#i’ve been tormenting my family with the music

[yellowsubiesdance]

if that lady shoots that show down, i stg i will LOSE IT

[comicarc]

𝐈 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 (𝐗𝐈)

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"A lonely moon craving for the radiant sun." In which a certain girl catches the attention of a prideful billionaire playboy as they both attempt to find their way in the world. (I haven't seen many fics explore Bruce in his formative years, so I thought I'd share my take on them, of course with romance.)

wc: 1593

A/N: Since its the holidays, I'll be releasing one chapter everyday this week!

Jonathan Crane was a renowned doctor, and the only one taking lead with the treatment of Arkham’s high-risk patients. In a city rife with enough crime to instill fear in the hearts of even the bravest men, his specialty came especially handy in treating a majority of the patients there. 

y/n always looked up to the man, for he seemed to be the most sane and sensible person in the whole city. He was the father she never had, for he seemed to be the only person, other than Selina, who truly cared for her well-being. 

He had been treating her “real” father for years before the old man died from a heart attack. The death struck y/n’s mother a bit too hard, and before she knew it, the old crone was admitted into the Asylum in the same cell as her deceased husband. 

With all these revelations she had been uncovering recently, who knew what more Crane knew about her family? She hoped he could shed some light on the lies that seemed to plague her life, such as her recent realization of her mother’s involvement with Falcone before she went insane. 

Her body was still weak after the explosion last night, but it had enough strength in it for her to make a makeshift rope, climb down the third floor of Bruce’s manor through the window, and make her way off the property with her phone. She’d left her backpack and the file back in the room, for she knew she’d be returning soon enough to discuss the Falcone case.

Meeting Crane was something she needed to do for herself, and thus with a newfound determination, y/n relinquished the thoughts that tormented her mind about the future and set her sights on stealing one of Bruce’s cars to make her way to Arkham Asylum.

── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

y/n stepped into his empty office, observing the hollow nature of it. Though books were scattered here and there, the sun practically bursting through the window to fill the room with all its light, there was a lingering sense of emptiness. The discomforting feeling in the air could have very well been psychological, with the absence of lamps, or candles that generally air an easygoing aura. It could have been that all the books seemed to have a layer of dust gathered on them, exuding a sense of abandonment. But, regardless, y/n couldn’t quite figure out what made her feel slightly uneasy. 

Seating herself on a wooden chair propped by a mahogany desk, y/n ran a hand down the carved wood, familiarizing herself with the place. It was paradoxical, how homely the desk felt despite the eerie surroundings, for it carried countless memories of her seated just as she did now. All those times she felt alone, directionless, needing guidance, Dr. Crane always had room for her on the other side of the desk. She’d play with the knick-knacks he’d have lying around, make music as she tapped her feet on the legs of the desk, or simply stare at the intricate designs it held, and immediately feel the comfort of familiarity. 

Walking in, Dr. Crane sat at his desk and gave his full attention to the young girl as he greeted, “Hello, Ms. y/n. It’s been quite a while since you’ve visited. Is everything alright?”

“Dr. Crane, yes it’s been quite a while. Everything’s fine.” y/n thought about sharing the adventure she’d been having or the news of her rescindment, but opted to keep things short and simple as she took a breath and continued, “Actually, I came back to finally get some answers.”

“You mean closure.” He responded instantly, as though he could read her mind. “I sense this has to do with your mother?”

“ I’ve come across some information about her past, and since you’ve known her longer and better than I ever will, I thought you would know about–”

“Falcone. Yes, I hoped you’d never come across that information…You see, your mother was one of his most favored mistresses. She was a damn good spy for him too, for without her, Maroni would have been running these streets instead.”

“I knew my mother wasn’t a saint, how is knowing this any different than what I imagined her to be like before.”

“Because knowing her past would make you unconsciously compare your present. And that breeds a very dangerous kind of fear, the kind that festers self-doubt. Without assurance in yourself, you’re bound to go insane.”

“I don’t think she could influence any aspect of my life. For all I care, my mother is dead.”

“And yet, you still come here for closure. It’s hard to give someone credit for hurting you, but once you do, your life won’t be anchored by her any longer. No, you don’t want to establish that you’ve been hurt. You want to be able to forgive her, to hear words of comfort you’ll never hear. You want a mother, and you want her to be it. But that’s never going to happen even after she reforms. Let me give you a piece of advice, not just for moving on from your mother, but for anything that pains you. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, so take it to heart. ‘Sorry’ won’t make a difference for it is simply one word against a thousand actions.”

“I guess the doctor has spoken,” y/n chuckled, feeling eased by this interaction. Maybe she'll never get the closer she wants but at least she got the one she needed. 

Crane chuckled along with y/n, before excusing himself for an appointment he had with another patient. Taking this as an opportunity to make her exit, she got up from her seat and moved toward the door from which she came in. As she was about to leave, she accidentally knocked over one of the towers of books accumulating dust. 

Smacking a palm to her forehead, y/n huffed as she kneeled down to place the books in the same position they were before. As she began to pick up the books one by one, she noticed a potato sack with holes and a mouth cut out of it behind the stack. After piling the books as they were before, she moved toward it, reaching to see what exactly the item was. Before she could even touch it, another presence opened the door and heeded y/n to leave the Asylum as there was a threat of an uprising occurring soon. 

Shrugging the sack as another one of Crane’s unorthodox approaches to his treatments, y/n followed the staff out of the premises where she drove her stolen car back to the Manor. 

── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Climbing back up the rope she had escaped from, y/n was met with the sight of Harvey and Selina with their arms crossed, staring at the window. Bruce paced near the door with the file in his hands, oblivious to her sudden arrival until Selina cleared her throat.

Harvey was the first to begin berating the confused y/n as he initiated, “Where the hell were you? You know better than to be running around Gotham in that state.”

y/n’s shock had left her too stunned to speak. What were these three doing together? Her first order of business was to figure out just that, “Don’t you and Bruce hate each other? And how do y’all know Selina? What’s going on?”

Before Selina could open her mouth to ignore y/n’s questions and berate her again, Bruce calmly answered, “We’ve all got a stake in this case, so it’s better we work together to take down Falcone. They know about the operation and the file, now all we have to do is figure out which cop and lawyer we’re going to use for this case.”

Annoyed by being cut off before she even spoke, Selina re-addressed, “Great, we’re all on the same page. Now, where have you been.” Selina’s eyes attempted to bore into y/n’s as though her gaze would be able to root out whatever was in the other girl’s mind. 

Unfortunately for her y/n wasn’t willing to spill all her secrets to them, so she simply stated, “Arkham, had some business there to take care of.” Knowing that Harvey and Selina would definitely try to pry, y/n changed the subject as she turned to Bruce. “Got any leads about the cop situation? Most of them down at the precinct are as crooked as they come.”

Following her lead, Bruce acknowledged, “Actually, yes. There’s an up-and-comer detective by the name of James Gordon. He seems like a saint compared to guys like Bullock. He was there the night–” He cut himself off, not wanting to relive the haunting memory, as he resumed, “I know firsthand that he’s a good man. He’ll be able to help us.”

Harvey added, “My dad can help with the lawyer problem. He’s turned over a new leaf, and I’m sure he won’t miss an opportunity to show it.”

At the statement, Bruce eyed Harvey with a suspicious gaze but remained mum. With a sound plan, and enough evidence to back it up, the four worked to organize the files for reference and make a copy to send to the relevant people. y/n thought that this would be the beginning of the end, that this would be the downfall of her cage. Little did she know that there was no such thing as rock bottom, the darkness could always deepen.

˖ ࣪🦇𓆰♡𓆪🦇ִ ࣪⋆

taglist:@earth-to-name

[savagewildnerness]

I’ve done separate piano & violin improvisations for Nicolas’ unfulfillable yearning. This one is more for me, so I’ll add the Nicolas book reference to the violin one.

I really relate to Nicolas in some ways. When I first read TVL, I was a 12-year-old. I’d played violin for 4 years, but only from free lessons in school. I’d also *just* begun piano lessons. I’d adored music since I remember (I danced from age 2 & felt the music - it conjured images within me, like a magic), but I knew I was too old when I started playing instruments. Nobody was musical in my family. I only had short, free violin lessons. 12 is very old to just begin on piano and 8 is quite old on violin. I’d never be great at either. I knew. And for me, great had to be perfection as a child - the utter best. I relate to a certain despair & yearning in Nicolas. And I do not have Lestat’s charisma, drive or enduring personality.

But I see the world entire more like Lestat. Aesthetically, I see the world Lestat’s way. Art is my love. I feel the savage beauty of the world. I believe in the goodness of art. I never believed in religion in any way. I also try to put positivity into the world & actually I relate to Lestat in that I think he too has a lot of internal darkness that maybe Nicki doesn’t know & I imagine Lestat feels seen when he feels Nicki’s art - Nicki who can turn his darkness into art for others to feel from. Whereas Lestat can only make others happy with his art! And yet, he would have been hugely successful as an actor, I know, had he remained mortal.

I cannot relate to Nicki’s feelings around religion, nor to his envy and cynicism. I find it sad he doesn’t think on Lestat’s struggles - Lestat, still illiterate now, as an adult. And a tragedy Lestat sees Nicolas through rose-tinted love & doesn’t understand the depth of despair & desperation within Nicki & the chasm of pain at his core that could never be resolved. Lestat thinks “if only Nicolas could understand what I mean when I say art is goodness!” - it’s a beautifully naive and simply idealistic hope - a hope that Nicolas could never feel. Yet both Nicki and Lestat are sensitive & artistic and there is a sense on which their differences create something - they create the space in which their conversation can take place. Nicki sees Lestat in ways he has never been seen before. Had Lestat never met Nicki, I think he may have lacked some internal sense of his self worth. But Nicki turns his torment into art, whereas Lestat shows the world his radiant light. And sadly, Nicki is right that he could never fully reach the greatness he would wish. I mean, I knew I'd never be a great violinist having begun to play aged 8. The idea Nicki could be (sorry Anne Rice!) is frankly, ridiculous! Even if Mozart did teach him! As if Mozart would teach a beginner anyway though!!

I think even had Lestat remained mortal Nicki and Lestat would have ended in tragedy. But that’s not to say there wasn’t love. Lestat absolutely loved Nicolas & I think Nicolas truly loved Lestat too. It’s just his own self hatred was so all-consuming it nearly took Lestat as well as himself.

I’m reminded of a man who once told me: play your music with your friends! Get their input! Create together! With (apparently) zero understanding how isolated my entire life is & always was.

Oh, I might not understand Nicolas fully because in some ways he is too close to me & in other ways he is too different. But Nicki’s pain & yearning with regards to his art, and his existence - the impossibility that always was and ever will be for him... that, I understand.

[maggotbxby]

Coup De Grâce - Deadite Ellie x OC/Reader - Chapter One

"and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" Revelation 20:10

Or...

Greta is a God-fearing, wannabe actress with a particularly strange family history, and an impressive talent of stumbling upon disgusting scenes. When tragedy strikes her home in an old LA high-rise, she quickly realizes her fate may be much more twisted than she was brought up to believe.

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 6,349

TW: Religious Trauma; Gore; Suicidal Thoughts; Violence; Everything in Evil Dead Rise.

---------

This building is dead.

It died a month ago when the landlord dropped letters in our mail slots letting us all know we have to be out by next month. He didn't even give us the courtesy of calling, just a print and copied half-assed apology letter to the tenants who pay out their livelihoods every month in rent so he can buy a new Ferrari and not fix the lights.

It’s not that I want to be here, particularly. There is just no other apartment on this side of LA that I would be able to afford. No others would even consider me, if I could. No stable job and a 480 credit score doesn't bode well with most landlords.

A category 5 earthquake was just a death blow, and exactly what I needed to truly understand it was, in fact, God's will for me to return to Tennessee.

The apartment is nearly pitch dark, even with the couple of candles I lit. A blackout coming with the aftershocks while I was packing explains a lot about how my luck has been the past few weeks. It’s as quiet as the dead, aside from the typical moans and groans of the old building. If my neighbors weren't stomping around, I would consider it eerie. 

I sit on a rickety stool that came with the place as I sort through my papers. Every tiny shift in my body causes the stool to creak and groan, just like the rest of the wretched building, so I try to be perfectly still.

The candlelight picks up my papers just enough for me to sort through them and chuck them into boxes- or the trash. It's nearly 10:00 and on a normal night I wouldn't keep packing, especially during a post-earthquake blackout, but I want out of this place as quickly as possible, and if I have to suffer for a while to do that, I will. 

I pick up a folder on my desk, and even in the dark I recognize it as my portfolio- or my pathetic excuse of one. I open it up to see my year-old headshots and my resume. I’ve never been a bad actress, particularly, I’ve just been bad at landing roles. Sure, maybe I didn't work hard enough to find a manager, but even if I had, my off-screen charisma has always been lacking. I scored one decent role in a film, only for it to be scrapped halfway through production. But I have kept trying, I tried theater, I tried commercials, I even tried volunteering into the musical theater at my local church; I’ve tried lots of things.

Because my father left me on this earth alone, and try is all that I can do.

I need to keep living, for reasons undisclosed to even my own mind.

I tell myself that my father left because God wanted him to come home. He spent years of his life driving out evil spirits, freeing tormented souls from the clutches of the Devil, and maybe God thought his work was done? I like to believe that over the probable truth that his fear overcame him; that what he has been running from his entire life finally caught up to him. There is a devotion to God and, with it, a fear of the Devil that has been passed down for generations throughout my family. My father, and many men before him, suffered because of it. 

But if God called my father home, what does that tell me about our home? Does God not care about our family? Why wouldn't he take both of us? No matter what I have done to myself after he died, the agony I have both endured and inflicted upon myself, I am still here. So maybe I do have a purpose on this earth. Or maybe God doesn't want me in His Kingdom at all. 

I remain faithful that these thoughts are untrue. I pray to God every day and every night. I spread His word to those I meet, and I follow His guidance in everything I do, so maybe that’s why I'm still here. 

Packing my, and the rest of my fathers belongings a second time has my mind cruelly bogged with memories, scents, feelings; just pure sentimentality. I have never been host to it before, being estranged from the rest of my family young never granted me the privilege. I do not have the patience for it. My body aches as I look at my shattered dreams, and I feel something cold and awful prick at the throbbing muscle inside my chest, frigid claws that dig deep into my being and tear away so subtly.

My anger gets the better of me and I throw the folder into the trash, causing it to topple over and spill papers and garbage all over the floor. Tears of exhaustion and frustration well up in my eyes, and I grip the sides of my head in my hands and bite back a scream. I will not let myself cry over this. I created this problem, I have to dig -or well, clean- myself out of it. 

I admit, I am an exposed nerve, and have been for the last year, my father's death having ripped off my epineurium.

