#it started out fine. boring bc not a christian was coming in

[myblacknightworld]

Shitty day at work yay

[peaceisadirtyword]

Move On VIII (Modern!Ivar/Reader)

A/N: Hello!♥️ Two weeks later, here you go! I only have two things to say: 1. please don't hate me 2. forgive me because it's too long and it might be a bit boring bc my brain was a bit dry this week. BUT the ending is intense. I almost divided it in two different chapters but I'm ending it on chapter 10 and I already have everything planned😔 Please remember there's two chapters left and anything could happen👀 Now enjoy and thanks for reading!

Warnings: fluff, a bit of angst, Hvitty is the best, Alfred is cute, Ivar is Ivar, there's smut, mentions of alcohol, mentions of anxiety and I think that's all!

Words: 7122 (the longest chapter I've ever written sorry)

Move On Masterlist

my three favorite boys by @therealcalicali

You had thought about your wedding day, like every single person on Earth. You imagined it being outside, maybe near the sea, or in the forest, maybe the gardens of a beautiful palace. But for some reason, you never imagined the groom's face. It was always about you, the place and the music, the dress, the flowers, the cake... Until you met Ivar.

Getting married wasn't something you wished to do soon, it could wait. It was more a future plan than a wish, because in some way getting married and having a child was something that scared you. Ivar managed to make you change your mind, suddenly you weren't that scared of having kids or the commitment that implies a wedding. It would be fine as long as he was the one waiting for you at the end of the aisle and the one holding your baby. It would be fine as long as it was him there with you.

Weddings were a celebration of love. At least that was what everyone said, two people that loved each other enough to try and make it last forever. Maybe they gave too much importance to the wedding itself and forgot the love part. Or maybe you were so bitter about anything romantic or related to love that you stopped thinking about them as a love gesture and started seeing it as a contract.

You hadn't heard about Ivar again. Not since that day that ended so badly. Hvitserk said he was still with Freydis, and soon he just stopped talking about him at all. Maybe hoping you'd get over him faster if he didn't mention him. But it wasn't really working.

At least you stopped crying. Now it was more like a sad grimace whenever you thought about it, and sometimes, Hvitserk realized you'd stop talking and looked away, biting your lip and probably thinking about him. Especially when there was something that reminded you of him.

But the problem of being so close to someone, shaping your entire life around him and sharing everything together was that there wasn't really anything that didn't remind you of him.

Alfred, Thora and Hvitserk had organized to be around you all the time. Distracting you, forcing you to go out and Hvitserk even let you do his makeup once. Sometimes it was annoying, but you couldn't be mad at them, they were just trying to make you feel better.

You tried to convince Thora and Hvitserk to go to the wedding together, but she didn't want to go to said wedding. As you promised Alfred you'd go with him, he'd be the one picking you up, and you'd see Hvitserk in there.

Of course, Ubbe and Torvi chose a beautiful forest near their own home to celebrate the wedding. A pagan wedding. You had been to a few of those with Ivar, as he and his family still worshipped the Norse gods. But this time you felt like an intruder, as you weren't even part of the family anymore, and your date was a Christian man.

The dress Hvitserk chose didn't look that good on you at home as it had looked on the changing rooms, as always, but you forced yourself to wear it with confidence. You even practiced walking with the new heels you had bought, and at that point you just wished you wouldn't fall in front of everyone.

You chose a very natural makeup, and a simple hairstyle that was within your humble means. You didn't want to draw attention and wished that the guests wouldn't recognize you. The last thing you needed was people talking about you and Ivar.

Traditions were traditions, nonetheless, and you wore red underwear to try and feel a bit sexier. Even if you had tried to get rid of the red dresses and underwear you wore to catch Ivar's attention, that red set in particular was too precious for you. It was the first one he bought you, and you still remembered the first night you wore it.

And, why am I thinking about Ivar now?

You sighed and looked at your own reflect on the mirror. You were ready, just needed to put those deadly traps on your feet and grab your purse. Alfred had called and he was on his way.

Oh yeah, because you're seeing him today. For the first time in months, you were going to see him again and with Freydis on his arm. You didn't even know how you'd react, but it had given you nightmares for days.

The doorbell rang, and you finished putting on the heels before walking to the door and opening it. Alfred looked like a prince, with his black suit and a flower on his hand. A sunflower. It made you smile more than it was socially acceptable.

"Hi" you waved at him "You look good" you winked at him, Alfred chuckled and blushed softly.

"Hello" he nodded politely "You look..." he stopped to look at you in the eye and sighed "Absolutely beautiful"

"Oh, um..." you looked down, flustered "Thank you, I... Didn't expect a compliment now"

Alfred smiled and took your hand, making you twirl and giggle.

"This is for you" he gave you the sunflower. You bit your lip and took it.

"You're always giving me flowers"

"Because you deserve them" he shrugged "Are you ready?"

You nodded. Taking the purse you left next to the door and checking you had everything.

"Okay" you sighed "Let's go"

__________________________________

As soon as you got out of the car someone covered your eyes. You laughed and grabbed his arms to avoid losing your balance.

"Hvitserk" you put his hands away and turned to look at him "Look at you! You look nice"

He did look nice. His dirty blonde hair was braided and the suit looked good on him, it made his green eyes stand out.

"You look very nice too" he winked at you, his flirtatious smirk made you roll your eyes "Nice dress, who chose it?"

"Someone with a very good taste, obviously" you laughed "Are we late?"

Hvitserk turned to greet Alfred. The both of them weren't exactly friends, but thanks to you they were at least civil with each other and you were more than happy with that.

"You're just on time" he sighed "The guests are starting to get in" he pointed at the small path adorned with flowers and wooden decorations that entered the forest "Ubbe is already there, he's surprisingly relaxed, considering the fact he's marrying Torvi" Hvitserk muttered the last part and you raised an eyebrow.

"I would like to say hello to Ubbe before the ceremony starts" said Alfred with a small smile. He was very close to Ubbe, and worked with him frequently. You could say Ubbe was his favorite Lothbrok, and you couldn't blame him.

Hvitserk nodded and stepped back.

"I have to look for my brother, he told me he was close" he explained "But go, I'll catch you later"

My brother, Hvitserk now only referred to Ivar as 'his brother', noticing how you sometimes flinched when you heard his name, even if it was just because the thought of him startled you.

You grabbed Alfred's arm and hoped you wouldn't fall with the heels, he seemed to think the same, because he held you tightly.

"Doesn't it bother you that this is a pagan wedding?" You asked, genuinely curious when you caught a glance of the cross that hang from his neck. It belonged to his biological father, who passed away before he was born.

Alfred seemed amused at the question.

"I'm not bothered by people believing in other Gods, Y/N" he chuckled "In fact, I find paganism very interesting, and Ubbe told me a lot about his Gods and Goddesses, it's interesting, and I don't think my own God would be mad at me for respecting other beliefs"

You nodded slowly. Alfred was very religious, but not on an obsessive way. It was one of the things you liked about him, how relaxed but loyal he was about his religion.

Ivar was also very religious, but focused on a very different religion. It was something they had in common even if they wouldn't ever recognize it, but you could see it in both of them.

"Besides, I'll confess that Norse weddings are often much more fun than the Christian weddings" he added with a smile.

"Oh, are you getting drunk tonight?" you teased with a small smile. Alfred shook his head but laughed.

"Maybe" he raised an eyebrow "But only if you drink with me"

"Obviously" you rolled your eyes "On the last wedding I went to, Hvitserk, Ivar and I stole a bottle of tequila and got drunk on the car while listening to my favorite playlist"

"Wow" he laughed again "Okay, I'll try to keep up with you then"

There was a lot of people at the clearing already. You remembered Ubbe's first wedding, the first one you attended to with Ivar. He looked more relaxed now, and happier.

"Alfred" he greeted your companion with a big smile and a bone-crushing hug. Alfred smiled widely and hugged him back "You look good, man, thanks for coming"

"Of course, Ubbe" when they separated, he touched his shoulder firmly "I'm happy for you"

"I was a bit confused when your family arrived without you" Ubbe pointed to a group of people. When you turned to look at them, they turned around to pretend they weren't looking at you, making you raise an eyebrow and Alfred frown and blush "But I see you have better company" he laughed "Hello, Y/N"

When he leant in to hug you, you sighed. Ubbe gave the best hugs ever.

"Hi" you smiled "Thank you for inviting me"

"Are you joking?" he shook his head "You're like my sister, of course we'd invite you, you look pretty" he nodded "My mother is going to be thrilled to see you" he pointed at Aslaug, who stood all alone away from the crowd "She scolded all of us during the last family dinner, saying how you were too good for this family and we didn't appreciate you enough"

You smiled softly, Aslaug always treated you like a daughter.

"I'm gonna go say hello to her" you looked back at them. Alfred nodded and watched you leave until Ubbe hit his head softly with a smirk.

Aslaug never had a good relationship with the rest of the family. Ivar told you no one truly accepted her when Ragnar divorced Lagertha, and she spent most of the time taking care of Ivar. When Ragnar left, she just ignored them.

Ubbe was right, her eyes lightened up and she gave you a big smile when you approached.

"Y/N! Oh, Gods, you look so beautiful" she hugged you tightly "How have you been? I asked Hvitserk about you but he wasn't very specific"

"Hi" you smiled back at her "I'm fine, I think, you look beautiful too"

She seemed to like that comment. She did look very pretty, with her wavy, blonde hair braided and wearing a beautiful blue dress.

"I'm so glad to see you" she sighed "I missed you, you have to come with Hvitserk some day"

You wondered if she knew about the fact that you had slept with Hvitserk. But just when you were about to reply, she looked at someone just behind you, and you tensed up. There was only one person that could make Aslaug smile like that, and you weren't too excited to see him.

When you turned around, you forgot how to breath for a moment. Ivar wore a dark grey suit, that made his deep blue eyes shine like sapphires. He leant into the crutch and walked slowly, looking around with his eyebrow raised, as if he truly believed no one was worthy of his presence. After months without seeing him, thinking you were actually making progress in moving on, you realized you were still too into him. He was just too much.

When you were able to tear your eyes off of him, you realized Freydis was with him, dressed in red and looking so effortlessly beautiful that you felt like crying again.

Hvitserk reached you first, greeting his mother with a kiss on her cheek and putting his arm around your shoulders.

"Come on, let's go, this is about to begin" he whispered. When you left, you could feel Ivar's eyes on you, nearly burning. You didn't dare to look at him.

_______________________________________

Torvi was so beautiful on her white dress and the flower crown on top of the small braids on her hair that you couldn't help but tear up a bit. Ubbe looked at her with such an intensity, with eyes so full of love that you envied both of them for a moment. They couldn't stop looking at each other, they were so lost in themselves that barely listened to the völva that married them. To be fair, you barely listened either. It made you wish you had someone to look at like that, someone that looked at you like that. A few months earlier, you thought you had it.

Maybe you still could have it, with Alfred. He was the sweetest person you had ever met, and he treated you like a queen, always giving you space and making sure you were okay. You loved him so much you thought you'd explode if he had another sweet gesture with you, but it wasn't romantic love. You could try and maybe in some more months you could fall in love with him, but you didn't want to break his heart, he didn't deserve it.

And Hvitserk? He was your best friend, but even if you could feel attracted to him, you knew it wouldn't work. And both Alfred and Hvitserk deserved true love. But it wasn't you.

Ivar sat on the front rows, with his brothers and his parents. Freydis was sitting next to him, but they didn't touch each other. In fact, they barely talked. Then the völva talked about twin flames, about true love that always found its way through every single obstacle, and when you looked at him, he was looking right back at you.

______________________________________

"You're back to drinking, huh?" Hvitserk laughed while sitting next to you. You groaned and bit your lip to hold back a laugh.

"I needed it" you pouted, looking at the drink you just ordered "Alfred introduced me to his family, but I don't think they like me very much"

Hvitserk stole your drink and took a sip, making you glare at him.

"His family is very protective of him" he shrugged "And you're probably not very popular considering you're Ivar's ex"

You turned your head to look at them, standing at the other side of the room. Judith, Alfred's mother, at least had been nice, but Aethelwulf, his (adoptive) father, looked at you suspiciously. You already knew Aethelred, his brother, but even if he greeted you politely, he didn't seem too happy with you either.

You also spent some time with the newlyweds, Björn and his wife and Lagertha, but you also felt out of place. In fact, you didn't feel comfortable until you stepped away from the crowd and reached the bar.

"There's food there, Hvitserk" you snatched your drink from his hand "Leave my drink alone"

He chuckled.

"I figured you needed some company, you look a bit sad here all alone" he shrugged again "Besides, I don't really feel comfortable in there" he frowned. The guests were finishing their food and getting up to dance and talk around the room. The venue in which the feast took place belonged to a friend of Ubbe's, so they had gotten the biggest salon.

Aslaug chatted with Floki and Helga, Ragnar tried to flirt with an amused Lagertha and Sigurd and Ivar had argued at least three times during the feast, with Björn interfering to avoid a possible murder. So the atmosphere was a bit tense and awkward.

"Remind me to never celebrate a wedding with my family" Hvitserk sighed. You giggled and shook your head "I mean it, is there anything worse than a wedding with a dysfunctional family?"

"A wedding with a functional family" you raised an eyebrow "That would be boring"

Fortunately, no one paid too much attention to you. Helga greeted you excitedly, and Floki hugged you and told you Freki missed you. You teared up remembering the sweet husky they had in Iceland. Sigurd was also nicer to you now than when you were with Ivar. Blaeja smiled to you shyly. Everything was awkward and felt weird, like you shouldn't be there.

The only one you hadn't talked to was Ragnar and, of course, Ivar. After he was finished eating, he sat down with Freydis. She tried to say hello to you with a sweet smile but Alfred had interrupted her and took you away. You nearly kissed him in gratitude.

"My father asked about you" Hvitserk added when he saw you staring at Ragnar, who was now talking to Harald Finehair.

"Really?" you frowned "I didn't think he'd remember me"

Even if you had been with Ivar for years, you had only met his father a few times, during important events or festivities. Usually, he was traveling the world, working and avoiding his responsibilities as a husband and a father.

"Of course he remembers you, he always asked about you... Don't tell anyone, but you were his favorite daughter-in-law, remember that time when you managed to make Ivar apologize to Sigurd after he insulted him during Jul? He was impressed"

"And he told you that" you rolled your eyes, thinking Hvitserk was probably making it up to make you feel better.

"Yes, he did, he also called Ivar a fucking idiot when he heard he left you, it was the first time I agreed with my father in a long time"

That made you smile.

"Your family is too nice with me" you sighed "I'm gonna miss them"

That startled Hvitserk.

"What? Why? Where are you going?" he glared at you "You're not leaving"

"I don't know" you took another sip of your drink "I talked to Alfred about it, he had friends in England that could help me get a job there and..."

"England?" Hvitserk scowled "You're moving to England?"

"I'm not" his indignation amused you "Not for now, I think, it's just an idea"

"You can't leave me here" he pouted "Who is going to come with me to the pub then?"

"I'm sure you'd find someone to get drunk with pretty soon"

He shook his head, and the two of you stayed in silence for a couple of minutes.

"It's impossible to replace you, Y/N" he whispered "You're too special for that"

"Aw" you felt a lump in your throat and the urge to hug him "That's sweet, Hvitty"

"I mean it" he winked at you "You're great, I just wish you saw it too"

"Keep saying these things to me and I'll give you my drink"

He smiled, but shook his head and stood up.

"I'm going to talk to Ubbe" he announced, you saw he was now talking to Floki and Aslaug, away from Björn and Lagertha "I have something to give to him"

You nodded and watched him leave with a small smile. Once again, you should have fallen in love with him.

_______________________________

After three drinks, you stopped feeling intimidated by the crowd, at least a bit, and felt brave enough to get closer to it. Your eyes fixed on Ivar and Freydis, still sitting down and who seemed to be having a deep conversation. It didn't look good, but before you could even start wondering what they were talking about, someone put their arm around you, startling you.

"Hello, Y/N" you turned around to see Ragnar, already a bit drunk and with a big smile on his lips. His eyes, so similar to Ivar's, seemed to look directly into your soul "Long time no see"

"Hi" you smiled at him "How are you?"

He frowned, then grimaced and then shook his head.

"I'm... Alive" he shrugged "So, you and little Alfred?"

Ragnar Lothbrok wasn't one to beat around the bush.

"We're friends" you chuckled "He's been an amazing friend to me these past months"

"Yeah, after my... Brilliant son fucked it up" he clenched his jaw, taking a sip of his beer "Alfred is a really good kid, son of a great man"

"He's the best" you nodded "Did you know his father?"

