#its astonishing how much more i know about greek history

[whatifwekilledgodandwebothgirls]

fun and not so fun facts about greek mythology , and ancient greece , since im curently a bit obsessed, and percy jackson shit is getting popular

ALL major greek historical figures where EXTREMELY atractive. If you werent attractive your opinion didnnt matter , and you didnt have a chance of being taken seriously , or voted into power . All gods where pictured as extremley atractive as well

All rich and important men where lean and muscular . People werent fat . Male god especially, where always thought of as very physically fit . So practiaclly speacing , no god was fat , as much as youd like to hedcannon them as such , the greeks would disagree

Male Gods rearly ,if ever wore clothes . In statues they are always depicted as nude , unless they are wearing some sort of armor ( in ares case ) . Female gods and nymths are depicted as nude too , but the virgins ( athena artemis hestia , basically any other not that sex oriented diety ) always wore robes

Homosexuality was very very common between men , a bit more rare between women , but not uncommon . In Sparta, boys slept together from very early ages to build companionship and unity in the armies , and in athens the men valued women little enough to compleatly ignore them in their search for love . Platos great speach about two halves and soulmates was a short of best man speach at the union and celebration of two of his very close friends , so basically a toast to love in a gay wedding

Greek people were racist . I dont know how else to put it . They despised all other people, anyone that wasnt greek basically . They still had very good trading relationships with the folk around them , but they thought of themselves as a supirior race . Theres an ancient greek phrase that translates too every one not greek is a barbarian , but i forgot how it goes , so im not including it

They also deply hated immigrants , and im not talking coming from a difrent county to theirs , but moving from a difrent city to theirs . People that resided in cities but wherent born in them , or their amchestors werent born in them where called " μετικοι " and they basically had no rights

Greeks made democracy because they had so many fucking slaves. They could just sit around all day and not work and spend all their time worrying about issues of the city and the people and their rights . If they had jobs they wouldnt be able to do it . Some dude said that to be a good civilian you need to have no other worries of work on your mind , and thats the only way democracy can thrive , but i forget his name . But yeah democracy happened because of slaves

In that note , none of the cool monuments or statues could have been built if the athenians specifically hadnt become " dictators " and stolen all the other greeks money . All the cool shit in athens was built using stolen money

For a while , you could just kill people for fun and no one would care . After a while there was like a justice system put in order so it became slightly less easy to kill people for whatever . You could still do it without much difficulty though , and it wasn't really seen as that big of a deal

The theater was free for all citizens of a city , paid for by the goverment and considered a means of education

I could go on and on forever ive got so many more of these

[avelera]

Let's Play: What's Wrong with this Sculpture?

Following in the theme of sharing astonishing moments of ancient sculpture pedantry here on Tumblr, based on my brief undergraduate stint as a T.A of ancient art history, I thought I'd share one of my other proudest moments of being an absolutely insufferable know-it-all about ancient sculptures.

In the process, I hope I can also share some of the sort of largely useless (from a practical perspective) information that Tumblr tends to glory in, so buckle up buttercups.

This question was posed to me on a walking tour of the Capitoline Museum in my ancient art history class while I was living abroad. Our professor, a delightfully curmudgeonly Belgian, stopped in front and asked us to figure out why this sculpture is just plain wrong.

I intend to walk you through the process of how I got the right answer and, after gaining my teacher's rare approval, glowed with enough serotonin to power a small nuclear reactor.

So, let's return to the original question: what is wrong with this sculpture?

Because if you are truly eagle-eyed you should be able to spot what very famous sculpture this actually is, before an overly imaginative Frenchman brought it back wrong.

Hint #1: It was incorrectly restored.

Look closely at the the difference of the patina, or color of the stone. It's a bit hard to tell in this photo, but the head was added later. It's a paler white than the core of the torso, which is what we have of the original sculpture.

Hint #2: It was incorrectly restored in the 18th century by a Frenchman (Pierre-Étienne Monnot) who made some, shall we say, creative interpretations of what's going on here.

You can tell it's by an 18th c. Frenchman because the facial features are so delicate. Ancient statues tend to have less narrow and delicate chins and noses. In general, that is a dead giveaway when something is 18th century French vs. Ancient Greek or Roman.

Here's a good example. The first sculpture is 18th c. French, the second is the famous Venus de Milo. Note her blockier chin and less delicate features. So in the future, you can tell these sort of later additions to Greek or Roman sculptures if they added a new head because 17-19th century sculptors in Europe had tools (like finer drill tips) and tastes (beauty standards that favored more delicate men and women) that led to a pronounced difference in the faces.

Hint #3: Check out the anatomy of his lower shoulder. That's another addition, that arm should not be coming straight out of a torso where the muscle, if you look closely, is turned inward.

Seriously, that looks painful.

Hint #4: The sword he's holding up is just total nonsense for the Roman era. I mean, the restoration makes no secret of the fact that this sword is a later addition, but it's also just an absolute nonsense sword with its silly little curved cross guard. This Frenchman literally just made it up.

Here's an ancient sculpture with a sword in it that actually looks right:

From the Ludovisi Gaul, a famous Hellenistic Baroque work of Greek sculpture. Note the much blockier sword though I will admit, it could be a later addition, I don't know for 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure it's the original. Regardless, it fits the sculpture much better and let me add that sword I'm criticizing is completely made up for the sculpture we're talking about and is not there in the original sculpture that was incorrectly restored.

Ok, so those are all the hints.

Look closely at the body of the first sculpture. Cut away the arms that are not connected to the body correctly, the sword that shouldn't be there, the face that was far too delicate. When you separate those later additions out, can you tell me what sculpture that actually is?

Because here is the reveal!

The Discus Thrower, aka, the Discobolus by Myron.

The French restorationist got carried away by his own imagination, saw a twisted torso and thought it could only possibly be a warrior in the midst of twisting around to fend off a blow, not an athlete in the midst of a demonstration of skill. It's a martial, fanciful read that completely misinterpreted the subject.

This is why most restoration today employs a much lighter touch, rather than trying to reattach pieces incorrectly, they tend to just outline where the missing pieces are with a light sketch of an educated guess of what might have actually been there. Faulty restorations like the Capitoline Discobolus is one reason for this modern stylistic principle when it comes to restoration work.

When my professor asked us to identify the correct original sculpture that day on the museum tour, it was the sword that pinged me as wrong first, but zeroing in on the core of the sculpture, the torso, is what revealed the true statue underneath.

This notoriously difficult to please professor was very proud when I blurted out, "It's the Discus Thrower!" and the high-octane serotonin I got from his approval probably could have propelled me into the sun that day, and brought to you Yet Another Moment of Ancient Sculpture Pedantry.

[namorthesubmariner]

Hiii! 😘

Something I've been noticing in my reading, going back and forth between eras, is the long transition Namor and his lore made from being initially pulpy science fiction to being a mythological inspired fantasy character.

What do you think about this transition, is it for the better? Has it affected him a lot?

Hello! ❤️

I think the transition is so interesting, (and putting aside by obvious affection for Silver Age Sub-Mariner) I think it was very much needed and helped Namor in the long run.

The Golden Age comics were frankly an insane acid trip of a mess, because I feel like the genre of superheroes comics was so new so I think there was a lot of experimenting but also creators leaned on what they knew, they knew pulp fiction, horror, sci-fi, romance etc. Which is why Namor went from "Avenging Prince of the Seas here to war with the Surface World" to "Namor, Betty, and Namora solve the mystery of the missing beauty queens". When you think about it many Golden Age characters started off that way, with Batman he was a masked detective, which is very pulp fiction. That's not to say a superhero character can't have mysteries or romance in their stories but when I think of Superhero Characters I think of the Silver Age, I think of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, etc. because I really feel that the Fantastic Four revived the whole Superhero Comic genre.

I wholeheartedly believe that Namor's ability to adapt to the changing trends of comics, and his character's place as being the outsider whom readers can sympathize with, were the reason why he was able to seamlessly transition from the Golden Age to the Silver Age while many other characters did not. Lee's choice to bring him back and Kirby's revamp of Namor and the Atlanteans were so crucial to his character because without injections of new ideas, new life, being breathed into the characters then I feel characters end up stagnating. Like Lee/Kirby didn't need to bring Namor over as he was, they could have just created a new character to replace him, like Jim > Johnny Human Torch.

It's not like Namor didn't have mythological/fantasy roots, it's just that Everett purposefully decided not to lean into that side, because he did not want/create Namor to be from Atlantis to begin with, so he was a different original fantasy character with some greek myth inspiration (ankle wings > hermes). Of course later creators added the whole Atlantis backstory which Kirby expanded on greatly since it was really only mentioned once in the Golden Age. IIrc there was interviews where Everett even talked about how he didn't like the way Namor was running around fighting petty crooks because it was beneath a noble character like that, but then again it also took Everett time to warm up to the Atlantis backstory. I don't have the sources for this but it was talked about by an older Namor fan who knows a lot about the character and history.

It's just really fascinating how Namor is able to be so much at once. You can do so many stories/genres with his character because he is so versatile, Horror (The Depths), Political Intrigue (Sub-Mariner 2007), Undersea Fantasy (Tales to Astonish/The Sub-Mariner 1968).

I would definitely say it affected him very much, so much in fact that I don't really recommend Golden Age Sub-Mariner to new fans because it's not just Namor's backstory but his character is more serious in the Silver Age and people might not be able to enjoy how wild of a character Golden Age Namor is. This isn't the only time Namor's characterization shifted over time, like Modern Comics Sub-Mariner is different than Silver Age Sub-Mariner.

However I'm not a big fan of Kirby's Namor, not the art style for him or much of the stories (it's not that its bad but its more that I don't think of Kirby when I think of Silver Age Sub-Mariner) but I do think Kirby's work with Namor was perhaps the best thing to happen to the character and really helped the character.

Fantastic Four (1961) Annual 1

[calliopesstories]

A New Addition To His Collection - Chapter One

Relationships: Loki x Sigyn, Loki x Reader, Platonic!Sigyn x Platonic!Reader, Loki x Lorelei

Warnings: 18+, smut (I’ll try the best I can), historical inaccuracy, misogyny and belief of 18th century, mention of death and sex, arranged marriage, abusive relationship and father, mistreatment, humiliation, Loki being kind of an A-Hole for a good part of the story /!\ Not proof read and non-english speaker writter /!\

Summary: To have a father ambassador had been the best thing to ever happen to you. You always were lucky, whether it was for such things as the family you were born in or for more common thing like games, you had never lost a game in your life. But you knew your luck would run out one day, eventually, so you enjoyed it while it last. Luck was what brought you at the royal court and it was luck again that made you meet its most important figure. However you had serious doubt on the strength of your luck against the traps and deceptions of the court.

Author’s Note: None

You were so sick of travelling. A week or two was fine, but an entire month was enough! Especially in a carriage, not matter how comfortable it is. Yet you didn’t complain one bit to your parents, not a lot of people could travel like you do. You were lucky to be born within one of the wealthiest and most noble houses of Midgard, not everyone had your luck and you saw it from the palace of Valaskjalf to the one of Gardariki. Poverty was not a concept you were familiar with, maybe one day you will maybe you won’t but your mother had always told you to give just as much as you received so, whenever you had the chance, you went to orphanage or shelters to give them food, clothes and better living conditions.

 Leaving the golden palace of Asgard to roam the countryside was a nice change of view, although the Asgardian court was friendly, very casual and joyful, it was too artificial with its golden walls and geometrical gardens. You had no idea what the palace of Gardariki was like but your father had told you the palace was on top of a hill, surrounded by trees, very beautiful during winter.

 You head was resting on your mother’s shoulder when she woke you up. You felt sore after staying on the carriage for so long. You had arrived at Gardariki, the palace was visible from afar. Your father was right, it was breathtaking. All those trees made the castle as if it was growing from the earth just like the trees surrounding it. You had never saw something like it, not even on Jotunheim – though you had stayed a few days there, too dangerous for your father’s liking. The carriage entered within the walls of the castle main courtyard. You saw people outside looking at the carriage, surely the word must have spread that King Loki ambassador was coming back to court after years away. This had never been in your father’s plan; it was your mother that insisted on having you back home and your father had posed the condition of you going to court with him. Of course, it didn’t please your mother and she invited herself because seeing you once in a while had been too hard for her, there was no way she was letting you out of her sight once again!

 “Your Grace, my ladies. I’m Skurge, the king sent me to welcome you at the palace,” the man bowed in front of your family. “If you will.”

 “Actually,” said your mother. “My daughter and I have a very important meeting. Surely you must know about it.”

 “Yes, Your Grace. Lady Leah will escort you there.”

 The lady in question was a young girl, about twelve years-old with raven hair, light blue eyes and a snow-white skin. She looked like those paintings representing old Greek gods. Your father left with Skurge while Lady Leah asked you to follow her. Your mother had been very secretive to who was this person you absolutely had to meet. You feared it might be a suitor. Since you came back, she had this crazy idea to marry you. She thought your travels with your father would find you a man of high birth to marry and was more than disappointed when she learnt you had left each court, you’d be in without at least one proposal. Truth was, there had been many of those, you were the one to refuse them. You were not ready; you wanted to enjoy life and would only marry if the man would let you have your freedom. Contrary to what your mother thought, you had not in plan to end up an old maid, you wanted a family but not now.

 Lady Leah escorted you to the fourth floor of the palace. Before pushing the white and gold double door she warned you not to say a word before you are been addressed to. The room you first entered was astonishing, the furniture, the walls, the decorations were all made of gold features and delicate paintings. You could see the greatest moment of Midgard history on the ceiling or its reflection on the marble floor. You had never seen such luxury in one place. Not even the castle you had lived in was as beautiful.

 You walked in a much bigger room. In the centre of the room was a blond woman surrounded by two others, about your mother’s age, were discussing. Leah coughed to get the woman attention. As soon as she saw your mother a smile lighted her face. You realized you were in front of the queen. You kneeled in front of her.

 “Y/M/N! I’m so happy to see you,” the queen hugged your mother. She was nothing like you would expect a queen to be. “Is that your daughter? Oh, please stand up.”

 “Yes, Sigyn. This is Y/N, my only child and greatest pride and joy. Sweetheart, this is Queen Sigyn, her mother and I were really good friend. My condolences for her death.”

 You saw sadness crossed her eyes then vanished as soon as it came. The queen offered you a seat with her lady-in-waiting. You were surprised the older women were her lady-in-waiting and so was Leah, yours were of your age – and on their way to the palace.

 “Tell me, Y/N, your mother had told in a letter that you had travelled a lot, have you served as lady-in-waiting for another queen?” you shook your head. You had only enjoyed the life at court. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do fantastically with me.”

 “I’m sorry?” your mother proceeded to tell you she had managed to find you a place at court as the queen’s lady-in-waiting. “I have never done that before but I assure Your Majesty, I will do my best.”

 The queen cupped your hands in hers, she gave you a warm smile. She believed in your words and told you to be by her side tomorrow at 7 a.m. for her awakening. You were excited. You very first day at court and you were already meeting the queen. A beautiful woman with a kind heart you could tell. Yet the more she looked at you the more worried she become. You had no experience, it was a fact she knew but you had lady-in-waiting of your own, you knew exactly what they had to do for you and it was a great opportunity you had no intention of screwing up.

 An hour later your mother and yourself found your way to your quarter. A spacious place that consisted of two bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, chambers for the servants and a boudoir hidden behind your bedroom – you were sure another one existed behind your parent’s bedroom. Except for your bedroom and boudoir that were blue and gold, the rest of the rooms were green, the king’s favourite colour.

 Until your ladies arrived the queens had gifted you her very own ladies to prepare you for the day. Although you tried not to listen to their conversation you couldn’t unhear what you caught. Mainly the women spoke about how unhappy the queen was, it seemed to be a recurring theme of conversation as you heard it again the corridors leading to the queen’s apartments. The queen was already dressed when you arrive. Panic started to run through your vein, you had checked the hour twice before going and she shouldn’t have been up already. The queen reassured you right away. She had been up for an hour already and couldn’t stay in bed.

 “Should I come sooner Your Majesty?” you asked her, worried that it would happen again and after some times she would grow tired of you being late.

 “Oh no, my dear. Don’t worry. You see,” she lowered her voice and nearly whispered in your ears. “Sometimes I like being alone. Enjoying the quietness of my apartments without all the fuss of court. Walking from room to room in my nightgown. Truth is Y/N, I don’t have many acquaintances at court.”

 You were touched by the queen’s statement. She felt comfortable enough already to tell something so personal. After everything you had heard coming here, you could understand why the queen liked being left alone time to time. Her whole life since her marriage had been nothing but showing herself, faking smiles, pretending enjoying parties and producing an heir to the crown. From what you had heard she was unable to do all those things and no one had the sympathy to try to understand her pain. She was literally locking herself in her apartments waiting for sweet death to take her. And you barely knew the woman! If you were able to understand all those things surely people who knew her longer must have seen it.

 “Well,” you broke the silence. “I’m sure we will become very good friends.”

 There it was: her smile. Genuine and hopeful. Similar to yours but with a dash of desperation. Her grip on your arm became stronger, as if you were an illusion, she was desperately trying to make real. You put your hand and hers and patted gently. I’m here now, you tried to tell her. Being her lady-in-waiting was a chance for you but for the queen it was an opportunity at happiness. You just had no idea how much she needed you. Finally someone close to her age, someone to talk to, to share secrets and fears. Someone, she hoped, wouldn’t judge her.

 “I’d like to have a walk in the garden. Join me.”

 “I thought there was no garden here.”

 “Oh, there’s one. Not far from here, in the forest. There’s also a labyrinth and a cave that goes under the castle with an underground river we can sail on. But don’t worry the path to go there is secured by guards. Oh I can’t wait to show you everything the castle has to offer.”

 “And I can’t wait to see them.”

 You were like two little and impatient girls. You hadn’t even warned your parents you would go with the queen in the garden and the queen warned no one. Her lady-in-waiting didn’t even saw the two of you escaping the apartments. For Sigyn it was the most fun she had since she had been made queen. Your youth made her wanted to do thing the others ladies wouldn’t even consider. Not even Leah, who was young, but too young.

 Surprisingly you managed to get out of the castle without no one stopping you. The guards did bow at the queen presence but none said a thing. They must have assumed the queen was on a daily walk. The garden was worth all the walk. Wild and tamed at the same times. The trees offered a natural roof to the flowers beneath and although there was a well-maintained paved path it seemed like nothing was really taken care off. Sigyn showed you the entrance of the labyrinth. She had never tried to enter it and blamed her poor orientation skills and her fear of being stuck in the labyrinth. There was a labyrinth in the garden of the Asgardian palace but the bushes were – at their highest – right at your waist line, you had always been able to see where you were going. This was not the case here. The grassy walls were taller than your father – a man known to be tall – and even if there were decorated with flowers the walls were frightening you.

 The queen and you sat on the bench, enjoying the sound of nature and the view the garden offered you. You spoke a little to know each other best. The queen confessed to you she hadn’t spoke that much to someone since her last favourite. She spoke highly of the unknown woman until she mentioned some kind of betrayal she had done to the queen. The woman had been her closest friend, her confident but she had betrayed the queen like no other woman before. The tale was so heart-breaking that neither of you heard the hurried footsteps coming your way.

 “Sigyn!” thundered a displeased voice. The Queen turned her head to the man whom the voice belonged to and she wasn’t very pleased either. “May I know what you’re doing here? I thought I’d been clear when I told you I want to know where you are at any given time!”

 The queen was blocking your view of the man. Because you thought it was safer to take the blame you stood up in order to explain the situation. You saw your father first, which confused you because you never imagined your father chastising the queen, plus the voice wasn’t his. Then you saw the man beside him. A tall man, with long raven hair, mesmerizing green eyes matching his black and green outfit. That was the moment you realised you were in front of the king. You quickly kneeled, bowing your head and praying to any gods willing to hear to have his mercy. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! you thought. It was one thing to confront your father, it was another to confront the king.

 “Who’s that?” you hear him say. Your father promptly answered his question. You couldn’t see the king’s face but you were sure it didn’t change much. “So, you’re my wife new lady-in-waiting. I guess I can excuse your ignorance.”

 With his fingers he made you rose your head enough to face him. You felt like a prey under the gaze of a predator. He offered you a hand to help you get on your feet. You shot a quick look at both your father and the queen. Your heart stopped the race it was in the very second the queen smiled at you; you weren’t out of the woods yet but you had done nothing wrong that could anger the king even more.

  “You see Lady Y/N, my wife has the tendency to wander in the castle and to never be where I need her to be. As your lady-in-waiting you have to tell me where she is. I don’t want my queen to get attack, or worst. Do you understand?” The king didn’t let go of your hand and you were too scared to ask for its release, so you nodded. It was perfectly unfair to the queen but you had no choice. “It’s not against you Sigyn, you know that.”

 He hadn’t break eye contact with you but he had let go of your hand. The queen promptly took your arm and pushed you behind her, assuring the king she understood his motivations.

 “His Majesty can rest assure; I am more than grateful for his concerned about my safety. To avoid any misunderstanding I will, for now on, go on walks with Lady Y/N. I will leave you a note on my desk to inform you of where I intend to go.”

 “It’s all I ask for,” the king approached the queen to kiss her forehead. Your parents do that a lot and every times you could feel their love expressed through this simple gesture. But there was no love here. “Lady Y/N, I hope you will stay by my wife’s side for a long time. You managed to do in a day what no one had done in years.”

 “I will stay with her as long as I can Your Majesty.”

 Your father encouraged you to smile to the king but you couldn’t bring yourself to that. You were uncomfortable with his persistent look on you and by the way the queen was now behaving you had no problem imagining what it meant. Then the king and his flock of ministers left the garden. Unknowingly to both you and the queen, Loki gave you a last look, a grin on his face.

 He liked what you father had told him, he liked what he saw and he was sure he would like you. Rare was the new blood at his court. You were young, fresh and unmarried, exactly what he was craving for. You wouldn’t be the first – or the last – of his wife companions to fall into his arms. But something told him you put a good fight before letting yourself go in his sheets. The excitement of a new conquest made his blood boiled a little more than it already was. The view you had gave him was a gift itself. He had to bless the man – or woman – that had gifted the dresses with such cleavage and made the corset pushed the breasts upward.

 His wife had taken older women has companions to avoid any temptation for him but he was already tempted by you. And by the way his wife had been protective of you so quickly he knew she was fully aware of that and wouldn’t give up that easily this time. She had lost all the battles against him, yet you were a friend she intended to keep. Loki was right, in a day you had made her feel better than she had ever been since the treason of her last lady-in-waiting. She could trust you not to fall for his lies and fake promises. Sigyn would do anything to keep you away from her husband and she intended to do so the very the next. She had been taught how to be the most desirable for the king, she would teach you the exact opposite. She wouldn’t let you be new addition to his collection of women.

 “Y/N?” she finally said. “Do you pray often?”

 “As much as I can Your Majesty,” you weren’t a fanatic but you feared God’s judgment and avoid any sins. Your education wasn’t only about good manners and expansion of the mind, it was also religious. “Why do you ask?”

 “You can call me Sigyn when it’s only the two of us you know,” she took a minute to think and turned to you. “For nothing, just out of curiosity.”

 Because none of her companions had been very religious before. It was nasty of her to do that but if keeping you meant manipulating your faith, it was a risk she was willing to take. For your sake.

Taglist:

@learisa​

[mileyjassie]

ασφαλής "safe".

Art made by @jasperiine

Pairing: Kwon Soonyoung (Hoshi) x Female Reader

Genre: Fluff, Drama.

Word count: 3.4k

Synopsis: You're a artist who fell in love with a statue that came back to life, you're both deep in love, but, since his curiosity and lack of trust make you feel betrayed you leave him behind and now he's searching for you to give him another chance while having to learn how to live in the modern world.

Author's note: I wrote this thinking about the history of eros and psyche, I hope you enjoy reading it.

My lovely one, learn to love, my Psyche.

You saw him for the first time when the golden, warm light of the sunset rested on top of his white, smooth shape, made of marble, finished with genuine perfection.

Few saw how magnificent he was, very few looked into his empty eyes and his well-sculpted lips and saw the true beauty that arose from his presence.

"Bullshit" You were told, some without malice, just disinterested, clearly you did not understand such ignorance, but said nothing because you knew that only you had the gift of seeing life in his curves. In this way, thus, you also avoided the jealousy that you felt trembling and going out of your ears when false words of admiration left the mouths of those who only longed for their own artistic contemplation.

You came back for him, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by a friend or more, those seeing him for the first time as well as other masterpieces...or those who knew him well, these keeping company since they knew that your path to him was inevitable.

You particularly admired it when you were alone, not many around cared about the time you spent, seeing you sitting on the floor below his figure, doodling or painting in your sketchbook.

It was a habit, a hobby, a kind of meditation, which brought you calm.

"You love him." One of your friends smiled, dictating a fact, not a joke. They knew it, saw it in your eyes and thought it was amusing, the artistic love and appreciation you had. "You keeps drawing this statue, you always comes to see him. This is a little strange." Smiled once more, receiving shakes and confirmations from the rest.

"Maybe I'm in love" You lifted a shoulder, hiding your furtive gaze to show your back and look again at the marble sculpture that lay just ahead.

His fingers touched his stomach differently, his nails were medium and square, you had drawn them several times, from all angles.

"Why don't you ask him out?" The question slid past you, you laughed quietly with it, as if it tickled you. "Why don't you ask him to marry you?"

