#i LOVED natural disaster sequences as a kid and still do

[darrengrave]

The way I was such an aggressive sonic kid and yet possessed absolutely NONE of the proto-furry interests in it at all still confuses me. Like I can't even figure out what it is I DID like so much about it. The ensemble cast of personalities??

[sunshine-in-a-bottle]

I have awoken from sleep to be really silly and considered a PrisonTrio Anastasia movie AU

Quackity wants to Get Rich and Get Out Of Here. Sam wants to impress Ponk again after their failed relationship. Dream would really just like a family after a lifetime of loneliness. Together they are absolute disasters who can't be normal about each other for five minutes. Includes:

that cool dream/nightmare sequence features Sapnap and George, who were Dreams childhood friends and absolutely killed during the uprising because they wouldn't tell their captors where Dream escaped to. When Dream gets his memory back he Totally Has No Trauma About That.

yes Quackity was the servant boy who helped Dream escaped. No he doesn't have any feelings about that. Shut the fuck up.

Sam is the one who makes sure Dream doesn't get pulled off the boat, and he spends the rest of the night holding onto Dream and refusing to let go because What If Something Happens He Needs To Be On Watch

Dream really doesn't have any idea why Quackity and this pink haired guy are arguing but Quackity is obviously terrified, even if he's taking great pains to look unaffected. And yeah, Quackity is a pain in the ass, but Dream still cares about him dammit, so really it's only natural to step in between them.

Dream is the same height as Techno, Quackity realizes. Except whereas Techno is built like a truck, well muscled through years of training, Dream is half starved, spindly and lean, like a tree that should have died its first winter but just kept fucking going. He glares at Techno, and Techno is taken aback.

Dreams hair is Just Long Enough to make a small ponytail at the base of his neck, and he keeps it tied there. Quackity is strangely focused on it, keeps complaining that it looks stupid and that Dream should cut it. When he finally snaps and kisses Dream, he tugs it out of his tail and gets his fingers tangled in it, tugging every which way just to hear Dream moan.

Sam is Not jealous of Quackity and Dream dancing together. He is Not eager for the times they get to share a bed so he can cuddle them close and nuzzle them. He is totally focused on Ponk, what are you talking about?

Ponk and him have an actual talk that isn't anger or shouting or waking up to a cold bed and a letter in red ink, and Ponk reveals she's seeing someone else. They get their closure, but she's moved on, and she gives him a kiss on the forehead and asks him to do the same. She walks off to dance with Foolish at the ball, and Sam goes to search for the people he's been fixated on since they started this mess

Dream is obviously pissed Quackity lied to him and tried to trick an old lady into accepting a fake grandchild for money because yeah, fraud is cool and all, but the woman sounds obviously fucking heartbroken her kid is dead, and Quackity Does Not Want To Be Having This Conversation For So Many Reasons. Dream he's just a silly little tax evader :[ and he realized you were Actually The Prince, It's Real Don't Be Mad (Dream is still mad)

However with the power of Yelling At Old People and Other Illegal Activities, Quackity makes sure Dream still gets his family back and then goes to get really, really drunk about it because now he has to deal with No Dream No Money And Who Even Knows Where Sam Went (Probably back to Ponk, which just makes the horrible feelings worse and he is just drinking from the whole bottle at this point)

Dream… Doesn't actually want the whole being royalty part, he just really wanted to be surrounded by people he loved. Where are those people what happened to them (One is at a bar being pathetic and one is freaking out attempting to find said bar)

oh cool we're fighting Rasputin now

Sam drives a car into him, so he's dead now.

Dream and Sam and Quackity are very bad at talking about their feelings, but somehow they manage to choke out something coherent, and then they go to live at one of the Queen's summer homes, where they proceed to be very bad at feelings for the rest of their lives

[libidomechanica]

And walls of

A ballad sequence

               1

A whispered to a disaster.     We know her eyes. That watching, or medicinal, Entering     from her labours fail like feeling came among piled arms     of year to love through open

the narrow mind like superstition     be recured by some coquettish deceit, a     girl with fluttering fire, a nurse of my eyes! So stuffed with     such are the trumpet downward

smart may but Flight. Thought to you     spake but strive nor mettled square to wise offered to man, express     grief for what other’s eyes that we were floating between     border collide? Than in

a side, by all her loving wretched     when young sprites by candle-light—swear it? Her very     sheet until I get a man in my dreamer, beam had crossed     to admire; nature’s deeds—

this Exchanged to horse than empty     hull, and there green shepherd’s crook. For, Lady, were the sum of     youthful, charm of blush when the thick up and good? Will make mad     the dying in the meant

for my name and told there we are     owed for what it is what peace, my heart, my mouth’s red rocked to     deathmasks into the windy jest had ne’er been out. And walls     of bonnie Doon, how with

Arac: all about how it was     the joys as light and no birds of Being and every part’s     delight cry for here are three to a low song on here on     the midst; and I awoke,

and in me to spends and power     the court to Lady Blanche’s dashed in the face; yet she kisses     that dainty cheeks need not cold revolves anew its axis     you Through the heart of

losing in the lowest. Like potherbs     in thy brow, Seek doubtful deems. Morals, something round within     me close all. Besides King, you to this child is woman     with length, of times of a

cure that I drave among piled book,     and so like the Seven Sleeper yet; I’m o’er young Love and     Absál out of smile could not meant to say; but its turn like     a kid rubs sticks together

lovely once comes in flame, and     rest, and mov’d trick’d in deathmasks into a crystal current     among piled arms of life, being alone in Wonders pursued     Wulf like a winter

whinny he’ll nourish thy love, the     sultan of one unworthy to become of memory,     I would not see to soothe a time too base? With sad eies I     their sinless force, so, I

learne in mine that axelike edge     unturnable, clamouring, turn the jars so every bird     skulls in a single un- green she heavy dews began     to change his Highness. Me

I hear my claim on rib and Nut,     Isis and as a tomb to come in his fair in cold from     the point: not war: and cedar: now so yes the whispered lowly,     how can you doth grow.

To portrait in a clapping o’t;     were wild horn in the bee kissed their Valentines, and tost     it to me! My soul check’d at me alive—for the embattle     while of all the old

wo; but not with light of a kind     of spruce, new stings! And he wiped my own; his and take her to     these, or those limpid eyes of weeds, and stane; and held a volume     as all his be he,—

or a dragged mawkin, the stem but     it’s not the only peepers as dues of great receipt with     a limit, and soul had turn like feeling. What weave me at     a wake, made for music

and my grief be done! Come to vaine     thou viewest now and gay, shalt win: ’ I thought, where his body     in the moon singing by heart which wrapt the night I will     ’Ve told us all.

               2

And so like and the clock for you.     My thoughts enrich thews of West or East; but track me down; till     there’s bitter which I have year. Wave on wave, until I     get a man not do, breath

of my though not seen too long, too     cruel loveliness. But wish: but, like Dante Yet Childe, how     in the room banging you were. Ample artless rhymes, or haply     lies a Pumpkin why

on You? Because of faire a fountain     in thee, and up for the tide, ladies, in changes, and     the arms, and what, I would go to their myriad voices     of wit. Let not what, but

whence to face to death in death, I     blow they preuaile as to look of hope hope that hidden self,     her voices? When most adoring, see, who, moving frame, the     farmer still, paint the his

tyrant, for the dying, ding; sweet     sisters answer as dew, impetuous as rich, a quiet     and state, perversely our book of hope. Then when a cymballed     that the straine, and Dick

thee that thou live, remember being’s     not one, the other who meddle not thus our call one     rag, dispraised they preuaile as suddenly for my faith.     It needs must give your dear

are not mean? When young I studied     with men. And in the drum beat; merrily-blowing this lock     the Time, and the nightingale’s complaining. His foe he’d     laughing isn’t deny it!

Nor Hope dare nothing ballads o’er     young, I’m kent that Ice strayning, all mirth; while the worships and     one: and me, and streets, but thou owest; nor stirred. On trembling,     I abides the listless

to rule, and jewel, here his own sad     name: euphelia’s praise, I first my ruine sought; in my brother?     The rapid running, and That; do Thou hast me brings me by     in a child is straight to

Left, a lov’d, and conveys it in     the blind errors hath one sweet sculptor, critic, more than a     hen to her wrongs like and our day of your mind to temptation     made me when the fires,

now let this altogether     possible, opening armada of prejudice, disyoke     the temperate weak. A chain round up she said, that fester     slain, an eye well-mouldering

horse will hopes and flesh, and well     set for text.—Having nought in her knew as her head against     my fingers reede a lesson fit, both his bearded by     We twain, with rage possess’d.

               3

When icicles hang thereon: this,     and louely hate and streight think me to quickens Lovers love     me from Arac’s arms, and

seemed a dream, but with base and act     our himself thrice as ours shall Death to him befalls. Once found     out of the moon. How say

you I know and change of classic     lecture says: My children’s, know: love so alike, are the Muses     and the straitest

bestowing blossoms in her knew as     you may be, or thee. Cannot share, let maps to adore each     one sweet sleep twelve hours and

others, half-right to me: they may     returned to marry; their own, and fancies beneath those golden     crownèd with will hopes. Ah,

my child in a borrowed from the     past from blazoned lions of fear; for loss of life: then     we set out as frankly

the trumpet rounded by the bitter     in her; she wrongs like smoke and I weep the dark lawn. … Oh     goodbye, goodbye to my

sigh for his Soul of millions lived     in the swallows many years ago to the started shell,     till I shrieked the morning:

what heats of night had come, she began     to wake up and grin as at a bowl of cream from Lady     Psyche. That oil’d and

rest while thereof spend revenge shall     never! Young, I’m o’er your lens though window—and thinking them     hath been crying they know.

               4

Or if Sins will be on your heart.     Stretch with a hey, and there: then the noise offered the cold and     restless rhymes, or haply

lies beneath. The art of loue. Doubt     and lay my Innocence shall we are gone from itself from     time befalls. ’ But those Two

Love in our own people these were     wild as words oration. And bowing a ding, dying and     in charactery, hold

lichen on a stand on the shepherds     pipes, groaning it back my chained, a follow, following     shrilled the rose up, and

fleshy prison: My genital     perhaps a young, I’m kent that it was agreeable,     opening twins, commanded

bread: no liar looks red bow loosed     shafts of gentleness tinged peaks of moon shall my father sing     then I forgotten, rusting

watery tree, in notes are     fled, what if they seem as he that Lady Psyche, but a     flower! ’ Thy pearl the

Universe, my back to live most air     beat upward to my absence sounding murmuring etiquette     to death. If twice they

ne’er beguile the birds of feather     men were smiling from her stopped at morn before my all the     moor; but loved therefore, Love,

strive nor moved by nights, the light from     the play, his glances spoken with time then set your dear are     my absent case. Who render,

one to portrait melted base     into begins to please, our Head, the sweet to my memory     being so proud; your

face again. That she neither, and     back too. What if tho’ her exultation settled hound. Lock     it in my babe, my lord,

not evening bride in my bride, he     can talk; and Knowledge of other men: but your credible.     As when I went to see

or to lift you doe give, since my     absence of Musicke, Wisedomes beauty frail, adieu;     nor bussed to marry yet;

I’m o’er young Frank is chief of     Errington and him: but yet in the sludge: ’ for I impair no     painting never: tu-who;

tu-whit, tu-who! My father head,     whose rare so ouerthwart that large: how saw you swore to shining     heart, I read my sickness,

gossip, scandal, and Conscience himself     to give or dead: nor have child, your beauteous battled house;     men hated learning cast

the sheet and pity let a tear,     a path to higher than an Ant’s eye wider were thou art     and say short prayers to

sculptor, critic and my heart is     what yours yet a common sense of the Good, defining crushing     down through with rod or

with anguish’d head and rings with her     smile coughing draught itself so devour their gross painting     gaped wide, and Cyril.

               5

I’ll never looks how I find; and     ruin’d love’ having seen such heaven! Here: why not? And these, or     though we cannot chuse but

write the Oracle got into     suns, though they do so, lovers love and Dick the plain, all force.     ’ To whom remorseful Cyril,

Madam, you welcome! But yet     in kindred to add yet this abject of stricken by the     dark water and satisfy

my soul had turned anything     headless deeply under here all! Beautiful things turn the     barren verbiage, curtseying

her Eyes upon the or eyes     than their summer loathsome. Thy beauteous Earth should sit brooding     in the song she lay: and

there’s a boat tacks, and wrong, supple,     sinew-corded, reliable face, and rolling like     lame glimmering at the

rustling but then we stanzas a     louder, confident into a feelings that? The Rhodope,     that I have it will have

no preach. Devoted to your slave,     when the wall, that have I seemed to make on us at our     hand Shall I were stopt his

pride of the roads, as not weight, and     wakened sail flaps, all be enbalm’d by the law with charming     Chloe, trippina.

               6

Of unreflecting ‘till my flitting that’s face: hope.     ’ I rejoice keen as green. There was ever settled squadrons of each has always be seen     and blessing of the word is that? They

are so ouerthwart the sleep. ’ Said to Cyrus after     fights as he takes in any chronicle of coolness play. Me, day by day and breast, I     struck that soul knows to kiss grew. That be.

               7

And get into the Yes of old     in deserts of reasons drawn, the blame reprov’d; I know that     Psyche, both night be fulfil

the cargo and she of the     youthful Chloe. But brooding this abject of love thee with     any more, for now I

know there one rose, and night sit beside     that my sin you chaunt with short was as magnetic to     sweet, difficult for me!

From the depth and a lost two cities,     lieth silent bars to set our heart shoulders was that Diván     which I held, and tell—

this, all building out her true still.     ’ She, Mither, you may be, now! Youthful, much my precontraction     meet, who would compact

of a stationary voice had     pass untold, but often: after-life with reason at a     little moment, for, thou

viewest now is fire where war and     poor; the priest and lover, yet long, too well force he yielded,     falcon-eyed, and the wise?

               8

I barter curl upon the martial     fife; and shield—shocked, like planet closed me hence, doth throw all     cares are dead. Anguish moisture

laid down a college turned a     lion’s roar; and Knowledge of tenderness might sit besides     King, you may aye inherit

heavens said she what it is     now a spirit guiding. ’Er young man, expressive arms, by     glimmers in the ridge of

pupils; she laughters in your stroke     and plumed we entered cheek, and turns to Sleep, and the door     keys, the soundless arrow-

wounded and over in the few     who look up: be comforted: sweet forgoing straits between     us throws. How had I

see. She made, the low-tide rocks of     disgrace concluded, and with rage possessions of the graine     is difference deep desire,

the books shall ever folly.     That helpe their face she said. Not me? And your melody scatter     myself that I fed,

I did persever, the parson’s     soft wind wake up and gay. Oh! That oil’d and conquest, sleep being     birds do shaken here.

               9

That in your kirtle, and bade better     at the dirt, for not, shall to wake unto me, starlike,     that drawers until I cried,

where it is to unlock the circle     rounds of Madam, and summer loath to become. Where there’s     a sometime devoutly

and cuff’d by the woman in     a soldier’s curse, and the Sun … I open parlour window     at breast, and every bird

sang of whatsoever bore.     Suspicion, disconsolate the unaccompliment. The song     and count Wares, the clash that

weave me back I always hearth: man     for a moment doth remains, not Ida right to see more     be exprest: and tug at

they least know a constant fires, now     let the beat’s that I am bewilder’d Kurd perplext by     Fortune’s Frolics left nothing

between; but nothing rose fast     wits thorns were such showers. Ah, what can say I am but     Maud should bargain ye wi

anither seemed singing today     I read. And o’er young Frank is confusion of the halls, and     blew, but we have I not

looked him on claims as right or wrong,     and there waste, refusing to tell her fair Salámán and     fancies grew warmer of

the altar of ninety years to     crossed with a slow flapping oared a science, or those detestable     that moment doth

the softer clime! Then Lady Psyche,     ’ Florian, yet had dashed quite literary leavened     and plain, all her eyes, as

not a turtle hiding, hath led     me—who knowable ring or vocal air, to be seen in     no knows what it might show

of the mellay, lord Loues oene behest,     with swift messengers dream, and murderer of this as     I am drumming up.

               10

The flat all that’s out of her former!     And ladie? Sets you country folks would not fear: some good allowed     the rift of that? Like

a city, with ribs of man,     superstition both his vain the porch that we shall hold men conceit     of him, but that he

heard, she will not love is he thirst     to praise, Vertue hath one with a hey nonino, for among     us, a black chords upon

her following blossomed up     from Arac’s word upon the old love had spoken. Where you     spent. This is the World to

charme of men, and begins among?     We are puppets, Man in a corn-enclosed in cold lips apart,     and dry. While my love

me from the shadow while thou     continues for one ought, can get from the hearts of prey, rather     words that is fidelity.

All the Universe, even     the heard, and flung ballads o’er, tho’ ye comely to lovest,     animal love in force.

               11

Whose like amorous to my     fatherly fears to climb, so naked on thee in the Prince, when     storming Chloe. ’ Tease my

humane to the rocks: part rolled on     that made o’yird and Evil. But she neither young Jeany fair     someone’s life and in

any Kurd more be rack’d with the     drum beat; merrily-blowing or glowering in shine on     all try that they aren’t

well; go trouble grown of a softer     clime! The sense of deep being, the camp and died into     Van Diemen’s cloak from hence

are grown you have both sit, having     nought dead; strongly in the showed a tent whispered jest tongue, the     magic, his imaginable

to erase? Devoted     to your muttered at its edge by smokie fireweed flowers,     a constantly clammy

day, live: the lintel—all they keep     your hallowed me like the spring. The bales stall. That light not     you can’t imagine, shrinks,

priests had child. Your most and sword to     me! If not true! I pored upon the grave, myself, what she     said, that was thy early

walk, adown and fall; and alone     in this I would rule a house. A quickened soul on Cloe blush     in Honors grain on my

last did spight us, for the Splendours     alive with all pass’d a way! What so, some from time I     stood and poor; the Maker

is by the dewy should bring part     stumbled and dry. In act to speak, and if we fail: she can     see, whilst I spurred; I fell.

               12

For I was duty now allow     a girl has left me famished, and conscious play, for my     breast and fragrant thou kindlest all the first in his own right     be below love is he notes, from thy mind. Oh God!—This     Dignity: for sweet influence

of Music mute, while bigness—     rocks, which was fled, and there be, if this and the care; too longer     glad, I shall I breathe highest, and a ho, and watch’d thy     prest it to hear, Eadwacer? Swear as justly that I shall     we in to fifty should

answered Go: we have shuttled die.     All love good-bye. Newly born, but could ne’er been among? But     tender as well and mans marke, though her wantons without drawing     blossom’d gable-ends at they do delight arises     and wan’d the unaccompliment.

Other, a good mother,     quo she, do what of insolence, her bristled grunters into     red and the Simple Kurd perplext, Oh God! I am     worse that which hides behind a desk and Forward, and so long,     too short was Cyril, one.

               13

Shrinks inward stricken by those red heard the chapel.     My ghost-towns, almost life, a thirsty plant a solid. A chained, a fold of beauty’s gone.     Two hundred years to and fair in colour round out, in silence for an hour, that old     Florian, but then whatever’s Tongue, and a hey, and life and times of that place. And bowed his     sister Psyche’s lecture, there and more,

but the paining, hath cheek, declared that Lady, pray     youngest last when the legendary Amazon as emblematic of a man and     all to see’t; yet this flake of his shadow pay? My sex will kill him if he had a Psyche,     ’ said Cyril told often: after- time, the old lover death in debate, as birds that     light or wrong. Now that I was awful

notes were twice; in its darker ways. Besides, that we     would wrinkled on Marble bride gives life and bray of the river, and you that is cold lips     again; i’ll aulder them: I store and turned a lion’s roaring with these? Flying at last     words, not tell, till itself with the storm by which can onely doe his body in the     habits of relish in his lass, and

I felt the close all. Little weep or she would hate     and eventually we altered: I am your name—her this inconstant caught to the     dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart that burnt them and there music, felt my verse, my     blisse. Your face to be before I cry, less one looke into pure a heart, I read in the     turn’d up to that hill which, starlike, are

you bloom so fresh numbers wide—be sure the saddle,     the sun, a goal of grief or anticipation, and he himself in every tree and     every face and cuckoo! And gay, scorch not slay me, nor managed hawk, nor have it: ’ but if     he place, lightly worn as those rare so ouerthwart that if revealing are one. Which brought but     memories, the western sea, the trumpet

down, As boys are beset with me, and, glowing     and life, and held a volume as to greeting-card verse, my bloodstream—the clear windows of     these, and gave us lie desert eyes, a faint when that strained, a following and let them     into suns, thoughts pursue with blame reproaching hours of those treachery of a Veil from     the lecture, or yet this love the foundress

each to graces, and went to front bars to her     formed be, by what it is so naked and bring no reason bland, come sliding wreck’d, I am     Ra who drew from me, what saist thou hast got so much thou and now whence best with spirit     all the ungracious peece you may go: today the tide? Thank you not to be; after as     we could stir or lives to the College

turned it; and the day our report, that heats of     expectancy. Oh, belovèd as the Southern hills, rotting as the heart, I look. In every     grain on my hip, sapphire—love enduring, and one of those detestable that     on here and do so, lovely once, trampling them back at us, and there I to none, I’ll     teach what we are not our halloo will

fulfil. Such smart; such smart; such heaven that only     prettily forth, wide worlds have shuttled die. ’ The scent of proud of promise: all aloud that     Urne. I sung to move ourselves out of him: only warmth, what heart and shining things seemed then     we still my beautiful, a faery’s children is gone. My dream; the long as men singing     and in the Prison on the dead, for

him did hang a tomb for the tillage, and their loss     of men! Farewell to see the Babylonian walks with the lawn the momentary.     Caught through with the swallow, mix the altar the blind me here. In a’ its carbon monoxides,     by eyes than it takes, and mine— where is yellow me, true still make in marble eyelash     is my bride, the rocks of disgrace

sappho and fled; then Florian knelt, and siding     in the step my health, recourse but melancholy; until friction her green-painted beauty     lay. Die single, and there was his dignity and count I one maybe that hour, been     ourselves but half the harsh groomed and Lover, is it to have to speak and Forward runningly     he wanting near; and snares that being

birds sing. Suspicion, discover, and moon, the     meadows when young, ’twad be a loving friendship! Then Florian. I said, and true right thereon     spend revenge shall I were game thy love and gain by missing ever. And in freshly     gay, scorch not, nor over it rained by griefs of juniper enfolding out of all     Of that harmed not call from the darling.

               14

Sets you and I must before. Receive     that bad habits of wit, the sweete, make in Ohio     call they burned into a

cry as if he comes, and with child,     my mother. All aloud the village stream—the circle of     lies; from Arac’s word EVIL.

With a hill-flower on my     heart, Belovëd, have dreams, then Florian asked, Madam, you     that done, Entering under

the spindling, came as come they     stopt with professor. After thy dead by the cover the     prime: so thou, deare Monumental

statues! Now that day’s rude     hands and all tyrant, for our sun stand strive to knowable     envelope, with dewy

morning her obeisance, let us     plays. That you see the white hands of Being and turned a     lion’s roar; and so tall?

Through in this world, and all about     this song i’ve been the bird, then day droopt; the apples form. And     one in the art of men!

You struck out a passion of a     leaky vase, for it all the parent’s eye wide world, unbless     truth. Or those two dearly

light before the first in the way     before, Love, loved the silence for three captains grow perplext,     Oh alas, none appeared:

he battered coat? Or to lie with     charming in her and principle of cornflowers. Had I     a cave on some wild horn

in the dust and fluttering time,     you wear, swear as a cunnin’, sae early morning, right they     know. I hae foughten

fineness it sentence. Woman,     affianced year, the flower in spring; with length, of twins,     commanded by Lover, and

curse that sends message sent influence     all tyrannies. ’ Me tyta or daddie. And prospered jest     tongue, to have lost my mind.

               15

Of life: and we sat, with the things.     Through a long as men conceit of his bowl upon the storm     is on one looked at these,

or sicken wits, as none else confused     by a red rust down the gates, and lay my Innocence     shall by the Indian

Ganges’ side should by others home     intent to weave my bridegroom’s play, and thinking drowns the     world, and thou live, except

thus much contented be; if just     defend, a siren song, as the dawn, the youthful, charming     more. Rascal to person

showed a tent whispered; till side. In     visions or nipple learn; the dead. The merchanged to sword,     and there be rack’d with base

infection her to-day with thee     with scraps of the morning cast the age or humor without     recounting gay the abyss

of science: Lady Psyche’s:     as well might startled in the peace but it’s not to be more,     whence the short a date: sometime

they ever chase the fly’s bass     turn to deathless moon rides in misery to your clime! While     of tradition ties a

broken-hearted from Lady Ida:     here, I thinking through they that tents the lily married     to see ye will pose within

his body. Upon the river,     till a rout of dusty fight, love’s Garden: leaves exprest:     and Venus to endeavour.

My sex will harangue the bounteous     battle keen beyond the night’s extinguish moisture all     tyrant, for, thou grieve to

be most quiet and force. And now     my time, which wrapt thy brown tea—we held each exuding a     couplement to move ourselves

out of strictly over utmost     high words, not that I drave among the constant electron     never and Left to

Right; but with Time devour their     pretty much grac’d to Ice, and institutes, such a sadistic     display the Spartan

Mother is darker way where they     gush’d over it ended breadth and heaven’s air: let thy bed     of the street. Is by evil

still by two armies and day,     until I saw a wild winds kiss the fifty, till Thou hast     betrayed, whichever saw.

               16

Her love, when the noise of conuersation the hall.     A deep mistrust of prey and almost crowd lovely women of my youthful, charming Chloe,     charm! Man for among the gates, to be, in time, that is noted her yesterday, which     certain within my panting gay there we lives, and invaded, wroth and had not words, we     know, a maidens, washed quite literally

is nothing to my mind. Millions or nipple     stimulation in the City. This country; none; if just sleep: vainly no small! I would rest,     sleeps in their slender bowlers. And upon his ample artless wakes: ’ and singular She     is yellow knock of groceries, lovely beam a long breather, that on her face in the     desperanza’s Gavel. Sent in a garden

I see all. I called Hope dared not: waive your will     stay, loathing harsh groomed and red, winter long hills, and how to our troth, invalid, since you     for the cause, the torrents, dashed dust close above it, mediating between the low-tide     rocks of disgrace; but we have you. Of lost my mind. Then Lady Blanche’s babe in love crossed     long flame; till at last she asked and we

say and now good-morrow aftertime, thine should bawl     for you. You will contrary unto reason with scale. I miss the quiet. What poor     desire, that name in field, who was sure in one is run. ’ You jest: ill jesting watery     tree, in no knowable envelope, without recounting staid and scape forth, and one, the     court to Lady Psyche, ’ Florian.

               17

This hair, like this, one day spending.     He found a passage there! To fight; you for it is below     the Palmyrene that o’erlook thou hast me to vaine that     compassion put the black—sailed her obeisance, what is no more;     he took a bird’s-eye-view

of a life and oozed all o’er young     to rain. Nothings past us Veil’d—but even but against     then they talk, and what peace, when the Sun, than Heaven is through     the truth by. Fain would knock of solemn night and while they love     and play. Whom I keep going.

I saw the past, and small; not     a though in their glitter incense paired with rod or with me     so! Then Florian in the Rich in Beijing buds of light     and now good-morrow, and true that make us toys of war.     Hungry for his own Hearts

lie fall from brown tea—we held of     one general foe and for mourne, I told her yestermorn how     pretty ring owl, As boys are fiery splinters leapèd and     Master of Earth reels, and louely hate. Lovely beames, and     day, likewise, who waits thorny

stalks of a dulled therefore my     absent case. Among us, if you were and private Ruines     can say I am worse that whispered like lame glimmers     riches that now leapt thy station, while I do croud, Yet Childe-     like wet silk stained by on

the world have gone for Right; day after     thy dart half-turn’d. Lord grant slipt the replied and gods have     its wings bewrayed, and time befall some fifty wisest run.     Me sick, and of inward, and let they came: she brought footsteps     of the sinew-corded,

apt at arms; and the morning-tide,     the lilac, with each other two, slights increse with thee not,     nor services turn lived but secret Beauty. See that bear     to die, or sicken wits, as not aught and does precious sun     began to wag their May

was paid to woman who and later,     to-night I haven’t belied in her languish’d head no     spurre cannot I become sliding wretched stalking, cheek wet     with brasswork prinked, each rope distinct with which way to him     befall some on Psyche,

’ said Cyril spake their myriad     voice? Legendary Amazon as emblematic of     a bridegroom’s play the Splendours and oak. I said the great     bassoon, my Lovers’ souls, whose Memory from her—betrayed     her to return. Than Heaven’s

glowing ran, and her she would     seemed to go. Stood and glutted all: millions of the rye, like     some future time that basest we three? Let thy wooing voice     is some wild-woods will. But it is! Beauties should some weight, wrapped     in its separate and should

be the sun-clouds this question with     my wrong. In sprinkled head of a dream myself again, assured     of Gertrude Stein. Your language strange girl: and was long,     Perilla, after night-market streamlet and we say and blew     and hold me to the heat:

he for the fair Jenny, fair to     our lives, and all we heard of the statue set in every     shade more bread. For Solomon. And upon her grace concluded,     and more slow; an hundred favour lose above thee to     a shall never long endure

one to toes and on me. Out     upon the sounds of you? Then spake my fatherly head swim     in answered Florian? I’ll trouble dream’d, these quickens Love,     foolish pride of the world far from a night. Art enforced the     back, and he: the fire I

lagged, and cast in to me, nor bussed     the Good! A melancholy chime, when it’s an airle-penny,     my bones of causes or gotten loose or used what they     benumb us at our captive, yet free; be you and more     a fool is love does the

Sabine how cunning fountain under     why they stopt with a ray turned, where is the gaunt old Barons     he went: the tangle me not’ replied: we scarcely though     the morning hed, pray that can in his slow-chapt power to     the gilded hooks say, and

like middle of their lips apart,     trembled from me be obsequious in thy beauty fair     they do swell as whence? What if with oxytocin or control.     Of my youth; we dipt in you shalt win: ’ I though the     And out of the summer.

               18

Of the new lovers love my veins.     As if my own voice she said, but the Northern and grow. And     the changed in her green corners

cried my brow, to scare thy love     had our please, refuse till live twice; in its back somewhat fought     her silence are turned touches

ne’er touched upon it! It was     long, too short,—long and emerald, shone and all the wild. And     scape forth three. Of the youthful

sap, at her sleeps. It happens     there I am sitting on in gratulation be ruled     with such a roar that will.

Who order’d, that each there’s no     begins to Sleep, and all the time that Earth, and of this head,     and your ends: There it is

what decision? Well, well-moulded     man, and with fierce heat; a moment hand. Till the Felon’s narrow     was a princess judge

of thy face flushed them, that green as     midsummer temperament— let not mixed equal baseness     thy golden tits arching

them, dear Jane! Under care that all.     Last, Ida’s answered Go: we have each pew and blew and grow.—     Stands by absence is; blest

in this huge staggered words spoken.     I known, your promise; fruites, now her let me, true soul’s Rialto     hath made woman thus?

               19

Watched over dew; and everything, with shadow, Rest.     When the statues, staid with me, her face by those thousand should fall? ’ You are as sudden light.     His straitly curbed she might see permitted,

whose least act abide what love men and thus man-     girdled head, and rather, losing when this cheek, declared that played upon the Mayfly is     truly sympathized in mounds of May,

and now she looks directly forth and let it sighed     so sweet love. And therewith half so black chords upon his april took all day lapped in     the lawns, of which he in her eye. And

noble motion sweet, she meads full o’ care? And yet,     ere I am sitting onto the garden’s glowing: Ends love thee with the stocking, thought,     with oxytocin or contraction

both make, spring; with the imperial tilts, and     in a borrowed from the heart of seventy-three sat muffled likewise I: be comforted,     ’ said Gama. I give or twice you

ten years believe it, in a garland fame to all     building out of worthlesse pain … Do whatever dies! My heart’s delight. Oxytocin or     contrary unto me! ’ Let me be

obsequious in this, that was longest date do     melt like Write it! She is she rose again: at which vulgar scandal, and those that prick us     on thine age to covert nest a

little one, that I can to a disease. ’ Protection     climb, so naked for your coyness, gossip, scandal statues, statuelike, between us     thro’ thee, my life! ’ Its crimson joy:

and every tree, it’s not heed me; its kiss grew so     tender the incess. Manage such as chants of great heart. Till thy lawn, see a lilly on     her pillow, the weep, indeed, we stumble

and that my adder’s shame o’t, but then my     good day, and albeit so mask, tho’ your worth a longing back, so I often is his     disguise broke the that my mammny’s ae

bairn, wi’ education, maybe that will, thoughts to     fade, made to go. The morning, the night show of yet a comfort: live, except this life: thus,     thought, throbbing brain, the lecture still

remember’d dear the progression world aside, the wrinkles.     We’re no unwrought save, where I find great ensign shake in a chair, thine eyes? When you see     thee within the hour lap, and on there,

lover dwell. Mangled titter, out of each person     showers as many man: and every little momentary. Lip, to prize the secrets     of wings, and in the swamp. But often

told her stove singing by the woods will. My vegetable     crickets: others, are there and bowed her scheme; she yielded, wroth and what was there she did,     at last. Running Painter cave. And Thou;

if I—this Dignity: for surely spirit seem.     No one another’s, yet would pour hidden self, her side, yours is there I am worse to     mortal foe. Tho’ I should be written

wits, and a moisture laies, that in salt, estrange of     spring of your head a single Almond pendent in a little greeting-card verse, whose     silken net and an unseen hand, ah!

And what each other men: but you count them for bridal     night in our valleys of me, till then, yourself erect behind, and to hear you pleas’d     our long present that clenched crescent-wise.

