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royallyprincesslilly · 4 years ago

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Title: F*@k The Chef {One Shot}***

Ransom Drysdale x Family Chef Reader

Warning: NSFW, SMUUUUUT, Cursing, Hard Dub-Con, DARK Creepy Ransom, ALL STARS ON NSFW METER

***DO NOT READ AT WORK!!! TAKE THE WARNINGS SERIOUSLY***

Words: 4k

Summary: HA! Nope.

Note: So, my first attempt at Ransom and more importantly Dub-Con. I don’t know about you, but Ransom does not scream anything but dubiousness. That means consent is given but by dubious means. I hope this is even a fraction of good. Was this dark? Thank you guys for reading!!

Also, this was not written to offend anyone.

**Loosely Edited/Proofread**

***Gif Not My Own***

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you got the call that you’d been chosen for an in-home chef position, you were happy. You’d hit bottom when you’d tapped out all of your savings trying to help your mother when she got her diagnosis. Cancer—stage three Cancer. It was a death sentence, your mother said. She was hell-bent on not fighting it, but you wouldn’t hear a thing about it. She’d birthed you a fighter, and you’d go down as a fighter. The cancer didn’t waste any time progressing. Before long, she went from no symptoms to every symptom in the book. She said she’d made her peace with death, but you weren’t ready to face a world without her.

You drained your bank account with her meds, her care, and funding the portion of treatment her insurance refused to. After six months, you were broke. The call that you’d be chosen for a live-in position automatically garnered a refusal. You couldn’t leave your mother. Then the offer got even better, not only were you requested but the salary was better than any personal chef had ever seen. There was no way you wouldn’t take the job.

When you rolled up to the address, your jaw dropped when you realized where you were—the Thrombey estate. You weren’t an idiot, you’d heard about the Thrombey Dynasty, everyone had heard the rumors. They��re the wealthiest family, they controlled serious portions of the business world and even that the family was seriously weird. You’d even heard the torrid tale of the black sheep of the family, Ransom Drysdale. You’d heard about his arrest. The release of information was interesting. The whispers said he’d killed his grandfather and the family housekeeper, but the official story said the family was a victim of insufficient evidence that pinned the murders on Ransom. It was safe to say the family had secrets, and though you’d never met Ransom, he looked dangerous.

You couldn’t believe your luck. Upon speaking with Linda Drysdale about the position, you knew this would be an interesting position. Linda told you what you needed to know to do your job accordingly, and you took detailed notes. It was clear that everyone in the household and the family had particular tastes that had to be paid attention to.

Six months into the position, you’d learned a lot and developed on the job skills it took to survive working for the Thrombeys as well as living with them. You considered yourself an expert now. That was until you walked into your kitchen one day and saw a set of shoulders that looked ripe for the touching. He was bent inside the fridge, and it gave you a good view of his backside. It looked nice—toned. You got lost looking over the muscles you knew were underneath the brown sweater they wore that you didn’t even realize when they looked over their shoulder right to you.

“Holy Shit,” you gasped.

Ransom Drysdale stood a few feet away. His body straightened and came to full height. He was huge, or bigger than you. You were clearly the omega, and he looked every bit the vicious alpha.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” His mouth remained relaxed, but there was a playful but dangerous glint in his eyes. “Or maybe you do entirely different things with a mouth as pretty as that.”

Unexpectedly, butterflies filled your belly. You usually were immune to pick up lines like that, but that was a blatant pickup line, one that was dark but for some reason, affected you. As he sauntered toward you, you caught dangerous vibes coming off of him. You backed up with every advance he made. When your heel hit the threshold of the kitchen entrance, panic set in. You were alone with a man who’d quite possibly killed two people, one of whom was his own grandfather. He stopped mere inches from touching you and smirked. Goosebumps flooded your skin.

“Yeah, you do entirely different things with that mouth. Care to share?”

You were stunned silent; his eyes were an intense shade of blue you couldn’t help but admire. That, coupled with his perfectly coiffed dark hair and chiseled jawline, it would have been an honest assessment to call him beautiful. When you didn’t answer, his smirk widened and sent chills down your spine. Leaning forward to your ear Ransom took a deep inhale then groaned.

“One day.” With that, he walked off, leaving you dazed and slightly shaking. You didn’t know what it was you were shaking from fear or excitement.

You thought to render your resignation after that encounter, but you couldn’t convince yourself to pass up on the clearly over-generous salary, not when your mother was still in treatment. After an all-night debate with your door securely locked and bolted with a chair underneath the knob, you decided to keep the job but tread carefully, especially when it came to a one Ransom Drysdale.

For the next four months, you put up with a lot more than an average family chef would have had to. You stomached the catcalls, the whistles, and the demeaning sounds Ransom made every time he saw you or was close to you. You just steeled your spine and pretended you’d heard nothing at all. Every time you were left alone in a room, you made an excuse to leave. When you had to bring his dinner to his room because he hated his family so much that he refused to eat with them at the dinner table, you kept it simple. Rather than go into the lion’s den, you left it on the floor in front of the door, knocked, and made a mad dash to get away before he opened the door. You skated by for four months.

As time went on, his advances became more and more blatant. What started as catcalls or whistling turned into sly comments about your uniform and how it should be shorter and how the fit did wonders for your waist and breasts. That escalated to outward attempts at getting to you. On the off chance your eyes met, he’d bite his lips, lick them obnoxiously and wink at you. When that had no effect, he found ways to touch you slyly. He’d squeeze past you sliding his body against yours, take plates or other items from you while ensuring his hand grazed yours. A few times, he’d even grabbed your waist. Each time it produced a loud yelp that could be heard throughout the house.

After months of you not reciprocating or opening up to his advances, his delivery became even crasser. It was a little strange to you. You knew from the sounds that came from his bedroom that he had no shortage of women that would do whatever, whenever he wanted. You didn’t know why he had this fixation with you. Part of you said it was the draw of breaking someone—something. He possibly wanted to break those around him that were put together, and you were just the closest target. Whatever it was, you didn’t want to provoke him.

One night, Ransom must have been lying in wait for you. When you approached his door with the tray of food, he swung open his door, startling you half to death. He smiled like the Cheshire cat if the Cheshire cat was a convicted murderer.

“Funny meeting you here,” Ransom said, leaning one brawny shoulder on the threshold.

“I—I have your dinner.”

“You have my dinner who?” Clenching your jaw, you swallowed the smart comeback that nearly slipped from you. As if sensing it, Ransom smiled as his eyes darkened. He tilted his head to the side, quietly reminding you he was waiting.

“Sir,” you filled in.

He nodded and breathed out. You saw his eyes lazily travel over your body. He wasn’t even being coy about it; he was doing it outright like he wanted you to know what he was doing. Doing your best to ignore it and not say something reckless you’d regret in the trunk of his car as he took you to some abandoned part of the estate to kill you.

“Bring it inside,” Ransom ordered. You hesitated. Going inside was a stupid idea, anyone with half a brain knew that. You also thought what other option did you have? He didn’t even bother repeating it. It was as if his privilege told him you’d obey.

Cursing to yourself, you slowly stepped into his room and looked for a place to put the dinner tray. As you walked across to the small table up a few steps on the other side of the room, you did your best to slow your breathing and calm your nerves. Once you placed it down, you began walking back to the door. Before you got near it, Ransom shut it and leaned against it. Your stomach fell.

“Uh—what’re you—what’re you doing?”

“Whatever the hell I want,” he gruffly said. His eyes didn’t look clear tonight. He’d taken something. In your time working there, you’d learned a few things about Ransom. He liked women, alcohol, good food—rich food, and drugs. You suspected he did them all, but you knew for a fact he liked weed and molly, otherwise known as ecstasy. He must have taken one tonight, you though.

Ransom rubbed his nose and sniffled as he did it and zeroed in on you. “Come here.”

Instead of listening, you backed away, trying to create distance between you. “Come—here!” It was said more loudly. He meant business. Panic set in and a feeling of dread. Before he moved, he growled then pounced. You yelped and got ready to scream, but Ransom’s hand clasped over your mouth before he pushed you against the wall on the other side of his room.

“Let’s not go doing something stupid, sweetheart,” he drawled his voice dripping with wickedness and sin.

“Tell me—sweetheart,” Ransom began with his face just inches from yours. “What would you do to keep your job?” You felt his finger trail your throat. It inched lower and lower until it was at the rise of your breast. “One word from me, and you’ll be out on your ass faster than you can say Cancer treatment.”

With those words, your eyes widened. He knew about your mother. When he saw you realized it, he smiled sinisterly.

“That’s right, sweetheart. I know you need this job. The question is, what will you do to keep it?”

Moments passed where he kept his hand clamped over your mouth. Only when he was sure you weren’t going to scream did he remove it.

“The next words out of your mouth better be anything, sweetheart,” Ransom warned. Glaring at him, you hoped to convey all the hatred you had for him at this moment. Ransom didn’t look like he cared, his smile said it didn’t faze him one bit.

“Haven’t you heard the rumors? Hate turns me on. I’d be careful how you look at me, Y/N. I just might bend you over that table and have my real dinner.” Your eyes bugged with his threat, but your belly did cartwheels. What the hell was wrong with you, you wondered.

“So—again, what will you do—to keep your job?” He said it in a sing-song voice this time. He was enjoying this. The sick fuck was enjoying this.

“What do you want?”

As if he’d been waiting for you to ask him that. He smiled and got so close his nose touched yours. You tried to press your back even further onto the wall hoping it would suck you in. That didn’t happen though; instead, ransom’s hand tightened on your hip and pulled you to him. Your body was now crushed flush against his. Even dressed in the teal-colored wool sweater, you could still feel every muscle underneath. He was athletically built.

“You.”

As if for emphasis as soon as the word left his mouth, you felt his erection poking against you. Again, your belly did backflips as you were filled with strange feelings; fear was the least of them.

“I’m tired of waiting for you to throw yourself at me so I can take what I offer. You are the only one who has resisted this long. Why resist? Just give in. Give me what I want,” Ransom spoke through clenched jaws as he ground his crotch into you. A small moan escaped your lips, one you instantly regretted. His lips touched your ear before he spoke.

“You want me. Give it, or I will take it.” Ransom then bit your earlobe, but it wasn’t gentle. It was forceful. His teeth relinquished their hold before he bit your neck. He wanted to mark you.

Suddenly a loud knock broke the heady aura in the room.

“What!”

“Where is Y/N! She’s needed now. Have you seen her?” It was Linda. You’d never been happier to hear her voice.

Ransom’s anger was evident, and it grew when he saw relief in your eyes. He looked like he was thinking of all the things he wanted to do to you, and none of them ended with you clothed and unmarked. Ransom then begrudgingly scoffed and went back to your ear. “Soon.”

After he spoke, he released you. Quickly you scurried to the door and out. You didn’t even bother to shut it behind you. You just ran.

For days you looked over your shoulder. For days you lived on edge. You kept your door locked with the chair underneath and even pushed one of the nightstands against it in case he was strong enough to barge in. Night after night, nothing happened. Day after day, Ransom was on his best broody behavior. The catcalls stopped, the whistles were a thing of the past, the touches nonexistent. He’d gone one hundred to zero overnight, and it confused you.

You were relieved the first few weeks, but that relief turned to doubt. You were convinced he was working some twisted angle. You were sure he would sneak out from every corner and push you over whatever furniture was nearby and have at it. It was a constant worry. After four weeks and nothing, you began to relax, especially when you found little things lying around at your door either early in the morning when you rose to get breakfast ready or late at night when your day was done. The items weren’t huge things; they were things such as your favorite flower, or your favorite dessert. There was one time you found a diamond necklace in your favorite color. You knew who it was from. You didn’t acknowledge them, though. That must have been encouragement, every so often you’d find pieces of jewelry, earrings, bracelets, rings, all items that looked like they cost more than an average weekly paycheck. You didn’t wear them, you kept them in a drawer and tried not to think about them.

His behavior was erratic and confusing. You couldn’t figure him out. One morning ransom was waiting in the kitchen for you. You nearly tripped over your own two feet. You couldn’t walk away because he’d already seen you. Cautiously you walked into the room, taking the path that left enough breadth between you and him. You wanted to get to the fridge, but the action meant your back was turned to him. You didn’t want to turn your back on him.

“Don’t bother. There is no one here today—no need to make breakfast,” Ransom informed.

“Uh—what—

“I have breakfast already.” He nodded to the pink box sitting on the island. Your eyed dropped to it and caught the aroma of pastries. You recognized the box.

“I made coffee,” Ransom informed. Shock filled you.

“You?” He scoffed, got up, and walked to the fancy espresso machine. He then poured the dark liquid into a mug and approached you. The scent of the exotic coffee beans teased your nostrils. He stopped a few feet from you and held out the mug. It was the mug that read “my house, my rules, my coffee.” You couldn’t help but think of the stories you’d heard of Marta. Marta who was now strangely gone without a trace.

“Take it. I promise I didn’t do anything to it.” You slowly reached out and took the mug and sniffed it hoping to be able to smell if he poisoned or drugged it.

“I didn’t poison or drug it. You have entirely the wrong idea about me, Y/N.” He chuckled and walked back to the espresso machine to get his own mug. He then came back to you and leaned on the island while facing you.

“I want to apologize,” Ransom began. You almost dropped your mug.

“Apolo—huh?”

“I know, it is not a concept I’m familiar with, but neither is forcing myself on the help. I don’t have to force anyone to fuck me,” Ransom crassly explained.

“Nice. Lucky you.”

“Meh. I didn’t mean to—I was high. I didn’t have full control.”

You studied him trying to assess if he were being sincere or if this was yet another ploy.

“Come, I got your favorites.” Ransom walked away to the stool and sat then opened the pink pastry box.

It was filled with your favorites, madeleines. It was a box of an assortment of them, and they smelled delicious. Ransom waited for you to approach. When you did, it was a slow stride, and you took the stool that was farthest from him. The two of you ate and drank in silence. You could feel his eyes on you the entire time, though. You tried to keep your nervous ticks to a minimum, but it was difficult. The longer you sat across from him, smelling his cologne, the more you felt temptation. It was confusing. Though you hated him, you were strangely intrigued by him, inexplicably attracted to him. It was one of those things that you felt ashamed of. When the last madeleine was eaten, Ransom stood and walked out of the kitchen without a word. Your head was spinning from this three-sixty.

That wasn’t the end of Ransom’s peculiar behavior. It all continued as did the wayward glances. At times they were soft, and other times they were hard and intense. You were convinced the man had bipolar disorder or even multiple personalities. Several more weeks passed with him giving you the hot and cold treatment, the psychopath and sane citizen act. Though you tried to talk yourself out of it, you found yourself with mixed feelings for him.

You were minding your own business preparing the lunch for the household. You’d just finished putting a freshly kneaded loaf of bread in the oven and checked on your pot of stew on the stove slow-simmering when heard the clink of metal. Your curiosity won out, making you look behind you to the nook in the kitchen, and there stood Ransom. He was dressed in his favorite white cable knit sweater and dark pants. Your eyes immediately dropped to those pants to see his belt undone, and him slowly zipping down his pants. You were frozen in place. The slowness of his moves was like torture. You knew you should have looked away, but you were interested in knowing just what had countless women compromising their morals. When his cock flopped out of his pants, you gasped and placed your hand at your throat. He was long and thick and completely ready.

You heard a growl from him, and in seconds, he was across the kitchen and in front of you, pressing you against the fridge.

“Looks like soon is today. When we first met, you showed me a glimmer of how dirty your mouth was. That was just a fraction though Y/N. Get on your knees and show me more,” Ransom demanded. His eyes were again dark similar to the way they’d looked the night in his room.

“Ransom pl—” Ransom grabbed your throat, but he didn’t squeeze.

“What did you call me?”

“S—sir,” you replaced. His top lip rose in a devious smirk.

“On your knees. Or we can call this your last day working here.”

You knew he was serious. Linda was wrapped around his finger, and she didn’t even know it. All he had to do was say he hated your food, and you’d be out on your ass, and your mother would suffer for it. After quick calculation of your options and the fall out from them, you slowly dropped to your knees. Ransom’s thick cock was right in front of your face. The violent veins were protruding to give you an idea of just how engorged he was.

“I’ve dreamed of this for months. Open your pretty mouth, sweetheart.”

You opened your mouth, and without warning, Ransom thrusted forward, sending his cock down your throat. You gagged, but Ransom kept it nestled in the tight confines of your throat. You groaned, hoping to relay your panic from your lack of oxygen intake, but either Ransom didn’t understand, or he didn’t care. You were sure it was the lather. He pulled his hips back, allowing you to chough and gasp for it. The reprieve was only momentary. In seconds, he shoved his cock back into your mouth and held the back of your head where he wanted it as he fucked your face.

You did your best to remain conscious. With every thrust, Ransom shoved his cock further and further down your throat, suffocating you in the process. Soon slobber and thick globs of mucus dribbled from your chin and down to your flour-covered uniform. Ransom didn’t slow his actions or take heed to not break your throat with his cock. He fucked your face viciously. His only concern was his pleasure. When his thrusts became so fast you couldn’t keep up; you gagged with every forward thrust. Your struggle must have been a turn on for him because the sounds coming from him were animalistic but also vulnerable.

“That’s it; sweetheart suck my cock. You take me so fucking well. swallow me!” His hands loosened their grip from behind your head, and he caressed your cheek with the back of his hand. It was out of character.

“Use your hands!” you wrapped both your hands around his shaft and worked his length as he continued to fuck your mouth. Ransom dropped his head back and groaned loudly.

“Yes, that’s it, sweetheart, swallow this cock! show me how bad you fucking want it!”

When you moaned on his length, you were shocked. You couldn’t believe this; you were turned on. Ransom must have known it too because it was then he plowed into your mouth with reckless abandonment. The moment before he came, you saw his intention. When you felt the hot splash of his cum shoot against your tonsils and down your throat, Ransom clasped his hands behind your head again and held you in place so not one drop escaped your mouth. His grunts were loud and forceful. From the look of him he was in ecstasy.

“Swallow every drop!” It wasn’t a suggestion. You struggled swallowing and attempting to breathe. It felt like his cum was coming through your nose. You began to feel lightheaded and woozy as Ransom swished his cock around your throat, nudging it against the walls. The sensation fiercely triggered your gag but thanks to his cock in your mouth, there was nowhere for anything to go. Gulping, you swallowed what he deposited, and that action had your eyes rolling to the back of your head. It was then Ransom pulled himself from your mouth, finally allowing you to chough and gasp for air.

After a few moments, Ransom stooped down before you, his cock still out and slowly coming back to life. Your eyes met, and he had a smile on his face.

“There, there sweetheart. You did good.” Ransom used a dish towel to dab at the corners of your mouth before he wiped your messy chin. “Could be better, but don’t worry, I’ll train you proper tonight.” He leaned to your ear and whispered. “Let the big bad wolf in Y/N. I promise I’ll fuck you right.”

When he said it, he stood and walked out of the kitchen, leaving you on the floor in complete shock at what just happened and the fact that you liked it—a lot.

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#fuck the chef one shot #ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale fanfiction #angst fanfic #ransom drysdale smut #ransom x reader #ransom x you #ransom x black reader #dark!ransom drysdale #knives out fanfic #dark!fanfiction

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missjanjie · 3 years ago

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Better Than Revenge | (2/?)

Title: Better Than Revenge Summary: Karma Inc.’s business structure is simple - clients hire them when they’ve been grievously wronged and they send one of their revenge mercenaries to right them. As painstaking as their efforts to remain ethical may be, that may be tested when former detective, Rosé, enlists the squad to pick up where she couldn’t on a much higher scale, with potentially greater consequences. Word Count: ~2.6k (this chapter) | ~5.3k (total) Relationship(s): Rosnali (Rosé/Denali Foxx), Jankie (Jackie Cox/Jan Sport), Halldoll (Nicky Doll/Jaida Essence Hall), Gimone (Gigi Goode/Symone), Gottlux (Gottmik/Olivia Lux) Rating: T

TW for this chapter: implied domestic abuse, attempted sexual coercion of a minor, deadnaming/transphobia

Read on AO3 | Ko-Fi

Chapter Summary: Rosé learns Nicky, Jan, and Mik's revenge origin stories

Milwaukee, WI - 2007

“I think my parents are starting to get suspicious,” Jaida quietly confessed, her gaze downcast to the floor while Nicky sat behind her, braiding her hair.

Nicky frowned, her brows furrowed as she tied off the braid she’d put Jaida’s hair in with a hair elastic. “What is making you say that?” she asked, moving so she was facing the other girl and taking her hands into her own.

She shrugged, fumbling with the hem of her shirt until Nicky’s grasp stilled them. “Just feels like they’re snooping around more, suddenly real interested in my life. And you know they’re always acting weird whenever we’re at my house together. Last time they made us keep the door open, remember?”

“I had assumed that was an American thing,” she confessed. She had only moved to the states a couple of months ago, at the start of her and Jaida’s junior year of high school, and she was still learning how to differentiate cultural differences from people behaving unusually to her specifically.

“You think everything you don’t understand is an American thing,” Jaida rolled her eyes with a fond smile, “though I guess you’re right most of the time,” she conceded.

Nicky shrugged it off, redirecting back to the topic at hand. “But you’re worried they’re going to find out about us and poop will hit the ceiling.”

“Shit will hit the fan,” she corrected, then sighed. “I mean, think about it — my mom’s a Sunday school teacher and my dad’s the son of a preacher, they take ‘traditional family values’ very seriously. And I don’t know how things are in France but there’s nothing traditional about this,” she explained, gesturing between the two of them.

She frowned, her brows knitting together. “But we are happy together, surely once we graduate, we can—”

“It’s not that simple, Nicky!” Jaida tossed her head back and groaned. “I love you, but in a place like this, sometimes love just ain’t enough.”

And maybe it was denial, or maybe it was blind optimism, but Nicky had refused to take that answer lying down. She fought for Jaida and fought even harder to keep the relationship away from her disapproving parents. For a while, it seemed to be working, they had their beautiful, fleeting moments that let them believe that everything would be okay.

It was the first day back after spring break and Nicky immediately noticed a change in her girlfriend. It was like the life and light had been drained from her like she was only present physically. And despite the warm weather, she was dressed for late fall. She rushed towards her, taking her hand. “Ma chérie, what’s wrong? You look so unwell.”

Jaida hesitated before pulling her hand away. “I can’t hang around you anymore,” she replied. “Though I’m not gonna see anyone around here for a while starting real soon,” she mumbled.

“What do you mean?”

“My parents found out, Nicky,” she choked out, forcing back a sob, “and they were mad, I ain’t never seen them so mad. They’re sending me to military school�� well, they gave me a choice between that and conversion therapy… seemed like the better option.”

Nicky bit down on her quivering lip. “But you can find me when you are done, right?” She reached out to her again, but Jaida backed away to step out of her grasp.

“I can’t. Besides, you won’t want me anyway, I won’t be the same person.”

She tried to grab for her once more, desperate to keep her, looking at her with watery, pleading eyes. “Jaida, I can’t—”

“Please,” she sniffled, “don’t make this harder than it’s already gonna be.”