"I already asked." You turned around again, to see them and shrug. "But he never answered me. I think I will wait forever." Laughter was spreading across the area as you sat next to them with crossed legs. "I think I was rejected..."

"He's making a fool of you."

"You think?" You turned your face, looking the marble marks.

"Do it again."

You narrowed your eyes, hiding your good mood.

"Should I?"

"Ask him again, persist, give him a kiss..."

You were surprised by the excitement that grew out of silence. They all wanted to indulge in entertainment, they wanted a scene to excite them.

You looked at the greek statue that persisted in its elaborate pose, you always wondered if he was seeing something, if he was warning something or if he was sacrificing himself for others. He looked like a petrified hero.

You put your hand on your face, pretending to blush at the indications and flirting suggestions that were being thrown at you.

You left them behind, walking like a lost maiden in the vast hall that you were at, even though there were no obstacles as far the statue in the column on the other side was, you pretended to be naive, meeting him by mistake.

"Oh" You exclaimed, hearing the giggles behind you. "Are you, my love? The one who calls for me?"

When you noticed that only your friends were the viewers, you were bold to go up on the marked block of marble, climbing your fingers through the fabric sculpted by a miraculous genius that covered part of his trunk and legs, listening to some cheeky "hm's".

"I'm here" you touched his cheek, looking at his lips. "I heard you cry out for help. I came to rescue you, my sweet angel."

Your friends hugged each other restlessly, hissing at each other for the romance scene they saw you star in. You tried not to lose focus, not to leave the character you created to satisfy your childish follies.

You closed your eyes just a little, seeing the simple details of his face while allowing your lips to touch the cold, rough surface of the marble, but you closed your eyes for a quick instant, really feeling like an real actress, like an true artist and lover of beauty.

When you heard gasps you didn't care so much, yet you were confused enough, the moment your eyes opened, you saw him inhale deeply and loudly, his eyelids trembling in half-blinkings, his arms resting around you, without strength, totally fragile.

His dark eyes remained stuck in yours, tired in your arms.

His parted lips made the sound you had fantasized about for so long.

"T...Thanks for saving me..."

For an instant the hall was lost, it was empty, silent, private. That was when you realized that you were indifferent about the situation, already astonished when it came to the boy.

His appearance filled you with tenderness, and in the same way filled you with sadness. It was like this?...Was like this how Hades felt when he first saw Persephone?

You took off your coat, covering the boy with blond, tousled hair, already kneeling and hiding himself in the fabric that covered his lower body.

"Are you coming with me, all right?" You murmured gently, waiting for his approval, receiving a innocent look, a little scared, but still seemed to trust what you weree saying. He nodded, accepting your help to stand and get off the block.

The reaction of the friends sitting on the floor on the other side was already expected, and you didn't blame them for that, you could be like that, but for some reason you chose not to be.

You didn't say goodbye to the others, you didn't think to do that at any time. You only had eyes for him.

You prepared him a hot bath, after that you gave him something to eat and offered him your own bed to rest, and you didn't ask for anything in return for that, on the opposite, you gave him the space he needed, nothing you asked for or waited for.

The next day, very early in the morning, a cold but well-lit morning, you woke up when he approached slowly, looking at your face silently and carefully.

"Are not you curious?... Don't you want to ask me anything?" He said calmly, however, curious.

"If that is your will, then I believe I am going to. If it is not, then I will not do it." You sat down, watching him for a while, wondering if he could hear your heart beat so hard. "You look comfortable, that's enough for me."

You stood up, standing beside him, running your fingertips along his side, just touching the woolen fabric of the long sweater you gave him to use.

"If you want to tell me something, just look for me." You whispered, walking away.

"My name is Soonyoung. They called me Hoshi."

You smiled to yourself, very satisfactorily.

"Hoshi... This name I know." You turned around, he did the same.

"For all this time I waited for someone to set me free. I felt alone, often empty... however" He came over, holding his own fingers "You have made me less lonely many days lately, I hoped you could save me... and you did. "

You felt your face flush, but you remained neutral, not wanting to waste his words.

"I just have to thank you." He said at last, making your shoulders relax with his sweetness.

You approached slowly, doing the same with the hand you brought to the side of his face.

"You are my greatest inspiration. I can only thank you for simply having this indescribable beauty that I have been drowning with for so long."

His lips parted in surprise, eyebrows trembled and the top of his ears burned in a vicious pink for your pupils.

Soonyoung had no more expressive reactions after that, so you left him again, not wanting to scare him with the infinite admiration that you had kept inside your head for so long.

"You're gonna have all the care you need. You are safe, Hoshi, calm your spirit."

"I hope..."

You turned around to find his body standing a little far, still trapped in his own imaginary space.

"I hope the gods make you the happiest woman in the world."

You touched his hand, taking him with you to your favorite room, leaving your shyness to satisfy his wishes.

"I know I told you many times not to go out, but I know you need hobbies and here I am providing you with my tools."

Soonyoung observed the room, he seemed impressed with the amount of materials, also happy to have something to do.

You showed him your canvases and your paints, your brushes and pencils, you took him to your table and made him sit down, leaving your hands lightly on his broad shoulders.

"I give you all my sketchbooks, I give you all my secrets, so I hope you find the peace that I find in you."

"Are you going to let me see everything? Are you sure about that?" He asked indecisively, he seemed to imagine all kinds of things that you could have drawn of him. He was right.

You moved your hands up his neck, sinking your fingers into his light, soft hair.

"I don't want to hide what is rightfully yours..."

You lowered yourself to the side of his face, resting your hands on his arms, with a low sigh his face turned towards yours, allowing you two to touch your lips.

You held his jaw, his hands finding your forearms to make you sit on his lap.

You held his face in your hands, noticing him looking for more contact by embracing your waist with one arm and with the other hand holding the back of your thigh.

You parted from his mouth with a foolish smile, receiving a soft smile from the boy in return.

"Do you love me that much? Do you swear to really love me?" He asked hopefully, blushing when you pecked his lips again.

"I'm doing all of this for you."

You stroked his hair, getting up to fetch some new books and putting them in order on the table.

"I have some books keeped, but I noticed that you have read most of them quickly because you were so vague and bored" You looked down, but he didn't seem to notice, he had curious eyes and hands on the books. "Many of them are to study, they are boring if I have to say. So I bought new ones, I hope you like it, I don't think you will be bored with these."

"I am so gratefull." He stood up, hugging you tight, you returned the gesture, completely overwhelmed.

"I am very happy, and extremely grateful, but still curious..."

You looked for his eyes, not understanding what still disturbed him.

"Tell me, my angel."

His hands lightly squeezed your arms, stroking for a moment.

"There is a room, always locked. You always gave me the freedom to explore your house, I didn't want to seem invasive anyway, that's why I never asked..."

You looked away.

"Don't go in there or ask me about it again, okay?" You smiled at the boy, he didn't seem to understand why you were avoiding it.

"Why can't I know what you're hiding there? What are you afraid of me finding out?"

You walked away from Soonyoung, stopping by the doorframe.

"I am giving you everything I have, I am giving you all my love and I asked you for nothing in return, so I warn you, my angel, if you let yourself be led by your curiosity, in the end you will be betraying my trust..."

You saw him press his lips and hide his regretful look, but he said nothing to you, so you left him in the room alone.

It was late at night when you woke up slowly in the void of dawn, trying to understand what disturbed you, if those sounds were of your fear or really true.

You got up, even leaving your room barefoot, wishing you didn't find him awake as you feared every night.

He had stolen you key, opened the room door that you had warned him to stay away, and hidden in the dark. He acted behind your back.

You found him with a tightness in your chest, disappointment was the only word that could describe the pure melancholy that was born in your heart, since you had nothing to hide but your good intentions.

The newspapers were on the table in the small office filled with photos of his sculpture. His eyes lit up on the news, messages, controversies on the computer screen. My friends being part of his miracle in interviews and publications, none of them stabbed or handed me over.

All the chaos that his disappearance brought to your life, all the situations where you had to repress yourself to protect him, emails filling your patience every day, all this you hid from him so that he wouldn't suffer from this turbulent new life. You did it to love you freely, you did it to love him freely.

Soonyoung looked at you confused, maybe sorry to find that nothing bad you hid. It was the opposite, you were protecting him.

"You were thinking about me, my love... I'm sorry."

"You betrayed me, Soonyoung, you betrayed my feelings, the trust I had in you." You watched him from a distance, in a way that you never would have, he noticed, and got hurt.

You walked away when he came to you in search of reconciliation, of affection, but you could not treat him with the same adoration that washed over him at all times.

Even if he killed you inside, you could not deny the sadness that possessed you thoughts, you left him behind, abandoned him, because you could not bear the truth that the love he felt for you weighed much less than the love you felt for him.

"Forgive me" he murmured with red eyes, you don't know if he was afraid to see you go.

You covered yourself with a thick coat, trying to escape his cold hands.

"Don't go, my darling, don't leave me!"

"I cannot stay, because if I look into your eyes I will not hold on, I will not be able to not forgive you, and this is not what my heart is asking so loudly at this moment." You said, sad to let go of his fingers, but so eager to go away. "Don't wait for me, I'm running away." You said at last, leaving your home behind.

"How long do you intend to run away?" One of my friends asked me, in which she gave me shelter, a little upset "Didn't say you loved him?"

You curled up on the upholstery, looking out the window at the blue sky.

"I'm so sad that you could never imagine my pain. Did I make a mistake? Shouldn't I have adored him so much?" You turned to the girl who was adjusting her belongings over the dressing table, not much distracted by your regrets.

"You cry so much but you do not accept to hear about the boy, you do not have the courage to know what our friends are doing with him. You, my friend, so fearless and passionate in the past, now do not seem more than a coward."

You closed your eyes with force and embarrassment, her criticisms hit you like sharp arrows that burned in harsh truths.

"Well, tell me, what did you do to him?" You got up, sitting in front of her on the bed, plagued by dark idealizations. "What are you getting him through?"

"Your friends care about you, but they were touched by the boy, who exudes empathy and sincerity" She approached, indifferent about your feelings, straightening your clothes and hair as if it were a simple morning conversation. "They challenged him to face the world, called him a parasite, ordered him to get a career, a job."

You gasped, astonished by the news, the boy who they said feeling empathy with barely knew how to use a computer and was being led to take unknown paths.

"How scared must my love be?"

"Don't whine having ignored his existence until now." She said impatiently, not letting go of your locks. "You need to stop talking and learn to listen."

"So tell me quickly, hurry up!"

"As I said before, the boy exudes sympathy and soon there was a charismatic reaction in our friends. Noting that he spoke weird, the first decided to teach him to speak correctly, taught him new words and practiced for days, holding on and becoming his closest friend."

You smiled, being interrupted before you mentioned any dazzle.

"The second soon realized that different clothes he didn't have, and being our richest friend was more than happy to buy new clothes for the boy who was so humble and listener. Gave him a new haircut, a set for every type of occasion and perfumes, and I have to confess "She sighed, rolling her eyes, taking her hands out of your hair. "I found it capriciously exaggerated, however, despite being disappointed I feel not surprised."

Noticing how obedient you remained and seeing the anxiety spilling out of your eyes, it didn't take long to proceed.

"Our third friend found out that he knew nothing about the new ways, that walking on the street could not do it alone and that the loud noises made him afraid. That good-hearted friend you have, gave part of the days to take care of the feelings and fears of your beloved, until walking on the sidewalks between crowds and witt cars disturbing your ears were no longer a problem."

You felt your shoulders relax, in incredible inner peace, until you looked up again.

"And you? What did you do?"

She looked at you from the corner, wickedness overflowing through her feline eyes.

"He got the job, now he works as a guide at the city museum, the same museum that you kissed him and left us behind." She paced the room with a sly smile, going over her belongings on the dressing table, going to the high desk by the window. "How can a dependent man like him be by your side if he falls apart when he sees you go? So weak, so sensitive. If he thinks he will have you at all times, I want him to know that it won't be like that, sometime you will have to leave him behind to come to us, the same I say inversely. "

She let the perversity spill and disappear, returning to being the controlled and wise girl from before.

"Did you ever see us flounce when you left us for the boy?" She looked at me, satisfied with my small negative head wave "On the contrary, there was no interference, we are more than that, we are free from blind attachments."

She sat down again, combing your hair back.

"My responsibility was to make him find you, that's what I was asked to do and I agreed, but to be honest, I didn't do anything." She shrugged, self-sufficient. "I said that the only way he would have to find you would have to be on his own, I didn't teach how to handle electronics, I didn't give tips, I didn't give a single picture of you."

You squeezed your eyebrows ready to complain, ready to defend the boy, but regretting the moment you saw her narrow eyes waiting for the cries she was listening these days.

You bowed your head, not knowing what to say or ask.

"Are you proud of him?"

You lifted your head, agreeing with a slight smile.

"I am."

"He worked hard for you, I'm not surprised, I really like him too."

You looked at her quickly with the comment she made, finding her face turned.

"He has earned our trust. But it is not our approval that he needs at the moment." She stood up, going to the window, being surprised, giving birth to an amused smile. "What are you waiting for to find him? Isn't your pain already healed?"

You raised your eyebrows, asking with euphoria rising in your chest. "He is outside?"

She nodded, you jumped out of bed quickly, out into the hall and down the stairs. Was that the reason you were getting ready all this time? You smiled at the thought.

When you were on the sidewalk of the house, you stopped for a moment to find him, but you saw no familiar silhouette, there were some civilians and gentlemen nearby selling fruits but you didn't find the boy you were looking for.

A soft and insecure hand touched your shoulder, you turned with the gesture, in a trance to find his dark hair, but his same sharp eyes staring at you with hope.

You got dizzy with the new details, with the accessories, with the denim jacket, with the sneakers, with the earrings, it didn't look like him, but it was him.

You looked down, seeing his hands holding one of your sketchbooks, a drawing of your face on it, an old self-portrait of an impatient sketch you did once.

He smiled widely, even letting out a laugh.

"You came back to me, my angel!" He said cheerfully, his voice filling the longing you felt, giving you chills for using the nickname you gave him and, of course, with the new pronunciation.

You gladly received his tight embrace, not wanting to loosen your grip on his body, after all you never wanted to stop loving him, not even for a single moment.

"You are the one who found me, love. You finally found me."

"Forgive me for what I did, I will never betray you again, soon you will see that it is more than possible for us to live happily, so come back with me..." he said muffled against your hair, hiding his face in your neck.

You stroked his hair, bringing his face close to yours, brushing lips and watching his small eyes narrow in anticipation for the first kiss so far.

"I know that, dear, and I forgive you. Because I love you."

𝒇𝒊𝒏.

[curious-minx]

Notable 2020 Video Game Soundtracks That Can Be Enjoyed As Standalone Experiences

Video Game Music is gaining recognition, with many soundtracks receiving vinyl pressings, orchestral concert reviews, and an increasing presence on music streaming platforms such as bandcamp and Spotify. We’re also witnessing the uprise of indie video game development teams where games are being made by the sort of passionate type of game designer that takes soundtracks seriously.  Soundtracks by small teams of developers such as Celeste, Undertale, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, RuneScape, and Lisa: The Joyful are titles with soundtracks that easily stand up against the likes of bigger budget productions made by reliable sources of video game music like Square-Enix and Nintendo.

2020 is no exception in terms of having one of the biggest budget soundtracks around with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which builds upon a legacy of industry-standard-creating soundtrack work. Taken as a whole, Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s soundtrack is clocking in at over 8 and half hours of music. The soundtrack has three composers with the Beethoven of video game music, Nobuo Uematsu, most notably coming out of retirement to get the job done.  Here are some other amazing 2020 video game soundtracks more conducive for standalone background listening:

TETRIS EFFECT by HYDELIC 

Genres: EDM, Ambient Pop and straight up Ambient 

Describing this album makes me feel like I’m some sort of burnt out fanciful raver, head permanently lodged in the clouds. The level of giddy technicolor enthusiasm rivals that of Icelandic Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi, but if he wanted to keep his post-rock firmly planted in the outdoor music festival on Mars territory. Despite the album’s notable two hours runtime, each and every song feels like its own uniquely crafted composition, no repetitive motifs or nostalgia-baiting.

There is unfortunately still a Tetris movie in some sort of shaggy state of development in Hollywood right now. The movie is being billed as a dull biopic about the creator of the Tetris game. Whereas listening to Tetris Effect you imagine a Tetris movie directed by someone more fitting like the Wakowskis. Tetris Effect’s opening song “Connected (Yours Forever)” is a bonafide vocal pop song, like a more sugary CVRCHES-style cooing of the lyrics:

“I’m Yours Forever

There is No End in Sights For Us,

Nothing Can Measure the Kind of Strength Inside Our Hearts,

It’s all connected we’re all together in this life, don’t you forget it

We’re all connected in this”

Try your best not to imagine a cast of Hollywood’s most beautiful plucky orphan mutant misfit youths using the power of Tetris to heal a broken and dying planet!

Notable Track: Next Chapter

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HADES by DARREN KORB

Genres: Progressive Metal, Folktronica, Folk Metal, Dimotika, Greek Folk Music

Darren Korb has become one of the most notable video game composers of the past decade. Korb, an integral member of the Supergiant family, continues to outdo himself with each and every soundtrack. Bastion and Transistor originally found Korb creating a niche for himself with downtempo folk-infused electronic soundscapes and even some vocal pop with collaborator Ashley Barrett. Hades is an altogether different beast for Korb, who much like the developers of Hades, have found themselves at the height of their powers.

Korb also contributes vocals on this album, and I can say without hesitation that these are some of the nicest vocals I’ve ever heard from a video game music designer, because video game musicians are bonafide musicians.The album clocks in at two and half hours and separate from its game is still an absolute thrill ride.

Notable Track: In The Blood

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DEFECTIVE HOLIDAY by MECHATOK

 Genres: Ambient Trance, Balearic Beat, Progressive Electronic, Nature Recordings, Spoken Word, New Age

One glance at the album artwork is all it took for me to know that I must listen to this album. Defective Holiday is an indie walking simulator that is explicit about its intentions: a lightly interactive one hour experience. This soundtrack clocks in at only 31 minutes and it is purely the most conventional album in terms of length.

Last week in late November, Mechatok announced a collaboration with one of the leading zoomer Swedish cloud rap mavericks Bladee, the cofounder of the Drain Gang. Last month gives a pretty clear picture of what kind of circles Mechatok is floating in on. Highly online gonzo vaporwave maestro James Ferraro is another apparent influence on this soundtrack, especially regarding the way the sinister mundane dialogue is woven into the soundscape. There’s one particular track on the Defective Holiday OST, “Rescue Shot Buibo”, that is adorned with standard trap-style drum fills that give the album a shot of energy before wandering back off into the haze. This soundtrack and video game is all about the pure vibe and aesthetic nature that are currently trending in these extremely stressful times.  In a time where all of our holidays were defective from the very start, I think the casual walking simulator will remain a genre high in demand. I have a feeling we’re going to hear a lot more from this empathetic young German.

Notable Track: Valley

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Last of Us II by Gustavo Santaolalla, Mac Quayle (and Ashley Johnson)

Genres: Ambient, Cinematic Classical, Dark Ambient, Spanish Folk Music 

L

The Last Of Us is a horror game where the music itself is arguably playing a critical character role, which can only be expected billing two titans of audio visual soundtracks. Of course Academy Award winner Santaolalla knows his way around a soundtrack. Wielding a resume of astonishing versatility in various TV and film projects, he might have found his higher calling in not only video games but in the horror music canon. Last of Us is an extremely emotional series, and with the wrong soundtrack, the experience could become insufferably bleak. The occasional  splashes of color and light are what make this soundtrack so unsettling and eerie. Not since Silent Hill 2’s Akira Yamaoka has there been such an effective standalone horror video game soundtrack experience. No wonder Gustavo Santaolalla is one of the only video game composers integral enough to the game to warrant a cameo banjo-playing character model based off of him.

As if having one major composer from prestigious TV and movies wasn’t enough, Mac Quayle, composer of the whole Mr. Robot series, contrasts against Santaolalla’s acoustic contributions. The soundtrack itself is sequenced in a way that switches between the two composers. “The Cycle of Violence” composed by Quayle, a track that more than lives up to its name, is immediately followed by Santaolalla’s somber “Reclaimed Memories.” This dance between violence and heart is what the Last of Us excels at as a franchise, and that is why this soundtrack is an effective stand-alone experience.

The only disappointing part of the soundtrack is that Ashley Johnson, voice actor of Ellie’ three songs, is not included in the game’s official tracklist. Ellie’s “Take On Me” a-ha and “Future Days” Pearl Jam covers have made a little history by being the most powerful songs sung by a video game character. When Ellie sings and plays on her guitar they aren’t some little Easter egg idling moments to provide levity for this heavy revenge horror story. These songs are used to make some of the strongest character development choices made by a video game character seen in recent years. Ellie is joining a small club of singing video game characters alongside Parapa the Rapper and  maybe the cast of obscure Atlus title Rhapsody: Musical Adventure.

Notable Track: Unbroken

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Persona 5 Royal Straight Flush Edition by Shoji Meguro 

Genre: Acid Jazz, Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal, Lounge, Jazz-Funk 

This is one of those soundtracks that, much like Nobuo Uematsu’s work in Final Fantasy, is really the heart and soul of the entire Persona franchise (and his work in the adjacent Shin Megami Tensei universe is equally as noteworthy). Persona 5 Royal finds Meguro making his most complete, funky, and otherworldly opus that sounds like no one else in the biz.

You will find many people online scouring message boards, subreddits, bandcamp features, and Yahoo Answers looking for more music like Persona 5. Outside of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, how many other games are packed to the brim with truly foxy songs!? Persona 5 could not predict how badly the title “Throw Away Your Mask” would age, despite the game being more than ahead of its time with the majority of NPCs wearing PPE. Be a good Joker, put on your mask and keep chasing Meguro’s acid jazz-infused dragon through many more semesters to come.

Notable Track: I Imagine

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Streets of Rage 4 by Olivier Deriviere & Various

Genres: Electro House, Nu Jazz, Synth Funk, Acid House 

Composer Olivier Deriviere is a living definition of a video game soundtrack journeyman. He has a career stretching back to the early 2000s working on notable big budget titles like the divisive 2008 Atari fifth Alone in the Dark installment and Remember Me, an unsung buried gem from the PS3/360 era Capcom title. Remember Me is where Deriviere’s electronic leanings started becoming especially prominent in his sound. On the Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack Deriviere has completely come into his own element, developing a whole new sense of campy playfulness.

Electronic French House music can be a divisive genre. For every Daft Punk commercial success there is a band that ruffles feathers like Justice. I sense a strong presence of late departed French House titan Philippe Zdar of Cassius as well. If you’d played this soundtrack for me out of context, I would have guessed an obscure voguing tape from the 80s or a really talented mysterious DJ set. Instead, this is a sequel to a classic beat em up franchise that left a portion of players disappointed by the game’s four hour playtime. The soundtrack is over an hour and fifty minutes long of high octane House music bliss. Much like the Tetris Effect soundtrack, it is truly impressive how much depth these tracks have when they could have easily been nostalgic recycled beats. Sometimes a game’s soundtrack can offer more post game enjoyment than an actual game.

Notable Track: Chill Or Don’t

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Hylics 2 by Chuck Salamone & Mason Lindroth 

Genres: Experimental Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Hypagogic Pop, Stoner Rock, Jazz-Rock

A soundtrack that comes closest to capturing the experience of hearing the Earthbound or Katamari Damacy soundtracks for the first time. The Hylic indie RPG series is a wonderful and strange beast that is ready to frolic and show its playful side. Hylics is a part of a recent uprising of indie games being developed on the RPG Maker software. 2020 year has left us all with variations of the same stressed out adjectives: Weird. Messed Up. Surreal.

Why not listen to an album from a game that is the perfect embodiment of that surreal mantra? Step away from your computer, draw a bath, and put this album on. Thank me later!

Notable  track: Xeno Arcadia

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Ultrakill: Infinite Hyperdeath (Act I Soundtrack) by Heaven Pierce Her aka game developer Arsi “Hakita” Patala 

Genres: Drum and Bass, Industrial Metal, Ambient, Progressive Metal, Acidcore 

Nothing says “modern indie game development” more than a game built completely from the ground up by one person. Ultrakill’s developer “Hakita” is one of those kindly folkloric DIY figures that make video games such an extensive art form. The game is a painstaking gloriously bloody ode to Dooms of yesteryear but with plenty of its own fine tuned style. The perfect soundtrack for when you’re painting your personal Hell a darker shade of gore, but also would really like to kick your ass into shape if you need an adrenaline boost to your Quarantine blues.

Notable Track: Panic Betrayer 

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Risk of Rain 2 by Chris Christodoulou

Genres: Progressive Rock, Space Rock, Space Ambient,  Post-Rock

Something about the country of Greece brings the best kind of futurism out of the country’s composers. Christodoulou’s Risk of Rain 2 soundtrack is no Bladerunner knock off. This soundtrack for the colorful sci-fi indie rougelike is punchier and less nocturnal than your typical synth-heavy sci-fi soundtrack. Risk of Rain is one of the more successful Kickstarter series around and has the best quality an indie game can have: it feels like a labor of love on all fronts. There’s no reason a rougelike like Rain of Ruin or Hades needs a soundtrack this good, but Christodoulou casts a spell with his electronic-driven prog rock that makes you want to keep respawning. A huge missed opportunity if Christodoulou does not get to soundtrack an earnest sci-fi action-adventure for even big screens. Oh! This soundtrack also features some spoken word segments from Werner Herzog; what more do you need to know?