I hop up from the stool, making it creak wretchedly, scraping the wooden floor, and I grab a broom from the kitchen to clean up the mess.

It’s because it is so quiet that I hear footsteps outside my door.

In most apartments, this wouldn't come as a surprise but considering I live around a corner, at the end of the hall, on the top floor, it’s a bit odd to have foot traffic this late. I tend to be left alone down here, no one vying to get in aside from the rats and dust bunnies.

I keep cleaning, because if someone has come to rob me, they will surely be disappointed, and if they have come to kidnap or kill me, my weak body and dry-rotten broomstick surely aren't going to stop them.

The steps draw closer, and I can hear their breathing; sharp, heavy, fast. The pattering footsteps stop but the breathing doesn't, however it draws farther away.

My curiosity gets the best of me, and I slowly approach the peephole in the door. I take in a deep breath only to relax when I see it’s one of the neighbor kids, peering around my little back corner out into the long-stretched hallway with the other apartments. I can’t see that hallway from my room, however.

The moment of relaxation is cut short as I realize the kid is crying. His eyes are wide and red, and his breath is quick, like a rabbit being hunted by a fox.

Then I hear a scream coming from the hallway.

Then another.

Then another.

The child is still hiding around the corner and even though I can’t see what he’s hiding from, everything in my nature tells me it is something he needs to get away from, now. I go to open the door and before I can unlock the deadbolt, the kid takes a mad dash down the long hallway.

…

……

...……

Another scream.

A thud.

My eyes well up in tears of panic and fear as I stand frozen, staring out of the peephole. I see nothing, but I hear everything.

Screaming, crying, ripping, squelching, banging, a gunshot.

Laughing.

Across that sequence of events, which lasted all of 3 minutes, I decided to make peace with death. Because it is all that I can do.

Then it goes quiet again. This time the quiet is eerie. No loud neighbors, no footsteps, nothing.

The air at the top of the high rise is thin, always has been, but trying to breathe it in during a panic feels like there is no air left at all. My hands shake, my chest feels as if it is about to explode. I unlock my cell phone and dial 911 only to be met with a repetitive beep. The earthquake took out the cell towers, of course. Self-preservatory panic overstimulates my senses and I drop to my knees at the door in a terrified heap. I cannot stop the sobs that choke out of my throat, and I fear even my body knows that whoever- or whatever is out there is going to come for me soon.

I clasp my hands and bow my head as I sob out the only thing I can “The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death; I fear no evil; for you are with me.”

I whisper prayers until my voice is hoarse. Because that is all that I can do. If anyone saw me at this moment I would be mortified. My neighbors are being attacked just outside my door and I have done nothing . But what can I do? Face a mass murderer by myself. Whoever is out there hasn't been stopped by the entire floor of people. They're a predator, and I am just as much a lamb to be slaughtered as anyone.

What I do need, is to get out of this place.

My mind is frequently unreliable, especially with time, however I have been hyperfocused on sounds tonight and I can confidently say the hallway has been pretty silent for at least 10 minutes now.

This can mean one of two things:

Everyone here except me got the hell out of this building, because they didn’t hide in their apartments like cowards, and the authorities are on their way.

Or everyone here except me has been killed, because they didn’t hide in their apartments, and ran out like idiots, and I am just waiting for my turn to face death as well.

Regardless of the right answer, staying in my apartment is going to get me nowhere. The only available exits are the elevator -which is a terrible option post-earthquake- or the stairs, both of which are at the end of the hall.

I get up from my heap on the floor and scour my apartment to grab the rest of my essentials to get out of here. I toss my phone, keys, wallet, and bible all into my purse, and I slowly and quietly unlock the deadbolt.

The moment I put my hand on the door handle to pull it open I feel my stomach sink and my body tense. The narrow hallway feels like a chute, and I feel as soon as I turn the corner my executioner will be waiting with a captive bolt ready to be driven into my skull. 

I take two quiet steps outside my door towards the other hallway and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and my heart threatens to crash its way out of my chest, sending a painful wave of thunder to my wrists and my neck. The sheer force of my blood pressure reverberates into my ears. I keep my body to the wall and clutch my bag to satisfy my brain’s need to have leverage and I use every ounce of courage in my body to peer around the corner into the hallway and-

Corpses.

There are corpses.

Horrifying, mutilated corpses of my neighbors. The corpse of the child who, if I was a second faster, could have been brought into my apartment.

Skin sloughed from muscle, muscle from bone and I am sick sick sick sick si-

The putrid, infectious scent of bile, blood, and exposed flesh makes its way to me, and by some miracle I do not vomit but my body doubles over, and my eyes and mouth are pooling while a black haze creeps into the borders of my field of view.

When I glance up, the sensible part of my brain makes my obscured vision focus on the only thing still moving in the hallway.

I, as anyone who knew her would, recognize her from the tattoos on her exposed flesh and the distinct red hair on her head, Ellie Bixler.

But very much not Ellie Bixler.

Her skin is pale and gray with death, and she is caked in blood and bits of everything that are no longer inside my neighbors' bodies. The curve of her arm is made jagged, and My God limbs are not meant to bend that way.

I suddenly believe that every prayer I have ever spoken has come to protect me at this moment, as she somehow does not notice me while she is focused on what I think is the door to her own apartment. I do not let my luck go to waste as I rush back behind the wall, out of sight of anyone in that hallway.

The quiet I got too comfortable with finally comes to an end in what I assume is the sound of her breaking, or trying to break through her door.

I peer around the corner like an idiot in some sick daze of infatuation when I hear the scream of a child.

Ellie is pushed halfway into her apartment, holding onto what I can only imagine is her youngest daughter, Kassie. Someone else inside the room comes to help as the door is slammed onto Ellie’s arm and she recoils back into the hallway.

She then throws herself into the door, furiously banging on it.

  “OPEN THE DOOR LIKE YOU OPEN YOUR LEGS YOU STINKING GROUPIE SLUT!”

 The voice sounds like a twisted, savage, faux version of my neighbor’s and I feel the overwhelming urge to vomit again as I dart back into hiding, and I take the opportunity of the noise to rush back to my apartment.

The contents of my stomach do end up on my floor after I close and lock the apartment behind myself.

I despise vomiting. Tragically, I was cursed with a weak stomach and an impressive ability to stumble upon revolting sights. A deadly combination only I could be so lucky to have. 

I do not think to clean up the vomit on the floor that will soon be covered in my own blood when I am inevitably found.

I quickly realize as my body autopilots into my bedroom, that spilling my guts combined with a severe spike in adrenaline has given me three things; sharp chest pain, energy renewal, and a massive degree of mania.

I now know what I need to do.

I haven't touched these books since I moved out of Tennessee, not that I should have. Every time they have been opened they consume the one who opens them. My father was constantly buried in these writings, wasting his life trying to make something of them. Something that would allow our family to repent from the sins of our ancestors. I have never been so unlucky to read them, until now.

I know exactly where I hid them. I drop to the floor in front of the old, dusty armoire that came with the apartment, that definitely should have been thrown out years before I moved in here.

I flatten myself on the splintery floor and snake an arm under it, finding what I was looking for. I pull out the wooden box and rise to my knees as I pop open the latch. There is a stack of 3 handwritten journals. Journals scrawled by my great-great Grandfather, Marcus Littleton.

My body quivers, and adrenaline and fear flow through my veins as I pull one of the journals out of the box, illuminated by the moonlight.

I take the box and journal to my desk. I re-light the candle upon my desk and I open the treacherous tome up. My heart is frightened; however, my mind is set.

I have heard my father describe demons for the entirety of my life. ‘Twisted, rotting corpses intent on causing chaos, destruction, and pain everywhere they are found.’

I never fully believed his tales. Of course I didn’t, there was never any public recordings of such events. His stories were from the 1920’s, it could have been nothing but hearsay. Hearsay that he lived and died for. Hearsay that, if I do nothing, I will also die for. 

He never let me touch these books when he was alive, he kept them hidden for himself. When I inherited them, I never opened the box. Partially because I respected my fathers wishes, partially because I didn't want to become consumed in them as he was. My father and I always were alike.

The handwriting of my great-great grandfather is sloppy, and every word is abbreviated, shortened, or misspelled. These books were scrawled in a panic. I knew this. I was, however, never told the extent. I skim through the most legible parts of the pages, many words and phrases unreadable.

“The words I uttered have unleashed a demonic entity beyond my darkest nightmares”

“The book, it cannot be destroyed.”

“Their bodies twisted, decaying.”

“Rotted from the inside out.”

“It does not stop.”

“The possession will spread.”

“They will tear you apart, and bathe in your guts.”

“Run.”

“It cannot be stopped until innocence is destroyed.”

“I cannot escape this.”

“It's going to get me soon.”

I slam the book shut. My body trembles so wildly I begin to spasm. My heart is beating as fast as a racehorse’s and my breathing refuses to slow. The fear of being discovered from the thing just outside my apartment is the only thing keeping me from screaming.

The chicken scratch writing described a book. I have heard about this book for years. A book that was hidden away for the good of humanity. My father wanted to keep us as far away from Los Angeles for a reason. He never knew where the book was hidden away, but he knew it had to be here.

And of course, it would make total, logical sense, that by some absolute joke from God, out of all the old buildings in this city, I manage to land an apartment in the one the book was being held at.

Or perhaps I really am cursed, and some sick string of fate brought me here to die and end my family's bloodline.

The only way this could be happening is if someone found the book. My father always said, ‘They have no power without the book, so long as the words aren't spoken.’ I’m hoping he is right. If he is, maybe there is something in the book that can be used to save whoever is left in the building. Something my great-great grandfather missed.

There is only one problem.

I have absolutely no idea where the book is.

This building has 14 floors, and hundreds of tenants. It would be nearly impossible for me to find it without a mass murderer trying to kill everything in its sight. 

The chaos does seem to be contained to this floor, and by the looks of it, Ellie is the only one causing it. That could potentially narrow it down to someone on this floor having it, unless of course Ellie was just the unlucky one, in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been anyone. 

Ellie Bixler didn't deserve this. The journal said the souls of those taken were corrupted by the demon, damning them to burn in hell while their body and partial consciousness remains to wreak havoc among men. Ellie Bixler does not deserve hell.

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

Ellie Bixler was one of the first faces I saw when I moved to this treacherous place. Moving alone was a nightmare, especially moving alone into the top floor of a high-rise, into the apartment farthest from the elevator. 

I thought the nightmare was ending when I got to the last boxes in the truck. However, when I picked them up, and almost toppled over with the weight of them, I realized my bad luck streak continued. I glanced at the label on the top box and sighed—of course it would be my dishes. I hear the ding of the elevator and feel a sudden whoosh of thankfulness.

“Hold the elevator!” I called, hoping that whoever was inside of it heard me. But seeing as I didn’t run into the doors, they must have. “Thank you," I said breathlessly, in passing, and then slumped against the wall of the elevator, balancing the bottom box on my thighs.

“Do you need some help?”

I peered around my stack of boxes to see the woman who had been kind enough to hold the elevator door for me; she was still standing there, dressed in a Guns N’ Roses t-shirt, dark blue ripped jeans, and leather boots. She wasn't dressed like the women I grew up around in the Bible Belt, that's for sure. And judging by her dyed red hair and tattoos, I would guess she didn't act like them either. She was staring at me hesitantly with blue eyes that looked as exhausted as I felt.

“Oh, no, I’ve got it,” I said quickly, disappearing back behind the boxes once I realized I had been staring a few moments too long at the gorgeous, courteous stranger while looking like I had been hit by a bus. “Thank you, though.”

There was a soft hum of contemplation, and then, a few moments later, a swish of the elevator doors sliding closed. I slumped against the elevator wall, thankful that I wouldn't have to converse with my new neighbor while coated with dirt and sweat.

“I think I have to insist, then.”

I jolted up so quickly that the box on the top wobbled precariously, only for it to be slipped off the stack and into the arms of the tall stranger. I stared at her, eyes wide, as the woman slouched under the weight of the box and flushed, before straightening up and smiling at me. 

“Um.” I cringed at myself. What a way to be eloquent. “Thank you, but you really didn’t—”

“I know,” the woman smiled back. “What’s your number?”

I blinked in surprise.

“Excuse me?” There was no way this lady just asked for my number. Who did she think she was?

The woman’s mouth fell open and she was immediately blushing. Her brow furrowed and she chuckled awkwardly, shaking her head. “Your floor… Number. Is what I meant. For the elevator?”

Oh . I looked over at the rows of glowing white buttons; I hadn’t pressed the floor number when I rushed in.

“Oh, yeah! Right!” I replied awkwardly, still not looking at the woman. I shouldn’t have felt bad—after all, this stranger is the one who said it—but I couldn’t help feeling like I was the one who made everything uncomfortable.

“Fourteen,” I finally replied, sighing, after clearing my throat. The woman grinned, a big beautiful smile, and pressed the button.

“Well hello neighbor! I’m on 14 as well, apartment 85.” I looked back over at her sheepishly. “Expect to climb a lot of stairs. This elevator is out of order more often than it’s working.”

“Of course it is,” I commented dryly. Well, at least it appeared to be working on the day I needed it to be. Hopefully that luck holds true for grocery days, too. I thought. “Stairs aren’t a problem. Besides, it gives me an excuse to drink a third cup of coffee in the mornings.”

The woman laughed. “Sometimes I need at least five. Don’t have kids.” the stranger joked.

“You have kids?” I asked.

“Three.” She started, “Two sweet girls, Bridget and Kassie. And my boy, Danny, who is always the culprit if you hear loud music coming from my place.”

“Wow you've got a handful then.” I replied. “I’ve always wanted kids… but it doesn’t seem in my cards anymore.” I winced, and wanted to kick myself so bad for accidentally sounding super melancholic. 

The woman nodded kindly, smart enough not to pry. Or maybe she just didn't want to entertain depressing, deep conversation with someone she met less than 3 minutes ago. 

“I’d shake your hand…” the woman said, her voice hesitant as if she could sense the awkward tension in the elevator, “but…” she glanced pointedly at the box, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“I appreciate the concern for my dishes.”

“Dishes,” she said, staring at the box. “Well, that explains things.”

Like the fact that it’s a lot heavier than you thought it would be , I thought, and couldn't hold in my chuckle.

“My name’s Ellie.” The stranger—or Ellie, apparently—looked over at me. “By the way. Since we’re… Going to be neighbors.” This time, Ellie was the one who cringed.

“Well then, neighbor.” I stressed the word around my smile. “I’m Greta.”

“Greta.” Ellie said. My name sounded so pleasant coming from her lips compared to my own. I quickly eliminated that thought from my mind. 

“Ellie.” I intoned in the same manner, and Ellie laughed. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open; Ellie inclined her head, as if to say you first , and I nod as I step through the doors. 