And perhaps Nicky should have let it go, accepted losing her first love, and moving on with her life. Sure, she would eventually. She would move around for school, for work, meeting many beautiful women along the way, but none of that happened until she made sure Jaida’s parents experienced at least a fraction of the hurt they had caused the both of them.

Her plan had been elaborate and convoluted and would require a heavy amount of stealth work and computer literacy to pull off. But as it turned out, her plan of convincing the two parents that the other was cheating on them was quite easy when her snooping unearthed the fact that both of them already were. All she needed to do was bring it to light.

Present Day

“When you think about it,” Nicky mused, “I did them a favor. There are worse ways they could’ve found out than having an envelope full of proof dropped off at your workplace. At least no one made a scene… as far as I know, at least.”

“Does Jaida know?” Rosé asked. “Now that you guys have reconnected, have you caught her up to speed? Because it seems like something you should tell her.”

Nicky winced and looked away. “It… has not come up yet,” she murmured. “There is no easy way to inform someone that you were the catalyst in their parent’s divorce. Unless you have a way, in which case, feel free to share with the class.”

She shrugged, putting her hands up in surrender. “I got nothing, but my point remains. It’s gonna bite you in the ass badly if you wait too long to say anything.” When Nicky shrugged it off, she decided to move on. “What about you, Bubbles?” she asked, looking towards Jan, “what sort of scathing revenge does someone as bouncy as you come up with?”

Jan pressed her lips into a fine line, holding back what was either a smile or a grimace. “Well, this also happened in high school, an all-girl Catholic school, of course…”

Old Bridge, NJ - 2009

Jan was nothing if not brave. Coming out in tenth grade, especially considering the environment she was in, was a choice that couldn’t be taken lightly. While she had the support of her family and closest friends, the school environment had been a different story.

“Janice, could you stay back for a moment?” her math teacher, a conventionally attractive man in his early thirties, prompted as the final bell rang.

With math being her weakest subject, Jan was instantly concerned and nodded. “Of course, sir. Is something wrong?” she asked as she walked over to his desk.

“I think something is very wrong,” he replied as he got up. “Janice, I am highly concerned with your mental wellbeing.” He stopped in front of her, cupping her face with both hands. “You’re such a bright, beautiful girl. It would be such a shame for you to throw that away because you’ve chosen to shun God and live in sin.”

Jan felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach and her throat tighten. This was inevitable, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. She started shaking her head. “N-No, I’m… I’m not, I—”

“Shh…” he pressed his thumb to her lips to quiet her, then swiped it across her bottom lip. “Part of being a good Christian is overcoming temptation. And that’s what you want, isn’t it? Isn’t it what your parents want for you?” His hands move to her shoulders, squeezing them gently. “God gave you this body to lay with a man, you just need to be put in the right direction before it’s too late. I could help you, I could save you.”

Jan felt sick to her stomach. She hated every moment of the interaction; she hated the feeling of his hands on her, the way he was leering at her body, undressing her with his eyes. But at the same time, it was hard to lean into that hate, because he did pick on every insecurity she had in regards to her faith. But her sense of self won out and she was able to free herself of his grasp and run out of the room as fast as her legs would take her.

Any shame or guilt she might have felt was quickly replaced by anger and a desire to stop the man that tried to rob her of her innocence from harming anyone else. But she was still cautious, she knew there was a risk of retaliation if she spoke out alone, that was when her plan formed.

She created a fake Facebook account of a fifteen-year-old girl who was ‘planning on transferring to her school’. That was why she messaged the teacher, and after a few days of exchanging messages, ‘Samantha’ had agreed to meet up with him, the conversation in no uncertain terms making his intent clear.

Now, the obvious path from there would have been to go to the police, but that wasn’t good enough for Jan. Instead, she went to her godfather, who had promised he’d always help her ‘by any means necessary’. So, it was neither the police nor ‘Samantha’ that met the teacher at the park. Instead, it was two burly men who drove home a rough lesson that he was to turn himself in the next day, lest he face even worse consequences. He’d been given a flash drive with a copy of the whole exchange and was told he had exactly twenty-four hours and that the police would be expecting him.

Of course, those details weren’t in the subsequent news story of the teacher’s arrest. The conviction, however, was disappointing to Jan, as it was only two years and a thousand dollar fine, as well as losing his teaching license and having to register as an offender.

Present Day

“But rest assured, people are keeping an eye on him these days. You know, should he ever try and act up,” Jan explained with a shrug.

Rosé’s mouth was hanging open by the time Jan had finished her story. “So, you put a hit out on a pedo. I mean, shit, color me impressed,” she chuckled softly, then quickly followed up with, “I’m so sorry any of that happened to you, though. I’ve had people in my life try to weaponize religion against me after I came out. It’s never an easy pill to swallow.” She then looked at the group curiously. “Are you all…”

“Mik’s pan but yeah, the rest of us are gay,” Gigi confirmed with a nod. “At first, I thought that’d be the only thing we all have in common, but here we are now.”

“Chosen family is super important,” Mik agreed, “you never know who you can’t trust in your bloodline.”

Rosé quirked her brow. “That what happened to you?”

Scottsdale, AZ - 2015

Mik had been sitting across from his parents in dead silence for the past five minutes. There was no easy way to break it, let alone a correct one. On the coffee table in front of them were printed pictures of screenshots from his private Twitter account, where he presented himself as his true identity, but the precautions he took weren’t enough.

“Kady, sweetheart, I’m sure Uncle Joe brought this to our attention with your best interest at heart,” his mother said in as sweet of a voice as she could muster, which only served to sound fake to her son.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh please, don’t give me that. If it was ‘concern’ he would’ve told you privately. He sent it to the family group chat then told you that, and I quote, ‘your daughter thinks she’s a tranny’,” he struggled to keep his tone even, but he knew he needed to coddle his parents’ feelings if he wanted a chance of being taken seriously.

“I’m sure it just caught him by surprise,” his father offered.

Mik groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Even if he did, he wasn’t treating it like a fun piece of gossip, he hunted down my private account and outed me to humiliate me, and it would mean a lot if you guys had my back on this.”

This brought another wave of silence upon his parents. He couldn’t get a clear read on them, but they seemed stressed, confused, and most painfully, they seemed sad. His mother slowly picked her head back up. “Kady, I—”

“My name is Mik.”

“Listen, honey, you’re going to have to give us some time to adjust,” his dad tried to ease the tension, “you’re still our child, but this isn’t an easy thing to process, your mother especially is mourning the loss of her daughter.”

Mik felt his chest tighten in anger and hurt. “But I’m not—” he got up, shaking his head. “Right, fine,” he mumbled and escaped to the sanctuary of his bedroom. Left alone with his thoughts, the anger he had towards his parents dissipated and the rage shifted solely onto his uncle. After all, this was his fault. He was the one that robbed him of the opportunity to come out on his terms, and with the active intent to cause harm.

The anger didn’t go away over the following weeks. Instead, it built up, it festered inside of him as the summer after high school began. He had downloaded Grindr out of casual curiosity, and it was only a matter of minutes before a profile caught his eye. “No fucking way,” he grinned.

Of course, it was Joe, Mik realized how much of a cliche it was, but that didn’t change the fact that his bigoted uncle that tried to ruin his familial relationships was soliciting male escorts on a gay dating app. The opportunity for revenge essentially fell into his lap. He made a fake account and exchanged messages with him, just enough to get the evidence he needed.

The last step was simple, he dropped the screenshots into the same group text without any comment and removed himself from the group chat right after. He didn’t need to see the chaos unfold, Uncle Joe’s absence from the next family gathering was all he needed.

Present Day

“Just to be clear,” Mik added as he finished the story, “I’m against outing people, for the most part, obviously it should be something done on your terms. But shit, sometimes it’s gotta be an eye for an eye, you know?”

“Wait, I have a question,” Jan chimed in, “is he out now? Do y’all even talk to him anymore?”

He shook his head. “He moved to Alabama, I guess he wanted to go somewhere to double-down on the bigotry. No idea what happened after that. But, you know, good fucking riddance.”

“Amen to that,” Rosé agreed. “I don’t know how you guys have figured out that line of deciding what’s morally sound and what’s ethical enough. It seems to work, but it seems hard.”

“Jackie helped a lot with that,” Jan told her, her face lighting up and her smile broadening as she continued, “she has this pragmatic take on these things while still understanding that there’s so much ambiguity and morally gray areas. She’s honestly the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

Rosé nodded as she listened. “I’m glad you guys have someone like that on your team. How long have you two been dating?”

Jan turned bright red, worsened by the way the rest of the group laughed. “Oh, um, we’re not dating. She and I are… very close friends,” she explained.

“Ah,” the corners of her lips tugged into a smirk, “you’re just fucking, got it,” she observed, causing another eruption of laughter from the others, much to Jan’s chagrin. Once it died down, she redirected her attention to the half of the group that had yet to recall their stories. “Alright, who’s next?”

#halldoll #jankie #rpdr rpf

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chemtrailsovertheclub · 4 years ago

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old poems v1.

here you go. dated august-september 2019 or so.

my brain is a conglomeration of suffering it is everything it's all in my head though. by the time it shows on the physical, the damage is done, the war has been won and i am not victorious, maybe i won a few battles but ultimately i gave more than i gained from all the agonizing pain it's all in my head though.

i don't have a sense of identity and i don't have very much empathy because i feel so much to begin with how am i supposed to take on your problems too? i don't want to hurt you that's the last thing i ever wanted to do but so i push you far away and i don't say the things that haunt me because i know you feel so much empathy i can't have your hurt be because of me so i push you away

it's all in my head though. it's not a real problem. i'm perfectly fine. and i live a lie.

you make my heart beat go faster and the time goes slower and i feel my heart get closer and it melds into yours for hours that seem like years so when you go and i'm left alone my heart craves you my mind misses you my body is cold our love grows old and i worry it'll never be renewed

you are my drug, my medicine, my addiction my confliction of interest, of distress, of wondering what will come next my love, my joy, my shining light, my star so bright, those lakeside nights, those neck side bites, those streetside lights, those endless nights, those endless nights

i don't know what you want from me i don't have any sympathy for your self made misery

i don't know what world you live inside, all you seem to do is hide maybe you should step outside

into the light i promise it's not too bright i promise it's not a fight i promise if you'd just try you'd see just why life isn't just suffering until you die.

it's fine, pretending you're divine, that life is great, you feel no hate, there's no need to do a thing did i mention life is great?

it's a shame there's no one to blame for all the ways you bleed from your very own knives what a surprise! you take so many lives, why not your own? when you're finally all alone, when everyone you ever cared for is gone, when you've pushed them all away, i promise i won't say i told you so don't you know?

it's fine, pretending you're divine, that life is great, you feel no hate, there's no need to do a thing did i mention life is great?

black like mold the staleness you bring to the air gets old darkness and decay only leave so many words to say statements of agony proof you're not okay, proof that there's no way, you're ever going to change

i like the way you make feel at home like i do when i'm all alone i like the way you love me with all of your fragile heart like it won't get broke, like what all i said was a joke i knew it from the start, and every, day and night, it tears me a-part

i like the way you make me wanna run, away, never to be seen again by anyone of any concern, it's like i never learn, but they're my bridges to burn, it's my turn

it's not too hard to disappear, if you live your life running in fear if all you ever wanted was right there

i like the way i sing this song so soft and distraught when i let out my thoughts

i can't maintain my composure it's over exposure it's vulnerability it's me showing me for all the world to see and i can't take criticism very well and i didn't think this would go so well go so well can't you tell can't you tell? i burn my bridges before anyone can cross them but you must have swam, you must have swam because you made it across and what happens now? all my defenses are down. fire at will.

i want to bleed out every single ounce of my soul let it leak out of my body through each and every pore i crave liberation from my whole i would much rather be a piece of the puzzle than the whole fucking picture but here we are and the light, the light is blinding, and the darkness is consuming and the love is gone the love is gone. i am not at home in the one vessel i have for my spirit. can i get a replacement? is there a warranty on the carrier of my essence? dance with me and sing with me and drink with me and smoke with me and numb your feelings numb your pain numbness is satisfaction and as a matter of fact, satisfaction smells like worms in the rain.

i am a person for equality i am of a nationality that presents me with an easier way across the street, a paved path to walk on, the white privilege meant i could easily defeat, anyones suspicions, all your nonsense superstitions, all your tired inquisitions, all your conniving accusations, declarations, the satisfying sensations that you leave dripping down my throat

i feel everytime i forget to wear a winter coat, it is a message from you, a dream in the way it is afloat, it will never actually be perceived as more than glasses that need to be cleaned but no one told me the world wasn't this messy, i grew up in a world that's so numb to their feelings it's depressing. and the weather, it gets colder than i planned for, my jacket still probably lying on the kitchen floor, i am getting older and the blasphemous ones wear sheep's clothing, my mom is in the basement crying in the basement cause she's insecure, she's not sure she's worth anything, not a price at a bargain store, please close the door, oh please no more, i do implore have some sympathy for my dystopian society it's not predicted (but it is) it leaves me conflicted (i start to hiss) it leaves me afflicted (with all your sins) and i will not repent, for the message is best sent through a "i'm disappointed" by your closest parent.

i will not listen nor will i give in, when the chorus comes in, when the guards come in, when the cops come in, when the lights go out, when the last bit of tension building inside my cranium as your fingers instrument a destruction of the last thing you have finally learned to call home, for when you are alone who is there to judge you for not conforming when you are the whole, you are 100% of whatever you want to be and if one day you can wake up and finally see the reflection that stares back at me from the awkward first compliments to the snarky half-assed arguments that ended with my sticking out my tongue at you and kissing you and forgiving you because no one is perfect and i am sorry, i am sorry i created a pedestal for you in my head, you know some days i'd rather be dead, or at least just in a coma something to give me a moment i got my highschool diploma like you said i was supposed to you said, nothing.

i didn't really plan to live this long. how could the world have done me so wrong? trying to teach me a lesson? but here i am just stressin? my fight or flight reactions actin up, i think i'm coming up, i think i've had enough, i think i'm kinda fucked up, someone get me off this ride i can't decide for the life of me why i get no sympathy, like the simple fact of my humanity, negates my value as a human being. i am seething, soon no newborn babies will be teething because the majority of people i ask on the street, seem to agree that this world ain't so organized and neat, and the people here all be trying to compete, trying to delete, any trace of their origins or else how are they supposed to make their fortune releasing an autobiography with insights the one and only, the prized show pony, the don't leave me i'll be lonely, the if you could see me maybe you'd tread slowly, maybe you'd consider the possibility that you are not everything a human can be, sure it is possible, but you sir are making me rethink making me wonder making me more aware, more scared, more fear, more here, less beer, more liquor and it's getting quicker to take a shot or two or three down my throat and the warmth has finally become an expected gift, it's not something i try to shift away from my body, it's not naughty to want to feel comfortable in your own flesh, you are some combination of all your physical features but most importantly you are a culmination of your choices, of every single one of the voices that you decide were worthy of being heard for a change, i know they may sound strange when they first start on the stage, but look at them, they are acting their age they are being vulnerable they are feeling satisfied without eating till they're beyond the limits of full, they are complete before you two even meet and if you refuse to give her the heat, the intensity, the devotion, the endless flowing fountains of emotion, she gives you all of hers if you just would pick her a pretty flower.

so what if, we were to develop a place where the motif, the reason for the season, the blinding sheet in which they are not told they are a project, no for once, they are not simply something someone has likely forgot, can't you see how i'm falling, desperate and distraught death is sometimes a thought, quite a lot. but instead i make a scrapbook, i get a pretty one, i make it fun, i try to make unburdening all the weights others put on my back a thing i do everyday but it's so much easier to say, to delay, to just offer "how much do i need to pay", what feminine figure of weakness do i need to portray so you can save her? every page has effort and time put into it and just because you're not as into it as that little girl fantasizing about that imaginary world doesn't mean you can't for one second for one, humble, moment, for one silent showing of hands, of all those who have demands from the dead, they must be read, we do not judge nor hold any grudge for the ending will be the same, no matter what personality we choose to play the game today.

#mine #for you know who #content... is heavy

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swanqueeneverafter · 4 years ago

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Sins of the Past Pt.3

Camelot. Past. Main Square. (A young Morgana watches on as Uther Pendragon addresses a crowd from the balcony while a convicted man is brought into the Square.) Uther: "Let this serve as a lesson to all. This man, Thomas James Collins, is judged guilty of conspiring to use enchantments and magic. And, pursuant to the laws of Camelot, I, Uther Pendragon, have decreed that such practices are banned on penalty of death. I pride myself as a fair and just king, but for the crime of sorcery there is but one sentence I can pass. (Uther gives the signal and the man is beheaded, much to the horror of Morgana:) When I came to this land, this kingdom was mired in chaos, but with the people’s help magic was driven from the realm. So I declare a festival to celebrate twenty years since the Great Dragon was captured and Camelot freed from the evil of sorcery. Let the celebrations begin." Storybrooke General Hospital. Present. (A small group has gathered outside the hospital room where Morgana is being examined. Having learned from Guinevere exactly who the woman is, only Hook seems to recognise the name.) Hook: "The daughter of Uther Pendragon? The architect behind the Great Purge of Camelot?" Emma: "Great purge?" Hook: (Nods:) "King Uther was notoriously against magic and sorcery of any kind. I remember hearing some of the stories during my piracy days. Uther made even the royal navy's methods of dealing with pirates seem civilised. (At Guinevere's stern look:) Of course, these were just rumours, I myself never stepped foot in Camelot as I knew it'd be the last place I'd find the Dark One." Guinevere: "Uther's reign ended a long time ago. It was a dark time filled with bloodshed. Not everyone agreed with the King's actions, least of all Morgana."

(Doctor Whale exits Morgana's room.) Guinevere: "Doctor, how is she?" Whale: "She needs rest, but she'll be fine." David: "There's nothing wrong with her?" Whale: "Well, certainly nothing physical." Snow White: "May we see her? Perhaps we can find out-" Whale: (Raising his hand:) "I'm sure all your questions can wait until morning." Snow White: "Oh, yes, of course." Guinevere: "I'll stay with her." Whale: (Nods:) "Call me when she wakes." Camelot. Past. King's Palace. Evening. (Morgana looks out the window from the top of the large staircase as Uther approaches.) Uther: “Morgana.” Morgana: “Yes?” Uther: “What is it? Why are you not joining us at the feast?” Morgana: “I just don’t think chopping someone’s head off is cause for celebration. That poor mother.” Uther: “It was simple justice for what he’d done.” Morgana: “To whom? He practiced some magic, he didn’t hurt anyone.” Uther: “You were not around twenty years ago, you have no idea what it was like.” Morgana: “How long are you going to keep punishing people for what happened then?” Uther: “Until they realise there is no room for magic in my kingdom! You will be with me when I formally greet our guests.” Morgana: “I told you! I want no part in these celebrations!” Uther: “I’m your father! I expect you to do as I ask. If you show me no respect at least do it privately. I will not be embarrassed by your lack of support in public.” Morgana: (As the King walks away:) “You know, the more brutal you are, the more enemies you will create!”

Kingdom of Valencia. Present. Council Chamber. (King Richard and Queen Roberta stand ready to receive Lady Catrina as she enters.) King Richard: "Lady Catrina, is it really you?” Catrina: “I can hardly believe it myself.” King Richard: “We had tidings from the north that the House of Tregor had fallen to invaders.” Catrina: “All that you heard was true, My Lord, and worse.” King Richard: “Your father, the King?” Catrina: “Gone, Sire. The enemy attacked without warning. We were outnumbered five to one. He could not endure. I would never have survived had it not been for my faithful servant Jonas. But we did survive, and we have made it this far… (Catrina swoons and Gareth steps forward to catch her:) Oh! Thank you, kind sir. (To Richard:) Forgive me, My Lord. I fear my trials have taken a toll.” King Richard: “Your sufferings are beyond imagining, My Lady. It would be an honour to help you in any way we can.” Catrina: “A bed for the night would be most welcome.” King Richard: “And consider yourselves our esteemed guests. It’s the least we can do.” Catrina: “Thank you.” Catrina’s Guest Chambers. (Gareth shows Catrina and Jonas her guest quarters.) Gareth: “I’m sorry it’s not quite what you’re used to.” Catrina: “Forgive me, but I didn’t get your name.” Gareth: “Gareth.” Catrina: “Well, Gareth, considering we spend last night in a cave, this will do very nicely. Thank you.” Gareth: “Well, if you need anything, just ask.” Jonas: “My mistress and I could not be more grateful for the kindness you’ve shown us.” Gareth: “You’re welcome.” (Gareth leaves.) Catrina: (Immediately slouches and drops any pretense of nobility. Her voice scratchy and rough:) “Well I can’t sleep here. This whole place stinks of cleanliness.” Jonas: “Do not worry, Mistress. I will find you somewhere more suitable.” (Catrina takes a seat at the table. When she breathes onto the fruit bowl, she causes its contents to rot before her very eyes.)

Outside Storybrooke General Hospital. (Emma and Regina stand waiting outside discussing the events of the day.) Emma: "Did you ever have any dealings with Uther?" Regina: (Shakes her head:) "I think I remember Leopold used to visit Camelot quite a lot. Of course, the King never considered it necessary to take me along with him so I never met the man." Emma: "By the sounds of it, you wouldn't exactly have been welcome anyway." Regina: "Had I known how nice the castle was, I might've considered invading." Emma: "You think Uther would've been so easy to conquer?" Regina: "Oh please. Those toy soldiers? I could've killed them all with a wave of my hand." Emma: (Smiles:) "So, mom said she arranged a car to come pick us up for our date tonight." Regina: "Mm well the driver is late. I'm not sure I like the idea of your mother arranging dates for us." Emma: "Oh relax, it's just her way of getting her hands on Maria for the evening." Regina: "Even so..." Emma: "Well it's not like Zelena's any better." Regina: (Chuckles:) "That's true." Emma: "And, with Henry, Ella and Maria gone, we have the house to ourselves." Regina: (Eyes sparkling:) "Yes indeed. (The car arrives:) Finally." (Just as she's about to give the driver a piece of her mind, Regina's eyes widen when Henry steps out of the cab.) Henry: "Moms." Regina: "You're our driver?" Henry: "Seems that way." Emma: "What about Ella? We thought you'd be halfway to Wonderland by now." Henry: (Awkwardly:) "Yeah... well there was a slight change of plans. Can we talk about this in the car? I have like eight more customers booked after you." Emma: "Oh you can bet your butt we're going to talk about this. I wanna hear just what's more important than going with your fiancée to the dark side of Wonderland." (Henry sighs as his mothers take their seats inside the cab, knowing that this ride could be the longest few minutes of his life.) Kingdom of Valencia. Dining Chamber. Evening. (Richard, Roberta, Gareth and Catrina are having dinner.) Catrina: “Well, this is wonderful. Thank you.” King Richard: “It’s an honour. The House of Tregor have been allies of my family for as…well, as long as anyone can remember.” Catrina: “Our fathers spoke often, My Lord.” Queen Roberta: “I’m sorry we didn’t get the chance to meet him.” Catrina: “I’m sorry too. For the House of Tregor is no more.” (Catrina pushes her plate away.) Gareth: (Speaking up:) “Well, no, My Lady, it lives on in you.” Catrina: “Oh you are kind. I only wish that were true.” Gareth: “It is, My Lady. Your courage, your modesty. And your beauty.” (At this, Richard and Roberta exchange knowing looks.) King Richard: (Fake yawn:) “I’m sorry, it’s been a long day. If you’ll excuse us?” Catrina: “Of course.” Queen Roberta: “It was a pleasure to meet you.” Catrina: “And you, my Queen.” (The King and Queen leave.) Gareth: “Can I get you anything else? You’ve hardly touched your food.” Catrina: “I’m sorry, I find I have little appetite ever since that day.” Gareth: “I wish I’d been there for you.” Catrina: “Oh, but you’re helping me now. (Placing her hand on his:) Your kindness, your companionship. (Staring longingly into his eyes, catches herself and makes to leave. Standing:) I must also bid you goodnight. It’s been a long day.” Gareth: “Of course. Goodnight, My Lady.” Catrina: (Taking his hand and kissing it:) “Goodnight, Gareth.” (Catrina leaves the room, an unseen smile upon her face.)