For the first time, the smile on Ragnar's face faltered.

"Yes, I did" he cleared his throat "He was a very good friend of mine"

"He'd be proud of his son, then" you smiled, looking at Alfred who was currently talking to his brother.

"He would" Ragnar nodded "Unfortunately, I can't say the same for my own sons" he muttered, and you raised an eyebrow.

"Why?" you chuckled.

"I must admit it's my fault" he sighed "They inherited it from me, the capacity of ruining everything when they have a great woman by their side" you'd swear his eyes fixed on Lagertha and then on Aslaug for a moment "Ivar is the smartest boy I've ever seen, but he can also be stupid sometimes, you know it, because you understand him better than anyone, better than himself, even than his own mother" you bit your lip, looking away "And I know he regrets it"

"Look, I really love Ivar" you sighed "I will always love him because he was a very important part of my life for years, but he's happy with Freydis now, and I'm glad he's happy"

Ragnar chuckled, shaking his head.

"I'd argue with you on that, but Alfred is coming and I think you deserve a good time with him now rather than talking about my son" he winked "See you around, Y/N"

Before you could reply, he left, walking towards the bar as he finished his drink.

"Hello" Alfred stopped next to you, also looking at Ragnar with an eyebrow raised "Everything okay?"

You turned your head and smiled softly at him.

"Yes, I think" you giggled "It's just Ragnar being weird"

He hummed, like he understood exactly what you meant.

"I just wanted to ask you if you..." he looked around with a frown, and blushed furiously "Maybe, want to dance?"

You were surprised, thinking no one really danced at these things, but a quick look around made you realized that people were definitely dancing, or well, at least they were trying.

Ubbe and Torvi moved slowly together, with their foreheads pressed together and a small smile on their lips. Around them, some couples danced at the rhythm of a slow song.

"Oh, um..." you licked your lips, nervously "Sure, I'd love to"

Alfred looked relieved, and took your hand softly, leading you to the dance floor. Or well, the part of the salon on which people danced.

He knew how to dance, of course he did. You nearly rolled your eyes when he whispered that you should put your hand on his shoulder and started leading your movements. He was too soft, too polite and too perfect. You looked at his face intensely as he danced and you moved clumsily with him. He didn't make eye contact, too nervous and always looking down.

"Alfred" you pouted "You're one of the most amazing men I've ever met" you stopped moving to hug him "Oh my god, I wish I could..."

He hugged you back, nodding against your neck.

"I wish that too" he muttered "But I can't force you"

"I tried, I really did, and I love you so much, but..."

"Hey" he stopped hugging you, and cupped your face softly "Look at me, Y/N, you don't have to explain yourself, you feel what you feel and it's fine, I'll get over it" he giggled as you teared up, feeling the worst person in the world "We're friends, and that will never change"

You nodded.

"Thank you" you took a deep breath "For everything"

"Of course" he smiled "I think it's time you start being a bit more selfish and put yourself first, stop worrying about what the others are feeling, focus on yourself"

You hugged him again and kissed his cheek.

"I'm gonna go get some air" you took a deep breath "I'll be back, okay?"

He nodded, letting you go. You rushed to the door and left the building, only breathing again when you were out in the garden. It was a pretty entrance, with cobblestones, a lovely fountain and some flowers. At least it was peaceful and quiet. Or you thought it was, because you heard a metal noise and a groan, which made you jump and gasp before you looked to the side.

It was already dark, and the only source of light were the lovely streetlights adorned with ivy. It came from one of the benches at the side of the entrance, and you nearly cried when you saw the source of the noise.

"Ivar?" you sighed, drying your tears with your fingers "What are you doing here?"

He raised his head and glared at you with his jaw clenched, he had been focused on his braces and didn't even hear you approaching. When he didn't reply, you frowned and walked towards him, walking slowly to avoid falling down with the damned heels.

"Where's Freydis?" you asked softly, understanding something was wrong.

"She left" his voice sounded dry and empty, almost as if he had been crying.

"Why?"

"Because I told her to leave" he pouted. Ivar had the tendency to pout, and he hated when you said he looked cute doing it, probably thinking he looked intimidating.

You sat down on the bench, and decided not to ask because he didn't seem too inclined to talk about it.

"What's wrong with the braces?" you asked slowly.

"I don't know" he groaned, grabbing his right leg "I think I moved it and..." his lip started trembling when he started fiddling with it again.

"Stop" you tried to grab his hand, but he ignored you "Ivar, stop, you're going to hurt yourself"

"Why do you care?" he raised his voice, making you scoff "Why don't you go back there with Alfred?"

"Don't yell" you glared at him "After everything you've done, you don't get to yell at me"

He took a deep breath, rubbing his eyes with his hands and shaking his head.

"I want to go home" he sighed "I can't go back there"

"Hey, what happened?" you were starting to get worried, because that wasn't like Ivar "Should I call your brothers? Your mother?"

"No" he shrugged "They will just rant about how stupid I am for letting you go"

You looked away again.

"You did hurt me" you muttered "A lot"

Ivar didn't look at you either.

"That's the worst part" he scoffed "That they're right"

This time you did look at him, surprised and with your lips parted. For a moment, you felt the need to hug and kiss him, but you couldn't.

"If you know they're right why did you do it? And I don't mean breaking up with me, I mean being so cruel, treating me like I was nothing to you"

"I don't know, Y/N" he sighed tiredly "I was angry, you moved on"

"I didn't move on!" you scoffed "Dear God, Ivar, I couldn't move on, I spent the worst months of my life trying to but I couldn't, you're such an asshole" you groaned "You broke up with me, acted like I was nothing but a burden to you, you made me feel like I wasn't good enough, and then had the audacity of acting like I was the one that fucked everything up!"

Ivar's eyes were full of tears when he raised his head again.

"I don't feel like talking about that now"

You were about to keep ranting when you looked at his eyes for the first time, and gasped when you saw how blue they were.

"Did you take your medicines today?" you frowned when he shook his head "Why? Oh God" you groaned "Should we go to the hospital?"

He shook his head again.

"I just want to go home"

"Are you in too much pain, Ivar? Wait, I'll call a cab" you unlocked your phone and stood up.

_________________________________

You had never seen Ivar like that. So quiet and sad, looking at his own feet and not even reacting when you sat down next to him again.

"The cab will be here in ten minutes" you announced softly, regretting being to harsh on him a few minutes earlier "Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital? Maybe we should, it might get worse, what if something happens?" you bit your lip nervously "I should go and tell your family"

"No" he grabbed your arm when you were about to stand up again "Don't tell them, it'll be fine as soon as I get home, take the pills and rest a bit"

"Okay" you sighed "But at least let me get Hvitserk so he can go with you"

Ivar's face changed again, this time he looked like a lost puppy, his pouty lips parted and his eyes fixed on yours, nearly begging.

"Aren't you coming with me?" he whispered, and you sighed.

"I shouldn't" you muttered in reply "I don't think..."

"Please" he insisted, and you noticed the two of you were too close "We need to talk"

He was so soft, so vulnerable in that moment that you nodded slowly, and let yourself lean into him slowly just before you heard someone calling your name.

Hvitserk left the building at the same time you got away from Ivar quickly turning your head to look at him. Ivar looked irritated by the interruption, but didn't say anything.

"Hey" he looked surprised to see the both of you there "Y/N, Alfred said you'd be out here" he frowned "Ivar, I was looking for you... Is everything okay?"

"Hi" you smiled softly "Ivar is not feeling good, he's in pain" you explained, standing up and approaching him "I called a cab"

Hvitserk's big brother side showed up when he walked over to Ivar, frowning.

"You didn't take the medicines?"

"I fought with Freydis, I forgot" he shrugged.

"Where is she?" Hvitserk looked around, a bit confused.

Ivar didn't reply, but they seemed to understand each other perfectly.

You gave them a few minutes together, until you approached them again. Hvitserk stood up with a sigh and shook his head.

"You can leave" he said softly, caressing your arm "I will stay with him"

You heard the cab arriving and looked at Ivar.

"I..." you took Hvitserk's hands "Maybe I should stay with him"

He took a deep breath, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head.

"Y/N..."

"It's okay" you chuckled "It's fine, Hvitserk, I'm fine"

"Are you sure?" he whispered "He is..."

"I know, and it will be okay, we... Need to talk, I think"

If Hvitserk thought you were stupid, he didn't say it.

"If you need anything, call me, okay?"

You nodded as he kissed your temple softly. You could feel Ivar's eyes on you, burning, when the cab stopped next to you and Hvitserk turned to help him.

____________________________________

It felt too familiar to enter their flat, to help Ivar sit on the couch before taking the medicines to him with a glass of water. You were so used to the process that for a moment you forgot everything had changed since the last time you did it.

He did look more relaxed after a few minutes, when you sat on the couch and took your heels off with a tired sigh. You could feel Ivar's eyes on you, but tried to ignore him, too exhausted to start arguing with him again. You felt the pressure on your chest again, as you always did when someone mentioned him or when you saw him, but this time it was a bit less intense, maybe because Freydis wasn't around.

"I'm going to bed" he announced after a few minutes, you supposed that the strong painkillers had already kicked it at least a bit "Today was shit"

You wanted to scream at him, every day had been shit for the last few months because of him. But you were too exhausted of yelling, arguing and crying because of him, you wanted a truce, even if it was just for a few hours.

Ivar got up, grunting and taking deep breaths as he moved slowly towards his bedroom. At first, you weren't even thinking about helping him, you had already done too much for him that night, much more than he actually deserved. But when you looked at him and saw him struggling, you couldn't help it and got up to help him. Usually, Ivar would frown and say he didn't need help, but this time he didn't say a word until you reached his bedroom.

You bit your lip, looking around the room and remembering the last time you were in there. Ivar let himself fall on the bed and sighed in relief when he got to take the braces off. You sat on the bed and looked at him sternly.

"Hvitserk said you've been skipping therapy sessions" you narrowed your eyes at him "And didn't go to doctor's appointments, this is what you get for being an idiot"

Ivar raised an eyebrow, and the ghost of a smile danced on his lips as he turned his head to you.

"You and Hvitserk talked a lot about me, didn't you?" he scoffed "Did he also mention me when you were fucking?"

You rolled your eyes, but you weren't going to play his game anymore, not that night.

"Anyway, I'm leaving" you stood up "Go to sleep and call the doctor tomorrow"

Ivar narrowed his eyes at you.

"I thought we needed to talk" he scowled "But now you want to run back to Alfred"

"Look" you sighed, crossing your arms "You're tired and on a bad mood, I'm tired and a bit drunk, talking it's probably not a good idea, so try and get some rest and we'll talk some other day"

"I saw you dancing" he ignored you completely, making you sigh again "With him"

"Yes, and what about it? You have no right to be bothered by that, because you were with your girlfriend"

"She's no longer my girlfriend" he clenched his jaw and his voice broke a bit "It's over"

Your expression softened. Even if you'd love to slap him in that moment, your heart broke a bit knowing he was hurt.

"What happened?" you asked softly "The last time you told me you loved each other and all of that"

Ivar shrugged, looking away and taking a deep breath.

"I don't know, I suppose she didn't love me that much"

You looked at him with a pout. You could feel that dull pain on your heart when you thought about him, you missed him with your entire life, the thought of your relationship hurt and you knew it will keep hurting forever. Ivar probably didn't care about you, or maybe he saw you more like a friend, because it was obvious Freydis had marked him much more than you in just a few months, you had seen him looking at her. So probably she was his Ivar, that thing that would be painful his entire life.

A part of you wanted to be happy. They broke up, he was mistaken and it didn't work out. But you couldn't do it when you looked into his eyes and saw pain. You couldn't see him in pain.

"I'm sorry" you said softly.

"Are you?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Yes" you rolled your eyes "I don't want to see you sad"

"Wouldn't you feel better yelling and insulting me?"

"Maybe" you shrugged "But I don't have the strength to do it"

Ivar nodded. He didn't have the energy to fight either. You laid down next to him, careful not to wrinkle the dress. Ivar stared at you intensely, and felt the tug on his chest again. He missed you more than he actually realized. It had been during the wedding, when he saw you looking stunning, smiling and greeting people... With Alfred next to you. He knew you'd be worried about him because he hadn't taken the medicines, that you'd make him sit down and would make everyone approach him so he wouldn't have to walk, that you'd take care of him, and if he was feeling better, would make him try to dance with you after the feast. Now you were dancing with Alfred, giggling and hugging his brother, and barely looked at him. And Freydis noticed.

When you looked at him again, he was much closer than you remembered, and it started you as you tried to move, flustered and suddenly very nervous.

"Y/N" he muttered, his hand grabbed your wrist softly and you widened your eyes "Stay, please"

You got lost into his eyes again. They had something magnetic, that attracted and locked you in.

His hand cupped your head to pull you closer, and the pressure on your chest turned into a warm feeling when his lips pressed against yours. It was like coming back after a long trip, when you realized just how much you had missed home, and everything was familiar and in its place. You closed your eyes and kissed him back slowly, too into him to even realize what was happening. Ivar broke the kiss and pecked your lips again a couple of times before deepening the kiss. His hand traveled down your back, making you tremble, until it reached your waist. You couldn't remember when was the last time Ivar kissed you like that, not even when the two of you were still together. He caressed your body over the soft fabric of the dress, and you vaguely thought about the wrinkles but realized you didn't even care.

"Ivar" you muttered against his lips "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer, but kissed you again as his fingers fumbled with the zip of your dress.

"You looked so beautiful today" he sighed "I couldn't stand to even think about someone else taking this dress off"

You were going to reply, but his lips on your neck turned what was going to be a dignified reply into a moan. Ivar had that thing, that charm that was too much for you to handle. He knew your weaknesses, your soft spots and what to do to make you melt in his arms. He knew you couldn't resist him, not even if you wanted to.

It was like going back in time, all the thoughts about the breakup, Freydis, Alfred and Hvitserk left your mind as he took the dress off, throwing it to the other side of the room and biting his lip with a smirk when he recognized the underwear. You tugged on his clothes, and the two of you broke the kiss so he could take the shirt and the tie. You sighed when you saw his tattoos again. You has missed him so much, and how his warm skin felt under your fingers, how his body tensed under your touch.

"Can I?" he asked biting your lower lip, his fingers grazed the side of your panties and you closed your eyes in anticipation before nodding.

"Yes" you moaned, moving to straddle him as you took your bra off. Ivar groaned and pushed his hips against you. Finally, his fingers found your sex, and he pressed onto your clit, and when he started rubbing it in circles you started trembling again.

You tried to touch his member, but you could barely move, until he pushed your panties aside and two of his fingers teased your entrance before entering you. The both of you moaned at the same time, and you moved your hips against his hand trying to follow his pace.

"Gods, you look so beautiful" he groaned, his free hand caressed your body and his lips captured one of your nipples. It was too much, and when he pressed his palm against your clit you gasped and your walls clenched around his fingers. But then he stopped, and your moans of pleasure turned into a bothered whine. You opened your eyes to glare at him and he chuckled, shaking his head.

"You're not going to cum until I'm inside of you" he whispered against your neck. You quickly fumbled with his pants, and when you finally freed his hard member Ivar groaned again. You would have loved to return the favor and leave him on the edge, but you couldn't wait, you needed him. You had waited enough.

"Put it in for me, kitten"

You nearly came hearing his voice on your ear, whispering the pet name he used to call you. Your hand clenched around his cock and he rolled his eyes and moaned deeply, letting you enjoy pretending you had the power for a few seconds. Until you pressed his member against your entrance and he grabbed your hips and thrusted into you.

Your mouth widened on a silent moan. It was intense, and Ivar let you adjust to the size before starting moving, but once he started, he couldn't stop. He sat down to kiss you again, and you grabbed his shoulders and his arms when your legs were too weak to support you anymore.

"Ivar" you moaned against his neck "God, Ivar"

"I missed you so much" he muttered, and it sounded like he truly meant it.

You didn't really have time to think whether he meant it or not because the warm tingle on your lower belly was becoming too much. Your walls started clenching around him and his thrust became sloppy. He breathed heavily against your skin.

"I'm not going to last" he whispered again "You're too much"

You had missed this Ivar so much.

You came around him, moaning his name and digging your nails into his back, your body shaking around him and your face hidden into his neck. Ivar came right after you, and he quickly turned his head to fix his ocean eyes into yours, with his pouty and swollen lips parted just before kissing you again, making you sigh and smile, happy for the first time in months.