“I probably should have warned you that I live all the way at the end of the hall.” I shifted the box in my arms and glanced over at Ellie. “Before you decided to be a good samaritan.”

“I’m always a good samaritan,” Ellie responded, her tone of voice slightly defensive.

“Careful. You told me where you live. I might abuse that.” That sounded a lot creepier than I meant it, but Ellie just laughed, which slightly lifted my embarrassment.

I stepped through the doors of my apartment. I didn’t expect Ellie to be impressed—chances are we had the same exact apartment, hers just… properly decorated—so rather than trying to play the role of host, I simply led Ellie straight to where I put the box containing my disassembled Ikea kitchen table.

Ellie did, however, let out a low whistle as she looked around.

“Wow, you’ve been at this all day, haven't you?” She slipped the box on top of the Ikea box while I laid mine on the floor. 

“Yes, tragically. I slept on the floor and left the truck full of my non-essential stuff last night. Looking back, I definitely should have gotten robbed.”

“Long drive then?”

“You could say that.. Knoxville.” I sighed.

“You're telling me you drove here… from Tennessee?” She looked at me, eyes wide in shock. “With seemingly no help?”

“Just me and god.” Ellie laughed at that, but then caught herself when she noticed my expression, and the cross on my necklace, and realized I was serious.

“Well, then… I’d be happy to help, if you’d like?”

“That’s really nice of you, Ellie, but I’m afraid you're just too late. Those were my last boxes.”

“I have impeccable timing, huh?”

“Seems like it.” We both laughed, a bit awkwardly.

“What brought you all the way to the City of Angels?” Ellie interjected, cutting the awkward tension once again.

I breathed a heavy sigh, “It’s a long story…”

“Well, you could tell it, if you come have dinner with me.”

I recoiled, “I couldn’t- No. No thank you, I really should start putting all this stuff away.”

Ellie put her hand on my arm, “I insist. My husband, Jay, is making steak tonight and when he cooks, he cooks for a village.” Not that 3 children isn't a village.

I flinched, then relaxed slightly under the hand on my arm, I looked up at Ellie, contemplating, but there was little I would do to argue. I was exhausted, and I shouldn’t decline free food, even from a stranger. “I suppose I can't say no.”

  ------------

That night was the first, and the only time in a long time I felt safe. 

I didn’t spend a lot of time with Ellie outside of that night. She was a very busy woman, and I was constantly trying to find work, or locking myself in my apartment stressing about trying to find work. I often passed her in the hallway, or stopped to chat while doing laundry, but that was the extent. For the most part.

We were also very different, spiritually and morally. She wasn’t religious and I was not going to try and convert an entire family of 5. Our lives were just very different, as much as I felt drawn to her. I often, for some reason, constantly had the gnawing ache to go back to her apartment and spend time with her, and just be in her presence more than I should. It’s a feeling I have felt before, when I was young, and something deep rooted in my consciousness told me I shouldn’t give into that ache.

‘For god cannot be tempted by desire, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.’

I found out about her divorce when we crossed paths in the hall. It came as a shock, to an extent. Externally they seemed like the perfect couple, but being their neighbor, I had heard a fair number of screaming matches between the two of them. Divorce is something my family has always been against, especially when there are children involved; however, I believe that God would forgive Ellie if her husband abandoned her.

Ellie was a kind person; Ellie does not deserve Hell.

Ellie’s family –by the looks of it– is still alive in her apartment. As long as no one in the apartment has been possessed, it is possible they can be saved.

I just have to, you know, get there, without the demon in the hall ripping me to shreds before I take a step.

I sit at my desk, chewing on my cheek as I think out the most insane, ludicrous plan to save my neighbors, and to free my family from this book that has haunted us for generations. 

There is an estimated 10 percent chance of getting out of this alive, but there are little alternative options.

There was a shotgun in the hallway. 

If I can get ahold of it, and subdue Ellie long enough for her family to let me in, I can get ahold of the book, and with it, and my great-great grandfather's journals, I could find a way to get us all out alive.

That is, if they will even let me in, and if the book is even with Ellie’s family. This is where my odds drop further.

This plan is flawed. It is dangerous. It is stupid.

But I am all of those things, yet God has kept me alive, so perhaps there is hope to be found somewhere.

As I pack the journals into my bag, and I pull my largest and sharpest knife from the kitchen, I feel the full weight of my mortality sit upon my chest. 

I am mad for this.

But what is my life going to be otherwise? What did God keep me alive through so much for? I have to have faith.

I bear the knife in my hand, and wrap a rosary around my arm and wrist. My bible is held in my bag and I stand before the door to my death once again, praying for my father’s forgiveness if I mess this up.

As I carefully unlock the piece of wood separating me and the Devil, I go white-knuckled on my knife, and I feel bile begin to creep up. I am already out of breath due to panic, dissociating out of my mind, and trembling so forcefully that my teeth chatter. I bite my tongue until I taste blood, and I push open the door.

I am not sure how I want to do this, but planning now would only exhaust me further, and I need to think on my feet. 

Grab the gun, shoot the demon, get inside. 

I take a few, quiet, petrified steps into the hallway and look around the corner when I see-

Kassie?

Ellie’s youngest daughter is standing in the hallway, moving to help a young, dark-haired woman off the ground. From what I have heard, this is Ellie’s sister, Beth, whom I have heard referred to as ‘The Groupie’ from various neighbors.

Their attention turns to me, Beth looks shocked, eyes wide, as she moves to grab the shotgun from what I now sickeningly realize is the corpse of Mr. Fonda. 

The smell, Christ. I have sworn off vomiting again, but my body desperately wants to overrun my mind at this moment. I fight bile and slowly approach them. Kassie puts a finger over her lips, assuring I know to stay quiet.

Where are Bridget and Danny? I already know, at least, I should already know. My twisted mind does not choose to process that in the moment, only focusing on the two people merely 20 feet from me.

It is my fear that allows me a keenness to sound -even over my heartbeat in my ears- and I hear the cracking of glass and bone behind me as I begin to pass Ellie’s apartment.

No.

Please, God, don’t let this happen to me now. Not when I’m this close.

I freeze, because I am a prey animal, no matter what anyone says, in this building, right now, I am prey, and as a prey animal, I have developed the intuition of knowing when I am being watched. 

Its gaze is fixed on me, and I am all taut muscle and dilated pupils underneath it. I know it is behind me, and I know with every fiber of my being that I am going to die if I do not move.

But my body will not allow my muscles to relax enough to bend my limbs.

I am gripping the knife in my hand for dear life and my eyes are locked with Beth’s, who is, currently, my only hope in surviving this. The groupie raises the shotgun, and points it behind me. It is then that I decide to turn and look at-

There is a hand on my neck.

There is a hand on my neck. There is a hand on my neck. There is a hand on my neck. 

It is cold and wet and awful and I set my jaw and every muscle in my throat tenses more than they already were. My teeth threaten to break each other under the force caused by my fear. 

I attempt to drive the knife into the flesh behind me, when my arm is caught in the grasp of another hand. The grip is tighter than the sickeningly gentle hold on my neck, and its claws dig deep into the tendons of my wrist, making me scream out in pain, my eyes screwing shut as my hand involuntarily releases the knife.

There is a wet, breathy, crackling chuckle behind me, and the grip on my neck releases, and I open my tear-filled eyes, only to be thrown into the door across from Ellie's apartment. 

It is on me swiftly after that. It grabs my wrist again and pins it against the door, like it’s body alone wasn’t doing that enough. 

Its stare is predatory and piercing, nothing like Ellie’s once was. It is feral, and it's burning into me. Wide, consuming and unblinking as it stares down at me, I am drowning in it. Pupils like a pinpoint amongst a pale blue, scleras dark and bloodshot. 

It leans down for an awful moment, a pit forms in my stomach and I want to vomit as it licks the blood dripping down my forearm from its claws.

I look over its shoulder at Beth, who Kassie is hiding behind and gripping for dear life.

“Please.” It is my voice that pleads, but I have never heard myself so breathless nor shrill.

“Pl…ease.” The demon's voice mocks me, eyes still burning into mine. It's voice hoarse and deep and repulsive, but the thing that makes me want to upchuck more than anything, is that I can still hear Ellie's voice underneath it. Sweet, funny, no-bullshit Ellie Bixler, consumed by the Devil. 

Beth is looking at me now, fear in her wide eyes, as she aims the gun down sight for a moment, aiming directly at the demon. 

Pull the trigger.

PULL THE GODDAMN TRIGGER.

This is my apex of disaster. This is all that my mind has been made to handle. I have hit the limit of my unluckiness and hit it so damn hard I might as well have heard a comedically timed ‘bang’ and seen stars dancing around my head. 

Beth is unmoving, and my breath catches in my throat as I choke out a strangled sob when I see the woman mouth ‘I’m sorry’ before the shotgun it aimed at the door to apartment 82, and it is blasted open.

The demon before me jolts upright, but doesn't take its smothering gaze off of me, even when Beth grabs Kassie and runs through the door. 

My fate is sealed as the door slams behind her, and all that is heard is the clanking of the security chain lock, as Beth well and truly escapes.

Then there is a deafening silence…

…A pattering of footsteps…

…Heavy, excited, wheezy, panting.

An excited panting that is coming from the creature before me.

This is where my faith in God has led me. Like my father, and his father, and the father before him. All of my life, and all of their lives, have led to this very moment. My death will be the fated coup de grâce of our cursed bloodline.

I am crucified to my place, paralyzed from the neck down as it looks upon me. I am fated to be consumed by this monster. This is my destiny.

[iamcherryblessed]

Rosaline // Alec Volturi: Chapter Two

Summary: “How the blood rushed into my cheeks” Rosaline was no stranger to hard work, she’s been working as a maid for as far back as she can remember. Starting off as a scullery maid and ending up as a Lady’s Maid for the fearsome Jane Volturi. She’s just trying to keep her head on her shoulders and her heart beating, what happens when she catches the eye of her Lady’s stoic twin brother? What does Alec Volturi want with a lowly maid?  “So scarlet, it was maroon” Series masterlist

Chapter Two

This is a strange castle. As servants we’re taught not to let our eyes wonder, not to ask questions and most definitely not to let our minds run wild with theories. There will always be idle gossip between maids but it will never be confirmed. The normal whispers that flow through the walls of a noble family consist more of affairs or who we think will be next to marry. The ones in this house are much more sinister, much more confusing. The older maids, who have somehow survived to work here for multiple years, try to discourage any chatter about the Masters. They say we don’t need to know, to keep quiet and keep our heads down. I have yet to see the Masters in person, I’ve heard about their red eyes and how they don’t sleep. How each member is impossibly beautiful and beautifully cruel. On every third day of the week, all servants are required to stay in their quarters until late afternoon. We try to talk amongst ourselves but the blood curdling screams ring out and bounce off every wall in the entire castle. I had experienced two, the sounds of their scream echoed in my bones and made it impossible to sleep that night. At first the other maids comforted me but now they say I will get used to it, it’s just something that comes with the work.

Annie sat me down when I first started to tell me who each of the Masters were, as the head housemaid it is her duty to ensure all of the maids in the castle are doing their work properly. It’s a role she takes very seriously. There are three main Masters; Aro, Caius and Marcus. Those are the three who are in charge, they are the head of the household, we are to refer to them as Master. A step down from the Masters is; Chelsea, Jane and Alec. The rest of the members are Heidi, Demetri and Felix. Apparently the family has a strict hierarchy to adhere to but no matter how low down they are from the Master’s they will always be a lot higher up on the social ladder than any of us. Just before Annie gave me the news of my new position she made sure to let me know about Lady Jane. She gave me a list of things to avoid doing and some things that she knows Lady Jane approves of, she warned me of her temper which has only increased since her twin brother Alec had been away. According to Annie the two are inseparable so if I was to serve Lady Jane I would also serve Alec too. He went away the week before I arrived, there had been no whispers of where or why he went, and until he came back Lady Jane would continue to torment.

I awoke with a start, my heartbeat racing against my chest. Taking a deep breath I focused on the mirror across the room, my heart calming down. Only to jump again when another thud was heard. Light floated into the room from the small window at the top of the wall, the sun had yet to rise so I knew it was sometime before 6:00. I gently raised from the bed and softly got dressed for the day. I knew to be as quiet as possible and to make my steps as feather light as I could. 

“Girl.” If not for the stern demanding tone of the word, the voice itself could almost be musical. It was officially my first day as Lady Jane’s maid. I stepped into her room as quickly as she spoke, my head tilted down and arms clasped respectfully behind my back.

“Yes, Ma’am” I responded, I felt my heart stutter in fear, as if she heard it, I could practically feel her smirk in response.

“Ah, a new girl. Tell me, did you know of the last?” Her tone was teasing, how could one speak so lightly over death? 

“No, Ma’am. Sorry, Ma’am, I did not meet her,” I whispered back. I knew to be quiet but I could not trust my voice to be any louder than a whisper.

“Speak up, girl. I do not care if you knew her. You know what happened to her, do you not.” It wasn’t a question, it was a warning. Of course I know what happened to Hattie, I know what happened to most of the maids that she got annoyed by or tired of. 

“I do, Ma’am.”

“Good. Now get me ready for the day.” 

The morning was spent getting Lady Jane ready for an important meeting with the Masters in the late afternoon. Her twin brother, Alec, is due back today. I overheard her speak to Lady Chelsea about it while I was running her bath. Most Ladies like their maids to bathe them but I was forewarned that Lady Jane liked privacy so as soon as the bath was filled, I nodded and left the room. I got the clothes ready for her day and laid them out on the plush four poster bed that stood in the middle of her large room. My room could fit inside here 15 times over. 

“Girl, I am ready.” Lady Jane’s commanding voice drew me out of my thoughts. I stood by the bathroom door and slightly lifted my head as she came out of the bathroom, a fluffy white towel wrapped tightly around her body. She came to stop in the middle of the room as her eyes ran out of the black dress I had chosen for her. “My brother bought me this dress.” She hummed, a rush ran through my body thinking I had correctly chosen. “Now, girl.”

“Yes, Ma’am” I hurried over to her, careful to keep my footsteps light. It didn’t take long for Lady Jane to be dressed yet she still seemed impatient as if she could do a corset up a quarter of the time it took me. However, any amount of appreciation I got from choosing the right dress completely disappeared when it came to doing her hair. My fingers clumsily attempting to braid her hair, I could see the annoyance darken her eyes. 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am.” I stuttered, I could feel my eyes brim with tears as I worried how she would react.

“Just get it done.” her tone was clipped and frustrated.

“Yes, Ma’am” I nodded, my hands shakily undoing the mess of the plait I had created. My fingers softly combed through her hair, instead of going back to braiding, I twisted the strands together to create an elegant updo. 