Wonderland. The Tulgey Woods. (Ella and Will stand at the entrance to Tulgey Woods.) Will: "Ella, I didn't exactly leave this place on good terms. Are you sure you want me as your guide?" Ella: "Would you prefer it if I had asked Alice to help me?" Will: "No. Look, I left this part of Wonderland behind me because I did a lot of bad things here. A lot of people wanna see me dead. They have their reasons, and to be honest, they're good reasons. I left this place for a future I'm quite keen to see through." Ella: "Just get me as far as the Mad Hatter's old place." Will: "That's why we're here? It's abandoned. The Hatter hasn't been in Wonderland for quite some time. And he ain't never coming back. He's found himself a nice little life back in a place where the dragonflies aren't actually dragons." Ella: "I know, but he's the closest link to my mother there is. (At Will's look:) It's a start at least! Now, the Hatter's place is on the other side of these woods. If there's even the slightest chance of finding a clue as to where my mother might've gone, I have to take it. Let's go." (Ella walks into the woods as Will reads the sign before him.)

TULGEY WOODS. Generously secured for passage and residence by her Majesty. THE RED QUEEN. By Her Excellency's Command.

Will: "Why do I get the feeling this sign won't be the only thing wrong with this place? Anastasia hasn’t been Queen for years now." (Sighing, Will follows Ella as they walk deeper into the woods.) Ella: "The Hatter told you that he modeled the dream version of Wonderland to be as close to the original as possible, right?" Will: "Yeah, to seamlessly blend everyone's dreams together during the tea parties." Ella: "So it stands to reason that when we reach his house, it should at least be familiar to you." Will: "I suppose so, yes. (Notices something nailed to a tree:) Oh, bloody hell." (Will walks over to the tree and Ella reads the poster over his shoulder.) Ella: "Wanted. With or without his head. The Knave of Hearts. What exactly did you do, Will?" Will: "Don't ask. (Tears down the poster:) Now, which way?" Ella: "Up. We'll never see anything under these tall trees. We need a different point of view." Will: "What do you mean?" Ella: "If I get high enough, I can see the Hatter's house." (Without another word, Ella turns and begins to climb the tree, much to Will's amazement.)

Kingdom of Valencia. Catrina's Guest Chambers. Night. (Lady Catrina enters her guest room and slumps down into her hunch once more.) Catrina: (Her voice hoarse and scratchy again:) "What’s that?" (She sits down by tray full of fruit.) Jonas: “Compliments of Sir Gareth.” Catrina: “Revolting. (Catrina rots the fruit by breathing on it and begins to eat:) Gareth’s so stupid, so blinded by pretty things. Already he falls for me. I can see it in his eyes. It’s only a matter of time before he is completely under my control.” Jonas: “Excellent.” (Chef Vincenzo knocks on the door and enters while Catrina quickly wipes her face of rotten fruit.) Catrina: "Jonas, you must take these back to the kitchens, it’s, er, it’s perfectly rotten.” Chef: “I–I’m sorry. I did not mean to intrude.” Catrina: “That’s, er, that’s quite alright. At least I wasn’t undressing.” Chef: (Blushes:) “Er, I came for the tray.” (Smiling nervously, Vincenzo takes the tray of rotten food and leaves the room as Catrina and Jonas glare after him.)

Storybrooke Heritage Park. Night. (Taking a leisurely stroll through the park, Regina and Emma walk arm in arm in high spirits.) Regina: (Laughing:) "I think Henry will definitely think twice about driving us anywhere from now on." Emma: "I don't know what he was thinking. How could he just let Ella go by herself?" Regina: "Oh it's worse than that, she's alone with Will." Emma: "You don't think he'll try anything do you?" Regina: "Of course not. Aside from Ella being her best friend, Tiana is not someone I would've liked to get on the wrong side of, even in my Evil Queen days." (They share a laugh and walk in silence for a few moments.) Emma: "I know he's working hard, but I just think Henry's concentrating on the wrong things. Relationships take just as much work, especially given how little time they're spending together recently and now will spend apart." Regina: "Mm, speaking of work... I have a little confession to make." Emma: "Ooh, go on..." Regina: "Well, retirement isn't the only thing I've had running through my mind lately. I've also been thinking about you and how wonderful you've been since Maria came into our lives." Emma: (Smirks:) "I think you mean extra wonderful, right?" Regina: "I'm serious. (They stop walking:) Watching you making trips to the grocery store at all hours, changing diapers and making meals-" Emma: "I told you I could cook." Regina: "It's made me so happy to see you really doing all the things you missed out on with Henry." (They kiss.) Emma: "Yeah, it's been pretty great. I never want to miss a moment of Maria growing up you know? Learning to walk, to talk, teaching her how to ride a bike - all of it. And I have you to thank for it." Regina: "Well hey, we're in this together right? But I mean it, watching you... all maternal... it's very attractive." Emma: (Smiling:) "Is that so?" Regina: "Oh god yes." Emma: (Chuckling:) "I always knew you had Mommy issues." Regina: "My biggest issue has been seeing you in my apron preparing Maria's food and being unable to ravish you where you stand." Emma: "Mm, well, I don't have the apron with me... but there's a perfectly good looking bench over there that we can get to at least second base on?" Regina: "We could.. if we were a pair of horny teenagers. I'm looking to run home." Emma: (Laughs:) "I think you mean you’re looking for a home run." Regina: "I mean take me home. (Pulling her close:) Right now." (As Regina lays a searingly hot kiss on her, Emma waves her hand and they disappear in a cloud of smoke.)

#sq #swanqueen #swan queen

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xoxoemynn · 5 years ago

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A Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven

Life gave me a literal and metaphorical beating recently, and I decided if I couldn’t have Aziraphale hugs, then Crowley definitely should. Discussion of triggers and PTSD, but mostly just gentle tenderness. Thank you to @lizardkingeliot for holding my hand as I literally cried through this one and then making me laugh with her beta comments. You can also read on AO3.

Crowley hates the sound of whistling.

Although hate is probably the wrong word.

Hate generally implies some level of conscious thought. One hates the smell of the fish market, or irritatingly dense customers who are evidently incapable of taking a hint and realizing they are not wanted in the bookshop, not now, not ever.

No, hate isn’t the right word.

Frightened by?

That’s not quite it either, although it’s closer. He’s not scared the way someone may be scared of thunderstorms or a particularly long-toothed rat. Rather, he’s scared as that rat would be of a hawk soaring overhead. It’s a fear that comes from deep inside, woven between his cells with a damp, sticky thread. From the moment that rat sets one tiny pink paw outside, he knows to fear the shadow the hawk casts.

It doesn’t matter that he’s never seen the hawk up close.

It doesn’t matter that he’s never seen the hawk swoop down and snatch up his mother or brother or cousin.

The shadow is enough.

The shadow is the threat.

The shadow awakens that primal instinct to run, to escape, to seek safety anywhere but here. And as the shadow grows rapidly denser, that instinct builds upon itself, layer by layer, crushing the rat with the weight of it, so that by the time he feels talons pierce through his soft chest, he doesn’t know which he fell victim to: the hawk itself, or the terror that preceded it.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

The end result is the same.

Once, as a snake, Crowley had been cast in the role as the predator, tempting Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, dooming the world to sin.

But now, in his human body, he is the prey. And it’s not celestial harmonies that threaten the demon’s existence, but a simple jaunty whistled tune.

Not that Crowley would ever admit to such a thing. In fact, if Aziraphale were to hazard a guess, he’d say Crowley would be quite proud of himself, thinking he had never let on to the fact. And, granted, it may have taken Aziraphale a few thousand years to figure it out, and he highly doubted anyone else would have noticed. But when your closest friend is a fellow immortal being and you’ve spent the past six thousand years performing miracles, tempting humans, and preventing the would-be Armageddon, you tend to pick up on a few things.

The first time Aziraphale thought something might be amiss was in 1787, in a small pub in Galway. Crowley was there on assignment tempting some farmer or shepherd or the other, and Aziraphale had been craving a hearty mutton stew. They sat together, Aziraphale enjoying his meal, Crowley enjoying watching Aziraphale enjoying his meal as he regaled him with tales of his temptations for an hour or so. Then the barmaid returned.

“How about another?” she asked, taking their empty glasses.

They both nodded, and she headed back to the bar, whistling as she went.

Aziraphale turned back to Crowley. “What were you saying about the Fitzgerald brothers?”

Crowley shook his head, as if startling himself out of a daze. “Hmm?”

“The Fitzgeralds. How ever did they get the cow off their roof?”

“Oh, well they… some sort of contraption, with a whosit and a whathickey and it’s…” His voice trailed off.

“Crowley?”

“Sorry.” Crowley coughed. “Just remembered. Urgent temptation in Beijing. Really better be off. I’ll pay next time.” And with that, he was gone.

It is a memory Aziraphale keeps safely tucked away, the same as he does with his first edition of Les Misérables written in its original French. Not at the forefront where it might taunt him, incessantly begging him to reveal its secrets, but in a protected place so he might revisit it when he has mastered enough of the elusive language to properly appreciate it. Every so often, on a whim, he comes back to it, thinking that perhaps this time, if he applies the scraps of knowledge and experience he’s gathered since his last attempt, he’d finally be able to make sense of what’s hidden before him in plain sight. Ultimately, though, these attempts only lead him to frustration, and he puts it away again until the next urge strikes.

It takes nearly a century before Aziraphale gathers enough new evidence to break new ground in decoding Crowley’s cryptograph. They were at a small nursery in Soho; Crowley wanted to purchase some new plants, and Aziraphale always enjoyed joining him on these journeys; the scent of the flowers and herbs mingling in the air was beyond heavenly.

“I have to say,” Aziraphale said, “this is a rather delightful hobby you’ve taken up, Crowley. Some of God’s greatest works are the vibrant plants She created. They bring about such a sense of peace and tranquility, reminding us of the profound partnership we share with the beautiful earth we were given.”

“They remind us of something, all right.” Crowley held up a small green plant, inspecting it rather like a farmer would a prize steer at a livestock show. “This one will do.”

He brought it over to the cash register, which was currently unattended.

“Oh, one moment, sir!” came a voice from around the corner. “I just need to wash my hands, spilled a bit of soil back here.”

Then came the sound of running water, and then the sound of whistling.

And then the sound of the ceramic pot cracking in Crowley’s hand and smashing to the floor, followed a moment later by the soft thud of the plant as it joined the broken shards.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasped. “Are you all right?”

Crowley’s face was pinched, a vein throbbing near his temple. He was breathing very hard, and Aziraphale had the impression that while he may have been a mere arm’s length away from him, he might as well have been on an entirely different planet.

“Crowley!” he repeated, louder this time.

Crowley coughed. “Pot was obviously defective,” he muttered. “Quality’s utter shite these days.”

“Is everything all right, gentlemen?”

With one eye on the approaching shopgirl, and the other on Crowley still evidently frozen on the spot, Aziraphale snapped his fingers. Instantaneously, the pot re-formed, the soil hopped back into its home, and the plant was safe and secure once more.

“Here,” Aziraphale said, handing it to Crowley, “it’s as good as new.”

Crowley looked down at the plant. It was the strangest thing; he didn’t even move like himself. He was tense, uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t even sure what he was doing in his own body. “I don’t want it.”

“But, Crowley!”

“I changed my mind.” Crowley shook his head once more. “I changed my mind.” And then, without another word, he turned on his heel and walked out of the shop.

“Sorry about that,” said the shopgirl as she wiped her still-wet hands on her apron. “Would you like to purchase the plant?”

Aziraphale looked out the window, where Crowley was already disappearing into the crowd of people running their Saturday errands. “Yes,” he said.

The plant stays on Aziraphale’s desk. Every now and then he catches Crowley looking at it, and he knows he realizes it’s the same one from that failed shopping excursion, but neither of them ever make mention of it.

But if once makes for an oddity, and twice for a coincidence, it is the third time Aziraphale witnesses Crowley’s reaction to whistling that he realizes this is an ingrained pattern.

And this time it’s Aziraphale’s own fault.

He’d woken up in a grand mood, and decided to keep the bookshop open a full two hours that day so he could share his love of books with the world. There was a fairly steady stream of customers in and out of the shop, and for once, it didn’t irritate Aziraphale; he was content to let them in to wander the shelves (although, of course, he’d taken the precaution of setting the price of each book to four times higher than what they had originally been marked, as to discourage any actual sales).

Because the bell over the door announcing each customer’s entrance was going off so regularly, Aziraphale didn’t bother looking up when he heard the familiar chime. Instead he continued organizing his latest shipment of books. He wasn’t even aware he’d been whistling until he caught sight of Crowley -- pale, stiff, and entirely unlike himself -- out of the corner of his eye.

“Crowley,” he said.

Crowley offered a tight, shaky smile. “Hello, Aziraphale.”

More loudly, Aziraphale said, “shop’s closed, I’m afraid! Everybody out. We’ll be open again bright and early on Thursday. Or perhaps Monday around three. Out, out!”

When the shoppers had left, Aziraphale turned his attention back to Crowley. He was holding a tin so tightly his knuckles were turning white, and his lips were moving, as though he were reciting something under his breath.

It felt ridiculous to not acknowledge what had just happened. Crowley had to realize that Aziraphale was aware of his odd reaction. But he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Where would he even begin? Hello, my dear, it seems you become petrified by the sound of whistling. Would you care to discuss it over a nice cup of cocoa?

No, he couldn’t do that. Crowley, even this strange, nearly catatonic Crowley, would immediately go on the defensive. He’d laugh it off, deny it, tell Aziraphale he’s imagining things, because why on earth would a demon be afraid of whistling?

“Aziraphaleaziraphaleaziraphaleaziraphaleazira--”

Aziraphale blinked. “Sorry?”

Crowley gave his head a firm shake and looked up with a broad, false smile. “Aziraphale! How are you?” He held out the tin. “Picked up some biscuits, thought you might be feeling a bit peckish after opening your shop after two weeks off.”

Aziraphale took the tin, noticing with some concern that while Crowley seemed more like his usual self, his hands were still shaking. “Thank you,” he said. He paused. “You know, these would go wonderfully with some cocoa. Won’t you stay for a cup?”

They hadn’t discussed it then, and they still haven’t discussed it now. Fortunately, it’s actually a fairly rare occurrence to hear someone whistling. It’s a sign of casual cheerfulness, which is not an emotion that many humans possess these days. Every so often these memories would pop into Aziraphale’s mind, and he’d wrack his brain to consider all the new things he’d learned about Crowley over the passing millennia, wondering if somewhere he’d dropped a clue that would allow this to all make sense. Alas, Crowley revealed nothing, and Aziraphale was forced to once again tuck this perplexing idiosyncrasy away with all the other details he did not quite understand about him.

Until today.

They are curled up together on the couch in Aziraphale’s bookshop, Aziraphale reading, Crowley trolling some poor hapless fools on the world wide web via his mobile. It is a perfectly lovely afternoon, and Aziraphale is enjoying the cozy domesticity of it all, when the sound of a bell ringing interrupts their interlude.

Crowley frowns. “I thought the shop was closed.”

“It most certainly is,” Aziraphale said. “I don’t know how anyone could have gotten through the lock.”

And then they hear it.

Whistling.

Crowley’s eyes widen, and he reaches for his sunglasses and hastily shoves them on his face. Aziraphale bites the inside of his cheeks. Crowley never wears his sunglasses in the bookshop anymore, and the fact he feels vulnerable enough to have to take steps to protect himself in this place where they’ve built some of the loveliest memories of their lives makes Aziraphale’s heart clench.

“Wait here,” Aziraphale says, squeezing Crowley’s hand. At first Crowley doesn’t react, but a moment later he grips it tight, so tight Aziraphale is afraid he might break bones.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, his voice hoarse.

“I’m right here, my love,” Aziraphale says. “I just want to get rid of our visitor.”

Crowley nods. His lips are moving, but while no words are coming out, Aziraphale can tell they are forming his name, over and over and over again. It is at that moment Aziraphale realizes Crowley has adopted his name as his own personal mantra, a prayer to protect him in his hour of greatest need.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Is this how God feels when the mortals cry out to Her? Does She feel this same sense of urgency, the same primal need to protect, to wipe away all the wrongs of the world that torment those who do not deserve it? Does She feel the weight of the almighty power entrusted to her? Does it Humble her? Does it make Her stronger? Does She feel rage at those who dare hurt her children? Does She ache to comfort them?

If no, shouldn’t She?

And if yes, how does She bear it?

So many questions that only one could answer. The All-knowing, the All-wise, the All-powerful, the Author of All Things, the Alpha and the Omega, the Infinite Spirit who is in the very air that fills his lungs as he attempts to tamp down his rage and his fear and his sadness.

And even within him, She is, once again, silent.

Aziraphale understands with devastating clarity just how Crowley fell.

“I’ll be right back,” Aziraphale repeats. He kisses Crowley’s hand, releases his fingers, and then kisses him lightly on the lips. “I’ll be right back.”

He pulls on his his coat and heads to the front of the shop. “I’m afraid we are most definitely closed,” he says, “and I don’t appreciate you violating the sign and the locked door that clearly indicated as such.”

“I’ll only be a minute, then I’ll be out of your hair for another millennia.”

“Gabriel.” Aziraphale reaches inside of himself to draw upon the confident, aloof disdain he images Crowley displayed when he went to Heaven to take his punishment for him. “I thought we had come to an agreement.”

“We did, but you know Heaven,” Gabriel says. He opens up his briefcase. “Always paperwork involved.”

Aziraphale takes the pile of papers from him and skims through them. “A contract?”

“Simply putting in writing what you requested.” Gabriel removes a fountain pen from his coat pocket and hands it to Aziraphale. “You are hereby removed of all responsibilities as a Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, and, as such, will be stripped of all rights and privileges associated with the position, for the duration of 1,000 years, when terms may be renegotiated with the consent of both parties.”

“I don’t recall agreeing to a term limit,” Aziraphale says.

Gabriel shrugs. “Standard Celestial Resources policy. All heavenly contracts have to have term limits.”

“You’ll excuse me as I read this closely, then,” Aziraphale says, “as I don’t believe there’s anything remotely standard about this situation.”

“Suit yourself,” Gabriel says. “Although I’m sure you’ll find the contract more than fair.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand why there needs to be a contract at all,” Aziraphale says, “and, frankly, I’m surprised you appeared to deliver it, what with how you nearly discorporated when I merely blew a bit of fire in your general direction.”

Something flickers in Gabriel’s violet eyes, and Aziraphale is pleased to note it rather resembles fear. “I oversee all changes in angelic status.”

Aziraphale frowns. “Am I to take it then that you require all fallen angels to sign such a contract?”

“Of course not,” Gabriel scoffs. “They have no say in the matter. Once an angel is fallen, they’ve fallen. A standard proclamation banning them from the Kingdom of Heaven is more than sufficient to fulfill all the CR requirements.”

“So you damn them to eternal hellfire without even presenting them the opportunity to please their case?”

Gabriel heaves a great sigh and rolls his eyes. “I should have known you’d turn into some demon’s rights activist.”

Aziraphale draws himself to his full height. He no longer has his flaming sword, but in his mind, he is holding it, preparing to charge into battle. “Answer the question, Gabriel.”

“Technically there is an appeals process where the accused would present their case, but generally speaking, the fallen aren’t especially eager to reclaim their seat in Heaven.”

“But some have.”

“Some is probably an exaggeration.”

“One?” Aziraphale asks. He knows the answer, but he wants to hear Gabriel say it.

Gabriel, too, finally seems to understand where the conversation is leading. “Listen, Aziraphale, if this is some bargaining ploy to get your buddy Crowley back into Heaven, it won’t work. Not after all the two of you have done.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Aziraphale says. “Crowley deserves better.”

It takes a moment for Gabriel to process Aziraphale’s words, and when he does, he begins sputtering indignantly. Aziraphale holds up a hand.

“And, for the record, or, I suppose, CR’s records, Crowley is not my buddy. He’s my partner.”

Gabriel’s eyes grow wide. “Being on earth for so long has ruined you, Aziraphale. I don’t even know who you are anymore. Or what you are.”

“Well, whatever I am, I’m afraid this contract simply won’t work for me,” Aziraphale says. He blows a long puff of air onto the papers, and they disintegrate into a pile of ash that slips through his fingers and onto the floor. “But I’m happy to provide a signed proclamation for Celestial Resources. Just to keep everything in order, of course.”

He finds a piece of paper and takes his time writing out what he is willing to give. He wants to drag it out even longer, because he’s enjoying how with each second Gabriel grows more uncomfortable, but he is also aware he is keeping Crowley waiting. Finally, with a flourish, he hands the paper to Gabriel.

“I, Aziraphale, Principality and Guardian of the Eastern Gate, shall retain all of my powers, and live a free life entirely of my choosing, and Heaven shall leave me and my loved ones in peace, in perpetuity,” Gabriel reads aloud. “Aziraphale, come on. You have to give us something.”

“I believe I’ve given you quite enough,” Aziraphale says. “Now leave.”

“CR will never accept this. It’s unheard of.”

“As are, I’m sure, most things written about me in my file,” says Aziraphale. “Would you care to test me? See what other things might be unheard of?”

Gabriel tucks the paper into his briefcase. “Goodbye, Aziraphale.”

“Do let CR know if they have any follow up questions, they should send them by way of a dove message,” Aziraphale says. “I won’t have any other angels stepping into this bookshop again.”

Gabriel says nothing, just closes his briefcase and turns toward the door.

“Oh, and Gabriel? You really should stop with that dreadful whistling habit. Terribly uncouth. One might think you were a human child.”

Gabriel freezes for a moment, then quickly exits the shop.

Aziraphale closes his eyes, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. “Crowley,” he calls out as he miracles the door locked, “all is well.”

