diseases in the name of Jesus Christ.

- And the afflictions will never rise again in Jesus' name.

Peace!

STEPS TO SALVATION

* Take notice of this:

IF you are yet to take the step of salvation, that is, yet to be born-again, do it now, tomorrow might be too late (2 Corinthians 6:1,2; Hebrews 3:7,8,15).

a. Acknowledge that you are a sinner and confess your Sins (1 John 1:9); And ask Jesus Christ to come into your life (Revelation 3:20).

b. Confess that you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that you confess it with your mouth, Thus, you accept Him As your Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:9,10).

c. Ask that He will write your name in the Book of Life (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:8).

- If you took the steps As highlighted above, It means you are saved—born-again. Join a Word based church in your area and Town or city, and be part of whatever they are doing there. Peace!

[lunarsilkscreen]

TW: Rape

In the legal system, rape can be a legally binding contract. A child needs two parents, it doesn't matter if one of the two people were unwilling. Now you have to be with your rapist forever. "Because of the child."

What example does that set?

In queer rape, or non-consensual non-procreation rape. It becomes muddled. Since people only care about the child produced. And nobody else.

Until AIDs came into being we had all but forgotten about STDs even though people suffered from them. Even during rape cases or non-disclosure to assenting parties.

What example does it set that we said "Rape is ok if it's hetero-sexual" and "only the gays get STDs?".

Because God likes rape as long as it produces children!

That's the example that Christians (as a whole) have decided for the United States. That rape is OK.

When I say that, they point out the commandments, or certain Bible verses. Until I ask "What about conception?" And they respond: "that's a different matter entirely! The child matters more now."

Missing the point that if a rape produces children, and you do nothing about it, than you have children from rape. With unloving, uncaring parents. You have set the example that children don't matter at all. Producing them does.

John 16:21 says that "A woman is in pain because she's having a near-death experience in childbirth. And her love for her child brings her back to life."

So you'd condemn a raped woman to death because she doesn't love her rapist. Just because the child is more important than the mother. You'd condemn that child to a life without knowing love. Creating a world without it.

Genesis 3:16 says something similar, but that her love for her husband will make her wish to produce children. And that will also get her through childbirth.

Again, these versus say something very specific. Love should precede sex. And rape should never happen. Forcing a woman to birth for a man she does not love, to produce a child whom will not know love. That is the definition of evil in my eyes.

The bible says so. Deuteronomy says that a man must pay his rape victim a dowry, and must provide for her as long as he lives. I assume marriage meant something different than it does now. Multiple wives and what not. Deuteronomy seems divorced from love, the premise of marriage.

I don't remember much about abortions in the Bible, but Exodus suggests that only a fine is deserved to a man who hits a pregnant woman and causes a still birth. It doesn't give that same fine to the woman.

I maintain that the women (To avoid confusion: those with working uteri. Stop accusing me of wishing to control bio-women. Ty.) Are the sole deciders in them wishing to give birth at any stage. (That's where I'll stop. This is about rape, and I have no say in who gives birth. Right?)

So we're at Rape.

Leviticus 18:22 prohibits incestuous relationships in same-sex relations. But not gay sex itself. Basically... Children or not, don't do incest!

There's nothing about women raping men. Must not be able to happen.

This is the argument we're at today. Men can rape because they force a woman to give birth. Men can't be raped except by other men.

So what if a sober woman gives consent to a sober man, becomes pregnant, and then takes the man to court for rape? What if the woman ties an unconscious man to a bed, rapes him, becomes pregnant, and then says it was consensual, or even allegeds that she was the one who was raped?

What then? Deuteronomy commands a rapist to indentured servitude for life. Except women?

My assumption, is at the very least the woman doesn't have to provide for the man, but for her child. And the man who did not rape doesn't owe her or the potential child anything.

This is a pretty severe dichotomy. If we bring STDs into the mix, it becomes worse. Both for queer and hetero relationships.

(Side Note: Google search needs to fix their Wikipedia references.)

I think we can agree that take is wrong. And heterosexual people do not consent to homosexual sex. Right? And nonconsensual sex is rape.

This is where a lot of the men land in the rape debate. And why it's an important question in today's day and age. It's also why the religious stand their ground on marriage before sex.

Arguably, there's no reason for them to stand against homosexual marriage either. But some of them will die on that hill, and I'm not exactly sure why.

Regardless. Women have a lot of power when it comes to the concept of rape, and men do not. Women need protections in the cases they are raped. I'm not denying that in any way. But what protections do men have in the reverse situation? There aren't any.

And while there's a patriarchal power imbalance, a woman is more likely to be slut shamed than to be believed in society. Legally, a man can also more likely afford a better attorney than a woman can. But in cases where the man cannot? Or in trials with a female judge and juries predisposed to believing that man cannot be raped? It gets muddled.

Right now, it is still very much in a man's favor. And the responses sound like "Quit whining, you have all the power". But when it starts to turn in the other direction, it'll come down hardest on poor men. (And harder on trans women because "we're predisposed to predatory behavior" or something.)

Then our only salvation will be testosterone blockers.

[tpanan]

My Sunday Daily Blessings

June 11, 2023

Be still quiet your heart and mind, the LORD is here, loving you talking to you...........        

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Catholic Observance) Lectionary 167

First Reading:  

Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a

Responsorial Psalm:

Ps 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20

Second Reading:

1 Cor 10:16-17

Verse Before the Gospel:    

Jn 6:51

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord; whoever eats this bread will live forever."

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

**Gospel:      

Jn 6:51-58

**Reflection:

What is the bread of life which Jesus offers to all who believe in him? It is first of all the life of God himself - life which sustains us not only now in this age but also in the age to come. The Rabbis said that the generation in the wilderness have no part in the life to come. In the Book of Numbers it is recorded that the people who refused to brave the dangers of the promised land were condemned to wander in the wilderness until they died. The Rabbis believed that the father who missed the promised land also missed the life to come. God sustained the Israelites in the wilderness with manna from heaven. This bread foreshadowed the true heavenly bread which Jesus would offer his followers.

Jesus is the "bread of life" Jesus makes a claim only God can make: He is the true bread of heaven that can satisfy the deepest hunger we experience. The manna from heaven prefigured the superabundance of the unique bread of the Eucharist or Lord's Supper which Jesus gave to his disciples on the eve of his sacrifice. The manna in the wilderness sustained the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land. It could not produce eternal life for the Israelites. The bread which Jesus offers his disciples sustains us not only on our journey to the heavenly paradise, it gives us the abundant supernatural life of God which sustains us for all eternity.

The food that makes us live forever Jesus chose the time of the Jewish Feast of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum - giving his disciples his body and his blood as the true bread of heaven. Jesus' passing over to his Father by his death and resurrection - the new passover - is anticipated in the Last Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the church in the glory of God's kingdom. When the Lord Jesus commands his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he invites us to take his life into the very center of our being. That life which he offers is the very life of God himself.

Do you hunger for the "bread of life"? Jesus offers us the abundant supernatural life of heaven itself - but we can miss it or even refuse it. To refuse Jesus is to refuse eternal life, unending life with the Heavenly Father. To accept Jesus as the bread of heaven is not only life and spiritual nourishment for this world but glory in the world to come.

When we receive from the Lord's table we unite ourselves to Jesus Christ, who makes us sharers in his body and blood and partakers of his divine life. Ignatius of Antioch (35-107 A.D.) calls it the "one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ" (Ad Eph. 20,2). This supernatural food is healing for both body and soul and strength for our journey heavenward.

When you approach the Table of the Lord, what do you expect to receive? Healing, pardon, comfort, and rest for your soul? The Lord has much more for us, more than we can ask or imagine. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist or Lord's Supper is an intimate union with Christ. As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens us in charity and enables us to break with disordered attachments to creatures and to be more firmly rooted in the love of Christ. Do you hunger for the "bread of life"?

Lord Jesus, you nourish and sustain us with your very own presence and life-giving word. You are the bread of life - the heavenly food that sustains us now and that produces everlasting life within us. May I always hunger for you and be satisfied in you alone.

Sources:

Lectionary for Mass for use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, copyright (c) 2001, 1998, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain (c) 1968, 1981, 1997, international committee on english in the liturgy, Inc All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

**Meditations may be freely reprinted for non-commercial use - please cite:  copyright © 2023 Servants of the Word, source:  dailyscripture.net, author Don Schwager.

[1800-needs-help]

I've been thinking about this for a while & idk where to put my thoughts so... yeah

the untamed hs au

Wei Wuxian is certainly not a model student by any means but he's still up their with Lang Wangji in terms of grades. And people are still questioning how this mess of a teenager even got a A+ on a English presentation when the night before he was posting about the party he got incredibly wasted at. But his teachers and the kids that sit next to him in class can testify to the fact that he does prove his work on assignments and such. Although it looks like chicken scratch, they are able to see the general idea of what he was writing down. He also takes full advantage and learns along with the students he tutors after school where he definitely didn't start doing it bc he would see Lang Wangji study there and decided "there's nothing more beautiful than watching this man focus on school work." He was also a band kid for all of middle school but "I quit bc I don't have enough time for that stuff anymore." "Oh, really? bc I heard from Wen Ning that you got kicked out bc you kept playing Careless Whisper at the band camps over the summer." "I did no such thing-" He still plays the flute when he needs to calm down Wen Ning from his panic attacks or when he feels too stressed out about school.

Lan Wangji is a perfect student ofc. But he is intimidatingly smart and never shows his work ever. Even on exams he doesn't show a single scribble or note. He just looks at the question and just knows the answer. And the only people who are absolutely sure this dude even studies for anything are the librarian, Lan Xichen and WWX (and definitely not bc he stares aha ha 👀). But his backpack has notebooks that are filled with so many notes that every few weeks or so he has to ask Lan Xichen for some extra ones. He studies more than most students so he can get into a good college that will make his uncle proud but forgets to actually take care of himself so Lan Xichen has to be more of a parent than a brother. Lan Xichen knew how stressed out Lan Wangji really was so he got him two bunny rabbits that he helps take care of and insists that he name them. So, Lan Wangji names them Lettuce and Carrot "why are laughing at the names? I named them after what they eat... yes I am aware that carrots have no nutritional value to them but still, I like the names and that's final. Stop laugHING-"

Jiang Cheng is the embodiment of stress and constantly studies bc "there is no way Wei Wuxian of all people could have better grades than me." He can usually be found in the library studying a few tables away from WWX and the kids he tutors, or a few feet away from Wen Qing's locker pining over her during passing period. Exam week is already hell but if you know Jiang Cheng then for that week you choose to ignore everything he says, does or thinks bc that is not Jiang Cheng that is Satan himself. Nie Huaisang has lost multiple textbooks and cellphones from Jiang Cheng yeeting them out of the nearest window bc he still refuses to learn and keeps asking if he wants a Snicker "bc you're not you when you're- JIANG CHENG STOP MY BROTHER WILL KILL ME OF I LOSE ANOTHER PHONE!"

Nie Huaisang like the absolute legend he is pretends to be completely clueless at literally everything but he always passes his classes with flying colors and knows the latest drama on everyone, even the teachers. He is somehow the only student that knows that Lan Xichen, the English teacher, and Lan Wangji are brothers. "I swear I'm not making that one up! How is it that everyone believed me about the water fountain that makes people gay but not about something as obvious as this!" The teachers are of course too afraid to question how he knows everything yet nothing at all bc his older brother teaches there and he's the scariest mf teacher there and nobody dares to goof off anywhere near the damn classroom. Has lost multiple items to Jiang Cheng, especially during exam week, and is on his absolute best behavior when he has Nie Mingjue's class so it'll be easier to break the news about his phone that "slipped out of my hands and off the roof earlier during physics, I swear! No, I don't know why Jiang Cheng was smiling during class today, why do you ask?"

Wen Ning is a freshman that is in WWX's group of friends bc they once saw him getting bullied in middle school (when he was in the 6th grade and they were in the 8th) and after kicking their asses they decided right then and their to adopt him. When WWX is not at school he acts as the voice of reason for their group but when WWX is there he can be persuaded by a simple please. Teachers love him and he always goes out of his way to help his friends. He was even the first kid that WWX tutored in the library. "Did you ask me if I wanted you to tutor me just so you could watch Lan Wangji?" "Wen Ning keep it down he could hear us, now focus on your algebra homework!" "...this is Romeo and Juliet." "Shhhhhhh."

Wen Qing was introduced to the group of idiots after they adopted her brother and she demanded to meet them as soon as he mentioned them to give them the shovel talk. She 100% knows about Jiang Cheng's enormous, fat, cosmic entity of crush on her but she doesn't do anything about it cause the woman is busy. She is a sister yes, but she is also Wen Ning and WWX's impulse control. Does she fall victim to her brother's puppy eyes and get roped into trouble with them as well? ofc but at least she can say she tried to stop them. she has come to her boys' defense so many times she has an unofficial degree in law. "Ms. Wen were you aware of the rules regarding the dress code?" "yes." "do you anything to say in your defense for breaking those codes?" "yes." "..." "they were stupid and you can't afford to suspend two of you top students before exams. you need the scores to boost the over all average. plus the popularity of one of my clients (wwx LMAO) would disrupt the social order of the school-" "Ms. Wen that's enough- I SAID ENOUGH"

Jiang Yanli is a senior in University who is just trying to calm down her younger brothers about exams and relationships while also planning out her wedding with Jin Zixuan for after graduation. WWX still calls him a peacock bc "he's so bougie what do you even see in him???" "A-Xian we're rich too in case you forgot." Even while being busy with a hundred million things she still has time to visit her brothers and make them their favorite dinner and she always makes sure to make enough for lunch tommorow at school "but c'mon we're not kids anymore-" "Jiang Cheng I swear to God if you don't shut you're mouth rn I won't hesitate to send a quick text to Wen Qing-" "WEI WUXIAN YOU WOULDN'T DARE-"

[turnpage]

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult��asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452�� ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

[day-dreamsinthedark]

just some thoughts on Robby Keene

specifically robby/sam, robby/tory, and robby/miguel

because I'm lacking the inspiration to work on the numerous fics I should be writing

I LOVE that Robby is just a big softie. VERY traumatized Golden Retriever energy!!