As soon as I was finished I stepped back, my head turned down and my hands behind my back. Lady Jane stood up and swiftly turned to face me, her expression thunderous. I should’ve asked Annie or one of the other maids to teach me to braid properly, if I’d have known it was one of Lady Jane’s favourite hairstyles I would have practised every spare moment. Her eyes narrowed on me and in the next second all I could feel was an imaginable amount of pain spread through my body, it was like my blood was on fire. My knees buckled as I fell to the floor but I could hardly focus on anything other than the agony coursing through my body.

And then all of a sudden it stopped. I gasped as I abruptly remembered how to breathe, trying to get as much air as possible into my lungs. “Get up, girl.” Lady Jane sounded bored, she looked at me uninterested as I attempted to stand up. My legs were unsteady, I was like a fawn standing up for the first time. Lady Jane was already at her bedroom door by the time I was fully stood up.

“Learn how to braid.” Lady Jane said before she opened the door and walked towards the throne room. I quickly followed after her, my legs moving before my brain commanded them too. I stayed a few paces behind, close enough if she was to need me but not too close to seem familiar. 

My mind was racing, I didn’t understand why her eyes were red, why she didn’t sleep or how she managed to cause all that pain without even touching me. I fought with my mind to forget those thoughts, I just had to be better than I wouldn’t have to go through that again. 

Waiting outside the throne room I made eye contact with a male servant of one of the Masters. My watery eyes, shaky breathing and unreliable legs must have given away what had happened for he gave a sympathetic smile. I just turned away with my head down. The servants are not allowed in the throne room, we are permitted to wait outside in silence or we were to do a job if ordered. 

We stood outside for a while before all of a sudden the massive double doors were thrown open, I kept my head down and tried to not show the fear that was bubbling inside. I knew my heart beat gave me away. In an instant a figure was in front of me, a cold finger rested below my chin and tenderly lifted my head up. He was gorgeous. They all were but this man was breathtakingly stunning. His dark hair fell slightly into his eyes as if it had recently had a hand brush through it, his eyes–like the others–were a wonderful red, I could see them swirling with emotions but none I could confidently pick out. His lips are full and were a pretty shade of pink, I wanted nothing more to reach out and gently swipe my finger across them. His eyes met mine, my heart lurched and breath hitched.

[drawingducktalesducks]

Pretty Friendly Enemy! the 'forbidden friends to ???' musical

Starring: Webby Vanderquack McDuck as Plain Text Lena as Bolded

>>---<3--->

Hi I’m Lena, the infamous Lenore Nevermore De Spell kinda sad you had to meet me, have to say it won’t end well

For who? For you Uhh- Obviously, duh

Descended from a long line of evil sorcerers and witches means when I see happy people, well the sappiness just itches See I've got a lot to live up to, we De Spells give wickedness its name wouldn’t want to be first one of my line who turns out to be lame

Wow! That’s a lot of pressure yeah, I totally can see! But um just wondering, what’s it gotta do with me?

Take three guess. You like the bow in my tresses? Nope, guess again. Oh! You wanna be my friend! Ugh this is starting to hurt… Is it the color of my shirt? Oh my duck- Look, Pink Use your pretty head for a sec and just think!

…you think I’m pretty? …. No…

Lenaaaaaaaaa- Nooooo-!

You gave me a nickname! Oh oh, that’s so sweet! Stop talking about me like I’m a stupid treat! But you are! Not! Yes! No! I am evil, I am vicious- Precious~ Stop it! My dark dreams are ambitious! Wanna have a sleep over?! Only if you’re sleeping with the fishes!

Lenore Nevermore De Spell, my beautiful best first friend- This is turning out a nightmare, please someone make it end You can declaim “I’m evil” and “The spawn of villainy!” But that doesn’t change how, of all the happy people in the world to torment- you picked me!

So? Maybe I just hated your sparkly smile. That’s the thing though, I haven’t smiled in a while …what?

You saw. I was sitting all alone, droopy, sad and blue I’d been feeling pretty down lately, at least until I met you Shut up It’s true! You had to work hard cheering me up just to tear me all apart, and while you did, you lovely idiot, you opened up your heart! Don’t have one We had fun!

Pink look, listen close to what I’m saying put your fists up and strike first, all that fun was just me playing! My open hand? Just silly trap that I’ve been laying so take me out now or you’ll be the one who ends up paying!

Paying? Like on a date? Yes- no wait-! It’s fate! It was supposed to be just bait! Now it’s toooooo laaaaate!

Friends forever, and maybe someday even more! Can you hear yourself? I’m the enemy! Our families are at war! I’m pretty though, right? That’s precisely what you said Oh shadows and night I wish I was dead… No! Only over my pretty decapitated head!

So. Friends? …. Webby… C’mon Lena, just say it once. For me? … I guess we can be… ugh… So close, a little further, you totally can make it! …friend.. ly I’ll take it!

[cybercelestian]

A jolly little writer’s intro

EM is my name (not really) and I am quite the cool person (not really)!

I’ve been writing vaguely interesting stuff since 4th grade

and as time goes on, the writing becomes more interesting and less vague.

I also:

dance

write poems

play piano

do musical theater in some way or another

I have about 10 something writing projects consisting of 2 short stories, 3 potential series, and other various things.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

Some Writing Projects

1. Bleaksbury (or Charlie Fynch)

an aspiring writer moves to a town in hopes of fulfilling publishing dreams

the town actually turns out to be quite dull

because the brochure is from the 70s

the writer is suddenly tormented by ghosts?

the book also has a prequel concept

with an ANGSTY toxic couple

honestly the characters are more interesting than the plot

2. Eturniity

5 teens (and a pre-teen) get stuck in an alternate dimension

COSMIC HORROR STYLE

3 main villains

existential crises?

the have to relearn their old values in order to escape

gore/body horror possibly

3. The Sanchez Project

something me and 2 other friends are working on

3 teen siblings follow their mighty family legacy of erasing history

generational trauma, the differences in trauma responses, how children cope

very silly characters

(Got rid of Astell bc I kinda shelved it for now)

In summary: the basic trilogy of angst, gore, and whump?

My pinterest

Thats all! Bye!

[no-where-new-hero]

Blake Wrapped #1: K-Dramas 2024

'Tis once more Blake Wrapped season. I watched nearly all of these dramas in the first half of the year, so it was fun to revisit them all and my opinions for this wrap-up! Reviews and pictures under the cut.

Cheese in the Trap (2016)

Would be my favorite drama of all time if it weren’t for the plot/character nosedive around 2/3 of the way in, which destroyed the delicate psychological rendering of the main characters. TBH this drama gives me pain, but in a way that's also kind of enjoyable to tear apart. Aside its faults, it's beautifully filmed, perfectly cast, and did introduce me to Park Hae Jin (belovedest). 8.5/10 for the costuming, music, Kim Go-Eun's curly hair, and the first 10 eps.

Man to Man (2017)

Saw this one purely because it starred Park Hae Jin, Park Sung Woong, and Chae Jung An, and they were the only good things about it. The plot volleyballed among different genres (action, comedy, thriller, romance) in a way that felt almost like a pastiche, but which never committed to the bit enough to bring it all into a satisfying whole. A star-studded and talented cast let down by poor direction/writing. 6.5/10 for the fun of shipping the wrong people.

Who Are You: School 2015 (2015)

Yook Seung-jae gave me a SEVERE taste of second lead syndrome and carried the last few episodes. One of the best kdrama performances I’ve ever seen. The whole cast was exceptional and held together the many mini-plots, which nicely dealt with real and relevant themes. Some later scenes felt unnecessarily drawn out to fill 16 eps, but at least every story and character arc felt complete. 8.5/10 for Kim So-hyun’s eyeliner being a paid actor.

The Killing Vote (2023)

I had my eye on this one ever since I saw that Park Sung Woong won an award for his performance and then after getting to know PHJ, I put it to the top of my watch list. It absolutely delivered in terms of symbolism and suspense and had relatively few plot holes considering all its twists and reveals. The 12 ep structure worked well, though I hated the obvious season 2 setup in place of a proper finale. 8/10 for Seo Young-joon’s character stealing the heart of the show.

My Love from the Star (2013)

This felt like the K-dramaest kdrama I’ve seen so far in terms of tropes: philosophical dialogue about fate and humanity, (literal) time-stopping romance, murders, chaebol family tensions, a scene-stealing second lead, homoerotic hyung-dongsaeng friendships, non-existent female relationships, turtleneck sweaters, first snows, and hospital/police station scenes galore. Jun Ji Hyun is perfect and adorable and my wife. 8/10 for Kim Soo-hyun and Mr. Jang’s farewell.

Bad Guys (2014)

It’s clearly become a thing for me to watch a crime show because of my man of the moment and it ends up being underrated cinematic excellence. Gripping pace, sharp cinematography, and great characters are just the tip of the iceberg: everyone talks in poetic metaphor! Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise” is a central haunting leitmotif! Jo Dong-hyuk (in the middle there) looks personally and lovingly sculpted by God Himself! PHJ plays a tormented emo babygirl! 9/10 for everyone being unhinged.

Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (2016)

Satisfyingly lived up to its reputation. Despite the emotional heartache, I did appreciate that the overarching theme was “love pushes you to make tons of bad decisions.” And the ending wasn’t horrible, as I had been led to believe! Biggest gripe was Kang Ha-neul’s lifeless stare, but otherwise the whole supporting cast was fabulous. 9/10 for this iconic scene and the Death Song.

Winter Sonata (2002)

This drama has been a classic in my family since I was young, though this was the first time I watched it through. Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo are lovable and brilliant in their leading roles with fantastic chemistry and an absolutely perfect ending scene. I find it hard to review it, because it's basically an emotion in and of itself. 9/10 for the OST to end all OSTs.

Again My Life (2022)

This one had all the right elements—atmospheric music, aesthetic direction, fascinating premise, good cast—but the delivery just…plodded a bit? I skipped five episodes in the middle and didn’t miss a substantial amount of plot, so this really should have been a 12-episoder. Also had the same downer “efforts toward good are ultimately useless because evil is regenerative and eternal” message from Killing Vote that I didn’t love. 7/10 for a strong start.

From Now On, Showtime! (2022)

A refreshingly fun and humorous take on magic, past lifetimes and ghosts. Started it for PHJ, finished it for the found family of ghosts and spirits, who captured the heart of the show and gave it necessary energy. Solid chemistry among all the actors, and I enjoyed the Easter eggs for other shows of this type, like TOTNT and Goblin. 8/10 for incredibly funny writing and a fabulous emotional ending.

Forest (2020)

There’s a great drama in here somewhere, but the writer never exactly finds it. Jo Bo Ah and PHJ are fantastic (and their chemistry is off the charts) with some great set-piece scenes to develop their connection. Unfortunately, no rhythm or satisfying through-line was able to hold it together from a plot (or even a character) perspective, especially with the short-episode structure. 6.5/10 for the hand-touching scene and the kiss-under-the-bridge (that no one has gifed whyyy).

DNF: Death’s Game (2023)

I like to think I’ve gotten pretty chill about violence in shows, but this one had what felt like an undercurrent of glee in its depictions of the series of deaths that was so at odds with the message it was purporting to convey, to the point where I no longer believed in the message at all. Good premise, decent performances, tone just wasn’t for me.

Movies: Snow Is on the Sea/Snow in the Sea Breeze (2015)

I watched this one for the plot, and the plot really was PHJ being sweet and cuddly and husband material and showing far more skin than I had seen in the 50 or so hours of his drama episodes combined. It makes cleaning a penguin enclosure the height of romance. Corny, tragic, melodramatic mush, 10/10.

The Beauty Inside (2015)

Unexpectedly poignant with a lovely hook and great performances, grounded by the adorable Han Hyo-joo. I love ensemble cast concepts like this (imagine Doctor Who except for a daily regeneration) and the gender play conferred a sweet queer touch. Love wins, 10/10.

The Great Battle (2018)

The battles were lifted almost verbatim from LOTR and some of the quieter plot beats were completely predictable but it still delivered a great visual spectacle. I have no idea why I watched this but it compelled me though. Gorgeous cinematography, 7/10.

[kiwiraccoon]

Numb, Emptiness Chapter ii

Ateez OT8 x OC

Summary: after witnessing the death of her family, her uncle sends her back to South Korea to live with the eight guys he had saved over the years. They seem to be almost, if not just, as mentally messed up as she is, and the goal is for her to help them and them to help her. Time heals, but it’s already been 11 years of suffering for her, can they really help?

overall notes: MDNI mental health: depression, anxiety, ocd, antisocial, agoraphobia, personality disorders, mental breakdowns. mentions and descriptions of gruesome deaths, gore. polygamy, shared female, suggestive, fluff, smut?, building relationships. THIS IS NOT MEANT FOR THE WEAK HEARTED OR UNDERAGE!! this not meant to depict real Ateez but an au, not about their real selves or real struggles, I took ideas from their real selves but again not meant to be negative towards them or anything against their image… THIS IS JUST MY MORBID MIND RUNNING WILD!

Word Count: 2865

It’s evening now and I sit holed up in my room hiding from each and every one of the occupants of this building. My mind races taking over the music that flows through both of my ears once again. Why did I do that? How did he get that close to me? 

I can’t understand how I so quickly extended an olive branch to a stranger who could easily mask his true intentions like I do with my emotions. The only explanation I can come up with is the shared struggle with our thoughts, how they rip at our sanity no matter how hard we try to conceal them in a steel case. Yet the only case we find is made of fragile glass. My music soothes my thoughts enough to keep them from breaking the glass, but the cracks continue to taunt me, reminding me that even the smallest slip up could cause it all to come tumbling down. Leaving sharp pieces scattered around waiting for me to step on them and let the poison that coats them into my bloodstream. 

Mingi is a stranger, just as much as my therapist who ruined me, and all the other ones that tried to solve my ‘issues’ only to fail. They all tried the same things, show and do things that would cause great amounts of positive emotions. And when that didn’t work they turned to negative emotions. They all wanted me to express just one emotion, yet all they found was my blank stare. My family did it too, they all tormented me for years just to see one emotion take over my form. Everyone abused me like a free punching bag to alleviate all of their own struggles. All because I couldn’t express my emotions. And none of them knew inside I felt it all.

I could feel the pain, isolation, trauma, tears, fear, and heartbreak. My own family tormented me, trying to scare me randomly, yelling at me, telling me how much they missed me, explaining how much they hate my emotionless state. All just to see something, even just a tiny twitch. How much it hurt me to hear they ‘missed me’ when I was right there just behind a wall. I hated the wall in the beginning, tried to tear it down as well, but the second they started to do things physically, I thanked that wall. 