____________________________________

Tags: @mblaqgi @alicedopey @lol-haha-joke @hallowed-heathen @naaladareia @tephi101 @captstefanbrandt @love-hate-love @titty-teetee @readsalot73 @moondustmemories @therealcalicali @blushingskywalker @awkwardfangirl02 @gruffle1 @justacripple @love-dria @heartbeats-wildly @letsrunawaytotomorrow @inforapound @sallydelys @hellogabysblog @winchesterwife27 @hecohansen31 @youbloodymadgenius @xinyourdreamsx @funmadnessandbadassvikings @eteramfools @tgrrose @lifeisabitchandsoareyou @lovessce @tootie-fruity @didiintheblog @alexhandersenx @belovedcherry @fantasydevil2002 @xceafh @astrape-the-weatherwitch @destynelseclipsa @poisonous00 @littlebear423 @justbloodlydreaming @xbellaxcarolinax @soleil-dor @geekydane-post @katarokkar11 @crackhead1-800 @momowhoo @pedrolorian @flokisdaughter @crazybunnyladysworld @anotherfan07 @heavenly1927 @jungkxxkk @satanhalsey @nanahachikyuu @cocovikings23​ @ecarroll1978 @darlingjae

[shattersstar]

mac pls rant to me about alucard like literally talk about anything relating to him idc he just lives in my mind rent free already and I want to hear ur thots 🥺🥺 and u know how much I love ur writing like only u can make me simp over a character i've never heard about until after reading ur series

in this house we all simp over alucard 😌 but tyy i always have so many thoughts omg like i woke up after four hrs of sleep and this fucking show was the first thing on my mind snksndsk anyway imma talk abt the series bc i feel like it sorta came outta nowhere and i dont wanna bore the masses with my thoughts on character design or like animation style (not yet at least hehehe)

okay first of all the fact sm of u guys r reading this without knowing anything about him or the show or anything is so sweet like y’all really sticking through it for me..i appreciate it endlessly. this ranting might also be kinda helpful and idk i like hearing writers thoughts behind their work so i hope y’all do to

the title comes from farouq jwaydeh i found it on that twitter thread about arabic love poems that went around a few months ago. i actually wasn’t planning on naming the series that but the doc where i was working on each part had the quote “and if the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes and repent” in it because i was planning on writing smth for alucard based of that and the more i thought about it, the more i realized how well it worked for the series. its so romantic and so devoted which is the type of relationship i do be writing and it also works within a lot of the religious themes of the show. if i could write that well it lowkey sounds like smth alucard would say akhfsk

and speaking of alucard, ik the fact he has two names might be a bit confusing especially with how i formatted bluebelle (whoops) but the characters name is adrian tepes but he goes by alucard for Reasons i wont spoiler lmao. aches & arches does do a decent job explaining y i choose to call him adrian instead, but in the future if i do write stuff outside this series for him there is definitely a chance he’d be called alucard it just really depends on context. i just think there is something very personal and intimate that the reader is very serious about the fact he isn’t a figure for the masses or only tied to his father. hes his own person who they love and they deserve to be called a name that is their own not a moniker given to them y’know? also the fact i dont think anyone actually calls him adrian in the show makes me sad like noo baby ur so much more than what ur father and Humanity has made u out to be ahaha

idk if i have mentioned this anywhere yet but this is also the first series ive ever written in like my....4? 5? years writing on tumblr (ew i dont wanna think about how long ive been doing this) but thats kind of a big deal. i’m a bit :/ with myself for how much stuff i tried to add to bluebelle because i really didnt think i was gonna write anything else for him so it feels a bit cramped in terms of themes in comparison to the other parts. i feel like it does stick out a little within the series considering some of those themes havent been explored again but ehh i’m complaining about something i can change so whelp. guess it means i gotta write more

although i must admit i’m probably not gonna write a wedding and i’m sorry if u guys wanted one i just...can’t Bring myself to write a christian wedding even tho i’m pretty sure alucard is atheist? or at least not catholic lmao and i would rather write a hindu wedding bc its better (noah fence) and i think the ideas? or meanings around hindu wedding ceremonies make sense for this but i dont wanna be alienating so.yeah. that also feels like i gotta start writing a plot and i would rather Not do that i’m fine with mindlessly fluff for now. idk if anyone can tell but i’m avoiding the whole vampire and human relationship convo bc i havent figured out my thoughts on it and i dont wanna deal. let adrian live in a soft fantasy world with no bad things okay thanks thats all .

[slaygentford]

same hs junior- i wanna get into classics, so i bought two books- the oresteia and sophocles’s plays. i wanna learn latin (my skül doesn’t offer but idgaf) and greek. im obviously doing my own research but i wanna make sure im not missing anything, so can u just leave a few tips on where i shld start? sorry im hounding u so much 💃🏻🤧

GOOD start. also like. I went to the shittiest possible public high and let me tell you no one even knew what latin was. including me. so its fine. I started learning latin like, junior year of college. the one to learn out of is the Cambridge latin, get the workbook too. lingua Latina is a great supplemental because it has PICTURES!!!!! which helped my brain learn faster when I started.  I'd rec focusing on latin first before moving into greek mainly because latin involves far less memorization and you are less likely to do things like: scream, throw the book, etc. you also do not have to memorize a whole new alphabet for it. 

for other non language related stuff... hm! whoa the responsibility of reccing ancient texts. okay so firstly, classics is massive, the field has a ton of different subfields. my department divided it for undergrads into three concentrations: literature, philosophy, and history/art/archaeology. for literature, definitely read Euripides the bacchae, the Medea, and read lysistrata if you haven't had it in an English class yet. I think I was taught lysistrata in junior year but idr. avoid anne carson translations for now until you have a better grasp on the texts, bc she takes a lot of liberties and it’s not a good first experience if you want to learn the texts themselves. I'm sure you’ve already had the odyssey with the whole hero’s journey thing? if not, really do get an iliad/odyssey/aeneid highlights reel/read them, that’s foundational. for philosophy, you could check out aristotle’s on poetics and also plato’s apology and symposium, etc. read up about Cicero and Marcus Aurelius but dont worry about reading their actual texts yet. for history, the big hits aka keywords are roughly like: Minoans, Bronze Age, Mycenae, Xerxes, Thebes, athenian golden age, rise of macedon, hellenistic world (and the definition of hellenism! important), Rome as kingdom, roman republic, Roman Empire, early Christianity, byzantine empire. whew. so just get acquainted with those at some point. 

the idea here being. there is no time in the world to focus on ALL of these rough sections of classics. so take a glance at all of them, the greatest hits, and then dive into the subsection(s) you find the funnest. for me it was history/art/archaeology so that’s what I concentrated in for my degree. and then if something bores you (philosophy. is so boring to me) then just simplee do not pursue it and focus on the stuff that’s fun to you. easy! also just have fun and pull on any threads that interest you when you come across them. research spirals are like... so easy with classics. also idk if hs teachers still say not to use wikipedia but literally just use wikipedia. I have no idea why they said that to us when I was in hs. also I am always here to answer nerd questions! 

[loisfreakinglane]

tscc, dark angel, angel

G A S P! SHOCK! A DEEP DIVE! lol thank you

tscc:

Favorite Male Character- DUDE THATS SUCH A HARD QUESTION suffice it to say this is either john or derek depending on when you ask, buuuuuuut terminator in my face i say john

Favorite Female Character- JESSEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Least Favorite Character- i. struggle to think of anybody i found bad or boring or anything???? oh okay you know what i have eternal mixed feelings about the character we know as eileen/alan/abraham and the weird choices around them. yeah thats all i got

Favorite Ship- derek/jesse my heart breaks and i am just a mess forevermore

Favorite Friendship- lmao there is no way to call it a friendship it is not a friendship but riley/jesse is so very fucked up in so many trillions of ways but god i’m obsessed with them......... also riley/john i would have fucking loved to see them have a real relationship, platonic or otherwise, their dynamic is SO GOOD and the possibility of their dynamic when they were both open about themselves.... fUCK

Favorite Quote- there are so many off the top of my head but like the biggest gutpunch to me personally was when jesse called derek out for his suicide attempt, asking what was he doing there when she found him and he just says ~i was waiting for you~ THO THO THO ALTERNATIVELY when they’re trying to get ellison to help program john henry and he says- you wanna teach it commands? start with the first ten.

Worst Character Death (if any)- uhhhhhh i think i like all of the character deaths on this show- i mean rileys death K I L L S me but i’m not angry about it and it was incredibly well done. dereks? maybe? i’m not actually mad about it but it was very abrupt. like i get it tho? OH WAIT I HAVE A REAL ONE friendgirl of johns who killed herself in the plotline that was never resolved bc of the writers strike. that was horrifying and ultimately we never even got a reason (beyond the obvious one they hinted at)

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment- what on this show makes anybody happy????? ever?????????????????????? uhhhhh. fuck. i mean the reveal about who riley is is SO GOOD i’m just always happy when the pieces slot together and we see new depth?

Saddest Moment- so many things on this show make me sob but like peak among them bc like you can feel your soul screaming bc you have no idea what could be done differently, when riley and john both ask the other if they’ve got anything they want to tell them, and they both say no they don’t EVEN THO THEY BOTH KNOW WHAT THE OTHER ONE WANTS TO SAY BUT THE ACTUALLY SAYING IT PART WOULD CHANGE LITERALLY EVERYTHING UGH FUCK KFUCK FUCKCCCKCK

Favorite Location- the stupid future tunnels where i want to see what happens next in the series finale FUCK

dark angel:

Favorite Male Character- uhhhhhhhhh even tho him being 95% of the tags every time i check have grated all of my nerves, yeah i still love alec the most when it comes to dudes

Favorite Female Character- max is a forever and ever and ever girl

Least Favorite Character- ames white. i don’t remember much about that plotline but i remember a lot of UGHS and groaning

Favorite Ship- cindy/diamond i’m mad forever I KNOW THEY WERE ONLY ONE EPISODE BUT ME/THEM FOREVER

Favorite Friendship- max/cindy eternally, the best ride or dies ever

Favorite Quote- fight the power, protect the downtrodden. blah blah, woof woof. ALSO max’s whole little once upon a time story about tinga...... :(

Worst Character Death (if any)- diamonds death was painful and i hated it and it was a dumb thing anyway. like at least she got revenge but MEH TAKE IT BACK I DON’T WANT THESE. worse character resurrection is zack they should have just let him stay dead instead of turning him into a robot (i like zack this isn’t a slam against him but it was an epic death for him) OH OH ALSO ANNIE FISHER she never should have died that was dumb and a waste of kandyse mcclure

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment- when cindy and max cheated the money off of those assholes and then beat them up, still in their itty bitty sparkly outfits and left with such flair :) but just also max forever........ cindy/max forever.......... mine own heart. 

Saddest Moment- when the show decided to make clones a thing breaking the whole internal logic of the entire first season aka them not knowing what the kids looked like :( I SAD

Favorite Location- i always thought the jam pony set was really fun. i love that the whole last episode was set there.

angel:

Favorite Male Character- angel, with a side called gunn or connor YAH I LIKE CONNOR I SAID IT YOU CAN ALL SUCK IT

Favorite Female Character- cordelia chase forever and EVER nobody else on planet earth holds a candle to her

Least Favorite Character- look i love christian kane i do, hes amazing in leverage- but man lindsey......... hes fine when hes snarking at lilah tho i’m with lilah in that groaning and screaming at wr&h being so blatantly misogynistic in preferring weak ass flip flopper lindsey over LILAH. also lindsey in s5 blew they should have spent the money they wasted on him and eve and adam wahtever and just paid for stephanie to be a main

Favorite Ship- cangel OTP ETERNAL

Favorite Friendship- angel/gunn is such a good dynamic that you can feeeeeel the show dropping (along with so much of their gunn-centric content bc they didn’t know how to write for him and never thought hm maybe we should hire some black writers)

Favorite Quote- it’s a cliche at this point and theres many great quotes on this show but it really does hit home- if nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do. cause thats all there is.

Worst Character Death (if any)- freds death is vile trash garbage and they should feel like vile trash garbage for doing her like that

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment- cordelia and angel falling asleep with baby connor between them talking about how to spend a big payday........ such marrieds content..........

Saddest Moment- ‘is that it? am i done?’ idk if this would have been a SADDEST MOMENT before glenn quinn passed away but it sure hits hard now. it also hits hard when they replay it in you’re welcome right before cordelia dies

Favorite Location- the hyperion hotel is one of my favorite sets in all of television. i just wish we’d explored more of it, and that they hadn’t ditched it in favor of that new wolfram&hart set, which was honestly very very boring to me

[finalgirlkateausten]

(OC Ask Game) Summer Thompson + 6, 10, 15, 16, 18, 20, 28, 32, 35, 36, 41, 43, and 44

aight buckle up

6. What were they like at school? did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

Summer liked school enough to make Bs pretty consistently, As if it was a teacher who really helped her flourish. Fav subject was always english, but she was bored by history. Tried to like science but was only ever meh about it. Got through high school and college intending to be a doctor like her dad. Took a gap year after college bc she realized she wasn’t sure about the whole doctor thing, and with her family’s financial situation, she wasn’t going to make them pay for med school and then drop out. Ended up with a part-time job doing file work for a veterinary clinic for that year, and went to vet school the year after. Now happily working in a veterinary clinic in Maine. 

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? 

Summer loves kids of all ages. She starts babysitting at the age of 13, loves it loves it loves it. Always assumes she’ll end up with kids but it’s always sort of a future thing... I haven’t decided who she ends up with (and thus,if/how she has kids) but as a parent, she would be fun, willing to joke around with her kids, and definitely really close with them.

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

Summer learned to cook from her dad, so she’s pretty good. She mostly makes stuff ahead of time, or makes something simple and quick, but on Saturdays she goes all out and tries new, fancy recipes, just to have fun. Everyone loves her cooking and especially in college and vet school she has people lining up to taste what she’s making

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it?

Summer likes comic books. Her biggest “collection�� is at her parents’ house but when she moves out she gets a few a month. She loves to read and reread them, she’s not one of the “in 20 years this will sell for lots of money” types

18. What’s their favorite genre of books, music, tv shows, films, video games, and anything else

Mystery. Mystery, mystery, mystery. Summer has ALL of the Nancy Drew books (and there are a lot) and quite a few Agatha Christie. As for music she doesn’t have a genre preference but 95% of the stuff she listens to is lighthearted, happy music. She likes the og nintendo games, like pokemon and super mario, but can beat both of her brothers at super smash bros, andcan totally spend an entire weekend playing animal crossing. also i’ve told you this but she and Judd watch all kinds of old black and white movies... Grace Kelly is Summer’s bi awakening

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when their favorite song comes on?

Summer isn’t really into musicals, but she does like listening to music... always wearing earbuds, and 9 times out of 10 gets to DJ in the car. She always starts dancing when her music is playing bc that’s why she listens to music, to feel happy and upbeat and dance

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared?

Mkay, this one is harder, tbh... Summer doesn’t like the dark. Thunderstorms on the beach scare her, but if she’s somewhere safe, she’s fine. She’s deathly afraid of falling tho (possibly related to a childhood tumble down the stairs, and yes, I will write you a drabble of that). When scared she wants to be with her family, specifically her dad

32. What do they dress like? What sort of shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

Her style is kinda wacky... she goes thrift shopping once every few weeks and gets new necessities at the start of every school year. Almost nothing she owns is new but she rarely minds. Has a style similar to Vicki’s, up to and including stealing Judd’s shirts. Sleeps in a tshirt and pajama pants-- flannel in fall/winter, linen in spring/summer. Long hair, often messy, dark brown. Most often in a ponytail but she braids it to surf. hates makeup with a burning passion

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure?

Guilty pleasure: sims let’s plays on youtube. She watches way too many and stays up later than she should going down that rabbit hole

Unguilty pleasure: chocolate ice cream. All of her pocket money all summer goes to fudgesicles from the beach snack bar

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

Can definitely sing, and really good at it. Also good at cooking and will spend hours in the kitchen with Judd. Writes poetry but doesn’t let anyone read it

41. What’s their sexuality? What do they find attractive? Physically and mentally? What do they like/need in a relationship?

Bisexual. Likes a nice smile, and for her potential SO to be clean and smell nice. Needs someone to confide in and someone who will support and comfort her.

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of nonreligious people?

Christian, Episcopalian. Her family goes to a methodist church and while she likes the idea of God, she’s not super into the Bible and doesn’t really consider herself “Spiritual”. Naturally, she finds the Canterbury House at college and is like “laid-back christians??? these are my people” bc she can have the comfort and support of religion and fellowship but no pressure or strict traditions. Absolutely cool with anyone of any belief system.