Robby and Sam??? Robert Swayze Keene was so soft for that girl!!! All she did was smile at him and he was weak!! Even after he found out about the kiss!! ALL HE WANTED TO DO WAS PROTECT HER!!!

And then he hurt someone, really fucking hurt someone, because for the first time in his life he's had something that felt real and big and more important than anything ever (because he's 16 and first love is oh so heavy at 16 and it feels like the world is ending when you experience that first loss) and he doesn't know how to process it, because he's never had anyone show him how.

He is soft and gentle and deserving of all of the love in the world okay???!!! The boy needs therapy and a quality parental figure, and also probably needs to apologize to Miguel, because I refuse to believe that the thought of almost killing the other boy isn't eating him alive.

----

Robby and Tory!?!?!?! She's literally miss "I hate everyone including myself, don't talk to me." BUT ROBBY KEENE IS SOFT AND CARING AND COULD PUSH THROUGH ALL OF HER ANGER AND HURT ANYWAY and oh boy he did!! Tory Nichols is the type of girl to sleep with a knife under her pillow and keep a wall around her heart and mind at all times and Robby Keene managed to infiltrate it all just to offer her the safety she deserved!!

They were SO HAPPY at junior prom!! They were just being kids and having fun and dancing and flirting and honestly I am BIG MAD at Sam and Miguel for being so annoying at prom. It should have been an opportunity for everyone to just HAVE FUN.

----

For all you Kiaz shippers out there (I am working on a Kiaz request rn and it's taken me forever but I've finally found a spark and it might be ridiculously long lol sorry) ANYWAY I have a lil head canon that:

Robby and Miguel, with all their history, would be a super interesting ship, you know? I can just fucking imagine:

When they've finally admitted their feelings and it's been a while and it's the first time they've ever really been close. Nothing too adult, just kissing and cuddling--REAL cuddling because Robby's got issues with proximity and he's not sure why, but he's desperate to fight them off-- and suddenly he's crying and it feels like his body is swelling with guilt at a rate that HURTS and Miguel just pulls him in closer and shushes him quietly, because Robby likes to pull away and all Miguel wants is to be close and to show him that in his arms there is safety. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay. What's wrong?"

But Robby can't answer that because the answer is "I almost killed you and we've never really talked about it and I don't know how to bring up that I still hate myself."

So then he just lays there with his head in Miguel's chest, embarrassed about the growing wet spot on his boyfriends shirt and trying not to choke on what he wants to say. "You almost died."

And Miguel chuckles for some reason and Robby looks up at those big brown eyes that aren't sad or angry or God forbid, disgusted. They're creased at the edges with a joyous expression and that itself almost makes the deep hole in his chest melt away because what the hell is he laughing at?

"I forgave you a long time ago, babe. It's time you forgive yourself too."

So Robby shakes his head in a silent agreement and tucks himself back into the spot where he'd just been crying. Miguel understands why the gentle sobs go on for a little longer, but his heart fills with content when he realizes that it's the first time that Robby has ever really settled in to their cuddle session.

----

ANYWAY GOODNIGHT (I take requests if anyone happens to be interested ♡)

accidentally wrote myself into a kiaz mood so hopefully that request will be done soon

I have 2 atm and I swear I am working on them!! sorry school is beating my ass

[mandareeboo]

SU Music Rankings

Bc I can and I wanna start some Disk Horse rip. These are all in order of preference, with explanations, etc. It’s a long bitch. That said, I’m not counting little short jingles or small joke songs like Little Butler. This is the meat and potatoes of SU music- just under 30 songs. I might do the rest if people like my takes lol.

I scored it mostly on three bases- how dear it was to my heart, how much/often I relisten to it, and also what it means to the plot. That said, little fun songs don’t automatically go farther down than big, plot-heavy songs either! It’s a strange little balance.

Special Note: I don’t dislike any of this music! I love SU and that includes its bumps and glitches. I just pick favorite children lol.

1.) Change

Was there ever a more Steven moment than when he wiped the blood off his face and kissed it into sparkles? I think not. 

If “Be Wherever You Are” is an ode to young Steven, then this is teen Steven’s. Talking about change, and how much and how little it can do. How he holds his arms up for Spinel to hug him, so trusting. How he seems able to just. Break into soft tears at will, and not to be manipulative- it’s just his kind nature. The warmth in his voice. Fuck yesssss.

2.) Change Your Mind

This song is only fifty five seconds and it’s EVERYTHING to me. It really felt like someone was speaking the words I’d always held deep inside of me, unsure of how to say. It feels like a goodbye to someone who never really loved me. 

As much as I enjoyed Future, if this was the finale of SU, I would’ve been perfectly okay with that.

3.) Drift Away

This song gave me legitimate shivers the first time I heard it, and it still haunts me to this day. Spinel stayed, and waited, and all she got was a transmission thousands of years later. Fuck.

4.) Here We Are In The Future

THE MOVIE IS SU AS ITS BEST AND I WON’T BE SWAYED ON IT. Steven being a teen who loves his weird family but is growing just a bit sarcastic to their drama. The adorable love he and Connie share. His slow realization that he will always be working, always have things to do, is both somber and real. The Crystal Gems won’t be safe with one epic battle. They’ll be safe with years of hard work and love. HIS LITTLE HANDSHAKE WITH AMETHYST.

This is a helluva bop and a great way to summarize the main character’s backstories.

5.) Let’s Only Think About Love

Did ya’ll know that Zach Callison killed his throat with that last note? He gave his all for this performance in a vocal range he no longer comfortably do and by god did it SHINE. The FLAIR. The FORESHADOWING. All of the Gems all being awkward about Rose and Steven trying to bring them to the present. Peridot having a mini-existential crisis in a cute yellow dress. I love Zach Callison’s normal singing voice but man is that a fucking bop. Nothing will ever beat it.

6.) Here Comes A Thought

This bad boy helped me out a LOT with some mental issues I was dealing with in high school. I was unmedicated, unsupervised, and full of anxiety. I’d have break downs when I tried to speak about certain things. I couldn’t function. This song inspired me. It helped me feel okay with my intrusive thoughts.

And the episode! -chef’s kiss-. Once again bringing up the morally gray area of training child soldiers. Connie expanding her social group. Steven’s trauma hauling ass in that second half. The ANIMATION. Stevonnie’s gorgeous singing voice. GOD yes.

7.) It’s Over Isn’t It?

Just barely squeaking above Stronger Than You, this ballad is everything gorgeous. The whole episode is. I think Mr. Greg stands in the top five of my episodes for the entire show. It even got nominated!

There’s just so much about this song that I love. The gentle melancholy of Pearl’s voice. How the crew had to redo the shots for this bit bc Deedee went so fucking hard. The hard cuts between Pearl, remembering the love of her life, and Steven, who has begun to feel like he took her away. I’d recommend this song to anyone, regardless of what they do or don’t know about SU, simply bc it tugs so many heartstrings of love, loss, and responsibility.

8.) Stronger Than You

Did you realize this episode aired SEVEN years ago? This bitch was what got me into SU! Hearing about Ruby and Sapphire made my little gay heart so happy inside, and then getting a whole song confirming that they were a couple, that their love powered the strongest Gem on the team? Aaaaaaaaa

To this DAY I get excited when I hear Estelle start singing. This song is timeless. This song will live in media history. God I fucking love this song.

9.) Other Friends

I’m not the biggest musical person, so I hadn’t heard of Sarah Stiles before her casting as Spinel, but JESUS CHRIST the lady went hard. She went SO fucking hard. Sarah Stiles started on 100 and somehow just kept CLIMBING. You can just hear the sheer manic energy building in her voice, the anger and resentment. 10/10 Sarah Stiles is a queen.

10.) Independent Together

This made the list entirely bc the crew was like “you’re gonna get a himbo ass Steven-Greg fusion singing with Opal while Garnet flies across the moon on Lion while floating” and I am forever thankful to them for it

11.) Who We Are

Bismuth deserved more songs. ‘Nuff said.

12.) Peace and Love (On the Planet Earth)

It Could’ve been Great is EASILY one of my favorite s2 episodes. I love the entire concept of this song. Of Steven making music to reflect how much Earth means to him and his family. Of him teaching Peridot some self-care. Also Peridot’s singing voice is really cute and squeaky. 

I know it’s silly, but I would’ve really enjoyed a flip around of this in Future! Like Peridot reminding Steven how much he loves music, that he needs to take time to relax for himself, maybe with a new verse or just a remix of the original song!

13.) Something Entirely New

I watched this episode as it aired, and I legitimately almost cried. I love Charlyne Yi’s voice so much ya’ll- her raspy, not perfect singing voice against Sapphire’s deep soothing lull is great.

And to have Ruby and Sapphire’s meeting be the way it was- for Ruby to bemoan Sapphire losing Homeworld, to being stuck with a single Ruby, while Sapphire is a noble who has always been taught everyone in her “caste” is vitally important (and has, in her own mind, taken that to mean every Gem, as she should) and how they come together and make each other happy. Good shit good shit.

14.) I’m Just a Comet

The fact that Greg’s music career never really blasted off pisses me off to this day bc Tom Scharpling’s voice is fucking BUTTER. Also the song really feels like a jab at his parents now that we know the kind of dynamic he had growing up. “This life in the stars if all I’ve ever known” is definitely him wiping away their existence after reminding them (and himself) the things they used to say about him.

15.) Do It For Her

This episode. This fucking episode. This episode got me permanently hooked on SU. I’d just binged season 1 and was kinda meh about it overall after the bop of Stronger Than You. “Oh,” I thought to myself, foolishly, “I’ll probably just casually watch this from time to time.”

Like three days later Sworn to the Sword aired and that was it. I was hooked! Pearl’s gentle training song turning darker and darker, Connie’s accompaniment from nervous to determined to fully into such a toxic mindset. The fact that SU had the BALLS to discuss the repercussions of training child soldiers, now and later. This episode was everything to me, STILL is everything to me.

Six years and well over 100 fanfics written later, I think it’s safe to say this show swallowed me whole and never let go.

16.) System/Boot.pearl_final(3)

I debated putting this on the list because it’s not anything crazy important, just a way to show things are Wrong, but I had to do it entirely bc Pearl is so damn SALTY.

Like telling us about the Gems makes sense, she felt like she was given a duty, but she went so damn petty. WHY is that Ruby alone. Gross. This Amethyst is a trash dump. Wtf are you people.

17.) Full Disclosure

This episode really feels like a turning point for SU. Before, the show had its dark moments- but now we’re in the thick of it, and it’s not going away. Full Disclosure felt like an rebuff to the idea of returning to any normal we’d established in season 1. Gems are actually a giant species now. Gems tried to kill us now. There’s this Yellow Diamond bitch who got namedropped. Something about a Cluster. 

The song itself is BALLER, with its ingenious use of Steven’s ringtone and photos as he tries to decide whether to clue in Connie on all this nonsense. Meanwhile we, the audience, already know damn well Connie about to yeet some common sense into him.

18.) What’s the Use of Feeling Blue?

I’mma admit it- I’m a Yellow Diamond stan. I’ve always loved her- her anger, her poise, her hardworking nature. I actively argued against the “Yellow Shattered Pink” theories back in the day. But, man, when this arc leaked? I got so overexcited I was too jittery to watch it for like two days. It’s easily my favorite arc of the series. The sheer alien nature of the zoo, the Famethyst, and absolutely Patti Lupone’s beautiful ballad. Goddamn. Yellow singing to Blue to try and help her regain her old status, the warble in her voice as she reminds Blue she misses Pink too, the movement of the bubbles as she talks about attack. It gives me shivers to this day. FUCK.

19.) Tower of Mistakes

This is, fun fact, that only SU song I have completely memorized. The story itself is kinda funny! See, we lost internet at my house for a solid 5 to 6 months when these episodes aired, so I only got a very brief window to view them all. But this was the first Amethyst song in a long while, and I didn’t want to forget it! So I keep replaying it in my head for ages. And that’s still definitely a thing.

Anyway will never not be sad that this entire song was about making it up to Garnet for Amethyst’s perceived slights with Sugilite (which was a two-way road), only for Garnet to pressure her into fusion later when pissed and never discuss it again bc Garnet probably never thought twice about it and Amethyst has the emotional openness of a clam that’s just been told its ugly. Helluva way to make someone feel like shit, G. Helluva way to bottle that shit, Ames.

20.) On the Run

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Amethyst! Needed! More! Songs! 

