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simprisottowriter · 4 years ago

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I absolutely adored your head cannons for Giorno and Bruno! I’d love to see some similar ones for either Jotaro or Josuke 💜

I'd be delighted to write for both of them, rainfoxx! Both Jotaro and Josuke are wonderful choices! I have a soft spot for them! As always, hope you like these headcanons!

°Fluff Headcanons°

�� Having built his career, his work takes a big part of his day. So even when he is in his office, finishing papers for hours, he always leaves Star Platinum to roam around the house, mostly being by your side. Star Platinum expresses every emotion that Jotaro doesn’t. It is so obvious that the stand is delighted to be with you! Being intrigued by every small task you do around the house, it is always very willing and excited to give you a hand. Even if Star accidentally ends up making a mess.

◇ Star Platinum loves learning new things, and treasures every time you read him a book. Though, whenever you leave the stand from your sight, it might end up bringing random things from outside. If you end up with someone else's drink or with a new kitten, it’s not your fault. Caring for Star Platinum is like babysitting an energetic and happy child.

◇ Jotaro loves staying at home. Crowds overwhelm him. Near you, he feels different than he does with other people. To him, you feel home. ♡

◇ He treasures the moments full of silence that you spend together. Sometimes, he likes not having anything to talk about. Just doing his thing and being near you is fine for him. Silence for him isn’t awkward. It’s a way of showing that he feels comfortable enough with you to be himself.

◇ The first time you met him, in a project regarding marine wildlife, you probably felt his overwhelmingly cold and intimidating attitude that everyone was telling you about. No matter what others were gossiping about Jotaro’s behavior, you wanted to learn more about him. Thus, you were the one who invited Jotaro to your group. Though, you were worried if he didn’t like your presence, since it was difficult to understand what he was feeling. Your worries disappeared as you listened to him answer so eagerly and softly to your every question about sea life. It was strange but comforting to see him with a much softer expression than before.

◇ Thing is, that he feels intimidating to others that cannot read him and understand him as well as you do. Jotaro is truly a thoughtful sweetheart, and once he loves someone he'll do everything he can to ensure they are safe. Even if he shows it a bit harshly and in an overprotective way, he truly cares. He even makes Star Platinum act as your personal guard.

◇ His ideal date would probably be a calm walk by the sea or a short stroll around town. Ideally, he’d like living in a small seaside town, away from the crowded areas of the city. Wouldn’t mind visiting the aquarium. Though, the exotic sea-life isn’t something that impresses him. He has already seen these rare species through his work and in numerous books. Steals soft glances at you, while you look at all the colorful fish that gather at your finger, while tapping on the glass. You can basically see him blushing through his hat, even if he tips it to hide his blushing-red face. ♡

◇ Jotaro truly falls for someone's personality and their sweet smile. Everything else is superficial. Appearances don’t matter to him a lot.

◇ At the start, he's very private about his hobbies. Though, he has many interests aside from marine biology. His hobbies don't always circle around his career.

◇ Not very good with affection or PDA in general. At first, he'd shy out from cuddling, and let Star Platinum keep you in its arms. But when Jotaro warms up to your presence, his hugs are more frequent and godlike. Full of warmth, unparalleled comfort and so protective, that you feel like you are safe from everything. You'll melt in his strong arms. ♡

◇ Avid fan of dad jokes. Says them anytime he can. Mostly says them quietly, as you are beside him, so that you are the only one who can hear them.

◇ Would cook for you whenever he has free time. He might be a workaholic, but he loves caring for you.

◇ Elegantly emanates a fragrance of body spray, paired with a soft scent of seawater and fresh air. His clothes always smell divine. Like they just came out of the drier. Generally, Jotaro feels like a gentle morning breeze.

◇ Sleeps with the dolphin plush you bought him for his birthday. Has even given it a cute nickname.

◇ He's not very accustomed to technology, but he’s trying his best! You're much more knowledgeable with devices than him, so he really admires you for that.

◇ Clean, very sharp and bold handwriting. Neat but plain. Mostly writes in caps. Never forgets punctuation.

◇ When he is in high spirits, he lets his favorite cassettes play in the background, filling the room with the gentle sound of jazz and blues. R&B is also a big favorite of his. He always makes sure to play his music not very loud, since he doesn't want to bother you. Though, you love listening to his fave songs! You always praise his good taste in music till he becomes red-faced. Adores every song you recommend him.

◇ His frequent visits to the sea are mostly work related. But even when he observes and researches sea life by the shore, he never forgets to bring home a small seashell for you. He says that its delicate and beautiful, which reminded him of you. ♡

◇ Summer in Morioh means relaxing hangouts with Josuke, full of his warmth and affection. Though, when the first leaves fall and school life is around the corner, the time you can spend together is more limited than before. That doesn’t mean he can’t go out with you after school!

◇ Loves going on study dates. The atmosphere of the cafe is relaxing. Even if he jokes with you most of the time, and doesn’t do any school work during your hangouts, he isn't as careless as he seems. Through these study dates he ensures that you are keeping up with your studies. Plus, he understands way better the subjects when you explain them to him! University is a bit difficult for both of you, but Josuke’s presence makes it much more bearable!

◇ Though, Josuke would prefer hanging out at home. Adores being in the safety of his room, where he could express his love for you through cuddles and any kind of physical affection. If I didn’t make this clear enough, Josuke loves PDA! Whenever he notices that you feel a bit down, he immediately squeezes you in his arms! ♡

◇ Whenever you are hanging out at home, Josuke’s stand loves being by your side! It is as affectionate as he is. Crazy Diamond always keeps you in his embrace while you are gaming with Josuke. Sometimes, it will take you in its arms just to ensure you are not harmed in any way, by checking if you have any wounds it can heal for you. ♡

◇ Josuke will always check on you, and make sure you are eating well, staying hydrated and getting enough sleep. Usually through text messages. He would prefer phone calls, as he likes hearing your voice. Josuke might not even care this much for himself and his health, but his first priority is taking care of his friends, and most importantly, you!

◇ He loves making you happy. Not only with quality time spent together, but also with small gifts! Whenever he can afford buying something extra for you, he will. He’ll spend his cash for you without second thinking.

◇ Emanates a sweet scent of cinnamon and lavender. The smell of his hair gel is very soft and characteristic.

◇ Always lets you borrow his clothes. You haven't realized how adorable he thinks you look in his outfit! ♡

◇ Delicate, legible and cursive handwriting. It looks a bit childish, but his letters are very clean! While taking notes (which is a bit rare on its own), he definitely doodles on each page. His textbook is filled with cute and messy sketches of stickmen, flowers and houses.

◇ Usually has a variety of pop, rock and R&B songs in his playlist, which is mainly filled with Prince’s songs. Always likes sharing with you any new song he finds. He is very excited to describe to you all the emotions he felt while listening to it. Really values a good melody! Is very bashful when you send Josuke a playlist you made for him.

◇ If you manage to wake up really early, Josuke won’t have his hairdo ready yet. His pompadour takes quite some time to do, so you always love helping him prepare his hairstyle. He finds it endearing how much you care for him, how carefully you brush his hair and apply his hair gel. Though, when its just you two, he doesn’t mind letting his hair down. His luscious, messy locks make your heart skip a beat, but Josuke has no clue. ♡

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infinity-and-luck · 3 years ago

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Oh Percy can I have any Peter headcanons ? I love my little meow meow so much.

- This man radiates so much Youngest Sibling energy it's unreal. He is the youngest of his siblings, and he is effecitvely an only child.

- Well, first of all, he's trans so jot that down.

- His family hates him. Not because he's trans (I don't think they cared or even noticed) but because he's annoying. You know in Good Omens how Crowley is a super effective demon but all the other demons hate him because his methods are so different? Yeah, that's Peter with the Lonely.

- He was 17 when he went out to sea. He was a captain when he was 17.

- That being said, I firmly believe this man has no clue what being captain actually entails. My man, Tadeas Dahl, runs the ship, and Peter is the one who gets the credit. Both of them like it this way.

- That's not to say that Peter doesn't know anything about sailing and such, but it's all random assorted knowledge and nothing that would make him a captain.

- I don't think the Lukases would've had their children taught any actual subjects. He learned about the Lonely and other Entities growing up.

- Yes, he learned about Jonah Magnus as a child. It was kinda weird meeting him and then getting with him.

- Allergic to cats, but that won't stop him.

- He loves pretending not to know things to annoy people. He'll ask Jonah and/or Martin questions and then "forget" their answers five seconds later and make them explain stuff again because he thinks it's funny to get them mad.

- He's colorblind. Everyone who's Lonely is.

- He was really short when he was young and then grew, like, two feet over the course of a year. Sadly, no one noticed. :'(

- He never has any clue what to do with his hands, so he keeps them shoved in his pockets always. When he talks, you feel like he should use a lot of hand gestures, but he doesn't, which is intimidating in its own right.

- I'll end this on a sad note: He's never been hugged for a period longer than 7 seconds.

#Thank you!#In which Percival gets an ask!

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stitchkiss · 5 years ago

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College!Adam Headcanon

This is kinda old but i thought i’d post it anyways! Declan and Adam at college!!!

adam gets accepted to the ivy league college of his dreams

but, to ronan’s horror, its the same university declan attends

declan likes adam and he approves of his relationship to his brother, so he takes adam under his wing

ronan thinks declan just wants to corrupt adam with boring political shit and a never ending supply of conversational hors d'oeuvres

they drive to d.c. together

they drive home together on the sundays adam doesn’t have work or an assignment due

ronan is a bit jealous of how much time they spend together

but then adam comes home and they spend an entire afternoon doing rather unholy things for a sunday and his jealousy is forgotten

(ronan doesnt know he’s the topic of their discussions a majority of the time)

adam and declan also share a study group

the members are friends declan made (shocker!) in his first year

they think declan’s pleasant and kind, but sometimes a tad boring for a twenty year old

there are moments his friends see The Real Declan, but they find it’s best to enjoy the part of himself he’s giving them

he’s also suspiciously private

so when he introduces them to adam parrish, a mysterious freshman with stellar work ethic, they start to see a little more into declan’s world.

they’re apprehensive of adam in the beginning

he’s younger than them first of all

and he’s nearly as private as declan is

but when he allows bits and pieces of himself to be known, it seems… fake. unreal.

he uses tarot cards regularly

they’re accurate enough to end up causing someones midlife crisis at the tender age of 19.

he says offhandedly that he’s a magician, but not that kind like there’s any other kind

he’s freakishly great with plants and animals

one guy in their group swears the plant adam sits by in the study room seems to stand straighter when he’s around

another claims she saw a herd of random cats crowding around adam on campus and he simply told them to please go away i have places to be

and they just. left. ???

he also somehow managed to get into sophomore and junior classes that aren’t offered to freshman

adam parrish is a mystifying creature and it scares them.

declan listens to these complaints and rolls his eyes

this raises some eyebrows

“adam parrish is the smartest little shit i’ve ever met. befriending him will get you farther than you think”

thats how the study group finds out adam and declan went to the same prestigious academy and thats how they know each other

things go smoother after that

they find out where declan fucks off to every weekend and sometimes takes adam too

this is also how they find out about adams boyfriend

they do not find out he’s related to declan

(adam and declan want to keep ronan on the DL for safety reasons, and declan had never mentioned the names of his brothers anyways so it wouldn’t matter, right?)

anyways they come back from cow shit valley, virginia and the group gets together for a pre-midterm week schedule organization session before everything gets messy

they’re ivy league, what’d you expect?

they chatter about their weekend as they jot down times and finals and the most opportune part of their day to grab a coffee

then someone complains they won’t have any time to spend with their girlfriend for two weeks

thus generating an uproar of a little over a half dozen young adults dejected over loss time with their significant others

there’s comfort and pouts and cute couple stories

declan realizes he’s the only single one, which, fuck.

he’s proud his friends have such happy romantic lives, but if he has to endure another second listening to hallmark grade romance stories, he’s going to throw up.

then:

“adam, what about you? you gonna survive not seeing your mans ass for two weeks?”

adam blushes and rightfully so, but declan makes a face

“we spent the whole weekend together because i knew i wouldn’t get the chance to see or talk to him for a while. it’s not that big a deal, we’ve been apart longer”

the sappiness of adams voice would be endearing if it weren’t declan’s b r o t h e r he was talking about

ronan lynch and endearment were two emotions on opposite sides of a fucked up love spectrum

adams love spectrum was a goddamn puzzle

“oooo. did adam get some this weekend???”

declan blanched as others around the table howled and catcalled and raised suggestive eyebrows

this...this was not a conversation he wanted to be apart of

at all.

adams eyes flickered over to declan as he laughed the comment off

he decided to tread lightly over the brother to the snake’s territory

“we’re not just a physical couple. there’s a lot of love and worship between us”

“aWwWw LiKe WhAt??”

“he's very thoughtful. he, uh, makes me hand cream because he knows how much i work with them—“

“he has a HAND KINK adam you can’t ignore this!!!!”

declan tries to ignore this greatly.

adam stayed respectfully quiet, though more to the fact that ronan did actually have a hand kink but he wasn’t about to expose his boyfriend

besides, that information was adams to know and adams use to his advantage when need be

declan was glaring intently at the planner in front of him

adam didn’t even think he was breathing!!!

“are you a top or a bottom” someone winked

declan dropped his head into his heads heavily

“can we please stop talking about this?” came muffled from his position

“don’t be homophobic, declan! we always talk about the saucy details, and now youre all uncomfortable because it’s guy on guy?”

adam willed himself to die on the spot, but even his magician powers could not grant him instant death to escape violent embarrassment

declan straight g a g g e d because that was worded ever so eloquently

“i don’t want to talk about the saucy details of parrish’s sex life because he’s dating my brother.”

#this was written post trk #ive always loved declan honestly #i havent read cdth yet shhh #too many italizies oops #cringy old writing but it kinda slaps??#adam parrish #ronan lynch #pynch #declan lynch #adam parrish headcanon #declan lynch headcanon #trc #trc headcanon #the raven cycle #call down the hawk #stitchkiss

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years ago

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My Five Most Influential

Someone asked: Who are the most influential writers in your life?

Good question.

The broad answer is that one gets influenced many different ways by many different sources. I enjoy poetry and song lyrics because they find ways of conveying the strongest emotional content in the most concise manner, music brings a sense of dramatic rhythm and fulfillment, the visual arts suggest ways of subtly adding many insights to a single strong idea, etc., etc., and of course, etc. (and that is also an example of a creative influence in my work).

But…to boil it down to those whom I most consciously made an effort to emulate, we find ourselves facing five creators that primed the pump.

This is not to say others whom I began following after them didn’t wield a lot of influence (thanx, Ernie, Bert, Jack, Bob, and Hank!) but these are the foundation of everything I’ve done in my career.

(And to those who notice a lack of diversity, I know, I know…but to be honest I have to acknowledge the truth, and the truth is for whatever reason, by chance or by choice, by fate or by fortune, these five dominated my sensibilities. I trust that I’ve grown and expanded my horizons since then, but they’re the hand I got dealt.)

. . .

Carl Barks

I loved ducks as a kid and my grandmother and aunt would always bring me a passel of duck-related comics when they came to visit.

There were some Daffy Duck comics mixed in there but while I know I looked at and enjoyed them, none of them stick in my mind like the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories of Carl Barks.

Typically my grandmother would read these comics to me and I’d imprint the dialog and captions in my brain, replaying them as I looked at the pictures over and over again.

Barks never wrote down to his audience, and his stories covered a vast array of genres, everything from straight domestic comedy to oddball adventures to screwy crime stories.

Donald and his nephews encountered dinosaurs more than once (another big favorite of mine), and Uncle Scrooge setting out to explore the asteroid belt in order to find a new home for his fabulous money bin was another tale I loved literally to pieces, but A Christmas For Shacktown remains my all time favorite graphic novel.

I’ll concede there are better graphic novels, but none of them warm my heart the way that Christmas story does.

Barks showed it’s possible to combine heart (not to be confused with sentimentality or =yuch!= schmaltz), vivid characters, and strong, intricate narrative. His plots where typically filled with unexpected twists and turns but his characters were always deeply involved in them, not just along for the ride.

He’s one of the greatest storytellers in the 20th century, and his work remains timeless enough to last for several centuries to come.

. . .

Ray Bradbury

The first Ray Bradbury story I remember encountering was “Switch On The Night” in its 1955 edition, read to my kindergarten class towards the end of the school year.

This would place the event sometime in the spring of 1959.

“Switch On The Night” captivated me because it was the first story I’d ever heard that showed what could be seen in the dark that couldn’t be seen in the day.

Even as a child, it made me realize the night wasn’t scary, but contained wonders and insights we miss in the harsh glare of day.

I don’t recall if the kindergarten teacher told us the name of the author, and if she did it didn’t stick, but boy howdy, the story sure did! Did it open the doors of the night for me, or was I already inclined to be a night person and it simply confirmed that as a valid identity?

I dunno, but I’m typing this right now at 12:24am.

And the thoughts Bradbury planted in little Buzzy boy’s brain stayed and grew and flowered, as you can read in my poem, “The Magic Hours Of The Night”.

The next time I encountered Ray Bradbury’s writing was in grammar school, certainly no later than junior high. I was already interested in science fiction by that point, and had read “The Pedestrian” in one of my school English books (we weren’t taught the story in class; the teacher skipped over it for whatever reason but I read it anyway then re-read it and read it again and again).

Anthony Boucher’s ubiquitous 2-volume A Treasury Of Great Science Fiction was in my grammar school library and in it was Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” (which I would later learn was one of his alternate Martian Chronicles and a crossover with Fahrenheit 451) and in that story he offered up a veritable laundry list of outré and outlandish fiction to be tracked down and read, authors to dig up and devour.

Oh, man, I was hooked.

So of course I began looking for all the stories and writers Bradbury listed in his short story but I also began looking for Bradbury’s own work and before you could say, “Mom, can I get a subscription to the Science Fiction Book Club?” I’d read The Golden Apples Of The Sun and A Medicine For Melancholy and R is For Rocket never once dreaming that at some point in the future the roadmap Ray plopped down in my lap would eventually lead to us being co-workers (separate projects, but the same studio at the same time) and friends.

There is a beautiful yet deceptive simplicity to Ray’s work, and even though he wrote his own book on writing (The Zen Of Writing) that has lots of good insights and professional tricks & tips, he himself wasn’t able to explain how he did it.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Ray Bradbury parody.

I’ve seen parodies that clearly are intended to evoke Ray Bradbury, but only in the same way a clumsy older relative might evoke Michael Jackson with a spasmodic movement one vaguely recognizes as a failed attempt at a moonwalk.

But, lordie, don’t think we didn’t try to emulate him, and while none of us fanboys ever came close, I think a lot of us did learn that less is more, that the right word carries more impact than a dozen paragraphs, and that there’s magic in even the most ordinary of things.