44. What is their favorite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most?

Her fav season is summer, and she likes sunny, warm weather. Prefers heat to cold but doesn’t mind either as long as she can be outside. Complains about rain bc shes stuck inside

[fatui-harbingers]

I was honestly bored watching the finale and just wondering when is this gonna be over omg. Drogon nudging Daenerys made me sad and that was about it. I was really hoping that Jon was gonna get roasted but of course he wasn’t. What a bummer. I would very much like to stab this version of Jon to death, ngl. I'm only okay with him living bc it made Ghost happy. Ghost and Drogon are the only one's alive that deserve happiness! I hate all the other characters, except Yara and Grey Worm.

This wasn't a good ending whatsoever. For anyone. I really wish I never started watching this show to begin with! My mom would be so disappointed. She was rooting for Dany, enjoyed Jonerys and even thought that if they lasted they should rule together. She would be especially disappointed bc she watched Lost, HIMYM, and Dexter. I watched most of HIMYM and Dexter but never saw the endings but I've been told they were extremely disappointing.

I honestly don't understand why it was such a big deal that Daenerys burned King's Landing anyway. I mean, its war, it ain't pretty and innocents die. It's not like whole cities haven't been destroyed in our own history! It's not like she burned every major city in the Seven (six now I guess lol) Kingdoms. She burned ONE! And besides, we only saw the people there when it was convenient so I really didn't care.

And like... did Tyrion really think his siblings were gonna live? Lol, he’s the mad one if you ask me!

All this insanity was not worth seeing Jon’s hair down again either. Not even close. I hope what he did haunts him for all eternity bc he deserves to suffer as long as he lives. I’m sure there’s a special place in hell for men that kill their lovers, especially after kissing them just after you pledged yourself to them as a trick. So disgusting! I’ve had enough of seeing men emotionally abusing and manipulating such a wonderful woman. She deserved the world but I’m sure she’s with her family and friends and children in the afterlife.

I was hoping after seeing Jon sorta defending Dany that he wouldn’t kill her even though he seemed conflicted (bc for some reason he’s suddenly soooo moral. And hey, did you notice he had more lines! Omg!) but as soon as he “pledged” himself to her, I knew what was gonna happen.

This show really catered to straight white dudes tonight, didn't it! Really loved watching a man murder his lover, it was really nice to be reminded of how common that is irl. Do D&D know that most women are killed by their partners or ex-partners? Guess if they did, they didn't care. Who am I kidding, they never cared!

Did D&D even read the books? I haven't either and WOW I could have written a much better show with no previous experience. I feel like even I know the books better, lol, but that is bc I love fantasy and research so I did my homework. Girls have been proven to do better in school anyways!

So, yeah, I'm bitter. I won't forget this EVER. And not as a Dany stan! I won't forget this as a woman coming of age under the Trump Administration. I won't forget this a feminist.

I'm still gonna get me a Targaryen tattoo. I'm gonna get a Dany tattoo separately bc she deserves her own place on my skin. I'm just gonna get tattoos of all my wronged feminist icons. Daenerys Targaryen, Medusa, and Lilith (from the Bible that no one ever talks about, even though I have very strong negative feelings about Christianity). I'm sure I'll find more but those are def gonna happen.

I am gonna read the books bc 1.) my grandmother spent nearly $90 on them for me and 2.) I’ve only read little bits a pieces and they seem 1000x better already. I’m not gonna hope for the last two to come out, and if they do, I’m only gonna get them if I’m told the ending was way better. I don’t want Dany to die at all but, I’ll take another woman’s heroic death for the greater good over being stabbed in the heart by her lover, even though I’m tired of that too.

Anyways, I think I reblogged a post that said “you won't see dany die on this blog” or something along those lines but I take it back bc I've seen some really pretty gifsets! I'm sorry! But I'll use the tag #death tw as requested by those that don't wanna see it.

Daenerys should’ve done things her way from the start. Listening to everyone else was probably her biggest mistake. If she had burned the Red Keep in s7 when she wanted to, things would be fine, I’m sure of it. But, unfortunately, she didn’t listen to herself. And she fell for Jon Snow, which is apparently a death sentence.

I didn’t realize it till people started pointing it out but even I was using this show as a power fantasy. That was my mistake, lol. Clearly, women aren’t allowed to even dream of power. Not gonna stop us now though.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over this bc of what Dany means to so many people. RIP Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen. Dany deserved better. No doubt about that.

[violet-bookmark]

The temple at Landfall, by Jane Fletcher

"Lynn is an imprinter, one chosen by the Goddess to receive her greatest gift, that of creating new life. So why does she feel like a prisoner in the Temple?

When Lynn learns that she is to be relocated to the temple at Landfall, the arduous journey seems more like a gift--her last chance to see something of the outside world. She does not anticipate the dangers and temptations she will encounter along the way, nor does she expect Lieutenant Kim Ramon, an officer in the squadron of Rangers assigned to protect her. Despite all prohibitions forbidding it, attraction grows between the two women.

Against them stand the powerful religious Sisterhood and their holy warriors--the Temple Guards. In a world ruled by the Church, what chance is there that Lynn can escape?"

Actually this world is female-only and everybody is a lesbian, so it's not as if it is ruled by the Catholic church or something, as the blurb seems to imply. And I don't think that catholicism could be so closely replicated in a society where only one sex exists, but I digress.

The romance between the protagonists was fine, I liked it even when I think they fell for each other rather quickly. I believe it from Lynn's perspective because she had been secluded in a temple since she was like 10, only surrounded by elderly women or priestess that were covered up to their eyes and rarely spoke to her, but from Kim's side... No. Maybe seeing more of the journey to Landfall from her perspective would have helped matters. Some of Lynn's quotes were very relatable and good (I believe I have posted some here) and her pain at thinking that she would not ever be able to be with Kim was almost palpable. The romantic and steamy scenes were sexy and well-written, and they felt organic given the circumstances.

I loved how the priestesess constantly jeopardised each other's ascent to power, it was very realistic and a nice detail to the story. It is one of the strongest parts of the worldbuilding to be honest, since it demonstrated that powerful religious women were a force to be reckoned with in-world (at least until a certain point in the story that made me want to slam my head against a table).

The writing was similar to that of Shadow of the knife, but lacked a depth and maturity that SOTK had and that made it such a punch in the face memorable story to me.

Lynn was a good protagonist, very defined by her nostalgic memories of life outside the temple. Which was fine, but she didn't seem to care a lot about anything except nature. I found it very unbelievable that she wasn't more weirded out by the journey given how she was leading a life of reclusion and suddenly she was on a trip with guards and people all around her. She focused a lot on how good it felt to be out of the temple, but what about the people? Isn't being surrounded by people weird after you spent your life in the temple? She never cared about anyone on there so it's pretty safe to say she never had any friends, which brings me to my next point: for someone who had lived such a poor social life she was very stable, not socially starved to the point of being easily manipulable, full of panic towards social interactions or other things that social isolation tends to cause. She mentions wanting to have sex desperately, but that's about it. I'm not buying that. She was nice and I liked how she took responsibility for her actions, but I wish we knew more about her. After reading the book, I still don't feel like I know her that much.

Kim was alright, but her past was boring. Very typical. Seriously, authors, stop killing families. There are other ways to give lifelong trauma to the protagonists. I hated how her character lived through so much and managed to stay so static during all the story. Like hell all this happens to somebody and they stay completely unmoved throughout the whole thing. I don't believe the whole "This is because Kim is very mature, also her past is already solved bc she killed the bandits that killed her fam in the past" that the book tries to sell me. Why would you play up this conflict if it was already solved? I don't care that this is a romance book, it is just lazy to just have all the character development outside of the story. And then of course Kim has solved everything but the part about her trauma that makes her afraid to have a girlfriend, because you know, we needed something to spicy up their relationship. I won't go into detail but they had better ways of having a conflict between the two that didn't rely on getting past traumas that were already solved. One of them being that the foundation of everything they believed in was a lie. It would have been so much more interesting to have that as the main conflict of their relationship!

The action scenes were very well-written, but they lacked something that would have made them truly epic. And that would have been to have a real sense of danger; the problem with the story is that we know the Rangers are amazing and could kick everyone's ass in seconds because they are just that tough, so we don't worry about them dying at all, really. That made the action scenes really lackluster sometimes, almost as if they were only stage decoration for the romance. Which is fine, but the book was so focused on them and they were such an important part of the story that it didn't feel right. It is a shame, because some scenes were really well-written and had a lot of potential to be intense and memorable, and to define the characters or give them some good development. All of the elements necessary were there but then it simply didn't happen. It was beyond frustrating; the characters learned a lot of new stuff and faced loads of dangerous situations but they didn't change at all, which I found unrealistic taking into account they just found out the foundation of everything they believed in was a lie. They all just go like "Oh well that makes sense, I don't believe in this thing anymore despite still having some sensibilities that come from this thing", there might be people who act like this, no doubt, but twelve or more different women? No way.

The plot had a lot of things going on that never reached their full potential, and I think it would have benefited from being kept simpler, especially when this was the author's first book. I just went to check goodreads in order to paste the blurb in the book to the begging of my review, and somebody said "I felt like we should have spent more time in Petersmine watching the characters fall in love, and definitely more time in the temple at Landfall! It's what the book is named after" and I agree. As I said, this book wanted to tackle too many things. If the author really felt like she had to tackle all those topics at once she should have prioritized and spent more time in the central conflicts, while playing the others out in a more subtle manner.

This was her first book so I feel like I should be more forgiving, but I still have to vent about it. I will always be eternally grateful to Jane Fletcher for giving us the Celaeno Series, because it is amazing. How many fantasy/sci-fi series where all the characters are exclusively female and lesbian do we have? What she did was incredible and groundbreaking, but the first book was obviously her first one. I hear there are great things coming in the next one, and I have noticed that the author has gotten way better at writing/worldbuilding since this book was published, so I believe in her.

The explanation the author gave about why the sisters "hide" the true history to the public was not good nor believable. "Nobody reads those books anymore, so they don't know what really happened" really? What the hell? Are you telling me that not even one woman from the temple has taken the time to read one of the books from their library? This doesn't make the Temple look sympathetic, it makes them look beyond stupid. Humans are curious by nature, like hell nobody has even skim-read one of their books. This is something I disliked and that got me tired from this book: every woman that had any ties to religion (temple guards, sisters, etc.) was mortally stupid and ended up either dead or in a bad place. This lack of nuance bothered me: I dislike religion as much as the next person, but this was just too sloppy. Religious people are not stupid; some are stupid, yes, and some do/say stupid things because of religion or because they are plain bigots, but come on, the majority of them don't expect their god/goddess to do things for them that are within their control (like packing their suitcases). Also, does the author think that religious people can't conspire to hide shady things? Lol.

And I don't believe that this world has only one religion. Somebody could interpret the texts of the Elder-Ones way differently and come up with another religion. The author only made one because she wanted it to parallel christianity (the religion she wanted to criticize) and fair enough, but it makes for poor lore. Even christianity has several branches that interpret the bible differently or practice their faith in a different way, and I just don't believe that 1) nobody bothered to read the Elder-Ones texts ever and 2) nobody had a different interpretation and started a different faith, or at least a civil war.

Another thing that disappointed me was how incompetent the guards were. I liked it in the first bit, because the guards that escorted Lynn were from a provincial city and only used to face people, not mountain beasts. That was pretty nice and realistic, but in the second arc there was no excuse for the seasoned temple guards in Landfall to be as incompetent as they were. How the hell has the Temple survived for that long and gained so much power when everybody within its walls is either mortally stupid or terrible at her job?

In the other books both the Rangers and the Militia have their fair share of competent and incompetent women in them, but when it comes to the Temple everyone is just useless, stupid or evil. I'm not having it.

If you have read the book, you will remember that scene with a nice, truly devoted, grandma-like sister that the author wrote to prove that "there are also nice people within the church", which is basically the cliché that pull all books that poorly criticize religion. To any writer reading this: stop using this cliché, I beg you. Do a nuanced criticism of religion instead.

I did like how the sisters reacted to Lynn's and Kim's relationship, that was very well done. Especially the part where they tried so hard to distort Kim's feelings and character to make her look like a bad person on Lynn's eyes. I also loved the little details about Gina's village, the culture that was starting to form around it and the militia/rangers/temple guards dynamic and rivalries, they were very believable and good at rounding up the worldbuilding.

I can't believe what the author pulled at the end of the book. Really, more than 70 pages in the PDF version from Peter McKay's diary, a character that had minimal involvement in the story. I was very uninterested, even if his diary was kind of interesting. Couldn't she have put parts of his diary in little chunks at the begging of every chapter? It would have made the info dump much more bearable. I might comment on it in another post because there is a lot of lore/things I would like to discuss and I still haven't finished it yet.

I recommend this book if you like stories like Romeo and Juliet but set in a lesbian sci-fi universe, and where the characters fight against society.

[vamprnce]

Gatboss week day 5: Alternate Universe

If Boss and Johnny met each other in highschool way before the Third Street Saints even happened. Two aggressive kids clash when they're sent to detention, friendship ensues?

ao3 | Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3

(I'm skipping day 4 for now bc I'm still thinking what to write also I fell down a rabbit hole with this concept and couldn't get out,,,,)

"Just sit down and shut up." An angry teacher yelled as he escorted an equally angry young teen by the arm into the classroom.

Huffing, the teen aggressively pulled his arm out of the teacher's grasp, stomping towards one of the empty seats in front of the class and carelessly fell into it. Throwing a small tantrum he pushed his bookbag off the desk, folding his arms on top of the surface and laying his head in them.

He got in another fight -- again -- and got thrown in detention, something that just flared up his aggression even more. All he wanted to do is go to the arcade after school liked he planned, but no, some dickhead kids had to start shit with him again, they fully knowing he'll won't back down to them. So, he was here instead, sitting in an almost empty classroom, pissed off as ever.

There was in fact another kid in the classroom, a male teen who looked a bit older than he was, well he assumed, maybe they were the same age who knew? He sat a few rows away where he was sitting, he was sitting there way before he stormed in the room. He side glanced over at him, the older teen had his hands behind his head and legs crossed, looking like he was right at home instead of a classroom. Maybe he's been thrown in here a lot more frequently, Chris knows he has but he hasn't seen him in here before, actually he doesn't recognize this guy at all. Besides being older, he had black hair but an ugly blonde dyed tips, glasses and a purple t-shirt. Just studying him he couldn't match his face from anywhere, not even his name.

The boy in question felt his gaze upon him and looked over where the pissed and curly haired boy sat, who just previously got here. Their eyes met briefly before Chris whipped his head away from him, making the boy arch his brows in confusion. He didn't dwell on it. Shit, he only had at least half an hour left here and he'll be out to cause more trouble, it's just detention after all. He just sat there doing fuck nothing, bored out of his mind, he'd rather break something, steal something, punch someone.

His gaze glanced back on the previously pissed kid, who he saw now him pulling out a notebook and some pens and scribbled something. This dude wasn't actually doing homework is he? He laughed as he watched him, though the curly head kid was way to focus and fastly moving his hand on his notebook. He stopped paying attention to what he was writing and noticed he didn't recognize this kid. Like ever. Did he ever go to this school before? He wasn't in his class the last time he checked. It was a complete mystery that really strucked him. He wasn't the one to make friends in detention, but he was pulled to ask who he was at least.

"Yo, shrimpy." Johnny called out loudly, making Chris jump slightly and stop what he was writing, looking over at him. "Huh?" Is all he replied, looking at him with confusion on his face. "Whatcha writin' over there?" He said, pointing a finger at the paper with some scribbles. Chris' eyes widen and shoulders tensed, he bite his bottom lip and look at all his drawings, trying to cover them up with his hand. "It's not none of your damn business." He says sharply, giving him the cold shoulder in response. He already had enough of people for today, all he wanted was some peace and quiet for thirty minutes.

Johnny's eyebrows raised, the cockiness on this little shit. He got up from his seat and walked over in front of the quiet teen, he went back doing what he was previously doing and completely ignoring him. He wondered how this wimpy but smartass kid even got into detention in the first place. What did he do, steal someone's eraser and make them cry like a baby? Johnny made his way to the front of his desk, looming over him and watching him draw. That's what he's up to, he thought.

Getting up closer to him Johnny studied him much better, a resting bitch face was plastered on him, he saw some dried blood that wasn't perfectly cleaned off under his nose, also some detectable bruises on his face. He had bruised knuckles, too, on his right hand and had a purple cast on his left arm. Looking at it better he saw it was littered with drawings and signature's. This punk knew how to fight and he had friends, more and more he looked at him he was surprised.