The dichotomy between Steven’s play and Amethyst’s honest desire to run away from home is so well-done, especially when you consider a lot of Steven and Amethyst’s actions are playing together. The song is also near and dear to me simply bc it’s my favorite Amethyst episode to exist (well, maybe second to What’s Your Problem, but not by much). Moments like these are all the proof I need that they were right to fuse first.

21.) Be Wherever You Are

This tune really just feels like an ode to who Steven was as a kid. Trapped on an island with no way home, and he’s just happy to be with his friends. The stars are beautiful and not oppressive. Also that one animatic with Lars and the Off Colors playing in the Homeworld Kindergarten to this music was iconic and made this song get stuck in my head for a solid month.

22.) Familiar

I ADORE how the crew use bright neon colors to show how alien Homeworld can be. And Steven recognizing that the Diamonds treat him how the CGs used to, and how prepared he is to “fix” a broken family. It’s a soft, gentle tune about melancholy. Also the Pebbles are beautiful.

23.) Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart

Such a cute little love ballad, but every time I listen to it now I just imagine the heart attack Rose must’ve had at the line “And if we look out of place/Well, baby, that's okay/I'll drive us into outer space.” like there’s a Vietnam war flashback if I ever heard one

24.) What Can I Do?

I’m kind of neutral on this one? Rose and Greg both have great voices, but the song itself lacks many lyrics. I think it was definitely a good way to show Rose’s flaws in thinking.

Also, I’m shocked they managed cram that much vaguely sexual innuendo into two minutes, followed by how Not Hetereo that dance between Rose and Pearl was, and not get their asses chewed by it. You go guys.

25.) Cookie Cat

I love a lot of the vibes this song has. The lyrics are so damn prophetic, but they also sound like the kind of weird 90s commercials I grew up on. It’s been like two decades since I saw the Shirley Temple commercial but I’ll be damned if I don’t remember “Animals crackers in my soup! Monkey and rabbits loop-de-loop.”

26.) Giant Woman

I am. NOT the biggest fan of Steven’s original singing voice. I feel bad saying that, since it was just Zach Callison as a kid, but he never jived well with me for some reason. So I wouldn’t listen to this on the fly. 

The song itself is still really good though, with all sorts of fun animation of Amethyst and Pearl being bitchy to each other. It’s a bit sad in hindsight to see tiny Steven trying to get his moms to get along. Ahh, season 1.

27.) Strong in the Real Way

This song has SUCH a strong start. Pearl reflecting on Sugilite’s problems, but the show making sure to show us that Pearl’s lack of enthusiasm towards her also lends itself to jealousy as well as just general malaise. How much she cares about Steven, and wants him to grow up strong. 

And then Steven just kinda. Ruins it? I appreciate his enthusiasm for tryna bulk up but to take what was starting as such a rich, personal song and broadcasting it to random strangers just makes me a bit sad. Almost a bit angry on her behalf?

28.) That Distant Shore

I KNOW this is gonna create some discourse, but I’m just not the biggest Lapis stan. I love her voice. I love the visuals of the song. And I get why she felt afraid and needed to flee.

But Lapis never got to take responsibility for her own actions. And, in the end, the song feels hollow to me- because we all know she’ll never talk to anyone about it, know she’ll burst back in and destroy the barn, and no one will ever question it. I like Lapis a lot, but I feel like her arc never was fully finished. She never got help. She never learned to feel safe.

29.) Dear Old Dad

I’ve yet to meet a single human being who likes this episode tbh. There’s some great discussion about what kind of parent Greg is from it, and what kind of dynamic he has with the Gems that he felt he had to fake an injury to hang out with his son. Honestly the first half was fine and dandy. It’s just that then they Greg just went out of his way to drag Steven away from missions and such. It never jived well with his character before or after.

Also, is it just me, or does Zach himself sound like he hates the song as he sings it? There’s no passion or heart in his voice. It sounds like they told him to read off cue cards and he did. Tom Scharpling’s best attempts didn’t save this one for being a skipper. But the episode, unfortunately, isn’t, so it gets a spot on here.

[shadyteacup]

Hi! Im the one req 7 for chuuya sorry i didint specified, i just realized it. Can i get angst prompt 7 for chuuya?

Hiya! This pained me to write, so I made it fluffy at the end... sorry if u were looking for pure angst! I can't go to sleep peacefully peacefully after writing angst, I need to clutch my soft toys and cry myself to sleep..

Warnings: Angst to fluff, maybe a swear word at the end.. dw, it's just "bish", but like the actual word.

Word count: 2006 😳yes, I got carried away

Nakahara Chuuya + “Please wake up”

Forewarning

“Don’t move, Chu.”

You grumbled against his chest. It was yet another lazy morning for the two of you. Lazy mornings consisted of waking up late, cuddling on the bed till lunch time, getting dressed and having dinner at some exotic place, going for a long drive, then coming back home. It was a perfect day for a traditional lazy day, except for the fact it was a weekday.

Chuuya sighed. He had to get to work, and so did you. You both couldn’t afford to miss any workdays, considering that you both worked for the same organization, one that didn’t hesitate to punish for untimely work. Chuuya was an executive, and so were you. You both had multiple solo missions planned out for today and one mission wherein you both had to team up. It was going to be quite a busy day, and Chuuya wanted nothing more than to just get it all over with. He was looking forward to some lazy cuddles in the evening, after both of your jobs were done.

“We have to get dressed, dove.”

He tried reasoning with you. You were a workaholic, just like him. It surprised him to see this lazy side of you. But then again, you must be tired, he thought.

“I know. But let’s bunk today!”

You looked up at him with wide eyes, hoping to convince him.

Chuckling, he pet your head affectionately.

“The mafia isn’t some school that you could just bunk. Besides, don’t you love working?”

You frowned at that. You were feeling weird today. It’s like something was forewarning you. But about what?

“I just have a bad feeling about today. I don’t know why, but I feel like something bad is going to happen.”

He sighed. He was never one to believe I such things. That was why you weren’t telling him until now.

“We work in the mafia. How worse can it get?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

You smiled, getting up to get ready.

....

“The target is in the warehouse.”

Chuuya said to you. You both were currently seated in Chuuya’ s car, parked on a hill. Your stakeout point had a clear view of an abandoned warehouse. Apparently, it was the location where a rival gang was coordinating with some members of the mafia and stealing their goods. You both had already executed the moles and had sent in one of your trusted members as a pretend mole. He would send you both a signal when he felt that the security was the weakest at the entrance. You both would then attack. He was supposed to cause a commotion in there, resulting in majority of the guards to rush inside and leave the entrance wide open for you two. Your men had already sealed all exits to ensure no one got out. Now you were both waiting for the signal.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

Chuuya pouted at your jab.

“I was just being thorough!”

“By stating the obvious?”

“You’re so mean.”

“Says the angry redhead.”

“What has my hair got to do with anything?!”

“Your hair has got to do with everything! I-”

A sharp sound was heard. Both you and Chuuya were blinded for a second as white filled your vision. You felt your torso pinch a little. It almost felt like someone was sticking a few needles into your tummy. You heard screams. They sounded frantic. A few moments later, your vision cleared, and you saw yourself floating in the air, a frantic Chuuya saying something to you. It all sounded mangled and mixed up. If you could have laughed at the moment, you would have laughed at how funny he sounded.

The screams had turned to cries, now. You were so confused. Who was crying? And why was Chuuya pressing down on your stomach?

Looking down, you saw the blood. There was blood everywhere. It had completely soaked your shirt. Chuuya was using his ability and his hands to keep it in. He seemed hurried. His eyes were watery, and streams of tears were flowing down his cheeks.

Finally understanding the situation, you realised that you were injured. Looking down at your torso, you saw the two bullet wounds. And now, you finally felt them. The pain was overwhelming. It rushed in like water at the breaking of a dam. It completely filled you up. You now realised that those cries of pain were actually your own. You wished to have never woken from your daze. You wanted to remain oblivious. You wanted the pain to go back to mere pinpricks. It was too much. Succumbing to the enormous pain, you let your eyes shut close. You realised that your body was going to sleep. Maybe for the last time.

....

Chuuya sat in a chair next to your sleeping form. You were lying unconscious on the clean white sheets of the hospital bed. Your entire torso was covered in bandages. You had taken two bullets, one in the side and one right next to your belly button. The doctors were able to save you in time, and it was a matter of time till you gained consciousness.

Chuuya held his face in his hands. The memories of just moments prior to visiting the hospital kept running through his head. He kept seeing flashes of your blood oozing out of your body. He kept remembering the way your eyes had glazed over while he tried to apply pressure on your wounds. There was so much blood. His mere two hands were proving to be inefficient. So, he had activated his ability to push the blood back in. He had no clue if that had helped. He remembered activating his ability the moment you had let out a blood curdling scream. He had levitated you both out of the car and high up in the night sky.

He should have listened to you. Your forewarnings were right. Something terrible had ended up happening. The mole he had sent inside was found murdered by the backup team, and the head of the organization had fled. His men had taken up sniping positions all across the hills. Two of them had shot you at once. He remembered going on a mad spree and pelting boulders at all the men in his sight using his ability right before he flew to the hospital with you in his arms.

“Has she gained consciousness?”, the doctor asked as she peeked in. Chuuya had asked all medical personnel to leave him alone with his sweetheart, a little too passionately, after they were done treating you, and hence the poor doctor was a tad bit scared to check up on your vitals.

Chuuya whipped his head up.

“No.”

The doctor scrunched her brows in worry. Rushing in, she did some tests.

“I’m sorry, sir, but if the patient doesn’t wake up in another hour, we will have to declare a coma condition.”

“What?!”

The doctor jumped at his outburst, but answered him, nonetheless.

“The body is behaving as if it is already in coma. This can also be because it is repairing itself. It doesn’t necessarily have to be coma.”

She sighed.

“But, if the patient retains this state of unconsciousness, we will have to rule out a natural healing process. I suggest you try to communicate with the patient. Sit close, hold hands, maintain physical contact. Try speaking. That way, maybe the body will react to a familiar scent, touch or voice, and gain consciousness.”

Chuuya gulped, worried, and nodded.

“I understand.”

He shakily made his way to your face, observing your serene features. He hesitantly put your hair behind your ear, breathing unsteadily. He felt immense guilt and anger. He was guilty of not paying your uneasiness an ear, and he was angry because he couldn’t save you. If only he had been more vigilant, more aware of his surroundings, he would have been able to smell a rat.

“I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you. I should have been able to protect you.”

He gasped inaudibly, trying to keep his sobs in. He couldn’t stop the tears. They flowed freely down his cheeks, a symbol of his immense fear of losing you. He couldn’t bear the idea of loosing you. It might be selfish of him, but he wanted you to live, because God-forbid, if you didn’t, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He knew that if such a devastating situation ever occurred, he would lose all sanity and go mad. He would lose his mental balance and completely fall off the edge. He couldn’t bear to be separated from you for two days, forget the rest of his lifetime.

He caressed your cheek, smiling bitterly at your sleeping form. Nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck, he let himself truly cry. He let out all his emotions into your hair. He found comfort in your warmth. He has always felt the safest in your embrace. That’s where he could truly be himself.

He didn’t realise how long it had been when he began talking to you. Telling you how much he loved you and how he couldn’t live without you. He pondered on how he would take his life if you left him.

“I’d have to go to that stupid mackerel for guidance. But then again, he has been unsuccessful in killing himself for 22 years. He’s probably the worst suicidal guy out there.”

He was lying next to you now, cradling your frail form in his arms.

The doctor waltzed in, a serious and sorrowful expression straining her pretty features.

“Nakahara-san, I’m so sorry.”

Chuuya gritted his teeth, holding onto you tighter.

“No! There’s still a chance that-”

“Its hopeless. The patient has already been in this state for 16 hours.”

“16 hours?”

The doctor smiled sympathetically.

“I gave you a lot more time. I thought maybe the constant contact would help. But sadly, it’s out of our hands now.”

Chuuya sat up, holding your face in his large palms.

“Wake up! Wake up, damnit!”

He shook you gently, desperate to get any kind of reaction out of you.

“Nakahara-san! Please get away from the patient! You mustn’t cause any harm! Security?!”

The doctor rushed forward to pull Chuuya off of you, but he held onto you. He grabbed your arms, looping his own around them and pulling you towards him.

“Wake up!”

He rested his face on your chest, sobs escaping him.

“Please... please wake up...”

The doctor reached forward to clasp his shoulder, trying to pry him off of you.

A large gasp followed by couple of coughs were heard.

You took in a large breath, trying to swallow. Your throat was dry and scratchy.

“Y/N!”

Looking up, you saw Chuuya holding you in his arms, a relieved and surprised expression on his elegant features.

“Hey.”

Your voice sounded raspy, but it was music to his ears.

He engulfed you in a hug, one that knocked the air out of your lungs.

“She’s still a patient!”

The doctor reprimanded as the security guards pulled Chuuya off of you.

You smiled at the tiny ginger.

“I’m alive, Chu. Stop being dramatic.”

Chuuya laughed at your carefree attitude. He didn’t resist the men as they pulled him out of the room. He was relieved to see you awake. He didn’t care about anything else. Just as he was about to leave, you spoke up.

“Call Gin and tell her that I’m not dead!”

“You don’t need to call me, idiot. I was waiting right outside.”