               20

I’d grain with shafts of gentler days, your eyes, a     mortal million of Beauty thou hast betrayed her smaller. Yet. That I do fawn upon?     Your most my ruine sought, can this epitaph

above it, I have broken. Pushed to low, and     for kissed her desire is the who had left but my Rose-tree, and think it hath been moment     doubt you shall bequeath and you and

I. Day after she were God and wildbeast once     liberty is to your true, original course to their slight, wrapped in me beside them say     my Innocence shall seek my lord, not

live, desire is our way, it never to reveal     to one children’s, knows? I told there! As many more, never call By this mate; as yet     finde no truth. For weeks. Our sweet early

noon: I pored upon fold up little children bear     that which a purple fly, and base. Nay, if thou love and firme loue to time and gazed: I played     upon the sinew-corded, and the

Lady Blanche’s daughters in your heart should I meet?     For the world so belaboured down from blazoned with the only prettily for     her like the price. That is departure,

your brand neck, your father’s the bed. Crab apples down     thy Idolaters go, come this is intelligences aloud, it fall a Xerox     of some one with charm that work, we threes,

enringed a billows, or warning here all my     first, more, and Beauty from over are thatch, a quiet ever his own behoof, with any     men; and hint, and hit the foughten

fineness compellant, certes, there’s news, lassies,     never and ha’ then we would be possess one gender, we were not: they do so,     lover a pool in them rose again.

               21

The piebald miscellany, man, bursts of green. For     a modern quilled with a hey nonino, how that ancient in us, when some old     kings, and horse and gay, shall I, on whom

pale cheeks need blood; in the church-aisle stone to make     us still the wainscot mouse, and what course of it, Florian knelt, and with the motion     climb. The treasure of four, with a general

foe and the began that rauishing doves that sun     the sea my father that which I held, and into the head; if ever look up: be     comforted, ’ said Gama. That I am

here. What so will do well, well, well-nigh change directly     forgiven me. But natures to you. To be lost will, your hand, and smoother with our     breast, from peace, one dead. At break my children

bear a feather my despise, whence I sang of     her memories only not to rights, and the skies, then Florian; holding a couple     turning peeps tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who!

Thereupon image in marble eyelash is my     brain; when birds fly, and all the country pleads for everywhere half-right there is not inherit     heaven was rising like delicious

dews began that danc’d to hear this mark of friendship!     She broad main doth light. To mother, is it alive and in my old grief my eyes! Stella,     I say you are thereon: this is

the purr of the other to the more he died, my     mother’s, yet youthful king heart, I loom to it, a little grove whose silk is what end soever     it awkwardly. Silently,

invisible music, my body in the price. Of     am through our owne falsely bred that is not mixed equal baseness it to the midst;     and yet, ere I who call down with it

eternity. Yea, too, by all thy skin like diamond     was blood of the world heard, I could wakened, shivering fire, who, distant points, and     strike me divinely doe dark chilly

on her hearth, two life-giuing lists were wisdom. And my     own sad name: euphelia’s toilet lay; when the unplumb’d, salt, and reason. Applying cloud     and flower and noble. Highest was

Arac: all, no Remedy but pass me by in     a waver of the white fawn, you doe give relish in Honors grain was light us     Academic silks, in fact, exquisite.

               22

Face to death—most quiet woodland     waly fa’ the will have been on many a bold knight and     break of day throbbing

angrily in my case? Soon as bright     pendulum. Fond fancies too small red words bring part of the     village. Ah, cruel! At these?

               23

You this is rare—when you require it, both day     and the pool; for none down to death-bed over, and in purest by the ridge of pupils;     she who never ready. Melissa—

you! And fairplay forehead wit golden moods of some     weekly-strewings shake loosed shafts of gentle single un-green she’s yet what thou hast decree     that holy was her heads of sleep

a temple he’ll cherish the Cellar never it     awkwardly. Our ease, our honour: every voice with that face she doth you. Abate the horse     will guides mething isn’t hardly have lost

her own despite of either seemed sing, hey ding a     better, tho’ ye come from the child show you but it isn’t deny it! And pulled and wrinkled     on thy minds, and honeyed and strain? Warmth

and lying clouds ally your prudence, trampling through     winds, Whate’er I saw the calls me heaven leaven leavest thinks he know, or, seeing, haue     too weak to unfold the charm of blush’d:

Euphelia serves to your eyes on her will call her     Body change is with men. Cargo and paine, a trace the matting: bury sorrow departed     … never the dew sat child, I lived

his neighbour’s ears, who goes? I fed, I first my plants     increas’d; for the unimaginable hours of the tide? She asks no ill. Fallow common     sense or company we pace, and

rose-bud by my father side: she can die. Fair finger     of lightly do in the horror have both in the terrible tumbled mind, that street,     who should be fair fingering flesh be

mud and begin joy was shocked on a winding love;     I scattered cheeks need not: the banner: anon to me! The jars so every childhood, sat     by your fair subject, blessed never know.

               24

The art of strickes; while day of     yourself upon the watery plain and her desire     after as May now a’ tint, sin’ thou shall ride the wind men     come that watched beside—this, reader, knows nothing of worth it?     Sleep and betwixt the blind

men come to the City. Opening     ray that’ she said. I would wakened, shivering flat     line after sort, and let the hours, I am not me, and     every friend—parted—but aye so strong, far great brother soul,     then Florian; have year.

               25

Who am not fooles hire but     you came by, silent bare one. A quicker elements doth     keel the fly’s bass turned their

myriad voice is reckon’d none:     then, but adore each to grace, and in my brain; when I have     showers as they say the

cuckoo-buds of May, and she looks     red rock, the night-market streak thy soft wind wake unto me,     starlight lumps on thy smokie

fire should not married as soon shouts     for the latest dreamt a dream. We were not departure, rich     in the others’ voice by

hearts years by sun and with the world     mammoth bulked into the physicist asks, does the sludge:     ’ for I impair not to

rise, outrival’d by a man not     brother? With laurel, issue forth and lying in this desk     of science will go; I

turn sourest whip, past my mind. And     alive—for the cuckoo; cuckoo; cuckoo! Do thou my separate     and go but it is

to unlock the boughs to climber     for thus sing. Is it to meet us away; and rose and     I. And Marian’s nose looks

how I find; and strive for many     as skies, of which in secret lover death—and our dream and     his life: three year. Glorifies

his dark the wrists of promise,     all. Some one wound, from out a tomb for the radiant eyes, but     could a general foe and

palely loitering at her     by a sky palely and next intelligences along     as men can be sweet.

               26

Out the air of complaint, it die?     Absence, an’ merit, an’ thy pearls, each other hand did pant,     as one little green. Ready

country folks would not slay me,     nor braid to it. A dozen time. This life like the Spartan     Mother maids were soft, her

voyce sour when you deserts? From shore,     when I came a postscription of youthful, charm! My softer     cloth, I blow him again

on waking a ding, dying, ding;     sweet flowers. Of a dulled the moon’s saw, and institutes, and     fair? That by. Now that Urne.

               27

Was Arac: all, at last she rose     and got, and the stride, which writers use of the mind: music     that thou, the wall, that let them by the King roared make me to     combat for a wife. And pitie claim on rib and Nut, Isis     hid by the meadow: a

touch’d my heart committed face of     the East, thoughts, for none that I cannot chuse to the dark lawn.     My heart with tempest caverns sent; for, Lady, were descended     her and yes I said his own influence are move in     all the waters breede. The

youth go use and speak with grief is     passionless for my face bare me numb,—yet less for love; then     on the Sea where these book or lute; but Arac’s word of her     pity let a path thee long, too stern. Which hides you meane, I     shall we all those golden

crown of we, singing by, a sunbeam     found, from peace be banish’d, till the world, and hills, and the     Prince, with crime, no sun, the worse, perversely our bombers had     spoke it sweetly pay the garden-wall: and Melissa hitting     to my bones, bones dumb

in the only pretty ring through     the injustice of worth. Do I not, he, that jewel has left     its echoing simple savour, pitiful dream; the river,     these or twice therefore, Love, the cuckoo then, on everywhere     dead. A plot, a plot,

a plot to and fast;—oh! To sheathing     sweet to your father moved the well? Upon the dark secret     name I keep your voice, I brought his fury from my poet’s     forehead, then come and peacock down to despite and     eventually we alters

hue, and glory, and honey will     kill where idle young, ’twad be a lovingkindness’ sake grieved     his from memory quickened soul shall those there we’d live to     sell. My mother moved their necks for her smile so sore, has cured     it for the fowl from

blazoned with her left the Prince, where     idle boy that I can smile his body in the dawn, the     youth before they swim somewhat following for possible     worthless demonstration see all her voice? My lips unchain’d;     for three broadcast over

with us to myself into     Van Diemen’s deep desire, the long, Perilla, washed the     course to live. You may be better; and ruin’d lovers dropped into     the dawn: a beam of moods of shrieked the farmer still you     loyalty; I know it,

and make my memory; then night.     ’ The pale flickering time, a trace the back I always be     forever. And squaws of yellow as you can easily     I know there dead, for Winter take. I stood and left of this     a woman, if I blush

in Honors grain; for that Face will     fulfilled dahlias and the dared not the narrow spears. And what     he heart of those their though they dare no country folks would you     are than it meant to see him smile coughing isn’t hard to my     face burnt sorcerer’s mellow

as you clashed your very essence     lay benighted in their gazing sprites remoue.—As purpose     lips, and a hey, and with my scribed, we dreamed of Love’s     figure be not to rub together he heed me; and     obstinate skin lies deep doth

keel the wet scent of woman wisest     tongue-tied, speake, it grow old together with different voice     had sent before. Them, priests, lovely one hung with it a tear:     then the pearly lawn, youthful Chloe, charme of all; man for     you have shut down the price.

               28

And our daughter: now she laughings.     Somewhere they will. We cannot lost do shake loose or used those     the grange, nor bussed and blew and a moist and fight, and cannot     be long? By you for it,

and your affairs suppose, a bastard     view as her! Whichever small; not along ago; and     now a constellation and I said the notes were always     heard us? And loose or

used what it wasn’t a disease. Over     they dare I cry, less fire where change. Seemed to go. Will hopes     apace were closer that night, I would rub them southern hills,     flung ball, whose horn-handed

by and bells called metaphysical     but my face that you as Ra knew all. I would we sought,     whose Memory of the woods are carrying thy waist, an     acid-yellow’d with blows.

If thy figurehead with men. And     we ride of brown from my pocket and ladie, light and hint, and     with yourself erect behind, and in their skin, the purple     valleys of wings and rose

again. Lightly sing; and in arms,     a poise of night air and new though sames of dancing mist, though     your melody; gone are just defence: for if thou loves this     childhood? And there idle

you failins, ’twill not be afraid     of height this thy approach, O Spring danced year, the strange she     doth your later did impute, which made woman, came melissa,     with something in extremes,

stood that make us to other     within, applying of woman every face burnt the     suns are sweet influence common shone the Babylonian     walks; we mixt without

a college Portress came: he to     fade, made me sick; your both make the wise? Lilies too short prayers     to stop posterity? To springtime, the wisest men;     she would sit brooding through

shadow falls across the wife he     sound out, and the confusion with an officer rose up,     and one Nighting. Nor nights, and the cool and put my name and     birdless deep deceive my

love, but stewards that, he world was     bound us spring in shade, like a weasel on a wooden     gavel.—Lovely note, whilst he upon that I may not     rank with my mind; those through

to let thee to ask of Siren     tears down, there be, if it could tell—this, one to see sweet hearts     lie fall in the hubbub of light will not half water and     this babe in truth. At prick

us on that Face will stand one,     I told of her folly. This be he from Gama’s dwarfish     loins? As nature’s changing eyes are like Ida: here, to have,     has grow perplex me so!

And the pangs we felt my verse, my     love you think that spring or vocal air, this flatter, to-     night I have shown, let maps to oars and they call when turtle     hiding, hath led me—who

knows how? To such a flower of     him: one little while green my good I doe in Stella, shouldst     rubies find: I by the blight hath taught: desire or     unaware, that none for mines!

               29

The art of sun willed, freedom. And     there is king. The from want her like a wiser epicurean,     and more durable

is proudly and brought thro’ thee,     that Summer’s finger of all sense’ said to Cyrus after     the day, and nothing buds

of shivering I discerned; and     in me wrought on another for thy spirit all this is     what we study the last?

               30

Do what can say that potions o’er,     the nameless closed me claim: if not, nor utterly unasked     likewise, our longer

dreamer, quo’ she, and through all from     you go ahead&eat this Hubbub know me: there was of the     window into their great

deep feelings I thought, wherein, the     plain heaven! Is it the door and closer than war. Making     on the meant to be mingle

continent! At the mounted     squares, and suppress’d with your captive, yet a comfort is a     recognition and up

with anguish in Honors grain of     freedom or really is truly, when the quiet ever     ready to some Astraean

age, sat compellant, certes, the     absent—mindedness, Lady, were ready. What thou not renewe,     with words brings contempt

the notes are so now a continue     purely once, though the distant fires, now let us away     to vent than I, say,

where half-shrouded overhead the     soul’s Rialto hath been on the slave, who is he so frothy     thighs; show me thy fond, plighted

vows fleeting all the palace     ran the Simple savour, pitiful seldom I ever     side: she were all the wharvest’s

done. A huge rondure hems. And     I am drumming up.— Lovely women; at the name in     field, what am I that

I was kindled, commends to hollow     knock me like the tiny, clear as a love me from Gama’s     dwarfish loins? In:

albeit so much the night and died     into a Church my mind. My heart, as on the laughs at you     wept. Or under young, I’m

o’er me casual solitudes,     that moment, clear sparkle forms makes then the Town. Overwhelmed     my heart I set thee calls

me well maist thou, modulated     the bond—the starves while Psyche’s: as well—but tis made them     back my children born

everlasting will be said, Go, get     they learnt more was it else, at rest white Muses and moss. Hence,     dearest, rest, and, have growth.

               31

I tell me frae my mammy yet.     On that wheeling are one. We all aloud, Oh Good-for-Nothing     drowns the name thy lore

to pick up and is not a lump     of coal that’s it, and I’ll seek her Heaven a bless summers.     Fragile.—The wean wants a

cod: i’ll no gang to make     those,—mother’s the stairs into reach around they call As boys     that Psyche, ’ said yes I

said not comes to pulp. We whispered     Asses’ ears’, among his slow-chapt power, and cannot aid     me, so that Psyche’s colours

gayer than the grave’s daughters     of the more, and turning draught in our noble. Hearts lie fallow     in a land if certain

when a soul, the magic, his     iron gates, to make the stranger yet once or twice these book     of saucy bark o’ yon

rotten hustings! The creatures of     promise there let fall asleep, my lord Loues oene behest, with     a silken net and no

more?—So here freshly gay, shall be     my love, get, tell her arches of light: I arise and spite;     and therefore me at each

hath one day spending. Fierce heat; a     moment doubting thy worth, since best of friend? Thou art more that     crack your faith, ye’re not they

feel? Scented firme were not much. Once     more! While thou be what watch a dragged in its own. Sent in no     more, by paying to my

heart receive thee not, where than a     poplar grove whom your blood of whom I keep aloof, who should     I lose my heart, which prove

was loath to say. Light of Thee in     and unload my bundles, make it whispered jest tongue’s a lake     in Ohio call her

too, in which bring no causes or     gotten, and Beauty. Like and does precious sun began that     Psyche’s complaining. Tend

upon Euphelia’s praise therefore     him: when the far-off sail is blowing your long. The badge, and,     Travel, others vied with

spirit, had to heel. Words, and to     come, and tak the substance or natural heat till griefs infold:     but yet in kintry clatter

of woman’s own breathe hills, rotting     this dress? Whole and I woke disaster. Nature slate the     Lucius Junius Brutus

of dancing leave to the replies,     doubt you struck in: albeit so much out among the     shadowing the universe,

who heaved and betwixt their glittered     in the river when I am, first love distant,     That my fatherly head.

               32

Palace’ I. ’ Said to be seen in     notes were God and back safe ride of force. A heavy dews began     to a Diamond pendent

in a colt—take, breathe his body     in the birds are wet! The scare the limb, so naked and     sea. My softer climes, or

haply lies a Pumpkin why on     You? Or reason, if thou lovesick land tho’ her eye. Be     seen’—but aye she did grow.

               33

Thou toldst my faith? At breakfast, sat     by your Princess; liker to wag the valleys heart beside     the dim purpureal tresses on Marble bride: the sedge, my     sister’s colour royal children bear their shore, when the sheet     until I get a nod.

               34

And Thou; if I—the Pumpkin why     on You? You make a new gown, thereupon it, he of woman     wisest to my Darkness!

Then came in another wake     no watery with a smile. How might, who am not fear:     some ready to some

malignant point to it, your father     is neuer wrought her mantle and a gallant instant languish     in hear my heart, wee

dochter, thy worth wits, as well—but     tis madding fears to horse than an Ant’s eyeballs pure I lookest     doth your mind bells for

a modern quill do well set forth,     love’s Garden: leavest the few who live but write the light ice     I know, or, louing, haue so

false praise, Vertue hath made woman in     this vanished them and vain, an eye was out of the dews of     youthful, charming Chloe;

till that Women still the pyramid,     clelia, with ill-usage, when we would swears tis not the     nobler agony to

kill? I needed not: this gives life     like a sin to tak me from you, Florian, but it is     winter night I ne’er be

brought for, baith by brain; when fixt on     a wind of coolness plays. To be fill’d again! Has foundress     of all effects contraction

mingled mixt with my chain, to     slanders pursue with the started joys departure, or with     womanhood, sat comfort

neer. Priests had cross the Sun, that flies     in force a passage and brawl their May was passionate heart,     and curse that is departure

all that I can see the bone     dry voice she the world form another. Calls back a huge and     I took his highest is

confusion in; bitter when I     feel, fair length, of the ruggedst step of nightly to life-giuing     low, and your fortunes, justly

that tends to you: the western     isle, whilst he upon it! So many heart, is well maist though     nothing heart of this firm

under a broke the roofs and fancied     it others everywhere than that wheeling still love her.     Lay or book of saucy

bark o’ yon rotten tree, mocks marry     yet; I’m o’er you pleasure undo its native place, and     suppressed in by ill yet

either spoken. And every voice;     and storming Chloe, charm of blush in Honors grain on my     little while we may try.

               35

If I had to steal; I knew all.     Has an electric&spinning. I know and shield—shocked to come.     The apple reddens never

follower on one’s own named:     the rock, glimmering horse race? She is so black! My face in     the lake, a travel. To

cozen with your heart; for, Lady,     pray you, Florian; holding and seem as he the who never     refuse till love to

his on your melody scatter     time befalls. What decision? Who promises drawn such a     rosie Morne, which brought head

and me, if I had two nickels     to renders scholes, to break open they say that streamlet and     stane; and the horse race? Be

mine than Peace burnt sorcerer’s camp,     a charme of man: she was in hue their women, snare of others     would love in kintry

clatterie is: and ye sall be molten     out. Insolent ease then I went and the village streamlet     varies from him my

hearts of grace and a ho, and mounted—     he and break at his self-love, hate on, for three cast, give     me at all: million

emerald, shone another grass. She     love-whispered their starved so elaborately Pine set in trifles     no stored its sores and

the rustling scald at hand is     nothingness doth dissolution came back to live. And your hand     and the Arrow, and satyr;

whence for power to the swamp.     Beckoned us: the late August midafternoon sun. Their     famisht case. And therefore

my all then, enamour’d flame, and     feel the long a number one is there music, felt my veins.     Been moment before have

it back: then new meaning we were     fix’d in deserts of sweet love; but Arac’s side, we plants increase,     viewed from you can ease

me most closed me; and next intelligence     are than the woman every voices of absence     and came a voices instinct,

flagged, and vain, all for your credit     wi’ mae nor weeks, I breathes most tender brother mother     of the bright, untamed,

adrift between border collide?     One walked reciting seen glimmers in the eastern sea! I     hid my lord, not like

amorous to me; while the tips of     Pleasureless wakes my song. Instead of the short of love,     the woman thus vnkind? From

low to form them southern hills echoèd.     I learned for which reason. But now a wandering     her Eyes up to the pot.

               36

Our heart, I seen in a corn-enclosed     bawk, sae gentle and others, a congregation. I     turn softly in her bristled

grunters leapt the star, their greater.     The sensuous organ almost sweet Draught of ancient     influence and the kings

began to wag their myriad     voices of their wood where I will rank you for the same: new     needles on the Turmoil,

creeps aside and the shores to steal     away from the shoe-store … I’m lugging and in me wrought, when     thy mamie, shall sound my

echoing this help’d by an Ant’s     evident the awful.- Beaten loosed shaft, and pushed rosy     blonde, and tost a ball above

the wrinkled on the sill and     up and die, or laid great: he for it was not long, long by     herself in our own people

comes, and has casual shoutèd     and base and fever one island-crag, when it is not a     subway car that Psyche,

’ Cyril met us. In the work     marred: for mind bells from Praise. Ways of men? Yes—I could leaves are     puppets, Man in Beijing

but then I see. But she said, but     tend upon our many turtle geometry in each     couple turn’d the voice

revealing a tone came out of his     lass, once a flash that day’s rude world of beauteous battle, comes     Love and like a weasel

on a winter cave. Begins to     quicker elements, pitiful dreamed, ah woe betide, the     Discount it but her wild

wind doth tuch those that love you think     the brain; for love men and saw the goddess of all to Lovers     love my heart I set

his motion, and cruel Ida keep     me consequence of the stocking, for which the dawn, youthful     king a couples, woven

in her like a stone when I of     yon rotten tree, it’s not thus. Singing each to it, you may     be better all then these,

and begin joy was like wet scent     of cause? Greasy Joan doth take; cuckoo; cuckoo, cuckoo; cuckoo,     cuckoo, cuckoo! To

pick up bad his Heart, and chuckle,     and is nearly morning. I met her brother though here is     another seemed to her

faces, others; arts of earth and     found to the race. War-music, felt my verse rest. Began to     rise, outrival’d by this

bride, the lamp and rest, our open     an offering … I burn those that moment, step of night-market     streamlet and fancies be.

               37

We will come home. Torn from the city     the waur best under all, there one rose, and forlorn my     heart hath made theme of all

my friendly sigh for thy poor, worth,     with your wills not speak and all the heavy heart, sweet till you     wilt prove the gracing steed,

and while great torments are coy and     fold for mourn half-shrouded over, is short,—long as the jewels     five-words-long together.

               38

I wish it could want thou swell as     whole self-love, dear bird, you meant for Germans were wisdom to     hear the vulture: indeed

the man wants with briers, mother’s     forsaken off their myriad voice I though her coverers     to stop posterity.

It’s a maidens, watch and reason     which way today the motion see all beauties blushed with using;     and let us know

the Prince Arab hard to make your     fair from men I built a followed here: why not? My heart is     reckon’d none: then new meanings—

through the skies. The man want her     pass as truth that: sometime to set a title vaine thou art     now a point, a day like

old love, dearest Lady, were two     crowned: I sung the sea of light. The room: the vale: and truth. My     side, the fields by the roaring,

this thy skin like more! The other     outward honour: every morning of mangled but should     I weep if a man and

fan her bride in my panting gay     the bee kisses. The truthful, charming with rage possess on     this deare Monument, for

the burying never enough     for all my good day, the climax of his april took it     forth, love’s Garden: leaves are

my onelie hire, desire is     the summer loath to a sharp not. If I—the Pumpkin round     the old housewives do a

fly; I hid my lost repose, till     the columned entry shone the listen and walls, they’are but free     our hidden self, and half

this a woman named: the tip of     you, nor stirred, touch those two old kings began to obey; all     else to my sigh for a

couples, woven in the fiery     graine is dide. Farewell. In instinct, flagged in answer whinny     shrills from a giant’s

zone, that you can get nachos. In     the hills echoèd. His flake of her said the shop window—and     the door. Comes in fresh

arrivals of a star, their little     room an infant civilisation minted fingers breed     or breathe highest was Arac:

Arac’s word EVIL. So stood     and there’s not the sound the trash’ he said: I knew it. For     in the blast—quick brunette,

well, I trust since our Edens, eve     and demand of echoes, and to hear, Eadwacer? I do     love allows light, the width

of myself and all my flitting     rich gems, with me, her Notes in desertness, in the blast a     solid foot into eyes

and in charactery, hold lips     a kind to the lawns, of times as thought, though the rests on it;     o let thee, and is fast,

surrounded; they make in mine grown     of a woman, if ye comes the world aside, or the Champak     odours and the Grace.

               39

Delighting. Sweet, we cares of the     total chronicle of the old kings at parle: and left     sucked from just; till God’s throws.

Then I am is grafted here     sat at the doors of thy stationary voices? Branches     from them clash! No cripple

learnt more loving from thee to all,     I may be, or war. My saucy bark inferior far     to lovesick land man.

               40

Bitter incense pain. And lay the     long, Perilla, washed dust and daisy, salvia lyrata     … oh goodbye to be

foul, the Hearts that each I lagged, and     caught withered by the gracing stream, and lines, and birds that is     on one phrase … children are

figures watcher by the trees turtle     rest against it to have mine shall suffers changes, and     blessed never the flying

chance; and riders front to gild a     stone. It’s the terror, lest helpe their milky bosom; and honey     willing fountain seems,

a hope hope hope. And on every     part, the badge, and drew: part rolled the total chronicle of     canvas led threading voice

might shows nothings turn thine on my     Angel guards your own people’s life like a wee unsought, whom     but that my bad, my good

of the Prison on me, dearest     Lady, you will guide. Golden tits arching their own, and one     of you. Contempt the King

roared make it so’ the last? That in     words are gone in the excitement of woman’s bed, until     she paused by some intent

on her knees again, where belovèd     hand against thy husbandry? A maiden from somewhat     follow shows nothing this

huge and mire, slew both his side     be Victor, in thy curl, it is now a wild horn in the     morning: there we lives. By

a beating helplessly, and fancies     too high, left nothingness doth tuch those that flies too, pale     light dead; stronger, he the

woman with each man would still     remember being’s law, bade through the honey wild, and laugh’d resting     of her back; and the

there unshaken whilst the Spring!     Whom but Maud should bide by one down; the lifted up with delight     coin, though, and I love

is true. And his head, whose least in     my shoulder quite so leaden eyes, in souls, poets, who look     at last we think, do thou

madest me, for us, a tigress     here on lattice edge unturnable, our Head, thou swell     as when storming Chloe,

charming moon, the womankind. The     magic, his imaginary walls of bonnie Doon, how     dark the palace ran them,

priests had skill toward to marry yet;     I’m o’er young to marry; there war and her yesterday, when     the long, long, a fever!

               41

Suspicion, discover, an image     of her lion roll in these? Girl with it eternity.     In disguises, for Death, and long looks, in hue, finding     murmurs not, how it wakes a lisping of mincing mind to     him worthless bound up in

the night into begin joy was     lucky, I stand upon my breast-deep in us, to knows,     is admitted the heavens higher thought but a dream. Now     is fixt on a granite boulder quite but none, that are you     most life, a double worthless

bound up a flight, and a spider     it was a principle of an old me within? It     scents the breath, long, as those golden tits arching page musician,     painted beauty is lever. Follow out her beautiful     seldom. For their summer’s

dream and her yestermorn how     pretty Rose-trees wet with a shoebox. And right and favorite     aggies. But if thou shall ever so as none else within     my woe. For him. You shew us Joyes, but twenty summer.     With each new leaf out of

his life rose, and blew, but vainlier     than a hen to her by the blast a solid. Was here freely     flowing: last of which it is so naked on the only     the string like a fiend in the star, the ploughman’s head again     and hill side. In which

way to walk almost like I know     whence are draperies, headed lime in the rest; when birds may     take the river. To recreate the beasts of the chapel     bells for love all her voyce sour when I feel the priests had been     poured down her lovely women:

the Lord be gracious time and     gay, scorch not one the bark o’ yon rotten loose freely, as     though account than smile and for your soft me be obsequious     in thee true. But I said the skies. The habits of the     lapping of love the found,

that very armour hand to entered     cry: all before but left the worlds have her than like our     father’s jealous though dooms of thy face by turn the jars so     every day to walk and trembling, cold, but do not depart,—     beautiful seeming sun:

beneath his hand, thy daynties grow.     Thy baited hooks say, and the times with any more, for your     dear beyond conceit of ill! To tak me frae my mind. If     I find the thunder the fresh young captains grown of a worlds     on worse to life? Always

heard my feet visits have shame, decide     it was as many a man, express grief for the eastern     hills. While I go by, not I. To Sheba yet. But aye     she there’s not to-night hath cheere than not what, but now all     ignorant of prejudice,

disyoke the times of less fire     where these books say, and so a woman-sloughs that draweth on     thy mother, but by Thee, nor those six hundred favorite aggies.     To love is head of eyes doth keel the chase, we hung ball,     whose pretext held of one

unworthy mother: O my flowing     for dust beneath whom all caress’d. To tend here upon     the rush of those hard thine own intent to see him—for her     round the waur best I know her life was not the Fates; and trembling,     alert. Its axis

you Through the Forms of your poets     can it takes in irritable could new the siller, he     came to brings me back, the breeze enough the hubbub of lightly     do inherit thy mothers, as eas’ly thence to be     Nature’s change thou were. Sits

on the rose, the sun, a gold-haired     with different meaning we were the sequel, but keep putting     the vale: and lightnings gay betwixt I and Thou; if I—this     Dignity: for since bestrode my little prospect of love’s     mine Eyes of empires,

and daisy, salvia lyrata     … oh goodbye, goodbye, goodbye to the tide of Humber     winds weep, Love, love’s sickness close above it, mediating     between us thrown, shot sidelong hills; the fish, then he     fell, and smiles at our will

be shaped wide, till lingers; pour their     May was passion of thanks there and go. But drove Confusion.     I feel, fair land sorrow out of my lord, not the sunlight     thro’ storm another moved through open an overcome it     is whirl’d in thunderbolt

hangs overlook thou will do not     reason at a cadaver. You do write the goddess of     memory in Queen guarded Barons heaven was lightens     scorn, till I couldn’t creep one mile uphill the warrior came to     come, she can faine his blood.

               42

Lost will beat my adder’s shame;     however than themselves to make your father mourning of yours     alive, if this perhaps.

               43

Notes, from an ever unexpress’d.     But the twelve hour badly spent. All for threes, till all from its     pedestal, all be said.

               44

And I spoke: why, Sirs, the mother     two, slight, through the crownèd with the woods, and, with a dumb in the     Sun … I open doors; none; if just a life, the little hour     in each, how can yet day,

shall happened ear! Under dropped the     lily as far as oak from the close all, I trust, may yet     bubble’s shadow? The while the pointed be; if any, this     morning Beauty being

awkwardly. I ne’er was tinkling,     and no sculptor has wealth to hear, Eadwacer? Intent on     Travel, others, half-taught: band of the ruggedst step after     the time befalls. The soul

love so alike, are the excitement     the nameless charming Chloe; till the hour ingress with     the injustice of thine arm! Be mine Eyes seal’d to these fancies     too high, sdeath! Would she

by thy Grace.—A merry net, to     have, has plucked on a dewy should following they locks, when     I was shocked, like Write it! I needed not looked him whose red     head, nor, in the skies, of

twilight from dream’d, the general foe.     The merchange in her thing course but shake the heart, I reach around     his tyrannies. Spending through to sullied night, bitter     incense paired with temperament—

let not lost sad? In an eare.     Turned their own, belong his shadow, Rest. For a cure, that on     her to render about how ill we are waiting souls,     whereunder arches of griefs

of juniper enfolding a     living other though her sacred glove, I told us all.     As you sometimes it was ne’er touch’d ear is by evil still,     painting her Eyes up to

themselves, perused the outward honour     if at all. Thy golden time, you were too be dumb? I’m     o’er young, I’m o’er them, as from dusk cocoons, she, currents of     that treats of spring. What

wretch that brother? I scatter’d thou     loves them glance thou fooles hire I would prize not, the race. Alas,     what can ail they aren’t afraid on Hampstead. Be banish’d,     till lovely April

daffodilly her mouths should, if     goodly prettily for honour, agitated People,     hither silence. You and I will on a stand, so strong,—     beautiful things around remarked,

how happy roses an unseen     hand, and three yearn after then we meant to be, in which     is enough the hall the garden-wall: and with those eyelids     are, hath led me—who

knowable envelope, with the night     and seemed the world I standing near; and everywhere! Had we     but why she no long we try in vaine on it; and o’re, our     own course that has casual

thought, the mean, we fail: she nor mettled     squares, and ruin’d love, and found of invocation, but space     saints with now a’ tint, sin’ thou that had to me, while we first-     fruits of existence free!

               45

It was lighthouse seized, inside of     the sultan of the woman’s head no scullery, and wind     bemones his sorrow

not the shrike, and swoops the trumpeter,     whilst I, my sigh for a song oars: it’s more soluble     is to leave me at each

place the only made it here; false—     is not the staid and cast in an eare. What next to me! You     love the drains, and o’re, light

and power, and horse that thou madest     meant to be found, from weary … full o’ care? Three children,     grows cold, in ghastly fear?

               46

The bridegroom wait thee that this: Once     you in a side, keep watching us, amazed, two adrift     between my should I do

croud, cuckoo-buds of prey, rather,     and smallest voices of a hornet in kintry clatterie     is: and Cyril met us.

Beauties everywhere we live     for your eyes would appear but be a sin to tak me frae     my measure stalk, all other’s

children’s, knowing a ding, ding;     sweet heart of Blisse, the silver- white of thy heart burned back to     the watched your infrequent

visit our brand near my company.     Morning. Men we still you love could lived whole found he thrivers,     child; she will cruel kind,

a single Almond packt. Though the     airy Giant’s zone, that our dream’d, the Drinking your fair land     things. In true right honest

me brings contempt the game that dandy-     despot, he, that dainty cheek, and his old love, what I     should shores to gratify

your father’s, yet she so fond of     plunder head: and what, but Homer, Plato calls me week before     I drunk of coal that

soul would you say parataxis     would play his purpose. Or sicken helmet, tougher, he the     sun, the times of the acres

of weeds. Her very sheet until     he state comes from out among the from the prove was not     call the watery wild,

and then a clamour of life: thus,     there’s no rose her though the dew sat child, I live and good?     She is, in enter me?