He heads to the back of the shop, expecting to see Crowley right where he left him, sitting frozen on the couch. When he doesn’t see him, he briefly panics, until he realizes Crowley is just around the corner, intently examining the books on a bookshelf, running a long finger across their spines.

“Crowley,” he repeats, “our visitor is gone.”

“Is he now?” Crowley asks absently.

“And he won’t be back.”

“Hmmm.”

“Crowley.”

“You know, Aziraphale, you really ought to start organizing your books better,” says Crowley. “You have Austen right next to Fitzgerald, and then this gigantic section by Wilde, including some duplicates, might I add. I can’t tell if they’re supposed to be arranged alphabetically by author, or chronologically by the date published, or written, perhaps year written. Or if they’re just by color. Should we move all the blues to be together? Make a rainbow of books, wouldn’t that be stunning?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and places a soft hand on top of Crowley’s. “Let’s leave the books for a moment.”

Crowley exhales, and when he does, his shoulders stay fallen. Slowly, he nods.

“Good, that’s a good dear,” Aziraphale says, and leads him back to the couch.

They are in the same position as they were before Gabriel arrived, in their usual spots on the couch. Their bodies are touching, and Aziraphale is holding Crowley’s hand. But there is something heavy between them, and Aziraphale doesn’t know how to break through to reach the one who has so thoroughly captured his heart and soul.

He doesn’t particularly want to have this conversation. He doesn’t know how. Six thousand years knowing each other, of being together through great floods and world wars and even a would-be Armageddon, and they’d never quite been in a situation like this. He can’t imagine Crowley being comfortable with anything he wants to say. He might shout, or storm out. He might threaten to never return. And he very well might not.

But this has gone on long enough. And now that Aziraphale has some knowledge as to the cause of Crowley’s suffering, to leave him to do so alone feels colossally unkind.

And if Crowley can be brave enough to face this every day, on his own, then Aziraphale can be brave enough to begin a conversation.

“That was Gabriel,” he begins. It’s a statement, a fact. A natural place to start. “He had some paperwork he wanted me to sign related to, ah, our agreement.”

Crowley snorts. “Just like Heaven.”

“Indeed.” Aziraphale pauses. “Crowley, was Gabriel the one who cast you out of Heaven?”

Crowley stiffens. “In a manner of speaking, yes, I suppose.”

“They banished all of you during the Great War, and you filed an appeal,” Aziraphale says. “You told them that all you ever did was ask questions, that you’d done nothing wrong. And Gabriel --”

“Denied my appeal, yes.” He adopts a mocking tone. “On account that if I didn’t see I had done anything wrong, I clearly proved their point that I did not belong in Heaven.”

Crowley abruptly stands. His entire body is trembling, and he doesn’t look at Aziraphale. “I had a day. One day, to gather evidence that I did not deserve to fall. They said God Herself would serve as judge. And when I got there, there’s no God. There’s not even the bloody Metatron. It’s just Gabriel. Smiling. And he lets me speak for hours and hours, makes a huge show of reviewing my piles of evidence, then disappears to ‘deliberate.’”

He shakes his head and turns to face Aziraphale. He takes off his sunglasses and wipes his hands down his face, and when he’s done, Aziraphale can see that his eyes are watery and red-rimmed. “I stood there, waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and the entire time I could hear him whistling. Whistling, Aziraphale, like a bloody canary. And I knew, I knew the entire thing was a farce, but they wanted to toy with me. To play with me for their own amusement before damning me.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale breathes.

“I didn’t -- I wasn’t -- I can still hear -- Aziraphale.” Crowley’s voice breaks, and he crumbles, falling to his knees in front of Aziraphale.

Aziraphale draws him in close, one arm around his back, the other running through Crowley’s hair in a way he knows he finds soothing. “Shhh, Crowley, my love. It’s all right. I understand. Shhh.”

Crowley’s sobs are loud, and wrenching, violently born out of the rawest parts of his soul. He clings to Aziraphale, buries his face in his neck, releasing six thousand years’ worth of anger, devastation, fear, and betrayal into the arms of the one who loves him.

Aziraphale drops down off the couch to the floor and spreads his legs so he can pull Crowley closer to him. He rocks him gently, like a child, murmuring soft words of comfort into his ear. They stay in this position for so long that his back starts to ache, but he would gladly stay here, just like this, for all eternity, if it might ease some of the pain Crowley has been harboring.

A long time later, when Aziraphale’s coat is drenched at the shoulder and neck wet with snot and tears, Crowley sniffs and looks up. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Nonsense, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He takes his handkerchief out of his coat pocket and gently dabs the tears off Crowley’s face. “It’s not good to keep all that inside of you for so long. You were overdue for a release.”

Crowley smiles weakly and takes the handkerchief from him. “Made a right mess of you,” he says, wiping Aziraphale’s neck. “Do you want me to miracle away the stains on your coat?”

“It’ll be fine.” Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand. “How are you feeling, love?”

“Right pathetic, for one,” Crowley says. “Bit humiliating to have a meltdown over some bloody whistling. Especially brought on by that stuffed shirt of an archangel.”

“That so called archangel was deliberately, unforgivably cruel to you at an intensely vulnerable moment,” Aziraphale says. “He caused you indescribable pain and openly took pleasure in it. It’s no small wonder that reminders of it would cause such a visceral reaction in you.”

“Even after six thousand years? A year, sure. A decade, maybe, if you’re soft. Six thousand years?” Crowley scoffs.

“Six thousand years of having to live with the consequences of that day. Six thousand years of reliving that moment. And with no one else in the universe who truly understands. No one to share the burden.” Aziraphale takes Crowley’s face in his hands. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, especially in front of me, do you understand?”

Crowley looks down. “You do help, you know.”

“Is that so?”

“Sometimes, if I focus on something that… that makes me feel… the opposite, it helps steady me.”

“Like saying my name?” Aziraphale asks softly.

Crowley nods. “Or reminding myself where I am… I try to memorize every detail of this shop, every trinket, every book, so if I… lose myself, I can instead imagine I’m here, in a place where I am…” His voice trails off.

Aziraphale kisses one hand. “A place where you are safe.” A kiss to the other. “A place where you are loved.” And a kiss on his brow. “And a place where you are always, always wanted.”

Tears fill Crowley’s eyes once more but don’t quite fall. “I know this is the part where I’m supposed to say something meaningful and profound, but I’m still feeling a bit shaky. I know there was never any real danger and there’s nothing more they can do, it’s just… once it starts, I have to ride it out. And now it’s rather like the aftershock of an earthquake. Still just rippling through.”

“That’s all right.” Aziraphale draws Crowley in so he’s nearly sitting on his lap and returns to stroking his hair. “You don’t have to say anything.”

Crowley rests his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Aziraphale,” he murmurs as he cuddles closer.

It’s one word, a simple declaration of his name, one that’s been directed at him hundreds of thousands of time. And yet now in it Aziraphale hears so much more. A plea for mercy, for understanding, for shelter. A desire to be safe and loved and needed, exactly how he is. A need to grow.

A prayer to Aziraphale, in his name, and in his name alone.

God may not have been able to provide Crowley with all these things he so desperately wanted, but Aziraphale can offer them in droves. Freely, without hesitation or regret. In a way that only he, Aziraphale, the only one whom Crowley believes in, can provide.

And he, who has found all these things and more in loving Crowley, knows all he gives will be returned to him tenfold.

A ray of soft light streams in through the window.

Aziraphale presses a kiss to the top of Crowley’s head.

They shall not want.

#Good Omens #Aziraphale x Crowley #ineffable husbands #lizardkingeliot #my fic #anyway this fic was basically my therapy before I get into therapy so #I know the content may be heavy but I promise overall emotion is just gentle tenderness

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kyogre-blue · 5 years ago

Text

Nano follow up (2)

Notes: The last chapter of part 1. I’m not going to write part 2 (post the SnB time skip) right now, so I tried to make the ending feel passably standalone. Thanks to anyone who managed to read all the way through lol, and I’ll put this up on AO3 after fixing a few foreshadowing parts early on.

~.~

Chapter 11: A new world

With Rashid’s support, Sinbad had been able to complete the application process to the trade union and the misculae of opening Sindria Trading Company’s first store in record time, and the shelves had already been emptied by enthusiastic customers by the time the others returned from Imuchakk. Even with their help, the days were hectic -- running the store, keeping track of their stock, and of course sailing straight back to Imuchakk for more.

It was months before Sinbad finally had time to relax and think again about his future plans. It wasn’t to say that anything had changed about his goals or his vision, but it had begun to take shape in a way he hadn’t been able to imagine before.

He would change the world. He would create a country. But because one country, even as powerful as Reim, couldn’t make the world to its liking, he would create a federation of many nations, leading them to create a better, happier world -- without war, without hunger, without the hopelessness of nowhere to turn.

And to do all that, he needed influence.

Power, money, fame, they were all tied together, and he needed all of them to create the necessary foundation.

Well, the first thing Sindria needed was simply more people. Sinbad and his closest comrades, no matter how capable, couldn’t do everything.

They needed to sell more, in more places, from more places. To find more nations to partner with, Sinbad would look far and wide. But for opening Sindria Company’s second office, there could only be one place. Leaving Rurumu in charge of the Napolia branch, he set sail.

The first thing Sinbad did when arriving in Balbadd was to go see his mother. He had never been separated from her for so long before, and even knowing that she was living comfortably and safely hadn’t quite eased his lingering worries. Esra laughed as he swept her up in a tight embrace, hugging back just as tightly.

“Oh, you’ve grown so much!” she said, stroking his hair. “Come, come, let me look at you. Mm, just like your father, so handsome. How many hearts have you charmed, hm? I bet you’ve been a real menace.”

“Heheh, I do look good, don’t I?” Sinbad bragged as he stepped back and preened.

She was right. He had grown enough to need new clothing -- again, even though he’d changed after arriving in Napolia from Imuchakk. He was already the same height has her and steadily edging upward. Beaming with overflowing excitement and affection, Sinbad couldn’t help hugging her again. Laughing, Esra let him do was he pleased.

Although she was doing better, less terribly thin and with a healthy color to her complexion, Sinbad soon urged her to a chair, before beginning to introduce his motley crew.

He left out the murder attempts and their exact history as assassins, but Vittel and Mahad still fidgetted guiltily as they bowed and greeted his mother. Ja’far was even worse, flushing a deep red and looking everywhere except Esra. Even Hinahoho was unusually clumsy and uncertain as he stooped closer to her level and ducked his head in greeting.

It all made Sinbad want to laugh even more. They’d shown less uncertainty facing down Valefor, but his mother with her gentle smile made them trip over themselves.

“Oh, and about Ali…” he started to say, remembering suddenly that he had left with one friend and returned with four different ones, which they hadn’t yet explained in detail.

“He came back a while ago,” Esra said unexpectedly. She paused, frowning a little and exchanging a look with Anise, who had been deferentially waiting nearby during their reunion. “Ah, actually… he’s been a little strange. Sin, you should talk to him.”

Strange?

That was enough to make Sinbad frown in turn, before he quickly smoothed out his expression.

“Of course,” he agreed easily.

Too easily, it turned out, because actually talking to Alibaba became much more difficult than he’d expected. The first few days, Sinbad was admittedly preoccupied with other matters -- visiting the royal palace to pay his respects to King Rashid, finding out the requirements for trading in Balbadd, setting his subordinates to locate a suitable building, and so on. The entire time, he didn’t catch even a glimpse of Alibaba at their manor, and that didn’t change even when Sinbad finally went to look for him.

He was never in his room and never around at mealtimes. He didn’t seem to ever pass through the entrance hall, and he certainly didn’t go to the garden. Only the guards had seen him, going in and out at odd times.

Giving up, Sinbad tried asking Anise, who was the one most familiar with him among the staff -- even setting aside their unknown history.

“Sir Ali? He’s been visiting the businesses he invested in and the people he gave loans to. He was following new leads too,” she said. That made sense, and Sinbad nodded, in between making faces at her young son. Apparently the boy had forgotten Sinbad while he was gone and was now being shy around this strange new person. “He’s also… been visiting the slums. He was helping people there find work, or helping fix things.”

The first one made sense, but the second one made Sinbad raise his eyebrows in surprise. “In the slums?” he repeated.

As he looked up at Anise from where he’d crouched to tease the very small Alibaba, the boy peeked out from behind his mother’s skirts and looked at Sinbad with interest. He resembled both Anise and the adult Alibaba very much, though his face was much rounder and his short, soft hair a golden brown somewhere between the two.

When Sinbad glanced back and smiled, the boy ducked out of sight again.

Sinbad clicked his tongue, straightening. This kid, acting all cute… Esra had plenty of stories to tell about how excitable he was normally.

“Yes, the place we used to live. But the reason…” Anise said, reaching down to pat her son on the head. “I don’t know. He seems very familiar with it, but why would a person like him…”

A ‘person like him’, huh? It was a strange thing to say. Not because Sinbad disagreed, though he wasn’t sure whether he did or not, but because Anise couldn’t have possibly actually missed seeing Alibaba’s face. He wasn’t consistent about actually hiding it, so she had to know. To say it like that, did she not recognize him after all? Were they really strangers, after all?

That couldn’t be right. Then… Alibaba knew her, but she didn’t know him…?

Finding no plausible answer even after turning the matter over in his mind, Sinbad set it aside -- again.

“Should I look for him there?” he asked instead.

Anise shook her head quickly. “Young master, that wouldn’t be a good idea. You don’t know your way around, and the slums aren’t very welcoming to outsiders. It could be trouble if you go.”

If his mother was the madam of the house, then naturally Sinbad was the young master. Unlike Alibaba and Esra, he didn’t try to correct Anise’s way of addressing him. After all, ‘young master’ was nothing compared to his intended future title of ‘your majesty’.

He could understand her point. Even when he and Esra had been poor, Sinbad had been a fisherman, not a slum-dweller, and nowadays he looked nothing short of rich. And even if he stripped off his expensive accessories and clothing, he would still stand out just walking down a back alley -- with his confidence, his looks, everything. Sinbad had always been better at drawing attention than at keeping a low profile.

He was sure he would come out on top in the end, but why ask to be mugged when it wasn’t necessary?

Not necessary yet, anyway.

“Does he at least come back to sleep, do you think?” Sinbad wondered, a bit exasperated.

“Sometimes,” Anise said. “The maids say there’s things out of place or the sheets need to be changed. But... not every night.”

She had started out as a maid herself, but with the additional responsibilities that had been given to her over time, Anise’s role was closer to a head servant or even an estate’s steward. Even though Esra had slowly begun to take a more active role in managing the manor as her health improved, the servants generally still reported to Anise.

And what they didn’t report directly, they gossiped.

Naturally, Alibaba was a very popular source of gossip in the first place, much less with his strange behavior after returning.

“Our Sir Ali has become quite a delinquent,” Sinbad tittered, shaking his head in mock disapproval. “But don’t worry, Miss Anise! I’ll have him straightened out in no time!”

Anise nodded, her expression grave but her eyes twinkling. “We can only count on you, young master.”

As Sinbad departed, the small Alibaba hiding behind her finally peeked out again. Staring after him with a serious expression, he finally looked up at his mother and parroted seriously, “Youn’ master.”

His nose scrunched up as Anise ruffled his hair. “That’s right,” she said. “And if you ask him, I’m sure he’ll tell you lots of interesting stories about his adventures. Wouldn’t that be fun?” Her son didn’t respond, only turning to look again in the direction Sinbad had gone, his expression comically deep in thought. Finally, he nodded.

He liked stories. It would be pretty fun indeed.

~.~

The delinquent Sir Ali returned home two days later, long past nightfall. Alibaba was unaware that he had been affixed with this kind of label, and he would have protested fervently, if he had known. It wasn't as if he was doing something shady! And while perhaps not fitting to society's perceptions of upstanding, the places he had been going were hardly dens of crime and immorality either.

He just got carried away sometimes. It would be dark before he knew it, and it just seemed easier to spend the night in the slums, in one of their old hideaways or some place like them.

Compared to the manor, those abandoned little boltholes known only to the street rats felt more familiar, even after all this time.

...He just couldn't get used to it.

He understood -- he couldn't go back. This world, even if it wasn't where he was born, was to be his home now. It was where he would live on, just like Aladdin had asked him to. It was his new home. There were even already people he cared about here, the younger Anise, Sinbad, and a growing number of others. That was why he had started trying to make things better, to fix the things he had been unable to do anything about as a child in Balbadd, and maybe pay off his debt in some small, distant way by preventing the slums from suffering so much in the future.

He knew and accepted all this. He tried to keep moving forward, as best as he could. And yet, he just couldn't get used to it at all. To the manor, to his own wealth, to Anise who didn't recognize him. Even as he kept himself busy, there was a ceaseless feeling of restlessness and tension thrumming at the back of his mind.

Sighing, Alibaba rubbed at his bruised knuckles.

With everything going on, he had realized embarrassingly late that certain things would not play out as before. Specifically, since her life had been changed so early, Anise would no longer have any reason or opportunity to even meet Cassim and Mariam, much less take them in under her wing. And who could say what would happen to them without her, especially given... everything with their father.

Alibaba didn't regret punching the drunkard in the face when he went looking for the young versions of his childhood friends, but it was hardly a long-term solution.

Could he ask Anise to look after them, and set history back on track? Or...

Sighing again, Alibaba stopped in front of the door to his room and silently began to ease it open. He had only returned to pick up some things and check his records before moving forward with his next effort -- negotiating with one of his investments about hiring a few more workers from among the slumfolk, who would at least have the opportunity to provide for their families. Then he’d be out again come morning, keeping himself busy to avoid dwelling too much.

But as he slipped into the room, shutting the door behind him, Alibaba froze in surprise.

There was a figure in the window, silhouetted by the clear moonlight.

Meeting his eyes, Sinbad smiled and held up a finger to his lips. He nodded toward Alibaba’s bed -- where a small lump was curled up among the cushions. His younger self, fast asleep after trying to play ambush with Sinbad and listening to his stories late into the night.

Alibaba, who hadn’t even realized that Sinbad and his group had returned to Balbadd, took a moment to regain his bearings.

Getting ambushed like this, he was reminded of Morgiana sneaking into his room to abduct him back then. But more than that, he suddenly and strongly remembered the adult Sinbad he and the others had met in Balbadd. This was his first time seeing Sinbad since his memories had more or less returned, and the first time he could compare the future king with his child self.

The future Sinbad had smiled a lot, but it had been very different.

Blinking quickly, Alibaba cleared away the double image. When Sinbad pointed upward, seemingly toward the ceiling, he nodded in understanding.

Silently, they slipped out the window and clambered up onto the manor’s flat roof. As usual in Balbadd, the night was warm, but a steady breeze blew toward the sea, making the air feel fresh and cool. The dark sky was clear, scattered with stars that Alibaba habitually linked into the major constellations for navigation.

The sky, at least, was the same in both worlds.

Sinbad watched him with a patient smile, propping his head up with one arm. Feeling suddenly awkward, Alibaba cleared his throat.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “I didn’t realize you’re back.”

“Mm, for a while now. Seems like you’ve been busy,” Sinbad noted. He grinned. “Want to tell me about it? Or do you want to hear about my great adventures first? I’ve been told it’s a very good story!” He puffed up, preening.

It was an easy out, and Alibaba was halfway to accepting when he unexpectedly found himself hesitating.

Agreeing would just be running away again. Hadn’t Morgiana had the right of it, back then when she had enough and just dragged him off to see Aladdin? Making them talk to each other had been just what they needed, because Alibaba had never been a person who could accomplish things on his own. Back then, now, he hadn’t been able to make any headway, no matter how hard he struggled to keep going.

Sinbad had never pressed for answers, even though it wasn’t possible for him to have missed all the strange things about Alibaba. But didn’t he deserve an explanation? Didn’t he deserve Alibaba’s trust?

‘It would be good if you two can look after each other.’

‘I don't want you to end up alone.’

That was what Aladdin had said. He had arranged their meeting -- their headlong collision -- on purpose, just so that Alibaba would have... a friend.

His shoulders slumped as he let out a silent breath and closed his eyes for a moment. Looking up at the stars, he slowly picked out the words.

“I... went to Musta’sim Kingdom,” he started. “To their magic academy. I wanted to see if they knew anything about traveling between dimensions.” His lips twitched. “They didn’t.”

“That’s the same thing you tried to ask Valefor about,” Sinbad said.

Alibaba nodded. “I asked the High Priestess in Reim too. Those are all things Yunan suggested trying, when I told him about what happened.” He paused, his hands clasping tightly as he made several false starts to just say it. “The thing is... I’m, I’m not from this dimension. This world.”

“...Ah,” Sinbad made a soft sound.

“It’s a lot like this world, the one I’m from. It’s almost the same,” Alibaba went on, the words coming quickly now that he’d started. “The same countries, the same people, everything. Except that it’s the future. It’s fourteen years later. I was in Qishan, fourteen years after the first dungeon was conquered, and then afterwards I was in Partevia, and there was... there was you.”

“There was me,” Sinbad agreed. “With Baal.”

He sounded thoughtful, but not... as surprised as Alibaba would have expected.

His expression, when Alibaba snuck a glance at him, was considering but not in the least troubled. “So it’s like that,” Sinbad said finally, nodding to himself. “I see, it makes sense. So then Miss Anise is your mother, and that’s why you knew about Valefor. And all this time, you were looking for a way back. I see, I see.” However, as the things that didn’t make sense connected in his mind, his brow slowly furrowed. “But if you’re moping around like this, then...”

“...There isn’t a way back,” Alibaba said quietly.

The silence felt very heavy. He had already known it, of course, but saying it outloud made it worse.

“I have to live in this world,” he repeated what he had told himself countless times.

But even so, he still couldn’t accept it. His debts in Balbadd, his promise to Aladdin, he would never be able to fulfill any of them. And that, he just couldn’t...

“--I’m a little jealous.”

Eyes wide in surprise, Alibaba snapped his head around to stare at Sinbad, who chuckled. “I am,” he insisted, smiling wryly. “You know, I want to change the world. But for you, you change it just by being here. That’s right, isn’t it? This world was like your past, but it’s going to be different because you’re here.” He grinned. “Really, a man who can change the world! I’m jealous!”

That was the last thing Alibaba expected, and he blinked at Sinbad blankly for a moment. “You--! Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s a good thing!” Alibaba protested. “What if I mess something up? Even with you...”

He cut himself off, but it was already enough. Understanding sparked in Sinbad’s eyes, making his grin widen.

“You know about the future me, huh? Right, you knew Baal! I’ll be famous, right? I’ll found a kingdom, just like I said?” he pressed excitedly.

“Not if I mess it up!” Alibaba shot back, flustered. “That’s what I’m saying--!”

Laughing again, Sinbad slapped him roughly on the back. “Don’t worry about it!” he declared.

....That sounded like there should be more after it, but nothing followed. It seemed that Sinbad had said everything he felt necessary. Alibaba could feel his rigid expression twist in exasperation that had long since become familiar.

“What ‘don’t worry'?!” Alibaba demanded with a sudden sense of deja vu. “How am I supposed to not worry? We’re talking about… about the fate of the world! And your fate too!”