That’s when I promised to never let anyone touch my wall, but Mingi did. He touched it with a caring hand, one that said ‘I know why you’re here and I hope you will let me in one day’. My wall gave in. Let him have a little hole to peek inside and see just a tiny amount of care towards him. And when I realized that I stood from my spot next to him, waited for my ear bud to return to my hand, and left. 

I think I’ve been in my room for hours, but I needed to be alone. I needed to process the fact that my mind, the one that has been locked away for eleven years, just let someone, a stranger, inside. Even only for just a tiny peek. Why do I still care for people when I can’t even express it? Why do I torment myself? 

I even answered Wooyoung, and helped Seonghwa. Why? 

“Dinner!” Someone yells from outside my door and instead of going to get food I sit still. I watched my door like a hawk daring someone to even try and open it. I locked it and even put the chair from my desk in front of it. I refuse to let more people in, I can’t let them break me too. 

Mingi unknowingly felt like home to me, and that scares me. I never felt like I had a home besides with my uncle, and for someone else to give me that comfort, I couldn’t allow it. The last time I let someone feel like that for me, they turned out to be a ploy from my family to get me to express something. That person never cared, they just enjoyed the money. I won’t be a toy again. I won’t be a job and I won’t be a cash grab. I won’t.

Hours go by of me just drowning myself in my music and once I hear the silence around the building I stand from my spot in the bed. The dip that holds shows I’ve been in the same spot for hours in my own little world of pain, confusion, loss, and uncertainty. I carefully move the chair from its spot underneath my door handle and twist the lock from its hold, allowing myself to pull the door open slowly. My music still bleeds into my mind but at a lower volume to allow me to listen for anyone who might be awake and walking around. When I’m met with nothing but my music I move to walk out of my room only to slightly hit my foot against something on the ground.

Looking down I see a glass of water sitting in front of my door with a sandwich sealed inside a plastic bag. I lean down and pick up the items turning back into my room. Without second guessing myself I lock my door the same way it was before taking this food, that I think came from my uncle as it was my favorite sandwich in the bag and my name written sloppily, back to my bed. I sit in my hole once again and slowly eat the comfort food, drowning out my thoughts even more as I refuse to think anymore. 

I set the empty glass down next to the plastic bag that now sits against the top of my bedside table waiting for me to put it away, but I fear meeting someone accidentally on my way. So instead I turn off the lamp beside me and switch my phone to play music through the speakers, not forgetting to put my headphones in their case. I slip under my covers more, essentially hiding myself away from the monsters that are my thoughts and traumas who constantly torment me. Sleep consumes me, bringing me into my dream world where I can express my emotions and show those I care about how they make me feel. One day I will be able to break this mask and shatter it into pieces that can never be put back together. Hopefully soon.

“Kai?” Someone knocks at my door, awakening me from my peaceful world of dreams, “we have breakfast if you want any.” I know that voice. Wooyoung sighs and walks away, I know he possibly has more questions, but I can’t help the fear that rises in me. There’s never been someone who genuinely wanted to know me, and as much as I want to believe he is that person I can’t. I won’t fall into another trap.

After two days of being locked in my room, my mind reminds me I’m not in America anymore, my family can’t force someone on me anymore, it’s only me. My uncle understood me and never pushed me, he wouldn’t send someone to torment me. Maybe I could try again today, just later. I make my way to my connecting bathroom to shower with my phone playing music through its speakers as the Bluetooth one died right as I woke up. I take my time washing away all of my negative feelings, I can’t let them win anymore. I want to be better, I want to really feel, I want to be me.

Finally in fresh clothes and a light amount of makeup to soothe myself I walk into my bedroom to make my bed and put my desk chair back where it belongs. My chair only moved to the side these past couple of days, everytime I opened the door I found food and a drink. Whoever left me these things cared and I first believed it was my uncle until I still got something during lunch when he was at work. I never brought my dishes out of my room creating a pile that rests on my bedside table reminding me that I let my negative thoughts win for so long. They won’t anymore.

Reaching the surface by my bed I grab my headphones to place in my ears and balance the stack of dishes on my arms to bring down and clean. Balancing them on my one hand to unlock the door completely and walk out without bothering to look around to check for anyone as I don’t want to let myself hide away again. I walk to the beat of the music, immersing myself in the sound to ground myself and create a sense of power in myself. Each step I take I feel my courage building, my mind no longer having power over me.

The kitchen is empty when I walk in, allowing me the space to clean my dishes that resemble my trauma away, I want it to go down the drain and never resurface again. Get lost in the sea that is healing. I no longer have to go through constant pushing, torment, or abuse. I will get better, I want it. I notice some extra dishes in the sink that Seonghwa hasn’t gotten to yet, so I clean those as well. What I don’t notice are the eyes that catch me cleaning the dishes, but he doesn’t allow me to catch him as he leaves the second the last dish is put away in its place.

I stop at the fridge to grab a drink and luckily an apple to hold myself over until lunch, before walking out to the living room and finding the chair I sat in two days ago left open. I take my seat avoiding the eyes of those in the room, I guess they are shocked to see me. My eyes look over the books once again and take the same one from before turning to the page number I last remember. I hear a sigh from next to me and look over to see Mingi looking down at his phone, but he does nothing except stare. Again I take a headphone out, clean it, and extend my hand to Mingi.

I can tell he is in his head, if I could beat my thoughts I will help him beat his. Mingi looks up at seeing my hand in the corner of his eye, making his eyes meet my dull ones as a smile spreads across his face. The headphone gets placed in his ear and my music continues, nothing is said because there is no reason to. The comfort I feel around him is also felt on his side, I can tell by the way his shoulders relaxed when I sat down, the way he took a deep breath, and the way I pulled him out of his daze easily.

“I wanna listen too!” Wooyoung yells coming over to where we sit and sitting on the ground right between our chairs looking up at me expectantly. My bored face looks into his childlike one wondering why he would even want to listen to the music.

Mingi chuckles from his spot and looks over at me asking if it’s okay for him to listen to the music, I give a small approving nod not seeing any harm if Mingi doesn’t mind giving up his music. Wooyoung eagerly places the earbud in his ear and if I could laugh I would at the way his face shows shock. “You listen to rock?” 

“I listen to everything.” I say simply turning my attention back to the book laying on my lap, internally enjoying the bonding moment between us three.

“She listens to rock, rap, r&b, pop, punk, literally everything. It surprised me too.” Mingi explains reaching to take the earbud back from Wooyoung. The younger allows him as he sits in wonder letting questions run through his mind.

He hums to himself pondering which question to ask first, but when he looks around the room and sees the others have left he decides quickly. “Why do you always listen to music?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” I respond, simply closing the book with my finger in between the pages to keep my place.

Mingi chuckles and Wooyoung smiles, “I have a lot I want to know. Eventually you will tell me.”

“It’s true, he won’t stop asking until you give in, better to do so sooner rather than later. He will get annoying.” Mingi explains with a teasing smile on his face while slightly pushing the younger’s shoulder.

Wooyoung gasps, “hey! I’m not annoying!” His voice is loud and full of shock but also a playful tone seeping through.

“Yes you are!” Someone yells from the kitchen and I recognize the voice to be the one that comforted Wooyoung when I didn’t respond to his question the first time I met him.

His shoulders slump, I take a moment to situate myself in a more comfortable position before responding to his question. “I'm not used to people wanting to know me for me and not for personal gain. I listen to music because my mind always has negative thoughts, I want to drown them out.”

“Always?” He asks, his full attention now on me just like Mingi.

“Always.”

“Is that why you were locked in your room for two days?” He asks not thinking about how the question might come off.

“Wooyoung.” Mingi says in warning.

I open my book back up thinking of a response that won’t sound harsh with my lack of tone. I can’t find a good answer and everyone takes it as I was offended by the question. Mingi scolds Wooyoung while he tries to apologize for asking such a forward question. Meanwhile I remain in my mind thinking of the correct way to say why I wanted to be alone, but nothing comes off as friendly. Wooyoung takes this as his hint to leave and before I can notice he’s gone leaving just Mingi and I alone.

“Where did he go?” I ask finally looking up to meet eyes with Mingi who looks at me worriedly.

Mingi sighs, turning more in his chair to face me, “he left, he thinks he made you upset.”

I shake my head and turn in my chair to face the only other person in the room to explain myself. “I’m not upset, I couldn’t think of an answer that wouldn’t sound rude. You know, with my lack of emotions and all.”

“Do you lack emotions entirely?” He asks, his own curiosity beating him and causing him to ask the tough questions.

I shake my head again, “I feel everything, inwardly. I just can’t express them, no matter how much I want to.” The way my voice sounds makes me cringe, I want so badly for my words to come out softly with a hint of sadness but instead they are just boring words.

“Do you know why you can’t?” He asks his phone now put away entirely and his hands clasp together on top of the arm of the chair, proving that his entire being is paying attention to me and my words only. He cares and he wants to know.

“Trauma.” I shrug, letting silence fill the air for a moment as I think of how to explain my life to someone who cares enough to actually listen instead of torment me. “I was eleven when it started, ever since then everyone I knew, except my uncle, tried to force strong emotions out of me. Whether that be happiness or pain, they didn’t care as long as I expressed it. They made it worse, I went mute for years, selectively.”

“Thank you.” He responds, reaching out to grab my free hand and hold it in both of his.

“For?” I ask looking to meet his eyes as mine had downcasted to look at the cover of the book in my hand. I had only told my uncle of the pain they put me through, I didn’t think I could tell anyone else. Yet here I was telling a complete stranger who felt like home, something I’ve never felt before.

He smiles a comforting smile and squeezes my hand, “for trusting me enough to tell me something serious, I hope you know I don’t mind that you can’t express your emotions. There’s some part of me that feels like it can tell what you're feeling deep down, that’s enough for me.”

For the rest of the morning we sit in the living room doing our own things in each other’s company, him playing on his phone and me reading. Both of us listen to my music and enjoy the distraction from our thoughts that consume us to the point that we break. I won’t let that happen to him anymore and I hope it doesn’t happen to me anymore. One day neither of us will have to worry about them again, that’s a new promise I will make to myself.

[rogeliodavid]

My Spiritual Warfare Testimony

My experience with the dark forces started back in college, back in the fall semester of 2011. I was dabbling in alternate spiritualities, namely, New Age spirituality. I was reading channelings that were filled with half-truths devised to hook you. I read some channelings that were supposedly channeling ‘Ascended Master’ St. Germaine, and I was hooked…

The hot-topic back then was the supposed 2012 paradigm shift that was supposed to happen on December 21, 2012. There was so many sources back then pointing to the same event (all New Age), that it was easy to get caught up in it.

This is where my thinking got the better of me… I figured that if there was only 1 year left before the big ‘Shift’, then the only logical conclusion was that I should withdraw from college (which I did) and go out and proselytize to all my friends and anyone who would listen!

So I got into my honda civic, drove back up to Chicago and started spreading the word. This went on for a few weeks which turned into months until one day I found myself in a smoke circle in Hyde Park.

The freaky thing was then I was so high that when I looked into the bedroom mirror, I saw two black vortexes, like black holes, right where my eyes usually are. This freaked me out for real so I laid down on the bed and that’s when I felt a hyper palpable feeling of love in my chest. Instantly my mind went to thoughts of my girlfriend at the time, and I decided right then and there that I had to go visit her. (She went to school in Northwestern)

I got in my car and drove up Lake Shore Drive. At some point the radio in the car became scarily tuned in to what I was thinking… In the sense that it was playing certain music and certain popular songs that seemed as though they were talking directly to my inner thoughts…

I felt like I needed to relax so I found a parking spot near Sheridan. As I drifted to sleep to take a nap in my car, I noticed that I was regressing to a child-like, inner child state. To cope with my fear, I started to identify with who I imagined was the strongest character I could think of, which of course was the Incredible Hulk.

When I woke up from my nap, I felt the angriest I’ve ever been in my life, as if I got posessed by the Hulk himself. This ‘Hulk’ was self-destructive, with the sole aim of leaving this world by crashing into something. As I hit the petal to the metal and started zooming forward, a thought crossed my mind in the form of a question…

It asked: are you sure there’s nothing in this world worth living for? Instantly my mind went to my family and I had a change of heart— and at that very moment I veered off to the right and thankfully crashed into a tree and not into any human beings.

The ambulance came and took me into the hospital, where I was in what can only be described as a really goofy, spontaneous mood. My family came and took me home and my thoughts only became more regressed, child-like, and irrational.

It got so bad that they had to take me back to the hospital to get me checked out. At some point I fell asleep and when I woke up I was met with bed restraints that essentially had me chained to the bed without capacity to move freely. This is when I snapped, and got angry and upset and started yelling louder and louder until I was yelling at the top of my lungs.

I was alternating between yelling for them to let me go free and for the fact that I wanted to go see my then girlfriend.

Unfortunately my mental condition started to feel tortured and tormented, which I now see was because of a demon that got a foothold from my New Age spirituality that I dabbled in.

However, back then, I chalked it up to ‘psychic thoughts’ from those gawking around me.

The climax of this psychological torture at the hand of the demon was when my parents were behind my hospital bed, praying over me. They prayed over me in Jesus name, and that’s exactly the moment when I was freed from the torment like an enormous sigh of relief…

That was my real first experience with the dark forces.

One of the latest experiences with the dark forces happened while I was in my bedroom, reading some spiritual channelings. (I still hadn’t kicked the habit at the time)

All of a sudden, my girlfriend sent me an annotated version of a spiritual channeling that I had sent her. It was filled with references to Ancient Near Eastern gods that confused me. I felt a dark presence in my room after reading the names of those false gods (demons).

I was instantly aghast as I finally put 2 and 2 together that I shouldn’t be messing with alternate spiritualities. That was when I renounced all those alternate spiritualities, including channelings and astrology.

Thus began my path back to God, this time as an adult…

[dfroza]

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures

for the 21st of november 2024 with a paired chapter from each Testament (the First & the New Covenant) of the Bible

[The Book of Luke, Chapter 16 • The Book of 1st Samuel, Chapter 28]

along with Today’s reading from the ancient books of Proverbs and Psalms with Proverbs 21 and Psalm 21 coinciding with the day of the month, accompanied by Psalm 61 for the 61st day of Astronomical Autumn, and Psalm 26 for day 326 of the year (with the consummate book of 150 Psalms in its 3rd revolution this year)

A post by John Parsons:

It's been difficult time over the last few years, and I appreciate your prayers. There have been family problems as I’ve told you before. My kids need your prayers. I have been waiting for the LORD through sleepless nights, the banality of gray days, punctuated by pain, sighs of heartsick hope, fearful whisperings, and loneliness. It sometimes feels like the "samsara" of the desert, a place of exile. There is no place I want to go anymore... I walk with a limp, friends. The sages say that our father Isaac went blind because the angel's tears fell into his eyes as he lay bound upon the altar... I wonder if he might have later asked himself what use is there to see any more of this world? But (surprisingly) God used his blindness to allow the blessing to be given to Jacob, after all.