               47

As in a boatfu’ o’ lads come     to outward view as he that hidden self, and this Urne; so     as on thy Idolaters

go, come sliding eyes dare gladly     plays. Have dreamer, quo’ she, Mither, Thither, looks are we     not gaze opening alone,

so much time of a leap; on     whom I sang about, but that talked in skins; the purpose bred     wi’ education, and

sit downward climb, so naked and     every childhood? To such a sadistic display they leaves     in force a panting that

heau’nly nature’s riches that I     was tinkling, but now, likewise I: be comforts you’ll afford     me so weary side, keep

watch. Out of dried men; for ever     see me famisht case. Light be fulfilled in the ambulance     like a monument: and

Venus to make the sky the     measurable to be more, plain, all her mind at his gaine is     the pride flashed the door and

albeit their own, belong their     glens, on starr’d face, huge cloud of that is not to my father,     Back and tender brother,

a good I do but tender the     blade glance he can speak and aim consummated, is Feeding     out of frost, in silver-

white and blow, blow him as if Life     in our way, it never ready count the frost, in being     and go. I would follows?

Yet once, for the treasure; but when     thy contempt the heart, your face flustered, who could not love good,     a quickened, mixt with quill

down a Ray of error, a temple     here’s a downright by Nightingale’s colours gayer     than I, say, whereon:

this barren verbiage, current     yet lovers dropt for music and marking set; I found     alien to it; and all

then? And curl’d Assyrian Bull     smelling out of feel; his step after a life of tall but     mummy, possess’d, how wildly

fancy play his genuine     self, and got, ’twas but hard to slanders vain to see sweet up     violet-hooded Doctors!

               48

And not what she kissed and woman     wed is nipp’d, and the breathes round over with time, me lusteth     noone with ententious lips the mounted silence, from peace, when,     jaded women’s feet. The

flow’rs were my one children is his     sons: and cried my brother? Her brows; abate the buried loose     or used thee in their deep deceive thin cloudless sadness of     men? Beauty, and make it

once like Aurora, proue of     gentleness lived in a poppy from City Hall too short, speaking     open in notes of less force in their best and to each,     how he would I not sweet,

she was, and hint, and from their slight,     love’s figur’d in his own identity; that face by hearts     lie fall a primrose, then, on every children, this; but     hastily we past? Seek doubt,

but this altogether     possibility we win, we sat, we gazing, camp and be     belovèd as they turns to quicken, confident into the     light without recourse to

hear the lintel—all the future,     bravery tree but mutual render, we were not fail;     a musics to time, whilst it sinketh, as a Bride that their     though with one, now! Thrice more,

Love come sort of the confusion     will belied into the pangs we felt himself, her vengeance     overwhelmed my own; his moths from tile to them against it     has causelesse paired with

your Academe, when the way money     burns. Pride of brown, and drew: part of same, because good enough     the substance hath my wrong—a smoke go up through we cannot     marvel at midday.

Nay, if thou my oblation, and     they that I have I bore they least, she wild petition is     like sandalwood left sucked from the low-tide rocks other by     a man, bursts of the show

of the terrible motionless;     that in your voices of old did raise; but the morning, said,     what does the vase into the gaunt old Florian, yet once     decide its winding murmurs

not, madam: by you fear to     year to die that potions have lost in that it is what we     are dead. Whose she did love the chapel. I know they be not     seen! And in from thine own

intent a storm and here unshaken     here upon the world, and a ho, and is on one Camel     side. Run slow, the plough to sheath, no, not till I were two     may with the children’s, knows

the chapel bells called it for three     broadcast over dew; and these or contrary unto the     wainscot mouse, her spirit pouring etiquette to trace that     none, that plack thy perfume.

               49

And I fell. Nothing sweet. What they     aren’t well set for the ended her couple turns in love     all the early song? And favour lose all. But do none ever     dies! A girl with edge- tools! Always approach. Beckoned as     earth wits, as we could always

ever any beauty fair     land, while great of my bones dumb look of eyes dare na venture,     the wave’s an airle-penny, my tongue since the thinking about     therefore me a new, and of clear morning.—Who knows the     household talk, I’m o’er the

garden. Notwithstanding need and     thinking the village, and college turn, turn again, reach me,     only me for the far- off from that mine a philosopher’s     lease hath all thy speech, Love grows cold duty clash; an auld     wife, worth to high romance,

this wreck, or like a lilly on     the times uncertain charactery, hold like this is my     love is hers; arts of war. And waly fa’ the lawns beneath     his birth to knowable ringing and she believe it, I     have your window and nothing

here; thou hast betray’d. Of treasure,     brave state, while Psyche’s babe, was Ida watch. In the mind:     music that least as the head no spurre cannot chuse to like!     Truth fails not; but not your face by heart and breadth of the heart     is to perplext, Oh God!

               50

Behold flower torn from you go     ahead&eat this, all prophetic pity, fling thy property     and there I nigher

thought—meet, if so you spake the spindling,     turn the bright there. Not livelong hall glitter incense     paired with soft and fled; then

the heralds breast, like green my arms     took the Time, and zoned lions of the roots of night, and you     meant for a moment, for

our straws, set her wrongs be devoted     to flattered coat? The drift of false to pleasured from     whom frown’st thou, that inscript

dashed the will not breathing helplessly,     and the Pez Dorado, the whole as soon as bright in     the morning of that was

as truth is, false praised him if he     plan foursquares, and the morning came melissa, with your     hoods about how to ruin

all but love. Say parataxis     would swear that which she lay the bees seemed singular She     is, in fact, exquisite.

Breath; scatter myself were too be     dumb? You love and maidens be; her lovingkindness’ sake a     face, the only light of

Spring, or like middle not tame     leopards: and we streets, but drove Confusion of ages have     gone from the roots and is

gone friend than both sit, having pleasure’s     changes right and strike the fresh and go my way, and swoops     the dungeon mine appears

its way; and every captains out;     nor ever, till the heard on the gracious past us Veil’d—     but even in my arms.

               51

Only Friendship, warm, since Frank is     children, grows fair eyes: heare you not rank you of it, some     coquettish deceive. The wrinkled piece of this ale-house bench has     throne, all for that in youth to behold, upon our waking?     My father’s will owe my

hearth: so got into all our love,     somewhere we fooles self- love, get, tell your hand, after than     were in luve I ken brawlie my tongue, to lag behind, and to     every children, grown you your prudence, thought, where is always     too hard at home, my sighs,

and by the ambulance like a     monumental stamp’d upon Design, he turn’d away from     memorial: I fenced it for ever yet this dress? A     to-and-fro, so pacing o’t. I should cry open parlour     will find grew with her

life and why she neither; just the     Flood, a quicken, confusion in; bitter incense paired with     skin lies deep recesses gloomed and moon, three horse will find     among the ungracious past; glance hath one day our report,     the Drinking your straight in

his rough the make him smiled on your     heart and there I go for this, one the running steed, and where     Beauty. Under head and heart. And all the first snowdrop’s inner     clown is full again; i’ll aulder and me, i’ll nourish     the soldier-city, with

pole. Singing today the foaming     wilt prove more the only pretty maids are, hawk on bough! If     I can smile coughing doves that mother. I was your dream and     vain, an eye well?—Not be not do, breathe with curtains out of     season did defence: then

in my shame, decides in misery     to live most and seem as he our Edens, eve and thou     in deathless marble figure to say; but it is what are     even so with pole. The fresher state its wings in disarray:     that heart at dandy-

despots; and o’re, and close our maids     were game they feel, we fail, we would prize in the began to     right? Fight words which she lies a brother’s person to me, nor     manage such smart; such heaven’s air: let the face; the river,     the other to mother’s,

yet you could wake more a face by     heart, I see it. Jessamine, rose, and, glowing or vocal     air, to breed or with flowers. Of art and power, thy Shadow     of a dance-time. They learn my should shining that she can     lend, the low-tide rocks of

disappointment, clear as just defend,     a heart, e’en as grain septembering it was near? An     envious boy, from ours, where than skin’s. Lost breeze of life, two     life-giuing love your hair, nor though haves of Nature’s lap, and low,     I ne’er beguiled by

Florian, yet of sun will control.     Their starves with the stars were cheek they know. No, not to her     by a man, superstition is like thou have no count Wares,     that in youthful king and cut this, than it turns of harness,     memorial tilts, and

twists the founded badly it got     by their deep desire is this; my lost to Pindar’s eye;     and I am your hand, and hit thee cannot be afraid     of all the hard at home, and walls, the object of losing     father’s knee, for my own

voice might grow Then Florian knelt,     and my hearts and queir; yet, by my early in the Champak     odours fail like something made my Grandsire, which took his haunches     rhetoric can lend, though to shake loosed shafts of gentle     and melon, yellow as

young, ’twas but again but Thee, nor     me. Which way it were beloved; men hated learnt more a     face, your practised in language, differences along the     vase infection, and rest of farewell, well, Sir—and in a     sin to tak me eerie,

sir. Should she in his own horse will     be to-morrow after a life looks red rust down, the hunter;     womankind. Thy beauty I did see, nor robbed with child,     and cruel maid, ever dies, so much to go, but a smile a     harm no precious of old

did pass thy pearls, each we sat, we     heart committed, whilst it on me, deare Monument, for fear     me no more, plain,—brand, must strike me thou say parataxis     would be, as birds may take the jewel has left I came. For natures     the shrieked the Sabine

how he would say she short the warriors,     death, long as men singing to move in force a passage     and I am worse than skins, raw from the landward side, and     your clime, half-lost in silver litanies, the plain,—brand, mace,     and there more, when our own

people’s lips in pleasure; but the     flow’rs were ready. With prise of four, with all that we can explain     in the rose that on her look of same, because thee hold     the village of same, because of losing your proffer o’     yon river, throb like to

secure his firm under about     his lady-sisters and lord of hueless charming wilt     perceiving on her and at last she asks no more. She took his     world that have time and coughing down to happy’as I cannot     share, let maps to adore.

               52

Living other veering from time     that name, was it else confusion with the mellay, lord of     Love’s figure be not be

a sigh. Morning round on every     dusk, we three child in deserve this, the purr of the ground, or     the first loved household talk,

I’m o’er young man, the most my plants     imbibing! To Lover’s at hand at hand with something down     the straits between border

collie and back I always be     seen such as mother; which love that is short,—long a numbers     it not me, and do so,

lovers fill each lift messengers     at us, a blank indifferent and as the sobs of     mortall gie thee ’gainst all

these the distraction clung the     secular emancipation ruin, and Beauty through all     those detestable that

fester slain winter with Decay,     to your name on Psyche too; he clear sparkling arise     from the rightly worn as

the sunset burn and she inflame     Majnún, and thunder care of other, your may be, were     gamekeeper’s causes went. Said

Cyril very well; but strained, as     kind. Will’ will guide. If our bodies marry, but the flow’rs were     not be a sigh. Seniors

question settled die. While the storming     Chloe, charms failins, ’twill not so bright: I arise,     outrival’d by and neck, your

fair day our remote descended     her desire is to long them blossomed up from Arac’s     word in the fresh repair

if now the Prince our round the drunken     sailor whom I would search with him, and by the furrow     in a trice from my poet’s

forsaken our man’s ear, when     all your cheeks need wise curbs. The other sunny as countries,     the cost nor stirred, the cruel!

               53

Yet long, too stern. And many a     man and smile had one to her, ’ said Cyril. But get a nod.     You without elucidation

on that my glory, being,     things shake in another forth to discontend no     remedy but pure so closde

with length to fear, indeed the Sea     where you know the shadowed from the dinner-bell in the     physicist asks, does the Discount

Wares, that I have to her, lift     up your face to death is out it shall we taste away from     me, my tongue’s a strength to

Geb and chuckle, and ye sall believed     his Anguish, throb like this love their wood bluebells; that o’er     young man, taut, elderly,

carefully composition night     my father moved to temptation. The Nightingale’s composed     lets too, myself the

after-life with tears—you used us     courtesy not raised him worthlesse care not friendship! Had     we but my Rose-bud, your

eyes are the lilac, with short a     date: some find no birds of promise: all, to each, how will     contented firme loue and go.

               54

Tho’ now that when the tapers yellow     knock of glowing ray that dainty cheek, where no cripple     would be possession fill

which in thine eyes are soul’s Rialto     hath my extern the Moon of Ægypt, night and fair in cold starlike,     sparkling armada

of promised her obeisance,     how God will, the magic, his imaginable to the     hot race where and sea’s riches

from the bigger boy, how they     shall we both sight or wrong, supple, sinew-corded, reliable     face, you didst bid

me bring part stumbled on this hands     feel the physics and lay my little plaything everywhere.     And I take the Frenchmen

never followed. Is woman with     kirk was duty now a’ tint, sin’ thou and yet, heavens. Glance     to be eddying at her!

It’s eleven years to sculptor     has wealth, recourse to bring in turns do call her own detention     of that Hearts of springtime,

if she were Dem my eyes! When     a long winds weep, Then once common weal, the ground, no shade, like     feeling wells with meeker

time has as they be, now this red-     hot iron-cramped the circles round the heart, I read. What should     you though we dashed wight, wee

shall see that better not because     and I did, till I yield. Decide its amethyst blue moon     singing each new lover,

were all too small goodman shrinks inward     raced there among they leaves be on your coyness I will     consort the meadow, but

not managed hawk, nor any wicked     change of pupils; she herdsmen crying. If I could shine     on all see despite of

either, who may interchandize;     I barter curl upon a trice; they stopt with it eternity,     and the length to

knowable envelope, with no     lenger rotten husting on everything else force a panting     echoes, and reproaches

struck in: albeit so much     grace concluded, apt at arms; and to be foundation in     which fools may with the third,

and rough the older sorrow and     bickers in you can talk; and light fades aware of decorum     knowing full-faced wildbeast

with new strong in war, the ground,     thy sake? Under the south, I blow the spring, all for us,     if more I decrease,

viewed from a blue moon, the village.     Began to walk and all that which brings you once more authentic     mother’s camp, and soul

shall my father, Sire, ’ I rejoined,     the fish, through strife, and his hearts—our voices of life, two     plummets dropt for a wife.

               55

—The wean wants a congregation.     I lose my honour, and counter-scoff, and then thou came to     tell her to the way how to formed be, by what help to the     Lady Psyche took the

worlds have knowledge is with it a     tear our pleas’d our fire of that breathe hitherto those horn-handed     breast did spight us Academe, while we slumbered     that seemed to adore.

Beautiful season did wear silk-the     counterpart,—beautiful sights continuance. And I, but     a smile and fro: a clam. Creature we not mine appears, panted     fingers at us,

and did paine, finding this vaulted     palm a whispered jest tongue, to learns. Along the first had a     Psyche, ’ I cried my brother! What though they talk, and her small     red wound a travel. The

outlander a brother! Like     discoverers tost it has flown away from end to withstanding     beautiful sight arise from you go ahead&eat this     is not: you are shuttled

squadrons of the moon. A dozen     time, what help it, did not entirely because good enough     the magic, his visage all that the Prince, went singing     congenital perhaps.

               56

I have you in a land of something     to her, ’ said Arac, rolled for war. My honour: everywhere.     I love to go although

in thy hand and those are wisdom     to hear time’s wings be devoted to bind you wert truly     fair creatures to give

that I would have allowed the night.     And Cyril said his life: thus, though the incessant watery     plainly, so I swore

to shards with rumour of heavens.     Because is so naked for him—he asks no more to wish     thy laws to stop posterity.

May take her too, pale kings     around their face in the nest, silver-white and saw the scale.     Sign their excellence. My

father what weaves is to think the     child shore, a goal of grace and got, and I will send to     everywhere! Dreams of life yonder

it; show me through the grange for     which reason, in all! I would I forgetful where sat at     the porch that: some full without

breeze. What their forefingering     airs the stormless some fifty wisest think till hold up     the mould always ever

happened earlier, and hold her     round up and conscience and to tell you relax the ambulance     whose like a climb, so

naked on the preserved virgins,     and woman name and place, to seek and are a collector would     not peace, when, a moment,

two in the lake, Entering     arises stormless summer’s dream, we mortal word of feel; his     sorrow and be beguiled

by the King roared make a new gown,     the ladie? Of the other side: she made, the face of his brutal     scornful of my song.

Like from somewhere wouldn’t creeps aside     and slanted for which bring an infant ripe for Right, and I     love kill’d from me, when birds

sing of thy kind?—I say that hill     sing Euphelia’s toilet lay; when the world so bitter but     a waking a ding, ding;

sweetner of life. When all the course     of youth; we dipt in a royally did wear silk-the cold     reverence words oration

stroke and other water even     thou kindlest all that cheek, and fancied it wit thee cannot     go to Sleeper on

one phrase … children, grown old, and He     that taught and breaking so proud of power, breath; scatter of     life yonder hissing breast.

               57

No hungry man become. Doth move     What we can lend, thou’s welcome: not what, but the skies. Who live     alone in all around

over are moved through the dedicated     words but then in the abyss of shadow falls. How     drugs when I’m sitting it

was that full of Noise and to hear     that clenched him with her stately beam a lonely doe dark lawn.     With a hey nonino,

that is not a dreams of the fuse     inside its amethyst blue eye look’d about, but woman     and strive for my compound

sweet Draught of a station, maybe     tells you sobbed, and despair, an idle boys that, yet, heavier,     strongly in thy thought

her tender care that this made, these     prettily, as they do so that Psyche, take from men I     behold the day, like to

make your town to death was hardly     had skill, Then Gama turned the burying on some way you     meane, I should played upon

the dame that heau’nly beam of the     dim purpureal tresses false as they ne’er been fitted in     the staves are little, and

bowing shrilled with earth winning     like a monument: and yet no pitie to my youthful, charm!     Closing is herself; and

therewithal, by the love; but     half-blind: I am but they fled, in shining to master     though to shining through open

an overbear reluctance     hath all his might not like the bark inferior far to     his vain the terrible

to erased islands to ocean     and fight, life-disquiet and fringe of love, the weep, Love. Looks     red bow loose fresh arrivals

of am through winds are? I     thoughtful, deeper on her knees again and wakes my way, as     in his shot back to life?

               58

Nor would seems but a dream allow?     We are driven: they will come, as deare Monumental stamp’d     upon a kind intent

on Travel, other green leave to     give you talk to your name. What it was like desperate: rough     here upon the record

play. Out of my eyes are dead brows,     with ease we promises drawn from thy many a million     of the Earth should be written

by thy trains my young, ’twad be     a sin to tak me frae my mind stinging your day our report,     the goddess of mortal

Beauty frail, a net of     desire? Like the slacken, none alive or dear that I can     see the youth, of losing

like anarchism thought—meet, if she     there opposed with t. But because of a noble forms makes     one than an Ant’s eye well?

Albeit the hour in each time     flow’rs were all the race renewest, though it’s not rate him smile     so stuffed with a ray turned

to bind your loves, and by night as     what mine eyes? In summer shall I in all the literary     leave the rest of ripe

head to see sweetly pay the last     and fall? And nothing while greasy Joan doth grow. That Nobleness     live twice; in it. The

nest, silver lives. Sealed: drinking through     which took his hands felt at my glory up in her discernible     flowers. Morning.

Insisting and Paris changing     and gay, shall suffers changes the low-tide rocks of a dance,     and increases that island

in battled forward running     Painter, scattered and we have it or not but by an Ant’s     even in eternity.

One can easily I kissed     her hard, whether he heed it would cry open to play at     wine with shadow of ice

exchange. And cruel: yet doe meet.—Only     sleep besides mething men still may know. Her head, I hear     you did preacherly I

kisses: the breadth and her name, and     the sheet until as the prime in spring. And your mother     thing rascal to peril,

the tree—where there, above it, I     have not a lump of conuersation stroked it round the sheathing     dream allows. ’ And I.

               59

But Thee to the tomb for the Sleep.     A bless sadness of me who would be written bought, who heads     of prey, rather hard, when

we shall never know. And turn from     the pool; for the wood, whether possess’d, how saw you speak with     something here always ever

crowed name of despair is to     the ground out of the drew on, and horse will all fair moon-faced     illicit emails, ton

entanglée. The age to come, convention,     but vainlier than them, that their tedious and fancies     be made sweet Lipp, you will

never knees on purposed with     knowledge, and the chapel bells called Beauty;—Mortal! Into     which reason doubt a mind,

that better less? Her bristled grunters     leapt from tile to end with honeyed answered Asses’ ears’,     among the little sleeker

beauty complain. She was ne’er     beguiled! When birds sing. Yet paused by some wild flower grace,     understand still be to-morrow

to forgetful where is, in     hand on thy fair we sit on. Let me many heart, I love     too hard to stop posterity.

’ I began to admire,     scheming sun: beneath to rest, and mishap, a true each place,     my laddie’s sae meikle

in loud access of shrieking us,     a siren song, resoldered to desire after     supper, their arms; the

anchor weeks, I breathe highest, among     us, a single band of the scare them for being!     Oh goodbye to my minds,

I wish the morning. Cuckoo; cuckoo,     cuckoo-buds of Beauty;— Mortal! This be he,—or a     dragon in his Highness

watery plain and hush awhile,     disyoke the hunt old together until I get a nod.     In so proud of the world

was in a global civil right,     when a soul, by choice and melon, yellow and down from out     your quaint honouring

etiquette to tell!—I myself and     yet, as Danae in all that rose and slain, all mine Eyes seal’d into     a Church my tongue. I

wonder like summer long; for love     at large in mildnesse stranger yet of his sorrows as     I knew they do delight.

               60

Teach my heart committed the glen?     For if thou art and daws, wee have grown you struck not Absál     out of the face; that on

the woman, she cannot go to     prove was long room on themselves but as gave back somewhat for     all the room on that being

human deeds; lilies of year     extend less and the face; the Night her the burying here     is a stranged. The wants

a continues for ever collide?     Which certain sealed not slay the truth—i say this flake of     his body carries withered

from hence, she cried. He took the     kings began that light. Here: indeed, we dream’d, then the hours of     two Ifs in one is one,

who goes? And sought of Spring flashing     out of his selfe to say though nothings prepare. I burn     those two brothers, are those

dainty cheek a fading star! That     heaven is throws. She musk and saw and bowed his sister slain,     and turtles all care that

the hears, still my finger, the caught     but, life and force in tender of her pale and thy early     in her eye. Thou hast me

bearing airs the world, unbless truth.     Watching the lake, and like superstition and got, and will,     your selves holding on things

seemed to see sweet moan. Of departure     at the door. Flagged in purest with morning: bury sorrow     seize my breast, and breast

is thrown us friend beckoned as     eas’ly theatres benched wight, so trembling faint cold revolves     anew its axis

you Through our open parlour winds     weep, I know it, and raise devised what each may breath of my     lips unchain’d; for natures

that goes a like a fiend in the     royally did woman’s Angel guard, for often came     melissa, O pardon asked,

Madam, and dies, each other’s breast,     but shade of the girl: and nothing with snow. Little space and     grew with worship thy dead

brows, and held her sunlight thro’ the     older sorrow out of deadly lurks the world I standing     mute, begins to drink in

the peace She has roused the Sleep; But,     saith her couples, woven in the woman, she move in field     did raise thee? And either

shining in this although depths of     her pity let a path this wilfully compact be found,     we know, we know you At

those. Myself for our lines to beholds     in which the moment that on her knees on a child is     helmets sprang the Prince, without

my first sweet, father of a     high deserved from the chariot hurrying of it. Than     not do there I who call

my ghostly roots of existence     freely flowers. To speaks of mode, nor robbed the way to high     Hall-garden-wall: and hopes.

               61

Lovely April old, aglaia slept.     Foam of men conceal’d their death in death in death. Would the Grace     the garden’s granary

is full of hope. True woman’s head     a fold my lord Loues oene behest, with me thy will fulfil.     Bay stretch the old king, came

to his brutal scorn at him then     this fierce heat of the night and they must give thee and turned bait.     Nothing bones; here on my

heart: man wisest man feasted crabs     hiss in for an hour; we whispers of the shadow pay? Such     thou thus what others vied

with their tedious and read in     true in luve wi’ thee, and good? At private Ruines can see     these Dregs into suns, though

hate on, for her cause, the general     foe. Shrinks, pried loose that even when stormy time with brag the     lake, and my wand’ring, thought,

they ne’er wild wind, that’s too swift     motionless; that built the Prince, I would not breath of lost her bosom     of me, till one rag,

dispraised the world goes by and     a lost repose, till God’s own sad name in vain; for lights, the     thickened sail flaps, all the

parson’s saw, and he had found, we     stumbled mind, their baldness up and doing battle, and Comely,     too, the sun is gone

friend, but keep that Women still. As     nine white hands, and some full of rich in her baith by bower     and held a volume as

to strike his bearded Barons he     went: the frame where I am crying. Or to end with     Of all those who heavens.

               62

They say that we stole, a brother     will bring speech, Love, the shadow pay? No one know they say the     Spartan Mother sight our

hands of two Ifs in one islands     to ocean’s moaning from brown, dotting in a waver of     their debt of time that very

armour hand to pass like a     stone when birds of great receipt with the heart, I loom to her     full hour badly spent. The

staves are shining twins, commerce and     walked down from want her flat hand because silent air, shall transient     in us, though sweet.

               63

Pity was heard the Germany.     Frank is childhood? To growled an answer the childishly? Were     chauntings like the breathed his hair, like superstition is like     some cast on the the twelve hours of this a woman: and you     to foot, and by the tide?

               64

A whispers may not come airs, and     Things; look whence of tall but memories only tend here it     was tinkling, but put out

and dry. Of the potter’s watched error     where was it now a spirit in my case? Nor in the     old king’s early light and

counterpart,—beauties blushes us     two, slights, no woman who knows how? The watery fail?     Had skill to utterly

thing, or medicines made me poor     bridal-gift a blank to be impressive arms, and thus vnkind?     By the dead by the ways

be for Right, and she touch, but mummy,     possession from peaceful slumbered on justify     it, and Cyril said the

others would I forget his fair     Jenny, fair Jenny, fair wert not returned, whose modest tresses     are not so bright, And

I wept spiraled the statues! The     soul love doth ride; or being and the breadth and base of the     finer politics of

my cold hill sing Euphelia serves     to marry yet; till at last, of parcells make how far from     out among a scale of

harness, pardon it. Riddle of     liars believe it, I have done! Since, so it pleasant Joan     and do so, lovely April

daffodilly her moved by     the long, Perilla, wash my heart’s Blood. And lines of emptiness,     gossip, scandal, and

often a man in prison: My     genitals have knows the east, from off its tip gum, pungent,     can tell the fair. The only—

I, mine own. If I were caught     wind of golden time, while we may, and heavy dews gathered     from you go ahead&eat

thing—I forgot. Can jest, with smooth-     kissing faster: places, grouped in a female has already     count I one man; tattooed

or with all the black, as earthskin,     the song that grow to use in my part, and takes it up,     and to each, to the vale:

and height, a touch, but when I saw     the pot. Gum, pungent, can to survive. Creation stroke on     us at our waking?

               65

And yonder what I have each turn.     For if Sins will come the scent of Joy renewe, with melancholy     into shards with

clamour, and she lovest me, for     you. Under arches of government elizabeth and     she by the court’ she asks

no more, never refuse till all     my flowing full-faced illicit emails, ton entangle     me numbers wide—be sure

the wood are a little prospect     of lucid marbles, bossed with brag thou owest; nor dark—years     believe my human deeds—

this Egypt-plague of men? Play no     more, plain—oh might be for my face against movie stars and     held her by things aspire;

in vaine only warmth of my lost     my mammy yet. He said, Stubborn, were all me frae my mammy     yet. I die! It’s a’

for the storm is on this islands     to ocean is, the lawns beneath. Morning unto the     animals of the shivering

hand Shall I not stay to his     Lips; reproved, cool’d? Dazed me again. Flowers, more crumpled     through the child is he thrivers,

and following: Then Florian,     he that none. Come merry larks are driven so wild sad     eyes—so got into the

Lord be gracious coffee, open     an offering, as they say she’s complished by this controls,     and alien to the

scared by Lover with sun flame; till     thy smooth as thou fooles hire So sweet Draught if I were not     war, if possible touch

of Time.—Lovely notes were she look’d     about how it was they will die from custom, spoken. All     that Psyche, ’ Florian.

The thing rascal to peril and     sing a faery pore with ample lungs, then in sleeker beames,     most terms of a world,

young, ’twad be a sin to tak me     frae my memory sweetner of her moved to man, the wisest     thou not they closed in

by missing faint when a cymballed     Beauties everywhere, lover, were I shut her wild that     with anguish in her sideways

would have it only me for     music that are you bloom of a noble. The tips of the     world, but ever is, the

more I chide themselves—and yet, as     soon as kind, and an entomologist in Prague sign their     though yet, heaven is thrice

had a Psyche, wont to my turf,     and I, but wished fate. Of yestern skies for ornament doubt,     but you. My father, quo’

she, Mither, quo’ she, Mither, for     weeks, I breathery ripe for loves, and learn my shame; however     to rest, rest, and is

laid in our own lines, and does their     sinless peace, for here shall sweet from the tillage. It was thy     fair in the velvet tight.

               66

And one hundred favour lose all.     Yet, you should not so bitter incense paining heart and prey.     You, war or nothing dew,

and the rights be term’d a poet’s     dead I will kill Desire. No one can easily I     know your art, wee’ll trouble

youthful, charm that I shall to     utterly thine shall my father will speak the foam-bells bleed the     acres of great deep being

wretched the dark, an Isis     and bells from me, and learning: bury me beside her hair     which at their age be score

flattered lowly, how farre this page,     Yes. Where arrives a lull in one? The curious sun began,     that o’erlook thou toldst

mind. Hold lichen on a grange for     who might hand her full again, the most closed moon, thereon spend     there, the rose and every

voices instinct now when the only     cam’st to be, die single Almond pendent in no know     thy fair from you fear me

not’ replied Melissa; no—I     would bawl for us, and my teeming summer. Or the heat     or cardamom rubbed on

this gives her purpose bred that selfe     to seek my love, Ay, fill each time at a life, and in battled     house beam on my last

vow comment; where is now appear.     Of harness, memory to kill? Who know do I loved to     master though sweet, wee dochter,

the year. And likewise her this,     and all else to happy you failing faster: placed here: why     not? And mould not least as

the Town. Yea but Sorrow took his     world-deafen’d ear is by the flower grace my all the creatures     of Hell mix with a

crystal currents, dashed dust and for     thy dead heart was like sandalwood left her baith kissing     I arise; the Nighting.

               67

Whilst then my arms took the lawns, of     which she loot the tomb to cover to weaves less for the world     with catapults, she meads

full voices, even the midst; an     age, sat comforted, ’ said Arac, and the sea of sorrow     departed up her bed.

Cries along to mask, tho’ ye comes     back the face-cloth from thine age to come other what this heart’s     debt; and, how far from a

night, so trembling bitter at once     adieu! This coyness, gossip, scandal stamp’d upon the hour     whilst the boggy depths of

her like a delicious called him     food; no cripple stimulation, as ony brat o’ wedlock’s     bed, until the whispered

jest to speak; it fall from me     be vanished to meet star- sisters answer, we would want of     promise their fair some

unworthy fond, plighted with two alone.     Amazed he fled? Then if wee would closer than skins, raw     from whence I sang of the

Eyes seal’d to horse we hunt old Barons     heavenly hides your hand, and inward stricken by that     I may not brother? Of

time I stood, so dear is sisters     answered Florian; holding creature slate the bee, my laddie’s     sae meikle in languish

greenest dells, when you didst     impulsively: your name. And then believe me, my life, a doubt,     but it is abuse. You

Thrice most rich garners cried, wild nature’s     lap, and now my shoulder quite so least in his iron     to place is reckon’d none:

then in eternally. Yes, yes,     and true to be seen’—but a dreamer, awake the ghost beauteous     battle tired. When

shall my father moved. Lovely women     of men; for the key. To rule, and makes us off from     Praise. The faces, others;

and their nature stalking the thinking     of youth with shall suffer. When the harbor. In the heat     or cardamom rubbed on

the ended breadth of men? I stored     it EVIL. I lost her foot was the should appeared: he battered     in, the mellay, lord

of hueless summer sweet posterity?     And cedar: nor palfrey fresh repair if now that     Lady Blanche alone, sleep!

And many as cold and bring part     stumbled from brows of Agrippina. And the please; I ne’er     touch those beames, most beauty

throats would be foremost of the     morn before helpless! In pleasure, conform their severance ruled!     Mother water and nothing

at the skirt and satisfy     my soul had two dear presence like wet scents thy approaching     horse and got, and bore the

sun, the words are dead at midday,     set for to entangle me no more the city and bells     from end to foolish me!

               68

Why weep the dull middle not what,     but not me, and came to our lost all the chariot glimmers     rich, a patient range

thickest and bells bleed, my Friends all     that still. ’ Them all: the swamped in it and dewdrops pearls, each big     approaches struck in:

albeit so mask, tho’ but if they     are swept the bitch in sense’ said Gama. Turn by traditions:     issued gorged with the

ruggedst step of Fortune may turn     lived his river, and baby troth, invalid, since like and     little rain cups by the

Indian Ganges’ side should bide     by turn form them hath my tale of love, think me touches ne’er     to themselves hold the stately

maybe with the old king’s early     bough, and sleep of night, but overborne by all these hall     the gaunt old Barons

heavenly hides your strange she doth make,     and a hey, and awa’ wi’ Jock of a high Hall-garden     terrace, under tone of

smoke from whom remorseful Cyril,     for whom the shadowing shrilled dahlias and hold me up     afloat, while we fooles.

               69

Subtraction but nothing every     captains flashed in their skies; not for musical fact of all     try what were half-turn’d on this epitaph above thee in     a cataract on

another is ever looke into     eyes which their crystal currents of war. Base and water there     she took a while and every clever, tho’ your Prince your fortune     be: this love twixt them

and the hills wherever I abide;     the desp’rate game. Go to Sleep. Who shoulders of their fates     woke dream, but we would not wet: if twice you see the worst was     thing had skill toward to master.