Notable Track: The Rain Formerly Known As Purple

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Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus by Guillaume David

A big debut project from an up-and-coming composer Guillaume David. Prior to the making of this soundtrack, David was a video game voice actor who worked on a Resident Evil Devil May Cry crossover voicing the character of “Hunk.” Warhammer 40K might become a franchise that more people will care about solely based on the quality of this installment’s soundtrack. When you see the title Warhammer 40,000, what sort of sounds come to mind? If you guessed “Neo gothic cyber Gregorian chants that seamlessly melds the ancient and futuristic”, you would be correct. A turn-based action game could possibly fall into dull territory, but with a visual identity as strong as Warhammer 40K  melded with a suitable musical atmosphere, the action and world becomes irresistible. This soundtrack is a brisk 56 minutes and the other soundtrack on this list with a more conventional runtime. Not a second is wasted on this dynamic and fantastical soundtrack. Prior to hearing this soundtrack I had no intention of ever looking into playing a game based off of something as convoluted as Warhammer 40K, but now I very much want to know what these robot priests are about. That’s the magic of a quality soundtrack.

Notable track: Millenial Rage

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Honorable Mentions:

Happy Listening! 

[uglypastels]

Soteria // H.O. - Greek Myth AU

(a/n) I know I said I was gonna write this like months ago, and i had written most of it fairly quickly, but then inspiration and motivation kind of slummed and i stopped, but then tonight I was like, ya know what, let’s finish this. so i did :)

word count: 9.6k

warning: near death experience, death, drowning. Maybe parts of this are questionable, but it was based on an ancient Greek myth, so please take it with a grain of salt oki

Love is not full of pity, as men say,  But deaf and cruel where he means to prey  - (Hero and Leander, C. Marlowe)

Persephone had returned from the Underworld, and her mother Demeter was celebrating once again. The night was warm, and the flowers around the town were in their full bloom as the green leaves in the trees blew softly with the winds. 

The city of Sestos had its yearly feast, honouring the goddess of love. As the sun was slowly reaching the horizon, it illuminated the streets in the soft golden glow. The people of the town were coming outside, ready to enjoy the festivities. At the city square, with a fountain positioned in its exact centre, you could hear the lyre player strum a melody. A woman joined in on her aulos not soon after. With music good enough for Apollo himself, people were quick to start dancing around the square, laughing and vocally copying the melody in a complementing manner. 

It was a long walk from Aphrodite’s tower to the city, so by the time you had joined, the festival had been going on for quite some time already. Like every year, it was crowded. People from every side of the world would come to the party in the name of the goddess, in the hopes to find their love- even if it was only for the night. 

As one of the priestesses of Aphrodite, your attendance was more of a duty than a privilege. You were there to, of course, devote yourself to your deity and honour her, while also making sure that everyone else was doing so accordingly. Fortunately, it would still be some years until you took over the duties of the higher priestesses of the temple. Meaning that all your work was done at the offerings ceremony of the fire.

You knew that you had arrived later than planned, only a few minutes short from the start of the offerings. Stepping up towards the small temple where your sisters stood, you straightened out your peplos. 

“Where have you been,” one of your fellow Hiereiai asked as she ripped up the last piece of the sourdough. You took it from her and put it in the final empty basket. 

“I had forgotten to flower the anemones,” you said. You didn’t dare to look at the horrified looks you had gotten from your confession. You knew it was disgraceful, neglecting the sacred flowers. 

“I went back to do so, that is why I am late,” you explained yourself further, not letting any comments come through. You did not need to hear this now. You had realised your mistake and fixed it. Then let it be history. 

And history it became. You continued preparing the feast with the others, as the crowd of the Sestos inhabitants, as well as the guests, were already forming a line. Soon, one by one, everyone came up to the tables filled with the delicious food, grabbing what they wanted. As quickly as they came up to you, so soon did they leave. Of course, not before dropping a handful into the fire that sparked before you. The sweet smells of the meats and fruit roamed up into the skies for Olympus to enjoy. Your mouth started to water, and your empty stomach was rumbling softly, but it wouldn’t be long before you could eat too. There were only a few people left to serve, and then it would be your turn to make your sacrifice. 

You handed over a portion of roasted lamb to the man in front of you, not even looking up at this point, being used to the quick interactions. But he surprised you with two simple words. 

“Thank you.” 

This made you look up. 

“Uhm, you’re welcome.” You smiled, a bit taken back. It was getting darker, but the eyes that were looking back at you were clear and mesmerising, as piercing as Poseidon’s kingdom itself. You had never seen such vibrancy in someone’s soul. 

At that exact moment, the man looked at you in bewilderment. He smiled at you, astonished at how the crown of flowers complimented your hair. The golden flecks made it seem as if you were sparkling in the setting sunlight. Your shy smile made his heart skip a single beat. 

You shared another moment of eye contact before he was pushed forward by his company of friends. That same time, you were brought back to your duty by an overlooking high priestess. But from that moment on, you had lost your focus. As you were giving out the last rations of the meals, you couldn’t help but steal glances at the handsome stranger. You watched him throw a handful of grapes into the spitting fire. The orange flames illuminated his physique, highlighting the lines in his arms. 

You couldn’t stop looking at him. Not to put the gods in vain, but he looked like one himself. He had almost an aura around him that made you wonder if it wasn’t actually the Sun god in disguise. No, it couldn’t be. 

You ate your meal at the side of your temple sisterhood, but not even the delicious food could keep your mind away from the man. He stood there, across the festival grounds, not far away from the fire pit. A cup of wine in his hand. He laughed loudly, draping his arms across the shoulder of his friend. When he looked across the grounds, your eyes locked. You saw that intense blue colour and froze, as if under a spell. Were the gods testing you? On this sacred day?

You shook your head to yourself. No, that couldn’t be happening. 

Not looking up again, you finished your food. The music had been playing the whole time. Still, once the majority of the celebrators had eaten, the volume and tempo went up slightly, making it more enticing to dance again. And sure enough, the square was quickly filling up once more with people spinning and moving to the music.

Not much of a dancer yourself, you stayed seated at your table, looking at a candle that had been placed in front of you, getting lost in the little flame. As if you were put under a trance. It was swaying from side to side in the draft, but it seemed to have caught on to the rhythm of the kithara. You were so caught up with the movements of the light that you almost missed what was happening around you. In fact, you would have if it wasn’t for the dry cough you heard above you. 

Still, in a bit of a haze, you looked up. 

There were those hypnotising eyes again, small wrinkles at their outer corners. He was holding two cups of wine in his hands, extending one of his arms to you. 

“I thought you would like a drink,” he said. You didn’t know what to do, so you accepted the drink and with a soft smile, took a sip. The sour taste went through your entire body, so it seemed, in an enjoyable way. 

“Would you care for a dance, my lady?” he made another offer, pointing out to the rest of the festival. 

“I’m sorry, but I am not much of a dancer,” you told him, heat rising to your cheeks. You always thought of it to be a bit embarrassing that you could not dance. However, that did not seem to be much a problem, to the man, for he nodded with an accepting smirk. 

“How about a stroll around the streets then?” He suggested. This, you could not decline. You agreed to the idea and got up, taking your goblet with you. 

“What is your name, if I may ask,” he said as you left the festivities behind you. Though the music still seemed to be only a few feet away, you were actually making your way across the city. 

“y/n,” you told him, “and what may I call you?”

“My friends call me Harrison,” he said, before taking a sip of his drink. 

“That is an unusual name. Where does it come from?” You had indeed never heard of such a name and were curious to find out where the handsome stranger came from.

 “Well, I come from Abydos,” he chuckled melodiously, “but the name is my father’s. Son of Harios, you see.” 

“Oh, but Abydos, that is all the way across the Hellespont!” you exclaimed, not having expected someone to have travelled that far. 

“Yes, my friends and I took a boat this morning. We will be going back soon after the feast ends, probably.” He looked out, behind him, mournfully in a way. As if he wished not to be returning to his home. It did not go unnoticed by you. 

“Have you been here before?” you questioned, bringing his attention back to you, instead of what was going on in the square. It did fulfil your needs, as Harrison turned to you with a faint smile on his lips. 

“No, I have not. We don’t get to leave much, unfortunately.” 

“How so?” you kept on asking curiously. 

“My family does not enjoy the idea of me leaving my duties for a festival across the waters.” 

“Are you telling me that you came here without permission?” The idea made you giggle. He and his friends were risk-takers, to travel across the sea without telling their families. Who knew what could happen on those waters. The idea excited you. It would be a fantasy to think of anyone from Sestos doing something so daring. 

As Harrison spoke about his typical days back home, the two of you made your way further away from the celebration. The sun had hidden behind the sea, but the silver glow of the moon gave enough light for you to see where you were going. It was a bit of a walk, but you knew it would be worth it for the view. If there was the possibility of him never having the chance to come back, he needed to see it.

And so you lead him up the hill, through the gardens that you forgot to flower some hours ago, and finally reached the outlook on to the shore. It was a gap between the trees, just big enough for the both of you to stand in. Your feet were touching the soft grass. Petals of the flowers hitting your ankles as you took a step closer to the edge. Harrison grabbed your arm, making you look up at him with a raised brow. 

“Don’t worry; I spend almost all my free time up here. It’s safe,” you assured him. 

“Promise me that you won’t fall.” 

“I promise.” As you said so, you took another small step. Nothing happened. He still didn’t seem too sure about this position, but pushing the hesitance aside, Harrison joined you. 

“Thank you for bringing me here,” he eventually spoke up, after a few moments of silence. “It is truly a magical sight.” 

“I know,” you had no better reaction. This had always been your favourite spot around the temple. It was the one place where the sea seemed to be calmer. As if Poseidon knew that the keyhole from which you were looking at his world was a little piece of personal Elysium to you if that was even possible. You had never thought of showing this to anyone, not even telling. Still, there was something about this Harrison, that made you feel good about this choice- secure. You had the feeling that he needed this—just this one moment—an almost sacred minute between the two of you.

You stood there for another short and silent moment. Both goblets of wine were now empty. Then, Harrison surprised you by grabbing your hand. He made you turn around to look into his eyes, his touch as well as his actions gentle. The silver moonlight made the blue in his eyes sparkle even brighter than you thought to be possible. 

“I know we have only known each other shortly, and what you have given me with this view is already unpayable,” he squeezed your hand, his eyes not leaving your face, “but can I ask you one more thing?” 

“Of course,” you asked without hesitation. Harrison took a step closer to you; he let go of your hand, just to cup your cheek softly. 

“May I kiss you?” 

This startled you. It was enough of a reaction for him to realise he said something wrong. He quickly pulled away. 

“I am sorry, I shouldn’t have-” 

“I wish I could kiss you, Harrison,” you told him before he went on. There was no need for him to apologise. “I really do. But I can’t.” As you spoke, you had the urge to bite your bottom lip to suppress any further emotions. The confusion in Harrison’s expression, however, was undeniable. 

“You can’t?” 

“No. As a priestess of Aphrodite’s temple, I have to honour the life of purity.” Saying that had never made you feel frustrated. It used to be something you were proud of, but seeing Harrison in front of you, it was merely an obstacle that you could not pass through. 

“Are you telling me, my love, that we can not show our adoration to each other, for you have promised to stay virtuous to-to the goddess of love?” His hand was back on your body. You could feel his fingers on the material of your dress, pressing in a squeeze as he finished speaking. Your head grew dizzy at how close he was. 

“Y-yes.” 

“Does that not sound absurd to you? A life devoted to Aphrodite, without being able to show love yourself? It would be like honouring Ares and not being able to wage war.” 

“I know, but-” 

“Have you made a promise? An oath?” He pulled you into him, his enchanting eyes desperate for you to give in. 

“No.” you shook your head. 

“Then what would be the harm? Don’t you think Aphrodite would be happy? To see us together?” He said all this with a kind smile on his lips, pulling you in closer. Your hand fell on his chest. Just by the simple touch of his chiton, you could tell that he came from a wealthy family from a different place. The material was unknown to you, but it was soft and smooth to the touch. You moved your hand slowly over the piece of cloth, but suddenly the texture changed. It was colder and firmer, and you realised you had moved your fingers on to his skin. With wide eyes, you pulled away. The way you surprised yourself made Harrison laugh. 

“It’s alright.” He said, taking your hand in his and placing it back on the spot you pulled away from seconds before. He held it to his chest tightly. 

“You can feel it, don’t you?” The intensity in his voice was mesmerising. That eagerness to show you every emotion possible through each word, no matter how small. “How my heart is beating, how it stopped at your touch? It is all for you, y/n.” He looked up at the black sky with a bright smile, “Aphrodite, be my witness, for tonight, my heart beats only for you.” He had looked back down into your eyes as he finished his bold statement.

Being so close to him and hearing those words leave his lips, you felt as if you were melting away from reality. Was this happening? Had Harrison just been struck by Eros’ arrow? Had you? You could not have said anything for sure, except that you could not get enough of his beauty. By far, he was the most gorgeous man you had ever laid your eyes on. 

“Please, y/n, let me kiss you?” 

Would you be breaking any rules if he were the one to touch you? You were not prepared to answer that question just yet. You took a step back, closing your eyes for you did not want to see the pain in his. Harrison understood your action. 

“Then so be it, but do not think that my affection for you will lessen, my lady.” And with that, he leaned in to kiss your cheek. That quick touch, not even lasting a second, was enough to make your entire body burn. Or, at least it felt like it was. As he pulled away, you wanted to lean forward, match his movements, not let him go. But your choice has been made. 

Harrison looked out at sea, his face illuminated in the silver light perfectly. But his handsomeness was overshadowed by the doubts and worries you saw were forming in his mind. You spoke for him, already expecting what was to come.

“You must go, don’t you?” 

“Unfortunately. If I don’t come back to leave with my friends tonight, the monsters awaiting me back home might be the end of me.” 

“Your parents will get furious?” you laughed at his dramatics, to which he joined. 

“Yes. But-” he took his hand in yours again, “I promise you that we shall see each other again, and my desire for your lips-” 

“Harrison,” you sighed. 

“I know. But I will prove myself to you and to the gods that I am worthy of your affection. I do not yet know how, but I will, and then, you may reward me with your kiss.” 

“You do not give up, do you?” You couldn’t help but smile at his stubbornness. 

“It is a treasured curse of mine, yes.” He kissed your knuckles before stepping aside, far enough to make it clear that this was where your night together would come to an end. 

“Farewell, my dearest, but not for long, as I promise you to come back.” He bowed down slightly before finally walking away, leaving you at the edge of the cliff. The night’s breeze flew by, taking some flowers from your crown with them. Not wanting to see him leave, you focused on the loose petals, disappearing in the dark sky. 

In the meantime, as the flowers made their way over the sea, Harrison made his way back down to the city, where his friends were none the wiser of his adventure with you. They yelled out in chorus when he came into their sight. It was his best friend, Thomas, that almost spilt his drink from excitement. It was clear that as Harrison was enjoying that, what seemed like everlasting paradise, they all had been enjoying the local wine a bit too much. 

But, of course, the night was not everlasting and the Sun would reach the sky once again. Sooner than later, even. And before it did, they would have to make their way back home, across the deep waters of the Hellespont. And then there was the challenging task of reaching their homes without being noticed by anyone. This was already difficult, and the fact that Harrison was the only one not overpowered by the restraint of the brew they had all drunk- it felt impossible. 

Yet, somehow, the men managed to cross the waters in their boat without problems. Poseidon had been on their side that night. The cold air and water sputtering around them, helped the others clear their minds in the meantime as well. 

Not much later, they had all reached their homes, and Harrison walked into his room. Though the morning would come soon, he did not feel tired. Instead of heading toward his bed, Harrison walked to the large open window. It looked out at sea. If he stared out long enough, it seemed as if he could still see the warm lights of Sestos ahead of him. He wondered if you were looking out for him as he was for you and if he would ever be able to see you again. With the images of you in his mind, he slowly fell asleep, still in the frame of the window.

Right across the Hellespont, up on the hill, in the temple tower, the same faith had fallen over you. With Harrison overtaking your thoughts, you had left yourself to drift off while looking out on the horizon. 

And the both of you were woken up in the same manner, startled awake as the doors of your rooms opened wide. Harrison fell to the floor as he reached consciousness again. It took him a moment to get his orientation back and realise he had, in fact, never reached the bed in the first place. 

“C’mon, get up.” Though they were not actually related, Thomas was like a brother to him. Hence, it was the last thing Harrison questioned when his great friend pulled him up to his feet at morning’s dawn. He was more surprised that Thomas was so active in the morning, considering that just a few hours ago he could barely walk in a straight line. 

“Your father is calling for you,” Thomas said as he finally got Harrison to stand up, “he wants you on the field.” Of course, today was time for training. Though the sun had not even surpassed the edge of the ocean, the warm air around him, told Harrison that it would be a hot day. 

“Yes, I’ll be on my way then,” He sighed, before asking his friend hopefully, “Will you join me?” 

“I wish I could, but I have been set duties at the house today.” 

Both Harrison and Thomas were the eldest sons in their families, which gave them a significant number of responsibilities to carry. But the difference between them was that Thomas did not have the same pressure as Harrison. Oldest of four boys meant that yes, he was expected to hold up the family’s honour and wealth. Still, if he did not manage this, this responsibility would be then passed down to his younger brothers. Harrison, having only one sister, did not have that luxury- and his father made this very obvious to his son. 

Many days would be spent out on the fields, fighting and training. Most often they would not stop until Harrison felt too weak to actually fight back. When he was younger, he thought he understood the need for this discipline, but now… it all felt so cumbersome. Harrison wanted to be more than just a fighting machine for his family. In fact, he wanted nothing to do with the battles that were so popular in his area. In his mind, there was no need for such a thing as unnecessary violence. There came no real honour with winning a duel like it. Yet, he had no choice but to follow his father’s commands.

“Where is your head, boy?” His father said as he helped Harrison up for the so-manyeth time later that afternoon. Harrison hissed out in pain as he felt his arms sore up from the hours of vigorous exercise. 

“On my head, father,” he shook the fall off and grabbed his fighting stick in his tights fists, positioning his feet, ready for another fight. He ignored the shaking of his muscles and the beads of sweat covering his body.

But his father did not deem that an appropriate answer. He leaned on his own stick, placing his palms on top of it, a heavy arched eyebrow implemented his thoughts. 

Though reaching a ripe age and having already lived through many horrors, Harios of Abydos did not show any of it at first glance. The similarities to his son were uncanny. The only real distinction between the two was the fine lines forming on the elder man’s face and how his golden hair was starting to include shades of Zeus-like silver. Then, of course, there was the beard that he had been developing over his years on earth. Harrison had not been quite successful in this just yet. 

“I can tell there is something on your mind, son.” He stood still like a sculpture, but his eyes moved quickly over the fatigued body of his only son, looking for signs of what could be going on with him. 

“It is nothing, father.” Harrison let his body relax. He did not want to speak about the events of last night. For one, his father did not know he had run away to Sestos without his permission. Secondly, Harrison did not want to know what his father would say is the fact he had fallen in love with a maiden of the Aphrodite temple would come to light. After all, it was his duty to protect his family’s legacy, meaning it was his duty to court a woman of some title, this way, their land and property could grow. And Harrison knew his parents already had women in mind. How heartbroken would they be to find out his heart was taken by you. 

“It is a girl, isn’t it?” Harios was quick to conclude. For him and his son were the same in more than just their looks. He could tell what the young man was thinking without asking a single thing. It was a skill Harrison was still unable to understand. 

“I understand my son.” He did. “But do not be a fool to fall for Eros’ mind games. You know what you need to do, and none of that will come from feelings.” He said it with a surprising amount of disgust, Harrison felt like. 

“I know, father,” Let that be all of this discussion, Harrison thought and hoped. His father had picked up his stick again, singing to him that Harrison was to do the same. While he was not looking, Harrison took a pained glance at his father. Just like that his faith had been signed off. 

But that made him only want to fight more for himself. That evening, when he was finally done with training and had eaten his dinner, Harrison decided that he would not let this be the end of you and him. So, when the sun had hidden once more, and the moon was high in the sky, illuminating the black water of the Hellespont, Harrison left his room. Silently, as to not be seen, he sneaked out from the grounds and made his way to the shore.

He looked around him, spotting the row of boats ahead, and walked on. Taking a boat out held too many risks. Someone would notice it out on the sea, or just find one to be missing in the small harbour. He and his friends had taken that risk the previous night but to take it again, would simply be careless.

So, Harrison took off his sandals and buried them in the sand, right next to a rock, so only he knew where to find them back. Then, he made his way to the water. The waves took sharp inhales and pushed straight back on to the land. As he stepped forward, he made contact with the icy water. It was much colder than he had predicted. Still, he had to move on. Slowly, step by step, he sank into the sea. First his legs, then hips and chest, until he could barely reach the ground beneath him. Not to lose any time, he swam. He did not know how long it would take, but if he kept on going, sooner or later, he would find his way back to you. 

And he kept on swimming. It might have been an eternity, or it could have been just a few minutes. He could not be sure. All he knew was that his limbs ached, but that home was left far in the distance now, and at this point, it would do no good to return. 

The hard crashing of the waves around him into nothingness felt even louder. As if they were speaking to him directly.

Ganymede. Not sure what they meant, Harrison kept on swimming, ignoring the rough water as it kept hitting him in the face. Almost as if in protest of his actions. It did not matter to him, though. The anger of the waves did not matter to him when his goal was so clear. He needed to see you again.

It seemed as if he had almost made it to the other shore. When suddenly, the water was rushing along some stream with great power, making it even harder for him to continue moving. The waves were holding him back, nay, they were pushing him down.

It became harder and harder to move, and eventually, the waved turned too big to avoid. With each one, his head would sink below. With a large gasp of air, he tried to keep up, but it quickly became an impossible task. One final wave attacked him, pushing him down to the bottom of the sea. Harrison tried to claw his way back up, but it was useless. He had lost his battle with the water. As he fell to the dark pits of the sea, he released his final breath of air. In his last moments of consciousness, he followed the bubbles with his eyes. His lids felt heavy, and he knew what it meant, for his lungs began to burn. 

Harrison sank deeper and deeper. The small air bubbles had disappeared into the darkness of the water. Eventually, there was nothing around him but the black void. He could not tell if his eyes were open or not. If he was awake or not- if he was even alive? 

All he was sure of were the voices around him—two, to be exact. 

The first was the one of a girl. He did not recognise it, but it sounds sweet and youthful.

“What have you done, Your Highness?” she asked, to which the second voice responded. 

“I have finally taken back from my brother, what he owed me—the life of his son.” Harrison felt even more confused. Had his father done something? Have his wrongdoings now cost him his life? Most likely, so.

The voice thundered on. It seemed to be coming from all around him. It was as if… it was the actual water speaking.

“Prepare Ganymede, for you shall pay for your father’s debts!” 

Ganymede? Harrison did not know of anyone called that name. He tried to open his mouth, but without any oxygen, it was too difficult to move. How he was even alive, was a mystery to him.

But whatever it was speaking around him, heard his thoughts. The first mysterious voice spoke up again. 

“Lord Poseidon…” Poseidon? He had been pulled down to the depths of the Hellespont by the sea god himself. “I do not think this is the man you were looking for.” 

There was silence. For a moment, Harrison thought that this had been it. The end of his life. But then, he felt a touch to his forehead. Two fingers pressing right at the centre of it. Suddenly, the fire burning inside his lungs seized. He took a deep inhale, thinking he was out of the water, but when Harrison opened his eyes, he was still on the bottom of the sea. Panic struck through him, as he thought he had just let himself drown, but no water came into his mouth—only the sensation of air. 

Also, there was no more darkness. In front of Harrison stood two light figures. A young woman, who’s hair and cloak flowed softly in the water, and next to her, a man. He was at least a head taller than Harrison. His long grey beard reached his chest and seemed to have small shells woven into them, that sparkled in the god’s own aura. But what really amazed Harrison, and pushed away all possible doubt about the identity of the man, was the massive silver trident in the man’s hand. Harrison fell to his knee immediately and respectfully bowed his head.

“Who are you?” Poseidon asked, his voice deep and powerful, booming through the. 

Harrison wasn’t sure if he could speak under the water, expecting nothing but bubbles to come out of his mouth, but when he did, he actually heard his own voice. 

“I am Harrison... of Abydos,” he said, not daring to look back up at the god. There was another moment of silence. Then, the woman spoke. 

“Can you confirm, boy, that you are not Ganymede?” 

“I can swear on the river Styx that I am not, and have never met, Ganymede.” He bowed his head again in respect to the King of the oceans. Though the water had been cold at first touch and as he swam, with the divine presence, it felt warm, almost boiling around him. The heat, now that Harrison considered it, came in waves. Like a pulse, a heartbeat. He tried not to overthink this phenomenon. 

The god and the woman looked at each other, realising their mistake. Then Poseidon looked back at the mortal hero. His wickedly blue eyes gazing down sharply like his own weapon. 

“Then what were you doing in my domain?” 

Not daring to look directly into the god’s eyes, Harrison spoke: “I was swimming to Sestos, to meet my love. We met the previous day, and I have not been able to stop thinking about her. I wish to see her again before it is too late.” Was it possible to overshare your feelings with one of the mighty gods? Yes, but Harrison felt the need to explain his actions adequately. 