Some wounds are incurable in this present life... I have felt swallowed up in grief and inexplicable sorrow from days before I knew my right hand from my left. Shame has been a constant companion; melancholy my muse. I cannot outrun myself. "Cursed be the day wherein I was born!" exclaimed both Job and Jeremiah (Job 3:3; Jer. 20:14). "If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me -- if I have found favor in your eyes -- and do not let me face my own ruin" said Moses (Num. 11:15). Elijah likewise prayed that he might die: "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors" (1 Kings 19:4).

Of course personal suffering in this life is common enough, and no one is immune to it, though it is especially poignant, I think, to souls that seek God's presence and love above all things, for these people are bound to be misfits in this world of vanity and conceit. Soren Kierkegaard is such an example, and he once wrote: “What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber spoke of the loneliness that results from Modern society, which he called an "It-world" that is marked by the prevalence of "I–It" rather than "I–Thou" relationships. The realm of the "institution" objectifies or "thingifies" people, and this bureaucratic "system" creates a sense of existential angst. Trapped in the "It-world," people begin to feel that life is meaningless, as they are numbered among the "faceless crowd" and are enthralled in a Kafkaesque prison of loneliness... The way out for Buber - and this is surely right - is to be in a life-transforming relationship with God, the ultimate "I-Thou" connection that will sustain our way despite the hardness of the "It-world."

Our Lord said: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." (Matt. 5:6). Yes, blessed are those who suffer such desperate need, who know inner emptiness, who are not made numb to the ache, and who cry from the heart for deliverance. Blessed are those who are in dread over themselves, who fall as one dead before the Divine Presence, who know they are undone, ruined, and dying for life... The great danger, spiritually speaking, is to become complacent, untouched by poverty of heart, to be lulled asleep, lost within a dream, made comatose, living-yet-dead. The gift of faith first reveals our own lostness and then imparts courage to live with ourselves despite ourselves as we seek God’s healing and life...

“Blessed art Thou, LORD our God, who never leaves nor forsakes us, and who draws us close through hunger and thirst.” Amen. We are truly blessed when we ache with heartfelt longing for the Divine Presence... This is not some form of masochistic spirituality. Feeling content, unconcerned, satisfied, numb, etc., may be a sign of a dreadful condition of heart. “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

Well I didn't intend to make this a long post, so I will close for now. I hope I didn't come across as being full of self-pity, friends. I know we all struggle and hurt at times. But please remember me in prayers, for I truly need them. And I pray that Hebrew for Christians will not be an "I-it" relationship for you, but one that helps you draw closer to the LORD and the "I-Thou" blessing of knowing him better. Amen.

[ Hebrew for Christians ]

========

Psalm 42:2 reading:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm42-2-jjp.mp3

Hebrew page:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm42-2-lesson.pdf

11.20.24 • Facebook

from Today’s email by Israel365

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

[depressedasskitten]

I feel like I’m drowning. The mental and verbal abuse is sending me over the edge.

D is using my financial struggles against me, if I tell him he can’t use my car he threatens to kick me out and refuses to pay the money he owes me for my taxes and repairs on my home so I can finally move back. I would have had it payed if not being forced to help him while he’s been out of a job for the past 3 months (he made me help him or he’d kick me out/physically hurt me).

He’s been drinking everyday and his physical threats are increasing and he humiliates me when I flinch and calls me a pussy especially when I threaten to call the police. That won’t help anyways, his family works for them and he has painted me as a psychopathic suicidal monster so they never do anything but threaten to arrest me instead when I’ve done nothing but cry out for help. He’s physically assaulted me, slammed me to the ground and kicked and punched me til I couldn’t breathe.

I’m in desperate need of help and have no idea where to go or what to do. I’ve been contemplating killing myself. I self harmed again for the first time in 4 years and he found out and has been using it against me as well. He will torment me and abuse me til I’m at my breaking point of a crying hysterical mess and then will record me and make me seem to be an insane unstable person without context.

I finally reached out to my Aunt but she’s going through chemo so I regret even telling her. It’s only worried her more and there’s not much she can do to help. I feel stuck and cornered. I’ve informed a few close friends and coworkers of what’s going on in case he kills me (he has threatened to multiple times and it’s becoming imminent.) I’m at work as I type this because it has become my only safe place.

He controls nearly all aspects of my life. He has access to my phone and if I change my passcode he becomes violent. He controls my car usage, I’m only allowed to go to work and home unless he needs me to go to the gas station or the store for beer or cigarettes. I’m not permitted to speak to friends. He forces me to clean and care for animals that he brings home. He has full control of my money and keeps my debit card and cashapp card, and if I take it back he will steal it back or physically force me to hand it to him. If I try to play music in the car he will threaten to break my radio or crash and kill us.

The worst part is we’re not even together. He uses me as a slave. I’m so scared everyday. I pray everyday when I wake up or go home that he will not snap and that the day goes perfect so he doesn’t go into a rage over minor things such as dropping something, being unable to find an item, etc.

I’m so tired of being afraid that i want to end my life. I’ve started getting documents together in the case of my death whether it be murder or suicide.

[libidomechanica]

“The secret be chase”

A sonnet sequence

               1

A bachelor he was in at a tormenting since my though rough-bearded be to faith, ’ quoth thy meed. The secret be chase me dais of a devout kisse, what come he must before the ever in his ivy-dart, in their peer, showing horse-races, stuck out to find that now they become an offspring of the causes my life doth testify the widest all mildly bends to come. Made lover’s land if certain patient. What now so good newest joys of wretched and fearful of matter, and yet to show me very few thou sit alone could play; I put, he pushed, and lust, and once more deceive. Ay me!

               2

Ere yet thou hast thee sit beneath which I blest way; my all. Shines upon too has been. A bachelor I will stay: and, crying. Like, a semi-demi goddess, in fact, exceeding if you to grants a fresh to-morrow heartbreak him, wherever he may required. Him swim, and thick branches sit, and both as doth shine was adorning, with wailing, gilding eye? The devil’s lines of careless princes thunderstanders by your name. His heart! Enlarged: if seeing imagining temple on. My fathers say, women are we come o’erflowing centre sought; and now returned by the head,— on mine own depth, or believes he might have never wheel and thing better sent, with curls the fiercely living here wit impart as say thy portals each deemed by the fire from my love the body hers have never dwell; and foul afflicting till my fingers to town, shewing, they wept,—can make? And, seeming in his triumphall cast?

               3

Watery journeys he bore they embraced. As did sparrows tear I’ve reared, draw and choose, as the grasp at all. That she went, felt that tears his mitred locks, E for pay, your mind, with sorrow; answer, Let one pale cheek of visions, thou in my body be. Case; more to betrayal like exiled air in t surmounted once the body, laid under the illicit indulgence subject to no pretence of a friend came to make his removed. The early to the boon that fine examples bind; and often as I am, yet be no weltring leave the base subject, bless horror! From Venus, where she plight.

               4

Just lies dead ere he never knightstand how dying; beginning water on the stayed his friendship. There pulsing music of the pleasure daunc’d, and Hope and loth, ’tis scar’d away! And Earth when misery angle gently over ear, flattery, so gentleman at his Argus—bites him crescent have felt: or like to a river, silver altogether thicket bleeping one with the flower said he: nor am I inspir’d and below it anywhere; I know if you’d like a more the same strain and once and fire; and lo! Return of our neck in their alert enemies; declare. For pity?

               5

Among our beareth the light with many beads the gentle lore: there calling my bark was calmer hours to emulate in music, through me the place! And frets our regions far; and sensual Taint, be left our search the garden to gaze of her Eyes may be, ere the bad corrosive caressed the clear rills from women grew upon a long their native rang’d, stood avenged for feares as neuer good newest joy to lose. You are; talk back at all feel this little I turn not—no, no—while the just like a sea-fish. And song attacked Who whispers love: I am waiting till saw the air share of grass!

               6

Her pace, nor that’s a families a sovereign landscape, that’s why our eyes abroad with his tediousness. Draw and sternly. With pale blue: to-morrow to mine own despair upon thy pressive nuptial example name I am pitiful in misty Acheron, hear us, and all they expedient is wont, consider’d o’erhead, each the plain, till Spring, in the country folks of living alwaies green entanglements with all the lusty arms and his treasures, and having pawes as strife with what will live land, who madest him her Haire: and there dark proceeds, where I the just the Senses hate.

               7

I love and smile as this to curtain tarn, and yet agree, who for one sweetheart is left your fists are then, that climb into you. Nor had travels for powers? Thoughts at more was not fair than country pleasant scenes sublimer than counsel held watch. Thou sit holding to have the vent’rous you think not blind Fury with all the happy day, springtime, the learnt how the faith, hope, love, that has panted at the mud on those her move, when birds do sing, and round the sages, the lips, some feels right day-bearing they’re more hate the hours. Had been her who so stuff, it will pine where nought car, easily yeeld; more solemnly.

               8

Their ghostly round elbow, from midnight I have been quiet on they thus youth in blooms of flowers. With Haidee and lions’ manes, and with ill-made forest the world over me. And hearken, I would speak with mothers pick it up buttercup underness to its resurrecting on yellow huntsman: Breathed the plasma, listen, so leave his fairest dinner; tis with sandals gray; he touch thing, and upstairs, the full of silk inlaid; sound what can maketh more deceive them out the deep so sore, hey ho!—That aperture become again. Likewise I hate flatters are pretty pride, who make the most removed.

               9

You came with henna shoulders purest Virtues are on the isle, among. Which got him on the golden myne dig deepest share of Love—and Lifted up, when then and sold to eye that was a toothy wolf, or place hast seed, and babbles their first her dark palm trees were will we away. Not for when she sinks with song of the mind than the end where hangs by unseen rises in hand, there but cheer, to see a man of ethereal; and many a kiss,—even when these love, I can never scarlet berry, from her slippers again their lids shut until the merry to God who live land! The Robe of you.

               10

In aspire to Cæsars bleed a little the place, and yellow Autumn preserve, yet forever. This calm’d to gild them some why such from grape in the more rosy is the source, shut softly upon her faces resorted we in the ensuing seas wash far away that first days Time hae I to the end of flatters and grieving angel watch that, we’d all thought. And nothing near the ocean’s season’d his arms the sterner more they opener of their glee: but in the sages, that men, can body, and Earth some mould, or coolness; pent into these thing silence, that have procur’d brain, among a pitty.

               11

To scorch and Beauty’s silent ears were all should knows. Long since which watching waves among, chance, and cresses, their hands agree? Warm the heaven rending moon put forasmuch as might him gain thy sordid bound his warm earth and seem, when dazled were blest to mell, or those nobler and pomegranates a night, and in the Levantine gave temple, while at last heavier still on Menie doat, and that zeal her nightingale, that close over side, I sat a whispers may sight her plan; i’ll sees thornes that she saw a crescent, if this beautiful things mystic change you I should redress tree? Begin to me.

               12

That white was in an earth, and lighted, forgetfulness. Would not your temples are for long his eyes thine enmossed realm shall be well the oldest said their fellow border of their gifts and their stept intone; and we proper glory. Thy beautie virtuous thou art well descride in May. Afterimage of recollection, and my places. And poor, yet t is so nominated anything will pry into that oftentimes a dear lovers use of his hand in secret for face; even and often to human kiss! Shine with suddenly, shining from this World was he imagination, devoutly to your wrists of ice. And blossom’d boughs, to die, nor has will rot, and after death such sleet, and that she rosy air, those pinion claim a rightful that it were, the inspir’d? Unto each bold Bacchanal! They followed by thee. Who hath in earth and sue a friend, when he worms, that cover, the knight.

               13

Thou never yet desire no more. One only dear; this Cave of evil; rejoicing through those stern wolf between sorrowes her eyes; nay, now it anything from dim rich a dove’s milky way to vary from out the suddenly, took greater part shakes himself and shut in vain distress weel, nae travelling. The young, sprouting at all. Since breath forget to rue my poor excuse ye: those precipitately in. To whom having us. The archers thus Leander’s finger- length, of time, that’s another off for we known, ere ye, merry in our saliva. She was a time, when he knew not thus!

               14

I have I may give my eyes fierce! On her gods and silvery and valleys, ye satyrs and fly in the Dutch mastiff, a mackaw, two part of holiday: nor had beauty only of the dim field they hate flatterer will leave her had soil’d the steam floats scumlike upperched here were moves no fair like Tinkerbell and the gold; or year be still as a dandelion seeing ironic about soliciting mounted types of careless sleep, lest I guess, It’s all his cool cloudy evening, and what Haidee’s cheek open. What made him planted for tension I thinks I do not even now, provides to search’d for thee, with stream by whom she fled; and loved among which floating witness and flowers and in handwritings of Sensual Abyssinia rouse from their sabbaths here darkest hovel to a river do him whisper round again? Can my name. In blooming up, and obedient wife.

               15

To know Love and He shall he means with word, and forgat to slay me by degraded, thee flower of light, as she, to awake night-wander gave, an awful package, and always completions—be quick change wrought but of bronze clarions away. Except desperate in all I cald my life and Stella spide, whose rays shone, mine. Blind my place, and being parley from the mouth, forbear, I walked thy thumb: about that’s a fast my crimson shone, perhaps she’s spoke, that came a dreamed I was in for the other knew thy wife, he should figures dim, sorrow to only stoop’d up and, kind of the day you wilt shineth.

               16

On. Nor give their eyes and it hastily, and that he died: and sings, with kisse, both ever seen where be told about the red man die. And the inflammation at the pear or plum, and budding looks: they scoured out love: O impious, immortality consumed, and, with delights of both them close, a shadow roaring of bed? A firmament: why sullen day when the dewy spray; such home-run total is not wrong in the strived, the bane of those purely looks the third: Our mind.—Fairest maid which everything will be done away! And he came debtor for many rests. Away against her bed.

               17

A remnant of one. Now, if thou art a girl who do rudely move: so thou art her puir Jenny for the more glories from my smother mould; so beauties, she is crowned with toying times to my best feeling be with numbing coral to the saucepan shaped his hallow’d at midnight to part here, in equally; if our hearth from a hundred eyes, The current of loving knee and not something that I should springs. To learn from dim rich chains of simply gordian’d up in earthly sound, and their beds and insane. Let our heart of him than Hercules, entered shepherds to be made of the imperial.

               18

When he doth among their sofa occupy me when we maun I still, and that sanguine flowers, like to touch, risking its way— or tell not dwell in the dancing in these enclaspëd hand their goddess, starry roof, so was her way I am happy hours through absence, till ioy make the lining in May. A woman love to be a guide the more than their mermaids in sight mail, the twilight array. Some shade passions, this letchery being near, by ever thus a childish that love, which he observed his spheres, of mine, ’ he who never thus bold share more be seen all ranks, crystalline broils the ocean.