You smiled as she walked in, giving you a hug.

“Why does she get to go in but not me?!”

Chuuya whined.

“Hey Gin, guess what?”

Gin smiled at you, sitting at the edge of your bed at the nurses did their check-ups.

“What?”

“I’m alive, bitch!”

Your snickers could be heard till the hallway, where the rest of your friends were seated. Shaking his head, Tachihara snickered.

“Good ol’ Y/N.”

[qitwrites]

breaking ground

Fandom: boku no hero academia 

Pairing: Kirishima Eijirou / Bakugou Katsuki 

(AO3) 

The thing about your best friend/roommate/long-time crush/probably the love of your life being in a coma is that it sucks. Like, a lot.

‘Kats, if you don’t wake up, I will hide a dirty sock somewhere in your room. Somewhere you’ll never find it. And you’ll just have to live with that.’

The machines beep in the back, like a ghastly metronome.

‘I will move your desk 3 inches to the left.’

The soft rise and fall of the blonde’s chest is uniform, lungs contracting and expanding and contracting over and over.

‘I will literally stop watering the orchid Kats, I swear to god.’

Bakugou’s hands are by his side, nails longer than he’d ever keep. Kirishima makes a mental note to trim and file them later.

‘Ok, that’s going too far. I’d never kill Lucy, at least not on purpose.’

Bakugou continues to breathe with the help of a machine too complicated for Kirishima to understand, and the redhead just wants his best friend back. Because it’s been 16 days of Bakugou being fed and kept alive by a machine, it’s been 16 days since he heard his voice, saw his feral smile, looked into his bright, bright, bright eyes. And Kirishima is so ready for this nightmare to be over.

‘Come on Kats,’ Kirishima mumbles, laying his head down on the hospital bed and gently lacing his fingers with Bakugou’s, ‘you gotta wake up man. Our kitchen misses you. Our plants miss you. The neighbour’s cat misses you. Your mom misses you. I- fuck, I miss you.’

The machines continue to beep, his chest rises and falls uniformly, and Kirishima really just wants his best friend back.

    The Bakusquad (the official immortalized name of the gang) lets Kirishima stay in the hospital in 3 days bursts, following which they bodily throw him out. For fresh air and some sunlight, they say, like he’s a dying plant.

‘You need to shower in your own home,’ Kaminari grumbles, stuffing his dirty clothes in a bag.

Sero pulls a beanie over his head. ‘And also water the plants in the balcony.’

Ashido stuffs his wallet into his pant pocket and slips his phone into his hand. ‘Also, don’t forget to dust the bookshelves! And leave some fresh water for Queens.’ She pulls him down for a soft kiss on the cheek.

Jirou pulls the phone from his hand, fiddles with it for a moment before slipping it back into his palm. She places a pair of wireless Beats headphones over his beanie, and he hears the first notes of a piano piece, calm and really lovely.

‘Playlist is on there,’ Jirou says, pointing at his hand.

And so Kirishima goes home, the home he shares with Bakugou, and he waters their plants, and dusts the bookshelves, and does some laundry and cooks easy fried rice the blonde had drilled into his brain.

He doesn’t look at Bakugou’s room door, doesn’t venture inside, doesn’t touch his space. He sticks to the common areas and his own room, and he keeps it clean and tidy, the way Bakugou likes it.

He’ll get to the blonde’s room eventually, just not yet.

    Red Riot and Ground Zero are a hero pair. What this means is that they work individually when they want, and they pair up for bigger, more difficult missions.

And what a pair they make.

Riot is a wall, a shield, an unbreakable defence, always the last man standing. And Ground Zero is an explosion, a burst of light, an offence so quick and forceful the villains never stand a chance. They’re one of the best pairs out there, and they’ve done some amazing work.

It's almost stupidly ironic that Bakugou gets hurt during one of their paired missions.

The case involved several strong villains that attacked schools, and between rescue and evacuation and dealing with villains, Red Riot and Ground Zero had their hands full. Riot was mostly with the civilians and Ground Zero was keeping the damage to a minimum, but before Kirishima could go to Bakugou’s side and assist him, the damage had been done.

Because the last villain Bakugou had to deal with had decided to implode, killing himself and taking Bakugou out with him.

The damage had been immense.

Several concussions and broken ribs, bruises and internal bleeding that could only be controlled with a mix of surgeries and healing quirks. And finally, a waiting game. Bakugou had to wake up, his body had to heal itself and decide when and if he was going to wake up again.

And so Kirishima waits with him, silently supporting him from the side, ever patient, brimming with love.

    25 days after the attack, Kirishima finally walks into Bakugou’s room.

The air smells faintly like sugar, like his quirk. The walls are bare but for the few polaroids Kirishima tacks on the wall above his desk. The laptop and file folders are sitting atop his table, a thin layer of dust coating them, and the only messy thing is his unmade bed.

Kirishima crawls under his sheets, breaths in his scent, and for the first time since Bakugou had decided to be an ass and slip into a coma, the redhead cries. Giant sobs that seem to come from his core, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, snot dripping out his nose.

Kirishima cries with the force of a thousand suns, and falls asleep right there, twisted in Bakugou’s sheets, in his unmade bed, in the middle of a room covered in a thin, fine layer of dust, smelling only slightly like burnt, warm sugar.

    A month after the attack, Kirishima finally cleans Bakugou’s room.

Mina had made a good point. ‘If you don’t clean his room, it’s like you’re saying he’s not coming back so there’s no point. So, clean his room Eijirou.’

He appreciates that they don’t offer to do it. It’s usually impossible to keep them out of their apartment, impossible to keep them from getting belligerently drunk and playing monopoly on the living room floor while blasting 2000’s hits and throwing pieces of pepperoni at each other. Impossible to not love them.

But right now, the apartment is off-limits, and they seem to understand this. And respect it. And they understand that he needs a push here, a nudge there, and a gentle shove here to get his ass moving, to do the things he’s scared of doing, the things that just need to be done anyway

Kirishima loves them, so so much.

And so, he cleans. He dusts everything, puts Bakugou’s sheets in the wash and hangs his comforter out to dry. He fluffs up the All Might plushie and makes the bed, vacuums the floor, and puts his folded laundry back where it belongs in the closet.

He finds the box when he’s reorganizing Bakugou’s hero gear drawer. It’s a black box, smooth to the touch, no bigger than Kirishima’s palm, with just 2 words printed on top.

Death Box.

Its existence isn’t shocking to Kirishima. After all, he has one of his own, tucked neatly under his hanging jackets, pushed to the very back.

A Death Box is a pro-hero thing. It’s no secret that the life of a hero is riddled with danger and that one bad day could be the end. Every pro knows this. And most pro-heroes have a Death Box.

The contents of the box vary from person to person. Some leave behind letters addressed to friends and family. Others leave wills and assets and final testaments. Some leave behind cryptic messages or dramatic last words.

Kirishima never wondered about Bakugou’s box, and Bakugou had never asked about his own. But today, 31 days after the attack, 31 days of no Bakugou, 31 days of waking up with an ache in his chest because Kirishima’s heart is literally breaking, he finds himself gently pulling the box out and sitting on Bakugou’s bed, turning it over in his hands.

It’s really simple- no patterns or designs or anything. It's black as midnight, the lettering orange. Kirishima gently pops the box open and inside lays a single pen-drive. Nothing else.

Kirishima stares at it for a long, long time. He almost puts the box back in the drawer with the pen drive safely nestled inside, he almost forgets what he ever saw, he almost acts like he’s fine.

But he’s not fine. He’s so far from fine he can’t even spell the word. And he misses his friend with a pain so sharp he feels it in his bones. So Kirishima picks the pen drive up and takes it to the laptop. He switches the system on, plugs the drive in and waits for the program to load up.

Surprisingly, it isn’t password protected. He skims over the contents briefly. There’s a folder named Will and Final Testaments that he ignores completely. There’s another folder named Personal Project that he also leaves alone. The third folder is titled for everyone, and Kirishima clicks on that.

The folder is filled with video files of varying lengths. Each video is named after a specific person, and Kirishima smiles when he sees one for Bakugou’s mom, his dad, each of the Bakusquad, one for All Might, and one for Midoriya. The Deku video is easily bigger than all the others, all except one.

Because the one titled Shitty Hair is close to 45 minutes long.

Kirishima inhales shakily, and for once, he hesitates. Because once he watches this, he knows Bakugou will well and truly kill him. These videos, this content, it’s meant to be consumed after he dies. Not when he’s in a coma, not when he’s alive and fighting for his life. Not when he’s doing his best to come back.

But here’s the thing- Kirishima isn’t watching this because he thinks Bakugou’s as good as gone. He doesn’t believe that one bit. No, Kirishima is watching this because he misses Bakugou so much, so much that his insides feel like they're shredding up into little bits and pieces, and Kirishima just wants to hear him bark out his ugly laugh, he wants to see his eyes dance with mirth, he wants to watch Bakugou dump too much chilli into the curry and wrap himself into a blanket burrito on their couch in the dead of winter, cursing the weather viciously. He never thought he’d miss the way someone said fuck so much in his life, yet here he is.

So Kirishima inhales shakily, breathes out in a whoosh and hits play.

    2 years ago

Bakugou had put off recording Kirishima’s message for years.

The one to his parents was simple enough. Dad, thank you for being some kinda balance in the house, and for loving me ridiculously unconditionally. Hag, ma, we’ve always had our own issues and we love so violently, but I do love you. I always have. Thank you for making me the devil spawn I am, couldn’t have been so great if it weren’t for you.

The Bakusquad (ugh, what a dumb name) had a video each. They weren’t super long, but he loved them all, more than they’d ever know when he’s alive, and he thought they deserved to know if he ever died before getting around to drunkenly confessing it or something.

Sero, your stupid fucking jokes have made some shitty days so much better.

Jirou, you’re insanely strong and you’ve had my back on more occasions than I can count.

Mina, my girl, you’re the OG. Thank you for never giving up on me, for always pushing me to be part of the gang, for becoming my friend.

Kaminari, you’re always gonna be hella fucking stupid, but you’re my stupid friend, one of my closest buddies, and it was a pleasure knowing you.

He might actually die if they find this when he's alive, but that’s the whole point of Death Box- it's to say the things you can't when you're alive or to remind people of the things you felt after you’re gone.

Midoriya’s had been hard. Midoriya’s had been really hard.

Unpacking so many emotions, talking about the past, UA, the present; it made his blood boil but also made him immeasurably sad. After their first year, Midoriya and he had grown close. They still found it difficult to communicate like normal human beings, but they always had each other’s backs, no matter where or what. And even as pro-heroes, they worked together wonderfully, competed for #1 fiercely, pushed each other to incredible heights, and picked each other up after terrible missions.

Deku, I know so much of our past is water under the bridge for you, and that’s been great for us because it lets us have a sort of friendship. But I haven’t forgotten. I will never forgive myself and all I could do is be better.

For all the fucked up shit that we’ve been through, for how much I still get angry when I see you and how much I want to be better than you all the time, you are the brother I never had, the comrade that never left, the friend that I’ve never deserved.

Izuku, thank you. I’m sorry.

Admitting to most of these things isn’t difficultly because it’s all true. And honesty has always come easily to Bakugou. As an adult hero, he’s learned things about himself, his own feelings, his own version of love for the people around him. And he can’t bring himself to say those exact words to Izuku, but he hopes his actions (Bentos pressed into Midoriya’s hands after long patrols, sharing beers on rooftops, patching each other up after shitty missions) are message enough.

But Kirishima? How is he supposed to find the words to tell Kirishima how he feels? How much the redhead means to him? Where does he even begin?

Bakugou huffs and slaps himself on both cheeks. Kirishima is out for the day, taking Mina shopping at the mall and catching a movie with the gang, a plan Bakugou had gotten himself out of just so he could sit here, in the apartment he shares with the only person he has ever had the good fortune of being in love with, to record a final message. What a happy thought.

Bakugou thinks Fuck it, takes a seat in front of the camera, ruffles his hair, and hits record.

‘Hey Shitty Hair.’

    Hey Shitty Hair.

There are handprints on Bakugou’s face. His hair is a ruffled mess, his bed is unmade behind him, and his face looks almost nervous.

Kirishima doesn’t think about any of that.

Because seeing Bakugou on-screen with his red eyes boring into Kirishima, and hearing his voice, rough and loud and well-worn feels like the first breath of fresh air the redhead has gulped down in a month. It feels like a well-placed punch to the gut, and Kirishima almost bowls over, overwhelmed beyond comprehension.

He misses him so much.

Fuck, making this video is fucking hard, I’m not even sure where to start. Also, you better not be crying like a baby Ei, I sweat to God, I might be dead, but you still need to go out there and kick ass cause someone needs to take care of all those shitty villains.

Kirishima makes an aborted sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, because this is his best friend in the entire universe, the man he knows better than he knows himself. This is his person.

Anyway, I made a bunch of other videos for all the other losers, but yours has been the biggest pain in my ass. I guess the closer you are to someone, the harder it is right?

First off, I need to say thank you. For like, so much shit. Thank you for taking those first few steps in our friendship. For constantly pestering me and inserting yourself into my life. For training with me, including me in all kinds of stupid activities, and getting me into the gang. My time at UA would never have been so fun, so memorable, so amazing without you. You made it great, despite all the shit that went wrong.