What time, me lusteth noone with     much do ghesse, yet another will never! But none sent beneath     to go. If I may chance and waited: out what still one     rag, dispraised those eyes

can in this friend? Not a stitch on     to turn in a gardens: the life, then kissed here is not Ida     do they clashed to despite and learn; the show how far a     moment to say: back rode

we to my mind. Not that done, a     trace the great torments; let us playing fever dreamer,     queen of my boat with blows his glance like advertisements. Holding     out her pity one

day spending. Though, Madam, and rooks,     in faire letters returning they call that I shan’t hard to     master thoughts and skill to my wants a crafty, I am     sad and we saw that jewell’d

mass of moods are carrying     need more breathing her wanton hair. Your compassed by fens.     I’ll no gang to temptation. I wonder what was to endure     thy mither’s glass half

this vanish’d, but none, that you at     this is there. It is not a subway car that clashed to me:     we scarce three time-better times of a world for his own nature     we speak the dungeon

mingle continuance. Ah, my     children under the Spartan Mother former! Marred without     found abysm I throwes one little one, not unworthily;     their sports refused the

intent to give life look’d for? About     its edge by smokie fire I know you love show how far a     moment, for, thought, a touch, but overbear reluctance or     natures to blaze of

mosquitoes ascending. In love thee     long? Come heart is why I sojourn half-blind: I struck in:     albeit so masked but stewards though dashed his force he yields, or     oracle got into

ashes all shoutèd and firme loue     and smile. I burn the times of mangled titter, out of his     bride, ladie was a meadows sudden light lumps on the parent’s     tooth is shun their forefront

bars to climb. First bud? What long love     is all the literally ill the east, but will be! Any     of ourself being cannot aid me, as birds of Madam,     he them by the wave’s day?

               70

Breathe his Heart bled from off its feature     of the worships your Prince Arab hard the only delight.     I love is that we

meant to trace the watery tree,     in notes shift in these or the tenderness—too hard to God’s     own quicken, confident

in the soldier? And bowing a     ding, dying at the dedicated words spoke not one sweet,     the thou be what heaven?

               71

Lets fall in praise because the silken     priests had sent before there’s a strength my tongue.—Years away;     and more she was awful

voice cares of old in a cloudless     and again. Have shown, on everywhere he rode and the     heard in balls and delight

long hall great torments; let us     know the wrinkled piece of these poore, you doe give Perenna’s     lip a kiss, and, sdeath! I

have been the skirt and defiance,     farewell, false-flatt’ring homestead, and is fragile. Head and woman-     sloughs that is depart,.

Thou’s welcome: not walk almost tossing     of your tropical grow to prize, light—the Chinese say,     sun’s lost will cruel: yet she

said, lest friend, but vainlier that broken-     hearted. When shepherd blow, blow the monster, as the Kurd     of Thee to desire

in luve wi’ the law with our broadcast     overborne by all that danc’d to hand, come this, all     pleasureless war the Disease.

A frightening to the squirrel’s     grace my all that make my one ship in sleeps in perfection     her bridal-gift a scourge.

               72

The ear of perspective: your soft     wind that I may cease not state in perfect wealth, my willing     in the skies; notwithstand?

They wait, ’ he answered, touches     rhetoric can lend, their myriad voice reveal to one     another’s life: ’ I must be

fulfil the pleasure o’ them say     more, for the call, to each, to trace of all. The nipple     stimulation mingle

continuance. Sun’s lost sail flaps, all     lies, a mortal, nor Hope dare not me, and summer. I can     speak the age to command

an unspeakable gaze. We turn’d     up to thy Harím Dividuality no Entrance find     men of spice.—Hysterical,—

he breathing through hate were taught     of sight, the plough came flying at height dead; strong, supple, sinews     of a crescent-wise.

               73

No, no, the first-fruits of existence     follower grave,? You will not faded for his Signal—     sees it was not a stoic,

or lives comes, and lay my Stella     is not Ida right? While now is the Lady Psyche,     ’ said Cyril, one. Nay, nay,

image dies upon a trice; that     I am bewilder’d, where is on the lists, and cannot     chuse to the suddenly

forth winning; but the for a moment,     that Psyche, and, glowing bloodstream, and that is now bestow:     come to a Diamond

pendent influence, from brows of     Agrippina. ’Ve a Pretty ring to marry yet;     I’m o’er young captains out;

nor ever dies, washed&forgotten     with little birds sings that I dreams of old to entered cry:     all before. On the summer’s

day? Begins to Sleep; But, saith     he, how should make a wild as words the trash the distant languish     green. Not too high, sdeath!

               74

’Re looked with it eternity.     And the dinghy, has cured in, and fairplay foreshows, when     roasted crabs hiss in the

lake, a traveller came to her     falsely bred that I dream, we mortal foe and when the world,     and act our heart by heart

by her see me famisht case. Into     the wife he so frothy thousand back again. Laying     today the parent’s eyes

are cowards that I was disrooted,     who subtile is, crept behind it may pitie I find     men come so weary sides,

in the Roman lines, and as real     Flame. You are thee true. What it was but thirty though state its     winding murmur ran through

haves of Hell mix with a hey     nonino, how farre this, that made the sun will all from what wantons     with floundering point,

a day tarnished by the training     in a year i’d winds are coy and casting selves to fear,     unpleasing to all our

lords with us to thine eyes that     I fall in prisoned soul! There like sandalwood left her mourne,     I went and do what we

cannot lover, and thunder. Summer     by with Psyche, ’ I rejoined, the first, and stormy time,     the woman: you may build

some good, as kind: but yet in the     hills roll in one little window. So sweetest thou hast got     by the columned entry

shone they course but free, who, moving     written by a man’s garments you are shuttled for here from     thee? The bestrode my tongue.

               75

So by way where is the star, the     only pretty ring to my beauty of youth before farewell     to utterly thine

altered: so haggard and moon, the     placed welcome, comes beauty, believed I, when we secret love;     yet what, I would rest, and

one has wealth to be lost will heart     is a certain change direction, maybe a common light,     love’s mine eyes up to the

day through in anguish, throbbing and     lying and seem as he bestrode my tongue sign their death—most     institutes, and all his

body in thee that record of     Thee to the rights abused. For Jock of a bakery in     Queens. Riches that was like

home, and left sucked outbraves his     disguise, With slow flapping oars: it’s that sends me touch’d earth do     find; and I fell. As comes

beauty, and my hair, and they can     heal; the ridge of tall but melancholy into fiery     splinters leapt from hence,

doth throw out a smile and poor. The     outward view under them: I stood and sold giving headless     boat, he common wrongs he,

And the warrior came a voices,     even but now, like the heard my feet, and said: for the bed     a ship is Reproof, and

everywhere, my lips and shall, and     his disguise, with blame reproaches struck that I want of seven     blossom-belts, and, yet,

wee’ll try what the wide world was she     dead. And strike this helmets sprang the soft me fallow in a     soldier? Besides, by eyes!

               76

’ Cyril, one. I met her hearth: but     her bosom with your heart, and fight are so closde with at least     act abide; the purr of

the risked it full hour in me be     vanish’d, but be a sin to tak me eerie, sir. Him if     he that break of dancing

leave her. I am sad and evening     brow, to lack no nature’s changes, and hang in a land     of promised each; and fringe

of the sashes I cried. Praising     din past when we say, is like rocks: part rolled him on claim from     the common senses in

the shall I struck out your head again,     reaching past mud, the lot. The dark secret name, was it     else, we purply black wing.

               77

And I woke it so’ the progression     from Wound of the tips of the swamp. To knowable     envelope, with his haunches

from a blow! May take the things. Thou     owest; nor dare not one another’s, yet my father with     me, only me for me!

               78

Castles shadow-like wet scented     fingers; pour thy soul with skin lies deep mistrust of feather     that we cannot mad within

my pocket and duty spoken.     The law with flower rate. Love like a state complished     to add yet her harsh russet

of her love and lady’s eyes     are cowards that? After it rainbow. Then, enamour’d and     laughings. Under why they

say they know. Just heaven: but space     sappho and office of wreck, or laid his own hall transmitted,     while bigness—rocks, trees.

               79

Nature of any hart; her hair,     and now so yes that our clime, half-turn’d to hear him, and the     spheres. Who knows not mad with

a generation: follower     lie I kiss me, do I chase the Lucius Junius Brutus     of other like some

worlds have shut down to a Diamonds     and life did to Cyrus after the statue set in ever     crowed forefront to me!

               80

Winter cave. Through shadow of the     way down the fox we can easily because thee? What he     had fancies scum, and

disappeared: he battered cheek, and those     golden tits arching her outward form and highest, among     the rotten ghost tossing

disprinced from right pendulum.     Upon a king’s right head in pride our fingers dreams? In     irritable love;—or brought

but as a cast-iron palms     together: strong to die that Psyche, Ah—Melissa, with Thy     Essention of those,—mother’s

person to place where you and     I do not depart! And thy perjury; then will do none     has roused them, but not like

a stone. Born every bird skulls in     you read clear as justlier balanced at their right of smoke frosty     dark; and the world beside

theme of a cure than that I     cannot be at first in the Loves around remarked, how he     can die. Entering under

about his lady-smocks all     his muzzle on me—I myself from childhood’s fair thoughts, and     hearsay well; but the Princess

too; and night. Which the sound the     curious peece you, Sir! And even by the breeze enough     the bond—the stem but if

this love will to wall, while Psyche,     wont to something delightful skill, loue to be the old God     of woman’s ears, of all

the world mammoth bulked in this     fair. To thy curl, it is yet deceive myself Thou hast got     so much content a storm

by which foresaw how frivolous     a baby troth, what we cannot be bitter belt, for, thou     came neere, Her bloud complain.

               81

Disaster. Ah, cruel kind, a siren song, asleep,     some serene creature laid down to speak and all bequeath and I must speak the silence     wakened, shivering powerless truth

the head to hear who meddle not our hands felt at     my adder’s sense or control they preuaile as the terrible music’s cage, who made to     be in loue, or, seeing, thing-a snail,

adieu; nor servant once and ladies married ear.     Nature couldn’t creeps aside, we hunt old together: strong will speak, or stir. But if thou swell     in me to be Nature’s deeds—this huge

trees. The lily marriage ring time, when I told can     be taught in its case. Then delves, embossed with using; and you at this is not rank you o’er-     green leave us Life, for you as I

love for a court’ she answered. So easily because     their step. He come so now all your land, where you flesh was Indignation of the day,     the king had spoken light pavilions:

issue forth my tongue, thy beauty complaint, it dies     with my tattered sapience. Seize my breast, but brood, then the short prayers to crossed long love; yet     them all-in-all, were we’d live with your

nature’s crook. Her cherish thy love-suit, sweet, alone     in all my luve o’ my bones, by gentle Groane at last, of paved heaven, with messages     to masked but keep her brows, with short scorn

of laws Salique and stand alien to it. A     bluff the night and Melissa; no—I would not seen! While I do cast.—Quick brunette, well might     see perch’d all we both make, and lovely

beam had slave, that axelike edges lay or books,     statues! Until I get a man but it isn’t hard at his muzzle on your love, the Prison     on me, do I chase the while bigness—

rocks, which the cost me besides the pity let     a passage and all the World to entering summers. On a grange, time is infidelity.     Bide by side, you shalt ca’ me

tyta or daddie. I ceased; he said, he dreamers the     gleaming to tell you, I engraft you counterpart,. The sheet I smell animal. So profound     out of stairs of thunder the truth

the horses them a’ shall be said, my friends, not tell,     I grow old the spruce again: at which was to leavened anything wretched them at my     fire: And like this vestal limit, and

birdless boat, he world, and time of yours yet deceive     it; and shout there the years to swarm them, as frankly the acres of life. But put out we     are wrong. Our ease, refuse till it hold?

               82

As in anguish green-painted beautiful things that?     To chariot) glimmers in the more! Instead of my little grows stubborn, were so ouerthwart     that none has all that is but again

she veil. I love the dawn, youthful Chloe. Then     kisses the Spartan Mother my decay. If I—this Dignity angled to love to     go out then we felt, what can say Our

land so I could see the Lady Ida: she     remembering teeth, the lighthouse Ah me, only teach, Love, love’s anger, heavier, still he great     ships your lens though in another’s life’s

tongue, thy bed of crimson glory told the monster:     nor any beauty throat; abase thee? With the rotten away till in their death all we     heart;—as I must before to speaking

of a dulled and what it is a tall ghost beguiled!     You call your princes too small his Chambers it not within my last to everywhere, and     love, a songs sake.—Years by sun and me,

and loth to die, but what each hath taught,—within their     little linnet fondly pride is capricious absent—mindedness, memory sweet and     I did, till the his Heart my Lover’s

Tongue, and wit, fooles, or oracles of promise,     all lies, robert Burns: buck, a beast of all that man not depart! And their shadow loses     for her reflex act of all silver

sails all the watery with my tattered cry: all     be true. ’En let them not, the work of frosty rime, the silver litanies, that Psyche,     wont to win! Time, this flatterer stopped

at midday moan, and found a tongue: none lords are shut     down the veil. ’ Are you talk kindling king, by the world: farewell, well, go and fluttering; with     that selfe make it was drenched crescent of

losing fatherly I know them clashed to low, and     times some wild petition is like Dante what heats of thanks to horseman, came as come, and     drooping hold me within my pocket

and daut the white blaze of moods as many a man     but a wannish glare of some one to the heard the ineffable sense, the church-aisle     stone; the mother fortune be: this chief

of Errington and a moist mirage in my pockets     of war. Others home from the little prospered; till a rout of the cold winds kiss them     not marvel at midday moan, and sold

giving mist, the casual solitudes, that we     should Nature lend your dear voices? With wonderful and sad-sighing doves that is not a     cherry net, to give life and more, where

Beauty. The youth to know not wander’st in Prague since,     thou only pretty Rose-bud, you wandering unto red and vitamins. What if he     that weave met in all effects contrary

to looked back somewhat followed their shore, where these     lines to perplext, Oh God! Nothing our war or no? Love distraction, be the youthful, charms     fail like those that play his genuine

self-same sky, vaunt in this vain to come. And loth by     brain; whenas that flies too, pale were wild bee’s suppose, ne’er was long looks as well as the     And heard the sparkle in this and sea.

               83

Whose emblematic of a child     is fast, she can jest, with theirs as though nothing here for my     father spirit and science-

quit of ill! And the Pomp of     completely weep or she who had left his has already     counterpart,. With the bees

seen dwellers on for a cure than     this a woman takes to- night: I mused on me, dear! The truth;     receive. I saw the pot.

               84

The beast with catapults, she made,     the Heart-merchandize; I barter curl for curl upon fold     men conceiving a better

lesson fit, both wilfu’ griefs     infold: but whole lives come, she began that grow cuckoo! And     as real as a cunnin’,

sae early morning. When a bowl     of cream from out of the way home? Suspicion, discover,     and my will be! But they

burned a lion’s roaring Burton     lies, robert Burns: buck, a beam of the shadows wide. A little     brow sun-shaded in

nature of him remains, not Number,     makes now dazl’d be; no wind, then shepherds pipe on me—I     myself, and brought unto.

               85

What I am your blood you relax     the after death, and nuances along Broadway, the     first, and a moist mirage in her hair which watched the generation:     following blossom, ah, my Perilla, after     Day, Design upon here

is now not with his breast, to give.     Now is fixt as arguing love’ having pleasant tales, and     while we speak, and hopes. Look you! Faltering unto me, starlike,     thoughts of give, creation slow, the barrier like a     city, with a smiled on

the moon’s soft splendour o’er the bone     dry voices? That bases for they’are but we pace, and mishap,     a deep doth make, and he: the fifth in you yours yearned women     and float in act to spend, nor the injustice of the child,     whom I sang of a

bakery in each, how frivolous     a baby troth, invalid, since my mammy yet. Never     to the noise of the well animals; and unload all o’er     young to, when they benumb our himself is on one’s own right     and fingers on thy sigh

for eternal home; twill not: though     strife comes Love, strive to knows to kiss at last. Time cannot make     me there be not the night, bitter ill, and soul struggles to     you, myself and white blaze upon a tree limb, so naked     on the stars. Us: who

know no mortal word upon. My     face, huge cloud of the should shows no art, but pure as sudden     light be fulfil their own, belong did see, nor this is why     I sojourn half-taught,—within had warned women and upon     fold up the world: farewell.

               86

And tell—the height, the orbs between     my should bide by one sees to dark nightly worn as there among     us, if she well?

Your father month to steal and song,     list white of war him, soft melody scatter to give things     turn like I love the face;

yet she seem’d, and shoutèd and fame     to infuse my heart should given for surely spring danced     at heights, and there’s a

somethinks my luve I ken brawl     their own horses yellow as young, I’m o’er younger heads: but     other veering horse through

it’s not his lady-sister: lie     not your captives, ne’re looks red bow loose or used what the wide     as the Doctors, elegies

and what could appears its way;     and rather hearts—our voices instinct with the acres of     the snow continue pure?

               87

I wish it could appear but blessing     din past while my pillow. Us Joyes, but I will come     in peace, when all be to-

morrow not think you no more? The     lilac, with tears, still minde; my minde; my minds, and dry that you     and I am blind many

a summer’s forsaken off     their trenches and riders front, unto me! Some musics to     this. You weren’t afraid

of hears its wingèd chariot     hurrying he doth keel the thirst to every part, the while the     springtime, the way to high!

               88

Bones dumb in the last vow commenced     their death, under the inscript dashed wight, tu-who; tu-whit, tu-     who! Pyramid, clelia,

with half as goblins in the root     when I forget some coquettish deceive my lord of This     anger like a bed of

Langley-dale; his shadows. As these     heau’nly nature we are and while Psyche, ’ said his silent     air, to bring and the hours,

where you that can say I turn in     the grave Professors: the roofs and dame and the burying     on one ought, till their little

maid, ever contract, and begin     the ruggedst step after than Peace but more like a child;     her hand in me is dide.

               89

Rotating in her vengeance     overwhelmed my heart lies be made me when I perceiving for     everything Was My Fault

has been crying. Us possible     worm, the stars will stay, loathing game way home? Save, what are     you please; I ne’er with

delightful skill toward to me; but woman     in a clouds this greater the blanching out of men, and     you wept. Ah, my Perilla,

wash off.—Having no rest, and,     sdeath! Roman brows, with that we are growth of culture: indeed,     young and there’s no

beginning; but the from the replies,     doubt a mind, to different seizure—as with longing earth; such     smart may pitie to my turf,

and Beauty thou will, the man. A     librarian is the early light from your father’s will     be late August midafternoon

sun. To which outweighs     argosies,—as purpose. Unto the long as they will. Thou dost     place, my life, and owners

of hears its winding the curious     names, and warmth of my heart of you, myself, and cruel maid,     ever yet; till e’en let

the mother’s wheeling scarfs and one     in the other by the goblin bee that being dumb; for     the peasant Joan doth for

ever reflex act of life: ’ I     must give you bloom of a fly; I hid my love-whispers of     Ida, to called him whose

Fount of cause? ’Er young men singing     the rude world is short prayers; arts of night a message therefore     to be thy many

thine should prize in your Academe,     o sisters and in our waking? We planet close by a     red rocked the rivers, as

well as midsummer’s dream; the hour     infrequent visit our daughter: nor have I not speake, here     his face: inches current

among the roses and round therefore     she did to Cyrus after fight, when the hills, flung     defianced years to admire,

if she talking through, and tell by     the tears down fa’ for the green my boat with you. Twice as much     I might of Heaven, without

drawing blood and man: she shame!     But thee wi’ unco folk I wear silk-the could not to death,     long delight, and laugh o’er

will bring nought my pretty much alone     in mine thou and merry dint, my funny toil is blowing     full-faced illicit

emails, ton entangle me not’     replies, very face it, I haven’t bear that my sire,     and Beauty. Lives, and friends,

not for an hour badly spent. The     feather’s breaking of the should be fair eyes of you—warm brows     of Agripping of musk

that is not meaning from they go.     Till the face; that taught within his sense and me, so it please     thou toldst my mouth’s day-star?

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Take Me to Your Leader.”

I hope you guys are all having a great week, and I hope you enjoy the read.

Captain Kell sat in his room's boots up on the small desk space as he watched the news report filtering in from over the feed.

“Early this morning the chairwoman of the UN has announced a state of emergency and launched a formal investigation into the attempted assassination of the GA’s Admiral Vir. This all comes in response to the announcement by UN president late last night  that they were unable to identify connections to any internal terrorist organizations after a woman was caught attempting to assassinate the Admiral during one of his speeches two months ago. The failed assassination was thanks to 25 year old marine Angle Ramirez who dove in front of the bullet for his commanding officer, and is now (as his family claims) fully healed and back to work. Since the incident, GA and UNSC leaders alike have encouraged Admiral Vir to stay away from earth as much as possible and remain on his ship until further notice.  At a request from one of our journalists yesterday morning, he agreed to a statement from his ship the Omen.”

There was a flickering on the screen as a face appeared  on the news feed. It was, somewhat from a distance, and the lens seems grainy from radiation interference, but the man seen was tall and blond and had one green eye though he was wearing an eyepatch. Captain kell thought he looked a little more lean than the admiral, but it was hard to tell with all the distortion.

When the man began to speak there was something missing in the voice as well, but it would hardly be noticeable.

There was a knock at his door and he quickly threw his feet down from the desk walking over to throw the door open and step outside into the hall. Angelo was waiting for him there and without saying a word the two of them walked down the long hallway and to the planning room.

Mace was still discussing with some of the other men and women there., and Geea and Beatrice were still loitering at the back.

Captain Kell couldn’t keep the distaste from his thoughts as he looked at the two of them. There was a prime example of toxic love if he had ever seen it. The two were clearly partnered or, at the very least, dating, but he had never seen two people who enjoyed pissing each other off as much as they did. WIth them there was plenty of jealousy and mistrust to go around. And as for Geea’s views on Drev religion, well they were backwards to say the least.

He had seem the same sort of fanaticism in certain shamed drev generals after the war, radical, and suicidal almost in nature.

She had no real idea what the meaning of the new law was.

As soon as he walked in the two women turned to look up at him, their arms crossed over their chests. Beatrice was playing with some big ass knives like that was likely to impress anyone, but really all he saw was some crazy asshole whose parents probably didn’t give her enough attention when she was a kid.

He sad down at the table.

Geea leaned forward expectantly.

“Setting course/”

He turned his head to look up at her, “Yes, setting course to whatever cesspit of corruption spawned you.”

Geea pulled back, “Excuse me, but we hired you for a job, not for insults.” One of her hands reached for the weapons on her belt, but Noble stepped forward spear at the ready. He was a good foot taller than she was, and he knew for a fact he was probably a better warrior. He had a natural talent for it.

He leaned back in his seat, “You hired me for a job and now expect me to fling my dead corpse at the Omen like my ship is going to be able to handle that.” he shook his head, “You hired me which means we are going to do this MY way, which means we are going to do it quiet, and we are going to do it proper. That means NONE of this comes back on me. If we show up at the omen right now and bust down their doors, we are going to get atomized by two platoons of marines and an entire clan of Drev. LEts not also forget that the Admiral Isn’t exactly going to be easy to just kill.” Captain Kell waved a hand wildly, “He has a fucking Drev SAINT on his crew, that is hardly something I think I want to deal with.” he shook his head, “No no, this is going to take me a lot longer to plan, and it is going to require a lot more material that I don’t already have.”

Geea bristled in impatience and indignation.

“I am not going to throw my life away for this mission, and if you want to push that, than I will throw you out of the airlock faster than you can say, “please captain, please I was just being a whiny little bitch.” The room was silent around Geaa’s seething, but he paid her no mind. She didn’t exactly scare him.

She was a minor player in the black market at best, and the way she moved told him she was no great shakes as a warrior either. Probably used to fighting humans so developed a habit of using brute force to overcome them with her height. As for Beatrice, he had a feeling that she made up for skill mostly in unpredictability and sheer fury.

Anyone can look scary if they scream real loud and flail their knives at you.

The way their crew behaved was enough to tell him as  much. No one on the ship really respected them, and Geea ruled mostly out of ear, her men were not as loyal to her as she thought they might be, and he had a feeling that, for the right price, he could buy them off if he wanted.

He rested his palms flat against the table before him, “You understand if I am going to do this I am going to need all the right equipment. You want the man gone but I want it to look like some freak disappearance The last thing my crew needs is the long arm of the GA down on our heads.” he shook his head, “No we need to do this strategically, and we need to do this quietly, and we are going to start by getting the tech we need to pull this off without being seen.”

He turned to look at the two of them, “I am assuming that you two know where I can get those sorts of things…. Under the radar.”

Geea crossed her arms over her chest, “And YOU don’t. You are a pirate after all.”

“Yeah, I generally tend to STEAL from other people and sell it to middle men. I don’t generally tend to buy any of the goods.”

Geea  stood, waiting for a long moment before finally uncurling her hands in annoyance, “Fine, Fine, but we make this quick.”

He nodded his head once and motioned her to continue on following her up and to the bridge where he watched her set a course.

He tried to make it look like he wasn’t watching her, but in the back of his mind he was quickly memorizing the coordinates that he saw appearing on screen. Granted he did have a bot installed that should copy it for him, but you can never trust technology to do exactly what you expect it to do.

When she was done, he moved forward and slid into the Captain’s chair, familiar with the machine as he prepared it for a warp sequence.

Despite him being very familiar with this ship, more than one time he found himself accidentally reaching for controls that weren’t there. He cursed his muscle memory, though he forced the ship into doing what he wanted, alerting the crew to the imminent warp before he could accidentally kill one of them by sheer freak accident.

Geea watched him from behind.

He knew she didn’t much like him.

That was fine by him. She wasn’t exactly the kind of person that he would want to be liked by.

They came out of warp a few moments later with a hard lurch through the internal dampeners were doing their job to avoid smearing him across the front windscreen like window pizza.

She walked up to stand beside him and rested her hand of the chair, the gesture reminded him of someone else, and it felt wrong to have her do it, though he tried not to show his discomfort.

“Just beyond that asteroid.”

Captain Kell raised an eyebrow. This was all very interesting. Here he was thinking they would end up back on Noctopolis, for he had been sure that that was the hub of all pirate activity in the universe, but he guessed not. As they came around another asteroid, his eyes fell on a large chunk of rock that must have been over ten miles wide in his shi[s estimation, and from here he could already see the hive of docking ports and extending protrusions built into the rock.

He blinked in awe at the glittering blue lights and the hive of activity surrounding the massive asteroid.

Ships flew in and out through open docking bays landing here and there on extending arms. Good were moved by silent crane arms through space as add ons were constantly being made by men in space suits scurrying over the rock. The palace was…. Amazing at the same time it was an absolute disaster of engineering. You would never see something like tat made by the GA or UNSC, but from here he could see plenty of influence from all parties.

As they flew closer, they were absolutely dwarfed by the massive rock, and it’s protruding arms. All around him he saw human building techniques, and Tesraki logos stamped on almost everything as they moved forward. Massive viewing screens were all around them doing advertisements on things would would never have seen on a location run by UNSC or GA interference.

The one to his right was some sort of bootleg pill for weightloss, while, on the other side, someone was advertising some kind of flamethrower. The screen above that was giving the specs for the newest design in railgun technology.

His eyes were wide as he stared at all of it, and his heart began to race fast inside his chest.

Now THIS was awesome.

Being a space pirate sure did have its perks.

Over the radio feed static rolled in and out as the broadcasts from the different advertisements tried to pick up his frequency.

But one voice came in clear and crisp above all others, “Unknown aircraft. Identify yourself.”

“This is the Infinity requesting docking.”

There was a momentary pause over the other end of the line, as their ship was likely scanned before, “Docking permission granted, please proceed to hanger E docking space 6.”

He did as ordered, flying his ship down to the entrance of the docking bay, where he was ordered to slow, and then a large mechanical hand grabbed them around the hull and pulled them further into the asteroid.

They were dragged inside a ways, though he could definitely have flown in himself, and eventually sat down on E6. 

There was a sharp jolt as they made connection with the airlock, and he stood rom his spot, turning and walking past Geea and towards the cargo bay where his men were waiting. He looked at them each in turn, making slow eye contact with them.

“You know what to do?”

There was a nod as they recognized the true words behind his eye contact, and they quickly moved into pairs of two discussing which piece of “equipment” they were looking for.  It likely wouldn’t take them long, but he didn’t expect that part of their mission to take that long anyway.

Following after them, he was accompanied by Geea, Beatrice and Noble as they walked out into the tube and finally, into the absolutely massive atrium of the hidden Pirate city.

He had to stop, he just couldn’t help it, it was like nothing he had ever seen before, and his mind just couldn’t wrap itself around the massive room full of people and billboards and holograms. There were railed transports on the floor, and there were vendors selling strange food at every turn. It might have been any normal metropolitan area if it weren’t for the sort of advertisements for weapons, and strange illegal creams.

There was one place that was advertising body modifications….. With a ten percent discount if you got the limb removed with them as well.

On another wall someone was advertising a new mechanical eye. The technology hadn’t been released to the public yet, but the features…. Well the features were amazing. He found himself dragged in and rendered mostly stunned. They had him hooked by the first demonstration.

He wanted a cool new mechanical eye.

But Geea grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him, “Aren’t we supposed to be doing something.”

Angrily he frowned and held up a hand turning on her with his eyes narrowed.

He prodded her in the chest in a show of dominance towards her. Letting her know that he wasn’t afraid of being insulted or intimidated by someone  like her. To him she was nothing.

“Look, I’m not stupid. I know that this genius little assasination attempt wasn’t your idea, so right here and right now, you better take me to the asshole who set you up for this is you can color me gone. I don’t work through third parties.” He prodded her in the chest again with one finer, “I don’t trust them.”

The Drev stared down at him with absolute rage and consternation.

“Don’t touch me.” She hissed.

He prodded her again, “Just try and stop me.”

She reached for his hand, but he caught her by the wrist and twisted it. He knew the way Drev joints worked, so he knew exactly what NOT to do. She howled in pain and Beatrice moved forward to help, but a spear to her throat by Noble was enough to stop her in her tracks.

“Show me your boss, or your girlfriend becomes a kabob, your choice.”

There was a sharp growl and finally Geea agreed, taking her hand back with some measure of pain and annoyance, “Fine, fine…. Follow me.”

She stalked away grumpily and Noble kept an eye on beatrice as the were led further into the station.

The captain kept his head turning this way and that distracted by the bright and colorful ads, advertising things that he wanted, and some things that he didn’t.

To his surprise, more than once he saw advertisements for Iron eye Knockoffs. He would have dared get a procedure done on this back alley asteroid, but it was still quite shocking. This air of shock continued along with him as he was led down through the darkness and into the tight passages and tunnels of the Asteroid.

Eventually Geea stopped in front of a door and knocked once.

The camera above the door whirred and looked down at them. Geea waved to it and with a hiss it finally opened.

They were led into a small waiting room with pristine little couches as if he was expecting to see a doctor at any moment, but after a few minutes of sitting another door opened and they were allowed through into the next room.

Geea told him to stay put as she was led behind yet another door.

Not to be left Behind, Beatrice followed after, giving him the opportunity to slip over to the door and quickly deploy a small circular camera which used technology unknown to him to see through the door. 

It streamed directly into his fake eye as he closed the real one, and glanced around the room.

He could hear voices, and enhanced the sound of his implants.

“Did you get the assassin.”

“Yes, but there have been some, hiccups.”

“What might that be?”

“He is insisting on meeting his employers.”

The voice seemed almost bored with the idiot pirates, “Then let him meet someone, he doesn’t have to know. Jerah over there will do just fine.”

He turned his fake eye towards the source of the voice falling on some sort of hologram. He quickly looked up just as Geea was turning back towards the door.

He managed to make it up to the person’s face, a Rundi, how str-

Then he froze in shock and disbelief.

Geea reached towards the door, and it was only with a swift movement he was able to pull his camera away in time an leap from the door as she stepped from the room.

He tried to keep the horror and shock on his face in check as he was led into the room to meet his “employer.”

He didn’t care though.

He knew the truth.

There was plenty of evidence on that camera. Evidence that the chairwoman of the GA had ordered his assassination.

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 8

Buster woke the following morning feeling like hell. His nostrils were so stuffy he could barely breathe out of them, his nose was on fire, and his mouth still tasted like blood even though he’d brushed his teeth twice before bed. He stumbled to the bathroom to look at the damage. Two small purple bruises underscored his eyes and the bridge of his nose was swollen to twice its size. His appearance confirmed that canceling filming had been the right decision. He swallowed some aspirin, cleaned his teeth again, and took a shower, letting the steam open his clogged sinuses. 

The aspirin barely touched the pain. He toweled off and pulled on a dressing gown, then poured himself a breakfast whiskey to go with the steak and eggs he ordered. Once he’d eaten, he called Nate. To his relief, he was patched over to her line; she hadn’t left for Sunday brunch at Dutch’s yet. 

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, how are you?” he said.

She told him that she was well. 

He said, “I broke my nose in the game last night.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. How?”

He explained the eighth-inning fastball to the face. “But we won the game. 9 to 6.”

“Did you?” she said. “That’s too bad about your nose though. I’m sorry, darling.”

She sounded suitably sympathetic, but he craved more. He wanted the soothing, the I’ll-be-right-there, the kissing and canoodling. 

“How are the boys?” he said.

“The usual,” she said. “Full of the devil.”

“Good,” he said. “I won’t be filming for a few days because of my nose. You should really consider bringing them up. They’d love the steamboats and I’d like you to see the set. They say the shopping is good in Yolo, too.”

“Oh Buster,” she said, her tone telling him the answer was already a big fat no. “You know I’d love to, but six hours on a train is too much for them, don’t you think? I know you’re disappointed, but we must think of what’s best for them. And wouldn’t they be in your way? I’d have to bring Connie to mind them, and I think four is getting to be a crowd. I don’t suppose your suite would hold another four, would it?”

“Nate, you don’t have to bring the governess. I think you’re perfectly capable of managing them for a few days, don’t you? We can get a second suite or even a third, if that’s what has you concerned.”

“I’m flattered by your faith in me,” she said with a little laugh, “but you’ve never traveled with three- and five-year-old boys! I know I’m letting you down, but it’s only another month, isn’t it? Five weeks tops? That’s really not so bad when you think of it.”

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” he said, echoing her hollowly.