               19

And the ware a blast, in hope of lonely by those up into sudden blots will stay: and vouchsafe these enslaving a whirlpool. As if the pearl and over the harmless spirit flit alone king bit them, but didn’t fall from their sun, even his body hers like that lid, full of Lights as thought I, Morphean fountain Arethuse, and seventy coats I could lend of your cupped predecessors which thee, dear? Nauseous to th’ most, and other mind marr’d with blooms: and, as a humble Paean, upon his arm and the bride: in the bourne of their chief requested, where they poison on the sweet music.

               20

And worth to-night—the clouds, and wat’ry bier unwept, and fly in your tears are very days: and all wed sorrow; and his Dominion claim his hand: Ah! Another offence, and balm, and nods; and then, with inborn good manner translated and what sacred fireworks thrushes, thrice this impediment. Her kirtle blue sky shoulders may I be of touched his eyes that it was often looks, they kindling forth their race; so leaves down despise her of our only hag remains wherewith sap, through a clouds bedimme my spirits. Thou ask’d whither I bade the should dry as a Sword, a Cloud on the must I be heart.

               21

A face to admit that all how I know. —Infusion went to do not? Is nothing is done, the cooling caught, until the unsating with this; and, seeking eyes fierce light her pray beneath his wrong; and such love.—To the dearly; the war; shall soothe mystery of air; and to hand lies a solemnly thousand delight faint a king the clear fresh- quilted colours pluck the hope thy state with love you are not through for one to see against which in the clocks with the gentle soul to all my woes beguile our hot season’d all thought him in the golden hook, and to dull the table. I have a man was it?

               22

Now will I attempt to the world would smite no more delights are: after a strong since therefore.—Sweet are made heaven the cedar- tree, and clear be struck, and me; and love. My dust, his slaues, health by due; where shot. I hear; ’ and a husband’s honours indigence of their day’s work-day world—sweet lovers; and fills, and play it were, the front of the hope, althought, proceeds, that to do with unkind relieve life before. Fearing two are depose. Roses gave thought he had led threading though reeds—in described sound where your skin and soft, that is the Genius who his domestics dance is your temperate into bowers.

               23

With there the tales that spangled cave, while I turn cometh, as in pleasures fancies be. The day I met you all; and welter toyed supposing him home; but tis for a great delight. Sight, propped on counted ground, each other phonecard I’m alive, and corrupt. Old Lambro, our wailing chance mingled ore flames of thine. Held him not: since first Mrs. It come to pre-occupy me whole of little highly disdains to have a kinder cloudy Cupid, with number; so once and made wretch, finding a white-hair’d shadowy land? Dwarfs and the loss of May, as of silver lakes picture of both Loue on my weak one thicket interpreter a simply blur into the earth, spite of mind. Art was as green worships it. And, as in last of all the green her fall; she in western hill back, the shades content, misdoubting chastity she goes. Edges driver, close beside—this not find it in the mountaineer!

               24

Guitars are only story will woo ye. If not dare in a diameter fires of force, and, like our lovers slain of? Dearest great festers somethinks with mingled corn; the light of thine own soul to a hemline. And rage, danged as a dove’s nerve of pleasant hue, finding me in Heav’n times do lean and felt so constrain, I am no woman planted; althought the plains bred, beheld a bastard in my greedily assay, they answer, Let one should remembred bees hum about her loosely—like this, fainting in that no her heart; to sing and diamonds. Shew cold without a greater was hid.

               25

—But set out. Afternoon and a joy for his tomb: perhaps, that soon applies, and turned with truth. Do you help the water far that which a death into the heights; once or twinkle— they appear’d under at the holy prizes; he had been Petrarch’s vices must having her eyes endure, and near, by thoughts of thee, ah famous Druids was mute and gives threw, and that, spontaneously an eastern bay; at last her so about I’ll poll the new nod the swains, ye nymph beguile: i’ll crowd of sweet dove, young Bacchanal! Would rouse from Jove? Maybe than a long and the place! Holding, bending, ding; sweet Sleep with mine?

               26

Beneath a springs for thought I am but renown of life is six days of every ill: the minds, what has possessed. Air, bidding year: so they were his red cedar-tree, under the influence on a sudden bursts of couraging, by Saul Bellow When head of love. Beginning stared out forth cast upon her some; all be as was a children, ran before was not a leaf out love, let me sinfull thou hadst place, and my days. Swear to her degradation mingle, deep, whereat thou, to whose ticking have not be with ministring. So she waking, so gentle Caria plac’d such a fervour offence.

               27

Those his essential to be hard to me. Through sunny Summer, but hides doth bind. Decided that speaker rising murmur to the cold spring so thoughts to the Genius by daylight from the simply gordian’d up this notice alarm. Sharp north, unborn, to occupy me where completions—be quick for none but Like, you to run their virtue is quiuer spent by cigarettes as salt estates to know; a heaven’s gate, but ne’er with shadows well be, for once warm. How some scent, new; you were scarlet go. Beneath to pleasant valley. If he fleeces? Until the husband wounded deer, o’er the good sex. Or snorting for worse, be false matter, if not, after the water because it’s unlike, the hour went. To a sort? The merry Hebe laughing your bodies, and village green turf suck the palm, or these force of a dreamed of the chillies green of heavy peace, and spring, and such as from the princes; thus low!

               28

A lamb which, by Nature fearfully, the virgin blooms of your names and proceeded for Venus’ nun, as heavy gold, and brave, though a ruined cell, far as wine imbrued his houses seene; let folke orecharg’d, to find to touching else but with this dusk religion of the soul euen in yours be flung at him here anguish, we couple tied: restlessness: think yours of slave to see; by interpos’d to open plain, besides. Come warm caves, drest thou Wreathed her the rites are about— no more: we human life and seal it once again—At the forest-fruits—they descends: not, the charm; and certainment of May?

               29

The merry o’er the freshly steep’d o’er the sun from her chemistries anyway—from their women use but a shawl of fate with my green shall health, and woo’d of host to sighs, that power. What is Zuhrah? Yet still defensive to be but all I knew, I know them at breath our foot is based, had dipt his marine affairs is dripping toward daybreak. It is most Rabbis Jewish because to write my love the quick for no fiercely like: there her face made me sings about thy sum of granting rather slowly as thou hast would not glance, the Bridal wiles she dabbled wings, all deuow’r with thy meed of a word of wrong in vain, and the Earth turns from kissed him, put him, put him on his watery pinion bed were black, compounds with his to toy with wo, euen in Feavers bare animals he saw—a female parliament; sing the ineffable spreads aloft, as if to flee—I stared out of the merry Damsels!

               30

As on the sacred ring wheels wind. The while every spell entangled the way that not mixed equally; and they call it virtue hath sent my love thee, young are truly fairy fishes from his passion is a love and I will not be given though if the mountain, but one fleet of Druids, lie, and branches: late, and all elements were such as the West, did fingers shall song of height from thee, as in a time had swoon’d officer the heau’ns insidious bark, built nest. And always and silver grapes, in perfect Loves; for Sunday after my own the modest o’erjoyed to pleasure, let maps to kill.

               31

Yet many thoughts mad, and I was in his daughter; she had they played, wherewith, life’s ironic about him, put his summer some might daylight should storm and wide that loss; both money-like, t is t but from a true breeding, catches at him a few present times sleeker than aught in a world of off Cape Matapan, you nothing is done, and canst not ashamed of brass, or kudzu, or busied in. To the clouds chaste Hero thorough they were; robert Burns whom Doctor! Dull and night were gulph’d in draught in the sweet Peona; nor whence had been, yield her this golden head; if eagle bird and peace they opened that, spontaneously was broke from shee lou’d, declining freshness of the earthly love to ride, he knockers, of mine. But gathers and dance is the nobler could never for on the maids are, and do—I’ll smile to dub the moon sad Zephyr penitent, in days can invade the matter, in blood!

               32

Be, just to slumber; so once we lose. Where is of straw, the while the lace, purl, knot, or the same, and rough the changed, and yellow! But I will choose you growest the tinge of sleep i watched leave tumultuously. And sigh of your failed, held me, and over the moon, could never looked out for my own branch down in that the offended race, and white-flower. I dreamers to end hunger in these things cry, the free; the bushes life yonder ten for a wither argent spheres, with you many a kisse, begets a bar of the room, who, when snouted wild-boars routing thighs, and touch, and let my side, that Mars, grow older.

               33

Of the blooms: and, from thereon Leander’d from above, in these nothing thus; Drear, dreary, having Leander seem’d, to free a plac’d the richesse of wonders I shall beauty had as could never love of mine eye, unto Colchian days more to a cypress tree? There vnseene, the lily, thro’ all the sun, his advance, and honeysuckle took him, as one by. But what is it fades, our bodies flew, high and blush from a certaining pudding Body, slave to rank in chafe, him from a star when you marked the knight have never want repeating wiser, he chose fair as an infancy; and saffronts a gavel.

               34

Vain adorn’d to nothing of its quick, as thirteenth years with his wat’ry stalks; but their nuptial quarrels last ever drear for amorous play, be a goddess held him in the roast capon’s face then quak’d, the muse with you coming year. I who thread then did rest upon his Power, and Reigns lord of twilight! The such as widow, maid, or that living fire, and every few to love of your clear fresh woods, ballast, guns, and your eyes are lost, trading tales threw, and they strange, and twang’d by elves: whining from this the ground the stands so consumes: I withered by drink, lest unaware, but with roses, and shall you were.

               35

Then face to his day, and the feel the time the soldier too; the will I knew himself advancing, the paines me my sight, oft till in thee. Till the world, in velvet petticoat he and Mars and put on high, and thick upon the mountains with stars, and that death, or forgive: arise, till as bright of that linger point thee, performance on would say, nay, if any, be a dumb signs she dwelt. That strange and wife put in a moonlight not die, where they return, that is possible and false or heart-treachers. On her heads are very word he sat Endymion, wind— shaking wheel and thee ring. Aquarius!

               36

And swore he sold giving the famous Despair all milk of love, that now I loved you saw too audacious down with the Blood an awed face, in chafes at once grows all expression; a woman’s art by precious lay, sweet first not know that other dawn coming the sun because they flew, and hour, went for yúsuf— she be deadly yellow huntsman: Breathe this disamed. In this world we argue like a ringlet of her gods decay of how we see in out solicitor, who for no fire and measure things, with my frown aside, we drove shall dwell in this here shade he had been added but the daisy tips?

               37

Once a king to be man, and song can floating that come all my finger lately azure pale new moon sad Zephyrus! Surety, that shall see my jet surpassed and scarce be right Cynthia brighter than such your hand your teare from ugly Chaos’ den upweighed. Thy sweets, entertaining for a charm he breast won until the death his hearts entangles of country’s custom of the dazed eyes, had dwelt at Abydos; since fine China cups, came nightfall went and Creame, and called it was the fresh in my leapt ever, that each the abyss of dear, but found; deeper since which made with the middle of fear.

               38

Once those lips, you turn my head of feathered garments there old my wits to mine, apollo’s upward from land. Like hard heav’nly fire. Like vestal primrose towered in the grass unbidden guest to feele this temples with my own steed a tear, no long didst thou will be?—Too merry to deceitful Muse, and quiet air Doubt you, guilty of my streamlets fall, to tell thought I, Morphean forth his lass, knowing what one huge hamper altogether bard the smooth with deny, but this little ones to bring’st the married with stay the shines lay dense and peacocks wave indeed, of the women, when, behold, with me.

               39

Many women’s impossible failure, if a husband anything Spring arms he like the hour to feign his people’s wooing are, as grudging me back at all, all of the Lee that quicke in very home instrument: I shouldst thou, than the freshly into a river doe, but not thy wife, he known to overcome wine, and that heart is a siren, and cast thou alone about a foreign landscape from Araby; pluck’d, their scarf into plainly of not with an awed face: against your footsteps, colour’d braided me?—In the workmanship both good a word too long bin plained to be glad moning, will ease both leant the swift treble powers fair eyes began: My lady, how men waiting his lull’d alone. From his summer trees feelings for a night, but knew it was along there I should behold upon me, even so a boy so pure made then, that for this. It in good or ill she pines.

               40

Glance to do not loved they, when should his look. Broken hearts moved but thee in sleep, the white and he is swift hand, that part of dew exhal’d the fair possessed night I fainting in the show’d the plainer and gone and rills seem’d a skyey mask, a woman. As cavalier sere, I heard, nor those sufferer begin, and ever, every groves in smoothest echoes of Growth, his vessel having. Grief make his friend. Then to me doth light be filled and rams up tails all these is much disgrace. May sigh society, and a hey, and I thy loss I were the swift magic sleeping fire, a pleasant days far-off, on this our Universal know what a gift. Ave Maria! And knew weeping. Of bright that’s in half-forgetting up to the wretched again, that was fast infirmity of a year grows on those, held her pain, for they, while, but for feared; and of a brother silver stands of helpless body destiny!

               41

That I might; the vent’rous you go. With such a pure unstained, and neither have the cloud; blood of the nymph beguile: the spring where the husbands and swift hands, island waves about me where stood. With their stars began on the arms, and and fair, in bleak November, Wall but love, I adore. No, no, that when he knew not the burning the wedding through the meadows? All rich and Bayona’s hands; let him, depriu’d of gentlemen who shrives to market took that he said—just as thou wake that rose and to count, and green, your hands were soft, that pulls or crystal—and draw her maternal summer what is in her kind.

               42

Leaving like a privacy to wander on her. The should restored in his follow brooms, an Arke a Tabernacle of You. Hee will thought I have had but the rill, throw down though, that makes her summons:-still a silvery enchantment swept. And strength consists in his chieftain kind release to whom broad leafless, shall that for the sun and thing boding with manner trays, such people’s barn. Our pillow utterly affect. Tender seen her side of June, had been arrows from something with a hey, and after death. Wedded reeds of those brutal as if in acts: the sought display both manner thus dance sorrow?

               43

—She took his father drunken hours apace, nor breasts in the wood, sound what a tremor breast and are not a budding violets, carvings, and, O ye laurels, and the took his middle of the ragged like status as object wherefore, on perilous flood of thy rising day; free-voic’d as we, who was held herself than are commitment, nay, if like with many lambs might blush so everywhere swung a vase, milk-teeth used to violet by a cleft off sloth on this heart, unstained to and scarce even their faire Sweetest pledge? He hums and, feeling; in him weary feet of Desire Zulaikha built nest.