“And this woman, does she share your feelings?” The woman glided through the waters toward Harrison, extending her pale hand for him to take. He did so with slight hesitance. 

He didn’t know what to expect when touching her fingertips, but it was not that of the texture of ice. However, while it had all its feeling, it did not hold any of its bitter frost. She took his hand and helped him up to his feet. 

“Y-yes, I think- I hope so.” He stuttered out. The woman smiled at him lightly before waving her hand in the water. Bubbles started to form around it, creating an intricate pattern. Moving faster and faster, the air bubbles moved to be one broad line of ice, turning smaller and smaller. The woman rolled her hand again, guiding the icy ring towards Harrison’s wrist. It moved and glided over his skin, forming itself to him, tightening like a bracelet made out of the most valuable of metals. 

“We shall let you continue on your voyage, Harrison of Abydos,” she spoke, “and you may travel as often as you please. For as long as you hold on to this charm, the waters will help you pass and keep you safe.

“But be careful. My father has eyes on all the waters of the world, and though his eyes are sharp, his mind may not be focused at all times on everything around him. Loose this, and I can not promise you safety in the waves or the currents.” 

“Thank you.” He bowed down to the lady of the sea and the god. 

“Now, be gone!” Poseidon, who had watched his daughter gift Harrison the armlet, growled. He held his trident and hit the bottom of it on the sand next to his feet. The booming sound evolved in large waves, making everything around the god to push back, including Harrison. He felt a strange, tugging, sensation on his shoulders. Suddenly, he was swept up by the new current and was being carried by the water to the sky. 

As he was moving, he saw glimpses of the large moon above his head. Its massive presence overtaking that of any other celestial body in the sky. And it only turned bigger and bigger as Harrison rose to the surface of the sea. With a large gasp, he felt his face finally be free from the water, as the pure night sky held him. 

He did not know how much time had passed while he was in the captivity of the gods, but he still needed to take a moment before returning to his journey to the other side. With deep breaths, he filled his lungs with the oxygen he had missed under the water. 

Finally, with you on his mind, he was on his way. Just like the Lady of the Water had promised, moving on, Harrison did not feel any struggle. Not only did he not feel the current pushing him backwards, it actually seemed as if the waves were helping him move ahead. His muscles could relax for he did not need to use all his power to swim. 

When he looked out in the distance, expecting nothing but the dark shadows of the mountains and forests, he saw the tiniest of bright lights. 

Because, as Harrison was nearing land, you had been sitting in your room, just like the night before. Looking out on the still waters, you looked out the window with your hand below your chin. To not be surrounded by darkness, you had put up a candle next to you on the sill. The orange light did not illuminate much, but it gave off a fabricated glow that reminded you of the sun in the morning hours. 

You kept on looking out at sea, while also listening for any sounds of your fellow temple sisters roaming around the hallways, in fear of being caught awake at this ungodly time. If you had looked away or even blinked, you were sure you would have missed it. A wave slightly bigger in size than the rest had appeared near the shore and it seemed to be carrying something. At first, you simply assumed it was limber or a piece from some unfortunate wreckage. But no. You were proven wrong when you saw the object- or better said, the person, move. Slowly clambering their way up to the beach.

For a moment you thought your eyes were deceiving you, for it looked as if the person stranded at shore was someone you recognised. Someone you had just met a day ago, yet could not stop thinking about during the day. All you really could make out was the vague shape of the man but… could it really be him? 

Quickly you got to your feet and ran out of the room. As quietly as possible, you made your way down the long stairs of the tower you resided. The massive doors of the entrance creaked loudly, but you slipped through the wooden gates successfully. 

It was not a long walk from the temple tower to the beach. It was the cliff that made it so difficult to reach, but you had managed to do so swiftly. Light on your feet, you jumped down to the rocks covering the sand, until finally, you could see Harrison lying at the edge of the water. For a brief moment, your heart ached at the thought of him not breathing, but as you neared him, you saw his head move to the side. His eyes opened, and the energy in his body ignited again. He jumped up and ran the final distance toward you, closing the gap between your bodies. You cupped his cheeks in your hands, utterly astonished that it was really him. Completely soaked to the bone, he stood in front of you. His hair clung to his forehead, and his chest heaved with every breath. His eyes looked even more vibrant as the salt in the water had tainted them red. 

“Harrison?” you gasped, still questioning if it was him. Not trusting your own mind. 

“My dearest,” he took your hand in his, kissing the inside of your palm, “I had promised you my return.” You had not actually expected him to come back. At least, not so soon. Though your experience with men may not be varied, you heard plenty of tales of them making promises, only for them to break them or never coming close to fulfilment. 

Yet, here he was. He had come back to you, just like he had said he would. He swam across the large sea just to see you. Did a grander gesture of passion exist, you did not know nor care. 

Harrison pushed back a stray strand of your hair, letting his hand rest on your face just like you had. 

As you looked into each other’s eyes, a more profound connection was forming. An unspoken bond that could only exist between two people. One that only a rare number of people had the pleasure to encounter. 

With a smile, you let your hand down, moving over his toned arm. His skin was still wet from the seawater, but what surprised you was the icy feeling of an armband enveloping his wrist. 

“What is this,” you asked curiously.  Harrison held out his arm, and you could see the intricate patterns reflecting in the night’s light. Lines curving to form what looked like waves of the ocean. The tiniest move of Harrison’s wrist made it seem like they were moving up and down. In fact, their pattern resembled the ebb and flow of the waves at your side.

“A gift from the gods,” he said. You looked up at him, confused. He did not immediately explain. Instead, holding on to your hands, he sat down on the sand. You followed suit. Positioned like that, Harrison told you his story. 

He told you how, in desperate need to see you again,  he had decided to cross the Hellespont tonight. How the water had pulled him down and, fearing for his life, you were still the one thing on his mind. He told you the way the current overpowered him and brought him down to the seabed and there… stood Poseidon himself.

You did not say a word, amazed at his story. You kept quiet as Harrison explained that the god had mistaken him for another man. 

“I had told him who I was and that I was merely on my way to see you. My love.” His grip on your hand tightened slightly. Your breath hitched in your throat. “And the Nereid gifted me this. It shall protect me from any trouble at sea when I am on my way to you.” 

With wide eyes filled with astonishment, you let your fingers graze over the metal. While Harrison had managed to dry off in the summer air, the band was still ice cold. Then you looked into his eyes again, and while the colour should be just as icy, there was nothing but warmth in them. All his emotions seeping through without a word that needed to be said. His hand travelled to your cheek once more, and Harrison leaned in.

Just for you to move away. You placed your fingers on his lips gently.

“I can’t.” It pained you to say those words, as all you wanted was to be kissed by him. 

“Please, y/n, let me touch you.” He pleaded. “I have come so far to show the love I hold for you, let me- please.” 

You did not say a thing. It seemed to be the only way out of this situation. As you had not given him direct access to your body, you were not breaking any rules of the temple. Meanwhile, you had also not pushed him away. Harrison understood what you meant as he leaned in, but not directly to touch your lips. He kissed your cheek, like the night before. And like the last time, you felt warmth course through your entire being. That feather-light touch made you feel as if you were floating yourself. 

And it did not stop there. He kissed you again, just an inch lower, and then again. Leaving that tingling sensation at every stop of his lips. You had been sitting opposite each other, so he took your hips and guided you closer to him. Letting your head fall back, with your eyes on the night’s sky, you focused on the new feelings that erupted in you as he touched your neck. A sound of pleasure escaped from your parted lips, and you could feel the smile that was forming on Harrison. 

He kissed you once more, just at the corner of your lips, before pulling away. Slightly displeased at the loss of contact, you let your head fall forward again. 

“Will you hold me?” you asked, not sure where the request had come from. 

“With pleasure,” he let you position yourself comfortably before draping his arms around you. Together you sat on the beach, arms entangled as your heartbeats merged into one. Whispering about sweet nothings. You had come to realise that not only did he have the looks of Apollo, but the wisdom and wit of Athena. And in him, he held humour worthy of the Muses. The longer your conversation went on, you realised that there was more between you and him than the physical attraction. It felt right to listen to his stories. The feeling of his arms around you was secure and pleasant. It felt like… home. 

But, like any good thing, this moment had to come to an end. Before dawn would set, Harrison had to get back home. You walked with him to where land and sea meet. The cold water nipped at your feet, and you jumped. 

“It is freezing,” you gasped. Suddenly, his act felt even more heroic. Harrison just smiled sheepishly. 

“It is worth it if it means I can see you again, y/n. And I will do so for as long as you want to have me at your side.”

“Then forever it shall be,” you said enthusiastically. Harrison looked into your eyes, looking for something, but he did not quite know what. He placed his fingers tips at his lips and sent a kiss your way. Though you stood far apart, a rush of warmth burned through you as if he was standing right next to you. This couldn’t be further from the truth. He was forming more distance between you. Each step deeper into the water until he had disappeared into the morning greyness of the sky, like a dream or a fantastical story. You wanted to keep watching as the waves ebbed and flowed, but you knew to go back to the tower.

As the sundial in the gardens was the only measurement of time, Harrison did not know how long it took him to swim to you and back. Nor did he know how much sleep he had been losing over this nightly adventure. Still, he never felt more alive. Days went by, and there had not been one that was not spent across-shore, with you in his arms. He did not try to persuade you for a kiss any further, for he imagined that if it was meant to be, the right time would come. 

Besides, the true pleasure came just from being in your presence, to have you lay against his body in the warm sand as you looked out on the sea that separated you in the day, yet also brought you together at night. 

The moon was in the same position in its cycle as the day you met. A bright silver orb in the middle of the universe, much like a pearl found in an oyster. Some nights as Harrison swam across the waters, he pondered what would be the easiest to bring you. A pearl from the deepest and darkest ocean, or the moon. He had asked you the same question, to which you just responded with a gentle laugh.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You do not need to give me anything. We already have each other’s hearts-” at this, you paused for a second. “Don’t we?” 

“You have had mine in your hands since the day our eyes met.” He confessed, kissing the palm of your hand. A warm feeling burst through you. 

“And so you have had mine,” you replied. Your eyes were still on your hand, on the place where his lips had met your skin. Your other hand reached out for it, tracing your palm with a feather-light touch. It felt warm. 

You felt his eyes on you, and when you looked up, the light blue shine was the first thing you saw. Bright, full of life, of love. How such a cold colour still held so much warmth within itself, it perplexed you. You felt yourself leaning in closer, in a trance with not only his eyes but with all of him. You needed to be closer to him. You needed to- 

And so, your lips met his in a soft touch that translated all your feelings and unsaid thoughts in mere seconds. His lips were soft, but salty, most likely because of the water he had been swimming in for all these weeks. The kiss grew stronger, more passionate. He reached out to touch your hip. It was one of the gentlest of touches. You responded to it with letting your hand trace through his hair, almost brushing it. It was still wet, and your fingers simply sailed over the locks. 

Harrison savoured every second of this, not knowing which would be the last. The idea of not touching you was absurd now, to not be able to kiss you anymore. If the gods were ever in his favour, they would have let him stay like this with you forever. 

But when did the Olympians ever let such things happen for mortals like him or you? The need for air, how unimportant it felt in the moment, was bubbling up in your lungs. Growing until it burned. You pulled away with a gasp. It was dark, but you could see the tint of redness across his cheeks. When you touched it, it was as hot as you felt. 

“You are divine, do you know that?” He said with a small smile, which he could not hide even if he tried. 

“I might have heard it in passing conversation.” You said, not able to pull your gaze away from his lips. They just looked so inviting. And now that you had had that first taste, nothing else seemed to matter. “But I must say that you, yourself, are… exquisite.” 

“How so?”

“I could not describe it if I tried, but it is so. Please, believe me.” You sat up straight. “I have had days in which I doubted if you were even real. A man like you could not be just a man.”

“I shall have to disappoint you, my love, for I really am just me.” He chuckled with his shoulders. You shook your head, however. 

“No, it is no disappointment. It- it is...” Not being able to find the words, you looked out at sea in the hopes to find your answers in the waves. You were so focused that you missed the look of pure adoration that Harrison was giving you.

“Perfection?” he said under his breath. 

“Yes!” you turned back to him, grabbing his hand to kiss his knuckles. 

The next moment went beyond comprehension because suddenly you found yourself enveloped in his arms. He had pulled you closer to him. He was now the one to press his lips against yours in a kiss. This one was more urgent, feverish, hungry. But also quick. The parting felt messy, and you were left stunned. Not by his actions. By your own internal reaction. Your body had surrendered to Harrison, and nothing seemed to matter anymore. You needed him. 

But the sun was already rising, and you both knew what this meant. It was time for him to go. With one last kiss goodbye, Harrison got up like all the nights before disappeared in the waves.

The saltiness of the water did not matter to him, for the only taste on his lips that he cared about was you. It was an indescribable sweetness to it. A softness that he would never forget. That feeling and the moment of your lips touching for the first time replayed in his mind all the way back home, and it continued on in his dream. However sweet the dream was, he did not want it to last forever, since reality felt much better now that you were a part of it.

And so, the next morning he woke up. The energy in him surprised even his mother, who had not seen him that full of life in a long time. 

The energy also came to fair use out in the open field, where Harrison’s father was waiting for him like any other day. Maybe it was because Harrison had so much energy in him, perhaps his father had somehow found out that he was escaping the premises each night to cross the treacherous waters, but the training was more brutal than ever. It left Harrison bruised and sore. He could barely move his arms. But it would not stop him from seeing you again. Nothing would.

What he had not realised was that during his daily battle, the armlet from the Lord of the Sea received irreplaceable damage. Holding on to its last strings, so to say, Harrison did not notice it needed repair for the rest of that day. And when he reached the water like every night before, the bracelet dispersed, melting into the water. Unbeknownst to Harrison, he had lost all his security in the sea. 

He swam like any other night, however. The waters were calm and felt warmer as a result of the sun starting to shine longer and longer. 

But the deeper into the sea he went, the harsher the current became. It pushed him off course. Confused, he looked over at his arm and in that instant it all made sense. The bracelet, his protection, had been broken. Nothing was stopping the wrath of Poseidon to take him now. He hoped that for one night, the god would not see it necessary to use his powers. That hope quickly vanished.

No matter how hard Harrison pushed himself, he could not pass the heavy current. He quickly found himself being swept away with the water. A wave fell upon him. It hit him upfront. The steel-like impact made it even harder to concentrate on staying afloat, above water. With his arms still hurting from the earlier training session, the task felt impossible. Though he kept trying. And trying. 

No matter how hard he tried, with the current and the waves, any attempt of survival seemed futile. He didn’t know how long he tried to fight his exhaustion, but eventually, there was nothing he could do. He had been pulled miles away, most likely. There was no way back. And the further into the waters he moved, the colder and harsher it became. It was getting worse. There was no point anymore. His body was on hellish fire. His bones burned while his skin froze. His vision blurred with each hit of water he received.

He closed them, immediately your face appeared in front of him. It did not matter that it was only but an illusion in his mind. You were there with him. You reached out for his face. Your voice was a soft echo in the back of his mind. 

“It is alright,” you said. A sad, but proud, smile twinkled on your face, “You can stop now.” But Harrison did not want to stop. He tried to push himself up to the surface again. One final bite of air filled his lungs before another wave emerged. It was done. His body had given up the fight. He still saw you. The ghost of your lips pressed against him, but it didn’t feel the same. It was cold. There was none of that softness anymore, it was all gone. 

But it was alright, he thought. You were here with him. In his heart, in his mind. You always would be.

As he sank down deeper into the darkness, he felt no pain. No sadness. No remorse. The time he had spent with you was the greatest he had had. For once he felt like there was more to him than what he had been told in his childhood. There was more to life than war. There was love. You gave him that. You had given him a purpose. Something worth living and dying for.

Like any night, you had watched the sea from your window. You saw how the storm had brewed. You saw the battle between the currents. And so, when that evening Harrison had not come up to shore, your mind held nothing but fear in it. But you held hope. Maybe he had seen the dangers in the waters and decided to wait. Maybe he was still at home. Watching the sea from across the other side, thinking of you like you did of him. 

You held those hopes for every night since. Hope that he would emerge from between the waters and kiss you like he had once. You didn’t dare to think that he was not here anymore. From that night on, life had become hard to live. Nothing felt the same anymore. Nothing felt right. 

Was this a punishment from your goddess? For breaking your vow? But then, why had he been the one doomed to die? Except, it wasn’t really his punishment, was it? You were the one left to suffer his loss now.

And part of you died too that night. For Harrison still held your heart in his hands, and so when he passed on to the kingdom of Hades, your heart, and with it a part of your soul, went with him. 

The End

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed

> please leave a comment or ask with your thoughts. i love reading them 

>masterlist and link to taglist in bio

tagging:

@definitely-not-black-cat @artemisiaarm @nerdyhockeygirl @miraclesoflove @justasmisunderstoodasloki @thefridgeismybestie @m19friend @creative-happenings @parker-holland-osterfield @fanficparker @fanficscuziranout @peterparkoure @xxtomxo @happywolves81 @captainbuckyy @tra-gicx @qxeen-of-hearts @varshavisuu @kangaroobunny @petersunderoos96  @the-lost-fairy-tale @nerd-domland @sleepybesson @rissa067 @the-queen-procrastinator @scarletteclipze @screeching-student-unknown @lonelyavenger @tomhollanders2013 @miraclesoflove @playinonaloop @queenoflostspirits @roses-hxlland @hereiamhereigo @sunnydays0803 @averyfosterthoughts @moorehollandplz @beiroviski @you-bleed-just-toknowyouarealive @peterparkerbabyyy @multifandomlover21 @lmaotshollandd @badbitchydecisions @tikapollak @awesomehritz @madzleigh01 @oh-what a beautiful-parker @taciturnspidey @quaksonhehe @mountainsforwords @harryfobter @peepeeparkerr @viagracex @ethereal-beauty-p  @slytherin-chaser @worldoftom @moonysoftt @peeterparkr @wazzupmrstark @saintlavrents @peachybloomss @blissfulparker  @fallinfortom @sarcasticallywitty15​ @wonderfulfluffer​ @hollandstea​ @musicalkeys​ @bitchydecisions​ @okokimfreakingoutahh @sheranatic111​ @zspideyy​ @itstaskeen​ @theliterarymess​ @geminiparkers​ 

[ardent-musings]

“Focused” Part 2

Orion Amari Smut

Based off this submission by @lifeofkaze​

You can read this smut on its own however it is a Part 2, so if you want, you can read Part One here. 

“First of, this is your fault, I’ve turned into such a simp since we became friends 😂

Second, I get content starved so quickly these days, maaaay I ask you for another Orion blurb if you’re up to it?😅🤦‍♀️

Wait wait, hear me out: how about after what happened in ‘Focus’ they watch the match for the third place before their final match and she wants to repay him in kind for what he did to her in class? And he’s like wanna ‘take this somewhere else’ but she’s just ‘tempting, but this here is retribution’. Wouldn’t blame her for giving in eventually though 😂

I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened to me but I can’t help it it’s just too much fun 😁”

EVERYONE IN THIS STORY IS OF AGE AND CONSENTING

Warnings: NSFW 18+, public sex, exhibitionism, handjob m receiving, teasing, more dom!reader if you squint

It was early January when you and the rest of the Hufflepuff team were sitting at the top of the wooden tower watching Slytherin and Gryffindor playing. They were going head-to-head to see who would be going up against your team for the Quidditch final. Typically, you would be hyper focused on the dazzling action going on before you; however, your mind was replaying a scene that happened quite some time ago with the one person who had yet to show up: Orion.

That scene was none other than when your very captain played with you in the most salacious way during your History of Magic class. Orion was never the one to act so brazen, but you couldn’t deny how turned on you were as you remembered his strong hands teasing the lace lining of your panties. Or how you had to do everything in your power to stop from yelling as you came from his hands in the back of the room. He had a quiet yet total control of your body and you wanted nothing more than to make him crave you as much as you craved him.

Of course, that was easier said than done. Orion was always so busy, being the responsible and determined captain you admired. He was either busy studying to keep his marks up or meeting up with Skye or Murphy to go over certain strategies for the upcoming games. You must admit that he had soothed your nerves in the most delicious of ways the last time you were nervous about a game. And you wanted to get back to that.

The harsh winter air was burning your cheeks, the wind was hitting you harder at the higher vantage point and all you could do was snuggle into yourself. Your yellow scarf and gloves were doing the best they could against the cold, but it wasn’t enough. You continuously shivered and huffed as your hands felt like they would chip off the bone.

“Did I miss anything?” Orion asked as he sat beside you. His hair was covered in a dusting of snow, making it look like tiny diamonds across the dark strands. Of course, he had a content smile across his unshaven face.

“Nope, nothing. They were just scrimmaging; the actual game should be starting soon.”

He beamed happily at you, taking a large fluffy blanket and draping it over the two of you. You released a happy sigh at the warmth that enveloped you, although it came out more like a gasp.

“You tend to make those sounds a lot when you’re around me,” he whispered in your ear in a low tone.

Your cheeks were already red from the cold, but the burning feeling was now traveling down your chest at Orion’s suggestive comment. He merely giggled and pulled you in close by the hip, making it so that your bodies were flushed side by side.

“If I remember correctly, it was your idea to do that in the back of the classroom, Captain, not mine.”

Your tone was snarky, despite how you knew you would fold the moment he opened his mouth again. It was a dangerous game the two of you were playing; the teasing, the sneaking around, all of it probably went against some moral code out there. It just didn’t matter enough for you to care.

“Please, don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy it. From what I remember, you were the one who was doing everything in your power to make sure I never stopped playing with you,” his hands were now digging into your hip. Surely, they would leave some sort of bruise with the amount of rings he often wore.

“I did enjoy it,” you whispered back into his ear, “But I never got the chance to properly thank you for it.”

His dark brown eyes now met yours; they appeared to be swimming with more tones of onyx than gold, he was growing frustrated with your impending promise and what that meant for him.

“Well tell me the place and time, love. And I’ll make sure to clear my schedule,” he smirked.

The idea of him being excited to be handled by you was overwhelming. He wanted it as much as you did. He craved your hands on him as much as you craved making him come undone by your touch. You imagined how good he would look as you got him off. And in that second, you knew you weren’t going to wait to find out.

You dropped your hand on top of his knee underneath the giant blanket, making sure no one was looking at you two. Thankfully, Skye was arguing with some of the other teammates and Murphy was busy commentating. No one was paying attention to you two.

“How about today and right now?” You asked as you kissed and nipped at the skin beneath his ear. It was a bit of a riskier move for you to make, but so was fingering you in the middle of class with an awake yet dead teacher.

“You really want to do that here? In front of everyone?” His breath hitched as your hand drew higher up his thigh. It was muscular and wide from hours of balancing on his broom and you couldn’t stop yourself from digging your nails into the strong flesh. It seemed like Orion liked it too, with the way that he growled against your shoulder.

“Yes. I want to play with you, the way you played with me. In broad daylight. In front of everyone. In a way that forces you to do nothing but focus on my hand on your cock.”

The words trembled from your lips, both from the cold and the impatience you felt. It didn’t help when Orion walked around looking like a Greek god.

Your captain fully turned to you, boring his lustful eyes and pretty lashes in your direction, not taking his glare off you for a second.

“Then do it,” he complied with a smirk.

With his seal of approval, your hand trailed up even higher on his thigh, enjoying the way he tensed beneath your hand, “I’m gonna make you feel so good, Orion. Just make sure you focus on the game. I don’t want you to miss out on a second of it.”

He let out a resounding laugh at your comment, connecting it to the way he instructed you to focus on the lesson the time he touched you. This was truly your way of getting back at him. Or repaying him. It was both revenge and reward.

The rush of energy that flowed through you the moment your hand reached his cock through his pants was exhilarating. He was already growing harder under your words alone and as your hand palmed at him, you noticed his eyes closing at the feeling.

“I said pay attention,” you pinched at his thigh through his pants. It wasn’t super hard, but it was enough for him to lurch in his seat, groaning at the sting mixed with his arousal. “Keep your eyes closed. I don’t want to have to tell you again.”

Orion’s face was both surprise and astonishment, you were far more serious than desperate like he thought you would be. But once your hand met his bulge again, he maintained his focus on the field.

After a few solid strokes up and down his cock, you could tell he needed more. His hands were digging into your hip even harder than before, making you acutely aware of how greedy he was becoming.

“More,” was all he murmured. It was low and whiny; his teeth were biting into the plump lower lip you so wanted to have between your own teeth.

His plea was good enough for you. Your hand met his waistband, slowly unravelling the drawstring that held his brown pants high on his hips. The knot came undone rather easily, and soon enough your hand dipped below the thick fabric to meet his hard cock. He groaned the moment you touched him. He was heavy and warm in your hand, and you wondered if the icy touch of your skin was giving him more pain or pleasure.

You tried your hardest to look ahead at the game, same as Orion. It was easy to get lost in the blur of green and red before you, but the only game you were concerned about was making Orion feel the way he made you feel.

Quick flicks of your wrist proved to make him feel the best. As you worked quickly against him, you could see his eyes blown wide, one of his hands holding your hip while the other was clutching onto the wooden stands with white knuckles. Thank goodness he brought the large blanket, or else this would have never worked.

“Tell me, what’s the current score?” You whispered into his ear, knowing full well he just missed the Slytherin chaser making a goal.

“190 to 150,” he responded.