The blonde sucks in a deep breath and his eyes pierce straight through Kirishima, peering right into his soul.

We don’t talk about Kamino because there’s never been the words. Ei, I was so scared. Fuck, I was so scared I couldn’t stop shaking. And then there you were, flying above me, hand outstretched and yelling at the top of your goddamn lungs ‘Come!’ And that’s it. I knew I’d be ok. I knew I’d be just fine.

And yeah, I mean, the pros were there and maybe we could’ve figured something else out and maybe things would’ve worked out a different way. But you guys coming for me, YOU reaching out to me? It was the first time I felt like I had friends. I had comrades. I had people. Of course, my emotionally stunted ass refused to accept these feelings, but they took root then. And continued to grow.

Bakugou sighs deeply and sits back in his chair. He looks at the ceiling and continues.

I’m not sure I know what love is. As a feeling, I don’t know how to categorize when I’m feeling love and when I’m not. At least, I didn’t for the longest time.

Bakugou looks back at the camera, and Kirishima’s vision is starting to blur dangerously.

I know I love my parents, but it feels different than the love I feel for the idiot brigade. It’s different from what I feel for Izuku. And it sure as hell feels different from the love I feel for you.

Bakugou sighs again, and his face breaks into the softest smile Kirishima has ever seen and everything hurts.

A few years ago, I think weeks after we’d moved into this place, we were making breakfast and you looked me dead in the eye and said ‘I think the morning glories are trying to kill me.’ And I laughed out loud and you looked so proud of yourself and I thought, ‘Shit, Ei is such an idiot.’ That’s when it hit me.

Bakugou’s smile grows fonder.

I don’t call people by their names even in my head Ei. You were Shitty Hair for most of our first year at UA. Then you became Kirishima, and then somehow it became Kiri, and then Eijirou and then Ei. Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody else, is the same. Not a single fucking person.

The first time I called you Ei in my head, that’s when I realized I was in love with you.

Kirishima hits pause immediately. He closes the window, safely ejects the pen drive, puts it back in the box and returns it to its spot. He shuts the laptop down, walks out of Bakugou’s room and sits on the couch in the living area, the same one they’ve passed out on countless times, the same one they bought together with their first paychecks, the same one that’s stained with coffee rings and spaghetti sauce and pepperoni grease.

He picks his phone up on autopilot and dials a familiar number.

‘Kiri?’ Mina sounds like a hot cup of coffee on a chilly Tuesday morning.

‘Please come home.’

He hears some rustling and yelling in the background before Mina says, ‘Stay right there, we’ll be over as soon as Midoriya gets here ok?’

Kirishima hums out an affirmative and hangs up. It’s time they come home.

    67 days after the fight, Kirishima gets a call.

‘He’s awake.’

Red Riot is back on the streets, patrolling during the day, staying with Bakugou in the hospital at night and barely keeping his shit together. But it’s ok, it kinda works. Works well enough that he can do his job and do it well, and his friends are always there, picking up his pieces, keeping him sane.

Before Kirishima can say anything, Midoriya continues, ‘Chargebolt is almost at your location to relieve you, so go.’

He takes off running. His lungs burn and he can barely see where he’s going but he’s made this walk so many times he can do it in his sleep. He runs as fast as his legs can take him and makes them go faster.

Kirishima bursts into the hospital and takes the stairs 3 at a time. He finally gets to Bakugou’s floor and sprints to the door, and he can barely pull in enough air. He’s lightheaded, his heart is palpitating, and his vision is blurry but he slides the door open anyway.

Carmine eyes snap over to his and time just comes to a complete standstill. There are no doctors, no nurses. There’s no Bakugou Mitsuki, no beeping machines that breathe for him, no beeping machines that feed him, no white sterile walls and ugly hospital gowns. There is only Bakugou Katsuki, his bright, bright, bright eyes and a hand outstretched at Kirishima.

‘Ei-‘

And that’s it. One moment he’s standing in the doorway, the next he has Bakugou gathered in his arms, and he’s so warm and alive and it’s absolutely everything.

‘Kats,’ Kirishima mumbles. ‘Kats.’

‘Ei, if you start crying, I will smack the shit out of you.’

Kirishima’s laugh is watery. He pulls away and cups Bakugou’s face, smooshing his cheeks a little.

‘Kats, for once, shut the fuck up and let me feel my feelings. Do you have any idea how much the plants missed you?’

Bakugou’s mouth twists in a grimace but his eyes soften till they’re just liquid ruby and Kirishima falls a little more in love.

‘Just the plants?’

‘Shut the fuck up Kats.’ And Kirishima hugs him again, presses Bakugou’s face firmly into the crook of his neck. The blonde’s arms tighten around his middle, and the world feels whole again.

    A week after they return from the hospital, Bakugou finds a white envelope in the morning glories, the very same ones that Kirishima had insisted were trying to kill him.

To Kats it says in Kirishima’s untidy scrawl. Bakugou puts the watering can down and picks the letter up gently, opening it with trembling hands.

Dear Katsuki,

My Death Box has a bunch of letters in them. I wrote one for mom, one for mama, one for all our friends, I wrote letters to all of them.

Yours was the hardest because even after writing and rewriting it 5 times, it was always the same- all I can write to you is a love letter.

Bakugou doesn’t read the rest, just snaps his head up and looks around wildly.

‘EIJIROU, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YO-‘

‘I love you Kats.’ Kirishima is right there, standing by the balcony door, eyes wide and hopeful. He’s wearing sweatpants low on his hips, and in each hand, he holds a mug of steaming hot chocolate spiked with chilli. Mexican cocoa. Bakugou’s favourite.

He puts the mugs down on the balcony ledge. ‘I’ve loved you for so long, I don’t remember what it’s like to not be in love with you.’

‘Eijirou-‘

‘I love you.’ Kirishima steps forward and frames Bakugou’s face with his warm, calloused hands, and smiles big. ‘What about you?’

Bakugou scoffs. ‘What do you think, Shitty Hair?’

‘Gotta hear you say it, Kats.’  

‘You’re a pain in my ass.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re so annoying.’

‘I agree.’

‘Your hair still sucks.’

‘Your nose twitches when you lie.’

‘And I love you so much anyway.’ Bakugou finishes and places his hands over Kirishima’s and squeezes.

‘Don’t start crying Ei.’

‘Let me feel my feelings, Kats.’

‘I’m not kissing you if you’re covered in fucking snot.’

Kirishima laughs at that, pulling Bakugou close. ‘Your nose still twitches when you lie.’

Bakugou doesn’t deign that with a response, just smirks his trademark smirk, looks at Kirishima with those bright, bright, bright eyes and kisses him stupid.

‘Again,’ Kirishima mumbles.

Bakugou does just that.

[giaourtopita]

Hello! I’m a sucker for that sweet angst and I’m sorry in advance!😭So can I request the brothers with an Mc who has a few months to live because of an illness they were born with? How do they send their time with Mc? How do they react when Mc dies?

mc dies due to a congenital disease

first of all, thank you for requesting!! i didn't really expect a request tbh. and i really hope i did this justice, i even started listening to a sad playlist to get even more in the mood to write this!! i hope you'll like it <333

warnings; gn mc, angst, death, unhealthy habits, sad just so sad, slight medical talk, alcohol used as a coping mechanism but not to an unhealthy amount, lesson 35-36 spoilers in asmo's and beel's part, lesson 16 spoilers in belphie's part.

(first of all i would like to say that none of them would react well but all of them would try to spend as much time as possible with mc)

lucifer

- would not believe them at first, he would think this is just belphie and satan playing a sick joke on him.

- believes it only after seeing the mc talking to doctors and trying to find a course of treatment.

- throws himself into work, trying to convince himself the situation will resolve itself.

- once he comes to term with it, he would try to spend as much time as possible with them

- he would take them to as many new places he can, and try to give them many new experiences before it happens.

- would even ask barbatos if he can go back in time to find them a cure.

- when the inevitable happens he thinks his father is the one to blame, it's his fault for everything. them falling, lilith dying and now this. "why can't he just leave us alone?".

- throws himself into work again but only this time he's working so hard his brothers and friends had to talk some sense to him.

- diavolo gives him some time to pull himself together, and because he has so much time on his hands, he locks himself in the comfort of his room and drinks to feel just so he can stop feeling for a little while.

- only gets better when he sees mammon trying to take care of him and be responsible with money and around the house.

mammon

- "mc you're joking right? you're my human, you can't die! ya hear me?"

- he would be attached at the mc's hips. even starts staying in their room to watch them.

- acts like he's fine when they're around but when he's alone he gets overwhelmed, he can't imagine how his life will be after mc is gone.

- also gets mad at his father "why do you hate us so much?" *he yells at the sky while sobbing*

-he's so frustrated with this situation because who will be nice to him when mc is gone?

- will try to get the witches to help him but it's a lost cause, there's no cure magical or not.

- when it happens, he blames himself. he blames himself because he failed to help them, even tho they always helped him.

- his scheming will get insufferable, he will try to get as much grimm as he can so he can buy things that remind him of the mc.

- he hoards all those things he buys all around the house actually. and if anyone anyone tries to throw those things away he gets agitated and turns into his demon form to fight them.

- will get better once he sees levi trying to pick all the things mammon left in his room.

leviathan

- "what? why? no, you can't die! stupid normie, you can't just leave me all alone like that" ... "we need more time!"

- he feels useless because there's nothing he can do, "the lord of shadows would have find a way to help his henry".

- hates it when his brothers take away the mc from him and starts throwing tantrums when they're not around, the rest of the brothers can't imagine how it will be in the future.

- tries to go outside more with them so he has memories with them that don't include sitting in his room and watching anime, those times he went outside he actually appreciated being there.

- also makes them stay in his room, they sleep in his arms and he starts sleeping in his demon form, wrapping his tail around the mc so they can't go anywhere, he knows this is pointless.

- still tries to watch as much anime as possible but when a character he likes dies, he finds himself sobbing like a baby not because he's sad for the character but because he knows this will happen to his henry.

- when they pass away he feels numb, he did all the crying when they were still there with him, he becomes an even bigger shut-in doesn't want to meet any new people especially not humans, not because he hates them but because they remind him of the mc.

- the only reason he leaves his room is to go swimming, he does that even more than he used to. his younger brothers were worried but lucifer thinks this is a healthier alternative to anything else he could do.

- is so angry at his father that he threatens war to the celestial realm using the devildom's navy.

- only got better when lucifer tried to reason him, he knows the mc wouldn't want him to do that but he doesn't know what else to do or how to mourn the human.

satan

- does not believe them, they look healthy to him so what are they talking about?? only believes them when they start talking about symptoms or he sees the symptoms himself.

- starts looking for a magical remedy to make them feel better, or even a cure. but it's no use, he can't find anything helpful other than pain relief magic. he even asks solomon but he wasn't able to give him something useful to work with.

- reads to them books about characters who feel how he feels because he can't bring himself to actually tell them how awful he is feeling.

- tries to spend as much time as possible with them even if it's for the silliest, most insignificant things there are.

- is barely able to keep himself together, he gets agitated by the smallest things you can imagine.

- after their death he feels as if a big part of his identity vanished, he feels how he used to feel about himself before he made up with lucifer and he hates that.

- going to a cat cafe or a library don't cheer him up as much as they used to, he just wishes to be with them and nothing else.

- is angry at himself and at god. he's angry at himself because even tho he knows so many things he wasn't able to save them and he's angry at god because everything is his fault.

- asmo suggests he writes a book about them and their shared memories, since he loved them and he loves books satan finds this idea excellent, however it doesn't help much because whenever he starts writing he gets so into it that he neglects himself.

- is able to kinda pull himself together when he sees lucifer bringing him a cat for emotional support, they both know this is not a permanent solution but it will help him cope for now.

asmodeus

minor lesson 35 spoiler!!

- "what?? no no no!! this isn't happening mc!! we will find a solution i promise!"

- asks solomon and his fans to help but there's nothing they can do to help.

- buys them as many pretty outfits he can and takes photos of them to remember.

- is actually the first one to accept what is going to happen, after all he's used to losing the people that he loves, some leave due to jealousy and others die.

- does even more sleepovers in his room with the mc so they can have lots of fun together, even if this situation is very sad he tries to be positive and make the best memories he can with them

- though he still looks cheerful, he's so sad internally he doesn't know what to do after his mc is gone. he feels as if he won't be the same without them because he's one of the very few people who didn't care about his looks and loved him for him, he will miss this feeling so much that he's trying cling onto it as much as time allows him to.

- after it happens, he is also numb. not because he grieved before they died but because he tries to shut down his feelings by indulging in his sin, going clubbing and spoiling himself even more than before.

- though none if the above are as fun now that he can't do them with them, he gets to the point where he stops listening to lucifer and starts talking to everyone in a sarcastic tone.

- clings to solomon because even though he knows that solomon can't die, he can't help but feel like he needs to. solomon was able to talk some sense to him after lucifer told him about his behaviour. gets better when his brothers start aggressively pointing out his awful behaviour and how much they care about him and his well-being.

beelzebub

lesson 36 spoiler!!

- "NO! this can't be happening again! you stole lilith from us and now you're doing it again with mc!" *is sobbing while yelling*

- will also camp in their room to watch them and spend time with them.

- will take them to every single one of his games, and will try to take as many pictures as possible.