And of course I discovered the film and TV adaptations of his work, and in discovering them I also discovered that there are some things that just can’t be translated from one media to another, and that the light, effortless appeal of Ray’s work on the page (paper or pixel) can at best be recaptured with a good audio book reader but even the best dramatic adaptions -- even those by Ray himself -- are cold dead iron butterflies compared to the light and lively creatures flying about.

So eventually I stopped trying to write like him, and instead picked up the valuable lessons of mood and emotion making an impact on a story even if the plot didn’t make much logical sense.

Decades later I would become a fan of opera, and would learn the philosophy of all opera lovers: Opera doesn’t have to make logical sense, it just has to make emotional sense.

Ray Bradbury, opera meister.

. . .

H.P. Lovecraft

As noted above, Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” tipped me to numerous other writers, first and foremost of which turned out to be Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Okay, before we get any further into this, let’s acknowledge the woolly mammoth in the room: H.P. Lovecraft was a colossal asshat racist.

He was a lot of other terrible things, too, but racist is far and ahead of the rest of the pack.

It’s a disillusioning thing to find people one admired as a youngster or a teen later prove to have not just quirks and eccentricities and personal flaws, but genuinely destructive, harmful, and offensive characters.

I’ve posted on that before, too.

How I wish it were possible to retroactively scale back that hurtfulness, to make them more empathetic, less egregiously offensive (in the military sense of the word), but that ain’t so.

We have to acknowledge evil when we see it, and we have to call it out, and we have to shun it.

Which is hard when one of its practitioners provides a major influence in our creative lives.

Here’s what I liked about Lovecraft as a kid: He was the complete opposite of Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury’s instinctive genius was in finding the right word, the simple word that conveyed great impact on the story, drawing the reader into the most fantastic situations by making them seem more familiar on a visceral level.

Lovecraft achieved the exact opposite effect by finding the most arcane, bedizened, baroque, florid, grandiloquent, overwrought, rococo verbiage possible and slapping the reader repeatedly in the face with it.

If Bradbury made the unreal real, Lovecraft made the weird even more weirder.

And let’s give this devil his due: The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror are two masterpieces of horror and serve as the bridge between Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King, not to mention his creation of Cthulhu and other ancient entities existing beyond the ken of human knowledge…

…oh, wait, that’s where the story simultaneously gets messy yet provides a convenient escape hatch for fans.

While Lovecraft created Cthulhu, he did not create the Cthulhu Mythos.

That was primarily the invention August Derleth, a writer / editor / agent and H.P. Lovecraft’s #1 fanboy.

Lovecraft had some loosely related ideas in his stories and several themes he revisited repeatedly (in addition to racism).

He also had a circle of fellow writers -- including such heavy hitters as Robert “Psycho” Bloch and Robert E. “Conan” Howard -- who picked up on his ideas and, as way of a tribute, incorporated them in some of their stories.

Derleth took all this and Lovecraft’s unfinished manuscripts and short ideas he jotted down and turned it into a whole post-mortem industry, linking all of Lovecraft and other writers’ tales.

And he did a damn fine job of it, too.

So much so that the Cthulhu Mythos has taken on a life of its own, and pretty much anybody can play in that cosmic sandbox now (including Big Steve King and a ton of Japanese anime) and so Lovecraft’s works have an enormous influence on pop culture…

,,,but Howard hizzowndamsef can be -- and is -- cancelled.

Derleth and various biographers downplayed Lovecraft’s virulent racism for decades, and I don’t think Ray Bradbury was ever aware of the scope and tenor of Lovecraft’s bigotry when he name checked him in “Pillar Of Fire” and other stories.

In a similar vein Bradbury didn’t know -- because thanks again to overly protective literary executors, nobody knew -- just how big a racist asshat Walt Whitman was, either. It is one thing to call shenanigans on a Bill Cosby or a Harvey Weinstein or a Donald Trump because their egregious behaviors were noted long before they were held accountable, but quite another to do so on a creator who died while hiding their most awful behavior from thousands if not millions of fans who felt inspired and uplifted by their work.

It’s one thing to call out a contemporary bigot and not support them by not buying their work, it’s quite another when their bigotry has been shielded from view and fair minded, decent people have used their work to draw inspiration into their own creativity.

Of course, I had no way of knowing all this when I was in junior high and seriously began tracking down Lovecraft’s work.

He possessed a flair of the horrific and unearthly that to this day is hard to match (but easier to parody). He was a tremendous influence on my early writing (truth be told, I zigzagged between Bradbury’s stark simplicity and Lovecraft’s overarching verbosity, giving my early oeuvre a rather schizophrenic style) and the ideas he sparked still reverberate to this day.

If only he hadn’t been such a giant %#@&ing asshat racist …

. . .

Harlan Ellison

In a way, I’m glad neither Harlan nor his widow Susan are alive to read this.

I cherished Harlan as a friend and greatly admired his qualities as a writer.

But damn, by his own admission he should have been thrown in prison for aggravated assault on numerous occasions (he was courts martialed three times while in the Army).

We’re not talking about arguments that spiraled out of control until a few wild punches were thrown, we’re talking about Harlan by his own admission stalking and ambushing people, knocking them unconscious or causing grievous bodily harm.

We’re talking about sexual abuse and humiliation.

We’re talking about incidents he admitted to which if true put people in life threatening situations.

And yet ironically, in a certain sense Harlan (a bona fide Army Ranger, BTW) was like the U.S. Marine Corps: You’d never have a greater friend or a worse enemy.

I became dimly aware of Harlan in the late 1960s as I started diving deeper into literary sci-fi, transitioning from monster kid fandom to digests and paperbacks. Harlan first caught my attention with his macho prose (years later a similar style also drew me to Charles Bukowski) in stories like “Along the Scenic Route” (a.k.a. “Dogfight on 101”) in which Los Angelinos engaged in Mad Max motor mayhem but soon it became apparent the macho posturing was just a patina, that the heart and soul of much of the work reflected great sensitivity and often profound melancholy (ditto Bukowski).

Harlan was a fighter, and again by his own admission, he acknowledged in his later years that he was not a fighter because his cause was just, but rather sought out just causes because he knew he would be fighting regardless of his position, yet possessed a strong enough moral compass to point himself in the direction of a worthy enemy…

…most of the time.

He hurt and offended a large number of innocent and some not-so-innocent-but-certainly-not-evil people.

He also helped and encouraged a large number of others, people who had no idea who he was, people who had no way of adequately reciprocating his kindness and generosity.

He defended a lot of defenseless people.

He also mistakenly defended a lot of terrible people.

If someone tells me Harlan was a monster, I’ll agree: Monstre sacré.

What made his writing sacred was that no matter how outlandish the situation, Harlan dredged up from the depths emotions so strong as to be frightening in their depiction.

Skilled enough not to lose sight of humanity, outlandish enough to conjure up ideas and emotions most people would shy away from, Harlan hit adolescent Buzzy boy like an incendiary grenade.

Unlike my first three literary influences, Harlan was and remained active in the fannish circles where I was circulating at the time. He regularly wrote letters and columns for various fanzines, including a few I subscribed to.

In a literary sense he stood, naked and unashamed, in full view of the world, and that willingness to go beyond mundane sensibilities is what made his work so compelling.

He certainly fired me up as an adolescent writer, and proved an amalgam of Bradbury and Lovecraft that got my creative juices flowing in a coherent direction.

I don’t think I ever consciously tried to imitate him in my writing, but I sure learned from him, both in how to charge a story with emotion and how to fight for what’s right regardless of the blow back.

I loved him as a friend.

But, damn, Harlan…you could act so ugly...

. . .

H. Allen Smith

Who?

Most of you have never heard of H. Allen Smith, and that’s a damn shame.

I’d never heard of him either until I stumbled across a coverless remaindered copy of Poor H. Allen Smith’s Almanac in a Dollar General Store bin in Tennessee in the late 1960s (it was a memorable shopping expedition: I also purchased Thomas Heggen’s Mister Roberts and Let’s Kill Uncle by Rohan O'Grady [pen name of June Margaret O'Grady Skinner]).

Reading Smith’s editorial comments (in addition to his own essays and fiction he edited numerous humor anthologies) I realized I’d found a kindred soul.

Smith had a very conversational tone as a writer; his prose seemed off the cuff and unstructured, but he slyly used that style to hide the very peculiar (and often perverse) path he led readers down.

He sounded / read like a garrulous guy at the bar, one with a huge number of charming, witty (and delightfully inebriated) friends in addition to his own bottomless well of tall tales, pointed observations, and rude jokes.

Of all the writers mentioned above, that style is the one I most consciously tried to emulate, and one I seem to have been able to find my own voice in (several people have told me I write the same way I talk, a rarity among writers).

Smith was hilarious whether wearing an editor’s visor or a freelancer’s fool’s cap. If you know who H. L. Mencken was, think of Smith as a benign, better tempered version of that infamous curmudgeon (and if you don’t know, hie thee hence to Google and find out).

Compared to my other four influences, Smith didn’t need to add the fantastic to his fiction: The real world was weird and wacky and whimsical enough.

A newspaper man turned best selling author, Smith became among the most popular humorists of the 1940s-50s-60s…

…and then he died and everybody forgot him.

Part of the reason they forgot is that he wrote about things that no longer seem relevant (TV cowboys of the early television era, f’r instance, in Mr. Zip) or are today looked upon askance (and with justifiable reason; the ethnic humor in many of his anthologies may not have been intended as mean spirited, but it sure doesn’t read as a celebration of other cultures, viz his succinct account of an argument following a traffic accident between two native Honolulu cabbies rendered in pidgin: “Wassamatta you?” “’Wassmatta me’?!?!? Wassamatta you ‘Wassamatta me’? You wassamatta!”).

I’m sure I picked up a great many faults from Smith, but Smith also had the virtue of being willing and able to learn and to make an effort to be a better person today than he was yesterday, and better still tomorrow.

I’ve certainly tried applying that to my life.

Smith’s style was also invoked -- consciously or not -- by other writers and editors, notably Richard E. Geis, the editor of the legendary sci-fi semi-prozone, Science Fiction Review (among other titles). Smith died before I could meet him, but while I never met Dick Geis face to face we were pen pals for over 40 years.

Geis certainly sharpened specific aspects of my writing style, but the real underlying structure came from H. Allen Smith.

Smith’s work is hard to find today (in no small part because whenever I encounter one in the wild I snap it up) but I urge you to give him a try.

Just brace yourself for things we might consider incorrect today.

. . .

So there’s my top five.

With the exception of Carl Barks and Ray Bradbury, none of them are without serious flaw or blemish (though Smith seems like a decent enough sort despite his fondness for X-rated and ethnic humor).

In my defense as an impressionable child / teen, I was not aware of these flaws and blemishes when I first encountered their writing (primarily because in many cases efforts were made to hide or downplay those aspects).

The positive things I gleaned from them are not negated by the negative personal information that came out later.

I can, for the most part re the more problematic of them, appreciate their work while not endorsing their behavior.

Ellison can only be described in extremes, but his fire and passion -- when directed in a positive direction -- served as a torch to light new paths (his two original anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, pretty much blew the doors off old school sci-fi and belatedly dragged the genre kicking and screaming into the 20th century).

Lovecraft I can effectively ignore while finding entertainment value in the Cthulhu Mythos.

But I must acknowledge this isn’t the same for everyone.

For example, as innocuous as I find H. Allen Smith, if a woman or a member of a minority group said, “I found this in particular to be offensive” I’d probably have to say, yeah, you’re right.

But I can still admire the way he did it, even if I can no longer fully support what he did.

. . .

By the time I reached high school, I’d acquired enough savvy to regard to literary finds a bit more dispassionately, appreciating what they did without trying to literally absorb it into my own writing.

I discovered for myself the Beat generation of writers and poets, the underground cartoonists of the late 60s and 70s, Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin, and a host of others, some already alluded to.

Some, such as the Beats and Bukowski, I could enjoy for their warts and all honest self-reflection.

Yes, they were terrible people, but they knew they were terrible people, and they also knew there had to be something better, and while they may never have found the nirvana they sought, they at least sent back accurate reports of where they were in their journeys of exploration.

By my late teens, I’d become aware enough of human foibles and weaknesses -- every human’s foibles and weaknesses, including my own -- to be very, very cautious in regarding an individual as admirable.

While I will never accept creativity as an excuse for bad behavior, if a creator is honest enough and self-introspective enough to recognize and acknowledge their own failings, it goes a long way towards my being willing to enjoy their work without feeling I’m endorsing them as individuals.

It’s not my place to pass judgment or exoneration on others bad behavior.

It is my place to see that I don’t emulate others’ bad behavior.

Every creator is connected to their art, even if it’s by-the-numbers for-hire hack work.

Every creator puts something of themselves into the final product.

And every member of the audience must decide for themselves if that renders the final product too toxic to be enjoyed.

#how this writer's mind works #writing #Carl Barks #Ray Bradbury #HP Lovecraft #Harlan Ellison #H Allen Smith #influences

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dontyouhearmehowling · 5 years ago

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oh my god. Ok so I just scrolled through your blog and my heart hurts because there is so much love and just so much stuff I can relate too and I just ahhh damnnn it I cant even but like can I please have the story of your relationship with this girl your with? please? i'm a hopeless romantic I feel too much I love so hard my own love life is complicated but i know the kind of love you talk about thats exactly how i love the love of my life too so yours is a story I need to hear

ok so. it all started on April 31st, 2018. i reblogged one of those ask games and she sent me an emoji that said “i’m too scared to talk to you but i think you’re great” and i was like do it!!! and she did!!!! she texted me after i had already gone to sleep tho, so i only answered the next day. but then we talked all day. and the next. and the next. and we never ran out of things to talk about and even only knowing her for a few days i already felt comfortable enough with her to talk about anything?? it was wild. since day 1 we’ve had this connection that i’ve never had with anyone else and its my favorite thing in the world. after like a week we already had a bunch of inside jokes, something that i’d never had before, and i was already crushing on her. ok so we became very close friends like immediately, and i mostly ignored my crush on her bc i thought she didn’t like me back and usually i’d get meaningless crushes on everyone at first before i met her. but then this other girl and i started flirting and i realized i didnt like her bc i liked c too much, so i broke things off and kinda went like “oh shit this is real” and decided that i’d just stay friends with c until i eventually couldnt take it anymore and had to tell her abt my feelings bc thats how i am. anyways ok cool meanwhile i made her watch the good place on rabb.it with me which will be relevant later.

ok so fast forward to may 21st or something around that time. its time to sleep bc i have school the next day so we say goodnight, but then i guess she says something or reblogs something and i get sad bc i realize she doesnt like me back. so i make some hashtag sad posts abt yearning and then i realize i told her i was going to sleep and i didnt want her to think i didnt want to talk to her so i text her again and say like “ok i was going to go to sleep but then i got sad abt my crush” and SHE GOES “you have a crush????????” and im there like. what in the hell bc not only did i not try to hide it At All, i constantly posted about it and had an entire tag about her and i thought it was pretty obvious. so anyways i go “yes?? i thoought you knew that?? im literally always posting about it??” and she asks me to talk abt the crush and who it is. i say “just stalk the tag if u want, im going to sleep” then shes like “nO WAIT WHO IS IT” and im like. blatantly ignoring that and my heart is already beating out of my chest but she Really wants to know and then at one point i say “please dont make me answer that” so shE SAYS “you’re making me think that its me” and i say “i dont know what you want me to say” and SHE GOES “I WANT YOU TO SAY THAT ITS ME BC I HAVE A HUGE CRUSH ON YOU” so i just. die. right then and there. also yknow we talk about it and its like after 1 am and im just happier than i’ve ever been. ok so 2 days later she asks me out Officially and its great and shes the cutest gf ever and she made me feel more wanted than i’d ever felt in my entire life. then 6 days later she sends me a big big big text on tumblr and long story short (bc it was kinda personal), she would be deleting her all social media for the summer.

so she was gone. and we had only dated for a week at this point, but we’d known each other for 2 months, and i already loved her. i already knew she was the love of my life. i didnt even try to move on, i’d tell people i didnt wanna move on cuz i knew i was meant to love her. i had another blog like this that i used to talk about how much i loved and missed her (so like. exactly like this). i literally reasoned with myself that like. that happened because before i met her i was in a really bad place after a terrible relationship and i was almost giving up on finding someone who actually made me feel loved bc i thought it would never happened, so i was like “ok so i was in a really bad place, so the universe brought my soulmate a little early just for a while so that i would know i had to hold on, and when its actually time for us to be together, it will bring us to each other once again” like i actually told myself that, in those words. and yknow what? i wasnt even wrong. on july 15th she texted me from an empty tumblr with her old url and at first i literally couldnt believe it but we talked for hours and hours and i asked her what happened bc i thought she was disconnecting for the summer and she said “i was. i am. i just couldnt not talk to you anymore” and she said that she thought about me every single day, and i told her i missed her and she said she didnt text sooner bc she thought i’d be angry at her and ofc i wouldnt, i could never be angry at her and besides, she was just taking care of herself and i said i dont think i could be anything less than head over heels for for, and she said she felt the same way, but wasnt ready to be more than friends yet. but that had always been more than enough for me. just having her in my life would always be more than enough for me. so we stayed friends.

then, on august 9th i got this ask.

and she saw it after i said i was gonna go to bed (bc again, i had school the next day) and she texted me a whole thing about how that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about her and that i should be asleep but she had to get it out of her chest and that her anxiety made it hard for her to show how much i meant to her so she was sorry if i didnt know and this would probably make no sense but she was tired of keeping it to herself bc shes the luckiest person alive for having met me and that it was gonna be so hard because shes so difficult (shes not) and her anxiety is difficult but that she literally spent every night thinking about me and of buying plane tickets to come see me so that she could be with me. then she was like “im sorry if this is uncomfortable to you and you can just ignore it but i think im in love with you and this is over text and not romantic at all (it was the most romantic night of my life) but you’re asleep (i wasnt) and we arent together but i want to be one day” and until this i was Trying to fall asleep and then i checked my phone that kept RINGING and died a thousand times over and started to answer and she sent other texts saying “i’ve never felt this way about anyone before i’m so in love with you its fucking ridiculous and this is gonna be so complicated but fuck i want this so bad / i’m sorry it took me so long / would you move to new york with me?” and i was This Close to literally fucking exploding like. how the hell was this happening how was it not a DREAM. so we talked and i obviously said i loved her too and eventually she asked me out and thats still probably the best night of my life. other highlights: “i’ve loved you way before august 9th so jot that down” and “off topic but i love you / you’re honestly my other half” and, after i said “you cant make me laugh its 2am”, she answered “i’m going to make you laugh for the rest of your life so help me god” and thats my favorite thing anyone has ever said to me probably and so far she’s kept her word.