Chris slowly noticed him standing there and he felt uncomfortable with him so close. He naturally put up his defenses, he didn't know what his exact intentions were. He mostly likely wanted to mess with him, which is natural since everyone pick fights with him every chance they got. He didn't understand why though, I guess he was quiet, reserved, closed off from most people and pretty damn weird apparently. It was easy to bully him they thought, he's quiet so he must be weak. Funny thing is they never expect him to actually fight back, it always without fail surprises everyone. Today though he was tired and mentally exhausted from fighting, the always need to feel like he has to defend himself all the time, it's exhausting.

His eyes were filled with agitation when looking up at the other older teen, he just wanted to be left alone and wasn't it the mood for chatting. "Whatcha's name, smartass?" Johnny asked, looking down on him meet his eyes. "Eat a dick." Chris clearly showed he wasn't in the mood, it made Johnny smirk wide though. This fucking kid. "Don't have to be so hostile, I'm just askin' a question s'all!" Johnny put his hands up, trying to be friendly towards him. If it was anyone else he'd probably punched them in the mouth for saying that, but for some reason he didn't feel angry or threatened by him. It was weird and unusual, he didn't like it.

"I don't care for your questions, so why don't you take yourself and your frosted tips else where." He snapped, his discomfort rised high and his guard was up. Johnny had to laugh at that one, though he wasn't laughing at him, he was laughing at the insult. "Damn, ain't you a fiesty one? No wonder why your in detention." Johnny snarked back. "Oh, and I'm guessing you're such a saint. That's why your in here, too, right?" The sarcasm was thick. Johnny kept smirking, though his niceness quickly started going away now feeling irritated by the smartass. "Alright then, tell me why you're in here then, princess." Johnny said, temper rising. "God, so annoying. You talk too much." Chris huffed, he was beyond annoyed by him now.

The effortlessness of dismissing Johnny just drove him up the wall, he was five seconds away of dragging him by the hoodie he was wearing and wailing on him in the hallway, gladly earning him more detention.

"Why are you in detention?" The teen asked, his mood weirdly changed.

Johnny looked at him in disbelief, he threw insults and bitched at him, now he's asking him questions? "I killed a bunch of people." He bit back at him, sitting backwards in one of the empty chairs he ended up dragging to his previous spot. "Man, I don't think they should've left you unsupervised then." God, he didn't know if he liked this kid or if he wanted to punch him. Chris flipped to a new sheet of paper and started aimlessly doodling, Johnny peered at it, he wasn't a master at the arts but his scribbles were something, that something that resembled a lot like graffiti art he see's in the Row. Maybe this fucker did some of those. Chris glanced up quickly seeing Johnny watching him work and he quietly sighed through his nose, he was such a pest and he wouldn't leave.

"I'm... Christian by the way." He said, nervousness in his voice, it seemed like he still didn't trust him but Johnny didn't blame him. They only met for fifteen minutes, it's not like they're best friends or something. Finally getting his name he seemed somewhat satisfied, on his weird voyage to seek answers from this weird kid. "I'm Johnny." He said plainly, might as well offer his name too since the other teen gingerly did so unprompted. Chris smiled though. "So, you in my class or somethin'? Because I'm pretty sure I've never seen you once in my life around school." Johnny asked.

"I don't think so."

He thought hard while answering, it was weird, they've never cross paths before today. Yeah, Chris might be a ghost to some but he remembers people and their faces, Johnny's isn't familiar though. "What class are you in?" Chris asked, finally tearing his focus away from his notebook for once. "Mrs. Jefferson, you?" Johnny said. "Mr. Monroe."

Johnny knew that class, it was a junior year. Damn, he wasn't that young as he thought. He looked liked a jr high schooler and sounded like he didn't hit puberty yet, with this new information he was way older then he let on. Who the hell is this guy? He gets stranger and stranger. "So, Chris, whatcha in here for? Don't tell me it was some sissy bullshit." Johnny said, putting emphasis on the use of his name and going back to his original question. "Only if you tell me why you're in here after." He still had some coldness to him, still guarded. "Fine, deal." Johnny sighed, shaking his good hand on it.

Chris started explaining that minutes before being sent here, some group of boys were hanging outside in the hallway. Walking past them to leave school, it was the end of the day, the dumbasses just had to start calling him names and throwing insults. He wasn't going to entertain them and fight back like they wanted, but things escalated quickly that he indeed had to. Next thing he knew he was on top of the loud aggressor, holding him down by the throat and bashing him in the face, the other boys cheered as they watched the brawl happen before them. Once he starts fighting all the rage comes out and he can't be stopped. "--Then one of the teachers came down the hallway and saw me on top of the fucker, pulled me off of him and sends me to detention, like I actually did anything wrong." Chris explained the whole situation to Johnny, not letting go of his anger and rolling his eyes.

His eyes were wide and he was hanging on every word of the younger teens story, this pipsqueak can fight holy shit. He was starting to like this kid better, even if he is annoying. "Holy shit." Is all he says, his face beamed like how a kid looks like on Christmas morning. Chris just smirks awkwardly at his compliment, well he thinks it's one. "I didn't think you could fight with a cast let alone broken arm, proved me wrong." Johnny said "Hey, how did you get that anyways." He pointed at the purple cast. Chris looked down on it then back to Johnny, "Oh, I fell." Is all he says with the most casualty in his voice, like he was saying the most obvious answer. Johnny stared at him, waiting if he was going to elaborate anytime soon.

"Well?" Johnny asked, annoyed.

He actually laughed at him. "I didn't get this in a fight, if you thought that. Yeah, no, I was riding my bike and I crashed really bad, hence the cast." He gestured to it.

"Oh." Johnny nodded, a bit disappointed really.

He wanted to hear another cool story from him. "You wanna sign it?" Chris asked, his voice was so quiet for a second. It was so weird that this kid can be so silent and awkward but then actually bitch and be annoying towards him at the same time, he acted like a different person. "Yeah, why not." Johnny said, grabbing a pen and scribbling his name on the cast, there wasn't as much names on here. "Purple, nice color." He compliments as he finished writing. The kids face lit up as he looked at the newly decorated cast. Maybe this guy didn't have so much friends as he thought before, he didn't see why, the kid was pretty cool. A bit weird and awkward here and there, but who isn't really?

"You live around here or somethin'?" Johnny asked, "Like, you a Stilwater native?"

"Oh, yeah, I live in the Mission Beach district in Saint--" Chris was explaining until Johnny cut in and finished what he was saying. "Saints Row?!" He said surprised, a bit too loudly. "C'mon man, you can't tell me you live in the Row and go to the same school as me then we never bump into each other ever!" His voice was so loud that it made Chris flinch for a second, though he did smile excitedly. "I can't believe this." Chris shook his head in disbelief, smiling. "I'm usually by that creepy church, at the arcade or basketball court if that helps." Chris said. "Yeah, it does, I'll try looking for you next time." Johnny said, smirking.

The thirty minutes of detention were over as the school bell rang. Chris grabbed his bag putting everything away and started leaving the class, Johnny walking behind him. He didn't notice actually how tall Johnny was since they were sitting, comparing quickly he was at least four inches taller. They walked through the empty hallway together, Chris was silent, as usual. Until he spoke up, like he remembered something.

"Hey, you never told me why you were in detention, you promised after!"

"I told you, I killed a bunch of people. Why would I lie about that?" Johnny had a shit eating grin.

"Fuck off, Jonathan." Chris said, shoving Johnny.

"Screw you, Christian." Johnny said, shoving back.

"I'm going to the arcade. You can come if you want, I don't care." He said coldly, putting his hood up over his head and hands in his pockets.

Johnny's grin grew as they exited the building. Chris was walking off down the stairs outside before him. Even though the younger boy was acting coldly towards him, his fondness for him grew.

There was something special about him, something he hasn't seen in a person before.

[ultralaser]

i'm just gonna go ahead and spoil the fuck out of hellboy 2019 bc it's awful and i can't think of a good reason not to

thomas haden church shows up as lobster johnson! but he looks ridiculous, like, a cheap halloween costume version compared to, say, the period costumes in captain america or wonder woman. and he has NO SET UP so he just comes off like a joke, it's not, oh this is a wierd noir pulp hero in **gotham city**, it's, lobster johnson, nazi hunter. is hellboy a world with cool superheroes, and if so, why isn't hellboy one of them? is he an x men now? idk it doesnt work tho

baba yaga shows up! she has a house on chicken legs that's rendered beautifully, but then she has one of the worst face prosthetics i've ever seen, it literally looks like a cheap monster mask from party city. so much for the grace and elegant spookiness of a doug jones suit, this baba yaga mask can't even lip sync well

guy davis kaiju demons show up! but they aren't, cool, they're just, they have as much screen time as the ogdru jahad in hellboy 04, but they show up and start just gruesomly killing ppl, like same with thr giants fight earlier on, the movie uses the r rating to push a lot of just dismemberment, disembowelment, graphic bodily harm, it's gross and mean and dumb and out of character for the comics. therr's the helicopter shot of the tall man walking through the tower bridge, then two bat demons fky up in front of him and tear someone in half and all their guts fall out. what? why

king arthur and merlin show up! merlin is, christian for some reason? and king arthur is boring. this sequence is nearly saved by ian mcshane's narratiom, but not really. witches bad, she created a plague but not, the plague? england is the most important place in history, blah blah, no. king arthur legend of the sword does more with excalibur as a magic artifact, and drunk merlin from transformers the last knight is way more compelling than Christian Merlin, warrior for god

they do the quick ww2 origin flashback, ala thomas and martha wayne, joe chill, pearls. kroenen is there and looks bad, ilsa looks fine, rasputin, tbh feels like they got the same actor who did a poor job in 04, he's generic in a boring way, the whole scene is unnecessary

okay, so, then halfway! through, after hellboy has been sent to england to help the rebel general from rogue one, and they name their perennial giant hunt 'the wild hunt', and they all betray hellboy and stab him with a bunch of spears, and are killed brutally by giants, and then hellboy brutally kills the giants, and is rescued by new girl, who talks to ghosts and was rescued by hellboy from being replaced by a fairy changeling (who is back, running around putting milla back together after king arthur dismembered her and locked her still-living pieces in boxes around england?), and hellboy both knows her from all along but also hasnt been back since, and knows shes a psychic but also hasnt seen her since she was a baby, depending on the scene?

THEN finally daniel dae kim's ben daimio shows up, and he's NOT EVEN IN THE BPRD, he's with british intelligence, and he takes hank's anti-mutation polyjuice serum from days of future past to repress his were-jaguar form, and he has a special gun designed to KILL HELLBOY because he doesnt trust him not to be the actual devil, despite, HIMSELF, being cursed with a monstrous destiny

the scene in the trailer with hellboy, new girl, and daimio on a bprd mission, with hellboy punching daimio to activate his hulking out? THAT'S IN THE **SIX MONTHS LATER** EPILOGUE. the movie ENDS with the three of them finding abe sapien

so this whole thing? is a fucking ORIGIN STORY. it is EVERY SUPERHERO MOVIE FROM 78 TO IRON MAN TWO, it is ONE HERO, ALONE, IN A WORLD WITH NO OTHER HEROES. it's not even the x-men because they're not recruiting hellboy to join their team, it's like if the x-men were just xavier and logan and a nunch of fbi guys.

meanwhile, ddk and new girl are both americans doing british accents, david harbour is still playing hellboy as a 75 year old teenager, and ian mcshane, bless him, is just playing ian mcshane

also, just, i think the intent was for harbour to play it as the stone right hand is just really heavy? but it ends up looking like a cosplayer who misjudged the weight of his prop hand an hour into the con. i want to say del toro did a better job of making it look like, this is actually hellboy's hand, and not, this is ron perlman wearing a wierd prosthetic.

and also, amazing advances in prosthetic technology aside, why didnt they just get dave bautista, if they wanted surly hellboy, or dwayne johnson, if they wanted comic accurate charming hellboy, because neither of those dudes would have needed a muscle suit. hellboy ends up (AGAIN) looking like one of the fucking dwarves in the hobbit, who wore fat suits to look like they were built like john rhys davies, but if they turn their head wrong you can see their prosthetics floating like trump's wig

have the balls to give him his wierd jawline from the comic, or don't fucking bother

okay, okay. OKAY. so, you guys remember the BLOOD TORNADO from blade one, the 'original ending' on the dvd where frost turns into a whirling vortex of blood, and they superimpose the dorff's torso just kind of leaning out of it? and it looked awful both because it's super fake anyways but also unfinished? so, there is an EXTENDED scene where professor mcshane comes back as a ghost, and it's ian mcshane's head pasted onto a super fake ectoplasm tail coming out of new girl's mouth (which also, gross), and they forgot to give him a neck, and he's naked? and it's awful and only not laughable bc, frankly, ian mcshane is a treasure and spends the whole moving swearing a lot

and honestly, the most annoying part is that hellboy 19 cribs the ending from hellboy 04 where hellboy is about to give in to his cursed destiny and join team evil, until some white dude says 'no, stop, you have a choice thanks to your father'

hellboy popped into our plane in 1944 and it is 2019, dude is SEVENTY FIVE YEARS OLD. he is smarter than this shit, or at least, old enough to know better. i'm half his age and i can tell when someone is not negotiating in good faith.

and at least in 04 he was doing it to save liz, in the new movie witch milla ALREADY KILLED IAN MCSHANE and it still takes ghost mcshane to cuss hellboy out back to team good, talking him into using EXCALIBUR to rekill her instead of, destroying the world

and do they reconcile that EXCALIBUR was the key to the hellmouth, that hellboy pulling the sword from the stone started the biblical apocalypse? that england is the villain here? no, they joke that now hellboy is king.

OMG and i forgot merlin shows up again to tell hellboy HE IS LITERALLY DESCENDED FROM KING ARTHUR. his human witch mother fucked satan in the 1600s and gave birth to hellboy in hell, and then four hundred years later rasputin and the nazis summon him to earth as he's still a baby. does this make sense? no. is it comics canon. idk, who cares, it's BAD.

this movie is B A D in almost every way, it is amazing how bad it is. it is clearly a 'gritty' remake of the 2004 film, not in any way a new take on the comics. there are FIFTEEN YEARS of new bprd comics put out since that film for these guys to riff on, and they are still fundamentally misrepresenting beloved characters while also just, making up new bullshit.

but when del toro did that, it was del toro's cool bullshit. this is hellboy from the guys who said 'lets have jaime rape cersei on joffrey's tomb'

[urfavmurtad]

What are some things about Judaism and Christianity that you learned that surprised you? What about polytheistic religions like native american animism, Buddhism, Shinto and Jainism? Zoroastrians? Baha’i? Yazidi?

Anon this is… such an in-depth question! Idek where to begin here. Of all those religions, I have learned the most about Judaism since I stopped being religious. What I knew about Judaism prior to maybe 5 years ago was mostly just what Islam says about Judaism. Meaning, you know, from Adam to Moses, then it skips ahead to David/Solomon/Saul, then there are some brief mentions of Jonah and Ezekiel and that’s really it.

So I didn’t know a lot, and I wasn’t very interested in what I did know tbh. The only reason why I started reading the Bible is bc I wanted to compare it to the Quranic versions of the stories and see how much Mohammed fucked them up. And that was fun but I didn’t bother to look much further into Judaism past that. The Books of Kings and Chronicles, for example, I took one look at them, decided they were boring, and didn’t read them until only a couple of years ago. That’s when I first got into the whole Biblical history thing. I tried reading a book about how the Bible was put together and realized I didn’t know enough about the Bible itself to even begin.

I forced myself to read those four books and then some of the prophet books (side note: all of the female prophets were left out of Islam, I didn’t even know they existed. Damn it Mohammed!!!). And I’m glad I did, because it changed my whole view of the Jewish Bible. It’s a history book!! Like… that’s literally what it’s supposed to be, a (legendary) history of Israel/Judah, and every bad thing that happens to them is ascribed to YHWH getting pissed off at them, but then like my friend and her trash boyfriend he always forgives them and takes them back even tho they just go on to disappoint him again. The Bible is the world’s oldest and greatest self-drag!!!

Once I actually knew the general chronology of the Biblical kings and shit I could actually make my way through this book without getting confused (mostly). Highly recommend this one for beginners btw, there is a PDF online and it’s not overly long.

And damn… I know there’s some debate about certain elements of it like the exact nature of the “documentary hypothesis” but even just focusing on the stuff that people agree upon, I didn’t know any of it before reading this, beyond there being no evidence for the Exodus/the huge kingdom of Solomon etc. I also knew that early Judaism was a system where multiple gods existed but YHWH was just their patron god, but I didn’t fully understand the process in how he got conflated with El and became the god.