- takes them to every restaurant he knows of and makes them do taste testing, he notes everything they like in a cookbook, filled with every food the mc likes, and makes it for them when they're hungry.

- sad that there's nothing he can do to help and even sadder that mc was always able to help him when he needed to.

- feels guilty about this situation because mc had to use their life essence, their already limited amount of time, to save his life.

- he cuddles them to sleep, but most of the time it's not because they need it. he actually does it because he needs it and mc knows this.

- when mc passes away he goes out of control, always going on a rampage when someone from his team mentions how he's a free demon without a pact now, he misses mc so much.

- he is constantly in a bad mood and sometimes he's so sad that he forgets to eat even if he's starving.

- only starts to pull himself together when belphie tries to take care of him by cooking and forcing him to eat when he doesn't at least try to eat the most important meals of the day.

belphegor

lesson 16 spoiler!!

- "did lucifer made you say this? i know our last prank was a bit over the top but this is inappropriate" mc explains to him while showing him their test results.

- drags them to attic and cuddles them while yelling and sobbing, not wanting to believe it.

- he would stay awake more than his normal self so they can spend more time together, even if it's just cuddling or talking.

- he tries to find a spell to at least make them live a little longer, but it's hopeless there's nothing he can do.

- also feels guilty, not only does mc get to experience their death for the second time but so do his brothers.

- clings onto them as much as he can.

- when they die it's like he falls into a coma, when people try to wake him up he doesn't even flinch it's like he wants to be in a coma.

- has made it so that he gets such vivid dreams that he can visit mc in them and that's the reason he won't wake up.

- wakes up when he hears beel cry about him, mc and lilith. tries to get over it for beel.

[inknopewetrust]

A Little Chaos

Summary: A thief finds herself at the center of the kidnapping of two girls and has the attention one very attractive detective. 

Pairing: Detective Loki x Fem!Reader 

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: Criminal activity, flirting, sexual references, brief choking, probably 16+ based on content but no explicit smut. A mention of pedophilia but nowhere near in detail.

A/N: I don't think I've ever written something like this and can I just say that I really loved it!? So, I really hope you all do too! Requests are currently CLOSED but I hope to open them soon again and with new characters to add to my list. Check out my Masterlist for all other works. Thanks so much for requesting this @mrs-blooooom! I just loved the idea so much and thanks for being so kind about all the delays!

One - pick the lock 

Two - lift up the screen and frame as quietly as possible but make absolutely no rough work of it. 

Three - slip on the shoe covers and assess the gloves before entering through the window. 

Four - get to work. 

That was always the structure, no questions asked. Though, you noticed the news beginning to trace your patterns. You had made a hit in another neighborhood two weeks ago and because the news began reporting the patters, you were sure the police weren’t far behind. 

And perhaps on that particular Thanksgiving, you shouldn’t have done another–or picked that house, rather.  

Detective David Loki had a million different things running through his mind on a daily basis. When a case such as the Dover-Birch one stuck itself in the middle of an already pending investigation of burglaries in the Conyer’s area, he had a hunch of who he would investigate first. But he couldn’t get to that immediately because Keller Dover convinced him and his superiors that the RV belonging to Alex Jones was the first and only way to go. 

But even after interrogating the man who had a child-like innocence to him, David Loki was convinced there was something more to the story. There had to have been a connection to who burglarized the Dover’s that same night and where the girls could be... he was certain, but then he wasn’t because he wasn’t sure you were the kind of person who would kidnap two innocent girls. 

On a particularly slow Tuesday, no new leads had come in and the investigation had stalled because Alex Jones had now gone missing without a trace. Although he was doing everything he could, Loki was far from finding a solution and decided to take the initiative into his own hands and dive into the file he had been working on for nearly five months–the one into you and your less-than-stellar activities. The post-it note sticking out of the side of the manilla folder contained an address to an apartment in the center of town. He plucked it out, tucked it into his pocket and walked straight out of the station. 

You weren’t worried about being considered a suspect in the kidnapping of two girls. You had no connection to the Dover’s, Birches’, or the Jones’, as well as no connection to the scene of the crime. You were always careful, and the Dover’s had no security cameras. So, when your comm buzzed in the middle of the day, you weren’t expecting it to be the police. 

“Hello?” 

“Ms. L/n? This is Detective Loki with the Conyer’s Police Department. I have a few questions I would like to ask you.” The voice was cackled with the circuited communication buzzer but you heard the man loud and clear. You also knew exactly who that was. 

Detective David Loki was an infamous creature of Conyers. One day he just seemed to sprout out of nowhere and into the public sphere, but you had known him for a while. You were never friends, and you were sure until now he didn’t even know your name, but he was the star pupil of the town. And the spotlight he was in, he absolutely hated it. Every time his picture appeared in the paper or when he had to speak on the television relayed that message and you laughed in pity. The poor man just wanted to do his job and that was one part he didn’t sign up for. 

“Can I ask what this is regarding?” 

“The investigation into Joy Birch and Anna Dover. I just have a few questions I’d like to ask you if you would step-” 

“I’ll buzz you up.” You pressed the button and unlocked the door, opening it just enough for you to rest on the frame with one arm on the door and the other on your hip. 

Another thing you knew about Detective David Loki was that he was one of the most attractive people you had ever laid eyes on. The man was a walking dream but unfortunately, on the other side of the law which was far from promising when it came to your vivid imagination. 

“How nice of you to not barge into my home, Detective.” You called out to him as he appeared on the steps landing just down the hall from your door. Loki gave no smile but shoved an orange post-it into his jacket as he shoved his hands into his pockets. 

“This surely won’t take long.” 

With a nod you moved away from the door, shutting it closed behind you. With the sudden and unexpected presence of this man who was a fine line between formal detective and loose cop, there was an urge to be exactly the opposite of what he wanted you to be. He had been trailing you for just enough time to learn patterns in your life, the people you associate with, the fact that you had a degree and a decent job. You had an apartment to call your own, a car that wasn’t stolen and yet you continued to break into people's homes and steal curious objects for what? Consignment sales? He wasn’t sure. But you weren’t going to give him the answers he was looking for. You enjoyed the life you built for yourself...even if you had to steal and sell things to arrive at ends meet to pay for everything in your life. 

“So... what can I do for you?” 

“Can you recall where and what you were going on the night of Thursday, November 28th?” 

“Thanksgiving?” You asked with a raised brow and he nodded. Loki pulled out no notebook to take notes, rather he watched every movement. He was trying to identify guilt, but you were a casual sleuth. It wasn’t a game he was used to because all of his suspects eventually gave in. 

“I got up around 8:30, maybe 9 and ate some breakfast, um I-” You took a seat on the arm of your couch, running a hand over your mouth trying to “remember” what exactly you were doing a few days ago. 

“-took a shower and then got started on my dish to pass at my parents dinner. I made sweet potatoes and stuffing-or dressing... I don’t know what you call it.” Loki was far from amused that you were making this appear less than serious. He couldn’t let himself believe that you were stupid enough to believe he wasn’t there on behalf of the story that captured the attention of the entire nation, so he didn’t believe a word you said. 

“When that was done I got ready, did my makeup, and headed out to my parents where my sister and her family were meeting us to have dinner. Then I left their house around 7-ish and came home.” 

“After dinner you went straight home?” 

“Yes.” 

You looked at him with an unfazed gaze which he met but didn’t buy. It was a game. A cat and mouse game that he wasn’t willing to bite into but it was too late, you already had him on a string. Loki would be lying if he didn’t find you attractive, even in the slightest. You were a beautiful woman, and it was because of how you looked that you’ve never been caught. You always covered every inch of your body and you looked unassuming. You had a perfectly pristine house, looked like someone who didn’t need to steal to live but then again, most of the time, all the people who do steal never look like they would because that is what people are taught not to look for. 

“I made some phone calls late last week and someone in your family spilled that you weren’t there. In fact, you haven’t been to a family holiday since you graduated college nearly ten years ago. Bad relationship?” 

“I can assure you–whoever you talked to, they weren’t there. I was there. I can tell you what I wore, what I ate, what was on the T.V. and what color shoe my nephew was wearing that day.” 

“Those could just be good guesses?” Loki let his eyes wander around the small living space. He looked at the picture frames, the vases, the bins, the T.V. stand, everything that could have screamed “out of place” to him but nothing did. 

“You didn’t happen to pass two little girls on your drive home, did you?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Two girls. I’m sure you’ve seen their picture on the news.” Loki pointed to the T.V. at first but then dug into his pocket and pulled out a single picture of two girls photographed on a playground. They were smiling widely and happily at the person behind the camera. You had never seen the girls so you shook your head no and crossed your arms. 

“No. I’ve never seen them before. Am I supposed to?” 

“I don’t know, are you?” 

“What are you implying, detective?” 

“Do you know the house you broke into on Thursday, November 28th was the home of Anna Dover. Anna and her friend Joy went missing that same night after returning to the Dover residence to find a whistle. You were inside the home at the time we believe the girls went missing. So, tell me–do you know where the girls are?” Loki was zoned in accusation. The man was unwavering in his tone or his assumption and you would say it was scary if you didn’t find it attractive. Why, God WHY, did the detective working on this case have to be everything you looked for in a man? It would be so much easier if he were old and wrinkled but he was far far from it. 

“Detective, if I would have known you would come into my home and accuse me of kidnapping two innocent girls, I wouldn’t have answered the ring.” 

“Where are the two girls? Do you know where they are?” 

“No. I told you I didn’t take the girls.” 

“But you were in the house? Did you see the girls?” 

“I didn’t say that either.” 

“What if I told you that you were a sloppy thief?” 

“Excuse me?” You furrowed your brows in confusion. You were certain that you were not. There was never a time where you left as much as a trace of hair in a location that you hit. 

“The bin.” Loki walked over to the T.V. stand that had three white bins tucked into slots. The bins were generally filled with junk except for one thing that the Dover’s told him went missing yesterday afternoon. A medium size blue decorative pot with yellow flowers on its sides. It was meant for shallow flowers as a table center piece that was gifted to Keller and Grace on their wedding day. Grace was distraught over it and it was sitting the left-most bin under the television. Loki pulled open the drawer and carefully took out the pot and you looked at it with a shrug. 

“Where did you get this?” 

“My mother.” 

“I thought I told you that they told me you haven’t spoken to them in a decade?” 

“Well I obviously spoke to them before that.” 

“I am going to ask you again and I want an honest answer. Where did you get this pot?” 

What were you supposed to do? The man literally cracked the code. If only you hadn’t chosen that house. Oh! How much easier your life would be. 

“I plead the fifth.” Oh, fuck. 

Loki set the pot carefully down and pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. It would have been hot if you weren’t terrified of what came next. Then you made an ill-timed joke. 

“You’re not pulling those out for another reason are you?” You didn’t even laugh yourself because he simply ignored it and motioned for you to stand and turn around. 

“I am going to take you to the station and we will talk more there. Stand up, turn around, and give me your hands.” 

“I already told you I don’t know where the girls are.” Ignored again but the feeling of him pushing your shoulder with his hand and taking your wrist was something you wished you would stop replaying in your mind. 

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything-” 

The Conyer’s Police Station was wimpy compared to other cities. It was a small, single story brick building with three holding rooms and one interrogation room. You weren’t sure how long you sat in the holding cell, but it was nighttime by the time you were taken out of the room by another officer and into a brightly lit, slightly yellowed room with a mirrored window and a small desk with two chairs. There was a pencil and a pad of paper at the center of it but you were sure if it was going to be Detective Loki interrogating you, he wouldn’t need it. 

The officer uncuffed you with no words spoken and pointed at the chair facing the window. You rubbed your wrists from the friction the metal left before taking a seat and staring into the glass where your reflection met your own. You had nothing to do with the two missing girls so you had nothing to give them, or rather, nothing to give Loki to further his investigation. 

The man of the hour waltzed into the room a mere five minutes after you were sat down. He had a half-drank cup of coffee in one hand and a small grouping of papers in the other. Loki sat down, settling himself before looking up at you and beginning the interrogation. 

“Please state your name, age, and address.” 

You recited the information as told.

“How many homes a year do you burglarize?" Loki opened a file that was tucked under some papers with a series of pictures printed on a piece of computer paper. It was amalgamation of missing objects from families around Conyers. You were fucked, but you couldn't let him think that, or at least believe that you were guilty in anyway. Your stealing wasn't going to find those girls because you had no idea where in the world they were. You had never seen them before their faces were plastered on every hour of the news.

"Shouldn't my lawyer be here if you are going to accuse me of something?"

"Do you need a lawyer?"

"Do I, Detective?"

It was the attitude that angered him the most. A woman like you didn't need to steal. Based on your records, he had no reason to truly believe you would. Clean record. No screaming signs of intent or distrust popped out but he knew you were guilty. There was not a doubt. But there was something in that attitude that made him squirm. An attractive quality that he did not want to admit.

"If you answer the questions I ask truthfully, then no, you won't need a lawyer."

"Ask away." You leaned back in the chair with arms crossed and a determined narrowness to your eyes. It was a challenge. Try me, Detective. Do it, I dare you.

"When did you first start stealing?"

"When I was seven. My sister always had better stuff, so I took it."