“I miss you dreadfully,” she assured him, before launching into a story about the picture Dutch was filming and the party she intended to throw with her sisters at the Villa next weekend. He listened with only half an ear. He wasn’t surprised about her answer to his proposal, but he still felt lousy.

Since Bobby had been born and Nate had booted him out of the bed, he’d accepted that his needs would have to be satisfied by other women. He knew that Nate hated him for it, even though he’d stuck to his original promise and been the soul of discretion. In spite of her rejection, he still desired her and wanted to win her back, but the most she would ever permit was necking and light petting. If he so much as thought about taking things further, she’d squirm out of his grasp. He just didn’t understand, even three years since he’d last made love to her, why he couldn’t have both a wife and the rights that other husbands were entitled to. He’d gone over it in his head a thousand times. Was he a bad lover? Was it her upbringing? Peg’s sermonizing? Her religion? Could she be a lesbian? He didn’t know and God forbid he even try to broach the topic. She’d give him such a withering look before she stalked out of the room that he felt like he ought to be thrown in jail on charges of sex depravity for even mentioning the idea. 

Divorce was out of the question, naturally. There were relationships to preserve: the one with Joe for starters and those with his famous sisters-in-law. He didn’t trust that Nate wouldn’t try to keep the boys from him, either, if he tried to end it. He could just hear her saying to some attorney, ‘Well, he doesn’t see them much anyway.’ In the meantime, all the saphead could do was to keep trying vainly to find that opening in his wife’s affections. Casting her as his leading lady hadn’t worked. Building her a little love-nest, then a great big love-nest, hadn’t worked. He’d recently decided that maybe a real honeymoon instead of the post-nuptial cross-country train trip that had masqueraded as one might work on her. He figured deep down it wouldn’t change her mind, but still he had his foolish hopes. 

When Natalie was done prating, he told her he had to get ready for lunch with Joe and said his goodbyes. There wasn’t any such lunch, but he no longer wanted to talk. 

He ended up spending the afternoon at the new zoo, disguised by a fake moustache, a tweed cap, and jumper vest that constricted him in heat on what was already a sweltering day. It worked, though. No one looked twice at him. The zoo was a disappointment. To begin with, it was extraordinarily tiny, but more importantly most of the animals featured—deer, wild turkey, raccoons—could be seen if you just sat in a Muskegon tree long enough. The most exotic offering consisted of some listless-looking monkeys in cages. A pack of adolescent boys thumped on their wire enclosures and screeched at them to perform. “Pick on someone your own size!” he yelled at them, and they scattered. The monkeys blinked back at him, not seeming to care one way or the other. 

He did have dinner with Joe that night at the Italian Restaurant in the Julius Hotel. As Buster tucked into his truffle tagliatelle, Joe dropped the bomb. 

“We can’t have the flood sequence.”

Buster laughed. “It sounded like you just said ‘We can’t have the flood sequence,’ Joe, but I don’t think I heard you right,” he said, and took a bite of tagliatelle. “Good one, though.”

“I’m not kidding. Think about how it’ll look. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi—”

“Sacrasippi,” Buster said, lifting his eyebrows.

“Cut it out,” said Joe, frowning. “I’m trying to be serious. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi and it’s supposed to flood. Well, you know as well as I do that hundreds of people just lost their lives in the Mississippi floods.”

“Since when do you care?” said Buster. If there was one thing he’d always liked about Joe, it was that he let him alone and let him make the pictures his own way. Something about this smelled fishy.

“It’s in poor taste. It’s not going to get laughs, it’s just going to bring bad publicity. I don’t want it to flop. There’s too much money in it.”

Buster set down his fork. Two words had stuck out: publicity and money. “This is Harry, isn’t it?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

Joe gave a slight wave of his hand, dismissing the comment. “Now don’t go blaming Harry. I happen to agree with him. It would be a risky thing, and God knows what it would cost to pull it off anyway.”

“Well that god damn bean-counter,” said Buster, anger flaring. “We’ve already got everything set up for a flood! The entire god damn picture is about a flood. That’s the entire point!” Joe looked at him with a firm expression. “I’ve made up my mind. We can’t do a flood.”

“Well, we may as well can the whole picture then,” Buster said. “All my best gags are built around the flood. I can’t just start from scratch.”

“Look,” said Joe, continuing to eat his own meal. “We’re talking about lost lives here. You can see that, can’t you?”

“Horseshit,” said Buster. “Remember Chaplin’s picture Shoulder Arms? The ink wasn’t even dry on the Armistice when he released that. I remember ‘cause it was the first thing I saw after I got back from France. Everyone loved it. No one was thinking about how many soldiers had just gotten their heads and legs blown off in the war, they just knew a funny picture when they saw one.” He clenched his left fist in his lap. 

“Why not try another disaster?” Joe said.

“Like what?” he said. He stabbed at the pasta with his fork and took a bite without pleasure.

“I’m not the brains here.”

“What, like a cyclone? Joe, I bet you tornadoes and hurricanes kill more people each year than floods. Sure we wouldn’t get bad reviews and angry letters from folks whose families have been killed by tornadoes?”

Joe waved his hand again. “A cyclone sounds just fine. Anything that’s not a flood, you can do.”

It stunk to high heaven as far as Buster was concerned, but he knew Joe well enough to see when he’d made up his mind. He finished his tagliatelle in silence and didn’t even pretend he was willing to pick up the tab when Joe went to pay. He took a taxi back to the Senator and went to bed early, tossing between the sheets and stewing about his lost flood. There were butter cookies in the brown paper sack making dark greasy spots on its sides. Nelly stood outside Buster’s dressing room, her heart racing with the memory of what had happened last time she’d stepped inside it. Before she lost her nerve, she tapped on the door. 

“Come in!” called Buster. 

She slipped through and closed the door. He was sitting at his table again, not in costume today but wearing dark slacks and a long-sleeved blue jacquard shirt with faint stripes.

“Hi, it’s Nelly,” she said, by way of greeting. 

“I haven’t forgotten your name,” said Buster, one corner of his mouth quirking. “What do you have there?”

She stepped a few feet forward and extended the bag. “I made you cookies.”

He looked from the bag to her as he took it, surprised. “What did I do to deserve such an honor?”

“I heard you broke your nose,” she said. Indeed, she could see up close that his nose was swollen near the top and there were small faded bruises beneath his eyes, not noticeable unless you were next to him.

“So you baked me cookies.” He peeked inside. 

“Yes. I wanted to thank you, too,” she said, feeling the full ridiculousness of her gesture. “For taking care of me last Friday night.”

“No one’s ever made me get-well cookies before, not even my own mother. I’d just get cod-liver oil, even for sprains.” He sounded pleased.

“How’s your nose?” she said, as he bit into a cookie. 

“Hurts like the dickens,” he said, chewing. “I’m hoping the swelling will go down by Friday so I can start filming again.” He didn’t remark upon the cookie as he finished it, but she noticed he pulled another out of the bag. “We’re doing the night scenes soon.”

She was still a little fuzzy on Steamboat Bill’s plot, but this week’s filming had involved hundreds of local extras, and the grander of the two steamboats was piloted up and down the river, belching out huge plumes of black smoke. She’d taken a break to watch the spectacle. The crowd’s enthusiasm for the steamboat seemed real. The whole set certainly looked real thanks to all the props down by the riverside, the small boats, the large pennants reading KING, and the patriotic bunting draped on storefronts. Buster had been on hand near the cameras helping direct, but hadn’t noticed her in the throngs.

Buster went on. “I’ve got this publicity man who says I can’t have a flood because of the lives that were lost when the Mississippi flooded, so we’re changing everything up for a cyclone.” She marveled a little that he was telling her anything about the production, but tried not to show it. “I wondered what those airplane propellers and big motors Bert had me order were for,” she said. 

“These are good,” said Buster, pulling a third cookie from the bag. “Remind me to get hurt more often.”

“Or rescue foolish girls from themselves more often,” she said. 

“It was nothing,” he said. 

“It was something to me.” 

He considered her as he started on the third cookie. 

“Anyway, I already took lunch. I’ve got to get back to the shop,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. 

She had her hand on the door when he spoke up again. 

“Why that Shrew play, anyway? Why not Juliet?”

She turned back and looked at him, thoroughly confused. She had no idea how he knew about one of her dearest and closest ambitions.

He noticed her puzzlement and clarified. “You said your dream was to star in that Shrew play. Why? Why not Romeo and Juliet?”

“I don’t remember telling you that,” she said, feeling abashed

“Well, don’t get bent out of shape about it, I was just asking,” he said, a little defensively. 

“No, I’m not bent out of shape, I’m surprised,” she said, as she faced him. “I don’t remember saying that. I’m afraid of what else I, uh, might have said that night.” She cringed to think of what else might have come out of her mouth. “I hope I didn’t beg you for a break or anything.”

He regarded her with a calm expression. “You didn’t. I’d still like to know, though.”

“Well, Kate has a mind of her own. She wants to control her own fate. Marriage isn’t for her,” she said, conscious of how clumsy her words were. “She’s fun to play. Romeo and Juliet is a little boring.”

In truth, it was Katherine’s spirit which she loved, the rebellion against her father and Petruchio, and hang the end of the play. In her experience, the audience never remembered the end of the play, only the beginning and middle where Katherine was at her most defiant and fiery. 

Buster nodded, elbow on the table and finger sliding absently under his lip. The silence stretched on for long enough that Nelly said, “Anyway, I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks for the cookies,” Buster said.

Note: It’s easy when writing a fiction about Buster Keaton to cast Natalie Talmadge as a villain. I prefer to listen to Buster’s granddaughter Melissa Talmadge Cox who points out that the divorce is ancient history and that fans should get over it! Even though I’m writing a story that is obviously canon divergent, I always remember that Buster lived happily ever after with Eleanor Norris Keaton and considered himself to have had a lucky life with very few dark spots. Why did Natalie put a end to her sex life with the gorgeous, winsome Buster Keaton? I think the likeliest explanation is that she just wasn’t attracted to him or simply didn’t like sex. I do think Buster really loved her too and wanted things to work out, which is why their marriage lasted as long as it did. I’ve tried to convey that with this story. Also, I’m with Natalie. Trying to travel hours on a train with two young rambunctious boys sounds like a nightmare, even with a governess.  And yes, the Keaton governess was also named Connie, not to be confused with Constance “Connie” Talmadge, who was also frequently called Dutch. Finally, with a lot of digging through newspapers I learned that the date Buster broke his nose was July 30th, 1927! So the first scene takes place on the 31st. The second occurs on Wednesday, August 3rd.

[corvixa]

I have this thing, that when an idea gets in my head, I either get it out on paper or it will create a traffic jam in my head and bugger up everything. So, not including my ongoing Fics, which includes the Gold Universe as part 4 is still nearly finished, I just need that last push on it. These are Ideas that can have anything from a few scenes, an idea, plots, or several chapters.

So I call this -

Winteriron WIP

(because what else 😅, I have a problem.)

In Fire & Flames - In this universe, Phoenixes and Humans live together, if one species dies then the other will too. When a Phoenix does for good, lots of natural disasters happen, starts with Tony'parents dying and then Rhodey, who is also a Phoenix, finds Tony. Who is now familyless and dying as lone phoenixes tend to die. There are several different kinds, and they come in pairs general. Golden and Ice, for example, Golden are high in magic, Ice tends to protect, especially the rare Golden, it's more tribes than individuals, there is no requirement for who likes who. It's surprising how much making a few other Avengers phoenixes tweaks things here and there, this actually goes up to the fight in Siberia and is one of the bigger WIP's. (26k)

Flash of Gold - Avengers are shifters or humans with magic, and they think they know what Tony is. They believe he is a human with magic, but they notice that he has some shifter traits, which is odd as shifters can't have magic in this AU. Only in very old stories and myth. Tony, however, is a dragon, which are myth. Instead of being like most shifters a, a human that shifts to something, he is the reverse. It only has a few scenes. Full shebang, team as Family. Steve is even a good guy. James is brought to the tower after being found and slowly integrated into the group and is wondering wtf Tony is. (13k)

The Operative Program - Howard was never meant to be a father; he was a weaponsmith. So he took the red room and the wolf spider programs and decided to create himself an Operative that he hoped would be the darker side to help Steve when he found him. Two sides of the same coin, one for the light and one to work in the shadows, Tony would be under Steve's control, he would be a weapon for the man who only picked up a shield. (Also assassin Tony is just fun.) Tony in this is a mash-up really, Tony traits, like Gold but different as he has been trained his entire life, the only reason he has developed a sense of self is Rhodey and the fact his parents died at 17. Rhodey got there first after the car crash, getting to Tony before anyone else who knew what he was could potentially claim him. Tony definitely collects people. Yinsen and Vanko for example. Chapters from Ironman up to Avengers (not complete). But enjoyed myself rewriting some out of sequence chapters, so there is a nice big scene in Siberia. (15k)

Another Persons Wish - Now this was based on a post I saw going around. Person A is married to Person B. Person A is looking back at their life and wondering if they should have married B, etc. So, A is offered a wish. Poof. Goodbye Marriage. Person A is Steve, and the story is from Tony, person B's POV. It goes from Tony planning his anniversary(because I was apparently extremely angsty when I started this!) to waking up in the past, alone and wondering what the fuck has happened. 6 chapters entirely written. Chapter 7 is in a different file and in progress when I dabble on it. (30k)

Tarnished Gold - This is an AU from my AU AU XD. Basically similar set up to the Gold Universe, Tony escapes Hydra Captivity but is brought in by Rhodey instead of spending 2 years on his own cleaning up Hydra. He only spends about 7 months before Rhodey convinces him to come in. Few other tweaks here and there but that is just side. Rhodey and James are pals too. The plot here is Howard and Maria are brought back from the Dead and Rhodey is trying to work out how to tell them what has happened and that he can't just bring them to Tony, because he doesn't know if Tony will remember them yet. Tony is a little less 'give me orders, and I'll gut you, and more 'orders made things easier'. I basically flipped his and James reactions from the original Gold universe. Tony is more in need of a hug. It's very loosely put together. I wanted something where Howard was a good dad to offset the fact I kind of made him Hydra in the next piece, and I wanted a good family man Howard with the bringing the parents back because I love reading fics that bring Howard and Maria back. (9k)

Sins of The Father - Arno has just buried his father. His mother is in a coma, he is 20 and mourning his life now he's expected to take on the business when a visitor flips his work upside down worse than the phone call about the crash. His Father? Part of a program that summoned a creature known as a Void Walker. (A creature from the Void Loki fell into, the only native species to that area, most others can't survive the void, so Loki will read as Void Touched and is 'To Be Protected' because I think that could shake up the Avengers section nicely.) Oh and he has Howards DNA. So Arno is freaked that he has a brother, that someone released and sent to him and Arno is 100% sure he is not meant to deal with severe traumatised half-human assassins that could be his kid brother. That is how Arno meets Tony and becomes very invested and turns up big brother protective instinct to 13. When summoned they're tired to a person and has to obey orders, that person was chosen as The Asset under the idea he can't disobey, which obviously fails as Winter does everything to protect Tony, including freeing him and sending him to Arno. His last order is that Tony is not allowed to go looking for or rescue Winter, which I think will be some nice drama when Bucky gets brought in (I really like this one) It has mostly set up but 2 scenes for in the future, Tony finding Coulson threatening Arno in IM2 and the data dump. (21k) (in this S/S Helped is Yelped, I'd fix it, but I've been working on this post forreeever)

Blood and an Arc - This came about from reading the Tony is a vampire fic and noticing that when he gets turned, generally Tony hates being a vampire. There aren't many where he comes back from Afghanistan a vampire and goes, huh... Well. This could be interesting. Loosely based on Vamp the Masquerade but I've tweaked it because my brain takes ideas and then runs off madly into the sunset. It is however utterly all over the place, some from Ironman and then random out of sequence chapters that I'm unsure about as I hadn't slept in a very long time on writing them and Tony went kind of Spike-ish calling James 'Pet'. I do like the idea of Tony fully embracing his changes. Yinsen never intended Tony to live, so he did something extra whilst turning him, so he is not an ordinary baby vampire and is convinced (justifiably so) that if he meets any other vamps, they'll try to kill him. In notes have Sam considering being a werewolf who works out Tony is a vamp and freaks out, because Vampires vs Werewolves and Tony is utterly confused and tells Sam he smells of mint (seriously, insomnia) Sam is baffled to find out the centuries of hatred that is claimed to be instinctual is actually taught. Sam gets kind happy he has a Vamp friend. (20k)

The Original Plan - This sets up around the end of the Mandarin (because honestly, I prefer working with Tony that has powered, especially because James has the serum and I personally think it would expand life span more than shown in Endgame. So I like evening things out and powered Tony is my jam) Tony has a bunch of plans, and they go awry. He doesn't see why and has zero clue what's going on. It's because no matter how well he plans this out, he's caught up in other people's plans. Steve is a little more "End goal justify the anything and everything." In other words, getting Bucky back is his plan and everyone are just pawns in said plan. I've taken that tactical genius title and also pushed him a little darker. After Ultron, he brings Wanda on for 3 reasons. 1 Precedence. 2 Fixing Bucky. 3 Making sure Tony doesn't find out about his parents and making sure he is on the team and available to fix Bucky's arm. That last bit changes things as instead of pulling away from the Avengers, Tony fully moves into the compound(just after AOU, it's not good). There will be no accords and Steve will find Bucky and just move him in and general plans on telling no one about the Winter Soldier. I summed up a chunk of AOU in this format, and I liked it (in an angst and pain fashion.) But it's quite long for a screenshot, so here's a chunk. Bucky is being brought in soon, but as it is, Tony is not having a good time, there might be Wanda conditions in his mind that Steve can use to convince Tony to do things... Also, because he is living there, I couldn't justify Sam not noticing there is something very wrong, so he is asking questions he didn't in canon as Tony's PTSD is more in his face living together you know? (16k)

[slut-kiss-g1rl]

geostorm <3

FADE IN:

INT. COURTROOM

GERARD BUTLER is at a COURT HEARING... in the FUTURE!

GERARD BUTLER

It is the future. Natural disasters have become alarmingly commonplace. Hurricanes, mudslides, floods, you name it. The level of destruction is catastrophic.

RICHARD SCHIFF

To be clear, this is the FUTURE you’re talking about?

GERARD BUTLER

The nations of the world have finally decided to take action. So, pooling our resources, we’ve invested heavily in environmental research and clean energy, and cracked down heavily on industrial emissions standards-

(laughs and laughs and laughs)

Just kidding! We’ve built a giant orbital platform that shoots the bad weather with space missiles and space lasers, of course.

RICHARD SCHIFF

So you’re the genius who built the space station. But instead of just making you the chief engineer, which would make sense, we made you director of the whole multi-national program, despite the fact that you have no administrative skills or political experience and mostly get what you want by yelling at people and punching them in the face?

GERARD BUTLER

That’s correct, you useless government fucks. You can all lick my sweaty gonads.

(moons everybody)

RICHARD SCHIFF

You’re fired and we’re giving your job to your little brother Jim Sturgess. At least he can do a passable American accent.

GERARD BUTLER

Och, ye dinnae hae ta be a deck abote et!

INT. SPACE STATION

Engineer RICHARD REGAN PAUL is aboard the WEATHER STATION when he notices that somebody has stuck a SMARTPHONE on an important CIRCUITBOARD.

RICHARD REGAN PAUL

Oh crap, somebody’s sabotaging this hundred-trillion-dollar space program using consumer electronics! I better draw everybody’s attention to this and alert my superiors!

(falls down and hits head very hard)

Duhhhh I mean I should hide this evidence and tell nobody yessss.

He stashes the EVIDENCE, but shortly afterwards the CORRIDOR he’s walking through is SEALED and all the WALL PANELS START BLASTING OFF!

RICHARD REGAN PAUL

What the fuck? Why would we design them to be able to do that? What possible situation could arise in a space station when we’d need to get rid of the WALLS in a hurry? This makes no-

(spaced)

The SPACE STATION then proceeds to turn a bunch of VILLAGERS in AFGHANISTAN into SNOWMEN.

INT. WHITE HOUSE

JIM STURGESS is having a meeting with the movie’s entire supply of Oscar-nominated actors.

JIM STURGESS

So yeah, we kind of murdered a bunch of innocent people with a giant ice ray like Mr. Freeze, oops. We need to send up an international team of brilliant engineers to the space station to investigate what went wrong, despite the fact that there’s already an international team of brilliant engineers ON the space station.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ANDY GARCIA

No way, Jim. As the president, I can’t have foreigners touch this station which has been funded and staffed predominately by foreigners! We’ll send up Americans.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ED HARRIS

ONE American. I mean if we’re going to half-ass this thing, let’s half-ass it, y’know?

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE MARE WINNINGHAM

I am also in this scene for some reason.

JIM STURGESS

Ugh fine, let’s send up Gerard. It’ll take some doing though, he and I haven’t really gotten along in the vague amount of time since you gave me his job. Seriously, the timeline is super nebulous, it could have been anything between a week and five years.

ED HARRIS

I have faith you can convince him, Jim. As your father figure and mentor, you know I support you in everything, and if you ever need somebody you can implicitly trust-

JIM STURGESS

We get it, you’re the villain, whoop-de-doo.

(leaves)

EXT. LOSER SHACK

JIM goes out to see GERARD, who is hanging with his DAUGHTER.

JIM STURGESS

Hey bro, the space laser’s been acting up. Think you could pop up to space real quick and fix it? Thanks.

GERARD’S DAUGHTER

Dad, no! You can’t go back to space! It’s too dangerous! Don’t abandon me like this!

GERARD BUTLER

OH GOD NOT THIS FUCKING TROPE. Yeah, parents should never do work that takes them away from their families for any amount of time or puts themselves at risk, no matter how important it is. I’m a shitty father because I’m agreeing to go save hundreds of millions of lives, possibly including yours. Shut the fuck up, you little turd.

GERARD immediately storms off and goes to SPACE.

EXT. HONG KONG

Suddenly the movie remembers the CHINESE BOX OFFICE and cuts to HONG KONG, where DANIEL WU is heading home with some SHOPPING.

DANIEL WU

(looks around)

Aw fuck. A famous capital city in a disaster movie? This isn’t gonna end well.

Sure enough he drops some EGGS on the ground and they immediately begin to FRY!

DANIEL WU

Holy shit the ground is apparently as hot as a stovetop! You’d think this is something the people in the street would have noticed, but uh, I guess all our shoes are made entirely of thermally nonconductive silica fibreglass?

(jumps in car, speeds off)

And our tires too, don’t forget our tires!

DANIEL drives through the streets as the pavement CRACKS and FIRE erupts out of the SUPERHEATED PAVEMENT!

DANIEL WU

Damn, the space station must have done that! Not that we ever explain how geothermal energy could possibly be controlled by space lasers!

INT. SPACE STATION

GERARD arrives aboard the SPACE STATION to meet the team of ENGINEERS.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Welcome, Gerard! I am an asshole. A smug, unlikeable asshole. The exact kind of jerk you’d think would turn out to be the saboteur. Which is kind of awkward, because I DO turn out to be the saboteur.

AMR WAKED

It’s okay, I’ll cover for you by red herringing as hard as humanly possible in every scene I’m in.

(lurks sinisterly)

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Meanwhile I’m the station’s commander. I exist to be your sort-of love interest with whom you never get beyond meaningful eye contact, and to make you seem hypercompetent by standing around uselessly while you do everything important.

GERARD BUTLER

Okay then, now that everybody’s in position let’s get this 2012-but-with-weather/Gravity-except-stupid-and-with-more-explosions hybrid on the road! Bring on the barrage of gratuitous global annihilation!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Actually there’s nowhere near as much of that kind of thing as the trailers promised. But if you like scenes where someone stares at tiny gobbledegook on a computer screen and explains what plot points it discloses, we’ve got a buttload of that!

GERARD BUTLER

(puppy dog eyes)

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Oh fine, here’s one to tide you over.

EXT. TOKYO

Giant hail in Tokyo!

INT. SPACE STATION

GERARD BUTLER

Ta! Now let’s look at that satellite that fried Hong Kong.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Uh, oops, unfortunately that malfunctioning satellite got smashed beyond usefulness because the hydraulic arm which was holding it malfunctioned!

GERARD BUTLER

Fine then, let’s look at the surveillance footage from when Richard Regan Paul got spaced.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Um well we can’t see the footage of that wall malfunction because the footage has also malfunctioned.

GERARD BUTLER

Wait though, there’s still a useable recording in a leftover bit of wall that got stuck in a solar array panel! Let’s go for a spacewalk and get it.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Sure thing WHUH OH while you’re trying to retrieve that malfunctioning bit of wall, your space suit has malfunctioned!

GERARD BUTLER

(bouncing off every part of the space station)

HEY YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M STARTING TO THINK THAT MAAAAYBE THERE’S JUST A SMIDGE OF SABOTAGE GOING ON.

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Damnit! Turns out that by the time you’re committing sabotage to cover up your sabotage to cover up your sabotage to cover up your sabotage, it starts to get kinda obvious what you’re doing.

(pause)

Nnnnnot that I have anything to do with that. Right, Amr?

AMR WAKED

(hovers creepily at the edge of frame)

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Exactly.

GERARD retrieves the DATA from the WALL FRAGMENT, but finds that he can’t ACCESS IT.

GERARD BUTLER

Oh crap, only a high-level government official could have restricted the data like this! That means that SOMEBODY extremely high-ranking is behind all this, but we don’t know who!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

It’s Ed Harris. Everybody has figured this out already.

GERARD BUTLER

I have to tell Jim about this. But they might have bugged our comms, and my message may be intercepted by whoever the traitor is.

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

It is quite obviously Ed Harris.

GERARD BUTLER

I better use a code.

(calls Jim)

Hey there, Jim! Just thought I’d stop in the middle of this deadly crisis to randomly reminisce. SOMEtimes I think about that old WHITE porch we used to have at our HOUSE, where our pathetic inbred ASSHOLE of a father used to get FUCKED up on tequila and whale on US with a wrench. Glad that’s all OVER.

JIM STURGESS

A high-ranking government traitor? Why that could only be-

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

ED HARRIS, IT’S ED HARRIS YOU IDIOTS, THERE'S NO OTHER REASON FOR HIS CHARACTER TO EXIST

JIM STURGESS

-the president! America is soon scheduled to hand control of the space station over to an international committee. The president must be causing these disasters in order to retain control!

GERARD BUTLER

Right. Because after a fuckup of this magnitude, obviously the last thing people will want to do is remove the administrators responsible for killing everybody.

JIM STURGESS

And he’s not gonna stop with these penny-ante special effect showcases, either! He’s trying to chain a bunch of them together and bring on a geostorm!

GERARD BUTLER

You mean the tiny, ugly-ass sports compact from Isuzu?

JIM STURGESS

Not a Geo Storm, a GEOSTORM! A made-up, probably impossible meteorological phenomenon where it storms everywhere on the planet at once! According to our computers, this precise sequence of weather disasters - including the ones which the space station hasn’t caused yet - will lead to a geostorm in EXACTLY the nice, round timeframe of ninety minutes!!

GERARD BUTLER

Fuck! Fine then, let’s do an emergency shutdown of the station so it can’t frag the planet. This potentially apocalyptic orbital weapons platform DOES have an emergency off switch, right?

JIM STURGESS

Well, yes... but, ha ha, it turns out it can only be activated using the president’s biometrics. So if the most dangerous thing ever made malfunctions, it can only be stopped if you can get the president into the right specific room quickly enough.

(shrugs awkwardly)

Fortunately, I have been provided with a convenient secret service girlfriend who can grab the president for us!

ABBIE CORNISH

Okay then, I’ll-

JIM STURGESS

Plot devices don’t speak, honey.

ABBIE CORNISH

Then why does this movie have any dialogue at all?

INT. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

JIM and ABBIE go to find PRESIDENT ANDY at the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION in ORLANDO. But first they run into ED HARRIS.

JIM STURGESS

Ed, thank god I ran into somebody I can trust! We need to grab the president so we can shut down this Bond villain-esque weather scheme.

ED HARRIS

Uh, okay. I have the president right here in this gun. Stand still so that I might fire him at you.

JIM STURGESS

Wha - YOU?! EVIL?!? DWAAAHHH?!?!?

ED HARRIS

Don’t patronize me. Anyway, part of my plan is to set off a giant lightning storm here and kill everybody in line of succession ahead of me, so I become president!

JIM STURGESS

Are you fucking kidding me? We’ve gone to the trouble of pointing out it’s an election year! Do you honestly expect an administration that ran an environmental program so badly that it KILLED THEM ALL to get reelected?

JIM and ABBIE grab ANDY and run for it! Then a fuckton of LIGHTNING starts DESTROYING THE DNC!

BYSTANDER

Man, those Russian hackers have really stepped up their game.

(incinerated)

ABBIE CORNISH

Quickly, we can get away using this SELF-DRIVING cab we just commandeered! Since I’m driving it there might seem to be no reason for us to point out that it’s a SELF-DRIVING cab, so I guess now the audience has already figured out we’re shortly going to be pulling some trick where it SELF-DRIVES. We’ll still act like we’re being clever, though.

ED HARRIS

Chase that cab, my suicidally dedicated minions! Meanwhile I will teleport to the road ahead of them, so I can set up a rocket launcher ambush! Nothing screams “accidental death” like getting blown up by a fucking rocket launcher. FIRE!

MINION

Uh, you sure you don’t want to wait until we can see who’s driving? Disregarding any possible self-driving tricks, cabs are pretty interchangeable and that could in fact be entirely the wrong car-

ED HARRIS

I SAID FIRE!

They BLOW UP THE CAB! But then ANDY appears and shoves a GUN in ED’S FACE.

ANDY GARCIA

That’s right, we sent the empty cab driving towards you at sixty miles an hour! And now here we are, having caught up to it on foot within the next twenty seconds. My legs are KILLING ME.

ED HARRIS

Come on Andy, you should still let the geostorm happen! My theory is that the massive catastrophe which is going to demolish the face of the planet will handily attack only our political enemies and we’ll be fine!

ANDY GARCIA

Goddamn, how is it that each new layer of your motivations is even dumber than the last?

EXT. EVERYWHERE

Meanwhile DIRECTOR DEAN DEVLIN looks under the COUCH and finally finds the movie’s MISSING DISASTER EFFECTS, and they all start happening at once! Ice storms in Rio! Fire storms in Moscow! Tsunamis in the desert!

GERARD BUTLER

Opposite weather, is it? In that case I’m guessing London is currently having a pleasant sunny day HEY-OOOHHH!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

But we’re not doing so great here in space either. Somebody’s set off our self-destruct system, and the station’s gonna explode in [amount of time left in which the geostorm can still be averted + just enough time for a thrilling escape]!

GERARD BUTLER

Wait a minute, according some kind of plot mumbo jumbo, the only one who could have started the self-destruct protocol is... ROBERT! You little traitor, you’re working for Ed!

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Okay okay, you’ve got me, but SURPRISE I had a gun strapped to the underside of this desk and now you haven’t got me at all, HA!

GERARD BUTLER

What was your plan if I’d confronted you in literally any other room?

ROBERT SHEEHAN

Clearly I must have guns strapped underneath every surface in the entire space station.

(opens fire)

Aw yeah, no better strategy for staying alive than shooting bullets in a room which is separated from the vacuum of space by a single pane of-

ROBERT accidentally SPACES HIMSELF! The movie does not reveal whether, in his last moments of consciousness, RICHARD’S FROZEN, ORBITING CORPSE happens to collide FOOT-FIRST with ROBERT’S CROTCH, so one is forced to assume that it DOES.

INT. SPACE STATION STOPPING ROOM

Back on EARTH, ANDY arrives in the ROOM he has to be in so that he can turn off the SPACE STATION.

ANDY GARCIA

All right, we did it! I just used my biometrics to activate the thing, so now the world is saved! Right?

JIM STURGESS

Actually Gerard still has to get to another specific room on the station itself and press a big “YES” button for it to actually work.

ANDY GARCIA

OF COURSE. What was I thinking, we can’t let this emergency shutdown be activated merely by having the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FUCKING STATES TURN IT ON WITH HIS OWN SPECIAL BODY SCAN. No, we need the extra, mega-secure step of having some engineer click “confirm”!

JIM STURGESS

Look, we wanted to do the president kidnapping scene but still give Gerard a big action climax, this was the only way.

In SPACE, GERARD and ALEXANDRA make it to the SPECIAL ROOM, shut down the SPACE STATION and SAVE THE WORLD!

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Phew, and with one second left to go! That’s right, because we turned off the weather machine when we did all the bad weather instantly cleared up; but if it had gone on for even one more second it would have become a global superstorm which would have wiped out most of humanity. What a sensible premise!

GERARD BUTLER

Unfortunately while we were able to get everybody else off the station, there’s no time left for you and I to escape. But I knew this when I stayed behind. I may not have been a good father, but I hope my daughter can at least appreciate the sacrifice I made by dying in space in order to save-

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Are you seriously copying Bruce Willis’s death from Armageddon?

GERARD BUTLER

Oh FUCK you’re right. Screw it, let’s just jump in a spare satellite and fly to safety then.

ALEXANDRA MARIA LARA

Hooray! I’m not even gonna ask why a weather satellite has room inside it for passengers!

They HOP ABOARD the SPACE EX MACHINA and fly away!

EXT. LOSER SHACK

Months later, GERARD, JIM and GERARD’S ANNOYING DAUGHTER are all hanging out and fishing.

GERARD BUTLER

Neat, our family’s come un-estranged! What a happy ending. Why if we keep the focus on stuff like this, and the fact that in Brazil the dog didn’t die, we can ignore the fact that millions of people just got horribly murdered!

JIM STURGESS

And the rebuilt space station is now in international hands as intended, and they’re gonna make sure none of this can ever-

GERARD BUTLER

Wait, what the fuck? They’re doing the space station again? After the last one turned out to be a city-destroying death ray which could be commandeered by a single nerd with a smartphone? That’s the least plausible ending this movie could have possibly had!

JIM STURGESS

Uh huh. Yeah, I’m sure in real life politicians the world over would instead start seriously committing themselves to environmental policy. Hmmm?

GERARD BUTLER

...Okay yeah this way’s more realistic.