More relevant to this topic, though, I didn’t understand the history behind the Bible itself. Deuteronomy being written separately/earlier than the rest and the Bible claiming that it was “found” in the Temple after like 900 years in Josiah’s time… like I had never even heard of Josiah prior to a few years ago and here I am realizing that this bitch perpetrated fraud that would make Linda Taylor proud. Tf. AND, the whole thing with Judah being way, way less developed than Israel, and Israel was actually a multi-ethnic and prosperous society, but then after the Assyrians handed Israel its ass the Judeans were suddenly the top bitch in school and wrote the whole Bible to make their former northern neighbors out to be assholes?? Wow Team Israel tbh.

Then when you get to the time of the Babylonian Exile tho you have to feel a bit bad for the people of Jerusalem, like the Babylonians were uncommonly dickish even for their time and the ppl of the city were clearly traumatized tbh… a lot of the stories in the Bible, especially those believed to have been added only after the exile, make a hell of a lot more sense when you realize the huge changes occurring in Jewish society at the time. The transition from “there are lots of gods but YHWH is our god” to “YHWH is the god” is completely understandable when you realize that people were searching for some explanation as to why they had all been uprooted and thrown out of their homes, and the obvious explanation is that, yet again, they had pissed YHWH the fuck off by worshiping other gods.

I feel like both Christianity and Islam (but especially Islam) try to separate many of Judaism’s better-known stories from the context of ancient Israel/Judah itself, presenting them as more universal stories that apply to everyone, but tbh the whole over-arching story doesn’t work unless you look at it as a history written by and for Jews who were rebuilding their religion and society in a volatile period. I’m reading this rn and it’s relevant to that topic.

It’s truly a damn shame that pretty much like 0% of Muslims have been exposed to any of this tbh? I feel like almost all scholars of Biblical history come from non-Muslim countries. I have more feelings on this subject but let me answer the rest of your question. First of all, Christianity. I read the New Testament in full a couple of years ago as well. It was obviously way easier to read because the Gospels are all different versions of the same story and the rest is just supplementary material, basically. I think the text itself is pleasant and Jesus was a chill dude. I like him. And the whole… sequence of events made much more sense after I’d read the Book of Isaiah and realized that the authors of the Gospels were viewing Jesus in light of those prophecies. Revelation is a fascinating shrooms trip. The Acts of the Apostles were fun to read, but all the letters were just like w/e. More historically interesting (if they’re real) than interesting in terms of content. Though I do think some of the content in them is very nice, idk if people know this but Muslims think Paul was responsible for perverting the (non-existent) “real” Gospel of Jesus and paint him very poorly. But I dunno, the letters seemed fine to me.

Tbh I was surprised to see how different Islam’s version of Christianity/Christian stories is compared to the “real thing”. I don’t even mean his disastrous misconceptions of Christian theology but just like… with the stories Mohammed pulled from the Jewish Bible (and the Talmud–which I also enjoyed flipping through btw, it’s like a bunch of old guys yelling at each other in written form), he gets details wrong but the overall stories are basically the same. But with the Christian stories, barely anything in the Quran is from the Bible. I think I’ve said this before but like 90% of the stuff pulled from Christianity in Islam is about baby Jesus, not adult Jesus, and even that stuff isn’t from the Bible. It’s understandable when you realize that he was listening to these stories, not reading them, and just picked the ones he liked best… which happened to be later texts. That brings me to a subject that is near and dear to my heart:

Apocryphal texts bih. I love this shit, with full sincerity and zero irony. The weirder it gets, the better. I started out just reading the ones that made it into the Quran, like the Life of Adam and Eve, the Infancy Gospels that I’ve mentioned before, and the Testament of Solomon. Then some Gnostic stuff, which I only read because it has the same substitute-crucifixion thing going on as Islam, but WHEW chile the DRUGS these ppl were on while writing this shit…! The Sethians and the Nag Hammadi library produced such treasures of crazy-ass literature. It makes me sad how so much of this stuff is just totally forgotten now that Christianity is mostly just Catholic/Protestant+Orthodox. There were so many sects and people had so many divergent ideas, some more drug-assisted than others probably!! And Middle Eastern Christianity was very diverse even in the 7th century. Some of the stories they produced had such rich lore. My fave right now is this Syriac collection:

I came across this one while looking for the origins of the al-Khidr story in the Quran. There were all sorts of opinions about who he was, bc Mohammed never really gave any details on his life, but Ibn Ishaq recorded an opinion that al-Khidr was the one who buried Adam and Allah granted him long life in return. So I looked for the source of that story and it was the story of Melchizedek in this book. Then I read the whole thing and man this would make for some weird psychedelic series or sth. It’s online, look it over and you’ll see how trippy it is.

Um… anon this is getting rly long tbh so let me sum up my knowledge of Shinto, Native American animism, and Jainism: not much!! Buddhism I have only an intro-level knowledge of, I know the basics but I don’t know more than that. The beliefs of Yazidis I don’t fully understand, but the little I know is pretty cool. From what I understand it’s a blend of pre-Islamic Kurdish religion + early Islamic influence + some other influences thrown in. It’s sad how they’re branded as devil-worshipers or w/e when the story of Melek Taus is actually really interesting and has a good moral and is way, way better than the story of Iblis. I also enjoy Yazidi architecture and that unique ribbed cone top of theirs. I hope they’re able to live on as a community after, uh, recent events.

I actually was taught about Bahai people growing up but I was told it was some heretical offshoot of Islam comparable to Ahmadiyya people. I didn’t realize it was considered its own religion until fairly recently tbh. I did read the Kitab al-Aqdas (which is blessedly short, this makes Bahai a great religion automatically!!) once. It’s definitely super inspired by the Quran in terms of style and to me clearly seems to be an attempt to make a Kinder And Also More Iranian Islam. I think it’s pretty neat. In fact I think a lot of attempts to magically make Islam “nicer” would just end up making it more like Bahai tbh. And it has a really fascinating history, with the Bab basically being a new John the Baptist and Bahaullah being the one he foretold. He even accidentally ended up in Israel lmao. I also really love Bahai architecture in terms of how diverse it is, with the only unifying feature being visual interest, and I would love to see the temple in India irl one day. India always has the best architecture anyway.

I saved Zoroastrians for last bc I have to be honest here. I tried to look into it, because it’s ancient and had an influence on Judaism etc and that makes it important. Fam I got about 3% of the way through the Avesta before giving up. I was still in the hymns part and just like… every other word was something I didn’t understand. I will go back and try again one day but for now the answer is “lol idk”.

ANYWAY… yeah… I’ve enjoyed reading about religion way more now that I’m not religious, both in terms of Islam and other religions, I can appreciate the process or w/e now that I’m not constantly trying to make it fit into Islam or panicking every time I spot something that makes me question my faith. I know a lot of atheists either fall away from religion altogether or just look at it like it’s something dumb, but even if it’s fake, that doesn’t make it worthless imo. The history itself is always worth studying.

[survivorbehemoth]

Episode 7 & 8: “ i know who i'd kill for, i know who i'd kill” - Jules

Click HERE to listen to Szymon’s Vocaroo!

Click HERE to listen to another of Szymon’s Vocaroos!

Click HERE to view Szymon’s trust rankings!

Click HERE to watch Rob’s Video!

Click HERE to watch another of Rob’s Videos!

________________________________________________________________

Christian is removed from the game for cheating.

Click HERE to listen to Szymon’s Vocaroo!

Click HERE to watch Cindi’s Video!

Click HERE to watch Daisy’s Video!

Click HERE to watch Gage’s Video!

Click HERE to listen to Szymon’s Vocaroo!

Click HERE to watch Rob’s Video!

So last rounds tribal got cancelled which was very nice. we planned on splitting between Cindi and Chips, with chips going home in a revote. once tribal got cancelled though it was nice to just have the evening free of stress. then once again WE LOSE THE FREAKIN CHALLENGE. I mean a GOOSE. A GOOSE IS JUST AS MUCH OF A BIRD AS A CHICKEN. just very frustrating. i want THE DAY OFF. TODAY IS MY FIRST DAY OF NO WORK IN 5 DAYS AND I WANNA IGNORE SURVIVOR BUT I CANT!! so. then after we lost we stayed up on call and once cindi left, me daisy and gage were talking game (i wasnt talking too much bc i was stoned). and Gage told us that cindi asked him to vote one of us out AND that chips and cindi were gonna vote me last round!! WHAT THE HECK! AND WHY DIDNT HE TELL ME SOONER??????? So then we went to bed kinda agreeing that we would all prefer Cindi to leave but would be fine with Chips depending on what Conor thinks.

Thats where im at so far. the idol is gone but i think rob or szymon have it. and i just want to MAKE MERGE!!! I hope our 4 can stick together.

im ngl to you.... i've watched so much survivor and when it's day 19, usually shit starts heating up. yeah, shit's been HEAT UP since the beginning but ...the merge is coming. i feel it. i just can't believe i've been playing this game for 19 days????????? anyways, my strat of letting other people take the reins and push moves that i want to happen has happened, almost everyone ive wanted to leave, has gone. even on the other tribe -- so that's really cool??? i don't know if im being labeled a social threat either. i just need to think of how to start navigating things once we hit merge. i am 100 percent and i mean 100 percent loyal to daisy/cindi/szymon and HOPEFULLY we can all link up at merge and just be a Power Alliance. i just. rip christian and rip black girl magic i wanted to play with her SO BAD but this makes it easier game wise bc now i don't have to vote out someone i like at f5 or smth. idk. i know we're not at merge or anything but there's a lot in this game thats pretty straightforward to me. i know who i'd die for, i know who i'd kill for, i know who i'd kill. i know what i have to do. i just. i gotta do it. i'm fucking ready.

Click HERE to watch Conor’s Video!

Click HERE to watch Cindi’s Video!

Click HERE to watch Daisy’s Video!

So I guess a lot has happened since I last confessed and I forgot to film... and also don't really have time to do so.

Our tribe lost immunity with a puzzle game where the other tribe were on literal steroids.. and one of them was banished from the platform for quitting which may have saved my life.

Then we got a challenge to play Codenames a board game I've always wanted to try so that was fun!! I was pretty good?? At it so I became a Spymaster to give clues and lead our tribe to another loss!

Yay Helgamine losers!! Anyway, I'm pretty confident I'm the easy vote as well as the obvious with writing on the wall vote. Cindi and I have been trying to crack the others and to get them to vote Daisy or anyone else and literally it's my only shot!! Woo!

Hoping people like me enough to go for it! Also I failed to find the idol with five presents and it was my only shot and guaranteeing my safety so schwoopsie!

Better confessionals if I make it past this round... maybe. <3

Brandan sending a last minute confessional AGAIN? What more can you ask for from little old me :P.

But we won immunity again, which I'm really happy about! It was pretty much codenames, and we came perilously close to royally fucking ourselves over in the challenge when we nearly picked Vodka, but hey we didn't so that's good at the end! I kind of forgot that we had the challenge at the time we did since I was coming back from the beach and what not, and honestly like the past couple of days I been dealing with a lot of shit hell, testing positive for COVID before the game really picked up royally sucked and drained a lot out of me but now this is my only game I'm in so I'm invested as I can be!

And I feel like I'm good going into the merge with where everything is going, it sucks that Christian had to go cheat and ended up getting disqualified, but honestly our tribe is so much better because of it, and my position in this tribe as well. While I haven't been like ON that much if that makes any sense I've still been having fun in this game completely, and I feel like I've been making connections and what not so I feel good right now, and sometimes, all you can ask for is a bunch of fun! :D

Click HERE to watch Gage’s Video!

ASLDKJFHAL IM SORRY I'VE BEEN JUST LIKE--- TOO BUSY FOR VIDEOS AND STUFF AND LIKE IM JUST LIKE OMG AHHH STRESS AND

ok so anyways, i started a chinese program this week that's 8 credits and like, school is so much. i just like, didnt really do anything this week so sorry this is boring. go zeldaborne we really rocked that huh. hope we merge lmao i guess no more pre-merge please please please love you bye mwah xx <33

Click HERE to watch Daisy’s Video!

________________________________________________________________

Cindi is voted out, first we tie 2-2-2 and then on the revote she is voted out 3-0.

[larryrickard]

lets get personal.

i know this is supposed to be an ask meme but i’m fucking bored & no one ever sends me them, so.  also i’m kinda pissy rn unfortunately so forgive pls some of my answers lol