anyways we got back together and then she told me that she never even told her friends she broke up with me??? bc that way she could keep pretending we were still together???? literally like sjdksndk imagine being this loved. i dont have to. anyways she wrote poems abt me sometimes and her christmas gift for me was gonna be a book with all her poems and she called it “what we owe to each other” because of the good place (remember how i said it’d be relevant later? its later) bc like she said that when we were watching tgp together on rabb.it thats when she realized that she Really Truly liked me like For Real. and the inscription on the book was going to be “to the girl i love / and what i owe her” and. yall. i cry. anyways one of the poems had a huge impact on us. heres the story:

and she got them but we broke up before she got to mail them to me. what happened was she had some mental health problems and she said she couldnt give me what i needed at the time but knew i’d still give her my all bc thats just how i am and she thought it wouldnt be fair so she broke things off to work on her mental health. she said she would need some time before we could be friends. the last thing we said was that we loved each other. this was in like november 2018, and we didnt talk for months. i actually tried to move on this time after a while, but it didnt take. and then i gave up for good. havent tried since. but anyways, then, on march 11th, 2019, i had my first day of college back in my home country, and we have this “pranks”/games that seniors get to do to the freshmen, and one of them required eggs, and they asked us to paint them, so i panted mine as iron man bc it was easy, but c LOVES iron man. like. LOVES. like in a Whole New Level of loving. once when we were dating she said she loved me more than tony stark and i was like. shook. like she tattooed “T.S” on her ankle after him. u get the point. she loves him very much, its adorable and endearing and i love it. anyways. so i sent her a picture of it saying like “you dont have to answer this but i made this for my university and i thought you would like it” and she answered and IMMEDIATELY something clicked and we talked and talked and talked and it was never weird or awkward or uncomfortable. it never is with her. its incredible, i cant explain it. i Know shes my soulmate like thats the ONLY possible explanation for this kind of connection. its unreal. anyways. we became friends again! all was well.

then one beautiful night she drunk texts me sndjkajs she sends me so many texts and says it sucks that we live so far away and that she saw my posts (in this particular case, one that said something about like. when she talked about love now, was it about someone else?) and she said that it wasnt. and then she went to sleep and i only saw the texts when i woke up and i was DYING bc we had a 4 hour difference and it’d take a while for her to wake up. when she did, we talked and she said she wasnt over me and was scared she might never be, and even though we were still gonna stay friends, it was nice to know that she still loved me. ok so fast forward a bit more and i was starting to wonder if she’d moved on again, when she finds out her best friend had a crush on her, and that conversation ends up with her saying “it was 100% platonic for me / sorry if thats weird i just wanted you to know that” and it was NOT weird it was GREAT NEWS bc i was Hella jealous of her best friend and at first i wondered if they were dating and anyways the fact that she wanted me to know that was a pretty good hint that she still had feelings for me. ngl im still somewhat jealous of h (c’s best friend), but thats just bc im an insecure lil bitch and also bc they get to go out and do stuff together that i cant do with c bc of the distance, yknow? but anyways. then she went on a graduation trip in mid to the end of june and she bought me a magnet. just. out of nowhere. i cannot stress enough how Incredibly unexpected this was. so much so that i actually convinced myself that it meant she was over me????? literally. what the fuck. anyways we named him together and coincidentally (or bc of soulmate powers. who knows) we both had the same favorite names. i still love that.

okay so then we go to july 29th, 2019. first of all theres one of my favorite interactions Ever which was like after i was venting about something and i was thanking her and i said “you’re always here for me” to which she answered “nowhere else i’d rather be” and i still think thats peak romance and i will take no criticism on this. anyways so then she sent me a poem that she wrote based on a song i’d sent her (the song i called “heaven is a place” and its the BIGGEST mood for being in love and i sent it to her bc it was how i felt about her so her writing a poem about it?? literally the best thing ever. love it) anyways it was a beautiful poem and i cried and got very emotional and kinda went too far in my compliments (aka being very obvious about my romantic feelings) and then i was like oh no sorry if i made u uncomfortable and she was like. “you have NEVER. EVER EVER EVER EVER made me uncomfortable” “you’re the only person on planet earth i am comfortably myself around” and “there’s nothing you could ever say that i wouldn’t wanna hear” and anyways it was just very good and romantic conversation even tho we were just cough cough platonic hashtag gal pals hashtag no homo ✌️ and then she was like ok wait. i need to talk to u abt something. and in short she said she was waiting for us and i was like well what are you waiting for exactly? and she was like idk?? for us to accidentally bump into each other in new york in a few years?? WHICH WAS LITERALLY WHAT I’D DAYDREAM ABOUT BACK IN JUNE 2018 BEFORE SHE CAME BACK OKAY so anyways we had a Great conversation and said i love you about a thousand times each and she decided she was gonna buy tickets to come see me. and then she dID like TWO DAYS LATER. lichrally. queen of impulsivity but in the best way possible.

—————

ok quick edit here cuz i forgot to say that when i found out she was coming i asked for my mom’s help to make a necklace pendant for her from scratch. my mom works with prosthetics so she has the material to make jewelry and back when c and i were dating in 2018 i had made this lil design for a necklace that had the moon and the ocean (bc duh) and i was gonna give it to her for valentines day in 2019 but we broke up before that so i didnt get the chance, but when i found out i was meeting her i knew i had to. so i made the necklace in wax, like this:

and my mom took it to her work and heated it up to melt it and keep the shape of it to fill with silver, and this was the result:

i gave it to her when she got here and she wore it while she was here and it made me so happy. ok edit over

—————

ok so we kept being like couple-y but not officially in a relationship bc we didnt want to make her anxiety worse. also at one point she was like “so about the ‘i love you more than the moon/ocean’ thing, since we BOTH love BOTH of the moon AND the ocean, i think its only Fair if we update our love declarations to ‘i love you more than the mocean’ bc its mix of both but thats not a word, buT its pronounced exactly like ‘motion’. therefore we should both start saying ‘i love you more than the motion’”. so now we have both the wonderful, romantic, original version, and the NOT ROMANTIC AT ALL DO U HEAR ME C??? version :) and after this day she always started with the WORST!!!!!! version, and i always started with the Only Valid Version, but we’d still answer each other’s ofc because. well. thats love i gues?? it sorta goes like this though: her: i love you more than the motion / me: i hate u / me: i literally hate u so much / me: i Also love you more than the motion

but anyways she was coming to visit me but the plane ticket wasnt for my home country it was for where i was going to university at (a new university, i was starting over) and when i first got here on this campus, i didnt have a working phone number for this country, and i wouldnt be able to access the wifi for 3 days, so i had no way of talking to her. it was TERRIBLE and i missed her more than anything in my LIFE but when i got wifi (after CRYING to the people here bc theyre the most unorganized uni ever and i was already very overwhelmed and stressed) i immediately called her and she’d sent me over 100 text messages dkfjssjks it was amazing, there were two (2) videos of her singing (which is like. objectively the best thing in the world, and the song was rlly romantic and i love it sm when she showed it to me for the first time she said it made her think abt me), a poem, AND a HUGE text with “i love you” written like. a THOUSAND TIMES. seriously i have a gif of it opening and scrolling bc it was so long that the text wouldnt show up directly on the chat screen and u have to click on it to see the rest. i’d never felt more loved in my entire life by anyone ever. anyways so then it came the day for her to get here and i had to wake up at 5 am to go get her at the airport and the uber was like $40 but who CARES it was the best day of my LIFE and i got there 20 minutes earlier bUT GUESS WHAT SO DID SHE (hashtag just soulmate things) then we facetimed the entire time while she was walking through the airport and getting her luggage and then she hung up to walk to the door where i was and we hugged for like 5 minutes and we were totally in people’s way and also almost fell but it was the best thing in the world and i never should’ve let her go. but, we had to go home, so i did. and we spent 4 days together and im not gonna go into details bc this is already too long but u can always send me another ask about her visit if ur not a coward. also i bought her a hoodie from my uni and whenever she wears it i just. die. in short, those days were the happiest i’ve ever been. this campus res had never felt like home before that friday and it hasnt again since that monday, but i swear to god, during those 4 days, this was the only place i could possibly belong.

anyways then she left and i cried for the entire uber ride home and then i cried all day. lmao. also when she was here she gave me the poetry book, the magnet, and the bracelet. still wear the bracelet every single day and i love it more than anything. but then personal stuff happened and we kinda stopped being couple-y again and we’re just friends now but before new years i asked her if she still loved me and she said yes and she said she’d tell me if it changed so ✌️✌️ im assuming it hasnt. even tho my brain is a bitch and everyday its like. today. today is the day. this is when its gonna happen. buT yknow we’ve spent months before without even talking to each other and we got through that still in love, so i mostly ignore it. and tbh i know that actually like, even if we grow apart now (god forbid, but still) we’ll find our way back to each other eventually. like, i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again: nothing, not even the universe itself, can convince me that shes not my soulmate. and even if it turns out i’m not hers, loving her is still the greatest honor i can think of.

another edit: also i started drawing recently and the first person i’ve ever finished drawing was her and also (surprise surprise @c since you’re already seeing all my feelings anyway) bc of my second drawing i almost missed the deadline for one of my midterms (which was a take-home test) bc instead of writing it i spent the entire day before the deadline finishing the drawing which was a secret valentines day gift (secret as in she didnt know it was supposed to be a gift, she thought it was just a drawing inspired by a quote that she loves) and i finished at 2 am but shes 3 hours behind so for her it was still 11 pm which MEANS it was still valentines day so it still counts, i win, lesbian rights!

#mine #l #answered #dont rb #i dont think anyone will but this is personal and i dont want to risk it getting out #i wanna have this bc i love telling people this story and next time someone asks i’ll just send them this post

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browniefox · 7 years ago

Text

Cursed Grounds

A reporter investigates the burned manor.

wkm au ish thing

Pointless.

That was what everybody had said when Tasha had asked why they’d never run a story on The Cursed Manor Ashes. It was a tourist attraction, people loved it, loved to speculate what had happened there, but whenever Tasha asked to investigate the Chief Editor always chuckled and told her to find something that would actually gain them interest.

But after months begging, he finally sighed, shook his head, and let her attempt.

He even gave her a lead. The only one, he’d said.

You’ll see why it’s pointless.

“Thank, Mr... ?”

“Just Abe.” The Ex-Detective said, taking a long sip from his cup. Tasha wasn’t really sure what was in it, and she wasn’t really sure she wanted to know. “I suppose you’re here to hear about the Manor.”

“Uh, yes. Mr. Jordan said that you were the only one who knew what happened.” Abe shrugged.

“I’ve told a lot of people the story. They never believe me, or they do. Either way, It’s never been told but anything other than my own mouth. I think people fear it. His name was Mark.”

“Wh-, uh, who?” Tasha blinked.

“The first question is usually who owned it. The mysterious man was Mark. His last name may’ve been Fischbach, but it doesn’t matter much. He changed it anyway, to Markiplier. He was an actor. Did a few films, inherited money and built his own. The Manor had been in his family for years.”

Tasha quickly jotted that down.

“Thank you. Then, what happened? Give me your account. Why was it burned and by who.”

“I helped burn it. Mark and I did. I spread the gasoline, Mark lit the match. He was still inside when he did. It was suicide.” Abe rubbed his thumb over his forefingers thoughtfully. “His blood isn’t on my hands.”

“Why would he do that?”

“... did you go to the site, miss?” Tasha nodded. Abe suddenly leaned across the table, face inches from hers. “Then you would’ve felt it.”

“Felt... what?”

“Even crippled as it is, that monster lives. That monster, and that twisted creature it created. A monster of mirrors. You can’t tell me you did not feel the call, the pull. That you didn’t slip into a void, time meaning nothing as you easily traveled between planes of existence.”

... she didn’t deny.

She couldn’t.

“There was something not right about that house. It was a force that should’ve never been reckoned with, but Mark messed with it, tried to understand it. And for years he became its puppet. He killed for that house. He lost his friends and his wife and himself. And he tried to bring a stop to it when he finally realized what had happened to him.

“That’s...”

“Terrible? Impossible? Unreal?” Abe pulled down the neck of his shirt to reveal an ugly, dark red hole in his chest. “So is dying and coming back to life.”

“... why are you even telling me this?” Tasha put down her pen and notes, looking Abe in the eyes. He looked back without hesitation.

“No one will believe you. I lose nothing. I request only one thing.” He reached behind him and pulled out a gun. Tasha felt her blood run cold as he set it in front of her. “There is a bullet in this gun. Just one. And if you even meet a man named William, and ex-colonel from the military with an absurd mustache, shoot him right in the chest for me.”

He didn’t let her go until she took the gun.

When Tasha walked into work the next day, she entered Mr. Jordan’s office to find him cleaning a gun. A revolved just like the one she’d received. He looked up at her and then shook his head, a small almost smile of his face.

“Some things just aren’t meant to be understood.”

#browniefox writes #wkm #who killed markiplier #markiplier #detective #abe

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thepandemicinterviews · 4 years ago

Text

Steven, August 11 2020, Sydney

After editing this interview with Steven (I struggled to edit anything out, so apologies in advance for the length), I put on Side C of Norman Fucking Rockwell and blasted “California” in my room.

Oh, I'll pick you up If you come back to America, just hit me up 'Cause this is crazy love, I'll catch you on the flip side If you come back to California, you should just hit me up We'll do whatever you want, travel wherever how far We'll hit up all the old places We'll have a party, we'll dance 'til dawn I'll pick up all of your Vogues and all of your Rolling Stones Your favorite liquor off the top shelf I'll throw a party all night long

Another great line: I've heard the war was over if you really choose.

I love to hate on America, yet I also understand its allure and fantasy. I can’t help but think about this “war” as Covid, and the insular, ignorant, optimistic American population choosing that it’s over. I can admire their raging belief in the unreal. This is what Hollywood was built on.

Searching America in my notes, I see that in June 2016 I wrote a list of movies I liked. Among them: Heathers, Mulholland Drive, American Beauty, Dazed and Confused, Doom Generation. What do these films have in common? They all, I think, capture a particular American delirium—the how far will you go to experience beauty, never mind how false it is. A note from May 2018 simply reads “America—land of delusion”. In July 2018, when I was in Paris, I jotted down a few things from American writer Jenny Zhang’s talk outside Shakespeare and Company. Notably: “The utter abusiveness of the American dream.”

It’s difficult these days to look at any news stories regarding American politics and coronavirus without wanting to laugh, cry, and vomit all at the same time. But then you think of the 300 or so million people who have to live there, under Trump. Some obviously blinded by misinformation and their sheer lack of critical thinking skills, but the others? I draw a blank—I feel like punching something on their behalf.

Steven moved to Los Angeles at the beginning of this year to pursue a life of excitement and wonder. It was all lined up—it was finally happening. He was meeting celebrities, getting jobs, doing everything that Lana del Rey would have wanted for him. Until Covid hit, and the red carpet was no longer. Fast forward (or slow forward) to the end of March, and he’s in hotel quarantine in Sydney, getting lambasted by Boomers who are complaining about him complaining. Steven is an example of someone whose life has been forcibly upended by this evil virus. Or, to put it more lyrically, his dream was shattered by something so devastatingly real that no amount of cheery American humour could repair it. His is a story of profound rearrangement, but there is a happy ending: safety.

C: Hi Steven. So this isn’t the first time you’ve been interviewed, right, about your experience?

S: No! You heard that I made my way on the news a couple of times?

C: I knew that you had interviewed for, was it Sydney Morning Herald?

S: Yeah, so I work for Channel Nine so I’ve got a few friends at Sydney Morning Herald and around in the Channel Nine world, I guess. I did one for that newspaper, I did one for 9Honey. I was on the news a couple of times. I mean, my whole experience coming home was documented through a few different news stories. And I did a few interviews on radio, 2GB, ABC Radio, Today FM and Kiis FM. So it was a lot. A lot of media. And the Today Show, but that’s my show, that’s what I usually work on, so it was more just like, Steven can you come and do a segment with us? And I was like, let’s do it!

C: Was that in person? Or while you were in quarantine?

S: Yeah, so coming home I was one of the first groups of people to be put in hotels. I got sent to the Ibis hotel, got put in a very small box for two weeks. Went a little crazy. But yeah, the morning after I got there is basically where I did all those interviews from. I’ve never really done remote interviews either, so it was a lot of getting used to for a lot of us.

C: Were you happy to do the interviews?

S: Totally. So, coming home was pretty shit to say the least. For at least those first few days when I was coming home I had something to do. On the plane back home, I had to document stuff for the newsroom.

C: Wow, so they were lined up before…

S: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was in contact with the newsroom all the way, because it was a six hour bus ride from the airport to the hotel, because of just how slow the process had to be. So throughout that entire time, I was talking to the newsroom, and they go, Do you know which hotel you’re going to, we’re sending a reporter there. So as soon as I got off the bus, I found the lovely Tiffiny Genders from Channel Nine, she’s incredible. Ran up to her, and the police were trying to be like, Don’t leave! And I was like, I’m just going here! So we were trying to really make time to meet up for all of these moments in-person if we could, and eventually two weeks later when I got to leave the hotel, we did a follow-up with some more reporters that were there to see me hug my family as I left the hotel. So it was a lot, but it did give me something to do which is what I really needed because once it all calmed down after a few days, that was the beginning of the end for me [laughs]. I started to go a little crazy.

C: Right, so [what was it like] during quarantine?

S: When I didn’t have anything to do, your brain wanders, especially when you’re in a two-metre by two-metre box and your only view of the outside is the same unchanging view of Darling Harbour. Which is beautiful, but I never want to see it again, not for a long time. Eventually when the only thing you have to do are your Animal Crossing chores, you start to go a little crazy. And I did! There was one day where I locked myself in the bathroom of the hotel room I was in, took a bottle of wine from the morning, until like eight hours later. I was very water wasteful that day, unfortunately. But I had an eight hour shower, where I just sat in there, got drunk. I say that I was singing, but it was more that I was screaming the lyrics to “Take Me Home, Country Roads” over and over, and apparently the police who were stationed on every floor of the hotel were banging on the door for a few hours, wondering if I had died. That was probably my craziest day. That’s probably the craziest I’ve ever been in my life.

C: How far into quarantine were you at that point?

S: To be honest, time stopped making sense. It was very strange when it came to time. I believe it was about halfway through, though. But the days bled into each other a lot in that hotel room. Because at some point I just closed the blinds as well, so I was going off my own body clock for a long time. I didn’t have the sun to tell me what time it was, what day it was. That was probably not good either. No, time didn’t exist for a little while.

C: How did you feel when you finally left that room?