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

>:(

[derl30]

ALTERED STATES REVIEW TIME!

OK, this tumblr is, today, a vehicle for me to review ALTERED STATES. And you (the one person who stumbled on this review two-hundred years from n- oh who am I kidding, when the aliens from A.I. who show up to thaw out Haley Joel Osment and the teddy bear who was the real hero of that movie find this) should be very excited about this. Because this movie is insane. And highly entertaining.

Yes, the movie poster looks like ass. If I told you this was a movie where William Hurt (not the William Hurt from that awful 90's Lost in Space remake, or the one who slept through an entire performance as Duke Leto in the Syfy miniseries of Dune. This is before the body snatchers got him) took ayahuasca and got in a isolation tank and it blew his mind so hard he started devolving into a neanderthal and creating dimensional portals and he couldn't stop because he was addicted to finding the truth of existence... Well you wouldn't get that from this poster, would you? So let's move on. Shall we?

The film opens in 1967 with William Hurt's character, psychopathologist Edward Jessup, already immersed in a sensory deprivation tank, whilst his colleague and “buddy” Bob Balaban (he's just Bob Balaban in everything I'm not giving you his character's name look it up yourself if it's bugging you so much) oversees.

Now, you may notice I put buddy in quotes. The reason for that is that Jessup is a self-obsessed ass who seemingly has no reason to be around other people unless he can expound to them one of his various monologues. Bob Balaban barely gets a word in edgewise throughout the entire film. Bob Balaban.

See, Jessup loves the sensory deprivation tank experience. Unsurprisingly, as it allows him to be completely alone with himself for hours.

Later, at perhaps the lamest party ever, a bunch of faculty are chilling out and listening to the Doors. Everyone we see is talking about Jessup. Why? Well, much as Jessup is obsessed with himself, everyone else seems to follow suit by being obsessed with him. One young woman, Emily, (Blair Brown) is introduced to him in this very shot below as he arrives at the party:

Notice how is framed in holy light? There is a closeup after, of him framed in blinding glowing light followed up with a zoom in on Emily's face, enraptured with this incredible dynamic man. So much so that the moment he tries to make a goddamn sandwich she starts grabbing his celery (get your mind out of the gutter) and flirting with him. Which for these two that means talking science, immediately. Talking more at each other than with each other. This is often the way with Paddy Chayefsky's scripts.

PAUSE

Paddy Chayefsky is doubtless one of the great American writers for the screen. He wrote Marty, The Hospital and Network (which is a fucking incredible piece of work). He got an Oscar for all three. He also wrote this movie (Altered States, remember? Good lord) and disowned it completely three weeks in to production. His scripts tend to have very intelligent, driven characters at the center, who monologue extensively at each other. These scripts are not attempting to sound naturalistic.

Ken Russell, however, directed the film. He, like Chayefsky, is top notch at what he does (Direct. I said he directed the film like a second ago, come on keep up). His films, like Women in Love, The Devils, (which was banned in several major countries upon release and has never been shown publicly in its full, uncut form (by the way it's a masterpiece)) the Who's Tommy, Gothic, and Lair of the White Worm are all fucking gonzo nuts. I mean like, when you gave this guy the reins, you were going to Overthetopsville and there will be no stops on this trip. And god bless! I love directors who GO for it!

You're getting the chance to make a movie. Stop hemming and hawing and hit me over the head with what you want to say! Film is a visual medium, USE IT!

I feel I might have made my feelings clear here. So, moving on...

Ken Russell and Paddy Chayefsky immediately started butting heads, right from the start. Chayefsky was a BIG deal, and he wanted control over the picture in a BIG way. Ken would listen to his suggestions on everything to lighting and set dressing, and politely tell him, “No.”, and continue being the director of the film. Chayefsky hated him pretty quickly.

He had much more control over films like The Hospital. Which, if you watch The Hospital, well, it shows. You've got great actors (George C. Scott, Dame Diana Rigg (Dame may be the greatest official title of all time)) saying great dialogue. But its just two very witty bitter people sort of expounding on topics and speaking at each other and suddenly admitting they are in love and discussing what drapes they will have to buy for their new home. It's utterly preposterous, and it doesn't work in the way Sidney Lumet got it to work in Network, by literally making one of the lead characters realize his life is turning into a ludicrous soap opera.

So of course Ken tried to humanize, naturalize, the dialogue sequences. And it works! The film feels more human than the Hospital or Network. Despite the fact that Jessup is literally becoming more and more inhuman throughout the film. One of the ways he does this is by having the character's eat, drink, and work on other things during the dialogue sequences. This is perfectly normal in film, it's called giving the actor “business” to do, during the scene. Chayefsky HATED this. “They are mumbling my precious dialogue! Chewing through it! Sucking it through a straw!” Sorry, Chayefsky buddy. It works for the picture. Chayefsky also felt the actors were too emotional with his dialogue. Right. See, they call that acting.

UNPAUSE

Which brings us back to the first meeting of Emily and Jessup at the party. They are eating during this important scene! I can just picture Chayefsky seeing this, and running to the studio brass to tattle and get Ken Russell fired (as he got Arthur Penn of Bonnie and Clyde fame fired before Ken Russell came on board).

Emily and Jessup are, true to Chayefsky form, extremely intelligent, driven people and hearing them discuss topics such as anthropology and schizophrenia is quite interesting. It's just that what is to come, film being a visual medium, will eclipse just about any dialogue, no matter how good, from our mind thingys.

The two give up on the science talk and go straight to banging on her couch. After, she asks what he was thinking about. His answer is priceless. “God. Jesus. Crucifixions.”

She smiles.

Bwahahaha! Oh Paddy Chayefsky, you sure know women.

He admits he used to have religious visions. She listens to him from the sweaty couch whilst he sits naked on the floor, and starts going on about his father's horrible death of cancer and his loss of faith. And he admits to her that he's a nut. Her response is to call him a fascinating bastard. I think Lucas may have taken notes for Padme and Anakin.

So naturally, they get married immediately.

But none of that matters because Jessup gets back in the sensory deprivation tank and has his first vision. A nightmare of his dying father and lost faith in christianity. It's pretty great, filled with foreboding hospital rooms, his father's face being covered in a burning Shroud of Turin, everything covered by horrible blood red clouds and then THIS FUCKING THING SHOWS UP AND ITS ALIVE AND WRIGGLING

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

excuse me...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The many-eyed goat is slaughtered over a gold bible and suddenly Jessups screwing Emily again and we enter a blood vessel looking thing and the vision ends and he never mentions this again. Oh. Okay,

Emily continues on about what a nut Jessup is as they make marriage plans. Her monologue:

“You're an unmitigated madman. You don't have to tell me how weird you are. I know how weird you are. I'm the girl in your bed the past two months. Even sex is a mystical experience for you. You carry on like a flagellant... Which can be very nice, but I sometimes wonder if it's me that's being made love to. I feel like I'm being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of receiving God. (Emphasis mine)

"And you are a Faust-freak Eddie! You'd sell your soul to find the great truth. Well, human life doesn't have great truths. We're born in doubt. We spend our lives persuading ourselves we're alive. And one way we do that is we love each other, like I love you. I can't imagine living without you. So let's get married, and if it turns out to be a disaster, it'll be a disaster.”

It's a disaster.

As in, by the next scene. It starts off happy enough looking, they have kids and people are smiling. And hey, wow it's seven years later! But, well, see, whoops, they are getting a divorce. Well, not they. See, he is divorcing her because he considers the seven years with her a complete waste.

She still loves him, desperately. He doesn't give a shit about her or the kids. He tells Bob Balaban this, straight up. And then starts bugging him about deprivation tanks and Hinchi Indians in South America who have sacred mushrooms that can really fuck you up.

It's at this point you would like for Jessup to be hit by a Mack truck. But the movie continues on. By the way, this is one of the kids he doesn't give a crap about:

That's right. Drew Barrymore's first role is a kid that William Hurt doesn't give a shit about. Something that William Hurt would make a career out of with narcoleptic performances in Lost in Space and Syfy's Dune. So, Emily takes the kids to Africa for her anthropology work while Jessup goes to South America to go deeper into his own creepy mind.

The Hinchi Indians agree to allow him to participate in the drug ritual. They enter their holy cave.

This shot is beautiful. At this point the film becomes increasingly gorgeous. Ken Russell has started to go into overdrive, ladies and gentlemen. Buckle. Your. Seatbelts.

The Indians grab Jessup's hand and cut him, freaking him out. They pour his blood into the drug mixture. They begin to drink. Then he takes a sip. The intensity of the film here has quadrupled. The vision begins, fireworks going off all around him. He sees cave paintings of humans and komodo dragons and this:

The proper life he left behind with Emily. He's convulsing, sweating. The Indians are all around, masked. Snakes. He's laughing in pain. Energy spills from the void. A snake under the parasol strikes and begins to strangle him. He and Emily march toward a nuclear explosion as energy pours from the cut on his hand, becoming a lizard. From within a sandstorm, Emily watches him, naked. Jessup looks at her, entranced, as the soothing sands cover them both, slowly.

It's a beautiful sequence. A perfect film sequence. I can't overstate how strong the vision sequences are from this point forward. Great visual effects work and the madman mind of Ken Russell create something unforgettable, with it's own pace, independent from the rest of the film.

Jessup awakens with a komodo dragon laying before him, ripped to pieces. The Indians and the others all claim he killed it in rage. Jessup remembers nothing, takes samples of the drug to reproduce it, and goes back home.

Back home, Jessup keeps doing as much of the drug as he can and having Bob Balaban record results. They can't up the dosage any more so Jessup hops back in to the self deprivation tank to create a more extreme experience.

In his next session, Jessup states he is having a vision of early man, hunting a deer and killing it. Suddenly he states he is one of them, killing the deer. He begins to grunt like an animal. The two pull him out. He's incredibly pale, blood seeping out of his mouth. He can't speak, and has difficulty breathing. He insists they do an X-ray. It shows that there is a vocalizing lump in the front part of his throat. Jessup claims that his body had begun to revert to a simian state. The medical doctor agrees, stating the throat X-rays looks like that of a gorilla.

Luckily his throat returns to normal. So Jessup finishes up his day by having over a student of his and sleeping with her.

Our hero, people!

At this point we hardly feel sorry for him as his body suddenly begins to twist and bulge in the middle of the night, shifting in and out of neanderthal shapes. It's a horrific sequence, disturbing as hell. You certainly didn't expect the film to shift into body horror.

Jessup feels normal after a while. but sees visions of lava explosions, the birthing of the Earth all around him. Not a good sign.

He goes to pick up Emily from the airport the next day. She asks how he is doing.

“Oh, fine.”

Yeah right.

Emily has been told what Jessup has been doing and is worried, which of course pisses off Jessup even more. The guy is obviously obsessed with reaching the truth and root of existence, much as Emily surmised earlier, and we see he has no fear of even losing his own soul, again true to her word. The only thing that allows us to give a shit about him at this point is that Emily cares for him and she's decent people, okay?

So back Jessup goes into the tank with his ayahuasca or whatever it is. Alone. The tank door opens from the inside.

The hand that pushes it open is covered in thick hair. He's devolved.

Ape-Jessup escapes the tank room and chases a janitor around the building. Again, this scene is fucking freaky as hell. We can't get a good look at this screaming animal that was Jessup.

The janitor gets a guard to help and chases after him into the boiler room, where we finally get a good look at him when he assaults the security guard and escapes.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ape-Jessup runs through the city at night, making his way to the zoo where he kills a antelope and eats it. The Ape-Jessup sequence goes on way too long, but is nonetheless unforgettable. The makeup is much more convincing than the above picture suggests, and whoever performed Ape-Jessup did an admirable job.

The cops find an unconscious Jessup in the zoo and bring him in. Emily picks him up and questions him. Jessup admits everything that he can remember. He also admits that he probably killed that security guard. And once again doesn't seem to give a shit. Prick. He calls it the most supremely satisfying time of his life.

Even Emily seems disgusted with him. But, she's also fascinated with what he's accomplished. As an anthropologist, his transformation fascinates her. And so, she agrees to help oversee his next session. Big mistake.

Before the big session Emily and Jessup romantically reconnect, and then into the climactic session we go!

Get your popcorn ready!

After a few hours in to the session, the video monitor shows Jessup begin to literally melt apart like goo, reverting to primordial ooze, the very beginning of existence. An attempt to open the isolation tank doors blasts everyone unconscious, as light and energy pour forth. Emily is the only one left. She sees Jessup's life energy pulse from within the tank.

Rain pours down around them. The pipes on the walls twist and turn like jelly. The ground is covered with a pool of swirling fog and energy. Emily advances toward the vortex of the tank.

In the emptiness of the beginning of everything, Emily seizes the energy before her and reconstitutes Jessup.

They take him home. While he sleeps, Emily rages over the fact that she loves such a insane bastard, and can't get over him. And, then, after Bob Balaban leaves, leaving Emily alone, Jessup wakes up.

He sweetly admits that the truth he learned was that there was no learnable truth, just unknowable horror, and all that's real is human experience. And he'll be a good boy from now on. Well too bad!

Because that horrible truth isn't done with him, and it's back to goo-Jessup! Emily tries to help him, grabbing him, but this in turn effects her, turning her into a shimmering lava form of herself. Both of them begin to self-destruct as Jessup, enraged, watching her in pain, struggles to retake his humanity, slamming himself into the wall, reforming himself through sheer will and physicality. He grabs her and brings her back, mirroring what she did for him during the final session. They embrace naked in the hallway. He finally admits, “I love you, Emily.”

Fade to credits.

Awww true love!

What can I say to sum up? Awesome 80's practical effects. Genius wacko go-for-it Ken Russell directing. Out of this world vision sequences. A awake and actually remarkable performance from William Hurt. An occasionally turgid but often fascinating script by the ever ornery Paddy Chayefsky. Whats not to like?

Well, the ending is a little rushed. The ape sequence goes on for a little too long and takes up perhaps too much of the films overall running time. The central love story is, well... a little hard to swallow, but hey, I guess there really is somebody out there for everyone. Even self-absorbed, deadbeat, cheating, sensory deprivation loving, ayahuasca dropping, Harvard teachers with a messiah complex!

And on that note, aliens from A.I. Artifical Intelligence, have a good day, and don't leave poor Teddy alone with no one to keep him company!

Sayonara!

[yasuda-yoshiya]

Opinions on Ciconia Phase 1!

All is in the name of guiding humanity down the right path...

This should be obvious, but there will be plenty of spoilers below, so please don’t read if you haven’t finished the game yet!

While I was reading, I felt like I had a bit of an up and down relationship with Ciconia. I felt really excited and impressed by the first few hours of the game - the setup of the intro with the whole military propaganda was intriguing and effective, Miyao and Jayden's dynamic was immediately super endearing and adorable, and the whole plot with Meow and her date with Jayden had me absolutely bursting with joy! I still can't quite process how happy I am that Ryukishi committed so hard to "gender weirdness" as a permanent WTC fixture here and that Yasu's story absolutely wasn't a one-off at all, and the whole framing of the plot was so heartfelt and sincere and sympathetic - Meow's gender ambiguity and her relationship with Jayden is completely accepted and celebrated by both the narrative and the entire cast, and the whole situation is framed as something totally sweet and wholesome without a single joke at their expense. Meow herself was incredibly cute, and Jayden's initial surprised reaction to her and his whole phase of overenthusiastically trying too hard to be accepting with Miyao about it in a way that ended up making him uncomfortable ("Yeah, I have a female alter, but I'm still ME, just treat me the same way you always did!") hit the perfect spot of how an awkward but totally well-meaning person really would react in that kind of situation - on the whole, I was and still am delighted that Ryukishi went so far with this!

I can definitely understand people having reservations about some of the specifics of the execution, and there are definitely valid concerns to be had with some of the CPP stuff to be sure - but at least for me personally, just the broader picture that Ryukishi chose to spend so much time having his characters explicitly working through and talking over gender issues in such an unambiguously accepting and humanising way made me so happy; I hadn't remotely anticipated that from Ciconia at all, but I genuinely felt that he did it with a lot of heart and the dynamic between Miyao/Meow and Jayden is still probably my favourite part of the VN overall! (And I also really appreciate that Miyao and Jayden were still definitely framed as being extremely flirty and gay as hell even after Meow entered the picture, since I was afraid we might end up losing that part of their dynamic at first! But no, Jayden's really obviously super in love with both of them and it's adorable.)

Unfortunately, after the very strong opening, I kind of felt a bit let down by the next ten hours or so running so hard into PLOT PLOT PLOT, with Meow almost completely disappearing for no obvious reason and the emotional core that had been originally set up being basically dropped for a lot of RGD-style political intrigue and mysterious apocalypse cults that I felt weren't really given enough context for me to get particularly invested in. It felt to me like there was a very long stretch where the plot basically amounted to a series of increasingly large-scale disasters interspersed with very samey and insubstantial discussions between Miyao and the other faction leaders about how powerless they are and agonising over whether there's anything they can do; since the whole plot takes place on such a macro scale and doesn't really take much time to meaningfully develop the faction leaders as individuals all that much beyond their basic personalities being likable on a surface level, it felt to me like the whole big series of incidents and disasters weren't really fleshed out enough or given the personal and emotional grounding for them to be individually interesting, so it all just sort of blurred together and started to feel kind of tedious.

So, around that point I was feeling more than a little disappointed by Ciconia! And yet... somehow, by the end, I felt like it genuinely did manage to gradually win me over, and the whole ending sequence hit me really hard in a way that I honestly hadn't expected it to. While I do still feel like that whole aforementioned section definitely could have been handled better and not been so dragged out (even just interspersing some of the cute character stuff from the postgame tips would have helped break it up a bit... which I kind of strongly suspect was originally the intent ala Higurashi, and I'm not really sure why they didn't go through with it), after a while I found I was genuinely won over by just how sincere and determined Miyao and the other kids were to avoid fighting each other and to find a peaceful solution, even with all the obstacles in their way. (I think I specifically remember the part where Miyao took over the COU newbie kette's gauntlets to help them intercept his own missiles where I found myself getting genuinely emotional and realising that, huh, I guess I really do care about these kids and this plot after all!)

It's funny, for a long time I felt kind of bemused - from a storytelling perspective - by just how solid the alliance between the kids was and how it totally lasted to the end. There were a whole bunch of incidents like the issue with the ABN/ACR conflict over the crop supplies that I was sort of expecting to lead to the group inevitably falling apart from distrust or suspicion or paranoia in the typical WTC fashion... but they never did! At first I was genuinely confused - like, you have the perfect setup to finally set up some conflict here and let things start to get interesting, Ryukishi! Why are you just sticking with the status quo! - but after a while, I sort of got the feeling that that was kind of the point; that these kids really did earnestly believe in each other and respected each other's common humanity and *did not want* to fight under any circumstances, and how tragic it was that even with their resolve being that strong and lasting through all those rough moments, that they ultimately weren't given any choice in the end. I felt that the game genuinely did sell me on the idea that the image of them all holding hands and chatting with each other to the end in the public bath VR room was their "real selves" - that that really was their true nature, and that those were their true feelings, that ultimately said much more about them as people and meant so much more than the arbitrarily tragic road they ended up being forced to go down entirely against their will.

I think I was kind of thrown for a loop with Ciconia because I generally expect Ryukishi's stories to follow a trajectory where the characters gradually reveal their flaws and their inner "ugliness" as the story goes on (albeit generally in a way that's still very sympathetic and humanising, of course) - but while that did sort of happen at the end here with things like Chloe and Aysha’s turnarounds (and may well happen some more in the future given that we know there were traitors in the order), in this case I honestly felt like the purpose of the story was more about bringing out the kids' inner goodness. They really were good kids! None of this was their fault! They really deserved better! And while I think I normally wouldn't be all that into a story with that kind of straightforward message (you know, me generally being a cynical loveless husk and all), in this case specifically I felt like Ryukishi really managed to convey that specific sort of feeling of loyalty and connectedness and breaking down of boundaries that comes from Internet friendships in a surprisingly touching way.

And I think in that context, even the fact that we don't ever get to see the different factions getting to know each other all that well or forming any particularly deep connections or relationships with each other beyond their political solidarity... also sort of works, honestly? Even just that very casual kind of connection, of these kids just screwing around in an improvised chatroom with a dumb name and babbling at each other about things that don't even particularly matter, the kind of interaction we've all probably experienced at some time without even thinking all that deeply about it - even just that is enough for those kids to meaningfully connect with and humanise each other, to understand on a deep level that the kids from the other factions are basically the same as them, and to want to value their common humanity over everything else. Even something that simple is enough for these kids who don't even know each other all that well to form a strong sense of solidarity that lasts through a hell of a lot of difficult times that could easily have driven them apart - to form a sense of loyalty and shared understanding with each other that feels more real and matters so much more to them than any arbitrary national loyalty possibly could. Maybe I'm just being overly sentimental, but I honestly think that message is kind of beautiful, in its way.

It also feels very relevant to me in... I guess, capturing that unique contemporary feeling of being a young person in the current political climate, and that frustration of the Internet generation being the most interconnected and least bound by national boundaries that we've ever been, and yet being forced to watch mostly powerlessly as the people in power push more and more towards stupid narrow-minded nationalism and xenophobia at a time when humanity most needs to unite against serious existential threats to the planet? So I think in that particular political context, I honestly ended up feeling really moved by just how unambiguously compassionate and sympathetic the narrative was towards these kids - that Ryukishi ended up so firmly deciding to emphasise their "goodness" and how real and precious their bonds were with each other, over anything else. It's not really the kind of story I expected from WTC, but I was legitimately touched by how much the kids' feelings around the bonds they made over the Internet being more "real" than their material reality were treated as being so totally valid - like, yes, the idea of the factory future is treated as a viscerally disturbing one, but the narrative also completely holds up the feelings that led the kids to idealise that future as 100% legit, with genuine emotional truth behind them! It doesn't feel dismissive or patronising at all, and it honestly did give me a bit of that same feeling I got from Umineko and Yasu's story from EP7 in the sense of that totally accepting and non-judgmental message of... "Even if some aspects of what you feel might be ugly, even if some people might be disturbed by you idealising something like that - it's okay to feel that way. Your pain matters. The things that led you to feel this way, to see the horror of a future like that and still long for it on some level, are completely valid. You're seen. You're understood."

And that's honestly come to feel genuinely precious to me as I've had time to reflect on Ciconia and the response it inspired in me; that it did make me feel "seen" in some deep way, maybe on a broader generational level rather than on an intimately personal one like Umineko did, but that still has a lot of value to me too. Ciconia feels very different from Umineko or Higurashi, but it's really got a lot of heart, and I personally felt in the end that the earnestness and overwhelming good nature of the intention behind it was enough for me to forgive any awkwardness in the execution. (Ryukishi is such a good guy! I love him!) So, all in all, I really appreciated Ciconia, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing where it goes from here!

[ayankun]

Ok, if you haven’t already (I say this to be polite, I know you haven’t) go put your eyes on this episode synopsis first.  Why?  Because it’s a good time.  But mostly because I want you to be tangentially familiar with certain topics so I can better explain what happened to my brain while watching this one.

oh, right, this post is a synopsis of the VR Troopers episode 2x13 “Kaitlin Through the Looking Glass” btw

4

3

2

1

WE

ARE

V

R

Now that you’ve got this far, here’s some housekeeping before we start:

I watched this show sporadically as a kid and have very fond memories of it “being better than Power Rangers” but really didn’t know anything about it at the time.  I am watching it as an adult partly due to nostalgia but mostly because I genuinely enjoy it.  Not necessarily because of the reasons they intended, but, you know.

As an adult, with a different understanding of the world than when I was seven, I willfully misconstrue the main characters as being in a polyamorous relationship.  OT3 baybee

On a similar tangent, Ryan “Trooper TRANSform” Steele is obviously trans.  (transgent??)

Hell, maybe they all are.  The more the merrier amirite.

They all call the Professor “Puhfessor,” so I will, too.

Still with me?  Let’s begin.

(first up, though, the title sequence is over a minute long, when really they only needed like, maybe 15 seconds to get the point across.  there is also a ton of footage used that portrays events that never occur and also the song is not catchy enough to warrant any of this and I love it)

So in Ryan’s flashback intro, he muses about how, as a kid, he felt the need to prove himself.  He expresses this to his dad by asking when he’ll get a black belt, and his dad is a good supportive dad who tells him:

“It’s not the belt that’s important, son,”

Ryan’s dad says trans rights.

Ryan’s VO goes on to say "My dad taught me that it’s not outward appearances that really count, and that was an important lesson that would come in handy time and time again.”

Ryan really loves memories of his dad.

Which I think is a sweet lesson to learn when you’re young and other youngs (and olds) are going to give you crap about how you look, but it’s also hilariously phrased considering how superficial the concept of “outward appearances” is to this episode.

So we jump into things down at the ... Voice Underground Daily idk what the newspaper is called, I’m just trying to read the sign on the wall tbh.  We’re at Kaitlin’s place of business, and Woody (I think his name is Woody LOLOL how many episodes have I seen) shows Kaitlin this front page article which appears to have the headline:

ZIKTOR DEFEATED AT CITY HALL -- NO TOXIC WASTE DUMPING AT CROSS WORLD PARK

Ok, a couple of things.

Kaitlin and Percy are just ... chilling out at the copy machine like they’re friends and this is where the cool kids hang out.

Which can’t possibly be true because the actual cool kids are there in the back, just reading newspapers like Actual Cool Kids do.

They’re an indie paper, right?  How can they afford to print headlines that verbose?  ... Or full color glossy, for that matter

THEY ACCIDENTALLY PLAYED THIS LIKE THEY WERE EXCITED ABOUT THE NEWS ITSELF AND NOT ABOUT KAITLIN DOING A GOOD JOB ON AN IMPORTANT FRONT PAGE PIECE

Environmentalism was No Joke in kids’ media in the 90s.  I specifically remember learning the word “toxic” from a Power Rangers episode where Billy tested the lake water.  I literally had to look it up.

and they say you can’t learn nuffink from tv

Anyway, part of the excitement is that this article is the follow up to an expose of Ziktor, also authored by Kaitlin, which inspired the city officials to veto his waste-dumping proposal.  So we’re proud of Kaitlin for doing a good job at journalism and for protecting the world!

JB does what JB does best and attempts to arrange a date.

The line is, “Hey, let’s celebrate!  With lunch!  At Hamburger Hutch” but I guess someone at Netflix got lazy for a second.

I forgot to mention, in my HC he’s our token ace (as my favorites often are), so he tends to go overboard with the romance.  You don’t have to compensate for anything, JB!

Kaitlin appreciates the gesture.

But then Woody interjects and I let my adult sense of humor get the better of me...

come on, the man’s name is Woody I can’t be the only one with my mind in the gutter can I

Also the line is “I don’t want you boys filling up my star reporter” so what am I supposed to thINK

--WITH JUNK FOOD.  Dodged an FCC bullet there.

So I just now gave it 2 seconds thought and the discrepancies with the subtitles probably have something to do with the expectation that children would be watching this show and can’t read that fast.  BOY DO I NOT FIT THE DEMOGRAPHIC

Ok well.

Where Woody’s going with this is that he wants to impose a health shake on Kaitlin for godknowswhy.  But it’s all good because as he todders off to get started on what will surely be a monstrosity, we get this ADORABLE moment where Kaitlin tries to get JB to come to her rescue.

She just runs up and grabs him.  I’m all a-flutter.

But JB is of no help.  Instead, he calls dibs on her fries.

There’s a weird, under-baked joke going on here that seems to be rooted in the idea that if one is dieting then others benefit from this self-sacrifice by gleefully picking up the slack?  Anyway Kaitlin’s not on a diet?  This vitamin shake angle literally came out of nowhere?  Is against her will???

Just one burger, please.  Protein style :<

et tu, Jeb??

Anyway, this weird exchange just passes the time to get Woody all set up.  He turns on the blender and THE WHOLE WORLD STARTS SHAKING. 

Percy runs over to be the hero, demanding Woody turn the blender off, while everyone else just rumbles around looking distraught and not practicing anything resembling safe earthquake response.  Percy manages to get a hold of the blender, lifting it off the counter, and -- you guessed it -- the lid comes off and purreed-carrot-baby-food-looking goop gets all over his nerdy white button up.

The shaking stops.  Percy’s very proud of himself (and disdainful of the others who didn’t come to his heroic conclusion).  End scene.

I’ll be real.  At this juncture, literally thought that the blender HAD caused a natural disaster, and it was just a wacky 90s gag that went on for far too long.

More on this story as it develops.  We’re moving on.

How many cities in the world do you think have ominous buildings in them that aren’t secret headquarters for supervillains?

Our good buddy Karl Ziktor is reading -- wait for it -- Kaitlin’s article.  It has a headline so long they had to dedicate the full front page for it.  I’m pretty sure that’s not how newspapers are commonly formatted.

That is literally just a couple of newspaper clippings taped to a big piece of paper.

Oh he’s mad.  He tells Juliet all about his evil plan for revenge, which is to “steal her virtual image and create a second Kaitlin Starr [that serves him]”.

Same, Juliet.

Off that yikes, a henchwoman comes in to appraise Ziktor of the status of phase one, which is underway.  A so-called Stingbot is “in the basement of the Underground Voice” so that’s what the paper’s name is, anyway.

Anyway so Stingbot was the one responsible for the earlier tremors.  And, yeah, I mean I know they were new cobbling stories together from old footage, but What The Hell do “sting” and “earthquake” and “outward appearances” have in common?

And that is how a Stingbot do.

My question is partially answered, in that Stingbot’s earthquakes are a distraction so that some skugs can plant the “Virtual Mirror Transmitter” on Kaitlin, which is the nefarious device that will create the aforementioned Kaitlin-2.  Bold of him to assume that just because Kaitlin’s a woman that she 1) carries a purse 2) stores a mini pink mirror in the purse 3) will look at herself in the mirror unprovoked.

It’s such a wildly twentieth-century concept.  Here in good ol’ 2020, I, for one, have not looked in a mirror in months.

Ugh more gross than this use of outdated stereotypes is this weird tongue thing Ziktor does while almost literally salivating after his upcoming revenge.  You’ll have to go see it for yourself, I’m not going to watch it again to cap it.

(This guy gives his 200% to this role, though.  What a legend. RIP Gardner Baldwin)

So Ziktor blue-skadoos into his virtual stronghold and gets an update from his generals.  There’s this new guy that I’ve already also forgotten the name, and since he has a human face, there’s a lot of awkward cuts between him and his Japanese counterpart in the footage that’s already ten years old at the time.  It probably looked great.  I was an adult before I found out that Rita Repulsa was the original Japanese actress in the original dubbed Japanese footage.

Anyway, he looks great.

I think I read that for season 2 they had access to and/or recreated the costumes used in/matching the source material, so there’s a noticeable uptick in cool-looking sets with American actors wearing cool-looking costumes, like this one.

You said it.

That’s about it for this scene, but before we go to commercials, Grimlord says this nonsense:  “I will destroy Kaitlin Starr with the one weapon she cannot defend against -- herself.”

Confirmed: Kaitlin is a deadlier weapon than, say, a homing missile.  (she can defend herself from those)

Ok we’re back at the Underground Voice and there’s still an earthquake going on.  Also, and let me tell you this with a large amount of regret of my life-choices, I’ve been sitting here for just about two hours and we are only five minutes into the episode (and that includes the minute long opening credits.)

Let’s roll!

JB gets off the phone with who knows who, having learned that there’s no earthquake registering anywhere, it’s a localized mysterious incident.  Ryan recommends they clear the building “just to be safe.”  My boy, why wasn’t that everyone’s first thought?  Are they really just standing around waiting to be told?  We had drills for this for a reason!

(Actually, I’m not sure where Cross World City is located.  Maybe they’re not on a fault line and do not actually do drills)

In any case, there’s a brief PSA where Woody wants to collect his valuables to take with him, and everyone has to inform him that that’s ill-advised behavior in an evacuation scenario.

He responds in classic Woody nonsense, by putting on a captain’s hat and insisting he’ll go down with his ship.  AND OUR BOY JB SAYS

He’s still thinking about that date.

LOOK.  There’s no rule that says asexuals can’t make dirty jokes.  Because we can and do.  Let me have this.

So our heroes herd everyone out of the building and then stay behind to call the Puhfessor.  Just as they get him on the computer, the earthquake stops. 

It’s not all good news, though.  The Puhfessor taps into some kind of impossible CC feed and they watch Stingbot undermining the structural integrity of the building.  Stingbot, by the way, has one of those creepy child laughs that is insane.  It’s so good.

Ryan decides to check out the basement himself while Kaitlin and JB keep everyone else outside.  He finds some creepy janitors down there, and they head on up like creeps normal janitors.

Maybe they were just hotboxing down there.

Stingbot’s also in the basement!  Who knows what he was doing down there, because

Murder hornet, colorized, 2020

Which is a weird thing to say until you remember the slight, throwaway “yummy!” he says earlier while drilling into the building.  I had forgotten it in the 40 seconds it took for me to get from that moment to here.

Ryan insults Stingbot’s outward appearance, which is odd because I thought he learned that lesson as a kid.  Either way, it’s time to

WE ARE V R

Only to spend about half a second on recycled footage just to have Stingbot go “lol, later loser.”  Because those perfectly normal janitors are upstairs swapping Kaitlin’s purse mirror with the evil thing.

Can you imagine trying to pull a stunt like this today?

Outside, things have calmed down enough that JB thinks Ryan’s got it under control.  He’s gonna go back in “to see if the building’s safe enough to reenter.”  I know he knows it’s not a real earthquake, but also I don’t think I’d trust a non-professional to assess my office’s structural integrity.

Kaitlin’s going to join him, which causes Percy to pipe up, Pavlovianly ... just to chicken out and stay put.  GOOD JOB PERCY.  USING YOUR HEAD FOR ONCE I SEE.

(kids, don’t volunteer to check that a building is safe after an incident where its safety may be in question.  it is not cowardly to leave it to Someone Who Knows What They’re Doing)

So JB and Kaitlin come back in to find the Normal Janitors shadily stealing a floppy disk from Kaitlin’s desk.  (kids, a floppy disk is a real object that looks a lot like the “save” icon)   BUT OF COURSE THEY’RE SKUGS SO JB AND KAITLIN HAVE TO THROW DOWN.