01: 6 of the songs you listen to most?:  idk.  mostly i listen to everything on random anymore, and only in my car.  the only song i’ve listened to on repeat recently has been ‘stupid love’ by lady gaga. 02: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?:  speaking of which, lady gaga. 03: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.:  the only book near me would be all the books, as in my bookshelf.  unless you count my kindle, in which case there would be no line 17 because of the font size.  sorry. 04: What do you think about most?:  idk.  whatever my current obsession is i guess. 05: What does your latest text message from someone else say?:  “And you don't have to cook it”. 06: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?:  with.  i don’t like being naked and don’t understand those who do.  also i get cold. 07: What’s your strangest talent?:  i don’t have talents. 08: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence):  are soft and beautiful.  meh, have to earn my trust. 09: Ever had a poem or song written about you?:  a song, yes. 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?:  a very long time.  it’s not a thing i ever do lol. 11: Do you have any strange phobias?:  i don’t think so.  my phobias are pretty standard. 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?:  when i was a kid, yeah.  plenty.  once my parents had to hold me down and tweeze a chewed up wad of juicy fruit out of my nose.  i fucking love the smell of that gum.  three year old me may have been stupid but, hey.  i was being economical.  also i blame it on my parents for, you know, giving a fucking toddler some gum. 13: What’s your religion?:  don’t have one.  former christian, which is gross.  don’t indoctrinate children, please and thanks. 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?:  walking to or from my car.  that’s about it.  :/ 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?:  behind.  no one deserves to see my face.  rip to everyone who sees me in person on a regular basis. 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?:  jars of clay, jimmy eat world, the elms. 17: What was the last lie you told?:  that i’m not in debt lmao.  the only time i’ve lied to my psychiatrist :/ 18: Do you believe in karma?:  no but sometimes i wish i did.  so many people deserve their comeuppance. 19: What does your URL mean?:  doesn’t really mean anything, he’s a character from the flash. 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?:  all sorts of things?  and idk. 21: Who is your celebrity crush?:  lady gaga, angelina jolie, carlos valdes, idk if shane madej is a ‘celebrity’ but him, brie larson, michael sheen... idk, i don’t really have “crushes” but those are the first ppl to come to mind. 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?:  nope.  and no thank you. 23: How do you vent your anger?:  lol. 24: Do you have a collection of anything?:  funko pops?  but not seriously.  i mean.  i have a lot of them bc i love a lot of characters and there are some pretty fuckin dope funkos.  but it’s not my goal in life to have a huge collection or anything.  at least i can say i have less than a hundred of them lol.  (less than 75.) 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?:  ew, neither.  but if i had to choose, phone.  bc, you know.  my face. 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?:  lmfao no.  i mean, i’m better than the person i used to be, that’s for sure.  (see:  indoctrinated as a child, including your typical conservative bullshit like racism for starters.) 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?:  so many.  i have misophonia.  and people chewing + mouth sounds is definitely a big one.  love?  idk???  music?  rain?  my cat’s cute lil meow? 28: What’s your biggest “what if”?:  what if my thyroid issues were discovered earlier on instead of a year or more after they started.  my childhood doctor was Not Great.  it took her two weeks to figure out i had a sinus infection.  i was in the fourth grade.  still bitter about both of those. 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?:  no, ghosts aren’t real.  aliens yes.  not the stereotypical ones, but in a “given the size of the universe it’s literally impossible that we’re the only life out there” way. 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.:  right, the cat.  left, air. 31: Smell the air. What do you smell?:  nothing?  it’s my house/room, so to me it smells like nothing. 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?:  uh... i’ve no idea? 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?:  west, obviously. 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?:  no such thing as ‘opposite’ gender.  of a different gender, though?  lady gaga. 35: To you, what is the meaning of life?:  who the fucking fuck knows.  literally know one knows, though tbh.  they just think they do. 36: Define Art.:  lmfao how would i know.  i don’t have a creative bone in my body so i should be the last person to comment on the subject. 37: Do you believe in luck?:  nope.  i hope it’s obvious by now that i don’t believe in fictional things. 38: What’s the weather like right now?:  cool.  cloudy.  typical oregon winter weather.  i want rain tho :( 39: What time is it?:  3:04am. 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?:  yes.  and yes, several times.  three.  two totaled cars.  the last one is the only one that was actually my fault, though.  driving too close after it rained.  don’t do it, folks. 41: What was the last book you read?:  the diviners by libba bray.  currently reading a short history of nuclear folly by rudolph herzog.  fascinating, but kind of  depressing af. 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?:  no. 43: Do you have any nicknames?:  hal (to a very select few bc 99% of the time i hate it, so fuck you if you call me this without permission), hals, hallie bird, hallie strawberry. 44: What was the last film you saw?:  i honestly don’t know.  haven’t done a whole lot of movie watching lately.  maybe the fall (2006).  (please watch this movie, it’s so gorgeous and lovely.) 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?:  i’ve never had a serious injury.  well.  i take that back, i guess.  in my first car accident i was stopped and rear-ended at like, 40mph.  so i’ve had back issues since i was 18.  usually it’s fine but sometimes it’s bad and sometimes i can set it off really easily.  idk if that counts as “serious”, though.  lots of people have back problems. 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?:  i don’t think so? 47: Do you have any obsessions right now?:  i guess buzzfeed unsolved and watcher.  and ‘stupid love’ by lady gaga lol.  good omens, as usual. 48: What’s your sexual orientation?:  asexual. 49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?:  yes.  thankfully only a few (that i know of, anyway). 50: Do you believe in magic?:  no. 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?:  yuuup.  they deserve it. 52: What is your astrological sign?:  taurus. 53: Do you save money or spend it?:  spend it :||  every paycheck i tell myself i’ll be better at saving it, but............ 54: What’s the last thing you purchased?:  preordered chromatica by lady gaga. 55: Love or lust?:  if i had to choose, love.  lust and all that stuff is gross. 56: In a relationship?:  nope.  shocker, i know.  (this is sarcasm.  it is no shocker to anyone as to why i’m single.) 57: How many relationships have you had?:  just the one. 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?:  nope. 59: Where were you yesterday?:  work on my day off for a staff meeting, and then my psychiatrists’ office. 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?:  a few things, yes. 61: Are you wearing socks right now?:  yes.  almost always. 62: What’s your favourite animal?:  cats, then birds.  mice are p adorable, too.  i miss having them.  i haven’t had mice since middle school or early high school i think :(  i’d love more but my current cat would definitely try to eat them... same with a bird.  i’ll probably never have a bird :( 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?:  be sarcastic and love stupid puns and bad jokes? 64: Where is your best friend?:  one is in ohio and the other is in massachusetts. 65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.:  no idea lol.  i haven’t been on here much recently, and i’m never caught up anyway.  and i don’t usually pay attention to who is posting/reblogging. 66: What is your heritage?:  mostly german.  the rest is other typical white stuff that i can’t remember.  some irish?  either way idc. 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?:  uh, rewatching some buzzfeed unsolved for the 100th time?  and playing with my tamagotchi? 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?:  he doesn’t exist so idc. 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?:  nope.  also, Nice™. 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?:  incredibly doubtful. 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?:  go to work.  i love my job way too much.  i’d probably try to get someone’s attention if there was anyone around, and/or call animal services.  (there are no canals around here anyway and i don’t walk to work and ain’t gonna.) 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?:  who tf knows, i hate this shit.  i’d really rather not think about it bc it stresses me out.  i probably wouldn’t tell very many people tho.  try to find someone to take my cat :(  i sure as shit wouldn’t leave her to my parents :(  and i wouldn’t want to leave her in a shelter.  she’s already done that once and it makes me too sad. 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.:  trust.  you can’t have love without trust, though... 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?:  ‘sweetness’ by jimmy eat world, ‘fade to grey’ by jars of clay, ‘thunderhead’ by the elms, ‘bad romance’ and ‘g*psy’ by lady gaga (latter is... i hate the name but the song is so fucking catchy, ugh), ‘torn’ by natalie imbruglia, ‘bring it all back’ by s club 7, ‘... baby one more time’ by britney spears, ‘where’s the love’ by hanson, ‘who do you think you are’ by the spice girls, ‘as long as you love me’ and ‘everybody (backstreet’s back)’ by the backstreet boys, ‘black balloon’ by goo goo dolls, ‘spark’ by tori amos, ‘last beautiful girl’ by matchbox twenty, ‘push it’ by garbage, ‘i want you’ by savage garden, ‘minority’ and ‘she’ and ‘basket case’ and ‘macy’s day parade’ by green day... how’s that lol. 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?:  not giving out that kind of personal information lmao. 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?:  i wouldn’t know. 77: How can I win your heart?:  you probably can’t.  idk anyway. 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?:  sure, but lack of insanity is a better way to go.  don’t perpetuate the bullshit notion that you need to be suffering to create Great Art™. 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?:  idk.  i haven’t made very many. 80: What size shoes do you wear?:  10 in women’s. 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?:  i’m going to be cremated and you probably should be, too.  just don’t get embalmed, k? 82: What is your favourite word?:  fuck. 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.:  ‘alone’ by heart. 84: What is a saying you say a lot?:  idk.  someone who spends time around me irl would have to tell me. 85: What’s the last song you listened to?:  ‘stupid love’ by lady gaga on repeat. 86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?:  blue.  then green, and in no particular order, black, grey, purple. 87: What is your current desktop picture?:  it’s boring, just the default mac catalina background lol.  i was having issues choosing a background and was getting way too fucking picky, so i just said ‘fuck it’ and have been using this one for months. 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?:  donald trump. 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?:  idk?  how much in debt i am?  lmao. 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?:  assume i’m having a night terror or am hallucinating.  and be scared. 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?:  hopefully teleportation. 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?:  maybe when i met carlos valdes & got a picture with him.  he’s super sweet, is living sunshine, and gives amazing hugs. 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?:  so many :/  idek where to start tbh. 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?:  i’m sex-repulsed so no thank you.  also, gross question.  get a life. 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?:  new zealand. 96: Do you have any relatives in jail?:  yes, my cousin bc he murdered my dad ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?:  no. 98: Ever been on a plane?:  many times. 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?:  indigenous people aren’t history, they still exist.  shut the fuck up and listen to them.  build a time machine to go back in time and prevent colonisers.  just straight-up kill them, we deserve it.

[eliasboaz]

Bethlehem tourism - Bethlehem Tour Guiding with Dr. Peter Walker and Haytham Diek

Dr. Peter walker is widely acknowledged as one of the Best experts and he wrote many books one of them In the Steps of Jesus, he has been doing Tours and also Bethlehem Tours for the Past 30 Years to the Holy land. Bethlehem The House of Bread, You will have a Meal, from Bread to Meat, It is all about Food, in Bethlehem we do Live in Wonderful Place, many people from All over the World want to come to this Town, The Home Town of David, and want to hear the story of Bethlehem, we as tour Guides we will be their Teachers, we will be their guides, and we will remember Bethlehem from what we Say mostly, they will also remember the Place where Jesus have been born, they will also Remember who guided them, if you smile they will love us, if not they won't, as simple as that, The Smile and the Character and making them interested in the people who live in Bethlehem will make us Great Tour guides in Bethlehem. We might not remember every Fact correctly but they will listen to us and they will go back home happy, to be efficient Bethlehem Tour guide is not only about being a teacher but to be the Inspiration and to Inspire our Visitors. We often think that a good teacher that is someone who teaches, we think a good teacher is a good teacher who teaches facts to people minds, a good teacher also inform, giving information, at end of the day it is very important to INSPIRE not only just teach or inform. Love the people you’re talking to and communicate something inspiring that will get them excited, a good person does not only touch the mind but also touch the heart, most important “ touch the imagination “ And also try to affect the Individual the person, they may also willing to change their WILL, try to motivate people will, if the people listen to us they feel we value them as people, interested in their life, I’m going to listen to them and value them,  fill their imagination, touch their hearts. Facts very important but on their own are very boring, tell a story, when the days of David …imagine what it was like. Being down there in beit sahour, he was young boy age 9..and he saw a lion, and he throws a stone at it and killed the lion…five years later he throws a stone and he killed goliath While in beit sahour think of david as young boy, he had lots of older brothers, and he Samuel he wanted to pour the oil on the head of a man that would be the next king,..went to 2nd one, no, and he went to all of them, and he told Jessi bring him here…he was with the sheep … As Dr. Peter Said " I was here last week guiding in Bethlehem with ughandan man, in his forties, and he always felt that he is the one out, and he still looks like lost boy, suddenly I came out and the picture of jessi and little David on the right, immediately I told him…your not the least important person of your family, your important and I said a prayer to encourage him…." "It was very special moment for him …he will go from Bethlehem and will remember, my older brothers are more important to me….i made a story and I made link and or connection when they visited Bethlehem, and this is the kind of thing will be you telling stories …or story about what is like to be in Bethlehem in Muslim festival or Christmas festival …" Indeed They will love our Family Traditions, they will be amazed how we celebrate all uncles and aunts, he spends all his money to keep his wife happy, 200,000 Shakels just to Get Married, and have to invite more than five hundred people..our family traditions ..our culture Tell people stories, tell them stories about your culture and life here, but of course, many people come here and all that they want to hear about Jesus…if all your explanations about Bethlehem don’t tell them about Jesus it won’t be good enough, some of the visitors will know the bible stories, so what we try to find something, a point of connection and then build on that So when you guiding in any place, it is very useful to have bible with you, the best you can do any place is to read the biblical passages, and some might remember or some might hear it from you, it is language they understand, you will read it out, and everybody can just sit and hear the story And they were their shepherds out at night and suddenly there were angels coming to them, and when they heard that, you can say few things are you with me, when we are guiding speak very quickly, if English is not your first language ..Go slow, And they will take them a day or two to pick up your English, it is fine but that is not what they are used to, when you go slow they think carefully, and sometimes fewer words are better, Better to say one true sentence, it is the place where Christians remember where Jesus has been born, just say it slowly and they will focus and be important for them, And remember silence after a sentence helps people to process what they heard, you will find the best part of the lecture is ten minutes after it is finished, because your brain takes time to hear and process what you heard, So always give space to your speakers to ask questions or repeat, because it gives them a chance to think what you say, If there is old lady and can’t get off the bus, go help her, and sometimes there will be real challenge’s, and please tell them to bring others and buy our olive wood, challenge your visitors ..open there imagination’s to whole new world Tell the story and how much Rachel loved Jacob, he loved Rachel, and when later joseph brothers take him down to Egypt, joseph demand they bring Benjamin back as security, and Jacob don’t want to give the last one..Imagine what is it like, they know what is it like to lose someone special or lose a wife, David and then Solomon and then comes rehobom fortified by him, Bethlehem is important place and it need fortification, and it is where kingdom is built up. You can’t talk about Bethlehem or guide Bethlehem without talking about Ruth, the story is amazing, this is just sound like a true story, from Bethlehem around 1100 BC , people in there fields harvesting and then ruth picking up the extra wheat, it feel like it is just normal story in Bethlehem, but a true story, it will be told as it is, He took the sandal off as like contact, to pass tradition of the rights, the kinsman redeemer, take off your sandals, I remember seeing him to take the sandals, it was very smelly and bad sandal, did he ever do that, yes he did , we saw that sandal, we remember the smell of that sandal that day  , do you remember it? Ruth and boaz is beautiful story and I think of it as whole new level , Jesus birth and love story and story of young little David in the fields, and I turned from sorrow to joy , Mary and joseph also arrive in Bethlehem and not married but she have a baby, but I bring you tidings of great joy and david struggling he is not very important but he is a king, or you can tell about a place very small it will be most important small , Bethlehem , out of you Bethlehem will come out ruler who will be the ruler of Israel, you little Bethlehem anything good can come out of Bethlehem, you can tell a story about god, I will take it small and make it great, Tell a story about David small littlie boy who will be great, a boy who is born and left in a manger, but will become king of the world, all in Bethlehem , you can tell a story how god love the weak and shame the strong, People will connect with this , you encourage them that lord is with them, develop a bit of spiritual point, god loves the weak and protect weak, as jesus said those For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Mathew 23:12 Herod the great dies in march 4 B.C , and we know jesus born before 4 B.C , massacre of the inoccents, we know herod , kill your wife and build her a tower, he was very paranoid , he gave order that when he die, other local jewish leaders should be put to Death, so when he dies, people would cry, because he felt that people wouldn’t cry otherwise, actually he dies in Jericho. So we have the magi’s came from the east, where he have been king of the jews, tell me where he have been born…tell me come on tell me so I can go and worship him also?? 150 AD gospel of James , it is mentioned as it is true, you have to tell story how jesus was born in a cave, it is issue that we need to discuss, it is a Palestinian jewish hope where there is cave in the back, where there is a place where no room in the guests room, Queen Helena, used to serve drinks in a bar in northern London, learn the facts but also tell a story, let people imagine, if you had group from Britain queen Helena was one of you my friends , Jerome he actually said your near in God in Britannia than in Bethlehem, he was trying to make the point to be as Christian pilgrim, you came in a great pilgrimage and it was a great Idea… or we can Imagine that He is having too many piligrims visiting his cave and he want to have some peace while translating the Bible. Persians lovely head gear as the magies they like the Persians , it is our church we won’t destroy it, Persian invasion was most savage time of the land. Muslim arrival was peaceful arrival, the Persian was bloody one, 614 AD , the church survives in the Muslim times, the church of the holy scepluchure didn’t, tell story, and whenever you talk about some events from the past , use your imagination, so link to stories. We live in vibrant community here..actually people in beit sahour are very different than people in Bethlehem, we had big problems in Bethlehem, imagine having big wall between you and your garden or between you and your neighbor. Don't start your Bethlehem Trip with politics or even do any one sided politics just stay neutral and tell people facts , show them how Great our culture , history and hospitality, Vibrant community, we got some great stories from the past, eatin out of your hats, what is it like to live here, it is great but we have some problems, my wife can’t go to Jerusalem, she doesn’t have id, but don’t do politics first, they didn’t come here for politics. Jerusalem was a Temple, it was the main thing and big thing, Jerusalem was why it was popular, the City of David, it seems to be strongly the case, where David founded the City of Jerusalem, 1003 BC , Bethlehem is Town of David, Jerusalem is the City of David, City of King David, he took over the jebusites City of Jerusalem, at the moment we can see that the city of David is very thing city and very narrow, 50 yards wide , it had valley system on three sides, kidron valley and the cheese makers valley, and gehinnom valley, the Dung Gate, the sewerage of Jerusalem out of the valley, until lately . The time of Jesus they didn’t have underground sewerage Jerusalem , the wind come of the west, to the east to the mount of olives, no body live there, they live in the upper city, poor people lived down there but no one live there, tell a story about smell , people love it, Then you take them to shop and sell them perfumes, The city of David here is because of the water , the gehon spring and access to water, so Jerusalem is safe to three sides but always vulnerable to attack from the north,And eventually it expanded in this direction on the upper hill, and they built wall at the top also, So it was the problem with the north wall, they were trying to figure out where the north wall , all the archeologist, church of the holy sepluchre , somebody might say it was inside the city wall, the first century tombs you can still see ten yards away from the traditional time of jesus, Catacomb (Coceen ) – archeological evidence the church of the resurrection was outside , much jesus was did was in the upper city, the last supper in the upper city, The upper hill , was much much higher than the city of David down there, near the Zion gate you will look down, it is long way down, imagine people walking up from the lowest city of david to the upper city, the wealthy nation the high priest, and when pontius pilate, he also stayed in the upper city, the palace of herod the Great, Suggestion that Jesus had his last supper here, and he goes down through the Golden gate and make his way to getsemane, and he is brought back to the temple to kaifa’s house and then to pointious pilate and they are all close to each other, why we say pointious stay at that house, she is called caludia poklia, she doesn’t like going to Jerusalem and she have to go there, they are celebrating, libration moses, Passover time, everybody says it is going to be the moment, Claudia ..... ponty ponty do we have to go to the Passover, I like to stay at herod place, I don’t want to stay at army barracks, where Antonia palace, where all these men got there machine guns, I want to stay at the palace of herod the great, we got lots of soldiers there not 300 but we got enough and we have swimming pools, it was called herod high regency it was lovely hotel 5 star and extra food for you, and we can get there into side gate, we sneak in through outside gate and we will be in the palace without anybody knowing , that is how you solve the problem where ponty stay, that time things weren’t so good between romans and herod..they are fighting for power, so it could be he wanted to make sure he have is authority and stay at the Antonia ..he wanted to prove a point …he wanted to put his authority so most likely both Antonia and the Herod Palace Herod son archalaius was bad, he wanted to rule Judea directly …all the armies are romans, Golgotha, is aramic, which means calvary, it could be a place of execution or it could be that rock had the shape of a skull, it could have had couple of eye sockets in it, this look like skull and the name stuck as skull, The Palace of King Herod the Great, the Idea of littlie hill made out of rock and the caves which got tombs in them, and the rectangle mark the site of the present church of the holy scepluchure  , the Quarry and here there is bit of rock, and all this area is quarry, and Golgotha is the name for the whole area not just the rock, so it could be 50 yards * 50 yards, and somebody says where can we remember jesus place so they said here, so that become the place, but it could have happened twenty yards that way and twenty yards that way, but a tomb is a narrow thing but the place of crucifxtion could be any place, If you like to join one of my tours that i guide in Bethlehem and Travel to Bethlehem Click Here - Bethlehem Toursim Story: there is bishop maccaruis he go often to famous counsel , near Constantinople near there nicenea july AD year 25, and they are lovely drink of orange juice when they go nervously to the emperor, your majesty we have a very important project in the land of Jerusalem, one of your latest monto eza , emperor hadran , pagan shrine over the tomb jesus, give us some shakels, dollars we need to do excavation to find the tomb of jesus, the emperor say I give you the money the shakels it make me very important. And they make the digging and they discover a tomb, they rejoice, the tradition is true and they are pleased to find it, but when they are there, when jesus died on a cross, where is the wood, and someone find some wood around and start saying this is the wood of the cross, and eusebius, he think it is stupid there is no way the wood would have survived 300 years, we know the site used by pagans all kind of stuff, But some of the Christians get excited he found the cross, he try it play it down, but he say the tomb is the correct site and he is very convinced , and the emperor start selling it to people…take it back to Italy take it back to Rome..or just give it, and somehow you see the wood of the cross is to promote Jerusalem , queen Helena, does come to the holy land does indeed visit Bethlehem but no one at the time link queen Helena with the wood of the cross, that idea only took 70 years later , it was a story of queen Helena finding a cross and a jewish person  and try to identiy , and then it touches the person and he come back from the dead and I belive it is a legend and it is not true, but some people belive it is true and they tell you it is magical healing miracle , when somebody else come along they say it is stupid, and then the whole church look stupid, so we have to separate fact from fantasy, so the tomb is very likely to be authentic, and the cross is zero just legend. Spoke about mount zion, where the early church first met to worship , lastsupper, meeting with the risen Christ at the upper room, and the story of pentacles, also shows the gate of zion and the steep hill where Jerusalemites used to throw rubbish, sacrifices and also prior to that maybe performing child sacrifices. Thousand years later we can see it in jesus day, could try to keep the enemy out , it could be much bigger at the time of jesus, just few years after the time of crucifixtion, there it is added, bring Golgotha inside the city, but the big date, is 139 AD , they renamed the city, they called ELIA capatolina, named after Hadrian and the gods of capital hill, and secondly the buildings are destroyed and they put an army camp out there, which is put north south, and you can see it is further north than the city of jesus day, it is no longer in the city it moved, we need to make sure jews won’t know, and they not allowed to see Jerusalem and Bethlehem as well because it is very close to Jerusalem, city expanded .