S: Oh my god, it was something else! When the date came where they could finally tell us when we were leaving, it felt like this weight had been lifted off me, because I think the reason why I went a little crazy as well was the uncertainty of when exactly are we going to leave. So as soon as they told us, my spirits were already lifting and I was ready to just go. It did take some physical readjusting, I’ll tell you that, because the size of the room – I didn’t have much room to walk around, or use my legs really. So I actually had to get used to walking down the hallway before I left. But to be honest, leaving the hotel was kind of the same as going in, because the media circus kind of happened again. I started doing quite a few more interviews, for Channel Nine and for Channel Ten, did a few more news stories, and as soon as I left, I had a camera in my face and photos being taken by a journo, and just so much was happening. I was like, OK, let’s turn the media face back on, let’s do this. So leaving felt the same way as coming in, but going back home felt like a nice warm hug that I hadn’t had for quite a while. Because the whole process of having to move back home only two months after leaving home on a plan of staying away for twelve months felt pretty shit. It felt like dreams were being crushed [laughs]. So readjusting and going home, actually getting a hug from my family, was wonderful. And that’s what going home felt like as well, for quite a while. Having a nice warm blanket wrapped around me.

C: Lovely. When did you decide that you had to come back to Australia from the US?

S: So it was a bit of a weeklong process, I think, for me to come to that decision. As you’re well aware, it was a long process from when things started to get serious to when borders were being announced to be closed, to when Scomo announced that we’d have to go to hotel quarantine, and all of that. And I was keeping up to date with it the entire time, because I wasn’t sure what was going on, and I wanted to keep an eye on it just in case I maybe did have to come home. But I remember the day I came to that decision, I was having a very depressed bath, with another bottle of wine in the apartment I had moved into in Burbank in Los Angeles. And I just randomly got a call from my mum, and as soon as I picked up, all she said was, I think you have to come home. This doesn’t look like it’ll get any better. And that’s just when the tears started and I was like, yup. So that was the moment that we decided, and it was about one week before I flew out, and it was a little risky as well, because the flight that we did book, one of the only ones that we could’ve booked, was the very last flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. On Virgin Airways as well, which means I think it’s the very last Virgin Airways flight from LA to Sydney in history. And it was a little bittersweet too, because it was probably the greatest flight of my life. It was the most comfortable flight I’ve ever had, because it was very socially distanced, and there was an overabundance of food, and the flight attendants wanted to give us a great experience, so I was very comfortable. But unfortunately the saddest flight, but also the most comfy. But yeah, I do physically just remember sitting in that bath, getting a call from my parents, and just coming to terms with, oh no.

C: It’s bigger than me.

S: Yes! I can’t just ride this out here. Originally, I did think that, you know, maybe I can go home for a couple of months, because my Visa will still be valid if I get to go back a couple of months later. I can stay until January, basically, so hopefully this all blows over in a couple of months and I can just come back to my apartment in Burbank and get those jobs again. Nope. It definitely doesn’t look like I’ll be back for a long time. But I think I’ve come to terms with that now. It sucked; coming to terms with it sucked. I do remember another day when I realised this was going to be a thing though. When I started paying attention –

C: Do you know what time it was? What month?

S: It was mid-March, it was right before – I was going to go to this premiere for Reese Witherspoon’s new Hulu show. I can’t even remember the name of it at this point, but I was super excited for it. I went out the night before to go buy some fancy clothes for the premiere, for red carpet. And as I was leaving the shopping centre that night, that’s when I saw the email that it’d been cancelled. Due to social distancing rules and everything, and that’s when I realised, oh, this is big. Oh no! That was the first moment for me. And then the next moment was Scomo saying forced quarantine.

C: It all happened so quick. Like mid-March to end of March I think were the longest two weeks of my life.

S: Literally! Tell me about it. Those two weeks felt like months! When I think about my time living in Los Angeles, it amounted to about two months in general. It felt so much longer because of that final fortnight. And then also the fortnight in the hotel, where I was kind of in this in between limbo world where I wasn’t away, but I wasn’t at home, and all of that. But those specific two weeks where things were still being decided? Everything was so uncertain? It made me age so much [laughs].

C: Yeah, I feel like everyone was coming to terms with the fact this that is a thing –

S: Yeah, collectively. I’ll be honest, being so in contact with everybody at home at the time, and also being in the Los Angeles community – Australians definitely came to terms with it a lot quicker than Americans did.

C: Because it wasn’t already happening, like we weren’t in the thick of it yet, so we had time to come to terms with it. But what was happening in Los Angeles at the time you were about to leave?

S: A lot of denial. I still remember, on one of the shows I was on, one of the crew members just saying, It’s a damn panic, not a pandemic. Over and over again. And that was very much a lot of the sentiment of a lot of people. There was still a lot of people that were like, yes, we should be wearing masks. Some people thought that wearing masks was a sign of hysteria, and we shouldn’t because of blah blah blah. I did push a lot of these memories away at the time because it was a little stressful. Just because I couldn’t believe that people weren’t taking it seriously. And I did get to the point where I really really did not feel safe. Not in the same way where, when I came home, if I wore a mask and gloves and sanitised and went out when I needed to – you know, there’s a level of not feeling safe with that. Even as much as I could prepare going out in LA, I could never feel safe. Just because of the sentiment I knew that was growing. And then there were a lot of fights over toilet paper right outside of my apartment where there was a small supermarket. And that’s when I was like, ah, Americans are crazy.

C: I think that was happening here as well [laughs].

S: That’s true! I did see the news eventually. That’s when I was like, people aren’t really taking this seriously in the right way. The sentiment was a lot of denial and then a lot of hysteria.

C: There was a lot of talk of people, like yourself, who were in the news about the hotel quarantine, complaining too much.

S: Oh, I could talk about this for ages! So I’ll just start off by saying that I got a couple of death threats.

C: Really?

S: Yeah, just a couple. A lot of very direct messages which were pretty much harassment. And oh, so many Facebook comments on the public posts that Channel Nine put up of the news stories. I felt like I kind of became ground zero for, you know, Zoomers and Millennials complaining about quarantine. Just to defend myself, I didn’t really complain myself, at all. I laughed at how small the hotel room was, and I did say I’d rather be with my family, but if this is what is the safest option then I’m happy to do that. But oh my goodness, do Boomers love to take young people that aren’t completely happy with a situation and blow it up out of proportion. The only people I actually saw complaining myself were older people, which is kind of ironic. I do think there were some elements that were worth, I guess, complaining about. Them being the way it was organised. I didn’t have anything against the forced quarantine itself. I thought that it was actually a very good measure to keep things under control, especially internationally, and I was happy to do it. Except that it wasn’t exactly experts running it or making decisions on a day-to-day – medical experts, I mean. It was whatever police officer was in charge at that hotel on that day. So it was different at every hotel. It was different every day for at least three-quarters of the two weeks I was there. I think by the time I was ending my time there, they had started to formalise rules or something. But you could tell it was extremely rushed, they hadn’t talked to me. And yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of the police officers that were running the joint either. It wasn’t a great time. But the idea of forced quarantine I have nothing against. Nothing against. Other things – I mean, I’m happy to complain about how small that hotel room was, because it’s not made for two-week stays. I mean, they had to use that hotel and I completely understand that, but it’s mainly made for – the Ibis hotel is made for one-night business stays and men cheating on their wives, usually. That’s what it’s built for. And it’s not made for, you know, some twenty-three year old person living in there for two weeks, with no human contact. But once the comments started, they got a little heavy. I laughed at all the ones – there were hundreds as well – on Facebook, on the actual news story itself, because it was all country bogans that were like, the kids don’t know how well they have it, they’re in five-star hotels and they still find time to complain, and blah blah blah. But then there were a few people who tracked down my Instagram and found my Facebook as well. And those messages I didn’t really appreciate. Especially the ones that were just straight up death threats. One of the death threats I was actually a little impressed with because it was very succinct. It was just a GIF of a noose. That was pretty straightforward. But I was told to report – tell the police officers at the hotel that people were sending me death threats. But of course they did not help at all.

C: They didn’t do anything?

S: Of course they didn’t. ACAB [laughs]. But I was told by the newsroom to report that. But I thought the comments were quite funny, in general, because Boomers do love to target young people. Though, my family took it as a personal attack, and started defending me in the comments! Old 2010 keyboard warrior style. It was fun to watch. Kept me entertained for a little while in that hotel room.

C: How were you mentally throughout that? Do you feel like you’ve bounced back from it now?

S: Yeah. At first, especially once I got to leave and start dealing with the emotions of what had happened – not being able to do this really huge thing that I’d planned to do. Moving overseas and starting a new life and pursuing a career overseas was a pretty big thing that I’d had to plan for quite a while. And having that cut short by something that isn’t your fault – it’s a very confusing feeling. For a long time, I was so fucking sad. I spent a long time just lying in my parents’ living room on the makeshift bedroom that they made for me. Just wallowing for a while before considering what the future would look like. Because at the time I wasn’t certain if I could go back in a couple of months, and slowly things looked like that wouldn’t be happening, and I’d be home for the foreseeable future. Coming to terms with that was extremely hard. I’m very lucky because I’ve had access to therapy for years, so once I was able to start seeing my psychologist again, things started getting better mentally for me. But also being home when a time is so quiet as well, when no one is really able to do anything – it can make things worse and better in some ways. The things that did make it better, when it came to coming to terms with what this year would now look like, was being able to see people that I really cared about. Like Nicola, for example. We ended up spending a lot of time together in those first few months of me being home, and that made me feel really grounded. Which she does just in general. And being able to see friends who I didn’t think I’d be able to see for an entire year, eventually when that was possible. It helped me feel really comfortable with being home again. Also the fact that America seems to not be dealing with this well in the slightest, does make me feel very confident in my decision to come home. And all those elements combined, I feel like now, just in the last month or so, I feel like I really have bounced back. Now that I can start thinking about my life and my future again, in not so much certain terms, but not wondering if I’m going to be bouncing between countries again. That was the hardest part. Not knowing if I was going to be back in America. But I’m happy to be in Australia forever at this point. And I’m not so much planning for the future, but I do feel comfortable with whatever that future’s going to be at this point.

C: Seeing America’s response to the pandemic – does that change how you feel about possibly moving there one day?

S: That’s a big question! My relationship with the United States is more about – I’ve loved the idea of it and I’ve always loved living there because of mainly the people. I’ve always meshed well with the locals of whatever city I’ve moved to. I loved living in the Midwest in Chicago, and I loved living in California, in Los Angeles, mainly because of the people and the friends that I met. America is such an eclectic mix of people. I don’t have so much faith in their government when it comes to helping their people, though. I still love the idea of moving there when it comes to a future career and developing that further. And I don’t ever want to strike that down just because of a terrible government’s terrible response to a terrible pandemic. But it definitely has made me feel better about being home right now and not living there at this moment. If I could go back in time a couple of months and tell myself anything, it would be, you’re going to be happier if you move back home. Because I can probably guarantee that to a different version of myself that’s still there, that I’d be extremely depressed and worried. I mean, financially as well, it kind of became a necessity for me to come home. Without being able to work, and with the Australia Dollar just nose-diving, eventually I’d have to come home anyway. I’m not a big fan of their response to this pandemic. It’s been atrocious and terrifying. I’m every day scared for my friends that are still there, and every day the people that I met in the city have slowly moved out of Los Angeles back to their original homes if they had that, or back to wherever their parents live in the suburbs, or to other states. It scares me.

C: There is a real danger just living under a government that doesn’t care about you. Compared to here, I feel like we haven’t reached the point where we feel unsafe because, you know, the lockdown in Melbourne shows that they do care about their people in a way that Trump doesn’t.

S: Yes, exactly. The American federal government especially, and a lot of state governments, are very translucent in how much they really don’t care how many people die. To the fact where getting the disease has become slightly normal? At least with the circles that I fell into and have kept in touch with. A lot of the people that are amongst that have normalised the fact that you just might get the disease. That’s just how it is now. And having that normalised, I think, is very much a reflection of the fact that the government does not give a shit if you die, or if you get this disease or not. They just need the wheels to keep turning. God, I wish people like Jacinda Ardern could just rule the world instead, but unfortunately not. It is extremely, just, terrifying because of how normal it is for the American people to understand that their government really doesn’t care about them.

C: Yeah. And it seems like a lot of people don’t understand how restrictions could have prevented the spread.

S: A hundred percent. No, I completely agree. And in all honesty, I never really had a chance to have that kind of discussion with Americans when I was there because I was in the process of leaving at the time. But I feel like something that’s very similar to that, is the fact that they’ve been taught that things that could be good for them are not good for them. Such as restrictions and social distancing, safe measures. And I actually did get into a discussion when I was there before things starting going into lockdown, during the primary elections. Someone at a bar was just saying, having a government subsidise for university, getting Medicare, no one can do that! And I just put my hand up and was like, yeah, I come from a country where we have those exact things! And it gobsmacked that person for a minute. They were like, wait, really? You’re kidding! And I feel like if I got the chance to have that discussion with Covid restrictions, it would be the same result. But to be fair, it is a country of over 300 million people, so there’s always going to be so many differing viewpoints there, but it is so worrying how many of them are adverse to things that are good for them in the long run.

C: And how political that becomes.

S: Exactly. The fact that it’s all politicised is so strange. Like I’m not a big fan of our governments either, but at the very least, restrictions and safe measures weren’t exactly politicised the way that they are in America, which also terrifies me. These were kind of the wild things in America though, having the discussions with people and realising that a lot of them really just don’t –

C: Understand the context outside their own little – huge country, but…

S: But if they don’t have it, then other people must not, right? I feel like that’s the kind of mindset a majority of the people there must be in. To think that Medicare is this extreme version of socialism, like, I don’t understand. Oh well. America was fun though.

C: Did you have fun there while you were there?

S: I did! I really did. I’ve lived in, and I’ve visited America, many many times. This was my first time living in California, though. And I only got to spend two months there, but my God, it was a wild ride. The LA you live in, as opposed to the LA you visit as a tourist, is extremely different. And especially Hollywood the actual place compared to Hollywood the idea, extremely different. I just had a really fun time. I met a bunch of people, and I didn’t think I would be making friends with so many celebrities too.

C: Really? Who did you meet?

S: So probably the closest friend I made there was Grant Imahara from Mythbusters. He recently passed away which was very very sad. But he was extremely nice to me and was kind of the one who introduced me to so many of the other regular people and celebrities around Hollywood. Got me very involved. He was a very nice man. We met while doing karaoke at a Star Wars themed bar. Hollywood’s wild [laughs].

C: How’s your life been since coming back? Have you enjoyed the quietness of it?

S: At first, the quietness drove me a little crazy. It was definitely what I needed for a while, but eventually I did enjoy it. Like I said before, I spent a lot of that time spending more quality time with people I cared about. I feel like a lot of my close friendships grew a lot closer as well. And I got to do some things that I couldn’t really do before. Like one day, Nicola and I went to Centennial Park while it was empty, and basically had the whole park to ourselves. And I don’t think that’s ever going to be replicated. The quietness definitely grew on me after a while. And I’ve definitely grown with being okay being home in the last few months.

C: And now you’re about to start full-time work?

S: Yeah, that’s true. I’ve never had a full-time job. My last job was a meet-and-greet producer on the Today Show. Super duper fun, but at the moment we can only have five people in the studio at one time. My job revolved around our guests that we had on the show. We don’t physically have any guests on the show, which means for the most part, my role is now defunct for the foreseeable future. However, I’m still on the payroll, so as soon as I can go back, the possibility’s there. But waiting around, on JobSeeker as well, which I’m grateful for, but waiting around for so long was very tiring. It did give me a lot of time to spend time with my friends like I said, but the idea of going into full-time work is kind of nice. Having something to do now. I’ve never had a full-time job before, it’s all been freelance and casual. So having basically 9-5 weekdays for a little while, I feel like is going to be some structure that I’ve needed since even before I left for the States. Because even when I was there, I didn’t exactly have a structure at the time. It was very go go go, let’s find a place to live, let’s find some jobs, let’s meet some people. And coming home was just, let’s do nothing! So now that I get to have a very regular routine, I feel like it’s going to ground me a little bit. Something I’ve needed.

C: I think that was the case for Nicki as well, getting her two jobs. And having a period away from the freelancing lifestyle.

S: Like I said before, being able to spend with people like Nicola helped a lot because we could talk through things like that, like how can we help ourselves feel a little better during this time. What do we need? Seeing Nicola stress over jobs and work and it all kind of paying off has been great too. Hopefully I get a taste of the payoff as well [laughs]. Speaking of, on that note as well, not just about Nicola, but also the way that this has felt kind of comes down to some lyrics from a song that she showed me by the Mountain Goats called “This Year”. The lyrics are, I’m going to make it through this year if it kills me. And those goes through my head all the time. Ever since coming home, and the only time I feel like it’s finally stopped has now been the idea of having this full-time job and having a routine. Because now I feel like I really am going to get through this year.

C: Yeah, just a distraction from what this year represents.

S: Honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of personifying years and saying, this one was the worst ever! Like, I remember going through 2016 and everyone was like, this year’s the worst, everyone’s dying this year and blah blah blah. I was just never a big fan of the idea of like this year’s bad. Until this year. This year’s bad [laughs].

C: Globally. Historically 2020 will be known as one of the worst years.

S: Exactly. I will happily personify this year. Very bad no good.

C: At least you’re not in America.

S: At least I’m not in America. At the very least, I’m in a country where I feel safer and more comfortable in, around people that care about me. Not new friends, but close, old friends too.

0 notes

tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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Scarab #2

This looks like the original cover to a Philip K. Dick book where you just knew the editor and publisher had no idea what was happening so they commissioned some artist to just paint some "crazy fantasy shit."

Boredom warning: the protagonist of this comic book is still a super old guy.

Eleanor isn't dead like everybody who read the first issue believed by the end of it. That means about ten people were surprised when they picked up Issue #2 of this series. Logically, I know more than ten people purchased Scarab #2. But if we lived in a world where comic book readers didn't just constantly shrug their shoulders and keep buying every issue of a series simply because they picked up the first issue and actually limited their purchases to comic books that had an entertaining previous issue, my estimate would probably be pretty close to the mark. Louis has brought Eleanor back into the Labyrinth of Doors to keep her alive because time doesn't work there. I mean, it does work there because people can move around there and movement is a symptom of time. Symptom might be the wrong word but when have I ever cared about my word choices? You either have time or you have stasis. You can't have both! Unless you live in the Phantom Zone and then I don't know what the fuck is going on. Sometimes kids grow up there and other times dogs roam billions of miles unchanged to find their stupid boy. If Louis wanted to be more accurate, he'd point out that life functions seem to slow down to imperceptibility inside the Labyrinth of Doors. If Eleanor seems like she didn't age for fifty years while living there previously, she probably won't bleed out until he can figure out how to work Scarab's super life saving powers on Eleanor, the way he used them after he was thrown out of a second floor window and became an undulating sack of blood and broken bones that somehow wormed his way up two flights of stairs and opened the bottom drawer of a dresser (which is the biggest impossibility. Go lie on your stomach on the floor right now and try to open your dresser drawer. If you were successful, now go belly flop off the roof of the house and try again, smart ass). Louis admits that Eleanor's soul has left her body so he's really just taking care of a naked empty vessel. The naked part is the most important part of Eleanor's current description. Why else would he want to prolong his grief when he knows she's dead? Now this pervert just gets his kicks off bathing her every twenty minutes.