"And that escalated to...what?" Instead of leaning back on his own chair, Loki leaned forward. His shoulders were hunched in an aggressive, intense tactic to scare you into admitting something that you didn't have any part of. He just wanted to find those girls and you happen to be a speed bump in the way.

"Minor petty theft. I never take anything over $500."

"How do you know what something is worth?"

"I'm sure you can find that in my file, Detective. Everything is there I am sure of it. You all know just how to frame the people you want. But I had nothing to do with those girls."

Loki's line of aggravation was growing thin. Sooner or later, attitude wasn't going to cut it and he was going to have to use the tactics he used on Alex Jones and other potential perpetrators on you. He never liked to get outright violent with women, but he couldn't let this go without trying to get something. The days were wearing thin and he needed to find Joy and Anna.

"You were in the Dover's house the night of the abduction. Where are the girls?"

"I told you I didn't have anything to do with that."

"Didn't or don't."

"Doesn't matter. I did not see them. I do not know where they are. Ruining children's lives isn't my MO, Detective-"

"But you do and you did! YOU were in that house. YOU were at the scene of the crime at the time they went missing. YOU are the one who knows what happened to those girls!" His voice was no longer steady and calm as he had been taught during his training. His string had snapped when in response, you laughed.

Loki flew out of his chair, rounded the table as the sound of his chair skidded across the floor and to the wall behind him. If you weren't so focused on him, you probably could have heard the surprised yells of the Detectives and Officers behind the mirror. The angered Detective roughly arrived at his destination–you, and grabbed the back of your hair, pulling your head back to look at him as he stood over you.

"Where the fuck are the girls?" It came out like a hiss. His eyes enraged with pain for the families and his own reputation if the case goes wrong and he doesn't find them in enough time. You weren't scared of him or his tactics. Rather, it was quite the opposite. If he wasn't attractive, you would have been disgusted but the man was the epitome of perfection and this scene would be one to get you off for years to come.

"I told you, I don't know where the girls are." He gripped your hair harder and you felt the chair waver underneath you. Still not scared.

"You're a liar, a fucking thief, and I don't believe you. Where are the girls? Do you like that sort of thing, huh? Do-"

"You sick fuck. I'm a thief not a fucking pedophile. I didn't take the girls!" You were slightly taken aback by his suggestion, but it was all a tactic. You had seen it on millions of police shows before. He just wanted answers, but he wasn't going to find them with you. Whatever in the sentence you had just spoken to him, Loki was worse off for it. He practically lifted you by the hair and charged you into the wall roughly. Not enough to leave a mark, but enough to make a point. He wasn't playing around but neither were you.

Loki's hand let go of your hair and one found itself on the wall next to your head as he closed in on you. You could feel his breathe on your face and his eyes pierced your goddamned soul. The other, well the other found itself right on your neck, holding you in place against the wall with a slight squeeze. Holy fuck.

"Keep this up Detective and I would have the means to believe this might lead to something else." The smile, your smile crept up on your face at your own assumption. You wouldn't complain if it did escalate to that.

"TELL ME WHERE THE GIRLS ARE? WHERE IS ANNA? WHERE IS JOY?"

"I told you I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE GIRLS ARE!"

There was something in your own anger that made him want to believe you didn't take the girls or had any clue where they were. He would hate to see a woman like you throw your life away for a career of crime. The proximity between the two of you was next to none. A knife wouldn't have been able to break the tension and the way he held you, unintentionally violent with a hand just a little too suggestively on your neck was a mistake but not one that he was readily going to admit. If this was any other situation, he might have let himself be willing to feel something more. But this was an interrogation, so he kept the face and squeezed just a little harder.

"Where are they? Tell me where they are?"

"Starting to sound like a broken record there. I would tell you again but I'm sure you have my admission of NOT KNOWING WHERE THEY ARE ON TAPE!"

Loki had enough and let your neck go with a jolt. His hands went to his belt where his cuffs were sitting and he pulled them out and turned you around. Your body was flush against the wall and one of his large, tattooed hands held your wrists together as he went to cuff them. This was another thing that would forever be engrained in your "sexy when it shouldn't be" file in your brain.

"Fine. You won't tell me where they are? Maybe a night in lock up will make you think." His voice was low, just at the base of your ear and his hot breath lingered on your neck as you could hear nothing but your heart beating out of your chest and the sound of cuffs closing.

But the man didn't get much further than that because the door to the room opened and like two deer in headlights, you both turned your heads to the sound of the intruder. It was another officer who looked both scared and amused and slightly embarrassed in regard to what he walked in on. He approached Loki as the latter man pulled you off the wall and forward, in front of him to walk toward the door.

"It was the hospital. Joy Birch was just admitted."

The look on Loki's face was priceless. You literally scoffed out loud and turned your face to his.

"I told you I had no fucking idea where they were."

Loki simply passed you over to the other officer and headed to the door, frustrated and confused about his own work and internal feelings about what had just happened–both the realization that you had no idea where they were and that he had been aggressive to the point where it kind of turned him on.

"Detective!" He was halfway out the door when you called out to him and if he had a mind, he would have ignored you and continued on, but he was so flustered that he did.

"If you ever want to use those cuffs sometime, you know where to find me."

Loki didn't say anything, but his eyes wandered. From your face to your body to the floor and back up. It was an unashamed look that made the officer uncomfortable, but you couldn't help but let a small, sly smile grace your face at his look. This man would be the end of your criminal career if he managed to find the time to reunite with you again.

And he did. Two days after Keller Dover was found in a hole and on a holiday he knew you were not going to spend with your family.

[osleyakomwonkru]

Octavia as The 100′s Jesus Figure, Part 4: Bardo, The Crucifixion and Second Coming of Octavia Blake

So we’re back for a fourth part of this series, which I started after season 6, because wouldn’t you know it - there’s more to be said.

In Part 1, Origin Story and the Meeting of Two Saviours, I discussed Octavia’s origin story as the Dark Saviour and her relationship with the show’s other Saviour Lincoln, and how with his death he invested her with the mission to save all of their people.

In Part 2, Saving Humanity and the First Passion of Octavia Blake, I talked about Octavia finally accepting and understanding her mission as the Saviour, redeeming the sins of humanity, and her first Passion narrative, which was left incomplete, and thus she lived.

In Part 3, Planet Alpha and the Second Passion of Octavia Blake, I wrote about Octavia’s second Passion narrative on Planet Alpha, which led to her road to Golgotha at the Anomaly, from which she is resurrected (the Crucifixion narrative still remaining a mystery) and then meets those she knew once again, before her ascension as the Anomaly reclaimed her in the last seconds of the S6 finale.

So now, Part 4 - Here we will get into that missing Crucifixion narrative, as well as the events that come to pass with Octavia’s Second Coming, the Judgment of Humanity, and how things may have played out differently had it been Octavia who walked into the glowy ball of light instead of Cadogan, Clarke and Raven.

From Dark to Light

Before we return to that missing Crucifixion narrative, which takes place on Bardo, Octavia, along with Diyoza and Hope, land on a different planet for ten years. This planet also has its purpose in our Saviour narrative, because while the show starts on dark themes, and thus needed Octavia as a Dark Saviour, in season 7 it began to shift to a theme of light and transcendence.

Enter the appropriately named Penance.

Octavia spends ten years on Skyring/Penance/Planet Beta, healing from her pain and darkness, and thus is no longer the Dark Saviour the narrative needed her to be before to bring salvation to her people, now she can be the Light Saviour who will save all of humanity.

Her new demeanour - though I hesitate to say new because it was born of ten years of peace, plenty, family, and healing, it wasn’t new to her, merely to those who used to know her for whom time had been much shorter - is evidence of her new Light. It confuses many, because they hadn’t had the same time and healing as she had, but it is evident in every move she makes. Rather than the tornado of righteous fury that she used to be, now Octavia is the steady and calm voice of reason - to Echo, to Hope, and especially to Clarke.

But back to that crucifixion narrative.

Every Noble Crown will be a Crown of Thorns

Her peaceful world torn asunder, Octavia is taken to Bardo, and thrown into M-Cap at the first opportunity. Others have mentioned how the M-Cap headcap looks like a crown of thorns, and they’re quite right - this is where Octavia’s Crucifixion narrative comes to fruition. No one spends as much time in that crown of thorns as she does.

She fights it, at first, but when acceptance is what will provide salvation to her people (or person, in this case, being Hope), she accepts her fate and faces her past - brutal days of reliving her history as the Dark Saviour, to firmly close that chapter of her life (a symbolic death rather than just her regular baptism-rebirth cycle).

She’s freed from her crown of thorns when Hope comes. Hope, the symbol of her new Light, and the Light that she will carry with her as she returns to Sanctum to be resurrected among those she once knew, those who had believed her to be lost, but who dearly needed the Light she was to bring them.

Revelation and The Second Coming

There are a lot of different moving pieces involved in the apocalyptic scenarios of Revelation, and how these come to play in season 7 of The 100 isn’t any different. So let’s take a look at some of the other key players and how they connect to Octavia’s story.

The False Prophet, The Dragon and The Beast

Now, in my Part 3 of this series (written after the S6 finale), I predicted that Bellamy would have a large part in the revelation of Octavia’s Saviour narrative. Obviously, that part didn’t come to pass, because of Bob’s absence from the show, but you can still see hints within the narrative that suggest he would have been a part of it before Bob pulled out (most notably, the Hesperides flashback in 7x04 - this flashback is pretty pointless in the context of Hope telling Echo and Gabriel that story, but if you imagine Bellamy being there to hear about how his sister raised Hope in much the same way he raised her - then it becomes way more meaningful).

But the narrative as it played out also presents interesting Biblical allusions, by casting Bellamy in the role of false prophet, fighting on the side of the Beast (Cadogan), instead of on the side of Christ (his sister).

The false prophet is said to be the second beast to rise in Revelation 13, who has “two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon” (Revelation 13:11) who is given the authority to speak on behalf of the first Beast (Cadogan), to deceive the people so that they will worship this Beast. The false prophet having the appearance of a lamb is relevant here, because Jesus is often referred to as the Lamb of God - thus, the false prophet (Bellamy) resembles the true Saviour (Octavia), not coincidental since they are in fact siblings and thus do bear some physical resemblances.

So who is The Dragon - that is, Satan? It is easy to say that the Dragon is Sheidheda, for it is the Dragon who is imprisoned, only to be released to deceive and wage war before being finally defeated. But it goes deeper than that - The Dragon is the dark side of the Flame itself, Sheidheda’s only the last prophet of that darkness. It is the Flame that gives Cadogan, the Beast, the power he needs to rule over his people - the glimpse of the idea of Judgment Day as something for the Disciples to work towards - “The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority” (Revelation 13:2) - even when the good side of the Flame, the Humanity that Becca believed so vital, wanted to keep it from him.

The Children of the Kingdom of Heaven

Jesus says “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Octavia’s always been tied to different children throughout The 100 narrative, first as the child herself, and then others such as Gavriel, Ethan, Madi, Rose and Hope. But the important children for the purpose of this post are the three that are the “next generation” so to speak of the leading trio of the show, and their important roles in the final battle.

There’s Jordan, the Head-centered, who takes over Clarke’s role as John the Baptist, the prophet who bore witness to the Light (Jesus) so that others would believe. His testimony shows that the Final War is instead a Test, and he’s instrumental in making sure that Octavia can stop the war and pass the test to grant humanity eternal life instead.

There’s Hope, the Heart-centered, who takes over Bellamy’s role as Saint Peter, the disciple who becomes the leader of the church after Jesus’ ascension. Hope is Octavia’s grounding force, her new rock, and her love gives her strength to continue her journey.

And then there’s Madi, the Soul-centered, who is Octavia’s next generation counterpart. It’s made clear from the start of Madi’s introduction in season 5 that Octavia is her favourite, that Octavia is the one she looked up to, and even in season 7, these parallels are there, as Madi is ready to sacrifice herself to save the others, and in more peaceful ways too, like when she’s hiding in the reactor with her two new friends, reminiscent of season 1 Octavia and her friendship with Monty and Jasper. Madi, too, meets her Crucifixion in the M-Cap chair, in an even crueler and more vicious manner than Octavia did. But when Octavia saves humanity, this liberates Madi’s soul and grants her eternal life as well.

I am the Way, The Truth and the Life

Wonkru falls apart in Octavia’s absence. There’s no other way to say it. Wonkru crumbling in 7x03 is made even more conspicuous by the fact that they don’t even mention Octavia, because they’re still denying her, despite everything she brought them. They don’t realize that she’s the one to save them all, they don’t realize that, as Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 4:16) - something that they will finally come to understand in the climax of the final episode.

But it isn’t time for that story yet. First we must turn to Revelation to see what happens to Wonkru and the others on Sanctum while they’ve chosen to deny her and follow the Dragon and the Beast instead.

Here we see the different plagues that strike the unbelievers - both in Revelation 8-9 and 16.

The first to come are “ugly, festering sores [that] broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast” (Revelation 16:2) - the radiation sickness that is a marker of the broken nuclear reactor in 7x03, which claims as James as one of its first victims. If you don’t remember who he was while watching that episode, look back to 6x02, where he’s one of the people attacking Octavia in the Eligius IV mess hall. He breaks faith with her, and here suffers the consequences of that.

The second and third plagues speak of both the seas and the rivers turning to blood - references to the rivers of blood created by Sheidheda’s massacres, first of the Faithful and then of the Children of Gabriel.