“Wrong.”

You retreated your hand out of his pants and allowed it to rest on your own lap instead.

“What?”

“The score is 200 to 150,” you answered plainly. His face was flushed from the cold and the heat of his own body, making him shiver as he lost the source for his warmth. “I told you to pay attention and you haven’t been, honey.”

He groaned in frustration, trying his hardest to focus on you, and the game, but not his aching and delayed release. It was pure and cruel torture, but you weren’t going to touch him until he complied.

“I’m sorry, please, just finish me off, doll. I swear I’ll pay perfect attention.”

You were afraid his whining was going to cause a few wondering eyes to gaze your way. So before he grew too loud with his request, you brought your hand back to his lap, and slowly circled the head of him with your thumb.

“Fine,” you kissed his jaw, “But if you miss one detail of this game, you’ll never get to see if my mouth is better than my hands. Understand?”

He nodded frantically, as he kept his focus in front of him. You didn’t even have to work that hard, just holding him in your grip again caused him to shift his hips so you could pump him as he rocked his hips. If anyone turned around, even the blanket wouldn’t have been a good enough disguise for your activity, but you honestly couldn’t care less. All you wanted was to get him to cum.

Orion’s heart was pounding in his ears, his eyes went fuzzy from trying to pay attention to the game instead of your expert hand around him. More often than not, he envisioned you touching him; he wondered if you would be slow and careful or wild and unsatiable. He had never took you for the teasing type. But the way you were working him beneath the blanket and in front of the whole school was something he never would of imagined. God were you good at it.

Soon enough, your need for his release grew stronger, making you flick at the tip of him quickly and tightly. He gasped beneath your touch and tried his hardest to hold in his moan. It was empowering to make your captain fall apart with just your hand on him, but quickly it became to much for him. Your continued flicks and rubs and squeezes left him panting, coming hard from your expert hold on him. His head dipped back while his chest heaved. Dear lord, if anyone was looking in your direction, they’d know exactly what was going on. But that wasn’t any of your concern.

He chuckled exhaustedly as you took your hand out of his pants. You made no effort to tie his waistband back up, all you wanted was to lick the bit of him that had fallen onto your fingers. Teasingly, you took a taste and although it wasn’t the sweetest, the look on his face as you licked at your hand was better than candy.

“Tell me, Captain,” you giggled, “What’s the score?”

Orion looked at you with tired eyes, shaking his head in astonishment as you continued to taste him from your fingertips.

“The score?”

You nodded you head with a wink as you settled further into the blanket, his hand gripped your hip yet again.

“The score is one to one, doll,” he growled.

[glittergummicandypeach]

Fake Hafez: How a supreme Persian poet of love was erased | Religion | Al Jazeera

This is the time of the year where every day I get a handful of requests to track down the original, authentic versions of some famed Muslim poet, usually Hafez or Rumi. The requests start off the same way: "I am getting married next month, and my fiance and I wanted to celebrate our Muslim background, and we have always loved this poem by Hafez. Could you send us the original?" Or, "My daughter is graduating this month, and I know she loves this quote from Hafez. Can you send me the original so I can recite it to her at the ceremony we are holding for her?"

It is heartbreaking to have to write back time after time and say the words that bring disappointment: The poems that they have come to love so much and that are ubiquitous on the internet are forgeries. Fake. Made up. No relationship to the original poetry of the beloved and popular Hafez of Shiraz.

How did this come to be? How can it be that about 99.9 percent of the quotes and poems attributed to one the most popular and influential of all the Persian poets and Muslim sages ever, one who is seen as a member of the pantheon of "universal" spirituality on the internet are ... fake? It turns out that it is a fascinating story of Western exotification and appropriation of Muslim spirituality.

Let us take a look at some of these quotes attributed to Hafez:

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, 'you owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that! It lights up the whole sky.

You like that one from Hafez? Too bad. Fake Hafez.

Your heart and my heart Are very very old friends.

Like that one from Hafez too? Also Fake Hafez.

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.

Beautiful. Again, not Hafez.

And the next one you were going to ask about? Also fake. So where do all these fake Hafez quotes come from?

An American poet, named Daniel Ladinsky, has been publishing books under the name of the famed Persian poet Hafez for more than 20 years. These books have become bestsellers. You are likely to find them on the shelves of your local bookstore under the "Sufism" section, alongside books of Rumi, Khalil Gibran, Idries Shah, etc.

It hurts me to say this, because I know so many people love these "Hafez" translations. They are beautiful poetry in English, and do contain some profound wisdom. Yet if you love a tradition, you have to speak the truth: Ladinsky's translations have no earthly connection to what the historical Hafez of Shiraz, the 14th-century Persian sage, ever said.

He is making it up. Ladinsky himself admitted that they are not "translations", or "accurate", and in fact denied having any knowledge of Persian in his 1996 best-selling book, I Heard God Laughing. Ladinsky has another bestseller, The Subject Tonight Is Love.

Persians take poetry seriously. For many, it is their singular contribution to world civilisation: What the Greeks are to philosophy, Persians are to poetry. And in the great pantheon of Persian poetry where Hafez, Rumi, Saadi, 'Attar, Nezami, and Ferdowsi might be the immortals, there is perhaps none whose mastery of the Persian language is as refined as that of Hafez.

In the introduction to a recent book on Hafez, I said that Rumi (whose poetic output is in the tens of thousands) comes at you like you an ocean, pulling you in until you surrender to his mystical wave and are washed back to the ocean. Hafez, on the other hand, is like a luminous diamond, with each facet being a perfect cut. You cannot add or take away a word from his sonnets. So, pray tell, how is someone who admits that they do not know the language going to be translating the language?

Ladinsky is not translating from the Persian original of Hafez. And unlike some "versioners" (Coleman Barks is by far the most gifted here) who translate Rumi by taking the Victorian literal translations and rendering them into American free verse, Ladinsky's relationship with the text of Hafez's poetry is nonexistent. Ladinsky claims that Hafez appeared to him in a dream and handed him the English "translations" he is publishing:

"About six months into this work I had an astounding dream in which I saw Hafiz as an Infinite Fountaining Sun (I saw him as God), who sang hundreds of lines of his poetry to me in English, asking me to give that message to 'my artists and seekers'."

It is not my place to argue with people and their dreams, but I am fairly certain that this is not how translation works. A great scholar of Persian and Urdu literature, Christopher Shackle, describes Ladinsky's output as "not so much a paraphrase as a parody of the wondrously wrought style of the greatest master of Persian art-poetry." Another critic, Murat Nemet-Nejat, described Ladinsky's poems as what they are: original poems of Ladinsky masquerading as a "translation."

I want to give credit where credit is due: I do like Ladinsky's poetry. And they do contain mystical insights. Some of the statements that Ladinsky attributes to Hafez are, in fact, mystical truths that we hear from many different mystics. And he is indeed a gifted poet. See this line, for example:

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.

That is good stuff. Powerful. And many mystics, including the 20th-century Sufi master Pir Vilayat, would cast his powerful glance at his students, stating that he would long for them to be able to see themselves and their own worth as he sees them. So yes, Ladinsky's poetry is mystical. And it is great poetry. So good that it is listed on Good Reads as the wisdom of "Hafez of Shiraz." The problem is, Hafez of Shiraz said nothing like that. Daniel Ladinsky of St Louis did. 

The poems are indeed beautiful. They are just not ... Hafez. They are ... Hafez-ish? Hafez-esque? So many of us wish that Ladinsky had just published his work under his own name, rather than appropriating Hafez's. 

Ladinsky's "translations" have been passed on by Oprah, the BBC, and others. Government officials have used them on occasions where they have wanted to include Persian speakers and Iranians. It is now part of the spiritual wisdom of the East shared in Western circles. Which is great for Ladinsky, but we are missing the chance to hear from the actual, real Hafez. And that is a shame.

So, who was the real Hafez (1315-1390)?

He was a Muslim, Persian-speaking sage whose collection of love poetry rivals only Mawlana Rumi in terms of its popularity and influence. Hafez's given name was Muhammad, and he was called Shams al-Din (The Sun of Religion). Hafez was his honorific because he had memorised the whole of the Quran. His poetry collection, the Divan, was referred to as Lesan al-Ghayb (the Tongue of the Unseen Realms).

A great scholar of Islam, the late Shahab Ahmed, referred to Hafez's Divan as: "the most widely-copied, widely-circulated, widely-read, widely-memorized, widely-recited, widely-invoked, and widely-proverbialized book of poetry in Islamic history." Even accounting for a slight debate, that gives some indication of his immense following. Hafez's poetry is considered the very epitome of Persian in the Ghazal tradition.

Hafez's worldview is inseparable from the world of Medieval Islam, the genre of Persian love poetry, and more. And yet he is deliciously impossible to pin down. He is a mystic, though he pokes fun at ostentatious mystics. His own name is "he who has committed the Quran to heart", yet he loathes religious hypocrisy. He shows his own piety while his poetry is filled with references to intoxication and wine that may be literal or may be symbolic.

The most sublime part of Hafez's poetry is its ambiguity. It is like a Rorschach psychological test in poetry. The mystics see it as a sign of their own yearning, and so do the wine-drinkers, and the anti-religious types. It is perhaps a futile exercise to impose one definitive meaning on Hafez. It would rob him of what makes him ... Hafez.

The tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, a magnificent city in Iran, is a popular pilgrimage site and the honeymoon destination of choice for many Iranian newlyweds. His poetry, alongside that of Rumi and Saadi, are main staples of vocalists in Iran to this day, including beautiful covers by leading maestros like Shahram Nazeri and Mohammadreza Shajarian.

Like many other Persian poets and mystics, the influence of Hafez extended far beyond contemporary Iran and can be felt wherever Persianate culture was a presence, including India and Pakistan, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Ottoman realms. Persian was the literary language par excellence from Bengal to Bosnia for almost a millennium, a reality that sadly has been buried under more recent nationalistic and linguistic barrages.

Part of what is going on here is what we also see, to a lesser extent, with Rumi: the voice and genius of the Persian speaking, Muslim, mystical, sensual sage of Shiraz are usurped and erased, and taken over by a white American with no connection to Hafez's Islam or Persian tradition. This is erasure and spiritual colonialism. Which is a shame, because Hafez's poetry deserves to be read worldwide alongside Shakespeare and Toni Morrison, Tagore and Whitman, Pablo Neruda and the real Rumi, Tao Te Ching and the Gita, Mahmoud Darwish, and the like.

In a 2013 interview, Ladinsky said of his poems published under the name of Hafez: "Is it Hafez or Danny? I don't know. Does it really matter?" I think it matters a great deal. There are larger issues of language, community, and power involved here.

It is not simply a matter of a translation dispute, nor of alternate models of translations. This is a matter of power, privilege and erasure. There is limited shelf space in any bookstore. Will we see the real Rumi, the real Hafez, or something appropriating their name? How did publishers publish books under the name of Hafez without having someone, anyone, with a modicum of familiarity check these purported translations against the original to see if there is a relationship? Was there anyone in the room when these decisions were made who was connected in a meaningful way to the communities who have lived through Hafez for centuries?

Hafez's poetry has not been sitting idly on a shelf gathering dust. It has been, and continues to be, the lifeline of the poetic and religious imagination of tens of millions of human beings. Hafez has something to say, and to sing, to the whole world, but bypassing these tens of millions who have kept Hafez in their heart as Hafez kept the Quran in his heart is tantamount to erasure and appropriation.

We live in an age where the president of the United States ran on an Islamophobic campaign of "Islam hates us" and establishing a cruel Muslim ban immediately upon taking office. As Edward Said and other theorists have reminded us, the world of culture is inseparable from the world of politics. So there is something sinister about keeping Muslims out of our borders while stealing their crown jewels and appropriating them not by translating them but simply as decor for poetry that bears no relationship to the original. Without equating the two, the dynamic here is reminiscent of white America's endless fascination with Black culture and music while continuing to perpetuate systems and institutions that leave Black folk unable to breathe.

There is one last element: It is indeed an act of violence to take the Islam out of Rumi and Hafez, as Ladinsky has done. It is another thing to take Rumi and Hafez out of Islam. That is a separate matter, and a mandate for Muslims to reimagine a faith that is steeped in the world of poetry, nuance, mercy, love, spirit, and beauty. Far from merely being content to criticise those who appropriate Muslim sages and erase Muslims' own presence in their legacy, it is also up to us to reimagine Islam where figures like Rumi and Hafez are central voices. This has been part of what many of feel called to, and are pursuing through initiatives like Illuminated Courses.

Oh, and one last thing: It is Haaaaafez, not Hafeeeeez. Please.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

This content was originally published here.

[writingwithcolor]

Fairy Tale Retellings with POC

@anjareedd asked:

Hello, Writing with Color! First of all, thank you for all you do. Second, do you have any advice for a white person retelling fairy tales, both European fairy tale and non-European fairy tales? Is it okay to retell non-European fairy tales? I would feel bad if all fairy tales I retold were European as those are over represented, but given how much white people have erased and whitewashed other culture's fairy tales I understand if that were off-limits for a white person. Thank you!

Fairy tale retellings are my favorite thing. I love reading, rewriting and creating new fairy tale-style stories with People of Color!

As you write, keep in mind:

European does not mean white. 

The possibility of PoC in European or Western historical settings tends to throw off so many. There are plenty of European People of Color, then and today. You can have an Indian British little red riding hood and it isn’t “unrealistic.” And we wanna read about them!

Still, research the history of your settings and time period. Use multiple credible sources, as even the most well-known ones may exclude the history of People of Color or skim over it. The stories might be shoved into a corner, but we live and have lived everywhere. The specific groups (and numbers of) in a certain region may vary, though. 

How and when did they or their family get there, and why?

Has it been centuries, decades, longer than one can remember?

Who are the indigenous people of the region? (Because hey, places like America and Australia would love to have you believe its earliest people were white...)

Is there a connection with the Moors, trade, political marriage; was it simply immigration?

No need to elaborate all too much. A sentence or more woven into the story in passing may do the trick to establish context, depending on your story and circumstance. 

Or if you want to ignore all of that, because this is fantasy-London or whatever, by all means do. POC really don’t need a explanation to exist, but I simply like to briefly establish context for those who may struggle to “get it”, personally. This is a side effect of POC being seen as the Other and white as the default.

Although, if PoC existing in a fairy tale is the reader’s biggest stumbling block in a world of magic, speculation, or fantasy, that’s none of your concern.

Can you picture any of the people below, or someone with these backgrounds, the protagonist of their own fairytale? I hope so!

Above: Painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1760s - 1800s), British Heiress with her cousin. Check out her history as well as the movie, Belle (2013).

Source: English Heritage: Women in History - Dido Belle

 Above: Abraham Janssens - The Agrippine Sibyl - Netherlands (c. 1575)

“Since ancient times Sybils were considered seers sent by god, priestesses foretelling the coming of great events. This model serves to depict the Sybil of Agrippina, one of the 12 that foretold the coming of Christ. Notice the flagellum and crown of thrones which are symbolic objects reminding the viewer of Christs suffering.”  X

Above: “Major Musa Bhai, 3 November 1890. Musa Bhai travelled to England in 1888 as part of the Booth family, who founded the Salvation Army.” X

Above: Eleanor Xiniwe and Johanna Jonkers, respectively and other members of the African Choir, who all had portraits taken at the London Stereoscopic Company in 1891. 

“The African Choir were a group of young South African singers that toured Britain between 1891 and 1893. They were formed to raise funds for a Christian school in their home country and performed for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, a royal residence on the Isle of Wight.” X

The examples above just scratch the surface. Luckily, more and more historians and researchers are publishing lesser known (and at times purposefully masked) PoC history.

More Sources 

PoC in History (WWC Search Link)

POC in Europe (WWC Search Link)

The Black Victorians: astonishing portraits unseen for 120 years

Hidden histories: the first Black people photographed in Britain – in pictures

Let’s talk about oppression and slavery 

There is a hyper-focus on chattel slavery as if the times when and where it occurred is the only narrative that exists. And even when it is part of a Person of Color’s history, that is seldom all there is to say of the person or their lives. For example, Dido Elizabeth Belle.

People of Color were not all slaves, actively enslaved, or oppressed for racial reasons at all times in history! Dig deep into the research of your time period and region. Across the long, wide history of the world, People of Color are and were a norm and also NOT simply exceptions. Explore all the possibilities to discover the little known and seldom told history. Use this as inspiration for your writing.

PoC (especially Black people) were not always in chains, especially in a world of your making. 

Don’t get me wrong. These stories do have a place and not even painful histories should be erased. I personally read these stories as well, if and when written by someone who is from the background. Some might even combine fairy tale, fantasy, and oppression in history. However...

There are plenty of stories on oppressed PoC. How many fairy tales?

Many European tales have versions outside of Europe. 

Just because a tale was popularized under a western setting doesn’t mean that it originates there. Overtime, many were rewritten and altered to fit European settings, values and themes.

Read original tales. 

You might be inspired to include a story in its original setting. Even if you kept it in a western setting, why not consider a protagonist from the ethnicity of the story’s origin?

For example: the Cinderella most are familiar with was popularized by the French in 1697. However, Cinderella has Chinese and Greek versions that date back from the 9th Century CE and 6th Century BCE, respectively. 

Choosing a Setting: European or Non-European?

I do not see anything wrong with either (I write tales set in western and non-western settings, all with Heroines of Color). There is great potential in both.

Non-Western Settings (pros and cons)

Normalizes non-Western settings. Not just the “exotic” realm of the Other.

Potential for rich, cultural elements and representation

Requires more research and thoughtfulness (the case for any setting one is unfamiliar with, though)

European or Western Setting (pros and cons)

Normalizes PoC as heroes, not the Other, or only fit to be side characters.

Representation for People of Color who live in Western countries/regions 

Loss of some cultural elements (that character can still bring in that culture, though! Living in the West often means balancing 2+ cultures)

Outdated Color and Ethnic Symbolism 

Many fairy tales paint blackness (and darkness, and the Other) as bad, ominous and ugly, and white as good and pure. 

Language that worships whiteness as the symbol of beauty. For example: “Fair” being synonymous with beauty. Characters like Snow White being the “fairest” of them all.

Wicked witches with large hooked noses, often meant to be coded as ethnically Jewish people. 

Don’t follow an old tale back into that same pit of dark and Other phobia. There’s many ways to change up and subvert the trope, even while still using it, if you wish. Heroines and heroes can have dark skin and large noses and still stand for good, innocence and beauty.

Read: Black and White Symbolism: Discussion and Alternatives 

Non-European Fairy tales - Tips to keep in Mind: 

Some stories and creatures belong to a belief system and is not just myth to alter. Before writing or changing details, read and seek the opinions of the group. You might change the whole meaning of something by tweaking details you didn’t realize were sacred and relevant.

Combine Tales Wisely: 

Picking stories and beings from different cultural groups and placing them in one setting can come across as them belonging to the same group or place (Ex: A Japanese fairy tale with Chinese elements). This misrepresents and erases true origins. If you mix creatures or elements from tales, show how they all play together and try to include their origin, so it isn’t as if the elements were combined at random or without careful selection.

Balance is key: 

When including creatures of myths, take care to balance your Human of Color vs. creatures ratio, as well as the nature of them both (good, evil, gray moral). EX: Creatures from Native American groups but no human Native characters from that same group (or all evil, gray, or too underdeveloped to know) is poor representation.

Moral Alignment: 

Changing a good or neutral cultural creature into something evil may be considered disrespectful and misappropriation. 

Have Fun! 

No, seriously. Fairy tales, even those with the most somber of meanings, are meant to be intriguing little adventures. Don’t forget that as you write or get hung up on getting the “right message” out and so on. That’s what editing is for.

--Colette  

[officialleehadan]

Boats and Salt Wind

Hello darlings! Alas, the smoke is blowing back in, but I almost don’t mind, because now everything smells like falling leaves and woodstoves.

Today’s story is for Jennifer. Thank you so much, darling. I look forward to every one of your comments!

Prompt: HGE – Riptide

+++

The next afternoon, Tony drove Evan and his bike into town. He was on his way to see their science team with the footage from their failed dive. The team had watched it first thing in the morning and Evan had been astonished at how bad the cave-in really was. From where Tony had been, it did look like Evan had been directly under the cascade of immense rocks.

He could hardly blame his friends for thinking that was the end of him. If he had seen it from their side, he would have thought the same thing.

When they reached the lab, Evan poked his head in for a brief chat and a relieved hug from Erik before he pulled his bike from the back of their van and started on his way down to the water.

Evan was happy to meet Eione and Anita at the dock. He had thrown on his swimsuit, and his towel and snorkel gear were in a sack over one shoulder. In one hand he had a jug of fresh water to rinse off with if he got in the water. If they had time, he wanted to take a quick look and see if he could find any of his lost equipment. He wouldn’t be able to retrieve any of it most likely, but he could come back with his scuba gear if he did find anything.

Anita’s boat was named the Sea Urchin. It was a mid-sized white and blue motorboat with a center console shaded by a plastic top overhead. By the time he got there, Eione and Anita were already onboard and ready to go. Evan climbed on board to join the two women.

“Morning,” he said cheerfully with a wave for Anita at the helm. She smiled back at him from where she stood, balanced lightly by one of the railings. He couldn’t help giving Eione an appreciative second glance. She was in a soft sea-green dress that fell just above her knees, and he was amused to note that her feet were bare.

“Morning!” Anita called back to him as she shoved them away from the dock with one good push. “You all good to go?”

“All ready, Ma’am,” he answered confidently. “Got my gear. I’m set.”

“Great! Help Eione cast us off, will you? I’ll get us out of here.” She fired up the engine and carefully pulled the boat away from the pier as soon as the mooring line was loose. Evan helped Eione pull up the bright fenders that protected the side of the boat and tucked them away in one of the benches before putting his bag into the other compartment to keep it out of their way. “Hold on, I don’t drive like a lady.”

As soon as they cleared the mouth of the harbor, Anita cranked the engine and headed up the coastline towards where they had found him. Anita seemed to know where they were going, so he sat back and trusted her to get them there.

The breeze was refreshing after the muggy heat of the island and Evan closed his eyes to enjoy it. Most places had air conditioning, Chris’s house included, but the walk to the dock from where Tony had dropped him off had left him sweating.

The warmth was nice; he just wasn’t used to it after months up north. Hopefully in another week or two it wouldn’t be so bad. It was more than a year since he had last worked somewhere tropical.

He opened his eyes and came over to Eione. She turned to look at him and scooted over until he could sit on the white plastic bench beside her.

“You have a good morning?” he asked her, getting a shy smile in return. “I didn’t have time to stop for pastries, or I would have brought tribute.”

“I always eat while I’m out in the mornings, but thank you for the thought, and it is a very fine morning,” she told him, raising a hand absently to push her hair out of her face. “Are you feeling ready to go back into the water?”

“Excited,” Evan laughed. “I knew the risks when I went down there, and I went in anyway. I love it too much to give it up because of one accident.”

“The current can rip out of that cave when the tide shifts or a storm is rolling in,” Eione told him with a shrug told him, and looked out over the water. “I’ve seen it so strong that I can’t swim against it. It might have been enough to draw you out.”

“Entrance must be pretty narrow to make a current like that in these waters,” he said curiously, wondering if she had actually been the one to help him onto shore. That was starting to look like a stronger possibility than he had thought. “Do you swim there often?”

“It’s a long way for me, but I try to go once a week or so. The lobsters like the coral cover there,” she explained. It wasn’t far from the edge of the boat to the water, and Eione bent to trail her fingers in the water. A wistful smile came to her lips. Evan could see how much she wanted to go for a swim. “There are shells there, too, sometimes, and coral for selling at the market,” she added after another moment of thought.

That made sense, he supposed. Anita said Eione had already been out that day and he knew she worked with Search and Rescue. Maybe she had just seen him get washed out of the cave and dragged him up on the beach.

“I saw your booth. Pretty impressive,” he told her. The pearls she was selling at the market had to be a huge draw for the tourists. If she found them all herself, it was even more impressive. She had a good selection.

“I collect whatever I can off the beaches and I keep my eyes open when I’m out swimming.”

“You go out every day?”

“When the weather is clear. Storms blow up so quickly in summer and the water gets treacherous long before the storm makes landfall.”

“That’s right, summer’s starting here,” Evan said thoughtfully. “I’ll have to talk with my boss and see what he wants to do if a storm blows in while we’re in one of the holes. Don’t want to get stranded.”

“I suppose that could be a real problem,” Eione agreed softly. There was something in her sea-blue eyes that might be worry, but somehow, Evan didn’t think it was for him. “The summer storms can be very fierce.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, and he tried to keep from staring at her too obviously. She really was pretty. Her skin was lighter than some of the other locals, including Anita. Maybe she was rarely out in the sun, and spent the rest of her time under the cover of her booth at the market. Maybe her family wasn’t from the Bahamas originally. She looked like she might have a Greek ancestor or two.

Eione excused herself quietly after a few minutes and went to stand next to Anita. She seemed to be guiding the older woman around something. What, Evan couldn’t imagine. The water around them was free of reefs as far as he could see.

He had to admit, though, Eione seemed to know these waters better than anyone. She would have to, he supposed. Free-diving was tricky business and she did it for a living.

This was the first time he had been offshore in a boat since he had arrived in the Bahamas, not counting his rescue by Anita two days ago. From where they were, he could see a wide stretch of the coastline.