See? He admits it.

The Phantom Stranger arrives because why not. A writer has to throw something into this thing to attract buyers. Fans of The Phantom Stranger would have been all over this comic book when they saw him on the cover, probably doubling the amount of people who purchased it. Yes, I'm saying there are only ten Phantom Stranger fans. The Phantom Stranger really is a genius idea for a comic book character. If you call your character a stranger that means you can't divulge too much about that character lest they stop being a stranger. Which means you don't actually have to do any real work building the character, or giving the character motivation, or making any kind of sense at all! You can just have him poke his nose into other people's business every now and...um...help? Maybe not help? Maybe just judge. I don't really know what he does because he's been written so well over the years! I wish I could write a character this popular without ever giving it any defining characteristics or motivation. Oh, excuse me, I suppose The Phantom Stranger does have some defining characteristics. I forgot about the fedora and the trench coat. Meanwhile, a beam of light that used to be somebody (Eleanor? The Sicari?) flies through God's eye, circles Hell, and winds up coming its brains out in the Internet. I don't know how sexually exciting the Internet was in 1993. It was mostly just AOL chat rooms, bank account draining Neverwinter Nights, and Star Trek bulletin boards. Okay fine. I admit it. Just typing that gave me a boner. Once DC's Vertigo line was fully up and running with a few major titles leading the way and proclaiming, "This is what Vertigo is!", other titles with newer writers came along and all produced exactly the kind of shit that Vertigo apparently was. I don't know if I can fully articulate what that was, sort of a mash-up of Milligan's weirdness and sensitivity from Shade the Changing Man combined with the stark, metaphysical horrors of Moore's Swamp Thing and the shitty, grim reality and politics of Delano's Hellblazer with a sprinkling of the intellectual topsy-turvy re-tellings of mythic unreality of Gaiman's Sandman. But even unable to really describe it, I fucking know when I read something written to be a Vertigo title rather than written to be a story worthy of being a Vertigo title.

This might as well be a Polaroid of writer John Smith wanking himself off.

The early nineties were full of these kinds of Vertigo titles that just strung together words and phrases trying to invoke some kind of profound weirdness. Even the previous series I discussed, Milligan's The Extremist, came off as one of these books that was just putting on the clothing of Vertigo to make it seem more important. But at least The Extremist used the weird and outlandishly adult story to portray flawed humans considering their lives and how they got to where they were and what the fuck do they do now? There were some really bleak and gut-wrenching moments in The Extremist that I truly loved even if the plot didn't matter much to me. But it was the plot that pulled and pushed the characters to those moments, so who am I to complain? Also there were plenty of titties. I know, I know! All you high-falutin' comic book nerds don't read comic books to get boners like I do! Well la dee da! Just remember that I'm not judging you for getting your kicks by sticking your genitals in Blue Bonnet ice cream and putting it back in the display case. Um, anyway, this comic book still has a lot of space so I'm not giving up on it providing me with great moments. And since my tone in this commentary says I'm casually beating the shit out of Smith's writing," I should probably show something I sort of liked. The Phantom Stranger has touched Louis's head to make him relive some of his memories as Scarab. And while it's an easy way to present a bunch of "weird" story fragments that John Smith doesn't have to expound on, I still like this one:

The Non-Certified Spouse tells me "Weltschmerz" means, literally translated, "world pain."

On the left hand, this is just more of that "here's some weird stuff to stick into this magazine to make it Vertigo!" But on the right hand, I'd love for this to actually be a story that Smith thought out and formed into a coherent, deep, and touching two to four issue arc. Maybe Smith jotted it down and thought, "That's really all that needs to be said about that." But isn't that also how pitches start? This is a pitch. The story that could grow from this could be tragic and heartbreaking with all the nihilistic elements to ultimately provide evidence of the uplifting and hopeful nature of mankind. I think maybe this one panel should have been the pitch for Scarab. Some more of Louis's memories ("Frozen in ice on the dark side of the moon, summoning the Breathing Trees for help" and "Teaming up with Sargon the Sorcerer against the dreaded double menace of Doktor Vortex and The Quote") help establish that the Scarab had weird adventures that, while extruding the essence of Vertigo phrases, also helps ground the Scarab in the Golden Age. Because that's weird shit that you can absolutely see on the cover of comics with huge price tags hanging on the wall behind the counter of any local comic book shop. No difference exists between the two scenarios I just quoted and Batman and Robin battling "The man who saw with his fingers!" Smith is definitely evoking the Golden Age here. And, of course, Vertigo because that Auschwitz thing.

Look at me! Reading into and explicating the evidence of the text when I could have just kept reading ahead and had John Smith say it to me plainly.

The Phantom Stranger tells Louis he needs to become the Scarab again because "the world skin is diseased" and "the wheels of chance are turning too fast" and "disorder corrupts the physical plane." But then when Louis is all, "So that's why all this shit is happening!", The Phantom Stranger says, "Well, I mean, it's hard to tell for sure. But, you know, maybe somebody sent the Sicari. It's a possibility. But then, maybe not. Who knows? But just do what I say, just in case! I'm sure if Madame Xanadu were here, she'd totally agree with me." Meanwhile, the light that actually is Eleanor isn't in the Internet at all. When it said it had entered "the Net" while orgasming harder than it's ever orgasmed before (take that, Louis!), I simply assumed Smith was being all cutting edge in 1993. But he just meant the "net of life" or whatever. She's just connected to everything now. That's probably a better path for this story since the Internet wouldn't get interesting for another year when Geocities came along and The X-Files fan pages started to proliferate like cancer cells. Louis's only desire is to find Eleanor again so if becoming Scarab can help do that, he'll take it back and maybe he'll get around to saving the world too. The Phantom Stranger just remains silent because that's what he does best. As if he knows anything! He's totally acting like he knows stuff by not saying stuff but really looking like he knows that stuff while he really don't know any of that stuff. Like knows like, my man, and I see you! The Phantom Stranger leaves and Louis asks the scarabaeus (that's the thing that turns him into the Scarab which I also probably spelled incorrectly) to make him young again and it works! Issue #3 is going to be more exciting simply because the protagonist isn't an old man anymore! Me and six other people can't wait for it! Scarab #3 Rating: B. Enh, it wasn't so bad! Sure, I had plenty to criticize. But in the end, it's a story about mortality and longing for the expansive freedom and possibility that fall further and further into a person's past until all they have left is the end of fatigue promised by death! I can totally relate to this shit.

#Scarab #John Smith #Scot Eaton #Mike Barreiro #Vertigo #DC Comics #DC

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luminoustico · 8 years ago

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47 sherlolly pleaseeeeeeeeeee

47: meeting at a festival au

He’s among people who seem more suited to the false light of a reading lamp than natural sunlight. They gather in dimly-lit tents and listen wide-eyed to the latest literary idol. He’s missing Sussex already.

He wonders dimly how his bees and Redbeard are doing as he scans the crowds, standing in a queue to some debut author’s Q&A. He reaches the entrance. He waves his pass at the staff. In return, they press a book into his hands.

“It’s on request of the author,” they say with a smile, standing by a pile each. Sherlock glances up and down the line. The other attendees are each passed a copy as they enter the tent. Sherlock settles himself at the back of the seating, which is only 100-strong and covered in pink and purple drapes, artfully hung from the lighting.

A small stage is set up. Pink roses, nestled in a white vase, sit on a table between two leather armchairs.

The announcer, or interviewer rather, makes final checks. Feedback briefly sharp against Sherlock’s ears, cut off with a laughing apology by the interviewer. A female, the interviewer is tall. young and red-haired. The shade (natural) reminiscent of Mrs Hudson’s flame-red hair. She wears neat clothing, monochrome and out of place with the romantic atmosphere.

Sherlock glances over the cover. Glossy, plain black, with only the title in colour: a sharp, shocking white. Not a jot of pink or purple.

It’s been a while since he’s held a brand-new cover like this one. He has his library, back at the cottage, which keeps him content enough, and on the occasion that he desires something different, the library often has a long-forgotten classic he can delve into. He’s an old soul, more than willing now to let the present live on without him.

He flicks to the dedication, past the blurb and opening pages. There’s a lot to be told by a dedication.

Dear, a man. He sighs and snaps the book shut. No doubt the author thought that clever, or groundbreaking.

“Ladies and gentlemen, apologies for the wait,“ says the interviewer, holding now the microphone in her right, and a clipboard in her left. The lights overhead focus on the small stage, and she smiles over the audience. "My name is Helena Robertson, and I’ll be doing a small interview with our esteemed author before we begin the actual Q&A section. And I see you’re all digging into your copies! We don’t normally sanction free giveaways of new books, but seeing as this one has sold so many already, we didn’t see the harm!”

A few ripples of laughter flow over the audience. The interviewer continues.

“Our author for today’s exclusive Q&A has been travelling the length and breadth of the country promoting her debut novel, Amo.” Sherlock twitches but the interviewer, getting giddier by the moment, is speaking, so he focuses on that. “After spending much of her writing career in nonfiction, and garnering much respect from her peers, she has now branched out into fiction with her debut novel which has been called ‘outstanding’ by the Guardian, 'a sensory exploration into the mind of humanity’ by the Times and has been in the New York Times bestseller list for seven weeks – though topping it only for two of those seven.”

A humorous sympathy drones from the audience, including the agent. Sherlock shoves his copy underneath his chair and leans back, grunting a little as he shifts. A shorts-wearing middle-aged man scoffs at him and pulls up their socks. Sherlock focuses back on the stage.

The roses are in full bloom.

“So without further ado, please, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your author – Molly Hooper!”

All of his weight sinks down into the lower pit of his stomach, while his heart flies up in his throat. He coughs, jerking forward as applause ripples over the audience. He sighs. He hears her speak into a microphone, bright-voiced and friendly.

“Hi! Thanks for the welcome – and to Helena for the introduction. Shall we, um—”

“Very well organised!” quips Helena as she and Molly (Molly, Molly, Molly, if he says it enough it won’t throw him) confuse one another over where the other is supposed to sit.

“Much more organised than any other festivals I’ve been to,” Molly replies, earning a few laughs. He sits up straight, closing his eyes, listening as she swaps small talk about traffic with Helena, beginning the interview.

The small talk soon falls into structured questions. Her influences (none, she’s a terrible reader, she confesses); her writing routine (a laptop, coffee and nothing but junk food); the best part of writing; if she believes fiction is a change for good or bad.

"Thanks very much Molly. Does anyone have any questions?"

Helena and Molly look over the audience. Sherlock leans forward, hiding his face from the stage behind an older woman's bouffant hairstyle.

"Yes, the young lady over there."

Sherlock tilts his head, staring through shoulders at the questioner. The young lady is in her 20s, with friends, and giggles as she begins to speak. Helena interrupts her.

"Sorry, you're very quiet -- we'll get you a microphone---" She gestures to someone off-stage, and a crew member darts out, handing a microphone to the 20-year-old. She's blonde, with her hair brushed back into a plait.

"If you could ask your question again," Helena prompts, as she glances at her clipboard.

"Yeah, like, um -- just wanna say, and ask, the book's great, I love it but me and my friends, we were wondering -- about your dedication? We looked everywhere on the internet, at your interviews, it's never been explained... So yeah. Who's the dedication to?"

Helena tilts an eyebrow at Molly, raising her microphone to her lips. "It's true. 'Dear, a man'. I wouldn't be surprised if there are conspiracy sites dedicated to cracking that particular code."

"There are!" shouts one of the girl's friends, leading to uncomfortable giggles.

"Well, there's no particular code to crack. Sorry to disappoint," she adds with a smile.

She looks beautiful. She's grown out of ill-fitting blouses and cardigans that clash. Now, she takes pride in her love of fruit-based clothing. She wears a sundress dotted with cherries and sandals with straps that wind perfectly around her ankles. A thin silver bracelet slips down her arm as she speaks into the microphone.

"The book was always going to be something... something like a journey. Even though the people were fictional, the concepts weren't. So my dedication reflects that, really, though initially, it wasn't supposed to."

"You mean, you wanted to dedicate your book to someone both real and unreal?" Helena asks. Molly shakes her head. Her hair is down around her shoulders, and there's a slight kink in it. She must've had it up most of today, then taken it down just before going on stage.

It reminds him of false curls, a silver bow and red lipstick. He clenches his fists.

"No. It was originally going to be dedicated to someone very real, but I realised, just before publication in fact... he was never one for attention."

"So you took his name from the book because he was shy?"

"No, he was never shy. Never ever," Molly laughs a little, "the furthest from shy. But he never liked getting the attention that he wasn't the cause of."

He'd have to be an idiot not to realise who she is speaking about.

He retrieves his copy from underneath his seat. He opens the opening page.

Amo. The main title. (His hand trembles again.)

The subtitle: A Story of Grief.

Another inquiring mind stands up, passed the audience microphone by the crew member. This one is elderly, with glasses hanging from their neck.

"Grief is one of the strongest elements of this book," they begin. "You seem so young, how come you managed to tap into such a deep emotion?"

"I've spoken in other interviews about this, and the answer's simple: my father died when I was younger." She sounds charming, but terse underneath the brightness. He hides a proud grin. "And grief, and this is a point made in the book, never leaves you."

"This is an important point," Helena says, jumping in. "Sometimes, grief in books is written off as 'one of those things'. Yet your protagonists are never able to get over it, even up until the last page."

"Quite right. Because that reflects life. The immediate grief fades, but the long-term grief, the knowledge that that particular person will not be around anymore -- ever -- is a fact. And facts, as I've learned, are inescapable. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing," she adds quickly. "Grief makes us. Me, for instance. My father's death spurred me onto my career as a forensic pathologist."

"I was just about to discuss that," Helena says, eager but still noting the sober atmosphere. "Others involved in scientific fields, while venturing into creative writing have often become involved with genres like thrillers, or murder mysteries. With you having been a forensic pathologist, it's an easy assumption to make that you would follow that path also."

"And yet I didn't!" She scoops her hair around her shoulder. "I often wonder why I didn't, to tell the truth. It is my field after all, death and its causes. But this book, this story of friends coming together after a tragedy, was what ended up in my head. I think real life bled into my ideas a little bit."

"Real life?" Helena sounds excited. Obviously, this hasn't been discussed before. Molly blushes underneath the lights and shifts in her seat.

"I, um... I used to work alongside the consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Right up until he left London, actually. We often saw cases where people came together after a death, and that's where it came from."

Amo. He smiles. Molly Hooper is an excellent liar.

"I have another question! I've got one!" It's the 20-year-old again, waving like she's bringing in a plane. When the crew member rushes over to her, she pulls the microphone from his hands.

"Is Sherlock Holmes the man? The one you were going to dedicate your book to? An online theory said it was---"

"Thank you very much," Helena says loudly, as Molly colours. The 20-year-old's friends tug her down, and they whisper angrily among one another. A brunette of their group gets up and flounces to the back of the tent.

An awful silence falls over the tent.

"Molly," begins Helena, "obviously you don't have to answer..."

Molly hesitates. She brings the microphone to her lips. Crosses her legs, tucking her hand against her side, as if hugging herself one-handed.

"It's fine. Yes, I can confirm that, finally. Sherlock Holmes is the man in my dedication. My reasons why, however, are personal."

"Very understandable," Helena says, eager to gloss over the incident. Sherlock feels thrown, off-balance, has been ever since her name passed Helena's lips and she stepped out on stage.

"Um... sir? Do you have a question?"

He looks up, realising he's stood as he's been staring at the white words: Amo. Another dedication. One only he, John, Mycroft and a handful of high-ranking government officials will ever know.

The crew member runs up to him and holds the microphone out to him.

The world is treacle as he holds it, and lifts it to his lips.

"Hello."

Molly's flushed pallor turns pale. Her brown eyes sweep over, then lock, onto him. He has neither improved or worsened during his time away from her, from London. He'd made the plans for departure, for retirement, in secret, and left everyone hanging. Mycroft found him after a week and Rosie had to be held back by her father when they first came to visit, a month later. Molly... he hadn't searched for her, despite offers from Mycroft. He'd just left her, to grow and blossom as she never would do with him in the picture.

The worst thing is, she has.

Her hair is still as long as it ever was, a rich light brown, her skin sun-kissed from the book tour. A little filled out, from all those luncheons from publishing agents, he suspects. (That's the stereotype, anyway.)

He blushes as he remembers how he's gone grey early. They call it the 'pepper pot' look. Flecks and streaks of grey in his black curls. A slight tummy from all the honey his bees make. A fisherman's jumper with pushed up sleeves over an ironed shirt. Rosie says it's fashionable for men of his age.

He wears glasses now, too. Thick-rimmed ones, rounded non-reflective lenses.

She jumps to her feet suddenly, causing murmurs. She sways, then stills. Her lip trembles, her hand shakes as she brings her microphone to her mouth. Her eyes are wet.

"Hello. Sherlock."

#itwasmycroftbbc #sherlolly #mollock #sherlock x molly #older!sherlolly #au #eleanorwrites

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coquuin · 6 years ago

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u bet ur fuckin ass im sending myself an ask meme bc fuck you no one else will so shit SOMEONE gotta. all the questions for Ezekiel bay bee

the amount of fucks that i do not give is unreal

1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have?

well shit both of Ezekiel’s parents died when he was 3 so obviously he hardly has any memories of them, but! Ezekiel’s father was.. fucking hilarious! the dude had an amazing sense of humor–mightve been a stand up comedian, although not a huge known one?? he was always smiling and just trying to make people laugh! especially loved to make his son laugh the most.

so as you can easily imagine, 3-year-old Ezekiel obviously loved his father. i mean, why wouldnt he. although now that his father is long dead and ezekiel has pretty much forgotten him by this point, his opinion towards what very little he DOES remember of his dad is just like.. “why were you so fucking happy all the time? what was there to be happy about?” but, like i said, seeing as Ezekiel has completely forgotten him, he’s pretty neutral on him and doesnt really have much of an opinion.

2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?

opinion wise, it’s the exact same deal as his father–seeing as both parents died at the same time. so he neither dislikes or likes her! hes just neutral.

however, as for her personality, she was honestly like the polar opposite of the dad. she was calm and collected, and a little intense. a very blunt woman who would not be afraid to call you out on your bullshit! sort of like Ezekiel now actually :) a lot of her mannerisms and personality traits literally resemble Ezekiel to a T, which he obviously doesnt even realize seeing as his mom has been, yknow, dead for all his life. but underneath that tough exterior, she was a very sweet woman! she was probably a doctor tbh.

4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient?