Aladdin, Sinbad, both of them! Why were his friends like this?

Of course, Sinbad just kept on laughing. “Don’t worry, don’t worry!” he repeated. “Come on, have some faith in me! I’m Sinbad, the dungeon conqueror! I can see the flow of fate, and I’ll find my way no matter what. So what if it’s a little different? Isn’t it even better than just following someone else -- even if it’s another me?”

...Typical. Sinbad’s grin was infuriatingly smug and self-confident, and Alibaba still felt like he wasn’t taking things seriously enough at all. They were talking about time travel and the future--

But maybe that didn’t matter that much, in the end.

This was a different world. Sinbad was a person who could do anything, and he was right -- he would find his way to greatness, regardless of any changes Alibaba’s presence caused. That was the kind of life he would lead, not because of fate, but because of his own nature and choices.

It wasn’t just him. Was there really a right or wrong in a history that was still being written? There were things Alibaba wanted to prevent, of course. The suffering of his friends, the tragedies in the slums, everything that had happened with King Rashid’s death. But it was only natural that other tragedies might occur because of the things he changed.

It was always like that. It was just part of living.

The things he couldn’t get back wouldn’t change. But he still had a future. A future Aladdin had worked hard to make for him, in whatever had gone wrong in their world.

He had even made sure that Alibaba would have a friend to rely on.

“But you know, if you’re still worried...” that friend said, wiggling his eyebrows as he sidled up to Alibaba, “you can just leave it to me. I’ll create a whole new world that no one’s ever seen -- not even you. So just believe in me, and become my--”

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish!” Sinbad protested.

“I believe in you,” Alibaba said -- smiling, because it was true. It had always been true. “But didn’t you say it’s better to find your own way, instead of following someone? Besides, there are still thinks I need to do.”

Even if they didn’t know him and weren’t really the people he knew, he still wanted to help them -- Anise, Cassim and Mariam, Morgiana… Maybe even Aladdin, in the far future when he appeared again. And there was also still that organization out there, moving to create abnormalities in the world, just like in Balbadd.

Even if he couldn’t accept it yet, Alibaba would continue moving forward.

Sighing a little, Sinbad nonetheless smiled. “Alright. But don’t forget you can always ask me for help,” he said. “Personal stuff, or things you can’t explain, it doesn’t matter, you can count on me.”

“I know. You’re a pretty reliable guy,” Alibaba agreed, echoing Aladdin’s message wryly. Closing his eyes for a moment, he smiled too. “You can count on me too. Let’s create a new world, Sin.”

And someday, this world would become his home.

~.~

#nanowrimo #My writing

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naturalhairhairgrowth · 5 years ago

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Is Religion Even Necessary?

So you have heard them all, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, New Age, etc. etc., a denomination of this, a denomination of that. Every religion at war with each other, fighting over who’s religion is the right religion. So much confusion! There is only one GOD Almighty and not all of these people holding different beliefs could possibly be right, let’s be honest. Every single one of us have blood flowing through our veins, two legs, the same types of day to day challenges, etc. and we will all be headed to the same place after leaving this earth just like we were all put on this same earth together. We all came into this world the same way, from the same GOD Almighty, and we will all go out the same, to either one of two places created by GOD Almighty, Heaven or Hell. (Where will you go?) So let’s get to the truth of the matter. If all religions take away from the Holy Bible, then why not just rely on what the Holy Bible says? Why make our own rules and traditions? Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements.

So let’s examine things for a moment. Since all religions take something from the Holy Bible then let’s look at the Holy Bible. The KJV (King James Version) Holy Bible to be exact; said to be the best translation, closest to the original, with nothing added or removed as most other translations these days have. There is either scripture missing or added with words that give the scriptures a whole new meaning entirely. Who said we wanted ‘your’ opinion sir, just give it to us straight, right. The Holy Bible gives us the daily instructions (commandments from GOD) that we need to be 'truly’ good people, so the world flows smoothly. Yet people believe religion is necessary for that; have they not taken a look around the world and seen that their way isn’t working?

People have formed the Christianity religion, so most people look at the Holy Bible as a Christian religious book, but is this a fact? You will find that the Holy Bible doesn’t mention anything at all about needing to belong to a certain religion or following traditions of men. It speaks against that in fact. (Mark 7:7-9, Colossians 2:8 KJV). Being a Christian simply means to be Christ-like, an actual follower of Jesus Christ; nothing about the religion and traditions they have formed which in most cases do not even match up with the Holy Bible. Must be why most self-professing Christians blend right in with the world. Jesus Christ and His disciples didn’t form any religious group. They simply went around preaching “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17 KJV), baptizing, healing the sick, casting out devils, etc. They taught the 'Word of GOD’, Who by the way is the Creator of all things, as if His Word isn’t sufficient enough. The bible says “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation 22:18-19 KJV. Sounds like serious business. These people may want to think twice about removing and adding words to scripture.

It’s broken down quite simple. Jesus Christ came and died for our sins because all sin has to be paid for, requiring a sacrifice. All we are required to do is show 'in action’ we believe in Him by being baptized in water (full body immersion, not sprinkled) where we will receive the Holy Spirit, which without we cannot get into heaven, according to John 3:5 KJV. We then must walk in “newness of life”; meaning, turning away from sin and walking how Jesus commands us, according to Romans 6:4 KJV. The scripture is clear in Revelation 14:12 KJV. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus”. So who made up this thing that “we don’t have to keep the commandments anymore”, or that “it’s ok to sin”, or “once saved, always saved”? The oh-so-famous sinner’s prayer is nowhere in the Holy Bible. Yes, that’s right folks, saying a simple prayer will not, I repeat, will not save you!

Have you ever met the over-righteous religious person who has their nose stuck up in the air like they were born perfect and never made a mistake in life? How about the religious person who goes as far as hating others because they see they are in a certain type of sin? How about the religious self-professing Christian who looks no different from the rest of the world; watches worldly TV series, listens to vulgar music, parties, drinks, uses drugs, uses foul language, thinks their own personal opinion on scripture matters, etc. etc. How about the religious person who believes because they show up to church on Sunday (not even the true Sabbath according to GOD -Exodus 20:8-10 KJV) that they will make it to heaven, as if heaven is earned by how many church services you show up to or claiming to be a “good person” in your own eyes. Most of these people never even pick up a bible and read it! These types of people are called hypocrites and satan loves them because they cause others confusion and discouragement; mission accomplished, satan just caused another to walk away from the gospel of Jesus Christ, causing them to lose Salvation.

Let’s look back at the person calling themselves “a good person”. Can you imagine two criminals in court giving the judge their own personal opinions as to why they are a good person and should get away with a crime. That wont work in court with a judge, they will have to pay for the crime; neither will it work with GOD when we face HIM on judgement day. You don’t say the judge isn’t loving because he punished a criminal, you respect his judgment. So why do people say GOD isn’t loving because HE will do the same? HE is the Ultimate JUDGE, THE JUDGE over the judge. We have to play by HIS rules just like we have to play by the rules of this land. So remember; be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit, turn from sin and repent, obey GOD and Jesus, and walk in His ways to make it to heaven.

Too many people are too busy following passions and obsessions in this world; TV series, video games, celebrities, careers, movies, worldly music, school, night life, sports, activities, relationships, etc, etc. Sure, SOME of the things mentioned are fine to do, but for most it totally consumes their entire life, this is all that’s on their mind 24/7 making no time or consideration for their relationship with their Creator. The list goes on and on, satan has thousands of ways to distract us and keep our attention and focus off of GOD and Jesus Christ our Saviour.

The Holy Bible says clearly that satan is the deceiver and the author of confusion (“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” 1 Corinthians 14:33 KJV “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” Revelation 12:9 KJV) and he has been appointed hell, he is extremely angry, hates GOD’s creation and wants to take as many of us down with him as he possibly can. What better way to do that than confuse people with a bunch of different religions, leading them away from accepting Jesus Christ. Again, sin has to be paid for, and without Jesus Christ as your Sacrifice you have to do the time, and follow the one you followed in this world (satan) to the same place he is going, hell. So it’s time we wake up, stop being lazy, and read the Holy Bible. There are thousands and thousands of accounts of the Holy Bible being true with prophecy coming to pass, people having near death experiences and actually going to heaven and hell, people having spiritual experiences, seeing Jesus and spirits, receiving healing and miracles in the Name of Jesus Christ, experiencing GOD working in their daily lives, etc. etc.

So now we can see clearly that religion most definitely in fact is NOT necessary. Tell satan he can keep his confusion, GOD’s Word is sufficient for you, that he might be getting over on the majority of the world but no longer over on you! How wicked satan is to deceive us in such a way; not to mention all the other things he puts us through constantly: fear, worry, depression, suicidal thoughts, illness, death, anger, sadness, the list goes on and on. According to 2 Timothy 1:7 KJV “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Wow, what a wicked devil, is there really any wonder he’s headed to the lake of fire. We can say Thank GOD Almighty for that and mostly Thank GOD and Jesus Christ for His Sacrifice, the Ultimate Love.

#Truth #Jesus Christ #KJV Holy Bible #GOD #Jesus #religion #false religion #false doctrines #doctrines of men #REAL Christians

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unholyhelbig · 6 years ago

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Save a horse, ride a cowboy, Bechloe?

[A/N: Is this… I mean, not exactly sexual but if you guys want a part two then I could totally do that. Cause I don’t know what this turned into.]

The hay tasted like a sweet relief against her tongue. It frayed as her teeth crunched down on it, its edge hanging lazily from her lips like a dully lit cigar with a fine paper wrapping. She considered it a mortal sin in some way or another if she were to smoke in this church. To spark something in a hot flame. Beca Mitchell wanted the smoke to curl into her lungs and lick the back of her throat, but instead, she settled for this.

Her arm was stretched against the back of the pew, it’s cooling wood soaking through not only her button-down but her fur lined jacket. She decided to focus on the leather-bound bible in front of her instead. Its words were embossed in gold, pages brown and some dog-eared. They had been owned before, donated, maybe.

Beca moved her ankle up to her knee, trying her hardest to pay attention to the man that commanded the church with such vigor and passion. She could swear he made eye contact with her more than once. The type of gaze that lingered in eternal judgment. She simply lowered her stare and blocked her view with the wide-brimmed Stetson, the black material stood out upon the pastel reinks of proper dress attire.

“Where do you stand with God?” The stout little man walked across the carpeted stage. It muffled his boots, and he shoved his hands in his pockets in attempt to look more relaxed. “In this very moment, sitting in this church, on this sweltering day, I bet your answer would be good.”

The woman bit her tongue in attempt to stifle the scoff that pushed past her throat. Good? Her standing with the lord was close to non-existent at this point in her life. The patrons around her shifted uncomfortably and she couldn’t’ help but wonder what most of them were compensating for.

There was a young mom in the front row, hugging her baby close, trying to keep him quiet. She clung onto every single word that the pastor had to offer. A man sat behind her and kept a glowering expression on his face. His hands were soaked in grease despite the nice flannel he had buttoned up. To the right of him sat the rest of his family; the little girl read through a book that had a neon pink casing, clearly not the bible. The boy was weaving a rope against his fingers and nudging his sister to stick her hand through the center. It was the worst game of cats cradle that Beca had ever seen.

“You are a good law-abiding citizen. You place coins in strangers’ cups when they hold them out to you. You hold the door open and give a kind smile whenever eye contact is met. But none of you here…. None of you have a clear connection with God.”

Beca Mitchell swallowed and let her vision center on the Bible once more. She had a habit of turning out the rest of any sermon that was thrown her way. This man knew nothing about God, almost as little as she did. The difference between the two of them lay in the masks. Beca didn’t’ have one, but this man did. This oily faced man who welcomed all sinners under his roof. He was sweating because of the heat, resisting the urge to swat away at the gnats that flew close to his reddened ears.

The little chapel cleared out fast after he closed his statements with a prayer and a half-hearted action from the chorus. They sang as beautifully as any small-town would. Their best singer was sure to get a job at a pub when she was old enough to stop lacing her boots to the tune of the gospel.

Beca had held her place in the back pew until everyone left, again, refusing to make obvious eye contact with anyone that this little place had to offer. They had one stop light, and their accents were thick enough to layer on sweet cream. She had no use for small minded people who followed a man like this, blindly, at that.

“Andrew Strickland?” She asked, accent strong. She had lifted her head up enough to give him a good view of midnight eyes. He was shuffling nervously with the papers on his podium, no doubt marked out with the spots of his sermon that he had to hit. He was shaking.

Beca Mitchell walked down the long-carpeted aisle between two columns of pews. They were coated in enough dust to create another desert. His skin was like leather and the closer she got the more she could smell his primal sweat.

She stopped at the edge of the first row, lifting her hat from her shoulders as she shifted the piece of sweet hay from one side of her teeth to another. “I think you owe my boss some money, sir.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He swallowed thickly. “Now, not that I don’t believe in talking to my followers. I must be going.”

He hastily walked along the stage before trying to edge around the woman. He was taller than her and his fingers were trembling worse than she had ever seen before. His breath was sour like dairy left out on a hot day such as this. “I think you know, them. The Posen’s? A very forgivin’ family.”

Pastor Andrew Strickland sucked in a heavy breath before he shook his head and sidestepped her completely, walking down the main aisle. He dropped a few papers, let them fall loudly without an attempt to turn and pick them up.

Beca rolled her eyes and placed her hat back on her head, reaching for the small pearl revolver that was holstered between the hot skin of her back and her jeans. She fished into her pockets and pulled out a single bullet, shelving it within the weapon. That’s all it took for her, just one. She aimed easily.

Shooting this man would be no worse than putting a wounded animal out of its misery. Andrew certainly wasn’t foaming at the mouth, though, and she had a strict policy about shooting a man when his back was turned. Instead, she cleared her throat and took a step forward, pushing the barrel back into place loud enough for him to recognize the sound with his insulant ears.

He turned with those eyes that almost stared through her.

“Most of the time, that is.” She took another step forward “Sometimes they get impatient when they’re not given the money that they are so clearly owed.”

“Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. So if you would kindly-“

“What does the Bible say about ignorance, Pastor?” Beca Mitchell was running her finger over the edge of the gun now “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. Or somethin’ like that.”

Maybe she had retained some things from the serpent eyed man that stood in front of her. Or the dozen’s of others that she had taken from this world. She had mulled over the first one but realized easily that they were all human. None were more divine than the other. This was simply her job. Her burden to carry.

“Ephesians 4:18, I’m aware.” He said, “I don’t have your money.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, Pastor.”

She raised the gun once more, feeling a familiar ache in her arm. He stared her down with the deep gaze that was supposed to make her reconsider, to feel some type of mercy against the man. But none of that happened. Beca Mitchell squeezed the trigger.

“Wait!” His voice cracked. He was no longer the composed man who deemed himself worthy by judging others so cruelly. He grasped at the collars of her jacket. “I can get the money. Please. Just give me until the end of the day.”

Beca was stone-faced, his hands left sweaty prints on her coat. He was desperate, a thick brine of sweat soaking into her white t-shirt. There were terra cotta prints on the edges, yellowed stains under her arms. She wanted to cringe away from the man, begging didn’t’ fit anyone especially not him.

“You have until sundown.” She shoved him off, careful not to set off the gun. “You try to run, and I will find you. I don’t hesitate to shoot twice, Pastor.”

“Thank you, oh praise the Lord, thank you.”

She took a step back, letting him gather his papers before rushing into the sweltering day that awaited him. Beca chewed evenly on the hay. Her job was never to show any type of mercy, but she had a few hours to kill in this little dust town- there was no reason for her to not allow the pastor his earnest right of begging a dried-up bank for the money that he owed. The Posen’s held control over this place, including the tellers behind the bulletproof glass.

Beca shelved her gun once more, breathing in the musty air that the church had to offer. She cocked a brow, reaching into the closest pew, the very one that she sat at before. There must have been some type of hierarchy of sin that went into stealing a bible. It was thievery, but in the prospect of knowledge, Beca deemed it level.

She drummed her fingers on the cover and sunk down into the near middle of the pew, seemingly craving the coolness that the wood had to offer. The Stetson was removed, and she worked her hand through sweat bridled locks. Was it the New, or Old Testament that held more presence?

Instead, she flipped to the first page. It was musty and the read was droning on, but she had the time to kill. It was better than stacking up in the local pub and drowning her sorrows in liquor before a sloppy hit. Of course, if Pastor Andrew Strickland got the money, then she could be merrily on her way. She read about the creation of the earth sectioned into days.

“Let there be light, and there was light.”

The voice was airy, like light, so aptly mentioned, itself. Warm and tantalizing. She lowered her feet to the floor and turned slightly in the pew, taking the hay from her mouth. She hadn’t heard the door open and even felt the heat that the day had to offer. Instead, there was a woman; A woman that didn’t’ seem to mind the summer atmosphere, her perfect copper ringlets falling over a long sleeve shirt, buttoned all the way to her throat. It was blue. Blue like her eyes and rolled up to accommodate for something. She held a plate of cookies. Chocolate chip, by the scent of it.

“Ah,” She lifted her chin “Never quite understood why he divided’ it into darkness after that.”

“Philosopher, then?” The girl shifted her weight and gave a sort of a half-smile that was earth-shattering in its own right. A small-town girl that was a big fish in a little pond. Even now, Beca Mitchell could see that. She didn’t’ need a name, even though she craved it. “Have you seen Pastor Strickland anywhere?”

“Oh, you just missed him. He said he needed to run some errands.” Beca explained as she closed the Bible and set it back in its little slot. She was honest with herself- if she had stolen it, it would sit at the edge of her bookshelf reminding her that her sin wasn’t one contracted, but one decided. “Anything I can help you with?”

“I’m not sure. My mother, own’s the bakery in town, said she owed somethin’ to the man so figured cookies were a good thing to level the field.” She laughed, angelically, “Debt is a funny thing.”

The stranger plopped down on the pew next to her, wafting a scent of lavender mixed with sweat, but it wasn’t the same way the pastor smelled. Instead, it was sweeter, and she worked the heat like it was a warm lump of clay. It was either that or the cookies.

“Want one?” She asked, moving the cellophane wrap away from the mound of baked goods “I promise you, there ain’t no poison in these.”

Beca lifted her eyebrow and cautiously took a cookie: here was this stranger, this woman who didn’t’ question her presence in an empty church or the fact that the man she was looking for had seemingly vanished. She was holding a blind trust and Beca was amused by it, taken aback. The people she worked for would never conjure up a simple act of kindness like this.

“Thank you,” She said evenly.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

She grasped a cookie herself and set the plate to the side of her, letting the chips melt further in the heat of the day. The heat of a closed area that only had light streaming from expertly crafted stained glass windows. They left crimson splotches on the carpet.

“Fraid’ not. I’m here on business with Strickland myself.”

Beca tried the cookie, biting down on it easily. The taste that filled her mouth may have been attributed to the long dust-wracked journey that curbed her appetite, or the simple fact that this strangers mother had a fantastic choice in career. It made her stomach churn as an undeniable moan sneaked it’s way past her lips.

It made the beautiful stranger giggle, a sound that was unfamiliar and made a smile pass over Beca’s lips “Sorry, Ma’am, this is just about the damn best cookie I’ve ever had.”

“None of that Ma’am stuff. You can call me Chloe.”

“Beca,” She shifted, leaning her arm against the back of the pew. “it’s not short for nothin’, my parents just don’t’ know how to finish their thoughts.”

“You’re funny,” Chloe took a bite of the cookie in her hand, not having the same reaction that Beca did. She was probably more than used to the gooey taste of sweets. “I like that. What kind of business does someone like you have with a man like Strickland?”

She hesitated at that, breathing in the hot air. A small strand of hair fell into Chloe’s ocean eyes. There weren’t waves around for miles, but Beca could swear upon the bible that she almost stole, that she could smell the salty shore and hear the seagulls beacon to one another the longer she stared. The longer she swam.

“Not my business really. Your kin owes him, and he owes my employers.” She explained, taking another bite of the baked good, this time fighting back a groan. “I’m just here collecting what’s been promised.”

“Ah, an eye for an eye and heart for a heart.” She tapped her temple, “I think the bible says something about that too.”

Beca scoffed and rolled her head back off the edge of the pew, stretching the sore muscles that wracked her. They were taught. She got a good look at the stained glass above them: A baby in a manger that slowly turns into a man hung from a cross with bloodied nails. It was a story displayed for all to see- a guilt trip, as far as she was concerned.

Chloe set the rest of her cookie down on the plate and wiped her hands against the fabric of her expertly woven pants. She laid her head back too, squinting at the visions of reds and blues that trapped them in a terrarium of religion and its mortal stories. “You know the story of baby Jesus?”

“Haven’t read that far, I’m afraid. I’m glad I’ve got the picture version to go by. You very religious, Chloe?”

“Livin’ in a world like this?” She scoffed, her breath hot and noticeable on Beca’s cheek, it sent shivers down her spine and made her stiffen. “Who can be?”

#Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #Bechloe #fanfiction #request #fic #bechloe fic rec #bechloe au #western au

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pervyking · 7 years ago

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The Strange Disappearance of Joseph Turner

Chapter I

Disappearances weren’t strange in Arkham, Massachusetts. People disappeared all the time with no rhyme or reason and people just tended to forget the poor souls getting lost in the shuffle of life. Statistics showed that over 600,000 people went missing each year. Yet this case wouldn’t be so easily discarded. It was one thing when your average Joe Schmo goes missing, but another when Joseph Turner goes missing. The Turner family was an old name in Arkham, going all the way back to the 1600s; they were old money. So, when the heir apparent to the Turner dynasty goes missing, that’s when they hired a detective – me: Ben Miller.

When I arrived at the Turner residence, it was all that I expected it to be. The Turners lived in a sprawling mansion sequestered off from the rest of Arkham. They owned several acres of land and turned the place into their own private state of sorts. I had to pass through three security gates before even approaching the main gate proper. As to be expected of the wealthiest family in the state, the Turner Mansion was grand, looking like a wooden cottage of steroids. Glades of grass on either side of the driveway created seas of verdant. When I approached the mansion, I parked my car out front without a care in the world. A stuffy servant barely out of his teens offered to park my car, but no one touches my Rolls-Royce; she might be old and in desperate, desperate need of new parts, but no one touches her. To emphasize my point, I flashed my holstered 44 Magnum at the kid. Pretty fucking tacky, but it got the point across.

The kid told me I was expected and ushered me in, shaken from seeing my gun. I followed him into the mansion. The place was so pretentious that I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or annoyed. The hardwood flooring was so pristinely varnished that it shined. The entire atheistic of the interior was centered around wood furnished with expensive carpeting and draperies. I was ushered up a sprawling staircase – also made of wood – and brought to study.

“D-Detective Miller, Sir,” the kid mumbled.

“Thank you, Max,” said the old man seated in the study said. He sat at a desk in the center of the room. He was old, downright ancient with thick wrinkles hanging loosely off his bones and pronounced liver spots speckled across his forehead. Somehow, he still had hair, but it was white and receding; at one point, it might have been a fetching widow’s peak. This man was older than the pictures he had seen, but I still recognized him. This was Theodore Turner, owner and operator of Turner Purification – the biggest water purification and distributor in the state.