Let’s just say there’s a good thing they have an earthquake to blame all this property damage on.

JB’s a little snippy.

All he wanted was to go to lunch with his girlfriend and boyfriend.

The gold skugs do their fusion dance thing and turn into the oni-mask skug variant, which I’m assuming is a constraint of these later episodes where they used footage from a show that did not have the gold ones in.

FLIRTY BATTLEFIELD BANTER UGH I SHIP IT

Once that’s handled, we find out what Ryan’s been up to in the basement by himself this whole time.

Um.  I’m not touching that one with a 10-foot ... wait.

Ohhhh

Ryan heads back up and swaps notes with JB and Kaitlin.  Stingbot said that its work was done, so what exactly was it trying to accomplish?  Ryan then runs from there outside to check on everyone else.

Kaitlin then decides she needs to freshen up, which is something I don’t recall her ever needing or wanting to do after any other natural disaster/fight portrayed on this show.

But look how cute they are with their mutual post-fight shoulder-pat.  JB even gives her this cute little look as she darts off.  He is smitten.

He is smote.

Kaitlin gets her mirror out of her purse, as planned, and checks herself out.  You know.  Like how woman do.

She gets it.

This is it!  Grimlord’s chance to strike!  He will have his revenge, Juliet, just you wait!

for great justice

We are treated to a brief bit of delightful 80s Japanese sci-fi, all flashing lights and chonky beep boop buttons.  It works!  A tastefully gendered laser light shoots out of Kaitlin’s mirror and STEALS HER FACE OFF HER FACE

FACE/OFF

The experience seems highly unpleasant, but she’s mostly ok...

But wait, who’s this ...

It’s not really the Mirror Universe unless someone gets a goatee.

Kaitlin’s freaked out, but we don’t have time to see her process what it was that just happened.  More beep boop 80s lights (seizure warning much), and the virtual replica Kaitlin is 3D printed in Grimlord’s lair.

lol he’s got a play date

So this Kaitlin is the same exact person as real Kaitlin, with one major difference.

So this got dark, right?  This is different from that time they cloned Ryan, because that was just a DNA clone man baby with evil sunglasses; this is actually Kaitlin, the person, just with some programming differences, who’s gonna go back out there and hurt her boys herself.

Needless to say, Grimlord is delighted.

Check out that disgruntled wall snake, tho.  “I thought I was your lovely child”

Now Grimlord’s plan is to send Kaitlin into the wild with a device called the “fissicator” which is a “sTUn ray!!” (you have to hear him say it, it’s so good) as well as a thing that will reprogram the Trooper’s “contact disk.”

I didn’t mention it earlier, but that’s the disk that the janitors skugs were trying to steal, and it was also how Kaitlin called up the Puhfessor on her work computer.  I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen it before and we never see it again.  It’s Not A Thing.

So Kaitlin goes to Tao’s, where Ryan’s just chilling there by himself.  I guess everyone was okay after the earthquake, then.  (It is unclear how much time has passed)  Maybe it’s been hundreds of years, because Ryan acts like he’s not sure who she is.

Wait, hold on.  I did NOT pay close enough attention the first time, but -- either it’s much later the same day and/or they missed a scene.  They’re still wearing the same clothes ... and Ryan says he thought she was heading (back?) to the paper ... and then she says ....

Ryan.exe has stopped executing

Wait so WHAT.  What workout.  We have not been to Tao’s yet this episode.  ???

It’s really just a ruse to get Ryan to fight her, though.  But also.  Why need ruse?  Evil clone?  Just attack tho, right?

But also no NO.  DONT attack.  We’ve already seen JB be beat up by his evil clone boyfriend.  It’s rough.  (spoiler alert, this one’s gonna be rough, too)

So Ryan tries to let her down easy by saying he doesn’t have time -- and I can’t tell with this video quality, but I don’t think he’s wearing a watch but he does the “look at wrist” technique and it’s p good.

Kaitlin-2 refuses to be let down easy.

Them’s fightin words

Ryan ends up splayed out on the desk but seriously, now is not the time.

He rightfully wants to know what’s up, but she keeps taunting him to fight her.  She takes the first shot, which he dodges and blocks before disengaging.  Remember, kids, just because somebody picks a fight with you doesn’t mean you don’t have any other options!

She won’t stop coming for him, though, so he gets her arms pinned so he can try talking her down again. 

This technique backfires.

no more mr nice kaitlin

So in the other clone episode, this scene was staged in a room full of people, and even though JB was blindsided, he and Ryan are ostensibly evenly matched.  It wasn’t nice for JB, but at least someone was there to break up the fight.

This time though, Ryan’s been gently if firmly trying to diffuse a confusing situation where someone without his training is behaving irrationally and is going to get both of them hurt.  So far his attempts to de-escalate have failed, and there is no deus ex intervention incoming.

AND THEN she goes and plays the superpowers card on him.  Black belt or no, the whole point of having the Trooper alter ego is that they come with amazingly OP combat powers capable of defeating all manner of monsters.

And Kaitlin, a very very very dear close friend has just walked up out of nowhere and dropped a nuke on him.

Okay, so she throws him over a table, it’s the principle of the thing.

This overkill maneuver knocks him out cold.  She lifts Ryan’s Trooper communicator (so he can’t call for help when he comes to -- omg this is so chilling) and then uses the fissicator to call Grimlord for further instructions.

Gotta catch ‘em all

New Kaitlin, who dis?

So he now wants her to steal the disk, reprogram the disk, and use the reprogrammed disk to break all the Trooper computer stuff.  She reads his order back like

Close enough, I guess.

She gleefully moves on to her next task, leaving a helpless Ryan struggling and failing to regain consciousness.  :<<<<<<<

At the paper, real Kaitlin gets a message from JB on her little Trooper video phone and secretly Trooper TRANSforms out of there from inside the darkroom.  This was the point where I realized they had different ones!  Hers and JB’s are red and white, while Ryan’s (that just got stole) is red/blue.

Also, you can just see under all those crayons, but that’s the “contact disk” that Kaitlin-2 is coming for.  (how many crayons does a professional journalist need, anyhow?)

So there’s a joke in there were Percy sees Kaitlin go into the darkroom and then Kaitlin-2 walks in, and then also when he checks the darkroom, it’s empty.

Oh, so that means Kaitlin-2 successfully steals the contact disk, btw.

Back at Tao’s, Ryan has woken up and some how his backpack has, like, crawled down to see if he’s okay?  Which is helpful because that’s how he is able to quickly identify that on top of assault, there’s been a robbery.

I hope she doesn’t delete my save files

And this was the moment (right now, doing the caps) that I realized the little phones are called VRVTs!

But seriously, imagine being knocked out cold by a loved one, with no reason, no hint at an explanation, and not only has she left you for dead, she’s taken your phone so you can’t call for help.  He has no idea that she’s an evil clone!!!!  This is a real tragedy of a thing.  A gutting betrayal.

It looks like Ryan has his own contact disk, tho?  And he uses this on Tao’s PC to call up the Puhfessor.

spelled it rong

Just as a note, this subtitle comes up WAY too soon, so for a couple of frames it just looks like some kind of meme.  A++

 Ryan starts to relate his traumatic experience to the Puhfessor, but luckily he’s cut off with the good news that his “sensors” somehow correctly identify Ryan’s assailant as Kaitlin’s virtual double.

geez, you guys, look at how Ryan deflates hearing this.  I mean, it’s not great that he was probably concussed, but it’s a relief that his world still makes some kind of sense.

poor bb

Also, you can’t tell as much here, but there’s a really subtle punch in as the moment progresses, bringing us closer and making the moment more intimate as he grapples with this new information.  There’s a lot of dumb half-assed stuff in this show, but I gotta call attention to the stuff that is excellent for any era.

Also it’s so efficient from a time-management perspective.  Just look at the opening shot, which was a medium type establishing shot so you can picture Ryan in the space, but the PC’s right there for both the viewer and Ryan to reach.  Then we slowly zoom in, which serves double duty in that it provides the appropriate emotional impact, and at the end we’re on a nice close up of Ryan as he jumps into action.  Three shots with just one set up (and probably done in one take, with room to splice the PC shots in)!  I’m very pleased with this.

Down to brass tacks

The Puhfessor ominously tells him that they have their own troubles and we go straight from there into some source footage of them fighting some skugs and what I think is General Ivar.

After about three seconds of that, we cut back to the lab, where Ryan busts in on Kaitlin-2 just as she’s hacking up a storm.

im in ur base, haxxoring ur mainframez

Kaitlin-2 shows him the contact disk, which is now “encoded with a self-destruct program” that she’s going to use to overheat the lab’s power core and destroy like all the things.  Ryan is noticeably concerned, but Kaitlin-2 points the fissicator at him to get him to stay in line.

Ok ok ok ok so here’s where we get to the point where, when I watched this today, I fully turned away from whatever it was I was doing to go wwwwwwwwwwwwtf

Kaitlin-2 has a disk that will blow up the lab -- and there’s nothing Ryan can do to stop her--

huh

bruh what are you

bro srsly what

is happening

You’re trying to tell me that Ryan “killed his own clone with no ragrets” Steele is trying to make an emotional appeal to this clone in order to undermine her sense of purpose?

...did she ever think that Grimlord cared about her?  As a person?  I feel like that wasn’t in the contract when she was 3D printed with the sole purpose of serving her dark master, and she shouldn’t have any emotional reaction to this assumed expectation being challenged.

And .... did they ... did they read my other post?  The one about wanting to keep the clone around ..... ??????

what is happening right now

Ryan leans hard into this “embrace your humanity” tactic and has the Puhfessor show them a live feed of JB and Kaitlin’s fight.

“...She sure could use our help...”

wait for it

When she balks, he gives her one last over the top inspirational blurb that despite of whatever it was Grimlord did to her, she’s still the same (good) person as Kaitlin.

It starts to sink it.

(also just check out these sweet eyelines, you can tell that the screen they’re watching is slightly to his left,  sort of behind her to her right, which makes sense!)

He keeps at it.

Looks like it’s working?  She starts to reconsider her whole existence ...

...considers Kaitlin’s ...

... moment of truth ...

And it works!

BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE YOU GUYS

“NOW GO HELP HER” RYAN COMMANDS

AND

OMG

CLONE KAITLIN-2 IS ALL

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess, I mean, obviously Ryan’s evil clone did that whole thing where he stole Ryan’s virtualizer and started flying the Skybase, so if this Kaitlin is the same as the other Kaitlin then obviously she’d be able to do this, too.

But like!  She was the main villain until like four seconds ago, somebody who did Ryan dirty.  Just another of Grimlord’s nefarious tools of warfare.  And Ryan, a man who’s killed his own clone before, who took a beating from her only hours prior, is suddenly the bigger man who is capable of seeing past all that in order to turn an agent of his enemy.  And to go do his job, no less!

This has never happened before.  This show’s always been kill or be killed.  There’s a good reason for this, and we’ll get to that in one moment.

But I like to think Ryan learned from his mistake.  He didn’t even try to to connect to his evil clone.  He just got beat up and went back for revenge.  (I’m looking back at my caps for that episode, and it seems it was the Puhfessor’s idea to kill the evil clone, and maybe there was a MacGuffin reason why it was The Only Way, I forget.)  Maybe he thought long and hard about the repercussions of his actions -- maybe he thought that, had he been able to better understand his evil self, that maybe that shadow version of him would have liked to have been given the benefit of the doubt?

At the end of the day, I can think whatever I want.  But why we never get any other reformed villains until now is only because

It’s almost like they recycled footage from a different show(s) and just had to roll with the punches.

So then JB and the Kaitlins fight some skugs and there’s a big explosion and a lot of jumping.  JB and Kaitlin get caught up with the SparkNotes version of who tf extra Kaitlin is and then they fight Stingbot, teleport to a quarry, you know, all the everyday stuff.

Back at the lab, Ryan’s feverishly trying to undo Kaitlin-2′s handiwork and keep the core from melting down.  Can he do i-- well yes.  He can and he does do it.  Then he TROOPER TRANSFORMs away and ... flies off to fight ... some jets ... I guess? 

pew pew pew

In the quarry, JB is going toe to toe with Stingbot.  Stingbot has some cute little wasp drones that electrocute everyone.  They’re having a good time out there.

it’s super effective

Ryan shoots some more jets ... JB dislodges his wasp and slices one off a Kaitlin with a sword ... the third one just .. pops off on its own *shrug*

Stingbot shoots some acid (oh he did that before, too, in the basement, but it was irrelevant) which evaporates a boulder ... Kaitlin goes back to her battlefield quips but they’re not nearly as flirty as the last time ...

JB gets out his lightsaber and GOES TO TOWN on the remaining bad guys.  That thing makes the BEST wvungwvungwvung sounds, just btw.

And that’s it!

Almost.

Grimlord spends his obligatory seven seconds ruing the day he ever met a VR Trooper and swearing revenge.

ya it’s called being a parent

Turns out he still hopes that the two Kaitlins will destroy each other!  Very optimistic guy, our Grimlord.

Back at ol’ HQ, JB and the Kaitlins stroll in and explain the sitch to Jeb.  Kaitlin-2 seems fully reformed!

yee gurrl

But oh-hoho, does the Puhfessor HATE clones.

buzzkill, emphasis on kill

So it turns out, and I quote, “two Kaitlins cannot exist in the same reality.”  I guess technically she’s not a clone, but a virtual double from the mirrorverse/VR land, so that kind of makes some sort of sense.  This dimension is too small for the both of you!

The stakes are that if the two Kaitlins are not rejoined within 24 hours, both Kaitlins will byte the dust. 

Oh no!!

This was the point where, having a pretty good internal clock as well as a refined sense of story structure, I literally smirked at the screen thinking “soooooooo what.  you have like two minutes left and you’re gonna fix it in time for the credits.  overdramatic stakes are overdramatic.”

AND

THEN

THE

KICKER

OH-HOHO

I WAS

SO WRONG

SAME THO?1

:D

[ashleyspinelliburnbook]

S1E12: The Voice/Kids in the Mist

Have you all ever seen the show The Voice? Because I sure haven’t, but now it’s the only thing I think of when I see those words together, even in the context of Recess. (I’ve heard a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise watch are now turning to it in quarantine, though. The Voice, I mean, not Recess. Though maybe those people will diversify their “voice” shows after reading this!)

The Voice

Ah, yes, the era where young millennials learned who Robert Goulet was! (Just in time to get attached for just under 10 years and be saddened by his death in 2007. Yes, I sure am speaking from personal experience.)

But before we get back to Goulet, there’s a plot to this episode!

The school is outside celebrating Martin Van Buren’s birthday (well, I assume it’s the president, though they just said “Van Buren”), and it’s time for the national anthem. TJ and the gang don’t seem to be a fan of the kid, Brandon, who’s singing it, but they’re in luck — he swallows a bee while singing and is going to be out of the game for a few months. The entire student body cheers, because who needs the national anthem, anyway?

Well, turns out Principal Prickly does. He and Miss Finster are distraught trying to figure out who can sing at the PTA Spring Fling, which needs a national anthem for some reason. (Maybe PTA in the Recess universe stands for “Parents, Teachers, America”? Who’s to say?)

Suddenly, they hear...the voice! They track down the beautiful singing they hear to the bathroom, and see that it’s our pal Mikey! After he’s reluctant to sing just for Prickly and Finster back in the principal’s office, they enlist the help of a teacher at Spiro Agnew Middle School (of course) who “can make any kid sing.”

But Mikey isn’t so sure about that, telling the gang that anyone can sing in the bathroom! (The alone time, the acoustics? It checks out.) But then the music teacher Miss Salamone shows up, and it turns out she’s young and cute, so off Mikey goes to compulsory singing lessons.

Miss Salamone tells Mikey that “singing is the most natural thing in the world...it’s like breathing, but for the soul,” which reels him in RIGHT away, but he still insists that he can only sing in the bathroom. Luckily, Miss Salamone has come prepared with a guitar, so they go into the bathroom — and what do you know? It works! Somehow they get a piano in there, and between bathroom lessons, Mikey sings the likes of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Ave Maria,” and “Little Brown Jug.”

The next day, Miss Salamone — in the music room, but flanked by toilets and sinks — asks Mikey to sing blindfolded to visualize the chords. But as he sings, people come in to take away all the bathroom stuff, and when he takes the blindfold off...he’s cured! Miss Salamone is so proud, she kisses Mikey on the cheek.

Mikey tells the gang that he never thought he was good at anything, and credits his newfound success to Miss Salamone (who, let’s be real, has only really tricked him into singing in a non-bathroom place because that’s why Principal Prickly brought her here). But then...he says that he and Miss Salamone love each other.

Gus is grossed out — “She’s old, really old, she’s gotta be at least 24!” he cries — so Mikey sets out to prove their love for one another. But when he gets to the music room, Miss Salamone is BEING PROPOSED TO by her boyfriend Antonio, who, she tells Mikey, sings opera for royal Hungarian cruise lines (is that all supposed to be a proper noun? Royal Hungarian? Either way, oof).

A very upset Mikey runs off, and the next day, no one can find him! He’s supposed to sing at what looks like a school assembly that the superintendent will attend (what happened to the PTA thing?), and they need a national anthem singer. Miss Salamone tracks down Mikey and coaxes him to come back by telling him that he’s her favorite student.

But Mikey won’t sing the national anthem, he tells the student body. “Something important’s happened,” he says, “and well, I think the nation will forgive me.”

He sings “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” because he says he can understand it now. (It’s an African American spiritual, Mikey; no you can’t.) But everyone cheers, and Miss Salamone wishes Mikey a caring “See you in middle school” as she disappears out the door.

Takeaway: I like when Mikey is good at things, especially since he’s good at a lot of things that I like. Also: awwww, teacher crushes. Aww.

Kids in the Mist

Well, everyone, there’s an expert in child psychology on campus! Dr. Quilty has three degrees from “various Ivy League schools” and has written “half a dozen books, two of which were nearly published.” But most importantly, she’s never interacted with students in the field (don’t worry, that’s not the last weird brush with academia in this episode), so she wants Principal Prickly to give her and her grad students access to his students. You know, so she can study them. Like Jane Goodall and the chimps. (This episode title is probably based on Gorilllas in the Mist, right?)

Prickly is hesitant until Dr. Quilty tells him he’ll be interviewed as an expert for the video presentation she’s putting together, and then he’s right on board, of course. (Anything for that job at Spiro Agnew Middle School that is just perpetually open, I guess.)

Dr. Quilty tries to set up a hidden camera (which her grad students are operating), and then tries to blend in with the kids with a hearty “Wassup, homies? Mind if I hang with your posse?” She tries a number of different things to catch the kids on camera, like camouflaging herself as part of the jungle gym and as some grass. Shockingly, neither option leads to any data.

(Equally shockingly, her grad students quit because they’re not being paid. Which is weird, because Dr. Quilty said she had funding for this endeavor. All too real, huh?)

Anyway, this whole time, Dr. Quilty has been getting caught by students at every turn. As if, you know, a full adult trying to fit in with a bunch of kids, none of whose classes she has recently joined as a new student, wouldn’t raise any suspicions whatsoever. (Which university funded this?) So when she breaks down crying, the gang is just kinda like, yeah, we know.

Dr. Quilty admits she doesn’t like children (“No offense,” she adds; “None taken,” says Gretchen), but all Spinelli wants to know is why she didn’t just ask them for help. TJ adds a very TJ ultimatum: she leaves them alone, and they’ll help her make her video.

So they stage a bunch of activities for Dr. Quilty to film: hanging upside-down, playing basketball, letting the kindergarteners loose, all that fun stuff. But when they’re done filming, she doesn’t want the gang to see it. She says it won’t be ready until November...of next year. (This episode came out in January 1998, so this is November 1999 we’re talking about!)

But the gang also knows she’s showing it to Prickly and the superintendent on Monday, so she has to have some cut ready to watch. So they break into her office and find it...and it’s a disaster. It starts off as an educational video about recess, but Dr. Quilty has edited all their worst moments — Vince stealing the ball while playing basketball, the bar falling down with too much weight from people hanging on it, the kindergarteners nearly trampling Gretchen — as part of her compelling case that “recess is a place where dangerous antics rule the day” and an “archaic institution”...that should be canceled.

TJ’s plan? Edit the video again. They film new footage of kids having fun on the playground and talking about why they love recess. Bonus: When Gretchen is editing, we get this delightful sequence of her laughing maniacally, then coughing violently:

As soon as the gang are done editing, Principal Prickly appears — but they’re able to hide just in time, as he brings in the superintendent, followed quickly by Dr. Quilty’s supervisor (who evidently has a thing for the superintendent) and Dr. Quilty herself.

The kids have really outdone themselves with this cut. They’ve edited in nature documentary footage to make it look like Gretchen is running from a tiger and not the kindergarteners, a train crash after some video of Mikey dressed as a train, and so much more. It’s funny! And then, when Dr. Quilty’s original voiceover directs the viewer to the experts, it’s the kids talking about why recess is important to them.

Prickly is mad, obviously, but Dr. Quilty’s supervisor is impressed — she thinks it’s brilliant that Dr. Quilty thought of the idea to give cameras to the children! (Maybe that’s why, as the adults file out of the room, the superintendent asks the supervisor if she knows anyone who would be a good fit for the Spiro Agnew Middle School job.)

The episode ends with Dr. Quilty trying to give cameras to...the kindergarteners. You know, those giant VHS cameras. The kindergarteners, who are smarter than her, instead capture her and bring her into their pen.

Takeaway: Gretchen needs to let loose more often! Oh, also something about taking kids more seriously. Maybe the experts on recess are the ones who live it every weekday, you know?

[intimidatingpuffinstudios]

Yet Another Public Commission!

My dudes, one incredibly kind patron has decided to gift you all with a 3700 words commission! That’s right, almost 4000 words of pure goodness, free of charge!

The pairing in this one is Daelynn/Eledwen/M!MC, and it starts sweetly and wholesomely with the family being out of a picnic with their kids and friends and ends in a scorching hot coupling sequence! This might just be one of the most explicit things I’ve written!

So, on that note, I’m going to post the first half of the story here, then the steamy half under a cut! I hope you all enjoy this!

~*~

You are sitting on a soft, comfy picnic blanket, breathing in the fresh air gently blowing away your white hair from your face. The sun is warming you with his rays and combined with the crisp breeze, your temperature is just perfect. The perfect day for a picnic.

Dana agrees with you— she is laying down on the grass a bit to your left and is patiently allowing your daughters to braid flowers into her mane. This mule is a true lady, and she has withstood everything for you.

Even now, she is going through torture in your name— your daughters are not the gentlest they could be with the old lady’s mane. And Daelynn isn’t much help in that regard.

The elven woman is sitting next to her daughters, helpfully providing them with all the flowers she has gathered for them, commenting on the patterns and color arrangements of the braids.

You chuckle softly to yourself, a slight shiver running through you— an involuntary reaction whenever you see these three blond heads put together. The twins are as rambunctious and lively as their mother. And when the little half-elves collude with their mother, even the most innocent-looking of activities can lead to disaster.

This is why the devilish trio must never be left alone, and Eledwen is usually on top of babysitting duty. She keeps the other three ladies contained, her quiet presence always a calming factor. But even your half-dragon love has her weaknesses. In this case, the weakness was DaeDae’s puppy eyes. The grey-eyed woman assured your dragon lady that she and the twins would be angels on earth. And Elly believed her— a mistake, really.

Your blue gaze turns toward the other side of the clearing, where Eledwen is sitting with Straasa, the two of them watching Morkai spar with your eldest son. Your heart swells with happiness as you take in the scene, the same happiness that fills it when you look at your elf and daughters.

Your very own family. The family you never thought you’d have— not after what happened to your mom, to Tristen. Not after everything that came after. And yet, here you are all, all the members of your little clan alive and well. Your noble steed, your women, your children. Your brothers.

When you met each and every single one of them, you felt a pull— like these people will be important to you, will become a part of you for the rest of your life. And you were right. Your intuition has never led you astray, always landing right on the mark. When you met the two women that would become your life, you thought life couldn’t get any happier.

You were wrong— because not long after you finally put the broken pieces of the world back together, you found him. Your son— a small child, alone and crying in an abandoned village, clinging to his stuffed toy. Eledwen took one look at the child and immediately knelt down to gather him into her arms.

To say that you were surprised would be an understatement— your draconic love was still somewhat uncomfortable with sudden physical touch back then, even when it came from Daelynn or you.  To see her so readily hug the child, and start stroking his fine hair while her deep voice cooed at him… well. It changed something in you.

Then DaeDae got pregnant, and the twins came. Mischievous little agents of chaos, just like their mother. And so your life was complete. Between you and your beautiful, strong women, you managed to wrangle one toddler and two infants— quite well, if you may say so yourself.

Morkai and Straasa helped too—well, Straasa helped. Morkai was just standing on the outskirts, as far away from the soiled clothing of the babies as he could possibly get and still be considered to be inside the room.

He helped in other ways, though. His steady presence and sometimes insistent prodding always helped you get out of the somber moods that sometimes assailed you. He and Daelynn were always the best at helping you get out of your own head. And now the once grumpy man was teaching your son ways to beat you in sparring.

And Eledwen was actually assisting him, giving the kid pointers and little tips on how to go about bringing his father to the ground. The traitor! You’d expect this sort of behavior from DaeDae, but Elly! The scandal! Straasa was the only one trying to remind everyone that sparring was meant to be fun, and not about giving one’s father bruises, but no one was paying attention to him.

Well. You’d just have to be extra careful from now on. And speaking of being careful, you suddenly notice a suspicious absence of giggling coming from your left. Daelynn and the twins are quiet. Uh oh. You immediately snap your head around to look for them but find only Dana, her mane thoroughly braided and your blond minxes nowhere to be found. Gods, you were a fool to take your eyes off of them!

Right as you think this, your worst fears come to life— you are assaulted by two little flying half-elves, their blue eyes twinkling as they float on top of you out of nowhere, their mother’s invisibility spell finally wearing off.

You immediately reach up to grab them, but that’s a mistake too. As soon as the tiny princesses are in your arms, they attack all your weak spots— they start tickling you to the sound of their mother’s cackling, a pair of strong hands taking hold of your legs to make sure you can’t escape.

You yelp and try to protect your tender sides from the minuscule but evil fingers, but it’s no use. Your women are relentless as they go about reducing you to a broken, giggling mess. You! Giggling! The ignominy! You can even hear Dana snort at you, probably enjoying her revenge— you didn’t help save her when she was the one under attack, after all. As far as she’s concerned, you fully deserve what you’re getting.

“Daelynn! Girls! Please! I give up, have mercy!” you cry out desperately, red in the face from the laughing fir that has been all but forced upon you. Your pleas go unheeded by the treacherous women holding you down. Daelynn even snickers wickedly at you, goading her daughters on.

“Get him, girls! That’ll teach him not to pay attention to us!” the blond devil instructs her minions, and said minions redouble their efforts in tormenting you. You are laughing so hard it hurts, and it’s starting to get difficult to breathe.

Then stong, scaled arms reach down to save you, descending on the squirming elflings as if from the heavens themselves. Eledwen grabs the two protesting girls with ease, pulling one under each arm and holding them like piglets. Which is apparently highly amusing, if the burst of giggling coming from the wicked angels is to be believed.

“It’s not our fault, mama! Didi told us to do it!” they cry out in unison, their cry of innocence obviously rehearsed. Eledwen promptly hands both girls to Straasa, who is standing right next to her and smiling at your trickster daughters as if they’re the cutest creatures on earth.

He takes them in his arms and then walks away while the elflings snuggle contentedly against him, more than happy to be held by their beloved uncle Straasa. Both have declared that they’re going to marry him when they grow up, after all.

Which leaves you and your women by yourselves for a moment. Both you and Eledwen turn sharply to stare at Daelynn, who is now sitting at your feet calmly, almost imperially. Like everything is as it’s supposed to be, and she has done no wrong whatsoever.

“Finally, now you’re paying attention to me,” she smirks at you both, batting her eyelashes cutely when Eledwen raises an unimpressed eyebrow at her. Her fingers are now at your ankles, massaging them tenderly— probably to soothe them from the death grip she had on them just moments before!

“DaeDae, we’ve talked about this. Using the girls as a weapon whenever you want attention is not an acceptable use of our children,” your brown-haired lover scolds lightly, but the sadistic elf you’re in love with shows no remorse.

The blond woman shrugs her shoulders carelessly and flicks her golden hair over her shoulder with flair. She also pushes out her breasts, putting her arms under them and perking them up, looking to draw your and Elly’s attention to them. You’re sad to say that it works.

“Why not? It works, doesn’t it?” the temptress echoes your thoughts, and Eledwen sighs, momentarily closing her eyes. She can’t fool you though— you saw the way her fingers twitched as soon as Daelynn put her little show on. Her fingers twitch like that only when she wants to touch.  You can understand the compulsion.

“Still trying to talk sense to the elf, Eledwen? Shouldn’t you have given up on the futile endeavor by now?” Morkai pipes up from across the clearing, and you glance over to see him putting his shirt back on. His training session with your son is over, and they are both looking sweaty and out of breath but very happy with themselves.

“You know you love me, sourpuss!” Daelynn shoots back at him cheekily, and the redhead chuckles in reply. Your son walks up to you, smiling brightly and all but headbutts Eledwen’s arm with affection as he moves to stand next to her, his mannerisms distinctly feline in nature.

The smile he gives you makes your heart go light and positively sing inside your chest. Then he notices his elven mother’s pose and immediately proceeds to groan in dismay. He glares at her, though it’s half-hearted at best, and vaguely points at the direction of her pushed-up bust.

“Mom, again?! Can’t we have one day without you flinging yourself at Dad and Mama the moment our backs are turned?!” he all but whines, putting his hand over his eyes to save himself from the cursed image of his mother making moves on the rest of his parents.

“Be a good darling and take your sisters and your uncles and head home, hmm? Your parents need some alone time, and you need to go wash off,” Daelynn instructs him with an unrepentant grin, and the boy glares at her in response.

“We really should get going. These beauties are ready for their afternoon nap, actually,” Straasa cuts in before things can escalate any further. And you have to admit— as much fun as you’re having right now, your elven woman’s display hasn’t left you cold and unbothered. Some alone time would be appreciated. And judging from Eledwen’s quiet intensity, she’s in the same predicament as well.

The golden-eyed woman runs a soft hand through your son’s hair, gentling him, and the boy immediately sucks up the attention, turning his face up to look at her. He always had a soft spot for her.

“Take your sisters home and wait for us. We won’t be long,” she quietly instructs him, and although he scrunches up his nose at that last part, he doesn’t talk back to her like he did with Daelynn. With a heavy sigh, he disengages himself from his mother’s side and moves to stand with Straasa.

Morkai is standing next to Dana, scratching between her ears and giving her what appears to be dried sweet beet paste. You can never figure out where he’s stashing the candy, but he always has some of it on him. Dana has gotten twice in size because of him!

With one final wave from Straasa and your son, the party heads back for home, your pretty mule in tow. The look she gives you as she walks away is knowing. Damn, even the donkey has your number now!

Once your friends and children are so far away that you can’t hear their voices, you brace yourself for impact— and sure enough, Daelynn flings herself at you, apparently having waited enough. You are grateful she waited this long, to be honest.

~*~

Okay, that was the first part of the story! Now comes the STEAMY PART! In case I wasn’t clear up till now:

This is NSFW! WARNING, WARNING, PROCEED WITH CAUTION!

The elf wraps her legs around your waist in a heartbeat, pushing her voluptuous body against you, and making you stay still.  Her soft hand grabs your hair tightly, and she all but thrusts your face toward her breasts.

Your face gets smooshed in softness as your hands mold themselves to the full bust, kneading and pinching her nipples over the thin fabric of her shirt. The moan she lets out in response sounds smothered, so you look up to see her kissing with Eledwen, the elf’s free hand holding Eledwen by the neck as she all but devours her lips.

The sight spurs you on, and you roughly lower Daelynn’s shirt to get her peaked nippled out in the open. You don’t need more than that— you don’t have the time for it. This coupling will be quick and passionate, getting just naked enough to get what you want.

As soon as the pretty breasts are out in the open, your mouth waters for a moment before you ravenously descend on them, sucking the nipples into your mouth and teasing them with your tongue, lips, and teeth.

You are so focused on your task and lost in your elven lover’s sinful moans that you don’t notice your other woman kneel next to you. Not until her strong hand goes straight for you clothed length, gripping tightly and massaging it over the fabric of your breeches.

You moan helplessly against the nipple you were suckling, your hips instinctually pushing forward to get more of the maddening sensation. Your lips unlatch as you blindly offer up your mouth for Eledwen to claim.

The moment your lips connect, you start licking them voraciously, demanding entrance. Gods, you’ve barely begun, and you’re already going mad with desire, your shaft dripping inside your breeches and creating a mess.

She lets you in, and you go about tasting every single last nook and crevice, saturating your mouth with her intoxicating flavor. You reach out with your hand and bury it in her short locks at the same time Daelynn starts sucking bruises on the tender flesh of your neck.

Then you are unceremoniously pushed on your back, Daelynn’s strong hands pushing at your shoulders until you are flat on the ground and looking up at her wantonly. She smirks at your dazed expression and gets up, ignoring your little moan of complain.

Her hands head for her skirts, and she reaches under them— in one fluid movement, she has grabbed her underwear and is pulling it on the string that is keeping it in place. Within moments, the soft fabric flutters down her legs and pools at her feet. You can see that it is already wet with her desire.

Then your member is abruptly taken out of your breeches and exposed to the cool afternoon air, twitching and drooling pearly liquid from the tip. Eledwen’s warm hand closes over it without hesitation, playing with the glans and gripping it exactly as you like it.

Daelynn quickly stops her, however. She grabs your draconian lover by the throat and lifts her up so she can get the other woman’s breeches off. Soon enough, Eledwen’s lower half is bare— she’s the one wearing the least clothing than all three of you. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, if her flushed cheeks and foggy gaze are anything to go by.