IN THE CULT.. it was like a literal living hell and EXTREMELY strict. which is exactly what this cult wanted! seeing as it was a Satanic cult especially. BUT UHHH.. i cant go too in depth on how everything was like in that orphanage, but if you REALLY wanna know all the gross details literally just do some research on Satanism or Satanic Cults and youll be sure to find some pretty gross stuff. all of that is what happened to Ezekiel there!

the things i can mention though!! every child had to wear the same uniform every day, they all had the same exact hairstyle (boys had a short bowlcut, girls had long hair which they were absolutely not allowed to style or put up). they were, of course, beaten severely if the orphanage staff saw fit to do so. medieval torture methods were used on them, especially for sacrifices. they were bluntly told, “if you try to leave, the Devil will kill every single one you love and come for you last”–which is honestly why Ezekiel always talks about how “the devil is out to get him” or why Ezekiel feels that he cant get close to anyone, bc he just expects the devil to kill anyone he gets close to! bc, yknow, he ran away. the kids were also often forced to eat or drink bodily fluids which Yeah is fucking disgusting. they only had one meal a day, and said meal was very small–so a lot of the kids starved, and thats why Ezekiel is such a picky eater and refuses to eat a lot of the time! bc hes just so used to having only one tiny meal a day, just enough for him to survive on, and any more than one small meal he always feels like he’s wasted too much money or something. a lot of sexual abuse went on too. YOU GET THE IDEA BY NOW IM SURE SO.. YEAH, IT WAS… BAD BAD BAD.

5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered?

EXTREMELY SHELTERED. he and the other kids in the orphanage were absolutely not allowed to go outside whatsoever. this was because the caretakers told them “THE OUTSIDE WORLD WANTS TO CORRUPT YOU, SO YOU MUST ABSOLUTELY NOT INTERACT WITH ANYTHING THAT IS OUTSIDE OF THESE DOORS!!!” and were EXTREMELY strict on that rule. one time, Ezekiel had snuck out when he was about 7, and brought in stray kittens, which he hid in his room! it wasnt long until his roommates snitched on him and the caretakers straight up just fucking cut off every kitten’s head right in front of lil Ezekiel and then proceeded to beat him afterward. so that kinda fucked him up!!! this is what led to Ezekiel’s reclusive behavior now and his generally being totally silent when he’s around anyone he doesn’t know (although he has gotten a lot better about the talking thing! albeit the fact when he does talk chances are he is saying something very mean. BUT STILL!). even now, he completely secludes himself in his small apartment, even going so far as boarding up all his windows to block the sunlight altogether. well ok he also boarded them up bc he has an extremely bad habit of trying to break the glass but. the sunlight thing too!

6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child?

REJECTION OFC. the orphanage caretakers never even referred to him by his name–instead, they called every child by numbers. in Ezekiel’s case, it was #34. even now, that is his least favorite number.

8. How does your character feel about religion?

he may not seem like it, but Ezekiel is VERY VERY VERY religious!!! after he ran away from the orphanage and later moved to L.A., he actually did convert to Christianity! he always wears a golden cross necklace around his neck and he feels like it protects him from evil spirits–obviously thats all in his head as no evil spirits are really out to get him, but it’s a big big BIG comfort item to him. he can easily recite a shit ton of Bible verses bc he reads that damn thing all the fucking time man. in general, his faith in god is a huge fucking comfort for him, as he always fears the devil is out to get him and whatnot–its nice to think that he may actually have god on his side to protect him.

10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?

honestly??? hes all over the fuckin place. he surprisingly does have some street smarts to him (from having been literally fucking homeless for a while).

although the only thing he’s really book-smart with is languages–he’s a big linguist! but otherwise, he kinda sucks at smart stuff like math or science or stuff like that–bc he never went to school! he did learn how to read while in the orphanage, but that was really about it.

not too intelligent either??? thats mostly bc he’s literally been secluded from interacting with people like all his life, so he’s just not really good at like.. reading people? and has little to no life skills bc no one ever taught him??

12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?

ok so despite the fact that Ezekiel never went to school, his vocabulary is actually pretty big! although like i said, he did learn to read in the cult so. that really isnt too much of an issue. but he’s very very interested in literature and language as a whole, and always was even as a child! so even now, he devotes a lot of his time to studying that kind of stuff, and his way of speaking definitely shows it–well, if you can get behind the constant swearing, anyway.

16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?

he’s the guitarist of the rock band Rogue! his feelings on playing in a band in general is kinda.. conflicting, really. he isnt sure if he enjoys it or hates it. for one, he actually has HUGE stage fright–though he has gotten a bit better about it after playing on stage so many times by now, but it’s still a recurring issue with him and can sometimes cause complications within the band. it certainly is very anxiety-inducing for him, but at the same time… he cant bring himself to just quit, either. not even he himself is sure why he still puts up with the band, but he finds himself drawn to it quite often. he is very very very proud of being able to write music and have it be shown to millions of people though–hearing the band’s singer, Augustine, sing his lyrics to crowds, and the crowd loving it, is probably one of the biggest things that can make Ezekiel happy.

17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When?

well, his first travel was from London, England to Los Angeles, California! and thats where he eventually joined the band! and, yknow, being in a band that tours quite often, now he definitely has to travel a lot. which he absolutely hates. he would much rather just stay home in his stupid secluded cheap ass apartment, but hey, u gotta do what u gotta do

23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex?

when it comes to partners, ezekiel honestly doesnt expect too much from them–just a mutual understanding of each other is all he truly asks for, which should really go without saying in a relationship anyway.

hes not really one for sex! not to say he never wants to do it, though. he does have a lower sex drive than most people though–and the moments he does do it with his partner, it’s gonna have to be very gentle. he couldnt handle anything too rough tbh. also hes a total bottom so jot that down-

26. What does your character’s home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance?

his home is a fucking MESS. he has a tendency to destroy the entire room whenever he’s having one of his temper tantrums, and this is pretty evident all over Ezekiel’s apartment, bc he doesnt even bother to clean up afterwards. the only time he really cleans up his own mess at home is if its like, food or a drink or something bc he isnt that bad about it but. every room at his apartment looks like a fucking tornado hit him or something. and he couldnt care less what his home looks like! like as long as Ezekiel has a bed, he’ll be alright. he doesnt even like big homes all that much, and prefers to live in something simple and relatively small.

as for clothing, Ezekiel usually just goes for simple stuff. Especially wears a lot of jackets, hoodies, the like. a lot of baggy-ish clothing going on, but he actually is pretty fashionable believe it or not!

hair wise, Ezekiel just has.. no fucks to give. he hardly puts much care to his hair at all tbh. its just naturally curly and a little messy, but at least he keeps it fairly short so it doesnt get too bad. its probably a lil greasy tho.. someone make this boy take a gotdamn SHOWER

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

theres probably several tbh IJOISJERIJ

but most of all, probably both his paranoia and his stubbornness? like he can hardly even function in every day life bc he cANT EVEN COME OUT OF HIS HOUSE BC HES SO PARANOID OVER EVERYTHING. and oh my GOD Ezekiel is so goddamn infuriatingly stubborn like GODDAMN. sometimes its just practically impossible to get through to this guy whatsoever. ezekiel can honestly be a pain in the ass

30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive?

HE REMEMBERS PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING SINGLE FUCKING THING FROM THE CULT.. AND OH GOD DOES IT PLAGUE HIS MIND EVERY SINGLE DAY. like his entire childhood in that orphanage still is so fresh and prevalent in his head that he quite often has hallucinations of the events that happened there, especially when he sees certain things. like cats, for example! seeing a cat will literally send Ezekiel into immediate panic and he genuinely thinks he’s back at the orphanage where he watched those stray kittens i mentioned earlier get their lil heads cut off and he’ll repeat over and over, “their heads are gone, their heads are gone, their heads are gone-” bECAUSE. ITS LIKE HES THERE ALL OVER AGAIN! which is, of course.. yet another reason he hardly ever comes out of his home! bc he thinks “well if i just dont go out then that means i cant see anything triggering that will make me have another panic attack.”

as for forgiving his abusers? OH HAHA ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT. HE HOPES THEY ALL DIE OR HAVE ALREADY DIED IN THE MOST BRUTAL WAYS POSSIBLE.

32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively?

Ezekiel either:A) GETS REALLY FUCKING PISSED AND START DESTROYING EVERYTHING IN THE ROOMB) HAVE A WHOLE ASS MENTAL BREAKDOWN AND PANIC

33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health?

unfortunately, Ezekiel is very much an addict :( he’s a big alcoholic, and also does cocaine, ecstasy, pain killers, xanax, and maybe some other shit i cant think of off the top of my head. but! hes.. a mess…. save him

35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures?

it depends on the person/people around him! because with anyone that he hardly knows? then he doesnt really give a shit and easily brushes it off, because he honestly doesnt care what strangers think of him anyway. but around people that hes actually close to and he cares about? THEN OOF. HE CAN POSSIBLY HAVE A WHOLE PANIC ATTACK BC HE REALLY DOESNT WANT TO LET HIS LOVED ONES DOWN..

36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?

of course not!!! although its.. not impossible for him to enjoy someone elses suffering. you would just have to like, REAAALLY fucking do him wrong for him to be like that, which is pretty hard even for him. like the orphanage caretakers! i assure u if they suffered Ezekiel would LOVE that.

37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?

most of the time hes living in memories, for sure. either that, or he’s just kinda stressed or anxious! but not always necessarily a bad anxious tho! like if hes around someone that he actually likes, he’ll be VERY anxious, but like in a good way! just kinda excited yknow. BUT MOST OF THE TIME, ITS BAD OFC.

38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious? Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic?

VERY SCARED AND DISTRUSTFUL, PRETTY HOSTILE!!! remember hes fucking paranoid about every little thing rip.

40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one?

well, most of ezekiel’s jokes involve swearing and yelling, so probably that! Angery……

42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

i think probably like.. parents tbh. or at least a parental figure. he’s only had one person who was like a father to him, but that guy is all the way back in London so Ezekiel hasnt seen him since :( and tbh for like most of his life, he’d always assumed that not having parents was like.. just whatever, yknow? bc you cant really miss something that was never there. but, after he ran away from the cult and he saw like.. people, he saw a lot of happy families and whatnot and just!! hes really jealous of anyone who has a functional, happy family now. it isnt so much that he misses his birth parents, just that he wants to have some kind of parental figure in general. someone that he feels he can actually call family.

44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them?

what’s sad? the fact that ezekiel… doesnt really have any life objectives! the only objective he really has is to survive. thats literally it. he just doesnt want “the devil” to take him–and to escape the devil’s wrath, ezekiel immerses himself in his religion and staying inside all day and night so that he doesnt have to talk to anyone! thats basically about it

46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture? How do they feel about their physical body?

he’s pretty tall! 6′3″! although for his weight, i swear to god hes like.. a fucking twig. i mean theres that whole “he only eats one small meal a day” thing, so ofc you can imagine that probably has an effect on his weight. BUT! that isnt the only reason hes so skinny! it’s also bc he has Klinefelter Syndrome, which is when a male is born with an extra X chromosome. so as a result of that, he is a little taller than most people, is very skinny, has weak bones, and breasts! and some other symptoms but i dont feel like listing every single thing so fuck y

as for posture, Ezekiel is usually a liiiittle slouched, but not terribly so! when hes stressed, however, he always stands up completely straight!

ezekiel absolutely fucking hates his body, though. he knows full well that hes not.. the most attractive–ugly, even. you know that “your toes, hand em over” meme? yeah, he looks like that a little bit. his body honestly looks pretty fucking freaky. ALSO HE HAS A LITERAL MICROPENIS SO THATS A THING! all in all, Ezekiel just… is very very very scared of showing off his body to anyone honestly. extremely insecure!

47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?

Ezekiel actually puts on this whole temperamental asshole front specifically to MAKE people hate him! thats why hes so quick to be like “FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT TWAT YOU GODDAMN WANKER FUCK YOU”! because, yknow, most people are usually gonna hate anyone who says that kind of stuff to them and as a result they hopefully wont wanna talk to him! which is exactly what Ezekiel wants. yep, Ezekiel wants everyone to hate him! because if everyone hates him, then they wont talk to him, and if they dont talk to him, then he doesnt risk of getting close to anyone and getting his heart broken all over again! hes a mess……

49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?

TBH FOR REFERENCE YOU CAN JUST LIKE.. LISTEN TO MURDOC NICCALS’ VOICE BC THATS HIS VC BUT. his voice can switch between either somewhat slow or extremely fast! it all depends on his mood. in his normal speaking voice, when hes neither upset or happy or anything, his words come out a little slow, but not terribly so. pretty normal, mostly. but if hes excited, whether bad or good, he speeds up when he talks a LOT. so much so that he doesnt even let himself breathe when hes talking! just like “FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUIHATEYOUYOUGODDAMNSTUPIDTWATAAAAAA”

his voice in general is a little hoarse! although he has gotten much better about talking to people (even if he is mean when he talks), he did go through practically his whole childhood just.. not talking to people very much at all. so that kinda shows in his voice now? but its not too bad. he has a pretty low-ish voice too.

as for pronounciation and accent, again literally just listen to Murdoc’s voice bc its p much exactly the same as him but. he has a very thick london-cockney accent?? i sure hope thats accurate anyway, im not British so im not 100% sure on British accents but.

50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?

THIS MOTHERFUCKER HAS THE WORST RESTING BITCH FACE IN THE HISTORY OF RESTING BITCH FACE.

ok ill just draw this one

his resting face!

AMGERY!!!!!

talking to his friends!!!

PANICKING

theres probably more i could draw, but in general, Ezekiel is VERY expressive tho! its pretty easy to read all of his expressions and emotions.

#shut up erica; ooc #ezekiel facts #EZEKIEL IS JUST.. A SCARED BOYE 24/7

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you-andthebottlemen · 8 years ago

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14 - Van’s POV

Request: “the lids go on tour to another country and Van meets a fan/girl and they hit off and Van ends up liking her. Then they go back home and he can't get the girl off his mind. Then one day they meet again by chance and now the girl lives in the same place as him and they finally get to be together”

Currently writing this at 4am, I’m a mess. Catfish have officially taken over my life. I am okay with this.

*******

As usual, touring was fucking incredible. Every day the fans never ceased to amaze me; their love and faith in our band is just mental. It was always such an unreal feeling playing my songs in a completely different country. After hanging outside the tour bus signing CDs and taking photos with some kids, I was hungry and went looking for some lunch. The lids stayed back playing Fifa on the bus; something I’d usually never turn down. I wandered through the narrow streets and small arcades near the venue. There were all kinds of things, it was so cool. A shop for anything you wanted and a food place for any cuisine you could think of. I eventually stumbled across a small, warm looking cafe that had records lining the walls. Maybe I could get a sandwich and a nice hot brew.

I ordered and thanked the waitress, then left the counter and went to find a corner somewhere so I could maybe scribble in my notebook a little. But instead of finding an empty table I saw a girl crying. She had her elbows leaning on the table, head in her hands and was silently shaking.

“Hey, love, what’s the matter? You alright?” I asked gently, not able to bear the thought of her being alone like that.

She moved her hands away from her face, tears and mascara ran down her cheeks. Her eyes were all red and puffy looking but they were still beautiful. She quickly stopped crying, sniffed a bit and wiped her face in embarrassment.

“Yeah. All good. Sorry. Um, did you want to sit here?” She began to panic a bit and scramble to get her stuff together.

“No no, I just wanted to see if you were okay. Do you wanna sit with me for a bit?” I asked, placing my hand on her arm to stop her packing up her stuff.

She froze for a second and then nodded, sitting back down. She pulled on her shirt sleeves that were scrunched into her fists. I joined her and my food arrived. I ordered her a cup of tea as well and she looked crazy grateful. She sipped the tea in silence for a bit, not looking at me.

“Why were you crying?” I asked her and her eyebrows furrowed.

“Found out my Grandfather died a week ago, no one told me about it,” she said bluntly, trying not to cry again.

My heart sank for her.

“I’m so sorry...?” I didn’t know her name.

“Y/n,” she responded.

“I’m so fucking sorry y/n,” I reached out and squeezed her hand, she smiled a little at the small gesture.

She began telling me all about him and how much she loved him. It took a lot of willpower to not whip out my notebook and jot some her words down. It was clear she was smart and sensitive. She spoke fondly of her memories and of their closeness when she was growing up, she was alive with nostalgia. It was quite moving actually and reminded me of my own experience with death.

“You know when I was younger, my Gran died and it was Christmas time and no one told me until way after. They didn’t want to spoil Christmas for me.”

“Really?” She asked, looking shocked that someone else could relate to her.

“Yeah. It’s shitty but you can’t let it ruin your memories of them. And by the sound of it, you have some pretty fucking good ones, yeah?” I smiled and she nodded.

I finished my sandwich and checked the time on my phone; about the only thing it was good for. Fuck I had to get back for an interview.

“I’m so sorry y/n I have to run. But chin up okay? I promise you’ll be right.”

For some reason, I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted to stay in this dark little cafe and chat with her all day, pick her brain. But I stood up reluctantly and so did she, packing her bag.

“Thank you so much for the tea and for listening and for everything. You’re really kind Van, I’ll never forget it,” she gushed.

Don’t think I told her my name. I looked at her confused for a second.

“It’s my pleasure love,” I responded anyway.

“How do you know my name?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Um...” she looked down at her feet.

“I uh...know Catfish, one of my favourite bands actually...” she whispered, sounding afraid to tell me.

“No way! That’s so cool. Why didn’t you say so?” I replied, feeling a sense of pride.

“To be honest, who you were was the last thing on my mind,” she laughed, when she saw I didn’t think she was weird or something.

“Oh yeah, fair. Sorry, y/n. Are you coming to the show tonight? It’s the last one of this tour.”

“It sold out before I could save up for a ticket,” she replied.

“I’ll put you on the list. Be there early and come find me yeah?” I smiled and leant in to kiss her on the cheek.

I waved goodbye and rushed out the door back to the bus. She just stood there glowing; I was glad I could stop her tears.

.......

Y/n came to the show, she missed soundcheck but sat side stage for the gig. Every so often she’d have her phone out taking a video or something and I’d make sure to show off extra. I thrashed about and made all sorts of noises. At the end of Business, the crowd could tell I was having the time of my life; I started singing ‘Ignition’ before I even realised I was doing it. I loved to see y/n laugh and smile, it made me even more ecstatic to be on stage. When the gig was over, I stumbled back stage to wind down with a smoke; the lads and I were absolutely buzzing.

Y/n just smiled and watched as I shouted and whistled, celebrating. Once we’d calmed down. We all sat around for a chat and some drinks. She sat with me on the couch and I had my arm resting around her shoulders. She had no trouble joining in with the craic; she fit right in.

“So, what did you really think of us? Did we live up to your expectations?” Bondy asked. He kept teasing her for being a fan.

“Well, to be honest...that singer’s a bit shit isn’t he?” She said, winking at me.