“Detective Benjamin Miller,” he said with a crooked smile.

“Just call me Ben,” I told him, never really liking the ring of my name. My mother had a penchant for calling me Jamin, but that’s something only a mother could get away with.

“It must be a surprise to be invited to my humble abode, Detective,” he chortled, pouring himself what appeared to be brandy. “I assume you read the papers.”

Nowhere near in the mood to play these games, I cut straight to the chase and said, “You want me to find your boy.”

“Blunt, Detective Miller. Very Blunt,” the old man shrugged. “This is a scandal the likes of which my family doesn’t need. Joseph was, is the pride of the Turner family. He must be found.”

I knew the story well. Joseph Turner just up and vanished three days ago. The odd thing was that no one attempted to contact the authorities or the Turner family for an attempted ransom. It was as if Joseph vanished off the face of the earth. With a prestigious future awaiting him and stellar accolades from Miskatonic University, Joseph Turner was a man who had the world in the palm of his hands.

“I charge $50 an hour,” I told him while digging in my trench coat’s pocket to retrieve a pack of cigarettes. “And you know my reputation. I get results, for better or worse.”

“Mere pennies, Detective,” the old man laughed. “Just get me my son. He has to be alive, Detective. He’s too important to die.”

“Ain’t no one too important to die, Boss,” I spat at him while lighting my cigarette and allowing the flavor to ease my nerves.

With that, my investigation started. I headed to Miskatonic, and they were less than accommodating. The dean didn’t like all the attention the university was getting after losing such a prized student. The authorities had already made the rounds questioning students and faculty. With papers and tabloids making a spectacle out of the Turner boy’s disappearance, it made the dean eager to just drop the matter entirely. Nevertheless, I managed to get the information I needed – Joseph Turner’s dorm.

Now I could have taken a trip down to the precinct and gotten the basics, but my relationship with the police was less than stellar after I went against orders and investigated a cold case that had been quietly hushed up back in ’82. No, I’d have to sniff out info like a dog, and that suited me just fine. When I arrived at the dorm, I bumped into a buff buck with a red headband tied over his forehead.

“This Joseph Turner’s dorm?” I asked him, dangling a nearly used up cigarette on my lips.

Sniffing from clear irritation, the kid said, “Yeah, this is Joseph’s dorm, but the cops have already been by.”

“Ain’t with the cops, Kid,” I grumbled. “Anyway, you live here?”

“Figures that old fart would hire a P.I.,” he shrugged. “Well, come on in. I’ll answer whatever I can.”

The kid was clearly less than enthusiastic, but he looked eager to get this over with. He made my job a hell of a lot easier. I followed in after him. The dorm room was clearly built for two people with two twin beds adjacent to each other in the center of the room with a nightstand between them to separate them. It was a cozy little mancave with various posters of swimsuit models decorating the wall, a mini refrigerator presumably filled with Budweiser or some other booze, and a laptop atop of a desk facing the open window on the north wall.

“Who are you, Kid?” I asked him.

Sighing, he responded with, “Bobby Saunders. I’m 19, my major is Accounting and Finance, and I’m a student at Essex Extreme – specializing in Taekwondo.”

“Were you close to Joseph?” I inquired.

That question seemed to elicit a very negative response. Bobby rolled his eyes. He didn’t immediately answer. Instead, he scratched his wavy brown hair and shrugged. He looked like he was suppressing a scowl when he answered, “I don’t like him. Hope he got what was coming to him. Fucking Turners.”

“Don’t like the Turners, eh?” I discarded cigarette and quickly retrieved another.

“My dad was a chemist for Turner Purification,” he responded bitterly. “And all my dad got for his troubles was a termination. You know, they say Turner Purification doesn’t clean everything. There’s something in the water, that’s what my dad always told me.”

Sins of the father, I thought. It was old school and hadn’t died out in present day. Mr. Turner made a lot of enemies to get to where he is now. For whatever reason, Bobby’s father was let go. Was that enough for Bobby to launch some crazy revenge scheme? It looked like the kid sensed my thoughts. He looked at me with such disapproval that I almost forgot he was a kid; he had the bearing of a stern nun.

Right when I was about to open my mouth to ask him anymore question, Bobby interrupted with, “But I didn’t hate Joseph for what his dad did. When I met Joseph freshman year, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He might not be like his dad, even though something in the back of my mind told me to avoid him; I wished I listened to that part.” Bobby sat on his bed, which was the bed closest to the entrance. “We got along great. Joseph was smart, really smart! He was smart and funny and I just got caught up in it. And the girls, oh damn, the girls. He was with a different girl every few days. Some were girls I knew on campus and some looked like streetwalkers. He jokingly told me a man sometimes wants a steak and he sometimes wants a Big Mac. Didn’t matter to me though.”

There was a reason why Joseph Turner’s disappearance was such a big deal other than his name. He had an electrifying charisma. If the stories were to be believed, Joseph could talk a nun right out of her habit. As Bobby reminisced, his bitter tone changed to that of fond remembrance. On occasion, I looked around the room a bit more. Adjacent to Joseph’s empty bed was a fish tank full of leeches, along with papers from what I assumed are notes. Ungh! Leeches…

“When I got back one night, Joseph forgot to put the sock on the door,” Bobby said bitterly, bringing my attention back to him. “He was bumping and grinding against a girl. Before I could apologize, I noticed it was my girlfriend…he was with my girlfriend…!”

“Seems odd you two are still dormmates,” I added

“He told me if anything was out of the ordinary, it would ruin his perfect image,” Bobby spat with such fury that he looked ready to burst into flames. “He paid for my semester in full to keep everything civil, and that’s what I did. I hate him, but he was my meal ticket, Detective.”

College life was rough. With each passing year, more and more graduates fell into debt to pay off tuition fees and student loans. That cooler heads prevailed and Bobby used Joseph as his ticket to a debt free life seemed believable. With the dean so deadest on keeping the university’s pristine image, the very idea that the most acclaimed student was just some horny brat would tarnish Miskatonic’s reputation. Sure, Bobby had a motive to want to see Joseph conveniently disappear, and I sincerely doubted that the spoiled snot stopped sleeping with Bobby’s girl after that. No, I think the Turner boy cuckolded Bobby just because he wanted the thrill of it. The one thing I knew was that rich folks had some weird and cruel kinks. I’d have given Bobby my condolences if he looked up for it, but he looked like the kind of guy who didn’t want anyone’s pity – a tough young buck.

Fixing my attention back on the fish tank, I walked over to it to see 10 leeches lounging on rocks at the bottom of the tank. I picked up the notes that were adjacent to the tank and examined them. The first few papers were if symbols that looked entirely alien to me. Pages thereafter were written in gibberish.

“Glorbûsh Laiy-Tulah…”

There was an entire piece of paper that read those words over and over again. Curiosity, simple curiosity had brought me to the tank. Why would there be a tank of leeches in this bachelor’s pad? When I was a kid, leeches creeped me out. Jumped into a lake once and came out with leeches crawling all over me. Just thinking about it is enough to make me cringe. I hate leeches.

“That’s Joseph’s project,” Bobby added. “You know, Miskatonic’s got a copy of the Necronomicon. The dean is pretty proud of it.”

“I heard about that,” I said casually, partially lying to avoid getting a long-winded explanation on some musty old book.

“Yeah, Joseph found some ritual in the book and was performing it as part of his project. Think he called it ‘Dispelling the Superstitions of Primitive Man.’”

Just the name of Joseph’s project said a lot about him. It was pretentious. Like any spoiled brat, he thought the beliefs of his predecessors were rooted in superstition, not that I could blame him. A flash of lightning probably had those poor bastards thinking the gods were angry. My curiosity sated, I gave Bobby my full attention again.

“So, he’s got himself some girlfriends?” I asked with a shrug.

“I wouldn’t even know where to tell you to start with that one,” Bobby shrugged.

I knew my job wasn’t going to be easy, but easy jobs weren’t always the most profitable ones. I was going to have to dig and dig and dig to find what I needed. Good thing Mr. Turner’s pockets are deep. Despite my eagerness, I never knew what I was getting myself into…

#Iron Writer #Halloween Challenge #Lovecraft #Detective Story

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crimson-legend · 8 years ago

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VERY LONG CHARACTER SURVEY.

RULES. repost; do not reblog! tag 10! good luck!

TAGGED BY: @summoners-path

TAGGING: I was going to tag my other muse but it turned out the princeling was easier to finish that Auron (who can be such a recalcitrant bastard at times, I swear) - @oshimai, @fallal, and by this point I think most people have done this? If you have not and you’re seeing this, then I’m tagging you, yes, you, whoever you may be. Do the thing!

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Auron ( アーロン ) - no last name. I’m one of those with the opinion that Spirans don’t generally have ‘last’/family names.

NICKNAME/S: Rikku calls him big meanie, and probably sometimes red. Still others might call him Sir.

AGE: 25 (at time of death) - 35 (at time of Sending)

BIRTHDAY: Some point in the mid-Spring. The date wasn’t recorded.

ETHNIC GROUP: Human (Yevonite), Macalanian.

NATIONALITY: Yevonite

LANGUAGE/S: Spiran Common. He knows a few basic words and phrases of Al Bhed but nothing more.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Grey-ace, sex neutral.

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic, perhaps slightly inclined towards men(?). Intensely monogamous.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: unattached (verse-dependent)

CLASS: Practical: Warrior - 2H Sword (ATK, DEF, tank, debuff) ; Social: variable, depending on the point in his life. He’s gone from low-working-class to mid- then high warrior class, then booted back out into near-poverty, then to Dream Zanarkand where he didn’t fit anywhere.

HOMETOWN / AREA: Bevelle - from age 8 (There was once a small village back in the mountains of Macalania that a young boy called ‘home’. It’s not there any more.)

CURRENT HOME: (verse-dependent) Wandering.

PROFESSION: Originally, a warrior monk in the Church of Yevon, dedicated to the protection of the people against Sin and fiends and heretics and upholding the law of the land. After that, a guardian, dedicated solely to the protection of his Summoner. (After and in-between, he had to find something to do in Dream Zanarkand that wasn’t just babysitting Tidus…)

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Black, streaked with grey. Long when he was young, kept short when older save for a long queue at the back.

EYES: Amber, appearing mid-brown in low light but bright in full light. After his death, he only has one and developed a light sensitivity in the remaining one. It’s one of the reasons that he wears the sunglasses, along with the added bonus of obscuring his face - they protect his eye from brightness or sudden changes in light intensity. He also has impaired depth perception that he had to learn to work with, relearning even things as basic as how to navigate, much less fight.

NOSE: A fairly average-sized nose with a straight bridge, the tip pointed out slightly more from his face than you’d see in southern Yevonites or Al Bhed.

FACE: Oval face shape, with a gentle taper from cheekbones to jawline, firm jaw leading down to a strong chin. Slightly v-shaped hairline. When he was young he always kept clean-shaven, but as he got older, he has a sort of permastubble going on, as sometimes he bothers to shave and sometimes he doesn’t, but is apparently incapable of managing to grow an actual beard.

LIPS: Somewhat thin, often chapped (this man needs a chapstick, has Zanarkand invented those yet?). Prone to turning up into a smirk when he’s amused, but he doesn’t fully smile very often, much less grin.

COMPLEXION: Pale with yellow undertones, though he’s usually slightly tanned from being outside often. In places like Bikanel or the southern islands, he will burn (and be extremely irritable about it).

BLEMISHES: A massive scar that crosses his face from above his right eyebrow to his jawline, sealing the eye shut, and continues down from his shoulder to just above his right hip. He also has a fair amount of less drastic scarring incurred in battle, but aside from a few larger or more severe wounds, those are relatively minor due to the availability of healing magic and potions.

TATTOOS: None.

HEIGHT: 6’0”, probably 6’0.5”-6’1” in his boots - some people find this surprising, as his presence (most often!) gives him the impression of being an even larger man

WEIGHT: I’m terrible at judging/guessing this tbh - maybe somewhere around 200 lbs?

BUILD: BRICK WALL. Mesomorph, and very fit. He’s extremely solid, with a core like a steel beam from swinging that sword around like he does. Definitely looks like he could toss Braska to safety without a second thought. Nice legs, broad shoulders and hefty arms, a muscular but rather flat ass.

ALLERGIES: Incompetence. Mold and mildew, as well as mild lactose intolerance.

USUAL HAIRSTYLE: Mostly unstyled. Queue bound back with a tie or thin ribbon, the shorter majority he simply runs his fingers through and that’s good enough.

USUAL EXPRESSION: Resting murderface. Ah, stoic. He tends to show his emotions readily on his face but the changes of expression are always very minor, so one has to look close and know him well to see what he’s feeling. The signs are always there to be picked out, though. Everything is thrown out the window when it comes to very strong emotions, though, usually anger, which is obvious for all to see. When he was younger, his expressions were usually more obvious, but that changed over time.

USUAL CLOTHING: Dark, dark grey pants with a lighter grey vertical stripe on the front, back, and sides that tuck into tall black boots, which have a protective plate on top of the foot and a decorative medallion at the top of the boot that helps secure the strapping. A very basic undershirt between skin and a black hardened-leather cuirass with simple yellow-gold detailing. A tall grey cowl with leather strapping attaches to the cuirass itself, and with a pair of oval-lensed sunglasses does a good job of hiding his expression.

Over top, a long, ankle-length heavy red coat evocative of a haori, with a thick collar/front edging of blue edged with white. A pair of buckled straps at the end of each sleeve allows the wide sleeve to be pulled closed not unlike the standard yoroi hitatare worn under armor. His right forearm is bound from the wrist halfway up and covered over the back of his forearm with a bracer made of three plates, his right hand gloved with black leather. On his left shoulder is a pauldron of hardened brown leather, finely tooled and decorated.

The coat is held closed with a wide belt of scaled grey-green under double straps of brown leather, which is covered on the sides and back with a protective layer of steel detailing and blue lamellar plates. At his belt he carries a large jug, held with braided leather straps and a cord of decorative beading.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR/S: failure, letting others down, enclosed spaces, losing himself to becoming a fiend

ASPIRATION/S: When he was younger, he was far more idealistic in some ways - he wanted to help people, to protect, and he did. The main ideal of that aspiration didn’t change as he got older, but the scope did. It became not so much an aspiration as a hope, a desperate goal to frantically grasp at even as it slipped through his fingers.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Determined, protective, intelligent, enduring, loyal, forthright (younger).

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Bossy. Prideful. Stubborn. Acerbic. Secretive. Can and will walk right over you if you stand between him and his goal.

MBTI: ISTJ - The Logistician

ENNEAGRAM: Type 8 - The Challenger

ZODIAC: Aries (sun) - Virgo (moon)

TAROT: Justice (young), Death (in-game)

TEMPERAMENT: Choleric

SOUL TYPE/S: Hunter (with Thinker/Helper/Leader all tied for second place)

ANIMAL: well the test was terribly wrong for him but the closest thing there was Rhino, though that one underestimates his mental capabilities (many thanks to B-chan for helping me scour the choices)

VICE/S: This man can hold grudges. Usually big ones, but sometimes he can get in a snit and be very petty (see: the stop at the Macalania Travel Agency where Tidus calls him ‘old’ and Auron stops talking, turns away with a hrmf and a snide remark and then won’t even look at Tidus for the remainder of the stay). After his death, self-loathing is a serious vice as well, one that wasn’t present before (or at least until the very end of his life).

FAITH: Once, he believed in Yevon. Now, that couldn’t be further from the case. What faith he once had was thoroughly crushed.

GHOSTS?: As an Unsent, he himself is one, after a fashion. Even if he wasn’t, fiends would fit the definition well enough. In Spira, ghosts are not so much a matter of superstition as they are a natural part of the world; it is why summoners are needed to Send souls to the farplane, and the existence of fiends and unsent are abject proof.

AFTERLIFE?: Yes. As with ghosts, this is not so much a matter of faith as it is natural and evident. While one can debate whether the images the living see of their loved ones on the Farplane are a projection or truly their souls, that does not deny the truth that one can visit the Farplane itself.

REINCARNATION?: Yes, though mostly in the less comforting knowledge that one can become a fiend after death. A truly new life… he’s less certain of the possibility, though he’d like to believe.

ALIENS?: He’s been to and lived in a world created from dreams and set foot on the alternate plane of the afterlife. He’s inclined to think that anything is possible. There are so many stars out there, of course some other worlds with people on them are out there too. It just doesn’t have any bearing on his world here and now.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: For much of his life, Lawful Neutral/Good and a supporter as well as part of the reigning religious oligarchy/theocracy. Later and near the end of his life, as well as his unlife, Neutral Good/True Neutral and in (at first) subtle opposition to the established Church and then actively attempting its complete overthrow.

ECONOMIC PREFERENCE: He never really had much of a need or want for material goods. He always had a few treasured possessions, but between his personality and his lifestyle he never accumulated many ‘things’. After he dies, he has even less to his name, but he’s content with remaining that way. He travels, feeling out of place, and so keeps his pack light rather than gathering and keeping objects. As he doesn’t spend much, he doesn’t particularly want for money.

SOCIOPOLITICAL POSITION: He’s… famous, being the (a) Legendary Guardian, but that doesn’t really afford him anything other than awe, and occasionally a free room. He stays out of politics once Yevon is brought low. It’s up to the people who will live for the future to determine it, after all.

EDUCATION LEVEL: Once he was dedicated to the Church of Yevon at 8 years old, he was granted good schooling along with all the other child-acolytes and training to enter the ranks of the warrior monks. Before that, he didn’t have anything in the way of formal schooling and was illiterate, though he’d been learning practical skills for some time. He was of an age that he was starting to try his hand at trades and would have chosen one to apprentice to had circumstances not changed his fate.

FAMILY.

FATHER: (deceased)

MOTHER: (deceased)

EXTENDED FAMILY: brother (Feron - deceased)

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S): none (verse-dependent)

NAME MEANING/S: high mountain/mountain of strength (Hebrew); gold (aur) - a divine ending/death (on) (Old Celtic/Welsh); gold (aurum - Latin) gilded/gilt/noble (aureus - Latin); dawn (Áron - Quenya)

HISTORICAL CONNECTION: What familial history he may once have had is lost. The Church broke its ties with him, and he with it. What connection he has to history is his part in the story of Braska’s and Yuna’s Pilgrimages, until those stories are told no more.

FAVORITES.

BOOK: He likes histories and tales, whether fiction or not - a good story. The ending of it does not matter so much as what happens during the book.

MOVIE: He’s not much of a movie person, actually, but as with books, he’d prefer one with solid characters and a good story to it over anything else.

DEITY: He’s not fond of gods these days, self-proclaimed or otherwise.

MONTH: October

SEASON: Autumn

PLACE: Somewhere not the South. He prefers cooler climes and does terribly in hot weather, growing irritable the longer he has to deal with it.

WEATHER: Sun out but clouds in the sky, with a crisp breeze blowing.

SOUND: Gentle rainfall, the crunch of leaves and evergreen needles under boots, soft humming.

SCENT/S: Cedar wood, pine, stone in the forest slightly grown over with moss, the brightness of a mountain stream’s spray.

TASTE/S: Seasoned game meats, fish; will steal your berry tarts.

FEEL/S: Wood and tree bark, slightly textured paper, braided fabric, simple glazed pottery.

ANIMAL/S: Auron is most definitely a dog person. He’s also fond of flying creatures, and you’ll often see me associate him with the red-tailed hawk.

NUMBER: Three. It is a good, solid number, is it not?

COLOR: He likes red, favouring it enough to choose the colour for his coat, and in general likes autumn and winter tones.

EXTRA.

TALENTS: planning, combat, snarky commentary

BAD AT: Magic. White, Black, Blue, Time, it doesn’t matter. Absolute shit at it. I have a headcanon that he doesn’t even have the capability for it, backed by the fact that the abilities in his grid is essentially all physical - the debuff-abilities can be explained as ki-type physical energies rather than magic. He’d like to be able to cast even as little as a simple Cure, but it’s beyond him. Also bad at empathising.

TURN-ONS: Entirely dependent on the person, and pretty much null in general unless he’s romantically attracted to or involved with that person.

TURN-OFFS: Arrogance, superiority, degradation, arguments, pain, excessive testing of his patience (a little is fine but don’t push it too far-), et al.

HOBBIES: He doesn’t really have much in the way of hobbies. There’s almost always been something to keep him busy, and so he never had much time to develop fun down-time things. He does whittle, if there’s dead time and he’s feeling inclined. It’s an easy enough thing that keeps his hands busy, and he can just pick up wood wherever he’s settling down to camp and discard whatever he makes if he doesn’t care to keep it, so materials are never really an issue save for keeping his knife sharp.