The fourth plague, the sun scorching people with fire, takes us to the eclipse in 7x13, where the sky is red with the eclipse. This leads to the fifth and sixth plagues - the kingdom being plunged into darkness as Emori kills power to the reactor to bring down the shield, which makes it possible for “locusts [to come] down on the earth” (Revelation 9:3) and devour those “who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (Revelation 9:5).

It is only the final plague - “rumblings… and a severe earthquake… [where] the great city split into three parts” (Revelation 16:18-19) - that strikes where Octavia is, with “a loud voice from the throne, saying ‘It is done!’” (Revelation 16:17). This line from Revelation calls back to what Octavia says to Hope in 6x13 before her Ascension - “Be brave, tell him it is done” - a sign that Octavia is needed elsewhere again. And soon enough she does depart to Bardo, alongside Clarke. Meanwhile, the survivors remaining on Earth have to reunite the three groups split in the bunker - those in the rotunda (Hope, Jordan, Gaia, Indra, Miller), those in the rec room (Raven, Murphy, Emori, Jackson) and those in the bunkrooms (Echo, Niylah) - to prepare for the final war and judgment.

The Fall of Babylon

Before Octavia can bring light to the world and grant humanity transcendence, there is still one more key part of Revelation that must come to pass, and that is the fall of Babylon: That is, in this ‘verse, Clarke.

Throughout Biblical narrative, Babylon stands in opposition to Jerusalem and its righteousness, just how in The 100 narrative Clarke and Octavia have always been set as foils to each other. Now, Clarke isn’t evil per se, but she’s always been set in her ways and doubles down when questioned about her past deeds - as we see both in how she faces the Primes in 6x03 and the Judge in 7x16. She doesn’t learn, and so she fails. Clarke, like Babylon, is locked out of heaven for not learning the patience and humility that Octavia did: “For her sins are piled up to Heaven, and God has remembered her sins. Give back to her as she has given, pay her back double for what she has done.” (Revelation 18:5-6).

With Clarke fallen, it is now time to begin the Final Judgment.

Final Test and Judgment

After Clarke’s fall, someone must step in to advocate for humanity, to guide the Judge’s gaze to the righteous, to the Saviour - Raven steps through the glowing orb to do so. So which figure in Revelation is most suited here? None other than the writer of Revelation themselves, historically considered to be John of Patmos, who is given these visions by the angels as a warning for humanity.

Raven bore witness to a number of the plagues, and while not always a believer in Octavia - in fact, out of all characters around for all seven seasons, they’ve shared the least screentime with each other - but they’ve still fought on the same side. Also of relevance here is that Raven’s been granted visions in the narrative of the show, like John of Patmos has in Revelation - though hers came as a result of ALIE.

While the Judge takes Raven to the battlefield in Bardo to prove humanity to be unworthy, this battlefield is instead where Octavia proves humanity to be worthy. Indra and Wonkru follow Octavia’s lead, finally recognizing that their only way to salvation was through her (see John 4:16 above), and after the Disciples too laid down their weapons, humanity is deemed worthy and the Judge grants them eternal life in the form of transcendence - rising to the heavens in the manner of the Rapture, “We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Where is the Judgment of the Dead?

Now, one thing missing in season 7 compared to the Book of Revelation and Jesus’ Second Coming is the Judgment of the Dead and welcoming those worthy into the domain of Heaven.

A longstanding phrase in The 100 has been “May We Meet Again”. This is part of the Traveler’s Blessing of Skaikru, and one that they use frequently with one another even in non-death contexts. So with that phrase, a lot of people expected that the dead would also be able to be part of transcendence somehow, and that beloved characters would then also be present on the beach in the final scene as they rejected transcendence to live mortal lives.

I believe, given everything in the past posts about Octavia, that had she been the one to go into the ball of light to face the Judge personally, rather than saving humanity on the battlefield, that this would have happened.

While logically I believe the best form for the Judge to take for Octavia would have been Diyoza, since Diyoza was her greatest teacher, her mind would be more likely to choose her greatest love, Lincoln - who, if we go back to Part 1 of this series, we remember is the other Saviour of this show’s narrative.

That would have been a reunion even more epic than the Clarke and Lexa reunion that the show gave us, for Lincoln and Octavia were far closer and together for far longer. And if the Transcendents possessed the powers that they do - instant genocide by crystallization at the wave of an arm, transcendence through the blink of an eye, restoration of healthy and whole bodies if those souls reject transcendence - then surely raising the dead would’ve been a simple task.

The only reason that couldn’t happen was extratextual - there was no way Ricky would work with JRoth again, and so this extra dimension, this aspect of the narrative that could have made things so much sweeter and less bitter, had to be put aside.

Now, that doesn’t diminish Octavia’s Saviour narrative in the least - she did still save humanity. She did still bear the sins of the human race, she was still mocked, cast out and sent to her crucifixion by those who denied her. She did still return from that symbolic death, resurrected, then ascended. When she faced Wonkru again - remember, that battlefield in 7x16 is the first time the bulk of Wonkru has seen her since 5x13 - it was in her Second Coming to bring the Final Judgment to them. The trials they’d faced in Sanctum in her absence showed them the truth - that they had to believe in her again to achieve their salvation.

She was the Way, the Truth and the Life of The 100 universe, and no one would have reached transcendence except through her.

[modern-vellichor]

In Her Blood; One

Pairing: Dads Best Friend!Bucky x reader

Warnings: Age gap (reader is 24 ish, bucky is like 100 yk), daddy issues, uncomfortable home life, mentions of abortion/unwanted pregnancy, implied smut, steve being a shitty dad, smoking.

Bucky stood, leaning against the kitchen island in his best friends house. Steve is standing opposite him, Sam sitting at the kitchen table, their daughter, Sarah, next to him.

He hears the door open and close, the sound of wheels on hardwood floor. Then he hears a voice, sweet and song like, calling out

"hello?"

Sarah's face lights up, she jumps from her chair and just as another girl appears in the door, she leaps into her arms. The other girl chuckles, throwing her arms around Sarah and cooing. "Hey, chicken, I missed you"

The girl dislodges herself from Sarah, smile plastered on her face, beaming. She wraps an arm loosely around Sam's shoulder, "Hiya, dad", she places a soft kiss on his head.

She simply nods at Steve, a look almost chastising him was thrown. "Steven".

And then she turns to Bucky, and sticks out a hand. Her tone changes to something familiar and sweet.

"And you must be Bucky", he takes her hand, "I'm Y/N"

Bucky is confused, he doesn't remember Steve ever talking about a Y/N in his life. Apparently his confusion was evident, because she bursts into offended laughter, scoffing at Steve.

"Oh, he didn't tell you about me? that's rich", she stated, rolling her eyes. She turned her attention back to Bucky.

"Hi, I'm their eldest daughter", Bucky couldn't hide his surprise.

Steve never told him he had two daughters, he only ever spoke about Sarah. Sarah who aced her SATS, Sarah who started law school in September, Sarah who was his proud and joy. And now here was this new girl, who couldn't have been older than 25, standing tall and stoic before him.

Sarah and Sam observed the scene from the table, they watched with a sadness in their eyes.

Instead of questioning further, he simply introduced himself, smiling at the girl and shaking her hand. Doing anything to diffuse the suffocating tension.

"Yeah, I'm Bucky. It's nice to meet you"

"You too, you live close?"

"just down the road, what about you?"

"Art school in Paris, home for the summer"

She had a twinkle in her eyes as soon as she mentioned Paris, Bucky's smile grew wider, as did hers.

"Paris?"

"Paris", she nodded, excited.

"That must be nice"

"Its beautiful, much nicer than this shithole. Its heaven on earth over there" They spoke as Sam dragged Steve out of the kitchen into the hall, and as Sarah disappeared to her bedroom.

Sam pulled Steve out by the arm, dragging him away from the kitchen, away from Y/N.

"what the hell, Steve? you don't even talk about her? Shes your daughter!", he whispered as loudly as he could, scalding his partner.

Steve sighed, running a hand over her face. "She doesn't want anything to do with me"

"That's your fault, you gave up on her before her life had even started. You told her you didn't want her. Did you even know she was coming home? Did you care enough to remember?"

"I remember her telling Sarah something about it, Sarah passed on the message, wasn't paying attention"

"Christ's Sake, Steve"

-

Sarah ran to her room. Away from the looks her father gave her sister, away from the tension, away from her dad's tears, away from the memories flooding back to her.

She hated Steve for ruining Y/N the way he did, and he hated him even more for never apologising. She doesn't blame Y/N for running away to Paris either, she seems happier there.

She still loves her father though, that would never change.

Bucky sat with Sam at the table, beer in hand. Steve had long retired to bed, the two girls were giggling in Sarah's bedroom. The two men were silent, and in Buck's need for conversation, he let his curiosity get the better of him.

"What's the deal with Y/N?"

Sam paused, for a second and then sighed.

"She's Steve's bio daughter, had her with some woman a few years back, before we got together, before Sarah. When Sarah came around their relationship went to shit, Steve didn't like it. She ran away to Paris for school, stopped talking to Steve, dont blame her"

"sounds tough. How old was she when she left?"

"22, poor Sarah was only 16, broke her heart to see Y/N leave"

Bucky was used to being around all the time, but now summer had rolled around, he was here all the time.

practically living in their house. Sarah was used to his presence, but Y/N was wary. She rarely spoke, especially when Steve was around. She grasped at any chance to get out of the house, or to lock herself in her room.

It was either 'bonding time with her sister', or 'making up for lost time', and if not that it was 'school work', or 'extra curriculars'.

Bucky woke in a sweat, he had slept in the guest bedroom. Nightmares followed him though. He silently made his way down the stairs, padding softly on the carpet. The backdoor was ajar slightly, the familiar smell of smoke wafting through the crack.

He pushed it open to find you, blanketwrapped around your shoulders, cheeks wet from old cheeks, a cigarette smouldering between dainty fingers.

He said nothing as he sat next to you, mimicking your position, crossing his legs. He brought the cigarette to his lips, taking in a long drag, before handing it back to you. You laughed, "I didn't think you smoked"

You brought the smoke to your lips, tasting him on the butt, infused in the filter.

"I used to, back in the war"

"everyone smoked back in the war" Bucky nodded along, smiling with you. You rested your head on his shoulder, he smelled familiar and soft.

"What's the deal with you and your dad"

In a moment of exhaustion fueled vulnerability, you didnt think about your answer, instead just spewing out the truth.

"I dont think he actually wanted me, I think he just couldn't let my mom get an abortion"

You sat together, in silence for a while, before you sat up, and turned your body to face him. You studied him. You traced his statuesque features, steely eyes, plump lips, your eyes played at his carved abdomen, dancing over his arms, one shining in early morning light.

He studied you in turn, tired and sad eyes, smoke spilling softly over perfect lips. Beautiful body curling in on itself in the cold.

You leaned forward, lost in your subconscious, desperate for a close look, you wanted to see the cracks and pores and scars littering his tan skin. "why are you awake?", you whispered.

"nightmare"

Your eyes fell to your legs as you giggled softly, "so that makes two of us"

"well maybe I can make you feel better"He gripped your chin, forcing your gaze to his. It was strangely intimate, that's what hurt the most. He pressed his lips to yours. You returned the kiss of course. Desperate and vulnerable, your arms snaked around his neck, his hands pawing at your hips and thighs.

This was wrong, you knew it was. You had already decided that this was a bad idea, you didn't care. Not with his fingers playing at the hem of your shirt, or carded in your hair, tugging lightly to pull the sweetest of moans from the depths of your chest.

Oh, you'd regret this later. But now, you were lost in the feeling of his lips on your neck, and his hands down your shorts. The soft silk of your bed sheets were a welcome contrast to hard metal and hot flesh. A welcomed distraction from the pure filth he whispered against your skin, leaving colourful bruises in his wake.

"please", you mewled over and over as he chuckled darkly. You knew this was wrong, but those thoughts weren't at the forefront of your mind as cool fingers expertly invaded your body and his tongue was licking hot stripes up your bare thighs.

Then, as you were slowly coming down from a lust drunk state of mind, he had the guts to pull you close against his chest. You knew who Bucky Barnes was. You knew he was best friends with Steve and Sam. You knew his past, you knew his present. Here you were, curled against him like he cared.

You weren't stupid. You knew he had objectified you to gods end. You knew that he thought you were less of Steve's daughter than Sarah. He had completely dissociated you from Steve and Sam, Sarah too.

So you waited, until his breathing had slowed and his heart rate was near nonexistent. And you pulled him off of you, and you sat yourself up, swinging your legs onto your carpeted floor. Back bone straight. He didn't care so much now, he definetly didnt act it-

He moved, rolling towards you, snaking his arms around your waist and humming.

"hey"

You froze.

"hey", you stared down at the man in your bed, strands of dark hair framing his herculean face. Blue eyes boring into yours.

"I'm sorry"

"for what?"

"about you and Steve, it must be tough"

You pulled the hair tie from his hair, snapping it around your wrist, running slender fingers through knotted locks.

"don't you worry about it"

"I suppose i'll see you to it, then", he untangled himself from you and picked his belongings up from the floor, pulling his clothes back on.

"see you around, soldier", you smiled.

He stopped in your doorway, throwing a smile back at you. "you too, kotenok"