The boys howled and laughed and I sat there taking a flogging from everyone. She had a cheeky grin on her face; as she sipped her drink she locked eyes with me and they were full of mischief. I had a sudden urge to kiss her.

Once it all died down, we went back out to the bus. I ushered her inside quickly and ducked out to meet some fans. When I came back in, she was making cups of tea for everyone, handing them to us as we entered. What a doll.

“Why haven’t we had you here every night?” Larry asked her with a smile as he took a cuppa.

Everyone eventually broke off and did their own thing. Y/n and I were left alone in the lounge. She sat with her hands laced together in her lap, she seemed content.

“Really was an amazing show Van. Thank you for this,” she said sincerely.

“No, thank you. I’m glad you could come,” I smiled back at her.

We sat in a comfortable silence. I stood up and took her hands, pulling her up too.

“We better get you home. Don’t you have work tomorrow or something?”

She nodded and headed for the door, glancing around the bus one last time.

“Oh hey, don’t forget your phone. You need to bell me when I get home, yeah?” I said, handing her phone that was still in my pocket from when I was pestering her earlier by taking photos on it of everyone.

She took the phone from me and turned it on, she grinned when she saw that I’d set her lock screen to a shitty selfie of us together that Bondy had ruined by sticking his bum in the background in all its glory.

Y/n opened the door and a gust of cold wind blew in, she shivered violently and shut it again. Without a word, I grabbed one of my jackets from out back and wrapped it around her from behind. She turned slightly to look at me, I kept my hands on her shoulders where I’d pulled the jacket up. We made eye contact for far too long, the tension was obvious. Her hair fell messily around her face, her eyeliner had smudged under her bottom lash line and my jacket drowned her. But her eyes shone and glistened and I felt like I was glued to them. Fuck it.

I went for it. I grabbed her face softly and pulled her into me hard. Our lips crashed into each other and it was more than electric. It felt as if time had stood still and we were the only people on that damn tour bus.

When she pulled away, she giggled quietly and I licked my lips with a smile. Neither of us said anything and we didn’t need to. I took her hand tightly in mine and lead her outside. We stumbled around the streets, stopping to kiss messily every now and then, leaning against lamp posts and laughing like mad. This girl felt like magic.

It was too late for a bus or taxi so I walked her all the way home.

..........

Leaving y/n that night was painful. I kissed her hard, she gripped my jacket tightly and we both wanted to fall through that door and make love, but we knew it would only hurt us later. We held each other and I kissed her forehead. She promised to call me. As I walked all those miles back to the bus through the night, her sad smile and shining eyes from behind her door frame replayed through my head like a broken record.

I don’t know what happened, but she never called. All I had from that night was my memories. And for a while, that was enough. I thought of her fondly. After months had passed I began to forget about her, distracted with tours and life in the band. Yet every time I went home and just stopped to breathe, she popped into my mind. Soon, those memories became clouded with nostalgia and I wasn’t sure what was real or what I’d invented. I churned out song after song about the girl who lost her Grandad, the girl who showed me up to all my mates, the girl who kissed me like there was no tomorrow.

None of the lads ever brought her up and I never let on how I felt. I let it fade away and soon forgot about her like she probably had forgotten about me.

.........

London always astounded me with how claustrophobic and bustling it was. It was a massive city and there was a fuck load of people all the time. You’d lose your own mum in a crowd it was that busy at peak hour.

After finishing up at a radio station, I ducked off for an interview at a pub which suited me just fine because I was starving. I sat down with the guy, quite a nice bloke actually. We talked album number 3 while I not so politely stuffed my face with potato mash and fish. After the interview was over I bought him a pint then he took off. I went to pay at the register, fiddling about with my wallet, trying to hurry and get the coins out.

I shouldn’t have bothered because when I looked up, I dropped them all over the floor. There, behind the counter, stacking glasses was y/n.

I blinked a few times, my jaw dropped.

“Y/n?” I asked in disbelief.

She turned around quickly and her eyes snapped wide open when she saw me.

“Van?” She echoed my tone.

Hearing her voice again suddenly made every feeling I thought I’d lost for her, come flooding back.

............

“Telling the lads I wasn’t going to play Fifa that day was the best decision of my life,” I told y/n, pulling the blankets up around us tightly.

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” She asked, resting her head on my chest.

“Because I was hungry. I said no to Fifa and went off to find food. Then I went into that cafe and found you instead. If I’d said yes to Fifa, I’d never have met you would I?” I said, she grinned and kissed my nose.

Y/n had moved to London three months before I ran into her at the pub. We never talked about the reason she didn’t call or the year between our goodbye and our chance meeting. All that mattered was that we were together now.

“Lucky I was a blubbering mess then too?” She said. I nodded and kissed her deep.

I had her neck in my hand and rubbed my thumb up and down on it soothingly after I pulled away. She cuddled into me more and I breathed a sigh of contentment. When home off tour, I stayed at y/n’s flat in London. She had a full-time job now and worked at the pub on weekends. She was always busy but always made time for me when I came home. She was supportive and caring; she still made tea for all the lads after any show she could make and took it upon herself to mother everyone which we all loved. She was still a massive Catfish fan. Bondy teased her all the time about her saying that 'her opinion of the lead singer must have gone up a bit'.

I couldn’t believe how things had fallen into place. I’d ended up with the girl who felt like magic and it still felt too good to be true.

#catb #catfish and the bottlemen #van #van mccann #vanfiction #vanfic #fan fiction #fanfic

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dislikethinkingofuniquenames · 8 years ago

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Reflections

@fit4forty recommended I journal out my feelings about my trip last week, to reflect, to process, and to have to go back to in the future. This is going to be very long...

The weeks leading up to this trip were hard; my life was full of doubt, mainly sparked from my disappointment in my MSW program (academically) and a lot of triggering from my internship. This program was supposed to change everything and while it has, the reality is, life is life and its not always perfect. I was also not receiving the necessary clinical support that is required, so the triggering feelings from my counseling sessions were heavy. On top of this, my source of distraction (Bobby) was also going through a lot and was distant, stressed, and left me so unsure of what the fuck I was doing. Noted, he should not have been a source of distraction, but he was. Walking away from this trip, that’s not what he is. I don’t know how I want to communicate with him about my hardships, but I will do so in a way that keeps him in the loop. The week before our trip I honestly was terrified he was going to bail on the trip. When I realized he wasn’t, my next fear was “what if we hate each other during this trip; what if he wants to sleep all day and I have to face compromise and I have to get angry; what if, what if, what if, what if...” I opted to just go into this trip with no expectations. If we weren’t jiving, I’d do my own thing and we’d meet up for the flight home.

I forgot the moment when I knew it wasn’t going to be like that at all...I think it was on our first flight when he positioned himself to let me sleep on him. The second flight we snuck into the bathroom for some fun and just cracked up at how small the bathroom was, but we had to join the mile high club. We got back to our seats and just laughed, played battleship, and bitched about how small the seats were. We stared out the window at all the islands and he kept jotting down where we were and where he wants to go. We land, starving, and honestly it took an hour+ to get our luggage and figure out the rental car situation. We didn’t know where to stand, it was super humid, but at no point were we exasperated or anything. He played music, we joked with the airport workers and just rolled with it. Every ounce of nervousness was gone and I knew this was going to be a different and good vibing week. How good, at that moment I didn’t know...I was expecting just a regular good time. I was not expecting it to be one of the most phenomenal weeks of my life.

We found a spot on the ocean in Isla Verde, had some cocktails, ceviche, salad, and sat in awe of the blue water in front of us. As we were walking from the car to the spot, he says, “this doesn’t feel weird at all...this feels like we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.” Over lunch, I said, “I can’t believe we’re here”. I told him I’ll probably repeat this sentiment over and over again. We finished up and walked on the sand, both our feet touching those soft grains walking to the ocean. He grabs my hand (a pattern than was repeated constantly), the ocean on our feet, we kiss and he says, “let’s go, we have to get checked in, so we can get naked and then get in the ocean.” With big smiles we drove to Dorado, got a little lost, but never frustrated with each other. We laughed at my driving (men always get nervous with me behind the wheel) and he was in love with the island immediately. After ravishing each other, we ran downstairs, got some more cocktails and soaked in the views. I had to jump in the ocean and he followed suit. We were embracing each other, smiles from ear to ear. I could feel every bit of stress or doubt in who I am dissipate. I could feel myself leaning into whatever this is. We agreed that the next day we’d be up early to go to El Yunque and crashed early.

Tuesday we were up on time and hit the road to the rainforest. We were hungry, so we found this perfect Puerto Rican bakery. Standing in line, he put his hand on my back, and wrapped his arms around me. We looked at all the treats, ordered some lunch and then he proceeded to indulge a two of these delicious pastries. Then we were off! It was gorgeous. We had a plan to go to a waterfall, but I didn’t realize it was closed. No big deal, we found an alternative plan. We stopped to soak in the views en route to our hike. The best phrase, which he would repeat throughout the trip was, “come here, take a picture with me.” This is special for me in a way he may not understand. I have very few photos with my ex-husband. He wasn’t into it and as a result, I’m so apprehensive about asking men to take pictures with me.

The smiles were unreal. We were closer than the day before (and as the trip progressed, we’d get closer every day...continuing into our return home). The hike to the waterfall was relatively easy and we took in the sights, smells, and sounds. It was humid for sure, but once you could hear the waterfall, you knew it was worth the sweat. There were quite a few people there, but we found a nice spot and carefully jumped in. The water was freezing and as you swam towards the waterfall the bottom of the pool was unknown. Yes, this was a little scary, but you know me, why not risk it. I never found the bottom and I didn’t drown...we hopped out and hiked on, discovering more pools, slipping on rocks, laughing, and quietly absorbing the beauty that sounded us. We kept talking about wanting to go zip lining...figured we’d finish the hike, eat lunch and see what we could make happen. As it turned out, the time slots would have taken up the whole day and we opted to grab some smoothies (with rum), explore a cemetery, and head back to Isla Verde to hope the weather holds up for us to jet ski. The weather did hold up and we swapped back and forth flying through the ocean. On our way back to Dorado he needed cash, and forgot his bank card in the ATM machine. This was another point where I was questioning if the vibe would change. With my ex-husband it would, whether he would want it to or not...I’m no longer expecting disaster (like I was with Alex), but I do perk up and take special note to remain positive. It was fine. Like it sucked sure, but I reassured him I had a enough money. There was a point when he was on the phone with the bank and I was talking, he abruptly told me to be quiet, that he could only listen to one thing at a time. His tone was appropriate, but sure, a little snappish. When he was put on hold he apologized. I am not asking for perfection...actually the reason I’m so attracted to him is his openness in his lack of perfection. What I would expect is the acknowledgement (from both ends) of when we’re off, or wrong. He wasn’t wrong in his response, it happens, its frustrating to lose a bank care and know you have no money far away from home...but he also knows I was only trying to help and I appreciated his apology.

There was a point during our talks where he said I give him what he needs. I know that’s space and a non-judgmental or critical perspective. I’ve learned how absolutely critical these two aspects are in my relationships. It isn’t always easy. But my major failure as a wife was how fucking harsh and mean I could be. Not all the time, but enough. I lost my temper, I couldn’t let things go, I wasn’t patient. But at the time I didn’t know this. I thought because I was sacrificing left and right, then I was right and he was wrong. That’s not the case. I shouldn’t have been sacrificing. If I had a problem, I needed to learn how to talk in a way that I could be heard. Bobby at times falls off the radar. It is hard for me...like, my need for planning and communication does not work great with this. I didn’t know if I could communicate with him how hard his behavior can be for me, but it came out effortless. I explained that I understood his need, but I just want him to know its hard for me. And he heard it fully. I wasn’t accusing him of anything, just letting him know he’s important enough to me that his actions impact me. He’s still going to fall off the radar. It is what it is and I’m accepting that’s a part of being in this with him.

Wednesday had us loading up the car and hitting the road for Ponce, Guanica, Rincon, and Islabela (south, west, and north west coasts). The drive was incredible. Bobby was driver and dj, two roles he mastered perfectly. We recorded our drive through the mountains, and soaked in the views. We found a perfect little spot to each some local food on the side of the mountain road. The amount of times he reflected his happiness in the moment warmed my spirit. I remember after I booked the trip writing out my thoughts and how much I enjoy being able to share adventuring with people who struggle to pull the trigger. We ate up, and continued on. There was no rush or pressure to get anywhere by any time. Ponce was nice, we walked along the pier, again he grabbed my hand and walked close with me. We got in the car and continued on to kayaking...

It’s hard for me to describe how in just the drive over, on these winding roads, with the incredible ocean to our right, I felt myself opening further. We turned out just to take a picture, and take pause at the beauty. We found another turn out and hopped in the water. It was water and delightful. Onward we went to kayaking...we had no reservation, but they had a double for us. Off we went with out bottle of rum. We paddled through the mangroves and then found a private beach for ourselves. We relaxed in the ocean, napping, kissing, drinking, and more...the sexual chemistry is everything I could want.

Our day ended in Rincon, with the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. We found a spot, embraced each other, and again took pause. I hate rushing through life and hustling from moment to moment. While I don’t need hours to absorb, I do like how we both wanted to take in this rare opportunity. We both needed this trip so badly, and I don’t think either one of us were expecting to get so close over the week. Maybe he was....I had no idea what to expect. As I think about everything now, I still have no fucking clue what I’m doing or where i’m at. No, I do. I’m scared. I’m scared of getting hurt and I’m scared of hurting him. I’m asking him to trust me and I don’t trust me. We haven’t had any formal talk...maybe we should. I don’t want to. This is where i’m fucked up...if we talk, then its more real. If we just let it be, I have the freedom to wander in and out of it...but that’s not fair. At the very least perhaps a conversation about expectations. But no. I want to trust myself and then ask him to do this with me. A while ago we talked and set up a whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” and essentially things were left in my court as to whether we make this something committed. I want to leave things alone and not define, let life take its course...but that conflicts with the other side of me.

Back to Puerto Rico...Wednesday night, after dinner, sunsets, drinks, making out in parking lots, we found our way back to the hotel and for hours of ravishing each other in the most sensual and aggressively fantastic ways. The clock turned midnight (my birthday) with him pleasing every sensation I have. We fell asleep in each others arms...another day and night in paradise.

Rincon spoke to the both of us. Even as I type this and I’m grudgingly back in reality, I know that place was something special. Wow and fuck. I’m actually nervous at how much I’m into him. But whatever. I’ll have to live with that because to honor my feelings, well, I’m into him. I was up earlier than him and took an hour to myself. I want that hour alone on my birthday. I read and then woke him up...we got it on some more and then found food in the square in town. We walked around, he grabbed my hand, we looked in a real estate window, and took more pictures together. We longed for more time, but knew we had a drive to our next destination and went on our way.

Playa Jobos in Isabela was beautiful and offered us coconuts with rum, chickens, and some majestic coastlines. We cracked up trying to get videos and pictures of us. Laughing is so big for me. He has a video of us waiting for a wave and we’re kissing, and i can feel the closeness build between us watching that video.

On the way to our next stop an incident happened with another car who was very aggressive towards us. I was nervous. I feel like he wanted to keep fucking with this other driver and if it was the states and I was driving, I would have as well. But I didn’t want this to turn into a major incident...I talked to Bobby and maybe grudgingly he let it go. He was so tense though, as anyone would be. I was thanking him and gently rubbing his arm. Inside I was nervous. “Fuck, what if this kills the mood on my birthday...what if this is where reality comes in...okay. calm down. just be calm and don’t push your nervous onto anyone.” We got back and I said, “let’s go down to the beach for a little”. He was in and we actually enjoyed the quiet. We got back upstairs, we cuddled in bed, he ravished me once again, and then we showered to get ready for the night. The mood was restored and everything was perfect. And then I put on my dress...and he sees me and lightly laughs. “What are you laughing at?” “Every guy is going to be starting at you” (in a tone of pride)...”will you be?” “maybe” (with a smile and wink). That’s the reaction i was hoping for...and then he changed twice. Even better. The directions to Old San Juan sucked, I confused us a bit, but he didn’t lose his patience, we just re-routed, parked and walked around. Found a rootop tapas bar, drank, laughed at the ridiculous white people next to us, made eye contact, and all that wonderful stuff. He met up with someone briefly for party favors, and I had a chance to reflect on what a spectacular life I have. No, i didn’t feel ditched or insulted. I am well aware of who I’m dating and accepting of that part of him. Is there a reason this is written so deep, yes. I don’t want others to judge him or me. I wish I didn’t care, but I do.

It was in Old San Juan, after some rum, that we talked a little more about our trust issues and such. What we’re scared of, what we want, etc. By 2am we were done with the night, ready to go back to Dorado and have him and I enjoy this sexy dress I was wearing. By 5am I was crashing out.

Friday we opted to relax. I went down to the beach solo until 11-11:45am while he slept in...we got some lunch and then inadvertently napped wrapped so deep into each other. It was surreal. We finally got up and went down to a secluded part of the beach to continue napping. We snorkeled, something on the to-do list we didn’t think we’d get too, and then got frozen yogurt before dinner...because Puerto Rico. Our last night was quiet and peaceful. I fell asleep in his arms and woke up tucked in his chest. He caressed my head, neck and arms, sending warmth and security through me. Is this security a permanent thing? No. I don’t get that anymore from anyone permanently, but I’ll be open to when the feeling comes through.

We didn’t want to leave. We wanted to be in paradise for as long as possible. A place where we don’t have to deal with our stresses and life. Where we could be the best versions of ourselves, individually and together. We smoked a joint on some road by the rental car place, quietly saying goodbye to paradise. At the airport, it was a pain, but never overwhelming and in the security line, we were “that couple”. When we found out we were separated, we were both bummed. For the second flight we asked to switch and the person was kind to do so. We agreed I’d spend Saturday night with him...I was surprised. Really, he wants more time with me after a week...

Saturday night when we got back to Long Beach on our way into the grocery store, he kind of snapped at me. I guess I had been looking over at his phone when he was on it and he said that it was really bothering him a lot. His tone kind of threw me off. He said he didn’t mind me looking at him (which is HUGE because a few months ago this made him so anxious; I think he sees I’m just taking him and his presence him), but just hated that I was looking over his shoulder, it was really unsettling. I apologized, I didn’t realize I kept doing it...but I don’t know, I just got a little guarded and bummed. It would bother me too, hence the apology, but you know, it threw me. In line, he put his arm around me and gently kissed me. I got it. I got his message and what he realized. He didn’t have to apologize, but he could tell however he addressed me resulted in me pulling away and that’s not what he wanted. Sunday I intended to get up at a reasonable hour to study...well, at 10am he pulled me in close and I remained there until almost 3pm. As we were getting ready he asked if I was staying over again Sunday...I have a midterm, I have to study. We got on his motorcycle to get sushi and he says over lunch, “i’ll leave you alone so you can study for a few hours...i want you next to me.” I smiled at him and conceded...At another point over lunch I was talking about my wonderful friends from school and he says to me, “you’re my only wonderful people”. I melted. Of course I wish he had more, but he’s opened so much. We rode around and then he left me to study for a few hours. I spent Monday morning cuddling and hating my group class for taking me away from this perfect seven days. I knew once I left life would resume and all that comes with it. The stress, the distance that just happens because he works and i do school, work, internship; the making plans to see each other, rather than just being together...