TROPES: BFS; Dead All Along; Determinator; The Atoner; The Stoic/Not So Stoic; Taking the Bullet; Tall, Dark, and Snarky, I Gave My Word

AESTHETIC TAGS: I actually don’t have a dedicated aesthetic tag for him and I really should. Hmm. I’ll get on that…

#[headcanons]#[meme response]#//oooof but that took forever!#auron why must you be so /difficult/

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World Quotes

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• A common lament of the World War II generation is the absence today of personal responsibility – Tom Brokaw • A mockingbird has moved into our neighborhood. It perches atop a telephone pole behind our backyard. Every morning it is the first thing I hear. It is impossible to be unhappy when listening to a mockingbird. So stuffed with songs it is, it can’t seem to make up it’s mind which to sing first, so it sings them all, a dozen different songs at once, in a dozen different voices. On and on it sings without a pause, so peppy, even frantic, as if its voice alone is keeping the world awake. – Jerry Spinelli • A world of contradictions, wherein everything is gray and almost nothing is black and white. – David Sheff • After all, a woman didn’t leave much behind in the world to show she’d been there. Even the children she bore and raised got their father’s name. But her quilts, now that was something she could pass on. – Sandra Dallas • All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming. – Helen Keller • • All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. – William Shakespeare • All the world’s a stage. – William Shakespeare • And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. – Roald Dahl • And I realized as I walked through the neighborhood how each house could contain a completely different reality. In a single block, there could be fifty seperate worlds. Nobody ever really knew what was going on just next door. – Janet Fitch • And in truth (as I now see) I had the wish to put off my journey as long as I could. Not for any peril or labour it might cost; but because I could see nothing in the whole world for me to do once it was accomplished. AS long as this act lay before me, there was, as it were, some barrier between me and the dead desert which the rest of my life must be. – C. S. Lewis • And that,” put in the Director sententiously, “that is the secret of happiness and virtue — liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny. – Aldous Huxley • As far as I can tell, dumping soda on people is the equivalent of ‘Hi, it’s nice to meet you’ in this part of the world. Frankly, I think standard greetings work better, but what do I know? – Nicholas Sparks • As long as countries wave chequebooks over our heads, we can never be equal.- Louise Mushikiwabo • As long as there’s pasta and Chinese food in the world, I’m okay. – Michael Chang • At one and the same time, therefore, society is everything and society is nothing. Society is the most powerful concoction in the world and society has no existence whatsoever – Virginia Woolf • At the end of the day, God’s love for me, for you, and for the world is settled at the cross. – Andy Stanley

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'World', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_world').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_world img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World! – Martin Luther King, Jr. • Believe everything you hear said of the world; nothing is too impossibly bad. – Honore de Balzac • Bilderberger Meeting: The world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government.- David Rockefeller • But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge. – Mikhail Bakunin • But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin. – Aldous Huxley • But merely accepting authoritarian truth, even if that truth has some virtue, does not bring skepticism to an end. To blindly accept a truth one has never reflected upon retards the advance of reason. Our world rots in deceit. . . . Just as a tree bears the same fruit year after year and at the same time fruit that is new each year, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually created anew in thought. But our age pretends to make a sterile tree bear fruit by tying fruits of truth onto its branches. – Albert Schweitzer • But paper and ink have conjuring abilities of their own. arrangements of lines and shapes, of letters and words on a series of pages make a world we can dwell and travel in. – Lynda Barry • By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world. But it is otherwise with thy love which is greater than theirs, and thout keepst me free. Lest I forgot them they never venture to leave me alone. But day passes by after day and thou art not seen. If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart, thy love for me still waits for my love. – Rabindranath Tagore

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling] • Camila was quite incapable of establishing any harmony between the claims of her art, of her appetites, or her dreams, and of her crowded daily routine. Each of these was a world in itself. – Thornton Wilder • Change your thoughts and you change your world.- Norman Vincent Peale • Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can. – Jonathan Safran Foer • Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven says. Even on a symbolic lovel, that’s creation in frenzy. – Yann Martel • Come, follow me, and leave the world to its babblings. – Dante Alighieri • Darkness has completely descended onto the landscape and I stood up and stretched my arms above my head and I wondered what it would be like if it were a perfect world. Only god knows. And he is dead. – David Wojnarowicz • Do you dance, Mr. Darcy?” Darcy: “Not if I can help it!” Sir William: “What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies.” Mr. Darcy: “Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world; every savage can dance. – Jane Austen • Dona Maria saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires. – Thornton Wilder • Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. – Robert Jones Burdette • Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. – Mark Twain • Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. – Anais Nin • Each friend represents a world in us. – Anais Nin • Earth took her shining station as a star, In Heaven’s dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds. – Christian Nestell Bovee • Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. – Nelson Mandela • Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else’s version of themselves–to anyone else’s version! Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves! And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country! – John Irving • Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy • Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. – Clarice Lispector • Example moves the world more than doctrine. – Henry Miller • Fly away, pretty moth, to the shade Of the leaf where you slumbered all day; Be content with the moon and the stars, pretty moth, And make use of your wings while you may. . . . . But tho’ dreams of delight may have dazzled you quite, They at last found it dangerous play; Many things in this world that look bright, pretty moth, Only dazzle to lead us astray. – Thomas Haynes Bayly • For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life. – Hermann Hesse • Further global progress is now possible only through a quest for universal consensus in the movement towards a new world order. – Mikhail Gorbachev • God hates the LUKEWARM GOSPEL OF HALF-TRUTHS that is now spreading over the Globe. This gospel says, ‘Just believe in Jesus and you’ll be Saved. There’s nothing more to it.’ It ignores the Whole Counsel of God, which speaks of Repenting from former Sins, of Taking up your Cross, of being conformed to the Image of Christ by the refining work of the Holy Spirit. It is totally silent about the Reality of Hell and an After-Death Judgment. – David Wilkerson • God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.’ – Billy Graham • Gods, I wish the world was full of passive women.He thougt for a moment longer, then scowled. On second thoughts, what a nightmare that’d be. It’s the job of a man to fan the spark into flames, not quench it. – Steven Erikson • Good evening, Lord Corwin,’ said the lean, cadaverous figure who rested against a storage rack, smoking his pipe, grinning around it. Good evening, Roger. How are things in the nether world?’ A rat, a bat, a spider. Nothing much else astir. Peaceful.’ You enjoy this duty?’ He nodded. I am writing a philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity. I work on those parts down here. – Roger Zelazny • Half the world cries Half the world laughs Half the world tries To be the other half – Neil Peart • Half the world does not know how the other half lives. – Francois Rabelais • Hatred is like a long, dark shadow. Not even the person it falls upon knows where it comes from, in most cases. It is like a two-edged sword. When you cut the other person, you cut yourself. The more violently you hack at the other person, the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal. But it is not easy to dispose of. Please be careful, Mr.Okada. It is very dangerous. Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult think in the world to shake off. – Haruki Murakami • He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing. – J. M. Coetzee • He thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it. – Cormac McCarthy • He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld • He will know from and early age that failure is not disgrace. It’s just a pitch that you missed, and you’d better get ready for the next one. The next one might be the shot heard round the world. My son and I are Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don’t. – Craig Ferguson • Heaven is important, but its not the end of the world. – N. T. Wright • Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me.” I probably still haven’t completely adapted to the world,” I said after giving it some thought. “I don’t know, I feel like this isn’t the real world. The people, the scene: they just don’t seem real to me.” Midori rested an elbow on the bar and looked at me. “There was something like that in a Jim Morrison song, I’m pretty sure.” People are strange when you’re a stranger. – Haruki Murakami • How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world? – John Green • I am too not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. – Walt Whitman • I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon—they were coming home from high school—but I had no time for thoughts like that…So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines. – Jack Kerouac • I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt. – Richard Linklater • I believe that the first step in the setting of a real external world is the formation of the concept of bodily objects and of bodily objects of various kinds. – Albert Einstein • I brought you in this world, and I can take you out! – Bill Cosby • I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, And you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped. – Frederick Salomon Perls • I had come to discover that “safe” was an illusion, a pretense that adults wrapped around their children- and sometimes themselves- to make the world seem comfortable. I had discovered that under that thin cover of let’s-pretend, monsters and nightmares lay, and that not all of them came from places like the moonroads or the nightling cities. Some of the monsters were people we knew. People we thought we could trust. – Holly Lisle • I hope someday you will join us and the world will live as one. – John Lennon • I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can’t a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace?” “But it is not your own Shire,” said Gildor. “Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out. – J. R. R. Tolkien • I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. – Albert Einstein • I know the outer world as well as you do, and I judge it. You know nothing of my inner world, and yet you presume to judge that world. – Aldous Huxley • I once started out to walk around the world but ended up in Brooklyn, that Bridge was too much for me. – Lawrence Ferlinghetti • I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It’s fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it’s tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space. – Alan Shepard • I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It’s small and it’s fragile and it’s the only thing in the world worth having. we must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. • I spent centuries I your arms. This time our joining will be controlled by me, and you will revel in the pleasure I can bring you. Throw off the shackles of your distant goddess and come to me. Be my love, truly, in body as well as soul and I will give you the world! – P. C. Cast • I stopped wanting to float away from my life, because in the end my life was all I had. I’d walk the Fairmont campus and look up to the sky and I wouldn’t see myself drifting off like some lost balloon. Instead I saw the size of the world and found comfort in its hugeness. I’d think back to those times when I felt like everything was closing in on me, those times when I thought I was stuck, and I realized that I was wrong. There is always hope. The world is vast and meant for wandering. There is always somewhere else to go. – Nick Burd • I think the way I feel when I look at Evan comes from her. In pictures taken the day she married my dad, she was reckless, laughing, spinning around in circles. She looked like her whole world was him. She looked a kind of happy I can’t even imagine. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be like that. I don’ want to feel the way she did because I know what happens when you do. You love with your whole heart, with everything, and you wake up one morning and kiss someone good-bye the way you always do except you mean it as good-bye forever. – Elizabeth Scott • I trembled to think of a world without stars. No guide for the sailor to trust at see, no jewels to dazzle our sense of beauty […] But all around the globe, the air is so dirty and the lights from the cities are so bright that for some people few stars can be seen anymore. A generation of children may grow up seeing a blank sky and asking, “Did there used to be stars there? – Michael Jackson • I would like to have your sureness. I am waiting for love, the core of a woman’s life.” Don’t wait for it,” I said. “Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. And then love will come to you, then it comes to you. It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened to me. – Anais Nin • I would support a Presidential candidate who pledged to take the following steps: … At the end of the war in the Persian Gulf, press for a comprehensive Middle East settlement and for a ‘new world order’ based not on Pax Americana but on peace through law with a stronger U.N. and World Court. – George McGovern • I’d kind of expected that kids who knew about the Real World wouldn’t act like jock dipwads. Guess I was wrong. – Lilith Saintcrow • If all the world must see the world As the world the world hath seen, Then it were better for the world That the world have never been. – Charles Godfrey Leland • If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin. Even though the result may gladden the whole world, that cannot help the hero; for he knows the result only when the whole thing is over, and that is not how he became a hero, but by virtue of the fact that he began. – Soren Kierkegaard • If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. – George Orwell • If the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak, then these things are perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair, and unjust? – Timothy Keller • If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity. – Richard Dawkins • If there is one beast in all the loathsome fauna of civilization I hate and despise it is a man of the world. – Henry Arthur Jones • If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nations. When there is order in the nations, there will peace in the world. – Sathya Sai Baba • If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful. But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is. – Betty Smith • If you can’t change the world with chocolate chip cookies, how can you change the world? – Pat Murphy • If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? – Richard M. Nixon • I’m still living it now, every day, living it out in my mind – following the ups and downs, walking the pathways, reliving the moments of our Moonlight World… It’s a day that never dies. – Kevin Brooks • In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. – Neal Shusterman • In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe. – Michael Jackson • In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, everyone who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find the enviable existence – John Stuart Mill • In a world of monotonous horror there could be no salvation in wild dreaming. Horror he had adjusted to. But monotony was the greater obstacle, and he realized it now, understood it at long last. And understanding it seemed to give him a sort of quiet peace, a sense of having spread all the cards on his mental table, examined them, and settled conclusively on the desired hand. – Richard Matheson • In a world where vows are worthless.Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power. – Chuck Palahniuk • In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter. – Azar Nafisi • In fact, he sorely hoped that it would happen, because otherwise, the world made no sense, there was no justice, and life was just a tangled ball of chaos. – Christopher Moore • In some corner of the world they are probably still holding regular meetings of the Flat Earth Society. We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don’t. – Warren Buffett • In that moment, the machinery of the world lined up. Somewhere a clock struck midnight, and Hugo’s future seemed to fall perfectly into place. – Brian Selznick • In the fight between you and the world, back the world. – Franz Kafka • In the pathway of the sun, In the footsteps of the breeze, Where the world and sky are one, He shall ride the silver seas, He shall cut the glittering wave. I shall sit at home, and rock; Rise, to heed a neighbor’s knock; Brew my tea, and snip my thread; Bleach the linen for my bed. They will call him brave. – Dorothy Parker • Isn’t it true that whatever isn’t determined by our genes must be determined by our environment? What else is there? There’s Nature and there’s Nurture. Is there also some X, some further contributor to what we are? There’s Chance. Luck. This extra ingredient is important but doesn’t have to come from the quantum bowels of our atoms or from some distant star. It is all around us in the causeless coin-flipping of our noisy world, automatically filling in the gaps of specification left unfixed by our genes, and unfixed by salient causes in our environment. – Daniel Dennett • It is … through the world of the imagination which takes us beyond the restrictions of provable fact, that we touch the hem of truth. – Madeleine L’Engle • It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined. – John Green • It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with yourrose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame. – Oscar Wilde • It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • It is your duty to be exceedingly kind to every human being…until ye change the world of man into the world of God. – Abdu’l-Bahá • It takes all sorts of people to make a world. – Douglas William Jerrold • It turns out Dimitri had a friend, who had a friend, and despite the best security in the Moroi world, we managed to get into the Court’s prison facilities. – Richelle Mead • It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries. – David Rockefeller • It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it. – Steven Wright • It’s hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we’re left with a fistful of ashes. – Madeleine L’Engle • It’s just harder out there in the world of the living, and we cannot protect you out there as easily. I wanted to keep you perfectly safe…But there is only one perfectly safe place for your kind, and you will not reach it until all your adventures are over and none of them matter any longer. – Neil Gaiman • Kronos would be 10 times more powerful. His very presence would incinerate you. And once he achieves this he will empower the other Titans. They are weak, compared to what they soon will become, unless you can stop them, the world will fall, the gods will die, and I will never achieve a perfect score on this stupid machine. – Rick Riordan • Let the jerks of the world serve as the perfect example of what you don’t want to be. You’ll be a heck of a lot happier, and in the long run, there’s a chance that other person at work will end up asking what your secret is. Why are you the happy one? In other words, don’t let your thoughts think you. Besides, if you’re really gonna get pissed, don’t waste it on your family, friends, or coworkers, save it for something that really matters. – Willie Nelson • Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. – Percy Bysshe Shelley • Limited by the world, which I oppose, jagged by it, I shall be all the more handsome and sparkling as the angles which wound me and give me shape are more acute and the jagging more cruel. – Jean Genet • May I propose a Herzog dictum? Those who read own the world, and those who watch television lose it. – Werner Herzog • Maybe you’ll call me someday Hear the operator say the numbers no good And that She had a world of chances for you She had a world of chances for you She had a world of chances Chances you were burning through – Demi Lovato • Men,” he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. “You’re American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it. – Joseph Heller • Modern music and artistry would look and sound completely different if not for the groundbreaking contributions Michael Jackson gifted to the world. – L.A. Reid • Money commands everything because that’s our interpretation of capitalism … what kind of world is that? It’s a very uncomfortable interpretation of a human being. We have been turned into robots. – Muhammad Yunus • Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. – Louis D. Brandeis • Neither were you [born yesterday], unless of course I am wrong, in which case welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life. – Daniel Handler • Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead • No ideology can help to create a new world or a new mind or a new human being — because ideological orientation itself is the root cause of all the conflicts and all the miseries. Thought creates boundaries, thought creates divisions and thought creates prejudices; thought itself cannot bridge them. That’s why all ideologies fail. Now man must learn to live without ideologies religious, political or otherwise. When the mind is not tethered to any ideology, it is free to move to new understandings. And in that freedom flowers all that is good and all that is beautiful. – Rajneesh • No longer mourn for me when I am dead than you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so, that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, if thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded am with clay, do not so much as my poor name rehearse; but let your love even with my life decay; lest the wise world should look into your moan, and mock you with me after I am gone. – William Shakespeare • No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else. – Charles Dickens • Nobody has the time to sit down and explain the first world from first principles. – Chris Cleave • Nobody knew my rose of the world but me… I had too much glory. They don’t want glory like that in nobody’s heart – Tennessee Williams • Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l’oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people’s psychology with my own. – Jeanette Winterson • O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t! – William Shakespeare • Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don’t see. – Isaac Asimov • On the return trip home, gazing through 240,000 miles of space toward the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving, harmonious. – Edgar Mitchell • Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair. – Nicole Krauss • once you laugh at you own weaknesses, you can move forward. Comedy breaks down walls. It opens up people. If you’re good, you can fill up those openings with something positive. Mabye…….. combat some the ugliness in the world. – Goldie Hawn • Our shared world is humanly unquantifiable and ideologically confused. Which one of them is capable of implementing the most recognizable harm or good? – James Ellroy • Our world will not die as the result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, or making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that. – Carlos Ruiz Zafon • Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art. – Carlos Ruiz Zafon • Pastries . . . can only be appreciated to the full extent of their subtlety when they are not eaten to assuage our hunger, when the orgy of their sugary sweetness is not destined to full some primary need but to coat our palate with all the benevolence of the world. – Muriel Barbery • Perhaps things are most beautiful when they are not quite real; when you look upon a scene as an outsider, and come to possess it in its entirety and forever; when you live in the present with the lucidity and feeling of memory; when, for want of connection, the world deepens and becomes art. – Mark Helprin • Power said to the world, “You are mine.” The world kept it prisoner on her throne. Love said to the world, “I am thine.” The world gave it the freedom of her house. – Rabindranath Tagore • Self respect, Colie. If you don’t have it, the world will walk all over you. – Sarah Dessen • She dreamed of leaving, but she had too little exposure to the world to imagine where to go. – Gregory Maguire • So if the world hates us, we take courage that it hated Jesus first. If you’re wondering whether you’ll be safe, just look at what they did to Jesus and those who followed him. There are safer ways to live than by being a Christian. – Shane Claiborne • Socrates, indeed, when he was asked of what country he called himself, said, “Of the world”; for he considered himself an inhabitant and a citizen of the whole world. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • solitary like a pool at evening, far distant, seen from a train window, vanishing so quickly that the pool, pale in the evening, is scarcely robbed of its solitude, though once seen. *** Here sitting on the world, she thought, for she could not shake herself free from the sense that everything this morning was happening for the first time, perhaps for the last time, as a traveller, even though he is half asleep, knows, looking out of the train window, that he must look now, for he will never see that town, or that mule-cart, or that woman at work in the fields, again. – Virginia Woolf • Some days,’ I say, ‘I feel like I don’t belong anywhere in that world. That world out there. ‘I point to Grant. ‘People walk down our street and people drive down it and people ride their bicycles down it and all of them, even the ones I know, could be from another planet. And I’m a visiting alien.’ And aliens don’t belong anywhere,’ Adam finishes for me, ‘except in their own little corners of the universe.’ Right,’ I say. ~pgs 57-58 Hattie and Adam on alienation – Ann M. Martin • Some people get where they hope to in this world. Most of us don’t. – James Agee • Stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging elsewhere, we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men. – John Knowles • Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.- Helen Caldicott • Tell me a story, Pew. What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There’s no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending. – Jeanette Winterson • That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good. – Samuel Johnson • That was the thing about being on the inside: the world was just going on, even when it seemed like time for you had stopped for good. – Sarah Dessen • The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed. – Charles Dickens • The future belongs to you. Should anyone insult you, tell yourself this: I am a child of destiny who will unite East and West and change the world. – Adeline Yen Mah • The future is unwritten. there are best case scenarios. There are worst-case scenarios. both of them are great fun to write about if you’ re a science fiction novelist, but neither of them ever happens in the real world. What happens in the real world is always a sideways-case scenario. World-changing marvels to us, are only wallpaper to our children. – Bruce Sterling • the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, cell phone usage, and drug abuse – Aravind Adiga • The love of a single heart can make a world of difference. – Immaculee Ilibagiza • The most beautiful highway in the world – Dave Pelzer • The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. – Albert Einstein • The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.- Charles Kingsley • The new electronic independence re-creates the world in the image of a global village. – Marshall McLuhan • The New World Order that is in the making must focus on the creation of a world of democracy, peace and prosperity for all. – Nelson Mandela • The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather – Frederick Buechner • The point is… to live one’s life in the full complexity of what one is, which is something much darker, more contradictory, more of a maelstrom of impulses and passions, of cruelty, ecstacy, and madness, than is apparent to the civilized being who glides on the surface and fits smoothly into the world. – Thomas Nagel • The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love. – Jeanette Winterson • The problem of why God created the universe still troubles thinking men; but if we cannot know why, we can at least know that He did not bring His worlds into being to meet some unfulfilled need in Himself, as a man might build a house to shelter him against the winter cold or plant a field of corn to provide him with necessary food. The word ‘necessary’ is wholly foreign to God. – Aiden Wilson Tozer • The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust • The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric.- Thomas Browne • The supernatural world has always been more real to me than the real world. – Anne Rice • The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries. – David Rockefeller • The three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart’s friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, ‘A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.’ ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ asked Francisco. – Ayn Rand • The whole point of Zen is to suspend the rules we have superimposed on things and to see the world as it is – Alan Watts • The world going insane and evil letting slip the birds of war is no excuse for sloppy vocabulary. – P. C. Cast • The world in which we were called to exist was an absurd world, and there was no other in which we could take refuge. – Albert Camus • • The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. – Albert Einstein • The world is a thing that a man must learn to despise, and even to neglect, before he can learn to reverence it, and work in it and for it.- Thomas Carlyle • The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive. – W. C. Fields • The world is God’s world, after all. – Charles Kingsley • The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story. – Byron Katie • The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings. – Robert Louis Stevenson • The world is truly beautiful solely in the eyes of a true philosopher. – Kedar Joshi • The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making. But who says the world has to make sense? – David Mitchell • The world remains ever the same. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • The world tilted slightly sideways. ‘I think I need to sit down.’ The floor seemed like the best option. It was close and he’d already proved that he could hit it. His legs folded. – Tanya Huff • There are some people who will never understand what loyalty means. They could tell you what it was, of course, but they will never know.They will never see it from the inside. They couldn’t imagine a world where something like that was real. – Jim Butcher • There has yet to be a human to survive a span of history without at least one end of the world. – Jonathan Safran Foer • There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.- Jonathan Swift • There’s something so great about this,” she whispers. About what?” I whisper back. About this,” she whispers. About being outlaws. It’s just you and me—against the world. – Sonya Sones • There’s too much love in the world. Sometimes I think that’s what heaven is—- a place where everybody’s happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever. – Gregory David Roberts • There’s got to be more to life than just living, Foyle said to the robot. “Then find it for yourself, sir. Don’t ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.” “Why can’t we all move forward together?” “Because you’re all different. You’re not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.” “Who leads?” “The men who must… driven men, compelled men.” “Freak men.” “You’re all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That’s its hope and glory.” – Alfred Bester • These are hard times. The world hurts. We live in fear and forget to walk with hope. But hope has not forgotten you. So ask it to dinner. It’s probably hungry and would appreciate the invitation. – Libba Bray • These stories seem at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard the Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationery store, and when almost everybody wore a hat. – John Cheever • This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. – T. S. Eliot • This truth I firmly hold, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding; my life has been a gift, a blessing to the world. – Anthony de Mello • Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can’t even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things. – Haruki Murakami • To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare to fail… failure is his world and the shrink from it desertion – Marcel Proust • To be simple is the best thing in the world. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • To get back up to the shining world from there My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel, And Following its path, we took no care To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far, through a round aperture I saw appear Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears, Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars. – Dante Alighieri • To give someone a piece of your heart, is worth more than all the wealth in the world. – Michael Jackson • To realize that new world we must prefer the values of freedom and equality above all other values – above personal wealth, technical power and nationalism. – Herbert Read • Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children? – Gerrard Winstanley • We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years……It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries. – David Rockefeller • We didn’t Make this World we’re just the Poor Fools who are living in it. – Michael Grant • We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. How will the world change if we do not question it? – Kate DiCamillo • We went to the New York World’s Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep. – Kurt Vonnegut • What a strange world we live in…Said Alice to the Queen of hearts – Lewis Carroll • What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business. – William James • What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World. – Albert Einstein • When it’s raining like this,” said Naoko, “it feels as if we’re the only ones in the world. I wish it would just keep raining so the three of us could stay together. – Haruki Murakami • When the world seems large and complex, we need to remember that great world ideals all begin in some home neighborhood. – Konrad Adenauer • When they first kiss, there on the beach, they will kneel at the edge of the Pacific and say a prayer of thanks, sending all the stories of love inside them out in a fleet of bottles all across the oceans of the world. – Francesca Lia Block • With our thoughts we make the world. – Gautama Buddha • Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed. – Muriel Barbery • You are an ocean in a drop of dew, all the universes in a thin sack of blood. What are these pleasures then, these joys, these worlds that you keep reaching for, hoping they will make you more alive? – Rumi • You can’t make flivers without steel – and you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they pratically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. – Aldous Huxley • You know what I noticed when I was with Jacob? In your world, people can reach each other in an instant. There’s the telephone, and the fax – and on the computer you can talk to someone all the way around the world. You’ve got people telling their secrets on TV talk shows, and magazines that publish pictures of movie stars trying to hide their homes. All those connections, but everyone there seems so lonely. – Jodi Picoult • You show the world as a complete, unbroken chain, an eternal chain, linked together by cause and effect. – Hermann Hesse • You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. – George Bernard Shaw • Your heart, Mary Karr, he’d say. His pen touched my sternum, and it felt for all the world like the point of a dull spear as he said, Your heart knows what your head don’t. Or won’t. – Mary Karr • You’re a poem?’ I repeated. She chewed her lower lip. ‘If you want. I am a poem, or I am a pattern, or a race of people whose whose world was swallowed by the sea.’ ‘Isn’t it hard to be three things at the same time?’ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Enn.’ ‘So you are Enn,’ she said. ‘And you are a male. And you are a biped. Is it hard to be three things at the same time? – Neil Gaiman • You’ve got to love yourself with all your short comings, and you’ve got to love the world no matter how bad it gets. – Joan Bauer

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equitiesstocks · 5 years ago

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whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer · 6 years ago

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Favorite fics you ever written?