               44

In vain to jar. Do, except something of to passion and of love prick heart their ripen’d from opening for her fast and their time star spare in the lady fair has it, Haidee’s sake we all faithful swooning, leading tongue of song betrayed, dilettante, delicated locks, and loved the day growing confines, and leaves and out a forest human ills, and shove away, and the damsel’s tears to hear sweet love envieth not; the seas, and Sap, took to Drinking of your mind of this Venus, and seem to the basest jewels dim, and sky. Art as fain to give the laurels, and with thy love, how we played in life.

               45

I look was which love or Haidee’s sake, into the sweet warm like Southey, forgot there great Muse, the milk-bloom on the sex are bent, anxious chastity, but have no ear, and rage, danged with the tables, strangely blur into sunny that ails the sunshine on her own in a deep persuade a face ablaze, yearnings spade. They are strands with desires and beat me only shrine: each other loved of husband weal, without there next day, thus to be a dumb nor birds hatching Spring spent by it, staying beams mocked at a triple maidens, with no beat their starves among they spoke some, their full of my stress?

               46

An’ wrack him, calling in an errors may be grace; let the rose, and lost but thou know? Tis something yet; the air thrush, into the black, components before let go. To truth arrive where Rigours exiled and steak while it touch, as she went to some wait on my trembles in their head, you like a nest from an humble, and marble. But once delight had survive not from all dangerous rings; changing, nor beauteous mind to make a new delights at moment, felt gladness! Being, and that rose I lay. Other out of me weeps, She is coming woo’d, and anon repairs, and asketh where’er I loue to Will.

               47

Another Phaeton had genius,—when all your eyes shine torrent of love’s most unlikely Like one carefully blown into a princes waiting misplaces. Which love of the rose, he call my fingers of old, who puff your neck to burst empty folly, and let’s gives therefore our heat to leave to the grot of Phœbe served in stumbling my lance from no Womb of Mattens seyd, sweet as a rare from the West Side Highway, red like the must be his rash or some idly labours call, with a band are valleys of our season’s way, in chafes at his knee. I speak. Vainly by the sea my fate; till as she: but you.

               48

As of a bird, I dreams the end of civilization of all. Branched leaves, and her e’e? With ministrant of length, to breakers even the sobbing rage inside you my nude arose, a semi-demi goddess and everything the best of? Can ne’r be fair merry Damsels! And white arms outstretch’d the same this yeeres; they had never chase. Carve it is mutton. Where shot a soul is fixt, but in the enter’d is this plain, he flings, impossible, trying on his arm he branches sit, and as when I thought how the swift hazard more hated. These are still with bloom paled gentle eased to set my Prayer!

               49

Even when I fall of clear particulate; where I knelt to Lucifer kicking the day, the guarded bee, blush so every oak apples growing? And force an atmospheres, and knowing were; robert Burns whom Doctor Currie well in vain as love resign; and where was a maid abide with essential ties a long pain clings combustible to beauty as true loue me mad; and which deed, or the open stuff, it will not a blasting Destinies. That these nine Worthiest twiddles itself advance; the resist the monstrous seas his sun-rise and from the this; who gave in his altar, to all.

               50

Me from wherewith I was adorn beautie thunderbolt: arch face the temple become stayed away the soldier told. Easy to under a child, who taxeth me. And to say, women are going by his Tunis correspondence, the restored in the wingedly: when their timid head. Her wide awakes—and, save when the shadow, once mingled wonder, taught mean, and Soul are nothing recollection, to signifies that meek the forest the tremble at the sages may something to emulate in mine; for the cowslip on the merchandise was in her kind.—And happy in the more Foole!

               51

Whence wither what together it be bless horror stops before that is my homely hour, went forward. I said: Brother, each House- top ill affronts a Neighbors, take the chilly fingers, brushed and high, nor apt to keep my voice, which learning dwindled bitch, haunt you might from a true as thy power, endymion he bowe, brake bower, in chronological come—so sure you not then faster than half-fledg’d round, and rams up the line, that it self-passion; an unknown—but no less and ran the books; such content; and if thus the phone books frame: i, cumbred with you have gone shall had cuffs and gathered in his way, and there hopeless present wronged Diana’s name? His flow over my oracle of Memory, and they spoken, say, will from Endymion’s mannequin in too has desired, and smiles, which, some certainment of undescriptions the empyreal footstool so calls at the consequences of iron.

               52

Lie unto Abydos soon it that she wept with my fingers, brush’d, mid them in that a triple mace, which is liking, yet she love young cheek, a speaketh, trust not thy should not for fret. Cheeks, with weary. Please that any invited. And sport where; he’llanswered shepherd song of prayer a-going! To tie her gentle spreading times run gemms in abundance, I weep not sung in his absence has flow into a spirit’s with shot, her naked branches hast grace of new roses are such declining several war; and of the more? A forehead call it is not be: for a woman’s temple on.

               53

Till that no one dies before me the fool, whose fresh each under the sung in through the sand an early pull the vista of years out of praise: Such chain And through dangerous and bid me thus warbled soon he’d ape the same&not utter, wine designs of their eyes lifting: not to breathless rills seem’d to nothing refuge, slipping wind, nor do we comedians in the gather keeps with me. In the purest of false! Tell me there came. And like to the foeman out solicitor, who would be caught else can even LIKE him an’ wrack, since that alp. Now weight, from the open for thee in our queen went and crave.

               54

Pushing saw that lures, children, round he music, am banished: but thee not mute, and always. Her breathless chaste loue lo Stellas face, in plentiful seldom. Bearable: pennies seem’d, we are an hours be not to mooted plains who taxeth me. High-strung together lep? In the other the open to his lady’s hand. Like to approve its very pyre of bright king my people spoke some weakness! The mocking on my cheeks, like a lake whom she heart was wondered sward glance to diuorce from Boston to be another graven horse he far side of the death call, would be i’d tossed amidst of sleep.

               55

Supposing need bloom, or particles of Heaven pin; since find; and, if this falling the morn, when and thing let’s curb, and love vaunteth not its aristocracy; when Love’s lone is got up, and arm, a leg. Tickets would figures dim, sorrow, and expressing! On my eyelids close deities free, do such sleet, and pinions dance in my lover, dismantled, I get hungry cheerful replied, would under a jonquil flowers well; for canst thou so panting on the repairs his towers have been all things, or words ye must drops with Heaven’s wings, the hand to wise offered the people of Medicine say.

               56

And launch’d for: with wine, out-sparkling of fair like a hollow, who or what the woman, quite. My thigh almost yielding them untir’d. And trial needs must of Ithaca, their caps; you aren’t. Let the other kindness, that indignant with the apartment—and apish merrily! Rushes to shrewd turned to betray, and pomegranates, that light of milder powers, wrapping fluent save in my dream of the warm delights in its five you tried, but there are now began the Curse the said her blow, all deckt with me. With eager face and green shall dwell into the grand in shop window and the power.

               57

That long; the other than counsel to all my beggary, deere, loue to foolish maid which kept his sagacious is, which happened as if yet the gaps and song canto into though vnfelt, doth linger pointed for ioy he left more, as is dead, since I see my horn, to where touch’d with half this rage to cheer. The mind the weather, he count the savage mountains grotesque, new made! Who flattered immeasure, and where those two lovely arm, lockless Muse? Was it Absál in the ocean is setting dresses smooth together for the sapphire without thy dazling rubies, pearly day, spring, therefore event.

               58

To me the poison me doth amazed by those murders where torn apartment and takes are out; but a weeping of praise is laid whose one Friday to lose, as white rose, and Hope, earthly pleasure days. Felt. And that to ease my poor longer under corn anger of deathful lowers and the wanting on his children of his Bounty of blissful swain tops more blest but one another come, she loves is loveliness done, falters hue, finding at ever and that spread with leave the feared; and sweet peasant smile’s a gift of length, too deeply dyed to be lost, can command, if impiously debars, is this?

               59

I dreams, alone should brag how their eyes, genders, the coming person, who now, and would have I lost; thou were attacked Leading playmates, with the wing? The upper lids shall seek him invisible cloud is scatter what he fled; and that which we Cantabs pleasure; the book there’s Love or Haidee into a sort? I deem truth is heart would burn or purple with his Cheapside; further and war with forgetful blisse, opening longer give a new Thermopylae! Full were all arm—and vain to me in a race, incensed with shake the boat, and bosoms who buys and sent my just going to entertain him whose perfect Love exclaim, and all we shall seek heau’n doth hands, now that something, still as brighter the front of brother, and confidence of blessed time it was mine, your will rings, and store, because I woke up in them like, name but to look up, although not one to bite the beauty, but the blood might make men’s eye.

               60

Of wild surprise, and cruel be? And catch a herd-maid expect thy strove by fancies beneath— but now about you—you go ahead, of so much I am forbid men couple tied: restless can never let it fatal and greet: but, little wings before the time the way men that I counteth not all gather’s fancy, pride the adieus! Into thee strength; the marriage, and forgetting nothing demi-god, and rave, except once, but ye shall silence of drossy pelf, than dreamed of twilight in his own—he was a jukebox where unstained to be said, who taught him on thy life we left me but ice-gravel.

               61

The maid on his Thetis’ glassy darkness from me I’ll be as strewed with street Eternal evening I did stir and wield a Jovian thunderstand. For the twilight tresses from the floor; the lift, that I am laughers might shall spends to be surprise and that, alas! And cast manners, are going out, like Orpheus quite. So improving knows no doubtless false of the grave: that joint to keep it seems to pine after his vapour, or as a thousand the lights, which thou perhaps ye are not stop here; almost stepped on Jove close bought I have sparkles new got there is most softly upon the gate.

[autism-purgatory]

Been thinking about writing short stories about a D&D campaign I’ve been doing with my friends (DMed by my sister) and it’ll just be some fun stories about our sessions. And yes I have permission from the other three players to use their characters. We’re basically trying to reach this mountain on the other side of the world to stop a war from summoning a space god (and we get attacked by cyborg githyanki on a bi weekly basis)

this has turned into a huge rant but here’s some highlights of our campaign:

-I accidentally flung a Horse into space :D having an Uvuudaum patron is an interesting experience

-Went to a cafe where there’s just a bunch of shirtless muscular knights as the waiters

-Our changeling Rogue got to turn into a dead family member to mentally torment a noble we suspect committed murder (they did not) so we just kinda knocked her out and I think she forgot?

-I found a dagger that whispers Chuck Tingle excerpts to me every time I use it

-we spent a good chunk of time in a town held hostage by a false hydra. We had a Kenku npc with us when we fought it and now we’re scared of him.

-We keep bumping into a warforged with an auto firing crossbow and my sister plays dark souls music, increasing to volume as we get closer to fighting him.

-Our Orc bard went to therapy and jumped out of a window.

-We had to travel through this forest ravaged by a Nautaloid and I have a mind flayer tadpole in a jar now (his name is Amadeus)

that’s about it so far :) I’ll post some short stories about our adventures when I get bored.

[w0nderland]

hiii!!! how are you? it's been so long since we last spoke so tell me everything! how is your summer going? have you done the august challenge this year? ^^

also, have you listened to unreal unearth? what songs do you like the most so far? any lyrics that stood out to you? which song would you choose for the soundtrack of a movie (and what kind of movie would it be)?

in other news, i wasn't expecting Taylor Swift to announce 1989 TV!! Were you? Which song are you most looking forward to hear? what kind of song would you like to hear in the vault tracks?

sending lots of hugs your way <33

hi!! I have been enjoying the august challenge but I haven’t been home so I cannot torment my family with my listening habits.

in related life news, I just moved to my own place and started grad school!! my first day of classes was monday and it’s been fun so far :)

oh gosh. I’ve been loving unreal unearth. I’m still processing but current standouts to me are I, Carrion (Icarian), Son of Nyx, Butchered Tongue, and Unknown/nth. But I will be listening again and again

I am very excited for wonderland tv. But also clean, I wish you would, SHAKE IT OFF!! Just the whole album honestly. I became a Swiftie ™ after 1989 so I am soooo excited for Taylor’s version

I hope you are having a great august and are enjoying new music and life in general!!!

[perpetual-fool]

   I guess I still feel like if I could explain things well enough, then someone would.. I dunno, treat me like a real human being? It just doesn't make any sense. 'Pity', for instance, feigning kindness. If people genuinely didn't care, there'd be no reason to pretend. If people genuinely did care, there would be no need to. And it's not like there was social pressure confounding the results, there were loads of situations people could've just told me to fuck off and no one would have known. It's like they're doing it explicitly to hurt me. Like if they paint concern on their face and get me to stay just a little bit longer, then can crush me that little bit more. And I don't know any better. I've never had anyone I could open up to who didn't stab in the back later. What would the real thing even look like? is there a real thing? Is every relationship just pretending?

   Is life just pretending? Every sort of.. growing(?) experience I've had has entailed forcing me to be something else. Family life, church, school, what would be generous to describe as friends, and even that one technically-a-job I had. Oh, and karate classes I guess. Never was I allowed to even think on my own terms. I had one teacher that at least admitted that school was a game. But what isn't? Even like, my birthday, is other people taking what they want from me. They want to have a party, and force me to attend. They want to feel like they're being generous, giving me shit that doesn't matter, and punishing me if I don't perform 'appreciation' well enough. They want to pretend we're one big happy family, as if they didn't fucking crush everything I was themselves, the screaming from their little goblin physically hurting me. I'm just an accessory to all this. My life itself, as it was, wasn't mine. I mean, I don't think there's any part of the American education system that would suit me, but I wasn't even allowed to transfer to a different elementary school when the one I was at was tormenting me. A lot of mornings I felt nauseous. My mother told me that sometimes she'd allow 'mental health days' when I could stay home. She fucking knew. My sister went through the same thing, even. Oh, and not that I'd be allowed to just relax either. "If you're well enough to play video games you're well enough to go to school." Even then I had to constantly fucking worry as to whether I was really bad enough. There were a couple electives at least, but I don't think those were really about me either. Like, there was this one orchestra concert, the situation was weird. I had to bring my own music stand, and it was the type that would fold up. And the lights were bright enough that I couldn't see the music at all. So I didn't play. And afterwards my parents yelled at me for that. Even though I couldn't have done anything about it. So it wasn't about me, it was about them, pretending to be parents of a prodigy or something, I dunno. And if nothing else, I wanted to at least take a year off before college, figure out.. anything. But no, straight to college. To a Christian college. To the particular Christian college my mother and sister went to. No choice at all. And I broke there, the little I was still hanging on to. And now what? there's nothing. Nothing makes any sense, no one makes any sense, I couldn't work even if I had the energy for it. Not that the government agrees, so I'll probably end up being homeless eventually. I just never should've been fucking born. I can't even indulge in the little bit of hedonism I have available to me, 'cause I think I'm evil for it.

It's so hard to just imagine anything nice. What would 'better' even look like?