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[junker-town]

The 10 dumbest mistakes from a humiliating NFL Week 8, ranked

Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

So many teams were their own worst enemy this week, but at least the refs saved the Titans from themselves.

There weren’t many surprises Sunday in the NFL. The best teams (Patriots, 49ers, Saints, Packers) kept winning. The worst teams (Bengals, Jets, Falcons) kept losing. With Washington dropping its Thursday night game and the Dolphins probably doing the same on Monday night, Week 8 stands to be our chalkiest one yet this season.

Despite the lack of drama on the scoreboard, there was plenty of it on the field — mostly of the humiliating variety. It started when the Jaguars and their fans spent most of the day mercilessly teasing Sam Darnold, the Job (biblical version) of the NFL.

It continued on, with the Titans and Bucs trading self-inflicting turnovers, the Chargers and Bears trying to gift-wrap a win for the other team, and the risk-averse Broncos getting called out by the expert in all things boring, Joe Flacco.

However, the biggest “STOP HITTING YOURSELF” lowlight of the day came from the most predictable source. The Browns dug themselves into an early hole against the Patriots with a three-turnover sequence, each increasingly more embarrassing than the one before.

And somehow, the mistakes this week didn’t end there.

10. The Falcons had little interest in trying to beat the Seahawks

You’d think in the middle of a 1-7 season, Falcons head coach Dan Quinn would be coaching for his job. But Quinn was oddly conservative down 3-0 early against the Seattle Seahawks. Facing a fourth-and-1, Quinn opted to try for a 51-yard field goal. The Falcons missed it, and Seattle countered with a touchdown drive to go up 10-0.

What’s worse might be how unprepared the Falcons’ defense was on the touchdown:

.@dkm14 was RIGHT THERE. Q2: SEA 10, ATL 0 pic.twitter.com/vs4b6DmFg2

— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) October 27, 2019

On the other hand, Quinn might be doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing — tanking so the Falcons can draft Ohio State DE Chase Young:

did y’all see chase young yesterday? dan quinn is doing a fine job

— Harry Lyles Jr. (@harrylylesjr) October 27, 2019

9. Melvin Gordon blocked the wrong guy, then had to make a touchdown-saving tackle

Gordon’s spent the past four weeks shaking off the rust accumulated in a contract holdout. It’s safe to say there’s still a little bit of corrosion left to work through. When quarterback Philip Rivers pointed out an oncoming Bears blitz deep in his own territory, Gordon stepped up to handle the onslaught — and picked up the wrong guy.

Rivers makes a pre-snap adjustment to counter the Bears' oncoming blitz. Melvin Gordon picks up a player who's already being blocked instead of the free man, and Rivers throws off his back foot for an easy pick at least Gordon got the touchdown saving tackle? pic.twitter.com/4J9gsoNnuL

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 27, 2019

Seconds later, Chicago was rumbling toward the end zone after an interception.

At least Gordon’s make-up effort on the tackle was worthwhile. The Bears settled for a field goal four plays later, and the Chargers ended up with a one-point win.

8. Bruce Irvin gave the 49ers the underrated fuel they’ll use for months

It can get hard to keep playing the disrespected card when wins are piling up. The Patriots somehow managed to act like they were the Cinderella story of 2018 on their way to a sixth Super Bowl win in the 21st century. But that took a special amount of delusion to pull off.

The 49ers are 7-0 and just one of those wins was within a touchdown. A 51-13 destruction of the Panthers in Week 8 was their most impressive performance to date. At some point, it’ll be trickier for San Francisco to find bulletin board material if it keeps laying opponents to waste.

That is, unless there are more guys like Bruce Irvin on the docket. The Panthers linebacker refused to give the 49ers much credit immediately after he was handed a 38-point loss.

I asked Panthers end Bruce Irvin just how good this 49ers team is. “They’re OK. They’re OK. They’re not world-beaters,” he said. My guess is SF will use this as another log on the motivational fire.

— Jim Trotter (@JimTrotter_NFL) October 27, 2019

There’s a solid chance both the Panthers and 49ers will make the playoffs. If we get a January rematch, you better believe there will be plenty of talk about Irvin’s Week 8 comments. Even if there isn’t, the 49ers will probably cling to his “not world-beaters” description for the rest of the year.

7. The Broncos burned a timeout because the battery in Joe Flacco’s headset died

It was a bit confusing when Joe Flacco walked off the field as the play clock wound down late in the third quarter against the Colts. Instead of directing traffic for a first-and-20 play, he opted to burn a timeout after a fruitless huddle. It was a decision that didn’t make much sense on the surface, until the CBS broadcast team got the inside scoop. Flacco couldn’t hear any of the plays coming in from the sideline because the transmitter inside his helmet had died.

Flacco’s midgame maintenance meant the Broncos were forced to use a valuable timeout late in a tight game during a drive with limited prospects. And it wasn’t as though the veteran QB missed much once he finally got his headset fixed — the play he missed turned out to be a fairly predictable 6-yard screen to tailback Phillip Lindsay.

The Colts took a 15-13 lead late, giving the Broncos the ball back with 22 seconds — and no timeouts.

Speaking of Flacco ...

6. The Colts indulged Joe Flacco’s Lamar Jackson cosplay

Flacco has played in the NFL for roughly 12 years. He entered Week 8 with 822 career rushing yards — or 4.8 per game. He is not a mobile quarterback.

So when he does this to you, it’s time to reexamine your defensive philosophy.

i take back any nice thing i've ever said about the Colts defense pic.twitter.com/swMx1bxbIM

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 27, 2019

That scramble helped set up a 29-yard field goal and bumped up Flacco’s career average to 4.9 rushing yards per game.

5. Three Bengals defenders could’ve had an easy pick and whiffed

Cincinnati dropped to 0-8 on Sunday, losing 24-10 to the Los Angeles Rams in London. Late in the fourth quarter, the Cincy defense nearly picked off a Jared Goff pass attempt to Cooper Kupp. But in classic Bengals fashion, even three defenders couldn’t make the play. No seriously, this ball bounced off three different guys’ hands before falling incomplete:

The Bengals, summed up. pic.twitter.com/T7PxpasyeY

— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) October 27, 2019

Not sure what else there is to say about this other than, Go Bengals?

4. The Browns’ own offensive lineman forced a fumble with his foot

Yes, it appears as if the Browns are officially back to the same team we constantly make fun of. During their 27-13 loss to the Patriots, Cleveland literally forced its own fumble. In the first quarter down 3-0, Browns guard Joel Bitonio inadvertently kicked the ball out off Nick Chubb’s hands, and Dont’a Hightower recovered it and took it to the house for a touchdown:

Only the Cleveland Browns.... One the most reliable ball security RBs getting stripped by his own pulling guard's foot. Bitonio's foot literally slides down the ball & pulls Chubb's hand off the ball for a split second...all you need in driving rain. TD return, bc, of course. pic.twitter.com/UbMO8fGkLK

— Jake Burns (@jake_burns18) October 28, 2019

If it makes you feel better, Browns, at least the Patriots do this sort of thing to every team they face.

3. Breshad Perriman made one helluva tackle (on his own running back)

A draw up the middle out of shotgun on third-and-goal from the 4-yard line doesn’t leave much room for error. Especially if the play’s most dangerous tackler is already a couple yards behind the line of scrimmage and streaking toward the tailback:

If you own Breshad Perriman at WR in an IDP league, do you get a point for a tackle on this play? pic.twitter.com/Dt0ZApbT3U

— DK Nation (@DKNatn) October 27, 2019

That’s Breshad Perriman, signed away from the Browns to bolster the Buccaneers’ wideout position in 2019, coming down the line in motion with the horrific timing needed to completely derail a vital play before it could even begin. Dare Ogbunwale lost two yards after getting smoked by his own teammate.

Tampa was forced to settle for a 24-yard field goal seconds later, in a game it lost by four.

2. The Bears went into victory formation, then lost

The Bears know a thing or two about missed field goals. They were embroiled in one of the weirdest kicker battles this past offseason after Cody Parkey missed a field goal that ended the Bears’ season in the playoffs. They eventually settled for Eddy Pinero, who so far has been pretty dang effective this season.

Perhaps too effective. From the Chargers’ 21-yard line with 43 seconds left on the clock and a timeout in their pocket, the Bears elected to take a knee. There was plenty of time to run a couple of plays, even just simple runs to try and make it a bit of an easier kick.

Nope. Matt Nagy, showing what appears to be a significant lack of faith in his own offense, called the “victory formation” kneeldown. You can guess what happened next: Pinero’s field goal was no good, sailing wide left:

oh no, Bears pic.twitter.com/1EDNWxSxOV

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 27, 2019

The Bears lost to the Chargers, as a result.

1. The referees cost the Bucs game-winning TD on a bad fake field goal by the Titans

Not only do we have a dumb mistake by a football team, we’ve got one for the referees, too. Leading by four points with less than four minutes remaining, the Titans were in field goal range, enough to put them up by a touchdown. Instead, they ran a fake field goal that went extremely poorly.

And the Titans kicker or holder got destroyed on the rush attempt! pic.twitter.com/z8B9K0tZvZ

— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) October 27, 2019

They picked up no yards on the play and fumbled. It was recovered by the Buccaneers, who took it all the way back for a touchdown that would have given them the lead.

But the the referees blew an early whistle, which ultimately prevented the Buccaneers from advancing the football. Early whistles are among the most frustrating things in the NFL (and keep happening to NFC South teams).

Although the Buccaneers had another couple opportunities to win the game, it still feels like the referees cost them a win on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Titans are lucky that they were saved from their own terrible decisions — for the second week in a row.

[eromai-blog1]

List of angelic choirs and hierarchy for writing and roleplaying, brought to you by Bella

Real talk and probably unpopular opinion: TV shows about angels and demons are entertaining, maybe (I wouldn't know,) but don’t really seem to adhere to the classic lore. This is a brief overview of the angel hierarchy with short descriptions. I might do a follow-up post that goes more in depth, but for now, have the basics. Even though there are some discrepancies among scholars and archivists, these are mostly agreed upon. (Note: Obviously you do not have to adhere to these with your characters, but guidelines/inspiration never hurts!)

The Spheres

There are three ranks, called spheres. Each sphere contains three choirs. Starting from the bottom:

Third sphere: Angels. These are the closest to humans and often are depicted as humanoid, sometimes even just humans with wings. They act as liaisons between the divine and the mundane. 'Guardian angels' sometimes fall under this umbrella, as do the angels that psychics and mediums call upon. Angels are the bottom ranks of the hierarchy.

Third sphere: Archangels. These are the messengers. Most famously, Gabriel delivered the message of Jesus' coming and conception to the Virgin Mother. They also act as commanders of legions and are in constant battle with demons. (Will cover the archangels more thoroughly in another post bc I love them.)

Third sphere: Principalities. These act as 'guardian angels,' but over entire cities and kings. They can be divided into two sections: administrators and assistants. Admins (as I will call them) guide the rulers and countries more firmly, while assistants are more of a supporting role to their charges. They usually have a crown and scepter and sometimes inspire art or science ideas. They are the highest ranked of the third sphere.

Second sphere: Powers. They are the nemesis of fallen angels and prevent them from overtaking the world. They also manage the movement of the planets and stars to make sure all that stuff stays in working order so God doesn't have to fuss with it. They are often shown in armor and with various forms of weaponry, like soldiers. They are also considered record keepers of human (and pre-human) history, and were designed specifically to be loyal only to God. A common speculation is that no Power has ever be cast out or fallen, due to this design of theirs (although some say Satan was a Power, so whatever, you do you.) They are the lowest ranked of the second sphere, but outrank the entire third sphere.

Second sphere: Virtues. These deliver blessing directly from god unto the earth and its inhabitants. These are often called 'miracles.' They bring courage and can help with acts of selfless heroism. They don't have a ton of lore about them, probably because you can only grant so many miracles before it becomes boring as shit. Some say they govern the elements of nature too (hippies, maybe) but that's more interesting than miracles to me, at least.

Second sphere: Dominions. They regulate all angels below them, from virtues to lower-rung angels. Basically the departmental managers. God (or Seraphim, as per God) gives them orders and they tel the lower ranks to which the orders apply. They very rarely bother to mingle with humans, since that's grunt work. Also probably my favorite design out of all the angels, since they look like tall hot humans with huge wings and glowing halos on their heads or sword hilts. After this, we get into the more Eldritch designs with the angels. Dominions are the highest ranked of the third and second spheres.

First sphere: Thrones. Literally just a wheel of eyes and fire. Some Christian theologians chickened out with this one a little and said they are actually elderly men listening adoringly to God's message, but I prefer the whole 'spinning wheels of flaming eyes' interpretation. They carry out God's big decisions directly. They are the lowest ranked of the first sphere, but still outrank even the dominions.

First sphere: Cherubim. They pull fiery chariots and carry God's throne. They have four wings covered in eyes and four faces (a man, a lion, an eagle, and an ox.) Literally terrifying to see. They were also assigned to guard the gates of Eden once Adam and Eve fucked up and got barred from it. NOT to be confused with the fat baby angels in art. Those are called putti.

First sphere: Seraphim. Highest ranked of all the angels and the closest to God. Basically God's hype men. Always singing songs about him and radiating pure light and shit. They balance and regulate all of the heavens.  Some say they are made of light, some say they have six wings and cover their faces and feet with two pairs while using the last to fly.

Of the nine choirs, no one can seem to decide from where Satan fell. Some say he was a Seraph (along with Beelzebub,) some say he was a Cherub, maybe a Power, whatever. Azazel was also considered a cherub by some, but an archangel (lowercase A) by others. A lot of the specific angels are open to interpretation. Again, these are a loose guideline: if you feel you have a different source of information or you disagree with it, that’s totally fine! You do you.