Warning this a long post because I've written a lot of fics.

For Harry Potter:

1.) The Definition of Good. Summary: After Chamber of Secrets Harry gives Dobby a place to stay. Everything changes.

2.) Keep it simple, keep it safe. That's all you can do when it's too late. Summary: Harry smiled; it didn't reach his mom's eyes. "There's no need to call me sir professor," Harry quipped once again. This Harry knew. This Harry could take and dare he say it? Liked. Or rather, he liked it compared to the alternative despite his hatred towards the greasy haired wizard before him.

(Harry can't help but remember the chocolate cake slices and hours of looking at photos of Mrs.Figg's cats, the warm - to the point he feels as though they may burn him - embraces from Mrs. Weasley, Dumbledore's soft spoken promises and words that might as well be empty, of Sirius' offer of Harry living with him just gone in a blink of eye because he fell into a veil Harry's godfather could not come out of.)

For Percy Jackson:

1.) I scream too loud when I speak my mind. Summary: Percy Jackson does not accidentally vaporize his pre-algebra teacher and everything else that happens afterward. (I've actually loved writing all the parts of the series but I'm only including this one.)

For Death Note:

1.) To be a Queen. Summary: It's that the queens (Misa, only Misa, because Misa the idiot sees what no one else sees. L says he doesn't swing that way but L wants Light, Kira, but Light is Kira therefore the other king. So duh he can't be L's queen no matter what that pevert wants.) in chess are the most powerful pieces despite the kings (Ryuzaki and Light) being the most important. Because without the king (Kira and L) there's no game, if you defeat the other king you win; Kira wins and he will.

2.) Game over. Summary: Instead of replying to baby Kira Matt takes the cigarette out of his mouth and with a smile (it's weird to smile because Matt never really smiles and it's probably a real ugly ass sight to see) throws his last cigarette onto the Death Note.

Game Over, he thinks and just walks off without so much a word. He wonders briefly what's next. With Light it's easy (boring even). He'd follow his dear dad's footsteps and become a police officer. Probably the best and maybe he'll meet L. Those two assholes deserved each other, Matt decided, but what about him?

(Or the universe gives Matt a restart after dying and he sadly uses his last cigarette on the Death Note.)

For Tokyo Ghoul:

1.) There's a ghost in my lungs. Summary: A series of non-linear conversations where Haise learns about his past, how he became who he was, and people that Kaneki loved. (Haise time travels to the beginning of Tokyo Ghoul. I've only posted one chapter so far.)

For Jessica Jones/Alias:

1.) Rest in pieces our youth (so we might glue it back together again). Crossover with Spiderman Homecoming. Summary: Jessica Campbell and Peter Parker are least likely of friends ever since Jessica came back to school.

For Fullmetal Alchemist:

1.) I've got questions. Summary: Edward smiled thinly, something viscous but not ugly (never ugly, not when it came to her) was the look in his feral eyes.

"Rose," gently, Ed thought, like she was Al or Winry when they were doing stupid shit, "that was a list that represented the complete chemical makeup of a human body for the average adult. It had been calculated to the last microgram, but still there has never been one reported case of successfully creating a human life."

Some people put their faith in gods to be able to live their life; some, like him, lived their life to achieve a goal. There had once been a time when Ed use to pray with mom. He had even prayed after mom had died but had stopped a long time ago.

It wasn't the constant frustration of loose ends (till now, Edward thought, Cornello's ring on his mind). No, he had stop praying even before that. It wasn't even the bastard's sharp jabs that were constant; always there as though Edward would ever let himself forget. What an idiot; how'd that man ever become a Colonel? Besides obviously burning children and women to death that corpses he climbed on to get to the top of the military.

2.) (What is) insanity but the ability to draw the perfect circle? Summary: There's a creak in a board behind him and he whirls around, hands ready to clap. It's Scar. Again there is a difference. Well differences technically. That makes his hand hover, pausing him from clapping. Scar, wearing glasses while inside on a rainy day, stares at the sight before him.

He should take a picture. It'll last longer.

"Are you Edward Elric the Fullmetal State Alchemist?"

Maybe it's because someone has actually him if he's Edward that he answers honestly. "No."

Or Edward is okay with suggesting to partner up with Scar to kill his Fuhrer (who might not be a homunculus in this universe) but isn't okay with Nina going in the rain and getting a cold.

For Star Wars:

1.) Love of a daughter. Summary: "and yet, so far at least we have yet to figure out what you gain from this." It's a question as well as statement. A chance to explain, to come clean on why she - a unknown Sith- had assassinated they're precious, beloved Chancellor (what fools). But how could you come clean when there is so much blood on her hands? Never-mind the sins and blood on Vader and Luke's when her family had been alive.

When she answers it's not because she's announcing her transgressions in hope that her heavy, dirty soul might be saved. One couldn't repent when they didn't feel guilt in their sin.

"For the love of a daughter." Leia pauses and looks back at Anakin and thinks: I did this to avenge you. After thinking that Leia says one more thing - the last thing actually because she nothing else to say after this.

"And you should have been more careful electing your Chancellor. You never know who is Sith." This has double meaning but she's the only person who knows it.

And she's fine with that (no, she isn't).

Leia wonders if her younger self and Luke will ever become the monsters like her Luke had been and the monster she is.

2.) When dreams come true (which they often do when Anakin Skywalker dreams them). Summary:It happens in the day, in the light. A dark masked man with heavy breath that was killing the slave owners and freeing the slaves. No one - not even the Hutts, who were now dead- could stop the droid looking man.

That doesn’t surprise Anakin though. Anakin had seen the stranger’s blade that coated the sands with different colors of blood. A red lightsaber. The man was a Jedi and he had come to free them.

(Or young Anakin's dream comes true just not in the way he dreamt it.)

3.) Nobody does it like Artoo. Summary: Because the droid had just killed Chancellor Palpatine. The man who was the closest thing Anakin had to father.

“Artoo please tell why you just killed Chancellor Palpatine?” He asks, in soft calm voice. He needs to keep a level head. Needs to be the Jedi many claim he cannot be. Deep breathe in. Deep breathe out. He could be calm when all he wanted to do was try to find the person who responsible for rewiring Artoo and show him/or her why it was a bad idea to touch his droid and make his droid kill a person he loved.

Artoo beeps his answer and Ana-

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN PAlPATINE IS DARTH SIDIOUS AND THAT YOU’RE FROM THE FUTURE!?”

4.) Of time travel and relationship blocking. Summary: But he knows the universe is better off by Artoo's travel in time. Palpatine is dead. Artoo had killed the Sith Master that had destroyed too much of his humans’ lives. There was no Empire and Darth Vader did not exist. The twins were raised by their creators. All was good except Leia was coming to age of no longer a child yet not an adult.

Which meant other human boys were becoming attracted to future Senator. Human boys who were not Han Solo. It was becoming rather frustrating - to the point Artoo felt like rolling into a wall- but at least Anakin agreed that these human boys did not belong with his creation. (Sequel to the fic above. Never did write more chapters for this fic but I do adore it.)

For Star Trek:

1.) I appreciate your enthusiasm, but Kodos will not be in this production. Summary: This was not how Jim imagined telling Bones about Tarsus IV. Actually that was a lie. Jim had planned to never tell Bones about Tarsus IV. But so is the life of Jim Kirk (also known as James T. Kirk, JT, Captain, and t'hy'la to Spock and Ambassador Spock who both had yet to tell him what that word meant. A childish part of Jim thinks that Hoshi would tell him if she was still alive before his mood darkens. The memories - the guilt - of that day flashes before his eyes and God does Jim hate drugs.).

2.) Logically speaking. Summary: "Say mother had been," there had been a pause as Spock tried to find the right words to convey his question, "say mother went through unnecessary strife during her adolescent years and somehow you ended up in the past. Do you allow for her to face this to persevere an already faulted timeline or do you save her?"

By then, Amanda had made her way to her husband side so she could look into Spock's eyes. The question was odd and admittedly out there but her son's eyes said otherwise. Spock's eyes could be compared to an open book and that book told Amanda that this somehow was serious and her son was torn.

(Or the backstory on how Spock sort-of got permission from his father to steal a ship from the Vulcan Science Academy through Amanda Grayson's eyes.)

3.) I prefer to have my nightmares with open eyes. Crossover with Black Butler. Summary: Jimmy, JT, James Tiberius Kirk (whoever the hell he truly is) knows what it's like to adapt just to stay alive, to be whoever he needed to be just to survive. Just to eat.

It makes him laugh and JT doesn't know this but he reminds the demon (Sebastian he once was called and will take the name, the mask, of once again) of another young boy who the world had destroyed. Who had laugh a bitter laugh because that was all he could do. Crying, after all, did nothing. (Maybe one day I will write that Shinigami!Jim fic. If I ever do I will gift it to ShortyKatezey.)

4.) I need you, I need you, I need you right now. Don't leave me alone. Summary: It doesn’t matter in the end that this universe’s blue eyed James T. Kirk isn’t Spock Prime’s Jim. He still feels Jim-so familiar to his Captain, his Admiral, his Jim, his thyla yet so differnet, so angry, so broken - death.

It should have been me (it had been him in his universe) is Spock’s first thought after he momentarily gets over the wave, the crash of emotions he feels. His next thought is: I am not fine. (This is Spock Prime reacting to Jim's death in Into Darkness.)

5.) Of bored school boys and a death god. Crossover with Death Note. Summary: Ryuk drops the Death Note and a bored but brilliant beyond his years teenage boy picks it up. Sound familiar? Except it's not. JT is many things but a God complex isn't one of them.

For The Vampire Diaries:

1.) When did you dance with death? Summary: When did they all die? When did this become their lives? Was Damon to blame? Stefan to be blamed? Was Katherine to blame? Or Klaus to blame? Were Klaus' parents to blame for trying to keep their kids alive and eventually making them into monsters? Whose to blame for the fact they're all murders instead of simply, normal teenager?

And you know what? They're going to be dead for sure instead of just their morality and innocence having kicked the bucket. There's no vampire blood in their system that could cure them from what Klaus will inflict; Katherine ran from Klaus for hundreads of years and her family was slaughtered just because she wanted to live. They had killed Kol - Klaus' own brother - and trapped him with the burnt corpse.

2.) Revenge is best served with condoms. Summary: "I know who you are. You're the tasty little thing my older brother has come to truly fancy." Tasty little thing. Caroline froze; those words replaying in her head except in British accent (the only accent she truly had thing for).

For Yuri on Ice:

1.) The downside of love. Summary: Soulmates that share the bruises on their other's skin can have a downside if you haven't met them yet. Katsuki Yuuri learns this the hard way.

#Asks #anon #ao3

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smokeybrandreviews · 7 years ago

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Marvelous II: Burn It All

With the overwhelming success of Black Panther and the sudden, and jarring, course correction that he DCEU, i wanted to take this time to kind of discern why the MCU is so good at what they do. I wrote something like this a while back but lately, the MCU has been dropping legitimately great films first, and cape flicks second. Since the beginning of Phase Three, Marvel has figured out what it means to produce outstanding superheroes films and i wanted to revisit. I wanted to explore, a little bit, why i think Marvel took and already bulletproof box office formula, and elevated it to a point where there needs to be a real critical consideration of their craft.

Theme and Tone

Black Panther is a social commentary about the extremes of isolation and activism. It’s framed in a way that’s palatable to a wide rage of of audiences but, at it’s core, the struggle of Wakanda and the rage of Killmonger are very real, very raw, realities of the black experience. These are truths that all of us with a higher melanin content and a disenfranchised upbringing struggle with. We hate Killmonger for what he’s done but the ugly truth is, he wasn’t wrong. His error and sin was HOW he went about it, definitely not WHY he went about. You’re not going to see that level of consciousness in any DC flick. Even with such heady material, though, Black Panther still carried a levity that not only enriched the overall tone of the film, but allowed a massive audience outside of the given black audience, to enjoy this film. It has an A+ cinema score and sits atop some of the best critically acclaimed films of Rotten Tomatoes. to their credit, most MCU films are sitting in the illustrious company. this is definitely something the DCEU cannot boast.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is a celebration of everything Parker. It’s a fun, street level, heist flick that has more heart and is better than it has any right to be. Everything her works, and it works well, especially for what amounts to a Spider-Man origin story, in the glibbest sense possible. Homecoming is a coming of age story, painted in the hue of Peter Parker and it works brilliantly. Another outstanding entry, bit not technically Marvel proper (yet) was the excellent Logan. Man, i cried at the end of that movie, no shame in admitting it. Seriously, it took Fox, what? 17 years before they trusted Jackman to actually act? To let a director craft a story with the primary X-Men moneymaker? Rated R or not, Logan is a tragic story of what it means to doe with an age; a cruel age that used you up but left hope for a much better life that the next generation can live. Goddamn was Logan heavy! Closest thing to The Dark Knight Marvel has dropped, so far.

The MCU was doing fine with how they were progressing after Phase One but they got their sh*t together in a hurry with Phase Three. With Civil War, the Russo brothers continued to change the game they started with the excellent Winter Soldier, crafting movies first, capeflicks second. It’s a formula the Nolan took to heart when he produced the brilliant Dark Knight trilogy. The MCU has taken a direct page from the How-To book of creating compelling, relevant, accessible, superhero film making from Nolan, who is a master at the craft of legitimate film making. It’s all the more galling for DC when you take the time to acknowledge that it was a DC property who snatched that elusive brass ring first, only to have executive meddling drop that sh*t, stomp on it, and then throw it right off a cliff into the waiting hands of Kevin Feige. There’s a reverence for character and respect for what they mean there that Marvel is deft at honoring. It’s making their franchises that much better.

Performance and Casting

There have been some spectacular performances in MCU films, all the way back to their inception with Iron Man. Marvel has been more than blessed with contracting excellent talent that they grow into icons. In the beginning, the MCU was something that outcasts and B-listers got back end loot for because everything was untested. You got these cats that wanted to make a name for themselves or were looking to re-brand their tarnished legacy. That first phase of the MCU was cute, but there were gems. The original Iron Man is still hailed as one of the best MCU films, to date and for good reason. That sh*t was excellent! RDJ turned in a helluva performance but it wasn’t just him. John Favreau’s Happy Hogan killed every scene he was in. The dude himself, Jeff Bridges, took what was a one dimensional villain, and elevated it to legendary status. That movie was a please to take in then and still holds up today.

Fast-forward to now, Marvel has all but done away with that whole one dimensional villain thing, along with the stigma of being “just superhero films”. We saw a brilliant portrayal of a complex, flawed, but very relatable murderer in Killmonger. The last time we saw a villain this compelling, they were portrayed by cats with names like Ledger and Lecter. But it wasn’t just him or Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal of that character. We had an outstanding turn with Michael Keaton donning that wing suit in Homecoming’s Vulture. Keaton’s Toomes broke the mold for those throwaway, one off villains, and begin the trend to a more grayish take on what it means to be bad; when their motivations are actually human and not just because. Another huge one, that must people will disagree with, was the MCU take on Baron Zemo. That dude deserved justice for the atrocities committed upon him, personally, and he wet about that sh*t expertly. His plan was ridiculous, of course, it was a capeflick, but if you take the time to actually engage in his motivations, you’d see he had much more depth than a simple bond villain everyone tries to label him as.

It doesn’t stop there though. Homecoming’s entire supporting cast turned in outstanding performances that felt real to their world. Even Karen, Pete’s suit lady, was great in her limited role! She was given life, so to speak, by Jennifer Connelly. Also, it would be remiss of me not to mention Zendaya’s MJ. She was near Daria-esque and i loved every minute of it! And don’t get me started on the beautiful, scene stealing, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May. She was just delicious, particularly in that end credit stinger. The same could be said about Wright’s Shuri, Gurira’s Okoye, and Duke’s M’Baku in Black Panther. Or, and i go back to Logan with this one, Sir Patrick Stewart and the ridiculously able talent of the the young Daphne Keen! That movie wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good without those very specific, very crucial roles, ably acting. Daphne Keen, in particular, was incredibly good considering her age and ho she had to keep up with. Bravo!

Even lesser entries that are more textbook Marvel fare like Guardians 2 and Thor: Ragnarok had supporting players that turned in scene stealing portrayals. Jeff Golblum, Tessa Thompson, Taika Watiti all immediately come to mind. Even the one dimensional Hela was a delight to watch because Cate Blanchett is a goddamn treasure. Hell, even Kurt Russell’s Ego turned in a damn fine performance, and that Hoff cameo just solidifies my point further. With the exception of anything Wonder Woman has been in, the DCEU has given us just sh*t acting. It’s not the actors fault, and i’m going to get into that next, but it’s also not like they elevated less than ideal material the same way RDJ and The Dude did, way back in ‘08. Marvel doesn’t stunt cast like the DCEU has. They don’t go out and get Ben Affleck to play Batman. They don’t go out and get Amy Adams to play Lois Lane. They take the characters their trying to imbue with life, distill who they are as people, and then go out in the real world to search for the actors that embody those requisites.

Narrative and Direction

I touched on this in my the previous parts of my essay but Marvel has found a way to craft a legitimate film first and a capeflick second. With Winter soldier, you got all of the hallmarks of an espionage thriller. With Civil War, you dealt with what it meant o have essentially a nuclear powerhouse in the Avengers, with no jurisdiction or governing body. You had to ask yourself hard questions about the weight of sovereignty over autonomy. I’ve already spoke, at length, about why Black Panther was so goddamn good. Guardians was about parents ad family while Ragnarok was a tale of coping with loss. These films were grounded in something very human. They told very relatable stories that all of us struggle with. You identified with the arc of these characters and felt for them in the end. The DCEU doesn’t do that. They have yet to create a film, other than Wonder Woman, that has a direction or point. For them, it’s all about what the “heroes” can do, not who the heroes are.

To his credit, Snyder tried to explore those aspects but he’s not subtle in his imagery, in the least. Cat’s mad heavy handed with his craft which is why so many of his films leave you wanting. Dude confuses action set pieces and SFX for character development and stakes. The only movie to get away from this terrible way of filming was Wonder Woman and it turned out to be the best of the DCEU franchise. And how did Patty Jenkins do that? By taking a page out of the Marvel handbook. She understood who Diana was and crafted an origin story that felt real. You went on that journey, just as Diana went on it. You saw the world through her eyes; her disappointment and hope. There was more humanity in a demigod than in any other of these DCEU flicks and Jenkins accomplished that by lifted that Phase One Marvel formula. Marvel is brilliant at telling stories that are organic to the roots of their characters. DC has yet to realize that. Hell, WB and DC basically conceded the point when they brought in Joss Whedon, the architect for the MCU phase One, in to basically “fix” what Snyder broke.

Patience and Control

The biggest thing, i think, that sets Marvel’s pace is the fact that their is one guy at the top who essentially shuttles these many, many, films in a singular direction. Sure, there are cats in charge on the ground level, The Russo brothers, like Whedon before them, set the pace, but it’s Kevin Feige who runs that show. He understands what it means to let directors expand their vision but he also understands that there are certain notes and things that need to be hit in order to make this macro universe work. Dude’s vision is insane and, a decade on, it’s bearing fruit most succulent. Feige has turned a red-headed step child of studio into something that rivals Lucasfilm and Star Wars. Seriously, four of the top-fifteen all-time grossing films are Marvel fare, all of which have made more than a billion dollars. Feige knows how to let his people breathe but he also understands when to reel them in. This is something that DC f*cked up immediately when they put Snyder in charge of their entire universe.

Snyder is an idea guy. He has inspiration and creativity gushing from him like an out of control hydrant. The thing is, you need someone to act as a spigot, someone to control that creative flow because, left out his own devices, Snyder is just going to flood out everything and you end up with what the current DCEU is. You only have to look as far as Sucker Punch to see what Snyder does with creative control. Dude has no self control and it poisons all of his projects. He has no idea what it means to tell a story, just what dope sh*t looks like. I don’t begrudge the man for it, he was a classmate with Michael Bay, but that nonsense type of filming does not make for a good movie. Man Of Steel was a great example of that yet WB went with the flashy press release instead of the serious world building control and we are where we are now. Charging a cat like that with forcing a competitive cinematic universe with the MCU, in a handful of films is f*cking retarded. Recently, there’s been news that the execs understood this fact, finally, ans brought in Whedon to fix an unwatchable Justice League, to varying degrees of success, and ultimately putting the cat who’s in charge of their ridiculously successful horror division, in charge of their Superhero franchises. Time will tell if this is the right move but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Conclusion

Marvel has essentially created a factory of churning out hits by following a distinct formula, one that is interchangeable with different visions and aesthetics that come with the unique vision of individual directors. The tone and feel of Ragnorok is completely different than Black Panther but both feel distinctly Marvel. A teenage romp like Homecoming can still be seen as living in a world created by the fallout of The Winter Soldier or The Avengers. There are ramifications and realities that the DCEU just can’t match because their rushed Universe tie-ins are blatant cash grabs. You can’t do, in two or three films, what Marvel has done with, what? eighteen flicks now? All of these films work independently of each other but, like the very best puzzles out there, fit watch other perfectly to create an outstandingly diverse, and rich, universe. Nothing feels forced and everything has been earned. Feige understood, a decade ago, you can’t cheat the process. You have to embrace the grin and, in doing so, you create something f*cking spectacular. Unlike Justice League, with all of it’s CG shenanigans and over reaching plot points, i have nothing but faith for Infinity War. Marvel has proven, time and time again, they get what it means to create great films. Some would say they are the Blueprint to be followed.

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