Andros Island was the biggest of any of the Bahamian Islands, but its population was one of the smallest, barely cracking eight thousand residents.

Fortunately for scientists like Erik, the blue holes preserved that dotted the island preserved the bones beautifully. Better even than the tar pit or the marshes in Europe. They were a goldmine for anyone who wanted to study the history of the islands.

Never mind that it was dangerous for divers to go get the bones and bring them back topside, the things they learned from those fossils were amazing. What they learned from the animal bones was better, and even the stalactites deep in the caves answered questions about the past.

Evan liked to see how excited the archaeologists got when he and his team brought up a set of bones, but if he was honest, he wasn’t a diver so he could do that kind of work. It was all about going where no one had ever been, and only a rare few would ever go.

Down in the caves where there wasn’t anything to think about except the dive, he couldn’t get distracted and didn’t want to be. The quiet and the pressure of the water was meditative, and he always came back up with his heart pounding, more alive than any other time in his life.

The others on his team felt the same way. There were a lot of reasons they worked so well together, and that was one of them. They all knew about the quiet down in the black, even if they never talked about it.

Evan was shaken out of his thoughts when the boat started to slow, and finally came to a stop.

“The mouth of the cave is under that ledge of the reef,” Eione pointed, drawing their attention to a large, brightly colored reef. “You can’t tell from here, but the water is deeper than it looks there, and the cave under is deeper still.”

Evan leaned over the rail and thought he could see the mouth of the cave she was talking about.

At first glance it wasn’t a big opening, but as he looked closer, he realized the cave actually cut under a wide stretch of coral, the entrance bigger than the boat they stood in.

The water faded from the palest crystal blue to the deep sapphire he recognized from his other dives and he wondered how deep the cave actually was. Eione nodded over to a gap in the coral. “Just on the other side of that reef, you can see all the way down. The floor is visible, though it’s very hazy from the surface.”

Evan straightened and looked over at Anita. “Is it okay if I take a quick look?” he asked hopefully. “All I have is snorkel gear, but I should be able to see if there’s anything at the bottom.”

“Get,” Anita said and flapped a hand at him. She reached over to drop the anchor and leaned against the railing. “We’ll watch the boat. I doubt Eione brought a suit and I sure didn’t.”

Eione blushed and shook her head. “I didn’t think to.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Evan said as he pulled out his gear and got it on. “Another time maybe?”

At her slow nod, he threw her a grin before slipping down into the cool water and swimming for the entrance to the cave.

+++

HGE - Riptide

Evan Ross survived what no one before him ever has, and now he’s on the hunt for answers. His only clue is a single word that echoed through the water of a flooded cave.

Breathe.

Under Stone

White Sand Sky

The Hint of Answers

Drift to Home

+++

More Stories!

+++

[highsviolets]

breathless, chapter 3: an obi-wan x 90s!reader au

summary: in which you and Ben discover that nothing is like the first time, but maybe time is a construct anyway

word count: 3.2k+ 

cw: kissing. light references to smoking, a lil angst, some language  

A/N: this could not have happened without @afogocado​. Thank you for encouraging me to continue this lil fic and an endless supply of ewan pics and listening to me ramble and omg ilysm 

 references // previous // next // series masterlist 

“my curfew’s at midnight.”

Ben doesn’t look at you when he speaks. Well, he does. Just not right now. He’s busy at the moment, tinkering with something in the hood of his car. hunter green t-shirt — auburn hair — something out of goddamn salinger novel ((or maybe dos passos))

you look up at him. you’re settled on a skateboard ((he’s far too trusting of your ability to remain upright)). listless currents from a fan — somewhere, in the garage, you think — ripple in that nomadic space between his t-shirt and your skin.

remarks are so curious a thing, and you watch yours descend upon him. not quite a cascade. not quite a pittance of cleansing summer rains. it’s something other — but not ethereal — it’s here, it’s now, it’s taking you, too, holding you in thrall — words bump into skin ((sinew and sin)).

“it’s about doing the right thing.” the grind of one metal locking its relatives, corollaries, corrosions, into place has ceased. or maybe only paused. you’re not sure the car is done. but Ben looks at you, and you know he’s done. done explaining himself.

the skateboard’s wheels squeak and cry out against the pavement when you adjust. legs stretched out — ragged vans pointing above ((wherever that is)) — violet tipped hands clutching the back edges — knees exposed — just kissing the faintness of tangible ((affection or affectations, what’s the difference?))

“i know.” freckles gaze into the sun, his eyes, reflections. he expects your explanation to be plaintive. institutional. it’s not. “i just wanted to know why.”

Ben shakes his head, once, twice, thrice — face still half-soaked in the shadow of the hood — astonishment is plain to see in the flatness of his cheeks — the waltzing of his tongue on his upper lip.

Two seconds later he is right there, crouching ((muscles straining)) next to you, the leather tips of air jordans exotic and smooth against the external lateral bone of your left knee. His eyes, screwed up at the invasion of the sun against their tranquility, stare at the meeting of his shoes and your body and then he is gazing at you.

angels manipulate his mouth into a smile — Ben’s yours, now — hands are clasped — battles halt in the ceasefire. “I should really stop underestimating you.”

Ben reaches out. Two fingers ride the length of your cheekbone. They still as skin morphs into frizzled, sun-bleached hair at the crown of your head, in that space between your ear and eyebrow. your head nudges into his terms of surrender. “That would probably be best,” you say. The pause between conditional tense and adverb is like the space between you and him, an assured hesitancy, caught between becoming and being, trapped in an interstitial existence.

it’s so fucking americana it hurts.

hair , secured by a scrunchie the same shade as your fingertips, is given a light tug. let’s get you home, he says, and your presence wilts in upon itself , he senses the rush of photosynthesis exiting your body and brings your lips to caress his.

it doesn’t feel like the first time — nothing ever does — familiar in semantics — murky in meaning — singeing and sweet — a transfusion of significance between you and him.

the breaking away comes with a solemn sigh. he’s rising and bringing you with him. you resist the urge to stage a coup and use the skateboard to rocket yourself into his arms ((a safehouse you’ve found)).

___

time: a nebulous concept for you. it’s pages dogeared and how many days until the next cd is shipped to the store and how many t-shirts you’ve accosted from oaken drawers.

it’s a far more solid object for him. a tangible weave of textures and patterns that he notices in the scrunchies now in the car’s island of misfits ((he still hasn’t told you the make and model)) and how many times you guide his hand around your waist while you eat ice cream ((vanilla in a cone with sprinkles)) and the pens he’s busted through since you first met ((he knows the number , they’re immortalized in a tin cup on his shelf))

Ben’s holding one that has yet to join its brothers in the tin graveyard. The clicker rests against his teeth. It looks seductive in his mouth. Like he can make you keen with just an imitation of the real thing, with words and ideas. Words twirled around the air have power. You both know this.

You’re the one who’s twirling, though. spinning around his bedroom — boombox emitting a Billy Joel song at least ten years mature — mouth forming words you have yet to possess the courage to blare — so much like your kisses.

((the words come through in the translation , the body moves but he hears the soul))

he watches you and he is transfixed. he knows you do not know how much you are revealing to him. at least not consciously. but you want him to crawl into your soul and never leave. he does not see it or hear it or feel it as much as he experiences truth, the clumsy trio dotting patterns across his extremities and seeping into his essence ((what it means to be human)) like an antibiotic ointment. he is scared you will stick to things for which you are not designed. but it’s too late and he’s covered in the stuff, slick with you. unleashed in a trigonometric function of three sides ((him / you , other)). sins and signs and echoing sunlight.

your smile mimics his as you edge toward the bed where he’s sprawled out. you laugh and he matches you, shaking his head in rare & unguarded ((unabashed , unembarrassed)) regard. you are in harmony.

skin meets skin — heels arched into the carpet — he’s too strong too stubborn — and you fail and fall and spill over him — tumbling over his torso, legs mashed — the heat of his victorious grin burns the atmospheric bubble arching over the two of you.

You’re not sure if the record stops or if you’ve just ceased hearing it. he arranges you ((like a bouquet, like a song)) on the bed. he stares down at you. the eyes are stormy again, like before he kissed you the first time ((but nothing’s ever like the first time)). they say eyes are the window to the soul. Your hands whisk the hair that’s dangling there, like you can quiet him by quelling his independently-minded locks. it seems to work. he blinks and when you see the sun again it’s brighter, bluer, but maybe that’s because he’s so still now.

he does not move. He may not have danced but his soul is pressing into you like a dagger ((did you fall on a sword)). Ben cuts off your impending speech with conciliatory kiss. “i know , darling” , and the words etch themselves into reality against your body.

—-

Ben is distant and he is near to you all at once. There are corners of his being that you want to slide and drag and push to the surface. maybe if you do he will start to make sense. form follows function, he tells you, and the words feel as yellow as the pages on which they’re inked.

it doesn’t make sense to you — “you have too much sense, dear one” — elinor and marianne — but for all his purity he does not dance — no ricochets in his lever and pulley soul.

you are glass and flannel and he is steel and silk. he is not quite your sun, or your moon, or your stars, and not even your world. but you are rapidly terraforming to his sundry heights and arid permafrost and the devil’s sun that makes a home in his fingers, in his mouth ((yet he is not lucifer, nor abdiel perhaps he is raphael)).

Ben watches you soak in him. He takes note, n.b., nota bene, notes well, excellently, the stillness of your hands ((the tremors have lessened, but have they learned?)). your words are teal and vermillion and ecru and weeping with tannins. Ben deduces ease, easel, paint, art as you furrow into his chest. His mind infers souls through their bodies. Form follows function. Function follows form. Maybe it’s all the same, and Maybe It Isn’t.

Through your mirror he sees himself with you but he does not comprehend. He is bewildered.

nails boards cones sheets — teeth fingers knees breath — swerving form yielding function clutching grasping — all so very , sine qua non — aspectu sine logos — why does the latin transform into Greek

Morpheus, he thinks, nods sagely. he hurls ticket stubs and lipstick napkins and sense ((you)) into shoeboxes and mailboxes and shadowboxes. he refuses a photo of you, with you, for you and takes your knotted eyes and throws them, too, into the nearest body of water. you are close but you are not near ((droplets on tanned skin, drowning in the water)) and it is all he can do to obey his life and he does not know that sartre laughs at him and de beauvoir pokes her lover.

you are not at the middle of your life and neither is he. the path is still obscured by the trees. is charon delivering you to this threshold of the styx ((stones, bones, death)) or the tip of the world where the stars scrape into the heavens with a different edge? he is rising: he brings you with him. so it was in the past, but does the past presage the future? if he is raphael then he is virgil ((Maybe it’s all the same, and Maybe It Isn’t))

epic firestorm of righteous creation myths — empirical histories — imperial truths. but no. dante, where is dante, is he off in firenze, dancing in florid colors? no. dante is in exile, civitas ex nihilo : in need of virgil. guide him to transcendence.

____

you do not see him for several days. maybe it is weeks. you aren’t sure. time is not empirical, Ben has told you, it’s something you have to feel through its measuring ((sometimes vibrancy tips out of his ridges)). but you wish he had let you take a picture of the two of you. you are more like him than you realize , the truest truths are the ones you can touch.

it is the longest you have not seen him, and it is very hot. the pool, the lake, they’re not the same when you can’t thread sand through his hair and be abducted by his gaze as you read ((spirited away from his bookshelf)).

you’re running out of books — running out of time? — but time is not statistical — multidimensionality of you and him — there is no space where he does not compress himself to exist with you.

“it’s not a phase, mom,” you say, and take another bite of cereal.

“you need to make up your mind.” the crunch is effective at blocking out the noise, and your mind continues on its path. you wonder if DJ Tanner ever felt like this. hair surfaces in your bowl, and you pluck it out, grimacing. Maybe you should cut your hair. it’s hot out. DJ had short hair.

a rap on the table — spoon? knuckle? you can’t tell — strikes you. the words reality and wake up and decisions and wasteful are abrasions on your knees, still sore from too many tries on Ben’s skateboard ((he had smiled at your earnestness and kissed away the latent tears , let your body do its healing)).

you do not speak words so much as you give birth to emotions, agonizing and cruel and hideous. you do not know what you say or if you even say it ((dissociation)). but it is metallic in your mouth and turncoat shaking fingers and the sinking sound of unharnessed emotion in your ears.

it is hot and stifling and too much when you leave. nothing is feeling right — that stillness has lodged in your diaphragm again — opaque skies mock you — rain comes and you are colliding with nature and you are losing

Ben is standing underneath the overhang at the library ((it always comes back to the library)) and you wonder if you’re finally hallucinating. you voice forms itself to his name and he turns, damp hair following a few seconds later, and he drops his cigarette at the sight of you.

Exhilaration delivers specks of mud on your legs and arms but it is no matter. the time and space continuum has rectified and he is in front of you, giving you a cigarette, gray t-shirt abstracting to his muscles as much as your vans cling languidly to soggy toes.

he exhales smoke the way he says your name. it is precise and pious and it blooms over you like pink and purple hydrangeas.

Ben sees the gouges in your eyes and chastises your traitorous hands and absorbs you. cigarettes slump, abandoned, as he presses your cheek to his heart ((the conjunction of your logic and heat meeting his fervent center)). you cling to him and he does not resist but molds himself to you. time stops ((it’s an illusion)). rain continues. Ben’s kisses glide along your hairline, your forehead. it tickles and you laugh and his smile takes shape against your frontal cortex.

you pull him into the rain even as he protests ((but he’s laughing and the clouds pause, time takes a breath , are you time)) and you kiss him. it is like something breaks in him or perhaps the rain has induced erosion or maybe he is like you and there is a filigree thread connecting his head with his heart and constructing a railway through his body. Ben is all the lightning — the sky has crowned a new Zeus —  you hold him as the thunder in his soul cracks and pulls

((maybe kant was wrong about time and heidegger was right about dwelling and nothing crystallizes in his soul like you do))

the two of you alight to his car ((still unknown yet cordial, native)) and when you reach his building he opens your door and scoops you up in his arms and it is like that first time by the pool ((but nothing is ever like the first time)).

your hand makes a fist in his soggy shirt and his hair is pasted to his forehead and you cannot censor the searing, violent, desideratum swooping over you ((nor can you pause the absurd laugh that gushes out of your heart at his display of exorbitant chivalry)).

“i can walk,” you say as he wades through water that’s now folding over his skin, lapping up his electrolytes.

“yes, dearest, but you can’t swim, can you?” he likes to respond with questions, but this one’s  an answer. Ben’s clutching you so tightly that you can’t see his face but you feel the contentment in his tone—it dashes into you like the rain currently encompassing the Earth, hesitant with the effort of exertion, with the weight of metal souls. “I’m just preemptively forbidding a disaster, darling.” there’s a tenderness bridging Ben’s raw power and mischievousness —  the network protrudes — extracorporeal ((does he know?))

He cherishes the rain, Ben tells you later, when existence reduces to you and him and incandescent petrichor and the pasticcio of kisses, heartbeats, palms on skin.

___

Ben is not carefree, but he is not serious. it is like he has learned that he can take up space ((empirical)). there is less constriction, tension, stenosis in his body ((the filigree is stretching his limbs)). movements are not languid but nor are they demonstrations of correctness. not slouching — just not strictly upright.

your hair gets tangled, like his sheets, like his legs in yours, and you tell him you want to cut it. An auburn eyebrow lifts archly, and he runs a finger down the length of your arm, tracing the veins ((your life)). “how will I teach you how to swim if you chop off your legs, darling?” Ben’s voice is charcoal. gray, yellow red orange burning, glowing at the edges. He draws up blueprints for cities in your open palm.

You make a quip about the ship of state and he snorts. When he shakes his head, his other hand — the one not serving as an architect on your body — shags through his hair, tanned skin meeting with copper effervescence in a ragged tryst. “i like its hows” he murmurs against your lips and you cannot protest, not when his caustic tongue ices, soothes, pacifies your conflagration.

The two of you are at the pool, again. He’s on his break. The air’s circulation is viscous, shoving over your skins. It straps you in — like the fanny pack around his waist. Ben’s donned his lifeguard pack for work, swapping out his array of gauche accessories for the traditional red and white accoutrement now fastened at his hips.

the most important things in his life, Ben thinks as he inhales the light spice of a Malboro, start with “l”. learning, lady, library, liberty, lake, logos, love. he doesn’t know from where last word originates; he must learn ((connaître ou savoir?)). in his experience, there’s no such thing as luck. He feels like a character in one of those war movies filmed right before he was born, smoking lucky strikes in a foxhole and just trying to stay alive, goddamnit, just trying to get through the war.

The two of you are always watching each each other. The obtuse phenomenology plays out like a courtly masquerade. veritas, quid est veritas, for here both object and deception are degrees of truth. He smirks around the cigarette and you blush but your eyes hold his and you catch his approval and stuff it inside your heart.

Ben takes your hand and places it on his thigh as you speak. the two of you are straddling a lacquered yellow beach chair, offensive in its self-confidence. he leans forward and touches his forehead to yours. he likes to take initiative — he is making use of his knowledge, he told you once, mumbled and sleepy, when you had whispered the question against his shoulder late one night.

Ben brings himself nearer to you. sweat — splashes — dangling exertions — smoke — sunscreen. it all plays about your lips and in your blood and in his hands that keep yours pressed against his flesh. someone yells at him to get his ass back to work and Ben rolls his eyes.

“duty calls.” his actions, the chair: they embolden you to dip your voice, your thoughts, mayhap you actions to a lower register.

He ducks his head to peer at your face, like that first time when you were falling over ((but nothing is like the first time)). as he passes the remainder of the cigarette to you, the words he speak sound like him, carry his weight, refracted starlight from coal. “we all have a duty. even you.” Ben doesn’t need to say his duties; they are his life, his schedule, the notebooks in haphazard stacks under the bed, his tin cups of pens. you wonder if you are part of his list ((if the cables have let you traverse the journey from his heart to his head)).

when you tell him that he is diamond but you a like one of those new gems they make in labs — what are they called — moissanite, he shakes his head. “you are not so scientific, darling.” fingers squeeze yours. “you are burning skies and delimitations and biting stars — the most natural things that exist.”

((you are not sure if you believe him, because nothing is like the first time)).

[1921designs]

Smuggler

“Then what are you complaining about?”

“About hypocrisy. About lies. About misrepresentation. About that smuggler’s behavior to which you drive the uranist.”

—André Gide, Corydon, Fourth Dialogue

1.

I REMEMBER MY first kiss with absolute clarity. I was reading on a black chaise longue, upholstered with shiny velour, and it was right after dinner, the hour of freedom before I was obliged to begin my homework. I was sixteen.

It must have been early autumn or late spring, because I know I was in school at the time, and the sun was still out. I was shocked and thrilled by it, and reading that passage, from a novel by Hermann Hesse, made the book feel intensely real, fusing Hesse’s imaginary world with the physical object I was holding in my hands. I looked down at it, and back at the words on the page, and then around the room, which was empty, and I felt a keen and deep sense of discovery and shame. Something new had entered my life, undetected by anyone else, delivered safely and surreptitiously to me alone. To borrow an idea from André Gide, I had become a smuggler.

It wasn’t, of course, the first kiss I had encountered in a book. But this was the first kiss between two boys, characters in Beneath the Wheel, a short, sad novel about a sensitive student who gains admission to an elite school but then fails, quickly and inexorably, after he becomes entwined in friendship with a reckless, poetic classmate. I was stunned by their encounter—which most readers, and almost certainly Hesse himself, would have assigned to that liminal stage of adolescence before boys turn definitively to heterosexual interests. For me, however, it was the first evidence that I wasn’t entirely alone in my own desires. It made my loneliness seem more present to me, more intelligible and tangible, and something that could be named. Even more shocking was the innocence with which Hesse presented it:

An adult witnessing this little scene might have derived a quiet joy from it, from the tenderly inept shyness and the earnestness of these two narrow faces, both of them handsome, promising, boyish yet marked half with childish grace and half with shy yet attractive adolescent defiance.

Certainly no adult I knew would have derived anything like joy from this little scene—far from it. Where I grew up, a decaying Rust Belt city in upstate New York, there was no tradition of schoolboy romance, at least none that had made it to my public high school, where the hierarchies were rigid, the social categories inviolable, the avenues for sexual expression strictly and collectively policed by adults and youth alike. These were the early days of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when recent gains in visibility and political legitimacy for gay rights were being vigorously countered by a newly resurgent cultural conservatism. The adults in my world, had they witnessed two lonely young boys reach out to each other in passionate friendship, would have thrashed them before committing them to the counsel of religion or psychiatry.

But the discovery of that kiss changed me. Reading, which had seemed a retreat from the world, was suddenly more vital, dangerous, and necessary. If before I had read haphazardly, bouncing from adventure to history to novels and the classics, now I read with focus and determination. For the next five years, I sought to expand and open the tiny fissure that had been created by that kiss. Suddenly, after years of feeling almost entirely disconnected from the sexual world, my reading was finally spurred both by curiosity and Eros.

From an oppressive theological academy in southern Germany, where students struggled to learn Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, to the rooftops of Paris during the final days of Adolf Hitler’s occupation, I sought in books the company of poets and scholars, hoodlums and thieves, tormented aristocrats bouncing around the spas and casinos of Europe, expat Americans slumming it in the City of Light, an introspective Roman emperor lamenting a lost boyfriend, and a middle-aged author at the height of his powers and the brink of exhaustion. These were the worlds, and the men, presented by Gide, Jean Cocteau, Oscar Wilde, Jean Genet, James Baldwin, Thomas Mann, and Robert Musil, to name only those whose writing has lingered with me. Some of these authors were linked by ties of friendship. Some of them were themselves more or less openly homosexual, others ambiguous or fluid in their desires, and others, by all evidence, bisexual or primarily heterosexual. It would be too much to say their work formed a canon of gay literature—but for those who sought such a canon, their work was about all one could find.

And yet, in retrospect, and after rereading many of those books more than thirty years later, I’m astonished by how sad, furtive, and destructive an image of sexuality they presented. Today we have an insipid idea of literature as selfdiscovery, and a reflexive conviction that young people—especially those struggling with identity or prejudice—need role models. But these books contained no role models at all, and they depicted self-discovery as a cataclysmic severance from society. The price of survival, for the self-aware homosexual, was a complete inversion of values, dislocation, wandering, and rebellion. One of the few traditions you were allowed to keep was misogyny. And most of the men represented in these books were not willing to pay the heavy price of rebellion and were, to appropriate Hesse’s phrase, ground beneath the wheel.

The value of these books wasn’t anything wholesome they contained, or any moral instruction they offered. Rather, it was the process of finding them, the thrill of reading them, the way the books themselves, like the men they depicted, detached you from the familiar moral landscape. They gave a name to the palpable, physical loneliness of sexual solitude, but they also greatly increased your intellectual and emotional solitude. Until very recently, the canon of literature for a gay kid was discovered entirely alone, by threads of connection that linked authors from intertwined demimondes. It was smuggling, but also scavenging. There was no Internet, no “customers who bought this item also bought,” no helpful librarians steeped in the discourse of tolerance and diversity, and certainly no one in the adult world who could be trusted to give advice and advance the project of limning this still mostly forbidden body of work.

The pleasure of finding new access to these worlds was almost always punctured by the bleakness of the books themselves. One of the two boys who kissed in that Hesse novel eventually came apart at the seams, lapsed into nervous exhaustion, and then one afternoon, after too much beer, he stumbled or willingly slid into a slow-moving river, where his body was found, like Ophelia’s, floating serenely and beautiful in the chilly waters. Hesse would blame poor Hans’s collapse on the severity of his education and a lamentable disconnection from nature, friendship, and congenial social structures. But surely that kiss, and that friendship with a wayward poet, had something to do with it. As Hans is broken to pieces, he remembers that kiss, a sign that at some level Hesse felt it must be punished.

Hans was relatively lucky, dispensed with chaste, poetic discretion, like the lover in a song cycle by Franz Schubert or Robert Schumann. Other boys who found themselves enmeshed in the milieu of homoerotic desire were raped, bullied, or killed, or lapsed into madness, disease, or criminality. They were disposable or interchangeable, the objects of pederastic fixation or the instrumental playthings of adult characters going through aesthetic, moral, or existential crises. Even the survivors face, at the end of these novels, the bleakest existential crises. Even the survivors face, at the end of these novels, the bleakest of futures: isolation, wandering, and a perverse form of aging in which the loss of youth is never compensated with wisdom.

One doesn’t expect novelists to give us happy endings. But looking back on many of the books I read during my age of smuggling, I’m profoundly disturbed by what I now recognize as their deeply entrenched homophobia. I wonder if it took a toll on me, if what seemed a process of self-liberation was inseparable from infection with the insecurities, evasions, and hypocrisy stamped into gay identity during the painful, formative decades of its nascence in the last century. I wonder how these books will survive, and in what form: historical documents, symptoms of an ugly era, cris de coeur of men (mostly men) who had made it only a few steps along the long road to true equality? Will we condescend to them, and treat their anguish with polite, clinical detachment? I hesitate to say that these books formed me, because that suggests too simplistic a connection between literature and character. But I can’t be the only gay man in middle age who now wonders if what seemed a gift at the time—the discovery of a literature of same-sex desire just respectable enough to circulate without suspicion—was in fact more toxic than a youth of that era could ever have anticipated.

2.