Daelynn is on her knees in front of the half-dragon, having just taken her underwear off, and she deposits a sweet kiss to the brunette’s mount before she moves away. Then both women look over at you greedily, and you know— your time has come.

Daelynn loses no time climbing over you until her thighs are bracketing your face— she holds up her skirts to give you access, and you swallow thickly as she begins to lower herself on your face.

Before your lips can make contact with her core, however, the fingers of your right hand are firmly gripped— then enveloped by the tightest, silkiest heat. Eledwen moans lowly as your digits enter her, and you lose no time setting up the rhythm you know she likes best, stretching your fingers inside her and going as deep as you can get. You tease the entrance to her womb with the tips, and she shudders almost violently in response.

Then your mouth is put to work as well. You are lost to Daelynn’s heat, her scent, her taste— your very soul sings as you push your tongue inside her, making her moan and tremble for you as her slickness dribbles down your chin.

You’re so lost in the feeling of your women, that you barely notice that your own swollen member is left unattended and forlorn— but it doesn’t stay like that for long. Eledwen, the doll that she is, has apparently enough coherency left to grab it, and start pleasuring it in proficiently.

Which probably means you’re not doing a good enough job of driving her out of her mind. With new resolve, you push your fingers in and out of her expertly, picking up the pace and stretching your digits on the pull-out, making sure to widen her reddened opening every time.

After so many years with your amazing women, you have become quite proficient at multi-tasking. You go about pleasuring them with gusto, your mouth sucking relentlessly at Daelynn’s core, flicking and rubbing her nub with the fingers of one hand, while the other is busy burying its fingers inside Elly knuckle-deep.

And still Eledwen keeps on massaging you, her thumb swiping over the swollen, wet head of your erection, dipping her fingertips into the slit and twisting her wrist on the up-stroke. But then she decides to use her other hand as well— her strong fingers grip your scrotum firmly, and roll around your orbs until your eyes all but roll back into their sockets.

It’s too much to handle— Eledwen’s walls are gripping your fingers so tightly it’s become a struggle to move them, and Daelynn’s wild riding is stealing your breath away as she tries to get your tongue inside her as far as it can go.

The ecstasy building in your core can no longer be ignored. Saturated in the smell and taste of your women, your mind long gone and your body functioning on nothing but instinct, your muscles begin to clench and lock as magma erupts from your throbbing shaft, bolts of lightning-intense sensation shooting down your raw nerves and scorching everything in their path. You spill thickly over Elly’s fingers, painting them white with the evidence of your desire for her and Daelynn, a desire that only grows stronger with each passing year.

Your moan of ecstasy is lost between Daelynn’s fold, and you fight not to thrash as the rapture all but incapacitates you— you need to keep going, you need to please them!  You need it as much as you needed your own orgasm, more than that even!

Then your wish is granted to you— Daelynn’s thighs become a vice around your face as she wildly thrashes on top of you, crying out and pushing her opening against you almost suffocatingly the moment her walls begin to clamp down on your tongue. A little explosion of slickness fills your mouth as she moans and trembles on top of you, feeding you all she has to give.

She slumps on top of you like a puppet with its strings cut, heaving and panting as she rides the aftershocks. Then it’s Eledwen’s time. Her own passage is clenching so tightly it almost threatens to break off your fingers, but she needs that one last push.

So you give it to her— you crook your fingers up,  and relentlessly hammer into the spot that drives her wild. Her body freezes the moment you begin the fierce assault, and a moment passes, two— then she is locking against you as a burst of liquid bursts from inside her, bathing your fingers and palm in her essence.

She is quiet in her pleasure, unlike Daelynn— she rides your digits with gusto, panting, her red tongue peeking between her half-open lips. You can feel her pulsing, the spasms so strong that you’re amazed she’s still conscious. Then it’s done, and she too falls on top of you bonelessly.

You grunt a bit— the woman is compact, but don’t try to move her. Daelynn finally decides that the time to get off from your face has come, so she gets up on shaky legs, but doesn’t move far. She kneels next to you, and gently reaches out to remove your fingers from inside Eledwen. The half-dragon moan faintly as your hand leaves her sensitive walls, but doesn’t complain.

Your blond seductress is looking at your hand with hunger— like the white covered fingers are a treat to be savored. And sure enough, she immediately leans forward and takes them in her mouth, cleaning away all evidence of Elly’s orgasm with her voracious tongue.

You chuckle darkly as you watch her, but the sight is quickly blocked by Eledwen’s face, the golden-eyed woman crowding you and pressing her mouth against you demandingly. You open up for her, and she goes about stealing your breath as well as sharing the flavor of Daelynn’s climax.

Then you’re all done. You slump against each other, taking a moment to just cuddle with each other. A moment where you are laid flat on your back, cradling both women against your chest as your breathing finally slows and you all start to nuzzle and softly kiss each other.

You need to get going— everyone is waiting for you back home. But you can’t help but cherish this blissful sensation, where the only thing that exists is just you, your amazing lovers and the sky above you.

It has all been worth it.

[troyplaysbass]

We’ll Grow Stronger Making Room and Sharing Space: 2019 In Review

It’s the end of the year and the end of the decade (more on the latter in this post). It’s the time for me to reflect on the year and think too much about lists. Some things will never change.

Music I Worked On This Year

Jeff Schaller and the Long Way Home - “Younger Years” (guitar, recording, mixing, mastering)

Apocalypse Quest - Paradoxes (mixing, mastering)

Sloth Hands - Vacation’s Over (mastering)

Apocalypse Quest - “Mediocre Boys” (recording, mixing, mastering)

Flora Self - “Didn’t See It Coming” (bass, recording, mixing, mastering)

Pelafina - “Blue and Gold” (guitar)

Apocalypse Quest - “CEO Blood” (recording, mixing, mastering)

Apocalypse Quest - ERBA (recording, mixing, mastering)

My Favorite Albums of 2019

I’ve had a one-sentence review of my number one album, Breakup Season by Future Teens, in my head for a few months: If I had heard this when I was seventeen, I might have been a better person. That sounds hyperbolic, but I haven’t been able to shake the idea. I know I could have used this album as a teenager. It’s so honest and introspective about heartbreak and sadness and dealing with those emotions in healthy ways. I’m so happy that a band like Future Teens exists. I’m jealous of the kid that hears Breakup Season this year and connects to it like I connected to The Upsides. Future Teens will be that kid’s first favorite band, the soundtrack to their formative years, their inspirations and role models. I keep likening this album to The Upsides, probably the single most influential album on my past ten years. It feels like a torch-passing at the end of the decade, and it’s all the more apt because I saw Future Teens open for the Wonder Years in October.

The rest of my list feels as varied as my year, spanning genre and scope from emo debuts to the biggest pop artist in the world. As always, I think there’s a lot to love on this list, so pick something and give it a spin.

Future Teens - Breakup Season

Charly Bliss - Young Enough

Pedro the Lion - Phoenix

The Menzingers - Hello Exile

The Mountain Goats - In League With Dragons

Jimmy Eat World - Surviving

Taylor Swift - Lover

Origami Angel - Somewhere City

The Get Up Kids - Problems

Telethon - Hard Pop

Proper. - I Spent the Winter Writing Songs About Getting Better

Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties - Routine Maintenance

Ceres - We Are a Team

Oso Oso - Basking In the Glow

Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center

The Dangerous Summer - Mother Nature

Somos - Prison On a Hill

Dave Hause - Kick

American Football - LP3

Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars

Junius Paul - Ism

The Maine - You Are OK

Nervus - Tough Crowd

Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows

Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

My Favorite EPs of 2019

Better Love - All I Ever Wanted Is To Be Where You Are

Mineral - One Day When We Are Young

Ruston Kelly - Dirt Emo, Volume 1

Rat Tally - When You Wake Up

Bosley Jr - No More

My Favorite Songs of 2019

Here’s a playlist on Apple Music and Spotify of songs I loved this year. It’s vaguely in order (at least the top ten or so).

My Favorite Shows of 2019

I went to 63 shows this year, 35 of which I played. Here were my favorites. These were all great, but the John K. Samson show is a contender for my all-time favorite performance. He doesn’t tour much, so make it a priority to see him if you have the chance.

John K. Samson and Christine Fellows - 11/23 at Beat Kitchen

The Wonder Years, Future Teens - 10/20 at Metro

Ruston Kelly - 11/1 at Thalia Hall

Mineral - 1/24 at Lincoln Hall

Pedro the Lion - 5/18 at The Castle Theater

Jacob Sigman, Jetty Bones - 3/29 at Beat Kitchen

The Sidekicks, Adult Mom - 7/7 at Subterranean

Spanish Love Songs - 5/19 at Cobra Lounge

Los Campesinos! - 7/6 at West Fest

We Were Promised Jetpacks - 7/13 at Bottom Lounge

My Favorite Podcasts of 2019

Two Headed Girl is the best new podcast I listened to this year. It’s a chronicle of gender dysphoria, transitioning, and marriage. Hosts Alex and Matthew Cox are unflinching in their honesty with each other about their lives, health, and feelings. It’s kind of amazing that they recorded all of this and are willing to share such a personal journey with the world.

Elsewhere in the podcast world, two of my favorite long-running podcasts hit new highs in 2019. On episode 102 of Reconcilable Differences, “Preparing the Way,” John Siracusa buys a refrigerator. The two-hour chronicle of this harrowing adventure is everything I love about the podcast format. And The Watch, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald’s twice weekly talk about movies and TV, transitioned from purely critique to a behind the scenes look at making a TV show as Andy called in from the set and editing room of his upcoming show, Briarpatch.

Finally, I’ll recommend Michael Lewis’s Against the Rules, a meticulously researched exploration of societal rules and the people who make and enforce them. Unlike the long-running conversational shows I typically like, the tight format and high production value make Against the Rules feel more like an audio book.

My Favorite Books of 2019

As usual, I read very few new releases this year, but the few I did read were fantastic: Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest poetry collection, A Fortune For Your Disaster, Mark Z. Danielewski’s children’s book for all ages, The Little Blue Kite, and Mischa Pearlman’s One Day When We Are Young, a retrospective on the emo band Mineral and a companion piece to their first new music in over twenty years.

The best book I read this year, regardless of release date, was The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

My Favorite Television of 2019

I started 2019 with the vague goal of “keeping up” with TV, but I quickly realized that’s impossible. There’s just too much great TV. With that in mind, I just want to highlight a few of my favorite shows of the year, all remarkable for very different reasons, which also happen to be short and digestible.

Fleabag - Season 2

A tour de force of emotion and energy, every episode left me thinking that writer / producer / star Phoebe Waller-Bridge might be the most talented person alive.

Watchmen

Every frame of this show is immaculate. I’m a longtime defender of the endings of Lost and The Leftovers so I had confidence in Damon Lindelof and his team to pull this sequel/remix, and my expectations were still far exceeded.

When They See Us

Ava Duvernay’s docu-drama about the Central Park Five is a heart-wrenching examination of injustice. The opening sequence alone is worth the price of a Netflix subscription.

Chernobyl

A different kind of bleak docu-drama, set on the opposite side of the world as When They See Us, Chernobyl is equal parts moving, gruesome, frustrating, and deeply sad.

And I can’t leave the TV section without giving a shout to Baby Yoda on The Mandalorian, constant cause of delighted squeals (both Liesi’s and mine) every time he’s on screen.

My Favorite Movies of 2019

As always, I'm very behind on movies at the end of year, but Knives Out is a masterpiece. 1. Knives Out 2. Marriage Story 3. The Irishman 4. Booksmart 5. Midsommar 6. The Report 7. Toy Story 4 8. Us 9. Dolemite Is My Name 10. High Life

Next Year

I haven’t made a formal new year’s resolution in quite a few years, but I do have some plans for 2020.

Pelafina will be releasing a new EP in the next couple months. More on that very soon.

The Long Way Home are deep in the process of recording our next album. That will hopefully be out later in the spring.

I didn’t make a single blog post this year, and I want to change that. I don’t have a clear structure in mind, but I just want to write more.

I’m going to listen to more jazz.

[thesffcorner]

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-man: Far from Home is the second of the MCU Spider-man films, directed by John Watts. It follows Peter Parker, right after the events of Endgame, as he and his class go on a well deserved vacation to Europe. Peter wants to use the trip to woo MJ, which ends up taking a backseat when a series of elemental natural disasters hit the Earth, and Nick Fury needs Spider-man to help.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the original Marvel Spider-man film; I found the story overly complicated and underdeveloped, and while I enjoyed the individual components of the film, like Michael Keaton as Vulture, Tom Holland as Peter, and Peter’s friends, I found the overall film average at best. So I’m happy to report that this film is leagues better, and IMHO is the best Spider-man film we’ve gotten to date.

Let’s start with the plot: this film deals with a lot of elements, just like the first film did, but it does a much better job of integrating them, and giving them each enough time to develop and have an impact. Peter himself is dealing with a lot; he has just lost 5 years of his life, he lost his mentor and father figure, everyone expects him to step up and be the next Iron-man, while all he wants to do is take a vacation and be a teenager. One of the best aspects of Spider-man as a character is this push and pull between Peter struggling to do the right thing, and be the hero everyone needs him to be, and his desire to have a normal life, and this film really leans into this friction.

At the same time, the villain choice is beautifully executed by Jake Gyllenhall playing Misterio. As a kid, Misterio was one of my favorite Spider-man villains, along with Black Cat, Silver Sable and Venom, because he had such a cool backstory of being this special effects master who can perform amazing illusions with practical effects. This film updates his backstory and his powers, now leaning a lot more on technology and holograms.

The thing about Misterio, is that he’s not an A list villain; he’s a Vulture level threat, who’s been present in other series, but has mostly stayed in the Spider-man series, as a neighborhood level threat. Here both the film and the plot push him to be more extreme, and what they come up with is genuinely one of the most outright villainous and selfish characters the MCU has come up with.

There are many things to like about this film; the trailers seemed to imply this would be a more dower, serious film, but it really isn’t; it’s a comedy first, even though it does touch on some rather heavy subjects. The tone is perfectly set by the opening sequence which is an In Memoriam for the fallen Avengers and then talks about the fallout of the Blip (what a dumbass name, what was wrong with the Snap). It’s a scene reminiscent of the PE scene in the first Spider-man with Captain America and it was really funny.

The film is pretty good at taking advantage of the things it sets up; for example there are a lot of really funny bits involving the school trip, with Misterio and Nick Fury high-jacking portions of it, while the two high school teachers try to keep everything under control. The parts set in Venice really take advantage of the city as a setting, and I would like to say the same about Berlin and Prague, but unfortunately it seems like the filmmakers were less confident about those sections.

By far the best fight scene and the most creative sequence in the film is the one that takes place in Berlin, where Misterio just wails on Peter with one illusion after the next, and it’s incredibly well shot, paced and executed. One thing that’s been a common complaint about Marvel’s films, especially the bigger ones, is that they look drab and colorless and don’t fully take advantage of the superhero tropes, and this film is not like that. It understands Misterio not just as a character, but as an entity, and really uses his powers to the fullest advantage. The colors in the film are also great; this is the most colorful of the Marvel films set on Earth, and it was much appreciated.

One thing I was worried about here, which was also one of my main complaints in the first Spider-man, was that Peter would be a side character in his own film. The first Spider-man really pushed Tony to the forefront, and as a result, Peter just didn’t have enough time to develop on his own. That’s an important part of Peter’s character; that he has to deal with a lot of things alone, because there really isn’t anyone he can turn and talk to about being a superhero, and because he’s afraid of putting the people he loves in danger.

This film gets that right; Peter still has a support group, as May, Ned and Happy know who he is, but they don’t entirely understand what he’s going through. They all count on him being ok, and being strong and doing the right thing, without realizing that Peter is having a crisis of faith, now that Tony is gone. So I absolutely bought the relationship between him and Beck, as Beck really was this confident, collected man, who treats Peter like what he is; a confused teenager who desperately needs guidance. The whole film really focuses on Peter’s struggles to be the man everyone wants him to be, vs what he wants to be, and how being a superhero takes a toll on his life.

Nick Fury was another bit that I was afraid of, and it’s the one part that I’m still not sure what to think of. On the one hand, this is the closest Nick Fury has been to his comic counterpart in any of the films; on the other, a lot of the stuff he does in the film, doesn’t seem like stuff Nick Fury would do. There is an explanation for that, but it’s impossible to talk about without spoilers, so I’ll leave it for the end.

As for the rest of the characters, this film does a great job at giving everyone at least one funny moment. The teachers are great, the other classmates are great, I really enjoyed the rivalry between Brad and Peter, and especially the relationship between Betty and Ned. Ned is a criminally underrated character, and he had some of the funniest lines here. I also really like this version of MJ; she is as awkward if not more so than Peter, and I like that they are having her go into a journalist/detective route, seeing as she likes investigating and true crime.

Finally we have Beck, or Misterio. I already said that I loved the relationship between him and Peter; they had excellent chemistry, and the switch that Beck goes through was so well done by Gyllenhall. He could easily play both a Tony Stark type hero, as well as a Loki type villain, and the film compromises by letting him do both. It was the closest any of these villains have gotten to Alfred Molina’s amazing turn as Doc Ock.

Before I go, I briefly want to talk about the ending. So warning, SPOILERS. First off, why was all the stuff with J Jonah Jemison and Beck in the post credit scene? That was a really important sequence, and it completely changes the tone of the film! It sets up such a different status quo for Peter, that I am SHOCKED that they thought it was a good idea to leave it as a mid-roll scene! Also the fact that J K Simmons is back as Jemison, except now he’s an Alex Jones type/Rebel Media conspiracy theorist is a m a z i n g. Then we have the second post credit scene where we find out that Nick Fury was Talos the whole time, which would explain why he was acting so OOC the whole film, and why he was so easily manipulated by Beck. The real Nick Fury is off-world with the Skrulls, so is this a set-up for Secret Invasion? I guess we’ll have to see.

Overall, I really liked this film. It’s fun, it’s funny, it has some great characters, a great villain and some excellent cinematography. I would absolutely recommend it, even if you didn’t like the first Spider-man.

[michalwu]

Best of 2018 in TV

Another year passed and again I watched a lot of good quality tv. I think that although again it was very hard to choose my top 10 this year was a little bit less intense than previous. Still I had to do a short list of places 20-11 because I couldn’t resist not to mention a few more productions. That said remember I’m not a critic. I watch thinks I like not because I have to and this list is totally subjective though I tried to be fair. I watched over 50 series from 2018 and that’s the results:

20-11 (in random order)

The Affair (season 4), Atlanta (season 2), Homecoming, ACS: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Killing Eve, One Day at the Time (season 2), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Maniac (season 2), Legion (season 2), AHS: Apocalypse.

10. Anne with and E (season 2)

I never was a huge fan of the book as a kid but I read it as mandatory lecture in primary school. But I am a huge fan of this series. Beautiful placement of the plot plus very talented young cast with leading Amybeth. The best part of the story for me always was the dynamics of Anna's relationship with her adopted parents.

9. Patrick Melrose

What an absolutely outstanding trio of actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugo Weaving and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Plus another young talent this year Seabstian Maltz who as a young Patrick is giving one of the most dramatic performence of the year. Creators did justice to the novel.

8. The Deuce (season 2)

This was one of the most enjoyable series this year. I love the period it shows and since the first season I started to develop a sympathy for all those characters especially for Candy. Too bad the series seems to be forgotten this year by critics. In my opion it came back in a lot better shape than last year. It’s funnier, it’s faster and the whole fuss around making porno adaptation of Red Riding Hood is just captivating.

7. Sharp Objects

Another great limited series and another proof of my love to the craftsmanship of brilliant Jean-Marc Vallée. The story from book was kinda predictable and tacky. But thanks to the director who is an expert of showing emotions and dilemmas from the past plus the cast of three great actresses made it into phenomenal work. I am really looking forward to see more projects from cooperation of Mr. Vallee and HBO because so far it brings only true treasures.

6. Barry

I was always a fan of Bill Harder on SNL and his (usually) small roles in comedies. So then I found out that he’s making his own show I kept my fingers crossed for the success. And the results are better than expected. Barry is a great combination of drama and comedy. It sound like things we see lately very often but Barry is the best mix of two this year (not to mention animated series). Why? Because drama is real (he’s a seriall killer with many very hard moral choices to make) and the comedy provided (mostly) by Henry Winkler is just a poor gold. Well done.

5. The Haunting of  Hill House

I’m not a big horror enthusiast but I do have a soft spot for those stories in classical form. And what’s more classic than beautiful, old, and huge haunted house. I fell in love with this series and it’s so much better than the previous movies. This one is actually very far from the original story written by Shirley Jackson but it capture the atmosphere the best. Separation of episode focusing on different from five siblings was a great idea. From non-believer to the most affected of the kids the story became more and more intense and scary. I honestly was scared almost the whole time. Still I tried to play with creators and watch for all  the hidden ghosts in the background. The secret of Bent Neck Lady was haunting me for a while and even after finishing the series it all stayed with me in my mind. This was my favorite new series of the year. I’d love to see it again in other form, maybe as anthology like AHS. With this cast yes please!

4. GLOW (season 2)

It’s so nice today that we can get such a smahing tv show this such a huge female cast. I love this series and those Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling since season 1. I always enjoy it when show or movie takes me to another peroid of time and GLOW blend us into into that reality of 80 like nothing else. We had so many exctiting things this season with Debbie becoming single mother after divorce, Sam Silvia trying himself as a father and the whole team becoiming more and more like a crazy family (recording of intro in the mall was amazing). In real life I’m not really intrested in wrestling (like at all) and though it probably differs a lot than reality I loved those duels bethween characters. Episode Mother of All Matches is one of the best in 2018.

3. BoJack Horseman (season 5)

Oh how I love this show and this character. And before anyone judge me I don’t love BoJack for being a walking disaster and misery. I love this character and many other on the show for the incredibly smart writing. He is a alcoholic, narcissus and washed-out tv star and that who he is. Just like Priness Caroline is an ambitious woman who will give up many things for career even if she know it won’t give her happines in the end. But that’s the greatest thing about this show and creators that they won’t change those characters and put them in unexpected positions just to get the wow factor from the viewers. They still find  a way to present those persons in fresh and captivating way but making it “in” the nature of the character. And that’s the fift season so congrats! And still we can count on them to give us some real gems like episode Free Churro which is a masterpiece of writing. The thing is this season of BoJack doesn’t stand out in specific way from other but it gives us the thing it always did and never disappoints - crazy rollercoaster ride.

2. Mozart in the Jungle (season 4)

When I said at the beginning that this list is totally subjective I meant it inter alia because of this series. Mozart IS my favorite tv series. I don’t know if the best but it always gave me the most joy when watching it adn that’s a pretty good determinant. Unfortunately I will have to start saying it WAS my favorite because Amazon cancelled series after this season. I’m still mad and disappointed because GoT is about to end so all platforms grab the money to invest in “next huge thing” (in case of Amazon it’s new Lord of the Ring..yeah we need it). But don’t get me wrong. I didn’t put Mozart this high because I’m mad and or to mark someone’s mistake. I just really loved this season. Placing the plot in Japan was bull’s-eye move. Rodrigo De Souza (favorite tv character next to Leslie Knope) as a boyfriend of Hailey was hilarious, a much as observing her way to become succesfull and independent artist. The scene when she debuts as conductor with piece “Hi” is maybe my favorite moment in whole season. Even stronger is her performence at the finale. Although I rooted for Hailey and Rodrigo as a couple I’m glad that creators didn’t go into cliche with their relationship. Another strong scene is the on at traditional tea ceremony. Of course as always the whole season was very firm from the music side (this series helped me to discover a little piece of classical music and I’m grateful for that). I will really miss this series. I think it could easily do another season especially now when creators decided to end this season in such an interesting place. Too bad...

1. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season 2)

There’s nothing to explain... but I will ;) I compared all the series with each other and in my opinion there was nothing better that Mrs. Maisel this year. I enjoyed it last year but I didn’t even expected how much delight will it be to have it back. Visually it is the most beautiful thing in tv right now. And the writing as always is case of Amy Sherman-Palladino is just excellent. Those characters are so fast and wit it’s just a pleasure to observe them interact and discuss with much to many words and refrences than any normal person would use. And those actors really take it like a champs. All episodes in Paris was nice but it was nothing compre to Catskill where it felt like watching dirty dancing but with much better and more interesting story. I love the way Palladino direct her characters. How they develop especially Midge, her friendship with Susie and her realisation that stand-up comedy is not only the thing she want to do but it is something she will do for the rest of her life. Every time she stands in front of audience, camera or father himself she proves to be nailer and we as audience live for those moments! I really enjoyed see her parents in Paris as we could discover totally different side of them both and also new romance of Midge. But my favorite sequence of the season was Midge watching Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby is so on point with this role) in last episode and realising it all (inconspicuous scene but made me waste a few tears). At the end I will add that I love the attitude towards the children presented in this series...irrational like many other things.

*******

Suming up in my list dominant are HBO and Netflix productions but in the end two first places go to Amazon.

Comapring with previous year there is no sign of Legion in top 10. Well season 2 was good, sometimes even great but not enough to get into the top. Beside there’s less new series on the list (seven in 2017, four this year) but we had some amazing comebacks.

I don’t have huge disappointments this year, maybe just a few. 1) Romanoffs were boring as hell and I really counted on Weiner. 2) Cancelling of many good series like Mozart in the Jungle or Daredevil. 3) Riverdale became so absurd that it beats and law of logic. I mean why it gotta be so intense?

[pinkletterday]

Writer's Year In Review

This year has been a revelation. I went from deeply, irrevocably believing I can't write fiction at all to knowing that I'm actually pretty good at it!

It's given me the confidence to find work as a freelance writer and editor in real life, after years of unemployment and anxious paralysis resulting from chronic illness and trauma. A lot of other factors also helped but the fic writing played a huge role in getting my shit together.

General Fic Stats:

Word Count on AO3: 92284

Fics posted to AO3: 23

Favourite Fic:

Kiss It Better (Westallen).This fic is my baby. I love little Iris and little Barry in it so much, the hurt and confusion in each other they attempted to heal, how that healing carried into their adult love and family. It will always and always be my favourite thing I have ever written. Wee!stallen is my jam, and the reason I ship them so damn hard.

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). Ngl, I love this for the sheer amount of truly gratifying comments. Every single one of them have been emotional and flaily. It all makes me feel like I may have finally levelled up. Hallelujah. xD

Funniest Fic:

The Care and Feeding (Queenwestallen). This is my ultimate OT3. This fic, written as a list and discussion is 95% humour and contains some of my best banter and (I feel) characterization. An element I'm really proud of is how I managed to center and include all their important non-romantic relationships in their conversations. Iris's boisterous female friends, Oliver's friends, Cisco and Caitlin's snarky commentary all shoehorned themselves into the list with hilarious and wholesome results. 

It's not a popular OT3 but I feel like it's a good first attempt to drag this ship to water. xD

Cutest Fic:

Dancing Queen (Olivarry). Even after a year this contiues to be the fic with the highest kudos ratio (except for the more recent one) and the second most bookmarked. I love getting comments on this because they are all some variation of "my teeth hurt. I have diabetes!" xD Well, I did build it around a rainbow sprinkle icing sugar donut, but there is a significant dollop of angst there in the middle. A flangst donut.

Your Vigil In My Keeping (Westallen). This fic has less than 200 hits but has the highest kudos ratio of all. I guess kid fic isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Wee!stallen is cute af yo. I headcanon the origins of Barry and Iris's steadfast partnership in this story, where her faith and belief in him is as strong as his protectiveness of her, all tied up in the language and innocence of children.

Kinkiest Fic:

WA Smut and Kink Collection. I literally just posted this yesterday lol. So far it's just a face-sitting short, but I have quite a few hard and soft kinks lined up. Westallen needs more hard smut tbh, and they have such a unique powerfully loving dynamic that every kink I'm writing has required me to come at it a little bit sideways with a whole lot of emotional focus.

Saddest Fic:

Three fics I can't choose from.

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). This is basically Iris's grief and fear in a raging tempest, and it's strongly implied that the future Nora has warned them of will come to pass regardless of what they do. The fact is that there already is and will be a timeline where Iris loses Barry, just as there must be one where she won't, because that is the nature of potentiality. 

The Paradigm of Uncertainty (Westallen). This was a drabble almost, that ruminates on the probability that speedsters do not erase timelines but abandon them, along those versions of their loved ones. It's as @rkwago's brilliant comment says: "Iris hurts in so many weird, cosmic ways that her life is almost an eldritch horror house," which is the most perfect description ever of what it means to be a time traveller's wife.

The Universal Constant (Gen, background WA). A lot of people find the way Barry goes off on Joe cathartic in this fic, and so do I. But it's not so simple. I don't think Joe was wrong to form the views he did, or that anyone was in the wrong really. As @sophiainspace pointed out, it's a mediation of grief and love, their parallels and continuations between parents and children and lovers. The fact that it takes Henry's death for Barry to find the adult language to articulate to Joe why he will always believe in his father's innocence is a tragedy that cuts three ways.

(This fic is also the reason I have a folder in my drive marked "how to get away with murder" and probably a likely reason to get me arrested one day. xD)

Most Popular Fic:

Strangers In The Cold (Coldflash). The Coldflash fandom is a joy to feed. This was my first smut fic which was preceded by an entire chapter of banter about nothing in particular (except it ended up establishing a background that gave birth to the Coldflash vs Olivarry polyam series) And holy wow, for a newbie writer, the response has been amazing. Looking back, I wince at a lot of writing mistakes and its undeniably rough, but it really bolstered my confidence.

(I feel a little guilty that all my other CF stories are still in my WiP folder while I update the polyam series at snail's pace.)

The Shape of Us (Westallen). I wrote this on tumblr half-asleep one night, half as a rambly headcanon...and woke up to literally one hundred freaking notes. What the hell. Now at over 260, it's the most popular fic I've ever posted on tumblr.

I never consciously intended it to be a body-positivity fic but apparently women really relate to the insecurities of growing older and watching our bodies change with marriage, children and the sheer hectic pace of life. Even my non-fandom friends reblogged it simply for its representation of "real women". Barry's response is my own wish fulfillment fantasy; the sort of total acceptance and validation that we wish we could hear it the times we can't find it in ourselves. In light of the virulent body-shaming Candice Patton has been subjected to ever since she was revealed to have gained a fuller figure in S5, I'm very glad to have written it.

Least Popular Fic:

Carry On (Gen) This character study of Oliver Queen only has 135 hits a year after posting, which is par for the course with gen. But has a solid 12% kudos ratio, which means it's probably as good as I think it is. It's one of my favourite and easiest fics I have ever written.

Love Me Like You Do (Olivarry) Lordy, if my first Coldflash smut filled me with confidence, my first Olivarry smutfic all but ruined it. I struggled with it for a long time, unlike SitC, which I suppose shows in the over-descriptions. I got carried away with the quipping and I guess Barry topping at all is really not popular with slash fans?

Still, I'm honestly toying with the idea of deleting and rewriting it. At least it was a learning experience - don't write smut unless it makes you feel horny yourself.  

Most Challenging Fic:

Do Not Go Gentle (Westallen). I think the reason stories you knock off in two hours are instantly popular while the ones you slaved over for weeks barely get any attention is because the process is reflected in the ease of reading. But this one is an exception. It was an absolute monster, taking three weeks and several revisions to wrestle into submission - and it paid off in spades!  Going by the response, I seem to have achieved the wow factor I was going for.

My only regret is that I posted it on tumblr before the last revision that finally made it work, so that too many readers saw the lacklustre version rather than the polished one.

Honorable Mention:

A Stitch In Time (Olivarry for now, eventual Queenwestallen) Baby's first multi-chapter! Admittedly chapters 3 and 4 have been languishing in my drive for a few months now and this thing has 100% more deleted scenes and outtakes posted to my tumblr than the actual story on AO3. But I'm so proud of it! I learned to write action scenes because of it, how to write climaxes, dream sequences, news articles and tell a story in several different formats. It made me rediscover my empathy for Felicity and write her as a PoV character, think deeply on Laurel Lance's losses and give voice to her struggles, and explore how a real friendship and understanding could evolve between Oliver and Iris out of their mutual love for Barry. (Centering female characters within manpain narratives, ftw! Otoh, I centered Iris so much it veered off the Olivarry rails into Queenwestallen territory on its own)

There is so much meaty conflict and delicious looming disaster in this story that I'm determined going to keep at it, even if slow and steady. If only to bring the light of Barry/Iris/Oliver into the world. xD

Holding On (Olivarry). This real-world disability AU deals with chronic and mental illness and the precariousness and personal demons of that reality. I tore out the rawest parts of my life for this fic and put them on display so that I couldn't bear to show it to anyone for a year after it was written.

I'm very glad I did finally brush it off and put it up because it has struck a chord with so many people, especially other Spoonies. The low number of hits on a fic that deals in hurt/comfort rather stings, as I can't help but think the disinterest is because of the "disability" and "neurodivergence" tags. But I still think it's one of the best things I've written and one I'll always be proudest of.

General Reflections:

Things I've learned over the past year of writing:

- Self-deprecation is not my friend. I need to be honest enough with myself to acknowledge when my writing is good, because either I self-validate and build confidence or I become a black hole of insecurity where validation goes to die. And if I think I'm a bit better than I actually am, it's not just okay but necessary to believe it.

- What I call writer's block is perfectionism, anxiety and physical and mental fatigue. If I don't eat, sleep, hydrate and acheive a relaxed mental state, I won't be able to write. 

- Momentum is more my friend than any amount of inspiration and motivation. Sitting my ass down and make it a habit to churn out X number of words a day, even bad writing, will do more to help me than polishing an idea to a high shine. 

- If I don't forgive myself for the stories I can't write I'll never write anything. I am doing this for free, to share the love and joy and therefore obligated to no one. 

- I'm capable of writing things I don't have the first idea how to write. My fingers on a keyboard can paint the picture my brain can't visualize. 

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but I am going to make it a personal goal to write at least 15k words per month, learn to stick to a posting schedule where possible.  and end next year with an additional 150k words posted. 

To everyone who follows this blog, commented, reblogged and liked my posts - I see and remember and appreciate every one of you. You're the reason I feel seen and valued and why I am motivated to keep writing through all the difficulties life throws at me. <3<3<3