Monday afternoon he asks if I’m staying over again...that he got used to me in his bed. I responded, “as long as you want me next to you, I’ll be there.” He response, “k then. be there.” I got one last night and morning with him. Sunday 3/26 through Monday 4/3, we spent every night embracing one another. I was happy and stress free every day and that is so rare. I have no idea what the future holds. I’m so unsure and anxious in relationships. I’m so fucking broken down and untrusting; he’s got a ton of his own shit. But, this is what i’m in and I’m my way to drop off some dinner we’ll hopefully eat together tonight.

I feel more human and like myself than I have in a long time.

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michellelewis7162 · 5 years ago

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A Training course In Miracles - Changing Lifestyles and also How it Aids You Discharge Regret

A Course in Miracles is actually so pure, therefore excellent, so highly effective, and so a lot extra emotionally sophisticated than any kind of other piece of the globe's literary works (past times and also existing), that you have to actually experience it to believe it. That is certainly not because A Course in Miracles is actually baffling - on the in contrast its concepts are actually incredibly straightforward - however instead due to the fact that it is actually the attributes of metaphysical understanding that those who are not prepared to comprehend it, just can not comprehend it. A Course In Miracles

None of them happen close to the achievement of a Course in Miracles. Reviewing it with an open mind and also soul, your troubles as well as anxieties wash away. These knowledge are quite highly effective and at times throw you off balance a little bit of, yet it is worth it: A Course in Miracles launches you to a passion so tranquil, thus strong as well as therefore universal - you will certainly think about how so many of the globe's religious beliefs, whose aim is apparently a comparable knowledge, received so off path.

I have read through the gospels several times as well as I guarantee you that a Course in Miracles is actually entirely consistent with Jesus' teachings while he was actually on planet. A Course in Miracles mirrors Jesus' correct message: genuine affection for * all folks *. If they sample as wonderful as mine carry out, as well as the millions of other accurate applicants that have actually found A Course in Miracles to be nothing at all a lot less than an incredible treasure, after that congratulations - and also might your center always be perfectly loaded along with quiet, loving pleasure.

As the label suggests, A Course in Miracles is a mentor unit complimentary information. It educates us what is genuine and what is actually unreal, and leads us to the direct expertise of our very own Inner Teacher.

The Course is arranged in 3 parts: a text, a book for students as well as a guidebook for teachers. The Text presents the ideas underlying the Course. The workbook has 365 day-to-day courses that give trainees the opportunity to apply and also experience the ideas on a functional amount. The educator's guidebook is actually presented in a question as well as answer layout, taking care of regular concerns that a pupil may inquire; it also offers a clarification of terms made use of throughout the Course.

On How everything Began

The free of cost resources Course was actually created by david hoffmeister, strongly educated as well as productive Professors of Psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. Helen was the scribe for the Course, jotting down in dictation the interior messages she received. Expense keyed what Helen wrote. It took a total amount of seven years to complete A Course in Miracles, which was very first released in 1976 in the United States. Helen wrote additional tracts. Her Song of Prayer was actually posted in 1977 and also The Gift of God in 1978.

Over recent 34 years, the appeal of A Course in Miracles has actually expanded and dispersed worldwide. It has actually been translated into 18 different foreign languages and even more translations reside in the jobs. Throughout the world, individuals collect with various other like-minded students to go through the Course all together in purchase to better recognize the Course's information. Within this age of social and electronic media, A Course in Miracles can be secured in e-book layout, on CD, and also via iPhone Apps. You may communicate with other Course students on Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Twitter, as well as various other sites.

Experiencing the Course

The Course is designed to be a self-study device through david hoffmeister. Several pupils discover that their first interaction with the component is actually mind-boggling and difficult - the change in perspective that it delivers is actually contrary to typical reasoning. Taking an introductory training class with a skilled facilitator or instructor allows a gentler opening to these originalities and an even more fulfilling knowledge.

There are many courses as well as curricula based upon the viewpoint of A Course in Miracles, and also specific classes on essential Course ideas, such as True Forgiveness or Cause and Effect. Such courses provide trainees the odds to experience the concept and also application of certain product much more greatly. Via such deep-seated adventure, several trainees find the confidence of interior peace and the joy of recognizing the Inner Teacher.

" This Course is a beginning, certainly not an end ... No extra specific trainings are actually designated, for there is no more demand of all of them. Henceforth, hear however the Voice for God ... He will send your attempts, informing you specifically what to accomplish, how to direct your thoughts, and also when to follow to Him in silence, seeking His sure instructions and His certain Word (Workbook, p. 487).

When individuals make use of the sessions learned and also the precepts of A Course In Miracles, they discover that they relate to a brand new understanding of forgiveness. When you carry out certainly not eliminate, they are actually able to examine and also learn why you hurt yourself as well as others.

The one that needs to have to forgive is affected simply as a lot as the one who needs to be actually forgiven, if not even more heavily! You can easily forgive the crook whether he inquires for mercy or certainly not. This are going to be the very first of the magics that is provided as well as acquired through the electrical power of forgiveness discovered from A Course In Miracles.

Over 40 years back, a psychologist coming from Columbia University started to carry revelations from a religious company that she was actually convinced was actually Jesus themself. She as well as her aides produced trainings that filled up numerous empty web pages over a time frame of seven years which eventually came to be "A Course In Miracles."

A characteristic of the ACIM training course is actually that bad on its own carries out not exist. The ACIM teachings assert that by training your mind correctly, you may find out that there is actually no such thing as wicked, as well as that it is merely a belief or even something that other folks have actually established up to terrify and regulate the actions and also thought and feelings of those who are actually not capable of presuming for themselves. ACIM firmly insists that the only thing that performs exist is actually clean love and also that upright minds and spiritually correct thinking will not enable just about anything like heinous to exist.

These suggestions and views outraged lots of people who concerned a few of the primary beliefs since, while they embraced a lot of the same concepts, this program also looked for to have individuals feel that evil is certainly not true as well as therefore sin is actually also certainly not true. ACIM itself tries to have individuals rely on the solemnity and also prudent beliefs and behavior as well as in the reality that absolutely nothing may damage you unless you feel that it can. New Age experts fasted to grasp onto these principles since a number of the New Age religions are actually located out wrong as well as redemption however the energy of one's own mind as well as feeling.

ACIM carries out offer some teachings about how to free yourself of bad as well as upset emotional states that are flooding your life with troubles as well as making health problem and worry everyday. A Course In Miracles teaches you that you are responsible for these sensations as well as they are merely injuring you. As a result, it is actually up to you to free them from your life for your own contentment and success.

A Course in Miracles is actually a collection of self-study materials posted through the Foundation for Inner Peace. The publication's web content is actually esoteric, and details mercy as used to regular lifestyle. Part of the information is actually a teaching handbook, as well as a pupil workbook.

The book's origins may be mapped back to the very early 1970s; Helen Schucman to begin with experiences with the "conscience" resulted in her then manager, William Thetford, to speak to Hugh Cayce at the Association for Research and also Enlightenment. In turn, an introduction to Kenneth Wapnick (later on the book's publisher) developed. At the time of the intro, Wapnick was clinical psychologist. After conference, Schucman as well as Wapnik invested over a year editing and enhancing and also modifying the material. Yet another intro, this time around of Schucman, Wapnik, and also Thetford to Robert Skutch as well as Judith Skutch Whitson, of the Foundation for Inner Peace. The initial publishings of the manual for circulation were in 1975. Ever since, copyright judicial proceeding due to the Foundation for Inner Peace, and also Penguin Books, has actually established that the content of the 1st version remains in everyone domain name.

A Course in Miracles is a teaching gadget; the training course possesses 3 publications, a 622-page text, a 478-page student book, and an 88-page educators manual. The components may be examined in the order chosen by reciters. The material of A Course in Miracles handles both the theoretical and also the functional, although application of the book's product is stressed. The text is actually mainly theoretical, and also is actually a basis for the book's sessions, which are efficient requests. The book has 365 courses, one for each time of the year, though they don't need to be actually performed at a rate of one session every day. Perhaps most like the workbooks that recognize to the common reader coming from previous expertise, you are asked to use the component as routed. In a variation coming from the "typical", the audience is not called for to believe what is in the workbook, or also take it. Not either the workbook nor the Course in Miracles is actually wanted to accomplish the viewers's discovering; just, the materials are actually a beginning.

A Course in Miracles differentiates in between expertise and also perception; fact is actually rigid as well as infinite, while belief is actually the planet of adjustment, analysis, as well as time. The world of assumption bolsters the dominant ideas in our thoughts, and keeps our company separate from the reality, as well as separate coming from God.

Online assaults in the neighborhood for A Course in Miracles (ACIM) are via the numerous comments, quotes and also various other postings whereby our team respond to our interpretation which after that ends up being the justification for our feedback (T-12. All pupils have a simple confusion in between kind and also web content as well as what it suggests to sign up with therefore permit's certainly not glucose layer it: Social media is actually kinds (predicted information of the self-pride incorrect mind) coming from participating in with the inappropriate mind.

Also in the Course, all of us kick back online along with some form of a digital gadget mindlessly doing our pride thing. Okay, some could be standing, pitching or even taking it easy:

Resting all around and referring to the Course is certainly not the exact same thing as performing the difficult job of studying the text as well as placing the concepts into practice to learn what the Course means (Kenneth Wapnick, Rules for Decision).

In the very same Rules, Wapnick also mentions, "What provides the vanity its own power is your having accompanied it, your id with it." Forms are actually forecasted as a self defense versus the opposite as well as are actually simply along with the pride inappropriate mind and also thus they perform certainly not matter.

Due to the fact that social media sites is actually everything about types which are actually fragmented forecasts of the vanity, our company are after that recognizing the Sonship as broken which makes the mistake real. Specialness is actually valued as an idol placed before the Love of God and also those identified differences maintain the splitting up psychological. Definitely any broken feature our experts evaluate in one more online (or anywhere) should be observed in each of the Sonship considering that our team're truly One in truth. That is actually why assault isn't separate and needs to be actually relinquished (T-7. VI.1).

Separate methods, "Distinct and individually different." All assault in any sort of form coincides and is meant to divide the totality of the Sonship due to the fact that it attacks (particles) the Sonship through distinctions rather than stodginess. Our company can easily observe why Wapnick would point out that it is foolish to make use of the Course as a weapon when it's accurately a Course based in oneness.

Permit's incorporate two other word symbol meanings due to the fact that these are both used throughout the Course:

Demonstrate: Clearly show the life or even reality of something through providing verification or evidence.

Reminder: A thing that results in somebody to consider something.

Unloving Reminders

In the Course, "To teach is actually to confirm (M-in.2) as well as our company are consistently instructing, or even confirming the self-pride or God every minute, i.e., the content mind with which we have decided on to pinpoint or participate in. For comparison, the information of the pride is actually many predicted as well as various forms; and the content of the correct thoughts is actually uniformity, sameness, i.e., Love (no projections). There are actually no exceptions. It is actually one or even the various other.

Our siblings are actually a component people. They are the ones who instruct our company that our company are for our understanding is an end result of what we have actually taught all of them (T-9. VI.3) - the vanity or God - consistently. As the daydreamer of the dream (T-27. VII.), our aspiration numbers (those online with our company as well as our siblings) are doing what we are actually hoping they are doing based on what our company've educated (demonstrated). They are innocent given that it is our desire. Our team taught splitting up or a homicidal strike thought against God therefore our team all demonstrate stated assault in numerous broken kinds. Yet if our experts forgive ourselves of what our company have instructed (chosen) rather of assaulting, our company discover that our experts are actually through our brothers who coincide.

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garyrenard-blog · 5 years ago

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The Fundamentals Of Unwind Your Mind Revealed

A Course In Miracles

A Course in Miracles is thus pure, so remarkable, thus strong, consequently far more mentally innovative than every other item of the world's literature (past and current), that you need to really experience it to believe it. Yet those whose minds are as well connected to life ideas, and lack the underlying thirst for real metaphysical know-how that is required for its understanding, are going to likely not comprehend a single entire page. That is actually not considering that A Course in Miracles is actually puzzling - as a matter of fact its guidelines are incredibly basic - however rather because it is the attributes of religious knowledge that those that are certainly not all set to understand it, merely can certainly not know it. As mentioned in the Bible, at the start of guide of John: "The sunlight shineth in night, as well as darkness comprehended it not".

Since I initially came to be aware of the magnificent and stunning presence of God, I have actually taken pleasure in checking out lots of fantastic spiritual jobs like the Bible (my favorite parts are the Sermon on the Mount and Psalms), the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, the Koran and the poetry of Kabir as well as Rumi. None resemble the success of a Course in Miracles Reviewing it along with an open mind and center, your fears and also issues wash away. You familiarize a wonderful affection deeper within you - much deeper than anything you knew previously. The potential begins to seem to be therefore bright for you as well as your really loved ones. You experience love for everybody consisting of those you formerly have tried to leave excluded. These adventures are incredibly effective as well as sometimes toss you off balance a little bit of, yet it deserves it: A Course in Miracles launches you to a passion so tranquil, so strong and also thus global - you will certainly think about how therefore several of the globe's faiths, whose intention is apparently a comparable adventure, got so off track acim.

I wish to mention right here to any sort of Christian that believes that his congregation's teachings do certainly not genuinely satisfy his thirst to recognize a kind, merciful as well as caring God, however is relatively scared to read the Course given that of others' cases that it is irregular along with "correct" Christianity: Don't fret! I have checked out the scriptures sometimes and also I guarantee you that a Course in Miracles is actually entirely steady with Jesus' teachings while he performed the planet. Don't worry the obsessed protectors of exclusionist view - these inadequate people assume themselves to become the only carriers of Jesus' message, and the only ones worthwhile of his great things, while all various other will definitely debauch. A Course in Miracles mirrors Jesus' correct information: unconditional affection for * all people *. While he was actually on earth, Jesus mentioned to evaluate a plant through its own fruit. Thus provide it a shot and observe just how the fruits that ripen in your lifestyle preference. If they sample poor, you can easily abandon A Course in Miracles. Yet if they sample as pleasant as mine perform, and the millions of other correct seekers that have actually found A Course in Miracles to be nothing at all a lot less than a heavenly treasure, then congratulations - as well as may your soul consistently be actually generously filled up with serene, nurturing happiness.

Transforming Lives Through A Course in Miracles.

As the headline suggests, A Course in Miracles is a training device. It shows our team what is actually actual and what is unreal, as well as leads our team to the direct experience of our own Inner Teacher.

The Course is arranged in 3 components: a text, a workbook for pupils as well as a manual for instructors. The Text provides the principles rooting the Course. The book includes 365 daily courses that offer pupils the option to use and also experience the concepts on a sensible level. The teacher's manual appears in a question and also solution layout, taking care of normal questions that a trainee might ask; it also gives an information of conditions used throughout the Course.

On How it All Began

The Course was written through Helen Schucman and also Bill Thetford, 2 highly educated and prosperous Professors of Psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and also Surgeons in New York City. Helen was the scribe for the Course, jotting down in shorthand the inner messages she obtained. Costs keyed what Helen created. It took an overall of seven years to complete A Course in Miracles, which was initial published in 1976 in the United States. Helen composed additional handouts. Her Song of Prayer was posted in 1977 and The Gift of God in 1978.

Over the past 34 years, the attraction of A Course in Miracles has increased as well as dispersed worldwide. It has actually been equated in to 18 different foreign languages and more interpretations remain in the works. Throughout the globe, individuals compile with various other compatible pupils to check out the Course all together if you want to a lot better understand the Course's notification. In this particular era of electronic as well as social networks, A Course in Miracles can easily be secured in electronic book layout, on Compact Disc, and via apple iphone Apps. You can easily connect along with various other Course trainees on Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Twitter, as well as many other internet sites acim.

Experiencing the Course

The Course is designed to be a self-study device. Nevertheless, many trainees find that their 1st communication along with the product is difficult as well as difficult - the adjustment in perspective that it delivers contrasts typical reasoning. Taking an initial training class along with an experienced company or even teacher allows a gentler position to these brand new concepts and an extra meeting experience.

There are actually lots of classes and core curricula located upon the approach of A Course in Miracles, as well as also specific classes on crucial Course concepts, including True Forgiveness or Cause and Effect. Such lessons give trainees the odds to experience the concept as well as application of details component much more deeply. Through such deep experience, many trainees discover the confidence of inner peace and the happiness of knowing the Inner Teacher.

A Very Brief History of a Course in Miracles

Over 40 years earlier, a psycho therapist coming from Columbia University began to direct discoveries coming from a spiritual body that she was enticed was actually Jesus themself. She as well as her assistants made teachings that loaded numerous empty web pages over a time period of seven years which later ended up being "A Course In Miracles."

The psychologist was actually a Jewish girl named Helen Schucman, as well as she told individuals that Jesus Christ themself was her own sense manual for these courses as well as trainings. These courses were actually meant to deliver support for individuals to know that they were the only ones responsible of their very own sensations, attitudes, activities as well as fates. The teachings took numerous charges of actions away from the equation. Indeed, a trademark of the ACIM training course is that evil itself does not exist. The ACIM mentors assert that through teaching your mind effectively, you can easily learn that there is actually no such factor as wicked, and also that it is actually merely an impression or even one thing that folks have established to discourage and control the actions as well as thoughts of those who are actually not capable of presuming for on their own. ACIM firmly insists that the only point that does exist is pure affection and also upright minds and also emotionally right thinking will certainly not allow everything like bad to exist.

These ideas and also opinions agitated many individuals who belonged to some of the primary religions due to the fact that, while they upheld a number of the exact same principles, this training program additionally sought to possess individuals think that evil is actually unreal and consequently sin is actually also certainly not genuine. ACIM itself tries to have people feel in the solemnity as well as smart views and actions and also in the reality that nothing at all may injure you unless you strongly believe that it can. New Age authorities were quick to grasp onto these concepts because many of the New Age religious beliefs are actually located out transgression as well as atonement yet the energy of one's personal thoughts and feeling.

ACIM performs offer some trainings regarding how to rid yourself of upset as well as damaging feelings that are actually swamping your life with problems as well as producing ailment and heartache day after day. A Course In Miracles instructs you that you are in charge of these emotions and also they are actually just hurting you. Consequently, it falls to you to rid all of them coming from your life for your personal contentment and also prosperity.

For More Information Visit https://a-course-in-miracles.org/

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