Before the mid-1990s, when the Internet began to collapse the distinction between cities, suburbs, and everywhere else, books were the most reliable access to the larger world, and the only access to books was the bookstore or the library. The physical fact of a book was both a curse and a blessing. It made reading a potentially dangerous act if you were reading the wrong things, and of course one had to physically find and possess the book. But the mere fact of being a book, the fact that someone had published the words and they were circulating in the world, gave a book the presumption of respectability, especially if it was deemed “literature.” There were, of course, bad or dangerous books in the world—and self-appointed guardians who sought to suppress and destroy them—but decent people assumed that these were safely contained within universities.

I borrowed my copy of Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel from the library, so I can’t be sure whether it contained any of the small clues that led to other like-minded books. At least one copy I have found in a used bookstore does have an invaluable signpost on the back cover: “Along with Heinrich Mann’s The Blue Angel, Emil Strauss’s Friend Death, and Robert Musil’s Young Törless, all of which came out in the same period, it belongs to the genre of school novels.” Perhaps that’s what prompted me to read Musil’s far more complicated, beautifully written, and excruciating schoolboy saga. Hans, shy, studious, and trusting, led me to Törless, a bolder, meaner, more dangerous boy.

Other threads of connection came from the introductions, afterwords, footnotes, and the solicitations to buy other books found just inside the back cover. When I first started reading independently of classroom assignments and the usual boy’s diet of Rudyard Kipling, Jonathan Swift, Alexandre Dumas, and Jules Verne—reading without guidance and with all the odd detours and byways of an autodidact—I devised a three-part test for choosing a new volume: first, a book had to have a black or orange spine, then the colors of Penguin Classics, which someone had assured me was a reliable brand; second, I had to be able to finish the book within a few days, lest I waste the opportunity of my weekly visit to the bookstore; and third, I had to be hooked by the narrative within one or two pages. That is certainly what led me, by chance, to Cocteau’s Les Enfants Terribles, a rather slight and pretentious novel of incestuous infatuation, gender slippage, homoerotic desire, and surreal distortions of time and space. I knew nothing of Cocteau but was intrigued by one of his line drawings on the cover, which showed two androgynous teenagers, and a summary which assured it was about a boy named Paul, who worshipped a fellow student.

I still have that copy of Cocteau. In the back there was yet more treasure, a whole page devoted to advertising the novels of Gide (The Immoralist is described as “the story of man’s rebellion against social and sexual conformity”) and another to Genet (The Thief’s Journal is “a voyage of discovery beyond all moral laws; the expression of a philosophy of perverted vice, the working out of an aesthetic degradation”). These little précis were themselves a guide to the coded language—“illicit, corruption, hedonism”—that often, though not infallibly, led to other enticing books. And yet one might follow these little broken twigs and crushed leaves only to end up in the frustrating world of mere decadence, Wagnerian salons, undirected voluptuousness, the enervating eccentricities of Joris-Karl Huysmans or the chaste, coy allusions to vice in Wilde.

Finally, there were a handful of narratives that had successfully transitioned into open and public respectability, even if always slightly tainted by scandal. If the local theater company still performed Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, who could fault a boy for reading The Picture of Dorian Gray?

Conveniently, a 1982 Bantam Classics edition contained both, and also the play Salomé. Wilde’s novel was a skein of brilliant banter stretched over a rather silly, Gothic tale, and the hiding-in-plain-sight of its homoeroticism was deeply unfulfilling. Even then, too scared to openly acknowledge my own feelings, I found Wilde’s obfuscations embarrassing. More powerful than anything in the highly contrived and overwrought games of Dorian was a passing moment in Salomé when the Page of Herodias obliquely confesses his love for the Young Syrian, who has committed suicide in disgust at Salomé’s licentious display. “He has killed himself,” the boy laments, “the man who was my friend! I gave him a little box of perfumes and earrings wrought in silver, and now he has killed himself.” It was these moments that slipped through, sudden intimations of honest feeling, which made plowing through Wilde’s self-indulgence worth the effort.

Then there was the most holy and terrifying of all the publicly respectable representations of homosexual desire, Mann’s Death in Venice, which might even be found in one’s parents’ library, the danger of its sexuality safely ossified inside the imposing façade of its reputation. A boy who read Death in Venice wasn’t slavering over a beautiful Polish adolescent in a sailor’s suit, he was climbing a mountain of sorts, proving his devotion to culture.

But a boy who read Death in Venicewas receiving a very strange moral and sentimental education. Great love was somehow linked to intellectual crisis, a symptom of mental exhaustion. It was entirely inward and unrequited, and it was likely triggered by some dislocation of the self from familiar surroundings, to travel, new sights and smells, and hot climates. It was unsettling and isolating, and drove one to humiliating vanities and abject voyeurism. Like so much of what one found in Wilde (perfumed and swaddled in cant), Gide (transplanted to the colonial realms of North Africa, where bourgeois morality was suspended), or Genet (floating freely in the postwar wreckage and flotsam of values, ideals, and norms), Death in Venice also required a young reader to locate himself somewhere on the inexorable axis of pederastic desire.

In retrospect I understand that this fixation on older men who suddenly have their worlds shattered by the brilliant beauty of a young man or adolescent was an intentional, even ironic repurposing of the classical approbation of Platonic pederasty. It allowed the “uranist”—to use the pejorative Victorian term for a homosexual—to broach, tentatively and under the cover of a venerable and respected literary tradition, the broader subject of same-sex desire. While for some, especially Gide, pederasty was the ideal, for others it may have been a gateway to discussing desire among men of relatively equal age and status, what we now think of as being gay. But as an eighteen-year-old reader, I had no interest in being on the receiving end of the attentions of older men; and as a middle-aged man, no interest in children.

The dynamics of the pederastic dyad—like so many narratives of colonialism —also meant that in most cases the boy was silent, seemingly without an intellectual or moral life. He was pure object, pure receptivity, unprotesting, perfect and perfectly silent in his beauty. When Benjamin Britten composed his last opera, based on Mann’s novella, the youth is portrayed by a dancer, voiceless in a world of singing, present only as an ideal body moving in space. In Gide’s Immoralist, the boys of Algeria (and Italy and France) are interchangeable, lost in the torrents of monologue from the narrator, Michel, who wants us to believe that they are mere instruments in his long, agonizing process of self-discovery and liberation. In Genet’s Funeral Rites, a frequently pornographic novel of sexual violence among the partisans and collaborators of Paris during the liberation, the narrator/author even attempts to make a virtue of the interchangeability of his young objects of desire: “The characters in my books all resemble each other,” he says. He’s right, and he amplifies their sameness by suppressing or eliding their personalities, dropping identifying names or pronouns as he shifts between their individual stories, often reducing them to anonymous body parts.

By reducing boys and young men to ciphers, the narrative space becomes open for untrammeled displays of solipsism, narcissism, self-pity, and of course self-justification. These books, written over a period of decades, by authors of vastly different temperaments and sexualities, are surprisingly alike in this claustrophobia of desire and subjugation of the other. Indeed, the psychological violence done to the male object of desire is often worse in authors who didn’t manifest any particular personal interest in same-sex desire. For example, in Musil’s Confusions of Young Törless, a gentle and slightly effeminate boy named Basini becomes a tool for the social, intellectual, and emotional advancement of three classmates who are all, presumably, destined to get married and lead entirely heterosexual lives. One student uses Basini to learn how to exercise power and manipulate people in preparation for a life of public accomplishment; another tortures him to test his confused spiritual theories, a stew of supposedly Eastern mysticism; and Törless turns to him, and turns on him, simply to feel something, to sense his presence and power in the world, to add to the stockroom of his mind and soul.

We are led to believe that this last form of manipulation is, in its effect on poor Basini, the cruelest. Later in the book, when Musil offers us the classic irony of the bildungsroman—the guarantee that everything that has happened was just a phase, a way station on the path of authorial evolution—he explains why Törless “never felt remorse” for what he did to Basini:

For the only real interest [that “aesthetically inclined intellectuals” like the older Törless] feel is concentrated on the growth of their own soul, or personality, or whatever one may call the thing within us that every now and then increases by the addition of some idea picked up between the lines of a book, or which speaks to us in the silent language of a painting[,] the thing that every now and then awakens when some solitary, wayward tune floats past us and away, away into the distance, whence with alien movements tugs at the thin scarlet thread of our blood —the thing that is never there when we are writing minutes, building machines, going to the circus, or following any of the hundreds of other similar occupations.

The conquest of beautiful boys, whether a hallowed tradition of all-male schools or the vestigial remnant of classical poetry, is simply another way to add to one’s fund of poetic and emotional knowledge, like going to the symphony. Today we might be blunter: to refine his aesthetic sensibility, Törless participated in the rape, torture, humiliation, and emotional abuse of a gay kid.

And he did it in a confined space. It is a recurring theme (and perhaps cliché) of many of these novels that homoerotic desire must be bounded within narrow spaces, dark rooms, private attics, as if the breach in conventional morality opened by same-sex desire demands careful, diligent, and architectural containment. The boys who beat and sodomize Basini do it in a secret space in the attic above their prep school. Throughout much of Cocteau’s Les Enfants Terribles, two siblings inhabit a darkly enchanted room, bickering and berating each other as they attempt to displace unrequited or forbidden desires onto acceptable alternatives. Cocteau helpfully gives us a sketch of this room—a few wispy lines that suggest something that Henri Matisse might have painted—with two beds, parallel to each other, as if in a hospital ward. Sickness, of course, is ever-present throughout almost all of these novels as well: the cholera that kills Aschenbach in Death in Venice, the tuberculosis which Michel overcomes and to which his hapless wife succumbs in The Immoralist, and the pallor, ennui, listlessness, and fevers of Cocteau. James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, a later, more deeply ambivalent contribution to this canon of illness and enclosure, takes its name from the cramped, cluttered chambre de bonne that contains this desire, with the narrator keenly aware that if what happens there—a passionate relationship between a young American man in Paris and his Italian boyfriend— escapes that space, the world of possibilities for gay men would explode. But floods of booze, perhaps alcoholism, and an almost suicidal emotional frailty haunt this space, too.

Often it is the author’s relation to these dark spaces that gives us our only reliable sense of how he envisioned the historical trajectory of being gay. In Cocteau’s novel, the room becomes a ship, or a portal, transporting the youth Cocteau’s novel, the room becomes a ship, or a portal, transporting the youth into the larger world of adult desires. The lines are fluid, but there is a possibility of connection between the perfervid world of contained sexuality and the larger universe of sanctioned desires. In Baldwin, the young Italian proposes the two men keep their room as a space apart, a refuge for secret assignations, even as his American lover prepares to reunite with his fiancée and return to a life of normative sexuality. They could continue their relationship privately, on the side, a quiet compromise between two sexual realms. But Musil’s attic, essentially a torture chamber, is a much more desperate space, a permanent ghetto for illicit desire.

Even those among these books that were self-consciously written to advance the cause of gay men, to make their anguish more comprehensible to a reflexively hostile straight audience, leave almost no room—no space—for many openly gay readers. The parallels with colonial discourse are troubling: the colonized “other,” the homosexual making his appeal to straight society, must in turn pass on the violence and colonize and suppress yet weaker or more marginal figures on the spectrum of sexuality. Thus in the last of Gide’s daring dialogues in defense of homosexuality, first published piecemeal, then together commercially as Corydon in 1924—a tedious book full of pseudoscience and speculative extensions of Darwinian theory—the narrator contemptuously dismisses the unmanly homosexual: “If you please, we’ll leave the inverts aside for now. The trouble is that ill-informed people confuse them with normal homosexuals. And you understand, I hope, what I mean by ‘inverts.’ After all, heterosexuality too includes certain degenerates, people who are sick and obsessed.”

Along with the effeminate, the old and the aging are also beneath contempt. The casual scorn in Mann’s novella for an older man whom Aschenbach encounters on his passage to Venice is almost as horrifying as the sexual abuse and mental torture of young Basini in Musil’s novel. Among gay men, Mann’s painted clown is one of the most unsettling figures in literature, a “young-old man” whom Mann calls a “repulsive sight.” He apes the manners and dress of youth but has false teeth and bad makeup, luridly colored clothing, and a rakish hat, and is desperately trying to run with a younger crowd of men: “He was an old man, beyond a doubt, with wrinkles and crow’s feet round eyes and mouth; the dull carmine of the cheeks was rouge, the brown hair a wig.” Mann’s writing rises to a suspiciously incandescent brilliance in his descriptions of this supposedly loathsome figure. For reasons entirely unnecessary to the plot or development of his central characters, Baldwin resurrects Mann’s grotesquerie, in a phantasmagorical scene that describes an encounter between his young

American protagonist and a nameless old “queen” who approaches him in a bar:

American protagonist and a nameless old “queen” who approaches him in a bar:

The face was white and thoroughly bloodless with some kind of foundation cream; it stank of powder and a gardenia-like perfume. The shirt, open coquettishly to the navel, revealed a hairless chest and a silver crucifix; the shirt was covered with paper-thin wafers, red and green and orange and yellow and blue, which stormed in the light and made one feel that the mummy might, at any moment, disappear in flame.

This is the future to which the narrator—and by extension the reader if he is a gay man—is condemned. Unless, of course, he succumbs to disease or addiction. At best there is a retreat from society, perhaps to someplace where the economic differential between the Western pederast and the colonized boy makes an endless string of anonymous liaisons economically feasible. Violent death is the worst of the escapes. Not content with merely parodying older gay men, Baldwin must also murder them. In a scene that does gratuitous violence to the basic voice and continuity of the book, the narrator imagines in intimate detail events he has not actually witnessed: the murder of a flamboyant bar owner who sexually harasses and extorts the young Giovanni (by this point betrayed, abandoned, and reduced to what is, in effect, prostitution). The murder happens behind closed doors, safely contained in a room filled with “silks, colors, perfumes.”

3.

If I remember with absolute clarity the first same-sex kiss I encountered in literature, I don’t remember very well when my interest in specifically homoerotic narrative began to wane. But again, thanks to the physicality of the book, I have an archaeology more reliable than memory. As a young reader, I was in the habit of writing the date when I finished a book on the inside front cover, and so I know that sometime shortly before I turned twenty-one, my passion for dark tales of unrequited desire, sexual manipulation, and destructive Nietzschean paroxysms of self-transcendence peaked, then flagged. That was also the same time that I came out to friends and family, which was prompted by the complete loss of hope that a long and unrequited love for a classmate might be returned. Logic suggests that these events were related, that the collapse of romantic illusions and the subsequent initiation of an actual erotic life with real, living people dulled the allure of Wilde, Gide, Mann, and the other authors who were loosely in their various orbits.

were loosely in their various orbits.

It happened this way: For several years I had been drawn to a young man who seemed to me curiously like Hans from Hesse’s novel. Physically, at least, they were alike: “Deep-set, uneasy eyes glowed dimly in his handsome and delicate face; fine wrinkles, signs of troubled thinking, twitched on his forehead, and his thin, emaciated arms and hands hung at his side with the weary gracefulness reminiscent of a figure by Botticelli.” But in every other way my beloved was an invention. I projected onto him an elaborate but entirely imaginary psychology, which I now suspect was cobbled together from bits and pieces of the books I had been reading. He was sad, silent, and doomed, like Hans, but also cold, remote, and severe, like Törless, cruelly beautiful like all the interchangeable sailors and hoodlums in Genet, but also intellectual, suffering, and mystically connected to dark truths from which I was excluded. When I recklessly confessed my love to him—how long I had nurtured it and how complex, beautiful, and poetic it was—he responded not with anger or disgust but impatience: “You can’t put all this on me.”

He was right. It took me only a few days to realize it intellectually, a few weeks to begin accepting it emotionally, and a few years not to feel fear and shame in his presence. He had recognized in an instant that what I had felt for years, rather like Swann for Odette, had nothing to do with him. It wasn’t even love, properly speaking. I can’t claim that it was all clear to me at the time, that I was conscious of any connection between what I had read and the excruciating dead end of my own fantasy life. I make these connections in retrospect. But the realization that I would never be with him because he didn’t in fact exist—not in the way I imagined him—must have soured me on the literature of longing, torment, and convoluted desire. And the challenge and excitement of negotiating a genuine erotic life rendered so much of what I had found in these books painfully dated and irrelevant.

I want to be rigorously honest about my feelings for this literature, whether it distorted my sense of self and even, perhaps, corrupted my imagination. The safe thing to say is that I can’t possibly find an answer to that, not simply because memory is unreliable, but because we never know whether books implant things in us or merely confirm what is already there. In Young Törless, Musil proposes the idea that the great literature of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and William Shakespeare is essentially a transitional crutch for young minds, a mental prosthesis or substitute identity during the formlessness of adolescence: “These associations originating outside, and these borrowed emotions, carry young people over the dangerously soft spiritual ground of the years in which they need to be of some significance to themselves and nevertheless are still too incomplete to have any real significance.”

It’s important to divorce the question of how these books may have influenced me from the malicious accusations of corruption that have dogged gay fiction from the beginning. In the course of our reading lives, we will devour dozens, perhaps hundreds, of crude, scabrous, violent books, with no discernible impact on our moral constitution. And homosexual writers certainly didn’t invent the general connection between sexuality and illness, or the thin line between passion and violence, or sadism and masochism, or the sexual exploitation of the young or defenseless. And the mere mention of same-sex desire is still seen in too many places around the world today as inherently destructive to young minds. Gide’s Corydon decried the illogic of this a century ago: “And if, in spite of advice, invitations, provocations of all kinds, he should manifest a homosexual tendency, you immediately blame his reading or some other influence (and you argue in the same way for an entire nation, an entire people); it has to be an acquired taste, you insist; he must have been taught it; you refuse to admit that he might have invented it all by himself.”

And I want to register an important caveat about the literature of same-sex desire: it is not limited to the books I read, the authors I encountered, or the tropes that now seem to me so sad and destructive. In 1928, E. M. Forster wrote a short story called “Arthur Snatchfold” that wasn’t published until 1972, two years after the author’s death. In it, an older man, Sir Richard Conway, respectable in all ways, visits the country estate of a business acquaintance, where he has a quick, early-morning sexual encounter with a young deliveryman in a field near the house. Later, as Sir Richard chats with his host at their club in London, he learns that the liaison was seen by a policeman, the young man was arrested, and the authorities sent him to prison. To his great relief, Sir Richard also learns that he himself is safe from discovery, that the “other man” was never identified, and despite great pressure on the working-class man to incriminate his upper-class partner, he refused to do so.

“He [the deliveryman] was instantly removed from the court and as he went he shouted back at us—you’ll never credit this—that if he and the old grandfather didn’t mind it why should anyone else,” says Sir Richard’s host, fatuously indignant about the whole affair. Sir Richard, ashamed and sad but trapped in the armor of his social position, does the only thing he can: “Taking a notebook from his pocket, he wrote down the name of his lover, yes, his lover who was going to prison to save him, in order that he might not forget it.” It isn’t a great story, but it is an important moment in the evolution of an idea of loyalty and honor within the emerging category of homosexual identity. I didn’t

discover it until years after it might have done me some good.

Forster’s story is exceptional because only one man is punished, and he is given a voice—and a final, clear, unequivocal protest against the injustice. The other man escapes, but into shame, guilt, and self-recrimination. And yet it is the escapee who takes up the pen and begins to write. We might say of Sir Richard what we often say of our parents as we come to peace with them: he did the best he could. And for all the internalized homophobia of the authors I began reading more than thirty years ago, I would say the same thing. They did the best they could. They certainly did far more than privately inscribe a name in a book. I can’t honestly say that I would have had even Sir Richard’s limited courage in 1928.

But Forster’s story, which he didn’t dare publish while he was alive, is the exception, not the rule. It is painful to read the bulk of this early canon, and it will only become more and more painful, as gay subcultures dissolve and the bourgeois respectability that so many of these authors abandoned yet craved becomes the norm. In Genet, marriage between two men was the ultimate profanation, one of the strongest inversions of value the author could muster to scandalize his audience and delight his rebellious readers. The image of samesex marriage was purely explosive, a strategy for blasting apart the hypocrisy and pretentions of traditional morality. Today it is becoming commonplace.

I wonder if these books will survive like the literature of abolition, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin—marginal, dated, remembered as important for its earnest, sentimental ambition but also a catalogue of stereotypes. Or if they will be mostly forgotten, like the nineteenth-century literature of aesthetic perversity and decadence that many of these authors so deeply admired. Will Gide and Genet be as obscure to readers as Huysmans and the Comte de Lautréamont (Isidore-Lucien Ducasse)?

I hope not, and not least because they mattered to me, and helped forge a common language of reference among many gay men of my generation. I hope they survive for the many poignant epitaphs they contain, grave markers for the men who were used, abused, and banished from their pages. Let me write them down in my notebook, so I don’t forget their names: Hans, who loved Hermann; Basini, who loved Törless; the Page of Herodias, who loved the Young Syrian; Giovanni, who loved David; and all the rest, unnamed, often with no voice, but not forgotten.

TIM KREIDER

[noonymoon]

JUSTICE FOR JESUS — Misconceptions & Prejudices about the Faith in the Biblical Jesus Christ.

PART ONE: Christianity is not a Religion, it is God‘s plan to redeem mankind and have a relationship with us forever

I‘ve used to think that Jesus is about Religion, Church, Pastors, Dogma. When you look around in the world it makes sense: Everyone believes something different, all faiths are entirely valid for the people who practice them. Of course you throw Christianity in the same pot as Islam and Judaism, they‘re called „the Abrahamic Religions“ (because Abraham was the father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob, and Jacob is „Israel“, but also Abraham was the father of Ishmael who was only born because Abraham and Sara didn‘t put their faith in God to have a child like God promised, they were impatient and didn‘t have faith, because Sara was already old and could actually not get pregnant anymore, so Sara suggested that Abraham should have a child with Hagar, the handmaiden of Sara; and from Ishmael‘s lineage basically the Arabs and Islam came along, since God had promised to make a great nation out of Abraham, this blessing went worth to both sons of Abraham) - so basically YES, Jews and Christians worship the same God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as it is written all over the Old and New Testament. The only difference is that Christianity has been infiltrated by Satan a loooong time ago, and Judaism (for the most part) rejects Jesus as their Messiah, even though Jesus was prophesied from the FIRST LETTER of the FIRST WORD of the FIRST BOOK of the Bible/Torah FOR the Jews! When he finally arrived FOR the Jews, the Gospel (the message of Salvation) was preached to ONLY Jews for 7 years (3 and a half years of Jesus‘ ministry, 3 and a half years after His death preached by His Apostles) and only THEN (after the Jews for the most part rejected the Gospel and persecuted everyone who believed in Jesus; our best example for this is the Apostle Paul who was actually Sha‘ul; he was formerly an extremely Jewish Pharisee who relentlessly persecuted Christians but then Jesus Himself appeared in a vision to Him and asked Him „Why are you persecuting me?“ and by seeing Jesus‘ glory and majesty, He was born-again and wrote ~70% of the New Testament) God decided to spread the message of Salvation to Greeks/Gentiles as well, because He wants to save all humans, and His chosen people would not do the work that He hoped they would. God‘s priority was always Israel until they have entirely rejected the Salvation that is ONLY found in God‘s Son, the Messiah, the Anointed One: Jesus Christ. Gladly there are a lot of messianic Jews nowadays who do their best to bring Israel‘s saviour to the Jewish people, just like it was supposed to be.

Every single Religion or Faith that there is that does not teach that you can find Salvation in Jesus Christ, the literal Son of God, will not give you peace, love and the Truth, will not give you Eternal Life (and if „Heaven“ and „Eternal Life“ sounds too ethereal for you try „different non-linear dimension“ and „consciousness transferred into a spiritual body“ - because THAT‘S how it was supposed to be before our Earth fell into a linear timeline, away from God‘s presence) and that‘s just how it is. There are tons of Religions, Faiths, even pretty much ALL Christian denominations and all the Christian cults, each one of them has a different way of denying the only thing that leads to Salvation: Jesus is the LITERAL only-begotten Son of the one true God & He died for our sins & was raised to life again by God the Father. Satan literally tries in ANY way possible to deny the LITERAL Sonship of Christ whose Father is God Almighty, YHWH. [...by the way, if you believe in that Zecharia Sitchin nonsense, please visit http://sitchiniswrong.com/ - by an ACTUAL scholar of Biblical Hebrew and of Ancient Semitic Languages]. And for the people who don‘t even bother with Jesus at all, he developed a plethora of options, to believe in something else, his first and only goal is to keep people away from Jesus, and he literally does not care how he accomplishes it. Every single Faith that does not lead to Jesus and into the Kingdom of God, has its roots in Ancient Babylon and leads into the Kingdom of Darkness. There are literally only two options, and that’s the absolute Truth, no matter if “truth” today is a “subjective matter for everyone”; that’s exactly what Satan wanted to achieve, and he sure did it. People are always extremely offended when Christians claim to have the only true God, the One who brought all things into existence despite the circumstance that they don‘t even believe in the FACT that we were brought into existence by this one God through Jesus Christ (who is the „Word of God“, and as you all know „God said: Let there be light, and there was Light“ - basically God spoke things into existence BY his Word, and his word IS Jesus Christ, the Son of God).

People rather believe in an extremely ridiculous and propagated concept of a „Big Bang“ that caused things to just „happen over time“, that our Earth is millions or billions of years old, that it is sheer „luck“ that we can survive because if we were just a tiny bit closer or less close to the Sun we would either burn up or freeze, that we evolved from ape-like men who were not very intelligible, that our extreme complex languages also probably evolved from ape-like sounds (you have no idea how ridiculous all of this sounds, when you are awake, I can‘t even type it without putting it in „quotation marks“, and you literally can NOT UNSEE the Devil’s work once your eyes have been opened) when there is literally an abundance of undeniable evidence that the Creation by an intelligent and brilliant God is a LOT more plausible; or let‘s say: there is a LOT of evidence that the public narrative is simply a deception (for example, tons of GIANT human bones have been found since at least the 1800s but of course not a single person informs us about stuff like this, and of course we don‘t make an effort to research it, because we‘re all brainwashed until we realize the Truth; people who study their Bible know EXACTLY who these giants were and they also know exactly who all those other spiritual entities are which we see in Mythology from ancient cultures) - and when the public narrative is a deception, the only logical conclusion is that something different must be true. And which book contains the entire story from the very Beginning to the very End of humankind, which fulfilled a massive amount of prophecy throughout human history 100% accurate, and is by „sheer conincidence“ the most translated and printed book of ALL time? Exactly! The Bible!

„In the beginning (TIME) God created the heavens (SPACE) and the earth (MATTER)“ — Genesis 1:1 

(parantheses added)

Isn‘t it AMAZING how the inspired Word of God through the Prophets conveys complex scientific concepts in only a little sentence? THAT‘S how incredible God is! He is a Mastermind and good beyond ANYTHING. Sadly Satan has accomplished that the world sees our Creator like a hateful, narrow-minded, strict and arrogant Ruler who just wants to dominate us and put His Religion on us, but that could not be further away from the Truth. God, in fact, HATES Religion, all He ever wanted is to be loved by His people, acknowledged by His people and praised by His people (and honestly, He DESERVES praise for Everything He has done for us and for Everything that He is!) .. And then of course, you can look all around in nature! I swear, being born-again is like being a child again, before this world and our „education“ brainwashes you. When I walk outside, I just MARVEL at God‘s handiwork, it‘s literally AMAZING. When I look at flowers, veggies, fruits, animals, insects of all kinds (I even lost my fear of spiders and wasps and even hornets, it‘s just amazing to look at them), when I taste different kind of nuts, herbs and spices (by the way, isn‘t it amazing how there‘s a herb or plant for every health issue a human can have, just like the Bible says? if we really evolved from a Big Bang to THIS, how do we explain the miraculous powers of all of these things? Have they just „happened“...?) look at the funny shapes of everything; everything just blows my mind, it‘s incredible. Someday I really want to ask God what He thought when He created Romanesco Broccoli because each time I see that thing, I just marvel at its weirdness and beauty. The world is just so ridiculously beautiful and NO ONE can see it except born-again Christians (I‘m really excited for eternal Life because this Creation is in a fallen state and the Bible says that the actual glory of the actual Creation is even more magnificent, WHOA...!!!) and I sometimes literally cry because it‘s SO SAD what Satan has made us believe about our planet, about ourselves, about literally everything. And why? Just because he hates Jesus, he hates God and he most certainly hates EVERYONE else, you, me, everyone. He loves only himself and he doesn‘t care if he‘s robbing us from the most astonishing experience ever: Life! He enslaves us through spiritual warfare to desires that we would naturally not have (social status, money, power, career, material objects of all sorts, fame, success, other people no matter how toxic they are for our health, drugs, likings and addictions of all kinds, literally ANYTHING can be the work of spiritual warfare) and makes us believe on top of that that we‘re just a bunch of random Apes in a random world, that our purpose is to make money and survive in a society that grows more and more into cold robots each year, only so that at the end, we die, never knew Jesus, and perish in Hell with him. It‘s literally the saddest thing EVER.

So yes, „Religious Freedom“ is a thing; everyone CAN believe whatever they want and feel drawn to, but ONLY born-again believers in Jesus Christ will live with God forever and ever in a different dimension that is not bound to time. Just like God wanted to live with us from the very beginning! We are His masterpiece of creation! Did you know that we are more cherished than angels? He sent his LITERAL SON to die for us, ALL of us, just so that we can live with God! Isn‘t that incredible??? I’m just absolutely in Love with God and Jesus and I’ve never thought that I’d EVER say this, growing up as an Atheist and then, over 2 years deceived in a spiritual bubble that is not even real.

My prayer is that the people who are written in the book of Life and belong to God’s kingdom find Jesus Christ, and experience His Love, because once you have, there is not a single day that is sad or empty, not a single day that seems pointless, you will have peace and a blessed hope for eternity to come. Amen.

TESTIMONIES

From Buddha to Christ. Powerful Testimony.

Chinese Triad Gangster Finds Jesus In Death Encounters

SATANISM, WITCHCRAFT, DRUGZ, DEPRESSION this is my testimony

"New Age" Occult Practices Nearly Ruined My Life | Warning & Testimony

Raves, drugs, vanity, new age to Jesus Christ | My Testimony

[nyc-uws]

Friends

My new old friend. An odd formulation. And yet….

The Hedgehog Review Wilfred M. McClay

I hadn’t ever considered the matter until a few years ago, when I heard a dreamy little number by the jazz pianist Alan Pasqua called “My New Old Friend.” It’s a strictly instrumental affair, a subdued and contemplative piano trio, full of subtle unresolved suspensions and wafting dissonances, conveying a late-night mood of solitary and slightly bittersweet remembrance—one of those moments of quiet grace when the passage of time slows to a crawl, past and present seem to intermingle, and joy and sorrow become hard to tell apart.

But it was the song’s title that captured my attention, even more than the music itself. My new old friend. An odd formulation. But one I’d been looking for, without even knowing it.

It’s not obvious to me why I should have been looking. In a different moment, I would have been far more likely to react against the phrase, striking it down with a reflex of indignant linguistic puritanism. After all, the noble term friend has already been so diluted and cheapened in our times, like so many of our most important words of personal and social connection, that it has become like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. Such cheapening has occurred not only in our personal usage but in public discourse. When Abraham Lincoln concluded his First Inaugural Address with a heartfelt plea to the seceding Southern states to recall that “we are not enemies, but friends,” the word had great emotive power, describing the very bonds of public affection that were being sundered. Such earnest usage has all but disappeared. Friend as we now use it embraces a particularly large portfolio of evasions and line-blurring maneuvers, especially useful in the hands of diffident teenagers, as in this familiar exchange: Mother: “Who was that on the phone?” Daughter: “A friend.”

As this example illustrates, friend can designate anything from a mysterious or otherwise uncategorizable love interest to a study-group classmate to a business associate to a helpful neighbor to the “friends” who accumulate on people’s social media accounts, where they are as plentiful and enduring as the daily harvest of low-tide sea shells on a beach. The television series Friends (1994–2004) became one of the most successful sitcoms in TV history by depicting a collection of very attractive twenty- and thirtysomethings “hanging out” together as a kind of quasi-family, a light and frothy fantasy that transposed the social life of the college dorm to not-quite-adult life in implausibly toney Manhattan apartments. For its characters, friendship was that relatively flexible and easygoing state of social relations before the hardening categories of adulthood come along.

This resonated with American audiences, including aging boomers who were nostalgic for the friendships of their college days. But when we’re confronted with the far profounder ideas about friendship put forward by Aristotle, the greatest of all writers on the subject, or by C.S. Lewis in his splendid account in The Four Loves, we tend to be nonplussed. Such heights seem beyond us. For Lewis, Friends would have to be considered a show about companions, not friends, since friendship is something weightier and inherently exclusive. In this, Lewis was in tune with the earlier observations of Aristotle: “Great friendship too can only be felt towards a few people…. One cannot have with many people the friendship based on virtue and on the character of our friends themselves, and we must be content if we find even a few such.” Far from being something breezy and easy, like a glass of sparkling spring wine, friendship in the fullest sense is a rare and precious thing, much more like an old single-malt Scotch.

As I’ve said, the Platte River principle has come to apply to many of our words of human connection, perhaps partly reflecting the automatic generosity of the democratic spirit, and also the way we employ the language of false personalization in our speech, routinely appropriating the most charged words in doing so. Some of this is vaguely sinister, as when corporate bosses try to persuade us to think of ourselves as part of “the Sprocket Corporation family,” especially at times when the budget needs cutting. Community is a word that comes in for similar abuse, and has been almost emptied of meaning in this respect, standing for any aggregation that it is politically or financially useful to treat as an aggregate. Here, as in the use of the language of family and almost any other affective term, Silicon Valley has led the way to perdition.

So you can see why I would be initially averse to the idea of “new old friends,” which might sound at first like more linguistic inflation, the equivalent of preripped jeans or “distressed” furniture, something new that is made out to look old, and thus is doubly phony. To make matters worse, as my old friends can readily confirm, I have for years been prone to saying, in an earnest imitation of Shakespeare’s Polonius, that “you can always make new friends, but you can never make new old friends.” And it’s true. There is something irreplaceably special about the people who have been down the road with you—those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried—and whose friendship has endured through the sheer passage of years, through the steady artillery of time, even if such friendships lack the lively intensity of newer ones. People who “knew you when” can never be replaced, and a wise person will not seek to do so.

But such friendships have their limitations. For one thing, it’s not always helpful to be reminded constantly of who you were “then.” Life does move on. And there is also something very true in the Simon and Garfunkel song “Old Friends,” about the two men who “Sat on their park bench like bookends…. / Winter companions… / Lost in their overcoats / Waiting for the sunset…. / Memory brushes the same years / Silently sharing the same fear.” There is a bond being described, if an unutterably sad and resigned one. It is an existential bond of the deepest and most universal sort. But there are some respects in which this “old friendship” falls short of the fullness of friendship as Aristotle and Lewis describe it.

And here I come to the heart of the matter: There is no denying the phenomenon of a new old friend. I have acquired a couple of them in recent years, people with whom I have found a near-instant bond whose depth is hard to explain, whose friendship feels as old and rooted as an ancient sequoia, even though I know it is as new as a sapling. Moving about in such friendships, I’m wary at first, thinking they may be too good to be true, fearing to trust too much in the sensation of oldness, fearing, much as one fears when living in a foreign culture, that my habitual ways of being will suddenly be misperceived or strike the wrong note. There is something deeply mysterious about such friendships, and mystery induces caution, as well as awe.

But perhaps the mystery has to do with the mystery of friendship itself. Lewis remarks that what finally hold us together as friends are not the “unconcerning things,” facts of biography and shared experiences. Of course, one brings the residue of all such things to the activity of friendship. But the friendship itself stands apart from such things. It concerns itself, Lewis argues, with nothing less than a shared quest for the truth about things. In the very act of sharing in this one thing, friends gain access to an astonishing degree of freedom. “In a circle of true Friends,” Lewis insists, “each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself”:

That is the kingliness of Friendship. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections.

Friendship represents a rare kind of freedom, an “exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility,” as Lewis puts it, precisely because it liberates us into a way of being fully human that rises above all the desiderata and conditioning factors that otherwise impinge upon us, the very factors that form what we are now accustomed to call our “identity.” But why shouldn’t an entirely new friendship have that power, as much as an old one has? Or perhaps…even more, since it is no longer the facts, but rather the search, the quest, that the new old friends share?

Lewis was not alone in connecting the disinterested love of truth and goodness with the highest forms of friendship. “The real community of man,” wrote Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind, “in the midst of all the self-contradictory simulacra of community, is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers, that is, in principle, of all men to the extent they desire to know.” Bloom, too, understood that the quest for truth is what unites us most deeply and most reliably. The greatness of the Great Books, in his view, was their ability to lift our minds and thoughts out of the realm of contingency and “fact,” into a realm higher and more essential, more conducive to the flourishing of friendship—not as a goal of the quest, but as a byproduct of it.

Maybe this way of phrasing it will sound too specific to the academic world. And not everyone has the time or inclination to reread Plato’s Republic every few months (preferably in Greek). But the larger truth, that the deepest friendship can take root in the sparsest biographical soil if some high and shared animating spirit is present, seems right. I’m guessing that’s how we make new old friends. Though in the end, it is a mystery.

Wilfred M. McClay is G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty and director of the Center for the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma. His latest book is Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story (2019).

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/friends

[kkintle]

Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wisława Szymborska; Quotes

Dreams flickered on white canvas.

The future—who can guess it. The past—who’s got it right.

Trite Rhymes     A great joy: flower upon flower, the branches stretch in pristine blue, but there’s a greater: today’s Tuesday, tomorrow will bring mail from you, and still greater: the letter trembles, strange reading it in spots of sun, and still greater: just a week now, now just four days, now it’s begun, and still greater: I kneel on top and make the suitcase lid shut tight, and still greater: the train at seven, just one ticket, thanks, that’s right, and still greater: rushing windows, with view on view on view on view, and still greater: dark and darker, by nighttime I will be with you, and still greater: the door opens, and still greater: past the door, and still greater: flower on flower. —Ohhh, who are all these roses for?

Do you open each human fate like a book, seeking feelings not in fonts or formats? Are you sure you decipher people completely?

Are people really so simple as far as people go?

Lovers     In this quiet we can still hear what they were singing yesterday about the high road and the low road . . . We hear—but we don’t believe it.   Our smile doesn’t mask our sorrow, and goodness needs no sacrifice. The pity we give to nonlovers is even more than they deserve.   We’re so astonished at ourselves, what’s left to astonish us? Not a rainbow in the night. Not a butterfly in snow.   And when we sleep we dream of parting. But it’s a good dream, it’s a good dream, since we wake up from it.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.

Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: today is always gone tomorrow.   With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

If we haven’t had enough of despair, grief, all that stuff, lofty words will kill us off.   Then we’ll stand up, take our bows: hope that you’ve enjoyed our show. Every patron with his spouse will applaud, get up, and go.   They’ll reenter their lives’ cages, where love’s tiger sometimes rages, but the beast’s too tame to bite.

I TEACH silence in all languages

FOR PROMISES made by my spouse, who’s tricked so many with his sweet colors and fragrances and sounds— dogs barking, guitars in the street— into believing that they still might conquer loneliness and fright, I cannot be responsible. Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

We know ourselves only as far as we’ve been tested. I tell you this from my unknown heart

An Effort     Alack and woe, oh song: you’re mocking me; try as I may, I’ll never be your red, red rose. A rose is a rose is a rose. And you know it.   I worked to sprout leaves. I tried to take root. I held my breath to speed things up, and waited for the petals to enclose me.   Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Leave me, leave, but not by land. Swim off, swim, but not by sea. Fly off, fly away, my dear, but don’t go near the air.   Let’s see each other through closed eyes. Let’s talk together through closed mouths. Let’s hold each other through a thick wall.

Since eternity was out of stock, ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead.

Everything’s mine but just on loan, nothing for the memory to hold, though mine as long as I look.

One day the answer came before the question. Another night they guessed their eyes’ expression by the type of silence in the dark.   Gender fades, mysteries molder, distinctions meet in all-resemblance just as all colors coincide in white.

Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand, with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink— a view served round the clock, until you go blind.

Parable     Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: “Somebody save me! I’m here. The ocean cast me on this desert island. I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I’m here!” “There’s no date. I bet it’s already too late anyway. It could have been floating for years,” the first fisherman said. “And he doesn’t say where. It’s not even clear which ocean,” the second fisherman said. “It’s not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere,” the third fisherman said. They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That’s how it goes with universal truths

Ballad     Hear the ballad “Murdered Woman Suddenly Gets Up from Chair.”   It’s an honest ballad, penned neither to shock nor to offend.   The thing happened fair and square, with curtains open, lamps all lit:   passersby could stop and stare.   When the door had shut behind him and the killer ran downstairs, she stood up, just like the living startled by the sudden silence.   She gets up, she moves her head, and she looks around with eyes harder than they were before.   No, she doesn’t float through air: she steps on the ordinary, wooden, slightly creaky floor.   In the oven she burns traces that the killer’s left behind: here a picture, there shoelaces, everything that she can find.   It’s obvious that she’s not strangled. It’s obvious that she’s not shot. She’s been killed invisibly.   She may still show signs of life, cry for sundry silly reasons, shriek in horror at the sight of a mouse.                      Ridiculous traits are so predictable that they aren’t hard to fake.   She got up like you and me.   She walks just as people do.   And she sings and combs her hair, which still grows.

I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings.

Exiled by style. Only their ribs stood out. With birdlike feet and palms, they strove to take wing on their jutting shoulder blades.   The thirteenth century would have given them golden halos. The twentieth, silver screens. The seventeenth, alas, holds nothing for the unvoluptuous.   For even the sky bulges here with pudgy angels and a chubby god— thick-whiskered Phoebus, on a sweaty steed, riding straight into the seething bedchamber

He grew rozes with a “z.

(...) the rest of your life? Old age is a precipice, (...)

I am too close for him to dream of me.

Silence—this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word “woods.”

Funny little thing How could she know that even despair can work for you if you’re lucky enough to outlive it.

The Railroad Station     My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot.   You’d been alerted in my unmailed letter.   You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time.   The train pulled up at Platform 3. A lot of people got out.   My absence joined the throng as it made its way toward the exit.   Several women rushed to take my place in all that rush.   Somebody ran up to one of them. I didn’t know him, but she recognized him immediately.   While they kissed with not our lips, a suitcase disappeared, not mine.   The railroad station in the city of N. passed its exam in objective existence with flying colors.   The whole remained in place. Particulars scurried along the designated tracks.   Even a rendezvous took place as planned.   Beyond the reach of our presence.   In the paradise lost of probability.   Somewhere else. Somewhere else. How these little words ring. Alive     These days we just hold him

But this is ancient history. I can’t dwell on it forever or keep asking endlessly, what’s next, what’s next.   Day to day I trust in permanence, in history’s prospects. I can’t gnaw apples in a constant state of terror.

Arduous ease, watchful agility, and calculated inspiration.

Old Folks’ Home     Here comes Her Highness—well, you know who I mean, our Helen the snooty—now who made her queen! With her lipstick and wig on, as if we could care, like her three sons in heaven can see her from there!   “I wouldn’t be here if they’d lived through the war. I’d spend winter with one son, summer with another.” What makes her so sure? I’d be dead too now, with her for a mother.   And she keeps on asking (“I don’t mean to pry”) why from your sons and daughters there’s never a word even though they weren’t killed. “If my boys were alive, I’d spend all my holidays home with the third.”   Right, and in his gold carriage he’d come and get her, drawn by a swan or a lily-white dove, to show all of us that he’ll never forget her and how much he owes to her motherly love.   Even Jane herself, the nurse, can’t help but grin when our Helen starts singing this old song again— even though Jane’s job is commiseration Monday through Friday, with two weeks’ vacation.

Sell me your soul. There are no other takers.   There is no other devil anymore.

I’m bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies. What a loss when you think how much effort was spent perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent for the one-time appearance, which is all they’re allowed, so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.

The abyss doesn’t divide us. The abyss surrounds us.

In Praise of Dreams     In my dreams I paint like Vermeer van Delft.   I speak fluent Greek and not just with the living.   I drive a car that does what I want it to.   I am gifted and write mighty epics.   I hear voices as clearly as any venerable saint.   My brilliance as a pianist would stun you.   I fly the way we ought to, i.e., on my own.   Falling from the roof, I tumble gently to the grass.   I’ve got no problem breathing under water.   I can’t complain: I’ve been able to locate Atlantis.   It’s gratifying that I can always wake up before dying.   As soon as war breaks out, I roll over on my other side.   I’m a child of my age, but I don’t have to be.   A few years ago I saw two suns.   And the night before last a penguin, clear as day.

True love. Is it normal, is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing.   Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

And it so happened that I’m here with you. And I really see nothing usual in that. 

Under One Small Star     My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all. Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths. I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five A.M. Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water. And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers. Truth, please don’t pay me much attention. Dignity, please be magnanimous. Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.   Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then. My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man. I know I won’t be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Non omnis moriar—a premature worry.

Thank-You Note     I owe so much to those I don’t love.   The relief as I agree that someone else needs them more.   The happiness that I’m not the wolf to their sheep.   The peace I feel with them, the freedom— love can neither give nor take that.   I don’t wait for them, as in window-to-door-and-back. Almost as patient as a sundial, I understand what love can’t, and forgive as love never would.   From a rendezvous to a letter is just a few days or weeks, not an eternity.   Trips with them always go smoothly, concerts are heard, cathedrals visited, scenery is seen.   And when seven hills and rivers come between us, the hills and rivers can be found on any map.   They deserve the credit if I live in three dimensions, in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space with a genuine, shifting horizon.   They themselves don’t realize how much they hold in their empty hands.   “I don’t owe them a thing” would be love’s answer to this open question.

Dentistry turned to diplomatic skill promises us a Golden Age tomorrow. The going’s rough, and so we need the laugh of bright incisors, molars of goodwill. Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Our solitary existence exacerbates our sense of obligation, and raises the inevitable question, How are we to live et cetera? since “we can’t avoid the void.

No way out? But what about the door? No prospects? The window had other views.

You think at least the note must tell us something. But what if I say there was no note— and he had so many friends, but all of us fit neatly inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup.

(...) to linger longer, not to go home again. Since only prisoners want to go home.

In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself     The buzzard never says it is to blame. The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean. When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame. If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.   A jackal doesn’t understand remorse. Lions and lice don’t waver in their course. Why should they, when they know they’re right?   Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton, in every other way they’re light.   On this third planet of the sun among the signs of bestiality a clear conscience is number one.

I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it’s mine, I can’t exchange it.   I have to guess on the spot just what this play’s all about

The star is large and distant, so distant that it’s small, even smaller than others much smaller than it.

Small wonder, then, if we were struck with wonder; as we would be if only we had the time.

God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

“How should we live?” someone asked me in a letter. I had meant to ask him the same question.   Again, and as ever, as may be seen above, the most pressing questions are naïve ones.

Whatever you say reverberates, whatever you don’t say speaks for itself. So either way you’re talking politics.

Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned. (...) Price, not worth, and title, not what’s inside. His shoe size, not where he’s off to, that one you pass off as yourself.

Nothing’s sacred for those who think. Calling things brazenly by name, risqué analyses, salacious syntheses, frenzied, rakish chases after the bare facts, the filthy fingering of touchy subjects, discussion in heat—it’s music to their ears.

During these trysts of theirs, the only thing that’s steamy is the tea.

May delivery be easy, may our child grow and be well. Let him be happy from time to time and leap over abysses. Let his heart have strength to endure and his mind be awake and reach far.   But not so far that it sees into the future. Spare him that one gift, O heavenly powers.

For the sake of the children that we still are, fairy tales have happy endings. That’s the only finale that will do here, too. The rain will stop, the waves will subside, the clouds will part in the cleared-up sky, and they’ll be once more what clouds overhead ought to be: lofty and rather lighthearted in their likeness to things drying in the sun— isles of bliss, lambs, cauliflowers, diapers.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries that can be celebrated every day.

A miracle, just take a look around: the inescapable earth.   An extra miracle, extra and ordinary: the unthinkable can be thought.

When I see such things, I’m no longer sure that what’s important is more important than what’s not.

Hatred is a master of contrast— between explosions and dead quiet, red blood and white snow.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields, those we remember and those that are forgotten: (...)

Without us dreams couldn’t exist. The one on whom the real world depends is still unknown, and the products of his insomnia are available to anyone who wakes up.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

We agreed to death, but not to every kind. Love attracted us, of course, but only love that keeps its word.

We were besieged by doubts. Does knowing everything beforehand really mean knowing everything.   Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.

We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone. They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.

The Three Oddest Words     When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past.   When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.   When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

But how to answer unasked questions, while being furthermore a being so totally a nobody to you.

Talking with you is essential and impossible. Urgent in this hurried life and postponed to never.

Understanding came only later: not all misadventures fit within the world’s laws and even if they wanted to, they couldn’t happen.

And what can you say about one day of life, a minute, a second: darkness, a lightbulb’s flash, then dark again?   KOSMOS MAKROS CHRONOS PARADOKSOS Only stony Greek has words for that.

There must be an exit somewhere, that’s more than certain. But you don’t look for it, it looks for you, it’s been stalking you from the start, and this labyrinth is none other than than your, for the duration, your, until not your, flight, flight— (...)

Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don’t charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost. The body has its own installment plan.   And as an extra, added feature, you spin on the planets’ carousel for free, and with it you hitch a ride on the intergalactic blizzard, with times so dizzying that nothing here on Earth can even tremble.

At times I get fed up with her. I suggest a separation. From now to eternity. Then she smiles at me with pity, since she knows it would be the end of me too. 

Assassins     They think for days on end, how to kill so as to kill, and how many killed will be many. Apart from this they eat their meals with gusto, pray, wash their feet, feed the birds, make phone calls while scratching their armpits, stanch blood when they cut a finger, if they’re women they buy sanitary napkins, eye shadow, flowers for vases, they make jokes on their good days, drink citrus juice from the fridge, watch the moon and stars at night, place headphones with soft music on their ears and sleep sweetly till the crack of dawn —unless what they’re thinking needs doing at night.

It’s good you came. Sit here beside me. He really was supposed to get back Thursday. But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.

Page after page at a snail’s pace. But we’re still going in fifth gear and, knock on wood, never better.

We eat another life so as to live. A corpse of pork with departed cabbage. Every menu is an obituary.   Even the kindest of souls must consume, digest something killed so that their warm hearts won’t stop beating.

In the end I stopped knowing what I’d been looking for so long.   I woke up. Looked at my watch. The dream took not quite two and a half minutes.   Such are the tricks to which time resorts ever since it started stumbling on sleeping heads.